Logs:We Have Chess at Home

We Have Chess at Home
Dramatis Personae Joshua, Roscoe
In Absentia	2024-01-07 "I stole this one fair and square first."
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. Roscoe has taken an entire porch swing to himself, flopped on his back with his legs folded up against the armrest. Perhaps the swing isn't entirely protected from the elements, he's bundled up in a too-big blue hoodie, with the hood pulled up over a knit black beanie, light brown joggers, and thick woolen socks, his shoes sitting underneath the swing. Perhaps the bench came pre-cushioned, but he's stolen an additional cushion from the nearest rocking chair, which is not improving his posture -- his chin is pressed to his chest and he's just letting his phone sit on his stomach against his arm, playing a YouTube video. He has done the rest of the patio the favor of wearing earbuds, but the earbuds in question are cheap and thinly wired and they are emitting the very faint, staticky sounds of some streamer playing Final Fantasy XIV. Joshua wasn't here a moment ago, but now he is. He's got a Tupperware in hand with some kind of spicy beans-and-rice mix in it, recognizable X-jacket tossed on over a waffle-weave thermal together with his heavy boots and grey tac pants. He's just dropped down heavily into the nearest rocking chair, after which the glum droop of his face is growing longer. He attempts one tentative rock before, evidently, deciding that with its bones exposed this chair is not as enjoyable as usual; slowly and creakily he's getting back up. Whether he was coming to beg back the pilfered cushion or just coming to say hi is unclear, because once he is standing by the end of Roscoe's bench swing his flighty attention is trapped by the tinny sounds of the video and he forgets to say anything at all. Roscoe knocks the phone face-down and turns off the screen before he even seems to register who's just joined him; he scoots himself more upright, one hand braced on the back of the bench, then removes the earbuds, darting a guilty look over at the burgled rocking chair. His hoodie-beanie combo makes it difficult to see his face, but he can see Joshua with his normal eyes. "Hi," he says politely enough, but then he says more nosily, "What are you doing?" "Stealing a cushion." Roscoe's bench, at least, has pillowing to it, and as Roscoe scoots more upright Joshua is sidling over to flump down onto the far side of it. "And working." He peels open the tupperware, retrieving a titanium camping spork from -- a sleeve? A pocket? Somewhere, anyway -- and holding the plastic tub close to himself as he stirs the food. "Thought you'd be in Boston," a little absently, clearly his Xavier's Job keeps him highly attuned to the academic calendar. "How's, uh, the internet." He's waggling his fork in the general direction of Roscoe's hastily abandoned phone. "I stole this one fair and square first," Roscoe says, though he's dutifully moving his feet to clear the end of his bench, pulling them in front of him. He blinks when Joshua produces the spork, then squints, then blurts, "What's wrong with your bones?" The phone disappears into his hoodie pocket when Joshua indicates it, where it clicks up against whatever else Roscoe's hiding in there. "It's terrible," he says. "Everything's just ads now." "Huh?" Joshua glances up, eyes opening wider with a swift if mild alarm. He's pressing one booted foot more firmly to the slate, kind of testing in the push he gives that rocks the bench lightly. When these bones seem to be working fine his alarm eases into bafflement. "Uh --" He's taking a stab at what might be wrong with his bones from a Roscoe perspective and going in the entirely wrong direction with, "Old." There's a lingering concern written into his jowly face and it carries through to his following: "You can block those. Turn the internet against itself." Roscoe inclines his head against the back of the swing bench when it rocks, still staring mistrustfully at Joshua's spork. "You have extra bones," he explains. The sigh he heaves is one of great sorrow and indignation -- "YouTube blocked my adblocker," he says. "At least if anybody asks me where to get an AI girlfriend I'll know what to say." Whatever he has to say about it probably isn't very charitable -- his eyeroll at this is brief but grotesque. After a moment he adds, "I don't go back to Boston every weekend." "Oh-h-h," Joshua is nodding with a sudden comprehension at this explanation before he helpfully offers his own: "Grew claws." His mouth twists to the side, and he's giving Roscoe's indignation a very solemn nod. "Gonna need a bigger adblocker." He's starting in on his food, quick large bites, and is wiping a stray scrap of bean from a tooth with the tip of his tongue when he muses: "Wasn't Christmas..." But this trails off with a small frown. "What do you do with your weekends?" Roscoe takes the claws much in stride -- "Okay." He wriggles into a more comfortable seat in the bench swing, inadvertently rocking it slightly, and ending up even more compact against the armrest; after another moment he finally takes his hood down. "Christmas was a couple weeks ago," he says. "We went back to class last week." He's frowning too, maybe just mirroring Joshua's. "Nothing," he says defensively, then, more honestly, "...YouTube." "Huh, shit." Joshua's frown has cemented in place while he repositions Christmas in his mind. "Do you, uh, Christmas." The pace of his eating is slowing as he considers YouTube with an acknowledging grunt. "Lotta YouTube to catch up on. You'll have to fill me in, I gave up." After Roscoe's repositioning, Joshua is rocking into a more advertent kind of swing, a slow and lazy one-footed push. "You get off campus at all?" "Yeah," says Roscoe, kind of indifferently -- this guy Christmases. His shrug at YouTube is sort of indifferent too, "I'm probably gonna give up too, I'm sick of the ads." Less indifferent is, "No. Lol." After a moment, he elaborates, "They think the city's dangerous. And I don't have money anyway, I dunno what I'd do. Everything that's free in NYC is also free here. There's chess right there --" he waves one hand in the vague direction of the patio's chess table. "Yeah," Joshua agrees, "chess is really all we got." He is polishing off the last of his food, casting a critical glance towards the empty chess table. "Hardly chess here, though. No rowdy peanut galleries? Barely any shittalk?" His cheek clicks dismissively against his teeth. He drops his spork into the empty tupperware and snaps the lid into place. "C'mon." He's standing, gesturing -- his hands are empty, now -- to Roscoe's discarded shoes. "Got time for one real game."