Logs:Branching Out

Branching Out
Dramatis Personae Jax, Tok
In Absentia Lyric, Marinov	2024-10-18 "Technically I am just borrowing it."
Location <XAV> Art Room - Xs Second Floor
Smells of paints and chalks and turpentine mingle freely in this room, well-used, well-stocked. Natural light flows in, plentiful through the large windows. The long counter-like tables are speckled with spots of color, and half finished projects often stand on easels or propped in corners. The many cupboards lining the walls are crammed full of art supplies. Being the Friday after Midterms, weather bright and warmer than it’s been all week, the art room is quiet save for the sounds of students outside rushing to their dorms, playing frisbee on the grounds, or scattering off for their various weekend plans. Tok is hunched over at one of the tables, a variety of sewing supplies scattered across it. Their ears are pinned back, tongue stuck out in intense focus as they thread a stitch through a patch onto an old worn jacket. It seems much too big for them, but most things probably do, in their much too long pants that are rolled up at the bottom just above their sneakers, and faded green t-shirt. There’s another jacket—an Xavier’s volleyball team jacket—that’s folded up on the table beside them that they’re seemingly done with. For the extra observant, there’s some faint stitching along the ends of the sleeves. Their tail moves in twitches, subconsciously in time with each stitch they’re putting through the skull patch they’ve evidently made themself—if the raggedy edges of the piece of fabric and drawn in eye sockets have anything to do with it. The door to the art room opens, admitting one teacher, until recently very absent. Without his colourful hair, his many piercings, his brilliant canvas of bold tattoos, Jax is halfway unrecognizable -- certainly, in his plain worn old carpenter jeans and dark grey and blue flannel, he looks a far cry from how he usually appears either on television or around the halls of Xavier's. At least the eyepatch is still there, though it is at the moment just plain black. He's got a slim tablet in one arm and has given Tok a pilot nod, a quiet hello, before he goes to start opening up the cabinets. He has only just begun frowning at the wreck within them when he passes close enough to Tok's table to spy the patch he is sewing. He freezes in place, eye widening. Then blinks. Blinks again, eye locked down on the jacket. After a moment he finds his voice, but only to ask, slightly puzzled: "... d'you play volleyball?" Tok jumps a little at Jax’s entrance, a brief pulse of brightening along the veins across their forehead that doesn’t reach their eyes. Their eyes pull away from their project and jump up towards Jax, then widen after a moment spent scanning him. They return the nodded greeting mechanically after their brief moment of surprise, gaze following him around the room, before darting nervously down to the volleyball jacket beside them. They’ve begun casually gathering up some of the needles and threads scattered across the table, when Jax’s question has them pausing. “Thinkin’ about it!” They spin in their seat, claws wrapping around the edge of the table behind them and drumming the underside, “I can clean this up! Sorry- for the mess.” "Oh, s'cool, this whole place a mess anyway, I was --" Jax gestures around the room, the opened cabinet doors briefly fluorescing with a warm light. "Tryna get things a little back in order 'fore next week, think my poor sub had a time of it." He is, accordingly, setting his tablet down on a counter (it has a large spreadsheet there with an extensive supplies list) so that he can start pulling things down off the shelves. It's hard to tell at first, from the mix of gesso and brushes and clay and tape and tin foil and spray bottles and rulers that are starting to line up on the counter, what the cabinet was supposed to have stocked. "Thought they usually hand out the jackets after you sign on," is light and a little amused. "You dolling those up for a specific occasion?" Tok’s gaze track Jax’s motions, watching him like they’re still confirming to themself that it’s really Jax who they’re talking to. They finally look away towards the cabinets, pointedly avoiding looking towards their own projects. “Usually! But I’m an overachiever I guess. What they call a ‘Go Getter’. See it be it- That’s what my pa always says.” A smile flickers across their face that they can’t seem to keep down. “Heh. Kinda a literal thing for me too but-”They fold up the jean jacket they’re working on, skin on the tips of their ears darkening a little as they do so. They push both jackets over, and begin to collect the threads they’d been using. “No occasion! Just trying somethin’ different. Gotta experiment and all that. You uh…” Their eyes narrow at Jax, and whatever they’re about to say they seem to think better of it, “Want some help organizing?” Then, they’re quickly adding, “Promise I won’t take anything.” Jax's brows lift, smile a little wider with this last reassurance. "Yeah? Whose jacket is that?" He's nodding to the work that Tok is anxiously Not Looking At, the volleyball jacket glowing brief. "Hard to steal the art supplies, though, they're here for y'all to use. I mean I guess if someone was just taking 'em en masse to hoard or sell or something we might have to have a conversation but --" He shrugs, continuing to line up items from the cabinet. A small faintly iridescent step shimmers to life in front of him, and he steps up onto it for a moment to grab a large box of new paints off the very top of the cabinet. The temporary stepstool vanishes as he climbs back down. "Oh, naw, I'on need to interrupt what you're doing. -- Just tryna branch out? Style-wise?" “Ah shit.” Tok’s ears flick downwards, but there’s another smile flickering onto their face, a mixture of nervous and a little smug. They lean back against the table and draw a leg up to lean their chest against to watch Jax move about the room. “Technically I am just borrowing it. They’ll be getting it right back after this.” They tug out one of the sleeves of the volleyball jacket with one hand and then pull at the sleeve hole to show how it’s been stitched shut, “S’just for a joke. They can cut that real easy—but payoff will be great.” They fold the sleeve back over, their tail flicking back and forth playfully. “And I guess so. Lotta clothes kinda uncomfortable t’be honest-” Their face scrunches, and they scratch at the collar of their shirt as if they’ve reminded themself of its existence, “I dunno how you deal with all those piercings you usually got in. So just doin’ what seems fun.” "Sugar, borrowing is with permission. And I got a feeling they ain't in on the joke." Jax's head tilts to one side, his smile very fixed in place. "Oh," he replied lightly, "I think you can get used to just about anything with time. Had those piercings so long I'd half forgot what my face feel like without 'em." He returns to his work, back turned to Tok now. "Y'know, Miss Dirie and an alum here, Mx. Marinov, they both do a lot of work helping kids like you figure out custom clothing. Marinov particularly might have some thoughts on more comfortable clothing options with fur and a tail. Bet they'd be down to help you with some restyling options, if you needed." “Nah they love jokes. Trust me.” Tok’s tail flicks twice more before wrapping itself around their waist. They run their claws through the fur idly, “I wouldn’t say no to that. I’ll ask’em.” A pause, “Thanks.” Their eyes track along Jax’s turned back, and they’re quiet, save for the plastic rattle of the needles they slide back into their case. Suddenly, they’re blurting out, “So did the aliens steal your piercings? And tattoos? Or were those illusion tattoos.” Their face scrunches to the side in a half cringe, “Sorry you don’t gotta answer. Unless you wanna.” Jax does not answer this reassurance, and his turned back makes it difficult to discern how much he has swallowed this line. It makes it difficult to discern much except for his very meticulous lining-up of tubs and bottles and miscellaneous supplies. He's starting to sort the brushes next, though it's difficult to tell quite what metric has him placing them in one pile or another. "Oh, gosh, no," sounds light enough, though, "I ain't sure the aliens had any real clear notion what parts of humans do an' don't come standard. Though their idea of fashion was pretty weird to me, too. Feel like I was only just starting to wrap my head 'round how wide our world is and it turns out..." He shakes his head. "Marinov stops by now an' then. Real stylish cat, you'll know 'em when you see 'em." Tok returns the rest of their supplies to the cabinet they came from, but their ears are perked up in clear interest. They mull over this information for a moment. Then, they close the cabinet and blow out a breath, “All that and you’re already working again?” Their tone mirror’s Jax’s light one, but there is a hint of concern in there that manages to sneak its way in. “Know them when I see’em. Somehow you got me even more excited to meet’em. I’ll keep an eye out. Thanks.” They wander back over to their folded jackets and pick them up. They run their thumbs across the fabric, “I’m uh. Glad you’re back and stuff.” Jax half-turns, his brows slightly puzzled-furrowed. "Well -- I mean, it's been a week." He shrugs, eye drawn to the jackets as Tok picks them up. For a second it looks like he might have something more to say about them, but then he just smiles. Quick, small. "Yeah. I mean -- thanks. Enjoy your weekend." “Yeah I bet it has.” Tok says, whether or not Jax had meant it like that, and their brow pinches inwards and upwards. “Good luck with your- room stuff.” They gesture around with a claw. They nod once, tail wrapping around their waist, and are heading out, but they hesitate at the door. “And. Sorry. About- Y’know.” This, stilted as it is, manages to sound genuine. There’s a nervous click click that sounds at the back of their throat, and they’re offering a quick: “See you.” Before finally slipping from the room.