Cautionary Tales
Note from Sil: So we talked a bit back about posting unfinished logs here so that they didn't just languish in the ether. In that spirit, we bring you a conversation from long ago.
Features Jean and Lorna discussing food, Alex and Manny. Unfortunately, it cuts off before too much gets said.
Originally posted in x_project, set for March 2005, post-Thermopylae.
Lorna was even more grateful the Faraday cage now. Every day seemed to be a little worse than the day before and every little piece of metal seemed to generate a nerve-shaking hum. She'd even had to take off the necklace Alex had given her. Today at least she was able to manipulate the resonance off the cage to be less intrusive but she still felt like someone stuck a giant tuning fork to her spine. Alex had fled, rightfully fed up with her by turns cranky, distracted and depressed mood.
Jean had seen Lorna's posts on the journal system, but hadn't had a chance before now to come check on her. Power issues was more Moira's field, but taking care of people was something she was good at anyway, and she wanted to make sure the younger woman was ok. She shifted the tray of juice and sandwiches and tapped on the door to Lorna's rooms. "Lorna, are you in there? It's Jean."
Jean! Lorna lifted her head to look at the door. She was lying flat on her back on the floor. Alex had tried to convince her to move to the couch but the springs were agony. Lorna shook her head to focus her thoughts, "Come in, it's open." Hmm, she probably was going to need to find someway to not be on the floor anymore.
Jean nudged the door open and caught sight of Lorna on the floor ... not be on the floor... Grinning she said, "Definitely don't get up on my account. I come baring juice and sandwiches, for electrolytes and carbohydrates are our friends."
Lorna took Jean at her word and lay down again, "It still feels weird when people try to feed me. Like it's against the natural order of things. Not that I'm complaining." Because complaining would have just gotten her in trouble and that required way more effort than she was willing to give right now. "Are you just here for a food delivery?"
"Well, and also to do the doctorly 'are you ok' thing." Jean set the tray down and then settled gracefully onto the floor. ... complaining would have just gotten her in trouble... "And yes, you should not be complaining. Have some juice and tell me how you feel."
Lorna made a face. Tired, cranky, smothered and buzzing. Her arm hurt, her leg hurt, her head hurt and that without the hypersensitivity to every magnetic . "Fine." She pushed herself up on her good arm but didn't take the juice. "Really reconsidering this whole 'get beat up for Justice' schtick. It'll pass."
"Yeah, try that line on one of the doctors who isn't an uncontrolled alpha level telepath. Would you like painkillers? They will have the added side benefit of possibly making you too woozy to feel the magnets." Jean proffered the juice again. "Fresh squeezed, no-additive OJ from the co-op. Highly unionable, I promise."
Cheater, cheater, I'm not actually thinking at you. Lorna raised an eyebrow at the glass then glanced at her good arm, which she was leaning on, and her bad one which was still in it's sling. "I have painkillers. I try not to take them too early though or I spend the day zombified and then can't sleep and I keep Alex up with my whining. And don't suggest having more. I don't like taking them in the first place."
"Of course you're not," Jean agreed. "Doesn't mean I can avoid hearing you. Here." She pulled a straw off the tray and popped it into the glass, holding the glass for Lorna. "I can understand that, yes, and it's your call whether the pain or the woozy is worse."
"They're equally suck in their own ways. I'll just tough it out." Lorna held herself in a sit up position and sipped her juice. The twinges in her back reminded her why that wasn't a good idea. "So how's life, Jean?" Lorna asked, easing back down on to her back again.
"Well, it's been less painful than any of the rest of the staff have had it, I think. Although more filled with the mental whimpers of the invalids." Jean considered the younger woman. "I think you could manage a sandwich without sitting up, if it would be easier. Alternatively, I could plunder the guest rooms for more pillows."
"I really don't need to be fed, Jean. I'm eating. Promise." In fact, considering she wasn't able to do any kind of exercise, she was probably eating way too much. She needed to look at her dietary requirements and all that soup had so much sodium which wasn't good. She wished for a scale but hadn't owned one for months. She got to step on one for doctor's visits only and wasn't allowed to watch when they weighed her. "I just want to be able to move around again. How long does it take a broken leg to heal anyway?"
Jean nodded. "I'll trust you on that matter," Jean said, before taking one of the sandwiches for herself. "But I'll leave the rest in the fridge for you... Alex can get them for you when you want." The hesitation on his name was brief, but noticable and Jean quickly moved on. "Unfortunately, the leg will take a while. However, once the bruising goes down - at most another day or two, I should think - we can get you on some crutches. I know we have wooden ones in the back closets somewhere."
Lorna was already predisposed to be overaware of any and all Alex related things and given Alex's attitude towards Jean... She pushed herself up again to look at Jean, "Did Alex say something to you?" He'd better not have. She was willing to put up with him not liking Jean but being out and out rude to her was another story entirely.
Jean hesitated, her mind calling up images from their brief meeting for the boy had been avoiding her these days. "We... We met on account of his friend, Shiro. It... did not go as well as I could have hopped," she said cautiously. "I guess it is not to as surprising as it should be that not all of the students are comfortable with my return. He is not the only one who... Well, never mind."
Lorna blinked, "Who else?" She'd deal with Alex when he got back. This was ridiculous. "I didn't know of anyone else with problems." Not that she was nearly as clued in to the gossip loops anymore. But she hadn't heard a word.
"One of the new students," Jean said, anger begining to bubble inside her again. "I have no idea why, but he was most... unpleasant." Jean was hesitant to gossip about the students, particularly so soon after meeting many of them, but Manuel's behavior had been less than exemplary, although besides a general lack of respect for her position which had been implied from his questions and manner, there was nothing she could point at particularly. Just a deep, deep dislike of him.
One of the new students. Such a relative term, they were mostly all new from Jean's point of view. Still, Lorna could think of only a few who would be unpleasant as opposed to merely teenagers though her mind shied away from her most likely suspect. "Some of them can be. Don't beat around the bush, Jean. They're students and as much as we suck at enforcing the policy, they do owe the teachers respect. Personal attacks aren't okay."
Jean caught the faint flicker of deep distress from Lorna, but it was hidden away so quickly she wasn't sure it had really been there. Sighing, she said, "It... wasn't really a personal attack. Mr. De la Rocha managed to... unsettle me quite significantly, at least in part simply because my lack of shielding leaves me very vulnerable to other psis."
This time the distress would be impossible to mistake despite Lorna's immediate attempts to shield it away. She had no right to prejudice people against Manuel. He was different now or so she was told. She had overreacted and it was her fault and... Lorna closed her eyes, concentrating on drawing in slow, even breaths. "Manuel can be unsettling," she agreed, her voice bland.
...no right... prejudice people... different now... Lorna's fear flashed through her mind , although her attempts to avoid thinking about it made Lorna's mind too cloudy for Jean to see what it was she was frightened of. "What did he do to you?"
Just asking about it brought forth the answer too quickly to be smothered, the euphoria and fear, the guilt and the loss. Lorna closed her eyes, knowing nothing she said would counter the strength of her reaction. "Last year, I was...something of a bitch to him. I was really depressed at the time, Alex was gone and I was still healing after being burned. Anyway, he knew I was depressed and decided to...change it. Force me to be happy. Just as I was coming down off that, there was the love potion and that made it worse..." Lorna shook her head, still refusing to look at Jean. "I'm afraid I didn't handle it well." Talking about it was still like stabbing herself over and over. The pain didn't become less over time, only more familiar.
The images and thoughts in Lorna's mind flashed through Jean's and she flinched away from their intensity. Biting the inside of her cheek she tried to focus past it, to keep the knowledge that Lorna's feelings and thoughts were not her own and that her pain could not hurt her - a lie with her shielding in tatters, but one which provided her with an ounce of control. Lorna's words also helped her focus and she looked at Lorna sympathetically. "I'm..." She started to say she was sorry she asked, but cut herself off -
Lorna clearly had not been dealing with all of this, and talking about it would be good for her. Albeit, stressful for Jean. "I met him in the kitchen," she told the other woman. "When he shook my hand... I have no shielding, and most mental gifts can not truly be shut off - I could feel that he knew how I felt, but with his shields intact, I had no similar feeling of him. Being on uneven footing does not make for a good first impression, and he proceeded to say a number of... highly unsettling things. I have no doubt, given his gift, that he knew what he was doing. I lost control, but managed to leave before I hurt him." She sighed, wincing slightly at the admission that she had almost hurt a student.
