Emma and Haller: Consultation
Oct. 25th, 2023 11:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsAfter an unsettling encounter with Radha Dastoor, Haller has an emergency consultation with the closest telepath to hand: Emma Frost.
Haller sat with his hands gripping his knees. Laughably, he tried to relax. It had been a long time since he'd been on the receiving end of an in-depth telepathic assessment, and only now was he remembering how anxiety-inducing the experience could be. The fact this was happening in the Medlab -- near the Box, just in case -- was contributing unwelcome sensory triggers. He found himself wondering if there was a term for nostalgia associated with discomfort rather than fondness, like when you remembered a scene from your childhood, but instead of a nice game of catch it was the time you'd broken a window and tried to blame it on a disappearing bird. Concentrate on breathing, he told himself. Inhale the sharp antiseptic air, count to five, then exhale. He wanted to retroactively apologize to Jessica.
He should've asked Clarice to take him directly to Charles, but at the time all he'd been able to think was "away". He'd simply asked her to take him directly to the Medlab and immediately cast about for help. Jean seemed to be out, but fortunately the only other telepath with even more experience was not.
"It's lucky my shields are impeccable," said Emma, calmly, as she walked into the Medlab. "If they weren't, considering all the anxiety you're projecting, I'd be weeping like some kind of Regency heroine. I'm almost at Madame Bovary levels as it is, and that's without the telepathy."
The other psi snorted without humor. "I've worked here too long to assume anything but a worst-case scenario. I don't want this to become a Parker Matthews/Shadow King situation. I don't need to end up a ghost in someone's head aga- in someone's head." He did relax, however, just a fraction. There was something reassuring about Emma's dry lack of concern, as if whatever she was currently dealing with was not an emergency, but rather just another item to check off the calendar. It almost let him ignore the fact his hands were shaking.
Emma nodded, her eyes scanning Haller from head to toe, a quick physical inspection to check for anything out of the ordinary. “The joy of being who we are,” she said, dryly, “is that it isn’t even close to the worst-case scenario that I can think of. Though Clarice gave me enough information about your… ministering angel and her power to reduce my concerns somewhat.” She raised an enquiring eyebrow at Haller. “You seem physically unharmed; are you happy for me to start the scan now?”
"Please. The less time I spend wondering whether I have a psychic parasite incubating in my frontal lobe the better."
Emma reached out with her telepathy, a polite tendril that was the equivalent of a knocking at the door. Haller’s anxiety to be scanned was even more evident here; despite his level of power and any psi’s instinctive tendency to resist psychic intrusion, Emma’s tendril met no resistance. She slipped into Haller’s mind easily, manifesting herself in a doctor’s white coat, stethoscope around her neck.
~Does this work for you?~ she asked. ~Or would you prefer some kind of gauche police outfit as I do my detective work? Not one of those dreadful sexy Halloween ones, though. Whoever invented those should be charged with crimes against fashion.~
The younger man smiled despite himself. ~And I thank you for that. It's already confusing enough up there.~ He kept half of his concentration on forcing his shields down. The urge to eject an intruder was instinctual, but he'd spent years learning how to suppress the reflex to allow Charles' diagnostics. It was like someone prone to chronic dental issues learning to relax against a drill, or at least learn to appear that way to the dentist.
~I’ve just realised I’ve never scanned you,~ Emma said, with a certain amount of surprise. Despite the fact she was away from the Mansion so often, she’d done enough training and enough psychic triage that she’d scanned the minds of most of the residents, even if only hastily and sometimes at a distance. But between Charles’… proprietary interest in Haller and psychic etiquette, this was the first time she had been here. She looked around her: what Haller was choosing to present to her looked almost like a corridor, cleanly arranged, with large windows opening onto different rooms. Critically, Emma looked around her, processed everything that she knew of her fellow psi. She reached out and knocked against one of the windows. ~This isn’t usual for you, is it?~ she asked, and despite her previous humour, her psychic tone was laced with compassion.
~No. Usually large portions of my memories are strictly delineated by ego state. Some sections are more porous than others, depending on the relationship and my mental health at the given moment, but almost every part has some aspect that's inaccessible to one or the other. Usually.~ Haller snorted. ~Sorry I'm not phrasing this well. I don't have company over very often.~
Emma laughed ~I no more invite visitors than you,~ she sent back. Nonetheless, she added, tilting her head at the view in front of her, you haven’t asked me here to fix what Jimbelina Jones has wrought. My understanding is that her changes are time-limited. That what she has done to your psyche will not hold for long. So what you are really interested in is if she has set any traps inside your mind. I know it is a lot to ask when someone has already been so presumptuous with your mind, but would you allow me to take control of the mindscape?~
It was, but Haller forced himself to accept that a loss of control now was preferable to a nasty surprise later. He began to shift his breathing into a slower pattern, forcing his mind into a more receptive state. ~Why not,~ he said with a half-hearted smile, ~It already feels like someone snuck in there and redecorated while I wasn't looking.~
The psychic landscape shifted and suddenly they were sitting on either side of a wide desk, Emma still in her white coat but now with her hands in white cotton gloves, a jeweller’s loupe held in one hand. Between them, a series of trays sifted diamonds falling from nowhere into nowhere, the shifting of the trays sending diamonds down through a series of holes. A small number of them fell into a tray in front of Emma and she would delicately extract each one, examine it through the loupe and then slide it into the bottom-most tray, where it would fall into nothing again. Yes, she sent with exaggerated patience, I know I am being a cliche, but it costs me less energy if I don’t have to think about the construction. Just the results.
~Whatever you need to do.~ He knew better than to bother her with anxiety-riddled questions every five seconds, no matter how intense the urge. The cloying, medicinal smells of the Medlab didn't seem to be fading into the background like they normally would have by now. With nothing to do but wait for Emma's assessment they seemed to fill his world--
He could feel the scalpel against David's brain. The hand of some stranger, some intruder, trying to slice their way through the walls they'd built from scar tissue and pain. His eyes flew open, and he saw -- a man, just some small, frail man in a wheelchair. A torrent of power slammed his tormenter against the opposite wall as he wrenched his wasted body to its elbows, screaming, screaming--
Haller flinched.
Emma glanced up from her close inspection of a diamond. ~That seems like it would have smarted,~ she said, with a certain studied nonchalance.
Haller forced himself to take a deep breath. ~When the professor first tried to get me out of my own mind the others would . . . fight,~ he replied. He drew his hands down his face, trying to shake the sickening image of Charles crumpled on the floor. ~I've never seen that memory before.~
~Do you want me to be interested?~ Emma asked. ~You only asked for me to check for traps set by Charlene Manson. I can limit myself to that, if you would prefer.~
~I -- don't know.~ He walked back to what his senses were telling him. The smell . . . that was it. The scan coupled with the medicinal smell of the Medlab must have triggered it. But it didn't explain where it had come from. ~Why can I suddenly access that?~ he asked. ~I've never seen anything from before he brought me out before.~
~You know why, said Emma, almost placidly. ~You’re an intelligent man and I can’t imagine there’s anyone that knows more about the intersection of psi powers and DID than you do. And it seems this Radha woman was telling the truth about her powers. She has integrated your personalities, so there are no barriers between what each has seen. For a little while at least.~ Emma looked up at Haller for a moment, across the table, the diamond filled trays between them, even as the flow of diamonds from above began to slow. ~I’m nearly done here. I can stay if you would like, once I’m done, help as I much as I can. But… well, I’m very, very good, but that is not my area of expertise.
~No, I--~ His stomach instantly twisted at the thought of more hands pulling at his mind, even ones as skilled as Emma's. He shook his head. ~Thank you. I appreciate the offer, but if it's safe I think I'm going to Muir next. Moira can take a look at the organic side of things, and I'll see what Charles has to say.~ Haller pulled his hands down his face and gave a short, bitter laugh. ~The ironic thing is, if this had happened back in my early twenties I would've been happy. I was having problems then. But those were resolved, and my system settled. We were cooperating. Now I suddenly have what I used to want and it feels so -- lonely.~
Emma held up her hands, now empty and the mindscape suddenly dissolved, and they were back in the Medlab. "Done," she said. "No nasty surprises left behind. Radha might have done something you didn't like, but she didn't do anything more than that." She tilted her head slightly, gave Haller a contemplative look. "Of everyone, you know I will never be the person to say something stupidly trite like 'what doesn't kill us, makes us stronger'. Or that anything is 'meant to be'." Emma's tone underlaid the words with cutting irony. "But perhaps this is a chance to weigh the value of what you wanted against what you made your truth. Allow yourself a little time for reflection. Or, you know," she raised an eyebrow, "spend the next few weeks in an alcoholic stupor until Radha's power wears off. Which is an equally valid lifestyle choice. And as a person who's experienced the odd recreational coma, I'd rate them at least four out of five stars for avoiding having to think about sudden changes in one's powers."
Haller gave her a wan smile. "I never had a lot of luck with comas. You go into them thinking you can give it up anytime you want, and then you wake up and suddenly you missed your own bar mitzvah." The psi rose from his chair and smoothed out clothes. As far as he could tell Emma rose from a dead sleep already immaculately put together; it was almost a relief to know that, no matter what else might have happened in his brain, her presence still gave him the urge to tuck in his shirt.
"Thanks for checking," he said. "It helps to know what I'm dealing with."
“I don’t have my sister’s gift,” said Emma. “I can’t tell Radha’s intentions by touching something she has given to one of us. But from what I did touch inside your mind, I didn’t find anything that indicated malice.” She raised one slender finger to stop anything Haller might say. “Yet. Let’s not fool ourselves that malice might not be the long game. But for now, from the little I know and have been told about, I feel that she might be trying to impress us.” Emma gave a sudden, tight smile. “Badly, in your case. But if it is a trap, I think she’s baiting it with honey, not vinegar.”
"No. She impressed me." Haller thought of the kind of person that could simply reach into the mind of another and rewrite patterns built by years of trauma as easily and impersonally as another woman would pluck a flower.
"That's why I'm so afraid."
Haller sat with his hands gripping his knees. Laughably, he tried to relax. It had been a long time since he'd been on the receiving end of an in-depth telepathic assessment, and only now was he remembering how anxiety-inducing the experience could be. The fact this was happening in the Medlab -- near the Box, just in case -- was contributing unwelcome sensory triggers. He found himself wondering if there was a term for nostalgia associated with discomfort rather than fondness, like when you remembered a scene from your childhood, but instead of a nice game of catch it was the time you'd broken a window and tried to blame it on a disappearing bird. Concentrate on breathing, he told himself. Inhale the sharp antiseptic air, count to five, then exhale. He wanted to retroactively apologize to Jessica.
He should've asked Clarice to take him directly to Charles, but at the time all he'd been able to think was "away". He'd simply asked her to take him directly to the Medlab and immediately cast about for help. Jean seemed to be out, but fortunately the only other telepath with even more experience was not.
"It's lucky my shields are impeccable," said Emma, calmly, as she walked into the Medlab. "If they weren't, considering all the anxiety you're projecting, I'd be weeping like some kind of Regency heroine. I'm almost at Madame Bovary levels as it is, and that's without the telepathy."
The other psi snorted without humor. "I've worked here too long to assume anything but a worst-case scenario. I don't want this to become a Parker Matthews/Shadow King situation. I don't need to end up a ghost in someone's head aga- in someone's head." He did relax, however, just a fraction. There was something reassuring about Emma's dry lack of concern, as if whatever she was currently dealing with was not an emergency, but rather just another item to check off the calendar. It almost let him ignore the fact his hands were shaking.
Emma nodded, her eyes scanning Haller from head to toe, a quick physical inspection to check for anything out of the ordinary. “The joy of being who we are,” she said, dryly, “is that it isn’t even close to the worst-case scenario that I can think of. Though Clarice gave me enough information about your… ministering angel and her power to reduce my concerns somewhat.” She raised an enquiring eyebrow at Haller. “You seem physically unharmed; are you happy for me to start the scan now?”
"Please. The less time I spend wondering whether I have a psychic parasite incubating in my frontal lobe the better."
Emma reached out with her telepathy, a polite tendril that was the equivalent of a knocking at the door. Haller’s anxiety to be scanned was even more evident here; despite his level of power and any psi’s instinctive tendency to resist psychic intrusion, Emma’s tendril met no resistance. She slipped into Haller’s mind easily, manifesting herself in a doctor’s white coat, stethoscope around her neck.
~Does this work for you?~ she asked. ~Or would you prefer some kind of gauche police outfit as I do my detective work? Not one of those dreadful sexy Halloween ones, though. Whoever invented those should be charged with crimes against fashion.~
The younger man smiled despite himself. ~And I thank you for that. It's already confusing enough up there.~ He kept half of his concentration on forcing his shields down. The urge to eject an intruder was instinctual, but he'd spent years learning how to suppress the reflex to allow Charles' diagnostics. It was like someone prone to chronic dental issues learning to relax against a drill, or at least learn to appear that way to the dentist.
~I’ve just realised I’ve never scanned you,~ Emma said, with a certain amount of surprise. Despite the fact she was away from the Mansion so often, she’d done enough training and enough psychic triage that she’d scanned the minds of most of the residents, even if only hastily and sometimes at a distance. But between Charles’… proprietary interest in Haller and psychic etiquette, this was the first time she had been here. She looked around her: what Haller was choosing to present to her looked almost like a corridor, cleanly arranged, with large windows opening onto different rooms. Critically, Emma looked around her, processed everything that she knew of her fellow psi. She reached out and knocked against one of the windows. ~This isn’t usual for you, is it?~ she asked, and despite her previous humour, her psychic tone was laced with compassion.
~No. Usually large portions of my memories are strictly delineated by ego state. Some sections are more porous than others, depending on the relationship and my mental health at the given moment, but almost every part has some aspect that's inaccessible to one or the other. Usually.~ Haller snorted. ~Sorry I'm not phrasing this well. I don't have company over very often.~
Emma laughed ~I no more invite visitors than you,~ she sent back. Nonetheless, she added, tilting her head at the view in front of her, you haven’t asked me here to fix what Jimbelina Jones has wrought. My understanding is that her changes are time-limited. That what she has done to your psyche will not hold for long. So what you are really interested in is if she has set any traps inside your mind. I know it is a lot to ask when someone has already been so presumptuous with your mind, but would you allow me to take control of the mindscape?~
It was, but Haller forced himself to accept that a loss of control now was preferable to a nasty surprise later. He began to shift his breathing into a slower pattern, forcing his mind into a more receptive state. ~Why not,~ he said with a half-hearted smile, ~It already feels like someone snuck in there and redecorated while I wasn't looking.~
The psychic landscape shifted and suddenly they were sitting on either side of a wide desk, Emma still in her white coat but now with her hands in white cotton gloves, a jeweller’s loupe held in one hand. Between them, a series of trays sifted diamonds falling from nowhere into nowhere, the shifting of the trays sending diamonds down through a series of holes. A small number of them fell into a tray in front of Emma and she would delicately extract each one, examine it through the loupe and then slide it into the bottom-most tray, where it would fall into nothing again. Yes, she sent with exaggerated patience, I know I am being a cliche, but it costs me less energy if I don’t have to think about the construction. Just the results.
~Whatever you need to do.~ He knew better than to bother her with anxiety-riddled questions every five seconds, no matter how intense the urge. The cloying, medicinal smells of the Medlab didn't seem to be fading into the background like they normally would have by now. With nothing to do but wait for Emma's assessment they seemed to fill his world--
He could feel the scalpel against David's brain. The hand of some stranger, some intruder, trying to slice their way through the walls they'd built from scar tissue and pain. His eyes flew open, and he saw -- a man, just some small, frail man in a wheelchair. A torrent of power slammed his tormenter against the opposite wall as he wrenched his wasted body to its elbows, screaming, screaming--
Haller flinched.
Emma glanced up from her close inspection of a diamond. ~That seems like it would have smarted,~ she said, with a certain studied nonchalance.
Haller forced himself to take a deep breath. ~When the professor first tried to get me out of my own mind the others would . . . fight,~ he replied. He drew his hands down his face, trying to shake the sickening image of Charles crumpled on the floor. ~I've never seen that memory before.~
~Do you want me to be interested?~ Emma asked. ~You only asked for me to check for traps set by Charlene Manson. I can limit myself to that, if you would prefer.~
~I -- don't know.~ He walked back to what his senses were telling him. The smell . . . that was it. The scan coupled with the medicinal smell of the Medlab must have triggered it. But it didn't explain where it had come from. ~Why can I suddenly access that?~ he asked. ~I've never seen anything from before he brought me out before.~
~You know why, said Emma, almost placidly. ~You’re an intelligent man and I can’t imagine there’s anyone that knows more about the intersection of psi powers and DID than you do. And it seems this Radha woman was telling the truth about her powers. She has integrated your personalities, so there are no barriers between what each has seen. For a little while at least.~ Emma looked up at Haller for a moment, across the table, the diamond filled trays between them, even as the flow of diamonds from above began to slow. ~I’m nearly done here. I can stay if you would like, once I’m done, help as I much as I can. But… well, I’m very, very good, but that is not my area of expertise.
~No, I--~ His stomach instantly twisted at the thought of more hands pulling at his mind, even ones as skilled as Emma's. He shook his head. ~Thank you. I appreciate the offer, but if it's safe I think I'm going to Muir next. Moira can take a look at the organic side of things, and I'll see what Charles has to say.~ Haller pulled his hands down his face and gave a short, bitter laugh. ~The ironic thing is, if this had happened back in my early twenties I would've been happy. I was having problems then. But those were resolved, and my system settled. We were cooperating. Now I suddenly have what I used to want and it feels so -- lonely.~
Emma held up her hands, now empty and the mindscape suddenly dissolved, and they were back in the Medlab. "Done," she said. "No nasty surprises left behind. Radha might have done something you didn't like, but she didn't do anything more than that." She tilted her head slightly, gave Haller a contemplative look. "Of everyone, you know I will never be the person to say something stupidly trite like 'what doesn't kill us, makes us stronger'. Or that anything is 'meant to be'." Emma's tone underlaid the words with cutting irony. "But perhaps this is a chance to weigh the value of what you wanted against what you made your truth. Allow yourself a little time for reflection. Or, you know," she raised an eyebrow, "spend the next few weeks in an alcoholic stupor until Radha's power wears off. Which is an equally valid lifestyle choice. And as a person who's experienced the odd recreational coma, I'd rate them at least four out of five stars for avoiding having to think about sudden changes in one's powers."
Haller gave her a wan smile. "I never had a lot of luck with comas. You go into them thinking you can give it up anytime you want, and then you wake up and suddenly you missed your own bar mitzvah." The psi rose from his chair and smoothed out clothes. As far as he could tell Emma rose from a dead sleep already immaculately put together; it was almost a relief to know that, no matter what else might have happened in his brain, her presence still gave him the urge to tuck in his shirt.
"Thanks for checking," he said. "It helps to know what I'm dealing with."
“I don’t have my sister’s gift,” said Emma. “I can’t tell Radha’s intentions by touching something she has given to one of us. But from what I did touch inside your mind, I didn’t find anything that indicated malice.” She raised one slender finger to stop anything Haller might say. “Yet. Let’s not fool ourselves that malice might not be the long game. But for now, from the little I know and have been told about, I feel that she might be trying to impress us.” Emma gave a sudden, tight smile. “Badly, in your case. But if it is a trap, I think she’s baiting it with honey, not vinegar.”
"No. She impressed me." Haller thought of the kind of person that could simply reach into the mind of another and rewrite patterns built by years of trauma as easily and impersonally as another woman would pluck a flower.
"That's why I'm so afraid."
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Date: 2023-10-25 01:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-10-26 01:15 am (UTC)