10/19 Instance: Music and Musings

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fourpawsonthefloor
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10/19 Instance: Music and Musings

Post by fourpawsonthefloor »

Timelined after "Broken Toy" if possible. Thanks bunches

Josh left the music room, clutching his folder of music clutched in his left hand. Much as he loved teaching Rachel piano, he'd seriously neglected his cello. It had felt good to play the well-loved songs on his cello, but now his fingers stung. He headed down the hallway with his face hidden by the music folder, going over Bach's Cello Suite No. 1.

Tessa was headed to the music room, fer face buried in a violin piece she'd ordered online from a movie. She was tapping out the rhythm on her thigh when she turned the corner and ran smack into someone.

"Josh! I'm sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going...." She apologized as she bent down and began to pick up her sheets of music and her violin case.

"Tessa!" Josh's eyebrows flew up in surprise. "No problem, it was my fault, I wasn't watching either." He got to his knees and helped her gather the music. A small smile tugged at his lips as he glanced at the sheets. "Violin, huh. I didn't know you play."

"Not a lot of people know. I don't usually play for people." She straightened up her gathered music and picked up the soft case from the floor, looking sideways at the music Josh was holding. "I didn't know you played cello either."

"Yeah, for nine years now." He handed her the papers. "If you're willing, maybe we should do a duet sometime. A trio even, if Cess wants to join."

Tessa laughed nervously, "I...I normally don't let people hear me play." She smiled a little at Josh and handed him her music in trade. "I've played since I was twelve, but I haven't really played a lot of classical music."

"Oh, I gotcha," Josh said with a nod. He was curious, but her business was her business. He wondered if she'd ever played with Cessily. "I've played classical mostly. But since listening to Rae's music, I've been thinking about getting some more contemporary piecees."

She cleared her throat. "I just got some music from a movie in the mail if you want it. It's the song from Queen of the Damned, but I bet it can be transposed for cello."

He hadn't heard of Queen of the Damned, but he nodded anyway. "Sure, I can use all the music I can get right now. I'm spending as much time as I can in the music room. My dorm is not a pretty sight at the moment." He wrinkled his nose.

Tessa decided to play dumb with the pranking. "What happened to it?" She felt a little awkward standing here in the hallway with the boy who'd had to clean up after her in the gym....

"Bobby," he said darkly. He peeked over his shoulder for any eavesdroppers, or even Bobby himself. Seriously, the guy was that sneaky. "I don't know what he did, but I can NOT go in my room. The smell is that bad. My eyes were watering and my nose felt like it was on fire." He gave an exasperated sigh. "I don't want to know what he did to Rae."

"I'm sorry." Tess kept her voice evven and her face blank of any tells. "If you want we can go inside...or to my room, if you like." She pointed over her shoulder. "It's not far."

"Sure," he nodded. "You weren't off to do anything? I was just gonna chill in the rec room, but I don't wanna take up your time if you're being productive or some other weird Tessa quirk." He grinned toothily.

"No, I was going to run through this piece, but it's okay. It's not really important." She grinned halfway back at Josh and led him off to her room, where she knew Rogue would be out with Sean for a while.

He followed her dutifully, folding his arms behind his head and whistling as he walked. "Nice thing about a violin is that you can just carry it place to place. Cellos are a problem to haul," he remarked.

"Yeah. This one's really old, though. I try to be careful with it, as I don't want it scratched." She adjusted the strap on her shoulder. "It belonged to my dad." She reached her door and opened it for him, standing out of the way.

"It's acoustic, right? Italian?" He strode inside, idly observing the decor. Sage roomed with Rogue, he knew, but she didn't appear present. "Your dad?" he repeated, turning back to her. "He plays?"

"Yeah, it's a Stradivarius." She took a breath and tried to look happier. "He used to. He's dead."

"A Stradivarius?" He whistled long and low. "Wow. I'm impressed. You use the violin of the gods... or at least Sherlock Holmes. I wish I had a Stradivarius cello. That'd be awesome." His eyes widened marginally. "Oh," he said awkwardly, reaching back to scratch his neck. "I... sorry."

Tessa started to say it was alright, but thought better of it. "It was a long time ago. Six years. And yeah..." She put the violin and its case up on the shelf over her bed. "It's a really good instrument. My dad kept it when he married my mom. It's her name, Nikolic. He took her name when they got married. I don't know what his was."

"That's unusal," Josh said. "Or... in the U.S. it is, at least." She was from... Greece? Italy? "How did he die, if it's ok I ask?"

"It's not usual in Greece either. It's really a patriarchal society." She fixed him with a sad look. "I'd rather not say. It's kind of difficult to talk about it." She went back to fidgeting with her sheet music and sat down on the edge of her bed.

"No problem," Josh replied, inclining his head. "I don't blame you for not wanting to talk about it. Heck, I've had my share of family issues." He walked over to her and gingerly took a seat on the bed beside her. "That's the whole reason I came here, to be honest."

"Yeah." Tessa rubbed her arms, even though she wasn't particularly cold. "I'm still getting used to it here. Not at the school, just...America. it's different." She scooted back on the bed and tucked her legs up under her.

"How long have you been here for?" Not that it would make a difference, the culture shock had to be enormous. Plus she had her powers... whatever they really were. "You know," he said, deciding to be honest, "it's kind of funny to hear you say that. You always seem so together and in control."

"Since September. But I have my powers to help with some things. The language and the mannerisms and things are easy, but it's harder to learn things no one wants to tak about." She shrugged and pulled an egg of silly putty out of the drawer in her side table, playing with it.

He opened his mouth to ask her what sort of things those could be, but thought better of it. If she wasn't going to ask him directly, he'd have to assume they were the sort of private questions you'd only ask someone very close - in Tessa's case, perhaps like Cessily (or maybe even this Japh character he'd heard about but hadn't met). "Well, that's handy, at least," he said in reference to her powers. "I guess in comparison to you, I have nothing to complain about. I haven't even left my home state to come here."

I have nothing to complain about. I haven't even left my home state to come here."

Tessa contemplated the putty for a bit. "You're lucky. The plane from Athens wasn't fun." She took her phone out and smiled at the screen when it beeped. She punched in a command on the buttn pad and closed it again.

Josh smiled. "I went overseas once, to France. It was nice. It was my first time eating duck. I was seven, and I remember my older brothers harassing all the waiters with their miserable French they'd picked up from movies..."

Tess chuckled. "I doubt I could use miserable language skills on anyone. Father Wagner is getting to me." She smiled at Josh and continued. "Greece is the closest thing I have to a home. It's so full of old places and stories that it's hard to be modern." She put her phone on the table and pulled a picture out of the drawer.

"He teaches languages well?" Josh had seen the blue-furred priest around, but aside from a brief musing on when they started letting mutants become priests, hadn't given him much thought. "I'd trip myself up if I tried to converse with a native speaker. I took French in high school, but damned if I can remember any of it."

He watched her head to the table, cocking his head in interest. "You miss it?"

"Miss what?" She turned back to him at the question, and it dawned on her what he was asking. "I miss parts of it. My brother is sending me pictures of himself and his wife at the beach near where we used to live, and it makes me remember things." She hoped that would explain it.

"Cool," Josh said, a little awkwardly. She seemed morose. Josh didn't get morose, he got pissy. "Yeah. That's nice then. Beaches are nice."

"Yeah, they are." Tessa sighed. "My dad used to play violin for me on the beach at night when it cooled off." She put the picture back in teh drawer and grabbed her phone again when it buzzed against the tabletop.

She chuckled at the picture that showed up on its little screen, and turned it around to show Josh her brother. "That's Iannis, my brother. He's acting silly here."

"Violin on the beach? No wonder you love it." Josh grinned. "Haha, very cool. He looks like a nice guy."

"He's goofy sometimes, but that's my siblings for you." She turned the phone around and grinned at the picture of Iannis standing on his head in the sand. "He looks a lot like my dad. People used to mistake them for each other on the phone, they sounded so much alike."

Josh laughed again at the man doing a headstand on the beach. "He looks like a fun guy. Kinda reminds me of my brother. He was always a goofball."

"How many brothers do you have?" Tessa hadn't heard anything about Josh's family yet. Then again, she hadn't heard about many people's families.

"Ahh..." One hand went into his pocket, the other reaching up to rub the back of his neck as he shuffled around. "Two... I gueess, but my brother Jimmy died not long ago." That same consticting lump built up in his throat. He set his jaw, determined not to get all upset in front of her.

"Oh." She ran her tongue around the edge of her lip. "I'm sorry." She wondred if that had been what made him manifest, giving him a small smile.

"Uh, it's, yeah..." He wasn't the most eloquent person when he was nervous. He ran his fingers through his hair. "What about you, just the one brother?"

Tessa shook her head. "Two brothers and a sister. Iannis is the oldest, then Chloe, me, and Julian. Julie's the baby, he's only seven this year. I'm the youngest girl and the only one to get the telepathy from my dad." She tried to smile at the end of that, but it felt a little oddly strained.

He looked surprised. "You inherited your powers? Wow... I'm the only one in my family who's 'special.' It would have been nice to have a parent to talk to about stuff."

"I didn't talk to him about them very much. He tried to help me with them, but...yeah. That didn't go very well."

She fiddled with the necklace under her shirt and told herself to keep her mouth shut about it, turning a little pink on her face.

Josh gave a bitter laugh. "Yeah, my first experiences with my powers weren't amazing either."

"I'm beginning to think no one's really are great. It was a little bit of a shock when I manifested. What about you?" She continued playing with the putty in her hands.

"I'm the first - only - to manifest in my family. But I didn't really know what was going on until I randomly turned gold one day. Yeah, I'd say it was a shock. Just a little one," he scoffed. "They kept me sequestered pretty much all the time after that. Like that would change anything. Helped 'em save face, I guess."

Tessa shrugged a shoulder. "My family is Roma. We don't interact with people much....but then my mother sent me here when I got a letter from Professor Xavier. I suppose that was her way of doing the same thing."

"Roma? Like, you mean, gypsies?" He looked surprised. "That's what I'd call culture shock."

She ran a hand through her hair. Why did people always say that? "Yeah. We don't call ourselves that, though."

"Oh, I see. Stupid, ignorant, boorish English phrase for someone different. I get it. I'll say Roma." He smiled. "Parents... just fall short of the ideal, don't they."

"It's just a misnomer. A gypsy is someone with a nomadic life, and Roma...we just migrated south. From Romania." She smiled at him and tilted her head as she shrugged. "Guess they were all afraid of Dracula."

His eyebrows flew up. She'd been so somber, the joke caught him off guard. As a result, his laughter came out loud and sharp. "Ah, good one. I guess it was a matter of having to stink of garlic all the time or leaving. Did you travel a lot?"

"Not really. I know most of Greece, though. It's not a very big place, really." She chukled to herself at her own joke, happy to see someone else smiling at it too.

"Bigger than Queens. Farthest I've ever been from home is New Jersey." He shook his head. "At least Greek food is tasty."

Tessa laughed at that. "Well, at least now I know who ate all the pita bread. I was going to make gyros too." She mock pouted and then smiled at Josh, shaking her head. "I'd never been to any place outside of the grounds before Professor Howlett took the class to see Xanadu."

"Xanadu! I have a love for Broadway. My brothers called me wuss because of that. Brothers," he grumbled.

"Me too! I love musicals. But honestly...I could do without seeing that one again." Tessa began to giggle as she though back on the evening they'd spent in the city after the show.

"No kidding? My favorite show would have to be... don't laugh at me for this... Cats. It was the first I ever saw, and inspired me to love music."

"Cats is awesome. My favorite is Andrew Lloyd Webber too. Probably Jesus Christ Superstar. I love the movie they made of it in the seventies."

"Webber is great. It's cool you're into Broadway." He was grateful for the lighter conversation topic. It was painful to talk about his family, and obviously uncomfortable for Tessa as well. "We should go see a play sometime."
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