Room 508, Friday Morning

[spin_kick_snap]

After her discussion of gymnastics, Kathy found herself in the mood to go through a routine or two. She hadn't really done much since coming back after break and she was starting to feel it. She had a bunch of excess energy lately and without either gymnastics or her studies to pour it into, she was getting restless.

The weather made her decide to skip the gym, so she headed back up to her dorm. There wasn't a lot of room in there to maneuver, but that just meant she had less room for error, right?

A bit of shifting to push her desk over to Flick's side gave her enough space to work out and she quickly changed into her usual workout gear: sports bra for what little chest she had, comfortable yoga pants, legwarmers and socks. Then she put her iPod into the speaker dock and started blasting workout music. Most of the girls she'd gone to lessons with had liked soothing, classical music to work out to. Kathy? Really liked dubstep. It just seemed better to move to!

Okay, warm-up time. Her muscles were stiff and needed to be stretched before she could hit the floor properly, but before her playlist was even halfway over, she was bringing her feet over her head and in front of her face like normal.

...Well, a gymnast's version of normal, anyway.

[Door ajar and post open! Up early because new canon makes me want to plaaaaay her and I should post before I get distracted again. I'll pick up pings in the morning. If you want to know what her warmup looks like, the link goes to a gymnast video. SFW, but it plays music so you might want to mute it. Also, just watching her hurts my everything.]

Comments

[genesishero]

Evan had been meaning to do this for a while now, and every time he got up the nerve, he found himself second-guessing, telling himself that if Kathy needed or wanted someone to talk to about... whatever that jumping thing had been, she would have asked.

And then he'd heard her gasp in Professor Alenko's class, and couldn't help but think about all of that help that he wasn't asking for, and...

Well, his tastes leaned more toward Hank Williams than Skrillex, but he was going to linger in her doorway pretending to be interested in the music all the same. At least for a minute. Before he nerved himself up to speak.

"You're really good at that," he offered, because that seemed like a good starter, right?

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy was lying on her chest, with one leg pressed against the wall and the other bent backwards so her foot could touch her head. Well, it was supposed to touch her head, but she was still limbering up, so it was mostly hovering a few inches above, stubbornly refusing to extend further.

It was definitely a weird pose to have a conversation in, which was the only reason she was unsettled by Evan in her doorway. Really. It wasn't like there were any conversation topics she wanted to avoid or anything!

"Thanks," she said, giving him a little wave. Both arms were outstretched in front of her, which made that easy enough. "I've been doing it for more than a decade now."

[genesishero]

If you didn't want a conversation, you should've closed your door, silly Kathy.

"You've worked hard at it," Evan decided, looking at her thoughtfully. "I mean, just looking at that pose makes me feel a little noodly, and..." He shrugged. "Noodly is kind of my thing."

He gave his toe an awkward little kick against the floor.

[spin_kick_snap]

Well, she would have if she'd thought of it! She just hadn't considered the possibility! Who wanted to randomly drop by and talk to her anyway?

"I've kind of been letting myself get out of practice," she said, stretching her leg even further, so the bottom of her sock brushed her hair. Just a liiiittle further. "I know better than that. My old coach would murder me if she knew."

[genesishero]

"I had an uncle who would be really disappointed with how far I've fallen out of touch with my own training since I came here," Evan noted, nodding a little. "Stretching and running and all kinds of things. I do what I can in the mornings alone, but it's not quite the same as it used to be."

Of course, he wasn't really training to touch his toes to his head, either.

Though he could. Without bending his legs, if he wanted to.

[spin_kick_snap]

Show off. Unlike some people with powers, Kathy had to use lots of practice and exercised to be able to touch her head with her feet.

Or, as she was trying now, to touch the ground in front of her face with them, pushing more of her weight on her chest and shoulders to make her legs stretch further forward.

"I should really go down to the gym and see what they have for equipment. Even if they just have a bunch of mats, I can still practice my routines. Not enough--" she grunted slightly. This wasn't as easy as it looked, you know. "--room in here to do much more than stretch."

[genesishero]

Hey, now! If Evan was a showoff, he would've been getting down and stretching along with her!

"I'm sure they have mats in there," he replied, leaning against the doorframe. "If they don't have them in the gym, a teacher would probably open up the danger shop. And I think there's a gym in town, too, if the one in the school won't work."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Yeah, I guess that does make sense," Kathy said, "I just haven't really thought about it much."

You know. Practicing. In public. Where people could see her.

[genesishero]

"Just not comfortable with being out in the open about what you can do, huh?"

You know. With her gymnastics and all.

[spin_kick_snap]

Oh that was getting you a dirty look right there, Evan. You were getting glared at by a girl with a foot on her head.

It also bought her time to come up with a suitable counter-response. Or try. "I--no! Just what are you insinuating, anyway?!"

Oooh, sick burn. Good job, Kathy.

[genesishero]

"... That... some people are weird about doing warmups in public..." Evan replied, blinking. "Unless there's something else I should be insinuating?"

Because he could! He had plenty of things he could insinuate!

[spin_kick_snap]

"Well, I'm not weird," Kathy grumbled as she worked to twist herself into further pretzel-like formations. "I just...should also have a spotter if I'm doing certain gymnastics maneuvers and stuff. And since I don't, it's just easier to work out here."

Yeah. That totally didn't sound like a spurious excuse!

[genesishero]

Nope, not at all!

"... There are probably plenty of people who would be willing to spot you at the gym, though. Have you asked anyone?"

Excuse, smothered!

[spin_kick_snap]

"...No," Kathy admitted, looking away. "I don't really know anyone. It feels weird asking people to spot me if I don't even know them."

[genesishero]

"I could spot you," Evan offered, smiling faintly. "I mean, I'm mostly training in fighting, but there are a lot of things I shouldn't be doing without a spotter, either. We could, um, trade off?"

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy uncoiled herself from the floor and pulled herself into a sitting position. "That's really why you stopped by today?" she asked. "To offer to be my gym spotter?"

[Stupid LJ never stupid posted this!]

[genesishero]

"Well... no," Evan admitted sheepishly. "I didn't know you needed one until just now."

So coming with that in mind would have made for an interesting secondary mutation that he'd never anticipated. Clairvoyance would be useful, though.

"I... kind of mostly just wanted to check up on you. I mean, I know you're in Professor Alenko's class by mistake this semester, and I know it can't be easy, being so... out of place?"

Yes, out of place? No, out of place? There was a window to talk, if she wanted it. Or to close in his face, if that was her preference. He left it there and took a step back and now the ball was in her court.

[spin_kick_snap]

"It is that," Kathy agreed, deciding against just slamming the window down. "It's not easy seeing yourself in a position of privilege when you're not actually used to it, you know? Plus, people keep sharing these deep, personal stories and not only do I have nothing to contribute, I also feel like I'm being rude just listening. Kind of like I stumbled onto a survivor's group meeting when I was just trying to find the bathroom. I can't share, I can't relate, I'm just a tourist listening to other people's pain."

[genesishero]

"I remember that feeling," Evan offered, settling against the doorframe again. "When I first left home I felt it a lot. Everyone in my other school had all of these heartbreaking stories about being thrown out or chased down when they first manifested their powers, and me... I had a supportive family who just never seemed to care, and an uncle who would show up regularly to help me train them. Compared to all of my classmates, it just seemed way too good to be true."

It had been.

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy just nodded. "I mean, my parents would probably freak out if I suddenly, err, manifested? But I don't think they'd kick me out. My dad swears up and down that family is sacred."

She didn't want to think about him turning her away from the house. It would probably destroy her.

"But I don't even have powers, you know? So that's one more point of commonality I lack."

[genesishero]

"My Pa used to swear the same," Evan said softly, and then he shook his head, snapping himself out of a funk before he could really slip into one, and smiled up at her. "I'm glad you have a family you can rely on, powers or no, Kathy. Life is too confusing to tackle alone, whether you can stretch your limbs out or fly or..."

He stopped himself, gave a shrug, and then added, "or whatever. And if you ever do want any help with the classwork, I'm always around, somewhere. I do have the perspective of someone who's been through a lot of what Professor Alenko is talking about... and... I dunno. I want to be helpful, I guess."

[spin_kick_snap]

"But what am I supposed to need help for?" Kathy challenged. "I'm, like, the one person in that class that doesn't need help. I don't have powers to learn to master or control. How are you supposed to help me with homework to get in touch with powers that I don't have, huh?"

[genesishero]

Evan tilted his head at her, and then offered her the tiniest smile.

"You're still in the class," he pointed out, gently. "I can't help you get in touch with powers that aren't there, of course. But a lot of the class is talking... discussing where people are coming from, getting in touch with what really makes us tick."

He shrugged his shoulders a little.

"You might not have powers," though he wasn't completely convinced about that, "but you have things you're good at, too. You're a very skilled gymnast, so far as I can see. More than most people around here. Why not get in touch with that, instead?"

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy waved at the wall where she'd been practicing when he came in. "You think I'm not?" she asked. "I mean, I do all the exercises that Professor Alenko has us do. I'm probably one of the most in touch with my body in the whole class. So what, exactly, are you helping with?"

[genesishero]

"You just said that you can't relate," Evan pointed out with a shrug. "And you feel like you don't belong there. Well... I do belong there. I get what Professor Alenko is talking about when he mentions... most of what he's brought up."

He sighed and reached a hand up, running it through his hair. This trip up here had probably been a mistake.

"So you're the odd one out in a gallery of freaks and oddballs, and you come from this place where you can't just ask us what it's like in the middle of the classroom, because you'd feel rude poking at us. I'm offering you that. Someone willing to talk about it, who grew up pretty normally so far as I could tell, to talk about the anger and fear and denial without you having to feel like you're an unwelcome spectator in a group therapy meeting."

He didn't put stress on 'denial.' But yes, that word was there for a reason.

"Because if you don't want to actually understand, there's not much point to you still being in the class."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy huffed. And humphed. And made other breathy noises of exasperation.

But she also didn't say anything, because Evan had a really good point that she couldn't actually argue with.

"So," she asked a minute later. "What is it like? And you might as well come in. My bed's made if you wanna sit down."

More grudging than not, but it was an invitation?

[genesishero]

It was something, yeah. Evan even gave her a little smile as he came into the room and took a seat on the edge of her bed.

"It? That's a pretty broad range of things to talk about, you know. Do you mean 'it,' being a person with powers in a world where most people don't have any? Or 'it,' coming to terms with having them in the first place? Or just what my powers mean to me?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"Being a person with powers," Kathy decided. "I mean, the heroes in my world make it seem so cool, but I've read enough Y-People to know that it's not all fun and games."

And whatever hope remained that it wasn't all like that had been dashed by class.

[genesishero]

Class did have a depressing way of being brutally honest about it all, didn't it?

"I... guess I can't really speak about anyone else's experiences with their powers," Evan noted, thoughtfully. "Some people are perfectly comfortable with theirs, they've had them their entire life or they don't really have anything to be afraid of. For me... it's usually pretty great. I mean, I can light a candle by looking at it or pick a lock with my fingers if I forget my room key inside. But... people stare." He glanced down at himself. "And they talk. Where I'm from it's not actually all that far from the stuff in the Y-People books. Humans have done some pretty awful things to us since they became aware that we exist."

[spin_kick_snap]

"You don't consider yourself human?" Kathy asked softly. "Not at all?"

[genesishero]

"I... want to," Evan admitted quietly. "My parents were human. Or... I..."

No, he wasn't going to go there right now.

"They were human. And I figured there was nothing weird about me until I got my powers, and then I left home, and that's where it all kind of fell apart. I don't think I'm not human... I'm just... a different kind of human. But with the way a lot of them treat us back in my world, sometimes it's hard to see anything but 'us and them.'"

He sighed, a little more raggedly than he would like to.

"And even that doesn't feel right. I don't want there to be a 'them.' I'd be happy if it was all 'us,' no matter what genes people have."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Were?" Kathy picked up on that past tense. "I'm sorry. That's rough, with or without powers. But they were okay with everything? I mean, you said you got powers and then you left home..."

She didn't want to pry here, especially not with him having dead parents, but he'd also said that she could ask him about things.

[genesishero]

"They were proud of me," Evan agreed softly. "It was too good to be true."

Literally.

[spin_kick_snap]

That whole thing just sounded like a landmine, one Kathy wasn't sure if she wanted to tread on. She was going to back away quickly and pounce on another topic.

"So, you developed powers and came here?" she asked. "Or did you stop somewhere else first? Because this whole island seems like a pretty open and accepting place."

[genesishero]

Evan exhaled a breath he hadn't been aware he was holding, and then gave her a tiny smile, thankful that she'd changed the topic a little.

"I went to a different school before coming here. One for just mutant students. It was great for learning about mutant history and for developing my powers, but I didn't get along very well with some of the students, which is why I came here."

That was... kind of what had happened, yes!

[spin_kick_snap]

"So, like, have you been personally harassed by regu--err, non-mutant humans?" Kathy asked. "What is the right word for that? Or, at least, the least cumbersome?"

[genesishero]

"Where we're from... humans." Evan shrugged his shoulders a little. "We refer to ourselves at mutants. It's a hard label to shake. And yeah, I... have had some bad run-ins with humans, actually."

He sort of sounded a little surprised when he said that.

"Like I said, I grew up sheltered. I didn't get any of this until a couple of years ago. But once I did? Giant robots made to kill us, a crazy man in the woods with guns, a pack of kids who have been trying to just outright kill us. Someone shot a good friend of mine in the head." He swallowed. "The teachers of our last school try to shelter us from it as much as they can, but it's them against the whole world. They can't catch everything."

She probably hadn't been thinking of extermination attempts, so much, when she asked about harassment. Oops.

[spin_kick_snap]

Yeah, Kathy had been thinking more along the lines of nasty words, maybe some fistfights, catcalls. Not something straight up out of the most heartbreaking pages of Y-People.

"How do you manage?" she asked quietly. "How do you keep going on without just, I don't know, snapping? I mean, yeah, obviously you don't want to let them turn you into something you're not--" she's heard that often enough growing up "--but it's got to be so hard to resist pushing back."

[genesishero]

"A lot of people do push back," Evan replied softly. "They go beyond defending themselves and they make humanity the enemy, innocent or not, because that's how humanity treated us. And they take it to extremes... 'If you're not with us, you're against us,' and anyone could be a casualty along the way and if a person has strong enough powers and a weak enough will, they can be broken and twisted and made to do anything."

He hadn't been. He hadn't been pushed that far. He'd come close. He'd come so, so close. He'd had Sabretooth in his hands and was ready to rip him to shreds. The Skinless Man. Mystique. He'd wanted to hurt them all.

But he hadn't.

"But that's not how I was raised."

Real or not. That wasn't the sort of person he ever wanted to be.

[spin_kick_snap]

"...I don't know if I'd ever be that good," Kathy admitted in a small voice. "I was chased by some guys on my last trip home. I ran, but part of me wished I could do more than just run. Part of me wanted to stop them. I just--can't."

[genesishero]

"If they were chasing you, they're the kind of people that need to be stopped," Evan pointed out softly. "They're not innocents, not children or people who haven't raised a hand to wrongfully hurt someone. Wanting to do more... that's okay. And the fact that not everyone can..."

He shrugged his shoulders a tiny bit.

"That's not your fault. Not everyone has to be a hero, just because they've been made a victim. It took me a while to sort out the difference between wanting to hurt people back, and wanting to keep people from causing harm in the first place."

[spin_kick_snap]

"They were Seventeens," Kathy said, then clarified, "a gang in LA. They've been harassing a lot of people in Koreatown."

Which wasn't doing any favors for her father's rants about how the neighborhood had really gone downhill after all the non-Koreans moved in. Sigh, Dad.

"I'm not sure if what I wanted to do came from wanting to stop them, or from wanting to hurt them for scaring me so bad. But, either way, all I did was run." She gulped. "Really fast."

"Really fast."

[genesishero]

Evan hesitated before coming up with his reply to that. Really fast?

Really fast. And then he chewed his lip, and he nodded.

"I've run away from people who chased me before too," he offered softly. "People who wanted to hurt me. People who did. And all I could think at the time was how disappointed my parents would have been, me turning and running from the bad guy. I... I have these powers, I'm strong, and I was taught never to run. But I was scared. So I ran as fast as I could."

He scuffed his toe against the floor, not quite looking up.

"Sometimes, running is all you can do. No matter how strong you are or what else you might be capable of doing. People who are strong enough to level city blocks, who have been in control of that ability for years, still run away, sometimes."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Like Blockbuster," Kathy said with a nod. "A hero from my world who can just slam through wall after wall after wall, no matter what it's made of. The Mighty Dragon says we're lucky he wanted to become a hero, rather than a bank robber or something."

She tucked her knees up under her and held them, feeling unaccountably vulnerable. "I'm so confused," she admitted. "I just keep thinking that it can't be real, that things like that don't happen to people like me. I'm too afraid to believe it, you know? Because what if I do believe it and then I turn out to be wrong? I don't want to believe I'm special for a few days or weeks and then go back to being a nobody."