Logs:Curfew (and Other Religious Obligations)

Curfew (and Other Religious Obligations)
Dramatis Personae Bryce, Roscoe, Spencer
In Absentia Hive, Ryan, Sriyani, DJ, Jax	2024-09-27 "I don't really believe in owing favors, but I do believe in community."
Location <XAV> Back Patio - Xs Grounds
This patio is expertly laid out for relaxing singly or in groups. The section nearest the back door is a more or less conventional veranda, the mansion's eaves--supported by elegant white wooden columns joined with matching railings--extending out to shelter the long porch swings, rocking chairs, and a chess table from the elements. Down the stairs or the ramp from this is a fan-shaped expanse of slate flagstones populated by clusters of deck chairs and picnic tables, always changing in number and arrangement, and stone planter boxes bursting with seasonal flowers and ornamentals. The centerpiece is an elegant pavilion with a hot tub open for use year-round, even if the transition in and out may prove chilly in snowy weather. School has ended for the day -- for the week, even, some time back, and for many kids this means a somewhat celebratory mood. Weekend mode is in full swing -- there's clashing musics blaring from the open windows to the art room and conservatory, a number of students lounging out on the lawn, some improvised game of questionable safety being played on hoverboards on the basketball court. Bryce does not look like he has quite got into weekend mode Just Yet; he's just tumbling down into a swing bench, looking a little frazzled and a lot exhausted as he smooths his neatly-pressed button-down into place. He's evidently not long out of a shower, bright feathers on his head still glistening and soap-fresh though a few of them are just a little singed around their colourful edges. He is plucking at one of the burned ones and then another, frowning with a small twinge of pain -- a moment later they've regrown good as new, bold and red. Around the feathers, the rest of him is currently sporting a soft grey fur, his hands considerably more clawed than they were this morning. "...Oh gosh how is it not even dinner yet it should be dinner." "Mmf. Here," Roscoe was sitting with his legs curled beneath him in one of the nearby rocking chairs, cheap wired earbuds in, but he puts his feet down to lean precariously closer to the swing, brandishing a bright orange metal canister of some kind of snack food, the cheerful overalled cartoon boy printed on the side hopefully signaling that this is safe to eat for children and Mormons alike (in lieu of any English on the label.) He looks like he might have been playing hoverboard basketball himself, or something like it -- he has long, ugly scrapes on his right arm and both knews, broad brushstrokes of scabbing that disappear up into the sleeve of his t-shirt. Before Bryce can actually take anything from the proffered can he's pulling it away with a slight frown, eyes glancing critically over Bryce's furry clawed hands -- "On second thought maybe we getchu a bowl," he says. Spencer had been out on the patio frowning between the tablet in his hand and the drone -- not Jerusalem, a sort of miniature saucer-shaped UFO -- hovering in front of him. Whether this is weekend mode for him or not isn't immediately clear. He's wearing a red t-shirt with several adorable cartoon moles piled into a beaker, scuffed blue jeans, and red canvas sneakers, a red kippah embroidered with a raised black fist clipped a little crookedly to his tousled hair. His mouth pulls to one side. Lowers the tablet. Reaches out to tap the drone, and it simply vanishes. The tablet's gone a moment later, too, followed shortly by Spence himself -- -- who reappears perched on the porch railing. "It's dinnertime somewhere," he offers cheerfully. Then upon closer examination of his schoolmates adds, a little less chipper, "...rough day?" "Oooh, thanks, what's that!" Bryce is saying, summoning up a disproportionate degree of cheer for how tired he looked only a moment before. He's reaching out for the can but then dropping his furry hand back to his lap when Roscoe pulls it back. "Oh! Um, okay. I --" He's started to stand up, but doesn't actually make it out of his chair before the sudden appearance of Spence has distracted him from this Bowl Mission. "Oh!" comes a third time, together with a quick smile. "Right! -- Not here, though? But soon. Here. I think. Hopefully." He presses his toes to the ground, pushing the swing to start it rocking. "It's Friday so it's looking up," he replies, a little brighter. "Do you have weekend plans?" As Bryce is starting to get up, Roscoe improvises a bowl out of the canister's lid, pouring Bryce a layer of Want-Want Hot Kid Ball Cakes and holding that out. "Uhh... snacks," he says. Though he doesn't blink at Suddenly Spence, he does whip the orange canister threateningly around in that direction, which just looks like he is offering them extra aggressively to Spencer. "Naw, easy day," he says, then after a glance sideways at Bryce, he echoes, "Friday." Spence opens his mouth, then closes it and checks the time on his phone before actually answering. "Not for a few hours, no. I just meant you don't actually have to wait for dinnertime if you're hungry." He doesn't look particularly threatened by the snack canister, whether or not it's actually being offered to him. "Oh, no thank you." He lifts an eyebrow at Roscoe's sidelong glance. "It sure is Friday. I'm gonna visit some cousins where it's...probably about dinnertime, already. After that, I don't know. Bop around until I find joy and rest?" He smiles bright if a little crooked. "It's a religious obligation. How about you?" "Thanks! They look exotic." Bryce is peeking at the canister as he takes the lid. He's scooping some of the cakes into his hand and squinting at them curiously (is he threatened by them, it's hard to say) before popping them into his mouth. "Oh I'm going to church!" comes his very predictable answer, and just as predictably, "you can come if you want! If you're looking for joy and rest we're having a concert tomorrow, it's going to be so much fun. I mean church-church isn't till Sunday but there's still always lots of stuff to do. Where are your cousins?" "Uh-huh, I picked them up in the far-off, mystic land of Quincy, Mass," says Roscoe, shrugging away Spence's refusal and just popping a small handful of cookies into his own mouth and crunching down. "Bopping around the globe doesn't seem that restful." "Concert?" Spence echoes, interest piqued. "Who's playing at your concert?" He hooks one foot around the risers of the railing so he can lean to one side a little farther without falling off. "Marrakesh. They're -- distant cousins. You can come if you want, it's not like a formal thing." He leans in, lowering his voice as if to avoid alerting the kitchen staff who are probably not in earshot, or likely to care if they are. "You could have dinner twice." He shrugs, but wobble-nods his not-complete-disagreement with Roscoe. "Depends where you're bopping, I think. Depends on a lot of things, but I'm not in a hurry or anything. Shabbat at home right now is just kinda..." This just trails off into another shrug. "Quincy's far to me," Bryce replies with a wrinkle of his nose and a small laugh. "I really probably shouldn't be going all the way to Marrakesh. I mean, definitely not without asking my parents, that's -- a little farther than Quincy and I haven't even had one dinner yet." He pushes his bench a little firmer, brow furrowing as he watches Spence. "Oh yeah." His face falls, briefly. "I guess with your whole family gone, that's..." His brow furrows, further. "Sorry, that really, um, sounds like a kind of challenging. Time to be finding joy. Or rest. Isn't that, um, tiring?" "Oh, yeah," Roscoe says, in hushed near-unison with Bryce, grimacing. "I, uh..." this trails off uncomfortably. "If you wanted some low-effort joy and rest I bet people here would, you know. Celebrate with you. Keep you company. Bop around with you." He starts to go for more cookies, then quits when tilting the canister makes a soft, echoey clatter, his hand just dropping back into his lap. "Whatever else you're supposed to do for Shabbat. I mean, I know you got your cousins too, just." Rather than top this off with anything cheesy about being here for Spence, Roscoe concludes this with a shrug. Spence looks briefly lost at Bryce's hedging, and then whispers a quiet "ohhh" as he puts it together. "Curfew, right." He manages to sound like he might plausibly know the curfew rules. In some universe out there. Then ruins the effect by adding, "I forgot that's still a thing. They aren't good at enforcing even when they're fully staffed." He grins. "Now, God knows, anything goes! But don't worry, I respect your...cultural tradition? For keeping the curfew." He unclips his kippah, straightens it, then clips it back on exactly as lopsided as before, only in the other direction. "It's not my whole family." This feels like a purely token protest rooted in grim and defiant black humor, but then his lopsided smile softens. "Aw, man. Thanks. I know that, but it's nice to hear anyway. I just...kinda don't want to be a downer when folks here are already stressed out, you know?" He chews on his lower lip. "I do like roaming. But low-effort can be nice, when it does get tiring." "It's not your whole...?" Now Bryce is looking briefly lost, his brows scrunching as he tries to consider the question of Spence's family and then just gives up, shaking his head and backtracking instead to: "Curfew's always been a thing. I think it's different for those of us who..." But this kind of trails off a little awkwardly too, and he stuffs another few crackers into his mouth rather than finish this thought. "You really could come by tomorrow if you get tired of running around the whole world. There'll be so much food and Hive'll be there and I know it's not the same but." He glances to Roscoe, and then just shrugs, too. "Unenforceable for you," says Roscoe. "Little less unenforceable for us peasants who have to physically walk through the front gates." He pours another fistful of cookie into his mouth and crunches down, eyeing Spence with a squinty but minute frown. "Yeah, I get that," he says. "Nobody wants to be that friend. But when life is really kicking you where it hurts, most people will be pretty understanding about it if once in a while you need to -- whatever you need to do. If it helps you keep it together." "Ryan's still here." Spence ventures this kind of lamely. "And my grandparents down in Georgia, and...I mean I have a lot of family but. Yeah. It's not really the same." But then he brightens again. "Anyway it can be unenforceable for you, too, if you go with me, or Sriyani, or like, that new kid who turns stuff invisible? If you can find her -- wait can you see invisible people?" It's hard to tell if he's excited about the prospect of discovering entirely new aspects of Roscoe's super-vision or the Mormon concert, which he seems to actually be considering. "I probably can't eat the food there, but. Maybe I'll drop by? As long as nobody tries too hard to like. Gather me. And maybe I'll come back here after service tomorrow. I think I'm keeping it together, mostly." He narrows his eyes, evidently re-evaluating that claim before, "Yeah, mostly." "Oh -- do you just leave him to..." Bryce bites his lip and drops this line of thought, too. He offers a small if uncomfortable smile. "I don't think that's, um, allowed? Anyway I like being with my friends here and going to my brother's place. It's really cool that you can go all over and everything but there really are people right here who'd hang out with you if you like. Stuck around." He shrugs again, and plants his feet firmly on the stone to settle the motion of his swing. "Wait if you couldn't see them and they didn't tell you would you even know?" Roscoe tilts his head, though he seems rather less excited by this puzzle -- "I think it depends how they turn invisible," he says, "There was a guy I knew for a few weeks in --" before this can get going into an actual anecdote he shakes his head to cut himself off. "I'd go with you someplace I just -- my schedule right now is kinda crazy and I'm trying to talk my parents into letting me get a job and --" shrug. "But, you know, I bet if you come find me here I can make time. I mean -- you really kept it together for people when you were missing, we can return the favor. Right?" "Didn't I just say --" Spence bites back the rest of this and scrubs his face with both hands. "Sorry. Sorry I didn't mean to -- see, this is why -- I'm not gone all the -- and I know folks are busy, there's just --" He takes a deep breath and blows it out in a raspberry. "-- a lot, you know? It's not like I'm the only one who's missing people." His smile comes back easily, though. "I don't really believe in owing favors, but I do believe in community. I definitely couldn't have kept it together back then without y'all, either. It's like a whole..." He gestures kind of vaguely with both hands -- is he miming a ball, or rotating a Rubik's cube, or...? "Uh. What I mean is, you're right." The scrunch of Bryce's brow looks absolutely no less lost, but his smile is still gamely in place. "Sorry," he offers, a little uncertain, "It sounds like. A lot. And it's not like you're the only one, but -- I think sometimes helping people probably. Helps. If people are --" He stops, shakes his head. He crunches down the last of his lidful of Hot Kid Ball Cakes and passes the lid back to Roscoe with a quick smile. "I'm going to get some real food I think see you later maybe? Happy, um, Shabbat, I hope you find. Rest." He ducks his head, feathers flattening down as he scurries off inside. Roscoe accepts the canister lid back, raising his eyebrows after Bryce as he departs, but he is not beating so quick a retreat, just settling back into his rocking chair with obvious and considerable discomfort, whether due to his scraped-up limbs or some other injury or maybe just the awkwardness of the moment. Though his head turns back in Spence's direction he's not quite looking at Spence as he sets his chair rocking with one foot. "If I could just dip out of this place whenever I wanted, I would do it too," he says, perhaps not very reassuringly. "Bet the food in Marrakesh is great, it sounds like a good time." "Yeah. Sorry if it wasn't clear but I'm like...not actually disagreeing?" Spence sounds half resigned and half perplexed now, but manages a smile with his kind of awkward-dorky wave. "See ya." After Bryce departs he kind of sags back against the column. "Man. I'm always sticking my foot in my mouth these -- well okay, that's not a new development." He manifests a fidget spinner from somewhere and sets it whirring quietly in one hand, gleaming smooth metallic rainbow oil slick bright and hypnotic. "Neither is the dipping out, really? I never thought it was that big of a deal, or like I was abandoning anyone. But it sounds like I should uh. Rethink." He shrugs again. "I'm pretty okay with rethinking." Roscoe does look at the fidget spinner, once it presents itself to be looked at. "It's not. You're not abandoning anyone, Bryce is just being weird and Mormon at you." It's somewhat doubtful whether Roscoe understands Mormonism enough to say that, but he seems pretty confident in this diagnosis. He crunches down on another handful of cookie balls, still a little mesmerized by the fidget spinner before he scrunches his eyes shut and shakes his head. "I'll drop it, I was just -- you know, wish I could help." Spence gives a small, breathy laugh. "I can't really complain, I'm weird and Jewish kinda all the time. But like." He tilts the spinner one way and then the other, watching the light glint off of it. "You're right, and I'm sorry I was short about it. Sometimes other folks can see things I can't. That's a gift, and that helps." He's nodding kind of at his fidget. "I wish could help, too, and if I don't wanna be that friend, I should try to be a better one." He scrunches up his face in thought. "Maybe I'll bake something for the rec room. I'm not gonna fill my pa's shoes or anything, but. Gotta start somewhere."