ArchivedLogs:Bugs and Fishes

Bugs and Fishes
Dramatis Personae Ivan, Sebastian	2013-02-16 '
Location <XS> Study
Quieter than the neighboring library, the study actually /is/ a retreat for those who want to sit and work. Lacking the larger social tables, this room has only single solitary chairs, individual soft lamps assigned to each. The high bay windows allow plenty of light, and the understated elegance of the room with its grated fireplace (often crackling, in winter) is an invitation to quiet work. It's the weekend, and most weekends that would mean Sebastian is not /at/ school, whisked away to the city with his foster family, but this weekend -- okay, exams aren't coming /up/, exactly. They're not till the end of term a couple weeks away but a couple weeks isn't /that/ much time, right? That is just enough time to get some serious studying in. Which is what the boy is doing, tucked into the study with a pile of notebooks on the table beside him, a biology textbook open on the arm of his armchair, and a laptop in his lap. He's got his tongue poking into the side of his cheek, black eyes focused very /intently/ on his screen. Pupilless, it's hard to track their motions, but the slight shifts of his head occasionally mark his attention dancing between book and screen. He's a colorful blip in the elegant study, between blue skin and pink t-shirt (a monarch butterfly is printed bright across most of its chest) and purple corduroys. No shoes. He had some. They've been abandoned beside his chair so that he can tuck his legs up beneath himself. In walks one of the faces rarer seen on the school grounds outside of classes; Ivan trails his way through the library in a straight line, dressed in simple jeans, black converses and a washed out grey shirt. It's as if he made extra effort not to stand out today, though it was likely coincidental. He's carrying a few sheets of paper and a thin notebook pressed against his stomach, and enters the study with a face that betrays suspicions that no one may have been there. After a brief look of surprise, though, his head gives a quick bow in greeting toward Sebastian before he hurries along to another seat, a respectable two chairs over. For a moment, he just sits, book and sheets of paper in his lap, staring blankly halfway between the floor and the wall. Hmm. "Hey, Ivan." Sebastian's smile is quick and bright, if carefully closed-lipped. He glances up from his laptop screen to watch the other boy enter, shifting slightly to tuck himself just a little smaller into the couch. He glances towards Ivan's notebook, towards the paper, and then back to his own work. "What'cha working on? I'm kinda hoping to get these flashcards finished in time to start studying." Ivan gets comfortable in his own chair, seeming to freeze for a moment before leaning his own back into a chair properly. As he does so, something tiny and dark scuttles up his neck, but he seems to pay it no regard. He gives a smile of his own, matching Sebastian's carefulness, but soon starts rummaging through the stack of papers to find something hidden in between- a pen and two postcards, one rather tacky with the Statue of Liberty pictured, and another with a picture of the school itself. He holds both of them up toward Sebastian, seeming to brighten up ever so slightly as he does so, the smile lingering. "Oh, hey, that's us! Way prettier than now." Sebastian's nose wrinkles slightly as he looks towards the window. Outside the world has melted past the /pretty/ phase of snow but hasn't quite achieved the pretty phase of no-snow either, just sort of dirty-slushy-grey. "S'that for your family? They're far, right?" More nods come from Ivan's direction as he pushes further back into his chair in concentration. He fumbles with the cards for a second, shaking a bit of stray web from his hand in between - how'd that get there? - before finding yet another postcard and looking it over. Then, standing up, he offers it to Sebastian. The postcard, on one side, shows a large, snowy area and a white-streaked crow perched upon a fence. The back of the card has Russian Cyrillic-alphabet writing on it, but at the bottom it says, "P.S. I learn as well, this is english!!!" Sebastian takes the card, looking it over for a long moment. He peers at the crow, then flips it over, brow furrowing slightly as he looks over the foreign alphabet. The postscript draws a quick smile out of him, though. "S'this home? For you?" He leans forward to offer the card back to Ivan. "Who's that from, like, a brother or sister or something? Do you have many of them?" The postcard is taken back and Ivan looks up for a moment, then gives a one-shouldered shrug before tentatively nodding once more at the first question. He scratches at his right upper arm, standing somewhat awkwardly in between chairs with several postcards and now misalligned pieces of paper in his other hand, and then finally draws back again, sitting to rearrange his things in his lap. "Eleven." His voice is quiet, and a little lower than some might expect from him. A Russian accent lingers. "It is from a brother." "Eleven, wow. That's kinda neat," Sebastian says, and sounds like he means it. "At home it was always just me and Shane till we -- left. I think after their first kids came out blue our parents freaked out and didn't want to try again. Now it's just Shane and my little brother. Three's not many. Is it nice? I mean, it'd never be lonely, right?" He's sort of half glancing back to his book, again, typing a few more notes onto the flashcard template on his screen. "Where do you fit into all them? Mostly older? Younger?" There's a wrinkle of Ivan's brow when there is mention of not 'wanting to try again'. He occupies his hands with the pen, but finds himself staring at Sebastian, at least for now. Unabashedly and possibly unaware that it might be considered rude. "There is one younger." He answers, voice still just barely above a mumble. "Some times it was nice. Most of the time it is just busy." There's a brief pause and a few idle clicks off and on of his pen, as if to announce a momentous occasion-- a question! From Ivan! He looks confused, still staring. "You left. Then. How... did you find a second brother?" "Busy. Yeah, I could see that. Once I lived with like a dozen other people. It wasn't family but it was -- busy. I mean, I guess living /here/ is kind of like that." Sebastian smiles at this answer, and smiles /bigger/ when Ivan asks him a question in return. "Oh. I, um. We -- that was my birth parents. They didn't really want us. The whole mutant thing really threw them." Sebastian sounds matter-of-fact about this, rather than sad. "My pa now is -- fostering -- he's adopting us. So my little brother's adopted, too. Or will be someday. There's a whole lot of paperwork involved." Ivan makes an /ahh/ face. It all makes sense now. The pen is clicked one more time - on - after which he finally looks away from Sebastian to prop one of his legs up slightly, using it as a background for his now flipped open notebook. He scrawls some things across it, more Russian from the looks of it. "Complicated." He, too, does not seem to feel either way about the subject, choosing to focus on his writing instead. Something darts and skitters across the page, barely dodging the pen's path but soon does a U-turn and disappears into Ivan's sleeve again. "But nice to be chosen." Sebastian watches the skittering, curious as the creature disappears into Ivan's sleeve. "Yeah," he says, with a crooked smile and shrug of one shoulder. "Complicated. But it's nice. My pa now is --" He shrugs. "He went here. You might see him around sometimes. He teaches in spring." He's still watching where the thing disappeared, and eventually he flicks one clawed hand towards it. "Do they have names?" Ivan's smile returns, timidly. He does not stop what he's doing, his writing meticulous and neat, but one by one and more slowly than before four - no, five, six, seven - spiders slip out from one of his sleeves and a fold under his shirt collar. They move in jerky motions, back and forth, but seem to prefer staying on Ivan's arm and neck for now. One pinky-nail sized rebel jumps onto the paper instead, its relatively large eyes peering toward Sebastian with a tilt back of its tiny body on its tiny little legs. "Only when people want to kill them." Comes an answer from spider-covered Ivan, "It is harder for people to kill something, I think, when they know it has a name." Sebastian's nose wrinkles. "Do people try that a lot? I mean, with /your/ spiders?" And then, a sudden, worried, "-- Can you feel them? If people are -- killing them." And then, tentative, as he leans a little closer, large black eyes peering down at the spider's, "Are they nice?" Ivan stops writing when his arm gets a little too close to the curious spider for comfort, lifting it to give it a concerned look. He perks up a little bit more at each question, though, seeming for a moment to be at a loss for how to answer them. He might not be used to asking questions, but answering them is much more daunting. Especially when you haven't /studied/ for them. He joins the spider on the paper in staring at Sebastian once more. "Some times." He puts his pen down, causing the spider on the paper to identify itself as a jumping spider, largely because it decides to propell itself through the air onto a chair's armrest. To then stare at Sebastian some more. "It only makes me..." His gaze lifts to the ceiling for a moment as he searches his mind for a word, "... disappointed. They try to be nice." He picks up his pen again, face blank, before suddenly-- "Although. Some times they eat each other." He grins. The most genuine expression he's had so far in this conversation, even if it does not last long and he seems to immediately try and hide it by clearing his throat and pretending to start wanting to write again. "Oh!" It's a startled oh, but it's one that comes with a rather /delighted/ smile from Sebastian when the spider jumps. "Oh, gosh, that was adorable. It has the cutest eyes." Tentatively, he leans over his own armrest, stretching out a hand with claws unfurling towards the little spider. Not to impale it. Just to stretch out towards the spider hopefully. "-- /Eat/ each other, that's less nice. Though. Sometimes I bite Shane," he admits with a slight darkening of his cheeks and quick flash of /very/ sharp sharky teeth. "I mean, that's what teeth are for, right? I talk to fish but they don't, um, listen to me or anything. Probably," he admits, "because I eat them a lot." Ivan's grin lasts a little longer than it otherwise might have because of the toothy flash, looking impressed. But he does do his best to work it away behind a slightly more Ivan-like smile afterward. Two spiders that came from the collar of his shirt now crawl up and over his ear, then into his hair. He seems thoughtful for a moment, giving a quick glance to a leaner spider on his arm, which then promptly jumps ship and descends from a silvery thread onto the floor. "I do not think my spiders would listen if I ate them." Meanwhile, the jumping spider has caught sight of PREY. Two teeny tiny little appendages wipe across its eyes like window wipers before it zooms through the air again, this time to land on one of Sebastian's claws. Immediately it starts to explore in tiny little bursts, calculated, back and forth, left and right, like a miniature little robot scanning the area for minature things to look at. Sebastian cups his hand very carefully, not trapping the spider but carrying it back towards his own chair, watching with fascination as it explores his webbed hand. "They probably wouldn't really taste that great either. I mean they're teeny! You'd need like a /zillion/ to make a meal and they probably make better friends. Fish are full of meat, at least. Also, um," Sebastian says, a little sheepish, "they're kind of just boring. I tried making friends with them before, but. Uh. I'm looking for an octopus now. I'm hoping they make better friends. He's /still/ cute, what's he doing?" He's still watching the spider with great interest. And the spider seems to be doing the same, stopping every now and then to throw wide-eyed looks up at Sebastian. And that's just the front four eyes, who knows where the rest on the side and back of its head are looking. Occasionally it jumps onto a higher point to get a better look at EVERYTHING. Ivan seems delighted by the interest shown from Sebastian, peering over to look at what's happening himself, leaning one elbow on his own arm rest. "Exploring." He says, simply. "You are a big, bright colour fish planet." "I am pretty bright, I guess," Sebastian agrees with a shy smile, a faint blush as he looks down at his clothes. "He's so jumpy. He reminds me of my little brother. He made a robot spider," he informs Ivan, "or, well, we made a robot spider together. It's, like, his favorite thing on the whole planet. It doesn't /jump/ though, I bet he'd be thrilled if we made it more like /this/ spider." His hand is tipping, head is turning, watching the little spider's jumpy movements with amusement. "Do you have favorites? Oh gosh should we not say that, maybe the not-favorites will get sad." Ivan quickly shakes his head, staring as the jumping spider jitters its way around. "They will not." He lifts an arm, and a reddish brown centipede about the length of his index finger comes crawling from the back of his shirt, diagonally down his arm like an ever moving bracelet. A bracelet made of crawly segments and legs and sticky outy bits. "Big ones are fun. But they are most of the time in my room. With me." His face falls just slightly, but only back to neutrality. The centipede slows its pace and the jumping spider on Sebastian's skin calms considerably. Sebastian's eyes widen when the centipede emerges, staying wide as they watch its myriad legs crawling. "I guess," he says, slowly, gaze fixed now on the centipede, "people get kind of weird about things that are --" He uncurls his webbed fingers, holding them out perhaps demonstratively or perhaps becuase now he is very gently scooping the jumping spider back onto them, "-- different. It sucks. But they get used to it, I think. Or they will. I mean, /you're/ nice. And they seem nice." Ivan does not seem to know what to do with his face. It seems to settle naturally on another timid smile, before the jumping spider decides it has had enough exploring and suddenly - zoom - jumps into a random direction, leaving only a teeny tiny silky safety line behind. Back to its owner, supposedly. The centipede flops off of Ivan's arm and writhes on a sheet of paper for a second before it, too, crawls out of sight. "Spa--" He stops, then starts over, "Thank you." Ivan speaks again, clearing his throat in the quietest way he can manage, searching for his pen so as to continue writing. "I am glad the study was not empty." Sebastian just smiles, at this. It's bright, but quick and soon to fade back to a shier one. "Me, too." And then he's back to flashcards. Exams are /only/ two weeks away!