X-MEN MANSION ROOF
The roof has open access to students and teachers alike, though it is preferred that no one venture up top. However, as no one is around to enforce the rule, students can hang around and enjoy the view of the grounds around them, though the only way down is back through the stairs that brought them up or off any of the mansion's four walls.
X-Men Time
Monday, May 25th
"--and the fact is, that chocolate-mint yogurt is a gyp. A
teasing gyp. It
smells chocolately, but it
tastes too minty. It's like eating toothpaste while standing in the middle of a candy-store!"
Gavin ranted to Rook for no apparent reason other than that the smaller boy always listened as they stepped through the door onto the roof. The bird-boy was still holding his shirt in one taloned hand from when he took it off to keep it from getting uncomfortably wet during the jet-skiing. He was glad he brought it--and that it was still dry--once Gavin realized that the pleasant breeze he felt down on ground-level outside the mansion was too cold for his liking at this altitude, and quickly pulled on the neon-orange tee.
Rook was still dripping when he crossed onto the roof, listening intently to Gavin as he spoke. It wasn't that Rook didn't have anything to say. He just didn't have anything to add. Some of his experiences weren't quite the same as Gavin's. But that didn't stop him from listening. Rook walked slowly over to the edge, sitting on the slightly raised edge with his legs dangling over the edge. "I have never had yogurt. And I can barely enjoy chocolate." He didn't make a huge deal about his food allergies because it didn't really bother him.
Eleanor was already lurking about, several paces away from the third-floor access from which Gavin and then Rook emerged. She was still in her striped bikini, but she was wearing an oversized tee shirt over top of it, which was tied in a knot at her left hip and hung diagonally off of the opposite shoulder. The teenager was leaning rather carelessly over the half-wall that edged roof's perimeter, her sneakered feet barely touching the ground as she dangled somewhat precariously over the back of the mansion. When she heard the boys' voices, she seemed to perk an ear in their direction, and even sort of tilted her face in their direction. 'You guys bring munchies?' El interjected much more loudly than necessary, although when she spoke, she directed it out to no one in particular, into the darkness settling over the grounds of the school.
"...'Barely'? I've heard of people not liking chocolate--alt
hough it seems like blasphemy, sometimes--but 'barely'? How do you 'barely' enjoy something?" Gavin cocked a suspicious eyebrow at the smaller boy, deciding that the word "barely" deserved more attention than a lack of yogurt in Rook's life. He was about the lean against the very ledge Rook sat on when he turned to face Eleanor. "...AW, MAN! I knew I forgot something..." The bird-boy raked his talons through his head-feathers in a dramatically mournful position. Damn you for not magically teleporting to wherever you are needed, Cheetos!
Rook blinked as they were interrupted by a girl. He couldn't really respond positively, since no, he had no munchies for her. Instead he swung his legs a little over the side of the mansion and looked back at her. "My apologies, we did not." His eyes then went to Gavin, who he was uncertain wanted to hear the explanation of why he didn't enjoy chocolate. But it seemed his attention was diverted and the boy turned back to stare over the dark grounds below.
'AAUUUCH,' was the girl's initial, guttural reply to both Gavin and Rook's admittance that, no, neither one of them had brought anything along with them to eat. With a little oof, Eleanor eased herself safely back over the lip of the roof and brushed the front of her shirt off with both hands. 'Neither one of you fine gentlemen would be so inclined to go get us some refreshments, would you?' she asked sweetly and suddenly jarred forward to hold onto the roof edge, as if for dear life, even though she wasn't tall enough to tip-over the half-wall.
"Might I recommend a sweet-salty-cheesy selection to satisfy all appetites?" Gavin answered with a mock-butler voice, holding his claws out in the pyramid position. "Barbecue potato chips, pretzels and Cheetos sound good to everyone?" The bird-boy glanced between his two companions for approval or suggestions, "Perhaps a few sodas?"
Rook didn't respond, but he also didn't pull a face at the suggestions. Over the past few months, Gavin's eating habits had started making Rook cringe less. Even if he still didn't touch half the things the bird-boy wanted to push on him, that didn't stop Gavin from trying. "Perhaps I could go get snacks?" he said, making it sound like a suggestion that followed up Gavin's question about soda. But no matter the amount of monotone in his voice, Rook could not completely pull off the innocent suggestion and just a bit of criticism leaked in.
'That sounds ah-mazing', Eleanor said without pretense. She was hungry, and wouldn't be too picky, as long as someone else was going to fetch snacks. Swiveling her glassy-eyed gaze from Gavin to Rook, a wide, lazy smile curving her lips. 'Sure thing, kiddo!' she said to the Japanese boy with a mock salute, having to let go of the ledge momentarily to do so.
"Heh~ No." Gavin said plainly as he clamped one birdy-hand on Rook's shoulder--since his arm was in short sleeves--as though it would keep him from moving and waved the other birdy-hand at Eleanor in a shooing motion. "I'll have a root beer and Hisoka will drink a lemonade." Not only did the bird-boy not trust Rook to bring back the unhealthy fatty goodness Gavin described, but he still had to be interrogated on his apparently-complicated relationship with chocolate.
There was only a slight raise of the eyebrow from Rook and he tried not to look distrusting of Gavin's intentions. It might be that the boy was honestly planning on going to get him something he would actually enjoy. Or that he was going to continue his mission to turn Rook to the dark side of snacking. Whichever it was, Rook would just wait and see. He gave Gavin a small shrug, as if to say 'do what you like', and turned to look back at the grounds.
'Boyfrien' is boss-eeeeeeeee,' was all that Eleanor replied, with a shit-eating grin and a dismissive glance at Gavin's gesture. She winked at Rook, pursed her lips, then looked back over the span of the mansion's grounds and started to whistle a dissonant little tune that almost sounded like the Oscar Meyer theme song.
Gavin's feathered eyebrow twitched. Not because of Rook's shrug, that was actually something he approved of. Not because Eleanor called him "boyfriend" or "bossy", he took no offense to either. But did she not know that his dismissive gesture was intended to send her off to get the food? "Ahem."
Although Eleanor didn't pick up on it, as soon as Rook realized that Gavin had no intention of moving, he looked over at the girl and then back to Gavin. The other boy didn't even blush or argue the boyfriend thing. That was interesting. Hisoka on the other hand did start turning a bit red but if he was lucky that would go unnoticed in the dimming light. "I could go get it," he said quietly, making the suggestion one more time in case Gavin didn't know that Eleanor didn't want to go. He could tell that at least.
'Got something in your throat?' Eleanor proceeded to inquired in an excessively loud manner after Gavin cleared his throat. Keeping one hand on the ledge, El leaned-back and turned slightly to face the boys. 'Maybe you need some lozenges, too,' the teenager added ever-so-helpfully as her freehand clamped-down over her throat. She gave a lame, dry little cough, as if to drive the point home.
"No, thank you~ Just the root beer will do fine. If you want to pick up some lozenges just in case, though, you might as well," Gavin gave Eleanor a dry, unamused smile, completely ignoring Rook's offer and not even noticing the blush since his attention was on the apparently unhelpful female.
"I can go," Rook said again. It was obvious that neither of the other two would, so he slipped from his perch and started inching sideways towards the doorway to the stairs. It would make sense for him to go while these two were having a battle of lack-of-wits. He didn't need snacks, but Gavin seems to inhale them like air.
'You are a dawwwwwwwwwwl.,' Eleanor cooed to Rook, to whom she gave her entire attention. 'A tiny, little doll! Your buddy could learn a thing or two from you,' she added with something of a raspy giggle. 'Thank you, thank you, thank you!'
Gavin out-and-out grimaced at Eleanor's cooing. "Uh. No. See, the two of us have things to talk about." Completely forgetting either Rook's ability or his current lack of sleeves, the bird-boy reached out--all the while giving Eleanor a cold look--and grabbed Rook's arm to pull him back. "EEEEEEIIK!" The now copper-haired, hazel-eyed boy leaned back against the ledge to keep less pressure on his flat, human feet and released his brief grip to hold his pinky-ed hands awkwardly in front of him. "Fffff! Still freakin' ouch!"
Rook was about to bolt when Gavin touched him. He already knew what would happen to the poor bird-boy, but he still winced in sympathetic pain. "Sorry!" came his automatic response, even if it wasn't necessarily his fault that Gavin was momentarily depowered. The young Asian pulled both hands up to his face, balling his fists in front of his chin as if he could hide the fact that he was immediately ashamed that his power had caused someone pain. Again. And he didn't want Eleanor, this new person, to know what his odd ability even was. But a smart person could probably guess.
With her head lolled to one side, Eleanor was nodding and humming, 'Mmm-hmm,' albeit in the dismissive manner that indicated she was only pretending to consider what Gavin was saying. When the bird boy suddenly shrieked and transformed, however, El flinched slightly at the high-pitched sound before her brow furrowed at the sight of the de-feathered, and currently more human-looking mutant. 'MMMMMmmmmmm,' she said, as if contemplating something, her gaze flickering between Rook and Gavin. 'Mmmmmm. Interesting. Very interesting,' the girl succinctly added, her mouth curling into a great, big smile, most likely at Gavin's discomfort, but she didn't say what she thought was interesting. 'I didn't realize it was mmmmmmolting season.'
"Nothing for you to be sorry about," Gavin snapped at Rook--not that he was angry at the smaller boy but ow! His feathers were already returning and feet and hands reforming to their usual birdy-shape by the time he turned to level a glare at Eleanor. His jaw clenched as he waited out the second wave of pain before sliding down to sit on the floor and responding hoarsely: "So freakin' hilarious. Why don't you go practice your comedy routine somewhere else?"
Rook would have already dissolved into tears if Eleanor hadn't resorted to teasing Gavin. That wasn't okay. At least not to Rook. His face hardened from the sorry expression to something else. It was almost anger, almost annoyance, and was definitely directed at the girl. "That is not nice." It was odd, Rook saying anything in response to teasing. But then he was usually the butt of the joke. Not anyone else. And he didn't defend himself at all. But he would defend Gavin.
'What's not nice,' Eleanor retorted, holding one hand in the air, finger up in a number one position, 'Is that I actually asked nicely if one of you would go get something to eat, only to be spoken to by Farty McFeatherhead like imma maid, or something.' Pausing, she swirled her finger in the air. 'I just happened to turn the tables.'
Well, that was mildly alarming. Gavin had never actually seen such a harsh expression on Rook's face. Not directed at anyone but Rook, himself, at least. "Not a big deal, Hisoka," I actually have been molting all day... "The name-calling is super mature, though," still slumped against the ledge, he rolled his eyes at Eleanor, completely disregarding any fault he had with the hostility of the situation. Sure, the grabbing-Rook-out-of-nowhere thing was his mistake, but he refused to budge on his attitude towards strangers.
Rook's expression turned colder, which meant that his head tilted down so his hair was in his eyes, and he was openly glaring. At least to Gavin, who was low enough to see his expression. His hands were slowly curling into his open-palmed attack pose before he seemed to realize what he was doing and relaxed them. Had he been anyone else with this much sudden anger, someone would have been slapped or stabbed or thrown from the roof. But this was Rook, who had an uncanny ability to control himself. He shook his head and turned away from the girl as if she wasn't even worth his time. "Should we go get something to snack on?" he asked Gavin suddenly, as if the entire exchange had never happened.
Eleanor gave a languorous shrug at Gavin's comment about name-calling-- she had no way of knowing anything personal about the boy, but from her experience in the last few minutes, she certainly didn't regard him as particularly mature. She smiled somewhat gratuitously at the lack of response otherwise from both of the boys, and she started to make her way along the roof, away from the other two mutants and the stairway back down to the third floor.
And that was very alarming. Gavin could barely recognize such an expression on Rook's face, but he definitely knew that hand gesture. The bird-boy was not even hungry anymore, but he answered almost too quickly when Rook gave an opening to leave before tensions raised any more than they had. "Yeah, definitely!" Gavin practically hopped to his feet, walked to the door to X-Men Center 3rd and started to go through before thinking twice and leaning his back against the door--basically holding it open for Rook to go first.
Rook walked stiffly across the roof, actively avoiding looking at the girl. He didn't really dislike anyone, but his hackles were raised when it came to insulting Gavin, and that wasn't good for anyone, himself in particular. Taking the last few steps carefully past the bird-boy, Rook paused as if he was going to say something, but decided against it and instead vanished into the door to X-Men Center 3rd.
Gavin watched Rook step past him and start down the stairs. He only gave Eleanor a quick glance--almost as if making sure she was staying on the roof--before following the shorter boy to X-Men Center 3rd.
In no apparent rush to make it anywhere, Eleanor dawdled along, dragging her feet as she hummed a tuneless little ditty to herself. Despite being quite alone on the roof by now, the teenager eventually piped-up and recited for the world to hear, "Will you walk into my parlor?" said the spider to the fly;"'Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you did spy...'" With that, the young woman started to shuffle down the stairs toward X-Men Center 3rd, leaving the rooftop behind.
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