i'll be here for a while, doing nothing [open]
While Artie Maddicks has never been the kind of person to really rabidly dislike any season, summer has always been his (not-so) secret favorite. While there weren't really any places great for surfing, persay, in New York outside of the Danger Room, but there were a lot of other possibilities for being outside when the ground wasn't covered in snow and nice. Granted, there were a lot of possibilities for being outside when it was, too, but being the closet nudist that he is, Artie's long preferred the ones that don't involve being in thirteen layers of clothing just to stay moderately warm.

Historically, Artie's attempts to enjoy the summer weather at Xaviers' have gotten him in trouble--and on one occasion a broken leg--but today the mute is apparently not feeling like pushing his luck on the topic of athletics. Maybe it's that he's finally grown into something like some common sense, or maybe it's just that he's still stinging from the close encounters his friends had while he was off gallivanting in Italy. More likely, it's just that the idea of climbing trees has not crossed Artie's mind yet, and if it somehow pushes to the forefront, even a previously broken leg won't stop him from indulging in the urge. For someone who's ostensibly as bright as Artie is, there are days where he doesn't learn very quickly.

Today, however, he's standing on the back patio without any particular immediate risk to his limbs hanging over his head--or beneath him, as the case may actually be. Set up in front of him, he has an easel with a canvas stretched over it, a paintbrush in his right hand. What's on the canvas so far is both incomplete and also not at all representative of what's actually opposite Artie from it, as he's not being an impressionist so much as simply enjoying the fresh air, but Artie isn't actually paying that much attention to it, because his left hand is abruptly empty, the palette it had been holding paint-side-down on the patio just at his feet, the splatter of red and green from the fatal fall spread over the toe of one of his Chucks.

Artie himself is staring down at it like he can undo what's just happened, a sad frown on his face and another appearing disembodied above his head.

[ open! ]