Forge and Kyle

[x-wildchild.livejournal.com]

Kyle is down in the gym abusing yet another of the infinite supply of heavy bags. (Seriously, Charles' budget for those must be crazy.) - and Forge goes looking for him, to ask what's up with Kyle avoiding everyone.



Kyle wasn't feeling much pain - not in his hands anyway, but that was because he actually knew how to hit the bag now. And fingerless gloves made all the difference between venting frustration and venting frustration -and- bleeding on the floor.

And bleeding on the floor always ended up with someone bitching him out, and he'd had more than enough of that for one week. Between Sam, and then Jay, and then Sam again and then Dr. MacTaggart, he was pretty sure he'd filled his yelled-at quota. Not that it had ever stopped him before, but yelling-at had to stop eventually.

And this heavy bag took beatings pretty well. Nice and solid and thick and full of water, which made hitting it feel different than the sand filled kind. More solid, and more like hitting a real person, somehow. Sand made that funny crunch sound, water just went thud.

He had the earbuds to his iPod strung up under his shirt, just in case he decided the shirt needed to go, and the volume on "Mr. Gibney, you are going to make yourself deaf." - at least by certain teachers' standards, and every angry song he could find on random rotation. The music was probably audible through the earbuds, and Kyle didn't really care. That was the idea - that way people would know he was angry and they wouldn't bother him. Or at least they wouldn't sneak up on him.

Forge leaned against the doorframe, having watched Kyle unload on the heavy bag for a full five minutes. His roommate was obviously intent on unleashing some kind of frustration - even with his attention focused like that, normally the feral youth would have at least smelled his partly-metal roommate less than ten yards away.

While definitely no empath, Forge could almost taste the anger just coming off Kyle. Forge had been surprised the last few nights to find Kyle huddled on his bed either reading or with his eyes closed and headphones blaring, when usually he'd be in with Jay either watching TV or... well, Forge might have been naive about some things, but his friends' relationship wasn't one of them.

But this? This was something altogether new, and this much aggression was excessive even by Kyle's standards. So Forge, finally tired of the waiting, did the safest thing he figured he could do to get his roommate's attention. Scooping up a heavy medicine ball in his left hand, he heaved it across the gym at Kyle's back.

There was a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye, and Kyle told himself to ignore it, that it was a classmate, and they would go away and leave him alone. But telling himself something hadn't worked well in the past either. The flash of steel and skin told him it was Forge.

The rush of prickly goosebumps down his back didn't tell him anything, and Kyle reacted anyway, dropping flat to the ground just before the medicine ball soared past the heavy bag, hitting the ground with a thud.

"What the holy fuck was THAT for?" He yelled, too loud, over his music, before pushing off the ground with his hands and springing to his feet.

"Seeing if you'd gone all grr-snarly-stupid down here, since you missed dinner and it's already late," Forge snapped back, folding his arms and leaning against the wall. "And I wasn't about to come tap you on the shoulder, last thing I need is to have to build myself ANOTHER arm."

"I ate. And I'm not gonna tear anyone's arm off." Kyle practically growled. "And you can tell Jay he can take his "You're just an animal." and shove it up his ass so far that he's puking it back up the next day." He turned the iPod off, because yelling over Henry Rollins screaming in his ears was too much to deal with, and stared at Forge.

Forge blinked, suddenly stunned. "Jay said what?"

Suddenly it all made sense. Jay's sudden decision to leave, his not wanting to go out with the group - something was wrong. For a moment, Forge realized he couldn't tell what troubled him more: that something was wrong, or simply that he didn't know what it was.

"That doesn't... I mean, he didn't have any call to... what happened, man?"

"He didn't tell you?" Kyle asked, now more confused than pissed off. "Huh. I figured he'd have told everybody by now. I, uh... " He shrugged. "Guess I cheated on him, but I feel stupid saying it, because it sounds all like, bad television show or something." That and he'd have to think about it more, and he'd been really hoping not to ever have to think about it again.

The revelation literally made Forge's jaw drop. "You didn't... I mean, you two... and... you fucking idiot!" he blurted out, rising to his feet. "What was this? When? Who?"

"A month ago, girl at the fight club, she called looking for me and of all the fucking people to answer the phone, it was Sam." Kyle spat out. "Otherwise Jay would've never found out, except Sam got it in his head that I had to go tell him." He peeled the gloves from his hands, pretty sure he wasn't going to get a chance to be left alone to beat on the bag some more, and stuffed them in a pocket. "And yeah, I know I was a fucking moron. I wasn't thinking, and she came on pretty goddamn strong."

Forge shook his head, sighing. "I suppose I'd be the last person who should give you grief for making stupid choices there," he admitted, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck. "I know what it's like, believe me."

"Yeah, you didn't get caught." Kyle said. "I know it was stupid. God knows I know. I'm not sure Jay knows, but he's not talking to me anyway, so I guess that's pretty much a done deal. Not sure it'd do any good either, cause I'm pretty sure I told him I knew it was stupid."

Cautiously, Forge walked over and put a hand on the heavy bag to stop it from swinging. "Look, I'm not going to pretend I understand what you're going through with Jay. But you're both my friends. And I'm not going to bitch you out on his behalf for being stupid, sounds like he's got that under control. Are you okay?"

Kyle rolled his eyes at Forge. "Lesee. I'm down here beating the fuck out of a heavy bag, and the guy I was ... whatever the hell Jay and I were.. hates me and thinks I'm as no better than oversized and scary who works for Buckethead. Hrm. Lemee think about that." He ran a hand through his sweaty hair, spiking it in all kinds of wild directions. "Actually, yeah, for the most part, I think so. I don't think anyone else wants to kill me besides Jay, and I'll... figure something out there. Or not."

"He's leaving," Forge said, a little more curtly than he intended. "I mean - he's moving on, concentrating on his music and stuff. I always knew it was inevitable, this just kind of seems like... I don't know, I'd make 'breaking of the Fellowship' references but even I'm not that much of a geek."

"Good, cause I'd have to hit you or something." Kyle said, snorting out a laugh. "And yeah, I saw his post on the journals. I'm just not saying anything. I'm pretty sure he'd find a way to have Sam set me on fire or something and, hey, I like my skin. I'm not Marius." He shrugged again. "I'm not just gonna, you know, let Jay leave without trying to talk to him though. I'm not that much of an asshole. "

"Good," Forge agreed. "And try not to hole up down here? I mean, I know I'm not one to talk about spending most of my day below ground in a lab or the garage, but still. Life's too short to waste on running away from stuff."

He paused, mouth-half open as if he'd just given himself an idea. "It really is," he repeated. "Hey, I gotta go do something. But later this week, you want to grab some folks, head to the mall or something? I hear they're importing the new DDR machine from Japan."

"I spend too much time down here and people come haul me out by my hair anyway. And not just Logan." Kyle answered. "Besides, I'm trying to get that whole required math thing done and over with. I figure if I gotta be stuck here over the summer, I might as well make some use of the time, right?"

He shook his head and Forge, and laughed. "Right. I get advice to get out of the gym, and you go back to the lab? Pot, your phone's ringing and it's totally the kettle. And.. yeah, I need some out of the school time before someone finds me and grounds me again."

"And this time, I promise if any gravity-manipulating weenies or hopping green man-bitches show up, we're gonna own the shit out of them," Forge insisted, motioning to the door. "Come on, I saved you some dinner upstairs. Unless you're still all grr-snarly-emo?"

Kyle chucked one of his gloves at Forge's head. "I am never emo, jackass. And if the green man-bitch shows up again, I am totally throwing you and anyone else I can get at him first. Dude broke my -jaw-. I like my jaw. It lets me eat. Which, by the way, means that yes, I need some dinner." He headed towards the door, catching the glove as Forge threw it back. "Dude, since when did you pitch southpaw?" He asked, as they headed out.