Library Conversations (rp for cyke_out)

[a_sloane]

The library was quickly becoming a favorite place, which disconcerted Arvin Sloane to some degree. He hated being predictable. Still. It reminded him of Zurich, not of Los Angeles, which he found preferable, and yet had an atmosphere of its own. The mysterious Charles Xavier, who had come and gone before Sloane moved into the mansion, must have created it, and it was entertaining and challenging to identify hidden doors, books that didn't belong, which one one but an avid reader would notice, and sometimes just to enjoy the quiet.

Sloane had forgotten how teenagers could be. He had missed both Sydney's and Nadia's teenage years, and there had been no reason to involve himself with others. Sometimes he thought teaching them was being locked up with ten to fifteen versions of Marshall Flinkman and Julian Sark; they were either over eager, or sullen and unsubtly sarkastic. Irina, he remembered, had taught when playing Laura Bristow, and she had raised Sark. Clearly, she was even stronger than Sloane had always thought her to be.

So here he was, retreating in the library, looking forward to working on his idea for infiltrating and invading first the Sentinel outside and then SHIELD which was supposed to be a surprise gift for his, well, hosts, when realizing this time, he wasn't alone. There was already someone in the library. Scott Summers. Looking somewhat harrassed himself.

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[cyke-out.livejournal.com]

Scott wasn't hiding. He was in the library, getting ready for tomorrow's history class. At least, that was the plan. He had put together a unit on the popular image of crime and justice in the twentieth century. It was sometimes fun to shake things up, and it kept the boys interested, anyway; well, the boys and Laura. He had come in here looking for a copy of In Cold Blood, to refresh his memory on a few points, and had happened on a shelf of Tom Wolfe books. That figured, since the library had partly been replenished from Warren Worthington's personal collection. Pretentious rich-boy crap.

But then his hand stopped on the spine of The Right Stuff, and he was hit by a memory that he had lost hold of until that moment. He had found this book in the library at the orphanage, had carried around a paperback until the spine broke in half, and then he carried the halfs. He had learned, by then, not to talk about his father, the brave test pilot who almost got the chance to be an astronaut. But he could read this one, over and over. He even found a mention of a promising young pilot named Christopher Summers. At least, years later, he remembered that he had found it.

Scott sat down with the book, meaning to flip through, to see whether the reference had really been there, or was something a lonely child had fabricated. Two hours later, he was halfway through the book, when he heard a footstep and looked up to see Sloane in the doorway.

Jerking hastily to his feet, Scott ran a hand over the hair he had absently been messing with as he read. It probably wasn't an improvement. "Mr. . . .ahh. . .Arvin." He hadn't quite worked out what to call the man -- he still hardly managed to address Charles Xavier anything other than 'Professor' -- but, after all, Scott was the boss here. In theory.

"How are you, ahh, finding the school? I'm sorry we haven't talked very much. It's been, well, a hell of a week."

*OOC -- Note -- set after Scott's evening with Logan, and before his kiss and make up with Emma -- for the sake of maximum angst, of course.

[cyke-out.livejournal.com]

Scott seriously considered Sloane's statement. There are worse complications than having a friend who's in love with your wife. . .

"Probably," he conceded. "I'm not sure there are many more complicated complications, if you see my point. If you just love somebody, or just hate them -- well, it's easy to know where you stand with them. Sometimes it seems like those people can drift out of your life fairly easily, and the people you're left with are the ones you're still trying to figure out."

He shook his head. "God, I'm not usually this morose, believe it or not. My -- ahh -- you might have heard this already. My father passed away recently. I've been a little bit off. Even if you think you know how something is going to affect you --" He shook his head. "Enough about me. Did you have something you wanted to ask, or were you just trying to use the library." He pointed at the copy of The Right Stuff. "I can take my book somewhere else." Then he added, unnecessarily, "Dad was a pilot." Change a few sounds in that word, and it would also be true, but that part was much harder to explain.