ArchivedLogs:Teenagers on a Train

Teenagers on a Train
Dramatis Personae Rasa, Sebastian, Shelby
In Absentia	2013-05-24 '
Location
On the train ride to from New York to Georgia, the strange little company of mutants has taken over the back few compartments of the train, politely requesting and receiving assurances that people not in their party are /not/ between them. Perhaps it cost a little extra or took some convincing, but the group that left the Xavier's school together stays together. Jackson's family takes up one compartment, where Shelby, Rasa, Ivan and Daiki are assigned the next - at least on paper. Daiki, for obvious reasons, is perfectly at home sharing with the family Holland, leaving the other three X-teens their own room for shenanigans. Peter is given plenty of time with his folks, wherever their compartment may be. So, all that's left is an Ivan, Rasa, and Shelby. Ivan then wanders off to find some food, so it's just Shelby and Rasa, sitting on their perspective bed surfaces, waiting for the train to take off. Guess how many times Shelby has been on a train? Go on, guess! Okay, first one will want to take note of the heavily concealed but still evident nervous glances around the compartment. The frequent testing of the surface beneath her. The way she reaches for whatever will pass as an ohshit handle any time noise is heard that might, in any way, resemble the train about to move. Now guess. That’s right, /zero/. And with the speed that all of this has happened, it’s left her head already spinning. This translates to an unusual aura of quiet around this particular teenager. Sassface is gone, replaced with The Watchful Kid. “So,” she eventually says into the quiet. “This is. Uh. Pretty fucking crazy, huh?” "Yeah." Rasa is fumbling in hir bag and pulls out a pack of cards ze had the foresight to remember to bring. Ze cracks the plastic seal and begins to unbox them, finding and pulling out the joker cards. "I don't know. I think I freaked Peter out back in the medlab. And I haven't really seen the twins much yet. I... I don't know how they are." Ze cracks the deck a little, getting rid of some of the waxy, plasticy static the cards acquired during manufacturing and hands the deck over to Shelby. "Here. Show me how to shuffle better." “I haven’t talked to him yet,” Shelby admits on the topic of Peter. /Also/ not a surprise given the boy’s new appearance. More surprising, maybe, is her addition of, “Or the twins. I guess...maybe it’s...a good idea to give ‘em some space, huh?” Not that she likes this idea but beggars cannot be choosers. She slides from her bank and switches to Rasa’s to take the cards. They’re worked further between her hands to loosen some of that unused stiffness as well. “...kinda wonder if any of ‘em are gonna be coming back with us after all this shit.” "Honestly? Who knows. Maybe we're just moving them down to Georgia and we can visit them here." Rasa shakes hir head and curls hir leg underneath hir as ze turns to face Shelby a little better. "Maybe they'll all come back because they'll remember that this kind of shit never happened to them /on/ school grounds. It could be nice to feel safe for a while, maybe." Hir eyes dance as ze watches Shelby's hand movements. "Oh, Um, I'm not telling Peter and probably not the twins about what happened to me yet. I mean, at some point, Peter should probably know, but at the same time, he's got a lot of shit to deal with right now and doesn't actually need to feel terrorized by another looming enemy." “They better not move.” Shelby says this with the /fiercest/ of scowls, her statement punctuated with the ripping sound of a stiff deck trying to whiffle itself together in her hands. A few more shuffles and it’s moving easily, whereupon she begins the fancier finger tricks. Maybe she is stacking the deck, maybe not. “I don’t even think safe’s a /thing/, anyway. New York, Georgia, doesn’t matter. It’s all bullshit, you got the freak gene.” After she’s had her way with the deck, the cards are offered back to Rasa. “Not telling him’s probably the best idea. Shithead’d be out there in a second, probably. Heroing.” Really, she /likes/ Peter. Honest! Rasa deals out an even number of cards to both teens and glances up. "Warm up game of War?" It's a game everyone knows, right? High card wins, slap doubles? Or is that Crazy Eights? Who knows any more! "Or, I don't know. There's not a lot of two person games I can think of off the top of my head." Ze flips over a card and looks at it. "No, Safe isn't really on the table, but groups and better defenses are. I don't know what I'm talking about though. I'm just trying to come up with reasons why they should come back. Peter should come back for Ivan. Shane should come back for Daiki. Sebastian... for books?" Ze raises an eyebrow and looks up at Shelby, making sure this is an okay thing to say. “War’s good. Unless you wanna play Blackjack.” But Shelby is already turning her card up--lower. She slides it over towards Rasa and then tamps down the cards remaining in her packet. “Books’d totally win over me, yeah,” she agrees with a faint, not entirely amused smile. “/Maybe/ a blowjob. Books’n’blowjobs. But books first, probably.” A second card is laid out, face up. “You ever been out in the country before?” Rasa slips the pair of cards under her deck and tosses the next one out there. "Um, well, no. Not really. We stuck to big cities and suburbia when I was a kid, for the most part. My extended family isn't big on rural living, and not all of them are in the States." Ze draws in a deep breath and gnaws on hir lip. "To be honest, I'm worried. I mean, it's The South." There is a definite emphasis on the capital letters. "I don't think I'd even be able to hide in a burqa down there, as they are all very polite, Christian people, right? They aren't going to like the idea of a muslim or a mutant walking around them. I hope we don't have to see many people." "How about you?" Hir card is lower than Shelby's, so ze watches it go as ze lays down another one. "You going to shrivel up and die without civilization?" The door of the compartment slides open. The face that peeks in is blue and sharky. Not immediately identifiable until the rest of him slips in, too; Bastian is in a pink poodle skirt with pastle lavender-blue-pink legwarmers, a light blue tank top, a white sweatshirt over top. He doesn't say anything, just sneaks in and seats himself beside Shelby, watching the card game. “I guess it’s like, a real farm. So maybe not a lot of people around?” Shelby is just theorizing here. “It’s only the weekend though so I’ll /probably/ be okay. If they got a TV.” If not, who knows. As she is not faced with that issue yet, she is only vaguely troubled. Cards are taken, cards are surrendered. And when the door open, she looks up and instantly forgets /who/ is in the lead, showing it by dropping her mini-deck--some spill face up, thereby proving she had a shitty hand--so she can wrap both arms around the neck of the boy when he settles beside her. Her face presses against his gills, not /just/ to hide the expression she’s wearing at the moment. "Bastian!" Rasa blinks and almost squeaks out the name, a quick wave of pleasant surprise and shock rippling through hir person, shifting hir skin tones from almost fleshy tones to explosions of pink and yellow, with little sliver star bursts dancing across hir cheeks. Ze is wearing really plain clothes, sweat pants, layered colored tank tops in purple and blue, with a gray sweater hoodie over the top, to keep the chill of the airconditioning off. Hir feet were be-flipflopped, but the footwear has since been shed. It should also be noted that in the surprise of seeing one Sebastian Holland, hir tail stands straight up. Hello! "Hi." Bastian's voice is quiet. He wraps his arms tight around Shelby, face pressing against her hair. "Rasa. You should come. Around the table. For hugs, I missed --" He squeezes Shelby tighter. "You have a tail." And then quiet. His eyes are glistening. And then: "... there's no tv." “She stole it.” Shelby’s voice is necessarily muffled, as she is reluctant to lift her head just yet. There is plenty of hugging /here/, no moving required! But after a few minutes of this, she sniffs and looks up. Her own eyes are suspiciously bright. She blinks until they are less so but she doesn’t let go of the shark just yet. “I didn’t even think places without TV were /real/. That’s just fucked up, B,” she says in lieu of pointing out everything else that is fucked up. After another sniff, she finally loosens her hold on Bastian a little. Just enough to allow Rasa-room for some of those other hugs. Rasa crawls around to the other side of the bed where Shelby is sitting and moves in closer , stuffing hir hands in hir sleeves before draping hirself around the shoulders of Sebastian and Shelby, careful not to instigate skin contact without permission. Hir tail winds around Bastian's lower back, tugging gently. "Missed you, too." Hir voice is quiet, hir hands clingy inside the knit material. Sebastian keeps one arm around Shelby, but his other snakes out around Rasa. Squeezing them both, tight. "... our apartment doesn't have TV," he points out, "I don't think my pa's owned one in his life." He keeps hugging. Tight. He makes no move to let go, tipping his head instead to press against Shelby's shoulder. "... I'm glad you're. Coming. Here. With us. Are you guys -- have things been -- ok?" Shelby has an answer for everything. As Rasa is pulled in close to the group hug, she mumbles, “Yeah, but can always go upstairs to Hive’s place when you’re jonesing for basic cable.” There is no such luxury on a farm, she realizes. It isn’t a gripe though--she’s just pointing things out. When Bastian rests against her, she lowers her chin to the top of his head and tries to catch Rasa’s eyes. Speaking slowly, she says, “...sure. Except for you guys being gone. But you’re back now, so everything’s gonna be fine, right?” She pause then finds a grin. “So long as you don’t mind everyone following you around like puppies. I don’t think I’m gonna let go this whole weekend. Deal with it.” Rasa meets Shelby's gaze and nods a little, mostly keeping hir head up to avoid accidental skin contact. One hand moves off Shelby's shoulders and pulls hir hood up and over hir face, protecting hir cheeks a little before resting hir head against Sebastian's. "Oh, well, she's sugarcoating it. We were disgruntled a lot of the time, our friends gone, teachers hindering us from tearing the city apart, looking for you." Ze smiles a little, "so, better now that you're back. You have to help me design a better phone texting interface for Nightcrawler." "Yeah, well, here you can, uh, go... milk cows," Bastian supplies wryly. He squeezes both the others, and for a moment he quiets. "...I don't know," he says, "things like this -- it's hard to -- be -- fine after -- um." He frowns. "I guess we'll try to be fine. I don't know. Did Peter tell you -- what did Peter tell you?" He glances up, over to Rasa, and a small smile replaces his uncertain expression. "/That/ I can do. I even have some -- I mean webbed fingers aren't great for a lot of things, too." He slumps back against the bench. "I don't think it's going to be a problem," he says to Shelby, "I'm not really planning to let you go, either." Oops. How’s that for sticking her foot in it? Shelby winces, dropping her head back against Bastian’s shoulder to hide that expression. “You don’t have to be fine right now,” she assures him, though it’s a /little/ late for that. “I haven’t really talked to Peter yet but I got a pretty amazing imagination.” This is a quiet addition, one that leads her to curl her arm across his chest and squeeze. Tightly. Then she’s at something of a loss. Which...throws her right back into the pattern of behavior that caused the foot in mouth slip in the first place: faking it. “So...you gonna teach me and Rasa how to milk cows?” "Peter was telling the medbay about how you guys had to fight other mutants. He didn't really say much about it, because he seemed like he was off his ADD meds and couldn't really be bothered to stop stuffing cupcakes in his mouth." It's the truth, it's what you say at times like this, right? Rasa's head shifts to rest against hir arm, peering up at Sebastian's face. "I freaked him out by crawling onto his bed and hugging him. Is it weird? I mean, did I not used to be huggy before you left? I thought I was. You know, with the hugs and the people, getting hugs. Maybe it was the way I did it. I … guess leaping onto the bed wasn't something you could classify as normal." Ze pauses and ends hir prattling, rubbing hir nose against hir shoulder. "Oh man, is this one of those work vacations, where we have to haul hay and milk cows at the butt crack of dawn because good honest work is better for us than all the cushy city life we're trying to get away from? I... am not good with chore-cations. I might go hide on the back forty." "There's not a back forty. I mean, there is but it's not undeveloped. There's forty acres they farm and forty acres rented but 'back forty' is --" Sebastian stops here with a slight blush, perhaps realizing this might be Not The Point. "Um, no, this isn't a work vacation. I can teach you to milk cows if you /want/ to though I'm really bad at it I mean I know how in /theory/ but I've done it, like/ twice. Shane's better. Pa is /really/ good. But you don't have to. Do any of that. I am definitely going riding, though, the trails are way better than around school." He pauses, then smiles at the others. "You know, honest work is better for you than the cushy city life you're trying to get away from." “Fuck work!” Shelby cheerfully announces, encouraged by Bastian’s smile. “And fuck honest. Maybe I’ll teach your grandpa how to play poker instead.” She extricates herself only long enough to scoop up the cards, then returns to tuck in against his side. The deck ruffles stiffly between her hands, fingers making the cards dance through the shuffle. His lap...well, it’s soon to become the play table, given that she and Rasa are flanking him. “Normal’s what you make it, right? C’mon, I’ll teach you guys how to play blackjack.” And this time, she /is/ stacking the deck.