Logs:Of Heroes and Heroin (Or, A Bitter Cup)

Of Heroes and Heroin (Or, A Bitter Cup)
Dramatis Personae Mirror, Joshua, Kavalam, Charles, Scott, Ashok	2024-03-17 "Don't worry, I will get to the bottom of this." (followed by a resurrection.)
Location Rafah, Gaza / <XS> Charles's Study - Third Floor / <XAV> Scott's Office
Rafah, Gaza This apartment was definitely not meant for gatherings of this size. Food has been desperately scarce through much of the area, though, and the fact that there is a proper iftar feast here means that this is The Spot in the neighborhood to break fast tonight. Joshua is just reappearing with the latest of many deliveries from Elsewhere, disappearing the emptied dishes and unpacking the newest cooler of food onto the groaning table so that the newest-comers can eat. It's after this that he takes a break to fill his own cup with juice, fill his own plate with fattoush, and find a reasonably empty stretch of wall to lean up against so that he can bolt down some food, as well, before his next trip. Mirror has been over in the kids' corner, entertaining a whole gaggle of small children there with shifting impressions of various family members to the tune of uproarious delight. Joshua's return pulls them back into their own form, meandering over to pluck a small crisped piece of khubz from Joshua's plate. "{Don't choke yourself. I can make the next delivery, you should properly eat.}" This comes in Arabic but they're switching to English immediately after, a brightly curious lilt in their voice. "When are you getting back to New York? You seen your team lately?" Joshua holds his plate just a little more to the side, the better to facilitate Mirror's poaching. He's accepting the pinch-hitter offer with an absent nod, but immediately after this his brows pull down into a deeper frown. "Training's midweek." His expression hasn't changed much but Mirror can clock the reflexive panic in his faint tension, in his absent pat at his pocket for a phone that is not there before he resigns himself to simply having no idea what time it is or where he should be. He sags back against the wall, hitching a shoulder up. "I hope." "Oh, I think your hero team may have a lot to deal with this week." Mirror shakes their head, and they're leaning in a little closer to Joshua. Their voice now has a slightly breathless tone of salacious gossip, their eyes just a touch wider. "Do you have any idea what Matt's been up to this weekend?" Joshua's face has just started to settle back to its -- baseline level of frowning, but Mirror's tone pulls his heavy brows back down again. He chews slowly over his mouthful of salad and sucks a stray tomato skin from a tooth with his tongue. He studies the ceiling as if it might give answer to this riddle. The ceiling does not give him any answers; he looks back to Mirror with a shrug. "S'it more or less boring than chess?" --- <XS> Charles's Study - Third Floor Charles Xavier's apartment has remained more or less unchanged through the decades of renovation that transformed his family's huge ancestral manse into a school. It is modest by the standards of the wealthy, but then it had only been meant to house him in his youth. The receiving room just inside the door is sumptuous with old world aristocratic splendor from the intricate Persian rug underfoot and the furniture in purple and gold to the gold-framed paintings on the walls. Double doors in each of the walls lead to a large bedroom, a moderately sized dining room with its own kitchen and pantry, and a small study. The reading room tucked into the corner of the suite is much smaller than the one in the mansion's library proper, cozily appointed polished dark wood and plush burgundy upholstery. The walls are lined with floor-to-ceiling mobile bookshelves, including a climate controlled case beside the antique writing desk. A sideboard by the door holds a silver platter with a crystal decanter of scotch and two old fashioned glasses, a pitcher of water, a crystal bowl of peppermint starlights, and a rather space age looking coffee machine(?) beside a fine white porcelain tea set at the far end. There is small table with an elegant metallic chess set in a bright nook beneath one of the windows, flanked by a single chair. Whether because he is young at heart or advanced in years (or, most likely of all, an unfortunately sensitive telepath), Charles Xavier rises early even when he has no particular need of doing so. While most of the school is still abed of a Sunday morning, he has already breakfasted and is well into both his second pot of tea at the chess table in his study. He is wearing a sky blue Harris tweed suit, over a soft knitted oxford shirt and a solid royal blue tie that brings out the color of his fading eyes, and has just castled, queenside. Beside the board there is a simple elegant glass cup of Earl Grey and a matching cup of Kona, both perfectly brewed and black. "I had meant to bring this up to you before your last team meeting," he tells his opponent as he resumes his tea, neatly annotating the reason he had failed to do so as an advisee (effortlessly anonymized) having an unfortunate psionic emergency, "but I do think it is long past time we start compensating the X-Men for the time they devote to the team." In and through and behind these words he layers a wordless solicitation for Scott's perspective and input, grounded in their long years of acquaintance and as well as his newer appreciation for his protege's resourcefulness since Lassiter. "I have done a bit more research this time, but still." Scott rises early, too, though for him this mystery only goes as far as military upbringing. Opposite the professor he seems underdressed, in jeans and a dark blue flannel, but he is just as buttoned-up and neatly composed, though this is only his first cup of coffee. He is considering the board carefully but reservedly; what does reach Charles above his disciplined psionic shield is, << We don't get paid? I thought this was already folded into our salaries at the school. >> It doesn't take him long to acclimate to the idea, though; his next thought is, << Can we afford to pay more staff? >> which spins hastily off, as though he is opening a mental spreadsheet, into (mostly guesstimated) calculations of hours and personnel. "Hourly or salary?" he finally adds, before sliding his rook to threaten one of Charles's knights. There isn't a knock at the door, and Charles's very dutiful valet has not announced any new visitors. How long has Kavalam been here observing this game? As always it's hard to say -- the teenager simply appears, sitting cross-legged on the floor beside the table. He's probably familiar enough to not be clocked as Worrying Security Risk, though after this long absence it's an open question what specifics about him come immediately to mind. Kavalam looks underslept, far too rumpled in his once-neat button down and mustard yellow sweater, jeans. He's holding a small stuffed hedgehog, just about the size of the fist that he's clutching it in, and his mind is an exhausted and terrified jumble whose current fragmentary images -- a cup of tea gone cold, the Tessiers' shepherd mutt whining anxiously at the closed study door, a stack of elegantly calligraphed clue cards, a pantry shelf labeled DO NOT EAT in the same ornate script -- don't currently tell a very coherent story. His eyes are fixed on the chess table, a game he is ruining by reaching to pluck the white queen from the board. "How do you decide. Who can be an X-Man." Charles blinks at Scott, not very much as though he doesn't know whether "hourly" or "salary" is preferable or, indeed, why the difference is significant. << Not for the team, no. There was a time when you were all staff who volunteered extra time, but that is no longer the case. >> He quirks one bemused eyebrow before adding, << We can most assuredly afford it, in any event. >> "Certainly the team themselves ought to have the final say, individually and collectively. I rather doubt if Roberto, for example, should care much for his own sake --" He breaks off abruptly but turns slowly towards Kavalam The soothing warmth of his psionic aura intensifies reflexively before he's even consciously clocked the presence of a Young Person in Distress. Once he has, though, he rapidly searches the winding paths of his labyrinth for information about this student, and turns up only vague generalities and indirect facts: charmingly acerbic, persistent difficulty with room assignment, something(s?) to do with paganism, often neglected, a note to help Cere with...something, and a deep abiding worry that he cannot name. What little he does find, he projects into the periphery of Scott's awareness -- his request for collaboration taken as read -- flagging the bit about the dorm hall woes in particular. "I do think it's determined on a case-by-case basis," Charles replies lightly, as though he were not frantically rifling through his memory for a name. "Mister Summers interviews the candidates and consults with others who can testify as to their character before making a decision. But in general we accept those who demonstrate both a desire to help others and the judgment to do so in an appropriate fashion." He pauses and, at a loss, falls back on, "Would you like a cup of tea?" Scott is midway through a sip of coffee when Kavalam abruptly materializes; he doesn't choke, but he does freeze with the cup still raised to his lips. << Where did you come from? >> does not come aloud even as he slowly sets the mug back down; neither does his rapid assessment that -- (what is this kid's name again?) -- does not seem shipshape. He is drawing a complete blank about Kavalam even with Charles's mental annotation -- his name, his powers, his age, which dorm he's in -- but he adds to the Professor's explanation, "It's not an alumni-only club, even if we do get a lot of old students -- but we don't just take students on right out of school, we want you kids to try to strike out on your own first." (This is said sternly, with a total and remarkable lack of self-reflection.) After a moment, at the same time that Charles breaks this pause, he thinks to tack on, "...Why?" "No tea." The offer contradictorily brings up a strong flush of comfort and an equally fierce rush of sick anguish. Kavalam definitely cannot read minds; there's no sense in his thoughts that he hears what the others are thinking; his clarification comes with the rote delivery of someone who has to do this A Lot, "I'm Kavalam. I --" << go here? >> << used to go here? >> He's hesitating uncertain and regretful before deciding to leave this section of explanation out for now. His brows knit deep and he slices a slightly scornful look toward Scott. "I do not want to wear your silly uniforms." But he's regretting the sharpness as soon as it's left his mouth, thinking with a warm and complicated mix of gratitude and sympathy of Jax's colorful cheer giving way to intense focus as he writes a cryptic message on a whiteboard, of Joshua bloody and teeth-gritted in his scrubs sprouting sharp bone knives from his arms, of Scott himself and the strict and careful bureaucracy he erects as though it could be a shield to keep this chaotic home safe. He squeezes hard again at the small hedgehog, and as if this action has pushed the sharpness from him his tone now is just soft and heavy. "You are not good judges of character." In phrasing this might sound like an accusation, and maybe it is. Charles, though, can feel where the blame is directed inward, numb and guilty, racking his brain to figure out how when he spends all his life watching so closely he could have missed this. << Matthieu-uncle >> is what surfaces in his mind but he chokes it back, instead offering bitterly: "Mr. Tessier --" And then nothing more. A pause, a tightening of shoulders. "... maybe some tea, Professor. Please." At the edge of Scott's attention Charles adds the boy's name to his mental review -- first with relief and then with growing dismay as "Kavalam" fails to ring any additional bells. << (some kind of memory manipulation) >> obvious though it seems, comes as hypothesis rather than conclusion, and he is accustomed enough to Mutation-Related Weirdness not to find the thought particularly alarming. Not that thought, anyway. His brows furrow faintly. << Have you got Matt on the schedule for any training or missions this weekend? >> he asks Scott silently, even as he adjusts the warmth of his presence around the teenager specifically, whispering calm but uninsistent comfort. "Tea will be up shortly, Kavalam. Are you quite comfortable on the floor?" He glances over at his luxuriously upholstered desk chair and raises his eyebrows at Kavalam in offer. Charles can sense Scott seizing at that burst of teenaged petulance with a rush of sudden, fierce gratitude to be on familiar ground -- "Touché," he mutters, turning in his seat to tilt Kavalam a still-perplexed frown. He takes the slight at his own judgment of character almost entirely in stride, but there is a sharp, unsteady jolt of surprise and defensiveness on behalf of his mentor, though it doesn't solidify into words, unspoken or not. He seizes, again with a strange gratitude, on the direct question, << Not this weekend, no. There's training scheduled for Wednesday, but I can move that. >> He is just getting up from his chair to offer it to the boy as Charles indicates the desk chair; he remains restlessly where he stands for just a moment, wanting to do something (move the chair? call Matt? reschedule training? sit back down?) and finally compromises by rotating his coffee 90 degrees on the table. "Are you in any immediate danger?" he asks, his brow furrowing over his tinted glasses. "The floor is fine." Kavalam hasn't looked up, has barely even considered the chair, this bizarre addiction to furniture automatically relegated in his mind to a realm of ineffable whiteness. "I am not. In a danger. I was -- I have been. Been staying with Gaétan's family. They --" And now he's doggedly, determinedly trying to steer his thoughts away from where they want to linger in horror. The shame is still there but it's joined by a strangely tender sort of care. It's clumsy and unpracticed, psionic self defense not a thing Kavalam in his unwanted obscurity has had much need for previously. But he's trying, now, some kind of attempt to afford dignity to this man who he wants to remember in his polished composure, incisive and together in a way Kavalam pretends he hasn't been taking diligent notes on for years. He's trying to think about the way Lucien added Kavalam's favorite snacks to automated grocery delivery, knowing he would never remember to do it ad hoc; about the faint warm glimmer in his eyes when he sneaks particularly clever wordplay in deadpan and waits for Matt to delight at it; about the unfailing hospitality that anyone who comes through the doors of Chez Tessier receives; about the million everyday kindnesses that Kavalam has watched for years while he thinks nobody is noticing, about the seemingly effortless poise that Kavalam knows he practices assiduously and how the secondhand lessons in social engineering helped them survive Lassiter. He's trying to think about these, but his mind keeps pulling back instead to Lucien, too many bruises and too little clothing and this shouldn't be the important thing but it feels disrespectful to see him like this after all the work he put into choosing how he wanted to be seen. "Gaétan's brother has passed," he finally says, thumb rubbing slow against the soft fur on the plush toy. And now he's finally letting himself think of Matt, the one reasonably solid bedrock he's had in his years here, of the many hours spent innovating ways to even have a relationship with his slippery mentee, of the endless patience he allowed Kavalam for years when Kavalam had nobody else to annoy. "I think that --" << Mr. Tessier they are all Mr. Tessier >> and the first name feels stiff and uncomfortable but for the sake of clarity he manages it all the same, "-- Matt killed him." Charles listens patiently, defocusing his own psionic attention while quietly helping to focus Kavalam's clumsy attempts to screen his thoughts. His steady attentiveness and the warmth of his aura freeze at the "has passed", and he has only just resumed the trickle of comfort when the second part of that revelation hits him. He sucks in a sharp breath, his shock and anguish shooting icy-cold through his telepathic halo, if only for a fraction of an instant. His hands grip the armrests of his wheelchair, as if he means to push himself to his feet. "Oh my stars," he whispers. The psionic chill recedes and the warmth returns, more determined than before. "I am so sorry, Kavalam," he says gently. "You have been through a terrible ordeal, and we will try to offer you safety, if that is at all within reach." The concept of "safety" is layered and deliberately amorphous, encompassing though not limited to companionship and counseling and rest. The door opens and a young Desi man in an unassuming blue suit enters carrying a tray. A sleek gray tabby cat trails him in, rubbing up against his heels before moving to investigate the novelty of a visitor sitting on the floor. The man, at least, does not seem to think there's anything at all amiss with where Kavalam is choosing to sit, and sinks down to offer the cup of fragrant masala chai on his tray. Charles looks up at his valet, his expression lapsing again, though not long enough this time to identify as anything in particular. "Ashok..." He swallows, closes his eyes, and draws a deep breath. "Thank you, Ashok. That will be all." << You had best move that training, >> he tells Scott faintly as he tries and tries to blink his eyes clear. Scott has paced around his chair to push it in, leaning with both hands braced on its back; his gaze has been trained steadily (perhaps even disconcertingly) on Kavalam this whole time, but at the revelation and the accompanying psionic jolt of Charles's shock, he turns his head to Charles, the familiar oath of << Jesus H! >> coming with sickened, thudding resonance. He bows his head for just one moment, his mind churning in a rapid, rushing spill of emotion when he considers the trust he has placed in Matt, the trust he places in all the team, then just as quickly -- almost jarringly -- his mind stills, flattens, quiets, and Scott lifts his head again. << I'll reschedule training, >> he thinks, half overlapping Charles's suggestion that he do just that; he is already digging his phone out of his jeans pocket, though he just sets it face-up on the chess table without unlocking it, his gaze dropping back to Kavalam on the floor. Silently, now, he is probing Charles for details, proof, explanation, though all he actually projects is << ? >> Out loud he says, his voice low and careful and steady, if not exactly reassuring, "We will handle it." Kavalam nods a little numbly at the delivery of the tea. For a second he looks a bit uncertain what to do with it, and only reluctantly sets the stuffed hedgehog carefully down in his lap so that he can pick the cup up. "Thank you, uncle." He draws in a slow breath, calming slightly at the reassurances and the scent of the tea. "I don't --" Now he's trying to think back over the events of the night -- the noises (had he ignored them? Why had he ignored them?) from below that had only started to seem worth attending at the dog's insistent fuss, the sight of Matt somehow looming with the syringe over his much larger brother on the futon, the way these pieces had only begun to seem serious when the sirens -- "-- They said it was an overdose." This addition comes delayed and uncertain, and there's a but in his voice and mind that he does not resolve except in a shamed and apologetic, "-- I'm sorry, I didn't -- I should not have said -- the police they came and --" << (found nothing suspicious) >>, << {probably should have begun with that} >> is only growing into a larger shame, was it the drugs that were so unsettling? Obviously Matthieu-uncle loves his brother and he should not be delivering these accusations over a tragic accident. "-- I'm sorry. I think my head is in a bit of mess. I did not mean to -- alarm. You. I just. He -- was very good to me." Ashok offers Kavalam the barest smile and Charles the barest tick of an eyebrow, but withdraws as quietly as he'd come, leaving Greymalkin to flop down beside Kavalam and purr. Charles, meanwhile, is radiating comfort and reassurance for all he's worth, showing no indication that he's picked up Kavalam's unspoken perplexities. "You've done nothing wrong, Kavalam. You've had an awful shock, and that can confound one's memory for a time, but you did well to tell us what you do recall." He doesn't look at Scott, but rather at the phone lying on the table. << I don't think this is straightforward, but the boy did see something suspicious, and Matthieu can at times be...unstable. It bears looking into. >> He picks up his tea and considers -- not very seriously -- whether it's possible he might still win the game less the queen Kavalam took, then looks back to the teenager again. "If you're tired, you may take a nap down in the med bay. Dr. McCoy can give you something that will help you rest. If you're restless, Mr. Summers can call you up a program in the Danger Room." This would be a rare treat indeed. To Scott again, having just volunteered him to babysit, << The boy needs you. I will go speak with Matthieu -- my reach is farther than his, and if he cannot surprise me then he cannot best me. >> To both of them, now, confidently, "Don't worry, I will get to the bottom of this." --- <XAV> Scott's Office It's almost mid-day by the time Charles's van returns from the city, and on his way through the extensive garages back to the mansion proper he rolls by Scott's officeshoplair. "Ah, just the man I was looking for," he says brightly. "If you're not too urgently occupied, perhaps we can finish that game we left off earlier -- over lunch, perhaps?" He pivots his powerchair slowly to see whether anything's been changed or moved since he last set wheel in here. "I was thinking about it the whole drive back -- how did you take my queen?" He projects a glimpse of the chess game as they'd left it, along with his own intrigue. "It must have been devilishly clever of you, but I might yet recover." Scott is standing stooped over his workbench staring down at his laptop, where he has multiple tabs open trying to reschedule next week's training. Probably his frown is not entirely due to the trouble he's having -- all morning he has had a nagging feeling that he was supposed to be doing something (important?) while Charles was out, but ruminating on this mystery task has not helped him to remember it. He straightens up, lifting his gaze to the door; already he was reaching out with a prodding mental << ? >> and Charles's non-answer trips him up enough that he has absolutely no response, telepathic or otherwise. He closes his laptop and scoops it up, striding across the garage to walk with Charles back up to the mansion. "I don't think I took your queen," he says, "but you'd know better than me, probably. What happened with Matt?" Charles frowns and nudges his mental image of the chess board at Scott again -- the white queen is, indeed, absent. "I wouldn't say my memory is perfect," he hedges, though not very modestly, "but it is highly accurate on such matters. For instance, you're meant to cancel Matthieu's training this week -- for bereavement leave." Only the barest ripple of regret ripples through the familiar warmth of his psionic presence, jarring against the admittedly muddled sense of his frozen grief and horror just a few hours before. "His brother -- Lucien, not Gaétan -- died of a heroin overdose last night. It's unfortunate, but there's really nothing to look into." << (why had we thought it needed looking into? >> "We should send something along to the family, of course, to support them in this difficult time. I'm sure Jean can think of something suitable. Now..." He's returned to the chess board in his mind, replaying Scott's last move, "...rook takes knight at queen's bishop five..."