Yvette and Kevin - Wednesday

[x-penance.livejournal.com]

Yvette drops by the workshop to have some time with Kevin and work out some issues.



In the absence of his powers Kevin had spent much of his summer months experimenting with different ways of creating smaller things. There were half finished sculptures all over the metal shop and while many of them were the abstract types he'd always done there were a handful of unfinished sculptures that actually resembled some shape or another, some more vaguely than others. The one on the bench he was straddling was the closest to being complete. With nothing but a pair of pliers in his hand Kevin worked to shape the small wires that broke off from the bundle that created a larger branch to become smaller periphery branches.

Art was part of his therapy with Doctor Samson, which just gave Kevin more reason than usual to hole up in the workshop. It also helped distract him from the fact that Jay was in Muir, Yvette was upset and there wasn't really anything he could do about it. The tree he was working on with such tunnel-visioned focus was actually a very belated present for Yvette. He kept refusing to mention its existence at all because he refused to give it to the girl until it was finished. Eventually there would be cherry blossoms on the branches, but they weren't quite right just yet.

Opeth streamed from the stereo loud enough to drown out any other potential sound, but the movement of the door itself caught Kevin's peripheral vision and drew his eyes upward to see who it was.

Yvette stood there, considerably spikier than she usually was, back to the way she'd been when she'd first arrived at the school, really. "Hello?" she said, tentatively, not sure if she was bothering Kevin. Or if he was disappointed in her for her behaviour. "Are you being busy? I thought I could come and help you with the sculpting, perhaps? They are wanting me to find the powers things that aren't by myself so much."

He couldn't hear a single thing she was saying so Kevin waved his wand for her to enter as he got up and went over to turn down the music. He was trying to not make it obvious that the amount of spiky was kind of worrying. "Hey. Uh, Ah didn't hear anything you just said, honestly." Despite the fact that she was obviously not happy he gave her a grin. It did no good to walk on eggshells and be all hesitant with her, would it? It'd just make her more self-conscious and Yvette seemed to think the world was out to be mad at her lately.

The smile helped - her posture (and her hair) relaxed slightly. "I am sorry, I did not think. Is it being okay if I help you today? I need to be doing something with my powers and Dr. Samson says it is better to have the people around me instead of going to the woods."

"Why not have people with you in the woods? Or are you makin' too much firewood?" Very quietly and as discreetly as possible Kevin moved the tree off the bench and elsewhere in the workshop, specifically a dark out of sight elsewhere. "Sure, you can help me." Kevin's accent, one once only heard when he woke from nightmares, was soft and lacking the thick drawling of the composite he used to speak with. Therapy, it seemed, could help heal all sorts of things and Kevin using his own accent was one of the products of that, though one that had only appeared in the past few weeks. "Got anything in mind you wanna work on?"

Yvette noticed the accent shift - she was sensitive to accents, given her issues with English, and Kevin's was easier to understand now. "Kyle is saying I will make Mr. Marko angry if I am cutting any more trees," she explained, a little wryly as she came in. She was curious about the sculpture that had disappeared, but she supposed it was something Kevin was making for Jay. That was what boyfriends and... well, boyfriends did for each other, she supposed. A "get well soon" gift perhaps. "I am not so sure. Something that is needing lots of the cutting?" She held up her hands, fingers over-long and sharp-looking even within the gloves. "It is not such the good week for my powers."

"Well, you gotta leave some for the whole creating oxygen thing, Ah suppose." Kevin shrugged. He wanted to ask how she was doing but it was pretty obvious from the looks of her that it wasn't great. Not one to willingly go for the obvious, Kevin chose to walk to the back of the shop and tap on a large sheet of metal that was half rusted with green paint chipping off of it which was leaning against the wall. It had been part of a sign once but had been hacked up since and left in the junkyard where he'd taken it for his own. There were several other sheets of varying shape and size layered behind it as well. "Well, Ah got these and Ah dunno what Ah'm gonna do with 'em yet. Ah figure maybe you could cut them up to your content and we could figure out what to do with them after. Maybe paint them and have you etch designs into them after before we figure out how to put them together?"

Eyeing the pieces speculatively, Yvette pulled off her gloves. "Perhaps," she said slowly. "I can be cutting out the small shapes and we can hang them on wires for the windchimes?" Her fingers flexed unconsciously, already anticipating the resistance of metal under them.

Wind chimes, did people really use those? That probably wasn't the point. The real point was whether or not people bought them, most likely. Kevin supposed you could use wind chimes for some interesting art, but he'd never considered it before. "Long as it's not all hearts and flowers. Gotta be more interestin' than that." He didn't wait for her to agree, just slid the first sheet of metal away from the wall so he could pick it up and move it into more open space.

"No hearts or flowers. I am not feeling so much the romantic things." She waited until Kevin had positioned the metal for her before going to work, grimacing a little at the sound of her skin against metal as she hacked away. "You are seeming the much happier," she observed after a while. "The medicine, it is still working?"

"Dunno why anyone would want hearts and flowers when they're feeling the romantic things anyway." Kevin made a face, which he tried to hide but failed miserably at. Hearts and flowers it was all a little girlie in that way that made him blinked in that confused way. He didn't understand the appeal, but then he figured this was just affirmation that, yes, he did have a Y chromosome in case anyone ever questioned its existence. "Yeah, Ah'm still on those pills things. Ah could live without all the random bloody noses but," he shrugged, "beats disintegrating someone's face eventually, right?"

"Or... cutting... them up." Yvette grunted a little as she worked at the sheet metal, finally cutting through it. "I wish I could be taking the same medicine. I would not care so much that it made my nose to be bleeding. At least then I would not be hurting my friends when I am angry and stupid."

"Yeah, 'cause the rest of us do such a great job at not hurting our friends when we're angry and stupid?" Kevin hopped up on a table and gave Yvette space to hack away, but he raised an eyebrow at her back. "Least it's obvious when you're mad. You get all pointy 'n' stuff. It's not like there's any question someone'll get hurt. The danger you don't know's there is worse. I'd take getting cut up by you over some other things."

"Be telling that... to Laurie." Yvette punched her fingers through the metal, leaving behind four holes. "It did not matter that I was all spiky - she tried to be stopping me from being stupid, and now she is having the stitches. And not talking to me." She pulled back her hand and punched another set of holes, before sighing and turning to face Kevin. "I am sorry. You are knowing better than anyone what it is like and I am being the brat."

Only one shoulder shrugged and the look on Kevin's face was both a little helpless and a bit sympathetic. "You're not bein' a brat. You're upset, Ah think ya got the right, but Laurie shouldn't be all stupid over stitches. She knows the rules and if she grabbed you, even if it was to help, then its her own fault she got injured. People, they think they get it, the consequences thing, but then they actually get them and suddenly they act like they didn't know what would happen. What about 'don't touch her she's sharp' is so hard to understand? Ah know ya got into some trouble, but whatever, you get to make stupid mistakes when you're young, right? Ain't no one gonna forgive you for them easily when you're older." The word hypocrite flashed in Kevin's mind thanks to all this working through the guilt of his father's death he'd been doing, but he shoved it aside for now. "Ah haven't been talkin' to Laurie for a couple months now, but if you want me to Ah'll talk to her for ya."

"It is probably not the good idea. She is already being mad at me, and at Kyle. I do not want you to be the next person." Yvette sighed again and came over to take a seat next to Kevin, close but not too close. "Is it to be getting better?" she asked. "When you are older? I am being so confused about everything, it is seeming."

"Ain't no better for me," he answered honestly. "Ya learn some things, you get better at other stuff but most people still do stupid stuff that pisses off other people or gets 'em hurt. Only difference is Ah think eventually you start to know before you do it that it's a bad idea. 'Sides, you had a good reason for being stupid, you know. If Ah was there and Ah knew who that guy was? Well, let's just say it might've been the first time Ah was sad to have my powers turned off for a while." His voice was calm and just as quiet as usual, almost nonchalant, but Kevin meant it. If he was there and knew that guy had hurt Yvette he'd have tried to decompose a hole right through that guy's chest.

"It is best that you were not there." She gave him a small smile. "Then you would be in the trouble also. But thank you, for saying so. The police did arrest him, so he will not be taking the children away again, I hope."

Kevin grinned. "Ya pick your battles, 'Vette, and sometimes the trouble is worth it. Y'wanna feel bad you got people hurt? Sure, that makes sense. Don't feel bad you went off after a bad guy, though. Ain't that what this is all about underneath? X-men puttin' bad guys away? Elpis tryin' to keep mutants away from bad people. If that ain't the point then Ah'm missing it in a big way here."

"It is about trusting the people who are to do the job to be doing it," Yvette replied wryly. "Not to be doing it yourself. That is what Mr. Kane is telling me, and I am understanding what he means. It was the personal thing, but I should have been leaving it to the people with the training. Or at least to be talking to them about it." She shrugged. "I think I shall be leaving the bad guys to the X-Men from now on." She looked at Kevin. "Have you ever thought about being an X-Man one day? You are being old enough."

"He's got a point," even if some days Kevin didn't like admitting Garrison Kane could have a valid point. "Got no interest in playing hero like they do. Ah'd rather just do art for the rest of my life and leave the world alone long as it leaves me alone, too. Ah don't think tryin' to save the world's for me, y'know?" Tilting his head, Kevin narrowed his eyes as if inspecting Yvette. "You thought about it?"

"I used to," she replied after a while. "But now... I do not know. There are times when I am being afraid of myself, Kevin, of what I can do. What I might be doing to someone. When I chased that man... I did not know I could be so angry."

"Maybe you should figure out what you would do to someone first, then. Ah mean, most people would kill under certain circumstances but they wouldn't normally. Maybe there's other ways for you to help people." Kevin leaned to the side as if he would nudge her shoulder with his own but he stopped just a hair's breadth from contact before pulling back, though to the casual observer it may have looked like contact was made. Jay had taught him that, how to flirt with that line but not cross it. Walking closer to it gave Kevin the illusion of being normal, he figured it might do the same for Yvette. "Everything ain't right for everyone. Gotta find your place in the world, carve it out and make it your own. But you don't gotta be afraid of yourself. Just gotta learn your limits and know what lines you can trust yourself to never cross."

She'd stiffened, just a little, but this was Kevin - she trusted him. And it was one of those small, normal gestures she missed. With a smile, she nodded. "You are the very smart person, Kevin. I am glad that I came here, because I was able to be meeting you." She ducked her head a little after that, embarrassed by the words.

Kevin grinned. "Ah'm a genius, alright." Being smart wasn't something he considered himself to be and it certainly wasn't something anyone else really considered him to be, but he wouldn't argue the point. It was kind of nice to be smart instead of just gloomy in someone's perception. "Hey, we all need kindred, right?" With a wink he hopped off the table and nodded toward the sheet of metal which still had plenty of space for cutting. "You're fallin' down on the cuttin' job though. How're we gonna make wind chimes if we don't have enough pieces to string together?"

"If I am not being careful, you will be firing me as your sculpture assistant, yes?" she replied in the same tone, laughing. "Very well, let us be getting to work!"

"Yep. Fired. And then you'd be jobless," he told her seriously. "And then you'd have to turn to a life of crime. It'd be tragic in that sappy, movie of the week that no one but depressed housewives watch kinda way."