Kyle and Forge and a raft.

[x-wildchild.livejournal.com]

Forge stretched out on the wooden raft, eyes closed, just feeling the sun hit him, reflect off the water, and dance chaotic patterns across his eyelids. The sun wasn't actually so bad, he thought. Liberal application of sunscreen to his exposed arm and leg, and he'd hopefully avoid the worst of the inevitable summer sunburn.

This was nice, he thought. Wouldn't want to live this far from civilization, but for a weekend away, it was close to perfect.

How anyone could -sleep- when there was perfectly good water to go swimming in baffled Kyle. He was all for naps, but swimming definitly trumped napping. And there were all kinds of interesting -things- in the pond.

Coming up from under the water, with just the top half of his head showing, he eyed Forge on the raft, eyed the raft itself, and decided now was a good time to get out of the water. Had anyone asked, Kyle would've said it was due to the threat of snapping turtle, and had nothing to do with tormenting Forge.

Of course, Kyle would've also been lying, had anyone asked.

He hauled himself up onto the edge of the raft, and then pulled up out of the water, not quite looking like he'd just leapt up out of the pond to land on all fours.

Forge sat up rapidly, finding himself drenched with water as Kyle shook back and forth like a dog. "God DAMN it, Kyle!" he yelled, more in surprise than any actual irritation. Scooting away on the raft to get away from Kyle's spray, Forge rocked back and forth to maintain his balance, his consternation slowly turning to laughter.

"Dork," he finally proclaimed, splashing his roommate with a handful of water. "You could make interrupting an introspective moment into an art form, you know?"

Kyle couldn't answer for several moments, doubled over with his arms around his sides, laughing. When he finally did say something, even then he had to stop to snicker every few words. "Man, the look on your face. Besides, who's the dork. I'm not the one wasting good swimming time by being all deep thoughts guy."

Forge simply made a face at Kyle, peeling out of his wet t-shirt and wringing it out. "There's still swimming time. We don't fly out until noon tomorrow, and there's still a month and a half of summer. Just had a lot on my mind lately, that's all."

"Yeah, but... " Kyle shook his head. There wasn't a lot of point in argueing, and he wasn't sure he could explain it, or that even if he could, Forge would see it his way. "More genius inventing?" He really hoped it -was- a genius inventing thing, because otherwise it would probably mean something else, and that meant he'd have to think about what was wrong, who was upset and half the time, he got it wrong. Like with Jay.

Forge wadded up his shirt, rolling his shoulders and looking over at Kyle with a shake of his head. "Nah, personal stuff. It's... okay, remember Amanda's friend Charlie? The guy that was helping her with her magic research? He..." Forge took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "He killed himself earlier this week. And I'm still trying to understand why."

"Huh?" Kyle stammered and stared at Forge for what felt like forever. "He.. huh? That kind of dorky guy? Huh?" He shook his head slowly. No, that couldn't be right. That didn't make any -sense-. Kyle sat down on the raft with more care than he would normally take and continued to stare blankly at Forge. "I .. dude. If you don't get it, I sure as hell don't.. "

Forge leaned back, letting his hair dip into the water. "I've pretty much accepted that I'm not going to 'get it'. I just... angry, you know? Wondering if I could have done something. But when I take a step back, and try and look at it from the outside?" Forge opened his eyes, staring up into the blue sky. "Nothing I could have done, I think. I was a good friend, I helped when he came to me. Why he didn't for this... I guess I'll never know. That's what I hate. Not knowing."

"You're not gonna go walking around insisting that knowing and fixing are what you do and, I dunno, no .. weird.. science stuff to ... " Kyle trailed off. "You can't do that, can you? I mean, I don't think you would, but .. you can't, right? Cause, there's won't and can't, and God knows I get enough lectures on what I should do and what I can do and ... okay, shutting up now." Sometimes he really hated his mouth and that it really didn't talk to his brain.

"I've already told Amanda she's not going to be stupid and try anything that'll break her brain over this, and I already know my limits." Forge sat up, feeling the cold water drip down his back. "Besides, I've caused enough trouble lately trying to help people with my big brain. Fat lot of good it's done."

Kyle was halfway to lying back on the raft and getting comfortable when Forge made the comment about his 'big brain'. "Dude? If you're the reason that Catseye's been totally, you know, not around at all? You're going in the pond." He sat back up, arms crossed.

Steeling himself, Forge nodded. "I kinda goofed up big-time there. And I'm still trying to figure out how to make it right."

Dunking Forge was -easy-. Just a matter of Kyle leaping from one side of the raft to the other, putting his weight on the same side as Forge's and shoving the older boy in the shoulder, resulting in both of them landing in the water with loud splashes.

Spluttering, Forge came to the surface, pushing his wet hair out of his face and treading water. "Okay, I deserved that," he admitted once Kyle's head broke water. Dog-paddling over to the side of the raft, Forge leaned his upper body on the wood, idly kicking his legs to turn the raft in slow circles. "Have to admit, I'd let her throw me in the lake a dozen times if it'd make her feel better. It's easier to deal with than crying."

"Yeah you did." Kyle said, once he'd gotten the pond water out of his nose and mouth. "Spill. What'd you do?" It had to be something big, and more than just Forge's moments of being a tactless jerk. That never bothered Catseye all that much or for very long.

"Okay, you can't tell anyone," Forge said after a moment of thought. Kyle was as much her friend as he was, he probably ought to know. "You know how she's always going on her 'cat, not human' spiel? Well... I kinda proved her wrong. She's human. Human parents, human family, human birth certficate and name. I thought ... I thought she ought to know the truth. Didn't think it'd hit her like this, though."

"So... you basically just told her she's not a cat, even through she's convinced she is, and she's not coping?" Kyle rolled his eyes. "You know, for a smart guy, you're really dumb. I mean, if someone said "Hey, Forge. Really, you're an alien.", you'd freak, right?"

"Well, I know that now!" Forge shot back. "It just seemed like the right idea at the time. I was wrong, okay?" He dropped below the surface, blowing out bubbles momentarily before rising to flop up onto the raft. "But I mean, what if I didn't tell her? What if I knew this, and then months down the road she found out I'd been hiding it from her?"

"And what if you got someone with more brains than you about people to tell her?" Kyle continued to tread water absently. "Its not like you had to do it yourself. If she's got a family, maybe someone who isn't seventeen should be telling her? Or deciding not to?" He scowled. "I swear, you brainiacs think you have to do everything yourselves. Jesus."

"All right, jackass," Forge replied with a glare, "then how would you handle this? Because we've established I don't know shit. You tell me how I make this right."

Kyle hauled himself up on the raft, then shook most of the water off his hair and arms. "I don't know. How the hell am I supposed to know? I'm not the Professor or Doc Samson or anybody who knows anything about brains, people or cat. But dude, you're not either."

"I just thought she ought to know the truth. I mean," Forge turned his head to look at Kyle. "okay, imagine you'd spent the next ten years in that place where Mr. Dayspring got you out from. And they made you think stuff about your past that wasn't true. Wouldn't you feel you were entitled to know what actually happened?"

Forge levered up onto his elbow, gesturing emphatically. "She's got a family, man. And for almost fifteen years, they've thought that she's dead. Seriously. I found the paperwork and everything. Kind of freaky."

Kyle was halfway to saying that even if he'd been convinced that he was some kind of super-mutant from the arctic wastes, he'd not want it dumped on him all at once, and then Forge's words caught his attention. "Freaky like how? I mean, freaky like, okay she's not dead and we know it and they don't, or freaky like something else?"

"Freaky like I've got birth certificate that matches her fingerprints - even says she was born with that tail. And paperwork saying that she died as a baby, crib death during a big blizzard. My thought? She turned into a kitten and somehow got loose. I can't begin to imagine what that does to a family. And now I have to wonder, don't THEY have a right to know?" Forge drummed his metal fingers against the wood surface of the raft. "I'm just not sure."

Kyle frowned. "Dude, I thought when people died they needed a body for that kind of thing?" That didn't make any sense. Not at all. "I mean, if I had a baby and it disappeared, I'd say it was missing, not -dead-. That's fucked up." He shrugged. "I dunno what to tell you. That's freaky. I guess they should find out, because if Catseye is their kid, then they've got parental rights or something."

Forge nodded, then gave a quick smile. "For the record? She's a few months older than you are. You're still the baby."

"Am not." Kyle snorted. "Meghan's like, thirteen even if she looks five. So there." That still weirded him out, a lot. Teeny monkey kid was actually closer to his age then one of the little kids' ages. "I was kinda worried actually, because I mean, okay, dog years are like, seven to one, and I don't know how many cat years are, but Catseye aging way fast would've sucked. A lot."

"Explains why she learns so fast, though," Forge noted. "Her birthday's in a week, you know. Not sure if we ought to do something. What do you think?"

"Can you make a cake out of pastrami and sardines? Because I'm not sure Catseye's gonna eat a regular one." Kyle mused. "I dunno that I'd want something huge, but maybe it might convince her that being a human being's not awful? Or that she can be both a cat and a human being and that its not like, one or the other?"

After a moment of contemplation, Forge smiled brightly. "Kyle? You are a goddamn genius, you know that?" He stood up, balancing uneasily on the small platform. "That gives me a great idea. Stand up."

"If you push me in the water, I'm going to so kick your ass later." Kyle said, sounding definitly skeptical, but standing up anyway. Curosity was likely going to get the Gibney dunked, but if it wasn't a dunking, it might be cool, and a dunking wasn't going to hurt him any.

Forge smiled, then reached out quickly and grabbed the taller boy by the wrists. "You said nothing about pulling!" he yelled, falling backwards to dunk the both of them into the pond.