xp_logs | Kyle & Terry | Guilt & Exhaustion

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After Kyle leaves the medlab, Terry takes care of a few things, then goes to join him in his suite. She's met by what she should've expected, not what she hoped for.

Steam was drifting out of the bathroom in big damp clouds, but the sound of water was drowned out by the dialed-up music coming from the phone dropped on Kyle's bed. The screen showed 'loud gym dad rock' and it was a playlist Terry had to be familiar with, because it was the same playlist Kyle put on anytime he fled to the gym or Danger Room or went on a run to burn off energy.

The shower curtain was partially pulled back, and the wastebasket was perched on the closed toilet full of the usual bathroom trash - and topped with clumps of wet dirty-blond hair and discarded bandages. A package of fresh waterproof bandages, open, sat on the shelf above the toilet, along with medical scissors and a bottle of rubbing alcohol. And in the shower sat Kyle, forehead against the wall, long legs folded under him, letting still steamingly hot water hit his back and neck and freshly buzzed hair, alternating between scrubbing at his arms with a washcloth and body-wracking coughs and sobs.

Having been released from the medlab the day prior, Terry had spent most of the previous night and the following day sitting in Kyle's bay room and making sure everyone in the place was fed. She'd finally pulled herself out when Amelia told her in no uncertain terms that Kyle would be moving up to his own room because he'd said so and, after caring for him medically for well over a decade, she wasn't going to argue with him. So Terry'd nodded, brushed a kiss against her man's forehead, and headed upstairs to shower and change out of the clothes Darcy'd brought down to her after she'd returned to the mansion from District-X.

After her shower and some very basic self-care, Terry sat in a chair in the sunshine and let the kittens tumble about her feet, her knees, the chair and her lap. Her hair air dried and she took a long, full breath and held it in her lungs until they started to burn. She let it out long and slow, then set the now-sleeping kittens in their little bed in the sunspot before padding over to the door and down the hall to the suite Kyle and Arthur shared. Just before entering, she made herself pause to take another very slow, very calm breath and forced her shoulders to relax. Everything was fine. Kyle would heal. He was healing now, even if it was more slowly than usual. He always healed, no matter how badly he came home injured.

Terry opened the door and stepped inside, heading for Kyle's room. When she pushed through that door, she finally heard the music - the soundproofing really was top notch in the mansion, and felt the distinct difference in humidity. More importantly, she heard Kyle and she knew generally what the plan he'd called for entailed during the battle, so she undressed except for the oversized shirt she had on and moved through to the bathroom. "Oh, mo mhuirnín dílis," Terry murmured, taking in the detritus lying about the bathroom.

Stepping into the shower, Terry brushed her fingertips gently over Kyle's forehead before placing a hand over his where it held the washcloth. "How can I help?"

"Can't," Kyle had heard Terry come in, had considered turning the shower off, considered a towel, or a closed door if he had time. But he didn't move - he couldn't move, leaving the shower felt difficult in a way he couldn't properly express. The shower was hot and the water sent ripples of pain when it hit bruises and scrapes and he'd only bandaged his wrists because Doctor Voight had put the fear of Sepsis into him. "Who knows what your system will do right now, Mister Gibney, the last time you did not have a healing factor, you were so ill you passed out in the tub and almost drowned."

He covered Terry's hands with his other, broken claws and scraped, raw skin. "I hate this, he's not awake, what if it worked too good."

Pressing a kiss to Kyle's forehead, Terry murmured, "I peeked in on him, before comin' upstairs. Didn't get very close, but his vitals looked fairly standard an' he only had bandages on his chest." Shifting until she could maneuver Kyle's head far enough from the wall to wedge herself between his skull and the cool tile, she continued, "C'mere, love. I don't know what the whole plan was, but given the givens -- " Platitudes were useless and she didn't know if everything was going to be alright -- none of them could make any kinds of promises. It wasn't like something like this had ever happened before, there was no precedence. She hissed when she looked lower than his claws and fingers, finding the massive, waterproof bandages wrapped around his wrists. "Lord Almighty!"

A shiver rippled down Kyle's back and he pushed away the feeling of self-hatred and the thought that the last thing he deserved was Terry's gentle touch. The exclamation gave him something else to focus on, he could think about his injuries without feeling as much like maybe he deserved to feel like a giant walking bruise. "Yeah, he, uh." Kyle swiped at the water running down his face. "Part of the plan. His power, like, I wanted him to overload, but not die, and I didn't have a better candidate with a healing factor. But until mine's back, I heal the long way."

Well that certainly made the hair on the back of Terry's neck stand on end. "How long've y'been in the shower, love?" She shifted until she could get a better look at the rest of him, taking in where his arms had obviously been cleaned for the bandages to stick properly and the places he'd wiped down with his washcloth.

"Doc Voight read me the sepsis act." Kyle said, a little woodenly. He had no idea how long he'd been in the shower - he wasn't ignoring the question so much as entirely unable to answer, so he didn't. "Load him up on energy from Jubes, give him a little snack of healing factor and then hope like fuck April's weird symbiote DNA would make him vomit out the evil, and if that didn't work, Gar said he might have an idea." He recited the plan, minus the code phrasing he'd used over the comms. "I couldn't stay down there any more, he's just, in the safe room and if I stayed down there to heal I'd have ended up sitting outside the room."

"I know, mo mhuirnín dílis. I know. Came t'keep y'company, I did. Can y'get up? Out o'the shower?" Terry asked.

Kyle made no move to get out of the shower. "I didn't even know he was caught up in this. He'd been texting and then he just wasn't! I should've known, Ter, and I didn't even think about why he was just, leaving me on read."

Terry swallowed hard for a moment, pushing down her anger and upset that this had happened at all, that Kyle hurt as badly as he did now, and instead responded with, "Y'couldn't've known why he wasn't respondin', Kyle. How're y'meant t'guess somethin' like what happened? You're no' omniscient. You're a man -- an extraordinary man, but still just a man. An' from what I heard while I was down in the medlab, he wasn't the only one taken an' changed by whomever did that to him.

"If y'hadn't though o'the plan, how many more people would've died? He was actin' as Death, a Horseman o'the bleedin' Apocalypse. So let your heart hurt for him, for what he's been through. Feel regret that it came t'what it did. But don't y'dare feel guilty, Kyle Gibney. Y'think, when he wakes up, he'll be upset y'kept him from doin' more damage? No' if he's anythin' at all like the man y'told me he was before all o'this mess," she finished, making sure Kyle was looking at her as she said the last.

"What if he doesn't wake up. What if he's not... what if he's still Death when he wakes up." Kyle finally looked over at Terry, standing in his shower in a shower-soaked shirt that might've been his, holding the last of the clean washcloths, hair sodden and skin bruised. "I know I probably saved lives, but I just used like, eighteen years of friendship against him. I don't care if he hates me, I just don't even know if he's him yet."

“He’s a good man, your Marius, aye?” Terry didn’t have to wait for agreement, she knew as much, herself just based on his organization and the projects they funded — the research. “Tell me, mo mhuirnín dílis, what would he’ve wanted? What would y’have wanted, were y’in that position? Forced t’do horrible things that went completely against who y’are…” She had to tread carefully, given what she knew about Kyle’s past.

Kyle tried to laugh bitterly, and coughed instead, and then groaned as his ribs shifted. "Marius and I got put in that position together once, with Jennie." He pressed his forehead against the tile over his shower again, pushing into it until it was uncomfortable and distracting. "The time with the goat, and a guy who was obsessed with Doc Moira. Well, the first Doc Moira. Universe shit."

The water at the mansion never got cold, but the heat wasn't helping as much as it did at first, and now Terry was in the shower and she's gotten in dressed and he was still naked and Kyle didn't think he could feel more awkward then he did, so he stood slowly and clutched at wall when his legs shook. "I know I had to, I know there wasn't a better plan. I know Scott's not going to fire me even if Marius never wakes up. I just don't know if I killed one of my last friends who remembers before."

Terry turned the faucet off, then twisted her hair into a rope to squeeze some of the water from it. She didn't even try to smile, knowing it would come out just as bruised as smudges beneath her eyes and the marks on her neck where a random stranger had grabbed her before she’d been able to push them off. “I’m so, so sorry, love. Just tell me what’ll help, what you want most now.”

"I don't know what I want." Kyle answered. "I... " his eyes darted around the bathroom and he fingers clutched against air and tile and he shook himself all over, head to toe. Terry could see him grit his teeth, grinding against his underbite and then he shut his eyes for a moment and stepped out of the shower. "I need a towel, and I need to eat, and I need pain meds, jesus fuck my ribs hurt."

But what he wanted? He knew. He wanted Marius to wake up.