xp_logs | [Forge, Kyle] Blowing Up

Kyle comes to get that ride into town from Forge. Turns out that Forge hasn't been dealing with stress in a healthy manner. Voices are raised and things are broken.

Kyle could hear the bass and drums from Forge's music long before he got in sight of the lab door. It echoed a bit in the metal-lined hallway, tinny and just a bit off-key to his sensitive ears. But he was used to that from Forge, and it was easy to shrug off, as it wasn't -that- bad. It wasn't like he could feel the bass coming up from the floor.

At least, not until he got to the actual lab door, and then it competed with the crackle-hiss of ... well, something Kyle couldn't identify, but he figured it involved welding one piece of metal to another one, since the whole thing smelled like burning tin foil.

"Dude! DUDE! FORGE! DUDE!" He yelled, over the music. "FORGE! DONUTS!" He had figured in the time it had taken him to finish the homework he had been working on, that Forge had gotten into a project. But ignoring the call of donuts was just not right, and had to be dealt with.

Forge hunched over his normally-sterile work bench, squinting behind smoked glasses as he finished the last of the microwelds. Holding his left arm up, he raised his glasses with his other hand to inspect the modifications. Wiggling his prosthetic fingers, the small plates of metal slid back into place, covering up the internal workings of his forearm with mechanical clicking sounds.

Something else sounded odd, and Forge reached over to turn his music down, just in time to catch the tail end of Kyle's ranting. "Oh, hey," he mumbled, looking around for his watch. "I miss dinner or something?"

"No, just donuts." Kyle answered, rolling his eyes. "You know, the ones you said you'd take me to get, so I can get my damn pig back?" He ran a hand through his hair, noting that it was probably time for a haircut. Again. "Damn pignappers."

"Pig. Pig, right!" Forge wandered over to the small sink area, sticking his arm under the faucet and hearing the small hiss of steam and the pinging of cooling metal. "Yeah, sure, donuts. Um, why do you need donuts again?"

"Dude? Did you hit your head?" Kyle asked, honestly sounding concerned. "The ransom note? From the pignappers? They want..." he pulled the note out of his pocket and unfolded it. "A fresh dozen donuts, all chocolate, no sprinkles." He watched Forge carefully, just in case there were any signs of concussion, or illness, or someone having taken over his brain and replaced it with someone... stupid.

Forge smirked, then shook his head. "Yeah, now I remember. Sorry, I've been a bit sidetracked lately. There's been a bit going on, you might have heard about it."

"Uh... -yeah-." Kyle said, sprawling - somehow - on one of the stools and kicking his feet up on a set of shelves. "Dude, your floor? Totally freezing. And you know it's a little hard to miss the whole "Hey, Jennie and Marius are back from their totally bogus adventure in Europe except they're all fucked up and sick."

Forge walked by and smacked Kyle's feet off the shelf with an irritated look. "I put my tools there," he grumbled, rummaging around for where he'd hung his shirt. "Yeah, they're back, for all the good it does."

Kyle waited until Forge had turned to dig around somewhere else for the shirt and put his feet right back where he had them. The floor -was- cold. And Forge was in a foul mood, apparently -and- holing up in his lab messing with his own parts. Which Kyle thought was entirely too much like jerking off. "Better here than there." He said.

Forge threw the shirt on half-buttoned, then turned to pause and scowl at Kyle. "All right, fine, come on, we'll get your donuts so you can get your pig back. I'm amazed you haven't just tried to sniff it out yet."

"Tried that." Kyle said, still planted on the stool, feet up on the shelf. "Whoever had the pig knows I've got a nose. I figure they have it somewhere either stinky, or sealed in tupperware or something." He shrugged. "And I didn't think about the note until like, I'd had it for a while, so all it smells like is printers and me."

Finally taking his feet down from the shelf, he spun lazily around on the stool a few times until he faced Forge. "Dude, what the -hell- is your problem anyway? Marius is back, you've got like, ninety hojillion projects to work on, your -girlfriend-'s back, or whatever you and Jennie are, and you get to make fun of my pig. How is this not totally awesome for you?" And if -that- didn't work, Kyle thought, he was going to have to pull out some serious bait.

"How is it not totally awesome?" Forge replied sarcastically. "Well, for starters, there is no 'me and Jennie'. If there was anything there, I'm pretty sure three months of kidnapping kind of puts a crimp in it. Marius is back to having his lungs not wanting to play nice with real air, and all I get to do is listen to 'fix it, Forge'. Fix it," he repeated scathingly. "I can't go out to help bring them home, I can't undo the damage that's been done, but oh, just hand me whatever's broken and I'll make it all better. My friends might be abandoning this place like rats on a ship and having to be dragged back bleeding and broken, but I'll make sure all their gadgets run fine! That's what I do!" he yelled, smacking his fist on a shelf, knocking down a row of test tubes to shatter on the floor. "So excuse me if a little kidnapped stuffed pig isn't sending me into fits of paralytic glee!"

"Dude, isn't that what you do? You fix things?" Kyle said. "You fix things, I eat things, and Jay whined about things or sung about things." He planted the balls of his feet on the floot firmly, bracing just in case Forge got it in his head to start shoving, or throwing things. "What happened to "I'm a genius! I'm better than MacGuyver! I'm totally brilliant, huh?"

Forge growled, gesturing with his arms in frustration. "Of course I'm a genius! Bring me a broken machine, I'll fix it. Better than ever! But broken people? 'Go to your lab, Forge'. 'Go fix my broken stuff, Forge'. My own goddamn friends shut me out! Jay heads off to Nashville, Catseye leaves to go live with her new family, Marius and Jennie go fuck off across Europe, Dani's turned into even more of a headcase - and no one stops to think 'Gee, Forge is possibly worried about everyone he gives a damn about vanishing on him'."

He reached over, picking up a small display monitor, glass and plastic contrasting with the cooling metal of his left hand. "No, because as long as everything works and everything's functional, then everything's fine."

Pausing for a moment, Forge spun, flinging the monitor into the wall, glass shattering and sparks flying for a second as the pieces clattered to the floor. "Everything's just fine, how could anything be better?"

Kyle bit back a snarl, and shook his head. "Does that help? Because you know, normally I'm the one breaking shit when I'm all pissed off." He stood up, delibrately straightening out of his normal slouch and towering over Forge. "You know, if you're gonna break shit, can you break shit that'll fix itself instead of waiting until someone's gotta come down here and piss you off to get you to blow up?"

He crossed his arms, and glared down at Forge. "You know what the hell your problem is? You do all this crap for everyone else and then when you've got shit that needs fixed you just kick it under a table and hope it goes away instead of doing something about it." Kyle looked over his shoulder at the open door, apparantly gaugeing the distance between him and it. "Last time you did shit like this, I dumped your ass off a raft into a lake. It's probably too damn cold for that now. The water, I mean. Not that it'll stop me."

"Break shit that'll fix itself..." Forge gritted his teeth and shook his head. "Fine."

And then he punched Kyle in the face.

Kyle had definitly -not- been expecting the imact of metal hand on nose. If he had, he'd have been somewhere else. The hallway. The floor. Atop one of the counters. Anywhere but in the path of Forge's fist. And it fucking -hurt-, and he could taste blood in his mouth.

Pain and instinctive reaction to it jolted him into action, and he shot out a foot, hooknig Forge's good ankle and pulling his leg out from under him. "I didn't mean my nose, asshole!" He snarled, only somewhat intelligibly.

Forge yelped as he tumbled down to the ground, landing roughly on his butt and looking up at Kyle. He scowled for a moment, but then slowly curved his mouth into a smile. "You SAID something that'll fix itself!" he laughed, tears coming to his eyes as he leaned against a server cabinet. "Oh my god, you should totally have seen the look on your face! 'Ow, by dose!'," Forge mocked, holding his sides.

Kyle continued to hold his nose with one hand, looking around for something other than his shirt to try to stop the blood. "You have a metal hand! No hitting my nose with a metal hand!" Finally finding a roll of paper towels, he wadded a few up, and covered his face. "Fuck. I think you broke it." He said, pulling expiermentally at the end of his nose.

Forge raised his eyebrows and looked at his hand, small spots of blood dotting the knuckles. "Wow," he said quietly. "I've never actually hit anyone before. I mean..." he cocked his head and thought for a moment. "No, there was Sheldon, but that was more of a 'taser him and kick him when he's down' thing and I got all sick to my stomach afterwards. Not bad for a first time, then, huh?"

Sitting up and scooting over towards Kyle, Forge tilted his former roommate's chin up. "Here, let me see. Spend enough time in the infirmary, pick up a few things. Move your hand."

"Dude, for punching?" Kyle said, gingerly taking his hand away from his nose. "That was pretty freaking sweet." He crossed his eyes, trying to look at his nose and see how bad the damage was. "I don't care what you do, I'm just not going to the infirmary. Doc Voght'll stick cold stuff up my nose and bitch me out and go all she-terminator on me or something."

Forge reached out and grabbed the bridge of Kyle's nose and yanked, the resultant click and yelp letting him know he'd set it right. "I pay attention when you're whaling on the bag downstairs, you know," he explained. "I do occasionally do things out of the workshop like you guys kept telling me to. But when I try and help with shit? All I get is 'back in the lab, monkeyboy'. I know it's what I do, and most of the time it helps. It's just... sometimes I want to be more than just the guy with the wrench, you know?"

Kyle grabbed back at his nose after Forge let go, poking it carefully with his fingers until he was sure it wasn't going to do anything weird. "Yeah? Who told you to get back in the lab? Anyone sane, or Marius, who isn't, you know, really good at making decisions anyway?" He crossed his eyes again, looking down the bridge of his nose. "Hey. I sound normal again. Cool. So what if they tell you to get back in the lab? I told you to go the hell away when I was Kyle the amazing wolfman, and that didn't stop you."

"Because I'm needed," Forge said quietly. "It's... I do what no one else can. And it saves lives, you know? Respirator for Marius, that sound-suit for Alison, the entire half-body for Haroun. I fix people's problems. And the people who I go to to fix mine... leave." He slumped his shoulders, leaning back against the cabinet. "Even the ones who're still here," he said cryptically as he looked around the lab with a half-masked scowl.

"Hey, you keep that shit up, and I'm punching you in the nose, ass." Kyle said, snarling out the last word. "I'm going exactly no and where. People leave, new people come in, and I dunno what the fuck got in your head that you think that's anything about you. Maybe they suck. Maybe they're ungrateful shits. I dunno. If people leave, you find people who won't." He shrugged. "And, yeah, I know it isn't that damn easy, so don't start with the shit where I'm acting like nothing matters. It's just no good getting all butthurt about it."

"I thought I did," Forge said, then shook his head. "Of course, then one goes and kidnaps the other. How's that for luck?" He looked down at his knuckles, then grabbed a paper towel to wipe the blood off, all the while not looking up at Kyle. "I know it's not about me. But, you know, all that time and I wasn't even a concern. Marius? The idiot knew I was working on something to get him better. All I asked for was time. And Jennie..."

Forge sighed, then swung up to his feet using the cabinet for support. "I just don't know. Somehow I thought giving the 'just friends' talk would be easier than taking it, but it sucks both ways."

"Dude. I got nothing." Kyle said, shaking his head as he got up to go to one of the sinks. "I don't know what to tell you, and I'm not even sure what the hell I want to say to Marius or Jennie right now. I'm tryin' to figure it out, and let things go until I got a grip on whatever it is I'm thinking." He shrugged, and then bent to stuck his face in the water, letting the cold numb his nose.

"Yeah, I know," Forge said, shaking his head. "Sorry for being all emo. And, y'know, the nose."

Kyle snorted, blowing water out his nose, and snatching up a paper towel to dry his face, and rub away the last of the blood. "Eh. The nose'll heal. Probably before dinner. Emo happens. You start borrowing, like, Laurie's pants though, and we're having words." He shook his hair dry, much like a dog, and then pulled it away from his face. "Seriously though, dude, less moping next time. Even if you gotta come punch me in the face again. Going all spacey because you're avoiding? Totally -not- cool."

"Punch-Kyle-In-The-Face Therapy..." Forge mused, dramatically stroking his chin. "I think there's potential there. And no worrying about me borrowing Laurie's pants. I had a hard enough time keeping her out of my tent." He held up his hands to fend off the immediate eyebrow raise from Kyle. "No, dude, I'm not even going to explain."

"Hey, she had me making cookies." Kyle said, spreading his hands. "No need to explain." He wasn't saying a word about the Shakespeare. He was still working out how to avoid total humilation for offering to help her with that. "I dunno though. You're midgety enough to wear her pants. Or Angel's. Or Amara's."

"Har har," Forge said, sweeping the broken monitor into a trash bin and rearranging the shelves. "And here I was going to buy your donuts as apology for punching you in the beak, but short jokes equal no donuts, slappy."

"Man. Have you no sympathy for a poor kidnapped pig?" Kyle protested weakly. "Think of the pig, Forge! The -pig-. The donuts aren't for me, they're for the safety of my pig!" He couldn't get through the speech with a straight face though, and the last half was said leaning on the counter, and through loud snickers.

"This would never have happened if you had a GPS tracker in your pig," Forge deadpanned, patting Kyle on the back. "Come on, dogboy. We'll even take the awesome car."