12687/Home Turf Advantage
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| Home Turf Advantage | |
|---|---|
| Date of Scene: | 27 January 2021 |
| Location: | Rec Room - Xavier's School |
| Synopsis: | Jax and Shannon trash-talk each other's home teams, and agree that in a world where the Patriots can beat the Bills, anything is possible. |
| Cast of Characters: | Nightingale, Jax Miller
|
- Nightingale has posed:
"OH... oh man... no... freaking... way!"
There is a whoop of laughter, and utterly gleeful clapping from a singularly unusual source. What was that source, one may ask? Shannon was perched on a beanbag in the rec room, with a massive bowl of popcorn next to her, and her laptop on her lap. This in of itself was not unusual.
What -was- unusual, however, was the topic of research to which she had applied herself. It looked like a table or spreadsheet of sorts, with various sports team symbols, dates, and locations listed. Two team logos were dead center on her screen, with Gilette Stadium next to them.
Oh, no it wasn't!
Oh, yes, it was! It was....
...the Patriots, and the Buffalo Bills.
Game on!
- Jax Miller has posed:
It can be safely surmised that, given the topic of research, a certain other resident of the school has seen the same data. Possibly not from the same spreadsheet, possibly from a more personal source, likely some time ago. But the end result is the same.
Jax knows.
And when he enters the rec room, by all rights the music of showdown at high noon should be playing. He is there, in full Bills regalia, eyes hunting for a certain someone. And there she is...
Striding now, Jax heads on over, stops a short distance away, and looms.
Looms!
An eyebrow lifts. The tip of his tail twitches. Teeth appear. He grins.
And, grinning, vaults the back of the couch and flops down, grinning at Shannon from a more recumbent position.
"It's gonna be awesome."
- Nightingale has posed:
Not one to miss a perfect moment such as that, Shannon just grins right back. Sure, she might just be in her two-piece pink satin pajamas and floofy Old English Sheepdog slippers, but that's not stopping her from returning fire, despite the outward lack of team regalia.
"Oh, yes it will," she replies, cackling. "I'm just glad that I got to meet your father in his prime when your folks brought you here. You know, before he loses to the Patriots."
- Jax Miller has posed:
A hand is pressed to Jax's chest, and he tilts his head back dramatically. "Oh, alas, woe is me. That you would wound me so." A deep sigh as the cat mutant subsides on the cushions and continues his cheshire grin, upside down. "I can see you now, going boldly forwards, taking your place in the VIP box at Gilette Stadium, dining only on the finest, having a perfect view..."
GRIN! Yes, it could get wider...
"Of my dear old dad, throwing yet another perfect pass, while the brave Bills steamroll over the Patriots like they did last time. And the time before that. And that time before that..." shots fired...
- Nightingale has posed:
Was that a grin before? Oh, no. This has now gone into 'smirk' territory! Yes, Shannon is smirking, and doesn't even have the courtesy to try and hide such an expression behind her hand! "Perfectly fine," she replies, her tone well-suited to the nobility of yore, dripping with arch superiority. "It will make victory all the sweeter, and I will be there to see it."
Laughing, she nudges the popcorn bowl with one slipper towards Jax, within easy reach of where he hangs off the edge of the couch, upside down like a sloth.
Or, indeed, like a Cheshire Cat.
"All that aside, it's going to be a blast. I'm pretty sure I can talk my dad into going. And of course, I'll have to show off a little team spirit with that hoodie you got me."
- Jax Miller has posed:
"Aw yeah!"
A furred hand reaches out, snatches some popcorn and the rest is munching. Yes, upside down, because gravity and spines are optional.
"I do admire your optimism. I mean, c'mon, it was 28-3 last time." However, that does seem to be where Jax is leaving it. Talking crap about the other team is fun, to a point, but there's a line he's always careful not to cross. It's sports, it's supposed to be fun.
"Hey, maybe I can tempt you..." and now he reaches down, into his own team shirt, pulling up a lanyard. It's his prized possession. The thing he would never lose, would never abandon...
His VIP access pass to Orchard Park. "... to come watch the dress rehearsal? After we're done with the Dolphins, we're gonna need a warm-up after all." Oh yes. The Patriots might play their first home game against the Bills, but the Bills have the honor of hosting the Patriots at their second, a few months beforehand.
- Nightingale has posed:
"You mean a foretaste of the Patriots' victory to come at Gilette Stadium," Shannon corrects him, giggling like mad. "In all seriousness, though, that'd be awesome. Never been to Orchard Park, so that'd be a treat."
Thank heavens the popcorn bowl's huge, and full, because one can almost picture the girl going full velociraptor, the way she's devouring the popcorn! "Really like that hoodie, but... you don't think it'd be bad form to wear it to one of the rehearsals like that, do you? I mean, in the end, it's all just supposed to be in good fun."
- Jax Miller has posed:
"You've never been?!" Blink. Jax rolls the right way up, that's how much of a surprise that was. His tail completes the roll as it is no longer trapped underneath him and flops down dramatically on the coffee table, missing the popcorn by... well, a probably a very well calculated distance, given how much control he has shown to have over it.
"Okay, that's something we're gonna have to do something about. How 'bout I call dad, tell him I'm coming over to the next team training with a guest, have them roll out the welcome wagon and give you the grand tour? Have you see the place where I learned the difference between a turn and a cut?"
- Nightingale has posed:
"Wha...? Are you serious?!" Yep. Shannon's jaw just drops. One could almost swear a big, juicy fly flew right in and back out again without her even noticing. Almost. "That'd be freaking awesome! Oh, man. How are we going to time this with classes and everything?"
There's a very long pause. One could almost hear a pin drop.
"You might even get me to put away my studying for the state EMT exam for a day. Maybe."
- Jax Miller has posed:
"Eh, we'll make it work. I mean..." and here Jax swivels his head from side to side conspiratorially, his ears completing the turn in the opposite direction at the same time, before he whispers "... it's only school. Don't tell Mister Summers I said that."
And then it's back to munching, for a bit at least. "I'd be happy to drive you there. Haven't been in... oooh, nearly a month now, starting to feel a bit homesick."
- Nightingale has posed:
"That sounds fantastic. And you know, I'm willing to bet that miss Grey would probably be one of the first to tell us to relax once in a while. As long as it doesn't mean playing hooky. If we take a day off, let's at least do it properly."
Shannon smiles, settling back in the beanbag and looking over at Jax. "I hear you about feeling homesick. Connecticut's not really home anymore, though. Not since I convinced my folks to get out of that area and closer to where it's a little more mutant-friendly. They're just a couple hours away in the Poconos now. Not too far from where they got married. It's made things a lot nicer, being able to visit them a bit more, but still being here to do my own thing, ya know?"
- Jax Miller has posed:
Ears up, Jax listens. While eating popcorn, granted, but he listens, his wide smile (when he's not chewing) and perked up ears a great void for anything anyone wants to tell him. And, inevitably, he finds that people do, eventually.
"I'll be really honest with you, 'cause... y'know, why not?" Grin. "But here's the truth... I ehm... I don't get homesick, Shannon. At all. Ever." That grin gets a bit more forced, but the ears don't change. "Mom and dad, I know they took it hard when I had to come live here, but..." A bit of a sigh, and his legs swing around, until through some mysterious leverage of physics he's actually sitting upright without seemingly going through any intermediate stage.
"Look, I've been the way I am my whole life, right? And sometimes it gets better, sometimes it gets worse, but all in all I never really cared about it. But we were always going somewhere, y'know? I mean, yeah, officially we live in Buffalo, that's where I got my tree fort..." fractional pause "... but come winter, hey, off to Aspen. To our other place. Come spring, come summer? Down the coast, the leafy Hamptons, to our other, other place. Season over, nothing left to do, school holidays? Bam, off on the yacht. In between, holidays, tours, quick city trips to see where dad plays, or one of the hotels in another city when dad was off on training camp and mom had a case she had to deal with personally out of state... These feet, they ain't got any roots. Closest I come is Grandma's farm, and I only see them a couple of times a year."
Reach slowly. Grab popcorn. Munch... but thoughtfully.
"Point I'm trying to make, badly... is that I don't think mutants got a place that's really home, except for the place they happen to be at the time. That's why I think Mutant Town is so weird. Or Genosha. Just... doesn't feel like it fits, y'know?"
- Nightingale has posed:
Now it's Shannon's turn to listen, quietly munching away on some popcorn. Each word draws her brows together more, lines of concern and sympathy slowly etched between them. "I can only imagine what that must have been like for you... what it's like now. Before I manifested, there was the street I grew up on. Most people pretty much knew each other, in name at least, if nothing else. Most of the kids I played with, we were usually no more than a few minutes' walk away from each other, or a short bike ride. Yeah, it was having roots, and maybe I miss the old place a little."
Now she tilts her head, peering right over at Jax--and smiles. "When I manifested, I found out real fast that those roots, having an actual place, it didn't mean as much as I thought it did. It was about the people. Coming here, I didn't feel uprooted. The day my gifts started showing, that's when I lost my roots. My community. All I had left was my family, and even they could only understand what I was going through to a point." She cracks a light smile, just chuckling a bit. "The closest I could think of at the time who might understand was actually Captain Rogers. Trying to figure out how he dealt with everything he's been through... it helped. Got to tell him that once."
Shannon's smile widens a bit, and she rubs the back of her neck lightly. "Guess the whole point of all that is, you've had roots more than you think. I hope, though... I really do hope... that humans and mutants can learn to co-exist. Then nobody has to be uprooted like that."
- Jax Miller has posed:
"Somewhere down the line, we will." And of that, it seems Jax is supremely confident, glad that the accidental mention of the yacht didn't get a response. Dammit, he'd been trying to avoid showing off, and here he was... argh. But, aside from a quick flicker of his ears, there's not a muscle twitch to indicate that inner monologue. Cool as a cucumber... cat. Some similes need work.
"Like I said, once people find out that we're really not that different, and can help make the world so much more of an awesome place, attitudes will change." Except for perhaps the still unknown nutcase who keeps sending threatening letters to his family and friends.
"Everything's possible. In a world where people think the Patriots can beat the Bills, anything's possible."
- Nightingale has posed:
Shannon can't stop herself from laughing on that one, flicking a few kernels of popcorn over at Jax. "-Think- the Patriots can beat the Bills? Try rephrasing that. I -know- they can!" Of course, it might be a matter of 'when', but hey--semantics, amirite?
"Okay, so. When's the next team training? I mean, so what if it's for the opposing team? It's still gonna be fun! Are we going to be bringing any other friends with us? What's the 'grand tour' involve?" She just keeps peppering Jax with questions, just a normal teenager for once planning an outing with friends.
In the end, wasn't that was it was all for?