Johnny and Kyle: Life and school advice

[x-dangersense.livejournal.com]

Johnny corners Kyle for some advice about life, returning to study and commas



Johnny tugged a hand through his hair and twitched the collar of his shirt straight before knocking on the door to one of the classrooms. "Hey, Gibney, you got a minute?"

Kyle gave the wall clock a quick glance before answering. "Yeah, I'm not due to go try to convince Laurie that she won't actually die if my girlfriend proofreads her papers for at least another hour." It wasn't that Laurie was difficult, it was that the poor woman didn't like what little bit of routine she had disrupted. But Dori wanted some practice editing and proofreading and Laurie's spelling and grammar and citation skills were.... special. "What's up? Because I have totally -not- been betting money on you versus drone run fifteen in the Danger Room." Course not. He'd bet -beer- on that.

"Isn't that cheating? Getting someone to check your papers? Shouldn't you like, do your own work?" he asked, before looking closely at Kyle. "You were waiting outside the door after that run and looked all, like, happy when I lost. I lost for you, Kyle. For you. I think you should share the spoils."

"Are you even old enough for ... " Kyle started to say, then shook his head. "Fuck I sound like old people. Next thing I'll stop swearing. Sure, fine I will share my hard-earned free beer with you. And no, dude, Laurie still has to do all the hard work and make the edits, editors just get to make a bunch of "Hey, you cited this wrong. Hey, you can't spell. Hey, what the fuck did those commas ever do to you?" comments."

"Thanks, Mr Gibney!" Johnny said and settled crosslegged on one of the desks, picking up a stray pen and tossing it from hand to hand. "So, it's not cheating? Huh." That was ...interesting. "I'd ask why Laurie hates commas but I'm not sure I care enough. Actually, I want to ask you - if you maybe don't have the most spectacular grades ever, can you still go to college?"

"Dude, my -dad- is Mister Gibney." Kyle muttered, reflexively. "And, uh, depends. You finished high school, right? You could probably pick up courses at Westchester Community. Community colleges pretty much take anyone, and they're kinda like, training up for regular college. So you can re-take stuff from high school if you need a refresher, or college stuff and transfer to a four-year later, or just get a two-year degree. Depends on what you wanna do. Oh, and Laurie doesn't hate commas. She loooooooves them. Enough to put in like two or three extra per sentence."

"Yeah, well, you're old enough to be someone's dad - are you?" Johnny asked. "I graduated high school but I didn't do any AP classes or any extra curriculars because, y'know... I was busy and my dad and then I had a job and..." He shrugged. "I like cooking. And plants. Horticulture. That kind of stuff." He gave an embarrassed grin. "Chainsaws are fun."

"I'm old enough to throw you in the lake." Kyle said, with a toothy grin. "Okay, so you roll over to Westchester Community and take some tests and see what works for you. It was my back-up plan if I hadn't gotten off the wait list for Empire." He watched Johnny flip the pen, and roll it over his fingers and catch it underhanded a few times and made what on anyone else might've been a 'hrm' noise, and on Kyle sounded more like the 'whuff' noise that a large police dog might make. "Might be worth talking to an advisor, even if it's just for like, your powers stuff giving you a wiggins sometimes. Get a nice quiet room for tests - I used to take exams in a quiet room. Just me, the exam and my ear plugs and bottle of water."

He put the pen down. "Don't earplugs bother you? I mean, you can't hear what's going on around you or anything." For a boy without super senses, not being able to hear what was going on around him bothered Johnny a lot. He figured it probably fed back into his powers somewhere. "Hey, aren't advisors for, like, disabled people? I can totally manage to not flip out in class most of the time nowadays." Yeah. Piece of cake.

"If your powers are giving you grief that -is- being disabled, dude." Kyle explained. "I mean, what the hell do you think I needed one for? Besides, advisers help with, like, class selection and financial aid and a lot of other crap. Always a good idea to have someone on your side who knows the system."

Johnny shook his head. "Disabled people are like, deaf or blind or can't walk for shit. Not. Me. Dude." He just... needed to try to harden up a bit and suck it up and deal with his powers, right? If he did it for long enough, eventually it had to start working, right?

"Stay still so I can smack you on the head." Kyle muttered, after several unsuccessful attempts where he got his hand almost just close enough and then Johnny's head wasn't in the same place anymore. "Yo, I'm pretty sure that, like, a, the Prof would probably give you the frowny face and make you drink a lot of tea if he heard how you said 'disabled' like it was a kind of slug, and two, dude, if your body or brain means that you naturally can't do something most people can, suck it up and talk to the disability people because that's what they're for, and spine up and deal with the term."

"Oh," Johnny said and paused thoughtfully. "I can do that then, huh. Maybe I'll try out as a chef then. I've been enjoying being Lorna's minion and working for Catseye. And chefs don't have to work outside when it's raining."

"Yeah, cause it's that or like, sign on to be Fred's fix shit assistant and I've done that job, when it was another dude fixing shit and I was his assistant and that leads to being armpit deep in a blocked pipe trying to fish out someone's phone they dropped in their toilet." Kyle screwed up his face. "Chefing's a pretty decent job and you get to wear a cool coat and carry around knives."

"An' you can play with fire. There's these like, little blowtorches..." Johnny mimed setting something on fire. "You can do some really awesome stuff with those. The hours blow chunks but, yeah, beats unblocking pipes."

"Dude. Fuck yeah, creme brulee. It's dessert you make with a blowtorch." Kyle most certainly approved of food with fire involved. "And Cats did the program at I forget where she went, so she could probably walk you through what you'd need to do, so hey, like, your boss would be your mentor. It'd be awesome."

Johnny made a mental note to find out what other food could be made with a blow torch. "She did? Cool. I'll have a chat to her and if they're used to her, then the twitchy mutant won't be an issue."

"Yeah, I bet after "lady who has a three foot long purple tail", "guy who jumps when the popcorn pops" isn't gonna be any kind of thing."

"One time, man. One freaking time." Johnny paused. "Okay, two times but come on... Everyone jumps at that last pop right when you think the popcorn is done."