Kevin and Meggan, Friday Afternoon
May. 6th, 2011 05:30 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsSince the renovations of the boathouse are complete, Kevin gives Meggan a tour. In the middle of that, there's talk of her learning how to make pottery.
Admittedly, Kevin hadn't been hanging out with Meggan since that lovely email from Amanda about leading Meggan on a month or so ago. He felt kind of bad about that, actually, since he liked Meggan and they tended to have fun together despite her being dangerously close to his cut off where he just put everyone in the "kid" category. He had basically put her in that Do Not Touch box on all levels after that stupidity with her sister. However, that wasn't really fair to Meggan so Kevin had decided to stop being a douche to her and make an effort which was why he was now leading her around the boathouse arm-in-arm giving her a tour of the finally product. He'd started with the upper floor since it was smaller and had more stuff going on anyway. "This is Angel's darkroom. It's ventilated so don't let her try to blame the fumes on her bein' crazier'n usual or anythin'."
“I’ll be sure to remember that,” Meggan grinned as she got herself a good look inside, before being pulled along. It was impressive that so much had been done in so short a time, so she was just taking it all in for a moment. As they rounded a corner, she spotted something that she thought she recognized. “Pottery section, right?” If there was a pottery wheel, she wondered if there was room for a kiln to dry the end results, too. They hadn’t really been around each other all that much lately, outside of her getting him a couple slices of chocolate cake, so Meggan was pleased to be getting a tour of the finished product.
"Yep. Ah don't think anyone actually does pottery but if someone wanted to try to do that scene from Ghost or somethin'..." Kevin gestured toward the pottery wheel as if it was all the explanation one needed. The pottery wheel was in a room that was fully stocked with various paints, glue guns and small objects for use in crafts. "This is kinda an all purpose room in a way. There's a lot of general crafts stuff and the pottery, obviously. Y'know, so people less seriously art-inclined can come make stuff if they want and hang out with people who're actually doing stuff."
While she hadn’t seen the movie, Meggan knew enough about it to know the exact scene he was talking about. “So it wouldn’t matter if you accidentally ended up with a really big mess all over everything instead of a nice little bowl, because it’s made for that kind of thing.” And you could always try again if extra clay was there. She made a mental note to do her best not to pop in at a bad moment, and disturb him if he was doing something that looked really delicate, and probably required his total concentration.
Well, that was one interpretation he guessed. It made Kevin smile, at least. "Well, it's a messy thing, pottery, but technically it's there to make a nice little bowl instead of a mess. It's not really the end of the world if you do make a mess, though. Art's sorta inherently messy." Kevin led Meggan over to the sliding double doors and pushed one to the side. It coasted easily on its own once he let it go. The general use crafts room opened up into another room that was clearly divided between painting and sculpture. There was some clay and pieces of stone on shelves but most of it was stored in the room downstairs where it could be temperature controlled for the clay. There were empty easels set up on one side in contrast to the workbenches and tables on the other side for sculpting. Really it was also for Yvette's etchings and Kevin's powers-assisted carving as well.
“That’s good, then. Or, if you go a little bit too fast when it’s going in circles, you’ve made somebody a very nice clay plate,” Meggan grinned. Or an interesting looking ashtray for someone in the mansion, if anything really went out of control with the speed. Somewhere down the line, she might use the pottery wheel just a little--maybe during summer break. Probably to make Kurt or Amanda a present, either for Christmas or another birthday, if she could work it right. Out of curiosity, as Kevin continued to show her around, she asked, “Do you stick the bowls in something like a kiln? Or do they just have to dry at a normal speed?”
"Hm...well, right now we don't have a kiln so it'd have to air dry. Ah think Ah'm the only one who does any clay stuff 'round here at the moment and no one does pottery so we didn't bother with the kiln. But we could get one if you were thinkin' bout tryin' to do stuff with that." Kevin's head tilted as he considered Meggan. They ate a lot of waffles together but he didn't really know much about her aside from that history lesson Amanda had decided to give him. "You interested in pottery?"
“A little bit, yeah,” Meggan confessed with a nod. “I’ve never tried it before, but it’s always seemed like it might be some fun.” The mess involved with it didn’t bother her all that much. So long as she wasn’t ever wearing clothes that she liked if she did happen to decide to do it. She didn’t want to ruin them. She paused at the offer of getting a kiln just for her, before a small grin emerged. “Are you sure about that? Because I wouldn’t want a kiln to just sit there unused if I didn't play around with the clay enough.”
"What harm is there in it just sittin' 'round unused though? And if it's there more people might decide to use it. And if Ah decide to do somethin' with clay and don't wanna wait for it to dry all slow-like then it's there for me, too." He gave her a soft, somewhat crooked smile. "What's so wrong with it bein' for you anyway? You're interested in somethin' artistic, Ah feel the need to enable you toward it. If a kiln helps get you to channel your inner pottery goddess then why not?"
It only took a moment to sway her. “That’s true. All right, then, I think you’ve convinced me,” Meggan laughed. “I just didn’t want it to be only me using it. Even if I turn out to be really, really bad at it at least I’ll have tried it. Or turn out to have an inner pottery goddessy guru streak.” Or something in the middle, whatever that middle might be. “Thank you," she was quick to add. "For when you do get it.”
Smiling at the image of Meggan with her hands and arms all half-covered in wet pottery clay and her trying to save a collapsing vase, Kevin gave a small nod and shrugged one shoulder. "It's no problem. You don't really need to thank me. You know much about pottery yet? Like, what kinda clay to use, basic technique or anything like that? Or you more 'Ah know you spin the wheel and shape it with your hands'?"
“Mostly spin and shape,” Meggan agreed. “I found a very short book once, but it told more the ways to move, and a few smaller details. It may have been for kids, since it was mostly little things on keeping your hand gently against it so it doesn’t fall over in your lap.” With a sheepish grin, she continued, “Nothing to do with what you do in the event you, for example...spin it so fast you accidentally end up with a new clay hat unexpectedly in your hair.”
"Ah'm pretty sure you can get the clay outta your hair pretty easily with water once you get the hat off," Kevin told her even as he made a mental note to find books on pottery for her. He didn't know almost anything about pottery but maybe one of his teachers he'd had at Westchester Community did or knew someone who did. "And bonus point? Ah'm pretty sure someone 'round here would want a clay hat if you didn't want one."
“There’s that, yeah. And if I accidentally made one like that, I'm almost positive that Molly would want it,” Meggan guessed with a grin. “I’m pretty sure a clay hat would be a different one for her collection.” Sure, it couldn’t be worn much more than once or twice, but it would be unique.
"Ah think technically it counts as ceramic once it's dry. But yeah, Ah think so. You'd need to drill holes into it so you could lace like a ribbon or somethin' through so she could tie it on 'cause you know she'd probably actually try to wear it." Kevin didn't really know Molly at all but she was twelve and it seemed like wearing a ceramic hat was totally something a twelve year old would try to do.
“So, add the lace, and…warn her to be ridiculously careful with it if she did wear it. Because you’re right, I think she might,” Meggan agreed. Or just beg her not to walk anything but carefully while wearing it, because ceramic couldn’t last long under the conditions of Molly frolicking around the mansion. “Drilling just one tiny hole in it wouldn’t cause cracks or make a ceramic hat even easier to break, would it?”
"Not if you do it right. You can make the holes before you fire it, too, so you don't gotta worry 'bout drilling into it. But if you do drill you just need the right kinda drill head for it, that's all." Thinking about a ceramic hat, though, made him think of more obvious uses for such a thing like decoration. "Molly's pretty tiny, right?" His hand came up to his chest and then raises and lowered as an eyebrow quirked in Meggan's direction. He wasn't sure how tall she was, precisely. "We could always put it up on her wall real high so it can sit there and be pretty after you paint it but she can't get to it to try to wear it."
Meggan understood perfectly. “Oh, yes. For a hat decoration, instead of a ‘oh, please don’t move the wrong way or drop it’ kind of hat, that’s even better.” Molly would understand, if she explained that it wasn’t for playing with, or wearing—just an interesting addition to the collection. “That would be perfect. We could even get it up on the ceiling, if it would be better there.” She could get it up wherever it was needed if she levitated, and she assumed it would be easy to take down if they had to.
Kevin wrinkled his nose a little considering that. "Ah dunno if that's the way to go. Then it would be suspended by a string and Ah think it'd be less secure. The wall's probably safer 'cause then you've got like a wire inside that is on the hook but you also have the edge of the hat and you can put like three or four nails in the wall to hold it securely by setting the inside edge of the hat on 'em if you space and position the nails right. You're totally gonna try to make her a hat on purpose now, aren't you?"
“Okay. Less of a chance of it landing on someone’s head accidentally, then.” It might not hurt Molly, but anyone else in the room when it fell might be in some pain. “Maybe,” Meggan grinned playfully at that last question. That was a big yes. She just wanted to see if she could at this point, really. If it was even vaguely hat-like, she would be happy.
"You could do it easily enough without the pottery wheel, y'know. You could sculpt it by hand, let it dry, paint it and then glaze it. Might need the kiln for glazing but Ah'm not sure. Ah'd have to look into it. Ah've sealed stuff but never glazed it. Ah don't like the shiny, but Molly probably would." He was hoping there could be a lack of glitter. Mostly because he still had glitter trauma thanks to Clarice.
Meggan nodded, happy with that suggestion. “She just might, yeah. Maybe we could hold off on something with a massive amount of sparkles, just in case it comes off in clumps over time,” Meggan pointed out. “We’ll have to see. I just don’t want to be tracking glitter everywhere again without knowing it,” she laughed. She remembered how much glitter had been left behind around their room after the last time Molly had played with the stuff. It was even on her in her driver's license photo. Meggan really didn’t want to be the culprit this time.
"Ah'm in favor of not coverin' the world in glitter, honestly. Clarice used to terrorize me with it. Ah've got real, serious trauma where glitter's concerned." Kevin told this in a completely serious voice that sounded almost ashamed to be admitting his trauma. There was even a pathetic little frown as he nodded along with himself. Then his entire demeanor brightened up. "But we could make it neon."
A glittery world would be a bad thing. Meggan shot him a look of sympathy, with a liberal dose of amusement. She couldn’t help it, the scenarios she envisioned were ridiculous. “Ooh, how terrible for you. Did she bury you in glitter up to your nose as you slept? Or was it something even worse?” She considered neon. “Not too bright, because we don’t want to hurt anybody’s eyes when they try to look at it,” Meggan determined. Pink and green were unfortunately out if she didn’t want to make eyes water. “Maybe neon blue around the edges instead of the whole thing? Kind of like the rim of a real hat.”
"Well what kinda hat are we makin' her? Like one of them straw hats with the wide brim? 'Cause then there could be an electric blue ribbon around it just above the brim, too. It could be like off-white and electric blue. She seems more like a pink girl, though." He wasn't sure why he thought that but Molly just screamed pink at Kevin, even through the journals. "Blue doesn't seem like it would be her style."
“I was thinking more of a sombrero, but a straw hat sounds much better. It’s not as huge.” A ceramic sombrero might even be too tricky to attach to the wall. Meggan tried to think of what color combinations Molly wore the most, focusing on one particular outfit. “Pink and yellow? I think she likes wearing that more than anything else in the world. We could get it where part of the brim would be one color, and part the other. Do you think that could work? With the ribbon looped around it.”
Two toned brim? Kevin didn't think that could work very well. "We could fade it, actually. Make the part that goes on your head yellow, like a pale, Easter kinda yellow and then when it gets out onto the brim fade it into pink. The pink'll be light, sorta pastel at first and get more intense as it goes out so it's intense, neon pink at the edge to match the ribbon around the head part. Would that work?"
Meggan hadn’t been aware that fading out like that could be done, but it was good to know. “That sounds like it would be perfect for her," she beamed. "Much better than my idea. We’d have to do it like that.” She hoped Molly would like it if they were able to get it anywhere close to how she pictured it. Once she knew exactly what to do without messing up.
"Alright, well you just lemme know when you wanna do it and Ah'll make sure we've got the right kinda clay around and Ah'll be 'round to help if you need it. Obviously Ah'm no use on a potter's wheel but Ah'm good with sculpting otherwise." He refrained from saying he was good with his hands because even though Meggan wouldn't take it the wrong way it already sounded entirely filled with innuendo in his own head.
“That’s good, thank you. I’ll let you know,” Meggan promised. “Maybe we could try for a weekend sometime when we do figure it out? There’s no classes, then.” Unless she was studying for a test in one of her classes, of course. “Or just whenever we’re both free at the same time,” she amended. She didn’t want to just run up to Kevin and ask for a lesson on some random day if he happened to be busy with something.
"My schedule ain't exactly structured aside from the days Ah go into the city to work at ELPIS so pretty much whenever you wanna lemme know and it's probably doable unless I'm not here or real involved in another project." But Kevin could be honest, at least in his own head. If Meggan said she wanted to attempt the hat he'd be there. Hell, he'd almost said whenever she wanted him to let him know but he'd caught how that sounded at the last moment and changed his words without it sounding like he was editing mid-sentence. Someone probably should have publicly dubbed him Meggan's bitch, really, since he was clearly signing up for the position here. Damn. He was just so pathetic. And Kevin knew it, too.
“Got it. I could always e-mail you first, just to make sure, too. So you don’t suddenly have me hovering at your door one day, before you’re ready for me.” She didn’t want to be pushy, even if she was eager for lessons. Meggan had already decided that if she managed to figure everything out to where she was able to do it with Kevin’s help, and was somewhat decent at pottery, then maybe—just maybe—she could surprise Molly for her birthday, since that was coming up. Depending on how long it took her, it might be the right day. If it wasn’t, she could find her something else, and make it a very late gift. “Or is surprising you if you’re already here in the boathouse but not busy with your hands on something else okay?”
Before he was ready for her? He really needed his brain to cooperate more with his whole Hands Off Meggan policy he was trying to uphold here. Taking stuff she said the wrong way was so not the way to do that. "Yeah, as long as Ah'm not in the middle of somethin' or busy fallin' asleep for some reason it's fine to surprise me. Just, y'know, not so much on the sneaking up and actually surprising me because then stuff ends up decayed somehow or another." There was always the possibility that the thing that wound up being decayed was the person doing the sneaking. Kevin didn't say that, though, because he was pretty sure Meggan didn't need a reminder on the ways in which hanging out with him was like walking around with a loaded gun. Hopefully Angel didn't try to give Meggan lessons on how to pounce him properly, either.
No dropping down from the ceiling, in that case. It was only slightly disappointing, but Meggan knew it was just to keep her safe. She needed her hands—and the rest of her limbs—to remain where they were. “There will be no sudden hugs from above, and I won’t grab you or anything when you’re not ready for it,” she reassured him with a soft smile. “Don’t worry, I won’t forget. If you’re busy with welding, I won’t jump out at you. Maybe leave a post-it note next to you, but I won’t jump.” Just in case the welding was noisy and he didn’t hear her walk in.
"This is a good plan. Ah endorse this plan," Kevin replied in his most sage voice. Sage, of course, was something of a subjective matter since a twenty-one year old could only really manage so much sage before they started to channel Mister Miyagi. "And on that note, have you seen my giant fire pit yet?" Kevin grinned broadly. He was damn proud of that forge. But, really, he preferred "giant fire pit" over the word "forge."
“No, I haven’t seen your giant pit of fire just yet. How deep is it?” It was easy for Meggan to see just how much he wanted to show it to her, and she was genuinely curious. “Lead the way, whenever you're ready,” Meggan laughed. Pottery plotting had gotten them ever so slightly off the track of showing her every inch of the renovations.
Kevin offered Meggan his arm again with a bit of a flourish before leading her downstairs. The lower level was pretty much cut in half. One side had a lounge area that had once been Nathan's living room and the kitchen and the other side had what was essentially Kevin's workshop. He reached up to unlatch the lock at the top of the door so no tiny people could get in by mistake and hurt themselves, and pushed open the door. Inside the room was mostly bricked over. Three walls and most of the floor had been laid with brick and the forge off to one side was also built up with brick. "Don't let anyone know, but that right there is the love of my life." Kevin grinned as he gestured toward the forge. His anvil lay nearby the brick structure which had various metalworking tools he had acquired hanging off one side.
Meggan thought the workshop fit Kevin perfectly in every possible way. “Well, the love of your life is as pretty as a forge could ever aspire to be,” Meggan teased back after a moment. “Your secret is safe with me.” She picked up one of the tools to get a better look before laying it back in its original place with a great deal of care. Meggan didn’t want to mess up the order he had it in, if that was important. “Is it more than one hammer for different jobs when you’re blacksmithing one thing? Like how cooking people use a bunch of different forks and spoons?” It was the only comparison she could think of, no matter how silly it might have sounded. Then again, welding was kind of like cooking and recipes, so long as things didn't go horribly wrong.
"Uh, well, yeah, kinda. Different sized hammers have different effects when you strike the metal with 'em. You've got chisels of different sizes and different ones depending on whether the metal's hot or cold when you use 'em. There's stuff for helping form the metal or punch holes in it and stuff. Kinda like how you probably aren't gonna use a normal spoon for spaghetti or a huge knife to cut a grape tomato and you don't beat eggs with a spoon." Though the idea of trying to beat an egg with a spoon was sort of amusing and Kevin supposed you could probably get some sort of approximation to it if you tried real hard. He just didn't think it would actually be beaten.
That answered Meggan’s question perfectly, actually, and she nodded. No matter the strange images that last bit evoked, she understood the analogy. “The wrong tool just messes everything up for you.” She just couldn’t resist one comment about the spoon, though. “Yolk would just splatter in your eyes, too, if you actually beat up the egg you were hoping to scramble,” she sighed with a grin.
"Yolk in the eye," Kevin said seriously and sighed as he shook his head. "It's a terrible way to go, you know. You see yellow for the rest of your life and your eye gets sort of fried during the hot months. A spoon's just askin' for trouble. But some people, y'know, they gotta try to rollerskate uphill and beat eggs with spoons. You can ID them by their omelet eye."
“They should know how hard it is,” Meggan chided in jest. “And there will be people trying to follow around behind you with little bits of cheddar cheese and bacon, because they were craving that very meal for breakfast. Poor Omelet Eye, you should have worn goggles.” Or cooking lessons, so they wouldn’t be physically beating their eggs.
Laughing, all Kevin really managed was nodding along in agreement as she went on. "And speaking of omelets, why haven't seen the kitchen! Where the food lives." As an almost after thought Kevin gestured to a wall near the forge. "Oh, and there's the welding station. Which means you've seen everything interesting in this room anyway now." He grinned and, with his hands on her shoulders, steered her around to head out the door and toward the kitchen.
As Kevin led her in the direction to the kitchen, Meggan glanced back over her shoulder. “Yes, take us to where the food is resting,” she chuckled. “Are you going to be doing the cooking? Please?” After all their talk of Omelet Eye, she almost expected it to be something egg centered.
"Ah can make you whatever you want. That Ah know how to cook. Or have a recipe for." In all the times they had hung out Kevin had always wound up at the Waffle House with Meggan. He'd never actually cooked for her before. She probably knew he could since Wade liked declaring Kevin's chicken skills to the world, but she had no actual personal experience. That made him resolve to basically make her the most awesome something or other ever.
Admittedly, Kevin hadn't been hanging out with Meggan since that lovely email from Amanda about leading Meggan on a month or so ago. He felt kind of bad about that, actually, since he liked Meggan and they tended to have fun together despite her being dangerously close to his cut off where he just put everyone in the "kid" category. He had basically put her in that Do Not Touch box on all levels after that stupidity with her sister. However, that wasn't really fair to Meggan so Kevin had decided to stop being a douche to her and make an effort which was why he was now leading her around the boathouse arm-in-arm giving her a tour of the finally product. He'd started with the upper floor since it was smaller and had more stuff going on anyway. "This is Angel's darkroom. It's ventilated so don't let her try to blame the fumes on her bein' crazier'n usual or anythin'."
“I’ll be sure to remember that,” Meggan grinned as she got herself a good look inside, before being pulled along. It was impressive that so much had been done in so short a time, so she was just taking it all in for a moment. As they rounded a corner, she spotted something that she thought she recognized. “Pottery section, right?” If there was a pottery wheel, she wondered if there was room for a kiln to dry the end results, too. They hadn’t really been around each other all that much lately, outside of her getting him a couple slices of chocolate cake, so Meggan was pleased to be getting a tour of the finished product.
"Yep. Ah don't think anyone actually does pottery but if someone wanted to try to do that scene from Ghost or somethin'..." Kevin gestured toward the pottery wheel as if it was all the explanation one needed. The pottery wheel was in a room that was fully stocked with various paints, glue guns and small objects for use in crafts. "This is kinda an all purpose room in a way. There's a lot of general crafts stuff and the pottery, obviously. Y'know, so people less seriously art-inclined can come make stuff if they want and hang out with people who're actually doing stuff."
While she hadn’t seen the movie, Meggan knew enough about it to know the exact scene he was talking about. “So it wouldn’t matter if you accidentally ended up with a really big mess all over everything instead of a nice little bowl, because it’s made for that kind of thing.” And you could always try again if extra clay was there. She made a mental note to do her best not to pop in at a bad moment, and disturb him if he was doing something that looked really delicate, and probably required his total concentration.
Well, that was one interpretation he guessed. It made Kevin smile, at least. "Well, it's a messy thing, pottery, but technically it's there to make a nice little bowl instead of a mess. It's not really the end of the world if you do make a mess, though. Art's sorta inherently messy." Kevin led Meggan over to the sliding double doors and pushed one to the side. It coasted easily on its own once he let it go. The general use crafts room opened up into another room that was clearly divided between painting and sculpture. There was some clay and pieces of stone on shelves but most of it was stored in the room downstairs where it could be temperature controlled for the clay. There were empty easels set up on one side in contrast to the workbenches and tables on the other side for sculpting. Really it was also for Yvette's etchings and Kevin's powers-assisted carving as well.
“That’s good, then. Or, if you go a little bit too fast when it’s going in circles, you’ve made somebody a very nice clay plate,” Meggan grinned. Or an interesting looking ashtray for someone in the mansion, if anything really went out of control with the speed. Somewhere down the line, she might use the pottery wheel just a little--maybe during summer break. Probably to make Kurt or Amanda a present, either for Christmas or another birthday, if she could work it right. Out of curiosity, as Kevin continued to show her around, she asked, “Do you stick the bowls in something like a kiln? Or do they just have to dry at a normal speed?”
"Hm...well, right now we don't have a kiln so it'd have to air dry. Ah think Ah'm the only one who does any clay stuff 'round here at the moment and no one does pottery so we didn't bother with the kiln. But we could get one if you were thinkin' bout tryin' to do stuff with that." Kevin's head tilted as he considered Meggan. They ate a lot of waffles together but he didn't really know much about her aside from that history lesson Amanda had decided to give him. "You interested in pottery?"
“A little bit, yeah,” Meggan confessed with a nod. “I’ve never tried it before, but it’s always seemed like it might be some fun.” The mess involved with it didn’t bother her all that much. So long as she wasn’t ever wearing clothes that she liked if she did happen to decide to do it. She didn’t want to ruin them. She paused at the offer of getting a kiln just for her, before a small grin emerged. “Are you sure about that? Because I wouldn’t want a kiln to just sit there unused if I didn't play around with the clay enough.”
"What harm is there in it just sittin' 'round unused though? And if it's there more people might decide to use it. And if Ah decide to do somethin' with clay and don't wanna wait for it to dry all slow-like then it's there for me, too." He gave her a soft, somewhat crooked smile. "What's so wrong with it bein' for you anyway? You're interested in somethin' artistic, Ah feel the need to enable you toward it. If a kiln helps get you to channel your inner pottery goddess then why not?"
It only took a moment to sway her. “That’s true. All right, then, I think you’ve convinced me,” Meggan laughed. “I just didn’t want it to be only me using it. Even if I turn out to be really, really bad at it at least I’ll have tried it. Or turn out to have an inner pottery goddessy guru streak.” Or something in the middle, whatever that middle might be. “Thank you," she was quick to add. "For when you do get it.”
Smiling at the image of Meggan with her hands and arms all half-covered in wet pottery clay and her trying to save a collapsing vase, Kevin gave a small nod and shrugged one shoulder. "It's no problem. You don't really need to thank me. You know much about pottery yet? Like, what kinda clay to use, basic technique or anything like that? Or you more 'Ah know you spin the wheel and shape it with your hands'?"
“Mostly spin and shape,” Meggan agreed. “I found a very short book once, but it told more the ways to move, and a few smaller details. It may have been for kids, since it was mostly little things on keeping your hand gently against it so it doesn’t fall over in your lap.” With a sheepish grin, she continued, “Nothing to do with what you do in the event you, for example...spin it so fast you accidentally end up with a new clay hat unexpectedly in your hair.”
"Ah'm pretty sure you can get the clay outta your hair pretty easily with water once you get the hat off," Kevin told her even as he made a mental note to find books on pottery for her. He didn't know almost anything about pottery but maybe one of his teachers he'd had at Westchester Community did or knew someone who did. "And bonus point? Ah'm pretty sure someone 'round here would want a clay hat if you didn't want one."
“There’s that, yeah. And if I accidentally made one like that, I'm almost positive that Molly would want it,” Meggan guessed with a grin. “I’m pretty sure a clay hat would be a different one for her collection.” Sure, it couldn’t be worn much more than once or twice, but it would be unique.
"Ah think technically it counts as ceramic once it's dry. But yeah, Ah think so. You'd need to drill holes into it so you could lace like a ribbon or somethin' through so she could tie it on 'cause you know she'd probably actually try to wear it." Kevin didn't really know Molly at all but she was twelve and it seemed like wearing a ceramic hat was totally something a twelve year old would try to do.
“So, add the lace, and…warn her to be ridiculously careful with it if she did wear it. Because you’re right, I think she might,” Meggan agreed. Or just beg her not to walk anything but carefully while wearing it, because ceramic couldn’t last long under the conditions of Molly frolicking around the mansion. “Drilling just one tiny hole in it wouldn’t cause cracks or make a ceramic hat even easier to break, would it?”
"Not if you do it right. You can make the holes before you fire it, too, so you don't gotta worry 'bout drilling into it. But if you do drill you just need the right kinda drill head for it, that's all." Thinking about a ceramic hat, though, made him think of more obvious uses for such a thing like decoration. "Molly's pretty tiny, right?" His hand came up to his chest and then raises and lowered as an eyebrow quirked in Meggan's direction. He wasn't sure how tall she was, precisely. "We could always put it up on her wall real high so it can sit there and be pretty after you paint it but she can't get to it to try to wear it."
Meggan understood perfectly. “Oh, yes. For a hat decoration, instead of a ‘oh, please don’t move the wrong way or drop it’ kind of hat, that’s even better.” Molly would understand, if she explained that it wasn’t for playing with, or wearing—just an interesting addition to the collection. “That would be perfect. We could even get it up on the ceiling, if it would be better there.” She could get it up wherever it was needed if she levitated, and she assumed it would be easy to take down if they had to.
Kevin wrinkled his nose a little considering that. "Ah dunno if that's the way to go. Then it would be suspended by a string and Ah think it'd be less secure. The wall's probably safer 'cause then you've got like a wire inside that is on the hook but you also have the edge of the hat and you can put like three or four nails in the wall to hold it securely by setting the inside edge of the hat on 'em if you space and position the nails right. You're totally gonna try to make her a hat on purpose now, aren't you?"
“Okay. Less of a chance of it landing on someone’s head accidentally, then.” It might not hurt Molly, but anyone else in the room when it fell might be in some pain. “Maybe,” Meggan grinned playfully at that last question. That was a big yes. She just wanted to see if she could at this point, really. If it was even vaguely hat-like, she would be happy.
"You could do it easily enough without the pottery wheel, y'know. You could sculpt it by hand, let it dry, paint it and then glaze it. Might need the kiln for glazing but Ah'm not sure. Ah'd have to look into it. Ah've sealed stuff but never glazed it. Ah don't like the shiny, but Molly probably would." He was hoping there could be a lack of glitter. Mostly because he still had glitter trauma thanks to Clarice.
Meggan nodded, happy with that suggestion. “She just might, yeah. Maybe we could hold off on something with a massive amount of sparkles, just in case it comes off in clumps over time,” Meggan pointed out. “We’ll have to see. I just don’t want to be tracking glitter everywhere again without knowing it,” she laughed. She remembered how much glitter had been left behind around their room after the last time Molly had played with the stuff. It was even on her in her driver's license photo. Meggan really didn’t want to be the culprit this time.
"Ah'm in favor of not coverin' the world in glitter, honestly. Clarice used to terrorize me with it. Ah've got real, serious trauma where glitter's concerned." Kevin told this in a completely serious voice that sounded almost ashamed to be admitting his trauma. There was even a pathetic little frown as he nodded along with himself. Then his entire demeanor brightened up. "But we could make it neon."
A glittery world would be a bad thing. Meggan shot him a look of sympathy, with a liberal dose of amusement. She couldn’t help it, the scenarios she envisioned were ridiculous. “Ooh, how terrible for you. Did she bury you in glitter up to your nose as you slept? Or was it something even worse?” She considered neon. “Not too bright, because we don’t want to hurt anybody’s eyes when they try to look at it,” Meggan determined. Pink and green were unfortunately out if she didn’t want to make eyes water. “Maybe neon blue around the edges instead of the whole thing? Kind of like the rim of a real hat.”
"Well what kinda hat are we makin' her? Like one of them straw hats with the wide brim? 'Cause then there could be an electric blue ribbon around it just above the brim, too. It could be like off-white and electric blue. She seems more like a pink girl, though." He wasn't sure why he thought that but Molly just screamed pink at Kevin, even through the journals. "Blue doesn't seem like it would be her style."
“I was thinking more of a sombrero, but a straw hat sounds much better. It’s not as huge.” A ceramic sombrero might even be too tricky to attach to the wall. Meggan tried to think of what color combinations Molly wore the most, focusing on one particular outfit. “Pink and yellow? I think she likes wearing that more than anything else in the world. We could get it where part of the brim would be one color, and part the other. Do you think that could work? With the ribbon looped around it.”
Two toned brim? Kevin didn't think that could work very well. "We could fade it, actually. Make the part that goes on your head yellow, like a pale, Easter kinda yellow and then when it gets out onto the brim fade it into pink. The pink'll be light, sorta pastel at first and get more intense as it goes out so it's intense, neon pink at the edge to match the ribbon around the head part. Would that work?"
Meggan hadn’t been aware that fading out like that could be done, but it was good to know. “That sounds like it would be perfect for her," she beamed. "Much better than my idea. We’d have to do it like that.” She hoped Molly would like it if they were able to get it anywhere close to how she pictured it. Once she knew exactly what to do without messing up.
"Alright, well you just lemme know when you wanna do it and Ah'll make sure we've got the right kinda clay around and Ah'll be 'round to help if you need it. Obviously Ah'm no use on a potter's wheel but Ah'm good with sculpting otherwise." He refrained from saying he was good with his hands because even though Meggan wouldn't take it the wrong way it already sounded entirely filled with innuendo in his own head.
“That’s good, thank you. I’ll let you know,” Meggan promised. “Maybe we could try for a weekend sometime when we do figure it out? There’s no classes, then.” Unless she was studying for a test in one of her classes, of course. “Or just whenever we’re both free at the same time,” she amended. She didn’t want to just run up to Kevin and ask for a lesson on some random day if he happened to be busy with something.
"My schedule ain't exactly structured aside from the days Ah go into the city to work at ELPIS so pretty much whenever you wanna lemme know and it's probably doable unless I'm not here or real involved in another project." But Kevin could be honest, at least in his own head. If Meggan said she wanted to attempt the hat he'd be there. Hell, he'd almost said whenever she wanted him to let him know but he'd caught how that sounded at the last moment and changed his words without it sounding like he was editing mid-sentence. Someone probably should have publicly dubbed him Meggan's bitch, really, since he was clearly signing up for the position here. Damn. He was just so pathetic. And Kevin knew it, too.
“Got it. I could always e-mail you first, just to make sure, too. So you don’t suddenly have me hovering at your door one day, before you’re ready for me.” She didn’t want to be pushy, even if she was eager for lessons. Meggan had already decided that if she managed to figure everything out to where she was able to do it with Kevin’s help, and was somewhat decent at pottery, then maybe—just maybe—she could surprise Molly for her birthday, since that was coming up. Depending on how long it took her, it might be the right day. If it wasn’t, she could find her something else, and make it a very late gift. “Or is surprising you if you’re already here in the boathouse but not busy with your hands on something else okay?”
Before he was ready for her? He really needed his brain to cooperate more with his whole Hands Off Meggan policy he was trying to uphold here. Taking stuff she said the wrong way was so not the way to do that. "Yeah, as long as Ah'm not in the middle of somethin' or busy fallin' asleep for some reason it's fine to surprise me. Just, y'know, not so much on the sneaking up and actually surprising me because then stuff ends up decayed somehow or another." There was always the possibility that the thing that wound up being decayed was the person doing the sneaking. Kevin didn't say that, though, because he was pretty sure Meggan didn't need a reminder on the ways in which hanging out with him was like walking around with a loaded gun. Hopefully Angel didn't try to give Meggan lessons on how to pounce him properly, either.
No dropping down from the ceiling, in that case. It was only slightly disappointing, but Meggan knew it was just to keep her safe. She needed her hands—and the rest of her limbs—to remain where they were. “There will be no sudden hugs from above, and I won’t grab you or anything when you’re not ready for it,” she reassured him with a soft smile. “Don’t worry, I won’t forget. If you’re busy with welding, I won’t jump out at you. Maybe leave a post-it note next to you, but I won’t jump.” Just in case the welding was noisy and he didn’t hear her walk in.
"This is a good plan. Ah endorse this plan," Kevin replied in his most sage voice. Sage, of course, was something of a subjective matter since a twenty-one year old could only really manage so much sage before they started to channel Mister Miyagi. "And on that note, have you seen my giant fire pit yet?" Kevin grinned broadly. He was damn proud of that forge. But, really, he preferred "giant fire pit" over the word "forge."
“No, I haven’t seen your giant pit of fire just yet. How deep is it?” It was easy for Meggan to see just how much he wanted to show it to her, and she was genuinely curious. “Lead the way, whenever you're ready,” Meggan laughed. Pottery plotting had gotten them ever so slightly off the track of showing her every inch of the renovations.
Kevin offered Meggan his arm again with a bit of a flourish before leading her downstairs. The lower level was pretty much cut in half. One side had a lounge area that had once been Nathan's living room and the kitchen and the other side had what was essentially Kevin's workshop. He reached up to unlatch the lock at the top of the door so no tiny people could get in by mistake and hurt themselves, and pushed open the door. Inside the room was mostly bricked over. Three walls and most of the floor had been laid with brick and the forge off to one side was also built up with brick. "Don't let anyone know, but that right there is the love of my life." Kevin grinned as he gestured toward the forge. His anvil lay nearby the brick structure which had various metalworking tools he had acquired hanging off one side.
Meggan thought the workshop fit Kevin perfectly in every possible way. “Well, the love of your life is as pretty as a forge could ever aspire to be,” Meggan teased back after a moment. “Your secret is safe with me.” She picked up one of the tools to get a better look before laying it back in its original place with a great deal of care. Meggan didn’t want to mess up the order he had it in, if that was important. “Is it more than one hammer for different jobs when you’re blacksmithing one thing? Like how cooking people use a bunch of different forks and spoons?” It was the only comparison she could think of, no matter how silly it might have sounded. Then again, welding was kind of like cooking and recipes, so long as things didn't go horribly wrong.
"Uh, well, yeah, kinda. Different sized hammers have different effects when you strike the metal with 'em. You've got chisels of different sizes and different ones depending on whether the metal's hot or cold when you use 'em. There's stuff for helping form the metal or punch holes in it and stuff. Kinda like how you probably aren't gonna use a normal spoon for spaghetti or a huge knife to cut a grape tomato and you don't beat eggs with a spoon." Though the idea of trying to beat an egg with a spoon was sort of amusing and Kevin supposed you could probably get some sort of approximation to it if you tried real hard. He just didn't think it would actually be beaten.
That answered Meggan’s question perfectly, actually, and she nodded. No matter the strange images that last bit evoked, she understood the analogy. “The wrong tool just messes everything up for you.” She just couldn’t resist one comment about the spoon, though. “Yolk would just splatter in your eyes, too, if you actually beat up the egg you were hoping to scramble,” she sighed with a grin.
"Yolk in the eye," Kevin said seriously and sighed as he shook his head. "It's a terrible way to go, you know. You see yellow for the rest of your life and your eye gets sort of fried during the hot months. A spoon's just askin' for trouble. But some people, y'know, they gotta try to rollerskate uphill and beat eggs with spoons. You can ID them by their omelet eye."
“They should know how hard it is,” Meggan chided in jest. “And there will be people trying to follow around behind you with little bits of cheddar cheese and bacon, because they were craving that very meal for breakfast. Poor Omelet Eye, you should have worn goggles.” Or cooking lessons, so they wouldn’t be physically beating their eggs.
Laughing, all Kevin really managed was nodding along in agreement as she went on. "And speaking of omelets, why haven't seen the kitchen! Where the food lives." As an almost after thought Kevin gestured to a wall near the forge. "Oh, and there's the welding station. Which means you've seen everything interesting in this room anyway now." He grinned and, with his hands on her shoulders, steered her around to head out the door and toward the kitchen.
As Kevin led her in the direction to the kitchen, Meggan glanced back over her shoulder. “Yes, take us to where the food is resting,” she chuckled. “Are you going to be doing the cooking? Please?” After all their talk of Omelet Eye, she almost expected it to be something egg centered.
"Ah can make you whatever you want. That Ah know how to cook. Or have a recipe for." In all the times they had hung out Kevin had always wound up at the Waffle House with Meggan. He'd never actually cooked for her before. She probably knew he could since Wade liked declaring Kevin's chicken skills to the world, but she had no actual personal experience. That made him resolve to basically make her the most awesome something or other ever.
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