ArchivedLogs:Hope

Hope
Dramatis Personae Jackson, Kelly
In Absentia	2013-11-15 (Part of Infected TP.)
Location <XS> Music Room - FL2
Wide and spacious, seating in this soundproofed room comes largely on the sweep of gentle risers that afford the teacher an easy view of all the budding performers, and add another dimension to the acoustics of the room. Instruments of all types are carefully stored around the room, and a grand piano, immaculately upkept, takes the position of prize near the back. In a nod to the eclectic studies of the students, digital mixing equipment and turntables rub shoulders with the classical instruments. Music stands sit in front of most of the seats, and the only windows look out out over the side of the school grounds. With the very words you speak working against you, the hallway should be starkly quiet tonight. . . but the faint echoes of music, something non-vocal but upbeat, wafts its way out from the slightly cracked door to the music room. Though the electronic edge to the sounds give away that it isn't a live performance. It is rather on the late side of things, a winter's black painted on the windows, allowing them to become more akin to shadowy mirrors. And what they reflect is that the room has some bit of life to it. And the life is certainly moving. Kelly's pudgy body is not exactly the immediate mental picture of a dancer of any variety, and it is less a practiced routine that flows through his limps and toes as he twirls and bobs to the music than it is an emotional outpouring. And as synced up as he is to the beat, it is something he must do a lot, even if there are some obvious rough edges. Sweat clings to the boy's brow, as well as dampening the underside of the arms of his white T-Shirt. His bare toes flex on the floor, thick growths of park on the top of his feet as well as a couple of leaves, and his school issued sweats hang a little bit loose on his waste, the cord pulled tight around him. A heavy sweater lies draped over one of the chairs pushed out of the way, and occasionally the spins and turns send his long vines lashing out whip like above even those chairs. (The moves more ballet than club dancing, truth be told, but there is certainly a mix of the two styles.) Every so often a pink petal falls off his head from the movement, browning on its edges, the leaves on his hair, shoulders, and neck bending and lashing far more vigorously than a normal day's duties would entail. There's been quiet movement across the hall, a light on in the art room though the door is closed. It's perhaps the sound of music that draws Jackson back out before long. He's looking much the same as he has been looking, lately. Grimy (but sparkly-purple somewhere underneath) Doc Martens, dark cargo pants, a dark and somewhat torn sweatshirt tied around his waist, long knife sheathed at his hip. No gun, today. He's wearing a long-sleeved black shirt with a red t-shirt over top ('All my heroes have FBI files', it reads), and his eyepatch bears a brightly cheerful smiling yellow sun embroidered into it. There's something in his hand -- a statue, it looks like, carved in many small pieces joined together. A tree with a treehouse in it. The oak tree and treehouse just outside the school, for the particularly observant, though done in bone-white rather than wood. He pushes the door to the music room just slighlty open, enough to peek inside. And then enough to slip inside, quiet, head tilted slightly to one side to watch. Kelly's eyes are closed, and the soft smile that's on his lips is pure and genuine. Not something he's oft to wear lately. And oblivious to the newly acquired audience, he slips into a fouette as the music reaches its obvious climax. The tightly spinning lad becomes surrounded by the vines and natural growth as it wraps loosely around him, as if they were green ribbons glued to his hands dotted with pink blooms, and almost unseen sharp barbs that catch the lights on their polished tips, accenting the motion with a soft sparkle. And that's when his foot gives out. The move was too ambitious, and over 200 lbs of mutant tumbles sharply down onto the floor tangled in himself. There is a soft 'Oww. . .' but nothing more serious. "Oh!" Jackson lifts a hand when Kelly stumbles, as if to catch the fall -- he's far too far away for his hand to actually /reach/ the boy but at a school like Xavier's that doesn't always mean much. Next to Kelly something shimmers, soap-bubble-translucent in the air in a solid ramping surface to break the sharpness of that fall into a more gradual descent. Jax sets his statue down on a nearby chair, taking a few more steps into the room. "Hey. Y'aright, honey-honey? That was -- real nice." Kelly blinks surprised as he didn't quite expect the magic ramp to come up to catch him! Falling is something he'd gotten used to. Learning to dance, or anything worthwhile, meant failing at it a thousand times first. And while his face and arms, get a few cuts from his own vines (bleeding a deep green instead of red), and his white shirt gets a few new holes in it he won't really mind, (he is a teenager, after all), there is a lot less potential damage as he sits up and starts to untangle himself, slithering his vines back into his arms until they are only two bushels of foot long strands. "I'm ok." He says, quickly, a little disoriented and dizzy as he tries to get the world to stop spinning. "Just, a little confused is all, I usually bounce a lot harder than that." And then his cheeks blush as bright as a strawberry, and he has the added advantage of even having the green accents to complete the resemblance! "Oh, you, uh, s-s-saw that?" he mutters out as he tries to get a good look at the three transparent men who took their place as the ONE Jax in his mind for the moment. "Sorry, is that -- bad? It was good. I mean kinda gorgeous. S'real nice seein' some -- life in the middle of --" Jax lifts a hand, scuffing it through his multicoloured hair, his thick Southern drawl a little wistful. "-- Ain't been near enough smilin' lately." He gestures towards Kelly's arms, fingers fluttering towards the scratches. "Sure you're aright? Don't need somethin' for that?" "Oh, they don't hurt much, no worries." Kelly says, his ducked eyes looking up slowly to see who was really here. But, they snag on the knife for quite a few more seconds than would be polite. There is a tinge of fear there, in his green eyes, but he forces it back. Of course any nurse or concerned medic might disapprove of his method of treatment to the scratches: licking his thumb and rubbing the blood off. But again, teenager. "I thought everyone would be asleep." He promised, "And. . . well, I couldn't so I had to do something, and it was either this or screaming out a window. I didn't wake you up, did I?" His own voice with a nice soft southern tinge to it, but a bit lighter than normal, and difficult to lock down to a specific region. "I don't sleep. Not hardly, nohow. Plus I don't live here so --" Jax hitches a shoulder upwards in a quick shrug. "Y'didn't wake me. An' I get what y'mean. I used t'dance when I had worry t'let out." He watches Kelly's brand of first aid with a small twitch at the side of his pierced lips, but he doesn't raise any objection to it. "Don't hardly think nobody'd fault you screamin' out a window neither, all the stress everyone been under, but dancin's prettier t'be sure." His own molasses-thick drawl is just very solidly Georgia, through and through. Kelly's blush just deepens again as he hears the dancing called pretty, but he recovers quickly. "You're Mr. Holland, right?" He wonders aloud, teeth chewing on his lips as he gathers his courage to say: "I'm really glad you were able to help them, sir. They, they were really running out of hope here." And as his stomach lets out a gurgling hunger churn, he adds: "I just, well, trying to stay out of the real student's way. Trying to be as little a bother as I can." There's another small twitch at Jax's lips before he corrects: "S'just Jax. An' I think the whole ci -- ci --" His head gives a small jerky shake. "-- Everyone 'round here been in kinda the same boat. But folks here s'my family. Gotta look out for --" He runs his fingers through his hair again. His nose crinkles up after this. "You are a real student. World's just gone a bit upside-down right now. Don't mean you got no less right t'be here than everyone else do." "You're sick, too, huh?" Kelly says in a sad tone, a look of pity in his eyes up to the adult. "And I don't know sir, I think I have to attend a class before I'm a student, right? And all this sorta happened before I could even sit in on one." But dropping the subject, he nods towards the statue that Jackson brought in. "What's that?" he asked simply as he dusted himself up and started to stand. "Been sick a while now," Jackson affirms, his hand slowly crossing across his chest to curl fingers around the opposite bicep. "An' I don't know about that, when I went here I was here weeks 'fore I had a single class. Think you just gotta enroll t'qualify." His brows furrow, though, tongue wiggling slowly at one of his liprings. "Still, though, sooner things get back t'normal 'round here the better." He turns towards the statue, and a very small smile touches at his lips. Brief and a little sad. "Oh, that's just -- it ain't nothin', I was -- lookin' through the art room, found a -- my kid made it. He did -- sculptures. Jus' kinda wanted to --" His cheeks flush slightly. "There's dance classes here. Usually. I bet you'd do great in 'em." Kelly quickly shakes his head at the suggestion. "My dad'd kill me if'n he knew I was in a dance class, or even caught me dancing." He said quickly, though seriously, as if it weren't much of an exaggeration. "But, guess there aint much chance of that now." He adds only as an afterthought. His hand runs through his own hair now, snagging on one of the flowers and making a grip for it as if to rip it off. . . only to ease his hand off of it and let it go instead. "You have a kid? And he's an artist?" Kelly adds to the end, not meaning to sound quite as surprised as he did. "Got three. Two of 'em go here," Jackson says lightly, though he barely looks to be out of high school himself. "-- /Kill/ you? What is this, Footloose?" His nose crinkles up and he sounds pretty /firm/ when he says: "There'll /be/ classes again. This ain't what life's gonna be forever. An' even if we can't put dancin' on your transcript y'can still learn outside of class. You seemed like you were really -- happy." "Well, my dad isn't exactly getting a transcript. I was half out the door before the flowers showed up, not exactly what, well, ya know. . ." Kelly says flatly, trying not to dwell on bad times and to force the bitter out of his voice at gunpoint. The run-a-way was not exactly forthcoming with a previous address. "And, I guess I was pretty happy." He admitted, listening to the music as he stood there, his fingers twirling as if begging the rest of his body to join in, even as the vines on his arms begin to stretch out despite himself. "I guess I was looking forward to keeping a promise. Lia helped me out after I got attacked, promised I'd dance with her once I got better. I. . . think its important to try and keep all the promises we can right now, don't you?" "-- If your dad ain't in the picture why does it matter whether or not he'd want you dancin'? Kinda feel like you can use all the happy you can get." Jackson takes a step back, leaning against the wall with his single eye drooping half-closed. "Ain't it important to keep your promises always? Though I guess what y'do when the world's gone t'hell says a lot about what y'can be trusted t'do when it's right again." "Then I guess that makes you guys saints right now. Specially you." Kelly says half-jokingly, but mostly sincerely as he nods to Jax. "I hope you aren't too mad, but when I first came here, I was kinda scared of you. And the knife and gun didn't help lately." He laughs out, nervously. "Been pretty sor- uhm. . . felt kinda bad about that after hearn' 'bout what you did, and how much the other kids like ya. Just wish there was things I could do to help. . . " Jackson breathes out a soft laugh; for a moment the smile that lights his face actually does so literally, the air around him blossoming with a soft glow that shifts in time with the music before fading away. "Sainthood is what I'm s'posed to aspire to but I think I tend t'fall /way/ short'a that particular goal. Right now I'm just tryin' t'keep folks goin'." His nose crinkles up with a widening smile, crooked but bright still. "I'm only scary if you're tryin' t'hurt someone I care about," he assures Kelly. "In my normal life I teach art. Don't think many people have ever considered artists all that intimidatin'." He tips his head slightly to one side, considering Kelly thoughtfully. "-- Can you make /other/ plants grow?" he wonders, curiously. The glow on Jackson's face absolutely fascinates the pudgy teen, and his jaw hangs open in a pleasant sort of surprise face. "Uhm- what? Oh, sorry, that's just, really neat." Kelly says, quickly shaking himself out of his own powers caused awe. "Yeah, I can do that, its, well, not something I've done a lot so it's hard but, I can. Been trying not to mess with the plants here, though, someone obviously cares a lot about them." Jax's cheeks flush again, his hand lifting to rub at the back of his neck. "Thanks. Been havin' to watch it out in -- in town, the light attracts -- well, s'pretty eye-catchin'. Nice to be able to relax a bit in here." His teeth scrape against his lower lip, wiggling again at a lip ring. "How hard? What's it take for you to do it?" Kelly glanced around the music room and walks over to a potted plant in the corner. "Well, like this, just a little, ok?" he explains before extending his finger towards he base of the little bush's trunk. . . and then his finger goes INTO it! Closing his eyes a moment, the bush starts to grow out much more thickly, growing very green, and soon small white flowers budded from it, well out of season! But as he pulls his finger away, there is a sickly 'crunch' noise, and the finger is bleeding where he touched the plant. He pants a little heavily, and his skin is noticeably lighter shade. His belly rumbles even LOUDER now. "How. . . how bad is it really out there?" Jackson watches this process with widening eye, scraping teeth against lip and then nodding to himself. His brows knit into a frown at the state it leaves Kelly in, though, and he just makes a quiet thoughtful hum to himself. "Might be a good thing t'practice out in the conservatory. But don't overdo it if it hurts you. Jus' -- the food plants gettin' some extra pep to 'em sure wouldn't hurt things none right now." His eye shifts to study Kelly's face for a long silent moment. "It's bad," he answers finally, quiet and honest. "Westchester ain't near so bad as NYC proper, but neither place is in good shape. An' out /in/ the -- in town. It's, um -- s'bad in most every way it could be bad. Can't really go outside without runnin' into the biters. There's some shelters put up, but they don't really take folks like us, so we kinda jus' been collecting people an' tryin' t'keep 'em safe an' fed s'best we can. Folks I been workin' with down at the Mendel Clinic are workin' 'round the clock on a cure for this, though." "If I can help by getting the tomatoes to plump up, you can bet I'll do what I can." Kelly promises Jax, and the look on his face says he means it. "Anything to start balancing the equation on the good side of things, ya know?" But hearing the news about the city manages to slowly rob that smile of his. "How can things ever get better after this?" he wonders, taking a deep breath. "But, you think they can make a cure? For real Will- will it help the biting one?" He's reaching there, hope beyond hope. "I watched them go from no idea what this thing was to a treatment that'll stabilize it in a matter'a days. It's a good team we got workin' on it. An' after this, things -- well. It won't be the same, that's for sure. An' I don't -- think there's much t'be done for most'a those that've died already." Briefly, around Jackson, the light in the room shivers, flickering unstably for a moment and then settling back to normal. "Things can get better, though. It'll take a lot of work. New York's used t'hard work, though." That little note of confidence helps bolster his heart, and the half eroded smile slowly slips back onto his face. "If, well, if you can go out there and see it, and still think we're going to get through it. . . then I guess I gotta, too." he swore, nodding his head as he slowly walked over to the music and switched it off. "And if they do. . ." Kelly says with an even more bashful smile. "Think you can help me sign up for dance classes?" Jax's smile mirror's Kelly's, quick and warm. "Yeah. Yeah, I can. S'a promise." He leans over to pick up the statue again, when Kelly shuts the music off, and nudges the door a little more open with his foot. "Should prob'ly try an' get some sleep. I'll talk with Professor Munroe in the mornin' 'bout you helpin' tend the plants. Prob'ly need t'save your energy for it, but it'd be a huge help 'round here. An' I think some fresh foods after all the canned beans'd lift /everyone's/ spirits some." from: Jackson Holland <littlemisssunshine@xaviers.edu> to: Ororo Munroe <omunroe@xaviers.edu> date: Sat, Nov 16, 2013 at 03:37 AM subject: Gardens Ororo, There's a new student, Kelly, I don't know if you've had a chance to meet yet. He's good with plants -- can help them grow. It does look like using this ability takes a lot out of him, so he should probably be watched carefully to make sure he doesn't overextend himself, but if he could help out in the conservatory encouraging more food from the edible plants, it'd be great in so many ways. A little extra boost to our food stores, practice for him to work on developing his abilities further, plus I think besides the morale boost EVERYONE would get from fresh foods, he'd probably get one, too, from being able to do something concrete to help. Jax from: Jackson Holland <littlemisssunshine@xaviers.edu> to: Charles Xavier <professorx@xaviers.edu> date: Sat, Nov 16, 2013 at 03:53 AM subject: Classes Professor, I know things is still terrible, but with the new medicine the situation's at least stabilized some. I think getting school back in session will be -- an effort with everything still topsy-turvy, but probably good for the students. Now that there's no real active dangers in the hallways, there's not a lot for them to DO except sit around and stress. I know not all of us are really in working condition, but I think enough of us are that most things could start up again. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help get things back in order around here. Jax