Kyle and Yvette, rescued from Bored

[x-wildchild.livejournal.com]

Kyle takes Yvette outside via a piggy-back ride, shows her the result of her eating so many apples over the last few years (a tiny sapling!) and gets convinced to make her fruity umbrella drinks.



Kyle knew from his own very short times spent stuck indoors or injured that no matter how much there was to do on hand, be it books or games or even the dreaded homework, that being stuck was frustrating in and of itself, because no matter what you had to do to occupy yourself, there was always the reminder that you couldn't go somewhere or do something. He didn't have the patience for it past a day or so before he started getting stir-crazy.

He figured patient people could give it more time. But that didn't mean it sucked any less.

He spent some time making sure there was a comfortable lounge chair with a folded beach towel that could act as a blanket just in case, and and then carefully wrote an actually legible sign that said 'This chair is the property of Miss Yvette Petrovic." and set it on the chair.

Then he went looking for Yvette. Finding her was a lot easier when there were all of three places she was likely to be. The rec room was the first place he checked, finding her on one of the couches curled up with a book.

Kyle's guess had been right - even Yvette's patience was wearing thin. She hadn't realized how much she did until she wasn't able to do any of it. She looked up eagerly as he came in, obviously not that engrossed in her book, and gave him a large smile. "Hello, Kyle! Are you coming to keep be company?" she asked, setting the book aside on the coffee table.

"Sort of. I'm coming to rescue you from an afternoon of being bored down to your toenails in a stuffy rec room." Kyle hadn't even thought of it until now, but Yvette -had- toenails now. He'd forced himself not to double-take at the pale skin or the brown eyes. He was so used to red-and-blue, that white-and-brown was weird. The girl on the couch didn't look like Yvette, even if she sounded like her.

She raised her eyebrows, even as she straightened up, looking enthused. "Rescuing is sounding good. Where would we be going?" She peered around him. "And how? You are not bringing the wheelchair? I cannot walk so far just yet."

Kyle made a dismissive noise at the mention of a wheelchair. "Pfft. Who needs a wheelchair? You're all tiny and stuff, I can totally carry you." He flexed one arm to make the bicep pop up, grinning widely. "See? I've totally been working out and everything. And we are going outside. We can do the tour of Growing Stuff, or I can just take you straight out to the patio and you can lounge and get people to bring you lemonade."

Yvette, on cue, blushed rosy red, but threw aside the blanket over her legs eagerly, forgetting she was in her pink Hello Kitty jammies.

"Outside is sounding very good. You are, how they say? The knight in the shiny armour? I am so very tired of being inside."

"Knight in my holey busted jeans with the hole in the butt." Kyle corrected. He had boxer briefs on, so it wasn't not like the jeans showed anything. And they were comfy and broken in. "Okay, so we can do this two ways, and I dunno which one would be better for your stitched up parts. Piggy-back, or I just pick you up and cart you out like you're a sack of mulch or something."

"I think perhaps the piggy back?" she suggested, trying not to look, now he'd mentioned it, at his butt. Even if it was a very nice, well-muscled butt. She pushed the thought away - without her powers, she was turning into some kind of... girl and it was very strange. Like she hadn't allowed herself to think of those sorts of things when she couldn't have them. "That way my back is not stretching so much and the stitches will not pull?"

"Works for me." Kyle said, dropping down into a crouch in front of the couch. "Ripping stitches is pretty much the definition of suck." He'd done it a once himself, by being an idiot and moving around too much before things had healed up. There was no way he wanted to risk messing up Yvette, or her new kidney. "Okay, so legs go here... and then you're gonna want to hold on, and I'll get your legs so you don't tip over backwards and land on something you might need later."

Carefully Yvette climbed onto his back, wrapping her arms hesitantly around his neck. Kyle's back was warm and solid and his hair smelled good - she had to resist burying her nose in it. A small squeak escaped her as he stood - Kyle was tall, much taller than Marius had been the last time she'd done anything like this, back in Japan - and her grip tightened a little, but not so much that he couldn't breathe. "I am not too heavy for you?" she asked, forgetting she wasn't her usual weight without her powers and that Kyle probably wouldn't have noticed it if she had been.

Yvette was actually lighter than Kyle had expected, and he'd had to catch himself so as not to stand up too fast. He didn't know what kind of stuff they still had her on, or if any of it gave her vertigo or anything. "Nope. Light as a feather." It certainly wasn't like carrying around the sack-of-potatoes that was Laurie or Angel. But then, Yvette also wasn't squirming or trying to fireball his pants. "So, tour of growing stuff with color commentary, or lounge chair and lemonade?"

"Growing stuff, please. I am liking your comments; you are being very funny." Sure she wasn't about to fall off, she loosened her grip on his neck a little. "And I am missing my working. The garden will be missing me, yes?"

"I think those brambles are going to miss you. They missed you so much they didn't grow back." Ripping them out by the roots had more to do with that, and Kyle would've taken Yvette out for celebratory dinner on defeating at least -that- patch of it, but then she'd gone on the Red-X thing, and gotten hurt, and so celebratory dinner was on hold until he was sure that there wouldn't be Wrath of A Doctor coming down on his head. "So, just sayin', if Bosnia has some kind of bramble infestation, it's probably because they went looking for you there."

"For the revenge for pulling them out, yes?" she laughed, squeaking again as Kyle headed down the stairs. "What is the movie quote? 'My name is Indigo Montoya. You killed my brambles. Prepare to die.'" As always, she got the name wrong.

Going down the stairs one step at a time was slower than Kyle liked, as he was normally prone to taking the stairs at a speed best described as 'breakneck', but he was being careful. "Yep. And sending them to a horrible mulchy doom. Ended up with like, three bags of mulch, which is going to make Ms. Munroe's greenhouse pretty happy, plus the flower beds." He chattered about the general state of the grounds all the way down the stairs and out the back door. "So, remember how Callie had a cold? Turns out her power was making the roses all droopy. I think they're better now, but Zanne was eleven kinds of confused by it."

As they reached the outside, Yvette tipped her face up towards the sun, squinting at the brightness. It felt so warm on her skin, like Angel's fire shield! For a moment she didn't register that Kyle had stopped his chatter, and the hastened to reply. "They were catching the cold also? That would be confusing. I did not realise Callie's powers were so..." She searched for the word and failed. "So, so."

"Contagious? Yeah, I don't think she knew either. It was totally weird." Kyle got along okay with Callie, but 'talks to plants' was still really high on his list of powers that made no sense.

As they talked, Kyle carried Yvette down to the toolshed, to a patch of recently cleared ground, where a tiny tree, barely recognizable as a tree had been planted. "So, crazy thing, remember how I was gonna flip the compost heap and re-worm it? Dude, all those apple cores? One of them sprouted. I barely noticed this little guy."

"Oh!" Yvette let out a little pleased gasp, leaning forward a little over Kyle's shoulder so that she could peer at the tiny plant more closely. "The apple tree! You rescued it!" For some reason, the sight filled her with a kind of joy - no matter what happened, here perhaps was a connection to her that would last for many years.

"Yep!" Kyle hitched Yvette up a little higher, and then carefully bent down so she could look closer if she wanted. "It'll be a few years before he grows any apples, but there you go. One sneaky growing Ninja Apple tree for the Apple Ninja. I have no idea what kind of apples it'll grow or anything." And he was going to make damn sure it survived to grow some apples, because all the crap Yvette had gone through, she deserved some apples from her very own tree. "So once you're up and about, we'll need to put some stakes on it so it grows straight, but right now, it's pretty much getting everything it needs. Compost, sun, water, buncha worms..."

She slid forward a little on his back as he bent over, and held on a little tighter, the side of her face almost touching his ear. "I am sure you are looking after it very well. As well as you are looking after me, yes?" She giggled then. "Although, I do not need to be given the compost and the worms so much."

"I dunno, we could dump a big bucket of worms in your bed and see if it does anything." Kyle said, laughing, not just from the mental image of Yvette's reaction to a bed full of worms, but also at the tickling of her breath on his ear. "What's good for the apple tree should be good for the apple ninja, right? I can just go get the bucket right now if you want..."

"No!" Yvette squealed, her protest weakened by her giggling. "I do not want worms in my bed! They will be all wriggly and gross!" It was a good thing Kyle was holding onto her, or she might have fallen off his back, she was laughing so much.

"Okay, okay, no worms." Kyle agreed, mock-reluctantly. "But only because your tree needs them more. He's way shorter than you are." He tightened his grip on Yvette slightly, mindful of the giggling that had her slipping down slightly, and carefully stood up. "But sunshine, that you totally need, and there's a lounge chair with your name on it on the patio." Literally, since he'd written that handy sign.

The laughing was making her back hurt, and sitting down in the sun sounded wonderful. Especially since she'd actually be able to feel the sunshine on her skin. "Am I getting the drinks with the little umbrellas?" she asked, settling back into a more comfortable position. "Miss Tabitha was saying she had the vacation where she was lying in the lounge chair and there were boys bringing her the drinks with the umbrellas in them." She wasn't at all serious, but it was fun to tease. Not having to worry about her emotional reactions and the distance she kept from people was having an interesting effect on the normally shy and quiet girl.

"If I can find you some paper umbrellas, I will totally put one in a lemonade for you." Kyle didn't even know where you got little paper umbrellas, although he was pretty sure there were tiny plastic swords in the kitchen somewhere, and he could skewer some fruit on those. "Or I dunno, put your drink in a coconut or something. Goofy tropical drinks come in coconuts all the time on tv, right?"

"If you can be finding the coconut, I will drink anything you are liking out of it," Yvette replied.