Logs:Herakles in New York

Herakles in New York
Dramatis Personae Beau, Nessie
In Absentia	2020-05-31 After an awkward start, Beau and Nessie make small talk.
Location <XAV> Rec Room - Xs Second Floor
School this may be, but life for Xavier's students certainly isn't all studying. Outside classes, this is a popular spot to find students in their downtime. An enormous tribute to slacking off, this room is a wealth of fun and relaxation. Comfortable armchairs, couches, and beanbags offer plentiful seating scattered throughout the room, and the cushioned windowseats by the high windows offer a cozy nook to curl up and look out on the grounds. The room is often filled with the noises of gaming -- whether it comes from the big-screen television (tall racks of DVDs beside it, if nothing can be found on the multitude of cable channels), tricked out with consoles from retro to the latest releases, or the less electronic clatter and thump of the pool table, air hockey, or foosball. For those a little more subdued in their gaming, the cabinets hold stacks and stacks of board and card games, ranging as classic as chess and go to as esoteric as Dixit, Catan, and Gloom. More days than not, there's some variety of snacks to be found on a table beside the gaming cabinet -- quite often in the form of fresh-baked desserts. Exams have finished, and it's getting quieter around the school -- some people have started to clear out for the break, though plenty of others are sticking around for summer term. Nessie does not have far to go nor much to pack; she's taking it easy this weekend. Lounging in the calm of the rec room now that it has far fewer students frequenting it. Netflix is on the television, the intro to Garden Variety playing on the screen, though at the moment she's paying it little attention -- mostly just looking down at footage on her phone of a burning police car and a cloud of tear gas. She's dressed in a dingy blue and white striped button down, old and threadbare, and eschews any of the actual furniture to simply fold all her many legs up underneath herself on the floor by the sofa. Stuck in a similar boat Beau doesn’t have anything left to do but kill time. There’s a loud rattling as he fumbles with the door before it eventually swings open and he bends at the waist to squeeze through the too-small opening. “Goddamn all these little ass doors.” he grumbles to himself before freezing in place as he spots Nessie. “Er... howdy. I ain’t interruptin’ am I?” He’s dressed in a white t-shirt that probably fit a few years ago but is looking particularly snug now and a pair of beat up denim jeans. Nessie's head turns sharply, several pairs of eyes fixing on the door as it rattles. She squeezes tighter at her phone, tipping her head back to look up at Beau. Look down at her phone screen. Back up at Beau. "Umm -- I'm not. Interrupted? No, um, not busy." Her teeth sink down against her lip. "Did you need -- something?" She sounds juuust a little unsure. "I mean the teacher's -- lounge is downstairs, right?" “Yeah, I’m pretty sure anyways. You need one ah- oh.” Beau starts before he comprehends the insinuation. “I’m actually ah junior.” He reaches up to scratch at his beard. “Get that a lot actually, not sure why it surprises me anymore.” He walks over to sit on the far side of the couch away from Nessie. “I’m Leonidas,” pronounced Leo-knee-das, “but y’all can call me Beau, pretty much everybody does.” "Oh!" Nessie's cheeks darken, her shoulders curling inward. "Oh gosh I'm sorry! I thought -- sorry. You're just, um." She shakes her head quickly. "A junior! Right. Hi. I'm Nessie. You can call me -- Nessie." Her nose crinkles up, and she lifts a hand to rub knuckles against her cheek. "You can change the channel if you want, I'm not really watching so much. I mean, I've seen this all already. I don't know when they're gonna have a new season. I just wanted something familiar, you know? The news gets so stressful and then it's nice to put on something I already know. Like, no surprises there." “Ain’t a problem.” Beau says with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I understand how it is. I ain’t got around to watchin’ this yet. Hell, I ain’t got around to watchin’ much.” He sinks down into the couch some, careful not to knock anything over with his legs before eventually expanding, “I crushed the remote too many times.” "It's good. It's about witches. I like it. You could talk to the TV if you can't, um --" Nessie mimes clicking the remote. "Like, 'OK Cerebro open Netflix' -- oh shoot I didn't mean it," she is lamenting as the show stops playing, returning instead to Netflix's home menu. "But, you know, like that. I think the television is, whatdyoucallit. Like smart? I mean, not smart it's a tv but you know. Or you could learn to use your hands better I guess. If that's like a -- frequent, um, problem." Beau’s jaw drops slightly, “Yeah, I definitely knew about that.” His jaw closes and his eyes fix back onto the other teen. “Yeah, been meaning to work on that. It’s just everything is so.. fragile.” "That's not really a problem I've had exactly," Nessie looks Beau over thoughtfully, eyes fixating on his hands for a moment as her tail swishes above her. "But I do knock over a lot of furniture. I guess one way or another, a lot of things aren't really meant for us." Her shoulder lifts, falls. "You learn to work around it, I guess." She grins, quick and crooked. "Or you don't, and you break a lot of remotes." “I just break furniture usually.” Beau replies, matching the grin. “It’s not easy having the strength of Herakles.” He gently pushes himself back up onto the couch. “I guess it does make for some pretty cool pictures though.” "Wait pictures?" Nessie tilts her head slightly to one side, several of her eyes blinking in confusion, though the largest pair remains open. "Do you just have like. A cameraperson following you around in case you break something funny? Or break something in an aesthetic kind of way? Or does it just happen so much that you sometimes get lucky and are incidentally photobombing and then bam, cool picture? Or do you do whole entire destruction photoshoots?" “That’s a whole lot cooler actually, kinda like the hydraulic press channel.” Beau allows before shaking his head, “Naw, I just have a picture of me holding our old tractor over my head I took a few years ago. I thought it was funny, can’t say the same thing about my parents though.” "That is cool," Nessie agrees brightly, eyes a little wider. "A whole tractor? You could do a whole Clark Kent style re-enactment. The Smallville days." She glances down at her phone, but then back up at Beau with a furrow of her brow: "What on earth is the hydraulic press channel?" “If I was faster I could definitely be a weaker Superman. Pretty sure I’m not bulletproof though.” Beau can’t help but grin a little at the idea. “It’s a YouTube channel, they just crush things with a hydraulic press. Pretty sure they’re not as popular as they were a few years ago, but that’s about how it goes on the internet.” "We could make this happen, you know." Nessie holds up her phone, wiggling it with a brightening smile. "You don't need any fancy hydraulic equipment. There's like -- this whole huge big grounds here, too! You could lift so many things. You could destroy so many things. You could be a star!" Her nose wrinkles up, teeth pressing lightly against her lower lip. "Well, like, if I learn how to make good videos anyway. I've seen some people who are popular on YouTube though, how hard could it be?" “Hell, if they get pissy about it we’ll just say I’m workin’ on controlling my mutation.” Beau pushes up to his feet entirely and looks out the window. “That was before I came out here, so I’m actually stronger now, just not sure how strong. What better place to actually find out though?” He smiles down at Nessie, clearly excited at the prospect. “Might even stop breaking things and be able to touch people again.” "Touch is nice. See, two minutes with me and we're already making plans. Setting goals! -- Hey do you think maybe we can get extra credit?" Nessie settles down lower on her folded legs as Beau gets up, swiping her screen open. "I'm gonna look up how to get famous on YouTube. We're going to make you a star!"