Red X: Reconstruction - Kevin & Angel BACKDATED 14th March

[x-wither.livejournal.com]

Kevin's sick of so many layers when he works and Angel thanks heaven before eventually bursting into flames and stealing his wallet.

Kevin was okay with heat normally. He was used to wearing more layers than could reasonably be justified in the heat so his body had acclimated. It just became a problem here because he was spending all day building things. Lifting, carrying, hammering, drilling, whatever they needed done that was physical he'd do. Three layers of cloth on you while you did that was annoying at best. The fourth day there and Kevin just couldn't take it. Something about wearing clothing drenched with sweat just wasn't appealing and he figured as long as he got the point across no one would try to touch him.

It'd taken about fifteen minutes and a demonstration for them to really get the imperative of not touching him. It was easy to avoid, they just had to be careful to not bump into him was all. Otherwise it wasn't a problem at all to just not have physical contact with him. It came as more of a relief than he'd thought it'd be when he got to strip off his tee shirt, long sleeved hooded shirt and his wife beater. They laid in a pile near some of the tools while he worked. His gloves were even pulled down so that they weren't up to his elbows. There were shorter gloves he had with him back in his stuff, but he figured if he needed to brace something with his arm or carry anything across them then the longer gloves were necessary.

Angel was equally soaked in sweat but for different reasons. The heat wasn't an issue but she'd been doing a lot of heavy work the last few days and it was still a reaction. Grimacing, she tossed a cup of water over her head to wash the sweat off before heating up slightly to dry off. Waving to the guys she'd been working with, she decided to take a break -- it was time to go pick up flecks of melted silver. At this rate, she was looking like a disco ball.

Turning a corner, she came to a full stop as she got an eyeful of a shirtless Kevin. Angel rubbed her eyes, sure she was hallucinating because that was something Kevin just did not do. But there he was, shirtless and sweaty. She took a moment to look heavenwards, mouthing "Thank you" before heading over.

"Think we'll get you in shorts?" she called out.

Kevin was drilling together some two-by-fours together which would become the frame of an interior wall. Paying attention to other things wasn't on his to do list. At the moment he was just glad for the fact that the sweaty rolling down his spine was just rolling rather than making his shirts heavy on him. It was a new sort of bliss practically. One of the guys working near him, however, caught a glimpse of Angel looking over toward them. He caught Kevin's attention and nodded toward her just in time for Kevin to actually hear her. Turning his head slowly, Kevin narrowed his eyes at Angel.

"Think we'll get you ta stop bein' reflective?" Why was she being so shiny anyway? "'Sides, Ah don' wear shorts." That reasoning probably fell short considering his current state of undress.

Angel giggled and shook her hands, only some of the metal coming off. "Only after a few showers," she responded, pulling up an overturned bucket to sit on. "I've been welding and I'm kind of covered in the left overs." She unabashedly got another good look at him. "Man, you must be overheating if you went so far as to get kinda naked."

"Half," he stressed, shaking a finger at her. "Half naked. Tha whole workin' wi' tha' many shirts on jus' wasn't workin' out. Drastic measures had ta be taken." He shook his head as if this was really unfortunate. "Ah think Ah half terrified 'em all, though, when Ah explained jus' 'ow much they needed ta not get near me."

"Half is better than not naked," Angel said cheerfully. "But better that they're terrified than grabby, I suppose." She tilted her head this way and that. "Man, you need to go shirtless more often, you know? Just put a disclaimer of "No touchy" up on the journals before hand and all us girls -- and some of the boys -- can enjoy." She grinned, a look of mischievous on her face.

Kevin's hand came up and slapped over his eyes. It covered half his face as he shook his head, but it did not adequately cover the blush that graced his cheeks against his will. He peered at her with one eye through parted fingers. "Yer trouble, you know that? Yer jailbait an' yer trouble. Shouldn' there be a leash on ya er something?" If it wasn't for the fact that he reminded himself about Jay Kevin could have easily slipped into flirting with her. "An' tha visual enjoyment wears off real quick with tha stipulations."

She giggled as she pillowed her chin on her hands. "No it doesn't! You're all taken and stuff but I can still look. My aunt says it's healthy, you know. And I'm not trouble. Well, not much anyway." She held her fingers. "Maybe that much trouble. But it's always amusing trouble, at least." Angel enjoyed teasing Kevin since it was nice seeing him get out of his shell.

Kevin shook his head. "Such a liar." He stood up from where he'd be crouched down over the beams of wood and walked over to her, leaving the drill on the floor. With a gloved hand he changed her fingers so only one was still up, then took her other hand, pulled up the index finger and then nudged her hands a considerable distance apart. He was even smiling a little when he said, "Yer 'bout tha' much trouble, Ah figure."

In response, Angel blew a raspberry at him and then grinned. "Still amusing trouble, though, right?" she asked, craning her neck back so she could look up better at him. Oohh, better angle to admire his chest at, she realized. And a part of her was slightly flaily because Kevin never, ever made with the touching, even with gloves on.

"Aww" and "Oohh" battled in her mind.

His head tilted to the side and Kevin struck a hand-on-chin thinker pose. "Hmmm. Ah dunno..." He looked down at Angel, considering. "Hard ta say. Ah think maybe only when someone's feedin' ya." Of course, with her penchant for being blunt he figured he should probably just mark her as the work of the devil and move on. "You've definitely got a devil on both shoulder's though. Ah hear they went an' killed tha angel. Staged a coup."

A sense of humor, that had been happening a lot lately. Kevin had been smiling a lot more lately as well. Sometimes he even felt almost human again. It was a little bizarre, especially when he caught himself acting more like who he was before his manifestation. Times like now.

"What, you think I was born with an angel on my shoulder?" Angel asked, looking as innocent as she could. "I think that was forgotten in the blueprints when my folks had me." Because while she knew about sex, she still denied that her parents ever did...that. Ew. "I'd be boring with a full set, though," she giggled. Now she was envisioning a set of devils on her shoulders, both on fire, of course.

"Who said yer not borin' now?" There was both a teasing and a challenging tone to his voice. Kevin was feeling playful and he knew Angel just well enough to not twitch over the idea of taking that out on her. It was an odd thing to think about since he normally assumed he wasn't really comfortable around anyone but Jay and Yvette, not really. Maybe it was just selective blindness.

Angel tilted her head at him, pony tail swinging with the movement. "Of course I'm not boring, I'm me!" she protested, pretending to sulk. And then she brightened. "Stand back, shirtless boy." Angel waited until he took a step backwards before concentrating. The blue field flared to life around her arms. A few seconds later and the pieces of metal stuck to her shimmered and started sliding down her arms and into her cupped hands. She grinned at him. "You're the artist, aren't you?"

"An artist," he corrected, "not the artist." Kevin's gaze was fixed on the movement of the silver over her skin and down her arms to her hands. The blue and silver was rather transfixing, honestly. "Beauty doesn't make ya not boring." Whether he was talking about the metal or just her was unclear. If he was really honest Kevin would probably admit he meant both. Luckily for him he wasn't that honest.

If there was an extra, sudden flair to the field around her hands, Angel didn't comment on it. "It's shiny, hence it's not boring," she scoffed at him, cooling herself down to make the meta not liquid but more pliable now. "Too bad you're not, you know, fire proof or else you could play with this." Now she was taunting him, smirking a little bit. Not that she really knew what to do with the lump of cooling metal now...

"Shiny goes inta tha beauty category, too. 'Sides, it's not much o' anythin' righ' now an' metal's always gotta cool to be anythin' other than jus' material. Until you finish wi' it s'not art, jus' unformed." In his head Kevin was forming ideas for various things the metal could be used for. "You can melt it, but Ah could actually make ya somethin' outta it." Was he offering? Probably. He had meant it in a more theoretical sense, but Kevin did have lots of time on his hands most of the time. It wouldn't be that hard.

At that, Angel beamed, the teasing dropping away. "Would you really?" she asked, letting the flames die down so the metal could continue cooling at a normal rate. She still played with a little, smoothing it out so it would be easier to work with later. Or, well, so she assumed. Her thing was pictures, not metal working. That was Kevin and Tommy's field.

Sucker, Kevin. You're such a sucker. Even if he hadn't already been willing, she had a smile that lit up her face like the sun off the melt. Such a sucker. He was so easily won over by girls. "Yeah, sure Ah would. You want anythin' particular? Or ya want me ta surprise you? Maybe Ah should make you wings so ya could pretend to not be so much trouble, huh?"

"Please, as if that would stop me." Angel thought about it for a moment. "Surprise me, I like surprises. As long as the surprises don't have sharp teeth or anything, I mean. I'd hug you but you're, you know, half naked and you'd run like a girl if I blew you a kiss, so...hmm..." She made a little gesture with her hands. "There! Blew you a hug."

Kevin crouched down, balancing on the balls of his feet so he didn't have to look down at her so much. Angel earned herself a dryly sarcastic look. "Ah wouldn' 'run like a girl.' Ah'm glad ta know y'think so highly o' me ta think Ah'm that squeamish."

"Oh you totally would," Angel giggled, holding out the metal. It wasn't completely cooled but he was wearing gloves, so she figured he should be okay. It was hard remembering sometimes what tolerance other people had to heat.

"No faith, Angel, no faith in me at all, huh?" He reached out to take the metal, making a bit of a face because it was still slightly hotter than was particularly comfortable. He could handle it though, or at least he was resolved to.

A mischievous look crept into Kevin's eyes as he stood and took a step closer to Angel. Without any warning he leaned over and kissed her cheek, very careful to avoid contact between anything but his lips and her skin to make sure he didn't hurt her. "Squeamish mah ass," he said into her ear before straightening up with a grin on his face. You just couldn't go and challenge the guy's masculinity by saying he'd run like a girl at a blown kiss without making him prove you wrong. Normally Kevin never would have done it. He was fairly certain he was currently possessed maybe.

Completely shell shocked, Angel stared at him with her mouth hanging open as if completely frozen in time. And then reality set in. As he stepped back, she went up like a Fourth of July fireworks display with slight whooshing sound, the blue hiding the blush that stained her face and neck. It also had the unexpected side affect of melting the bucket under her butt. Slagging under the sudden, intense heat it buckled under her weight and she tumbled backwards, legs and arms flailing.

"Uh-huh." Kevin didn't need to see the blush because the dropped jaw was enough. He looked so smug standing there while she went up in flames. "Ah think red'd match ya better. Yer jus' not a blue flame kinda girl. Washes out yer hair." Now who was doing what like a girl? Somewhere in the back of his mind Kevin sure there was a reason why he maybe shouldn't have done that. He was failing to see why at the moment. "Yer gonna burn a hole in our floor, Angel. An' if you're too busy bein' on fire Ah can't offer ta help ya up 'cause, well, Ah like mah limbs attached."

Sprawled on the floor, Angel somehow managed to turn off the fire. She stared up at the sky for a moment before realizing that one of her legs was semi-stuck in the melting bucket and she sighed. "If I was on my feet, your limbs would totally not be attached," she told him, shaking her leg in an attempt to get the bucket off. She grunted and rolled slightly, failing in her attempts. She was so ignoring the fact that he'd...it was on the cheek, he was with Jay and the whole not touching thing...

But he was so hooooot. Still, ignoring it! Ignore, ignore, ignore.

"Tol' ya you were trouble." He pulled his gloves back up to his elbows after stashing the now cooled silver in a pocket. Kevin held his hands out to Angel in a silent offer. "Doin' tha fish outta water impression ain't helpin' ya none, an' on one foot you could probably just heat the leg tha's stickin' ta get free, righ'?"

The flare of fire around said foot was almost petulant in answer. "I hate you so much right now," Angel told him, nonetheless accepting the offered hands. "Oh man, now I've got melted plastic stuck to my jeans."

Kevin pulled her back up with little effort. "Sorry?" It wasn't actually his fault, she was the one who burst into flame while sitting on a bucket. "You don' hate me. It's impossible ta hate me." He grinned at her, but it wasn't cocky like it should have been after a comment like that. It was just a grin.

She stomped her foot in irritation. "I can so! I...oh man, I know when I'm done in!" Angel tossed her hands up in mock surrender. "I totally know when I'm completely, utterly..." As she talked, she dejectedly walked around him...before grinning at his sweaty back and snatching his wallet from his back pocket. "Yoink! Looks like lunch is on you!"

At that, she turned and sprinted off for all that she was worth.

Kevin's hand got to his back pocket just a hair too slow to stop her. "Jesus, Angel, if ya wanted near mah ass that badly..." He narrowed his eyes at her as she began to streak off. Right, shirt first, then he was hunting her down, throwing her over his shoulder and finding a pool or a mound of dirt or a bathtub or something to throw her in. Maybe he could con someone into making a mud puddle for her.