ArchivedLogs:In Which Some Morlock-Style Dinner Is Served, With A Side Helping Of Morlock-Style Back To School Advice
| In Which Some Morlock-Style Dinner Is Served, With A Side Helping Of Morlock-Style Back To School Advice | |
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| Dramatis Personae | 2017-08-30 "Fit in? Do they have classes on /that/? |
| Location
<MOR> Welcome to the Freakshow | |
Wider and more spacious than many of the surrounding nooks and niches, this chill cavern is the central hub of the Morlock's underground network. With tunnels branching off in many directions, it takes a while to learn to /navigate/ from here to where you want to go, but there's generally plenty of more experienced people around to teach newcomers the ins and outs of the pathways. Here, though, is a safe place to come and relax, for what value of relaxation can be found among moss-covered walls and the occasional stagnant puddles on the floor. There's been furniture brought in, a mismatched assortment of crates, mattresses with busted springs, a few broken and subsequently repaired chairs, a folding table in a corner. Shelves along a wall hold entertainment; books, a smattering of board and card games, sometimes snacks. There's even electricity, wiring none too safe and visible in places where the wall has been broken open; the naked light bulbs flicker often and the lone outlet has had so many power strips attached it is undoubtedly a fire hazard. Time might be kind of meaningless down here, but dinner has its own siren call. Even when -- maybe especially when -- that dinner is a questionable mix of neon red pickled sausages, Hot Cheetos (also neon), Mountain Dew (maybe there's a trend?), Sour Patch Kids, Oatmeal Cream Pies. Lounging among his recently delivered booty, Anole is stretched out on a filthy old mattress in jeans and a greying sleeveless undershirt with a book (/One of Our Thursdays is Missing/) and one of the fat sausages, its plastic wrapping peeled back as he chomps down into it. "C-c-c-combo breaker!" Lured by the promise of DELICIOUS foods, one young scorpionoid is clicking her way closer. /One/ of these foods is not like the others, and Nessie snags herself an Oatmeal cream pie from the pile, tearing open the wrapper of the sandwich cookie happily. "'Zat any good?" It's hard to tell from her dubious tone, skeptical questioning look, if she's talking about Anole's book or his vividly hued mystery meat. "The sausage tastes like craft foam soaked in pickle juice." This surprisingly neutral-sounding commentary comes from a heap of brown fur sprawled beside Anole. Nick is wearing only tattered gray cargo shorts, the bottle of Mountain Dew in his hand still capped. "Tomorrow we gotta switch it up with some Chinatown junk food. Or go /hunting/..." He licks his chops. "You know, if there's one thing I miss about school? It's the food."
"That's about accurate." Nick's description of the snack draws a laugh from Anole. It doesn't seem to diminish his relish in the next bite. Nor his evident seriousness with the following: "They're really great. But if you're up for a bit of a hike we can go raid the supermarket in Flushing." He relinquishes his book easily enough, picking up a soda once his hands are free. "It's /tasty/ quinoa." "I /meant/ the book." Nessie folds all her legs primly beneath herself, settling down carefully and nibbling at her cookie. "I'll come with you," she offers cheerfully, "totally run distraction." Frown. "While I still can. It's weird school's starting so soon. What am I supposed to pack? /Am/ I supposed to pack?" "The food from the kitchen was /alright/ in a pinch, and it beats public school cafeteria food." Nick rolls onto his back, unscrews the cap from his soda, and pours a stream expertly into his open mouth. Gulps, runs his tongue over the corners of his mouth again. "Anyway /I/ meant the easy access to the woods. But I'll def hit B up, see if she wanna go hunting before she head back up." He flips onto his side so he can face his fellows. "Oh, the one in that big Chinese mall thing? I'm totally down." His ears cock toward Nessie. "I mean, other than like clothes and toiletries and stuff you might want in your dorm? Pretty much just like notebooks and pencils. Maybe a three-ring binder, loose paper, and some folders?" He doesn't sound too fussed about these things. "I think there's a school supply list, if you're really worried." "B's not going back." Casual, from Anole. "You'll have plenty of hunting time." He gulps thirstily at his soda, stifling a burp against the back of his hand. "Did they give you a supply list? They should've given you the list. You tell me what's on it, we'll make sure you've got it." His clawed hand is gesturing between himself and the other two boys. Voluntold. "And it's coming up on you quick but --" He glances over at Nessie, brow wrinkling. "It's not /that/ far, yeah? When it gets too much you can come back here and chill." "What, to college? Isn't she some kind of super-genius?" Nessie is still deconstructing her cookie, eating it in slow crumbling layers. Top cookie first. "Ummm yeah they gave me /so/ much information. I have to pick classes and meet with my advisor and see the shrink and the doctor and um I've got roommates and there's this huge packet of sports and clubs and stuff it's a lot." She lifts a hand, rubbing it over the smooth surface of her head. "Or it... seems like a lot. Is it -- a lot?" "Who you got for advisor? Hopefully not someone who's a tool." Taylor flops down beside the mattress, leaning his head back -- onto Nick, using the MOUND OF FLUFF as a pillow. "It's definitely a lot. But not the classes. Just -- all of it." "Oh!" Nick's amber eyes widen and his tail gives a tentative wag. "That's..." He frowns, ears pressing back. "I mean. She /is/ a super-genius. Probably way smarter than MIT gives her credit. But yeah no we'll help you get your school stuff." He pours more soda into his mouth, seeming quite complacent about his new career as a pillow. "I dunno, I think the classes were a lot, too. And it's not like the work was /harder/, exactly?" His nose wrinkles up. "But I felt like I got judged way worse for getting the same crap grades, you know?" "She's brilliant. But school is school. I guess going from Xavier's to there was just -- doubling down on the nonsense. But with a higher price tag." Anole shrugs a shoulder, polishing off his sausage and sucking some of the pickling juice out of its wrapper. "I don't know, it's a strange place. My grades were fine but it's still --" He hesitates, nose scrunching up. "Nick's not wrong. You screw up they'll get on your case way worse for it than some upworld-looking kid and blame it on you being a monster. And you do /good/ they'll stress you out the whole time telling you how you're not like --" He waves a clawed hand at Nick and Taylor, "and you need to do three times as good so one day you can fit in with the humans." For all that he sounds amused, now, at this thought. "Honestly, just take the classes you want to take and ignore the rest. There's -- a /lot/ of 'rest'." "Shane's my advisor," Nessie answers brightly, "so /that'll/ be okay anyway." She licks a crumb off the corner of her mouth, frowning -- small, at first, then deeper, a deep twist of anxiety in her mind. "Fit in?" She chuffs out a small laugh, here, pincer-hands clicking together as her tail sways behind her. "Do they have classes on /that/? I already met one of my roommates she freaked out just a little. Kiind of a little. I can't even fit in at /mutant/ school." She licks a little cream off her fingertips, the swaying of her tail ceasing. "I haven't met the other one, though, I think she's kinda famous? That Dazzler person? She seems nice on TV." Now she's licking cream off the inside of her cookie sandwich, with small dainty laps. "Are there any teachers I should just totally stay away from? Are there any that are /good/? How did you all get through?" Taylor lowers his hand halfway to putting another Cheeto in his mouth, fingers still curled around the corn puff. "Allison Blaire?" His lips have thinned, his voice abruptly flatter. "Damn." Nick makes a muffled grumble. "Yeah, I mean some of the teachers aren't even subtle about it. They just come right out and /say/ you gotta work three times as hard as the human-passing kids, cuz that's how it gonna be out in The Real World." << Like we don't know. Like it /matters/ how hard you work out there. >> He snorts. "Anyway, /I/ didn't get through, technically, but...well, you don't need me telling you about Jax. Doctor McCoy and Mister da Costa aren't so bad." His ears press down and back. "That's the pop singer who came out on Twitter recently, right?" "Mister Wagner's kind of a trip," Anole offers with a lopsided smile. "And man I'd have to write you a /book/ on the teachers you should avoid. It's not actually possible if you want to graduate. Some of their classes are required." In his mind, Professor Xavier's crisp voice is now -- so very concerned, talking about the promise he's shown in class and how far he could go if he moved out of the tunnels and made a proper /effort/ to integrate. His eyes skip over to Taylor, vaguely curious. The chorus of "Dazzler" is suddenly playing on loop in his head. Just one line of it. Possibly all he can remember. "Yeah! Her. I know it's not really your kind of music," Nessie says to Taylor, her smile brighter, "but /I/ like the song." SHRUG. She polishes off her cookie, now, licking her fingertips clean and folding her hands in her lap. "You /should/ write me a book. I want to know what I'm getting into. Anyway, it's not like I'm planning on becoming a doctor or anything I just want to make some friends and learn a bunch of history and learn to speak /all/ the languages. I think that'd be fun. There's /so/ many history classes in the course book." "Avoid AP World," Taylor cautions straightaway, "teacher's a worse bigot than most and racist on top." He hesitates a long moment after this, fingers squeezing at his Cheetos back with a crinkling of plastic and crunching of cheese snacks. Finally, carefully: "You gonna be living with Allison Blaire, just be careful with that one, yeah?" "Ew." Nessie makes a mental note of this advice, tucking it away and -- promptly immediately forgetting it in the wake of the next. "Huh?" Her brow scrunches. "Careful? What? I guess you have more experience with celebrities than I do..." A little uncertainly, mind fluttering to vague and overly glowy images of Jax and Ryan on stage at Something Different. Anole sits up, propping his large clawed hand behind him. Slowly sips at his Mountain Dew, expression kind of flat (and totally incongruous with the sharper keen interest sparking in his mind. Juicy celebrity GOSSIP? HMM?) Taylor rolls his eyes, a hand pushing at Anole's forehead to topple the lizardboy back to the mattress. "I don't mean -- ngh. Not 'cuz she's /famous/. She just -- she comes into the cafe a lot lately and she's." His eye scrunches up, palm rubbing against his cheek. "So. Fucking. Typical. Which is one thing when I'm just slinging coffee, whatever, I'll smile at people all damn day, but /living/ with someone who don't know how to look at you like a person, that's another thing. That's --" The flutter of concern that ripples out from him is palpable, not just to Nessie but all the others. "That's another thing." Nessie's lips twist to the side. She looks down at herself, fingers brushing absently over the first of several knees on the first of several legs, thumb rubbing against hard chitin in silence. Snippets of memory are fluttering in her mind -- a bright garden day, a girl in colorful clothing squeaking in alarm << -- "Oh, you /talk/!" >>, a strong wrench of discomfort after that she can't quite place. Her fingers squeeze in harder against her knee. Nick's lips curl back, but the low rumble in his chest is not really audible to anyone but Taylor. << Jesus, at least our dorm room was chill. >> "I hope she don't give you crap," he says finally. "But if she does, you /can/ request new roommates. Anyway, like Anole said..." He plucks a Cheeto from Taylor's bag and gestures around the cavern with it. "...you can always come home." | |
