Home Maintenance
There was a thumping on the bedroom door. Jean murmured a protest, eyes still shut.
"What is it?" Scott called.
"Mr. Summers?" It took Scott a minute to recognize Bobby Drake's voice. "There's kind of a plumbing emergency."
"Plumbing," Jean said. "That's you."
"Thanks," Scott said. There was a shirt by the bed and a pair of pants draped over a chair. He scrambled into them and shut the door quietly behind him as he left.
Even in the dim light of the hall, Scott could tell that Bobby looked embarrassed and not incidentally wet.
"So?" Scott said. "Where's the fire?"
"Well," Bobby said. "We were just. Kind of. Not really fighting but maybe someone might have kicked the sink. Kind of. By accident. And now it's all frozen but I don't think that's a good way to leave it."
"Is there a fire?"
Bobby looked more sheepish. Scott wouldn't have thought that was possible.
"Not anymore."
"You and St. John have got to chill," Scott said as he opened the bathroom door. He frowned at the iced-over sink. "No girl's worth the amount of grounded you're both going to be."
"Aw, Mr. Summers. Have a heart." Bobby perched on the windowsill and watched Scott get the toolbox down from the closet and start shutting off the water.
"Anyway, that's not the way to impress them," Scott said. "Take it from me."
"Is this going to be a 'when I was your age' story? Because--"
"You've heard it all before, huh?" Scott shook his head and tossed Bobby a wrench. "No story. Just a plumbing lesson." He adjusted the controls on his visor carefully and blasted the ice off the sink. There was no immediate flood of water. Well, great. "First, go get a broom to get all this ice off the floor before it melts."
"Okay," Bobby said, and slouched out. Scott considered going and rousting St. John, who really deserved to suffer along with his friend, but he mainly wanted to get this done and go to bed, not have more drama.
At least he was wearing pants.
******
He'd tried Professor Xavier's room first, but no one had answered the door. It had been three a.m. then too, and dark, and there had been a spreading pool of water creeping out from under the bathroom door. Scott had chewed on his lip before knocking on Dr. Lehnsherr's door; he wasn't the kind of teacher you really wanted to wake up in the middle of the night.
Professor Xavier might be downstairs, in his office, or down in Cerebro. If he couldn't sleep, or something. Scott could go down and look for him. On the other hand, the pool of water really was spreading fast.
He knocked. There was a pause.
"What?" Dr. Lehnsherr called.
Scott leaned in close to the door, hoping not to wake up the whole hall. "There's kind of a plumbing emergency," he said.
The door wasn't as thick as all that, and Scott could hear it pretty clearly when a familiar voice said, "Plumbing emergency. That's you."
Scott guessed he knew where the professor had gone when he couldn't sleep. Well, he'd spent enough nights sitting up talking to Hank or Warren.
"Just a minute, then," Dr. Lehnsherr called, and Scott waited. Eventually Dr. Lehnsherr emerged, looking half-asleep, with his hair untidy, wearing a black bathrobe and--and nothing. A black bathrobe. He shut the door behind him very carefully.
Dr. Lehnsherr never looked like that when he was awake. Professor Xavier hadn't even looked like that when Scott had woken him up at night before; he always gave the impression that his pajamas had been freshly pressed.
"Well?" Dr. Lehnsherr said, rather sharply.
Scott pointed at the pool of water. Dr. Lehnsherr ran a hand through his hair and sighed.
Scott couldn't believe later how long it took--well after he'd finished explaining what Jason had done to the toilet and sat down on the broad windowsill to watch Dr. Lehnsherr fixing it--for it to occur to Scott that the long pause had been Dr. Lehnsherr getting dressed, which meant he'd been in bed, and had been in bed wearing less than this, and had been in bed with--
Scott slid down from the windowsill and nearly stumbled into the shower.
"Would you like to help, or are you just planning to make startling noises?" Dr. Lehnsherr asked. He frowned at a nut, and it unscrewed itself and fell off, rolling under the sink. Dr. Lehnsherr said what Scott suspected was a bad word in Polish.
"Umm," Scott said, and tried to think of more words. Other than "you" and "the professor."
Dr. Lehnsherr sat back on his heels and looked up at him.
"You must be tired," he said. "Go back to bed. I certainly can't wait to."
"Umm," Scott said again, and heard his voice crack on it. Real smooth, Summers. "Yeah." Much better.
******
Sam Guthrie stuck his head in and blinked at Scott.
"Water's cut off," Scott said. "Use the one upstairs."
"On the girls' floor?" Sam said. "They won't like that."
Scott wasn't sure if that was chivalry or fear.
"You can go downstairs, then," Scott said. "Just don't wake up the professor."
"I won't," Sam said, and stomped off down the hall in a way Scott was afraid would wake the dead. And where the hell was Bobby? And what was wrong with his life, anyway, that he was wrestling with plumbing at three o'clock in the morning? He didn't even like plumbing.
"Nobody likes plumbing," Bobby said from the doorway.
"Tell me you're not a telepath, too," Scott said.
"You were thinking out loud." Bobby started to sweep up the ice and dump it into the bathtub. That would also have woken the dead, Scott thought, especially if the dead were sleeping in the room directly under their feet.
Scott?
Speak of the devil.
Plumbing, he thought, as clearly as he could at this hour and with the beginnings of a headache starting right between his eyes.
Ah. Amusement, irritation, the ghost sensations of resettling to sleep fading slowly. Scott yawned.
"I'm sorry," Bobby said.
"Shit happens," Scott said.
"Mr. Summers," Bobby said, sounding both amused and scandalized.
"I mean--you know what I mean."
"You mean you get it."
"Not really," Scott said. "See if there's an extra washer in there, okay?"
Bobby looked into the toolbox seriously.
"What is a washer?" he asked eventually. "I mean, I know it's a little metal thing, but this box is full of little metal things."
"It's a round flat metal thing," Scott said.
"Ah," Bobby said. He rummaged through the toolbox. "He didn't have to call me a fag."
"Say what?"
"Well, he didn't actually say that," Bobby said. "He said--"
Scott sat back on his heels and looked up at Bobby. Bobby was flushing red and looking at his hands.
"He said if I really liked girls, I'd figure out how to get it on with Marie and stop complaining to him all the time and. Stuff."
Scott rubbed his forehead. He wasn't sure where to start with that, especially since he had no idea what "and stuff" meant, and was afraid it mattered.
*****
Scott hadn't managed to get Jean alone until the next evening. She was playing Atari, blasting little spaceships. He settled down on the couch behind her to watch.
"Want to play?" she said after a minute, not looking away from the screen.
"I suck at video games," Scott said.
"You can't see the colors well enough," Jean said. "I know." He'd told her that it got on his nerves when people tried to ignore the problems his visor caused. He wasn't sure if he was glad he'd told her that or not. Usually he was.
"Going for the high score?"
"If I tried to beat Hank's high score, I'd be here all night. Until I was thirty."
He watched her shoot down aliens.
"What's wrong?" she asked after a while. "I can feel you worrying."
"Professor Xavier was in Dr. Lehnsherr's room. Last night. Like I think he'd been there all night. Like I think he was sleeping there. And you've been here longer than any of us, so I figured you would know if they were--"
Behind Scott, the rec room door swung itself shut. A switch on the video game console flipped itself, and the game flickered and died.
"Yes, of course they are," Jean said in the sudden quiet. "You really haven't noticed?"
"No. I mean, why would I think--I mean, they don't act gay."
"What do you mean?" Jean said, in a tone of voice that strongly suggested that there was a wrong answer.
"Well, I mean--" Scott felt that a lot of the things he meant were probably the wrong answers. "They don't kiss or anything. They don't say anything about it."
"Of course not," Jean said. "Not in front of us."
"I can't believe they're both gay."
Jean frowned.
"I wish you wouldn't say that."
"But you said they are."
"Yes, but I don't think we ought to talk about it."
"Why?"
"You have to promise me you won't tell anyone else," Jean said. "I'm serious, Scott. Promise you won't."
"Jean--"
"Scott, they'd have to close the school."
"What," Scott said slowly. "Just because . . . I mean, the professor and Dr. Lehnsherr would never . . ."
"Yes, but people would think they would. That you and Hank and Warren weren't safe."
"That's ridiculous. I mean, they wouldn't, right?"
"Scott."
"Right. They wouldn't."
"They love each other," Jean said. "I think it's sweet."
"They fight a lot," Scott said.
Jean smiled kind of sadly.
"Don't a lot of people's parents?"
"Yeah," Scott said. "I guess a lot of people's parents do. So that's not so weird."
Jean nodded very seriously, as if he'd agreed to something important. Much later he understood that he had.
*****
Scott put down the wrench for the moment and decided what he thought was the easy part.
"I think you and Marie are too young to have sex," he said, because it was the party line and he might as well go on and say it and get it out of the way.
"Uh-huh," Bobby said. He looked skeptical. Scott didn't blame him.
"And you shouldn't if you don't want to."
"Of course I want to," Bobby said. He flushed again. "But--"
"It's more complicated than that," Scott said. "Yeah."
"But John doesn't get it," Bobby said. "I think he's jealous. I see the way he looks at Marie. The way she looks at him sometimes."
"Uh-huh," Scott said.
"Here's a washer."
"Great," Scott said, and turned back to the neglected plumbing. "Look, does one of you need to change rooms? Or can you two handle this?"
"We can handle it," Bobby said.
"What were you even doing up at two o'clock in the morning?"
Bobby shrugged.
"Playing cards. Talking."
"Do the words 'school day' mean anything to you?"
"Well, I'd go to bed now, but you said--"
"You win," Scott said. "Go to bed." He pushed his hair out of his eyes with the back of his hand. "Tell St. John to go to bed."
"Sure," Bobby said, pretty quietly.
"Look, next time just tell him if you wanted to go out with guys, you would. But you don't. I'm assuming you don't?" It wasn't a question Scott thought was any of his business to ask of anybody, especially not one of his students, and so he told himself he wasn't quite asking it.
"Not you too," Bobby said, and stomped out. He slammed the door behind him. Scott winced, partly at the words and partly at the noise. He thought about waking up Jean, and decided that was not the act of a leader and an X-Man. And besides, she'd make him pay.
I did the plumbing part, he thought. Couldn't someone else do the feelings part?
*****
Scott had read somewhere, years later, that it was normal for kids of gay parents to wonder if they were gay. He'd spent some time worrying about it for a couple of years, although he couldn't quite figure out why, in hindsight. He'd gotten as far as kissing Warren, once; he was the prettiest guy Scott knew, and the wings were . . . he'd always kind of wanted to touch the wings.
It wasn't particularly bad; it wasn't particularly anything. It was certainly not like his increasingly overheated daydreams of kissing Jean, although he didn't think anything could be that good. For one thing, the daydreams were in color.
"Huh," he said. Warren smiled kind of sideways.
"Huh," Warren echoed back.
"Can I touch your wings?"
"Yes, but I don't think I want to kiss you again," Warren said. He touched his fingers thoughtfully to the corner of his mouth.
"Okay," Scott said, and he spent a few minutes running his hands over the white feathers, warm and impossibly soft. "I don't think I'm gay," he said eventually, and stopped petting Warren's wings.
"I never thought you were," Warren said. Scott slid off the bed and sat on the floor, knees to his chest, feeling relieved and feeling ashamed of feeling relieved. "What's the matter? You don't usually do this kind of stuff."
"What kind of stuff?" Scott asked a little sharply.
"Be . . . random."
"I'm not being random," Scott said. "It's important."
"Whatever." Warren looked embarrassed, and like he was trying very hard to make it clear that it took more than unexpectedly being kissed by his roommate to make him lose his cool. "Why don't you go talk to Jean?"
"Uh-huh."
He'd knocked on the door of Hank's room instead. Hank had the room to himself since Jason had left. Scott wasn't sure if Hank minded or not. He'd piled books on what used to be Jason's bed.
"Come in!"
Scott came in, and sat down on the floor, which was the only place really to sit down. Hank was in bed reading. He put the book down and pushed his glasses up his nose.
"To what do I owe this nocturnal visit? Has our Mr. Worthington been snoring again?"
"I just sleep through it," Scott said. He rubbed the back of his neck. "Hank, do you think I'm gay?"
Hank blinked.
"I've never really thought about it," he said. "Are you interested in girls?"
"Well, yes," Scott said. "I think. But I've never really done anything with an actual girl. Not even kissing. They won't."
Hank raised an eyebrow in amusement.
"You mean Jean won't."
"I didn't say Jean," Scott said.
Hank smiled.
"You didn't have to," he said. "Are you interested in boys?"
"No," Scott said. "I--no, not really."
"Then I'm not sure why you're worried," Hank said.
Scott sighed.
"I'm not, really," he said. "It's cool."
"You know, you could always talk to the professor about it," Hank said.
"I--Hank, do you know that--"
"I do," Hank said. "And I even know why I wasn't supposed to know. Although I wish you and Jean had credited me with more sense than to tell Jason anything he might have used as a weapon."
"He was your friend," Scott said.
"And Warren is your friend, but I would conjecture that you haven't told him, because his parents are socially prominent and notably conservative."
"You think I should?"
"Actually? Yes, I do. Warren isn't like Jason, Scott. He's not unreliable. I think it would be safer if he knew what secret he was keeping, rather than innocently letting it slip that he saw something he shouldn't have."
"I don't want to talk to Professor Xavier about this," Scott said. "It's too embarassing."
"It's good to talk about your feelings, Scott. Not repress them. That can lead to all kinds of neuroses."
"Who said that? Professor Xavier?"
"Actually, Freud. I read it in a book." Hank patted him on the shoulder. "Go talk to him. You'll sleep better, and avoid neuroses into the bargain."
Scott raised a questioning eyebrow.
"You won't go crazy," Hank explained.
"Oh. Good."
*****
Scott caught up with Bobby at the end of the hallway.
"Hey," he said quietly. "That wasn't an insult, okay? Just a question."
"It sounded like an insult to me," Bobby said.
"Well, it's not," Scott said. "It wouldn't be if it were true, either."
"Sure," Bobby said. "I guess." He ran his hand through his hair. "It's easy for you to say, though. Nobody talks about you."
"If there's some kind of rumor going around--"
"Never mind. It's nothing. Just that some people don't like it that I hang with John so much."
"He's your friend," Scott said.
"I know," Bobby said. "But some people have dirty minds."
"I don't suppose you're going to tell me who said what."
"I'm not going to tell on my friends just for making nasty jokes," Bobby said.
"People who make nasty jokes may not be your friends," Scott said.
"They are," Bobby said. "It's cool."
"No, it's not," Scott said.
"I know it isn't true," Bobby said. "Marie knows it isn't true. That's what's important."
Scott sighed.
"Have it your way."
"Am I still grounded?"
"Yep."
"Come on, Mr. Summers."
"Sorry. Consider it a lesson in finding methods of problem-solving that don't involve kicking the pipes."
Bobby smiled, a sharp, fleeting smile.
"I'll work on that."
"You could talk to Professor Xavier. He's a pretty good listener."
"There's nothing to talk to him about," Bobby said. "We're cool, right? Except for me being grounded?"
"Sure," Scott said, feeling disheartened. "We're cool."
******
Scott had stood outside Professor Xavier's door and wondered a lot of things, like whether this was a good idea and what he was going to say and whether the professor was, in fact, alone in there. Although Dr. Lehnsherr hadn't been back to the school in weeks. Eventually he knocked.
"Come in, Scott," the professor said. Scott did. Professor Xavier was sitting on the couch reading. He was wearing a bathrobe over pajamas, but he didn't look as if he'd gone to bed. Scott wondered if anyone was asleep tonight.
Professor Xavier stood up and put the book away on the shelves by the couch.
"What's wrong, Scott?"
"Nothing," Scott said. "Just--can I talk to you for a minute?"
"Of course. I think there are still some brownies left, if you want to go down to the kitchen. They might help you organize your thoughts."
"I'm not hungry," Scott said.
Professor Xavier frowned. Two years ago Scott would have thought it was disapproval, and would have wondered what he'd done wrong this time. Now he felt pretty sure it was very gentle teasing.
"Are you sure you're still fifteen?"
"Last time I checked."
"This is serious, then." He waved Scott into one of the chairs by the small tea table and took the other one himself, steepling his hands in front of him. "So, tell me about it."
"When did you know you were gay?"
There was a pause just long enough for Scott to want to sink into the carpet, or flee the room, or die. He remembered later that his first thought had been not Please don't let him be angry but Please don't let me have hurt him.
Professor Xavier shrugged, leaving Scott wondering if he'd imagined the pause. "You know, I'm not sure I remember? Certainly by the time I was in high school I had my suspicions."
"Would I know?"
The professor looked at him thoughtfully.
"Tell me," he said, "how do you feel about Jean?"
Scott knew he was turning red and couldn't help it.
"She's very nice," he said. The professor smiled, and tilted his head to one side as if listening. Scott tried not to think about the way Jean looked in a tight sweater, which was about as successful as you'd think.
"I don't think you really have to worry about not being attracted to girls," Professor Xavier said. "And as to actually doing anything about it, there's plenty of time for that."
"I'm fifteen," Scott said.
"I know. And if you were in a regular high school, you'd probably be going out on dates. But the only girls near your age here are Jean and Ororo, and I don't think Ororo wants anything more than friendship with anyone for a while."
"Jean thinks I'm a kid," Scott said. "And I feel like I should know how to get her to pay attention to me. She pays attention to Warren."
"Ah," Professor Xavier said. "I see."
"Why does everyone get that look when I talk about Jean? Like it's funny? It's not funny."
"I know it's not," the professor said, although he still looked a little bit like he thought it was. "I do remember what it felt like to be your age, you know. Even though that was several aeons ago."
"I'm tired of being my age," Scott said.
"For that, time works wonders."
"But you don't think I'm gay."
"Because you haven't yet kissed the girl you're serious about? No."
"You must think I'm stupid," Scott said.
"I think you're fifteen," Professor Xavier said. "As tired as I know you are of hearing people say so."
"I'll be sixteen this spring," Scott said, and then brightened. "Hey, does that mean I can--"
"If you're responsible. And bring it back with a full tank of gas." He smiled. "And don't even think about driving the Ferrari."
Scott made a face.
"It's such a sweet car."
"Maybe when you're thirty."
Scott chuckled, then sobered.
"It's fine with me, you know?" he said. "It's cool."
There was another long pause. He was sure he wasn't imagining this one.
"Thank you, Scott," Professor Xavier said finally. He sounded amused again, but also a little touched. "I'm glad to hear that."
"Sorry to keep you up," Scott said.
*****
Bobby took a couple of steps down the hall, and then turned around. He still looked like he wanted to talk. He had a bruise starting on his cheekbone, Scott saw. Scott wondered if he'd fallen when he'd kicked the sink, or if St. John had hit him. He wondered if maybe he ought to separate them no matter what they said.
"I'm sorry we woke you up," Bobby said. "Really. Next time I won't kick anything breakable."
"People count," Scott said.
"It wasn't really a fight," Bobby said. "Just an argument."
"Me and my roommate tried to beat the shit out of each other over a girl, once," Scott said. Warren had nominally won, only because Scott hadn't used his powers. They'd both had the sense not to tell Jean. "That was when Professor Xavier started teaching me judo, because he said I'd better at least learn how to fall down."
"How could . . . " Bobby trailed off, with what Scott recognized as the look of someone veering away from a forbidden subject.
"That was the spring before the car accident."
Bobby sat down, sliding down the wall. Scott joined him. It was dark in the hallway, with only the soft glow of the lights in the stairwell and the buttons of the elevator halfway down the hall.
"I guess that sucked," Bobby said.
"Yeah. You could say that."
******
For a long time Scott hadn't thought about those few months if he could help it. Every memory from that winter was stained by terror, first that the professor would die, then, when it became clear that the wheelchair was permanent, that he'd close down the school. Jean had promised she wouldn't let that happen, that even if it did happen, she was eighteen and could move out on her own and he could stay with her, that it wouldn't mean a foster home. He'd cried, that once, in front of her, and only after that in the shower with the door locked.
That fall semester had pretty much gone to hell, and by the time Dr. MacTaggart was there to help and there were anything like normal classes again, all the deadlines for Jean's college applications had passed. Professor Xavier was furious at her, until she'd finally snapped that she hadn't been able to get them done without his help. He'd been gentle with her then, and apologized for having still been in the hospital, which Scott thought was stupid but just like Professor Xavier really.
Scott had caught up to her in the hall and followed her downstairs. They'd ducked into the rec room together, in unspoken agreement. She was getting good at knowing what he wanted.
"I can't believe you lied to him and got away with it," Scott said.
Jean smiled and bit her lip.
"I'm getting better at the telepathy. And he wasn't really trying to read my mind."
They hadn't talked about it at the time, and Scott had been okay with that, but now he wanted to know what secret he was keeping.
"I saw the applications on your desk, Jeannie. Harvard, Bryn Mawr, and UCLA, right? I know you did the essays in October, because you and Warren kept reading them to each other and cracking up. I bet you filled in the forms in October, too."
"He needs me here," Jean said. "I'll apply in the fall for next year. It won't make a difference in the long run."
"Hey, you've already got the applications filled out."
"Actually, I'm thinking about NYU, now. Or Columbia." She looked at him like she wasn't sure what he'd say. "I could come home on weekends."
"You think you can study in this madhouse?"
"I've managed to for six years. Seven."
"Almost half your life."
"Scott? Don't major in math."
"Actually, I probably will," Scott said. "You can't get certified to teach high school with just a bachelor's in education. I figured math, and then two years for an M.Ed. I can hit the professor up for a job in '91."
He'd been thinking about it, on and off, since they'd started batting around the idea of the "X-Men," but now there wasn't any question. It wasn't a sacrifice, just a decision. It felt like the right thing.
"Warren and Hank--"
"Have other things they want to do, I know. That's cool. I never really thought about teaching when I was a kid, but it wasn't so bad this fall, trying to teach the younger kids. It was kind of fun."
"Scott, it was awful," Jean said. "At least, I was awful. You're a much better teacher than I am."
"Thanks," Scott said. "But you weren't bad. You were kind of upset at the time."
Jean looked at him, and he could tell she was thinking so were you and then not saying it. He wondered if that was her telepathy, or just her expressive face.
"I still want to go to med school," she said. "There needs to be a doctor in Westchester who can treat mutants." Jean shrugged, smiled. "Or something. Who knows. I'm not even starting college for another year. I'll probably change my mind six times."
"Me, too," Scott said, although he knew he wouldn't. He didn't get the way Jean could agonize over a decision back and forth for weeks, and apparently saw no problem with doing it for years. You made up your mind, and then it was made up.
"You could come home for weekends too, sometimes," she said. "If you want."
"Sure," Scott said. "I promise I won't get too cool to spend time with my family."
She smiled at him, and he wondered if that was a promise, too; sometimes later he liked to think that it was.
******
"What happened?"
"Icy roads," Scott said. "It wasn't anybody's fault."
"I always just kind of assumed we shouldn't say anything about it."
"It's okay," Scott said. "It was a long time ago. The professor's okay with it. You know. Most of the time."
"It's none of my business."
Scott shrugged.
"I don't mind if you want to know stuff about when I was your age."
"You promised," Bobby said. "No stories."
Scott grinned. "We had to walk to school barefoot, because we didn't have any Air Jordans."
"Any what?"
Scott frowned.
"Oh, you mean like cool shoes."
"Thanks," Scott said. "Now I feel fifty."
"You mean you're not?" Bobby grinned. "Kidding, I'm kidding."
"You'd better be," Scott said. "If you don't want me to call your parents and tell them you've been freezing the plumbing."
"I thought we were cool," Bobby said, sounding hurt.
"Kidding."
"Real funny."
Scott groaned inwardly and tried to remember what the sore spot with Bobby's parents was.
"They don't know?" he tried finally, although it was pretty much a guess.
Bobby shook his head.
"The professor was totally cool about that. They think it's a prep school."
"Is that the way you want it?"
"It's the way it had better be," Bobby said. "They're nice people, but they would not get this. This way it's cool with them and I still get to go to Mutant High." He shrugged. "They both work, and they've got my brother still at home, so it's not that hard to make sure they don't visit much."
"We try not to scare the parents," Scott said.
"I'm sure," Bobby said. "And Marie just kind of looks Goth, even with the hair. But John won't even try. He keeps playing with his lighter and making little fireballs behind their backs. He can be such an asshole." Bobby shut his mouth and looked sheepish.
"It's his home, too," Scott said.
"It's school," Bobby said. "We can cope, really. Neither of us is going to be here forever."
*****
Scott had been down to packing suitcases. There was still plenty of stuff left in the room--Scott wasn't sure how he'd accumulated so much in five years--but it wasn't all coming with him. His dorm room was going to be smaller than this, and shared with somebody else. He'd let the stuff sprawl since Warren went off to Yale, and now he had to tame it and figure out what he couldn't live without until Thanksgiving.
"I advise going easy on the books," Professor Xavier said from the doorway. "You'll probably regret it when you have to carry them if you don't."
"I'm going to be on the fourth floor," Scott said. "I went easy on the books." He considered a stack of essentially identical turtlenecks, trying to find some way of weeding it. "What, did you try to take the whole library with you to school?"
"A fair bit of it," the professor said. He manuvered his chair around the doorframe and into the room. "I can't imagine why. I didn't have time to read any of it my first semester anyway. I left most of the books in a box under my bed, but there was a certain comfort in knowing they were there."
Scott looked at his sweaters piled on the end of the bed.
"Security sweaters?"
"We all have things we hate to leave behind," Professor Xavier said.
Scott glanced down at the nightstand where his visor was sitting. He'd been wearing the sunglasses to get used to their lighter weight and to being careful not to jar them loose when he moved. He wouldn't have been sorry to leave that behind.
"It's your choice," Professor Xavier said.
I'd still need it to sleep, Scott started to say, but he knew that wasn't really the issue.
"Leaving it here won't make me not a mutant," he said instead. "Just a mutant whose powers don't do anything useful."
"Have you thought about what you're going to tell people about why you need it?"
Scott smiled painfully.
"Just about all the time for the last couple of weeks, yeah."
"And?"
"And." Scott took a breath, let it out. "And I've figured out what I would say if I were going to lie, and I've figured out what I would say if I were going to tell the truth, and I haven't decided which one I'm doing yet."
"It doesn't have to be entirely one way or the other," the professor said. "You can decide who you want to trust, and how much."
"I think if I had a girlfriend, I'd want to tell her," Scott said.
The professor raised an eyebrow.
"Do you think I'm going to tell you you shouldn't?"
"I don't know," Scott said. "I don't know what you think I should do."
"I think you should tell people who you think will understand."
"That's nobody," Scott said. "Nobody but other mutants, and how am I supposed to know who they are if I can't talk about it?"
"It sounds to me like you've already made a decision."
"Not really," Scott said. "I know what I want to do, and I know what I'm afraid of happening. I just don't know what's right."
"That's not a question I can just answer for you anymore, you know," Professor Xavier said.
"I know," Scott said. "But I'll always want your advice."
"I'll always be glad to give it," Professor Xavier said. "I think honesty is a virtue. I also think you have to think seriously about what you're prepared to sacrifice for it."
"My teaching certificate?"
Professor Xavier shrugged.
"I don't know. So far as I know, the issue's never come up except as speculation. It's possible that it wouldn't make a difference."
"It's also possible that they wouldn't let me teach."
"Yes. It's possible."
"It's not fair."
"Of course it's not," Professor Xavier said. He kept his voice light, but Scott thought he was angry underneath. Scott thought he could see why.
"You know . . ." Scott said slowly. "The first year I got here I wouldn't go to the mall. Jean and Warren kept trying to drag me out, and I kept thinking about what it was going to be like, having people look at me and wonder why I was such a freak. You know how you blow things out of proportion when you're thirteen."
"It's never pleasant to suddenly feel you're attracting attention for all the wrong reasons," the professor said. Scott nodded.
"Dr. Lehnsherr asked me one afternoon why I hadn't gone with you and the other kids. And I told him the other kids didn't have 'I'm a mutant' tattooed on their foreheads." Scott flushed even now at the memory. "You know, I didn't know--"
"I'm sure you didn't," Professor Xavier said. "What did he say?"
"He said 'Not yet.'"
Professor Xavier closed his eyes. Scott looked away. He wasn't sure if he should go on, and then decided he had to.
"And then he said, 'And I should hope that if you did you would wear it with pride.'"
"You know, using reasonable discretion isn't the same as being ashamed of what you are," Professor Xavier said after a few moments' pause. "Doing what you want to in life demands compromises, and not always easy ones."
"I know that," Scott said. "I really do know that."
"I wish I could make it easier for you," Professor Xavier said.
"You are," Scott said. "You always do."
******
"It's getting really late," Scott said. "Think you can go back to bed, or do you want me to come talk to St. John?"
"No. We're cool. It's not that big a deal."
"Okay," Scott said. "You sure you don't want to talk to Professor Xavier? I think he might understand what's on your mind."
"Umm, no," Bobby said, looking at him like he was insane. "Thanks." He retreated to his bedroom and shut the door. There was the sound of voices from behind it for a while, but nothing that sounded like yelling. Eventually the voices stopped and the light went out.
Scott picked up the clock on the table in the hall and peered at it. Four-thirty a.m. He wouldn't be able to go back to sleep, and he'd just wake Jean up.
He went downstairs as quietly as he could, and saw that he needn't have bothered; a light was burning in Charles's room. He paused near the door and pretended to knock on the air.
Come in, Scott.
Scott smiled and pushed open the door. Charles was sitting in his chair under the lamp by the window, reading a book. He was still in bathrobe and pajamas, but looked like he'd been up for a while.
"I can hear you tromping around like a herd of elephants," Charles said. "I take it the plumbing problems have finally been resolved."
"It's fixed," Scott said. "I was just talking to Bobby."
"Problems?"
"Nothing serious," Scott said. "Adolescent angst. You know. All the stuff we drove you crazy with."
"Really? I'd forgotten," Charles said. "I remember you as always being very sensible, except perhaps for the mailbox incident."
"I was thirteen," Scott said in a betrayed tone.
"Certainly a mitigating circumstance." Charles smiled. Scott grinned back and dropped into a chair.
"Remind me why I ever wanted to be a teacher?"
"Because you have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility, and because you're very good at it."
"Right."
"Unfortunately, that means dealing with exploding plumbing and adolescent angst."
"Jean's more the feelings person," Scott said.
"Sometimes I think you sell yourself short," Charles said seriously. "It's good that you know each other's strengths, but just because Jean's good at something doesn't mean you're not."
"I know," Scott said. "It's just that sometimes I'm afraid I don't know them well enough. I don't know what's going on in their heads."
"Scott, no one really understands what goes on in the heads of teenagers," Charles said. "Not even me. And you can't get close to them all in just a few years."
"It was different when we were kids," Scott said.
Charles smiled wryly.
"I think in those days you would have been happy to have a bit more privacy. And perhaps a bit less responsibility."
Scott shook his head.
"Nope." He smiled. "Well, maybe the privacy. Every now and then." He shook his head again. "I think maybe we should change St. John's room."
"He and Bobby Drake have been friends for two years," Charles said.
"Now they're trying to kill each other. Bobby says over Marie, but I don't think that's the only thing."
"I think St. John would see that as a punishment, and an unfair one at that. He's very attached to Bobby, underneath it all. He hasn't been willing to trust anyone else since he got here."
"He's had it rough," Scott said. "And Bobby hasn't. Which may be part of the problem." The silence that followed that was too long. Scott kicked himself, quietly, and hard. No talking to anyone before coffee, ever.
"Maybe you should try to spend some time with them," Charles suggested with a smile that was only a little strained.
"Maybe you should," Scott said. "Not in a 'come into my office' kind of way, just casually. You're the one who's really got a chance of figuring out what their problem is, but they don't talk to you much except in class."
"Hmm."
"We could take the kids out to the mall this weekend. Get a chance to talk to them without any books around. We could all use a chance to get out of the house."
"There's the museum trip in a few weeks."
"That's in October," Scott said. "I mean before then."
"I had planned to visit Erik this weekend," Charles said wearily.
Scott was not unaware of that.
"I've got to go eventually," Charles said.
"I know, but not this weekend."
"Don't encourage me to shirk my responsibilities. Especially ones you know perfectly well I'm tempted to shirk."
"If I don't, who will?"
"Jean?"
Scott shook his head.
"Jean encourages me to be irresponsible. She kind of likes it."
Charles shook his head.
"Too much information."
Scott turned up his hands.
"Sorry."
Charles sighed.
"Right now, I need a shower before I can face physics, Nathanial Hawthorne, or adolescent angst."
Scott took that as a victory. "I'll go make some coffee," he said.
"You'll have drunk it all by the time I get there," Charles said.
"I'll make another pot," Scott said.
He'd made a third one by the time Jean came down to breakfast, which was just as well; she descended on the coffeepot with her usual small pathetic noise of coffeelessness. He wordlessly held the milk up over his head, and she took it from behind him.
"You didn't come back to bed," she said. Across the room, St. John was laughing at some joke with Marie, while Bobby smiled like he didn't really think it was funny. Marie watched St. John. St. John watched Bobby. Logan's dog tags sparkled around Marie's neck.
"Plumbing problem," Scott said. "It's all fixed."
"I can always count on you," Jean said, and smiled.
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