ArchivedLogs:The Cool Jerk

The Cool Jerk
Dramatis Personae Bobby, Kai, Kris, Sophie
In Absentia	2013-05-21 '
Location <XS> Conservatory
Tall panes of glass keep this large indoor garden warm year round. Tended to by the school's groundskeeper, the conservatory is lush with plant life, a carefully cultivated paradise within Xavier's walls. The room serves as a classroom as well; in the center of the garden a ring of seats forms a small circle, a favorite locale for some teachers to hold court. There are no classes scheduled right this hour in the conservatory, and Kris has none of her remedial classes at this moment either! So what's she going to do? Be lazy. Right now, her iPod is belting out a loud A Perfect Circle song off the Thirteenth Step. Which she somehow finds... soothing? She's sort of in a bikini top, with a pretty baggy pair of shorts laying on her back... in a sunbeam. That's right, she's soaking up sun. With her sunglasses on, and her stillness, it's a little hard to tell if she's just very relaxed... Or asleep, as even as her breathing is. Hop. Hop. Hop. Kai's bare feet slap against the stone floor of the conservatory as he enters in an odd hopping step from one foot to the other. The boy is dressed in knee-length khaki shorts and an Xavier's t-shirt that is clearly at least one size too big for his thin frame. He's got a sketch pad and a couple of pencils in his hand, offering an odd weight shift when he lands on that foot. He is humming, although it is not Thirteenth Step. No. He's humming the Friendship is Magic theme, although no one will ever accuse him of having perfect pitch. Hop. Hop. Hop. Perhaps he doesn't see Kris laying out, since he doesn't speak to her. Or maybe it's just more fun to hop. Sophie is actually coming /in/ from /outside/, today, and dressed a smidge less fancily than usual. Sparkly skirt with black bike shorts under, bare feet, no fancy leggings, and a white t-shirt with a paint-splatter sort of design on the front. It's just too dang hot for leggings and dark clothes. Objectively speaking it isn't /that/ hot, but for a New Yorker it's torture. She's carrying her usual bag with her, along with another backpack presumably filled with textbooks and the like, and on her way inside she almost doesn't spot either Kai or Kris, but eventually hears the sound of the former humming, and the latter's music playing over loudly. But since Kai is the one actually up and about, she addresses him first, with a wave and a wide smile. "Oh, hey, Kai!" And she... hop hop hops over closer to where he's hop hop hopping. "Is Kris sleeping or something?" Kris is only at first alerted to Kai's presence, not by the My Little Pony theme, but by Sophie saying her name. She sits up slightly, raising her sunglasses, then calls out in slightly accented Korean,"Kai! An nyung hah sae yo! I've been studying and practicing to greet you properly!" She then lets her gaze skip over to Sophie, and asks her,"Come to sunbathe too? The conservatory roof provides a perfect lens for tanning. I do not want to be too pale for the summer." Not that her mocha skin actually ever looks pale, but that's how she sees it anyay. Then she frowns,"Why is everyone hopping?" Kai pauses on one foot when Sophie addresses him, and he pivots on said foot to face the girl. "Hello, Sophie," he says with a smile, then frowns when she mentions Kris, looking in the other girl's direction just as she addresses them. Then he giggles, and claps his hand over his mouth. "You said that very well," he says earnestly when he lowers his hand. "But it is not necessary to say it all, if you are speaking to friends. An nyoung, Kris." His foot slowly lowers, then, and his thin shoulders lift. "I enjoy hopping," he says. "It is much in the manner Foom moves, but it is also fun." Then he tilts his head. "Sunbathe? I have never heard it called this, but I came to sit in the sun and perhaps practice drawing a thing or two." Sophie gestures to Kai. "He was hopping, so I figured. ..." Vague handwave. "Well, anyway, nah I was just outside getting some air and it is just.. I don't get how people can stand being out in this, it's terrible. Worse in here, with the sunroof and the being enclosed..." While she gestures to the ceiling, she nonetheless isn't in any hurry to leave now that conversation is happening. "Plus, uh, look at me? I don't tan, I burn. Like a lobster." What with being ginger and all. She finds herself a nearby bench to sit on, dropping her bags to the floor; just taking off her backpack makes her back that much cooler. "Give me shade and air conditioning any day." "HOT AND MUGGY?" An edgy voice cracks through the air of the conservatory, interjecting itself on Sophie's good time. A plane of ice quickly forms off to everyone's left at the ancillary entrance through the Culver's roots and stonecrops section of the conservatory, and there is a slick keening sound. Yes - it's Bobby Drake, the dreaded and only, sliding on his back on the slightly inclined plane towards the group. Today, he's timed his slide so he will appear only very near the group and not barreling into them. There is a big, stupid grin on his face, and he is wearing precious little - a white wifebeater, cargoes and flip-flops, appropriate for summer. "Ladies. Gentlemen." He quickly has been practicing this corny as fuck move for like, a couple of weeks, but he swings his legs around like a breakdancer, his hands out on the sides sucking the precious moisture from other parts of the conservatory to toss little falling bits of cool air and snow in all directions, creating a cool but-also-kind-of-warm environment that's pretty much immaculate. Some of the plants look like they are withering, though, when Bobby hops up onto his feet, looking too proud of himself. This IS why he was banned from hanging around the conservatory. Kris flops back onto the ground, sunglasses going back over her eyes,"An nyoung, Kai. I'm trying to learn your language. I see bits and pieces of it in my own. Tagalog is somewhat of a hodge-podge, you see. A bit of Chinese, some Japanese, some Spanish, Arabic, and even a little Korean." She actually giggles,"It is where you lay in the sun and possibly get a tan if you need it." She pulls a small bottle of tanning lotion out of one of her pockets and begins to slather on some more. "Sophie, if that is the case, you need lotion on your skin, immediately. Come, get lotioned with me." She really meant that in a less innuendo-begging way. She just looks over the top of her sunglasses at Bobby,"Good entrance. It didn't make me want to throw you on your back and try to headbutt you. Like last time you pulled that." She then looks at the havoc wreaked on the ground itself,"Your attempt at cooling the air, while appreciated, is now killing the plants. Very pretty ones, in fact." DISAPPROVAL. She sighs, and flips over, holding up the bottle of lotion,"Make yourself useful. I need lotion on my back." Apparently she's back to being... /frosty/ with Bobby. "Sophie, do you need an extra pair of shades?" Kai giggles at Kris' explanation, and nods. "That is very interesting," he says, and he's moving to sit next to the girl just as Bobby makes his entrance. Then Kai can only stare; first at Bobby, then at the wilting plants. Then back at Bobby. There's a small furrow of his brow, then, and he continues his original mission, which is to sit next Kris, folding his legs up tailor-fashion and balancing the sketchpad on his knee. When Kris invites Bobby to apply sunscreen, he shifts away, his brow knitting further as he simply...watches. Bobby's entrance elicits a similarly silent stare from Sophie, who just... apparently has not had the luck of being graced with such a fine spectacle before. Yeah, that's it. Though while she would never actually /admit/ it, she is kind of appreciating the sudden cold front. DON'T TELL HIM THAT. So instead she sort of casually digs into her tote bag, pulling out a water bottle, and wanders over to the ice slide to hold the bottle against it for a moment. Cool it down a bit. Though she does half expect it to turn into an ice cube before she's finished. But while she's doing that, she otherwise, for the moment, completely ignores the Drake in favor of looking over to Kris languidly. "I know I should wear sunscreen but I really hate how it feels on my skin, it's like... this weird sensory thing I can't stand it." She shakes her head with a little shudder. "I need to dig out one of my umbrellas to use as a parasol, I think." Only then does she deign to address Bobby, though all she has to offer is a somewhat chilly, "You could at least wear a shirt if you're going to run around in public." It's all water off a duck's back for Bobby, who reaches for the lotion bottle without complaint, tosses it behind his back and over his head, and catches it in an obnoxiously showoffy manner. He raises his eyebrows then Sophie and Kai with a smile, splurts some of it out into his hand, and starts to apply it to Kris's unfortunate back. He adopts a Rodney Dangerfield voice. "I tell ya, I tell ya what - I just don't get no respect around here. I thought they loved the air conditioning, they told me they wanted to make me the Xavier School poster boy. What I didn't know what, they wanted me to be a poster boy all right - for birth control in the sex ed! No respect!" Kris reaches for one of Kai's knees to squeeze as she lays on her tummy, then pulls out her cellphone, giggling and texting rapidly,"What are you drawing, Kai?" Damn fast texter. "Come on, scoot closer so I don't need to crane my neck?" She then eyeballs Sophie's water bottle and even makes grabby motions in the air after closing her phone,"Sophie, share? So parched." Then she's craning her head to look behind her,"Bobby, I want you to know... if I was capable of having children, you'd just about have me convinced in the necessity of abstinence." The knee squeeze gets a bit of color to rise in Kai's face, and he ducks his head to watch Bobby through the hair that falls into his eyes. "Oh," he says when Kris asks about his drawing, and he gestures at the pad. "I only draw what I think is interesting," he says. "I am not very good, but Mister Jackson says the more I draw, the better I will become." He obligingly shifts closer, lifting his head to frown at Bobby. "What is wrong with your voice? Did you catch a cold from sliding on the ice?" Sophie wanders over to her bag when she hears her own phone buzzing, setting her bottle on top of said ice while she retrieves the device. Resting her back against said slide, because while she may dislike /Bobby/ she isn't going to extend that same prejudice to delicious soothing ice widget, she takes a moment to text back and forth and-- just /stare/ at her phone, whirling around to /glare/ at Kris for a moment, silently. "You can have some when I'm done," is the answer she eventually decides on. And she's still waiting for it to cool down, so that might take a while. In the meantime, she looks to Kai and nods toward Bobby. "Kai, have you met Bobby? His power is that he thinks he's funny and doesn't have to listen when people tell him otherwise." Drake does an eye-roll expression when Kris tosses off her barbs over her shoulder. He has to struggle to keep his composure when Kai tosses off that gem. Through a stifled half-smile, and with a little warble of his voice in an almost-laugh, he says: "My other mutant power is incredible forgiveness, Sophie." Meaningful look. He gives Kai a genuine smile. "Hey, man, seriously - what's on the pad! You've got me curious now, too." Kris gives Drake... THE EYE. "Kai, get my shoulders? I suddenly find the thought of Drake touching any part of me to be like nails on a chalkboard." She sticks her tongue out at the boy. NYAAAH. Real mature. For all that, though, she stretches out kind like a cat. "Don't introduce Kai to Bobby. Kai's too sweet. Bobby will corrupt him." This she opines as she lays down fully on her tummy and just kind of vegges out. Kai seems a bit confused by the introduction, shifting his gaze to stare at the ice slide for a moment before giving Sophie a worried look. Clearly she missed the entrance or something. He shifts closer to Kris, pulling his pad into his stomach a bit protectively. "It is just things I see," he says. "Some are real, some are from my mind, and some are from Foom." He frowns, and furrows his brow. "But they are not very good," he insists. "I am just beginning." The request to apply lotion gets a blank look from Kai, as if something has short-circuited in his brain. "I...would do it wrong," he says softly. "Perhaps Sophie will apply it for you." Sophie just looks at Bobby for a minute, blushing a little bit, though she seems entirely confused as to why. All she can manage is a mumble of, "Um, right." And so she buries her face in her phone again with more texting, which leads to more blushing and the girl almost throwing her phone across the conservatory. Ultimately, she settles on just gently tossing it back onto the bench with her bag, leaning against the ice plane for another moment before grudgingly pushing herself off. As it is, the back of her shirt is pretty much soaked, now; she goes to sit back on her bench, facing the rest of the assembled X-Teenz, hands on the bench. "Go ahead, Kai, I'm just going to sit over here for now. It's hard to mess up." Bobby happily and pretend-obliviously moves out of the way to give Kai a clear avenue for lotion application, and he lets Kris's CRUEL and HORRENDOUS comments fly out into the ether with no adhesive to his good mood what-so-ever. She is getting the No Witty Rejoinder treatment now. She doesn't deserve them. "Don't stress about it, Kai - I'm not going to rip it from your hands or anything. I don't have to see it, I was just curious," he says slowly, and claps Kai on his shoulder just a little too chummily. As he walks over to the ice-plane to dutifully break it down, he whispers to Sophie on the way there, poking her in the wet back "That's why I don't have the decency to wear a shirt." Kris takes a moment to gawk at Bobby when he's not facing her. Let Bobby know she thinks anything positive of him? Ridiculous! Having had her bit of eye candy, she pushes up, texts rapidly, then faces Kai,"There's no way to 'get it wrong'. You just put lotion on your hands, and rub it on my back and shoulders. If you're just squeamish about the touching, though, that's okay too. You can say so." Having said that, she feels a bit... guilty? "Thanks for the help anyway Bobby." Her nice and mean switch flips like a two year old who just discovered lamps. Kai's eyes widen at the helpful input, and he shakes his head slowly. "You are my good friend, Kris, but I do not think I would be comfortable doing that for you." His chin drops, and his fingers find the corner of the sketchpad and begin to toy with it, worrying the corner of the cover back and forth slightly. Then, slowly, it's flipped open, and the first page is turned so the others can see a simple (slightly beyond child-like) drawing of the treehouse on the front lawn, only with a couple of dogs and a bunny underneath the sprawling tree. Also a dragon. A small one, climbing the ladder. "This is a thing which I have drawn." "Hey!" Sophie swats at Bobby's hand when he pokes her. "I'm already breaking my 'never be in the same room as Bobby' rule, you don't have to go proving I have it for a reason." Once she sees that he's going to start busting up the ice slide, though, she goes over to yank her water bottle off of it, and wanders over towards Kris's bench, though she plops onto the floor next to it. Opens the bottle, gulps from it with a touch of /teen attitude/, then passes it up to the other girl. "Sharesies, I'm still thirsty," she notes. "That's better than I can do," she then remarks to Kai's drawing, nodding affirmatively. "Like you said, the more you practice the better you'll get." "I can see how much fun that dragon is having at the treehouse," Bobby agrees enthusiastically, pointing his finger at it. "And that must be Rahne at the bottom. If I was that dragon, I'd be running where she couldn't get, too." Kris smiles gently at Kai, then offers to him,"Believe it or not, Kai, I am alright with having the truth from you. That was all you had to say." She leans over slightly and points at the bunny,"That's my favorite." She actually giggles a little bit, then takes Sophie's bottle and pours a few gulps down her throat. Then more texting follows. Kai blushes a bit, under the compliments, and peers at the drawing. "It does look like Rahne," he agrees with a small smile. "I do not know if I did that on purpose." Then he giggles. "The dragon is going into the treehouse because that is where he likes to think, and eat cookies." He sits up a bit straighter, and then is pushing to his feet, dumping the pad on the ground. "I have a better thing that I will show you," he says, and then he's off in a run, his bare feet's patter echoing for a long moment after he's out of the conservatory. Sophie gives Kai a gentle little nudge after Kris's reassurance, but doesn't add any commentary; it's meant sort of as a confirmation that Kris means what she said. But then Kai runs off with little warning, and she raises her eyebrows with a bit of surprise. Once he's gone, she hears Kris texting above her head, and tilts said head back to look up, holding up her hand. "Water, please." She then nods towards the other bench, where her phone is sitting and from which the faint sound of buzzing can be heard, and tugs at Kris's hand so that she can just read whatever it is the girl is typing. ... Then swats her. Lightly. Before frowning with some thought, and she mumbles under her breath, "/You/ say something, you're better at this stuff than I am." Bobby is doing his best not to crack up at Kris texting like a maniac and Sophie quietly trying to pretend there is nothing going on between the two of them, like it wasn't the most obvious thing on the planet. He actually has to put his hand over his mouth, his grin is so large. Still, his eyes are crinkled at the edge, even. It's like he's the Crocodile Hunter and he's out in the wild observing the majesty of the comedy kingdom. Trying not to disturb them in their natural habitat. Kris hands the water bottle over to Sophie, then dumps her phone on the ground at her side after clearing a few messages, texting something else, and showing Sophie. Then she makes a snorting sound and rolls over onto her back, since it's not fully covered with lotion,"Gonna get sunburned on my back." Once Kai is gone, it's a torrent,"Oh my god, Bobby, I don't know what you're up to, but be nice to Kai. He's a nice boy and his art is amazing." She points at her eyes, then at Bobby. Sophie snickers at the phone, handing it back up to Kris and just /looking/ at Bobby. "Whatever it is it isn't /that/ funny," she assures him. Folding her legs up against her chest, then, she hugs her knees, resting her chin on top of them, and jerks a thumb towards Kris. "What she said. Don't be a jerk to Kai. He might not even get that you're being a jerk and that just makes it.. jerkier." "I can't do that, ladies. You see, I'm being paid big money by the government to be a jerk to Kai - it's in my contract. When he gets back, I'm going to say a lot of mean things, and then I'm going to do things and say things that he doesn't like, and then I'm going to embarass him in front of his friends, and then? After all that? I'm going to post the video to the internet and make him a laughingstock for all time." In case you couldn't tell, this is all dripping with sarcasm from Bobby, his arms now crossed in front of his chest. Kris elbows Sophie playfully and then turns to rattle off something at Bobby... But whether sarcasm was his intent or not, her face gets that deadly serious, far-off look of hers. The one where she's not really looking at the person her eyes are on,"I'm serious. Kai is off limits. Joke, prank, or embarass me all you want, but not Kai. He's had it rough. Super rough. And he's trying SO hard." Sarcasm or not, apparently she takes it seriously. Sophie on the other hand just looks kind of uncomfortable. It isn't even the government remark, just... the whole package, really. So she sort of sits there and rubs her arm all awkwardly, looking up at Kris and kinda... looking for some cue as to what she should be saying here. 'Cause she's got nothin'. "Uh, yeah, um." That's just about the best she can do. "Sooooo. Uh. ... Speaking of changing the subject, Bobby, are you going to the dance next week?" Bobby gives Kris a lingering look of un-sure-ness - like he couldn't believe that he was getting this sort of vaguely threatening vibe from Kris all of a sudden. He, too, chooses to mostly set it aside for now ans turn to answer Sophie. "I'd been thinking about it, but I'll be totally honest with you, I hadn't even given who I'd ask to go with me any thought. It just sort of crept up on me, and I need to get a plan together pretty quick. What about you?" Kris picks up her cellphone as she lays there on her back, looking at something on some website or other. More typing, and then she's suddenly back to her... normal, for certain values of the word, expression,"Too bad. You might clean up pretty good. No reason you shouldn't go, even if you don't have a date. Me, Megan, Sophie, and Kai are all going, and maybe Rahne, and none of US have dates. It's just a chance to have stupid normal fun, you know?" Sophie waves a hand dismissively. "It's just a dance, you don't need a date." And she /isn't asking/. "We're setting up shifts for keeping an eye on you and I figured I should probably make sure you're actually gonna /be/ there before we go to all that trouble." Isn't she charming, though? She opens up her water bottle, sipping a bit from it again, and holds it up to Kris just in case she wants some as well. Bobby gives them both a look like they were dumb. "...but seriously, I'm gonna go start looking for a date. I'll try not to cause too much trouble, so you only have to set up hourly shifts." He walks by Sophie heading for the door, and idly touches it as he walks by, freezing what's left solid. Cold, Bobbo. Kris just watches Bobby depart, and murmurs under her breath in a confused and irritated manner,"I... can't figure out if I'm relieved or insulted that it never occured to him to ask either of us? Is it possible to feel both those emotions at the same time?" She looks at the frozen water bottle and sighs. Just SIGHS. "Want me to run and grab you a new one?” Patter, patter, patter...Kai's back from wherever he'd disappeared to, carrying a canvas that's about half his size. "Here it is!" he calls cheerfully as he bounces past Bobby, pausing to give him a curious look. "Did you not care to see it, Bobby? It was in Mister Jackson's room, where it was drying." Then, unaware of any lingering tension, he's holding it out for perusal. While the piece is far from perfect, it's clear that painting may be where Kai's true talent lies. Greens and yellows swirl in abstracts around a yellow sphere in a dragon's eye, the pupil smudgily lit so that the inky blackness takes on a human-like shape stretching its arms heavenward. Kai remains silent, peeking over the top of the canvas with expectant wide eyes. "I'll see it later, more important issues have come to my immediate attention, chief," Bobby says over his shoulder vaguely, stepping out of the conservatory with a requisite wave. Sophie rubs the back of her neck uncomfortably, looking up at Kris, and shakes her head. "Wh--? Oh, uh, no, forget it. I'll get one later." Lowering her head a little, she lets out a small sigh. "I kinda get the feeling we hurt his feelings." Apparently she's all too willing to share blame, though. She looks over to Kai's painting, smiling and, while her words are sincere, her tone sounds a little /off/ given the lingering discomfort. "Oh man, that's /really/ great, Kai." A little creepy? "Maybe you don't need much practice after all." Kris sighs and massages the bridge of her nose,"Now I'm going to have to find a way to apologize to him. Like that time I hit him. And misinterpreted what he was saying. And... It's so easy to get so wound up around him that you don't watch what you're saying. I'll go patch it up with him later. Don't worry. I'm getting good at apologizing." She turns her eyes to Kai's painting, though, and lets out a low whistle of approval,"You do this amazing work with colors, Kai. I had no idea you were such a Bob Ross!" Kai tilts his head to watch Bobby go with a small crease of his brow. "Is he mad about something?" he asks. "Maybe someone should go and make him feel better, if he is." Maybe it will be HIM. Or, maybe not, since he doesn't make any move to follow. Instead, he'll accept compliments, ducking his head. "It is not as good as Mister Jackson can do, or some of the paintings I have seen in books, but I like it." He turns it to look at the surface, frowing in consideration. "The lighting is not quite right, and I -- who is Bob Ross?" Sophie pushes herself up to her feet, shaking her head a little. "It's. Hard to tell with him. Maybe we teased him too much." She strolls over to her discarded bags, picking them up, backpack onto shoulders and tote bag onto.. shoulder. "Bob Ross was this guy on TV who would teach you how to paint. He was kinda dorky but he seemed like a really nice guy." Nodding a little, she sort of stands there awkwardly for a moment, just ... nodding. "Well, uh. I probably should go to homework or something. Gotta.. get those grades up. Y'know." She doesn't sound at all enthused by the idea, but what can you do. Kris sighs and rises to her feet as Sophie does,"And /I/ have some apology baking to do. Sophie, don't work too hard, okay?" She picks up her iPod and silences it, then turns to study the picture again,"No, Kai... the lighting is not right for you. I think everyone else feels it is just perfect though. You are a good artist. Accept the compliment as sincere?" She turns to the Kitchen,"I'm going to bake Bobby some cupcakes. Even if he is a dork." Kai nods as the girls also make their exit, blushing at Kris' words, and lifting a hand in farewell. "You bake very good cupcakes. I am sure he will stop being a dork, soon." And with those words of reassurance, he's setting hsi painting down carefully and reclaiming his spot on the stone floor. His pad is pulled into his lap, and opened to a fresh page. And, after a moment of thoughtful head-tilting, he bends over his work, beginning to sketch lightly.