Nate and Kyle, Monday

[x-wildchild.livejournal.com]

Nate comes to visit Kyle after Kyle's little cranky-about-his-mutation outburst in the journals. Kyle declares Forge stupid, Nate not a ninja, and gets a present. Also, Nate tells him to clean his room.



Still a little groggy. Nathan made a mental note to think very hard the next time he said 'Sure, Amanda, hit me with your best shot!', especially if she'd just had a magical recharge. Cain was probably going to be just insufferable about having to drag him upstairs yet again. Yawning, he rubbed his eyes with his free hand, shifting the package he was carrying under his other arm. He'd unwrapped it to make sure it had made it through the flight all right, and had been pleased to find out that the answer was yes.

Pausing in front of the door to Kyle's suite, Nathan let his mind flash outwards for a moment - no Forge or Jay, good. Just one very unhappy feral boy. Sighing, he knocked on the door, despite the fact that it was half-open. "Kyle?" he called. "I come bearing gifts..."

"Can I break them?" Kyle said, then clapped a hand over his mouth. "Okay, I'm an idiot." He mumbled through his fingers. "Come in. Room's kinda a mess... " Well, his half of the room was. Shredded pillowcase and several piles of torn up paper, and more than one piece of plywood splintered in very punched-through distinctive fashion.

Nathan stepped into the suite, then moved towards Kyle's door, sighing at the sight of the mess. "You can actually beat it if you want," he said with a faint smile, sitting down on the bed next to the boy. "I figured that would be part of the fun..."

"I know. I should clean this up before Forge gets back and really noticed how much I trashed..." Kyle shrugged. "I just don't really feel like it." The room matched his mood at the moment, torn up and broken and angry. He gave Nate a questioning look. "And I can hit whatever you got me?" He frowned. "Okay, confused now."

Breaking my heart here, kiddo...Nathan gave him a faint, sad smile, and unwrapped what he'd brought back for Kyle. It was a drum, the drumskin adorned by a Navajo sandpainting. He had picked it up in Albuquerque along with most of the other gifts he'd brought back. "I don't know why," he said, handing it to Kyle. "Just struck me as something you might like."

A drum? Kyle couldn't help but grin. "This is cool..." he said, looking it over.. "It looks cool, it makes noise, and it'll annoy the -crap- out of Forge." He grinned a little sheepishly. "I know. Not very nice to harass the roommate and I almost forgot, Nate, why does Forge think you're a ninja?"

"Hey, harass your roommate all you like. You're a teenager - being occasionally not nice goes with the territory." Nathan tilted his head, then sighed a little. "I told him a little bit about where I came from. He didn't believe some of it, and decided that the rest of it meant that I was a ninja. I think he's watched too many movies."

"A ninja?" Kyle waved an arm in the air silently, too stunned to put his thoughts into words for several seconds. "Nate, that's -stupid-. Ninjas are, one, evil, and two, Japanese or something." He scrached his head. "I could see you doing, like, the James Bond thing, only without the being English part though. Or maybe, like, the guy version of the chick from Aliens. But ninja? uh-uh." On that thought, Kyle figured maybe Forge deserved some being annoyed by loud drumming.

"I never thought I could pull off the black pajamas, myself," Nathan said, watching Kyle turn his attention back to his drum. "So why the mess, champ?" he asked more quietly, after a moment. "What happened?"

"Dunno. Just... got mad." Kyle shrugged. "Tired of being freaky looking, tired of having to worry about not clawing shit up, tired of shoes making me feet hurt.. ." He shook his head, starting to get annoyed all over again. "Dammit. I hate this stupid mutation. It sucks. I don't wnat to have to worry about what I eat anymore. I don't want to know what Forge had for lunch because I can smell it from ten feet away. I don't want to know when and where my classmates had sex. It sucks!"

Nathan nodded slowly, letting the silence drag on for a few moments longer as Kyle turned the drum over in his hands, as if focusing on the details was letting him distract himself from what was gnawing away at him, just a little. "I was... about thirteen, when I manifested," he heard himself say, and oddly, he wasn't feeling any of the usual reluctance about the subject. Maybe it was because it was Kyle, and not Jack, thinking there was more to it than there was... "I was living on the streets in San Francisco. I'd run away from home--in Alaska, about a year before."

"You ran off?" Kyle asked. "All the way from Alaska to California? Damn." He shook his head. "That's a long walk, Nate." He kept looking over the drum as he talked, tapping it with his fingers. "And do you know that this sense thing I have is touch too? This is cool..."

Nathan shrugged a little. "I walked, hitchhiked... took me a while." He smiled a bit as he watched Kyle stroke the drumskin thoughtfully. "I'd been in San Francisco for a while when it happened. Got myself into trouble with some of the other street kids..." He trailed off for a moment. "I was getting the crap beaten out of me, when it just--switched on. All of it. My telekinesis, my telepathy. I remember I just flung them away, at first. Some of them were pretty high at the time, so they didn't do the smart thing and run."

Kyle shook his head .. "Dunno when mine started. I know it was after the trial, and I just hurt for days and days... " He stretched out his legs, looking down at his feet. "I grew, like, half a foot in a couple of days. I think they knocked me out, because I don't remember most of it." He sighed, which sounded distintivly more snarl-like than a sigh should. "And then the nice social worker came to tell me there was someplace where I would't get called a freak..."

Nathan gazed down at him measuringly. "They like to grab kids just after manifestation," he said slowly. "You're more confused, then. It's easier to... well, do what they do."

"And its not like there isn't a place, right?" Because there was, and now he was -there-. "I mean, if someone had asked, or if I was the kinda person who went and looked that stuff up, they'd just be able to say it was like here." For a moment he sat, looking about ready to get up and start pacing, and then he shook his head. "Not that, you know, I think here is like there. Or.. um. something like that."

"Here is nothing like there," Nathan said firmly. "Here is just about the polar opposite of there - trust me. I was there for a lot longer than you were."

"I know." Kyle said tightly. "I can, you know, leave and stuff. No locking me in the room unless I lock the door and all that.." He shrugged. "Just can't help thinking about it though, what they told me and what I got.. makes a guy wonder how many other kids they just tricked into going with them. How many kids thnik they're coming somewhere like here, and end up there."

Nathan stared down at the cluttered floor, thinking about all of those bodybags, in Vermont and Belgium. All the other dead children over all the years... "You... shouldn't think too much about that," he said softly. "I know that's easier said than done. Believe me, I know. But you've got your own life to lead, Kyle."

"Not much of one. What in the hell kind of job can I get after school with -these-?" Kyle waved his hand towards Nate, untrimmed claws out. "I have to relearn how to -write- because they get in the way. Not to mention the ears and teeth... " He snarled. "And my fucking -feet-."

Nathan tilted his head at him. Time for an object lesson, maybe? "Kyle," he said, giving the boy an assessing look. "I want to show you something. Do you trust me?"

"Dude. You saved my butt. Of course I trust you." Kyle looked a little shocked at the question. He shook his head, frowning. "I'm not Forge. I don't think you're a ninja."

Nathan smiled a little. "That's reassuring." He reached out, laying a hand over Kyle's where it rested on the drum. "Don't be startled," he said steadily, and reached out to Kyle's mind, creating a light, surface link. Just enough to let Kyle hear a sampling of what he heard everyday, the constant wash of thoughts and images against his shields.

It was like being in the mall when there were crowds, Kyle thought. The same excessive stimuli that threatened to give him a headache. But not. Worse, he'd have said, except it wasn't so much worse as different in a unfamiliar way. ~Jesus. This'd drive me nuts. Unless I was nuts already, which is why they say you hear voices but mutants hearing voices isn't nuts, is it? Its just being mutated with telepathy..~ Kyle's thoughts rambeled as much as he did when speaking.

#That's not even the half of it. That's what it feels like with my shields up.# Nathan gazed down at him, then dropped his shields, just for a moment.

There were two things that made Kyle yelp out loud. First, the sheer weirdness of hearing Nate without actually -hearing- him. The second was the sensation of stucking his head inside one of those concert speakers, the ones the size of a refridgerator. While the concert was going on. Actually, while a concert from one of those speed-metal bands that seemed to think volume was better than talent that Forge liked so much. It -hurt-, somewhere in Kyle's head, in a place he'd normally say might be his ears, except that it was nothing like his ears at all.

Nathan raised his shields again almost immediately, gently severing the link, but not before he soothed away the crackle of backlash that had made Kyle yelp. He let the boy have a minute to compose himself, then smiled as Kyle looked up at him wide-eyed. "I can pass as a baseline human," he said, "in just about every situation. But that doesn't mean that I am. Or that non-visible mutations are any easier to deal with. My telepathy is always on, too, Kyle. I have to keep those mental walls up all the time, or what I just showed you is what happens."

"But you -can- hide it." Kyle said, almost pouting. "You don't get people looking at you funny in the music store or .... " He snarled again. "Or your roommate calling you names, just because you look funny. Dammit. Dammit, dammit, dammit. I don't .. Shit, I don't think I made fun of his -leg-.."

If Nathan hadn't been sure that it would have embarassed Kyle to death, he would have said to hell with logic and reason and just hugged the poor kid. But he was a fourteen year-old boy and pride was king, at that age. "I know this is going to sound like some crappy platitude, but you need time, Kyle. You haven't had any. You manifested, and then Mi--they grabbed you... you haven't had a chance to process all these changes yet."

Kyle wasn't stupid or unobservant, and while he wasn't always the best listener, he was better at it than he admitted. He caught Nate correcting himself - but he also just plain didn't -want- to know. If he knew, it would be even harder to rip his attention away from the occasional daydream of finding that 'social worker' and demonstrating exactly why he spent several minutes every morning trimming back his claws. "Yeah, but... " He cut himself off, and shook his head. It didn't feel like it would ever get easier.

Nathan let his hand rest on Kyle's shoulder for a moment, squeezing gently. "It will," he said, hearing the thought loud and clear. "You want a piece of advice? Every time you start thinking about how much the claws and feet and ears suck, try and do something with your mutation that you enjoy. Climbing, or catching a squirrel, or whatever pops into your head. That way you'll be reminding yourself that there are some positive aspects."

Kyle sighed. "That's what that Doc Samson guy said too. That I should 'concentrate on the positive benefits of my mutation'." He shrugged and examined his fingers carefully. "And I like that stuff, and you know, being able to play basketball or run or do a standing backflip, all the stuff that isn't a big, you know, thing that says, hey, Kyle's not all that different from a big pet puppy." He paused. "Can't I just hit Forge for the dog comment? I'd feel better if I could."

Nathan very carefully did not laugh. "No, kiddo, I'm afraid hitting your roommate isn't on. You can let him know that it's bothering you, if he's still doing it, though - is he?"

"Hitting him would do that." Kyle grumbled. "Loud and clear." Kyle still wasn't sure if he liked Forge, or thought that his roommate was a big mouthy jerk. Which kind of applied to both Forge and Jay, now that he thought about it. "Guess I'd get in trouble for that though, and he's all big hero Forge right now with helping Alison and all the other stuff... "

Nathan quite deliberately ruffled Kyle's hair. "Oh, and you're just plain old boring Kyle, who didn't take on bad guys on Miles' behalf all of a couple of weeks after you got to the mansion."

"I got my ass kicked." Kyle said. "Literally. That green stinky guy put his foot in my -butt-." He'd had a bruise for... for, well, hours, but Kyle figured that was weeks in normal-people-bruise-time. "And besides, they were gonna take Miles away from his family and .. I dunno, put him in a white room with flashing lights or something! And he's like, teeny, and the coolest little green kermitty guy I know, and .. " And no kid should ever have to deal with the white room with flashing lights. Ever.

"You bought the others some time," Nathan said very seriously. "You realize that, don't you? I wish you hadn't gotten beaten up, yeah, but what you did made a difference."

"Um. No?" Kyle said, not having known it at all. "Mr. Cassidy said that I did good, but I didn't know, you know, that it helped. I .. I dunno, I just figured that it was better than not doing -anything-, or freaking out totally." Which he'd almost done anyway at the sight of the big, scary, psycho version of himself. Which he was Not thinking about anymore if he could help it.

Nathan gazed down at him for a long moment. "You don't give yourself nearly enough credit," he said quietly. "You really don't. And I speak as someone who handles crisis-type situations for a living, so don't think I'm just saying that, okay?"

Kyle tilted his head curiously. "So when the ninja tells me I did good, I can believe it?" He was probably, he thought, going to get a look for that, but it was too funny to pass up.

Nathan snorted at him. "Damned right you can. And anyone who says otherwise... well, I'll kill them with my little finger." Kyle just blinked at him, and Nathan grinned. "Kidding!"

"I knew that." Kyle said through a laugh. Barely. He couldn't really stop snickering, espically when he thought about the look on Forge's face if he repeated this conversation. It would be -funny-. Too funny not to do, and Kyle made a little mental note to remember to tell Forge later.

Nathan's grin grew, and he patted Kyle on the shoulder again, rising. "Clean up your room, champ," he remonstrated as he headed for the door. "Tidiness first. Tormenting the roommate later. And don't be afraid to use the drum. One of my main reasons for buying it, don't you know..."

Kyle frowned, looking around the room. "I knew he was going to say that." he muttered as Nate left. But, fighting with Forge over the state of the room wasn't high on Kyle's list of things he wanted to do, so once Nate was out, he put the drum on the bed and began the annoying-and-tedious task of putting all those shredded pieces of paper in the wastebasket.