Time Warp: Not While I'm Around (Sean and Claude)

[Event !]

Mistakes are made. Some are hilarious.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Seventeen years ago...


Sean had made several mistakes in his life, although the vast majority had few long-term consequences. Most of those mistakes came, sadly, from trying to navigate through life with other people. He was thirty-five-years-old now, and he had been told that life would get easier instead of more difficult. Twenty-three years of telepathy and he still couldn’t see a breakup before he found himself hip-deep in the shattered remnants of a relationship.

Sean thought that he’d taken it well enough, given that she’d told him that although she wasn’t afraid of meta-humans, and in fact one of her close friends – someone who had been a mutual friend of theirs – had a non-fixed matter state, she just couldn’t be in a relationship with someone in her head constantly. She needed her space she’d told him. He had watched her in disbelief for several moments, regarding her silently with what for Sean constituted an emotionless expression. There was nothing he could say to that, because if she didn’t trust him to leave her memories intact, if she had subconscious prejudices that were just now reaching the surface, they couldn’t remain together. Relationships had to be equal parts trust and caring.

They hadn’t spoken since he’d picked up his things from her house, and he hadn’t been feeling like himself lately, either. He didn’t think that he’d ever develop the patience or the confidence to handle being told that an immutable part of him was frightening or ugly enough that he was unlovable. He reminded himself that he and Josh hadn’t broken up for that reason, but because they’d been too compatible. He missed Josh, and he’d been tempted to call him up for comfort, before remembering that he was in California for a case.

Kathleen wouldn’t understand; she and Colin would likely validate her experiences because they were uncomfortable with his powers and with meta-humans generally. Besides, she was his younger sister, and he shouldn’t go to her with his problems. More than anything, he realized, he wanted to talk to Robert, but he was on an anniversary trip, and if he couldn’t make it through a depressed episode without calling up his trainer when he was thirty-five, Sean could just throw his agency to the wind.

Eventually, he called his college roommate, who came from a family of meta-humans and had been a close friend once upon a time. The other man had been sympathetic and had invited him down for the weekend. Sean had accepted, driving down to New York and spending the weekend in his guest room. They fell into old patterns easily, discussing politics and where the country had gone abruptly wrong, and found their way to a Grateful Dead concert.

His friend had given him brownies and cookies to take home with him, as he knew he had a sweet tooth, and thought he could enjoy the comfort food. Unbeknownst to Sean, his friend hadn’t matured properly, since they were in their thirties and were too old for baking marijuana into food, it hadn't occurred to him to think twice. He wouldn’t have taken them if he had known. Unbeknownst to his friend, Sean often brought baked goods to work to share. His friend wouldn’t have given them if he had known that, or at least he might have given a warning. But neither had known, and thus Sean took them.

Feeling somewhat better, Sean had arrived bright and early the next morning for work, had dropped the brownies off in the staff lounge after taking a few from himself and brewing a strong pot of Colombian coffee, which had dulled his taste buds, and he hadn’t given any thought to the matter until lunch when he returned to the lounge to relax.

[Claude Harris]

Claude Harris's life was also littered with mistakes, but he had managed to make it all the way to age fifty--fifty--by that point, so he figured that none of them could have been that bad. Regrets, yeah, he regretted that he and Kate had never had children of their own, though he adored his young niece, Nikki. And he regretted that the only time he still traveled was on the occasional recruiting trips he went on when the family situation was particularly difficult. (Though Aristea was adept at getting families to listen to her, so he might not even be doing those trips much longer anymore. Then his job would be purely supervisory and administrative.)

Nice that he wouldn't have to be away from Kate so much, but it would get boring very fast. The last time an interesting case had come in has been the year before, when Aristea had found that man who had made it all the way to his early twenties without his power being known. (Claude didn't think he would last long here. He was twice as old as the kids in his classes, after all, and had tried to run away from the school twice already.) Being Head of Recruiting hadn't turned out to be the most exciting of jobs, but he was happy with it for now.

Anyway, on that particular morning he made his way to the staff lounge between phone calls. He was in desperate need of some coffee, and as he walked to the room, he willed there to be a full enough pot that it wouldn't fall on him to brew up another. He was particularly notable for making terrible coffee, so it was best for all of the staff at Hammel if Claude had nothing to do with their procurement of caffeine.

As luck would have it, the pot was half-full, and there was a nearly-complete pile of brownies on the table as well. He didn't know exactly where they had come from, but they looked good enough, so he decided to venture a go. He took a large bite out of the dessert and smiled. It was quite good, even if there was something in it that he couldn't recognize. As much as he liked to pretend to be a constantly bitter grouch, Claude had a definite sweet tooth, and this recipe proved it. He took another brownie and sat down, waiting for the onslaught of regular teachers into the office. It was a nice day inside. Peaceful.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean’s mother had frequently told him that he shouldn’t brood on an empty stomach; otherwise he would make his mood worse. Despite dismissing so many other parts of his childhood, this was one piece of advice which Sean still followed. And with hot, rich coffee washing down the brownies and dulling his taste buds, he ate three without noticing any additional flavor. He otherwise might have, as he’d done things in college he wasn’t proud of; although it had been more than ten years. He was a large man, he’d skipped breakfast – well, the brownies were his breakfast – and he decided that he was entitled to indulge on a bad day.

By lunch, he was in a much better mood, which he attributed to the coffee and the sugar rush. His heart was beating too fast, which he also attributed to the caffeine and the sugar rush.

And his brain itched.

That was the telltale sign for him to take a lunch break. Although he should probably lay off the coffee, given how he was already reacting. Stronger beans than usual.

When he reached the staff lounge, he found half of the brownies missing – Good, he thought with a smile, share and share alike – and he saw Claude sitting on the sofa, which momentarily gave the younger man pause.

Without a doubt, the strangest aspect of working at Hammel, although he’d gotten more used to it over the past couple of years, was working alongside authority figures from his childhood. There were less than there could be, since he’d taken a decade and a half long break for education and establishing a psychiatric practice. Yet he now went to staff meetings with teachers who had once graded him on his performance and now complained about current students, as though nothing were amiss in his upgraded status. He couldn’t imagine what it must be like to go from graduation straight to employment, with no break in time for personal growth or for a change in personnel, like Claude had done. And he was Claude now, no longer Mister Harris.

Sean occasionally wondered what the older man saw when he looked at the telepath; did he see a psychiatrist entering into midlife with a growing enthusiasm for his work and confidence in his powers? Or did he still see Robert Hopkins’s “special project?” The gangly teenager who had imprinted on Robert like a duckling and struggled to keep his powers from driving him off the edge? Sean had never asked, and he hadn’t surreptitiously probed either, because he knew better. And he didn’t want to hedge his bets with a 50/50 chance.

The maudlin thought quickly evaporated, which indicated his improved mood, as it surely would have stuck like flypaper a few hours earlier. Now it didn’t stand a chance.

He smiled at Claude and settled in one of the nearby chairs. “What’s the good word?” He asked brightly. “Has James Campbell made his weekly escape attempt yet?”

[Claude Harris]

In addition to the coffee, which was quite good, Claude had never attended college, nor had smoked anything other than cigarettes. (Though Kate had made him give those up during the eighties. She subscribed to the belief that they would eventually kill him, but his father had been a pack a day smoker, and he was still going strong in his late seventies. And maybe Claude would just be lucky. Kate, on the other hand, had insisted, and it really was easier for him to just listen to her most of the time.) So though he had noticed that there was something different with the brownies, he was at a loss as for what it was. It didn't seem bad though. In fact, they were delicious.

He looked up when the other man entered, nodding in acknowledgment of his arrival. He had known Sean when he was a teenager, though not well. And that had been a long time ago at this point. Still, he had respect for him, despite the 15-year age gap. Claude had only completed a degree in management thanks to the G.I. bill, courtesy of having signed up to fight in the early days of the Vietnam war. Call it luck, but everyone in his unit had returned home uninjured, at least physically. Sean on the other hand had actually done real studying, and had procured the fancy title "Doctor."

He nodded, returning the smile. Usually, Claude was a bit more stern, but he felt more relaxed today. Why not actually smile at his colleagues? They were good people, and in the case of Sean, also good company. The older man chuckled to himself, and shook his head. "No, not yet. Eventually, he is either going to give up or kill himself trying to escape, and I'm not sure he has realized that we know exactly where he's going, every time he runs off." Usually, talking about troublesome students put him in a bad mood, but he found he didn't mind so much today. Maybe it was the exceptionally-good coffee?

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Objectively, the comment wasn’t funny, given the single-minded desperation that their new oldest student displayed in trying to leave. Sean understood: the man had a family back in New York, a little girl that he wanted to see grow up. Instead of being allowed to do so, a previously unknown institution in New England was preventing him from fulfilling the basic necessities of fatherhood. More than that, he’d somehow managed to make it to age twenty-two, the age at which most of their students had graduated from college, let alone from the high school instruction program, without being found. His powers were benign; maddening, but benign, and the instruction he had to receive was more for the younger man's sake than for communal good. Undoubtedly, he wanted to know why he had to stay when he wasn’t so important in the scheme of things and had demonstrated for years that he wasn’t a threat to anyone. And that confusion combined with the desperation to see his daughter could lead to self-destructive or reckless behavior. Objectively, the situation wasn’t funny; it was deeply concerning.

Sean laughed anyway. In that moment, it was funny to him and likely funny to Claude given that the older man was actually smiling for once. That made it all the more humorous. Returning the smile and recovering from the laugh, he said, “I think he underestimates our reach, thinking that if he can just make it to the train station and board a train, we’ll be out of his life for good. I can’t blame him, since in some ways it’s the stuff of bad spy movies.”

He then shook his head, contemplating coffee because he wanted some, although the voice of reason kept reminding him that his heart might explode, considering how fast it was beating so far. For the moment, he would be reasonable, but he stared at the coffee pot longingly. “I feel bad for him, honestly. I liked being here as a student, but I also didn’t have a kid and a job at the time.”

[Claude Harris]

Perhaps Claude shouldn't have found Campbell's situation quite so humorous either. But the man's escape plans had started simple, but he'd continued to attempt it, including his most recent try, where he had swiped a visitor's pass from a father visiting a student. He'd then gone to the front desk and simply signed himself out as a visitor. It might have worked, temporarily, if the trainer who had taken him on as a special case hadn't been outside during his attempt. "Did you hear about how he just signed himself out as a visitor? Somehow, that one almost worked."

"I liked being a student as well. I didn't cause as much chaos." One of the problems with manipulating probability was that--in the years when Claude had been a student--it was nearly-impossible to spot it as a meta-human power, as opposed to simply someone having extreme bouts of god and bad luck. As he was from New York City, it was entirely possible he could have caused another depression of he hadn't been trained and his high school girlfriend had broken up with him. "I feel bad for him too, but I'd appreciate if he wasn't so convinced we were evil."

Not that he was sure that Campbell actually believed that, but he just felt like exaggerating. For some reason, he wanted to be dramatic, which was weird, as he also felt tired, and just giddy. "Do you think there's something different about the coffee? It's not as much of a perk as it usually is."

[Dr. Sean Neville]

The description of James Campbell signing himself out as a visitor proved too much for Sean. That he had thought they wouldn’t check the log book or that someone wouldn’t recognize him, and that it had still somehow almost worked filled Sean with hilarity, and it bubbled over into deep laughter. Fortunately he wasn’t drinking coffee at the time, or he would have spit it out, or choked on it. “He’s taking lessons from M*A*S*H,” he managed to say between fits of laughter. That only made him laugh harder, as the image of James Campbell, sitting in front of a television with a notepad, scribbling down ideas from reruns of M*A*S*H popped into his mind.

After a few minutes, he managed to calm himself down, although a smile remained plastered on his face. He’d needed that, as he hadn’t laughed in a few days, not since the breakup. He was able to focus a bit on what Claude had said, about enjoying being a student and how he could have nearly caused a second Depression without training. Wait, had Claude said that? Sean’s head felt a bit thick, and now he was worried that his mental shields were lacking. His smile dulled as he focused on constructing them back up to their normal strength, then he blinked, relaxed and listened. “Has anyone tried sitting him down and trying to help him see things our way? Taking him to a minor league baseball game or out to a bar or the ice cream factory? I know staff shouldn’t fraternize with students, but he’s a bit of a special case.” Ice cream sounded like a great idea, and Sean’s stomach rumbled. He contemplated having a fourth brownie.

At the question of the coffee, Sean shrugged his shoulders. “It tastes strong,” he offered. And his heart was racing which told him that the caffeine was doing its job. But that could also just be him, with his mood out of whack from the weekend.

[Claude Harris]

Claude chucked, because Sean's continuous laughter was just...funny. It shouldn't have been, as he had a sneaking suspicion the younger man was laughing at him and the other staff members who had let it happen. "I get that he's desperate, but really, does he think that we're stupid?" Every time the man made it off-campus--and it wasn't often he got that far--Aristea was quickly dispatched to collect him. He was actually the first student in years to be restricted to the school grounds.

Sean's suggestion was met with a shrug. "Aristea talks to him, but he doesn't listen. I think he resents her because she's the one who brought him here. Do you want to volunteer?" There had been any number of students he'd met who might have qualified as "crazy" in another setting, but Campbell was in a league of his own on that one. Of course, Claude wasn't going to tell anyone that. "I think they'll let up on his restriction if he's chaperoned. And I feel ridiculous talking an about an adult like that."

He was less sure about the strength of the coffee, as he absolutely felt sleepier than he had only a little while earlier. "You sure? I don't know, and it's making the brownies taste strange."

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Claude’s chuckle caused Sean’s laughter to continue a moment longer before he stifled himself, still smiling. Perhaps he shouldn’t smile at the thought of Campbell thinking them idiots, but it was a humorous image regardless. Some of the finest meta-human minds worked at this school; they were the best at what they did in the world, and so the insult was funny. “Desperation clouds the mind, Claude; it’s possible he doesn’t even fully understand what he’s doing.”

Considering the circumstances surrounding James Campbell’s arrival at Hammel, Sean was sure that the other man resented Aristea for bringing him here. That wasn’t the irrational part of his behavior, and Sean could easily envision a situation in which he, too, would have resented his recruiter for bringing him. But not his trainer, never Robert; he could never resent the man who had saved his sanity. He briefly debated the pros and cons of agreeing to a man-to-man talk with James somewhere off grounds and readily agreed. “Fine, I volunteer.” Campbell was from New York, more upstate than Sean was, but that was common ground enough. And Sean had a nephew who was roughly the age of James’s daughter; it would have to do. “I’ll take him out on the water or to a bar, somewhere we can talk, somewhere he can see that we’re just as human as he is.” Sean wouldn’t feel ridiculous, because he’d heard worse, said worse, and thought worse.

To prove his point, Sean pressed his hand over his heart, feeling how fast his heart raced. There was no doubt in his mind that the coffee was fine. “It’s Columbian, something strong, but I can show you the beans.” Then he laughed about the brownies tasting strange, as he hadn’t noticed a thing, and his laughter lasted a bit too long given the banality of the remark. “Oh, that. They’re organic, but it’s nothing to worry about.”

[Claude Harris]

Claude shook his head. "How old is he, twenty-four? He should be old enough to get that we don't have to give him a curfew." He didn't care about desperation when it came to the ultimate of bad influences on the students. Though some of the younger students barely noticed him except when he was in their training classes, many of the older ones were quite interested in their new classmate, and his frequent escape attempts. "I don't care if he thinks he's a superhero; sooner or later kids are going to start copying him and we'll have real trouble." And that thought shouldn't make him laugh as much as it did.

The older man rolled his eyes, not at all enthusiastic about this plan. But he trusted Sean enough to at least try to get through to Campbell, and knew he'd probably get some response from him. The psychiatrist hadn't been working at Hammel for too long, but already he was having impressive results with the students who where sent to his office. Maybe he could get through the man's thick head that they were doing this just for his benefit. "Tell me how that goes. Good luck."

That made him start chuckling again. It might actually be a good idea for him to "push their luck" a bit in this case.

And it must have had something to do with him getting older, but suddenly Claude was enjoying the puns in his head.

The recruiter frowned, looking at the rather ugly mug of coffee he was holding. Yes, he supposed it did taste strong, but why was he feeling so lethargic. "I don't need to see your beans," Claude said grumpily. "I guess I must just be getting old."

Ugh, he hated that. Fifty.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

“He’s paranoid.” Or he was in Sean’s professional opinion, at this very moment when everything was so clear and simple and amusing. James was paranoid because he believed that the school was out to get him and that the faculty members were demons escaped from Hell or were top-secret government agents watching his every move. And Sean didn’t want to think about how in some respects those impressions were accurate, since the school had resources that went beyond those generally conceived, and they had essentially kidnapped James and forced him to attend, while separating him from his family. So he didn’t. For once those thoughts didn’t weigh heavily in the back of his mind, but instead floated away, leaving him to feel freer. Then he laughed at the image of James Campbell in spandex tights, and he couldn’t quite calm down. “He doesn’t think he’s a superhero, and I can promise you that the younger kids have better people to look up to than the ‘old man’ in their classes. They probably think that he’s been held back. In fact, why don’t we let them keep thinking that; it might motivate them to behave and study harder.” It made perfect sense to the telepath.

“Thanks,” Sean said with a smile. Although he wasn’t enthusiastic about the idea, he thought it could go well. Perhaps they’d be friends by the end of it. “I’ll give you the play-by-play the morning after.” Over coffee and more baked goods.

“Well then.” As though that was a valid point in itself or they had settled an important matter. Sean the shook his head when the other man spoke of getting old. He was only fifty, and while that still seemed a lifetime away to Sean, it wasn’t quite as far as it had been even a few years ago. Besides, Claude was younger than Robert, who was younger than Sean’s parents. He wasn’t old, and right now he had no qualms assuring the other man of that. “You aren’t old. Fifty is the new forty.”

[Admin!]

Thank you for participating. This event is now closed.