Logs:Sanity Check

Sanity Check
Dramatis Personae Joshua, Matt
In Absentia	2022-01-25 "Dunno how much simulating you usually have to do for coffee, but I normally take mine plain."
Location <XS> Administrative Offices - B1
This hallway is smaller than the main, the offices branching off of it modest and unassuming. Down here it is all business, teachers meeting for conferences or simply coming down to grade papers and get work done. Classes have been out for a while, but some of the faculty are still finishing up their work for the day. Matt is among these, as sharply dressed as ever but looking a bit frazzled, one cuff of his burgundy dress shirt buttoned tighter than the other, red and black tie tucked just a bit crooked into his black vest, gray slacks rumpled. He's presently stuffing his laptop into an attache bag. "Xavier wants to meet with him, also--tomorrow. In the unlikely event that solves everything, I'll let you know, but I suspect Chaz will just delegate to us." Casting a last look around his desk for stray items, he plucks up his jacket and coat. "Hopefully, with our powers combined, we'll have some answers for him sooner than later." It's hard to say if Joshua is looking sanguine about this prospect; his face doesn't really naturally lend itself towards optimism. Just a general air of Droop where he's puddled himself up against the edge of the desk, arms crossed loose over his chest, legs crossed at the ankles. He's far less sharp than Matt in grey cargo pants, an oversized vibrant green sweatshirt featuring a cheerfully grinning skeleton holding out a spine to a second skeleton and the very badly kerned text, 'BACK 2GETHER AGAIN! FAUST FAMILY REUNION / ITHACA 2010'. "Mnh." Just a quiet grunt, as he tips his gaze down toward his boots. "Professor could actually be helpful here." Matt inclines his head, the barest nod of agreement. "Oh, he could, I'm sure. At the very least, he could give us some idea what we're looking for, and I hope that he does. But." He draws a quick breath here. "He's also a busy man, and particular about his psionic protégés. I can talk to him--he already knows I couldn't make much headway, but who knows, he may listen this time." He leans against a bookshelf, studying Joshua. "I'll sound terribly distressed." "Aight." Joshua just keeps studying his boots, one of which is slowly tapping against the floor. One of his eyebrows quirks, briefly. "We don't help this kid, might be plenty to be distressed about." Matt blows out a long breath. "True enough. He's plenty distressed already. That, I shouldn't need to tell Chaz." He shoulders the strap of his bag. "We'll see. Say..." This as he's fishing out his phone to check the time. "I don't know what the rest of your afternoon looks like, but would you like to go get a coffee?" Joshua blinks slowly, down at his shoes. He lifts a hand to worry at the ragged edge of a thumbnail with his teeth, then re-crosses his arms. It takes a moment after this before his eyes drag upward toward Matt, a little wider than they were before. "Now?" He slouches down further against the desk. "Gonna be a while before I have any kind of handle on this --" His fingers lift, waggle vaguely in the direction of his temple. "If you feel up to it." Matt leans back against a bookshelf. "No pressure, I'm not looking to pick your brain, about that--" He also waggles his fingers at Joshua's head. "--or otherwise. I just thought it might be nice to caffeinate and chat." Joshua pokes the tip of his tongue up beneath his lip, his brows slowly knitting. "S'pose I have time for a coffee." He drops his hands to the desk, pushing himself away from it in a lazy unspooling of limb. "You throwing your hat in for Replacement Scott?" "Splendid!" Matt's smile flashes brighter as he straightens up. "Mmm. I make a better advisor than leader, but I haven't ruled out the possibility." He turns one hand up, noncommittal. "Kitty's right, though. The place mutants occupy in the world has changed--is changing, dramatically. The X-Men haven't, as far as I can tell." The arch of his eyebrows at the end of this statement, though, is interrogative. Joshua just lets out a quiet huff of breath, one hands dropping to pry a length of knotted white string from under his sweatshirt and toy with it restlessly. "What would you change?" "I'd want to get the whole team's ideas about that, but the one that's weighing on me most..." Matt sucks in a deep breath. "I think we should make plans to fight mutant genocide. Scott--and by Scott I mean Chaz--is committed to playing nice with the US government, and some of the basic reasoning behind that is sound, but we've been a highly illegal militia from the start." He pauses at the door, takes another breath, slow, quieter. "We've always taken risks of exposure. It's high time we re-evaluate what risks are acceptable, because we won't always have the luxury of picking our battles. And even when we do, maybe we should pick better ones." "Mmm." One corner of Joshua's mouth twitches as he trails after Matt toward the door, feet dragging heavily as he walks. "Play nice with the U.S. government, fight mutant genocide." His thumb flicks idly against one of the knots of his tzitzit. "Not sure we can square that circle." "The benefit of 'playing nice' is staying under the radar to avoid--" Matt looks up and away, as if the upper left corner of the door frame suddenly demands his attention. "--cut down on the active persecution we might otherwise draw. Maybe that was a decent approach 20 years ago and maybe not, but it certainly isn't anymore. No matter how careful, we can't hide all of this--" He sweeps a hand vaguely up at the rest of the mansion. "--forever. And however much longer we can manage it, the safety that affords will erode as our communities do." He runs a hand through his already tousled hair. "You know this, I know this, and our teammates who pay attention to anything happening outside this bubble do, as well--or will, soon enough." His expression has lapsed into serene neutrality. "Chaz's philosophy needs to square with reality, and I'm not fool enough to think I can persuade him of that, but if enough of us..." He looks back at Joshua, brows furrowing slow and deliberate. "Gods, is that delusionally optimistic?" Joshua doesn't immediately answer. His already slow steps come to a halt, weight falling back onto his heels. He studies the ground -- studies the door -- studies Matt. "Brotherhood's always recruiting," he offers finally, mild. "That bad?" Matt heaves a soft sigh. "I'm hardly asking Xavier to lead a revolution. But maybe for him to consider that assimilating might not save us, this is also as drastic." He says this without rancor, sort of idly speculative in his tone, a distant whisper of his mostly-shed francophone accent creeping back in. "After I got out, I thought this sort of thing could not get much more personal for me." The twitch at the corner of his mouth is wry. "Then, it kept getting more personal. I appreciate the sanity check." "You're not?" Joshua's heavy brows lift. He glances to Matt's attache bag, now, then up to the ceiling. "Might convince the Professor but I bet the feds would see it differently." He shakes his head, gives a very small huff. "Tch. Nobody with sanity sticks around here." "No. I only did not think contingency plans for survival risk bringing down federal ire more than..." Matt scrunches up one side of his face as he considers the options. "Say, launching Blackbird, period. But there's more to such risks than mere exposure, certainly more than I can know. Maybe, between the Sysadmin and the Professor, it isn't a forgone conclusion the school will be discovered and--gods forbid--targeted." He taps his right temple with his index and middle fingers. "I'm sure there must be some bastions of sanity left in this madhouse. Dai--" He cuts himself off, eyes narrowing. "Hm... Hank? Maya? Oh, Tian-shin! And you've always seemed relatively sane to me, but then, as much as we work together, I really do not know you at all." Joshua's brows hitch up just a little further as Matt lists these possible sane holdouts, mouth pulling skeptically to the side -- then even moreso when he's added to the number. "How long have you worked here." It's too flat to exactly be a question. "Don't think any of us came out of those cages sane." "Relatively." Matt leans on the word just a little harder, though there is a concession in the incline of his head. "But no, I suppose not. The more fool I for thinking my madness some nefandous secret. Though I wasn't," he adds quietly, "altogether sane going in, either." His hand tightens around the handles of his bag, but his smile returns easily. "Goodness. I really hadn't meant to spout off about existential horror, and am game to buy your coffee by way of apology. Or booze, if that's where you are now." "Nah, your brother won the Tony." Joshua has pulled his phone out of a pocket, mouthing something to himself as he swipes at it, studies the screen for a moment. Frowns. "If the coffee's an apology now, what was it before?" He's only finally dragging himself toward the door. "S'cool though. We're mutants. Existential horror is our shibboleth." Matt blinks at Joshua. "Harsh but fair." He does not actually look all that put out, and indeed some of the tension eases from his shoulders. "Something between incentivizing you to hang out with me and simulating guilt that I get compensated for working with these kids' powers while you do not? It seemed unlikely you'd want me to feel guilty, but quite likely you'd want some coffee." He dips his head, either a deep nod or a shallow bow, as he pulls open the door to spill them out into the corridor. "So, it's lucky you don't require an apology, because offering to treat you twice for the same coffee might be considered grounds for apology in itself, and I am clearly not caffeinated enough for coffee recursion." Joshua is still frowning at his phone, finally capitulating when it fails to answer: "What is nefandous, I don't think I'm spelling this right." He tucks the phone and his hands both into the pocket of his sweatshirt. "Always want coffee. Rarely guilt. You don't," he pulls his attention up from the screen, though he's still frowning as he looks at Matt, "have to simulate -- uh, anything." "Unspeakably vile and appalling," Matt replies, somewhat automatically. "The Puritans were rather fond, but it's fallen out of use somewhat." Then, at a small delay and with a deep furrow of brows, "Or perhaps completely." He doesn't let go of the door knob. "Not guilt, perhaps--at least not often--that sort of came out by habit. But other things? I think sometimes I do have to." He pauses, pivoting back to look at Joshua, his expression impassive but not blank. "Maybe not right now, though." "Huh." Joshua's frown is melting back into his usual basset-hound droop. "You grow up Catholic?" He's trudged out into the hall, though not much farther, looking at Matt's hand on the doorknob. "Dunno how much simulating you usually have to do for coffee, but I normally take mine plain." "Oh, yes." The twitch of Matt's smile is fey. "The Catholic-to-witch pipeline runs strong." He closes the door gently but firmly behind them and looks up at Joshua, his expression softening as he starts down the hall toward the elevator. "I think I can learn to make do with milk and sugar."