OOC: Logs! Madrox, Nate, and Fuzzy Blue Bartenders
X-Men: Movieverse 2 - Thursday, January 03, 2008, 9:29 PM
---------------------------------------------------------
=WES= Salem Center - Westchester
A small little escape from the hustle and bustle of the inner city whose skyline looms in the distance, Salem Center is a relatively small Westchester community that retains some illusion of colonial charm about it it. The stores and restaurants and small apartment buildings here are, for the most part, brick and wood with barely a steel-and-glass skyscraper in sight. The atmosphere is generally pleasant, if humble, and most mutants feel far more comfortable on these much more liberal sidewalks than they do in the depths of the city. Quaint little bistros, boutiques, and any number of alluring spots to explore are all packed closely against one another with few narrow alleys in sight. It's less crowded than the city, to boot, and on most days not much more than a few handfuls of people roam the sidewalks down the line of glass store-windows and colored awnings overlooking the Main Street.
[This room is set watchable. Use alias SalemCenter to watch here.]
[Exits : [We]stchester, [C]haotic [A]lignments [C]omics, [L]aser [R]age, [T]aco [B]ell, [R]oller [U]niverse, [N]orth [S]alem [P]laza, [H]arry's [B]ar, [O]ld [B]rownstone [A]partments, and [W]estchester [A]rt [G]allery]
What the little coffee shops and bistros of Salem Center lack in overall number, they attempt to make up for in charm and local loyalty. Such it is with the pleasant and tiny little cafe that attaches itself to a local artisan bakery, just around a corner and down a lane from main street. Open from 8 AM 'til 5 PM, or whenever the owner or whatever teenaged relative manning the counter gets tired of doing so, it is open tonight at a grand and glorious 8 PM, as the Locals have Spoken, and they want their coffee and spice bread. One such figure is holed up at a teeny-tiny table in the back corner, auburn hair pulled back with a butterfly clip as she studies a stack of assignments and a slice of cheesecake with equal intensity: Jean.
Teachers gravitate to holes and so do students, with a lean, starving intensity born of too long night, too much homework, too much stale pizza. Holes that also serve as eateries are preferable - they are less likely to allow one to curl up comatose. But Jamie, with his spikey dark hair and flappy dark trenchcoat, doesn't tromp far in his attempt to soothe his lean-and-starving intensity before there's Jean in his periphery and he has to stop. "Oh. Uh. Hi!"
Mark a paper, take a bite. Reward systems aren't just for toddler training, it seems. It's in the middle of one sch bite that Jamie flappity-tromps his way over, and thus Jean's immediate greeting is a friendly "Mmm-mm!" followed a swallow later by a translation of "Jamie, hi."
"Dr. Grey." Jamie, ever uninvited, drops into the seat across from Jean, linking his hands behind his head. "I see you a lot!"
Jean, thoughtful creature that she is, moves her stack of marking away from Jamie's side of the table, and agrees that "We do almost seem to be intersecting more now than when you were a student," with a crooked smile and a twinkle in green eyes. "What's got you out in Westchester?"
"Loitering. It is my role. Some Madri loiter in colleges, some loiter in slums, I loiter around the Institute." Jamie indicates this by pinning his fingers lightly against his chest. "So it is. Uh. How's the grading?"
"Not a bad life, loitering," Jean reflects, nibbling idly on the cap of her ballpoint pen, a red one, for Jean does not ascribe to the school of thought that special snowflakes need green pens outlining errors or else they will be traumatized. "And it seemed to pay off for you the other day -- was that you?" she asks, the emphasis a peculiar and Madrox-specific one. "But the grading goes well. People are surprising me with what they remembered over the break."
"No. That me is gone the way of Madri." Jamie waggles his fingers to indicate a pecular and specific passing on. "But me enough. How's ... Amp? And congratulations! You have smart students."
"Not well," Jean answers simply. "But... I can't think of any place where she'd be doing any better, so..." A shrug, helpless and with just a faint glimmer of frustration in her eyes because of it. "I suppose now is the time to actually practise the hope we tried to instill in all of you kids."
"No, there isn't," Jamie agrees with the faintest hint of hesitation against Jean's slight frustrated glimmer. "But I think with consistent coaching, it'll be okay."
"I hope so. I think the consistant coaching shouldn't come from me, though," Jean reflects, lips quirked. She flips over to the next page of her marking, and ticks and x's her way down it, stopping here and there to correct spelling in the margins.
"I've been at her," Jamie says mildly, and stretches out his legs (just a bit) under the table. "And I'll keep at her. I guess it's one reason I'm hanging around."
"Someone needs to be, and we just don't... mesh, I guess is the word," Jean settles on, lips still quirked. "And I'm pretty sure there's not much about me I can change to fix that. Fortunately, I'm not the only one around," she notes, givine Madrox a smile from over her marking.
"Like I don't mesh with Xavier and a handful of the other teachers. And students. Maybe Tim among them." Jamie unfolds his arms to tick this off. "But I do mesh okay with Amp. So I'll keep pestering her."
"I had to restrict her to school grounds for a month," Jean admits, giving Jamie a speculative look at the names, but not pressing for the moment. "I mean, from what I can piece together she was pretty much pushed into it, but burst eardrums are burst eardrums. So you might have to pester from inside our hallowed walls."
"I think that's her version of a strong slap on the wrist and it's gotten a bit twisted up by stress," is Jamie's professional opinion. "Or something. I don't mind visiting the school."
"That's about what I figured," Jean replies, and a smile blossoms as she says this, a little of the tension lifting. "Can I spring for a coffee for you?" she wonders, moving yet another page to the 'marked' pile, but pausing before the next one.
"At least. Usually I don't mind. Sometimes I don't." Jamie cants his head well to the side and then sticks up his finger. "No. I am not a charity case."
"Yes, but I want coffee," says Jean, lifting an eyebrow. "And it seems rude to be eating and drinking without offering you some too."
"But I am not-" Jamie drops his finger and smiles so-broadly. "Thank you, I will have a coffee."
Jean flashes Jamie a grin, and notes that "You -can- say no, if you want. But it's not about charity cases, of which you are -not- one." She, however, stands and leaves the papers behind to go queue up at the counter and see about the coffee unless stopped.
"Naturally!" Jamie calls brightly after her.
Being as how Salem Center is a small town, Jean is not more than two minutes before she's returning to the table with two large mugs of black coffee, and perhaps a little telekinetic cheating to keep from spilling, judging by the very intent expression turned upon them during transport. "So," she wonders, taking her seat again. "How are things down at the Madrox Corral?"
Madrox has nothing to say against cheating. And he is already back with folding his arms behind his head. "Oh, okay." He moves to /maybe/ unfold his arms in the near future to take some of that coffee. Sure. "It's less crazy than it was earlier, so I figure we'll do better this semester."
"What are you taking?" Jean wonders, the sort of not-quite-small talk question asked of every college student, ever. By her smile, just a little bit proud, it's not entirely just to pass the time.
"Oh, just some more Criminal Justice stuff. Physics 2. Stuff like that." How dismissive is Jamie. "And still working on that real, concrete experience, of course! Since he has unfolded his arms to wave, he picks up the coffee."
"Anything interesting turn up?" Jean wonders, considering her marking, considering her coffee, and then opting in favor of the latter. Marking does not have caffeine in it.
"Not much, which is all right. If our independent self is getting antsy enough to spit." Jamie blows over the coffee. No hurry.
"Too many lost pets, not enough real investigating?" Jean wonders, and parts with a rueful laugh. "Believe it or not, I can sympathize. Don't tell anyone, but I find myself missing the Brotherhood, these days."
"Well, perhaps like no one takes us that seriously yet." Who can imagine why? There are so many twenty-year-old crack detectives. "I'm not much -- equipped for dealing with the Brotherhood, but oh do I hear you."
"We still have twice-weekly training sessions. We've been having them for months," Jean shares, with a chuff of a laugh. "I'm not sure what we're training -for-, sometimes. But I'm sure something will come along eventually." Like an ASTEROID. "It's just the waiting that kills. We should go take a sweep through Hell's Kitchen some time," she proposes. "I haven't had Detective Rossi bitching at me about paperwork and jurisdictions and civilians for at least a year now."
"Not with me, thanks," Jamie says with a spread of his non-coffeed hand. "My only skill is being more than people expected and if it ain't Prime doing it, that adds up real fast. Still. The X-Men have nothing to do?" is a bit boggled.
"We're a trained paramilitary quick-response force, loosely aligned with the government," Jean sums up. "With the Brotherhood no longer really up to much, and the government and Charles not spotting any immediate crises," Except for an ASTEROID. "We're left waiting for disasters civil, natural, or otherwise. The big blackout was the last time we scrambled the jet."
"You should all join my detective agency," is Jamie's immediate decision.
"Think I could moonlight?" Jean wonders, laughing but with a speculative look over her coffee cup.
"Certainly. Not that anything ever happens, according to the-independent-dupe, but there it is." Jamie makes a there-it-is gesture.
"Well, put me on-call for if you need a telepath or a telekinetic," Jean offers, and tacks on, after a pause "Or a scientist. I -do- have my little company in the City."
"Sure! Mind, I have half the school on call and nothing to call them /on/," Jamie sighs. It is full of tragedy. "But we'll think of something."
"Indeed. Or something will explode," Jean predicts, with a sigh and a nibble of her cheesecake. "It always does, in the end."
"I suppose." Jamie /finally/ takes a sip of coffee. "I still expect the school to get raided again any day now."
"You too, huh?" Jean wonders, one corner of her mouth quirking. With a sigh, she reaches for her marking again, chasing her cheesecake with coffee before her pen touches paper. "I suppose that's normal, what with it barely being a year past."
"Yeah," Jamie puts in, rather subdued. "But I don't see things getting better. I mean, hell, I get razzed on the street all the time for being a mutant. I just barely got /hired/. I mean. I'm just the dude who duplicates himself." Jamie shrugs high. "I'm not a whole school of unknowns."
"Change takes time," murmurs Jean, pen scratching idly until she catches herself in an error, and has to go back and correct a correction. There's a mild smirk at the irony, before she looks up again. "We've got enough security in that anything short of a rogue government force can be dealt with. As for a repeat of the same situation as the raid, I have to hope DHS can learn from mistakes. It would be helpful if we knew anything about DHS besides that they get to know all about -us-."
"But you never know who your enemies are until they're -- there. I mean," Jamie takes another belated sip. "I'm sure Ellen didn't expect me to be her downfall."
"You can't predict them all," Jean admits. "But... you can at least prepare. Cover what exposed flanks you can. Which isn't to say I don't still go over them all in my mind, some nights"
"Yeah. I suppose you'd have to." Jamie looks down at the table. "Me, I sometimes want to kick an enemy's door down, just to see what's going to come out already."
"I should've gotten you a copy of Munchkin for Christmas," Jean muses. There may be a sly grin.
"Of what?" Jamie glances /full/ boggled at Jean this time.
"It's a card game," Jean explains. "One step of it is you 'kick down the door' by drawing a card, and see what sort of monster is behind it."
"Oh. Well." Jamie cants his head in the /other/ direction. "That sounds like my life."
"Birthday present," Jean decides.
"I await it with, uh, baited breath," Jamie says. And takes a sip.
"That, or the fact that you'll be able to drink legally without taking a trip to Canada?" Jean wonders, eyes twinkling.
"/That/ too," Jamie grumbles. And, alas, probably does a share of illegal drinking. But one shall never hear that from him. He sips deeeper. "You know, I've had an epiphany," he suddenly segues.
"Oh?" wonders Jean. She cocks her head. And even stops marking.
"Maybe our power has some implications we ought to consider more seriously." Jamie puts the coffee cup down. "We've lost another, you know. Gone at least a couple of weeks now. Maybe, since we create independentish versions of ourself, some of those versions are . . . well, meant to go it alone, right?"
"Could be. You do grow more differentiated the longer you're out, you've said to me," Jean reflects, fingertips drumming lightly against her coffee cup. "Of course, there are interesting legal questions with that."
Madrox shrugs. "I suppose we deal with that as it comes. We're just less and less excited to absorb people who obviously aren't interested in being absorbed, right? Maybe it's okay to, uh, branch out?"
"Well, there just seems something..." Jean trails off, and wriggles her fingers, nose crinkling at the inadequacy of mere speech to convey impressions with. "Something -something-, to absorb an unwilling duplicate, I can agree with that. Possibly I've just watched too much Star Trek over the years."
"Yeaaaah," Jamie says and rubs the back of his neck. "And most of us are willing, right? Of course, eventually, there might be forty unwilling and thus ends the duplication, but them's the breaks. Absorbing's kinda weird anyway."
"Might want to work out some sort of limit on that," Jean suggests, only half-joking. "Forty might be a bit much -- hard to stay under the radar, that way."
"We're /long/ above the radar." Jamie taps the edge of his coffee cup. "And the only way to force someone to stay is to force them back out of existence. We're not telepaths."
"I wish I could offer some advice, but this is kind've a unique situation, as you many have noticed," Jean points out, with a sigh, a shake of her head, and a crooked smile for her coffee. "But I guess I can at least offer myself as an expert witness if someone ever runs afoul of authority that doesn't believe in your version of human cloning."
"Yeaaaah. But thank you. There are nuts out there." Jamie shakes his head, briefly rolling his eyes. "Think I'd be making much better use of myself if I offered myself up for organ doning, right? But nuts are nuts. And hey. Thanks for listening, anyway."
Jean does not spit-take. She is far too diginifed for that, but her reaction to organ donation is perhaps informed by the itch of years-old silvery scars along spine and, thinly, once on the belly. "Organ-- -what-? And you're not joking...? Did you get a name?"
"Leonardo Maxwell. He's insane," Jamie as quickly dismisses as he brings up the name. "If he was going to, he would have done it by now - and we'd /know/ if he did."
"Quite. Insane and -rich-," Jean sums up. "Bad combination. But indeed, here you are and not a rat in a lab somewhere, so he's probably still -isolated-, insane and rich."
"How couldn't he be? He's not subtle. Like I said," well, sort of, "we would have died by now. No death, no Leo. And you /have/ to know that other people are thinking it," Jamie adds. "Just like they think all those things about telepaths."
"Thinking's one thing. Doing's another." Jean is Firm. And, in another capitalization, rather Grim, for a long moment. "But yeah, Leonardo Maxwell's likely never going to be a threat on his own, and any allies would have to be as crazy as he is."
"I don't think that anyone would really be /cold/ blooded enough, theory aside, to harvest organs out of a living being," Jamie says with a twitch of intensity of his own.
"There will always be monsters," Jean murmurs, one hand rubbing lightly at her abdomen, above a scar left unseen by her clothing. "But... monsters aren't that common."
"Yeah." Jamie's glance is briefly almost quizzical. "I died at the hands of one. But if monsters were /common/, the X-Men would be busier."
"That we would," Jean agrees, lips thinned slightly. "I think the last group we broke up was that fight club."
"Which was a ... while ago," Jamie judges. "So. I guess there's that."
"Well," says Jean, lifting her coffee mug in an impromptu toast. "Here's to a lack of monsters... and I think I'd better finish up this marking."
Madrox lifts his cup, "And here's to an increase of cases - I'd better get back. Prime will get antsy." Jamie sets that cup down after that odd, if belated self-contradition. Ah well, dualities.
"Call me if you get a case that could use me," Jean bids, with a crinkle of her eyes behind her reading glasses. "I wasn't kidding about that. And watch out for bodysnatchers."
"Noted, noted, and noted!" Jamie calls out over his shoulder as he ambles out of the cafe.
No Brotherhood or FoH for the X-Men to fight? MADROX WILL SAVE THEM!
X-Men: Movieverse 2 - Friday, January 04, 2008, 9:49 PM
-------------------------------------------------------
=XS= Jean's Office - Lv 1 - Xavier's School
Just another step in the grand tradition of renovation that dogs all great and old houses, Jean's office has been snuck nearly seamlessly into the footprint of the mansion library. Despite the headmistress' taste for clean lines and light colours, rich oak panelling and footstep-muffling carpet in a venerable shade of forest green are the order of the day. Light is freely admitted by a large leaded glass window that looks out over the Victorian garden and its fountain, although hanging curtains in the same emerald as the carpeting can be drawn to turn the room dark enough for presentations to be shown. The central feature of the room is an imposing desk, stained dark to match the paneled walls. A modern ergonomic office chair is positioned behind it, with two uphoulstered chairs in front. A laptop rules the desk, two filing cabinets, several framed diplomas and a bookshelf hug the side wall behind it. One corner holds a thriving ficus plant, and the central piece of art in the office is a framed representation of DNArt, a small brass plaque informing observers that this is the genome of Dr. Jean Grey.
[This room is set watchable. Use alias XSJeanOffice to watch here.]
[Exits : [Li]brary]
Nate walks into Jean's office with a mixture of shame and rage spreading from the young man. His jaw is set like stone as he moves, his arms crossed over his chest. He walks directly toward the center of the room, being more than ready to be chewed out by Dr. Gray. His eyes do not meet the Doctor's, rather they lock on the ground in front of him. And there he stands, waiting to be chewed out, even if he wont be able to hear every word spoken.
Jean is seated at her desk, a space cleared before her with a laptop centered in it. She does not need her standing height to look imposing, for that is what an ornate desk and a cool and penetrating stare from behind it are for. Her motions are deliberate, first a hand gesture to beckon him to a seat, then a slow and meticulous close of the laptop. It clicks, loud in the quiet of the room, even if hardly enough to penetrate the ringing cotton wool of Nate's ears. "I've heard Amp's report on the situation," she begins, not so much shouted as with a speaker's force behind her words. "In precise detail. I'd like to do you the courtesy of hearing yours." A pause, and a narrow-eyed look. "I'll also do the courtesy of reminding you that I -am- a telepath, and will be able to sense lies, by omission or otherwise." And with that, there is silence again. A
Nate slowly takes the seat and shakes his head a bit as though he is a dog getting the water out of his ears. He frowns a bit before he closes his eyes and rests his hands in his lap. He does his best not to be intimidated but it fails as he slowly crosses his legs and looks directly towards Jean. When he speaks it is rather louder than normal given his lack of hearing, "Uh, that girl Amp was around the gates when I was trying to get into the city. We got into the city and I did some shopping till we got to Times Square. Uh, there I kind of got creeped out when she started looking through the left overs that people from New Year's left. I was confused...and felt a little uncomfortable. I asked if I could buy her a scarf from like Macy's or something but she got offended. Then we kind of got into a row...and then some lady showed up. I didn't really pay that much attention to what they were saying. Guess I got impatient and then Amp and I got into a rather childish fight of words. Must have struck something bad with her...and then she did the screaming thing and I can barely hear...and probably am going to miss a lot of work."
<< Allowances can be made for a lack of hearing. >> Jean demonstrates one, her mindvoice much the same as her speaking voice, only much, much more -herself- than mere spoken words could convey. And Jean, for all the solid wall of self control weighting her words, is Not Happy. "May I ask where you draw the line between 'childish' and 'cruel', Mr. Kinches?" she wonders, dropping back to vocal speech once her point has been made. "Childrens' arguments do not normally result in burst eardrums." Silently, in Nate's own voice, she demonstrates the precision of the aforementioned precise detail. << "Shut the hell up. Last time I am ever going to talk to such a piece of trash like you. Fucking only piece of shit thing this school has. Lord do I miss a /real/ boarding school that wasn't filled with us freaks." >>
Nate peers at the doctor for a moment before he offers a shrug and says in a slightly colder tone, "Yeah, was going to apologize before he assaulted me. And I never said my words weren't mean. At the time they were meant to be. That woman she was talking to knew way too much about us and I wanted to get out of their. Self preservation overrode my generally good disposition." Nate's eyes look right at Jean again before he says slowly, "I really was intending to apologize to her." Nate sits there for another moment before he says in a calmer tone, "Being with someone like her is something new and the foraging through other people's garbage and waste was too much for me..."
Jean lifts an eyebrow at the cool tone, less intimidated and more unimpressed, and tents her fingers in front of her. "So... you are claiming that your lack of self-control, and your over-abundance of privilege are... what?" she wonders.
Peering at Jean, Nate does not look away and he says, "I am not claiming my privilege as a misfortune, merely that it afforded me a life different than Amp and that the life it gives me was incompatible with the situation. As for my lack of self control, she started the fight and while I did say mean things to her, she was not blameless either." A few more moments pass before the eyes level with Jean again as Nate adds in, "This entire school is foreign to me and I am sorry if I was mean but I can't just go and reset what happened like a video game or something."
"Amp has taken her punishment, with, I might add, a great deal more grace, remorse and true humility than you are showing." Jean replies back, before looking at Nate steadily for a moment, and then sighing as if some invisible balance has not tipped as it ought to. "Mr. Kinches, your mutation is not endangering your life. You are uncomfortable with the outed nature of Xaviers, and you are uncomfortable with your classmates. I'm sure, given that you have been injured as a consequence of your actions, I could have your parents agreeing to transfer you to another facility before your marks would be significantly impaired."
Nate looks right back at Jean before he says, "I am sorry I did insult her. I /am/ sorry and I doubt there is anywhere else I could go given the whole mutant thing is out. Not many schools I would go to would accept me. I certainly did not think I /would/ hurt her as I did. Much worse has been said to me and I did not flip out. As for my parents...they don't give a damn." Nate continues to look at Jean as though he is carefully examining her. He has a frown before he adds in, "But if it is a choice between expulsion and transferring out to somewhere else...I do not truly have a choice." The young man's face falls from anger to a look of a man who truly has no options as he speaks. At last a long sigh is provided and his head falls down to his chest, and should one be poking around in his head a rather audible, 'fuck' fills the head.
It's that inaudible swear that saves him. At this composed little speech and the continued looking in her eyes, Jean's left eyebrow has been twitching steadily higher at each sentence, as her own features grow more and more composed, and less and less touched with their baseline of compassion. "I doubt," she notes, with a faint flicker of dry humour as the eyebrow settles again, "That expulsion on top of ruptured eardrums will teach you anything in particular, any more than it would teach Amp. However... I think your attitudes can use some significant readjustment, and I have a little something that should help with that."
Nate examines the teacher for a long few moments and simply waits. His face begins to regain the composure that he had a few hours before. His hands slowly remain in his lap as he waits for whatever it is that is going to be said. He waits a few more moments before he blinks his eyes a few time, his fingers beginning to tap slightly on his knee.
"I fund a small free clinic down in Hell's Kitchen," Jean shares. "In conjunction with some other doctors and local charities, there's a lot of community outreach work that's just crying for volunteers. For the next six weeks, you're going to put in 15 hours a week down there, volunteering," she awards. "You are going to work with the destitute, the addicted, the dying, and at the end of it, I'll be expecting a ten page essay, double spaced, on what you've learned from the experience and how it has affected your world view. If your grades should slip because of your ears, I'll apply the essay as extra course credit."
Nate's face slowly shifts to a less composed face before he says, "Uh, sure. But, I already work three days a week at Best Buy." Nate's legs stop being crossed and go to a more normal sitting position. His eyes do still remain on Jean and he realizes he might get yelled at again before he adds in, "I don't think I can just take six weeks off without my parents hearing about it..." Nate sighs and his insides are torn, but there is certainly no true distaste about the charity work in his mind, just excitement.
"Oh, your parents are hearing about this, Nate," Jean murmurs, and then snorts, and repeats it a little louder as she remembers the ears. "I'm calling your parents after this. I wanted to be sure I could give them the full situation. As for Best Buy..." Jean smiles at this, but it's not a particularly nice one. "Three days a week leaves four that you're not working on. Get me your schedule and I'll get you your rides into town."
Nate notices the type of smile Jean gives to him before he says, "Yeah well, tell them I will call them after. They might actually /want/ to talk to me after this." Nate continues to stare at Jean before he says in flat tone, "Am I allowed to leave, Professor?"
"Doctor," Jean corrects the title, and then nods to the door. "Shoo. Let me know if you need a refil on your pain medications, and you'll need a re-check of your ears in a week."
Nate looks over his shoulder to her and then says in his louder than usual tone, "Sure thing, Doctor." Anger creeps up into Nate as he walks out of the room, heading back to his room. He does have a frown for a few moments and is then gone.
And in the absence of Nate, Jean sighs. Why can't things ever go -smooth-? And then, laptop opened again and an address book called up, she makes her phone call.
Fortunately, Jean has a plan to change that.
X-Men: Movieverse 2 - Friday, January 04, 2008, 11:18 PM
--------------------------------------------------------
=XS= Staff Lounge - Lv B3
Covered in 60's-style fake wood panelling and a carpet of robin's egg blue and turquoise shag, the staff lounge is done up in a retro style full of mod couches and occasional lava lamps, guaranteed to induce relaxation. Of course, if the lava lamps aren't enough, a kitchenette with fully-stocked bar is located to the right of the staircase from above. To the left of the stairs is a sunken lounge area containing two sleek white ultrasuede couches, a faux fireplace, an egg chair and a coffee table, all arranged around a large flatscreen TV. At the back of the room and up a couple of steps, there's a hot tub with a half-height partition of glass bricks curving between the tub and the lounge area. The hot tub itself can fit up to 8 people at once, the area around it tiled in white and blue stripes. A triangular sauna fills the corner opposite the hot tub, more glass bricks forming the outer wall. There is an exit to the main hallway between the sauna and the hot tub, through a small sliding door with a discreet thumbprint scanner beside it.
[Exits : [H]idden [S]taircase and [M]ain [H]allway]
[Players : Kurt ]
Stomp, stomp, stomp. Hidden staircases are good for such noises. Jean is making them today, repressed anger and frustration now leaking merrily out and about her in a trailing cloud of grar now that she's out of student sight. "Can we -shoot- teenagers?" she wonders, setting foot inside the staff lounge and trailing immediately for the bar.
"Out of cannons?" Kurt wonders, mild joke given as an implied offer of an ear to bend. Or batter with ranting. He holds up one tridactyl hand, and with a sudden inrush of air, the space he had filled on the couch is vacant, and the space behind the bar is not. Faint sulfur fumes linger a moment before being sucked out by the environmental controls. "What would you like?" Implied offers to listen go well with bartending!
"-With- cannons," Jean intones, glowering at the nearest lava lamp as if willing it to explode. That it doesn't implies that she wasn't -actually-. "Cannons filled with -birdshot-. And -acid-." Down she plunks on a bar stool, and orders "A Canadian, assuming Logan's topped up his supply."
Kurt nods once, and rummages around for a moment until he comes up with the requested beverage. There is a neat 'thwock' as he removes the cap, then hands it over. "Ah. Dare I assume you've spoken to Mr. Kinches, then? Or has someone else decided to put torch to gunpowder?"
Jean does not -guzzle- the beer. That would be unladylike. Her first sip drains the bottle halfway down the neck, however, and quenches her ire enough to let her vent a long sigh, and a "Yeah. I think if we could balance the guilt and remorse between him and Amp, the'd both be better off, since she seems to have wanted to kill herself over it, and -he- was sitting there trying to out-frost me."
Kurt blinks once. Then again. His brow furrows in a puzzled expression that is ever so slightly reminiscent of a cat trying to determine how it is that his reflection has managed to swat him. "He wasn't at all remorseful over his part in the mess?" he asks. There is a faint undertone to the question: is there perhaps something wrong in the boy's head?
"Oh, he apologized, all right." Jean grumps, and seems perhaps more dissatisfied that this is the case than if there had been honest, open defiance. "Like he was reading aloud from a damned script. I was this close to transferring him, when he gave, just a little, mentally," she reports, and takes another grumpy gulp of beer. "And, of course, promptly asked 'Can I go now' like an ungrateful little brat when I told him his punishment. I -get- that he's got an inferiority complex that he's compensating for by lording it over those he percieves as inferior to him, but good lord, I'm glad that I only have to teach him, not actually -like- him."
Kurt frowns, and while there is concern in it, bafflement remains the primary emotion, both in expression and in thought. "One wonders," he replies, just a touch dryly, "just how well he gets along with Scott and Logan, if he plays socially superior to his teachers as well?" He turns about, and there is another burst of rummaging, this time directed towards setting coffee to brewing. "Did you find out what was said to provoke our - Amp?" There is a brief stutter there, as he almost, almost calls the girl by her dead couterpart's name. Adjustment, it seems, is not automatic. And, well. There had been an instance of burst eardrums /there/, too, by all accounts.
"He's a swimmer," Jean reflects. "And Logan's Phys Ed." There's a snort, and a pause, as Jean reflects upon the mental images turned up by these two facts in combination, and finds them somewhat pettily good. "As for what he said, well, he apparently got so uncomfortable at the idea of her trash sifting that he said she was an animal, trash, and the 'fucking only piece of shit thing this school has'. After his final tirade, she got worked up enough to burst his eardrums and ran." Summary concluded, she picks up her beer bottle, picks at the label a bit, and then sets it back down, pacing herself somewhat.
Kurt's frown deepens at that. After a moment, he shakes his head. "She still shouldn't have done what she did..." There is, however, an unspoken 'but' lingering at the end of the statement. Or perhaps several. "Dare I ask what you might have planned to help him shed this - discomfort?"
"He," Jean notes, with a touch of satisfaction both at her decision and at the fact that Kurt will likely appreciate it, "Is going to spend the next six weeks doing volunteer work down in Hell's Kitchen. Fifteen hours a week."
Kurt's grin is pointy. Not just in that it bares teeth sharper than most humans can claim, but in spirit as well. "That," he replies, in a tone of deep approval, "is brilliant. If anything will teach him a lesson, that should." There is a moment's pause before Kurt adds, "Hopefully it will be near to your clinic that he will be volunteering? In case he decides to repeat his tirade to one of that neighbourhood's residents."
Jean sighs at that image, and notes that "I suppose I should probably tell his keepers to make sure to keep a little box for his -teeth-, if that happens." Anger, always quick, now passed in the wake of a sympathetic colleague to rant at, she sips her beer more delicately, and murmurs that "I really hope it works. It's not Amp's fault, but this whole thing reminds me of just how badly I failed Honor and Switch. I can't go through that again."
Kurt turns briefly to pour newly-brewed coffee into cup, lifting the pot in a silent offer. Beer or no beer, one does not neglect offering coffee to one's colleagues - especially when those colleagues have survived med school. "If it doesn't," he replies after a moment's consideration, "perhaps a period of time working under Scott or Logan might?" There is a beat of pause before he adds, "Or transfer to a school more in line with his...expectations. You did say you'd considered it."
"If it doesn't work, I'm transferring him." The statement is quiet but firm, with weight but no notable heat. "This isn't the sort of environment where we can have someone around who goads the other students like that, with that level of malice, even if it was in the heat of the moment. It's too dangerous, given what our kids are capable of."
"And if he is so malicious in the heat of anger, one wonders what he might be capable of if he set about being malicious with forethought," Kurt notes, though a touch reluctantly. "I would not like to think one of the children capable of such behaviour - but I would not have expected that /sort/ of arrogance from any who have been here more than a week, either."
"So," Jean sums up. "I really hope he learns from his time in Hell's Kitchen." Her lips quirk, and she glances across at her fuzzy blue bartender, and admits that "Teenagers make telepathy so tempting to abuse, some days. But then he -really- wouldn't learn anything."
"No," Kurt agrees. There is a momentary pause, but whatever thought may have sparked it remains unvoiced, and unbroadcast. "And that would be a pity. One can go on to become a good person, after learning such lessons."
"Very true. And he won't be the first student I've sent there for volunteering... although he's the first one I've volunteered." Jean reflects, and chuffs a laugh and a sigh mingled. "I think I should probably go sneak my beer up to my office and finish some marking. But thanks for letting me vent, Fuzzy One," she says, with a sigh that's less laugh and more quiet. "I swear, if he'd known how hard I was keeping myself from snapping at him..."
"Teenager," Kurt notes. "Even the best of them have the habit of being regrettably self-absorbed." The words are not said without their share of sympathy, and his smile mirrors the sentiment. "Go, mark. You have done what you can. The learning is up to the child."
"And I don't think I've gone properly scary at any of them in at -least- a year," Jean agrees with a laugh, and a toast of her beer bottle. "Take care, Kurt." And with that, doctor and beer disappear out the door into the main area of the sublevel, and the elevator attendant thereunto.
Jean, having been good and keeping her temper when talking to one Nate Kinches, thus feels the need to uncork and tell Kurt what she's actually thinking.