Angel and Haller

[x-firestar.livejournal.com]

Haller and Angel meet to see what this whole "telepathic" thing is like. While a little leery, Angel wants to help out her new roommate as much as possible and Jim finds an easy student to work with.



Angel hated leaving the dark room but she needed to or else Mr. Haller wouldn't be able to find her. Or, well, he could by using his big brain of slightly scary but it would make it easier if she was not locked up in a itty bitty room with chemicals. And, well, less use of big brain of slightly scary.

Waiting, she got out her camera and perched on a table, swinging her legs. She could play with the camera, though, it was almost as good as being in her dark room.

'Down by the lab areas' was not generally a preferred meeting place Jim's experience, but he supposed that with so many new students coming in over the last few months Forge could no longer expect to hold the sole distinction. The exact lab hadn't been specified, but there were only so many doors he could poke his head into. He found the person he'd been looking for fairly quickly, dangling her feet off the edge of a table and fiddling with a piece of equipment.

"Hey, Angel," Jim smiled, rapping on the door frame to announce himself. "Sorry I'm a little late, the time got away from me."

Looking up, Angel beamed and waved him in. "Hi, Mr. Haller. No worries, I actually just realized the time as well and came out of the dark room about five minutes ago. Gave me the chance to play with my camera a bit and get some fresh air. Not that I need it because I really don't notice the chemical smells anymore."

"I guess the nose does eventually become inured out of self-defense. Kind of like what happens around Dr. MacTaggart's coffee." Jim pulled up a rolling stool and sat, lacing his fingers over his knees. "Okay. So, you were thinking about looking into telepathy to talk to Sooraya. We should probably address any questions you have before we dive into any experimentation. This is probably going to start sounding like an interview, but cutting out the surprise-factor as much as possible is usually a good idea with this sort of thing. Have you ever had any experience with telepathy before?"

"I can deal with interviews, it makes it less…well, creepy." Putting down the camera, Angel turned to face him, hands laced between her knees. She was nervous but she did want to do this for Sooraya. It had to be frustrating and kind of scary to be in a new place and rushed to learn the language. "No, I haven't."

"To be honest telepathy is a little creepy, at least at first. I mean, your brain is kind of like your room. It's where you keep all your stuff. Knowing someone can get into it is a little paranoia-inducing. Like 'Am I really thinking this or am I just thinking what someone else wants me to think, except if it was someone else wanted me to think that then why would I be thinking that and . . .'" Jim raised a finger to twirl next to his head. "Ow. So before we even start, I suppose my question to you has to be what questions you have. Communication is great, but let's not take chances with Crazy if we can help it."

That got a more relaxed smile out of her. "Okay, that helps because having a telepath tell you telepathy is creepy makes me feel so much better for thinking it. My brain is personal and the idea that I can't stop someone from mucking around in there is scary." Angel stopped to think. "Questions? Hrm. Does it hurt?"

"Yeah, it can," Jim nodded. "Like most powers, it depends on how and why you use it. In this case -- no. You'll just find you can suddenly understand the meaning behind words spoken in a language you normally couldn't. No direct thought-to-thought. That's the most expedient way to communicate, but in this case there's no reason to get that personal. I mean, you don't need to know most people that well." Jim scratched his chin and thought of Lorna's problems with the psionic switchboard. "There's a question, though. Would you prefer if it felt like something? A tingle, or just some kind of sense that something's different? Normally I try not to make contact feel like much of anything, but some people actually find that even more uncomfortable. Like you said, the brain's kind of personal."

"Maybe at first," Angel admitted, blushing a bit. "I mean I know what'll be going on when I can suddenly understand her more but the first couple of times, a "tap on the shoulder" thing would be nice. I, uh, don't have the best control over my power and I don't want to set something on fire if I startle."

Jim grinned. "Oh, yeah, spontaneous combustion. The fun startle-reaction. It's kind of embarrassing until you look around the school and realize it's actually not that uncommon. Anyway, yeah, that can definitely be arranged for as long as you like. Eventually you're going to have some Psionics courses -- you'll learn how to tell when someone's trying to get into your mind, and ways to keep them out if they are. It's not 100%, but it'll definitely help. It's hard to imagine now, but at one point even the professor didn't know how to shield. He appreciates what it's like to have strange thoughts leaking in out of your control."

Her eyes grew wide. "Really? Wow, now that's food for thought and speaking of thought I really hope he wasn't listening or that I was projecting when I first met him because my first thought was that he was shorter than I expected and that's kind of rude." She took a deep breath. "I wish my startle reaction was like, making bubbles or something. Bubbles don't scar people. I don't think I have any other questions but you said you had some more…?"

The comment about scarring brought a slight smile of sympathy to his lips, but Jim said nothing. "Given the privacy-issues he ran into when he was younger the professor's pretty scrupulous about telepathic ethics unless there's dire circumstances, so I'd say as long as you stay away from Dire your brain is safe." Jim rested his hands on his knees and fixed her with intent, miscolored eyes. "The main question here is personal comfort. It's kind of an intimidating step, especially if you've never done it before. If you would like to try, we can, but if you'd rather take a few days to think about it that's also okay." The lopsided smile returned. "My interest here is pretty much not freaking you out."

"I mean if that's your main interest than I'd kind of like to try it now." She wrinkled her nose at him. "I have an overactive imagination so if I sit and wait and think it'll only get worse and I'll probably spaz out on you. Spaz out more, anyway, than normal. So, I'd like to try it now, if you don't mind."

Jim laughed. "Yeah, I did a good job of building it up, didn't I? Just watch, after all this it's not even going to be a big deal. Okay, enough with the drama. We'll give it a shot. Count of three?" At her nod he nodded in return, straightening slightly on the stool. "All right. One, two, three."

The closing of his eyes was more to give Angel a physical cue than out of any need for concentration. The slight nudge to announce himself, like a touch on the back, too, was purely for her benefit. He could sense the shape of her mind, bright and lively and tinged with the slightest bit of apprehension, running beneath his power, but kept himself to the surface. Paranoid, he thought as he did, even more paranoid than Charles would have been, but Jim had been through too much to take any chances. Exposing a young mind to telepathy was not something to be treated lightly. After what David had been through he doubted he ever could.

Jim settled his mind over Angel's, lightly as he had with Sooraya, and said in Khaliji, "~Okay, how's this? Can you understand me?~"

Angel shivered once as she felt her mind shift…not as if Mr. Haller had moved things around but as if something had settled very gently into her mind. Okay, that she could handle. Her smile grew a little and she relaxed as she heard him spoke. "Oh! Yes, I can. The words are still weird jumbly things to my ears but in my mind…yeah. Wow."

"Yeah, telepathy can be wow sometimes." Jim's smile now was one of relief. He wasn't picking up any notable discomfort from the girl, which was great because he really hadn't wanted to have a talk with the professor about poisoning telepathy for one of the new arrivals. Not that Charles had demonstrated any such concerns when Jim had broached the subject with him the previous week. He always did have more faith in us than we ever did.

"What I'm speaking is a dialect of Arabic," Jim said, carefully shoring the link up against possible bleed. Entirely unnecessary at this level of contact, but a comfort nonetheless. "~What about switching in and out?~ Still parsing? ~Aside from the fact it involves being aurally confusing to prove a point?~" It was a good thing he had Khaliji. It had occurred to him rather late in the discussion that this demonstration would have been a little pathetic without another language to test it on.

Angel's eyes crossed slightly as her ears attempted to keep up and it was really weird watching how his mouth formed the words that shouldn't make sense, but did. "I can keep up but I have to…um…kind of ignore my hearing," she responded, concentrating a bit. "Could you teach languages like this?"

"Maybe," Jim conceded. Angel's crinkled expression was very like Sooraya's had been when Jim had approached her in English. "~That could be an interesting study. I've never really tried -- languages aren't my area. I think it's probably a little confusing if you're going into it with no actual grammar or vocabulary to build from. On the other hand, it could be useful for pegging to idioms, using words in context, that sort of thing. You just have to learn to track what you hear against what you understand. Sort of like learning a language from the subtitles of a movie.~" It was a lot of information. He spoke slower this time, giving her mind more time to acclimate to the experiment and process what he was saying. Remember not everyone's used to having Charles in their head. Duh.

"So, in other words not so good for formal learning but I'll be able to curse in Arabic in no time, right?" Angel asked, grinning. In general, she didn't curse much—not only would it have gotten her grounded but she never really felt the need. "I wonder if cursing in another language is cheating…"

Jim grinned. "~It is. You know, as long as you don't get caught. You may want to err on the side of caution around here. Don't ever try any out around Mr. Dayspring, for example. I'm sure there's some isolated tribe in the middle of the Atlantic somewhere that speaks a language he hasn't studied extensively, and even then there's no promises he isn't fluent in its bastard cousin. He's the languages teacher, and he's been spreading it around. A frightening number of people have become weirdly versatile.~"

She pouted, just a little. "Darn it, there goes my ambitious plans to look clean cut but not really be." Wiggling her fingers, she perked up a bit. "I'm all proud of myself. I didn't set you on fire or anything. Which is really what I was worried about. I'm sure there's a rule about setting your teachers on fire and I really, really don't want to get detention with Mr. Mark."

Angel glanced around and leaned forward, whispering. "I'm afraid he'd eat me."

"You'll be fine," Jim grinned. "Mr. Marko doesn't eat students. Apparently there's no point in eating anything that's just going to leave you hungry again ten minutes later." The telepath sat back on the stool, retracting the contact as he did. The withdrawal, too, he remembered to make obvious. Not painful, just noticeable.

"Okay, I think that about does it for a first time. Definitely thank you for not lighting me on fire. Not that I don't have a lot of experience, but the fire alarm hits just the right frequency to liquefy your eardrums and it takes forever to turn it off again. Other than that -- any questions or concerns? Think you'd be okay trying that with another person?"

Sometimes it was really, really hard to tell when the teachers were kidding. However, Angel did feel slightly better knowing that Mr. Marko apparently thought the students were similar to Chinese food and she wouldn't get devoured any time soon. Tossed into orbit, maybe. Eaten, no.

The withdrawal from her mind was gentle, but noticeable and she did relax a bit. "I think I'd be good from now on," she said, thinking about it. "I…still think it's creepy but not as creepy as before. And I hope I don't offend anyone. And thankfully I seem to be quick with the fire extinguishers because no alarms for me yet!"

Jim had to smile at the idea of Angel giving offense to anyone. It would have been like being offended by a ferret. A baby ferret. A fluffy baby ferret in a big, sparkling bow. "It'll get a little less creepy, I hope, but we'll use it sparingly for a while. It's better for Sooraya to try to get by in English, but you guys are roommates, so it might be good just for the initial getting-to-know-each-other process until she gets caught up with English. If you two want to work out a time we'll be set. As long as I have advanced warning I don't even need to be in the room, so less with the random man hanging around. Sound workable?"

Nodding, looking pleased with the whole thing, Angel responded, "Sure! I want to help Sooraya feel as comfortable as possible. I mean, I have it easy compared to her…yeah, I moved across the country but I've got my dad in New York now, I'm still in the same, you know, country and I speak English. I want to help her as much as I can."

"Moving is considered one of life's major traumas regardless of how far you're going." It occurred to him, belatedly, that Sooraya wasn't the only one to think about here. It had to be awkward for Angel, too, living in a room with someone she could only halfway communicate with. Especially after some of the journal conversations he'd witnessed. Oh no, I wonder if she got stuck trying to explain what a 'less bean' was . . . that's it. From now on we screen all Julio's movie-choices.

Aloud Jim rose, smiled and said, "It's sort of cheating, but conversations go a lot faster without the game of charades and pauses every two minutes to check a dictionary. I think you'll both do great."

Blushing a bit, Angel dipped her head. "Thank you. I bought a couple of books when I was out in town the other day. 'Dummies' guides to her religion and culture because I know almost nothing about them. It's been interesting so far. And the whole being able to talk easily is going to be so much help. Thank you, this means a lot."

"Don't underestimate the power of making an effort. When you're in a strange place, the fact people are trying means -- a lot." Jim gave the girl a smile that wasn't lopsided in the least. "And don't worry about it. That's what I'm here for."

Whether I say it is or not, apparently.