Logs:The Lord will turn away from you every illness; all the dread diseases of Egypt that you experienced, he will not inflict on you, but he will lay them on all who hate you.

The Lord will turn away from you every illness; all the dread diseases of Egypt that you experienced, he will not inflict on you, but he will lay them on all who hate you.
cn: Mentions of Murder & Mass Death
Dramatis Personae Kitty, Leo
In Absentia	2023-07-14 "That was. Um. Effective?"
Location <XAV> Teachers' Lounge - Xs Basement
Running a school for mutant teenagers just taking control of their powers is not an easy job, and the teachers at Xavier's deserve a place to come and relax. This lounge is their place to come and de-stress, and it does not skimp for relaxation. The room is elegant and luxurious, plush couches making up the seating in the lounge and a glossy glassy bar wrapping around one wall, well-stocked with alcohol (and perpetually fresh-brewed coffee, for those so inclined.) A large-screen high-def television hangs on one wall, stocked with about as many movies and games as the childrens' rec room upstairs. High bookshelves hold a wealth of books. The fridge here is always well stocked, and the cook is always willing to make deliveries down to this level. Far in the back, a hot tub is submerged into the floor, for still more unwinding. More days than not, there's some variety of snacks to be found on perched on an end of the bar -- quite often in the form of fresh-baked desserts. The bar in the Teacher's Lounge has likely been put through its paces, these past months. Many of the bottles here now are newish, fullish -- not from any lack of use but from a recently-increased need for frequent restocking. Leo is -- not a teacher, not for some time now at least and certainly not here. Straight after exiting the Danger Room, he's found his way in here, skipping past his usual wine- or cider- habit and instead going straight for a rum which, after a small consideration, he deigns to doctor with a splash of Coke. It's with this drink in hand that he's slumped, now, in a stool at the bar, staring down fixedly into his glass. Clearly, training has been going well. Leo is left alone to his rum-and-maybe-coke for some quiet minutes -- maybe, after what they just saw, the rest of the maybe-team in the Danger Room wants to give him a wide berth. Company, when it comes, does not announce herself. The door doesn't open, and when footsteps are finally audible they start somewhere around the middle of the room. Kitty didn't bother to change, nor put her jewelry back on, before following Leo here. Her armoured X-jacket is unzipped over a long-sleeve beige shirt, tactical pants still belted around her waist, black combat boots still laced tight around her ankles. There is sweat still cooling on her skin, but the dirt-smoke-viscera of the simulation has melted away off the yellow piping of her uniform, off her frazzled loose hair, as real as they must have looked in the illusion. She pauses for a moment, in her approach, sucks in a larger breath before sitting down beside Leo at the bar. No drink for her, yet, though her gaze catches on the dark liquid in her boyfriend's glass. "...So." Her voice is quiet, deliberately casual in a way that rings hollow. "That was. Um. Effective?" Her brows are furrowed when she finally looks up at Leo's profile, voice warming but not losing the undercurrent of nervousness when she asks, "...How are you feeling?" Leo is very pale and far too still, his usual restless tics currently nowhere in sight. Just a tight grip on his glass, just a very slow and deep breathing. He doesn't look up when Kitty enters, but the slow-shut squeeze of his eyes and slow-tight whistle of breath drawn in through his teeth suggests he's noticed her arrival just briefly before she sits. He opens his mouth and nothing comes out. He lifts the glass, takes a small swallow, and tries again. "Unfortunately, I am -- very effective." His head bows. "I am sorry. I should have stuck to the robots, I just -- everything was --" There's a pause. "I am sorry." "On the bright side," Kitty tries, pulling up a weak smile, "we probably would have gotten all the kids home. In that scenario. Um." The smile does not last. "It's -- not real, you know? The Danger Room. It's some sci-fi nonsense, not --" Kitty bites down on her lip, hard, eyes dropping to the bar surface. "...I think," she says, slowly, "that I thought I understood, after the rabies." What does she understand? The weight of the just-ended simulation seems to weigh on her too-still shoulders. "It's not like you haven't tried to tell me before, I'm sorry for --" Her right hand goes to her left wrist, and for a brief second Kitty seems surprised to find it bare, "-- reacting like everyone else. I should have been -- I should have understood. Better." "It is different. Knowing it and seeing it. Even if it's sci-fi nonsense, even if it's not real, it --" Leo's eyes shift to the side when Kitty touches her wrist. It's only after this that he looks up at her, studying her face for a long moment. "-- is me," he finishes. "The guards were simulations but what I do could be -- has been -- that. And so much worse. After what happened at my first lab I told myself I would never make another weapon. But then when they were going to put me back, when Dawson and Polaris came to get me, I..." His jaw tightens. "I did kill that man, you know. The news did not make that up. One of the guards was about to kill him and I --" His eyes lower again. "... hoped that I would never again make anyone look at me again the way they did, after that." His smile is wan, here, faltering and fading before it's barely had a chance to grow. "But we would have gotten the kids home." Kitty's face is uncharacteristically still, furrowed brows and downcast eye only knitting closer together as Leo speaks. "I didn't believe it. The news lies about us all the time, I thought -- that was another one." This starts like a defense, but by the end her tone is shifting towards something like apology. Kitty sucks in a breath, presses her palms against the glossy surface of the bar. "I'm sorry. I should have -- I didn't want --" Her palms press into the bar, all of her hand suddely disappearing to her wrists. She pulls them out, back to her lap. "...You don't have to do this. If you can't deal with everyone -- staring like that, I can talk to Scott, talk to...." but this is trailing off, the knowledge that Kitty was also there, also staring in horror, hanging in the space after her words. "The man was going to kill him," Leo says, and this doesn't sound like a defense -- it's slow and it is tired. His next words are picked out slowly, very deliberate as he forces himself through the pauses, and though his head hasn't quite lifted his eyes have, watching Kitty with a guarded expectation: "-- but that was not why I did it. Not -- not really. Polaris and Flicker they just -- reminded me. Of where they would take me back to, of why I couldn't. Of -- before I was in a lab with them, the first place they had me --" He hesitates, brows slowly pinching. "-- I still do not know. Exactly what went wrong. They were trying for making weapons, of course, once they realized what I could do. Maybe the sh -- researcher on that project he did not follow the right protocols. But something got into the other peoples there. The whole lab it got infected. Everyone there that day, the guards, the janitor, my friends all -- but I was back in my cell then and they would not let me out. Would not let me help. Only sit and listen until the screaming stopped." Only now does he look back down, slowly turning the half-empty glass between his fingers. "We can't leave the children in that place. But -- also -- everyone should stare. Nobody should ever get comfortable with what I am, I should never get comfortable with --" He swallows, and there's a faint crack in his voice when he adds, softer: "You are right to be horrored." Kitty's breathing speeds up, eyes growing wide and then wider still. "-- God," slips out when Leo looks away, "they didn't -- oh, God." Her mouth snaps shut, cheeks flushing hot with something that isn't just embarrassment. "Leo, I'm --" She swallows, hard, as words fail her. Slips off her stool. She's not quite tall enough to press her head against his when she wraps her arms around him, settles for pressing her forehead against his shoulder. "-- It is not what you are," Kitty says softly. "You are not horrific. You are not just your power." Leo's breath catches, when Kitty moves towards him, his eyes startled wide. For a heartbeat he goes even more still -- but then turns, arms wrapping back around her and holding tight. "I do not want to be. But anything else I am, everything else I am -- I don't know how it could ever be. Enough. To make up for --" His cheek presses down against the top of Kitty's head, and he lets his breath back out again, shaky. "I sometimes have feeled like the day I left Blackburn it was the prologue to a horror movie. Like why should I have freedom when maybe I could end the country. I still do not any good answer except for the people who were keeping me might do even worse." Kitty's arms curl tighter around Leo. Breathes in, deliberately, breathes out, slow. "You are not an equation to be balanced, either. You don't have to -- make up for anything. And even if you did, with all the lives you saved across the planet, haven't you balanced those scales by now?" One hand rubs slow circles into Leo's far shoulder. "Like. Even in there -- it was ugly but it wasn't --" Against his shoulder Kitty's face scrunches, cuts herself off with a small frustrated noise. "This isn't a horror movie. It's -- Prince of Egypt, maybe, a little bit." A fraction at a time, Leo is relaxing, the knotted clench of his shoulder easing beneath Kitty's hand. "I had some worry. That after seeing that -- after hearing this, that you would not want..." He hesitates, struggling for some word or other, and ultimately finishes a little inadequately: "Me." His eyes close, for a moment. But then open as he straightens, and to most, perhaps, his expression looks just as solemn as before -- Kitty, at least, is familiar enough to catch the humor creeping back in to the slight widening of his eyes and small press of his lips. "-- Oh. Spooktober has never included watching The Reaping yet, no? It is. So bad. Just very -- very bad. Prince of Egypt captured much better how much of a nightmare-fuel is God smiting an entire nation with plagues. If I could fly," he laments softly as his hands drop to his lap, "I would make so good an Angel of Death." "I was scared." Kitty admits softly. "And then upset at myself for being scared of you. I like to think I know you better -- have been on the other side of your power enough to know better -- than to let that fear stay, you know? I love you, and I've been a vigilante for like, a decade, it's going take a lot more than that to scare me away." She squeezes just a little tighter before letting go, hopping up to perch on the bar to look (slightly) down at Leo instead, her brow smoothing ever so slightly. The corner of her mouth pulls to the side, the beginning of a lopsided smile. "Nah," she decides, "that's pulling way too many Bible cosplays for you. You don't have the uncanny ability to like, tell if someone is an eldest child. Stick to the Horseman --" Her eyes go wide suddenly, taking one of Leo's hands in hers. "Leo, my love. Can you ride a horse. We have so many horses here." "No," Leo agrees with a heavy sigh, "Eldest Child Vibes are harder. To notice. Middle children, though, more easily identifiable. I could break from tradition." He squeezes Kitty's hand back when she takes it, and tips his head up at her with a puzzled frown. "I have never horsed, it seems like a big failing given -- wait." He blinks, looks around the extravagant lounge, looks back up at Kitty. "Isn't this a high school?" "It is also a middle school." Kitty's eyes are bright and wide. that small smile turning into a grin. "In a mansion. That has a hot tub in the teachers lounge and a holodeck in the basement. The stables are really quite reasonable if you think about it. Would you like to ride a horse, I think nobody will be mad if you take a break from training to feed a horse an apple." Is Kitty joking? Her tone is softly amused but deeply earnest, pressing a light kiss to Leo's forehead before she hops down off the bar. "After that, we can figure out the best way for you to smite our enemies."