LOG: [Alison, Haller] The quest for proper lighting

[x-legion.livejournal.com]

After certain events this morning Haller finds Alison in an exceptionally good mood (which does not make for the most productive conversation, but turns out to be a pleasant encounter nonetheless).



The riffs of a guitar were ringing merrily down the hallway, strings plucked at increasingly high speeds as the player tested herself ~ going up and down the scales, throwing in arpeggios with increasing frequency until the notes collapsed in a tumble, only to be picked up and started all over again. And laughter trailed after the notes every now and then, light and easy.

Jim smiled to himself. It certainly sounded like a confirmation that the teacher was in. The door to the music room was open, so his knock on the doorframe was only a courtesy. He stuck his head into the room and said, somewhat unnecessarily, "Excuse me, are you Ms. Blaire?"

There was a brief look of curiosity and then the flash of a bright, cheerful smile. "Hey! You're the new guy!" A last flicker of her fingers and music drifted out one last time before she set the guitar aside. And with that Alison bounded to her feet and made her way towards Jim, with that ever present brilliant smile. "Scott gave you the tour I heard! And you're still around so none of the kids have taken a bite out of you yet, I'm assuming. Hi! I'm Alison!"

Jim blinked, a little thrown by the deluge of enthusiasm. "No, no trauma as of yet," he said, mentally floundering a bit. "Um, yes, I'm David. The new counselor." Which she knows. Start over, and this time volunteer new information. "I was wondering if I could ask you a little about your experience with the job."

An approving grin greeted that statement. "Ooh. Quick on your feet! That's good, you'll need that." It was, in a way, a circuitous method of saying yes. "But. Before we talk shop, I need your opinion on something." Alison nodded wisely, stepping towards the door then pausing with a waiting, expectant angle to her upper body as she raised both eyebrows at him. "But we need good lighting. And here isn't bad," she glanced at the large windows of the music room, "but it's just not good enough. We need perfection for this." She beamed at him again, seemingly utterly pleased with herself.

"I -- okay," Jim said, giving up. "Lead the way." Not the most assertive stance, but it seemed as good a response to a beaming, attractive blonde as any he could think of.

Entirely pleased with his attitude, Alison led the way, careful not to touch him by afterthought more than anything else. "So, are the headaches getting better?" she asked, flashing him a quick smile before ducking through a doorway, declaring the lighting in that room as unsuitable the moment after as she popped out.

"Headaches?" Jim echoed, strangely fascinated as Alison proceeded to repeat the procedure with the next classroom. He felt awkward holding his part of the conversation from the hallway, but made no move to follow her. He suspected the moment he tried he would bring himself into a head-on collision.

"Headaches," Alison repeated, this time pausing in the hallway to eye the rec room. "Bah. Horrible lighting. That won't do at all." With a cheerful shrug she skimmed around him and headed towards the kitchen, though she suspected she'd be foiled there as well. "You have the same little tension signs Nathan or Jean get when they'd pushed too hard for too long. Or Betsy." She paused, cocking her head to the side. "And the Professor, sometimes. He hides it better though." A solemn nod followed. "People are distracted by the shiny."

"Oh, that. I'm okay, it's mostly getting adjusted to the time-change and new surroundings." He did have a slight headache, but the fact that she'd momentarily stopped moving helped. Then something she'd said caught up with him. He raised an eyebrow in confusion. "'The shiny'? What, do you mean the light glinting off his head?"

"You would be surprised how many of the children he uses that on. Deadly weapon, it is." She glanced at him over his shoulder, then whirled around, not trying to hide a cheerful smile, as though reminded of something which meant Cheerful was the Order of the Day. "Oooh. Oh! I know! C'mon! Perfect solution!"

"Well, it can be strangely hypnotic . . ." Jim shook himself and followed her to the front door. Where he was promptly forced to stop as she came to a halt, grabbed a baseball cap from the assortment of outdoorwear kept there for such impromptu trips, and, with great ceremony, placed it on his head.

"There. And ha! See, the shiny head works on you too." Alison leaned back, satisfied. "Means you're a kid at heart. And that's my son's baseball cap. He's onto blue at the moment so you should be safe with that one." And with that she reached over to open the front door, pausing before the bright sunlight streaming through hit Jim - long enough for him to be able to take advantage of the baseball cap's rim.

As she stepped outside, she grinned in satisfaction, staring up into the sky with a another of those cheerful, wide smiles, despite the chill of winter. "Perfect. Here, tell me what you think! Isn't it perfect?"

Jim paused in fidgeting with his hat (which was the right size, but by the feel of it his hair was doing that thing it did when it got to a certain length -- the cap was resting primarily on his hair rather than his head).
He'd been slightly preoccupied logging away the mention of a son while wondering (not for the first time since he'd come here) if he were being gently teased, and struggled to bring himself up to speed.

"It's very good light?" he hazarded, though he had no real fear of providing the wrong answer -- Alison seemed perfectly capable of taking care of both sides of the conversation. Then he noticed she had her hands extended, palms down. He looked at them blankly, not quite sure what to do with this new detail.

"Um," he said at last, now lost enough for a stab in the dark, "and your hands are also good?"

Laughed bubbled up at that, and Alison waggled her fingers at him. "No, silly! The manicure! I need a second opinion on the manicure! And you walked right into the music room and into my waiting arms." She waved her hands a bit more to make sure the aforementioned digits had all his attention and smiled at her hand fondly. "We'll see how long this one lasts before the lasers vaporize the whole thing away..."

Jim stared at Alison's fingertips like an explorer being served an unidentifiable local speciality by the natives. The nails were rounded and appropriately shiny, but Jim had as much experience with manicures as he had with quantum physics. He gave up and ventured the most eloquent reply he felt equipped to give. "I think it looks nice."

"Well." Alison's lips quirked and her good mood didn't abate in the least. "You have good male survival instincts, I'll give you that." She laughed then, jumping a bit as a bitingly cold breeze swept through them, and laughed. "Cold! Winter! Let's go back inside!"

Jim, equally cold and now far past the hope of offering any kind of follow-up to her declaration, nodded and followed dutifully. He'd never been very articulate around women, and at this point in his life found it much easier simply to accept it than try to be clever. It didn't make him the life of the party, but it had saved him many excruciating minutes of awkward small-talk.

But Alison seemed not to mind it. Or much of anything, actually. And that was nice, in a way. A little difficult to converse with, but nice. The radiant smile didn't hurt, either.

As she waltzed back into the house, glancing at her fingernails now and then and not at all at her ring hand, which was absolutely devoid of ring though she suspected it might not be for much longer, Alison carefully closed the door and made no comment at all about Jim actually taking the baseball cap off. "Hrm. It's nice out. New person. Manicure. And..." there she smiled, in what she suspected was a rather silly way, "...stuff! Good stuff. We have to celebrate. We need... ooh. I know. What's your favorite taste?"

"Taste?" Jim began, then blinked. They were out of the sun, but the effect of direct sunlight seemed to have followed them in. Or at least, followed Alison. He hadn't noticed it before they went outside, but now that his eyes were adjusting to the transition the fact that Alison's body hadn't was obvious. Jim made a vague gesture at her. "Um, do you always glow?"

Alison did another of those abrupt stops and peeked at him over her shoulder, looking a mite sheepish though the faint glow didn't quite abate. "Um. Well. Sometimes when I'm really happy that does tend to slip through 'cause it's not so bad and I don't mind glowing a bit and I'm really really happy just now?" She grinned widely once more to hope to distract him from the line of questioning, and decided that repeating her own question was a very wise course of action. "Taste. As in food. Preferably sweet or fruit wise, or maybe a drink, but just your favorite is a good start?"

"Oh, okay. Uh, vanilla?" The furtive air around her shift in topic did not go unnoticed, but it seemed due to happy secrecy rather than haughty exclusion. That was okay. In an effort to rejoin the conversation a little, Jim attempted a smile. "And I was just asking about the glow because I wanted to be sure it didn't mean you were going to, I don't know, melt the carpet or something. I've had some bad experiences."

The laughter was unavoidable and Alison shook her head at him. "Ooh, we haven't blown up the mansion in a while now, I think. We're doing good." Grinning smugly, Alison pondered where a certain mutant with an uncanny talent for ice cream making might possibly be at that particular time. "And I believe you're due for a treat. Because we? Have a specialist when it comes to ice cream, dont'cha know."

Alison bounced off in a flash of smiles and light. In the mansion for less than a week, and now a glowing woman was taking him for ice cream. Jim smiled faintly and turned the baseball cap backwards as he made to follow. It was nice to be back.