ArchivedLogs:Fishy Business

Fishy Business
Dramatis Personae Shane, Jennifer	2013-05-03 Jennifer decides to seek out Shane. They get along perfectly well!
Location <XS> Lake
Bright, bright, bright; the lake glitters wide and expansive here, stretching off into the distance. Sunlight, moonlight, starlight, it catches them all. Lapping at the rocky shore, its deep waters are frigid in winter and cool even in summer. A stone pier stretches out a ways into the water, wide and smooth, though often icy in winter. The water teems with life nevertheless, home to myriad species of fish that provide for ample fishing or just lazy watching on a slow summer day, for those who want to take a boat from the boathouse out to the center of the lake, or perhaps lounge on the pier and try their luck. Classes are finishing for the day, though between sports and clubs and detentions and tutoring and training, the day hasn't yet ended for many students. Outside the mansion it's still busy, then, with track practice happening on the track and the crew team rowing away to one side of the lake. The /far/ side of the lake from this one, though. Here, right now, it's quiet. Warm. Kind of muddy. A pair of birds are startled up from the reeds by the emergency of one tiny blue figure from the water. Squelch squelch squelch. Shane's clothing is in a heap among the reeds, sort of damp and a little muddy, itself. The damp and muddy doesn't seem to /bother/ him, dripping wet as he is; he tugs on undershorts, shorts, sort of /hurriedly/, his eyes tracking the flight of the birds as the wing away to settle in a nearby tree. The direction in which the birds flee happens to coincide with the direction from which a female figure is approaching the lake. Judging from the dark wood-coloured office slacks, a matching jacket and a fancy white blouse, it is one of the teachers. The fiery hair is tentatively brushed away from her stern face as she draws nearer. Having finally found Shane, she stops merely a handful of feet away from the water, crossing her arms lazily, letting them rest against her stomach. "I have to admit", she begins with a voice surprisingly soft; one would assume a teacher would approach one of the twins with a firmer tone. "I always had trouble telling twins apart. If I ask which one are /you/, are you going to lie?" A faint smirk tugs at a single corner of her lips. Shane is plucking up his shirt from the ground, and exceptionally keen senses mean that this approach is no surprise to him; he is casual-slow about looking up, Xavier's-issue gym tee-shirt hanging from one clawed hand as he turns pitch black eyes on Jennifer. Slowblink, one clear inner set of eyelids and then his outer blue ones. "Why would I lie?" he asks, with slightly wider eyes, as though he does not all the /time/ pretend to be his model-student teacher's-pet brother. Most especially when /he/ is supposed to be in detention. Which is basically every day. Probably today, too. "We're easy to tell apart. My brother's the pretty one." "The pretty one?" Both brows are raised in surprise, followed by a bit of a scoff. "I don't know about that. I think it would be defeating the very concept of twins." Tilting her head to the side, she sighs softly. "I assume you're Shane, then? At least, that's what the kids told me." A little bit of a pause is given before the redhead explains her presence. "I'm here to talk to you. A little bit as a teacher, and... hopefully, a little bit as a friend. Think you have time to spare?" She eyes the sharktwin curiously, perhaps getting used to the mutation, or perhaps trying to read the student. Shane's webbed fingers are bunching the t-shirt into a crumpled ball, and he studies Jennifer for a long moment. His gills -- there are two pairs, small at either side of his neck and longer rippled down along his sides -- slowly flex open and closed, though on land it's unlikely they're helping him /breathe/. His toes curl down against the muddy ground he stands on, squishing it with a quiet squelching noise. "Kinda hard to be my friend when you don't even know me," he says eventually, kind of bland as he finally shakes out the t-shirt and tugs it on. It clings to his damp skin, and he takes a moment to smooth it out. "f'I don't have time, you gonna talk at me anyway?" Those crossed arms momentarily tighten around Jennifer's waist. A sneer begins to form on her lips. "Depends. Do you have a /good/ reason not to have time, besides skipping lessons?" "I may not be your friend just yet, but it's all on you if you let me try to me be one. But before you even give me that chance, first I'll address you as a teacher. And /this/ you're going to have to listen to, I'm afraid." Her soft voice indeed grows a bit sterner and more akin to that of a teacher's. "What you said to Kai? That was inexcusable. I know I was not /there/ when... /it/ happened, but the way that boy behaves now, it shouldn't take a genius to understand he was out of control. He was a cornered animal. If you try to free an abused lion, it's going try to tear the closest thing to the opened cage door. What you told him only provokes that lion further, Shane." Shane glances out at the lake, watching the boats of the crew team in the distance. "Lessons are over for the day, /miss/." It takes a teenager to really make a term of respect sound like 'bitch' but Shane is the /teenageriest/. For a moment as the gills at his neck flutter faster. It isn't until they have pressed down flat again that he speaks, kind of through a mouthful of clenched shark-teeth. "I give exactly zero shits about what bullshit excuses he wants to feed himself to pretend someone /else/ killed my friend. You think he's the only fucking person here who knows what it's like to be a trapped animal? No. He's just the only one who thinks that means he should be coddled." "Seriously, Shane?" To say Jennifer is not affected by the teenager's angst would be wrong; some of that frustration rubs off on her. On the other hand, she reins her annoyance in, or tries to. "Is that /really/ what you think? /Cute/." A scoff punctuates her words. That sneer goes into overdrive. "Is that what this is all about? Him getting what you see as 'special treatment' while you teeter on the edge of expulsion? Truth is, Shane, he's the more mature between you two. He already left his cage. It looks to me like you're still living in /yours/. Maybe if you spent less time looking at others and more time at /yourself/, you'd actually get somewhere." "Fuck you." That's all Shane says, bland-flat and tired. He's turning away, unsquelching his feet from the mud to start walking. Towards Jennifer, /around/ Jennifer maybe, back towards the school. "You don't know the first fucking thing about me or what any of this is about. And you're definitely not my fucking friend but you are not even my gorram teacher. You can fuck right the hell off trying to pretend to be." Once Shane passes by her, Jennifer casually follows after. "Is that your defense? Are those the bars of your cage? Telling everyone trying to explain to you how the outside world works to 'fuck right the hell off'? Kai is not allowed to indulge in his animalistic urges, but /you/ are? There is a word to describe such behaviour, y'know. It's called being a hypocrite." "And as long as you are in /this/ school, I am /your/ teacher and you are /my/ student. And you will get to hear this speech or a variation of it every time you approach one of my students and try to give them lessons you yourself ignore, young man." "You," Shane says, quiet through his teeth, "have /not/ fucking seen me as an /animal/. And that is the last fucking time /you/ ever get to call me one." His hands have curled tight into fists at his sides, but they're not swinging. Just tense. He doesn't look at Jennifer. He just speeds up his steps towards the school. Jennifer finally slows her steps down. Perhaps it is because she no longer wishes to follow him, or perhaps because she wants to create some distance between the two, should the spoken threat turn out to have some validity. "Whether or not we have this talk again depends on you and you alone. Your childish petty threats do not intimidate me. I have sentenced murderers that came from cages that make yours look like a fluffy pink bedroom. So get /over/ yourself, Shane Holland." "The fuck do you know about where I came from? For someone trying to get /me/ to understand that motherfucker better you sure as shit don't even bother to -- " Shane's hands are curling tighter still, and there are small dots of blood where sharp claws prickle down against his palm. His nostrils flare, for a moment, and he doesn't finish this sentence. He uncurls his hands slowly, turning one over to look at it. His teeth bare, more at his palm than at Jennifer. Hand dropping to his side, he speeds up into a jog, heading back towards the building.