ArchivedLogs:No Good News

No Good News
Dramatis Personae Derek, Jax
In Absentia	2015-11-10 'Just hit me with it.' (Part of Flu Season TP.)
Location <XS> Conservatory
Tall panes of glass keep this large indoor garden warm year round. Tended to by the school's groundskeeper, the conservatory is lush with plant life, a carefully cultivated paradise within Xavier's walls. The room serves as a classroom as well; in the center of the garden a ring of seats forms a small circle, a favorite locale for some teachers to hold court. The conservatory is a nice quite place to hide indoors when it rains as it seems today not a lot of students have opted to take their lunch among the greenery. The sound of light rain hitting the glass is almost therapeutic combined with the smell of wet dirt and the various scents the plants emit. Off to one of the sides, Derek has pulled one of the chairs over so that he can eat his lunch while gazing outside. A plate with a stack of ham and cheese sandwiches along with a large bottle of water sits at his feet, ignored at the moment for a bag of potato chips. A book on ASL sits open on his lap and Derek's eyes are concentrating on that, trying to learn the signs while shoving salty fried potato goodness in his mouth. Into the grey of rainy-day and the green of the conservatory plantlife, Jax is a bright beacon of colour; rainbow colour-blocked sweatshirt, purple skinny jeans, tall stompy boots, a green tee shirt printed with images and text from the Lorax ('unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.') He has a messenger bag slung over his shoulder, glittery purple nails drumming restlessly against it. Green eyepatch, today (there's an embroidered hummingbird sewn into it, though unlike normal sewing his hummingbird is /flitting/ in the middle of the patch, just as restless as the drumming of his fingers); his other eye is skipping restlessly around the room until he finds Derek, heading towards the teenager. A blocky caption-window appears underneath him, text printing slowly inside it in large block letters. 'Hi. Can I interrupt?' The words catch him by surprise and Derek looks up, giving Jax a smile in greeting. He gives a wave followed by a nod before fishing around for his notebook and pencil. The chips and book are placed on the ground before he starts to scribble a response. His handwriting messy but legible - 'Sure, just trying to learn all this sign language stuff.' 'Sign good,' Jax signs back with a nod. 'Better.' He takes a chair of his own, setting his bag on the ground beside it once he's sat down. The writing appears beneath him again, after this, bolder and brighter than they had been before. 'How are you feeling?' Not just an idle question, in the current atmosphere. 'Okay' is the first word that Derek writes before crossing it out and starting again, pausing before writing a few words trying to sound them out phonetically in his head. 'I cot this thing going around. No saprize since I've been around others who are sick. Fisically, I'm feeling better." He stops again, chewing on the end of his pencil, thinking about the words he wants to put down on the paper. 'Worried I guess.' There's a visible slump to Jax's shoulders at this news, settling more heavily downward in time with a few wispy coils of shadow that creep up along his forearms, twining snakelike up his limbs until he /shakes/ them off and they disperse. 'No surprise,' he agrees, despite the worry clearly etched into his own face. 'I wanted to come talk to you because I promised I'd tell you if I heard anything. Don't have any good news to give, though.' The word 'good' is written somewhat bolder than the rest of his letters. Derek gives Jax a confused look for a bit before giving him a faint smile as if to tell the older mutant not to worry. Yet he doesn't respond right away and there's a faint earthquake-like rumble that shakes the room for a few seconds. He can't help but be a bit nervous about whatever news Jax has. 'That was fast.' Derek runs a hand through his hair and takes a deep breath before writing again. 'Just hit me with it.' Jax tenses at the rumbling, hands clenching in his lap. Around him there's a brief flare of light, fluttering in a shimmer of prismatic colours and then vanishing. It takes a moment before his caption-window returns, slightly less crisp around its edges than it had been. 'One of the other teachers here went to a hospital to get treated for this sickness. It didn't work, he's still sick. Sometimes diseases change' His words stop, here. Pause, for a moment, halt, then vanishes. The light around him shivers, grows darker, then stabilizes. A moment later his text box appears. 'It seems as if there's at least one drug-resistant strain of this sickness out there. We won't know who has it and who doesn't until people have been treated, but there's a chance the drugs won't work on everyone. Still a chance they -will-, of course. Just -- will have to be prepared for the fact they might not.' Derek looks at Jax for a while, not much emotion on his face, just taking the words in. The ground shakes for a second time but even more faint this time before Derek offers the smallest of smiles. He reaches out a hand as if to clasp Jax's shoulder put pulls away before making contact. 'Thanks' He taps the pencil on the paper before the next words are written. 'I just wish I could do something that wasn't sitting and waiting, but I'm not smart or anything. This sign stuff is hard enough and' He stops again, takes a deep breath. 'I don't know.' Jax's eye closes through the next rumbling, opening again once it has quelled. 'Yeah it's hard, I also ain't any good at' appears before these words, too, crumble and vanish. 'There's a team probably many but the team who made the cure in the first place working on figuring this out. These things take time though so.' He leaves the rest of his sentence unwritten, though the set of his expression is grim. 'Anyway I just. Wanted to. Let you know.' 'Sorry. Everything going on, they've been hard to control today.' Derek tries to explain about his powers. 'So we just have to wait and see what happens. Hope for the best but.' He takes a deep breath and nods to Jax. 'Thank you. It's better than wondering. Don't worry to much about me. I've been through a lot, I mean, what else can I do but just try to learn this stupid sign language stuff.' 'It's okay. Understandable. Just a little edgier than usual myself.' Jax stands, kind of abruptly. 'Useful. The signing. Zombies get attracted to noise so a quiet language good to have.' His head shakes quickly. 'No, right, hope for the best.' The small twist of his smile is a little bit wry. He stoops to pick his bag back up, sling it over his shoulder. '... but keep at it. May come in handy.' 'I know it's useful, just frustrating. Zombies.' Derek shakes his head, looking up at Jax. 'Thank you again. I'll hang in there.' It's all he can do. Even if he doesn't believe in his own words about hoping for the best, he'll try. 'For Daisy, if not for anything else. You hang in there too, okay?' Jax manages a smile, quick and small. His head bobs in a small nod. 'Always do. See you 'round. Stay safe.' His teeth bite down against his lower lip, weight rocking back onto his heels; for a moment he hesitates, before turning on his boots to hurry back off.