Rising Waters: Yvette and Kevin - Sunday

[x-penance.livejournal.com]

Kevin seeks out Yvette for help with a Very Important Rescue.



The rain seemed to be easing, but for all that the ground was still a muddy, churned up mess. Yvette was industriously hacking at fallen tree trunks that blocked one of the main roads into Cedar Rapids, working with several other Red X volunteers in an effort to clear a path for emergency vehicles. Fallen trees and power lines were a definite problem - the ground had loosened up so much with all the flooding, it took the least bit of wind to bring things crashing down. Pausing to rest, Yvette wiped the sleeve of her jumpsuit across her forehead to remove the mud and splinters of damp bark and wood, watching the cloth re-knit itself. She never failed to marvel at that.

Kevin was half covered in mud after having been crashed into by hysterical children. They'd been wailing over something that was trapped but he had no idea what they were trying to say was trapped given all their hysteria and sobbing. He'd let them tug him along, pointing at a fallen tree that had collided with another and taken it down as well. Best he could figure it whoever was trapped was on the other side. Great. Given that he was useless for this duty he went out to find someone more helpful. The kids followed him like a shadow. Kevin wasn't great with kids, he didn't honestly have the patience for them. When he spotted Yvette he practically died of relief. "Hey, 'Vette," he greeted with a tired smile. "Can Ah steal ya for a bit?"

"Of course," she replied, eyes glowing brighter. At the sight of the small red spiky girl with the glowy eyes, Kevin's entourage broke into a series of excited whispers and finger pointing. "You seem to be having the, how you say? Shadows?"

Kevin glanced at the kids and his eyes fell into slits for a moment, the look slightly weary. "Yeah. They lost someone? Somethin'? Ah dunno, they were all crying and screamin' and stuff over it." He pulled his wet, muddy shirt away from his body. "Crazy 'nuff to tackle me. There's trees in the way, Ah can't get through 'em."

"And you are needing the path to be cleared?" Yvette finished, smiling stiffly - she'd been using her powers a lot and her face was falling into the old mask-like state. "I think I can be helping." At that, it seemed Kevin's little friends would dogpile her and she stepped back, placing her exposed hands behind her back.

"Thanks," the last sound of the word was cut off when he saw the kids going for Yvette. He couldn't get between her and them so Kevin instead grabbed the three of them from behind. They were small enough that he managed to get his arms around them all before pulling them back. "Uh, no," he told them. "Y'all leave the nice lady alone 'cause she's very sharp which'll help us but y'all will end up all hurt and then she'd be sad and Ah get really pissed when she's sad and then your whatever won't ever get rescued. Okay?" The kids all had their heads turned up to stare at Kevin and nodded. Only when he was convinced they meant it and were calmer did he release them.

"Thank you," Yvette told Kevin, her eyes glowing more effectively in gratitude than she could express facially. The bit about him getting pissed off if she was sad especially - she noted that, storing it away in her memory. "Can you be showing us the way?" she asked the kids, and they nodded eagerly, seeming about to charge off again across the muddy ground.

Kevin just grinned at her. He'd managed to work through enough of his powers addiction stuff with Jean and Doc Sampson that smiling was coming a lot easier lately. He'd even given up that muscles tense enough to cut diamonds on thing that had become normal for him since February. The kids took off to show the way as requested and Kevin fell in step with Yvette, casual enough that he could have been strolling down a street with her instead of in the middle of a disaster area. "Enjoyin' the mud and rain? Ah was really feelin' like Ah needed to shower more often. Ah've got that now." He looked up to the sky. It was clearing a little but it was still raining enough the the clouds were grey.

"I am perhaps in the better place than most? I do not have to wear the rain clothing so there is less to clean." Yvette had stripped down to just her jumpsuit for better access to her powers, her long clawed toes gripping the ground and leaving pockmarked footprints behind her, the holes rapidly filling with water. "But now you are not so much the smelly boy, yes?" she added, teasingly. Very few except Yvette's closest friends heard her tease.

Kevin feigned offense, jaw dropping slightly as he clutched his chest over his heart. "You callin' me smelly, 'Vette? I'm hurt. That cuts. Right here," he tapped over his chest, though he was a bit too far to the right to really be where his heart was. "Down to the quick. Really." He heaved a sigh. Fewer people heard Kevin joke like this lately than heard her tease, it was a testament to their friendship and how comfortable he was in it. Kevin was scared to let down his guard with people now because eventually he knew his powers would be back and it'd have to go back up.


She giggled. "You are the boy. All boys are smelly," she opined. "Especially when they have been making the exercise." She pretended to pinch her nose with those longer fingers.


He waved off her criticisms. "Makes ya wish we were 'round floods more often, huh?" He grinned. The kids were sitting on the fallen tree in the forefront of the mess which lay in front of their beloved, trapped...something. Kevin nodded. "So we gotta get somewhere...past that. Dunno how far. Don't even know what Ah'm lookin' for."


Yvette eyed the tree - and the debris behind it - speculatively. "I can be making the path for me to be seeing what it is," she suggested. "And if it is important, I can bring it back out."

Kevin grinned. "Ah'd owe ya, erm, something really cool when we got back if ya did."


With a giggle, the small red girl swarmed her way up the trunk of the fallen tree, digging her fingers and toes into the wood. She couldn't see anything through the mess, and started chopping away at the branches, her hair visibly lengthening into spikes as she concentrated on making herself even sharper. Chunks and splinters of wet wood flew, showering those below.


Kevin herded the children--when did he become a child herder?--somewhere out of the way and hopefully safe from the rain of wood bits compliments of Yvette. He got them away and sitting, though they bounced in place, whether from anxiety or excitement was unclear. Babysitting, just what he always wanted.


After about five minutes, Yvette had cut away the worst of the tree branches, and sighed at little at what lay behind - pieces of timber, wire from fences, a guard rail from the nearby road... This was going to take a while. She was about to suggest giving up when she heard a small, pathetic kind of noise. Holding still, she cocked her head and listened closer. Again, a tiny croaking kind of sound, followed by another.

"Kevin!" she called, looking over her shoulder. "I think I am going to be needing your help!"


"Huh?" Kevin jogged over to the tree he'd seen her disappear into and climbed onto the trunk. He was clumsier than Yvette had been walking along the fallen tree, sadly lacking super grippy power like her feet provided. Oh, the pain of having feet-shaped feet that fit into shoes. He had to practically crawl into the space Yvette had cleared until he was close enough to her to stop. "What's goin' on?"


"Listen," she told him, laying one long finger over her lips. In the hush that followed, broken by the drip of water, there was a weak 'mew', followed by another in a different pitch, signalling it came from a different throat.


Kevin fell silent when told, a look of slight confusion coming onto his face. Then he heard it and comprehension dawned. Then he looked confused again. "They tackled me over kittens?" And then he realized why Yvette needed his help. "So can we get to 'em?"


"I think I would be tackling you for the kittens," Yvette told him, biting her lip a little as she considered the issue. "I can be cutting a path, through there..." She pointed at a patch of debris that was less solid. "...that is big enough for you to be crawling through. But you would have to be careful - I do not know if it is being stable."


He nodded. It was a plan. Maybe the best plan, but it wasn't great. You took what you could get, though. "Y'think Ah'd get a plaque or somethin' if Ah die in the process? 'Smooshed in the line of Kitten Rescue.'"


"I will make the plaque if you are smooshed, Kevin," Yvette reassured him. "At least I am almost as heavy as you are being? I can be testing the way." She glanced down with some trepidation - there was a lot of standing water beneath the jam and she knew how badly she swam. Or sank, for that matter. Another mew, weaker this time, hardened her resolve, however, and she crept forward, gripping with her toes as she began hacking away at the mess. The fencing wire slowed her down, but with dogged patience she kept sawing away, her skin making an unpleasant screeching noise against the metal.

Kevin shuddered almost violently at the sound of Yvette-on-metal. The dissonance was enough for him to rethink anything but classical music for the next month, he was sure. "Long as Ah get a plaque," he muttered to himself as he watched Yvette work her way through. He didn't want to risk adding too much weight and plummeting them into the water. Kevin was wet enough, the drowned rat look was something he'd avoid if he could. Though, he was likely already failing to avoid it.

The wire finally parted and Yvette crept forward through the gap she had made, holding her breath at every creak. Fortunately, the mass held beneath her weight and she was rewarded by the sight of a small ginger head, fur flattened by water, peering over the top of a mass of wet grass and weeds that had caught in the fork of a branch. "Oh!" she cooed, forgetting herself for a moment. "Hello there! Do not worry, we will be saving you."

There was a hoarse meow in reply and she began sliding backwards to where Kevin was waiting. "They are stuck in the tree," she explained. "You will have to be reaching, but you have the longer arms than me, so I do not think it will be the problem."

"Too bad my power's not super stretchy arms or somethin'." Hey, it could be helpful, right? Kevin managed to get around Yvette with a wide enough berth to not make her worry and then went crawling down the tunnel she'd created. The wire she cut through scraped along his shoulder, though they didn't make it through the damp cloth at least. Like Yvette, Kevin braced for the plummet into the water with every creak.

Eventually he got to the end but he didn't see anything at first. Then the tiny, miserable meow came. Once he found the kitten it stared at him. "Alright, Ah know, you want outta there." He reached out and the little ginger cat struggled up over the wet grass it had been hiding behind to crawl up into his hand. "Where's the other one?" He heard another, weaker meow answer him. It was from the same area but he couldn't see it.


The orange cat was left to huddle on the trunk near his knees so Kevin could stretch out, tentatively searching out something wet and furry. He'd thought he'd found it but it turned out to be more grass. A bit more prodding about and his fingers connected with a fuzzy body. His hands just barely made it far enough to get around the kitten to lift him up and pull him back. And he looked so miserable. A little grey tabby not more than six weeks old looked both thankful and miserable. "C'mon you two, let's get you outta here to your kids." Cradling both kittens to his chest with one arm, Kevin slowly crawled backward toward Yvette.

There was a muffled squeak from Yvette as she caught sight of Kevin's burden and her fingers twitched. "They are so cute!" she exclaimed, a little longingly. Then she giggled. "I wish I was having the camera, for taking the picture of you."

The squeaky noise made Kevin's mouth twitch into a half-grin that then disappeared quickly as he spoke. "Ah can live without a picture existin' though." The wet balls of fur were huddling into his chest, trying to steal as much of his body heat for warmth as possible. They shivered slightly despite their best efforts, curled together as they were. "People might start thinkin' Ah gotta soul or a heart or somethin'. Can't have that."

Yvette gave him a small smile in reply. "No, we cannot," she agreed in a similar vein.