12/2/07 - Jean
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=XS= Living Room - Lv 1 - Xavier's School
Despite the rich Victorian reds of the walls and the dark colour of the hardwood half panelling, large floor to ceiling windows brighten the room into something warm and inviting. Several couches are present here: one faces a flatscreen TV set recessed into the wall, along with an armchair or two for individuals, while the others form conversation circles in other corners, complete with coffee and end tables. Against the walls are tall and leafy plants, predominantly ferns but with a ficus lurking in one corner. The the central unifying feature of the room is a large fieldstone fireplace with the windows to each side of it. French doors lead to the hallway, mated across the way by matching ones from the rec room.
Jean, meet ficus. Ficus, Jean. The poor longsuffering plant appears to have been on the receiving end of some student either bored or exhuberant and not yet -entirely- in control of their frost generating abilities. There are yellow leaves. It droops. Jean is surreptitiously trying to strip the dead leaves and take them away before a certain plant mutant now working as an overprotective gardener happens through.
Foregone conclusion: where there is trouble, there is supervisory adult. Overkill, in this particular instance; the Professor's wheelchair steers past the living room, then reverses to pause in the doorway. The polished scalp gleams. Deep-set eyes observe. "Is that Mr. Jameson's doing?"
"Mmmhm," Jean replies, tucking another fallen soldier of the chlorophyll army into the neat stack being collected on one palm. "He's currently gone to hide from the wrath of Averillix. I think some of the other students may have been exaggerating old stories." Rising and stepping back, she studies the ficus, and finds it somewhat naked, but likely, to her non-botanist's eye, to survive.
As usual, the mention of that particular member of the gardening staff draws a blankness across Xavier's face, a curtain that does not extend to the wise old mind behind it. A twitch of exasperation; a deliberate mantle of patience: "Exaggeration is not entirely necessary. Given the young man in question, we should be grateful it was only a plant." And an unrewarding specimen of a plant, at that. He turns the chair into the living room to regard the ficus without favor. "I miss Ororo."
Given the time of year, there is a slow-burning fire in the hearth, although no stockings have yet appeared. The leaves are thus cremated, and Jean turns to warm her flank near the flames, and to favour Xavier with a small smile and a smaller nod. "Me too," she admits. "I know she's over there doing good and meaningful work... but I miss her."
"The level of sanity in the building plummets when she's absent," says Xavier. He is in a mood to be cranky about her. Annoyance and the sense of her absence plucks at his deep, British voice, tugging dissatisfaction out of beauty to redrape it, askew. "I'm of half a mind to summon her back, regardless. The other issue seems far more urgent, given the grand scheme of things, and we have been making very little progress-- although it's difficult to see what she could contribute," he allows with resignation. "Perhaps it's premature. Xorn does not eat potato chips, were you aware?"
"More minds equal more ideas," Jean offers, turning from the fire as it warms her flank a bit too -much-, and instead stepping over to claim a couch near to the wheelchair and its lord and master. "And Hank is running some calculations, but we've all of us come to the conclusion that what we need to do is introduce Forge to NASA, the better to come up with a spacecraft capable of getting us there and back."
Xavier does not /quite/ wince. "I had been prepared for the possibility," he says, cradling his head in the palm of his hand before straightening again with the air of one resigned to inevitability. However disastrous. "It seems the most rational course of action. However, it will hardly solve the matter. Still, it's a start, provided Forge has an -- ethical monitor, so to speak. We can discuss it later. I do not believe I have the stomach for it right at this point in time."
"Indeed," Jean agrees, going mildly pale about the lips after a moment's thought about an unchecked Forge with access to part of a trillion dollar budget. "Otherwise we'll end up with a Death Star being pointed at the offending space rock... and you're right," she reins herself away from the subject. "I decided to try out indoor gardening as an excuse to get away from things. But Xorn doesn't eat potato chips? Lack of interest, or lack of ability?"
"Lack of interest," Xavier says gravely, his mouth curling up at the corners in a faint, if fleeting, smile at the diversion. "Or so I surmise, given that we did not actually make the attempt. He is an entertaining gentleman, I admit. I suspect he has more of a sense of humor than is readily apparent to the eye, if you will pardon the phrase. I sometimes wonder if he is not somehow pulling my leg."
"I think he must be, on some level," Jean murmurs, a light gleaming in her eye and a smile touching her lips brougth about as much out of delight at Xavier's amusement as out of her own. "It would fit with the traditional Slavic sense of humour, in any case."
Xavier says with wry satisfaction, "/Traditional/ is not a word that suits Xorn, in any case. What do you make of him?" Committed now to conversation, he steers his chair further in, angled towards the fire and the heat -- more representational than real -- it casts.
"I..." And Jean is at a loss for words, a laugh bubbling up as she admits that "I don't actually know." Hands on her lap after a brief excursion to run through her hair and tuck it behind her ears, she reflects that "Part of it is probably the complete mental blank spot he creates. But he seems to be a good teacher, and he's either very unused to social situations, or quite used to them and teasing me, when we've interacted."
"It is hard to say which, isn't it?" Xavier asks, his pleasure at the puzzle patent. He rubs his hands over the heat (or the mystery) with a twinkle in the wise old eyes that borders on the whimsical. "I find him curiously restful, I confess. If Ororo returns, I am thinking of asking him to stay on. We were sorely stretched as it was to begin with; the addition of another teacher, particularly now that the students have grown accustomed to him, seems like a prudent move."
Eyes flicked shut against the heat of a fire felt more in hope than in fact, Jean admits that "There -is- the nice part of not having to worry about shielding this, or screening that." She opens them again at the suggestion, and echoes the "If...?" before nodding to the substance of it, at least. "Have you heard anything that suggests she might not come back?"
"Nothing of the sort," Xavier says, closing his hands again and depositing them on his lap with a prosaic, "'If' referring to the end of the school year, in fact. It seems hard on Xorn to be jettisoned without preamble if Ororo /should/ choose to return before the school year is over -- and there is a level of uncertainty in our commitment to him that I confess I do not like. Offering him a more permanent position should, at any rate, alleviate any anxieties on his part and ensure us his presence even if Ororo chooses to remain on in Africa."
"Ah," says Jean, body language relieved even if her tone is as mild as ever. To an alert mind, the easing of the mental scape is all the more pronounced. "Well, that certainly makes sense. With Jareth not up for renewal, and Ms. Sage having had something a little less than staying power, we can't afford to get rid of a good teacher anyways."
Xavier says with great exasperation, "Technopaths." It has the emphasis of a curse, if without the obscenity of one. He adds more temperately, "It seems to go in waves. Only a few short years ago, it was plant mutations that were causing us difficulties. Whatever Xorn's issues are, he is an excellent teacher, and I have yet to find a schoolgirl come out of his bedroom wearing nothing but his shirt. Low as my standards may be, I consider these admirable qualities in the man."
"To be fair, Alyssa had graduated," Jean murmurs, in the interests of greatest accuracy. "Which is the only reason he's still -here-. But... one wonders what will be next. Shapeshifters?" she proposes, in amused and idle speculation. "But yes, Xorn seems nicely resistant to baser appetites, so far. Also to potato chips."
"I regret the potato chips," Xavier muses. He holds out his hands to the fire again, leeching warmth into old bones. "I admit I would have been tickled to watch him consume them."
"Will Xorn Eat It?" Jean proclaims, in the tones of some 1960s television announcer. "Perhaps we could use that as a school fundraiser... Xorn willing, of course."
Xavier observes, "'Xorn willing' has an ominous similarity to the phrase 'God willing.' Deus ex machina aside--" There can be only one, bald-headed and wry, "--I rather like the man. I have been considering giving him access to the lower levels, and perhaps applying his mind to the...." His eyes flick up, towards the high ceiling and beyond.
"Well, he already has access to the staff room. He must know there's more beyond it, given the configuration of the doors," Jean muses, wriggling a foot out of one comfortable penny loafer and proffering it towards the fireplace. Toes, nearly bare beneath a sheer stocking, wriggle still more as the heat reaches for them. "Not that that has anything to do with anything. But more minds on it can't hurt. And I trust that you got his background well checked out when you hired him, so the government shouldn't get too squirrelly."
"I did a thorough background check," Xavier says with great dignity. "As did our lawyers. His references are unimpeachable, and his credentials likewise. We are not using him to the full extent of his abilities, in fact. If Ororo does return, there are any number of other subjects we could ask him to take on, to the benefit of the entire student body. Also," he adds in a resumption of his former, more conversational manner, "he is quite good company." Which is to say: he lets Chuck talk. A lot.
"Restful, surely," Jean suggests, with a little amused shiver across the surface of her mind that suggests she might be guessing at that criteria herself. "But it -would- be nice to have another Jack of All Trades on the teaching roster. Hank and I can juggle sciences and dead languages between ourselves, but get one problem that needs all biochemists on deck, and we're swamped."
Xavier says with aplomb, "We are agreed, then." An issue that asked for no vote, and yet is stamped willy-nilly with the approval of one, census untaken. He retrieves his hands and settles them on the arms of his chair again, satisfaction wisping across the surface of his mind. "I will have the lawyers draw up a formal offer. This should please some of the students as well -- I know some of them have grown rather attached to him, in their own curious ways."
Jean admits, with a chuckle, that "I'm not so sure they don't view him as some sort of strange pet. But he keeps order in his classroom, at least so far as I've seen. I have to keep telling Nate he's not allowed to ask Professor Xorn to take his face off, though." A slight sigh accompanies this, for all it's tinged with amusement. Four year olds.
Professor Xavier, who is older than four and yet struggles with the same compulsion, simply looks studiously blank. "Has he?"
"Four year olds," Jean says aloud. "Are -curious-. Also, he's met Jonothan Starsmore."
"Has Jonothan Starsmore removed his face?"
"No, but he could remove his bandages that he keeps on it," Jean reports. "Thus, clearly, a metal containment is the same as bandages, and Nate has a rather skewed sense of what's strange, from growing up here." There's a proud maternal smile as she says this, though. Jean, it might be suspected, doesn't so much mind the strange.
Xavier says, thoughtfully, "I should ask Forge to look into the mechanics of Xorn's headpiece. Perhaps there is a way to make it less -- off-putting. Cosmetic mechanics, as it were." He looks intrigued. "Although perhaps I should ask Xorn, first."
"He might like it the way it is now," Jean agrees, with a crook of one corner of her mouth. "You have to admit, it's quite, um, striking."
"Mm." Xavier spiders his hand across his chair's wheel. "Difficult to know what motivates him." The thought is, perversely, quite cheering.
Jean's other loafer joins the first, and there are soon two sets of toes stretching out to warm themselves as she sits up in her seat. "Refreshing, hm?"
"Quite. I had never really considered how liberating it is, although the converse also holds true." Cryptic, that. He moves on regardless. "And how is Mr. Starsmore of late? Have you heard much from him?"
"Not... too much," Jean admits. "He tends to flit in and out, and I think is half afraid to be caught with the kids following him around, 'lest it come out that he actually likes working with youth, and thus damage his rep."
'Rep.' There are times when Xavier is deliberately obtuse. "I beg your pardon?"
"Rep," Jean repeats for Xavier's edification. "Reputation, but you really have to use the slang when talking about Jono Starsmore."
"Ah," says Xavier. "His rep." And then he makes a gang sign: both hands make the shorthand ASL for 'I love you' and tip in towards each other, as though the extended fingers intend to touch. He is very serious about it. It is a little bit horrible.
Jean observes in frozen fascination, staring for a long moment as if caught between laughter and terror. And a sudden desire for a cup of tea to make the world make sense. "...I think I missed that particular gang," she settles on, faintly.
"I saw it on television," the Professor offers, untangling his fingers to regard them with dispassionate curiosity, as though they are alien artifacts utterly unrelated to him. They pass inspection. He wraps them around the arms of his chair again to level a benevolent gaze on Jean. "Modern programming is utterly devoid of wit, grace, charm, and soul. Although I must say that the dialogue is far more realistic and the standards of acting and special effects far above what I remember from my youth."
"There are shows with charm and soul," Jean demurs, with a warm smile turned upon mentor-colleague-father figure. "They just seem to all get cancelled because they can't compete with reality television... and did I tell you about the call I got from a producer just the other day?" she wonders, reminded of something that brings an amused snort to life.
"A producer of theater?" Xavier asks, almost hopefully. He has a soft spot for theater.
"No... although your season tickets for the Opera have been rediscovered and are in your in box," Jean confirms, with a crooked little smile, and the musing that "I think I'm going to have to beg off of work and responsibility one night and take advantage of one of the seats, if I may. But this particular producer had some half-brained idea about giving us the school's running money for a year if he was allowed to film the lives of mutants. I, ah, think he finally got the point when I hung up on him."
Xavier says, "Ah," and then belatedly, unnecessarily, "No." And that is /that/. "Although," he adds, "I did hear that there is some interest about a documentary about the school. An independent project, I am told, by a young woman who apparently did something regarding ballroom dancing in New York City a few years ago. I am told it was quite good."
"Oooh?" Colour Jean intrigued. Pulling her feet away from the fire, she tucks them up beneath herself, the better to be passably girlish in her interest at the ripe age of 37. "I'll have to see if I can find a copy. If it were a fair documentary, I'd love to see it made."
"Whereas I would prefer that it be an unfair documentary," Xavier says dryly, "in our favor. The harsh light of truth is all well and good as a philosophical statement, but political reality moves me to admit that there are certain incidents and decisions I would prefer not to publicize."
"I admit my definition of 'fair' tends to skew towards 'favours our side of things," Jean is called upon to confess. "And... a large part of me would want to see certain outspoken students off on an exchange trip with Project Serve, possibly in the Costa Rican rainforest, while impressionable documentarians were running around."
Xavier's face promptly goes a little blank again. It is impolitic to agree. "However, it is only a rumor at this point. Hollywood is -- confusing to me. I marvel that they manage to produce anything at all, in fact, and yet they manage it: the triumph of avarice over creativity. Humanity at its most feral. I should assign a paper on the subject."
"It could make for some interesting reading," Jean reflects. "Assuming they don't take 'feral Hollywood' to mean the latest drunken catfight between young starlets."
"Literature," Xavier says mildly, "even if it is screenplay literature. There is still some merit in it, though I personally prefer the classics to the movies that are brought out nowadays."
"There were a lot of really bad movies in the era of the classics too," Jean points out, shifting on one hip slightly to tuck her feet more comfortably. "We just let them be lost in history. I imagine in another thirty years we probably won't be remembering Triple X or the latest rom com as the height of the silver screen."
"I am unfamiliar with both those movies. Pray do not feel it necessary to enlighten me." Xavier runs his fingertips across his scalp, considers the fire, then shakes his head. His hand drops to the controls of his chair, turning it back away from the heat. "I will have to consider it, though not until next semester, at any rate. There is some room for adjustment in my Spring lesson plan...." He trails off, distracted by who-knows-what.
"I'm sure that passing by the rec room on movie night will give you all the education you'll need," Jean predicts with the sort of dark forboding accompanied by a crooked grin. But the trailing off catches eye and ear and mind, and with a cock of her head, she wonders "Everything all right?"
Xavier rouses out of his abstraction. "Hm? --Oh. Certainly. I was simply considering next semester's lesson plans. Some reordering seems called for." From saving the world to midterms: not a far stretch for the imagination. The Professor glances towards the door, checks his watch, then shakes his head. "Something to think about tonight. In the meantime, I still have a few assignments to finish grading before it grows too late. A task to do /before/ dinner, I think."
"'Lest one linger too long over the mashed potatoes in an attempt to escape it?" Jean wonders, green eyes crinkling at the corners. "But don't let me keep you, Charles. I have our young Jack Frost to go root out of hiding anyways."
The Professor, reminded, glances towards the ficus and grimaces again. It is an expression lacking real chagrin. "So you do," he says agreeably. "I would begin on the docks if I were you. I believe I heard--" What he heard, he keeps to himself. With a brisk nod of farewell, he steers his chair out of the living room and into the hall, his mind already caught by the orchestration of literature and its infliction on young minds.
[Log ends]
Xavier and Jean chat beside a fire.
=XS= Living Room - Lv 1 - Xavier's School
Despite the rich Victorian reds of the walls and the dark colour of the hardwood half panelling, large floor to ceiling windows brighten the room into something warm and inviting. Several couches are present here: one faces a flatscreen TV set recessed into the wall, along with an armchair or two for individuals, while the others form conversation circles in other corners, complete with coffee and end tables. Against the walls are tall and leafy plants, predominantly ferns but with a ficus lurking in one corner. The the central unifying feature of the room is a large fieldstone fireplace with the windows to each side of it. French doors lead to the hallway, mated across the way by matching ones from the rec room.
Jean, meet ficus. Ficus, Jean. The poor longsuffering plant appears to have been on the receiving end of some student either bored or exhuberant and not yet -entirely- in control of their frost generating abilities. There are yellow leaves. It droops. Jean is surreptitiously trying to strip the dead leaves and take them away before a certain plant mutant now working as an overprotective gardener happens through.
Foregone conclusion: where there is trouble, there is supervisory adult. Overkill, in this particular instance; the Professor's wheelchair steers past the living room, then reverses to pause in the doorway. The polished scalp gleams. Deep-set eyes observe. "Is that Mr. Jameson's doing?"
"Mmmhm," Jean replies, tucking another fallen soldier of the chlorophyll army into the neat stack being collected on one palm. "He's currently gone to hide from the wrath of Averillix. I think some of the other students may have been exaggerating old stories." Rising and stepping back, she studies the ficus, and finds it somewhat naked, but likely, to her non-botanist's eye, to survive.
As usual, the mention of that particular member of the gardening staff draws a blankness across Xavier's face, a curtain that does not extend to the wise old mind behind it. A twitch of exasperation; a deliberate mantle of patience: "Exaggeration is not entirely necessary. Given the young man in question, we should be grateful it was only a plant." And an unrewarding specimen of a plant, at that. He turns the chair into the living room to regard the ficus without favor. "I miss Ororo."
Given the time of year, there is a slow-burning fire in the hearth, although no stockings have yet appeared. The leaves are thus cremated, and Jean turns to warm her flank near the flames, and to favour Xavier with a small smile and a smaller nod. "Me too," she admits. "I know she's over there doing good and meaningful work... but I miss her."
"The level of sanity in the building plummets when she's absent," says Xavier. He is in a mood to be cranky about her. Annoyance and the sense of her absence plucks at his deep, British voice, tugging dissatisfaction out of beauty to redrape it, askew. "I'm of half a mind to summon her back, regardless. The other issue seems far more urgent, given the grand scheme of things, and we have been making very little progress-- although it's difficult to see what she could contribute," he allows with resignation. "Perhaps it's premature. Xorn does not eat potato chips, were you aware?"
"More minds equal more ideas," Jean offers, turning from the fire as it warms her flank a bit too -much-, and instead stepping over to claim a couch near to the wheelchair and its lord and master. "And Hank is running some calculations, but we've all of us come to the conclusion that what we need to do is introduce Forge to NASA, the better to come up with a spacecraft capable of getting us there and back."
Xavier does not /quite/ wince. "I had been prepared for the possibility," he says, cradling his head in the palm of his hand before straightening again with the air of one resigned to inevitability. However disastrous. "It seems the most rational course of action. However, it will hardly solve the matter. Still, it's a start, provided Forge has an -- ethical monitor, so to speak. We can discuss it later. I do not believe I have the stomach for it right at this point in time."
"Indeed," Jean agrees, going mildly pale about the lips after a moment's thought about an unchecked Forge with access to part of a trillion dollar budget. "Otherwise we'll end up with a Death Star being pointed at the offending space rock... and you're right," she reins herself away from the subject. "I decided to try out indoor gardening as an excuse to get away from things. But Xorn doesn't eat potato chips? Lack of interest, or lack of ability?"
"Lack of interest," Xavier says gravely, his mouth curling up at the corners in a faint, if fleeting, smile at the diversion. "Or so I surmise, given that we did not actually make the attempt. He is an entertaining gentleman, I admit. I suspect he has more of a sense of humor than is readily apparent to the eye, if you will pardon the phrase. I sometimes wonder if he is not somehow pulling my leg."
"I think he must be, on some level," Jean murmurs, a light gleaming in her eye and a smile touching her lips brougth about as much out of delight at Xavier's amusement as out of her own. "It would fit with the traditional Slavic sense of humour, in any case."
Xavier says with wry satisfaction, "/Traditional/ is not a word that suits Xorn, in any case. What do you make of him?" Committed now to conversation, he steers his chair further in, angled towards the fire and the heat -- more representational than real -- it casts.
"I..." And Jean is at a loss for words, a laugh bubbling up as she admits that "I don't actually know." Hands on her lap after a brief excursion to run through her hair and tuck it behind her ears, she reflects that "Part of it is probably the complete mental blank spot he creates. But he seems to be a good teacher, and he's either very unused to social situations, or quite used to them and teasing me, when we've interacted."
"It is hard to say which, isn't it?" Xavier asks, his pleasure at the puzzle patent. He rubs his hands over the heat (or the mystery) with a twinkle in the wise old eyes that borders on the whimsical. "I find him curiously restful, I confess. If Ororo returns, I am thinking of asking him to stay on. We were sorely stretched as it was to begin with; the addition of another teacher, particularly now that the students have grown accustomed to him, seems like a prudent move."
Eyes flicked shut against the heat of a fire felt more in hope than in fact, Jean admits that "There -is- the nice part of not having to worry about shielding this, or screening that." She opens them again at the suggestion, and echoes the "If...?" before nodding to the substance of it, at least. "Have you heard anything that suggests she might not come back?"
"Nothing of the sort," Xavier says, closing his hands again and depositing them on his lap with a prosaic, "'If' referring to the end of the school year, in fact. It seems hard on Xorn to be jettisoned without preamble if Ororo /should/ choose to return before the school year is over -- and there is a level of uncertainty in our commitment to him that I confess I do not like. Offering him a more permanent position should, at any rate, alleviate any anxieties on his part and ensure us his presence even if Ororo chooses to remain on in Africa."
"Ah," says Jean, body language relieved even if her tone is as mild as ever. To an alert mind, the easing of the mental scape is all the more pronounced. "Well, that certainly makes sense. With Jareth not up for renewal, and Ms. Sage having had something a little less than staying power, we can't afford to get rid of a good teacher anyways."
Xavier says with great exasperation, "Technopaths." It has the emphasis of a curse, if without the obscenity of one. He adds more temperately, "It seems to go in waves. Only a few short years ago, it was plant mutations that were causing us difficulties. Whatever Xorn's issues are, he is an excellent teacher, and I have yet to find a schoolgirl come out of his bedroom wearing nothing but his shirt. Low as my standards may be, I consider these admirable qualities in the man."
"To be fair, Alyssa had graduated," Jean murmurs, in the interests of greatest accuracy. "Which is the only reason he's still -here-. But... one wonders what will be next. Shapeshifters?" she proposes, in amused and idle speculation. "But yes, Xorn seems nicely resistant to baser appetites, so far. Also to potato chips."
"I regret the potato chips," Xavier muses. He holds out his hands to the fire again, leeching warmth into old bones. "I admit I would have been tickled to watch him consume them."
"Will Xorn Eat It?" Jean proclaims, in the tones of some 1960s television announcer. "Perhaps we could use that as a school fundraiser... Xorn willing, of course."
Xavier observes, "'Xorn willing' has an ominous similarity to the phrase 'God willing.' Deus ex machina aside--" There can be only one, bald-headed and wry, "--I rather like the man. I have been considering giving him access to the lower levels, and perhaps applying his mind to the...." His eyes flick up, towards the high ceiling and beyond.
"Well, he already has access to the staff room. He must know there's more beyond it, given the configuration of the doors," Jean muses, wriggling a foot out of one comfortable penny loafer and proffering it towards the fireplace. Toes, nearly bare beneath a sheer stocking, wriggle still more as the heat reaches for them. "Not that that has anything to do with anything. But more minds on it can't hurt. And I trust that you got his background well checked out when you hired him, so the government shouldn't get too squirrelly."
"I did a thorough background check," Xavier says with great dignity. "As did our lawyers. His references are unimpeachable, and his credentials likewise. We are not using him to the full extent of his abilities, in fact. If Ororo does return, there are any number of other subjects we could ask him to take on, to the benefit of the entire student body. Also," he adds in a resumption of his former, more conversational manner, "he is quite good company." Which is to say: he lets Chuck talk. A lot.
"Restful, surely," Jean suggests, with a little amused shiver across the surface of her mind that suggests she might be guessing at that criteria herself. "But it -would- be nice to have another Jack of All Trades on the teaching roster. Hank and I can juggle sciences and dead languages between ourselves, but get one problem that needs all biochemists on deck, and we're swamped."
Xavier says with aplomb, "We are agreed, then." An issue that asked for no vote, and yet is stamped willy-nilly with the approval of one, census untaken. He retrieves his hands and settles them on the arms of his chair again, satisfaction wisping across the surface of his mind. "I will have the lawyers draw up a formal offer. This should please some of the students as well -- I know some of them have grown rather attached to him, in their own curious ways."
Jean admits, with a chuckle, that "I'm not so sure they don't view him as some sort of strange pet. But he keeps order in his classroom, at least so far as I've seen. I have to keep telling Nate he's not allowed to ask Professor Xorn to take his face off, though." A slight sigh accompanies this, for all it's tinged with amusement. Four year olds.
Professor Xavier, who is older than four and yet struggles with the same compulsion, simply looks studiously blank. "Has he?"
"Four year olds," Jean says aloud. "Are -curious-. Also, he's met Jonothan Starsmore."
"Has Jonothan Starsmore removed his face?"
"No, but he could remove his bandages that he keeps on it," Jean reports. "Thus, clearly, a metal containment is the same as bandages, and Nate has a rather skewed sense of what's strange, from growing up here." There's a proud maternal smile as she says this, though. Jean, it might be suspected, doesn't so much mind the strange.
Xavier says, thoughtfully, "I should ask Forge to look into the mechanics of Xorn's headpiece. Perhaps there is a way to make it less -- off-putting. Cosmetic mechanics, as it were." He looks intrigued. "Although perhaps I should ask Xorn, first."
"He might like it the way it is now," Jean agrees, with a crook of one corner of her mouth. "You have to admit, it's quite, um, striking."
"Mm." Xavier spiders his hand across his chair's wheel. "Difficult to know what motivates him." The thought is, perversely, quite cheering.
Jean's other loafer joins the first, and there are soon two sets of toes stretching out to warm themselves as she sits up in her seat. "Refreshing, hm?"
"Quite. I had never really considered how liberating it is, although the converse also holds true." Cryptic, that. He moves on regardless. "And how is Mr. Starsmore of late? Have you heard much from him?"
"Not... too much," Jean admits. "He tends to flit in and out, and I think is half afraid to be caught with the kids following him around, 'lest it come out that he actually likes working with youth, and thus damage his rep."
'Rep.' There are times when Xavier is deliberately obtuse. "I beg your pardon?"
"Rep," Jean repeats for Xavier's edification. "Reputation, but you really have to use the slang when talking about Jono Starsmore."
"Ah," says Xavier. "His rep." And then he makes a gang sign: both hands make the shorthand ASL for 'I love you' and tip in towards each other, as though the extended fingers intend to touch. He is very serious about it. It is a little bit horrible.
Jean observes in frozen fascination, staring for a long moment as if caught between laughter and terror. And a sudden desire for a cup of tea to make the world make sense. "...I think I missed that particular gang," she settles on, faintly.
"I saw it on television," the Professor offers, untangling his fingers to regard them with dispassionate curiosity, as though they are alien artifacts utterly unrelated to him. They pass inspection. He wraps them around the arms of his chair again to level a benevolent gaze on Jean. "Modern programming is utterly devoid of wit, grace, charm, and soul. Although I must say that the dialogue is far more realistic and the standards of acting and special effects far above what I remember from my youth."
"There are shows with charm and soul," Jean demurs, with a warm smile turned upon mentor-colleague-father figure. "They just seem to all get cancelled because they can't compete with reality television... and did I tell you about the call I got from a producer just the other day?" she wonders, reminded of something that brings an amused snort to life.
"A producer of theater?" Xavier asks, almost hopefully. He has a soft spot for theater.
"No... although your season tickets for the Opera have been rediscovered and are in your in box," Jean confirms, with a crooked little smile, and the musing that "I think I'm going to have to beg off of work and responsibility one night and take advantage of one of the seats, if I may. But this particular producer had some half-brained idea about giving us the school's running money for a year if he was allowed to film the lives of mutants. I, ah, think he finally got the point when I hung up on him."
Xavier says, "Ah," and then belatedly, unnecessarily, "No." And that is /that/. "Although," he adds, "I did hear that there is some interest about a documentary about the school. An independent project, I am told, by a young woman who apparently did something regarding ballroom dancing in New York City a few years ago. I am told it was quite good."
"Oooh?" Colour Jean intrigued. Pulling her feet away from the fire, she tucks them up beneath herself, the better to be passably girlish in her interest at the ripe age of 37. "I'll have to see if I can find a copy. If it were a fair documentary, I'd love to see it made."
"Whereas I would prefer that it be an unfair documentary," Xavier says dryly, "in our favor. The harsh light of truth is all well and good as a philosophical statement, but political reality moves me to admit that there are certain incidents and decisions I would prefer not to publicize."
"I admit my definition of 'fair' tends to skew towards 'favours our side of things," Jean is called upon to confess. "And... a large part of me would want to see certain outspoken students off on an exchange trip with Project Serve, possibly in the Costa Rican rainforest, while impressionable documentarians were running around."
Xavier's face promptly goes a little blank again. It is impolitic to agree. "However, it is only a rumor at this point. Hollywood is -- confusing to me. I marvel that they manage to produce anything at all, in fact, and yet they manage it: the triumph of avarice over creativity. Humanity at its most feral. I should assign a paper on the subject."
"It could make for some interesting reading," Jean reflects. "Assuming they don't take 'feral Hollywood' to mean the latest drunken catfight between young starlets."
"Literature," Xavier says mildly, "even if it is screenplay literature. There is still some merit in it, though I personally prefer the classics to the movies that are brought out nowadays."
"There were a lot of really bad movies in the era of the classics too," Jean points out, shifting on one hip slightly to tuck her feet more comfortably. "We just let them be lost in history. I imagine in another thirty years we probably won't be remembering Triple X or the latest rom com as the height of the silver screen."
"I am unfamiliar with both those movies. Pray do not feel it necessary to enlighten me." Xavier runs his fingertips across his scalp, considers the fire, then shakes his head. His hand drops to the controls of his chair, turning it back away from the heat. "I will have to consider it, though not until next semester, at any rate. There is some room for adjustment in my Spring lesson plan...." He trails off, distracted by who-knows-what.
"I'm sure that passing by the rec room on movie night will give you all the education you'll need," Jean predicts with the sort of dark forboding accompanied by a crooked grin. But the trailing off catches eye and ear and mind, and with a cock of her head, she wonders "Everything all right?"
Xavier rouses out of his abstraction. "Hm? --Oh. Certainly. I was simply considering next semester's lesson plans. Some reordering seems called for." From saving the world to midterms: not a far stretch for the imagination. The Professor glances towards the door, checks his watch, then shakes his head. "Something to think about tonight. In the meantime, I still have a few assignments to finish grading before it grows too late. A task to do /before/ dinner, I think."
"'Lest one linger too long over the mashed potatoes in an attempt to escape it?" Jean wonders, green eyes crinkling at the corners. "But don't let me keep you, Charles. I have our young Jack Frost to go root out of hiding anyways."
The Professor, reminded, glances towards the ficus and grimaces again. It is an expression lacking real chagrin. "So you do," he says agreeably. "I would begin on the docks if I were you. I believe I heard--" What he heard, he keeps to himself. With a brisk nod of farewell, he steers his chair out of the living room and into the hall, his mind already caught by the orchestration of literature and its infliction on young minds.
[Log ends]
Xavier and Jean chat beside a fire.