You Spin My Head Right Round(Evan, Sean)

A smile descended upon Brooke's lips as the counselor offered her his own cup of coffee. Ok, that answered that question. She liked him, he was downright adorable. "Thanks man," she said as politely as she could muster. With aching grabby fingers, Brooke reached forward and grasped the mug with both hands, then rested herself back into the chair, bringing both knees in as she curled up to properly enjoy her hot coffee like it was a steaming cup of cocoa instead. It should've been cocoa.

"Yeah....I think so?" Brooke replied with uncertainty in her voice. "It's a bit hazy." Now that she thought of it, who drove her back to campus? Some old guy....

Brooke sipped the coffee contemplatively, letting the bitter tastes of the brew splash over her tastebuds and trickle down her throat. "Ohhh, that is so good. I really should drink this shit more." She looked up at the counselor with a smirk. "Sorry. Stuff, I mean." With a small giggle rocking her shoulders forward, she lifted her glazing eyes to the man and smirked. "So you gonna ask me anythin'? Sir?"

Brooke giggled again as she took another sip of coffee. "I think I'm gonna need t' raid that staff room sometime. Teachers always find the best junk to stock it with. Must come with the 'age of wisdom.'" Brooke stretched her legs out, letting her kitty slippers fall to the floor and her painted toes flair up in the air. There were obvious blisters on the bottom of them and around her heel from wearing shoes too fancy for the kind of parties she frequented.

Evan's assessment of her emotional aura was dead on, with a few colorfully dressed can-can dancing zombies to go with it. Had she known what he was seeing, she'd be asking what he was smoking and if she could get in on that. As it was, she was struggling to keep some semblance of her own psyche from giving in to the hallucinations her own hungover brain was bestowing on her vision. Since she was already pretty messed up, why not go for broke? But back to the zombies. Brooke was well aware of the Church's "official" stance on the subject of metas, but it was true that living in the communities of highly conservative folks, she was inclined to think that she knew more about what they actually thought of people like her instead of what they wanted people to think the thought of metas. They were a buncha damn hypocrites.

But this guy? Brooke thought she liked him before, but after those questions, she decided that he was fucking awesome! And her smile widened to reflect that sentiment. "Cool beans." Brooke swore enough, but she did it more to add color to her wording. She didn't have to, but knowing that this guy didn't care really lightened the stress. It was hard enough for some kids to say what they mean when their words were restricted to being "proper". Some kids didn't know any other way to express themselves. Not that Brooke was one of them, but she understood the concept. That's psychology, bitch!

As for his other question. "Gimme a break, it'still summer." There were too many things to do and see during the summer for her to just stay cooped up on campus...even if she did get in trouble for some of those ventures. "A local dude I know is'n a band," she sighed and gave him the story up to the point where things got hazy. "He invited me to come watch 'im play, one thing led to another, there were some drinks, wine, few epileptic inducin' strobe lights...." Brooke chuckled and held up a hand. "Guess I lost all track of time." Another reason to like him, his first questions weren't about the hangover she had and pointing fingers with a "I knoooow you got drunk last night!!" accusation. This guy was cool.

"Well..." Brooke gave a coy smile and leaned her head in sideways, then tilted her chin up imperiously. "Not just wine. Gotta listen to me boyo!" She shook her head, amused. "Lemme think," she started, rolling her eyes up to the ceiling. "First there was tequila, then there were cocktails, a red-headed slut," she motioned towards herself slightly, "and a round-the-world....then there was wine at the after party. I think..." She distinctly remembered drinking something from a wine glass, but Lord knows she didn't read the nutrition facts on the bottle.

As for slapping the bag, she hadn't tried that....yet.

Yeah, by this time Brooke had decided she really liked this guy. He was kinda cute too. But fraternization between student and teacher was frowned upon(and would probably get him fired if she tried) so Brooke was going to have to settle for admiration from afar...or at least her therapy seat.

"Actually, my momma asked me t' come home, buuuuuuuuuut..." she drew out that "but" longer than she needed, "'smore fun just t' say here." She preferred the small town parties to the big town fiestas. Plus, she'd probably not say it, but she didn't want to go back home and face all the watching eyeballs of the community. No doubt momma would make her go to services, and she'd light a candle for good graces, then throw her at the confessional....it was all just too much to take in at once. When Brooke felt like going, she would go. Pilot Ridge had a nice little chapel she went to sometimes. The people were pretty nice there and didn't ask questions or stare at her....well, some did, but she hadn't grown up with them, so they could go fuck themselves and say 10 hail fuckin' mary's. "I ain't gotta lotta friends at home." Well, she didn't have a lot of friends here either. Most of her friends here were teachers or locals who were more like people she just hung around rather than with.

Brooke took in the last of the coffee then reached forward to settle it back upon the desk. "Thank's for the Joe, Joe." The headache wasn't gone, but she was at least feeling better now that she had some fluid in her that wasn't alcohol based.

Bingo. No friends at home, but her parents wanted her back over? That plus the SOAP snap was more than enough to go on. Maybe she'd manifested in a public place, or maybe the gossip had spread since she'd left. Maybe it didn't even have to do with her being a meta; it could have been that she'd been a black sheep to begin with. Regardless, she was clearly feeling isolated from home, and if she was depending mostly on hanging out with locals, then she couldn't be feeling all that homelike at Hammel either. Her parents might be wanting to bring her (and themselves, by extension) back into the community fold, but everyone else might not be so willing. Hence, Hammel becomes the preferred summer destination.

Evan was slightly torn. He could either bring up her parents back home or her friends around here. Back home probably lay at the root of a lot of her self-doubt (and there WAS self-doubt, acidic and green behind a billowing cinnamon bravado), but they definitely hadn't reached the level of rapport where bringing it up would be productive. Talking about her social life here might be safer, but he'd have to be very careful: at her age, a person's sense of self worth was about evenly split between the appearance and the actuality of their social life. Nice neutral questions: that was the way to go.

"What about your friends here? Come in!" he interrupted himself as he heard a knock at the door.

A glimpse of lurking glaciers and troubadours transcendent filtered through as the door opened and he felt an eyebrow raise. Dr. Neville (or Sean. MAN, that felt weird to even think) was coming in, and he had that ablative sizzle of responsibility (professional, almost certainly) coating him. Evan hoped he wasn't about to get dressed down in front of a student.

With permission to enter granted, Sean pushed open the door, stepping over the threshold. He hadn’t arrived to speak to Evan, and, even if he did, he would never lecture a staff member in front of a student. It wasn’t professional, and it undermined the ability for a co-worker to do their job or to interact with the students.

No, he was here only to collect Brooke and then leave Evan to his own devices. He and the assistant counselor could discuss this later, once he had finished with Brooke’s weekly session.

He looked between the younger man and Brooke, before his gaze focused on Evan’s face. “It seems you have one of my students,” he explained. With that, he returned his attention to Brooke, who evidently expected him to come from her, although possibly not as quickly as he had. The psychiatrist was consistent with his mannerisms, and it was both habit and necessity to look for her when she didn’t arrive as scheduled.

“It rarely does," He remarked. It was difficult to hide from him. "Are you ready to go?” Given that she had recognized his purpose in coming to the office, he assumed that she would be. Fortunately, they could work around this delay, since the psychiatrist always built in a bit of additional time on either side of his appointments.

Pooooop....

Brooke really was hoping she could play with this cutie-boy Evan a little bit longer, but since Dr. Neville had gone through the trouble of coming all the way over here to get her, she may as well go back with him like he wanted. Not that she hadn't planned on doing that in the first place, but it was always fun to see just how long she could get away with it.

The tired, perky, quirky little shifter with the throbbing head nodded up at the doctor and popped up out of her chair before re-situating her feet into her fuzzy kitty slippers. "Same here, Mr. Coleman! It was a great chat, you're really nice," she said with a slight bow. "We should do it again sometime." She sent the counselor another smile and a friendly wink.

Brooke turned up to the other man, the older man, the man she was supposed to come in and see. "You should give him a raise, Dr. Neville. He's really good."