Kevin & Laura - Sunday Afternoon

[x-twenty-three.livejournal.com]

Laura meets Kevin, and seriously plays with his cool.


The big mansion she had been brought to was okay; no, it was perfect, but the outside was golden; Laura had never considered the possibility of getting tired by running around, but she had been recovering her breath just a few minutes ago, comfortably sitting on a tree branch. That's when she had smelled him. She had just arrived anyway, and had barely made a public announcement of her presence; of course, people knew there was someone new around, probably, but still. Instead of approaching though, Laura decided to work on her stealth. Now she had been following the boy for the last five minutes, moving from one tree to another without making a noise, waiting for him to stop somewhere. And when he had finally stopped, she started to approach, wondering if he had a mutation that allowed him to notice she was around. Because if he had such power, he was also a pretty good actor.

Such a power would have been a real asset to keeping Kevin more sane than he usually was around the mansion, what with the hyper teenagers running everywhere half the time. Why did he feel like it'd been a really long time since he'd been like that? Perspective skewed things. Then again, it was possible he hadn't been like that nearly as much since his mutation had manifested. He'd always been introverted, but being the death touch kid really heightened a desire for alone time just to escape reminders. So he was off in the woods instead, looking for a fallen branch good enough to use for powers training, even if he refused to think about what he had as a power. That made it sound...cool. Like a superhero. Kevin would never be that.

The boy's thoughts would find a sudden interruption in the shape of an upside-down girl suddenly appearing in front of him, barely a few inches in front of him. "Hey pretty!" There was a definitely devilish tone on that sentence, evidenced on Laura's smirk. "Boy, you look like you need a hug-"

Kevin stopped dead, froze and very quickly took several steps back. "Uh, no Ah don't. Ah, uh, who're you?" If there were new people they should be required to wear something neon. That made noise. That way he'd always know where they were and could avoid them as necessary. He took another step backward for good measure.

"Aw." The pained tone had a hint of sarcasm, but she kept the playful smile, eyeing Kevin pretty much like a cat would do to a pretty bird before jumping over it. Which was what she was planning to do right away. "Shy, aren't we? I'm Laura. Kinney. Just arrived." With that, she let herself fall from the tree, rotating and falling in a kneeling position without making much of a noise. And then she started to get closer. "Why so nervous?"

Why was the mansion always full of hot girls? Couldn't they get a plain girl? Maybe even one that was actually ugly for once? Or more really young ones? Fourteen year olds weren't nearly as much a problem as the girl stalking toward him. And damn, she was hot while she did it, too. No, bad thought, bad thought, focus, Ford! He inched away from her while she drew nearer. Somehow she seemed to be covering more ground than he was. "Ah'm Kevin. Not just arrived. Not good with contact sports. Contact sports are a bad idea, actually." He was now narrowing his eyes at her.

"Hm, but you see, Kevin, I never said anything about playing sports. Or anything, so chill boy, I don't bite." The way that phrase came actually made her laugh a little, her perfect white teeth looking probably a little too feline for the boy. "I'm just curious, and with you getting away I don't get to give you a big friendly hug." And by now she was clearly closer; she was almost sliding towards him, still wondering if she should just jump at him. In reality, Laura was just amused by the boy's attempts to keep his distance. What was the issue with one hug? She thought people were friendly in here.

"No hugging." He actually raised a hand and pointed a finger at her nose, her nose which was far too close for his comfort level. "Ah'm a no touching person. No huggin', no tacklin', no tryin' to torture me with cuddlin'. All bad ideas." Why were hot girls around here also crazy? It was like Nori, only a little more disturbing. Probably because Nori had been very up front about how crazy she was.

That was her chance. Her right hand shot up, grabbing Kevin by the wrist, and she pressed her nose against the finger. "No poking?"

His heart shot up into his throat at the contact. It was one thing when it was Angel tackling him. At least Angel knew where the bad bits were and he could trust her to pay enough attention to avoid anyone getting hurt. But he didn't know this Laura chick and she had ahold of his wrist. Thank God for gloves, though they'd failed him before. "No pokin'," Kevin confirmed and started to pull out of her grasp.

Hmmm, weird.. Looking a lot more serious, Laura let him pull away. "So, I think we have a situation here. I mean, look at you! I know we aren't precisely in the beach but, you could go a little lighter, show some skin...or that's a bad idea? What would have happened if you didn't have gloves? Hmmm?" She was starting to get closer again, but her hands were behind her back, as if that was enough to prove him he wasn't being touchy anymore, which was a lit anyway.

"Without gloves?" He was trying to be less twitchy now that her hands were behind her back. It worked even though she kept getting closer. "You wouldn't have a nose. Probably have lost part of your upper lip, your cheek, the bone underneath it." Kevin wondered if that would stop her in her tracks or if she wouldn't care.

An eyebrow was raised, but she didn't stop. "How come? Do you burn things that touch you? Or, I don't know, disintegrate, or they just vanish?" Now she was really interested. "Are you like a human eraser?"

"Try decompose. You want part of you to get caught in the putrefaction state?" Putrefaction, decay, ashes, then there's nothin'." Kevin reached up to a low hanging branch and snapped a twig off of it. Then he pulled a glove off, stuck it into his pocket and laid the twig in his bare palm. Kevin watched as it began to cycle through the stages of decomposition. "This happens to you if you touch me."

Laura's eyes widened at the little show he was offering. "Huh, try," said as she raised her hand, index finger pointing at him. "I heal, you know? I'm pretty sure a little decomposition won't really do much damage to me, and it kinda looks like one of those things you do before dying. You know 'get a finger decomposed by the shy, cute boy at Xavier's'. Oh, and if you don't do it, I'm totally glomping you, and you better not decompose my clothes." And again there was the playful smile.

Kevin tuned out some time around the healing factor. That sounded a whole lot like Jay right there. Kevin could remember Jay having his fingertips decomposed off because he'd decided touching Kevin meant more than not getting hurt. Jay had never understood that it wasn't about whether or not he could heal it. It was about Kevin damaging someone in the first place.

His hand turned over and he let the ashes fall to the ground. Then he took another step away from her, pulled his hood up over his hair and shoved his bare hand into his pocket. "Ah'm not testin' your healin' factor. Find someone else to play sadist. It ain't gonna be me." And then he actually turned his back on her. Kevin didn't need another person deciding that them being safe didn't matter because they could heal.

"Alright."

Laura's voice came not from behind him, but rather next to him; the girl had made her way up a tree. "I was just wondering how that would feel, but I guess sometimes I get a little selfish. Besides, one can only go so far without some human contact, and I'm not talking about having an emotional conversation and pretending to hold hands." That was so Pushing Daisies anyway; she kept on following though. "So...subject change. What were you doing here in the first place? You aren't dressed to run anyway."

"It wouldn't feel like nothin'," he told her, voice serious. "That's what Ah'm told. All the nerve endin's die off too fast for you to feel anythin'." He wondered what it would be like to see your body decomposing layer by layer but not be able to feel it. There was a sort of horror in that, wasn't there?

Kevin chose to ignore what she'd said about contact, mostly because she was right. "Ah was lookin' for a branch. Somethin' fallen and thick enough to work with for trainin'."

"Spoooooky~" The idea of not feeling anything and yet being able to see how you were rotting...well, maybe it was better that way; even if she knew she would heal back, maybe some things weren't meant to be seen. "But if you are about to fall into some endless pit and there is nobody around, and you don't have gloves, I'm so saving you, and I don't want complaints." Now she only needed an endless pit.

About the branch, she could help. Jumping to the next tree, Laura felt along a thick, resistant branch. "Would this do the trick?" It was there when she unsheathed her claws. "Or you want something already on the ground?"

"If Ah fall into a pit and Ah don't have any gloves then somethin' is off anyway and you can grab my arm." Because if he had no gloves and no shirt and was in a pit? He was probably screwed anyway. At least she seemed to be letting the touching thing go for the most part now. Kevin's eyes turned up to where her voice was coming from. She was helping him scout for branches. This Laura chick was kind of odd. He might have sort of liked it. That was more odd. "Somethin' on the ground. Catseye gets all protective of the woods if people mess 'em up. Besides...Ah don't wanna kill anythin' if Ah don't have to."

Jumping down, Laura made a face. "I want to cut something. I mean, it's a little childish; I feel like a little kid with a sharp pair of scissors...but instead of scissors they are bone claws popping from my hands." She stopped to give them a look before letting them re-enter her knuckles. "See? I heal; it would be the biggest pain if I ended up with my hand perpetually opened. The downside is that I can't use earrings without making the holes every time. And you do know that a fallen branch takes some time to die, right? I mean, things rot naturally as well..."

"Yeah, but it's already dying if it's fallen off already." Kevin frowned, though, eyes on her hand rather than on the ground where he might find a branch. "Doesn't that hurt?" Impulse was to reach out and touch where he could see her skin healing between her knuckles, but Kevin was good at on acting on impulse anymore. Distraction was found in pulling his elbow-length glove back on that he'd pulled off to demonstrate his mutation. "Will those go through wood easily? Ah mean, 'Vette's sharp and she helps cut up fire wood and stuff for Kyle. Maybe you could do that, too. If you're all 'bout cuttin' things. Or, y'know, do etchings."

Laura gave another look at her knuckles, now healed. "Eh, a little, but the...how it's called? Healing factor? Keeps the worst part under control. And," Now only the claw between her index and middle finger came out. "Those are pretty sharp. Not as sharp as Pops', but the man has steel in them anyway. And cutting wood is easy, unless you want me to go through an entire three. That could take a while. Who are this people you are talking about?"

Kevin shuddered a little at the thought of claws cutting out of your skin all the time. Sharp enough blades didn't really hurt that much, though, and if you cut deeply...wait. Did she say steel? Pops? Kevin blinked at Laura with wide eyes. "Uh...are you sayin' Logan's your...daddy?" Kevin remembered being slightly terrified of the man when he'd first shown up at the school. Fun times there.

The next were five minutes of Laura laughing her ass off at Kevin. When she finally calmed down, she couldn't help but keep on smirking. "Daddy? Are you for real? I just know him for...a day maybe? And it's a bit more complicated than that..." Her smirk died down a little, claw retracting; the topic was something she wasn't sure how to handle just yet. "But yeah, he is my father from a genetic point of view...although it's not his fault. I think." That was the first time she didn't know how to continue to conversation. "He's pretty badass though, so I better learn from him."

"Father," Kevin repeated dryly, "is a synonym for dad, or daddy. Some words are used more often than others in different parts of the country." And this was the part where he was glad the word momma hadn't managed to come out of his mouth instead of mother at any point.

"Father is a bit of a less closer term than daddy. I would like to be that affectionate to him, I really want to and hope to, with time, but for now? He is a stranger with steel claws and fighting skills, and we share genes; the reason why my mother, my mama never found a proper man." Not that she wasn't completely free from blame, but Laura didn't want to go there. "Anyway, he is more freaked out than me about being a dad; what do you do when you realize there is a living piece of you somewhere else?"

The idea of Logan and affection seemed horribly contradictory, but Kevin didn't say that. He didn't know Logan and he wasn't one to burst other people's bubbles so he didn't say anything. Instead Kevin shrugged and turned his eyes back down to the ground to search for his newest mutation victim to be. "Ah dunno. Isn't a lot of heavy drinkin' usually the way people handle the sudden, full grown offspring thing?"

She followed him in silence. "I suppose so, but I doubt he is getting drunk that easily." Great way to kill a conversation.

"Never underestimate the power of determination," Kevin replied sagely. "'Sides, Ah don't even know Logan real well or anyhin'. He might be takin' it all fine. Don't go listenin' to me too much." He felt a little bad now since it seemed like Kevin had deflated whatever bubble Laura had been riding before.

"It's okay." Laura then passed her arm around his, making sure to keep safely secured. "I'll keep an eye to stay away from your skin, but I can't just let such a pretty boy walk around without protection. So shut up and walk!" It was much funnier to tease Kevin, instead of being all down and thoughtful.

Kevin tensed from his shoulder to his wrist and hip the moment her arm snaked through his own. "Ah'm not the resident pretty boy." In fact, he was pretty sure that was Julian's schitck. It was also a niche Kevin didn't really want. "If you want one of them to protect you're gonna have to look 'round here more. Ah'm just the resident artist that hide from people." And poorly at that, apparently.

"Boy, you can't even take a compliment without making an scene." She kept on smiling though; he hadn't shook her off, which was good enough for now. "And you suck at hiding, by the way, but that's okay; I won't tell anyone. So off we go for some branches!"

"Ah ain't makin' a scene," he defended with a small scowl beginning to form. "There's no one else 'round, how can I be makin' a scene?" He then descended into some quiet mumbling about how he needed to work on the hiding thing.