ArchivedLogs:Paths

Paths
Dramatis Personae Iolaus, Rasheed
In Absentia	2015-03-10 "And your choices?" (Part of Future Past TP. Follows after waking up from parallel dreaming.)
Location <NYC> 806 {Rasheed} - One Sixty-Seven - Upper West Side
Spacious and elegant and impeccably kept, this apartment is pristine enough that it looks barely lived-in. The living room is just a short hallway down from the entrance, set down a couple stairs in a wide sweep of pale hardwood floors. Dark leather couches and armchairs and pale wooden furniture sits on a plush rug of soft grey. A large balcony runs along the side of the living room, accessible through wide French doors and shaded by an overhang; below, there is a clear view of Central Park. The kitchen adjacent sits a little bit higher, a few stairs leading up to its dark tiled floor. It is roomy as well, granite countertops and sleek new appliances and a wealth of elegant dinnerware. There are two bedrooms, here, both set opposite each other down a short hallway and both with their own bathroom. The end of the hallway holds a large study, with book-lined walls. Another half-bath sits off the living room, underneath a carpeted lofted area accessible by ladder and big enough to be a room itself, though it lacks walls; instead, a short balcony looks down on the living room beneath. It was still early morning in New York City - almost five in the morning - when Iolaus rings the doorbell to Rasheed's apartment. His appearance, distorted as it is through the fisheye lens of the peephole, is clearly discheveled. His hair is matted and looks like he just rolled straight out of bed; he is wearing shoes, rather than boots, and his buttons are off-by-one. It's likely only being a regular visitor was enough to get him past the doorman in the lobby. Even more unusually, he appears to be alone. Iolaus' fist follows into the door a few moments later, an urgent rap-rap-rap, followed by a low string of profanity in Greek. "{Open the door, fucking hell, Rasheed.}" It takes a while for the door to open. Rasheed isn't actually very /dressed/ when he does get the door, still in dark pajama pants, a black bathrobe thrown on over top, stubble on his face. A somewhat haunted look to his expression. His lips press thinly together as he gestures Iolaus in. "I have tea. On." Two cups, already, set out on the living room coffeetable. Iolaus almost falls into the room when the door opens, stumbling and taking a step forward to not lose his balance. "Rasheed. Christ, Rasheed." Iolaus tosses his hands up in the air, stepping into the room. "Tea. I don't know /how/ you are so calm about this. I assume you saw it too? Tea. Fucking christ." Iolaus runs a hand through his hair, stepping over towards the coffee table despite his words. He sinks down onto the couch in front of the cups, heavily, shoulders curved in and back hunched over. Rasheed closes the door behind Iolaus. Locks it up tight. For a moment his forehead tips in to rest against it, but then he straightens, following after Iolaus towards the living room. He takes a seat on the other side of the couch, picking up one of the mugs and curling long fingers around it. "Calm?" He exhales, sharper, his head shaking. "Some things just need tea." Iolaus picks up his own mug, holding it in his hands and pulling it close so the steam rises up and splashes over his face. He bends his head down, closing his eyes as he sits in silence, breathing deeply. "I don't know what to say, Rasheed." Iolaus says, eventually, his voice quiet as if all the energy had simply drained out of him and into the couch. "I don't even know where to begin." Rasheed doesn't drink his tea. He just grips it tight, lips compressing. "It was a dream." "A dream." Iolaus' chuckle is a sad sound that comes in time with a shake of his head. "I wish it was just a dream, Rasheed. But it was a dream you had too - and I know you, as well as I, have been hearing people talk about the... prophetic dreams that they have been having. As improbable as that may be, both of us having the same dream? Clearly, you did - you were /expecting/ me." "It wasn't the first I've had," Rasheed admits, quietly. His eyes lower to the mug, fingers pressing against; on its warm surface, his nailbeds have gone white. "But I thought -- I don't know what I thought." He swallows, slow and hard. "As prophesy goes, my friend, this one seems far-fetched." "Nor my first, either. Though seeing /you/ was a surprise." Iolaus turns and gives the other man a sad smile. "Far-fetched indeed. But was it /true/, Rasheed? I was surprised when you developed the suppression work as quickly as you did. Had you been trying to build a weapon? It appears you succeeded, from what we saw." "Seeing you --" Rasheed's eyes turn towards the huge windows walling the side of his living room, looking out onto the dark dawn-lit shapes of Central Park. "The last time, I was administering patient care with a tiny handful of our nurses in the broken shell of a warehouse. I suppose on waking I must have assumed you dead. The Clinic is everything you'd worked for and --" He breaks off, sucking his breath in. Shaking his head, slightly. "What I am trying to do is save the life of the little Tessier girl. And even there I don't think it will be fast enough." "Don't lie to me, Rasheed." Iolaus says, his voice soft but sharp. "Not here, not now. You didn't answer my question. Had you been trying to build a weapon - working for the government?" That sucked-in breath comes back out, just as heavily. Rasheed's eyes shift from his cup to meet Iolaus's. "Once." Iolaus takes in a deep breath -- and lets it out in a rush, a burst of air, as if slapped. "Well." Iolaus nods, eyes locked with the other man. "Might as well know all of it, Rasheed. When? For who?" His eyes search the other doctor's, face as stony as any poker player raising down one last person with two dud cards. "Initially -- not for anyone. Just a group of us getting together -- thinking we could actually do some good in --" Rasheed's hand lifts from his cup to drag across his face. "But that's how it always starts, isn't it? Our research was so promising and the government grants -- and then /contracts/ -- that began to come in -- just started having more and more strings attached." Iolaus' eyes watch Rasheed carefully, unmoving. "A slippery slope." Iolaus says, carefully. "Leading directly to Project Prometheus. But you can't stop, because even once you're there, you can still see how much good you can do. And when you balance the math in your head, a few lives versus the world..." Iolaus' tone is dark, and the doctor shakes his head. "Yes, that's the old familiar tune." Rasheed's shoulders tense up. Just a small twitch. Deeper wrinkles crease the corners of his eyes in time with his small hiss of sucked-in breath. "The place Prometheus ended," he answers at length, "is never the place I intended it to be --" A beat of hesitation before the concluding: "-- when I founded it." His mug lowers to his knees. His gaze lowers with it, fixing down on the steam a long while before lifting back to Iolaus. "The good we did there was on a scale we never had even dreamed of. It's what you keep telling yourself." The little movement that Iolaus had been making ends the moment the word "founded" left Rasheed's mouth. His eyes are fixed at full-size, mouth hanging slightly open, as the clockwork mechanisms powering his brain grind to a stuttering halt, gears stripping and meshing together uncomfortably. It takes the doctor almost a full minute to recover, blinking. His mouth opens to speak, then shuts. He pauses for a second, then breaks his gaze away from the other doctor and looks out into the room. "Do you know what I thought when I woke up this morning? My first thought, after I digested what I had just seen." Rasheed pulls in a slow breath, his eyes momentarily closing as Iolaus's fix wide. When they open his brows just lift, silent and questioning. "I thought that I should go to the Brooklyn Bridge and throw myself off of it." Iolaus says, sadly. He turns to look at the other man, and his eyes glisten with moisture. "Because no matter how improbable, if there was even the /chance/ that I could commit a crime on that scale... commit /genocide/--" Iolaus' voice cracks slightly and he breaks his gaze away from the other man. "No good that I have done, or could do, balances out the scale." "No matter what good you could do?" Rasheed's eyes widen faintly, at this. "What good have you already /done/, Iolaus. How many millions would be dead right now without your work? And this dream -- it was a dream. It hasn't /happened/. Not yet. Not here." His head gives a sharp firm shake. "There's /always/ a risk in everything we do that -- it'll end up twisted, corrupted, that we'll get so far from the paths we first set out on --" For a moment here he hesitates, his hunched shoulders curling just a bit further inward. "But we always have the choice. A blessing and a curse, isn't it? Whatever good or evil we've done -- in the end those paths aren't ever set in stone. No matter what these dreams are telling us. No matter where it /seems/ like the road might lead. At every step you have the choice to keep going or turn for something brighter. And every time you don't and every time you /do/ -- in the end it's always. Just us. And our choices. And you still /have/ those." Iolaus' eyes turn towards Rasheed once more, a single tear dripping down the edge of his cheek. "And your choices? Have you made different ones than the ones you've made in the past?" His voice quiets and he looks down at the surface of the couch. "I am scared, Rasheed. I am scared of what /I/ might do. If you can be lead down that path, who is to say that the dreams aren't the future?" "The dreams might be the future," Rasheed acknowledges quietly. "But my choices brought me from Prometheus to your Clinic. The future could surprise us for /good/ as well. Just because it is telling you one thing --" He stops, brows furrowing deeply as he slumps back into the couch. "... but, why?" he finally asks, in lieu of answer. "I know you, Iolaus. If the government came for your Clinic and your patients -- you wouldn't just /go along/ with it for the sake of /quiet/. Peace. What changed. What will change?" "No, never." Iolaus says, passion sparking briefly in his words. "No, no. It was some... incident. Some catastrophy that pushed things over a point from which there was no recovery." Iolaus looks down into his growing-cold tea, swirling it around in the mug thoughtfully. "I don't know what the point was. But in one of the other dreams...." The doctor pauses for a moment, frowning. "I don't know what the catastrophy was. But I do know it killed Jackson. His children. I know it killed hundreds of thousands - maybe even millions. And I know that it was my fault." Iolaus swirling his tea finally reminds Rasheed of the mug he is holding. He takes a sip of his tea, but the swallow that forces it down his throat seems a little choked. "Maybe there was never a tipping point. Maybe there never is a tipping point. Certainly in my life there was never -- it's just one step and then another. And before you know it..." "Maybe. Maybe there was no tipping point, but there was definitely an incident. I remember... I remember looking at a picture of Jax. I remember apologizing to him, and promising that I would spend the rest of my life making up for my mistakes. Making up for what I did." Iolaus shrugs his shoulders and lets out a laugh - a short, bark of noise that bears no resemblance to humor whatsoever. "But I don't remember what it /was/." When Rasheed's eyes close again it is just slow, heavy, not a tight squeeze but a tired slump. "I don't know how much point there is in dwelling on it. You know who you are, /today/. Three years, five years, ten years from now --?" His head shakes. "We can't stop a future we don't even know. We can only do our best to make the right choices about the present." "Maybe that's what causes us to go down that path," Iolaus says, softly. "Maybe doing what we're doing now is what leads us to catastrophy. Maybe we need to do something else." Despite it being advice, it does not sound particularly sure. "Or maybe not." Commitment - definitely a strong point at the moment. Iolaus sighs and looks down at the floor. "What would you say if they told you that they needed your help again, Rasheed?" he asks, quietly. "Prometheus is closed," Rasheed answers, a little clipped, lips pressing tightly together afterwards. But after this, softer, "... I imagine I would ask them what good would come of it." "For good reason," Iolaus bites back, voice sharpening a bit. "Even knowing what path it led you down last time? I thought you had turned away from that, Rasheed," Iolaus says, a warning note in his voice. "Turned away from trying to help? From trying to save lives? How could I ever turn away from that? I can only hope that my past experiences give me --" Rasheed's fingers tighten around his mug again. "Better judgment. On how to go about it. But you asked what I would say, and I can only give you an honest answer. Whatever mistakes I've made in the past won't -- can't -- stop me from trying to do good in the future." Iolaus' eyes snap up to Rasheed' face, watching the other man for several moments in silence. His head tilts from one side to the other and back again, as if the slightly different angle would let him see into Rasheed's mind. "Alright." Iolaus says, eventually. He shakes his head and runs both hands through his hair, shoulders curling in as he drops his head into his hands, elbows on his knees. Here, Rasheed falls silent. He sets his mug aside on the coffee table eventually, cold and barely touched, sliding just a little closer to Iolaus to lift a hand. Bring it down to rest, thin fingers hesitant and uncertain, between the other man's shoulderblades. Iolaus stiffens when the other man's hand lands on his back, tensing up. The tension bleeds out slowly, Iolaus leaning back into the other man's touch, tilting to one side and resting his head against Rasheed's shoulder. He says nothing.