ArchivedLogs:A Foundation of Good Intentions

A Foundation of Good Intentions
Dramatis Personae Jackson, Nox	2013-02-15 Parenting: Not So Easy
Location <NYC> 303 {Jackson} - Village Lofts - East Village
This apartment is cheerful, in its way -- bright and airy, its floor plan open and a plethora of windows providing it with an abundance of light. The tiny entrance hall opens into a living room, small, though its sparse furniture and lack of clutter give it a more open feel. The decor is subdued and minimalist; black and white is the dominant theme, with occasional splashes of deep crimson to offset the monochrome, though of late bright coloured sealife has made its way into being painted on the wall. The couch and armchair are upholstered in black corduroy, the low wide coffee table central is black wood and glass-topped, and a few large pillowy beanbags provide additional seating by the large windows that dominate the back wall. Towards the back, a couple of doors lead off into bedrooms and bathroom, and to the right, the kitchen's tile is separated from the living room's dark hardwood floors by black countertops. Above the bedroom to one side, there is higher space; a ladder climbs up to a lofted area looking down on the living room. Standing in front of the partition between living and cooking area is a large fish tank: one lone Betta, blood-red, swims regally among several species of black and silver fish. A hallway beyond the kitchen leads further into the apartment. Another bathroom stands just into the hall and the farthest door leads to the apartment's final bedroom, the door usually kept shut to hold in the acrid fumes of turpentine and paints from within. Jackson's house is quiet, today. Strife is napping on a beanbag chair by a window, Obie is curled up in a corner of Spencer's room, gnawing on a bright red Kong that he keeps dropping and watching sadly as it rolls under the bed. And retrieving again. This cycle has gone on for a while. Jax is in his own room, at the moment, dressed simply, for him, in slim black jeans, a purple long-sleeved fishnet shirt, a pink t-shirt over top that reads 'I'm one of the bravest girls alive'. He's sitting on a stool in front of his easel, palette balanced lazily on one hand, working on the final stages of a painting. It's a farm -- long sweeps of cornfields, rows of trees adjacent. Some of the cornstalks have been trampled down, though, and there's a figure lying in the depression made by the fallen stalks, small and faceless and fragile-looking. The whole thing has a kind of surreal feeling to it, colours not /quite/ right, dimensions a little skewed. There's music playing, while he works, someone half-speaking, half-singing over background music. "The ambitions are wake up, breathe, keep breathing," says his music. The room is full of light -- or at least colour, though the rest of the apartment isn't, a wash of eerie blues and greens and dark swirls of shadow in between, flickering around the edges of the walls and occasionally taking odd ghostly half-formed images. Faces. Buildings. They swirl in and out of existence, but largely just end in a miasma of strange dark colour. Getting into the building presented a challenge, the entrances being secured. Nox has overcome this by leaving a small pile of hobo-esque clothing at the rear entrance, sliding under the door in shadow form and opening it from the inside to retrieve the basket she's brought with her. So it is that a living shadow appears at the front door of the Holland residence, cradling the wicker picnic basket before her. It is closed, and the corners are rough and scratchy where the wicker has been rubbed enough to break--this is not the basket's first rodeo, at a glance. There is some hesitation before she knocks, time spent with head cocked, simply listening to the music heard faintly through the door. The tone of it is almost enough to have her simply leave the basket on the stoop but finally she wills her hand to hardness and taps her knuckles against the wood. Rap rap rap! It takes a minute before the door opens. The music's been shut off, though Jax still has his easel in hand and a dark swirl of colours still surrounds him, slowly shifting. He looks a little startled for someone to be at the door, pulling it open first with security chain still in place and then, with less nervousness but no less confusion, closing it again to open the door fully once he peets at the shadow-woman outside. "Oh! Oh, hey." Behind him, the brightness of the apartment dims. Around him there's still a hazy mix of dark colours. "Nox. Uh -- hi!" He steps back, pulling the door open a little, waving the woman in with, admittedly, still a look of confusion. Nox doesn't enter immediately and this is partly due to being taken aback by the darkness swirling around the person meant to be her light counterpart. In short, she hesitates again. "I needn't come in," she murmurs, "if this is a poor time. It is only that I wanted to bring you a thank you from those of us that you hosted after the snowball fight." The basket is lifted on her palms to show that this is the intended thank you. As fancy packaging goes, it fails. She's blurry enough that expressions are difficult to make out but it /seems/ she's smiling. "I wouldn't want to inconvenience you, Mr. Holland." "Oh!" Jackson seems a little startled, too, and around him the dark colours lighten a few shades. "Oh, wow. Um, thank you, miss." A quick warm smile brightens his expression, and he waves Nox in. "It ain't no inconvenience. I was painting a thing." In case the easel and paintbrush didn't make that obvious. "Sometimes I get a little, um --" His head ducks sheepishly, a hint of crimson tinting the light around him. "-- I dunno, caught up? It -- leaks." His fingers gesture to the swirl around him. "But, man, you didn't need to -- thanks. How you been?" "I know all about leaking." Nox sounds amused and, with her hesitation banished by the explanation, she eases past him into the living room. "I hadn't realized you painted, was that an interest that came as a result of your talents?" she asks, sparing the easel a peek but doing her best not to peek for /too/ long because manners. Instead she angles herself to set the picnic basket down on the living room table. "It isn't very much. A tin of cocoa from a health food store, to replace what was served, some scarves knitted for your sons. The yarn is acrylic, unfortunately..." There's a minute pause before she finishes, "And I have been well. Yourself? You seem troubled, sir." "No, I started drawing and painting -- uh." Jackson's nose crinkles up as his smile spreads wider, and he shuts the door behind Nox. "Before I could -- well, pretty much as soon as I could hold a brush. Sometimes I wonder if once in a while the X-Gene don't kinda listen to who we /are/ and express itself accordingly. M'best friend's a musician an' he manipulates sound. 'Cept the music came first. Weird, huh?" The dark swirls around him continue lightening with Nox's explanation of her basket, until it's just a vague hazy aura of blue. "Hey, that was real nice of you. You knitted and everything? I bet they'll be thrilled. I ain't --" He shrugs, absently hefting his palette. "I ain't troubled, exactly. I think I just get a little lost in what I'm working on, y'know? How's Tatters an' Lily an' Marrow doing? Did they have fun here? I didn't expect it to turn into such a party." "No weirder than anything else I've heard of. Though it does rather make me wish my own gene had perhaps listened a little more to me before expressing itself." This is lightly, and softly, spoken and followed by a moment when Nox simply phases out, leaving a slightly darker patch of air in the living room. When she reappears, she's careful to leave her face more accented so that he can /see/ her smiling as well as hear it. One arm is also visible, curled against her ribcage. "But one can understand becoming lost in art. And please...it really is nothing." She's probably speaking the truth, if the basket's condition is any indication. "So far as I am aware, we are all doing well. It was a welcome diversion from the usual day, I'm not surprised that it did turn into a party. What is it that you're painting? May I look?" "Sure," Jackson says, nudging the door to his room wider open so the easel inside is properly visible. "Parties just kinda spontaneously happen around here sometimes." He's looking Nox over, thoughtful, and then he slips away to the kitchen to -- wrap his easel carefully in plastic wrap, and stick it in the freezer. He washes his brush in the sink, heedless of the paint that slops over the sole dish there waiting to be washed. "What kinda things interest you? If yours'd listened to you, what do you think it woulda done?" The wrapping ritual was unexpected. Nox observes in silent curiosity. It's only when he's finished that she asks, "Does that keep the paint from drying? Knitting seems less...involved." As she speaks, she's wisping closer to the opened door until she's close enough to peer inside at the work in progress. What her opinion of it might be goes unsaid. What she /does/ say, without looking at him, is instead, "I was very young when it came on me. Had it listened to the me I was then, I would have become a flower, perhaps. Or a horse-hybrid. All girls are mad for horses, that too is in their genes." "Oh -- yeah. Oil paint freezes at a lower temperature than my freezer is so it don't -- /freeze/-freeze, it just kinda keeps 'em so I can keep working later? Cuz they're expensive, havin' to throw them out any time I need to stop working I'd go broke. Uh. Broke/r/." Jackson shrugs, slipping around into his room to hang the cleaned brush near many others. "I love horses. I have a couple at home. Might be I'm part girl?" He turns to look Nox over with a crooked smile. "Would you've liked being a flower? Or a centaur, mebbe? Flowers don't live very long. How about the you you are now?" "Your shirt would agree that you are," Nox intones solemnly. "And the girl I am envies you your horses." She's still studying the canvas. Once Jax is actually /in/ the room, she grows bold enough to approach the easel to consider the painting close at hand and from different angles. "I like this," she finally decides, "it reminds me of many things. But I would be a poor flower, a worse centaur. The me I am now...music. Music, always. But unlike your musician friend, music did not favor me in turn. Such is life, I do well enough...this is very good, Jax." Jackson blushes at the comment on his shirt, looking down as though only just remembering he's wearing it. "This is one of my favourites," he admits, with a small laugh. The blush deepens at the commentary on his painting, his head bowing shyly. "Thanks. It's always kinda been the one thing that I -- /get/, you know? I ain't good at much but art I kinda always felt -- like me." He's leaning against the wall, now, across from the easel, looking it over and then looking at Nox. "Reminds you of what? My horses are back home in Georgia. My folks got a farm." He shrugs a shoulder. "Music's nice. What sort of music?" is quickly followed by, "-- what does favour you? Everyone's got something." "Oh, a lot of things." Nox pauses to consider the list. "Dreams. The things one sees from the corner of the eye, the things that go away when you look squarely at them. Places away from here. Other paintings. You have a knack," she says, agreeing with the process of getting art. "I enjoy theater. Musical theater but jazz as well." She turns to face him, the smile returning and her arms spreading slightly before she clasps her elbow to her ribs again. "Looking over things favors me. Someone would call it spying, I call it being vigilant." Jackson smiles, quick and perhaps a little amused. "Vigilant's good. The world gives lotsa reason to keep your eyes peeled. I wish I were better at it. I'm mostly just good at panicking instead if I miss something that could hurt my --" He doesn't finish this thought, but his eye skips away, out the door towards the other bedroom doors across the living room. "You okay?" he asks then, kind of abrupt and with a slight crease of brow as he looks at Nox holding her ribs. "Your children. Yes. I always thought I was poorly suited to emergencies, until I found myself with people to look after. It changes things, doesn't it? Suddenly there is less time or need to focus on one's self." Nox glances at the painting again--the fragile figure among the stalks--before focusing once more on Jackson. "Oh...I am, yes. I bruised myself the other day. I feel it less, in this form, but they still complain. Thank you for asking," she smiles. "That's kind of you. Will your boys be home soon? I shouldn't keep you long." "I think I'm still adjusting to the whole looking after people thing," Jackson admits, a little bashfully, "it changes -- everything. -- Found yourself?" This wording makes his head tilt slightly to one side, looking at Nox curiously. "Did you kinda just stumble across your family, too?" His tongue pokes out of the side of his mouth, wiggling at one lip ring. "Bruised ribs're no fun, are you okay? Is there anything that can help? Like can you take painkillers or something, cuz I could get you some --?" At the question he just shakes his head, glancing out the window at the current amount of sun outside. "They'll -- my youngest's going to a friend after school," he says, with only a /slight/ tinge of fretting to the words, "the twins go to boarding school outta the city. They come back Friday nights for the weekend but not usually till evening." Nox hesitates...and then slowly phases into something a little more amorphous. "If it doesn't bother you to speak to someone who isn't there," the haze tells him, "then this does help. I find most seem to prefer something approaching human dimensions." It also conveniently solves the common problem of not knowing what to do with one's hands while standing and talking! Two birds, one stone. "It is an adjustment, to be responsible, isn't it? It colors how they see you, how you see yourself..." She makes a soft sound, like a hum. "Stumbled across them is an excellent way to describe it. A happy accident when I needed a place to...be." "It don't bother me," Jackson assures Nox. "I got a good friend upstairs who's also sometimes a shadow. Plus my upstairs neighbor is a telepath and sometimes he just /talks/ to me from up there when I'm down here and let me tell you, nothing pulls me out of the mood faster than /sudden voice in my head/ out of the blue." Given that he's gesturing to his easel, it's probable he's not talking about any inappropriate sort of The Mood. "S'a big adjustment," he agrees, his smile kind of wry. "I don't know how good I manage responsible. S'weird, you know? Like suddenly people look to you and -- and most days I don't even know what /I'm/ doing with my life let alone helping other folks figure it out." He shrugs, lifting his hand to run it through bright pink-and-purple hair. "Sometimes I think that's the best kind of family. I mean, blood is blood and don't get me wrong, I love my folks, but the ones we choose -- the ones that choose us --" He shrugs, again. "Sometimes the world works those things out just how they need to be." "Oh?" Just that, nothing more. Nox murmurs the syllable at mention of another shadow for a neighbor but otherwise she does what shadows do best--she listens. It isn't until Jax has finished speaking and a silence falls that she speaks as well--confirming that yes, she's still in the room. "It is a difficult age for it, a difficult situation. I would guess you are no older than I was when it began. But if you weren't suited to it, I don't believe your home would glow as it does, with everyone here." She pauses. "Beyond, of course, the dictates of your ability." "Yeah. He's different than you, though. He sucks light in /all/ the time." Given the way Jackson tenses, just faint, just brief, at this moment, it is possible that being around someone sucking all the light is not the most /pleasant/ of experiences for him. "How old /are/ you? I'm 21. I guess that's like an adult." Not that he sounds particularly certain. He studies Nox for a moment, his smile fading into quiet contemplation. "Does your home glow? You all seemed pretty tight." "How old am I?" Nox sounds thoughtful; she is also careful to keep a safe distance once sucking light is mentioned. Just in case. "That's difficult to answer. It is so easy to lose track of time in certain conditions...I believe I am perhaps twenty-six? Adulthood is not something that comes with age though," she observes solemnly. "It is an experiential condition, or so I have found. And no, our home often does quite the opposite. We are...oh, Jax. It is hard to speak after so much hiding. But should you or your boys ever need safe haven, it seems right you should know. We live below the streets." "I'm still trying to work up to adult, then," Jax admits with a crooked grin. "-- Below the streets? Like, down in the -- subways and sewers and all?" he asks, uncertainly. "Only there was this guy looking for a kid -- I wouldn't tell nobody nothing," he assures Nox hastily. "But he was askin' about that cuz he saw me being mutanty on the news and I guess he figured I'd just know /everything/ about where mutants go. And my boys --" He hesitates, looking down at his hands. "I mean, it's always good to know where's safe places. Cuz not many are," he says, quieter. "We like -- you and Tatters and everyone?" "The subways, the sewers, the tunnels and deeper still. It is not always the /safest/ haven but it is a place. Especially for those like your boys," Nox tells him gently. The distinction is clear, or so she seems to feel. "For those like me, for those like Tatterhood. And others. The boy too, he is there." Here she makes that quiet and amused sound again. "The detective, he is most persistent." "It's hard for them," Jackson agrees quietly, evidently understanding the distinction as well. "They go to school right now at a place that's safe. But s'a school. It's good to have somewhere they can learn, but they won't be able to live there forever. I'd like to think I could keep 'em safe forever, but --" His nose wrinkles. "Some day they'll be out there. And need more than just me. I met him," he adds, suddenly. "The boy. I ran into him, um," he blushes, slightly, "picking up food near where I work. He seemed -- nice. Are there lots of kids with you? Cuz -- I mean, everyone wants different things in life. But if any of 'em /did/ want a place they could study --" He shrugs a shoulder. "Like I said, the boys' school is -- safe. For kids like them." Something ripples through the haze that Nox has become, darkening in places, disappearing entirely in others. "Did you? He is a good boy. Very sweet. Why do your cheeks color, Jax? Did something happen?" As for the matter of school, she begins to sink towards the floor at the mention of it and her voice gets even softer, though that hardly seems possible. "We've heard of the school. I've taught the children, until now. It's away, further than I can easily go to watch them. It's something we're still discussing." "No, nothing happened. I just, um. Saw him --" Jackson blushes further, rubbing at the back of his neck. "S'probably hard sometimes to get the things you need down there? He was --" But he just shakes his head, saying again, "seems like a nice kid. But -- yeah. S'far. I went there. My folks were nervous, too. /Georgia/ to New York is /way/ too far for them to check in on me. Think I mighta died if I'd stayed back home, though," he says, with a crooked smile. "World's rough sometimes." "Ah." That sounded like understanding. "It is difficult at times, and he feels the need to contribute. He is a good boy," Nox repeats, certain enough on this subject that she's able to put her voice on a more conversational level--no more lurking near the floor. Then she seizes on the opportunity for a topic shift: "Your parents...have they met your boys? That would be a harder distance to cross but for loved ones, perhaps worth the effort. If one has the resources." "Yeah. I think the boys get the same impulse when they know money's tight. Kinda wish they didn't have to worry. They're still young." Jackson's fingers rake through his hair, and the question draws his eyes over towards the canvas, for a moment. "Yeah," he says, with a slight smile. "My folks have met them. We went down there once. They came up here once. S'ar but -- they're good. They love the kids. Our hometown's not the safest place to take 'em but the farm's big and away from people." His smile quirks, again, bright but lopsided. "They've always been real supportive with the mutant thing. Actually I think being gay freaked 'em out /way/ more, they're /still/ not cool with that. Real Catholic, you know?" He may smile, it may be bright, but a shimmer of darkness extends towards Jax's shoulder. If Nox were solid, that would be a sympathetic touch. "I know Catholic very well, yes. It is a sorry thing when what should exalt...sets limits instead. But it's good that their minds aren't entirely closed?" Not that she sounds entirely certain of that--as if her experience with the grey area in that spectrum has been limited. "Sometimes I think youth is a great danger than any potential mutation could be," she goes on, musing. "Or maybe it's only that the world is that much harder on them." Jackson flashes Nox a grateful smile at the brief not-touch. "Yeah, s'weird. I mean, I am too, I guess, but not -- in the way that hates people, y'know? People is people. S'hard for me to figure out why God would want you to hate anyone for how he made 'em. Gay, mutant, whatever. It's how we are. They're --" His nose wrinkles. "Complicated. But family usually is, yeah?" He nods along with Nox's assesment of youth, smile dimming into something a little more tired. "The world's real hard on kids. That's when the world should be taking care of 'em /most/. But it seems to just be the time to batter at 'em hardest." "It is a question for the ages." Nox sighs, or at least gives the impression of sighing. There is a pulse of shadow, a sense of sinking. "Of the ages. An /eternal/ question." There, she seems happy with that phrasing. "Family and children are both very complicated but one does what one can. Your boys. They seem healthy, happy, bright. The world is a terrible place at times but you seem to have done well by them." "They've been through a lot," Jackson says, and this is quieter; for a moment around him the air darkens. Just a moment, before clearing up. "I try. I don't think I always quite know what I'm doing. But I just don't want the world to keep being terrible at 'em, you know? There's enough of that out --" He waves a hand towards the window. "There. Your folks. You help look after them?" He looks at Nox, curious. "Is it -- I mean, how do you -- there's just always so /much/, you know?" The darkening of the air around Jax allows Nox to slip in again, this time offering an ethereal sort of hug before she withdraws. Or maybe she was just sliding by him because it leaves her on the side closer to the door than the painting. "I will tell you a chatelaine's secret," she confides. "There always so much, and so quickly until sometimes it feels you can't get a breath, the way it feels when you step outside into a cold wind and it strikes your face, stealing your air. When it goes like that, there's no way of telling /what/ you should be doing. But because they're yours, you do as you can in the moment. And the next one, and the next one. I look after them, I let them think as they will, do as they will, and I do what I can in the spaces between. Does that make sense?" Jax leans into the hug as much as it can be leaned into, smiling into the shadow until Nox has passed. He draws in a slow breath, considering her words quietly for a while, his gaze drifting away out the window as he thinks. "Sometimes feels like that," he agrees. "But yeah. That -- makes sense. I guess it's all we can do. What we can." His smile seems almost as much grimace as grin, now, but there's a hint of amusement in his voice. "Thinking and doing as they will's sometimes as hard as everything the world throws at 'em. I mean, I want them to be their own people, right? But, man, /teenagers/." "Adolescence is a time of focused insanity. I read that somewhere once. Or heard it. It's hard to remember, sometimes. Sadly, it does not always get better." For the first time, Nox allows a note of sadness to creep into her voice, something to match the grimace. "The insanity. We have some of those as well. I wish I had more to tell you. To help. But you seem to do well. I can only dream of having done so well, when I took mine under my wing." "Sounds about right," Jackson says, with a wrinkle of his nose. And then, "You care about them. That's pretty clear. I mean, okay, that doesn't solve a lot of things. But it means at least your heart's in the right place when you got decisions to make, yeah? It's at least a good solid foundation." "Oh yes." The amusement comes back and with it, a swaying sort of shadow dance as Nox grows more visible. Not human visible, but there she is, a shadow in the doorway. "A foundation of good intentions. That should go into the dictionary, under the entry for parenting. I should leave you to your painting, Jax, and your children when they return home. But thank you for allowing me to see your work in progress." "Thank you for coming. And the cocoa. And the scarfs." Jackson says, his smile brightening as he looks back towards Nox. "And --" There's a beat of hesitation, his teeth clicking down against his lip, but it seems more shy than reluctant. "There's a lot of us. Um, in this building? My apartment, the one across the hall too. And upstairs just above me. We're kinda all a little /weird/," he says, with a laugh, "but they're good people. If any of yours ever need a place or anything, I know you could at least find people here who'll be safe to come to." He's blushing, slightly, with this offer, but it sounds sincere. He slips out towards the hall, the living room, to go unlock the front door again. "A strange thing to blush for, offering sanctuary." Nox speaks so quietly, it's hard to make out the note of teasing there. She keeps pace with him, sliding along the wall and the floor to get to the front door. "It's good to know people. If I ever have cause, and I pray not to, but if the need arises, I will remember. And you as well, Jax. You can go to the tunnels, take your boys, but don't go deep. Wait until we find you. There are things deeper in the tunnels...so it is better if you not mention it to the boys, yes?" "Well, it's a little -- presumptuous, I mean you don't know me that well. I could be a creep. Except I'm not. I just know it gets hard." Jackson scuffs his fingers through his hair, and her last caution makes him laugh. "Oh, gosh. If I told them there was /dangerous/ things in the tunnels Shane would be there in a /heartbeat/ pokin' around and he'd drag Bastian along with." His knuckles scrub at his cheeks, his expression amused. "But thanks. It's good to know. You take care, miss." "You could be," Nox agrees, "and you are certainly a threat to my personal health, but I like to pretend I am a decent judge of character. Creeps typically do not offer cocoa, nor throw open their doors for people fleeing the police." And because of that, and because he didn't reject the last hug, she flows upwards until she's tall enough to be briefly human-shaped. This time the hand on his shoulder is more easily felt. "Thank you. Take care." Then she's off, flitting into darkness that flits along the baseboards towards the elevator shaft. Jackson smiles, and the squeeze to his shoulder is answered with a squeeze of one arm, brief and light in a swift hug. For a moment he watches, as she melts back into shadows, but then, still smiling, he closes the door behind her to return to his painting.