Players:
Summary: Pop stars are people too. This doesn't stop Mason from getting his swagger on.
Date: February 20, 2012
Log Title: Starstruck
Rating: G
Xavier Mansion - Recreation Room
What was once the Parlor has been turned into a Recreation Room for the students. A nice plush carpet meets the light blue walls giving it a homey feel. A pool table at one end, a foos ball table at the other, and entertainment center with video game systems, movies, and of course, cable TV. Big comfy chairs and couches surround a coffee table for comfortable loafing. Long glass windows with a pair of French doors line one side of the room bringing in plenty of light during the day. The main rule in here is to clean up after yourself.
Whereas Mondays are usually the days with the highest grumpy teenager factor, today is different. Coming to the end of a three day weekend, it instead has the air of a lazy Sunday. Sacked out on the couch and slouched down so low she's nearly horizontal, the school's resident cyan maiden has a Playstation 3 controller in her lap, looking very passive despite the intensity of the on-screen action of The King of Fighters XIII. She hasn't bothered to move in over an hour, save the occasional shift of the cushions or to reach for a can of Dr Pepper. The first is already empty and she's hard at work on the second.
It was a rather taxing last few weeks for Mason, but now that he's back out of the lime light, he's ready to just relax for at least one day before he has to return to his regularly scheduled school life. The door from the kitchen swings open, and the blond pop star saunters into the room, a bag of potato chips in one hand and a bottle of root beer in the other. He spots the form of Jill sprawled at the couch, and he walks up to the other side, and vaults himself over the back of the sofa. His feet hit the ground with an impact that seems too heavy for his size, and he lets himself plop into the cushion. "Hi," he announces casually. There is the pop of the bag as he pulls the seal open, and the smell of barbeque chips fills the air.
"Hey," the blue girl replies monotonously without taking her eyes off the screen. She's nearly got enough EX bar to pull off a super move and to lose concentration now might wreck her flow. Oddly, it's the smell of barbeque that draws her interest away from the game, more than the decidedly heavy thump on the floor and sofa. "Oh, umm." The realization that she's not alone is much clearer now, causing her to hit pause. "Uhh, hey. Are you… new here?" Jill cocks her translucent blue head to one side as she glances at Mason, like a curious dog might.
Mason cocks a lopsided grin. "No," he says, "I have just been out of town for a while." He reaches into the bag and pulls out a few of the chips before extending the bag to her. "Hickory Barbeque?" he asks, the open end inviting Jill to take part. He kicks his Air Jordans off onto the floor, and tucks his feet underneath him. "I'm Mason."
"Oh. Well, welcome back." Jill understands having to leave the school for a while due to other business. She was gone for close to a year herself, and in that time surely missed a lot of new arrivals, this boy included. "Jill," she offers cheerfully, straightening up in her seat and digging a small handful of chips from the offered bag. She pauses just before she can eat the first one. "'Scuse me if this sounds weird, but you look familiar. Have we met already and I just… forgot?"
The fist full of chips from Mason's hand makes their way into his mouth. He crunches on them for a few seconds before answering. "Nope, you probably just know me from TV or something. Mason Steele." He grabs the cap of the root beer and twists it off with a snap-hiss. He dismisses her familiarity with him rather casually, as if it was something that happens to him frequently. He takes a swig of the IBC and leaves the bag in the same position toward her.
The little wheels inside Jill's mind grind slow but exceeding fine. At first, she gives a soft laugh that the (admittedly) handsome boy is playing her, thinking he's so pretty he should be on TV. She pops two chips into her mouth, chews, and swallows visibly. It's a bit like a blurry x-ray; the mushed food is slightly distorted as it travels down the inside of her translucent blue throat. "Picked a nice time to come back," Jill comments lightly, sucking flavored potato chip dust from her fingertips. "Only four days of class this week."
"I know, I couldn't go missing the holiday, you know?" Mason admits. "Could use a break after my tour to just veg out for a day, you know? I like traveling, but after a while all the cities start to look alike when you're looking at the back of the venue." He drops the bag of chips between them, and reaches into the bag with his right hand, still holding the root beer in his left. He can't help but watch the chips go down her throat, though he wouldn't be so rude as to comment on the fact.
More and more, Jill is getting an impression that Mason may not entirely be joking with her. Her lips purse and her navy blue brows furrow, squinting at him for all the good it will do to jog her memory. "Weren't you on… a TV show? Totally something?" Slowly, deliberately, and very obviously, she leans closer and extends a hand to press a cool blue finger into Mason's cheek firmly enough to make it dimple, moving it around in a slow circle. Not a hologram, at least not as far as she can tell. "Is that you, Nigel? Are you messing with me?"
The boy doesn't move as Jill presses her finger against his cheek, but takes it in stride instead. "Nigel is my roommate," Mason comments with a smirk. "And he would, but he's not." He pops the chips into his mouth, and chews away, while draping both arms back over the couch. "Yeah, Totally Micaela. But I don't do that anymore. Now I just do music." Truth be known, Mason gets a kick out of being recognized as a celebrity, but he tries to pretend it doesn't matter to him with an almost overly casual demeanor.
Jill gives the finger on Mason's face one last wiggle before withdrawing it quickly. "Holy crap, you're for real, aren't you?" A light flush of dark blue colors her cheeks and across the bridge of her nose, looking more like the errant streak of an airbrush than an actual blush. "I'm so sorry! For… umm… poking you in the face. But what are you doing here?" she gestures vaguely to indicate the school as a whole. Still a little slow on the uptake, it seems.
"Eating potato chips," Mason answers. He turns a slight shade of red himself. "I mean, you know, the same thing the rest of us are doing here. And I'm going to Julliard. But right now, I'm mostly eating potato chips," he concludes. "And it's no problem, I don't mind lovely girls poking me in the face at all. He lifts the root beer back to his mouth, taking another swig of it. "I try to keep the whole 'mutant' thing on the DL, y'know?"
The blue girl's eyebrow rise, her eyes widen, and the only things missing are a cartoon lightbulb over her head and a bell-like 'Ding!'. "R-really? You're a mutant?" she asks breathlessly. "Me too." It takes only a second's pause for Jill to visibly realize what a stupid thing that was to say. Of course she's a mutant. Duh. "I mean, umm, that's… pretty obvious, I guess," the blue girl finishes lamely.
Mason lets a toothy grin cross his face, with the twinkle in his eye that he is known so well for. "Yeah, I gathered. Known about it since I was thirteen, but kept it pretty quiet. Somehow Ms. Frost and Mr. Summers found out about it, they came and offered me to join. Some government guys wanted the same, but my mom thought it'd be better not to be part of the military. Worked out pretty well, though. So, were you born like that, or did it happen later in life? I hear some mutants start out with their physical traits."
"Oh, umm," stammers Jill, squeezing the video game controller in her lap with both hands shyly. "Well, no, I wasn't born like this. 'Bout… two years ago, maybe, I kind of… turned into goo and melted in the middle of gym class. They had to shut the whole school down and sent in a biohazard team 'cause they didn't know what was going on." She adds with a little shrug, "Neither did I."
"Oh man," Mason responds with a wince. "That would really stink." He places his root beer on the table in front of him, and then leans back in the couch again. "I can't imagine how much that would suck." The pop star shakes his head. "They really called a biohazard team?" He shakes his head, "I'm glad it wasn't so dramatic for me. I was at home, nothing big going on when I discovered my powers."
"Uh-huh," Jill confirms sadly with a nod of her head. She briefly mimes putting on a helmet or some other headgear. "With the white suits and tents and everything. It was *awful*. Guess they thought it might've been contagious." Heaving out a breath not entirely like a sigh, she shrugs both shoulders helplessly. "But somehow, like, a sample got all the way to some lab over here and the school found out. Then they called our house and… here I am."
"Well, good thing you got here, better than out there with all the mutant haters and everything," Mason muses. "Maybe by the time we're old people won't be all freaky about mutants anymore." He winces a little. "I guess that wasn't the best introductory question I could have asked. Sorry about that."
"No, it's okay," the girl assures, reaching over to pat Mason's hand reassuringly but stopping herself well short. She tries to turn it into a dismissive wave instead, a partial success. "It's just… the way it is, y'know?" adds Jill, with a smile for Mason's benefit. "Nothin' to be sorry about."
Mason nods with a quirk of a smile at Jill's motion. "Maybe one day we won't have to worry about the way people look at us. I know it scares me a lot to think about if people found out that I was a mutant." He is a vocal supporter of mutant rights, but to the public, they think he's a human that stands for mutant rights. Imagine the scandal. The day he is discovered will undoubtedly be a major event.
Bashfully returning her attention to her game, which has been paused so long an actual screensaver seems to have started, Jill finds her timing is off and her fighting game mojo run dry. "My nana said the same thing, more or less. But she talked about the civil rights movement and that was…" The blue girl mulls that over, but the answer she comes up with is less than satisfying. "Like, fifty years ago. So…" Her shoulders sag with regret at bringing up the likely long road ahead of them as a species.
"Yeah, but fifty years ago they didn't have the internet. Word travels way faster now. The world is way cooler a place if you ask me." Mason watches the game, which she could undoubtedly crush him at. "Once people figure out we are just like everybody else deep down, they'll come around. There's already humans who have figured things out. Just gotta get the rest of them to understand." He reaches out, retrieving some more chips. "Cheer up, at least we have this place where we don't have to be afraid, right?"
"You make it sound so easy. And well, yeah, there's the school. Grateful for that, at least. I don't know what it'd be like if I hadn't come here." Bad. The implication is that it would be bad, but she doesn't elaborate on it. Instead Jill tries a fairly obvious conversational gambit to lighten the mood. "So, like, would it be weird if I asked you for an autograph?"
Mason laughs, "Um, yeah, it kind of would be. You'll see me plenty here, you realize that? I'm not a celebrity at Xavier's, I'm just another student like you. How about we go to an arcade or something instead?" he offers. "That's way better than an autograph, right?"
One of Jill's eyebrows perks up. Without even bothering to finish the match, she pauses and exits the game, setting the controller on the coffee table in front of them. "Well…" she hedges, fidgeting a little. "There's sort of one down in Salem Center. But it's in a bowling alley. So I guess if you don't mind that… then… okay?"
"Cool, how about Friday, then?" Mason offers. "It'll be a good way to finish off our big heavy week of classes!" he jests with a wink. As the game shuts down, Mason glances to the controller and back to Jill. "Heading out?" he asks.
"S-sure," Jill agrees. She'd agree to just about anything at this point. "Umm, yeah, just gonna…" She stands slowly, jerking a thumb over her shoulder to nowhere in particular. "Y'know. Do stuff." Without a backward glance, she moves automatically around the couch and toward the hall. It's only after she's fully out of the main building and halfway to the dormitory that she allows herself a very quiet, very girly squeal. "He asked me out!"
