ataraxionlogs | oo2. partially open.

[ 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.

Something about your apprehension gives me the impression we'll be the ones paying it.

[ His apprehension, perhaps—but more likely Kate's. She presses her lips together, dissatisfied in a way. For a moment, she continues to lean forward, studious, intent. When she does finally straighten up and return to her food, it's as if she'd never asked about Erik. Calm. Casual. ]

You know, for space-food, this is pretty good.

[ Her scrutiny is met placidly, unconsciously attempting not to give too much away. There is a lot he hasn't settled on for himself, a lot that makes him uneasy about what to say and what not to say with regard to Erik Lehnsherr, and what it means to have him here.

Emma is on the shortlist of people who might need that extra caution, anyway. He'll leave it at that, for himself.

When she moves on, he breaks gaze away, down at his meal which he has only half-finished. Left overs. ]

Mission accomplished, then. I've a few tricks, if we're to do this again.

I hope we do.

[ It's only after the words come out that her heart hits a double-beat in her chest, realizing what it sounds like. Her lips part, ready to qualify that with something, and then she decides not to. Slowly, she looks back down at her food, then grabs her glass and drinks from it. Yeah. Leaving that alone. ]

[ It's a fine enough sentiment, Charles would have thought. Maybe he isn't the best litmus test, being one of those people who do not draw very many lines of graduating intimacy, shit happens, like kissing or handjobs or intimate dinner dates, and so

really her reaction, inward and outward, underscores it for him. She leaves it alone. He thinks about letting her. ]

It isn't much, I know. I'd normally offer to take you to the pictures, and I have this slight feeling that if I proposed a jaunt to a disco, I'd sound incredibly outdated.

[ Of course he doesn't actually let her leave it. At least with that phrasing, she can just laugh it off—and she does. A real, honest laugh. The first in longer than she'd care to admit. Nodding, she affirms that belief. ]

Well, if it makes you feel better, I've never been big on dancing anyway. [ Or perhaps that's lack of experience. (It's definitely lack of experience, or perhaps even the right partner, but she can't know that. Yet.) ] And we call them movies.

[ All of which, of course, deliberately evades actually acknowledging what they've both identified this as. Her tongue darts out to press between her lips, and she offers herself a beat. Beneath every wall she's put up, she does feel something for him. Care for him. Wonder, at times, what this could be in a different context. But the context is what it is, and there's something else. Someone else. Beyond her usual level of deflection lies the Hook Problem.

Pushed securely to the back of her mind, he's indubitably still present there. And some small part of her wonders if Charles is merely her solution—or, more accurately, her avoidance. Run from what she feels for Hook by indulging the very real, but safer feelings for someone more …

normal? He's a telepath. Yet less threatening, all the same. So as much as she wants to tell him not to get the wrong impression, to cower behind some emotional cover, she doesn't. ]

This is more up my alley, either way.

Good.

[ As a telepath, there is only so much you can do with the information under the surface. He had to learn that what someone chooses to say in spite of it, how someone chooses to present outwardly, are all as equally important, not to mention holding their own quality of truth, as the thoughts that run beneath the current, contradictory or not.

Charles isn't responsible for Emma, what she chooses to avoid, what solutions she opts to try. Conveniently, that means he gets to go out to dinner with her sometimes.

And he'd made her laugh, which mirrors from him a thin half-smile, crows feet shadowed deeper at the corners of his eyes. Maybe they should talk about Hook. Maybe they should talk about Erik, in the context of Problems, instead of just problems. Maybe Charles should just airlock himself now before he ever feels the compulsion to do so.

He opts to break the moment by reaching to take her plate, and pick up his less empty one. Clean up. The wine glasses can stay, still half-charged as they are. There is no dessert coming, but wine and increasingly slurry chatting can count. ]

[ When his back turns, she glances away from him, distant and thoughtful. As if now that he's looking away, she can be more honest with herself, in her own mind. As if telepathy doesn't project backwards or something. While she can't quite put her finger on why, she feels some sense of guilt.

Lifting one hand, she brushes her thumb over her bottom lip, then steadies her hand under her chin, fingers pressed over her cheek. After another moment of chewing it over, she grabs her wine glass. Because alcohol helps mental processing so much. ]

How's Raven doing?

Haven't the faintest.

[ The clatter of Emma's empty plate being shoved into receptacle for cleaning makes for good punctuation, although Charles doesn't sound particularly angry about anything. He moves, then, to stow his half eaten dinner in the refrigerator, a habit of conservation that speaks more to student days than filthy rich toff ones, and the fact he isn't especially wild about having to sort out meals for himself every time.

There's a glance back at her, an almost-smile meant to be assurance. It's fine. ]

All healthy, that much I know. We ran into each other at the lockers, on the day of the jump, but I've not seen her since.

I thought you two were close.

[ She doesn't buy into his 'fine.' Not one bit. With Charles, it never seems to be that simple, and Emma doesn't make a habit of letting that stuff pass without comment. All the same, she looks casual and unaffected as she needles him. ]

Is this because of the Erik thing?

[ Mystique certainly seemed to have Opinions on the subject when Emma had spoken with her. ]

[ It's not as though Charles can complain, Emma's tendency to pick and needle at things that don't add up. He's the one that invited her in specific to dinner. Dirty dishes put away, Charles ranges back to sit down, picking up his glass, a twitch of eyebrows up at mention of Erik as he goes to take a sip. ]

We were. Now--

[ He tips wine glass, sets it down, emptied down to a penny-sized circle of wine at the bottom. ]

It's been a very long time, and she's different too. She's bought a lot of Erik's nonsense.

A lot, but not all.

[ An observation on Charles' phrasing: she can't speak to Raven's actual mental state. Emma finishes off her glass and stands to grab it, and Charles', for clean-up. She can pull her weight. ]

Sounds like a reason to build bridges, not burn them.

[ Charles surrenders glass, dragging the wine bottle closer to cap it. ]

Bridges are one of those things that take more than one person to achieve, unfortunately. I'll try, [ is added, so as not to imply otherwise. ] But I have a sense they both consider me put to pasture, and they're very important participants in the fate of mutantkind, and so on.

[ That sounded glib. Because it was, a bit. He feels moved to add, in the interests of self-awareness; ]

I don't wholly blame them.

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