Logs:And rings aloud the welkin blue With all the songs I ever knew.
| And rings aloud the welkin blue With all the songs I ever knew. | |
|---|---|
| Dramatis Personae | |
| In Absentia | summer solstice '23 / jax's 31st birthday "You weren't asking for my blessing, but you have it for whatever it's worth to you. And if you find them, we will stand ready to help bring them home." (Jax's birthday party, part 3 -- from disembarking and dancing, previously, onward to drama.) |
| Location
<NYC> Rooftop - SHIELD HQ - Times Square | |
There's an unexpected oasis at the top of this gleaming high-rise, the whole of it carpeted in thick, soft, layered ground cover of sedums, grass, and moss. A small, carefully manicured grove serves as the centerpiece, with benches, tables and chairs scattered around in the shade. Beside it, a professionally landscaped garden boasts a pond and quite a few planters that either used to hold plants or still hold dying ones. The greenhouse is somewhat sparsely and eclectically populated with tropical plants, flanked by garden beds even more sparsely planted. An open lawn on the side overlooking Times Square makes a great spot for a picnic. The otherwise unsightly structure housing the roof access, a single stall bathroom, and tool shed has been covered on three sides with turf and shaped into a little promontory offering a breathtaking view of the city. The lawn has mostly disappeared under the newly assembled raised stage, wires for lighting and sound systems running through the grass to generators that definitely do not belong to SHIELD. The tables have been commandeered as food and drink stations, now being refilled as the long, long arc of sun on the longest day of the year begins to finally touch the horizon. The fae-like uniforms of Jax's friends and Ryan's crew are easy to pick out in the crowd in front of the stage and in the little groups of chatter spread across the rooftop, glowing horns and sunburst-adorned wings catching the light shining from the stage as the mutant-electro-swing band plays. Ryan himself is chatting in a corner that has gone oddly silent to the outside observer. Leo Fitz, face ruddy-red from beer, has commandeered Simmons's lip liner to scribble notes onto a napkin. "He's quite handsome, isn't he?" Simmons sighs, resting her cheek onto Fitz's shoulder. "He's a bloody enigma, s'what he is," Fitz mumbles, breaking part of the liner with the force of his writing. "How's he got the sound waves bending like that, s'not like he's a -- a-- silica packet for sound, is he?" A little ways away from those scientists, a physicist has found an object for her ire. This current act does in fact fit Kitty's outfit, save for the commerative shirt draped around her shoulders, and if she returned to the dance "-- and he's been going absolutely nuts up in here with no news, probably since that first email you sent, so it's like, damn, is this how you handled it when he went missing? What is the point of being -- whatever the fuck the X-men are if we can't keep our own kids safe?" Kitty's eyes are wide and every-so-slightly bloodshot from drinking, the wine in her hand sloshing even at this low volume as she gesticulates. "Like, we all know you aren't trying to be a jerk but emailing to tell us you're going to fight your way through the Staten Island mafia or whatever when we already got people looking into that angle, that's not very efficient, is it? It kind of seems like you're trying to punish yourself about it and none of us need that right now, we need the kids back." Familiar, perhaps, to people who have known her since childhood, is the fearful tremble of Kitty's words throughout this tirade, the clench of her currently-ghostly fingers around her glass. "So like, why are you here, Scott? Are you actually just here to drive the Professor around or is this you punishing yourself, too?" Looking just at Scott, it's almost hard to tell that he's being yelled at -- his head is tilted to better hear Kitty over the music, and he's nodding along, but his face is mostly implacable, any tension or tightness in his expression mostly hidden behind his tinted glasses, his hands casually tucked into the pockets of his jeans. He is not wearing a Holland Was Right birthday-edition shirt, though he has one slung over his shoulder like he might take it home -- his own T-shirt is a disappointingly unsunny, undecorated navy blue. He lets Kitty's last question hang for a moment, straightening his neck again. Lets out a short exhale. "I am not punishing myself," he says tightly. "I'm here to celebrate Jax's birthday, same as you. Believe it or not, I don't think of that as some kind of self-punishment." His voice is quiet and controlled, but pointed -- the blurred edge of exhaustion it's had for weeks has sharpened into a defensive curtness. "Should I have expected you to just know telepathically that I was going to check out the Staten Island mafia? Because from my vantage point, email seemed more reliable. I am trying to find our kids. I don't know what else you expect me to do." "Why would you fight the mafia in the first place? We know people for that, we got people for that -- God you're missing the point!" Kitty might also be missing the point -- or at least missing her mouth, wine sloshing up and over the sides to drip over her fingers. "It's just -- just -- it's been almost two months." Suddenly Kitty's voice has gotten very small, very tired. "Week five was about when I gave up hope of being found, this is just -- if we haven't found them by now --" and abruptly the alcohol splashes up into the air as Kitty drops to the floor. She grimaces, wiping at a stain on her dress. "-- Sorry, this is -- morbid, this is supposed to be fun, I'll -- " Go is unvoiced but clear as she turns on one strappy heel to walk -- unevenly, which for her is more of walking into the lawn and out of it than side to side -- off towards a cluster of her friends. << Hi Professor (hi, Dad) >> is pitched up and above her other thoughts automatically and oddly un-self-consciously as she stumbles by a familiar figure in a sleek wheelchair, though Kitty doesn't stop to chat. Charles does not press Kitty for conversation as she passes, though his brows do crinkle with concern and the warmth of his mind where it presses to hers in greeting lingers even after she's stalked off. At some point he's tucked his sunburst wand into the breast pocket of his suit jacket at a jaunty angle, carefully refolding the blue pocket square to frame it to better effect. He rolls up to Scott, lips compressed, though there's no reproach in his pale eyes, and the psionic warmth that blankets him is soothing and conciliatory. << I'll check on her later, but I think for now it's best to let her vent where she will. This isn't really about you. >> An image of Carmen Pryde rises unbidden in Scott's mind, annotated with new information: he's moved to New York, he's working at Lucien Tessier's hotel in Astoria, he's -- predictably -- trying to worm his way into Kitty's life here. He reverses and parks his chair beside his protégé and offers him a bottle of water of water he's produced from one of the startlingly capacious storage compartments in his chair. << She went to him for help finding the children, which I expect has not done her mental health any favors. >> << She's been drinking. >> This observation, though blunt, doesn't come with any accompanying judgment, just a weary resignation. Scott is watching Kitty go, not looking at Charles just yet, though his posture loosens slightly in the professor's reassuring presence. He is running through their exchange in his head -- we can't keep our own kids safe -- if we haven't found them by now -- is this you punishing yourself? -- but he pushes it reluctantly aside to consider annotated Carmen Pryde instead, before slotting that away for later too. Accepts the water bottle, unscrews the cap, and takes a sip, his movements measured. << I didn't know. >> A hint of abashment creeps in with that admission; now Scott looks at Charles, forehead pinching over his glasses. << She's right. I don't know what I'm doing. >> After Yet Another Costume Change Ryan has shed his stage outfit -- now in one of the Limited Edition Birthday Shirts, clearly not got out of the t-shirt canon because it is in a size so tight it might well have been painted on him, paired now in this later-evening stage of party with comfortably wide-leg black jeans and a gold belt with sunburst buckle. His brows are knitting as Kitty exits past Charles and though he almost follows after her he's stopped short, instead, when Charles arrives. His hands tuck into his pockets. His weight settles. Around them the party is muted, sound warping -- just an odd quiet bubble of conversational privacy in a small sphere around where he's standing that, as he wanders over, has shifted to encompass Scott and Charles. He's lightly, idly, running brilliant-colorful-loops of songs through his mind, thinking about the party, thinking about the wildly complicated logistics that made it happen, of the admittedly petty hilarity of Fury's irritation, of So Many Fantastic Outfits co did people turn out tonight, of whether he remembered to water the plants today, of whether any of the people who've been hitting on him tonight would be fun to bring home, of whether any of the people who've been hitting on him tonight would be safe to take home, (of anything, anything except statistics on Finding Missing Children after this long, keenly aware that Jackson is currently Hive as he buries this morbidity in the psionic static.) "It's a big country. Not even you," he's nodding to Charles, "can search it all. Knocking down doors and beating up gangsters --" One of his shoulders lifts. "Slow way to search." The evening is clearly winding on -- as the energy mellows, even Daiki is seeing fit to make a (re) appearance after disappearing into the designated Quiet Area (off in the picnic area within the grove) some time during the height of Ryan's energetic set. He's in the very same finely tailored light blue mandarin jacket he had been earlier in the evening and wearing it just was well, though somewhere along the way he's lost the graceful glowing horns that had been on his head; his sunburst staff wand is tucked into the pocket of his (grey? weren't they black earlier?) slacks. He gracefully sidesteps his teammate making her escape, and though the frown that follows Kitty out is small his quiet arrival grows that much more compelling with his -- worry? He looks worried, and there is a Worried Tinge to his thoughts when Kitty stumbles off but underneath it, a curiosity both analytical and deeply titillated. His eyes skip between Scott and Charles, and somewhere in his mind these people are shifting and changing in form, in psionic space at once themselves and characters from Chinese folklore. Kitty briefly merges with the figure of Lognu, young and precocious granddaughter of the Dragon King, reprimanding the much older and much more powerful Dragon Prince Ao Bing-who-is-also-Scott who is as per usual trying to fix the problems of mortals (but fucking up) for his father, Charles and/or Ao Guang the Dragon King of the East, most powerful of all the Dragon Kings, looking on from his court on high (where, surrounded by gods, he has come to underestimate mortals.) << (trouble at home?) >> is both a musing to himself and a note for later follow up. He makes his way into Ryan's bubble like he belongs well enough in its intimacy, and his head tilts slightly, his brows arching. He is thinking of Gaétan, of Two Months Gone, of Finding Missing Kid Statistics. Of maybe Ryan should have sent out the APB on this on Day One. He lowers his eyes, lowers his voice, though even so it's somehow commanding. "I'm sure he's doing the best he can. But --" He turns a hand over, a gesture that should be casual. Isn't. "Did you have another angle?" << It's hard to know what to do because there's nowhere to start. >> Charles glances aside to Scott, then away. << We're all grasping at straws. >> The words on their own might seem fatalist, but for all the fear and frustration and helplessness in his thoughts, there's no despair. He looks up at Ryan as he approaches, then over at Daiki with the barest uptick of one brow. "I am doing my best." This isn't defensive, just a simple agreement, but there's a weariness in his voice that, however scrupulously he's trained his tone, he cannot keep from Ryan. "I am prepared to do better, and I am open to other angles." Beside and beneath this, he's offering the psionic equivalent of Ryan's privacy bubble, the concept communicated without words in the layered susurration of sun-dappled leaves. Scott looks from the professor up to Ryan as he approaches -- his lips press thinly together at the other man's words. With another set of companions his spike of shame might have gone unnoticed, marked only by the tiny crease forming between his brows. He screws the cap back onto his water bottle, lowering it slowly. Jax's other team is rising in his consciousness, Ryan at the head, with an accompanying sense of wariness and apprehension. << What other angle? >> he's asking -- warning? -- silently. Ryan misses the colorful mental imagery, but the worry-curiosity-titillation that comes with it pings him bright and clear. He's looking over with a tick of brow that nearly mirrors Charles's, his eyes lingering on Daiki(?) a long beat before he pulls himself back into the conversation. "Moment I say it, we gonna have people countrywide turning over stones we didn't even know of. And I'm going to say it." This doesn't sound like a threat -- it's direct, it's tired; maybe all Ryan's wonted energy went into his earlier set. "But people are gonna have questions, when I do. God knows Luci pulls some goddamn magic in the fucking press but if there's something you want me to -- say. Or not say. I don't want to bring a world of trouble on..." He hasn't meant to hitch, here, but that compelling tug still niggles at his brain; images of X-Men overlapping with the faces of the missing children, Spencer most prominent; in here there's something dissonant where Daiki fits into the montage as he glances to his (teammate) (family) beside him. "-- you and yours." That dissonant tug is growing. Daiki, perhaps, is turning futures over in his mind, roads branching and branching after Ryan goes to twitter, goes to the press, goes to the top of a mountain and yells. Does the school get outed (maybe), do the children have normal lives again (probably not), does it matter (??), --. His hands fold behind his back, and he's weighing, lightly, the suggestion that a news report of A Dozen Dead Mutant Children, two months after they went missing, is its own world of trouble that perhaps if the school had its own media advisor they might have considered earlier. But then, weighs those small-hitched eyebrows, tilts his head very slightly to the side. "-- he should be here soon. Perhaps he has advice." There's a vague sense of Lucien in his mind, tranquil-glassy water that does not betray much, and it's somehow that same sense that he conveys -- just a soft ripple that barely parts the psionic auras around him as, quietly, he is melting back into the crowd. Charles closes his eyes briefly, just for the space of an inhale, and opens them again when he breaths out. "Alright." For a moment, just that; his eyes skip aside to start tracking Daiki's departure, then slide back to Ryan. "I know this is a tall order, and I'm sure it's one you anticipated, but I want the school kept out of this as much as possible. We are capable of deflecting a great deal of scrutiny, but at a certain volume, that fact itself will become suspicious." He braces his helps on the armrests of his chair and steeples his hands. "The disposition of the other students' identities is technically up to their guardians, but most of them are human, and cannot understand what it means to be out and famous as a mutant in this world..." His forehead dips, the light filtering through the forest of their minds dims ever so briefly, as though a cloud had passed before the sun. "But you do, as does Jackson, and consequently Spencer is far better prepared for that than most of his peers. If Mister Tessier can find a way to protect the others students identities without compromising our chances of finding them, I would be most grateful." He spreads his hands now, the gesture almost shockingly ambiguous by his standards because he isn't fully certain if it bespeaks supplication, acceptance, or helplessness. "Whatever our disagreements, 'mine' and 'yours' are inextricably bound even when they are not one and the same. We will work with you." << Is that even possible, >> Scott is wondering. He is not looking at either other man, still tilting his head in the direction Daiki left; he doesn't project the next question to Charles, but lets it rise through his recollections of the media outside Xavier's last January after the Prometheus exposé. << (Wouldn't it be worth it, if it's not?) >> He scratches his chin, where his stubble is just starting to show, and reminds himself, << Jax trusts him. >> Scott probably still doesn't, but much of his wariness is quietly drawing back. "What do you have in mind," he says. Ryan watches Daiki leave with a small furrow of brows. His head tips, nodding after him in indication. "We'll talk to each of their families individually, but probably the best angle is just that my --" The clench at the side of his jaw is small, a flurry of memories ringing in jarringly dissonant chord in his mind. Panic-shopping with Jackson for clothing for a kindergartner; sick-grateful-relief when Joshua shows up with such-a-tiny-Spence from where the fuck did he teleport to this time; laptop abandoned with a song-in-progress half-finished on the screen while he's sprawled, now, on Jax's apartment floor, middle-of-the-night and probably the seven-year-old should be in bed but Jax is at work so who's to say it's not time to build a huge K'nex rollercoaster in the living room; confused elementary school teacher at field trip time, wait, but, you're not a parent?; crouched down with Spence and James Holland in the woods as Spence's grandpa points out the difference between wood blewit mushrooms (delicious!) and some cortinarius mushrooms (poisonous!); the silence stretching across miles on a video screen when Spencer was diagnosed, and getting back on stage the next day with as much thunder as ever; the narrowed eyes and cold tone of the medical receptionist when he finally made it back to New York: Are you family? "-- that Spence and a bunch of his friends gone missing." The twitch of Ryan's mouth is a little wry, a lot humorless, when he looks to Scott -- gestures around the rooftop party. "I'm me, yeah? Jax is Jax. Spencer Holland Disappears is gonna grab the headlines no matter what. That'll take most the heat already off of you all, the school, the other kids, if we lean into it." Charles inclines his head as Daiki takes his leave, his eyes lingering only for a moment on the young man's figure, though his expression remains placid enough. << I trust him, in this, >> he tells Scott abstractly. << It's the rest of the world I'm worried about. >> Ryan's memories rustle the leaves of the forest, parts them to let in more warmth and light that whispers, wordless and matter-of-fact: you are family. "That is a solid approach, and one I expect Mister Tessier can take quite far." He sighs quietly and his voice lowers, weary but steady as he lifts a hand to rub at his temples. "I live in terror that the school should be found out and the children come to harm, but we always take some risks. We must, and we ought, only it's hard to tell --" He glances aside at Scott, then drops his gaze. There's shame in his voice now, and fear, and resolution. "Sometimes, we ought to take more." His eyes lift to Ryan now, his expression placid but his psionic presence blazing fierce even through Hive's layered shade. "You weren't asking for my blessing, but you have it for whatever it's worth to you. And if you find them, we will stand ready to help bring them home." Scott's wariness still does not recede fully, though a dubious part of his mind duly alerts himself that Charles trusts Ryan. He slides one hand silently into his pockets, letting the water bottle drop in the other so that it hangs from just his fingertips. << Sometimes,>> he agrees, neither gloatingly nor conciliatorially. He looks back at Ryan when Charles offers his blessing -- says in a low, rough voice, "Mine too." After a pause, he adds -- not looking at the professor -- "the X-Men, too. Anything…" now he manages to meet Charles's eye around the glint of his glasses, "Anything we can do." Ryan's eyes track to Charles with a swift and sudden startlement, and though he lowers them quickly again it's not quickly enough to hide the sudden bright shimmer of tears; certainly not enough to hide his frantic-anxious-panicked mental reach for Jax, holy shit, the last thing he needs is some new Ryan Black Crying meme drawing attention from the shit he actually wants in the news; not enough to hide the fiercely grateful warmth blazing in his mind, clinging hard to Charles's. "Shiiiit," and even if the erratic flux of his emotional state has not settled in its careen his voice is level enough, wry, brows lifting as a smile crooks across his face, "y'all best be careful, or I might just take you up on that." | |
