xp_logs | Laurie and Kevin

One hour after Cain string Laurie up by the shoelaces Kevin comes by just to enjoy the show, but he's unfortunately too polite to leave her there when spotted. Laurie destroys his view of her as just an annoying little girl.

It wasn't every day someone was hung from the chandelier. Or maybe it was and Kevin was just really missing out on these sorts of things by being Mister Recluse. As it was, he didn't usually see people hung from the chandelier so after he'd seen Mr. Marko's post on the journal system he had to go see for himself if she was still there. She was, but she was hanging from shoe laces which was infinitely more amusing than Kevin's mental image of her hung by her shirt. If asked Kevin would say he had nothing against Laurie. She was cute, who had anything against a cute girl, right? Except he still remembered that naivety and willful ignorance when the subject of drinking came up months ago. He couldn't understand embracing your own ignorance. Maybe it made her happier being that way, but he just thought it was reckless and stupid to be ignorant about the world. Eventually it got you killed and there were bigger things to worry about than small legal infractions.

He had walked up silently so as he stood against the wall just enjoying the actual view of her stuck hanging there he was largely undetected. At least for now. She'd been annoying, not that he knew her well at all, so he considered leaving her there. That'd be really rude. It could only be rude if she realized he was there, though.

"You going to stand there all day?" she asked after a moment. She'd been trying to work her way slowly up her legs without moving the chandelier much. She wasn't sure how much weight it could really take and thus didn't want to take the chance of it falling and landing on her when she hit the ground. She just didn't have the core strength yet though, despite the X-men training and her hand to hand work with Garrison. She really needed to start doing work on that. "Or do you usually stand around gawking at people in uncomfortable situations?"

Damn, caught. That was saddening. Kevin pushed off from the wall and walked over toward Laurie. "Well, Ah was tryin' ta see if you'd get off on yer own an' tryin' ta remember where we kept ladder's 'round here 'cause, y'know, Mister Marko's got nearly two feet on me an' Ah can't reach ta get ya down from tha floor." It was a lie, but he made it sound sincere enough. "Chandelier's make bad jungle gyms, y'know. Couldn't ya jus' stick ta monkey bars er somethin'?" Yes, Kevin was going to hell but hopefully she had a sense of humour or he worried what she might do to him with her powers.

Laurie hung from the chandelier for a moment, slowly rocking back and forth as her movement set the thing to moving. "I'll try not to make a big habit of it then."

It was said with a smile though, as she was fully aware of just how hilarious she must look at this current moment and frankly, seeing Mr Marko completely covered in hot dogs had somehow made what followed completely worth it. Revenge however, would need to be contemplated - a careful revenge as she wasn't looking to upset the man, just get the better of him. It was the principal of the thing, really.

Oh, good, a sense of humor! There was hope for him living through this kind of unscathed after all. "So, d'ya know where we keep ladders?" It'd be easy enough with a ladder, actually. Laurie wasn't exactly hefty and Kevin wasn't exactly weak. He just needed the leverage that he didn't have with her like this. Well, it could maybe work but grabbing her so high up her body it wasn't really likely to.

"Um...There'll be stepladders in the supply closet, I think." Laurie replied, trying to stop her mild swing and only succeeding in putting herself into a slow spiral. This...was not going well.

"Righ'. 'Ow 'bout ya stop wigglin' so ya don' end up fallin' on yer head wi' a chandelier on top o' ya?" Kevin reached out, hands on her shoulders, and stilled her. He kept her there for a moment before letting go of her slowly and watched that she only dangled but didn't spin. "Righ', Ah'll be back." Stupid manners. He could have just left her there to swing, flail and eventually crash. Well, maybe she wasn't really as bad as all that. At least not when she was upside down. Right, supply closet, he remembered the general location of that, right?

"It's to your left." Laurie called out after him, noting that he was about to head in exactly the wrong direction. She so didn't want to stay up here any longer then she had to. Angel had already taken pictures, and she couldn't be sure the other girl wouldn't be back to take more.

"Righ'. Thanks." The down side to being a recluse was that you didn't learn where things like the supply closet were because you didn't care. That is, until there was a random girl hanging from a chandelier. Again he cursed his having manners. Kevin did find the supply closet, though, and managed to find a small ladder. He didn't need much, just a few feet so he could get her down safely without breaking anything off the chandelier.

Coming back to the dangling Laurie, Kevin just shook his head at the sight of her and set the ladder up. He pulled his hood up over his head and before he even bothered to start up the ladder said, "So no flailin' er wigglin' er nothin' okay? Don' need ta accidentally melt yer clothes off er somethin' 'cause yer squirmy." He was also feeling squirmy. Kevin didn't really know Laurie and the idea of having to not just get close enough to touch but to actually touch her, usual gloves and three layers of clothing notwithstanding, made him sort of twitch on the inside.

Laurie nodded, and placed her arm around Kevin's shoulder as he lifted her up and away from the Chandelier carefully. She knew this must be difficult for him, and so she tried very hard not to squirm, or let her clothes touch any of his exposed skin. Eventually, they managed to get her down and she grinned at him from her position in his arms. "So, if you'd just walk down the ladder, you can put me down on the floor so I can untie my shoelaces without falling over." she said with a grin.

She notedly didn't tease him about their current position, knowing that it might not go over so well if he thought she was flirting with him.

"An' 'ere Ah was hopin' you'd managed ta learn ta levitate." There was a faint smile to accompany the words, though, softening the sarcasm into something more good-natured. Normally people went up and down ladders holding onto the ladder, but instead Kevin had arms full of girl which meant that balance of his had better be as good as he thought it was. Slightly odd, but not impossible, as it turned out. He got them to the floor and let his arm fall slowly from under her legs as he set her down gently.

"What'd ya do ta get stuck up there anyway?"

Laurie let go of him now that she was on solid ground and immediately sat down on the ground to undo her shoelaces. "I threw a bucket full of cold hot dogs at him."

"Y'what? Whaddya do, jus' sneak up behin' 'im an' throw?" That seemed like a really bad plan. No wonder she ended up hanging from her shoelaces.

"Nah, I set up the trebuchet Forge lent me in the locker room so that when he opened the door it'd launch them at him. I mean, I knew he'd open the door first, since he's a full on old style gentleman type, right? Plus, it's his birthday and he loves hot dogs, especially the type straight out of the packet." Laurie replied, finally able to undo the knots in her shoelaces, they'd been pretty tightly wedged from holding her up on the chandelier.

Points for the personal touch, right? "Remind me ta 'void you on mah birthday." She was dangerous in that harmless way. Still, who wanted hot dogs launched at them? People around here had too much time on their hands or something.

"Well, I only launch hot dogs after people I've known for at least a year, so you're probably safe till New Years at the very least. Well, unless you get sick, and then I might have to feed you banana pudding till you're so sick of it you get better in self-defense." she explained, an amused glint in her eyes. As much as Kyle had bitched about the fare, he had gotten better faster then he might have if she'd coddled him completely.

"Tha's not reassurin', y'know. Fact Ah don't get sick much is, though. Banana...you really dislike people, huh? You've got tha' whole so cute no one suspec's thin' goin' on, but really underneath yer jus' plottin' everyone's demise by pudding, ain't ya?" Kevin shook a finger at her. "Ah see through you, Laurie. Ah'm no' going down by puddin'!" Where his sense of humor had materialized from Kevin didn't know. It happened a lot lately and it sometimes made him think one of the telepaths was practicing their powers by tweaking his brain a bit.

Laurie laughed out loud, stopping for a moment in the retying of her shoelaces. Who'd have thought the school recluse could be funny? Not her, surely. Still, he seemed really nice now that she'd gotten to talk to him, and he had lifted her down from the chandelier.

"Help me up?" she asked after a moment, finally getting her laughter under control. She held out her hand to him, waiting to see whether he'd take it.

Kevin paled a little at the question. It was the one thing that made him squirm and the one reason why he had to swallow it. He'd just never learned how to intentionally be rude to people. He'd forever be the guy who helped old ladies with their groceries and their cats stuck in trees just because they'd asked for help. His shoulders shifted, his internal squirming becoming external in the movement.

Despite the way his shoulders tensed at the prospect, Kevin took her hand and pulled her to her feet. You just couldn't say no to a girl for something like that. It was against the rules.

Laurie gave him a quizzical look at the squirming, she wasn't that hideous, was she? She dropped his hand now that she was on her feet but kept her gaze steady. "Is everything okay?"

"Ah jus'..." Kevin didn't know her so he didn't really want to explain to her. Though, he figured he probably owed her the explanation because she might have taken it personally. He didn't have to actually like a person a whole lot to not want to offend them. His hands were shoved into pockets as his gaze dropped to the floor. "When Ah was at Muir Ah disintegrated an entire sketchbook by accident tha' was mostly full. There was a hole, well, the seam had ripped on mah gloves an' Ah didn' realize it 'til tha sketchbook was gone. Can't wear two pairs of gloves at once 'cause o' dexterity. Ah jus'...Ah don' really like riskin' it with people. Hurtin' a person's no' tha same as hurtin' a book, y'know."

"Oh," Laurie replied, thinking about that for a second. "Have you talked to Forge? He makes this self-repairing material for Yvette. I don't see why he couldn't make you some gloves of the stuff, then you wouldn't need to worry about accidentally holes anymore, since it'd repair itself, right?"

"Eh." Kevin made a face and then shrugged. "Ah don' think Forge 'n Ah are really on great terms. Leas' we weren't las' time Ah talked to 'im." And Kevin was stubborn. Forge thought he was leading on Jay. Forge had a lot of thoughts about Jay where Kevin was concerned. Going out of his way to talk to Forge just didn't seem like a good idea at all.

Hmm, it would seem that Laurie now had a mission. Kevin might not be willing to talk to Forge about it, but Laurie certainly would. She didn't see any reason why someone should go around terrified of hurting someone just because they were too stubborn to ask for help from someone they didn't particularly get along with.

"That's alright, I guess we can't always get along with everyone." Laurie replied, somewhat distracted now as she tried to remember where Forge might be. She'd have to ask him, and then maybe she could give the gloves to Jay to give to Kevin. She was almost positive he wouldn't reject them if they came from his boyfriend. "Anyway, I gotta go. I just remembered something I've got to do. I'll talk to you later? And thanks for getting me down, you're a star."

"Not without lyin' ya can't." Or at least he was convinced of that. Kevin was slightly bitter that he couldn't continue to find Laurie terminally annoyed. She was all...cute. And nice. That put a whole in his whole world view for about two minutes. Tragic. "No problem. Secret knight in shinin' armor, tha's me." Or knight cloaked in black, whatever. Didn't quite have the same ring to it. He waved to Laurie as she went off and just busied himself with getting the ladder put away.