1963-06-08 - Free Masons and Not Free Masons
Summary: Jean starts to lose it.
Related: Uh, other ones but I'm too lazy to jump out of this screen and find them.
Theme Song: None
moira xavier logan jean 


*SCHTICK!*
*SCHTICK*

It usually starts that way. The sound of a lighter flickering in the darkness. Repeatedly at a cadence; one.. then a pause for two seconds, two, then a pause for three.. It never lets up. Not until the final moment in which it draws madness does the flame rise from the sparks in the darkness that peaks towards the ceiling. The ceiling, however.. remains black as the fire seems to touch it, gracing it with its presence until it spreads in rippling waves of a backdraft.

The body of the flame fans out, spreading the fire until wings were formed, bending back at first, stretching and testing the stifling air until the wings itself finally stretch in expanse until the walls of the very room begin to flicker flame..

Moments later, a sandwich was delivered by the hands of Logan, who was met with a standing Jean.

Jean who stood in the middle of her spartan room, not decorated just yet, though walls were smattered with pictures of the landscape outside of her window, various people she's managed to see, students and flowers. So many flowers. It all decorates the room out of order; people here. Flowers there. Tree here. All Seeing Eye there.. drawn crudely in black and white.

Crumples of paper litter the floor as well as crayon, some charcoal along with handprints that lead up one wall and onto the ceiling where it stops. Her mouth opens, but there was no sound that could be heard, for the open door soon slams shut.

Slammed shut hard enough to shake the little capsule that was her room and shatter the windows -inward-.

*

It's probably the way she drinks her tea, or the way that her brown eyes wrinkle when she smiles. It's most definitely her smile. Or a dozen other things that Charles can think of as he sits across from Moira MacTaggert at the breakfast table, one of those large, viking style, wooden expanse with bench that serves as the eating place for the kids.

He smiles a little too long, and laughs a little too long, and stares a little too long. And who can blame him? It's just like old times before he did what he thought he had to. Who can blame him if he wants to just sit and look at her and listen to her talk for just a bit longer, certain that something will cause her to get up, go back to New York or across the ocean, or wherever.

But then something happens upstairs and Charles can feel it before the windows smash.

"Jean," he whispers as he looks away. "I need to go check on her."

*

After the minor incident with Erik last evening, Moira was not up to the limp back to the city at all. In fact, asprin and sheer determination got her out of bed this morning, but Charles' company has been a very nice cure-all for the echoing ache through her leg. She's in a borrowed pair of sweatpants and oversized shirt, not having packed for an overnight stay but also not sleeping in her suit. She's about to say something more when the shift in the professor's face comes and she immediately goes quiet.

"I'm right behind you. Go." Moira wouldn't be able to keep up, and she could recognise the pallor of an emergency, but she also wasn't letting him handle things alone. So, ginger tea abandoned, she shifts up onto her crutch and makes her way after Charles as quickly as she can, concern in her pale eyes and all casual comfort quickly gone from her body language.

*

He's covered in glass. It's in his hair, his scruff, coating his shoulders like frost. Some shards have broken his skin, including a particularly large one that's gone through the meat of his bicep, oozing blood that slows to a trickle.

He doesn't flinch, though. He doesn't even move. During their time on the run together, Logan got to know Jean a bit. Not that well, but nobody knows anybody that well, far as Logan can tell. Could be a dream set her off. A smell. A song. Can't really know. Doesn't really matter.

"Jeannie," he says softly. "It's okay. You're safe. You're fine. Ain't nobody gonna hurt ya while Logan's around, you know that," he says.

*

The door remains pressed closed but not by force, the knob however, remains twisted to the point that whatever force held it begins to dent. The remains of the window sills begin to tremble, the wood cracking and peeling, attempting to break a piece free to use as a weapon or an apparatus that could be used to decorate the room to go along with the pictures randomly placed upon the wall.

"You don't know that.." She quietly murmurs, her hand lifting towards Logan as she takes a step forward. Those steps, tangled with the room that's suddenly come alive prompt the blood that runs down the meaty gash to slowly lift from his body. "You don't hear everyone! Too loud. It's all too loud! They speak so loud and they feel so hard and the world just collects right here!" She stops, pointing hard at her chest, hard enough to leave a curved mark of a nail imprint within her skin.

"It's -NOT- okay! Not okay not okay not okay! Sometimes it feel like it's okay but it's not okay.." She turns away from him, pacing as if she were an old woman, her fingers drawing up into her hair to dig hard into her scalp. If it were possible for her to deglove herself partially to tear out her brain, she would.

"I'm so happy and then I'm sad then I'm so in love and then I'm angry and then I want to kill everyone and then I want to hide and then I want to hug and then I want to love I hate it. I hate it. I don't know who I am. I don't know what I want because everyone is here and everyone is there and everyone just GET OUT OF MY HEAD."

That's definitely going to hurt.

*

Charles struggles with the door and bangs on it with his hand. Frustrated, he takes a step backward, looks up to the top of the door, and stops to think. His blue eyes close and his head tilts back slightly as his fingers come up to the side of his temple.

<Hello Jean.>

Suddenly Xavier is in a white room, with black curtains. I can tell you're having a bad morning, and I'm sorry for that. I realize that you just complained that everyone was inside your head, but I think under the circumstances, it might be what's for the best.>

Xavier motions to his right, where a large stack of red bricks lies/appears. <I'd like to use these to set up some blocks that might make things more comfortable.> A sledgehammer appears in Jean's hand. <And then we knock them down when you're ready.> He shrugs his shoulders. <When? It's your call.>

*

The force of emotion that comes up the stairs after Charles might be a touch overwhelming, but in a way like the wrapping of a soft, heavy blanket, and it's one of love and concern. While Moira's not a mother, the protectiveness she feels for the girl already has that tone to it, the care and need to give such love when it's so often been lacking for children like Jean. That love is a force at the Professor's back, layered with memories she doesn't recall but the echoing emotions of why she fell in love with this school in the first place. There is a connection here which is all instinct and not thought. It may give Jean something to cling to, or it may overwhelm her. But Moira's heart offers a beacon to focus upon in a sea of chaos.

Physically, Moira is about a dozen feet behind Charles, slightly out of breath by the time she catches up, but there never the less. She blinks at the door, assuming rightly that there is a reason he cannot get it. "Can we break the knob off? We can replace it. The poor girl…" Moira's voice is as achingly caring as the emotions that are coming off of her.

*

Logan can hear what Moira says through the door, "Don't know who you are, lady, but you and Chuck better stay out there fer now. Kinda sharp and pointy in here," he says, his own blood floating in pearls, spinning in orbit around him in the grip of Jean's power. He can tell Charles is in her head, watching as her eyes roll back and show the whites, eerie as she hoves just barely off the ground, the tips of her toes touching.

"She can't hurt me, but I'm bettin' the two o' you might just get scrambled like a coupla Scotch eggs," he says.

*

It was perhaps an eerie thing for Logan to see. Frightening, possibly a touch on the side of an exorcism or something work. Like a demon possessed she hovers in the air, though.. oddly enough. Relaxes.

Editors Note: I bet they will totally flip when they see the movie The Exorcist! Comes out in 1973 people!

The sudden change of scenery was shocking at best, but it felt like she was actually -there-. Everything around her suddenly went quiet, though there was still that residual frustraion and anger lingering within her bones. Here? Pulled into Xavier's mind? Or was it hers? She felt comfortable. Nothing could touch her, she couldn't hear anything. She was safe.

«Can we just stay here?» She asks quietly, the sledgehammer palmed and slowly placed upon the ground head first, the grip of it held onto protectively. Even though she knew that it was impossible, she relents, shoulders slumping as she glances towards the bricks. « Like a wall being built. No matter how tall or high how, right? »

Perhaps it was the overwhelming love and protectiveness that she feels from Moira, or the fact that Logan stood like a titan protecting -her- from the other two upon the other side. The handle slowly releases itself, relaxing.. the walls itself ceases their fright against her telekinesis.. the window sills, while cracked and nearly peeled, do not fly from their spots to give Logan a run for his money.

And more importantly, she didn't feel so.. invaded.

*

"A wall," Charles says and shrugs. A bucket full of mortar and a trowel in his hands. "A tower, a bridge, or a cottage. Whatever you want, Jean Grey. Whatever you need."

*

He looks over his shoulders at the curtains. "I can bring them in, if you'd like. Logan seems to care about you a great deal, and Moira…" Charles chuckles, "Well, you have to know Moira to get the full picture. I guarantee you she's worried. I could bring them in and it could be just the four of us."

Xavier's eyes open and he looks out the corners of them towards Moira. "She's having a rough morning. I wish I'd helped her more and sooner. I wanted her to stretch herself and test herself. This was just too much too soon and it's putting a strain on her mind."

*

As the door knob slightly eases, Moira reaches forward and very, very gently touches it. Her pale eyes flicker across to Charles, "The girl from the other night, with the books, yes? I can't even imagine. It not on you, Professor… You're trying to do your best by these children, and sometimes that is letting them learn control on their own. And then sometimes it is now, doing what you can." She leans against her crutch so her other hand can free just a moment to rest against his forearm, giving it a soft squeeze.

Then, as the door isn't slamming shut again or fighting them, she very gingerly begins to turn the knob. Her voice is meant for the other in the room, not necessarily Jean, who is trapped away from all of them even as that protective blanket of her worried emotions lingers near and close. "We're coming in. It… the door seems less barred." She ever so gingerly pushes the door open, giving all the warning and time in the world as to not startle anyone else.

*

Logan moves forward slowly as Jean starts to settle, seeing her feet touch the ground. He scoops her up just as she starts to fall, her legs not ready to take her weight as he catches her, "I gotcha, girl, I gotcha," he says, laying her head on his shoulder. The food he'd brought her is forgotten, the tray laying discarded on the floor as he just stands there to support her, his wounds starting to heal up.

That said, Moira and Charles will see a massive spear of glass slowly push out of his back and seal up in its wake, clattering to the floor and shattering like a dropped plate. Logan tilts his head, stroking Jean's hair as he looks back over his shoulder, "Watch yer step."

*

"A cottage." Jean confirms.

The outside world was forgotten for now. For there was peace here in this.. really odd white room with black curtains. Weird. "I'd like them to come in. Yes." She hesitates, then finally allows the sledgehammer itself to drop as she moves towards the pile of bricks where they lay. "Don't let me hurt them.." She quietly says, keeping her back turned towards Charles as she lifts a brick, not knowing where to put it or where to start.

"I sometimes wished that we could live out in a cottage in the woods. Somewhere far, far away from people. But with my mother at home with all of us kids and my father a Professor himself. History." She affirms with a smile. "And he would have his own office, and he'd read his books and grade his lessons by candlelight. Me and my sisters and brothers could watch him, or read our own books on some bearskin rug. And fall asleep by the fire."

She grabs another brick, just keeping them within her arms, something to do within this phantom zone. "They're afraid of me, Charles. They want to fight for me but they're afraid."

*

"I won't, Jean. You may not be able to feel this, depending on the skill with which I've done it, but I'm holding your fear and your anger back. Besides, you're in my head now."

And a moment later, so are Moira and Logan.

They look different, however. Moira's cane is gone and Logan..well, Logan has a shave, which is nice. Come to think of it, both Jean and Charles are looking their best as well. Everyone looks like a star on the Astral Plane.

"Moira. Logan. This seems to be a bit more comfortable for all of us."

Charles nods back to Jean, "A beautiful wish, Jean. I can see your day dreams over it—It certainly would be nice. Someday you'll have that peace."

*

It's been a long time since Moira wasn't in paid, since she could walk with easy. Well, only months, but it feels like a long time when such long term injuries are new. The brunette is suddenly transported, probably wearing the pale white and yellow flowered sundress that Charles first saw her in all those years ago. She still looks older, though. Motherly and protective. It just translates through her astral self as much as the emotions are that protective blanket in the real world.

She's nearly frozen in reality, no longer stepping across that glass as her mental power goes to focusing on the scene where Charles has taken them all. She takes another, gentle step in Jean's direction, one hand offer out, palm up. She won't force herself upon the girl, but the support is there. Logan is given a brief look and a small nod, but right now most of her concern is for Jean. "Jean? It… it's good to see you again. I know this all must… beyond overwhelming. But you aren't alone. And you're not facing this alone."

*

Logan isn't going to let go of Jean until she tells him to let go, in the real world, or she's peeled off of him. In the psychic headspace that Charles has created, he looks skeptical. "Speak for yerself, Chuck," he says. "Ain't all of us totally used to havin' our thoughts sucked outta our brains," he says.

The main issue with his astral self is instability - sometimes his face is younger, sometimtes lined, sometimes bearded, sometitmes clean. Self image comes from experience, after all, and Logan's vast lifetime is a fractured mosaic.

*

She doesn't feel it. No fear, no anger. It's a wonder as to why she's so very calm, not very fearful, and for once? Relaxed. "Really?" Jean manages to laugh out, glancing around the white room, finally settling the bricks down by her feet to finally take in the moment. She didn't even know when the transition happened, but it did. And she was actually very thankful for that.

As the two arrive, Moira's approach was met with a little bit of amusement. Her own hands drawing out to grasp ahold of the womans, following through with a small lean and a tug to bring her into a hug. She admired Moira, even if it was just a borrowed feeling for those few seconds of when she first saw her, even those brief moments outside of her room door which allowed her to feel the uncanny warmth towards a stranger that could potentially do harm. "I know.. thank you.." She says quietly, just hanging on for a few extra seconds to make sure that the woman doesn't disappear.

Though, now that Logan appears, his visage could have been frightening. If.. well, it wasn't turned off. There was concern and worry for the man as she slightly directs Moira towards the older man's attention. "Can you both save him too?" Clearly Logan's got problems.

*

Jean can probably, from her vantage point, notice that Charles stares at Moira in a longing sort of way as she is grasped by Jean. What's gotten into him since she's come to the mansion is anyone's guess.

But then he looks to Logan and nods, "I'd love to try." All that rage has to come from somewhere. And in addition to wanting to help a man who has proven himself to be a friend already, Xavier has been ultra curious as to what secrets Logan holds.

*

The moment Jean accepts Moira's touch, she's leaning in, close. It's a different way that Logan holds her, though just as protective. There is something inherently motherly about it. She turns her head, pressing the most tender, simple kiss against Jean's temple. "You are safe here. You know that. You… can relax. Trust that safety. And…" Moira's pale eyes raise from Jean, back towards Logan, studying the unfamiliar man for a few heartbeats.

"As long as he lets us. I know we will both do everything we can… That's why this place is here after all, right? Not just a school. Family." She's a touch too focused on the more ragged pair to notice the way Charles looks at her. Right now, her priority is to give Jean safe arms and support. To let the girl center and focus while knowing she can lean on others. But her gaze lingers on Logan, letting him see that she does mean it. She'd do everything she could for him. "…Well, if the Professor decides he wants me to stay, that is. But you'll always be able to come to me. Here, or in the city. I promise." SHe whispers against red hair, but her eyes haven't left Logan, trying to make it clear she includes him in those words.

*

Logan frowns a bit, "Ain't about me right now, it's about Jeannie," he says gruffly. The bestial side of him wants to recoil from these civilize folks looking at him so directly. Charles and Moira were what his father had called 'quality' - the kind of folks you showed respect but also stayed away from, cause they couldn't help but look down on you.

He doesn't doubt Moira's sincerity, even if he doesn't understand it entirely. Far as he knows, Jean's barely met this lady and he's only noticed her from the lingering smell of her in the halls and the way Chuck's blood pressure rises and he starts to sweat a little more now that she's here.

*

Jean noticed it. She noticed it from the moment that -he- knew that Moira stepped foot into the institute. Her own quickened heartbeat. It didn't feel like she was running but it was a deep pang that felt bottomless and empty. The nervousness in which she felt her palms sweat. The awkwardness of her wanting to crawl out of her skin from the briefest of moments and the blockage of those feelings for her.. no his own good. She meant it when it felt like she had no personality. Everything that each and everyone felt before her time in Xavier's mind felt like aspects of her that were already lost upon her.

But there was a little sadness as she stared at him, her gaze pulling away to focus on Logan, a slight reserved look upon her face as she focuses on Moira's words. It was settled, she was going to at least be the little cupid that shot the arrow into the asses of the one oblivious, and the other who longed from afar.

"But we see you now." Jean protests quietly towards Logan. "All of you." And it was true, a moving picture for their viewing that gives an insight onto his life by the etched lines of his older face and to the smoothness of the young. Even focusing now, it had her pulling away from the mind in a sense that she started to fade.. slower.. and slower..

"I'm sleepy.."

And then she was gone.

*

As Jean loses consciousness, Xavier raises his eyebrows at both Logan and Moira. He shrugs his shoulders, palms out, and shakes his head. "It is of course why I like working with the young. You never are entirely sure what you might get. Off we go."

And just like that, they're in the bedroom again.

Xavier looks around at the mess. "Everyone be careful. I'll go call someone to clean up this mess and install some new windows. Those damn things are probably as old as the house itself, and fixing something like that is going to take a lot of skill and money, but Charles is much more worried about Jean.

*

One last, gentle kiss to Jean's forehead, and then she's out and they are all back in reality. Moira takes it well, for someone who is supposedly fresh out of academia. Maybe a background in mutations has prepared her for such strange shifts? Either way, she's now back to leaning on her crutch, not treading farther into the room on her sock clad feet, not with glass everywhere. She looks up to Logan, hopefully still holding Jean, and frowns gently.

"Come… Let's get her out of here. We can lay her down in the guest room while the Professor is getting this all cleaned up. One of us will stay with her all day, I promise. We can take shifts." She doesn't begrudge Logan taking the first shift, or carrying Jean. Clearly he is as protective of the woman as Moira herself. A long, quiet look is given in Charles' direction, unspoke words contained within that simply say they will discuss this later and she is here for what he needs. But now she's trying to get Jean out of the room and to somewhere safe and more clean.

*

Logan scoops up Jean and carries her along. Begrudged or not, Logan's probably not leaving her until he knows she's started to recover. He isn't one of Charles' students, prone to asking permission - Logan does as he pleases and hell help anyone who got in his way.

He moves Jean to a comfortable guest room, laying her down on the bed and wiping her hair from her eyes, carefully picking out the little bits of glass that linger there.

"Sleep it off, kid," he says softly, "You can't quit on me."

*

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License