yindi [PHLOX] (weema) wrote in xemplifylogs, @ 2009-01-20 21:54:00 |
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Entry tags: | pyro, venus |
WEEK 10: Saturday, November 8th - Venus & Pyro
Who: Yindi [VENUS] & St. John [PYRO]
When: Saturday, the late evening
Where: In the garage
What: "Next time" finally comes around
Rating & Warnings: "R" for language
It was dark outside when Yindi finally felt like dragging herself out of bed. Staying in bed all day and not wishing to speak with anyone was very uncharacteristic of the young Australian that thrived on sharing life with other people. Usually on this first day of the weekend, Yindi liked to get up in the morning and go downstairs to watch cartoons with some of the younger kids. It helped her get a grasp on American culture and it was fun being around the little'uns. A lot of them had siblings that they missed back home and while Yindi was an only child, she liked to feel that she could be something for them and they could be something for her. Then came lunch with some of the girls, and they would get their books and go to a study room--only to do more girl-bonding things like sit around and talk about boys. Yindi never really had a boy to talk about before, but now that she did, it was nothing that she wanted to share.
Saturday was supposed to be their special day to hang out. Did 'hang out' mean 'date', she had asked Katrina once before. That introduced a whole other subject about defining relationships and what types of relationships there were. Before long, Yindi had a headache and her question had still not been answered. On one hand she could count the number of time that she had 'hung out' with Kyle Gibney. Everything seemed to have happened so fast. Even as she lay in bed, buried under her blankets, her fingers pinched the purple flower charm that he had given her the day he essentially disappeared. Could a person have a broken heart so quickly?
She wanted to think that it was childish of her but that would just be an ugly deception to avoid the hurt that she was feeling. Yindi had never found a boy--a man, really, as it was discovered--to be so strangely wonderful. There was a connection there, she knew it. If there had not been one, then his absence would not hurt her tender teenage heart so, yes? Everything was just so, so very confusing and painful and the two people she would have turned to for help could not be found. She had not heard from Burnum since she moved to America and Remy was off doing something secretive at a secretive place. He would not leave her behind, that she knew for truth, but Yindi really wished he would saunter through the door like he used to.
The first place she thought she could feel close to Remy was in her car, which was in the garage. Yindi rolled out of bed, surprised to find that it was actually rather late in the evening, and moreso that she was still wearing the jeans and shirt from yesterday. Personal appearance was not a concern at the moment and she slipped on little shoes, pulled on a sweatshirt, and headed out the door of her room without saying anything to her roommate. Down the halls, she avoided eye contact with everyone and did not give out her usually cheerful g'days. The walk seemed to be so long but when she got to the garage, Yindi found she was already feeling a little better.
Climbing into the backseat of her yellow convertible Volkswagon bug, affectionately named Bumble as it reminded Remy of a bumblebee, Yindi sighed and curled up on the cold leather. A shiver ran down her spine, which prompted her to fall over and lay across the seat. No Burnum, no Remy, no Kyle; the poor girl was going to develop some abandonment issues with men if this all did not right itself in the end. Her gaze dropped down to the left, to the floor behind the driver's seat. Something shiny caught her attention and after a few moments, Yindi mustered the effort to lean forward and stretch her arm out to fish out the object. Out came a bottle of some rotten alcohol, half-wrapped in brown paper but with a bow tapped to the side. It must have been left over from when the criminal couple got drunk in Bumble and were eventually discovered by Logan. What an awful night that was; Yindi was having another awful night, and so drinking suddenly seemed appropriate.
It was hard to see the label in the car but whatever it was, it burned Yindi's throat and almost made her immediately regret opening the bottle. She coughed and sputtered some, but it did make her feel just a tad bit better--or so she liked to think. People will convince themselves of a whole mess of things if given the chance. Yindi was so engrossed with her own thoughts and the burning sensation on her lips and down her throat that she had not noticed anyone else enter and walk through the garage.
One thing Pyro had learned from living on the streets was how to get from point a to point b without being seen. And currently, without being allowed off-campus, there was pretty much one place where he could go to participate in illegal activities like drugs, alcohol, and sex. (Only without the sex. There weren't any good ones at Xavier's that he either had a chance with, or hadn't had yet.) So, with a very large bottle of vodka, and all the cigarettes left to his name, he was sneaking into the garage. And in the garage, he was planning to smoke, drink, and sleep in somebody's car. Just... not that ugly yellow veedub. Someone had to have been REALLY drunk to have thought that was a "cute" car. Seriously.
He was just about to go lay himself out over the hood of a very nice classic car when he heard noises. Coming from the ugly yellow veedub. Ew. Mustering his best menacing expression, Pyro slunk over, careful not to let his vodka swish around too much. Any sounds and he might as well have had a flashing vegas sign pointed at him and tracking his movements towards the car. He stopped to kneel, settle his bottle down and pull out his lighter. Just because they were at Xavier's didn't mean they were safe, as far as Pyro was concerned. He moved closer in degrees, careful not to upset any tools, trays, or cans sitting on the floor. Again - any noise he made drew attention he didn't need. He opened his lighter very slowly and very carefully, and crept forward to place one hand on the side of the yellow disaster.
He peeked up and saw... "Princess?!" he snapped, clapping his lighter shut and knocking on the window. "Princess, what the fuck are you doing out here?!" Well this was just lovely. She'd stolen his drinking spot! What the hell! He'd thought she was a 'good' girl! "And I REALLY hope this isn't your car, 'cause damn girl, this is a disaster of a vehicle."
The exclaimation of a much-disliked nickname startled the girl and she nearly dropped her bottle. The very last thing she needed was to get caught by one of the staff members after everything else that had happened this week--or was it the prescence of the singular person that Yindi thought she might actually hate? Encounters with Pyro when she was at least remotely collected were a challenge. There was a tightening in her stomach at the thought that he would go after her while she was wallowing in self-pity and do as he intended--set both her hair and now possibly her car on fire. "Fuck," she cursed as she grabbed hold of the the little handle to roll down the window enough that he would be able to hear what she had to say quite loud and clear.
"Wha' the bloody hell do yeu want, John? Because I really doun't feel like dealin' with whatever I-hate-the-fuckin'-world bullshit that makes yeu such an intolerable bastard. Not taday." Oh, lashing out a little suddenly felt quite good and she vainly tried to get a victory-sip from the bottle she held rather tightly in her hand. The inside of the car was already beginning to smell like coconut rum. Even with the seemingly sweet addition of a fruit, it did not change the fact that it was a rotten liqour and not at all something a nice, young lady like Yindi should use to quell her inner turmoils. A swig and she coughed a little, the other hand letting go of the window scroll to wipe her mouth with the back of her dirtied sweatshirt sleeve before she continued. "And yeah, thissa my bloody car and I. Like. It."
She liked it a lot, actually, and Yindi sat for a moment glaring at John through the window. Of all people, honestly, it had to be him to come into the garage? Evidently, she was either going to need to find a new place to take Bumble or whatever ridiculous things beyond their campus grounds would simply need to stop because this was just unacceptable. Yindi went from being inexplicably depressed to incredibly irritated with a simple knock on the window. Quickly, she scooted to the other side of the backseat, neglecting to lock the front door, and pulled her knees up to her chest in a defensive manner. Maybe he would have gone away if she had not made the singular mistake of sniffling. Yindi quickly wiped her nose and stared long and hard into the back of the driver's seat.
Wow. She was... wow, that had been impressive. Blinking, Pyro just stood mutely as she backtalked him. She.. was drinking. And she had a spine. Who woulda thunk it? Certainly not Pyro, despite the very nasty slap she'd given him the first time they met. He watched her recede to the back of the disastrous yellow veedub, and he knew that now was so not the time to do his usual bullying routine. He slipped his lighter into his pocket and moved away to retrieve the vodka he'd abandoned to see who was in the veedub. Now, he wasn't going to let her off easy. But he wasn't going to taunt her when something else was obviously bothering her far more than he could have done on such short notice.
He was about to just find another car, farther away, when he heard her sniffing. Was she... crying? 'Cause if she was crying, the only nice piece of his four-sizes-too-small heart was hurting for her. He scooted over and tried the car's door. Lucky for her, she'd left it unlocked. If she hadn't, he woulda picked it. He opened the door very carefully and slid inside, cradling his vodka in his lap as he sat down. "Look. Princess." He paused and raised one eyebrow. "Do you, uh, have a name, by the way? 'Cause if you do, I totally wasn't aware." He paused to give her his best nasty grin. "If it's Princess or Sarah, I'm gonna laugh so hard that you may feel free to throw things at me, although I may burn them. Just saying." Not that he wasn't hoping for a name that was funny. 'Cause the evil bones in his body were just not liking this not being mean thing.
"Just, look - before you even tell me your name. I'm willing to put being evil aside for tonight. Just. Tonight. You got that? As soon as the night is over, you and I? Mortal enemies again. In fact, tonight, I'm even willing to be nice. To share some of my vodka. And I won't say another word about your car. In fact, I'll try not to taunt you at all. But here's the only catch. Neither of us ever speaks a word of this to anyone. What happens in the veedub stays in the veedub. So what do you say? Truce for just a night?" God he hoped so. All he wanted out of life right now was to sit down, smoke a couple cigarettes, and drink as much of the vodka as he could before he passed out, threw up, or died. (He was hoping for passed out. Vomitting was gross, and dying... well, he just wasn't into that dying thing. He hadn't come this far to die in this ugly disaster of a car.)
He was coming into the car; this was not something she had actually thought he would do and for a moment, she raised her head and her lips parted as if she were going to protest it. But just as easily, she fell silent and continued to stare at the back of the driver's seat. Yindi could hear that he too had a bottle and part of her felt strangely relieved that this was the case. Even when they were doing things that they were not meant to be doing, both because teachers would disapprove and because it was in fact illegal in this country, you did tend to feel better that you were not the only one doing it. Now, when he actually asked for her name, she frowned in disbelief. Was this actually happening? She looked down at the bottle in her hand. How much had she drank already?
It occurred to Yindi that this was, in fact, a very rare event. Even if she did tell anyone about tonight--which she was not, of course--but even if she did, there was doubt that anyone would believe her. Pyro was being, well, nice! This could be right up there with the sightings of bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster; there was no real evidence that either existed, nor would there be any real evidence that St. John did in fact have a heart. Yindi immediately thought of that movie about the strange green thing that stole everybody's Christmas and how the narrator had to magnify where his heart was because it was so very, very tiny. She snorted some in disbelief, again, that he had proposed a truce, and she nodded a little in response. To solidify the agreement, Yindi leaned her bottle to his and they clinked together. "Truce. Just for tonight. Won't say a word, not that'd anyone believe me."
As she lifted the bottle up to her mouth again, she paused and said softly, "It's not Sarah. It's Yindi. Or Venus, I guess. I doun't get why everyone needs to have codenames. I mean, do all mutants have codenames or just ones that live 'round here?" It puzzled her and even if he did not actually know the answer at least it was a start to a conversation. Wow. A conversation with Pyro, in the back of her own car, while they were both drinking. After he had threatened--or rather, specifically told--that he was going to light her hair on fire for throwing his lighter out the window. Pyro. And Yindi. Acting like rather normal teenagers. Who'da thunk it. Then, without hoping to be obvious, she wiped under her eye with the back of her sleeve-covered hand.
She was about to talk when he got into the car. He just hoped she was going to shut up in time for his little speech, because he was doing amazingly well. He was even being nice enough to ask her name! Clearly, he was being all kinds of nice tonight. If she was nice and didn't act like too much of a brat (as Pyro had decided that she did on a regular basis), he might even share his vodka with her. Ooh, if only they had shot glasses. He could play with fire and drink, all at the same time! He didn't remember the last time he'd had a hot shot, but it was really his favorite way to consume alcohol. Not surprising since, yanno, fire.
"Alright. Truce, then. As soon as one of us leaves, it's over, yeah?" He paused. "And you know, I really don't want to light your hair on fire, so let's just tell people I changed my mind and lit up a bunch of plants instead. 'Cause honestly, burning plants just smells better than burning hair. Plus, it's more fun to watch. Hair... just a straight shot up, you know. Plants take a while." He pulled his lighter out of his pocket and stared at it for a long moment. "Yindi. That's an interesting name. At least it's not 'St. John' or 'St. Agatha.' Or, you know, 'Barbie.' That'd be awful. 'Yeah, hi, I'm Barbie.'" Pyro shook his head at her question. "We all have codenames. I think it's to keep track of us. And a hell of a lot easier than remembering our names. Of course, not all mutants are recognized as such, so they fly under the radar." He glanced up at her just in time to see her wipe under her eye, but for once, he wasn't gonna say anything.
He reached for his vodka, pausing to twist off the top. "It depends on the mutant and his or her powers. The more flashy it is, the more dangerous - the more the humans want to know about it. Like you? You, they'd probably ignore. I mean, come on." He looked up at her, flashing one of his trademark smirks. "You cry glitter." Okay, for that, he totally deserved at least a not-so-gentle smack on the shoulder. "No, in all seriousness, they'd want to know about the threatening powers. Like mine. Totally offensive. Like, how much damage could I seriously do with the fire thing?" He shrugged. "But, like, some of the other mutants with powers that aren't that offensive, humans probably couldn't care less about. I mean, it soothes their various complexes to know who each of us is." He set his lighter down on the other seat to lift the bottle to his lips and have a drink. It had soothed his parents' various complexes to kick him out of the house. He was who he was because of them. Goddamned humans. He settled the bottle down between his legs and glanced up at Yindi. "So tell me, Yindi, how exactly did you come to this lovely campus for wealthy, talented youngsters?"
Not that he really cared. He just didn't want her wiping her eye to dissolve into full-blown blubbering, and he figured if he talked to her, and seemed to care, she wouldn't cry. But then again, that just might make her more susceptible to crying. In which case, he was a failure at this public relations thing. (Well, there goes one career option.) People skills just weren't his thing. At all. He preferred to traumatize others than be nice to them. The bad boy shell was the only defense he had, and he liked it. Fuck with their opinion of you. Make them hate you, and they won't want to get close enough to realize that you're just as human and emotional as they are. That you're just as vulnerable, and that you were hurting just as much, if not more. Honestly, it was a miracle that he hadn't developed truly guilty feelings about taunting others. At all.
Now he was talking to her--like they were friends? Like he was friendly? Maybe he had started drinking before she did and had consumed more than his fair share. Or maybe, just maybe, Yindi thought as John stated he would not torch her hair, he just wanted to talk with somebody without having to dish out insults and avoid physical damage. Should she tell him that her actual first name was Weema? Nah. And out of his chatty mood tonight, Yindi got probably the best explaination one could want for the whole codenames business. Unfortunately, not everyone was going to ignore Yindi--and she did scoff and elbow him slightly for the crying glitter comment.
"Thanks for the explaination," she before he changed the subject as to what what brought her to the school. The question was a good one, as she had already been thinking about it when he made the earlier comment of her being ignored. "The whole truth?" Yindi paused only to take a sip from her bottle and her face scrunched a bit, but she drew in a short breath and answered. "Well, I was in Australia, with my parents, and then one day they said I couldun't be there anymore and that it wasn't safe. They put me on a plane to Los Angeles and then to Philadelphia. They were murdered after I left. I haven't talked to anyone from Aus since then. And then, the people I was staying with in Philly didunt' know what I could do and they were showin' some real mutant resentment. Found this school on the internet, ran away, and here I am."
Yindi paused for a moment, thinking over again what he said about the codenames and being a threat. "Danger comes in a lot of different forms, though. Yeurs is pretty obvious. Anyone that pisses yeu off gets a fireball thrown at their head." That, she hoped, he would take as a light joke, the tone of her voice on the sarcastic side before it turned rather serious. "I'm not exactly sure how I could really be a danger, but... There's still danger. I think my parents were killed because of the serious droughts back in Aus or something like it. Think of what someone could do with abilities like mine. Someone could make a lot of money outta me." She had not really admitted that to anyone before, vaguely to Remy but it was something she had considered. If you thought about the world and food shortages--people in barren portions of Africa, for instance--what could a person do with powers like Yindi's? Could she grow crops? Could she save dozens, hundreds, thousands of people? In the nearing future, if the world burned, who else could get the green growing again? Yindi, and people like her. There was a lot of hidden potential in her undeveloped powers.
Feeling the conversation had just turned to a wickedly serious tone, Yindi shifted to sit comfortably indian-style. Adding in a bit of what one might think as a sultry whisper, "And I'll have yeu know that Venus is after the Venus flytrap and the Roman goddess of love. Maybe my codename means that I lure young men into the backseat of my car before I kill 'nd eat 'em." She actually smiled before she put the mouth of the bottle to her own. "Before I kill yeu, what's yeur story?"
Pyro snorted. She could be dangerous. He'd had proof of that. Actually, everyone was dangerous. Everyone. "It's not like you can't be dangerous, Yindi. Everyone can be dangerous. My parents were dangerous. A five-year-old can be dangerous. It doesn't matter what you are, what you can do. Everyone can." He closed his eyes and tipped his head back. "Everyone has the potential for danger within themselves. Some of us just have better means to make good on that." He swallowed a long drink of his vodka and sat up straight. Stupid bad boy shell. "You could claw the crap out of people with those stupid needles. I want you to know, I had marks on my face for a week and a half."
She wasn't that bad, he decided. He was feeling lenient. She was listening to him. And he figured she wouldn't tell anyone about how nice he really could be. "Everyone is capable of everything. I am capable of stealing millions, or making it fair and square. You are capable of anything and everything. It's amazing, really, what the sentient humanoid spirit is capable of." Wait... was that... St. John the philosopher? Oh, God, he hoped that didn't get sent around. That he was philosophical sometimes. "Someone could make a lot of money out of me, too. People could make billions of dollars out of the mutants in the world." He opened his eyes and looked over at her. "I'm sorry about your parents." At least she could say hers were dead. Not 'they didn't want me' or 'they feared me.' But that they were dead, and cared about her. He wondered what that was like. To have parents that cared about you and loved you. He groaned and choked back the horrible shuddering pain that that always seemed to accompany thoughts of his parents.
And then she was whispering about a Venus flytrap and love and luring young men places. He grinned and tilted his head to the side. "What if the young man is gay? Or what if he specializes in luring other young people to dark corners and sexing them up before threatening to burn their hair if they tell anybody?" He groaned and tipped his head back again and leaned his body back onto her dashboard. "My parents found out I was a mutant and kicked me out of the house. So I'd been living on the streets, doing whatever I could to get by. Be it prostitution, theft, scamming - you name it, I did it. And doing every drug under the sun to forget that I wasn't even wanted by my parents. That's when Xavier found me and brought me here." Sometimes, he legitimately appreciated that. But sometimes he wished he'd been left in Australia to do whatever he wanted.
"You tell anyone that I told you any of that, and so help me, this car gets torched, you hear me?" Despite the threat, his voice held no menacing tone. He sounded more like he was terribly emotionally exhausted, and didn't want people to know. If they knew, they'd realize that he was human. That he was vulnerable. And they'd take him down. And that... that was not something he was prepared for. Not something he could handle.
"My needles probably didn't hurt half as much as Jay's right cross." But they did tend to work when she needed them to, when she felt especially angered or threatened. Yindi had a repeated experience a few days ago when Jason showed up and... Oh, there was half of the reason she was out here in the dark with her frenemy. No sense in going down that path of thought again. She gave a little nod in response to her parents; she did miss them, but strangely, she did not miss them as much as she missed her friends. Burnum, Remy, and now, Kyle.
He was right; anyone could be dangerous, anything could be dangerous. It was people and situations that determined what that was and how it would all play out. Was it dangerous that she was sitting in this car, drinking with John? No, not really. Sure, she could drink too much and make herself sick (again) but the girl hoped she had learned from the first time. Did she think he would do something to hurt her? Nah, not right now. But could there be danger beyond the walls of the garage? Sure. Half of the staff, for instance, that would be really miffed at the fact the pair of them were drinking underaged.
When John shared his reason for why he was at Xavier's, Yindi wanted to wince for her earlier comment about how he hated the world. The poor bastard had every reason to hate the world because as far as he knew, the world hated him. Fuck, really, could the kid have had a worse upbringing and start in life? She wondered for the briefest of moments if she had every, unknowingly, crossed paths with John. If he had been on the other side of the street or down an alley; and the compassionate part of her really did want to reach out to him for the rotten state he had been in. But in the same respect, of all people, this was not the guy that wanted a weepy I'm-so-sorry-your-life-sucked hug or pat on the knee. Everyone that ended up here seemed to have a different story but they were all so similar in the end. Kurt had said that no one's stories could be compared. But... Well. Nevermind.
"Wouldn't. Won't. Still doun't think anybody'd believe I was out here with yeu." They were just kids, really, and they should be thinking about school and movies and music and who was kissing who but so-and-so said that she did not even like him and he was just using her for a rebound. But there they were, drinking away their problems which never actually worked and instead just tacked on 'and a hangover' at the end of everything else.
"Yeu really gay? So when yeu said about buggerin' and three's a party or whatever, yeu didn't even want me? I'm so hurt! So, so hurt," Yindi teased but in a good-natured sort of way. Clearly, she did not care whether or not he was gay; kids like them, their sexual preferences were the very least of their issues. Another swig, her stomach was already feeling painful--probably because she had not eaten anything all day--and she started to say, "I've nevar--" Ah, maybe not. She had an inkling feeling that maybe he would really feel the need to tease her because she was still a virgin.
"Yours hurt worse. Ice and a really great painkiller fixed it. However. Your needles, unfortunately, left cuts behind." He muttered and shifted so his knees and shins were up against the seat, and his head was back on the dashboard. He had one hand curled around his vodka bottle, and the other reaching for his lighter. "God, I'm so tired of being the bad guy. I hate humans for what they've done to me. I hate other people for caring." Pyro groaned and dropped his lighter onto his stomach. "I can't not be the bad guy. I can't, because if I'm not, I'm the one with the bleeding emotional wounds that needs to be babied. They all wonder why I do drugs, why I bully other kids, why I do half the things I do. They're all morons for not putting two and two together."
Pyro cracked one eye open and peered over at her. "They wouldn't believe you because I've never done this before. As far as they know, I'm unbreakable. This, for the record, is me breaking." At least he wasn't crying. And hopefully wouldn't be crying anytime soon. That was the worst part of falling apart. Crying. You got headaches, you felt sick, you had snot running. It just wasn't pretty. "I swear to God, I don't even know why I'm still here. I hate humans. I hate what they think of us. We're just like them, only cooler. We're human, we feel. We hurt. We fucking bleed, just as much as they do. We're them, better. And they hate us for that. Goddamnit!" He brought his fist down on his knee, as if to punctuate his frustration. As if to punctuate how much he hated that they couldn't be treated like living, breathing people.
He groaned and dropped his head back again. "Naw. I'm an equal opportunity kinda guy. If you have heartbeat, I may just be interested." He reached into his pocket for his cigarettes, and then paused. "Hey, Yindi.. if I roll the window down, do you mind if I smoke?" He glanced down at his lighter, then back up at her. "Probably not the healthiest thing I could be doing, but it's... I enjoy it." He shrugged. "And anyway, I never said I didn't want you. I just said the Guthrie brat would be more of a catch. Those wings, you know. They're pretty hot." He shook his head. "No, seriously. I really wouldn't go after you. You seem like I'm not exactly your 'type.' Plus, I would guarantee that you don't have any fun kinks. Oooh, candles are fun..."
They had to know, the adults, these grown-ups with their superior psychic powers. Emma Frost had been able to read the thoughts of others and told her exactly what the people had been thinking or doing in their own heads. Why did they not look into John like these other people? Was no one willing to help him? Or maybe it was not the matter of people willing to help but John wanting the help. Yindi had never felt like she was more dead-on with a comment before in her life, but damn if she did not feel some sort of guilt for pointing it out. John was just a walk of seething hatred, always angry, always hurting. These were things that she knew people could feel or could be like, now that John was the poster-boy for dysfunction. It made Yindi feel more helpless than sad, if anything.
A part of her liked to help people and yes, it was hard not to shift away from her own problems and want to fix John. She wanted to let him go ahead and talk about whatever he wanted and get it off his chest. It was just an inkling to what was really underneath all of that but even just letting a little of it out might reduce some of the pressure. Maybe someone else would be spared a snide remark tomorrow. "We can't give up because people hate us. Then they win. It's like, um, what they say in rap music. I doun't really listen to alotta it but I know you gotta brush tha dirt off yeur shouldahs and laugh in tha hatars faces." Not exactly having a philosophical moment; more like having a I'm-slightly-drunk moment. At least she was absorbing some bits and pieces of popular American culture, yeah? She had been trying, after all.
She slouched furth down in her seat, her legs forced to fall apart and feet rested on the floor. Her stomach was burning and she felt rather warm despite how cold it tended to be in the garage. The bottle rested on her stomach, Yindi holding it there firmly as not to spill it, and her head rolled a little to the side towards him. "Yeah, John, yeu can smoke. I useda not care so much, before, 'cause Remy smoked around me. But now that they can come outta me, I dunno, seems like I'm more sensitive or sumthin'." Then she snorted and grinned, the way she tried to shake her head was really just her head rolling side to side on the leather interior. Jay's wings! Ah, they were pretty cool. It was just funny to hear him talk like that. "Candles? I doun't even wanna know what yeu'd be doin' with candles othar than setting a romantic mood."
Yindi sighed heavily and waited for the window to go down, the lighter to flicker for a moment and for him to light up. She wondered, even if she wanted or needed to, could she make anything grow out of her? Yindi had not been outside for a day and a half, had not eaten, and now was drinking. It was a fleeting thought, there, and gone again. Before the scent of the cigarrettes wafted back into Bumble. "Apparently me boyfriend's not sevanteen or so like I thought, but twenty-five, and was arrested for first-dagree murdar when he was elevan. And the goverment took him and did some really, really awful things to him before they let 'im go again." She looked over to him a moment and added to clarify, "Don't take that as a woe-is-me thing. Yeu know, I doun't even think he hates humans. I doun't even know if that's who took'im. But I couldun't blame him--or yeu--fer feelin' tha way yeu do." The images she saw in Shy's room were like something out of a gory horror movie. And it really happened, it really happened to Kyle.
"But someone's come back'nd taken him, I doun't know where he is, and I'm really scared fer him. I'm so fucking tired of people disappearin' or dyin' or whatevar, and it be 'cause of things that can't be changed." She meant, of course, because they were mutants. "My parents, Burnum, Remy's gone 'nd I doun't know where he is, eithar. And now Kyle. That's why I'm out'ere, drinkin'. It won't help but what else am I gonna do." She lifted the bottle, not parched but wanting another drink, and added before she did, "He was--is--my first kiss, too. Sorta, I guess. I mean, Remy and I kissed once but we were really drunk and it was like kissin' a brothar. Gross." Now, sip.
"Giving up gives them what they want." He waved his hand vaguely in Yindi's direction and took a very long drink of his vodka. "Giving up lets them know they got to me. I can't give up. It's never even entered my mind as a possibility. I am and always have been a fighter." He sighed and sat up straight. "And for the record? Laughing in their faces gets you into more trouble than you were in before. Trust me. Just don't." He took another sip from his vodka, hoping that the action would chase away the ghosts of the old days. Somehow, he didn't figure it would. He was like a soldier or victim of war, able to distance himself from the events but not ever truly able to escape the horrors. He was a drug addict, able to go several days without feeling a craving, but never able to quit his addictions.
"You'd drop the wax. Like, on the other person." He twisted to pull up his shirt just slightly, revealing a long discolored line on his side. "You just have to be careful not to use wax that's too hot. Sometimes it can lead to scars. See?" He let his shirt drop back down and he curled back up with his head on the dashboard. "Sometimes I wish I was like you and your friends. I didn't have to be the bad guy. I could just hang out and my biggest worry would be whether or not the bully would screw up my dance with my girlfriend or boyfriend, or if I'd get my homework done." Pyro snorted and looked up, up at the ceiling. "God, that would suck. To be innocent like you all are, and to have your boyfriend just suddenly be eight years older than you thought. I wonder... what that feels like." Age made little difference to Pyro. Not anymore. Not now that he'd had sex with people of all ages, sexes, and races. Before, it might have bothered him. "You shouldn't worry about him. We're tough. That's what's so cool about us. Because we're stronger than humans. We have to be, or we'd already have died out."
He sat up and pulled his knees up to his chest, fitting his bottle between his legs. "Drugs, sex, alcohol, violence. We think it's the solution, but it never is. And once you get into the cycle you can't ever stop. Trust me. I've been there." He snorted. She wasn't sure about the drunk kiss. That somehow.. seemed so amusing to him. So innocent, so much different from him. "Don't count it. If he's like your brother, then... don't count it." He groaned and dropped his head forward onto his knees. "At least you have a boyfriend. People that care about you. Me? I got that old guy from that restaurant that I gave a blowjob and stole fifty-four bucks from. That's it. God, I hate that."
Pyro made an agonized sound and threw his head back. "Yindi, Yindi, tell me what it's like. To be normal, not to be the bad guy. To have friends, to be liked, to be able to go someplace and not have people cower in fear. To not have to terrorize people to keep them away from seeing how pained you really are. Tell me what that's like. I need... I need to know what I'm missing."
Sometimes, you look at a person and think, there is nothing that I can really learn from them. For whatever the reason may be, usually that they are either nutters or seemingly stupid or are a complete and total mess in their own life and you write them off. Moments like this are rare, when you have to sit back and realize that a person regarded as a complete loser or nothing but a jerk was actually dishing out serious life-lessons. And it was not even as though John was intentionally spouting wisdom; he was just telling things like they were in his life. There were a lot of low-points in it, too, John's life of sex, drugs, and not so much rock 'n roll as neglect 'n hate. If Yindi were not already getting looped, she might have been really inspired by all of this. If anyone knew what life was like when it was good, when it was really good and what it could really feel like to have come so far, it would be John. He should have been dead in a gutter years ago, but there he was.
His scars made her nose twitch; nothing on his outside could reflect the scars on the inside. Yindi snorted too, never having thought of her circle of friends and their biggest worries being homework and school dances. Sometimes that was what all of the girls would be doing, talking about clothes and homework and boys, but Yindi was not completely average; she did have her rule-breaking streaks, like tonight. But in comparison, she was pretty much the princess John thought her to be. As he went on, Yindi thought she felt her heart break a little for him--but she could never, ever tell him that.
Everyone needed a little human contact from time to time, and it did not have to be the kind you had to get all naked for, either. Hugging her bottle to her chest with one hand, Yindi scooted over on the seat and moved close enough to John that their shoulders were touching. Well, more like Yindi's shoulder touching his upper arm, but she was slouched down. She tilted her head and it came to rest on John. It was just a little human contact, done just to be one person to another and without expectations of any sort. She hoped he would find it to be... nice, if anything at all. If he shrugged her away in repulsion, could she really be all that suprised or offended?
"Whut's any's normal. I gidup, eat breakf'st. Take a long, long time to git ready, waitin' fer tha sun. Up befo'e tha sun. Think about thin's. Books. Class. Homework. Go ta class, talk wif me girlfriends. Kat'ina, she's me best girl. Class, lunch, class, class, class. Most days I just, yanno, go 'bout doin' thin's. But I dunno if all of this's right fer me." Yes, she was slurring, but her brain had not completely gone to the bottom of the bottle. There were thoughts, important things she wanted to say; the thoughts were there, she was just experiencing some technical difficulties in getting them out. "Whut's normal anymore. Yeu, though, yeu know... yeu know how hard i'can really be, yanno? Yeah, yeu know. And yeu survi'ed. I dunno if I can survi'e. Dunno if I'm's strong as yeu, Kyle, 'emy."
Yindi gave a big sigh. Damn it, what she was trying to say made so much more sense in her head. How did it come out? She really could not be sure. Her free hand rubbed over her face. Ha, yeah, as if that were just going to clear it right up. "Wish I could fix yeu, fix eve'ybody. I dun't want anybody to hurt. Wish I could. I dun't care what yeu or Kyle did 'cause--'cause yeu had ta. Yeu shouldn'ta had ta. Yeu survi'ed bu'chu ain't livin'. Always survi'in' 'nd t'at ain't right." Even though he was here at the school, John still had his guard up. Only in secretive, rare moments like these could he ever really let himself feel much of anything. And then it was all immediately repressed again by large quantities of vodka and a few cigarettes. "Yeu're no'sa bad, yanno. I promise, I won't puke on yer shoes. Have'a habit of'at. A lil'." She lifted the bottle to her lips but, in mind of keeping the promise she just made, made a better judgment call and held it to her stomach again.
She wasn't so bad, once he'd got the image of society completely pulled away from her. Honestly, he had to wonder if everyone was like Yindi - not so bad, once you'd pulled away society and examined them for their personality. But that... that was a dangerous thought. John shoved it away just as quickly as it had popped into his head. She was a person, they were all... people. But that wasn't something that John wanted. He didn't want society. You let people close, and they had all the power and tools in the world to hurt you. He knew that from experience, and he hated to let that happen.
And then she was close. Not... emotionally close. That wasn't new. She'd been emotionally close since he'd opened his big fat mouth. No, she was physically close. And while that had absolutely nothing to do with sex, it was physical contact, and that... was something John knew and didn't mind. He didn't shrug her away, but he didn't lean closer. She was slurring her words, but he could still make out most of it. "Normal," he repeated, blowing smoke out of his mouth. "None of us here are normal, no matter how much we want to kid ourselves that we are." He dropped his hand outside the window of the little car, still holding onto the cigarette.
He groaned and tipped his head back. "You get up before the sun? Jesus, no wonder you had your panties in a twist when you slapped me. It was like ten at night. Obviously, you were sleep-deprived." Sleep deprivation. Ooh yeah, that was always fun to deal with. At least that was better than a hangover, which he was sure Yindi would have, and almost positive he'd have one, too. "Fuck normal," he said, leaning forward to down another swallow of vodka. "Normal is boring. Terribly, awfully boring, and not worth the trouble. Rather piss people off than make them love me by containing who I am. I am who I am and I am fucking proud of it. But you... you're not so bad yourself."
Sometimes, when two unrelated people with barely anything in common got together, something pretty awesome happened. It was called "commiseration." Even though two unrelated people were involved, they were each able to offer an outside view of how to solve the other's problem. In this case, it wasn't so much solving as alleviating. But still, he liked to think he was doing something pretty awesome, helpful, and useful. "Yindi," John started. And then, a pause to take another drag from his cigarette. He watched the burn on the outside end of the cigarette, revelling in the feel of the burning hot smoke being pulled into his mouth and lungs, and then rolling back out again. Screw the nicotine, John did it for the smoke. "Yindi, you can't fix everybody, you can't save everybody. Without the hurt, no one would understand happiness. Without something to compare to, you become locked into how boring happiness is. You can't take away the hurt, because without it... without it, everything ceases to be meaningful." Apparently, he hadn't had nearly enough alcohol. He was still able to think. And be philosophical. Dear God, he hoped nobody ever found out about this. "I'm not saying I'm right to hurt people, I'm not saying people have been right to hurt me. But we need that. Or society crumbles because we start loking for ways to get out of the boring, boring, boring cycle." Wait - had he just... included himself into... society? Oh God, that made his head hurt. Or was that the cloud of smoke and the vodka? Eh, who knew for sure.
The cool air from the garage seeped into the car and began to eat up all of the warmth that the two had created just by sitting and talking. Yindi, who was almost always cold when not in the sun, stirred a little against John and set down the bottle on the floor as carefully as a drunk person could manage. She listened to him speak, she was a good listener but better when sober; he was talking about normalcy and there was something that she wanted to touch on about it. How they were normal in this place, in this school, because everyone was the same in a bigger sense. The little bit might have come out nicely had any more words been able to travel to her mouth, but alas, they were lost somewhere behind her eyes and that was that. A chill ran down her spine and Yindi curled up in a ball against John, pulling her knees against her chest and snuggling down into her sweatshirt so her nose was under the hem. That way, when she breathed, it was a little warmer. Granted, the air smelled like alcohol, but it was warm.
She was going to smell like cigarette smoke in the morning but she would not mind it so much. John said her said and she grunted slightly as if to say, 'Yes, I am awake and listening'. But given another minute or two, Yindi was out. Having successfully commiserated with the school bully in her 'disaster' of a car, both soaked in alcohol, and both able to get some stuff out in the open--even if it were to never be spoke of again--it was all right to pass out now. Just for now, Yindi was not thinking of the images of her boyfriend being someone's experiment, her best friend gone and away, and the family she thought she would always have presumably all dead. Just for now, John was not the school bully, but a person that bled like anyone else and hurt just as much. There was a respect there, now, just for now. Something about need, he said something about society needing something and she just sigh heavily. Time to sleep, a real, heavy sleep, and hopefully without nightmares. Which leaves John to talk to himself.