Logs:Of Boundaries and Blessings (Or, Little Hideaways)

Of Boundaries and Blessings (Or, Little Hideaways)
Dramatis Personae Kavalam, Nanami, Spencer
In Absentia	2020-09-09 "Are we sure the X-Gene doesn't correlate with being an asshole? Because I'm getting worried."
Location <XAV> Rec Room - Xs Second Floor
School this may be, but life for Xavier's students certainly isn't all studying. Outside classes, this is a popular spot to find students in their downtime. An enormous tribute to slacking off, this room is a wealth of fun and relaxation. Comfortable armchairs, couches, and beanbags offer plentiful seating scattered throughout the room, and the cushioned windowseats by the high windows offer a cozy nook to curl up and look out on the grounds. The room is often filled with the noises of gaming -- whether it comes from the big-screen television (tall racks of DVDs beside it, if nothing can be found on the multitude of cable channels), tricked out with consoles from retro to the latest releases, or the less electronic clatter and thump of the pool table, air hockey, or foosball. For those a little more subdued in their gaming, the cabinets hold stacks and stacks of board and card games, ranging as classic as chess and go to as esoteric as Dixit, Catan, and Gloom. More days than not, there's some variety of snacks to be found on a table beside the gaming cabinet -- quite often in the form of fresh-baked desserts. Classes are just finishing up for the day, and Spencer has beaten all of his schoolmates to the rec room somehow, planted on the couch in front of the TV with a controller in his hand. He's dressed in a purple t-shirt featuring a brightly smiling Glimmer from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, gray cargo shorts, and red canvas sneakers, a black kippah with rainbow lightning bolts on his head. There's a napkin with several cookies on it on the table before him, untouched as yet. The screen shows an animated scene on a -- house boat? The character he controls is a dark-skinned child with an oversized star-shaped hat who is presently running and flipping around, catching lightning bolts in bottles. Nanami drifts in, unhurried, wandering first to snag a cookie of her own from the side table before she goes to drape herself against the back of the couch, leaning against the far side from Spencer. She's in a white and pink polka dot dress, pastel colorblocked sneakers, bright pastel school bag slung over one shoulder though she drops it on the floor with a heavy THUNK of books as she arrives at the couch. "I so want that hat," is her first comment, after observing for a moment. "Hey!" Spence's greeting is bright as the lightning storm on the screen draws to a close. "Yeah, it's a pretty sweet hat. Check this out..." He moves the character up a couple of levels and then leaps off of the building from on high, gliding with the use of aforementioned hat. "Cool, huh?" The character lands toward the aft of the boat and seats herself beside a row of rainbow flags. A ball of light she carries on her belt morphs into a fishing pole which she casts over the stern into the ocean, placid beneath a pastel sky. "If you want to put something else on the TV, I can just play this on the Switch. I mean. It's already on the Switch, but I mean on the little screen." "Chee, already a sweet hat but twice as good if it flies." Nanami shakes her head, waving Spencer's offer away. "Nah you keep it there, this got some pretty art. Anyway I only come to swipe some cookies before they go, these are damn good. I gotta go out soon anyway," her face briefly twists into a grimace, "watch soccer practice." "Watch?" Tucked into the windowseat is Kavalam, Spanish textbook propped against one crooked-up knee. He looks comfortably settled, been there, perhaps, a while, but only now shoved into their awareness where previously the seat was -- maybe not empty, but perhaps just beyond notice. "Is the practice interesting? Do people usually spectate it?" Spence glances back at Nanami, but is quickly distracted by the appearance of Kavalam. "Oh hey!" He sounds startled but not alarmed, and if he was going to add anything else he's distracted yet again as the floater of light disappears and his character proceeds to try and reel in her catch. "You don't sound super excited about it." "How long you been there?" Nanami blinks, brows knitting in clear confusion as she looks to the window. "No, I should be playing but some total skeezebag asshole got his tongue all up in my business and slammed me into a rock so now my back's all hamajang and coach says I gotta take it easy. It is too nice out to be taking it easy." Kavalam shrugs, closing his books and leaning down to put them away. "His tongue." He echoes this with a pointed lift of brows. "Who? What? How did that put your back -- injured?" Though he immediately follows this with a frown. A compression of lips. "Maybe that is not so much my business." "His tongue?" Spence says at the same time as Kavalam, then snickers. "Jinx. I'm -- uh, also having a hard time picturing that." His character pulls a squid from the surf, and he half-turns in his seat to look at Nanami, his brows furrowed deep. "But no matter how that happened it's seriously not ok. I'm sorry you're hurt." "Ew, no," Nanami's face scrunches up in clear disgust as she shoots Kavalam a Look, "so very not interested, believe me, if I was gonna have some dude in my business li'dat it would not be some creep with no clue what boundaries are." She waves the cookie in her hand, a little more animated now as she recounts. "I'm minding my own business in the garden, right, fully by myself not boddah nobody, playing with one sparkler, this jerk comes over, no hello nothing just like, oh, fourth of July over like it's not a whole entire holiday Monday too. And when I drop my sparkler -- on the plain stone, not anything dangerous -- bam right away he stomp it out. Like he just comes over to rain on my party or what? So I put in my headphones, turn up music say okay, I'll enjoy myself, don't need to talk if you come to be rude byeee and what does he do? Ignore that to climb up right on my rock next to me and keep flapping his mouth." Her shudder is visible. "When I tell you I hit him right off the rock again. And then he get his tongue out I mean like several feet of tongue. Like a lizard or a -- frog thing." Her hands go apart -- wide-wide. "Wrap his whole tongue around my leg to yank me off my rock." Kavalam has gone wide-eyed, leaning forward to take in this story with rapt attention. "Oh-h-h," he says at the end, as though this answers some questions. "You mean the slimy boy with the broken nose." He takes his glasses off, huffing on them and using the hem of his shirt to clean the lenses. "Already this year seems to have more punching than last one." Spence's eyes are also huge. He seems to have mostly forgotten about his game, where the boat is cruising steadily on a still sea that reflects the sunset colors of the sky as it changes. "Wow, rude yeah. And that's -- a lot of tongue I haven't met that kid yet I don't think." He shrugs. "Hopefully he won't bother you anymore, at least. And I hope your back is better soon so you can get back to. Actual soccer-ing!" "Yeah but --" Nanami gestures wide -- not around the room but kind of behind them -- towards the door, the school beyond. "Have you seen this place? Creepy brain spy, shitty frog guy, For such a small school -- like our punchable-people ratio seems unnaturally high. Are we sure the X-Gene doesn't correlate with being an asshole? Because I'm getting worried. Someone should do a study." "Being a billionaire and being an asshole go hand in glove I think but that only covers -- half those." Kavalam slips his glasses into place, hopping down from the windowseat. "How worried? Have you been feeling new tendencies in yourself since you started breaking everyone's phones? Wanting to shove your opinion in where it doesn't belong? Foist yourself onto people who have no interest in you?" "Oh no!" Spencer's eyes have gone -- somehow -- even bigger. "I've been mutanting my whole life." Chews on his lower lip thoughtfully. "I guess I am pretty annoying. But also I think maybe it's just like...boarding school?" He shrugs. "Like, maybe people were just as much jerks at your other schools before, but you weren't stuck with them 24/7, right?" "Tch," Nanami scoffs, dismissive, "if I wake up wanting all that I won't blame being a mutant I'll be worried maybe I'm turning into a man." She takes a bite of her cookie, bobbing her head appreciatively as she chews. She lifts one hand to hide her mouth while she continues, "Point there. Our last school, last bell rang and bam I was out. Here, if you annoying, a jerk, anything, everyone's gonna know. Is tough. Who can be perfect all the time?" "I think probably none of the professors at your other schools were erasing people's memories," Kavalam ventures. Reconsiders to hedge: "Probably." He meanders closer, leaning against the arm of the couch and watching Spencer's boat sail. "Nobody can be. The trick, I think, is figuring out ways to have your own space before you go crazy. Or drive everyone else crazy." Spencer spares enough attention to his game to cast again. "Right, it's way too many kids in way too little space, right?" He sounds -- almost gleeful about this. "I think you just have to learn where and how to get away when you need to. I don't really need to cuz I can just -- go wherever I want, but there's lots of neat little hideaways around the the mansion and grounds, you know?" "Wait, wherever you want? Howzat work?" Nanami leans further over the couch to peer at Spencer but stops, pulling herself upright with a wince. "The city takes so long I have not figured that train out yet." She taps the toe of one sneaker lightly against the heel of the other. "The woods are great but in bad weather? Or once winter come? I'm gonna be climbing the walls if I don't find some of those hideaways you say." "Teleporter," Kavalam answers, not looking away from the screen. "Some people won the X-Gene lottery." "Whoa!" Spence is blinking at Kavalam, clearly not the least offended. "Telepath? I mean. Or...you've just seen me jumping around, obviously." He blushes, looking away. "But. Um, yeah, it's. Lucky." Whatever came over him, it's gone just as quickly. "Attic's always a good one." He looks up thoughtfully. Puts down the controller and counts off his fingers. "Storage room at the workshop. Special collections in the library. The boathouse or the treehouse if it's rainy but not too cold." "What, do you mean anywhere? Like you could go to China right now? You could go to Hawai'i right now? Anywhere-anywhere?" It's Nanami's turn for wide eyes. "What are you here for? That's amazing." She pulls her attention away with some reluctance. Narrows her eyes on Kavalam. "You're not a telepath, right?" "Half the week you used to pop out of thin air in my writing class to bring Gaétan morning tea. I made an educated guess." Kavalam's dark eyes flick to the side. He hesitates, slowly shifting to take a seat on the very edge of the sofa's arm. "Can you go anywhere?" "Um...anywhere, with caveats?" Spencer sucks in a breath through his teeth. "China, yeah. China is huge. Hawaii -- Hawai'i, I'd probably miss and drown." He cringes. "It's different if I've already been somewhere, or going to someone I know." He ducks his head. "But I've jumped a lot of random places by accident. Less now, but I'm still working on it." Now he blinks at Kavalam, startled. "Oh! Sorry, I thought you were new." He's studying the other boy's face closely. "It's just such a small school, but -- I don't remember you at all." "You're not new? Oh no, sorry, I thought I was getting good at learning people." Nanami's brows scrunch and now she studies Kavalam's face more intently, too. "How're you called, then?" She pops the second half of cookie into her mouth, licking her fingers clean. "You really really can jump across the world?" Her head shakes, her breath pushed out slow. "I bet you have all kinds story." "People forget me. That's my power." Kavalam gets up slowly, going over to pick up his bag from near the window. "I like the darkroom," he adds, "and backstage behind the auditorium there are some very solid hiding options." "Oh." Spencer subsides slightly. Then, eyes widening. "Oh. Wow. I feel like a jerk for complaining." He fiddles with his controller. "But yeah. I got stories. Made friends in all kinds of places while waiting for pickup." He perks up a little. "I can take people with me -- well, one person, right now. And I just think, if I get good at this, real good, I can help folks so many ways, right? I try." He watches Kavalam pensively. "What is your name? Or...will we forget if you tell us?" "Really? That's a power?" Nanami frowns deeper. "Wow, that sucks. You definitely got a short straw there. This kid gonna be jumping around on some singlehanded search and rescue or becoming rich on his custom travel business and you are on some real life Mystery Men garbage. I'm sorry, man." She presses the heels of her hand down against the back of the couch, stretching up onto her toes. "You keep like, some kind of crazy awesome travel 'gram?" "Kavalam. Most people forget. Although your sister does know me," Kavalam says, with a small nod to Nanami. "She spent the summer working at it. It was a kindness." He hoists the bag onto his shoulder, glancing to the window. "How does your back feel about running? One of the best ways I know to make your own time and space. Also, I'm due at Cross Country." "Sometimes powers really mess with you," Spencer says seriously. "Sometimes even the really super ones." He chews on his lower lip, his eyes narrowing in concentration. "Kavalam. Ok. Got it...I think." He pulls out his phone and swipes out something rapidly. Puts it away. "Oh! Yeah, if you search 'cast away stone', mine is the one with Hebrew in the description." "Like if you jump in the ocean?" Nanami hazards, mouth twisting to one side. "Kavalam," she echoes as well. She's pulling out her phone, too. Soon enough Spencer is getting another follow. "I'm way less likely to get hit by flying objects running so I think I could roll with that. Have fun boating, yeah?"