2013.08.16 - Wanted

Jocelyn has been in one of her odd moods lately, when people could pin her down for conversation. She was known for her fairly rigorous training routine before, but she'd picked it up and been making it a point to almost completely fill her days with some sort of training or duty or whatever. When she wasn't doing that, she tended to not be on the grounds, instead being somewhere in the City, doing whatever it was that Jocelyn did when she wasn't at the manor. She tended to keep that sort of information to herself.
However, Jocelyn had to eat sometime, and she was nothing if not predictable, and so early in the morning, before most people had come in for breakfast, Jocelyn is in the cafeteria getting the first helping of her meal. She's got scrambled eggs, smoked salmon, asparagus, and goat cheese all mixed together, with a glass of water and a glass of orange juice both half drunk already. Her posture at the table, which is a little bit slouched over and focused, would indicate that she was rather focused, but there was a touch bit of worry based on how she glances about every so often.
While Doug had been forced into early mornings by his stint in SHIELD, it was not one of his favorite periods. So that he's even up and about seems to be a remaint of his mother hen attitude towards his, well, Young X-Men charges. 
And so if Jocelyn's distraction keeps her from noticing his presence at the cafeteria, perhaps the hand on her shoulder would. "Morning, Jocelyn. Wanted to see how you were doing?" Doug smiles, eyes shifting towards the meal, stomach rumbling in kind. "Although if you promise not to go anywhere, I'll get my own meal. Otherwise, move over and let me share some of -that-." 
Jocelyn does notice Doug walk in, though a little later than she normally would. She blinks a little at the touch of his hand on her shoulder, and then she nods. "Go ahead and get your breakfast. This is just my first plate," Jocelyn tells Doug. Her food! "I think I can manage to not disappear for at least that long," the teenager comments, the ease of the comment slightly forced, though barely noticable. "How've you been doing?" Jocelyn asks as she takes a bite of her food as she neatly (or so she thinks) dodges the question about how she was doing. After all, Doug just said he wanted to see how she was doing. Not technically a question if she ignored the hint of it in his voice, right?
"Oh good. Doing fine, give me a minute..." Clicking his tongue, the young mutant goes to get a bagel, cream-cheese, and then returns quickly, skipping the toasting in favor of expediency, before Jocelyn slips back away. 
As he takes a seat once again opposite Jocelyn, the young man does a quick check of the expression on the young woman's face before starting to eat. Let the silence speak for itself, in this case, simply because there were times when no words could communicate just as much as speaking. Because Jocelyn knew, and Doug knew, -something- was up, so it was a question of just how it would get expressed - the easy way or the hard way. 
Food is good! Food makes for a great distraction from uncomfortable silences! Jocelyn continues eating, and is silently cursing the fact that Doug could read body language. And perhaps that she knew he could, so she couldn't exactly keep from admitting that she was bothered by something. So, after a few minutes of silence, the teenager speaks up. "Okay. I'm a little bit bothered by Kwabena's leaving". It didn't sit well with her, obviously.
"Join the club," Doug comments, as he takes a bite out of the bagel. "Though I saw him the other night, at the Stark Expo." The cockblocker. 
Chewing on his bagel, Doug shifts his attention to Jocelyn, one eyebrow arched as if to say, 'So go on.' 
"How is he?" Jocelyn asks. She hadn't been all that eager to go to the Stark Expo herself. Lots of words and things talked about which were way above her head. Along with a lot of really big egos in perhaps the only space large enough to contain them all.
Jocelyn takes a bite of her meal before continuing. "Well, nobody has really come out and said what happened. You hear the rumors about why he left and such. And well...". There's a pause as Jocelyn pokes at her food a little. "I can't help but think about how similar the upbringings Shift and I have. I mean, I did a lot of bad stuff in the past, and in a lot of cases I tend to agree with Shift's view of things". Not that she knows about certain incidents, but that's beyond the point. "So I start to wonder exactly how welcome I am here these days".
Jocelyn then turns to focusing purely on her food for the moment, not meeting Doug's eyes, no sir.
"Seems perfectly normal. Not a word, not that it was the time or place to ask him what he was thinking," Doug replies, lowering his eyes to spare Jocelyn the nonverbal 'TELL ME ALREADY' attitude. Wouldn't have helped, and in any case, he had some ponderings to do over Kitty's disappointment over Shift and Rachel and... well, the interrogation that he -thought- was the cause of his leaving. 
Looking back up when Jocelyn brings up her own past, Doug wrinkles his nose. "It's not what you -did- before you joined the X-Men that's the issue... it's what you do now." Rubbing the corner of his eyes as an indication of the impending discomfort with the subject, the blond mutant shakes his head. "Are you thinking of leaving before..." He air-quotes with his hands. "'you're pushed'?" 
"I'm not sure," Jocelyn admits. "But think about it for a minute. You've spent what, months saying I'm ready to be moved to the main team. Yet it hasn't happened. Shift told me how he was a junior member. What if the higher ups were waiting to finish seeing how that worked out before taking a chance on someone else from that sort of background?" Jocelyn shrugs a little. It wasn't a fully rational arguement, but it made a certain amount of sense in her head.
"Ironically, Kwabena told me almost the exact same thing when I came back from Detroit back in March". From her infamous little trip to tie up loose ends. "I suppose I've heard all about how the team is a family and all. But then something happens, far as I've heard the first time Kwabena did something wrong, and he's gone? That doesn't make sense to me, given everything else I've heard".
Frowning, Doug considers Jocelyn's words, before nodding. "Maybe... although I can't help but think some of the issues here is related to Laura... I don't know."
Tilting his head, Doug replays the dance, before nodding. "You know, when I saw him, he didn't seem -upset-. Like it was something he had to do. Doesn't fit with a falling-out..." he muses. "Something else could be going on here." 
"How would that be related to Laura? Aside from the fact that she's certainly a little concerned about things changing on the Young X-Men front with Cessily and I getting out of our high school years," Jocelyn asks. She wasn't quite following that part of Doug's thought train. "I've debated confronting Mr. Summers or Doctor Grey about it, but frankly either way wouldn't come off right. If I mentioned the promotion aspect, I'd be a whiny, self-entitled teenager. If I asked about Shift, I'd get told it was none of my business". Though she also wasn't suggesting Doug do it either. She tended to try to deal with her own problems.
"I suppose it's possible something else is going on, but given we've got similar backgrounds, I don't doubt he's got experience in leaving a group on less pleasant terms, and this could have been worse for him I'm guessing".
"I'm not thinking about that, really... just that maybe they want Laura to move along with you too, and she's had... things to work out." Hopefully her field trip would be that impetus to sort things out. 
Frowning, Doug shakes his head. "I saw him, he didn't seem to be -upset-, so whatever it was, it wasn't on -bad- terms. It's almost like they agreed it had to be done, so..." 
"I've got mixed feelings about the whole moving a group vs. moving an individual thing. I mean, in a lot of ways it isn't like we don't do things with the main team. And a number of us end up in scrapes on our own out in the city anyway," Jocelyn points out. Jocelyn probably had a pretty good lead in that category of late, but still. "I don't know. Maybe I'm overthinking things too much. Kind of hard not to," Jocelyn admits.
"That seems odd," Jocelyn adds when Doug explains about Shift not being upset. "I should try and track him down sometime. See what happened from his point of view". Jocelyn figured that, if nothing else, she might at least get something similar to an explanation out of Shift.
"Or you could be more like Wolverine. He's ... done his own thing too. Gods know where he finds enough hours in the day to do all the things he's been rumored to be doing..." Doug comments, shrugging and eyeing Jocelyn. 
"I think we could probably track him down just fine. It's knowing what he's up to... well, I've had time to poke around with the Inhibitors that he hasn't, and they're... well, working on something. I -think- Kitty was starting to develop a rapport, but it's been a bit hard." 
"... I'm not sure how to take any suggestion that I'm like Wolverine, as it could be anything from a compliment to an insult there, Doug," Jocelyn points out with a small grin. "Just what are you suggesting?" she questions. There is mostly curiosity in her voice, wondering what, exactly, Doug has heard.
"I haven't heard anything lately in the Inhibitors," Jocelyn admits. She's not quite sure what to make of progress there. Kwabena had been heading up a lot of that, before he left.
Doug just smiles enigmatically in response to Jocelyn's question, leaving it to her to decide how to interpret it. Rather than answer -that- question, he elects to answer the statement instead. "Oh, Kitty met Isaac, when the Inhibitors met up again. She, uh... you know how Kitty is? All sunshine and rainbows about people? She actually might have gotten his attention there for a while. I don't know. Maybe next time..." 
"Wait a minute, bring me up to speed a touch here, Doug. There's a group of them now?" Jocelyn asks. She hadn't been given this information yet, and now she's curious. "I know who Kitty is, yeah. Don't know her well, but I know who she is," Jocelyn offers to Doug.
And his refusal to answer her question is noted in Jocelyn's mind, though she doesn't address it just yet.
"Well, three of them. Isaac, and his two cohorts," Doug notes. "We'll see what happens." Standing up, Doug pops the last bit of bagel into his mouth. "Listen, I've got to get packing, We've got a trip ahead of us later today, and I, for one, do not want to be meeting with Laura's disapproving look if we're not ready." Reaching out, Doug brings his fist in a light tap on Jocelyn's shoulder. "Hopefully you're ready too." 
"Yeah, I'll be ready. Got most of my stuff already packed. I'll talk with you later Doug," Jocelyn says as she returns to her meal to ponder things over.
Category:Log