etrayalogs | [OPEN] X-Mansion clean-up

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[OPEN] X-Mansion clean-up

WHO: Storm and you!
WHEN: Late May-Early June
WHERE: Xavier Institute for Mutant Education and Outreach
WHAT: Come bother a lonely goddess in a blast from the past mansion!
NOTES\WARNINGS: N/A for now, but this is the X-Men - discussion of death, bigotry, and discrimination likely.

A new building has popped up in Etraya - easily visible from the Hospital and Apartment Complex on the main island. Ororo spends a few days flying back and forth from the main island and to the Institute, investigating its exterior and interior, before finally just taking one of the bedrooms in the main mansion.

⏵ i. indoors;

The gate and the doors are, actually, left unlocked for now. Ororo is alone, and isn't too worried about security just yet - it was just her in this large, lonely mansion and she could take on anyone who might feel like trespassing -- not that there was anyone like that here, she'd found. She can imagine people like Scott or Logan or even Hank berating her for being careless anyway, but... she isn't worried. She's more concerned about how much of the institute is even real - and thus, how safe everything actually is.

So, she goes through the entire building one room at a time - testing light switches, checking stoves or microwaves, looking through the computers in the old staff offices (they switch on, but there's nothing saved in them), turning beds so she can offer them to people who might be sick of the apartments... It's a large place, so this takes her a couple of days. It won't be hard to run into her walking through the halls with a little clipboard and a pen -- she'd had a brief moment of missing the modern conveniences of Henry and Forge's tablets -- and a smile for anyone who'd wandered in after her.

"Hello. Come to help me investigate?"

However, if she sees anyone approaching the main elevator, she calls out instead in a sharp warning -- "The sub-levels are restricted. If you'd like to go there, you'll need me to key in some biometrics to access them."

⏵ ii. pool;

The Olympic-size pool is easily seen from surrounding islands. It's dry and empty when Ororo first discovers the Institute, and not yet very clean. She considers putting up a message on the network to ask for help, but... perhaps that'd be better suited for when the pool is actually usable, instead?

So when she's done poking through the inside of the mansion, she figures it's time for a more mundane use of her powers. She blasts the tiles with wind and water to wash away any grime or dirt left between the crevices. Filling it up with clean water later was no trouble at all either, with a convenient cloud of fresh rain.

Maybe she should work on clearing out spaces for some tables and chairs next? But that'll involve more hands than she has, so it'll have to be a project for another day, maybe.

⏵ iii. rooftop;

Between self-imposed chores to make the mansion feel a little less shadowed and a little more lived-in, Ororo takes her breaks on the east wing's roof. She's taken a pool lounger and set it up here, and lies under the sun or the moon or in the shade of one of those odd, chrome structures in nothing but her underwear and a pair of sunglasses, sipping from an insulated tumbler she'd picked up at Kwiktrip and a paperback she'd taken from Corrine's (she'll return it! eventually!)

It's the last place she expects anyone to find her, really, but... people could always surprise her.

⏵ iv. wildcard;

Feel free to mix-and-match or tag in with something else completely, or use the X-Mansion as set dressing for other threads! ♥ If we have previous CR, you can also assume Ororo has messaged your character in some way to help her check the place out. Message me on almondlychee if you want something more specific.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Jean was changing out a curtain on one of the windows. Fingers lifted toward it in a graceful point—the faintest red-golden light at the edge of her fingertips, the rod, and the curtain pocket—regardless of the fact she was far past the need for the focal show of it. Habit was harder to break; humanity, more than precious. And they'd been through 3 different sets of rooms and one whole house since the last time they'd lived here.

She'd been distracted, or so says how she turned around just a little too fast toward the two words and thoughts that trailed on after those broke off. There's shock inside of it and something a little too much like trespass‚ ]

Oh. [ Jean hardly needs more than to be smart to figure out why he's in the door of her—

their?

—bedroom.

That's a problem. ] I didn't think about—
[ Follows, stumbling, and still almost too easily into: ] I can move.

( he should have known. he should have known. just as he should have known she would offer such a thing the second she picked up just how awkward— uncomfortable this is. for both of them. shit. )

No.

( the word comes quick enough. firm despite the way it struggles to come out. he just... needs a second. because it's her. because it's not her. )

There's plenty of other rooms. I just— wasn't thinking.

( he's never really had to when it comes to... going home. )

I'm not trying to—

[ There's something of a helpless shift,
a flick of those same (now not glowing) fingers toward her head. ] —but you still live in this room.

[ In his world.

She almost says we
but catches herself this time. ]

I haven't lived in this room in a few years. It was just.
Habit, I guess. Really, you should have it.
It's more yours than mine right now.

[ She could find her childhood bed room. Or invade Ororo's,
and bury herself under her friend's blankets. ]

( the sound of leather squeaking as he lifts an arm. raises a hand. a means to spare them both from this. )

Really. It's fine. There's...

( too much space now. too many memories. ones which, once sweet, now plague him as the weeks turn into months. even without this being exactly the same mansion or room he's grown up in, he can still feel the pinpricks of everything throughout the place. as if phantom pains of a home he's known linger within the walls even here.

slowly, his hand drops. sigh just barely there on his breath and he's pinching the bridge of his nose a second later. collecting himself. )

I can find something else.

[ Jean stares at his hand for the brief pass it's up—telling her to stop as eloquently as though the words had been dropped between them—and over it as well. It's not worth causing waves over something so small. Then, at the way he's pinching his nose, she wants to sigh.

No. That's actually not true.

What she wants is to walk forward and rest her hand on his arm.
To both be the anchor in the tumult around him and have him be hers.
But that's not—him precisely, even if her heartaches and wants—possible.

Says liar, in the burn of a fire that knows her and him too well. ]

I'm not trying to make this any harder on you.

[ She's known where he was since he walked away. Even when she isn't trying, she knows where he is. The way she knows the beat of her heart, every breath she can't take for granted, the burn star-song flooding her every atom again. ] I made sure not to end up in your way before now, but I must have gotten distracted.

Edited 2024-06-04 01:55 (UTC)

( he knows she isn't. he knows and he knows he's maybe being a bit of a dick about it, like back home to everyone else. he's honestly surprised the professor hasn't completely given up on him yet. how logan of all people has the nerve to try and talk to him about it. he knows and yet... it's all he's known for months now. where he's settled himself in and doesn't seem to want to leave. )

I don't need you to spare my feelings.

( it comes off a little harsher than he intends it to and he... sighs when he catches himself. )

Just... take the room. ( a beat. a simple moment of hesitation. ) You always kept it better than I ever did.

[ She'd like to say it doesn't sting. It'd be nice if it didn't. If something so small didn't actually matter. Not when the last time they had anything like a real fight, it was from the opposing sides of a genocidal explosion. It does. She can't help that it does. He can't help that it does.

She lets his words hang in the air, soft—a small give.
And her voice becomes far softer in the next seconds after.]

That's not a choice you get to make for me, you know.

[ The choice to she'd made to spare him. (Or save him; waiting for her; so far away.) As thought his feelings didn't need more attention than anyone ever realized. Because he tried so hard never to look like he needed it. Because he couldn't allow himself to lose control.

And yet, he was a torrent of sorrow and pain barely tied together, too. ]

( it's strange how familiar this is. so much so that it has him pause. has him need another second to remind himself where he is. that he's not... home. that this isn't... his jean. no matter how much he wants her to be.

like with everything else, he swallows it down. tucks it away someplace where it won't get in the way. not right now in the moment at least. )

Well then I guess neither of us will have it. Fair?

( compromise. )

[ There's a sympathy in her expression and patient lack of correction for which topic she meant because it starts and then sides away entirely while she's just making the circuit of looking at his face again. He's so young and so raw, but she's known Scott Summers for most of three decades, at most every age he's ever been. At ages when he was an adult and she wasn't.

But he still feels like him.
Like himself. Like the otherside of herself.
Maddening when stubborn. Missed when absent.
So often against being taken care of. ]

Fair.

[ Jean made herself turn back to the curtain.
Stop retracing his face. Give him the space to breathe. ]

I am glad you're considering staying.

( she turns away and he looks down through ruby quartz. it’s not her fault she's here. not her fault she’s not… her. he knows he needs to pull back some. lay off. not shrug her off as he would logan or even the professor. not because she can’t handle it. but because she doesn’t deserve that. he knows. but she’s right here. right there in front of him. a cruel reminder of the one person he’s been wanting to see again for months, who haunts his dreams and leaves him replaying alkali lake over and over again in his head. a personal punishment for being unable to save her.

so he lets his hand drop away from his face. grinds his teeth before he forces himself to let go of that tension. not just throughout him, but between them there in their… in the room. )

Yeah, well. Better to have options.

[ Does she actually have anything to do with this curtain now? Not really. But she arranges it regardless, looking it up and down, making sure the valence is straight, and the curtains are equally even in what space they are covering.

It's pointless. But it's something to do with her hands.

(Outside—the decidedly not Westchester outside the window—is disjointing.)]

Better than the times the X-Men aren't given any.

( quiet, he watches her. tries not to, but. he can’t help himself. not when it’s her. even if it’s not her.. )

I guess I’ll leave you to…

( whatever she was doing. whatever she’s looking to do. might as well go and figure out another room for himself if he’s planning to stay here. )

—pretending I have anything to do in here now?

[ The look Jean throws over her shoulder at him—sending a small wave of red hair billowing over that shoulder—is wry.
It's as much a chagrin confession and prodding note that he knows that just as well.

She turned around and let herself lean back on the window.
Hands curled over the lip of the window sill. ]

We'll both need to find new rooms.

Yeah. Kind of figured that.

( the whole both deciding to find different rooms for each other. if she does end up taking this room, though, it’s not as if he’ll be mad about it. as it stands, he doesn’t know how he’d feel being in here alone. much like back at the mansion he’s from.

an awkward stretch of silence, he slides his hands into his back pockets. stands there. turns away a little. )

I should probably go do that.

[ She says— ]

Would you like me to wait and pick a separate wing once you've chosen?

I don't mind.

[ —but in the center of her chest, all she wants to know is
whether it would make it so much worse to ask to walk with him. ]

( he's about to head out. try and find a room for himself in here but... she goes and said that— asks that and he lingers there in the doorway. back slightly turned to her. )

No, that's not— ( a breath. a sigh. ) It doesn't have to be like that.

( as if neither of them exist to one another in this space. )

[ She walks toward the door, toward his slightly turned back.
Not aiming to be silent, even as she follows it with another question. ]

How would you like it to be, then?

Edited 2024-06-10 01:22 (UTC)

( he knows this isn't the jean he knows but she's still jean and because he knows her, he takes the precautions of shutting his mind — locking his thoughts behind a wall as a means to keep them from being filtered to her. no, he's not a telepath himself. but having known one— having been in love with one for years, you learn a thing or two along the way. )

Look. We're here. We might as well just accept that and... do whatever we can with what we've been dealt. Aurora, Eos, this place. Making sure the worlds we come from aren't lost in whatever game or social experiment they have going here.

[ There's a blink, and if he's looking, he'll catch it. The moment she realizes what he's trying to do. The reminder that he expects so little—knows so little what her powers are. The flare of star song burning in her veins. The one that would make his walls tissue paper under a tsunami. She looks away, blinking it off. Trying not to overly attend to the spider-webbing ice cracks through her body at the offensive rebuff when she hadn't even been trying. (But when had she ever needed to.)

The Phoenix never lies,
she'd told Bishop and it's not wrong.
Her arms cross loosely across her stomach.

She tries to make him white noise.
To respect where she's not welcome.
(That she's not welcome.) ]

We do the work.

[ It doesn't answer her question.

And it does.

It's cold.

And understandable. ]

Edited 2024-06-10 01:42 (UTC)

( he knows that look. she doesn't need to say anything— doesn't need to react in a way that's so blatantly obvious. he knows her and how she's capable of feeling everything, even when she doesn't want to and it has him twist up inside to think that he's doing this.

but he can't. she's not... her. no matter how much he wants her to be. no matter how much he wants to hold her. to cry on her. to ask her for his forgiveness for not being able to save her. to tell her how much he needs her. how much it hurts without her. how much he loves her.

he can't and she doesn't deserve that. so he just needs to shut everything down.

for both their sakes. )

Storm mentioned there's a Danger Room here. I'm going to check it out.

[ Jean can't quite bring herself to look at his face again yet, but it's fine. She'll— It's fine. She's an adult. They both are. And she's been in worse states with her actual husband. Who isn't the man standing so nearby. (Apocalypse. Emma. Charles. The Shadow King. There are so many options to choose from, too many to even list. But maybe she does. Maybe she needs a distraction. Somewhere else to anchor herself suddenly.)

Scott is in a prison cell. Tortured. Waiting for her. Undoubting.
While she's standing inside this soap bubble, not breaking it.

She moves past Scott,

slipping through the doorway without touching him. ]

There is. It's not in the greatest of shape, but it is down there.

( she moves past him in a way that's both gentle and elegant — so jean — and he stares after her as she goes. standing there. momentarily... confused. )

Are you— you're not going there, are you?

[ Jean doesn't stop walking, and she doesn't look back.
And it takes so much more willpower than she wants to admit. ]

Of course, I am. You said we're working.

And given you haven't been down there yet,
we don't know if the doors will open for you yet either.

So, I'm coming down in case someone has to set a code for you.

( it takes him a moment before he realizes what's happening here and, with a sigh on his lips, he follows after her. hands in leather jacket pockets. )

Alright. Working it is.

[ It's almost on her lips to say, try not to sound so disappointed, Summers, but it bounces into her head and the back of her throat, and she does her best to swallow it whole. The words. The thought. The momentary lightness. The edge of a ironic bite. The backslash of cold that knows she doesn't belong and isn't wanted.

She keeps walking. Doesn't slow her pace. Doesn't look back. ]

I'm assuming you have one of them at home, as well?

Edited 2024-06-10 02:44 (UTC)

[OPEN] X-Mansion clean-up

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