ArchivedLogs:Lending A Hand

Lending A Hand
Dramatis Personae Shane, Micah, Dylan, Taylor	3 November 2014 In a manner of speaking.
Location <XS> Boathouse
Perpetually filled with the quiet background noise of the lapping tide, the boathouse is a cozy escape from the mansion proper. The few boats docked here are small, but suffice for sails around the lake (or, in the case of the one swift powerboat, a speedy motor around it) -- posted signs by them remind users of the regulations required for their use. Tucked away in the back half of the boathouse are living quarters, small and spartan and snug, with a kitchen, bathroom, small sitting area, and a bedroom fit for two. There's music, cutting warm and bright through the chill autumn night. From the mansion it isn't actually audible but a trek across the lawn and down towards the lake will find it growing stronger; the boathouse doors and windows are shut against the cold but it's hardly soundproof. It's the strains of a violin, a vibrant cheerful melody that -- would sound very skilled if not for how it keeps /stopping/ and restarting again every few bars. Changing the tune. Trying again. Inside, Shane is standing near a window overlooking the lake, his laptop open on a table beside him. His violin is tucked beneath his chin -- not a traditional wooden one but an electric model, black and blue and with a strange half-bodied shape that resembles a stylized outline of a violin moreso than a normal instrument. With his blue skin and crisp black vest and slacks he kind of /matches/ his instrument, eyes closed as he plays. Composes, really -- that much is more evident upon closer inspection, the computer helpfully recording and transcribing his playing into sheet music. He's not alone in here, though it's quiet other than his music. Sitting on a futon is a considerably bigger teenager, broad and muscular with a smooth-bald head and deep obsidian-black skin -- though these are hardly the /most/ noticeable features about him. Dressed in a plain pair of bluejeans and a very heavily /modified/ green henley shirt, he'd be almost unremarkable if not for the enormous wealth of tentacles sprouting through added holes in his shirt. Some huge and thick and lined with teethy-hooky-suction cups, some slimmer and more delicate (and less deadly.) At the moment he's wrapped the largest pair up, wound around and around and around his torso to keep them out of the /way/ as he works on homework. For Japanese class, from the looks of it; he's got a pair of headphones hooked up to his laptop and is writing something down as he listens. Though his attention is rather focused on his work, there's an /awareness/ that doesn't show on his face -- a perpetual surface-level listening to the current /thoughts/ of anyone who strays too near the boathouse. Micah's walk to the boathouse is with a purpose, which is likely clear to Taylor before he arrives. Specifically, that his purpose is /finding/ Taylor there. He slows as he approaches, the sounds coming from within clearly Shane-is-busy type sounds. There is a moment of hesitation where he stands on the doorstep before knocking, pushing the door open only after announcing himself with the knock. He steps in, quietly scanning the teens working before he speaks. "Ohgosh, y'all look super busy. Should I let y'keep workin'?" He looks like he stopped at home before coming here, clothes switched from Workday into evening casual, faded bluejeans, Reading Rainbow-dash T-shirt, olive jacket and matching newsboy cap, messenger bag at his hip. He lingers half in the doorway, not wanting to interrupt productivity. One of those who strays too near the boathouse is Dylan. The boathouse was not a destination per se, but a spot on a path with no clear intent behind it. In fact, getting lost is kind of the destination for Dylan, mentally if not physically. His thoughts are a cacophony of contradictions. Staking out the mansion to rip it off and not wanting to do so. Love for a father figure and fear for him at the same time. A feeling of belonging and fear of fitting in too well. Curiosity, a constant overwhelming sense of curiosity. He pauses in the shadows, a place that he finds comfort in, as the light from the boathouse pours through the half-opened doorway. He cocks his head as he can't help but to snoop and listen in to the bit of conversation that he can hear. Taylor and Shane are both glancing towards the door even before the knock -- sensitive minds and sensitive ears both perking at the familiar arrival. On Taylor's face there's a look of /relief/ with Micah's interruption. His teeth look exceptionally /bright/ behind jet-black lips when he flashes Micah a smile. "Oh, hell no. I can /feel/ my brain turning to mush." Shane has less of a smile, more of a scowl -- though it's directed towards his computer, not towards Micah. "Huh what no sure I'm fucking this all to hell anyway. C'mon in I have -- tea. Somewhere. If you want -- well, if you can /find/ my thermos." For the record, it's rolled beneath the futon; Shane only performs a cursory scan of the room before giving it up for lost. "Sup?" "He's looking for me," Taylor answers Shane. His eyes have skated past Micah, though, fixed out the window (though in the darkness there's not much to /see/ past the window except shadowy-black-night) with a distracted expression. "Um, what did you -- hi." It takes a considerable effort for him to tear his eyes back towards Micah. The hesitation in Micah's posture vanishes when it becomes apparent that both boys are at that take-a-break-now point of working. "Oh, good. Everyone just looked so busy at first." His smile grows warmer as he gestures under the futon. Standing further away has its advantages in searching, sometimes. "S'under there. Also, he's right. I did mostly come t'talk to him. But it's nice t'see you, too, sugar." He stops off to deliver hugs to Shane first before turning back to Taylor. "I wanted t'see if you'd be interested in..." Micah follows the teen's glance to the window. "Somethin' wrong?" Dylan might be listening, but he isn't peeking into the boathouse, so he isn't aware that his presence is known. Of course, he isn't really all that concerned, as he's sure that he wasn't seen. Dylan does recognize Shane's voice, and there is a fleeting thought that he might pick up his scent. Shane and B both seem to be annoying that way. He isn't that sure that he is really up for talking to someone who might fall under of the category of an authority figure right now, so he holds still. "Oh." There's a momentary look of puzzlement on Shane's face, but it fades into a shrug as he leans into the hug his father offers. "You could give Taylor a hug, too," he suggests, "he's usually running a deficit." Taylor smirks at this, spreading his arms -- and about a half-dozen tentacles, too. "Bullshit, I pretty much have the monopoly." One of his limbs reaches down, prodding around beneath the futon until he curls its tip around the thermos. Hoisting it out from where it has rolled, he stretches it halfway across the room to offer it to Micah. "Nothing's wrong," he denies with a small shake of his head. "Newkid's outside. Eavesdropping. -- S'warmer in here, you know." He doesn't actually raise his voice, but presumably this last is offered to Dylan. "I've got as many hugs as folks want. Run a surplus. Inadequate demand. Keeps the prices low, though." Micah is distracted, first, by watching Taylor's tentacle retrieve the thermos. He accepts it with a nod and smile, pausing to sip from it. "Thanks, hon. That's actually exactly what I wanted t'talk t'you about. Would y'be interested at all in bein' involved with developin' a new type of prosthetic arm? It'd be a paid position. Um...how much depends on exactly what kinda grant or backin' I'm able t'get, but...details. I'm still in the beginnin' phases of this thing. Makin' sure I've got folks involved 'fore I make the proposal." Early enough that he maybe forgot to describe the /what/ of what Taylor is needed for. "New kid? Um. Yeah, if there's eavesdroppin', might as well just come in." Dylan sighs softly and shakes his head. He moves to the doorway. "I wasn't eavesdropping." There is a slight touch of irritation at being caught. His cheek has a slight bruise that is a recent addition, maybe a day or two old at most, but it's not like minor injuries aren't uncommon for the students around here. "I was just out walking... I was trying not to interrupt." Thinking to himself, successfully I thought. His hands are in the pockets of his coat. His right hand tracing across the edge of a lighter in his pocket with an almost habitual pattern. "He's a telepath, dude," Shane says with a crooked quirk of grin when Dylan appears. "You can't bullshit a telepath." "Well, you can." Taylor shrugs, a motion that lifts quite a few of his higher-up tentacles. "It just takes a /whole/ lot of training." His eyes shift back to Micah, brows hiking up. "Interested in what? Uh. Shouldn't you be talking to your kid about that? I don't really know anything about -- anything. Not sure what help I could be.” "A /lot/ of trainin'," Micah reiterates. "You'll get used to it, though. S'a decent number of folks with various levels of telepathy an' empathic abilities an' things 'round here." He nods in Dylan's direction. "You okay, hon?" The question is casual, deliberately so, asked in passing before he pushes right back to his previous line of conversation. "Oh, I fully intend t'ask B if ze wants t'help on the computer-development end. But what I'm interested in is startin' off with a model for the design. Doin' some motion capture, like for movies an' video games. Maybe some functional MRIs later down the line. Gettin' the patterns of movement an' how they're controlled from a biological model first. But...you're perfect for it, if you're interested." Dylan's eyes flicker to Taylor, filing that little factoid in his brain. "Good to know.... " He nods, "Yeah... I'm still getting used to people with abilities... " A slight frown turns the corner of his lips down a bit, "Yeah, I'm fine... Just got stuff on my mind.... " He smirks slightly at a previous conversation with B about not everyone is super smart. "A /whole/ fucking lot of training," Shane answers Micah before looking back to Taylor, "-- to the point that my first statement is accurate /enough/." Taylor's lips twitch, a small quick smile. "Alright. Fair enough. But I'm not a very /good/ telepath, anyway, it's not like --" Micah's continuation distracts him, though. He tugs his headphones off, setting his laptop aside as he rearranges himself in his seat. "Me? Huh? How could I help this is so not my --" One tentacle waves vaguely in the air. "Maybe they need a /whole/ lot of extra hands," Shane suggests brightly. And to Dylan, "-- You're remarkably, uh, blase, for someone just getting used to -- I dunno, even people who hang out with mutants /all/ the fucking time usually freak the first time they see --" He waves his violin towards Taylor. "/Uber/freak over there." Taylor's brief smile returns. "S'got stuff on his mind," he tells Shane. If Shane has a response to this, only the telepath hears it; a small tug pulls upward at one corner of his mouth and he tucks his violin back beneath his chin. "Who the fuck doesn't? I gotta say, I do /not/ envy you motherfuckers." His bow waves towards Taylor before he rests it back on his strings. "I'd shoot myself in the damn /skull/ if I had to listen to the collective whinging of a whole /school/ full of teenagers all gorram day." "Yes, thank you for that elaboration, Shane," Micah returns with a playful grin and a slightly apologetic shrug to Dylan. But the point of his trip over here (and, let's face it, the single-track-mind of a geek on his area of interest) draws him back into conversation with Taylor. "Exac'ly you. Human design is...inefficient. Flawed in a lot of ways. If y'were gonna design a robot t'do just about anythin', y'wouldn't design it on basic human anatomy an' physiology. Like...locomotion. You'd /never/ design a bipedal robot. The least little thing causes a loss of balance. At least 40% of the time balance is over a single limb. It's bad design. Same thing with tryin' t'make robotic arms. Just emulatin' regular human joints an' motions is...poor design. But you...you've got a more efficient an' effective design. S'/better/. An' I think we'd be comin' from a better direction workin' with it." He pulls a tablet out of his messenger bag. "I can show you some designs I've been workin' on so far. An' there's a robotic hand usin' a tentacle model that's already out there. It could be amazin' as a full limb replacement with a lotta work t'improve the design for that purpose." Dylan looks over at Shane. "I pretty much grew up having to not react to the things I saw.... Not to mention that one of first people that I met here was my roommate that looked and acted like he could totally turn me into fish food without even pausing to think about it. Besides, I figured it would be kind of a bad idea to offend nearly every person here by freaking out." He glances over at Taylor and wonders what all he can hear. He starts to think about things that he'd rather not have anyone else know and then immediately starts thinking about random things. "Dude, /fuck/ you," Shane answers, without a whole lot of heat in his tone. He drops his bow hand again, head shaking in mild disgust. "So you think a better tack is to offend people here with bullshit stereotyping? I swear to fucking god the next person who makes a comment about how I'm going to /eat/ them --" His sharp teeth bare on a sharp /hiss/. "... You'll take a bite out of?" Maybe Taylor just can't resist. Shane's eyes narrow on him, gills fluttering rapidly. There's a small creak as his teeth grind, but then he just turns, violin still in hand, to slip out of the boathouse and back into the night. Taylor glances across the room at the computer Shane left behind. His nose wrinkles, and he settles further into the corner of the futon. The look he turns back on Micah is puzzled, again. "Wait. You want to design an arm modeled after --" Two of his tentacles spread outward. "For real? Cuz, I mean, most people when they look at me they /pretty/ much just think freak. I'm not sure there's a lot of people lining /up/ to turn into the next squid-boy." His eyes skate back to Dylan, a brief worried frown creasing his brow. The tentacles he's wrapped around himself tighten like a brief squeeze of self-hug. << I can hear a lot, >> murmurs quiet in Dylan's mind. "Shane... Honey, I don't think he meant... I think it was just a bad joke." Micah reaches out to stop the boy, but pulls back as Shane's steps seem very certain in wanting to be /out/ just now. "I'll take 'is computer to 'im in a little bit." His glance moves between Dylan and Taylor for a moment. "He's...sensitive. 'Bout the whole eatin' people thing. Since the cop fight ring... It's. A lotta people here've been through a whole lot, so it's good t'be careful 'bout the type of teasin' y'do with folks. As a general rule." After one last glance out the window, Micah returns to the conversation, trying to wrap up his proposal. "That is a problem on the general market, but think of how many of m'patients now have special abilities. On top of folks that're just open minded, the folks with special abilities often are less...disturbed by things that're a little unusual lookin'. It'd be such a help. I mean, even now. I'm workin' with Flicker for his lost arm. An' I been tryin' t'come up with options for Horus forever. Somethin' that could be as light-weight as these have the potential t'be, an' maybe able t'retract an' extend so they don't get in the way of flyin'? There's just a lotta potential here. Y'ain't gotta say yes or no tonight. I just...thought I'd get the offer out there." Dylan sighs as Shane moves past him. He turns, "Dude... I didn't..." He shakes his head. "I... I really have no clue how to deal with him... I didn't mean to upset him... I know pretty much nothing about him... he's not much of a talker..." Not that Dylan is much of a sharer himself. He frowns, "Maybe I should put in some kind of request for a new roommate, since I don't really seem to be able to open my mouth without pissing him off." So he might be able to control his reaction at seeing someone with rows and rows of shark teeth or someone with tentacles, however, hearing a voice in his head is a little more difficult. He jumps just slightly, a slight shiver. Maybe he just got a chill. A chill that leaves a furrowed brow and a frown as he looks over at Taylor. He tightens the muscles in his jaw as he listens to Micah's discussion with Taylor about his prosthetic proposal. "Shane? Hah. He'll talk your damn /ear/ off." There's a small smirk on Taylor's face, but his tone is fond. The smile and the warm tone fade, though, his tentacles unclenching and clenching again harder. "I can't stop listening," he says this /aloud/ this time, looking over at Dylan, "so I'd rather -- remind people. Seems -- more polite. Than eavesdropping." He closes his notebook, stacking it neatly atop his computer. "You really think something like this could work for Horus? -- Hey," suddenly he's brightening again, unfurling juuust the end -- which is still a good two feet -- of one of the huge tentacles coiled around himself. He turns it over to display the beginning of the rows of hook-bearing suction cups. "Could you make Flicker like, /battle/ arm? That would be -- he's /already/ so fuc -- freaking," he amends with a dip of his head, "badass. I'm in." "He's worth gettin' t'know," Micah adds on the topic of Shane. "Folks 'round here...mostly've been through a lot. There's a lotta buttons an' triggers an' bein' really cautious 'bout trustin' folks. But I think you'll find they're worth the effort. An' maybe you are, too." He nods, smile widening with excitement at Taylor's questions. "I think it's the first option that's seemed /workable/ with Horus's unique anatomy an' the high level of amputation he has /bilaterally/. An'...the idea of usin' this design is t'make a prosthetic arm that's lightweight, an' also faster, more agile, an' stronger than a factory issue human arm. So...I s'pose that could have combat applications." If possible, his grin grows as Taylor accepts. "Y'won't regret it, hon. It'll be all known players. I'm thinkin' t'get B involved. An' the Clinic. Might get backin' from Stark. He's got a particular fondness for me an' B on account of helpin' 'im with a special project in the past. So I feel like 'tween that an' the /cool/ factor, we're prob'ly in." Micah /does/ offer that hug again, this time with open arms. Afterward, he moves to collect Shane's abandoned equipment. "I should get goin'. Get Shane 'is stuff back an' try t'make it home 'fore Spence's bedtime. Thanks again. I think this is gonna be a lotta fun." Dylan is mostly completely lost to the conversation, but that's okay. He's used to listening to things, never know what you might pick up. He shakes his head slightly, "Never said he wasn't worth the effort... Just think that the two of us probably don't mesh... you know in close spaces." He glances over at Taylor, "Eavesdropping is the intentionally listening in on someone else's conversation for the sake of prying... I was just listening in to a conversation that wasn't particularly private, seeing that the door was still open, and I happened to just hear it. My obfuscation was because I wasn't in a particularly social mood." And the fact that he didn't want to answer any questions about the shiner to one of the school's teachers. "Good night, Mister Micah-Sir." He hand slides back into his pocket to trace over the cool surface of the zippo lighter with his fingertips. "Huh?" Taylor looks at Dylan blankly with all this. "I -- uh. Wasn't --" His expression is a little /pained/, and he rubs a palm against his cheek. "Eavesdropping is secretly listening in on a conversation, and /I/ was explaining why with my ability /I/ -- I really don't care what you -- I wasn't even /thinking/ of you being -- nevermind." Now he just looks tired, shaking his head as he scoops his things into his limbs. His ridiculous surplus of limb means that he can give Micah a hug /while/ he gathers his things, one pair of tentacles and one pair of arms snaking out to squeeze brief but tight around the teacher. "There. That's an extra hug for Spence. 'Night." This last is maybe to both the others, chin tipping upwards before he heads for the door. "Just give each other a chance awhile 'fore y'give up on it. /Both/ of y'should. That's all I'm sayin'," Micah finishes up with Dylan before returning the hug(s) to Taylor. "Excellent. I'll be sure t'pass along the /tentacle/ hug. Spence'll be tickled. Y'all have a good night." Both of the teens get a nod before Micah heads out, as well. Dylan shakes his head, "Dude, chill... that was a lame and tired attempt at humor..." He reaches up and brushes the hair back from his face. "I don't get offended easy... Life's too short to." He glances at his watch, "Well, I guess we probably should be heading back to the mansion before we are breaking curfew or something. Man, that just sounds weird. The mansion part. Actually the curfew too... no one ever really gave a crap what time I got home before. Anyway, later dude...."