Whistler: Yvette, Kevin

[x-penance.livejournal.com]

During the rescue work, Yvette finds Kevin and he helps the only way he can.

OOC: Backdated 'cause I missed it!|



He swore his hands were going to go numb from the cold. Heat he handled no problem swathed in layer upon layer of clothing. Cold he didn't handle as well because Kevin was always covered. As it was he was pulling clothing back on. The more of his skin that touched a thing the quicker it went. At one point there was someone under a tree and hands weren't going to do it so Kevin had torn off everything he had been wearing from the waist up and thrown it at Tabitha so he could literally hug the tree to disintegrate the whole thing faster. Now his skin tingled in a weird way he was chalking up to too much tree bark.

Now Kevin was shivering, pulling his shirts back on one at a time. His gloves were still off and he was about to pull his coat back on when he saw Yvette. She looked, well, not exactly happy. Okay, not really the happy moment kind of day but there was dealing with stuff and then there was Yvette. With a sigh he decided to forgo the coat despite the cold as he caught up to her to see what was going on.

"Kevin!" Normally to say someone's eyes lit up was a poetic exaggeration, but for Yvette, it was literal - those big blue eyes glowed like headlamps. "I was looking for you! Please, to come and help?" She stopped short of tugging on his arm - she knew better than that - but urgency vibrated through her.

Kevin blinked at her and the tone of her voice. Ah don' wanna strip again, it's cold! was the first thought he had. Priorities? What priorities? "A'right, wha's up?" This was a change, being the person needed for help, especially when at first all he'd done was stare at the snow and think about how entirely ineffective he was against snow, of all things. He followed Yvette without waiting for her to make him. Walking and talking, entirely possible to happen concurrently.

"A house. The person I am working with, he is saying there are people trapped, and there is the gas, leaking." Yvette's grasp on English when she was upset or excited was tenuous, but she was making the effort to try and remain intelligible. Communication was important. "I cannot cut to them fast, but together, we can, yes? You to be using your powers, and me to be using mine?"

"A house?" With a gas leak. Kevin squeezed his eyes together as he followed Yvette. "Ah can only get through dense material so quick, 'Vette." But what was he going to do, tell his friend no? Tell her to find someone else to help when she was asking him? Kevin sighed and started peeling layers of shirts off himself again. "Ah'm gonna be really pissed if Ah end up with pneumonia from this." That wasn't really his biggest concern, but worrying about pneumonia or even potentially frostbite from wandering around half naked so he could get more skin in contact with more organic stuff to break down was a lot better than worrying that he couldn't break down the material fast enough for he and Yvette to get to the people before they died from the gas. Or before an explosion happened. Right, great, gas leak. Electrical wires. Not fun.

"We do not need to be making the whole house go away, only making the path, for the people to escape," she reassured him, careful to keep clear of him as he started taking off clothes. Ahead of them was a group of rescue workers, clustered around a pile of snow with only a chimney sticking out of it. A small hole had already been hacked into the snowbank, and the workers were digging with shovels to widen it. "I will go first, yes? To make the bigger space in the tunnel for you."

"Yeah, a path, through a lotta stuff," he pointed out. Really, he wasn't trying to be cynical but houses around here were made of wood and wood was dense. It took him, generally, five minutes to get through a trunk. "It's not like Ah can control which direction Ah disintegrate stuff in." That was sort of an important thing to note. It just, spread. Everything decayed and it went in all directions. Things would be more efficient if he could just get the decay to go where he wanted it, but it could choose to spread rather than bore. Not the most useful mutation ever.

"Kevin..." Again, those big blue eyes turned on him. "Please, to try? Even if you cannot be making the decay all the way through, you can be making it softer for me, yes?" They were at the place now, the workers looking up at them with hopeful curiosity. "I cannot be doing this by myself."

Kevin shook his head, clearing his thoughts. "Sorry, 'Vette, Ah didn't mean Ah wouldn't. 'Course Ah'll help ya." How could you say no anyway? They'd die otherwise and he and Yvette were most likely to get in fast enough without bringing the building down on everyone inside. "Go on, ya widen tha tunnel an' Ah'll be righ' there." Kevin dropped his clothing in a pile near a trunk and just hoped it was still there when he got back.

She nodded, eyes flaring neon-bright and seeming to leave a trail as she scampered away, back down the tunnel. After a moment, showers of snow flew out, to be shovelled away by the workers, followed by a snow-covered spiky girl. Shaking the snow from the spikes of her hair (she was noticeably spikier than she normally was, bare hands and feet extending into long talons), she gestured at Kevin. "There is the room for you to not be touching me," she informed him. "There is not so much snow, but the top level, it is coming down and making the mess."

"Course it is." He was mostly talking to himself, trying not to shiver. His feet crunched over the snow as he headed down the tunnel past Yvette. "Ya know how far in they are?" The question was shot over his shoulder as he looked at the wreckage, eyes tracing the slashes no doubt made by Yvette. "Yer safer'n Ah am when we get closer ta them, is all." He laid a hand on the wall in front of him, watching how slowly the material went through the decomposition process before he added his other hand. It spread out from his hands as the anchoring point, the material beneath his hands turning to dust but not falling because of his touch even when he pressed his forearms against the wall.

After a few moments he pulled back to see what had actually been accomplished. Contact broken, the dust simply fell. A few inches were gone completely, but he wasn't sure how weakened everything else was. "Hey, see if tha's easier for ya?"

She nodded, edging carefully past him. Anyone else in these close quarters with her skin exposed would have freaked her out, but Kevin... well, he was as vigilant as she. Lifting up one long-taloned hand, she slashed at the wall, sending chunks of rotting wood crumbling away. "It is being much better," she grunted, continuing to hack away. Kevin's touch had weakened a good couple of feet of housing material, and as she carved away, she could hear the faint cries of someone on the other side "I think..." she gasped. "We are... being closer than we were thinking." Then her hands hit a chunk of solid plaster and lathe, and she sat back.

Kevin cringed a little and nodded. "Yeah, but we migh' be in trouble if they're touchin' tha wall." Despite his words he stepped up, pressing his arms against the rubble, the side of his face and shoulders joining it. He only stayed there for a few minutes, until his skin touched nothing but ash, and then stepped back. "If they're touchin' tha' wall an' my powers seem through ta tha other side," he warned, "they get it, too." That image was more than a little disturbing because he kept picturing kids half-mummified creeping out out the tunnel they'd created. Trying to shake the image off, he stepped back for Yvette to work on the rotted material.

"And if they are against the wall when I am cutting through, they will be cut also." Kevin's need to use more of his skin hadn't gone unnoticed by Yvette, and she concentrated harder, trying to make herself sharper. Everything that made her upset or angry she conjured up, every frustration, every hurt. From the stiffness creeping across her face, she was doing something right it seemed, and she cut away at the softened wall, hacking through the obstacle wall. Only a sudden tingle in her hands made her realise she'd hit something other than wall, and she leaned forward, eyes glowing in the dim tunnel. "I think I have cut the electrical wires," she said, after a moment, shaking out the sensation in her hands. The current hadn't hurt, but it did feel odd.

And she wasn't even blinking oddly at her hand for that? Lucky Yvette, impervious to electrocution. Too bad the rest of them weren't. "Can ya try ta find 'em an' make sure they're outta tha way? Don' wanna get anyone hurt by 'em on the way out." Or himself hurt by them on the way in, for that matter. That would suck. It seemed like a slight understatement, but considering he was trying not to shiver he wasn't going to be too concerned with the true gravity of it.

Yvette nodded, poking around at the wall, using her eyes as flashlights. "There," she said after a moment, prodding at a network of plastic-covered wires. She'd severed them down the middle, but she'd need to trim them back further to make sure things were safe. Gritting her teeth against the tingle, she carefully sliced until the wires were flush against the edge of the whole, passing the cut off ends to Kevin. "This feels very strange," she observed. "Like the pins and needles."

Kevin took the ends carefully, wrapping his hand around the rubber covered parts, trying to make sure there was no exposed wire where he took it in case there was any residual current in them. He didn't really know electrical stuff so he wasn't sure if they were totally dead yet or not. "Yeah, tha's wha' mos' o' us feel as tha after effects of electric shock. You never got shocked or nothin' before?" Kevin shoved his arm in a small hole, decaying more away so he could shove the wires safely inside and out of the way.

Yvette shook her head. "Not so much, no. And I am not feeling things the same way, since I changed. I cannot feel most things - it must be very hot or very cold before I notice, for the example. I am thinking the electric shock is the same - I do not think I could be doing this if I was the normal girl." She cut through the other half, and went back to scraping at the wall. "Or this, for that matter."

"Everythin' comes with good points." The fact that they came with bad points as well hung unsaid in the air. His words had held a a tone of unconvinced disbelief. The optimistic was not a role he could even pretend to play very well, it seemed. He wondered what it must be like not to feel things at all. Sure, he didn't feel a whole lot, but it was because he was covered, not because he physically couldn't.

"Perhaps." Yvette didn't usually consider the lack of sensation a good thing. It was the simple things she missed, like feeling a breeze against her cheek, or the softness of a cat's fur under her fingers. Then the plaster crumbled under her hands, revealing a hole into an open space. "Oh! I think we have found the room!" she exclaimed. "Kevin, you have the better English. To be talking to them, please?"

"Yeah, 'course." He nodded and moved past Yvette, through the hole, the edges of which decayed as his shoulders brushed past. His eyes moved slowly in the dimness until he found three people huddled together, what looked like a mother, a grandmother and a little boy. Kevin's head was slightly fuzzy and his skin kept tingling, something he blamed entirely on the cold. He shook his head to clear it to no avail, and rather simply tried to think around the light fuzziness of his brain.

"Hey," he started as he walked slowly up to them, though sure to stop a more than polite distance away. "We've made a tunnel fer ya, ta get out." Relief washed over their faces and they went to move, but he held up a hand. "Firs', ya gotta know, no contact wi' me er mah friend 'Vette, alrigh'? Any part o' us not covered by clothin's dangerous to ya an' we don' wan' ya hurt, jus' safe an' outta here, alrigh'?" Heads nodded, confirmations were muttered and Kevin stepped back, gesturing toward the tunnel they'd made. He wasn't sure these people really understood the danger part but hopefully they'd just listen to him and question it later.

"Hey, 'Vette?" He called as the trio made their way toward the hole hacked into the wall, "Can you lead 'em out? I'll follow behind jus' in case an' all?"

Twin blue lights appeared at the hole as Yvette came forward. "Please, to follow me?" she said, holding up a now-gloved hand. "It is a little not-smooth, so you will need to be careful."

The mother and the grandmother started a little at the sudden appearance of glowing blue eyes, but the little boy seemed more curious than anything. He came up to Yvette, tugging his mother by the hand. "You talk funny," he said bluntly.

"That is because I am not from here," she pointed out, gently. "Please, come with me? There is gas, and it is not good for you to breathe."

"Angels from heaven, that's what you are," said the grandmother, hobbling up to lean on her daughter's shoulder. "It's a miracle you found us."

"That was Egg," Yvette said with a slight eyeroll. "He is not such the nice man, but he is very good at finding people." Carefully, she reached out to take the old woman's hand. "If you do not touch my skin or hair, you will be safe, yes?"

Nodding, the grandmother obeyed, holding onto Yvette's gloved hand. "What is you name, angel?" she asked.

"Yvette," she replied, carefully picking her way back through the tunnel debris. "And this is my friend Kevin."

Kevin nodded as they started down the tunnel. He kept a bit of distance from his end, unable to simply cover himself up with his clothing out at the other end of the tunnel. He may have been able to speak fluently, but Yvette was better with people. It didn't escape his notice, either. Kevin was simply more twitchy about the possibility of that kid having half of his face shrivelled and withered away that he couldn't really concentrate on anything else.

The mother kept glancing back at Kevin, maybe trying to figure out why he looked so normal and his friend did not. That was the only thing he could think of, but he simply remained silent, picking his way over the debris underfoot.

The tunnel wasn't long, and one by one they emerged into the fresh, cold air. The rescue workers immediately took charge of the little family, wrapping them in blankets and seeing to their health, as Yvette stepped back, only half-consciously placing herself between them and Kevin. All the better to avoid accidents, until he could get his clothes on. The grin, however, was hard to hide, and she clasped her hands together with glee. "See, Kevin?" she said, pointing at the family. "We saved them. They are okay because of us!"

"Nah, they're okay 'cause of you. You foun' me an' all." This saving people, being a hero thing, it didn't suit him. It was like being five and trying to fit into your daddy's shirt. Speaking of shirts, Kevin found his clothing in a pile where he left it. His gloves were pulled on first before the layers of shirts and then his jacket were all put back on. He was mostly numb from the waist up from the cold, but he refused to acknowledge this fact aloud. "But, yeah, they're okay, so it's good. Ya did a good thing."

"We did a good thing," she insisted gently, but left it at that. "There is the hot chocolate and the food in the tent over there," she said instead, pointing. "You will come with me, to get warm, yes?" There was something in her voice that implied it wasn't really a question.

Who did she learn that tone from? Maybe all women were born with it or something. It was like trying to tell a Southern mom you weren't hungry. Argument was pointless and would likely be met with staring, impatient foot tapping and possibly being dragged off by force, so Kevin decided the arguing thing was definitely not an option. "'Course Ah'll come wi' ya." Because otherwise he'd be dragged around by Yvette anyway.