Logs:Dos

Dos
Dramatis Personae Avi, Nevaeh
In Absentia Harm, Spencer	2023-05-14 "Ion even know how to take care of me."
Location <PRO> W(rec)k Room E-19 - Lassiter Research Facility - Ohio
The sign by the door says "Rec Room", but someone with a permanent marker bookended the first word with "W" and "k" at some point, and the subsequent effort to undo the vandalism was lackluster. Inside it looks little different from dozens of other rec rooms in the complex, solidly furnished and in good repair, rarely an actual wreck, though it might be more interesting if it were. A large flatscreen television mounted on the wall dominates the space, with rows of folding chairs arrayed before it and many more stowed in the closet except on movie nights. The rest of the space is divided about evenly between reading and "activity" areas. A long sectional sofa brackets off the former, leaving the wallspace free for tall shelves, largely stocked with supermarket checkout paperbacks (about half James Patterson by volume, with Danielle Steel heavily represented). The latter plays host to several sagging card tables ringed with yet more folding chairs, supplied by tall shelves of games (mostly playing cards, chess, and Monopoly, variously missing pieces) and art supplies (a lot of crayons and pencils and markers, with some dried out paints and crunchy brushes). Nevaeh is sitting at one of the wobblier card tables pushed of to the side, laying out a game of...is it a game of solitaire? She seems be playing it with herself, at any rate. Her scrubs hang very loose on her, not the first time this week it's become evident Lassiter does not have an extensive stock of items in her size. She turns up a card and regards the three of clubs very seriously before considering the other cards laid out before her and gingerly laying it down overlapping the seven of diamonds. It's hard to say any of the kids really fit into a place like this, but, Avi is trying his best. His clothes fit, at least, and he has managed to finagle his way into some sort of tenuous friendship(?) with a small knot of young black teens mostly a few months in from juvie and, regrettably, mostly soon to be scattered back out across the network of labs. Such is life here. This ephemeral not-quite-week-long friendship has scored him a high prize, which contraband he is hiding in one loosely cupped hand as he ambles over to seat himself across from Nevaeh. "I hope you winning." He turns his hand over to offer up his crown jewel, held on a palm -- a pair of Starburst, one yellow and one pink. He's plucking the yellow one for himself before holding the other out to Nevaeh. Looking up at Avi's approach, Nevaeh's wide eyes make her look even younger than she is. "Can't tell yet," she replies softly, and then, perhaps worried he didn't even hear, repeats a little louder, "I can't tell yet." Maybe she was going to elaborate, but if so the offer of Pink Starburst has pushed the explanation clean out of her mind. "Oh wow, thank you!" This is kind of hushed, as she takes the candy. "Did you want to play...something?" She looks over at the board game shelf somewhat dubiously. "I don't really know that many card games." "Naw?" Avi looks down at the cards, not over at the board games. He's palmed the yellow Starburst back; he hasn't eaten it but it's vanished somewhere into the folds of his pocketless clothing. "I can teach a couple. One thing 'bout army bases, errybody know from card games. Swear I learned Spades before I learned to walk. I let you in on a trick, though," and here he's leaning in closer like he's got a great secret, "you can totally play Uno with a regular ol' card deck, you don't even need those special ones. It's a scam to make Big Uno more money. Wanna see?" Nevaeh is slowly picking open the wrapper of her candy and popping it into her mouth. Possibly her eyes are just always that big, but they get a little wider at Avi's great secret. "Really? Yeah! No wait!" She looks down at her opaque possibly-solitaire game, transposes a stack topped with the three of hearts with another topped with the ace of hearts, then gathers all of the cards into into a pile and tries with only some success to square them. "Okay now you can show me." Her cheeks darken slightly and her eyes dip to the messy deck she's pushing over to Avi. "This one's got all the cards." "Aight, see." Avi is sweeping the cards up, only half bothering to neaten them up before he gathers a number into his hand, riffling through them to find an ace and a set of face cards. "Numbers is numbers, suits is colors. Jack here," he's laying the card down as he speaks, "he a skip. Two players you don't need no reverse. Can play it on his suit or another Jack. Queen, she's draw 2. Same deal. King, he's wild, you play him any time, change the suit. Ace --" He's holding up the Ace of Spades here, between two fingers with a small waggle. "Now that's the wild draw four, you can play that mofo any time too, sucker punch your opponent --" His smile is just a little crooked here as he adds conspiratorially, "but I'd guess you'd have to be real careful dropping that bomb in a place like this. Like daaaang you want things to get rowdy-rowdy? Bold move, might have to save it for the other Rec. I'd have your back if you was feeling brave though. Some game." Neveah listens raptly, looking hard at each card he holds up as if trying to commit the equivalences to memory. "Whoa, and it's really the right number of cards?" She peers at the deck and smiles a slow uncertain smile. "I feel like you just pulled some kind of magic trick. Changed one kind of cards into a different kind." Her expression falls. "Last time I was feeling brave, it turned out pretty terrible for -- errybody." She's struggling gamely to hold herself together, but doesn't quite manage a smile along with, "Don't wanna get you in trouble by having you beat up that whole other Rec." "Wellllll..." Avi considers this, sucking in at his cheeks. "S'a just fine number to play with." He gathers the cards up, starts shuffling them, but in a slow and lazy overhand. "That's just a tiny magic, it ain't nothing much. I think any time we take a chance for people, do something to try and help em out, that's some magic you're making. You know..." His eyes drop to the cards, then lift back to Nevaeh. "My dad's a medic, he go some real dangerous places. Try to keep people safe. He knows what risks he's taking and he do it anyway. That's real brave. Some people are just like that. Work that hard for everybody else around them. He chose that, cuz he's a good person and he care about people, you know? Wouldn't make it hurt less if anything happened, but I'd know --" His lips press together, and he taps the edge of the cards down against the table, setting them back into a neat square. "Well. One thing I'd know is that it'd be all the more important then. Stick with other folks who gonna look out for each other, too." His nose wrinkles, his smile just a little twist of a thing. "Guess it don't mean we gotta start brawls in the rec room, though." Nevaeh swallows hard and looks down at the stained tabletop. "It sure felt like we were pulling off some pretty great tricks, for a while there. I didn't look for y'all, you know. The visions." She shrugs, one skinny shoulder almost poking through the collar of her oversized scrubs. "They just come to me, show me how you can help. I just never saw you helping this way." She eyes the bored guards by the door and asks, in a hushed voice, "Your dad a mutant, too? Like Harm?" Avi shakes his head. "There's a lot of ways to take care of people. People do it all the time, with or without superpowers. In here, we gonna have to figure out the without way. Spence'n'em, they're working on it. Making sure we're all --" He scrunches his face up, momentarily. "I'm not gonna say some dumb crap like everything happens for a reason. Things are gonna hurt, and we're gonna be here much as we can, you know? And top of that, jail's gonna be jail no matter what but I'm sure we can figure out some tricks to get through it. And after that -- maybe you don't always have to know what the future's gonna do. Maybe you just gotta take care of you for a bit, too." For a moment Nevaeh looks like she is definitely going to cry, but she breathes through it slow, and just nods, again and again and again. It takes her the space of several more breaths before she's able to continue. "I never knew what the future was gonna do. If I did, we wouldn't be here now. Ion even know how to take care of me." She swallows. Very, very quietly, "Brendan always did that." "I know," Avi says, real quiet, too. "Cuz I got a baby sister. Round your age, I think. Looked after her since forever. And if anything ever happened to me --" He's set the cards down, his hands folding on top of them, squeezing down tight against the soft and well-worn edges of the pack. "I'd just be real glad if someone made sure she was aright." He swallows, and cuts the cards. "How bout a game of Uno?" Nevaeh is still blinking her eyes clear, and keeps them fixed on Avi's hands. "You better take care of you, too, then. She should never have to feel like I do, no matter how many folks she got looking after her." She swallows, too, and sits up a little straighter, finally looking back up at his face. "Yeah. But don't think I'm gonna go easy on you just cuz you have my back."