Sam and Nathan, Thursday afternoon

[x-cannonball.livejournal.com]

Nathan's out preparing to blow up innocent rocks. Sam's flying. Just a first encounter and some assorted small talk.



It had taken some fast talking to convince Moira that he should be 'allowed' to come out to the quarry and blow off some steam in his favorite time-honored way, but eventually she had come around. Juggling several good-sized boulders as a warm-up, he settled into a cross-legged position on the grass, rather enjoying the afternoon sunlight. It was too nice a day to have stayed immured in the mansion, he told himself firmly. And he wasn't planning to exhaust himself out here. Just a little telekinetic stress relief, and then he would be a good boy and spend the rest of the evening reading or whatever.

He was just about to explode the first boulder when he heard what sounded very much like a sonic boom. Looking up with a frown, he was startled to see a roughly person-sized bright streak zig-zag across the sky. Some of the kids flew, he reminded himself, but this wasn't anyone he knew. As the flier banked into a turn and headed back in his general direction, Nathan raised a hand in a wave.

Sam saw someone wave at him from the quarry below and decided to stop and check it out. He didn't quite manage the proper adjustments to his speed or trajectory, though, and he knew he was coming in too fast as the ground rose towards him. *Oh, well--* he thought and then hit, thanking God yet again for his blast field as he plowed a furrow in the ground, tumbling head over heels a couple of times before he finally came to a stop.

Nathan had instinctively started to reach out, to catch the young man telekinetically, but the absolute lack of fear in the thoughts he brushed against made him hesitate. By then, the newcomer was already picking himself up off the ground, laughing as he brushed dirt off his clothes.

"You all right?" Nathan asked him, blinking. The blond kid - well, not a kid, Nathan corrected himself, he looked about Dom's age - nodded, grinning. "I'd congratulate you on your landing, but, well..."

Sam laughed again at the stranger's dry tone. Except he wasn't actually a stranger, because this had to be Doctor MacTaggart's Nathan, Sam realized. He'd somehow managed not to run into the man over the last several weeks, but he had been reading the journals. "Sam Guthrie," he said, sticking out a hand. "And well, any landing you can walk away from, they say."

Nathan took the offered hand gravely and shook it. "Nathan Dayspring," he said, and then remembered he was still levitating the rocks. He glanced over his shoulder, letting them drop, and then turned back to Sam. "I think you and I might have passed each other in the hall a couple of weeks ago. I tend not to be particularly with it most of the time, though, so I'm not sure."

"Maybe. I've been so busy with classes I've been walking around with my head in the clouds most of the time," Sam confessed with a grin, giving the rocks a curious look as they fell back to the ground. "Practicing?" he asked, remembering that Nathan was telekinetic, on top of the precognition that was causing him all the trouble.

"Just blowing off some steam," Nathan said with a shrug, eyeing Sam with some interest. "You too?" he ventured. The younger man had a fairly disciplined mind, but all the work he had been doing with Charles seemed to be sharpening his telepathic perceptions.

Telepathic, too, Sam reminded himself, but decided not to fret too much about it. Not like he had anything particularly interesting to hide. "Yeah," he admitted lightly. "Been doing most of my flying at night lately, but it was too nice out here today, and since I had a break between classes..."

"I was just getting some fresh air myself," Nathan said, and picked up a few of the rocks again, juggling them casually. "You've got a sister running around here somewhere, don't you?" he asked after a moment. "Paige, right?"

Sam's mouth twisted a little before he smoothed out his expression and nodded. "Yeah," he said, forcing a chuckle. "She's the social one. I'm the hermit--lately, at least."

"Well, you teach, don't you?" Nathan asked. The grimace was as good a confession on Sam's part, really, but he sort of liked that openness. "That must take up a lot of your time."

Sam smiled broadly, his mood immediately brightening. "Sure does," he said. "Kind of liking it, though. Never thought I'd be up there at the front of a classroom, but it's growing on me." He watched the rocks, intrigued, as they started to move around in patterns. "That's got to take a lot of effort."

"Not really. It's when I start taking them apart and putting them back together that things really get tricky." Nathan tilted his head, regarding the younger man contemplatively. "I'm impressed that you walked away from that landing, to go back to our original topic of discussion. Are you invulnerable when you're flying?"

Sam nodded. "Doubt I'd have lasted this long if I wasn't," he said, and laughed again. "Landings still aren't my strong suit."