Logs:Dire Straights

Dire Straights
Dramatis Personae Joshua, Scott, Shane
In Absentia Ion, Mystique, Erik	2024-10-09 "Think we broke something."
Location <MOJ> X-Men House - Mojoverse
This is a largish house that has been very unevenly appointed, its decorator gone somewhat heavy-handed with yellow and blue color theming in all the decor. The ground floor has a cramped kitchen that is nearly empty of any equipment or food. The adjacent sitting room is crowded with a baffling range of chairs and tables and cabinets all jockeying for space together with numerous televisions of varying sizes that all only receive Mojo's own baffling network all day. There is a sunroom beside this, seemingly devoted entirely to hammocks of varying sizes and styles. The upstairs has quite comfortably appointed bedrooms across the top two levels, enough for everyone to pair up. Ornately gilt-framed oil paintings of Scrat from Ice Age have been hung up prominently in each bedroom. The basement level has an extremely well furnished gym and leads out into an extensive yard where someone has halfheartedly begun working on a garden and then given up. There is quite a nice patio to sit on, though. The whole place seems to have just one tiny bathroom tucked up on the top level like some kind of afterthought, crammed in there with the shower under the slope of the roof so it's impossible to stand up straight if you are over 5'7" and even sitting on the toilet feels claustrophobic. At least there is a toilet. The day's Games have ended a while back. The days' casualties have been thankfully relatively low today -- just Jean to actually revive, now asleep upstairs, and the nonfatal injuries tended. Joshua has taken his dinner out to the garden; his gloppy reconstituted 8 Wonder Congee mostly finished as is his box of cranberry juice. He is seated, now, by the sad fishless fishpond at the center of the half-done garden, chin propped in one hand, looking mournfully down into the still surface. He's had a handful of flat pondstones in his palm but flips the last of them, now, into the water. Shane has been curled up in a hammock-chair on the patio, petting absently at a cat that has wandered over from the bar. He glances up at the last plop, gills shifting slowly. "... does the pond count?" This sounds curious, not judgemental. The basement door opens with a squeaky creak before admitting Scott out to the garden too; he closes the door much more quietly behind himself but then seems a little unsure whether he should even be out here on the patio, just standing uncomfortably in the doorway, one hand tucked into his pocket. He turns the glint of his glasses toward Shane for a moment, then away, before he chooses a plasticky deck chair to sit in. Joshua shrugs, and leans back on his palms. "See a river here? We make do." He tips his chin up to Scott, and then just lets his head flop further back to look at the sky. "... heard your bros stomped us again." It's very hard to tell if there's any amusement in his voice. Shane lifts his brows, his head bobbing in a pensive acceptance. He eyes the stones and the pond, but then eyes the cat in his lap and does not move. His gills flutter a little faster, and his nod to Scott is a few moments' delayed from Joshua's. "Deck's been a little stacked in these games. In some entire other dimension it'd almost be funny." At least Scott's expression is unambiguously, straightforwardly humorless as he settles himself a little more comfortably in the chair, folding his hands over his stomach. "Mojo plays favorites," he says. "We knew that day one." "S'funny in this one. Horror, comedy --" Joshua has produced a large heavy coin from seemingly nowhere, flipping it idly between his fingers from one face to the other before it vanishes. He pushes himself back up, and scoops several smooth stones up from the side of the pond. Ambles over to drop them into Shane's hand, and drop himself into an empty chair. "Knew that. Didn't know you were a hell of an actor." Shane closes his fingers gently. Shakes his hand lightly, the stones clicking pleasantly in his palm. "Wait, that was acting?" His eyes have opened very wide. "You sure? Cuz if I had anything to bet I'd go all in that it would take barely a look and Ion would let Scott do unspeakable --" His brows hike upward, and he rotates his swinging netty chair to face Scott, squinting thoughtfully. "Well. Maybe you're acting." Never mind, Scott is not comfortable in this chair, giving his hands an agitated wring before he manages to still himself again, his brow scrunching down over the glasses -- "What?" he says. It's possible -- actually, it's likely -- he doesn't actually want a response; he's moving right on with a frown. "I barely have to act, you can only see half of my face." "Says Ion wants you," Joshua helpfully translates, just as flat as ever. After a small consideration, he tacks on mildly: "Bad." He is glancing slightly to the side, mouth twisting up in consideration. "S'an important half." "Body language is crucial. -- Please don't tell me you haven't noticed." Shane very very gently scoops up the cat that's been in his lap. He unfolds himself from the chair, depositing the sleepy ball of fur on Scott instead as he ambles toward the pond and sits cross-legged beside it. "Wait, are you acting right now? Maybe you're just that good." "What?" Scott says again, moving his hands automatically out of the way of the cat. "No, we're just -- we were --" his frown deepens, the lines on his face a little starker for the artificial sun and the weight he's losing here, one hand sort of absently dropping down to stroke the cat, the other coming up to rub roughly at his stubbly chin. "You're kidding." "Maybe. He's a good actor." Joshua nods towards Shane. "The man died for you was that not a hint?" Shane's eyes open wider -- in a more human looking face maybe this would be a feigned innocence but in his, too-huge and too-dark and too out of proportion, it's just a little unsettling. "Ask Ms. Grey, I bet she's noticed. She'd totally go for it, too," from his small lean towards Joshua here he seems to be directing this comment entirely more towards Joshua than Scott, "if he were a little less uptight." He clicks his stones in his palm again, and lowers his eyes. "Can hardly blame him, anyway. I mean, with all this bullshit, it's probably..." He shakes his head, and plunks a stone into the water. Scott looks kind of stricken, or at least the visible half of his face does; his hands have gone still. After a moment he just looks down at the cat. "-- she's sleeping," he says finally, very quietly. Joshua's brows lift, and his eyes are tracking sort of unthinkingly to Jean (and Scott's) darkened bedroom window. After a moment he nods, accepting -- well, accepting Shane's judgment of this potential-threesome-situation, anyway, because on the subject of Ion's terrible death he's just shrugging and offering: "Wasn't why he did it." He rests his head on his fist, huffing quietly and giving the cat a rare, brief smile. "Guess you're stuck." Shane plonks another rock into the water. "There are worse fates." Scott doesn't reply, doesn't look back up, doesn't move. Joshua rocks slow and creaky in his chair. He watches the stars. After a minute he disappears, but reappears almost immediately with a glass of water and sits himself back down. "Think we broke something." He sips at his water, and though his voice is bland his brow has furrowed in a genuine concern. "Sorry," Shane is replying, "sometimes I forget heterosexuals are real." He clicks his claws against one of the remaining rocks in his palm. "I feel like if we're tallying really shocking things that have happened this month this news would not have ranked in like, the top, twenty, but then --" The shrug he gives is very exaggerated. "Seriously, though, are you, um, okay?" As the other two speak again Scott is regaining a little more function, sitting up straight again, his mouth twitching into an embarrassed grimace, shaking his head. "No, don't worry, I just -- sweet fancy Moses." That comes out mostly in a mutter, his brow still knit tightly into a frown. "I'm -- he's in the Brotherhood." "You've been playing in red and purple." Joshua takes another swallow of water. "He's -- no Mystique. He's no Magneto. Shit's complicated, sometimes." Shane's gills flutter, but he bites back the joke he was going to make, restraint probably only helped along because Joshua has largely beaten him to the punch. "He's a good man," he says instead, simple. He shifts his stones against each other again. He's a little quieter when he adds: "And you're a good man. And it's been constant hell in here. And you guys are all doing so much to keep everyone --" He stops here, swallowing, and shakes his head. "I just mean, I can see why he's been glad to have you around." "Hhhuh." Scott's chin has just fallen back into his hand, fingers curled spider-like to press hard into his cheek. "I --" his head has tilted toward Shane again, the frown relaxing into a look of mere seriousness. "Shit." Joshua's lips twitch. "There are worse fates." Shane lowers his hand, trailing it into the water and eventually letting the last of his stones fall. "I feel like you may even have experienced one or two." Scott huffs out something probably intended as a chuckle, and though his mouth is almost quirked into a smile like he's about to say something dubiously amusingly in response, after a moment he just shuts his mouth again, and puts his chin back in his hand.