Logs:Taking Risks

Taking Risks
Dramatis Personae Spencer, Sriyani
In Absentia Shane, Quentin, Jax, Dawson, Hive, Dusk	2024-10-17 "That's like. The cagiest way to say you're not being cagey."
Location <XAV> Spencer and Sriyani's Dorm - Residence Hall
Has anyone around here been on a regular schedule lately? Certainly not in the Anarchy Dorm, messy-cluttered enough to show sure signs of its occupants even though it's been seeing little enough of them recently. Currently Sriyani's closet door is opening, spilling out one very flushed and breathless teleporter. Sriyani's boots and jeans are very wet and dark stained with recently-rinsed-off mud; there's a generous spatter of it on the rest of them too that they haven't yet bothered with rinsing. They peel their sweatshirt off, quick-dry green tee considerably less splattered underneath, and then plomp down heavily onto the floor in front of the closet to unlace and wiggle off their boots. Spencer is for once actually asleep in his actual bed, though he's blinking awake now. He hadn't bothered changing before crashing -- other than the red corduroy jacket that he probably shucked directly onto the floor -- as he's still dressed in a rumpled black t-shirt featuring a sort of generic looking can labeled "SOUP" and in slightly smaller print "for my family", fairly new blue jeans that have nevertheless seen better days, and thick rainbow ombre socks. His kippah is styled as a slice of watermelon, and sits at a crazy angle where his hair had been pushed up against the pillow. "Hey," he says groggily, stifling a yawn. Then comes a bit more readily alert when he takes in the state of Sriyani's person and clothes. "Whoa. You alright?" "Oh yeah," Sriyani says in between a small grunt of effort as they tug off their second wet boot, "a little mud will not kill me. I mean, hopefully. Maybe it did and I'm a ghost now which would be very seasonally..." They stop here, cringing hard, and shoot a small wincing look to Spence. "... sorry." They chuck their boot off with the first and only after a small consideration go and pick up both boots to set them down neatly together in front of a heating vent. "And sorry I woke you." Spence does not seem to immediately comprehend why Sriyani trailed off, but when he does he shakes his head firmly. "Look, if I let his death ruin Halloween, Shane might actually come back and haunt me..." His brows furrow as he does a little trailing off of his own. "...which I guess might kinda un-ruin Halloween..." He shakes his head sharply. "Anyway I meant like. You seemed out of breath." Though he sounds more curious than alarmed now. He pats himself down but does not seem all that fussed when he fails to come up with whatever he was looking for. "I hardly ever even see you anymore, which might be a me problem?" "Halloween haunting would be a pretty cool move, he would give a much cooler meaning to ghost bike." Sriyani stays plopped where they are, shifting a little uncomfortably in their damp pants. "Oh, well we've -- I've been really busy and you haven't been around much either and -- It's been kind of a weird semester, you know? I mean obviously you know, just." They shake their head, quick. "Ghost bike." Spence smiles -- kind of faint but not forced -- and nods his way into a kind of slow rock where he's sitting on the edge of his bed. "I've tried to be around more, I'm just not great at like. Time?" He studies Sriyani, eyebrows hiking up, then up again. "I'm not really sure now if I do know. I feel kinda like I'm missing something." "I mean yeah when you aren't around you miss a lot that's kinda just how it goes?" Sriyani plucks uncomfortably at their jeans, peeling fabric away from their ankle and then letting it fall back with a quiet wet smack. They stand up, grabbing a sarong from where it's draped over the back of their desk chair, and wrapping it around their waist before they finally peel the jeans off. "I'm sure there's plenty I don't know about what you get up to when you're -- um. Everywhere. Places without doors, even, you could be off in some wild new frontiers having adventures I could hardly imagine." "Oh yeah, I think one of the most awesome things about life is, everyone gets up to stuff I can hardly imagine." Spence doesn't bother averting his eyes, but he wasn't looking directly at Sriyani anyway. "I guess that's why I'm so nosy?" He frowns down at his jacket on the floor, then finally hops down and picks it up, checking the pockets. "Like. I didn't think about it much at ne'ilah or like, the whole rest of the night. But how did you -- y'all? -- find out about the crash all the way in Genosha. Maybe that's not...weird? Anymore? I didn't think I missed that much." "I think we definitely need some kind of weirdness scale? Just so we can all be on the same page about what's a normal kinda weird and what's a weird-weird kinda weird? I'm reallly losing track." Sriyani drapes their wet jeans on the chair where the sarong had just been. They shift their weight onto a foot, scratching with one big toe at the back of the other calf. "Quentin told us. And if you ask Quentin he knows everything soooo --" Their teeth are pressing down at their lip, weight shifting fidgety again, and they're just a little testy when they add, "Does it matter? It's good we could help, right?" "'Mutant school' is normal-weird," Spence suggests immediately. "There should probably be more than one axis. I don't know what they are, but I'm literally gonna make a political compass once I figure that out." The jacket vanishes from his hands. "Quentin doesn't know everything. It's definitely good you could help, I'm super grateful you did, but what do you mean 'does it matter'?" He perches himself back on his bed, frowning deeper. "If it's like, upsetting or traumatic or something, I'll drop it. I just don't understand why you're being so cagey." "I'm not being cagey," Sriyani replies, swift and defensively prickly. They drop down to sit on the floor, leaning up against one leg of their bed. "I just -- I didn't know if I should get into -- you were kind of a jerk when --" They scrunch their eyes shut for a moment, head shaking. "Sorry I just, like your brother just died and it's not a great time for..." Their hand flutters, grasping at the air like they are trying to grasp for words. This just ends in another head shake. "It's not traumatic it's just not important. Relatively." Spence frowns, exaggeratedly now, as if to be sure he's got the expression right. "That's like. The cagiest way to say you're not being cagey. I'm sorry if I was a jerk, grief is not an excuse for that?" He chew on his lower lip. "Or, if it wasn't that night, like. I'm a grown...man..." This brings him up short. "Wow, why does that feel less true now than it did four years ago? But what I mean is, my brother dying doesn't make everything else less important. Maybe it makes everything else more important, in some ways." "What?" Sriyani is frowning now too, although mostly out of confusion. "Sorry but you were a jerk long before Shane died. This week you've been way nicer I think you've been too sad to be a -- um not like I'm saying this is better, just that -- augh." They scrub a hand uncomfortably against their mouth as if this will, maybe, prevent their foot from going in any further. "It's like I told you a million years," or a month and a half, "ago, someone needed to step up." Spence's frown also shifts -- maybe also to confusion, but it's hard to tell. Maybe he just forgot he was trying to Do an Expression deliberately. "Wait. You've been mad about that the whole time? What the -- I agreed with you didn't I say I was gonna --" Now he's blushing suddenly. "Oh no was that just one example and I've been mean all this time why wouldn't you just tell me?!" He disappears -- -- and reappears a couple of seconds later, in almost exactly the same position, except he's scrubbing his face with both hands. "Shit. Is it because I'm too mean." "No! I'm not mad at you, I just --" Sriyani shrugs. "Was busy enough once we started actually doing it and I didn't really want the extra helping of condescension on top of trying to keep up with schoolwork. Quentin's judgey enough for five teams already but at least he just says right up front he thinks he's better than everyone and doesn't try to wrap it up in huggy language." "'Huggy language'? What does that even -- okay, I don't remember my exact wording and maybe it sucked!" Spence isn't yelling but he's certainly raising his voice. "But I don't think I'm better than everyone. I was just stressed, and I said I was gonna think about it, and I did. And I was wrong. I'm wrong a lot! So is literally everyone." He throws up his hands. "Does saying one thing you don't like make me a -- mean condescending jerk? And I'm only 'nice' now because I'm...too depressed?" His hands clench tight now, but he slows his breathing, lowers his voice and tries to keep it even. "Is that actually what you think?" "I didn't -- no. I just said -- see, this is why I didn't think we should talk about this now." Sriyani scrubs a palm against their face, then drops their hand to their lap. "I said you were being a jerk that time, not that you're just always some -- ngh." Their mouth presses tight closed as though they are trying by main force to hold back from saying something. When they do speak again it's stiff. "Don't be stupid. One thing can be plenty." "Right, I just thought -- since you said I was nicer now, that meant --" Spence scrubs his face again with both hands. "I don't know! Clearly I'm not? Better now?" He sounds stiff now, too. "Shane dying didn't make me nicer and it didn't change my mind or whatever it was already changed. But like, even if I were right before, you saved my family, and a lot of other people, too." Then he hastily adds, "That's not me being 'huggy' or whatever, I just don't want to be mean, either." "Can you stop --" Sriyani is saying with some amount of frustration, starting to wring the edge of their sarong between their hands, "being so autistic about this? I don't know what you want me to say it's not. Nobody's just. One thing. It's not like I stopped wanting to be your friend. It's like --" They are wringing slower, more repetitive as they try to sift words out of their current anxiety. "The people I want to hang out with and the people I want to do missions with and the people I'd want in a study group and the people I'd want on a basketball team and the people I'd want to live with aren't all the same people and they don't have to be. You were a jerk about that one thing and I didn't want to do it with you! Stop trying to make it like I've said you're all bad forever, I didn't." Spence looks like he's about to say something, then shuts his mouth firmly. And several seconds later nods, also firmly. "I'm not trying to be --" He's frowning deeply again, and it's several more seconds before this resolves into a kind of anticlimactic, "Okay." Then, after only a brief pause, this time, "I'm fine with that. I don't think you should want to do missions with me. I asked at first because I was curious." He sniffles, then quiets. "And then I just -- didn't understand." He produces a metallic rainbow fidget spinner from nowhere. Doesn't actually spin it, but presses the pad of his thumb into one of its smooth divots. "I'm sorry. I wanted you to know I don't look down on you. Maybe that's not actually important but it's true." "... oh." Sriyani leaves off the wringing, with an effort, hands pressing down hard against their leg to smooth out the wrinkled fabric. "I do want to do missions with you," they finally say, quiet. "I mean, you were the first person I went to when I started thinking we should..." They shrug. A little small, a little stiff. "It's just like. I think every single day about how we messed up, you know. I can't not think about it. But I also think about your dad, and about the Allreds' brother, and about Mr. Suphamongkhon up in the guest wing for months and about Dusk and about --" They shake their head slowly. "All the people who'd be dead if people like that didn't take risks." Spence gives an almost inaudible laugh. "I do, too. Every night I think, 'what if I hadn't gone after Gaé to begin with'. At least you had a team, made a plan -- I went off by myself without telling anyone. But it's not even about the blame." He does start spinning his spinner now. "Ironically, I was trying to step up, too. Just, you know. Dragging a lifetime of personal baggage with me." He rotates his wrist, the spinner pulling against the motion. "I don't think that mistakes mean we should give up. And I'm super grateful you were able to help. I thought I was never going to see any of them again." Sriyani's head bobs slowly. Their eyes fix on the gleam of the whirling spinner. They prop their elbows on their knees, chin dropping to their palms. "I'm sorry about your brother," they say quietly. "And I'm glad we could help." Their smile is a little crooked. "You wanna help save the world together?" Spence stills his hand and lets the spinner spin down. "Thanks." This is quiet, too. "But if he hadn't risked himself, none of them would have come home." At the question his smile is a little crooked, too, and more than a little sheepish. "Heck yeah! As long as you don't mind doing a bit of remedial superhero tutoring."