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Post by Bobby Drake on Apr 14, 2007 8:19:18 GMT
From: bdrake@xavier.ac
To: all@xavier.ac
Re: Birthday Party!
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Help celebrate Bobby Drake’s 18th birthday!
Medlab, 4pm, Wednesday April 18th.
-- Bobby
Robert reviews the message in his mind for the eighth time. He’s still not entirely certain it’s a good idea – the party or the email – but he’s learned to accept a certain amount of uncertainty when it comes to social interactions.
He’d cribbed the wording from other, similar messages in the archives, eliminating the comments he wasn’t sure would apply – almost all of them, as it turned out. He’s pretty sure the exclamation points are acceptable… in fact, most of his template messages used far more of them… and understands in a vague sort of way that they are intended to convey excitement and enthusiasm. And he’d made a point of using the name “Bobby”, which seems associated with the closer emotional relationships he’d had, before he’d taken the MGH dose.
On the other hand, all the other messages had included various extraneous informal notes, so he’s fairly certain the result is unacceptably bare by normal people’s standards. He’d considered simply copying those notes wholesale, but it’s the same problem as always: erring on the side of formality is safer when he doesn’t know the unwritten rules for acceptably informal.
At first, he’d thought he could address the problem computationally, by encoding those rules in software. Up to a point, that strategy has worked: he can refer to people by nicknames now, for example. But only up to a point; despite months of analysis, he still can’t “just chat” with people with any degree of success, at least not without pushing his interface capabilities beyond safe levels. His last serious attempt was outside Ororo Munroe’s office weeks ago; it had ended with a not-terribly-helpful lecture by Dr. Putzkammer on how to be less “frightening” in his speech-patterns.
Granted, ever since Mr. Worthington moved Robert out of his old room, it has been less of an issue… Robert doesn’t seem to make Dr. McCoy or Dr. Richards as uncomfortable as he does everyone else, and avoiding the rest of the students and faculty has become easy now that his network of monitoring devices has mostly pervaded the building. But isolation is a temporary solution at best… there’s no way he can be useful to the team if he alienates them further every time he communicates with them.
Which brings his analysis all the way back around to its starting point: his birthday party, and the wording of his invitation. Of course, he could ask someone else to help him with the wording, and the planning; several friends and faculty have made it clear they are willing to support him. But that would defeat the purpose. It’s a test, of sorts: a structured social event in which his role cannot be peripheral.
He’s prepared for it for about a week now, and has several days of preparation left, but it remains to be seen whether he can succeed. In fact, he’s not even sure who will attend… he knows he’s alienated at least some colleagues – most obviously, John – but he’s not at all clear on how many, or to what degree.
He reviews the message again, making and unmaking various minor modifications before finally sending it. Under other circumstances he suspects he would be excited, or anxious… of course, if he were capable of that now, the exercise would be unnecessary.
(( OOC: Feel free to reply with anything related: reactions to getting the email, showing up for the party, deciding to blow off the party, nervous side-chatter about just what the party might involve, whatever floats your boat. ))
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Post by Josh Dalton Worthington on Apr 16, 2007 4:59:23 GMT
Josh taps away at his laptop at the desk in his bedroom.
With everything that's been going on lately, he hasn't had much time to do random things like surf the internet and check email. He can't help but enjoy checking out one of the celebrity websites, since Lindsay Lohan is enough to give anyone a laugh.
The snickering tapers off quickly when he logs into the main computer to check his mail. Josh blinks once, and tries to scroll down to see if there's anything more to the message. There isn't, (which he realizes he sort of already knew) and he leans back in his chair.
"Warren, you need to see this..." Josh says quietly, not liking the worry in his tone.
"I don't even know what to say. In the medbay? It's like... he's dying." A tear gathers in the corner of of hie eye. "He is dying! God, and I'm here telling John that it's gonna be okay. How can this be happening?" Josh bites his lip. "The Bobby we know is barely there anymore."
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Post by Warren Worthington III on Apr 16, 2007 21:16:33 GMT
> " Warren, you need to see this... "
Warren looks up from grading papers and peers over Josh’s shoulder from the other side of the room, then facepalms. Wow… Drake couldn’t have done that better if he were trying to get everyone’s sympathy.
> " I don't even know what to say. In the medbay? It's like... he's dying."
Well, he is is –
> " He is dying! God, and I'm here telling John that it's gonna be okay. How can this be happening? The Bobby we know is barely there anymore. "
Warren nods slowly, unsure of what to say. Josh had said it himself… Drake is dying, of the side-effects of an “anti-cure” that turned out to be more dangerous than his father’s original concoction. There was probably some irony there, but Warren doesn’t have the attention to spare to think about it.
"I know, hon." He wishes he could come up with something more positive or encouraging to add, but nothing comes, so he settles for resting his arms on Josh’s shoulders and standing quietly for a moment, letting his thoughts drift.
It’s a little strange talking about the Bobby “they” know; the truth is Drake has been in one emotional crisis or another for as long as Warren’s been at the Institute. But he also has some of Josh’s memories to draw on, from the years before that, so he has some idea what Josh means. The kid had potential… and the odds of his getting to realize that potential seem fairly low. But, the last thing Josh needs is to pick up on Warren’s negativity… they’d done that before, sent each other spiraling into crashing depressive moods. Warren supposes it’s the price they pay for getting to escalate each other’s good moods, but there’s no reason he has to let it happen now.
"Though… the Richards are still doing well, and some of the second wave are still active in Fury’s organization, right?" He’s careful not to mention Ben Grimm, who’s now suffering from the world’s most painful case of arthritis. "There’s still hope, I mean. And they’ve got some really smart people working on the problem."
He wishes he could sound more genuinely hopeful… or, given that this is Josh after all, that he could be more genuinely hopeful. Granted, Reed and Hank and Fury’s specialists have kept the MGH victims alive and functioning months longer than anyone had expected at first… but it’s still just slowing down the inevitable, according to Hank. And he knows Josh knows that, which makes the whole “cheering up” exercise a little futile.
Finally he lets it drop. "Yes, I know. I’m just whistling past the graveyard here." He shrugs, then another approach occurs to him. "I’m guessing he’d still appreciate help with the party, though. And I happen to know an incredible birthday-party organizer…" He lets his memories of his own most recent birthday surface, in case there was any doubt who he had in mind.
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Post by Bobby Drake on Apr 19, 2007 3:59:40 GMT
(( 3:45 PM April 18th))
Robert puts the last of the bowls of party food out on the counter he had improvised, checks the time, and returns his attention to his organic chem homework. It’s something of a challenge disengaging his mind from the network enough that he doesn’t simply look up answers; which is good, since the problems themselves are no longer at all challenging, just tedious.
He makes a mental note to talk to Toni about that at some point… while he isn’t any smarter than he was before, augmenting his natural problem-solving and analysis capabilities with software designed on-the-fly makes him orders of magnitude more efficient at solving sets of similar problems… standard drill just isn’t working for him. He wonders whether he could work out some sort of interface like this to the other students… it would be educationally valuable, at least under some circumstances… and has started working out the parameters of such a design when he’s interrupted by a polite cough from Dr. Richards’ office door.
“Excited?”
The question puzzles him a little… his project is certainly interesting, and he supposes it might have excited him if he were capable of excitement, but he’d only just started on it… Oh. He probably means the party. Remembering his private determination to make this work as a social event, he carefully arranges his features into a well-practiced smile and looks up. "Oh, yes… very excited. I don’t turn eighteen every day, right?"
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Reed pinches the bridge of his nose awkwardly between two fingers, trying to decide whether he should discourage the boy from trying to smile. It’s not wrong, exactly, it’s just… unconvincing. But he remains silent… the boy is going to have to figure out some way or another to live with his condition until Reed can find a way to reverse it, and there’s no point in discouraging him.
“Right,” he agrees, suspecting that his own smile isn’t entirely convincing either. Reed has resigned himself to the idea that his genetic catalyzer will claim his own life, sooner or later; he’s even mostly come to terms with the body-count among Fury’s team. But he refuses to give up on his wife, or on Ben… and, increasingly, this boy. The truth is, the longer he spends interacting with young Robert and reading through his files, the more he feels like he understands what the boy used to be like, before the accident… and the more he finds himself remembering Susan’s brother. No… I’m not going to lose this one.
“Well, you had better excuse me; I have a lot of work to finish.” Reed turns back into his office with the kind of abrupt dismissal Susan always chides him for, trying not to be relieved that this boy won’t notice anything strange about it.
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Post by Josh Dalton Worthington on Apr 19, 2007 5:23:49 GMT
Josh relaxes, allowing the warmth from Warren’s hands to soak into his tense shoulders.
> "There’s still hope, I mean. And they’ve got some really smart people working on the problem."
It was true. Reed, Sue, and Hank were all working as fast as they could on both delaying Bobby’s eventual spiral and coming up with a way to reverse the effects of the MGH. Josh even helped where he could; there was some fairly straightforward lab work, PCR and the like, that helped take some of the burden off the scientists. It also seemed to help them just to be present; Hank in particular seemed to enjoy rambling at others, and it helped when the victim target other person actually understood some of the mumbling. Josh only had a basic knowledge of their techniques - much of it was at the cutting edge of what was known in the field of genetics, and the problem with it all was that they were trying to discover something new under a time limit.
“You’re right. We have everyone we can working on this. It’s just…” He sighs, and slips a hand through Warren’s. One of those side benefits of being telepathically connected to your significant other was that important stuff like this rarely needed explaining. It was a relief to have Warren’s mental strength there supporting him. Thanks.
> "I’m guessing he’d still appreciate help with the party, though. And I happen to know an incredible birthday-party organizer…"
Josh smiles slightly. “Thanks… I had help, though. You know, you’re not bad yourself.” He lets their moments in Paris - the ones lacking bullets, missiles, and car chases - float through Warren’s mind. “I’ll check and see if there’s anything I can do. I don’t want him to be alone on his birthday, even if it’s beginning to be painful to see how far he’s slipped.” Josh leans back in the chair and closes his eyes.
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A few days later...
Josh catches the tail end of Bobby and Reed’s conversation as the medical lab’s doors slide open. His hands are full, and containers begin to slip out of his hands. With Josh, though, the dropped articles decelerate as they reach the ground and float up to rest on the lab table where he places the rest of the junk.
He tries a smile, despite how he’s feeling at the moment. “Happy Birthday, Bobby!” Josh begins to sort through the objects scattered across the lab bench. There’s the platter of appetizers, which Jake sent down. (Apparently appetizers were a good way to avoid awkward silence.) There’s also a few other containers of food, a wrapped present, and a box of decorating supplies.
Personally, he found the medbay a soothing place to think while doing research. It was free of distraction. But it wasn’t exactly a good place to have a party. He didn’t know what Bobby had been thinking at the time - Reed and Hank couldn’t have refused to let him out just for a few hours. They could have had a pretty kickass setup in the Danger Room… but he supposed that Bobby just didn’t think that way anymore.
He tries to ignore the odd, somewhat manufactured smile on Bobby’s face. “I thought we could put up some decorations?” At this, multicolored rolls of crepe paper stream out of the cardboard box and begin fluttering through the air. Josh dumps the rest of the decorating supplies out onto the table. “Wanna help?”
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Post by Bobby Drake on Apr 19, 2007 17:07:03 GMT
> "Happy Birthday, Bobby!"
Robert saves the state of both his organic chem homework and his educational interface project before opening his eyes again and smiling at Josh. "Thank you! I’m glad you came!" There… that went well.
> " I thought we could put up some decorations? Wanna help?"
"Yes." He remembers to nod with some semblance of enthusiasm at the prospect as crepe paper goes flying.
He had initially intended to set up the party himself, as a kind of test, but when people had volunteered to help he’d decided that would be just as good… either way, it forces him to interact with the rest of the Institute to accomplish something.
So he starts poking curiously through the remaining items, eventually pulling out a bundle of shiny colored tinsel. After a moment’s thought he fishes out some tape and begins attaching sprays of tinsel to the walls in a regular pattern.
"Is that good?" It occurs to him he could probably set up an Internet search for party decoration tips – he’d been so busy practicing social interactions he’d completely neglected that aspect – but decides not to… perhaps the exercise of making it up as he goes along with Josh will prove educational.
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