xp_logs | Kevin & Yvette | Wednesday Afternoon

Yvette goes looking for Kevin and finds something she never thought she'd see.

He hadn't actually believed that it would work. Sure, he knew Dr. Grey-Summers was a doctor and knew what she was doing, but he really hadn't thought it would work, or that it could. Such an easy solution. He knew it couldn't go on forever, or even for that long. She'd lectured him on the side effects and their seriousness every time he saw her just to be sure. Kevin wasn't really sure how he felt about it yet. He'd been sitting there for an hour testing it. Happiness or relief were probably reactions he should be feeling right about now. Mostly he was just kind of confused. Kevin had stripped down to the wife beater he wore under all of his other clothing, at one point having wanted to test it with more skin contact. He sat there on a bench in the metal shop hugging a block of wood to his chest with his cheek laying atop it and it didn't react. It didn't decay, it didn't wither. It was just a block of wood. In a way it was like his entire world was falling apart because of that one fact.

Over the past weeks, Yvette had taken to coming to check on Kevin, to make sure he was okay, and maybe to reassure herself he was still there. There'd been talk of him going back to Muir, and she wasn't sure she knew how to deal with that. Kevin was one of the few people who really understood what her life was like. Today she had a small basket of food with her, sandwiches and the like - it was such a nice day, she hoped Kevin would come out of his hidey hole and join her on a small picnic.

Her footfalls were characteristically muffled by the protective socks she wore, and she tended to move quietly any way. So she didn't expect Kevin to hear her coming. What she found as she peered around the door, however, was something she'd never dreamed of. Kevin was touching wood... and it wasn't disintegrating. A small noise escaped her as she stood there, frozen.

That small sound was enough to startle Kevin. In the uncharacteristic silence of the shop it practically echoed, though he was likely imagining that. He jumped, releasing the wood which then fell to the ground with a clatter. Eyes sweeping around to find the source he worried for a moment that it was Jay. He worried that his ex was haunting him again and things would just get more complicated when Jay found out that Kevin's situation had changed. Somehow he wasn't entirely relieved to see Yvette's glowing blue eyes peering at him. It was better, obviously, that it was her, but in a way he wanted even less to explain to her that he was temporarily normal. There was no such thing as normal for them. They were kindred and for a moment Kevin panicked that the doctor's fix for him to deal with the other things would sever the strongest link he had to someone. But that was stupid to think, wasn't it?

"Uh, hey 'Vette." His voice was uneven, awkward. What exactly could he say? Somehow he didn't think telling her he was fixed for short term was really the thing to say. Instinctively he grabbed the long sleeved, hooded tee shirt he'd taken off and pulled it back on over his head. It was one thing to sit around hugging wood by himself, but it was another thing to be that physically exposed around a person. Staying covered was practically hardwired into his brain by now.

"Hello, Kevin. I am sorry, to be interrupting." There was an unspoken question there, asking what it was she had interrupted, but she wasn't sure how he would take such a question. "I came to see if you are hungry and wanted the lunch outside, but if you are busy with the training..." She trailed off a little awkwardly. "It is the training, yes? With the wood?"

"Uh, kinda." He gestured for her to come in and hoped she'd close the door behind her when she did. Kevin picked the fallen block of wood up off the floor with bare hands and set it on the bench in front of where he was straddling it. "Ah, um, well, Ah was kinda testin' somethin'. Sorta. Ah was told--but Ah didn't think it'd work. So Ah came to test it an," his voice trained off while he gestured to the intact wood. His hand rubbed up and down the length vigorously but all that came off were a few small flakes of ash. That was all he'd accomplished in an hour of contact with a log.

She obeyed the gesture, closing the door behind her - they were both private sorts of people - and set her basket down on the workbench. Her eyes glowed brighter at the sight of the log. "It is not turning into the ash," she observed, a tone of wonder in her voice. Then she looked up at Kevin, smiling a little. "You are learning the control, yes?"

"No," he shook his head because his voice had grown so quiet it was unlikely she'd heard. "It's somethin' else. Not me. Science. And not forever." Dr. Grey-Summers voice cropped up in his mind telling him people couldn't be on the pills for more than six months, period. The FDA wouldn't allow it.

She frowned a little, and came closer, although still maintaining his personal comfort level - that particular area had grown in the time since the situation with his powers had arisen. "Science?" she echoed, her own voice soft with sympathy. The 'not forever' hadn't escaped her notice. "You are wearing the, how you say? Inhibiting machine?"

He shook his head again. "No, those're too dangerous. Ah'm not that kinda risk that'd make it worth it. Least that's what Doctor MacTaggert said when Ah was in Muir." He rested his flattened palm atop the wood and waited for it to suddenly crumble to dust. It would almost be more reassuring if it did. "Pills," he explained in little more than a mumble. "Doctor Grey-Summers found pills that shut off the thing where my mutation is. It's not really my skin that's the problem. It's the stuff your pores secrete onto it to keep it from dryin' out an' stuff. Guess there's a pill that can shut that off but it's dangerous. Like clinical depression an' insanity dangerous. Theory is if Ah don't gotta worry 'bout hurtin' people then Ah can deal with the side effects that've been going on. Sorta like quittin' heroin cold turkey, y'know? Didn't think it'd work though."

Yvette nodded, peeling off her glove and reaching out with one long finger to scratch down the surface of the log. It had the same resistance of ordinary wood, where she would have expected it to crumble like paper normally. "It is the thing that is too good to be true," she said gently, eye glow muting. "But, it is to be helping, yes? With the addicting feelings?" He'd explained things to her when he'd come back from his sudden absence.

"Yeah, too good to be true's right," he muttered as he nodded his head. "No, not with the addicting feelings. Ah gotta deal with them on my own. Well, with therapy," the word was full of just as much disgust as it always was. "Ah still wanna," his finger traced down the line left in Yvette's wake, "it's just nothin' happens if Ah do." He was already more relaxed in this knowledge, having proven to himself it really worked. His muscles were tense as they had been the entire time before he'd begun using his mutation, but his voice wasn't straining through the control he was exerting on himself. He wasn't trying to wrap himself up into the smallest space possible so he didn't reach out and destroy things, because even if he did reach out nothing was happening. In a way it was more frustrating and that was perfectly clear in his eyes.

She raised her other hand, the one still encased by the glove, and repeated the action. Of course, there was no result, the self-repairing material protecting the wood. "It is, then, the safety measure, yes?" she suggested, remembering the relief she'd felt the first time she'd pulled on the jumpsuit. And the restrained feeling of being encased in cloth. "But there are the down sidings." She looked up at him. "Is it being too hard, to know it is not for always?"

Kevin swallowed hard and nodded his head. Words were failing him a lot at the moment as his brain tried to catch up with reality. At least he could depend on Yvette to understand. She was probably the only person he could depend on for that. "Five an' a half months. That's it, maximum. Probably won't even be that long, really. While Ah'm on it...well, Ah gotta go see the doctor every week. She's gotta take blood once a month. Ah might end up nauseous or with headaches that never end or with bloody noses or depressed. There's a list o' like twenty things that suck that could happen 'cause of the pills." His voice obviously stated he wasn't sure if it was worth it.

Her eyes glimmered softly. "I would not like to see you be unwell," she said. "But I also want my friend to be happy. If you are needing the help, you can tell me, yes?" She looked up at him with a small, sad smile. "We are the kin, yes?"

Telling people he needed help wasn't exactly any small feat for Kevin. He tended to avoid asking for help at all costs. He viewed asking more detrimental than whatever happened because he didn't. "Yeah, we are. Don't reckon there's much anyone could do to help with that stuff anyway." That at least wasn't a lie. It wasn't even a careful wording of the truth. What could anyone do about him going clinically insane from those pills?

She nodded. "But if there is the thing I can do, I will be here." The expression that crossed her face as she looked at him holding the log was almost wistful, similar to when she had asked him what kissing felt like. "One day, we will both be having the control and there will not be the need for the safety measurings." It was said with quiet conviction. If she didn't have that to hang onto, what else did she have?

Keivn gave her a sad sort of smile. "Nah, not 'we', 'Vette. Just you. You'll get control," he sounded completely certain of this fact. "Ain't no hope fer me. Even with control." His eyes locked on his hand. His safe hand that couldn't hurt anything. "Ah'll never get to do this like this any other time but now. Never. Ain't no off fer me. Just faster or slower. They told me that before Ah left Muir."

She bit her lip, but nodded. And then, moving with slow care so she didn't startle him, she reached over with her gloved hand and laid it over his. "Then we will be working together so you can be finding the slowest way for your powers," she replied, eyes glowing softly.

Kevin's eyes tracked the motion of Yvette's hand. When it laid atop his own he stared with a quiet curiosity. He couldn't think of a single time when they'd touched, even through the safety of their layers. It was just too dangerous, too many variables. The gesture was hardly lost on him. When his eyes went up to meet Yvette's he gave her the smallest of smiles. "Don't tell no one, okay? Ah'm...not sure Ah want 'em knowing. Ah'm not sure what Ah'm gonna do with this," he nodded down to the solid piece of wood beneath their hands.

"It is not their business. It is yours," she said, with an answering nod and the slightest of pats with her hand. She left it there for a moment longer and then withdrew. "Are you hungry, Kevin? I think it would be good to go outside and sit in the sunny place and not to think about such things as powers and the medicines and the side effects, yes?" She gave him a hopeful look.

"Yeah." He didn't bother with any of the other layers he'd taken off, just grabbed his gloves and pulled them on. The world felt safer when he was covered though he wasn't sure if it was about being safer for others anymore, or if it was just about it being safer for him to deal with. "Let's go. You're mah hero, 'Vette, you know that?"

She laughed a little. "It is the right place to be the hero, to be living here," she replied, scooping up her basket.