ArchivedLogs:Smokes All Around

Smokes All Around
Dramatis Personae Jane, Jim, Logan, Rasa, Shelby
In Absentia	2013-03-08 - Post raid, early the next morning. On the back porch of Xavier's, recent events are brought to mind and discussed while smoking. (Part of Prometheus TP.)
Location <XS> Back Porch
<XS> Back Porch The back patio is a restful place to sit and relax, in most weather. Ample seating comes in the form of umbrella'd deck chairs and a cushioned porch swing, and the neighboring gardens attract butterflies and hummingbirds to make the viewing pleasant. The hot tub is usually open for use, though in snowy weather the transition in and out is a shivery one! A cool winter breeze ruffles through the scalloped edges of the patio umbrellas. There's still snow yet down in the gardens below in piled clumps, melting progressively each day but lingering where shadows preserve them. Jim stands at the edge of the porch, the his shaggy hair picked up and set down again in wind gusts that ripple open his tatty tweed coat. On the rail, he's set a small wooden cigar box. And with one hand crammed in a pocket, his other is ceremonially opening the lid, exposing a row of Davidoff Special Rs. The same hand begins to pluck them out, and distribute them among those that have accompanied him. Wordlessly. Logan looks like he usually does: gruff, dour - in jeans, boots, checkered shirt and a leather jacket - hair looking like that of a feral beast caught in a windtunnel... He walks straight past the table and chairs on the patio and stands a couple of feet away from Jim, leaning on the rail as well. His expression... is pensive. Reaching for a cigar, he smirks briefly, and clips the tip off it with his own cutter. Sticking it in his mouth, he remarks: "Not bad. Where'dya get these?" he indicates the cigar with a glance of his eyes, and thrusts a hand into his pocket, looking for a lighter. When Jane steps out onto the porch, she steps with a light limp, one leg puffy underneath her pants from where it has been wrapped by bandages. Her eyes sweep the little group and she heads for Jim, holding out one hand expectantly. Her lips purse, but she says nothing. Not immediately, though. After she has the cigar in her mouth and has it lit off of a zippo from her pocket, she takes a long puff and nods. "Not bad." A very much smaller hand - at least smaller than all of the others - appears, open and ready for a cigar. The hand is gloved, the sleeve of hir shirt covering the ends. Hir fingers wiggle expectantly. The rest of hir is covered in a cream coat, jeans, sneakers, and a wrap that covers both hir head and hir mouth. Ze looks up at Jim, waiting. It shows a lot of faith and assumption, how Jim just kind of knows Logan has /got/ his cigar covered. He snips off the heads for Jane's, and his owns and Rasa's. "Not bad, right? I had a client once who--." --wait a second. RASA'S? He is in mid-light of his cigar - his cheap gas station lighter does not match the quality of his smoke - teeth bared around the the end of his cigar to stare at the teenager. Tick-tick-tick. "--The /artist/," he recognizes, and raises his lighter towards Logan to SET HIM ON FIRE. Or well, to offer a light for him. His expression is a hair haggard behind the bristly face whiskers, and he glances from the cigar He Just Handed to her, and then her face. Oh fuck this. He holds out the lighter for /her/ as well, gruffing, "How ya been?" It's that kind of day. Apparently. One, bushy eyebrow gets raised at Rasa - and that is about the limit of any visible reaction from Logan. Leaning forward, toward Jim's lighter, he puffs away on the cigar until he has it adequately lit, and then shifts his weight to partially lean on the rail once more. "Thanks." Jane is given a sidelong glance a moment later - especially the limp. "How're ya holdin' up?" he asks curtly - in more of a grunt than an actual sentence. Rasa gets another look then, followed by a shrug before the grizzled mutant blows out a cloud of spicy cigar-smoke through his nostrils. "The rest of 'em, too," he adds as an afterthought. Jane looks at Rasa, but this does not seem to bother her in the least. Perhaps she is merely busy giving Logan an incredulous look. "I should be asking you the same thing." she says, smirking around her cigar. "I'm not used to comin' back from deployments so soon, but..." she trails off, shrugging, and eyeing Logan. "And you?" Rasa sticks the cut tip in hir mouth and leans forward, presenting the other end to the flame. Ze makes a few puffs as ze almost goes cross eyed trying to make sure the end gets lit, then leans back until ze is standing on hir own two feel again, comfortably. "Oh, you know. Been okay. Spring break." Hir quick eyes dart left and right to watch the others smoke. Ze takes a practice pull, but keeps it all in hir mouth, then blows it out. "They're pulling through in there. The doctors'll be pretty worn thin, but we had the dumb luck to have sprung that healer. Or unloading would a been a bit /uglier/ when we arrived." Grim words, but Jim looks -- impossibly baffled and amused that their little war-hardened pack of veterans has been invaded so adroitly, one side of his mouth /ticked/ upward as he leans back, hooking an elbow over the side of the rail. "Y'know how t'smoke these?" "Ruined my uniform," Logan tersely replies to Jane's question - followed by a nonchalant shrug. "Never liked it anyway. I'm surprised we left the place as quickly as we did. Some bricks are still standing." There's a pause while he continues to enjoy his cigar. "So what kind of fucked up person tries to put computer chips in mutants' heads?" The bearded man suppresses a shudder, as if the answer were blatantly obvious... and cut a little too close to home. "Someone's in for some serious therapy..." The man smirks - without humour - and leaves the identity of that 'someone' open to interpretation. Jane rubs her leg once, soothing down the spot where the bandages are wrapped tightly against her burns. "The government." she says, voice tight. She glances around at the little knot of people, lips pursed. "I recognized some of the training. Marine trained, I'd bet my life on it. Probably why we got in and out alive." she comments, a smirk tugging at her lips. "Nope. Not at all," Rasa admits, pulling the cigar out of hir mouth and looking at the reddish burning end. Ze is listening intently to what the adults are saying, tucking hir wrap around hir shoulders, leaving hir head free. Every once in a while, a few words appear on hir flesh, words that the others have said, words that have caught Rasa's attention. Logan, hir teacher, may recognize the display. Rasa is learning. "Big brother," Jim says at the same time as Jane says 'the government', and with a great deal less tightness and /more/ snideness. Guess which one was raised by hippies. He follows it up with a shove of smoke through his nose. He's considering Rasa and her very clear and evident ability to HEAR with her ears, and then considers the school with a slight tightening in his jaw. Then it releases and he rather /aggressively/ decides to grin at Rasa instead, "You're doin' it right. It's not like a cigarette - you taste the smoke, then breathe it out. Don't pull it down in your lungs." He isn't intentionally demonstrating - just speaking while it leaks slowly between his teeth. Logan's lips curl at the corner into a muted, lopsided half-grin at Rasa, followed by an approving nod. To Jim and Jane, however, he just snorts. Yeah, the answer - however one puts it - is pretty obvious. The government is... He snorts again. "Maybe Magneto's idea isn't so bad after all..." he murmurs, too late to catch himself before uttering the thought out loud. He shrugs. "What's next then?" Jane gives Logan a look, disapproving and sharp. "Watch what you're saying. It's one thing to disagree with what the government is doing. It's quite another to think that most of New York should have been leveled." her voice is biting, and she takes a long drag on the cigar, savoring the smoke in her mouth. She breathes it out long and slow, calming. "Hopefully, there is no next." Rasa looks pleased with hirself that ze is smoking properly. Hir voice is quiet and unintrusive as she gives a little reply. "Oh good. I was afraid to choke on it anyway." Ze wets hir lips as ze places the cigar back into hir mouth, biting on it a little bit. Hir nose wrinkles a little at the sour taste of the dampened tobacco. Jim quirks a 'hah, you got schooled' mouth-twitch in Logan's direction, "Not like we really /needed/ New York, right?" He watches Rasa experience all the ups and downs of her first cigar, grinning mildly. He remembers those days, and sticks out his tongue to pick a small bit of tobacco off the tip of his tongue in solidarity. "I'd say /next/," he moves eyes off her to regard either of the Present Adults, "we get our shit together and carry on. I got a few guys in New York, keeping an ear out for retaliatory noises from above. And mean time? I got a fucking job to hold down, yeah? No rest for the wicked." Which he opts to follow up with an extended fist to KNUCKLETAP with Logan and Jane, "Amiright?" Yeahok, also Rasa. No one knows wicked like a high school student. "Sure, Mom," Logan remarks through a sigh that hisses out between his teeth. Aside from that, he doesn't look or sound bothered by Jane's comment. "Magneto'll get his soon enough." And the man flexes the fingers of his right hand - his jaw tightening for just an instant, in anger. The mention of 'jobs' etc, draws his attention next, and he pushes up from the rail. "That reminds me," he mutters. "Gotta make some updates to the Danger Room - dungeons & dragons." He winces briefly when dousing his cigar into the palm of his hand, and then tosses Jim a smirk. "Thanks for the cigar, Jim." To Rasa and Jane he smirks even wider. "See ya round, kids." And with that, slowly begins walking away, still flexing his hands and fingers in suppressed agitation. Jane gives Jim's outstretched hand a look of revulsion and incredulousness. Her eyes flick up to him and she raises an eyebrow before turning his attention back to Logan. "See you around, Logan. Maybe sometime you and I can spar together." Out of another woman's lips, it might sound like flirting, but out of Jane's, it sounds like just what it is: an invitation to beat the crap out of someone else. Or try, at least. Rasa has no problems fist bumping the P.I. and does so with an undue amount of seriousness. "They don't let me go into the Danger room yet. I'm too young." This is added in confidentiality to Jim, pulling out hir cigar to stare at. "Do these things take all day to smoke?" The young mutant's skin has turned gray now, darker streams rise up from hir collar and curl across hir features, dancing like smoke over a fire. "See ya around, Logan." Jim twiddles his cigar after the man, and grins at Rasa. "Yeah, pretty much. That's why they can get expensive. Just set it there on the rail," he gestures where by flicking /ash/ on it, "And I'll get rid of it for you." "That's part of the benefit." Jane says, looking at Rasa with a smile. She takes a deeper drag on her cigar, then taps the ash gently onto the ground. "It's something to relax with." A pause. "Don't like it too much. Better to not enjoy it too much." The soldier says, with a wry chuckle. "Easier not to get started than to stop." Rasa eyes Jim like he's trying to take hir new toy away. "Nah. I'm good. Besides, I might need to smoke some day. Better be able to and not choke like a newbie." Ze watches Jane take a longer pull and does the same thing hirself. It stings the back of hir throat and goes up hir nose a bit, making hir eyes water, but ze preemptively coughs it out before it causes a problem. "So. You guys are okay, right?" "Yeah." Jim exhales this answer slowly, scratching behind an ear. "...we're good. Lotta people are gonna be shaken up, but." 'But' indeed, really. He just shrugs with it, looking old and casual and sloppy, ankles crossing as he leans more loosely against the railing. Jane grunts in acknowledgent, taking another thick drag of the cigar. Her eyes look over Jim curiously, head tilting slightly to one side. "Our team performed... acceptably." she says, lips pursing. She nods, once. "Most of it." she adds. "Could use more training." Could /always/ use more training. "Training, eh?" Rasa is standing out on the porch with a couple of adults. Ze is still dressed in the winter gear she left the Manhattan apartment in, taking the first tray back to Salem Center Friday morning. Ze also has a cigar, which ze is slowly smoking and needs to ash rather soon. "I don't actually look forward to that," ze replies to Jane's comments. "I mean, I like the exercise, but being made tough so I can take care of myself and others in the future? It's scary." "Yeah," Jim turns his head to look inward at the building - the direction he'd come after paying some visits to the rather jam-packed infirmary and emergency triage areas within. "Guess there's not really a good alternative. What kinda program they got here? They didn't exactly teach self-defense at my school growin' up." He talks around the cigar gripped in his teeth, baring them idly. "Could use some more training," he doesn't discount it by repeating the words. "I should hit up the range more." The back patio is the preferred exit for someone looking to find a hidey hole for illicit smoking. At least, for someone lacking the arm needed to pull themselves up onto the roof. Witness: Shelby, shouldering the door open and slipping out into the evening with a pack of cigarettes and a lighter tucked into her sling--they're not just for arms, anymore! The next step in her plan is put on hold when voices are heard, however. Adult voices. These prompt her to push the smokes a little deeper into the sling before adopting an oh so casual swagger on her way over to investigate. "/There/ you are," she says when Rasa is spied. Jane is given a squinty-eyed and assessing look, Jim gets a similar assessment and a nod. People are smoking. She brings out her own pack and lips a filter out. "Who's gotta light?" As someone else enters the area, Jane's eyes turn immediately onto Shelby, one hand raising in a defensive position. Her eyes watch them for several moments before she relaxes and letting her hand drop back down. "You should." she says to Jim. Her eyes turn back to Rasa and she shrugs. "You need to be broken and remade so you can make sure you don't break down when it really matters. When it's your life on the line, or someone else's. That's what training is." Rasa's eyes grow as large as half dollar coins - maybe a hair larger - and literally, blinking rapidly as Jane explains to hir exactly what needs to happen so that this shy teenager can turn into something useful. Hir mouth hangs open and hir skin turns paper white. Again, literally. "B- broken?" Ze glances over at Shelby, fumbling a little with the cigar as ze tries to take another pull. Ze points to Jim. He is the bearer of fire. Just call Jim 'Prometheus'. He flicks his crappy dollar-store lighter a few times until a spark takes and holds it at Shelby's face, deadpan. That's his greeting. Except also, "S'that the arm I heard about? What's it like?" Hi, morbid curiosity. He turns his head slightly towards Jane, then kind of... grimaces, ducking back down behind his cigar. He makes no direct comment. "So what broke you, then," he instead levels this inquiry frankly at Jane. It is clear that Shelby knows better than to mess with Jane. Just a glance was enough to convince her of that. But, she is not above harassing Jim when Rasa singles him out. All of this talk of training means she does ninja hands (hand) towards the big guy as she approaches. "Give me fire or give me--thanks, dude. I'll show you for twenty bucks." That is the extent of any mushy feely stuff before she bends to hover the end of the cigarette in the flame and puffs. Then it's back to Rasa's side, standing perhaps slightly closer than is necessary given the other student's paper-white condition. "My drill sergeant." Jane says, giving Jim a surprised look, as if it should have been obvious. "And then my first NCO, of course. As I did to my troops, when they worked for me." she tilts her head to one side, and then to the other, the soft cracking of muscles in her neck audible in the cool air. Her eyes flick back to Rasa, and her smile widens somewhat. "Don't worry. That kind of training you really only find in the military. Civilian life is... less breaking, more coddling." Rasa snorts softly. "You think? It'll be Logan who does it." Ze gives a dry laugh and exhales a stream of smoke. "I'm working on smoking, Shelby. So if I ever imitate a smoker, I know how to do it and won't choke. That's like training, right?" Ze gives Jane for a moment, then back to Shelby. "Though, I wonder if I'd just pick it up if I imitated the right person." "Yeah, I'm not giving you jack shit," Jim informs the Shelby!Cripple, entirely in defiance of having just given her access to an open flame. "Though I'd argue, you don't gotta step foot into the military to get a little fear of god put into you. Harder maybe, but a place like this?" He gestures at the building with his cigar, "Maybe it doesn't have to be messy in a back street. -- You can imitate people? How's that work? I thought you just had the uh," he gestures at his own face, "the Arts." "Don't look at me, the world'd fucking implode if there were two of me," Shelby tells Rasa, giving her a wary side-eye before softening the rejection with a grin. "Cigars are hot though. They're like, totally phallic." Look at her with the big words! School's had a positive influence. After a drag and exhale, she goes back to observing the grownups through a wall of silver smoke. "C'mon, dude, I gotta invest for my future. You wanna see lobster arm, don't you?" "Maybe. But it wouldn't really be you, I think. It'd just be you pretending to be strong, as opposed to you actually being strong." Jane points out, taking another pull on her cigar and contemplating this for a moment. "One of the reasons they try to pull you down is because your foundation needs to be the strongest part. If they don't fix that, all the training and skills they build on top will come crumbling down." She gives Shelby an odd look, but it is only for a moment. "UM. Yeah." Rasa is sheepish again, half of hir face turning blue in memory, the skin taking on the texture of one of the sharkboys in the school. "I'm half baked and crosswired, so it doesn't work very well right now, but when I'm older, I could be very good at it." Ze is paying attention to what Jane is saying despite hir attention being directed at the corner over there. "Speaking of phallic, I heard a joke yesterday. Want me to tell it to you?" "/Yes/." Jim answers this firmly. Yes. He wants to hear a joke. "...is it really all clobstered?" He side-eyes Shelby's sling. Drat. She's tickling his greatest weakness: CURIOSITY. Shelby is accustomed to odd looks. Jane's rolls off--water, meet duck. Pensive smoking duck, as she takes another long pull on the cigarette and looks off to the side to blow the plume skywards, away from the porch. Rasa's mention of the joke gets a small, strangled sound from the girl before she recovers. That sound /must/ have been amusement because she says directly after, "Hell yeah, let's hear it." Extra care is taken to not look at Jim while she urges this. "...not telling." Jane blinks once and glances down at the ground. "I better go relieve Daniel before he loses his mind." she says, glancing around at the crowd. She stubs the cigar out on the railing and tucks it into her shirt pocket. "Would be embarrassing if one of my people murdered Iolaus before anyone else gets a chance to," she mutters under her breath. She gives a crisp salute to the knot of people, then heads off towards the building proper. "What do you call Pinnoccio at a funeral?" Rasa raises hir brows and waits. "Yeah, she's actually strict about the paying to see it thing. She had me keeping kids out of our room from time to time because their friends paid, but others didn't. Bye..." Person who Rasa doesn't actually know the name of! Jim raises his cigar to Jane in a sort of toast-salute that also enables him to waggle it beside his mouth like Groucho Marx. All distractions aside, he /eyes/ Shelby's sling, just savoring its enigma for the moment while he dutifully answers the question in its proper format, "Gee, I dunno. What /do/ you call Pinnoccio at a funeral?" "See ya!" Shelby calls after Jane, waiting until the woman is out of presumed ear shot before tacking on a, "General." She even salutes before rounding on the others. "Hey," she says with a stab of her cigarette, jostling smoke into the air, "if I'm not gonna be a rock star, I gotta figure out how to make money and people'll pay anything to look at a freak." Like Jim, her gesturing seems to imply. Jim, who she is grinning widely at while awaiting his reply to the joke--and carefully, carefully curling her gloved, backwards-facing fingers in a way that makes them splay stick-like and /wrong/. "Mourning wood." Rasa announces, pleased with hir delivery. With Jane gone, hir skin turns to a peachy bronze color, perhaps a little more metallic than hir relaxed tone, but it has been a very strange past few days. Ze also removes the cigar from hir mouth and lays it down where Jim indicated earlier, working hir mouth around the empty air like something funny-tasting is still stuck in there. Jim smacks a palm over one eye, the other CLOSED TIGHTLY. "Hhhhah!" he says, and then instantly points a finger at Shelby, "Twenty-/five/ says you don't say a fucking /word/." He goes for his wallet. Shelby is already in the process of opening her mouth--eyes sparkling with laughter for both the joke and the person Rasa aimed it at--when Jim says the magic words. Hey, she can be good when money's on the line. A last pull is taken from the cigarette, the butt tossed out onto the lawn, so she has her hand free to key-lock her lips and throw away the key. The same hand is then extended expectantly. Rasa takes up guard duty, looking around to make sure no one else is eavesdropping and sneakpeeking on this business transaction. Because Rasa is the BEST. Jim also crowds in, blocking things off from his /own/ angle with a wall of wide back while slipping an extremely tattered and crumpled twenty in Shelby's hand. With an accompanying absurdly /crisp/ and clean new five dollar bill. "This better be good. I wanna see some serious clobstering." The bills are made to disappear--okay, so Shelby shoves them in her back pocket--before she goes for the velcro strap holding the sling around her neck. "Your whole world's gonna be blown, dude," she promises as she drops the sling, then works to pull the glove up over arm and hand. As promised, one...well, it's not exactly a lobster claw. Or even a real claw. But wrists aren't meant to twists several times around that way, are they? "Rasa and me've made a /ton/ so far," she announces as she supports her forearm in her other hand for him. "Wanna touch it?" "I haven't touched it, myself," Rasa admits, but then again, ze's got /reasons./ "Uh, kinda." Jim says, and he's already got his POKIN' FINGER out to prod at a few places where bone really shouldn't do that. "Holy shit, that is Grade A fucked up." It doesn't hurt, at least! Or Shelby gives no sign of it hurting, holding still both for the prodding and the complimenting. Who's got the most fucked up arm? Oh yeah, she does. "It feels normal," she says helpfully to Rasa, "and that's probably the freakiest thing about it, huh?" "Yeah. I think that would be weird." Rasa continues guard duty, casting hir eyes to the twisted limb every so often. "I'd touch it, but... Then there'd be two and I don't think you'd like that." "What, that's how it works? You imitate a person if you touch them?" Jim is still prodding along a line of forearm bone that double helix in ways 'creative' to anatomy. "Does it hurt? Like, could you do me?" He's TOUCHED HIS FILL and drops his hand from Shelby's freak of nature arm with a last appreciative whistle. Fucked up! He is like five years old. Grossssss. Cooooooll. Shelby waits until Jim's down before shaking the glove out and slipping it back on--can't afford to let anyone wander by and catch a peek without paying up! "You just totally asked if Rasa would do you," she points out, dryly. "Most people view it as an invasion of privacy," Rasa warns Jim, eyeing Shelby askance. "You don't really want me wiggling around in your brain, do you?" "You think I won't throw you over this rail just 'cause you're a cripple?" Jim /ashes/ on said rail. "'Cause I'll do it." /That/ settled, he scratches the side of his jaw, "Wiggle around - so it's not just like. A physical change? It does mental crap?" "/I/ do mental crap. I don't advertise." Rasa has developed frowny face. "People don't like telepaths - not even amongst mutants." Ze sighs and shimmers a little more bronze, a little more guarded. "Fuck that, you gotta catch me first." Shelby's going to cut her losses while she's ahead--one cigarette had and twenty-five bucks burning a hole in her pocket. She /does/ linger long enough to say, "Glad you're not dead," to Jim but then she scoots quickly back towards the doors to duck inside. "Don't stay out past curfew!" she calls to Rasa before disappearing. "Hey, me too," Jim assures Shelby as she departs. He is also quite glad to be alive! And then there are two. He exposes Rasa to a rather frank regard, considers for only a moment and then skips the pleasantries, going straight to: "Not a lot, no. But people don't like a lotta things. You're talkin' to a PI - we're kinda the scum of the earth, diggin' through your trash and selling your secrets." He's using his non-cigar hand to make a creepster finger wiggle for a gesturally sarcastic 'oo, so SCARY' sentiment. "Eventually, you just gotta be like... well, fuck you /too/, buddy." He says this VERY New York-like at an invisible hypothetical-person standing behind Rasa, with a jerk of his chin to back it up. "So you're saying I'm the mutant equivalent of a P.I., but instead of it being an occupation, it's something I can't get rid of... so I should just hate people?" Rasa watches Shelby leave, hir lips twitching a bit. Ze moves back to the railing to stare out across the grounds. "I could maybe imitate you just by appearance, if you want, but I'm not very good." "Uh, no?" oh god, TEENAGER Jim's eyeroll could rearrange the planet's rotation. "I'm saying you're gonna do what you're gonna do, and people will deal or they won't. You can't live your whole fucking life doing what people want you to do. Besides that?" He gestures AT Rasa with his cigar, "If I like a person enough to bother with 'em? I'm probably gonna like 'em because I DON'T gotta jump through all those hopes for them." He pushes up his sleeve and thrusts out an arm. omg do it. "You don't gotta make me /pretty/, kid, that ship's sailed." Rasa just eyes Jim's arm. "What size pants are you?" Jim eyes Rasa back. "What." "I'm wearing clothes, Jim." Rasa says awkwardly, looking him up and down. "If I'm suddenly going to be you - do you think you can fit in a size five jean?" "..." blink. "Oh. -- OH. Oh shit." Except that Jim says it like it's suddenly a huge and impressed revelation, suddenly looking over Rasa with a great deal more curiosity, "I hadn't even fucking thought of that. Man, and I even got that problem if I get too leafy. Try growing branches through a shirt -- man. Though I guess it's easier for me, once I get enough bark going, I've pretty much mutated my own built-in clothes, huh? Yeah uh, nevermind, I don't think you're gonna fit this." He pats his paunch. It's not a HUGE paunch, but he's broad shouldered and, unlike a lot of body builders and swimmers with skinny little waists and huge chests, the REST of him is built broad as well. "I can get a blanket from inside. Professor Xavier tells me that the other metamorph he knows never wears clothes that she doesn't make with her mutation - so she's always able to shift." Rasa is already moving toward the door. "I just - Not yet." The teen is now very red. "I'll be back in a minute." "I - well that's-!" Jim semi-protests, but it's HARD to protest against his curiosity, so he just kind of token makes a few mouth sounds and then stands there with his hands in his pockets and his cigar hanging out of the side of his mouth, trying to wrap his mind around the 'never wears clothes' part. It's like the opposite of a NeverNude. Rasa gives Jim has several minutes to stew, thinking over the situation. Him, in a school. Him, teaching a kid to smoke. Now that kid's run off to shed hir clothing so ze can root around in his brain and be just like him? Jim is bad with teenagers. It is quite a while before Rasa reappears at the door, wearing a large blanket around hir shoulders, obscuring all of hir form. Ze has left hir gloves behind. Hir arms are mostly inside the blanket, so it's hard for hir to open the door once more without letting it drop. Ze is very care about how ze sticks an arm out when ze is outside once more, barefoot. "Are you ready?" Since he had to do all sorts of prep and all. "Kid, you need to invest in a nice big ROBE," Jim finds a really /smooth/ way to not have to look at naked-teenage-shoulders, and that is the facepalm. He is the WORST with teenagers. But they're already gone this face, and this normally /shy-kid/'s actual enthusiasm for something makes it all feel like some sort of 'don't scare it away!' position. Also: the curiosity. "/Sure/," he answers casually(/recklessly/), "How we do this?" "Just hold still." Rasa doesn't have naked-teenage-shoulders. Ze is a blanket creature with a head and an arm poking out. Ze is a blue blanket creature, to be precise. Ze skirts around him and looks for that bare bit of arm he was showing off earlier. If that's not there, ze reaches out and touches Jim's hand. There's a strange pulling sensation as Rasa's mind jumps from that point into Jim's head and starts absorbing information. Ze takes memories - especially things seen during the raid the night before, looking for details that no one is discussing. Perhaps ze had an ulterior motive after all. Almost as soon as the teen touches Jim, hir form shifts. Ze shoots up several inches to meet Jim's stature and fills out to the same proportions. The dark hair disappears and changes shade - and spreads across the jaw to match the P.I.'s current stage of unshaven, given the long day and night's activities. The metamorph's grip on the blanket is lost and falls away, much to the younger mutant's chagrin. New Jim is not naked though, but he is also not wearing the same clothes as old Jim. New Jim has on a set of Xavier School's gym cloths, sweat pants and a tank top stolen from Professor Logan's room. New Jim snatches at the blanket with his free hand, because fuck it's cold outside. "-kkh," Jim grits his teeth when his memories get /tugged/ at, "Knock it off, kid." His memories aren't nearly as lurid or bloody as those that had gone down into the labs; a motley crew of rescuers in mismatched riot gear and camo, mis-matched refugees fleeing in mulberry scrubs, all sprinting across a parking area towards his truck with murderdrones and guns open firing behind them. Also, a passing << shit it's good i'm not a telepath i never wouldn't pull this shit- >> Which all vanishes behind << !!! ... !? ...! >> Because there is now a new!Jim and his BLANKET IS FALLING OFF -- oh. Okay. That makes this less awkward. Bless you gym clothes. He begins a slow circling of this new!Jim, looking it over, "Holy smokes. So uh. You get the whole... me-package? -- that's not a dick joke." He rushes to explain by leafy-ing up around either raised hand. Rasa!Jim frowns. The mental invasion is gone before the younger mutant removes his hand The mimicry is exact in some ways, but in others, it's still very much Rasa. The memories and thoughts from Jim's starting to play out across the exposed flesh. Boldest and most obvious is the bit he just directed at Rasa, regarding his probable abuse of telepathy, should he have it. There are also flashes of mulberry and explosions. New!Jim rubs his hands together and shakes his head. "There's just... nothing there when I try for a person's mutation. Both parts of me can't read that part of another person's body. Maybe with practice I could make something /look/ like that, but it wouldn't be a real leaf." There's a pause and then, "Sorry about that other thing. I was curious and don't really know how to hold back." Jim watches his own thoughts run across his own(Rasa's) face with a very sudden new UNDERSTANDING: "Aw, hell, kid." He scrubs a hand over his face, following the tell-tell stories of his own MIND. "Yeah-yeah-yeah, I know another telepath can't turn it off either. At least yours only comes with touch -- when I wanna thought to myself around /him/ I gotta clutter it up. Recite latin in my head --." He raises his eyebrows, "Y'know, it's like your body's pretty much just reading your own mind, I guess. You every try cluttering it up? Thinking of songs you can get stuck in your head instead?" "Oh god." The teenage words of woe may sound funny coming from Jim, but they do issue forth from New!Jim's mouth with gusto. "Yes. I have had songs stuck in my head. They get plastered all over me. It works, but mostly, I just focus on a color a lot, because a color is very, very simple and calming and I don't forget the words or get stuck in that chorus, over and over again." As time goes on, New!Jim starts to shrink. It takes time and is only barely recognizable to the human eye. His hair also starts to darken. "So. You do leaves?" "I'm a plant guy," Jim shrugs. "Might be a better word for it, -paths an' -morphs or whatever, but it's just easier saying I-do-plants." Pause. "That's /not/ a sex-joke." God, you'd think he had a shoulder!Shelby telling him whenever he said something dirty these days. He's finally done with his own cigar, and flicks it off the side. And then Rasa's. Haha, that's like second-hand littering. "/Color/. That's a good idea. Look, I should get back in there. You can tell all the people I'm sure you're spying that you'll all get to meet them soon enough, I'd bet. It's not like they'll have any place else to go." He turns to head back into the building, "This place is kinda made to be home, right?" "Okay." New!Shorter!Darker!Jim waves at Jim as he starts to go. He grabs his blanket and holds it a little tighter before turning to head in himself. "I... gotta find some socks. My toes are freezing off." He shakes his head. "I don't think I'll ever give up clothes. Besides, I wanna scare the pants off Shelby before this wears off." He gives one last wave before noting. "Yeah. It's home, all right. You should visit home more often." "I should." Jim agrees, his tone bemused. In the name of scaring the pants off Shelby, he'll probably even reach back to give Rasa a little fill'er-up fistbump, bare fist to bare fist. "Have fun with that!" He heads inside. Rasa recharges with the fist bump and high tails it upstairs.