Kevin & Logan | Saturday, early afternoon

[x-wither.livejournal.com]

Logan's communing with the tv, Kevin just wants to get movies and go unseen

Logan was settled in in front of the big television in the lounge. Smoke in one hand (in violation of the no-smoking policy, even), beer in the other, channel flicker on the end table next to him. Time to just veg out and catch up with the wide world of sports. Nothing good in boxing, baseball was done for the year, the Sens weren't playing any time real soon ... ahh. Perfect. Racing. Satisfy his love for going fast vicariously.

Kevin had pretty much been having secluded movie vegging out since he returned to the school. It had helped that Jay hadn't come back until the day after he did, it helped with the people overload detoxing. The problem was he'd watched all their movies. This posed a problem, he had to acquire more movies. This meant he needed to leave his room. This also meant he had to risk interacting with people. The journey down there had been relatively easy. The few people he passed in the halls didn't say anything to him. To say he was still jumpy around people would be a fair enough estimation. Honestly he was half surprised he didn't get twitchy when Jay had shown back up. But now he had a problem. Logan was in the very room he was going to in order to borrow movies for his continued marathon. Logan of the scary. Great. Maybe if Kevin was just quiet enough the smoking, scary, clawed man wouldn't try to kill him. That could work, right?

Logan knew damned well the boy was coming. Heard him and smelled him coming down the hall. He had a fairly unique scent that went beyond other people's unique scents. Almost a whiff of decay about him. Fitting, he supposed. "Hey, kid." he said in as friendly a voice as he could muster.

Kevin froze for a moment. Right, can't hide from Logan. He wasn't going to hiding really so much as just being unremarkable enough to not attract attention. Kevin, of all people, should have remembered some people had manners and it was rude to ignore someone entering a room. Then again, he may not have given Logan any credit for having manners previously. Or just not thought about it. Forcing himself to keep moving, hopefully casually. "Hello. Racin' good?" Small talk with Logan? Kevin got an overwhelming sense of doomed wash over him.

"Seen better." he said. Boy was getting ready to jump out of his skin he was so nervous. And, he thought with a wrinkled nose, he'd been rolling around in his room-mate's stuff. Lovely. "Want a beer?" Logan asked, curious as to how the boy would react.

Kevin's eyebrows shot upward at the offer. "Ain't ya supposed ta be a good example er somethin'? Ah don't reckon offerin' the underaged variety beer's on tha list o' good examples ta set." Somewhere in there he'd declined, right? Kevin was a little too wary of the trap to realize whether or not he'd managed to say no.

"One beer won't kill you." he pointed out. "And anyone using me for a role-model needs to get their head examined." he pointed out. "Just being friendly." he said, taking a drag off his cigar and exhaling it through his nose. Ahh, the sweet deadened sense of smell for a few seconds.

"Kill? Nah. But Ah'm pretty sure Ah'm supposed ta be all straigh' 'n narrow guy." He shrugged. "No' really a beer fan anyway." Somehow Kevin didn't think any other answer would really suffice anyway. It was, at least, mostly true. Okay, maybe half true. Whatever, he'd said no to scary guy and the beer, that was the point, right?

"Guess somebody's got to be That Guy." he said with a shrug. "No skin off my nose, kid. Oh, and hey. You do metal sculpture, right? Ever think about doing anything with wood?" he asked idly.

"Uh, no' really. Ah mean, Ah could...maybe." He glanced down at his gloved hand. Technically he might not even have to bother whittling or anything. But that would mean he'd have to have control, something he didn't have. "How come?"

"It's a hobby of mine." he said, as if that explained everything. "Never tried metal." he said, then popped one claw out. "Could carve it, I suppose. Take a while, though." he mused, then retracted the claw back into his hand.

"Ah thin' Yvette does etchin' in wood." When the claw popped out Kevin jumped. His eyes fixed on the shining, metal claw and he felt his skin go cold. "Yvette helped wit' some etchin' in metal, an', uh, slicin' it. Ah don' know you can git metal in blocks er anythin' though. Ah mean...fer carvin'."

"I showed Yvette how to carve. Kid took to it like a bat to warm blood." he said with a note of amusement. He didn't miss the jump. "First time you've seen 'em, right?" he said, then popped all three on his cigar hand. It hurt, like it always did, but the pain faded away. Like it always did. Sometimes he wished it'd stick around as a reminder.

"Ah'm pretty sure she'd take ta anythin' meant she could touch it," he said, perhaps projecting a bit of his own feelings on the subject in the words. All that tension that had been fading since leaving Mr. Jones' seemed to come back all at once with the appearance of the entire set of claws. "Not firs' time period. Before when Ah was here...bu' firs' time so close, yeah."

Logan left them out so the kid could inspect them if he wanted to. Then he retracted them, the tiny cuts in his hands made by their withdrawl healing almost instantly. "Living in fear's a shitty way to spend your life, kid." he commented as he got a nose full of fear from the boy. "These aren't for you."

That was at least reassuring. Something about the image of those things sliding into his stomach as if he were butter just wasn't the type of thing he wrapped around himself for comfort on rainy days. "Fear can be helpful," he pointed out. Fear kept a person observant. And it kept him from hurting people.

"Not arguing that. But living in fear? That's not real healthy." he pointed out. "Living in fear stunts you, changes you inside. Makes you into something you don't wanna be."

"Keeps 'em alive," he said distractedly with a shrug. Kevin hadn't actually realized he'd said it until the words were out of his mouth. Shit. No taking it back though, was there?

"Maybe." he said. "But what kinda life is that? You think you're the only one who can kill with a touch? Kid, I was ripped apart and remade to be a killing machine." he pointed out. "I know what it is to fear yourself, fear what you are. But I don't let it rule me." he said, then took a swallow of his beer to wash the taste of his own words out of his mouth. Guh, he needed to stop sharing with the kids. Probably freaked them out.

Kevin wasn't freaked out. He would have preferred Logan's situation to his own. even if it likely sucked beyond comprehension being torn apart, because Kevin was assuming Logan meant that literally. "There's a diff'rence 'tween bein' able ta kill wit' a touch, an' no' being able ta touch withou' killin', y'know. If ya get a choice it's not tha same."

Logan was being entirely literal. "And that's why you're here, to see if the Big Brain Club can find a way to find your off switch or give you a full-body condom or something." he pointed out. "But that'll only work if you want it to. You'd rather run, that's your call." he said.

"Ain't no off switch," he stated it with a practiced detachment in his voice. "Tha's wha' Muir managed ta learn an' why Ah left. Ain't no off switch now an' ain't one ever gonna exist. Mah body just produces decay. Ain't no changin' it." It was an oversimplification of his situation, though it was the version Kevin had understood and retained.

"Sure, kid." he said, turning his attention to the race - which was now over. Dammit. "Guess giving up's easier than trying to find a solution. You want to live in fear, be my guest." he added.

Kevin had a very strong urge to actually throw something at Logan, or maybe test the extent of that healing factor. He didn't, though resisting was hard. "It's real easy ta bring stuff down ta tha mos' simplified version when it ain't your life, ain't it?" And it was really easy to think it was so cut and dry when you knew so very little about it all. Kevin finally picked a few dvd's off the shelf for snagging. All were very violent and bloody to match the mood Logan had inspired. "Why don't ya try not healin' sometime an' then maybe you'll have a point."

"So you do have a little life left in ya. Good." he said, satisfied. Kid still needed drastic help but at least he was still fighting in there somewhere. And at least right now he wasn't afraid.

Kevin glared at Logan. "Jus' 'cause Ah don' wanna cause others ta be dead don' mean Ah am."

"Go back to your movies and your hiding, kid." he said with a weary sigh. "Nothing for you out here."

"Yeah, no shit," Kevin muttered to himself under his breath, heading for the door. Sometimes it amazed him how people didn't see the innate problem with simplifying things so much. And this, among other things, was why he did not like people or being around them.