10/27/06 - Tyler
---
=XS= Library - Lv 1 - Xavier's School
Light from bay windows gleams off glossy plastic dust jackets snugged over an assortment of old books, while volumes less delicate peek out from high oak bookshelves in a multicolored array of bindings and sizes. Stretching twelve feet high, ladders on rolling tracks are needed for access to the highest shelves, bearing the oldest books. On lower shelves, the bright colours of paperbacks catch the eye, along with binders of academic journals. A few marble busts compete with the potted plants scattered here and there to rid the room of any qualities of stagnation and Victorian must, Long wooden tables serve as group work spaces, or even teaching space in a pinch, but the majority of the furniture consists of comfortable armchairs and overstuffed sofas, with coffee tables in position for tired feet or coffee cups. The darkness of the wood panelling and the rich green carpeting is relieved further by a plethora of reading lamps, lighting the room where the tall windows leave off. Around a corner narrowed by two offices, doors lead out of the genteel history of the library and into the cool future of the main computer lab.
There is a chill in the library, an atmospheric strain that has nothing to do with the weather outside the walls. The air is tight; it hums through the skin, raising hair and tightening muscles across in the napes of necks. By the far wall, Charles Xavier sits in solitary meditation, hands curled around the arms of his chair and gaze distant through the curtain-framed windows.
Tyler walks into the library, making barely a sound. A frequent past-time of his, he comes here not to pick out a book but for the quiet to read something of his own. He makes a quick scan around the area for a isolated place but stops on the figure of Xavier. He hasn't seen the professor all that much, never even talked to the man before, and it's a bit off putting. Some of the students talk about him as if he's a rock star or something.
Not a rock star, this aging man. The strong face with its general's sternness has loosened with age, the skin sagging at jowls and neck, and dark shadows hollow the deep-set eyes. The long-fingered hands are wreathed with veins, pulses of blue under parchment, liver-spotted skin. Strain deepens with proximity to the master of Xavier House. The very air prickles the closer one comes.
Tyler gazes at the telepath for a moment, worried about the complete lack of movement, then approaches while making sure to be extra quiet. It's just that type of mood in the library and any second he expects someone to pop out and shush him for making a bit too much noise. He gets closer, and shivers, a nonexistant draft making his hair stand on end. He comes to a stop about five feet from the turned back of the professor, and hesitates before opening his mouth to ask a question. "Sir, are- are you okay?"
The reflection of Professor Xavier in the window barely stirs, the slightest turn of head reshaping shadow around the face in a blue-tinged mask. Eyes darkened by the night outside find the image of Tyler set in the glass. Power curls in on itself; strain bleeds slowly out of the air, reeled in by restraint. "Tyler Evans," says the rich, cultured voice. "What do you see?"
Tyler bites his lip nervously, there's a few things he could really use someone to talk to about but it wasn't what he originally came in here for. "I just- I just wanted to make sure you were okay." Okay, that sounded dumber than it did in his head, but he was worried. And un-mutation related sixth sense type thing that formed because of his mother's epilepsy, he could normally tell when someone was feeling off. "Sitting here by yourself and everything..." He trails off, voice getting quieter and feeling a bit awkward.
"It seems a time for sitting by oneself, Mr. Evans," Xavier says with a dry note to the deep baritone. His head turns further; the keen gaze turns to Tyler and considers him, sober, stern attention weighing the young man both inside and out. One of the graceful hands gestures to the window and their faded doppelgangers reflected there against the library's light. Through their figures, the world outside is only a dim memory of what it is in daylight. "What do you see?"
Tyler moves closer to Xavier and the window, looking out of it and past the light's glare. The professor practically demanded respect without effort and he wasn't going to treat the question with a sarcastic answer, which he would have done had anyone else asked him the question. "Well the sky, some faint stars and the grounds mostly." He answers after a moment or two of focus on the outside, trying to make out shapes in the dark with barely squinting hazel eyes.
The Professor's lips firm, slanting towards a grim line that drags still darker shadows into the corners of his mouth. "A literal answer," he observes, the free hand dropping again to the wheelchair's arm. His gaze returns to the window, meeting the steady, unblinking study of his twin. "Time moves too quickly. Far too quickly. What happens next, Mr. Evans?"
Tyler turns away from the window and gives his attention to the professor, then slides his hands into his pockets, feeling a bit cold. "With what sir?" Tyler asks in return, he can't very well answer the question without knowing what it's /about/. "Time? I can't see the future. Not my mutation." He attempts to joke, his answer a guess as to what Xavier was asking about. "But with President Lowe's death and everything, I don't need to be able to see the future to know it probably won't be all that good."
Xavier's reflection regards Tyler, eyes glimmering pale sparks through the hollowing of darkness. Light licks a crown across the sculpted skull. "Do you have hope, young Tyler?"
Tyler answers with a nod of his head followed by a shrug, marking him as conflicted. He sighs and looks down at his feet as he answers Xavier. "I guess- well... most of the time. It can't stay this bad, has to get better eventually I think," he pauses, "I hope."
"Hope," Xavier says, his carriage erect in the frame of his chair. The mellow voice deepens; the telepath's fingers open, splaying to cast a wavering shadow across the tailored pants. "/Hope/. It will be your generation's turn soon. What will you do with this world we give you?"
Tyler know's better than to 'avoid the truth' with a telepath, so tries to answer as best he can, drawing in a deep breath before starting. "Well, it's not in the best of shapes. I guess we do what people like you and Dr. Grey and other people try and do, try our best to make it better." He frowns down at his feet where his eyes are still focused, the idea vastly more complicated than it sounds aloud, if even possible.
"Do we?" Xavier asks with a wry note in the accent. Fingers touch tips in a basket across the lap; the expensive lines of his suit fold with the gesture, dark blue threads picked out against the grey. "And do we succeed, do you think?"
Tyler finally looks up from his feet and shrugs again. It seems to be a common motion in this conversation, much more confusing and thoughtful than the ones with other students. "You do your best I think." He says quietly and glances around the library before continuing, "Mutant school? Very good idea, it's helped a lot of people." Outting it he's not too sure about. Tyler tenses as the thought flits across his mind, red rising to the surface on his face in a faint blush.
A hand lifts. Opens, palm up, to show the small stripes of scars long gone: a hand that has labored, though it is an academic's work now that leaves its small calluses on the aging joints. "An old friend told me once that only men who live in the dark need fear it. Do you think, like your classmates, that it was not my decision to make?"
Again, no chance of lying about his answer. The words he wants to say are already forming in his head so he replies completely truthfully. "As a student, I'm angry. My parents and my brother have suspicions now, and I hate lying to them. But I'm terrified to tell them the truth. On an /outside/ view of the decision though, it was a good idea- inevitable, but maybe could have come at a better time." He nervously fiddles with some lint in the bottom of his right pocket, wishing there was someway to guard his thoughts. "It kinda got stuck right there in the middle of the accusations against President Lowe, and the black out, and then Lowe's death. People were already angry and scared about things, and the fact that there's a mutant school sitting right here in New York didn't help."
"We can none of us see the future," the Professor says quietly, dropping his hand to the control panel on the wheelchair's arm. It whispers into life to move back from the window. Curtains stir in the wake of his passage. "At some point, Tyler, it is enough to simply stand in the open and say to the world, 'this is who I am. This is what I am. Make of it what you will.' We were not put on this earth to always take the easy path."
Tyler nods thoughtfully, the statement sounding vaguely familiar somehow. "Honestly? I could probably deal with the rest of the world knowing that I'm probably a mutant among other things. It'd take a while, but I'd get used to it. But even considering telling my mom and dad what I really am scares the sh-" Tyler dislodges a hand from his right pocket and raises it to cover a well placed cough, remembering just who he's with, "-heck out of me. It actually matters to me what they think."
Professor Xavier's chair pauses on its way towards the door, his head half-turning to acknowledge Tyler. "If they matter to you, perhaps they deserve the privilege of hearing the truth from you," he says, the rich accent grave. "You are as much their son now as you were before you discovered your powers."
Tyler has to smile bitterly at that, clearly not believing it for a moment. "Yes, I'm sure that the day I was born my parents looked down at me with loving eyes and caring hearts just knowing I'd be a little firestarter." He shrugs and shoves his hand back down into his right pocket roughly. "I mean, what kind of parents don't want a child who can set them on fire with a thought?" He clamps his mouth shut, blushing a deep red, and decides to start trying to 'think loud' like Walter recommended for reaching a telepath. << Sorry. >>
The telepath's head inclines, light fading gold where it touches the ridge of shadow on his face. << There is a saying, Mr. Evans. Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is. >>
Tyler calms down quickly and thinks about the saying for a second. He replies to Xavier aloud, still getting used to the whole telepath thing and having someone else's voice in his head. "So... you're saying that my fear of it is making it into a bigger deal than it really is. Probably." He allows, and abruptly smiles at the telepath, "That should be the school motto or something. Normal people see mutants at wolves and their fear makes us seem much more dangerous than we actually are."
"There are times," says Professor Xavier, the warm nap of his baritone darkening to a more somber color, "when it is not humanity's fear of mutants that is the dangerous one." Another nod, the briefest tip of acknowledgment, and the telepath turns his face forward. The wheelchair hums towards the lobby beyond. "Good night, Mr. Evans."
Tyler furrows his brow, never having thought of it that way and nods back to the man absently, another brief smile making it's way across his face as Xavier leaves. "Night professor." He stays put though, still planning on looking for that isolated places he came here for. Not for reading this time, but thinking, and he has quite a lot to think about.
[Log ends]
Xavier emerges from Cerebro at last, and Tyler comes across him in the library.
=XS= Library - Lv 1 - Xavier's School
Light from bay windows gleams off glossy plastic dust jackets snugged over an assortment of old books, while volumes less delicate peek out from high oak bookshelves in a multicolored array of bindings and sizes. Stretching twelve feet high, ladders on rolling tracks are needed for access to the highest shelves, bearing the oldest books. On lower shelves, the bright colours of paperbacks catch the eye, along with binders of academic journals. A few marble busts compete with the potted plants scattered here and there to rid the room of any qualities of stagnation and Victorian must, Long wooden tables serve as group work spaces, or even teaching space in a pinch, but the majority of the furniture consists of comfortable armchairs and overstuffed sofas, with coffee tables in position for tired feet or coffee cups. The darkness of the wood panelling and the rich green carpeting is relieved further by a plethora of reading lamps, lighting the room where the tall windows leave off. Around a corner narrowed by two offices, doors lead out of the genteel history of the library and into the cool future of the main computer lab.
There is a chill in the library, an atmospheric strain that has nothing to do with the weather outside the walls. The air is tight; it hums through the skin, raising hair and tightening muscles across in the napes of necks. By the far wall, Charles Xavier sits in solitary meditation, hands curled around the arms of his chair and gaze distant through the curtain-framed windows.
Tyler walks into the library, making barely a sound. A frequent past-time of his, he comes here not to pick out a book but for the quiet to read something of his own. He makes a quick scan around the area for a isolated place but stops on the figure of Xavier. He hasn't seen the professor all that much, never even talked to the man before, and it's a bit off putting. Some of the students talk about him as if he's a rock star or something.
Not a rock star, this aging man. The strong face with its general's sternness has loosened with age, the skin sagging at jowls and neck, and dark shadows hollow the deep-set eyes. The long-fingered hands are wreathed with veins, pulses of blue under parchment, liver-spotted skin. Strain deepens with proximity to the master of Xavier House. The very air prickles the closer one comes.
Tyler gazes at the telepath for a moment, worried about the complete lack of movement, then approaches while making sure to be extra quiet. It's just that type of mood in the library and any second he expects someone to pop out and shush him for making a bit too much noise. He gets closer, and shivers, a nonexistant draft making his hair stand on end. He comes to a stop about five feet from the turned back of the professor, and hesitates before opening his mouth to ask a question. "Sir, are- are you okay?"
The reflection of Professor Xavier in the window barely stirs, the slightest turn of head reshaping shadow around the face in a blue-tinged mask. Eyes darkened by the night outside find the image of Tyler set in the glass. Power curls in on itself; strain bleeds slowly out of the air, reeled in by restraint. "Tyler Evans," says the rich, cultured voice. "What do you see?"
Tyler bites his lip nervously, there's a few things he could really use someone to talk to about but it wasn't what he originally came in here for. "I just- I just wanted to make sure you were okay." Okay, that sounded dumber than it did in his head, but he was worried. And un-mutation related sixth sense type thing that formed because of his mother's epilepsy, he could normally tell when someone was feeling off. "Sitting here by yourself and everything..." He trails off, voice getting quieter and feeling a bit awkward.
"It seems a time for sitting by oneself, Mr. Evans," Xavier says with a dry note to the deep baritone. His head turns further; the keen gaze turns to Tyler and considers him, sober, stern attention weighing the young man both inside and out. One of the graceful hands gestures to the window and their faded doppelgangers reflected there against the library's light. Through their figures, the world outside is only a dim memory of what it is in daylight. "What do you see?"
Tyler moves closer to Xavier and the window, looking out of it and past the light's glare. The professor practically demanded respect without effort and he wasn't going to treat the question with a sarcastic answer, which he would have done had anyone else asked him the question. "Well the sky, some faint stars and the grounds mostly." He answers after a moment or two of focus on the outside, trying to make out shapes in the dark with barely squinting hazel eyes.
The Professor's lips firm, slanting towards a grim line that drags still darker shadows into the corners of his mouth. "A literal answer," he observes, the free hand dropping again to the wheelchair's arm. His gaze returns to the window, meeting the steady, unblinking study of his twin. "Time moves too quickly. Far too quickly. What happens next, Mr. Evans?"
Tyler turns away from the window and gives his attention to the professor, then slides his hands into his pockets, feeling a bit cold. "With what sir?" Tyler asks in return, he can't very well answer the question without knowing what it's /about/. "Time? I can't see the future. Not my mutation." He attempts to joke, his answer a guess as to what Xavier was asking about. "But with President Lowe's death and everything, I don't need to be able to see the future to know it probably won't be all that good."
Xavier's reflection regards Tyler, eyes glimmering pale sparks through the hollowing of darkness. Light licks a crown across the sculpted skull. "Do you have hope, young Tyler?"
Tyler answers with a nod of his head followed by a shrug, marking him as conflicted. He sighs and looks down at his feet as he answers Xavier. "I guess- well... most of the time. It can't stay this bad, has to get better eventually I think," he pauses, "I hope."
"Hope," Xavier says, his carriage erect in the frame of his chair. The mellow voice deepens; the telepath's fingers open, splaying to cast a wavering shadow across the tailored pants. "/Hope/. It will be your generation's turn soon. What will you do with this world we give you?"
Tyler know's better than to 'avoid the truth' with a telepath, so tries to answer as best he can, drawing in a deep breath before starting. "Well, it's not in the best of shapes. I guess we do what people like you and Dr. Grey and other people try and do, try our best to make it better." He frowns down at his feet where his eyes are still focused, the idea vastly more complicated than it sounds aloud, if even possible.
"Do we?" Xavier asks with a wry note in the accent. Fingers touch tips in a basket across the lap; the expensive lines of his suit fold with the gesture, dark blue threads picked out against the grey. "And do we succeed, do you think?"
Tyler finally looks up from his feet and shrugs again. It seems to be a common motion in this conversation, much more confusing and thoughtful than the ones with other students. "You do your best I think." He says quietly and glances around the library before continuing, "Mutant school? Very good idea, it's helped a lot of people." Outting it he's not too sure about. Tyler tenses as the thought flits across his mind, red rising to the surface on his face in a faint blush.
A hand lifts. Opens, palm up, to show the small stripes of scars long gone: a hand that has labored, though it is an academic's work now that leaves its small calluses on the aging joints. "An old friend told me once that only men who live in the dark need fear it. Do you think, like your classmates, that it was not my decision to make?"
Again, no chance of lying about his answer. The words he wants to say are already forming in his head so he replies completely truthfully. "As a student, I'm angry. My parents and my brother have suspicions now, and I hate lying to them. But I'm terrified to tell them the truth. On an /outside/ view of the decision though, it was a good idea- inevitable, but maybe could have come at a better time." He nervously fiddles with some lint in the bottom of his right pocket, wishing there was someway to guard his thoughts. "It kinda got stuck right there in the middle of the accusations against President Lowe, and the black out, and then Lowe's death. People were already angry and scared about things, and the fact that there's a mutant school sitting right here in New York didn't help."
"We can none of us see the future," the Professor says quietly, dropping his hand to the control panel on the wheelchair's arm. It whispers into life to move back from the window. Curtains stir in the wake of his passage. "At some point, Tyler, it is enough to simply stand in the open and say to the world, 'this is who I am. This is what I am. Make of it what you will.' We were not put on this earth to always take the easy path."
Tyler nods thoughtfully, the statement sounding vaguely familiar somehow. "Honestly? I could probably deal with the rest of the world knowing that I'm probably a mutant among other things. It'd take a while, but I'd get used to it. But even considering telling my mom and dad what I really am scares the sh-" Tyler dislodges a hand from his right pocket and raises it to cover a well placed cough, remembering just who he's with, "-heck out of me. It actually matters to me what they think."
Professor Xavier's chair pauses on its way towards the door, his head half-turning to acknowledge Tyler. "If they matter to you, perhaps they deserve the privilege of hearing the truth from you," he says, the rich accent grave. "You are as much their son now as you were before you discovered your powers."
Tyler has to smile bitterly at that, clearly not believing it for a moment. "Yes, I'm sure that the day I was born my parents looked down at me with loving eyes and caring hearts just knowing I'd be a little firestarter." He shrugs and shoves his hand back down into his right pocket roughly. "I mean, what kind of parents don't want a child who can set them on fire with a thought?" He clamps his mouth shut, blushing a deep red, and decides to start trying to 'think loud' like Walter recommended for reaching a telepath. << Sorry. >>
The telepath's head inclines, light fading gold where it touches the ridge of shadow on his face. << There is a saying, Mr. Evans. Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is. >>
Tyler calms down quickly and thinks about the saying for a second. He replies to Xavier aloud, still getting used to the whole telepath thing and having someone else's voice in his head. "So... you're saying that my fear of it is making it into a bigger deal than it really is. Probably." He allows, and abruptly smiles at the telepath, "That should be the school motto or something. Normal people see mutants at wolves and their fear makes us seem much more dangerous than we actually are."
"There are times," says Professor Xavier, the warm nap of his baritone darkening to a more somber color, "when it is not humanity's fear of mutants that is the dangerous one." Another nod, the briefest tip of acknowledgment, and the telepath turns his face forward. The wheelchair hums towards the lobby beyond. "Good night, Mr. Evans."
Tyler furrows his brow, never having thought of it that way and nods back to the man absently, another brief smile making it's way across his face as Xavier leaves. "Night professor." He stays put though, still planning on looking for that isolated places he came here for. Not for reading this time, but thinking, and he has quite a lot to think about.
[Log ends]
Xavier emerges from Cerebro at last, and Tyler comes across him in the library.