Yvette, Kurt - Friday morning

[x-penance.livejournal.com]

After getting back from Germany, Kurt goes to say hello to Yvette and finds rather more than he expected.



Kurt had never been one to travel with much luggage, so it was just a matter of dumping the bag of clothes in his suite before he could go in search of people to catch up with. For a variety of reasons, Yvette was first on the list - but she wasn't in her room. The next obvious place to check was out in the woods.

After her experience with Forge the day before, Yvette had been quiet. Fortunately, with most of her suite busy with holiday matters, no-one had really noticed or queried her on it. Although this time, when she slipped out of the suite very early to go spend some time alone to think, she'd had the foresight of leaving Laurie a note, telling her she was out for a walk.

The air was cold, and the remaining snow under her bare feet crunched as she punched through the layer of ice. If she concentrated, she could feel the roughness of the jagged pieces of refrozen snow under her soles, but only vaguely, the cold permeating through her thick skin as a slight chill. Huffing out a sigh that came out as a breath of steam, Yvette suddenly looked up from her huddle as a sudden startled movement of a bird told her someone was coming. Someone quiet - she couldn't hear even the faintest sound of boots on snow.

That would, of course, be because Kurt didn't wear them, and he tended to tread lightly even for bare feet. He peered through the leafless branches, searching for the distinctive red of her skin. "Yvette?"

For a moment, her instinct was to not answer, remain still, and let Mr. Sefton walk past without seeing her. Especially when she really didn't want to talk about anything - all she wanted to do was sit quietly and brood, without having to think about anyone else's safety. But Mr. Sefton was a teacher, and her friend, and it would be rude to not respond. Standing from where she had been crouched on the edge of a clearing, she called out, quietly. "I am here, Mr. Sefton."

He turned her way, then smiled in recognition and started towards her. "Hello, Yvette. It is a cold morning to be out - how was your Christmas?"

"It was my first, so I did not know what to expect, but it was good. I liked the decorations." Her eyes were still slightly duller than usual as she replied, but she gave him a small smile. "Did you enjoy your time with your family and Miss Jane?"

"I did, very much", he answered, his own smile tempered by the growing awareness of something wrong. "It was good to be able to celebrate with them again."

"And they must be pleased, to be seeing you again." Yvette was very aware of those keen yellow eyes on her, and she looked down, scuffing the muddy snow with one long toe talon. "It was kind, for you to invite Miss Jane to join you," she said, wondering if the other girl had told Kurt about the mall incident.

She hadn't mentioned it, in fact, but Kurt very rarely missed clear signs like the ones in front of him now. "She has no family, and it came up in conversation. Anyone would have been welcome to join us - perhaps you would like to, next year? Or sooner, if you wish, it does not only have to be for Christmas..."

Leave the school and go into the public space of an airport? Yvette almost visibly quailed at the thought. "Perhaps one day," she managed, trying to sound casual. There was a tell-tale glow of blue from her eyes, however.

"You would not be alone", he said quietly. "I would be with you, remember that. But of course, no sooner than you wish to... though, Yvette, I am surprised to see you so..." Scared, was the unspoken end to that sentence.

She ducked her head, ashamed. "I do not feel... comfortable, leaving the school," she said at last. "It is not safe for people."

"But you did not feel so before. You left the school for Angel's party, and for other things, I know. Has something happened, while I was gone?"

Yvette sighed. "At the mall, with Miss Jane. Some boys, they saw me and..." She hesitated. "They said some things, made as if they wanted to hurt us. Because I am the mutant. Miss Jane made them go away."

"Ah, little one", he said sadly, not reaching out to her for fear of making her withdraw further. "There will always be such cruel people in the world."

"They could not hurt me. I was frightened because they might hurt Miss Jane," Yvette said quietly. "And because I might hurt them, if they tried to touch me." Her shoulders drooped. "They were the same age as myself, Mr. Sefton. Like any of the boys in my class. And they were afraid of me." She looked up at him, eyes still dull. "This is how it is to be, yes? People to be afraid of me, I to be afraid of them, in case I am hurting them. Even to be wanting to be the friend... I cannot touch them."

"For now, liebchen", he told her as gently as he could. "Only for now. You have been softer, yes? And that will happen again, perhaps even more than it has. But they did hurt you, I think, even if they could not lay a finger on you."

"Not so soft I can touch," Yvette corrected softly - it felt wrong to say such a thing to a teacher, and right now she couldn't see herself ever being soft enough to touch, to feel. "And the boys said..." Her throat tightened. "They were calling me the freak. They said I was ugly. And then Mr. Forge, he showed me the hologram, of me if I was to not be a mutant, and..." Words failed her then, and she dropped her gaze to the muddy slush again. When she could speak, it was barely audible. "And I do not think the boys will ever like me, the way they do Laurie and Angel."

"...oh, child." He did open his arms to her now, but more as a gesture of confidence than with any expectation she'd take him up on it. "I had forgotten you were of an age to want such things. But you should not think just because you look different that you are ugly, whatever anyone says. You are a beautiful girl, inside and out, and the boys who matter will see it."

Yvette didn't back away from the gesture, trusting him not to touch her, but the lines of her body language stiffened slightly, the contours of her face becoming minutely sharper. "It is silly, to want such things where there is so much more that is important," she said, trying to be brave and not such a cry-baby. "But I see Miss Marie and Mr. Kane, and Jay and Kevin, and it makes me feel..." There wasn't a word in English for what she wanted to say - or maybe there weren't words at all. "I am just wishing, Mr. Sefton, but I do not think I can be having the same, ever. And it hurts my heart."

Even if Mr. Sefton thought she was beautiful - that was something she'd been able to tuck away, despite the emo as Kyle would have called it.

"And does it give you no hope, seeing what Miss Marie has even though she cannot touch either?" Kurt asked her gently. "Never think it is silly to be lonely, Yvette, but do not give up. You are much too young for despair."

"Miss Marie does not cut everything she touches," Yvette pointed out, stretching out a bare hand to slash at a nearby bush, twigs scattering as her fingers sliced through them cleanly. "And she can still feel with her skin. I can do neither."

"But she cannot touch her lover any more than you could", Kurt insisted, unaware of a certain invention of Forge's and quite happy to remain so. "If you keep thinking this way, liebchen, you will make it come true. You know your skin hardens more when you are unhappy."

There was a brief glint of light in her eyes. "The, how you say, Catch-22? My powers are making me unhappy, and to be unhappy makes the powers worse." She huffed out a sigh. "I am tired, Mr. Sefton, of things to be so hard. I am only wanting to be the normal girl, even if the powers are meaning I am here."

"There have been many times I wished to be a normal boy", he admitted quietly. "Even knowing my family loved me, it was not always easy growing up so - and I know how much worse it is for you. I wish I could do more to help."

"It is helping, to talk. To not feel silly, or that I am making the people worry. And I do not know how to make things to be better." She shrugged then, a small, fatalistic gesture. "Perhaps one day, things will be changing." She looked up at him then, and gave him a small, much more genuine smile. "And the talking is better than the sitting and thinking."

"You might try talking to Dr. Moira, when she is next in the mansion", Kurt suggested. "She might have some ideas to help make things better, and I think she will not make you feel silly at all. But until then... yes. I suppose it is."

"Except when it is cold." Yvette gave Kurt's bare feet a meaningful glance. "Are you not cold, Mr. Sefton?"

"Oh, you do not have to worry about my tough old feet", he said cheerfully. "I sometimes think I could step on a nail and not feel a thing, after all these years."

She giggled a little at that. "But, still, to catch a cold would not be a good thing. And I think I would like to have breakfast after all."

"Then shall we go in?" he proposed. "You are as susceptible to colds as I am, no?"

Yvette blinked. "Do you know, I do not know if this is possible? But I do not think I want to be finding out."