Logs:Open Enrollment

Open Enrollment
Dramatis Personae Ion, Scott
In Absentia Egg, Shane, Dusk	2024-10-20 "Got forms for that."
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. Plenty of words have been spoken, touching and heartwrenching and hilarious in turn. Music has been played, tears have been wept, and in theory the memorial service is, nominally, over. For a crowd this size, with the number and variety of people who have turned up to celebrate Shane's life and mourn his loss, it's likely the memorial party will continue some time longer. The Great Hall is still crowded with people talking and eating but a good chunk of the gathering has spilled out to here. There's a line of motorbikes of wildly different sizes and customizations but all gleaming from very recent washes, lined up at what is definitely not any kind of parking area along one long edge of the patio. There's turned up loud and bold from a number of buglike drones dotted about providing startlingly crisp speakers. Though the energetic Bach partita currently playing is not what most people would think of as Music To Blare, the assorted Bikers & Friends who are collected here have managed to imbue the patio with a vibe that makes it feel very much like the classical violin is, in fact, Blaring. There was not previously a fire pit over at the front of the patio where a fire is now crackling merrily but somehow some stones have arranged themselves to provide one; the Light Refreshments inside are perhaps not enough for this crew because someone has set up a makeshift grill that one Mongrel in bold bright clothes is tending. A brawl seems to have broken out in the garden, probably friendly given that none of the visitors watching it seem particularly alarmed. Ion has been here and has been Not Here, and is just now returning to the outdoors from the Great Hall. He is, as ever, in jeans and heavy boots, an actually clean grey tee under his skull-and-crossed-lightning-bolts cut. He was heading for the food but is very much distracted before he gets there by the noises in the garden, and splits the difference by standing on the patio's edge, hopping up onto the rim of a stone planter so that he can keep a curious eye on the garden violence. It's hard to tell where Scott might be looking, something in his stance and the lift of his chin giving the implausible impression that he's standing sentry, though he's also giving no indication that he's noticed anything out of the ordinary taking place. Though he's still wearing his waistcoat and tie from the service, he's changed into his own well-loved motorcycle jacket, which is at least black if not formal. As awkward as he probably should seem, standing off to one side by his lonesome at the far end of the veranda, there is an unaccountable ease in it, like this is just exactly where you would expect to find Scott Summers today, silent and watchful and serious, his hands in his jacket pockets but his posture straight and tall. Ion lets out a whoop as someone goes down (heavily enough, though they don't seem that large, that there's a brief but noticeable tremor in the ground), then gets right back up. He's hopping down from his perch, now stopping by the fire to load a plate with some short ribs and grilled peppers and onions. He drizzles chimichurri over the lot, plucks a water bottle out of a cooler and bounds over towards Scott. "Shit, we gotten to be experts at doing funerals right, huh?" Is this a lament or a boast; somewhere between his bright energy and the wistful look he's casting at the conspicuously-left gap where one bike in the line is missing, maybe it is a little of both. Scott only glances at Ion when he speaks, his lips pressing a little thinner even as he lifts his head in a nod of greeting. He's probably saying "Sure have," like he took Ion's comment as a lament -- though his voice is toneless enough that it could go either way, he is distinctly lacking in party vibes right now. As natural as he had seemed standing around with all the social grace of a brick wall, there is a definite discomfort in his posture now that doesn't quite get shrugged away when Scott rolls his shoulders in the jacket. "Food was a good call. I think Shane would have been pissed if we didn't have good food at the funeral." "There some tiny foods in there." Ion gestures with his hook towards the door back inside. "Real fancy. Need something more meatier." There's a small wrinkle in his brow, and his small step backwards puts just a little bit more space between him and the other man. "Shane be pissed at so many things, though," this time it definitely sounds like praise, especially given the following: "-- gonna miss that damn fire." His eyes are drifting back toward the fight, the tip of his hook tapping quickly against the side of his paper plate. "-- you all got took from here, yeah? How you stop someone taking the kids?" Scott hffs a short, somewhat mirthless laugh, like he's amused but isn't sure whether he should be, given his status as a regular pisser-off. Despite this, he does sound fairly genuine when he says, "So am I." His gaze slides forward again, out at the gathered mourners. "If I knew that, Ion..." perhaps this is trending a touch more defeatist than he intended; he hffs again, even more mirthlessly. "I've spent my whole life planning and preparing this place for anything I can see coming, and I still get blindsided. If Mojo had wanted our kids, he would have gotten them, and we would have gone to the end of the Earth and risked everything to get them back, fat lot of comfort that is." This is all in the same, measured tone, no louder than is necessary over the chatter and violin music; though Scott didn't move throughout it, now he is tilting his whole torso toward Ion. "You know that," he adds. "End the damn Earth not enough no more," doesn't sound like a criticism so much as just a reflection. Ion's head turns, just a little, eyes cutting sideways toward the bigger man when Scott shifts. "Know you would," he acknowledges. He tucks his water bottle into a pocket so that his lopsided grip is freed up enough to balance his plate more stably. "I want to send the lil vampire here." "All of us would," says Scott, though not pointedly. His already very upright posture lifts slightly straighter. "Bear? Sure, we have plenty of room, I can get you all set up. They got all their shots?" "The fuck," Ion replies with an immediate bristling, "I ain't let nobody shoot 'em!" And then, as though this might perhaps sound off to someone, he is adding in hasty defense: "Not they couldn't take it, they strong as fuck." "Bad joke. Sorry." Scott does not seem to know how to take the second comment -- his eyebrows pull in over his glasses before he decides to just move on. "Just swing by my office anytime and we can get the paperwork figured out, easy-peasy." "Yeah yeah paperwork right." There's a definite anxiety flitting over Ion, pinching in his brows and tightening his shoulders. Maybe it's just nervous-parent fretting; his next question does sound a little like a rush of helicopter-jitters: "You gotta be use to so much weird diet, right? They ain't full like their dad that Batman need so much people todos los días. Still gonna need a couple pints with they food -- real people blood not no butcher shop leftovers." "We can do that," says Scott a little dismissively, perhaps a couple pints of real people blood every -- day? meal? -- is small potatoes for Xavier's. He's tilted his head slightly at the mention of Egg's father, with a curious/concerned quirk of eyebrow, but he doesn't ask flat out, though after a brief hesitation he says, haltingly, "Look... we're used to a lot of weird, here, Ion -- just -- however Bear ended up with you guys -- we have kids here from all over the place, all kinds of circumstances, all kinds of danger, we -- the point is these kids deserve someplace they can just be a kid, right? We're not gonna give them a hard time for anything that happened before they got here. Promise." "They ain't never meant to end up with us, that ain't how we normally roll." There's not a lot of defensiveness in this statement. Ion is just looking a little wilted, a little tired, like only now the weeks of terror and constant overcharge are starting to take some physical toll. "We fall through one them world-holes tryna get some slaves out that shithole fucking island, probably would have stayed stuck in some whole-other-dimension Genosha if the gremlin and they papa ain't help get us home. Hole close-upped behind us though. Was a rough run with them freak-cops, too, might all of been some brainwash slaves now but, fuck, that man --" There's a small skitter of sparks beginning to shiver down Ion's arm, down his hook, but he exhales hard and they die out. "-- tch, perdóname, is just the second damn time Dusk pull all the fire to make sure everyone else get time to get the fuck out. And we been just fucking days off the lil gargoyle watch their dad gun down when those slugs come put us in all new hell. Only now got the time to figure out how to find 'em a safer life here, y'know?" Ion is glowering down at his plate, but when he looks back up it's with an odd brightening: "... shit, least they already gonna have one upside-down-world friend over here." Scott goes still again, taking all this in with a small, serious frown, then -- quiet, maybe trying to be reassuring, "Got forms for that." Ion blinks, eyes suddenly stinging with a brightness he is neither calling attention to nor trying to pretend away. He nods, a good portion of his nervous energy ebbing away with his next exhale. No doubt there will be more to figure out, more to discuss, but for now the only thing he has to offer is his plate with its fresh-grilled bounty; he's plucking one of the ribs up between his prongs before proffering some towards Scott. "S'my ma own chimichurri, you ain't never tasted sauce so bright."