'cause clever got me this far

[23rd]

Who: Laura, Kiden & Remy
What: Laura drags home a stray her friend because it is unacceptable to eat garbage when there are people to help you, Kiden.
Where: Wanda and Remy's house, Abrogate Green
When: Shortly after this.
Notes: None.
Warnings: Probably some foul language.

"This is where I'm staying. It is the house of my..." Laura pauses, unsure what their relationship actually is. They're definitely not related, and she wouldn't know what familial title to ascribe to these people even if she wanted to use one. "Friend," she decides on eventually, with the expectation that Kiden will trust her judgment when it comes to people not being dangerous.

Laura's pretty good at telling who the dangerous people are.

She's taken Kiden from the alley she found her in here -- it's a long train ride from Chimer to Abrogate Green, clear on the other side of the city, but it gives them time to catch up. Well, it gives Kiden time to talk and Laura time to listen, because she has very little to say. She's not good at taking care of people, but she assumes Remy will know what to do about this. She trusts he'll be able to get her settled, because Laura doesn't blame Kiden one bit for not trusting the people at the Inn. She certainly didn't.

She opens the front door and enters with her. It occurs to her she ought to say something instead of just quietly sneaking through the door all the time -- she's been lead to believe that announcing one's presence is normal from the television -- at the Institute, she watched a lot of old sitcoms -- and the students themselves, who had a habit of bursting into rooms and immediately shouting at each other. So instead of hauling Kiden through the house until she could leap at Remy like some kind of terrible home-invading ninja (or your average cat), Laura calls out like a normal human being. "Remy."

Comments

[bangyoudead.livejournal.com]

They're both so chatty! It's fun. Remy sticks the re-heated food on plates (two - he already ate but who knows what Laura's been up to this evening, and it's better if Kiden doesn't eat alone and end up feeling weird), and deposits that, silverware, napkins, and four-out-of-six cans of ... something, it's a non-earth fruit flavor, soda still attached to plastic rings on the table.

There.

Remy nabs one can of soda for himself and sits down, treating the scavenged fruit as normal (...for now, look, she can't go on doing that). "You're from New York?"

[timewreck.livejournal.com]

The fruit is normal, okay, no matter what Remy and Laura think. They just need to be washed off. A lot. Perhaps with bleach and acid. Or better yet, let's just throw it away when Kiden isn't looking.

"Yeah." And that's all Kiden replies with before she tucks into the food that tastes far too good to be real. She could be polite and wait for Laura to eat first, but she could also starve for the rest of her life if she follows Laura's lead. Table manners are not the most important thing to Kiden here, so there's some plate scraping and a burp or two to crack all the gabbing that's obviously going on here.

[23rd]

There's probably ice cream or something in the freezer, anyway, the fruit may very well end up mysteriously disappearing and be replaced by it. Kiden needs the calories.

Well, Laura's certainly not going to make small talk, and she's perfectly fine sitting there saying nothing and doing nothing while Kiden eats. She eats what's in front of her -- slower, because she's not starving -- as she knows better than to turn down food when she might not know when the next time she's going to have access to it is, and anyway she likes Remy's cooking.

When Kiden's nearly polished everything off, she suggests, "It is late. You can use my room." It'll be like a slumber party! Which she's never had and does not actually know what it means except that the other girls at the school occasionally got really excited about sleeping in sleeping bags in the den and playing truth-or-dare for some reason, but.

She doesn't suggest a time limit for that offer. Kiden may well assume it will only be for a few days.

[bangyoudead.livejournal.com]

That Laura takes the initiative there, versus Remy having to broadly ask So is she staying in your room or on the sofa? speaks more than anything else to the fact that Kiden Is Laura's, she might as well write her name on her. That's good, he thinks. For both of them.

"You want a shower first? I just did laundry so we should actually have clean towels," he muses, thinking of... all the absurdity that goes on in this house like Do we really have clean anything, fuck... yes, probably. "...An' I'm pretty sure the bathroom on the second floor ain't destroyed."

[timewreck.livejournal.com]

"Where are you going to go?" Though Kiden's pretty sure Laura is implying that they can share space like the good old days, she's learned never to assume that Laura thinks like a normal person. Kiden's seventy-five percent sure Laura doesn't actually sleep any more than she just... blinks for a really long time, so giving Kiden her entire bedroom is something that's likely to actually happen. Though in her mind, there's a time limit for everything. Maybe for a couple of nights, tops. She doesn't know the limit of Remy's hospitality and quiet as it's kept, Kiden's already thinking of other homing options where she and Laura can go.

It's a very short list, by the way.

"I don't have anything," she confesses the obvious as she turns to Remy To wear, to change into, money, a family, so on and so forth.

[23rd]

Her making the offer says a lot about her feelings for him -- and by extension everyone else who lives here -- as well. If she didn't feel like she belonged here, if she didn't want to live here, she wouldn't have put it out there. She thinks of this as her home, too.

"Nowhere," she says. Not that she has nowhere else to go, but that she's not leaving, except maybe to prowl around outside for a couple hours, restless like she usually is. But she'll either share the bed or sleep on the couch, it makes no difference to her.

Pause. She knows what Kiden's saying, but Laura always goes for the practical first. "We can find you clothes." Is she helping? She's helping, right? Guess what she's gonna buy with that money she got from the Inn, by the way.

[bangyoudead.livejournal.com]

I don't have anything pulls at him in a way that'd get everybody who cares about people - cares about kids - and he watches her closely. "Yeah you do," he says quietly. She's got Laura, and by extension him, and Wanda, and everything that goes with that. (Not that he thinks he himself is some great resource, most of the time; there's plenty of people who'd rather drag every child he comes in contact away from Gambit, Redneck Cajun Criminal Womanizer Villain Extraordinaire, but this is what they've got to work with.)

"You can borrow some pjs and we figure the rest out in the morning, no?" He finishes the soda he's drinking, and pops the synthetic-aluminum tab off, a habit.

Remy stands up, and goes to clear away their dishes - he assumes Laura can march Kiden to where she needs to be without him looming over everyone's shoulders for a few minutes.

[timewreck.livejournal.com]

He's right. She does have Laura. Not quite in the frame of mind of thinking she has anything or anyone other than that here, Kiden nods anyway, hoping a hot bath can clear her mind. She's been dying for a shower even before she left New York, really. Her hair's greasy and her scalp itches something fierce and even her own odor is getting to her now full stomach.

Does she say thank you? Yes, she should. "Uh... thanks," Kiden mutters, suddenly feeling detached from the situation, and choosing to glance at Laura for the next step in this dance. How is Laura so comfortable about this guy when she isn't? Maybe Kiden just doesn't want to get to attached to the goodness in adults. It never lasts long. Look what happened with Cameron. And even though she didn't give Dr. Reyes much of a chance, Kiden didn't trust her enough to let things get that far anyway.

It'll be a while before she trust this weird-eyed guy to not stab her or Laura in the back.

[23rd]

Laura takes that as a cue that everything's settled and stands up. "I will show you the bathroom." That is the most seriously anyone has ever uttered that phrase, by the way.

She moves without waiting to be sure Kiden is following her, just assumes that she will for a variety of reasons. She points out both the bathroom and which room is hers (theirs), in case she doesn't want to come hang out in the kitchen again when she's done. She'll bring her some spare pajamas as well, and a quiet word from Remy results in her taking her old clothes when she's busy and not paying attention. Hopefully she'll take the new ones she's bound to get (there are all kinds of stores open all night in Baedal, it having a significant nocturnal population; she could go tonight and get them while she's asleep, before she can protest) but at least her old ones will be clean. Clean clothes can mean a lot when you don't have a spare set and some quarters.

She and Remy will probably have a brief discussion, if not tonight then sometime soon -- he'll need to know about Kiden (and the others), what she's been through and where she's coming from, although Laura suspects he can guess about a lot of it. Someone should know, because the Institute failed mutant kids like Kiden and she deserves that kind of attention. She's had this conversation with him before, but he's from before that happened, which means there's some stuff she's going to have to admit to again. That's fine, it doesn't bother her, it's just odd.

[bangyoudead.livejournal.com]

With the air of someone who's familiar with what Kiden's reaction will probably be when she finds out her clothes have been nicked, Remy carefully goes through all the pockets, and leaves any potential finds (even bits of trash - you never know what's sentimental) in a plastic ziplock bag in Laura's room, while her clothes go straight into the washer.

He doesn't ask Laura if she's okay, or if she thinks Kiden is; they'll talk when this is less overwhelming and when it feels less like whispering outside of someone's bedroom and pretending they can't hear. He stops her once, as they go about arranging space, and tilts her chin up so he can look at her, and smiles a bit.

"Everybody'd be lucky to have a friend like you, Laura."

(And that fruit is getting chucked.)

[timewreck.livejournal.com]

Good move that he did that because as soon as Kiden steps out of the shower and notices that her former clothes are now MIA, she almost rips the house apart before she realizes that her precious few belongings--a lighter, rubber bands, a random key, a Metrocard, and the most important thing of all, her letter to her mom--is safely situated on Laura's bed.

Much calmer than she was just a few seconds ago, Kiden sits on the edge of the bed, pushing around the junk that litters the floor so she can toe the bare carpet. How'd she get from the little girl she used to be to the almost grown woman she is now? Kiden knows how. It's something she's figured out years ago, but sometimes she still can't believe it. And how she ended up in Baedal adds another fragment to a story she thought was already completed. Nothing will ever make sense ever again.

There's a pair of sweatpants with her name on them temporarily and Kiden pulls them (slipping the zip bag into one of the pockets) on to make her way back down to the kitchen so she can get those two things she left behind earlier. They better still be there.

[23rd]

It surprises Laura every time how much Remy's approval means to her.

She nods instead of saying anything, not an agreement so much as an acknowledgement of what he's said. Curious, though. She assumes anyone would do this for their friends. She'll have to ask at some point, something she files away for later.

(Taking a bullet to the face is probably not something most people would do, no, Laura.)

Unfortunately for Kiden, the fruit is long gone. Having taken care of her stuff and decided she's going to pick Kiden up some extra clothes later tonight, Laura is sitting at the kitchen table again, eating ice cream, which looks ridiculously out of character for her. (It's funnier when she has a cone.) But Laura loves food, especially food with strong flavours. Sometimes sweet things are too much for her palate but everything in Baedal is made from real ingredients -- real sugar, not high fructus corn syrup, real fruit, not fruit flavourings, &etc -- and the difference is palpable. "Hi," she says, then glances at the ice cream box and the extra bowl she sets out, then back at Kiden.

[timewreck.livejournal.com]

With anybody else, Kiden would just stand there with a confused look on her face when Laura speaks strictly through looks and body language. But she can read her friend easily enough to get the message clearly that she says hi back and sits down across from Laura.

"Where'd you put my stuff?" Kiden doesn't ask this in a demanding tone. In fact, it's super casual as she reaches out and slides the ice cream box towards her. Fuck a bowl. All she needs is a spoon. And her stuff.