Appraisals around a lemonade. OOC: Sorry for the shortness of this, I just couldn’t think of much else to say without NPCing you to much
Nick made his way though the corridors of the school in silence. It seemed that Mitch and Jordan had decided that they could still tolerate him enough to share a lemonade with him. To say that he was fuming would not quite have covered it, he was not mad as such just thoroughly annoyed. Mitch’s question about mutant supremacy had come out of no where and it seemed that neither of them had any intention of considering his point of view and whether or not his arguments were valid. You couldn’t just ask such a big question and then just dismiss other people’s opinions.
But then again he already knew that Jordan was not like most normal people and well it seemed that Mitch was so busy keeping his cousin in check that he did not have time to deal with the consequences of his questions. But they were still slightly less annoying that most of the Exiles and who knew maybe Mitch would exhaust his stock of moral and ethical questions and they might actually have a normal conversation. Something nice like what’s your favourite film rather than do you think that the death penalty should be completely abolished?
As they made their way into the small student kitchen Nick turned to look at the two boys following him. “So will it be a lemonade or a root beer?”
He turned again and went to the fridge waiting for the answers and for the other two to take up seats at the counter. He had to move a lot of stuff round as quite a few students kept their food in the fridge here and he had stashed his drinks right at the back. It was not a good thing to leave anything other than vegetables at the front of this fridge as things were prone to magically disappearing.
TBC- Mitch and Jordan Edited by: Nicolas Grayson at: 2/12/06 6:39 pm
Jordan had slid in and crouched down over the counter, keeping his rather hard eyes looking out on the world. Normally, Jordan would have sat with his back to the wall, but in a school where a pretty good portion of the student body could teleport, phase through walls, or were simply strong enough to walk THROUGH the wall by knocking a hole in it, the actual advantages of keeping a back to a wall were kinda nonexistant. Now that Jordan's temper had cooled off some, he was actually thinking about Nick's arguement about mutants having advantages. As much as the redneck hated to admit it, Nick did have a point in certain circumstances. Jordan wasn't willing to admit that his arguement was right in every circumstance, mainly because Jordan did not have enough time to through all of the implications.
“So will it be a lemonade or a root beer?”
Nick's voice cut through Jordan's thinking, making Jordan focus on the outer world instead of sorting through his thoughts. "Lemonade is fine." Then the young cowboy resumed his silence and thinking, his brown eyes showing a few flickers of his intelligence. While not having anywhere near the intelligence of his cousin, Jordan was far from an idiot. But abstract concepts like logic and mathmetics were not his area of expertese. Traditional weapons, the outdoors, horses, and the hunting and tracking of people and animals were a lot more familiar to him.
Mitch seemed more relaxed and open, wondering what was going through his cousin's head. He knew that Jordan tended to work things out in his mind a lot slower than he did, working on a question or situation from every conceivable angle. Often, his cousin could come up with some surprising insights. It was a pity that Jordan tended to respond from his gut before he thought everything through.
"I think I'll try a root beer if you don't mind." Mitch said. Mitch had always liked root beers. Even when he was a little kid, they had to have been his favorite drinks. His mother had been convinced that he could keep an entire root beer factory in business on his own. Thinking of his mother brought a sense of loss to Mitch, since she hadn't taken his moving to Xavier's very well. To take his mind off of those events, Mitch tried to figure out exactly what Nick was doing at what a lot of students had termed "mutant high".
Mitch leaned back and thought about the oddity that Nick was at this school. In the world outside, Mitch would be in the minority with regular humanity in a super majority. But in this school, a human was the one in the minority. This bothered Mitch somewhat. Mitch wondered if the school might be better off if it also allowed a greater amount of regular humans within its walls, allowing at least a semi integration.
But it wasn't as if Mitch could affect school policy in any case, only being a student for a week or so.
"You know why the silent one over there and I are here. How does a regular human get stuck here with the worlds most unwanted?" Mitch asked this in a joking voice, mainly curious because most people didn't want anything to do with mutants. The only things that Mitch could think of that might cover it mainly had to do with being related to someone in the institute, either student or faculty.
______________________________________________ (OOC: Uggg! I couldn't come up with much. Sorry for the general crappiness.)
Re: Appraisals around a lemonade.
Nick grabbed the correct drinks out of the back of the fridge as his two companions decided what they wanted. So that was two lemonades one for himself and the other for Jordan and a root beer for Mitch. He walked over to the counter and placed the bottles down gently before going back to the fridge to put back all of the food items he had had to take out to get to the drinks. At that point he also made a mental note to take a trip to the Salem centre in order to replenish his supplies. It would be a welcome break from the school and he missed ridding his Harley.
Dragging his mind away from thoughts of what he would do later he turned his attention back to the present and went back to the counter where he pulled up a chair and made himself comfortable. As predicted he did not have to wait long before the next question was thrown his way. And to his disappointment it was not about his cinematographic preferences. It was however a more normal question, that unfortunately for Mitch still touched a nerve it the young crime fighter.
"You know why the silent one over there and I are here. How does a regular human get stuck here with the worlds most unwanted?"
Nick felt a rise of anger mixed with grief hit him. For even though he knew his fathers reasons for leaving him here it did not make it any easier to deal with. He felt that his mother had robbed him of everything for the second time in his life and he could not bear to explain this to strangers. Besides who would believe that your extra- terrestrial mother was the reason that you had been landed at mutant high. Even though Nick was in fact less human than most of the kids in the school he considered himself as such. His mother had not left him anything and he did not want to acknowledge her by telling people that he was in fact half Tamarinian.
And anyway what was the use in being half alien if you did not have any special abilities to show for it. No, as far as Nick was concerned he was as human as you come and that was that. But that still did not answer Mitch’s question and he knew that ignoring it would not be a good idea. He had already offended these two once he figured that they would not take well to being ignored as well. But he knew that he could not give them the whole truth either. They did not know about the secret facilities in the school and saying that his dad had borrowed their space ship and left him in their care may not make him to popular with the staff here. So he decided to give them as much of the truth as he could without compromising himself or the school.
“I am here because my father has gone in search of my mother. He knows some of the teachers here and they helped him get some information and as he does not trust me to stay safe at home he has left me at the institute.”
Nick knew that this was not a very good explanation and that the cousins would probably have more questions for him on this subject. But he would handle those as they came… if they came. He was not overly good at concealing the truth from people as he was usually very forward with his opinions. He did not lie… unless his life or his father’s depended on it.
Re: Appraisals around a lemonade.
“I am here because my father has gone in search of my mother. He knows some of the teachers here and they helped him get some information and as he does not trust me to stay safe at home he has left me at the institute.”
Mitch winced a little bit in understanding at Nick's answer. Mitch knew what it was like to not have a parent around was like. He had been raised only by his mother, with his father not even caring enough to see if his child was male or female. Mitch had a little soreness about his father, and had no desire to even know who the man was. The only fact that Mitch wondered about was if his father was a mutant, and that was only from a scientific perspective. Mitch had also faced a lot of crap as a kid about that as well.
Mitch had a look of empathy on his face, and said "Ouch. The whole absent parent thing sucks worse than a black hole." It was pretty evident that Mitch was talking from experience. The young brainiac could easily remember wondering as a kid if half of his genes had come from a good man or a monster. But on the other hand, part of Mitch was happier not knowing, since if Mitch knew his mind would be arguing the whole nature-versus-nurture arguement every day. Mitch also could tell that Nick wasn't very fond of talking about the subject. Mitch couldn't blame Nick, considering that it wasn't exactly a subject that he liked talking about himself.
Jordan had remained both silent a motionless through the conversation. Upon hearing Nick's answer, Jordan was willing to bet that Mitch would clam up. Much to Jordan's surprise, Mitch had actually said a full sentence about the subject. It was more than Jordan or any of his siblings had ever gotten out of Mitch. The last time Jordan had pestered his cousin about it, he had recieved a hard left cross to the jaw that had laid him out across the floor. Jordan rubbed his jaw in remembered pain as a slightly glazed look came over his eyes as he remembered the incident. The glaze burned away pretty quickly as Jordan focused on part of what Nick had said.
Jordan took off his hat and scratched his head, and asked "Why the heck wouldn't your old man trust you to stay by yourself?" Jordan thought about his own history for a second, and realized that he really hadn't been trusted on his own much either. But Jordan had also given his parents a few reasons not to, mainly involving violence and putting his nose where it didn't belong. "Mine really never has trusted me by myself either, but he's got a few reasons for that. Actually, he doesn't like leaving Mitch by himself either, but that's cause he's liable to take apart all of the appliances and rebuild them into some sorta God awful monstrosity." Jordan was refering to Mitch's attempt to improve a dishwasher when he was eight years old. Jordan had been the first one to try it, but the thing had a short in it and caught fire, tramatizing the poor cat that had been sleeping on it. The thing had looked evil just sitting there, a squat box with tubing and filteres everywhere on it, looking for all the world like some doomsday device.
Re: Appraisals around a lemonade. "Ouch. The whole absent parent thing sucks worse than a black hole."
Judging by Mitch’s response Nick guessed that the mutant was either trying to be very understanding or that he had gone through life with only one parent as well. And as things stood in the world today Nick figured it was probably the later, he found it hard to believe that so many people would decided to get married and then walk away from each other a few years later. But what irked him most of all was that it was always the children that suffered in the end and he had sworn that he would not do that to his children if it was in his power. For he knew fool well that sometimes circumstances took the person you loved away and that in those occasions there was no way of fighting it.
That is what had happened to his father, as Starfire had left through no fault of his and sadly through no fault of her own either. She had been injured in a brutal attack against one of her former team mates and in order to heal had gone into a deep trance like state that only warriors of her world could reach. But this trance changed her and when she returned she had lost the love she held for both him and his father. And so without any ties holding her to the earth anymore she decided to leave and with her went his father’s heart.
There were times when the injustice of this situation brought tears to Nick’s eyes but nowadays it mostly brought anger and, since his father had left, a glimmer of hope. But he did not want to think about these things right now, he had to concentrate on the two sat in front of him and try and keep hope bottled up for he was not sure he could live with any more disappointment.
He turned his attention to Jordan who looked like he was about to ask him something. And once more the duo did not fail to disappoint as the cowboy found yet another sensitive question to ask him. "Why the heck wouldn't your old man trust you to stay by yourself?"
Well the first part of that was easy. His dad did not want him to trash the mansion by holding huge parties and he obviously wanted to come back and find the Wayne fortune still intact. But the other part of it he did not think he was ready to tell his new acquaintances. For he father was scared that he would go out as Robin and get himself killed, which in Gotham was a risk that everyone took if they ventured into the not so savoury areas.
"Mine really never has trusted me by myself either, but he's got a few reasons for that. Actually, he doesn't like leaving Mitch by himself either, but that's cause he's liable to take apart all of the appliances and rebuild them into some sorta God awful monstrosity."
It seemed to Nick that all of their parents probably had good reasons for not wanting to leave their children alone. But he was also aware that there would come a day when he was going to have to find his own place and make his own way in the world. Just like his father had left Batman to go off and become Nightwing, Nick wanted to go and find his own cause to fight for. But he knew that he would in time return to Gotham to help his dad as he got older, just as Dick had done for Bruce, it was almost tradition.
“Well as I figure it my dad was probably worried that I would have to many parties and trash the house and use the money that he would leave me unwisely.”
Nick though about whether or not he really would have trashed the mansion and spent as much money as he could lay his hands on and he hoped that he would have been sensible and behaved himself. “And for all I know he may have well been right. I guess we’ll never know as I was not given the opportunity.”
He sipped slowly at his lemonade wondering what might have been if he had not been sent off to become a temporary X-man.
Re: Appraisals around a lemonade.
“Well as I figure it my dad was probably worried that I would have to many parties and trash the house and use the money that he would leave me unwisely. And for all I know he may have well been right. I guess we’ll never know as I was not given the opportunity.”
Jordan wondered about this approach a little bit. He knew that his childhood wasn't exactly normal, but he also knew that even though his father and mother didn't trust him entirely, they did trust him to work and go out on his own unsupervised. Of course, Jordan was perhaps the very antithesis of clubs and parties. Most people tended to think of Jordan as distant and nuts but honorable. Nobody ever looked at Jordan and thought about him ever going out and cutting loose. Jordan did wonder about Nick spending money unwisely, considering that Jordan hardly ever spent any on himself. In Jordan's mind, money was a fortunate side effect of work, useful but not having any inherent useful qualities.
Jordan was also thinking about different ways he would try to find a missing person. Hunting for anything or anybody appealed to Jordan, considering his love of the hunt. The ability to track a person or animal was an ability that he took pride in having. First thing that Jordan would try would be looking up a person's friends and acquantances. Then he would try looking through phone records, credit card purchases, and other possible trails. But the part Jordan had to like best about finding his quary was actually getting on the ground and following the actual physical trail.
"I don't know to much, but sendin' someone away to keep 'em out of trouble won't work." Jordan said with a twisted smile on his face. "Trouble is one of those things that seems to follow people around no matter where they go, and the second a person turns their back it bites 'em. Just like a rattlesnake. I reckon that a person would be just as liable to spend money and throw parties around a body of students more than on their own." At the mention of rattlesnakes, a faint shiver went through Jordan's body. The cowboy had always been afraid of rattlesnakes, taking a delight in shooting the creatures. It was one of the few things that Jordan was terrified of.
Mitch smirked a little at seeing Jordan's discomfort about snakes. His cousin might be one of the most self sufficent people Mitch had ever met, but even Jordan had some weaknesses in his obstinance and tenancity. Though Mitch did find the analogy to rattlesnakes funny, since he had always associated trouble with the slender framed cowhand sitting next to him.
"So trouble goes around as a cold blooded reptile and always gives a warning before it strikes. Interesting. I guess I need to keep some ice around to ward it off." Mitch smarted off at his little cousin. It normally wasn't in Mitch's disposition to make remarks like that, but the talk of parents had worked up Mitch a little and he needed some way to let out some tension.
Jordan turned to look at Mitch, narrowed his eyes and unleased the greatest threat he could against Mitch. "If ya don't watch it, I'll go grab my guitar and unleash the horror of country music on you." At this threat, a look of abject terror appeared on Mitch's face as he said "Oh God, not that depressing borderline suicidal crap." Mitch looked over at Nick, his eyes asking for help from the threat of Jordan's music selection. It wasn't that Jordan was bad, but Mitch really didn't like country music at all. "Nick please, I need some backup on this. Don't let him subject us to such trama. The stuff is depressing." Edited by: Hank at: 2/25/06 8:01 am
Re: Appraisals around a lemonade. "I don't know too much, but sendin' someone away to keep 'em out of trouble won't work. Trouble is one of those things that seems to follow people around no matter where they go, and the second a person turns their back it bites 'em. Just like a rattlesnake.”
For once Nick agreed with what Jordan was saying and although he had a totally different theory about why it was always the same people that got into trouble. In his mind it was all about the fact that trouble was exciting and you got addicted to it after a while. If you had had enough high emotion experiences in your life, you couldn’t just have to adrenaline thrill taken away from you and if you did then you went for ways to substitute it. Just like he was planning on doing.
He was finding his stay in the well managed Xavier’s institute mightily boring after years of patrolling the streets of Gotham. And so he had found the most exciting project he could think of and thrown himself into it. In this case it involved borrowing one of the X-men’s prised possessions, the X-jet and the talk of trouble had brought his mind right back to the plan he had been working on earlier.
“I reckon that a person would be just as liable to spend money and throw parties around a body of students more than on their own."
Nick was now only vaguely listening to Jordan’s remarks about his money spending habits, as his mind was once again running over the now very familiar security system plans. He knew how he was going to get past the cameras and the weight and motion detectors but he still had the problem of heat sensors to solve. And that was definitely a tricky one but he had no doubt that inspiration would strike if he gave it enough time.
"If ya don't watch it, I'll go grab my guitar and unleash the horror of country music on you."
Guitars yes, country music… only certain pieces. Nick had to admit that he was not overly fond of country music and if he were given a choice he would not listen to it. But he could cope with it if he had to. But it was soon made clear to him that Mitch was not quite as tolerant of his cousin’s choice of music. And Nick quickly found himself on the receiving end of a pleading glance from the older cousin.
"Nick please, I need some backup on this. Don't let him subject us to such trama. The stuff is depressing."
He smiled and with this last twist in the conversation decided that it was more than time for him to go back to his solitary ways and take that trip to the danger room he so longed for after this encounter. He drank the last of his lemonade before reflecting on how he would extract himself from this conversation without appearing to be excessively rude. And the best idea he could come up with was to say that he had a lesson to attend.
“Well Mitch I would love to help you escape the sometimes traumatic experience of country music, but I have only just realised what time it is. And as you said Jordan trouble sometimes follows people around and if I don’t get to that class on time I’m going to be knee deep in it again.”
He got up and deposited the glass bottle in the recycling crate before turning to his two companions once more. “It’s been fun guys. I’ll be seeing you around.”And with that he turned on his heel and made his way out into the corridor in the direction of the secret entrance to the subbasement and the danger room.
OOC: Right I just felt like the thread was coming to an end and as I have a thread planned with Nick that follows on I have taken this opportunity to end it. I have spoken to Rebecca and Ann and they both have chars lying around so you should grab them if you want to start another thread.
Topic Commands
Click to receive email notification of replies
Click to stop receiving email notification of replies
