<hr/><div class="floatleft">(http://i.imgur.com/e0KtfDX.jpg)</div><strong>Name:</strong>David ‘Dave’ Alleyne<br/><strong>Location:</strong>Jean Grey’s classroom/office<br/><strong>Date/Time:</strong>Friday September 1st, Evening<br/><strong>Tagging:</strong>Jean Grey<br/><strong>Content:</strong>Two old friends catch up and compare students/notes<br/><hr/><strong><br/>“Being able to get outside the mansion is a pretty good incentive to get good grades.”</strong>David said with a smile of his own and a nod of acceptance. Even though he supported Jean’s push to get some of the kids into the real world from time to time, and was planning to go along as a chaperone when he could, he couldn’t offer that to any of his own students. As a relatively new teacher and a newly registered mutant he didn’t have the credibility with Xavier or with those government agents capable of giving out passes.<strong>“I don’t think I could offer anything quite that good. You might just win this round…”</strong><br/><br/>Even as he spoke, seemingly admitting defeat, there was a part of his mind that was trying to figure out a way to get his students more invested. Kitty had seemed to become much more interested when he explained that he would let her do work on the danger room if she kept her grades up. Maybe he could offer things like that? Letting the top few students help him while he was repairing the danger room, the Blackbird, and all the other miscellaneous X-men equipment. There were worse ways to encourage academic behavior afterall.<br/><br/>The mention of his father actually made David shift uncomfortably in his seat.<strong> “We actually haven’t talked since I came to Xavier’s”</strong>He finally admitted, not wanting to look her in the eyes.<strong>“When I told him and mom about my powers, we had an argument that got ugly. Not physical violence ugly, but enough that I’m not welcome back home.” </strong><br/><br/><strong>“He hates cheaters, people who take the easy route out. And when I explained my power to him, I could tell that he thought my mutation was the reason I’d been able to move up the academic ladder so quickly... I didn’t handle that implication well”</strong>Those were the words he said, but there was a rich tapestry of backstory and unspoken truths that Jean would know. To say that Christopher Alleyne disliked those who cheated was a massive understatement. Even as a professor at a respected University, he had a reputation for strictly enforcing the school’s zero tolerance policy more than any other teacher would. In the last year, he’d had more students expelled thanks to the rule than any other professor. To him, those who took the easy way out didn’t deserve the knowledge. It was actually a lesson that his son had taken to heart at a young age. For David it would have been so easy to just skate through his classes and then immediately forget the material. But he wanted to learn, to understand the forces of the universe. So he studied harder than any other student, building rudimentary power-blockers and studying in complete solitude to prevent anyone else’s knowledge from interfering with his learning.<br/><br/><strong>“You know how hard I worked to get where I am.”</strong>His voice was quiet, reserved, as he said that singular sentence, more to himself than to Jean.  Though she more than just about anyone would know how much he’d pushed himself. One of the reasons they broke up was just how devoted they were to their pursuits; Jean to her own studies and to the X-men, and David’s quest for the highest academic rank. Not that either would say it, but they both knew that if one had just been able to yield just a little bit then they might still be together. If David hadn’t been so hellbent on advancing and keeping his abilities secret, if he’d admitted to the world that he was a mutant years before he’d actually done, their lives might have taken a different path. But that wasn’t what happened. He<em>needed</em>to prove that he could do it without using his powers, more to himself than to anyone else. David had always prided himself on all that he’d done without using his abilities, so to have his own father think that he was capable of using them for personal gain… it hurt him in a way he wasn’t used to.