xp_logs | Paul and Nathan, Wednesday

Following this email from Domino, Paul kidnaps Nathan for the day to go climbing.

Dom had finally left him alone. Which was good, because she had been irritating him substantially with the happy, chirpy act, and the last thing he wanted was to be hauled back down to Charles' office to have his snooze button reinstalled. Flipping restlessly through one of the books he'd been looking at for that new course, Nathan finally tossed it aside, grimacing, and went over to sit back down on the couch. From her cage, Bella hooted at him, and he snorted.

"What?" he asked defensively.

"Sulky baby!" Bella proclaimed gleefully, the words Domino had thrown at him as she'd flounced out. "Sulkysulkysulkybaby!"

"She can't be talking about you," Paul said, pushing the door open more. He was dressed in a t-shirt, jeans, and boots, looking uncharacteristically casual, even a little worn around the edges. "Sulking's not exactly becoming in men our age." He gave Nathan a grin of the hard-to-resist variety.

Nathan blinked a bit warily at Paul. "I'm not sulking," he muttered finally. This was highly suspicious. How long had it been since Dom had flounced out, anyway? He shot a sideways look at the clock, then turned his attention back to Paul. "Dom just... taught her a new thing to call me, that's all. She likes doing that."

"So, are you going to sit there all day, or are you coming out to the Gunks with me?" Paul shoved his hands deep in his pockets like a teenager and leaned in the doorway, meeting Nathan's suspicious glare with complete innocence.

Nathan blinked at Paul, again. "The...Gunks." His wary gaze turned a bit confused. "Coming out? I don't..." For a minute, the 'What? Leave mansion grounds?' part of his brain found itself deeply in conflict with the 'Ooh! Climbing!' part, and he stared at Paul, at a loss for words.

"Come on, Nate," Paul tilted his head toward the hall. "You're all clear to go. It's a little overcast so I'm not going to get any prettier lying in the sun today." He gave Nathan his best appealing look with hopeful blue eyes and a little smile. "Please?"

Bella was cackling in her cage, and Nathan glared at her, even as he found himself getting up. "I, um... well," he finally said, helplessly, as he glanced down at himself. "Guess I don't even need to change."

"Car's packed," Paul said, trying to keep the triumph out of his voice with only some success.

"This is a conspiracy, isn't it?" Nathan said a bit grumpily, going over to check and make sure Bella had sufficient food and water. "Your idea?" he asked the bird darkly. She giggled at him.

"She and Delphine have plans," Paul said dryly, unperturbed by Nathan's black mood. "They want the old human men out of the way."

"Figures." Nathan let Bella nibble on his fingers for a moment, and then turned away, telling himself that excessive anxiety at the idea of leaving mansion grounds was really not appropriate. At all. "Well, lead on," he invited.

Paul led the way out to Vega, seemingly ignorant of Nathan's nervousness. The truth was, he knew it was there, and he was keeping an eye on it. He opened the passenger door for Nathan. "Did you want to grab something to eat on the way out?"

Nathan got in, then had to stop and think whether or not he'd eaten yet today. "I... probably a good idea," he said a bit vaguely. "I think I forgot breakfast."

Paul closed the door and leaned on it briefly, looking down at Nathan and shaking his head. "I think it's going to be a full-gear day," he noted before going around to the driver's seat and settling in. He looked over at Nathan before starting the car. "You're going to be fine," he said mildly.

Nathan managed a faint smile. "Climbing always did settle my nerves," he said, telling himself to focus. "I've never been to the Gunks. Did all of my climbing out west, while I was still living in the States..."

"You'll love them," Paul said, picking up the pretense that Nathan was fine again. Vega purred like a larger version of Delphine as Paul started her up and they headed out. "I think we'll stick to a five-three today. They call it the Beginner's Delight but it's really got everything you could want in it, no matter who you are. If you're good, we'll do the Layback next week. My sunglasses are in the glovebox, would you pass them over?"

Nathan leaned forward to get the sunglasses, then handed them to Paul. He leaned back against the seat, his eyes flickering around the car, taking in every detail. "A five-three would be good," he said after a moment. "I'm probably rusty."

Paul slipped the sunglasses on and settled back in the driver's seat, taking the less-travelled backroads up to the state park around the Gunks. It was supposed to be an hour by the highway and more by this route, but Paul figured it would take him maybe an hour at most the way he drove. This route was far prettier and Nathan needed relaxing scenery. "This is just for fun today anyway. Have to get the kinks out before we start taking the kids, right?"

Taking the... right. "Right," Nathan said, blinking. "I'd almost forgotten about that..." As Paul drove, the quiet started to sink in - there was hardly anyone else out on these back roads - and Nathan found himself relaxing, almost despite himself. "Last time I climbed for fun was in Patagonia," he said.

Paul noted the shift in Nathan's posture, the way he let himself relax back into the seat a little. He reached into the back and pulled out a couple bottles of water, handing one to Nathan. "Did you go alone?"

Nathan nodded. "It was... well, about a year ago. My precognition was just starting to get bad. I thought it was just stress at that point, so I figured I'd go work it off."

"Did it turn out to be as ill-considered as it sounds? The journals made it sound like you had something a little more dramatic than narcolepsy last year." Paul's tone wasn't critical, merely curious. After all, he didn't have a very good track record of taking care of things properly, at least when he was younger.

"No, it was fine. The blackouts didn't start until a while after that." Nathan gave Paul a curious look of his own, but told himself that of course Paul would have read back on the journals. Hadn't he done the same thing when he'd first arrived? "It wasn't really narcolepsy," he said after a moment. "One of the kids... Clarice, I think, came up with the term and it stuck."

Paul caught Nathan's look and smiled. "Yeah, I read back in your journal. I didn't read everyone's yet, just the really interesting ones so far. You're quite the adventure all by yourself." He turned onto an old road and they crossed an aging bailey bridge with a rattle. The sun was straining through the haze above and the trees along the road exhaled moist, green air. Climbing was going to be sweaty work in the humidity.

Nathan actually laughed. "An adventure... that's one way to put it." He flexed his wrist experimentally, deciding that yes, it would be fine. A five-three route wasn't going to be anything too challenging, after all.

---

Paul gripped a hand-worn outcropping and turned to look down at Nathan. He'd have prefered that Nathan go ahead so he could keep an eye on him but that might have been a little much to ask. It was enough that they were harnessed and following a set route, complete with quickdraws. They were high enough above the ground that the trees no longer blocked the wind or light and it was quite pleasant. Both of them were a little sweaty, warm from the work, but the breeze made that a bonus.

"How's it feel?" he asked as Nathan swung around a small outcropping and settled just below him.

Nathan looked up at him. "Not bad," he said after a moment, almost surprised to admit it. He'd settled right down to the climbing, almost as soon as they'd gotten started. His wrist was aching a little, but it was a good ache. It felt good to be up here. "Pretty good, actually," he amended, smiling.

Paul smiled back at Nathan, turning his head a little to take a sip of water from his waterpack. "You're looking good," he confirmed. He turned and reached for the next hand-hold, ignoring the pre-formed assists for less experienced, less flexible climbers. "It all comes back, doesn't it."

"It does." Nathan waited for Paul to get a little higher before he started to climb again. "Easier to focus than I expected it to be." He tested one handhold, decided against it, then reached out for another.

"Your body remembers," Paul said confidently, moving up easily. "That's got its drawbacks sometimes, but for the most part, it's a good thing. How's your head?"

"Clearer," Nathan said, still not managing to not sound a little surprised as he pulled himself upwards. "That disconnected feeling's gone. I think it helps to be outside."

"I swear," Paul said, wedging one foot in a small crack and lifting himself further. "The Earth has more than just a magnetic field. There's something about being out here, touching it, that resets the body. Or maybe I'm just an airheaded tree-hugger." He stopped to make sure that Nathan was going to make it over the slight overhang he'd just slid past, ready to lean down and offer a hand if needed.

Nathan noticed Paul's pause, but focused on getting past the overhang. "I think," he said, breathing a little hard, "I've really missed this." He made it past the overhang, and actually grinned up at Paul. "Next thing you know I'll be picking out mountains again."

Paul laughed and kept on. "Let's take it easy, okay? Moira will have my head if you break something on my watch."

"Best climb I ever did, I think," Nathan continued as they moved upwards, "was a winter climb of the Eiger with Dom. She was eighteen, and did not want to be there." The warm surge of nostalgia took him totally by surprise. "I still got hugged at the summit, though."

Paul couldn't help grinning at that and he shook his head. "That can't have been too long ago. She's pretty young still."

"Twenty-two going on forty." Nathan swung himself around another outcropping. "After that, she really took to it. Tries to give me more gray hairs with the sort of routes she tries, at times."

"She's an adventurous girl, I'll give her that much," Paul said wryly. "A lot of fun, too. Is she around often?"

"Every month or so. She's been around a little more often this summer, between her crises and mine..." Nathan pulled himself upwards. "Not that I mind," he said. "I miss her. And GW, but he can't get to the States as often."

"That's something," Paul said, stretching and making the next outcropping with a little effort. "Nice to know I'll get to see her again. She might make time in her busy schedule to come play with me again, if I'm lucky." He looked down over his shoulder at Nathan, all mischevious grin and glittering silver sunglasses.

A grunt of laughter slipped out as Nathan paused for a moment for some water. "Play is very important to Dom. Keeps her from getting bored."

"You should learn from her," Paul said sanctimoniously. Then he flipped over, hanging upside down, so that he was almost nose to nose with Nathan. From anyone else it would have been a suicidal move but Paul didn't have to listen to gravity. "You're allowed to do that, you know," he pointed out, teasing. "Play."

Nathan leaned back a bit, raising an eyebrow at Paul. "I play," he protested, the smile coming back almost involuntarily. "Look, this is me playing."

Paul laughed and swung around again. "You need practice, Dayspring," he said lightly.

"I'm working on it," Nathan said, and then rolled his eyes at his own choice of words as Paul laughed at him again. He was starting to wear down a little, and as he looked upwards, he spotted a ledge that looked sturdy and large enough for both of them. "Stop for a break up there?"

"Sure. Hungry again? I packed some Clif bars." Paul lunged for a new handhold and made it easily.

"Yeah, believe it or not." Nathan followed him up to the ledge. "Strange to actually be hungry again, these last couple of days..."

"I know what you mean." Paul slid his backpack off and flung himself down, back to the stone. "Back among the living." He rummaged around in his pack. "Chocolate? Peanut butter? Cookies and cream?"

"Peanut butter," Nathan opted, settling himself on the ledge. He took the bar, pausing to flex his wrist for a second. Sore, but still not enough to be a hindrance. "Nice view already," he said with a smile, as he looked up and out at their surroundings.

"It'll be amazing when the leaves turn," Paul said, passing Nathan a bar and taking the chocolate one himself. "I used to go climbing with a friend - off route - and I'd go ahead and leave wine and a meal at the top of the climb and then we'd start at the bottom and try and get to it." He laughed. "We didn't pick easy routes either. We'd end up getting to dinner after dark sometimes. But it was worth it."

Nathan smiled. "Sounds like a really good way to spend the day. I was always sorry Moira's not fond of heights," he said a bit wistfully. "She took a nasty fall down a cliff on Muir when she was a child, so climbing doesn't really strike her as a fun thing to do."

"Ouch." Paul winced. "You can probably guess that I love the descent as much as the climb. The faster the better, as long as I can stop when I need to. Skiing is really just throwing one's self downhill with a great deal of skill."

Nathan made a thoughtful noise, taking a bite of the bar. "I think I prefer the ascent," he confessed, once his mouth wasn't full. "Always appealed on the metaphorical level."

Paul laughed, a little bitterly. "Maybe descent seemed more natural to me, metaphorically. I grew up secure in the knowledge I was going straight to hell." He tapped one pointed ear. "For various reasons."

Nathan's jaw clenched at the note in Paul's voice, and the implications behind his words. "Never ceases to amaze me, the excuses they find," he said, his voice low as he looked away.

"I'm pretty damned," Paul said, running his fingers through his hair. "In for a penny, in for a pound, though. At least I know it'll be my sins that get me there and not my genes."

Nathan told himself to eat his Clif bar. "I was always very glad that my father never got the chance to find out I was a mutant," he said after a long pause. "I don't know what he would have made of that. How it would have fit into his particular twisted view of the world."

"I don't know what my parents thought," Paul said slowly. "I mean, I don't know how different my sister and I looked when we were born. It's not like I really have anyway to know. I've never thought about that before, honestly."

Nathan's eyes were distant as he stared out at the landscape laid out below them. "I manifested when I was... well, about thirteen, I suppose. Was living on the streets by then. I'd left home a year before."

Paul nodded slowly. "I don't know when I manifested. A doctor I know said I might have sort of grown into it. I don't have a turning point when I can say everything changed. I can say when I know things changed, just not when they really did. My sister was about your age, though."

"It was one night, for me," Nathan said with a faint smile. "I remember it so clearly. You don't forget hearing people in your head for the first time." He snorted softly, pulling back some more of the wrapper on the bar. "Funny that the telepathy came first, when my telekinesis is so much stronger."

"I didn't know I could fly for years." Paul stretched his legs and reached for his water. "I did know I could sleep in the woodshed in January in Quebec, though, and that I could take a beating. My devil-blood, of course." He grinned when he said it and there was no bitterness in his voice, just a little pride.

Nathan didn't know quite what to make of the pride. "I was thinking, before... well, before last week, about maybe looking for my family," he said after a moment. "Closure and all that. Jack was suggesting it." He smiled faintly. "I don't even know if they're still in Alaska."

"Any reason why you shouldn't? Alaska's pretty nice this time of year." Paul leaned back on the rockface, shifting until something cracked into place in his spine.

Nathan was silent for a while, thinking about it. "They were part of a cult," he finally said. "Religious Social Darwinists, I'd guess you'd call them. I didn't leave on very good terms, and I don't... look back on my childhood very fondly." And he was still not quite sure he wanted to go back and find out that he had actually killed his father that night. "I'm not even sure if the commune would still be there. It's been a long time."

"Closure's a good thing," Paul said quietly. "Even if you just go to look, see what's there. You can use all the peace you can get."

Jack had been pretty insistent that it would be a good thing, actually. "I dream about it a lot," Nathan murmured after a moment. "Almost more than I do about Mistra."

"Whenever you feel ready for it. Or maybe even when you don't, but you know what I mean." Paul tilted his head back to get the sun on his face.

Nathan nodded. "There's one thing I am going to do, closure-wise," he said quietly. "MacInnis told me they buried my wife and son; I'm going to go find the grave. I think that, at least, is something I need to do. Before... well, before I can really move on."

"Graves are important," Paul said, managing to look relaxed for all that he was lounging on stones. "Not that I go to them much, but there's something about knowing where to find someone... even if they're not there. It matters. Some kind of visceral thing, I think. It's good to go, even just the once. Saying goodbye changes things."

Nathan shook his head suddenly, giving Paul a wry look. "This morning, I was about ready to vibrate from sheer nervousness about the idea of leaving mansion grounds. Now I'm talking about heading off to California."

Paul opened his eyes and tipped his sunglasses back to look at Nathan. "You do what you have to do. Besides, the nerves were residual. You're fine, you just weren't sure you were."

"Still not positive I am," Nathan said, folding the wrapper neatly and stowing it in a pocket, "but I'll get there." He looked up at the rest of the rock face. "And we should be getting up there, shouldn't we? While the light's still good."

"We won't be long," Paul said standing and stretching, then brushing grit off the backs of his thighs. "We'll be at the top before you know it."

"Mind if I lead out this time?" Nathan asked, adjusting his backpack. "That overhang up there looks like fun, and it's cheating if I see you do it first."

"Be my guest." Paul settled his harness and safety line - the only rope they carried was the one between them - and gestured for Nathan to take the lead.