Angel, Kyle and Bart

[x-firestar.livejournal.com]

Angel and Kyle find a little time to breathe and think about the things that they miss. And sleep.



It was really weird having her dad there and while Angel loved her daddy very much, she needed a bit of space. So now she was wandering the mansion and trying to avoid the eighty billion people crashing there. During the day Angel was okay since she could fall into a routine with working with either the New Mutants or the firefighters. But sleep was something that wasn't happening very often because she either kept waking up thinking she was back in New York or not falling asleep at all.

She paused, rubbing her eyes, and walked backwards so she could peer into one of the sunroom doors. "Oh, Kyle, heya!" Now here was someone she didn't want to avoid.

Kyle was currently lying on the floor, stretched out on his stomach in a ray of sun that crossed the floor and doing very little other than breathe and wiggle his toes. But he turned his head as he heard Angel call his name and then sat up. He still had a few bandages on his feet, but all the bruises had healed, and he looked surprisingly calm and rested. "Hey, you. Whatcha up to?"

Immediately, Angel joined him in the sunspot - she couldn't feel it but it was still a mental thing. One was relaxed in sunbeams. And there was Kyle and no weird strangers in the room. "Not much, just wandering around because I've got nothing to do at the moment and I'm still all eeeeeeehhhh from last week." She poked him gently in the knee with her toe. "What about you? Besides sunbeam loving."

"Sitting on my ass." Kyle said gleefully. "Dr. Nosferatu says I've got another couple days before she'll 'approve' of me going outside without some shoes, not like I can -get- infected, and I don't feel like feeling her gasous wrath, so mostly ass-sitting. I was all caught up on homework and shit before last week, so I got nothing to do, really. So, yeah, not a hell of a lot."

"Isn't it great?" she agreed, leaning back on her hands. "I mean, I'm trying to keep busy for most of it but after several hours, there's not much left to do, right? And I hate busy work, ugh. Though dad and I've been hanging out quite a bit - but then he gets kinda clingy and I flee." She scrunched her nose up. "You get lost and chased through New York one time...okay, too soon, I think."

"Dude, I hear you. I can -not- tell you how many voicemails I had from my mom. Even after I changed my message.'" Kyle complained. "I swear, you'd think she'd know by now that her voice hurts my head." Well, not in person, only on the phone, and one of these days when Forge didn't have eight hundred other projects - or people hiding in his lab, and that was kinda creepy - he really needed to get something that would fix that. "I keep cooking, I figure it keeps me busy and means people get fed. And it totally confuses people, because hey, who expects me to be able to cook?"

Angel started to raise her hand and then stopped, grinning. "Besides me? I mean, duh, with your need to look out for food, of course you have to cook. Else you'd starve or forever be eating from the kitchen here. And while that's awesome..." She conjured a small ball of flame and let it bob from finger to finger before disappearing. "Besides, you've got your own walking stove or microwave sometimes, so there's that." Running her fingers in the thick carpet, Angel felt the plushiness of that but not the sun beaming down. She frowned slightly. "Do you find yourself ... missing the little things? From, you know, before?"

"Like, what, being short, or like, Oreos?" Kyle asked, but already pretty sure he knew what she was talking abuot. "Dude, there are still days I wake up and look in the mirror and it doesn't look like me." Everything had changed in a few short weeks, his height, his hands, his feet, the shape of his face, his ears, his teeth, the color of his eyes. "Hasn't happened... wow, at least not since I moved into my own suite, dude. That's kinda weird." He shrugged and scratched at a bandage on his foot gently, the claw on his finger barely touching the tape or his skin. "I miss hot chocolate. The fake stuff isn't the same."

"I've known you as this you so trying to imagine you without is weird." Telling him she thought his ears were hot was not on since he was dating Jan. But, still, hot. "But yeah, things like chocolate. I miss fireplaces." Angel wiggled her fingers at him under the sun. "And actually enjoying sunbeams for the warmth, yeah? I mean, it's cool that I'm never uncomfortable but I miss the good parts of feeling heat or cold. I miss snuggle warmth. ...can that sound bad? It could but it totally doesn't, so there."

"You -are- a fireplace." Kyle noted, grinning. Not that he didn't get her meaning. "There's stuff I really miss, I mean, chocolate, but you know, it smells weird now? And McDonalds. I miss Big Macs." His stomach growled a little in recognition that in an hour or so he should probably eat, and he ignored it. "But... okay, don't tell anybody I said this, because dude, I will so have to lake you, and I know you won't freeze to death, if I hadn't gone all feral? I'd be sitting on my ass on Montana. Or in the Army, or ... in jail."

"I'd do a pinkie swear but you're a boy and we're way too old for that." Angel looked at him consideringly. "Well, I'm glad you're not Montana, the Army, jail or some combination of all three. Montana may have been for the previous you but this you? Nah. And, well, jail - I can see you with the X-Men but not the army. Maybe that's because I got to see you all in action - which was cool, by the way - before. You're totally an X-Man, dude. But if I hadn't been a mutant, it would have been normal." And safer. "But I wouldn't have met you or Julio, or Yvette. And I miss my friends back home but you guys are family. Really hot family, all of you, but still."

Angel grew quiet for a moment, thinking about the long nights in New York with just the other New Mutants. "It's worth it and once the nightmares go away, I'll be able to tell myself that at night and get some stupid rest."

Kyle flopped onto his back and crossed his arms behind his head. "Did you get the 'go see Doc Samson about those' talk yet?" He asked. "Cause I really don't wanna have to give it." He pulled the foot he hadn't been itching up to his face and examined the claws, picking something out from under one and flicking it towards the window. "I could do the Army stuff, but I couldn't stick the dress code." Not that the Army let mutants in, so it was all hypothetical anyway. "I mean, okay, dude, I got back Tuesday and I cut all but like, two inches of hair off because it -stunk-, and.. " He indicated the hair that was already shaggy and hitting his collar. "Is losing sunbeams worth being able to fly?" The question was somewhat abrupt, and pointed.

"That's cheating," Angel accused him, popping into his view right above his face. She stuck her tongue out at him and the shuffled down so she could flop down, using his stomach as an impromptu pillow. "Nothing that I've lost is equal to being able to fly. It's just so ... so awesome." The escape, the freedom. They were so hard to put into words. "And yeah, I'm going to set something up to talk since there's a couple of issues. I'm not going to do what others have done and be all "I have no issues, I'm a pretty little sunbeam" and then crack into a hojillion pieces."

"Oh, thank farking God." Kyle absently scritched Angel's head, not all that differently than he'd have scritched Shamu, or Catseye. "Cause if any more people go all psycho on me and start making all like, statements about how I'm a crazy person, I am gonna go have words with the universe about my friends all going batshit crazy." With his stomach occupied by the head-of-Angelica, he couldn't examine the bottom of his other foot, but it wasn't the itchy one anyway, so he didn't mind so much - he could get the last of the stuff that had collected under his claws out later.

If she had been a cat, Angel would have started to purr. Instead, though, she just cracked a yawn and wiggled around until she was more comfortable. Though she might not be able to feel the warmth from the sunbeam or from Kyle, it was hard to fight off the sudden wave of feeling sleepy. "Nope, no going crazy for me," she muttered, eyes sliding shut. It had been a long, mostly sleepless week and the feeling of being safe completely overrode any of the bodies wishes to keep going. Angel was asleep before she took her next breath.

Oh, well. If she was going to -sleep- on him. Kyle kept scritching until it was obvious that he was just going to have to be a pillow for a while. Not that it was uncomfortable - Angel wasn't heavy, and his stomach wasn't squishy at all, so she didn't put much pressure on him. Once certain that she wasn't going to wake up, Kyle tucked one arm under his head and shut his eyes - he might not fully sleep, not with someone sleeping on him like that, he didn't want to start snoring and wake her, but he could nap a little too...



A father expresses his thanks.



It was hard not to stare so Bart Jones didn't even try to avoid it. But it was a fond look he was giving his daughter from the entrance to the sitting room, or whatever it was – the mansion seemed to go on forever at times – that he had found her in. He'd known she'd been having some trouble sleeping after her ordeal but he hadn't expected to find her passed on Kyle. The look he gave the young man was slightly less fond but probably more than just a little amused at the scene in front of him.

Angel could sleep like a rock, as it was a mutant power that all teenagers shared regardless of actual mutation, and it looked like he had just kind of gone along on the ride.

Angel being able to sleep like a rock was a good thing, because Kyle had actually fallen asleep and was snoring - not his usual dump truck unloading piles and piles of rocks - rocks that snored - snoring, but a sort of rumble in his chest. Which ended with a surprised snort and Kyle opening one eye to see Bart Jones looking at them from the doorway. Apparently even asleep, his nose worked overtime and recognized people. "Uh. .. hi?" He said, and nudged Angel's head. "Might wanna wake up..."

In response, Angel rolled over and presented her best impression of a pill bug, muttering "I'll eat the cake if you don't want it, Mr. President".

Bart laughed softly and shook his head. "You might want to ask that Haller guy about how sound she sleeps – I heard about her falling asleep under the table and them having to take her back to her room. She's going to be like that for a while and after this week, I don't care where she sleeps, just that she does." He walked into the room and picked a chair that was far enough away that talking wouldn't disturb his daughter. "You could wear tap dancing shoes and dance around her head at this point and she won't do much more than attempt to tuck her head inbetween her knees."

The sheepish expression on Kyle's face only lessened a little bit, but he laughed. "I heard about that. Fell asleep with a stick, they were watching that It movie or something." He propped himself up carefully on his elbows, with Angel only budging just a tiny bit and laughed. "If she can sleep through my snoring, I'll believe it. Forge - uh, not sure if Angel's ever introduced you, short, crazy smart, hand of metal? - he says I snore like a pack of 757's."

"Once, I believe, but then he was a little busy with something in the lab. According to Angel, it was on fire. According to shouted denials from inside the lab, it was exactly how he had planned it." Bart shook his head, still bemused with all the oddities the mansion held. "She seems to be doing better now, though. I know you weren't the one who found her but I've been thanking everyone I can get my grateful hands on. So, thank you for what you did."

"That's pretty much Forge for you." Kyle said, still laughing. "I uh... " He paused in speaking, face going very serious, and for that moment, despite the ripped jeans and shaggy hair and long-sleeved t-shirt, resembled more the black-clad Kyle that had walked Bart up the driveway than an eighteen year old boy with a girl sleeping in his lap. "You know that I can't tell you what we did, right? That I'm not even sure what Angel's going to be able to tell you. The girls haven't talked about the details." At least not to him. And he wasn't -allowed- to talk about what his team had done. Kyle wanted no part of ever having to meet Nick Fury. "It's nothing personal."

The older man settled further into his chair as he nodded slowly, rubbing the stubble that had been growing for the entire week. Bart could easily call the scruffy, laid back Kyle 'son' but that's not who he was talking to at the moment. "Trust me, I completely understand," he said softly. "The leg might hamper me from going and doing photojournalism in war zones but I get around and I've covered my fair share of hush matters. You bunch won, that part's as obvious as the day is long. And, Kyle? I'm just grateful my little girl is back and she's got someone like you watching out for her."

Won was sort of relative. New York was still a disaster area and they had defeated Apocalypse and the Horsemen but at such a -cost-. "I do my best. We all do." Kyle absently wondered if Angel had told her dad about the incident in Albania. Possibly not, since she hadn't been grounded for life, just for a few weeks. "For the record, which I know, loaded word with a reporter-type, Marius? The Australian guy, with the hair, and Kurt Wagner - he's the blue guy." No need to explain that one further. "I think they did the actual finding."

"At least this Kurt doesn't sound too hard to find and I can probably locate Marius with not much more trouble." With some effort, Bart levered himself up and out of the chair. "In fact, I just might do that now. I don't think Angel's going to be going anywhere soon, which means you're stuck unless you want to carry her to her room. So I'll let you guys rest – I think if anyone needs it, it's this bunch."

"She's not heavy or anything like that." If it got uncomfortable, he'd just toss her into a fireman's carry and put her somewhere squishy. Kyle grinned up at Bart, back to the goofy boy with a billion hats and a broad smile. "I've thrown her into the pool a couple of times. I mean, okay, she's thrown ME into the pool a couple of times.." And singed his arm hair in the process, but it was still damn funny. "But pretty much as long as she doesn't catch on fire or anything, I'm not moving her."