xp_logs | Kevin & "John" | Thursday evening

Kevin investigates the scent of something burning in the kitchen and finds Nick, only Nick is now John and has no recollection of who he was. Some things, however, never change and the guy still can't cook to save his life.

"Damnit!" was the shout echoing through the mansion near the kitchen as John pulled his hands out of the oven, fanning them in the air. It was his third failed attempt at making fried chicken in as many tries, and this time he had managed to burn more than just the wings. As he threw the charred pieces into the sink and turned on the faucet, he leaned forward shaking his head from side to side. Maybe cooking just wasn't going to be his thing.

The shout caught Kevin's attention while he was en route from the metal shop up to his suite. He didn't hear anyone else running to the rescue so he detoured and casually strolled in the direction of the expletive. Once he poked his head through the kitchen door he found a vaguely familiar person at the kitchen. "If you burn the kitchen down Lorna'll have your hide," he warned. Kevin wasn't exactly sure why the person looked familiar yet, but he had memorized very few backsides among the mansion's residents.

Still shaking his hand, the boy whipped around, embarrassed slightly that he couldn't sit in his failure alone for another attempt at dinner. Still he forced a smile as he leaned back against the counter behind him. "Yeah, sorry about that." He shook his head back towards the oven. "This thing has way too many knobs and stuff for me to figure out on my own."

"So if you set the kitchen on fire it's the oven's fault?" Kevin came into the kitchen fully, then realized why the nondescript backside had seemed familiar. "Nick?" He sounded more confused than surprised or excited. Nick had disappeared during graduation. As far as Kevin knew he hadn't been found, seen or heard from again. But here he was, burning down the kitchen. Shouldn't there have been some sort of bulletin about this sort of thing?

The boy perked up his eyebrows. "That's what they say." He let out a shrug. "But to tell you the truth, the best evidence I have to support that was the blue guy with the tail that's saying I'm his adopted son." He turned his head to the side. "But I take it you knew Nick?"

Kevin shrugged a little. "Barely. He was an alright guy, had issues with his mutation. We sorta understood each other on that. He was...sorta an emo muppet and Ah'm not the most social person. We didn't have a deep, meaningful friendship or anything." But the person in front of him wasn't Nick. Or he was Nick and didn't remember being Nick. Kevin wondered if it was anything like Jean-Paul losing and misplacing memories or having them torn into pieces and all placed somewhere different in his head. "So if you're not Nick then who are you? And why're you helping the oven burn down the kitchen?"

"I'm just trying to figure out how to get some food around here. I've pretty much been living on peanut butter and jelly at the homeless shelter, and chicken seemed like a good idea at the time." He smirked before extending his hand. "I've been going by John by the way."

Kevin looked at the extended hand, then to his own. After a moment of consideration Kevin pulled his sleeve down as far over his gloved hand as he could and walked over to John who was maybe Nick and shook his hand. "Kevin." He looked around to see what John had around the kitchen to figure out what kind of chicken involved burning down the kitchen. "Are you tryin' to fry chicken and that's why you're burnin' down the kitchen? Oh and the gloves and the hood and the sleeves and stuff? S'all for a reason. Avoidin' my skin and hair is a real good thing unless you wanna know what you look like partly decayed."

The boy motioned with a quick thumbs up. "Gotcha." He had already heard several warning about the potential powers in the mansion. Apparently Kevin's was on of the ones he needed to avoid. Letting out a sigh he turned back towards the failed cooking project. "I guess that's what I was trying to do. To tell you the truth, I really thought that if you just threw some chicken on a metal sheet and threw it in the oven for a while, it'd eventually cook."

"Yeah, it does. And then if you leave it in there it burns," Kevin told him, laughing a little. He pulled a pair of disposable vinyl gloves from a cargo pocket on the side of his leg and started to put them on. "Okay, because it's chicken and can't no one cook chicken right 'round here anyway, and 'cause Ah've 'parently got a soft spot with amnesia cases who are hopeless near a kitchen Ah'm gonna help you out here. You need to find the deep fryin' pan that's 'round here somewhere and cooking oil of some sort." Kevin sighed. "Ah don't think anyone ever saves their cooking grease so might hafta settle for vegetable oil, which is a shame 'cause fryin' chicken right needs bacon grease." He was already sorting out what John had pulled out for his attempt at chicken, sliding the stuff he wouldn't be using to one side and hunting down the various spices he still needed.

John quickly began fumbling through the cabinets, making note of some of the stuff he saw. "What kind of stuff do the people eat around here?" It was a comment to himself, but he made no particular care to make sure Kevin didn't hear it. After several failed attempts, he eventually found a clear bottle with a yellow liquid inside. Maneuvering his body, he was just tall enough to reach it and pull it down to his side. Turning toward Kevin, he held the bottle in hand. "Is this what you're looking for?"

Kevin glanced at the bottle and nodded. "Good enough. And we need basically a metric ton of chicken. 'Cause if Kyle's around he'll come sniffing out the chicken in about five seconds, and if he isn't he'll be bitter he didn't get any. People eat, y'know, food. Lorna cooks big meals and she's sort of awesome if you have any weird diet stuff. Like Kyle? He's got a list longer'n Ah'm tall of what he can't eat. Thus, we need to save him chicken 'cause Ah'm like his personal KFC." He still couldn't say KFC without some level of at least disapproval in his voice.

All the spices he needed were now out as well as the flour. He needed more milk and more egg and then they could totally do the fried chicken thing. Just the thought of chicken was making Kevin hungry now, great. Then he got an idea and looked over at John. "Can Ah trust you to fry bacon?"

The boy clapped his hands together. "Well I guess I need to start with something." He couldn't help but smile. "Although from what it sounds like my only chance of starving around here is if Mr. Gibney gets to all of the food before I do." He slowly began making his way towards the fridge, hoping to be able to at least find the bacon. "As long as Nick didn't wear a pink apron when he cooked, I can at least give it a shot."

Kevin snorted and shook his head. "Nick dated a hot, purple catgirl. Ah don't think he was nearly gay enough to wear a pink apron," he told John, laughing. In a new bowl Kevin started to mix together the eggs, milk and spices he would need to dip the chicken in so he could batter the pieces. "But if he did, well, it might explain why we never became like real friends or whatever. I've dated guys and that's still too gay for me."

"I can imagine." The boy was able to crack a smile as he fished the bacon out of the fridge. "At least I can get some information out of you about the guy. It seems like everyone else is afraid to talk about him with me." He closed the door with his hip as he made his way towards one of the counters. "To be honest, I wish I could know more about him to see if anything jogs my memory." He made a pantomime above his head. "It seems like everything up here's just a cloud now a days."

"No one's talkin'?" Kevin raised an eyebrow. That seemed strange. "Ah dunno much but Ah can tell you whatever Ah know if you want. Dunno if it'll actually help. But, what happens if you do remember? Ah mean, assuming you're Nick with amnesia and not a clone or a twin or just a guy who looks really, really similar - weirder stuff happens here - you've still been you for at least, what, like nine months? That doesn't go away. You remember being Nick but you're not him anymore. Only not you're not you anymore either." Kevin shrugged. "Just somethin' to think 'bout. Ah know a guy who doesn't remember all of his past right. Some of it's wrong and some is just gone. And it's still real frustratin' for him. 'Cause when you remember people sorta expect you to be that person again. But he's not that person. Ah dunno who that person was 'cause Ah didn't know him then really, but Ah know it ain't who he is now." And Kevin sort of loved who he was now, but he was biased.

John shrugged as he began unpacking the bacon, keeping his eyes locked on the meat. "That's a question that I've done my best to avoid. What happens to me, I mean the John me, if I suddenly become Nick again." He squinted his eyebrows together. "I don't think about it too long though. I'm afraid that if I do, my head'll explode like I'm trying to solve an unsolvable soduku puzzle or something." But he continued to focus on his work. "But I guess that's just a bridge I'll have to burn when I get there."

If he didn't want to think about it then Kevin wouldn't bring it up again. Still, he thought it had to be strange to think of losing who you were and your identity because of amnesia when you remembered things. If it were him and he liked who he was at the time then Kevin didn't think he'd want to remember who he had been in case he liked that person less. Still, he nodded and mixed the flour and the few spices that went into it together. "So what do you wanna know 'bout him?"

The boy froze for a second caught in his own thought. "I think I don't really have a choice." His eyes glared off into the distance as he tried to think through his own ideas. "Even if who I currently am disappears if Nick suddenly remembers everything. Who am I really? Just a dream, someone running around in a Nick Halloween costume?" He tilted his head to the side. "He's a real person, and he deserves to have his life back." He was able to crack a smile as he got back to the bacon. "Even if I'm pretty awesome how I am."

Kevin snorted a little, smile on his lips even though the laugh never reached that far. "You're a real person, too. Shaped by Nick's experiences even if you don't realize it. Or maybe you got a clean slate he wishes he could have. You don't know who he was or what he went through, maybe he deserves his life back but how do you know he'd want it back?" If it was a question of remembering being responsible for his parents' death or not Kevin really wondered what Nick would choose.

"But who would I be if I didn't let him have that choice." He shot a small smile back at Kevin. "And besides, I never bought into that whole nurture over nature thing, so I'm sure I'm just part of who Nick was." He raised an eyebrow. "Maybe I'm the cool part that never got to hang out with you."

Laughing out loud, Kevin dropped a piece of chicken into the egg mixture gracelessly. "Ah dunno, man, Ah've hung out with the part of Nick that can't cook to save his life, actually. This is like a repeat performance. Only Nick was sorta mopey then and you're way more upbeat." He fished the dropped piece of poultry out and transferred it over to the bowl full of flour mixture.

John slowly began to transfer the bacon onto a frying pan he had pulled from underneath the counter. "Well other than that hot, purple cat girl you told me about, there's no reason at all for me to be mopey." His smirk widened. "But I guess ignorance is bliss. The longer I spend not knowing what got Nick all emo, or even what caused me to wake up in some science lab, I think it may be the better." He winked at Kevin. "But you never know, the next time you give a cooking lesson, I might be moping around here good as new."

"Ah think Ah like you better with the not moping. And Lorna's the one who gives cooking lessons, not me. Ah just take over and do it for people 'cause it's easier'n tryin' to teach them to not do it wrong. Once you blow up the kitchen there's no goin' back, y'know?" Kevin wondered about said purple catgirl. Would Catseye come back now that Nick-slash-John was back? Did she know? Maybe she would stay away and let him adjust without having to worry about adapting to having a girlfriend, too.

"Glad I have your vote of confidence." He couldn't help but laugh. "But to be honest, I'm pretty sure if you hadn't come around, something would be on fire by now." He transferred the skillet to the top of the stove, pulling his hand back instantly and observing his work, half expecting it to blow up in his face. "But I think I've got at least this part taken care of."

"Good, 'cause there's a whole level of Hell reserved for the desecration of bacon, y'know." Kevin cast a wary glance in John's direction to make sure nothing would be catching fire. "Put the overhead fan on, though, and make sure you keep it on medium heat or everyone will think we're burning the place down and causin' a grease fire from all the smoke, alright?"

John reached up and hit the button to turn on the fan. "Got it." He quickly dropped his hands down to the skillet once again. "And from what it sounds like, Mr. Gibney and a few others would be very quick to send me to that hell if they caught me burning the bacon."

"Bacon is sacred," Kevin confirmed sagely. "Messin' with the bacon is like pissin' on Buddah. Buddah just wants to hug and have everyone get along, he never did nothin' to no one, y'know? Bacon? Bacon just wants to be delicious. Bacon gets joy outta bein' eaten. If you burn the bacon you invalidate it's whole existence. You wouldn't wanna do that, would you?"

John's eyebrow perked up at that. "No, I wouldn't want to invalidate the whole existence of the bacon, or Buddah." He paused, pushing his eyebrows together. "Or a Buddah pig for that matter." He chuckled to himself. "Well, even if I can't learn how to cook from you, at least I know that I can come to you for philosophical debates that I never saw coming."

Kevin pointed at the skillet, "You just make sure you take care of Buddah Pig and we wouldn't have to debate nothin'. You and Buddah Pig are gonna be best buddies. And when Buddah Pig's all crunchy and not burned he'll release enlightenment into your system as he gets digested. It's like time-released enlightenment. You'll be on a higher plane of thinkin' for hours while Buddah Pig brings you his wisdom." He was trying really hard not to laugh and wound up shaking and snickering. "And then you'll lose most of that enlightenment in the bathroom later. But, y'know, some of it'll end up in your blood. What Buddah Pig giveth, Buddah Pig taketh away."

John was able to laugh at this one. "Well as long as the Buddah Pig doesn't force me to think about if this plane of existence ends when Nick's comes back, I should be just fine."

"Nah, Buddah pig's not into existentialism," Kevin told him, grinning. "Existentialists are too depressing. Buddah Pig...he's a happy pig."