xp_logs | Three logs: Shiro, Haroun, Shinobi, and Nathan

First thing in the morning, Nathan stops by to see Shiro. Shiro isn't precisely pleased that Nathan was in contact with his mind on Friday, or with Nathan's attempt to empathize with him. But he does listen.

He had to be cracked, Nathan thought, hesitating in front of the suite where he'd been told he could find Shiro. What was he doing? It wasn't as if he'd ever had any actual interaction with the kid, apart from one minor spat on the journals, and he sure as hell wasn't in any shape to be providing a figurative shoulder to cry on. But it had been too familiar, Nathan thought again, his expression going bleak. The fear of being used, of having no options left...

He raised a hand and knocked on the door.

Shiro was sitting in the common room of his suite, dressed in a pair of sweat pants and a hoodie (an attempt to cover as much of his skin as he could), reading through a Rurouni Kenshin manga. He'd slept the entire night through and was still tired but couldn't fall back asleep. He yawned as he heard a knock at the door, and slowly got up to answer it.

"Morning," Nathan said a bit hesitantly as Shiro opened the door. He had looked in on the kid when he was unconscious in the medlab, so the black skin wasn't a shock, at least. The clear look in his eyes, though... well, that was a good thing, Nathan told himself. "I just... thought I'd stop by to see how you were."

"Hello," Shiro responded, surprised to see Nathan. He knew that he'd been one of his rescuers, but he wasn't expecting a visit. "I am . . . as well as can be expected. You don't look so well yourself, though." There's the guilt again.

Nathan managed a wry smile. "I'm fine, Shiro. Just a bit of a headache still." His smile turned a little tentative. "Mind if I come in for a couple of minutes? Not if you're tired, of course.. I could always come back another time."

Shiro shrugged and stepped aside so he could come in. It was quiet in there, the only other sound Alex's snoring coming from their room. "I have some aspirin, although you have probably consumed a few bottles of that since Friday . . ."

"I'm all right, Shiro," Nathan assured him. The headache was tolerable - just - without painkillers this morning, which was a big improvement. He did, however, take the seat Shiro offered him. Sitting down was still high on his list of things to do whenever possible. "I was... hesitating about coming to see you," he confessed quietly as Shiro sat down as well. "I know we haven't ever really talked since I've been here."

"I haven't ever really talked with anyone here," Shiro pointed out. "I think I can make a bid for most isolated resident of this mansion, in fact."

"I think there are probably one or two people who could give you a run for your money," Nathan said with a faint smile, then grew serious again. "I did want to see you, though. Partially because I was there on Friday, and..." He paused, a bit uncomfortable suddenly. He didn't know how Shiro felt about telepaths, one way or the other. "I was in contact with your mind for some time while we were flying out to get you."

Feeling suddenly uncomfortable, Shiro's hands slid up the sleeves of his shirt, and he nearly put his hood on over his head. "I was told about you, Mr. Summers, and Mr. Beaubier. Thank you for what you did, and I'm sorry for what I did to you." It was becoming almost mechanic, this apologizing, but he still meant every word of it. "And what did you see in my head?"

"Why you'd chosen to do what you were doing," Nathan said, his voice quiet, level, utterly non-judgemental. "I'm very sorry for the circumstances that brought all of this about, Shiro."

Shiro felt violated at the invasion of his mind, and stood up so he didn't have to be so close to Nathan. "Yes, well, I cannot change the past. What's done is done. I guess I was not meant to have family."

"Even now, you have more family than your roommate does," Nathan said, even more quietly.

"No. He has his brother, I have my sister, and he and I have one another. We are both orphans, and as far as I am concerned, I have no cousins. Mariko won't even return my e-mails. All I have from her is a credit card, but it's too easy for her to track me if I used it."

"And how is your sister?"

Shiro couldn't help but smile a bit at the thought of Leyu. "She is adjusting fairly well. If you haven't seen her running through the halls screaming and laughing, then you are blind and deaf."

"Children are resilient," Nathan said, his voice still low. "But that doesn't mean she isn't going to need your help."

"I know," Shiro replied, his voice growing soft as well. "She is strong, but . . . I know this will be a chore for her too."

Nathan was silent for a moment, really questioning what he'd had in mind to say to Shiro. "I told you that having been there on Friday was only part of the reason why I'm here," he said slowly.

Shiro nodded. "And the other reason?"

"The other reason is... probably rather presumptuous," Nathan said after another pause. "I hope you'll at least hear me out before telling me that, though."

Shiro stuffed his hands in the sweatshirt's pocket and looked at Nathan. "Warning noted."

"You're not the only one here who's been in that situation. Regarded as a... commodity, a tool, because of the nature of your powers." Nathan met the young man's eyes levelly. "I was fourteen years old when it started for me."

Of course. Shiro should have expected the 'I've been through the exact same thing so I know better than you' speech. He kept himself from rolling his eyes, though, and nodded to let Nathan continue.

Nathan sensed it, touchy telepathy or not, but managed not to react. "It's not... something you can ever really put behind you," he said, the words coming with some difficulty now as he had to fight the urge to make his excuses and leave. "You'll always remember it. To some extent, it will always shape how you look at yourself."

"So what do you think of yourself now?" Shiro asked, staying put but relaxing ever so slightly.

"Now?" Nathan managed a very slight, very tight smile. "My answer is probably different right now than it would have been two weeks ago, Shiro. For obvious reasons." He rubbed at his still-bandaged wrist, to buy himself a moment to organize his thoughts. "It's been... what, a week and a half since that art exhibit? I don't know if you were aware of the fact that I was trying very hard to get Pete... Mr. Wisdom to kill me. At the time it seemed like the only option, the only way to stop myself from being used any further."

Shiro shook his head and walked back to the couch, perching on the arm, his hands still in his pocket. He didn't know the whole story, as he had been in Japan. "How in control of yourself were you?"

"The conditioning was complex." His voice was a little flat, but he would have to hope that Shiro didn't misread him on that score. He wouldn't be here if he hadn't been willing to talk about it, after all. "There were obedience compulsions that ensured you stuck to orders, and tactical imperatives... basically, voices at the back of your mind that dictated the proper course of action. I shouldn't have known or cared that I wasn't acting of my volition - that's the way it's supposed to work - but they had... left me some freedom of thought. Enough for me to want, very much, to die that day."

Shiro nodded slowly, letting this sink in. Obviously, his potential as a weapon was no where near the level of Nathan, and while he still didn't appreciate the comparison, he understood Nathan's sympathy. "So now what? Now that you are free of that conditioning, how do you view yourself?"

"Right now? I don't know," Nathan said very calmly. "Who I am now, the way I think and feel... the closest approximation is my fourteen year-old self, before the conditioning, and it's far from a good parallel. I've lived all those intervening years, after all." He took a deep breath. "But I have the opportunity to find out for myself, who I am now, what I want in my life. You have the same opportunity, if you choose to take it. I hope you will."

Shiro didn't point out that that was exactly the point of Friday. "I know. I will. As long as my sister is safe and happy, then I have done my job."

His job...? Nathan was silent for a long moment, wrestling with a response to that, and to the stray thought he'd picked up about Friday. In the end, he couldn't not, he thought bleakly. He really couldn't.

"What would have happened," he started slowly, "if we hadn't gotten to you when we did on Friday?"

Shiro sighed. "Alex asked me the same question. The plan was to have just enough power to land so that I could go on living as a human. Obviously that wasn't the case, and if you hadn't arrived, I would have fallen and died, leaving Leyu-chan without any family and thereby failing her."

"Who you are," Nathan murmured. "What you want to be. It's not the same thing as what you don't want, or don't want to be, Shiro. One is a beginning, the other is an ending." There was an odd tightness in his chest that made it difficult to keep speaking, but he went on, forcing the words out doggedly. "You have more choices than you know. You may not see them right now, but you will. If you give yourself the chance."

Shiro removed his black hands from his pocket and looked at them. This deformity was the result of his desire to not be something. "I know." His voice sounded hoarse all of a sudden. "I don't know what I want yet, though."

"That's all right." Nathan managed another tight smile. "There's no deadline for answering that question, Shiro. Right now, I'd venture to say that it's more important for you to recover and spend time with your sister." He rose, the slight smile lingering. "I should let you rest. Just... keep in mind that sometimes the answers to the big questions come along and take us by surprise."

Shiro nodded, mulling this over. "Thank you, Mr. Dayspring." He remained on the arm of the couch, still contemplating his hands.

"Take care," Nathan told him, and let himself out. His hands didn't start to shake until he was safely in the hall. Time to get out of here for a bit, he thought, starting down the hall. Go try out his telekinesis, do something productive. If he hadn't blown that conversation completely to hell, it wasn't due to any particular skill on his part.

Afterwards, Nathan retreats to the quarry to see if he can aggravate his sprained brain. No, really. Haroun drops in and the two of them talk. Haroun apologizes rather gracefully and tries to reach out to Nathan, who isn't having any.

Nathan settled himself cross-legged on the grass at the edge of the quarry. He set the bottle of water to one side, along with the package of tissues - he was quite possibly going to wind up with a nosebleed again from this, so he'd decided to come prepared - and then let his hands rest on his knees as he started a breathing exercise.

In, out, carefully measured. The headache had dimmed to a dull roar this morning, even without painkillers, so he'd figured it was safe to try and ease himself back into some heavy work. Once his breathing and his heartrate were both at the right tempo, Nathan looked out at the quarry, pulling at one medium-sized boulder. He could feel the strain as he levitated it, but... no, he was okay, he thought, and added a second, then a third.

Haroun, out for a flight to clear his head and settle his emotions, saw Nathan out juggling boulders in the quarry. His conscience pricked him, and he swore to himself silently as he adjusted his course. He would watch for a while, to make sure that an inadvertant dropping-by did not end with a kilogram or four of solid rock pushed through his torso at ballistic speeds. That would _really_ wreck his day, and possibly his whole week.

Four. Five. And he was beginning to feel it - already, Nathan thought, grinding his teeth. Fuck... This couldn't be any more than several hundred pounds. This was ridiculous. He should be able to juggle a couple of dozen without breaking a sweat. Suck it up, Dayspring... He tried to add a six - and dropped all of them, a whimper escaping him at the starburst of pain behind his eyes.

Haroun landed well-away from the quarry, making sure that his descent could be heard by anyone who might happen to be nearby. Like, say, a pushing-too-hard telekinetic. He walked towards Nathan, buttoning up his mind as best he could in preparation. ~This could get ugly.~

Breathe, Nathan told himself and reached out blindly for the tissues, fumbling with the package. He pulled out a couple at once, holding them to his nose. Oh, great idea, this. Really. Moira's going to kick your ass... The sound of footsteps, someone moving throuh the undergrowth towards the edge of the quarry, distracted him from the snarling beast-headache, and Nathan looked up, his eyes watering, to see Haroun approaching.

"Fuck off," he muttered thickly, his voice muffled and somewhat nasal, thanks to the tissues. Which were soaking through with blood already, damn it.

"I will, but will you hear me out first?" Haroun said.

"So long," Nathan gritted out, "as we're perfectly clear on the fact that I can and will kick your ass, without telekinesis, if you say anything about that damned plane."

"I promise not to mention my plane." Haroun said, holding a hand over his heart. "I was ... too hard on you, earlier. Said a lot of shit I probably shouldn't have. I'm sorry."

Nathan looked up at him warily. Two Harouns, one on the left, one on the right. They both looked like they were being sincere. "Why apologize?" he said tightly, looking away. The two Harouns were making him dizzy. He tossed the blood-soaked tissues aside and grabbed a couple of fresh ones. "You were right. I did break the plane, and I wasn't helping with the landing until the engine went."

"You saved lives. Ultimately, that's more important than any dozen Blackbirds. Shit, I mentioned the plane. You want to kick my ass now?" he asked with a grin. "Seriously - you did good work up there. If it hadn't have been for you, we'd have lost Shiro, Scott, _and_ Paul."

"First rule of mountain-climbing," Nathan muttered, bending forward a little. Staying upright hurt. "The ascent is all well and good, but you still have to get down." Gritting his teeth, he picked the boulders back up. All six of them.

Haroun nodded. "Yeah, you do." he said quietly. "But pushing like this isn't going to help your power come back. You sure you should be doing this?"

"All in my head. Literally." Seven, eight. "All about willpower..." Which he hadn't exhibited, particularly, on the way back on Friday. "Pain... isn't supposed to MATTER..." Nine... ten, and he started to rotate them slowly.

"Pain is the body's way of telling you something is wrong. Yes, some of it can be ignored, but the devil always takes his due. Take it from me, man. I know a little something about pain." Haroun urged. "At least get a clean bill of psychic health before you push like this?"

"Clean... bill of health?" His breathing was getting ragged from the pain, and two of the rocks collided as he lost his rhythm. Gritting his teeth, he added another two to the circle, as punishment. "Very... funny. Guess there's... stuff that's not in my p-public file..."

"Beyond the usual crap, I mean." he said irritably. "I don't count my cybernetics, you shouldn't count the virus."

Nathan forced his eyes opened, looking up at the rocks - and hesitated, his eyes going very wide as his perceptions slid down a couple of levels. The rocks were glowing a soft gold, glittering on the inside, and Nathan let his hand fall back to his lap, ignoring the blood that was still trickling from his nose as he watched the rocks spin in something close to wonder.

Haroun looked at Nathan oddly. "Nathan, now is not the time to do something really stupid." he said. "If you break yourself, I'm responsible. Come on, man, stand down."

He could see it. If he reached out, and... it dawned on him that Haroun was right there and didn't have much in the way of defense against rock shrapnel, and Nathan sighed, letting the rocks drop again and blinking away the afterimage. "You've got a funny idea of responsibility," he muttered, his eyes narrowing against the renewed surge of pain in his head. He raised the tissue back to his nose. "Also of stupidity. What if we wound up in that situation again, a mile up this time? If Lorna or Ororo weren't there, I'd have to do it. No matter how much it hurt."

"But we're not a mile up right now. Take your downtime where you can get it. Heal, rest, so that when that Next Time comes, you might have a shot at surviving it to return to your doctor-lady." he said reasonably.

"That's what training's for," Nathan said, and got up. Or tried. His legs weren't having any of that and he sank back down onto the grass with a pained sigh. Water, he told himself, reaching for the bottle. "You were right, you know," he muttered, opening it and taking a long sip. "About the landing. Me sitting there in the copilot's seat like a lump. Scott even asked me if I could help as we headed in, and I told him he had to be kidding."

"And part of effective training is knowing when to rest, and knowing when to push on. You seem to like to push on - you've become very strong as a result of it, but you flirt with burnout. Or so you tell me." he said with a grin, sitting himself down next to Nathan. "You're no good to _anybody_ a brain-dead vegetable."

"It's all willpower," Nathan muttered, glad when he realized that the nosebleed had almost stopped. "Literally. I don't know where my limits are, precisely, Haroun. Friday..." He stopped, sighing, and took another sip of the water. "It hurt," he said tightly. "Catching the plane when the blast went off. Not right away, which is usually a bad sign. But once Paul and Shiro were back aboard, all I wanted to do was curl up in a corner and get someone to shut off the sun. Problem is," he said with a very faint smile, "I don't actually know if I pushed too hard, or whether I was just giving in to the pain."

"And that's fair." he said. "But there are ways to tell that that don't involve nosebleeds and unsupervised destruction. Where's the EEG to measure brainwave activity? Skin response, blood hormone analysis? Can't do that out here in a quarry, Nathan."

"None of the doctors can get an EEG to make any sense when it takes a look at me anymore," Nathan said, almost wryly. "As for the rest... Moira's run tests like that on me before."

"But not now." Haroun pointed out. "I know about hitting the wall and having to push yourself through it. So I'm actually sympathetic. But this doesn't seem right to me."

"None of it's right." Frustration lent him a little extra strength and he did manage to get to his feet this time. "I should have been able to catch the jet and catch Shiro, so that Paul wouldn't had have to leave the plane and get exposed to that much radiation. That's why they had me along!" His voice had risen a little; Haroun didn't so much as blink. "Remote rescue was the optimum option, and I should have been able to do it!" He laughed angrily, teetering dangerously as he bent over to snatch up the package of tissues. "So yeah," he tossed back over his shoulder as he headed in the direction of the mansion. "I screwed up. On several levels. I suppose it really is the least I can do, to be your crane-substitute for a while."

"It's a start." Haroun agreed. "And once the Jet is back online, then we can work _as a team_ on getting your range and strength back to where you think they should be." he added. "No one's gonna say no to that idea if it means that maybe we can save a few more lives, put less people at risk."

The optimism was aggravating. "Just tell me when you want heavy lifting done," Nathan muttered, pausing for a moment, resting a hand against a tree while his equilibrium settled again. "I'll sort out the rest."

Haroun put his hand on Nathan's shoulder. "We'll help you if you'll let us." he said quietly. "I'll let you know when the new engine parts arrive." He then turned around to walk out of the quarry before activating his power and rocketing into the sky.

Nathan watched Haroun rocket away, his jaw clenching. "Right," he muttered, his voice tight. "Just like eveyone always has."

On his way back inside, Nathan runs into Shinobi, who is concerned and winds up echoing some of what Haroun said. Nathan is equally unreceptive. They discuss playing pool.

He wasn't sure why he was actually coming back inside. Inside had people, and he was tired of people. Then again, outside hadn't been much better, had it? Nathan thought, in a truly foul mood as he stalked back into the mansion. His head was killing him, and he probably needed to find a sink and wash his face before someone jumped to the conclusion that he'd been in a fight.

An easy conclusion to jump to, especially this week. Unfortunately for Nathan, the mansion did have people, at least one of whom spotted him in fairly short order and blinked from their spot near the stairs. "Nathan?" Shinobi asked warily, pushing himself back up to his feet. "You alright?"

Nathan stopped in his tracks, blinking at Shinobi. "Oh, fine," he said hoarsely. "Just fine." Shinobi didn't look convinced, and Nathan started to shake his head, then thought better of it. "Ignore the blood," he muttered, starting down the hall. "Me being stupid."

"You're rarely stupid," Shinobi replied slowly, his brow furrowing as he did what any (in)sane person would do and moved to fall into step behind the very irate-seeming mercenary. "Stubborn, maybe. What happened?"

"I walked into a door. No, a tree."

"Not a door, since you were outside. Not a tree, because I didn't see any bark-colored shrapnel exploding into the sky after you broke it for getting in your way."

Nathan laughed suddenly, bitterly, as he pulled the door to the front hall washroom open and walked in, turning on the sink. He got a glimpse of himself in the mirror and couldn't help a wince. Rather more blood than he'd expected, and his skin was chalk-white, only accentuating it. Shinobi stood in the doorway, watching him with a frown, and Nathan gave him a tight smile.

"Right. Because I'm only good for explosions," he said, and then turned his attention to getting the blood off him, if not his shirt. That would take a little more effort.

"Putting words into my mouth is stupid," Shinobi observed gently, arching an eyebrow as he leant against the open doorway. "Don't tell me that ponce's whinging about Charles' plane got to you this badly?"

"He's not a ponce." His head spun as he bent over, and Nathan winced, grabbing at the side of the sink until the dizziness passed. "And he's got several very valid points about Friday, the fact that I fell asleep... okay, sort of half-passed out on the job, and my total fucking lack of subtlety."

"And he expected you to hold the plane perfectly steady with a head that isn't fully recovering from being sprained before Mistra went in and fucked with it. He's a ponce." That, as far as Shinobi was concerned, was that. "You're still on the mend, old man," he continued in a far more gentle tone, watching Nathan hold onto the sink for balance with a very small frown, but he made no move to intervene. "You sound like you're expecting yourself to be safely doing perfect roundhouse kicks with a hairline fracture in your leg, or something."

Nathan grimaced. "He apologized," he muttered. "And he still had a point. I wimped out on the landing, and just about tore the plane apart in the air..." He shut the taps off, grabbing a towel. "And I didn't get the damned job done," he gritted, looking back at Shinobi - and stopping, blinking. "You have a very funny glow," he said, his eyes wide as he studied the young man. "All glittery blue on the inside."
Shinobi blinked once, and looked down at himself. O-kay.. not glowing. Right. "I think we should go and see Moira, Nathan," he said slowly, offering him a hand with a worried frown. He could let the inadequacy issues wait. More important things to do.

"No, it's just..." Nathan stopped, his jaw clenching, and very carefully shook his head. The eerie glow faded out of everything, and he breathed out on a sigh. "Suppose it makes sense," he muttered, drying his face with the towel. "You alter your molecules. So they're a different color."

"My molecules are a glittery blue?" he asked slowly, blinking twice as he considered this. "Huh. I like blue." With a shrug, Shinobi managed a grin, though he was still clearly a bit worried. "Sure you don't need Moira to take a look at you? You look pale, and.. well, it looked like it was a hell of a nosebleed, mate."

"I'm sure." It was a good thing he'd been blocking the link, out in the quarry, or she'd be here tearing strips off him already, he was sure. "Just pushed a little hard. Need to get the TK back in shape so that I can be useful." He hung the towel back up, then turned towards the doorway, noticing that Shinobi wasn't precisely moving out of the way with alacrity.

"You realize you're bemoaning your usefulness to Mister I-Couldn't-Phase-So-I-Got-My-Ass-Kicked," Shinobi observed with wry amusement, eyeing Nathan for a moment before he took a step backwards into the hall.

Nathan eyed him, sighing. "I thought you were going to stop doing that," he murmured, shutting the light off as he moved out into the hall. The cold water had helped his level of alertness, but that only really succeeded in beefing up his appreciation of the true dimensions of the headache.

"I stopped moping about it, if that's what you mean," Shinobi replied lightly, waiting for Nathan to start walking so he could fall into step alongside him.

"Well, good," Nathan said after a moment, heading in the general vicinity of the kitchen. Food would probably be in order, despite the fact that his stomach was still a little on the queasy side, even three days after a relatively low radiation exposure. His blood sugar was probably at a level approximating the subbasement. "Moping never gets you anywhere...."

"Nor does brooding," Shinobi agreed, apparently finding the kitchenwards movement acceptable as he didn't start trying to haul the older man in some other direction. "Or any other forms of self-indulgent woe, really. It's just not productive."

Nathan gave him a sideways look. "Right," he muttered, and promptly tried to walk through the kitchen door a little off-center. "Ow... shit!" he gritted, rubbing at his shoulder. "Someone stole my depth perception," he went on through clenched teeth, proceeding into the kitchen. "Someone's going to get their ass kicked..."

Shinobi very pointedly didn't say anything about Nathan needing to kick his own ass, then, after apparently having pushed himself so hard. Instead, he gave him a light pat on the arm and moved into the kitchen, heading for the refridgerator. "When should we descend upon a pool hall, do you suppose?"

"Pool?" Nathan hesitated halfway to the fridge, then remembered. "Right... pool," he said. "Um. Soon?" He wandered more carefully in the direction of the table, slumping into a chair. "Since I'm not falling asleep at the drop of a hat anymore..."

"Progress," Shinobi agreed, opening the refridgerator and rummaging around for a drink. "Whenever you feel up to it, just let me know. No rush on it at all." He straightened enough to hold up a can of soda. "Want one?"

"Sugar and caffeine," Nathan said with a half-hearted smile. "Sounds perfect." He rested his head in his hands for a moment, taking a deep breath. "I want a new head again," he said finally.

Shinobi scooped up a second can before he closed the fridge, and crossed over to offer one can before claiming a chair for himself. "I'm sure something could be arranged, provided you didn't try to sprain the new one," he grinned.

"Maddie said she was fresh out," Nathan said, taking the can of soda. He stared down at it for a moment, pondering the tab. A flicker of telekinesis, and it popped neatly, accompanied by a fresh stab of pain behind his eyes and a trickle of blood from his nose. "Shit," Nathan muttered, pushing himself up out of the chair and heading over for a paper towel. "That's really pitiful."

"I'm going to be forced to tattle on you," Shinobi sighed, watching Nate as he popped his own soda in a much more mundane fashion. "You're bleeding in Lorna's kitchen, on top of everything else."

"It's not going to get better if I leave it alone," Nathan said almost crossly, before he really thought about what he was saying. Shinobi was doing the thing with his eyebrow again, and Nathan glowered at him. "Well, it's not."

"It's not going to get better if you keep aggravating the sprain, either," Shinobi observed, bringing his soda up for a drink. "Moira'll tell you the same thing. Ask her."

Not an actual nosebleed. Just a token 'don't do that!' warning. Nathan stuffed the paper towel in the garbage and came back over, sitting down hard in his chair. "I need to learn to be more discreet," he said, unable to keep the faintly wild edge out of his voice. "Already hearing the 'Oh, what did Nathan do now?' comments."

"Patience more than discretion, I think," Shinobi smiled, watching Nathan over his drink with a poorly-hidden expression of fond exasperation. "The last.. well, several months, really.. haven't been very easy on your head. And after the exertion you had to endure on Friday, it's no wonder you're having trouble with a can of soda. A lesser man would probably be comatose."

Shinobi was giving him one of those looks again. Nathan sipped his soda instead of answering right away. "Caffeine and sugar," he finally muttered. "Food of the gods."

"Right up there with ice cream," he agreed, propping his chin up in a hand. "If only one could safely rely on nothing but them for their diet."

"There are probably people around here whose metabolisms would let them get away with that," Nathan said, taking another sip. "Not mine, sadly." He really ought to be drinking more water, but he'd been doing ridiculous amounts of that since Friday.

"Nor mine, as far as I know," Shinobi replied mournfully, pouting down at his drink. "Alas. I shall have to stick to the reasonably healthy diet and exercise schtick."

"I got off-track with the diet again," Nathan said, thinking about it for a moment. "Well, Rahne fed me oatmeal. I suppose that's healthy." First he'd been too busy sleeping, then too tense, then too headachey and vaguely-nauseous to think much about food. It hadn't been a good week for eating properly.

"Rahne is very good at that," Shinobi grinned. "She makes excellent oatmeal. I should make eyes at her for some bars, now you mention her.. could take 'em with me on my morning run, for breakfast."

"Still doing that?" Nathan took another sip of his soda. "That's something I should get back to," he said with a sigh. "My usual exercise routine, I mean."

"Now that I'm used to it, I like it," Shinobi nodded. "Even if it makes Sarah sure I've gone at least a little mad, but I think we already knew I was, honestly."

"She tell you she dragged me back inside the other day? I met Oscar." Nathan smiled a bit. "Cute puppy. Licked me a lot."

"She might have mentioned something about it," Shinobi chuckled, nodding and grinning brightly. "Oscar does that. He's getting better about slobbering on people, though, which is good, because he'll be much more slobbery when he's bigger."

Nathan caught himself resting his head in his hands again. But it was overly heavy, damn it. "I should have been doing class work instead of juggling boulders," he muttered. "Priorities, priorities..."

"You can do class work once you finish your soda," Shinobi offered reassuringly, bringing his own soda up for another drink. "Go up to the new suite, let Moira know what happened, and sit down for some nice, relaxing course planning."

"Moira's got enough other stuff on her mind." Nathan pulled the tab off the can - physically, this time - and turned it over between his fingers. "But yeah. I think I'll finish the soda and go... pick readings or something. The day needs to be productive somehow."

"Moira loves you," he countered gently, giving Nathan a patient look. "And she's here to help all of us with our powers. That includes you. She should know where your limits currently are so she can plan your rehabilitation accordingly."

"Haroun was at me on the subject, too," Nathan muttered, finishing the soda and getting up to dispose of the can. "Finding my limits properly. Not messing around on my own. I wish he'd make up his mind as to whether I'm incompetent, lazy, or just ignorant."

"He's a ponce," Shinobi replied patiently, with a shrug. "Focus on me suggesting you talk to your pretty, pretty girlfriend, and not on him. I'm much prettier, anyway."

"I'm just tired of people..." Nathan bit back the words that would have followed, a noise that was half-frustrated, half-pained escaping him. "Never mind," he said distractedly, putting the can in the recycling box. "Point, everyone's got a point..."

Shinobi seemed content to let Nathan abort whatever he was going to say, remaining seated and worrying about finishing his own drink as Nathan tossed his own can away. He considered asking if Nate was okay to make it up the stairs unassisted, but no, he'd probably been pushing it a little as it was. Ah, well.

"Pool," Nathan said, a bit hesitantly as he looked at Shinobi. "Soon? At least you know I can't cheat, with no TK..."

"I wasn't worried about you cheating anyway," Shinobi grinned, meeting Nate's gaze without any discomfort to be seen. "You just tell me when you want to go play, and we can go play."

"That'd be good," Nathan said, mustering a faint smile as he headed in the direction of the door. "I'll see you later."