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Summary: During a midnight stroll to clear her head, Rashmi comes across Theo. After the two talk about the disappearance of their friends, Theo misunderstands Rashmi's feelings, and kisses her!
Date: Friday, October 8, 2010. 12:13am
Log Title: I Go Walking After Midnight
Rating: G
Xavier Mansion - Japanese Gardens
A large area of the grounds is landscaped with a Japanese Garden. A river filled with coi fish runs through the middle with a wooden bridge. There is even a small waterfall splashing on the rocks. Bamboo can be heard clacking on the rocks. A small statue of a Buddha can be found in various places. The trees hang over the area and when the flowers are in bloom, it brings a variety of color to the peaceful landscape.
Midnight at the mansion, and for the first time in months, Rashmi wanders the Gardens without book in hand, or PDA, or anything to concentrate on. Only with her thoughts to keep her company, as she slowly puts one foot in front of the other, eyes fixed into the middle distance, brow furrowed. Since being drafted to function as the staff's essential student PR rep the Sunday following the disappearance of over a dozen students and teachers, the redhead has had more than her share of worries. Chief among them, the fact that the list of missing includes nearly each and every one of her closer friends.
The quiet air is disturbed by a stirring in the bushes. It's hard to see exactly what it is with the night lights around the gardens, but what ever it is, it's a little taller than the flowers that it scurries through. As it grows close to Rashmi, the small object leaps from the bushes, landing on all four robotic legs before her. A snakelike camera comes out of Proto's body, and angles up at the Hindi girl.
"Hello," it speaks. "My name is Proto, what is yours?" The robot seems oblivious to Rashmi's concerns, but his maker doesn't seem immediately available, either. That's because he's on a patch of poorly lit grass near the water, where he fell asleep earlier working on his laptop. Theo lays with his laptop still across his lap, but no books are scattered around with him as per usual.
Few better ways to break a reverie, than with a sudden leap from the bushes. With a startled yelp, Rashmi backpedals briefly, the robot getting her undivided attention as he introduces himself. Letting out a long, slow breath, she lowers herself into a crouch, brushing down her skirt as she gives the camera a gentle smile. "Hi, Proto, I'm Rashmi. Um… Where's Theo, out of curiosity?"
Proto clicks a few times, it seems that he is taking a couple of pictures of Rashmi. "Rashmi, it is good to meet you. Theo…" There is the sound of the hard drive spinning inside, and then he turns to face the teenager. He leaps through the flowers again, and then lands next to Theo. "Theo has been located," he announces. The robot's announcement gives Theo a similar reaction.
"Wha?" he exclaims, sitting straight up at Proto's declaration. He rubs his eyes, and looks around blearily. "Yes, I have been located," he says, leaning back and keeping himself propped up with his hands. He blinks a few more times, and then sees Rashmi. "Who is it?" he asks, still trying to get his bearings. He was really out. He closes the laptop, and starts to get to his feet.
"Thank you!" floats Rashmi's voice over the bushes, followed a short while later by the redhead herself, rounding the corner and batting at the hem of her skirt. "Ah… there you are. What, um… are you doing sleeping out here, out of curiosity, Theo…?"
As the dark-haired boy finishes getting to his feet, he stretches his limbs. "I guess I fell asleep working on stuff," he says. "I was trying to figure out what common factors all the people who disappeared have, maybe I could figure out what happened." Theo shrugs. "I haven't been very successful though. What're you doing out here? What time is it?"
"After midnight," Rashmi answers, clearing her throat as she settles herself to the ground. "…Have you figured out anything at all? I mean… I've been over the security footage, and I couldn't figure out much either. And Addison… well he's being Addison, so I can't get ahold of him to see what he's come up with either."
Theo shakes his head. "It's definitely something weird," he says. "I saw the footage too, but don't tell the staff that," he adds in a lower voice. "But here's the thing, a lot of people disappeared that weren't at that weird event. And there aren't security cameras everywhere, so most of them I wasn't able to see. And Lucas was right there, and he didn't get taken." The technopath settles back to the ground next to Rashmi. "Are you taking it okay?" he asks. Theo himself seems to be handling it well. At least surfacewise.
"….Sort of," comes the low murmur after a moment's pause. "I could be taking it worse, I guess… I mean after all, you're still here, Lucas is still here… Even if Mike's gone… Oh, and Troy, my powers training teacher over at Barnes, he's gone. …So, y'know… could be worse." The redhead settles back, letting out a slow, shuddery breath. "…Okay no… no I'm not really taking it all that well. I just can't stop thinking long enough to have a real panic attack. Which, y'know, was sort of part of the point of insisting on keeping up my studies even if I'm here until they get back."
Theo nods. He stays quiet for a long moment. Unlike Rashmi, he's not very good at giving people words of comfort. He just sits next to her, letting an awkward silence fill the air, and picks a flower to concentrate on.
The silence stretches for awhile, and abruptly Rashmi leans over, looping an arm around Theo's shoulders, squeezing briefly. "Thanks though… It's nice of you to ask. Helps." Closing her eyes for a moment, the redhead sighs. "…How about you? You doing okay?"
Theo, though surprised, returns the oddly angled hug. He shrugs in response to her question. "I dunno, Everybody else is really freaking out about it," he says. "There's a few I wouldn't miss if they didn't come back," he admits. "That's a terrible thing to say," he corrects his thought aloud. "I don't want them to be eaten by zombies or demons anything like that. I want them to be safe. I am worried about them, I just try not to think about it much." Of course, he's also set on his own quest to find out what happened independently.
Rashmi nods slowly. "Do what you can," she says quietly, "try not to realize how much you can't… Yeah… That's what I'm trying to do too. It's hard, though, isn't it…? I mean… You keep going back over everything, wondering if there's something you missed, maybe a clue you hadn't realized was right there… but nothing. Except maybe you weren't looking hard enough, so you look again. And again and again and again…" She trails off, loosing a half-amused snort. "…Until you realize all you're doing is just mashing the grass down in the Gardens and keeping yourself out of sleep…"
The technopath smirks. "Yeah, but if the answer's in that footage, I'll find it. I am a genius after all," he says. "Time for me to prove all those straight A's are more than just fluff." He lets out a sigh. "I'm sure that we'll figure it out," he says, reaching to grab Rashmi's hand and give it a squeeze." He isn't sure whether he believes it, but he says it anyway.
Rashmi returns the squeeze, sagging against Theo's shoulder. "Yeah… we will," she murmurs. "Theo… you remember that last big blowout, you asked me when the line is?"
Theo nods quietly to Rashmi, and chews on his lower lip. "Yeah, I remember," he says, his eyes fixed on their hands. "What about it?"
"This, right here?" Rashmi manages a small smile, raising her head to brush a lock of hair away from the young student's eyes. "This is the proof that you're nowhere near it. Just… look at what you're doing, Theo. You just said yourself, there's people you don't mind stay gone… but you're still trying. You're still fighting. You're working and worrying as hard as I am… And I have faith enough in you that it's going to help me sleep at night, knowing you're on the job. ….Okay?"
Theo turns his head to look straight back into Rashmi's eyes. He appears almost frozen for a long moment when she brushes his hair to the side, but keeps his gaze fixed. His grip seems to tighten slightly. He opens his mouth to answer her, but it seems to take several seconds to get out the word, "Okay." He doesn't look away, though.
Then he does it. He leans in abruptly to give Rashmi a kiss. It isn't a 'friend' kiss, either. It's straight on the lips, and clearly intended for them as well.
Rashmi blinks as the kiss comes, her ever-scrambling thoughts freezing all at once. A few moments later, she pulls her head back, cheeks dark. There's another awkward pause, as the redhead clears her throat. "…Wow, um… Thanks….?" Half a heartbeat later, a thought slams into place behind her eyes, causing her cheeks to go ashen. "…I did it again, didn't I…"
Theo's demeanor becomes suddenly more sullen as Rashmi pulls back. A certain fear seems to well up behind his eyes, and he's thankful for the dark surroundings so that the color draining from his face isn't as obvious. He doesn't speak, but he doesn't let go of Rashmi's hand, either. All of this is shown by almost no movement whatsoever as he pulls his head back as well.
Rashmi closes her eyes again, drawing in a deep breath and letting it out slowly. "Theo," she begins, not moving to pull back father. This is important and delicate work, and if nothing else there's the blessing that all other concerns have left her head to be brought to bear on this moment. "…Can I ask what you're thinking, right now…?"
Theo's chocolate eyes flicker between focusing on either of Rashmi's own eyes. His heart pounds loud enough he imagines that it must be heard in the next county, though it can only be heard in his own head. "I'm not sure," he says. "I think I may have grossly misunderstood my situation." His voice is steady, but only in a loose sense of the word.
"Okay…" A foothold, something Rashmi can work with, and she draws in another breath. "…Which would be my fault… but I'm also concerned about how you're *feeling,* Theo… the part that you're trying really hard not to blast me with, you know…? It's okay to. I won't think any less of you for being honest."
Great hesitancy, and then all of his motion comes at once. Theo pulls his knees up and pulls his free arm around his head to bury his face against his knees. "I'm so stupid!" he exclaims. "Aargh!" Not probably what Rashmi was going for, but it's what he gives her. He shakes his head, face still buried against his knees.
"No, Theo," Rashmi whispers. "You're not stupid. Of all the things I've ever thought about you, that was never once one of them."
Theo lets out a nervous laugh as he raises his head, looking straight ahead rather than directly at Rashmi. "I suddenly had the thought hit my head: "Hey, I've been chasing after Chloe all this time, who barely knows I exist, and Rashmi's all I could ever hope for in a girl. But I didn't think it through far enough to realize that I can't even make an attempt, because she knows me, and wouldn't want to date a guy as messed up as me." He turns to look at Rashmi. "That's what I should've thought when that came into my head just now, but I got caught up in the moment."
Rashmi shakes her head slowly, a small furrow forming between her eyebrows. "Okay… I can see where you might end up thinking that, but um… you're kind of seriously way off the mark. … …D'you want to know the truth?"
The last of Rashmi's statement catches Theo in a rather unguarded moment. "The truth?" he says, his voice only scarcely able to echo the thought. What the truth might be seems to have captured his entire attention.
"The truth is… I'd actually be a pretty horrible girlfriend, Theo," Rashmi says, tugging her braid over her shoulder with her free hand. "You need someone who *appreciates* you for what you are, Theo. Someone who'll let you be you, and not take a sanding belt to your personality whether or not you need it." She lifts a shoulder briefly, letting it fall. "…That's something I learned about myself with Lucas, Theo… I'm a little more off than a lot of people think. I just throw it all into trying to make sure everyone and everything can be as good as it can *be,* you know?"
It wasn't what Theo was hoping to hear. He was hoping to hear that he hadn't been that far off the mark with his first thought. "Whatever, you're just sayin' that to make me feel better. But you're going to be careful around me now, and it'll be weird, because I thought there was something there that wasn't. You were upset about what's going on, and I could've just been supportive, but now I went and screwed that up, too."
"Theodore Fegenbush," Rashmi says, voice hard. "Don't. Just… no." She shakes her head, blowing out a breath, visibly settling. "…Sorry. Just… please don't blow off what I'm saying like that. I don't lie to people, *especially* not when it's important. And it *is* important. Because you didn't screw anything up. It's *okay,* you know… even people as smart as you get to make mistakes now and again…"
Theo doesn't seem to react much to Rashmi's harder tone. "Did it ever occur to you that maybe I want somebody to take a belt sander to my personality? Maybe who I am really isn't something that should stay the same?" he sighs, and rests his chin between his knees.
"And did you think that I wasn't *going* to? But seriously, Theo…" Rashmi snorts, pulling up her knees and resting her free arm on top, closing her eyes. "What you need out of a friend isn't what you need out of a girlfriend. Friends can afford to play ice-sculpture, because they're close, but not too close. If it's your girlfriend riding herd on you all the time… That's different. I know you that well, you know, you wouldn't *want* to deal with that, and it'd probably sour you hard on having relationships."
The boy frowns. "Whatever," he says dismissively. "I completely disagree with everything you just said. My mom and dad dealt like that with each other all the time, and they had a great marriage because of it." He seems to momentarily lighten at the thought before looking back at Rashmi. "You're just selling yourself short because it's not popular to have good solid relationships like that anymore. People would rather shack up and just keep it shallow so that they never have to deal. Maybe you're not the one broken. Maybe it's the rest of the world. Because I look at you, and you're the only person I know who is real."
Rashmi's nose wrinkles. "Why do people keep *saying* that?" she says, as much to herself as to Theo, shoulders sagging. "I'm *not* *that* special…" She pauses, blinking, and chuckles. "…Anyway. No Theo, that's not why I'm 'selling myself short.' It's just… I don't know. I think I'm getting stupid. Latin and Ethics and due process are starting to creep back in, and by the time I get to Thessalonians, that's usually when I know I should be in bed before I fall down." Patting Theo's hand, she looks up at the boy, eyes urgent. "I don't think you're stupid, Theo… I don't think you're not worth dating. I need you to know that, okay? The rest… we can talk about after sleep. And I *want* to talk about it, it's important. And you *did* help tonight, you helped *so much* I can't even begin to thank you."
Theo doesn't pull his hand back, as much as the stubbornness in his own will would like him to. "I think sleep would be good," he says, not having the stamina to continue himself.
"I am hungry," Proto chimes in. "And Proto's hungry," he adds. The technopath breaks contact and stands back to his feet. "We can talk more about it later," he agrees, shoving his hands in his pockets. "I'm glad it helped you."
Rashmi squeezes Theo's hand, finally letting go. "Good," she says, nodding. "And it did. I know you hate hearing kids complain about their powers… but y'know what? Sometimes, I could almost envy you yours."
Theo laughs as he starts to walk away. "I'll trade you," he offers. "You'll want to give them back before a week's out." He'd love to get rid of them most days himself.
