Jay and Yvette - Sunday afternoon

[x-penance.livejournal.com]

Backdated to before the New Mutants trip. Helping Jay with a music project, Yvette winds up talking to him about Kosovo and Laurie.



"Okay, so see this here? No, not that, this, wait... okay. Sorry. Damn mouse. This? Ah've separated them, so the violin only plays - cause Ah can't play - but Ah can play with it so Ah'm a one man band instead of having to have bandmates." Not that Jay didn't want his bandmates here,but he couldn't wait on them to finish school. He needed to practice. Even if homework was backed way up, he was still going to do what he wanted to do. Jay leaned over her, with the laptop sitting in her lap, he touched the pad and double clicked it. He wasn't wary of her skin, but he was conscious of it. His healing factor was still healing him up and though he moved slower than before, he still moved fairly quickly for someone who had been very sick. Backing up two paces, he stood in front of her and tried to time the computer music to his guitar playing.

The guitar hanging from his shoulders looked big on him, bigger than before and it almost seemed awkward for Jay to hold it while standing. If only to quietly prove this point (not by choice), Jay pulled out the coffeetable and sat on it, facing her. "It's her favourite song," he said, referring to his momma and his half grown in wings pulled back self-consciously as he stopped and gestured to the computer. "Start the violin again?" He gestured to the screen where he had shown her.

Yvette watched him, face impassive but the glow of her eyes flickering brighter and then duller - usually a sign of conflict of some kind. In this case, she was worried about Jay's health, but also not entirely comfortable with him getting so close. Or anyone, for that matter, since the disaster back home. "Are you sure you are wanting me to be helping?" she asked, yet again. "Perhaps someone who is better with the computer, or who can be playing the real violin for you?"

"Who's gonna help better than you?" Jay asked, looking up from his guitar and genuinely puzzled. "Are you lookin' to escape already?" he asked and lowered his guitar. He understood if music wasn't her thing but he was really interested in making her a part of it, if only for something to talk about later on.

"No..." she quavered, then sucked in a breath and decided to be honest. After all, if she'd talked about things more in Kosovo, maybe nothing bad would have happened. "I am being nervous when the people are close to me," she said softly, looking down at the laptop. "I do not want to be hurting someone again."

"All right," Jay said, planting his feet on the ground and sliding the table back to give her space. "But you know, if Ah can date Kevin this long and not get hurt, doesn't that say something about me?" he asked and pursued this a little further. "Ah know it isn't any of mah business but what happened?"

She looked down, fingers of one hand playing over the laptop keyboard without actually pressing anything. "I was losing my temper," she said reluctantly. "When we were in Kosovo. There was a man, the one who was stealing me and selling me. I wanted to..." She shook her head. "I do not know what I wanted to do. But I was so angry, I did not think. And I hurt Laurie."

He knew she could get mad but he never thought her to have a temper. It was hard to think of her as fifteen and not eight sometimes. It was difficult to keep the surprise from his face and he ran his hand through his hair, trying to choose his words wisely. "Well, Ah reckon we all lose our temper sometimes," he shrugged. "Did she forgive you?"

Yvette shook her head, not looking up. "No," she said sadly. "She said she was needing the time to think about things, and we have not been speaking since."

"Maybe she just needs time right? Did you mean to hurt her or just by accident?"

"She was trying to stop me, so I was pushing her away with my hands." Yvette sighed. "I did not mean to hurt her, but she was hurt because I was not being careful, was not having the control of my feelings. So it does not matter if I was meaning it or not - I should have been more careful."

"Maybe, but she has to know to be more careful too." The kettle calling the pot black. "But don't worry so much about Laurie. She's one big drama queen. If there's a spark, she'll burn a house down."

"There is something wrong with her," the red girl said. "She is not happy, and fighting all the time. But I cannot be asking her what is happening to her. Not without her to be angry at me."

"Ah think it's 'cause she doesn't have a boyfriend. She's all upright, on the defensive maybe? Ah dunno. Ah see the fightin' too but half the time, Ah don't know what it's about."

"You are always thinking people are needing the boyfriend," she replied, but with a faint tone of teasing. "You are, how they say? Boy crazy, yes?" She looked at the screen again. "So, it is this part, yes? Where I am pushing the button to play?"

"This one," Jay leaned closer, having to get up to show her but it was obvious he was respecting her space a little more and recoiled his hand to sit back down on the coffee table. The guitar was adjusted in his lap and he looked down at the strings, strumming them once before he stopped. "Does that bother you? The boy thing, Ah mean."

She paused before answering. "Before, when I was first coming here, yes. But now... I am seeing that you are not the bad person. You are the one who loves too much sometimes, but that does not make you bad. So loving the boys... it cannot be the bad thing also, yes?"

"Love hurts too. But without love, you wouldn't have pain. No pain, no pleasure. You know, it's funny. The first time Ah met'cha, Ah touched you. You hurt me, but it was mah fault. Mah point is, you gotta take the good with the bad, cause if you don't, then how are you gonna know the difference?"

She resisted the urge to poke her tongue out at him. It hadn't been what she'd meant. "It is seeming very complicated and the messy thing to me," she told him almost primly.

He smiled behind the faint curtain of his bangs and tried unsuccessfully to blow them out of his eyes. "What? Boys or good and bad? Or good boys and bad ones?"

"Everything?" she replied in the same vein. "I am still trying to be working out the feelings for myself, Jay, about me being angry and frustrated. I do not think the love would be helping me."

"It would screw a lot of things up, that's for sure. When you think you got your anger figured out, wait til you see what love does to you. You'll never figure that one out. Ah'm still tryin' to. Ah don't think Ah'd say half the things Ah do to Kevin if love hadn't been involved. It's sort of like getting mad, but it's easier to get hurt and you don't recover from a fight very well after it. With Laurie, you can probably wait a little while before you solve it. Or you might just blow up on her like everyone else does when they've had enough?"

Yvette nodded. "This is why I am not trying to be talking to her. I have already hurt her very much with my skin - I do not want to do the same again with the words. And Laurie does not seem to be wanting to listen to any person who is not herself right now."

"Well think about what she's going through. All those hormones raging around in her right? That's gotta mess with your head."
This time Yvette did poke her tongue out at him. "You are always thinking it is the hormones. Maybe there is something that is the matter? That is not, how you say, the women's issues?"


"PMS, you mean. So what you're sayin' is maybe she's got brain tumor on top of the cramps?"