Artie and Haller, Tuesday lunchtime (Backdated)

[x-artie.livejournal.com]

Artie knocked on the door to Haller's office. It was still a little early for lunch - only just 12, but that meant he'd catch him. He had a paper tray with two coffee cups in it in one hand, carefully avoiding spilling either latte and a bag with tacos, fries and salsa and guacamole and a second one with two small cakes from the food truck and coffee shop in Salem Centre.

The door opened of its own accord, revealing Haller in the midst of tapping out something on his laptop. The counselor looked up, and his eyebrows raised slightly.

"Artie." His gaze flicked to the young man's precarious balancing act, mildly curious. "This is a surprise. Is there something I can help you with?"

He shrugged and set the coffees down to sign "lunch - tacos, guacamole, fries" and brought his other hand across, bags still dangling from his fingers, to sign "cake. I don't want anything. Just lunch with a friend."

"I could do lunch." Haller absently signed an invitation to take a seat on the couch and nodded to the bags. "Let me get that for you," he said, and the lunch offerings gently disengaged themselves from Artie's grip, leaving him free to sign. As Haller moved around his desk towards the couch the drinks moved to follow, extracting themselves from the cardboard holder and conscientiously positioning themselves in appropriate places on the coffee table.

Artie raised an eyebrow at that as he sat down and began to unwrap a taco. "Seems I didn't see much of that before" he signed, one handed.

Haller nodded, unwrapping a taco of his own. "Every since I got back it just seems to happen. Before then casual telekinesis wasn't really practical with the either/or situation with my DID, especially in our case -- my signing wasn't strong enough to get by entirely without telepathy. Interesting that I don't seem to be having any problems there, though. It must be one of the subconscious applications that still works." He popped the lid of the guacamole container and offered some to Artie.

Artie shrugged. "Weird." He took a mouthfull of taco, chewed and swallowed before adding "Or it could be that so far I've only signed simple things and I've kept pretty much to citation form on the signs, rather than getting freer with how I use them. Anyone could have followed what I said so far."

"True, we'll see. I'm still finding the limits." There was a pause as Haller spooned salsa onto his taco and took a bite. He chewed thoughtfully for a moment before swallowing. "Is this from the same truck we used to go to?" he asked.

"Nope." Artie grinned slightly. "A few months ago, they got shut down for health code violations. They weren't wearing gloves and hairnets and it was really gross, so I called the department because I really don't want some horrible student's hair in my tacos again when I'm trying to eat."

"Interesting. I always remember the place being spotless. I wonder if the management is different in this world." Haller demonstrated the depths of his squeamishness by taking another bite. "Either way, I'm sure the gastrointestinal systems of Salem Center appreciate your diligence."

Artie shrugged. "It might have been clean before but it isn't here so..." He gave a weak smile. "Some of those little details can be weird, you know?"

Artie's expression caused Haller to pause. He put down the taco and brushed off his hands. "Is there a specific detail you're thinking of?" he asked, the question frank but not insistent.

"You're not my counsellor, Haller," he replied with a raised eyebrow, "But, sure." He followed with a rapid fire succession of faces, the wall on the third floor that was a different colour and the donut shop on 5th that had been a record store for hipsters before and the details on the shop front in Hells Kitchen he's seen last night. "Want me to go on or do you want me to ask if these details are messing with you, too?"

Haller raised a countering eyebrow, unruffled. "Obviously they are. Less than a year ago the woman who basically raised me died when the place where I grew up was destroyed. I came back and now Moira and Muir are both just fine. I'm not trying to shrink you, it just seemed like you may be thinking about more than a missing record shop."

"We all have Google. Don't tell me you didn't track down every person you know to find out the differences, like the rest of us did."

"Of course I looked. But I'm not in a place where the results affect me one way or another." Haller took a drink of the latte before continuing, his eyes flicking back to Artie's. "Look, you're not a student anymore, and this isn't a test. You came here to have lunch with a friend, and as your friend I thought there might be something on your mind. That's all."

"It doesn't bother you at all? Congratulations. You won the lottery because the rest of us sure didn't." And that was 95% of why he was here.

Haller studied Artie for a long moment, then sat back on the couch.

"My disorder is all about pain -- running from it, burying it, killing it. I've been sick for a very long time now. The only reason what happened doesn't bother me is because it can't. So you're right, I'm lucky that I don't feel anything. I didn't earn it, and I can't teach it. But I can listen." The telekinetic leaned forward again, resting his elbows on his knees. "It goes without saying that everything about this is fucked up, so we'll just take that as a given and finish our lunch with smalltalk if that's what you'd rather do. If you want to get specific, though, the offer's open."

"You know I haven't been back to the Morlock tunnels. Annalee's there. My father Carl Maddicks? Chicago. Working on mutant research in December and everything's classified tighter than the CIA since. Might take a trip down there one of these days."

"Well. That is specific." Haller sat back, studying Artie. The wheels of tact spun uselessly for a fraction of a second before he said, frankly, "You're right. That's a hell of an upheaval."

"world is fukd" The text scrolled through the air for a moment before vanishing.

"I'm starting to think we need to invent a stronger adjective. Are you thinking about it? Visiting either of them?"

"Annalee? No. This woman here? She's not my mother, not even in the crazy, batshit fucked up ways that I had Annalee for. I don't - ever want anything to do with her. Carl? I wouldn't mind seeing what he's researching. But I haven't seen the man since I was one, so..."

"I understand. Even without major differences the people who didn't make it over with us aren't quite . . . the same. The disconnect can be painful." Haller frowned thoughtfully. "But your father -- you never did meet him after you found out who he was, did you? Not contact or anything?"

"If he'd wanted anything to do with me, he'd have looked."

"Maybe, though it's possible that, in this world, he did. But the real question is: would you want to have anything to do with him?"

"I have no fucking idea, Haller." Artie tossed a taco wrapper into the bag and shrugged. "I have no idea. If it was you - your father... Would you?"

Haller paused. "If it were me, I would want an explanation," he said at last. "Of course I'd want to find out that he really cared. That it was some kind of mistake, that losing me hurt him. Who wouldn't? It is possible. But if I found out he wasn't sorry, that he really didn't care . . . then fuck him. I could hate him for abandoning me, no more ambiguity, no more 'what if'. One way or another, I would finally know." He shook his head. "But there's a big difference between confronting someone you know and tracking down a stranger. For you, it all depends on whether not knowing is something you can and want to live with."

Artie nodded. "Exactly. And this isn't the version who abandoned me. If it was ... before? Sure. I thought about it. But now? This one? I have no fucking idea what I want from him. The me... the me in this world grew up in the sewers, too, but can I hang that childhood on him?"

Haller gave a pragmatic shrug. "It doesn't matter what his reasoning was before. You never met that man, and now he's gone. You still grew up how you grew up. The man that exists now is the only father you'll ever know, if you want to know him at all. I think it's fair to judge him by his actions. Whatever those might be."

Artie shrugged and finished his coffee. "We've been talking about my wangst but not yours. How are you, really?"

He didn't bother calling out Artie on the not-subtle-at-all change of topic; the boy was tough, and it was rare to get as much out of him as he'd offered. He'd obviously been mulling this over for some time before breathing a word to Haller, and rightfully so. It wasn't up to the counselor to force the point. "Fine so far, honestly," said Haller, sipping his own coffee. "Like I said, I'm protected right now. The biggest issue is keeping track of the new contacts and arrangements we're meant to already be familiar with. Wangst doesn't bother me, but I may die from paperwork."

So, basically, you're a counselling robot. Artie nodded. "We have the same problem."

"Possibly a bigger one, considering the type of contacts you deal with," Haller remarked. "It's funny, somehow I didn't think the end of the world would involve so much database work."

"Hah."

"Only at Xavier's." Haller gave Artie a faintly mechanical smile. "Anyway, thanks for lunch. I can't say I minded the chance to catch up with you, either. With all the major changes it's sometimes hard to remember the personal ones."

Comments

[x-tarot.livejournal.com]

(Artie's in a time loop until Thursday night)

[x-artie.livejournal.com]

I"LL CHANGE THE DATE

[x-tarot.livejournal.com]

YAY! :)