Log: Matt & Kyle

[x-daredevil.livejournal.com]

Backdated like whoa. Sorry.

Kyle takes Matt to town to work on his powers.



When Matt had been sent to have powers training with Kyle he did not expect it to be outside of a coffee shop in nearby downtown Salem Center. Both guys had drinks, some sort of Italian soda-something for Kyle and a lemonade for Matt, plus a muffin. Since Kyle had paid, he hadn't felt bad about getting it in the slightest. He was a growing boy after all!

Now, they were sitting outside at a table as people passed randomly by. Sipping his lemonade and making a face as it was a little too sugary sweet, Matt waited for instruction. This wasn't his first time to town since he had come here, but it was his first time doing some serious powers training and while he had no idea what to expect, this was most definitely not it.

"Kay, so yeah, this is powers training time, but dude, I'm not gonna ride your ass about it. Mostly I figure we'll balance between trying to get you some like, ability to tune stuff out, and teach you how to use 'em. But the use part and the tuning stuff out is kinda the same sometimes." Kyle explained. "And I'm guessing from that face you're making that you got all uh, well, four outta the five? Taste buds as wired up as everything else?"

Matt nodded, "Almost makes me glad I'm blind," he replied. No one really WANTED to be blind, but the idea of his eyesight being this heightened really scared him. "But yeah, four of five. I'll settle for like....not getting migraines, without going in my room. That'd be a good start. Which, by the way, thanks. That room is awesome," it might be neon pink and decorated for a 4 year old girl, but he did not care. It was quiet, it was odor-free and the sheets and things on his bed were fantastic now that Haller had gotten him new ones. Mat had never had such a nice room, ever.

"Don't go to concerts until you can stay in Times Square for like an hour without a headache." Kyle suggested, with the tone of someone who knew better because he'd been there and given himself a headache. "You are totally benefiting from the weight of me having tricked out my own room, but yeah, you're welcome. Soundproofing tiles are awesome. Might be worth getting yourself some earplugs, the professional musician kind, cause believe me, dude, they help."

“I've got some regular ones," Matt pulled them out of his pocket. He frequently wore them out just to help his own sanity, but he hadn't today because that sort of defeated the powers-training idea, right? "There are more heavy-duty ones?" he asked, surprised. His dad had had those noise-cancelling headphones which Matt had loved as a kid, but those were big and bulky and at 12 years old didn't work too well for him. He'd actually tried though, they had helped him to sleep. They were gone now regardless, along with all of his father's things pretty much.

"Yeah, there's a kind that musicians use, one of the docs can probably order some for you." Kyle got his own these days but he had a job and health insurance and all that crap. "Kay, so uh, I figure we can start with hearing since, hey, we're on the topic, and it's the easiest one, at least for me, to tune out or focus on, mostly because of stuff like earplugs. Easier to shut it down if you get overloaded. You can't really shut your nose off as easy."

Matt shrugged and tore off a piece of his muffin, chewing on it and then sipping his lemonade. It was better with the muffin, "I can tend to focus on one or the other, but both at once is harder," Matt replied, "But ears are definitely harder to ignore," the idea of the better earplugs intrigued him for sure. He would have to see about it. Since he was a ward of the state, they paid for his medical, so he doubted that would be a problem.

Kyle pulled a face - not that Matt could see it – and stirred the syrup in his drink into the soda water. The bottom was always too sweet, even if the barista only put one shot of syrup in it. "Okay, lets figure out how much overload you are getting here. Uh..." Kyle thought for a second, they'd passed a music store after he'd parked the car, about a block away. "Okay, how many songs can you hear right now?" That, the music in the coffee stop, and two people's iPods, Kyle could count four distinct.

"Uhh...eight," Matt replied almost immediately, then paused as he tried to sort them out, "coffee shop is the loudest. Then those two cars stopped in the road, a couple ipods or something, music store, the stupid Italian song and some hip-hop," the last two were fairly faint though.

"Eight." Kyle repeated. And on further concentration, he could add another two, a hip hop beat he could hear the bass to, and a car, faintly. "Okay, so congrats dude, you're sitting on more raw talent than me." Which was just a little weird to think about teaching somebody whose senses were more acute. "I got six."

"Uh..." Matt didn't know what to say to that. He sucked up some more lemonade so he wouldn't have to. That was sort of awkward. "I guess that's why I get the headaches?" he finally replied, weakly. "Everything makes a sound. Everything."

"Bingo, kid." Kyle said, grinning. "So we're gonna work on giving you a way to turn your volume down, or at least focus better so you can use those powers instead of them just being nothing but a headache." He scratched his head, thinking, and his claws against his scalp made a rasping sound. "So besides losing the headaches, is there anything you think you might wanna learn? Because the stuff you'll learn best is the stuff you're interested in."

"I think that'd be a good start," Matt replied, "Beyond that...I mean, I got no idea what good my powers are. They're pretty useless, I think."

"Man, you have no idea." Kyle said, and his voice definitely sounded like he was grinning. "Once you get past the stupid crap, they're awesome." He was biased, his hadn't come with migraines. "Trust me, nothing is more awesome than fresh bread when you're us."

Awesome. Sure. "If had like laser beams or could fly or something, that'd be awesome," Matt countered, arguing more because it amused him than anything, But I got enhanced senses. Everyone else got cool powers. Even you got stuff like claws or whatever."

"Man, trust me, okay. I can't show you anything super cool yet, but dude, they're useful. A pain sometimes, but the folks who have laser eyes and wings and fire powers, they all have stuff about their powers that bug them too." Kyle said. Well, maybe not Bobby. Bobby just seemed to love his powers. After a couple of moments of thinking, and giving Matt a chance to finish his muffin, Kyle pulled his wallet out, and the handful of change from his pocket, and dropped the change on the table. "Call it. What'd I drop?"

"Uh..." That was unexpected, "Two quarters, five dimes, a nickel and four pennies," Matt replied after thinking a moment and counting on his fingers. He had no sort of embarrassment about that trying to keep track of everything. "Yes?" The coins all sounded different landing on the table, but he hadn't tried to grope around and find them to confirm that.

Kyle counted. "Yep. Why the hell do I have five dimes anyway? What the hell. Dude, I'm not saying you're gonna go out and like, fight Lex Luthor or whoever's in comic books right now, or be Batman but it's a useful fricking power. Maybe it'll all be like just quality of life stuff for you and you'll be the only blind dude who doesn't worry about people stiffing him on change but I'm pretty sure you're already doing stuff you don't even know you're doing. Can you tell if some asshat's gonna run a red light if you're trying to cross the street?"

"Yeah, sure," that wasn't a power though, "They teach you how to cross streets and navigate safely at O&M class. Orientation and mobility. I had a year of it back when I lost my sight," it had been pretty intense too, with the increasing headaches and being blind and everything. "It's where you get the useful white pogo stick," well, that wasn't entirely true. He'd actually been given his in the hospital well before he had started formal classes to experiment with on his own.

"Yeah, but you can hear the cars, right? Dude, most people can't tell without really thinking hard about it if someone's speeding towards the light, or hitting their brakes, or whatever. I do it, and dude, I can see. If I'm doing it, you're doing it without thinking about it, I bet." Kyle explained. "Can you tell if you got decaf or regular coffee? Most people can't. Logan could."

Really? Matt hadn't thought about that, he had just assumed it was something all blind people could do that they taught in O&M. He had always excelled in that, which he had always chalked up to natural talent. Apparently only partially. "Well, yeah. Cars can be pretty noisy," He agreed. "I just thought everyone who was blind could do that and they learned it at O&M like I had. They always say that when you lose a sense the others learn to compensate so, I just figured that was what was happening. The coffee comment made Matt wrinkle his nose, "Coffee is gross. I don't like any of it. The stuff is bitter and gross," it was why he had gotten lemonade. "I guess I'd have to taste both to tell you."

"I can't have caffeine, dude. I wouldn't know. Even decaf has some." Kyle explained. "One of the downsides to my "cool" powers. " He pushed a couple of coins around on the table, sort of idly. "Maybe they can, but you're still gonna be doing it better than most people, and I can't even think of most of the stuff I do just without thinking about it. Hell, I know I'm better at fighting because of it, because people gotta be ninjas practically to sneak up on me."
No caffeine? That sort of sucked, though Matt could understand it, "I don't like coffee. Or most sodas, especially coke. Or anything too sweet or spicy or..." he trailed off, "I guess I like bland foods. My dad wasn't much of a cook, I did most of it once I got big enough, so we never had much variety or spice and stuff."

"Dude, for the longest time I couldn't even eat like, barbecue chips because it hurt my face." Kyle explained. "Which you can kinda get over, I think because I can totes eat like, onions or mildly spicy stuff now, but I couldn't before. You're probably a super taster just like everything else. So nobody's gonna be able to put like salt in your juice. Which man, my buddy Julio tried to put hot sauce in my juice this one time and what-ever."

That sounded like no fun, "Yeah. People've tried that before. Like putting mustard in my drinks and stuff. Didn't work," of course, he hadn't been able to say who had done it, but at least he hadn't drank the nasty concoction. "And I can eat spicier stuff now than I used to. But...still don't prefer it. And what I consider spicy most people just consider reasonably flavored."
"There you go then, dude. Useful power." Kyle said. "You just gotta learn how to apply it. Which is why we get to hang out a couple times a month, and you get to like, shake my brain until knowledge falls out."

"I guess," Matt agreed doubtfully. Well, it was a start, sort of. He had wanted all these fast answers, someone knowing about his powers and fixing his head so that he could control them. Like learning to live blind, this wasn't like that either. He had to figure out what worked for him. Life never did get any easier, did it?