Marie and Yvette, Friday afternoon

[x-traction.livejournal.com]

When Marie drops by to check on Yvette and offer to take her prom dress shopping, she gets more than she bargained for.

Marie knocked on the door to the Teen Girl Squad's suite, hoping Yvette would be in. She'd only gotten to check on the red skinned girl briefly since the group's dino encounter and with prom approaching, she wondered if Yvette had gotten a chance to get prepared or even knew what to expect about from a prom.

"Please to be coming in!" came the response, sounding a little flustered. As Marie opened the door, Yvette was in the process of pulling her gloves on, having been trying to make herself less sharp, the way Mr. Haller had suggested with concentrating on one part at a time. The problem was, every time she tried, she kept remembering everything, and it only resulted in her getting harder, if anything. Which was why she only did it when her suite mates weren't in. No point setting up a potential accident. "Oh, hello, Miss Marie. How are you today?" she asked, recovering her composure a little at the sight of the RA. She liked Marie.

Smiling at the younger girl, Marie closed the door gently behind her. Her eyes took in the tugging Yvette was doing on her gloves, but she didn't comment yet. "Ah'm doing pretty well, what about yourself?"

"I am well," she replied. "Are you looking for one of my suite mates? They are all being away, I am afraid."

"Nope, Ah'm here to see you," Marie said, smiling at Yvette. "Ah was coming to see if anyone had had a chance to talk to ya about prom yet or take you shopping."

"Prom? This is being the dance, yes?" Yvette shook her head. "Laurie is asking me to go to the shopping with her and Jennie, but I am saying no." She paused. "I am not to be going to the prom, so I am not needing the dress."

"Why aren't you going?" Marie asked, walking over to sit on the couch. Something told her this might be turning into a little bit longer of a talk than she'd anticipated.

"I am not being able to change, to make myself not so..." She waved a hand at herself, indicating the sheer pointiness of everything. "If I am to be going shopping, I am to be making the danger for my friends - the people in the town, they are not always liking the mutants. And the prom... I am being the danger there too." She dropped her eyes to the floor, a little ashamed. "There are being the many people, all in the same room. There is to being the chance of an accident, and I am not wanting to be hurting someone who is being bumping into me."

Marie held up her own gloved hand and wiggled the fingers. "And Ah cain't change myself either, but Ah don't let that stop me from going out and havin' a good time." Anymore. "It's true, there aren't the most open minded folks in town, but Ah can go with you - they might stare a bit, but we can ignore them." Reaching out to touch the girl's covered shoulder, Marie softened her voice. "Sugah, look at me. Do you know how many of us are dangers? That's whats so great about this school - we can all be safe here because we don't just watch out for ourselves, everyone else can help with watchin' out too."

"But it is being worse!" Yvette burst out, her voice's tremble the only real indication of her emotions, given her face was still a mostly-frozen mask. "The last time, when I am being like this, I am not being moving, and I am still to be hurting people. The bad men who are taking me, the nurses, Marius... If I am to be near the people, I am to be making the risk and I don't want to be hurting them, like I am hurting my mother. She is only being cross at me, and I am cutting her hands with my skin." The frustration and anger and upset drained out of the young girl's voice as she hunched a little. "And like this, I am to be looking the monster. I am not even being able to be smiling."

"You are not a monster," Marie said, wishing she could reach out to the girl and cursing that it was only her mutation that kept her from doing so. Except...pulling off her gloves, Marie reached out to smooth the girl's sharp hair. "It is a risk. But Ah bet if you asked your classmates they'd rather you come and we all take precautions than you not come at all."

Yvette had begun to pull away as Marie had reached for her, an instinctive reaction. But then she felt Marie's touch on the hardened spikes of her hair, and a small noise escaped her. It had been a long time since anyone had done something like that - even those she couldn't hurt weren't so much with the more motherly gestures. "I thought you couldn't be touching, Miss Marie," she stammered, looking up at the RA with those blank blue eyes.

"Ah feel kinda foolish for not figuring this out sooner. Hair isn't alive...it's why my own isn't invulnerable. And Ah can't absorb folks through touching theirs." She smiled encouragingly at the younger girl. "So Ah cain't touch you...but your hair is safe for me to touch." She kept brushing her hand across Yvette's hair, hoping to soothe her.

"When I am being younger, before I am changing, my mother, she is brushing my hair for me. It is being long, to here," and Yvette indicated a point half-way down her back. "And I am not reaching. Since I am changing..." She gave a little shrug. "I am throwing away the hairbrush. This hair, it is not needing to be brushed. It is needing, how you say? The welding torch." The last was said with almost a note of contempt. "Prom is being to be pretty with the hair and the dress and the make up, and the boys and the dancing. It is not being for me."

"Prom is for spending time with your friends," Marie said as she began to run her fingers through Yvette's hair, separating out the spikes. "And you are beautiful Yvette. And we can get you a dress, to wear over one of the body suits. It can be for you, if you want it to be. But...it doesn't have to be. If you don't want to go, you don't have to - but you should do something. Make plans with other people who don't feel comfortable at prom and have an anti-prom or something."

"When I am being waking up, and I am seeing myself for the first time... it was to be looking at the stranger." Yvette sighed a little, but her body language was beginning to open up as Marie kept up the soothing motion. "But then, everything is being strange, and then I am beginning to go back to how I am before. This time, it is being harder. To be knowing that even if I am being changing back, it is not to be for always." She reached into the pocket of the over-dress she was wearing, pulling out a photograph of a young girl with long, slightly wavy brown hair and large brown eyes in a small pointed face. "This is me, how I am before. I am being very pretty. Even my aunt who is not liking me is saying so."

Marie looked at the photograph and wondered if Yvette always carried it around with her. She made a mental note to speak with Haller later. "And you think just because your skin is red and your hair's a little spiky, now you're not?" Marie shook her head, not stopping her hand's motions.

"This..." Yvette gestured, encompassing the hair spikes, the long taloned hands and feet, the dark red skin. "This... sometimes this is not feeling like it is me. I was not awake when it is happening, I am just waking up one day and this is what I am seeing. Like the magic spell in the stories, yes? I am talking to Dr. Samson, but..." She sighed again. "The words, they are not always being easy."

"No they aren't. And it's good that you're trying though, even though it isn't easy for you," Marie said soothingly. "It's almost worse, that you don't remember the change Ah guess...that you don't have that moment where it went from what you were to what you are...because it probably still doesn't feel real. You probably keep waiting to wake up and find out that it is all a magic spell. But it's not Yvette. This is real, this is you."

Yvette's head drooped a little. "I know," she said at last in a tiny voice. "Wishing will not be making it not true." She stared down at her hands, fingers like knives safely sheathed within the gloves. Built to cut, to harm... Clasping her hands together, she looked up at Marie again. "The prom... it is being for the friends, you are saying? Not for the boyfriends and girlfriends?"

"Nope. There will be lots of people going by themselves or with friends. Some people do go with their boyfriends or girlfriends, but 'round here that tends to be more the exception than the rule." Marie continued to smile at Yvette, all the while wishing that she could tell her something different - that she could tell her she would never hurt again, or that she would return to "normal" soon...but all she could do was encourage the young girl not to let her mutation take away her life. Marie had let her powers steal hers; she could only hope to save someone else that same grief.

"Then, maybe I am going?" It came out a bit more hesitant than she'd wanted, but she was trying. "But... I am not thinking I can be going to the mall. I am not so brave as that."

Marie nodded, happy that she'd at least gotten that far. "How 'bout this - you give me your size and tell me a few things you like about dresses and Ah'll go pick one out for ya." She smiled at the girl, giving her spikes a final pat before reaching to put her gloves back on. "And in exchange, all Ah ask is that you save a dance for me."

Yvette's eyes brightened. "I think I can be doing that, yes. Thank you, Miss Marie."