xp_logs | Wednesday - Jay & Yvette

Yvette drops off a gift and a bomb. Jay drops one of his own.

Two new people in the mansion... Having met one of them, Yvette decided to at least leave a welcome gift for the other, even if she was a little too shy to just knock on the door and introduce herself. So she made her way to the boys' suite, a small basket that had once held a collection of fancy soaps someone had given Laurie now filled with apples. She'd just leave it on the doorstep, she thought.

Jay was still busy readjusting, even though it shouldn't have taken him any time to adjust at all. There was so much going on with the mansion at all hours of the day, and so little going on with him that he felt slighted. And no apparent reason either. He shouldn't feel this way. He didn't want to be welcomed, nor did he want to be bothered. So what was his problem?

He knew the problem, but refused to think more on it as he opened the door and found a young girl standing by his door. Basket of apples in hand, he couldn't bring himself to be mean and leaned down to take it from her. "Hey, lemme help ya wit' that. Where ya takin' it?" he asked. She was cute, small and weird. Always weird. Everyone just had to be weird here, didn't they?

"Oh!" Yvette stepped back a little, startled by the door suddenly opening. Then she took in the young man on the doorstep, and the wings. "Oh..." Blank blue yes glowed brightly against dark red skin, and she clasped long-fingered hands together. "You are so pretty!" she exclaimed.

Jay set the basket down beside the door frame and bent down slightly so he could be at the same eye level as she was. Everyone loved a compliment, even he. "Nah, couldn' be as pretty as a lil' thang like ya. Nice coloured skin," he mused, reaching out to smooth his thumb over her cheek. "Almost tha same colour as ma wings. Ya wanna trade?" he joked.

"No!" Yvette jerked her head back, away from Jay's thumb, but not before he'd come into contact with her skin. Even a light touch abraded a layer of skin from his thumb, leaving a smear of blood. "Oh, I am so sorry! My skin..." Hands clapped over her mouth, Yvette looked up at Jay with big, horrified eyes.

"Oh," shit. Jay stuck the thumb into his mouth, sucking away the blood before it got too nasty. Serves him right for trying to be nice, or even trying to touch someone else. That should be number one rule in Xavier's, don't touch without asking. It burned his skin, and he shook his finger, though his healing factor already kicked in, triggered by what little he lost. "It's al'ight, it's ma fault. Ah shoulda asked." She looked like she was going to bolt but before she could, Jay gestured to the basket to change the subject quickly. "Who 'er these fer?"

Yvette watched Jay's skin heal, and dropped her hands. "You and Kevin. A welcome gift," she said distantly. "You are like Mr. Logan then? You can heal yourself?"

"Sorta, ya," though he wouldn't call his healing factor something like Logan's. "It's all in tha wings," Jay reached behind him, and plucked a feather from his wing. They hadn't stopped molting since he got here, so it came out relatively easily without any pain. "Thanks fer tha apples," he held the red feather out for her, careful not to touch her hand again. "Want it? Ah don't have anythang else ta give...”

She held up her hand, wiggling her gloved fingers at him. "This is safe," she assured him, and took the feather. "Thank you very much." Then she realised something. "Oh! I did not tell you my name! How rude! I am Yvette."

He was use to not giving out his name right away, but broke from regular tradition and told her right away like he did with Kevin. "Ah'm Jay. er, Paige's younger bro. Ya'll know er?" he pushed himself upright, his back aching in protest.

"Oh, yes! She did find me in the woods, when I was hiding. She's very nice to me." Yvette was transformed by the knowledge, beaming up at him with glowing eyes. "And Mr. Sam was my history teacher, before he had to go home. I hope your mother is doing better, yes?"

"Yeah, she's a good ol' girl," he agreed and pushed the basket into the room before letting the door close. "Ah'll let Kev know that ya dropped it off. He'll like it, Ah reckon." Jay brushed a feather off his shoulder and smiled down at her from his six foot two height. She was so short. "Mamma's good, doin' better thanks ta Sam. How long ya been 'ere Yvette? How come we've never met before?"

Yvette had to tilt her head back to meet Jay's eyes. He was so tall! And so handsome, with those wings. "I have been here almost a year," she told him. "I think you had left the school before I came. You are Kyle and Forge's friend, yes? They talk about you sometimes."

"Yep, Ah know 'em," though one of them he wished he didn't know at all. "Oh yeah? they talk 'bout me eh? Wha' do they say?" he raised an eyebrow, gestured for her to walk down the hallway with him. "C'mon, Ah'll make us some hot chocolate. Ya like hot chocolate?"

"Does not everyone?" Yvette's eyes glowed briefly as she followed him, making a conscious effort to keep upright - it was easier when her skin wasn't so armour-plated. "Forge says you are the musician, yes? That you write songs. Mr. Jono does the same - do you know him? He is Miss Paige's boyfriend, of course you must know him."

"Maybe someone in a chocolate factory wouldn', " he shrugged. She seemed to be struggling to keep up with him, but he said nothing of it. "Yeah, that Ah am, sorta. Jono huh? Yeah, know of him." He knew Jono as far as dating Paige went and that was about the extent of it - thankfully. Jay wasn't sure he wanted to know anymore then that. "Who else do ya know?"

"Laurie, she is my roommate, and Jennie, Angel, Sooraya and Noriko, they live in my suite. I think we are all new, since you were leaving?" Yvette tried to think who Jay would know. "Miss Marie and Mr. Sefton, and Mr Dayspring - I help Mr. Dayspring in the Elpis office sometimes, although not so much since the school began again. Oh, and Tommy. He lends to me the poetry books and reads with me!"

"Ah know Jennie," he confirmed, heading down the stairs, but slowly so she could keep up with his long gait. He turned a corner, and headed for the kitchen. Seemed like he was spending a lot of time there recently. He did so long for his mamma's cooking, and Lorna's baking. Jay nearly walked into the door frame - where was his balance these days - at the mention of Tommy's name. "Poetry..." he echoed, walking into the kitchen and heading straight for the cupboards. "Poetry?" Now it came out as more of a question, and he couldn't help himself here. "Tommy good ta ya?" Tommy seemed more like the type to beat her over the head with the book. What was this, the outreach program now? "Ya like Tommy?" he could barely hold back the distaste in his voice.

Yvette looked puzzled at him. His reaction was so strange... but then again, Kyle didn't like Tommy either. "He is kind to me," she said simply. She indicated the steel necklace she wore, Tommy's work. "When I was first here, I was very frightened, and I scared him. He made this for me to be saying sorry. And he is quiet, when there are so many loud people." She shrugged, the gesture amusing on her small frame. "He is my friend."

His eyes fell to the necklace and he chewed the inside of his cheek. It was starting to get raw now for all the deep thinking he was doing, and keeping comments to himself, but this wasn't something he wanted to keep to himself. Tommy always did a bang up job of alienating him from people. "If he's yer friend, why don't cha ask 'em wha' he was doin' before he came to the mansion." Let’s see if he would tell her the truth - the unbridled version.

"He was the Friend of Humanity person," she replied steadily, realising that Jay must have known Tommy the same way Kyle had. "He burned down the coffee shop with his friends, and made to hate mutants. But he is not like that now. He is kind, and nice to me." She gestured at herself, encompassing the red skin, the long digits, the alien, glowing eyes. "If he is still hating mutants, why would he be the friends with someone who is looking like me?"
"So now he's a saint huh, cause he bought yer love with a necklace, ta help ya overlook the devil in his eyes." Jay pulled out the hot chocolate and set it on the counter, filling the tea pot and setting it on the stove. He turned around; regarding her like he did with Kevin. "Why don't 'cha ask 'em wha' he did ta mutants he caught by 'emselves. People don't change overnight, Yvette, an' not everything's fergiv'ble. Especially not attempt murders. It's like givin' Hitler 'nother chance. Could ya trust a man who ordered tha deaths of other people, just cause they 'ere different?"

Yvette drew herself up to her full height, all five feet of it. For a moment she just stared at Jay, eyes flaring neon blue and her face unreadable. Her hair had stiffened into long spikes as opposed to the stiff-looking loose curls of earlier. When she spoke, however, her voice was soft:

"My family, they live in Kosovo. My mother and I, we were born in Albania, but we had to leave, because of the war. Many terrible things happened to her family. My grandfather, my uncle, they were taken away by the Serbians and killed. My grandmother died in the refugee camp. I was born in the camp. But in Kosovo, there are Serbians. And Croats. And Albanian Muslims, like my family. We all have to live together, even though there are those we know killed the people, beat them, hurt them. We live together and try to make the peace, because it is the only way to stop the war that has been going on for lots of hundreds of years. We are not always very good at it, but we know we must try." She dropped her eyes, her tone sad. "I know Tommy is not the saint. He is the person, the same as we both are. I know he is trying to be the better person now. If he has done the wrong things to you, I cannot say you must be his friend. But he is my friend, and I am not afraid of him."

It was perhaps one of the longest speeches Yvette had ever made, and she hoped Jay understood her English. "I do not so much want the hot chocolate now, Jay. Thank you for the feather, and for speaking to me. I am hoping that perhaps later we can speak again, but for now, I think I should go away."

She was mad at him; he realised, but couldn't understand why she was. Tommy was the bad guy here, not him, and just because he wasn't vocally supporting that good for nothing didn't mean he was wrong. He was sure that if it meant life or death for Jay to offer his hand to save Tommy, he was sure he would recoil it and let the FOH boy fall.

"Ya'll had a hard life, an' I reckon nothin'll over shadow it." He couldn't relate to what she went through, but he could sympathize.

"Al'ight. Ah understand if ya don't wanna hang 'round anymore or want any hot chocolate, but know somethin'." Jay bent down in front of her, a feather falling to the ground behind him, and he held up a finger to make his point. "There's a big difference between survival, and bein' malicious. Especially when it comes ta war. Tommy didn't break yer wings, an' leave ya fer dead. He sure as hell didn' do it ta survive, an' live a shiney life with his neighbours."

Yvette's eyes clouded, the hardening of her skin becoming more pronounced. "This is not something Tommy has told me," she said distantly. "Please to be excusing me now." And with that, she turned and fled out of the back door, heading for the woods in that odd little scurry that used her hands as much as her feet.