xp_logs | Big Red/Little Red - Monday afternoon

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Set before Yvette saw Kurt's announcement about his field trip to Arlington. Yvette finds Cain in the laundry room and welcomes him home - with a haircut.

Six weeks, he thought. Six weeks and he was almost back to looking like he'd just woken up out of the coma again. Cain frowned at the reflection in the large mirror and squinted. Normally he'd do this up in his own suite, but since he was already down here with a load of laundry, the large sink in the basement laundry room and its mirror would suffice.

Pushing the mop of unruly red hair out of his eyes, Cain ran his hand over the thick beard he'd accumulated over his vacation. Didn't take much to normal razors when your hair had the tensile strength of titanium wire, he'd realized early on. So regular grooming took a bit of creativity when you were functionally invulnerable.

Splashing his face with a double handful of rubbing alcohol, Cain reached down and lit the blowtorch sitting on the edge of the sink. Peering into the mirror, he raised the small blue flame to his cheek and watched as the fire leaped to his face and set it ablaze.

Of course, that would be when the door would open, revealing a small red girl carrying a basket of laundry that seemed almost as big as she was. Yvette was very conscientious about keeping things clean, especially given her scrambles through the woods, and the drama of the past few weeks had meant she'd gotten behind. All that was forgotten, though, when she caught sight of Cain applying a blow torch to his face. "Mr. Marko! Please to be being careful!" she exclaimed, forgetting his invulnerability for a moment.

"Huh?" Cain dropped the torch into the sink, hearing the fizz as the flame sputtered out. Turning his head, he smiled down at Yvette, the expression looking horrific in the middle of a soot-blackened face, spots still glowing red with embers or the small spots of blue flame burning themselves out. "Startled me a bit there, Little Red," he joked as he gave Yvette a wave. "Didn't expect nobody to run into down here."

She blinked up at him, looking slightly stunned. His face was on fire. Well, his beard was, what was left of it, and he wasn't apparently minding at all. D'uh, as Kyle would say. "You are... being the okay?" she asked, putting down her laundry basket and coming a little closer. "I am sorry, I am not meaning to be startling. You are... shaving, yes?" She looked at the blowtorch a little increduously.

"Sort of," Cain said with a shrug, picking up a flat-bladed putty knife and looking into the mirror. Drawing it down his cheek with a rasping sound, the burnt hair flaked away, leaving unmarked skin underneath. "About one of the only downsides to the whole 'can't be hurt' thing is that it makes haircuts a real pain in the you-know-what," he remarked, splashing water against his cheeks to wash away the soot.

Yvette thought the shaving was an improvement - with the beard and hair, Cain looked like a particularly large hippie, which was just wrong on so many levels. "I am thinking you are having the good vacation, yes? If you are not being shaving when you are being away?" she asked, coming to stand by his elbow, watching what he was doing curiously. The height differential made it something of a neck-straining job.

Looking down briefly, Cain extended an arm to scoop up Yvette, sitting her down on top of a washing machine next to him, so their heads were at least close to the same level. "It's good to take a break now and
then," he said noncommitally. "I mean, here's home, but there's a whole world out there to see. And sometimes it gets a little insane here. Especially when some folks go a little goofy and blast holes in their office walls." He scowled into the mirror, still unhappy about the repair job that had been done in his absence. He was going to have to see Scott about tearing out the work and doing it properly.

After the initial squeak, Yvette beamed up at him, perching on the machine on her haunches. "They are saying Mr. Summers is having the powers accident," she informed him solemnly. "And then they are talking about the plane that is living under the basketball court, and Mr. Angelo is cutting off his hair and going away and everyone is being so hurt last night. Angel, Sooraya and I were having to be sitting on Mr. Sefton to be making him rest." She shook her head a little. "It is all being very strange, but I am thinking it is what Mr. Logan is telling me, to be making things to be safe." She smiled again. "But I am glad that you are being home, Mr. Marko. It is not being the same when you are not being here."

"Yeah, everyone went and got a bit banged up, but they'll all be fine. Just part of what we do," Cain agreed, obviously pleased by the little girl's words. He rubbed his now-smooth cheeks thoughtfully, brushing another lock of hair out of his face. "Christ, I look like some unemployed college dropout here..." he mumbled, trying to shake the water off the blowtorch.

Slowly, he set the torch down and looked down at Yvette's gloved fingers. "Say there, Little Red. Feel up to giving me a hand with this?"

"Mr. Marko is looking like the hippie, yes," Yvette agreed, giggling a little - the fact she was capable of teasing her teachers, even a little, showed how much she was settling into life at the school. Then she caught the glance at her hands, and took in his meaning. "If you are being staying very still, I can be helping to be cutting, yes?"

"Damn dirty hippies," Cain growled, but he smiled as he said it. Hauling over a large canister of detergent, he sat down cautiously, positioning himself between Yvette and the mirror. "Close on the sides, short on the top," he requested, just as if he'd been sitting in a barber's chair. A small voice in his brain reminded him that the last time he'd been in an actual barber's chair was over forty years ago, and that the last time anyone had cut his hair for him, it had involved lasers and the most annoyingly-hummed version of Sweeney Todd ever.

"Yes, Mr. Marko," Yvette replied with another small giggle as she pulled her gloves off. She couldn't hurt Mr. Marko, but she didn't want to make him look like a scarecrow either, so she was going to be very careful. "Mr. Logan is being teaching me," she observed, pondering her first cut. The initial attempt was too tentative, failing to cut through the offending hair, so she applied a little more pressure. "He is saying I am to be learning fast."

Cain saw the first lock of hair fall over his shoulder and resisted the urge to nod. "You've been doing real good at picking things up since you got here. Professor says you paid attention in history class while I was gone. You and... whatsername, your little friend with the scarf? Sooraya? Both of you, real good students. And real patient, since the rest of the class is the little kids."

He didn't want to distract Yvette too much, especially when she began to snip at his hair with her fingertips a little more confidently. Her fingers felt like small razors shaving over his scalp - not painful, but just enough of that thin sensation to let him know that she could probably slice right through darn near anything if she put her mind to it.

"I am being here to learn," she observed, but she sounded pleased, and the glow from her eyes was illuminating the laundry. As she became more aware of the physics of the situation, her movements became quicker, more certain, and bits of reddish hair was soon drifting all around Cain. "And Sooraya is also being studying hard. We being are helping each other, at the school and at Elpis." She smiled a little. "And I am not minding so much that we are being with the, how you say? Little kids? They are being the friendly to us, and this is helping."

"Careful," Cain said with an arched eyebrow. "You start piling too much on, you're going to end up like Mister Dayspring, all dizzy all the time with your brain falling out your nose." He punctuated the description with a raspberry noise and a chuckle. "There's someone who needs a vacation."

She snickered at that. "Mr. Dayspring is being very nice, but sometimes he is not being very... how you say? Sensible? He is being trying to carry a world on his shoulders, as my mother would being to say. And you are right that he is needing the vacation. I am not being sure he is taking one soon, though." She beamed. "Mr. Angelo is - he is saying he is not coming to the work today, and this is being a good thing."

"Hard time of year for Nate," Cain agreed, remembering today's anniversary. He sat quietly for a moment, unsure of how much of what had happened on Youra two years prior wasn't his story to tell. "There's a reason he gets real protective of you kids. He didn't have this school or anyone like it when he was your age, and some bad things happened. That's why he's so driven on making things safe for folks what can't defend themselves. Ain't an excuse for pushing himself so hard, but it's a reason."

His eyes flicked up to the mirror as Yvette started to cut the shaggy locks of hair away from the top of his head. "Hey, how about that?" he joked, "I'd almost forgotten how darn good-looking I am."

Yvette nodded, smiling a little at the joke. "There are being the many people who are having the bad things happening," she reflected, thoughtfully. "Mr. Logan is saying it is being the dangerous place, and this is why there is being a plane in the basketball court. I am thinking that one day, I am to be helping too." Then the smile crept back, somewhat wry. "But I am to be knowing, how you say, my own limits? I am not being very strong or very clever, so I am to be being careful I am not burning myself in?" She wasn't entirely sure of the phrase, but that sounded mostly right.

"Burn yourself out," Cain gently corrected. "Good lesson to learn." He tilted his head, smiling approvingly at the job Yvette had done shearing his shaggy mop of hair down to the almost Corps-regulation flat-top he usually sported. "Well I'll be a monkey's uncle. You've got yourself a talent there, Little Red."

"It is being better than a time when I am cutting my doll's hairs," she agreed, looking at her handiwork with a certain amount of pride. "The next time Mr. Marko is being needing the cutting, you can be asking me, yes?" She giggled. "I could be like the movie Jennie is showing me, the Mr. Edward Scissorhands? He is trimming the hedges too."

Cain didn't get the movie reference, but he nodded anyway. "You got yourself a deal. And a full load of laundry, it looks like. I'll go grab a broom to sweep up in here, and let you get started then." He glanced back to the mirror, running a hand over his head. "You do good work, kid."

"You are being welcome, Mr. Marko," she said, pulling her gloves back on. Then after a pause, she added: "Can you be helping me down?"