Cecilia & Arthur | Thursday Evening

[x-longshot.livejournal.com]

Cecilia and Arthur connect for the first time since Arthur's arrival at the mansion.

"This moment would be greatly improved with a handball. Think of how Steve McQueen I would look."

Arthur was going a touch stir crazy. He had been in the chrome-basement for what felt like days, but he'd also admit that it was hard to tell in between bouts of unconsciousness and psychic counseling. The in-and-out of familiar characters was comforting, but it had been a long time since Dr. Grey or Dr. Haller had visited.

He slouched against the wall, having abandoned the patient's cot for the floor. The man was looking far better even after a day's time: his color was returning, the crazed look in his eyes had receded significantly, and they had seen fit to give him something new to wear. The grey Xavier's sweats accessorized well with the inhibitor bracelet still around his wrist.

The star had since taken to trying to fill the silence with his thoughts.

"Although I suppose metal wouldn't have the same effect as brick in terms of sound. I would also need to steal a motorcycle for dramatic tension and fence jumping."

"Sure, but our fence probably has lasers." The voice came from the door, where Cecilia Reyes was standing in a lab coat she'd thrown on last-minute. "Which isn't great for dramatic tension." She smiled at Arthur, hoping she was effectively hiding the tension she was no doubt carrying. The last time she'd seen Arthur, her hand was making contact with his face. The last time she'd spoken to him, he'd been teetering on the edge of what turned out to be a massive meltdown.

"I brought you something," she said after a few seconds. In her hands, she was holding a pack of Uno cards and an issue of GQ she'd grabbed from the library. Both were stacked on top of the copy of his chart she'd been looking at. "Can I come in?"

He made a sweeping gesture, and his smile offset any negativity in his next statement. "Isn't my room. I do not make the rules. If I did, there would much more ice cream and I'd do away with agents altogether."

"I'm sure." Cecilia nodded and stepped toward him. "I'm not sure Haller's the ice cream therapy type, but if you ask Jean and manage to look pathetic enough, she'll melt." She glanced around the room before sitting on the cot and facing him. "How are you feeling? Here." She rolled the magazine around the deck of cards and passed it to him.

Arthur took the gift graciously, and gave himself a second to make a face at the cover staring back at him. Yet when he looked up, his eyes were completely back on Cecilia. They sparkled mischievously. "I've used the smolder on Doctor Grey a few times already, but don't worry. I'll make her crack soon enough."

He sighed, better readjusting himself to face the Doctor above him. His makeshift splint from Nevada had been replaced with something that matched the walls. "I'm sore all over and have been informed that I have extensive psychological damage, but my wounds hurt less and I'm sure I've had worse!" The man smiled wearily. "Probably."

"Also," and he leaned in like this was a secret, "Apparently I'm a mutant. Just not the fun kind."

"I don't think there is a fun kind," Cecilia said, although she wasn't sure she believed it. And even if she did, Arthur seemed to have ended up on the weirder side of the X-gene. She looked at him for a few seconds, trying to reconcile the charming, confident man she'd slapped across the face with the wounded puppy now looking up at her.

"Anyway, if there is, I'm not really the fun kind either." She stood, grabbing the stethoscope from around her neck, since she was ostensibly here for a medical visit and not just to satisfy her curiosity. "Hop up. I'm gonna listen to your breathing."

"How intimate. I don't even know your name."

"Of course not." Cecilia smiled, because she was expected to. Anyway, it seemed better than letting her disappointment show. She wasn't really sure what she'd expected - Jean and Haller had told her about Arthur's memory. But silly as it was, she'd hoped she'd made a lasting enough impression to be burned into his memory one way or another.

"I'm Dr. Reyes. Cecilia. I work here."

"Oh," and Arthur paused, letting the awkwardness open like a gulf between them, "Oh. People keep mentioning you, Dr. Reyes. I also got you on the phone, right?" His eyes widened as events replayed in slow motion in his mind, and he clumsily tried to get to his feet like that was somehow more polite. "Thank you. For everything."

"No, it's fine. You know." She shrugged off the praise, suddenly uncomfortable with how awkward this was becoming. "You called, and you were in trouble. I helped. It's what I do."

Arthur laughed, light and genuine, and suddenly the gulf didn't seem half as deep. "I suppose I should apologize for not recognizing you. The psychics tell me I had a horrible cause of mindwiping. I asked Dr. Grey for a note, but that won't erase any of the trouble I have seemed to cause you." He smiled gently, "Whenever your name comes up people act like they're dancing on eggshells."

Cecilia let out a forced laugh. "Do they?" She wasn't surprised, although it went against her instinct to just rip the band-aid off and let him deal with whatever happened next. Maybe that was her penchant for vengeance speaking. "I think people are afraid to give you more than you can handle right now. And that reminding you of things you can't remember might trigger some kind of nervous breakdown." She glanced at her feet.

He didn't flinch at this, but instead held out the wrist with the large, bulky bracelet and jangled it playfully. "Well, I'm not wearing this thing to start a new trend." He tapped the side of his head with the other hand demonstratively, "And the psychics did some scaffolding work in here. I asked them to make me a better actor, but all that got was blank stares. Tough crowd."

"Still charming, I see." Cecilia shook her head but smiled appreciatively. "Dr. Grey doesn't take messing around in the mind lightly. I think the fact that they didn't turn you into a clucking chicken means they like you." She looked up at him, trying to be the picture of warmth and comfort. "What's the bracelet for? I didn't read this chart super closely."

The compliment buoyed him a little, and a new shrug of confidence filled him like a balloon. "They said it was an power inhibitor, but it must not be working."

Cecilia quirked an eyebrow, a small smirk on her face. "Go ahead, cheesy. Say what you're gonna say."

"Well," and he leaned in closer, "Looks like I'm still getting lucky."

"Ugh," Cecilia laughed, lightly tapping him on the shoulder instead of the playful shove she thought he deserved. "Really?" She shook her head, her smirk replaced by a bigger smile. "Not only is that corny as hell, but I swear, you said, like, the exact same thing—" she paused for a a noticeable second before deciding to stumble through. "On a red carpet or on camera or something."

Arthur smiled deeper, tone still self-mocking but not effacing. "But you see, that's the beauty of all this. I can just claim that I was mind-wiped at the time. It is a whole new world of bad jokes." His grin settled into something incredibly self-satisfied as he leaned back against the wall. He crossed his arms over his chest. "So, are we playing doctor still?"

"Well, I'm actually a doctor, so..."

"A whole new world of bad jokes, Doctor Reyes."

"New to you, maybe." She grinned. He was the warm, charismatic man who had purchased her at the auction - not just Arthur Centino, but the Longshot guy. He was the man she'd whisked to the Bronx on a whim for a date and then never expected to see again.

But she did see him again, and now here they were. And what a here: A medical cell, where Arthur was having his mind put back together by a team of psychics who were worried about his fragility. Cecilia blinked, as she became fully aware of just where she was, and what exactly what was happening. The mirth was gone. The smile faded from her face.

"Listen," she sat back down on the cot, her expression becoming suddenly stolid. "I need to tell you something before the flirting gets too far. Because I like being around you, even if," she cracked a small smile," you're a shameless flirt with Hollywood hair."

Arthur flipped his hair with a playful smirk. It caught the light, having somehow still managed to keep its volume and shine after drying out from the wilderness.

The doctor looked down at her feet for second. "But," Cecilia looked back up at Arthur, "I don't want to get too carried away here, and against probably everyone else's instincts, I feel like you need to know something. Or maybe I'm being selfish, and I need you to know something. And if you freak out, you freak out. Got a forcefield. Not super concerned."

The playfulness and charm evaporated from the man with her change of tone, but it was quickly replaced with something much harder. Something laced with the confidence of someone who knew, even after all this, life held more to overcome. His smile was soft, and his eyes never wavered. "Listen, I've got nothing left but the kindness of strangers. That means I also have very little left to lose. Hit me."

"Okay." Her eyes were locked on his. "Maybe six months ago, you bought me at a charity auction. You know, a bachelor/bachelorette thingy. Sort of old-school, but for a good cause. You got into a bidding pissing contest - sorry," she caught his wince, "but that's what it was. A contest with my best friend, I guess, and a rich entrepreneur. I think. I'm not entirely sure what Adrienne is. Hardly the point." She stopped to measure his reaction, looking at him expectantly.

The star blinked. "The man with the tacos told me this. Haller told me this. Jean mentioned it vaguely." He ran a hand back through his blond mop awkwardly. "Did we have a good time? Did I treat you with respect? If you're going to say that you're, well..." he supplemented words with a vague motion as if holding a melon or bowling ball near his belly, "I should probably mention that my evil agents probably have my bank accounts and I'm a horrible long term planner."

Cecilia raised an eyebrow. "Seriously? How long do you even — no, no, no. We didn't... No." She shook her head vigorously. " No. We met at Serendipity the day after July 4th, decided that it was the worst, and I took you to a Dominican restaurant in the Bronx, and we went dancing. And I had a great time, and I liked you a lot, but you know, we didn't do anything. It was a date you'd purchased for charity, and I figured you were just putting on the fake Hollywood charm. And then we went our separate ways. You back to L.A., me back to this. And that should have been the end of the story."

"Truth be told, I didn't think about you much." She pulled her phone out of the lab coat's left pocket and typed in her passcode. "And then," she scrolled through her messages, "you sent me these." She scrolled for a little while longer and passed the phone to him.

He tried not to look visibly relieved, but Arthur was also never that good of an actor. That relief, however, slowed faded to confuse as he listened to the phone messages. He put the phone down slowly. "Doctor Reyes, what do you want from me here? I am sorry that I don't remember any of this. I really am."

"I want—" She took her phone back and sighed. "Arthur, I want you to understand that it's really easy for me to flirt with you. And very tempting. And I really enjoy it. And I want to let go of all the other stuff, because, like, we're sharing the same space. And it's not your fault that any of that happened. I mean, rationally, I know it's not your fault." She looked down at her phone. "But Arthur, I stood in a bookstore in front of my friends while you stood there like a smug jackass, acting like I was a jilted one-night stand or a celebrity stalker."

Her head snapped up, and she looked a mixture of pitying and hurt. "And I forgive you, Arthur, really, I swear, I forgive you, but I have never been so humiliated in my fucking life, and I've never slapped anyone before, and—" She sighed and crossed her arms, suddenly a little exhausted. "Arthur, you deserve a fresh start as much as any of us. I'm glad you're okay. But selfish as it is, I don't think I should be the only one who knows all of that stuff."

The man's expression remained soft and concerned, but he sighed deeply, sinking into the slouch of a half squat down the wall. He cupped his hands against his forehead, trying to take this all in. "It really is all a bit of a horrible cosmic joke, isn't it? Not that I -- get me here, I want to understand -- See, I don't want to cause you any more pain. I'd like to think I never did."

He pulled his hands from his face and studied the ceiling intently. "What I'm trying to say is that they keep trying to explain that my power is being lucky. As in I found a misprinted phonebook in a cheap motel in Nevada that had your number in it. As in heaps and heaps of things I cannot even understand about how the world works. Actual, fucking, longshots."

Arthur sighed once more, shaking his head. "It doesn't matter. What do you need from me? What can I do? I don't have anything anymore. No career, no money, and a tarnished reputation."

This hadn't been the cathartic experience Cecilia had entirely expected. And now she actually felt pretty guilty that he felt guilty, even though that had basically been the point. "That's not true," she said a little flatly. "Well, okay, fine," she conceded with a shrug, "the money and the job thing, that might be true. But most of us know what it's like to have your powers go out of control and screw you. A girl almost drowned because I couldn't get my shield to work right. You work on these things, and you get better at them. And you redeem yourself. Hollywood's got plenty of comeback stories."

He smiled at her wanly, and for the first time in this conversation it didn't reach his eyes.

That threw her for a loop. "I've upset you," she said rather unnecessarily. "I'm sorry. That wasn't — I shouldn't have said anything. I don't know why I did."

Arthur's eyes shot back to her like a whipcrack. "No! What? No. I'm just... tired," he lied, "Very tired. You have every right to be upset. I don't know why, but I want you to be able to confide in me." He laughed hoarsely in attempt to cut the tension, "Conflict and I have just always had a healthy relationship. I never write, it never calls."

"You know, for a celebrity, you're not a very strong liar." She smiled anyway.

"Please. Celebrity is all about lying. Anyway," and he straightened himself proudly, "I like to save my craft for the stage."

"Oh, yeah?" Cecilia crossed her arms again, smiling in spite of herself. "I bet you do a mean Lear."

"I can do a wide variety of expressions."

"Not—" Cecilia shook her head again, her smile widening. "Okay, Laurence Olivier. I'll tell you what. Focus on healing, and we'll see about getting you a Broadway debut."

The smile was back, and completely lacked any hints of self-deprecation. "The east coast would be a change of venue. Heal. Rebrand. Sounds workable."

Arthur stood again with little to no self-consciousness about reaffixing his appearance. He put a hand to his chest. "So, did you actually need to check my vitals?"

"I do." She stood, making room for him on the cot. "Keeping you alive is one of our goals."

"Well then. Lucky me."