ArchivedLogs:Teenage Insecurities

Teenage Insecurities
Dramatis Personae Ivan, Rasa	2013-04-04 '
Location <XS> Medical Lab
Gleaming and sterile, the school's medical facility is all cool science in contrast to the mansion's old-world old-fashion. All stainless steel and antiseptic tinge, the room is filled with the quiet whir-click of the various implements that comprise its medical equipment -- all state-of the art. The hospital beds are curtained off for privacy when they have patients, and in one of the alcoves there is a small operating theatre visible. More heavy-duty equipment is visible in the lab in the back, where the securely locked cabinets keep sensitive equipment out of the reach of teenage fingers. The past few days have been difficult for the young people sequestered in the Med Lab this week, tales of lost friends keeping the minds of those recovering churning in discomfort while physical ailments keep people from stirring themselves physically out of it. With the help of intravenous fluids and nutrition and several hefty meals (which were difficult to force down), Rasa is starting to feel more like himself, after a fashion. His powers remain shorted out, for the time being, and his form is still in a mostly non-mutant form. As his strength returns, he starts getting out of bed a little bit more, using the restroom instead of a bedpan and returning his dishes to a place somewhere further away from his bed. Now, Rasa is out of bed and hovering near Ivan's curtain, IV still attached to his arm, cord linked to a bag on a stand. He wheels it around with him. He's wearing pajamas now, boring flannels in dark blue, a little loose around him, but definitely fitted for now. He raises a hand to knock at the flimsy fabric, then curls his fingers in it, pulling it a little open to peek inside. "Ivan?" Although some of Ivan's injuries were quite deep - at least for a squishy teenager who probably never experienced worse injuries than a scraped knee - it was nothing a few dozen stitches and a bunch of painkillers couldn't handle. In fact, he might have been out of the Med Lab by now if he had insisted to rest in his dorm room, but he stayed. Any conversations he had with with doctor McCoy were brief and just to confirm everything was going exactly as planned, and he may have even slept a little last night! Not a lot, mind, but at least he hasn't put any pillows over his face lately, occasionally leaving his little cube of curtains to quietly pace around the room instead. He may have even snuck out to grab some clothes-- not THAT much of a secret seeing as he is now wearing them: faded, old jeans and a dark grey T-shirt that states in /almost/ the same shade of grey that 'a city built on rock and roll would be structurally unsound'. When that curtain moves, he's bunched up on the middle of 'his' bed, hunched over the book Peter brought him the day before. In fact, he's on one of the last few pages already, right index finger tracing the words as he reads them. He's in the middle of mouthing one of the sentences when Rasa interrupts his thoughts, and his head snap up at the voice. For a moment, it looks like this might instigate another round of quiet staring from Ivan, and he DOES peer for a few seconds, but... then looks down at the book again, a little hastily, before exclaiming flatly, "Hello." "Hello, Ivan." Rasa says as he walks into Ivan's little cube and moves to stand next to the bed. "I wanted to talk to you." This much is evident by the way he is standing there attempting communication with his mouth. He moves to the foot of the bed and then looks up at Ivan. "Do you mind if I sit?" He is actually moving to sit down anyway, as it takes him a while to figure out how to do so with an IV attached to his arm. The height of the bed doesn't help. "How are you?" Ivan has noticed these communications with the mouth. But all of his communications seem to want to be done through the body at the moment- hunching slightly lower over that book as he continues to pretend to be reading it, eyebrows drawing closer to each other. He doesn't answer immediately, and when he does, it's quiet and lacklustre. "Fine." It might have something to do with the fact that it feels like half the answers he’s given lately were variations of this one. Then, as if he just can't help himself, his gaze flits toward Rasa. Not at his face, but in his general direction. His expression looks like a 'You?' should be coming out of his mouth at any moment, yet it never quite does. "You can look at me, Ivan. It's okay." Rasa's voice is still tired and drawn. He leans forward a little to look at Ivan's book before glancing back at his face. He frowns. "You should ask me questions. We should talk like we normally do. You can touch me now. I won't be invading your brain for a little while, so I'm safe. I..." He frowns more and stares down his knees. "I'm freaked out." Ivan's head dips slightly, and though the book stays in his lap, it loses his attention all too easily when Rasa speaks that last sentence. He faces the other teenager directly now, straightening while his shoulders push downward in a helpless, surprised sort of way. What, why. His voice loses its flat tone, worry overriding it. "Why are you freaked out?" I can look, see, I am looking. No freaking out. "Everything is broken," Rasa states flatly, looking down at himself, particularly, his hands. "I'm generally always kind of broken, but now even that is more broken." He lets out a deep sigh and looks over at Ivan again. "What if nothing gets better? If I am like this forever, what will happen?" His shoulders slump more. "I will … they won't make me leave, will they? No one is talking to me." "Maybe they are afraid." Ivan offers, hands fidgeting with the corner of the cover of his book while he peers. A few seconds later, he continues matter-of-factly, "Already I have made Sebastian and Shane leave. Maybe Shelby will leave because of that. If you leave, then /I/ will leave, and then maybe Peter and then maybe a--" His head cocks to the side for a moment, while he searches for the right words, "--chain reaction will start and then tomorrow there will be /no one/." That... may have been a joke. He never was very good at them, and a smile is sorely lacking. He expectedly searches Rasa's face for a response to it, either way. "You didn't make Shane and Sebastian leave." Rasa replies flatly. "There was something wrong with them before they came to the rec room." He inhales deeply and looks at Ivan. "They -- It's like they were looking for an excuse to run away. It's not your fault that you happened to have one." He has to move his jaw to get it to relax, clenching far too easily right now. "Come on, Ivan. It was some bee stings. Seriously. A few bee stings. You stung me too and here I am begging you to pay attention to me." He scowls more. "I think that it was a cry for help... but they cannot accept help right now. I don't understand it. I don't know if I can understand it." Ivan's face makes it all too clear that he doesn't really understand either. He frowns, but fails to look anywhere near judgmental, simply listening and considering. What little he knows of Sebastian and Shane is added to, but his brain refuses to settle on the subject. "Do they hurt?" He asks, after a short pause, quiet enough to suggest he almost doesn't want to know the answer. "The stings." "Only the first few. Then I shifted into the sharkskin and it didn't hurt anymore. Their skin is very tough." Rasa sighs and pulls the sleeve back on his arm, the small welts continuing to shrink with time. "Do not worry about them... too much." He extends his arm to show Ivan. "I do not think you are broken," mutters Ivan, absently but determined, eyes now settling on those welts. The fruits of his accidental labour. The book is promptly closed and placed on a pillow to his side, and he lifts the arm on his unbandaged side to reach - very slowly just in case! - for Rasa's arm while another question pops up in his mind, "Do you not like /this/ you?" "I don't know. I don't think I care..." Rasa replies, his eyes still down. He extends his arm toward Ivan for his investigation. "It's still my body. It's not like I am different or a stranger, but it is not the face I expect to see when I look in the mirror. I suppose my life might be simpler if I were just this for the rest of my life, but my powers... they are a part of me. I feel very strange without them. I feel very not me." He looks over at Ivan and considers. "Do you not like this me?" There is a certain weight to that question, and though Ivan may sometimes seem to sail straight past /some/ social ambiguities without noticing, the look on his face hints at the fact that he saw this one coming. "It is different." He answers, flatly again, though without visible effort to keep his tone level. A middle finger is poked out to trace around one of the welts, so carefully he's barely touching the skin at all. "I think like you-you more. But if this is you-you now, then I would get used to it eventually." If nothing else, at least he's honest. "When I kissed Shane, I felt something I haven't felt before. It was very strong and powerful and ... nice. I wanted to touch him more. Kiss him more. I know I was just reading his mind and understanding how ... touching works, but..." Rasa pulls his hand back a little, turning it so that his hand is under Ivan's, slipping up to grasp it. "I don't really feel it on my own, but if you feel that way, I would like to make you feel nice. If I get my powers back, maybe I'll feel it in your mind too." When the words 'kissed Shane' leave Rasa's mouth, Ivan's face finally manages to find an expression to show, even if it is a little ambiguous. Surprise? Worry? Maybe a little bit hurt. It's suppressed, though, for better or worse. He just sits, unmoving, cogs working overtime in his brain. When his his hand is grasped, his fingers loosely curl to grasp back, but there is a hesitance to it. "I do not..." He starts, breathing forced to be slow and calm but a redness creeping across his face betraying the fact that he is Not Really Calm at all. He doesn't look particularly pleased, either, locking his gaze with Rasa's. "Why did you kiss Shane?" Though most of the Hurt has left his voice, confusion still reigns. "He asked. I did not know a reason not to. I am sorry if it was hurtful." Rasa's hand relaxes, not so much holding any more, as being held, in case Ivan wants out. "It was not important. He wanted me to read his mind. I did not think one type of touching would be different when one is being so intimate as to read another's thoughts." He pauses and then looked up at Ivan. "He also did not seem troubled by the idea that I would turn into him. Would you want to kiss yourself?" The hand stays held. Ivan studies Rasa's face, focused gaze darting from eyes to mouth to eyebrows, back to eyes. Just... watching. "No." He answers, without pause. Then, the eye contact is finally broken, his head dipping as he looks downward. His hand also lowers, grasp tightening for a second to make sure the other hand lowers with it, but then returning to being loose enough to allow for an easy escape if one were desired. "But I would not be kissing myself. It would be /you/." His free hand goes up to rub at his own neck in a brief show of frustration, before he continues, "It was not hurtful. You are not--" Mine? No, that's not it. He goes quieter and quieter still, with every word, until he's barely even audible. "You do not need my permission to kiss anyone. But I would not... want kisses just because there is not a reason NOT to. If it was not important." "So, I should save important kisses for you and unimportant kisses for other people?" Rasa teases lightly, his hand still joined with Ivan's comfortably. "Or are all kisses important after giving you one important one?" He shift his weight until he is sitting closer to the other boy. "This is all new to me. I do not want to hurt you. You're going to have to tell me for a while what is normal for you and what you like so I do not make you feel bad ignorantly." "Nothing is normal." Ivan mumbles, giving his own knee a thoughtful stare as if he himself is confused at this answer. His legs unfold from underneath him to allow them to stretch them out across the bed in a somewhat nervous-looking manner. "But also even if it /was/ normal, it would still be new." A pause, then, "To me." Now, he looks toward their hands, fingers curling again to draw across Rasa's palm. Slowly and utterly carefully, as though the other boy's hand was made of thin shards of glass. Then, with a furrowing of his brow, "You did not want a date." "I did not know what … it meant." Rasa tries to explain, watching Ivan's hand move. "That is not quite right. I didn't understand the appeal. It seemed like a lot of work and a lot of limitations with no reward. For now, observing a reward inside you is enough." He leans until his shoulder bumps Ivan's. "And you do not seem to mind what I turn into. I have been very discouraged by people not liking that I am not very static in form." At the bump, Ivan's muscles tense up. But when they relax again, he leans right back into that pressure. His eyes stay on the joined hands, unable to keep his own entirely still for even a second as his fingers trail absently. "It is part of you. Some times it may be strange. But it is you." He looks a little puzzled, as if he doesn't quite understand why it would be a problem in the first place. Suddenly his grip tightens, and his expression finds itself stuck between brow-knitting frustration and... amusement. Finally a smile, as he looks to Rasa's face again, forcing any doubt away to the back of his mind. "New is good." It is probably a good thing they did not allow bugs into the medbay, and that Ivan has not been LOOKING for them. Or they might, at this point, be swarming Rasa again. Rasa would likely not appreciate being /swarmed./ Just sayin'. "So. You really would be okay with telepathy and an 'Ivan' appearance in your … … in me if my powers come back?" Rasa is concerned, There is also a wrinkle appearing between his brows and a squint to his eyes, indicating pain. It fades quickly, but he is starting to look tired. "I don't know." Ivan is quick to answer, and the smile stays. Apparently not knowing is not necessarily a bad thing! "It is very strange. I do not think I know the answer until-- if-- we try." Maybe he is trying to imagine it, because the smile twitches into something a little more /concerned/ before Rasa even starts showing signs of pain. "Explaining this to my family will be very complica..." Now it's Ivan's time to frown, concern deepening. He pulls his hand toward him again, perhaps fearing it may be the cause. Hey, he's on a /roll/ with hurting people. "I'm sorry?" I think? Rasa moves his hand with Ivan's and continues to lean against him. "No. Not you. I just have a headache." He reaches his hand up to his forehead and rubs at it for a moment. "I don't think we're anywhere near the idea of talking with our families about this. My family would be extremely displeased that you are a boy - for as much as they wanted to hide me as a girl, I .. just think they would be displeased." He exhales and closes his eyes, leaning more heavily against Ivan's shoulder. There is a wince, ever so slight, but Ivan does not move. Leans. Leans are good. For the moment, he makes a good support. "I do not think my father would believe me if I told him. And siblings-- definitely no. /I/ am having trouble." His head tilts to the side, until he's halfway to looking toward and halfway to leaning it on Rasa's. Which apparently makes him just a pinch happier, smile brightening. "Do you want to rest, Ra-- Rasiya? Rashka?" Testing! "You are having trouble?" Rasa responds immediately and pulls away a little to get a look at his face. "Trouble with me being a boy underneath it all?" He does not let go of Ivan's head, but he does look over at his bed. But then there is blushing - a slow blush creeps into his cheeks at the sound of Ivan's attempt at an endearment of his name. He likes it. "Maybe I should." Ivan's face definitely isn't showing that he's having any major troubles! In fact, he looks just about as happy as he did when the beehive was set up- now a slightly bitter memory, but fact remains that it was a pretty damn amazing thing to be added to his life. And so is this, apparently. "I do not..." He starts, a little uncertain of his words, "I do not often think about things that are unlikely. Not efficient. All of this - statistically, purely - does not seem likely." There's a mutter to adds to that, but it is in Russian. A little more confident than his English, and a lot more fluid. "{Especially the part that involves me.}" He starts to move again, slowly, reaching for both of Rasa's hands this time to cheerfully lead him off toward the other curtaincube. "{Come come come, back to bed before we both fall asleep on here and then how much do you want to bet Shelby will come in just at that moment and make fun of both of us?}" Aaand his own face flushes red again. Whoops. Rasa is careful to move, as he still has a leash in the IV bag he's dragging around with him. They move slowly, and Rasa gets back to his own bed, pulling his blankets up around him, giving Ivan a smile for helping him. "You know, I'm going to have to learn Russian so that you can't do that to me anymore." It is a serious expression, under the smiling and blushing. "But if it's something to do with Shelby, then yes. Trouble." "{You can't learn Russian, it's my /thing/. I'll just be ordinary if you do that.}" Ivan quips back in a rattle of foreign words, doing his best to pull off a serious expression of his own even though the smile easily shows through. Once Rasa's all settled in, he switches back to English, "Sleep well, Rashka." A breath later, "-- Thank you for talking. I was afraid to." "I'm glad we did talk." Rasa smiles and watches him smile. "Talk to you more later."