Running for Home - 6. August 23, 2021

August 23, 2021

Well, here I am. It’s been almost twenty years, but I’m back. In the back of my mind I could just see my teenage self screaming bloody murder and attempting to burn my head off as I drove up through the gate. I swore I’d never come back to this place, except to raze it. Guess I was wrong.

It’s amazing what a regular salary, free room and board and summers off will make a guy do. I always knew Xavier had money, but I didn’t think he paid his teachers this well. Then again, Frost isn’t X, and she probably knew it’d be a cold day in hell that I came back here for anything less.

Seriously, though, the royalty cheques would have only covered rent next month, and it’s been awhile since I’ve been able to get a bite from any rag worth mentioning so I probably would have starved. Fucking hell. Guess the novelty of having a freelancer who was a former Brotherhood member has worn off, or something. Not like my shitty writing was ever prize material, even if I got it into some good papers and magazines a few times. Last week I probably would have taken just about any job I could get my hands on that wouldn’t involve me selling shit on commission or working retail. Oh, and definitely not faking it as some pansy-ass hipster barista at Starbucks. I needed a fucking job, but hell… I wasn’t that desperate. Not at all. I wasn’t going to do some lousy shit meant for losers. Not St. John Allerdyce, former terrorist, secret agent, journalist and novelist. Fuck that.

But this job? Seriously, how hard can it be? I tell the kids to do shit, and they do it or I give them an F. Simple. I don’t have to show any mercy, or give a rat’s ass about them. They do their job, I do mine. Besides, if they are students at X’s, then they’ll know better than to try and stir up shit with me. Not if they want to keep their face intact.

Anyway, beyond the kicking myself for walking back through that door, it’s been kind of eerie how much it feels the same. I would have thought after all the shit that’s gone down over the years that the renovations alone would have made this place feel different, but damn. They must drop a fortune fixing this place up to be exactly the same as it was pre-demolition every time it gets trashed. Which has been about once every three or four years since Stryker’s raid, from what I’ve heard.

Things are different here too, though. I mean, it’s still the same old place it’s always been, but… I don’t know what it is. Emma thinks I’m just being melodramatic. Guess I do have a flare for that, but still… I feel like they have done something to make this place not seem so idealistic and fake. There’s some grit here now. Maybe that’s just because it’s been around long enough. Maybe it’s because of all the battles the X-men contingent of the staff have fought. Maybe the kids are just a hell of a lot more realistic about the way the rest of the world sees them, at least compared to Bobby, Kitty, and the rest of my peers were when we were that age. I don’t know. I guess I’ll find out when classes start and my first bunch of guinea pigs walks in the door.

I still can’t believe I’m going to be teaching. I mean, what the fuck!? This is me, the Pyro, and they are putting me in charge of some kids? My first reaction two weeks ago was to tell Emma to fuck off, but then she just had to slip in how much she’d pay if I stayed the year. No strings attached. Just one year of teaching, then Emma finds someone else better suited for the job to replace me. If I don’t actually end up liking it. If I don’t want to stay in this hellhole. Which I won’t, but how could I say no to an offer like that? It’s double what I made two years ago when the royalty cheques were still okay and the article requests were still trickling in. It will also give me some time to figure out my next move and hopefully enough free time to bang out another novel. Maybe even one that I actually believe in this time.

I didn’t see many of the other staff today. There were a few people who I know, but most of them I didn’t know. From the sound of things, it seems that the rest of the staff that I didn’t meet today are also mostly people I don’t know, as well. Thank fucking god. This is going to be weird enough as it is. Having no Kitty, no stupid skanky Marie, no body-swapped Xavier, and definitely no Bobby to deal with should make it a bit easier.

Piotr’s still around. I guess I was surprised that he didn’t actually seem to be very bothered with me being here. Heck, he didn’t seem to mind at all. If anything, he was welcoming. Warm, even. Emma had him help me get all my shit up to my room in the teachers’ wing. It was kind of weird, but it was kind of nice to have a familiar face bringing me around. I’ve always respected Pete. Even with all the bullshit that happened in high school he never once gave me a reason to dislike him. He was a stand-up guy. Sometimes when I’ve looked back on things in the past, I’ve wondered if I should have distanced myself from the Bobby drama and spent more time with him. It probably would have been a bad idea, though, since he was pretty sexy even as a teen and deep down my feelings for him were not always 100% platonic. I’m not gonna lie, there are times when I’ve wondered how different my life would have turned out if I’d stuck with Piotr and helped with the evacuation of the School during the Stryker attack and not with Bobby. I’ve wondered how things would have been if I’d never been threatened with death by the police at Bobby’s house after his family betrayed us, if I’d never had to deal with being in a plane being shot down by the Air Force, if I’d never met Magneto while I was still an idiot teenager.

Piotr and I are supposed to do some vodka thing to catch up and shoot the shit ‘like old times’, but not till tomorrow night or the night after, since he had a date tonight and might be too busy finishing up a couple of his paintings tomorrow. He wants them done before classes begin and things get too busy. He said that in the past it’s been tough for him to get work done while classes were in session. He was usually too tired at the end of the day and would have little slip ups that ruined his work if he tried to push it. I don’t fucking know why I said yes to the hang out request, but he did say he’d provide the booze. Pete never brings the cheap stuff, either, especially if he didn’t have any supply left from one of his trips back home. At least, he never brought cheap shit way back when… well, back then.

Who else have I seen that I know? Xi’an is here. Guess she’s the librarian or something. Ran into her when I went to get food, since I skipped dinner. She said Dani’ll be around too, teaching history and geography, along with Sam. Guess they’re out picking up another kid who just started manifesting. I’m glad I won’t be responsible for doing any of that shit.

I really don’t know what to think about Xi’an. I mean, we never really talked at all back when we were both students here. She always seemed really bitchy and a little stuck up, and she only really interacted with Dani, Sam, Doug, Rahne, Roberto and Kitty. That group, sans Kitty because we claimed her as ours (as if that matters), comprised the other half of the kids my age that were ‘Class I’ mutants, as the government labels us. We Class 1’s hung out together more than with the other students. I don’t know why. It’s not like we tried to make it happen that way. Maybe the Class II’s were just intimidated by us all, since we were more of what you’d call ‘dangerous’ than any of the rest of them. Anyway, maybe Xi’an has changed for the better. She didn’t seem at all like the same person I remember. She was kind of hip, actually. Maybe she said ‘fuck it’ and turned into a panty-burning party girl at college or something. Then again, she did still become a fucking librarian. Go figure.

Alright, enough out of me for tonight. Going to try and sleep. Staff meeting at 8:30 am tomorrow morning. Fucking brutal. At least none of the classes I’ll be teaching start before 10 am. Bleh.