Cafas had gotten the news from Saph. Aiden had passed his try outs. For that Cafas was glad, it did credit to his recommendation and his training abilities, and of course, it meant Aiden was as good as he'd thought. He meant to congratulate the boy, and perhaps make an offer, based on Saph's run down of Aiden's weapon choice.

He was about to knock on the boy's door when he spotted him in the hallway. Cafas smiled, waved then walked over. "Hey, I hear you passed your trials. Congratulations man, I hope Saph wasn't too hard on you. He can be a little over intense sometimes."

Also a bit murder-y but that's hardly appropriate to tell Aiden.

Cafas offered a hand to shake. He knew Aiden was a bit awkward, but surely even he could comprehend the gesture. "Saph filled me in on some of the details of your trial. Why didn't you tell me you can fight with rapiers?" He let the question drop as something he obviously didn't actually mind.

"Actually the rapiers are actually why I'm here. You can't use those as an X-man. Too lethal. So, how would you like me to teach you how to use some blunt weapons? Maybe batons? Outside of and as well as the regular lessons." There was one more thing, but he'd leave it for the second.

Aiden had had food. That made this a good day. Cafas was standing outside his door. That made this a far more debatable day.

Fortunately for avoiding self-embarrassment, he didn't have any food left. Unfortunately, he couldn't hide behind anything, and was stuck nodding to Cafas and hoping he was just looking for Persi. Things never turned out well when people went looking for him.

And Cafas was looking for him. Hopefully it was short and insignificant and not to make him do something -

Oh. Congratulations? Really? That was awkward. How was he supposed to respond to congratulations? Cafas had his hand out. Okay, he could shake hands. That wasn't too bad. He knew how to shake hands. He did that, and thought that maybe he didn't suck at it too badly. He was aware that it was possible to suck at shaking hands. There were people in his previous school that liked talking about how you had to have a firm grip and be confident or no one would take you seriously. Aiden just tried to not make it look like he had no clue what was going on.

"Oh. It... didn't come up." Very good. Look like he was a creeper who hid things instead of just way too paranoid to let people know things. They were so very different, after all. And Cafas was completely right, of course. A couple of cheap blunt swords weren't exactly useful doing x-men-y stuff, and they weren't the sort of organization who would provide better ones. Plus he had found out exactly how annoying it was to be creative with them. Rapiers did not make good multipurpose tools. "That... would be good," he allowed, while inwardly really really really really really really unsure about agreeing to extra training with Cafas.

Man was this kid ever awkward. Cafas stopped the sigh he could feel coming on and continued to smile. Aiden probably couldn't read his eyes that well anyway. As far as he knew only Calley could really read his eyes. So his secret exasperation was safe. "Good, we'll start tomorrow." He neglected to mention a time.

Is it neglecting to mention it if I have yet to even consider it?

Great, that was covered. Moving on. "Actually there's one more thing. Though it probably isn't talk for the hallway. So..." Cafas lead Aiden to his own room and opened the door. Persi wasn't there, which saved some evicting.

When Aiden was inside Cafas shut the door. Now he could have this chat privately. It was better that way. "Okay. We've gotta have a chat about you being antisocial. Sit down mate." He tried to sound as caring as he was. He knew that comment could come out quite brusque if he let it.

He set himself down on the edge of one of the beds. "It's nothing against you, but the X-men have to give off a certain image to the public. It's just something that comes with the position. So, to cut to the point, you wanna talk 'bout why you have trouble talking to people?"

Why do I feel so responsible for this kid?

Tomorrow.

Really. Well, he supposed he didn't have anything that Cafas would take as better to do. More free time wasn't always good either, although he really wasn't noticing a surplus of the stuff right now. In fact, he might be able to make a case to himself for running a bit of a shortage.

Chance of Cafas taking the hook on that? And without just ripping the rod out of Ai's hands. Yeah.

Um. More things? And not good for hallways? This... was getting really bad really fast. Really really fast. And really really bad. As such, it was with fully warranted trepidation that Aiden followed Cafas into his room.

Oooooh Cafas shut the door that was bad.

Well, really good for Cafas, since it meant that Aiden couldn't just walk backwards through it as soon as he heard what Cafas had to say. As it was, he got to stand where he was, quite stiff and definitely awkward, while Cafas went and sat on his bed. Why couldn't he have sat on Persi's bed?

No. No he most certainly did not want to talk about it. He would really rather not think about it either, because it was a general, vague enough topic of horror that it would inevitably lead to significantly worse things in only a few steps. Or, really on the first step. So yeah. Not interested in talking about it. He rubbed his wrist. Wait, was that starting to be a nervous habit? He wasn't thinking specifically about that. That was bad. Not sure if it was worse than not even being able to shake his head 'no' at Cafas. Probably not.

Cafas took the silence as a no. His fingers somehow found their way to the bridge of his nose and rubbed. He hadn't realised he did that. Well, it wasn't getting any easier the longer they let the silence sit there. Cafas knew it had to be done.

Well, it was never going to be easy.

Frankly he had been dreading the conversation. Cafas knew it would go down poorly, just as he knew it was entirely necessary. It wasn't really his responsibility, a team leader should have been having the discussion with him. Cafas just felt the need to do it himself.


He looked around for a better conversational hook. There were some comic books by a computer, he couldn't quite tell what they were from where he was though. Closer to hand however he spied what appeared to be a photo. Cafas picked it up and looked at it. "Who's this?" The photo seemed to show an older, less silver eyed, shorter haired Aiden. "Your brother?" He couldn't see any other solution.

Would Cafas leave if Aiden were unresponsive and uncooperative enough? Please please please let him. There was no possible way that this could turn out well in any way, shape, form, or time scale.

When Cafas reached out to something on his desk, though, it didn't take long for Aiden to pale. Well, beyond his usual skin tone. He had put that away. He always put that away before he left or when Persi showed up. Always. So why was it out now?

Oh, right. Because he was just running out for a bite to eat and left it sitting on his desk. Yeah. Stupid stupid stupid

Oh he really wanted to march over to Cafas and snatch the picture right out of his annoying fingers. Except he couldn't. Because Cafas, and because even in times like this polite-habit had a pretty strong grip. So he tried to pretend he wasn't starting to consider hating Cafas outright (somewhere under the nearly mute terror, of course) and forced himself to shrug in a sad attempt at uncaring noncommittal blandness. "Maybe." Oh good, his voice didn't quite crack.

Maybe. Fascinating Aiden. What other brilliant insight might he spout next? Fine, Cafas would take the maybe as a yes and continue. He looked at the picture a moment longer and then offered it to Aiden. "You guys on good terms? Haven't seen him around, where's he at? Family was often a tricky subject. Cafas wasn't very fond of speaking about his own. It seemed a common theme at the mansion.

Something in Aiden's face told him he had perhaps touched a raw nerve with the photo. He saw it too late to stop, but there it was. Well, that nerve might help him. He knew Aiden could get very overwhelmed by some things though. Hopefully this was not one of them.

You have a gift, sir, for being downright tactless.

Aiden't didn't quite snatch the picture out of Cafas's hand the moment it was offered, but then he didn't even look at it before he slid it (carefully) into a pocket. He knew what his brother had looked like, but he wasn't going to ruin one of the few things he had left of him.

He didn't have to look at Cafas for the next thing, though. At least the wrenching his gut was currently attempting didn't have any way to compete with the flat dullness of his voice. "He's dead." Kind of hard to be on good terms with corpses, though Aiden figured he could probably get along better with Conri in his current state than he could with anyone who wasn't worm-feast in the summer-baked ground. And he refused to think of how sad and pathetic some people might consider that; he preferred to view it as how sad and pathetic everyone else was, that Aiden would still rather find out just what his brother currently looked like. Not that he wanted to. His imagination was more than vivid enough and those were thoughts he really didn't want to get into. But still. It was easier to get along with someone dead and gone than anyone around here.

Ah... Yeah that may explain the look on Aiden's face. Cafas really didn't have a reply for that. He searched around in his head for anything. a moment of searching later he found something. It wasn't anything he could say, but it was a connection lighting up in his head.

He seemed to freak out about car accidents... and... oh man. And the day with the snow...

Cafas looked at Aiden for a moment. Sizing him up. Not physically, but mentally. The kid was coping with more than he was capable of. That wasn't a fun place to be. still, he had something to go with. As bad as it was, he was here for a reason. "That why you freaked when I mentioned having a car accident?" He was pretty sure he knew the answer.

Yeah I had a few issues with people after mine too...

Cafas was really lost for what to do. Part of him went into auto-pilot, shut down another, and kept him on task. Everyone has their coping mechanisms.

Aiden flinched. See this right here? This was an absolutely, stupendously perfect reason not to like people. They asked nasty little questions that wormed their way in, got way too far into you, and then they could start shredding you to pieces with nothing to stop them because you were too busy being a gibbering ball of uselessness.

Aiden wasn't gibbering, and he wasn't in a ball. Yet. He really wished that he were alone (yeah not going to happen) and he really wished that Cafas just didn't exist right now (ooooh if only). So. Not very many options. Ignoring Cafas didn't seem to be doing much of anything. Why couldn't he just leave? Or at least be on Persi's side of the room so Aiden didn't have to be stuck there by the door.

"It's none of your business." Good job. He'll totally buy that and just leave. Good going, Aiden! You saved the day. A few more comments like that and he'll be running for sure! Or at least go far enough away that Ai could curl up under his bed and forget about this after a few hours.

Aiden was no handling the conversation very well. Well, that was to be expected. His reactions all seemed to point towards yes as the answer to his question. Cafas was pretty confident of that.

"You blame yourself, don't you?" He could almost feel some form of denial coming on. "Save your denial Aiden, you know my story, I can recognise self loathing and self blame when I see them." He also knew what sorts of crazy ideas they lead to.

Trust issues must be massive.

Cafas took a deep breath to steady himself.

Not to mention hating the world.

He'd dealt with his demons, but they had been with him long enough that he was getting a sense of how Kealey felt. Empathy wasn't much of a gift when one got down to it.

He also got the sense that Aiden was about to snap at him again...

"Blame myself? I tried that. Made myself sick trying it. Been trying real hard not to since then." No thanks to Cafas. Cafas just floated around and made him work whenever the aussie felt like it, and occasionally broke things but never stuck around to deal with the wreckage. Nah, he just floated on his merry way.

Sure, insist that he saw loathing and blame. Sure, there might be traces left. Aiden was pretty confident that the remains were nothing like what they had been in past months, though. He'd been rather proud of his progress, at least up until people like Cafas started coming around, questioning him and assuming they knew absolutely everything just because life had kicked them in the face a few times too, see how it wasn't really all that unusual to get hurt and have to move past it? Yeah, real comforting. It was always swell to know that people thought you were doing horrible at managing things on your own, and of course you'd appreciate a helping hand shoved right in the middle of your business with no care for what damage they did in the process.

Anger could work too he supposed. Heck, anger might be very useful. Angry shouting often stopped people censoring themselves, made them open up by accident. It was very clear that Aiden wasn't backing off the "not your business" line. That was a delusion he needed to rid himself of.

Cafas forced himself to keep his voice level and caring, "You may not consider this my business, but you made it my business when you took that test. You made yourself, your physical and mental well being my business, because out there, people's lives depend on it." His life, his friends lives, Aiden's life, the lives of the people they were trying to help.

"Do you understand that? Do you get that our decisions out there can be life or death? That we need each and every person to be operating at 100%, or people die? So never presume to tell another X-man that whatever's bothering you isn't their business, because it f***ing is Aiden."

He forced eye contact as best he could. Aiden could break it, but Cafas wouldn't.

Oh, so that's what this was really about? He tries to do something to help people and he ends up with a lecture being shoved down his throat. Really. That was certainly a good way to encourage people to get out and do more. As soon as they try, treat them like they can't do anything and rip what self-confidence they have into tiny little shreds that couldn't even build an ugly sandcastle with quick-drying cement mixed in!

So he glared right back at Cafas. "Funny thing. Today had been going just fine. You're the only thing bothering me right now." Well, the only significant thing. Beside the point. Very nearly bristling, Aiden flicked his hair over his shoulder and stalked across the room to shove Conri's picture back into its drawer. He closed it lightly, although he did entertain the idea of slamming it if Cafas' fingers had happened to be within range. "People die regardless how well people are operating," he said darkly before turning away and pacing back across the room. "Lectures aren't going to change that."

"If I was the only thing bothering you, you wouldn't sit alone all day in your room with your games and comic books because your friends wouldn't let you. Yet here you are. You don't go make friends. It's not like it would even be out of your way. You pass dozens of people in the halls every day. People who want nothing more than a friend. Now, there are two explanations for this. Either you hate people, which you already proved you don't by signing up to do dangerous and thankless work with the X-men, or there's something else stopping you."

Cafas wasn't much of a psychologist in reality, but that was his view on the situation and he would continue to believe it until proven wrong.

"And yeah, we can't save everyone. What we can do is maximise the chances of the people that we turn up to help. Maybe even ourselves and the other people on our team. You might want to get that into your head and have a good hard think about yourself before you go on a mission and someone dies because you were trying to wrestle with your issues."

Cafas was not amused. It honestly seemed as if Aiden didn't understand the nature of the work they did at all, or how genuinely dangerous it was. He'd need to learn fast.