4532/Deke, Dylan, Drew, and Jubilee

Deke, Dylan, Drew, and Jubilee
Date of Scene:	29 December 2020
Location:	Back Yard
Synopsis:	Drake Riley and Jubilation Lee meet for the first time. It goes well until it doesn't. Whoops.
Cast of Characters:	Jubilation Lee, Drake Riley

---

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    The Mansion's back yard area, predictably, is fairly quiet. It's just slightly too cold to promote much activity back here, but that makes it perfect for the school's resident troublemaker extraordinaire. Like a shark stalking her prey, Jubilation Lee is gliding along the asphalt, doing large circles with her heely sneakers. She's bent forward, as if to make herself more aerodynamic, and has something very interesting under one of her arms: a Vurtego extreme pogo stick. It's yellow and pink and has the word BLINKY printed on its side. The handle bars have a large red bow stuck on there.

    After several orbits, Jubilation allows her speed to slowly putter out until she stops entirely. "Here, we make history!" she declares to no one. Jubes disengages the wheels on her sneakers and plants the tip of the pogo stick on the ground. Time to bounce!

Drake Riley has posed:
Perhaps oddly, another youth with a past rife in delinquency and crime is present but minus the intent to commit the heinous act of shenanigans. Rather Drake has been keeping on his best behavior due to a promise made. No fingerwagging admonishing from a stuffy suit; just an understanding and agreement. Insofar, he's surprised even himself with how he's managed to keep clear of trouble. Granted, he still feels /very/ much like an outsider here, and that could put pretty much anyone on guard.

At present, Drake's hands are stuffed into the confines of parka pockets, not at all fond of the bitter New York winter. But the girl rolling around on heelies gives him pause. Like most people he glimpses, he tries to determine what her mutant ability might be. Some are obvious - they wear them on their sleeve. Some, like this chick, present something more of a challenge. He makes his way closer, caught between the desire to be sociable and not wanting to break her concentration on whatever it is she's clearly devoted to accomplishing. Making history, apparently?

"S'going on?," he finally pipes up as he nears.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilation's eyes widen. She jumps up an inch or two for maximum effect. "Don't you know that you should /never/ sneak up on a LADY!" she cries out, letting go of the pogo stick with one hand and presses the hand against her chest. She leans backward, as if to mock-faint.

    Jubilee grows tired of her own antics after just a moment, so she straightens up and squints at the new arrival. "I am making history here," she explains. "And not in a Gettysburg sort of way -- more of an Apollo 11, not 13, not Challenger, sort of way!" she adds with some energy. "I -- Jubilation Lee -- will be pogoing over ... THAT..." She points at the asphalt. There's nothing there. No obstacle. "...On...THIS..." She points at the pogo stick in her hand. "...Using nothing but...THESE!" She points at her bare legs and bends one of her knees, just slightly, to pose.

Drake Riley has posed:
A pogostick. In reflection, Drake isn't sure he's ever actually seen someone use one of those before. Not in person, anyway. It always looked so easy - just stand on it and let it do all the work. But that's not really the case, is it? There's a fair amount of personal physical control and balance required to properly pogo. So even this stunt completely lacking in obstacle is likely something he'd faceplant with a few times.

However, all of this? It just registers with a slow blink.

Vibrant emerald eyes follow the indicated trajectory, the pogostick, the fact that it has a bow on it, and the legs that'll make it all happen. "Christmas gift?," he asks bluntly, gaze lifting again to the girl's face. Though now it's with a small grin.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "Check out the big brains on Brad!" she cheers, grinning from ear to ear. She gives Drake a snap-point and lifts one of her feet to rest on the pogo stick's pedal. It WAS a Christmas gift. "I figured... If I'm going to do it, I might as well go big, right!" she says, gesturing to the nothing on the ground that she's going to jump over.

    "Unless...?" Jubes questions, looking up at Drake, inspecting his face with her baby browns. "Unless you think I should start small and jump over...I don't know....You?"

Drake Riley has posed:
The unlikely image of a pogostick spiking through his head briefly flashes in Drake's mind. He quickly shakes his head. "Nono, I think my services are better rendered if I'm, like, making sure you don't totally fall over." A meaningful look is shot down to her final remaining earthbound foot. His gaze quickly lifts to the aforementioned baby browns, however. "Drake, by the way," he introduces with a small, replenished smile.

He does, however, cautiously move aside as if to dissuade her from suddenly pogopouncing at him and turning his mental image into a reality. And just to be on the safe side, his hands lift from his pockets, to be further ready in case she happens to lose her footing. "What's your name?"

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "Making sure I don't fall over?" Jubes questions, bringing her hand back against her chest. "Ye of little faith!" She looks down at the point where her pogo stick presses against the ground, adjusting its angle just a touch. "What's my name?" she repeats, grinning back at Drake. "I already told you! Jubilation. You gotta pay attention, David." Totally on purpose. She looks down at the pogo stick's tip and nods her head at it, as if they just made some kind of bargain.

    Apparently satisfied, Jubilee presses down with her foot and shifts her weight to get the pogoing started. Her second foot is lifted and she's off to the races! Jubes bounces easily, apparently taking to it like a duck to water. "So what grade are you in?" she asks, looking down at the ground to watch what she's doing. "You a senior?"

Drake Riley has posed:
Her name is Jubilation?

Drake stares a moment, the smile dimming. He's from California. Weird names aplenty out there. But they usually tend to be hippy or pretentious in nature. This one is just distractingly happy. Though watching her a moment further, he decides, "Yeah, okay. That checks out." Weird name? Absolutely. Fitting? So far!

Confident as she is effervescent, Jubie is bobbing right along with the pogostick. It does absolutely nothing to fix his misconception of how easy they would be to ride. Heck, she's even able to carry conversation like this! "Nope," he answers. "Graduated last year from L.A. Spent the summer and fall getting out here, and here I am." He twists a shoe self-consciously against the sidewalk, anticipating the confusion to follow. He's been met with that somewhat frequently. "You?"

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "Jubilation. Jubilee. Jubes. Take your pick, Daniel. I'm a Junior!" she elaborates, staring at the ground as she poges. This particular pogo stick is meant for extreme use and can even be pressurized to affect its bounce. She hasn't done any of that, so it's bouncing pretty normally. But...

    "What's this switch?" Jubilee wonders aloud. No more than a half-second goes by before the girl flips the switch in question. The sides of the pogo stick start to illuminate and flash with all kinds of colors. Apparently, it has LEDs built into it. Jubilee starts to laugh and laugh and laugh. "OH!" she cries. "I get it now. BLINKY!"

    "Wait, wait, wait," Jubilee says, still keeping her eyes on the prize. The prize is not wiping out. "...You graduated. So why are you here? Not get enough /school/?" She gives the boy a look with equal parts pity and suspicion.

Drake Riley has posed:
"Drake," he corrects, though he's fairly certain she's doing it on purpose. And while on a pogostick. He can't get away with shoving her while she's on a pogostick, can he? Unfair.

She hits the switch, and so begins a lightshow. It's enough to earn a snicker, but it's short-lived, following the question and look she gives him. His head ducks slightly in wince. "No! Kind'a hated school. I was happy to be done with it. But I'm here," he taps the toe of his shoe against the earth, "because I'm different. Like you, I'm guessin'." He squints in good-natured suspicion back at her. "Maybe not /as/ different as you," he teases. "And because I was told this is the best place for me to get what I'm hoping for."

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "Darren," she repeats. Not really.

    Jubilee's pogo stick adventure begins to putter out as she tenses up her knees, allowing the stick to launch her less and less with each press. Once she's satisfied, Jubilee hops off the stick and sticks her hand out to her side -- TA DA!

    "You're trying to find out if I'm one of those dirty, stinkin', awful mutants, aren't you?" she accuses with a grin. "Guilty as charged, Donald!" Jubes switches the lights off and smiles at the pogo stick, gliding her hand appreciatively against the metal. Good gift.

    "What is it you're hoping for?"

Drake Riley has posed:
Drake Riley twists his lips a little as she continues to get his name wrong. It hasn't quite reached 'annoying' yet, but he's not loving it. And once she's dismounted the pogostick, he stuffs hsi hands back into his pockets. She's not going to be dropping, no need to be on alert. Plus, his hands are cold. Screw Winter.

"If you're here, I'm pretty sure you're one of us," he remarks. "Can't imagine what your mutation is."

As to the question she poses him, he's pretty sure she isn't really invested in an answer. But it's deeply personal, and opens up some vulnerabilities; neither of which he feels comfortable divulging with her. So he casually evades, "Hopes'n dreams are reserved for people who can pronounce my name." And following that, he pokes his tongue out at her. Nyeh.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "I can pronounce it -- I just choose not to!" Jubilee returns, grinning. She puts one of her feet back up on the pogo stick's pedals and bends her knee. If she's cold, she's not letting Drake know it. She came out here in nothing but a yellow jacket and a pair of black short-shorts, after all.

    "Hopes and dreams? You were the one who brought it up!" Jubes says with a shrug and a smile. "But if you want to be all Kaiser Sose about it, be my guest!" Jubilee drapes one arm over the top of the pogo stick to keep it in place while her other arm comes down to her waist. She slips her fingertips into one of the pockets in her shorts to produce the one and only item stowed.

    "Want some gum?" she asks before thumbing off a piece for herself. "It's bubblegum, all pink and bubbly -- not that minty stuff!" Before he has a chance to reply, Jubilee has already unwrapped her piece, popped it into her mouth, and started softening it with her teeth. She is a fast one.

Drake Riley has posed:
Kaiser Sose? "I don't think that's how-," she's already off on something else. Drake gives her an odd look, and just rolls with it. Personal things will remain personal and not ammunition with which to tease him. The offer of gum is met with a polite headshake and attempt to change the subject.

"Been here long?" Simple question. Fairly innocuous. And he's used to students not recognizing him for his non-student status. It's happened a number of times already.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilee blows a bubble -- it's a big one. The bubble expands and expands until the surface tension on the gum just can't bear it. It *POPS* with a satisfying crack, falling flat against the girl's chin. She gently slurps it up and continues chewing. Ain't no thang. "It's my third year," she answers with a shrug. "My roommate and I -- Nori -- we're pretty much the /coolest/ kids here, so..."

    Jubilee bends down to set the pogostick flat against the ground. When she comes up, she waggles her eyebrows and then ROLLS! With her toes pointed in the air, the wheels on her heelys sneakers engage and she's able to skate. Jubilee skates circles around Drake, twirling around in little circles from time to time.

    "So. What do you think of the school, now that you're here?" she wonders, raising her eyebrows expectantly.

Drake Riley has posed:
"Oh, Nori? Noriko?," asks Drake, easily recognizing the name. "I know her." They got off on the absolute worst foot, then patched that right back up. Good people, he thinks. "Not seen'er in a while. Not since it was warm enough to touch the pool." His expression pinches into a forlorn frown, gaze cast longingly in the pool's direction.

Her assertion of being one of the coolest kids at the school gets his attention again. He doesn't challenge her on it, but the look he gives her is wryly dubious.

As she rolls in a circle, he's left standing there in the center. No wheelies for Drake! He can't help but feel inspected, however. "I think I don't fit in," he answers honestly. Despite his fairly nice presentation and well-kept look, the general uneasiness with his surroundings is something he's not been able to shake. "I think I was, I dunno, middleclass or something back home. Went from that to the street for a few months. And now here."

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "You know her?" Jubilee repeats, her eyebrows rising. She keeps skating. "...In-ter-est-ing.... I'll be sure to find out all about ya later, then!" Skate skate skate. "...She tells me /everything/..." Jubilee warns, grinning from ear to ear.

    "Of course you don't fit in!" Jubes points out, shrugging her shoulders. "Because you graduated! You are yesterday's bananas, Dirk!"

    Jubilee skates up to the older boy and comes to a halt. "...I could show you around, introduce you, tell people you're cool," she offers, shrugging her shoulders. "Then maybe you'd feel more like you fit in!"

    "You are cool, right?" Jubes accuses, grinning.

Drake Riley has posed:
If that worries him, he doesn't show it. At least, too much. There's a mild lifting of an eyebrow as Drake watches her orbit him. Well, as much as he can without going full Exorcist head or spinning around on heel. Being referred to as yesterday's bananas gets an open frown. In one fell swoop, he goes from fish out of water to feeling too old for his surroundings and lame. "Great. Good talk," he says sarcastically, tone uncharacteristically flat. The prospect of meeting more students - those he'd otherwise seem to have no contact with - makes him feel even more out of place and old. Nevermind the one year difference between them.

"I used to think so."

It's striking to him how she can be all smiles while nearly every moment makes him feel more and more out of place. "Uh... hey." He frees a hand to scratch at the side of his neck uncomfortably. "I'm gonna bail."

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilee's smile fades a little bit. She seems to have pressed a button, perhaps, but she can't be sure. "Well..." she begins, the enthusiasm in her voice waning a bit. "...I'll see you around, then." Her eyes shift to the ground, just for a second, as she thinks through this.

    Jubes pushes off with one foot and tilts her toes towards the sky, engaging the wheels on her sneakers, and slowly circles around Drake again. "I get it!" she exclaims with some sudden energy. "You don't want to be seen with a Junior! Say no more, Drakey, I get it!" She's smiling again, now wagging her finger at him.

Drake Riley has posed:
Drake Riley starts to walk on, managing to get one step in before pausing when she speaks. And this time, it's with his name! Sort of. It's in the right direction, at least. But what she determines to be the issue is surprisingly off-base; enough so to require a moment to process.

"W-what? No! That's not it." His hands lift again, this time to wave away the notion. "Some of my friends in highschool were different grade levels. Didn't care about any'a that. I mean, heck, maybe it's weird for me to be around a highschooler now, I dunno." He exhales a puff of a sigh, at a loss. "It's fine. It's whatever," he submits.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilee's circling slows to a halt. Instead, she starts sliding side to side as she transfers her weight from one hip to the other, back and forth, never still. "Well, yeah, I guess this is pretty weird," she agrees with a smirk, moving her hands back and forth between them, as if to indicate their exchange of words. "People are straa-ange, when you're a stranger...Faces look ugly, when you're alone..." she sings. She pauses, stares at Drake. "The Doors."

    Suddenly... "Dodgeson! Dodgeson! We've got Dodgeson here! Dodston is talking to a highschooler!" she shouts into the air. Peering back at the boy. "...See, nobody cares?" A little Dennis Nedry for you.

Drake Riley has posed:
Drake Riley watches her weeble back and forth with the sway of her hips. It's a little annoying how cute she is, and more annoying still that his mind has cottoned onto that. He glances off to the side from her face. Nope - no looking. Especially if she's going to be talking to Noriko about him. The fact that she's singing isn't helping. He grudgingly brings those vibrant emeralds back to her face, lips in moue. Jurassic Park references are not lost on him.

"Did you say Dodgeson? I always thought it was Dodson." But at last, the corner of his lips upticks in just a hint of a smile. "Alright, so nobody cares about that. It's just hard to not feel extremely out of place here."

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "Yeah... That's what I said...Dodgson..." Jubilee replies, smirking as she does. On one of her hip-sways, Jubes lets the effort go fully and skates again, once more circling Drake.

    "Listen, Daryl... " Jubes begins, chewing her gum with reckless abandon. "You gotta cut that out. If there's one place in this world that you're totally in-place......"

    Suddenly, a personal firework show appears in front of Jubilee -- tiny sparkles, explosions, in every color imaginable, appear and explode harmlessly, with shrill whines and pops. It covers the size of a person, which is convenient because Jubilee skates right through them as they explode. She gives a ta-da sort of gesture.

    "....It's this place!"

    She twirls around in a circle and, once again, comes to a halt. After blowing a bubble and popping it, she puts her hands on her hips. "So. Shut up!" she says, good-naturedly.

Drake Riley has posed:
Drake had started to let his guard down, and they're right back to deliberately screwing up his name. Drake is really starting to hate that. You never know how much that bothers you until someone does it, and for him, it's reached a critically unfun level. So when she bursts from her admittedly impressive lightshow (he now knows what her powers are~), she's met with an irritated look. He really wishes he could've enjoyed that. But there's something cosmically ironic about insisting he belongs while simultaneously, repeatedly, screwing up his name.

"It's."

"Drake."

"Not Darryl. Not Darren. Not Deke, not Dylan, not Drew."

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    *POP*

    Jubilee's pink bubble breaks apart and dangles from her mouth. She stares at Drake, her hands still on her hips. She holds that pose for a few moments -- long moments -- and takes in a deep lungful of air. Jubes pushes off and skates towards her pogo stick. After picking it up, she tucks it underneath one of her arms.

    "I didn't say Deke or Dylan or Drew," she points out, her voice going soft. With that settled, Jubilee shrugs her shoulders and pushes off with one foot, skating towards the door that would bring her inside and out of the cold. As she moves, Jubilee raises her index finger to pop the last lingering ball of color.

Drake Riley has posed:
Drake Riley stares hard back at her. Deliberately misnaming him undermined the message he's sure she was trying to get across, and wound up swinging into antagonizing. So that was the line. It had to stop. If it didn't, the next step was him leaving her there. But he's giving her a chance to see how it's important to him.

It may have been missed.

As she collects the pogostick, he already knows what she's doing. The frown deepens, disappointed. The correction earns a small squint. She knew what he meant; he's sure of it. But the right move here feels like not saying anything in response. Thus, he watches her leave with her small, parting lightpop in silence.

When the door closes, he turns to make his way further around the building. The reason he came out in the first place is less appealing now - he figures it best to park a while in the cold to avoid an awkward re-run-in just inside the door, though.