Logs:Of Danger and Decisions (Or, The Devil You Know)

Of Danger and Decisions (Or, The Devil You Know)
Dramatis Personae Kavalam, Lael, Marcus
In Absentia	2020-12-09 << {What's one more new world, after so many?} >>
Location Across the Rift - Mutant Jailbird Bowling League - Somewhere In New York
There's been a buzz of activity all morning around the displaced X-Kids corner of the mutant ex-prisoner bowling alley slumber party, a tense thrum of excitement as the throng prepares to head home. Kavalam has been preparing, certainly, though if he's ready to go home it looks very different from the rest of his days here in fugitive land -- slipping into town to make sure the people still staying behind at the temporary shelter will be well provisioned. Now he's tucked into one of the hard bucket chairs at one of the bowling lanes, idly fingering a fancy recently-stolen camera, the remnants of a single-serving plastic bowl of cereal in front of him and his eyes a little distant as he looks out over the group. Though somewhere in his thoughts -- also distant -- there is relief at the thought of returning home, most prominent at the moment is an odd and painful twinge of regret. Through the bustle Marcus moves quiet, nibbling on a strip of fruit leather as he goes. He hasn't been aiming for Kavalam, not exactly, but his path pulls that direction as he draws closer; he hops over the back of one of the chairs, dropping to a crouch in the seat and hugging his knees to his chest. "You are. Ready?" The question is not un-complicated for him, either, mind filling in a host of uncertainty after this -- some kids going home, some kids going --? There's a tired slump to Lael's posture as he emerges from a shift in the kitchen. His movement through the alley is a little aimless at first, but he gravitates toward Marcus when he spots him. His hair is writhing slow and sinuous, his eyes lingering on his roommate thoughtfully. Blink. Looks away to Kavalam. "Hey, y'all." He drifts to a stop near the other two boys, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his hoodie. "Can't think it won't be at least some relief to stop all this runnin' and hidin', even if you ain't ready." He does not, though, sound exceptionally certain on this point. Kavalam glances up with a faintly wider-eyed surprise at being addressed. Pulled out of his reverie and almost immediately cast back into it, he's slow to answer. His thumb traces the edge of the camera as he considers this question -- considers how absolutely Not Ready he is to return to a world where not even his family notices his existence and his classmates will likely have forgotten it before long. "I don't know what ready really means. For what? Calculus? A hundred questions? Going --" There's a beat of hesitation, a small uncomfortable press of lips, "-- home?" The word rings a little hollow in his mind. His head wobbles slow from one side to the other. "But a nap might be nice," he allows, venturing a very small smile. Marcus bobs his head to Lael, chin dropping back to his knees after. His shoulders tighten at the word home, brows pinching in together not with thoughts of the posh mansion hallways or of the austere beauty of his adoptive parents' home but the colorful warmth of the streets of his childhood. "Mmm." He hitches a shoulder, small. "Different things there. To hide from." He takes another bite of his fruit, letting the rest of the strip hang out from his lips. "Earned nap. Here. Everyone safe, because you." For a moment he hovers on the verge of saying something else, but the half-formed thoughts of their chaotic journey, the jailbreak, the refugees around them, that swirl uncomfortably in his mind do not quite yet find a concrete English translation. Lael hops up to sit on the edge of the nearby table. "Home's darned complicated for some of us--lot of us, I reckon. My home ain't never wanted me, and the school... Maybe all I'm goin' back to's the devil I know." His shrug is small and uncertain, but his nod of agreement to Marcus's assessment is firm. "Lotta folks been steppin' up, but you've been a--kinduva superhero for us." His hair squirms a little faster. "An' if we can learn to remember you running scared half to death, we can learn to keep doin' it when we're not." Kavalam's head dips, an uncertainty blossoming in his mind at this last assertion of Lael's -- it butts up against the speed with which the New York contingent had forgotten him, his own resultant panic. "Maybe." He sounds extremely unconvinced. "I do not feel like a superhero. I feel only -- tired. I think, I would have kept nobody safe without Marcus's guidance, hm?" He nods to the other boy, now. "How you keep a level head through all of this --" He waggles the camera toward the space around them. "I'm grateful for it all the same. I fully plan to fall to pieces once we cross back. Safe in my dorm with no bots to notice." << And none of you either, >> has only a faint bitter twinge to it. The devil I know? Marcus's brow scrunches again as he ponders this. It brings to mind an image of the Professor, which he turns over thoughtfully and then sets aside for future contemplation. "It was important." He gnaws the strip of fruit leather a little further into his mouth. "Here. Many help needed. There..." His mental picture of home is muddled; the sharp voices of his parents reminding him of all he owes them, the stares from other kids at school somehow at least better than the ones who try hard not to look at all, endless repetitive days of striving to please a long succession of people who will never think of him with anything like respect. "There is devil." He plucks at a stray bit of lint on his jeans. A little uncomfortably: "I make plan. To stay." "I reckon being any kinda hero is real exhausting," Lael allows, "whether you're using powers or your brain." His expression wavers, but settles on something like resignation. "Sorry. 'Devil you know' is meanin' to say, a situation that ain't good but you understand it, know how to deal with it." His locs all stand on end at this last delcaration from Marcus. "Stay--here?" However cautious he is to keep his voice even, his non-reflexive blinking has stopped and the agitated reach and grasp of his hair impossible to disguise. "Stay here?" Kavalam's thoughts have not gotten any farther than in this bowling alley, bleak visions of endless microwave dinners for the rest of life before he recalibrates his mind. "... in this world?" Oddly, this comes with a reduction in his surprise. He takes his glasses off, gnawing on the leg of one. Carefully: "... why?" Marcus chews his way through the last of his fruit, chin grinding down against his knee. "Devil you know," he replies, finally. "Here, I understand. Be help. There, I --" He's kind of deliberately trying to shove thoughts of his adopted family back down, burying them beneath thoughts of Xavier's that while not Actively Traumatic are just a grey meaningless haze. His shrug is small. "Nothing. Here, it matter. What I do." "Ain't none of us gonna be at Xavier's forever--" Lael starts, then bites his lower lip hard. "Alright, I own that's a damn fool thing to say. Like as not I'll be beggin' 'em for a job someday. Anyhow there's other--devils that's harder to get free of, an' that's the truth." His gaze dips, still unblinking. "There's fights back our world to be fought, too. But maybe you feel like--you ain't got the same freedom to fight 'em?" "You would be a huge help anywhere you landed, I imagine." Kavalam chews harder at the stem of his glasses, then wipes it against his shirt before replacing them on his nose. "-- though maybe," he acknowledges with an uncomfortable frown and a glance to Lael, "Harder to do around people who do not. Notice that fact. Take it seriously." His posture has tensed, a keen worry joining the creeping sadness that is inching into his thoughts. "-- it will be dangerous, no?" "Everything dangerous. There dangerous. Here dangerous." Marcus shrugs, wrapping his arms tighter around his shins. "I think less dangerous. To control my life." Of this gamble he isn't quite certain -- but the dangers and helplessness that lie back at home he is Pretty Clear on. "Less dangerous for now. I talk the Leonid." A frown. "Vector. First I go. Canada. Many people need new home, yes? I am good for the plans. And I --" His nose wrinkles, but his smile here is surer, at least. << {What's one more new world, after so many?} >> "-- know how to -- not fit." Lael does not answer this for a few beats, and though his frown is easing very gradually the slow writhe of his locs looks somehow more tortured than usual. "You the smartest guy I ever known," he says finally, "an' if you thought this through an' got a plan, I gotta have faith it's the best path. For you." He swallows. "Gonna miss you." Then adds, dully, "That ain't no argument or nothin', just is what it is." "Please." Kavalam's huff is short, and sharp. "This is ludicrous." His palm scrubs against his face, pushing his glasses up to rub hard at his eyes. "But at this point, what in our lives is not ludicrous." He's slumping lower in his chair. "What do I tell everyone. They will ask." "The truth," Marcus replies with a small shrug. "For K.C. For Mr. Tessier. For anyone else --" << {...they won't ask?} >> He's shifting a little uncomfortably, even now feeling some misplaced sense of obligation to his adoptive parents, some odd lingering feeling that he shouldn't ruin The Perfect Family image they pressed him to put forth. "There was a work. To do." His shoulders pull a little tighter inward. "Will also. Miss you." Though here he's almost brightening again. "Do power works. Across world?" His eyes fix on Kavalam curiously. "Maybe. I will. Keep missing you."