xp_logs | Nathan and Haroun, Friday evening

After Nathan helps with the last major repairs on the plane, he and Haroun go out for that promised beer. They have an unreasonable amount of fun with a table full of FOHers, until Nathan happens to pick up on something more serious - a young mutant posing as a Friend of Humanity and planning something very unfortunate. He and Haroun intervene to talk him out of it, and give him a contact number before heading back to the mansion to inform Charles.

Haroun leaned back in his chair, and looked out over the crowd at Harry's. "Good work today." he said affably to Nathan. "Got all the really ugly stuff done. All that's left is the systems integration and fully hooking up the engine. Then we can do burn-in tests, and then take the 'Bird skywards again."

"Thanks," Nathan said, just as amiably, and sipping cautiously at his beer. Moira had warned him not to overdo it tonight, after this afternoon's exertion. Apparently the Askani had done funky enough things to his metabolism that alcohol was going to hit him harder as a matter of course. Given that he didn't really want Haroun to have to carry him home, he was perfectly all right with restraining himself. "Not anywhere near as hard as I thought it would be. But then, Moira and Hank did say it was the blast, not the weight, that did me in the first time."

Haroun grinned. "That's a positive sign, then. That it wasn't as hard as you thought it was going to be. Guess you've finally recovered from that brain-sprain."

"Two weeks," Nathan said wryly. "Not bad even by the standards of real sprains, I suppose." He lifted his glass again. "You've done a hell of a job to get the plane almost fixed in that amount of time. Have you actually slept in that two weeks, or...?"

"Sleep is for lesser organic beings." he said in a robotic monotone, then spoiled it with a grin. "A few hours, here and there."

"Sleep specialists could probably have a field day at the mansion, you know. The number of us that don't sleep and yet still manage to be perfectly functional... well, mostly," Nathan said wryly. "I found out back in July that I can go for about a week without any, but then I start mentally overlapping with my ghosts."

Haroun blinked. "I imagine that that's probably a Bad Thing." he said, then took a swallow of his beer. "And I got smart this time - I ordered food. So that _somebody_ who shall remain nameless won't have to stagger around and upset his alcoholic doctor lady friend with his beer breath." he grinned. "Nachos and cheese fries. American man food."

"Excellent idea. I do so hate having to sleep on the couch. And I've always had a fondness for nachos," Nathan said cheerfully. "But yeah, the not-sleeping or eating for a week was a bad thing. My first real Stupid Telepath Trick." Because they were nicely secluded in a corner booth and no one else in Harry's had a clear view of their table, he indulged himself and floated half a dozen pretzels into a discreet little dance.

Haroun grinned, both at the confession and the pretzel conga line. "Nice." he said, forking a platefull of cheese fries onto his appetizer plate and nibbling from them. He made sure to get the cheese fries with no bacon bits - he wasn't prepared to offend Allah quite _that_ much. "Must be a big attraction to the ladies - come and see the dancing pretzels!"

"Oh, last time it was pickles. Moira just about had a coronary laughing at me." Nathan looked up at Haroun with a smirk. "Equal sizes and weights, though. I'm being lazy again."

Haroun looked around the bar. "Perhaps, but Harry's isn't the place to go and get all complicated." he said. "I rather like this den of sin and iniquity, and I'd like to be welcome to offend Allah here when I feel the need to. Getting kicked out or starting a brawl with a FOHer is not my idea of a long-term good time."

"Aw, but you got to have your fun in the parking lot the last time," Nathan said with a grin, floating the pretzels back into the bowl as the waiter approached, and turning his attention to the nachos.

Haroun waited for the waiter to refill their beers and replenish their pretzel supply before speaking again. "True. You looking to exorcise a little frustration on the body of some racist asshole, or are you going to wait for them to make the first move?"

"I don't generally go looking for bar fights," Nathan protested, then wondered why his nose hadn't grown half a foot as soon as the words were out of his mouth. "Well, not here," he confessed with a grin. "Like you said, it's nice to be able to come back here."

Haroun grinned, and then ate another forkfull of cheese fries. "Smart man." he said once his mouth was empty. Looking around the bar's crowd, he saw more than a few FOH pins, and even a T-shirt or two. "Because if you really wanted to scratch that itch, it looks like tonight is the night. Lots of assholes in the crowd here."

"You know what's really fun?" Nathan asked, his eyes flickering around the bar. "Creative TK applications. Tip over a glass of beer here, yank back a stool there. Drive the assholes into a nervous frenzy without ever actually showing your hand."

"A training exercise." Haroun mused. "How nuts can you drive that table of FOHers over there without revealing ourselves and without using telepathy in any way. But please - if we're going to do this, make sure that they're drinking cheap beer. Fun is fun, but there's no call at all for wasting good beer like that."

"Miller Light," Nathan said with a snort. "I think we're safe." He watched the table of FOHers in his peripheral vision, assessing the possibilities. A lot of condensation on the pitcher of beer, he thought, and very slowly drew some of it up towards the handle. In a couple of minutes, one of them went to pick the pitcher up and cursed, jumping back up out of his chair as it slipped out of his grasp and tipped over, saturating the table.

Haroun snickered as he munched on cheese fries, then washed it down with a healthy mouthfull of beer. "Impressive." he grinned. "I think one of them over there managed to miss the beer spill." he helpfully pointed out. "And he's wearing suspenders. Can -you- say wardrobe malfunction?"

Nathan gave Haroun his best angelic smile - which, according to Moira, was one of the more frightening expressions in his arsenal - and telekinetically unclipped first one suspender, then the other. "Tell me he's turning red," he said, listening to the man yelp. "I don't dare look."

Haroun glanced over, and then snickered. Quietly. "Oh my. Man his size should _not_wear that kind of underwear. I think I'm going to need to have my eyes replaced next." he said with an exaggerated shudder, then tried to burn the memory out of his mind with a large swallow of beer. "Now we let things quiet down somewhat."

"Don't want to overdo it," Nathan agreed. "Proper pacing is important. I once drove a couple of dozen members of the Russian mafia out of a bar in Kuznetsk using similar tactics."

"Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of people. For a ltitle while there, I was helping smuggle mutants out of Morocco. Came across a young telekinetic - not very strong, but very dexterous with his power. Ever see a mullah trip over his own robes? Funniest thing I'd seen in days. I did, however, have to stop him from using it to peek up the skirts of Western women." Haroun remembered with a grin.

Nathan grinned back, liking the mental image. "Strength and dexterity don't naturally go together, with the TK," he said after a moment, thoughtfully. "If you have the former, it takes a hell of a lot of work to get the latter. I flatter myself I've made a lot of progress, especially since I met Moira, but if I get particularly angry the furniture still rattles."

"They were going to train that boy to be a killer. Last I heard, he's living under an assumed name on a kibbutz in Israel, if you can believe that. Changed religions and everything." Haroun said. "I was glad I was able to get him out. Makes up for some of the ones I couldn't."

"That's the other thing about that particular ability," Nathan said, a bit more bleakly. "Too damned valuable. I'm glad you got him out."

"So am I." Haroun agreed, then hoisted up his glass in salute to that telekinetic boy in Israel. "Gah. Too dark a thought to be having on a night like this. We've got a puddle of beer under a table full of FOHers, one of them wears skimpy underwear and wears a size 60 pants, and life, for the moment, is good."

"So it is," Nathan said, raising his own glass as he let his mind roam around the room a little, assessing reactions to the small disaster at the FOH table. Amused thoughts, mostly. The FOHers themselves were... his face froze. "Well," he said after a moment in a very different voice. "Fuck me."

Haroun blinked over from his Haroun mindset to his Jetstream mindset instantly. "Talk to me, Cable. What's going on?" he said, trying to be cautious as he looked around the bar for whatever had set Nathan off.

#The youngest of the mutant-hating assholes at that table? Is a mutant.# Nathan's eyes narrowed and he brushed up against the young man's thoughts a little more intently, trying to figure out what was going on. The kid's thoughts were confused, agitated, not all that coherent despite the fact that he seemed outwardly calm, if mildly aggravated by the spilling of the beer. #Feels like he's high on something, too.#

#Any idea as to his ability?# he thought back, forcing himself to relax and eat some nachos. #And see if you can get a name - we should tell Charles.#

He had been getting somewhat more comfortable with active scanning because of the lessons with Charles. All of that tenuous comfort had vanished, after his latest misadventures with Mistra, but Nathan's jaw clenched as he forced himself to push a little deeper into the kid's mind.

#Neil... Neil Siegel,# he sent to Haroun, blinking a little rapidly as the chaos in the kid's mind pushed at him almost like a physical force. Fire, all kinds of fire images... #Damn. I think he's pyrokinetic.#

#Shit.# swore Haroun mentally. "So - do you have anything lined up for the weekend between you and your lady doctor friend?" he asked in a friendly tone. #Back out of his head - the last thing we need is to burn Harry's down because the kid reacted badly to a mindprobe.#

"Nothing special," Nathan said, very slowly doing just what Haroun had suggested. He was not nearly experienced enough to be messing around like this. Best to just report to Charles and let him look into it. "Although we were talking about another tango lesson. She really enjoyed that the last..." He trailed off, unable to keep his eyes from widening as a surge of thoughts and images pushed out at him from the kid's mind. "That's why he's high," he whispered, stunned.

Haroun stood up and threw a few bills down on the table. "Time to go. Now." he said to Nathan, clutching at the larger man's arm. "We don't want to cause a scene, remember? Nice and slow, just two friends getting ready to head home." he said in a very low voice.

"Right," Nathan said, trying to wipe the stunned look off his face. #He's going to kill them,# he sent as he rose. #Once they leave. First them, then himself. I'm not sure why - there's another face in his mind. A girl.#

#Can you stop him?# he thought over to Nathan. #Or can you telepathically call Charles, and have him do it?# "Well, that was tasty." Haroun said aloud, stretching somewhat.

#Let's get outside. I can't do anything from in here - too crowded.# Nathan mustered a good facsimile of a smile as they headed for the door. "We need to do this more often," he said, for the benefit of any listening ears.

"We do. We don't get out nearly often enough." Haroun agreed as he made his way through the crowd. #Away from the crowds. Can you compel him to head outside?#

Outside, the cool night air hit him like a slap in the face, sharpening the slight mental fuzziness brought on by the beer and the close encounter with the kid's drugged thoughts. "Let's go around back," Nathan said quietly. Once they did, he leaned back against the building, closing his eyes. Concentrating hard, he picked out Neil's mind from the crowd inside - much easier, now that he wasn't in the middle of it himself. "Wouldn't you like to get some air?" he murmured, projecting that as subtly and forcefully as he could.

Haroun leaned up against the wall casually, but his body was tense and alert. "I don't suppose you happened to bring your comm, did you?" he asked as he patted through his pockets. "I seem to have left mine back in my room."

"Did the same thing. Suppose that makes us both forgetful... " Nathan's eyes snapped open as he felt the kid's thoughts shift into the desired pattern. "There," he said. "Don't think I could have done that unless he'd been high. He's suggestible."

"Then we may have hope that you can make this kid put his deathwish aside for a little while, until we can get Charles involved?" asked Haroun. "And Scott is going to chew our _asses_ for leaving the comms at home. We both should know better. Hell, I'm not even _armed_."

"Ass-chewing later. Murder-suicide prevention now," Nathan said, straightening as he sensed the kid coming around the building. #Over here, Neil,# he projected gently.

The kid appeared around the corner, blinking at both of them. "Who--who the hell are you?"

"Relax." Haroun said in as nonconfrontational a tone as he could muster to the boy. "We just want to talk."

Neil stared at him, then at Nathan. "You - was that you, in my head?"

Nathan nodded. "Which makes me a mutant," he said calmly. Neil didn't react, which was interesting. "Like you. I was a little surprised to realize who you are and yet see you hanging around with your buddies back in there."

Neil's expression went flat. "They're not my 'buddies'."

Haroun let Nathan do all the talking. Internally, he 'woke up' the flight computer, and got it ready to go at a moment's notice - hoping the kid wouldn't notice the slight shifting in his back. To help this, Haroun shifted slightly so as to use Nathan's bulk and his own to better hide the preparatory adjustments.

"You should have come over to our table, then," Nathan said with a smile. "We'd have been much better company."

"It's not about company." Neil shook his head and looked back over his shoulder. "You shouldn't have made me come out here," he said, uncannily, and Nathan's eyes widened a little. "You did, didn't you? If you were in my head, you know..."

"Yeah." Nathan watched him for a moment, assessing. "Can I talk you out of it?"

Haroun kept a close eye on the kid - having been in these sorts of situations before, he knew how volatile the boy was - and when you couple in substance abuse, any one of a number of unpleasant things could happen. He tried very, very hard to forget that he was a pyrokinetic.

Neil actually looked surprised. "Why would you... don't you know what they do?" he blurted.

"Oh, I don't give a damn about them," Nathan said lightly. "Seriously. It's seeing that it was going to be the last thing you did that worried me."

Neil's face crumpled, making him look years younger. "Didn't see the point," he said numbly. "I mean, I'd just be a mutie killer if I just did it and walked away, wouldn't I?"

"Strictly speaking, you'd be a mutie killer one way or the other," Nathan said, almost briskly. Inwardly, though, he was not at all encouraged. The kid's logic was appallingly bad, but the fact that it was there meant that he'd turned this over in his head often enough that he'd convinced himself of it.

"Maybe I'd just rather it all be over with," the kid muttered.

Haroun smiled at the kid. "There are ways to get help." he said. "People to talk to, who can protect you, teach you how to use your gift."

"But I don't..." Neil shook his head restlessly. "I don't get why you'd be trying to talk me out of it," he said stubbornly. His eyes were wild, suddenly, and Nathan straightened, gritting his teeth. "They don't just talk about doing all this shit, you know. They do it. Just like they did back in Illinois..."

"Illinois," Nathan said, his eyes narrowing. "Home?" Neil nodded after a moment, and Nathan concentrated, trying to sort through the impressions he'd gotten while he'd been in the kid's mind. "You... left? Came here?"

"Dad kicked me out of the house." A whole world of suppressed misery in the words. "I had it under control, but he didn't care. Then Sammy didn't want anything to do with me anymore..."

"It's a hell of an accomplishment, you know," Nathan said quietly when the kid fell silent again. "Getting pyrokinesis under control."

Neil looked up at him. "Is it?" he asked dully. "I know that's what you call it - I looked it up on the internet - but I couldn't find much else about what to do."

"I know a pyrokinetic." Haroun added. "Name's John. Would it help you to talk to someone who has the same gift you do? To know that you're not alone, that there are other people out there who have been through what you have been through?"

#He's thinking,# Nathan sent to Haroun. #I don't think he really wants to do this.# When Neil didn't answer Haroun right away, Nathan stepped smoothly into the silence. "There's something else, you know," he said seriously.

Neil blinked at him. "What?" he asked hesitantly.

"What good is it going to do? To get rid of a handful of the assholes, not to mention yourself." Nathan smiled tightly. "You've seen what the FOH do in a couple of places, now. There are people who spend a lot of time and energy trying to stop them everywhere. Not just in one local chapter. They could probably really use what you've learned."

"I... I never thought of that," Neil said uncertainly. "But..."

"No buts," Nathan said, quietly but firmly. "You were tough enough to get your mutation under control on your own, without any help. You were tough enough to infiltrate a bunch of murderous bigots, all on your own. Think about what you could do with help, Neil."

"The help is out there, if you want it." added Haroun. "Just say the word, and we can put you in touch with somebody who can really help you. There's nothing to be ashamed of."

"I... I don't..." Neil started. Nathan was reinforcing Haroun's words and his own telepathically, as much as he dared, and again, the suggestability brought on by the drugs, whatever the kid had taken, was working in his favor. "I can... wait," Neil finally said, sounding almost surprised at himself. "If you really think.. I should talk to this person."

"What would be better?" Nathan said, immediately pulling his wallet out of his pocket. He had to have something suitably anonymous he could write a phone number on. "Giving you a phone number, or getting yours?"

Neil was silent for a moment. "Both?" he finally suggested, almost tentatively.

Nathan looked up, locking eyes with the kid as he felt his thoughts shift again, into a different, much less frightening pattern. #Got him,# he sent to Haroun with profound satisfaction. "Both it is," he said, ripping a business card from a restaurant in half and then pulling out a pen. #He doesn't actually want to die.#

#Fantastic. Once we're sure that he and the FOH scumbags are safe, we need to go report this conversation.# Haroun thought back. "You're doing the right thing." Haroun said verbally with a smile.

"You... you really think so?"

"Absolutely," Nathan said, handing over the pen and the torn business card so that Neil could write his own phone number done. He used the brief physical contact to snatch a few more details out of the kid's mind - his address, primarily, and some more about how he'd been planning his grand gesture, to be able to tell Charles.

Neil scrawled a phone number done and handed that half of the business card and the pen back, his hands a little unsteadily. "I should... go back in. Before they come looking for me."

Haroun nodded. "We'll be in touch soon. Just keep your head down and your ears open." he said with a grin.

"Yeah, okay," Neil muttered, then gave Nathan one last quizzical look before he turned to head back into the bar.

Nathan sighed, his shoulders slumping as the kid moved out of earshot. "Fuck. Home, I think?" he said, feeling definitely light-headed. "Going to have to let you drive - that was a little more telepathy than I'm used to."

Haroun grinned. "I perfected my driving skills in Morocco. This will be fun." he said, and then started to walk over to the parking lot. "Good work with the kid." he said after a few moments.

Nathan nodded. "He didn't really want to do it. Not deep down." It was something of a relief to sit down, once they reached the car. "I wouldn't have had much luck if he had. He just didn't think he had much in the way of options and was trying to do something... well, good."

Haroun nodded. "I've seen that sort of thing before. Such kids usually wind up very dead, either from getting their wish or pushing too hard too fast."

Nathan glanced sideways at Haroun, mustering a wry smile. "Chance... just pure dumb chance that I picked up on him in the first place. We definitely need to go out drinking and looking for trouble more often."

Haroun mock-scowled. "I can only apologize to Allah so fast, you know." he said with a teasing grin. "Maybe we can point that kid to - crap, what's it called? That thing that Jamie started up? That."

"HeliX?" Nathan thought about it for a moment, then nodded. "Once Charles conclusively talks him out of suicide, yeah." Haroun started the car, pulling out of the parking lot. "That was what got to him, you know," Nathan said after a pause. "The idea of turning around and sticking it to the FOH. His father... his father was a member."

Haroun nodded again. "I got that impression. And that's a terrible thing for a father to do to his son." His driving skills were an interesting blend of Formula 1 and total suicidal abandon.

"I'm getting very tired of fathers who can't handle their children being mutants," Nathan said wearily, grimacing a bit as Haroun took the next curve at a ridiculous speed. "Or who can't handle being fathers to their children, period. One of these days I'm going to go on a killing spree. You just watch."

"Either that or become one yourself, so you can eat your own words." he agreed cheerfully, putting the petal to the floor Just Because. "I need to get my own car."

"I was," Nathan said quietly, staring out the window. "And I suppose, in the end, I wasn't much of one myself."

"Don't start." warned Haroun. "We have a no-angst rule for these outings, remember?"

Nathan glanced in the direction of the driver's seat, shaking his head. "Point taken. Although that rule's been blown all to hell tonight, hasn't it?" He sighed, shaking his head again, more forcefully, as if to rid himself of the lingering feel of Neil's thoughts. "I do not," he said almost vehemently, "like being a telepath."

"Genetics are shitty that way." agreed Haroun. "I really don't like being maladapted to my own mutation. Life sucks that way. I like to think of it as a challenge given to me by God. I know you're a filthy unbeliever, but it's still true. It's a challenge - there's a lot of good you can do with telepathy. Look at Charles."

"I know that intellectually," Nathan countered. "It's a question of overcoming my gut reaction. Telepaths, empaths... up until this year I've never encountered any that weren't either psychotic bastards or just really ruthless about doing their jobs."

"Well, now you know one, and are in a position to train others." he pointed out. "Net benefit for you, yes?"

Nathan laughed wryly. "Don't think I'll be trying to train any more fellow psis for the time being," he said. "Unless we have a telekinetic student show up."

"If nothing else, you can always serve as a bad example!" Haroun laughed, and took the next several turns at feeling-the-car-shift fun-with-physics speeds.

Lunatic, Nathan thought again, unable to help a smile. Definitely a lunatic.