The scream was loud, long, and shrill. Ear-piercing even. The Mansion, home of the valiant X-men had been invaded! 

Unfortunately, the invasion happened on a Saturday afternoon, when many of the mansion's inhabitants were out and about, going shopping, to movies, to restaurants or just on errands. 

Was anyone even home to deal with the threat!?! Would our damsel even survive!!?? She stood on the chair she'd been sitting in when the attack began, wearing a soft rose-colored midi skirt and white blouse, looking around frantically for the Creature of Evil... 


{open tag, you can probably guess what happened here.   }

Rivka's savior came into the common room wearing just his boxers and looking like he'd gotten out of bed like 15 seconds ago. Which he had. Luke rubbed his eyes as he scrutinized the scene, already feeling slightly annoyed.

"Rivka? What is it?" At first, Luke was confused by the obvious lack of a threat, but also nothing that could have happened like something falling and breaking. He was kinda regretting letting his hero instinct interrupt his nap (even though it was just him sleeping in for several hours). Rivka seemed pretty upset, though.

He folded his arms and closed his eyes, then furrowed his brow trying not to want to fall over from grogginess. A tiny scritching noise nearby caught his attention, and he turned to look at the corner of the room behind Rivka. There was a small, dark brown rat, which seemed to have cornered itself in the...corner, and was scratching at the corner trying to dig through the wall or something.

"Oh, the mouse?" It occurred to him as he pointed at the still very present animal, that Rivka was definitely looking like she'd had a bad reaction to seeing the little thing, standing on the chair and all.

Oops.

זה כאן, איפשהו! הרגשתי את זה!

Rivka replied frantically to Luke, then realized her error and changed to English. “Is here, somewhere!” She stayed perched at the chair, looking around carefully for her tormentor.

Upon hearing that her tiny foe had been found, she turned around quickly, and made absolutely no move to come down. As long as that...thing was alive and the room, she’d stay right where she was!

“Yes! Moose! Ran over bare foot” she explained, pointing at her foot, and stating it louder than really necessary due to being very… excited. She wouldn’t admit to actual panic, unless forced to. Her pronunciation of ‘mouse’ was much closer to ‘moose’ than mouse, and one had to wonder what would happen if she ever encountered an actual moose. It did appear, however, that she was stuck until the vermin, however small and inoffensive, was gone.


ooc: Feel free to laugh at her.

Luke tried not to be too annoyed about it. He wouldn't be too thrilled about a mouse touching him unexpectedly. He wasn't big on touching in general, really; he wasn't superhuman but he had a kind of extra-sensitive...sense of touch. Plus he didn't like getting his fur pulled. So he didn't have much room to judge. Plus disease or whatever.

"I see it." Luke carefully edged his way around the table and chair, towards the mouse. It was a pretty big one, so he was hoping he could snatch it before it got away. His reflexes were pretty good, so it wasn't impossible. After that he could throw it outside or something. Problem solved, and back to bed.

Not that it got that far. He was still a little groggy from waking up, so for a moment he lost focus and drifted, right as he stopped in front of the mouse. It immediately bolted across the room and down the hallway in an instant, going over Luke's foot in the process.

He winced and gritted his teeth in annoyance and discomfort. The universe was screwing with him, clearly. He turned around and shrugged at Rivka, looking sheepish.

"Sorry."

Rivka clapped excitedly. True, having the varmint completely removed from existence, or at least the mansion would be better, but this was close enough in her perspective. She jumped down from her perch on the chair, and rushed forward to Luke. After all, the valiant hero should be thanked for his rescue! 

Rivka wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him on the cheek. Coming from a culture that was sometimes much more touchy-feely with friends than Americans, she had no idea that this might not be fully appreciated. But she really did mean it in the best way. 

"Oh thankyouthankyouthankyou!" she chirped happily. 

Luke watched the mouse run down the hall, but his attempt to track its escape was interrupted.

Rivka certainly meant well clinging onto him, but it was hard to resist the reflex to pull her off and throw her across the room in the process. As it was, Luke went stiff as a statue, arms drawn up as though he were going to hug her back except the tense stance and flexed claws made it a less than affectionate position.

Once she removed herself from his personal space, Luke relaxed and his expression softened from unpleasantly surprised to a more comfortable expression not unlike relief. He crossed his arms and looked back down the hall. "Glad to help, Rivka. Uh..." He scratched the back of his head awkwardly.

Luke didn't want to be condescending, especially since she might not get what he meant. "Sorry, nothing personal, but uh...I'm not super touchy." He crossed his arms uncomfortably. He felt like he was kicking a puppy for being too friendly.

"Just, a little warning next time, okay?" Luke tried to lift his tone with that last bit.

He was distracted by the sudden appearance of the mouse running from the left of the hall to the right. "Uhh, wait." He pointed and started moving towards the hallway. "It's still here."

Rivka listened carefully, and looked rather crestfallen. Then she laid her hand on his arm and said very earnestly "Am sorry, will no do again" before realizing - she was doing it again. She did a cringe and blush while waving her hands in the air worthy of her favorite anime character Princess Stella before putting her hands behind her back, and grabbing one wrist with the other hand. There! Oil and water maybe, but she'd do her best. 

This was before Luke announced the Return of the Beast of course. Shani whipped around to see her tiny foe, and then started backpedaling wildly, and totally without concern for where Luke was - which was more or less behind her. Then she turned, and was on the chair with one quick hop, and all the way on the table with another. She began gathering weapons - knife, fork, spoon, candle + candlestick - and a flurry of objects was directed at or at least in the general direction of, her tormentor. 

The hapless creature began to run in panicked circles itself as the barrage of objects began to crash down around it. 
"House no big enough for two us!" she yelled in the general direction of the furry foe. 


ooc: up to you whether or not she crashes into him. If she does, she'll just kinda bounce off and continue to the chair.

Well this was just his day now.

Luke hadn't flinched away when she touched him again, but it still made him tense up at the sensation. Rivka at least caught herself right away. It wasn't something people changed about themselves easily, so he tried to be patient with people getting a little too touchy for him.

He did not, unfortunately, expect her to react to the poor rodent's return as she did. She smacked into him, which was surprising but applied almost no force to him being like sixteen inches and a hundred-fifty pounds down on him. Then she started grabbing and throwing cutlery across the room.

This was an unexpected response, to be honest, and it took Luke a moment to reorient himself, especially when she started yelling at it which was rather loud to him and made him wince. He wasn't sure if he wanted to try to take the improvised ammunition from her, especially as the mouse finally skittered away and seemed to disappear.

"Uh, yeah." Not his best response, but Luke was a little scattered now. "We should probably clean those up. You okay now?"

Deciding to 'lead the charge', Luke crossed the room and peered around the corner to make sure that the intruder was gone for good this time. it was not in sight and he didn't hear it scratching at anything, so it seemed to be gone. He smelled something, though...

"Oh, gross." Luke made a face and stepped back as the smell of the stupid thing's pee hit him. It was soaked into the carpet too. He covered his face with his hands and groaned.

When she ran out of her first handful of ammunition, Rivka watched from her perch atop the table to see the effect of her barrage. Success! She'd either utterly destroyed her target (unlikely) or scared it into the next county. Either was acceptable in her book. She leaned this way and that, trying to see if her target was merely hiding behind something she'd already thrown, but it seemed to be gone. 

"Are sure gone?" she asked cautiously, as she stepped down from the table to the chair, but hesitated a moment before descending to the floor. Her green eyes were darting around like she expected the Mouse King himself from Nutcracker to appear and defend a member of his Realm. She darted forward, sticking her head out the doorway, and taking a good look. That's when she understood, at least somewhat, why Luke had covered his face. Eeeeew! 

She quickly scooped up her makeshift weapons, then nodded her head in the direction of the kitchen. 
"We put these away, talk more there? No stink?" she offered. While he hadn't said as much, she had to wonder if Luke had more than just a canine appearance. If he had a dog's keen nose as well, then the smell was probably much worse for him, and she definitely didn't care for it. A new plan began, as the gears in her head started to turn. 

"What you do when get girlfriend?" she inquired with an impish grin, "she want touch you, be touch you." While her grin started impish, it faded into something truly inquisitive and caring as she asked her question. She wouldn't admit who, but she'd had her little dreams about someone holding her in their arms. She sure wouldn't mind trying it. She had at least her share of teenage romance fantasies. 

"Oh, yeah, good idea." Luke was quite happy to be away from the messed floor, so he scooped up a big handful of the silverware and, once all of it was accounted for, went with Rivka to the kitchen. He could probably get a snack, too; he hadn't intended to get up yet, but he was pretty wide awake by now and that meant it was as good a time for breakfast as any.

Once they arrived at the kitchen, Luke started rinsing off the cutlery before putting it away. His mind had wandered briefly, so it took a moment for him to realize what Rivka said, and he almost dropped the fork he was holding when he got it.

Oh, Lord help him. Luke wasn't exactly closeted, but he didn't really talk about his sexuality a lot--it was kind of a private thing, after all--and whenever he got caught out like this it was really uncomfortable. Especially since he wasn't sure Rivka would be...chill about it.

"Uh, I guess..." Luke was a little thrown, but he tried to play it off. "I get used to it, yeah. Just kind of like, I don't like to get surprised by it, y'know?" Luke shrugged and dutifully returned to clearing up the last of the dishes.

It wasn't that he was embarrassed to tell her. Just...he didn't really want to. Some time, maybe. "I'm gonna get some food. Breakfast, I guess." Luke was hungry but like, he didn't really want to do much work, so he just loaded some toast into the toaster.

Rivka studied him for a bit. Her English might be far from perfect, but she was an Ace when it came to body language. If anything, she'd gotten better at that since coming to the US as it helped fill in the gaps in her both her speaking and understanding of English. Something she'd said had surprised Luke, or flustered him or something. But she was rather clueless as to what that could have been. Then, she figured it out. All the pieces came together in an instant. Pity they were from the wrong three puzzles, leading to an inaccurate conclusion - Luke was even more shy than she was! This hulking guy was shy and afraid of girls! 

"Men..." Rivka said with a bemused & exaggerated eye-roll, "wonder you starve." The phrasing wasn't quite right she suspected, but hopefully he'd get the jest of it. Rivka pulled some eggs from the 'fridge, and then went to a less-used lower cabinet and pulled out a cast-iron pan inside a plastic bag on which was written 'Kosher Only!' 

There was more to her statement than just cooking however. Maybe, she thought, we can help each other a bit. I'm not one to talk when it comes to meeting people. 

"Two egg, one egg?" she asked with a smile. "How you want?" she also inquired. She thought about that for a quick moment as a funny look crossed her face, then she shook the pan at him and added "No say 'cooked'! Know already!" Images of Tangled except her hair was dark brown, and curly, not straight, blonde, and uber-long. 

She decided to probe more gently this time, and started off by saying "You... no only one hard time talk to someone like. Rivka shy too..." she offered, watching as her eggs began to sizzle with great intensity, as then she didn't have to look straight at him. 

Luke laughed, giving one 'Ha!" before chuckling more at a more subdued volume. That was definitely good for relieving the brief sense of tension he'd had. Plus, now he had someone cooking for him. That was an unexpected but much-appreciated surprise.

He chuckled again at her clarification. "Two, if you don't mind." She was definitely improving on her English, which was cool to see in action. "Uh, I like 'em scrambled." It was maybe not the most common opinion, but with a mouth like his, soft runny yolks were kind of teeth-grinding in texture.

Not wanting to just stand around while someone cooked for him, Luke moved over to start getting some silverware--clean and from the drawer--as well as plates and a couple of glasses. "You want anything while I'm in here?" Luke gestured to the fridge as he closed it and started pouring himself a glass of whole milk.

Oh, suddenly it got more serious again. Rivka seemed to focus intently on the contents of the pan as she asked, and Luke got a very...something feeling about it. Luke wasn't sure what she was implying, but he had a feeling that it was romantic again. That was not ideal.

"You, shy? Aww, no way." Luke's tone was cheeky, though perhaps a little forced. "I think you're doing pretty good, y'know?"

"People Rivka like, they no realize I have oxygen" she confessed. The figure of speech wasn't quite right, but hopefully he would be able to get the jest of it. She slide the eggs on to each of the plates. Luckily, 'scrambled' was a type that she understood. 
"Is any Dr. Popper?" she asked, brightening at the question. The stuff was uncommon in Israel, so she hadn't discovered it until after coming to the US, but now she was a hopeless Dr. Pepper addict. Hopefully she'd learn to pronounce it so that people who weren't used to her would understand what the heck she was talking about. 

One thing was odd though. She hadn't said "men" or "boys" but "people". It was possible this was a language thing again, but coming from a language that had a male or female usage for just about everything, that was the one place where she rarely made mistakes. 

"Am good actress. People think am extra-vart. Maybe am... but not always. You?" she inquired as she sat down, her eyes flitting up to see what she saw in his. "Luke must like someone, yes? Crunch on celebratory even?" The ghosts of several Xavier's English teachers began to twitch in their graves, as her slaughter of the language continued. 


ooc; ironically, 'language' is the word I just can't seem to spell right without a checker...

...Luke did not know what 'oxygen' meant in this context. 'Airhead', or like...he wasn't going to guess. That would be awkward. So instead he just went and grabbed a Dr. Pepper from the fridge before returning the milk and closing the door. Soda was a universal language, and there was a whole dictionary of it in the kitchen most of the time. Or, thesaurus? Eh.

"Here you go." Luke's first instinct was to toss it to her, but that seemed to assume a lot about how much attention she could afford and...whether she could catch. So he set it down on the counter before her. Taking a big drink from his glass, Luke sat down and started eating. The eggs were nice-he liked them fluffy and thick and these were good.

"You seem pretty outgoing." Luke was pretty sure there was more stuff to extroversion and like, energy or whatever, but that was not the point. "I like people. I like hanging out. Only so much to do on your own, you know?"

He took another bite. While chewing, he became aware of two things; one, that Rivka was asking him about if he had a boyfriend (or, oh dear, if he had a girlfriend), and also that he'd forgotten that he was still not wearing a shirt. Or pants.

Luke managed to not inhale the food in his mouth, but it was a bit dicey for a sec. He took a big sip of milk, then set the glass down. "Not anyone right now." God help him, if she asked him out...

"With training school and all, it's hard to fit that stuff in. People do it of course, but I'm lazy." He started eating. He didn't want to outright reject her--it wasn't her fault not knowing he was gay if he didn't tell her, and he definitely didn't want to hurt her feelings. He wasn't looking for someone right now, truly, and hopefully she interpreted that as a non-personal decline.

Or he was falsely reading that she was into him at all which was unfortunate and probably said plenty about Luke too.

"Two types shy; quiet say-nothing shy, and talk-too-much-to-cover-up Shy. Used to be quiet-shy, guess which am now..." she said with an eye roll and ironic grin before taking a long slurp of soda. 

Rivka studied Luke quizzically for a bit, trying to assess what she'd said that had startled him. After a few seconds, she arrived at the conclusion that it was her use of the word 'crunchy'. Darn it! She was pretty sure the right word started with 'cr'. She hadn't a clue that her usage had nothing to do with his reaction, and it was her probing questions, coupled, so to speak, with Luke's relative state of undress. 

Perhaps she should change directions a bit, and that would make Luke feel more comfortable, at least if she could just use the right words?
"Admit, is person really like here. All hope for!" she gushed. "Smart, helpful, pretty..." she stated, starting to list off the attributes of the object of her affection that had caught her attention, "handsome?" she added, not sure if that was the right word, and not actually meaning it to be paired with 'pretty', though that is how it came out sounding. No, she meant Pretty, and Handsome quite separately, but had expressed it poorly. 

"Want to know who is?" she asked excitedly, leaning forward and resting her head on the palm of her hand with her elbow on the table. The truth was, Luke was the closest thing to a confidant she had around the school, and she'd been busting at the seams wanting to tell someone about this. When she'd first arrived, she'd been so off-balance starting in a new and rather strange, school that romance hadn't been on her radar. But as she'd gotten comfortable with the school, she'd had more time and energy to let a school-girl fantasy get a little out of control in her head. 

She hadn't a clue that she might be setting off all sorts of red-alerts in Luke's head, that she'd never intended.