Honor Commentary:
Commentary! And only, what, a couple weeks late? For this log:
My first commentary in a while! I can't promise brilliance, as I am not so much rusty as practically immobilized by oxidation, but I can natter on at length about what's going on, even if it isn't entirely profound or witty. Because I really did enjoy this scene, and thus it is worthy of nattering about. Also, Honor asked me to, so direct all complaints to her, mwahaha!
In summary, Honor and Switch had a fight, which got nasty, and then Honor got mad and ruptured Switch's eardrums. This, children, is why it is a bad idea to antagonize a shy and socially-awkward teenaged audiokinetic. Carrie, except with less buckets of blood and without any crazy repressed psycho-religious mothers. So, really, not much like Carrie at all. Jean has come from patching up Switch (or, rather, medicating Switch.) as best she can, and is now tending to the other side of the fight: Honor. Jean rather likes Honor. She has a soft spot for intelligent and socially-awkward geek girls, because Jean was one once, if permitted the cheat of telepathy to help herself win friends and influence people. Honor also holds a soft spot for being one of the students mentally recorded as being least likely to force Jean to play the stern disciplinarian.
Jean, although she is good at being Disapproving Dr. Grey is really entirely too kind-hearted to keep it up for long, or to particularly enjoy it. And so, in Jean's office, we set our scene.
A pair of elder Prentiss family members have been called. The young offspring of said pair has now been summoned as well. As Honor is somewhat more locally placed, -her- summoning is of a much more tangible nature than a telephone call. << Honor. >> goes the mental summons. << See me in my office immdiately, please. >> And thus Jean sits, and thus Jean waits, fingers steepling above an untouched cup of tea as she warms the large chair on one side of her desk.
Jean relies a great deal on props in this little interview -- the teacup, the desk, the office itself. What she feels personally is a mixture of exasperation and sympathy, and, personally, she would be inclined to be a great deal softer, as she's well aware that there's no real cruelty in Honor Prentiss, and that Honor is probably doing a much better job of punishing herself than Jean will be able to enact. But rules have been broken, people have been hurt, and even if this wasn't intended to go so far, there is still a deafened and upset Stitch, and actions have consequences. Lacking the sort of righteous anger that grants her momentum in other scenes, like the calling on the carpet of one Jareth Tarrant, she falls back on form and tradition. The medium is the message, even if the messanger herself isn't really feeling it. This is a time for the professional, not the personal, and Jean will play her part.
Honor arrives on her cellphone, distraction heightening the strain on her face, dark-circled eyes from a presumably fairly sleepless night. "Mom. Mom. /Mom/! I have to talk to the teacher now about it, okay? Mom. I'll call you right after, I promise. I promise. Okay." She punches the button to turn off the phone, taking a couple seconds to aim correctly, and lets it hang by her side, hand around it white-knuckled. "Dr. Grey." She's shaking, visibly.
Jean half rises from her seat, gesturing to one of the physically comfortable, mentally terrifying chairs directly opposite her. "Ms. Prentiss," she greets in calmly-worded turn. "Please close the door behind you, and take a seat."
Honor fliches at the name, and closes the door. She takes a seat on the very edge of the chair, feet together, legs straight, knees together, hands clenched around the phone in her lap. She waits in silence for execution.
I just want to scoop Honor up and cuddle her, here. This is so painfully reminiscent of me as a teenager, whenever I was called on the carpet for something. This wasn't often, as I wasn't the sort of teenager who raised much, if any, hell, but oh, ouch, this brought back memories. Perfectionists are hardest on themselves, and this is Honor, good student and geek girl, not some hardened juvenile criminal.
Jean, too, senses this, and is retreating into formality and a lack of expression simply to keep herself steeled for the interview. You can't be mad at the trembly little thing in the chair! It would be like kicking a deformed puppy! Thus, there is not a lot actually in her poses. I probably could have meta'd about why they are so stark, but I figured the stark could stand on its own, and I could always commentary later about it.
The blow, such as it is, is swift in falling. "You're not going to be expelled," says Dr. Grey, seating herself again, and picking up her cup of tea to cradle it between her palms as she stares down upon Honor. "But intentional and malicious use of mutant abilities upon another member of the Xavier community -is- a level three offense. Ms. Evans seems disinclined to press assault charges as well, since she was trying to convince me not to phone your parents, although I can't speak for -her- parents."
Jean may be playing her part, and she may not be enjoying this -- there's a definite reason she's getting the worst part over first -- but she'll do her duty, by God. 'Duty' to Jean, in this, means hitting Honor pretty damn' hard with the reality of her actions, and the reality of how they might be percieved in the outside world. Some of this is not so much anything Honor has done to earn it. Some of this is misplaced guilt over graduates turned terrorist, or simply being dumb enough to think there's no consequences in the real world just because Xavier's is forgiving, a la Averillix. If, perhaps, she was just a little bit harder on Pyro's youthful indiscretions, would he have found it so easy to become a killer? Jean does not think Honor is in any danger of growing up to be a terrorist, mind.
Honor makes a choking sound, something like a sob throttled down. Since her voice has deserted her, she makes her acknowledgement in the form of a nod.
And now comes the question that appears in every calling on the carpet in the history of callings and carpets: "What do you have to say for yourself?" It's asked quietly, coolly, by a Dr. Grey with her expression schooled and serene, as the hardness in her eyes vanishes to be replaced by an uncertain bit of sympathy.
I always hated that question. Hell, I still do. This is not to say it's ineffective, though. Forcing someone to consider their own actions in order to give you an answer is not a bad thing.
Honor takes a deep breath to make her voice comprehensible before she speaks this time. "What does a level three mean? I have to call Mom and tell her what you guys are doing so they can add if they need to." Her voice warbles, practically, all over the map in pitch with the tears she is /not/ shedding, but she otherwise hangs onto control.
Oh, Honor. Again, with the wanting to give her a hug. She's just so broken, and yet she is not going to give in to the treacherous luxury of having a good cry. Not in Jean's office.
"It's in your student handbook, Honor." Although the answer is, initially, less than informative, Jean appears to have awarded Honor the status of 'has a first name' again. She sips at her tea, sighs, and then explains that "A level three is the highest level of infraction. Three in a school year is automatic expulsion. In practical terms, it means I consult with your parents, and you will be undergoing some weekly counselling to try and resolve the situation, and to learn effective alternatives to your actions. You're also confined to the school grounds until the start of fall semester, and your privileges such as in-room internet access and access to spending money are revoked for a similar span of time."
And thus, Jean reaches the end of her script. This marks the space between emotionless and businesslike Dr. Grey, Deputy Headmistress, and a more emotionally open Jean, for good or for ill. Jean's moods, after all, can turn on the edge of a dime. Even if she restrains herself in front of the students (They're far outside her weight class.) she can still be quite sharp if the mood takes her. She's not sharp here, though. More tired.
"Okay." Honor manages the word, face going progressively blanker as she absorbes each rule and then files it away for emotional reaction later in private. She swallows, tries to be more official. "I understand." Her voice breaks this time.
"That's one of us then," The serene expression shatters, leaving a flash of real exasperation to cross Jean's features. "What -happened-, Honor?"
OK, now there's the sharp! And here is where the exasperation mentioned earlier first flashes out. You are the Good Girl, Honor Prentiss, the one I don't have to worry about, now what the hell happened?!?!
Honor's face begins to crumple, but she catches herself with a hunch over her phone. She straightens slowly. Hang on, hang on, HANG ON. Collapse later. Face punishment now. She swallows. Constructs a workable voice again. "Switch made me angry. I didn't know I could do that. There's no excuse." Please, let her go.
Escape doesn't seem to be in the cards, although Jean at least nudges a kleenex box across the desk. There's another sigh, and her tone gentles as she wonders "What did she do to make you angry?"
The crumpling brings Jean back to herself. She doesn't want to break Honor more, and is left a little guilty at prompting the hunching and the near collapse. She must, Jean feels, work on pulling her punches. Were this an interview with Jubilee, this is the part where Jean would sigh and wrap an arm around her shoulders for a hug. Honor, she doesn't really know well enough to take that liberty, so it's a kleenex box for her.
"Please," Honor begs. "I know it was wrong. I'm sorry." She looks her phone as she turns it over and over in trembling hands. "Can I--can it be a written apology?"
"If you think that would help, it's on your own conscience to do it... but I do want to have you and Switch both in here. I rather doubt you're homophobic and insane," Jean states, one hand lifting, and then dropping as she overrules an innate desire to pinch at the bridge of her nose. "And I'm very much wondering if we on the faculty should have stepped in sooner, rather than simply letting you two find new roommates."
With the tempering of Jean's mood comes her old friend, guilt. Where did not just Honor, but everyone else go wrong in letting things get to the point they got to? Honor and Switch are both minors -- where did the adults of the school fail them? What lessons should they have taught that weren't? Of course, Jean allows that it's quite possible that Honor and Switch decided to be immature brats all by themselves, but it's more likely that it takes a village. Despite the easy assumption of guilt, there's still a touch of a scientist's irritation at withheld data as Honor begs not to answer. Jean has been down in the medical bay assessing Honor's handiwork, surely she is owed an answer! It's just a touch, though, and easily subsumed into nothing more than a lifted hand.
The phone stops for a moment. "No--" very soft and heartfelt at the idea of being in the same room as Switch. Swallow. And then the phone keeps turning. Swallow. "Okay."
"Bear in mind that I won't let you just not answer my questions in that talk," Jean points out, softly, but with a very level look.
Hang on, hang on, hang--something tears from Honor's metaphorical fingers, and she curls over, sobbing with the viseral helplessness more common to nausea. That's all she can do, for a few moments, but she claws her way back up out of it. "Please--I'm trying--I can't--I didn't mean to!"
The motion perhaps unseen by the curled up Honor, the creak as Jean rises from her chair and rounds the desk is entirely audible, as is the companion creak as she settled herself in the chair beside the sobbing student, and solemnly, unhappily offers her a kleenex more personally than before. "I know," she murmurs. "But it happened, and we need to find a way of keeping it from happening again."
And... Honor crumples again. All right, so sharp is out, and level is bad too. Dammit, what's a Grey got to do to avoid breaking her students around here? Thus, here is Jean creeping around her desk to reiterate the offer of kleenex, instead of hugs. I thought it was a bit odd that Jean wasn't using her telepathy to empathically calm Honor down, but then I realized that, more and more lately, Jean's been relying on that sort of thing less and less, out of a sense that others, should they recognize it, might not take too kindly to being forcibly cheered up. It's a mingled legacy, one part the new nakedness that comes with being a publically-outed telepath whose actions are under scrutiny, and the other some very persistant concerns over the nature, use, and abuse of power, legacy of Dark Phoenix, where that sort of quick fix would have happened without a second thought.
Randomly, I like how Honor's punctuation conveys the broken quality of her speech so nicely.
Honor takes the kleenex and wads it against her eyes. "It wasn't--it's not like Jeremy. I know what I did, I just didn't know it would--do that. I won't ever--"
"I'll assign you some additional powers training sessions," Jean suggests. "If you can master and understand your abilities more, it will mean keeping control of then eveb in a stressful situation."
If Jean can't stop breaking Honor, maybe she can help fix the problem? Powers training! Find out how to not do it again! It'll help, right? Right? She is Dr. Jean Grey. She is supposed to be good at fixing problems.
"Can I start them immediately? So I have something to do?" Honor blows her nose, and then turns to crushing the damp kleenex into a tighter and tighter ball.
Jean purses her lips thoughtfully at this, and admits that "Professor Cassidy has been assigned to keep an eye on the dimensional rift... but if you don't mind working with someone who isn't themselves an audiokinetic..."
Honor shakes her head. She doesn't mind. Tiny kleenex ball. Squish.
"And the campers are gone now..." With a small shake of her head, Jean reaches over to gingerly pat the ball of teenaged misery on the shoulder, the cool anger faded as inevitably as her more heated outbursts of it do. "Meet me down by the lake at 10 AM tomorrow morning," she directs. "I'll bring ear protection."
Tiny kleenex ball. Squish. ♥
It's not quite a hug, but Jean is daring to reach out and pat Honor. One part of her reluctance is her raising -- stereotypical Annandale-on-Hudson families embrace and are affectionate, but they are not so much cuddly, and certainly not with those outside. There's the expectation that the outsider does not wish to be mauled with affection either, in return. Mix this in with the sensitivity of a high order telepath, and Jean is not so much with the random touchy-feely. But Honor's just miserable enough that Jean thinks a shoulder pat might be accepted.
It helps that Honor, too, seems interested in the idea of Doing Stuff. The ear protection is just a sensible precaution -- she's planning to go out past where Honor's known limits are, and if Honor feels this bad about bursting Switch's eardrums, Jean does not want to add bursting Dr. Grey's eardrums to the list of things to feel guilty about. Accidents happen, but rather less often to the prepared mind.
There's anger /somewhere/ under all that misery--scratch the surface and you find it eventually. "You won't need it," Honor snaps. Then misery washes back, erasing it as if it had never been. "Okay."
The cool look returns. "I'll be the judge of that, Miss Prentiss," Jean replies in immediate, narrow-eyed riposte, before she sighs and pats Honor on the shoulder again. "It's not because I think you'll hurt me intentionally. I just plan to push you to the limits of your abilities, so that you'll know what happens there, and what potential it has."
Anger meets anger in turn, transmuted into a swift flash of the earlier coolness, but this time with Jean very much -there- as opposed to detached and going through the motions. But it's more a brief spark, flint against steel, than anything prolonged. Jean is irritated that Honor has taken her attempts to prevent accidents as a slur upon Honor's abilities or intentions or control, but she's not exactly blind as to why Honor might feel that way. An explanation is provided accordingly.
"Sorry," Honor says softly, absorbing the clarification. Her eyes are welling over again and she dabs at them with her wad of kleenex. It is not terribly absorbent. She waits, head bowed, to see if there's anything else.
In the end, Jean says nothing more than a "Feel free to stay in here until you're feeling a little more composed." She offers over the kleenex again, and then pauses. The box is dropped, and Jean rises, rounds the desk and then scoops up a somewhat bemused and rumpled calico cat from beneath it. "Here," she offers.
Jean does not really have very much luck in using her cat to cheer people up, historically. She'd probably do better with hugs, but, barring allergies, a fluffy calico cat is probably less threatening to hug than a tall, beautiful, composed and powerful omega mutant who happens to be your teacher. And Honor looks like she needs to hug something.
Honor tucks her kleenex wad in her pocket, and reaches fingertips to the cat with the dubiousness of a dog person, though she wobbles something that might be intended to be a laugh. The door holds a much more powerful draw, but she stops on the point of bolting. "She told me what Julio told her about me. But he shouldn't know. 'Cause he didn't know I'd hear it when he told her, so it's not his fault I did." There. Question answered, see? Honor's trying.
Alas, Jean doesn't understand a word of it. She offers a pat to the previously-patted shoulder again anyways, as a show of appreciation. The cat, still rumpled but less bemused, sets about the serious business of being fluffy, warm and purring, as small white-kissed paws find Honor's shirt and begin kneading. C'mon, human. There we go. Pat the cat, that's right.
And thus it is confirmed that what Jean really needs to do is sit Switch and Honor down and perhaps go as far as immersing herself elbow-deep in their brains to try and figure out just what the heck happened. Teenaged girls, oy. Was she ever this much of a trial to Charles at this age?
Slowly, diffidently, Honor ruffles a pair of ears. The purr warms something up enough that tears spill out slowly again. "I have go call Mom now," she says, and unhooks kneading paws. "See you tomorrow."
"By the lake," Jean confirms. She looks about to say something more, lips parted, expression supportive, but, in the end, merely keeps her own counsel, and drops her eyes to wiggle her fingers pensively at her cat.
As relieved as she can be, in her present state, Honor makes good her escape before Jean thinks of anything else.
And that, really, is about that. The rest is self-explanatory, and is a good close to a good scene. Also, I have run out of brainpower to commentary further.
My first commentary in a while! I can't promise brilliance, as I am not so much rusty as practically immobilized by oxidation, but I can natter on at length about what's going on, even if it isn't entirely profound or witty. Because I really did enjoy this scene, and thus it is worthy of nattering about. Also, Honor asked me to, so direct all complaints to her, mwahaha!
In summary, Honor and Switch had a fight, which got nasty, and then Honor got mad and ruptured Switch's eardrums. This, children, is why it is a bad idea to antagonize a shy and socially-awkward teenaged audiokinetic. Carrie, except with less buckets of blood and without any crazy repressed psycho-religious mothers. So, really, not much like Carrie at all. Jean has come from patching up Switch (or, rather, medicating Switch.) as best she can, and is now tending to the other side of the fight: Honor. Jean rather likes Honor. She has a soft spot for intelligent and socially-awkward geek girls, because Jean was one once, if permitted the cheat of telepathy to help herself win friends and influence people. Honor also holds a soft spot for being one of the students mentally recorded as being least likely to force Jean to play the stern disciplinarian.
Jean, although she is good at being Disapproving Dr. Grey is really entirely too kind-hearted to keep it up for long, or to particularly enjoy it. And so, in Jean's office, we set our scene.
A pair of elder Prentiss family members have been called. The young offspring of said pair has now been summoned as well. As Honor is somewhat more locally placed, -her- summoning is of a much more tangible nature than a telephone call. << Honor. >> goes the mental summons. << See me in my office immdiately, please. >> And thus Jean sits, and thus Jean waits, fingers steepling above an untouched cup of tea as she warms the large chair on one side of her desk.
Jean relies a great deal on props in this little interview -- the teacup, the desk, the office itself. What she feels personally is a mixture of exasperation and sympathy, and, personally, she would be inclined to be a great deal softer, as she's well aware that there's no real cruelty in Honor Prentiss, and that Honor is probably doing a much better job of punishing herself than Jean will be able to enact. But rules have been broken, people have been hurt, and even if this wasn't intended to go so far, there is still a deafened and upset Stitch, and actions have consequences. Lacking the sort of righteous anger that grants her momentum in other scenes, like the calling on the carpet of one Jareth Tarrant, she falls back on form and tradition. The medium is the message, even if the messanger herself isn't really feeling it. This is a time for the professional, not the personal, and Jean will play her part.
Honor arrives on her cellphone, distraction heightening the strain on her face, dark-circled eyes from a presumably fairly sleepless night. "Mom. Mom. /Mom/! I have to talk to the teacher now about it, okay? Mom. I'll call you right after, I promise. I promise. Okay." She punches the button to turn off the phone, taking a couple seconds to aim correctly, and lets it hang by her side, hand around it white-knuckled. "Dr. Grey." She's shaking, visibly.
Jean half rises from her seat, gesturing to one of the physically comfortable, mentally terrifying chairs directly opposite her. "Ms. Prentiss," she greets in calmly-worded turn. "Please close the door behind you, and take a seat."
Honor fliches at the name, and closes the door. She takes a seat on the very edge of the chair, feet together, legs straight, knees together, hands clenched around the phone in her lap. She waits in silence for execution.
I just want to scoop Honor up and cuddle her, here. This is so painfully reminiscent of me as a teenager, whenever I was called on the carpet for something. This wasn't often, as I wasn't the sort of teenager who raised much, if any, hell, but oh, ouch, this brought back memories. Perfectionists are hardest on themselves, and this is Honor, good student and geek girl, not some hardened juvenile criminal.
Jean, too, senses this, and is retreating into formality and a lack of expression simply to keep herself steeled for the interview. You can't be mad at the trembly little thing in the chair! It would be like kicking a deformed puppy! Thus, there is not a lot actually in her poses. I probably could have meta'd about why they are so stark, but I figured the stark could stand on its own, and I could always commentary later about it.
The blow, such as it is, is swift in falling. "You're not going to be expelled," says Dr. Grey, seating herself again, and picking up her cup of tea to cradle it between her palms as she stares down upon Honor. "But intentional and malicious use of mutant abilities upon another member of the Xavier community -is- a level three offense. Ms. Evans seems disinclined to press assault charges as well, since she was trying to convince me not to phone your parents, although I can't speak for -her- parents."
Jean may be playing her part, and she may not be enjoying this -- there's a definite reason she's getting the worst part over first -- but she'll do her duty, by God. 'Duty' to Jean, in this, means hitting Honor pretty damn' hard with the reality of her actions, and the reality of how they might be percieved in the outside world. Some of this is not so much anything Honor has done to earn it. Some of this is misplaced guilt over graduates turned terrorist, or simply being dumb enough to think there's no consequences in the real world just because Xavier's is forgiving, a la Averillix. If, perhaps, she was just a little bit harder on Pyro's youthful indiscretions, would he have found it so easy to become a killer? Jean does not think Honor is in any danger of growing up to be a terrorist, mind.
Honor makes a choking sound, something like a sob throttled down. Since her voice has deserted her, she makes her acknowledgement in the form of a nod.
And now comes the question that appears in every calling on the carpet in the history of callings and carpets: "What do you have to say for yourself?" It's asked quietly, coolly, by a Dr. Grey with her expression schooled and serene, as the hardness in her eyes vanishes to be replaced by an uncertain bit of sympathy.
I always hated that question. Hell, I still do. This is not to say it's ineffective, though. Forcing someone to consider their own actions in order to give you an answer is not a bad thing.
Honor takes a deep breath to make her voice comprehensible before she speaks this time. "What does a level three mean? I have to call Mom and tell her what you guys are doing so they can add if they need to." Her voice warbles, practically, all over the map in pitch with the tears she is /not/ shedding, but she otherwise hangs onto control.
Oh, Honor. Again, with the wanting to give her a hug. She's just so broken, and yet she is not going to give in to the treacherous luxury of having a good cry. Not in Jean's office.
"It's in your student handbook, Honor." Although the answer is, initially, less than informative, Jean appears to have awarded Honor the status of 'has a first name' again. She sips at her tea, sighs, and then explains that "A level three is the highest level of infraction. Three in a school year is automatic expulsion. In practical terms, it means I consult with your parents, and you will be undergoing some weekly counselling to try and resolve the situation, and to learn effective alternatives to your actions. You're also confined to the school grounds until the start of fall semester, and your privileges such as in-room internet access and access to spending money are revoked for a similar span of time."
And thus, Jean reaches the end of her script. This marks the space between emotionless and businesslike Dr. Grey, Deputy Headmistress, and a more emotionally open Jean, for good or for ill. Jean's moods, after all, can turn on the edge of a dime. Even if she restrains herself in front of the students (They're far outside her weight class.) she can still be quite sharp if the mood takes her. She's not sharp here, though. More tired.
"Okay." Honor manages the word, face going progressively blanker as she absorbes each rule and then files it away for emotional reaction later in private. She swallows, tries to be more official. "I understand." Her voice breaks this time.
"That's one of us then," The serene expression shatters, leaving a flash of real exasperation to cross Jean's features. "What -happened-, Honor?"
OK, now there's the sharp! And here is where the exasperation mentioned earlier first flashes out. You are the Good Girl, Honor Prentiss, the one I don't have to worry about, now what the hell happened?!?!
Honor's face begins to crumple, but she catches herself with a hunch over her phone. She straightens slowly. Hang on, hang on, HANG ON. Collapse later. Face punishment now. She swallows. Constructs a workable voice again. "Switch made me angry. I didn't know I could do that. There's no excuse." Please, let her go.
Escape doesn't seem to be in the cards, although Jean at least nudges a kleenex box across the desk. There's another sigh, and her tone gentles as she wonders "What did she do to make you angry?"
The crumpling brings Jean back to herself. She doesn't want to break Honor more, and is left a little guilty at prompting the hunching and the near collapse. She must, Jean feels, work on pulling her punches. Were this an interview with Jubilee, this is the part where Jean would sigh and wrap an arm around her shoulders for a hug. Honor, she doesn't really know well enough to take that liberty, so it's a kleenex box for her.
"Please," Honor begs. "I know it was wrong. I'm sorry." She looks her phone as she turns it over and over in trembling hands. "Can I--can it be a written apology?"
"If you think that would help, it's on your own conscience to do it... but I do want to have you and Switch both in here. I rather doubt you're homophobic and insane," Jean states, one hand lifting, and then dropping as she overrules an innate desire to pinch at the bridge of her nose. "And I'm very much wondering if we on the faculty should have stepped in sooner, rather than simply letting you two find new roommates."
With the tempering of Jean's mood comes her old friend, guilt. Where did not just Honor, but everyone else go wrong in letting things get to the point they got to? Honor and Switch are both minors -- where did the adults of the school fail them? What lessons should they have taught that weren't? Of course, Jean allows that it's quite possible that Honor and Switch decided to be immature brats all by themselves, but it's more likely that it takes a village. Despite the easy assumption of guilt, there's still a touch of a scientist's irritation at withheld data as Honor begs not to answer. Jean has been down in the medical bay assessing Honor's handiwork, surely she is owed an answer! It's just a touch, though, and easily subsumed into nothing more than a lifted hand.
The phone stops for a moment. "No--" very soft and heartfelt at the idea of being in the same room as Switch. Swallow. And then the phone keeps turning. Swallow. "Okay."
"Bear in mind that I won't let you just not answer my questions in that talk," Jean points out, softly, but with a very level look.
Hang on, hang on, hang--something tears from Honor's metaphorical fingers, and she curls over, sobbing with the viseral helplessness more common to nausea. That's all she can do, for a few moments, but she claws her way back up out of it. "Please--I'm trying--I can't--I didn't mean to!"
The motion perhaps unseen by the curled up Honor, the creak as Jean rises from her chair and rounds the desk is entirely audible, as is the companion creak as she settled herself in the chair beside the sobbing student, and solemnly, unhappily offers her a kleenex more personally than before. "I know," she murmurs. "But it happened, and we need to find a way of keeping it from happening again."
And... Honor crumples again. All right, so sharp is out, and level is bad too. Dammit, what's a Grey got to do to avoid breaking her students around here? Thus, here is Jean creeping around her desk to reiterate the offer of kleenex, instead of hugs. I thought it was a bit odd that Jean wasn't using her telepathy to empathically calm Honor down, but then I realized that, more and more lately, Jean's been relying on that sort of thing less and less, out of a sense that others, should they recognize it, might not take too kindly to being forcibly cheered up. It's a mingled legacy, one part the new nakedness that comes with being a publically-outed telepath whose actions are under scrutiny, and the other some very persistant concerns over the nature, use, and abuse of power, legacy of Dark Phoenix, where that sort of quick fix would have happened without a second thought.
Randomly, I like how Honor's punctuation conveys the broken quality of her speech so nicely.
Honor takes the kleenex and wads it against her eyes. "It wasn't--it's not like Jeremy. I know what I did, I just didn't know it would--do that. I won't ever--"
"I'll assign you some additional powers training sessions," Jean suggests. "If you can master and understand your abilities more, it will mean keeping control of then eveb in a stressful situation."
If Jean can't stop breaking Honor, maybe she can help fix the problem? Powers training! Find out how to not do it again! It'll help, right? Right? She is Dr. Jean Grey. She is supposed to be good at fixing problems.
"Can I start them immediately? So I have something to do?" Honor blows her nose, and then turns to crushing the damp kleenex into a tighter and tighter ball.
Jean purses her lips thoughtfully at this, and admits that "Professor Cassidy has been assigned to keep an eye on the dimensional rift... but if you don't mind working with someone who isn't themselves an audiokinetic..."
Honor shakes her head. She doesn't mind. Tiny kleenex ball. Squish.
"And the campers are gone now..." With a small shake of her head, Jean reaches over to gingerly pat the ball of teenaged misery on the shoulder, the cool anger faded as inevitably as her more heated outbursts of it do. "Meet me down by the lake at 10 AM tomorrow morning," she directs. "I'll bring ear protection."
Tiny kleenex ball. Squish. ♥
It's not quite a hug, but Jean is daring to reach out and pat Honor. One part of her reluctance is her raising -- stereotypical Annandale-on-Hudson families embrace and are affectionate, but they are not so much cuddly, and certainly not with those outside. There's the expectation that the outsider does not wish to be mauled with affection either, in return. Mix this in with the sensitivity of a high order telepath, and Jean is not so much with the random touchy-feely. But Honor's just miserable enough that Jean thinks a shoulder pat might be accepted.
It helps that Honor, too, seems interested in the idea of Doing Stuff. The ear protection is just a sensible precaution -- she's planning to go out past where Honor's known limits are, and if Honor feels this bad about bursting Switch's eardrums, Jean does not want to add bursting Dr. Grey's eardrums to the list of things to feel guilty about. Accidents happen, but rather less often to the prepared mind.
There's anger /somewhere/ under all that misery--scratch the surface and you find it eventually. "You won't need it," Honor snaps. Then misery washes back, erasing it as if it had never been. "Okay."
The cool look returns. "I'll be the judge of that, Miss Prentiss," Jean replies in immediate, narrow-eyed riposte, before she sighs and pats Honor on the shoulder again. "It's not because I think you'll hurt me intentionally. I just plan to push you to the limits of your abilities, so that you'll know what happens there, and what potential it has."
Anger meets anger in turn, transmuted into a swift flash of the earlier coolness, but this time with Jean very much -there- as opposed to detached and going through the motions. But it's more a brief spark, flint against steel, than anything prolonged. Jean is irritated that Honor has taken her attempts to prevent accidents as a slur upon Honor's abilities or intentions or control, but she's not exactly blind as to why Honor might feel that way. An explanation is provided accordingly.
"Sorry," Honor says softly, absorbing the clarification. Her eyes are welling over again and she dabs at them with her wad of kleenex. It is not terribly absorbent. She waits, head bowed, to see if there's anything else.
In the end, Jean says nothing more than a "Feel free to stay in here until you're feeling a little more composed." She offers over the kleenex again, and then pauses. The box is dropped, and Jean rises, rounds the desk and then scoops up a somewhat bemused and rumpled calico cat from beneath it. "Here," she offers.
Jean does not really have very much luck in using her cat to cheer people up, historically. She'd probably do better with hugs, but, barring allergies, a fluffy calico cat is probably less threatening to hug than a tall, beautiful, composed and powerful omega mutant who happens to be your teacher. And Honor looks like she needs to hug something.
Honor tucks her kleenex wad in her pocket, and reaches fingertips to the cat with the dubiousness of a dog person, though she wobbles something that might be intended to be a laugh. The door holds a much more powerful draw, but she stops on the point of bolting. "She told me what Julio told her about me. But he shouldn't know. 'Cause he didn't know I'd hear it when he told her, so it's not his fault I did." There. Question answered, see? Honor's trying.
Alas, Jean doesn't understand a word of it. She offers a pat to the previously-patted shoulder again anyways, as a show of appreciation. The cat, still rumpled but less bemused, sets about the serious business of being fluffy, warm and purring, as small white-kissed paws find Honor's shirt and begin kneading. C'mon, human. There we go. Pat the cat, that's right.
And thus it is confirmed that what Jean really needs to do is sit Switch and Honor down and perhaps go as far as immersing herself elbow-deep in their brains to try and figure out just what the heck happened. Teenaged girls, oy. Was she ever this much of a trial to Charles at this age?
Slowly, diffidently, Honor ruffles a pair of ears. The purr warms something up enough that tears spill out slowly again. "I have go call Mom now," she says, and unhooks kneading paws. "See you tomorrow."
"By the lake," Jean confirms. She looks about to say something more, lips parted, expression supportive, but, in the end, merely keeps her own counsel, and drops her eyes to wiggle her fingers pensively at her cat.
As relieved as she can be, in her present state, Honor makes good her escape before Jean thinks of anything else.
And that, really, is about that. The rest is self-explanatory, and is a good close to a good scene. Also, I have run out of brainpower to commentary further.