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Summary: A typical morning of eggs, toast, anxiety, arguments, guilt, and cereal. Part of your balanced breakfast.
Date: February 7, 2012
Log Title: Breakfast of Champions
Rating: PG-13
Xavier Mansion - Cafeteria
There is a large cafeteria for the students. Blue and white tiled floor lines the floor and there are large windows that let in a lot of light. Six sturdy blue plastic chairs sit around each white table. There are a few snack and soda machines along with a few microwaves and refrigerators sit along one wall.
Sitting at one of the tables in the cafeteria, Nicholas pokes at his instant oatmeal. His hair is a bit disheveled and it looks like he hasn't gotten a good nights sleep in a few days. There's a small duffle bag next to him on the table and an open text book but it seems like both are being ignored for concentration on moving a raisin around with his spoon through the bowl of mushy oats.
"Hey, whoa, comin' through." Navigating through the tables of students is a delicate and precarious dance. Slick blue features twisted into a look of annoyance, young Jill Pervinca tries to get to a seat without dropping her breakfast, having to lift the plastic tray over her head to maneuver around human obstacles. "Devin, watch the fire!" she chides an older boy with a mane of roiling green flames for hair. With melodramatic relief, her tray is set down on the table across from Nick with a clatter. Rice Krispies and chocolate milk, breakfast of champions. "Jeez…" Jill blows out a breath and shoots a testy look back at the room as a whole.
Nicholas doesn't look up until the tray is dropped in front of him and there's a small smile at Jill. "Hey there, how's your morning so far?" The testy look does get a raised eyebrow though as he shoves the duffle bag onto a chair and closes what appears to be a math book. "I really shouldn't wait until the half hour before class to do my math homework."
"Buncha savages in this place," Jill grouses one last time before letting it go. She pries open the cardboard container of chocolate milk and starts the Rice Krispies snapping, crackling, and sometimes popping. She tugs up the sleeves of her cream-colored cableknit sweater and digs a spoon into the bowl. "Doin' okay, I guess," she replies noncommittally, though she looks fine. Not a hair out of place, not that there ever is with her. A slight pause while she looks across the table at Nick for the first time. "You look like hell. I'd ask if you were up late doing homework, but…" Obviously not.
Nicholas smiles and shakes his head. "No, I haven't been sleeping well. I've been avoiding the room so trying to find places to crash else where like the couch in the Atrium or Observation deck, I spent one night out in the stable. Just after that fight between Ahmed and Quenton, not really keen on seeing my roommate at the moment." He says as he finally stops playing with his breakfast and starts eating it.
Jill's lips purse then the corners turn downwards in a faint frown. She leans to the side to dig into her messenger bag and produce an orange folder covered in stickers and idle classroom doodles, the word 'Math' spelled out in ornate ivy creepers. "You can copy mine, if you want," she offers, laying the folder to one side of Nick's tray. Tucking a paper napkin carefully around her throat, she presses on. "What's wrong? Is he mad at you? You mad at him?"
"Not exactly…." Nick begins trying to think of how to word it looking at her homework and digging out some paper to start copying some of it. "Thanks. Just, I imagine you heard about the big fight between Ahmed and Quenton that put a hole in the rec room wall? Well lucky me got to stop that, got a nice little text message from Ms. Frost and everything." He says rolling his eyes with a bit of a head shake. "Anyway since then Ahmed….scares the shit out me." He admits.
The blue girl looks pensive, lifting a spoonful of cereal until it stops dripping long enough to reach her mouth. "I heard about it," she says around the spoon. Poor manners. "An' I saw the damage." Thoughtful chewing and swallowing. "But I wasn't there. What'd he do? I guess, I dunno, I thought you'd be happy somebody else'd had enough of Quenton to take a swing at him."
"Maybe I would have if Quenton started it? I don't know Quenton and I…." Nicholas shakes his head cause he can't really word it. "Quenton tried to say something stupid to irritate me but it was easy to ignore cause he just said that the game I was playing looked dumb. Nothing really to start a fight but Ahmed, he had to say something and then of course Quenton said something back and then Ahmed….he just…transformed into this were-leopard…beast. Quenton and I have gotten into some pretty heated arguments to put it lightly but we've never gotten physical even when I've wanted to hit him or he's wanted to hit me we've destroyed something else instead, you know? Anyway Ahmed…he just threw him and talked about breaking him and Quenton, of course he wouldn't back down and…" He looks up at Jill with a sort of worried expression on his face. "What if I say the wrong thing in one of my jerk moments to Ahmed and he decides that I'm next?"
Listening quietly, the blue girl's eyes drop to her cereal bowl when Nick looks to her. She stirs it idly and the crackling ramps up briefly. Jill answers without looking up. "I don't know Ahmed real well, so… I dunno, I guess you'd be a better judge than me. D'you think it's the sort of thing he's likely to do? I mean…" She lifts her head but looks toward the windows as she shrugs lightly. "I don't know."
"I didn't think that was the sort of think he'd be likely to do!" Nicholas says waving his arm in what he thinks is the general direction of the rec room, which it isn't. "Sorry, I didn't mean to sound so….crazy." He says before shrugging. "I just decided it's best to avoid the room cause I don't want to say the wrong thing and get him to go all evil cat on me."
Pursing her lips again, Jill gives Nick an uncertain look. She turns her attention back to her breakfast. "Well, I don't think you can keep sleepin' in the barn forever, for one thing. For another, y'know we're all pretty dangerous, right? Or, we can be." She twirls the spoon around her knuckles like a drummer showing off before a good solo. "Even me, I guess." A pause and a grimace. "Okay, forget that part. Not helping. But." The spoon stops spinning to point at Nicholas. "Have you tried, y'know, talking to him?"
Nicholas runs both hands through his hair and shakes his head. He doesn’t want to admit he's too afraid to. "It was only one night in the stable and it's not that bad in there." Which is a partial lie, sleeping in a chair is never comfortable. "I'm sorry Jill, when we talk it's nothing but my issues. I am trying not to be a total head case."
"It'd be a place to start," the slime girl advises casually, non-judgmentally. She holds the napkin tighter to her throat and takes another spoon of cereal in earnest before shaking her head dismissively. "Don' worrah 'bout aht," she mumbles then swallows. "Beats talkin' about my own issues. M'a better listener than a talker anyways." Her foot swings under the table to tap Nick in the shin lightly. "But I can, if you want. Talk. To Ahmed?"
Nicholas takes a few bites of his oatmeal as he thinks about the offer before coming to a decision. "No….no. I should. It might just create more tension having someone do it for me, ya know?" He says sounding unsure. "I just don't know. I don't want to ask for a new roommate but I don't want to piss him off…"
Jill's spoon stirs the last of the dry Rice Krispies into the chocolate milk, letting them grow soggy exactly like the commercials tell you that they won't. "I think…" Jill begins, lifting her spoon up between thumb and forefinger in a fair imitation of the Buddhist 'teaching pose'. A dribble of chocolate milk runs down the spoon and onto her wrist. "That you're *over*thinking. Trust me. I know *all* about anxiety. You're talking to a professional here."
Evolution never took into account such things as doors. Which is why cats much prefer push-bars to doorknobs. So it's almost a banging noises as 600-something pounds of silvery feline glory enters the cafeteria. With the tables at the level they're at, it's easy not to see Ahmed, but his tail is a dead giveaway, tapping almost every chair on his way towards the dorms. A twitch of his nose causes his head to turn towards the two familiar faces, and then the big cat freezes… fully majestic pose, ears perked, glowing eyes watching…
"Sorry if I'm a bit paranoid that my roommate want to rip me in half if I say…." Nicholas stops talking as he catches site of his roommate in cat form and he pales a bit. After staring at Ahmed for a bit he turns and starts putting his math book in his backpack. "I should just head to the library and try to get the rest of this math homework done so it's not all copied and my oatmeal is cold anyway." It's obvious it's an excuse to try to book out of the cafeteria.
"If you say what?" Jill's back is to the bobbing feline tail, so she's just confused about Nick's sudden and intense desire to vamoose. "Nick! Hold up, what're you doing?" She turns in her chair, as in 'turns in a way that would break a normal person's spine', and finally catches sight of a snow leopard. Can't be many of those around. Instead of inspiring a panic-induced flight response, the blue girl gets a lopsided grin and waves a hand at the big cat. "Well hey, Nick, look who it is," she says, feigning surprise and delight.
The image of leopardly glory begins to dissolve and then it just falls off like water from a balloon after it pops, splashing on the ground and all over as Ahmed pushes up from all-fours to a standing position, a new backpack on him to cover and protect sensitive electronics and other things in his shell-forms. He's looking at Nick like he's confused, and then lifts one goopy pit up to sniff at it, "I snore too loud or something? Nick… what's up?" Then to Jill, "Hey there. Ummm… you do realize your spine is broken, right?" Smiling at her, but having to wipe some clear stuff from his lip afterwards.
It's quite obvious what Nicholas is doing, he's trying to run away instead of confront an issue but then it seems like Jill isn't going to let that happen so he turns and gives her quite the 'screw you' stare. "Don't say 'What's up' like nothing's happened." He snaps at Ahmed. "You tried to kill Quenton last week, that's what's up."
"No spine, no problem." In the face of Nick's death glare, Jill wilts but gets a petulant set to her jaw. Plop. A shoe with a sock still mostly in it drops to the tiled floor underneath the table. The blue girl's foot literally snakes out of her pant leg into an indistinct pseudopod to wrap multiple times around Nick's ankles and yank his chair into the back of his knees. Sit. Stay. Good boy.
Ahmed steams a bit from the evaporating ectoplasm around him, but that doesn't help the frustrated and then angry look on his face, "Oh like you really give a crap, Nick… he's a dick. He's always going to BE a dick even with cause, and no one's going to change that. He's gonna say what he likes, when he likes, and flip everyone crap until someone calls him on it." The killing comment makes him slightly uncomfortable and his hands go into his hoodie pockets, "Yeah well… I was angry. And it's not like I could really hurt him in the first place." The last part almost mumbled, bitterly, "Him and his pretty powers."
As the blue foot wraps around him, Nick starts to stumble backwards, right into the chair. "Gosh darnit Jill." He grumbles at her. "Yeah well I can be a dick too, as proven many times here. What makes it okay when he says it verses when I say it, huh?" He says as a few heads in the cafeteria start to turn and look. "Oh yeah, his powers are real pretty, it's gotta be real pretty when you're powers makes you feel pissed off all the time."
Unphased, the blue tentacle does not release Nick's ankles and keeps him tied to the chair leg. Jill clears her throat, none too subtly, like reminding the boys that they're not alone might hopefully inject a bit of civility into the exchange. Hope springs eternal.
Ahmed exhales hard, and mutters something under his breath as he moves over, and dumps himself into a chair across from the two, "Is that it? You think I'm going to go claws out on you because you're… well… You?" Then he snorts out a chuckle, "I think you better check yourself there… I've pretty much resigned myself to the Nick show. Sure, it's a little moody at times, but you mean well. And when you're a dick, you realize you're a dick, and at least care enough to do something about it." Motioning with one hand, "Q-ball wouldn't pretend Jill is holding you in place. He'd make some crass comment about there always being room for Jill-o, kick her off like gum on a shoe, and be his usual jerk-self. I know better. I'm Jewish… we invented guilt and excuses."
"Why not? The closest person to the school I'm like is Quenton." Nick says sounding irritated as he's hating that he's admitting it. "I can't pretend I know Quenton though and that I'd know what he'd do cause one minute he's the jerk you described and then when he realizes he's gone to far he's….different. It was like you wanted that fight Ahmed, you just took the first chance you could to goad him into a fight." He says looking over at Jill. "This is why it was just better to avoid the room."
"Actually I'm still waiting for the Smurfette joke, but he hasn't used that one yet," she replies dryly to Ahmed with a shrug. On a more considerate note, Jill adds to Nick, "I don't think it was. He already said he wouldn't do… whatever, claws-thingy on you." A vague lift of a hand in Ahmed's direction. "So that's one thing cleared up already, right?"
Ahmed doesn't meet anyone's eyes when the comment about picking the fight comes up, and then as he stares at a window, his skin begins to plasticize, as his goo starts to exude once more, "Yeah… I did. So what. I'm not the only one who wants to take a shot at him. And it's not like he didn't deserve it anyways. He treated you both like jokes before. And he will again." Still not looking, "If you want the room back, fine… take it. Not like I need it. I'm all-weather. I can't believe you think I'd go after you… you're the only person who's even close to understanding what's happened to me."
Nicholas doesn't meet Ahmed's gaze but looks down at his cold oatmeal instead. "It's because I'm just like him okay? What happens when I say the wrong thing to you? How am I supposed to know if I say the wrong thing on that one day that both of us are having a particularly bad day and you're not going to go all, I'm going to break his bones on me? And it's not about taking the room back it's that…" He doesn't know how to tell Ahmed that he's terrified of him. "Nobody is who you think they are." He says bitterly.
The atmosphere dipping from tense to positively melancholy, Jill exercises a small mercy and unwraps the blue tendril from around Nick's ankles and the chair leg, setting him free to leave if he wants. She retrieves her shoe and sock from under the table and sets about putting them back on, foot back in a proper foot-like shape. "I think, maybe…" she starts to say but falters, glancing between the two, then fails to come up with whatever it is she might think.
Ahmed grumbles out before he even realizes it, "You just Jedi spoon-bend and toss me out a window, or whatever…" The plasticness increases as the ecto-goop begins to spread even more, threatening to overtake him once more, so he moves out of the chair to stand, "I check myself around you… a lot. More than you even realize, Nick. But what the hell does that matter… no… suddenly I'm a threat. Well… fine." Rolling his head towards Jill, liquid cat ears begin forming on the sides of his head, overlapping with his normal one, "You think what? No… really… go on. I'd -LOVE- to have another person tell me what I'm doing wrong. Go ahead." Looking about ready to throw a chair or something, and then he just says, "Forget it." And his tail starts to form outwards.
The fact that Ahmed just told Nick he has to check himself a lot around him does little to quell his fears, if not it increases them a bit and as soon as that tail starts to form a fearful, wide-eyed look comes over his face. "Ahmed…" He says nervously his eyes glancing to Jill, he's not sure what to do. "The only reason I used my powers on you was to stop you from seriously hurting Quenton okay? I'm not going to toss you out of any window." He starts saying in a defensive tone.
*Clomp clomp clomp clomp* Walking into the Cafeteria, a few locks of blue-streaked blond hair swaying in time to her heavy gait, Shane makes a beeline for the counter. A plate of eggs, sausage, and toast is snagged, and it's not until she turns around, that she notices Nick, Jill and Ahmed, and the subzero atmosphere between the three of them. An audible, heavy sigh drifts up from behind the light, crimson scarf pulled up around her mouth, and she shakes her head, dropping into a seat near the trio. As she pulls her headphones down, a snatch of hard guitar accompanies the rising chant of BACK OFF, I'LL TAKE YOU ON! HEADSTRONG, I'LL TAKE ON ANYONE! before her iPod is paused, and she tugs the scarf down to settle into the business of eating.
Jill's jaw tightens, but she looks away from Ahmed as her cheeks flush with navy blue. "… Nothing," she mutters meekly. Propping her chin in the palm of her left hand, she toys with the few remaining Rice Krispies floating in the bowl of chocolate milk, not particularly interested in finishing them off anymore. "Sorry," she apologizes to Nick in a near-whisper. She tried to intervene and has somehow made things worse. Again. If misery loves company, Shane's found the right place. Jill's blue eyes flick up with something like a warning in them when the slight girl plops down at the table. Now's maybe not a good time, they seem to say.
Ahmed doesn't say a word in response to Nick at this point, instead he just lets the protective layer surround him and he's back in cat form. Glowering… and proceeds to rumble out his discontent, just sitting there tall enough for his head and chest only to barely poke over the table. Ears are back, and those eyes show little in the way of enough, but then he just does what any cat does with any annoyance. Curling up right there between Jill and Shane, he just tries to nap it away.
Nicholas looks at Jill in regards to the whisper and grumps at her. "You happy now?" He doesn't mean it to sound so harsh. He just stands up and looks down at Ahmed and just sort of erupts at him. "What the hell am I supposed to do!? I saw you go all vindictive on Quenton and I'm not supposed to be scared of you? I'm supposed to believe that after what I saw you're just going to be a giant pussy cat and keep saying 'well he deserved it'. How long is it going to take before you feel like I deserve it next? Cause really, what makes that jerk so different from this jerk? Huh?!"
"Chill," Shane grunts, turning a wary eye on the giant blue cat plopped down between her table and Nick's, forking a bite of eggs into her mouth. "Got people tryin' t'eat here. 'Sides. Jill don't look happy, so maybe you want a Potion of Chill or three."
More heads in the cafeteria are turning in the direction of raised voices, the general murmur of conversation and clinking cutlery softening as if to eavesdrop more easily. Her eyes squeezed tightly shut to go with her deepening grimace, she pushes her chair back sharply with a grating squeal and drops her spoon onto her tray with a clatter. In a wordless, possibly futile gesture, she slides her messenger bag over to Shane's table with a none-too-gentle kick and sets her tray down across from the other girl.
Blue becomes beastly, but not in the physics teacher sort of way, and the finalized state stands up and in the face of Nick's tirade, the huge cat just YAWNS. A big, fangy-toothed, 'WOW that's a big mouth' yawn. Then comes the nose to butt stretch, his tail ending up in Shane's lap for a moment, and fluffing under her chin, before he moves around the table to where Nick was sitting a few moments go, goes paws up on the table, and begins eating the cold oatmeal.
Nicholas looks between Shane, Jill and Ahmed, just glaring before grabbing his bookbag. "I'm done with this place." He says as he turns to storm out of the Cafeteria in what looks like a foul mood.
Shane swats the tail off her lap, lip curling for a moment. As Nick stands up, Shane looks up from her breakfast, eyebrow rising. "…Later, Jedi," she murmurs at the furious teen. "Kitchen at lunch. Mr. Parker-Mayfair made these chocolate things. You'll want a few." With that less-than-subtle overture left in the air as a peace offering, she scoots her chair around to present her back to Ahmed, returning to her meal.
Exhaling slowly, Jill nudges her bowl of cereal carefully into the center of her tray, lines up the spoon next to it, angles the nearly empty 8 oz carton of chocolate milk just so in relation to the rest, and pushes up the sleeves of her cream-colored sweater. Preparations complete, she plants her elbows on the table and buries her face in her hands with a groan. At least she's not crying. Yet. "God damn it," her muffled voice laments into her palms. Sliding one hand free, forefinger and thumb extended, she touches the tip of the finger-gun to her temple as the 'hammer' repeatedly falls. Bang bang bang.
Leaving the bowl of oatmeal unfinished, the huge cat flops down and then mouths onto Nick's duffle, and with a couple bounding steps is off to intercept the other young man. Stopping in front of the door, he just sits there with the duffle in his jaws, the shoulder sling dangling free so that he can be grabbed. Just like that. As if the argument had never happened.
There's a pause in Nick's step as Ahmed rushes ahead of him, he doesn’t say anything, just grabs the bag out of the cat's jaws and pushes past him out of the cafeteria.
"…Okay, see you then," Shane mutters to herself, snatching up a sausage with a dark look. "Christ, thought I was th'drama black hole 'round here. No wonder people useta call me a bitch." Gnawing on one end, she looks up at Jill for a moment, eyebrow rising. "Sup?"
Ammunition exhausted and finding herself sadly still alive, Jill's gun hand drops into her lap. The other hand stays where it is, clapped to her face and supporting her weight on her elbow. "Oh, y'know," she mumbles into her palm, feigning disinterest. "Tryin' to get those two to talk to each other, settle their differences and be all BFFs again. Good job, right?" At last she uncovers her face and is, perhaps surprisingly, still not crying.
*Sniffsniff* *sniff* Nick's rapid departure makes the huge cat's ears go back and then this low and long sound that almost seems like a roar, but more like a sob comes from deep in it's muzzle. But after that he saunters back over to where the two girls are, and plops himself down right next to Shane. Every little moment, leaning just close enough to try and nom one of her sausage off her plate.
The very first moment Ahmed tries to pull her breakfast away, the cat finds that Shane is less than sanguine about defending her food. A sharp rap is landed between his ears accompanied by a muttered "Get your own. I ain't playin' games." A glance is given down to the cat, then to Jill, an eyebrow rising. "That'll happen," she says, voice heavy with irony. "Let'm stew. They'll deal. Gotta. School won't let'm sleep onna couch more'n a day or two inna row."
The giant snow cat gets a sharp but brief glare from the blue girl before she turns back to the breakfast she had little intention of finishing anyway. "He slept in the *barn* because he was afraid to *talk* to his *roommate*," Jill adds, stressing the words with another pointed glance at Ahmed. "Really, what was I thinking? That they'd have a calm discussion like adults?" A short, derisive 'ha' that somehow trails off into a grumbling sigh. "Just made shit worse."
Who is going to worry about pissy roomies and schoolyard conflicts when there's sausage involved? The rap is taken not as a no, but more as a 'I caught you', and as she glances to talk to Jill, he makes his move, that huge head and those glowy ghostly blue eyes darting forwards to nab a piece and flee!
Shane freezes as a piece of sausage is taken from her plate, despite her warnings, eyes flat and hard, fingers tensing into claws. Closing her eyes for a moment, she lets out a long, slow breath, knuckles crackling as she flexes her fingers a few times. "…Fucking people," she mutters, stabbing at her iPod to bring a little musical accompaniment to the conversation, loud enough to be heard under the conversation while the headphones are around her neck, but likely shatteringly so once the oversized cups are placed over the ears. AIN'T GONNA WASTE MY HATE! AIN'T GONNA WASTE MY HATE ON YOU! THINK I'LL KEEP IT FOR MYSELF!
Breathing out a disgusted noise, Jill can only agree with Shane sourly as Ahmed runs off with his ill-gotten breakfast sausage. "Asshole," she mutters uncharacteristically. "Seen him do that before, too. Don't wanna be in a conversation? Poof. Cat. Everything's dodged 'cause you can't talk to a damn cat." She stabs at her now seriously soggy Rice Krispies, wishing she had something she could be more violent towards. "Used to think he was cute, too."
Built as it is, the huge cat has good ears. It can't help it. It's made to hear small things scurrying around rock formations at heights of a couple thousand feet above sea level. The untouched sausage in his muzzle makes him cross his eyes, and the fleeing form makes a slow and lazy circuit back towards the girls… until the big head comes up onto the table, and leaves the relatively untouched sausage back on Shane's tray, and then noses at her elbow once. Ears are back, tail is held in tight… every little submissive gesture the cat can offer short of baring his throat.
Shane's arm raises reflexively as a blue nose nudges it, the slight young girl looking down under her arm at the uncharacteristically remorseful snow leopard… but there is no pity or forgiveness in her eyes, the sausage picked up with a pair of fingernails and tossed, dead-fish-like, on the corner of her tray. THINK YOU'RE WORTHY NOW, James Hetfield derides from within her headphones, THINK ENOUGH TO EVEN RAISE THE BROW? "…So anyway," she says, turning back to Jill and nudging her tray a little farther forward on the table, picking up the last of her sausages to gnaw, "When the Rec Room's back. Totoro. Good stuff. You'll like it."
The returned sausage is regarded with suspicion if not outright disgust by Jill, who still looks a little wary of it even when it's sitting placidly on the edge of Shane's tray. Her expression softens, just a little, at Ahmed before she remember she's supposed to be mad at him and turns to the other girl with blue hair. Snub. "I know *of* it but I've never seen it. There was an ad for it on Kiki's Delivery Service, I think. Liked that one. It's by the same guy, isn't it?"
A rumbling grumble that sounds suspiciously like 'Grrrls' comes from the cat's muzzle as he turns to stalk out of the room now as well. Successfully snubbed by the pair it makes the door bang just a little harder on the way out. Trust a cat to know how to diva their way out of a room!
"Yeh," Shane grunts, apparently relaxing the moment the door bangs, signaling Ahmed's exit from the cafeteria. "Miyazaki's awesome. Kiki was good. Totoro's better. Spirited Away's the best. Anyway. Gonna leave it in th'Rec Room, 'f you wanna watch it."
The blue girl jumps a little when the door slams, not in surprise but with something more like a stab of guilt. She rests an elbow on the table and leans onto it, stirring the unappetizing Rice Krispies slush left in her bowl with visible disinterest. "You… umm…" Jill starts and stops hesitantly, spooning up brown mush and letting it dribble off the spoon. "Would you wanna watch it with me?" she asks, trying to keep the note of desperation out of her question.
Shane's eyebrow rises, but more out of surprise than anything else, as she lifts a shoulder. "…Sure," she says after a moment's hesitation. "I got th'popcorn."
Jill's expression brightens noticeably, but with her face turned down toward the ruin of her breakfast. She sucks on her lower lip and looks about to say something several times before she manages to pare it down to an easygoing and dispassionate, "Okay. Cool." Still keeping her composed demeanor, she lays down her spoon and scoots her chair back. "We've got class in, like, five, so I'll see you later okay?"
Shane nods once, shoving the last bit of egg in her mouth and standing, picking up her tray. "Hey," she says, before moving further. "Chill, okay? S'fine. They'll deal."
Shouldering her bag, Jill's poise briefly fails her and she looks vaguely pained. Tray in one hand, she lifts the other in an indeterminate but obviously flustered and helpless gesture. "Yeah, I just… Just got a habit of sticking my nose in other people's business, 'specially when they look unhappy, y'know?" She gives a soft, self-deprecating laugh. "It's stupid," she admits with a dismissive wave.
Shane's shoulder lifts again. "Mebbe. But, least y'give a shit. Hated it when people stuck their nose in my business, tryin' to help. Hated it more when *everyone* did. Meh. Coulda been stickin' their nose in, lookin' t'fuck me over. Better to give a shit, yeah?" And with that, and a lazy half-wave, the slight young mutant heads toward the door, boots clomping heavily on the linoleum.
