Sweet Disposition

[Travis Brooks]

Early.  Too early.  There was a time when Travis was notoriously late, but it seemed with his days starting earlier, he found himself more able to manage his time appropriately. It was a strange thing, really.  So, well, grown up.  When did he turn into an adult? Further more, when did he turn into an adult with a crush on a kid.  No, Glads, wasn't really a kid.  He was mature for his age, but he was seventeen all the same.  It wasn't as though he acted on the crush that had developed.  He didn't know what to do about it, really.  He couldn't be with him, but he couldn't bring himself to be with anyone else, either.  It was a strange situation, one he didn't know exactly how to approach or if he ever should.  It was constantly on his mind though, even there in the strange building on the campus where he was supposed to meet Glads.

He couldn't remember exactly where he was supposed to meet the younger boy, so decided to wander around until Glads got out of class.  Then he could call him and find where he was.  For now he was walking past a room with a kid doing some sort of martial arts.  The kid was good.  Better than good.. Travis had never seen that sort of speed in someone's kicks and he knew the guy must have had years of training perfecting an art like that.  He could barely do like twenty jumping jacks and here this guy was jumping and spinning while doing four, five, six kicks in mid air.  It was impressive and he found himself simply watching from afar.

He never even heard the footsteps, but saw someone out of the corner of his eye.  He suddenly realized he was an adult on a high school campus and how odd that must look, even if he was barely out of high school himself. Well, not barely.. he was nearly twenty three.  He looked away, trying not to seem inconspicuous.  If he looked like he belonged, maybe he would make others believe he did.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean had already had a long day, as tended to happen in the last stretch of time between breaks and graduation. Those few months always brought with them increasing workloads for the students, which, in turn, manifested as an exponentially increasing workload for him.

That was the inevitable result of not having a proper guidance counselor on the payroll.

At least he had free rein of the coffee machine.

On his way back from the staff lounge, he had to walk past the training rooms, and, en route, he found a young man simply staring into the room at one of the students practicing.

That was certainly noteworthy. The psychiatrist didn’t recognize him as one of the staff members, he was too old to be a student, and he couldn’t match his face to a name, which told him that he certainly wasn’t a current student and likely not a former one either.

Which meant that, absent having checked in at the front desk as a visitor, he didn’t have a reason to be in this building at all. Even if he had checked in, he didn’t have a reason to be in the training area, which was typically private despite taking the appearance of classrooms.

“Do you have a visitor pass?” He asked, coming up behind the young man.

[Travis Brooks]

Hearing the man's voice made Travis tense.  Not because it was frightening or that he was uncomfortable with the man's presence, but simply because he knew he wasn't supposed to be there and this gentleman did too.  He'd run into his fair share of trouble in the past, and had no problem sassing authority.  It had landed him behind bars once, but that was more to prove a point than anything else, and ol' Sgt. Kenner let him go after a few hours, after Travis apologized a few times.  It never even made it to his record.  This wasn't like that, though.  He didn't want to be thrown off the campus, and this guy, whoever he was, wouldn't be as lenient as a man who had watched Travis grow up from a tot in diapers to a full on man.

He offered a pleasant smile to the guy, as pleasant as he could anyway without coming off as guilty.  Ignorance would work in his favor.  It always did.

"No, sir." He answered honestly.  "Didn't think I'd need one, but I can go on an' get one if yah'd be so kinda as to show me where to go." The southern drawl was clear in his voice but not overwhelming.  He couldn't deny who he was, and didn't try, but he didn't much care to sound like a slow redneck, either.  That was a label he preferred not to obtain there in the north.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sometimes Sean wondered about protocols. Josh was stopped at the front desk for a visitor’s pass every single time he came over for lunch, and they were essentially married. How someone relatively unfamiliar could sneak past security without having to check in boggled the mind.

He loathed doing security drills since he considered them largely to be a waste of time, but surely the guards needed to pay a bit closer attention. If not the guards than some of the other administrative staff, from the assistants to the other faculty members who might roam the halls.

The psychiatrist kept those thoughts to himself.

Instead, he said, “I can show you the front.”

Feigning ignorance did little to endear a person to Sean; such was a function of the telepathy. He knew when people knew better and when they had made an innocent mistake.

A grown man who wasn’t on staff running around the halls of the school and watching one of the students during private training did not constitute an innocent mistake.

With that, Sean gestured over his shoulder towards the administrative wing, far from the training area. It would be a bit of a walk, but the psychiatrist had to go that way to get back to his office, and now he would have this young man in tow. “It’s this way.”

[Travis Brooks]

Travis suddenly felt like a child being escorted to the principles office.  Shouldn't this man grab him by the ear and drag him? He supposed school officials were supposed to carry that air of superiority that only those with charges could pull off.  This guy possessed a lot of it and he suddenly lacked anything snarky to see.  Should he say yes sir?

"Ah. Thanks." He offered, attempting to sound grateful but knowing he failed miserably. He was just trying to stay under the radar until Glads got out of class and they could get out of there.  He wasn't at Hammel to cause trouble, just to hang.  That's what happens when you go to meet a high school kid, he supposed.


"Sooo, are you going to escort me there?" He asked, genuinely curious.  Would it take a while? Would they try and call the police? Surely what he'd done wasn't illegal.  No, no police would be called, but he could easily be escorted from the premises? Not if he was going to get a visitors pass, though.. which he was.. for the short amount of time it would take between now and Glads being let out of class..

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Although Travis probably didn’t expect him to, Sean heard the thought quite loudly. He said nothing, although, briefly, his mind turned to his childhood in Catholic school, where such treatment from school officials hadn’t been uncommon. For his part, Sean had always been a mild-mannered and well-behaved student, and he’d had no reason to run afoul of the Priests. However, he had seen the effects of corporal punishment on children and adolescents.

There was a reason he opposed it on pragmatic grounds as well as ethical grounds. It didn’t work.

He wouldn’t lash out at Travis, as displeased as he was to find a stranger roaming around the campus and staring at the students while they were training. He would focus instead on getting him logged in and monitored, and then preventing it from ever happening again.

“Yes, I am.” He left it at that, to make plain that the young man would not be able to get away from him if he tried to run. Sean did not expect him to try to run.

As they walked, he asked, “Who were you here to see?”

Assuming it was a staff member, then they would have to remind their guests to check in at the front desk.

[Travis Brooks]

Of course he would.  The guy didn't trust him, it didn't take a rocket scientist to know that.  Probably thought Travis was some sort of pervert scoping the area for some jail bait.  He had a baby sister that wasn't much older than any of the girls here, and just thinking of hitting on anyone that young seemed despicable.  Strangely, he was sort of doing just that.  Not intentionally, though.  He hadn't exactly sought Glads out.  Or had he? He'd moved across the country to be with him.  If that was seeking him out, what exactly was? A boy.  Seventeen.  

Every time Travis thought about the predicament he found himself in, he got hot and nervous.  It wasn't his style to be a hypocrite, to do something he was morally against, but he wasn't exactly doing anything.  Not yet..  But did that make him a pervert? Was whatever this guy, whoever he was, thinking about Travis, actually true?

Then again how could he know what that dude was thinking.  He was no mind reader, but neither was this guy so he probably assumed the worst.  He couldn't blame him, he had kids to look out for, kids who were probably far away from their parents watchful eyes.

"Uhh.. Glads Thompson?" She swallowed, pursing his lips a bit as he looked around. "I know he ain't here, I was just waitin' for him, killin' time. Figured I'd nose around a bit." He explained.  "Never seen a school this big b'fore."

[Dr. Sean Neville]

As a matter of course, Sean’s thoughts didn’t automatically go to “pervert” when thinking about other people - and he didn’t care for that term in the first place. He preferred clinical words, as they were less vague. However, his first thoughts about this situation was that, however managed to sneak into Hammel and hadn’t been cleared by security or hadn’t bothered to register at the front desk wasn’t supposed to be there. Potentially, he was unsafe or harmful, because he had bypassed the safety protocols, and whether that was due to ignorance or a desire to sneak around, he couldn’t say at first, but neither pointed to a bastion of good judgment.

No matter what, training sessions were private unless a situation arose. Even then, those situations involved other administrators or members of the security staff, not strangers from the community.

Unfortunately for Travis, as the psychiatrist overheard his thoughts during their walk, Sean had to reassess his initial reaction, shifting the scale from “ignorance” to more nefarious purposes until proven otherwise. Which, in turn, pushed Sean from interest in small talk to cutting to the chase. “How old are you, Travis?”

His use of the other man’s name had been pointed, as the younger man had yet to introduce himself. From Sean, that was a hint.

[Travis Brooks]

His age? That would make it all seem worse.  Someone who was four years older than the oldest student there didn't have any business on a high school campus, he was the first to admit that.  But there he was, walking around like it was no big deal.  As if what he was doing wasn't terribly wrong.  But was it really wrong? His intentions were good and he thought of Glads first.  Always.  That didn't make this any easier, though.

Either way he wasn't one to lie, and by doing so only proved that he was being shady when he wasn't. "Twenty t--"  Travis stopped, both talking and walking, as he suddenly realized the man beside him knew his name.  He hadn't mentioned his moniker and he knew it wasn't anywhere on his being aside from on his drivers license, which was tucked safely away in his pocket.

"How d'you know my name?" He questioned, guard suddenly up as his eyes narrowed.  He didn't like that, not one bit.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Although Travis hadn’t finished his answer to the question, Sean knew the rest of it anyway. The number had popped into the younger man’s head quite readily upon hearing the question; the psychiatrist hadn’t had to probe him at all. Coupled with that came the younger man’s realization that, in fact, being twenty-two was far too old to be hanging around waiting for high school students. He would consider that progress in any situation where the younger man had escorted himself out rather than bypassing security procedures to watch students in training.

Were the psychiatrist cocky as a basic part of his personality, he would answer the question by informing Travis that he was out of his league here. However, that was what one would expect of Jesse Adams rather than Sean Neville – Hammel Psychiatrist and generally mature middle-aged adult.

Instead, as he walked the younger man towards the main office and the check-in desk, Sean replied, “This might be an inelegant introduction, but you’ll find that there’s very little I don’t know when I need to know it.”

Perhaps that was cocky in its own right. It was more in line with what some of his peers charitably referred to as his “Oracle at Delphi act.”