xp_logs | Julio and Haller - Tuesday Afternoon

Called out of class to go speak to his counselor about some school concerns, Julio is unprepared for Haller's new appearance. And has some truly spectacular cope failure.

Clutching a small slip of pink paper that had his name and "counselor's office" checked off on it, Julio raised a hand and rapped on the door to the counseling office. He figured it was probably about his wanting to take two courses by correspondence, which would leave him with his afternoons free.

"Come in," Jim said, shuffling the papers on her desk. It had taken her more time than it should have to figure out how to lower her chair, but aside from a longer stretch to get the files on her desk she hadn't actually noticed a large difference. Well, except for some necessary wardrobe adjustments, but in deference to the fact she wanted to limit the potential damage to the minds of the future as much as possible she'd defied the increasingly warm weather and tossed on one of her own overshirts. It seemed somewhat less offensive, although it was slightly annoying to have to re-roll the sleeves every few minutes.

Julio opened the door, and stopped, briefly stunned. In his mind, three things were occurring. The first thought: Oh, right, the counselor's now a girl for the next couple of days the second: The school counselor's kinda hot and third: Did I just think the counselor was hot? GYAAAAH.

Followed by: Oh shit, did he hear that?

Julio's face had a certain rigidity Jim was experienced enough to identify as "stricken and trying desperately not to show it." Jim glanced down and gave the boy a half-smile. "Sorry, I keep forgetting to warn people. It's just a little--" Jim wiggled her fingers by her temple, "not exactly got a standard procedure."

"No." Julio said, voice cracking. He cleared his throat and tried again. "No, it is um." he held up the slip of pink paper. "You wanted to see me? About school things?" Because this, after all, was a school. Even when the staff went off for the weekend and swapped freaking genders.

Jim raised an eyebrow at the boy. Yeah, the odds of anything actually getting communicated in this session are just about zero.

"Maybe we should address the weirdness first," Jim said, lacing her fingers across the desk. Her short hair didn't have its normal ambition, but was still decidedly unkempt. "You know. Because you're probably going to wander into a few more staff this week, and it'll be easier for you if you can just ask the questions now and move on with your life."

"No no no," Julio held up his hands. The last thing he wanted to do was discuss the genderswitch. Especially since that lead to uncomfortableness when he found the formerly male teachers attractive. His pride could only take so much. "I know, I just came from Ms- -Mister-- er...Dane's class. I have seen my teachers all week. I am fine with it! Perfectly fine!" His voice crept up an octave.

"Really?" Jim's blue eye narrowed at him in an expression that, while minimal, communicated a person on the opposite side of the pole from Buying It. "Are you sure this isn't weird? Are you sure this isn't really, really weird?"

Julio shot the counselor a "well, duh" look. "My teachers are the wrong gender. Psi-se-Psychonalyze it however you wish. My masculinity has been threatened, whatever. It's weird. But I was attacked by a dinosaur the other weekend, my sense of normal has died, claro?"

"I don't know, I think this is actually worse. Little changes. Dinosaurs are massive affronts to reality that are obviously insane. Your teachers showing up as the wrong sex after a retreat is kind of a low-key kind of bizarre." Jim paused. "I can't believe I am actually having to say things like that."

"Can we not talk about this now?" Julio pleaded. He held up the slip of paper. "There was school things, yes? Unless this was just a clever plot to weird me out even more. If it is, it is working. Very well."

Julio was obviously not comfortable at all, but there were a few topics Jim felt ventured into waters too deep for this particular situation. A sixteen year old boy's overly flip comments about threatened masculinity were one of them. Jim decided on the path of mercy.

"Okay. First of all, you're set for the correspondence courses. So that's all fine, but some of the teachers say it looks like you're having some problems concentrating. I just wanted to see if something's up or you're just bored."

"No, not bored. Just I get headaches sometime. Not my headache headaches, but right here," Julio pointed to his temples. "Sometimes it is hard to read the teacher's handwriting too."

Jim gave him a slightly concerned look. "Is this like a normal headache, or a 'I'm about to demonstrate a secondary mutation' headache?"

"No, it is a headache." Compared with the migraines he had before he manifested last year, these were barely a blip on his pain scale. More of an annoyance than anything. Having to strain to understand the teacher's handwriting was another. "It is not my fault my teachers cannot write legibly."

Jim thought for a moment. She was a little cautious about headaches given the mutant component, but she was also aware that her recent experience was probably making her needlessly paranoid. The odds Julio had a gestalt personality trying to rip itself in half were not high. Sometimes the simple answers were the best. Hard to read the teacher's handwriting . . . "When's the last time you had an eye exam?" she asked.

"Uh--" Julio blinked, taken aback. "A while, I think?" He frowned, the doctor he had seen the last time had recommended he come back and get his eyes checked the following year, back when they were trying to figure out where his migraines were coming from. "I had them checked when I was having the . . .migraines? The doctors said I didn't need glasses then."

"Well, eyes can change," Jim pointed out. "That's why they tell you to do regular exams. You don't really need extra pain, so it's worth a shot, right? The other common alternative's stress, most times. How are you doing on that front, by the way?" The thin woman spread her hands in an apologetic way, indicating the office. "As long as we're here we might as well hit the whole spectrum."

"I don't need glasses," Julio said automatically. But he was starting to get a sneaking suspicion that his friend's teasing and his inability to read the board was starting to catch up with him. "I can see things just fine, it's not like I can't read my books or anything." He scratched at the goatee he'd grown in over the past several weeks. "Um, stress, I am doing all right. I am not failing anything?"

"What about your powers? Mr. Summers said you used them in the city the other week." Jim scratched her slightly wild hair. "Maybe we should try for some kind of applications grading in Powers Class. You took down a dinosaur. It feels like that should count for the value of a pop quiz or something."

Julio shrugged his shoulders in an embarrassed way. "It was going to take off my head. I had no choice." Most of the time he'd run on instinct, and only later did he realize what could have happened if control slipped, and very quietly had to go be sick.

An eyebrow quirked. "Is there a reason you should be sorry about the lack of choice? I mean, giving you grounding in how to defend yourself when things are trying to eat you is kind of an integral part of the curriculum. We've even got drills."

"Mr. Summers was not happy with me for doing so," Julio said grudgingly. "I cannot understand why."

"Well, there is that whole 'encouraged not to use powers in public' thing, but I think Mr. Summers kind of gets that some things can slide when you're being attacked by prehistoric animals." Jim gestured to him. "Still, being able to actually use your power well enough to defend yourself -- that's good. Is it more comfortable for you? I mean, your control?"

Julio made a gesture that could be interpreted as "eh". He still wasn't comfortable with the counselor being a woman all of the sudden. He still hadn't sat down, or left his place by the door. "I guess it is. I am glad nothing bad happened because of it. Most of the times it is reflex now, but it is still tricky where things are ...less stable?"

Jim nodded. "Yeah, your powers come with weird complications with faultlines. Weaning yourself onto the less stable areas is probably a good idea until you get more of a grasp on the connectiveness." She considered this for a moment. "I know you train with Ms. Dane. Have you ever had a session with Ms. Munroe?"

"Not yet. I mostly just mangle English in her class. On purpose." Mostly. "How would she be able to help me?"

"Ms. Dane's power's a lot more applicable to yours, and she's got the geology background to back it up so she really is the best primary, but pulling weather in one place can deprive it of others and . . ." The woman frowned. "Things with the ecosystem I actually don't understand, so I won't try to explain. But I do know Ms. Munroe's powers have to deal with interconnectedness. I don't think she sees things in the same way you or Ms. Dane or Amara do, but sometimes a different perspective can turn up interesting things. That's why the powers-tutoring rotates anyway."

"It is worth a shot. I shall talk to her after class," Julio said, with a nod. Next week. When she was the proper sex again. Hopefully. "Um, is there anything else that you need to talk with me about?"

Jim assessed the situation. Between the tone, the posture, the repeated attempts at changing the subject and the fact he'd never even walked completely into Jim's office there was not a lot of code involved in deciphering the fact Julio really, really didn't want there to be anything else.

"No, I think we're covered," the counselor replied. "It was mostly just a random check. We're going to try to do more of those after the bigger affronts to existence. I'll talk to Ms. Munroe about working something out, and you should look into that eye thing, but I think we're okay."

"Okay, I will," Julio said. Trying to not look too relieved. "Do I need a pass back to class or can I just?" He pointed at the door.

"Oh, sorry. Yeah, I'll get you a slip. If you want you can just give it to your teacher tomorrow and claim it was a tough session. Might as well get something out of Sharing." And, of course, she'd run out of slips yesterday and forgotten to put more on her desk. Motioning Julio to wait for a moment, Jim got out of her chair and went to the filing cabinet next to her desk to retrieve another book.

Being a teenage boy, Julio obviously had to look. It was one of the laws of physics. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, what goes up must come down, and if a female bends over, a straight teenage male's eyes will be drawn directly to her butt. Not of course, taking things like the female in question was in actually supposed to be a 6'4" tall MAN into account.

And thus, a very tiny part of Julio's soul died.

There was a small, cut-off noise behind her as Jim shuffled through the filing cabinet. She paused, confused. What sounded like a muffled scream?

The tall woman turned around with the book of slips in one hand and noticed the student's eyes glassy and fixed on the opposite wall. "Julio, you okay over there?"

"S-si." Julio choked. "I, ah, have a headache now? Yes, sorry. It was a headache. Sudden headache." He still was very deliberately not looking at Haller.

Jim gave him an odd look as she bent over her desk to write out the slip. "Yeah. I used to have those. Get that looked at. Pain is never good." She tore the paper along the perforation and crossed the room to hold it out to the boy. "Here you go. At least the excuse from class comes at a good time."

Well, now Julio felt like a complete and total tool. It wasn't Haller's fault he'd been turned into a girl. He didn't know how he would take it if he became Julieta. Probably have massive cope failure.

"Gracias, Mr. Haller. Thank you."

Jim nodded. "You're welcome."

It took every ounce of willpower Julio had not to run out the door. He would be so very glad when this week was over and things were back to normal. Er.

Jim watched Julio leave and wondered what it must be like for normal psis like Charles, Betsy, Jean and Nathan. She had her own problems with the concept of picking up stray thoughts, but she had to admit that in some circumstances telepathy would have made her job so much easier.

Then the part of her that had actually been a normal 16 year old boy at one point remembered what it had been like. The madness passed.

Pinching the bridge of her nose, Jim sighed, went back to her desk, and checked her next appointment.