Logs:Rush Edition

Rush Edition
Dramatis Personae Harm, Nessie, Naomi
In Absentia	2024-04-24 "-- what's the plan, yell at the Professor all day?"
Location <XAV> Naomi and Nahida's Dorm
What was once a generously-sized double-occupancy room is now a reasonably-sized triple room, furniture arranged neat and compact to provide each of the residents a bed, a desk with a hutch, a dresser, and some closet space. Somewhere in the reshuffles of roommates and the opening of Business in this room Naomi has moved her plain bedspreads from the top of the double bunk to the top of the loft bed, claimed the desk closest to the window with neat piles of homework and sheet music, and wedged a beanbag into the corner between her dresser and the wall. The bits of the wall that are hers are decorated with Playbills and concert posters, clothespinned to stringlights that are neatly washi-taped into place. There is a mason jar of drumsticks in her desk hutch, next to a tack up calendar that is still stuck on February. Out in the hall, the post-dinner chatter has an oddly specific bent to it -- more and more every conversation is drifting to Freaktown. It's reports from the students who have been down there the last couple days, it's the videos on tiktok and instagram that are calling for the mutant zone's removal, it's idle chatter about where those kind of mutants should go that progresses into heated arguments. Naomi, already in flannel pajama pants, a loose grey tank top and slippers, doesn't look much like she's eager to head into the gossip. But she's not really focused on her French essay either, distractedly checking her phone and then the ajar door behind her every sentence or so. There's a quiet scuttling outside in the hall, a clicky taptaptap of a knock that pushes the already open door a little wider. Nessie's hard-capped head pokes into the room, the rest of her soon to follow. She has a stack of newspapers tucked into the crook of one arm. The front page of this Oracle edition has no article, but a spread of (quite well-shot) pictures of mutants living and working and protesting in Freaktown under the title: WHO DESERVES A HOME? "Rush edition!" Nessie chirrups, bright, "do you have one yet?" Harm drifts in after Nessie, skimming a copy of the Oracle: Rush Edition that she had presumably just handed them out in the hall. They're dressed in a soft green t-shirt inexpertly screen-printed with an upraised fist clutching a bundle of medicinal herbs and brown linen wrap pants, a black hemp bag slung over one shoulder with a red star of life patch sewn onto it. They fold up the paper and cross the room to drape an arm across their girlfriend's shoulders. "Are either of you going to the sit-in?" "Nah," Naomi says, abandoning all pretense of doing homework, "thanks for the special deliv'ry." She half gets out of her chair to reach for the newspaper, dropping back into it with shoulders propped up on the back of her chair. It's kind of awkward unfolding the sheet with one hand, but Naomi's other hand is very importantly occupied with reaching up and threading her fingers tightly through Harm's. "Sit-in?" She's looking to her partner first, then to Nessie. "What sit-in." Naomi glances down to the photos, and then warily corrects to -- "Where sit-in?" "Here sit in," Nessie answers the second question first, hugging the rest of the papers to her chest once she's delivered Naomi a copy. "Starting tomorrow. Until --" Here her brows furrow just a little. "Well, until the administration does something to help. Of course I'm going. I have gotten too good a look at what happens to people like us on the streets." "It's important, but I might not do a lot of actual sitting-in myself," Harm admits. "If I'm going to cut classes anyway, I may as well go medic." It's hard to pinpoint when in the last few months they started using "medic" as a verb -- it used to just be "volunteer" -- but it seems to come very naturally now. "Hopefully I won't be needed, but..." There's a tension Naomi can feel where their fingers are laced together. "--Thought you was medicking down Freaktown way already." There's a tight worry in Naomi's voice. "We got a wholeass school doctor here, why you gotta --" Naomi's grip around Harm's hand tightens, even as she cuts herself off with a sharp swallow and a glance down at the newsheet. "What y'all want admin to do, then? I been watching all them college occupations, you gotta have clear demands. Loads o' them." "Medicking is way more important," Nessie is reassuring Harm, "we need people helping out from all sides." She bites at her lip, her tail flexing a little bit higher. "Nick and Taylor are my family, it's -- thanks." She's a little more subdued at this but is pivoting curiously to: "Wait what do we need loads of demands for?" She looks slightly confused at this requirement, but is twitching a pincer-arm towards the newspaper regardless. "Anyway we have demands they're in there. We want shelter and safety for Freaktown. Do you have any idea how much a fighter jet costs? But like, a stone's throw from our mansion with tens of millions of dollars of military equipment and a freaking Holodeck we can't help our own people." "I did mean down in Freaktown, but not just for the clinic space. It feels more like..." Harm leans a little harder on Naomi, and pointedly does not finish that sentence. "Obviously the community still needs a clinic, but now there's the protests and counterprotests, too." They nod their agreement with Nessie. "We could do so much more if we had better supplies for wholeass doctors -- and nurses -- to work with." They squeeze Naomi's hand back hard, but they're forcing a smile. "I do alright with no degree and a bag full of bandages. And. Stuff. But we could always use more help!" Almost immediately they're amending it to, "Here, I mean. There's so much you could do to help here, too." Naomi is shifting in her chair, letting the broadsheet fall to floor, to lean back against Harm. "I could go with you, though." This is kind of quiet. "I could keep you safe. Hell, I can steal alla Dr McCoy's supplies for you. Here -- " Naomi's eyes squeeze shut. Probably, at this point, the tight grip Naomi is keeping on Harm's hand might be beginning to hurt. "-- what's the plan, yell at the Professor all day? Has a protest ever happened here? Has it ever worked?" She opens one eye, squinting at Nessie, keeper of the paper and therefore Xaverian history. "Yeah and the Professor has way enough resources here he could help with..." Nessie is starting, but then quiets -- first at Naomi's suggestion of stealing the supplies. Then, brows wrinkling a little further at the rest of the question. She's quiet a moment while she considers, feet clicking soft against the ground as her posture shifts. When she does speak again it's not her usual bright-bubbly cadence but the more carefully polite-measured tone she habitually slips into when talking to Unknown Bogs outside the school walls. "I'm actually really glad to have a lot of people in my life who don't wait until someone else succeeds first to try improving things. I wouldn't have a home if people were like woah, have these real reject monsters had a home before it's crazy to build one for ourselves. We wouldn't have a school if the Professor waited to see who succeeded at building a safe school for mutants before he tried. Thousands of people in Freaktown would have been homeless for years already know if Nick and Taylor and 'em..." She trails off here, and then just shrugs, small. "Oh and there have totally been protests here before. Several! Some worked. Got some rad curriculum changes out of it." She's gotten back to her usual lilt -- if a little apologetically addressed toward Harm when she adds: "Unfortunately Mr. Jax trying to get gender neutral dorms didn't but I do think it's pretty cool he tried. And --" Here only a beat of hesitation before she goes on: "He didn't convince the X-Men to take on Prometheus when he was a student. I think that was worth trying, too. Maybe it would have been better if he gave up from the jump, though. -- I'm real glad you're helping keep people safe, Harm. Thanks." And then with another skitter, she's scurrying away to intercept a girl heading back from the showers, her voice still audible from the hallway as she leaves: "Oh! Rush issue of the Oracle, did you read it?" If Naomi's grip is hurting them, Harm doesn't complain or pull away. "You don't have to steal Dr. McCoy's supplies. Sometimes that's necessary, but this protest is just a respectful but firm dialogue with the administration. They're not out to hurt us or Freaktown, but sometimes older people get set in their ways. They have things to teach us, and we have things to teach them. And if they hear us it'll make a much bigger difference than..." They take a deep breath, and wave to Nessie with their free hand -- well, the hand that's holding the Oracle. "Thank you for your hard work spreading the word!" They look back down at their girlfriend once the diligent journalist has skittered back out. "I...really appreciate you wanting to keep me safe. But I think it would be much more dangerous for you than for me. It's dangerous for Taylor and Nick, too, but they're -- you know." They're still tense, but trying to work past it. "It's not even just the Mongrels, I have the safety squad and protest marshals plus the other medics and a buddy looking out for me, too." They bring their joined hands around as they kneel next to Naomi to kiss her knuckles. "I'll be alright. And you don't have to rock the boat here if you don't want to. I just...they're our people, too. I think it's worth making some noise." Naomi's open eye snaps shut when Nessie mentions Prometheus, shoulders tense. As the other monster-girl leaves Naomi starts to say, soft, "'I didn't even say --'" before biting down hard on her lip. Breath in, breath out -- Naomi's power fades out of Harm's ears. When she opens her eyes again the green in them is dull and unremarkable, the fear in them all too human. "I know it ain't safe, but I'd do it for you." Her head tilts forward, pressing her smooth scales to Harm's forehead. "Here it's jus' -- It ain't like I don't care," she starts again, slow, gaze focused on the place where their hands are entwined. "I love Freaktown, I love our people there an' I'm so scared for 'em, but --" The but is faint, swirling unarticulated doubts and fears almost palpable. "Ionno. Lord knows I could make my voice heard." Somehow, this sounds like thing to be avoided, coming from Naomi. There's a tremor of fear -- guilt -- maybe both in her quiet voice when she asks, "Can you stay here tonight? Please?" "I know you would." Harm's fingertips trace the edges of the scales on Naomi's shoulder. "And I know you care. You don't have to prove anything, or explain anything. But I don't want you to be afraid of yourself, either. I'm not afraid of you." They untangle the fingers and set that hand on Naomi's other shoulder, as if hoping the same healing that relieves the growing pains of new scales could somehow ease the emotional distress their girlfriend is going through. "I know better than to think like this but I still keep thinking, what if tonight's the night they crack down? There's only so much I can do, but that's kind of a lot --" They break off, then pull back far enough to actually look at Naomi properly. "Wait, do you mean like stay here, stay here?" "Stay here," Naomi repeats, adding (with a differently guilty glance towards Nahida's bed) "-- or your room, if that better?" Her shoulders press up into Harm's touch. "If tonight ain't the night, you won't be missing much by sleeping next t' me." If tonight is, Naomi isn't voicing. "An' you'll be all rested for tomorrow. Don't gotta be nothing else." Her hands curl around Harm's wrists. "Jus' tonight." Harm kneads Naomi's shoulders, their brows furrowed in thought. "I want to, I really do. But even if the RA didn't kick me out, it wouldn't be fair to Nahida." They follow Naomi's glance to her roommate's bed, their eyes lingering there longer. "Or my roommates, probably, but even if they're okay with it, I barely know them." When they look back they don't quite meet Naomi's eyes, their wrists tense under her fingers. "If tonight is the night -- I have to be there, Nae." Their lean in and kiss Naomi gently. "I'll always have my phone on me, and if I get arrested Gae will let you know. Not that I'm planning on that!" They add hastily. "But if I do -- I'm a harmless Chinese bog, I'll be okay." Is this reassuring? Naomi does not seem reassured, verbally or physically. She releases her grip on Harm's wrists. "-- love you," sounds kind of resigned. She's not bothering to repeat pleas for Harm to be safe, to come home. Just leaning in for one more -- gentle, only an touch desperate -- kiss. Harm's hands slide up to cradle Naomi's head as they kiss. "I love you, too." Then they pick up the Oracle and push to their feet, but ducks back down to kiss their girlfriend again, for good measure. "And I will be safe," they insist, unprompted, as they slip back out the door.