ArchivedLogs:...again

...again
Dramatis Personae Ivan, Sebastian
In Absentia	2014-04-08 Part of Perfectus TP
Location <XS> Rasa and Sebastian's Dorm - FL2
A standard, if comfortable, dorm room. Two beds, two closets, two desks. 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. Sebastian's half is -- fairly boring. Plain blue sheets on the bed; his desk tends to carry a large assortment of books (tidily stacked) at any given time, as well as a large assortment of clean white bones, often in the process of being rearranged into some sculpture or other. There's often a guitar in its case resting up against the side of the desk. His closet and dresser tend towards mess, comfortable hiking-type clothes in a fairly drab assortment of blacks and greys and neutral earth-tones spilling out of them. It is brightened up somewhat by the artwork on the walls, a handful of paintings in the same whimsically surreal style. Classes have only recently ended for the day. Bastian's just settling back into his dorm, flopped out on his bed with his backpack dropped down on the floor beside it. He's a little droopy-exhausted, gills fluttering slowly, eyes fixed upward -- not at the ceiling but at the holographic projections of his computer, conveniently turned up above him so that he doesn't have to move from his lying position to read through his work email. He's dressed far nicer than he has been in days past. No more thrift-store jeans and t-shirts. Instead, a hiphugging pair of pale grey slacks, boot-cut and very faintly pinstriped, paired with a deep purple sleeveless top, a long-sleeved wrap tied crossways over top. He doesn't seem to be doing a very good job at paying /attention/ to his email. Kind of staring more /through/ it than reading it, blank and numb. Suddenly, the silence is broken by something decidedly less than organic - prompt and without warning, a catchy melody cascades from a device left on top of the collection of colours that is Rasa's bed. The screen lights up to show a Skype call doing its best to get picked up, though the user on the other side hasn't taken the effort to create an icon for themselves. Not that clarity is really needed; The tablet is courteous enough to mention that an Ivan Dorofeevich Vorobyov is waiting for his call to be accepted. And may continue to try and do so for a while. It takes a long moment before Bastian turns his head towards the sound of the melody, /puzzled/ at first -- he gives the first glance to /his/ phone, sitting beside him still and silent before realizing that it is not, in fact, jangling. Neither is his tablet, over on his desk. Only belatedly does he slide out of bed to pad in socked feet across the floor, brows wrinkling together as he investigates the source of the noise. He tips his head in uncertainty at the screen, cautiously swiping at it like perhaps he's forgotten how to /operate/ technology using more traditional controls. Or, okay, really like perhaps he's just tentative about touching Someone Else's Stuff. His face appears in the camera, timid-uncertain, his pitch-black eyes widened to kind of freakish-enormous proportions that dominate a disconcerting proportion of his narrow face. PEEK. "Er -- Hi?" "/Rashka/. Privet!" Ivan's voice can be heard then, ever so slightly more cheerful and louder than most people amay be used to from him. "I did not have work today, because last night there was an accident." There is almost no pause between this sentence and the next as he rummages, "-- The man was fine, do not worry. But the equipment, it was damaged and..." Then, he pops properly into view, having - from the looks of it - freshly pushed away a sibling. The faint amusement in his otherwise fairly expressionless face dissipates the moment his eyes unexpectedly scan over Sebastian's face. And he freezes, his tone a little flatter when he replies, a little confused-sounding, "... Hello. I am sorry. How-- are you hello." "Oh -- I --" Sebastian's eyes have opened still wider, through this. He's just -- staring at Ivan's face, his gills fluttering faster. "Ivan. Hi. I -- Rasa's not." He swallows, his hand waving at -- nothing. The room at large. His voice is -- also a little flatter, less confused, more nervous. "... how are you?" All at once a few voices in the background pipe up, foreign and harsh in the Russian tongue. But through none of them seem aimed in Ivan's direction, it does appear to bring some life back to him as he takes a deep breath and offers a weak smile. He's either gotten good at faking them, or it's genuine. "I have been well. All things considered." He seems keen to change the subject, pointing a few fingers at the side of his own neck while his head angles ever so slightly. "Are they supposed to do this?" Gills. Doing a thing. Why. Confusion slowly ebs over into curiosity. "N -- no, not on land. I mean, they do it under -- underwater. It's how I breathe?" Sebastian's voice is a little bit fluttery, kind ot hitched like his breathing /now/ is not quite steady. "But on land it doesn't -- exactly work, um. It just -- sort of happens, my lungs aren't -- very smart. When I'm excited or --" His cheeks flush a little darker, head tipping to look off towards Rasa's desk for a moment. "Or upset. Um. Is it late over there?" There is a pause from Ivan's end, if only for a couple of seconds. Then, he states, "Mammal lungs have to do a very complicated thing to help you breathe and talk. You are still talking, so they are doing well." Then, he looks over his shoulder for a moment, as if mirroring Sebastian's divertion of attention. "It is late here. But there are always siblings awake - they are watching the news with father." He looks back toward the screen again, lifting a hand to rub calmly at one of his eyes. "Did Rasa forget hir tablet?" "They just -- forget, a lot. That I'm in air and keep trying to gillbreathe." Sebastian is kind of nervous-rambling, a little too fast, a little too pointless-chattery. His gills flutter faster, his eyes turning back to fix on the tablet. He gives his head one very -- very small shake. Then a slower but more defined one. "Rasa's -- Rasa's not here. Ze's --" This time, the crack in his voice isn't a breathless-flutter bit a definite /hitch/, unsteady-wobbling. He pulls in a breath, shakier. "Something -- something happened." The combination of rambling, gill-fluttering and unsteady voice on that end of the video call appears to only add to Ivan's head-tilted curiosity. Something about it all just seems to cause him to crack a smile that doesn't quite seem to know whether it's welcome on his face. He tries to hold it back, honest, but fails to. Until-- that last sentence causes the half-hidden amusement to drain from his eyes entirely. Again, he takes a few seconds to respond, as though there's a lag bubble between the two. "I can call back when ze is there." When he does finally reply, it's matter-of-factly. "Tomorrow? Or I can send a message." He starts to lean to the side again, looking for something - like a phone. "I can ask hir. It is okay." Sebastian shakes his head again, more definitively this time. "No. No, no. I don't know. I don't --" He lifts both his hands, pressing them down against the fluttering gills at the side of his neck to forcibly /push/ them flat. His enormous-wide eyes close, opening again to a slightly more reasonable state. "I think ze's in trouble, Ivan. Something -- ze might have been." His voice isn't unsteady, anymore, just quiet, though shed of its nervous-rambling the soft note of fear in it is all the more present. "There's been people kidnapping mutants." He /frowns/, here, deeply, before adding, "... again." For all that's being said, Ivan does not appear to be... reacting to it in any major way. He's got his phone in both hands now, looking down at its screen as he taptaps away at it with his thumbs. "Again." He repeats, a little absently, his face stuck on what's left of his ill-timed smile as he mumbles, "Kidnapped." A moment later he has lifted his gaze to his PC screen again, though he doesn't appear to be looking at Sebastian so much as the rest of the screen, his hand on the mouse to the side. Click. Click. Click click. "Sebastian." Still quite absent, but firmer and a little clearer now. "Can you do me a favour. Only a small one but it is very important." "Yes, there's been a -- this cult that -- takes mutants and -- I guess they're trying to steal -- powers. /Make/ themselves mutants, I don't. Really know how it works." Sebastian's brows have knitted back together, creased deeply as he studies Ivan's face. "I -- can try?" He doesn't sound like he's very certain. His sharp teeth dig in against his lip, gnawing there slowly. "What -- what favor?" Though Ivan's smile remains - if it can be called that, dead as it sits there on his lips now - he does not /sound/ happy. But his tone is steady enough, eyes once more fixed on the webcam just above. Unblinking. "I will write my phone number in the chat if you do not have it. If Rasa-" And suddenly he stops, swallowing as a voice sounds from somewhere behind him in complaint and breaks his concentration. For a moment, he seems to be studying Bastian's face right back, all while his own features remain frozen. Save for that eensie /twitch/ of his jaw. "If ze comes back or is found safe before... 8 in the evening tomorrow, can you contact me?" With that, he pushes his hands to his chair, as if ready to get up after he waits to get his answer. "Oh." Sebastian blinks, a glassy shift of inner eyelid that is only belatedly followed by his outer ones. "Right. Yes, I'll -- of /course/. I'll do that. I'll contact you as soon as -- as we know. Find hir. Or ze comes back. Everybody's looking. I'll --" He swallows, just nodding and lowering his eyes. "Right." "Thank you, Sebastian." And yet, ready as he was to leave, Ivan sits a moment longer. As if only to stare directly at the screen without truly knowing why. Finally, he rises from his seat and only /then/ reaches to close the window. "I am sorry. You are a good person. Please be calm now. Thank you." And without waiting for a response-- Boop. Gone. And, as promised, a number in the chat adjacent. 'k', comes the answer, a short while after. 'b in touch.' And then nothing more.