ArchivedLogs:Stuck in Your Head

Stuck in Your Head
Dramatis Personae Rasa, Shelby
In Absentia	2013-02-10 Rasa returns to Xavier's to find she has a roommate.
Location Xavier's School, Westchester
It has been a long day for Shelby. An interview, a rapid acceptance and now here she is, staking her claim on a room that she's been told she's to share. What her reaction to sharing was is unknown. What /is/ obvious is that she's quickly made herself at home, though fortunately her efforts have been limited to the empty side of the room. The bed is made in generic Xavier's-issue bedding but everything else on that side--what little there is--is all her. There's a rucksack on the desk, toppled over to spill a few items of old, smelly clothing and relatively newer art supplies. There are tubes of paint, several sketchbooks, a pencil box full of chalks and a handful of charcoal pencils. She's sorting through these items, having stripped down to her gold leggings and oversized but thankfully layered tanktops. With her back to the door and her hair up in a sloppy, unwashed ponytail, the colorful pastoral scene that stretches across her upper back is easily visible. Just a little after eight, Rasa appears fresh from the City. Ze's got a smallish duffle with hir backpack slung over hir shoulders, dressed from head to toe with winter gear, including, but not limited to a hat, a scarf, a pair of gloves, a coat, snow pants, and boots. Ze is a eclectic mix of colors, not purposefully, but rather wearing all the hand-me-downs ze can muster. Ze is surprised, first when ze sees that the light in hir room is on, then when ze sees someone in hir room. This person is occupying the empty half and doesn't appear to have touched hir stuff, so it is less of an issue and the figure makes hir way further into the room after hir initial pause. Ze sets hir stuff on hir bed and clears hir throat. "Hi." Surely Shelby had been expecting the other occupant to appear eventually but still she jumps a little at the sound of someone entering. She spins, a pencil clutched dagger-like in one hand, and gives Rasa a good blinking at. "...oh, hey." Her face creases with a bright grin--then that diminishes as she gets a better look at what she can see of her erstwhile roomie. Briefly, she appears uncertain. "Um. Someone told you, right? I mean. I know it's kinda sudden but. I'm, uh. Shelby. They stuck me in here, said I'd be staying here. For awhile. I guess. You're...Rasa, they said?" It is exceptionally hard to get a look at Rasa as hir scarf is pulled up and hir hat is pulled down until there is only a gap of skin showing around hir eyes. Dark hair has managed to wiggle free of hir hair tie and rests against hir cheeks, but it still gives no good sign of what ze /really/ looks like. "Yes. I am Rasa. I expected to be given a roommate eventually, but few people have started in the middle of the year like I have." Hir voice is seasoned with something foreign, but the way ze speaks is definitely first generation American. "Welcome? You do not seem..." ze pauses to look Shelby over, "settled?" Her cheeks go ruddy under the freckles and Shelby ducks her head. "Yeah, well..." She turns back and reaches into the duffel, rummaging until she finds the case for the pencils. "I don't have much stuff, really. The bald guy? He said they'd get me more but for now, uh. I got a guitar coming, when some friends get back," she says, plunking the pencils in the case one by one. "You started in the middle of the year too? Glad I'm not the only one. You're...?" She pauses to look over her shoulder, the grin firmly back in place. "Not from New York? S'okay, I'm not either. You don't mind, do you? Getting stuck with me?" Rasa's side of the room is colorful. Ze's hung up scarves and veils from all over the world, most of them with gorgeous embroidery and rich colors. A couple from Japan and China have animals on them, but that half of the room is definitely more reminiscent of a tent from the middle east. Hir bed is also covered with satiny Egyptian cotton sheets, duvet cover and pillow shams. There is a lot of red and russet browns with some gold highlights in between. "I don't really view it as being stuck." Rasa admits as ze starts to dewinterize herself. Ze starts with the coat, hanging it up on a hook on hir side of the room, and then sits down on the bed to start removing hir boots. "Professor Xavier will take care of you, but that wasn't exactly what I was referring to." Hir boots come off with a little bit of a grunt. "You seem not happy to be here at all. Would you prefer a single room?" "You don't know me very well yet," Shelby says, jokingly. "Give it a few weeks." With the pencils stowed, she begins to open and close drawers in the desk to find The Right One for her art stuff. Another glance goes winging Rasa-wards as she begins to tuck things away. "It's just. Kinda new. Staying with anyone for more than a few days at a time, y'know? Or...or hell, /school/. I haven't been to school in..." She turns back to the desk with a shrug. "Years and years. But I'm here now, so..." "Congratulations?" Rasa continues to strip, sort of. Ze removes the pants and hangs them over the back of hir desk chair, then pulls off the hat, leaving it on the dent of the hook on her jacket. "Did they... talk to you about me when you moved in? Is that a thing they do? Or is this just a thing where we are thrown together and not really... told anything?" Rasa can speak stilted, uncertain English, too! It's exciting. "I have been working on being comfortable enough with myself to express to others that I am uncomfortable with myself. I hope this is okay with you." "We'll see." Shelby makes a little sound that could be amusement, or could be consternation. She is conflicted! The awkwardness is on the rise. The surprise too, which causes her to glance over at Rasa again. "Told me anything?" Her forehead crinkles. "Nnnno, were they supposed to? Oh, wait, you mean 'cause...oh, yeah. Ha!" She gets it! Or so she thinks. The grin reappears, and this time it is deep, genuine and /relieved/. "It's okay. I mean, we're all the same, right? I guess I can show you mine though. Here..." Patting around secures her one of the chalks--bright green!--which she uses against the surface of the desk. In a blink, she's drawn a snowman complete with top hat. As soon as the last line is chalked in, the snowman uses his stick arm to sweep the hat off of his head in a deep bow. "You are an animator!" Rasa declares, hazel eyes wide, bits of amusement showing despite hir scarf'd face. "Nice." Ze hovers a little closer, hir hands on hir knees as ze looks over the snowman drawing. "I saw your art supplies. Are you going to be a painter too? Kind of give your mutation more... gosh, what would you call it?" Ze straightens up and heads back over to hir side of the room. Ze is wearing loose flannel pants and a hooded sweatshirt, horizontal pinstripes on hir top clashing with hir plaid bottoms. At least ze is comfortable. "I guess I'm thinking about putting arms and legs on it so it can do more - you know - with studious application?" Ze moves to sit down on hir bed, crossing hir legs and tucking hir ankles beneath hir thighs. Praise is the best social lubrication. Shelby beams at the acknowledgement. "I work with pretty much everything, y'know? I don't need school to teach me /that/," she boasts, "since it's how I made my living. I painted this too before it got inked on." She swivels here to tap awkwardly at the tattoo spanning her shoulderblades. When she comes back around, the grin has gentled into an easier smile. "I'm here for more...I dunno, the normal stuff, I guess. Math and shit. So I can figure out what I wanna be when I grow up." This is said with an exaggerated tone, all loftiness and bass adulthood. Then she's tossing the chalk onto the desk and making for her bed at a run, to land with much bouncing. "Oof! So...that make you feel better?" On her side, she props her head on a hand and gives Rasa a curious study. "Oh. Well." Despite hir position on the bed, Rasa sits upright, straight spined. Ze makes the appropriate listening noises when Shelby continues to explain and perhaps a noise or two that might indicate ze wanted to get a word in edgewise, but ze doesn't pursue it or interrupt. When all is said and done and Rasa is left with the question, hir brows are high, high, high on hir forehead. "OH. Well." Ze contemplates. "I wasn't exactly worried... about you." Ze looks a little sheepish and hir skin turns a faint pink color wherever it is visible. The color is not at all natural. Shelby's eyes move rapidly, following the spread pink. Her own brows hike up as well. "Are you like a chameleon?" she guesses. "Or...no, you're not sitting in front of pink. Are you...a rainbow?" The suggestion is only half-serious. The teen shifts to both elbows and flashes another grin across the space between their beds. "It's okay if you're still figuring it out. I mean, hell, it took me /years/ to get over the bullshit that happened when I came out of the mutant closet, y'know?" Because she's completely recovered! Uh huh. "I'm not gonna freak out, I promise. I know lots of folks like us and we're all weirder than the last." "Oh, I know lots of people like us too. I've been at the school longer than you. We're all mutants here." Rasa shrugs a little, head bowing a little. "Sometimes, I think I have conflicting mutations rising up inside of me and warring with each other." Ze lifts hir right hand and it turns blue, spreading from that limb, up hir neck and across the visible portions of hir face. "Both are half formed though, and both are demanding of my body's attention." The left hand is then lifted, flooding a red color up the other side so that the colors swirl in the middle, like paint in milk, affecting even the whites and irises of hir eyes. "Neither is especially good at anything except making me look strange, attract attention, and embarrass the fuck out of me." "Oh wow..." It's the artist in her that causes Shelby to rise up on one hand, so she has a better vantage to study the changes to Rasa's appearance. Her eyes have widened but less with surprise than a sense of being impressed. "That'd make it hard to pass, for sure," she allows, "but it's pretty fucking cool, too. I'd kill to be able to just think my hair pink and bam, there it is. What's the other mutation? The fighting one?" "Nothing really stays. It just... flares up." Rasa admits, dejectedly. Ze sighs and drops hir hands, the color shifting slowly back to something a little more flesh toned, but bronzish. "The words are a real problem." Brows rise and fall as ze moves hir feet out form under hir as ze gets up to start unpacking hir back. All of hir clothes are clean and folded for some reason. Ze puts them into hir dresser drawers. "That's a bummer," Shelby says with apparent sympathy. Her eyes follow, flicking over both roomie and the clothes as they disappear into each drawer. "I know Jax kinda has that problem. I mean, the nothing staying, since he works with light. My stuff'll stay once I stick it somewhere, but if I stick it on /someone/ then it fades. Kinda like rub on tattoos, y'know?" The teen swings herself into a cross-legged position but sits with spine bent instead of upright, as Rasa had been. "How do you mean, the words? You mean like talking? You sound fine to me." "You know Jax?" Rasa is stuck on this. Ze pauses for a moment, still registering consternation as ze tries to form other thoughts. "The words are complicated. I am sure you know how the human mind works, right? Things are constantly milling around and coming to the surface. You think of one thing and it's right on top, but there's always this layer of other stuff just beneath the surface." Ze maintains a level of discomfort while speaking, moving around to keep unloading hir bag so that ze has things to do. When the laundry is done, ze turns to hir bookbag. Ze starts filling hir desk. "You can try, I guess, to remember everything you're thinking at any given time, but it appears and disappears so quickly that you don't really keep anything in your mind but the thing you are focused on. Sound about right?" "Sure." Just that, and nothing else. Shelby is displaying a rare moment of courtesy, waiting until Rasa decides to fill the silence with the rest of the answer she'd requested. When it comes, she isn't disappointed for the effort--thank god here is something she can understand! "Yeah, I totally get that," she claims, tapping her fingers aimlessly against her knees. "I hang out with a telepath too. Try not to think /too/ much about all of the shit he must be picking up on from me." This is a wry confession. "One mutation likes to use my other mutation to dump whatever I am thinking and feeling all over my skin." Rasa admits turned away, hir turning a strange shade of metallic silver. Hir hands appear to be the same color. "If I don't concentrate, all those stray thoughts end up broadcast all over my face... and other parts." Shelby's eyes go round and she breathes, "Ooooh," as she really and truly Gets It. The round eyes are followed by a sudden wince, no doubt spurred by imagination--just what would show up on /her/ skin if she were so afflicted. "Damn. Yeah, that would...well, that would just plain /suck/," she goes on with every appearance of grave sympathy. "Could you like, use the color stuff to cover up the writing, match the shade or whatever, or can't you tell when it happens?" Rasa shakes hir head. "Not really. The thing is that my mutation is too keyed into the unconscious part of my mind instead of the conscious. Yes, I can concentrate and change myself when I want to, but who concentrates all the time?" Ze turns and looks at Shelby, all of her body looking the color of quicksilver. "So I try to think 'don't think! Don't look like anything. Imagine something cool, solid, and impenetrable,' and then I look like this until I forget to think it." Ze pulls out hir chair and sits, sideways on the seat, leaning one arm on the back of the chair. "Have you ever really tried to control what you think?" "Hell, half the time I don't even really control what I /say/." Shelby's grin is brief. This is a serious moment, after all, and she slides back into that frame of mind after this attempted joke. "So you're here to figure out how to get a handle on all that, huh?" Her gaze roams over silver hands, silver face. "Not that that's a bad look or anything but yeah, that'd get old pretty fast." "I'm here because it's better than the streets," Rasa says flatly. "I'm fifteen and can't control my physical form. No one wants me. Parents are paying top dollar to be far, far away from me." Ze slowly unwinds hir scarf and lets it rest on hir desk in a little pool, biting on hir lip. "But half the kids here are like that, so... yeah." Color starts to return to Rasa's face, warming hir skin to a bronze color while hir hair darkens into a near black brown. Hir eyes become the normal shade of hazel. "But the real reason why I am telling you any of this is because we live together and some times I don't think nice things and if you see anything offensive, I should apologize ahead of time, especially if I am being bitchy about you." Shelby cocks her head. "The streets aren't /that/ bad," she says stoutly, of some bizarre sense of needing to defend...something. Her own background, possibly. But she is given pause by the end of Rasa's explanation. It leaves her looking both shrewd and thoughtful as she studies the other teenager. "If it helps any, I don't read so fast." No, wait. She waves off the joke. "We all get PMS now and then, right? I can't promise /I/ won't be bitchy either. Hell, I've been on my own for...what...three years now? Four? This whole roomie thing is gonna be weird. If you hate it or if I hate it or if we hate each other, we can, uh. Ask to be moved. Right? They let you do that?" "I am sure that the school will accommodate us if there are big issues." Rasa agrees, but looks disheartened. "I was an only child and drove my parents to hate me. It is ... not something I want to do again." Ze turns to face the right way in hir chair, looking at the top of hir desk. "I try not to show too much skin, so you probably won't have any problems." "Parents are assholes." On this, Shelby is certain. "Hell, I got thrown out and all I did was make some paintings move around. All these years and I bet they didn't even look for me after I took off." All these years, and apparently it's enough that she can discuss it casually. She studies the back presented to her, expression curious. "It was your room first, you should be able to walk around naked if you wanted to. I mean...seriously, Rasa, I don't give a shit if you think mean things at me. /Everyone/ thinks mean things at me. /I/ think mean things at me. It's kind of a...what do you call it. A trend. All the cool kids are doing it." "Yes, but having a song stuck in one's head is a special kind of torture." Rasa offers, turning to look at Shelby. "Oh man, you didn't say anything about /songs/," Shelby says, holding her hands up in surrender. "I fucking give, transfer me /now/." After a brief but dramatic pause, she adds, "...maybe I should ask what sorta music you listen to, first." "It doesn't matter what music I listen to - it's the shitty stuff you accidentally overhear that gets stuck." Rasa is firm about this. "Worst stuff? Theme songs to children's TV shows. Ugh. Winnie the Pooh is like kryptonite." Ze shakes hir head again and leans forward, resting hir head on hir propped up arms. "And don't get me started on Mr. Rick Astley." Shelby rests her elbows on her knees and folds her hands in a straight line between her chin. Her grin has reappeared in all of its gap-toothed glory. "So like, now's a bad time to mention that I'm sorta /really/ into music, huh? Once my guitar gets here, I'm gonna have to practice all the time. I got a big show in a month." "Oh." Rasa draws hirself up and looks over at Shelby again, considering. "We should... have rules." And thus it begins. "I don't know what, but um. Music? All the time?" And the bronze hue of hir skin turns metallic. "Well, not /all/ the time. I mean, I'll have classes and stuff. And when it gets nicer out, I can take it outside." Shelby also considers, keeping her chin on her hands and lifting her eyes to the ceiling. "I got a list of the rules, and the no noise after ten thing. But yeah, I'm opening at the Bowery so I gotta practice. A lot." "They have music practice rooms that are nicely sound proofed for that kind of thing," Rasa explains, wetting hir lips. The talk of the Bowery goes right over hir head. Shelby straightens up, reaching under her left arm to scratch at her ribs. "So, uh. Like...no music in here ever?" "I didn't say that." Rasa replies, inhaling deeply. "I just said there are rooms for lots of practice." Ze gets up and turns hir chair to face Shelby, hands remaining on the sides of the seat where ze gripped it to move it. "Who knows, maybe you play magnificently and I'll want to listen all the time. It's just... show practice, well, isn't that like the same thing all the time, stopping every two minutes when you don't have the fingering just right so that you can retry the same measure over and over again? Yeah. They have rooms for that kind of practice." "Sooo, no practicing in here ever," Shelby says slowly. She is looking less than thrilled, eyeing Rasa as if expecting her to sprout spikes or tentacles or something. "Okay, any other rules you wanna throw at me?" "I didn't say that." Rasa eyes Shelby in annoyance. Black lettering starts streaking down the side of hir face. The text is small and hard to read from this distance, but the words end up covering half of hir face before ze realizes they are there and starts blacking the letters into smudges. "Don't you ever just play for fun?" "Yes you did!" So the great start seems to be petering out. Shelby notices the text--how could she not?--but just as she squints to get a better look, they go all smudgy and she huffs. "You said no show practice up here, you want me to take it all the way to these other rooms. Not that I /mind/ doing that," though her tone suggests otherwise, "some of the time. I mean, if you're having study or quiet time or whatever in here, sure. And I play plenty for fun but the /Bowery/. It's a big fucking deal, you don't even know. This is like.../the/ place for /any/ musician to play in New York." "You said no practicing in here ever. I said something about how annoying show practice is, guessing at how you do it." Rasa inhales deeply and eyes the other teen. "Look, if you want me to preemptively hate you, you're doing a good job of it." Ze speaks quietly and carefully, trying to be diplomatic. "You brought up your practicing like it's going to be a problem. Then you jumped to no music and then no practicing like I'm banning you from the room for daring to own a guitar. Why are you sensitive about this?" Shelby's eyebrows draw together. "That's now how I remember it, you said there needed to be rules as soon as I said I was a musician. I got no problem with rules," she lies, "but yeah, if you don't want me practicing chords and stuff for the show in here, /ever/, it's gonna be a problem. You...what's the word. Implied. You implied no music, which is pretty harsh, dude. If you're gonna hate me for getting upset about that though..." She flops a hand about in a 'go for it' sort of gesture. "I didn't imply anything. Saying I implied something doesn't actually justify you jumping to conclusions." Rasa is blunt as ze attempts to explain. "Besides, the only rule I was thinking of was a time limit - Stuff could be quiet after 10pm or something. Or we could go with the dorm rules of 10:30." Rasa exhales and rubs hir hands against hir thighs as ze looks over at the bed. "I can study just as easily in the library. I never said anything about no music." Nervousness is a shallow disguise for the frustration that Rasa feels as the words 'why the fuck would I ban your music before I heard you play, asshat' is scratched as if in black marker across hir cheek and down hir neck. Shelby's eyes cut to the side, away from Rasa's gaze--oh yes, she's seen those words. Her eyes narrow. But, having /implied/ not long ago that she'd be fine with unspoken insults, she is now set up to prove it. A breath is drawn in through her nose and then released slowly. "10's a good time," she says. "Any later than that and I'd look like an asshole." Asshole! Not asshat! "And I wouldn't be in here doing it /all/ the time. One of those soundproofed room'sd have better acoustics anyway." "They do. Yes." Rasa agrees, the words dripping down hir skin until they disappear in the milky color of hir cheek. "Okay then." Shelby pushes herself up off of the bed and crosses to the desk to resume hauling her (few) possessions out. Places must be found for them! "So how about if I /am/ in here, show practicing, and it's bugging you, you ask me to stop and I do." "That would get catty," Rasa announces circumspectly. "It might work the first time or the second time, but then you'd start to wonder if I'm just being a bitch and if I can't stand the way you play." Ze considers quietly. "Maybe we'd just have a repetition rule. If you try something three times and it doesn't work, whether that's one part of a song or the whole song, you choose the practice room." "Well yeah, if it happened /every/ time." Shelby shoots a look over then heaves a huge sigh and shakes her head. "And that'll be like every time too. Fuck it, I'll just stick with the practice room. Once I figure out where it is, and if B ever gets my guitar here. He should be back by now, I oughta text him," she mutters, sifting her cellphone out of the wreckage strewn over the desk. With that done, she proceeds towards the door. "Oh, and yeah, might wanna think about rules about guys while I'm gone," she adds, just to stop Rasa's heart. "The dorm already has rules about boys in the room." Rasa announces flatly, letting Shelby go. Ze turns back to hir desk and finds one of hir text books to open... and stare at. "You know that one doesn't have to leave the room for texting." "My ringtone is really /repetitive/," is Shelby's parting shot before she slips outside.