ArchivedLogs:Giving Back

Giving Back
Dramatis Personae Hailey, Peter, Shane, Taylor
In Absentia	2014-03-23 '
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. Peter's got wheels. The silver wheelchair gleams in the cloudy, cool spring day; the young chitin-clad boy is pushing it with a roll of his hands, ambling forward. He's wrapped up in a warm, comfortable blue jacket -- a little puffy! -- with matching pants and sneakers; strapped to his waist is a small hip-bag with a number of necessary amenities -- including his phone, just in case he needs it. The wheelchair rattles against the stone as Peter slinks forward, rolling ahead -- eyes glancing this way and that. In addition to the hip-bag, he's got a small plastic bag rolled up against his thigh -- inside of it is -- bacon! A little cold, but still deliciously greasy and salty, the scent subtly wafting outward for those with the nose to catch it. The pier isn't empty, today. There's already a teenager stretched out along the dock; Taylor is bundled up in grey denim jacket, warm scarf, a black cap pulled down over his shaved black head, jeans, boots. He's perched cross-legged on the edge of the stones, many of his tentacles wrapped around himself, a few pooled in his lap, one slinking back along the stone like a /looong/ black snake stretching /many/ feet off behind him. He has a notebook in his lap that he's taking notes in, a copy of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's /El amor en los tiempos del colera/ (in the original Spanish) in his hand, and his brows are faintly furrowed as the rattle of stones against wheels (or maybe the feel of a familiar mind) approaches. "S'that /cooked/?" He sounds hopeful. His eyes shift from his book out to the water. Peter grins sheepishly: "Yeah," he responds, his eyes drifting toward Taylor's tentacles -- then toward the water. His thoughts are clear; images of Ten Thousand Leagues Under the Sea spring to mind, with Captain Nemo bravely doing battle with the Kraken. This image soon drifts back to the notion of deep water; Peter's mind instinctively retracts, hands tightening just a /smidge/ on the wheels beneath him -- pulling himself back just an inch. "You want some? There's probably -- plenty for you /and/... anyone else. Well," Peter adds, glancing to the water thoughtfully, "there's never really enough -- for them." "Here --" Taylor is raising his brows for permission, reaching for Peter's bag of bacon, not actually smelled so much as just /known/ about from Peter's mind. The longest of Taylor's tentacles -- and oh, man, is it /long/ -- is uncoiling, and uncoiling, and uncoiling. "You want to go fishing?" One of the /smallest/, on the other hand, barely a wisp of a tendril-slim thing, slips into the pages of his book to hold his place as he closes it. He takes a pair of bacon-strips to fold the end of his tentacle around them, lowering the limb into the water with a slow ripple. It keeps lowering. And keeps lowering. And keeps lowering. He opens his book back up, a small twitch of smile on his face. "I think he's pretty much just been sleeping for a day. But he needed it. How're you /feeling/, man?" "Oh -- hey thanks. I was wondering how I was going to..." Peter trails off, his mouth flicking toward a grin as Taylor kind of -- takes over, with that long, unwinding tentacle -- watching it with a mixture of curiosity and fascination as it dips into the water. At the mention of Shane sleeping, Peter relaxes; at the question of how he's feeling -- there's a bundle of thoughts, there, tightly packed in layers upon /layers/ -- fragments of nightmares, of worries, of confusion and pain and... "Better," he decides, only adding: "I kind of. Freaked out. A lot." His other hand lifts, scrubbing at his face. "A /real/ lot," he mumbles into his palm. "Think there was a lot to freak out about. I was just on my way up to Game Night when it happened." Taylor's muscular tentacles ripple in slow shudder. His eyes turn out towards the water, then over to Peter. "But I can't even /imagine/ what --" His fingers tap against the cover of his book. "It's better now, though right?" In the water, his /huge/ long tentacle sinks a little bit farther out. "I mean, it's over. He's back. /You're/ back. And you're all going to be okay?" Hailey walks slowly to the lake, yawning loud as she looks at her papers. She hmms a little bit and tilts the papers. "Ugh not even in class yet and they give me crap to read." She grumbles and looks over her room assignment and orientation manual. Eyes glued to the paper she continues along, her vision flickering to the horizon only momentarily "..." Peter doesn't reply; instead, he just peers at the water, where Taylor's tentacle sinks beneath the depths. His thoughts are as murky as the lake's surface; his grip on the wheelchair tightens, before slowly -- painstakingly -- relaxing. "...yeah, I... just, I keep wanting to do -- better. You know there was a time," and now Peter sounds unusually /sardonic/, a tone of voice he is not accustom to, "when I actually /hoped/ for bad things to happen around me? Not so people would get hurt, but -- so I could, like -- run out there and save people. /Prove/ myself. Be heroic." Peter's mouth twitches. "I don't want to be heroic anymore. I just want everyone to be safe. I don't think," Peter decides, his eyes drifting along the length of that muscular tentacle, back toward Taylor, his expression slipping back into a slightly tired, beleaguered grin. "That I'm very good at it /anyway/. I stabbed Mr. Morgan -- oh, he's a tree -- with a Jaws of Life." And then, there is a Hailey; Peter's head is tilting back, crooning to peek over his own shoulder as she approaches the stone pier! He waves, briefly; the boy probably looks -- unusual. A chitin-clad kid swaddled in a blue coat and sitting in a wheelchair on a stone pier next to... a tentacle teen. Though the cheer ends in a sudden /yelp/ of pain. The bizarre scene on the pier -- black /tentacle-monster/ next to blue /bug-boy/ -- is about to get a little bit more bizarre. Because Taylor's looooong tentacle is /jerking/ back out of the water, with a very tiny very naked blue -- something. Clinging -- /biting/ -- to the end of it. CHOMP. CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP. Shane has eaten the bacon, sure, and then just /chomped/ down on Taylor's tentacle as well. The /enormous/ long appendage thrashes back down into the water to /smack/ Shane back into it with an at least mercifully distant icy /splash/. Given the long distance Taylor's tentacle had been reaching, it's a testament to the /lightning/ speed the boy must move at underwater that in no time at all there is a blue face popping up by the stone pier. Shane -- does not look very distinctly /human/, at first blush. Doesn't look very /male/, either, at least there's no defining features to what can be seen of face and shoulders to /tell/ a gender. His very narrow spritelike face is largely composed of /gigantic/ pools of way-too-deepset solid-black eyes, a /huge/ grinning mouthful of sharp shark-like serrated teeth, no distinct ears except lined ridges alongside his head, no eyelashes or eyebrows, strange flat nose. There's blood dripping down his chin and across the white of his teeth and along the sides of his neck, sharp slits of gills are rippling. Thin arms pull out of the water to fold his (webbed, clawed) hands atop each other. He's not fully healed from the explosion but near /enough/, just faint rippling patches of slightly-raw skin spread down his arms and shoulders, and in greeting to the others all he offers is a slide of pink tongue across bloody maw and an absolutely /delighted/: "Yum." Hailey blinks a bit as she hears her name. "Hmm?" She tilts her head a bit before jumping back at the odd attack. "What the hell!?" She moves far away, not knowing what the hell was going on with this odd scene. Her eyes flicker from the guy to the tentacle, to the thing biting it to the lake. "And this place offers swimming? What the fuck is this a way to cut down on student crowding?" That faint, tired grin brightens at the sight of the tentacle jerking, at the thrashing -- and then, at the climax, the sight of Shane's battered-but-healing face. Peter shifts a bit in his wheelchair, twisting around to face the blue teen -- also giving him a window to crane his head and look over to Hailey. "--hey," Peter says, to Shane, the grin widening. He hooks a glance over to Hailey, briefly, soon adding: "Oh, hey. I'm Peter, that's -- Taylor, and that..." He gestures at Shane. "--is Shane. He's a shark. I think they offer swimming but it's a lake, anyone can swim in it." Taylor's tentacle is recoiling, dripping, from the lake; water is streaming off it in rivulets onto to the stone, pooling beneath the ropy-muscular length of limb where he coils (and coils, and coils) the tentacle on the pier. Down at its very end there are toothmarks, still dripping blood but rapidly healing up. "Yeah, there's swimming. I mean, there's swimming as a regular phys. ed. class and there's swimming as a sport, you can take either. But this is a lake you can just swim in it for fun." He stretches out a couple feet off the end of his tentacle to thwap Shane in the forehead. "He lives in it half the time." From the chest down, most of Shane stays submerged into the still icy-chilly lake, but he rests his chin on his arms, the clear nictating membrane over his eyes pulling back once water has largely finished sluicing off /him/ as well. "They cut down on crowding by feeding people to me, yeah." He leans a little closer towards Peter's chair, chomping his teeth towards the other boy's boot. CHOMP. Chompchomp. "Cheaper than detention, too, so it doubles as a solution for disciplinary problems. -- Jesus fuck you're a cripple now dude? Saving lives is bad for your health." Hailey blinks a little bit as she tilts her head. "Uh...kinda crazy to swim when people like shark dude are in there." She waves her hand toward the lake and the bitey guy." She rolls her neck a little bit, sighing a little as she looks the grounds over, her eyes closing as she frowns. "Crazy crazy stuff here..." Peter's response to Shane's comment about the being-crippled -- and his prompt chewing on the tip of the shoe -- is to lift his other foot up and give Shane a very careful, yet very /firm/ dap. On the head. With the /other/ shoe. "Decompression sickness," Peter informs Shane, ever-so-woefully. "Professor McCoy says another few days, I should be able to walk -- couple of weeks, will be good as new. Um, well, I don't think I'll want to /swim/ again for a while," he admits, fiddling with the plastic bag -- popping it open! To retrieve /more/ bacon, and throw it down to Shane. "Shane's kidding," Peter informs Hailey, just in case she did not know! "He won't eat you. He /will/ save you if you're drowning, though. Him and B are pretty much, uh, the best swimmers here, so. The lake's probably the safest place to swim when they're in there. As long as they're not feeling -- bitey." Peter might be kidding about that last bit; he follows it by leaning down to dangle bacon in front of Shane's nose. Shane's reflexes with the bacon are wicked-fast, pulling himself up higher against the pier to /snap/ the meat out of the air with an audible click of teeth. "I have a name, you know. Peter /just/ told it to you." He settles back down on the pier, arms crossing on the cold stone again; his gills ripple as he is DAP'd in the head. "Decompression sickness, that sounds like a stupid thing for land mammals. Have you tried," he suggests very /seriously/ to Peter, "being a shark instead? It usually works for me." But after this his gills flutter faster; his next words are a little more breathless-hitched: "Serious-though. I didn't -- actually thank you. For Spence. I -- that was. Fuck." Taylor looks back down to his book, opening it up again when things get /emotional/. "They're not going to eat you," he assures Hailey with a small smile. "People around here don't generally eat each other. There's rules against that. But you probably don't want to swim now just because the lake's cold as hell." "Once in a long while zombies wander in from the hills," Shane adds more thoughtfully, "and get into the lake and that's dangerous, but we catch them pretty quick so it's usually safe." He stretches up to snatch the next piece of bacon as quickly as the first. "And I definitely don't let people drown when I'm in here." He hesitates a beat before amending: "I guess unless they're assholes. I'd let Max drown." Hailey waves a hand a bit. "Woah, okay then, uh...not sure if it works this way but uh...if I kinda....pop up in the lake sometime I'd appreciate a rescue.. I mean I've appeared in weird places before and I'm not sure if it's impossible to end up underwater but on the chance I can, a rescue would be nice. Peter's only response to Shane is to dap him with the tip of his shoe, and to lean farther down -- as far as he can manage! -- to kiss Shane on the top of his head, hands clenching at his wheelchair (carefully set to the LOCKED position, first) as he uses his upper arm strength to push himself downward. "You don't have to. Everyone helped. You know, he was the first person I ever super-hero'd?" Peter says, a crooked grin spanning over his face. "I feel really bad for Karrie, though -- it was -- I wish we didn't have to..." Peter's cheeks burn indigo as he straightens back in the wheelchair. "--maybe we should, talk to her -- or Xavier -- about." He glances at Hailey, then, mouth clamping shut; he grins a little crookedly at Shane's comment about Max -- glancing over to Taylor, then back to Hailey. "--well I mean just don't... /rely/ on that. They can't, like, patrol the whole lake the whole time." "Nah I can't just patrol the lake nonstop I mean about /once/ a semester," Shane confides this like a guilty secret, "I actually go to class. -- Appear in strange places so what you, uh --" His black eyes shift over to Peter, "-- teleport?" He frowns, at this. "Don't teleport into the lake. Bad idea." "And if she does," Taylor adds, closing his notebook and directing this to Peter, "don't hero your way in and rescue her. Is Karrie even okay? She looked worn as /hell/ after -- this fall." "She is." Shane's grin fades, more serious, now. "She -- is." His hand scrubs across his eyes, and then folds again. "Wait, how was he the first person you ever superhero'd weren't you being a dumbass forever ago?" "He means being a hero." Taylor offers this correction cheerfully. Or maybe just amused. Hailey nlinks and looks at him. "Ey, why shouldn't he rescue me?" She asks with a little twitch of her eyebrow. She breathes out and shakes her head slowly. "Yeah I teleport, sorta. I move through shadows. And if I just think of a direction I come out in a random place within my area. Hell if I thought hard enough of north I might end up in canada." She shrugs a bit. Peter glances at Taylor at the mention of Karrie; and then, Peter is thinking -- /broadcasting/, to Taylor, specifically -- and only to Taylor. << Do you think -- Xavier could block her power? If she -- wanted him to? >> It's a very tentative question, asked with a quiet sort of meekness; almost like Peter was afraid to even brooch the subject. "--yeah, I mean the first time I--you know--" And here, Peter just flails an arm, as if this is meant to explain the /whole/ thing. The other arm is busy plucking up what remains of the bacon, dangling it in front of Shane again. "--probably," Peter tells Hailey a little amusedly, "because I can't /swim/ right now. Also, we have a lot of teleporters here, so I'm sure -- there are a lot of people who can help you with that." Shane gives Hailey a kind of baffled look, a little blank, a little mystified; it takes a moment before he shakes his head, explaining again this time with the very slow-patient tone people tend to take when explaining complicated concepts to small children: "Peter is in a wheelchair right now. It's probably not a good idea for him to jump into lakes and try to rescue people from drowning." He even points to the wheelchair, just in case maybe Hailey didn't see it? One of his arms stretches out so that he can tap it with a claw. When he folds his arms back against the stones, his voice slips back to its previous casual-ease. "Besides I think you've done enough fucking heroing dude, you need a break." Taylor's eyes open in startlement at the unspoken question. He stiffens, clearly tense at /something/ though nobody else can hear /what/. The tension passes into a slow thoughtful look, and he doesn't actually /answer/ Peter's question except with a quiet: "-- huh." Very /abruptly/, he gathers his things, standing up. He squeezes at Peter's shoulder with a tentacle, one firm quick pressure, and then hurries back off towards the mansion. "-- what the fuck." Shane's brows lift. "What happened is something wro --" But Taylor's already leaving before Shane can finish asking this question; he huffs out a short breath, frowning at the other boy with enough clear concern that he doesn't even remember to snatch at the bacon. Hailey blinks "Um....okay I started a fire apparently." She chuckles a bit and covers herself a bit more with her hoodie. "Anyways I gotta go, I'm gonna go see what my room looks like and settle in.... Is there like a campus store where I can buy some spraypaint, chains, and uh...you know, decorating crap?" "...mff," is Peter's only response to Taylor's squeeze, a slight worried glance thrown his way -- then to Shane -- as if he might have done something wrong. Though it's hard to tell; Peter seems -- visibly torn, either way. "--a break would be nice," Peter agrees with Shane, his head dipping down -- once again, to creeeeeak forward on his chair (still locked!) and deliver a careful kiss to the top of his head. In response to Hailey, Peter only adds: "S'nice to meet you -- no, I don't think there's -- I'm sure there are things in the art room you can use if you ask one of the teachers..." Peter offers! "Spray paint?" Shane gives Hailey an utterly /baffled/ look as she starts asking about spray paint in the wake of another student's clear upset. "Embleer Frith, girl are you seriously this /completely/ self absorbed? I don't think I've heard you /really/ say a single fucking word about anyone but yourself this /entire/ freaking conversation." He promptly turns away from Hailey in irritable annoyance, gills fluttering rapidly against the side of his neck. There's still clear concern in his expression when he looks at Peter, though it takes him a moment to compose himself. "What -- /happened/. What's wrong -- no, shit, scrap that, /everything's/ fucking wrong." His head slumps down against his arms, and his gills continue to flutter. "Everything's always fucking wrong, Peter. Hey. Heyheyhey. Let's torch it and start over." Hailey blinks a bit. "Hey I already know what happened! And I was in an explosion before getting put here!" She huffs a bit before shrugging. "Anyways, off to meet that room mate.' She shrugs and heads off, making sure she was fully covered by her black hoody. "Bye -- be, uh, careful," Peter tells Hailey as she heads off. Then -- Peter reaches down, ever-so-delicate, with a small, meek smile -- to squeeze the back of Shane's head as he slumps down. Tugging! Trying, very /carefully/, to scoop Shane up by his neck-scruff -- up and out of the water -- careful not to pull /too/ hard in case he still needs some time in the water -- to deposit him in his lap. To /hug/. "You're not wrong," Peter informs him, giving him a squeeze. "And neither is this." Double-squeeze. Shane doesn't bother answering Hailey until /long/ after she's headed off. "What a fucking asshole," he grumbles, once she's gone, after Peter has scooped him out of the water; in air he seems to be cold in a way that he isn't as bothered by in the water, shivering once the air hits his unclothed skin. The long stretches of gills along his sides flicker. "-- Because fuck /every single one of us/ don't know what it was like to get exploded? My whole /life/ is fucking /gone/, Peter. Spencer /died/. My Pa --" He shakes his head, pressing his face against Peter's neck. "And you're sitting here a goddamn wheelchair while she whines on about -- ngh." His gills ripple again, and, still concerned: "/Do/ you know what happened with Tay? He didn't say anything to me he just took the fuck off." Peter /squeezes/ Shane when he feels him shiver, wrapping his arms around him to coccoon him deep in his grip -- and ward off the cold. Leaning over Shane, hunched forward, gripping and cradling. The hand behind Shane's head pushes him harder against his neck. "/We're/ your life, Shane. And we're -- still here." Though he hesitates on that last part, as if unsure. He doesn't even know how many people have died, yet. At the question regarding Taylor... Peter sighs, hard and deep. "I... I asked him if--" Peter starts, before just -- chewing on his bottom lip. "--if Professor Xavier could block Karrie's power. If she wanted him to. I don't... was that -- should I have not done that?" he asks, suddenly sounding -- deeply apprehensive. "Oh -- oh." Shane falls into silence, curling in closer against Peter to shield himself from the cold. "Oh -- I don't -- know. He and Karrie are really close. Tay and Karrie and Dai are -- I don't know. Just kind of. A /thing/. And the plague kind of /wrecked/ Karrie I don't think anyone knew before how much every -- time she did her thing it -- added up. Maybe he just --" Shane shakes his head uncertainly. "Wanted to find them. Talk to them. Or Xavier. Because I don't know if that /was/ possible it'd be -- maybe. Save her life. What's," Shane says kind of unhappily, "left of it to save." Peter kisses Shane, near the crown of his head, again. "--we should do something for her. To help, if we can," Peter says. "She's saved -- so many of us so many times and each time it's taking something away from her. Maybe -- there might be a way to give her /back/ some of what she lost? We should," Peter says, "/try/, at least." "Yeah," Shane agrees with a sharp smile, "make sure that when she gets into a good college far away from here, we don't come pester. Maybe send care packages. The kind with lots of cookies and no dead bodies." He leans in to press a firm kiss to Peter's mouth, sliding down off the other boy's lap with a small shiver. "Shit I should go get B. Maybe we can grab some food, eh, gimpy?" "No dead bodies," Peter agrees, before giving Shane a /tiny/ nip at the 'gimpy' comment. "Just for that, /you/ push," he adds.