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Maybe that had been going a little too far. Maybe. With literal steam pouring off this guy, it was hard not to consider the possibility. 

Then the guy went and crushed every idea, which crushed the kids, of course, which left Jiri feeling like a bad guy when the youngest was in tears.

The candy store was a terrible idea, he admitted that, but you always had to toss out one terrible idea to make the rest sweeter. The ferry to Stanton Island was arguably cheaper than lemonade, if they'd wanted a boat ride. Playing with puppies didn't mean bringing home puppies, it just meant getting the dogs some exercise and socialization in a play room. Most shelters were cool with that, as long as you made sure the kids didn't rough house too much. Plus you could have the 'responsible pet owner' talk with your kids. And a corner band was a hilarious idea, that was 90% playacting and 10% things they could find on the ground that would make good drumsticks, and if they did make a few quarters off the tourists they'd feel ten feet high when they showed their mom. How was that not a winning idea? 

Seriously.

This guy. 

Had no imagination.

And now Majo was crying and Jiri felt awful even though this was clearly Steamy McNoFun's fault. Is that what being a visible mutant did to people? They kind of curled up in on themselves and refused to have fun?

Worse, the guy was training his little cousins not to have fun, either. Part of Jiri admired how grown up Sophia was acting, while the rest of him cringed for the same reason. And she was convincing David that they couldn't have fun, either. Only Majo and Jiri saw the madness, and only she was young enough to cry at the injustice of it all without getting punched by a guy who'd still have arms to spare.

There was a time and place for a you are no fun and you are making impressionable youths into no fun talk, and it was not while the kids were present.

Jiri stood up, and sort of scuffed one shoe against the ground, in the maturest possible manner. "...At least let me treat you guys to the lemonade. As an apology." It totally wasn't his fault, but adults liked apologies.

He had the feeling he was forgetting something, here. 

...Eh, it would come to him.

The library was peaceful and quiet. It had that booky smell to it--old glue on old bindings set on shelves with old dust on top. It didn't look as well used as the rec room he'd passed. It had a sort of stillness about it. If someone told him that no one had set foot in this place for two years, he would have believed them.

The receptionist helped him get set up in one of the little conference rooms tucked into an even more desolate corner of the already deserted space. She got his computer hooked up to the building's wifi, helped him check that his webcam was working by sitting patiently in the arm chair across from him while he adjusted the lighting settings. She talked, very pleasantly, as he calibrated the microphone.

Her name was Lisa, and he didn't know what her mutant power was--couldn't even tell if she was a mutant--but she was scary. 

"--as you understand, discretion helps us to keep all our residents safe. You will be discrete regarding the location of this filming, of course."

"Of course," Jiri agreed, in the same way he'd have backed away slowly from a tiger. "This is a nice, ah, generic setting. Could be any library conference room ever. I'll filter out any questions about where she lives. Scouts honor." He smiled extremely wide.

She smiled back, in matching degree. "We do appreciate you helping to paint one of our more controversial residents in a more human light. It's so very easy for things to get blown out of proportion, for the media to run wild. It's easy for young people like yourself to get backed into a corner, and have no choice in their actions. Like what happened to your roommate at the Mansion--Alex Maurell, is it?"

He hadn't mentioned his roommate. Or where he lived. He was pretty sure that was a threat: he was less sure of whether she was even trying to hide it.

Everything she said was so very, very pleasant. She had been nice from the moment he'd walked in, helpful, she'd anticipated things he'd need and had them ready before he'd even known he'd need them. He almost thought he was reading too much into it. He was already nervous about the upcoming interview--maybe his mind was just running wild, making everyone in this place out to be some kind of villain. Most of the people he'd seen so far had looked normal. Well, by mutant standards, but the point was if they'd been walking in the Mansion he wouldn't have wondered if they had a body count. Like she said, maybe even if they did, there was a reason for it, like with Alex--

Her smile widened fractionally. "I'm sure this interview will paint Ms. Whilver in a very positive light."

No yeah he was not imagining it.

"I am growing more and more sure of that, myself," he agreed. "Umm. I think I'm done with set up, and I've got some starter questions ready. We can start the live chat any time. I'll, ah, be reading the most upvoted questions from the chat, and she can answer them. If she wants." The receptionist was still looking at him, like he'd missed a signature on line three. "...I'll read the most discrete and positive upvoted questions?"

"I'll send Ms. Whilver down."

That smile. Maybe that smile was her power. He was glad he didn't sleep anymore, because he knew he'd have seen it in his nightmares.

This was not a good idea. No one really knew he was here, even, and he was starting to suspect that the overly efficient secretary knew that. When the Mansion's guidance counselor had okay'ed his idea for more interviews, he knew she'd been thinking of benign talks: Mansion staff, X-Men, maybe some local mutant business leaders if he could convince them that talking to a high schooler was good PR. 

He did not think she'd have okay'ed it if she'd known he had the Sanctuary in mind, as well.

This was for Alex, he reminded himself. The only mutant friend he really had at Xavier's. It wasn't enough to get all the good guys on tape. People liked that, sure, like they liked videos of puppies doing puppy things. But the stuff that really drew attention? The things that would make Alex's murder in self-defense seem inconsequential in scale? The good guys couldn't provide that.

He'd put up a flier in the Sanctuary, asking for any mutants who were wanted for crimes, anyone who would like to get their side of the story on the record. A no pressure interview by a fellow mutant (...and the internet). He didn't know who he'd expected to reply. A few small-time people like Alex?

Aura. Or, as the receptionist preferred: Ms. Rena Whilver. Aura the cop killer, Aura the furniture maker, Aura the Alex-better-appreciate-this-or-at-least-say-something-nice-at-his-funeral.

Maybe he was thinking about this all wrong. Maybe she really was an innocent, forced into a corner, someone who knew a lawyer couldn't help her so she'd taken matters in her own hands. She wasn't that old--barely even legal to drink. Most of her worst crimes, the ones that had made her a talking piece in New York news, were from when she was younger. Maybe she was just an Alex, if Alex had run instead of facing court. Yeah. Innocent until proven guilty, and all that.

Lisa smiled again on her way out. 

Jiri sat behind his computer, watching the initial questions start building up, and did his best to look like he believed it: innocent until proven guilty, innocent until--

On the bright side? Most of the internet agreed that she didn't kill mutants. As far as anyone living could tell.

He thinks that we can lose, the voice of God whispered in her head, almost sadly. It was an affectionate kind of sadness, though, like a shepherd watching a newborn sheep struggle to find its legs. This is how man is, without the grace of God to guide him.

So lost, so confused; frustrated, angry. So much doubt and disbelief. There was a better way: Noel had already found it. 

My child, I must go speak with the unbeliever, even as I have spoken with you. I feel the concern you carry for him. I will do this for you, so that his fears may be cast aside, and the path your mission is to follow made clear.

He knew it was a heavy burden to place on her; for one who had carried the Voice of God, silence in the mind was akin to the abyss. But her mind was strong. Why else would he have chosen her?

Do my will. His parting words. She would know what that was. She was his discipline, after all.

He settled into the conflicted mind of the immortal, like a dove coming home to roost. 

Have you accepted the Voice in Your Head as your personal Lord and Savior?

Welcome back, Kaz!

>> "I was probably your age when it started for me and I can tell you right now, handling the mutation is the easy part."

It was a well intentioned line that opened up a whole new world of horror in Jiri's mind. Victor's former words sunk in with a whole new meaning: he used to look human. And he'd started changing. Around Jiri's age.

Jiri had a sudden urge to ask exactly how the guy's transformation had started, and what warning signs he'd had, but he managed to stop himself. Putting his sudden I might look like you someday paranoia on display would probably be offensive.

"I've been starting to notice the baggage," the teen admitted instead, tucking in his shoulders. The thing with his roommate and how he'd met his roommate was still the worst, but unless he figured out a way to get some real sleep, he was afraid it wouldn't remain the worst. His mutation was clearly keeping him alive despite the lack of sleep, but alive and sane was harder, some days.

He relaxed a little, sat up a little straighter, when Victor asked about his family. "Yeah. I've been lucky there. No freaks outs. A little concern, but no freak outs. My friends not so much, but whatever." To be fair, he hadn't reached out much to his old group of friends. They back in Warwick, an hour and a half away, being regular kids still. The last they'd heard of him, he'd got psycho in the school cafeteria, gotten interred at the psych ward at the hospital, then shipped to mutant boarding school, all before any of them could blink. They'd probably be able to work things out, if he talked to them.

But they hadn't really reached out to him, either.

"I'm guessing your family knows, huh? How did that go?" He still wasn't sure on mutant etiquette, but if they guy had asked Jiri first, then it couldn't be too sensitive of a topic. He turned his attention back to the kids, then raised an eyebrow Victor's way. "Are they yours?" It was hard to tell age on a giant one-eyed salamander.

As the two responsible adults in the room kept talking, Jiri became very conscious of one fact: they were going to keep talking. And talking and talking. And neither of them seemed to care that Alex was looking worse and worse, that he was hunching in on himself, that he was making a sound like a puppy in a boiling tea kettle.

If Jiri's body language was concerned before, it switched to all out defensive. He unconsciously scooted his chair closer to his roommate's, until they were side by side and physically allied against the adults.

"Okay. First off? Of course there's fanmail. Because when people heard Alex talking, they liked what they heard. He made friends." Creepy internet friends, but friends. "It's just stupid stuff, like cookies and letters. Stuff to show support for him." Support, and questionably healthy fangirl devotion. But that would not help the case Jiri was building.

"Second? You're acting like it was a secret that he was at the Mansion. He's a mutant teen in trouble in New York City. Maybe in the eighties no one knew what that meant, but I bet I could stand on any street corner downtown and ask people 'where are they going to send him?' and they'd be, like, 90%, 'that mutant school.' And don't pretend like this place is in danger because of him, I've read your Wikipedia page. How many times has Xavier's been attacked or burned down or, I don't even know, covered in slime or something, in the past decade? My mom was freaked about me coming here but the courts weren't giving us a choice. Which is exactly my point. So stop trying to make Alex feel bad about it, this place was already a danger zone before he'd ever heard of it." 

He managed to scoot his chair even closer. Now their elbows were knocking. 

"You say you're not trying to blame us but you're doing that adult thing where you say I don't blame you and then you say but you are in so much trouble in the same breath." Mitigate? You can't mitigate if there wasn't damage. He hated when adults did this. "If you want to talk about mitigating, then sure. Let's talk about how the chat helped mitigate stuff."

It was not physically possible to move closer to Alex, and he was not sure that someone making that sound wanted an arm around his shoulders, so he didn't. He ran two very frustrated hands through his hair instead.

"I feel like you're… like you're totally ignoring the fact that the first video was already viral. You know, the one where Alex violently kills a guy in a pretty freaky way? You're acting like the chat makes things worse, but think about what's really worse: him going to trial and the jury having only seen the first video, or his jurors seeing him acting like just a normal teen who was forced into a stupid spot by assholes with knives? He came off really good in the chat. Really good." Fanmail good. But raising that again probably wouldn't help. "I get that you're worried so you feel like you have to do the Talk At Us thing, but now we're going to have weeks of people passing the chat around, seeing it on the news, getting a chance to see Alex as a person before the prosecution sticks him on the stand and tries to make him seem like the boogeyman. That's going to be a lot harder for them to do, now. So maybe the chat wasn't smart, and maybe you don't approve, but it didn't break anything that wasn't already broken and maybe it helped some."

Belatedly, Jiri paused to gulp in some air after that speech, his cheeks flushed.

Also could they please stop freaking out Alex now? Because that seemed to be the main purpose of this meeting, as far as he could tell. Adults sucked when they got like this. 

...Watching this guy yawn was like watching a lion prepare to swallow the sun. Terrifying, in the epic sense of the word. 

Yet just as contagious as always. Jiri stiffed his own, and turned his attention back to the kids. Mostly back to the kids. 90%, with a 10% eye out for the tangerine monster. He stood up, just to be on the safe side. Stretched a little to make sure he was awake, before sitting back down.

The hand shake was so deliberate, so measured, that it kicked his brain out of he-is-predator-I-am-prey mode into this-is-a-guy-who-had-to-practice-handshakes. Presumably so he wouldn't crush unsuspecting hands. Which was a testament to a lot of time and care taken, only to be wasted on a jerk like Jiri.

The teenager flushed a brilliant red, and met the guy's eyes for the first time.

"I used to be able to sleep." He brought one of his legs up to his chest, dangled an arm off it. "Sorry. For the thousandth time. This mutant thing is really new, and I kind of wish it would just go away, you know?"

Looking like he did, Jiri bet the guy--Victor, might as well use his name--Jiri bet he knew exactly what he was talking about.