xp_logs | Jay & Kyle

Kyle comes to fix Jay's fan and they avoid what they should really talk about, instead finding common ground in common differences.

The knock on the door was barely audible if Jay hadn't been dozing on the couch. Still wearing last night's jeans, he heard it, woken by instinct more than what was habit of a light sleeper and inhale deeply, eyes lazily prying themselves open before he hauled himself off the couch.

Homework laid on the coffee table, books sprawled out over scribbles of notes that would have been barely legible to anyone but the writer and he knocked off a pile, nailing his shin off the corner and stumbling with a curse. Late night at the bar, studying and classes during the day - his plate was full and was the sole reason he opened the door, looking disheveled.

"Fuck. I can come back." Kyle waved the fix-it note and the replacement ceiling fan blade at Jay. "Unless you're gonna -not- be a buttmonkey long enough for me to fix this, maybe apologize for being a asshat myself, and then head out?" If he pretended like he wasn't feeling like a total shit, he could get the offer of an apology out before he felt like a schmuck AND a total shit.

Jay's hand gripped the door above his head and for a moment, it looked like he was going to shut the door in Kyle's face. Instead, his hand slid down the door before he opened it wider, gesturing irritably for Kyle to go in. He didn't really trust himself to speak.

"Sorry, dude. Zanne's up to her eyebrows in whatever paperwork thing she's doing for winter prep, so you get me. On the other hand, hey, I was an ass and I shouldn't have said that and I apologize?" Which Kyle managed to say while grabbing the portable stepstool from the hallway and carrying it in. "Also what did you -do- to the damn fan?"

"Ah had a bad dream," Jay confessed as if that alone would explain why his wings lunged out and chopped the blades from the ceiling fan. It was obvious he was sleeping more on the couch rather than the suite bedroom where he should be. He left the apology to rest, not wanting to go over what actually turned Kyle away from him.

"Thanks fer comin'," he said awkwardly, stuffing a hand in his pocket and running the other through his hair.

"This gonna happen a lot?" Kyle setup the stool, and hopped up on top of it and started removing the mangled fan blade. "Dude, maybe I'll see if we can get you some blades made of aluminum or something." The pressed wood was virtually destroyed, leaving only a few inches of fan blade left. "Can you cut through metal? Yvette can but it takes her a while." If Jay was gonna avoid the subject, Kyle could avoid the
subject too.

As if he had better things to do, Jay sat back down on the couch, leaning over to pick up the papers and busying himself. "Ah dunno," he replied, shuffling the stack to align them and attempted to sort through his own writing. "Ah can like you would use a can opener." He didn't offer anymore or anyless and realized that the emo blue name probably rang true in Kyle's head for him. He gave up on the stack and dropped them onto the coffee table, pausing to drag both hands down his face as he leaned back into the couch, sighing. "Just take the fan down, kay? Then you don't have to come back." He didn't need it anyways.

"Dude, don't tell people that. They'll show up here at like eight in the morning wanting you to open their cans." Kyle said. He wasn't sure about removing the fan, but if he was going to, he had to remove the blades anyway, so he could start that while he chatted. "Hell, I'll show up here at eight in the morning to get you to open cans." Not that he ate anything from cans, but it sounded funny.

"What do you eat from cans?" he asked, dropping his hands into his lap and pressing the blades of his spine into the couch. The bottom of Kyle's shirt rose up, revealing far too much and Jay shifted his gaze to something else. Something like his fingernails.
"Uh." There had to be something. He owned a can opener. "Dude, I think you know me too well." He couldn't come up with anything in a can that he'd eaten at all recently. Why the hell did he own a can opener? Maybe it was Manuel's. "I'll buy food in cans and then make you open it. Yeah. That's totally it!"

"Yeah cause that makes a whole lotta sense when you own yer own can opener," Jay replied, rolling his eyes. He hated when Kyle tried to compensate for where they were off, but he couldn't help the smile that was trying to surface or the fond shake of the head. "Anybody told you yet to get a life?"

"Today, or in general?" Kyle asked, as he tossed another fan blade onto the floor. "I mean, today no, but in general, uh, it's not like I keep track, dude. Also I totally have a life!" It was just a sad one of working out, homework, classes, and more working out, interrupted by the occasional date with Jan. Or nookie.

"Yer busy, ain't a life. When's the last time you n' Jan went anywhere fer yourselves and not cause y'all had some sorta mission goin' on?" he challenged.

"Hey, we go on dates!" Kyle protested, muffled by the screwdriver between his teeth as he pulled another blade off the fan. "And dude, you work and go to school and turn Danger Room drones into pincushions. You got like, no room to talk dude."
"Last year Ah went on a trip, remember? Oh, no, right. You couldn't remember cause you weren't there," Jay pointed out. "And when Ah go to work, that's mah whole social life right there. Ah socialize all night long til Ah'm blue in the face, so yea, Ah got room to talk. Lotta room to talk. Maybe you should go downsouth or somethin'. Do somethin' nice with Jan fer a change. Ah reckon she'd like that."

"Autofail. You're already blue in the face." Kyle pointed out. "I totally went to rescue her in Delaware! That was awesome nice." Besides, he had no money for a vacation. "We do nice things!" Funny that he couldn't actually name them, but he was sure they did nice things. "Sides, I have school and it kicks my ass."

"King of denial," Jay said as he got up and went behind the counter of the kitchenettte and produced a bowl. "--here's yer crowd. Yanno, Ah mighta turned you straight but you sure as hell suck as a boyfriend."

"Sucked. Past tense, dude." Jan didn't have any complaints she'd aired to him, so as far as Kyle was concerned, they were fine and he was fine. He removed the last fanblade and began the process of unhooking the fan mechanism itself. "Okay, for really reals, are we gonna talk about how I was an asshole to you, or are we gonna avoid it for like, ever and be totally awkward."

Brushing his hair away from his face, Jay's fingers raked against his skull as he forced himself to turn around, away from the mini fridge and lean against the counter, sighing. "Well it ain't just like 'oh hey, sorry fer being a dick, here's yer fan'. You know where to punch and you did it where everyone could see. Yer always on about being a team, being a pack and you just singled me out, made it personal."

"Okay, come here and take this thing so I can actually talk to you like, not from standing on a stepstool and shit." Kyle had the fan mechanism disconnected and off the ceiling but getting it to the ground was not exactly easy. But once he and Jay set it on the floor, he sat down on the stepstool, elbows on knees. "I was a total ass and it was totally like, about the uncoolest thing I could've said. I can.. . explain why I, like you said, singled you out if you want but it doesn't mean I should've."

"Yeah, Ah wanna know why," Jay said, stepping back until he was able to sit on the coffee table, over his homework and books. Crossing his arms, he leaned forward but as an afterthoguht, uncrossed them and brushed his fingers together, looking down at them. "We ain't ever been a problem before, as friends, not like this. So why now?"

"You dissed my team, dude." Kyle said. "You came in all talking like you wanted to be on the team but without any of the stuff the rest of us had to do. And seriously dude, not cool. You can dis them all you want if you're not part of it, but if you want in, yeah, you gotta suck it up and do the dance. It's... like, okay, you want respect but dude, you came in all like you didn't want to give any."

"It was just a stupid name Kyle. Seriously. It still is. Garrison calls me Emo blue, ya think Ah like that name? He calls me it because it drives me fuckin' bat shit crazy n' not inna good sense either." He shook his head, forking both hands through his hair and then dragging them back over his face.

"Ah don't wanna argue about this again but Ah wasn't disrespectin' anyone. Ah ain't like that and you knew it."
"I'm just sayin, you want us to give you the stuff you need, then you're gonna have to give us what we need. And me, I need you to not -dis my team-." Kyle smacked one of his knees for emphasis. "Man, I'll call you whatever you want if we're not in the field, if you just don't dis my team."

"Ah ain't dissing yer team." Quotation marks used there. "So stop sayin' it cause Ah ain't gonna get it. Ah said Ah would take a fuckin' name, so just drop this dissin' mah team bullshit." His hands dropped down on the counter and he slid off of it, annoyed.

"Jay, chill, dude. I'm trying to explain, not tell you what you were thinking. What I'm trying to tell you here is not that I think you hate us or anything, it's that it felt like you were ragging on us. That's why I got pissed off. No matter what the hell you meant." Keeping the claws in and the growl out of his voice was harder than Kyle wanted it to be. "That's why I got pissed off and went in on picking on you, because I thought you were coming in picking on me."

Jay's own frustration was mounting and he drew a hand over his face. "That makes no sense Kyle. None. Cause Ah didn't wanna take a stupid fuckin' name, you thought Ah was dissin' you and the team and pickin' on you?" He spread his hands out, palms upwards in a what the fuck "Yeah this just went down as one of the screwier arguements of the year."

"No, dude, listen to me. I'm saying I'm wired to go off at that stuff and that's why it happened. You know how you're all setup to be all like anger-snap right now? I'm setup to go crazy when I think someone might be insulting a group I'm part of. I didn't say it was right, dude. I'm trying to, like, figure out if we can figure out how to getaround this before it happens again." Kyle had his hands under his knees, to try to keep the claws in. It wasn't helping much.

"There ain't no easy way around this. All Ah can promise is that Ah'll try, but Ah swear to God, Kyle, if you go sproutin' shit like that again, Ah'm gonna personally find you n' punch you in the face."

"Dude, that'd be better than being all emo blue guy for a month. I can totally deal with a punch in the don't you punch me now though, that'd suck..." Kyle cut himself off before Jay could even ball up a fist. "I mean, I heal. It's not like I haven't broken my nose. Hell, Garrison broke my goddamn nose last week."

"Ah don't wanna get to that point, okay? Ah'm tryin' to control, not lose it," he said. Of course, if he hit Kyle, it would be a controlled angry punch, he was sure.

"Dude, have you considered just going to the DR and hitting shit until you pass out? Because man, that totally helps with me." Kyle finally let his hands out and felt like he could relax. Sort of. "Seriously, sometimes I wonder if you're fighting it too hard. Let it be, dude. The Beatles had good mojo."

"Ah can't. Ah can't ever lose control or just hit shit til Ah pass out. That's what went wrong with Shiro and Ah don't wanna have it happen again." He felt himself relax as well adn the tension slipped out away from his metal spine.

"Yeah, but if there's no one in there, hitting shit until you pass out's not a bad way to destress." At least, Kyle thought so. But he also wasn't walking around with a couple dozen pounds of metal wings. "But no man, I get you, flipping out is fucking scary no matter what side of it you're on. I've done it enough myself to know."

"Yeah Ah know. This is a lil' different though and Ah can't explain it." He dropped onto the couch, thankful his wings were away but conscious that even around Kyle, they would always itch to come out and dominant.

Both of Kyle's eyebrows went up into the shaggy hair that was flopped over his forehead. "Your brain says "No, Jay, don't be an idiot, you don't need to go all crazy grr at that person', and your gut, or wings, or whatever are going "Dude, FUCK THAT GUY UP."", right? It was close enough to what Kyle dealt with when he was pissed off that he had a pretty good guess about it.

"Yeah that sounds about right, except its all impulse now and brains later. Hank's said he would kinda help me with it. With Garrison and Hank, maybe it'll get somewhere, Ah reckon. Ah just..." he rubbed his eyes. "Ah just can't keep mah head in it all the time, yanno? Like we already got so much shit on our plate, how do ya manage?"

"Yeah that sounds about right, except its all impulse now and brains later. Hank's said he would kinda help me with it. With Garrison and Hank, maybe it'll get somewhere, Ah reckon. Ah just..." he rubbed his eyes. "Ah just can't keep mah head in it all the time, yanno? Like we already got so much shit on our plate, how do ya manage?"

"Dude, there are days I don't even know. I just kinda go with it." Kyle shrugged. "But, dude, I also kinda came into this like five

years ago, so I've had that long to get used to a mouth fulla fangs and two inch long toenails. You've been blue, what, not even a year? And it's not even the thing you were supposed to be. Maybe it's gonna take you some time to get used to it and figure it out."

"Well, Hank's given me some anti-jerk drugs, so we'll see if it helps or makes things worse," he shrugged, propping his feet up on the couch and pushing the crestcent blades into the soft cushion. "Ah dunno if its a good idea, but maybe it'll help some."