Time Warp: Trainer In Training (Sean)

[Chase Campbell]

2006, one month after James brought Chase to Vermont.

It was weird being back at Hammel. Chase had decided that the same day he’d started his training to be a trainer.

He’d only been back for just over a month, and the place hadn’t changed. Hell, some of his teachers were still here. Though he’d first been a little weirded out at the idea of learning once again at Hammel’s mercy, he liked his trainers well enough. As it turned out, as useful as mind control had been outside of the school’s walls, it would be even more useful in a classroom setting. He could corral the kids into behaving, and shut down an out of control power.

He was tucked into the staff lounge, taking a well deserved break. He’d been tempted to wander down and pester James in his office, but no sooner had he considered it that he tossed the idea aside. He was trying not to draw attention to the fact that it was the recruiter that had brought him here. ... And he was living with. It wasn’t exactly a well kept secret. Of course, nothing within Hammel’s walls ever stayed a well kept secret for long.

But he was trying. That was the important part. He wasn’t here because his boyfriend had brought him back. No. He was here because a recruiter had genuinely thought he’d make a good trainer for the students.

The blond stationed himself by the coffee machine, eyes on the clock. He still had some time to kill, but it was going to be a quiet break with no one else in the room. The option of going down to say hi to James was getting more appealing. Someone distract him. Quickly.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean had worked all morning without a break. Back-to-back sessions had eaten up most of the day, which had begun early with a minor emergency when a student with dream walking had camped outside his office for most of the night, wanting to see him as soon as he arrived. The morning had been so hectic and time-consuming that he had not been able to have a cup of coffee since arriving at the school.

Finally, when the opportunity presented itself for a break - albeit one that would last less than half an hour – he all but bolted out the door, locking it as he always did in order to ensure privacy for himself and the students, and came straight to the staff lounge for coffee and if anyone had been kind enough to leave out some sort of snack or treats.

Upon arriving, he made a beeline for the coffee machine, although he realized he was not alone. He took a quick moment to study the only other occupant of the lounge, noticing quickly that the other man was Chase Kilbourne, their newest trainer, a former student, and James Campbell’s love interest. Most of the staff was aware of the latter, although not everyone. Gossip moved quickly through Hammel personnel, students and staff alike, and Sean had the added bonus of telepathy.

Once he had poured his coffee, he moved over to the sofa. “How is the day treating you?”

[Chase Campbell]

Chase had yet to actually deal with a class of any size of kids. He was still more or less going through the motions of being certified as a trainer, but that still meant lots of time at the school itself. It wasn't exactly a course you could enroll in at any post secondary institution. No, he had to train within the school that not so many years ago had taught him, too. For someone as academically disinclined as he'd been, he was actually enjoying the course to become a trainer, much to his surprise. It was a lot of work, but he could see light at the end of the tunnel, and it was going to be worth it in the end.

The blond looked up as someone else entered, and there was a brief moment of disappointment that it wasn't James. The expression was only minute, and it passed quickly enough to be replaced with a friendlier one. He was fairly sure he remembered being introduced to the older man during his first week in the training program.

At the question, Chase picked up his own mug from the counter and followed behind Sean, settling down on the opposite side of the couch. "Good. Well... yeah, no, it's good. Starting to think it's harder to become a trainer than anything else, though. It's a thorough course." Still, he was glad for it. "How about yourself?"

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean sat at one end of the sofa, planting his feet firmly on the ground. He held his mug in both hands, warming them for a moment before he would take a sip of his precious coffee. What a morning. Although used to that pace, and aware that emergencies happened, and adolescents could find a crisis in any situation, he felt tired. Sixteen years at this job took its toll, and sixteen years of time passing wore down a man’s body, even if he lived a life of leisure and never exerted himself mentally or physically. Somewhere along the line, the telepath had ceased to be young, and found himself so thoroughly middle-aged.

He lifted his mug as though in toast at the sentiment, before bringing it to his lips. Sweet caffeine, sweet sugar; that should get him through the rest of the day. “Trainer training isn’t for the faint of heart.” Or for the lazy or for the disinclined. Sean had always displayed enviable (some said flabbergasting) patience; he was bright, difficult to distract, clinically trained in psychiatry, and possessed both a power that allowed him to get into the thoughts of others and mental shields to fend off errant psychic attacks. And even he couldn’t imagine becoming a powers trainer.

One of his two favorite people in life, his beloved mentor Robert Hopkins (may he rest in peace) had been a powers trainer, and Sean still couldn’t imagine getting up in the morning to face that as his career.

As such, he respected anyone willing to do so. He also knew the nitty-gritty of the training program, simply because he had spent half of his adult life at Hammel and had seen trainers go through the program many times over the past sixteen years.

“I’m fine,” he replied, and that was true now that he had coffee and a break period. Just the few minutes to decompress would do wonders for his stamina.

Then, sensing that Chase might not remember him fully from their introduction earlier, he added, “I know names don’t always stick when meeting so many people at once. I’m Sean Neville.”

[Chase Campbell]

Being one of the students that had manifested at the upper limit of the spectrum, Chase had come to Hammel at fifteen, and with his own minor set of behavioural issues. At first Hammel had been the magical refuge from his mother’s fury over the whole tattoo business, but once he’d settled in, he’d been outgoing and social with students his own age, and generally ignored the younger students. He’d also gotten into trouble multiple times from being out past curfew, sneaking a few innocent drinks with his friends, and skipping the occasional class. Nothing terrible or expulsion-worthy, but nothing to call him a model student, either. Had his time as a student and Sean’s start of employment collided, this meeting might have been somewhat more awkward.

“No, I’m starting to see that.” So many things could go wrong, especially with a student either in a tantrum, or simply accidentally. They could hurt themselves, each other, or property, and Chase’s job would eventually be to try to prevent at the very least the first two. Property damage could be fixed. Kids... that wasn’t so easy. None of it was going to be easy, but it was so much better than being a personal trainer at the local gym back in Sedona. Sure, he missed his friends and his family, but... James was worth it. And as it was turning out, so was Hammel. Especially now he was on the other side of graduation from the institute.

As thoughts turned to James, he smiled. They’d both been trying to keep the fuel for the gossip mill as small as possible, but facts were still facts. They’d still started their relationship well before James had convinced him to come back with him, and now they were living together. Still, he liked the arrangement. It was more domestic than he’d ever expected to be, but he was slowly learning how to live with James without driving one another up the walls.

Looking up at the older man, the blond smiled easily at him. “Right! Sorry, there’s been a lot of new faces.” And Chase had never been the best with recall when it came to meeting hoards of people at a time. It was why the idea of meeting James’ family still made him nervous as heck. “So how long have you been here?” He didn’t remember him from his own stint as a student, but that didn’t mean much. He didn’t remember a lot from his time as a student. Apparently the moment he’d graduated and walked out, it had been a reset button for a lot of learned facts and people.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean had lived the complete opposite experience that Chase had, in terms of his powers and his history at Hammel. The psychiatrist had manifested at the tender age of twelve, right around his birthday. After months of misunderstanding the situation and hiding from others, Hammel had been notified of his existence, and he had arrived in time for the fall term, back in 1969. He had spent six years at Hammel, from the seventh through twelfth grades, getting his education in a secular school, rather than with the Jesuits as his parents had planned. During that time, he had been a special case, working with Robert to train his powers and never causing problems, deliberately, for staff or students. He had had power slips, but nothing intentional. His social life had been non-existent for the first few years, and he had managed to graduate with a girlfriend and precious few others who wanted to be his friend. The good-two-shoes, he had been, while simultaneously shunned by his powers.

Even with that, he had returned willingly to Hammel.

“No need to apologize,” Sean replied quickly, waving off any further discussion along those lines with his hand. He had reintroduced himself entirely to provide the younger man with his name, as well as to give him the out so he needn’t ask for his name again. “Joining the faculty always brings an information overload.”

That had not changed in the sixteen years of his employment with Hammel.

“Since 1990,” he replied, before sipping his coffee.

He had spent the entirety of the 1990s and all of the 2000s up to this point at Hammel. It could be difficult to conceive at times; he had spent twice as long at Hammel than he had in private practice, and that, too, could astonish someone. His family had continued to question his decision for years, until they had relented and accepted that he wanted to pursue this area of his degree. Kathleen still disapproved, but they also avoided each other outside of family functions.

[Chase Campbell]

Despite his power set, Chase had found it easy to make friends at Hammel. He had been naturally social, and he knew how to make friends and gain popularity. Better, his circle of friends at Hammel hadn’t been scared of his power, but rather interested in what he could do with it. There had been a time he’d used it for pranking people, but his trainer had quickly shut that down with lectures as to how intrusive and violating it could feel if the other person wasn’t consenting to the control. After that he’d settled down, though his friends often asked him to use it on them. At least it was permission. Of course, there had also been those students who were nervous around his powers, but at the time Chase hadn’t really bothered with them. If they didn’t want to talk to him, he was okay with that.

“Yeah, that’s no lie. Between training and meeting everyone, sometimes it feels like I couldn’t physically fit any more information in there.” At least he was trying, though. At the very least, he was getting familiar with the trainers already working, and some of the recruiters. And now Sean.

“That’s a long time,” he commented idly. “I mean, no offence or anything. It’s just a really long time to be anywhere, really.” Especially a meta school where the kids came from all kinds of backgrounds. The blond had to wonder if he’d be inclined to stick around that long, or if teaching would wear on him after a while. He hoped he could stick around. He’d liked Hammel as a student, and training was going to be a daily adventure. “Any pointers or anything for someone starting out with the kids?” He might as well start gathering them now, if there were any to be had.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean chuckled warmly. “I understand. It gets less overwhelming the longer you’re here.” Eventually, other people came as a single new hire, or during a small crop of new hires at the new semester and it became easier to meet new people. The psychiatrist had reached that point long ago, but still he remembered his first few weeks as the new psychiatrist.

“It’s a long time,” Sean agreed. It certainly felt like a long time when he thought about it, reflecting on all of the students he had seen first arrive at Hammel only to graduate years later, while he remained in his safe office, tending to the same job description (and occasionally picking up other tasks as he went). When he had first taken the job those years ago, he had never thought about whether it would last this long. At the time, he had wanted the opportunity and had thought that he would be good at it.

He was good at it. Now, when he thought about the future, he assumed that he would keep this position until he retired, although he hoped to do that two or three decades from now.

He had plenty of work to do, and plenty of enthusiasm left to do it.

He reflected for a moment before he advised, “Don’t let them get under your skin. Some will try and you don’t want to take the bait. The others don’t mean to, even if they manage to do it.”

[Chase Campbell]

”Yeah, I guess it would, wouldn’t it?” He wouldn’t be the new staff member on the block forever. Until then, he would just have to deal with it. Eventually he’d learn everyone else’s names, and who knew? By next year, he might actually have a decent grip on what the heck he was doing.

Being that he had never really stayed at a job longer than he felt he needed, Sean’s longevity really was impressive. Then again, Chase had spent most of his adult life so far simply drifting along. He didn’t have an actual thought-out career, or much of anything going for him back home. Here, he had a chance of making something of himself. No, it hadn’t been easy to explain that to his parents, but he hoped in time they’d come around.

They had to come around.

The advice was taken to heart. Hell, Chase knew he’d caused some aggravation for his teachers and trainer alike when he’d been a student. Being on the receiving end was going to be very, very different. “Yeah, I know the kids are good at that. Heck, I did it myself.” It did worry him slightly. Did he have enough patience to deal with it? Would his power be too tempting to use in class for out of control students? He really didn’t know, and that made him a little nervous. He didn’t like the unknown, at least when it came to this. “Anything else? I mean, I’m used to being the student, not the teacher. It’s... gonna be a little weird.” And that was the understatement of the year.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

“It would,” Sean confirmed, before taking another sip from his mug. Everyone adjusted to working at Hammel, even though it started off uncomfortable for anyone except those who had attended other schools. Even the rare baseline employees found the adjustment difficult, albeit for different reasons; for them, Hammel tended to be the first, and only, environment in which they were in a minority for their lack of powers that they encountered.

Sean had always preferred consistency, and he considered it one of his better qualities. He had only had two jobs in his life, after he cleared the residency period post-graduation from medical school: his solo practice in Manhattan and then working for Hammel. The years he had spent at Hammel dwarfed his years in solo practice by a factor of two to one. By the time he intended to retire, far off in the distance, surely it would be closer to five to one. He did not regret that; despite the chaos at Hammel at times, he enjoyed working here and did not want to be anywhere else.

He paused thoughtfully at the question, wracking his brain for other words of wisdom that might benefit the younger man. Robert, as a trainer himself, would have had perfect advice for Chase, but his mentor had died a couple of years ago, and, before that, had retired. Unfortunately, the telepath lacked that skill set. “At least you aren’t twenty-two; that, I think, is the hardest adjustment, for the ones right out of college.”

Having a few years between school and work did wonders, in his experience.

“Otherwise, the standard advice applies, I think: keep your temper, remember that teenagers haven’t fully matured and that hormones and peer pressure wreak havoc, and don’t abuse your powers because it’s unequal.”

[Chase Campbell]

The transition for Chase had been odd in more than one way. The last time he’d roamed the halls of Hammel, he’d been a cocky teenager and likely the bane of some of his teacher’s existences. Now he would soon be in the reverse role, dealing with cocky teenagers that would soon be the bane of his own existence. It really was strange how some things came full circle.

Unlike Sean, Chase hadn’t really had consistency since graduating. He’d held a few jobs, the most recent before meeting James being a personal trainer at a local gym. By the time he’d met James, he’d been bored, and eager for change, so when the chance had come, he’d jumped on it. His parents... were still dealing with that, but they’d come around. They had to.

“Mn, no, definitely not twenty-two anymore.” He wasn’t quite over thirty enough yet to bother him, so he was okay with that. He couldn’t imagine trying to teach at that young an age, with the seniors so close. How in the heck would anyone get them to listen?

He soaked in the advice Sean had for him before nodding. It seemed straightforward enough. Tilting his head, he frowned a little. “And if they get too out of control, or cause trouble? What’s the standard approach? We haven’t gotten that far yet.” He remembered vague threats of being sent to the headmaster’s office when he was a teenager, but he didn’t know if that still applied. Or if it had ever applied. Maybe he’d never quite breached that line as a student. He honestly didn’t know.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean’s thoughts turned to the incident a few weeks back, when the students had taken over their English class in a brutal recreation of Lord of the Flies. One of his least favorite aspects of wrangling students involved the occasional power challenges. Sean was a naturally modest person, trained by another modest person on the importance of not flashing his powers around like a sailor with money on shore leave. If he had wanted other people to cower before the nature of his powers or to use them in an authoritarian manner, he would have joined the court telepath pool, rather than finding himself exempt from jury summons time and again.

His attention snapped back to the conversation at hand, and he shrugged slightly again. “That depends on the nature of their powers and their behavior. If it’s a power meltdown in the middle of a training session proper, then the main goal is restoring enough control to avoid disaster, whatever it might be. If the student is misbehaving deliberately or has an attitude problem, we have a disciplinary handbook, but you’ll most likely end up sending them to my office. Unless it’s severe.”

Sean doubted that Chase would have a student so out of control as to warrant a trip to Claude’s office right off the bat, but he had to be prepared.

[Chase Campbell]

Chase knew that the nature of his power could come in handy, should kids get out of control. He didn’t exactly want to plan for that, but he was also well aware that in a school full of teenage meta humans, anything was possible. At least he could help someone calm the heck down before anything tragic happened. If a training accident happened on his watch... no, he didn’t want to think about it.

“Oh, so you’re like the primary contact if there’s an issue like that?” For some reason, this surprised him. Then again, he’d been told time and time again if he was acting up and messing around that he’d have to see the headmaster when he’d been a student. Perhaps it had just been an empty threat to get him to mind himself, but whatever the reason, it had worked.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

While certain training accidents would happen, Sean agreed that Chase needn’t focus on that potential right now. Doing so would only make him needlessly nervous. The entire purpose of the training program was to equip Chase with the tools and skills he needed to prevent a meltdown, which was all that could be done at present. While not involved in the training program in any way, the psychiatrist imagined that Claude would hold off on assigning anyone difficult until the younger man had adjusted to his job more readily.

Sean shrugged and nodded once. “In a way. I handle the low-level problems so Claude Harris can focus on the bigger problems and on bureaucracy.” Like many of the psychiatrist’s duties, this had fallen in his lap without existing within his job title. However, he considered it a net positive, even if he would prefer not having to deal with all student mischief every time it occurred. This way he could redirect the students to more positive endeavors: either self-improvement or improving the rest of the school for the common good.

He preferred positive detention tasks as a means of growth. It did more good than forcing students to sit silently for mindless detention periods every day for a week.