Kyle, Amanda, pwnt with curry.
Aug. 3rd, 2008 05:04 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsCaught in a pretty spectacularly bad summer thunderstorm in New York City, Kyle takes refuge at the brownstone to avoid trying to ride his motorcycle back to the mansion in the rain. Amanda provides a towel, and a chance of clothes (Angelo, Kyle has your pants) and then accidentally pwns him with curry. Kyle? Total spicy food wuss.
It hadn't been raining when he got into New York City. It hadn't been raining when he parked his bike in the parking garage, or when he'd gotten two new CD's from a honestly pretty crappy music store that only happened to have things he wanted already, instead of new and interesting music to listen to. It hadn't even been all that cloudy, just grey and hazy. And then the sky went dark and a summer thunderstorm dumped rain on Kyle Gibney.
He was already rain-soaked when he got to the subway, it didn't do much to dry him off, and the distance between the subway station and the brownstone that he knew the Snow Valley people lived at just made him wetter. It was a very sodden Kyle who stood in the front foyer, poking at his cell phone and cursing it's suddenly unreliable battery.
He raked wet hair back off his face, looked at the mostly unlabeled buzzers for apartments, and the one neatly labeled "Barnes", and jabbed one at random. One of them would be in, and then he could get a towel, and a ride home. And then bum a ride back from Angelo or Forge once the rain stopped so he could get his bike.
The speaker crackled and a distorted female voice was heard: "Yeah? Ange, did you go and forget your key again?"
"It's not Angelo!" Kyle answered. "It's raining and I need to use a phone. It's Kyle. Gibney. Um. From the school." He'd recognized the voice, he'd had entire conversations with Amanda in the bus, but he didn't trust the intercom to make his voice sound like him on the other end.
"Kyle? Oh, right, Kyle! Sure, come on up. Second floor, first door on the left. I'll leave it open for you," came the cheery reply.
Drip-drip-drip. Kyle avoided the untrustworthy looking elevator and opted for the stairs, leaving a small trail of water from his hair and the legs of his jeans, and easily found Amanda's door, knocked once, and then edged the door open. "I'm kinda rained on. Got caught in the storm and I can't take the bike back. Motorcycles and rain aren't friends. Or even talking to each other." In theory, he could've ridden home. But not in the rain, in New York City traffic, over a bridge, and with less than two months on his license.
Amanda appeared from her kitchen, where she'd been pre-emptively putting the kettle on. The scatter of old-looking books and notes on her coffee table spoke of her having been working again on her magic. When she took in the sight of the bedraggled Kyle, she wrinkled her nose. "Fucking hell, you look like something the cat dragged in and then threw up on," she supplied helpfully, before pointing at him. "Stay there. I'll just grab you a towel. Healing factor or not, you've just had hypothermia."
"The cheap parking garage was like, six blocks from the music store. And I wasn't gonna pay a ton for parking. But by the time I got there, it was raining too much to ride, and then I had to walk to the subway." And naturally, his umbrella was somewhere in his room. At the mansion. Where he was not. "I had -super- hypothermia. And thanks, I could kinda use .. uh.. all the towels in the world. I think the storm aimed for -me-." The list of things Kyle was packing in the bookbag he'd gotten kept growing after every time he went out. Helmet, umbrella, change of pants. At least it was designed for motorcycle riders.
Returning from her bedroom with several clean towels, Amanda tossed the top one at him. "Yeah, I saw from the journals. Any hypothermia strong enough to knock your healing factor flat is definitely not your run of the mill exposure," she agreed. "You and Wanda should talk about the hazards of motorbike riding - she's turned up here a few times soaked, and I swear, that hair of hers holds enough water to fill a bathtub."
"Mine's not much better." Kyle said, muffled by the towel over his head and the vigorous drying he was giving his hair and neck, and shoulders. "Next time I go on any missions, it better be in the damn desert. Arctic water, not so fun to swim in, turns out." He moved on to drying his arms, or at least trying to. "I didn't know Wanda had a motorcycle. Dude. Wait. No, maybe I did know that and forgot. Amnesia from her breaking my tree that one time.."
"Here, switch over." Amanda held out another dry towel. "Oh, she does all right. Remind me to tell you about the time she went charging through a bunch of demons and a door with me on the back of one. Scared about five years off me life." As it usually did when she was talking to the younger residents of the mansion, Amanda's accent lost some of the applied polish, going a little bit back into the East London. "I might have some spare clothes of Angelo's if you want to get out of those wet things." There was only a slightly evil grin at the last.
Kyle pulled the towel off his head, and switched it for the fresh one that Amanda held out. "You guys and demons. So glad I missed that. Zombies were -way- bad enough. And... yeah, clothes might help. It's gonna take at least an hour for someone to get here, and if it's Forge, I gotta talk him into taking a 'normal' car instead of his, cause it should probably be a truck or something. I don't wanna just leave the bike in the parking garage." And Forge hadn't gotten to the trucks yet. Much. Although the Jeep might do the trick, and it -might- be acceptable to Forge. Maybe. "I don't wanna ruin furniture or carpets or anything."
"I wouldn't worry too much - just don't drip on the books and you're good." Amanda's apartment was neater than one might expect, but furnished very much in the 'student chic' style. She bustled back into her bedroom, emerging a few minutes later with a t-shirt and a pair of Xaiver's track pants. "These might be a bit short in the leg," she said, handing the clothes over. "Since Ange isn't exactly tall and you are, but they're dry. I was just about to order in some food - you're welcome to join me if you like. With that weather out there, it's gunna take a while for the cavalry to get here."
"Food would rock. I usually go all 'eat all the food in the world' for a couple of days after having to fix something big, and I dunno how big hypothermia really is." But considering he'd eaten the better part of half a pizza the next morning, and had been going through food pretty fast in the days after, it was probably on the side of 'needing fuel.'" Kyle took the shirt and pants, holding them out so they didn't pick up any of the water from his soaked-through shirt, and looked around. "Uh. Where is your bathroom?"
***
"Ta, mate. See you next time, yeah?" Amanda took several plastic bags of food from the delivery guy, making sure to tip him extra well for coming out in the rain. "Food's up!" she announced, closing the door and turning back to her living area.
Kyle waved one hand in the universal "one second" gesture, and finished his -third- explanation of why he was stuck in New York City and at Amanda's and why it would be a good idea for someone to get him with a truck. He'd gotten passed from person to person as people realized they couldn't get him, or couldn't drive one of the trucks, and now he finally had Cain on the phone. Which wasn't his idea of a good time, but at least the big groundskeeper could drive a truck -and- put the bike in the back without needing much in the way of help. After a few more minutes of explanation, he finally hung up Amanda's phone and visibly slumped. "Jesus H. Christ, that took forever." He said. "The phone call, I mean, uh, not the food." He had to admit, the folks at Snow Valley had a much easier time with food delivery than they did at the mansion. Convincing delivery guys to go to 'the weird mutant school' was not always easy.
"The Indian's pretty good at the whole delivery thing and I think they've got the whole brownstone on their books. Well, 'cept for the old bloke downstairs." Amanda was clearing off the coffee table to make space for the various containers of take out curry. "'S not a patch on the stuff in London, but I'm told English curry isn't like anything on the planet. You get things sorted out all right?"
"Yeah, Cain's gonna come rescue me and my bike, should be here in like, hour and a half I guess..." Kyle said as he put the phone back and picked up his now mostly-dry backpack. "I'm probably gonna owe it to him in doing some totally gross maintenance chore but as long as it's not sewage or dead animals, it's all good. And I get a paycheck for that, so it works out anyway." He dug around in the backpack, producing a wallet that looked to be made of duct tape, and from that, a handful of bills. "I caught the total while I was getting handed off.." he said, by way of offering to cover his share.
"Just give me a twenty and we'll be even," Amanda told him. It was just under half of what she'd paid - there was a lot of food - but she got paid a lot more than she guessed he did. No point insulting his pride, however, she thought with an internal grin at memories of herself once she'd started actually earning money, back working for Stonewall. Her expression grew a little wistful at the thought. "Hope you like curry - I got a few different things, most of it meat-related."
Kyle pulled two tens out of the handful and handed them over. "I don't think I've had it. Laurie keeps making noises about making it but, uh, after the banana thing I'm not sure I want to trust her food. She thinks she knows what I should be eating and... not so much, sometimes." It wasn't that he didn't like Laurie, it was just that she didn't live in his skin and so didn't know what he needed on instinct. And he'd taken just as much cooking class from Lorna as Laurie had. He just didn't talk about it as much. "I totally am down with meat-related though. Not that, you know, that's not totally obvious."
"I read the journals enough to get the gist," Amanda said, stuffing the money in her jeans pocket with a grin. "Food comes up pretty often, I've noticed." She took a seat, motioning for Kyle to do the same, before she started cracking open take-out containers. "And yeah, I've noticed Laurie's been getting a bit... strident lately. I'd try to grab her for a talk, but work's been a bit insane. How's she handling the leather brigade training?"
"With her? I got no idea. It's like sometimes she's totally okay with it and on the ball and sometimes it's like she's trying to.. I dunno, be like me and Forge and Marius and Jennie all put together or something." Kyle shook his head as he sat down. "Which is when she goes and forgets that, hey, dog jokes not funny." As he talked, he absently began putting food on the plate Amanda had handed him, registering smells somewhere in the back of his head, and not really paying attention to them. Even if it was unfamiliar and slightly alarming, he'd already covered the 'no MSG' issue, and Amanda was eating it, so how weird could it be.
"I think sometimes she has this thing where she has to prove how good she is, considering her powers aren't the big shiny boom kind." Amanda remembered the early Trenchcoat days, where she'd been without the magic, and how she'd pushed herself to prove her value. "Still, eventually she'll get it through her thick head. That or she'll fall on her arse - you can only boss people around so much before they get sick of it and tell you to go fuck yourself." Amanda was spooning healthy servings of curry and rice on her own plate, having forgotten lunch again that day. "How about you? How're things are that mission?" The question was broad enough to let him answer any way he was comfortable with.
"More worried about Nate than anything else. I get the updates and the docs say he's recovering but, mostly it's that whole Mistra thing keeps coming back to bite him in the ass. And bite anyone else in the way too. I got lucky that I wasn't hurt more." Kyle explained, taking an absent-minded few bites of food from the various piles on his plate. "I'm not sure telling Laurie to shove it up her ass is gonna... " He stopped, nostrils flaring and eyes watering. "You EAT this? All the time?" Kyle croaked, and got about halfway through a request for something to drink before his burning mouth and nose demanded more urgent attention, and he simply ran for the kitchen and the sink.
Amanda blinked, and leaned forward to look at his plate. Kyle had had the mildest curry of the lot. Huh. "Um, you right there?" she called out. "There's milk in the fridge if you want."
Kyle didn't answer, just opened the fridge with one hand, and grabbing what he hoped was a clean glass from the dish rack by the sink. He drank out of his own milk cartons, not someone else's. Once the burning in his mouth had subsided, he returned, looking about as sheepish as an entire herd of woolly sheep. "Enhanced senses means taste too, and my tastebuds don't do spicy, like, at all. Black pepper gets me sometimes and I totally flee from Julio's food."
"Oh, shite, I didn't even think..." Amanda couldn't help a small grin, however. "You know you're a complete and utter wuss, right? That was the mild one." She pointed at another container. "That's the vindaloo - that one might kill you."
"A wuss that can grow his toes and fingers back. I don't wanna try growing my tongue back." Kyle said, snickering and sticking his tongue out to try to look at it, and going cross-eyed as he did. "You should hear Cain give me crap when he grills. I can't even eat barbecue sauce sometimes." He looked at the container Amanda had indicated and shuddered. "Yeah, now that I'm paying attention, I think I'll stay away from that. It smells like it hurts."
"But it's the good kind of hurt," Amanda replied, almost gleefully as she reached for the container.
It hadn't been raining when he got into New York City. It hadn't been raining when he parked his bike in the parking garage, or when he'd gotten two new CD's from a honestly pretty crappy music store that only happened to have things he wanted already, instead of new and interesting music to listen to. It hadn't even been all that cloudy, just grey and hazy. And then the sky went dark and a summer thunderstorm dumped rain on Kyle Gibney.
He was already rain-soaked when he got to the subway, it didn't do much to dry him off, and the distance between the subway station and the brownstone that he knew the Snow Valley people lived at just made him wetter. It was a very sodden Kyle who stood in the front foyer, poking at his cell phone and cursing it's suddenly unreliable battery.
He raked wet hair back off his face, looked at the mostly unlabeled buzzers for apartments, and the one neatly labeled "Barnes", and jabbed one at random. One of them would be in, and then he could get a towel, and a ride home. And then bum a ride back from Angelo or Forge once the rain stopped so he could get his bike.
The speaker crackled and a distorted female voice was heard: "Yeah? Ange, did you go and forget your key again?"
"It's not Angelo!" Kyle answered. "It's raining and I need to use a phone. It's Kyle. Gibney. Um. From the school." He'd recognized the voice, he'd had entire conversations with Amanda in the bus, but he didn't trust the intercom to make his voice sound like him on the other end.
"Kyle? Oh, right, Kyle! Sure, come on up. Second floor, first door on the left. I'll leave it open for you," came the cheery reply.
Drip-drip-drip. Kyle avoided the untrustworthy looking elevator and opted for the stairs, leaving a small trail of water from his hair and the legs of his jeans, and easily found Amanda's door, knocked once, and then edged the door open. "I'm kinda rained on. Got caught in the storm and I can't take the bike back. Motorcycles and rain aren't friends. Or even talking to each other." In theory, he could've ridden home. But not in the rain, in New York City traffic, over a bridge, and with less than two months on his license.
Amanda appeared from her kitchen, where she'd been pre-emptively putting the kettle on. The scatter of old-looking books and notes on her coffee table spoke of her having been working again on her magic. When she took in the sight of the bedraggled Kyle, she wrinkled her nose. "Fucking hell, you look like something the cat dragged in and then threw up on," she supplied helpfully, before pointing at him. "Stay there. I'll just grab you a towel. Healing factor or not, you've just had hypothermia."
"The cheap parking garage was like, six blocks from the music store. And I wasn't gonna pay a ton for parking. But by the time I got there, it was raining too much to ride, and then I had to walk to the subway." And naturally, his umbrella was somewhere in his room. At the mansion. Where he was not. "I had -super- hypothermia. And thanks, I could kinda use .. uh.. all the towels in the world. I think the storm aimed for -me-." The list of things Kyle was packing in the bookbag he'd gotten kept growing after every time he went out. Helmet, umbrella, change of pants. At least it was designed for motorcycle riders.
Returning from her bedroom with several clean towels, Amanda tossed the top one at him. "Yeah, I saw from the journals. Any hypothermia strong enough to knock your healing factor flat is definitely not your run of the mill exposure," she agreed. "You and Wanda should talk about the hazards of motorbike riding - she's turned up here a few times soaked, and I swear, that hair of hers holds enough water to fill a bathtub."
"Mine's not much better." Kyle said, muffled by the towel over his head and the vigorous drying he was giving his hair and neck, and shoulders. "Next time I go on any missions, it better be in the damn desert. Arctic water, not so fun to swim in, turns out." He moved on to drying his arms, or at least trying to. "I didn't know Wanda had a motorcycle. Dude. Wait. No, maybe I did know that and forgot. Amnesia from her breaking my tree that one time.."
"Here, switch over." Amanda held out another dry towel. "Oh, she does all right. Remind me to tell you about the time she went charging through a bunch of demons and a door with me on the back of one. Scared about five years off me life." As it usually did when she was talking to the younger residents of the mansion, Amanda's accent lost some of the applied polish, going a little bit back into the East London. "I might have some spare clothes of Angelo's if you want to get out of those wet things." There was only a slightly evil grin at the last.
Kyle pulled the towel off his head, and switched it for the fresh one that Amanda held out. "You guys and demons. So glad I missed that. Zombies were -way- bad enough. And... yeah, clothes might help. It's gonna take at least an hour for someone to get here, and if it's Forge, I gotta talk him into taking a 'normal' car instead of his, cause it should probably be a truck or something. I don't wanna just leave the bike in the parking garage." And Forge hadn't gotten to the trucks yet. Much. Although the Jeep might do the trick, and it -might- be acceptable to Forge. Maybe. "I don't wanna ruin furniture or carpets or anything."
"I wouldn't worry too much - just don't drip on the books and you're good." Amanda's apartment was neater than one might expect, but furnished very much in the 'student chic' style. She bustled back into her bedroom, emerging a few minutes later with a t-shirt and a pair of Xaiver's track pants. "These might be a bit short in the leg," she said, handing the clothes over. "Since Ange isn't exactly tall and you are, but they're dry. I was just about to order in some food - you're welcome to join me if you like. With that weather out there, it's gunna take a while for the cavalry to get here."
"Food would rock. I usually go all 'eat all the food in the world' for a couple of days after having to fix something big, and I dunno how big hypothermia really is." But considering he'd eaten the better part of half a pizza the next morning, and had been going through food pretty fast in the days after, it was probably on the side of 'needing fuel.'" Kyle took the shirt and pants, holding them out so they didn't pick up any of the water from his soaked-through shirt, and looked around. "Uh. Where is your bathroom?"
***
"Ta, mate. See you next time, yeah?" Amanda took several plastic bags of food from the delivery guy, making sure to tip him extra well for coming out in the rain. "Food's up!" she announced, closing the door and turning back to her living area.
Kyle waved one hand in the universal "one second" gesture, and finished his -third- explanation of why he was stuck in New York City and at Amanda's and why it would be a good idea for someone to get him with a truck. He'd gotten passed from person to person as people realized they couldn't get him, or couldn't drive one of the trucks, and now he finally had Cain on the phone. Which wasn't his idea of a good time, but at least the big groundskeeper could drive a truck -and- put the bike in the back without needing much in the way of help. After a few more minutes of explanation, he finally hung up Amanda's phone and visibly slumped. "Jesus H. Christ, that took forever." He said. "The phone call, I mean, uh, not the food." He had to admit, the folks at Snow Valley had a much easier time with food delivery than they did at the mansion. Convincing delivery guys to go to 'the weird mutant school' was not always easy.
"The Indian's pretty good at the whole delivery thing and I think they've got the whole brownstone on their books. Well, 'cept for the old bloke downstairs." Amanda was clearing off the coffee table to make space for the various containers of take out curry. "'S not a patch on the stuff in London, but I'm told English curry isn't like anything on the planet. You get things sorted out all right?"
"Yeah, Cain's gonna come rescue me and my bike, should be here in like, hour and a half I guess..." Kyle said as he put the phone back and picked up his now mostly-dry backpack. "I'm probably gonna owe it to him in doing some totally gross maintenance chore but as long as it's not sewage or dead animals, it's all good. And I get a paycheck for that, so it works out anyway." He dug around in the backpack, producing a wallet that looked to be made of duct tape, and from that, a handful of bills. "I caught the total while I was getting handed off.." he said, by way of offering to cover his share.
"Just give me a twenty and we'll be even," Amanda told him. It was just under half of what she'd paid - there was a lot of food - but she got paid a lot more than she guessed he did. No point insulting his pride, however, she thought with an internal grin at memories of herself once she'd started actually earning money, back working for Stonewall. Her expression grew a little wistful at the thought. "Hope you like curry - I got a few different things, most of it meat-related."
Kyle pulled two tens out of the handful and handed them over. "I don't think I've had it. Laurie keeps making noises about making it but, uh, after the banana thing I'm not sure I want to trust her food. She thinks she knows what I should be eating and... not so much, sometimes." It wasn't that he didn't like Laurie, it was just that she didn't live in his skin and so didn't know what he needed on instinct. And he'd taken just as much cooking class from Lorna as Laurie had. He just didn't talk about it as much. "I totally am down with meat-related though. Not that, you know, that's not totally obvious."
"I read the journals enough to get the gist," Amanda said, stuffing the money in her jeans pocket with a grin. "Food comes up pretty often, I've noticed." She took a seat, motioning for Kyle to do the same, before she started cracking open take-out containers. "And yeah, I've noticed Laurie's been getting a bit... strident lately. I'd try to grab her for a talk, but work's been a bit insane. How's she handling the leather brigade training?"
"With her? I got no idea. It's like sometimes she's totally okay with it and on the ball and sometimes it's like she's trying to.. I dunno, be like me and Forge and Marius and Jennie all put together or something." Kyle shook his head as he sat down. "Which is when she goes and forgets that, hey, dog jokes not funny." As he talked, he absently began putting food on the plate Amanda had handed him, registering smells somewhere in the back of his head, and not really paying attention to them. Even if it was unfamiliar and slightly alarming, he'd already covered the 'no MSG' issue, and Amanda was eating it, so how weird could it be.
"I think sometimes she has this thing where she has to prove how good she is, considering her powers aren't the big shiny boom kind." Amanda remembered the early Trenchcoat days, where she'd been without the magic, and how she'd pushed herself to prove her value. "Still, eventually she'll get it through her thick head. That or she'll fall on her arse - you can only boss people around so much before they get sick of it and tell you to go fuck yourself." Amanda was spooning healthy servings of curry and rice on her own plate, having forgotten lunch again that day. "How about you? How're things are that mission?" The question was broad enough to let him answer any way he was comfortable with.
"More worried about Nate than anything else. I get the updates and the docs say he's recovering but, mostly it's that whole Mistra thing keeps coming back to bite him in the ass. And bite anyone else in the way too. I got lucky that I wasn't hurt more." Kyle explained, taking an absent-minded few bites of food from the various piles on his plate. "I'm not sure telling Laurie to shove it up her ass is gonna... " He stopped, nostrils flaring and eyes watering. "You EAT this? All the time?" Kyle croaked, and got about halfway through a request for something to drink before his burning mouth and nose demanded more urgent attention, and he simply ran for the kitchen and the sink.
Amanda blinked, and leaned forward to look at his plate. Kyle had had the mildest curry of the lot. Huh. "Um, you right there?" she called out. "There's milk in the fridge if you want."
Kyle didn't answer, just opened the fridge with one hand, and grabbing what he hoped was a clean glass from the dish rack by the sink. He drank out of his own milk cartons, not someone else's. Once the burning in his mouth had subsided, he returned, looking about as sheepish as an entire herd of woolly sheep. "Enhanced senses means taste too, and my tastebuds don't do spicy, like, at all. Black pepper gets me sometimes and I totally flee from Julio's food."
"Oh, shite, I didn't even think..." Amanda couldn't help a small grin, however. "You know you're a complete and utter wuss, right? That was the mild one." She pointed at another container. "That's the vindaloo - that one might kill you."
"A wuss that can grow his toes and fingers back. I don't wanna try growing my tongue back." Kyle said, snickering and sticking his tongue out to try to look at it, and going cross-eyed as he did. "You should hear Cain give me crap when he grills. I can't even eat barbecue sauce sometimes." He looked at the container Amanda had indicated and shuddered. "Yeah, now that I'm paying attention, I think I'll stay away from that. It smells like it hurts."
"But it's the good kind of hurt," Amanda replied, almost gleefully as she reached for the container.
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Date: 2008-08-17 02:46 am (UTC)