Logs:Outside Perspective

Outside Perspective
Dramatis Personae Gaétan, Lael, Perseus	2021-09-14 "Problem is folks what need common sense the most don't usually think they need it."
Location <XAV> Rec Room - Xs Second Floor
School this may be, but life for Xavier's students certainly isn't all studying. Outside classes, this is a popular spot to find students in their downtime. An enormous tribute to slacking off, this room is a wealth of fun and relaxation. Comfortable armchairs, couches, and beanbags offer plentiful seating scattered throughout the room, and the cushioned windowseats by the high windows offer a cozy nook to curl up and look out on the grounds. The room is often filled with the noises of gaming -- whether it comes from the big-screen television (tall racks of DVDs beside it, if nothing can be found on the multitude of cable channels), tricked out with consoles from retro to the latest releases, or the less electronic clatter and thump of the pool table, air hockey, or foosball. For those a little more subdued in their gaming, the cabinets hold stacks and stacks of board and card games, ranging as classic as chess and go to as esoteric as Dixit, Catan, and Gloom. More days than not, there's some variety of snacks to be found on a table beside the gaming cabinet -- quite often in the form of fresh-baked desserts. Things are always a bit of a chaos as a new school year finds its feet, new students unsure what their schedule is like or where any classrooms even are, new teachers not much more oriented truth be told. Throw in boarding school kerfluffle with friction between mismatched roommates and traffic jams at the bathrooms and fall can be hectic even before any newly blossomed uncontrolled mutations are thrown into the mix. Of course, this is Xavier's. It is, then, maybe not entirely surprising that the rec room is already in turmoil even before the final bell has rung for classes today. The snack table, normally a choice place to pick up a bounty of treats, is hovering upside-down in its own oddly warped looking vortex -- a few other students are debating whether the salted caramel apple tarts and cinnamon almond snickerdoodles stuck inside are worth braving the unknown effects of the ripple in space. The games shelf, also usually well stocked with recreation, is encased in a Very Thick slab of ice, much to the consternation of the tiny chess club. Gaétan, dressed has just recently trudged inside, stopping to blink for a long slow moment at the snack table where it ripples and shifts queasily in midair. The slight huff he exhales is visible only in a small settling if his shoulders, a small shifting of his backpack further up in his grip. His eyes skip from one knot of agitated students to another and he elects to bypass all the tumult, slipping through to settled himself (with a grimace and a hand scrubbed against his face) in the windowseat, unshouldering his pack and looking out a bit wistfully at the rolling expanse of the grounds outside. Lael has been here through at least some of the shenanigans--had, perhaps, been before they started. Though dressed unremarkably enough in a white t-shirt and sturdy blue jeans, he's nevertheless eye-catching for the slow sinuous writhing of his dreadlocks. He's ensconced in an armchair near the windows, and the open binder in his lap attests to recent studying, but at the moment his eyes are closed. When Gaétan wanders near, his eyes crack open again, unnerving not just for their unusual amber color but also for the vertical slit of his pupils and most of all for his complete failure to blink. "I tried to warn 'em off that warp thing," he tells the other boy without preamble, "for all the good that done. Reckon this how old folks feel when we don't appreciate their pearls of wisdom?" It seemed more ironic than suspicious that he can already see who's in a room before arriving. Ever since the events of yesterday, the emotional turmoil of saying goodbye to his father until summer, and meeting some of his new teachers and receiving an empty room to himself, his powers have grown to take on a passive control. Sometimes it's like his brain automatically clicks to moments in the future to either subconsciously protect him. The room he wandered into filled his vision. Everything a lazy teenager could want existed here. Food, games, and...well, that's it. A recreational room it seems, and he didn't protest against any of it. His loose black joggers, flannel shirt with a detachable hoodie, and newly bought shoes didn't make him stand out any more than others that lingered around. A dry scratching surfaced in his throat, and he went over to find something to cure it. Regrettably, as already mentioned, there's very little hope of finding something to cure Perseus's dry throat, since the snack table where such things would normally be found is currently stuck in some kind of power-related anomaly, spinning unsteadily out of reach in a shifting vortex in midair. After some small experimentation (consisting, over the Chess Club's protestations, of tossing a Knight towards the warp in space and watching it stretch and distort before colliding with a cookie and disappearing), most of the kids have decided that maaaybe the snacks are not worth trying to grab, though a few are still contemplating other ways to make the attempt. Gaétan looks up from the window, mouth twitching into a crooked smile when Lael speaks. "I wouldn't know," he says with an exaggerated innocence. "I always listen to my elders." His eyes skip across the room curiously when A New Face arrives. "You'd think," he muses, "folks would especially value your input on dimensional rifts, but that's freshmen for you." Lael's snake-like eyes flick to Perseus, as well, his brows furrowing fractionally before they smooth back out, the rest of his expression unchanged. "S'a pretty familiar feeling on account of folks don't tend to value my input on much of anything." He sounds casual and philosophical about this, but his hair squirms harder and tighter. His eyes tick up at the traitorous locs. "Might could go back to shaving all this off," he grumbles, still without much (visible) rancor. "Anyhow, I bet them whippersnappers will listen to you, 'specially if you deliver the warning as a catchy song." Percy saw the strange way the table of snacks seemed to warp and change. He stared at the strange wavy air, and glanced at a nearby chess piece sitting on a table. His eyes turned white and he saw an image of himself throwing the piece into the warp, and it disappearing. When he came to, he shook his head and decided to forget about trying to get a snack. Instead he tried to look around the room for anything he actually could eat or drink. He would think cautiously to himself about the environment. "Is no one gonna fix that? Seems kinda weird..." Hopefully there was food somewhere. Gaétan's smile curls a little easier, his head bobbing slow and hand tapping a light rhythm against one knee. "Every new kid that walks through the door thinks it's all new frontier -- no time to hear those who walked there before 'till their snacks disappear." His singing voice is clear and soft, the impromptu tune catchy as promised. He rests his hand on his backpack, toying with the zipper without quite opening it. "There'd be an irony, huh? They start taking instructions from me on how to manage new powers." There's a faint dimming of his smile, guilt rippling through his mind until he looks up at Percy. For just a moment he toys with the idea of summoning his brother -- Power Related Weirdness kind of entirely the purview of the Eldest Tessier -- but banishes that thought with another uncomfortable knot twisting in his gut. Outwardly his smile is still easy enough, as is the lighthearted question: "Why, do you have some suggestions how?" Lael's foot taps along to Gaétan's musical PSA, his own smile wide as the tortuous wriggling of his hair eases, waying, now, like seaweed moving with gentle lapping waves. At the question, though, he frowns. "Ain't like you're offering to do like Mr. Tessier or Mr. Salinas. Jus' you've seen a lot, listened a lot, and you got common sense." His locs curl down into knots, subdued. "Not saying you got it easy, bein' here, but I think you brung a lot of good things to this here loony bin." He hasn't stopped frowning, but it eases up a little when he turns his attention to Percy. "Best we leave it alone for the teachers to deal with. Wouldn't want it gobblin' up the whole room." His hair writhes as if in pain, his shoulder tense and his fingers pressing hard against the edge of his binder. "Usually vittles to scavenge down in the kitchen." He starts to recover his good cheer, by increments. "If you're feelin' real brave or real dumb, the teacher's lounge got great snacks..." He turns towards the two other kids that seem to be conversing upon themselves. Their speech is strange. One has an accent and the other talks...well, just differently than people do in Alaska, granted he's never visited many other places besides going on business trips with his father. When they mentioned the snack bar consuming the whole room itself, he assumed it was some sort of warp gate that he probably shouldn't mess with in any regards. "The teachers lounge?" The boy asked almost quietly. Before he could speak again, his eyes turned white the image of two teachers walking into the teacher lounge appeared in his mind, and a scene of him getting caught unfolded. When coming back to, his eyes returned to their natural icy blue. "Oh...well, there's two teachers on their way now...I think I'll stay here. Thanks anyways..." << -- mostly like cancer. >> "Hhh," is what Gaétan actually says aloud, a quiet huff of laugh, "gotta figure out how to market common sense and we'll be set, huh?" His fingers flick at the zipper pull on his backpack, and he twitches with a bit of surprise when the other boy's eyes go white. "Uh -- your eyes just --" His fingers flutter in the direction of his own face. He sinks back against the window, head thumping lightly down against the glass. "I'll take that as a no on suggestions, then. We're not really experts at un-warping space, either." He turns slightly, giving Perseus a longer looking-over. "You new? I'm Gae." He says it like guy, adding unremarkable name to the rest of his overall bland appearance. "Problem is folks what need common sense the most don't usually think they need it," Lael says, bemused. "Though I s'pose even sensical folk could do with more sometimes." Seeing the side effect of Perseus's power this time, he blinks, and it looks disproportionately dramatic for how rarely it happens as much as for his permanently uncanny eyes. "Well, I surely got no stones to throw about eyes." His brows pull inward a beat after this, hair wriggling fast, but he shakes it off in a moment. "My name's Lael. I know it ain't polite to ask about powers, but I'm impressed you knew about them teachers." "Perseus, call me Percy." He mentioned politely, looking between the two of them before realizing he seemed more out of place when standing. Taking a seat next to them, it didn't alleviate any of the uneasiness his body language showed. After they mentioned his powers, he smiled and nodded. "I can see the future. It's not...as cool as it seems. Sometimes it happens whenever it wants to, as when you mentioned the teachers lounge might be dangerous. It's complicated." Explaining what he could do was much easier than showing them, because he...well, he couldn't show them. Only he saw the future and there was no way to capture it for others to understand. It's like he's watching from an outside perspective. Almost as if he's a ghost when doing so. A ghost of the future. "Yeah, that actually -- doesn't seem cool at all." Gaétan winces when Percy mentions seeing the future, giving the other boy a sympathetic look. << Perseus? For real? >> overlaps with << If your nerd-ass parents had that power it mighta been Cass. >> He doesn't voice these thoughts, though, just a musing, "... mostly sounds like it could be kind of stressful. Bit of a headache. Though, honestly," his eyes dart briefly to Lael and then away, "most powers sound like that." Lael blinks again, glances up thoughtfully at the snakelike motion of his dreadlocks. "That sure do sound unpleasant, disturbing, and possibly complicated on the ethics side." He tips his head in Gaétan's direction, not quite a nod but clearly an agreement. "I don't know if I'd say most, but certainly plenty do. I just about tick all those boxes, though, and the headache is awful literal." He shakes his head. "This school is a headache, too, but if I can't say nothing else for it, you'll find help learning about your powers here. Maybe you'll learn to make it happen when you want it. Even if that turns out to be 'never.'" "Uh...right, thanks for that clarification, Gae-" Percy felt a sting of pain, though more emotional. He'd never really been bullied before, and then for someone to tell him his powers were lame seemed...a little on the rude side, though he did himself say they weren't that cool...it still hurt a bit. "My dad said Xavier was here to help me...and that I'm supposed to...get used to this life..." He seemed off at the moment, like he didn't want to be there anymore. "Uh --" Gaétan just blinks again when Percy Seems Off. He shifts awkwardly in his seat, and now finally does unzip his backpack, pulling out a math textbook and a notebook. "Yeah, sure, I mean, I guess there's not much else to do but get used to it? Not really a take-backsies kind of deal." The shrug of his shoulder is flippant but the spike of agitation in his mind is anything but. "Anyway, I should --" He taps the cover of his math book. Pointedly. "Homework's not gonna do itself." "Professor Xavier's here to do a lot." Lael does not look or sound particularly sanguine about that. "Guess that do Include helpin' some of us, some of the time. But yeah, ain't no changing what God gave you." His eyes fix on Percy once more, steady and unblinking this time. "Well, bless your heart." His tone is very even and very gentle. "Now, I strongly recommend you run on down to the kitchen and ask Ms. Savita for somethin' nice to eat. She will not disappoint." At that he is slowly collecting his attention back to his binder. "Uh...right..." The message was getting across and the air seemed stale. Every conversation he had seemed so tense and awkward because all of these kids...these people...don't want to be here. They just want a normal life, a normal childhood, a normal school. Everyone wanted to just be themselves again, but because of who they were...they couldn't. After standing and brushing his pants off, he smiled to the two of them. "Thanks...I'll see you two around." He left the room silently.