Monday 26th: And the Day Creep Closer to its End
Martial arts… not really the best subject to be part of when one isn’t allow to over exert themselves. Hank had made it clear not only to Riley that he wasn’t to push himself for a while, teachers like Logan had also been informed. Having missed last week’s lesson hadn’t bothered Hank’s patient too much, until the days past and more classes had been missed, not all… he’d attend two or so, three or four during the last week. But fear of falling behind and missing out on things caused a slight anxiety in the young man who had turned up to one of the very few classes where he was most definitely not meant to take part in with the usual enthusiasm often seen. It wasn’t that Riley missed flinging various students over his head, or learning a new move to practice, or revising old moves, sure he loved learning it, and loved being part of something that was so familiar, as training exercises had been a big part of the Initiative. A part of him wanted to join in with the same passionate vigore, but a larger part just wanted to join in for no other reason then being part of the class.
Turning up at his classes was really Riley’s only major form of social interaction, and it was the last class he had for the day, and the morning had been spent well with Aidan and it was all fun if not really weird to think over how Riley had acted… Would he be embarrassed if someone else had seem him? Riley wasn’t sure… he’d like to think he really didn’t care, however he couldn’t help but realize how definite he was that a year ago he’d not have done such a thing… to sing and play the guitar with someone he didn’t even know.
Riley held a blue inked pen in his hands, lightly scratching his neatly written words onto the paper of his book and writing out most of what Wolverine was saying to his students, they were inside today, the constant showers of the morning had soaked the outside. While Logan wasn’t someone who spared his students discomfort, the rain had gotten pretty heavy about midday and they may have lightened up by now but the steady drizzle meant Logan opted for one of the halls. They often hopped between indoors and outdoors, sometimes in the same lesson, depending on what sort of atmosphere Mr. Logan was trying to get, or if he needed certain equipment for something that couldn’t easily be brought outside.
At the start of the lesson Riley had joined in, as they were only doing warm ups and that was hardly going to ‘over exert’ himself in any way. However as the lesson progressed into something more strenuous, Riley backed away without needing to be told… not that Logan didn’t give his fair share of looks at Riley just to make sure the other knew there were limits to him being here. But it was better to be here then to be in his room, or moping around, or just generally trying to distract himself in some other random way. This morning Riley had woken knowing this was the last day before the day of his surgery, the last day he had to relax before something very serious was to take place, something he very passionately would rather pretend he didn’t knew anything about. However the day had slowly dragged on by, what was morning seemed to become noon, and suddenly from noon it was almost three.
Without being able to take his Special English class, Riley wasn’t sure what to do, he’d have an entire afternoon it seemed of nothing to do but waiting around! And everyone else had classes… or at least he figured so, Riley still hadn’t gotten around to checking up on his team-mates class schedules, so he wasn’t sure when they had classes or not exactly, and he didn’t know their personal habits. After all, some might just end up doing something else during the day, library visits, study, hang out with friends… all except May of course, she didn’t take classes. It seemed most of her time was spent inside her room, or she’d vanish off for hours at a time, Riley had observed a few times where she’d vanish off and no one had noticed till she called in for a meal or someone wanted to specifically ask her something for whatever reason.
The bell went, and due to the size of the school, the students had a good forty-five to get to their next class, also enabling drink breaks and a quick snack or toilet break, it helped cut down on students asking to leave the room during classes. There had been talk about shorting it to half an hour, which would mean students finish at four instead of four-thirty, Jean hadn’t seem to find the time to continue her thoughts of it however, she had promised over a week ago to get back to the faculty about the possibility. The flurry of bodies that moved not at the bell, but at the dismissive call of Wolverine (people still remembered how displeased he was when they first rushed out without his consent for them to leave…) signalled that it was time for Riley to move off… Unlike the others he didn’t need a shower, which mostly all of them opted to spend some of their half hour doing so that they could get to their next class smelling fresh and out of their work out clothes (which were all usually soaked with sweat by the time Logan had finished with them).
Disappearing out into the hall, Riley’s steps were aimless as he wondered, not sure where to go now… though… he had gotten permission to step into other classes, part of Riley wondered if that would still be allowed considering that he was supposed to be ‘taking it easy’. Well, he’d only been to one class thus far today, so it wasn’t like he was going all insanely overboard or anything. One of the information boards was coming up on his right, which had Riley slowing down gradually as he pondered to look over it or not, another student rushed by almost annoyed by the taller student dawdling in the centre of the hall. Being four foot and almost right on four inches tall, Riley wasn’t really one that got many students trying to push him around, even if they weren’t in the best of moods.
Mr Wagner hasn’t got any classes… Riley noted, having already known this even as he stared over the list of sith period classes. Mr Bishop, Ms Braddock, Mr Drake, even Remy Leabu! None of them had any classes for sixth period on Mondays. Katherine Pryde, Ms Munroe… even the new ones, Johnny Smith and Mr Warner didn’t have sixth period classes, what was with that? Was it some sort of rebellious ‘Mondays bad enough, who needs late classes?’ thing going on? Riley thinned his lips lightly as he read the only teachers that did have classes running for last period. Mr Worthington. International Affairs… It wasn’t really at all appealing to Riley, he wasn’t the most thrilled when it came to accounting or business ethics, or anything so…well… personally mind numbingly dull. Ok, so it wasn’t always so bad, and Riley didn’t mind hearing about some of the stuff Mr Worthington had to tell his students, as a teacher the guy seemed to know what he was on about, and he wasn’t too bad with his students… the topic at hand however just didn’t interest Riley enough. Riley did take accounting, he had hoped it’d help him manage his money a bit better, he had so much and even he started to notice that he wasn’t really respecting it at all, it had always been there while he was part of the Initiative, and the government poured it into their accounts shamelessly, of course, any soldier that died had their money transferred into the agencies private account. Most spent what they could on whatever random luxury they could think of, cars and expensive clothing being the most common expense.
Logan has a class… but it’s Mechanics and Motor Studies… hmmm… Riley had sat in on a class or two every now and then, but only if Logan was doing something exceedingly interesting, Riley wasn’t sure what the guy had planned, but to be honest he wasn’t sure he really wanted to get involved with that at the moment. He’d rather lay in his room and stare at the ceiling for all the enjoyment he’d get from Motor Studies with the mood Riley was currently in. Even Mr Summers has a spare… Geeze. That leaves Mrs Grey-Summers and Dr McCoy. Riley glanced between the options for Physics or Genetics. He’d done both of them for a while, he left Hank’s Genetic’s class to take up Bobby Drake’s Accounting class, he’d pretty much regretted it since, but dropping it so soon made Riley feel rather embarrassed. He figured he’d hold onto it just a little longer, maybe it wasn’t always so dreary, he wasn’t really used to staring at hordes of numbers and organising them and sorting them and adding dates and splitting things into categories of important and all the other randomly little things that Drake insisted was important for organizing your personal cash flow.
While Riley felt he was going to see more of Hank then he’d want tomorrow, something seemed to draw his attention, though Riley had to admit to himself he wasn’t sure it was interest in the subject, he really didn’t feel as if he was in the mood for anything. Other then perhaps avoiding having nothing to do, the youthful man chewed his lower lip for a moment while he stared at McCoy’s name. A glance at his watch, not even a quarter past three yet, another half-hour… he checked the room number for Hank’s class, then went off to his locker just a few halls down in the main intersection of corridors. Not all students had rooms here so the lockers were never considered a waste of space, but even students that did have rooms often preferred storing some of their heavier books in their lockers to save running all the way to their rooms and back between recess and lunch. Some preferred only having the books of the particular class they were in, which meant they’d make stops off at their locker regularly, Riley shifted between carrying books for both lessons to carrying only for the lesson he was attending, there was no particular reason, it just happened.
Students moved about quickly, a purpose in their footsteps, you could tell by the way they walked without focusing on anything, knowing precisely where they were to go and having no concerns of finding their way without getting lost. Which meant as Riley approached his locker, it was easy to see the one student in the area who was definitely newer to the school then all the others in the vicinity. Riley’s right hand fingers were pinching the nob of his combination lock, the left hand holding the pen and writing book of his down by his side, but hazel eyes were staring off towards the other boy. Between them had to be at least fifteen other students, only one of which seemed to also have his head over the mass of scurrying students as his long strides carrying the other tall student off down the halls and around the corner. Riley attention returned back to the rather confused boy, he had to be about eighteen or nineteen, more noticeable for the orange mop of hair on his head and spread of light freckles across his nose. Riley’s fingers twisted the nob of his padlock to the right, his eyes still averted but the twists of his combination were almost flawlessly memorized after the last two and a half years. It was easy to tell the other guy was reading the map in the back of his school diary, he kept looking down at something in his hands and then peered around the halls themselves, trying to find the room numbers around the area and then pinpointing them on the map. Another twist of the lock, this time to the left and further around, then slightly off to the right, more to the left and then an almost three hundred and sixty turn to the right before the lock snapped open.
Attention left the other guy, who seemed to be trailing off clueless down one of the halls, in nay other mood Riley would have gone off and asked if he needed help, even if it might seem a little strange to have someone appear from seemingly nowhere to offer it. But at this point in time Riley just figured it’d be better for the new student to learn to ask for directions or help if he wanted to progress smoothly through the corridors of this school, as it took a while for most to get used to the large estate. Inside Riley’s locker was mostly filled with books, all neatly piled in alphabetical order… he usually settled with just putting whatever book he had just used on top, only Connor had been bored just in the recent weeks while Riley was sorting through some folders he placed on the floor, and asked if he could shift Riley’s books around for the sake of something to do. As the former agent stood there and looked at the still relatively ordered text books, he had to wonder how Connor might have reacted had he said no… there were times Connor seemed perturbed by something and hadn’t been able to fix it, he looked as if he was horribly distracted for a fair while after. The inside of the locker door had the typical photo, he got it printed off his phone but the quality was just as good in his opinion. Catherine had let him take the picture of her months ago, but with how she’d been acting lately… Riley’s fingers lightly tugged at her image, pulling the image free of the steel door and letting his eyes affectionately trace over the pretty face that smiled back at him.
It was carefully slipped into one of the many books, hopefully to be forgotten in its folds till a time it was acceptable to place it up there once again. At least the door wasn’t empty, two other photos still remained stuck to the door, one of Riley and Connor asleep on their beach towels the first year Riley had been a student here… one of their friends had found the sight amusing enough to go to the effort of getting the shot taken almost directly above them. Riley had a book resting on his chest, it was titled ‘Pronunciation is an Art’, which Riley tried to explain as being a very fascinating book on languages and how defining the words correctly when speaking them is a matter of extreme important. It was giving examples of all sorts of languages were even the slightest mispronunciation of a word could change it’s entire meaning. Connor on the other hand had a plate of food resting on his chest, each item (it was pointed out) basically defined the characteristics of each of them. The explanation of it all amused and intrigued Riley enough that he actually liked the picture, even if more for the meaning then anything else. Above that photo was one of Riley with Katie curled up on his stomach, Heath had taken the photo while playing with Riley’s phone, which in itself was enough to make the picture valuable, the misplaced Knight still found it difficult to understand the technology of today. Everything was still better explained in his mind as magic and sorcery, it’s what he knew, and even if you tried to explain the simple workings of a device, you could always tell it never made sense to Heath, who only translated it all back into magic and fantastic trickery. Science would always just be another form of wizardry for the young man born in a world so long dead.
Riley sighed slightly, so many memories scattered and blurred, he didn’t even remember when or where he first met Heath, he didn’t remember where he had first discovered Heath was not of this time. Riley didn’t even remember who it was that took the photo of him and Connor… he knew it was a friend, he remembered their explanation of the humorous side of the photo, but he couldn’t remember anything more then it was a female voice. Angela maybe? Or Lisa? Though it was just as possible to be Dawn… though the latter two were less likely considering Angela was far more camera happy then the other two.
The spare Genetics book was grabbed out of his locker, it was one of the lower books in the stack and thus had required a bit of wiggling to get it free. He shouldn’t have dropped out of Genetics, but what he could do with the knowledge of the class he wasn’t sure… it was still more interesting then Accounting though. It had been a last minute change, so Riley still had the books he ordered at the end of last year for the new years classes. Luckily Riley could hop into other classes during his spares though, so the former agent figured if he got desperate enough he’d be able to skip back into Hank’s class and not be so horribly lost as most other students.
Another glance at Riley’s watch was given; it was now three-thirty, amazing how time could flow so slowly and yet so fast at the same time. The locker was closed and the padlock replaced, Riley’s feet carrying him off towards the direction of Hank’s next class. The young man’s head had turned off the other way as Riley came to the intersection, looking back down the path the lost looking student from earlier had chosen. It would have been sad to see the guy still wandering aimlessly about the hall, back and forth searching for whatever elusive classroom he was trying to find. Earlier self pity was now replaced with a touch of guilt, being new was never easy, and Riley could have helped him had the elder student’s mind not been so consumed with his own weighty concerns. A team leader should try and never allow personal problems to effect their responsibilities, neither should teachers… and Riley happened to be both. Or at least he had before Hank removed him from his team leader duties. An inward grumble silently formed into a partial frown for a moment, though it was brushed away, not being a team leader wasn’t the evil of all evils… And Green Rescue was a nice change. Part of him hoped he’d settle in and just be happy with what he had, only Riley knew himself well enough to know that once he was back onto his feet it would get to a point where he’d want more then the backseat position.
Ahead were students by a door, some were lingering outside of the door and finishing their conversation, but others were heading inside, the bell hadn’t gone and so they all looked relaxed enough to take their time. There had been a few times each month all year where Riley seemed to appear in the Genetics class, it wasn’t like Drama where space was fought for, there was always a few free spots so Riley never worried about taking up someone else’s seat and most of the students got used to him being there only on the odd occasion. A seat by the window was where Riley aimed to go, and he chose the middle sections, not too close to Hank but not far enough to vanish in the back either. Riley didn’t often sit at the back, he liked to see clearly what was going on, he liked to hear clearly what was said and in turn be seen by the teacher if he ever had any questions or got confused. The good thing about Xavier’s is that the teachers were tuned in enough with most of their students that if there was a problem they’d pick up on it, and there had been point where Riley would have struggled over the finest of detail for the entire lesson had one of the teachers not come to help him figure it out or at least point him in the right direction so he could find out himself. The challenge of learning made him all the more passionate about study, Jean Grey-Summers even went as far as warning Riley that he was perhaps taking on too much, and while she had wanted his other teachers to keep an eye on him, Riley seemed to handle his work load… but at the sacrifice of many other things.
Riley kept his head down, he could partially see Hank at his desk, but right now Riley tried to focus solely on setting up his things. Text book was opened to page fifty-nine, which was written at the top of the board off to the right for all students to see. The writing book Riley had switched with his previous one from Martial Arts was opened, the pages crisp and clean save for the imprints of the previous pages that were written before and left their impressions. Riley usually ruled up most of his borders a few pages ahead whenever he reached a blank page, he only had one more ruled page so he pulled out his ruler and red pen and started meticulously lining the side of the next few pages. This book was his ‘extra classes’ book, the pages pulled out easily and he could slip them each into their proper folders at the end of class so that they didn’t get all muddled. Not only did the page he work on get a date, but also the class name and the period, all neatly written off to the side, with the title of their current topic of work placed neatly in green pen at the top of the page, two red lines ruled beneath the heading.
As always, Riley didn’t really wait for the teacher to signal them to start, there was always the pleasantries at the start of class, and Hank was one of the teachers you always knew would have something pleasant to say in greeting. For the time left before class officially started however, Riley neatly wrote out the first question on page fifty-nine in his black pen. Riley had a tendency to write in copperplate style, his letters all capital though the actual letters that were meant to be capital were always slightly larger then the others. It was slower to write, but far more neater, and for Riley, the pride of presentation outweighed the speed of rushing through it all to get it done, even if it was all there and said all that it needed to say, it meant little if no one could read it. Like most children, Riley had trouble reading his mothers writing at times, and she wrote in a quick italic, so if she wrote letters to him, Martha had started writing in the similar copperplate style, and the difference was enough to strike Riley and effect his own writing over the years. One of his teachers really didn’t like the over use of capitals back in Mass.Academy, which had caused Riley a lot of problems because he was so used to his own style that sometimes he’d start reverting back to it half way through the page and then have to white it all out and write it over again.
When Hank’s voice cut through the fading sounds of the bell that sounded, Riley had already started writing out the answer to the first question, however the pen lowered and his eyes moved over awkwardly to Hank at the head of the class. The eye contact didn’t last long, hazel eyes had quickly averted their gaze and stared down at his desk, no one yet sat next to him and for that Riley was glade, the manner in which his pencil case and text book sat over the space beside him suggested to the desire to be left alone. It was a not so discreet code for students that didn’t go unnoticed by teachers, some students relying on it more commonly then others, some more out of rudeness then personal need for space. Dr McCoy wasn’t so bad… there were some really weird rumours going around about him and his new girlfriend, but other then that people didn’t really have much to say about him as a person. Which for students wasn’t so uncommon, not many got to spend time with their teachers and if they did it was usually for a reason. As for Riley, he was a patient, and a great many more students would know Hank from the fact they too had been patients of his. Being the resident doctor of a school generally meant that you’d have more interactions with students as patient and doctor.
As pens had began to scratch over paper once again, various students asking their questions or listening to what was being said, Riley seemed more focused between writing a paragraph and then staring outside the window for a short while before forcing himself to write down another paragraph. There was a point where Riley wasn’t sure how long he had been focused on staring at the expanse of dark clouds outside the window, it had felt like forever, which couldn’t be good considering how easily time flowed by when one tended to stare off somewhere. However Dr. McCoy had moved past him to another of the students two rows behind where Riley sat, and it was enough to force Riley to stare down at his work. Or at least, for a brief moment it had been anyway, the former agents head soon after turned slightly to try and catch the teachers form in the corner of his eye. Hank’s back was too him, and Riley’s head turned slightly more, watching as the other student lowered his hand and explained to the resident doctor what confused him enough to make it difficult for the guy to carry on smoothly with his work.
The tip of Riley’s pen tapped lightly at his paper for a moment, then stopped quickly as he turned his face back to the page to check in case he had just marked it with random dots, luckily the impressions weren’t firm enough to leave really noticeable marks, but the faint dots annoyed him enough to put down his pen momentarily. It would look worse if the former team leader pulled out his white-out and brushed the tip over the faint marks, it would leave a clearly visible white line across the blemishes. The blue pen was retrieved once again, and Riley continued to write the rest of the sentence he had gotten half way through, a rather lethargic air about his movements. Again Hank past, the movement felt in the air was the doctor moved by, and Riley’s downcast face lifted discreetly to watch Hank’s back as he walked off to the front of the class. This time tomorrow… Came a thought to Riley’s mind, as unwelcomed as any gatecrasher entering someone’s well thought out party, only to destroy the excessive amounts of efforts that had been put into setting it all up. In Riley’s case, he had set up this almost surreal sense of ignorance towards what was set for tomorrow. …it’d all be over. Surely it had to be, the operation was made for the morning, or at least that’s when Hank had wanted Riley in, Riley hadn’t really asked many questions, he hadn’t made any effort to know what was going to occur, his interest was an obvious zero as far as his surgery went. It was nice to pretend the surgery wasn’t on his mind, though Riley couldn’t think of much else the last few days, it was getting closer and closer and the harder he tried to ignore its oncoming the more freaked he seemed to get as the thought resurface.
The larger furred mutant had taken a seat at his desk, pouring over papers of his own, if they were students of this class, another or something else entirely different, Riley didn’t even think of. All that seemed to draw his focus at that point was watching Hank’s hands as they shifted from one page to another, large but nimble, one would think he’d be clumsy staring at their size… And the strength of them, a sneeze during operation and light incision could end up pressed deep inside of him, Riley tried to picture it, but he had a lot of trouble trying to hold grotesque images of that nature. After all, what use was a soldier to the Initiative if their too severely mentally scarred by the things they had seen, and there were a great many things agents were exposed to that no one ought to have to witness.
Hazel eyes had once again been caught up with the happenings outside the window, not that Riley was staring at anything particularly interesting, at least so it seemed, to those lost in thought any little thing could gain more attention then most think it ought to deserve for whatever reason. The outline of a distant tree, it wasn’t dark, the colours were still visible, the detail of the leaves, the texture of the bark could almost be made out perfectly. There was nothing of interest about that tree, no thoughts given towards what might live inside the tree or on its branches. And yet there Riley’s eyes remained, minutes dragged by and still he stared, lowering his eyes back to the paper only to trace out the outline he saw at the very bottom of the page. The rough blades of the grass, the jagged roots that wove in and out of the ground, a twisted trunk that rose up and sprouted with winding branches. Riley turned to look back at the tree, catching the last few details he needed to inspire his mind as he jotted down the outline of leaves that scattered over the branches, it was then as he looked back down at the base of the page that Hank had announced for students to finish up so that they could hand in what was done at the end of class.
The image seemed to have come without thought, it seemed to burn onto his paper with a will of its own and Riley found himself placing down the pen anxiously. For months all he had done was draw, if it hurt inside then he’d paint, he’d sketch and colour and draw away till all he could think about was the picture itself and nothing else had time to bother him while he aimed to be as perfect as possible with each creation. Out of the fifteen questions Riley had done nine of them, which wasn’t too bad as some students had to read over things constantly to get their answers and that slowed them down, but they’d gotten over ten questions, some reaching the second last one and getting stuck on the long winded reply the last two demanded.
Oops. It didn’t seem to sum up exactly what Riley felt the situation deserved, he could scribble it all out… but that’d be messy… or he could white it out… but Hank might be curious as to why the entire base of Riley’s page was coated with the white thin substance. What’s more Riley was pretty sure it’d crack once the paper was bent and folded and held and fidgeted with enough. Besides, all Hank would have to do is curiously turn it over and hold it up to the light, then he’d know what it was that Riley had tried to hide. Of course there was also the option of walking out without handing the teacher anything, it wasn’t like Riley could flunk a course he wasn’t even taking. The only problem with that was that it would just say in another way that Riley had a problem, he’s never walked out of class without handing in the work unless he was exceedingly disturbed about something and knew it wasn’t up to scratch.
The anxious student mulled over the possibilities, however he got interrupted by another student who decided to collect any papers that were ready to be taken since he was up and heading that way anyway. Chewing the lower lip once more as Riley handed over the paper, he looked away quickly to stare almost stubbornly out the window, just in case the student gave a look Riley would be embarrassed about seeing. As he walked off, Riley looked back at the other guy who moved away, another two sheets which were pinned together were handed to him, then another single sheet, then another… eventually all were placed on Hank’s desk, and Riley stared at the heap that grew as more piled on there. Even if Riley wasn’t part of the class, what he studied was still recorded for the sake of keeping his educational records as correct as possible when it came to keeping his records. Riley found himself almost plotting to retrieve his paper back, he’d never doodled on his sheets before, though admittedly Riley had to pause a moment mentally to try and think why he was so paranoid. Half his own students tended to scribble over their sheets with random things, regardless it bothered him, as much as it would have bothered him if someone else saw him strumming away at his guitar earlier that morning and singing shamelessly with a total stranger. Would he have changed any of it though? It had been nice to let go of responsibilities for a moment and just pretend nothing else mattered, nothing else was important, nothing else bothered him at that precise moment and all that meant anything was the next note he played or the next word he sang.
And the class was now dismissed.
Riley had already gathered up his things, and with the flock of other students he had moved out, no hesitation, like a person promised freedom and yet not sure where exactly they could go now that they have it. Only a few hours and he could go to sleep… then he could wake up… and then… well… let’s deal with the next few hours first.
Topic Commands
Click to receive email notification of replies
Click to stop receiving email notification of replies
