xp_logs | Hank, Nathan, Wednesday morning

Clarice's prank on Kyle affects Hank a great deal more dramatically than it did its actual recipient. After a long, sleepless night, his mental turmoil gets Nathan's attention, and the two of them talk it through, and get the root of what Hank went through when he first turned blue, and why it still distresses him so much. Backdated to Wednesday morning.

Hank hadn't slept. He'd tried, but he couldn't sleep.

He'd emailed Alison, hoping for reassurance, and while it had been
there, she'd also insisted that it was not only okay and normal, but a
Good Thing for someone insecure about his appearance to have it
publicly mocked. How could she think that? How could she SAY it? How
could everyone just shrug this off, as if one student attempting to
shatter another's self-esteem for her own amusement was all right?
Yes, Kyle was fine. Kyle was resilient, and apparently the change
hadn't been as great a trauma for him as it had been for Hank. But
Clarice could not have known how he would take it, and his insecurity
about his appearance was a public thing. She'd risked completely
devastating him, because it would be funny. And everyone
thought that was all right.

So... all the jokes about him. About how he looked. Comments on the
fur, on the hanging upside down... he'd thought they were all in
friendship, at the time, but were they? Was he shortsighted enough to
have missed the fact that he was being laughed at, not with? He was
often unobservant, he knew that. The thought of being laughed at,
mocked for his idiotic mistake, made him cringe. He'd thought he'd be
free of that here, that the school would be safe... but if it was all
right to mock a child, how much more acceptable must it be to make a
mockery of him?

He paced around his office, as he had been all night and morning,
trying not to think about that... and failing.

All right, Nathan thought as he moved towards Hank's office, the
enhanced telepathy was both a blessing and a curse, really. A
blessing, because... well, Hank clearly wanted company, or something,
even if he really didn't think he wanted it, and a curse because he
was picking up so much. He and Charles had yet to test his range, but
his sensitivity was definitely much improved, and the rumble of Hank's
unhappy, circular thoughts was entirely too loud to ignore.

Hank's office door was ajar just a little, and Nathan knocked on it
lightly. "Henry?" he called.

Hank looked up. He'd thought he'd locked the door... no, he had, but then
he'd gone out to get more coffee, and hadn't relocked it. Overtired,
probably. He picked up a random piece of paper and tried to focus on it.
"I'm a little busy," he called back, trying to at least calm the surface of
his thoughts. "Is it important?"

"You're busy churning up the local astral plane, yes," Nathan said
very patiently, trying not to sigh. "Look, if you really want, I'll go
away." Not really, but Hank didn't need to know that unless he tried
to lock the door. "But I will point out that I was the one who was
concerned about that prank and said so. So you and I might achieve a
meeting of the minds here, no pun intended..."

"I suppose so. Come in." Hank sighed. There was no point in trying to hide
something like this from a telepath, he knew that... and Nathan had been
concerned. "I do apologize for churning up the astral plane. I've been
trying to work through it, but..." But the more he thought about it, the
more his confidence weakened and his fears grew. He hadn't thought this
could happen, not here...

Nathan closed the door behind him and leaned back against it, tilting
his head at Hank. "I don't mean to eavesdrop," he explained, almost
gently. "I'm still getting used to the changes in my powers since what
happened with Cain. My telepathy's much more acute." He paused for a
moment as Hank nodded, and then went on steadily. "That being said...
this is one of those rare times I could wish this ability of mine on
someone else."

"Really?" Hank gave him a surprised look. "I... I know I'm being foolish.
Kyle is fine, no harm has been done..." He sighed. "I just cannot accept
that something so potentially damaging is not only being permitted, but
considered a good thing. So short a time after I became... what I am," he
said, the self-disgust clear in his thoughts if not his tone, "I would have
been emotionally destroyed by such an act. I could barely live with myself
as it was..." He'd been willing to take any risk, for a time, thinking
himself better off dead than trapped like this for ever.

Nathan shook his head. "Maybe I've been spending too much of my time
with my own therapist," he said with a faint smile, "but really,
Hank... whatever the facts of the matter may be, don't invalidate your
own reaction by saying that you're being foolish. You're feeling it,
wherever it's coming from. Speaking as the king of repression, pushing
it away isn't going to do anything but ensure it comes back on you."

"I'm hoping to convince myself that it's irrational, and thereby make it go
away," Hank confessed softly. "I'm a scientist. That's what I do... if
something should not reasonably exist, then it doesn't. It doesn't really
work as well on emotions, though." He smiled a little sadly. "If I might
ask... who were you considering wishing your power on? Anyone specific?"
Himself? Clarice? Or just the whole mansion so people would stop trying to
hurt each other so often?

"You," Nathan said calmly. "So you could resolve the questions that
are bothering you. Really, Hank, how people around here actually feel
about you is right at the surface of their minds when they think of
you. You'd hardly have to do any digging at all."

"Just now," he said unhappily, "I think I'd rather not know. Not for
certain." It was bad enough suspecting that the jokes had been more because
people thought they were funny, and didn't care who they hurt, than because
they wanted him to feel accepted. He didn't want to know it for sure. "At
the very least, they'd think me foolish for reacting like this, to a prank
that wasn't even played on me." The thought that it might have been, or
still might be... that someone might decide to ridicule him because of how
he looked... made his hands shake with terror. He didn't think he could bear
that. It had been so hard the first time, dragging himself up out of the pit
of despair he'd been in when he realized the change was permanent, that he
would be a monster forever, even with the assurance that he was still cared
for and valued, that nobody would laugh... he didn't think he could do it
again, without that comfort.

"Concern would be the response, Hank, not ridicule," Nathan said
steadily. "Trust me. I see it." He sighed softly. "This is highly,
highly ironic, someone like me trying to tell you to have faith in
people... but this is not the world at large, within these walls,
Hank. These are your friends, your family. The reassurance you need is
there if you want it."

"How can I be reassured when nobody seems to understand why I'm so
distressed?" Hank said unhappily. "They think it's normal... Alison even
told me it was a good thing, believe it or not. A good thing! To do
something like that to someone!" He gave Nathan an unconsciously pleading
look, eyes reddened with lack of sleep and a few midnight tears. "I know
Kyle seems fine, but he so easily might not have been... and nobody seems to
care. Except you, of course," he added.

"That's the other reason I'd wish my telepathy on you for a little
while," Nathan conceded. "So that you could take a look at Kyle's
mind, and put yourself in his place. To see why he handled it the way
he did." He shook his head quickly. "Again, not casting aspersions on
your reaction. But it would help you understand his reaction, and
possibly yours, on a new level."

"I suppose." Hank sighed. "It... doesn't help, that he's handling it so
well. Odd, isn't it? I should be glad he's not upset... and believe me, I
am... but I feel so foolish, being so distraught when he doesn't seem
bothered at all. You'd think, really, that at my age I'd be less insecure
than a fourteen-year-old, not more so..."

"Hank," Nathan said almost soothingly, although his lips may have
twitched, just a little. "You're two different people. Your situations
are different. Oh, there is the basic similarity, but look at the
context. Why should your reactions be similar? And more to the point,"
he went on a bit more firmly, "why are you being so hard on yourself?
I keep getting told that even as adults around here, we're allowed to
have our insecurities, our moments or hours or days when we don't have
it all together."

Hank opened his mouth to reply, then he closed it and sighed softly. "I...
feel foolish for being so distressed by it," he said softly. "I know I
brought this on myself, and that it's no more than I deserve for my idiotic
actions... and I know that it is a very minor thing indeed, compared to the
trauma that many here, including you, have experienced. And yet I can't
shake it off, even after years of it..." He knew Nate would probably sense
what was hard to articulate... the gnawing shame that he was letting
something so relatively minor matter so much, and the dreadful loss of
self that he'd suffered when it happened, the horror of looking in
the mirror and seeing someone who wasn't him... nobody but Charles
had ever really understood that, but Nathan might as well. The sheer,
soul-destroying terror of realizing that I'm not me anymore!

"Anyone who tells you, who even intimates to you that you need to
shake it off is an idiot," Nathan said simply, then shook his head.
"Hank, half the time, still, I don't really know who I am. There are
mornings when I still have trouble getting out of bed. For a long
time, I thought this personality, this Nathan you know, was nothing
but scar tissue, what was left behind when the conditioning broke." He
smiled very faintly. "You don't get over that fear overnight, or even
over years."

Hank nodded slowly, and managed a small smile. "No," he said quietly. "You
don't. As a doctor, I know that. I even recall studying the effects of
extreme disfiguring injury on the human psyche... but it's different, when
the trauma is your own. Harder to rationalize, harder to deal with..." He
took a deep breath. "Thank you," he said sincerely. "For reminding me.
It's... hard to think clearly, when I'm in that state." He was still
miserable, but the terrible cycle of doubt and fear was broken, for now at
least. "I'm going to feel very silly for overreacting so much, when I'm
through," he admitted, smiling ruefully. "But I'll also remember that this
has happened before, and probably will again. Every now and then something
will bring up the initial trauma and... I more or less relive it. A
phenomenon I'm sure you're familiar with. But it passes."

"I know a little bit about not thinking clearly," Nathan murmured,
thinking about that last session with Jack and some of the questions
he was still wrestling with as a result. "But you're welcome." He
chuckled softly. "Quid pro quo, Henry - I'll give you a gentle verbal
kick in the ass if you need it, and you don't glower at me the next
time I wind up in the medlab."

Hank managed a weak laugh. "I'll be understanding of your moments of abject
panic-induced stupidity if you'll do the same for me," he agreed. "And of
the little things that for some reason, one or the other of us can't cope
with." He took a deep breath. "I'll be fine, now," he said, realizing it was
true. "I still need some time, but... It'll pass. Thank you. It usually
takes a lot longer."

Nathan nodded. "I'll get out of your office, then," he said, turning
towards the door. "But remember, Hank? Anytime you want to talk, I do
occasionally spend large amounts of time in places that aren't a
medlab bed. Knock on my door anytime."

Hank nodded. "And the same goes for you," he said softly. "If you ever want
to talk, or just be listened to, please do let me know. I won't claim to be
a psychiatrist, or to understand at all what you've been through... but I
do, as you have seen, know a bit about how it feels to be unable to cope
with something that wouldn't, to anyone else, seem very important. If you
ever experience something similar, I would understand." And not tell him it
was no big deal and not to worry. That was less than no help, and it was
what a lot of people did.

Nathan hesitated for a moment. "You know, Hank, if there's something
I've learned, it's that what you hear, when you're... in the middle of
something like this, for lack of a better description, isn't all
that's there." He reached out for the doorknob. "I know we've
established that I can't lend you my telepathy, but there are depths,
even to the sort of response that bothers you, that aren't immediately
obvious. I suppose the only thing to do, like I said, is trust your
friends." He looked back over his shoulder, meeting Hank's eyes
levelly. "And remember that the only person who can give you answers,
or solutions, is yourself."

"Not necessarily," Hank disagreed with a smile. "A firm kick in the rear,
for example, is better applied by someone else, unless dislocated knees are
your idea of entertainment. And since it is not mine, thank you for applying
one for me." He grinned. "Now... don't you have a lovely fiancee who's much
nicer to fuss over than I am? Now that I can no longer attempt to charm her,
I am relying on you to keep her compliment-levels high."