ArchivedLogs:Embracing Chaos

Embracing Chaos
Dramatis Personae Aloke, Jackson	2014-03-26 (Right on the heels of money woes, soon followed by working things out with Micah.)
Location <XS> Art Room - FL2
Smells of paints and chalks and turpentine mingle freely in this room, well-used, well-stocked. Natural light flows in, plentiful through the large windows. The long counter-like tables are speckled with spots of color, and half finished projects often stand on easels or propped in corners. The many cupboards lining the walls are crammed full of art supplies. It is some time in the wake of the dinner hour -- there's probably still some food available downstairs though most people are done eating by now. /Somewhere/ down there Spencer is probably trailing Taylor around filling up the evening with nonstop chatter. Up here Jax has been tucked away in the art room for some while -- since moving back into the school he's actually been spending most all his free time here, when there aren't classes in session, painting /pretty/ much all night long. It's -- doubtful how much /sleep/ he's gotten all week. At the moment, though, he's not painting. Astute observers may have noticed a recently departed Sebastian fleeing the art room with a Micah somewhere in his wake. Jax is still here, though; there's an easel set up with an oil painting in veeery early development, right now just a near-formless base layer of colours that are not distinct enough to give much idea of the image they will /become/. His palette is abandoned on a table nearby it, though, with his brushes resting on a brush holder. /Jax/ himself -- strikingly uncolourful today, no makeup, no /hair/, no /tattoos/, no piercings, just a Cooper Union t-shirt and plain jeans and a black eyepatch -- is seated on a stool in front of the easel. Staring at it, evidently. Maybe it's staring back. In a soft flash of yellow light over by the windows, Aloke appears. He's barefoot as usual, wearing black and gray plaid pajama pants, and a black t-shirt, but it looks like he's probably cleaned his sunscreen off at this point because as his skin glow recharges after travel, he is becoming /very/ bright. He would be painful to look at, for most people. "Oh, {sorry}," he says in very poor French. Mallory has been teaching him. He knows a smattering of words now, none of which are particularly helpful on their own. "I didn't mean to disturb you, Jax-" Aloke's voice trails off when he gets a closer look at his friend, and he crosses half the distance to Jax's easel before pausing. His voice softens, and lowers. "Hey man... are you ok?" For the very briefest of instants there's a faint /tug/ at that light as it appears, a small pull that ends once light resolves into person. Jax's eye flicks to Aloke, and an automatic reflexive smile brightens his expression. His hand skims over his smooth-bald head; where his fingers pass over they leave in their wake a brilliantly coloured tattoo of a chimaera. By the time his hand drops there's just a hint more colour in his cheeks, a hint of glimmer shimmering on his lips, a dusting of sparkly blue brushed over his eye. "Oh, I -- apologies, I was -- you ain't --" There's a definite /shakiness/ to his voice that no amount of visual illusion can mask, but his smile stays warm as ever. "You ain't -- disturbin', I wasn't -- really gettin' a whole lot done anyhow. Paint's dryin'. Meant to start on a second but --" As his brightness returns to full, Aloke holds his hands out to Jax in a 'help yourself' gesture, in case Jax can get any use from his ambient glow, which he then turns into a silent invitation to hug. He's as bright as a yellowy 60 watt bulb at the moment, even glowing through his clothes some. Even if Jax is hesitant, Aloke will press the point and pull Jax into a warm hug. In the embrace, Aloke says quietly, "Hey, you don't have to do that just for me, man. All that, with the shine." He kisses Jax on the cheek and holds him out at arm's reach for a moment before finding a stool to sit on. "I know you well enough by now anyway. So you might as well just tell me what's on your mind." Again, his tone is soft and gentle, but it's also not a half-assed invitation. There is a moment of hesitation preceding the hug, but mostly because Jackson has closed his eyes, face turning towards the glow like a sunflower opening up towards the light. He leans into the hug when he's pulled into it, though, arms wrapping back around Aloke fiercely; he holds it a little /longer/ than necessary, face tipping in to rest against the older man's shoulder. It leaves behind a faint trace of damp when he pulls back, though his face looks dry even as the makeup fades away. (The chimaera on his skull stays.) "I kinda --" Jax presses his knuckles to his lips as he takes a seat back on his stool, shaking his head quickly. "I don't know. /Everything/. I kinda jus' had a fight with Micah an' I -- ain't even sure I know why I was fightin' with him," he admits in a guilty voice. "Jus' to be stubborn, maybe. I don't even -- I feel like my life's --" His smile twists into something /crooked/-unhappy. "... jus' been kinda /blowed up/." Aloke's expression falls and he closes his eyes for a moment. "Oh no, that's awful," he says quietly. "On top of everything that happened the last week..." Aloke pulls his feet up onto the top rung of the stool, looking a little like bird perched there, and rests his elbows on his knees. "Do you wanna talk about it? The fight, I mean?" "He wants me to take off work till the semester's over," Jackson explains a little uncomfortably. "I mean, not here. But at the Clinic, an' at the tattoo studio. Because the fire kinda -- blowed up half of my graduation project an' my school's pretty much outta patience with how /many/ extensions I need on everything every time I get shot or stabbed or there's a raid or somethin' blows up -- s'kinda." His nose wrinkles, head bowing. "A habit of mine. Things goin' haywire. So either I finish or I may not -- graduate an'. But." His teeth scrape down against his lip, his eye screwing up tight. "But our /home/ just exploded. We jus' lost /everything/, Aloke, /an'/ we're in the middle'a buyin' a house on /top/ of havin' to replace our /entire/ lives an' that's, you know, still with three kids to look after an' we wasn't exactly /flush/ with cash /before/ the fire /an'/ we'll have a whole influx'a new refugees to look after on account'a we have more labs to hit an' /that/ costs --" He cuts himself off with a sharp intake of breath. "M'ramblin', 'pologies. I jus' -- I could barely have afforded less hours at work /before/ someone torched everything we own an' now he wants me to take /months/ off when we have a /whole/ lot of /huge/ expenses stackin' up. An' I didn't -- think it was feasible an' I -- said some real hurtful things an' he says I'm a martyr an' I just --" His hands lift, palms pressing in against his eyes. "... jus' kinda feel like I'm always losin' control over my life. An' this is so /stupid/ to be mad about 'cuz he only is even tryin' to /help/ me graduated I can't hardly be mad at him for /carin'/. I just. Don't know how to take care of all this stuff and. And /B/ came in while we was fightin' an' said /he'd/ pay for -- I can't even take care of my own kids, Aloke, they're takin' care of /me/." Aloke listens, and through some effort of will, doesn't interrupt. He has a 'fixer' personality, that much is obvious, but this isn't the sort of thing a friend can just give some advice on. Sometimes you just have to listen. "I hear you Jax, I do." Aloke stands and drags his stool over by the young man, and sits down to drape an arm around his shoulders. "I wish I had answers for you. But I'm in the first successful relationship of my life and it's been barely four months." He gives Jax a sad smile and snugs him close in the shoulder-hug. "Can I just... I gotta say something, ok?" He only pauses a moment, and then says, "You got a man... who is /so/ in love with you. He wants you to drop everything and do the thing you love /most/. You got kids who love you so much... You know it's my understanding that kids are /supposed/ to take care of their parents in their old age." Aloke grins and runs his fingers through his own graying hair. "And what are you? Twenty-/three/ this summer? You're pretty fucking old, Jax." With his left arm draped over Jax, Aloke holds out his right hand, offering it to Jax. "I just. There's so much to say, but there's something I'd wanna show you. If... you don't mind traveling. Will you take my hand and come with me?" Jackson leans into the hug, an exhausted wilt to his posture. Some of Aloke's radiant glow is drifting to the side, twining itself around Jax's arms before it is simply absorbed into him. "He's so amazin'," he agrees when Aloke says Micah is so in love with him. "An' I think I -- I hurt him and I don't." He swallows, closing his eye. "Jus' feel like everything's so outta control all the time I don't know how to --" He shakes his head, cracking his eye back open and taking Aloke's hand. "Don't mind travelling /your/ way. Kinda quicker that most ways." Aloke nods and squeezes Jax's hand. The two become light. In an arcing instant that stretches to eternity, the two are streaking westward, challenging the sun to a race which they quickly catch up in. The world is frozen around them as they go. Aloke even goes up high for a moment, high enough to see the curve of the Earth, and then arrowing back down toward the iconic Australian continent. They land on a strip of deserted, white beach in the middle of nowhere, the sun blazing down on them in the waning days of the Western Australia summer. Aloke's light is out again when they become solid, but this is normal now, understood to be a part of his process. He seems just a little out of breath, but not alarmingly so. "Jax... you don't /have/ to be in control of everything. You /can't/ be. Sure, you're gonna have to talk to Micah, but you have to get your head right first." Aloke holds his hands up to the sun and says, "Look around! This world is spinning away in a galaxy of stars and there's nothing we do about it. Isn't is beautiful?" Aloke turns slowly, barefeet in the sand, and then starts to back up toward the waves gently massaging the beach. Jax, also, seems out of breath when they land, but in /his/ case it's more of an /exhilarated/-giddy breathlessness. His eye is wide, his own bare toes curling into the sand as his arm curls around Aloke for a brief disoriented moment of support before he straightens to stand on his own. "Oh -- /oh/." His head tips back, and where Aloke's light has dimmed /he/ just starts to shine brighter in the sudden /summer/ sun, light streaming to engulf him in a fierce hot aura of glow. "You can see the /world/ from up -- oh /gosh/." His voice is still a little breathless as he starts to drift towards the water. "I'm an anarchist," he says with a small shaky laugh. "I guess I should be okay with a little bit'a chaos, huh?" "Life is chaos, Jax," Aloke says with a wide smile. It seems he likes the sun too, even if he doesn't feed on it the way Jax does. "I'd think you would have noticed that as an artist, rather than an anarchist. It's not about politics it's about... Well imagine if everything in your life /did/ line up in rows and boxes where everything made sense. Would a 23 year old man have twin 16 year olds? And two more kids to boot?" Aloke backs up until his he's knee deep in the ocean, apparently unconcerned about his PJ pants. "Nothing in life can be controlled, and you wouldn't want anything that /could/ be controlled. What would you do if Micah just ran around doing whatever you told him to? Or if..." Aloke actually snorts, and laughs out loud. "Or /Shane/?" He laughs long and hard at that idea, finally shaking his head. "They're seventeen now," Jackson says, a little wistfully. "Gettin' /old/. Missed their birthday on account'a everyone was dead or in the hospital. Heck of a time, huh? Happy birthday here's a /bomb/." He shakes his head, peeling off his t-shirt shirt to toss it aside onto the sand. /He/ might actually be concerned about his pants (/possibly/ this is because he owns very few of them at this point); at least, he wriggles out of those, too, to follow after Aloke in boxers, splashing his way into the water. "-- Oh my gosh." A playful shove at Aloke through his friend's laughter is directed further back into the water. "If Shane started doin' everything I said I'd prob'ly have a /heart/ attack." Aloke laughs and falls back, completely soaking his clothes. He peels off the shirt and throws it to land on the beach, but keeps the PJs on. He might not have much else on underneath! But shirtless, Aloke dives under the waves and swims just a little ways where he can stand in waist deep water. "God it's so /warm/..." He runs his hands through his hair and over his face to wipe away water and says more sedately, "You get that I'm not saying all that isn't a big deal, right? Because of course it was. It still is. But you can't let the fact that parts of your life are out of your control... control you." Aloke laces his fingers on top of his head and closes his eyes while he takes a deep breath. When he opens them again, he looks at peace. "Look Jax, you didn't ask my advice, and you gotta work all this out with Micah. But here's my two cents. If you got a son who want to help you finish school? Why the fuck not? The only rules anymore are the rules we agree to follow." He smiles and tilts his head, "Hey, isn't that kind of an anarchist thing to say?" Jackson disappears beneath the water, too, after Aloke falls back. He reappears just a little bit farther out than Aloke, turning upwards to float on his back in the bobbing ocean water. His eye closed, it might almost seem like he's not paying attention to Aloke until he wipes his hand against his eye and then stretches his arm back out in the water. His head turns to the side so that he can look back at the other man. "That," he agrees with a small chuckle, "is a /real/ anarchist thing t'say." He turns a slow smile up towards the sun, light still clinging bright to his skin. "-- Oh, gosh," is sudden /concerned/ remembrance. "Micah took off to work in his van again an' he didn't even get hisself no dinner." "Well," Aloke says with a slow smile. "I dunno about you, but I forgot my wallet. So what do you say we swing by the Tamarind and pick him up something to-go? It's on the house, on account of your kitchen being... in pieces." He shrugs. Dark humor is better than bitter sadness at this point. "In fact, tell anyone in the building they can come by for dinner until they get settled. It's the least we can do. And don't get all upset and call it /charity/. You know damn well you'd do the same." Jackson is opening his mouth -- perhaps to protest -- but he shuts it again with a snap. "My kitchen /is/ a little-bit outta commission." He tips himself upright, wading back towards Aloke to envelope the other man in a (very /bright/) fierce hug.