X-Factor: Head Doctor
-Jean reports that Walter is free of compulsions.
X-Men: Movieverse 3 - Tuesday, June 02, 2009, 1:55 PM
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=XF= Administration - Chemekata Military Base
The glass and metal lobby of the building carries the 'Titan Enterprises' charade through in brushed aluminum letters set high on the wall behind the main desk. The name disappears, however, as one moves deeper into the building. The security is high, and the presence of armed guards is unmistakable.
The subfloors are heavily shielded from possibly electromagnetic attack, and it is there that communications and intelligence are centered. The hum of happy server farms is impossible to escape. The upper levels are given over to offices, meeting spaces, and classrooms. The computers are cutting edge, their screens are large, and furnishings are terrifically ergonomic.
[This room is set watchable. Use alias XFAdministration to watch here.]
(Exits : [O]ut, [M]eeting [R]oom, [C]lassroom, and [C]omputer [L]ab )
It doesn't take long for Walter to get up and about. Comfort over being 'home' such as it is has him considerably less tense than he's been, but there's still some tightness in his stride, possibly brought on by the buldge of bandages beneath his shirt as he moves to the administration building. Having no special way of giving his old teacher an early warning, he simply walks up to her door, giving it a quick knock.
The guest apartments are just as nice as the other apartments on the base, but they've got that sort of corporate hotel feel to them that says that these are temporary lodgings only. Jean has abandoned her pony club mother styles of the ranch for something a little more businesslike as well, answering the door in a rustle of navy skirt and suit jacket. "Hello, Walter," she greets, with a careful smile down at him. "Come for a check-up on your brain?"
Walter gives a nod, shooting the telepath a warm smile. "Yeah. I... kinda trust you in there more than, well, the telepaths I've only known for a couple months, and who probably hate me enough already."
"Hate you?" Jean's eyebrows raise slightly at that, as she steps out of the little apartment to close the door behind her and nod towards a seating alcove down the way. (Teacher-student rules die hard, apparently. There will be no Walter in her apartment.) "What happened up in the Colorado hills?" she wonders, a gentle lead in as she lets her mental walls down to slide her thoughts in synch with the surface of his mind.
"A lot, really," Walter admits. "But, well, I'm mostly talking general personality conflicts. No particular source just... me being me." The surface of his mind is aggitated, rough, choppy waters, but that's only to be expected considering the month he's had, though there's also a bit of pre-brain scan nervousness. Walter takes a seat, pain flashing across face, and stronger across mind. "I'm, well, not sure how much I'm supposed to tell you," he admits, but it's not like he could keep a secret she really wanted to know "but, , a short mission turned into a very long one, one that ended with a lot of people at each other's throats, I made some bad decisions here and there, and, well, guess I'm sorta beating myself up about it."
"And you think that your team's telepaths wouldn't be able to separate their opinions from their work?" The question is as quiet as the rest of her conversation, smooth and serene as Jean takes a seat and lets her eyes drift shut. "Well, never mind, I don't mind doing this. Think back to what happened when you tried to leave the ranch," she directs.
"Don't want to give them more ammo," Walter says, closing his eyes. He thinks back, a little mini montage playing through his mind. Each time he 'tested' the border, played in no particular order beyond how that in which they're recalled, on a loop, each rotation through the loop getting them shuffled into a more chronological order. The sudden need to be somewhere else, the impulse to turn back, the feeling of tired feet, the simple refusal of his body to continue forward, one by one, each only feeling truly strange after the event.
"And what about the entity in the mine," Jean prompts, after a long moment's silence where she lets things spin out beneath her mind's eye, probing deeper and deeper and following the links from memory and emotion to the centres of the brain that control them, and from thence to where they shape experience and behavior.
Walter's mind takes Jean back to the mine, both his first and second incursion inside. Kelsey's freakout, the rescue of Kitty. The sense of forboding, the emotional assaults, the general creepiness of it all. However, the fingerprints are light, just a gentle brush, no sign of deep manipulation.
Gentle brushes, now fading into nothingness at their earlier unravelling. Jean leaves them be. Eventually, content that no lingering surprises wait, she pulls out and sinks back deep into the cushions of her seat, looking just a touch pale from the effort. "All clear," she pronounces.
"Well, that's a relief," Walter says with a warm smile. "It's good to see you again," he adds. "You want me to bring up a soda, or something, help with the blood sugar thing?"
"It'd be appreciated," Jean murmurs, with a lift of one hand to her temple and her eyes sliding shut again. A mind full of Walter is not exactly a familiar sensation, and barriers need re-establishing. "Settling in all right?" is asked, in requisite small-talk fashion, for all her tone makes it genuine.
At least Walter's calmed down considerably from the boy he once was, the one who assaulted Jean with teenage excitement over having superheroes for teachers. "All things considered," he admits. "I get along alright with most of the agents, at least. Some personality conflicts, but nothing too huge, really."
"If everyone loved everyone, it would be a really good sign there were drugs in the air system," Jean assures, with a crooked smile as she pats around in her pocket after a roll of Life Savers. "But how are you handling the missions? I don't need details, but I admit I was and still am worried that you're not the sort of person to cope with a body count, and this is a government intelligence organization, not the X-Men."
Walter gives a heavy sigh. "I... still feel a little guilty about Nancie, I was one of the last people to see her alive, I knew she had been messed with, I should have kept after her, instead... she turned up dead the next day." He gives another deep sigh. "But, I guess I'm handling it alright. I... kinda wasn't expecting anything that drawn out, or that stressful."
"But you survived," Jean confirms, and her smile is a warm one again. "Against an entity that's taken circles of trained telepaths to deal with before. I think your group has a lot of be proud of."
Walter reaches up to his chest. "Kinda hard to really call it a victory, though," he says with a small frown. "Is... this what it's like?" he wonders.
"I admit that I'm not up on all the intelligence," Jean points out, with a lift of one finger, "But you successfully thwarted the plan of a former employee who'd been corrupted by a deathless and evil telepathic entity to assemble a group of mutants via mind control in order to use them for purposes unknown, but probably not good." In conclusion, the smile returns again. "-I'd- call that a victory."
"A success, maybe," Walter says with a frown, seeming to have a higher standard for actual victory. "Doesn't really feel like a victory with the losses we took." He shrugs. "You didn't answer my question," he points out. "Is this what you usually have to settle for? Is it like this for the X-men?"
"Are you saying that stopping Loki wasn't a victory because Jubilee died?" The frown is met with a level look.
That hits a button for Walter, and he just stops, mouth hanging open a bit before he sits back to consider. "I... guess that's a yes," he says. "To my question," he adds, quickly. He gives a heavy sigh. "Doesn't make it suck less, though."
"If you focus on what you lost, you'll never get out of bed in the mornings," Jean counsels, giving Walter's shoulder a squeeze. "Focus on what you've won... and remember that there are a lot of veterans of actual wars out there who'd quite rightfully give you a beating if you tried telling them that the deaths made D-Day not worth it."
Walter nods to Jean, giving a small smile. "Alright." He pushes to his feet, giving another pained wince. "I really need to bribe our healer with some batteries, or something," he decides. "I think I'm going to go get that soda for you. Thanks, for, well, everything over the last 3 years."
"I'm always proud to see a student out and changing the world," Jean assures, eyes alert on the wincing and what's behind it, before she forces herself to relax back into her seat and let someone else do the doctoring.
Needs moar uniforms.
X-Men: Movieverse 3 - Tuesday, June 02, 2009, 7:02 PM
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=XF= Administration - Chemekata Military Base
The glass and metal lobby of the building carries the 'Titan Enterprises' charade through in brushed aluminum letters set high on the wall behind the main desk. The name disappears, however, as one moves deeper into the building. The security is high, and the presence of armed guards is unmistakable.
The subfloors are heavily shielded from possibly electromagnetic attack, and it is there that communications and intelligence are centered. The hum of happy server farms is impossible to escape. The upper levels are given over to offices, meeting spaces, and classrooms. The computers are cutting edge, their screens are large, and furnishings are terrifically ergonomic.
[This room is set watchable. Use alias XFAdministration to watch here.]
(Exits : [O]ut, [M]eeting [R]oom, [C]lassroom, and [C]omputer [L]ab )
Somewhere, Jean has found coffee that she hasn't had to make herself. This in and of itself is worthy of quiet celebration. The fact that she's found space to enjoy it in between scanning agents and exhausting herself is another. Thus, she's claimed a corner of the seating in the lobby of 'Titan Enterprises', the better to sip it and keep a lazy eye out for any familiar faces that might be looking for her. (The guest apartment, while nice, is really just a little too hotel room for her tastes.)
Finally back in his usual clothes, black tanktop, blue jeans, and black sneakers, Amadeus is just wandering around, thinking, not appearing in the best of moods. Then, a familiar redhead, and and he finds himself walking over and taking a seat next to her. Of course he's not in too bad a mood to stare inappropriately, but his words betray his oggling. "Do you know Amp? I mean, she went to that school, right?"
Jean is pretty to look at, at least, all done up in a neat navy business suit to better suit her surroundings. "Do you always start conversations with a direct question ike that?" she wonders, but with coffee and painkillers lending warm amusement rather than annoyance. "But yes, she's got some history with Xavier's."
"Alright, so, get ready for too much information. And hey, we're already introduced, there's nothing wrong with direct questions." Amadeus clears his throat, figuring she's a teacher, so of course she's used to these things! "Alright, so, Amp is the first and only girl I ever slept with, and I'm pretty sure I'm in love with her, but I can only see her every three months and she wants me to see other girls as long as I don't tell her. So now I've been trying to do that, but I still think about her a lot, but I'm kinda starting to like another girl, and I don't know what I should do." Finally, turning his head to lock eyes with her. "Your wisdom?"
From Jean's direction comes the firm clink of a coffee mug being set down before she can drop it. There's a moment of purest 'WTF?!?!' so sharp and projected that it ought to ping off every telepath on base, matched by her mouth hanging open, before her brain starts to process what he's asked as more than just bemusement. "Well," she says. "I suppose the first thing is why she'd want you to do that."
Amadeus takes a deep breath while leaning back in his chair, eyes still rather oggling, but he does look up at her eyes a few times. "She doesn't want me to be lonely while she's gone for so long, she doesn't think it's fair to me. I told her she can sleep with other guys as long as she doesn't tell me too, but god knows I didn't really mean it, I was just trying to be as mature as she was being with me. And the worst part is, sometimes I feel kinda guilty about genuinely liking this other girl. You know Natalie?"
"Monogomy and maturity are neither opposites 'nor intertwined," quoth the Jean, retrieving her coffee after she's judged it safe from sporfling. "But if you mean Natalie Simon, then yes, I know her. She's given you some indication she reciprocates?" she wonders, and thinks to take a sip of coffee and -swallow- it before Amadeus can talk again.
Amadeus laughs, loudly, because, well, Natalie. "No way, Natalie freakin' hates me, I don't even know why I've started to like her. It's not even the kind of feelings like when I just wanna get in a girl's pants, or like, you know, looking at you or something," he throws a compliment in there, but continues his casual explanation without real pause. "I don't know, I try to talk to her, she says some snarky comment, gets me confused, then she walks out of the room. And I don't know, she's got me totally confused, sometimes I think she thinks I'm cool, then other times she puts me right back in my place, and I don't know, it just, makes me freakin' /want/ her."
"Ah," says Jean, eyebrows arched, but her manner attentive. (If she can get through teaching Sex Ed to mutant teenagers while being a telepath, surely she can handle this?) She hides behind more of her coffee all the same. "The lure of the unobtainable. Not precisely -healthy-, but common enough. So you've got Amp, who's usually unobtainable because of distance, and Natalie, who's unobtainable because of..." Jean opts for the polite response, and abandons the line of thought contrasting mathematician with Madcat. "Well, unobtainable. Could it be that you're not entirely comfortable with the idea of relationships yet?"
"You sure that's it? Cause it's not like I just wanna get into Natalie's pants, I just, I don't know, I think there's someone in her that I might like. Or maybe I just don't wanna admit the unobtainable thing, I don't know." Amadeus takes a breath, hunching over to rest his arms over his knees, hands dangling. "I knew Amp before I came here, but she moved away, and well, one thing led to another and now I'm here. I don't even know what I was thinking, Ijust needed her /here/, she was the only person I felt comfortable with touching. Before we slept together, I had this problem with touching people because of my super strength, so I guess I didn't go through the normal relationship phases or whatever."
"I," Jean notes, tucking her legs up beneath her and easing the queenly bearing a bit as coffee and painkillers continue to combine pleasantely. "Am a doctor and a telepath, not a psychiatrist. So take anything I say with a grain of salt... but if you're saying you missed out on a whole phase of development because of your powers, then it's only normal to feel a little conflicted, especially if you've jumped right into having sex." With Amp. Ack.
"Shouldn't a telepath be better than a psychiatrist?" Amadeus asks, staring at her with a perplexed look. "I can't really say I /regret/ jumping right into sex, I mean, it fixed my power issues, and, well, sex is pretty awesome. But what do you think I should do? Write Natalie poetry and ask her out to a movie, then worry about pimples and if we're gonna kiss when I bring her back home?"
"I can read minds," Jean clarifies, with a small smile blossoming from over her coffee cup. "That doesn't necessarily make me automatically able to understand them. As for Natalie... why not try treating her like a person instead of an ideal?" she suggests. "Women are, after all."
"Alright, help me out here then." Amadeus shifts around so most of his body is facing her, his oggling (mostly) ended, staring expectantly. "What do I /do/? I mean, how do I approach her, what do I tell her? I always choke, she always gets offended because I slip up or something. I called her a college girl and she got upset because she thought I meant something by it, and it sorta sprawled into this thing where she explained she was a mathematician..." Shaking his head, he adds, "Is it normal that I somehow find it attractive that she freaks out about something like that?"
The last question prompts Jean to take refuge in the weasel-est of all weasel-word phrases. "Maybe it's normal for -you-," she suggests, wrapping her hands around her coffee mug and staring at it as if there's a chance someone dropped a Magic 8 Ball in with the sugar. "Just approach her like you'd approach any other person you know and like. Be friendly, be respectful of their boundaries, and be interested in what they're doing."
"Should I uh," Amadeus twirls a finger, as if trying to find the word. "Read a mathematician book? Isn't The Great Gatsby about a mathematician? Or maybe that's about a /magician/, I can't remember. Alright, be interested, respectful, friendly!" Then, leaning in with a secretive whisper, "Can you give me some Natalie specific pointers?"
"...I don't actually know her all that well," says Jean, leeeaning away as he leans in. "Mostly because she's friends with Bahir, who used to be one of the grad students in my lab. But, ah... maybe Goedel, Escher Bach?" she suggests a book title. "If you want to learn more about mathematics on the level she works with them?"
"I'll check those guys out!" Amadeus enthusiastically agrees, standing up stretching with a refreshed yawn. "Thanks for all the help, Jean. If you ever wanna get your groove back or anything, just give me a call."
"...I think my groove is well looked after," says Jean faintly, before, wrested from her with the iron hand of an Annandale-on-Hudson upbringing, she tacks on a "Thank you, though?"
"Alright, then I'll work on getting /my/ groove back." Amadeus smiles, giving her a slight nod, then turns to walk off to the entrance. Why was he even in here? "Thanks again!"
Amadeus is a very confused young man.
X-Men: Movieverse 3 - Tuesday, June 02, 2009, 1:55 PM
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=XF= Administration - Chemekata Military Base
The glass and metal lobby of the building carries the 'Titan Enterprises' charade through in brushed aluminum letters set high on the wall behind the main desk. The name disappears, however, as one moves deeper into the building. The security is high, and the presence of armed guards is unmistakable.
The subfloors are heavily shielded from possibly electromagnetic attack, and it is there that communications and intelligence are centered. The hum of happy server farms is impossible to escape. The upper levels are given over to offices, meeting spaces, and classrooms. The computers are cutting edge, their screens are large, and furnishings are terrifically ergonomic.
[This room is set watchable. Use alias XFAdministration to watch here.]
(Exits : [O]ut, [M]eeting [R]oom, [C]lassroom, and [C]omputer [L]ab )
It doesn't take long for Walter to get up and about. Comfort over being 'home' such as it is has him considerably less tense than he's been, but there's still some tightness in his stride, possibly brought on by the buldge of bandages beneath his shirt as he moves to the administration building. Having no special way of giving his old teacher an early warning, he simply walks up to her door, giving it a quick knock.
The guest apartments are just as nice as the other apartments on the base, but they've got that sort of corporate hotel feel to them that says that these are temporary lodgings only. Jean has abandoned her pony club mother styles of the ranch for something a little more businesslike as well, answering the door in a rustle of navy skirt and suit jacket. "Hello, Walter," she greets, with a careful smile down at him. "Come for a check-up on your brain?"
Walter gives a nod, shooting the telepath a warm smile. "Yeah. I... kinda trust you in there more than, well, the telepaths I've only known for a couple months, and who probably hate me enough already."
"Hate you?" Jean's eyebrows raise slightly at that, as she steps out of the little apartment to close the door behind her and nod towards a seating alcove down the way. (Teacher-student rules die hard, apparently. There will be no Walter in her apartment.) "What happened up in the Colorado hills?" she wonders, a gentle lead in as she lets her mental walls down to slide her thoughts in synch with the surface of his mind.
"A lot, really," Walter admits. "But, well, I'm mostly talking general personality conflicts. No particular source just... me being me." The surface of his mind is aggitated, rough, choppy waters, but that's only to be expected considering the month he's had, though there's also a bit of pre-brain scan nervousness. Walter takes a seat, pain flashing across face, and stronger across mind. "I'm, well, not sure how much I'm supposed to tell you," he admits, but it's not like he could keep a secret she really wanted to know "but, , a short mission turned into a very long one, one that ended with a lot of people at each other's throats, I made some bad decisions here and there, and, well, guess I'm sorta beating myself up about it."
"And you think that your team's telepaths wouldn't be able to separate their opinions from their work?" The question is as quiet as the rest of her conversation, smooth and serene as Jean takes a seat and lets her eyes drift shut. "Well, never mind, I don't mind doing this. Think back to what happened when you tried to leave the ranch," she directs.
"Don't want to give them more ammo," Walter says, closing his eyes. He thinks back, a little mini montage playing through his mind. Each time he 'tested' the border, played in no particular order beyond how that in which they're recalled, on a loop, each rotation through the loop getting them shuffled into a more chronological order. The sudden need to be somewhere else, the impulse to turn back, the feeling of tired feet, the simple refusal of his body to continue forward, one by one, each only feeling truly strange after the event.
"And what about the entity in the mine," Jean prompts, after a long moment's silence where she lets things spin out beneath her mind's eye, probing deeper and deeper and following the links from memory and emotion to the centres of the brain that control them, and from thence to where they shape experience and behavior.
Walter's mind takes Jean back to the mine, both his first and second incursion inside. Kelsey's freakout, the rescue of Kitty. The sense of forboding, the emotional assaults, the general creepiness of it all. However, the fingerprints are light, just a gentle brush, no sign of deep manipulation.
Gentle brushes, now fading into nothingness at their earlier unravelling. Jean leaves them be. Eventually, content that no lingering surprises wait, she pulls out and sinks back deep into the cushions of her seat, looking just a touch pale from the effort. "All clear," she pronounces.
"Well, that's a relief," Walter says with a warm smile. "It's good to see you again," he adds. "You want me to bring up a soda, or something, help with the blood sugar thing?"
"It'd be appreciated," Jean murmurs, with a lift of one hand to her temple and her eyes sliding shut again. A mind full of Walter is not exactly a familiar sensation, and barriers need re-establishing. "Settling in all right?" is asked, in requisite small-talk fashion, for all her tone makes it genuine.
At least Walter's calmed down considerably from the boy he once was, the one who assaulted Jean with teenage excitement over having superheroes for teachers. "All things considered," he admits. "I get along alright with most of the agents, at least. Some personality conflicts, but nothing too huge, really."
"If everyone loved everyone, it would be a really good sign there were drugs in the air system," Jean assures, with a crooked smile as she pats around in her pocket after a roll of Life Savers. "But how are you handling the missions? I don't need details, but I admit I was and still am worried that you're not the sort of person to cope with a body count, and this is a government intelligence organization, not the X-Men."
Walter gives a heavy sigh. "I... still feel a little guilty about Nancie, I was one of the last people to see her alive, I knew she had been messed with, I should have kept after her, instead... she turned up dead the next day." He gives another deep sigh. "But, I guess I'm handling it alright. I... kinda wasn't expecting anything that drawn out, or that stressful."
"But you survived," Jean confirms, and her smile is a warm one again. "Against an entity that's taken circles of trained telepaths to deal with before. I think your group has a lot of be proud of."
Walter reaches up to his chest. "Kinda hard to really call it a victory, though," he says with a small frown. "Is... this what it's like?" he wonders.
"I admit that I'm not up on all the intelligence," Jean points out, with a lift of one finger, "But you successfully thwarted the plan of a former employee who'd been corrupted by a deathless and evil telepathic entity to assemble a group of mutants via mind control in order to use them for purposes unknown, but probably not good." In conclusion, the smile returns again. "-I'd- call that a victory."
"A success, maybe," Walter says with a frown, seeming to have a higher standard for actual victory. "Doesn't really feel like a victory with the losses we took." He shrugs. "You didn't answer my question," he points out. "Is this what you usually have to settle for? Is it like this for the X-men?"
"Are you saying that stopping Loki wasn't a victory because Jubilee died?" The frown is met with a level look.
That hits a button for Walter, and he just stops, mouth hanging open a bit before he sits back to consider. "I... guess that's a yes," he says. "To my question," he adds, quickly. He gives a heavy sigh. "Doesn't make it suck less, though."
"If you focus on what you lost, you'll never get out of bed in the mornings," Jean counsels, giving Walter's shoulder a squeeze. "Focus on what you've won... and remember that there are a lot of veterans of actual wars out there who'd quite rightfully give you a beating if you tried telling them that the deaths made D-Day not worth it."
Walter nods to Jean, giving a small smile. "Alright." He pushes to his feet, giving another pained wince. "I really need to bribe our healer with some batteries, or something," he decides. "I think I'm going to go get that soda for you. Thanks, for, well, everything over the last 3 years."
"I'm always proud to see a student out and changing the world," Jean assures, eyes alert on the wincing and what's behind it, before she forces herself to relax back into her seat and let someone else do the doctoring.
Needs moar uniforms.
X-Men: Movieverse 3 - Tuesday, June 02, 2009, 7:02 PM
-----------------------------------------------------
=XF= Administration - Chemekata Military Base
The glass and metal lobby of the building carries the 'Titan Enterprises' charade through in brushed aluminum letters set high on the wall behind the main desk. The name disappears, however, as one moves deeper into the building. The security is high, and the presence of armed guards is unmistakable.
The subfloors are heavily shielded from possibly electromagnetic attack, and it is there that communications and intelligence are centered. The hum of happy server farms is impossible to escape. The upper levels are given over to offices, meeting spaces, and classrooms. The computers are cutting edge, their screens are large, and furnishings are terrifically ergonomic.
[This room is set watchable. Use alias XFAdministration to watch here.]
(Exits : [O]ut, [M]eeting [R]oom, [C]lassroom, and [C]omputer [L]ab )
Somewhere, Jean has found coffee that she hasn't had to make herself. This in and of itself is worthy of quiet celebration. The fact that she's found space to enjoy it in between scanning agents and exhausting herself is another. Thus, she's claimed a corner of the seating in the lobby of 'Titan Enterprises', the better to sip it and keep a lazy eye out for any familiar faces that might be looking for her. (The guest apartment, while nice, is really just a little too hotel room for her tastes.)
Finally back in his usual clothes, black tanktop, blue jeans, and black sneakers, Amadeus is just wandering around, thinking, not appearing in the best of moods. Then, a familiar redhead, and and he finds himself walking over and taking a seat next to her. Of course he's not in too bad a mood to stare inappropriately, but his words betray his oggling. "Do you know Amp? I mean, she went to that school, right?"
Jean is pretty to look at, at least, all done up in a neat navy business suit to better suit her surroundings. "Do you always start conversations with a direct question ike that?" she wonders, but with coffee and painkillers lending warm amusement rather than annoyance. "But yes, she's got some history with Xavier's."
"Alright, so, get ready for too much information. And hey, we're already introduced, there's nothing wrong with direct questions." Amadeus clears his throat, figuring she's a teacher, so of course she's used to these things! "Alright, so, Amp is the first and only girl I ever slept with, and I'm pretty sure I'm in love with her, but I can only see her every three months and she wants me to see other girls as long as I don't tell her. So now I've been trying to do that, but I still think about her a lot, but I'm kinda starting to like another girl, and I don't know what I should do." Finally, turning his head to lock eyes with her. "Your wisdom?"
From Jean's direction comes the firm clink of a coffee mug being set down before she can drop it. There's a moment of purest 'WTF?!?!' so sharp and projected that it ought to ping off every telepath on base, matched by her mouth hanging open, before her brain starts to process what he's asked as more than just bemusement. "Well," she says. "I suppose the first thing is why she'd want you to do that."
Amadeus takes a deep breath while leaning back in his chair, eyes still rather oggling, but he does look up at her eyes a few times. "She doesn't want me to be lonely while she's gone for so long, she doesn't think it's fair to me. I told her she can sleep with other guys as long as she doesn't tell me too, but god knows I didn't really mean it, I was just trying to be as mature as she was being with me. And the worst part is, sometimes I feel kinda guilty about genuinely liking this other girl. You know Natalie?"
"Monogomy and maturity are neither opposites 'nor intertwined," quoth the Jean, retrieving her coffee after she's judged it safe from sporfling. "But if you mean Natalie Simon, then yes, I know her. She's given you some indication she reciprocates?" she wonders, and thinks to take a sip of coffee and -swallow- it before Amadeus can talk again.
Amadeus laughs, loudly, because, well, Natalie. "No way, Natalie freakin' hates me, I don't even know why I've started to like her. It's not even the kind of feelings like when I just wanna get in a girl's pants, or like, you know, looking at you or something," he throws a compliment in there, but continues his casual explanation without real pause. "I don't know, I try to talk to her, she says some snarky comment, gets me confused, then she walks out of the room. And I don't know, she's got me totally confused, sometimes I think she thinks I'm cool, then other times she puts me right back in my place, and I don't know, it just, makes me freakin' /want/ her."
"Ah," says Jean, eyebrows arched, but her manner attentive. (If she can get through teaching Sex Ed to mutant teenagers while being a telepath, surely she can handle this?) She hides behind more of her coffee all the same. "The lure of the unobtainable. Not precisely -healthy-, but common enough. So you've got Amp, who's usually unobtainable because of distance, and Natalie, who's unobtainable because of..." Jean opts for the polite response, and abandons the line of thought contrasting mathematician with Madcat. "Well, unobtainable. Could it be that you're not entirely comfortable with the idea of relationships yet?"
"You sure that's it? Cause it's not like I just wanna get into Natalie's pants, I just, I don't know, I think there's someone in her that I might like. Or maybe I just don't wanna admit the unobtainable thing, I don't know." Amadeus takes a breath, hunching over to rest his arms over his knees, hands dangling. "I knew Amp before I came here, but she moved away, and well, one thing led to another and now I'm here. I don't even know what I was thinking, Ijust needed her /here/, she was the only person I felt comfortable with touching. Before we slept together, I had this problem with touching people because of my super strength, so I guess I didn't go through the normal relationship phases or whatever."
"I," Jean notes, tucking her legs up beneath her and easing the queenly bearing a bit as coffee and painkillers continue to combine pleasantely. "Am a doctor and a telepath, not a psychiatrist. So take anything I say with a grain of salt... but if you're saying you missed out on a whole phase of development because of your powers, then it's only normal to feel a little conflicted, especially if you've jumped right into having sex." With Amp. Ack.
"Shouldn't a telepath be better than a psychiatrist?" Amadeus asks, staring at her with a perplexed look. "I can't really say I /regret/ jumping right into sex, I mean, it fixed my power issues, and, well, sex is pretty awesome. But what do you think I should do? Write Natalie poetry and ask her out to a movie, then worry about pimples and if we're gonna kiss when I bring her back home?"
"I can read minds," Jean clarifies, with a small smile blossoming from over her coffee cup. "That doesn't necessarily make me automatically able to understand them. As for Natalie... why not try treating her like a person instead of an ideal?" she suggests. "Women are, after all."
"Alright, help me out here then." Amadeus shifts around so most of his body is facing her, his oggling (mostly) ended, staring expectantly. "What do I /do/? I mean, how do I approach her, what do I tell her? I always choke, she always gets offended because I slip up or something. I called her a college girl and she got upset because she thought I meant something by it, and it sorta sprawled into this thing where she explained she was a mathematician..." Shaking his head, he adds, "Is it normal that I somehow find it attractive that she freaks out about something like that?"
The last question prompts Jean to take refuge in the weasel-est of all weasel-word phrases. "Maybe it's normal for -you-," she suggests, wrapping her hands around her coffee mug and staring at it as if there's a chance someone dropped a Magic 8 Ball in with the sugar. "Just approach her like you'd approach any other person you know and like. Be friendly, be respectful of their boundaries, and be interested in what they're doing."
"Should I uh," Amadeus twirls a finger, as if trying to find the word. "Read a mathematician book? Isn't The Great Gatsby about a mathematician? Or maybe that's about a /magician/, I can't remember. Alright, be interested, respectful, friendly!" Then, leaning in with a secretive whisper, "Can you give me some Natalie specific pointers?"
"...I don't actually know her all that well," says Jean, leeeaning away as he leans in. "Mostly because she's friends with Bahir, who used to be one of the grad students in my lab. But, ah... maybe Goedel, Escher Bach?" she suggests a book title. "If you want to learn more about mathematics on the level she works with them?"
"I'll check those guys out!" Amadeus enthusiastically agrees, standing up stretching with a refreshed yawn. "Thanks for all the help, Jean. If you ever wanna get your groove back or anything, just give me a call."
"...I think my groove is well looked after," says Jean faintly, before, wrested from her with the iron hand of an Annandale-on-Hudson upbringing, she tacks on a "Thank you, though?"
"Alright, then I'll work on getting /my/ groove back." Amadeus smiles, giving her a slight nod, then turns to walk off to the entrance. Why was he even in here? "Thanks again!"
Amadeus is a very confused young man.