potions class RP

[estebanmd]

Attired in standard faculty robes, Stephen Maturin stands behind a long table at the head of the potions classroom, waiting for the class to come to order. He is in no great hurry, but when one or two conversations trickle over into the silence that otherwise falls over the room, he gives the assembled students a look that raises a "shhh" from the

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[office_michael]

"Grating the nutmeg is...GREAT! Guhhhh-REAT!" Yes, Michael was doing a Tony the Tiger impersonation. He looked around for a response yet again and then picked up the grater.

After giving it a few experimental scrapes against the nutmeg, he glanced up at Robin and said to him, "See, that shows how LITtle you know about wit! Wiiii~iiiit~~~ is something you can't just teach to someone. It's something you're born with. If you could just teach wit, just...hold a class in it...then I would've given lessons to Toby and all the other wet blankets from Corporate Ages ago. LEAdership, on the other hand...."

Suddenly seized by an idea, he slammed the grater and nutmeg onto the table, stood up, and started clapping his hands. "All right, team, gather round and listen up. Huddle, folks, c'mon, huddle, because I~~~ am going to teach you all a little something about LEAdership." Gesturing for his teammates to move closer to him, he continued, "In this Potions class, we~~~ are a team. And I~~~ am your fearless leader, your CAPtain. It's like...it's like we're all on a plane, and I am your pilot. Jaaaaa~aaaack, he's the co-pilot, and Sarah and Robin Gayfellow, you two are the steward and stewardess." Michael pointed at each one of them in turn. It made complete sense to Michael: Jack seemed rather captain-y (but, of course, he couldn't be the actual captain, because Michael was the leader), and Sarah was a girl and Robin was gay, so their positions were pretty obvious.

"Oooo~oooookay, so here's the deal: We are all on a plane, and we've just discovered that there are HUNdreds of snakes on this plane. Sooooo~ooooo, we've got to do something about it. Whadda we do first? Quickly, quickly, we've got to make a decision here!" Michael snapped his fingers frantically at his teammates.

[slothbefouler]

Jack guffawed, thinking this was one of Michael's comedy routines. "Oh, you are indeed quite the humorous fellow, Mr. Scott!" he exclaimed, as he finished chopping up the mandrake root. "Captain, indeed! Where are your epaulettes, eh? I would let you borrow mine, except they are back in my room." Also, of course, he would never dream of letting a landlubber touch the precious symbols of his rank, but he was merely playing along with what he thought was a grand joke on Michael's part. "Now, my dear sir, do get back to work. There is nutmeg to be grated, and not a moment to be lost."

Pushing the chopped-up mandrake root in Robin's direction, he added, "Mr. Goodfellow, it is your turn now, I believe." He had noticed Sarah passing notes to someone, but decided not to mention it - it was Stephen's place to impose discipline in his classroom, after all. (There was a double-entendre there, if he cared to pursue it, but on the whole he thought he would rather not.)

[robinthepuck]

If one knew the signs, perhaps one might notice that Robin slipped from 'genial, handsome young man' to 'ancient Puck, who really does not like you and carries a broadsword'. It was something about the eyes. In any case, in one fell swoop, Michael went from 'annoying human' to 'someone I would feed to a troll for kicks and giggles'. Pucks are, in the end, amoral. Oh, they might have attachments, they might even have causes and battle cries and all that. But a race doesn't survive for as long and through as much without being a bit hard. Also, he wasn't human. The whole concept of 'suffering fools' really didn't sit too well with Pucks. At least, not when there was nothing to be gained.

All that to say that when Michael called him 'GAYfellow', Robin's expression got very dark. "Oh, that's amusing," he muttered to Sarah. "Millions of years and he's the first one to think of that. Really. Next he'll make some smart remark about what 'Puck' rhymes with." Sighing, he glanced at the new frog hopping away. "Any chance your 'partner in crime' could teach us how to shut this tool up? I mean, this is a magic school, right? There must be a spell or a potion or a roll of duct tape around here somewhere."

"Thank you, my dear Captain," he winked at Jack. "You seem comfortable in a position of authority. Tell me, good sir, are you well accustomed to being on top? Or have you recently worked your way up?" What? He was talking about ships and command posts and things! Smiling innocently, he took the root and began to stroke powder it.

"I'd cut you into a thousand tiny pieces and use your flesh to stave off the snakes so I, and the rest of my gallant crew, could escape," he told Michael mildly, working on the root. Giving the other man a feral grin, the Puck cocked his head. "Did I get the right answer?"

[nopower_overme]

"Goodfellow, you idiot," Sarah muttered, eyes on her work. What was it with people not bothering to learn a correct name? Goodfellow was no harder than Hoggle after all, which distracted her a moment in thought until Robin addressed her.

"Tool? What's that mean?" she asked in a whisper, quietly amused, and drew her wand. "And we don't need my accomplice, I could magically change his outfit to something more... flamboyant if I concentrated hard enough."

Which was pretty much impossible now as she looked up and caught sight of Stephen. Yeah, concentration went out the window at that. 'Must not stare at the professor. Must not stare at the professor. Should probably add stop thinking about the professor naked to this list. Oh, that's going to be impossible with him bending over to pick whatever that is up. Hell, I hope that isn't my frog or I am so much in trouble. I wonder if it could roll a quill over into the aisle and make him pick that up too? Is it time to go yet?'

Fortunately this distracted internal monologue meant she was not paying much attention at all to her group mates at present, so more failed humor by Michael would be happily missed by her. After all, she could work with the elm without thinking, oogling the professor was no disservice to her group at all.

[office_michael]

Like an overblown cock, Michael stuck out his chest and practically strutted when Jack called him "humorous." He looked at Robin and Sarah, expecting something similar, but was not disheartened when he didn't get it. Delusion is a powerful thing.

This grating-nutmeg thing seemed pretty pointless (unlike paper!) - like Home Ec class or something, and Home Ec was totally for girls - but Michael realized it was something he could turn into an opportunity to further assert his leadership. "Yeeeeessssss, the nutmeg. You see, I~~~ am the nutmeg grater, and I need an asSIStant to the nutmeg grater. And seeing as Dwight~~...is not here yet - " Michael looked a bit forlorn for a moment " - one of you will have to fill in for him." After a brief pause, Michael mumbled, "I hope he doesn't think it's Saturday again."

Michael was so puffed up that he completely forgot his snakes-on-a-plane analogy, although he did answer Robin's query. "Noooo~oooo, you DIDn't get the right answer! You canNOT cut up your fearless leader. Who would tell all the good jokes if you cut me into a thousand pieces and fed me to the snakes?" Michael tsked and shook his head as if Robin were a complete idiot. "Certainly not YOU."

Finally, Michael picked up the nutmeg, only to put it down again. "Soooo~ooooo...who wants to hear a good cancer joke? I mean, people say cancer isn't funny, but I~~~ can prove otherwise. Cancer is high-LAY-ree-us."

[slothbefouler]

Though Jack did appreciate Michael's hilarious sense of humor, he was starting to get a little irritated at the man's apparent refusal to actually do any work. Being a leader was no excuse, in his mind. As a captain, Jack did not perform any of the daily drudge work on his ship (such as swabbing the deck), but he did work exceedingly hard in other respects, including navigation, strategy, and fighting actual battles. Of course, he did spend some time making painfully stupid witty jokes with his fellow-officers, but it certainly did not take up the majority of his time.

"Mr. Scott," he said patiently, but with a slight edge in his voice, "admittedly I am not your commanding officer, but the professor has requested that we create this potion, and as his students, we are required to obey his orders. Now, I have asked you twice to get to work, and I do not wish to ask you again. This task will take you but a few minutes, and then you may tell us all the jokes about cancer you wish."

Turning to Robin, he smiled amicably, having entirely missed Robin's double entendre. "I have been in the Navy since I was a boy, and I was promoted to captain about ten years ago. I now hold the rank of senior post-captain, and hope to be promoted again some time soon - if the wretched swabs at the Admiralty see fit to do so, that is," he added with a frown.

[robinthepuck]

Muttering under his breath a long litany in several different languages of exactly what he'd like to do to Michael, Robin put the necessary amount of root into the distilled water. Frowning in concentration as he said the spell to heat the water, he took only two tries to get the Charm right. Ha!

"A tool," he told Sarah, not bothering to keep his voice down, "is...well, it depends. In the thirteenth century, it was a penis. Now it means someone contemptible or idiotic." He looked at Michael, studying him as a child might study a particularly disgusting bug under a microscope (just moments before squishing it). "I think both definitions would fit in this case, don't you?"

As the mixture bubbled away happily, Robin turned his attention to Jack. "The Admiralty would be made of bigger fools than I thought to pass up such a man as yourself for promotion, my dear Captain. One only needs to look at you to imagine how you must raise the attention and morale of your men. I can't see how you wouldn't make a hard task seem sweet pleasure, just knowing it was done under your hand." Oh, Robin was enjoying this part of Potions, very much!

Turning his eyes to Michael for a quick moment, his face dark and dangerous, the Puck growled, "Speak and you join the ranks of the eunuchs."