xp_logs | Cammie, Kevin, Yvette, Jean & Derek

The remaining Untouchables show up at the medlab to make good on their decision to take their mutations back so Derek isn't forced to carry them and are spotted by Jean in the process.

The medlab really was the perfect place for this, wasn't it? Kevin figured they probably should have told the doctors what they were up to, exactly, but they'd find out quickly enough when the three of them came over with injuries from their own mutations. Kevin had worried the doctors would try to talk them out of doing it so soon. They'd want to find a safer way, but there wasn't really a safer way. Victims of their own mutations, what a way to spend a day, right?

Kevin had kept Yvette close since the previous night. The percocet he'd taken to help him sleep through the pain of his ribs had worn off by morning but he had resolutely kept himself more or less plastered to her side. Even now he had an arm around her with her tucked in as close as he could get her to his side. Derek was a nice guy so he was glad he could get his mutation off the kid's load, but he still felt bad for Yvette who wanted that normal life so badly.

Yvette herself was pale, but resolute. The night had been spent processing - awake and asleep - and while she was still not happy with the idea of regaining her powers and losing her ability to touch again, she knew it was the right thing to do and nothing would stop her from taking the step she knew she had to take. Still, she was grateful for Kevin's warm arm around her shoulders, if only because it stopped her knees from shaking.

"We done fucking around now?" Cammie asked, her arms crossed over her chest. There was no moral question here, not for her. There just was what was, what shouldn't be and what she planned on changing, "Because I'm getting tired of waiting."

What Cammie ought to have been was grateful that Kevin had been raised not to hit girls, because he was damned tempted to smack her right about now. "If you can't not be a bitch then can you just shut up?" His tolerance in general might have been a touch lower than usual thanks to those friendly cracked ribs of his. Then again, maybe he was just sick of Cammie's crap in this whole situation and the way it seemed to lash out at Yvette in particular. "Ah talked to Derek, he was fine with waitin'. He wasn't even all that worried 'bout it so calm down already. Your righteousness'll be all intact and whatever." He was getting a headache, or maybe that was just turning out to be Cammie's effect on him lately.

"It's all right, Kevin," Yvette said quietly, although she avoided looking at Cammie. "Derek has waited long enough. Which order should we go in?"

"Ah'm goin' first," Kevin said before anyone else could speak. "That was settled already. Ain't no one losin' an arm or getting damaged in a way that can't be healed 'cause of my mutation. Cuts're one thing, but decay's another. We said Ah was goin' first, then Cammie and then you." His gaze moved to Cammie when he said, "Unless someone's got a problem with that." Kevin's focus moved over to Derek for a moment through the open door. Derek who was being so still, probably so he didn't go destroying everything he touched.

"Hello," Derek said, since it didn't seem like they were actually considering, for the moment, coming into the room with him. He was alright with that, if he was being honest. "Point of interest for you all, probably - you don't have to take your mutations back. Cause even if Kevin gets his first, there's still Yvette's and the explosion thing... I'd really, really rather not hurt anyone, okay?" He looked over toward Yvette and gave her smile. "So, you know. You don't have to worry about it or anything."

"No, it is not fair for you to have our powers and our problems," Yvette said, a bit more firmly than her earlier words. "We cannot take everything from you, but it is only right that we do what we can to make things easier for you."

She shrugged in reply to Kevin's stare. She was just happy to get this show on the road, "What she said," Cammie said, with a thumb jab towards Yvette, "I'm not getting talked out of this."

Obviously the girls weren't paying much attention, because Kevin felt like they had failed to address something very important. "Explosion thing?" None of them had explosions. He guessed that belonged to someone else, but still. It was the right thing to do but Kevin wasn't sure he wanted to blow off his hand to take back a mutation he didn't want anyway.

"Yeah," Derek said, glad someone was listening. "Everything I touch explodes, gets chopped up, and decayed." He paused, then muttered, "Wish I had fingers. It's always way more impressive when you have fingers." He pointed a claw at the group. "Like I said, I don't want to hurt anybody. And if you guys are okay without them, then don't take them back."

'Please stop saying that..' Yvette didn't say the words aloud, but the anguished look spoke volumes. "It is all right, Derek. No matter what happens, we will take our powers back."

Jean had caught a glimpse of the three people headed toward Derek's room while she was on her way down to breakfast. This normally wouldn't have been something that would've caused her to bat an eye had their thoughts not screamed nervousness, anger, impatience, and cautious excitement. Not exactly thoughts attached to a leisurely stroll, were they?

She walked into the room after Yvette spoke, cocking her head to the side.

"What's going on?" she said, folding her arms.

Kevin turned too quickly and the pain it caused him flashed across his face. His expression turned guilty because while he'd convinced the doctor to let him off his percocet to think about what happened when Jared touched Derek he might have led her to believe he'd be back on his usual loopy-inducing dose by now. "We're alleviatin' Derek of responsibilities that ain't his to shoulder. Much as we can anyway," he explained to Jean. He wasn't sure what response he was anticipating from her, but Kevin didn't necessarily expect it to be pleased given the injuries liable to follow.

"I told them they didn't have to," Derek offered, raising one claw just so he could, once again, make sure everyone knew his stance on the issue.

"Ain't 'bout havin' to, 'xactly," Kevin replied, not sure how he could explain it better than he already had. The mutations were theirs, their responsibilities, their burdens. What had been done to Derek wasn't something anyone had asked for and Kevin sort of thought it was their punishment for trying to get around the authority, so to speak. "It's just 'bout what's right. That's all."

Jean tilted her head, instinctively taking a step forward as she glanced around. "Mmmm hmmm. While I understand you all want your powers back, I don't need to remind you all that this would be the equivalent of stabbing yourself in the foot to get them," she said.

She had been mulling the prospect over since she heard the news, trying to figure out a way that wouldn't require them all to spend some time in the medlab. So far, she hadn't come up with too many options.

"Or in this case, blowing your foot off. Just putting your faith in the doctor to patch you up and send you on your way isn't going to cut it. There is a serious potential for harm here. I need to know you've all given this some serious thought."

She knew why they wanted to do it. If put in the same situation she probably would've charged blindly into it. But from a doctor's standpoint, knowingly letting someone get hurt was something she was hesitant about. Even if it did mean being human forever.

But then again, leaving the boy to live his life untouched was also the alternative.

There was no sure answer.

"We have." Surprisingly, it was Yvette who answered, her tone strained. "Please, Dr. Jean, we know it is dangerous, but we must do this. Otherwise we know we left someone to carry our powers forever. It is not fair to Derek, even if he says he does not mind."

Kevin had inched closer to Derek while Jean and Yvette had spoken. If push came to shove he was going to try to make it harder to stop them. Then again, how hard could you really make it for a telekinetic? "You're not changin' anyone's mind here, Dr. Grey. We know the risks, know that we'll get injured, and we're doin' it anyway. Injuries heal." Unless they blew off their hand. Kevin wished he'd known about the explosion thing beforehand but layering on another kind of injury didn't seem to change much when he might have just sliced the dang hand off that he used to touch Derek anyway. And that was precisely why he was going to be using his right, non-dominant hand for this.

Cammie figured, all things considered, it was best to keep her mouth shut for the moment. Her opinion on this wasn't changing either, which was obvious by her stance alone. She finally did speak up here, "Sometimes, the risks don't really matter." And this wasn't the devil may care, cut them up her that was speaking, but something plain and honest. Occasionally she had it in her. She just didn't really let it show, "So like Kevin said, you're not changing our minds."

Ah, the young and headstrong. Jean fell silent for a few moments, her unfocused gaze moving past them.

"I didn't expect to change your mind. I just wanted you to know this was your choice when I'm poking and prodding you with needles or sewing a finger back on," she said, glancing back at them with a mirthless smile.

She believed them. She knew if she said no they'd turn desperate and try to do it anyway...just like they were doing right now if she hadn't caught them. The fear of being denied. And again, she wouldn't admit it but she would've done the same thing. Their abilities were as much their own as their arm or leg.

Nevertheless, she didn't look forward to the outcome.

This wasn't going to be neat and clean, no matter how hard she wished it to be, and she wasn't going to sugar coat it.

"Does that mean we can get on with our, erm, plans?" Kevin wasn't really looking forward to having his mutation back. He was looking forward to having it inflicted on him along with Yvette's and that exploding thing even less. But he also figured it'd be better to get it over with sooner rather than later.

Jean nodded. "Yes," she said. The simple answer. She'd already stated her case.

"Might as well come in," Derek said, resigned now to the fact that he was going to wind up hurting them because they wouldn't let him do anything else. And he'd only just gotten to sort of know them. They didn't treat him like a freak here... they even let him go outside and just sort of sit around in the sun. Or, well. They had. Before he'd started blowing things up again.

Kevin was the first through the door and into the room, but he couldn't help thinking that he'd never have imagined someone sounding so disheartened to be rid of really destructive mutations. But Derek did and Kevin was pretty sure he understood why. "Hurtin' people's no fun. Ah'm sorry we're sorta forcin' it on you." Kevin held out his right hand palm up when he was close enough to Derek to touch him. If at all possible his preference was to not just reach out and touch the boy. Kevin wanted to make Derek involved rather than just have something else done to him if Derek would let him.

"It's what you guys want," Derek said, eying Kevin's outstretched hand almost like he distrusted it. "You're... y'know. Sure. And everything?"

Sighing, Kevin's hand dropped. "Did you hear that part where Ah was all stubborn with the doctor? My mind ain't changin' so could we stop playin' twenty questions 'bout it? Everyone wants to make sure we're sure. Everyone wants to make sure we'd thought about it. We thought. We took the night. Ah talked to you 'bout it last night. Ain't nothin' changed between then and now. Ain't gonna turn 'round and blame you or nothin' like that. Really." He tried to keep the mild frustration out of his voice, but some of it leaked through.

Most of that frustration had to do with the fact that he was already in a world of pain and he was looking at the possibility of a lot more injury to add to his ribs. Kevin just wanted to get it over with, let Cammie finish her soap boxing about taking her mutation back and then be there for Yvette. Twenty questions from everyone, concerned as they may be, just wasn't helping that.

"I've never hurt anybody before," Derek said, shifting backward a bit until he was as hunched over as he could be in his current form. "I never wanted to." Then he gestured at himself with one pincer. "That's the whole point of this. Or at least it was." Some of his own frustration came through at this - apology or not, they were still making him hurt people. Even if they were the ones being hurt, even if they didn't mind, even if they were determined. "So it's not like I'm trying to antagonize you or anything, okay. And I'm sorry if it comes off like that. But dude. I don't want to hurt you. Or them."

Kevin understood that. Really, he did, but that didn't change that Derek wasn't meant to shoulder these things. "You know how to live with it? You know how to manage to live outside the box they got you in down here and be able to have friends and do stuff? 'Cause Ah know how to live with my mutation. Ah had to figure it out 'cause it popped up when Ah was sixteen and Ah killed my dad with it. Ah can't leave the state without the professor's permission, can't go anywhere for more'n three days without it either. Oh, and Ah gotta ask the FBI if Ah can leave the country. Yeah, that's what Ah got for my powers. 'Vette's got a special cloth her clothes gotta be made out of that repairs itself from her skin cuttin' it all the time. Cammie's got, well, attitude, but she's figured out how to get by. And you got all of them plus some explodin' thing.

"You really think you're gonna manage to not hurt someone with all of that goin' on in you? You think you got any shot of havin' a life and keepin' people safe tryin' to figure out how to balance all those things? You just gonna fly forever so you never touch nothin'? Ain't no different from stayin' in the basement and that's a messed up life. These things ain't yours to carry. If you were meant to God've given 'em to you. He gave 'em to us and it wasn't no one's place to give them to you. And Ah sure as heck ain't lettin' you keep 'em so you can end up in a position you were meant to be in just so my hand can not get added to my list of injuries Ah got and Ah can keep havin' a normal life, whatever that means." He didn't know how else to get it through the kid's head.

"You got somethin' that's meant to be mine and Ah'm taking it away from you. Ah can be nice 'bout it or Ah can just force that on you but the second one'd probably get me hurt more and then that would be your fault." Where logic failed use guilt, right? And here Kevin wasn't even a Catholic.

Derek just stuck his claw out, not looking at Kevin while he did it. This wasn't going to go well. It really wasn't. And it was his fault. He shouldn't have agreed to come to the mansion.

"Thank you." Kevin clenched his jaw for a moment, trying to prepare himself for the shredding and the decaying and the apparent exploding that was to come. Then, after a deep breath, he laid his right hand atop the claw.

It felt instantaneous. Kevin felt that familiar tug low in his abdomen like he always did when his mutation started to work and he tried to focus the decay outward, over the surface, but he was distracted by the sheer, blinding anguish that came at the same time. He felt, but never heard, the explosion under his hand. It was hot, burning and the force blew his hand off the claw. If Yvette's mutation had cut him up at all Kevin didn't feel it and sure couldn't see it. The hand pulled back, riding the force of the small blast that pushed it away from Derek's pincher, and it came back dripping blood. Kevin's palm was a pulpy, red ruin and he thought he might have been able to see bone through it but hoped he was imagining things. The top of his hand, however, sustained no damage.

"Jesus," he muttered through grit teeth, "Ah'ma need more percocet." Kevin wavered for a moment, unsteady from the agony in his hand and the agony in his chest from the way he'd suddenly jumped back and away from Derek when they'd made contact. He ended up with his back against a wall and when he managed to focus a bit all he said was, "Huh. Ain't decayed. Weird."

Derek jumped at the sound, at the feel of it - there'd been none of that sensation when Jared had touched him and accidentally taken his force field back. He tried to scramble backward, but there was really nowhere else for him to go and he just wound up connecting with the wall. That caused another minor detonation and he jerked his limbs in close to his body, holding himself tense and still once more. "That's nice."

"Ah...guess?" Kevin wasn't sure 'nice' was the way to describe the fact that his bloody, ruined hand wasn't also decayed. Or maybe it was. Theoretically the exploding and assumed cutting could be healed. Decay wouldn't have exactly gone away with time if it went past the first few layers of skin.

Looking down at his claw, Derek muttered, "I'm not decayed, either." It still sucked, though. "So... um. You should. Y'know. Have that looked at."

"Yeah," Kevin muttered. "Doctor lady'll be pissed if Ah don't." He pushed himself away from the wall and hid his bloody mess of a hand as well as he could behind his back before he walked out. Spotting Cammie, he clapped his good hand on her shoulder and said, "Tag, you're it," before shuffling off to get his hand looked at.

Derek didn't like the way that had gone. Not at all. He'd had to reach out so Kevin could touch him, which meant he'd actively hurt him. That sort of went against everything he'd attempted to stand for . Everything he'd hoped to stand for eventually, anyway. His claws were uncomfortably held behind his back now as he waited for Cammie to come into the room. He hadn't talked to her before, but Kevin had told him she was the one whose mutation had turned his claw green.

Cammie walked into the room. To say there wasn't any fear or tangled emotion in what she was going to do would be a lie, but in her mind there was right and there was wrong and she was here to correct the wrong.

"Hey," she said by way of greeting.

"Hi," Derek said, voice a little strained. "So... yeah. Why don't you try like. Touching me with your elbow or something. Or... maybe not. You need your joints, don't you?"

"Joints are overrated, last time I checked," Cammie said, with a crooked grin, "So I'll be okay if something happens to one," she paused, "For what it's worth, I'm sorry. I wouldn't wish any of our mutations on anyone." Hers and Kevin's especially.

"It's alright - I mean, like I told Yvette. I can't really do a whole lot, anyway. It was really nice, actually, when I had Jared's mutation. Since at least I wasn't blowing things up then." Derek shrugged a little, then held one of his claws out. "I'm sorry I'm kind of going to blow you up a little."

"I've had worse," Cammie said, "You should see how many stab wounds I have."

"Maybe later," Derek said, still trying to hold up the tattered remains of his morale here. What he really wanted to do was jerk his claw back behind his back and then try to get out of the room without damaging anyone else. That was highly unlikely, though, and so he just stayed where he was, claw extended.

"Time to get this show on the road, right?" Cammie returned, reaching out to touch this kid who had been a very special kind of raped by that bitch, Haven. She touched him, and if there was a god she would've prayed that he fix this. But God was something she hadn't ever actively believed in.

The resulting explosion sent her flying backwards, her left hand burned and darkening to a light green. It wouldn't be full on green until her body had more toxin to store.

"Well fuck."

"Oh - oh, I'm sorry," Derek said, automatically moving to try to help her before remembering he'd only hurt her more if he touched her again.

"Don't worry, I have all my bits," Cammie said, holding up her arm, "Look, what happened to you... I'm sorry."

"Stop apologizing," Derek said, still frozen in place. "It's not like you did this to me. And... and it's not like I feel sorry for myself, so. Ah man - you should go see Dr. Grey-Summers. I think the spiky mutation got you kinda good, too."

"And me bleeding is bad," Cammie muttered. That she was used to. That was the status quo.

"I should've stayed in the damn basement," Derek muttered too low for Cammie to hear, wishing he could rub his eyes without taking them out entirely.

Cammie stood up, "I wish there was more I could do, but... yeah," was all she could come up with.

"It's cool. Just... y'know. Be safe and stuff." Or whatever. Derek was so very, very bad at hurting people.

Yvette had stood silently watching as Kevin and then Cammie took their powers back, her face growing paler and her hands clasped tightly together. It was one thing to be hurt yourself - watching your dear friend risk serious injury when already damaged was far worse. Her worry for Kevin worked as a good distraction from her own conflicted feelings, but when she realised she was the only one left, all those doubts resurface again, tenfold.

Kevin's hand was a mess. A really, really bloody mess and his mutation meant it just had to stay that way until the doctor figured out what she could put on him for a bandage that wouldn't just decay right back off. At least with all the skin missing or cut up or burned off like it was he got some antibiotic ointment and local anesthetic. Once he was back near Yvette again, though, Kevin did what he thought was best and shoved his hand behind his back where most of the people nearby wouldn't see it and focused on his friend who kept getting whiter as time went by.

A gloved hand, whole and unscathed unlike its mate, reached out for Yvette's hand from behind her. "You don't gotta do it right this minute. You could take a second and breathe and turn pink again or somethin', y'know."

She clutched at Kevin's hand instinctively, eyes still locked on Derek. "No," she whispered. "If I wait, I will not be able to do it at all." Tearing her gaze away from the other young man, she looked up at Kevin. "I am afraid, but I cannot be the chicken." The thought of Kevin seeing her be a coward was unbearable.

"Don't worry, not enough feathers for that," he told her with a smile. The smile came out a bit strained, though, because his ribs hurt, breathing made them hurt more and now his hand was throbbing and doing that sorta-numb and sorta-world-of-pain thing. One day he'd find himself an easy way and take it. You know, the way that didn't involve boyfriends whose nightmares could crack your ribs or morals that involved sorta blowing up your hand. "You ready?"

The joke elicited a weak smile and she nodded, biting her lip. "Will you go with me?" she asked, her voice sounding much younger than usual. "At least to the door?"

"Ah'll go as far as you want. Long as you don't mind that Ah might bleed on you accidentally." He had no doubt there was a little puddle forming on the floor beneath where his hand hung at his back as he spoke.

That shocked her out of her self-absorption. "Kevin!" she exclaimed, dropping his hand to reach for his other arm's shirt sleeve and pull his hand from behind his back. "Get that fixed now!" Her tone left little doubt that she would personally march him into a cubicle if he refused.

At once Kevin gave Yvette his best, most innocent expression. He let her pull the slightly mangled hand where she could see it, well. His palm barely looked like a hand, though the other side of his hand seemed to be unscathed. It was the explosion more than the shredding that seemed to do the damage from what he could tell. "What'm Ah gonna get for it? Gauze that'll decay off? Then Ah got decay ashes in my wound. Doctor Grey's lookin' for somethin' to use as a bandage." A small, mischievous sort of smile crossed onto his lips. "Unless you want me to take off my shirt and wrap it in that?" He even tugged on the hem of his shirt a little as if he would do it the moment she told him to. While his pain wasn't going anywhere at least it seemed to be distracting his friend.

"If you keep bleeding on the floor, then yes!" Yvette shook her head at him. "And I am sure the doctors have something that will not decay. Dr. Hank is the inventor as well." She snorted a little. "You are such the silly boy sometimes."

"Well they ain't found nothing yet so," Kevin shrugged and pulled his shirt off with his good hand. He then wrapped it a bit haphazardly around his bleeding hand and held it up to Yvette. "Happy?" Good thing he'd worn a black shirt, maybe the blood stain wouldn't show as badly if he couldn't get it out of the cloth that way.

"It is better, yes." She nudged the elbow of his injured arm so that the wrapped hand was elevated. "Keep it up, also, it will slow down the bleeding," she instructed, all Red X field leader-in-training now. "I will come to check on you once I have seen Derek, okay?"

Kevin nodded, "Alright." And then a thought occurred to him. He wasn't sure where it came from and he wasn't entirely sure he should be listening to that thought either. But he reached out and caught a gloved finger on the edge of her pants pocket and gave a gentle tug. "There's somethin' Ah gotta do before you go to him, though."

"What?" she asked, confused. Now she had something to focus on - Kevin's injury - all doubts had gone. All she wanted to do was go in there, take her powers back, and make sure Kevin got treatment.

His good hand moved from her pocket up to her face and Kevin watched his thumb brush over her cheekbone in a twin of a memory. He didn't bother to explain because he knew she'd probably figure out really quickly what he was going to do. Neither of them probably knew why but he was okay with that. All he said was, "Trust me," the words an echo of the previous summer and a similar enough situation. And then he kissed her. It was that soft, unrushed sort of kiss he'd given Yvette just before they'd taken the powers inhibitor off her last summer once she'd healed her injuries.

Kevin was in no more a rush with the kiss this time than he had been last time. This time, though, it'd taken him a lot less time to remember she was a pretty girl and break himself out of that platonic view of her. That probably said something but he wasn't going to think about right now.

She went still at the touch of his gloved hand on her face and as he bent towards her, she went up on tip-toe, meeting him part way. Her breath caught in her throat as their lips met and this time she actually kissed him back, a hesitant movement based entirely off instinct. One hand hovered above his bare shoulder, stopping short of actually touching him.

That was certainly a better reaction than the last time. His injured hand moved behind her so that the part of his arm wrapped in his shirt could stretch across her back and pull Yvette closer. Kevin hadn't forgotten that he was shirtless or that his mutation was back so he kept himself from pulling her close enough for there to be contact, but he also pulled her as close as he could short of contact.

Somewhere in the back of his mind Kevin understood that this action could have consequences he'd need to deal with. He'd understood that before he'd done it. Sometimes you just accepted consequences and dealt with it as you needed to, right? By the time he pulled back from the kiss, though, Kevin wasn't thinking of consequences. In fact, he wasn't thinking about much more than the kiss and how inconvenient the need for air could be.

Judging from the slightly stunned expression on Yvette's face, she wasn't thinking about much else herself. Cheeks slightly flushed, lips slightly parted, she blinked up at him, a definite starry-eyed thing going on. Then she smiled. "You have not, how they say? Lost your touch," she told him softly.

Smiling, Kevin looked a little too self-satisfied to attempt humble. It was that vaguely cocky expression so few people ever saw on his face. "Good to know." There was a rather possessive-tinged feeling that came from seeing the look he managed to put on her face from just a kiss. "You should probably go in," he told Yvette despite not having let go of her.

"I should." She didn't immediately move, either, wanting to savour this moment so she would always be able to remember it in perfect detail. But slowly, reality crept back in - the slight chill of the medlab's air conditioning on her skin, the sound of Derek's skin scraping the floor as he shifted, the slight dampness coming from the hand on her back reminding her of Kevin's injury. Time to go.

She went back up on her tiptoes and very carefully brushed a brief kiss of her own across his mouth. "Do not forget to look after your hand," she told him, mock sternly. "Or I will be cross." And then she gently extricated herself from his loose grip and headed for the door to Derek's room.

"Promise." Not that the oozing and the blood could really be ignored. Or the damn, that hurts factor. Actually, that factor was pretty darned loud. But Kevin let her go without another word and simply watched silently from the door. He wondered if she would really be okay having to go back to the razor sharp skin and the pointy fingers and all of that. He liked to think she would be but Kevin suspected part of her wouldn't ever be okay with it.