Chapter Fourteen
As April faded to May, the majority of Bayville High students were sufficiently panicked about the end-of-year exams, not to mention the state test that everyone had to take. The majority of students were freaked out about last minute details like damaged textbooks, late fees that had racked up in the library, or cleaning out their lockers. Todd Tolansky never had been in the majority. He was a minority. An anomaly in and of himself. To his peers, Todd was crazy for not being more worried about his educational status than he was. Everyone knew he couldn't possibly be passing his classes…could he?
Todd, in fact, had been doing very well in the courses he'd been skipping since his transfer, and had even gotten a few strings pulled so he could take summer school courses and not repeat the ninth grade. (Again) He didn't think that some of the teachers took into account his terms with the principal, who was admittedly a very scary woman. He didn't think that even though he hadn't been picked for teams in his gym class, and his participation had, hence, been very poor, his gym teacher, one Henry McCoy, would let it slide after seeing the potential Todd had to be a basketball star.
Todd just basked in his passing grades and didn't worry about anything monetary. He didn't even know where the library was, let alone getting a late fee there. And his locker? He'd never figured out the combination, and so had lived off of the student stores of supplies and the kindness of unsuspecting guys at lunch that left their books under their chairs just for him to borrow. In his mind, Todd had nothing to worry about.
He didn't know, nor did he ever care to find out the stress that he'd put Mystique through; she pulled more strings than she knew she had to get him out of paying for the damaged book he'd returned that wasn't even his, and wormed out of his lunch fee by blackmailing the head lunch lady. Lucky for Todd that she had practice in keeping her temper in check, though her secretary had never had a more nerve-wracking day in her life than the day Mystique had to threaten Todd's English teacher with something very painful involving a fork, a naughty word, and his monthly salary.
Todd was just shrugging off the irate hall monitor for the thousandth time, making empty promises about a detention he owed to make up a few of his missing credits, when he saw the flyer. It was a sign up sheet for a summer job with a man named Kevin who owned a gym. Free time on the equipment and a $7 an hour pay for cleaning the place on weekends.
Todd absently snatched the flyer from the wall, stuffing it into his pocket amidst the protests of the hall monitor whom he hadn't managed to shake yet, and thought about it. He could always save the money. He knew how to save money. Whenever his mother took his pa back; after he'd cheated on her again; her money would mysteriously disappear; aid to his pa's alcohol/whore/get-rich-quick-scheme fund. His money had kept the landlord from evicting them quite a few times.
Caught up in his reminiscing, Todd had to stop and think when he stepped outside. Was school over, or was he just skipping? After he really thought about it, Todd realized that not only was school over, but he'd gone to all of the classes today. All of his classes, even. Pleased, Todd grinned, pulling on the shoelaces of his not-quite-dead shoes (They were in their prime, thankyouverymuch) and getting started on some serious hopping.
Mystique had said something about how he shouldn't do that, since mutants hadn't been exposed yet, but Todd paid it no mind. It would take him close to 45 minutes to get home otherwise, even with all the shortcuts he could take. Then again, he thought, as he hopped a fence in one try, most of my shortcuts require my skills anyway.
Todd wasn't surprised at the silence he felt upon opening the door to the Victorian manor he called home. Mystique was caught up in principal stuff, and who else did he expect to be home? Deciding on blowing off the potentially boring day he saw before him, Todd pulled out the flyer, grinned, and turned around, going off to find a job.
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"OhmigodohmigodohmigodohmigodohmigodohmyGAAAAHH!"
Jean tried hard to suppress her own commentary, but found it harder than she realized. She was, after all, free-floating 50 feet above the ground. 10 feet above the tightrope Ororo had set up, and no crash pad in sight.
"You're doing marvelously, Jean! I don't see why you're so worried!"
Of course you don't see how I'm worried, you optimistic sunbeam! You ride winds! Cheater! I'm being held by my freaking mind
"Now Jean, you aren't thinking unpleasant thoughts about me, are you?"
"Wouldn't dream of it, Ororo," Jean called shakily, trying not to look down. She'd been working on rising and lowering her own body mass, and was now moving on to actually going forward and backward. By far, lifting herself in the first place was the hardest, but Jean found that she couldn't catch herself if she fell, hence her hesitance.
"For the thousandth time, I can catch you if you fall!"
"You can't isolate a tornado in the time it would take me to freefall, Ororo," Jean argued, trying to delay any movement for as long as possible.
"Then raise yourself higher!"
"Are you insane?!"
"Quite the opposite! Once you learn to fly you'll love it, trust me!"
"Jean, you could always ask Logan if he'll volunteer as your crash pad," came a new voice, sarcastic but partially serious.
"Scott Summers, I will kill you!" Jean yelled, after dropping about 2 feet in altitude because he'd startled her.
"Jean, please just try. If you at least try, I'll turn you over to Scott for your mental shielding exercises."
"Jean, you hear that! Mental shielding with me!"
"Way to motivate, Ororo," Jean said loudly, grinning and trying to focus her mind.
"Hey, I resent that!" Scott yelled back, sitting on the grass nonetheless.
Jean tried a picture in her mind that resembled her on a pulley system, going forward steadily. She shrieked when she felt her mental picture becoming reality.
"Ohmigod, Ororo, I'm going to die!"
"You're doing fine! Try imagining zero gravity! That will help your movements be less jerky!"
Jean instead, turned upside down with this new imagery, and shrieked louder.
"All right, Jean, I think that's enough for today," Ororo said, sounding pained. Jean relaxed as she felt a combination of wind and the reassuring rock-climbing ropes take hold on her body, relieving the pressure to hold herself up with her mind.
"Jean, you were higher today," Scott mentioned casually when she'd reached the ground.
"Nearly 50 feet, thank you, and I almost had a heart attack."
"You were doing fine until you went all upside down," Scott said, grinning as Jean punched him in the arm.
"I just want to be able to hold my own in the danger room," Jean said, folding her arms. "I'm not learning levitation for my health you know."
"Technically –" Scot started, before Jean cut him off again.
"Save it. The point is, if I can fly and disable the cannons, all the better for defending you, Mr. Cyclops."
"Speaking of which, you still don't have a code name," Scott said smoothly, taking the heat off himself effectively as Jean's brow furrowed.
"Do you think Logan is too mad?" she asked then, sounding worried.
"Don't worry about it. As long as he can call you his little nickname, I think he's fine. Besides. I don't think even he can come up with a codename for you."
"Whatever, you couldn't help me out either."
"I suggested several, actually."
"Seriously, Scott. 'Spider woman?'"
"I said I suggested several codenames, I didn't say they were codenames fitted to you."
"My mistake. So where we headed?"
"Billiards."
Jean groaned. "Again?"
"I was dying having to jog every day, and I just had to train with Logan. Billiards."
"On the condition you call it 'pool' like a normal person," Jean muttered.
"Oh contraire," Scott said, smiling and holding open the door for her as the reached the mansion, "We play 'billiards' on the 'billiards' table. 'Pool' is what I'm working on in the backyard."
"Okay, you win. Literally, I mean, since I don't have a chance unless I telekinetically sink every ball the first hit."
"I can't see how you can apply physics to your telekinesis, but you can't apply spatial geometry to pool."
"Ha! You said pool!"
"Are you happy now? Okay. One round of billiards, and then we'll do our sheildwork."
"Aye aye, Scott master."
"I am not a boy scout."
"Whatever you say, Scott master."
"Eight ball?"
Jean's grin faded. "Your specialty," she muttered.
"You're pretty good too."
"Can I have a handicap?"
"Depends on what it is," Scott said, holding the door to the rec room, where the pool table stood like a beacon declaring Jean the automatic loser.
"I get one TK shot."
"No. You only need one TK shot to sink all of the balls, and that's no fun."
"It's no fun for me without it," Jean said, frowning.
"Fine, one TK shot, but only to speed up the ball, and only for about 5 seconds."
"Now you're just being cocky," Jean muttered as he pulled his cue from its place under the table.
"There's no pleasing you, is there?" Scott asked grinning going for the pool cues.
"Not until I beat you," Jean said stubbornly, bringing the balls out of the pockets with her telekinesis and settling them in the frame on the pool table.
"I repeat," Scott said, tossing the chalk to her as she pulled her own cue down from the rack on the wall without touching it, "There's no pleasing you, is there? You know, since you can't possibly beat me."
Jean stuck her tongue out at him, as the white starter ball floated over to him.
"No, you can go first," Scott said, putting his hand up to stop the ball.
"I didn't say I wasn't going first, Mr. Summers, I was merely suggesting you break."
"Are you sure?"
Jean didn't say anything, though the white ball thumped onto the table in front of him.
Scott grinned, positioning the ball and his cue just so, the angles each ball would bounce playing in his mind. He took his shot, not surprised that he sunk four balls in one go, but definitely surprised that the breaker ball went into a pocket as well.
"Scratch," Jean said boredly, pulling the balls out that had just gone in and replacing the white ball.
"Wait a minute," Scott said, eyes narrowed behind his shades. "Did you just use your TK to make me scratch?"
"I know not of what you speak," Jean said haughtily, as all the striped balls fell into different pockets at her shot. "My turn again, right? Look! Eight ball in the corner pocket!"
Scott gaped wordlessly at this blatant cheating, but Jean merely smiled at him, floated her cue back to the stand, and picked up the cube of chalk, powdering his nose. "I win," she stated, taking his cue from him as well, and sitting on the floor. "Shield work?"
Scott found his knees being uncooperative as he made to step back, and he was soon sitting on the floor across from Jean, still gaping at her, though she had closed her eyes and appeared not to notice.
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Kurt Wagner absently scratched his head with the tip of his spaded tail, his chin in his hands and the pencil he was supposed to be quizzing himself with balanced on his nose. He'd been doing so well with his English lessons, and now he'd hit a slump. Phrases involving food he'd gotten immediately, and greetings were fine, but now he was into words that didn't even exist in his native German, as well as German words that didn't translate correctly into English.
He couldn't for the life of him figure out how to translate his polite term for Professor Xavier. The German Herr translated directly as 'Gentleman,' which didn't make sense when he said it. The next closest thing would be 'Mister,' which didn't convey the same respect that 'Gentleman' did. And the English way of writing confused him. It didn't have enough letters and their sentence structure and grammar was completely backwards when written down, and when spoken aloud, to say nothing of different spellings, pronunciations, and horrible things called homonyms, which he decided he hated with a passion.
When his mother would look over the things he'd learned, she would say how proud she was that he was taking this task so seriously, but then point out mistakes that he'd made, mentioning that he would be going to an American school, with American English teachers who would grade him poorly for mixing up the words or misspelling them. Kurt had a new worry when he was told that homework papers usually had to be typed, which posted a problem for his unique finger shape and count.
He was almost ready to give up, but as always, his father calmed him down. Between Kurt's mother, who tried to comfort him and ended up making him feel worse, and Kurt himself, who was the harshest judge of his skills and the worst critic; Kurt was glad for his father. He was level-headed enough to soothe him from his worries, and he could empathize with Kurt, because he himself didn't know much English, and he honestly identified with the weight of the burden Kurt had taken on. He didn't think he'd be able to do it by September.
He'd have to, though, his mother had chided him, trying to motivate him, but failing miserably – Herr Xavier had already sent him train schedules, airline brochures, and extra money to spend on essentials for the trip over. (Kurt's mother had taken the money and hidden it so no one would be tempted to spend it before they were supposed to.)
Kurt supposed that the Professor was excited to have Kurt as a student, but he was about as good at motivating and reassuring as his mother was. Kurt again had found comfort in the gentle voice of his father. Kurt knew that it was impossible to have inherited any genetic traits from this people whom he called his parents, but growing up and being raised by them had affected his personality more than genetics ever could. He was patient, soft-spoken and sharp-minded because of his father. He'd learned these traits from him. His mother had contributed a stubborn streak that sometimes proved useful; like when he was trying to master a foreign language and refused to give up.
Kurt found that for once a pep talk he'd given himself actually helped; he pulled his pencil from its precarious perch on his nose and started scribbling broken English sentences, erasing every other word when he'd capitalized a word that didn't need it, or spelled it wrong, or written in the German word instead. It was going to be a long process, probably unpleasant, and most likely it would be extremely difficult, but he'd learn a semblance of the English language by September if it killed him.
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Scott found that his status in his Geometry class changed when the notices about state testing came around. He could hardly move for all the girls who hung on his arms all period; he was sure he had a cracked shoulder blade from the number of slaps he'd gotten on the back – friendly gestures of his peers on the football team – and he tried to give the same answer to all of them; he'd try and help them study, but he had other things to do, and he simply couldn't spare the time for it if he was only doing it for the satisfaction of a job well done.
Then they started offering to pay him. Scott hadn't foreseen that for some reason. Jean encouraged him to go for it; if he was going to tutor people, he might as well get paid for it. He finally agreed, and with Jean's help, he made the most hellish study schedule known to man. The ideal thing, of course, was to just have everyone over to the mansion where there was plenty of space, and he could tutor several students at once, but that wasn't possible, explained Xavier, because of the construction still going on in some of the sublevels of the house, which the general public wasn't supposed to know existed. (The Danger Room had electrocuted Wolverine the other week, and he said it needed a little TLC. Their sessions had been held outside or at the obstacle course on Sub Level D ever since.)
Monday afternoon, therefore, (after Logan's session and the Professor's lesson) found Scott again at the school, making use of the empty gym, the key to which had been given to Scott by Mr. McCoy who made him promise he wouldn't tear up the floors too badly, and by the end of tutoring his failing classmates, Scott was convinced that they'd passed so far on will alone. Half of them still didn't know how to find the angles of a triangle, equilateral or otherwise, and the half that knew how to do that didn't know that there were only 180 degrees total in the stupid thing and no matter how Scott explained this fact to them, they'd come to him asking if their 360 degree hectagon was measured right.
By Tuesday, Scott's only prayer was that the week would end. By Wednesday, Scott never wanted to hear the words sin or cosine again. Thursday had him convinced he could start saving for another car with the money he was earning, and on Friday, he wanted to cry when his 'students' begged him for weekend lessons. Jean offered to help him out; pick his brain, help him teach, but the Professor wouldn't allow it, and if he had, Scott wouldn't have. He knew that the stress he'd been experiencing, coupled with his fatigue would turn his mind into either an open book or a minefield to any telepath who happened upon it. He couldn't take that risk with Jean.
So Saturday, a day he'd looked forward to all week for a break, found him tugging at the door to the gym fruitlessly, twisting the key in the handle and begging it to open. The High School was closed on weekends. Principal Darkholme herself wouldn't have been able to get in. (Elsewhere, Mystique sneezed and cursed Todd's name) He ended up seating everyone on the 50 yard line of the football field, shouting for everyone's attention and using lots of big gestures to make up for the lack of a whiteboard. He thought it may have been the best lesson they'd had yet; Not nearly as many people confused sin and cosine, and a few could tell the difference between triangles. Scott was almost proud of his small army of mathematically dysfunctional teens.
As they had finally grasped the basics, Scott took his payment quietly and slipped back to the mansion for a well-deserved Sunday off, only to be spirited away by Jean, who needed a companion to buy shin guards with. "Jean, I'm tired," he tried, as she pulled him behind her, grabbing the keys to his convertible and turning him 360 degrees, back out the door he'd come in not 6 seconds earlier.
"I offered you help and you denied me. It's your own fault," Jean argued, pushing him into the passenger seat as she pulled her hair out of her face.
"I didn't know I had to go shopping," Scott muttered, shutting his eyes against the blaring music that was emanating from his speakers.
"How do you listen to this crap?" Jean asked incredulously, turning the stereo off and peeling out of the garage.
Scott didn't answer, he just prayed for his mortal soul as they nearly crashed into the gate.
"Scott, I expected you to be a little more supportive," Jean called over the rushing wind, crisis of the gate averted when it finally opened and Jean resumed her speeding.
"I'm plenty supportive, but I'm also dead tired right now," Scott objected, hitching his seat belt tighter as they fishtailed around a corner.
"I went to the soccer tryouts on Wednesday, and I got forward! I'm excited! I want you to be excited with me!"
"That's great Jean," Scott said, trying to sound upbeat, but failing.
"Not only that but I got a call from the Yearbook president, and she wants me to cover the football games next year!"
"Terrific."
"And Mr. McCoy wants me on his lacrosse team."
"Yeah?"
"How about you?"
"I don't want to join the girl's lacrosse team!" Scott insisted, afraid she'd make him sign up for it anyway.
"Don't be stupid. You'd look horrendous in the uniform. No, I meant callbacks. Did you get any calls about teams?"
"Um," Scott said, afraid to break the news to her. He'd been in major Geometry meltdown all week. He'd missed tryouts for nearly every team he'd signed up for.
"You missed the tryouts?!" Jean exclaimed, screeching into a parking space at a random restaurant and looking at him incredulously.
"Sort of," Scott muttered, ill at ease now that the car had stopped moving and Jean's attention was focused on him.
"What haven't you missed?"
Scott muttered incoherently about not being able to play an instrument and Mr. McCoy not needing track and field competitors until next year; something about funding and expired deadlines.
"Don't make me read your mind, Scott Summers," Jean hissed, eyes narrowed.
Scott gulped. "You don't know how hard it was to force learning into the brains of today's youth," he said in defense, wincing as if she'd explode. He glimpsed instead, to his great surprise and discomfort, a fleeting look on Jean's face of disappointment and hurt. It was replaced quickly by a mask of nonchalance, her mouth in a straight line as she unbuckled her seatbelt and opened her door, Scott quickly following suit as she waited for him and they made their way toward a shop on the other side of the Restaurant.
"You weren't into it anyway," she was saying airily. "It's better that you didn't sign up for a team you didn't want to be on."
"Yeah," Scott said, nodding, agreeing with her in the hopes that she'd drop this weird vibe she was putting off.
"It's best for the school, and for the teams that you didn't join, really," she said firmly, though she still sounded a little disappointed.
"Jean," Scott started, ready to plead his case, before she stopped and looked at him.
"No, Scott, really. It's okay. The more I think about it, the better it is that you didn't get onto any teams. After all, Duncan said that half the guys who sign up for the sports end up getting third string anyway. You wouldn't have had fun at all."
Almost ready to agree with her, Scott stopped. "Wait, what? Duncan? Who's Duncan?"
"Duncan Matthews. He's second-string receiver for the Hawks. He might even move up next year with the upper-classmen – be a JV and get in a few games."
"The name doesn't sound familiar," Scott muttered, an inexplicable anger forming in the pit of his stomach.
"Oh, I know you've seen him," Jean said, her tone now changed as she tried to get him to remember who Duncan was. She sounded much more upbeat; her cheerfulness wasn't being forced as it had been a moment ago when she was convincing him (or was it herself?) that he was better off not being involved in school activities. "He's about your height – burlier, though. And he's blonde, he's earned a letter already for football, and he's going to try for a letter in track and field next year."
Scott frowned. It wasn't that he couldn't remember Duncan. He could – the picture had formed almost immediately in his mind – the problem was the guy himself. Scott's few encounters with him hadn't left the best impression on his end. As Jean bubbled on about the teams she'd made, the people on the yearbook staff, the things they said, Duncan Matthews, Taryn Fujioka, and her new soccer coach, Scott felt, for the first time, an invisible barrier. It was nothing to do with the mutant gene they both had…For the first time, Scott appreciated that their lives had been thrust together by chance.
"Scott are you listening?"
Scott didn't hear her, lost in thoughts as he was. He didn't notice as she waved her hand in front of him. Really, he and Jean were very different people, with different personalities, different backgrounds, different choices of social circles, as it were…
"Scott, you're…um…wow…you're being really loud, if you know what I mean," she whispered now.
Still deaf to Jean as she frantically hissed at him, Scott continued his somewhat depressed musings, walking through a door as she continued to try and get his attention. Had their mutant genes not existed, Scott very much doubted that he and Jean would ever have met. Where would they be now? Jean, doubtlessly, would live a pampered, suburban life with her perfect family somewhere in Westchester or Annandale-on-Hudson; upper-class, and upper-crust. Scott would probably be in jail or on the streets, a vagrant, begging for money and picking pockets to survive.
"Don't be ridiculous," Jean broke in, scowling at him.
Scott blinked, looking at her in puzzlement. "I'm sorry, what?" Scott said slowly, hoping she wouldn't chew him out for not listening to whatever it was she was saying.
"I'm not saying I blame you, but you are slowly becoming the most depressed person I've ever met," Jean said bluntly, taking his hand, ignoring his protests, and pulling him out of the store they had meandered into moments before.
"What are you talking about!?" Scott objected, looking confusedly at her as she stopped at the corner of the strip, folding her arms.
"First of all, it's not my fault," she said without preamble, looking him straight in the eye, as serious as he'd ever seen her. "All the extra shield work we've been doing counts for crap when you lose sleep over Geometry finals. All week you've been really loud, which is really uncharacteristic for you, but completely understandable." Jean looked at him expectantly. Scott's mouth hung open. Where had this come from? And wasn't she worried someone would hear them?
"No, no one will hear us, I've put up a barrier for 7 feet around us in every direction. Again, sorry for picking up your thoughts, but you have no idea, you're practically shouting. It's a bit annoying, actually, but what can we do? I want to know why on earth you think you'd be in jail or a hobo or something if you weren't a mutant."
Scott was at a loss for what to say for a moment. He processed slowly that she had been reading his thoughts because he'd been too stressed to keep even his strong mental shields functional. Quite a feat, considering he usually couldn't tell that he had them up in the first place.
"How did this come on? I couldn't ignore it; you were putting off a depression aura thick enough to cut with a knife!" She was clearly upset; her breath coming in impatient snorts through her nose, like a horse's.
"Stress?" Scott tried, grinning at her as she glared angrily at him.
"I won't have you demeaning yourself, Scott Summers," Jean said, suddenly serious again, and not angry. She pulled him towards her, into a hug unlike any he'd ever received. It was like she was hugging him with her soul. He could only hug her back in shock. "We've been through allot, haven't we?" she muttered from her place under his chin. "We know each other inside out; better than anyone else."
"That's true," Scott said, and he was just stating a fact.
"Scott, you're the best friend I've had...since Annie died," she looked up at him, and he was surprised at the words – she was being totally honest, and it showed on her face.
"I think you're the only real friend I've ever had," Scott returned, just as honest in his statement as she'd been.
"And you're not jealous of Duncan?" The hug still hadn't been broken, but Jean was smiling mischievously.
"No. I don't like him, though," Scott said, a sarcastic smirk on his face.
"Come on, Scott, Duncan's all right. He's a little…"
"Dim-witted? Sport-obsessed? Vain? Shallow?"
"Well, he is a little full of himself, isn't he?" Jean pulled away from him, but taking his hand silently, wandering back down the strip, passing the scrapbook store and heading towards a Shoe store with a crooked sign above it reading 'The Sole of Bayville.'
Scott squeezed her fingers, smiling, yawning again as they stepped into the shop. Jean smacked him, telling him to ignore his tiredness for another hour and she'd let him go to sleep, loudly declaring she needed soccer cleats and shin-guards. Glad they weren't fighting; Scott picked up a pink and white pump from a display proclaiming unrivaled comfort, and tapped Jean on the shoulder.
"Jean, what do you think?" he asked, with a straight face, indicating the heeled shoe.
"It's a little…clunky for me. I like shorter heels, and thinner besides," she said, crinkling her nose at it.
"Not for you, for me," Scott said, grinning when her expression changed into that of comical disbelief.
"Scott, get real," she said, taking the shoe and putting it back on its stand. "Besides," she added in a loud whisper, "pink is totally not your color."
The pair sniggered far more that was necessary when the salesclerk came out from the back room wearing the same pink pumps.
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A U T H O R S N O T E
Quite. Thought I'd put up a little 24th of July treat for you all, since no one knows what holiday the 24th of July is unless you live in Utah, like me. Plus, I've been meaning to post this for a week, but found myself wrapped up in Harry Potter. giggles insanely
I might wait a week or so before posting any fan stories for that, for the pure fact that any story I post will be a spoiler at this point, unless I want to just do a little one shot.
Anyway. Much Jott and such in this chapter, and much Jott and such to come, but I must bid thee adieu, so I can sleep. Or something. Nighty night.
Ayaia of the Moon