xp_logs | Nathan and Cain, Saturday night

After talking to Moira over IM, Nathan wanders down to the boathouse and finds Cain watching the Mets game. Cain listens rather patiently, gives him a couple of much-needed kicks in the ass, and lets him crash on his couch.

It was such a relief to be out of the mansion. The atmosphere was so much clearer out here, so much less oppressive. He didn't feel like they were hammering at his skull any longer. So the walk was definitely worth it, despite the way his leg was aching. Reaching the door of the boathouse, Nathan knocked a bit tentatively at the door.

That had -better- not be anyone between the ages of eleven and twenty, Cain thought. He wasn't answering the door if it was anyone younger than Alison or older then Miles. He heaved himself off the couch and stomped to the door. "Yeah?" he said, tossing the door open without bothering to look through the peephole. "Oh. Nate. Want a beer? You look like you could use one."

"Might pass on the beer. It would probably put me on my ass at this point," Nathan said, concentrating a little harder on making sure he spoke in English. Cain wasn't the type to tolerate babbling in Askani. "Could sure as hell use some quiet though. Kid-free quiet. You don't have any hiding in there, do you?"

Cain snorted, loudly. "Yeah, I'm smuggling the little bastards by the case so they can go be idiots some more." He shrugged and stepped aside so Nate could come in. "I can't promise the quiet too much, I got the Mets game on."

"The Mets I can handle," Nathan said, limping through the door. He spotted a rather fearsome array of snacks on the coffee table and presumed that meant Cain had been using the couch, so he went over and collapsed in one of the enormous armchairs. "Just didn't want to hang out in my rooms," he muttered, slumping. "No more knocks on the door. I am out for lunch. A very long, long lunch."

"Like I'd blame you. I'm not touching that shit with a ten foot pole, and Chuck pushing. " Cain resumed his slumped position on the couch, and propped his feet on the coffee table. Reinforced furniture. Made life so damn much easier.

"Smart man," Nathan said with a sigh and a dismissive wave. "I'm going to sit here and bask in your common sense."

"Common sense ain't." Cain said. "Half those damn kids would get themselves killed for nothing." He shook his head, scowling. "Ain't no way we were that stupid... Glavine! Goddamit, throw the fucking ball, don't just hand it to Lofton! JESUS!" His attention snapped to the television, where things more important than stupid teenagers were - the Mets were fucking it up. Again.

Nathan's eyes drifted to the television. "I missed baseball," he observed suddenly. "The last seven years, I mean. They've got good hockey in Europe, but no baseball."

"Hockey is doing three things at the same time. Ice skating, boxing and playing with a urinal cake." Cain offered, laughing. "More of a football guy myself, but its the subway series. They boot you out of New York if you grew up here and don't watch."

"Mmm," Nathan said dimly. Quiet. It was so quiet in here, even with the television and Cain shouting. "I should take Moira to a baseball game. Hotdogs and big...foam hand-things."

"And roasted peanuts. I keep thinking I should ask Alison if Kermit's been to see a baseball game yet." Cain paused, then frowned at himself. Getting all attached to any of those kids was just gonna bite him in the ass. Even the little green one. "Hell, the doc might like a good ball game, but if you take her to see the Yankees..." he grinned, and made a punching gesture.

Nathan actually smirked, briefly, raising a defensive hand. "Point taken." He let the hand fall - too much energy to keep it up in the air. "Alison's doing better," he said after a moment. "Sat with her for a while this afternoon. Starting to seem a little more like herself already."

"Good." Cain shrugged, shaking his head. "Gettin' all busted up in Chuck's little army. " He sighed. "I don't know what's stupider. Boney's little revenge mission, or the X-army going to get her."

"Oh, but you don't get it, Cain," Nathan said with a grandiose gesture, nearly knocking over the lamp on the table next to the chair. "No-win situation. All around. They couldn't leave her to die, but they're never going to live down having gone in there to save her."

"Yeah, yeah. Ain't like she's gonna be grateful, or like any of those kids are gonna get why folks are so riled up." Cain rolled his eyes. "And Chuck's gonna have some speech about how they did the right thing and should be proud of themselves, or something equally high-handed like that. Its still stupid and gonna get someone's ass killed."

Nathan rubbed at his eyes. They still didn't seem to want to quite focus. Cain had it very dim in here. Which was nice. "It's no different," he said dully. That fucking email... who had he been kidding? None of those kids had been about to rat on Sarah, and he'd had shit for brains to think otherwise. "Here, or back at Mistra. Worse here, maybe. They don't even see what they're throwing away."

"All that preaching about respect life, and half those kids don't respect their own." Cain snorted, attention half on the game, and half on Nathan. "Don't make sense, ain't -ever- gonna make sense, and you'll give yourself an aneurysm trying to make it make sense."

Nathan closed his eyes, letting the air in his lungs out on a sigh. He listened to the game, and Cain's occasional comments, for a while. The chair, though huge, was pretty damned comfortable. If he could have just let his mind drift, made it stop running around in little circles, he might have dozed off pretty easily. But that wasn't going to happen. Just like it hadn't happened every day since... no, not going there. With a pained grimace, he opened his eyes again, sitting up straight.

"Did you hear I dunked Angelo in the lake?" he asked.

Cain barked out a short laugh. "Yeah. Caught wind of him being eleven kinds of pissed with you." He gestured in the direction of the lake. "Don't let those kids whining get to you. Ain't a single one of those kids who wouldn't be improved by a good dunking."

"Doesn't work that way," Nathan muttered. Fuck, his head was starting to pound. The Askani were buzzing away again. He wished that if they weren't going to talk they'd just shut up entirely. "If I'd just stopped to think before I did it..."

"Kid'd be just as mad, Nate. No matter what you do to those kids, they don't see reason. Why the -hell-" Cain smacked one fist onto the arm of his couch. "are you beating yourself up over that kid?"

"Because he is a kid!" Nathan said, more loudly than he'd intended. Cain didn't seem bothered, and he went on, the words coming out frustrated, bitter. "Because I lost my fucking temper with him and now I'm just one more adult he can't trust anymore. Not to mention that it's made the rounds, and most of them have been glaring at me every time they walk past me in the hall, thinking at me like I'm the enemy, and if I'd just treated them like kids from the start it wouldn't have mattered! There'd have been nothing to disappoint them about!"

"So, you're beating yourself up because you treated a bunch of teenagers like they had something like sense." Cain snorted. "Yeah, I can see that. They're teenagers. Assume they're morons, and then trust 'em when they don't act like it. " He shrugged. "I ain't gonna say I told you so."

Nathan laughed a bit weakly. "Oh, why not? Tell me you told me so. Would make more sense than what Jack told me. Or Charles continuing to refuse to fire me." He laughed again, slumping even farther in the enormous chair. "I have a hard time imagining any of the other teachers at this school had a first couple of weeks this disastrous."

"Jesus, Nate. A couple of those kids, maybe they might see sense. But half of 'em.. " He shook his head. "You think those other teachers didn't want to do the same damn thing? Hell, Summers probably wanted to." Cain paused. "Shit, sometimes you gotta dunk a stupid ghetto monkey in the lake."

Nathan glared at him and started to push himself up out of his chair. He moved too fast, though, and he was barely on his feet before his balance deserted him. He managed to fall back into the chair rather than forward onto the floor, at least. Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried to breathe deeply, push the emotions away. "Not willing to risk it," he said heavily, finally. "Except for a couple of them, I'm done with trying that hard. All I seem to do is screw them up."

"Couple of 'em might be worth if, it they get their heads on straight." Cain offered, reluctantly. "But some of those kids, they gotta see reason by thmselves before you can do anything. Its like.. . " He gestured towards the television. "Its like trying to get the Mets to take a Series. Ain't no use in rootin' for them until they get their own crap in gear."

Nathan slumped in the chair. "Yeah," he said dully. "Can't make them grow up, can you?" He looked at Cain, who was still dividing his attention between the conversation and the baseball team. "You mind if I crash on your couch or something tonight?" he asked, remembering Moira's suggestion. "The house is driving me insane. I can't handle it anymore."

Cain shrugged. "No skin off my nose." He glanced over a shoulder, as if checking for someone listening. "Don't eat the Berry Cheerioes. They belong to Kermit." He said, matter-of-factly.

"Not to worry," Nathan muttered, staring at the television. "My appetite ran away to Aruba along with my judgement. I'm sure they're having a great vacation."

"I swear, what is it with you people? You make one mistake, and you guilt yourself into not eating, not sleeping. Christ, Ramsey and Six-pack gotta better set of coping mechanisms than some of you teachers."

Nathan gave him an irritable look. "It's not making a mistake. Been having insomnia and not wanting to eat since the Askani moved in. It's just bad this week."

Cain scratched his head. "Lousy houseguests, if you're telling them "Hey, I'm not sleeping or eating here." and they still don't let up." he shrugged. "You should make 'em pay rent, if they're gonna keep you from eating."

"Right," Nathan said, and glanced at the television as someone - not a Met - hit a home run. "Whoops," he said.

Cain sighed. "You'd think I'd just root for the Yankees, like every other New Yorker with half an ounce of sense, but I keep coming back to my Mets." He shrugged, and gestured at the game. "I suppose that says something about me."

Nathan eyed Cain for a moment. "More than you'd probably like," he observed, almost dryly.