Red X: Reconstruction - Kevin & Laurie, Backdated: Saturday night

[x-wither.livejournal.com]

Laurie teaches Kevin to meditate and he fails at figuring out what to make for Angel.

Laurie sat on one of the picnic tables that had been set up outside the reconstructed school, looking up at the rather clear night sky above. She could hear the sounds of people behind her, and every so often someone wandered past her on their way to another part of the city but she was content to simply sit and listen.

She'd been on the go with Jacob for most of the day, delivering food to all and sundry, some 50 odd people fed and watered with efficiency she had been surprised by, if happily so. "Taking a break?" she asked softly as she recognised the person currently walking by as none other than Kevin.

Kevin had his hands in his pockets with his long sleeved shirt slung over his shoulder. After spending the day without any shirt at all it didn't bother him much to leave his arms mostly exposed from just the short sleeved one he wore. He'd put the other shirt on eventually, he figured. Once he was stopping long enough to register people being near him he would, probably.

The voice that seemed to be directed toward him made him pause in his step, eyes moving to see who it was before the rest of him also turned to face her. "Huh? Oh, well, can't do nothin' now so Ah'm jus'...wanderin'. Lookin' for big enough pieces of scrap wood, actually. You jus' hangin' out on a table fer fun?"

"Sort of," Laurie replied, turning her face back up towards the sky. "I'm looking at the stars."

Kevin's eyes turned upward to the sky but he only made a disappointed looking face. "Ya can' even see nothin' out here much, though. No' unless you've got some sorta super sight Ah don' know about tha' allows ya ta see through tha light pollution."

"It's not as good as out in a desert or something, no. But, there's still stars." Laurie said, turning her head to look at him again. "You just have to want to see them, is all. Come sit down, I'll show you."

Kevin considered it, standing there and glancing between her and the stars. It wasn't like he had anything else he particularly had to do. Proximity, though, was always an issue. After pulling his hood up over his head, Kevin sighed and shrugged. "Alrigh'." He sat down on the picnic table far enough to not be consumed with paranoia over their closeness but near enough to not see rude.

Laurie relaxed her shoulders, leaving her hands clasped gently around her knees as she waited for Kevin to settle. "Okay, so, you look up at the stars right? Then, once you've got what you're seeing in mind, you close your eyes and think about what else should be there. Sort of, picture it all in your head."

"So yer cheatin'," he asked, a faint hint of amusement in his voice. He did look up at the sky and try to remember what should be there. Kevin didn't really spend time staring at stars, though, so aside from a few badly placed constellations he couldn't remember what else should be there, just vague twinkling lights.

"Kind of," Laurie admitted with a soft smile. "It's part of my powers training, mostly. Visualisation is good for meditation, and also good for getting what I want out of my powers, rather then just randomly copying whatever I'm feeling at the time. It might help you with the anxiety too, if you wanted me to show you how."

Kevin tensed at the mention of his anxiety. It was one thing for people to realize he freaked out over stupid stuff like people being too close to him but it was another thing for them to actually bring it up. No one ever brought it up with him really. He guessed that's what he got for explaining to Laurie in the first place. It could be helpful, maybe. Kevin wasn't thinking about the anxiety, though, he was thinking about the powers training he'd been doing with the wood. Maybe it would help. "Um. Alrigh'. Can' hurt, righ'?"

"Okay, so try to empty your mind of everything." Laurie said after a moment, allowing herself to get more comfortable and give Kevin time to settle. "It'll take awhile at first, your mind will want to stick up all sorts of things but just sort of brush them aside and let them go when they come up."

Right, that should be easy. Or, you know, not. He tried to empty his mind but then he just kept thinking of how he had to not think of things or he thought about Laurie's proximity and whether or not other people were around and if it was the wisest thing to empty your mind so you're not paying attention to anything. Then he started to wonder when he'd closest his eyes but he figured it'd be easier to not concentrate on anything if they were closed but were they supposed to stay open?

Laurie had opened her eyes and was watching Kevin's face, noting that none of the tension had gone from his body. It was always difficult when you first began, she herself had been terrified of letting go and somehow unwittingly effecting someone. It had come in time however, and now she often used meditation to help focus her powers when she needed to bring out a particular effect. "It's hard, I know. Especially with anxiety, your mind will want to think of a million things all at once and trying to still it sometimes just increases the panic. But, just listen to my voice, focus on it and the way I sound, the things I say. Sometimes focusing on one particular thing out of everything else can help you clear out the rest."

"Righ'," he whispered, trying to do what she said. Just focus on her, that wasn't hard, right? Generally a cute girl tells you to focus on her you just do it, it's easy to let everything else fall away. The problem was Kevin wondered if he should be realizing that Laurie was cute. Then he thought that focusing on her was an odd sort of betrayal in a way. It was stupid because he wasn't kissing her or even having a crush on her, he didn't right? No, he was sure he didn't. So it was all stupid but he kept thinking about how unhappy Jay would be to be reminded of how straight Kevin was with the exception of their relationship.

He took a deep breath and squeezed his eyes shut. Kevin was determined to put it out of his mind because it was all really stupid. With the air blown out he relaxed and tried to just focus on Laurie again. She wasn't speaking but he could feel where she was in relation to him. The tips of his fingers stretched out toward her as if he would reach out to touch her to make sure she was where he thought she was but his hand didn't move. He just tried to do what she said and focus on nothing but her.

"Now," she breathed softly, voice almost a whisper. "Think of a place or person you've felt the safest with. Focus on them completely, try to draw an image of them in your mind."

Normally Kevin would have thought of his dad, because parents were supposed to be safe but that was obviously a bad idea waiting to happen so Kevin forced his mind far from Atlanta. He ended up with the metal shop. Jay flickered in his head but that wasn't completely accurate, there were conflicts in his head over that, so he etched out the entire metal shop in his mind while trying to focus on the voice so quiet it seemed it was carried on the air from a long way off.

"Think about what it is that makes it feel so safe, try to place yourself within the image, wrap it around you until it's like a shield from everything else." Laurie continued, imaging her own place, the home she'd shared with her mother before she'd moved to the mansion. There were other places now, but this was the one that made her feel safest. She could see her mother there, sitting on their couch and drinking her morning cup of tea as she read the daily paper.

What makes it safe? Kevin wasn't sure he really knew what made the place safe. He thought it was just the lack of people, but when he considered that it felt wrong. No, it was safe because of the metal. Because of the sculptures he left all over it. It was safe because it was a sanctuary and almost no one ever intruded upon it. He placed himself on a bench with a small soldering iron in his hand. Despite all the machinery and the fact he knew how to use it thanks to Forge Kevin still liked to work by hand. Skin on metal, that was why it was safe.

"Now, stay there for a moment, think about the sounds that would be around you, the feelings that the safe place inspires. There's nowhere else you have to be, and nothing else you have to do. Just be in the moment." Laurie said after a moment and then fell silent again, keeping her breathing a steady in and out movement, allowing her entire body to let go of any tension she'd felt that day.

Be in the moment, he could do that, right? Kevin took a deep breath, focusing on her words echoing in his head, doing what she said. Mentally he inserted the soft hum of the machinery that was usually on and ready to be used along with the almost inaudible sound of the soldiering iron. He tried to remember the feel of the iron in his hand, the slick coolness of the metal in the other hand and the solidness of the bench beneath him. Slowly the remaining tension began to trickle out of Kevin. It was slow but it happened.

She left it at that for a few more moments, listening to his breathing and noting the decrease in tempo before she spoke again. "Now, keep it in mind but open your eyes."

Vaguely Kevin wondered if that wouldn't defeat the purpose. Open eyes meant things to distract him, right? He took a few more breaths with his eyes closed, trying to memorize the calm that clearing his mind had brought. Then, very slowly, Kevin let his eyes slide open again until his eyes could lock onto Laurie's so he could still focus on her instead of everything else.

"How do you feel?" she asked eventually, form relaxed and unmoving as she sat across from him, gaze steady with his, as she felt no pressure to look away.

Kevin really stopped to think about that but thinking too much seemed like it'd be a bad idea. The only word that would come to him came out in a whisper. "Light." He wasn't even sure if Laurie heard him he'd been so quiet, but maybe she could read lips.

"Good, " Laurie said, stretching and sliding from her sitting position to standing on the ground behind the picnic table. "Now, how about we go back inside and you can try out the new feeling around a crowd?"

Kevin glance in the general direction of "inside" and his lip curled ever so slightly. "Ah still don' like crowds any, though." Sometimes he forgot whether or not that was true of him before his manifested. It was hard to draw the distinction the farther away from that life he got. "'Sides, Ah was lookin' fer wood ta try ta make somethin' outta. Hey, you know Angel pretty well, righ'? Ah promised ta make 'er somethin' but other than food Ah don' know what she likes. If yer gonna make a girl somethin' it migh' as well be somethin' she likes, righ'? Know anythin' helpful?"

"Anything to do with fire." Laurie replied with a grin. "Otherwise, hmm...baby animals are always good."

Kevin made a face. "Barbecuin' baby animals wouldn' be a good idea, though." Fire, great, that was vague. "Yer no help, y'know that?"

"Why do you think I always cook for people?" Laurie said, an amused look in her eyes. "Saves me from having to think up other presents. Well, okay, and because I like to cook but it all works out in the end."

"Well, yeah, but Ah said Ah'd make 'er somethin' an' Ah can' make 'er silver flames er a little silver steak er somethin' like that. Yer supposed ta be more help bein' all...female and all." Kevin frowned and pulled out the smooth little piece of silver that had lived in his pocket since the previous day. He rolled it in his hand and tried to figure out what to turn it into. "Maybe it'll tell me what it wants ta be eventually."

"Wow, now there's a false assumption if I ever heard one." Laurie had raised her eyebrows as he spoke, and now gave him a look that spoke volumes. "I may be female, but that doesn't mean I have some inbuilt 'good present' giving gene. Same as not all guys are good with their hands. Like Dr Samson recently told me, making assumptions about anything is a very bad habit to fall into."

"Makin' assumptions is a human habit," he pointed out, slightly irritable at the mention of Dr. Samson, who Kevin didn't like. It wasn't even personal, it was just the man's role in Kevin's life and the fact that he wanted him out of his life. "An' Ah didn' mean it like that. There're common things 'tween people o' tha same sex, or who live in close proximity. It wasn' abou' a 'good present gene.' Figure a girl'd know wha' a girl'd like better'n Ah do. S'all."

Laurie shrugged, and looked back toward the lights of the school they were all staying in. "Well, now you know better. You going to be okay by yourself if I leave you out here?"

"Yeah, Ah'm fine." While Laurie's eyes went to the school Kevin's went in the opposite direction. The calm she'd help him achieve was fading and he still wanted to find wood.