Xaviers!

Sometime in the afternoon, the rough purring of a sleeping manticore floated across the quad from where Leo was resting peacefully under a tree with an open textbook in his lap.

"... no, stop, that tickles..." he mumbled in his sleep

Leo would get a text from Ainsley.

What's up mate? I'm bored, wanna do something?

The chime from his phone roused the slumbering beastman, and it took him a moment to register that fact. When he did, he took out the device and read the message. He groaned. He still didn't know what to say to his friend after the question that wouldn't stop nagging his thoughts.

"... damn it..." he said, chastising himself for his cowardice as he put the phone back to sleep. He didn't want to face Ainsley until he knew what he was going to say. He stuck the tree behind him in silent frustration.

(open)

"Spam mail?" a voice from above him asks. "Hate when those wake me up."

Crouched on a branch with both hands and feet paws is Nailah, a couple of leafs sticking in her hair and wings.

Leo jerked his head up in surprise.

"Gah! How long have you been there?"

"Couple moments? Thought I woke you up, but then you just mumbled till your phone rang. Sorry. Hard to see if there's someone sitting under the tree from above." she says with an apologetic smile.

He looked almost alarmed for a split second before settling on defensive and trying not to look embarrassed.

"Mumbling?"

"I dunno, sleep-talking, I guess? Prolly from lieing down against, you know..." she knocks on the tree branch with her knuckles. "Wood."

"Yeah, probably. Readin' about science puts me out like a light. Even more so now that I'm part animal that sleeps most of the time."

"Just gotta find the right thing that gives you that crazy 2 am energy." she chuckles. "And it's not science, that's for sure."

"I can't think of anything. And, God, the night energy is so friggin weird. Makes the curfew suck major ass too."

"Tell me about it... And you just... figure out what you like to do, yeah? For me it's fighting for justice!" she says dramatically and swiftly stands up on the branch, thrusting her finger into the air, although she mostly just ends up with her upper body enveloped by branches and leafs. "Works better when you're on, like, a rock or a building." she admits.

"Justice?" he asked with a raised brow, "Like, with the X-Men?"

"Sure! Like the X-Men. With the X-Men. You know, whatever..." she tries to cover up her blabbering.

"Oookay... Yeah, my buddy Ainsley convinced me to work on joinin'. They told me I gotta reign in my new beastiness some first."

The way he said Ainsley almost sounded like he had a crush, or at the very least a bromance going.

"What's that even supposed to mean?"

"I got a little... wild in power training. Killed a few sim-goons and they had to use a freaky calmin' ray on me."

"Ooph, okay that's probably not something you wanna do out in th-- wait, hold on! Calming Ray? Like a... weird beam of light? Kinda... fuzzy feeling?"

"Yeah. Pretty damn supervillain thing to have if you ask me. But it did help."

"If it helped... We do have a couple people who are... prone to that kinda thing, yeah? More thoughtful than super-villain if you ask me. Now that b...rat Zandra used it to win a bet. That's just cheap."

"Sounds like the rumors of the narc squad bein' on a power trip are true."

"I felt bad about cracking her nose but now maybe not so much. Frikkin' Calm Ray? Hecking heck!"

Leo barked a laugh before adjusting his position and saying, "I would've liked to see that."

"Wouldn't mind giving a repeat performance, if I got the chance..." she admits.

"You should sell tickets," he smirked.

"So was the throwdown before or after the bet?"

"Oh. That was the bet." she chuckles. "I basically won, what witht he sucker-punch and all? But I felt bad for her and offered to get her help. That's when she hit me with that beam and I just... forfeited so she'd let me help her. At the time it didn't really feel like the terrible idea it turned out to be..."

"What a damn bully. Usin' tech to compel obedience like that is no different than that psycho doctor pumpin' me full of drugs and makin' me his attack dog."

After a moment, he added, "On second thought, fuck Lippincott too. Even if it helped me calm down, that shit is not okay."

"It's... not a bad thing on it's own but I dunno if I feel great about it being int he hands of people who are fine with abusing it..."

"You can't trust people like that. I certainly don't," he said bitterly. But then look what the last person to expect obedience did to him. He'd be crazy not to doubt them.

"Well, at least not all of them are terrible. Quinn's pretty alright. He even helped me out with the laundry."

"I'll believe it when I see it," he said, stubbornly pessimistic about the whole thing.

"I mean, come on, they can't all be terrible, conspiring villains." she chuckles. "Sure, Lippincott has a stick up his bum, Zandra's a... bum and Ghost is a creep but... okay saying it out loud makes it seem pretty bad."

"Clearly our headmaster is a fantastic judge of character."

"Or he intentionally picked the mean ones. And then also Quinn." she says, missing the sarcasm.

"Or Quinn's just playing 'Good Cop'," he said distractedly, seeming to be thinking of something else.

"Nooo. I mean he wouldn't, he's too... nice for... that. Dangit!"

He put his palms forward in surrender. "Alright, alright, maybe he's the exception. Don't let me stop you from believing in people."

"Dang right! Not everyone can be scummy, right? Yeah." she nods.

"No, not everyone," he agreed with a thoughtful smile, failing not to think about Ainsley again.

Shit. Am I crushing on him?

"That sounds like you got some in particular in mind..." Nailah grins mischievously.