ArchivedLogs:Bad News

Bad News
Dramatis Personae Peter, Rasa, Ducky, Faelan, Jackson
In Absentia	2013-06-12 Warning: ANGST
Location <XS> Rec Room - FL2
School this may be, but life for Xavier's students certainly isn't all studying. Outside classes, this is a popular spot to find students in their downtime. An enormous tribute to slacking off, this room is a wealth of fun and relaxation. Comfortable armchairs, couches, and beanbags offer plentiful seating scattered throughout the room, and the cushioned windowseats by the high windows offer a cozy nook to curl up and look out on the grounds. The room is often filled with the noises of gaming -- whether it comes from the big-screen television (tall racks of DVDs beside it, if nothing can be found on the multitude of cable channels), tricked out with consoles from retro to the latest releases, or the less electronic clatter and thump of the pool table, air hockey, or foosball. For those a little more subdued in their gaming, the cabinets hold stacks and stacks of board and card games, ranging as classic as chess and go to as esoteric as Dixit, Catan, and Gloom. Peter does not usually watch TV. And in the recent two weeks, he's rarely popped his head into the rec room -- absorbed very deeply in his projects! But, all of the sudden, Peter is breaking both of these streaks -- in the rec room /and/ watching TV. At least, he had been, very briefly. When he came into the room, a little tense, jaw clenched. Now, he's abruptly stopped watching -- and has his phone out, thumbing away at it very, very frantically. Whatever he's getting in reply does not seem to please him. Not one bit. Peter's dressed in his blue-collar shirt, buttoned up; dress slacks, two-toed socks -- and his funny wrist things. A black nylon backpack is on the cushion beside him, and -- the TV, at the moment, is set to newstation, broadcasting something about -- a shooting in New York City. Just happened earlier today. One mutant reportedly dead; some believe him to be the one responsible for the murder of OFFICER KYLE. Said officer's picture features prominently in the story. "God /dammit/," Peter hisses at his phone, in what is probably. An uncharacteristically un-Peterish expression. Still wearing his somewhat more /work/ appropriate grey polo shirt with the Xavier logo on it and khaki pants, Faelan makes his way into the rec room on the way back from Library to the dorms. He seems a little tired but fairly calm as he enters, at least up until the time he sees what is on the television. "Oh... thats not good at all." Shaking his head to get the news out of his head, Peter's exclamation draws his attention. "Whats wrong? Outside of the news?" Rasa slips into the rec room just prior to this outburst, looking for a little distraction hirself. When Peter starts swearing, ze finds it and finds it quickly. "Peter!" ze utters in surprise, turning away from hir pursuit of boardgames to move over to his side, her brown eyed gaze shifting between the tv and hir friend's face. The rest of hir is fairly neutral in shade, flesh toned, a hair darker than hir normal. Ze is wearing a perfectly boring, loose, white tee with hir baggy, tail accommodating jeans, feet bare. Ze looks over at Faelen when he speaks up, hir forehead crinkling. Having barely hauled herself out of her room today, Ducky has managed to shuffle down towards the Rec room, wearing a pair of dark gray sweat pants and a school t-shirt, a black zippered vest over top of the shirt. Cuddled into the fabric of her hood is the same dappled gray and white pigeon that has accompanied her nearly everywhere since, idly preening her ruffled hair into some sort of order. Carrying a large reference book in her arms, hugged defensively like a sheild, Ducky pokes her head into the Rec Room, "So it really is as bad as they're saying it is?" She asks quietly, blinking her eyes blearily, as though she's just woken up, "Sounds like its gotten worse out there." "Shane's not answering," is Peter's immediate response, not looking up from his phone as Faelan approaches. The response is a snap; maybe a little sharp, tense, /harsh/. But a moment later and his head is lifting up to Faelan, that brief expression of anger evaporating into -- "...uhsorry. Sorry. Um, sorry," he repeats, as he hears Rasa's voice -- glances toward hir -- offering an awkward, weak smile. "Shane's not answering -- a mutant got killed in the city. S'all over the news. They think he's the one who killed -- Officer Whelan." Peter looks up at the picture on the TV. Officer Kyle Whelan, on the bottom of the screen. That weak smile flickers away into something angry all over again. News scroll on the bottom of the screen reads, 'Bill renamed to Sergeant Kyle Whelan Memorial Mutant Registration Act'. For a moment, Peter /looks/ like he's seriously thinking about throwing the phone at the television set. "Yes," Peter mumbles to Ducky, semi-distractedly. "Don't go into the city." A glance toward Rasa, then. "/Especially/ if you--" He frowns, and turns back to glare at the television set. Frowning at the summation, Faelan nods in agreement. "Have you tried Jax or Sebastian then? Or wherever he is working? He may have his phone off for some reason." He says it trying to be reassuring, but the flattened affect of it shows that even he doesn't believe that good things will come of it. "Maybe the school should move to another state. Doesn't Arizona have better laws?" He nods with assurity that this is the better answer. Rasa's eyes widen when Peter starts snapping, offering him only a concerned look when he looks over at hir. Ze reaches a gloved hand out to Peter for comfort, hir gaze flicker amongst the other three. "Had no plans to. Mostly wish we could move more people here." Hir coloration starts to shift bronze and dark, beginning to take on the look of a statue. "Arizona has shitty laws. They try to ban people from living there just because they're Hispanic. They shoot people at the border. Can you imagine if they had a larger mutant population?" Ducky shuffles into the room a little bit further, looking taking a seat in one of the arm chairs near the TV, watching the news caster with confusion, rubbing at her eyes as though she would be able to wipe away the images. "I haven't left the campus since I got here. Well, hadn't, but, yeah," Ducky grimaces ruffling her hair back up, much to the consternation of her pigeon, "Have you been able to get in touch with anyone else in the city? I mean, I don't know many people in the city, at least not ones I can talk to on the phone. But I can try calling Melinda - I still have her card." At Rasa's statement and demonstration, Ducky nods in agreement, "Yeah - Arizona is full of stupid. But, there's another state that way that isn't as horrible. Just hot. Don't remember which one." "I'm probably just freaking out," Peter mutters, in response to Faelan's suggestion -- but it's a /little/ strained. "Evolve got firebombed, the other day. I heard Sebastian was there. He's okay, but." Peter rub-rub-/rubs/ at his nose. "We're safe here," Peter says, a little more /steady/ firm. "They should be here. It's dangerous there." Then, he sighs, just kind of -- /leans/ back into the chair when Rasa makes contact. Flump. "Just, it's okay. I'm just, freaking a little. That dead officer," Peter says, /hurling/ his hand out at the picture of Kyle Whelan. Like, FUH. One-handed flail. "The one who got killed. That they're -- naming stuff after. He was. Shane said he was one of the ones who -- was responsible. For the kidnapping thing. S'probably why someone killed him." "Maybe it was New Mexico then?" Faelan replies hoping that was the right answer the second time around. Blinking at Peter's revelation of the officers identity, he flops down into a chair on his own. "Wow... thats just, well thats just wrong. Like all sorts of wrong. Why isn't that in the news? Or is it just ya know, some mutant's word against a cop?" Frowning and shaking his head, he sets his forehead down in his hands. "I'm definitely not regretting staying on campus. I don't think I want to go out into the crazy world outside anymore." "Shane is tough, Peter. You know this. He's also a lot tougher than his cellphone. So, don't think the worst just quite yet - about Shane anyway." Rasa moves to sit on the arm of Peter's chair, rubbing at his shoulder and neck gently, as if giving him a massage through the chitin. "If he was bad, then he wouldn't have gotten punished. Look at what he got for dying. If anyone even brought up what happened now, they'd be laughed at and the cops would be commended for acting preemptively." Rasa may be bitter. Ducky looks confused, curling up in her chair and setting her book beside her, she looks curiously at Peter, tilting her head slightly, and then looking at the news. She squints at the TV, wrinkling her nose as she half listens to the reports and the emphasis on the fallen officer, "So... so it was actually the cops who were picking kids up off the street? That explains... the lightening. Tasers." A look of horror crosses her plain features as she stares more at the TV, her voice quietly echoing, "That's just wrong. And now that this happened, it's gonna make it impossible to say something bad about him. 'Cause anything that comes out now's gonna be dismissed as just a smear campaign to tarnish his name or some bull-shit like that." "I don't know. The whole thing's just. Buttfaced." This, at least, is /Peter's/ decree. Something about what Rasa says, though -- that gets Peter to turn back to his phone. Thumbing through contacts, sending more text messages. To -- Jackson, maybe? At the rubbing, Peter seems to relax; the tension in his jaw as he peers down at his phone isn't going anywhere, though. "...yeah it was cops. I don't know if I'm supposed to tell anybody that," he mentions, without looking up, to Ducky, "but it was cops. So, uh. Don't let cops know you're. You know." Thumbs /continue/ to twiddle. "He's fine I know he's fine I am just. Gnnn." Peter glares at his phone-screen, waiting for a reply. (Peter --> Jackson): hey is everyone ok (Jackson --> Peter): Everyone? (Peter --> Jackson): i heard someone got shot (Peter --> Jackson): i just (Peter --> Jackson): is kind of terrible i guess but i just want to make sure it wasnt one of you guys "Yeah, Kisha had told me before that was the theory, but she said I wasn't supposed to tell anybody. Since well, she didn't want Ivan swarming killer bee's into the police precinct." Faelan says, moving his hands to support his chin in looking to the others rather than his forehead. "So what happens if the cops show up here? Like I mean, if they know about Peter, and know where he goes? Do we hide? Do we evacuate? Grrr" Shaking his head, he seems frustrated. "This thing /is/ buttfaced. All of it." "The school will take care of us. Remember when we had that weird alarm go off and everything shut down hard and fast? That would keep us inside, them outside, and we'd be safe." Rasa frowns, glancing up at the tv before getting up and moving over to turn it off. "Call Jax, Peter. Talk to him, if you can get through, and maybe you'll know more." Ze clicks the tv off and returns to Peter's side, edging onto the arm once more. "Do you want me to find a teacher, get Shane's phone's GPS turned on?" Nodding, Ducky looks at Faelan, "I dun think it's that likely to happen here. But, um, this place is huge. 'Splenty of places to hide, in theory. And, well, it's kinda owned by a scary powerful dude. I think we're in the safest place we can be right now, I think. Maybe." She ruffles her hair again, a bit of a nervous habit, although she blinks at the now off TV, realizing that she'd been staring blankly at the television for a good portion of the conversation. "Calling is a good thing to try at least. Texting is good - but sometimes just calling is faster," Ducky pulls her knees up to her chest, "I can try sending a message via carrier pigeon if you wanted - it's even slower than the phone though." It's all she can offer, other than the just trying to call. As Peter gets a response on his phone via text, he visibly stiffens; a few seconds later and he's thumbing away on the phone again -- suddenly, notably /oblivious/ to everything in the room around him. Just peering, kind-of-intense, at his phone once he's fired off the messages. And then -- a tiny, strangled, relieved-noise comes out of his throat. He just -- /slumps/ to the chair, again, mumbling something to himself. He doesn't even /hear/ what the others just said; when ze moves to turn off the TV, though, Peter's head snaps up: "Shane's okay. Jax is picking him up. Turn the TV back on? Jax wants to know what's going on." Presuming Rasa does just that -- if not, Peter will reach to do it with a remote! -- when the TV comes back on, the news anchor is already mid-way through a sentence: "--in that the suspect's name is Ian Friedan, an undergraduate student at Columbia. Reports indicate he was shot during an altercation where he displayed a mutation identical to the shadow-creature responsible for the brutal murder of Sergeant Kyle Whelan--" (Jackson --> Peter): Wait, what? Who got shot? (Peter --> Jackson): i dont know i just saw on the news (Peter --> Jackson): mutant got killed by cops they think he killed that other buttface cop (Peter --> Jackson): do you know where shane and b are (Jackson --> Peter): Yeah. Bastian's at work. I'm on my way to pick up Shane. (Jackson --> Peter): They killed the person who did it? (Jackson --> Peter): Wait, HE? (Peter --> Jackson): oh thank god (Peter --> Jackson): yeah he i dont know much about it just (Peter --> Jackson): i think they just killed some dude cuz he looked shadowy or something (Jackson --> Peter): Is it on the news? Are you watching the news? What are they saying?? Frowning at the tv, Faelan turns his back on the mass of bad news. "Its good that he is okay, and hopefully they will get back to school soon." Obviously trying to change the topic, he decides to mention events of the other day. "Oh, and um, probably want to be careful around the carnival too. Sophie and I got pulled up on stage with a creepy magician with a fishbowl head, and well Professor Wagner teleported us away before he could turn us into birds." He nods seriously at that. Rasa frowns when the tv comes back on, but stiffens when the news reaches hir ears. Hir jaw sets and hir hands clench, hir body turning black. Ducky flinches slightly as the news is snapped back on, trying to keep her eyes away from the constant stream of bad news. She rubs her forhead, closing her eyes tightly, mumbling quietly, "I was just getting over this headache. So much for that." The mention of the carnival gets a shudder from the teen, and she peeks out of one eye at Faelan, "Yeah. That carnival is scary. Haven't been to the carnival. But, but, the giant bird man, that's been seen around the town, he, yeah," she shudders again, "He barfs acid balls." Peter jerks at the name; eyes wide, face violet. Then he's typing, breath hard and ragged and eyebrows pinched. There's something frantic about his texting. "Ohmanohmanohman," he mumbles. Faelan says something about CARNIVAL and, Ducky mentions something about BIRDMAN and ACID BALLS that is probably /really/ relevant, but -- Peter hardly seems to hear them, ENVELOPED in the texting. Almost belatedly, he mutters to the others: "I've met that dude. He's -- Jax and Hive --" Then, nothing. Just more texting. "Birdman," Peter says, something absent and numb about his voice, eyes locked on the phone. "Acid... balls?" (Peter --> Jackson): oh man (Peter --> Jackson): im sorry jax i think (Peter --> Jackson): is friedan our ian (Jackson --> Peter): Peter what are they saying (Jackson --> Peter): oh god (Jackson --> Peter): oh god (Peter --> Jackson): im so sorry theyre saying hes dead (Jackson --> Peter): no he didn't do it it wasn't him (Jackson --> Peter): he didn't "Wait what? Acid balls? Thats so weird, but I mean I guess in the scheme of things, its probably about a seven out of ten." Nodding at that, his attention goes to purple face Peter. "What now? Are they in trouble?" Faelan resists the urge to try and read the texts himself, and shakes his head. "This is so frustrating." "... Fuck everything." Rasa speaks low and quiet as ze gets to hir feet. "I was going to go to that carnival too." Ze leans over and gives Peter's shoulders a squeeze and then straightens up. "I... I'm going to bed. I'm sorry, guys. I met him, too. Just... fuck." Ze scrubs at hir face as ze goes. "...no. Ian Friedan. He's -- Jackson and Hive's friend. One of the --" Peter's words trail off. He shakes his head. When Rasa touches his shoulder, he gives her a weak smile... but then he's standing up himself. Looking, a little shakey. "...M'sorry. I've got to--" Vamoose, apparently. Because he's leaving the room, /very/ suddenly. Phone in hand, still texting madly. (Peter --> Jackson): i know he wasnt even (Peter --> Jackson): there (Peter --> Jackson): im so sorry jax i love you are you alone (Peter --> Jackson): you shouldnt be alone you should find somebody (Jackson --> Peter): i have to get shane he was arrested (Jackson --> Peter): with dusk (Jackson --> Peter): oh god they were probably there (Peter --> Jackson): this is messed up (Peter --> Jackson): i should be there with shane (Jackson --> Peter): i'm getting hi m now (Jackson --> Peter): you should he'd like that (Jackson --> Peter): no no you shouldn't this city is bad (Peter --> Jackson): no one will see me (Jackson --> Peter): No it's dangerous (Peter --> Jackson): goddammit (Peter --> Jackson): bring him here then (Peter --> Jackson): come here? with bastian and (Peter --> Jackson): and everyone