Logs:Scope Creep

Scope Creep
Dramatis Personae Jax, Scott
In Absentia Charles, Avi, Sriyani, Shane	2024-11-25 "We just gotta organize it."
Location <NYC> Harry's Hideaway - Salem Center
A cozy nook of a bar, Harry's has been run by the same grizzled proprietor for decades. The fare they serve is plain and typical bar food, but solid and well-prepared, and what the alcohol lacks in variety it makes up for in quality. Close proximity and long-developed relationships with the staff at Xavier's means they turn a blind eye to the mutants who frequent the bar. With the holiday weekend coming up, Harry's is doing very good business for a Monday afternoon, though happy hour hasn't quite hit its swing yet. On his way to the booth, pitcher in one hand and two empty beer mugs in the other, Scott is sidling carefully between several spirited clusters of young professionals with their cocktails and appetizers at the tall tables, shooting them a glance (inscrutable behind ruby quartz glasses) over his shoulder once he's made it through. He steps up into the booth to grab coasters, but doesn't actually sit until he's poured their beers; he flips the collar of his motorcycle jacket up, then back down again -- "Cheers," he says, before he takes a sip; presses his mouth thin to suck the little film of foam off his lip. "Glad you could make the time. Been a little crazy around here." Jax hasn't removed his jacket, yet, while he's been settled, a rainbow colorblocked denim thing whose vibrant colors currently serve mostly to highlight his continued unhealthy pallor. He's been fiddling restlessly with a napkin, tearing small slits in a neat line all down one corner, but sets this diligent enterprise aside once Scott returns. "Hopefully be a little more chill till next term starts?" He doesn't sound entirely confident. He picks up the mug, lifting it to Scott and then taking a swallow himself. "Quieter, anyway, though I think some the kids who stick around real-real good at filling the space." Something of his wry tone suggests that he doesn't exactly mean they're filling it with anything good. "Mmgh," Scott is -- agreeing, maybe? It's a doleful sort of agreement, if so, though his expression is not budging much from its businesslike Out For Beers look. "Hopefully. To be honest, the quiet makes me that much more nervous about what they might be getting up to. Never thought I'd miss the crowding, but..." he's settling himself more comfortably opposite Jax with a very slight wince, slowly rotating his beer on its mat. "-- guess there's upsides and downsides to giving them space." He takes another, longer drink; he shakes his head. "How do you feel about next term?" "I'onno if there's so much reason to be more nervous," Jax replies with an inexorable cheer, "sharin' a building did not stop any of the rest of us from getting up to so much trouble." Should this be reassuring? It's bright, anyway. "Oh, I feel --" The brightness dims on the question, teeth starting to press down at his lip and then releasing. "... I ain't sure, actually, sir. I mean, I know you said -- danger's what we do, but -- should it be? I mean, obviously it's -- there's no avoiding some of it. But -- some of it we could avoid, too." A slooow smile starts to tug at Scott's lips. Probably he's not reassured, but there is definitely some amusement in his feeble protest of, "Mmgh, but I was right upstairs." His finger taps idly at the handle of his stein; his gaze drops away from Jax, obvious even through his glasses, before he lifts his head again, consideringly. "We could," he agrees. "I take a lot of calculated risks with the school. If I think they're worth it. If I think we can handle them. Maybe sometimes I shouldn't. Sometimes, obviously, I miscalculate." This is laid out point by point, like he's delivering a presentation. "For what it's worth, we already made this call, on our end. School's better with you. More honest. More flexible. That's worth fighting for. That's worth protecting." His hand, resting beside his beer, opens and tilts, as if in offering -- "But. It's your call, too, Jax." Jax's cheeks burn red, and he turns his mug slowly, rotating it until its handle is pointing in neat opposition to Scott's. "I feel like I ain't never sure anymore how to -- calculate. I used t'feel so sure of what was right, but --" His hands clench tight around his stein. His eye has fixed on Scott's open hand, and he pushes out a slow breath. His smile now is hesitant, a little crooked. "When I was younger I wanted so much to be like you. Think if any our kids wanted to grow up like me I'd --" The tentative smile drops back away entirely. "Well. That kinda aspiration feels like a good way not to grow up at all." Scott's smile, already a little small, is crooking lopsidedly now too; he goes back to tapping his index finger at his beer mug. "Mm. Happens to the best of us," he says; he gives Jax a sort of apologetic sideways tilt of his head, not much like a nod. "Wish I could tell you different. I wanted to be like the Professor when I was younger. Something -- someone to look up to." His smile by now has fallen crookedly away into an also crooked frown, eyebrows pulling close together over his glasses. "Wanting to be like me didn't make you me. Wanting to be like the Professor didn't make me the Professor. I don't think these kids are gonna end up..." this time, his head tilts down, his browline obscuring the faint glow behind his lenses. "But I don't know what it is you're worried about," he adds quietly. "I can't understand -- a lot of what must be on your mind now. I'm sorry." For a time, Jax is quiet. His fingers tap slowly against his stein, collecting condensation underneath his fingertips to drip heavy down the side of the thick-walled glass. "I mean, didn't they already?" His forefinger flicks at a drop of water. "By the time I done graduate Xavier's, I'd already led a coupl'a my team t'their deaths. Got out and they didn't, but --" He shrugs. "World ain't getting no safer. Can't imagine kids like Sriyani or Avi gonna give up on trying to -- I don't know. I'm terrified for 'em, all the time. Ain't a day I don't think about Brendan --" He stops here, clutching tight at his mug, his teeth pressing hard at his upper lip. "... sorry. Lot on my mind, I guess. I know it ain't, like, full my fault or nothing, them M-Kids could've used some guidance long 'fore they got to Lassiter, even. I been thinkin' a lot since." His hands have pressed white-knuckled around his mug. "Since Shane died and -- so many folks always come by Evolve lookin' for help ain't nobody set up to give --" He's slowly relaxing his grip, and lifts his mug for a small pull of his beer. "-- I been kinda buried in work tryna keep that place alive an' like. It's been real real how screwed a lotta folks'll be if it folds, y'know?" Scott pulls his hand back to drop into the other hand, taps his thumb against the other wrist, tilts his head to the side again. "Lot on your mind," he echoes finally. "World's getting no safer. I was terrified for you the same way you're scared for these kids. Still am." He presses his lips thinly together and reaches for his beer, gives it two careful quarter-turns until its handle is pointing the same way as Jax's, before he lifts it to take a slow sip. "Even Evolve wasn't set up for... Shane was always trying to help people. Well beyond his means, sometimes, it felt like." He pauses, taps his index finger against the stein handle. "You think it'll fold soon." That may or may not have been meant as a question -- it's a little flat. "He didn't take no salary not a single time from there." Jax says this with a wince, his head shaking. "An' I'm still strugglin' to figure out how to keep the doors open. Gonna be a big hole in the community if I don't figure it out. But -- I mean, the school, it can't be everything to everyone, you know? We got a pretty specific mission, but I been thinking, what if -- we figured out some way to actually turn it into a community center. Like, for real. The buildings around it been empty since the aliens. And there's so many folks -- kids, adults who just need a little help figuring things out. Need a place to find resources or find each other." He slumps back in his seat, huffing, quiet. "... or a meal, too. Bet the Professor'd kick in some cash, and we got plenty expertise on -- I'unno. How To Mutant." "Hff," there isn't much surprise in this little exhale, though there's a touch of exasperation. "Just giving and giving and giving is a pretty -- short-lived business strategy. Usually." Scott sits a little straighter, though, pulls his beer on its mat closer to himself, tilts his head up again to regard Jax. Thinks this all over for -- perhaps not as long as his statue-stillness might make it feel. "Sounds like quite a project," he says finally, though his tone is not unencouraging (it's still not much of anything, to the casual listener, with only the thinnest thread of eagerness in its swift delivery.) He takes another drink of beer, shakes his head -- "How To Mutant, huh," he says. "I learn new ways to mutant all the damn time, still." But then his voice is business casual again, low and a little gruff, that brief lapse of fond almost-laughter schooled neatly away. "How can we help?" "Quite a project," Jax agrees, "but I mean, we got plenty of knowhow when it comes to building mutant community, an' teaching, an' oureach, an' --. we just gotta organize it. I been looking into what it would take to turn that place into a 501(c)(3), an' wouldn't you know --" Here, his smile is a little brighter. "...It takes a whole heck of a lotta paperwork."