Tarin had seen the look on Rupert's face before, he'd spent most of his life around people who worked extremely hard not to say what they were feeling. The absolutely blank stare he gave in response to Lee's outburst was proof. Tarin remembered the attitude Rupert had shown in the shop the first time they'd met, there was no way he didn't have something to say to Lee's remark. He also had a feeling that Rupert was getting a very wrong impression of what was going on. He was so silent.

Despite the exhaustion, Tarin was uncomfortable with the way that things were going. Personally he was grateful for Rupert's presence, and his honesty regarding his positions in various organizations of interest. He loved Lee, on the other hand, and now that he knew how terrified she was of the camps and why, his heart went out to her and understood her rage at the situation.

She was also getting restless, Tarin could see Lee nearly bursting at the seams with energy and with two people in the room now and emotions high, she was probably even more full. Her reaction to Rupert's answer about the collars was numb, barely acknowleging that she'd spoken. The thought still made Tarin nauseated, he could only imagine what Lee thought. He just shook his head at the thought, "That's nice of y'all to take things like that into consideration..." he said dryly.

Lee stood and started to pace, when Tarin was able to catch her eye she explained that she simply couldn't sit still anymore. Tarin understood, his assumption from earlier had been correct, Rupert was probably ready to jump out of his skin or taze her though. Tarin knew he was about to get himself in huge trouble, but knew he had to say something.

Rupert had made himself more comfortable on the floor, and Tarin turned to him and sighed as the man explained that he wasn't doing what he was doing for them, it was simply because he didn't want it. Tarin actually smiled at that, he'd taken the same attitude for years with his shop. He was just in it for the money, that was until the ghost of a child came along, or a wronged lover who so desperately wanted reconciliation, there was more to it than that, but he wasn't going to push, not at this time.

"I don't think anyone really wants for things like this to happen." he said instead, working his face into a more somber expression. Turning his attention back to Lee who was still furiously pacing, but shot a rather derisive questoin at Rupert, Tarin frowned slightly, she was forcing his hand a bit now, "Lee, you need to calm down." He said simply, then turned to Rupert, "She's aggitated." he said in the largest understatement of the year, maybe century, "I didn't exactly tell her about our meeting the other day. She's also agitated because the only way for her to get the spirit away from me after it tried to take my body on a kamikazee mission out the window was to grab on and drain it out of me. So now she's chock full of energy with no outlet."

Tarin gave Rupert a searching look, half wondering what the answer to Lee's question was and half wondering why he was really there. "It's the truth," he said finally with a shrug, "If you won't take anything else, it's the least you deserve....though I do have to admit a slight bit of curiosity as to the answer to Lee's question."

((ooc: Sorry for the delay! I is back. )

The woman was pacing. Combine that with her mutation being touch-based and the fact she couldn't turn it off, and Rupert was thinking some kind of physical mutation. The last purely physical mutie he'd met had been a young boy with a pair of black wings, up on a church rooftop. Nice kid. Rupert hadn't heard from him since the Resistance had picked him up; he had to hope they hadn't gotten him into anything stupid that nice kids shouldn't be involved in. Lee didn't have wings. Obviously. What her mutation actually was, he didn't have a clue. He didn't have a clue before she started pacing, and he didn't have a clue afterwards. His level of discomfort remained about constant.

> "Then what did you want? Someone must have thought you wanted this to put you in charge."

His level of discomfort did not remain constant. In fact, he felt--and looked--like a pail of ice water had been poured down the back of his neck. He remembered to start breathing about the time that Tarin started speaking.

> "I don't think anyone really wants for things like this to happen."

"You don't know people," Rupert said softly; it was one of those things that he really should have taken time to think about before he let it past his mouth. Just because something was the blatant truth didn't mean he had to point it out.

> "Lee, you need to calm down. ...She's agitated. I didn't exactly tell her about our meeting the other day. She's also agitated because the only way for her to get the spirit away from me after it tried to take my body on a kamikaze mission out the window was to grab on and drain it out of me. So now she's chock full of energy with no outlet. ...It's the truth. If you won't take anything else, it's the least you deserve....though I do have to admit a slight bit of curiosity as to the answer to Lee's question."

Maybe Lee's constant pacing was making him more twitchy than he thought, or maybe something in what the man had just said--or the way he'd said it--was just too much to swallow sitting down. Rupert stood. He paced to the window. He paced back. He held up one hold-up-a-second-Mac finger towards Tarin.

"Thanks for your honesty. Don't think I'm saying anything against that." He took a deep breath, and tread onto ground that he would have been wiser leaving alone. He lowered his voice, trying to pitch it so only Tarin could hear. "Listen, I don't know how long you two have been together or how madly in love you are, and I can't really say I care. If you want to grow old with her, though, just a piece of advice: obviously your fiancée doesn't like me, and she sure doesn't appreciate--doesn't really look to me like she appreciates, anyway--you telling me all her little mutie secrets. So if she's got any more that you haven't spilled yet, maybe you should consider asking her before you do. I just think the lady deserves some say in what about her gets shared."

He turned to Lee, and brought his voice back up to a conversational level. Time to really step his foot in deep. "Yeah, people did think I'd be perfect for a supervisor job. People thought right. It's a perfect fit. I haven't done a damn thing to stop what's going on in that place, and believe me--whatever you've heard about them, you can't even imagine the truth. All I do is sit on my ass shift after shift and wait to get a phone call that might not even be coming. If I get it, I might sabotage the entire shock collar system at the Camps and some other things besides. Might. The way things are going, it damn near depends on how many of my friends have been killed by you freaks the day I get that call." He took a deep breath. His voice had been getting a bit above conversational; he brought the volume back down. "Don't confuse me with a good guy. Don't confuse me with a guy who's on your side. I'm just a guy whose ******* sick with himself for feeling good every time he signs a death certificate with one of your friend's names on it. What I want is to not be one of the ******* bad guys. In case you haven't guessed," he spread his arms wide, and put on a twisted smile, "the Camps aren't exactly helping me become a better person."

When Lee heard Tarin tell her that she needed to calm down, she turned and looked at him, momentarily stopping in her pacing. “Calm?” Lee asked, though her voice might have ended up being a bit sharper than she had intended. “You try drinking five Red Bulls and see how calm you can be with that much energy. Then you might have some idea how I'm feeling.”

By this point, Lee started pacing again; this was really getting ridiculous. How was she going to get through the night, how was she going to deal with feeling like this until her energy level finally dropped again? But Tarin had continued, turning to Rupert and explaining why she was pacing, how she had gotten so much energy. Since she had turned the opposite way in her pacing, Lee shot Tarin a glare over her shoulder. This was just great, now Rupert had an actual reason to fear her touch, had more information about what her powers did. And based on how the cop had acted thus far, what he had said, Lee didn't think that any other explanations about her powers would help things. Not at all.

Especially based on the fact that as she turned back toward the two men, Lee saw that Rupert had gotten up and paced to the window himself. And then come back toward Tarin, though he kept standing as he spoke to Tarin. His voice was extremely low, so low that Lee couldn't hear most of it, but at the points in her short pacing route that she was closest, she was able to hear bits and pieces, a word here, a couple words there.

But then Rupert's voice grew louder again, and as he continued to speak, first Lee's eyes widened in shock. That wasn't all of it, though, and as he kept going, Lee stopped her pacing despite the energy coursing through her and stared at Rupert.

So much for her telling Tarin that she was calm. Any semblance of calm that she had had was now gone as she stared at Rupert, the shock in her look transforming into anger. “Feel...Might...You...” She exclaimed, unable at the moment to actually voice a full, coherent thought.

"Mmmm I know a lot more than you might think." Tarin said, regarding Rupert as he sat near him on the floor, "You'd be amazed how much more succinct people are once they're dead." Maybe it was morbid, Tarin didn't know, when you dealt with death as much as he did it became commonplace. Tarin had freaked Lee out a few times about that. Thinking her reminded him of her pacing and looked over to her.

Lee wasn't fond of his suggestion that she calm down, in fact it seemed to agitate her even more than she already was. "I understand that Lee..." he said, weariness coming through in his voice, "I meant emotionally." He sighed, this night had simply been too much.

Now Rupert was up and pacing too, Tarin wished he had the energy to get up off the floor and join Rupert and Lee in their troubled movement. To make things even better, while Rupert appeared to appreciate his honesty, he was giving him relationship advice....grudging relationship advice at that. Tarin just leaned his head back and nodded, he'd regretted the action of spilling Lee's story before he'd even done it. "I know exactly what I'm getting myself into..." he muttered a little miserably, hoping Lee would wait until he was more well rested before she ripped him a new one.

Rupert went on talking though, answering that question that both Tarin and Lee had been so interested in a few moments earlier. Tairn kind of wished he hadn't asked. Tarin didn't realize his jaw had dropped until his mouth had been open long enough for his tongue to get dry and stick to the top of his mouth when he finally shut it. He swallowed a few times and blinked , trying to clear his thoughts and figure out what he thought about what Rupert said. "Wow..." he said slowly, still trying to process what it was he heard. This Rupert was so contrary to the one he'd been around previously. The Rupert he knew was blusterty and had a hair trigger temper, but he wasn't cruel or apathetic like this. "You're somethin else..." was what Tarin settled on for a comment, determined not to judge until he knew more than was being revealed in this slightly emotionally charged situation. Rupert's smile at the end of his tirade was almost painful to see though, Tarin shruged at what he said. "You're doing something...." he said, trying to point out something positive in what the cop had said...even if those things were seriously lacking.

Things were worse in the camps than they thought? Than the stories they'd heard? That was hard for Tarin to imagine because he'd heard some pretty horrible things about what went on there, he couldn't supress a shudder. Rupert was a bit harsh...Schindler he was not.

Tarin put that on hold though when he saw the look on Lee's face and heard her sputtering as she tried to speak. Tarin knew this wasn't good, she was already about to crawl out of her skin with all the energy she had built up and her anger was just going to make her draw more energy out of him and Rupert.

Tarin sighed and tried to force his legs to work, putting his hands down wherever he could find no glass, he rose very unsteadily to his feet swaying slightly where he stood. Putting a hand out to steady himself on the wall, he held his hand out towards Lee, "Lee..." He said, really not knowing what to add to the statement at the moment, "Please try to calm down...you're gonna make it worse..."

Rupert got a sick sense of satisfaction out of their reactions. That feeling, more than the reactions themselves, told him he hadn't just crossed a line: he'd crossed a train track. The warning lights were blinking now, the wooden arms were down, and there was no crossing back. He'd just trespassed into the land of extreme zealotry, for their viewing pleasure. It was disturbingly familiar ground, these past few months.

> "Wow... You're somethin' else..."

He took a deep breath, let it out, and rubbed the heel of his palm against his temple. "Yeah. That's one way of putting it." The polite way.

> "You're doing something...."

He stared down at Tarin, his eyebrows lifting up into an amused crinkled triangle. He shook his head, slowly. What was there to say to that? He'd said enough, frankly. It was cute of Tarin to be trying to point out a ray of sunlight reflecting off his cesspool of a speech. Even that little ray was a stretch. Hell, he'd even gotten Little Miss Energizer Bunny to stop still in her tracks.

> “Feel...Might...You...”

And lose her grasp of the English language. Smooth, Rupert.

> "Lee... Please try to calm down...you're gonna make it worse..."

Rupert had to wonder what there was to make worse. He let his hand drop back down and shook his head again just the slightest bit, to himself. "Listen. I... I just... Like I said: this isn't what I wanted." It was a lame stutter of a sentence, even to his own ears. What had he wanted?

To not have a scar in his lung the size of a mutant's bone knife, for starters. To not have watched nearly half of New York's police officers die in the past few months at the hands of mutants--and most of those before the Registration round-up. To have remained a happily oblivious street cop who was uneasy around mutants for no real reason; to have not been given a reason to feel like the only way his friends would ever be safe again would be for every single one of the freaks to die. To not have become the brunt of some twisted ice queen's sick idea of a joke. What the hell kind of sadist did a mutant have to be, to let a man she knew was a zealot fall in love with her? To lead him on? To sleep with him?

Rupert hadn't thought of that for weeks. He'd been very good about not thinking about that for weeks. About her. He tasted bile at the back of his throat, and had to swallow it back down. He'd slept with one of these things. The thought made him physically ill, from his stomach to his chest. He dropped his face back into a steadily blank stare. It felt like his ribcage was crushing in his lungs, like something was slowly draining his strength, but he'd rather not have these freaks know any of that.

Raina. It was a name he would have been happier if he'd never heard. Since that wasn't possible, he'd settle for forgetting.

Lee was vibrating, or at least that's what it felt like, as she stood there staring at Rupert. It didn't make sense to her, though. If he really felt like he was saying about mutants, about how much he hated them, why was this man simply standing here talking with two people that he knew were mutants? And especially with the power he had, the position he held, why the hell wasn't he turning the two of them in?

Not that Lee minded, really. She definitely did not want to ever end up in the camps, even if what Rupert said about being able to alter the collars for people with constantly working abilities. Lee just simply could not understand it.

And then Tarin spoke, and Lee's jaw dropped as her eyes shot to him. After everything that Rupert had just said, that was Tarin's response?

Yeah, if she had been angry before, if she had been having problems being able to speak coherently, that was nothing to how Lee was feeling now. Clutching her hands tightly at her sides, Lee started pacing again. She needed to make sure she didn't lash out in her anger and actually hit something; at that moment, she didn't trust herself to be able to hold back enough to stop her hand from going through a wall.

She also wanted Rupert out of her apartment. She wanted him gone and to never see him again, to never have to deal with him again. But like many other things in her life that she wished for, she couldn't simply make this come true either. She couldn't really do anything. Simply being who and what she was gave the man every right to throw her into the camps, and that was before her current status as a non-American citizen was even looked at. For whatever reason, he was being lenient right now, apparently content to let them continue on living 'undiscovered', Lee figured that wouldn't last if she were to order him out. Or throw him out.

Instead, Lee decided to do the next best was to leave herself. Unfortunately, with how she was feeling, she couldn't actually leave the apartment. She was way to energized to be able to be inconspicuous, and with how people were on the lookout for mutants more so these days than ever before, running was out of the question too.

That left Lee with just one course of action. Without a word, Lee marched toward the bedroom doors, deciding on Tarin's since it was at least larger and those extra couple of feet away from the two men in the apartment.

Just before she entered though, Lee heard Tarin's voice. Turning, she saw him climbing shakily to his feet, holding his hand out toward her.

She had done that to him. Made it so it was a force of will for Tarin to be able to get to his feet, to even stay awake for the duration of this 'conversation'. Yes, it had been necessary for her to do it, they hadn't exactly figured out a better way to get rid of the spirits who forced a merge yet, but she had still done that to him.

As she stood there watching Tarin holding the wall for support, a good part of the anger on Lee's face was replaced with sadness. "Sit down before you fall," she told him, wanting to rush over to him, to take his extended hand, to hug him, but knowing that she couldn't. For one more second Lee looked at Tarin, then turned, her speed and strength getting away from her slightly which caused the bedroom door to slam shut.

Yeah. It got worse. Lee didn't seem willing or able to calm down at that point in time and Rupert didn't seem eager to retract anything he'd said. Tarin's comment to Rupert had been almost rhetorical, he hadn't expected a response and just looked at the man over by the window in reply. It was weird, but at that point in time, a line from Shrek was running through Tarin's head...something about layers and onions. Tarin didn't think it a good time to bring it up though. This was just a little too macabre...and he didn't picture Cameron Diaz waltzing in any time soon either, though at that point it wouldn't have surprised him in the least.

Rupert had lapsed into silence at this point and Tarin almost heaved a sigh of relief, not wanting to be held responsible for Lee's actions if he continued on his previous train of thought. Standing had been difficult though, and he let his shoulder fall against the wall instead of his hand, letting the drywall and plaster take the bulk of his weight instead of his arm.

"I'm not sitting down..." Tarin said, as Lee turned away from Rupert and towards him. She looked so sad, it made Tarin feel like someone had reached inside his chest and squeezed. Before he could move to stop her though, she'd retreated from the livingroom and towards the bedrooms faster than she should have been able too. Tarin was a little baffled when he heard the door to his room close, the familiar catch in the old wood giving it away.

There was no point in going after her at this point, and Tarin looked longingly at the couch in the sitting area of the livingroom, but it was so far away. The kitchen was way closer.

Using the wall for slight support as he made his way in that direction, Tarin walked into the kitchen and remembering the other day at the shop sluggishly grabbed a bottle of scotch out of one of the cabinets and two tumblers from another.

"Hey..." he called out towards the other man he could see from his vantage point in the kitchen, "I need a drink...you want one? I don't have any teacups here...but I've got scotch."

The woman was pacing again. Pacing, and looking like she might just bite something or someone's head off. Since he was the one who had put that look on her face, Rupert found himself suddenly paying attention to her. Keeping quiet, too, but mostly... paying very acute attention as she tread her circuitous route into the floor. The sudden reminder of how very easy it would be to get himself in too deep, here, was oddly welcome. It distracted him from thinking about... things he was trying not to think about.

He hadn't actually noticed Tarin struggling to his feet until Lee spoke.

> "Sit down before you fall,"

> "I'm not sitting down..."

Rupert stared at the man. His eyebrows instinctively climbed up his forehead in a 'well aren't you an especially intelligent mutie' slant; then they dropped back down into a furrow. Was the man really that bad off? Granted that most of his end of the conversation had come from the floor, but... Rupert gave himself a mental slap to the back of his head. Right. Of course the man was bad off. Rupert's first hint was when he saw the man nearly go out a window.

SLAM.

He jumped, turning in time to see a door vibrating angrily in its frame. Honestly, he was a little surprised she'd gone into a room; he'd been half-expecting her to bodily pick him up and throw him from the apartment. Preferably through the door. Rupert generally didn't push mutants this far unless he was surrounded by S.W.A.T. members or holding a remote. He didn't honestly know why he'd been pushing these two so hard, now. Maybe because Tarin kept giving those annoying answers; like he was such a good guy himself that he could benevolently think the best of those around him. Maybe it was because he needed a sound punch in the nose for the things he thought, and Lee had been looking like she was just a few button-pushes away from converting some of that potential energy to a snapping noise right between his eyes.

> "Hey... I need a drink...you want one? I don't have any teacups here...but I've got scotch."

Rupert looked back at the man. He stared for a moment. Then he said his humblest words of the night: "Yes. Please. Thank you."

Tarin didn't see the surprise at his condition written on Rupert's face becaues he was still too busy staring at the door to his bedroom, the door Lee had slammed a few moments before. What was her problem, seriously, if anything Tarin figured she should be happy that the head of the camps was in their apartment trying to help.

If he'd had malicious intentions, they'd both have collars on by now, Tarin would have had one on days before. It all went back to the lack of trust, she simply couldn't accept that if he said it was safe, that it was safe. It wasn't enough by a long shot apparently.

Rupert looked stunned by Lee's reaction, what had he been expecting. Tarin half wondered if it wasn't violence. He seemed jumpy, maybe he really did need the drink. Tarin needed the drink. It wouldn't make him feel any better, any more energized, but the fact of the matter was he was too jittery to care. After what had just happened, he needed something to calm his shaking nerves.

He grinned, and barely swallowed a laugh as Rupert responded sedately that he really would like a drink. Tarin poured the Scotch, wincing slightly at the amber liquid that splashed out of the glasses when his hands shook with the effort. Finally though, there were two glasses of Scotch, Tarin indicated one. "There you go." he said, taking his and leaning heavily on the countertop as he took a long drink.

Tarin regarded Rupert as he took another, smaller sip of the liquid, "I'll bet this isn't how you'd pictured your night going." he said, shaking his head and thinking how he definitely hadn't planned on things going this way on his and Lee's date night.

Casting a look towards where he knew the bedroom was, Tarin ran a hand through his hair and sighed, "She doesn't mean it you know. The uber defensiveness that is. She's just scared, I'm sure under normal circumstances she wouldn't have been nearly that rude."

Rupert watched the man's hands shaking, and couldn't help but think, I shouldn't be here. What had he been thinking, barging in? Lee had everything under control; then he'd waltzed into her life, and made all their nights a little more miserable. Tarin was obviously dead tired, and he now had an angry woman on his hands, to boot. Lee was... angry. Rupert himself was just daisy-picking fine. Even if Lee hadn't had everything under control, what could he have done? What had he been trying to accomplish, coming up here? He'd been trying to help. That would have required him being useful, in the first place. Who was he kidding?

> "There you go."

Rupert picked up the drink, and stared down at it. After a moment, he took a modest sip. Getting into the habit of bottom's upping drinks would not be a good thing, as much as he wanted to.

> "I'll bet this isn't how you'd pictured your night going."

Rupert laughed shortly at that. "No, not exactly." He swirled the scotch around its glass, watching the kitchen light reflect off its surface. "I was going to make a pie, actually." French silk, to be exact. Then he'd been planning to defend it from his private petting zoo--a poodle, a puppy, and a ferret. The puppy and the ferret were courtesy of folks currently in the Camps. He intended to return them. Just as soon as he could. After the pie, he probably would have laid back on his couch with the Talking Heads playing loud enough to fill his mind with words he didn't have to think. "Life During Wartime", "Road to Nowhere", "City of Dreams"... And, of course, "Mr. Jones". It was good late-night music. Especially with a poodle, a puppy, and a pie. Ferret optional.

> "She doesn't mean it you know. The uber defensiveness that is. She's just scared, I'm sure under normal circumstances she wouldn't have been nearly that rude."

Rupert followed the man's gaze towards the door his fiance had slammed. "It's all right. Really. She handled it pretty well, considering." His gaze drifted back towards the man leaning so heavily against the counter. He shook his head slightly, like he didn't quite get something. "Not as well as you, though." He jerked his head back towards the room Lee had entered. "Her reaction, I understand. You... I can't say I understand you, Tarin." Namely, he couldn't see how the man seemed to have so much faith in people. Specifically, faith that Rupert wouldn't turn on them and use all of that information Tarin had so generously spilled against the two.

"Mmm pie." Tarin said, cracking a wry grin at Rupert's comment about what he'd actually planned on doing that night. Pie sounded like a sound alternative to rushing up unknown stairs into an unknown apartment trying to rescue someone you hardly knew from Adam. Tarin looked up to see Rupert deep in thought as he drank his scotch, probably thinking about the night he could have had instead of this.

"Sometimes, I wish I could just have some pie..." Tarin said, shaking his head and wishing for the three hundredth time in the last several hours that he'd never seen a spirit in his entire life. "but where there's no pie...there's always Scotch." Tarin said, plastering a smile so fake on his face it had to be completely transparent.

They were having a real conversation now, most of the bitterness and harsh speaking from earlier and their first meeting replaced by genuine curiosity. He understood Lee's reaction, did he? Tarin chuckled lowly and tilted his head at the other man in the room.

Taking another drink as he considered his words, Tarin took a deep breath and stood up, sizing the other man up before speaking. "Well Rupert. Where you're concerned, I have a couple of options." Tarin paused then spoke again, "I could take what you've said as a threat, and react accordingly." he said softly, taking another drink before finishing the sentence, "Or I can trust you." he said, making eye contact and taking a deep breath.

"Besides the fact that I don't think I could make it over to you to do anything about it, I've gotten pretty good over the years at judging people on rather short notice." Tarin frowned slightly into his glass, the implications of what could happen taking over for a second. It just didn't seem likely though.


"I'm not going to go into some creepy 'I see through' you monologue here...because I really don't know if I'm doing the right thing or not by trusting you. I just do." Tarin knew it was either a brilliant move on his part or the biggest mistake he'd ever made. "You're scared of us, but you were genuinely interested in helping that kid the other day. No matter how much you wanted to act like you weren't."

> "Mmm pie."

Rupert couldn't help but smirk back at Tarin's grin. For once, it was a shameless expression. "A man's got to have his hobbies." Rupert's included cooking, cleaning, and listening to some of the best music in the world. He'd briefly had the nickname 'Housewife' while he was a rookie cop; it hadn't taken people long to stop teasing the gift horse. Obsessive cooking of pastries can make a rookie very popular, very fast. He hadn't brought any goodies in since he'd made Detective. More specifically, he hadn't brought anything in since he'd cooked for his partner's wake.

> "Sometimes, I wish I could just have some pie... but where there's no pie...there's always Scotch."

With a snort, Rupert lifted up his glass in a toast. "Here, here." He tilted the cup back, and took another swallow. Then things got interesting: they got past the small talk.

> "Well Rupert. Where you're concerned, I have a couple of options. ...I could take what you've said as a threat, and react accordingly. ...Or I can trust you."

Rupert met that eye contact. At the same time, though, he shook his head slightly--either in puzzlement, or denial. Trust him? Hell, half the time, he didn't trust himself. He woke up each morning, and he didn't know whether he'd walk out his door and hurt people, or help them. Sometimes he didn't know from minute to minute what he was going to do. Trust him? It wasn't something he'd recommend.

> "Besides the fact that I don't think I could make it over to you to do anything about it, I've gotten pretty good over the years at judging people on rather short notice. ...I'm not going to go into some creepy 'I see through' you monologue here...because I really don't know if I'm doing the right thing or not by trusting you. I just do. ...You're scared of us, but you were genuinely interested in helping that kid the other day. No matter how much you wanted to act like you weren't."

His hand tightened around his glass, then relaxed. "It wasn't an act," he said simply, leaning back against the wall. He wasn't as tired as Tarin--it wasn't even fair to compare himself to how tired Tarin was--but suddenly, he felt like a few hours of unconsciousness wouldn't be amiss. His eyes were on his scotch again. "I don't know what the hell I was doing in your shop that day. That's my problem." He gave a laugh. "One of my problems. I don't think--I act. Then later, I get to try and figure out why I did what I did." He looked up at the man. "What's the worst thing you've ever done, Tarin?"

"Absolutely, and one that produces something as awesome as pie is even better. I've never had the time to pick up very many hobbies."

That was true talk, Tarin had never been anywhere long enough to be organized in a way that was conducive to hobbies. Unless one counted womanizing as a hobby, he'd always excelled at that particular skill. For some reason though, with his fiance having locked herself in the room down the hall, Tarin didn't think it was a great time to bring it up.

Tarin gave a half smile to Rupert as the other man took a drink of the Scotch, agreeing completely with his statement. Scotch was good. SO good. Rupert still seemed amazed by Tarin's decision to trust him, honestly that was better than relief so Tarin didn't say anything more. Then Rupert spoke again.

The first words made sense, Rupert looked fairly young, and he was a cop the word 'impulsiveness' was almost synonymous with 'rookie' in that field and Tarin shook it off with a slight grin and a shake of the head, "Try acting and not knowing what you've done..even later when you have to think about it..." Tarin said, staring into the glass of amber liquid. Again, until Rupert spoke. This time, Tarin's head jerked up, "Oh Rupert, I'm not sure you want to know the answer to that...."

Tarin had to think, going through the different options for an answer to that question. There was that time...the first time...the time he'd killed a woman and her two children. He couldn't tell a cop about that though...just couldn't. It had been hard enough to tell Lee.

Tarin figured he'd better answer and took a deep breath and a deep drink before answering, then he spoke, gesturing around, specifically to the window, "This...was minor." he said softly, still not quite sure where this was going to go. Avoiding eye contact for the next part, because Tarin knew how people always reacted to the information he was about to disclose, Tarin took another drink then spoke again.

"I don't just see spirits Rupert. Sometimes...something happens to me...I can...merge with another person. It's usually in unbelievably extreme circumstances...but when that happens...I'm...I'm not me anymore. Sometimes things happen, it's only happened three times..." Tarin cut himself off, he couldn't tell Rupert, especially about the last time. The merge with that psycho had left several people dead. What could he say though?

"I've hurt Lee." he said, still completely avoiding eye contact with Rupert, "I've hurt her pretty badly, physically..." Tarin paused and frowned, confused, "I shouldn't say I...it, hurt Lee...when I realized what happened, I tried to do the right thing, left her at her brother's, and ran to Maine."

Tarin ran a hand through his hair and sighed, finally looking back towards Rupert, "She hunted me down though. I'm a lucky man."

Tarin stopped here, that was enough, there was nothing else he was going to say. There was a point where trust wasn't enough. He'd committed crimes, by all rights he should be in jail, and he wasn't.

"You?" he said, a half hopeful, half hopeless look on his face.

> "Try acting and not knowing what you've done... even later when you have to think about it..."

Rupert frowned at that, not quite sure what the man meant, but pretty darn sure he was about to get another 'my mutation is such-and-such' dump. Not for the first time, he wished the freaks all just had the same mutation. It would make his life so much less interesting.

> "Oh Rupert, I'm not sure you want to know the answer to that.... This...was minor."

More than anything, it was the fact that the man was suddenly avoiding his eye contact that made Rupert's hand tighten around his glass. Suddenly, he wasn't sure he did want to know the answer to that. He probably hadn't wanted to know the answer from the moment it had gotten past his lips. Questions like that never brought any good.

> "I don't just see spirits Rupert. Sometimes...something happens to me...I can...merge with another person. It's usually in unbelievably extreme circumstances...but when that happens...I'm...I'm not me anymore. Sometimes things happen, it's only happened three times..."

There was the information dump.

> "I've hurt Lee."

And there was the reason he should have kept his mouth shut. Why was he still here, talking to this man? Tarin obviously just needed to go to sleep. Rupert should have given him a thanks-but-no-thanks, gone back to his own apartment, and tried to salvage his night. Forget the scotch; getting away from the muties was just as good as liquor. Nearly.

> "I've hurt her pretty badly, physically..."

Something in Rupert's stomach clenched. He no longer knew if Tarin was avoiding eye contact; he himself was staring down into his glass. So this man had hurt the woman he'd loved, had he? That part of the story sounded familiar.

> "I shouldn't say I...it, hurt Lee...when I realized what happened, I tried to do the right thing, left her at her brother's, and ran to Maine."

His hand tightened and relaxed, while the knot in his stomach tightened and twisted. 'It' had hurt Lee, had it? Not really Tarin at all. Well wasn't that damn conveniently peachy for the man to hide behind. It wasn't every man who could lay the 'my mutation made me do it' card on the table. Rupert certainly couldn't. His own hand of cards was all his own, and it wasn't too flattering.

> "She hunted me down though. I'm a lucky man."

He saw the man finally look up out of his peripheral vision, and his own gaze rose to meet Tarin's eyes. He knew the question that was coming next. Fair was fair.

> "You?"

He knew it was coming, but he still gave a startled laugh. After a moment of thought, he raised his glass a few sedate inches as if in toast to the man. "I'm not sure you want to know the answer to that," he parroted. His head knocked back against the wall. "I should say this. I should say, 'Well, Tarin, I got my damn mutant girlfriend pregnant, then I shot her and tossed her in the Camps when I found out what she was.' That's what I should say." He laughed mirthlessly, tapping a finger against the side of his glass. Click, click, click. "I could even add that she was saving my life at the time; that's why she revealed herself. I should say that." He shook his head slightly; clearing away flies. His voice lowered as he stared down at his scotch. "I should say that," he repeated again.

His head came up again. He made sure he met Tarin's eyes for this one. As much as he was ashamed of all that, it couldn't hold a candle to this next part. When a man spoke about the thing he regretted most in the world, he had damn well better make eye contact. It was the least he could do. "That isn't it, though. The worst thing I've ever done, Tarin, is not pull the trigger against one of you damn freaks the second I had the chance."

The raptor boy at the Sanctuary. He'd had him in his sights; he'd had him in his sights from the first second they'd pulled up. Jerry had screeched the car to a halt. He'd been saying something; Rupert could never remember what it had been, as many times as the memory replayed itself. They'd both stepped out of the car into the chaos of the massacre. A young woman with red and black hair; a mere girl with a green ribbon in her hair; a boy who had turned into a raptor right in front of their eyes, as they'd been pulling up. Rupert's gun had been out and aimed steadily. There had been a break in the swirls of the crowd; he'd gotten a clear shot at the raptor boy's head. Instead of putting the damn thing down like the animal it was, he'd stopped to think, They're all so young. The crowd shifted again. He'd lost the shot.

Thirty-nine seconds later--he could count them out in his dreams--the raptor boy had torn out Jerry's throat. Count one, two, three: at forty-two seconds, that sweet little girl with the green ribbon in her hair had stabbed Rupert through the left side of his chest, piercing his lung. She hadn't even bothered to finish him off. He remembered her exhilarated laugh as she'd danced off to stab someone else. Count four, five, six: at forty-five seconds, he'd hit the ground and watched blue sky, red blood, and shifting bodies eddy and swirl and finally clear away. Then it was just the sky and the calmly pooling blood, until the paramedics finally showed up. Too late. Every time he saw it, they were always too late. They would always be too damn late. Jerry had been dead at fifty-seven seconds.

They hadn't lasted even sixty seconds outside of their car.

"How many people do you think I could save, if I just shot every one of you that I saw? You ever kill anyone, Tarin?" Rupert asked the mutant standing in front of him. He was still making eye contact. His voice was thoughtful; probably too thoughtful. Finally, he shook his head. "Never mind. Rhetorical questions." Screw moderation. He tilted the cup up to his lips, and downed the rest of his scotch to wash the taste of blood out of his mouth.

Rupert didn't say anything at first, Tarin honestly hadn't expected him to. In fact, Tarin was pretty damn surprised that Rupert was still standing in his apartment. Tarin was surprised that he wasn't in cuffs, that Rupert's cop nature hadn't kicked in by this point.

The silence was slightly deafening for the few moments where the two men looked at each other. Tarin had a feeling that this meeting was about to come to an end and that maybe he'd be seeing the problem with the camps sooner than he'd thought.

His question didn't go unanswered though, Rupert started talking. It was the most that Tarin had ever heard him say at one time since he'd met the man.

Tarin listened as Rupert talked, not interrupting a single time, not having a clue what he would have said if he'd wanted to interrupt. He'd shot his girlfriend...his pregnant girlfriend, when he'd found out she was a mutant...and he'd thrown her in the camps. Tarin didn't look away from the other man, he was shocked, and Rupert had said that wasn't the worst...goo god what could be worse than that?

Tarin almost wished he hadn't wondered, hadn't reciprocated the question when Rupert continued. He couldn't help the slight wince that twisted his features at the next statement, the worst thing he'd ever done was not killing someone like him.

How many people could he save if he killed every single one of them he found? It was a good question and Tarin's face went still as stone as he words left Rupert's mouth. The next statement was even worse, Tarin could have been made of stone now, he was so tense. How could he answer that question, how could he explain the guilt every day? Rupert wouldn't buy it, it wouldn't make any difference.

Tarin could remember, he'd told Rupert he couldn't but he could remember being trapped in the body of that thing he'd become. Remember the huge red pickup truck sailing down the highway, honking, not slowing as it rounded the corner. The impact, the heat, the raining metal, the burning bodies...and that was only the first time. The mental math was too easy.

Rupert stopped it though, said it was a rhetorical question, let Tarin off the hook. He was relieved as the loud sigh of relief probably suggested. It didn't stop the answer from coming out of his mouth though, "You'd save a lot of lives." he said softly, never breaking eye contact, even as his hand shook as it remained curled around his glass.

Tarin looked down the hall at the door where Lee had shut herself. "I know you're not interested in sob stories Rupert, but if it wasn't for her powers, you don't even want to know the sorts of things that would have happened to her....besides me."

Tarin shook his head, and smiled ruefully, "Are you trying to convince me that I shouldn't trust you Rupert?" Tarin set his glass down with a clink, "That's exactly what you're doing, isn't it? It'd be so much easier to hate me if that was the case, wouldn't it? To hate Lee if she was trying to toss you out the window instead of being terrified of you and hiding."