xp_logs | Sooraya and Tommy | Wednesday at lunch

Sooraya becomes an official member of the Feeding People Society when she brings a sandwich up for Tommy. While they're on the topic of food, she asks why he doesn't come to dinner with everybody else, and ends up getting him to commit to doing so every once and a while.

Sooraya shifted the heavy plate in her hands as she climbed the stairs, careful not to trip or drop it as she turned down the hallway. She smiled a little in anticipation of seeing Tommy again and giving him this 'thank you' she had made for him. After hearing about how kind he had been to Yvette she was even more glad to show her appreciation, and she hoped he was home. Her thank you wouldn't stay good forever, unfortunately.

Luckily for Sooraya, it seemed the door to his room was open, since she wouldn't be able to do much knocking with her hands full as they were. She stopped just outside the threshold and looked in hopefully, eyebrows raised. "Tommy?"

Tommy looked up from his desk where buttons, links and other things were spread out as he worked to fashion a necklace and bracelet set for Yvette's birthday. What he saw first was the massive sandwich, which he frowned at before he realized who had spoken. Quickly standing, Tommy moved to the door to help her support the plate. "Sooraya? What are you doing?" He asked curiously.

"It is for you," she announced, hefting the plate as she offered it to him. "For thank you. For the saving me, in the kitchen."

Speechless, Tommy took the plate and set it on a dresser so neither had to balance the massive thing. "You didn't have to do that...but thank you." He said softly as he turned back to her.

Sooraya's smile widened a little more and she shook her head, fingers going to pluck at the ends of her sleeves. "You are welcome... but it is me who is to be thanking. I saw the thing, the... neck-less you have made for Yvette," she said, pronouncing the foreign girl's name carefully. "It makes her happy. I am glad of this."

Tommy smiled slightly as he moved to sit back at his desk. "I'm glad she liked it. I'm making her another for her birthday." He indicate the mess of knick knacks on his desk with the beginning of something in the middle. "And I can make one for you if you would like. It helps me practice."

Shuffling in a little further, Sooraya nonetheless stayed a good distance away from where Tommy sat. She couldn't understand exactly how all the students could be so comfortable around one another, but she was trying to adjust the best she could. Even if it took a while. "You make them?" She remembered Yvette saying something about how Tommy used his power to make her jewelry, but it didn't seem to match up with what she remembered. "I thinked you made water hard? Like the bucket?"

Nodding, Tommy looked over the stuff on his desk and picked up a large round, wooden bead. Sooraya seem to like simple things so he'd do simple. Turning back to her, he removed one of his gloves. "I'm actually not good with liquids, but solids aren't as hard." He closed his eyes and concentrated as he held the bead in his bare fist. After a long moment, Tommy opened his eyes and his fist to reveal the bead made of silver.

The girl's eyes widened and she took an involuntary step closer to peer at the bead. "You can change anything?" she asked then, looking up at him.

"I don't know." He said honestly with a small shrug as he shifted the bead into his gloved hand and held it out to her. "Here, you can have it."

"Thank you." Sooraya took the bead, holding it up to scrutinize it for a moment. It certainly was beautiful, and she was amazed once again at Tommy's generosity. "I wish I can change anything," she told him, curling her fingers around the bead. "I can change only myself."

Tommy wouldn't have called it generosity, but then he wasn't much for thinking positively about much. "It's not as fun as it sounds, believe me." He looked down at the gloves on his hands.

"I do not say it is fun," Sooraya corrected him solemnly. "But it is good to save people and make people happy. It does not make you glad?"

He couldn't help the small smile as she misunderstood what he meant, but then he'd momentarily forgotten she was new to English. "It's satisfying. But I'm glad it makes people happy and I could help you." And he was...and that was weird. He'd never liked his mutation before.

"Good." Smiling more widely now, Sooraya glanced back at the dresser near the door. "You are hungry? I did not bring the drink, but now I can bring it now..."

He couldn't help but smile brighter. "If you join me. We can take it out to the common room. As much as I appreciate it, I can't eat that whole thing myself." This was uncharacteristic of him, but he really couldn't eat that whole thing by himself and he didn't want her gift to go to waste.

Sooraya's eyes widened. She had already been alone with him, it was true, and half a dozen other men and boys in the mansion at some point or another, but it was a strange thing to be invited... Still, it would be impolite to turn him down, and she was hungry. "Oh... yes," she said after a few long moments of silence. "Please. I will like that."

Standing again, Tommy moved to pick up the plate. "I'll meet you out there then." She looked uncertain and he spoke softly and while a small smile to put her at ease. He'd hate to scare her but he realized she probably came from somewhere with other customs. He wanted her to know it was okay.

Following after him at a safe distance, Sooraya perched on the sofa, slipping the silver bead into one of her pockets as Tommy brought the plate over to the coffee table. Luckily she had thought to cut it into halves, though it still looked like a daunting meal for each of them. "Thank you," she told him, taking a napkin for each of them off the stack she had brought. "I wish it is good."

"I'm sure it will be. What's on it?" Tommy asked as he picked up one half, carefully examining it...or really trying to figure out how the hell he was supposed to get his mouth around it.

"There is meats, and vegetables, and may-oh-naise," Sooraya said thoughtfully. "Mr. Marko is teached me. Miss Dane is teached me the other kitchen things, but not the sub sandwich."

At the size of the thing, Tommy could definitely believe she learned how to make it from Mr. Marko. Finally, he settled for squishing it down as hard as he could, and took a bite. It took him a long moment to chew and finally swallow, before he looked back at her. "It's really good."

Sooraya had settled for picking apart her half of the sandwich, neatly popping the smaller bits into her mouth. She smiled at Tommy, her expression sunny and a little shy. "Good. I am cooking more, to practice with the new things. I am happy to eat with more students, too. You do not come to dinner... why?"

Her bluntness made Tommy almost choke on the bite he'd just taken. Putting the sandwich down, he coughed a bit as his eyes watered until finally he was able to swallow it properly. "I....uh....I thought I wouldn't be welcome." he answered honestly.

Sooraya had jumped when Tommy started coughing, afraid that her sandwich had somehow made him sick. Relief flooded through her when he started talking again, though her expression grew more worried at his words. "You wouldn't be welcome?" she asked questioningly. "It is dinner, you eat... then you are welcome."

He gave her a look out of the corner of his eyes and realized she hadn't seen the fiasco that had occurred on the journals over the last week. Tommy sighed and brought one hand to rub his forehead. "I didn't think the other students would accept me. Before I came here...let's just say I didn't like mutants. Worked to make life difficult for them and even...did some pretty bad things."

"Oh." A pile of crumbs grew on Sooraya's plate as she picked at her sandwich, his words making sense with what she had observed of his behavior and the few strange comments she had overheard here and there. "So they do not like you and they will not let you eat?"

Tommy couldn't help a small dark chuckle. "So i thought But apparently, everyone is more accepting then I thought. I kept myself away as a favor to them...but most people here don't care about what I did before. I expected them to hate me...and they don't." He honestly didn't know what to do.

"Oh. But that is good," Sooraya said encouragingly. She pursed her lips, brushing the crumbs into her palm and then depositing them on the napkin. "All the people here are very nice," she said then, with the absolute assurance that seemed to characterize all her thoughts about the mansion and its inhabitants. "They will not hate for what you are before... they do not hate me, they are nice. You can like them, when you know them, but you must know them to see this." She stopped then, a bit surprised at how well she had managed to string all that English together.

Sighing, Tommy turned his head slightly to look at her, just looking before nodding slowly. "So I'm finding out."

Taking this as a good sign, Sooraya tried another smile. "You will eat at dinner, yes? Not always if you wish sometimes to be alone, but sometimes? I am there, and Yvette."

How could he say no? God, when did he become such a sap? Josh would have had a field day with this. "Yeah, I may just do that."

"Good!" Satisfied that Tommy would get the chance to see how nice the other students at the mansion were, Sooraya bent forward to pick up her sandwich, which was a slightly more manageable size now. Unfortunately, her nervous picking at it had made it structurally unsound, and it began to slither apart as she raised it to her mouth. Pieces of meat and tomatoes flopped out onto her plate, and the bread began to fall apart as well. Surprisingly, she began to giggle, watching as the sandwich dissolved back into its original parts, more or less. "It is a mess," she confided in Tommy, glancing up with laughing eyes.

At her laughter, Tommy couldn't help but smile and even chuckle as well as he moved to pick up his own sandwich again.