Logs:Of Cakes and Concerns (Or, Déjà vu)

Of Cakes and Concerns (Or, Déjà vu)
Dramatis Personae Kavalam, Scott
In Absentia Lucien, Sera, Gaétan	2024-07-27 "Who's disappeared?" (followed by a ravishing.)
Location <XAV> Kitchen - Xs First Floor
The kitchen staff at Xavier's tends well to the needs of its residents. Always cognizant of its students and faculty's dietary needs alike, the menu has a wide variety of choices, and the longtime cook works wonders in the kitchen. The pantry, too, is kept well stocked for those who want to come prepare themselves their own snacks. The shelf, fridge, and freezer space is ample, though if anyone wants to keep their own food there, they'd better make sure it's labeled clearly, and even that is no guarantee it'll last. It's sort of rare that the kitchen is deserted even at times like this, in the odd no-man's-land between lunch and dinner; the mansion is after all populated by growing teenagers. Probably a lot of this has to do with Scott's presence here -- whatever he initially came here to do, he first busied himself rather tediously drying the dishes in the overfilled drying rack and putting them away, one at a time, and the prospect of being asked to help must have scared off the few straggling snackers. But the dishrack is empty now, the dishwasher is loaded, and Scott -- still dressed in an X-Suit from a training session earlier, the jacket open over a white tee shirt and his visor on a strap around his neck -- is finally settling down with his treat, a plate of leftover birthday cake with "ott!" piped in neat cursive icing on it, which he is eating very slowly, more focused on scrolling through his email inbox on his phone with one finger. The boy who is suddenly-not-suddenly across from Scott is looking like he is not very much enjoying his weekend. Kavalam's eyes are a little shadowed, his expression pulled into a frown. He's taken the seat opposite Scott, one leg restlessly bobbing, and is just as restlessly tapping a cellphone against his palm. "You see many-many weird things here. Right?" Kavalam is looking more at Scott's cake than at Scott himself. Kind of frowning at the icing. Scott pauses mid-scroll, lifting his chin very slightly up at Kavalam, his face pulling into the beginnings of a frown too. He opens his mouth, but doesn't have a response for a long three seconds before he just says, "Yes." Kavalam nods once, twice, three times, a little stiff, a little heavy. His frown is scrunching deeper as he folds his hands on the table in front of him. "What things do you know to make someone just vanish. One moment there one moment gone." He is quick to clarify: "They are not any kind of teleporter." And then, and additional clarification on the heels of this: "I do not think any other teleporter was there." Scott turns his phone face-down, frown pulling a little deeper. "There are teleporters who could do that," he says. "Just -- grab and go without being seen. Is this --" he flips his phone right-side-up again, though he doesn't finish unlocking it, one hand hovering over his lockscreen. "Who's disappeared?" "Some other day," Kavalam answers (just a a little wistfully), "I would have asked you to do a guess. I think that probably you could get it within three." Today, though, he's just looking exhausted, and he looks down at the phone in his hands and then slips it back into his pocket. "Sera. And her brother. -- Luci. I think Gaétan is still in his apartment where I left him. Probably. You can never tell with these Tessiers, very disappearing kind of family they are." It's a sort of subtle shift when Scott's posture is already so straight, but he finishes unlocking his phone with just a little more urgency, tilting it up to swipe into a new window, maybe just so Kavalam doesn't see the screen. "Did Sera have her phone with her?" he says. "What happened exactly? You saw them disappear?" "Yes. She is not answering it but." Kavalam's head waggles side-to-side in affirmation. "I was at Lucien-uncle's hotel only. In the big garden. They were there and then they were -- not there. And I think for a moment the garden it got -- it was bigger. I have looked and looked but I can't find the section they disappeared into anymore. Just --" His hand makes a little poof gesture in the air. "Like a magic." "She doesn't have service." Scott's frown is no deeper than it was, though now his fingers are tapping lightly on the table beside his phone. He sets his fork down very slowly -- "Okay," he decides. "We can go -- back there and look around. See if we can figure out what it actually was." "Okay," Kavalam replies, and then again, a little firmer: "Okay." He is absently pushing at his knuckles, kind of like he's trying to crack them but he doesn't actually press them far enough to pop. "I. I think it's been." He hesitates, head bowing somewhat guiltily, and he pulls the phone back from his pocket to glance at its screen. "I came right here. I thought I came right here." Now Scott's frown deepens further, as he checks his phone again. "Her signal went dark on the twenty-first," he says; he slides his plate to the side, eyebrows pressing down over his glasses, lips pressing flat, as he regards Kavalam with renewed concern. "That is weird," he says finally, then -- getting to his feet, draping a sad piece of plastic wrap back over his half-eaten cake and giving it a couple feeble pats to press it into place -- "Maybe we should hurry, then. When was the last time you ate?" "The twenty-first is also the day I was having. I was looking to see if I could -- find anything. And I stopped to send some texts. And then it was -- now. I guess that that breakfast was the last I ate also." Kavalam gets to his feet when Scott does, and if he has not eaten in a week he doesn't seem particularly the worse for it, steady enough on his feet except for his general level of Frazzled. He is looking a bit more upbeat when Scott says hurry, brows lifting hopefully. "Can we take the jet." Scott opens a drawer and silently slides a box of assorted Clif bars across the counter for Kavalam before he puts his cake slice back in the fridge, and as he paces around the island he rezips his X-jacket -- "We can take the jet."