Kyle and Jay - backdated to Thursday

[x-wildchild.livejournal.com]

Kyle and Jay fix a busted pipe, joke about their previous relationship and have the awkward, and Jay somehow talks Kyle into lending him a suit jacket.



"So Ah thought we could set somethin' up so that this pipe here doesn't freeze again," Jay said, standing in one of the aisles of the greenhouse and brushing a hand through his hair. The pipe had burst last night, causing one hell of a mess and because Jay had promised Ororo he would look after the greenhouse (and take one thing off Kyle's hands), this seemed to be a bigger job than he knew how to handle. He didn't know a thing about plumming but had managed to shut the water off before it caused permanent damage.

"Jesus, yeah, I'm surprised the thing didn't blow before this." Kyle raked a hand through his hair. "Must've been a hell of a snap freeze. You sure Bobby wasn't up here jerking it or something?" He poked at the crack in the pipe where it led to one of the sprinkler heads and tapped at the metal with his claws, listening to the sounds it made. "Actually sounds like the metal's corroded."

"If Bobby's down here jerkin', Ah don't think Ah wanna know." Bobby wasn't exactly porn material in Jay's mind, too much of a baby face for him. "Yanno, plumbin' ain't mah specialty--" to which he met Kyle's gaze with a queer expression. "Not this type of plumbin'," he added. "We gotta take it apart huh?"

"Yup." Kyle tapped the pipe a few more times and then shrugged. "We're gonna have to pretty much take this branch of the system apart and just fit another pipe in. No big, won't even need to call the plumber. Just go get some replacement pipe and make sure it's not busted inside. Nothing anyone did wrong, just someone put in a pipe that wasn't coated or something." If it had been any more complicated than that, Kyle would've had to go find Zanne and ask her to call whatever plumber she'd found that was willing to work in a place with blue guys with metal wings. "And yeah, I know what kinda plumbing you specialize in, dude. Been there, done that, pretty sure we killed a set of my sheets."

"Don't remember," he replied honestly, heading down the aisle and fetching himself a wrench that would help undo the top part. If they really got into it, sex had hit a number with them that he couldn't recollect and walking back to Kyle, his lazy smirk said as much as he dropped the wrench in Kyle's hand.

Kyle wasn't all that bothered by Jay's response, and just took the wrench and began removing the pipe at the connector. "Gonna have to put in a new sprinkler head here too, but also no big. This is easy stuff, like putting together Legos or something." As long as he had the instructions or it made sense, he was fine. "Man, kinda glad this went now and not like, a week ago. Finals kicked my -ass-."

"Ah've got one more to go before Ah'm done. It's a rewrite cause someone pulled the fire alarm." He shrugged and leaned over the bench, watching Kyle work. "So are you hintin' that Ah should be gettin' you new bed sheets for Christmas?"

"Dude, you do that and Jan'll be like, oh, are you sleeping with Jay again? Can I watch? And that'd be super-weird." Kyle said, laughing. He wasn't actually sure if Jan would ask that in quite that way, but he also wasn't sure she'd -not- want to watch. "Also, dude, someone, like someone someone, or like like someone blue did it cause he didn't study cause he was up too late juggling vodka bottles?"

"Can Ah watch? Oh hell no--" Jay waved that off, turning around to press his external spine against the bench. No Jan watching wasn't weird at all. "What are you on about? Ah wasn't juggling vodka bottles back then, plus, Ah sucked at it." Although now, he was very good at flaire bartending.

"What, last week? When did someone pull the fire alarm?" Now Kyle was confused. "And yeah, no watching. I mean, no sleeping with you,and no watching. That's just way too weird, even for me and I dated Clarice." That had been an education. "And once you're done letting your metal bits make out with the table, I need you to hold the end of the pipe so I can detach the sprinkler thingy."

Jay shrugged about the fire alarm. "Last week, that's all Ah know. They had a meltdown and stuff cause of it. Sucked cause Ah was doing really good on it too." Scoffing about his metal bits, he leaned forward and grabbed the end of the pipe where Kyle wanted him to be. "Yeah, Ah ain't all for the watchin --" he shook his head. "Can we not talk about this? We're borderin' awkward here and between you and me, we've had enough of that."

"Eh, if they postponed, you've just got more time to study, dude." Kyle said. As for the awkward, he decided his best bet was to simply acknowledge Jay's request by changing the subject. "Or try to beat your last time on that Danger Room run. I mean, dude, speed run much?" He stuck the end of the wrench through an unused belt-loop in his jeans and worked his way down the pipe, popping the sprinkler heads off and dropping them into a pocket. "Okay, all we gotta go do now is get a new pipe and get it drilled out for the sprinklers."

"Garrison says it's good to balance good with the bad," he said as his way of excuse for doing so many sessions with it. They were constantly playing with Jay's ability to fly and avoid danger, how fast his wings could retract and pull out to stop him from falling. Really, Jay was always pushed to his limits becuase it was within those limits that he broke. "Anyways, yeah pipes, store then? Oh shit, by the way, do you gotta suit for Winter Ball, are you goin'?" he asked, knowing it was completely off topic.

"Ayup." Kyle picked up the broken pipe and gave it a quick once-over to double check it's gauge. "And yep again. Jan's still not up for a lot of dancing but I gotta suit up anyway. Jacket anyway. I might just say fuck it to the tie. Hate the damn things." Tying ties either took forever, or meant getting someone else to do it. Some things were not meant for guys with claws. "Yo, if you drive me to the Home Depot so we can get this thing replaced, I'll spot you a burger."

"Fine Ah'll drive," Jay agreed. "But maybe you could skip the ball, lend me your suit and still give me that burger cause Ah don't have a suit. Left it at mah Mama's." The last time he wore a suit, like really wore one was for graduation and that was a rented tux.

"You buy me a burger and I'll lend you my spare one." Owning two suits was weird, but Kyle figured he wasn't going to argue when girlfriends said he should have two. "Pants might be long through, you're shorter than me." And the pants for Kyle's suits were cut weird. "Bet you could get away with jeans if you wore a cowboy hat." He'd seen guys do that. Kyle was half sure he'd seen Sam do that.

"Ah am not wearin' a cowboy hat," Jay said. "Fine. deal. Ah'll wear mah buffalo jeans - Ah don't think they got any holes in 'em," though he wished he could have found those the other day. Weird, a year ago, he wouldn't have been able to wear Kyle's jacket, now... well, now he could. "C'mon. Ah left mah keys in the suite downstairs."