Logs: David, Noriko's Daddy, Magneto
> (David)'>
X-Men: Movieverse 2 - Thursday, October 02, 2008, 10:55 PM
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=XS= Front Gates - Xavier's School
The Xavier Estates is well marked with high, white-topped brick walls encompassing the boundaries between the public and private grounds. Iron wrought gates with their lattice work hang ponderously from pillars supporting the plaque that tells the address: 'Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters' 621 Graymalkin Lane. The mansion can be seen rising above the upper lip of the outer walls, though a half mile wide expanse of dense thickets, small meadows, and a carefully discreet sensor network insulate the grand old mansion at the property's heart from prying eyes. Several paths wind into the woods away from the paved driveway that curves elegantly towards where the top floors of the mansion are just visible above the treeline.
[This room is set watchable. Use alias XSFrontGates to watch here.]
[Exits : [T]hrough the [G]ates and [G]raymalkin [L]ane]
[Players : David ]
Having recently had possibly the worst day of his life now David has no choice but to turn to the people he likes the least among all mutants. Staying invisible the entire time he travels through the city discreetly until he comes to Xavier's school for the Gifted. Most likely the safest place a mutant can be in a time like this.
Standing at the front gate David presses the button to call for someone inside but of course, he doesn't say anything.
Happily for David, there are actual humans on duty at the gates, and today one of them is a young security guard. We'll call him Bob. "You need a hand there?" he wonders, tone not unfriendly, but one eyebrow raised.
Having trouble even standing properly David sways a little as he pulls out a crumbles piece of paper and a pen. He puts it up against the wall and writes, "Sabretooth. Need help." He hands it to the guard, or rather tries to. When the guard gets close though he can smell the most horrible smells. David's clothes are, ripped, covered in blood and other unidentifiable things. He smells of burned flesh, blood and vomit. His jaw is a bright purple, the skin still cut open a little on the bone where Sabretooth broke it. He is a mess once you get up close to him. Its been a bad few days for him.
"Shit!" says Bob, with a prompt look around in case Sabretooth is following, one hand dropping to the holster at his side. "Jesus Christ, is he following you?" A button in the guard house is pressed: immediate attention needed at the gates!
Shaking his head David tries to go invisible but his pain killer wore off about three hours ago and its really not the easiest thing in the world to do using your powers with a broken jaw and a recently cauterized tongue screaming in a chorus of pain along with all the other smaller non-life changing injuries he sustained that are now complaining. He means to show that he was stealthy in his getting here but it doesn't work out. Parts of his face and body fade away for a moment but then he becomes visible again just to exhausted to maintain it.
"Jesus..." the guard blasphemes again. "You... come take a seat over here, kid," he directs, and adds a radio call to the button-press as he ducks back into the station after waving David to an attractive wrought-iron bench, somewhat less attractive in the damp chill of an October night. "Send Dr. Grey down," he requests to whatever presence is at home in the comsys room. "This guy's hurt, and hell if I know how bad."
Memories of the last thing David ever tasted, the foulness of Creeds finger ripping his flesh and the gush of blood into his mouth are recalled as the boy slumps on the iron bench to wait. He has been moving, hiding, seeking refuge ever since he left the hospital. He is tired, in pain, his jaw broken and everything hurts. He just wants to go to sleep he thinks so he closes his eyes and hangs his head carefully to the side his Jaw isn't broken on. He'll just take a short nap while he waits.
Time passes, the amount of it roughly correlating to the amount of time needed to assemble one of the better-equipped first aid kits, get in a car, and drive the half-mile down to the gates. A Jean appears, leaving the headlights of the school SUV she's appropriated turned on for more light, and the engine idling in the country quiet. "Looks like you came off the worse for an encounter with a train," she offers in frank greeting, Ceiling Kid not immediately recognizable by sight right now, and the spiky pain keeping her from taking too close an initial look at the shape of his mind. "Care to tell me what happened?"
David, unable to actually speak points at the guard with the paper. Meaning that he will have to explain. He misses his tongue a lot more importantly he misses his bed. He wants a bed so bad to crawl in to and go to sleep for like week.
"I'm a telepath," Jean offers briefly. "If you can think of the words, I can try and catch them." This directive given with the businesslike air of one pointing out a telephone, she crouches before the bench, setting the first aid kit down beside him.
Recalling that Jean can do that David thinks as clearly as he can, <> But his thoughts are disjointed he lost a lot of blood and since he ran away from the hospital without letting them fix him up all the way he's in tremendous amounts of pain. << Need sleep. >> that's his most prominent drive at the moment. Go to sleep and escape the pain.
"What you -need-," Jean intones, looking firmly at David as she processes this information, "Is a proper hospital bed. If you discharged early because you couldn't afford the rates, I'll pay your expenses for you, but you shouldn't be out like this."
<< I broke his skull, burned off his face and ripped out his eye. He's not going to just let it go. He can't let it go.>> David says images of Creed up close and personal fresh in David's mind, << Not safe for people around me in hospital, anywhere. >> Under the delirium of the pain and exhaustion he is afraid of Creed. Not that Creed will kill him but that Creed will finish the job, << Speak no evil, hear no evil, see no evil. One down, two to go. Not done yet. Police interrupted. >>
"Then we are -definitely- taking you to a hospital." Jean informs him, with a firm set of her chin, even as she unzips the first aid kit to study a few pre-filled syringes. "The school is known to Sabretooth, and he's managed to breach our defenses in the past -- we're good, but we're a school... and do you have any allergies to medication?"
<< No. Don't think >> Then David does something foolish. He tries to stand up. << Not going back. >> It doesn't last long and he sits back down. The world starts spinning around him and he feels like he is going to throw up again. << Can't make me. Better off on my own. Shouldn't have trusted yuppies anyway. >> he rambles in his head out of focus and not even sure where to go to get back to the city from here.
"Look, this yuppie wants to see you stay alive," Jean sighs, pausing to scrub one hand against her forehead. "You have a much better chance of doing that at Lennox Hill, checked in under an alias, than here, where he knows you're likely to turn up. It's--" She stops, murmurs something to herself, and pushes him firmly back into his seat. "-Sit-," she informs the badly wounded puppy that is David. "I mean, for God's sake, the Witness Protection Program doesn't stick their mafia informants in the middle of Little Italy."
<< Trust me, last place I want to be. Only choice, only hope. Think Creed will think twice about killing an entire hospital full of humans to get to me? But he'll not attack the school. >> the boy things slipping a little as if he is falling away into the darkness of soothing unconsciousness in his head for a moment but he pulls himself out of it. << Besides, once I'm there they can't stop me from escaping. They will call my parents put them in danger too. Can't do it. Get help from other mutants or go it alone. Not humans. To squishy. >>
"He -has- attacked the school," Jean corrects, brows furrowing even deeper as she makes a decision and reaches for one of the syringes. "He has kidnapped staff members right off the grounds in the past. I want to help you... David, right?" she wonders, with belated recognition of the facial structure beneath all the trauma. "But you're making no sense -- why would a school stop him? And roll up your sleeve, if you can," she directs. "I'm going to give you something for the pain."
Something for the pain! Those have become his four most favorite words lately! Rolling up what is left of his shirtsleeve David gives her his arm. << You are mutants. They are humans. They will hurt me. I know they will. They do things, horrible things to mutants. You just don't know because you live in the pretty house. They hate us! They want us to all go away! You can't trust humans! >> he rants more than a little paranoid about hospitals and human doctors. << I won't let them get me.>> he thinks to himself. << Won't let them do it to me. >>
"David," Jean notes, with a quick reach into the kit for a length of elastic, which is soon engaged in raising veins in his arm. "-I- work at Lennox Hill. I'm their specialist in mutant medicine. I assure you," she confirms, with a tone oddly dry as some part of her brain paints a picture of just what a scene they make, arranged around a wrought iron bench in the gathering dew. "I would hardly work with people I consider either untrustworthy or unethical. Make a fist and let it go a few times for me, please."
Doing like she says the young man cooperates he thinks to her. << Fine, but as soon as I am able to get out of the hospital I need to get in the school. Study him. Find out where. Find him! Finish it! >> yes, the poor delusional boy thinks he is going to get revenge against Creed. << Hopefully the police won't find him before I can. I don't have a lot of time. A guy with a melted face and one bleeding eye isn't going to go unnoticed for long. >>
"Ah... we aren't that sort of school," is Jean's response to this revenge fantasy, delicate and carefully diffident as she wipes the crook of David's elbow with an alcohol swab, and soon has the needle of morphine delivering its contents. "We don't teach our students how to be child soldiers, for one. But if you want some contacts--" Off she cuts. "Let's get you buckled into the passenger seat while you can still co-ordinate your legs," she decides. "And really, if you want to be planning bloody revenge, you -really- ought to do it after a proper rest."
To tired to argue David thinks << Just stay with me. Humans scare me. Can't trust them. Everywhere, planning. Stark kidnapped because he can make a delivery system for the bio-weapon. California most likely target! Mutant massacre. Its coming! >> he rambles on delusional as he lets her take him to the hospital. They will have to wire his jaw shut to get the bone to set right and clean him up. He smells like Creed's burned flesh which is somehow even worse than regular burned flesh.
"I'll see what I can do," is Jean's answer to the ramblings, already tinged with the mild resignation that's sure to grow more pronounced in the slice of time between the newly-drugged present, and whenever the morphine fully kicks in. It is going to be a very long drive. "Let them know I'm off to the City, Bob," she requests of the young guard.
A David appears! Most of him, anyways.
X-Men: Movieverse 2 - Friday, October 03, 2008, 7:31 PM
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=XS= Living Room - Lv 1 - Xavier's School
Despite the rich Victorian reds of the walls and the dark colour of the hardwood half panelling, large floor to ceiling windows brighten the room into something warm and inviting. Several couches are present here: one faces a flatscreen TV set recessed into the wall, along with an armchair or two for individuals, while the others form conversation circles in other corners, complete with coffee and end tables. Against the walls are tall and leafy plants, predominantly ferns but with a ficus lurking in one corner. The the central unifying feature of the room is a large fieldstone fireplace with the windows to each side of it. French doors lead to the hallway, mated across the way by matching ones from the rec room.
[Exits : [H]allway]
[Players : Noriko ]
Jean has not played the effusive and laissez-faire cards today. Falling back instead on all the structure and poised ceremony of her raising and her position, settled within the fine and elegant history of the living room, she has chosen to offer hot beverages, dainty desserts, and a file folder of reports sitting demurely on a corner of the coffee table. Likewise mannerly, Jean sits in a pristine cream armchair across from her quarry, and opens negotiations with a query of "Tea?"
"I'm sure you can likely guess that from the context of the setting," Jean replies, hands busy with the precision involved in The Pouring of Tea. (WASPs have just as much ritual as the Japanese, they just avoid such helpful things as documenting it for future generations.) The first cup is poured, set on a saucer, and then set before Papa Ashida. "But, to be frank, your daughter is of the opinion that you refuse to acknowledge her mutation and that you won't allow her to attend here. I fail to believe a man such as yourself would be willfully blind."
"I see no reason that my daughter should need to attend a school which will cater to her acting out. I have provided the best education available to her in our area. This entire meeting is giving too much credence to her spoiled behavior." Seiji takes the cup and saucer in hand, bringing the former to his lips for a gentle polite sip. A low dip of his head is half nod and half bow.
"You misapprehend our purpose, sir," Jean demurs, with a light click of teacup in saucer as she plucks up her own tea, after the addition of sugar and a squeeze of lemon to flavour the black brew. "Xavier's School does not cater to 'acting out', as you term it. We seek to educate them in how not to. Your daughter electrocuted a young woman shortly a before we were able to bring her here," she notes, with a little glance to the file-folder, where Alyssa's face is attached to a top report. "The young woman is not inclined to press charges, but it would be foolish to imagine that ignoring this particular behavior will make it go away. It must be corrected. Controlled."
Another sip of his tea is taken before the Ashida patriarch responds. "Is your purpose then, to tell me that I cannot discipline my daughter?" His head is inclined just slightly toward Jean as he puts the ball back into her court.
"Can you teach her how to control her electrokinetic abilities?" Jean neatly bats it back again, with a sip of her own tea. "While simultaneously safeguarding the local power network, passerby and yourself from the effects of mis-steps?" Her tone is even, careful and composed, with just one eyebrow arched slightly as she poses the question. "I don't propose to tell you that you are unable to provide parental discipline," (Despite the fact that his daughter ran away.) "But if your daughter were epileptic, or injured in a car accident, would you propose to take over her medical care?"
"I would not propose to send her to a school with a questionable record, represented by a woman linked in the news to terrorists," Seiji counters. (So what if that link was in saving the Earth?) "I have seen no evidence that Noriko's condition is anything near the magnitude that you are claiming. If she is sick or injured, she will be treated by reputable doctors." The entire time, he is sipping his tea. There is no fire to his words. He sounds like he is in a business meeting, greatly detached from the subject of the discussion.
"Which doctors?" Jean queries, with a lift of an eyebrow again, and a declining to raise to the bait offered her. "The field is small, as befits one so new. In the New York area, the openly practicing specialists in mutant medicine are myself, Hank McCoy who is another teacher here, and approximately five individuals who took their residencies under us, assuming that Meg hasn't followed through on her planned move to New Zealand. If our record here is questionable to you, you will not find much better."
"I see no reason to label my daughter as one of them," Mister Ashida replies. It is a very simple statement that carries a tremendous bundle of implications. "Noriko does not belong here. She belongs at home with her family."
"Labels or a lack of them do not alter reality, Mr. Ashida," Jean notes, nearly limpid as she withdraws any refleive prickles behind the thick protections found in verbal fencing with the politest of tones. "And while I can empathize with a parent's desire to keep their child close, and with a desire to keep percieved dishonour private, how much more shame is there in going to a police station, where your daughter has been placed in a plexiglass cell to await her lawyer, because someone with a heart condition now lies dead after an accident."
"If Noriko were to decide to attack someone and end up arrested, there would be very little I could do aside from attending her trial. It is not my desire to hide my child from the world and excuse her behavior with the label 'mutant.'" Seiji again sips his tea. He remains detached nearly completely, debating his daughter's fate with the same cool air that he would argue the merits of a design in his job. "Explain to me what you expect from me, Doctor Grey."
"Note the use of the word 'accident'," Jean directs attention, with a slight added lift of her teacup between saucer and sip. "As in a lack of intent to harm. But what I want, Mr. Ashida, is to have your daughter attend Xavier's School, at least until her abilities are under her conscious control, rather than the proximity of a power grid. She will also recieve an education that will allow her to successfully attend an Ivy League school, should she so desire. While there is a tuition fee, we do not require your money if you are unwilling to pay it. All I require from you is your consent."
Another sip of his tea gives Mr. Ashida a moment to think of this. "You wish me to abandon my morals, my opinion of your school, control and possession of my daughter to you. And your reasoning amounts to the fact that you are not adamant on dipping into my wallet?" His face is again, completely cool. He doesn't show a hint of anger or affront at how he is rephrasing her request.
"Mr. Ashida," says Jean again, repeating the title-and-name like some talisman-word, or perhaps the repeated exposure of an allergen. "That is your phrasing, not my own." Clink, goes the teacup. "If you can only process the part of my case that applies to finances, then allow me to phrase it more simply. -My- morals mean that I hope never to some day have to ask myself 'Why did you not help her?' if I see her on the nightly news."
"I do not believe that my Noriko is capable of such a thing." There is that sticking point. Belief. Exactly as he told his daughter. "I have worked very hard for my image and my position. I have moved to the far side of the planet from my home. I will not give up part of what I have worked for simply because a woman I do not trust insists that my daughter is a danger I do not believe in. Noriko is a delinquint and she ran away. There is nothing more to this."
Jean's answer takes the form of the manila envelope being gently shifted over to where Ashida can leaf through the contents. There is the medical report of one Alyssa Carter, albeit with the name censored out, complete with printouts of cardiac monitors. There are damage reports from a few small businesses in Salem Center, already quietly taken care of. "She is capable," is her answer. "What she lacks is not ability, but the will towards malice. You have raised a good daughter, Mr. Ashida," she murmurs, plucking up the teacup once again. "It would be a shame to see her come to grief because of your pride."
Seiji leans back in his seat for a moment. One humorless chuckle is allowed. He does not pick up the manila envelope. "If she is doing damage, she should be contained. Not encouraged."
"Which is what I propose." Jean notes, setting down the tea and steepling her hands on her lap. "We have already had one of our professors with an engineering bent provide her with some gloves capable of containing her abilities, thus allowing her to stay in the house and live a reasonably normal life. But a mechanical stopgap is not a solution, it is a crutch."
"How convinced are you that Noriko is too dangerous to remain with her family and in her school?" Mr. Ashida asks. His expression is as calm as it began. His cup of tea is mostly dealt with by this point and he clinks it softly onto it's saucer and sets the apparatus down as a whole.
"Convinced enough to spend several weeks trying to get you to agree to take my calls," is Jean's reply, with a small downwards tip of her chin. "Left untrained, she will hurt someone else. I do not want her to have the guilt of it being a loved one."
"Then I will sign her over to you," he proclaims. "If you think I am unable to care for her adequately and insist that she is such a danger that she cannot live with her family," Seiji says stubbornly, "I will let the danger rest with you. I suspect this was your goal from the beginning and that you already have those papers prepared."
Jean's eyebrows both arch this time, honest startlement at this ultimatum making it past the previous careful screen of her features. "No," she says faintly, "No, that was not my goal." A steadying swallow of tea brings swift composure and a return to normal volume again. "If you insist on treating this as a binary issue, I can, of course, arrange to have a worker from CPS contact you -- Xavier's is a state-accredited foster facility. I had -hoped- you would be able to accept that your daughter can attend here for a year or two and yet be your daughter still."
Seiji responds to this with his first smile of the entire conversation. "I did not ask you to involve the state. You do not believe firmly enough in the danger you claim she poses to take the responsibility personally." He stands, the entire motion smooth and steady. "I would like for you to prepare her to leave or I will report this as kidnapping."
"If you wish to sign her over to us, the state will have to be involved. My personal responsibility must still follow the laws of the land." Once baited into a response, the Jean-fish very pointedly ignores the -next- juicy worm to be dangled.
"You hide behind the nebulous 'us' of the school when I am speaking to you directly." The man is suddenly very intense, eyes highlighted by the silver of his temples looking right into Jean's. "You challenge me to give up my authority over my daughter and I challenge you to take it. Much as I thought, you do not rise to this challenge. Your extortion will not work on me. Doctor Grey."
"I cannot rise to a challenge that is nebulously defined to begin with," Jean counters, turning her own gaze to meet his, with the intensity of a telepath behind it. "State clearly what you want of me. Do you want me to personally adopt your daughter? Do you wish her to be a ward of the state? Or," she notes, with a small curve of her lips, "Are you simply trying to goad me into losing my temper so that you can keep the moral high ground?"
Telepaths are big fat stinky cheaters. Seiji Ashida only has the fire of his intensely stubborn nature to light his eyes. "I wish for a daughter that is not a shame. I wish for a daughter that does not run away from home and embarrass her family. I wish for a daughter that can control herself without the need of a politician lobbying for a class that should not exist interfering. That is what I want."
"Shame," Jean notes, words crisp, but not without a brief flash of something resembling sympathy and a momentary quieting of her tone, "Is an emotion only you can define for yourself. And you did not answer my question." She pauses a moment to let that sink in, and to eye the cookies that have accompanied the tea thoughtfully. "What is it that you want of -me-."
"Noriko made her choice at the beginning of summer when she left my home. Her brother and mother have already mourned her. I will not have her return to interrupt my family a second time." His chin raises in a show of intense, intense bull-headedness. Seiji Ashida is a wall.
"Then I will send for her so that you can tell her yourself that she is no longer wanted by you." Wall, meet wall, the conversation bouncing between them like one of those red-and-blue striped balls thrown by excited six year olds. Jean pairs this statement with an offer of the little tray covered in tiny and delectably bite-sized desserts. "And while you do that, I will call my lawyer to have adoption papers drawn up."
"My daughter died in May, Doctor Grey. You tell your mutant whatever you like. Fax the papers to me at your leisure." Chin up and shoulders high, Seiji walks for the door of her office. There is no goodbye and no politeness at all.
Jean at least has the sense not to follow. In the wake of Seiji Ashida's leavetaking, the fine french doors to the living room close at the pull of an unseen hand. "Fuuuuuuck," says Dr. Grey. And then she goes to make some phone calls.
Jean aquires a blue-haired electrokinetic Asian schoolgirl. Just what she always wanted?
X-Men: Movieverse 2 - Friday, October 03, 2008, 11:51 PM
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=WES= Harry's Bar - Salem Center
An old tavern that stands from Revolutionary Times, Harry's is a common hide-away place for humans and mutants alike, although surprisingly quite a bit of the latter can be found, for all of the owner's devil-may-care attitude towards them. Modestly furnished in dark woods, it holds a relaxed, comfortable atmosphere that appeals to many, although almost never crowded. Up against one wall stretches the bar itself with several red leather barstools stationed in front of it and an impressive selection, behind the counter. Most of the rest of the room, however, is occupied by a few tables and booths, for people to dine at. Definitely not any kind of white-collar establishment, but the company it keeps is good.
[Exits : [O]ut]
[Players : Magneto ]
It is approximately a quarter past ten when Jean Grey turns up at Harry's, with no car keys evident and with a black wool coat thrown over a stylish little empire waisted dress in shades of blue with a ribbon of grey silk to tie it with. A calf-length hem flares and flutters as she tracks unerringly over to the bar, claims a seat, and bids a weary "Beer, please. Pick a kind."
A constellation of empty glasses is splayed across the empty barspace two seats over. They are all squat. Some still have ice melting in them. Others contain only a film of water and backwash. One still has whiskey in it. It is to this glass that Erik Lensherr returns once he has checked his fly and emerged from the men's restroom. His collar and cuffs, pinstriped, are open beneath the more formal fit of his vest, which is a dull, shadowy shade of taup. He doesn't notice Jean immediately, and reclaims his stool with a drawn out sigh. Not at his most observant.
Jean, for all the vaunted sensitivity of telepathy, is lost to the world for a few moments once the beer has been brought to her by a slightly ironic Harry. Rich red-amber, with a proper head of foam to crown the glass, the beer is lovely, dark and deep. It is also nearly dropped in Jean's lap after the high mental walls around her drop in turn, and her mind trips over a Magneto on its doorstep. Slowly, her bar stool rotates, as she takes in the long row of glasses first, and their consumer later. A fortifying sip of beer later, she nods to him. "I appear to be adopting a Japanese electrokinetic. How about you?"
Magneto's head tips down at the sink of Jean's familiar voice through his unusually thick skull. Both hands settled upon the bar, he's slow to turn and face her, as if he's rather /resentful/ that she should happen along to interrupt what was otherwise a cheerful evening of getting drunk alone in a bar. One eye is squinted, as skeptical of the coincidence of her presence as it is of her attempt at small talk.
Jean offers no further small talk after that greeting, instead taking an advanced course in beer study before surveying the glasses. Counting them, perhaps, for there's a mild wince at the end of it.
Aware of her survey, Erik follows the line of her gaze, and frowns. There are too many of them, all too closely collected to be easily blamed on anyone else. Still, he is conscious enough, perhaps having been here for long enough to space things out...reasonably. Somewhat reasonably. His fingers tap while he contemplates ordering another while she's staring at him.
Staring Jean is Staring. Eventually though, she stops staring, or at least resumes studying her beer, and reaches up a hand to pop the tiny and decoratively metal collar button of her dress. "Does it help?" she wonders, in a tone of nothing so much as curiosity, with just a bit of a speculative look turned on Harry's whiskey bottles herself.
"Hoping that you will leave me alone?" A faint slur brushes soft over the gruffest, most deliberately dense retort he can manage, and he reaches for the half-empty drink that he has left. "Apparently not."
"I am nothing if not persistant," Jean murmurs, looking away from the bottles in favour of sticking with the unknown beer. A few more minutes pass, with Jean's initial attempts at cool quiet giving way to twitchy shifting in her seat to snag looks at him, mind peeping right along with them.
A thin fog of hatred compromises the atmosphere of Erik's thoughts. Everything is cold and black and touched with the acrid scent of superheated metal. Upon recognition of Jean's prying, what visible thought there is flinches inward, and he turns stiffly aside in his seat to stare back, drink in hand, with eyes cold enough to burn. "What is it that you expect to find?"
"I'm not sure." Charles, Jean is not. 'Hope' is not considered statistically probable. Her mind studies the dark and the cold for a moment more, before withdrawing back to its own business, or at least back to its own skull. "Some sign that you're finding your way out of the blackness, perhaps."
Silence, is what that answer gets. Also, anger, evident in the sustained scorch of his glare, if nowhere else. "What is it about this society that you hold so dear that you are willing to /settle/ for it?"
Silence from Jean now, as the eruption gets not her usual quick riposte, but a thoughtful study of her beer and a slight hunch of her shoulders. "I suppose," she says "Because I can't think of a way to be sure what might replace it will be any better."
No eruption, really. Not yet. For all that Harry might wish that this conversation would take place somewhere else, it is not taking place loudly. Erik chuckles, derisive in the face of Jean's doubt, and thumps his glass down with just a hint of unnecessary force. "So I should /hope/ that our situation will resolve itself. Do you really think I am going to stop? Do you think I am going to set aside my sword in favor of optimism? And peace?" He may not be shouting, but there is a special kind of hatred in the way his speech bites after her.
"Hope," Jean notes, "Has always been Charles' wish for you. He's not here," she points out, somewhat unnecessarily, as Forge has not built a shrink ray, and therefore there is not a tiny bald man in her pocket. Glass rumbles against polished wood as she passes the beer mug from hand to hand on the bar top, idle fidgeting away of energy. "And you're not suited to peace. But have you decided on where to point your sword?"
Whatever metal exists on Jean's person encounters a heavy-handed drag in place of the usual pre-attack probe as Magneto leans away from his barstool. Precision and subtlety have gone the way of his third and fourth drink, and are effectively non-existent. All current signs suggest that he /has/, in fact, made a short-term decision to point his sword at Jean Grey. "There is no longer anything to gain in differentiating."
The buttons on Jean's dress are not happy. Another one pops loose, although thankfully for the sake of modesty the empire waist means they only go so far down her cleavage. Her cell phone is even less happy, as the unsubtle probe does not kill it, but -does- send its wee little operating system into a hard freeze. Harry, who is not Jean's in any way, shape or form, is unhappiest of all, and vents a significant rumble. Jean, uneasy and unsettled in her body language, but not inclined to turn her back on this particular bear, sits up a little stiffer in her seat and attempts, from her squirming, to try and simultaneously teleport out of her metal-buttoned dress while fidgeting the buttons back into order. "There's still a good deal to -lose- by it," she says.
"How long until I kill again, just see one squirm? You know it will happen. Charles knows. The administrative staff of American Idol /knows/. And you do nothing. You sit, and hope, and perhaps pray that I will come to my senses." An ill-suppressed sneer loses some of its impact in a sideways lean that he hedges by bracing his right hand against the bar.
"Are you asking me to kill you, then?" Jean wonders, the squirming ceasing as she detects no sudden attempts of her clothing to kill her. (Harry is not happy about this line of discussion, either. Perhaps it's concern for his bar tab.) An abortive hand-twitch does -not- try and help the Master of Magnetism brace himself, as she turns away slightly to pick up her beer again and reflect that "I guess that would be a change."
Brows knit, Erik leans more of his weight over into the bar. His train of thought has been derailed, and it requires a great deal of effort to clear through it. "...What?" is what he decides to go with eventually, frustration etched deep into his forehead.
"You're sneering at me for waiting for you to snap and kill someone before I do anything," Jean explains, with a gesture with her beer mug for emphasis. "What's your proposed solution, then? Kill you before you can? ...I'm not going to do it in here," she takes a moment to assure Harry, with a sudden colour to her cheeks.
Magneto is confused. As is often the case, the default assumption is that he should be angry accordingly. Jean doesn't get it. She is threatening to kill him. So, he attempts to fling her at the wall, by her buttons. This is probably not a very good decision.
Jean is flung! Or, rather, jerked forward in her seat so that her knees rap sharply against the bar. This is followed by a demonstration of simple physics involving applied forces, shear strength of cotton thread, and, QED, one, two, three, four, five little metal buttons go popping off the bodice of the dress to ping off of Harry's bar room mirror. Dr. Grey left somewhat en deshabille with the edges of a lacy black bra peeking out of sudden decolletage, there is a moment's pause. Then there is a sharp and blushing "Jesus Christ! I didn't say I was -going- to kill you!" Silence. "Shit!" (Jean has noticed the missing buttons.)
The mirror cracks at the initial impact, and bits of shattered glass slack out of the frame under the ongoing assault. The fact that Jean stays (mostly) put is absorbed with a scowl that threatens something along the lines of greater effort expended on his second attempt. The exposed bra gives him pause, though. His brows lift, then fall again. Hm.
It is a very nice bra, or at least the visible edges of it are. Alas, Jean's hand swiftly slaps up to pull her dress closed overtop of it with a huff. "Oh, for the love of God..." she mutters, and glowers over at him before reaching to pull her wallet from her coat pocket to see about settling bills. "You're drunk. I'm going away now."
"Fine," says Erik, who has to pause again when she covers herself up. Briefly. "Go back to your school. Hide with the others while humanity..." does...terrible human types of things. That they do. He is angry again.
"When you're sober," Jean notes, buttoning up her coat (Which has PLASTIC buttons.) with a continued string of grumbling after Harry has been paid for her beer and his mirror. (Because Erik is not likely to.) "And if you decide you'd actually like something to do, I have some files you may be interested in. The scientists from last January have been up to something else." Thus, looking rather more like a ruffled hen than is strictly flattering, Jean begins to stalk for the door.
The offer of mysterious /files/ keeps the mouth left behind shut, if only just, and not without another sizzle of fury at having them held over his head like candy over a child. His glare is left to fix unblinking on the bar surface he is still using to keep his balance, whiskey temporarily forgotten.
Jean, heartless, leaves Harry and his bar to the mercies of a drunk and cranky Erik Lensherr, and steps out into the fall night.
Jean heads to Harry's, looking for a quiet drink. Erik drank them all before she got there.
X-Men: Movieverse 2 - Thursday, October 02, 2008, 10:55 PM
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=XS= Front Gates - Xavier's School
The Xavier Estates is well marked with high, white-topped brick walls encompassing the boundaries between the public and private grounds. Iron wrought gates with their lattice work hang ponderously from pillars supporting the plaque that tells the address: 'Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters' 621 Graymalkin Lane. The mansion can be seen rising above the upper lip of the outer walls, though a half mile wide expanse of dense thickets, small meadows, and a carefully discreet sensor network insulate the grand old mansion at the property's heart from prying eyes. Several paths wind into the woods away from the paved driveway that curves elegantly towards where the top floors of the mansion are just visible above the treeline.
[This room is set watchable. Use alias XSFrontGates to watch here.]
[Exits : [T]hrough the [G]ates and [G]raymalkin [L]ane]
[Players : David ]
Having recently had possibly the worst day of his life now David has no choice but to turn to the people he likes the least among all mutants. Staying invisible the entire time he travels through the city discreetly until he comes to Xavier's school for the Gifted. Most likely the safest place a mutant can be in a time like this.
Standing at the front gate David presses the button to call for someone inside but of course, he doesn't say anything.
Happily for David, there are actual humans on duty at the gates, and today one of them is a young security guard. We'll call him Bob. "You need a hand there?" he wonders, tone not unfriendly, but one eyebrow raised.
Having trouble even standing properly David sways a little as he pulls out a crumbles piece of paper and a pen. He puts it up against the wall and writes, "Sabretooth. Need help." He hands it to the guard, or rather tries to. When the guard gets close though he can smell the most horrible smells. David's clothes are, ripped, covered in blood and other unidentifiable things. He smells of burned flesh, blood and vomit. His jaw is a bright purple, the skin still cut open a little on the bone where Sabretooth broke it. He is a mess once you get up close to him. Its been a bad few days for him.
"Shit!" says Bob, with a prompt look around in case Sabretooth is following, one hand dropping to the holster at his side. "Jesus Christ, is he following you?" A button in the guard house is pressed: immediate attention needed at the gates!
Shaking his head David tries to go invisible but his pain killer wore off about three hours ago and its really not the easiest thing in the world to do using your powers with a broken jaw and a recently cauterized tongue screaming in a chorus of pain along with all the other smaller non-life changing injuries he sustained that are now complaining. He means to show that he was stealthy in his getting here but it doesn't work out. Parts of his face and body fade away for a moment but then he becomes visible again just to exhausted to maintain it.
"Jesus..." the guard blasphemes again. "You... come take a seat over here, kid," he directs, and adds a radio call to the button-press as he ducks back into the station after waving David to an attractive wrought-iron bench, somewhat less attractive in the damp chill of an October night. "Send Dr. Grey down," he requests to whatever presence is at home in the comsys room. "This guy's hurt, and hell if I know how bad."
Memories of the last thing David ever tasted, the foulness of Creeds finger ripping his flesh and the gush of blood into his mouth are recalled as the boy slumps on the iron bench to wait. He has been moving, hiding, seeking refuge ever since he left the hospital. He is tired, in pain, his jaw broken and everything hurts. He just wants to go to sleep he thinks so he closes his eyes and hangs his head carefully to the side his Jaw isn't broken on. He'll just take a short nap while he waits.
Time passes, the amount of it roughly correlating to the amount of time needed to assemble one of the better-equipped first aid kits, get in a car, and drive the half-mile down to the gates. A Jean appears, leaving the headlights of the school SUV she's appropriated turned on for more light, and the engine idling in the country quiet. "Looks like you came off the worse for an encounter with a train," she offers in frank greeting, Ceiling Kid not immediately recognizable by sight right now, and the spiky pain keeping her from taking too close an initial look at the shape of his mind. "Care to tell me what happened?"
David, unable to actually speak points at the guard with the paper. Meaning that he will have to explain. He misses his tongue a lot more importantly he misses his bed. He wants a bed so bad to crawl in to and go to sleep for like week.
"I'm a telepath," Jean offers briefly. "If you can think of the words, I can try and catch them." This directive given with the businesslike air of one pointing out a telephone, she crouches before the bench, setting the first aid kit down beside him.
Recalling that Jean can do that David thinks as clearly as he can, <> But his thoughts are disjointed he lost a lot of blood and since he ran away from the hospital without letting them fix him up all the way he's in tremendous amounts of pain. << Need sleep. >> that's his most prominent drive at the moment. Go to sleep and escape the pain.
"What you -need-," Jean intones, looking firmly at David as she processes this information, "Is a proper hospital bed. If you discharged early because you couldn't afford the rates, I'll pay your expenses for you, but you shouldn't be out like this."
<< I broke his skull, burned off his face and ripped out his eye. He's not going to just let it go. He can't let it go.>> David says images of Creed up close and personal fresh in David's mind, << Not safe for people around me in hospital, anywhere. >> Under the delirium of the pain and exhaustion he is afraid of Creed. Not that Creed will kill him but that Creed will finish the job, << Speak no evil, hear no evil, see no evil. One down, two to go. Not done yet. Police interrupted. >>
"Then we are -definitely- taking you to a hospital." Jean informs him, with a firm set of her chin, even as she unzips the first aid kit to study a few pre-filled syringes. "The school is known to Sabretooth, and he's managed to breach our defenses in the past -- we're good, but we're a school... and do you have any allergies to medication?"
<< No. Don't think >> Then David does something foolish. He tries to stand up. << Not going back. >> It doesn't last long and he sits back down. The world starts spinning around him and he feels like he is going to throw up again. << Can't make me. Better off on my own. Shouldn't have trusted yuppies anyway. >> he rambles in his head out of focus and not even sure where to go to get back to the city from here.
"Look, this yuppie wants to see you stay alive," Jean sighs, pausing to scrub one hand against her forehead. "You have a much better chance of doing that at Lennox Hill, checked in under an alias, than here, where he knows you're likely to turn up. It's--" She stops, murmurs something to herself, and pushes him firmly back into his seat. "-Sit-," she informs the badly wounded puppy that is David. "I mean, for God's sake, the Witness Protection Program doesn't stick their mafia informants in the middle of Little Italy."
<< Trust me, last place I want to be. Only choice, only hope. Think Creed will think twice about killing an entire hospital full of humans to get to me? But he'll not attack the school. >> the boy things slipping a little as if he is falling away into the darkness of soothing unconsciousness in his head for a moment but he pulls himself out of it. << Besides, once I'm there they can't stop me from escaping. They will call my parents put them in danger too. Can't do it. Get help from other mutants or go it alone. Not humans. To squishy. >>
"He -has- attacked the school," Jean corrects, brows furrowing even deeper as she makes a decision and reaches for one of the syringes. "He has kidnapped staff members right off the grounds in the past. I want to help you... David, right?" she wonders, with belated recognition of the facial structure beneath all the trauma. "But you're making no sense -- why would a school stop him? And roll up your sleeve, if you can," she directs. "I'm going to give you something for the pain."
Something for the pain! Those have become his four most favorite words lately! Rolling up what is left of his shirtsleeve David gives her his arm. << You are mutants. They are humans. They will hurt me. I know they will. They do things, horrible things to mutants. You just don't know because you live in the pretty house. They hate us! They want us to all go away! You can't trust humans! >> he rants more than a little paranoid about hospitals and human doctors. << I won't let them get me.>> he thinks to himself. << Won't let them do it to me. >>
"David," Jean notes, with a quick reach into the kit for a length of elastic, which is soon engaged in raising veins in his arm. "-I- work at Lennox Hill. I'm their specialist in mutant medicine. I assure you," she confirms, with a tone oddly dry as some part of her brain paints a picture of just what a scene they make, arranged around a wrought iron bench in the gathering dew. "I would hardly work with people I consider either untrustworthy or unethical. Make a fist and let it go a few times for me, please."
Doing like she says the young man cooperates he thinks to her. << Fine, but as soon as I am able to get out of the hospital I need to get in the school. Study him. Find out where. Find him! Finish it! >> yes, the poor delusional boy thinks he is going to get revenge against Creed. << Hopefully the police won't find him before I can. I don't have a lot of time. A guy with a melted face and one bleeding eye isn't going to go unnoticed for long. >>
"Ah... we aren't that sort of school," is Jean's response to this revenge fantasy, delicate and carefully diffident as she wipes the crook of David's elbow with an alcohol swab, and soon has the needle of morphine delivering its contents. "We don't teach our students how to be child soldiers, for one. But if you want some contacts--" Off she cuts. "Let's get you buckled into the passenger seat while you can still co-ordinate your legs," she decides. "And really, if you want to be planning bloody revenge, you -really- ought to do it after a proper rest."
To tired to argue David thinks << Just stay with me. Humans scare me. Can't trust them. Everywhere, planning. Stark kidnapped because he can make a delivery system for the bio-weapon. California most likely target! Mutant massacre. Its coming! >> he rambles on delusional as he lets her take him to the hospital. They will have to wire his jaw shut to get the bone to set right and clean him up. He smells like Creed's burned flesh which is somehow even worse than regular burned flesh.
"I'll see what I can do," is Jean's answer to the ramblings, already tinged with the mild resignation that's sure to grow more pronounced in the slice of time between the newly-drugged present, and whenever the morphine fully kicks in. It is going to be a very long drive. "Let them know I'm off to the City, Bob," she requests of the young guard.
A David appears! Most of him, anyways.
X-Men: Movieverse 2 - Friday, October 03, 2008, 7:31 PM
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=XS= Living Room - Lv 1 - Xavier's School
Despite the rich Victorian reds of the walls and the dark colour of the hardwood half panelling, large floor to ceiling windows brighten the room into something warm and inviting. Several couches are present here: one faces a flatscreen TV set recessed into the wall, along with an armchair or two for individuals, while the others form conversation circles in other corners, complete with coffee and end tables. Against the walls are tall and leafy plants, predominantly ferns but with a ficus lurking in one corner. The the central unifying feature of the room is a large fieldstone fireplace with the windows to each side of it. French doors lead to the hallway, mated across the way by matching ones from the rec room.
[Exits : [H]allway]
[Players : Noriko ]
Jean has not played the effusive and laissez-faire cards today. Falling back instead on all the structure and poised ceremony of her raising and her position, settled within the fine and elegant history of the living room, she has chosen to offer hot beverages, dainty desserts, and a file folder of reports sitting demurely on a corner of the coffee table. Likewise mannerly, Jean sits in a pristine cream armchair across from her quarry, and opens negotiations with a query of "Tea?"
"I'm sure you can likely guess that from the context of the setting," Jean replies, hands busy with the precision involved in The Pouring of Tea. (WASPs have just as much ritual as the Japanese, they just avoid such helpful things as documenting it for future generations.) The first cup is poured, set on a saucer, and then set before Papa Ashida. "But, to be frank, your daughter is of the opinion that you refuse to acknowledge her mutation and that you won't allow her to attend here. I fail to believe a man such as yourself would be willfully blind."
"I see no reason that my daughter should need to attend a school which will cater to her acting out. I have provided the best education available to her in our area. This entire meeting is giving too much credence to her spoiled behavior." Seiji takes the cup and saucer in hand, bringing the former to his lips for a gentle polite sip. A low dip of his head is half nod and half bow.
"You misapprehend our purpose, sir," Jean demurs, with a light click of teacup in saucer as she plucks up her own tea, after the addition of sugar and a squeeze of lemon to flavour the black brew. "Xavier's School does not cater to 'acting out', as you term it. We seek to educate them in how not to. Your daughter electrocuted a young woman shortly a before we were able to bring her here," she notes, with a little glance to the file-folder, where Alyssa's face is attached to a top report. "The young woman is not inclined to press charges, but it would be foolish to imagine that ignoring this particular behavior will make it go away. It must be corrected. Controlled."
Another sip of his tea is taken before the Ashida patriarch responds. "Is your purpose then, to tell me that I cannot discipline my daughter?" His head is inclined just slightly toward Jean as he puts the ball back into her court.
"Can you teach her how to control her electrokinetic abilities?" Jean neatly bats it back again, with a sip of her own tea. "While simultaneously safeguarding the local power network, passerby and yourself from the effects of mis-steps?" Her tone is even, careful and composed, with just one eyebrow arched slightly as she poses the question. "I don't propose to tell you that you are unable to provide parental discipline," (Despite the fact that his daughter ran away.) "But if your daughter were epileptic, or injured in a car accident, would you propose to take over her medical care?"
"I would not propose to send her to a school with a questionable record, represented by a woman linked in the news to terrorists," Seiji counters. (So what if that link was in saving the Earth?) "I have seen no evidence that Noriko's condition is anything near the magnitude that you are claiming. If she is sick or injured, she will be treated by reputable doctors." The entire time, he is sipping his tea. There is no fire to his words. He sounds like he is in a business meeting, greatly detached from the subject of the discussion.
"Which doctors?" Jean queries, with a lift of an eyebrow again, and a declining to raise to the bait offered her. "The field is small, as befits one so new. In the New York area, the openly practicing specialists in mutant medicine are myself, Hank McCoy who is another teacher here, and approximately five individuals who took their residencies under us, assuming that Meg hasn't followed through on her planned move to New Zealand. If our record here is questionable to you, you will not find much better."
"I see no reason to label my daughter as one of them," Mister Ashida replies. It is a very simple statement that carries a tremendous bundle of implications. "Noriko does not belong here. She belongs at home with her family."
"Labels or a lack of them do not alter reality, Mr. Ashida," Jean notes, nearly limpid as she withdraws any refleive prickles behind the thick protections found in verbal fencing with the politest of tones. "And while I can empathize with a parent's desire to keep their child close, and with a desire to keep percieved dishonour private, how much more shame is there in going to a police station, where your daughter has been placed in a plexiglass cell to await her lawyer, because someone with a heart condition now lies dead after an accident."
"If Noriko were to decide to attack someone and end up arrested, there would be very little I could do aside from attending her trial. It is not my desire to hide my child from the world and excuse her behavior with the label 'mutant.'" Seiji again sips his tea. He remains detached nearly completely, debating his daughter's fate with the same cool air that he would argue the merits of a design in his job. "Explain to me what you expect from me, Doctor Grey."
"Note the use of the word 'accident'," Jean directs attention, with a slight added lift of her teacup between saucer and sip. "As in a lack of intent to harm. But what I want, Mr. Ashida, is to have your daughter attend Xavier's School, at least until her abilities are under her conscious control, rather than the proximity of a power grid. She will also recieve an education that will allow her to successfully attend an Ivy League school, should she so desire. While there is a tuition fee, we do not require your money if you are unwilling to pay it. All I require from you is your consent."
Another sip of his tea gives Mr. Ashida a moment to think of this. "You wish me to abandon my morals, my opinion of your school, control and possession of my daughter to you. And your reasoning amounts to the fact that you are not adamant on dipping into my wallet?" His face is again, completely cool. He doesn't show a hint of anger or affront at how he is rephrasing her request.
"Mr. Ashida," says Jean again, repeating the title-and-name like some talisman-word, or perhaps the repeated exposure of an allergen. "That is your phrasing, not my own." Clink, goes the teacup. "If you can only process the part of my case that applies to finances, then allow me to phrase it more simply. -My- morals mean that I hope never to some day have to ask myself 'Why did you not help her?' if I see her on the nightly news."
"I do not believe that my Noriko is capable of such a thing." There is that sticking point. Belief. Exactly as he told his daughter. "I have worked very hard for my image and my position. I have moved to the far side of the planet from my home. I will not give up part of what I have worked for simply because a woman I do not trust insists that my daughter is a danger I do not believe in. Noriko is a delinquint and she ran away. There is nothing more to this."
Jean's answer takes the form of the manila envelope being gently shifted over to where Ashida can leaf through the contents. There is the medical report of one Alyssa Carter, albeit with the name censored out, complete with printouts of cardiac monitors. There are damage reports from a few small businesses in Salem Center, already quietly taken care of. "She is capable," is her answer. "What she lacks is not ability, but the will towards malice. You have raised a good daughter, Mr. Ashida," she murmurs, plucking up the teacup once again. "It would be a shame to see her come to grief because of your pride."
Seiji leans back in his seat for a moment. One humorless chuckle is allowed. He does not pick up the manila envelope. "If she is doing damage, she should be contained. Not encouraged."
"Which is what I propose." Jean notes, setting down the tea and steepling her hands on her lap. "We have already had one of our professors with an engineering bent provide her with some gloves capable of containing her abilities, thus allowing her to stay in the house and live a reasonably normal life. But a mechanical stopgap is not a solution, it is a crutch."
"How convinced are you that Noriko is too dangerous to remain with her family and in her school?" Mr. Ashida asks. His expression is as calm as it began. His cup of tea is mostly dealt with by this point and he clinks it softly onto it's saucer and sets the apparatus down as a whole.
"Convinced enough to spend several weeks trying to get you to agree to take my calls," is Jean's reply, with a small downwards tip of her chin. "Left untrained, she will hurt someone else. I do not want her to have the guilt of it being a loved one."
"Then I will sign her over to you," he proclaims. "If you think I am unable to care for her adequately and insist that she is such a danger that she cannot live with her family," Seiji says stubbornly, "I will let the danger rest with you. I suspect this was your goal from the beginning and that you already have those papers prepared."
Jean's eyebrows both arch this time, honest startlement at this ultimatum making it past the previous careful screen of her features. "No," she says faintly, "No, that was not my goal." A steadying swallow of tea brings swift composure and a return to normal volume again. "If you insist on treating this as a binary issue, I can, of course, arrange to have a worker from CPS contact you -- Xavier's is a state-accredited foster facility. I had -hoped- you would be able to accept that your daughter can attend here for a year or two and yet be your daughter still."
Seiji responds to this with his first smile of the entire conversation. "I did not ask you to involve the state. You do not believe firmly enough in the danger you claim she poses to take the responsibility personally." He stands, the entire motion smooth and steady. "I would like for you to prepare her to leave or I will report this as kidnapping."
"If you wish to sign her over to us, the state will have to be involved. My personal responsibility must still follow the laws of the land." Once baited into a response, the Jean-fish very pointedly ignores the -next- juicy worm to be dangled.
"You hide behind the nebulous 'us' of the school when I am speaking to you directly." The man is suddenly very intense, eyes highlighted by the silver of his temples looking right into Jean's. "You challenge me to give up my authority over my daughter and I challenge you to take it. Much as I thought, you do not rise to this challenge. Your extortion will not work on me. Doctor Grey."
"I cannot rise to a challenge that is nebulously defined to begin with," Jean counters, turning her own gaze to meet his, with the intensity of a telepath behind it. "State clearly what you want of me. Do you want me to personally adopt your daughter? Do you wish her to be a ward of the state? Or," she notes, with a small curve of her lips, "Are you simply trying to goad me into losing my temper so that you can keep the moral high ground?"
Telepaths are big fat stinky cheaters. Seiji Ashida only has the fire of his intensely stubborn nature to light his eyes. "I wish for a daughter that is not a shame. I wish for a daughter that does not run away from home and embarrass her family. I wish for a daughter that can control herself without the need of a politician lobbying for a class that should not exist interfering. That is what I want."
"Shame," Jean notes, words crisp, but not without a brief flash of something resembling sympathy and a momentary quieting of her tone, "Is an emotion only you can define for yourself. And you did not answer my question." She pauses a moment to let that sink in, and to eye the cookies that have accompanied the tea thoughtfully. "What is it that you want of -me-."
"Noriko made her choice at the beginning of summer when she left my home. Her brother and mother have already mourned her. I will not have her return to interrupt my family a second time." His chin raises in a show of intense, intense bull-headedness. Seiji Ashida is a wall.
"Then I will send for her so that you can tell her yourself that she is no longer wanted by you." Wall, meet wall, the conversation bouncing between them like one of those red-and-blue striped balls thrown by excited six year olds. Jean pairs this statement with an offer of the little tray covered in tiny and delectably bite-sized desserts. "And while you do that, I will call my lawyer to have adoption papers drawn up."
"My daughter died in May, Doctor Grey. You tell your mutant whatever you like. Fax the papers to me at your leisure." Chin up and shoulders high, Seiji walks for the door of her office. There is no goodbye and no politeness at all.
Jean at least has the sense not to follow. In the wake of Seiji Ashida's leavetaking, the fine french doors to the living room close at the pull of an unseen hand. "Fuuuuuuck," says Dr. Grey. And then she goes to make some phone calls.
Jean aquires a blue-haired electrokinetic Asian schoolgirl. Just what she always wanted?
X-Men: Movieverse 2 - Friday, October 03, 2008, 11:51 PM
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=WES= Harry's Bar - Salem Center
An old tavern that stands from Revolutionary Times, Harry's is a common hide-away place for humans and mutants alike, although surprisingly quite a bit of the latter can be found, for all of the owner's devil-may-care attitude towards them. Modestly furnished in dark woods, it holds a relaxed, comfortable atmosphere that appeals to many, although almost never crowded. Up against one wall stretches the bar itself with several red leather barstools stationed in front of it and an impressive selection, behind the counter. Most of the rest of the room, however, is occupied by a few tables and booths, for people to dine at. Definitely not any kind of white-collar establishment, but the company it keeps is good.
[Exits : [O]ut]
[Players : Magneto ]
It is approximately a quarter past ten when Jean Grey turns up at Harry's, with no car keys evident and with a black wool coat thrown over a stylish little empire waisted dress in shades of blue with a ribbon of grey silk to tie it with. A calf-length hem flares and flutters as she tracks unerringly over to the bar, claims a seat, and bids a weary "Beer, please. Pick a kind."
A constellation of empty glasses is splayed across the empty barspace two seats over. They are all squat. Some still have ice melting in them. Others contain only a film of water and backwash. One still has whiskey in it. It is to this glass that Erik Lensherr returns once he has checked his fly and emerged from the men's restroom. His collar and cuffs, pinstriped, are open beneath the more formal fit of his vest, which is a dull, shadowy shade of taup. He doesn't notice Jean immediately, and reclaims his stool with a drawn out sigh. Not at his most observant.
Jean, for all the vaunted sensitivity of telepathy, is lost to the world for a few moments once the beer has been brought to her by a slightly ironic Harry. Rich red-amber, with a proper head of foam to crown the glass, the beer is lovely, dark and deep. It is also nearly dropped in Jean's lap after the high mental walls around her drop in turn, and her mind trips over a Magneto on its doorstep. Slowly, her bar stool rotates, as she takes in the long row of glasses first, and their consumer later. A fortifying sip of beer later, she nods to him. "I appear to be adopting a Japanese electrokinetic. How about you?"
Magneto's head tips down at the sink of Jean's familiar voice through his unusually thick skull. Both hands settled upon the bar, he's slow to turn and face her, as if he's rather /resentful/ that she should happen along to interrupt what was otherwise a cheerful evening of getting drunk alone in a bar. One eye is squinted, as skeptical of the coincidence of her presence as it is of her attempt at small talk.
Jean offers no further small talk after that greeting, instead taking an advanced course in beer study before surveying the glasses. Counting them, perhaps, for there's a mild wince at the end of it.
Aware of her survey, Erik follows the line of her gaze, and frowns. There are too many of them, all too closely collected to be easily blamed on anyone else. Still, he is conscious enough, perhaps having been here for long enough to space things out...reasonably. Somewhat reasonably. His fingers tap while he contemplates ordering another while she's staring at him.
Staring Jean is Staring. Eventually though, she stops staring, or at least resumes studying her beer, and reaches up a hand to pop the tiny and decoratively metal collar button of her dress. "Does it help?" she wonders, in a tone of nothing so much as curiosity, with just a bit of a speculative look turned on Harry's whiskey bottles herself.
"Hoping that you will leave me alone?" A faint slur brushes soft over the gruffest, most deliberately dense retort he can manage, and he reaches for the half-empty drink that he has left. "Apparently not."
"I am nothing if not persistant," Jean murmurs, looking away from the bottles in favour of sticking with the unknown beer. A few more minutes pass, with Jean's initial attempts at cool quiet giving way to twitchy shifting in her seat to snag looks at him, mind peeping right along with them.
A thin fog of hatred compromises the atmosphere of Erik's thoughts. Everything is cold and black and touched with the acrid scent of superheated metal. Upon recognition of Jean's prying, what visible thought there is flinches inward, and he turns stiffly aside in his seat to stare back, drink in hand, with eyes cold enough to burn. "What is it that you expect to find?"
"I'm not sure." Charles, Jean is not. 'Hope' is not considered statistically probable. Her mind studies the dark and the cold for a moment more, before withdrawing back to its own business, or at least back to its own skull. "Some sign that you're finding your way out of the blackness, perhaps."
Silence, is what that answer gets. Also, anger, evident in the sustained scorch of his glare, if nowhere else. "What is it about this society that you hold so dear that you are willing to /settle/ for it?"
Silence from Jean now, as the eruption gets not her usual quick riposte, but a thoughtful study of her beer and a slight hunch of her shoulders. "I suppose," she says "Because I can't think of a way to be sure what might replace it will be any better."
No eruption, really. Not yet. For all that Harry might wish that this conversation would take place somewhere else, it is not taking place loudly. Erik chuckles, derisive in the face of Jean's doubt, and thumps his glass down with just a hint of unnecessary force. "So I should /hope/ that our situation will resolve itself. Do you really think I am going to stop? Do you think I am going to set aside my sword in favor of optimism? And peace?" He may not be shouting, but there is a special kind of hatred in the way his speech bites after her.
"Hope," Jean notes, "Has always been Charles' wish for you. He's not here," she points out, somewhat unnecessarily, as Forge has not built a shrink ray, and therefore there is not a tiny bald man in her pocket. Glass rumbles against polished wood as she passes the beer mug from hand to hand on the bar top, idle fidgeting away of energy. "And you're not suited to peace. But have you decided on where to point your sword?"
Whatever metal exists on Jean's person encounters a heavy-handed drag in place of the usual pre-attack probe as Magneto leans away from his barstool. Precision and subtlety have gone the way of his third and fourth drink, and are effectively non-existent. All current signs suggest that he /has/, in fact, made a short-term decision to point his sword at Jean Grey. "There is no longer anything to gain in differentiating."
The buttons on Jean's dress are not happy. Another one pops loose, although thankfully for the sake of modesty the empire waist means they only go so far down her cleavage. Her cell phone is even less happy, as the unsubtle probe does not kill it, but -does- send its wee little operating system into a hard freeze. Harry, who is not Jean's in any way, shape or form, is unhappiest of all, and vents a significant rumble. Jean, uneasy and unsettled in her body language, but not inclined to turn her back on this particular bear, sits up a little stiffer in her seat and attempts, from her squirming, to try and simultaneously teleport out of her metal-buttoned dress while fidgeting the buttons back into order. "There's still a good deal to -lose- by it," she says.
"How long until I kill again, just see one squirm? You know it will happen. Charles knows. The administrative staff of American Idol /knows/. And you do nothing. You sit, and hope, and perhaps pray that I will come to my senses." An ill-suppressed sneer loses some of its impact in a sideways lean that he hedges by bracing his right hand against the bar.
"Are you asking me to kill you, then?" Jean wonders, the squirming ceasing as she detects no sudden attempts of her clothing to kill her. (Harry is not happy about this line of discussion, either. Perhaps it's concern for his bar tab.) An abortive hand-twitch does -not- try and help the Master of Magnetism brace himself, as she turns away slightly to pick up her beer again and reflect that "I guess that would be a change."
Brows knit, Erik leans more of his weight over into the bar. His train of thought has been derailed, and it requires a great deal of effort to clear through it. "...What?" is what he decides to go with eventually, frustration etched deep into his forehead.
"You're sneering at me for waiting for you to snap and kill someone before I do anything," Jean explains, with a gesture with her beer mug for emphasis. "What's your proposed solution, then? Kill you before you can? ...I'm not going to do it in here," she takes a moment to assure Harry, with a sudden colour to her cheeks.
Magneto is confused. As is often the case, the default assumption is that he should be angry accordingly. Jean doesn't get it. She is threatening to kill him. So, he attempts to fling her at the wall, by her buttons. This is probably not a very good decision.
Jean is flung! Or, rather, jerked forward in her seat so that her knees rap sharply against the bar. This is followed by a demonstration of simple physics involving applied forces, shear strength of cotton thread, and, QED, one, two, three, four, five little metal buttons go popping off the bodice of the dress to ping off of Harry's bar room mirror. Dr. Grey left somewhat en deshabille with the edges of a lacy black bra peeking out of sudden decolletage, there is a moment's pause. Then there is a sharp and blushing "Jesus Christ! I didn't say I was -going- to kill you!" Silence. "Shit!" (Jean has noticed the missing buttons.)
The mirror cracks at the initial impact, and bits of shattered glass slack out of the frame under the ongoing assault. The fact that Jean stays (mostly) put is absorbed with a scowl that threatens something along the lines of greater effort expended on his second attempt. The exposed bra gives him pause, though. His brows lift, then fall again. Hm.
It is a very nice bra, or at least the visible edges of it are. Alas, Jean's hand swiftly slaps up to pull her dress closed overtop of it with a huff. "Oh, for the love of God..." she mutters, and glowers over at him before reaching to pull her wallet from her coat pocket to see about settling bills. "You're drunk. I'm going away now."
"Fine," says Erik, who has to pause again when she covers herself up. Briefly. "Go back to your school. Hide with the others while humanity..." does...terrible human types of things. That they do. He is angry again.
"When you're sober," Jean notes, buttoning up her coat (Which has PLASTIC buttons.) with a continued string of grumbling after Harry has been paid for her beer and his mirror. (Because Erik is not likely to.) "And if you decide you'd actually like something to do, I have some files you may be interested in. The scientists from last January have been up to something else." Thus, looking rather more like a ruffled hen than is strictly flattering, Jean begins to stalk for the door.
The offer of mysterious /files/ keeps the mouth left behind shut, if only just, and not without another sizzle of fury at having them held over his head like candy over a child. His glare is left to fix unblinking on the bar surface he is still using to keep his balance, whiskey temporarily forgotten.
Jean, heartless, leaves Harry and his bar to the mercies of a drunk and cranky Erik Lensherr, and steps out into the fall night.
Jean heads to Harry's, looking for a quiet drink. Erik drank them all before she got there.