ArchivedLogs:Stupid Things

Stupid Things
Dramatis Personae Ivan, Rasa
In Absentia	2013-08-14 Of smart stupid things, of silly stupid things, and of potentially dangerous stupid things.
Location <XS> Lake
Bright, bright, bright; the lake glitters wide and expansive here, stretching off into the distance. Sunlight, moonlight, starlight, it catches them all. Lapping at the rocky shore, its deep waters are frigid in winter and cool even in summer. A stone pier stretches out a ways into the water, wide and smooth, though often icy in winter. The water teems with life nevertheless, home to myriad species of fish that provide for ample fishing or just lazy watching on a slow summer day, for those who want to take a boat from the boathouse out to the center of the lake, or perhaps lounge on the pier and try their luck. Rasa is up earlyish, for hir anyway, and is dressed in hir workout clothes, black leggings with purple stripes down the side, a black sports bra with a loose white tank top over it. Hir bare feet are curling into the grass at the edge of the rocky beach, hir gaze fixed out upon the shining, rippling surface of the water. Ze is curled into a ball, arms wrapped around hir knees, keeping them close to hir chest, face half hidden behind the the two bony bumps. Hir skin is an ashen gray, hir tail gone, hir hair flat and lifeless. Ze does move from time to time, but in slow movements. Initially, it is to take up the protein drink at hir side and to suck at the straw sticking out of the top. Then ze puts it down. When a breeze stirs hir hair, ze unwinds one arm to tuck it back behind hir ear, or correct the way hir ponytail lies. Then, just as slow as hir other movements, ze closes hir eyes. The circles under hir eyes are exaggerated by hir mutation, but it seems someone did not sleep last night. The presence of a new arrival is announced not by a voice, but by footsteps. A slow, steady pace of sneakers across grass, then rocks, as he moves slowly closer to where Rasa is sitting. Ivan, dressed in a simple yellow and brown striped shirt and faded blue jeans, has arrived with his usual amount of whistles and bells, head held high and brow furrowed in what appears to be confusion. His pace slows, still, until he's almost right next to hir. Then, he takes a few steps aside to move in front of hir. Blocking out the view of the water with a Seriously Concerned Ivan staring back. /Hello/. Rasa looks up when someone covers hir in shadow, hir face vaguely turning to one side as ze takes in the clothing from the bottom to the top. Those denim trousers capture hir attention once more as ze scoots forward a few feet to reach out and wrap hir arms around the legs encased within, hir cheek pressed to the outside of his knee. Hir shoulders show signs of how much ze is squeezing, but hir current form does not contain nearly as much strength as hir other forms possess. Ze just clings. Clinging's fine. Ivan only shows brief signs of surprise, eyebrows shooting up and staying there as he continues to stare, head cocking to the side a little. He /almost/ reaches for hir cheek, but instead-- lets the hand hover mid-air, fingers curling uncertainly unward. Less uncertain and more determined, he says simply, "... You are not okay. Why are you not okay?" Rasa gives a little shake of hir head. No. Not okay. Ze releases him slowly and leans back to look at him, before patting the ground beside hir, head lowering to another sleepy posture. 'Couldn't sleep,' scrawls itself across hir arms in black three or four times before fading away to nothing, seemingly too tired to keep a thought in hir head. Ivan's eyes snap to the writing on hir arm, but his expression of concern only deepens with it. The pats, likewise, do little to spur him on. Nope. Instead, he reaches out both hands, palms up, presumably for Rasa to grab. With a hint of a smile, he mumbles in Russian, "{Not coming down there, Rashka. Up you go.}" Rasa looks up, perturbed, wrinkles deep in hir gray skin. Lips press firmly together, ze concedes and reaches hir hands up to Ivan's, getting hir feet under hir as ze stands up under hir own power, mostly. At the touch of skin to skin, thoughts leak across a light connection, hazy and disjointed, points of disappointment that rattle hir more than ze can admit. There are holes in the mesh of Rasa's ability to hold hirself together, a snag of abandonment in the form of an email, and a tear of disrespect and loss of a connection not yet invested in. Hir cope flops uselessly, the imperfections making it hard for hir to put any weight or tension on it. In return, Ivan's mind is stalwartly solid, intentions clear and unyielding. He's glad to see Rasa, regardless of the condition ze might be in, and this shows clearly on his face when ze chooses to get up. He leans to give hir a hug, letting go of one hand to wrap an arm around hir waist. Most of all, though, it should be clear through underlying thoughts that constantly bubble up to the surface... that he means to FIX whatever it is that is wrong right now. "Who made you not able to sleep? Was it family?" "No." Rasa is quite content ignoring hir family as much as they are ignoring hir. Instead, there is some ache about being at the school, combining with the ache of just being hir. "Some girls... asked me my pronouns then called me 'she' like I wasn't there. Don't... want that." Ze struggles to use hir words when everything inside is disjointed and faded. There are thoughts of the empty room in the boys dorm. Could run away and hide there. Hiding? Nonsense. Ivan pulls Rasa gently closer, a thoughtless sort of thing . As is the subtle switch inside his head of confusion mixed with wanting to help to confusion and something slightly more... bitter. One of his shoulders gives a twitch and his smile, too, fades with this. "Who was this?" Telepathy is a funny thing. No matter how much Rasa doesn't want to get people in trouble for vapid, thoughtless behavior, images of their faces pop into hir head when ze is asked to name them. Well, for the given value of 'faces' anyway. One seems to be more composed of smoke and color, while the other is painted over with brightness and color. They are two of the newer students, both having arrived while Ivan was away. "It's not important. People are going to keep doing this until the day I die. It's just... life." The gravity of Ivan's mind on the subject of 'who' subsides. Slowly. Perhaps he's pushed enough, for now. "Not all the people." A little awkwardly, he leans forward to kiss Rasa's forehead. He lingers there for a second, as he attempts to fight off the worry that spreads into his own thoughts. But then-- he leans back, one hand still held, and takes a step AWAY. Toward the water, attempting to pull Rasa gently along with him as a smile reappears on his face. Genuine, now, widening with an /idea/. "Can you swim?" Rasa closes hir eyes and starts pulling away hir thoughts and feelings from Ivan, concerned that ze is worrying him, so when he asks a question, ze is unprepared. "Swim?" Ze blinks, actively surprised. "Yes. I can swim. Did you want to swim? I could go back to the dorm and get my..." Ze pauses in hir speech, noticing the way he is tugging at hir now. "You want to go now?" Ze is not against it. If Ivan bending down to pull his shoes and socks off with one hand is any indication, then the answer is YES. Tug tug tug. Apparently the rest of his clothes are staying on, since he's then backing away toward the water on bare feet, continuing to hold onto hir hand as he does it. Though-- a small number of stowaway spiders of various shapes and sizes crawls from the bottom of his shirt and jeans, out onto the rocks and AWAY. Escaaaape while you caaan. "It is a-- /stupid/ thing." He explains, perhaps unhelpfully but very confidently to make up for it, at Rasa again. "When the world is doing stupid things to you, you have to do stupid things back." From the way he says it, it sounds like a terribly awkwardly worded proverb. Words of WISDOM, Rasa. Rasa can't help but smile as Ivan starts shedding his shoes, the gray of hir skin warming. Ze pulls off hir over tank top and releases Ivan't hand just long enough to toss it over to hir bottle. << Is it really feasible to do something ridiculous every time something shitty comes up? >> ze muses quietly, hir smile spreading reluctantly. "Might be more fun to jump off the pier too," ze notes frivolously, hir feet already starting to get wet. "There are very many ridiculous things." Ivan replies, his hand slipping from Rasa's again JUST as a few semi-concerned flashes of the sharktwins maybe being in the lake jump across his mind, only to be dismissed immediately after. "Jump." As his feet touch the water, he finally seems to remember, oh right. Clothes. So off goes his shirt, tossed over onto his shoes. Thrown, as some people might put it, like a girl, but he doesn't seem fussed. And off go the pants, too, already partly watersplashed and sticking to his legs (revealing underneath dark blue boxer shorts with little white silhouettes of spiders all over oh god who bought him those) and nearly causing him to fall over as he stumbles about on one leg at a time. And then ACTUALLY falling over, with a desperate little flail of his arms. "{Fuck--!}" SPLASH. "{COLD fuck FUCK.}" Half words, half bitter laughter. "I'll protect you from any sharktwins," Rasa declares, smiling as ze watches him disrobe, looking for these new muscles hearlded online from afar. When he strips off his jeans, ze turns pink. Hir eyes trail downward toward his bottom half, but happily, there are boxers(! was ze not expecting this?) with a delightful spider print(! totally disarming!). Hir hands rest on the top of hir running pants (not that they leave much to the imagination) before hunching over as ze simultaneously pushing them down and stepping out. Horribly self conscious, ze tosses them back, then takes off running into the water until it is at least up to hir waist, squawks of discomfort at the temperature. Once in deep enough, ze tosses hirself up and into the water's embrace with one last squeal of 'holy shit!' Ze is under the surface only briefly before coming up gasping and sputtering. Ivan's muscles are-- well, maybe slightly exaggerated online. He's less SOFT than he used to be, and two months of daily heavy lifting is not nothin', but the whole thing may be slightly outweighed by the fact that he ends up sitting JUST off the dry end, like a small child, looking quite surprised he hasn't DROWNED from his accidental splash. Unfortunately-- he took his pants with him. They're fished out /SOAKING WET/ from below him, and tossed ashore with a wet -FLUMP-. Sort of not-- completely where he wanted to toss them, coincidentally, because that's when a Rasa runs by and he appears to suffer from an involuntary movement to watch hir do so. The squeal draws another chuckle from him, and he promptly gets up to follow hir. Very, very gingerly, his feet never quite leaving the bottom of he lake for long and his arms held uncertainly near the top of the water. "If I drown." He starts, his smile turning slightly nervous now. "Can you lie to everyone and say I died fighting a big, big forest bear." "Yes, Ivan, but I won't let you drown either." Rasa smiles at him, legs curled up under hir so ze can float a little despite the fact that ze can touch the ground. "Do you not know how to swim?" Ze asks as ze moves a little closer, reaching out to find his hand again. "I could show you - or you can take a class, if you prefer to learn from ... well, not me. No one at the school is really a stranger. Jax swims laps all the time. He could show you too." "I did not think about it before. It was not important." Ivan replies in the middle of a /shiver/ from the cold, though it doesn't look like he minds it much. He reaches for Rasa's hand without hesitation, his grip perhaps slightly TIGHTER than usual on account of aaaaa water. the decision to wander in is not, however, regretted. He stands, now-- pretty much as far from dry land as he can without his sharkbitescar-decorated shoulders goin' completely under, head held high. "I do not mind." His mind confirms this as truth, a Russian echo of << {I don't even know if anyone except Artyom can swim} >> following it up. Rasa smiles and slides closer to Ivan, wrapping hir arms around him in a hug as hir feet touch down on the ground. Ze presses hir cheek against his shoulder and closes hir eyes. "I guess we're not as removed from bodies of water as you are when you are in Russia. I think all kids on the coast are encouraged to learn." Hir mind is filled with pleasant memories of time spent in pools, the burning of chlorine in hir eyes, the weightlessness of water, and the joy of being able to move in a three dimensional grid, rather than simply across a flat surface. "Floating is pretty much the best thing, if you can figure it out." Being new experiences for Ivan, those memories are examined as close as he can get to them. Once Rasa's close enough to grab hold of again, his arms wrap around hir again without thought, fingers pressed to hir upper back. WHO KNOWS there might be a weird torrential stream thing waiting to carrying him away. But despite underlying paranoia, he /knows/ he's safe. If the school nearby doesn't make this clear enough, then Rasa's presence does. Staring at the water over hir shoulder, he says then, "... Can I ask a favour from you?" "Of course, Vanya," Rasa replies almost instantly. Ze lets Ivan bathe in hir fearlessness of the water, the secure thought that the lake contains no riptides or undercurrents, just water and peacefulness. Ze pulls back just a little so ze can look up at Ivan's face after he speaks, hir own fingers pressing gently against his back and holding on. Ivan's eyes snap back to Rasa's, his content smile taking a tiny hit as images of-- he's not quite sure, something SMOKY and something COLOURFUL flash across his mind. "If do a stupid thing. Will you tell me?" "Sure, I will." Rasa looks a little confused, but amused by his request. Ze reaches up with dripping wet fingers to run hir fingers against his hair, still accustomed to playing with his curls while studying his face. "Are you concerned about doing stupid things? You don't do anything nearly as foolish as Peter does. That guy is so lucky, I don't know how he does it." Hir hand trails down the side of his face, knuckles dragging lightly against his neck. "I am not concerned about doing them," As he echoes her words, Ivan's head dips slightly, his fingers against Rasa's back curling inward as knuckles drag over his neck, "but about not knowing. Peter does many good things, too," He almost looks a little guilty for implying that Peter may do foolish things between them, /for shame/, "but some times I am concerned about not learning." "I know Peter does many amazing things and he is a really good person. I just get frustrated when dealing with fear a lot. Some of things that happen to Peter scare me." Rasa leans forward and presses a little kiss to his neck, the colors in hir skin cooling from their embarrassed brilliance, muting just slightly grayer than hir normal skin shade. "But yes. I will tell you. I will do my best to help you understand what is stupid and how you might do a thing better next time." "A lot of the things that happen with Peter scare me. But also- little things, with other people. And when you are sad, and... I want--" Either distracted by the change in Rasa's skin colour or the kiss delivered to his neck, he tenses slightly. Okay, fine, telepathic connection makes it clear enough that it's a mix. But. Mostly the latter. Tiny bit distracting, he seems to have forgotten what he was talking about. And his face flushing just- ever so slightly. << ... The lake was a good idea. >> Is-- all he manages, and even then only /inside/ his head. << The lake was an amazing good idea. >> Rasa admits, hir fingers lightly trace the spot ze just kissed. "What about me when I am sad?" Hir movements pause entirely, face tilted up to study his expression. Hir mind is quiet, as if ze is holding hir breath, but in the quiet background, there are the words, 'oh no, I hurt him when i am sad.' Those words whisper quietly in places hard to hear, but are written in deep blue across hir face. Oh- oh no. Ivan's hands form into fists, though remain resting against Rasa's sides. "You do not hurt me. You could not-" << {Well, yeah, alright, you could hurt me physically pretty easily, I mean, in a wrestling match I'm not sure I'd even survive but} >> "I just- want you to not be sad. So I will /fix it/." He offers this with a smile, like-- that's it! He'll fix it! Solved! Rasa's head tilts curiously as Ivan speaks, hir brows darting upward in surprise as this proclamation. Ze relaxes into a smile, hir fingers moving to likely rub against his skin again. "You make me so happy, Vanya," ze replies, a pinkish yellow glow starting to come to the surface under hir skin. "And you do help fix things inside me, but they will take time and I may still be sad every so often." Ze grimaces a little, hir coloration staying positive. "Thank you, for being with me."