5/20/07 - Storm
---
Sunday evening, and the sky is just turning towards dusk. Shadows have elongated, thickened, and sprawled to cast everything outside in a dim half-light that blurs the edges of things. Inside Xavier House, the lights have been turned on at last. They make the identity of the school's visitor clear enough, even without students charging around the halls to interrupt and harass him. Clad in blue jeans and T-shirt, a leather jacket in one hand and a bag in the other, Chris Rossi walks through the halls with the ease of familiarity, hunting a certain weather-witch.
Blessed quiet, or comparative quiet, finds Ororo with the doors of her sanctuary flung wide open for the circulation of dusky air: door, window. Her room is full of silence, neither folky rock nor smoky jazz; no sound but the whisper of the breeze, gliding through from window to hall. She is perched on her bed in khaki shorts and a pink tank top, reading a pile of papers with red and blue pens both at the ready.
The breeze can meet Chris and bring news of his approach back to her, if it likes: his scent is distinctive, a melange of soap, shampoo, leather and metal. Cop smell. And Thai. He finds her doorway open and leans against the wall just beyond it, pressing his shoulder into the door's frame to regard her through it. The paper bag in his hand rustles quietly, rubbing against the plaster.
Storm's reaction time is slowed, dulled by the long silence, as though the entry of new variables is so unexpected as to not immediately register. Ororo finishes reading the page that she is on, and then tucks a pen behind her ear as she stretches. She looks up and finds Chris in her doorway, then, and greets him with a slow smile. "Oh," she says. "Hi."
The smile takes a little longer to spark in Chris's eyes -- a shadow lingers in them, hungry and tired -- but they warm, eventually. Much as his baritone does, husky over the first greeting. "Right back at you," he says, and straightens to wander into the room. "Brought you some dinner. Wasn't sure if you'd eaten yet." His other hand lowers, pulling the drape of jacket off his shoulder to be tossed onto the floor by the door. He hefts the bag. "Hungry?"
"I ate a little earlier," Ororo says, letting her palms strike her comforter as she rolls her head on her shoulders to look up at him. Her hair feathers loose about her face and neck, longer than it was and beginning to show signs, really, of needing a trim. "But I have a little fridge under the desk to hide personal food in, and you will have fed me later?"
"Damn. I fail as a hunter-gatherer," Chris says, the regret in the words more humorous than sincere. He glances towards the desk, but it is Ororo herself that demands his first and most generous attention. He crosses to the bed, an eyebrow lifting over a grin, and bends towards her. "Hey," he says. "Miss me?" A warm hand cups her cheek; a warm mouth covers hers.
Ororo rises out of her languid lean, sitting straight to meet him as he joins her. "Mmm," she hums into the kiss, lifting a hand to skim up his neck to curl fingertips into his hair as she braces it at the back of his head. "--been awhile," she says. Wind circles through the room, enlivening with the quickening of mood from lazy relaxation to something more exhilerant.
"Way too long," Chris murmurs against her skin, exploring the corner of her mouth with his before disengaging with a small sigh. The backs of fingers trace the curve of her ear, sliding along her jaw to drop their clasp onto her shoulder. Green slivers behind black, rising to meet blue. "I was starting to worry you'd forget what I looked like."
Ororo slides to her feet, leaning into him as she winds her arms around his neck. She says, "I was sure I had given you a photograph," as her eyelashes drop low over her eyes. She kisses the corner of his mouth in turn, her breath warm as it escapes full lips. Buried laughter smokes her voice as she asks, "Suitably reminded?"
Chris catches his breath, his own arms twining around her. The bag grazes her hip; he molds himself to her, or her to him -- which goes to which makes little difference, in the end. His eyes close, face burying into white hair. "Mmf," he says into her ear, and draws back to look down at her. "Funny," he says, grave. "I remember you as being taller. And naked. My memory's sort of faulty. I need to give you a picture to remind you what I look like?"
"There is nothing wrong with my memory," Ororo says, cocking an eyebrow as she looks up at him. She rocks forward onto the balls of her feet, elevating her height tip-toes-wise. "This is as tall as I get," she adds.
Laughter bubbles behind Chris's solemnity. "Just tall enough," he tells her kindly, and lifts her a little to meet his next kiss. It is a remarkably chaste one, all things considered. Friendly. Nice. Pleasant. "I swear to God, Cadbury, if your bed wasn't covered with paperwork and I didn't have pad kee mao and green curry in my hand--"
Storm raises both eyebrows at him. White mist curls through her eyes. Cool wind blasts through the open window from the pleasant evening outside, blowing up a shaken snowglobe's worth of stapled essays to fly off the bed. Her hair whips wildly away from her face and neck. Unrepentant, for the moment, about the mess she has just made, Ororo smiles. "I can't do anything about your pad kee mao and green curry."
This time the laugh is throat-caught, a ripple of amusement that tickles at Ororo's cheek. "You got absolutely no shame," Chris says, more in approval than in regret. He disengages from her regretfully, his hands lingering across the curve of her hips before he pulls away to heft his bag. "Let me get rid of this. --You got class on Monday? I'm off until Tuesday. It's quiet downstairs. Where the hell are the kids tonight?"
"I have nothing to be ashamed of," Ororo replies, arrogance easy and smile swift. "Logan took them to the woods. There's two or three lurking around still, I think." She dismisses them with a flicker of her fingers through the air, and then folds her arms loosely over her stomach as she watches him drag the bag away.
Chris bends to pop open the fridge door, cold air briefly washing that portion of the room before he pops the door shut. "That mean you don't have to teach tomorrow?" he asks from that stooped position, straightening at the last word to glance over his shoulder at her. He turns back to the room and settles his hips against the desk. The smile from before lights his face, softening the harsher angles of his face. "Got plans?"
"I teach tomorrow," Ororo corrects, turning away to peel her shirt from her body and toss it lightly onto the floor. She stretches, arching her back with fingers interlocked high above her head. "Just in the afternoon."
Unfair. Chris's mouth, open on a thought, closes. His face lights; the pale eyes blaze. "Cheater," he accuses, the word emerging thickly. He closes the distance between them hastily, arms sliding around her again, this time from behind. Hands rove, as shameless as the body they explore. "I was going to say something," he husks into her neck. "Dammit. What was it?"
"/Not/ a telepath," Ororo says firmly as she lifts her head, allowing slightly easier access to her throat. She doesn't bother removing his shirt, sliding her hands beneath its hem to find his skin despite it. "You asked," she murmurs, "if I had plans."
"Did I?" Chris mumbles, thoroughly distracted now. His lips trace a fiery path down her neck, following the pulse of heat under the skin from jawline to collarbone. "Do you?"
Ororo abandons spoken reply to a whirlwind of laughter and heat and dark, tackling him with a certain fervor. There will be time enough for talk when lust's distraction has been burned off -- /later/.
Later...
The sheets are tangled, and spill onto the floor, a paper-twisted snake of fabric and earnest student dabblings. Light gleams off of skin, dusky and dark, pouring like liquid off limbs dampened with perspiration. Chris, head propped on his fist, considers Ororo's face with half-lidded eyes. "I mention to you lately that you're crazy to be dating me?"
Ororo walks two fingers idly up his chest, sprawled in contented languor with her hair a silvered fan against the pillow. "Hmmm." Her mouth twitches up at the corners, her gaze lifting to his face through the dark veil of her eyelashes. "Am I?"
It is a scarred chest, most whitened now, though some still remain a faded red, slow to disappear: scars from surgery, scars from injury, scars from Magneto. "Hot chick like you," Chris says, pressing forward to press a kiss on Ororo's brow. The kiss is tender, for all the conversational directness of the baritone. "Shouldn't you be dating someone -- damned if I know. Some guy who looks like a model and can incidentally cause earthquakes or fly or something?"
"Oh," Ororo says. "Oops." She grins in a white flash, breath puffing past her teeth. "I guess I should break up with you, then." She pushes herself up on her elbows, arching her eyebrows as she cants her head at him. Her hair is a tousled mess of silver-white fluff, shimmering against a backdrop of dark skin and drying sweat.
"'Oops,'" Chris repeats, surprise bumping his voice up. He raises himself as well, the pulse still quicker than usual in the hollow of his throat, hilarity and outrage combining for another, "/Oops/." He collapses and grins, falling back on a squashed pillow, and tugs at Ororo to drag her down on top of him. "You got damn poor taste in men, woman. Not that I'm complaining, as long as I'm the lucky bastard you're practicing on. You still doing the -- the superhero thing?"
Ororo laughs, her body shaking with mirth in its sprawl across the top of his. She folds her arms over his chest and leans forward into them. "The superhero thing. Goddess, Chris, I've been an X-Man for twenty years," she says. Give or take! "I did not exactly have suitors beating my door down, you know."
"Career superhero," Chris says with deadpan interest, past the exaggerated exhalation of air pushed out by her descent on his body. He looks down his nose at her, folding an arm behind his head to lift it higher, and loops a strand of puffy white hair around a finger. "Or is it career woman? I don't think they had poodles in mind when they did all those studies about work and life balance for women. Don't get why you didn't have guys after you. Not like you're not gorgeous and smart and funny and sexy and--" He breaks off. His brow wrinkles. "What the hell were we talking about?"
"I don't know." Ororo turns her head, looking off towards the window with a dubious expression that hides a glint of humor, which nevertheless escapes in a vocal tremor. "I think ... you like the sound of your own voice."
Chris's reply is mature and considered. He pokes a finger into her ribs. "Would've made a damn good priest, for the record. Damn you women." He pokes again. "Wicked, evil, fleshy temptresses. Gateway drugs to evil." Bared by the sheets, one muscled thigh slides against hers, tangling with her leg to trap her. Poke poke.
Ororo cracks up laughing. She half rolls off him, writhing away with a kicking thrash of both legs, pushing onto the rest of her bed to bury her face in her pillow and giggle a lot.
Her boyfriend heaves a decidedly theatrical sigh, levering himself up, and reaches to poke again at the bits of her that are visible. "Laugh it up, Cadbury. I would've been fanfuckingtastic. I look good in the cassock. And for the record? I wouldn't have flirted with any of my parish. Except the hot ones. Probably. What the hell's so funny?" He loses the last word in her shoulderblade, his free arm slung across her back to drag her into the cocoon of his embrace.
Storm lifts her head away from the pillow to peek at him over her shoulder. "You."
"Don't suppose your last boyfriend--" He is a manly man, Chris, and does not permit so much as a spark of jealousy to betray him, "--told you about guys' egos being fragile? Can't laugh at a guy when he's naked in your bed. Hurts his feelings." Witness the proof of it. He turns his mouth down into a frown, and grins with only his eyes.
"You remember my last boyfriend? /Forge/?" Ororo rolls over again and eyes him suspiciously.
Chris's mouth twitches. Her closer proximity makes admiration easier, and he shows his approval of it. "Nutjob with a metal arm," he supplies. "Brought me lasagna. Pulled a gun on me. Electrocuted me. Shoved me in a closet. Fried my computer. Stole my piece. That the one?"
"We never slept together." Ororo closes her eyes and shifts again, squirming her shoulders against the bed and then folding her arms behind her head, lazy.
"Don't see the point," Chris says, with a mature man's assurance and a passionate man's sex drive. He drops his hand on the hollow of her shoulder and slides it down, following the curves and hollows down: over breast, over ribs, across stomach, and below. His voice deepens. Smiles. "Then again, I might be prejudiced. Guy tazered my ass."
"What is a little electric shock between friends." Eyes still closed as she shifts, feline, into the glide of his hand over her skin, Ororo smirks.
"I was in a fucking /wheelchair/." His voice is mournful. Reproachful. His hand exacts vengeance with all the skill at its disposal. "What about a little consideration for the handicapped, dammit?"
Ororo goes, "Aww," which is not much of a sham at sympathy, and wriggles some more.
"Brat," says Chris, and drops his head to nip at her cheek. "Of all the--" His chuckle is quiet and joyous. There is heat behind the flare of green eyes, languorous, banked for a time but woken again for mock outrage and revenge. "Superhero, huh? Poodle, huh? Truth, justice, and the American Way, huh?" His other hand joins the fray; his mouth moves across her skin, making kindling for lust's flame. "/Handicapped/, Cadbury."
Storm rises to meet him with an arch of her spine, head thrown back for the shaking breath of another laugh. It seems she hasn't learned that lesson about laughing in bed!
Alas for dignity. Alas for amour propre! Bruised in ego and battered in pride (though he shows no evidence of either injury) Chris wraps them both in sheets and laughter, meting out punishment and delight with his body and hers. His breath shivers longing across her nerves and then they are down, down, drowned in sensation, stoking need to satisfy hunger.
[Log ends]
Chris visits his girlfriend and makes up for lost time. She is a brat. Sexy, but definitely a brat.
---
=XS= Kitchen - Lv 1 - Xavier's School
A relic of Victorian times, this kitchen is vast, with more than one oven and several stainless steel work surfaces taking the space once claimed by coal hoppers, cooking hearths and cast-iron stoves. Walls still done in period plaster and tile, and the floor still the original fieldstone, fluorescent lights have been installed overhead to bring the lighting up to modern level. At meal times, kitchen workers scurry to and fro with pans and food and various other sundry items, under the watchful eye of the aging head cook, but once past, order is restored, with copper-bottomed pans hanging above the kitchen island, and a tray of cold snacks left out for foraging students and staff alike. Folding wood doors screen off a pantry capable of holding food for an large household's weekly meals -- or three days' worth of teenager food.
The grand old house on the hill is strangely quiet, even moreso than is usual for a Sunday night that's now technically Monday morning. With the bulk of the students somewhere in the Adirondacks at the mercy of raccoons, Wolverines, Scotswomen and other fearsome beasts, the background hums and noises are halved, and one can almost, -almost- pretend that this is the school of one's girlhood, if one is Jean Grey.
The young Jean Grey of thirteen would -not- be finding her bed lacking because there is no boyfriend in it, however. The modern Jean Grey has eyes and mind set on coffee and a late-night sandwich, and so, barefoot below street clothes still worn, she appears in the kitchen with a hopeful look for the refirdgerator, and a pair of reading glasses resting forgotten on the crown of her head.
There are people already present, illicit and unaccounted for, if not entirely unexplainable. He is attired in all modesty: his shoes are tied, his shirt is tucked, his jeans are zipped up and fastened. If the shirt is unbuttoned at the throat (a little uneven, that open collar) and betray no undershirt beneath; if the black and silver-shot hair is rumpled enough to suggest a bed and other distractions, well. Mature minds can explain it. Hand on the fridge door, profile etched in electric backwash, Chris Rossi stares into the refrigerator's innards and eyes Canadian beer with longing in his heart.
The mature mind entering the kitchen is possessed of a regrettably juvenile sense of humour at times. But telepathic Jean, even with shields raised high and a trip out to the lake taken, is already well enough aware of the 'why' of Rossi's 'where' to have gotten any juvenile snickerings out of the way earlier. Hopefully. In any case, a suggestion of "Have one, if you want," echoes across the still and gently humming kitchen as Jean leans on the doorframe. Heartfelt longing, meet head-felt emotional resonance, tinged with the sense of hops on the tongue. "I was planning on coffee, since their owner's somewhere in the Adirondacks." Boo.
Chris's glance up is unsurprised, though the harder slant of his mouth -- other thoughts scurry about, beneath the more pressing urge for a drink -- relaxes somewhat at recognition. "Jean," he greets, and leans to claim a bottle. Permission given, he is not behindhand in seizing the opportunity. "Little late for coffee, isn't it? Want something?" He bumps the door a little wider to make room for her. "I see a lot of little tupperware things."
"Eh," A shrug of one lean shoulder accompanies a vocalization stolen from the same source as Rossi's beer. "I'm not sleeping anyways, so I may as well be awake enough to do something useful," is Jean's opinion, delivered with a step over to the fridge as the door swings wide, a brief nod of thanks given for it. "And Madame Vargas has been under orders to see if she can get the food budget down. Leftovers, rather than freshly-made snacks, between meals. But there should be..." Crouching, moving the beer bottle aside, Jean rummages, early hunter-gatherer instincts in fine form. "Right at the back... hah." The mighty Grey hunter has captured sandwich meat. "Want one too?" she asks, of the implied sandwich to be created.
"What is it?" Chris asks, leaning against the door's edge to frown down at the meat. Not waiting for an answer, he decides, "Sure. Why not? Enough there for a couple of sandwiches, anyway. On top of beer--" He straightens and turns back to the rest of the kitchen, reaching up for the first of the cabinets in an attempt to locate plates. Detective logic produces them on the second try. "--Burned a few calories tonight. I could pro-- forget I said that."
NYPD has only the best on their force, clearly. Meat is joined by cheese, is joined by mayonnaise, mustard and bread, and a bag of bulk lettuce leaves. Arms burdened thusly, Jean opts to aquire bread on a second pass, rather than cheat with telekinesis. Left with time to glance over at Rossi before turning for more supplies, she uses it to offer the statement that "I'm sure Ororo would be happy to hear that you're keeping your energy levels up." Her tone innocuous, her expression kindly, Jean ruins both with a sudden flash of a grin en route to the breadbox. "It's good that you two can finally get some time together, though," she admits more seriously.
The man's back, turned, offers only a shrug by way of reply. The mind, more open by fact of fatigue and restlessness, hiccups with dissatisfaction. "Yeah," Chris says, popping the top off his bottle. The cap clatters into the metal sink. He turns back towards Jean, plates balanced in a stack in his arm. "Well. You know how it is with schedules. School keeps her busy, work keeps me busy-- it's rough. Been pretty quiet, as far as these things go. Suppose I shouldn't complain."
"If you did," Jean reflects, snagging a knife in a pass along the countertop towards the island, "I doubt anyone would blame you. Personal life as a snatch-and-grab," she concludes, with a wry quirk of her lips, and an emphatic dealing out of bread slices. "Better than none at all, I guess."
"Yeah," Chris says, his mouth thinning, then relaxing in a swift change of mood. The plates clatter, placed on the kitchen's island, and he leans a hip against it to watch as Jean goes about the business of sandwich assembly. "It could be worse. I remember. Makes me nervous that things are going as well as they are. Keep waiting for the other shoe to drop."
Bread, bread, mayo, mayo, meat, meat, cheese, cheese and a squirt of mustard to top each. Jean is lost in the meditative motions of sandwich creation for a few moments, resurfacing as she reaches for the knife to spread out the mustard in an even layer, little brown flecks of dijon origin suggesting that Madame Vargas' austerity measures will only reach so far when up against her artistic ideals. "I prefer to think of it as you're her reward from Fate for what it's put her through," she reflects. "She's too old for a pony, but I guess she can ride--" A pause. "Forget I said that."
Too late. Courtesy is not returned in kind: Chris grins at Jean, his skin too dark to betray the flush that stains the surface tremor of his thoughts. "Thanks. Always wanted to grow up to be a kid's toy. You got a dirty mind, Grey. Ought to be ashamed. Your Mama teach you to talk with that mouth?" He blows across the mouth of his bottle, a hollow, fluting noise ricocheting across the kitchen, and tips the beer back for a swallow.
"Somewhere in my mother's mind, I'm still a virgin," Jean snorts. "Also engaged to an accountant, and attending church every Sunday." The sandwiches are finished without ceremony and with a large lettuce leaf apiece, shuffled onto plates, and one offered to Rossi along with a considering look. "Exactly how much escaping anything work-related do you have planned for the weekend?"
Green eyes flick a glance towards the kitchen clock. "Weekend's already over," he points out, his voice caught and amplified by the bottle's neck. Registering the vocal change, he lowers the beer to rest on the counter instead, amending, "Your weekend, anyway. I'm off until Tuesday. Things're so quiet lately, they don't need me in for a bit. Supposed to carry a pager tomorrow, though. --You?"
"Cancelled my morning classes because the kids aren't back from the woods 'til noon," Jean reflects, with no small bit of satisfaction. The sandwiches apportioned, she pulls hers towards herself and takes an initial quick bite. "So I can sleep in, and then start making some phonecalls. But I want to pick your brain about something," she admits.
"Yeah?" The word is easy. So is his stance. The mind within, however, wakes to attention, professional paranoia coming to bear on an assortment of possibilities. Chris arches a brow, finally reaching a hand for his sandwich, and lets silence serve for him, expectant.
Jean's initial response is a grimace, inwardly directed along with the admission of "That's an unfortunate turn of phrase. I should probably stop that." She eyes her sandwich. The sandwich, ravaged and full of teeth marks, holds no answers. "Anyways, laws governing telepaths. Practical terms, how could they be made to work?"
Chris smiles briefly at the apology, a flash of something that almost borders on amusement. "Damned if I know," he says frankly. "Unless you got some kind of -- of super-technology to come up with a foolproof way to tell when someone's been messed with. Only kind of law that would work is preventative, I'd think. Probably unconstitutional. Chemical castration, or suppression, something like that."
Jean pales at the final suggestion, although she covers for it with an attempt at a light quip of "NIMBY. Not in my brain, yo," and a smile that falls far short of her eyes and is soon lost in a shake of her head.
"Can't see it happening." Chris shrugs, takes a bite of his sandwich at last, and chews in meditative silence for a moment. Then: "Even pedophiles can't be ordered to undergo chemical castration, and that's reversible. Can't see them allowing lobotomies. Like I said, I don't know how the hell they'd be able to catch people, much less enforce it. No prosecutor would touch it. Look at the statistics on rape, for Chrissake."
"Brain rape," The response is quiet, filled with a deep distaste and a flicker of mingled guilt and ire, and images of both herself and Emma. The barest fringes of emotion leak tangibly from Jean to flatscan minds, before being swiftly retracted when she catches them. "I was thinking... and hell, even -I- know it would be years and years down the road, if it worked," Jean admits, before pausing, and studying Rossi carefully. "Police telepaths."
Chris recoils in his mind, though his body stoically returns to chewing and swallowing, only the slightest flinch of eyes betraying the reaction. "Probably wouldn't work," he says, after another mouthful of both sandwich and beer have made their way down. He turns to lean his elbows on the counter, bracing himself around the plate. "Back to he said she said. Even in a rape, there's evidence. Witnesses. Perps go free where there's reasonable doubt. Can't have a guaranteed, winnable case without physical evidence."
"So, back to square one," Jean reflects, prodding diffidently at a sandwich no longer of interest to her. Silence for a moment, and then a low and hearty "God -damn- it." of frustration.
"Sorry," Chris says, without obvious sincerity. He eats more sandwich, his mind carefully blank, his gaze quizzical on Jean.
"I would like," Jean reflects. "A world where my son isn't going to have to face the level of shit I do just because of what he's got the potential to do." The sandwich is grimaced at. "The problem is that the shit's there for good reason, and there's no real good way to allay those fears within the current laws."
"New laws won't change that," Chris points out. He tosses back another swallow, then puts the bottle on the counter to lean for a paper towel napkin. "We got laws about all sorts of things. Doesn't mean that people in Hell's Kitchen aren't afraid of being shot, or being robbed, or whatever."
"They could be a start," Jean counters, prodding at her sandwich plate with a finger before deciding that eating it is good anyways. "I don't know. The alternative is something like accepting that the law will never be able to handle telepaths, so we'll have to police our own. Not very integrationist."
Chris shrugs. It is not, perhaps, a helpful gesture. "I only enforce the damn things. I don't make them. Don't got the mind for it." His mouth twists into a smile that does not quite reach his eyes. "Ask a lawyer what he'd need to have in order to win a case. Most cops won't be able to do crap about it without reasonable cause, anyway. Kind of guy who'd mess around in another guy's mind isn't the type to register. Need a reason to ask for a DNA sample, and knowing someone's a mutant doesn't prove he messed with someone else, anyway."
Perhaps not. But it is at least a gesture rather than a blank-eyed stare. Nodding slightly at it, Jean eats her sandwich and listens, solemn as a schoolgirl. (Although the ones she teaches never are. Solemn as a large-eyed Alison Beckley, perhaps.) "Lawyer... that's a good idea." she murmurs. "Assuming I can get my lawyer ex to return a phonecall. He's not exactly happy that a seventeen year old didn't tell a twenty one year old she was telepathic, for all he thought the telekinesis was hot--" She pauses, consider, and then waves a hand in lieu of another request to forget.
Chris pauses in mid-chew, his eye blanking while his mind, always active, works on why a 21-year old man would find telekinesis hot. It takes only a moment. He starts to chew again. And then swallows. "Cadbury," he says slowly, and peels off a strip of bread for no obvious reason whatsoever. His gaze wanders across the kitchen. "She's--" he clears his throat. "--hot."
"Yes," Jean agrees, with the comfortable certainty of a very straight but very close friend. "She is. And you make her happy." She eats her sandwich.
Chris's ears turn a little red. The rest of him does not. He eats stolidly. "Yeah?" he says at last, and if his mind is attentive, yanking hopefully at the lure, the rest of him is sober and grown-up enough not to show it. Do tell! Do! "That's nice. She's good company." Among other things.
Other things indeed. "You're good for her, too," Jean reflects, head tipped to one side consideringly. "You take her places, out away from our little world here. You make her laugh. God," she pauses, but this time with a laugh in her voice. "You make her have -fun-. She'll -let- herself have fun with you. I missed seeing that Ororo around."
"Not a lot of fun being a schoolteacher," Chris guesses, with a question in the statement. He puts his sandwich down, finishes the last of his beer, and straightens, turning his back on the plate to brace himself with his arms. He frowns a bit at the cupboards. "Or in the poodle gig?"
"It doesn't really seem right, getting a laugh out of some of the situations we end up in," Jean points out, with a wry half-smile. "Satisfaction of a job well done, at the end. Occasionally, we even get to strike daring blows against the forces of evil," she shares, with a self-deprecating touch of dramatics. "Maybe we should start a Dumb Perp pool like you boys down at the station."
"Seem to remember that superheroes fought supervillains, in the comics," Chris remarks, attempting to smooth down his hair with a hand. It defies order, puffing out again almost as soon as he has settled it down: it is bed head with a vengeance. Unaware, he lets it be, confident in his delusions of its obedience. "You guys have the Brotherhood. Now that Magneto's not in charge -- they've been pretty quiet, lately. What're you guys doing lately? Government gigs?"
"If you want to see Ororo in skintight spandex, that's something I don't need to know about," Jean banters back, charitably declining to comment on the hair. "And... not really sure. Mystique's his likely replacement, and she's old-school intel, from what little we have on her. Pyro and Sabretooth keep popping up, but they're hard to track. Charles would know more on that," she reflects. "I've been tracking anti-mutant groups, myself."
Chris stiffens. Erik's image etches itself in acid against his mind; on top of that, just as hasty, comes the memory of-- "Anything on the Friends?" --Leah. Green eyes focus on Jean, attentive without optimism.
"Ever since 'Prime' was out of the picture, the New York chapters have been pretty leaderless," Jean offers up. "There are some signs of regrouping from the Harlem chapter -- turns out one of their lower-level grunts actually has some brains to go with his gonads and strife. There was an incident with a young girl..."
Do tell. Chris's forehead wrinkles; his brows lower, darkening the intelligent gaze. "Incident. Christ. There are a million incidents with young girls. Got to narrow it down for me a little. Something I know about? Or is it just ... something?"
"Litte girl manifested at eleven. Early, but not unheard of," Jean summarizes, pushing aside a sandwich reduced to crusts and a blot of mustard on the plate. There is -business-. "Elena Juarez, who got very sick and then recovered to find herself with no external ears and a set of snake fangs. Non-venomous. Her family got hasseled on a trip to the Zoo, as Nate and I were there too. I suggested they try talking with MA, but they didn't want the trouble. I'm thinking maybe mom or dad Juarez's visas aren't so much in order as non-existant, so..." Her lips twist, but she eventually shrugs, and lets the immigration debate lie untouched on for the night. "Anyways, I did a little digging based off of what I saw, and lo and behold, FoH ties."
"Beautiful," Chris says, in the way a man does when he means exactly the opposite. He stretches cautiously over the edge of the counter, rolling his head, cracking knuckles as though realizing only belatedly that he has risen from a comfortable bed. "Her family? Or the people harassing her? Illegal immigrants, I'm technically supposed to report. Technically."
"The people harassing her -- crap, it's late," Jean reflects on her lack of articulation. "And if you -want- to, well... it's your duty," she reflects still more, albeit on a different subject. The beer bottle is eyed consideringly, but only for a moment. "But that's why MA hasn't gotten a formal report. Not until I can come up with some evidence that doesn't involve dragging the Juarez family to the INS."
Chris hesitates, then shrugs, absolving himself of responsibility in an agreed, "It's late. Can't promise things. Only the DA's office can." He turns back to the bottle (empty) and the plate (almost empty) to take up the last quarter of his sandwich. "Up to you if you want to get them in on it before you report anything. Me, I'm just here to hang out with my girlfriend for a little while. And listen to hypotheticals." Green eyes slant, glancing at Jean. "Right?"
"Entirely hypothetical," Jean agrees, with a slant of her own green eyes at an opposite angle, and a crook of her mouth to match. "You're off work 'til Tuesday. I'd never bother you on vacation like that."
"Nice of you," Chris says, and unaccountably, his ears turn a little pink again. He coughs into the back of his hand while his mind does embarrassing things with memory and the last few hours. And, of course, Ororo. And himself. And fuck, telepath. "Anyway, things haven't been as busy lately for me," he says hastily, "so it's all good. Brass thinks I've gone native, so they're pulling me off of a lot of the bigger MA stuff. This keeps up, I'll be some sort of desk-driving community liaison suit and that'll be that."
"Oh -God-," says the telepath, turning a little pink herself, as her eyes disfocus and hasty mental shields are thrown to the skies. "I didn't need to see-- -God-." Best friends do not need to know this! Jean shakes herself and rises, clutching her sandwich plate with care. "Rossi," she informs. "You are very good for my best friend. I am going to go sit in Cerebro for a couple hours. What happens in them will be something I will never, ever be subjected to knowing about."
Chris says, "Ack," and his mind, slipping out of discipline's reach, spins in a dervish whirl that sheds still more graphic imagery to the telepathic winds. He drops his face in his hand, eyes closing, heat rising under skin. "Fuck. Fuck fuck. Fuck. I'm going to--" He jerks a thumb towards the door and starts for it, only to double back for the emptied plate, only to hesitate over cleanup. "You didn't see that."
"I've got the telepathic equivalent of cotton in my ears for any new stuff, and I'm busily repressing what -did- get through," Jean assures, dropping her bread crusts in a compost bucket, and sliding her plate into the dishwasher. "And... Cerebro. 'Night." It may not be the most dignified thing to say of Dr. Grey, but it must be said: after the final farewell, Jean flees.
Still burning -- only Jean or an abruptly discomfited Charles Xavier could say with what -- Chris sets himself to cleaning up after himself. Water hisses. Glass clanks. And then, in the silence of the kitchen, a suddenly thoughtful baritone says, "Cerebro?"
From the hallway comes a final answer: "It's a big, round room." The mysteries of Xavier house spin ever deeper.
[Log ends]
Thirsty work! Chris runs into Jean in the kitchen, and the two of them talk of stuff. She makes him a sandwich. He embarrasses her. You're welcome.
Sunday evening, and the sky is just turning towards dusk. Shadows have elongated, thickened, and sprawled to cast everything outside in a dim half-light that blurs the edges of things. Inside Xavier House, the lights have been turned on at last. They make the identity of the school's visitor clear enough, even without students charging around the halls to interrupt and harass him. Clad in blue jeans and T-shirt, a leather jacket in one hand and a bag in the other, Chris Rossi walks through the halls with the ease of familiarity, hunting a certain weather-witch.
Blessed quiet, or comparative quiet, finds Ororo with the doors of her sanctuary flung wide open for the circulation of dusky air: door, window. Her room is full of silence, neither folky rock nor smoky jazz; no sound but the whisper of the breeze, gliding through from window to hall. She is perched on her bed in khaki shorts and a pink tank top, reading a pile of papers with red and blue pens both at the ready.
The breeze can meet Chris and bring news of his approach back to her, if it likes: his scent is distinctive, a melange of soap, shampoo, leather and metal. Cop smell. And Thai. He finds her doorway open and leans against the wall just beyond it, pressing his shoulder into the door's frame to regard her through it. The paper bag in his hand rustles quietly, rubbing against the plaster.
Storm's reaction time is slowed, dulled by the long silence, as though the entry of new variables is so unexpected as to not immediately register. Ororo finishes reading the page that she is on, and then tucks a pen behind her ear as she stretches. She looks up and finds Chris in her doorway, then, and greets him with a slow smile. "Oh," she says. "Hi."
The smile takes a little longer to spark in Chris's eyes -- a shadow lingers in them, hungry and tired -- but they warm, eventually. Much as his baritone does, husky over the first greeting. "Right back at you," he says, and straightens to wander into the room. "Brought you some dinner. Wasn't sure if you'd eaten yet." His other hand lowers, pulling the drape of jacket off his shoulder to be tossed onto the floor by the door. He hefts the bag. "Hungry?"
"I ate a little earlier," Ororo says, letting her palms strike her comforter as she rolls her head on her shoulders to look up at him. Her hair feathers loose about her face and neck, longer than it was and beginning to show signs, really, of needing a trim. "But I have a little fridge under the desk to hide personal food in, and you will have fed me later?"
"Damn. I fail as a hunter-gatherer," Chris says, the regret in the words more humorous than sincere. He glances towards the desk, but it is Ororo herself that demands his first and most generous attention. He crosses to the bed, an eyebrow lifting over a grin, and bends towards her. "Hey," he says. "Miss me?" A warm hand cups her cheek; a warm mouth covers hers.
Ororo rises out of her languid lean, sitting straight to meet him as he joins her. "Mmm," she hums into the kiss, lifting a hand to skim up his neck to curl fingertips into his hair as she braces it at the back of his head. "--been awhile," she says. Wind circles through the room, enlivening with the quickening of mood from lazy relaxation to something more exhilerant.
"Way too long," Chris murmurs against her skin, exploring the corner of her mouth with his before disengaging with a small sigh. The backs of fingers trace the curve of her ear, sliding along her jaw to drop their clasp onto her shoulder. Green slivers behind black, rising to meet blue. "I was starting to worry you'd forget what I looked like."
Ororo slides to her feet, leaning into him as she winds her arms around his neck. She says, "I was sure I had given you a photograph," as her eyelashes drop low over her eyes. She kisses the corner of his mouth in turn, her breath warm as it escapes full lips. Buried laughter smokes her voice as she asks, "Suitably reminded?"
Chris catches his breath, his own arms twining around her. The bag grazes her hip; he molds himself to her, or her to him -- which goes to which makes little difference, in the end. His eyes close, face burying into white hair. "Mmf," he says into her ear, and draws back to look down at her. "Funny," he says, grave. "I remember you as being taller. And naked. My memory's sort of faulty. I need to give you a picture to remind you what I look like?"
"There is nothing wrong with my memory," Ororo says, cocking an eyebrow as she looks up at him. She rocks forward onto the balls of her feet, elevating her height tip-toes-wise. "This is as tall as I get," she adds.
Laughter bubbles behind Chris's solemnity. "Just tall enough," he tells her kindly, and lifts her a little to meet his next kiss. It is a remarkably chaste one, all things considered. Friendly. Nice. Pleasant. "I swear to God, Cadbury, if your bed wasn't covered with paperwork and I didn't have pad kee mao and green curry in my hand--"
Storm raises both eyebrows at him. White mist curls through her eyes. Cool wind blasts through the open window from the pleasant evening outside, blowing up a shaken snowglobe's worth of stapled essays to fly off the bed. Her hair whips wildly away from her face and neck. Unrepentant, for the moment, about the mess she has just made, Ororo smiles. "I can't do anything about your pad kee mao and green curry."
This time the laugh is throat-caught, a ripple of amusement that tickles at Ororo's cheek. "You got absolutely no shame," Chris says, more in approval than in regret. He disengages from her regretfully, his hands lingering across the curve of her hips before he pulls away to heft his bag. "Let me get rid of this. --You got class on Monday? I'm off until Tuesday. It's quiet downstairs. Where the hell are the kids tonight?"
"I have nothing to be ashamed of," Ororo replies, arrogance easy and smile swift. "Logan took them to the woods. There's two or three lurking around still, I think." She dismisses them with a flicker of her fingers through the air, and then folds her arms loosely over her stomach as she watches him drag the bag away.
Chris bends to pop open the fridge door, cold air briefly washing that portion of the room before he pops the door shut. "That mean you don't have to teach tomorrow?" he asks from that stooped position, straightening at the last word to glance over his shoulder at her. He turns back to the room and settles his hips against the desk. The smile from before lights his face, softening the harsher angles of his face. "Got plans?"
"I teach tomorrow," Ororo corrects, turning away to peel her shirt from her body and toss it lightly onto the floor. She stretches, arching her back with fingers interlocked high above her head. "Just in the afternoon."
Unfair. Chris's mouth, open on a thought, closes. His face lights; the pale eyes blaze. "Cheater," he accuses, the word emerging thickly. He closes the distance between them hastily, arms sliding around her again, this time from behind. Hands rove, as shameless as the body they explore. "I was going to say something," he husks into her neck. "Dammit. What was it?"
"/Not/ a telepath," Ororo says firmly as she lifts her head, allowing slightly easier access to her throat. She doesn't bother removing his shirt, sliding her hands beneath its hem to find his skin despite it. "You asked," she murmurs, "if I had plans."
"Did I?" Chris mumbles, thoroughly distracted now. His lips trace a fiery path down her neck, following the pulse of heat under the skin from jawline to collarbone. "Do you?"
Ororo abandons spoken reply to a whirlwind of laughter and heat and dark, tackling him with a certain fervor. There will be time enough for talk when lust's distraction has been burned off -- /later/.
Later...
The sheets are tangled, and spill onto the floor, a paper-twisted snake of fabric and earnest student dabblings. Light gleams off of skin, dusky and dark, pouring like liquid off limbs dampened with perspiration. Chris, head propped on his fist, considers Ororo's face with half-lidded eyes. "I mention to you lately that you're crazy to be dating me?"
Ororo walks two fingers idly up his chest, sprawled in contented languor with her hair a silvered fan against the pillow. "Hmmm." Her mouth twitches up at the corners, her gaze lifting to his face through the dark veil of her eyelashes. "Am I?"
It is a scarred chest, most whitened now, though some still remain a faded red, slow to disappear: scars from surgery, scars from injury, scars from Magneto. "Hot chick like you," Chris says, pressing forward to press a kiss on Ororo's brow. The kiss is tender, for all the conversational directness of the baritone. "Shouldn't you be dating someone -- damned if I know. Some guy who looks like a model and can incidentally cause earthquakes or fly or something?"
"Oh," Ororo says. "Oops." She grins in a white flash, breath puffing past her teeth. "I guess I should break up with you, then." She pushes herself up on her elbows, arching her eyebrows as she cants her head at him. Her hair is a tousled mess of silver-white fluff, shimmering against a backdrop of dark skin and drying sweat.
"'Oops,'" Chris repeats, surprise bumping his voice up. He raises himself as well, the pulse still quicker than usual in the hollow of his throat, hilarity and outrage combining for another, "/Oops/." He collapses and grins, falling back on a squashed pillow, and tugs at Ororo to drag her down on top of him. "You got damn poor taste in men, woman. Not that I'm complaining, as long as I'm the lucky bastard you're practicing on. You still doing the -- the superhero thing?"
Ororo laughs, her body shaking with mirth in its sprawl across the top of his. She folds her arms over his chest and leans forward into them. "The superhero thing. Goddess, Chris, I've been an X-Man for twenty years," she says. Give or take! "I did not exactly have suitors beating my door down, you know."
"Career superhero," Chris says with deadpan interest, past the exaggerated exhalation of air pushed out by her descent on his body. He looks down his nose at her, folding an arm behind his head to lift it higher, and loops a strand of puffy white hair around a finger. "Or is it career woman? I don't think they had poodles in mind when they did all those studies about work and life balance for women. Don't get why you didn't have guys after you. Not like you're not gorgeous and smart and funny and sexy and--" He breaks off. His brow wrinkles. "What the hell were we talking about?"
"I don't know." Ororo turns her head, looking off towards the window with a dubious expression that hides a glint of humor, which nevertheless escapes in a vocal tremor. "I think ... you like the sound of your own voice."
Chris's reply is mature and considered. He pokes a finger into her ribs. "Would've made a damn good priest, for the record. Damn you women." He pokes again. "Wicked, evil, fleshy temptresses. Gateway drugs to evil." Bared by the sheets, one muscled thigh slides against hers, tangling with her leg to trap her. Poke poke.
Ororo cracks up laughing. She half rolls off him, writhing away with a kicking thrash of both legs, pushing onto the rest of her bed to bury her face in her pillow and giggle a lot.
Her boyfriend heaves a decidedly theatrical sigh, levering himself up, and reaches to poke again at the bits of her that are visible. "Laugh it up, Cadbury. I would've been fanfuckingtastic. I look good in the cassock. And for the record? I wouldn't have flirted with any of my parish. Except the hot ones. Probably. What the hell's so funny?" He loses the last word in her shoulderblade, his free arm slung across her back to drag her into the cocoon of his embrace.
Storm lifts her head away from the pillow to peek at him over her shoulder. "You."
"Don't suppose your last boyfriend--" He is a manly man, Chris, and does not permit so much as a spark of jealousy to betray him, "--told you about guys' egos being fragile? Can't laugh at a guy when he's naked in your bed. Hurts his feelings." Witness the proof of it. He turns his mouth down into a frown, and grins with only his eyes.
"You remember my last boyfriend? /Forge/?" Ororo rolls over again and eyes him suspiciously.
Chris's mouth twitches. Her closer proximity makes admiration easier, and he shows his approval of it. "Nutjob with a metal arm," he supplies. "Brought me lasagna. Pulled a gun on me. Electrocuted me. Shoved me in a closet. Fried my computer. Stole my piece. That the one?"
"We never slept together." Ororo closes her eyes and shifts again, squirming her shoulders against the bed and then folding her arms behind her head, lazy.
"Don't see the point," Chris says, with a mature man's assurance and a passionate man's sex drive. He drops his hand on the hollow of her shoulder and slides it down, following the curves and hollows down: over breast, over ribs, across stomach, and below. His voice deepens. Smiles. "Then again, I might be prejudiced. Guy tazered my ass."
"What is a little electric shock between friends." Eyes still closed as she shifts, feline, into the glide of his hand over her skin, Ororo smirks.
"I was in a fucking /wheelchair/." His voice is mournful. Reproachful. His hand exacts vengeance with all the skill at its disposal. "What about a little consideration for the handicapped, dammit?"
Ororo goes, "Aww," which is not much of a sham at sympathy, and wriggles some more.
"Brat," says Chris, and drops his head to nip at her cheek. "Of all the--" His chuckle is quiet and joyous. There is heat behind the flare of green eyes, languorous, banked for a time but woken again for mock outrage and revenge. "Superhero, huh? Poodle, huh? Truth, justice, and the American Way, huh?" His other hand joins the fray; his mouth moves across her skin, making kindling for lust's flame. "/Handicapped/, Cadbury."
Storm rises to meet him with an arch of her spine, head thrown back for the shaking breath of another laugh. It seems she hasn't learned that lesson about laughing in bed!
Alas for dignity. Alas for amour propre! Bruised in ego and battered in pride (though he shows no evidence of either injury) Chris wraps them both in sheets and laughter, meting out punishment and delight with his body and hers. His breath shivers longing across her nerves and then they are down, down, drowned in sensation, stoking need to satisfy hunger.
[Log ends]
Chris visits his girlfriend and makes up for lost time. She is a brat. Sexy, but definitely a brat.
---
=XS= Kitchen - Lv 1 - Xavier's School
A relic of Victorian times, this kitchen is vast, with more than one oven and several stainless steel work surfaces taking the space once claimed by coal hoppers, cooking hearths and cast-iron stoves. Walls still done in period plaster and tile, and the floor still the original fieldstone, fluorescent lights have been installed overhead to bring the lighting up to modern level. At meal times, kitchen workers scurry to and fro with pans and food and various other sundry items, under the watchful eye of the aging head cook, but once past, order is restored, with copper-bottomed pans hanging above the kitchen island, and a tray of cold snacks left out for foraging students and staff alike. Folding wood doors screen off a pantry capable of holding food for an large household's weekly meals -- or three days' worth of teenager food.
The grand old house on the hill is strangely quiet, even moreso than is usual for a Sunday night that's now technically Monday morning. With the bulk of the students somewhere in the Adirondacks at the mercy of raccoons, Wolverines, Scotswomen and other fearsome beasts, the background hums and noises are halved, and one can almost, -almost- pretend that this is the school of one's girlhood, if one is Jean Grey.
The young Jean Grey of thirteen would -not- be finding her bed lacking because there is no boyfriend in it, however. The modern Jean Grey has eyes and mind set on coffee and a late-night sandwich, and so, barefoot below street clothes still worn, she appears in the kitchen with a hopeful look for the refirdgerator, and a pair of reading glasses resting forgotten on the crown of her head.
There are people already present, illicit and unaccounted for, if not entirely unexplainable. He is attired in all modesty: his shoes are tied, his shirt is tucked, his jeans are zipped up and fastened. If the shirt is unbuttoned at the throat (a little uneven, that open collar) and betray no undershirt beneath; if the black and silver-shot hair is rumpled enough to suggest a bed and other distractions, well. Mature minds can explain it. Hand on the fridge door, profile etched in electric backwash, Chris Rossi stares into the refrigerator's innards and eyes Canadian beer with longing in his heart.
The mature mind entering the kitchen is possessed of a regrettably juvenile sense of humour at times. But telepathic Jean, even with shields raised high and a trip out to the lake taken, is already well enough aware of the 'why' of Rossi's 'where' to have gotten any juvenile snickerings out of the way earlier. Hopefully. In any case, a suggestion of "Have one, if you want," echoes across the still and gently humming kitchen as Jean leans on the doorframe. Heartfelt longing, meet head-felt emotional resonance, tinged with the sense of hops on the tongue. "I was planning on coffee, since their owner's somewhere in the Adirondacks." Boo.
Chris's glance up is unsurprised, though the harder slant of his mouth -- other thoughts scurry about, beneath the more pressing urge for a drink -- relaxes somewhat at recognition. "Jean," he greets, and leans to claim a bottle. Permission given, he is not behindhand in seizing the opportunity. "Little late for coffee, isn't it? Want something?" He bumps the door a little wider to make room for her. "I see a lot of little tupperware things."
"Eh," A shrug of one lean shoulder accompanies a vocalization stolen from the same source as Rossi's beer. "I'm not sleeping anyways, so I may as well be awake enough to do something useful," is Jean's opinion, delivered with a step over to the fridge as the door swings wide, a brief nod of thanks given for it. "And Madame Vargas has been under orders to see if she can get the food budget down. Leftovers, rather than freshly-made snacks, between meals. But there should be..." Crouching, moving the beer bottle aside, Jean rummages, early hunter-gatherer instincts in fine form. "Right at the back... hah." The mighty Grey hunter has captured sandwich meat. "Want one too?" she asks, of the implied sandwich to be created.
"What is it?" Chris asks, leaning against the door's edge to frown down at the meat. Not waiting for an answer, he decides, "Sure. Why not? Enough there for a couple of sandwiches, anyway. On top of beer--" He straightens and turns back to the rest of the kitchen, reaching up for the first of the cabinets in an attempt to locate plates. Detective logic produces them on the second try. "--Burned a few calories tonight. I could pro-- forget I said that."
NYPD has only the best on their force, clearly. Meat is joined by cheese, is joined by mayonnaise, mustard and bread, and a bag of bulk lettuce leaves. Arms burdened thusly, Jean opts to aquire bread on a second pass, rather than cheat with telekinesis. Left with time to glance over at Rossi before turning for more supplies, she uses it to offer the statement that "I'm sure Ororo would be happy to hear that you're keeping your energy levels up." Her tone innocuous, her expression kindly, Jean ruins both with a sudden flash of a grin en route to the breadbox. "It's good that you two can finally get some time together, though," she admits more seriously.
The man's back, turned, offers only a shrug by way of reply. The mind, more open by fact of fatigue and restlessness, hiccups with dissatisfaction. "Yeah," Chris says, popping the top off his bottle. The cap clatters into the metal sink. He turns back towards Jean, plates balanced in a stack in his arm. "Well. You know how it is with schedules. School keeps her busy, work keeps me busy-- it's rough. Been pretty quiet, as far as these things go. Suppose I shouldn't complain."
"If you did," Jean reflects, snagging a knife in a pass along the countertop towards the island, "I doubt anyone would blame you. Personal life as a snatch-and-grab," she concludes, with a wry quirk of her lips, and an emphatic dealing out of bread slices. "Better than none at all, I guess."
"Yeah," Chris says, his mouth thinning, then relaxing in a swift change of mood. The plates clatter, placed on the kitchen's island, and he leans a hip against it to watch as Jean goes about the business of sandwich assembly. "It could be worse. I remember. Makes me nervous that things are going as well as they are. Keep waiting for the other shoe to drop."
Bread, bread, mayo, mayo, meat, meat, cheese, cheese and a squirt of mustard to top each. Jean is lost in the meditative motions of sandwich creation for a few moments, resurfacing as she reaches for the knife to spread out the mustard in an even layer, little brown flecks of dijon origin suggesting that Madame Vargas' austerity measures will only reach so far when up against her artistic ideals. "I prefer to think of it as you're her reward from Fate for what it's put her through," she reflects. "She's too old for a pony, but I guess she can ride--" A pause. "Forget I said that."
Too late. Courtesy is not returned in kind: Chris grins at Jean, his skin too dark to betray the flush that stains the surface tremor of his thoughts. "Thanks. Always wanted to grow up to be a kid's toy. You got a dirty mind, Grey. Ought to be ashamed. Your Mama teach you to talk with that mouth?" He blows across the mouth of his bottle, a hollow, fluting noise ricocheting across the kitchen, and tips the beer back for a swallow.
"Somewhere in my mother's mind, I'm still a virgin," Jean snorts. "Also engaged to an accountant, and attending church every Sunday." The sandwiches are finished without ceremony and with a large lettuce leaf apiece, shuffled onto plates, and one offered to Rossi along with a considering look. "Exactly how much escaping anything work-related do you have planned for the weekend?"
Green eyes flick a glance towards the kitchen clock. "Weekend's already over," he points out, his voice caught and amplified by the bottle's neck. Registering the vocal change, he lowers the beer to rest on the counter instead, amending, "Your weekend, anyway. I'm off until Tuesday. Things're so quiet lately, they don't need me in for a bit. Supposed to carry a pager tomorrow, though. --You?"
"Cancelled my morning classes because the kids aren't back from the woods 'til noon," Jean reflects, with no small bit of satisfaction. The sandwiches apportioned, she pulls hers towards herself and takes an initial quick bite. "So I can sleep in, and then start making some phonecalls. But I want to pick your brain about something," she admits.
"Yeah?" The word is easy. So is his stance. The mind within, however, wakes to attention, professional paranoia coming to bear on an assortment of possibilities. Chris arches a brow, finally reaching a hand for his sandwich, and lets silence serve for him, expectant.
Jean's initial response is a grimace, inwardly directed along with the admission of "That's an unfortunate turn of phrase. I should probably stop that." She eyes her sandwich. The sandwich, ravaged and full of teeth marks, holds no answers. "Anyways, laws governing telepaths. Practical terms, how could they be made to work?"
Chris smiles briefly at the apology, a flash of something that almost borders on amusement. "Damned if I know," he says frankly. "Unless you got some kind of -- of super-technology to come up with a foolproof way to tell when someone's been messed with. Only kind of law that would work is preventative, I'd think. Probably unconstitutional. Chemical castration, or suppression, something like that."
Jean pales at the final suggestion, although she covers for it with an attempt at a light quip of "NIMBY. Not in my brain, yo," and a smile that falls far short of her eyes and is soon lost in a shake of her head.
"Can't see it happening." Chris shrugs, takes a bite of his sandwich at last, and chews in meditative silence for a moment. Then: "Even pedophiles can't be ordered to undergo chemical castration, and that's reversible. Can't see them allowing lobotomies. Like I said, I don't know how the hell they'd be able to catch people, much less enforce it. No prosecutor would touch it. Look at the statistics on rape, for Chrissake."
"Brain rape," The response is quiet, filled with a deep distaste and a flicker of mingled guilt and ire, and images of both herself and Emma. The barest fringes of emotion leak tangibly from Jean to flatscan minds, before being swiftly retracted when she catches them. "I was thinking... and hell, even -I- know it would be years and years down the road, if it worked," Jean admits, before pausing, and studying Rossi carefully. "Police telepaths."
Chris recoils in his mind, though his body stoically returns to chewing and swallowing, only the slightest flinch of eyes betraying the reaction. "Probably wouldn't work," he says, after another mouthful of both sandwich and beer have made their way down. He turns to lean his elbows on the counter, bracing himself around the plate. "Back to he said she said. Even in a rape, there's evidence. Witnesses. Perps go free where there's reasonable doubt. Can't have a guaranteed, winnable case without physical evidence."
"So, back to square one," Jean reflects, prodding diffidently at a sandwich no longer of interest to her. Silence for a moment, and then a low and hearty "God -damn- it." of frustration.
"Sorry," Chris says, without obvious sincerity. He eats more sandwich, his mind carefully blank, his gaze quizzical on Jean.
"I would like," Jean reflects. "A world where my son isn't going to have to face the level of shit I do just because of what he's got the potential to do." The sandwich is grimaced at. "The problem is that the shit's there for good reason, and there's no real good way to allay those fears within the current laws."
"New laws won't change that," Chris points out. He tosses back another swallow, then puts the bottle on the counter to lean for a paper towel napkin. "We got laws about all sorts of things. Doesn't mean that people in Hell's Kitchen aren't afraid of being shot, or being robbed, or whatever."
"They could be a start," Jean counters, prodding at her sandwich plate with a finger before deciding that eating it is good anyways. "I don't know. The alternative is something like accepting that the law will never be able to handle telepaths, so we'll have to police our own. Not very integrationist."
Chris shrugs. It is not, perhaps, a helpful gesture. "I only enforce the damn things. I don't make them. Don't got the mind for it." His mouth twists into a smile that does not quite reach his eyes. "Ask a lawyer what he'd need to have in order to win a case. Most cops won't be able to do crap about it without reasonable cause, anyway. Kind of guy who'd mess around in another guy's mind isn't the type to register. Need a reason to ask for a DNA sample, and knowing someone's a mutant doesn't prove he messed with someone else, anyway."
Perhaps not. But it is at least a gesture rather than a blank-eyed stare. Nodding slightly at it, Jean eats her sandwich and listens, solemn as a schoolgirl. (Although the ones she teaches never are. Solemn as a large-eyed Alison Beckley, perhaps.) "Lawyer... that's a good idea." she murmurs. "Assuming I can get my lawyer ex to return a phonecall. He's not exactly happy that a seventeen year old didn't tell a twenty one year old she was telepathic, for all he thought the telekinesis was hot--" She pauses, consider, and then waves a hand in lieu of another request to forget.
Chris pauses in mid-chew, his eye blanking while his mind, always active, works on why a 21-year old man would find telekinesis hot. It takes only a moment. He starts to chew again. And then swallows. "Cadbury," he says slowly, and peels off a strip of bread for no obvious reason whatsoever. His gaze wanders across the kitchen. "She's--" he clears his throat. "--hot."
"Yes," Jean agrees, with the comfortable certainty of a very straight but very close friend. "She is. And you make her happy." She eats her sandwich.
Chris's ears turn a little red. The rest of him does not. He eats stolidly. "Yeah?" he says at last, and if his mind is attentive, yanking hopefully at the lure, the rest of him is sober and grown-up enough not to show it. Do tell! Do! "That's nice. She's good company." Among other things.
Other things indeed. "You're good for her, too," Jean reflects, head tipped to one side consideringly. "You take her places, out away from our little world here. You make her laugh. God," she pauses, but this time with a laugh in her voice. "You make her have -fun-. She'll -let- herself have fun with you. I missed seeing that Ororo around."
"Not a lot of fun being a schoolteacher," Chris guesses, with a question in the statement. He puts his sandwich down, finishes the last of his beer, and straightens, turning his back on the plate to brace himself with his arms. He frowns a bit at the cupboards. "Or in the poodle gig?"
"It doesn't really seem right, getting a laugh out of some of the situations we end up in," Jean points out, with a wry half-smile. "Satisfaction of a job well done, at the end. Occasionally, we even get to strike daring blows against the forces of evil," she shares, with a self-deprecating touch of dramatics. "Maybe we should start a Dumb Perp pool like you boys down at the station."
"Seem to remember that superheroes fought supervillains, in the comics," Chris remarks, attempting to smooth down his hair with a hand. It defies order, puffing out again almost as soon as he has settled it down: it is bed head with a vengeance. Unaware, he lets it be, confident in his delusions of its obedience. "You guys have the Brotherhood. Now that Magneto's not in charge -- they've been pretty quiet, lately. What're you guys doing lately? Government gigs?"
"If you want to see Ororo in skintight spandex, that's something I don't need to know about," Jean banters back, charitably declining to comment on the hair. "And... not really sure. Mystique's his likely replacement, and she's old-school intel, from what little we have on her. Pyro and Sabretooth keep popping up, but they're hard to track. Charles would know more on that," she reflects. "I've been tracking anti-mutant groups, myself."
Chris stiffens. Erik's image etches itself in acid against his mind; on top of that, just as hasty, comes the memory of-- "Anything on the Friends?" --Leah. Green eyes focus on Jean, attentive without optimism.
"Ever since 'Prime' was out of the picture, the New York chapters have been pretty leaderless," Jean offers up. "There are some signs of regrouping from the Harlem chapter -- turns out one of their lower-level grunts actually has some brains to go with his gonads and strife. There was an incident with a young girl..."
Do tell. Chris's forehead wrinkles; his brows lower, darkening the intelligent gaze. "Incident. Christ. There are a million incidents with young girls. Got to narrow it down for me a little. Something I know about? Or is it just ... something?"
"Litte girl manifested at eleven. Early, but not unheard of," Jean summarizes, pushing aside a sandwich reduced to crusts and a blot of mustard on the plate. There is -business-. "Elena Juarez, who got very sick and then recovered to find herself with no external ears and a set of snake fangs. Non-venomous. Her family got hasseled on a trip to the Zoo, as Nate and I were there too. I suggested they try talking with MA, but they didn't want the trouble. I'm thinking maybe mom or dad Juarez's visas aren't so much in order as non-existant, so..." Her lips twist, but she eventually shrugs, and lets the immigration debate lie untouched on for the night. "Anyways, I did a little digging based off of what I saw, and lo and behold, FoH ties."
"Beautiful," Chris says, in the way a man does when he means exactly the opposite. He stretches cautiously over the edge of the counter, rolling his head, cracking knuckles as though realizing only belatedly that he has risen from a comfortable bed. "Her family? Or the people harassing her? Illegal immigrants, I'm technically supposed to report. Technically."
"The people harassing her -- crap, it's late," Jean reflects on her lack of articulation. "And if you -want- to, well... it's your duty," she reflects still more, albeit on a different subject. The beer bottle is eyed consideringly, but only for a moment. "But that's why MA hasn't gotten a formal report. Not until I can come up with some evidence that doesn't involve dragging the Juarez family to the INS."
Chris hesitates, then shrugs, absolving himself of responsibility in an agreed, "It's late. Can't promise things. Only the DA's office can." He turns back to the bottle (empty) and the plate (almost empty) to take up the last quarter of his sandwich. "Up to you if you want to get them in on it before you report anything. Me, I'm just here to hang out with my girlfriend for a little while. And listen to hypotheticals." Green eyes slant, glancing at Jean. "Right?"
"Entirely hypothetical," Jean agrees, with a slant of her own green eyes at an opposite angle, and a crook of her mouth to match. "You're off work 'til Tuesday. I'd never bother you on vacation like that."
"Nice of you," Chris says, and unaccountably, his ears turn a little pink again. He coughs into the back of his hand while his mind does embarrassing things with memory and the last few hours. And, of course, Ororo. And himself. And fuck, telepath. "Anyway, things haven't been as busy lately for me," he says hastily, "so it's all good. Brass thinks I've gone native, so they're pulling me off of a lot of the bigger MA stuff. This keeps up, I'll be some sort of desk-driving community liaison suit and that'll be that."
"Oh -God-," says the telepath, turning a little pink herself, as her eyes disfocus and hasty mental shields are thrown to the skies. "I didn't need to see-- -God-." Best friends do not need to know this! Jean shakes herself and rises, clutching her sandwich plate with care. "Rossi," she informs. "You are very good for my best friend. I am going to go sit in Cerebro for a couple hours. What happens in them will be something I will never, ever be subjected to knowing about."
Chris says, "Ack," and his mind, slipping out of discipline's reach, spins in a dervish whirl that sheds still more graphic imagery to the telepathic winds. He drops his face in his hand, eyes closing, heat rising under skin. "Fuck. Fuck fuck. Fuck. I'm going to--" He jerks a thumb towards the door and starts for it, only to double back for the emptied plate, only to hesitate over cleanup. "You didn't see that."
"I've got the telepathic equivalent of cotton in my ears for any new stuff, and I'm busily repressing what -did- get through," Jean assures, dropping her bread crusts in a compost bucket, and sliding her plate into the dishwasher. "And... Cerebro. 'Night." It may not be the most dignified thing to say of Dr. Grey, but it must be said: after the final farewell, Jean flees.
Still burning -- only Jean or an abruptly discomfited Charles Xavier could say with what -- Chris sets himself to cleaning up after himself. Water hisses. Glass clanks. And then, in the silence of the kitchen, a suddenly thoughtful baritone says, "Cerebro?"
From the hallway comes a final answer: "It's a big, round room." The mysteries of Xavier house spin ever deeper.
[Log ends]
Thirsty work! Chris runs into Jean in the kitchen, and the two of them talk of stuff. She makes him a sandwich. He embarrasses her. You're welcome.