Logs:Some Kind of History

Some Kind of History
Dramatis Personae Gaétan, Lael	2019-02-21 "S'a whole lot of things we don't hear much in class what needs sayin'."
Location Xavier's - Attic
Dark and cluttered, this place is a treasure trove of Xavier's history, years of lost items packed away and forgotten about in the depths of the fourth floor. Remnants of students and teachers of years past are left over here in bits and snatches, tucked away in dark corners. Students come up here often, to sit and study or sit and think (or sit and smoke), up by a dusty old window on a dusty old pillow -- although that last may not always be such a good idea, given that the one bedroom up here, tucked away in the back of an attic, /is/ inhabited, and by a teacher at that. One of the less-creaky windows looks out onto the roof, and is big enough to squeeze through. Dinner has siphoned much of the mansion's energy, funneling a good chunk of the residents to the dining hall to eat in companionable noisiness or to grab food and abscond to their rooms or the gardens or their favorite quiet spots. Up here it's mostly dark, and mostly empty, though a lamp has been switched on over by a window. A nest of pillows and blankets has been set up near it, cosy and snug and currently inhabited by Gaétan, comfortably dressed in faded jeans and a blue plaid flannel unbuttoned over a plain v-neck tee. He has a large thermos of tea tucked into his cushions and a half-empty plate on one knee, though most of his attention at the moment is on a notebook that he's currently writing careful notes in. His history textbook splats face down in front of him. The footfalls on the stairs are quiet, tentative. Lael has a much-patched olive drab bookbag slung over his shoulder and a U.S. history textbook tucked under one arm, as though fearing the weight of the latter might destroy the former. He's dressed in a heather gray Xavier's School hoodie and sturdy cargo pants that may have once been black but have faded to a sort of fuzzy charcoal. His hair, which had been fairly quiescent before, start squirming in faster, more agitated fashion, when he spots Gaétan. "Ah, pardon. I didn't know anyone was up here." He hesitates, glances over a shoulder down the stairs. The din of the floors below can be heard through the open door. A brief tension passes through Gaétan's mind at the sound of footsteps. He clips his pen into the spiral binding of his notebook, and picks up his thermos instead. Popping the cap, he leans back into the pillows -- his relaxed pose is marred by a brief tension when Lael comes into /view/. The outward stiffening passes as soon as it comes, though his inward mental coiling doesn't fade as Lael's hair writhes. "S'all good." His eyes flick to the book under his classmate's arm, then to his own notebook. He finally does take a sip of his tea, which goes at least some way toward easing the inner mental squirming. "You picked a subject for your term paper yet? I'm kind of. Floundering." Lael hugs his textbook to his chest. The serpentine motion of his hair slows dramatically, and even stops altogether, though only for a moment at a time. The effect is not markedly /less/ disturbing than its normal state, since it gives the impression of some alien creature's dying spasms. "Jus' hard findin' someplace quiet to study 'round here." He closes the door behind him and picks his way across the attic, sitting down on a low wooden crate several steps from Gaétan's nest. "I'm writin' it on the concurrent rise of the middle class and white nationalism in the Progressive Era, though I probably ought to narrow it down a smidge." He pauses, blinks, and considers the open history book in front of his classmate. "You got any ideas? Topics or periods you p'ticularly interest in?" There's a flurry of self-conscious thoughts that whir through Gaétan's mind as he glances down at the notes he's been working on. << -- how Johnson's influence impacted Reconstruction and impeded rights for -- >> << fuck will he think I'm just saying I'm picking that because he's black? >> << Only we did really gloss over a lot of this shit...>> He runs his fingers through his hair, eyes skimming down the list. "I dunno. I figured I'd pick something we don't talk about as much in class? Maybe something on the labor movement. There was so much shit going down right in New York City." He grimaces, toes curling against a pillow. "Your thing is pretty. Topical. Lately." Lael looks down at the cover of the book resting in his lap. His eyes cease blinking again and his hair slowly resumes its baseline level of squirming. "True enough. S'a whole lot of things we don't hear much in class what needs sayin'," his drawl is slow and soothing. "Too much of which's been downright topical lately for folks to be going on acting like history is dead and done." He tilts his head and considers Gaétan--only briefly, perhaps conscious of the disturbing steadiness of his gaze. "How 'bout somethin' to do with the National Industrial Recovery Act? I don't know New York so well, but it's always been a hotbed of union activity, which got a major boost outta NIRA in the '30s." Gaétan's eyes fix on Lael's hair as it begins its sinuous writhing again, at least for a moment until he mentally checks himself to stop. He takes his plate back, slowly behind finishing the remains of his dinner. "Yeah, that's a good idea. We have a..." << what the fuck /is/ he? >> "Friend staying our house right now who's. Old. I wanted to do something he'd be into talking about his perspective on. He'd have been like. Our age around when that was passed, I guess." He taps his fork lightly against the side of his plate, unconsciously in time with a riff playing in his mind. "You think we're allowed to connect it to shit that's happening today or is that --" A brief scowl crosses his face, y and the stilted shift of his tone with "Out of the scope for this class," sounds like a (rather accurate, if mocking) mimicry of something often heard. "Well now, you got a heck of a leg up on that research if you can talk to someone who actually lived it." Lael's smile is dazzling but perhaps somewhat marred by the intensified wiggling of his hair. "I learnt so much history from my meemaw and old folks around town that weren't in any schoolbook." Here his smile dims abruptly, and he looks down again. "Seems to me it's alright for to connect history to current events so long as it ain't 'too political', which as far as I can tell is anything the teacher don't agree with." His tone is almost flat, but the corner of his mouth twitches up in a crooked smirk. "But you can get away writin' just about anything in a paper if you do it subtle-like and throw in some fancy academic words." "I feel like 'too political' can also mean you have a stake in it and he doesn't." Gaétan sounds a little wry. "But I guess I can try faking some academic bullshit. You want a cookie? I took way too much." He's finally scraped his plate down to just dessert -- several cookies, which he's offering out to Lael. "My brother always says the best history's kept in people's stories, but I don't expect that pretentious fucking jackass would agree." "If that's so, my paper might turn out 'too political' no matter how I write it." Lael's smile is rueful. "You suppose he's the sort to grade people down for that? Maybe I'll get lucky, an' he got /so/ little stake in it he don't even notice anyone else does." He perks up at little at the offer of cookies, though. "That's mighty kind, and I surely do." He levers himself out of his seat to snag a cookie from Gaétan's plate, his hair twisting itself into tight coils and mostly holding still through this operation, relaxing only when he sits back down. "Thank you. Well, your brother sounds like he got his head screwed on straight. Mr. Miller, though--even if he agreed, I doubt he'd think much of /young/ folks' stories." "Let's hope not." Gaétan nibbles on a cookie, his mind drifting away from the conversation, briefly. Tracking back to some other memory -- a well-dressed blond man sitting by a fireplace, expression animated in the firelight as he speaks in equally animated French to a dark-haired small child sprawled on their belly on a rug and listening with rapt attention. "Mmm." He shakes his head abruptly, taking a larger bite of his cookie. "I'm pretty sure he just doesn't think much of young folks." There's a bit of laughter in these words, anyway. "His loss. I feel like some day someone's going to want stories from you all here as a part of --" A corner of his mouth twitches momentarily. "Well. Some kind of history."