xp_logs | Cessily & Kevin: Saturday morning

Cessily goes exploring her new surroundings and comes across an awe-struck artist preparing to load up his sculptures for a trek into the city.

Cessily peeked around the corner before she slipped into the garage. As much as her story-telling linked her to her mother, cars linked her to her father. Especially beautiful cars. This new place was in no short supply of beautiful cars.

She laid her hand on the hood of a blue car to just enjoy the feel of the paint. That's when she heard the sound of metal on metal. Nothing too loud, but very distinct. She cautiously approached, curiosity leading her.

Kevin was moving his stockpile of sculptures from the metal shop to one of the school cars he'd signed out for the day. Most of them weren't more than two feet tall, but a handful were closer to four feet high. All of them were clearly pieced together by scraps, discarded metal made into something beautiful. Any paint that had once been on the pieces had been stripped off before being joined to the others they made a whole with. The smaller sculptures were wrapped in cloth and would be lining the trunk of the car so he could put the largest pieces in the backseat without worrying about them all clanking around in the trunk. They were durable and they were covered so there wasn't actually any damage that could be done, but he worried about them anyway.

Currently Kevin was shifting things around inside the shop, ordering what he was going to move. Taller sculptures stood on the floor near him with the remaining smaller ones on a table while he wrapped one in an old towel. He didn't actually notice the girl at the doorway at all.

She watched him for a few minutes, stuck between awe and timidity. The sculptures were almost as beautiful as the young man handling them. Cessily took a moment to be grateful, her mutation eliminated her ability to blush. She stepped forward.

"Do you need some help?"

His gloved hands stopped moving at once when the voice sounded, a female voice he didn't actually recognize. Kevin's eye moved toward the doorway with his head only following after they'd landed on the girl who stood there. She was silver, the light reflecting off her skin the way it did the metal of his sculptures. For a moment he actually wondered if someone was playing some sort of prank on him, but he could see the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed so she wasn't actually a sculpture. Kevin had to shake his head to keep himself from staring, though he was sure it didn't erase the look from his face. Metal was what he saw the most beauty in and there was a girl standing there in the doorway who he'd swore was made of it. His eyes had to be playing tricks on him.

"Uh, Who're you?" Even those few short words deceived his origin. The thick drawling of his rather soft voice held the composite accent of someone who'd maybe moved around, of someone who had never set roots down in any one place for long and simply absorbed the speech of those around him. It was the accent of someone who had lived all over the South and had joined each accent to the one he'd acquired before it. It was not the sound of a person who'd spent all but nearly two years in Georgia.

She turned her eyes to the side under the impact of his stare. Her parents had warned her this would happen. She smiled with determination and held out her hand. "I'm Cessily Kincaid. I just got here earlier this week."

Kevin shook his head again slightly to clear it. Staring was rude and normally he wasn't rude but the glint of the light off her skin made her beautiful in a way that real people weren't meant to be. Mentally he reminded himself he was supposed to be functioning like a person even if he had art on the brain. When he took her hand Kevin gave her a smile that was all Southern hospitality and charm. It was warmer than he almost ever was, but how could you not be when you had this sight before you? "Sorry, Ah'm Kevin. Er, Kevin Ford. Ah don't really keep up much with everyone but Ah hadn't realized we'd acquired another one's all."

Cess couldn't help the grin that came to her lips. "I'm just the latest acquisition. Tat and Inez are my suite mates. They say they're pretty new too." She tilted her head to get a better look at the sculptures. "What do you have there?" she asked curiously.

Kevin nodded over his shoulder back to the array of sculptures. "Sculptures. It's what Ah do, kinda all the time. Only Ah don't really have any use for 'em all once Ah'm done with 'em so Ah'm bringing 'em into the city and selling 'em to whoever wants 'em. Ah used to sell them to tourists before Ah came back to the school and those were smaller and simpler so Ah know Ah can probably unload 'em there."

Cessily stepped around Kevin for a better look. "They're very beautiful. Bet they're great for getting spending money." She studied them a bit more, deliberately not looking at the artist. "Do you need some help loading them up?" She offered again.

"Need? Nah. Wouldn't mind it anyway, though. 'Specially with gettin' the bigger ones in comfortably and all." Kevin didn't really show people his art pretty much ever. There'd been a couple times he'd made stuff with Yvette and Tommy had seen him trying some artistic powers training. Other than that he'd made stuff for Jennie and Jay as gifts. Mostly the people who saw what he made were the people he sold it to. It was a new experience to actually just watch someone look at them. Someone who saw beauty in them and not for monetary value. "If there's one you want you can have it. Just speak up now."

Her eyes widened with delight. "Really?" She reached out to run a finger down the metal. She leaned down to study another piece. Her hair fell over her face and she pushed it back impatiently. "Is it related to your powers or just something you do for fun?"

Her reaction was so priceless that it made him smile. "Yeah, consider it a welcome present." It sounded better than just needing to not have them take up space and not needing the money given he was working full time for Elpis. Besides, warm welcomes weren't really going around lately so someone ought to get something welcoming, right? "It's one of the few things Ah can touch, actually. So sorta 'cause of my powers but it ain't 'cause it's somethin' they do. 'Cause it's somethin' they don't really."

Cessily straightened and blinked at Kevin. "Well, that was about as clear as mud." She held up her arm with a half-smile. "Let me try another approach, hi, I'm Cessily. I'm kinda metallic instead of flesh and bone, what's your power?" She said teasingly.

"Sorry," the apology mingled with a laugh. "Only kinda metallic? So you're silver-plated?" His eyebrows furrowed with the question, but his voice was light. It was becoming increasingly hard to not smile with her around. "Ah decompose things. All things so long's they're organic. And Ah don't just mean touch with my hands. Touch at all. Contact kinda equals turnin' to dust with me." His expression was considerably lighter than it would have been normally. Explaining what his powers were was a reminder of his freak among freaks status and it generally just depressed him. Cessily had an infectiousness to her smile that was hard to resist, even for Kevin.

She couldn't suppress the laugh that bubbled up. "I'm not sure, but I think it's all the way through. There this-" she broke off, biting her lip. "There's this thing I do that makes me think it is." No need to mention puddle-Cess in front of the cute guy. Her eyebrows rose as he explained his own mutation. "Wow, that kind of sucks."

She suddenly wondered if her mouth was open in the approximate shape of her foot.

"Understatement, trust me." All she'd have to do is ask Jay and he was sure his boyfriend would lament thoroughly. However he did not need Jay to go into sharing mode with the random new girl, especially since she actually seemed decent. Kevin grabbed another towel with a gloved hand and took one of the smaller sculptures to wrap. "So how'd you end up here anyway?"

Abruptly, Cess shut down. Her shoulders drooped as she stepped out of Kevin's way. How was she supposed to answer without sounding like she was desperate for pity? She reached out for the sculpture that had grabbed her eye since the beginning. She traced the lines as she searched for the right words. "I think that my parents finally accepted that this-" she gestured at her shining skin- "wasn't going to go away."

Kevin wasn't really one to pity people. Given he didn't generally want pity himself that giving it to others was stupid. People who wanted pity usually were just out to get attention and everyone else didn't want it anyway. So he shrugged and kept his eyes mostly on what he was doing even as he finished and moved onto the next one. "Unfortunately for you this is the place of the happy hippie where everyone loves you for bein' a freak. Unless you like hippies. Then Ah might hafta consider avoidin' you at all costs." Kevin gave her a sideways glance with a smirk to match it. He sure as hell wasn't lying, but that didn't mean he couldn't be light about it. "Where'd ya live before?"

She couldn't help it, she snorted with laughter. Her hand slapped over her nose and mouth in an attempt to stifle it. "I'm from Portland, Oregon. National capital of hippiedom." Her eyes tilted upward with her laughter. "But mostly I'm a theater geek. And I'm terribly fond of hair-washing, so I think that disqualifies me from actually hippie-hood."

Kevin shuddered for effect at the revelation. "There's no way ya came outta that psychologically stable." He emphasized this by leaning away from her and peering at the chrome girl suspiciously. The expression lasted only a few minutes before morphing into a smile. "Been to New York before?" And without waiting for her to answer Kevin nodded to the sculpture in her hands, "Ya want that one?"

Cess shook her head. "No, they brought me straight here and my parents were never much for big vacations." Not to mention the inability to afford said vacations. She looked down at the sculpture, then pulled it close to her chest. "If you mean it, I'd love it. It's beautiful."

Kevin grinned at the way she clutched the sculpture to herself. She looked like it was a beloved pet or child almost. "Ah think separatin' you and Sadie'd be a crime, obviously." Kevin did, indeed, actually name his sculptures. This wasn't something he told people because no one asked if he did so why would he? "Like Ah said, consider it a welcome to the mad house present. So you wanna come," he asked with a nod toward the doorway and the garage that lay outside it. "To the city, Ah mean. Could always use more help unloading than loading."

Fear and excitement warred in Cessily's brain. On one hand, she could count the number of people that had seen her since she'd changed. On the other, New York City, theater capital of the world and home to so many things she was sure she'd never get the chance to see again. "Won't I stand out a bit?" she asked.

Kevin tilted his head and really looked at her. She was too reflective to even pretend it was makeup. He couldn't think of a plausible reason for her looking like she was made of metal, but maybe he didn't need to. "Well Ah'm going to Central Park. They might assume you're a performance artist. We'll tell 'em you're an advertising stunt if they ask and just not let 'em touch you since you probably don't exactly feel like skin, right? 'Sides, there's lots of weirdness walkin' 'round New York City."

Still she hesitated. "I- I don't know," she said. "No one has touched me since it happened." She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin defiantly. "But yes, I want to go. I've always wanted to see New York City." She said the name almost reverently.

Kevin held up his arm and wiggled his fingers, "There's always untouchable chic. Ain't exactly fashionable but it keeps ya from bein' touched. 'Sides, Ah can always just pretend to be really possessive er somethin'." Kevin could actually probably play overprotective or possessive than he'd like to admit. It wasn't like he didn't usually want to lock his boyfriend away with him for days and refuse to let anyone else have him.

Cess laughed as she carefully wrapped her present in a spare towel. She tucked it out of the way so it wouldn't get caught up with the rest. "Get moving! We have work to do!"

"Yes ma'am." Despite his grin Kevin's words were all politeness and compliance. He gave her a nod and handed her a couple of the smaller wrapped statues before grabbing the rest himself so they could get everything loaded and then get the hell away from the mansion.