xp_logs | Kyle and Adrienne - Backdated to Sunday, 22 March

Kyle helps Adrienne move a fish tank into her suite and they discuss her food poisoning and Guitar Hero.

It definitely seemed like a bad idea to have declined Driver's help in carrying the fish tank up to her room. Even with all the physical training she'd been doing, carrying the ten gallon tank up the stairs in the mansion had proven too much for her. It wasn't the tank so much as all the junk inside it, like the bags of rocks. There weren't even any damn fish yet, but the thing was ridiculously heavy when she'd filled it with all the accessories, not wanting to make too trips. And yet she'd insisted she could handle it on her own. Now she was sitting near the top of the staircase, huffing, the tank resting on the step above her.

"I thought that Wii Fit thing was supposed to make you like, all kickass and stuff?" Kyle had caught the last two steps of Adrienne's fishtank adventure and was doing his best not to laugh. "You're letting one little fishtank win? I mean, dude, what would ... " He trailed off, and then ran one hand through his hair, obviously frustrated. "Disney. Mermaid. Dammit, my jokes are way funnier when I don't forget what I was talking about halfway through."

She couldn't help him out with what he'd forgotten, so she smirked instead. "You're an X-Man, the brain damage is only going to get worse, you know,"

She tried hard to stop huffing and breathe normally. "I think the Wii Fit only makes you kick ass if you have one. Which I don't. I take enough self-defense classes to wear me out considerably- the last thing I want out of a video game is a workout," she told Kyle. "Give me a hand, Shoeless Joe?"

"Dude, I live with Manny and his tiny midget, I'm lucky she hasn't
found the Spanish language Disney stuff yet. I don't need to know
like, Strangers Like Me in spanish." Not that he'd admit to even
listening to Disney songs, even ones you could marginally rock out to.
Much like Tarzan, Kyle went up the stairs not-quite-upright,
fingertips brushing every fifth or sixth step. He crouched by the tank
and pulled several of the bags of tiny rocks out, dropping them
unceremoniously in Adrienne's lap. "Hey, if your fish die, can I eat
them? Angel wouldn't let me eat hers, she ran off all upset."

"Sure, you can eat them," Adrienne answered, not entirely sure he was serious. She picked up the bags of rocks and continued up the stairs. "They're not going to do me any good if they're dead, they might as well be useful to someone. Why the hell would you want to eat dead tropical fish, though?" she questioned. "Other than the obvious fact that fish cause food poisoning and are thus evil."

Kyle got his hands under the base of the fishtank and slowly stood up,
taking a minute to get it settled so he was sure he wouldn't drop it.
Glass everywhere was just more work for him, and it wasn't cool to
drop other people's stuff besides. He was vaguely disappointed that
Adrienne didn't have a similar reaction to Angel. There was no hint of
anything like flailing or calling him mean. "Fish gave you food
poisoning? Maybe you're allergic to fish? Or whatever kind of fish you
ate? My mom can't eat crab..." Kyle's list of foods wasn't allergies,
even if he tended to treat them that way.

Adrienne frowned as she held the door open for him. "I'm not allergic to fish. I think I would know. I used to enjoy fish. Until I had some very bad salmon from the fridge downstairs. I think one of my business rivals was trying to kill me."

"Wait, salmon like, wrapped up in white paper from a butcher, bottom
shelf of the big fridge?" Kyle groaned slightly in dismay, as he
maneuvered the fishtank through the doorway. "Uh, that wasn't one of
your business rivals, I think that was me deciding that I didn't want
to fight my cat or Manny's sister for my dinner and then forgetting
that I'd stashed it."

Gaping at him, Adrienne tossed a bag of rocks lightly so that it bounced off his chest and landed in the tank he was carrying. "It was you?" she cried out, mock dramatic. "You nearly killed me? What did I ever do to you?" Obviously it had been her own fault for taking food that didn't belong to her, which was why she wasn't serious when she said it, but Adrienne wasn't about to admit that.

"Nicknamed me after a guy who got booted from baseball forever?"
Shoeless Joe Jackson was infamous, even Kyle knew about it, and not
just from seeing Field of Dreams on AMC. He carefully set the
fishtank down, and then cracked his knuckles a few times to get the
stiffness out. Keeping his claws in to prevent the godawful squeaking
of claws-on-glass meant his first knuckles were unhappy campers. "I
mean, if you know one of your rivals who will totally give me like, a
hundred thousand bucks after the fact, that'd be cool. I need the
money."

"It's a term of affection! It shouldn't warrant food poisoning!" Adrienne pointed out, ushering Kyle into the suite and opening her bedroom door. She'd cleared off a portion of her desk for the tank and now that Kyle had set it down, she began taking the accessories out of it. "I'm not giving you the name of one of my business rivals so you can earn money off my incredibly painful death. I'd rather be the one doling out money so you can kill other people for me with your DeathSalmon, thanks very much."

Kyle did his best not to snicker too much, although it meant he made a
sort of snorting-wheezing noise instead. "Can I earn money off your
barfing your guts out and wanting to die? Because I'd be okay with
that too." He took some of the baggies of rocks out and began
stacking them up in a vaguely pyramidal fashion. "Sides, I'm not sure
I can reproduce DeathSalmon. But I might change my Guitar Hero band
name to that. Maybe without the a. DethSalmon."

Adrienne raised an eyebrow at the wheezing but any concern she might have felt for Kyle vanished when he mentioned earning money off her wanting to die. "You can't earn money off me in any way, shape, or form," she stipulated. "I'm offering to pay you to do nasty things with salmon to other people here, how much money do you need anyway?" She snatched the rocks back from him, opening one of the packages and dumping it into the fish tank. "What's the band name currently?"

"Dude, I'm already like, ten grand in debt for tuition." Kyle had
student loans, he just hated them. The idea of owing money to
anyone, especally a bank, gave him an industrial case of the heebie
jeebies. "I'm kidding. I'm not gonna sell death salmon to anyone."
It stank, and killing people was not cool. "I've got two. One is just
my name cause I couldn't think of anything, the other one is Terror
Carrots, only carrots with a z at the end, and the o in terror has an
umlaut, because all the stuff Forge listens to, totally umlaut-heavy."

"Terror Carrots is a great name for a band," Adrienne agreed, emptying the other bags of rocks and adding some ferns and a castle. "But I think DethSalmon is better. Think you could help me fill the tank with water?"

"Yeah, it's too bad I kinda suck at Guitar Hero." Kyle shrugged and
showed his claws. "Hands are too big for the dang guitar. It's crazy
fun through. And sure. Do you wanna move the tank to the sink or use
like a pitcher or what?" He liked fish, not just to eat, and helping
a couple of fish get a home was sort of fun. "I never had a big tank,
so I dunno what you're supposed to do to fill it."

"I was thinking of using a pitcher... unless you want to carry a five gallon tank filled with water around?" she pointed out, "because I certainly can't. Or maybe we could move the tank to the bathtub and half-fill it? Or fill it and carry it together?" She wasn't entirely sure; it wasn't as if Adrienne had done this before.

"Dude, water weighs like, eight pounds a gallon, so that's only
like... " Kyle scrunched his up his face, and moved his mouth,
silently reciting multiplication tables that he'd had drilled into his
head. "Forty pounds. That's not bad." He looked at the tank, and then
the distance between it and the bathroom, and Adrienne's kitchen, and
then shrugged. "Or maybe the pitcher, because I think filling and
moving would wreck your fern arrangement."

"I'm not a dude, in case you hadn't noticed," Adrienne replied good-naturedly. "I can rearrange the ferns later. Let's carry the thing over to the bathtub, it'll be faster. Or you can carry it, Mister 'that's only like forty pounds, that's not bad.' Should we empty the rocks out first?" The pebbles she'd dumped into the bottom of the tank had to add a little weight to the tank, and maybe it was unnecessary weight until after the tank was filled? "Maybe I should have gotten another video game," she mused. "I could have tried Guitar Hero..."

"Nah. Rocks'll make the water lighter. Unless it's five gallons with
rock space? I dunno, I mean, is there like a standard for fish tanks?
Five gallons all the way to the top, or it'll hold five gallons and
have room for rocks and plants and stuff?" Kyle chattered all the way
to the bathroom. "Everyone's a dude. Dudette sounds lame. Dude's like
a genderless placeholder name." He'd had to defend it to a classmate
once already, not that the defense had worked. "And forty pounds
isn't a lot. I bench my own weight."

With a raised eyebrow, Adrienne followed him into the bathroom, letting him ramble. "Alright then, you can carry the tank, and I'll... supervise."