ArchivedLogs:Maybe Helpful

Maybe Helpful
Dramatis Personae Ellin, Jax, Kyinha, Sergio
In Absentia	2015-11-20 'Doing our best.' (Part of Flu Season TP.)
Location <XS> Gardens
From indoor gardens to outdoor, though without the protective greenhouse glass the back gardens do not last all year round. Still, the gardens out here are well-tended and well-worth spending time in, as well. The paths wending through the beds of flowers and herbs and vegetables spread out through the school's back grounds, tended by students as a credit class. Benches offer seating and a small pond is home to koi and turtles, as well as a few frogs. At the far back edges of the garden, a droning buzzing marks a few stacked white boxes as beehives. Somewhere in the front of the school a blue and silver hoverbike has recently set down in the yard. There's probably actual business Jax has to attend to, here -- but at the moment whatever errand brought him back to the school is being put on hold; he's wandered, instead, back into the gardens. Dressed startlingly /plainly/ given his usual proclivities -- plain black straight-legged jeans, hiking boots, a grey canvas jacket over a black sweater, a black fleece cap on his currently bald head. Plain black eyepatch. Long knife sheathed at his hip. He's taken up residence on a bench by the koi pond, hands cupped around an insulated mug pilfered from the kitchens. With a hoodie layered under the letterman jacket from his old school, Sergio moves down the garden path. The sound of his wheelchair against the stone path is likely to announce his arrival. He's been scarce since the illness began, preferring to remain disembodied rather than risk being a potential harm to others but since he's had treatment, it seems he's reared his head out. He bobs his head and hand to get Jax's attention, 'Hey, professor.' The teen offers an easy, if not tired little smile to the man by the pond. Kyinha emerges from the Conservatory. He wears a light blue short-sleeve button-up shirt covered with a stylized fish motif, knee-length black pleated skirt, a knife in a hand-tooled leather sheath on the belt, and a bright yellow towel draped over his shoulder. Pauses for a moment in the sunshine before ambling on in the general direction of the lake. Then stops again when he spots Jax. The inward tug of his brows is really only visible in the narrowing of his fiery eyes, but he makes his way quickly toward the pond. Waves to Sergio as the teen approaches, too, with a flash of a friendly glowing smile. "{Hey,}" the greeting sounds less casual and vibrant than usual. He plunks himself down on a stone beside the pond. "{How are you holding up?}" He has learned to enunciate his Spanish more clearly, though it still carries a bizarre and distinctive accent. And then there's the girls. It's only one of them, trying to find a nice cool place at first. Of course, with five of her split all over the grounds, and the weather as it is, it's only a matter of time. Still, when one of her spies a small number of people settling, the others take notice. One for blankets. Another getting chicken noodle soup and tea in the kitchen. Still a third is grabbing beef jerky from her room. The fourth grabs an ASL reference book which she begins flip through as the fifth, the one already there, whose shirt number says 'Three' signs a greeting,'Oh hey what's up? Anybody want some snacks?' The self in her room amends the order a moment later and grabs their maalox bottle. She's been chugging it since the cure. The sunny day is a little /less/ sunny around the photokinetic, small wisps of shadow clinging sickly and erratic around his form. Jax's fingers clamp tighter around his cup, his eye snapping upwards when there is approaching motion. He's stiff and quiet, at first, brows pulling together as he takes a sip of his cocoa. In the end, just one curt small nod -- it'll have to suffice as greeting for /everyone/. The subsequent shake of his head in answer to the question of snacks is emphatic. His teeth grind together when Kyinha speaks to him, but this calms a moment later. "{Alive.}" 'Sure,' Sergio signs to Ellin, his lopsided smile spreading. He glances out of the corner of his eye at the conversation in Spanish but hesitates to interrupt or be a distraction, sympathetic to Professor Holland's somber demeanor. He has a lot of respect for the X-Men. 'Just trying to get some vitamin D while I can. I hear it gets real cold here,' he signs to his classmate, shivering somewhat for emphasis. Kyinha offers Ellin a wave, as well, then signs, somewhat mechanically, 'Thank you, but no. Swim soon. Unless chocolate?' He actually signs the question mark, not necessary for most but very helpful when one's facial expressions do not show easily. He studies Jax for a long moment. 'You, your neighbors, we have missed. Welcome back.' Then, in Spanish, softly, "{Would you prefer to be alone?}" The girls begin to converge bit by bit. One comes with beef jerky, maalox for all, chocolates... Then comes another with a couple of thermoses full of tea and chicken soup. And then the blankets and- Well, anyway, soon enough, all five are close enough to begin spreading blankets out and piling onto them. The chocolate box is shaken by the one with Four on her t-shirt, and a smile is offered,'Got these from a chocolate shop. Hypoglycemic-friendly, too!' The girl's are soon popping maalox and handing it around from one body to the next while the thermos with the chicken soup is opened. She inhales it happily. 'Yeah, teacher is right. We can totally leave. We don't mind.' To Sergio and Ky, she gestures,'Help yourselves.' Jax lifts his hand somewhat automatically when Kyinha asks about chocolate, offering up the thermos of cocoa. Around him the curl of shadow thickens. 'Winter very cold,' he agrees finally, in slow and a little stiff sign. 'Snow.' The emphaticness of this sign indicates: lots. His eye tracks down towards the spread that Ellin is laying out on the blankets, a small shudder rippling through his shoulders as he looks at the jerky. "Oh --" This is just quiet, kind of half a whimper. He looks away sharply. 'Thanks.' To Kyinha, now. Before an added: 'Fewer neighbors. Than before.' Sergio takes a jerky strip from One. Not entirely sure how a hive mind works, he gives a few of the girls a repeated nod of thanks before tearing into it with a row of strong, white incisors. The gift of food bolsters his resolve, and his chest puffs out accordingly. 'Thanks,' he signs with a gesture to his chin. The teen poorly attempts to mask his concern as glances between the professors. He's perceptive, but not necessarily privy to what they're discussing. He doesn't need to ask: there's a zombie plague on. 'I've never seen it. Snow,' he widens his eyes, flashing a bit of the childish wonder he's likely to express in full come winter. Kyinha perks up and accepts the cocoa with a bow. Is still sipping it when Four brings /more/ chocolate, and the widening of his eyes needs no translation. 'Thank you!' He plucks a chocolate from the proffered box and sheepishly returns Jax's cocoa, lest he drain it all. 'Snow,' he agrees, /his/ depiction of it perhaps somewhat hyperbolic, two hands held wiiiiide apart to show a depth of almost a meter. 'You will see, lots.' The corners of his eyes narrow faintly as if wincing, at the news of the Commons' loss. The halo of light around him (not usually visible in daylight, though perhaps moreso amidst Jax's troubled shadows) flutters. His fist circles his heart slowly: sorry. He opens his mouth as if to add something else, but subsides and just picks up another chocolate. The girls are now tearing and chewing at her own slice of jerky, having not quite manage to kick that desparate hunger. She even holds up a wrapped one out toward Jax, unaware of any shuddering or dietary self-restrictions. Sergio is given a grin and a thumbs-up, though, as he takes some food. One of the Ellins piles into another's lap, and they also pick up a blanket, offering that to Jax. 'I'm sorry your time has been difficult recently.' One of them, meanwhile, is watching Sergio eat rather curiously. 'Never seen snow either.' 'Can build excellent snow --' Jax has to stop here, frowning, before he spells out, 'F-O-R-T-S. In winter. School yard good for that.' He accepts the cocoa back, staring at it without actually drinking. His eye lifts to Kyinha's apology, pierced brows faintly creasing. 'Daiki gone,' he signs, after a pause. 'Joshua --' His head shakes. 'Hurt. Bad. Not sure if --' But then he just shrugs, stiffly, the curl of darkness around him thickening till it nearly obscures his arms. Then fading away. He stares at the blanket as though not quite sure what to do with it. 'Difficult for lots of people. I think. Maybe.' Sergio smiles boldly to the Ellin that addresses him, chomping with some comedic effect on the jerky. His gaiety fades away as his eyes catch Jax's signing. Gulping down the last bite he took, he licks the corners of his mouth before scrambling to scrub crumbs away with the back of his hand in order to show some respect, 'I'm very sorry for your loss.' It appears genuine. Kyinha's shoulders slump, and he breathes something entirely incomprehensible, probably in Nheengatu. The light behind his eyes almost seems to dim, but it may be a trick of the shadows that play around them all. 'Difficult, yes. Here...' But he drops his hands then, glances at the students. 'Sorry.' It doesn't seem to be directed at anyone in particular now. He stares into the pond for a moment, then suddenly turns back to Jax. 'Joshua, have...' "{...medical care?}" he finishes in Spanish. She has never been able to get through any ASL conversation without her own bit of fingerspelling, truth be told. At least one of her is still flipping through her ASL text book for help, though. 'Did you want a blanket guy? Thanks for your advice a while back.' Ellin passes the chicken soup around between her selves, offering a toothy smile to Sergio in response. Still, the dire straits of Jax's current neighborhood make her face fall a little,'Your Joshua-friend. He means a lot to you right? Once I'm better, let me know if he needs a...' She frowns, turning the word over in her head several times, then spells out,'d-o-u-g-h-n-u-r?' The Ellins all shrug their shoulders in negation to Kyinha's apology. "Oh." Jax accepts the blanket, setting it on his lap in -- kind of a bundled pile. His fingers rest atop it, kneading down into the fabric. 'They mean a lot.' He nods in time with this. 'Took Joshua to M-E-N-D-E-L.' This comes with an actual grimace, a return of the dark shadow that coiled around him. 'Not sure. What needs.' He shakes his head kind of abruptly, looking up at the others with a faint crooked smile that flits across his face. 'Sorry. Long week.' He drags out the loooong. 'Hopefully less dead here.' Bringing the remainder of his strip of jerky to his lap, Sergio doesn't feel all too comfortable tearing into it. With an expression of sympathy, the teen grows respectfully hushed, and pays attention to what the two adults are saying. The last comment, about there hopefully being fewer dead here, makes Sergio's expression sink even further. Kyinha tilts his head, trying to parse what Ellin spells. Then what Jax spells. Possibly receptive fingerspelling is not his strong suit. But at last he shakes his head, too. 'Long /month/, but, maybe, week more long.' At Jax's last comment, however, the glow around him flares--definitely visible this time, even to human eyes and in the sunlight. He looks at the students again. 'Doing our best,' this is signed entirely with English grammar now, and unusually reserved considering the source. 'Small towns...more...difficult...' He's clearly stretching the limits of his signing here, and trails off into a helpless shrug. Soon, the Ellins are bundling together, as if huddling for warmth, feeding each other jerky and soup and generally trying to stop that bottomless hunger in her belly. 'Maybe I can ask my dad if he needs anything? He can't tell me anything about patients, but maybe he would look in on him if I asked?' Because Jax feeling sad is a sad sight and she really wants, like, any way to help. 'No apologies for feelings. We are surviving well enough.' Ellin looks at Kyinha, then,'You need to talk about it? I like to listen.' Says the student to her advisor. 'Doing our best.' Jax sits up a little straighter as he repeats this. The dark starts to fade again. 'We flew over Salem. Not looking good there. They need help? In the city. Lots of groups. Help fight.' His hand drops back to the blanket, kneading again. 'Can ask...' This trails off with another deep furrow of brow, halfway through answering Ellin. His eye has lifted again, focusing on the jerky. The air around him is growing considerably warmer. A little brighter. A small hungry /growl/ rises up from him. Sergio shifts somewhat in his chair, shoulders squaring off. 'I could help. Tell people where to run, scout ahead for z-o-m-b-i-e-s.' He frowns, concerned, 'It doesn't put me in danger.' The growl registers a new expression on Serg -- the brief flash of fear. The fledgeling telepath looks down to the jerky and back to Jax, his Adam's apple bobs in a gulp. 'Need help, yes,' Kyinha admits. 'Here, so many sick. Need protect school. You not need to,' The last phrase with a nod to Sergio. 'But good that you /can/.' He does break into a (literally) glowing smile at Ellin's offer to listen. 'I don't sign good enough,' he chuckles, but the mirth fades quickly when Jax starts glowing. He stands up, shifts until he's standing between his teammate and Sergio. "Jax." His voice is very level, very calm. 'I don't know how I could help, but if there's anything I can do...' When Jax begins to GROWL, though, she takes a piece of jerky in hand and tosses it gently in his direction. Better he growl at the jerky than at them! Maybe she doesn't quite grasp the possible trouble she's in? 'We're almost adults. We wanna help.' Like any number of kids over the course of the world. It's almost a rite of passage for mutant teens. Maybe just teens in general. As for not signing good enough? 'I'm patient.' 'Maybe helpful.' Jax's brows furrow at Sergio's offer, but the growl doesn't abate. His gaze snaps to Kyinha when his name is said, the glow brightening around him. He snatches out at the jerky when it's tossed towards him, though, grabbing -- /at/ it, though unsuccessfully. Which doesn't stop him from swiping it back off the ground where it falls to tear ravenously into it. Sergio takes this moment to bring the remainder of his own strip of jerky up to his mouth, and cut into it with his teeth. Brow furrowing at Jax, Serg understands the cravings all too well. The boy chews hard into the tough meat. 'I'm serious. Those things can't see or touch me when I do my thing,' he signs eagerly. Kyinha relaxes a little. Enough to turn aside so he can see Sergio sign, at least. 'You sick, also,' the motion of his hands is stiff. 'Powers, danger?' It's hard to see the movement of his eyes, given they look a uniform glowing orange-yellow, but the slight shift of his body tells that he has just glanced at Jax again. The girl takes her remaining bits of jerky, piles them up, and then uses one of her bodies to push the blanket with the pile of jerky nervously in Jax's direction. Hopefully he will focus on the jerky instead of going growly and attacky? Or, rather, that's her hope. Suddenly, she tries to offer a smile as one of her guzzle chicken soup. The whole thing makes her hungry,'You're all so brave!' Jax snatches another piece of the offered jerky up after he finishes the first, the growl in his throat subsiding. There's still an uneasy flicker of bright hot light around him, though. He nods in agreement with Sergio's eager words -- then snaps his attention to Kyinha at that mention of 'danger'. A burning flare of light shoots out towards the other X-Man. At the flare, Sergio's hands fall down past his sides to his wheels. The teen backs away a fraction of an inch, reflexively. ...Not that ...he doesn't /trust/ Jax, per say. He watches both of the older mutants cautiously. The look Kyinha gives Ellin is hard to read. It's a smile, just...maybe a little rueful. Whatever reply he might have thought to make, however, is forgotten when Jax blasts him. Instead of trying to dodge it (probably futile anyhow), he turns back to face the photokinetic full-on. The beam of light leaves a palm-sized scorch mark on Kyinha's shirt, burnt through in the center and smoldering around the edges. The man /himself/ appears unharmed, though he grits his teeth. The halo around him glows very brightly, and does not fade this time. "{Easy, my friend,}" he says, holding out his hands, palms out. "{we can get you more food, eh?}" The girl hops, a full two of her scattering towards the house. Probably to see if anyone is on duty in the infirmary who can check Ky, while two of them rush to the man's side, reaching out to pat at him as if checking for injuries. The remaining Ellin throws up her hands and approaches Jax shaking her head 'no' vociferously. Then she signs,'You want more? I can make you more. Ground hamburger. All for you. Like, a pound.' Her stomach is, of course, doing flipflops again getting this agitated. Jax's eye widens, and he leans backwards, his near-empty cocoa dropping to spill against the ground. He stares at Kyinha for a moment -- then down at the jerky in his hands. He drops this, too, expression twisting for a moment into brief disgust before he scrambles to his feet. "I -- no -- {need to go. See Doctor McCoy.}" His head is shaking quickly as he hurries away, towards the building. Sergio rolls backward in an attempt to clear the path. Mouth half-hanging open in surprise, he watches Jax rush off before turning towards the other professor expectantly. 'I guess ...I should be getting inside, too.' He frowns, hesitating to move for a moment before his hands return to his chair and propel him forward. Kyinha lets out a long breath. Closes his eyes. Clenches one fist in a burst of flame, then extingishes it. 'Thank you. I'm fine,' he reassures the Ellins, shifting his still-smoking shirt to emphasize that the jet-black skin of his chest underneath looks...much the same jet black as anywhere else. 'It's OK. Dr. McCoy will help him.' His smile now is more than a little forced. 'Now...maybe we go get some tea?' One of the girls looks over at Ky even as she says,'Dr. McCoy will be waiting for him. I'll take care of that.' One of the Ellin's begin gathering up the blankets while another gathers up the thermoses. That body holds one up,'That one has hot tea in it if you want some.' Ellin shuffles her feet a little bit, then waves at Sergio as he turns to leave,'Let's hang out some time!' Though whether he sees that or not is anyone's guess. Then full attention is on Ky, waiting expectantly.