xp_logs | A very old log

x-cyclops.livejournal.com posting in

[this is a really old log, related to this entry, and done a while ago, just never got posted.

"Jono. I need to talk to Alex for a bit. Give me five minutes, and then we'll meet up, okay?" Scott looked pleased with how the class had gone.

"I'll be waiting," Jono replied.

[and he will be sitting by the door, outside in the hallway, with his knees drawn up and forehead pressed against them.]

"Jono, I'm late, I'm sorry. Alex and I got to talking and I lost track of time..." Scott stopped as he noted Jono's position on the floor. It seemed very un-Jono. "Hey, you okay?"

Jono folded up from the floor, ending up leaning against the wall. "I'm okay," he replied blandly. "Do you often have the habit of letting students bathe in your rooms."

Scott looked blank for a moment, then realization crashed on his head and he winced from the thump.

"Uh...no. No, I do not. I'm sorry about that, I thought she would have been gone long before class let out. Paige needed a soak, and Iwasn't going to be there." He looked like he was going to swear, but held off.

He looked at Jono, to see if he wanted to say anything more about that topic, before moving on.

Jono only shrugged noncommittally.

"So, still want to talk?"

"I suppose it's expected," he said. "I need to figure out what to do with myself sooner or later."

He watched Jono curiously for a moment before offering him a hand. "The chairs are more comfortable inside." Not studying him like a bug under a microscope or a puzzle to solve, Scott's expression was one of surprise. He hadn't expected the response, and was curious as to what prompted it.

"What would you like to do with yourself?" He asked after he had closed the door behind them, and gestured to a few comfortable-looking chairs around a table in the corner of the room.

Jono sat carefully on one of the chairs. "I would like be human again," he admitted. "Naturally. But I can't, so I want to know if there's any good side to this not having a chest business."

Scott stopped and considered Jono's words, as he took a seat of his own. "Human...well, we can get into that another time. As for good sides or their opposites..." He ran his hand through his hair. "Our powers are what we make of them. I can't open my eyes to the world without these glasses, without sending a blast of force so strong that it ... well, it might very well punch a hole in a mountainside. So everything I see is colored ruby quartz, and has been since I was ... oh, about your age, maybe younger. I hit my head after my parents pushed my brother and me out of their plane. It was about to crash, there was only one parachute. I hit my head when we landed, and the Professor thinks that I damaged the part of my brain that would enable me to control the blasts."

He flicked the glasses with one finger. "Sorry, that's more than enough about me. This is about you. I know Ms. Frost is developing something for you, now that she has access to a lab. But why don't you tell me about what happened when it manifested? And what it feels like? Not emotionally...but physically. Ms. Grey would have said psychically. What can you sense about the energy?"

He thought to himself that Jono and Alex had similar difficulties with their mutant abilities, though their personalities were very, very different. He wasn't sure that they would mesh at all, which was unfortunate. They could probably learn a lot together, if not directly from each other.

Jono was frowning, apparently trying to adjust to all of this new information about Scott. He had been slowly learning that being a mutant was not exactly a picnic for almost anyone, but he had to maintain that it was even less so for himself. "When it manifested," he repeated, staring at his hands clenched in his lap. "I was at a party. Then I felt like my head was going to split, and," he paused briefly, "then my chest exploded." It was obvious he didn't like to talk about it. "They told me later I took out half of the floor with it. I don't remember, it.. hurt."

He unclenched one hand slowly and ran it up the glow, like feeling it. "Now it's just there. I can only feel it physically when it's about to blow up. Like a pressure. Like I was too small to have it all inside me." He ran his hand down, looking at his fingers moving in the light.

Scott listened attentively, and winced in empathy when Jono mentioned that it "hurt."

"I swear it always hurts," he said quietly, staring at his own hands. Then he came back to himself, and the boy....man?...before him.

"Pressure," he nodded in agreement. "That I can understand. I think Alex and my powers at least are akin to yours. We won't know more about his for a bit, but I do know that I absorb solar radiation, solar energy. I can let off the pressure with letting loose with my power every now and then. Alex hasn't quite got the hang of it yet, but it's only really manifested itself recently, from what he's said."

He watched Jono "play" with the glow. "How long does it take to build up?"

"Not long," Jono only said. Then after a while he elaborated, "like when I asked Piotr to stick his hand into my chest. It didn't build up at all that time, it just exploded. Though it was different when Miss Braddock was trying to help me." He thought for another moment before adding: "And it all comes from me. I don't think I absorb anything like you do with solar radiation, it's just already there."

"Hmm...the incident with Piotr might have been something in self-defense, even if you weren't consciously aware of it. I'm not saying definitely, but it's a possibility." Scott grimaced. "It sounds like I'm attributing an intelligence to the power, and that's not what I was trying to do."

"So, how was it different with Ms. Braddock?"

Jono had frowned fiercely at the thought of his mutation having an intelligence of its own, but at Scott's question about Ms. Braddock it turned more thoughtful. "It was different because at that time I was able to- well, maybe not control it outright, but able to keep it from just coming out when it wanted. And when I went off to blow up the trees, and Paige was there.." He seemed frustrated now. "I managed to stop it so I wouldn't hurt her."

"That's a good thing, Jono. It means it can be controlled. Even more, /you/ can control it. No one, well, no mutant I've ever met, starts out being able to control their mutation." Scott looked thoughtful, recalling past experiences with students at the school.

"What did you do to stop it? And what did it feel like when you did stop it?"

Jono thought back, trying to recall exactly what had happened. "I didn't do anything special," he said then, not looking particularly pleased about it. "I just.. didn't want to hurt her."

"You did do something, we just don't know quite what it is yet."

Scott went back to what started this whole idea in the first place.

"Do you want to try experimenting in the Danger Room? It's the safest place...for everyone, including yourself, to experiment with powers."

For a moment Jono seemed to want to say no, but then nodded instead. "Yeah, haven't got a choice, do I." He shifted uncomfortably. "Don't much care for the place, the dampening field was a bit harsh."

"That field isn't there all the time. Come on," Scott stood up. "Let's give it a go now. You game?"

[and off they went to blow up stuff in the Danger Room.]