Logs:Normal

Normal
Dramatis Personae Jax, Samara	2020-06-22 "I ain't sending you nowhere."
Location <NYC> Evolve Cafe - Lower East Side
Spacious and open, this coffeeshop has a somewhat industrial feel to it, grey resin floors below and exposed-beam ceilings that have been painted up in a dancing swirl of abstract whorls and starbursts, a riot of colour splashed against a white background. The walls alternate between brick and cheerfully lime-green painted wood that extends to the paneling beneath the brushed-steel countertops. There's an abundance of light, though rather than windows (which are scarce) it comes from plentiful hanging steel lamps. The walls here are home to artwork available for sale; though the roster of prints and paintings and drawings and photographs changes on a regular basis it has one thing in common -- all the artists displayed are mutants. The seating spaced around the room is spread out enough to keep the room from feeling cluttered. Black chairs, square black tables that mostly seat two or four though they're frequently pushed around and rearranged to make space for larger parties. In the back corner of the room is more comfortable seating, a few large black-corduroy sofas and armchairs with wide tables between them. There's a shelf of card and board games back here available for customers to sit and play. The chalkboard menus hanging behind the counter change frequently, always home to a wide variety of drinks (with an impressive roster of fair-trade coffees and teas largely featured) though their sandwiches and wraps and soups and snacks of the day change often. An often-changing variety of baked goods sit behind the display case at the counter halfway back in the room, and the opposite side of the counter holds a small selection of homemade ice creams. A pair of single-user bathrooms flanks the stairway in back of the cafe; at night, the thump of music can be heard from above, coming from the adjoining nightclub of the same name that sits up the stairs above the coffeehouse. Evolve has just opened for the morning, and there are not very many customers yet except for the a regulars who know exactly what they want. Samara might count as a regular by now, having just sat down at a table by the window with a muffin and a hot chocolate. Her glow is dim, though it's hard to tell whether this is due being dirty, which on her is much more obvious than on someone who doesn't emit light from every square inch of skin, or some other reason. She wears a grubby light green t-shirt, even grubbier blue jeans, sneakers that are worse, a dark green backpack is tucked under the table and between her legs, and she smells of the sewers. The kitchen doors swing open. The young man who emerges does not technically work here, but none of the actual employees seem to mind that in the least. He's carefully balancing two large racks; one of cupcakes neatly glazed with delicate colourful marzipan flowers crowning each, the other a large tray of cookies seemingly not long out of the oven, judging by the careful wide berth one of the baristas gives him as he navigates with it. Jax takes his time in setting the baked goods out behind the display case, tucking little label cards with each. Then emerges from behind the counter, dusting his hands against each other as he makes his way across the dining room. He's brightly colourful today -- layered pink and purple tank tops, black capri pants heavily embroidered with pastel insects, stompy colourblocked pastel boots, large heart-shaped sunglasses, a slight iridescence to his purple ombre makeup. He's carrying a large coffee in his hand, his teeth clicking against the rainbowy straw as he nears, tipping the glass up closer to his face. "Samara?" He's stopped a short distance away from the table, brows lifting questioningly. Only lowering the coffee a little. Samara has made some progress on her drink but not much on her food except to carefully cut the muffin into smaller pieces with a butter knife. She looks up from this delicate operation when Jax approaches. The glow of her skin flutters a little brighter underneath all the grime. "Hi. Yes, I'm Samara. Are you." The sentence drops off abruptly. Her eye shine intensely than her skin, making it hard for most to tell where her gaze is focused, though Jax can probably sense the rapid, nervous shift of her eyes by the change in the directionality of the light they admit. After she scans the cafe, she lowers her voice and asks, "Are you Jax?" "That's me," Jax replies cheerfully. "D'you mind if I sit?" He tips his coffee toward an empty seat opposite Samara. His mouth closes around the straw again after, metal rattling against the ice in his glass. He tips his head curiously at the flutter of light, but only waits. Sipping at his coffee. Samara's skin brightens again, though the glow is unsteady now, like a candle burning more wick than wax. "I don't mind," she says, setting her butter knife down carefully. "Thank you." She puts her hands flat on the table to either side of her plate and looks up at Jax. "How are you doing?" "Keepin' busy." Jax doesn't quite sit at the table, pulling the chair farther back from it than necessary and resting his glass on his knee once he takes a seat. He has one leg tucked up under him, the other ankle wrapped around the leg of the chair. "Looks like you been havin' kind of a time of it. You been staying with Taylor'n them? Down below?" Samara's eyes follow Jax as he sits down. "Yes." Her glow dims a little and then steadies. "At night. I still come up here during the day." She picks up her mug and sips from it, her fingers tight against its smooth sides. "I don't like it down there." "They're good folks. I can see how it ain't the right fit for everyone down there, though." Jax's brows knit, his pearly-marbled purple and white fingernails tapping against his glass slowly. "Your mail said your parents wanted you to learn to control your powers? Do they -- know where you're at, then?" Samara licks her lips, putting down her mug. "My parents wanted me to learn it from doctors." Her light flutters a sickly gray and she presses her hands against the table top again. "I don't want to see more doctors, and if I learn to do it myself first, then they won't send me." She's staring at Jax's fingernails. Her voice is quieter when she replies, finally, "I left them a note that said what I was trying to do, but I didn't say where I was or who I was looking for." She hesitates, dimming even further as she glances at the door. "Are you going to send me back?" "I ain't sending you nowhere." Jax shakes his head. "Just tryin' to figure out --" He bites down on his lip. "Learnin' how to control your power ain't something that happens overnight. If you're trying to learn it so your parents won't fuss, you're probably gonna have to tell them where you are. Or they're like to be fussing already. And if they do something like tell the police that you're missing, that might be a whole different world of trouble you don't want. Especially if you're trying not to have --" His lips press together, thin, his fingers clenching around his glass. "Doctors involved." He takes a sip from the coffee, slow. "Helping you understand your powers, I'm glad to try an' work with you on that. But you gotta understand it's something that's likely to take months or years, even, not -- something we can talk about for a weekend an' send you home." The fluttering eases with Jax's initial answer, but then returns again. Samara nods, the motion stiff and slightly mechanical. "Learning how to act normal the first time took years, too." Her eyes stay on Jax's nails. "I don't want to make my parents worry, but if I tell them where I am, I think they will make the police send me back, and then make me go to the doctors." Her hands press harder into the tabletop. "They don't think I can do anything on my own, so they won't believe I'm learning to do it without doctors. I can't tell them you're helping me because then they might call the police on you. I don't want to make trouble for you, or anyone." Jax's brows scrunch deeper. "I didn't say nothin' bout normal." His voice is flat, and blunt. The marbled patterns on his nails are shifting slightly, swirling in slow disorganized motion. "What is it, exactly, that you're lookin' to control?" "That's what they want me to be. How I act and how I look." Samara frowns slightly. "I didn't used to glow, and they want me to go back to not glowing. Like this." She closes her eyes. Her light flickers down to almost nothing. To Jax's eyes, it never actually actually goes out completely, but grows dim enough that, for a few seconds, at least, she could be mistaken for a human teenager, if a dirty and undernourished one. Then it comes back, fluctuating until it settles at the brightness it had been. Her eyes open, the light in them as fierce as before. "I've tried to do it for longer, but I can't." She pulls her hands away from the surface of the table and braces them against the seat of her chair, instead. "I like glowing," she adds, quiet but with a firm emphasis on the word 'like'. "I just want to turn it off where they can see it so they don't send me to more doctors." Jax's fingers continue to tap at his glass, and he pokes his tongue into the side of his cheek. "That ain't a thing I can make no promises about. Everyone's abilities work different. Some people is always gonna stand out, no matter how much practice you get at it. I can try to work with you to get things to a point that's as safe and comfortable as we can manage, for you." His teeth sink into his lip, head bowing as he acknowledges: "I know that's a complicated question. What's safe and comfortable for you, I know it ain't possible to separate that from people's expectations, or from how people react when they see you, or from their threats to send you away if you don't look how they want you to look." Samara sits up straighter, her light fluttering brighter and tinting pink. "Thank you. I know you can't promise. I just didn't know what else to do." She dims again. "Maybe this was kind of extreme." There's a small, uncertain uplift in her tone. "I'l tell my parents where I am. They're always afraid that bad things will happen to me. I guess they're not always wrong." Her brows wrinkle. "Probably I shouldn't tell them I'm living in the sewers. Even if it's safer down there than up here." "It's a dangerous world for folks like us. Bad things might happen. But they're more likely to happen if they keep you hidden away without letting you learn strategies an' tools for dealing with 'em." Jax sets his glass back down on his knee, tapping a finger lightly against its side. "I teach at a high school," he adds, "that has a lot of experience with this. Helping kids figure out their powers. Do you think they'd be more willing to let you learn if it was in that kind of environment? I don't know if you'd be interested, either, but if you are I could help make arrangements so's you could get out there and get a tour, see if it feels right for you." Samara tilts her head slightly to one side. "You mean Xavier's, right? I don't know. They do want me to learn, but I think they don't want me learning from other mutants?" Her face scrunches up and her light flutters orange. "They have a lot of ideas that make no sense to me. But maybe that means they'll be alright with it." She picks up her hot chocolate again and sips from it, the orange shifting back to pink, and then purple. "I don't like school, but it might be nice to go to one that has other mutant kids? They won't get mad at me for glowing like my old classmates." She rubs her dirty fingers against the glossy glaze of the mug. "I would like to see it." "Seems likely your folks will want you in school whether you like it or not," Jax says, wryly. "Xavier's has a lot of other mutant kids. I'll get you set up with a tour. It's quiet out there right now, on account of summer break, but there's still some kids around who'll probably be glad to talk to you 'bout their experiences. M'sure some of the Morlocks could fill you in, too." Samara brightens again, faintly purplish now. "Okay. I like quiet. And talking to people." She starts nodding, then continues bobbing her head for a second or two before stopping. Even so, there's a kind of animation in her stillness now, the glow of her skin pulsing subtly. "Thank you. I will email my parents and also try to be a little more clean before that happens." "Aright, sugar. I'll be in touch 'bout getting you out to Xavier's, then." Jax starts to uncurl his leg from beneath himself, but hesitates before fully standing. "You gonna be aright till then? Getting enough food, an' all?" Samara goes back to bobbing her head again, but slows to a stop this time instead of cutting off the movement abruptly. "I think so." There's an uncertain flutter to her light, and her gaze drops to the neatly divided muffin on the plate in front of her. "The Morlocks share with me and I have some money and I eat some stuff from the gardens also sometimes they just give me food here." Fortified by this litany of food sources, she nods firmly. "I'll be alright." Jax looks down at the muffin, too, then back to Samara. His teeth scrape against his lip, and ultimately he just nods, sucking down the last of his coffee as he gets up from his chair. "Okay. Okay, that's -- good. For now. I'll be in touch, then, real soon. 'Bout school an' all. Y'stay safe, sugar."