(no subject)
Shedding his jacket near the door, Bahir has foregone sinister lab coats and goggles for the simple comfort of shirt and jeans. The jeans are worn, dark indigo faded to a lighter navy at knees and hips. They are definitely man-jeans, that said, and his belt is leather today. Wearing one of a number of interchangeably clever printed T-shirts, this one a soft crimson hue, he swings up into a backwards seat on a high stool near a monitor. Leaning forward against the padded back, he crosses one arm over the top and seeks a metal tray with his other hand, finding keyboard and mouse. Time for solitaire!
It is cool enough out to excuse the wearing of a sweater. So, Erik is wearing one. It is ribbed, and charcoal grey over the darker black of his trousers. Faux military, almost, particularly in the company of combat boots. Not knee high boots, though. Not today.
A shiver sneaks through the metal tray at Bahir's hand, hardly tangible, and a few seconds later, Erik lets himself in past the shed jacket.
The shiver through metal goes unnoticed, but the slight disturbance of air and whisper of sound caused by the opening of the door, the presence that lurks at telepathy's shielded fringe -- /that/, Bahir notices. He doesn't quite startle, but he does draw marginally straighter, tensing as he glances back over his shoulder. Happy little proteins cast a cold, blue-tinted light across his features; low ambient light does a bit to soften the harshness, but his profile remains starkly drawn, for all that he relaxes slightly. He tips his head up in an acknowledging greeting, spinning 'round to face Magneto in silence.
Magneto remains near the door, unenthusiastic as ever about the prospect of traipsing into a lab full of proteins and scalpels and unknown torture devices that he cannot risk inspecting unless he wishes to foot the bill. Which he does not. "Evening." Even at a distance, he looks thin, if not as sickly as he did two or three days ago. Merely lean, and perhaps hollow about his face and the wide box of his ribs. "You said to drop by."
This lab mostly has computers, and glassware. Scalpels and forceps are in short supply, although there are scissors in a cup filled with pens, pencils, and markers of various sorts. "Right," Bahir says, easing off the chair to drop to his feet. He heads for the fridge, perhaps to get a snack. "What can you tell me about your experience with Hewitt? He's caught Frost's attention, as well."
A lab is a lab. Particularly when it is a lab with some dedication to the study of mutantkind, there must be scalpels /somewhere/ for cutting people open and arbitrarily removing their organs. Not inclined to stray far from the door accordingly, Erik watches Bahir's progress towards the refrigerator in awkward silence. What is there to say? "Were I capable of sustaining that level of power for any significant amount of time, levelling Manhattan would be child's play."
"Is the problem that your body can't sustain the power or that he could not feed it to you?" Bahir turns, leaning up against the wall near the fridge, and faces Lensherr. He blinks slightly, registering his continued door hovering, and beckons a 'come in' gesture. "I know that Grey's mentioned issues with her son, and being afraid that he will burn out."
Magneto's answer is slow in coming, and hesitant once it's offered. "I don't know." Promising. Enlightening. Not entirely true. Frustration tightens in his chest, and he follows the beckon with a few forward paces that leave him haunting the no man's land at the room's center. "Fourty years ago my odds would have been greater. Control may be of some help. Preparedness. As things are, in a matter of seconds I burned through whatever fat reserves I had managed to build in the wake of my adventures in space, and started on muscle."
"Ah." Bahir takes in shadowed leanness with new understanding. "Control. Did you have trouble /not/ using the increased power?" He driiifts back away from the fridge, headed toward the computer. He does not start typing. He gets out a notebook, and leans to grab a pen, and scribbles a few notes. "What about Hewitt? What sort of effect was he showing?"
"I was monitoring the surrounding area when he made his approach, and the stream of my ability was amplified into niagra falls. It was not easy to stop. Once I was no longer projecting, however, there was nothing more than curiosity to urge me into trying it again." Curiosity, and the undilute pleasure of having his thumb pressed to the hammering pulse of existence itself. Fortunately, what Erik actually says is less poetic than what he does /not/, though he seems incapable of thinking of much else. "He vomited. It took him some time to find his feet."
"I've seen him amplify the abilities of lesser-powered mutants." Bahir's hands open. "A psychometrist, who is able to project what she sees. He tired and fell ill with a relatively minor display compared to what you are capable of." He adds another note or two to his papers in a scrawl of ink, muttering something under his breath about possible relative increases, rather than direct relationships to power expended. Scribble, scribble. Then he pauses, glancing at Lensherr more closely. "And you. What negative effects are you suffering from, and did you suffer then?"
"None," says Erik, his own voice conspiring against him in its hoarseness. "Nothing beyond what I would expect from a massive overexpendature. Pain, headaches, exhaustion." Seizures. "I am going to see him again."
Bahir again pauses, pen stilling partwary through 'aches'. He hesitates on the obvious -- Be careful, that's stupid, watch for Emma! -- and just sits a moment, frowning slightly. He clears his throat, and tangents slightly. "You know, my primary interest in his abilities was in the possibility that he could serve for ranged detection. Now...." Well! He shrugs. "I've yet to find any abnormal proteins or hormones or ... anything, really, in his blood that could provide biochemical cause for the boost he causes in others. Given the lack of contact, swapping of bodily fluids--" Magneto, you dog. "--or, in fact, any physical proximity at all, that makes sense. I suppose that it could be air-borne, akin the pheromones, but the response seems too quick. I suspect psionic. I would dearly love to have him sit for an MRI, so try leave some of him for the rest of us."
"Direct psionic stimulation of the region responsible for output seems likely. I know it to be possible without benefit of drugs or pheromones." At the pause of Bahir's pen, Erik tenses, steeling himself for an argument less inevitable than he might have assumed. "I do not think he seems the type to consent to swapping fluids -- as you say -- with anyone but Emma. I'm not going to /break/ him." Mild affront there.
Bahir shrugs. "If you lose control of your abilities, you might drain and harm him without meaning to, Dr. Lensherr." Leaving only a dry, withered husk for Emma to swap fluids with. His pen flutters lazily between his fingers, bounced by the idle fidget of his thumb. For the moment, he is not writing. "Replicating psionic stimulation," he mutters, voice trailing off with a thoughtful narrowing of his gaze.
Ellen's entry into the laboratory is quiet, flat shoes a soft tread over the floor. The dark, hooded sweatshirt she wears, she unzips and peels loose with the distracted air of a woman functioning out of habit. She is wearing a labcoat, crisp white and closed over the pale blue of her collared shirt and the dark charcoal of her trousers. No goggles, though. Goggles are less dignified. She blinks her startlement as she catches Erik's familiar frame in the sweep of her glance, going quite still for the space of a heartbeat.
"I will be careful." As careful as any T-Rex with a glass bauble in its talons can be. "I was unprepared, before. Now I know what to expect." Eagerness drives his confidence to the point that he draws up a little straighter. His limited version of a fidgit under controlled circumstances, when Bahir's eyes narrow. But oh look, it's Ellen! A scuff at Erik's back prompts him to turn sharply, already automatically at the divergence between fight and flight.
Glancing between Lensherr and Ellen, Bahir only blinks. To her, he gives a courteous nod; to him, a dubious glance. He does not nag. He nods, washing Ryan's continued health from his hands. "I wonder what his range is. If it would be possible to have Hewitt sit for an MRI as he boosts a subject, also being studied."
"Gentlemen. Forgive me if I am interrupting something," Ellen ventures by way of greeting, with a slight inclination of her head as she folds her hands neatly in front of her buttoned coat. It was probably hot out there, what with shirt, labcoat, and jacket. Her hair is bound, a loose tail at the back of her head. She looks about as harmless as a six foot blonde in a labcoat can look. (Well, okay, not actually six foot.)
"Ellen!" She is one of few people Erik is ever consistently happy to see. You can tell because she gets an exclamation mark. Also, something that might almost qualify as a pleasantly surprised (and slightly baffled -- this is not the best timing ever) smile. A simple, "No," is granted the question of interruption, and he turns back to Bahir to muddle back after the thought he just lost. "You're going to have to act selfishly if you expect him to climb onto your hamster wheel. Unless, of course, you've thought of a way to distract him from the fact that he will be forced into close proximity with something that makes him physically ill."
Bahir waves away Ellen's apology, not to be distracted, and glances between the two older mutants in silence. He goes a trifle blander. His gaze settles on Erik, and he tips his head. "It is all in the name of helping him conquer his illness, Dr. Lensherr."
Pacing on even strides towards one of the computers, where out of habit she has centrally located her current work, Ellen answers Erik's smile with one of her own, immediately both pleased and relieved. While the expression is warm, it lasts about as long as Ellen's warmth typically does: sunlight fleeting, behind the ordinary clouds of frownish contemplation that is her usual. "Who is sick?" she asks, healer-alert with upswept brows. Ellen is so very helpful!
"I told him he was a mutant." Is Bahir trying to say that Ryan might for some reason /not believe him/? Mild affront creases across his brow, and he turns to meander after Ellen. She is an ironic bit of driftwood to cling to in the lab's cold setting, all things considered. He does not answer her question.
With a faint sigh, Bahir says, "So you said. Even so, he might seek to prove or disprove your words." He gives Ellen a brief shake of his head. "Not sick. A man -- a mutant -- who has the effect of boosting the abilities of others at the coast of some fatigue, nausea, et cetear himself."
"Oh," Ellen says. She tips her head slightly to one side, considering the ramifications of that. "The mechanism of that would be fascinating to observe." Her tone is mildly wistful, as she is quite aware that any such practical experimentation is unlikely to be practicable. "The concept of a 'boost' in power seems peculiar. How would such increase be manifest? Do not our bodies already do that which they are capable of?"
"As muscles can be exercised, so too can mutations. Most who try eventually encounter a sort of cap or limit on what they are capable of. Others..." Erik trails off, squinting at Ellen's computer screen over her shoulder as if interested in it before stealing a glance down at her rear. How fortunate for Bahir that he be present to witness the early rounds of /that/ ritual. "I think it would probably be best if you refrained from touching him." A brow is lifted back over his shoulder at Bahir, seeking agreement. "If his resistence to the idea is that thick, perhaps he deserves what is coming to him."
Others... are total hax. Not being hax, Bahir looks mildly cranky, making only a vague sort of noise to Ellen, shrugging. He looks down at his notes, going over them with pen just barely not-touching paper. << Again, in your eagerness to have another go at it, >> Bahir says, first touch of telepathy limned with a hint of apology for the intrusion, << please don't forget to leave enough of him to scrape into a petri dish for further study. >> Deserves what is coming to him, indeed.
Ellen's rear appears as it normally does, in business-like trousers that do little to accentuate or present it. As far as Ellen's pants are concerned, a bottom is only a bottom. Ellen meanwhile is examining the splay of fingers that is currently her left hand. "Do you think it would be dangerous? I was only thinking that it would be interesting to witness whatever this 'boost' actually looks like in action. Perhaps I could learn something about mutation in action. Does it really work for you both?" Her eyes are bright as they slip from Erik to Bahir, happily oblivious to whatever is going on in silence. Of course, Ellen is happily oblivious to many things in the world. "The exercise of your respective strengths is markedly different in kind."
<< I am not /eager/, >> Erik lies, apparently mostly in objection to terminology that he believes might be better suited to a puppy or fresh recruit than to a Master of Magnetism. << There is nothing for me to gain in his destruction. I /will/ be careful. >> That over the shoulder look narrows into one of mild reproach, and he winds an arm around Ellen's waist. /She/ thinks he is responsible. "It took a toll upon my control, such that I think it would be unwise for you to risk it, my dear." A giant tumor might not fit into Bahir's MRI machine as well as a person.
Bahir inclines his head, less sure of Ryan's effects than Magneto. "I believe so. It is not so different as, say, telepathy and m--." He swaps mutations: "--ore physical mutations." To the narrowed look, he offers only the roll of a single shoulder, and no further telepathic intrusion. As he makes with the groping, his expression marginally tightens. He looks to the door -- and then reconsiders. Who /knows/ what might happen if he doesn't outwait them. So he turns to his computer, keying it awake again. "Interesting, though."
"I suspect the point is moot anyway," Ellen says, with a prickle of minor exasperation either for her situation or for the idea that anything could endanger her grip on her self-control. After all, she would only be /seeing/, not /doing/, what harm could there possibly be in seeing! Her weight settling in a slight lean into the press of Erik's arm, she frowns at her computer screen -- not yet displaying any rows of data or notes, since she has only just got here. Fingertips resting lightly on the keyboard, she cants a look in Bahir's direction, and then turns pale eyes thoughtfully on Erik. Are they going to make out with her lab partner in the room?
It is probably fairly obvious what will happen if Bahir leaves first, though Erik is hardly groping. He is merely touching. Affectionately. In a, 'Do you want to do it? I want to do it.' Way. Friendly! "We will know more once he is here and can be studied. The sooner the better, particularly if Emma has already managed to crawl up his trouser leg." Ellen's look is met with a slight upward twitch of his brows. What? "Is she aware of your research?"
Bahir ignores Ellen and Erik. In presence, he acts as buzzkill. ALSO, bonerkill. /Not on his lab bench/. "Getting him here -- willingly," he adds with a brief, cool glance over his shoulder. No caveman captures. "--may be somewhat difficult if he continues to have negative experiments with mutants."
Ellen mostly looks sort of puzzled, brows swept high over pale blue-grey eyes. Not /exactly/ objecting but -- Bahir is right over there. He is her lab partner. He can hear people's thoughts. Ellen considers it vitally important that no one know what goes on in her head while she is having sex. (It can be a little bit ... religious ... in there.) "I don't suppose there is a way to arrange for him to have positive experiences with mutants," she says. "Not if we make him feel ill."
"If you intend to play up the angle wherein you /save/ him from the plague of mutantkind that preys upon him and his son, I daresay another negative experience or two would serve to make your pitch all the more tempting." Leonine countenance turned back to Bahir long enough for him to say so, Erik eases his hand below Ellen's waistband, and then out again before unwinding himself in preparation to step away. "For all the time that you have worked here, I do not think I've been given a proper tour."
Bahir doesn't really have an answer for either of them. He eyes his screen with a certain amount of determination, although he doesn't actually appear to be doing anything. He mutters vagueries: "--not /that/ ill," and "Watch out for the secured areas."
"Oh," Ellen says. Actually, she sort of strangles a little squeaking noise, but /then/ she says "Oh." She glances at her computer screen, having not yet reached anywhere productive, and then tugs at her labcoat, straightening it. "Right," she mutters, and then turns as well, lifting her head. She has enough decency to flush a little, despite being as shy in theory as the average nudist colony.
"Of course." It would be highly irresponsible to traipse through a secured area on a tour. That Erik reaches idly to snap a spare lab coat off the hook on his way out must be an indication of his dedication to blending in and not causing trouble while he's here. Either way, he's out of the room before anyone has too long to think on it, with Ellen at his heels.
Ellen and Erik do not have sex in front of Bahir. I am sure Bahir is duly grateful.