Fred & Yvette

[x-nothungry.livejournal.com]

Fred arrives at the school, and is given a short tour by Yvette


It was an indication of how much progress Yvette had made with her shyness that she'd only felt a small flutter of nervousness when Professor Xavier had asked her to show the new student to his room. The small red girl made her way to the headmaster's office, where she found her charge waiting for her. He was rather larger than she'd expected, but then again, at five foot tall, everyone seemed much larger than she. "Hello," she said, with a shy smile and an answering glow of her blank, neon-blue eyes. "You must be the new boy, yes? My name is Yvette. Professor Xavier asked me to be showing you around."

Fred had been adjusting his sweater, looking nervously around, when he'd caught sight of the tiny, visibly mutated young girl. To his credit, Fred didn't wince or otherwise react to Yvette's appearance, other than a slight twist inside his chest. Fred had always resented how he looked, but this girl had to live with this? Having to deal with the way people were bound to look at her? Fred shook his head a little, trying to get out of his own thoughts. He smiled and held out a hand, "Uh, thanks. Fred. Fred Dukes. Pleasure." Damn, his Texan accent was thick. It happened when he got nervous. How was one supposed to act when being shown a school for weening mutations?

Habitually checking her glove was in place and no skin was free, Yvette took the outstretched hand and shook, her unnaturally long fingers keeping her hand from being swallowed up. "It is good to be meeting you, Fred," she said with another of those shy smiles. His accent was thick, but luckily she'd gotten used to Kevin's Georgian, otherwise she might have trouble with what he was saying. "Do you have much of the luggage? I can be asking for the help, yes? The student rooms are on the second floor, so there will be the stairs."

Fred grinned and hefted a duffel bag nearly twice the size of Yvette herself, "I'm used to living out of the back of a car. I can manage my stuff". He chuckled at her mentioning of stairs. He couldn't blame her; he didn't exactly look like an athlete. "I'll manage. I've carried heavier", and swung the bag over his shoulder. Fred looked about, then back to Yvette, "Lead the way."

Yvette blinked at the way he was hefting the bag around as if it weighed nothing. "You are, as Mr. Forge is saying, the brick, yes?" she asked, indicating he should walk with her down the hall. She had to take several steps to each of his to keep up. "Very strong and hard to be hurt?"

Fred, despite himself, chuckled a little more as he looked around, "Brick?...Yea, guess so. I could never understand why it was I didn't cut or bruise like everyone else did. Took someone else explaining to me what a mutant was to get it through my head..." His train of thought derailed slightly as he looked around, taken aback slightly by the mansion. To be frank, he'd never seen a place like this before...

"I am hard to be hurting also, but it is because my skin is very hard and sharp. I can cut things with it, if I am not being careful." She noticed the way he was staring and smiled a little. "It is the very big place, yes. But soon it will be like the second home, yes?"

Fred was still a little out of it. How do people deal with this place? It felt like something out of Resident Evil. He looked back at Yvette as she began talking again, and caught her smiling at him. He grinned, "Well, I wouldn't worry too much about cutting me. I don't think I can get cut. I mean if you touched me. Wait, I mean if it was an accident, not like you touching me on purpose. Wait, I mean...ugh..." Fred looked down and rubbed his forehead. This is why he tried to keep quiet most of the time. He looked back up, trying to just pretend it didn't happen, "Second home? Could be. Truth is, nothing has felt like...Ah nevermind. I just haven't been home for awhile," Fred cut himself off, and decided to just keep quiet and follow for the moment.

 Was he flustered? About her touching him? Yvette blinked. How odd. "It is good, that there are the people I do not have to be so very careful with," she replied, trying to make him feel better. "Although if you have the clothes you are liking, it is better I do not slip." She tilted her head a little at the way he'd cut himself off, but knew better than to pursue it - enough of the mansion residents had bad family backgrounds that she knew it was better he talk about it himself. "My mother, she is living in Kosovo, a very long way away. It is not so safe for me there, looking this way, so I do not go home so often." She shrugged a little. "I have the good friends here. I do not mind it so much now." They reached the main staircase and began climbing to the second floor. "And there are many things to be doing."

Fred looked up the stairs. Man, he thought, she was not joking about the stairs. He turned to her, "Kosovo? That's...far," He meant to ask her further, but she seemed to respect his privacy and the least he could have done was reciprocate. "Sounds like she's okay, though. So that's a step in the right direction," Fred let his thoughts trail off to his mother, and tried quickly to change the topic. He offered a weak smile, "You know, I've never been able to lose any of this weight, but these stairs might just do the trick," and jerked his thumb up the stairs.

She giggled a little. "It is even more exercise when you are being late for the class. I ask my roommate to fly me down sometimes." Not that Yvette was ever late for class, at least, not due to oversleeping. "If you would like, after I am showing you where your room is to be, you could be coming to have the lunch with the rest of the New Mutants? That is the program they are having for the students, to be teaching us our powers and to be the team." She grinned, looking more like a sixteen year old girl for a moment. "There are many of the girl students. We have only the one boy - two now, with you coming to the school."

Fred listened as Yvette spoke, and responded, "Sure, lunch sounds good. New Mutants. Heh, sounds like a college band." When she mentioned Julian and the number of girls, Fred inexplicably felt something form in the back of his throat, and coughed heavily, trying to clear it out. As if he wasn't out of his element enough.... "Mostly....girls huh? Hey, I've got no problem being the minority," he said, looking around now as if hunted by a predator. 'Maybe I should've just stayed in Atlanta', he thought.

As they reached the top of the stairs, Yvette gestured in one direction. "That is where the girls suites are. And the boys are living this way. Miss Janet is the RA person, and she has the room on this floor also, to be helping." Yvette sounded a little grudging as she said that, not really liking the winged RA. "And it will be all right. The girls are not biting. Except Catseye, and that is only when she is being the cat."

Fred looked around as Yvette talked about this 'Miss Janet' and the living arrangements. When she mentioned the biting cat person, he raised an eyebrow, but quickly lowered it. He adjusted the bag again on his shoulder, "So, what's this Julian guy like?"

"Julian? He is new, like you and very nice." Yvette's eyes glowed brighter, her version of a blush and a certain dreamy element entered her tone. "He is the telekinetic - he is moving things with his brain, yes? And very good looking. All the girls... the other girls are having the crushes on him."

Girls. It was good that, even at a school for mutant freaks like him, somethings remain constant. He looked the other way, letting Yvette have her moment. He thought for a bit. Sounded like he was rooming with his exact opposite: some smart pretty boy with mind bullets or something. Oh well. It was not as if Fred was planning on spending that much time hanging around his room or socializing. He turned back to Yvette and said, "The other girls, huh? You mean the other New Mutants?"

She nodded. "Yes. You will be meeting them all, at lunch." She stopped in front of a door and pointed at it with a long-fingered hand. "And this is where you will be living. I think Julian and the other boys will be in class - Leong and Artie live in the other room. I can be leaving you to be unpacking and come back to take you to lunch, yes?"

Fred simply opened the door and looked into the room, pushed his lip out in thought, and chucked his bag onto a bare part of the floor. He looked back to Yvette and shrugged, "I'll unpack later. Most of it's cigarette cartons and Red Bull anyway. But, if you're heading out, would it be okay if I just waited for lunch outside?"

She blinked at him, and then nodded. "If you are wanting to smoke, there is the place on the back porch?" she suggested. "I can be showing you."

Fred grinned again. He'd caught himself smiling a lot since he entered this mansion. Moreso than could remember doing in a long time. Fred wasn't sure yet if this was a good thing or a bad thing, but it certainly felt like a good thing. He reached into one of the myriad pockets on his duffel bag and retrieved a Zippo lighter and a pack of large, unfiltered cigarettes. He turned back to Yvette and nodded, "Yea, thanks. I'd appreciate that," he said, and followed the small mutant girl out to the porch, thumbing is lighter as he went.