lifetothefullest | [IC Inbox]

[Lance nods a little, much more satisfied with that answer than he would've been with an 'I'm fine' because at least this one's probably honest. And it's understandable, too.

He hesitates, trying to decide whether to let the subject mostly go there or pressing a bit, but eventually chooses the latter. Considering Rosen had messaged him first, and then asked the favor, surely he knew Lance would pry and so he's taking that as a sign that Rosen might, on some level, actually want to discuss this further.]

Was there a particular instance when you first realized you felt this way?

When Marian was asking about the Gods. I couldn't come up with any answer aside from 'I don't care what happens to them', 'I don't care what they are doing.' I just-

[Rosen's voice trails before he closes his eyes and he shakes his head]

I don't want to do this over a phone, Lance.

[He moves to sit up on the couch, now sitting so his back is crouched over, phone held low near his knees with hims staring down at it]

[He notes the answer, but focuses on the last part for now.]

Would you like me to come over instead?

[Though his facial expression clearly betrays his discomfort with all of this, he nods.]

If its not an inconvenience.

[He feels a brief sense of deja vu--he's pretty sure he said something very similar to Rosen when he'd called him a month earlier--but ignores it and shakes his head.]

It isn't. I'll be there in twenty minutes.

[He has to look vaguely presentable in order to try to keep the conversation on topic, without Rosen picking up on anything and turning the questions back on him.]

Alright. I'll see you then

[In the meantime Rosen prepares tea. He has no coffee in his place so it has to be tea or nothing and at least the process of boiling water and steeping tea leaves gives him something to be doing with his hands.

When there is a knock at the door he answers it fairly quickly, dressed in dark slacks and a grey button down shirt. His usual 'classic professor at a stuffy east coast university' style of dress]

[Lance arrives pretty much when he said he would, dressed casually; he'd already bothered to find the sweater so he kept it, and grabbed jeans and sneakers to go with it along with trying to tame his hair, which is starting to get out of control. There wasn't much he could do about looking like he hasn't slept much, but surely that's understandable in this place.

When Rosen opens the door Lance gives a small smile, stepping into the apartment.]

Hey.

[Lee nods, murmuring 'thank you for coming' before closing the door behind Lance]

There's tea [He gestures to the pot and a pair of mugs on the kitchen table]

You look like you could use the caffeine.

[Tea isn't his normal drink of choice, but he still enjoys it and yes, he could use the caffeine.]

Thanks.

[He'll just lead the way over to the table, glancing back to make sure Rosen's following.]

[Rosen follows but its clear he's not used to being the one who is being led. He comes around to one of the chairs and stands next to it, eyeing it as if he's forgotten its function.]

Should we, um, should we sit?

I was planning on it.

[Lance responds with a small grin, pulling out the other chair.]

[Rosen nods and eases himself into the chair]

Its probably obvious that I'm not exactly experienced with this

[He understood his position when it was himself bandaging up Lance, or when it was Lance asking him for advice. But being the one who needs help, being the one whose asked for help, is like being thrown into cold murky water and he can't see where he's swimming]

I would've never guessed.

[He's keeping up the joking to try to help Rosen stay at ease, but also to make it clear this isn't something formal to be nervous about. Unless he'd like it to be otherwise, right now this is just talking between friends who both happen to have a little more experience in the art of talking about problems than most people do.]

[Lee manages a small laugh at that and his shoulders ease back a little so its looks less like he has a coat hanger in his shirt. He even relaxes enough to pour tea into both the mugs, pushing one towards lance before pulling the other towards himself]

I should be upset about what Sato did. About Shadow.

[A sigh as he leans back fully into the chair, internally reminding himself that this is Lance. This isn't an interrogation, and this isn't the prison psychiatrist trying to convince him he's insane again.

Its Lance.]

Right now all I can think is I don't care what happens to Sato. If Maketh, or anyone, killed him right now I probably wouldn't feel much of anything about it.

[Lance is glad to see him relax a little, taking the tea when offered but not trying to drink it just yet until it cools a bit. Instead he waits, quiet, while Rosen talks, and nods a little once he finishes.]

That's a pretty normal reaction. Do you know Sato or Shadow very well?

[If so then it might be less normal, depending, but feeling ambivalent about an incident that doesn't directly involve oneself isn't unusual even if--and sometimes especially if--it's something shocking.]

I don't know Sato at all. Shadow I know somewhat. He's not bad. We talked about music. [Lee sneaks a small blow of air to try and cool his tea] I have to admit I thought I had been drugged when I first saw a talking hedgehog. Somehow it was stranger to me than the talking skeleton. But thats what this place does to you.

[His gaze lifts from the gently waving surface of his tea to Lance]

I hate killing, Lance. I hate it. Or I did. Bill, one of my Alphas, he pushed and pushed for me to carry a firearm. But I hated the things. I hated the idea of killing to the point of feeling ill over the thought of it

[But all of that is gone.]

Edited 2017-05-22 21:13 (UTC)

[Lance glances off to the side, rising his eyebrows and giving a few nods in a clear 'yeah, I've got that' in regards to getting used to the idea of talking skeletons and--apparently--hedgehogs. Compared to everything else, that sort of thing is just suddenly nowhere near as strange as it should be.

He returns his own gaze to make eye contact as Rosen continues, reading between the lines of what he's saying easily enough.]

And now you feel nothing about it? Both personally and in regards to other people?

[The question makes Rosen go quiet. Its telling that he even has to stop and think about it.]

My brain still says 'logically we hate killing', but the heart and the gut have gone quiet. I'm not about to raise a weapon myself but I don't really feel inclined to stop anyone else from doing it.

[He chuckles half-heartedly then]

Watching you, running around worrying about what Maketh is going to do or what someone else is going to do, makes it really obvious to me how much I've changed. The Rosen who outed the federal government would have been right there with you. This Rosen is tired.

[Lee attempts a sip, making a small grimace when it proves to be too hot]

[Lance nods, still watching him intently, although he gives a small wince of sympathy when Rosen burns himself on the tea. He's quiet another several seconds as he thinks over what to say, idly running his fingernails over the ceramic of his mug.]

Well, like I said and I'm sure you know, emotional deadening and numbness is a common reaction to extreme--and especially repeated--stress. So if I had to make a guess, that's likely the underlying cause and not that you've suddenly changed as a person to that extent.

[He wants it to be clear, because he's concerned Rosen might be taking this change as a sign of something being wrong with him morally instead of mentally or emotionally.]

Mm. Maybe. Maybe.

[Rosen drums his fingertips on the table as he mulls that over. What Lance is saying is nothing new. Its what he's said to many patients in the past. But there's something that's snagging when he tries to swallow it. Some reason why it won't go down his throat]

Danielle says that I'm not capable of caring about people outside of myself. That I'm an, um, an automaton so to speak.

[Another drum of his fingers]

No heart inside.

[Lance gives him time to think it over, taking the moment to ponder his tea and try to decide if he's brave enough to take a sip yet.

He's not expecting the comment about Danielle, and it immediately throws him off a bit for a few reasons; he certainly doesn't think of Rosen as being incapable of caring for other people, and it's quite an accusation for his daughter to have made. Of course, sometimes people aren't what they appear, but then again children can say pretty terrible things to their parents for all sorts of reasons.

The last is the most likely, and so--]

People can say hurtful things without truly meaning them, especially to family. Was she angry with you, or was there a particular reason for her accusation?

[Rosen stares intently at the surface of the table. If its shame, or guilt, or pain, or some combination of all three he can't be certain, but he doesn't dare look at Lance directly. And bit by bit he seems to crumple under the weight of it. Shoulders sloping, jaw going slack, and hands going still.]

Given her experience. She's not wrong.

[A hard swallow]

Edited 2017-05-22 21:57 (UTC)

[Lance's eyebrows furrow slightly, trying to get a read of Rosen's reaction; the emotions aren't hard to discern, but why they are is more difficult.]

What do you mean?

[He asks the question a little cautiously, hoping that Rosen is just feeling overly guilty about something relatively benign or understandable.]

My marriage fell apart.

[Its an awkward start to an increasingly more and more uncomfortable explanation, and its clear Rosen is trying to feel out how to even talk about this in the first place. He's never laid it out. Never put it into a narrative for anyone.]

It....it was me. At first it was fine. It was good. I was just out of medical school, I got hired on to a clinic right away. We moved into the city. But there started being problems. Danielle would go through extremes of emotions and none of the doctors could figure out why. I-I don't want to go through all this but um, it was the early stages of her ability. She's an emphatic contagion, she shares emotions, she can take them and give them but as a child she couldn't control it. How could she? She had no idea what was happening

[He stops to take a drag of breath]

It was the first Alpha ability I had ever encountered. Her mother and I, we're just average. We don't have any enhanced abilities. So i threw myself into the research. Trying to figure it out. At first I knew exactly what I was doing. What it was for. I wanted to help Dani. But it was like a drug. Once I started down that rabbit hole I couldn't, or maybe I just wouldn't, look up. I began to live in my work. Never home. And once the government got wind of my research and they wanted me as head of their research team I was definitely not in the picture.

[He couldn't see it at the time. He had kept his head down and filled with data and statistics. It formed a static that blocked out everything else]

Things at home began to unravel. The stress of having an Alpha as a child on top of the strain between myself and my wife. At some point everything just broke. The divorce was...efficient....but bitter. And then only a few years later Danielle ran way from home. To god knows where. I only found her again about a year ago. I've been absent for half her li-

[He raises a hand to cover his mouth as his voice breaks off, silent tears gathering heavy in his lashes before pooling over and dribbling down his cheeks]

[As Rosen speaks and the story starts to become clear, Lance lets out a slow, silent breath of relief; it's not like this is a good story by any means, but it isn't anything like he'd briefly feared. It's easy to feel just how terrible Rosen feels about the situation, and if the start of it was as Rosen describes, then it certainly didn't come from a place of heartlessness.

But he doesn't say that right away, mostly because if he talks he won't be able to keep control of his own emotions; it's always a struggle for him to see even strangers cry, let alone a friend, and he has to blink hard a few times to keep his own vision clear. Still, it's clear enough on his face that he feels for him, even though he doesn't make any attempt to reach out because he isn't sure that would help the situation.

Instead he's quiet for a bit longer, gaze fixed on his tea so as to give Rosen some level of privacy, and eventually he finds his voice.]

It sounds like you cared too much, if that's possible, not that you didn't care enough. It was just... Probably not expressed in a way she could understand.

[But the situation is so unique, and without knowing much about Danielle or Rosen's ex-wife he can't further guess at any factors other than those Rosen told him, but it seems completely understandable how the relationship would've fallen apart. Divorce is always hard on any children, let alone one with an ability involving empathy, and if one or both parents were misdirecting their own emotions and focuses it's no wonder that Danielle might've ended up bitter and angry toward at least one of them.]

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