xp_logs | Kevin and Yvette | Tuesday mid-morning

Seeking quiet from the busy mansion, Kevin meets what could be the closest thing to kindred at the school.

The mansion was full of people. It was bustling to the point Kevin swore the mere presence of so many people potentially knocking into him, finding a way to end up accidentally touching his neck or face was giving him headache. Really it was much closer to a panic attack. Sure, they'd had Marie to deal with, but touching Marie was a fair bit safer than touching him and who would think bumping into someone could lose them their leg or arm or half their face? He'd decided the great outdoors was the way to go, even if it did tend to set him apart with the layers upon layers of clothing in the early October heat. It was cooling off now, but it had been in the low 70's today. His gloves overlaid with a hooded long sleeved tee shirt and a short sleeved tee over that made him look much more at home in perhaps fifty degree weather. Oh well, he was used to it and hadn't even broken a sweat all day.

Kevin had searched outside, shielding his eyes from the glaring sun, for a spot that seemed less likely to attract people. He settled on the tree that had a tree house in it. People here were too old to be playing in tree houses, right? He had a messenger bag hanging from his shoulder packed with bits of metal he'd acquired while in the city still, along with his portable soldering iron. If he was going to be here then he'd do something productive, something he liked, while he figured out what the hell he was going to do back at this school.

Up in the tree house, Yvette was lost in another one of the books Tommy passed onto her, this one Wuthering Heights. She didn't understand why Cathy was being so silly over Heathcliffe, but she liked the writing style. She was just reaching for her apple when she heard a clinking metallic noise from below her. Curiosity piqued, she laid her book down and crept to the trapdoor, peering down below her where a boy she had never seen before was sitting under her tree.

Kevin stared at the two pieces. They looked like they should fit together. It was just that he didn't seem to understand in what they they wanted to fit together. It seemed he and the metal pieces were having a bit of a disagreement. One piece was held up the sun so he could see the edges better and maybe figure out where they wanted to interconnect. When he looked up, though, he saw something above him. Leaning his head back until he looked straight up Kevin saw a girl. In the tree house. Apparently he was wrong on that too old thing. "Hello," his voice was soft but the Georgia accent was unmistakable. "Sorry, 'm I bothering you?" Maybe she had super hearing and his metal was deafening. You never knew around here.

Yvette squeaked a little, not expecting to have been seen, blinking those glowing blue eyes. Her hair had unspiked as her skin had begun to soften after the last crisis at the school, a couple of long curls spiraling along her face, flat-edged like metallic ribbon, and the edges as sharp as razors. Realising he was looking up at her still, she shook her head. "No, it is fine," she said in her soft, accented voice. "I did not mean to interrupt. You are the new student here?" As she spoke, she moved further out of the trapdoor, long taloned hands safe in their gloves so she didn't cut the wood.

The squeak wasn't expected. It was sort of cute. The glowing eyes were sort of off putting, though. The curls caught Kevin's eye, though. They looked metal. It gave him an idea for a sculpture, though he wondered in the back of his head if they really were metal. It wasn't polite to ask. "No, not really." How exactly would he classify himself? "Suppose 'm a former student returned's all." Kevin tilted his head, trying to place her accent but failing miserably. He only knew the ones he'd learned off movies really, not a lot of diversity in accent where he grew up in Atlanta though other parts of it had more. "Sorry, but 'f ya don't mind my asking, where're you from?"

"Kosovo," Yvette replied, the soft Southern twang of his speech reassuring her - he sounded a little like Miss Marie. "My name is Yvette. Please, what are you called?"

Kosovo? Kevin had heard of it, something with war or war-like. He didn't know much about the place, though. He didn't know much about a lot of places, really. "My name's Kevin, suppose you could call me whatever you wanted though, technically. Most people settle for my given name though." Maybe it was because she was way up there and thus he wasn't a danger to her, or maybe it was just because there wasn't anyone else around. Whatever it was, Kevin was feeling more tolerant and thus more polite than usual. "Pleasure t' meet you."

She giggled a little at the joke. "My English... I am still learning," she explained. And since they were making introductions, it was only polite to offer a snack... "Would you like an apple?" she asked. "I keep some here - I like to come here to read when the mansion is the very loud place."

"S'ok," Kevin assured with a shrug, "most Yankees don' think we know the language much either. You know, those uneducated Southern cretins. Ain't much more educated than us up here, jus' got more sticks shoved into uncomfortable places it seems." Of course, Kevin was perhaps just a touch bit biased when it came to those hailing from the Northern states. He figured it was just cause, they seemed to be just as biased regarding him. "An apple? Sure, thanks. That's awfully kind of you." He looked back at the mansion for a moment, so cleverly disguised as quiet from this distance. "It's always loud in there," he said. "Not half as loud as it is crowded though." He shuddered a little, the touch on his cheek searing to life as if the warmth of a hand was on it again.

She titled her head a little on the side at the shudder - those blank glowing eyes took in a lot more than people realised - and she nodded. Grabbing an extra apple, she climbed down the ladder to land on the grass beside him, both apples clutched easily in one long-fingered hand."Here," she said, extending the apple to him held by her fingertips. "But be careful not to touch me. My skin, it is dangerous," she said, ducking her head a little in shyness. She was a strange figure, she knew, with her red skin and long fingers and toes, dressed in Forge's black bodysuit under her ordinary clothes. Even with her hair and skin softer than they'd been in a long time, there was still the fear of hurting someone. Perhaps even more so, after Laurie's mishap on the rafting trip.

"Mine, too." Kevin actually gave her a little smile. It felt pretty foreign to him, the muscles of his face being pulled in ways they rarely had been in a long time, but a smile suited Kevin. It certainly suited better than his usual expression did. He took the apple from Yvette being careful, while doing his best to not appear so. It was nice, he knew, to be treated like a normal person by people. It was nicer if they could do it and not get themselves turned to ashes. He hoped the gesture and the smile eased some of that look from her. It could be shame, or embarrassment, or maybe she was just shy. It wasn't polite to ask. He patted the ground next to him as an invitation to sit and stay down there. "What's yours do?"

"I cut." Yvette paused only a little before she took the offered spot, hunkering down in her usual crouch rather than sitting, neatly tucking the brown corduroy shift she wore over the body suit around her knees. To demonstrate, she pulled off one glove, placing her apple between her fingers and bringing them together, easily slicing the fruit into segments. "All over, my skin is very hard and sharp. It gets more so, when I am frightened or sad or angry - when I came here, I was very frightened, and my hair was all spikes. Like the Sonic the Hedgehog?" It was safer to be candid about her powers, and she'd gotten to the point she could make jokes about them. "And you, if you would not mind to say?"

Kevin watched her slicing the apple, his eyes got a little bigger watching because it wasn't something he'd have ever really thought of. Well, life sucked more for someone else than it did for him. That didn't make him feel better, it just made him feel bad for Yvette 'cause she seemed nice. "So now that you're calmer your hair 's curls? I like it. The hair I mean. I make sculptures out of metal," his hand gestured to the scattered bits of metal he had on the ground. "Your hair's inspiring." He gave her another little smile before looking around. Kevin got up and picked a dandelion and then picked up a branch. When he came back to sit beside her he finally answered her question, "Me, 'm easy. My skin kills." His voice was quieter than usual when he said that, the seriousness of his tone muting it.

He held up the dandelion, then he kissed it. Only moments were needed for it to be ash. Then Kevin pulled off one of his gloves and picked up the branch with the gloved hand. Mimicking his experiment from the night before he very slowly brought the leafy bit of branch toward his hand. The moment it connected with the tip of his middle finger he stopped. The decay spread quickly through the branch, though it was slow enough to watch the phases. When the ashes fell from the hand that had been holding the branch he pulled his glove back on. "Your skin like that? Sharp all over like mine kills all over?"

She nodded, eyes wide. Someone with skin like hers? She replaced her own glove, unconsciously mimicking this movements as she tugged the material into place. "Forge, he made this material that fixes itself when it is cut, so I do not tear everything and so I can touch people. But I miss feeling things, sometimes." She nibbled on a piece of apple. "Your skin... you are not melting your clothes, so there are things you do not kill?"

She was smart, Kevin liked that. "If it's organic I turn it to dust. Sometimes it don't get quite that far. I mean, if contact breaks they just stuck in the middle. Seems worse. If it's not organic then it's okay. Clothes and sheets and stuff, all gotta be plastic or polymer or some scientific thing man made. Can't touch cotton or silk or fur. Or skin. Couple years ago, I, uh," she was honest enough, he could be too. Kevin took a deep breath before continuing. "I, uh, I manifested? I killed someone. Didn't mean to, but, he was just ash after." Kevin pulled his hood over his head so he could lean back against the tree without worrying about potentially reducing the tree to cinder.

"Oh." It was a soft noise, almost lost under the sound of the leaves rustling. A long pause, and then she picked up one of the slices of apple in her hand, and offered it to him. There was no hesitation in the movement, no fear in her face.

Kevin looked from the offered slice to Yvette's face. His gaze flickered between the two for a few moments before he took it from her. "Thanks." The expression on his face lacked the same fear hers did and he thought maybe they could almost be normal around each other. He knew he couldn't ever feel normal around other people because they got to touch and hug and play around and he couldn't. Kevin wondered if Yvette felt like that, too. Changing the subject very purposely he asked, "How long ya been here?"

"A year." Yvette sounded almost surprised. "The X-Men, they brought me here. They saved me from bad men." She tilted her head at him. "You were a student here before, yes?"

"Yeah," he nodded. Kevin did the math in his head, then titled it toward her. "Don' remember you. You musta got here right before I left. You know Jono, yeah? I ran into him, sorta literally. Body go poof. Fun, righ'? So I went to Muir wi' 'im. He got patched up and I wanted to see if they could help. Musta not been paying much attention, though. Figure I'd've remembered you if I saw ya."

"I was in the hospital, downstairs, yes? When I came here, I was not awake. Mr Haller says it was the defense mechanism, that I was hiding, in my head. So I was away for a time. Then, when I woke up, I was frightened and ran away. Miss Paige found me - she is Mr. Jono's girlfriend, yes?"

Kevin scratched his head, trying to remember. "Uh, maybe? Don' really keep much track of who datin' who. Not really the sorta thing I like to concentrate on. Maybe, though. Sound right in my head anyway."

"They are, yes. And Mr. Jono is my music teacher now. And he would not let my mother make me go home." She gave Kevin a wry look. "She got angry when all the students were kidnapped."

"I can see how that could make your momma a bit mad. I mean, my daddy probably woul've made me go home, too. If he was alive, I mean." Kevin shrugged. Then he gave her a curious look. "When'd ya'll get kidnapped?"

"When we visited Las Vegas. It was a holiday, after the field trip when we were attacked by the dinosaurs." Yvette's expression grew mischievous, an impish little smile appearing. "But before Attilan disappeared. It was the very busy summer, yes?"

First one eyebrow raised. Then the other. Then Kevin's eyes grew a bit wider. "Ya'll gone crazy yet? This place is so the anti-normal. Dinosaurs? Ne'ermin', I don' wanna know. Pretty sure I don' anyway." He was shaking his head. "Please tell me ya jus' tryin' ta mess with me now."

"It was the very strange summer also," Yvette told him.

"Right," he said with a sigh. Welcome back to the freak show, Kev. Maybe he was better on his own in the city, after all.