xp_logs | Kevin & Manuel

A few hours after his Talk with Terry Kevin finally actually meets the person causing all the dramatic upheaval.

"Come in," Manuel called out from where he lay on the bed. Stretched out on his side, his head was propped up by his hand and he looked up from a folded up news paper. Turning his face into his hand, his fingers brushed over his brow like he could physically rub away the sleep that pulled at him. How long had he slept today? Four hours? Six? No, it was possible that he slept the full seven but he recalled waking up at some point, unable to determine whether it was a dream or real.

Kevin, or who he assumed to be Kevin, walked in and the aroma of chicken assaulted his senses, triggering a growl in his stomach that wasn't there before. Unable to stay where he was, Manuel pushed himself to sit up and dropped the newspaper down on the floor. "Welcome," he greeted, grabbing a hold of the cane and pushing himself to his feet. It was a very slow and grueling process, attempting to stand when he was so tired, however Manuel ignored the humility hanging over his head and held out his hand to shake Kevin's, leaning on the cane heavily.

Kevin had a rather larger platter of fried chicken balanced on his left hand. The chicken steamed, having just been cooked prior to coming up. He figured gestures of good will should be made by yourself and be fresh. At least if said gesture was food, and really food was the ultimate good will gesture. He pushed his conversation with Terry out of his head, refusing to let any opinion other than his own intrude. It was really lame the way people were acting. The past was the past and inflicting old opinions and experiences with a person on people who didn't even know them was rude, to say the least. Terry wasn't being as bad about it, but he didn't care what "unforgivable" thing had happened before because it was before.

When he pushed the door open Kevin had a small smile on his face. "Hey." Manuel looked tired, like he might crumple to the ground any moment from the energy exertion. He wondered if coma was supposed to do that to a person or if maybe it was because of the inhibitor. "Ah come bearing gifts," he tried to not be quite as soft spoken as usual but Kevin's voice only got so loud comfortably. He raised the plate of chicken to indicate what the gifts were as he shook Manuel's hand. "You don't look like ya slept very well."

He returned the smile and gestured for Kevin to put the food down on the nearby table while returning to sit. "I can see. It smells very good and I'm very hungry." He was not a cook by any means and to have food prepared for him was more than a welcome. "I'm afraid I did not sleep very well. I may sleep a lot however I rarely sleep _well_. You have a southern accent. Where are you from specifically?" he inquired, his own accent lacing through his english.

Kevin set the plate down where indicated, "Gotta eat. Not eatin' ain't going to help that tired thing none, y'know." At least he was hungry, it'd be sad for all that chicken to go to waste. After all, food was meant to be eaten. "Ah'm from Georgia originally. Atlanta. Well, Ah grew up in one of the southern suburbs, right on the city limits, but it's part o' the metro area so people still say Atlanta 'cause people know where Atlanta is and if ya name a town right next to it no one'll know where ya mean." Tilting his head to the side Kevin asked, "Where're you from originally?"

"Spain," he said, but did not elaborate. Earlier conversations lingered in his mind and he did not want to explore his past any further than where he was from. "Was this ordered in?" he asked. "I apologize. I do not have any plates or utensils. It is the guest suite after all, and I came from Muir with only the clothes they held for me and my iPod. I wouldn't normally dream of wearing old clothes however, shopping does not agree with me, unless I want to roll around in a wheelchair all day."

The conversation had been steered away from origins, which Kevin was more than happy for himself so he didn't pursue it further. Spanish was Spanish to Kevin. He'd just noticed Manuel didn't quite sound the same as Julio, now he knew why. "It's chicken, you eat it with your hands if you're civilized or I'm going to have to accuse you of secretly being a Yankee and we can't have that." He actually gave Manuel a smile when he said it and then reached behind himself to pull out a small stack of napkins. "Ah came as prepared as was needed. And Ah made it, actually." He couldn't help thinking Manuel and Clarice would get along because of the old clothes comment. Unless Clarice hated him, too. That complicated things, didn't it? "Shopping ain't worth the wheelchair. Least not to me."

"Ah you cook. Or is it that you only know how to cook chicken and nothing outside of the realm of birds?" He took note of the napkins and wondered briefly how Kevin cleaned his face and body on a daily basis if he could disintegrate things. Picking up the chicken, Manuel took a napkin and set the chicken down on it. "Not to change the subject, but I marvel at how you don't have an odor considering you decompose things. At what rate, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Nah, Ah can cook. Used to cook all the time when Ah lived with my father." Kevin's accent noticeably lightened near the end , as if the closer he got to the memory of his father the closer his voice got to that softer, quieter Georgia accent that was native to his tongue. It didn't last for long, though, as his thick, drawling composite accent he'd picked up and assembled from various people over the past few years set back into place almost immediately as he spoke again. "Well it's not like things hang out in the rotting phase for very long. Ah wouldn't know how to describe the rate. Depends what it's made of. Depends how dense the material is." He quietly added, "A person takes less than twenty minutes. Getting through a four foot high and three foot wide section of a tree takes twenty to thirty minutes depending."

"I, unfortunately, have absolutely no skill in cooking and no desire either. I tried once. I'm afraid it did not go very well and I have little energy to try again. Especially since the Muir staff were trying to talk me into it. The nurses felt that the charm of a cook makes a man more desirable. I think it makes him complacent. Somehow their pressure only makes me resist it more. " He picked at the piece of chicken and pulled the skin off, eating that first. "That's very fast. So how is it that you shower, if soap is organic, or do you scrub with steel wool?" he joked, making light of the power. It was a horrible, awful yet great power to have. There were worse things than that and because he hated pity, he didn't give it to Kevin, but a mutual, unspoken respect.

"Gonna be screwed livin' on your own, aren't ya? Ah don't see how cooking makes a guy complacent." He thought maybe Manuel was just looking for justification to not cook, but that'd be a really stupid justification to have, wouldn't it? Complacency came from many things, but from knowing how to cook? Dishes came from cooking. That lazy, sleepy feeling came from eating which came from the result of cooking. Complacency? Not so much.

If most people tried to joke about Kevin's mutation he'd likely have wanted to throttle them. People didn't have tact generally and they came off more as arrogant and condescending than they did kidding. Manuel's choice of exaggeration, though, kept him firmly in the lighthearted bracket and it inspired much the same in Kevin rather than pulling his doom cloud over his head. "Well, Ah find S.O.S. pads like for pots and pans work best. They've got the steel wool factor with the soap but since the soap's in the metal Ah can't just turn it to dust nearly as easily. Really, people underestimate the good a thorough exfoliation can do for 'em."

"My apologies. That was the wrong word to use. I was thinking of compliant. I've never had to learn to cook and why should I when someone is so willing to do it for me. And, might I add, they do it better than me, so why break away from that?" while by now, he wouldn't force someone to do his bidding, he wouldn't try to compensate for what he didn't know either. It had been one weakness he had been willing to live with and too stubborn to change for some time. He licked his thumb. "I didn't take you for that type. I suppose we're all full of surprises though. How do you like the school? Suffocating sometimes, wouldn't you agree?"

"'Cause 'ventually someone's not going to be around and so willing," Kevin pointed out. He thought it was perfectly obvious, really. Everyone had to stand on their own two feet at some point, learn independence and all that. Kevin only grinned at the mention of being that type. Yes, he was Kevin: Master of Masochism! Now there was something to inform Jay of. Good thing it wasn't true, he didn't think it'd go over real well. "Can't stand it. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if Ah wasn't trapped here pretty much, but since Ah am," he shrugged. "Too many people with too many emotions and too many opinions they gotta air all the time."

"Yes I noticed. Which is what I expected when I posted my return. I could have said nothing at all to them and let them think I was an apparition in the halls, but I wanted to avoid the confrontations that would have ensued. I've said this before but I will say it one more time. You realize you condemn yourself by association here, correct?" He had said it in email and felt the need to say it again. "We're rolling in waves of negativity when people so much as get a glimpse of me." For the most part, he steeled himself against it, but it was easier to do with the inhibitor on. It would not be so easy once it came off.

Kevin shrugged, his expression matching the air of complete lack of any care he had for said condemnation. "Ah really don't care. People stupid enough to hate me for giving someone Ah don't know a chance instead of listenin' to their issues from years ago ain't really the sorta folk Ah care much about bein' loved an' adored by." He didn't really care to be loved and adored by anyone save his boyfriend. Anyone acting like a four year old who got their toy stolen wasn't anyone he wanted as a friend so Kevin figured he was pretty much safe whatever the turn out. Unless Manuel turned out to be the asshole they all insisted he was anyway.

"Now you cannot complain because you were warned," Manuel smiled and set the chicken down. "It is nauseating, isn't it? How they all get along, except with their petty grudges. However, like they said, I did cause a lot of problems. I won't lie and say its not difficult to keep yourself in check when it comes to empathy. It's not quite like telepathy. I don't read thoughts thankfully, or they would hate me much more than this, I'm sure."

"Ah dunno, Forge can't stand me either and Ah didn't even do anything to 'im." Kevin's expression darkened for a moment at the thought of what it was that caused the rift between them. At least he'd never particularly been friends with him before that conversation had happened. "Sometimes all ya need to do 'round here is have an opinion and be willing to stick to it to earn wrath. Y'know, like the opinion to judge you for myself. Or that my business is my own business. Obviously Ah ain't joining in the Kumbaya sing along."

"They can keep their Kumbaya song. As for Forge, I cannot say I know exactly why he hates me, however his comments were bad taste and seemed to draw out friends I did not know I had. So I cannot complain. In a time like this, you truly realize how many friends you really do have. And with someone like Forge, show him humility and he will quickly bury himself. I'll humor his bad mood for now, but I won't bend when he demands it. Worrying about it is a waste of energy."

"Ah'm pretty sure Forge is really a woman on the inside and he's just got really bad PMS pretty much all the time," Kevin said all too seriously. "Unfortunately, he's also my boyfriend's friend so Ah can't be half as much of a prick to him as Ah'd like to be. Rude, y'know?" He shrugged a bit defeatedly at the very idea of all that animosity he never displayed.

"Your boyfriend?" Manuel raised his brows, running through people he knew to be Forge's friends. It was a hard list to go over. He couldn't recall, but could see faces without names and the smile slightly dropped at the strain to remember those minor details.

Kevin wasn't sure if that expression was because of the fact that Kevin was seemingly gay, because it wasn't expected or because Manuel couldn't figure out who it might be. "Yeah, my boyfriend. Ah dunno if you'd know 'im. Jay Guthrie. Red hair, red wings. Kinda hard to miss if you've seen 'im."

"Jay?" the smile returned, unbelieving. "Such an unlikely pair." Manuel wasn't against it, nor was he openly for it. His own opinions and tastes crossed lines as a result of his power. He recalled one person he was particularly taken with but kept that to himself. "Yes, I know of him. He was with Kyle before, another of Forge's friends. I'm surprised, to say the least." It made sense,but how much, that was questionable. The unspoken question hoovered over their heads of how he and Jay did anything at all with Kevin's uncontrollable powers. His tact kept that inquiry at bay.

Manuel's tact was something that Kevin was silently immensely grateful for. He didn't want to go near broaching that unspoken question. He didn't even want to go near thinking about it himself to be honest. That way lay madness. "Unlikely? Oh, ya mean that whole kinda polar opposite thing we got goin' on?" Kevin actually laughed slightly. The polar opposite thing caused a lot of headache and a lot of tension between himself and Jay. He was pretty sure it was also what caused Kevin to want him as much as he did.

"Yes. Opposites attract, I suppose?" And that was the most Manuel was going to breach on that topic. It wasn't any of his business and it crossed over into questions he preferred not to know the answer. The fact that Kevin was gay at all was surprising in itself. The fewer the surprises, the better.

"Well that's what they say anyway." He shrugged. Manuel wasn't asking questions and Kevin didn't see any point in saying anything else about his relationship with Jay. He was pretty sure there was now the assumption he was gay and while it wasn't true he was in a relationship with a guy so it seemed stupid to even be bothered over that. "Course, opposites might kill each other, too. If Ah turn up dead now we know why."

"I doubt Jay is the killing type, however, you never know. People change." The understatement of the year.