xp_logs | Nathan and Rory, Sunday evening (Reply)

Rory, working in the clinic, rouses Nathan with his loud, upset thoughts. The two of them wind up arguing. (Yes, less than a day after Nathan was at death's door.)

Rory manuevered around the room quickly, used to moving in the hospital area with his crutch. Moira had informed him that they were heading back soon and had asked him to get some sleeping pills ready. Nathan was stable enough to be moved but she didn't want to take the chance of startling him mid-flight. Rory knew she was off seeing her family before they headed out, Theo had taken her. Dom, he knew, unable to help a small smile, was off making the arrangements for the private flight they would now have to take to the United States.

He threw a look over his shoulder at Nathan and grumbled under his breath. "What does she see in him?" he snarled, tossing the pill box onto the cart in front of him.

The stream of upset, angry thoughts interrupted a strange, disjointed dream about being back at the mansion and watching Askani chase Manuel down the halls, laughing gleefully. Nathan's eyes fluttered open and he stared up at the ceiling blankly as it went in and out of focus. "Moira?" he called, his voice coming out cracked, barely audible.

"Hardly," Rory responded, not bothering to turn around. "She's saying goodbye to her family before you all leave. Again."

Nathan frowned. "Leaving?" he asked hoarsely. The ceiling was still swimming. "When... what..."

"Leaving. Going 'home'. Away from the island. Apparently, Moira wants you in Xavier's MedLab or some such place."

"Oh." His thoughts were slowly, slowly coalescing into something approaching coherence, and Nathan narrowed his eyes until the ceiling came somewhat into focus. There were... things on either side of his head, preventing him from moving. "Is she... all right?"

Slowly, Rory set down the last of the boxes he had wanted. "As well as to be expected," he responded. "After being blown head first into a stone wall in her own keep, anyway. Rather badly concussed, bad bruising, but will come out of this all right, I expect."

'Thought you would know how she was,' Rory thought to himself, thinking about that link, or whatever it was, that Nathan and Moira 'shared'.

Nathan winced at the almost accusatory thought as it sliced through his frayed shields. "Stop," he muttered almost feverishly, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to reinforce his defenses. The dull ache in his head swelled into echoing waves of agony as he tried, and a whimper escaped him.

"I didn't do a bloody thing," Rory responded but finally turned around, frowning at him.

Wrong for her, going to get her killed... why would she want him instead of me, he's not worthy of her.... Images of Moira, hollow-eyed and bruised and crying... "Stop," Nathan groaned, and tried without thinking to move, to get away from the thoughts and images forcing themselves on him. And then it hurt worse, he could hear bones grinding on each other in his shoulder and he couldn't even feel his leg, just pain...

"Damn it, man, stop moving around! Your going to rip open your injuries again!" With a sigh, Rory moved to Nathan's side and upped the dosage of medicine a little. Not enough to knock him out or make him incoherent, Moira would want to talk to him before they left, but just enough to dull some of the pain and calm him down. "Bloody idiot."

Too close. Too close, and those bitter, angry thoughts were a roar in his mind now, Moira hurt, Moira crying...

Rory cursed as the instruments in the room starting to shake and rise into the air from whatever surface they were occupying. He backed up, cursing. "Damn it, stop it before you injure yourself! Or me!"

Nathan slumped back against the bed, his breath coming in racking gasps. "S-Stop..." he tried again, more weakly, fighting the pull of the drugs. He could barely keep what was left of his shields up as it was. "Stop... can't keep you out, it hurts..." His voice broke, and he was dimly aware of tears trickling down his face.

"I'm not doing anything!" Rory protested but then sighed. Xavier had taught him a few things about how to stop projecting, in case a patient caught something they weren't supposed to. Quickly, he started those exercises, hating that he was doing this for *him*.

The pressure against his shields eased slowly, gradually, and breathing became a little easier. "Not... fair, Campbell," Nathan managed weakly, his head clearing slightly. "Don't... fucking care if you're angry... selfish. She could have f-felt that on the link..."

"I thought you'd be shielding her," he snapped back but still felt a stab of guilt. The last thing he really wanted was to hurt Moira, even through Nathan. "And I'm not selfish, damn it, I'm worried about her."

"Can hardly... shield myself. Idiot."

"How was I supposed to know that? Unlike the other human here, I'm not linked to anyone that's a mutant!"

"Bigoted... son of a bitch," Nathan tried to snarl at him, but it came out as a very unimpressive rasp, his voice breaking midway through again.

Rory paused, mouth dropping open slightly. "Where did that come from?" he snapped, stunned. "Bigoted, after all the work I've done here? Hardly!"

"Except... you begrudge helping psis," Nathan hissed at him. His head was still pounding. "Wouldn't be... nearly so irrational about m-me... if I had a different mutation."

"Dayspring, let me assure you on this," he grated out, hand turning white around the crutch as he clutched it almost painfully. "I would have most definatly disliked your sorry arse to high heaven no matter *what* mutation you might have had. You being a psi--doesn't affect the situation at all." Him with Moira, that affected the situation.

"You'd h-hate me, either way," Nathan gritted. "But if I had... Dom's powers, you wouldn't be so fucking afraid of me."

"You know, for a telepath you're rather dense," Rory snapped, eyes slightly wide. "Fear? More like loathing for you. Moira deserves better!"

The room was spinning rather insistently around him, and dimly, Nathan heard something making a high-pitched beeping noise. But Rory's mind was back to shrieking out the truth, even as he opened his mouth and lied, and Nathan forced the words out. "Afraid," he whispered raggedly. "Seven years... since they brought me in here..."

"I don't know what you're bloody well talking about," he insisted, tossing up more of those exercises in his mind. "I don't like you because you're going to hurt her. That's all, there's nothing else to it."

Except for his feelings for Moira, he told himself, clamping down hard on that.

"I don't know what you're bloody well talking about," he insisted, tossing up more of those exercises in his mind. "I don't like you because you're going to hurt her. That's all, there's nothing else to it."

Except for his feelings for Moira, he told himself, clamping down hard on that.

"Because of Kevin," Nathan muttered faintly. There was still that shrieking noise in the background, and even when he closed his eyes, the dizziness didn't stop. He couldn't seem to get a deep breath; pain jolted through his chest every time he tried.

When the words came out, they froze Rory to the core. At first, he didn't respond, though the area on what was left of his original leg, throbbed at the mention of Moira's long dead son. The false, mechanical leg suddenly felt heavy and Rory swallowed hard. "It's not what you think," he said, softly, almost tempted to look away. "It was an accident, I don't fault others for that."

"But you're... afraid... still afraid..."

"I am not!" Rory swallowed again, harder this time. "I don't fear Xavier and I certainly don't fear you."

"We both... took her away, didn't we?"

"I haven't the foggiest what you're talking about."

"Liar.." His mind was screaming it, howling it so loudly...

"I am not lying!" Rory thumped his crutch against the floor, frustrated. With whom, he wasn't exactly positive of currently. "I don't know what you mean. Took her away from *what*?"

Blind, he was blind and lying to himself... anger boiled through him, and it gave him the stretch to reach up, to grab Rory by the shirt. The pain of the sudden movement tried to drown his thoughts, but he held onto that edge of rage and projected, rather than spoke. #Away from here... away from you... made her want something other than the work, something for herself... messed up your perfect little frozen world...#

Rory snapped out a curse, startled and tried to wrench himself out of Nathan's grasp. "Yes. *You* did that, not I. You took her away before she finally saw what I had to offer her. I did nothing to force her away, it was all *you*." He jerked himself backward, grunting when he was unable to get loose. "You're going to injure yourself worse," he snarled.

Images slammed into his mind, things the way Rory saw them, and Nathan's hand tightened spasmodically on the other man's shirt, his head sagging backwards limply as he saw himself, a smiling yet oddly brutal version of him, taking Moira away as Rory called out to her, but then Moira was crying again, and he was hurting her, he was...

With a final pull, Rory was finally free of Nathan's grasp. He started to retort, angrily, but stopped as he suddenly realized the machines that the other man was hooked up to were going insane. With a curse, he upped the dosage on the pain medicine again. This time enough to knock him out, restabilize him. He'd be awake, unfortunatly, before the group left, long enough for Moira to do whatever she wanted to do with him.

He glared down at the still form, jaw clenched in anger. It was all him, he knew. Stealing Moira from him. Just a little while longer, he thought, and Moira would have turned to him for help. With the loss, with the pain. The drinking problem as well. He'd simply wanted to wait until she asked him for help, didn't want to force her into anything. But, no, Dayspring swoops in and settles that for him. From the second visit, Moira had been hooked on him, even if she hadn't known it herself.

With a curse, Rory turned and limped out of the room, intent on staying as far away from Dayspring as possible. He'd say goodbye to Moira in private.