The X-Project

Kevin needs to get out of the mansion so his head can clear a little in the wake of Jay's death so he and Julio head out to a pool hall of the dive sort.

Kevin had been trying to not turn into the Most Depressing Roommate Ever since finding out about Jay from Nori. While he'd be more mute than usual he seemed to be succeeding through sheer force of will alone. He liked Julio and being Doom Cloud Guy wasn't exactly going to make the guy thrilled to be in their suite or to run into his roommate. Thinking that maybe Doctor Samson was really onto something with the change of location he decided he needed to get out of the mansion and maybe even out of Salem if he could manage it.

When he heard the door to the suite open Kevin put down his pliers and wire to turn and see if it was Julio. "Hey, do you play pool?" There were stranger random questions that had come out of his mouth. At least this one resembled a normal human interaction, which Kevin sometimes thought was rare for him but he was likely overestimating his own strangeness.

Julio blinked. He had to curb the urge to point and yell 'Holy shit, it can talk!' but, that would probably be considered rude. Instead he said, "Yes, yes I do."

The delayed response wasn't lost on Kevin. Obviously he dealt with death badly. Alright, everyone dealt with death badly but he just didn't deal. He sort of sat around seeped in it. Kevin needed to be less absorbent. "Ah need out of here for a while. Wanna come? Hunt out a pool hall and stuff? Bonus points if it's not in Salem at all."

"Okay," Julio said, setting down his bag by the door and then swinging the keys still in his hand. "But I'm driving."

Julio's normalcy was helping Kevin, even rubbing off a bit. So much so that the first thing out of his mouth was, "Am Ah gonna survive to tell the tale from that?"

"I make no promises," Julio said, gesturing out the door with a jerk of his head. It was obvious that some guy time was in order, and Julio would be doing a huge disservice to the guy code if Kevin's obvious need for company was ignored.

Kevin glared at him without malice as he got up, leaving what he'd been working on where it was and not bothering to move it anywhere else. "Gotta be safer than being in South America with you," he shot back lightly. Was the evil panther people Julio's fault? Nope. Actually it was likely more Nathan's fault for sending them there but Kevin had been fond of blaming Julio ever since he'd found out what it was his roommate had told him to say in case of trouble. Yeah, son of a whore, that went over real well.

"Central," Julio automatically corrected. "And you can't still be mad about that. If I had known you would actually use it I would not taught you that phrase."

Kevin pointed to himself and deadpanned, "Gringo," with the twangiest white Texas accent he could manage. It was scarily accurate and he silently vowed to never do that again. "If Ah'd known how much trouble Ah'd get into Ah wouldn't but what else am Ah supposed to do when it's me and John and Guatemalans want to arrest us?"

Julio rolled his eyes. "We going or are we going to argue about the trip that I have completely blocked from my mind?" And as far as the girls at Vassar were concerned, the leather bracelet he wore on his right wrist was a gift from his girlfriend, and in no way because he was slightly paranoid.

"Completely?" Kevin didn't sound convinced. Something about being turned into a jaguar made an indelible impression on a guy. He left it there and grabbed his hoodie, though. Kevin even held open the door and gestured Julio through with a sarcastic, "My petal."

"I don't think those guards hit you hard enough," Julio deadpanned.

Kevin snickered. "Ah dunno, there's been this rattling in my head whenever Ah shake it too quickly ever since then."

"That's assuming there were things up there in the first place," Julio added, shutting the door behind the two of them.

The friendly jibes at one another continued the entire way to the pool hall. Julio managed to not kill them, but Kevin maintained his roommate was just saving it for later like the cherry on top of the sundae. Or maybe he figured someone would shank Kevin in the pool hall. He sort of liked it, dim and dark and a bit too low brow for anyone who wasn't working class folk.

"Ah'm pretty sure a little girl could've gotten that shot on a good table," he commented as he stood up. Their pool table seemed to lean a bit off to one side which the boys had decided just added to the challenge of it. Kevin wasn't faring all that well with the so-called challenge as he'd just missed a shot so easy that missing it made him groan.

Julio raised an eyebrow as he chalked the tip of his pool cue. "A blind little girl could have gotten that shot, hombre," he commented dryly before leaning down to take his shot. The felt on the table was ancient and pockmarked from years of scratches via pool cues and cigarette burns. His cue connected with the white ball and it hit the 6 with a satisfying clack, straight into the left corner pocket. He smirked as he stood to look at Kevin. "I ever tell you about the time I was in a shootout with my father in a pool hall?"

Kevin gave Julio a dry look in response. "Next time Ah'll bring Yvette and have her play for me." It seemed the flat, sarcastic tone was staying in his voice for the night with Julio around. A small glare made it Julio's way when the ball sunk into the pocket so easily. He even grumbled a quiet, "Bastard." Leaning into his cue propped on the ground beside him, an eyebrow was raised at the mention of the shootout. "No, why you making up the story on the spot to pretend it's true?"

"It's true," Julio said innocently. "I was ten, my father was meeting a client, next thing I know I'm behind the counter with my hands over my ears," he hit the four, but it bounced off the corner of the pocket. He made a face at it.

The missed shot caused Kevin to smirk a little. "Was your father participating in the shoot out or was he just there? Ah'm thinking the meeting wasn't going too well if he was in it." Kevin took his time to pick his shot. On a good table he was better at this. After all, he was an artist. He could see lines and angles easily, but the rugged terrain of the seemingly suitable table was thwarting his every turn. His cue was chalked up while he decided to go after the nine in an attempt to bounce it around the two and into the side center pocket. Kevin leaned over and paused after positioning his cue. "Isn't a pool hall sort of shady for a yen year old anyway?"

"My father is an odd man," Julio said amiably as he watched Kevin line up his shot. He decided not to mention the whole thing was technically his father's fault. Only that they ended up having to leave that town posthaste.

"Is that why you left Mexico?" Kevin entirely blamed living with Julio for the reason why he pronounced the country's name properly, accent and all. One day Mexico would reclaim the x-sound, just not while he lived with Julio, it seemed. "You lived in Mexico, then somewhere else, then California, right?" Taking his shot finally, Kevin sunk the nine into its intended pocket, though it just barely made it in thanks to a bump he didn't remember that was just in front of the lip of the hole.

Julio nodded appreciatively at the ball hit the pocket. "No, I left Mexico because some Douche with a bucket on his head yanked me out of a hospital and then made me blow up a city," he deadpanned. "Summer was the first time I'd been back home since then."

Kevin made a mental note to stop shoving his foot down his throat with that one. One day he would have to get the full story of San Diego, though he likely have most of it in pieces by now anyway. He'd never bothered to go too far into it since it was an obvious wound for Julio from the conversation they'd had when Red X had gone out to help reconstruction. "Ah haven't been home since...Ah left." Whether or not he ever intended to step foot in Georgia at all, nevermind the Atlanta area was still something undetermined for the young man. Shoving the thought out of his mind, Kevin moved on to line up his next shot for the one ball.

Julio was well-versed in guyese to know that the subject was hopefully closed. It was weird to think there were now people floating around in the mansion who had know idea who he was or what he had done. He wasn't particularly eager to run around advertising himself. He guessed if people asked or wanted to know he'd be honest about it, but otherwise...

Julio leaned against the pool table nonchalantly as Kevin took his shot.

Kevin ran his hand over his intended trajectory in an effort to map the terrain of the table. It seemed to work alright as the one rolled happily into the left corner pocket. It failed him when the eleven veered off into no-nonsensical-direction-at-all. "Never play pool with a telekinetic," he muttered. The dip in the table had sent the ball so off course that the first thought in his head was Nathan was around somewhere messing with their game. Of course, he wasn't but that wasn't the point.

Julio raised an eyebrow at Kevin. "Terrakinetic," he corrected, "And I don't cheat. I don't need to to beat you."

Confusion sprang suddenly on Kevin's face. It was the look he tended to give Julio whenever the guy started to mutter at him in Spanish. It took a bit for the confusion to clear. "Oh, not you. Just that the table's so messed up it's kinda like there's a telekinetic sittin' around, pushing balls some way or another just for fun." He glanced around, seemingly suspicious that he was actually correct in that thinking. "'Sides, it just seems to be a bad idea to play against one anyway. Imagine how hard it'd be to figure out if Mister Dayspring was cheatin' at pool or not?"

"It'd be easy, we'd know he was cheating because he would be winning," Julio said lightly.

"What if he wasn't winning by a lot, though?"

Julio shook his head and lined up his shot. "My father says the only time Nate can win at anything is if he gets everyone else drunk and if he cheats. But this is my father, so--" he struck the 10 and it sank into the pocket. He flicked his hair out of his eyes with a toss of his head and walked around the table, considering his next move. "Nate owes him a finger, anyway."

"What'd he do, cut it off and feed it to Rachel?" Kevin knew, logically, that any finger stealing was probably pre-baby but the idea of owing a man a finger puzzled him enough that he had to default to the more humorous version. "Ah think your father's probably kinda bias where Nathan's concerned." The same could be said of Kevin, though.

"Story changes all the time, but Nate does like explosives," Julio said.

Kevin shrugged. "Well, he's a fluffy bunny. Bunnies like things that go boom."