xp_logs | Kevin & Sooraya | Sunday afternoon 10/21 (Reply)

Super Backdated! Sooraya decides to make a new friend. Kevin makes a fool of himself

This degausser thing was pretty damn helpful. It had taken Kevin a day or two to pry himself out of the machine shop and get around to it, but his door was becoming deglittered in a fairly timely fashion. "Take that, Clarice," he muttered to himself triumphantly. She could teleport in and glitter everything he owned, but Forge had fun anti-Clarice devices. If it was possible to be in love with a machine then Kevin was. Of course, the degausser came in third or fourth under normal circumstances because of his new friends in the machine shop, but it was still love. Eddie was crawling up his arm that wasn't busy with the machine. How dare Jay make fun of Eddie's hygiene? Like molting everywhere was better than smelling like a crab.

He almost didn't hear the knock on the door over the gentle hum of the degausser. It was more an afterthought about the sound that made Kevin recognize it for what it was than anything else. Setting the machine down and carrying Eddie in his hand, he went to see who it was, because he honestly couldn't think of anyone who'd be looking for him other than maybe Yvette and Jay wasn't in the rooms right now.

Sooraya was just about to put the tray down - it was somewhat heavy, and very warm - and knock again when the door opened to reveal the young man she had been looking for. Nathan had told her about the new arrival to the school and after hearing that he was far from home and family, she had decided to try and help make him feel more at home. Of course, no visit could be complete without a little food, and once she had grilled Nathan about what Kevin might consider a 'home-cooked meal' the Afghan girl had spent several hours in the kitchen preparing something for him. She only hoped he would like it.

"Hello," she greeted him upon the opening of the door, her voice quiet yet still far louder than the subdued whisper she had used when she had first arrived at the mansion. "I am Sooraya. I have heard you are still new here."

Girl plus tray, presumably there was food under the foil, now that wasn't what he was expecting. He was standing there staring at her a little wide-eyed. Random cute girl looking for him? Of course, as usual, he noticed she was cute right after he got over someone looking for him. "Uh, yeah, Ah guess. Ah was here before, fer a few weeks, an' then Ah went to Muir an' now I'm back an' you came lookin' fer me?" The surprise was obvious in his voice and only belated he realized for once he didn't sound to quiet compared to another person. The softness of his voice was about the same as hers, which was an interesting thing to realize though Kevin wasn't sure why he thought it was so interesting.

Shaking his head as if trying to clear his dazed brain, Kevin finally stepped back. "Ah'm sorry, don' mean ta be rude, would you like ta come in?" He glanced down at the tray she carried and then down at his hand where Eddie was walking back and forth. "Would ya like me ta take that fer ya?" He picked up Eddie and sat the crab on his shoulder so he could actually make good on the offer.

Sooraya's eyes darted up to the creature on Kevin's shoulder; she had never seen anything like that before, except perhaps in one of the science textbooks her class had used last year. Still, it wasn't polite to stare, and she dropped her eyes back to the tray as she took a small step into the room. While she still wasn't entirely comfortable in a strange boy's room, she knew it was good to push her boundaries (and this was certainly doing so). "Thank you, I will carry it," she murmured, glancing around for a place to put the tray.

"Al'right." Kevin gestured her into the common room and waited until she'd passed the threshold before closing the door behind her. He was still feeling a little dazed over a new person seeking him out, but Kevin liked to think he was managing to regain his composure rather admirably. "He's harmless, mos'ly," he told her, having noticed her staring at Eddie. "He's mah less cranky roommate. 'Is name's Eddie, present from Mister Dayspring." He hoped she wasn't too freaked out by the little fiddler crab, or the random few specks of glitter that were clinging to him.

At the mention of Nathan Sooraya gave a small smile. It was just like him to act thoughtfully like that; even if a crab was a strange present to give. Locating a table that was less cluttered than some of the other pieces of furniture in the room, she placed the tray down carefully and began to unwrap the foil from the plates she had brought. "You have a roommate that is more cranky?" she asked then, glancing up at Kevin briefly to make sure she had interpreted his statement correctly.

He nodded in a slightly wary way. "You haven't met Jay, have you?" Keivn went over to Eddie's aquarium and placed him down on the sand, just in case the little crab freaked her out. Girls didn't go well with crawling things and Eddie was kind of crawly so he wanted to be safe there. "Jay's...I'm sure once he stops molting he'll be fine. Maybe he's stressed or something. He's a good guy, I think," except for that part where he freaked Kevin out entirely on purpose. "He's just moody."

Living in a suite full of girls, Sooraya knew moody, and her look turned sympathetic as she set aside the neatly-folded foil. "I did not know if you were hungry. But if you are, I have made food for you..." Food, in this case, consisted of a hearty meal of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and various vegetables - the whole meal was both enticing and nutritionally complete (thanks to what she had learned in Lorna's Advanced Cooking class). "You do not have to eat it."

"Why wouldn't Ah eat it?" Seemed like a strange thing to say, really. Coming back over to Sooraya, Kevin's eyebrows shot up when he saw just what she had made him. She made him fried chicken. What looked like really good fried chicken. And potatoes. And vegetables. His eyebrows showed no sign of lowering any time soon. "Ya did this fer me?" It was maybe a little thing, but people didn't do stuff for him. He didn't even have any friends, not really. There were people he didn't hate around here and people he'd talk to but Yvette was probably the closest thing he'd consider a friend. His eyes flicked from the food to her face, back to the food and finally settled back on Sooraya's face. "Ya seriously went out o' yer way and made something fer me?"

"I thought..." Sooraya's voice wavered for a second and she bit her lip, eager not to embarrass herself in front of a new acquaintance so soon. Even if he was inordinately pleased with her offering. "I like to cook," she explained, hands diving into her sleeves to hide them. "And I know that sometimes, it is good to have the food from your home that you are used to. It can help you to feel not as... homesick." Yes, she had remembered the word! "And Nathan, Mr. Dayspring, said that maybe this is food you would like to have. So I made some."

Her reaction had kept his eyebrows up near his hairline but now Kevin's expression was more akin to Oh shit, I fucked up than anything else. The wavering voice made him feel bad. Really, really bad, actually. "Oh, no, no, Ah didn' mean it like tha'!" His voice rose a little in volume, louder than his usual tone but not as loud still as most other people's normal voice. His words came quickly and rushed, trying to undo whatever damage he may have done. "Ah just meant, well, no one ever does stuff like this. Ah mean, no' fer me. Ah mean, Ah don' got no one close enough ta wanna... Ah don't really mean 'nuff ta anyone ta..." A frustrated sigh escaped his throat and Kevin groaned at himself. "Wha' Ah mean is it was really, really, really, really nice o' ya ta do this fer me when ya don' know me at all. An' Ah really, really, really 'ppreciate ya going ta all this trouble ta make me food Ah used ta eat back home. An' Ah jus' ain't used ta people doin' nice stuff like that fer me, 'cept Mister Dayspring givin' me Eddie an' all. Am Ah makin' sense yet?" The last question had that slightly desperate tone of a teenager grasping for straws who was tired of his own explanation but wanting to actually get it across as well.

For a moment all Sooraya did was stare. The accent made Kevin somewhat hard to understand, and the torrent of words didn't help either. She got the general gist of the speech, though, and she read his increasingly agitation well enough. The last thing she wanted him to do was feel bad on her account, and so she let a smile slip over her lips as she replied. "Yes, you are making sense," she said carefully. "I understand. I'm sorry that no one will do a thing like this for you... it is very hard here when you do not know anyone. But the people, they are very nice." Well, most of them were, anyway. "And I am glad you will like the food. It is not too hard to make, I will make more for you if you will like."

Kevin was damn near instantly smitten. It was a really silly reason for it, but so few people were nice just to be nice and even fewer came looking for him that it was really hard to not be instantly endeared by the girl and her gesture. "It's okay, Ah mean tha' people don't do stuff like this fer me," he was calming down and with it the pace of his speech calmed drastically. "Ah'm not what ya'd call social er anything. It was jus' a surprise, ya know? An'...it's really sweet o' ya. It's not every day Ah find a cute girl at my door with home cookin' or anythin'." Suddenly Kevin's eyes got wide as he realized what exactly he'd just said. Oh god. He clamped a hand over is mouth for a moment while blood rushed to his cheeks. "Ya know wha'? We shoul' jus' not let me talk at all anymore."

Sooraya couldn't help it; her smile grew, and she had to raise her hand to cover her mouth to keep from laughing. She didn't want him to feel bad, but his expression was so funny...

Okay, so she giggled. Just a bit, though, and it was hardly noticeable behind her hand. Probably.

"Maybe you should eat some food before you say it is nice of me to bring it," she suggested when she had recovered her serious expression. "Maybe it is very bad and you would like for me not to bring it again."

The blush that has so unceremoniously claimed Kevin's cheeks did not seem to have any inclination of leaving. He had to swallow hard, but at least she was amused in that giggly but trying to hide it way, not that merciless mocking way. "Righ'," he nodded after barely managing to get the word out. "Ya feel like join' me? Ah mean, if it's tha' bad it's only fair you haveta endure it, too." Kevin managed a much calmer smile when he said that.

Now, if his pulse would just return to normal from the gallop it had jumped to when he'd realized he'd called her cute aloud then everything would be fine.

"Yes, that is fair," she agreed, waiting for him to take a seat so that she could find one a suitable distance away. Not far enough to be rude, but certainly not close enough to crowd his personal space. Whatever that may be.

Kevin, unfortunately for Sooraya, did not immediately sit down. Instead he went to fetch plates and silverware and cups. "Wan' somethin' ta drink? We've got water an' tea an' juice," by 'tea' he of course meant what the Yankees had taken to calling sweet tea. Weird thing to have to specify if you asked him.
Bringing everything back, Kevin set them places at the table. The settings were opposite from one another on the round table so they could speak and so Kevin wouldn't have to worry about what accidentally touching her might do if there was a hole in a glove somewhere he hadn't seen.

The setup was a relief to Sooraya as well, though she didn't have to worry about an unwanted effects from her powers so much as propriety and her own sense of comfort. She was wearing one of the outfits Clarice had made for her - the reddish-orange fabric of her pants and tunic contrasting with the dark purple hajib she wore over her hair and neck. Sitting across from Kevin didn't seem inappropriate, however, and he had been nothing but kind and polite since she had arrived, so she smiled and took a seat, using the silverware he had brought to divide up the food between their two plates. Luckily, she had made plenty.

Now it was time to try and broach the subject of conversation again. Hopefully it would be a little more successful (and less embarrassing) than the time before. "You are taking classes at the school, Nathan has told me," she said, her English as always accented, but understandable. "Do you like them?"

Kevin, being the person he was, had pulled her chair out for her and waited for Sooraya to be seated before even moving an inch toward his own seat. It was a silent gesture, something he did automatically. "Classes?" Oh, she must have meant the powers stuff. "Ah'm doin' powers trainin' stuff, if that's what you mean? Ah, well, Ah ain't got no choice 'tween takin' 'em or no, so Ah don't have much of an opinion on 'em. It's necessary an' sorta annoyin'. Bu' courts got some funny ideas that sneak in they're heads sometimes an' the alternative ain't lookin' too promisin' so," he shrugged.

Kevin eyed all the food and had to figure out where to start. Chicken was the most important part, and usually what people got the most wrong. But they didn't get the potatoes right either much of the time and he figured potential disappointment there was easier to deal with than disappointment over the chicken, which smelled sort of amazing. The mashed potatoes, however, were good. Really good. As he swallowed an impressed expression stole over his face.

Though Sooraya wasn't exactly sure what he meant about the courts and their funny ideas, she understood that being made to take powers training classes might not be everybody's idea of fun. "It is good you are here to learn these things... many places people do not understand the things we can do. Here we are safe, and can practice with the teachers who know much more than us." She picked up her fork, spearing a vegetable on the tines. "Even if it will feel like work, sometimes."

Kevin shook his head. "Ya don' understand, not that there's any reason ya should. Whatever the training does, it ain't going to do what they wan' it ta. See, they wanna be told Ah ain't gonna hurt no one else. They wanna be tol' Ah'm as harmless as a bunny. Ain't gonna happen. Muir, they done a lot of experiments on mah DNA 'n stuff? There ain't no off switch fer me. No matter wha', long as Ah live Ah'll decompose anythin' Ah touch. But ya can't tell tha courts that or they'd've locked me away ferever an' nothing Mister Dayspring could do woulda changed it."

"Decompose?" While she was aware that there was something dangerous about Kevin's touch (Nathan had told her as much, most likely to keep her safe and to keep her from having to pester him with uncomfortable questions), she wasn't quite sure what the word meant and how it applied to him.
"Yeah, ya know when things die? They wither an' stuff 'til they're just ash? Ah do that." Maybe a bad explanation. Kevin leaned down and snatched one of the many stray feathers off the floor that Jay had obviously gotten sick of cleaning up. "Watch." Laying the feather on the table, he pulled off one of this gloves. With his gloved hand he picked the feather back up and very, very lightly touched it to his hand. He tried to stop at the very first contact so she could actually watch it. Feathers were so small they went quick, but the stages of decomposition were there and visible if you paid attention. There was nothing but ashes holding together in the shape of the feather until it was completely consumed and then it simply crumbled, the ashes falling into his lap. "Anythin' organic it happens to. Ya know, if it grows outta tha ground like cotton or wood, or if it's a person? Same thing, no matter where it hits me. All mah skin does it." He shrugged, pulling off not looking as disconsolate as usual when he demonstrated what his powers did. Kevin pulled the elbow length glove back on under the long sleeve of the shirt he wore.

Sooraya watched in awe as the feather disintegrated; it was true that the demonstration was much easier to understand than an explanation would've been. It also made it that much clearer why he covered himself almost completely, from his fingertips to his toes. "It is good there are many things that do not grow out of the ground," she said then with an optimistic smile, not missing the point but instead trying to see another side of it.

Kevin nodded, couldn't really argue with that. "Yeah, Ah think goin' out in public would be sorta problematic." He did first manifest by disintegrating all of his clothing right off of him, after all. Synthetic fiber was his friend, otherwise he'd be forced into a nudist camp and there would be nothing safe from him. Just him and a concrete cell forever.

Smiling shyly (she didn't quite gather what Kevin was implying, which was good, or her cheeks would've burned in embarrassment), Sooraya nibbled at the food in front of her. It was interesting to have found another person who covered themselves in the mansion, albeit for different reasons than herself. Ms. Marie and Yvette did too, to a point, and she wondered briefly about the difference between doing so out of choice and having to out of necessity. Being forced to do anything was rarely fun.

Rousing herself from her thoughts, she realized then that Kevin hadn't touched his chicken; perhaps she had made it wrong. It had tasted fine when she ate it, but that didn't mean it was right to him. "I am sorry... the chicken, it is not good?" she asked then, hoping to figure out where she had gone wrong with it.

Somehow the phrasing made Kevin feel bad instantly. The frown that appeared on his face seemed to simply appear, it formed so quickly. "No, it's not tha'. Ah jus' haven't gotten there yet." And it seemed he could not put it off for mere fear that someone from outside the South maybe didn't get it right. Right then he thought even if it wasn't good he'd lie and say it was just to make her smile. Except he knew he wouldn't lie because that was just worse, but he got the feeling he maybe hurt her feelings or something along those lines and that wouldn't really do. Not for someone who'd actually gone out of their way for him.

Taking a bite of his chicken, to make her happier if for no other reason, Kevin chewed slowly. Mentally he was making a comparison, though in the end he did smile a little. "Actually," he started after swallowing, "it's really good. Better 'an mos' people make it outside o' Southerners. I' needs ta have jus' slightly more spice ta taste authentic, though. I's hard ta know unless ye're from down there, though. Ah could teach you." Oh, yeah, teach the girl how to make fried chicken, there's the way to winning people over. Kevin, you're such a girl, he thought.

Luckily for Kevin, this seemed to be the exact right thing to say. Sooraya lit up, nodding enthusiastically at the idea. "Yes, I will like that. You are right, it is hard to make a food if you are not used to it. For me, it is hard to find food that is like the things I am used to eating, unless I will make it myself. But I think it will be good for you to teach me, then I will know and I will make it right next time." Assuming, of course, there was a next time. She knew he was happy that she had made something for him, but didn't want to presume he wasn't just being kind. "Thank you," she added, still smiling.

At least her reaction was encouraging and drew a small smile to his lips. "It's easy ta make. Ya jus' gotta have tha real thin' ta compare it to in order ta make it righ'. Ya did pretty impressive all thin's considered. What kinda food did ya eat back home?" To suggest he knew little of the foods of other cultures, particularly those around where Sooraya came from, would hardly be unfair. He'd never really thought much of other places when he was younger. Hating Muir or not, he was still always amazed that he was in Scotland. Him. Kevin Ford. In Scotland. Weird.

"It is very simple food, the things I ate in Afghanistan. There is much rice, bread... sometimes meat. Most things were cooked on a fire," she told him. "If you will like, I will make some for you to try?" It seemed an easier way than merely describing the dishes she was used to eating. Plus, it would give her an excuse to make something she was familiar with.
He instantly grinned at her for the offer. "That'd be really awesome. Ah mean, since Ah've never had nothin' from there, it'd be interesting." Tilting his head for a moment he thought about something, then smiled at her again. "Maybe ya could teach me? Fair trade off, right? Ah'll teach ya ta make fried chicken the proper Southe'n way an' you could teach me ta make tha food ya like from Afghanistan?"

This seemed like a more than fair proposition to Sooraya, and she nodded agreeably at the idea. "Yes, that is a good plan. Then we will both learn something new." That was what she liked about the school - no matter who you were talking to you were bound to learn something new and different, and it could be from anywhere in the world at all. The opportunities were endless.

Kevin smiled at her and nodded. "I's a date, then." He cringed at the phrasing. Cute girl, don't mention dates, Kevin! "Ah mean, no' like a date, bu' a...um...meetin'? No. Appointmen'? Tha' sounds wrong." He sighed heavily and looked defeated. "Y'know wha' Ah mean, righ'?"

"Yes, I do," she assured him, smoothing her fingers over the napkin on her knees. Kevin seemed a bit more flighty and nervous than most of the friends she had made thus far at the mansion, but he was new and that was completely understandable. And Sooraya was the last person to blame someone for being shy. She only hoped she wasn't making things worse for him somehow. "It will be very nice. Thank you, Kevin."