Kyle and Laurie, flights home

[x-wildchild.livejournal.com]

On the way home from the reconstruction in San Diego, Laurie and Kyle talk. First there are snacks, then explanations and apologies, and then right back to snacks to avoid the Awkward.



Laurie slid into the seat beside Kyle with a smile and fastened her seatbelt just as the voice over came on asking that passengers prepare for takeoff. "Hey," she said with a hesitant smile.

"I am not sharing my peanuts with you." Kyle said, only half-seriously. He was too suntanned, muscle-sore and accomplished-feeling to really be bothered to be upset or smart mouthed. "This is the only airline that actually had food I can eat without getting the poo gas and I am going to enjoy it." It didn't make up for having cramped legs, getting a headache from pressure changes or being stuck in a metal tube with a hundred other people, some of whom didn't know how to bathe, but he was taking his tiny victories where he could get them.

"Beast! A gentleman would share his peanuts." Laurie replied, mock pouting at him as she realized he wasn't about to bark at her or tell her to sit somewhere else. "If you want to stick your feet on me when we've taken off, I don't mind. Well, unless they've got shoe stink, anyway. Because, ew."

Kyle pulled his bare feet out from where he'd wedged them under the seat in front of him and wiggled his toes at Laurie. "I don't -wear- shoes. One part easier airport security, one part comfort. It's great."

And everytime some cranky looking person gave him a dirty look, it was a tiny victory for forcing people to just learn to deal with it. "And you're still not getting any of my peanuts. But there's a ton of snacks in my bookbag, if you wanna mooch. I got all kinds of stuff in there."

Laurie immediately reached down to make a grab for Kyle's bookbag and then dropped it with a guilty look as the flight attendant came by to make sure they had stowed all the baggage for takeoff. "Curse, foiled again."

Kyle stifled a laugh, and once the attendant had moved past their row, hooked the bag with his foot and pulled it back up, depositing it on Laurie's lap before putting his leg back on the ground. "Grab fast, and if she says anything, blame me." He said quietly, watching the flight attendant walk down the rows. "You look small and harmless, I look tall and scary. Odds are, she won't want to separate the kid with fangs from his food."

"You're not that scary." Laurie replied, fishing out a bag of mixed dry fruit and quickly dropping the bookbag back onto the floor, clutching at the snack like it were a favored pet. "Now I have you my precious, yesssss. Nasty flight attendant shall not have you."

After a moment of silence, Kyle straightened out of his relaxed slouch, and before speaking, took a deep breath, and a measured pause to look directly at Laurie. "You don't think I'm scary because you see me every day. Because I'm that guy who wears stupid hats and can walk on his hands and plays Mario Kart." He turned in his seat, and pulled one leg up to rest on the opposite thigh, and let the claws on his toes come out all the way, showing Laurie where they'd been trimmed down. "If I don't cut these off, they're an inch and a half long. Same with my hands. I have -fangs-. I can bite through bones."

He put his foot back down before it threatened to cramp up, and tensed, pulling the claws back in. "You're not scared of me because you know I wouldn't hurt you. But I go outside school? I go to the mall, or just out, or on the bus weekends, and there's always someone who looks at me and backs off, or pulls their kid behind them, or crosses the street."

"Is that why you were so angry with me?" Laurie asked softly, wanting to say so much, to deny what Kyle was telling her but unable to do so.

She might want to believe the world was a better place, she might want to work towards that goal and not accept 'this is the way it is' as anything but an excuse but she wasn't completely without knowledge of how it was for those of them who couldn't pass for human.

"Bingo." Kyle agreed. "I can deal with everyone outside thinking I'm not human. I can deal with stupid people making jokes about leash laws or calling animal control. I gotta, because if I don't, I'm exactly what they think I am." He slumped back into his seat, resuming the posture that let him easily pull his legs up or stretch them out as needed. "But hearing it from someone inside the school? And, man, Laurie, seriously, you were arrested for being a mutant. I thought if anyone would've gotten why it was not cool, it'd be you."

"I'm sorry." she said, picking at the packet of dried fruit in her hand.

Kyle'd always heard that apologies and forgiveness and all that was supposed to feel like a weight being lifted. But he felt like he was pressed into his seat, and they'd just started taxiing. He couldn't even blame it on the plane taking off. He picked at his claws, scraping away the residue of dirt and clay and mortar that was still under them, and didn't say anything until he'd finished cleaning the claws of both hands. "Don't eat my papayas.." he finally said. "They're the little orange ones."

"Okay." Laurie replied with a tentative smile, feeling a small part of the sadness she was feeling lift. "You got any real food in that bookbag beside snacks? I hate airline food, it's always expensive and then you get something that looks like death."

"Beef jerky. And cheese." There was a lot of cheese in that bookbag. And he intended on eating, or sharing, all of it. "And some hardboiled eggs." Kyle paused, going over what he remembered packing in the bookbag that wasn't a book. "And crackers, and some of those tunafish and crackers things. And a fish taco but dammit, that's mine." It wasn't often he got to eat at fast food places, and he was damn well eating this. By himself.

"Nonfish taco sharing person." Laurie said with a pout, happy to have gotten the apology out of the way and be back on firmer ground where Kyle was concerned. It wasn't that she hadn't meant it, she had. It was just that she didn't want to dwell on something the man beside her obviously wanted to move on from. "What sort of cheese? Did you bring those little stuffed with feta sun-dried tomato things?"

"Dude, I have cheddar and swiss. Fancy cheese is for cheese plates, not ziploc bags in my bookbag.". Damn, and now he really kind of wanted some feta too.