Forge and Kyle. Infirmary. Waking.

[x-wildchild.livejournal.com]

Kyle's not alone when he wakes up. He gets - and tries to ignore - an explanation, and asks for pants. There is also less-than-manly hugging.



Forge finished his emails and closed his laptop. It was close to finals week, but classes could be skipped in order to keep an eye on his friends if the need arose. He'd been willing to beg if he had to, to be allowed to stay in the recovery room with at least one of them until they awoke, and given their prior history in a similar situation with Masque, they'd assigned Forge to Kyle's bedside.

They had disposed of the red leather suits that Rory had forced his Hounds into, and aside from the orange tint that was fading from his eyes and the buzzed hair, Kyle was the least visibly affected by the procedure. Even still, having one's DNA altered back and forth often came with some very painful side effects, as Forge knew all too well.

Waking up was painful. That was the first thing Kyle thought, and the second and third as well. He hurt down to his toenails.

Lying with his eyes shut, he could feel the people around him. Jennie and Marius in separate rooms, both of whom he could identify by the unexplainable sense that still lingered. More people in the outside rooms, he could hear them moving around. And one to his side, accompanied by the smell of metal and plastic and fear.

Kyle cracked one eye open, to assure himself that it wasn't some kind of trick, and shut it as soon as he confirmed that there was nothing about Forge that hinted that he wasn't real.

"Hey," Forge said quietly, sliding his laptop onto the nearby table. "Welcome back. You know, we've got to stop making the medlab our main hangout spot. People are going to start thinking we want to grow up to be Nathan or something."

Kyle grunted, clearing his throat, and lifting his head slightly. "Ow." He brought one hand up to rub his eyes, wincing the whole way. "Dude, my hair hurts. My eyelids hurt. All my parts hurt. I think my dead skin cells hurt."

"Well, you had foreign DNA forcibly grafted to yours, and zapped through some really complex procedure that turned you and Marius and Jennie into some creepy kind of hunter-killer super-ferals," Forge said casually. "But don't worry, we fixed it. Some of the effects may take a day or so to wear off. You looked a lot worse yesterday, trust me."

"I'm gonna try to forget I understood any of that, okay?" Kyle said quietly. "Jennie.. and Marius.. they're okay too, right? They're both fixed? They're not stuck or.. anything?" He struggled to sit up, and only managed to prop himself up slightly before realizing he was just too sore and tired to move around a lot. "We're all going back to normal, right?"

"You're going to recover faster," Forge explained, "because of your healing factor. But you're all going to be fine. They got the son of a bitch that did this to you, and while he wasn't in any shape to reverse the procedure," thank you very much, Nathan, for assuring that, he thought to himself, "we managed to come up with someone who could. You'll all be back to normal in no time. Just in time for you to get your new trophy for dethroning Alex as official Boy Hostage."

~Wasn't in any shape...~ Kyle hadn't even thought of that when he'd gone after Rory. "Shit, man. Sorry about that. I wasn't thinking about it when I went after the guy. " He reached up to ran a hand through his hair and frowned, looking at Forge. ".. Dude, where the fuck is my hair?"

"Beats me," Forge said with a shrug. "Apparently the mad doctor thought you'd make a better experiment without that mop of yours. Of course, you'll grow it back in what, a week? You've had worse things happen to your hair before. It was blue once, remember? Took forever to wash out."

"My ears are cold." Kyle complained. He fell quiet, looking around the room, and then at his hands and lower arms, and then pushed the sleeves of the hospital smock up to examine his upper arms, and then pulled the blanket up to look at his feet and legs. No bruises, no healing cuts, it just all ached like he'd been beaten. "I don't remember a lot." And he didn't want to try just now either. "Just going after whatshisface and .. Nate shot me with the tranq gun, didn't he?"

"That's kind of a habit, isn't it?" Forge quipped, remembering the stories of how Kyle had originally been rescued from Mistra. "Yeah. Tranqued you, sent over as much of Dr. Campbell's research as they could find on what they did to you. I went to Pete, who put me in touch with Dr. Essex, who set you guys right." Forge conveniently didn't mention his utter loathing of the snide geneticist or his reputation - the last thing he wanted to do was add more stress to his friend's recovery.

"So, Dr. Rory Ahab whatever he's calling himself is going to jail?" Kyle asked. He scratched at the back of his neck, where the hair was growing in, because now that he was aware of it, it was itching like nothing else, and frowned. "At least I didn't lose any parts. I just got my fingers -back-. Losing them again'd suck sour frog ass." He did a quick mental check to make sure he hadn't and a wave of nausea passed over him.

Kyle swallowed down the lump in his throat, and prodded his teeth with his tongue, making a disgusted face as he realized what was caught between his canine and molar. "Dude. Is there any way you can go get me some water and my toothbrush?" He paused, swallowing heavily again. "And don't ask me why, because it's gross."

"Sure thing, man. Anything else you need while I'm out? I'm pretty sure I can bring you down some Rollins CDs or a PSP to keep you occupied. But you should probably be out of here soon enough," Forge smiled. "Because then hey, county fair in a week or so. Not as much fun without Manuel puking all over the place, but dude - funnel cakes."

He thought about it for a moment, deciding that he could -so- get away with not doing any homework at least for the next day or two. "Besides pants? Something to read." Kyle wasn't sure he wanted music right now. His head still ached. But he could see boredom ahead of him. "Even if it's like, I dunno what. That weird history stuff from Sam or some Clancy or something."

"Pants, toothbrush, Clancy. Got it," Forge stood up, paused, then leaned down to hug Kyle fiercely. "Knock it off with the abductions, all right?"

His first thought was to protest the hug and push Forge away. There was to be no hugging. Kyle's second thoughts objected and he returned it, careful not to crush Forge's ribs -too- much. The physical reassurance felt right. "Damn. Was workin' on a record too..." he mumbled.

Standing up, Forge lightly thumped Kyle on the chest. "Yeah, well. Let's end that, because technically, I think I'm next up in the rotation and I'd like to stick with just one kidnapping on my rap sheet, thank you. I'll be back with the toothbrush and stuff in a bit."