The X-Project

Kevin and Davey color together and then agree to play frogs. 

Since being given the coloring books and colored pencils, Kevin had spent.....most of his time using them. It was good to sit on Davey's couch, or on the floor, and just do whatever he wanted. He'd never had access to colors before. Life inside had been....nothing but grey and black and brown and white and the red of his hair and the red of his blood. This was different.

Here he could go outside, but more than that- he could try to copy what saw out there onto the papers. He could put down what he saw when he stared at the lights too long and then closed his eyes- the swirling hues that reminded him of his powers.

He sat on the floor of Davey's place, back against the couch as he colored on the coffee table- he'd long since finished the coloring books, but was now focused on making his own designs on blank paper that he had pulled out of something Davey had called a "printer."

The door was already open when Davey realized where he was.

Davey wasn't especially good with time. He knew when it had passed and had a basic sense of "a little" or "a lot", which was usually enough. It felt like it had been a long time since he'd seen Jim's room.

Now there was someone else here. On the floor. It was a man who wasn't Arthur, because his back was too skinny and his hair was red. Davey didn't recognize him, but he didn't feel out of place. Something about him didn't feel . . . adult, either.

Cautiously, the alter stepped into the room and cleared his throat.

"Um, hi."

Kevin didn't immediately notice anything different- although Davey was usually more talkative- he asked a lot of questions about Kevin's day. "Hi Davey."

"You know who I am?" Davey blurted before slapping his hand over his mouth like he could somehow push the words back in. He tried to be more careful, but no one had ever known him before he'd introduced himself before.

Kevin turned around to look at Davey with a confused expression. "Aye? Ye were ma first mate." He tapped his temple with one colored pencil, looking at Davey incredulously. "Ye told me that when ye looked in ma head."

"Oh. Sorry. I thought you thought I was somebody else." Davey gave his head a short, sharp shake. So really he was talking about Jim, which was disappointing. Still, this man did feel familiar in a way not many people did to Davey. Plus he was in their room, so it was probably fine.

Davey plopped himself onto the floor beside Kevin, crossing his legs beneath him in the boneless way that would have made Jim wince. He leaned forward to cradle his chin against the heel of one hand, eyeing the redhead curiously.

"Yeah, that was me, but kind of not. I don't do the head stuff. Can I have some paper?"

Kevin frowned but passed Davey the paper. “Yeah ye dae. That’s how ye told me ma name.”

Davey accepted the paper and immediately folded a corner to the opposite edge, making a square from the rectangle. "Kind of? It's hard to explain. Sometimes David thinks differently. Like when he's stressed out or needs to do something he doesn't want to. Or sometimes that's just how we're feeling. It's just how his brain works. Usually we don't tell people when it happens. They think it's weird, or I'm pretending. I'm not, though," Davey added, a little sulkily. "I was me before anyone else was. Anyway, you have to be okay or we wouldn't be talking like this."

Kevin's frown deepened. "But- this is how ye acted when a met ye? Ye're actin like Davey again."

Davey felt a flush rising, though not at the other man -- he hated when Jim fronted because he couldn't feel Jim, or what Jim was doing. It just reminded him how much the world went on without him.

He tried to calm down, like Charles always reminded him to do when he started to feel like this. He didn't know what Jim knew, but Jack was always around, and Jack shared if Davey thought to ask. Most things, anyway. Davey stared down at the paper in his hands and waited to see.

"Oh. You're from . . . somewhere else." Davey scrunched his face with the agony of third-hand memory. It wasn't really like talking to Jack, more remembering something he'd forgotten. "Okay, I think I got it now. We knew each other there, right?"

Kevin nodded. "Ye were the only person who wis ever nice."

"Yeah, that sounds like me," said Davey, brightening. If this man thought he was acting like himself again it meant he knew Davey, not Jim. How often did that happen? He leaned forward, suddenly eager.

"Okay! So what happens is, sometimes I don't remember stuff I should?" Davey folded down the excess paper, creasing it away from the triangle. He tried not to sound too excited. "It's annoying, but I do okay if people help me. Like now, I basically remember you, but not your name. Remind me?"

"Kevin." He said with some finality. "Apparently everythin has a name? But a didny until ye told me."

Davey nodded. "Yeah, that sounds like me. David's a know-it-all." He paused to tear the rest of the paper from the triangle, then jerked his head up, suddenly inspired. "Hey, what about Kev?"

Kevin made a soft noise that might have been a question as he leaned back over the paper to carefully add more color to his drawing. "Whit's that?"

The alter opened the paper and pressed it against the floor, making a series of quick creases and folds. "It's a nickname. Like, there's names your family gives you, and then there's names your friends give you. Or names you give yourself because you like them better, I guess. Davey's a nickname for David, technically. Anyway, I don't have to if you don't like it," he added hastily, "I just thought maybe it could be a thing for us, because we're friends?"

Kevin’s chest felt warm and a real genuine smile free from any sort of predatory grimace spread across his face. “Yeah. I like that.”

"Yeah?" Despite his determination to be the Cool One Davey's face split in a grin. Practically all his life people had been judging him by how different he was from Jim and the others before they even really got to know him, but Kevin didn't seem to care. In fact he seemed to like Davey better. It was a thrill.

The weird, dull ache in his chest told him getting a smile out of Kevin was, too.

"Okay, then I'm calling you Kev. And I got our first project, too." Davey made a few final folds to the printer paper and held it up to Kevin. It was a simple paper frog.

Kevin's eyes lit up. "Whit...whit color are they outside?"

"Oh, they can be lots. I can find some on my phone so you can see, but really they can be any color you want, actually. Because what I'm going to do is I'm going to make a lot and we're gonna make all of them jump--" Davey pressed down on the frog's hindquarters with an index finger; it did more of a back-flip than a leap, but his point was proven "--and we turn it into a contest to see which one does it the best. Like a bracket? We test two frogs at a time and the winner goes up against the next winner. But I need you to color them so we can tell them apart. Wanna try?" He picked up the frog and held it out to Kevin, an offering.

If anything Kevin's smile grew, splitting his face almost uncomfortably wide. "Yeah...is this....is this play? A never got tae dae that before."

"Well, you're gonna be doing it a lot now," Davey declared matter-of-factly. He handed the frog to Kevin and grabbed another sheet of paper, beaming.

"Later I'll show you how to throw knives."