ataraxionlogs | oo2. partially open.

[ The dishes are taken, food scraped into them. Some form of grain, with space-curry doled out on top. Charles won't be getting any points for presentation, although as far as as basic survival goes and some of the meals that come in the form of a square and peeled out of foil, it at least looks like it could have come from Earth.

And will, inevitably, taste a little left of centre of Earth -- like something that is familiar but unidentifiably different. There is a quirk of subtle good humour at the corner of his mouth, as he places her helping in front of her, goes to sit down with his. ]

I'm not so much one of those vegetarians as I am a picky omnivore. You can have your Chinese food, I'll take a filet mignon.

[ At least, Emma makes it somewhat easy to relax around -- he remembers, even at his worst, that as cornered as he might have felt, she did much to mitigate it. ]

This is the first I've cooked for anyone since coming back, so you're obligated to like it.

[ She gives the food a look of scrutiny, shifting her gaze back towards him in silent challenge, and then pulls it over towards her the rest of the way, settling onto her stool. ]

No, you know what sounds really good? [ Digging her fork into the meal, she makes it less presentable by stirring the whole thing into a mess. Whatever it tastes like, she'll eat it. Might as well make sure it's all in one go. ] Fruit Loops.

[ Emma considers gummy bears, pop tarts, and sugar cereal to be real food. Don't judge. ]

Jesus Christ.

[ That was definitely judgemental, if lapsing on the side of 'fond' than anything else. Charles will just pour the awful space wine, some white-pink affair that he's apparently branded as palatable. ]

You're as bad as Raven.

[ By the time he gets to his own serving, his eating is consistently conservative rather than hungry. Maybe that's just what an upbringing with manners looks like when it's at home. ]

Edited 2014-10-05 04:15 (UTC)

Come on. You never liked that stuff?

[ Scoffing somewhat, she takes a much more American approach to her meal, choking forkfuls down like someone who's suffered extended periods of time with no certainty as to when her next meal would come. With Charles, at least, she maintains the courtesy to swallow before speaking (the same could not be said for others). ]

What, did you drink earl grey every morning when you were a kid, too?

[ Ha HA American humor. ]

Well, there weren't any Fruit Loops when I was a child, so obviously earl grey tea was my only respite. Your palate is meant to develop somewhat beyond the age of seven, Miss Swan.

[ Either he's being polite or he's not truly very hungry, food left to sit as he sets fork down in favour of wine glass, holding it at a casual hover.

So she's not eating very pretty, but she is eating. It'll do. ]

I hardly bother actually attempting to assemble anything if it's just for myself.

[ That's what you get when you walk yourself into accidental dates with orphans. Dropping her fork, she reaches up to swipe her thumb across her bottom lip, thoughtful as much as it is making sure that the phantom feeling of curry sauce is just that. His well-meaning gibe rolls off her back. ]

Well, you're a step ahead of me. I usually just heat up whatever takes the least time in the microwave.

[ Or the space equivalent. She rolls a shoulder in a shrug, propping elbows on the table in front of her and finally taking a moment to study him, to consider his countenance. To consider how little he's touched his food. ]

Maybe we could both stand to do this more often.

We don't have any microwaves either.

[ Warm humour. Maybe they do have microwaves in 1973, but that sounds like a thing you'd have to use Wikipedia to verify, and Charles is vaguely inscrutable all at once. In no small part due to being vaguely conscious of her focus. He sips wine, tolerant of its flat, always vaguely strange flavour.

Hefts fork, again, scraping up a mouthful. ]

Certainly. I could find a form of meat that I don't wind up overthinking, just for you.

[ Her scrutiny remains even after he takes a bite. Reaching up, she grabs her glass and swishes the fluid around, thoughtful. She takes a sip and lowers it back to the table, mulling over the taste and arching her eyebrows slightly.

Nothing on this ship tastes entirely familiar, but after a year of it, she's grown accustomed. It's more real to her than tacos and lasagna, if only because it's more present. ]

I'll consider it a personal accomplishment if you do.

[ She points at him with her fork as she makes the observation, diving back into her meal. ]

Most people get used to it eventually.

[ She's only been here four months longer than him, but his trip home lasted years, where hers lasted days. Maybe it threw off the adjustment period. Or maybe she just sounds patronizing. ]

Adaptation or resignation.

[ A second bite follows the last, then break, burying fork into food in absent fidget as study is turned around back to her. The echoes of her thoughts are a silent dialogue that he struggles not to respond to.

He'd decided to leave their last exchange where it was, in the medical bay, at the summary of her appraisal. He'd have liked it to be true.

The fork is left against the side of his plate, going for wine again. ]

I ran into Hook. He mentioned having gone home as well. Seems to be catching.

[ Unwittingly, she feels a twinge in her chest. She recalls the cues she'd pulled from him, determining he was hiding something that first jump. Perhaps more aggressively than needed, she drives her fork into her food. It stings. ]

Yeah, he went with me. [ Her gaze lifts quickly. ] I mean, not— [ Her tongue darts out to lick her lips. Dammit. When her eyes lock on his, she already knows he's seen or felt or—however the hell telepathy works—understood what sparked that nervous habit. Hook's mouth on hers. At the jump, in Neverland, in his room. Her face grows hot. ] Same jump.

[ When she stuffs food into her mouth this time, it's more to stop herself from digging a deeper hole. ]

[ There's a rapid blink from Charles before he steers his attention down at his food in an attempt to pull back, at least somewhat, just for a moment. ]

Sorry, [ is more abashed than he might have been ten years ago. Several months ago. Even if he was on a mission to get into Emma's pants, which this dinner does not happen to be about (...entirely, let's not rule anything out though), he would have laughed casual invasions of privacy off. ] I don't mean to use that sort've thing as small talk.

[ But he keeps doing it. Emma's history. Emma's fairytale parents. Emma's Complicated. He sets down wine without sipping from it. ]

Although I'd like to know-- how it was. Going home, coming back.

No, it's— [ She averts her gaze. It's not fine, so she doesn't finish the sentence. It's invasive. Uncomfortable. A number of things, none of them fine. And yet if she had a real problem, Emma can't help but guess she'd have stopped coming around by now. He doesn't exactly pretend to be anything else (one of the first men in her life who hasn't). ]

It was hard. Neverland isn't all it's cracked up to be. [ Reaching out, she grabs her wine glass and takes a longer-than-socially-acceptable drink from it. Mulling the taste over after she swallows, she works her jaw, considering before furthering her commentary. ] If you want more than that, you'd have to ask Hook.

[ He did pretend to be something else, for a while. It's only these recent weeks has he been able to look at what that's cost him. Everyone.

Charles is quiet. A duck on the water, calm outwardly, frantically kicking at the water beneath to get a grip and just listen to her. There is the obligatory half-smile at Neverland -- the Barrie story was a staple, in the Xavier household -- and a nod of understanding.

Better humour; ]

He would be the one to ask.

[ He goes back for his wine, although doesn't pick it up. Rotates it against the table. ]

But then, Neverland is never what it's cracked up to be. You seem to be doing alright.

We made it out.

[ Her noncommittal shrug says it all: not without issue. Neal coming back, Henry losing his heart, it's all—Fresh. Still. Stirring her wine around in the glass with a few well-placed circular gestures of her hand, she sets the glass back down and straightens her back. ]

Why so curious, anyway?

Pardon me, I think my curious is of the expected amount when a friend of yours absconds to Never Never Land for however long.

[ --is a bit sassy and entirely nonserious, a slight relief of pressure, actually knocking back a mouthful of wine this round once delivered. The glass is considered, kept at a hover.

It's probably convincing, like maybe he wasn't still sharing in her feelings.

Next, an accusation, although it's very mild; ]

You're not, anymore.

We're not all mind readers here: not what?

[ She puts on airs of casual comfort with the joke, disguising any apprehension she has about how he'll clarify that remark. ]

[ Faked affect has Charles immediately regretting terming it that way, a tip of his head and wander off of his attention kind of speaking to that rue, but, you know.

Oh well. ]

Curious. There are actually times that I wonder how anyone gets through life without this.

[ A tap of finger to temple. ]

Peacefully, I expect.

No one's life is peaceful.

[ Hers sure as hell isn't. But she holds up a hand. ]

I trust you.

[ As if that's it, the only reason she's not so curious anymore. Charles might not deserve it after Arima, and maybe it's out of pure necessity (she doesn't have another option, after all), but it's true. Beyond requirement and past mistakes, Emma trusts him with it. ]

Is that such a bad thing?

No. It's an honour.

[ This is said gently, without particular grandeur, as if such abstractions can be made factual. He goes to finish off his glass, then considers the bottle.

Hell.

He pours a second around, hand gripped around the neck rather than at the base like he was raISED BY WOlves and offers Emma a top up. ]

There are just things I know now that I didn't before and I feel like they're going to eat me alive if I'm not careful. This is me being careful.

[ Making sure there's someone around to bother to make dinner for. ]

[ Holding her glass out, she offers it to him to refill. Emma's eyes remain locked on Charles' the whole time, studying him with marked scrutiny. Raven and Erik's remarks as she'd tried to grill them on the subject come to mind: Charles picked humans, and Erik picked mutants. They came up on opposite sides. Kate's accusations of Erik being some kind of terrorist.

Without particular shame, she wonders if those are the things Charles means—the things he knows now. Where the battle lines are drawn, perhaps. ]

What aren't you telling me?

[ No pretense. Strange, how asking Hook for his secrets and calling him on his omissions feels like some insurmountable task, but nailing Charles for it comes plainly and easily. Maybe she's less afraid of Charles rebuffing her. ]

[ Charles picked humans.

He doesn't disguise reaction, low key enough that it could be anything -- a tip of his head, a drop of his gaze on the wine filling Emma's glass before he sets the bottle aside. Demeanour remains when she asks the direct question. He has the fleeting thought that he should talk to Kate Bishop too.

Or not. Already burdened. ]

I didn't pick humans. I didn't pick war. Erik always does, and I thought he had done something unforgivable. For a long time, that's what I thought. Ten years. He was imprisoned for it, and I thought he was finally where he belonged.

It's strange. I left him there, but I felt more like he'd left me.

[ Which probably sounds strangely intimate for someone you were last seen near-throttling, but there is a particular detached unselfconsciousness about it, as if Charles doesn't particularly mind what conclusions Emma may or may not form.

He would mostly just like a cigarette to go along with this conversation. ]

Anyway. Turns out I was wrong. What I'm supposed to do with that information, god only knows.

I've heard forgiveness helps.

[ Heard because she can't say that she has ever effectively practiced it. Forgiving Neal still seems like an insurmountable climb. Whether Erik did something better or worse, she can't say, but she can admit that she'd be a hypocrite to act like she knew the first thing about forgiveness.

She pulls her glass back, but she doesn't drink from it. Lets the rim hover near her mouth, all the while scrutinizing him over it.

If not Erik, then himself. Whatever led him to believe Erik had done this terrible thing, she doesn't find it particularly fair for him to be so stuck on the fact that he'd believed it at all. Then again, she's never been good at forgiving herself, either. So she lets the suggestion lie there without pressing further. ]

Ahh.

[ There's humour in that response, mild though it is -- of course, that old chestnut, why didn't it occur to him before. That it actually didn't means that mild dose of sarcasm is directed at himself, rather than her.

He's not going to ask who Neal is. Today. There is an in between, there must be: ignoring the thoughts he is privileged to, in comparison to bulldozing ahead and speaking to them directly.

He sips his wine. ]

It sounds like a luxury to me, in either direction. Forgiving someone like Erik tends to go badly.

Are you worried about him?

[ Not about his mental state, but rather about what he will do. That much is clear with how neutrally she attempts to approach the topic, staring down into her glass and then taking a decisive drink. She sets it aside and folds her forearms on the table, leaning forward to consider Charles.

She'd asked Kate the same question. Maybe she's more interested in Charles' response. ]

[ Wine set down along with hers, but his hand splays against the flat bell of its foot, stem turned between his fingers. ]

I believe he wants what we all want. Freedom, of this place. Answers. He might even get those things, out of all of us, but it'll come at a cost of his choosing. It always does.

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