ArchivedLogs:Icebreaker

Icebreaker
Dramatis Personae Anole, Hercules, Nick
In Absentia	2015-10-11 "It's cool, when it's not on fire."
Location <XS> Anole, Hercules, and Nick's Dorm - FL2
The influx of new students this year has led to a bit of overcrowding at Xavier's, and it is starting to show in the dorm arrangements, many rooms like this one refitted for three students where they had once been built for only two. The standard two closets have been joined by a large armoire against one wall; three dressers have been moved in, three desks. A bunk bed on the left side, a lofted twin with its desk underneath it on the right. The weekend has come and gone, the sun having set on freedom a few hours ago. With curfew firmly in place, most students have begun to drop off to sleep. However, at least one student is awake, in the boy's dorm. With a small night lamp pointed away from his roommates' bunks, Hercules scratches away at a notebook with a standard HB pencil. With small, careful strokes, he fills a page with neat cursive script. The tall teen pauses a moment to reach into a small box, pulling out a cookie of some kind. The box is recognizable to some due to the Evolve Cafe logo on the side. Nick has been curled (sans blanket or shirt) on the bottom bunk across from Hercules for a while, evidently asleep, but he stirs, ears straining at some noise or another. He rolls briefly onto his back and then sits up, brown fur all askew down one side and amber eyes bleary, wearing only a pair of blue plaid boxer shorts. He emits a faint, sort of grumbly growl, and opens an ancient Green Lantern lunch box sitting by his bed. The box is almost completely full of various meal bars, and he extracts one without really looking, peels it open, and starts jawing it. From under his pillow he pulls a battered paperback book, 'A Sand County Almanac,' but does not start reading it just yet. He finally looks at Hercules and croaks a weary, "Hey" in the other boy's direction. There /is/ a noise, outside the dorms -- footsteps, in the hallway; not that that's unusual. Very very quiet footsteps, admittedly, a soft cautious pad of bare feet that pauses outside the door. There's only one small (also cautious) knock at the door before it opens. A very green face pokes through, hairless though capped with a sharply spiked hard carapace. Anole's eyes dart from Hercules to Nick before he relaxes and slips the rest of the way in. "Oh. Okay. This is right." He's dressed in Xavier's tee, soft grey sweatpants, barefoot; there's a still-damp towel draped over his arm, a backpack on his back, ratty old sneakers held in his hand. He smells freshly out of washing up, Dove soap and minty toothpaste, though there's a distinctly less pleasant smell, damp and mildew and sewage, that clings, still, to his backpack and shoes. He closes the door behind him but doesn't enter the room any further, eyes skipping up to the top bunk. "I guess that's me?" The large teen looks over towards Nick when he hears the growl, noting the other teen's meal bar selection. His eyes also focus on the name of the book, a smile coming to his lips. "Evening.", Hercules says quietly. "Long day, or just can't sleep. Uh, if my light is bugging you, I can turn it off if you like." He reaches for the box of cookies, and rolls his chair over a bit towards Nick's bunk. "Care for a chocolate cookie? Fresh as of this morning, bought 'em down at the Evolve Cafe in Lower East Side." His head cants at the knock to the door, and he eyes the teen who steps inside. Glancing from him to the top bunk left over, he nods slightly. "Well, we can talk about it if you'd like. It's not set in stone or anything, yeah?" Hercules turns in his chair and offers the Evolve Cafe box of cookies at Anole, "Chocolate cookie? Name's Hercules." "Don't worry about it, I'm just a light sleeper. Crickets could wake me up, or a door opening down the hall. Or...an empty stomach." Nick polishes off the rest of his meal bar, jawing it savagely without any evident relish and then washing it down with a long drink from a steel cantine. He tips the cantine back and pours the water down into his open mouth with the ease of long practice, not even touching the brim with his lips. "Ooh, cookie. Thanks." He stretches out his arm and picks up a cookie between clawed index finger and thumb with surprising delicacy. Turning, he nods at Anole. "Hey. S'up to you." He nods at the mattress he is sitting on. "If you really prefer bottom bunk, I'm not sold on it, and it's not like I have that much stuff to move." So saying, he casually takes a bite of the cookie, eyes widening. "Wow, this is good! Where'd you say this is from again?" Anole shakes his head, shoulders a little bit hunched as he sets his shoes by the door. He skitters over to the bunks, tossing his backpack up onto the top bunk. "It's fine. This is fine." He climbs up the ladder, settling himself cross-legged on the bare mattress and eying its neatly folded sheets like he is is contemplating the /onerous/ task of actually making his bed. The mention of cookies pulls his attention away from /this/ chore, though; he folds his lopsided-enormous clawed arm on the bed's railing, his more normally-human-proportioned hand curled against the bedpost as he peeks down over the edge of the bed. "Chocolate?" There's a small perk to his previously timid tone. With a sudden thwwwwwwwwwip, a looooong stretch of pink zaps lightning-fast across the room, whapping into the box that Hercules holds. Two of the cookies vanish, yoinked back up on the end of Anole's sticky tongue. "Efof," his muffled answer comes through a mouthful of chocolate, before he drops one of the cookies into his hand and swallows the other. "-- Shane's cafe." Hercules glances to Nick and nods lightly. "Ah, well, I will do my best to move as quietly as I can. As for an empty stomach, I know how that goes." He grins at the wolf teen's surprise at the cookie. "It's from the Evo..." Hercules gives a bit of a start as the tongue latches onto two cookies suddenly, and vanishes. The tall teen looks up at Anole, and laughs as he tries to speak with them in his mouth. "Okay, now /that/ was cool!" Grinning, he nods to Nick, "Yeah, what he said. Shane's dad apparently bakes them. Taylor said he cheats, which I take to mean that Shane's dad has mutant cooking powers. Which is awesome, if he can make cookies this good." "Whoa, whoa, whoa..." Nick holds up both hands, half-eaten cookie and all. "Back it up. Shane has a cafe? Sweet! I have to check that out. Haven't been to the city since I got here." He takes another bite of the cookie and licks the crumbs from the sides of his muzzle. "Yeah, Jax gave me some cookie-baking tips, but I thought he had like...holo-projecting powers. I saw him make illusions and stuff." His ears press down slightly and his furry brows furrow in a pensive frown. "Though he could have more than one power, I guess." There's a faint darkening of the green of Anole's cheeks, and he gives a small grin down to Hercules. "It's convenient. Sometimes. Though /weirdly/ people don't always like me doing that when we're playing frisbee?" He shrugs, eyes exaggeratedly innocent. WEIRD people and their WEIRD hangups around slobber-covered frisbees. "Go figure." There's a small hint of laugh in his voice. He licks crumbs off his lips, actually taking a /bite/ of the second cookie rather than chomping it up whole. "Jax is um." He frowns. "I don't /think/ he has mutant cookie powers? Just the light stuff. So far as I -- know. It wouldn't really be fair to get all the badass /plus/ cookies on /top/." Hercules nods to Nick and grins, "Yeah, it's a pretty cool place. All kinds of coffee and tea and other drinks. And so many snacks you could spend all day trying to decide which to get." The large teen chuckles and shakes his head, "I dunno what powers he has. But if these are his cookies, he's a damn fine baker. I'm going next weekend to get more. Wanna come with?" Hercules looks to Anole, "You too, yeah?" He chuckles at the mental image of a pink tongue snagging a frisbee out fo the air. "Bah, if they can't hack it playing against a frisbee master, they shouldn't complain, right?" A cookie is pulled out of the box and the young man takes a large chomp out of it. The box is offered to Nick once more. "You're both welcome to them. I kinda got them with you two in mind. Break the ice and all that." "Slobber?" Nick echoes, scooting to the edge of his mattress and cocking his head to see Anole up above him. "Wait, was that your *tongue*?" He looks at the box in Hercules's hands, then back to Anole again as if estimating the distance. Admittedy, the dorm room is not huge. "I'm pretty good at frisbee." Quirking a smile at Anole sidewise, he adds, "Probably not as good as you. Thing is, other kids were always trying to *get* me to catch the frisbee with my mouth..." He shrugs, then, at his larger roommate's invitation, takes another cookie. "Wow, thanks! Yeah no I totally want to go, eat all the snacks." "It's cool," Anole agrees cautiously, "when it's not on fire. And Shane's dad teaches baking here so if you like these you can see more for yourself sometime. Usually the rec room has -- stuff. From him." He swallows down the rest of the cookie, eying the box hungrily before -- with another loooong *thwp!* -- snagging himself a third. His tongue dangles down out of his mouth for a moment, at least three feet of it hanging down over the edge of his railing with cookie stuck to the end before he reeeels it back in. Plucks up his cookie. "No way. It was my cookie-grabber. -- Ew." /This/ comment comes at the mention of other kids trying to /get/ Nick to catch the frisbee with his mouth. "Other people are awful." Though now he's looking over at the box of cookies. He offers Hercules a shy smile. "... some other people. Thanks. Um." He shifts a little awkwardly. "I'm not usually here on weekends but I'm -- around. The city. Ish. That could be... maybe. Fun." Hercules raises an eyebrow at Nick, "Yeah, pretty sure that was his tongue. And... that's just mean, what some other kids think they can make you do." He smile brightly at Nick on his agreement, "Awesome, we can set off early Saturday." Looking then to Anole, he smiles... though his eyes open a little wider. "On fire? Uhm. Well, it was not on fire when I went. And yeah, Taylor said Shane's dad made the tiramisu cupcakes, which were also awesome." This time his eyes are able to track the tongue on its cookie snagging mission, and he grins again. "Uhm, well, if you're not here when we plan to leave, can we meet you somewhere? And uh, thanks. I think. I uhm... try not to be judgemental, you know? I know folks come in all shapes and sizes, and I just try to get along. People are people, yeah?" "There's always mean kids, but...eh." Nick shakes his head and downs the last bite of his cookie, licking his lips with obvious relish. "I feel like it's bigger than bullying and judging and setting things on fire...though, seriously? On actual *fire?*" His lips draw back slightly to emit a faint growl. "It's like, to a lot of humans, maybe even most? We're *not* 'people.'" He sounds more fatalistic than angry, as such. One of his hand scoops up 'A Sand County Almanac' and clutches it tight. "But we can still have fun." His scowl turns into a determined grin. "It hasn't been set on fire in a while," Anole reassures the others. "That's how Shane got it, though. Some other people used to own it and then it got attacked and burned down." Shrug. "With /actual/ fire. But that was forever ago. Mostly now people don't do that they just throw rocks at the windows and spraypaint bad words and try to shoot Shane and stuff." His tone is oddly casual about this, no particular weight given in /inflection/ to any one of these actions over the other. He finishes his cookie, sliding down further to hang half over the edge of the bed railing and peer down at the book in Nick's hands. "Are you reading an actual almanac?" Hercules' face falls a little, the smile faltering at Nick's words. "Aye, we can still have fun. But don't let them get to you, yeah?" The smile returns as he notes the book in the other teen's hands. He glances up at Anole then. "Try to shoot Shane? Man... That's messed up." The almanac is glanced at once more. "I /think/ it's about Wisconsin?" Nick tilts his head far to one side again, peering up at Anole with an expression that isn't *exactly* incredulous, as if he merely holds a faint hope that his roommate might be exaggerating. But, shutting his mouth with an audible clicking of teeth, he does not ask. He looks down at the book in his hand. "Not really an almanac, and only *kind* of about Wisconsin. It's...a bunch of essays about ecology and how humans relate to it. Or fail to, I guess. S'my favorite book." "People can be really messed up," Anole agrees with a small wrinkle of his brow. His clawed hand curls tighter around the railing of his bed, but then relaxes when the bedframe starts to give a creak of protest. He shakes his head quickly, releasing the bed and flopping back. Then sitting up again so that he can shake out his bedsheets and start to make the bed. "Huh. Can I read it some time? When you're not. Using it. Also when I'm not going to go to sleep." Hercules grins at Nick, looking again at the cover. "It sounds interesting. Perhaps something everyone should read, yeah?" He glances up when Anole's bed creaks, and nods to the lizzy teen. "It's okay, dude. You're in good, and safe, company here." The taller teen chuckles. "I was going to ask to borrow it. But I bet the library here has a copy, so I'll go check it out tomorrow." Hercules eyes the book in question. "It does look well loved.", he says to Nick. As Anole starts to make his bed, Hercules uses his height to peer over the railing a bit. "Want a hand?" Nick's raised eyebrows would go unnoticed by Anole, as he is busy making his bed. Then he raises them even higher at Hercules. "Yeah, the library probably has a copy...and this seems like the kind of school that would *order* a book for you if you asked for it special anyway. But I'll leave it on my desk if either you want to borrow it." He chuckles softly, nodding at Hercules. "Yeah, I've read it a few times, though it came to me already kind of beat up." Standing up, he lays the book at the center of his almost completely bare desk, then returns to his bed. "I should get back to sleep. First day of classes for me tomorrow, I'm going to be scrambling to catch up. 'Night." "I mean I dunno it sounds enlightening but... uh." Anole hesitates. "... actually kind of boring for like. Recreation," he admits with a slight darkening of his cheeks and an only-slighlty-apologetic grin. "So now I'm curious. I don't know many people who'd have that as their favourite book. Maybe it'll surprise me." There's a slight tear of the fabric of his fitted sheet as he pulls it into place, clawed hand snagging at it as he slips it down over the edge of the bed. The sheepish expression grows, but then he shakes his head. "Tricky part's done. Thanks, though. -- Oh god don't remind me. /Classes/." Mmph. He shakes the other sheets out, not bothering with trying to tuck /those/ in. "Night!" Hercules nods to Nick and grins. Offering a wave to the wolf teen, Hercules yawns. "G'night Nick." The tearing sound causes Hercules some concern, but chuckles and shrugs. "Alright. Oh, guess you're off as well. G'night then. G'luck tomorrow in classes, if I don't see you before you leave." The tall teen ducks back under his bunk, pulling his chair back and settling down again. He picks up the pencil once more, and begins scratching anew in the notebook, a broad grin on his face as he does so.