Logs:The Patience of Saints

The Patience of Saints
Dramatis Personae Avery, Daiki, Shane
In Absentia	2023-07-17 "Trust me, you don’t want me." (followup shortly after hearing about avery's appearance at the school.)
Location <NY> Train Station, Salem Center
Arthur’s method of making money had worked (never mind it was just taking the cash out of people’s pockets) . She got a train ticket that stops in Calgary, and then she’ll get one that stops right at Juno. Full-proof plan, maybe she’ll even make use of that fake ID and try the liquor up north. The world was her oyster after all. Fresh start in Alaska here she comes. Avery sat waiting on the bench for her train to let her board. She texted Keith to say it was her plan all along and that with their dad being dead she finally could move there, even if she was just 16. It may not make sense for her innocence, but it’s an excuse to try to keep the cops off her tail. It was along the lines of “something-something, it just works”. "-- aren't here I swear I'm just gonna get Hive on the search, he's got plenty of practice by now in -- ohsnap." The voice coming from across the platform is oddly familiar -- and the face even moreso; strikingly identical to the tiny blue sharkperson who Avery had just recently encountered on the Xavier's porch. Same enormous pitch-black eyes, same deep silvery-blue skin, same spikyshort black hair. Shane is not in swim trunks, now, but black tactical pants and a lightweight grey quick-dry shirt, black combat boots, and his companion is no longer a willowy young white woman but a willowy young Japanese man who dwarfs him in height. He's just spotted Avery, and is making a beeline for the bench. "So. Alaska, huh." Maybe the little blue merperson has had a change of heart about helping? Who is to say. Daiki is also wearing black tactical pants, though his performance tee is a watery heather blue. He has been walking in a very leisurely fashion to avoid outpacing his companion with his much longer stride, and simply speeds up to a regular pace to stay with Shane as he approaches Avery. "It's a long way." He offers the teen a reserved smile. "What are looking for there?" “Oh, whaddya want now?” Avery asked, glaring at the sharkperson like it was the person on the porch. “Did you have a change of heart? Realised you were being a dick? What?” Avery began gesturing her hands around wildly. “I already have a ticket to Calgary. It’d be a waste of money.” She told them, pulling her duffel bag on her lap and leaning up against the bench arm. “Look, if you’re wondering why I’m not curious about you looking the way you do, here’s your answer: I don’t care. If I cared that you resembled a shark, I’d probably be hooked up on a lot of things. I’d never go anywhere with that thought process.” She rambled, the Italian in her really coming out in her tone. “I’m goin’ to Juno, and that’s it. I came for some help along the way, and you denied me. It just seems pretentious that you’re coming back to try to come and get me.” "Mmm..." For a long moment Shane gives some serious consideration to Avery's questions before nodding along. "Yeah, no, you were right, the guilt was eating me up," he agrees, and though his tone here is simple and direct, Daiki can at least clock the amused shiver in the ripple of his gills -- a probably otherwise meaningless tic to those unfamiliar with his features. He spreads his webbed hands in front of him in a small gesture of supplication. "I'm sorry about earlier, it's been a --" His hesitation here is very small. "-- long week. But it sounds like you're kinda going through it too, huh? What are you looking for in Juno? It's a real long cold way to run." "From what I've heard, actually going to Calgary is also a waste of money." Daiki's smile hooks a little wider. "Granted, my sources are biased, and I don't know anything about Juno." He clasps his hands together. "Xavier's can't really help you run away. Even if that were responsible, it would be pretty illegal. But if you're willing to tell us a bit about your situation, we may be able to find other ways of helping." “I mean, if I tell ya you may as well turn me in. Me and my older brothers’ll be in prison for a while.” Avery cleared her throat, easing a bit at the calmer behaviour from the both of them. “Juno’s a place my ma always wanted to go. So I wanna go there for her. My brothers already covered for me, I got the ticket with not-counterfeit cash, I have an ID. What makes it illegal I’m going to Alaska to the average guy?” She asked, hiding some of the truth to help her case. “And back to what you were saying,” Avery looked back at Shane, “whaddya mean by ‘going through it too’? Like, running away? Findin’ out you and, by extension, your ma were mutants? Any of that?” She asked, still talking with her hands. If anyone wanted to shut her up, their best bet would be tying her hands behind her back. "I don't think you going to Alaska is the illegal part, but adults harboring runaway minors and helping them run away is definitely -- not on the up-and-up side of the law." Shane sounds almost (almost) apologetic about this. His smile flashes -- brief and very (very) sharply toothy -- at the next questions. "Oh, I was born like this, I've always known I was a mutant. Unfortunately the problems don't all stop after you figure that part out. The people at Xavier's are pretty well equipped to handle -- that whole rocky-ass journey. If you want a safe place to get oriented to what being a mutant even is like, before you head up north." Daiki tips his head towards Shane at his explanation of the legal disclaimer. "Unfortunately, the school also can't help you with legal advice, but there are people in the wider community who can." He spreads his hands. "You don't have to tell us anything you don't feel comfortable telling us. But I think there are probably a lot of options between whatever you're running from and Juno." Avery raised an eyebrow. “Then what can ya do besides the one thing I need help with?” Avery asked. “Who’re you gonna send me to get my legal aid? Are you gonna try and get me into some fancy prep school? Cuz if so, not interested.” She sighed, starting to mumble again under her breath. “… Already been to juvie once and got kicked out, not doing it again…” Avery began to hug her bag, retreating back into herself. “Unless there’s a place I can beat the shit out of things, I don’t think you want me in your school. Just ask my old school. I’m a ‘troubled youth with sadistic tendencies’ according to the facility, ask Berry Chazakov or Joanna Swanick. We were on a first name basis.” Avery tried to hide her laugh. “Trust me, you don’t want me.” "It's a pretty fancy prep school," Shane answers with a small laugh, a small twist of smile, "but there's some pretty good people there despite that flaw. And they're real connected to folks in the community that might could help, even if they aren't a legal clinic themselves. Plus..." Here he hesitates, head bowing just slightly. "I know from running from the cops, and once you get started there you don't really stop. Stay here, finish school, talk to a lawyer, and maybe one day you'll be able to move to Juno on your own terms, and not just to get away from whatever's chasing you." Daiki tips his hand towards Shane this time. "Fancy prep school has its perks, and they have a lot of experience with students from troubled backgrounds. It's far from perfect, but it's..." The hesitation is very brief, barely even noticeable on its own, but he seems suddenly more compelling, somehow. "...better than juvie. Probably will not kick you out, either, unless you work really hard at it." The smile in his eyes, when they skate aside to Shane, is somehow brighter than the one on his face. "I mean, really hard." “How hard we talkin’?” Avery’s face had mischief all over it. “Say a rager where everyone parties like it’s the end of the world and drinks like it’s the Civil War and the doctor’s gonna cut our legs off?” She asked. “Ooh, or-or where we all put ourselves on an island and fight for dominance on who gets the last piece of pizza? That’s what me and my brothers did… except the island bit…” Avery bit her lip, trying to remember all the dumb things she’s done that got her in trouble. “Knife fights with switchblades? Tag-team fighting?” Avery tried all her power to hold back her manic laughter for the next one. “Not wanting to do the assignments due to them being purely frivolous and not teaching us what would really help our futures and instead what a corrupt system puts on us, expecting us to be doctors and lawyers and such all while trying to push us out of said system as fast as possible?” Avery got off the bench, slinging her duffel bag over her shoulder. “If they let me stay after all that, goddamn they are going to be patient… and saints.” Shane listens to this rant with an opaque expression, save for one of his sets of eyelids sliding closed and open several times. At the end he doesn't answer the questions -- not about ragers, not about knife fighting, and certainly not about homework. He just smiles -- bright-bright and toothy, and gestures out towards the parking when Avery picks up her bag. "They sure aren't saints, but boy, do they have a lot of practice with patience."