ArchivedLogs:Immersion Therapy

Immersion Therapy
Dramatis Personae Ivan, Shelby
In Absentia	2013-02-18 It never works.
Location <XS> Music Room
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. The music room is only soundproofed when people remember to shut the door. Today, Shelby has neglected this detail and it is slightly ajar, allowing guitar notes to drift into the hallway. Rather than resembling actual music, they start and stop and start again, the pauses between each string of chords lengthy--just long enough, in fact, for the girl seated on the window ledge to lean over her guitar and scribble notes down on the paper spread before her tucked up leg. After each notation, Shelby then returns her pencil to its spot behind her ear and bends over the instrument again, fingers repositioned and strings strummed...again. And again. And again. Behold, the creative process! What better invitation is there than an open door? Ivan has been wandering the hall of Xavier's more often than lately, it seems, perhaps to familiarize himself with the place, having only lived here a couple of months and having kept to himself to notorious degrees. He's still an odd one out, but at least he's trying now! By-- walking in on people unannounced, evidently. The door to the music room slides open smoothly and quietly when Ivan presses his hand against it, and when he swings 'round it his eyes are immediately focused on the only other living thing inside. And they stay there, his face neutral. He stands, completely still, save for an arm and hand that pushes the door closed with more sound than he managed to make on his way in. Kerklick. "...why ask...why ask questions...you don't want to hear the answers to..." That's Shelby, singing softly along with the chords she's managed to successfully scribe. Could it be the sound of a Grammy award in the making? Probably not. When the door's latch is heard, all singing and strumming stops. Her head jerks up, her face turns towards the exit and the teenager blanches upon recognizing who's standing there. Between herself and only easily available escape route. Well, /shit/. "Uh..." Her eyes flick left and right. "Hey. Ivan, right?" Ivan cracks a smile at his own name being said, brightly, before it dies down again mere seconds later. Either unaware of the slight discomfort that his presence has caused or pleased that everything is going /exactly according to plan/, he stays exactly where he is, and nods. Ivan. That is correct. It helps that he remains over there. By the door. Which is across the room. Shelby adjusts her seat on the ledge to face him, feet dangling and guitar resting across her lap. She too is silent for a moment, studying him. Then, tentatively, she asks, "You asked Rasa to dance, huh? At the Valentine's thing. That was, uh. Cool of you." Oh but what a shame. It moves. One step, slowly, then two, then a steady beeline right for Shelby, his arms swinging to meet behind his back and stay there. This time, she gets two nods, slightly more enthusiastically. Something dark moves across his face- a shadow from the light of the window, or his gait ever so slightly causing his hair to move, or both. Must've been it. M-hm. Probably. Displaying a complete lack of testicular fortitude, Shelby wiggles backwards until her back is pressed against the panes of the window. The guitar remains before her, shield-like. The look she gives Ivan can only be described as "deeply suspicious". She isn't buying the whole trick of the light thing. At all. "So, uh. Did you want something, dude?" Again her eyes are flicking left to right, more deliberate now in judging potential escape routes. She is distinctly uncomfortable with this proximity thing. "Rasa's in her room. I think. If you wanna go...mack on her or something." With a good few steps left to go, Ivan stops mid-step. His face is still largely neutral, but his eyebrows seem to have drawn closer in concern. It is even more visible when Rasa is mentioned, and his eyes momentarily lift to the ceiling as he ponders. In theory, the probability of macking on your crush is better than frightening a near-stranger. In theory. Alas, in practise, all it eventually gets is a halfhearted shrug, and then a shake of his head to the earlier question. Theoretical consensual macking can happen another time. For now, he decides to sit. In hte middle of nothing but floor. And to stare. At the guitar, first, then at Shelby. Well? Shelby is a little slow on the uptake but eventually gets it, though it takes some puzzled frowning before it clicks. "Oh, shit. You wanna listen? You shoulda said so, man." Not that she sounds /cheerful/ about the prospect of AUDIENCE--or maybe it's the possibility that this audience of one may well be an audience one thousand--but she does resettle herself cross-legged, adjusting her hands on the guitar. "It's kinda crap right now though, I'm still working on it. Hey, you know The Bowery?" There is, in fact, more than one audience member. With this kid, that's sort of a given. But none of the smaller members seem to be interested in seeing Shelby play, at least. Another shake of Ivan's head makes clear that he has absolutely no clue at all, but his eyebrows twitch upward in curiosity. "It's like...it's a big fucking deal. A music venue, you know? Up in Manhattan. And I'm opening for another big fucking deal guy there next month." Shelby adjusts her fingers, finds a chord and drags her thumb down the strings to make the guitar sing out. Prelude to the song that follows, though she picks through it gingerly, given its unfinished state. Her expression sets unhappily. "Except it's not /really/ a big fucking deal. With everything else going on. Ugh..." She pauses for a beat, another chord. "You don't really talk much, huh?" Ivan looks like he's either genuinely impressed, or genuinely good at faking it. Though the smile that slowly comes back to his face seems to hint at the former. His gaze flicks down to Shelby's fingers and the strings of the guitar as she plays, his own expression a contrast to the guitarist - he seems happy just to hear it, whatever stage it's in. This time, the question doesn't even get a shake of his head, only a polite and brief and widening of his smile. "That's okay. I kinda talk enough for everyone," Shelby says with a wrinkling of her nose. Encouraged by either his being impressed or the continued lack of comment, she picks up the pace of the song. It goes from slow and thoughtful to pop culture perky. "Everyone gives me shit about it too. So you must be like, the most popular guy in school, huh?" she asks after the music. This draws the concerned look partly back to Ivan's face, and though his smile stays on his lips, it leaves his eyes. His breathing pauses, if only for a second, before continuing as it had done before. Focus staying on her fingers, he's clearly still paying attention seeing as he follows every move of her dominant hand, but again there is no answer. If he's going to stare at her dominant hand, Shelby means to give him something to stare at. She pauses to flex her fingers, then reaches to the side to grab a pick. What follows is a rollicking bluegrass tune, fast enough to make a blur of both fingers and pick. She has to keep her head down to focus as she plays. All it lacks is a fiddle accompaniment but Shelby holds her own for the next three minutes or so, until she finishes with a flourish and grins at him. "That's okay," she says, picking up the earlier thread of conversation (and non-response). "Me either, so much." Unsurprisingly, Ivan stays contentedly quiet during the performance, arms dropping over crossed legs of his own as he tries to follow which move goes with which sound, only to get desperately lost in all the bustle, face brightening up again as he looks away and up to Shelby's face in defeat. When he catches the grin, he flashes a short-lived one of his own, emphasizing a slighly humbled look. Meanwhile, itsy bitsy spider crawled up the water spout. If the water spout was Ivan's ear and up was down, that is. It's for the best that the spider chose to wait until that moment to appear--the song would have been ruined. As it is, Shelby flattens her hands against the guitar and stares, frozen. Then, with an unfeigned shudder, she chokes out, "Um, dude, you got...you got a thing...it's..." Oh god she can't look it's coming out of his EAR and oh god what if spiders crawled into her ears and and and. But if she looks away, then she might miss something coming towards her so...she chews on her lip. And tries not to blink. "I. I got a thing. About bugs. This one time..." At once, Ivan's eyes widen, the rest of his face falling to a neutral expression again as he looks downward. His shoulders drop and in what may prove to be the worst decision of all time, the spider on his ear and one, two, three four fivesixseven eleven /DOZENS/ of dark specks fall from his clothes and hair to gather on and around him. No, immersion therapy was not the way to go. Nevermind that it's Ivan who is immersed. Shelby can just /imagine/ how that feels, all of them creepy crawling and and and oh god! She makes a choked sound as her throat closes. Her heels beat against the window seat as she scrambles backwards to try to become one with the window. Ivan gets up in a scuffle of arms, legs and a plethora of bugs, which seem to only increase in number as he moves. But he does so quickly, and within seconds of him rising, the small writhing mass of black, brown and red legs, wings and other prickly bits starts moving as though sucked through an invisible vaccuum cleaner. The living minature river flows rapidly to the very OPPOSITE corner of the room before shooting up to the ceiling and staying there. A shiny, shimmering ball of bug, unmoving save for the occasional individual falling to the floor only to crawl or fly back up again. Ivan spreads his arms, smiling once more. He seems proud of himself. Shelby, in the meantime, has curled herself /around/ the guitar and folded her arms over her head. That can't be very comfortable. She is very quietly hyperventilating and repeating, "Oh god," over and over again, therefore missing the triumphant flourish made by the other teenager. When she finally has the confidence to peek through the gap between her arms, she stares at that distant corner as if it were something from a horror movie. Which it IS. "...can you...can you maybe. Not. Do that again?" Oh. Still not good. Ivan's pride sinks back to where it was before, swallowing back what sadness doesn't appear directly on his face. His shoulders get pushed up a little, and for a moment he seems unsure what the next step should be. His attention switches uncertainly between the (mostly) contained bugball and Shelby, before he spreads his arms again. Much less enthusiastically, but still. Look. No bugs. They lower soon afterward with a sigh. "I'm sorry." "It's...it's okay, I mean, shit, it's just...bugs, man, they..." Shelby is slowly but surely getting her breathing under control. She feels no need to move out of the corner she's wedged herself into but her knees do lower. Eventually. A careful eye is kept on the bug ball until something occurs to her. Something that leaves her looking at Ivan, forehead rumpled and lips pursed. "Hey. You /can/ talk." Much better! Ivan gives a nod, then another, perking up again with a short, but distinctly upbeat bzzz-noise emitted from the bug ball. Ivan moves out from between Shelby and the bugs in an attempt to keep her attention on him, nearly tripping on a stray drum on his way there. He rights himself, and quietly answers in a voice both pleading and easily betraying his homeland, "Please do not be scared." Shelby startles and extends a hand when he trips but otherwise makes no attempt to intervene. Or help. Or anything that could take her away from the safe corner. On the plus side, she /is/ looking at him more than she's looking at the bugs, the back and forth glances becoming less frequent. "That's easy for /you/ to say, dude. I mean, fuck...they /love/ you." And that sort of lovin' she wants no part of, shuddering again and rubbing at her arms. "But if you keep 'em over there, I guess...I guess it's okay. Just. Not near me, okay? Capiche?" Ivan grins, lips in a thin line, halfway between amusement and obedience. He promptly stands up as straight as his body will allow him, and salutes somewhat awkwardly. Yes, captain. Behind him, the mass of insects and arachnids seems to tighten further into the corner. "Okay. Okay. That's fine then." Shelby cautiously begins to uncurl--pillbug style, ha!--and sets the guitar aside with a melodic wooden thump. Music time is over, from the look of it. Reluctant amusement tugs a smile back to her face. "You're pretty good, huh? Like a mime. They got mimes in...where is it you're from? Russia? Sounded Russian." Ivan nods his head in confirmation, returning to standing at ease and letting out a sigh of relief at seeing Shelby relax. If only slightly. He clasps his hands together in thought for a moment, attempting to conjure up an answer. "Vyacheslav Polunin. He is more... a clown than a mime. But he is very smart." "Vya..." Shelby gives up after that. Languages are not her forte, as can be seen in the way she rumples her nose. "That's pretty cool, I guess. I mean, if you like clowns. Some people don't." And so the chick who claimed to talk a lot is left stymied by her recent fright and complete lack of cultural knowledge. She fidgets. "I guess, um. I'm sorry for freaking out. It's just. God...you ever been to Florida?" With that, the floodgates are opened. "They got these bugs down there, these roaches except they're not small roaches. They live in the trees and they fucking /fly/. I had to. I had to sleep in this park once. And when I woke up..." The shuddering. There is so much shuddering. There's a timid chuckle from Ivan, probably the loudest noise he's made so far. He fidgets with his hands for a moment, then shrugs. "They will not eat you." Is the only thing he can think to say, before her discomfort causes him to move again, stepping slowly toward the door. The bug ball sloowly lowers after a look from Ivan in its direction, leaving a trail of more slowly obeying insects to follow suit. "I know that!" Shelby sounds wounded--but it is just an act because with bugs, you can never tell. "They were just. All over me. Crawling." Not unlike those little critters now, the lollygaggers trying to catch up to the main ball. Her eyes snap over that way and lock there. She makes an indescribable noise before trying to get herself back together again. "Um. I, uh. Thanks for. Listening. 'n shit. You're pretty cool, dude." Except for the bugs. Blessedly, she doesn't say this aloud. It's implied! But Ivan is used to that. Even when it is not implied, he usually considers it. And he doesn't seem too distraught, really, as the ball of insects disperses into a small cloud, halfway flying and halfway clinging to the floor as it inches its way toward the door as well. In fact, he seems pretty confident about how this little conversation turned out, and he's happy to leave while he's ahead. Well, ahead of scaring the living daylights out of someone, anyway. The door is pushed open once more, and as he and the miniature storm of critters meets in the doorway, half of it seems to assimilate with him while half just disappears out into the hallway. Without looking back, he simply says on his way out, quiet but cheerfully, "Thank you for the music." Shelby watches, and she watches closely. From the door, to the corner, to the floor, making certain that each and every visible speck is dancing right out into the hallway. "Huh? Oh, yeah...no problem, man. Any time, right? Practice makes perfect and all that. I'll, uh. See you around." Sans bugs, she no doubt hopes. With the room cleared, the teenager lets out a slow breath and reaches for her guitar again. Not too long after, the stop-and-go chords start up again.