Dori and Kyle - Dori's long day and Kyle to the recue.

[x-wildchild.livejournal.com]

Dori is a responsible student taking summer classes, has a job and is a X-Men trainee. All that on the same day, with therapy? Longest day ever. Thankfully, Kyle is basically amazeballs.



To say the day was long would be like calling snow white. It would be a total and complete statement of the obvious. Dori looked over the last of the papers for the magazine that she was editing, buried under a pile of new textbooks, which had completely drained what little of a bank account she had. She was waiting for Kyle, and while waiting figured she could at least get caught up on her lit mag responsibilities.

While Monkey Joe munched on his snack, Dori went over the literary magazine's stuff, bags under her eyes.

All things considered, Kyle was not in the habit of Random Romantic Surprises, because that was just silly and mushy and he just wasn't that guy. But when Dori's return text messages had dropped off from her normal fifteen or sixteen an hour to one or two, he figured being silly and mushy was probably going to be necessary. The pile of grey leathers and tan sports bra he'd found wadded up in his bathroom (the extra-large sized for Warren shower resulted in a lot of 'girlfriend visiting to use the shower, even without the promise of sharing the shower') clinched it. Long Day had been Long.

So when he arrived at the Empire State Campus Student Union, he had a box tucked under one arm, and a "vase" of flowers - flowers that happened to be made of sliced apples coated in peanut butter and chocolate. Edible Arrangements got way more of his money than he ever thought possible these days.

He wasn't intending to surprise Dori, not exactly. He'd texted to say he was on the way, and they'd made arrangements for him to pick her up, it was just that, well, giant fluffy tail did a lot to block her vision when he came up beside her.

Dori paused and sniffed the air. First, was the smell of food and then the smell of boyfriend, she turned around and there he was with edible "flowers" and his awesome, yet dorky, smile, "Kyle!" she squeaked. Just seeing him did a lot to improve her mood but it didn't take the tired expression totally off of her face, she had obviously been through the gauntlet once or twice today.

"I'm almost done. You brought food!"

"Dude, how do the Edible Arrangement people not have -all my money-?" Kyle set the vase of deliciousness down, and then took a ziploc of apple chips from his pocket. "Brought some for MJ too, but he gets the ones from the farmer's market. They had banana chips too but I dunno how he feels about dried bananas because I personally think they're gross." He set the box down too, and opened it with a all too ridiculous flourish. "Six honey nut cheerio donuts for my favorite nut who left her leathers in my bathroom and didn't tell me her day was starting at stupid o'clock in the morning."

All that food. Dori looked at it wide eyed and then gave her boyfriend a hug, ignoring the work she still had to do on the magazine, "I'm sorry! I totally was going to but then the room kicked my ass and that was just the start of the day," she explained. Things had gone down hill as rapidly as they were able from there.

"I'm so glad you're here! I'm almost done," she said, still clinging to him.

"Babe I'm teasing. I'm just like, damn, if I'd known I'd have brought you lunch or something." Kyle said, through a lot of hair in his face, and slightly distracted by the tail that was wrapping itself around his waist. "If you keep doing that with the tail there, no way you're gonna get done, because Imma gonna get us kicked out." No, Kyle, it is not a good idea to try to make out with the girlfriend in public. People frown on that. He kept telling himself that, it was only somewhat successful. "Nomf away, I got new Angry Birds levels to beat." He wiggled his phone out from the back pocket of his jeans, and waggled it.

"But I like making out," Dori said, knowing what he was thinking. But he had food too, and she was already grabbing at that, "I'm so glad to see you. I have so much editing to do here do you think you can help? And the entire day has been totally messed up."

"One track mind." Kyle said, and made little choo-choo train noises. "Dude, did they dump all the summer editing on you, because you're the newbie or because you're the sucker who said yes?" This is why he didn't do extra-curriculars! "Okay, gimme anything that needs grammar and spelling, and that isn't a poem. I do not do poems, I don't care how much you bribe me. No, not even with yoga pants or Doreen The Amazing Alarm Clock."

"Uh, a little of both?" Dori said in answer as to why she was getting dumped on with all of the summer editing. She dug out what she had left that wasn't poem related and handed a chunk of it to her boyfriend, "But you REALLY like Doreen the Amazing Alarm Clock," she pointed out with a grin.

"Babe, not even 6am nookie is gonna make me want to edit poems. For all I know peeps are gonna be "but but that e e dude who didn't know how to use periods! I'm the next him!" and be offended if I take out all their commas or something." Kyle snagged a chair with his foot and pulled it over. "How did you manage to -not- wake my ass up this morning anyway? Because I didn't even hear you use the shower or come into my suite."

"I was up at four and you were totally out cold," Dori said, looking over one of the poems. This one was painful, but it hadn't been up to her to choose the submissions for this section. She wasn't much of a poetry person either. At least not poems about how much it sucked to be human, straight, white and Christian. "And my DR run totally sucked so hard."

"I was up reviewing lesson plans. We're still working out what I'm teaching in September." Kyle would've happily gone without, but since it was his first year teaching, he did kind of need them. "So which terrible awful no good very bad Danger Room session did you get?" God, maybe she'd gotten the vs Toad one, that sucked. He still had problems with that. Though, Kyle couldn't recall ever getting that one when he was a trainee. Just after he'd gotten his black leathers.

"I don't know which one it was, but there was slime," Dori said, "Lots. Of. Slime."

"Oh man, you know I love you but I am so glad I did not have double duty with you this morning because Jesus that stuff smells." Kyle said, raising both hands in the air as though to ward off some sort of ninja made of stinky slime. "So yeah I can see how that would've started the day on a down note."

"I can still smell it," Dori said simply, "Can you smell it? Because I swear it's still in my hair," she said, laying her head down on the table, "And work was terrible and I don't even want to talk about the whole therapy thingie dealy stuff."

"Therapy always sucks, even when it's good for you." Kyle agreed. "Baking soda. Seriously, I have a box of it in my fridge just for getting out hair stink." Rapid-fire subject change, but he figured better to concentrate on the problem he could fix. "Well, that and when Shamu barfs on the couch."

"I hate going," she muttered. And for Dori, hate was a very, very strong word to say the least. "I'm not going to have to put the baking soda in my hair am I?"

"If you can't get the smell out. It's not that hard, you kind of brush it in and then wash it out. Or mix it with water and like, make a paste." Kyle explained. "Or you know, you can bribe me to do it, but I am not baking soda...ing... your tail."

"But you love rubbing my tail," Dori said with a laugh.

"Babe, do we need to have an anatomy lesson? That's not your tail."