ArchivedLogs:Chalk It Up to Luck

Chalk It Up to Luck
Dramatis Personae Marinov, Wolverine	2018-09-13 "Maybe you'd make an A in Pool Sharking after all."
Location <XS> Rec Room - FL2
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. It's quiet in the rec room, relatively speaking, a few students playing games, off in their own worlds, totally absorbed by the mesmerizing screens and bright buttons on the arcade games. It is a school night after all. Normally, the noise would bother Wolverine, but it's hard to find old-fashioned stuff like this in a digital world, one that he exploits but does not trust. His entertainment is far more analog, far more old-fashioned, not the sort of thing hipsters like to call retro chic. He takes another shot, the balls on the pool table clacking, and chews on the cigar he's not supposed to light on school grounds. It's fine. It would make the felt smell anyway. He edges around the table and takes another shot, evidently playing against himself. He, too, appears to be in his own little world. He takes a swig from a flask, anyone close enough would smell whiskey... and jet fuel. He's not sure if Xavier notices or cares that he's been borrowing from the hangar, but he likes to imagine Cyclops does because he's pretty sure it would bother him to no end. Off in the corner, Marinov is tapping away at their phone seemingly mesmerized by it as much as some of the other students are mesmerized by their own games. It's only when they raise up the camera phone to take a selfie that they notice more about what's going on the room (mostly as it informs the composition of their shot). Their shot is interrupted, though, when their ears flick a little bit at the clacking of the balls and the smell of... jet fuel? The teen is wearing a red jacket over a black t-shirt with white linework for a 1917 political cartoon depicting an tiger next to a sufragette, as well as a skirt made of the same material of the jacket, and a black beret. They sniff their way on over to Wolverine pausing next to the pool table, to observe there momentarily with a look of curiosity. Wolverine winces slightly at the light from the camera phone and butchers the shot, the ball flying off the table. At least he didn't gouge the felt. On some level, he's offended anyone is taking pictures anywhere near him, even though that's irrational and he knows it. He's a ghost to the system. Anyone tapping in won't know who he really is, any check-point he passes will identify him by any name and history he has his black market contacts activate via a text on a burner phone. He scowls a bit all the same before he even looks up. This student... this student might be one of the few he's inclined to like. Wolverine has a soft spot for kids and animals, and this one? Heck, it looks like both and as far as he can tell, she's a girl. Too bad she's a kid. Is it a she? He sniffs again. No... but the student isn't a he either. He's seen too much in his life to ask, and he doesn't really care either way. This kid can be whatever they want for as long as they manage to live, which, in this world, might not be too long. "See something you like?" he asks in a sort of growl. It's not a come-on. It's not a threat. The tone is so flat it would be hard to tell what he means by it. Hell, he doesn't know what he means by it, it's just the kind of surly nonsense that comes out of a drunk's mouth. Marinov blinks slowly at Wolverine's question, "Prosti, not meaning to stare, I was just curious how your cocktail would affect your shooting. Seems like it'd burn on the way down." The teen sniffs demonstratively towards Wolverine's flask. They scratch behind their ear as they continue to speak, "I also just like watching when people are playing, or playing myself. I'm betting you'd beat the shit out of me at it, but if you don't want to play solo..." "It does," he grunts. Wolverine smirks, rolling that cigar to the other side of his mouth before removing it and sticking it back in his pocket. "I'd offer you a slug, but I get the feeling you like being alive," he chuckles dryly as he tosses a pool cue to the kid. The man removes his brown leather jacket and tosses it on a chair, a stained white wifebeater exposed in all its glory, then racks up the table. "So wha'd'I call ya?" he straightens and gestures for the felid in the skirt to take the first shot, then he chalks his pool cue, and rubs a bit between his knuckles for that perfect glide. Marinov laughs and grabs a cue, "Blin. Yeah, I'm smart enough to avoid stuff like that, that'd fuck me up right to death..." They chalk the end as well, checking it visually before lining up to take the first shot. "You can call me Marinov. Taylor Marinov." The felinoid teen takes the shot with plenty of controlled power behind it, but their tail curls up a bit as their eyes follow the movement of the balls on the table, their attention only breaking when both a solid and a striped ball find their ways into a pocket. Wolverine scoffs and shakes his head, "That's an illegal shot, not that anyone's enforcing." He grabs the cue ball and tosses it to the cat, "Tell ya what-" he's loose, not staggering, definitely not falling over, but getting just short of sloppy. These things happen on a bender. "Stripes or solids, Marinov, I'll let ya pick either one, ball in hand to make it easy on ya." He leans against the table, "To really make this fair, I'll call my shots, no ball in hand. If you can't win even like that, you might not wanna take my pool sharkin' class cause ya'd fail." Marinov catches the tossed ball and then finds an appropriate place to set up for easy shooting, "Illegal shot? I dunno what rules you play by, I never played it where you couldn't sink whatever off the break," they say, "That's fine. I'll be a pool criminal; I agree to your handicaps. Gonna take stripes, 'cause stripes are rad." In reality, stripes is just a better position to start in. They take their first shot and, because it is pretty easily lined up, the striped ball sinks into the corner pocket. The APA and BCA rules don't generally talk about what to do if the first shot sinks both a stripe and solid, and usually the rules are determined by the scariest guy at the table in the games Wolerine plays, which typically would be him. He takes a swig and, not wanting to break up the game with some idiotic search on that damn phone, gestures for Taylor to shoot again, "Since you know so much about pool, then you know you keep going until you stop sinking em." He swigs again, "Not like I got nothin' to do while I watch," Wolverine shakes the flask demonstratively. He circles the table, stopping behind Marinov. Intimidation, or something else, "So, Pool Shark, just how old are you?" Without much prompting, it seems Marinov was just pausing a moment to visually figure out the next shot to take, squinting a bit before they walk over to line up their next shot. "I'm seventeen, a senior here," says the teen, "Time to pass the torch to all these new recruits." They take their shot, a feline scowl crossing their face when it doesn't quite line up, bouncing off the side pocket. They look up and take a step back from the table to let Wolverine start shooting, "How about you?" Wolverine shakes his head, "Too damn old." He paces over to the cue ball and casually lines up his shot, "Swear you kids get younger every year." The man sets his flask on the edge of the table so he can point, "3 ball, side pocket right." With a break like that and the corner shot, he had a pretty good idea that ball would be there before Marinov ever took her second shot. The strike is smooth, the ball sinks. Cowboy boots resound on the hardwood floors as he walks to the end of the table, "4 ball, side pocket left." It would be a straight shot, but now he's just showing off. The man leans, back to the table, and takes the shot from behind. He hits too hard, and bounces the cue ball right off the table. "Fuck!" it's a hiss between his teeth as he stalks back to his flask for another slug, "Your shot, sharky." The cue ball bouncing off the table gets an instant reaction from Marinov, and they are upon it in a moment. The teen lifts it off the ground and places it on the table at a good spot to pick up where they left off. "Calling me sharky to anyone else might 'cause some confusion. I know some pretty sharky people," comments Marinov, clearly in jest, as they take the shot and succeed this time, sinking the 9. Their shot is set up to easily sink the 11 and they do so as well, but possibly due to poor planning they end up not lined up well. They move around the table, their bare feet barely making a sound in contrast to Wolverine's boots, and finally decide on taking a gentle shot to hit one of the striped balls and leave no particularly straightforward paths. "Hah. That guy? He's not here," Wolverine smirks, "/shark/." He laughs, and for a moment it's like he didn't kill five people and light a building on fire last night to destroy forensic evidence. And when that moment ends he's still sort of drunk, so that's just fine. The mutant menace crouches down a bit to eye the table, "Really trying to fuck me here, huh?" Wolverine straightens, "One ball, left front corner," and then he takes a sharp, steep shot, this time bouncing that cue ball on purpose, right over the eight ball. The cue ball lands with practically a love tap, glancing off the one and sending it on an angled trajectory into the pocket. The cue ball now perilously close to the corner pocket, Wolverine aligns his next shot, "Six ball, side pocket left." Another glancing shot, and another sunk ball. He takes another drink and then blinks perhaps a bit too slowly. The man steps back, and shakes his head before circling the table once more. "Seven ball, back left corner," and he takes the shot, but it hits that damn striped thirteen first. Worse yet, the thirteen ricochets into the side pocket. He chews his lip in frustration, and then shrugs and bows in an overly emphatic and sarcastic manner, "You're welcome, ya friggin tabby." A low whistle is issued from Marinov, or it would be if their lips had any capacity of whistling. It is instead just the imitation of such a sound. The teen is clearly pretty impressed by Wolverine escaping their trap. "Normally I'd get sorta mad at being called a tabby. I ain't domestic, I'm a wild thing. But in exchange for that gift I'll let it slide." This last is again said in jest, implying by tone that there's just nothing they could do about it if they didn't. They aim to bank the 14, successfully shooting it into a corner pocket without interfering with the eight ball. "Nice," they whisper to themselves, probably not confident that they'd pull off that shot, before they circle the table to figure out how to take the shot on number 15. The man makes a little snrk sound. This one is kinda cute. He wipes that smile off his face quickly enough. He already gives a crap about two of the X-Men, no need to add a third. Still, Marinov is a fun distraction. He walks around behind the kid and jerks his head, "Ya want some advice?" He aims the kid's cue a bit from the back right corner, "Cause I'm gonna give it to you either way." He leans down, one eye closed, and puts a hand on the kid's back to get Marinov to do the same. Wolverine points, "From this angle you can get the 15 and the 12 in one sweep. As long as you don't hit a solid, you can hit two stripes. No rule against it. 12 will go into back left corner if you glance it just right, and 15 into left side." He rises up and crosses his arms smugly, "Try it an' you'll see." If he had money riding on this game, he wouldn't be so helpful, but he doesn't and this kid's a riot. Marinov's eyes turn back towards Wolverine when he touches their cue, seeming momentarily surprised, but they lean down at his guidance. They look between the twelve and the fifteen and say under their breath, "Tough shot..." Still, they decide to go with Wolverine's advice and take the trickier shot to try and pull ahead. They take a deep breath and take the shot, sinking the 15 first without difficulty. The 12 decides to be more suspensful in its rolling though, teetering over the corner pocket before deciding to allow Marinov to exhale by falling into the hold. The teen whoops at the shot, "Shit yeah!" This is before they realize that the 7 is now positioned right between the cue and the eight ball. Wolverine nods, "Nice. Do that to Cyclops and he'll have an aneurysm," the man chuckles gruffly. He looks at the tricky position and hrms quietly to himself as he continues to enjoy the contents of that flask. Nothing like a stiff drink after seeing your dead friend for the first time in seventy years, flipping out, and taking it out on the Purifiers who stiffed you. Wolverine rubs his chin, the grate of his ever present five o clock shadow prickling softly. "Ya definitely lied about bein' bad at this," he grins, "Good on you. Maybe you'd make an A in Pool Sharking after all. So because yer my top and only student, I'm gonna /try/ to teach the bounce shot." He points his cue, "Watch carefully. It's all about having a steep angle and hitting the ball below the equator and dead center." He angles the cue and feigns the shot, stopping just short of hitting Marinov's ball. He steps back, holding that cue like a pike, the end tapping against the floor, "Lessee if ya can pull it off, Marinov." "Aw, yeah, I feel like it's not hard to give Prof Summers an aneurysm though," says Marinov, stiffening up and moving their hands like a serious robot in an apparent imitation of Scott. They watch Wolverine's feigned example shot, leaning slightly on their cue and cupping their chin thoughtfully. They adjust their beret a little bit, to make sure that they look good while taking this potentially final shot. The teen lines up in the same way as Wolverine, and takes the shot indicated. The angles end up being good, and they make contact with the eight ball, but there's not quiiiiite enough power to pocket it, instead leaving it teetering dangerously over one of the pockets. Their shoulders slump slightly but they say, "You got a real good eye for the angles and shit!" Wolverine looks away casually and just sort of bumps the table. The teetering ball edges over the precipice and clatters into the pocket. He smiles lop-sidedly, left corner of his lip pulling up, "Well look at that, ya actually won." The man reaches into his back pocket, "I know we never mentioned wagers," he pulls out his wallet and removes a twenty, "But that's half the fun of the game." Wolverine hands over the bill, "Here ya go, kid." He rolls his shoulders and cracks his neck, "That's your first ante and your homework. Find a sucker, get em to bet twenty, take their money, and buy yourself somethin stupid for the hell of it." Marinov laughs once the ball goes in from Wolverine's jostling, and they bow slightly at the delayed sinking of the eight ball, "Spasibo, spasibo." Their ears perk up when he goes to his wallet, though, and they take the twenty as if to examine it. "Aw yeah! I won't let you down, Professor Shark, I'll run with this idea for my next adventure and get hella paid." He gives the little ocelot a slap on the back, "A beret like that says 'mercenary' all over. I'm sure ya won't disappoint." Wolverine finishes off his flask and grabs his worn jacket from the chair. He slips it on, puts the empty container in the pocket, and sticks his pool cue back in the holder on the wall. "'s been fun," he half waves, half salutes. At the doorway, the man pauses and looks back, "Don't forget ta rerack. Pool etiquette, even if yer sharkin'." He flashes a sharp, feral grin, "Sides, next player probably won't be Scott, otherwise I'd say fuck it." And just like that, the killer for hire walks out the door. In the hallway the measured and menacing click-clack! click-clack! of his boots grows distant and he mutters, "Fuck. 'm I really gonna make it three?" Caring about two X-Men was bad enough, and if the tabby keeps it up, he might actually give a shit about them. But the moment passes. A drinking buddy is just a drinking buddy. Marinov is an amusing distraction. Nothing more. At least that's what he assures himself. Besides, that kid seems corrupt enough on their own, hanging out with him too much would lead them down a dark path. He'd be doing a favor by keeping this arm's length or further.