Logs:Trust/Verify

Trust/Verify
Dramatis Personae Halim, Roscoe
In Absentia Joshua, Jax, Charles	2025-01-19 "Maybe between my metrics and yours there's someone who actually knows what they're doing."
Location <???> Xavier's Estate (Tropical Edition)
Unlike the other island Charles Xavier owns, this one is a modest little thing. Starter Island, if you will. The accommodations here are a little cramped for shoving all the school into -- plenty of kids are having to triple- and quad- up in the low-slung bungalows scattered around the beachfront -- but the weather is glorious and the beaches pristine. A lot of the group has been out of doors, all day, relieved for the fresh air and the space after the unfortunate bitter wintertime confinement. Halim has found himself a semi-secluded spot on the beach, well away from the residences. He does not look like he is prepped for nor enjoying the tropical escape, still in jeans, sneakers, a Xavier's sweatshirt that is undoubtedly sweltering in the warmth. He's dragged his lunch out here -- a bowl of some kind of gingery stir-fry full of broccoli and tofu and wood ear mushrooms, together with a number of scallion pancakes -- and has it set in the sand beside him. He's watching the tide -- still some distance too far to be at high splashing risk, yet -- creep slowly by slowly closer with each rolling lap, his eyes narrowed in steady accusation. Did Halim come to this spot to be alone, out of sight of hundreds of children already quite sick of each other and stir-crazy? Unfortunately nowhere on this island is out of sight of everyone. It's possible Halim himself sees this interloper coming, shuffling trompily with soft sprays of sand across the windswept dunes and then dropping into a squat on the other side of the food, arms wrapping tight around his knees. Though then he glances to the side, and down, and unwraps one hand to steal a bite of scallion pancake. "Show those mushrooms we won this round," says Roscoe, as he's tilting back to just flop down, digging his bare feet down into the sand, out of sight. Maybe not out of his sight, he's staring contemplatively at where they disappear. Roscoe did dress for tropical escape, in stripey swim trunks and a plain white t-shirt still a little damp over his shoulders. He sits in very perfect silence for about two more seconds before, "Are you an angry person?" "How do mushrooms count their victories?" Whether Halim noticed or not, he hasn't looked away from the gradually encroaching surf. He does blink, at the question. A particularly fierce tide rolls in, the froth bubbling up still quite a few feet down from where he's dug his heels into the sand. He's watching it roll down the shore, silent until the next (far weaker) chases it back up. "Yes." Roscoe pushes his feet further into the sand, very sudden even if the rest of him is staying rather still, hands now draped loosely at his ankles, fingers gone a little tense and spidery. "I never know how to tell with adults," he says, a little apologetically. "I used to get pissy about everything but, I'unno. Never got me anything but..." this trails away, and then Roscoe is curving his back over his knees in front of him, shifting his hands so he can interlock them by just their fingertips, skin going pale and yellowish with the pressure. "Then I thought I just -- grew up and chilled out but I still... I mean, how much are you allowed to be angry before it starts becoming kind of. Selfish." Halim turns his head slowly -- he's kind of blinking at Roscoe like he has a hard time, at first, remembering how to refocus these eyes. "... who is giving the permission." One of his feet shifts, wriggling its heel down heavier into the sand. "All feelings are selfish." "Well, that sucks," grumbles Roscoe at once. Then at a very slight delay, not mellowing out so much as dulled, shifting a little in his seat in the sand, "See, I had no reason." He twists his wrists in opposite directions, watches his fingertips whiten even further. "Are you a forgiving person? Can you do both?" "Does it." Halim's brow wrinkles, briefly. It doesn't quite make it all the way into a frown. "Selfish isn't wrong. It's just selfish." He is looking down at Roscoe's twisting hands, now. "Forgiveness is an action." Roscoe is quiet for a second, scooting his feet deeper into the sand; he is frowning, his features pulling down and drawing inward. "Okay," he says finally, but maybe this answer isn't quite to his satisfaction, for he goes on a moment later, "But, are you, though?" And then, sort of non sequitur, "Is there an action form for angry? Or selfish?" "No." It's a few more seconds before Halim elaborates, a little more stiff even than his usual brusque tone. "I don't forget. I find forgiveness hard. I can't know the future -- past actions are what I have to judge." His expression shifts, a quick tightening of his jaw. "Just hypocritical, that way. Some people do both." Though the next strong wave still ebbs several feet from him he twitches at its breaking, like the faint mist of sea-spray on the breeze has stung him -- or maybe it's, "I -- don't know," that's put the uncomfortable twitch in his posture. "Lots of violence has no emotion. Lots of charity is selfish. I can't judge on the feelings." "Just the actions?" says Roscoe, not entirely inquisitive in his tone; he's peeking sideways for the first time, pressing his teeth into his lower lip, then flicking his gaze forward again. Then sighing, light but with enough hiss to drag his breath out, long and whisper-thin. "I guess I'm a hypocrite. I want to just move on already but then I also want -- ugh." His head drops so abruptly that his teeth clack together when his chin hits his sternum, but then he tips his head back up again, at the ocean. "When I first got out of the lab and went back home Joshua said people care way too much about what happened but also don't care enough. But I'm sort of doing it to myself now. When they fixed your brain," he's switching back to this doggedly curious prodding, "were you angry the whole time? Underneath it? Or did you have to -- learn it all over again." "Everyone self-justifies. Every rapist in the cells. Every shitfuck who cut into us. Each one told themselves a good reason. The actions don't lie." Halim lapses back into quiet. The ocean roars up onto the beach once again. "No. I wasn't anything. I learned. I'm still learning." He has barely moved, all this while, knees crooked up and his arms wrapped around them. A little slow, a little stiff, he's half-turning now, looking at Roscoe with a long unblinking gaze. "A lot of people are hypocrites." There's a small pause. "What do you want. Also." Roscoe is peeking sideways again, his eyes and mouth pulling lopsidedly toward Halim, though his head is still pointed straight ahead. "Oh," he says quietly, "okay." Then, a moment after Halim turns to look at him, he's shifting too, in slow-stiff parallel, his shoulders opening to face his teacher but his head ducking self-consciously low between them. He starts to lower his eyelids, in a slow half-blink, but then doesn't; his eyes are still very bloodshot. Then, after another moment, he does blink, and then looks down. "I don't know. I wasn't angry the first time either. I guess I want to make up a grudge to hold." The silence this time is long, not just by Halim standards. The tide rolls in and back out, and Halim still isn't blinking. "Why?" Roscoe's eyes flit away, a creepy shift under his lowered eyelids, but he's not moving otherwise, his front teeth pressing indents into his lip through this long pause. He exhales through his nose -- "Beats me, I hate getting mad, it's embarrassing, I just -- why wouldn't I be angry? Shouldn't I be angry? Aren't you angry?" "I'm angry." The continued flatness of Halim's voice levels out both these words and the immediacy with which he says them. "The anger helps. Me. Does it help you?" Roscoe shifts in the sand for a moment, then shrugs: there is a sudden fluidity in his movements again, as he surrenders this question, folding his arms onto his knees and letting his head droop down onto them. "Better than nothing?" he says, though he's so uncertain in this answer that his voice is cracking a little on the uptick. He wriggles his feet further into the sand. "I don't want people to think it didn't matter to me." "People," Halim says, "are very stupid." He's slowly turning back to watch the tide, shifting stiff and uncomfortable in the sand. "Many idiots think things don't matter to Joshua because he does not smile enough. Many idiots think things don't matter to Jackson because he smiles too much." There's another silence, shorter, this time. "You help many Prometheans stay in touch. Find their old labmates." His words, always blunt, start and stop a little more choppily here. If he was planning to say more at the end of these sentences, it doesn't finish compiling. The next breaking wave laps up, tiny, at the toes of his sneakers, and he glares at it as it recedes as if the tide had stolen away the rest of his thoughts. This time Roscoe forgoes his unsubtle peripheral-vision peering, just tilts his head on his arms to look at Halim again, head crooked so sideways that it's not all that clear how much (even) he can see. "I try," he mumbles, then, head twisting forward enough that his voice isn't strained through its lopsided angle. The tone isn't really boastful even on, "I mean, I'm good at it. I know half of everyone that was ever at Lassiter with me, I was good at making friends. I made all these friends that were really horrible people. They thought I was funny," this last is said like it might have been intended as a defense somehow, a little lower in pitch. "Right." Once more this truncates abruptly like there is more to come. Halim's fingers press down against his calves. His toes shift, digging deeper divots into the wet sand. "Most Prometheans are horrible," ends in another stiff pause. "There is space. Between discarding people and forgiving them. I don't always know how big it should be." "I would lose a lot of people if I didn't let things go." Roscoe says this sort of into his leg, his chin balanced between his knees, hands tucking his feet tighter to himself. "I guess I was hoping you did know," he says finally. "Thanks for trying, anyway." "I often gauge on practicality. What is at risk. What is the likelihood of further harm." Halim's grip is tightening against his legs, slowly. "I would not have given myself this second chance. It raises questions. About my metrics." The next wave that splashes up laps higher, soaking into his shoes and washing seawater into his stir fry. He is staring down at this balefully, and doesn't move. Roscoe glances down at the stir fry, too, like he'd forgotten it was there until the wave reminded him, and tentatively steals a floret of broccoli. Probably it is not, as he insists a moment later, "-- still edible," his face is screwed up against the extra salt as he swallows and he's not trying for seconds, just sliding the bowl a very helpful two inches back, then wrapping his arm back around his legs, twisting his fingers together again. When he shifts around, the wet sand cracks around his feet. "Maybe between my metrics and yours there's someone who actually knows what they're doing," he says. "Aggregating more data points will strongly help reinforce your conclusions." Halim does not reach for the bowl. He blinks slow at Roscoe as the teenager eats the terrible ocean-broccoli. "Except," he says, with just a tiny hint of a sigh creeping in to his otherwise flat words, "when people tell you lies." Probably this lapse into Algorithms and Data Structures mode amused Roscoe; though he rolls his eyes exaggeratedly, his quiet "Yes, teach," has an odd air of gruntlement to it. The momentary lightness of his expression is gone an instant later, like it was blinked away, though Roscoe makes no other inclination he heard this last comment. Just looks back out at the ocean. "Are you a trusting person?" "No." This answer is immediate. Halim is plucking a (much smaller) floret of broccoli from the bowl to nibble it. His expression doesn't change much. "I verify." He doesn't take another. "Are you?" Roscoe watches Halim eat the terrible ocean-broccoli unblinkingly, with an odd expression like he's not sure whether to smile or not. Then slouches back onto his hands, wriggles his feet again to crack more at the wet, clumped sand around it. "No," he echoes. "But it was kind of nice when I was." "We get new data," Halim replies -- the next wave crashes up harder, soaking the legs of his jeans, and he closes his eyes against the splash and drops his hand to pluck his bowl out of the sand before it risks getting washed away, "we draw new conclusions."