Angel and Kyle

[x-firestar.livejournal.com]

In a favored tree, Angel brings similar questions to Kyle as the ones she asked Forge. She might not get any closer to a personal answer but she feels better.



It was a good thing Angel was wearing a belt or else she would be flashing the entire school grounds. As it was, she double checked the shirt as she swung by her knees from the branch of a tree - just in case. Shirt tightly tucked in, she let her arms flop as she study the now upside down grounds. There was, perhaps, some small danger of her legs giving way but she'd be able to stop herself from cracking her head like an egg on the ground below.

It was just as well that Angel was secure on her branch, and that it was a sturdy one that could take the weight of two people. The sudden added weight of one tall, rangy feral young man dropping out of the heights of the trees made it sway, but neither the branch, nor Kyle or Angel fell to the ground. "Yo. You're very upside-down." Kyle said looking down at his friend, and then promptly swung down backwards, caught himself with one foot and joined Angel in upside-down contemplation.

She grinned over at him. "And now, so are you! I was thinking that the world could be a very confusing place but! What if you looked at it while you were upside down? Would it make more sense?" Angel batted at a pigtail so that it swung gently. "I think all I've figured out is that it makes the blood rush to my head and me more prone to giggling."

"Lots of stuff makes more sense upside down. That's why a lot of the time I have hand-to-hand with Garrison and I end up on my ass I just don't move until he explains what I did wrong." It was perfectly sound logic, at least from inside Kyle's head. He tracked the swaying pigtail as it came towards him and flicked at it with one finger, bouncing the end off Angel's forehead. "So, two questions. First, why are you in my tree upside-down, and two, why are you upside-down in my tree?"

The resulting sneeze made her sway a great deal but she wasn't concerned. Either she'd fall and she'd fly or, more likely, Kyle wouldn't let her fall in the first place. "Doofus," Angel said cheerfully. "I think I'm confused and your tree is an awesome thinking tree. I'm seventeen, I'm supposed to know all the answers by now. Right? That's how it works in movies." She'd already spoken to Forge but she was still filled with questions and it was driving her completely batty.

Kyle hooked his other leg over the branch, joining the one that was already holding him up and pulled himself upright just enough to reach into the pockets of his pants and pull out a ziploc baggie of dried mangos. After pulling several pieces out, he handed one to Angel, put one in his mouth, and then shoved the back bag into his pocket before relaxing. "Confused about what? This isn't like, a 'I think I like girls" thing, is it? Cause dude, I mean, I think your only options'd be Karolina or Clarice and I don't think either is really your type..."

She very nearly choked on her piece of mango from the combination of the question and hanging upside down. Angel flailed for a moment before a hand caught her and dragged her upright. She forced herself to swallow and gave up on hanging upside down for now, concentrating on getting comfortable on the branch. She didn't have Kyle's balancing ability but she'd followed him up enough trees over the years that it wasn't hard to get settled. "No, I like boys!" Angel paused and got a goofy grin on her face. "Mmm, boys...oh, wait, sorry topic at hand. No, I'm just - the future! Argh, why is it looming at me like a looming thing? I was going to do the firefighting thing but then maybe there's the X-Men but what about college and what would I even do in college once I got in?"

Once upright, Kyle lounged on the branch like it was his sofa or desk chair, with his feet up on another branch. "Wait, back the train up. You're joining the X-Men?" On one hand, yet another cute girl in tight leather pants. On the other hand, he was supposed to help keep Angel and all them safe and kidnapping free, not recruit them! Not that the kidnapping-free had been all that successful. "Also are you even applying to colleges yet, or what? I mean, I was all holy shit college, but dude, -no one in my family had ever gone before-. so I was allowed."

She waved her hands at him, clutching the branch with her legs like she would a horse. If she'd ever been on a horse, anyway. "No no no, not joining. I'm..." Angel screwed up her face in thought. "I'm considering all available options," she continued in a prissy voice, obviously channeling some aunt that was big on Moving Up in the world.

"I don't know if I want to be a firefighter because for me? Dude, that's safe. It's like taking a job at the library. Forge and I talked about it but I still don't know. And I'm starting to apply for colleges, probably in the area, yeah. Maybe something with, uh, publicrelationsIdon'tknow."

Kyle covered his eyes with one hand, and held the other up as though he were swearing Angel to secrecy. Which he was. "Education. Don't tell anyone, I don't wanna get mocked out of existence like I did when I took Cooking my junior year." He'd had to, he would've starved to death if he hadn't, but it still got him a good solid mocking. He took the baggie out of his cargo pocket again and peeled out more dried mango before handing the entire bag to Angel. "So do the fire thing with Red X, and dude, you have time to declare a major. I mean, I declared already but you don't have to right away." He chewed on the mango and used one fang to get leftover sticky out from under his claws before talking again. "So, why the X-Men?"

She grinned but didn't giggle because she thought it actually rather suited him. But she didn't know if he'd take it well or if she'd get herself in tickle hell for an hour. And she was busy devouring the rest of the fruit. "I guess an answer of 'Why not' would be ill met." Angel bleched. She really had to stop reading that play on her off hours. She continued slowly, thinking out her answer, "I remember that feeling I got when Mr. Marko came and got us after we got kidnapped from the bus trip or how X-Men-y folks got me to calm down after being used for a battery and I couldn't control the new powers. I want to be the one making people feel like that."

Kyle peeked through his fingers while Angel was explaining, and then moved his hands away, idly picking apart a piece of fruit. "You know we get pretty beat up sometimes and that it's mostly a lot of stupid shit and not a lot of hero-time, right? You were there in Albania, you saw me get shot, and we had to let those guys run off." He spoke very seriously, no trace of his normal perpetually cheerful tone at all in his voice. "It's worth it for me, I don't want you to think that I'm saying it all sucks, but a lot of it does suck."

It was obviously a different kind of suck from the downsides of being a firefighter. She remembered with clarity Kyle taking that hit or when she'd had to sear his fingers because a dinosaur had eaten them.

But Angel also remembered visiting Jake in the hospital a few weeks ago because he'd gotten a blast of hot steam to the side of his head. Still, considering the madmen the X-Men went after...

"Thank you," Angel said, "for not, well, sugar coating it or acting like I'm a kid. You and Forge get major kudos for that. I just ... I've been a hero, you know? As much as I didn't want to admit it. And it's great and awesome but doing this seems like it's not about that shining moment and about everything else and I think I like that."

"If you like getting shot, I think you maybe wanna talk to Doc Samson." Kyle knew what Angel had meant, but he could only be serious for so long. "I think... I think you'd be better at it than, you know, certain classmates of ours that, oh, reminds me, thanks for giving Laurie that pre-trip laking before she left for her crazy world tour?" Kyle's posture shifted back to the lazy leaning against the the tree trunk. "You listen. And you're not crazy in the head."

"Shooting fetish? Totally not me, thanks. And hey - thanks? I think. I like not being the crazy one around here; my cousins all thought ... oh, wait, no they were all like me. Everyone else thought we were insane." She beamed at him, pleased by the compliment. Well, that was two people down and while she wasn't any closer to figuring it out she was feeling better about the situation.

Her smile grew into a smirk. "I knew I could ambush her before she left. Mwhahaha..."

Kyle crossed his arms behind his head and stretched out on his share of the branch, "Sweet. I figure the more people in on it the better, cause God knows her crazy made everyone miserable for a while. I'll drop you a dozen donuts from Donutula's, he's doing bacon-maple, like, middle of March." And then he could steal his donut -back- from Angel. "Best way to see if you can hack the team is to join the team. We do trainee time for a reason."

"See, this is why I do things for you. You give me awesome things like bacon-maple donuts!" It was a good thing she was only bribeable for small, awesome things like dunking Laurie in the lake. Angel was certain that she wouldn't sell out the president for a box of bacon-maple donuts. "Trainee - yeah, that's a good idea. I mean, I don't even know if I want to do it but I guess there's a reason there's a start off point." Take care not to fall over, she prodded him in the leg with her foot. "So what's a good suggestion for the next step?"

"Talk to Mr. Summers, or Ms. Munroe, or if they make you nervous, get one of us to talk to them for you." Kyle said plainly. "Nobody's gonna give you shit if you go trainee and then drop it cause it's not right for you. It's not like the Army or anything." Thank God. The uniforms were better, the food was better, the girls were hotter, and okay, the Army didn't have Magneto to contend with -exactly-, but your average Army grunt also didn't get to fly in a plane like the Blackbird. "Bacon got on the regular roster, not just trial flavors. Ube failed like A-Rod."

"They don't scare me - more that I think they think I'm strange and don't know what to do with me." She grinned. "I mean, they're totally right. But I can go talk to one of them - thanks for offering, though, it means a lot." Angel pulled one horrific face at the thought of Ube actually going on the list for good. "Say, speaking of donuts..."

Gripping the body of the tree tightly, Angel made it to her feet and grinned at Kyle. "Last one to the ground buys the next box of donuts?"

"Sure, but this week's is Tabasco-Orange, and I'm not eating any of those and I dunno if we'll get away with the box of free donuts trick again. People are on to us." And by People, Kyle meant Forge. And on that, he lightly pushed off the branch, seeming to slide off the side of it slowly until he was again hanging by one foot. "And all our new people like freaky spicy stuff."

"Hey, I'd eat it! Mmm, tabasco. How the heck do the come up with those combinations?" Angel balanced on her tip toes and grinned down at Kyle's upside down face. "We'll either just have to start getting them by ourselves or have to find something that no one else will eat but we can steal."

And then she laughed and launched herself right off the tree limb, arms streamlined against her sides. Less than a second later and she heard Kyle's whoop echo hers and she grinned, timing it so she didn't splat on the ground or turn him into a crispy critter. Been there, done that, no thank you.

1...

2...

3...

FWOOSH