Logs:Small Tears

Small Tears
Dramatis Personae Scott, Shane	2024-04-07 "You were listening to the briefing, right?"
Location the blackbird, somewhere high up
All is quiet in the Blackbird today -- no pursuers, no damage to the aircraft, no Rescued Mutants In Distress making any mess of the sleek, meticulously ordered cabinets and first-aid kits and seating areas. Scott is skillfully, quietly, navigating his way back out of Toronto; with his face in a usual state of stern, irritable frown, the state of his X-suit is a better tell as to the ordeal they just had, covered in scorch marks, burned clean through in spots (though, for the most part, it has protected Scott well enough.) He has removed his gloves and hood and swapped his visor out for glasses, perhaps only because the visor band was cutting into a small but bloody gash on the side of his head (he's fine, head wounds bleed a lot, it looks worse than it is; probably Dr. McCoy is still going to scold him for insisting on flying the plane back but really he's fine.) Despite the frown and a few (minor!) burns, Scott seems almost peaceful lifting neatly away from the skyscrapers, at home with the reassuring, familiar beep-beep-beeps of the various controls. Possibly this frown is just his default expression. Who can tell. He's not saying anything. Unlike his dad, Shane can't fly the jet anyway, but it's a fair bet that in his current mood he was not seeking out ways to offer to make Scott's life easier even if he could. A hefty natural bonus to agility has left his uniform in a much better state, only minor scorch marks on his boots and one slightly larger one on a sleeve -- overall largely in one piece, though. He's peeling off his jacket now, as he clomps into the cockpit to stomp right on Scott's Peace. He's draping the jacket over an arm of the chair beside Scott's and then dropping down into it heavily. "Seriously?" comes his first aggrieved demand. Scott does not respond for a long two seconds; there is nothing externally that even suggests he heard this. His broad hands are as steady on the Blackbird's controls as ever; if he glances at Shane, the flick of this motion in his eyes is hidden behind opaque lenses. "Our mission," he says at length, not gritted out but steady and matter-of-fact, "as I defined it when I briefed you, was to de-escalate the situation, prevent further harm to bystanders, evacuate anybody in danger of smoke inhalation. We did that. You were listening to the briefing, right?" "My hearing's pretty great, yeah. We did that, right? Got all those people. Evacuated." Shane's gills are shifting fast, lending a slightly choppier breathlessness to his voice. "Situation was pretty fucking deescalated, wasn't it? That guy was talking to me, I could've -- we could've --" His teeth clench, gills pressing down flat as he takes a breath. I had time. Those people were safe. We didn't have to just leave, I'm pretty sure there's a hella further harm on the way I could've prevented." There is another brief pause, and this time Scott does turn his head slightly to look at Shane, his eyebrows twitching into a small, slightly more serious frown, before he replies. "How much more time do you think you needed? Five minutes, ten minutes, to keep talking sense into him? The next week to make sure he's okay, keep him out of trouble? Two weeks? A month?" His gaze shifts forward again; his hands flex just once on the controls, more restlessly than his posture has belied so far. "Further harm to who, the firebomber?" "Yes. Further harm to a man who was desperate and scared -- you catch his boots, his jacket, that is not a man with a stable place to sleep right now. What do you think the cops are going to do when they get there? 'cuz I got just a smidge of idea where people like us go." Shane's hand has fallen to the armrest, fingers curling hard against it with a quiet stippling pricklescratch of sharp claws. "I don't know how much time. There's not a script for this kind of thing. A lot of people make shitty choices when they don't see other options. We could at least try to help them find some." The stiff shake of Scott's head does not, actually, have enough motion to qualify as a shake. "So we should have let him go on causing harm to his community? Take him somewhere new, and hope he won't cause more harm there?" His voice is still very even-keeled, like he is handling any emotionality with the exact same smooth, careful control he is the jet. "He had one more option than most people in his shoes do, and that was the one he chose. Should we be rewarding that?" "You all did that with me. And I caused more harm when I got there. Would it have been better if Pa'd just left me in a cage? Or Flicker? Or Hive? Joshua? They were all criminals." Shane is slouching to one side, cheek propping against a tightly curled fist. "It's not about rewarding shit. Taking care of each other isn't a reward. I don't give out free food at Evolve and hire felons and find people places to crash because I think they deserve some kinda prize. I think I want to live in a world where we don't throw people out like trash when they fuck up." Scott pulls his mouth to one side, his frown tightening. Perhaps he is navigating the Blackbird through a tricky bit of bumpy air. "It is not throwing people out like trash to refuse to shield them from the consequences of their actions," he says. "I'd like to see a better world too, Shane, but I don't think it should be devoid of order and I don't think it should be devoid of responsibility." "Do you seriously --" This comes out sharp and harsh, but then cuts off. Shane's eyes narrow, and the sharp clamp of his teeth clicks and grinds audibly where far-too-many serrated edges grate together. He swallows, eyes fixing blankly on the sky outside. After a moment he sits up a little higher, looks over at Scott. "Do you really think I don't care about responsibility?" The sharpness has left his voice but there's a strain still there, lower and tighter with the effort of holding back the upset edge. "I don't think we have enough. We've abdicated our responsibility to each other. Replaced it with state violence and called it a day. I just --" His gills flicker again. "That's not good enough for me." "It's not you I don't trust to care about responsibility." Scott is staring very fixedly forward at the sky too, his posture too easy in the pilot's seat; when he does look at Shane again it is still with that tense, thoughtful frown. "I know you feel strongly about this, I think that does you credit, really." Just the way he pauses implies the 'but' coming -- "But it's just as important to me that people take responsibility for their own actions as it is that we take care of each other. The X-Men aren't here to be a Get Out Of Jail Free Card for mutants." "What good do you think jail is doing? If it was helping we'd have the least violent country on earth. But shoving people in a nightmare with no support and constant abuse and isolation from their community doesn't teach people any lessons except how to --" Shane drops his gaze abruptly looking down at his own hands, now, claws dug hard into the arm of he chair. He pulls his hands back kind of deliberately and folds them in his lap. "... how to be monsters." Scott glances at Shane again, fleetingly -- "Don't worry about the chair," he says, quietly. Shane slouches a little lower in his seat, inner clearer eyelids blinking closed. After a moment, his hands unfold. When one hand returns to the armrest, one claw traces through the thin grooves they just cut in it. "Thank God 'cuz I was definitely thinking if it cut any deeper you'd be about to call the cops." "Mm." Scott adjusts his hands on the controls again, his gaze trained straight ahead again. His voice is not as quiet this time, but back to his measured, level tone. His frown has deepened. "It's just a little tear, I can fix it." Shane's eyes briefly widen, briefly light, at this challenge. For a moment there is a definite twitch of his fingers like he's about to tear it bigger. But his claws retract slightly further in. His shoulders do slump a little, as though the weight of this much responsibleness is extremely taxing. "This jet needs better scratch posts."