Nathan, Jay and Kyle

[x-icarus.livejournal.com]

In the aftermath of the journal wars, Jay gets called to the infirmary by Amelia, who makes him wait and he ends up in a conversation with the person he least expected. Kyle walks in baring gifts for Nathan.

Jay searched the infirmary for Amelia and walking by Nate's door, found her. He backpeddled three paces and turned, knocking on the door
briefly. "Hey, sorry to intrupt, you wanted to see me?" he asked, ignoring Nate and addressing Amelia.

"You did promise me you'd come down here for a check-up," Amelia said, without straightening from where she was bending over Nathan, lightly prodding at his chest. Nathan was an alarming shade of pale, but made no noise as she continued her exam. "And yet, I haven't seen you."

"Ah told you Ah was fine," he said. "Ah ain't needing a check up." He didn't get why it was such a big deal, but then, Amelia was still probably mad when he took those pills last autumn. Hanging off the door frame, Jay waited for the scolding that would come, whatever made him sit down and get poked and prodded. The flyer wasn't really in any mood to be poked around but he didn't have much of a choice, seeing as Scott still wanted that check up and Amelia wanted it too for different reasons.

"We established quite some time ago that your medical judgement is not to be trusted, didn't we?" She straightened, pulling Nathan's shirt back down gently. "I'll be back in a few minutes," she told the older man. "I have an idea, but I want to talk it over with Jean first. And possibly your wife." Turning towards the door, she eyed Jay as she brushed past him. "Find someplace to sit down. I'll be with you soon."

"Shouldn't have made her chase you down," Nathan drawled quietly, once she was safely gone. "She'll make you pay for that."

He hung by the door, unsure where to go, where to sit since Nate was talking to him and his manners wouldn't let him walk away to someone that was addressing him. "Yeah well," he looked down at his nails, picking at them to avoid eye contact. "Call me a sucker for punishment lately."

"Masochism. Not an attractive trait." Nathan reached out with an unsteady hand and found the control for the bed, hitting the button to raise the head of it upwards. "You ought to do something about that," he said, some of the color returning to his face.

"About what? Keepin' mah mouth shut and suckin' it up for the team? Ah've already heard that fifty times. Though if that's what yer sayin', another person sayin' it ain't gonna hurt."

Nathan just raised an eyebrow. "... wow, you do go from one thing to the next very quickly, don't you?" he asked, taking a careful deep breath, brow creasing with pain. "I don't think I said anything about the team, did I?"

"Sorry. It's on mah mind a lot." Jay frowned to himself, still keeping his eyes downcast, but it was a bitter frown, one that didn't frequent this face too often. "Seein' as yer retirin'--" He shrugged and leaned back, checking the hallway to see if Amelia was coming or not.

"Go on," Nathan said dryly.

"What is this? Like Dr. Phil or somethin'?"

"Seeing as though I'm retiring, what?" Nathan asked, not quite patiently. "You sounded like you were leading up to something."

"Ah wasn't leadin' up to anythin'. Why's everyone think Ah have some fuckin' meanin' behind everythin' Ah say? You read minds. So read mine now." As soon as he said it, he regretted it. Like putting his foot in his mouth, Jay dropped his head in his hands and dragged them down his face. "Ugh--"

Nathan rolled his eyes. "You started to say something, then trailed off to check if Amelia was coming back. I think it was a fair assumption on my part. As for reading your mind," he went on, shifting gingerly on the bed, "why would I want to give you actual reason for directing that attitude at me?"

"Look," Jay said, pulling back his hair and dropping his hands. "Ah don't mean to be rude but Ah think I've met mah quota fer putting mah foot in mah mouth this week okay? You don't look so well n' it's prolly best Ah stop mahself awhile Ah'm ahead. Ah only have so much asshole in me."

"Oh, give me a break, Guthrie. People have been tip-toeing around me for the last two weeks. Besides," Nathan said, "there's no reason you have to use up your inner asshole on me. I wasn't part of the textual asskicking you got."

"Fine," he sighed and dropped into a chair. "Ah can't believe Ah'm sitting here with you. Ah don't even like you. Well, not you as a person, just yer Telepath shit and ugh -- sorry. Can you just like, hit me with some psychic stuff and say it was an accident. Just tell 'em Ah'll be awake in five days." He dropped his head in his hands silence stretching between them before he sat up, tired and rubbing his temple in a slouch.

"You're going to love the telepathic switchboard," Nathan murmured, not quite in amusement. "I can tell already."

"If suicide was an option, Ah would have done it by now," he joked, but it came darkly, dark for the southerner that usually wore a light burden.

"I'm going to give you a hopefully helpful piece of advice," Nathan said after a moment. "Being overdramatic is a good way to piss off fellow X-Men. Because in the ordinary course of the job, we encounter more drama than any of us really need." He shrugged with his uninjured shoulder. "Just something to think about."

"It was a joke," he replied irritably. "Ah ain't lookin' for sympathy Nate, why you being so nice to me?" They never had got on before and could only chalk it up to Nate being in the bed and Jay being on the other end of it. Age too, since Nate was retiring but he wouldn't say that outloud.

"Why would I not be nice?" Nathan said, a little irked by Jay's casual use of 'Nate' but not letting it show in his face or voice.

"Ah dunno. Cause we ain't never got along before?" It was an honest admission, a confused look to follow it, shrugging because he didn't really understand. He was on everyone's shit list, why not Nate's?

Nathan gave another half-shrug. "We've talked all of what, three or four times, ever? And I think most of those times were a few years ago. I don't blame teenagers for being idiots."

"Ah wasn't an idiot," he sighed and sat up, leaning forward.

"Oh, I beg to differ," Nathan murmured, watching him. "It's not a comment on you. All teenagers are idiots. We grow out of it, though."

"You know what's hard about this?" he asked conversationally. "It's that everyone's thinkin' Ah got somethin' to prove when Ah don't. Ah don't even think Ah'll make the team. Ah ain't team material. Just about everyone agreed about that on X-grads. But Ah don't care. Let 'em talk. They can all go to hell."

"Why are you doing this?" Nathan asked. "If you don't expect it to work out. If you don't have any reason to try."

HIs eyes dropped and he started picking at his finger nails again, falling under Nathan's gaze. "Cause Ah owe it to the people Ah care about to try," he murmured quietly. "Even if they make fun of me fer doing it."

"Then you are trying to prove something," Nathan said, not harshly. "You're trying to prove to those people that you care enough about their opinion to do something good with your life. That's not a bad thing. In fact, I'd say it's kind of the opposite."

"Yo! Mall pretzel!" Kyle's voice could be heard just outside, and the rustle of a paper bag being shaken before he poked his head into Nate's exam room. "Also a DVD!" In the other hand, he had a copy of Shane, from his favorite Used DVD store. The overly butter-and-salty smell of the pretzel had blocked out the smell of big-blue-and-emo and he paused halfway into the room as he saw Jay. "For people who don't suck." He added.

Jay was on his feet, the moment turned stone cold and his wings shuttered out, braced until he was face to face with Kyle. He blocked out Nathan's view, tension crawling all the way down his spine as he was half posed for the defensive, a protective stance to Nathan behind him. A growl curled in his throat at their face off and his wings suddenly drew back, a forced withdrawl, swallowing his fuck you though his eyes narrowed at the intrusion.

Without any other word, Jay rounded past Kyle and wings bristled with irritation, turning the corner and abruptly leaving at Nathan's newest arrival.

"That," Nathan said when Jay had left the room, "is a very troubled young man. I can't help but wonder if adding more stress to his life was really his best decision ever."

"That's a walking disaster. But better he blow it now than he fuck up in the field." Kyle had managed a near miraculous show of restraint, just meeting Jay's eyes until the other man left the room, without a growl or unsheathing of claws or even a baring of fangs. "Anyway. I got you a movie. And a pretzel."

"I'm sure all the redheads who've been shaking their fingers at me about nutrition and the healing process would be horrified, but the pretzel smells damned awesome," Nathan said, a twinkle in his tired gray eyes, putting Jay out of his thoughts for now. "You're tops on my smuggling list for the day."