xp_logs | Nathan and Haroun, Saturday afternoon

Nathan stops by to check on Haroun the day after the accident in the Danger Room. His turn to try and dole out advice, but not unexpectedly, he doesn't make much headway.

All right. He was not going to harass the man with the concussion. This was not a tit-for-tat thing, Nathan thought, standing in front of Haroun's door. He was checking to see how he was, that was all. And maybe asking a couple of questions, because Haroun's concussed comments had been rather revealing. He raised his hand and knocked.

"Enter." Haroun said. He was sitting in his sole decent chair, puttering around on his laptop. Seeing who his visitor was, he saved his work and shut it down. "Nathan." he said, in the manner of a man who has seen his executioner and is determined to see it through bravely.

Nathan shut the door quietly behind him, chewing on his lower lip as he regarded the younger man. "How are you feeling?"

"Crappy." he said truthfully. "Stupid and careless. Reckless. Burned. Useless, even. Shall I go on?" he said sarcastically.

"No," Nathan said, wandering over to the window. "That just about covers it, I think." Snow was falling, again. Winter seemed very determined this week. "Sorry about knocking you out. But you were determined to get up and around and I didn't think that was a good idea."

Haroun waved that off. "You did the right thing." he admitted. "Just tell me that you saved the program after you got me down to Medical? I was doing pretty well there until I screwed up that turn."

Nathan nodded. "There's full tape on it, too, up until you hit the floor." He looked back over his shoulder at Haroun, very levelly. "I assume you'll be going over it obsessively to figure out how you went wrong."

"Probably." he said with a small smile. "If I'm gonna fuck up and live, I should do myself the courtesy of at least learning from it."

Nathan sighed and looked back out at the snow. "You said some things, after you came to. Tried to get up and clear the Room for the next person because you had to 'pull your own weight'."

"Did I?" Haroun said, gone very carefully neutral in voice and tone. He was even trying to hide his thoughts behind every scrap of mundane psi-screening he could possibly remember. "Can't imagine why I'd ever say something like that. Must have been the concussion."

"You know the phrase 'truth in the wine'? There's truth in the head injury, too." Nathan turned around, facing him. "What's going on?" he asked bluntly.

"I'm sitting here talking to you and healing from hitting my head?" Haroun said confusedly. "And if I feel better I'm going to go and see if I can squeeze another few percentage points of efficience out of the 'Bird's fuel intake valves. Why?"

"I don't mean what are you doing, or not doing. I mean what are you thinking?" Nathan leaned back against the wall beside the window. "Is this about Proteus, or was that just something that... crystallized the problem?"

Haroun sighed. "I'm not sure. Probably a little of Column A, a little of Column B." he said with a wan grin. "I like to think that I'm good at what I do. I survived in Marrakesh, even did some good there, mostly by myself. Yet I step into the Big Leagues and routinely get my fucking head handed to me. It's difficult for a man like me to accept that. Very difficult." he said.

"We all have limits, Haroun," Nathan said. "If you don't respect them, you wind up like me."

Haroun smirked. "What, with a million or so dead souls in your head, multiple lifetimes of power and knowledge, in addition to a smokingly lethal genome?"

"And you don't think I pay a price commensurate with the benefits?" Nathan asked steadily. "You, who like to jeer at me about spraining my brain?"

"I didn't say that." Haroun said. "I've seen you pay. Possibly more than you have, in some cases." he added thoughtfully. "But given the choice? I'd do it."

"It's all well and good to think that," Nathan said, "but are you ever going to get the chance?" He went on before Haroun could answer. "And if you're not, what is the good of dwelling on a choice that can never come?"

Haroun shrugged. "Everybody should have a dream." he said idly. "Let's face it, I've got speed and maneuverability thanks to the 'ware, but I've got no real offensive punch to speak of. And less defensive ability."

"And?" Haroun just looked at him, and Nathan gritted his teeth. "Take the thought a little further, Haroun. If it's a fact, what does it mean?"

"It means that I'm fairly useless in any sort of a ranged stand-up fight. Sure, I can go hand-to-hand with the best of them..." and he winked at Nathan when he said it "... but that's about all I can do unless I'm packing heat."

"But it's not always going to be a ranged stand-up fight," Nathan said. "And as for packing heat... so do it. Or did Scott object or something?"

"Scott objected, I think. Still waiting for an official go-ahead to start." he said tiredly. "And too many of the Bad Guys are bulletproof, and there's riccochets to worry about."

Nathan made a dissatisfied noise, shaking his head. "So what, you're just going to stew about it? Forever?"

"You saw what I was trying to do about it. Find something, anything I can do to increase combat efficiency. Not everybody comes with a nice damage shield to soak up the hits." he snarled, forgetting himself for a moment.

Nathan glared at him. "I don't know what to say to you," he snapped, his voice low. "Maybe there's nothing I can say to you, or at least nothing that you'll believe, without thinking I'm patronizing you because I have it so easy in a fight."

"I wasn't even talking about you!" Haroun said heatedly, and then regretted it as his not-quite-gone-yet concussion came back to the forefront. "You have it so easy it's almost embarrassing."

"I know perfectly well you were talking about Sam. It's not as if you don't project all over the place on the subject whenever it comes up." Nathan folded his arms across his chest. "As for me having it easy in a fight, you have no clue whatsoever. None."

Haroun gritted his teeth. Loudly. "No clue, eh? I watched you in your last program. You cut through the drones like butter. If you could stay healthy, you'd be a fantastic asset. You can do everything I can do and then some."

"I wish I could show you. Appearances don't tell the whole story - do you think I can't stay healthy because I'm careless?" Nathan shook his head at himself. Getting off-track. "In any case, the point stands. You have the hand you've been dealt, and you claim to be making the best of it, but shredding yourself over feeling inadequate isn't going to help you do that."

"Well, actually, yeah, I did think that you were getting careless to the point of spraining your brain." he said recklessly. "My hand sucks. I'm trying to find a way to make it better or to add a few new cards to the hand." he said. "I train. Hard. I look into upgrade options. I work as a team player to make all of you stronger. Doesn't help me any, but it gets the overall job done, and that's what is important. Until I turn into a liability."

Nathan could have screamed. "Would you like to know how I sprained my brain the last time?" he demanded. "Helping save Cain's life. If I hadn't done what I could, he would have died. So pardon me if I don't really consider that carelessness." He turned back around to the window. "And if you decide you're going to turn into a liability, you will. Self-fulfilling prophecy. I thought I was a negative thinker."

Haroun nodded. "I'll give you that one." he said accomodatingly. "And hey, if you've got some better options, something more I could be doing, I'm all fucking ears." he said with a snarl. Concussion or not, headache or not, this was too important to him to let Nathan blow off with a witticism.

"How about recognizing that you may be doing, or planning to do, all you can?" Nathan suggested tightly. "You're making yourself as effective as you know how to. You are not the only person on the team with a more limited range of uses for his mutant ability, Haroun. What about Scott? Or Piotr? Or Warren?"

Haroun snorted. "Strong, can take out foes up-close or at range. Piotr's walking armor. Warren's in the same boat I am, and I haven't seen him around much either. At least Warren's a filthy-rich capitalist." he said strongly. "So you're basically saying "Suck it up, you're not gonna be anything other than a glorified taxi service. And only then if Kurt's not available.""

"An aerial scout. Medevac. An aerial fighter, if you talk Scott into the guns. And yes, a fucking taxi service," Nathan snapped. "Sometimes the less glamorous uses of our mutant abilities are just as helpful. Or don't you remember badgering me into playing glorified crane for you back in September?"

"I remember it just fine. We weren't taking fire at the time." Haroun snarled back. "I don't want to be just a taxi driver. I want to be more than that. More useful, more talented, more flexible." he said with a sigh. "More fool I, that I thought you might get it. You've got all the versatilility you can stomach."

Nathan shook his head. This was getting nowhere. "I can't make you see," he grated, "but you're making yourself less effective with all of this. It's one thing to keep pushing your limits. It's another thing to despise yourself for them."

"So what about Sam, then?" Haroun said after a long moment spent battling the remnants of his concussion. "He's not going to stay clueless forever. Once he figures his shit out, there's no place for me here."

"Bullshit," Nathan said, but more quietly. "Even when he figures his shit out, he's still going to be as green as they come. You have experiences he's never going to have, perspective he can't. Vice-versa as well, but you see my point." He stopped, thinking about what Wanda had said to him. "We're more than what we can do," he said. "Or so I keep hearing."

Haroun nodded. "There is that." he said with a slight nod. He steadfastly didn't think about what a telepath could do to fix that situation. Not at all, not one bit. It was the secret hot point that drove him, the goad to go Faster, Better, Stronger than he really could be.

"You know, it's no wonder I'm still having trouble with the concept of being more than a tool, or a weapon," Nathan said dryly. "I have you giving me mixed signals every time you turn around."

Haroun just looked confused at that statement. "What, you're looking to me for advice? Bad move, man. Bad move. Best I can think of to do is to be your own tool, be your own weapon. We are weapons. Men like us, anyway. We deal death and we're fairly good at it in our own ways. The trick is to either let that just be the sum of your existance or else to develop something else to ground you. You have Moira and your child and the kids, I have Alison. Had. Whatever."

Nathan gaped. "You... what? Had?"

Haroun shrugged. "She is very not-happy with me right now. We'll get over it."

Nathan stopped, counted to five, and then managed a thin smile. "Well, you know, they don't like it when we concuss ourselves. Or beat ourselves up. It's a female thing."

Haroun couldn't help but grin at that. "Women. They're like a whole 'nother species."

"I think that's because they are." Nathan pushed himself away from the wall with a sigh. "Look, you should get some rest. Concussions are nothing to fuck around with, trust me."

"You're the Master." he said with another grin. "Even bus drivers need their sleep."

Smile and nod now, beat him later. Nathan waved a hand at him. "Behave. And remember, with Alison - whatever the problem is, it's your fault."

"Isn't it always?" he retorted, and then stood up to shuffle himself off to his absolutely brutal-looking futon bed. "Good night, Nathan." he said cordially.

"Good night," Nathan said as he headed out, and pondered expanding his dream-altering experiment to Haroun. Just for a moment, though. Although... no, not going there. He'd stick to keeping Moira's nightmares away.