Put it on me (open to all staff)

[Glenn Traupel]

The Halloween dance was on the horizon, and after that the time of year known generally as The Holidays. Or, as Glenn considered them, the absolute worst time of year. Emotions ran high and tempers hot during what ought to have been a season of joy and affection. Or perhaps that was the problem; people clung more tightly to the idea of a perfect holiday season, of close knit family bonds and the making of memories, and they allowed those expectations to get in the way of actual enjoyment and love. 

Already the emotional turmoil caused by the holidays had taken hold, from students unsure if they would be allowed home for Thanksgiving to those who desperately wanted to remain at Hammel. Even his fellow staff gave him headaches, from the new music teacher's increased sadness as the holidays approached to the crushing depression he often sensed from the one science teacher. 

He sighed as he settled into a sofa, donut in one hand and coffee in another. On the counter was an entire box of donuts; not quite as good as pretzels but still tolerable for a glucose heavy snack. 

"Someone needs to stop George from dating," He grumbled to nobody in particular. George Fleming, one of the nearly insufferable Coley clan, was seventeen, absurdly rich, and couldn't seem to stick to a girlfriend for more than two weeks. The broken hearts he left behind might have been written off as the normal troubles of high school had Glenn not had to suffer through the emotional upheaval that went along with them. "He broke up a two years long friendship by dating his ex-girlfriend's best friend. And now they broke up. I get migraines every day after his class."

[Dr. Sean Neville]

October ranked among Sean’s favorite time of year owing entirely to the weeks of Halloween festivities that settled over Pilot Ridge and broader American culture like a comfortable and seasonally-appropriate cloak. This despite the chill in the air and the real threat of snow in their winters that could begin any time after the leaves began their change from life-affirming greens to rich reds, oranges, and yellows. This despite how sailing season was coming to an end just as the first pumpkins adorned doorways and cobwebs appeared in store displays.

This year, however, everything suddenly felt a bit…the telepath was loathe to describe anything as overwhelming given his periods of almost drowning, washed away in despair in his personal life as a young man or the crushing weight of telepathy as a student some five decades prior.

Stressful. Time-consuming.

Different.

A time of great changes.

For the first half of the calendar year, his focus had been on aiding his husband in adjusting to his position as mayor, and himself as the spouse of the mayor, with all of the attendant photo op obligations. Every festival, every town event, now required their presence rather than allowing them to pick and choose as they saw fit, treating community spirit as a buffet like most private residents absent any broader expectations.

Then, over the summer, the Board of Trustees had approached him, and now he was acting headmaster. Waiting out a search for a replacement that, with each passing week, felt a bit more distant and familiar.

After all, there had initially been a promise to find a full-time replacement for The Talk as well and look how that had worked out.

Unlike every other duty shuffled under his job title with the expectation that he fulfill it because nobody else would and he was so loyal to Hammel, this one brought a significant boost in pay, commensurate with the additional duties on his plate, most of which involved either mind-numbing bureaucracy or handling the other levels of disciplinary action that he had steadfastly avoided during his tenure solely as staff psychiatrist.

He counteracted his would-be exhaustion through a steady supply of glucose in any available form and by doubling his caffeine intake during daylight hours. He prevented the creeping social isolation by spending an increasing amount of break time in the company of the other staff, demonstrating that this was only temporary and he remained one of them, not set apart by title or pigeonholed in an office in another wing of the building.

Upon his arrival in the staff lounge, he eyed the doughnuts greedily and helped himself to a chocolate frosted adorned with seasonal orange and black sprinkles, plopping it onto a paper plate before filling a mug with whatever trickles were left in the coffee pot. Just in time to hear Glenn’s lament regarding George.

That boy was…still better than Zac LaRousse. Damning with faint praise.

“You have my sympathies,” he replied, crossing to the sofa to claim a spot on the sagging cushions. “Do you want some from my stash? I have a bottle in my pocket.”

[Wayne Dietrich]

The onset of fall always quickly sped through the actual season into frosty mornings and icy nights in Pilot Ridge. Made an old man's old scars and joints ache... though he kept enough of the house warm and his garage insulated to offset that as much as possible. Granted, nigh constant powers usage during waking hours would always make it worse again, so it was a zero sum trade off.

By the time the first classes of the day finished, however, the school had warmed up enough to be bearable for Wayne. With a couple of his fellow recruiters off wrangling new folk onto airplanes and buses, his paperwork requirements went from next to zero (meaning a day tinkering in his garage for the most part) to hectic enough to draw him into the administrative office. He had finally managed to snag a break after filing a few reports, once a certain bleach-blonde Japanese recruiter returned with his newest pick-up.

So now, wrapped thickly in wool and denim, Wayne limped his way into the staff lounge for a cup of coffee and his lunch. He knew he should eat a little better than he did, but a roast beef sandwich with spinach would stave off the anemia until dinner. If he remembered dinner.

Well, better that than other things, he supposed. He grinned wryly at the psychics' commiserations as he poured himself a full mug of black coffee. "I don't envy you folk," he chuckled, leaning against the counter to ease the weight from his feet. "Everyone else just has to look at these hormone-ridden disasters; you all have to listen to it all day, too. My condolences."

[Glenn Traupel]

Glenn's lips twitched from smile to full on laugh at Sean's offer. "It'll mess up my shielding, so I'd better not."

He also didn't want his boss to believe he was prone to drinking on the job, even when his boss was the one who offered the alcohol.

At Wayne's appearance Glenn lifted his donut in greeting before pointing with it towards the box on the counter. "Help yourself before Sean and I eat them all."

That wasn't a dig at the telepath but rather a truth regarding their powers extra calorie needs; with even a single psychic adult a single box could be demolished by the end of the day. With two present there was little hope for the donuts. And then if Simon showed up...

Not that he seemed to spend too much time in the staff lounge.

"So I trust both of you are having better days than mine. No teenage girls trying to set her ex-best friend's test on fi....oh, no. Sorry, Sean. Guess I'm not the only one whose day isn't going so great." He grimaced in apology as he belatedly remembered that Sean wasn't solely the headmaster; he attended to disciplinary matters as well, and thus had probably been the person in the office when Glenn's students had arrived.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean bit into his doughnut, hiding his expression behind chocolate frosting and sugary glaze. The assumption was…warranted, given his reputation. Few of the other adults within the town borders were unaware of his drinking habits or the behavior that followed with the fog that left both sobriety and good judgment in the dust as little more than distant, hazy memories.

Anyone who had somehow failed to witness this pattern of behavior firsthand had been confronted with photographic evidence leaked in the wake of Josh’s election bid.

Still, for once, he had been misunderstood, and as he chewed his doughnut, he reached one large hand into his pocket, withdrawing not the expected miniature (or full-sized) bottle of Jack Denials but instead a far smaller bottle of Excedrin. He shook it for effect before setting it down on the coffee table between himself and Glenn, well within reach of the younger man should he choose to avail himself.

Wayne’s arrival coincided with Sean swallowing and washing down the crumbs with a sip of rapidly cooling coffee. Which almost erupted from his nose at the older man’s description, kept down through a deep breath that burned his sinuses.

Hormone-ridden disasters, as accurate as it was unkind.

“It’s still preferable to whatever pop song of the week gets stuck in my head through sheer popularity,” he remarked with a wistful sigh that evaporated as Glenn mentioned the fire.

Yes…that had put a damper on his morning. “She has detention and her trainer has been alerted about the power misuse.”

What else could he do? He didn’t particularly care for detention as a punitive measure rather than using it as an opportunity to grow, but she needed time to calm down and think clearly rather than embodying the emotions that washed over her - anger and betrayal were difficult demons to defeat alone, let alone in conjunction with each other and the hormone bath of puberty.

“I’d move George into another class, but the same problem would emerge. It isn’t as though we have a fraternization policy.” Not one that precluded consensual dating between students.

Then he mirrored Glenn's invitation, tacitly acknowledging that the doughnuts, if left unclaimed by Wayne or someone else who wanted a sample, would disappear quickly between himself and the empath. "Yes, Wayne, help youself. They're still fresh and festive."

[Wayne Dietrich]

Though he had missed the exchange regarding the means of headache relief, the recruiter caught the shaking of the bottle and assumed that the conversation had been about such with no further thought. Lucky him; no headaches, just stiff joints in that regard. And most of that was getting old, at this point.

Still, he waved off the offer and took a sip of his coffee. "Thanks boys, but I've got different needs there." He reached out to the refrigerator, his metal hand glinting dully as he did so, and pulled out his lunch bag. "Less sugar, more iron. But I appreciate the offer."

Ahhh, George Fleming. Of course. Sweet as the kid looked, he was more than a little oblivious to other people's feelings. Combined with an (aesthetically) pretty face, he broke hearts all over Hammel. So that was the deal with a pair of sulking girls being marched through the office so early in the day. "Only way he's gonna learn is if it bites him direct," he stated, setting his cup down to unzip the bag and remove the sandwich. "I just hope he learns the right lesson from that."

[Glenn Traupel]

Glenn winced internally as Sean set a bottle of Excedrin down on the table, his embarrassment palpable to everyone in the room. Unfortunately, his shielding didn't last long enough to remain up for more than about a single class; sometimes he considered asking one of the powers trainers for help increasing that, but decades ago he'd been told this was the most he could expect.

He simply wasn't powerful enough.

"...oh. Uh. Thank you," He murmured in lieu of apology, grabbing the bottle and twisting off the cap.

"Eventually he'll ask out the wrong girl," He suggested, tone more hopeful than it ought to have been when discussing the romantic prospects of a student. "Maybe Vincent's daughter. She'd shut him down."

[Dr. Sean Neville]

There had been many occasions, not for decades now, but as a student himself, when Sean had yearned for a weaker psychic power (if not a different one altogether) as he struggled against the weight of his scope and distance. With the control he had mastered, including his impeccable mental shields, and the benefit of hindsight and greater experience with psychics who weren’t Robert Hopkins for comparison, he considered himself fortunate.

All powers had their trade-offs, even the weaker ones.

“You’re welcome,” he replied to Glenn, and, with that, the topic was ended as far as the telepath was concerned. No cause for offense and thus no reason for the younger man to wallow in embarrassment.

His lips played into a smirk at the recruiter’s next remark.

Boys.

Who else but Wayne would consider Sean such? The students had thought him old when he reached Glenn’s age, and now, sixty-two and twelve years past his eligibility for the AARP, he was downright ancient.

But not to Wayne, who by virtue of completing his ninth decade and starting on his tenth, had earned the right to consider anyone born after the Depression a blooming youth by comparison.

The smile evaporated as the two other staff members began discussing potential comeuppance for a 17-year-old student, particularly since George, as obnoxious as he could be, remained better than many others in the past.

Vincent Verax’s drop out date remained something of an annual commemoration among the faculty.

Before addressing any such musings, he polished off his doughnut and eyed the box on the counter longingly, In equal parts to satisfy his sweet tooth as to avoid weighing in on this particular topic.

He rose and returned with a new doughnut oozing raspberry jam.

“I don’t think putting on that Appoline is the right hope.” She had so much on her plate already and while he agreed that she was a volcano of repressed emotions and social avoidance, he could envision a disaster resulting rather than the light conflict of a CW Thursday night teen drama. “One of us would be better off pulling George aside and explaining why he should cool his breaks.”

Part of the problem with George was that, while dating, he was a good boyfriend. Attentive, complimentary, generous, and helpful. The breakups were bad not because he was cruel about them but because of those positive qualities. And he had never cheated, which made the whole mess thornier. He’ll break your heart as a vague warning because of his difficulty sustaining emotional connections was more difficult to grasp as a teenage girl than he’s a player.

[Wayne Dietrich]

Wayne agreed with Sean; George Fleming, Jr was far and large better than Vincent Verax by any stretch of the imagination. Mostly because, well, the boy had a sense of mortality more than anything - even if he didn't manage to keep his emotions stable, even if he didn't cheat or lie, at least he understood that doing those things might be bad for his health when trapped in a school filled with people with superpowers.

Vincent Verax had had no such concerns. He was the lad who taught himself to juggle chainsaws for fun and ended up being bad at it.

He also could agree with Sean on the demerits of sending the elder Meian girl to deal with problem, though being non-psychic and not having the same degree of physical contact with attending students had entirely different reasons for it. The few times he'd met her, the girl had seem cripplingly shy and demure; even lately, her confidence seemed less "bolstered" and more "level", making her less than ideal as a quarry for the teenage heartthrob.

"I agree with ya there; she might turn him down, but I doubt in any way that'll make him reconsider his course." He took a bit of the roast beef sandwich, mulling further as he chewed and swallowed. "Then again, if Lucy or Ash were still around much, that might be a different story."

In any case, he didn't hold out much hope that simply chatting the kid up and explaining that "other people have feelings, too" was going to do a lick of good. In his (rather dated) experience, boys like him often needed to be put down hard to realize that they weren't kings in high castles who could just do whatever they wanted with the peasants. Watching his twin sibs in combination on that (rest their souls) had simultaneously been one of the most painful and enjoyable things he'd ever seen, and even decades later he was proud of them as their older brother.

[Glenn Traupel]

Glenn sighed at the admonishment, although the smile reemerged quickly - less sparkling and more rueful. "I suppose that's true. One of us should, although I'm afraid I don't know how to word that. Be like me, George, and don't date."

Perhaps it was in some ways hypocritical of him to dislike George's inability to stick with one girl when he, himself, struggled to maintain a romantic connection for very long. His coping strategy was casual dating, and sometimes dating a couple as the third because that allowed him more emotional distance. But the fact remained that the constant turmoil caused by his student's tumultuous dating life caused him constant headaches.

This was, unfortunately, a reality of teaching - so many of the children had severe emotions from being taken from their families young, or from trauma, or from their fears surrounding their abilities. And that was leaving aside the completely normal emotional upheaval of adolescents.

"Sometimes I wish I could ask for a power suppressor to stay in my classroom with me. For me, not the students."

[Tiberius Hill]

Tiberius had finished a session with a particularly difficult newly manifested student, a thirteen year old who was absolutely terrified of her newfound ability. She wasn't bad, but she was scared and had exactly zero control. The all of three sessions he'd had with her so far had made very little headway, and she remained unconvinced that she ever would have control.

He understood her fears, but she didn't believe that, either.

And thus when he entered the staff room and saw donuts on the counter his gaze refused to remain on his coworkers.

The glucose would do him good.

"Whose donuts are those?" He asked, careful to explicitly gain permission despite the fact food out on the counter in the staff room was typically considered fair game. He still wanted to be sure that someone hadn't put them out and then been called away for a student emergency rather than intentionally displaying them for all to see.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean did not intend to rain on his coworkers’ parade. There was a certain catharsis in fantasizing about comeuppance, the same reason that Aesop’s Fables remained popular thousands of years after their author had passed on. That their current crop of students were more sedate than past years shifted the threshold of collective frustration while allowing Sean to maintain perspective.

Nobody had hacked the equipment at his Talk to upload private humiliating photos of fellow students. Nobody had been recruited to a supremacist group. Nobody had blackmailed another student. Nobody had shot sex toys out of a cannon. And nobody had jumped off the roof simply because they could. The Coleys were less flashy with their money than Zac LaRousse and his father, which rendered everything downright tame by comparison.

Pushing the thought experiment further led Sean to myriad possibilities, none of which he relished facing. To Wayne, he remarked, “While true, then I’d have to clean up the mess of it, and I’d rather avoid it altogether.” He didn’t like conflict to begin with, and certainly not manufactured by musing on the worst combinations possible. In his experience, for the most part, conversation, mediation, worked better than the adversarial approach. He could hardly adhere to his profession otherwise.

His attention turned to Glenn, about to dive into the complexity of dating, perhaps to share a bit of his own complicated history to contrast with avoiding it altogether for peace of mind. But the math teacher interjected with a different thought, something that Sean had begged for as a new student, and which his mentor had categorically rejected each time, with the reminder: “suppression is a crutch; you need to learn control.”

Meta-human powers intersected so uniquely with disability accommodation. “Glenn, have you considered making an appointment with the specialist? They might have some shielding tips.”

It was the most that he could offer.

They were then joined by Tiberius, and Sean raised his coffee mug in greeting. “The doughnuts are up for grabs, but could you be so kind as to bring me one too?”

[Wayne Dietrich]

The recruiter chuckled around his sandwich. That was fair; Sean was, after all, the acting Headmaster and had never liked that sort of conflict even when he hadn't been. Swallowing his bite, he replied, "Reason enough to make sure the kid gets set straight before then, hm?"

He really had nothing against the kids, but an old man had his amusements. There was something distinctly satisfying about watching people fumble through the same minefields you did at their age (provided it wasn't actually dangerous to do so, of course.) Given that Wayne had gone through the same things, despite his own lack of proclivities... well, dating wasn't terribly important in the long term at this age, even if it felt like the world at the time. George would learn, the girls would learn, and everyone would be better for it; the schadenfreude of watching the learning was its own reward.

He also agreed with Sean on the suppression idea, though didn't say anything on it. He'd have been blunt to the degree of hurtful, and that was very rarely his intention - certainly not to someone who didn't deserve a boot for self-pity. He knew plenty of people who were afraid of their powers, who hadn't been able to control them, and one by one they had all knuckled down and gotten the work done, at least enough. He had faith that, with the right help, anyone could. It was finding the right person to help that made all the difference.

Tiberius walking in shifted the mood a little, the trainer's face lighting up at the idea of a doughnut. Wayne shifted a little more out the way with a "help-yourself" gesture as Sean did the same verbally. "How're the sessions?" he asked before taking another bite of his lunch.

[Tiberius Hill]

Tiberius gave the other three men a smile of gratitude when they all offered him open access to the donuts. There was no polite hesitation as he headed towards the bounty, grabbing two (plain glazed for himself, and chocolate for the headmaster) before heading towards the sofa.

"...getting there." His answer to Wayne's question was delicate, and he was aware of this. The poor students couldn't help it; if they could control their powers without training then there would be no need for Hammel at all. And, really, what student wanted to think of their teachers whispering about them behind closed doors? Even if he hadn't recalled those fears from personal experience, having a teen daughter in attendance gave him a sharp reminder to keep perspective there.

He passed the chocolate donut over to Sean and seated himself. "I'm still working on convincing Kaylee to even try to use her power, but we'll get there."

[Dr. Sean Neville]

“Another reason I’d like someone to take him aside. If we have to divide it into three conversations of Ghost of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come, I’d be open to the possibility.”

He preferred such a description to the more typical division of good cop/bad cop, not least because he saw no reason why law enforcement tactics should be employed against children in a safe setting like the school. More than that, because he didn’t believe that psychological trickery should be used at all; artificially creating trust was an insult to his profession and ultimately undermined mental health and social bonds. “Would anyone be willing to do it?”

It would have been different had they attempted such intervention during the previous calendar year. Then, he had been only the psychiatrist and an adviser. Now he was the Headmaster, and otherwise innocent interactions took on a different tone no matter his efforts to undermine them.

Fortunately the topic shifted as Tiberius approached.

Mrs. Manners might object to reaching across a coffee table to accept baked goods, but Sean wanted to make it easier for Tiberius to alleviate himself of the burden. Taking the doughnut, he smiled, which brightened when he noticed that the younger man had selected another slathered in chocolate icing.

His favorite.

“Thank you, he said heartily before sinking his teeth into the pastry. He chewed while the trainer lamented his present student’s lack of progress and sipped his coffee while nodding in support. “You will. You know how it is; most psychic powers are downright frightening to a recently manifested child.”

Which was all Kaylee was. A child suddenly afflicted with an ability that had never occurred to her as possible even days before she manifested.

Sean empathized.