Logs:Badness Ecosystem

Badness Ecosystem
Dramatis Personae Halim, Roscoe
In Absentia Shane	2024-10-20 "Pfft, like I would do a dumb thing like gettin' caught."
Location <XAV> Gardens - Xs Grounds
From indoor gardens to outdoor, though without the protective greenhouse glass the back gardens do not last all year round. Still, the gardens out here are well-tended and well-worth spending time in, as well. The paths wending through the beds of flowers and herbs and vegetables spread out through the school's back grounds, tended by students as a credit class. Benches offer seating and a small pond is home to koi and turtles, as well as a few frogs. At the far back edges of the garden, a droning buzzing marks a few stacked white boxes as beehives. The memorial is officially done, but the unofficial memorial afterparty shows no signs of slowing. The patio has turned into a rowdy Mongrels cookout; the garden seems to have become the place that Impromptu Fight Club (sparring edition) is being held. Halim had been watching, through the last match, but as one set of brawlers helps each other over to get food and another few seem on the verge of sparring about who gets to spar next, he's wandered a short distance further into the gardens. It's still kind of in eyeshot of the chaos, but at the moment the bench he is on is in a quiet hedge-bordered nook. It is against the rules for teachers to be smoking weed? Possibly at least they should do it a little bit farther from the kids but on this Particular Occasion, it seems unlikely that anyone is keen to make too much of a fuss right now today about people's Perfectly Legal mourning habits. Not that Halim looks particularly in mourning. He's seated himself on one end of the bench, blandly dressed in a Xavier's hoodie unzipped over a plain grey tee, jeans, black Chucks, and is scowling over at the soon-to-be fighters as he takes a hit off a slim matte black vape. It's not just the chaos Halim is still in eyeshot of, though perhaps he doesn't know that until -- "Dude, show some respect." Then again perhaps he does; though Roscoe has muted his notifications his phone is still receiving increasingly hostile messages from an argument breaking out in the #memes channel of his Lassi-teens Discord server that will probably be a real headache for Roscoe whenever he gets back to modding it. Roscoe doesn't look exactly like he's mourning either but he is unusually wearing real pants instead of joggers with his plain white t-shirt. It's definitely against the rules for Roscoe to be smoking weed but he doesn't seem entirely fussed about doing so in front of a teacher who is, after all, also smoking weed, just slouching against the hedge to hold out his joint -- "Smoke some real weed." Halim does not seem all that startled by Roscoe's interjection, but his scowl does get just a little deeper. His next hit does not make it quite to his mouth -- he's looking down at the vape in his hand and then looking at the joint in Roscoe's. The vape shuts off, though he's slower to take the joint, scrutinizing it close. Though a thorough inspection finds absolutely no on button whatsoever, he's still (a little gingerly) taking a hit. He offers the joint back together with a slightly critical: "The boy could barely breathe his whole life. This all seems like a flex." "Really? Shoot, my bad." Roscoe takes his joint back with a pinching frown, though then he goes ahead and takes another hit anyway, shrugging the shoulder that isn't currently nestled in hedge. "Just thought I should burn the costy stuff if I was gonna burn something." Halim is looking back towards the fighting, which seems to be shaking out more or less into a three-way tussle. "The first marathon runner died after running those 26 miles. This is probably better." Roscoe glances at the fighting too, though his gaze doesn't stay there for long before it starts flicking around again for something new to gawp at, in the distant celebrations; he straightens up, pushing himself out of the hedge a little clumsily with one hand. "Probably," he says. "Definitely more fun. See, now I'm glad I didn't try and get incense, at least somebody benefits from this." He gives the joint a grandiose little flourish; possibly he has benefited from it a little too much already. Halim's vape has turned back on. He flicks his thumb against its side, restless. "The bikers do like their funerals fun." He is returning to considering the vape -- a bit disapproving -- but then takes another puff. He shifts -- pulling himself up a little bit but slumping lower almost as soon as he has. "Besides. You aren't allowed to burn incense on school property." Roscoe, his joint tucked back between his lips, grins small and toothy around it, blows the smoke out through a rude little snort -- "Pfft, like I would do a dumb thing like gettin' caught," he says, though he's flitting a glance through the foliage and hedgerows toward the mansion real quickly just in case. "Did you know him?" "Some of the teachers around here see everything." Halim's eyes are turned conspicuously at the sky right now, which -- probably, really, doesn't say all that much about what he's looking at. He is still and silent for several breaths before replying blandly: "I had his files." His next pull from the vape is a little deeper. "Did you." "I can see everything too," says Roscoe, though this is not exactly boastful -- his voice has dropped lower, almost into a grumble. "I know how to find a blind spot. -- would you snitch on me? That's not in the funeral spirit." He taps the blunt somewhat distastefully with his thumb to knock off the glowing cherry, eyebrows scrunching. "No," he says, "Not really. He was nice to me though." "Mm. My job is teaching you computers." This seems clearly like enough answer to Halim. He drops his hand to his leg, fisted loose around the vape. His lips thin, head tilting very slightly in response to a flurry of excitement from the fighting group. "Had his files here, too. Very long disciplinary record. As student and X-Man." The side of his hand thumps lightly, absently, against his knee. "I think it's good. To have a few of those around." Roscoe gives Halim another amused, buck-toothed grin -- "You think so?" he says, with a tone of philosophical, thoughtful consideration that is probably just as likely to be mocking as not. "Nobody ever seen it my way but I think so too. Vital part of the ecosystem, bad kids. Really everyone should be thanking us. You know," for a second there is a very arch, shrewd glimmer in his dark eyes, before he blinks and they go back to normal, "you could make some good trouble too. If you want to." "Nobody. Not very accurate." Halim's vape shuts itself off again, and he tucks it into his pocket. "I am too old to be a bad kid. And it would be unfair." His eyes have tracked back to the Mongrels' ruckus, for a moment. "Need to make space. For the next generation of badness." "Well now this just feels like entrapment." Maybe Roscoe forgot he was standing by a hedge, or forgot what hedges are, for he's trying to prop his elbow against it and instead just sticking his arm straight into the shrubbery. He doesn't fight it, just lets himself flump back into the foliage and takes another hit of weed. "If I learned anything today it's that you can be bad at any age and still do all kinds of good. So." He shrugs, this time forgetting not to shrug the shoulder in the bush with a rustling of twigs and leaves -- "...ow." "Only if I snitch." Halim doesn't quite smile, but his soft snort is almost like a laugh. He gestures to the opposite end of the bench, and looks back at the sky. "Bench. Good for when limbs are confusing. That's what I learned today."