Shatterstar and Haller: Psychic Shielding (Round Two)

[xp_legion]

After a healthy period of avoidance, Shatterstar and Haller reestablish lines of communication long enough to have a conversation that makes them both mildly uncomfortable.



"So, you still pissed at Jimothy or what?"

Shatterstar had a sandwich halfway to his mouth when Cyndi showed up to bother him. He glared at her, and he was pretty sure it was Cyndi, and took a slow and deliberate bite of his sandwich, swallowing. "You shouldn't let him hide behind you." He said, in lieu of a proper answer. (Yes, he was still angry, though he'd had time to calm down and be less angry at Jim himself and more at the situation.)

"It's a tactical decision. Fewer people wanna punch me in the face." Cyndi sauntered across the kitchen to the fridge and pulled out a soda. She cracked the top and gave Shatterstar a long look over the top before she drank. "Besides, you do . . . what, again, for your guy?"

"That's different," Shatterstar insisted, reaching over to punch her in the arm even though he knew it really, really wasn't. It was more difficult to be angry around Cyndi. After all, she was the one who had been mad at Jim on his behalf. "And I wouldn't have punched him. In the face anyway."

The alter playfully elbowed him back in response. "Uh huh, and how is it different?" she teased. "He's shy, right? Don't think we've really met yet."

Shatterstar turned tense immediately, drying up any playfulness that had been previously in the room. He snarled at Cyndi. "Don't talk about him. Don't even think about him. You will leave him alone. Everyone has to leave him alone."

It was his job to protect him. From everything (even if they shared every memory).

Cyndi blinked, startled by the intensity of his reaction, but didn't back away even though the younger man stood eye-to-eye with her.

"Hey, chill. I didn't mean it like that. Whatever arrangement you got, that's your business." She tilted her head, studying his blue eyes. "You and Jack got a lot in common, y'know? He didn't take crap about David either. Little excessive sometimes, but if nobody else was gonna look out for him, well . . ." She shrugged and took another swig of soda.

Shatterstar broke eye contact first, tucking his head to the side. His shoulders softened a little. He conceptually understood that Cyndi would understand, but it didn't mean he liked her even knowing about Benjamin. He didn't know if he liked the comparison to the cowboy. He hadn't exactly liked Jack when he had met him. But it was better than being compared to Jim.

"I have to protect him," Shatterstar repeated. "It's my job. You get it."

"I get it. It's a tough job. Glad it's not mine." Cyndi swirled her soda around in the can, still studying him. "But that's why you wanted the psi-training, right? You got the physical part down, but you need the mental."

Shatterstar simply nodded. He had been practicing on his own, because every time he even thought about going to Jim after the last disaster of a session it would throw Benjamin into a rage- and Shatterstar couldn't tell if it was at Jim or at Shatterstar and his failings. "I've been doing the exercises."

Cyndi grinned. She declined to tell him blowing up at an authority figure and then sullenly following their advice in secret was another extremely Jack move.

"You don't gotta work with him if you don't want to," she said. "Dr. Grey's cool, she can help. Ms. Frost, too, although she's kinda--" she searched for an adequate word to describe Emma, then copped out and said "in and out."

"Jim and I already know each other," Shatterstar said simply. He let that speak for itself. He had no desire to meet another telepath. He may not like the one he knew, but he wouldn't force Benjamin, or himself for that matter, into a situation with an unknown one until they were trained. It would be like sending a child against a skilled swordsman.

"Mm, yeah, better the dork you know, I guess." Cyndi took a final gulp from the can and set it down on the counter. When the psi turned back to Shatterstar his body language was straighter, more constrained.

"Do you want me to test you, then?" Jim asked. "Right now?"

He nodded, and put up the fortress in his mind, focussing on every brick and steel wall. Once he had that in place he focussed on the muscle memory of katas, trying not to let his mind wander or any stray thoughts- his or Benjamin's- out. It helped that he and Benji had come to an agreement to work together on these exercises. It was difficult, and he didn't know how effective they would be, but he trusted it enough to let Jim try.

Jim studied Shatterstar. The boy's face was drawn in deep concentration. He still felt a visceral aversion to testing him like this, but this was something Shatterstar wanted enough to overcome his distrust and discomfort. He took a moment to gather himself, and slipped into Shatterstar's mind.

"The outside defense -- great external work, but walls are more than their surface." Jim imagined himself walking down the length of the wall, running his hand across the steel. "Everything in the mind is representative, and a telepath can turn that against you. So with this particular visualization I could imagine them as a very convincing piece of setwork: painted one one side, nothing but plywood behind." He pushed on the wall, and it tipped backwards -- though with more resistance than he'd anticipated, he was pleased to note. It was more solidly-formed than many first attempts. He nodded to himself. "Imagine them as solid things, from inside to out. You can use real engineering as inspiration. Steel I-beams in concrete, for example."

He paused, still watching Shatterstar's face. "Should I go further?" he asked.

Stupid. Stupid, he should have thought of that. Shatterstar should have seen his walls for the flimsy set pieces they were. Like you, Benjamin goaded in the back of his head because it was easy, automatic to do so. You're just a carbon copy of some one dimensional character from a movie no one has ever seen. You can't protect us. He tried to turn the anger on Jim instead, on pushing him out of his mind with the repetition of his katas, though he had stumbled in them and he could feel the cold sensation of something wrong in his mind.

"Do it," he insisted, careful to stay present as he kept up the work, the motions and muscle memories. By his sides in the real world his arms twitched, like they wanted to do the katas alongside his mental self. It was hard to focus on them angry. He didn't want to be angry, which just made him angrier- he and Benji in a feedback loop.

Stupid, stupid, he knew he needed to not be angry. he knew that anger would let Jim squirrel his way in.

Shatterstar was correct; Jim could tell immediately that the initial failure had wrongfooted the boy for the next step, but he went through with it out of respect for his pride. He could feel the flex and glide of muscles working in a way that felt realer and more specific than the wall had been, though the intensity of it was inconsistent. A sliver of thought leaked through:

can't protect us

Carefully, Jim withdrew from Shatterstar's mind. "That level feels good," the telepath said. "By good, I mean solid. Grounded. I think that's the one you'll get the most use out of. But you're out of sync with yourself, and it's interfering with your focus." He withdrew from Shatterstar's mind and leaned back against the counter. "Is it me? You? Both?"

"Good isn't good enough," Shatterstar snapped, clenching his hands by his sides, face flush with embarrassment. Anyone could have walked in and seen his failure. He had been doing so well, he knew he had been doing well until he fell out of step with Benjamin. But he knew he couldn't force Benjamin to do anything anymore than Benji could force him. He hoped, anyway. Why had he done that? Why had Shatterstar let him get to him like that?

"I'll be better. I'll do it better," Shatterstar promised Jim, looking up at him. On some level, he wasn't thinking clearly- not like he was in this body. He knew he was thinking irrationally, thinking about how he had to get better fast or die. That wasn't how the world worked, he knew that, but that was all over his mind. He had to get better fast so he could protect them. From anything. Everything. "I'll fix it. You don't have to worry about it."

"I'm not worried about it. You don't have any metric to measure it by, but I do. That was outstanding for a first attempt, especially one that was self-guided. You're a fast learner." He said it simply, but it wasn't faint praise; Shatterstar's commitment had impressed him. Jim reached behind him and retrieved the drink Cyndi had started. "I felt conflict halfway through," he said. "Do you know what might have set it off?"

His face soured a little, knowing that he could have done better. The praise felt like a consultation prize to Shatterstar, though it was nice to know he was doing what he should be. He went back to the sandwich he had been eating when Cyndi cornered him instead of answering. He was a bad liar, and he knew it, and he didn't want to talk about it. He took a second bite. Then again, Jim was just about the only person would would understand. "Yes. I'm working on it. It was just... miscommunication."

"Mm." Jim took a sip from the can. Lime wasn't his flavor of preference, but he might as well finish it. It gave him time to turn over the boy's words in his mind. "I'll be better. I'll do it better. I'll fix it." Maybe he was talking to the memory of an abuser, or maybe he had been talking to himself. Maybe it had been both.

Jim took a deep breath and set the soda down again. "Something about people with systems like ours," he said, trying to decide how to articulate what he wanted to communicate, "when we work together, we're incredibly resilient against psychic attack. I've survived things that would have killed any other telepath because I had Jack. The others, too, but especially Jack. It took a long time, and I still wouldn't say we even like each other much, but once we finally agreed on our priorities fucking with us got a lot more difficult. You don't always need to get along to have common ground."

He tensed, as he always did when anyone brought up the fact that they knew he was a system. Shatterstar twitched like he was ready to attack, but Jim was like him. That was why he was willing to work with him at all when it came to anything in his head. "We have common ground," he replied automatically, defensively. "We get along fine." It didn't sound convincing even to him, even though they had been getting along fine before coming here. Their system had worked. Shatterstar protected them and Benjamin stayed back and let him.

He mulled over the advice. They would be stronger if they worked together, that made sense. He just... He should be able to do it for them. That was why he was there.

Shatterstar opened his mouth like he was going to ask a question but closed it again. He tugged at his hair for a moment and then said. "I'll do it better next time."

Jim gave him a faint smile. "I know, because you did great this time. And just keep what I said in mind, okay? Sometimes things can get confusing even when everyone's on the same page." He wished he had a better idea of what Shatterstar's system was like, but he didn't even know how many they were. From what he'd said to Cyndi there was at least one other, but his reaction made it clear Shatterstar was not interested in disclosing anything else. Anything he trusted Jim to know would be given in his own time.

Shatterstar just nodded and silently ate his sandwich as he thought about Jim's advice and what could have been done better. Mostly though, he was forming the best way to ask the question he had. (He was also willing the universe to have Jim not leave before he asked it). Finally, after two minutes he haltingly started to ask what he had wanted to before.

"I don't want... I mean... Do you have, you know, in your system. Kids."

The older man froze in mid-sip. Well, he'd wanted Shatterstar to feel safe enough to tell him about his system, hadn't he? It was only fair that Shatterstar get to ask about his. Jim could almost feel a finger curling on a monkey's paw somewhere. He lowered the can and gave Shatterstar his full attention again.

"Yes," Jim said, attempting to ignore his instinctive discomfort. "His name is Davey. He's been with me since I was seven. He's the only one I'm not co-conscious with. Jack looks out for him."

"And you wouldn't want him to have to protect himself," Shatterstar said slowly, not sure if he was appealing to Jim or Jack. He wasn't upset Jim hadn't told him about Davey. It was the responsible thing to do, to not let anyone hold the kids in your system against you- or worse be able to hurt them. He wished he could promise to never hurt their Davey.

He let his implications speak for themselves.

Shatterstar knew Benji wasn't always that little kid who he had formed to protect but he wasn't always the teenager who had locked himself inside either. It was better to be safe than sorry. He didn't want him to have to protect himself, ever.

"No. We don't." Jim studied the can like it was hiding a roadmap for wherever this conversation was headed. He sighed. "But Davey also makes his own decisions. He comes out when he needs to. He's careful about who he shows himself to, but he uses his judgment, not mine. I owe it to him to respect that. It's his life, too."

That was hardly the answer Shatterstar wanted to hear and he sneered a little to hear it. That shouldn't be how it worked. But Jim was more experienced with this, and Shatterstar did respect experience above just about anything else. Surely he must know what he's talking about. "I just wanna protect him," he mumbled, not even realizing he was speaking out loud as he started to clean up his meal.

Jim nodded. "I can understand that. But if it's causing tension . . . you should ask him how he feels. How much protection he wants, or needs. There was a long time there where David wasn't able to handle anything on his own. Others stepped in because he needed them. But eventually I got stronger, and I realized I wanted to take things on again. We restructured, figured out new roles. There's no point in hanging on to a structure that doesn't work anymore."

Shatterstar got a little lost in Jim's explanation and it all sounded a bit like a crock of shit, but it also frustratingly made sense. It's just, if the structure was broken what happened if he wasn't needed anymore? What would happen to him. But Jim said they figured out new roles. That was, that was possible. He had reinvented himself before by changing from a carbon copy of Gaveedra-Seven to Shatterstar, who was almost a real person.

"We'll do it better next time. Both of us. If he isn't a dick," he said finally, conceding slightly to Jim's points.