Logs:Law of Inertia

Law of Inertia
Dramatis Personae Kurt, Scott
In Absentia Charles, Hive, Shane, Jax, Joshua	2024-05-05 Ah, but when am I not careful?
Location <XAV> Foyer - Xs First Floor
Xavier's foyer provides a suitable introduction to the opulent mansion. Teak-paneled, wood floors immaculately polished, vaulted ceiling ribbed with dark wood boning, there is no doubt this school was built with no expense spared. The hallways branch off to the separate wings, with the grand staircase spiraling upwards to the residential dorms above. Besides prayer, which Kurt finds immensely helpful, what seems to be the thing he does the most when he has things on his mind is fiddle and fix. An added boon to the riot; there’s a lot to clean, repair, and none of it seemed particularly dangerous for a rather baseline “handy elf” like him. He was good with his hands (and tail), a youth spent in the circus where things were constantly coming down and going back up. So some plaster patching on the walls seems like lovely, idle work. A trowel hangs by his tail, along some drying plaster on his hands and wrists that stand out sharply from the dark blue fur and skin. “Sehr gut. Should be set and dry by morning.” Kurt turns in his heel, seeking out Scott to see what else could be next and maybe, maybe talk about other things weighing on his mind. Scott is dressed like he was eager to do some mansion-repair busywork, in sturdy and heavily bepocketed work clothes and a well-stocked toolbelt, but the more likely explanation is that he had all this lying around already. He swipes one gloved finger across the dust left on the ground from some earlier repairs -- presumably repairs that Scott was not personally supervising -- with a grimace; he's in good shape so maybe he doesn't need to make an 'oof' sound getting out of his crouch, where he's inspecting the wainscoting, but he does so anyway maybe just for posterity. Hands on his hips -- "Yeah, that looks good. Thanks again." “I’ll reach up,” Kurt gestures vaguely with his tail, “to tidy up before the painting begins. Easier to clean as we go.” He wipes his hands with a rag he’s had in his back pocket— he’s dressed down, not in his red and black uniform or sewn slacks but in slightly worn jeans and a black t-shirt that could be as old as ten years. He pauses, rare for Kurt who always seemed to have a ready smile and idle chit-chat. “Scott. Did— did we do the right thing? For Freaktown, I mean.” Freaktown had not been a thing when Kurt left. Upon return, he had been confused by it and its inevitable razing. Scott tilts Kurt a considering look; he seems to think this over for a long time for a very noncommittal answer: "Riverdale was never going to be theirs to keep. It lasted years longer than anybody expected. You've only been back in town for the last two weeks, you did nothing wrong." He drops one hand to fidget with the fastening of his hammer loop, but his gaze is -- well, who knows if it's steady, but it doesn't shift from the younger X-Man. "We picked up a lot of kids with nowhere to go. I always count that --" in spite of his words, his affect here is somewhat flat -- "as a good thing." “Ja, you’re right, you are.” Kurt packs up the tools he’s finished with, because what Scott says makes sense. There are children who seem to be safe. They’ve done a good thing. Heroes, again. Unless he really thought about it. “I feel… like I should have done more than ‘nothing wrong’.” But what? His Medicare skills are fine in a battle, but in a full scale riot? Like that? Kurt’s unsure. “The residents there, the Morlocks… I just—” his tail lashes behind him and his yellow eyes squint as though the words will appear. It can’t be denied he looks more like a Morlock than a human. “I should have found a better solution,” he offers softly. “The students were right.” There is a slight pause, before: "What better solution?" This is blunt, in Scott's usual affect, but even in its straightforwardness it isn't critical -- just curious. Having been around Scott for so long, Kurt simply gives a nod because his leader, his friend, has a more than fair point. “That is what I struggle with. I don’t know.” He leans against the dusty yet intact wall. “No one told me not to go there— when I left, there was no Freaktown. Neither you nor the Professor told me to stay here, I simply did.” Scott inclines his head slightly -- "I don't know either," might be an admission or a simple statement; there is no particular emotion in it. His jaw works for a moment before he goes on, still tapping one finger against his hammer. "We didn't tell you to go help, either," he points out. "I don't know what to say. We don't get a reset button. If I could go back and change things --" his mouth presses very thin -- "yeah, maybe we could have prevented a lot of misfortune, or maybe we would have made things worse in the long run. All I can do with that uncertainty is accept it." Give me the serenity to change the things I can and accept what I cannot. It’s worded slightly different in German, but the sentiment is the same. “It’s simply a hard pill to swallow.” Kurt says, crossing his arms. “You’ve only given orders when it’s necessary; you give leadership freely. I feel as though I should have… learned more from you. From my time as an X-Man.” A pause. “Those people look like me,” he says finally. “I could have easily been in the other side of Freaktown and not in Bavaria.” Now Scott's head is tilting slightly away. "I think any of us," he says, "could have found ourselves in Freaktown rather than here, with a little less luck. I think that's why so many of the students --" he shakes his head, considers. "I don't think your inaction last week was because you haven't learned from me." “Father Len said ‘God takes care of children and idiots,’ and I am far from childhood. Even when the Professor found me,” Kurt smiles fleetingly. “But I prefer to think it’s more luck in this case than divine intervention.” Scott brushes a hand on the dusty wall and sighs. "I would say so, too," is quiet, and more of a concession than before. He hesitates for a moment before he adds, "We don't have to leave it up to God." “That is very true, my friend.” God helps those who help themselves, even though Kurt’s stopped using that phrase all together due to other, more malignant meanings coming to pass with it. People made it seem a cruel thing to say. “How do you do it?” Kurt asks, an appealing note in his voice. “Figuring out vas to do and when?” Scott scrubs one hand over his mouth, lets it linger at his chin; over his ruby lenses his brows are pressing tersely together. "I do what I think is right," doesn't actually come with a shrug, or an apology, but his voice takes on a sheepish, apologetic tone a moment later anyway. "You just have to use your own judgment, Kurt. I'm the team leader, I'm not all of your moral compasses, all the time, and I wouldn't want to be. There's strength in our differences. Sometimes even our disagreements." His jaw flexes again, though, and he adds, "If it troubles you what happened in Riverdale, there's still a lot of work to be done for all the people who were chased out of there. I bet Shane or Jax or Joshua could point you toward ways you can help." “Ja. I plan on going down there again tomorrow after the day is settled.” He has been, a few times, dropping off supplies and helping where he can. But it feels hollow. And while the students may not have understood his reasonings on keeping them away from the riots in Freaktown, their words seem to have hit a nerve of conscious. “Ah but we are expanding on the student rooms, are we not? To accommodate the new arrivals?” A brighter note, at last. "Well," says Scott, with a slight, grave air of finality; his brow is pulling even lower. "Be -- careful." He fidgets again with his hammer, rotating it one hundred and eighty degrees in the loop -- "Yeah, Hive's been working on that for a while," he says. "Good thing we had that in the works already or I don't know what I'd do. We're stretched thin as it is." “Ah, but when am I not careful?” There’s a cheeky grin and a flash of fang as Kurt says it because they both know the answer to that is ‘all the damn time’. Like guiding a crashing plane to safety and teleporting out at the last minute. “We will make do. Once things calm down, we can focus on the comfort of living rather than just the survival. It is, by and large, what we do.”