xp_logs | (LOG) Jono and Yvette

In which Jono becomes reacquainted with his guitar, and makes a new friend

Of course the guitar was out of tune, Jono thought as he strummed another chord. He adjusted the strings and ran his fingers over the frets again. You couldn't just store a guitar in a music room closet for months and not expect it to go out of tune. Not that it would have done him any good for the past few months, not having any hands or fingers.

He was only satisfied with the tuning after long minutes of work, and before long the first bars of "Comfortably Numb" could be heard in the music classroom.

The door wasn't quite closed, and so music drifted down the hall, catching the attention of the young Albanian girl on her way back from the library, where she'd been working on her summer assignments. Curious - because Terry was the only other guitar player and she was in Ireland, she thought - Yvette crept to the door, peeking in. Oh, it was Miss Paige's friend, the one who had been hurt not long after she'd arrived. She hadn't really spoken to him back then, but she'd felt bad about the accident.

The music was fascinating, though. Without realising, she'd slowly nudged the door open, until she was standing just inside the threshold, a small, spiky figure with skin the colour of old brick.

Jono noticed someone watching from the door, someone unfamiliar. He let the last few notes hang, and then finished off with a quick blues riff. It was an old habit from his days playing with his friends back in London, in someone's flat or an abandoned garage or the rare occasions when a pub owner didn't care if the band was too young to drink, so long as they could play.

"Are you lookin' for someone, then?" he 'said' towards the girl. He wasn't accustomed yet to 'speaking' to new people, it was always easier if they spoke first. It gave him a better picture of how their thoughts and words matched up.

"Oh!" Yvette made a surprised little noise at the 'voice' just skimming the surface of her mind. Not as strong as Mr. Dayspring's 'voice', this one was fainter and a little echo-y. "You are being Miss Paige's friend, yes? I am sorry to be interrupting, but I am hearing the music and I am wanting to be listening." She ducked her head a little shyly. "My name is Yvette."

Jono remembered Yvette vaguely as the girl who'd come back from Europe with the errant students everyone had been so up in arms about, before his last accident. Paige had spoken of her a few times, yes, the little sharp girl who couldn't be touched. "You like music, then?" he asked, strumming a few random chords as he patted his pockets for a pick. He hadn't been back wearing his jacket long enough to get back into the habit of having a pick on him at any time.

Finding one in an inside pocket, he plucked out the first few notes of an old Clash tune. "D'you play an instrument, then?"

She shook her head, the spikes of her hair rattling a little. "No. My school, back in Kosovo, is not having the money to be making the music classes. And now..." She raised one hand, wriggling the long talons meaningfully. "I am not being so good with the things that are needing the hands," she admitted, a sad little note entering her voice. "But I am liking the music very much. You are being very clever, Mr...?"

"Oh, right," Jono said, noticing Yvette's fingers. "An' I'm Jono. I suppose it's 'Mr. Starsmore' when I'm teaching again. But when I'm not, 'Jono' is just fine. An' I wouldn't be too certain about not bein' any good with music. All ye really need to do is have the love for it, an' the talent will come round."

She tilted her head at him, intrigued. She did love music, just hadn't considered herself particularly musical. "Are you to be playing the guitar a very long time, Mr. Jono?" she asked, going for her usual compromise between being too familiar with an adult, but not disobeying their wishes.

"Since I was about... fourteen, I think," Jono said, scratching at his chin. The bandages were once more a part of his life, containing the energy inside him. They were an annoyance, but it was better to suffer through them than blow up his guitar whenever he tried to play.

The movement drew her attention to the bandages - she'd noticed them when she'd come in, but had been distracted by the music. Apparently she was beginning to accept the oddities of Xavier's along with everyone else. But now, she came closer, eyes flaring brighter for a moment. "Are you being the hurt, Mr. Jono, that you are to be bandaged?" she asked, then ducked her head again. "If this is not to be the rude question."

"In a manner o' speaking," Jono said, setting his guitar aside. He reached up with one hand and loosened one end of the bandages, peeling it back to reveal the bluish-white energy coiling out from the edges of where his jaw used to be. "I'm not exactly all there, you could say. These are just to keep me from walkin' around like a big bloody bonfire all the time. It's a right pain sometimes, but better than goin' back to a big floaty blob of energy."

Yvette's eyes grew round. "Oh," she said softly, stepping closer again. There was just... nothing, where a mouth should be. "Is there being the pain?" she asked. "From the fire?"

"At first," Jono said, with a touch of sadness. "But it went away. I suppose it's because this is how I'm supposed to be, or so I'm told. Big walkin' firecracker of psionic energy. Explodin', now that hurt. But I got... well, not exactly 'better', but here I am."

Jono tucked the bandages back into place, then reached out for his guitar. "And what of you then, sunshine? Red an' spikey's a bit different, yeah?"

"This is being such the strange place, that the people are being exploding and then to be getting better." Yvette's face was still too stiff to smile, but there was a touch of humour in her voice. And compassion too, mixed with a certain yearning. Someone else who understood what it was like to be so very different, perhaps? "Yes, I am to be different. My skin, it is being very hard and changing to be very sharp. When I am upset or scared, it is being more so." She made a little shrugging gesture. "I am wearing Mr. Forge's clothings that are stopping me to be cutting things, but I am trying to be learning. It is being very difficult."

"Mister Forge and his wonderful machines," Jono agreed wryly. "He's a good bloke, all things considered. But hey, that's what Xavier's is for, right? Helpin' us deal with being different?"

Jono stood up and walked across the room to the percussion rack and looked at it until he found what he was looking for, a small tambourine with tiny bells around the edge. He walked back to the bench and handed it to Yvette as he picked up his guitar. "Here now, you hold it like this, and shake it against your other hand, like a little drum. Helps keep the rhythm, and that's one of the most important parts of music. Even the best guitarist isn't much without a beat."

Slowly, he picked up the guitar and started back in on his blues riff in a slow tempo, tapping his foot in rhythm.

Wrapping her fingers around the tamborine's handle, she watched him intently for the first few bars, nodding her head in time to the tapping of his foot. Then, tentatively, she thumped the tamborine with her other hand. Then again. There were a couple of mis-taps, but slowly, she began to get the hang of things. "Like this, yes?" she asked, eyes glowing neon blue wiht pleasure.

Jono couldn't show a real smile, but his eyes conveyed happiness as he nodded and changed the tempo slightly. "You're getting it. Now, this is a rock beat, you hit it on the two and the four..."