Jean and Gabriel

[x-velocidad.livejournal.com]

Jean comes clean to Gabriel about a few things. (Backdated to Tuesday evening.)

Jean tapped the pencil against her desk, waiting on Gabriel to arrive. She had closed her laptop after asking him to come by. Somehow she felt out of her element all of a sudden. She didn't know what was different. Perhaps she was. She hadn't told them all about the happenings with the school when they came. Now she felt self conscious about it, somehow, like they should be warned. Like they should know they could be in danger.

Perhaps she shouldn't have met with him right now. She felt tense. Perhaps.

Gabriel brushed a crumb off his black tank top as he stood outside her door. He had not been given the full brochure of the mansion, that was for sure, but it's not like that was the biggest deal ever. It's just that he'd been sold the idea that Xavier's would have been a safe, removed place for him to learn how to use his powers and get back to his feet. It did not sound like that was entirely the case anymore.

Still, he owed Jean, and he was ready to give her the benefit of the doubt. Especially since she generally spoke to him on his level and didn't bother to talk down to him like someone else might have. He knocked, put a smile on his face, then pushed the door open and stuck his head in. "You summoned?"

Putting the pencil down, Jean rubbed her face and leaned back.

"Yes please," she said, rising to her feet. There was a small seating area with two chairs, a coffee table, and a couch close by. She sat down in one of the chairs, then motioned for him to sit on the couch.

"There are a lot of things I should have told you when helping you to better make your decision to come here and for that I'm sorry. This place has a duality to it...it is a haven for mutants but...it can also be the occasional magnet for trouble when they bring their pasts with them sometimes."

Gabriel sat on the couch, draping his left arm over the armrest. "Not like I can't appreciate that, I guess. I mean, you picked me up from a pair of crazy stalkers. Who, yes," he lifted a hand from the couch to stop her from even saying it, "yes, I stole from. That's so 2008 at this point."

"But, yeah." He scratched his ear. "As much as I love to hear nonspecific words like 'occasional magnet for trouble,' you gotta give me a little more than that. Until last weekend, I hadn't really met a situation I couldn't run from. Is that gonna start being a thing now?"

"It could be," Jean admitted. "The people here come from all around the world, from all different backgrounds. They have friends, they have enemies. We help people through various means...teaching them how to help themselves, or saving their lives, for example. But sometimes people don't like someone getting in their way of what they want...like your attackers back there. And that can make us a target at times. Mutants...magic...regular humans...it varies...So it can be a double edged sword."

"Uh huh." Gabriel nodded. "And, sorry, stop me if I heard this wrong, which I must have, but... magic?"

Jean smiled, albeit quite sympathetically. She understood the disbelief. "Real, yes," she said. "We've run afoul of it many times. There are a few magic users here as well."

Her smile faded, and she glanced away. "But there is something that I also didn't tell you about myself that I should've. It can be hard for some people to hear so I usually ease them into it. But I messed up this time."

Gabriel stared at her for a second, uncomfortable with how nervous she now looked. It was silent, and she was clearly waiting for him to say something, so without thinking he did what he usually did in tense situations: blurted out the first dumb joke that came to his head.

"You used to be a man."

The comment made her blink at him quizzically at first, and she burst out with a quiet laugh that she silenced by biting her lip. She shook her head.

"No...I....when I said I'm psychic, it didn't mean I could read your future in a crystal ball...It meant...I'm telepathic. I can read minds. I know it can make people uncomfortable to know that and..." She glanced down.

"It's okay if you are. I'm used to it. It can take people some time to come to trust me, especially the ones with hard lives."

Gabriel's eyes widened. He had not been given all the information about Xavier's, that was for sure, but that didn't bother him nearly as much as this did. Psychic. She was a psychic. He'd trusted a woman who could easily have been scanning his brain the whole time. Who probably had.

"So the other night," he said slowly. "A few weeks ago or whatever, when you — you know, at the bar. When you caught me. Were you...?" And if she had been - if that whole time, if back in her office, if now - what else had she caught?

"No," Jean said truthfully. "I sensed you were there, but I don't listen in. It's like hearing a radio in another room. You know there's music but you can't make out the words. I have walls I put up to keep people's thoughts out. Your thoughts are your own. I know I would feel the same, so I try not to pry."

She studied him. "I can tell by the look in your eyes that there are things you don't want me to know. And that's okay. I'm hoping maybe some day you'll trust...if not me, then someone, enough to let them in and tell them."

Gabriel nodded again, his face a little blank. So she hadn't spied on him - but she hadn't entirely told him the truth about everything either. Which left him comfortable that he trusted her, but uncertain he could trust her. Judging by the way she'd acted (and how she was now looking at him), she seemed to feel guilty. Which still put her worlds above anyone else he knew who had disappointed him.

He decided to throw her a bone. "Today's my birthday, you know? Back home, my parents would be making a big deal out of it. They love birthdays." He gave her a weak smile, but he looked a little vacant. "My mom would have probably made a flan, and there almost certainly would have been a barbecue or something. My dad and his grill." He rolled his eyes, but there was no mirth behind them.

"This year, I'd die of shock if I even got a text, let alone a phone call. No birthday card." His eyes darted to the photos of her family that he'd seen last time he was in this very spot. "Maybe from my sister. All of which is really to say nothing about my birthday. Just that there's a reason I don't trust people so easily, but since you probably saved my life, you're miles ahead of anyone else in it, forthcoming or not."

Jean didn't say anything for a moment or two, then nodded a little. "I appreciate that. I can only imagine how hard it's been. But you're a good man. I could see it, even when you were doing the wrong thing."

She then smiled softly. "Happy birthday."

"Yeah, whatever," he said perhaps a little too dismissively. Another year wasn't really a big deal, whether he was turning 19 or whatever age he was now pretending to be. "Thanks."

He swung his feet off the couch and planted them on the floor. "Level with me." His eyes met hers. "How much danger am I in?"

The dismissive tone made Jean's smile widen slightly but she said nothing. Her smile faded to a more thoughtful look at his question.

"We try to take every precaution to make sure the school is the safest it can be. But it has been attacked before. As I said, with the amount of people gathered here from different backgrounds there will be some with enemies with the occasional score to settle. I'm not saying you should look over your shoulder constantly and carry a bazooka, just...expect the unexpected."

"That's vague," Gabriel objected.

"You've already heard about the demons. That's one of the stranger intruders," Jean said. She didn't want to frighten him. Despite being older he still felt young to her for some reason. But she didn't want to coddle him, and she wanted him to trust her.

"There are some anti-mutant people who we have been in altercations with for various reasons...one was because he had a son who was a mutant and the Professor couldn't cure him. There have also been mutants who came looking for revenge." She glanced away as she spoke about both events, her mind traveling to painful memories that reflected in the distance in her eyes.

Her attention returned to Gabriel and she nodded. "But we take care of our own. We protect those under our roof."

"Oh, good." Gabriel made a face. He wasn't sure what the big deal was. "Sure. I mean, you brought muscle to the High Line, when I faced an altercation with mutants looking for revenge, so... I feel like you guys are probably on top of it. Kinda seems like everyone's blowing things out of proportion." He could tell she was struggling, and that there was probably more that she wasn't telling him. He didn't want to make her relive it, and if he stuck around, he was sure it would all come out in due time. "The demon thing is kinda freaky, but it seems pretty abstract to me, so not all that threatening."

He gave her a smile he hoped was reassuring. "Everywhere has problems, red."

"Ours are often a bit more extraordinary than most, though," Jean said, returning the smile. "But we manage. Pretty soon you'll be telling war stories just like the rest of us. You already have one of your own, I suppose."

"Well, sure, except for the part where I was passed out for most of the battle."

"When you tell it leave that part out?" Jean said with a twinkle in her eye. She let out a breath.

"I hope you'll never have that problem again. I hope everything will go smoothly and you'll soon grow so bored by a mundane life here that you'll want to leave. But...I'd rather you be prepared in case it doesn't."

"Not like I'm counting on that. Life never works out how you expect it," he said sagely. "I know better than anyone. Might as well expect the punches, since you're gonna have to roll with 'em."

Jean smiled sympathetically. "Sounds about right," she said. Sad thing was, she felt the same way. She didn't like the idea he had had enough bad experiences to have come to that conclusion, though.

"Anyway...that was all I needed to say."

"Okay." Gabriel nodded. He wiped his palms on his jeans and scanned her office before standing. "You know," he smiled, the bravado crumbling a little bit, "I can tell you probably have to say this a lot more than you get to hear it, so..." He shifted his weight between feet. "You don't have to worry. Things have a weird way of working out, and they usually end up okay." Not that he entirely believed that, but he could sell it with enough conviction to make it sound comforting.

Studying him a moment, Jean smiled back. "They do," she said. He didn't entirely believe it but she wanted to believe it. Maybe someday. And that was why she did what she did.

"Okay," Gabriel nodded again. "See you around, then." He smiled and waved his fingers before leaving her office in search of lighter conversation.