Kevin & Yvette | BACKDATED Monday afternoon

[x-wither.livejournal.com]

After both Jean-Paul and Laura have come and gone from Kevin's suite he gets woken up by another visitor, and one who isn't necessarily over the moon about some of the other recent visitors.

Since getting her powers back, Yvette had, to be honest, been avoiding people. She'd dropped a lot of her safe habits while powerless and she needed time and space to make sure she didn't hurt anyone. And, since she was already being honest, she needed time and space to sort out her own head and her reactions to everything that had happened down in medlab.

However, given Kevin was being an idiot with his injury again and Mr. Beaubier was apparently convinced that Kevin had been abandoned to fend for himself, Yvette had removed herself from her self-imposed exile and gone down to the kitchen, where she'd gathered various snack-type foods (and apples, of course) as well as plenty of fluids into a bag and then headed for Kevin's room to save him from himself. Hopefully Mr. Beaubier wasn't there. Or Laura - not so much because Yvette didn't like Laura, but there was a tendency for situations to be embarrassing when she was with Kevin and Yvette was already conflicted enough without walking in on cuddle time.

Kevin was both alone and unconscious when the knock on his door woke him up. He was face down in bed, shirtless and feeling a bit fuzzy around the edges. He wasn't sure how long the knocking had been going on for but Kevin was fairly certain it wasn't the first one that had woken him up. He stumbled out of bed shirtless and sockless and headed for his door. People didn't really play footsie with him, because that was weird, and the constant on and off a shirt when he had to ice his ribs was just annoying.

Opening the door, though, he had distinct second thoughts on that shirt. Yvette had seen Kevin without a shirt on more than once, but he'd definitely kissed her the last time she'd seen him without one. He still wasn't sure if he should be feeling guilty for that or like he'd dug himself a hole or something. Kevin settled for smiling. "But there's no bow on your head." He even managed to throw in a frown after he said it.

"I can be getting one, if you like?" she replied with a responding smile, although with the stiffness of her face following the return of her powers it was fainter than his. Her eyes glowed brightly, however. "I brought you some food, and if you like, I can be the distraction. I can read to you, or we can watch the movie or something." She resisted poking him as she added, "Since you cannot be trusted when you are on the pain medicines not to be silly." That was best, she decided. Focus on taking care of him and ignore the fact that he was not wearing a shirt and he was smiling at her in the way that made her insides roll over.

His immediate retort was bit back quickly because Yvette was not Laura and saying the fun of the bow was taking it off wouldn't get him nearly the same reaction from the small, red girl as it would have the other. Kevin also stepped on the urge to reach out and pull her closer. No matter how cuddly he was feeling he only had half an arm and a hand that were covered, had no idea how Kevin-proof she was and, well, that was probably just a bad idea in general. So instead he stepped back and gestured her to enter.

"Thanks. Ah got like eight days of leftover chicken and dumplings if you want some. They're not bad. They ain't right either but he went and made them out of some cookbook claimin' to be traditional Southern cookin' or whatever." Kevin shrugged. "Can't trust people who sell recipes to be sellin' the right way of doin' it. But Ah got one hand and pain meds so it's not like Ah could oversee." At this he sighed heavily. It was a damn shame. But Jean-Paul had tried, hadn't blown anything up and the result was edible. It was even pretty good, if not a little more bland than how Kevin made it.

"So he came out of his hiding place, did he?" she replied, then bit her lip with a small squeaking sound of enamel against her hard skin - luckily for her teeth they were hardened against her powers. "I am sorry, I should not be the bitch, not when you are in pain." She came in and closed the door behind her, before bustling to the kitchen in an effort to move on past her faux pas. "It is good that Mr. Beaubier came to visit you," she managed to say with a certain amount of grace as she unloaded her supply bag. "It was not good for you to not know where he was."

Kevin stood there, watching her with his jaw on the ground. He pointed a gloved finger at her and kept staring. "You said 'bitch.'" He was pretty darn certain he'd never heard Yvette curse before. Until now. And Jean-Paul had made her do it. Oh, he was a bad man making the tiny, sweet one say curse words. "Where'd you learn that word, young lady?"

"The journals," she replied, eyes flaring brighter with embarrassment. It was like she was being scolded by her mother, only not. "And I am eighteen now, Kevin. I can say 'bitch' if I want to, yes?"

"Ah, um, well...yeah." And she was eighteen. That one seemed important for all sorts of other reasons he wasn't thinking about. Forcing himself back on topic, Kevin supposed he'd called Cammie a bitch or had said she was acting like one often enough over the past weekend that he had no grounds for righteousness. It was just...this was Yvette.

Finally following her into the kitchen, Kevin looked over what she'd brought up to him. "And he came last week. Not that Ah thought anyone needed to know, but he was here before we took our mutations back. We talked. Things got settled. We ain't gonna pretend we don't know each other or nothin'. Try to be friends, that sorta thing. Unlike with Jay we might actually be capable of it, too." As he said the last he swiped an apple from the counter.

"I am sorry, I did not mean to be the snoopy person," she immediately replied, latching onto the "not that I thought anyone needed to know" out of what Kevin had said to feel a flare of guilt. She had no right to be so possessive, even if they were kindred. Kevin was allowed to talk to anyone he wanted to. Even if that person had hurt his feelings terribly.

Kevin just shrugged and waved it off while he bit into his appropriated apple. "It's okay. People get all worried and then they get all defensive on someone's behalf and you ain't gonna stop them from doin' it until they know there ain't a need for it. You got every right to be mad at him since Ah'd probably punch someone who done the same to you."

"No, I should not be mad. It is up to you who you are seeing, after all." She sighed a little. "I am just wanting to look after you for a change, since you are always looking after me."

"Well, you're here now, right? You can still look after me. Ain't like Ah'm gonna be healed any time soon. Even after the ribs my hand's gonna be messed up for a good long while." They weren't sure he'd ever get full mobility in the hand. They were trying to figure out how to do skin grafts with the limitations of his mutation. They were trying to figure out a lot of things. For now it was looking like he'd just end up with one half mangled hand. And that was okay because it had kept two people he counted as friends safe from his mutation even if not safe from the explosion.

"Is it very bad?" she asked, leaving what she was doing to come closer to him. "What do the doctors say?"

He bit into his apple again before answering her. "First, second and third degree burns. Mostly the last two. Looks gross, maybe won't ever get to use my hand fully again. Ain't never gonna be pretty but it stays in a glove so Ah guess that don't matter none. Could get infected real bad until it's healed. It needs to be checked once a week by a doctor down in the city who's a burn specialist. Ah'ma be on pain killers for a real long time from what Ah figure." Maybe he'd get to graduate to something that kept him a little more useful to society than percocet, though.

She frowned at that, the expression visible even through her heightened mutation, and looked at her own hands. Beneath the gloves, she was completely unhurt. Looking back at Kevin, she reached out slowly and briefly touched his bare arm. "If you like, I can be your driver?" she suggested. "When you go to the city?" It was a difficult suggestion to make, given her reluctance to leave the mansion even at the best of times. "I have been practicing."

Kevin watched the point of contact between his arm and her gloved hand carefully. Her glove came away unmarred. He wondered if her shirt was made of the same material. It had to be to survive her hair, right? It was Kevin-proof. "You gotta promise to not get us crashed or somethin'. Ah can't exactly take over drivin' if you almost kill us and Ah got enough bruises right now."

She poked her tongue out at him. "I am the very careful driver," she informed him, mock-tartly. "Even Mr. Sefton says so, and he is nervous in cars."

"Don't you go promisin' things you can't make good on," Kevin said in reply to the tongue, not her words but also not bothering to explain that.

That earned him a puzzled look. "Pardon?" she asked, tilting her head slightly. "I promise, I am the careful driver, it is not the exaggeration."

Without any apparent shame or embarrassment, Kevin smirked. There would have been more charm to it if he had been less medicated. "Ah meant the tongue."

The puzzled look didn't go away. "Oh?" Then she thought about it and realised what he was talking about and her eyes went incandescently blue. "Oh."

Her reaction only made his smirk broaden into a rather self-satisfied smile. "See, that's the reaction Ah been missin'." Then, totally casually and without missing a beat, Kevin took her by the hand and started to lead her over to the couch. "So what movie we watchin'?"

She managed to snag the DVD she had brought along as well before being semi-dragged to the couch - Kevin on drugs was determined Kevin. "I have Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," she replied, holding it up so he could see. "The one with Johnny Depp in, because Angel said the old one is too weird for someone who is on the pain medication."

"'Cause Johnny Depp's less creepy?" After a pause Kevin shrugged. "Ah'm probably just gonna fall asleep anyway, y'know. Awakeness ain't something Ah'm real good at for real long." Kevin more or less collapsed onto the couch and found the remote to turn on the TV and DVD player, but left Yvette to put the disc in.

"She said something about there being a chicken having its head cut off?" Yvette hadn't seen either and wasn't exactly sure what the difference was - it had been something non-serious and silly to watch while she made sure Kevin didn't try and move furniture with his mind or decided to tap dance or whatever else the pain meds might encourage him to do. She loaded the disc and came back to the couch, climbing onto it with her old crouch to avoid stabbing the back of it to death with her hair.

"Oh, yeah, they did that in the old one, huh?" Kevin hadn't really watched the original since he was a kid and it had never been his favorite movie ever so he didn't exactly have it memorized. A glance over at Yvette all crouched over gave him a moment of missing her being non-spiky. She was useless as a teddy bear now. Alas, he'd have to use Laura for all his cuddly needs.

"Apparently, I have not seen it." Yvette was quiet for a while as the DVD cycled through its menus and the movie started, aware of the awkwardness in her current position but unable to really do anything else. And there was something else making things awkward too, something that had come to the fore when she'd seen Jean-Paul replying to Kevin's journal. "Kevin," she said suddenly. "Why did you kiss me? When we were in the medlab with Derek?"

Oh. Right. That. He probably should have thought about how he was going to handle the consequences of that decision at the time, but he hadn't. "Seemed like the right thing to do. Almost tradition, sorta." There was more to it than that. Of that Kevin was sure. He just wasn't entirely sure what that was. It was possible, he supposed, that maybe he had feelings for her. Well, of course he had feelings. They were friends, that was a feeling thing, right? Maybe the feelings had gotten to be more than that. But then that would get them in all sorts of murky water and Kevin really wasn't sure he needed any more murk than he already had.

"It felt like..." Her voice grew flustered, her eyes glowing in counterpart. "I am just being silly, I suppose. But it felt like a real kiss, like the sort a boy gives to a girl that he likes more than friends."

Yep, he definitely should have thought about having to have this conversation before. "Well...it was a real kiss. You were so upset 'bout havin' to take your powers back and Ah just wanted to give you somethin' before you had to. Somethin' better than your first kiss," which he'd also given her but had been a little bit awkward about. "The rest is complicated, but the kiss...it was real."

"So, does that mean... what? That you like me more than friends? Or did you just feel sorry for me?" Yvette didn't really want to know if it was the latter, but she had to ask any way. A bit like taking her powers back despite not wanting them, she knew she had to do the difficult thing if she was ever going to work this out.

"Ah wasn't feelin' sorry for you when Ah kissed you." That seemed like an important thing to try to get across to her. Pity wasn't something Kevin liked being on the receiving end of and he didn't want to pity other people either. "The rest....Ah dunno. Like Ah said, it's complicated."

She gave him a small, sad smile. "It always is complicated, is it not?" With a sigh she curled in on herself a bit more, wrapping her arms across her knees. "I suppose it is, what is the word? Moat? No, that is a river around a castle. Moot? When there is nothing to be done about something? Until I learn to control my powers there will be no more kisses, so it does not matter if you have the feelings for me or not."

Kevin didn't bother to point out that you could work around that, but that all the ways he knew of to work around it were clothing based. Jean-Paul had been able to kiss Kevin's neck, amongst other things, with the barrier of Kevin's hood in the way. Similar tactics didn't work with Yvette. Saying that, though, would almost make it sound like her fault. "We're still friends, though. Really good friends. And you're still real young and got lots of time to figure out control and get to...do...stuff. Y'know, when you got the control figured and all." Her age and not her mutation was actually the number one reason Kevin didn't think them trying to get involved would work. Whatever her age, Yvette was still very young in some ways and that just felt...wrong. He'd already kissed her so there wasn't much of a leg to stand on with that point, but it was still a point and one he thought would matter months down the line if they ever did get involved.

"One day, perhaps," she agreed softly. "But for now, I shall look after my friend, who does the silly things when he is taking the pain killers." It was an obvious attempt to lighten the mood and she hoped he'd let her do it.

Grabbing onto the change in topic readily, Kevin almost breathed a sigh of relief. "Ah do not," came his rather indignant response. "Don't start talkin' smack 'bout Mr Stick. He's very sensitive, y'know."

She snorted. "Uh-huh. When you are not so drugged and you read back through the journals,you are going to wonder where your brain went, you are realising?"

"No, Ah'll know where it went. It got lodged in the wall and Ah figured Ah'd leave it there so Ah don't go and misplace it while Ah'm all medicated and stuff." He grinned at her and nudged her leg with his knee. "Maybe Ah could figure out how to delete them journal entries or somethin'."

"Too late," she told him solemnly, but her eyes glimmered playfully. "I think Angel has all the screencaps now, just to be safe, yes?"