Bobby and Dori/ Hot Chocolate

[x-coldhands.livejournal.com]

Trying to get closer with one of his new students, Bobby tries to make amends with one that wasn't too happy with the sudden weather change earlier in the day.



Ok, thinking back on it, maybe dumping snow all over the grounds hadn't been the greatest way of reintroducing himself to everyone at the school. But hey, at least some people had fun with it right? As Bobby rounded the corner of one of the many corridors of the school he was quickly becoming reacquainted with, his eyes were fixated on the steam rising off of the cup of hot chocolate in his extended hand. After spending most of his life thinking about the cold, even the small things about heat intrigued Bobby. As he continued to look at the mug, he managing to knock at the door in front of him, hoping that his humble offering would do the trick in beginning to mend a rift he had already formed with one of his new students.

Doreen had comics spread around her in the common area of the room, her laptop on her lap and was wearing an oversized Raider's jersey with a pair of blue shiny-stretchy pants her mom had tailored ages ago for her tail to go through. She had to totally thaw out after this morning and even though the weather report was promising nothing really funny tonight, she was actually going to sleep outside. Monkey Joe was more than happy with this arraignment, her friend having spent almost the entire day sleeping on radiator after radiator. She looked up, he was over by the heating grate in the room now, sprawled over it luxuriously. Doreen rolled her eyes and shook her head and then there was the knock on the door.

"Be right there!" she said, setting her laptop down and then going to open the door. She smelled chocolate. But the person on the other side of the closed door wasn't Julian. At least he didn't smell like it. He smelled kinda weird.

"Oh," she said, when the door opened, "You're the new teacher-guy. Mister Drake, right?" And he had hot chocolate! There was a god! (Of chocolate at least.)

"New teacher guy, that'd be me," Bobby added with a smirk as he handed the cup off to Doreen. "And this is my 'I'm sorry I almost froze you to death on my first day back' present." Scratching the back of his head, he hoped that she would at least give him a shot.

Doreen brightened and took the cup, it smelled awesome, "Thank you! And oh, it's okay. I mean, I'm not REALLY supposed to be sleeping out there and stuff."

Drake shrugged his shoulders as he stuffed his hands deep into his pockets. "Don't worry about that stuff. Back when I was a student here, I wasn't always the best example of doing things down the straightened arrow all the time." He flashed his dimpled smile at the girl.

Doreen's tail curled happily at the taste of the coco. Monkey Joe, awakened by the voices wandered over and looked up at Dori, clicking. She looked down at him and scrunched up her face, "No. This is mine," she said to her friend, "Oh, this is Monkey Joe. He's my best friend."

Bobby jumped slightly at first when he saw the tiny creature, but he quickly settled back down. After all, Monkey Jo probably wasn't even in the top 5 of weird things that he'd seen in the mansion over the years. "Well I'm happy to have met both of you, and hope I didn't give off too much of a bad first impression."

"No, it was just cold," Doreen noted, "I'm from LA, I mean, I like to skii and stuff but I don't normally wake up in snow and stuff. What do you teach?"

"I was the match teacher before I left, but I've been working on getting my degree in general education, so I figured I could at least hold my own in some of the vacant classes while the Professor finds a more long term solution." Running a hand through his hair, Bobby was hoping his whole teacher talk wasn't scaring off the girl. "Recently most of my courses have been in physics, trying to understand my powers. What's your focus around here Ms..."

"Oh, um," Dori fumbled with the cup for a moment and extended a clawed hand, "Doreen. Everyone calls me Dori. They had a lot of worse names for me back in Beverly Hills but no one calls me them here. I'm not very good at math," she said, "I like to write. I want to write comics someday."

Bobby took the girls hand with a smile. "Well it's a pleasure to meet you Dori, and I guarantee that no one will give you any nicknames around here." He paused for a while. "Well any that are meant to hurt your feelings at least."

"Oh, I know," she said, sure she hadn't accidentally scratched him up. Or so she hoped. She hadn't been filing her nails as often as she should. It showed, she looked a bit wilder than usual. All the time outside, "So you make snow and stuff?"

Drake laughed. "Yeah, I'm kind of like a human refrigerator. I can freeze the water in the air, lower the temperature, and even change myself into solid ice." Talking about his problems reminded Bobby of his found days as an X-Man. "It's pretty cool." He forced himself to pause again. "No pun intended."

Doreen giggled, "But that's pretty funny," she said, "You must get to have ice cream and ice cold lemonade whenever you want!"

"I do, just don't ask to watch Batman and Robin with me, Arnold takes bad ice jokes to a new low." Pausing for a second, a small smile began to work its way out onto his face. "But speaking of ice cream, is there any kind of food that you really enjoy?"

"Oh no, I wouldn't make you watch that! That's a horrible movie!" Doreen said, empathetically, "Oh, I like snickers! And um, lots of nuts and granola and I like chocolate, chocolate is good. Strawberries are good. Apples! Like when you make them in an apple crisp. And peanut butter cups! And candy. I like candy. And Monkey Joe does too."

Taking a step back, Bobby tapped his chin a few times. "Well let's see, how would you like a chocolate fruit and peanut butter swirl with nougat, and I mix up a batch of Candy Mash Up for Monkey Jo over there?"

"Ohmigosh, that would be so totally awesome!" Doreen said, everything about her perking up.

"Then let's head down to the kitchen and see what Logan's left lying around." Bobby flashed a wide smile, knowing that he had made the right decision coming back to help the students.