Kyle and Fred ((BACKDATED))

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After the mass leavings, Kyle discovers Fred sulking in the back of his truck. ((Backdated like hell CAUSE I'M FUNCTIONALLY RETARDED >_< ))



The smell of alcohol didn't bother Kyle all that much. He didn't care too much for the stuff himself, but that was more because the drinks that smelled good to him were universal 'fruity girl drinks' and he didn't want to risk the mocking.

The smell of cheap beer, on the other hand, bugged Kyle a lot. It stank. Decent beer didn't smell all that bad. Cheap beer smelled like ... well, like cheap beer. It was very distinctive.

Cheap beer and slightly used motor oil left only a small number of people Kyle could be smelling. The slight bass rumble to the person's breathing pared that number down to two, and since Kyle knew it wasn't Cain, it had to be Fred. They were the only two people Kyle knew big enough to make that kind of noise.

Technically he thought, he was probably supposed to yell at Fred for being underage with cheap beer. "Yo, Dukes! Quit drinking cheap beer!" Seemed like more than enough, as he came
up on the truck and the large teenager lounging in the back.

Fred had spent most of the day, after cutting out of class, wandering about the campus. He'd stopped by the media room: dead quiet. He stopped by the kitchen: ghost town. After he'd passed Johnny's room and the office Mister JP had used, he'd made a straight shot back to his
truck and, one long truck ride and a fake ID later, he'd parked outside the garage and begun
plowing through a case of Steel Reserve.

He was up to his last beer when Kyle had happened upon him and wordlessly crushed the can into a minuscule, unidentifiable ball. Hmm. He thought he felt buzzed there, but it musta' just been his imagination.

When Kyle had told him to stop drinking the cheap beer he pulled out a large bottle of single malt and held it up to Kyle silently, as if for inspection, before he popped off the cap with a flick of his thumb.

"Dude, that is way not any better." Kyle clambered on top of the station wagon next to Fred's truck. "Does that stuff even hit you? Cause, man, you're like almost Mr. Marko's size
and I'm pretty sure he didn't get drunk much. I mean, I heard stories about this one time,
but past that, not a lot. So, anyway, what's up with the shitty beer?"

Fred up-ended a large portion of the bottle, "...takes grain alcohol, usually, iffen I really wanna' feel som'in," he finally said after a few moments quiet. He gulped down another cheek full of scotch and held the bottle out to Kyle, though didn't bother asking him
if he wanted any before he began talking again, "You walked around campus past few days?"

Kyle shook his head at the offer. He wasn't that much older than Fred, which is why he felt like calling the guy out for the beer would be ratting on him, but he wasn't gonna share in it either. Also it smelled. "Yeah, we're down a few folks. It happens, start of the school year, people get kinda restless. I hate to say it, couple of weeks you probably won't even notice."

"Just feels...weird," Fred wasn't slurring, but the words did seem to be coming slower, and his accent was thicker, "Everyone..just sorta packing up and heading out. I mean, I know I haven't been here long, but...she-it, you know?" Fred killed the bottle, and now seemed to be content dragging off his Morely.

"Yeah, it's freaky when people head out. Worse if you were friends with 'em. But it's not like you don't have email or phones or whatev." Kyle answered, one foot up on the other knee, using the claw of one hand to pick gravel out from the claws of his feet. "And half the
damn time, they come right on back."

"Yea...look, hones'?" Fred blew a plume of smoke into the air, "I know. I know they ain't gone or nuthin'. I know they're where they're supposed to be. They're...home or with family or somesuch. I get that...it just..." he took another drag. Then another, "I don't know..."

"But it's rough cause you just got to know 'em and now they're all outta here? Or something else?" It had bugged the crap out of Kyle when Catseye had left. Not nearly as much when Jay had, but the breakup had an awful lot to do with that.

Fred looked at Kyle, and then sighed. Another pull off his smoke and he finally had the courage to talk again, "Watching everyone else hit the winds...just kinda reminded me that I really got nowhere to go..."

Kyle shrugged, not quite sure what to say. If push came to shove, he had a place to go. Sort of. But as much as his family wouldn't kick him out, they also wouldn't be real happy about it. "You did pretty okay making your own place for a few years, right? Maybe, like, this
is your place to go?"

Fred shrugged a little, "Maybe. Maybe I'm just like the rest of 'em. Passin' through..." There was doubt lacing his words. Did he really think that? What about Jules...or Callie? "I...I dunno...just kinda knocked me for a loop is all..."

"Pfft. Like you believe that you're passing through." Kyle waved a hand dismissively at Fred. "If you were gonna bail, you'd have bailed already. Unlike half of everyone here, you're like, here all on your own. On one hand, sucks that you had to be. On the other, hey, I wouldda killed for my own truck when I was actually a student here."

Fred chuckled a little and jerked his thumb toward the cab of his truck, "This one? More likely to kill you," he said with a laugh.

Kyle snorted. "Yeah, I got enough problems with the station wagon. I'll pass unless the world's gonna end or something. Sides, fair's fair, not like I like anyone ride my bike." Well, except Catseye and that didn't count. "So, you gonna be emo out here with the crap beer, or is this a passing thing? Cause if you're gonna keep with the emo, I'm gonna go see if one of the girls'll lend you some black eyeliner."

Fred snorted, and smiled a little as he climbed out of the back of the truck, "Suggest eyeliner to me one more time, Gibney. See what happens." Fred gathered all the loose trash made by his little binge into a half-full trashbag that had already been festering in the back of the truck. He turned back to the older mutant, "Thanks man...by the by, iffen the wagon given you troubles, I could give it a look-see if you'd like..."

"Nothing that a wrecking ball can't fix. The damn thing just drives like a couch on wheels, that's all." It wasn't that Kyle hated it so much as he hated driving it, being seen in it, being seen driving it or that it was one of the only cars that wouldn't get him a fast pass to being pulled over for 'driving while mutated'. "Bet you'd wear it if Callie asked you to." Not that he thought the pink girl would, but it'd be funny anyway.

Fred stopped and thought for a moment...and then another. Finally, he answered Kyle, "...shut up." He gathered up the trashbag and hefted it over the can to throw it away. When done, he turned back to Kyle, "You hungry?"

"Always dude. -Always-." Kyle said emphatically. "I mean, okay, I'm not starving all the time but pretty much yeah. Why?"

"Ordered some pizzas a while back. Don't think I can eat all of it. Pizza should never go to waste." The fact that Fred had said the last part with such conviction might have made it more funny. Or less.

"Like I'm gonna turn down pizza. What, do I look crazy?" Kyle hopped
off the wagon lightly "Show me to the pizza. And on the way we'll
discuss your shitty taste in beer. Man, my -dad- doesn't drink that
crap."