Kyle, Jennie and Marius. Some post-Ahab recovery.

[x-wildchild.livejournal.com]

Discussion is had.



Kyle prodded his slice of pizza with a finger, frowning. "My olive sense is tingling. I think I have someone else's pizza. Who got olives?" He'd ordered a pizza with all the meat in the world, and this was definitely not it. "I can't do a serious conversation if I have to defend myself against olives..."

"Oh for pete's sake, it's a vegetable. It won't kill you. Give to Jennie." Jennie traded her slice with Kyle. Hers being the one that contained olives, ham and mushrooms. "I swear, it's easier to get every single citizen in Japan to wear the same outfit on the same day than it is to get two Americans to agree on pizza toppings."

"Proof enough your country is inferior," Marius remarked, sawing his pizza into neat pieces with a plastic fork, knife, and complete lack of concern for the odd looks from anyone else in the restaurant. Once the care had been out of necessity. Now it was just habit. "I shall admit, though I do much prefer its educational system. This one only insisted upon an extension of some weeks for reasons of trauma an' ridiculous absence rather than writin' off the entire year. Perhaps mum will refrain from including note of my delayed graduation in the holiday card. Again."

"I don't object to all vegetables. Just -that- one." Kyle protested. "They are shriveled little black fruits of deaaaath." It wasn't that all olives tasted bad, or were even gross. Just -those-olives. He finished liberally dosing his pizza with the provided grated cheese and took a impossibly large bite of pizza. "Dude, your mom needs to get over it..." He said, after swallowing.

"His Mom is a new kind of special," Jennie said, dabbing her lips with a napkin and taking a small sip of water. "I'm just happy they're letting Marius and I walk. My Yaya and Bapi are coming, and I'd hate for them to make the trek way the hell out here for nothing." Thankfully, the extensions granted to them very pointedly were just that; extensions and not "summer school." That would have been an extra special punch to the stomach.

Marius nodded as he speared a piece of pizza despite his flimsy plastic utensil's protests. "Suppose this lot would have sympathy for Dire Happenings. I can boast more absences than most of the staff, but with some it's a near thing. Hazard of the second job an' that."

"I yet again, avoid my mom visiting." Kyle said, not at all displeased. "But my dad's coming down. Apparently they need my grades so I can, you know, prove I'm not a big slacker or something to some judge. Which means I get to bust ass on homework. Which, you know, is so fun on top of therapy every other freakin -day-."

"I mean, I appreciate the staff's efforts to check on us and everything. But it's getting excessive." Jennie sighed, leaning back against the hard plastic of the booth. "Honestly there's not much they can do here. I would like to be able to leave the mansion and not get an anxiety attack. Believe me, I would. But I'm not going to drag a staffmember out with me every time or never leave the mansion again."

"Right," Marius agreed, "I think that is only reasonable. Though it seems that particular students, an' by this I speak in no way at all self-referentially, continue to disappear." Sometimes under worse circumstances than others, though objectively speaking Marius wasn't sure which vanishing of his would have been considered the more unfortunate. By Ms. Munroe at the very least. To avoid depressing reflection Marius distracted himself with a sip of water. He found it difficult to have intense emotions while drinking from a cheap red plastic cup.

Kyle snorted. "It's like a curse or something. We're cursed." He ripped his pizza crust into two pieces, and began using the larger piece to assault the smaller, complete with sound effects. "I am not a fan of this curse and I say we should find the person who cursed us and beat them."

"Don't look at me," Jennie held up her hands. "I'd rather not keep jinxing myself thankyou." She took another delicate bite of her pizza slice. After chewing she looked at both boys. "Come on, there's gotta be something we can do here. Proactivity and whatnot. I don't like the sitting around and waiting for shit to happen. I gotta do something. We gotta do something."

"Ah, yes, I can see it." Marius contemplated his fork in a melancholy way. "'Oi! You! World that hates an' fears us! Cease your harassment at once or be beaten severely about the head and shoulders!' A nice dream." He poked at a shred of ham that did not seem worth much the effort, adding softly, "Particularly the bit about hate. I could do without that."

Kyle looked at his pizza crusts, that he was still absently abusing, and tore the larger one into two pieces, putting all three down in front of him. "Uh. You're gonna laugh, but I have an idea..."


And a decision has been reached.



Listening to the birds chirp cheerfully next to the open window, Ororo smiled. Though the past few weeks had been grueling and altogether too stressful for her liking, things were finally beginning to calm down. The weather outside was beautiful and she only had a few more papers to correct before she intended to head to her garden to enjoy it; it was part of her unspoken agreement with Scott that he wouldn't find her in the office when he made his sweep of the hallway later in the afternoon. She could live with that.

She was interrupted by a polite knock on the door. It was opened to reveal three young mutants, nicely dressed and groomed. Jennie came forward into her office first. "May we have a word with you, if you aren't too busy?" She smoothed her sweaty hands on her skirt and tilted her head hopefully at the headmistress.

Ororo's eyes flickered over the gathered students: Jennie, Kyle, and Marius. Dear goddess, what now? "Of course," came the warm reply as the headmistress rose to beckon the three further into the office. "Please, come in."

There were a couch and chairs in the room, but none of the three moved to take them. Perceiving Ororo's wary look as the three students arrayed themselves politely, Marius cocked his head at the other two. "Here, I told you we were intimidating," he said, though the hint of reproach in his voice was less playful than baseline. He slid his hands into his pockets and grinned slightly at the headmistress. "No worries, no panic. To be worth anyone's while coup would necessarily occur far earlier in the term."

Hoping that someone else would say something to get it done and over with wasn't working. Kyle ran a hand through his hair, ruining the fact that it had been brushed and looked at Jennie pleadingly. If he had to say it, he'd screw it up. He'd blown saying important things plenty enough times before. He wasn't risking it now.

Jennie looked at her two friends and had to stomp on the urge to sigh at them. She turned back to the headmistress and took another step forward. "Ms. Munroe, we've been talking. The three of us, about what happened. And it's made us come to a decision." Jennie clasped her hands in front of her and took a deep breath.

"We would like to join the team," she said sincerely. "All of us."

It was a sign of how well-recovered Ororo was from the students' rescue that she didn't immediately burst out into hysterical laughter. As it was, however, all she did was stare at them with a slightly incredulous expression for a long moment; outside, the sun disappeared behind a cloud. "You three would like to become trainees?" she managed after a minute, blinking.

"If it's allowed, yeah," Marius replied. His face was, for once, completely straight.

Kyle shoved his hands into his pockets to keep from messing up his hair more, or fidgeting with the buttons on his cuffs. "We're not kidding. It's, um, important."

"And we did talk about this for a while before. Seriously." Jennie said, no hint of anything flippant in her tone. "It's something that we want. We were all the victims of hatred. We've all been before in one way or another, but now especially this time. We don't want something like that to happen to us again. And we don't want it to happen to anyone else either."

"Of course." Nodding, Ororo desperately tried to gather her thoughts, not wanting to take too long for fear the students might think she was still in shock. "That is perfectly understandable. And I applaud you for wishing to take a more active role. There are quite a few things to consider when speaking about the team… it is obviously a great commitment. I do not mean to question your dedication, but it will require quite a bit of time and energy on your parts. Have you factored that into your decision?"

Marius shifted his weight back slightly as he nodded acknowledgement. A black curl bobbed across his eyes, almost the length it had been before its shaving last October. "It'll present an interesting challenge once we're properly into university, but . . . well. Aside from the united stance of realising there's small room to lament the way the world is whilst makin' not one move of our own to change it, lack of preparation's seen me personally into Medlab twice now. So, the slightly awkward schedulin' -- an acceptable sacrifice."

"And if it means that we have to cut back on fun stuff, well, I mean, we gotta do that eventually anyway. And it's not like you guys don't find time to do the stuff you like." Kyle added. "And you guys have two jobs, most of you. You do the X-thing and the teaching thing. So it's possible. We'd just have to learn how too." He was unusually serious in tone.

"We're well aware of the sacrifices that we have to make, and we're prepared to make them." Jennie said. Her eyes flicked to her two companions, "I know I am." She turned back to the headmistress, head forward and a determined look in her eyes. "It's not a very nice place out there, Ms. Munroe. We'd like to try and help change that."

"Very well. Then I do not see why you should not have the opportunity to do so." Ororo stood then; it seemed fitting. "I will need to discuss this with Scott, of course. And the Professor. But if you three choose to take this path then I will be the first to congratulate you and welcome you to it. It is not an easy thing to choose to do, but I would be amiss if I did not say that it is also one of the most rewarding things I think you can do with your lives."

Marius smiled, and an almost unprecedented event occurred: he responded with only a single word.

"Merci."

Without hesitating a beat, the dark boy stepped forward to the headmistress' desk and extended one scarred hand.

White eyebrows winged their way up, but a moment later Ororo had reached out herself, clasping Marius' hand and shaking it firmly. She was utterly bemused by the entire turn of events - Kyle she could understand, but Jennie and Marius? That was a surprise. Still, she admired their decision and vowed to do what she could to enable it, even if it meant more stress for her. Which it surely would.

After Marius stepped back Jennie extended her hand as well, giving the headmistress an uncharacteristically shy smile. "Thank you," she said. "We'll make sure you won't regret this." Or they would try to anyway.

"And if you do, you can blame me. It's my fault." Kyle said, stepping forward to extend his own hand once Jennie was free. "And, uh, you should be getting a call from my folks in about an hour. I might have already, kinda asked them about it."

Ororo smoothed over the surprise that threatened to show in her expression, merely smiling serenely and nodding as she finished shaking the young man's hand. "Very well. I would be happy to speak with them. And with you three again, once I have finished discussing this with Scott and the Professor."

"At your leisure," Marius said, slipping his hands back into his pockets. His yellow eyes compressed faintly in a smile. "An' by all means, let them feel free to blame Kyle as well."