The Cure (CC, M/K friendship, teen) 02/07/2010 (complete)

[Mac]

Story: The Cure

Author: Mac

Summary: Post-Graduation, Michael and Kyle bond.

Disclaimer: I don’t own it!

Rating: Teen

Authors Note: Yay! I’m posting something! I apologise profusely that it isn’t a long overdue update to one of my two very unfinished stories, but they’re in the dead and buried section and I’m not entirely sure how to get them out… nor can I really remember what I’d intended to do with them… I will fix this at some point; in the mean time I had some fun with this one, I hope you all do too! Thank you to those who have at various intervals checked in with me and encouraged me to keep writing!

The Cure

There were many things that Kyle hated about being constantly on the road. He hated the cramped, squashed feeling of being in a van all day. He hated that they had run out of anything interesting to say within the first day and now spent the majority of their time in numb silence. He hated having to fix the van every three or four days with no tools to work with except three irritable aliens. He hated living on take-out… and that was really saying something, because take-out had been ninety percent of his diet since approximately age ten.

But right now, what he really hated was the fact that there was no television in the car. And no television meant no basketball, no baseball, no hockey and most of all no football. It seemed possible to him that unless he watched a good three hours of sport in the next twenty-four hours, his alien powers would suddenly manifest and blow the van and its contents sky high; granolith style. Thank Buddha he was driving. He would pull over in the next town come hell or high water.

By the time they drove into the next dive of a town Michael was snoring in the front seat beside him, Liz and Maria were talking quietly behind them, and Max was reading one of Maria’s trashy novels with a puzzled look on his face, and Isabel asleep across his lap. Kyle pulled up across from a café on the main street (which also looked like about the only street) and met Max’s eyes as he tore himself away from the wonders of Mills and Boon.

“We’re having a pit-stop.” Kyle declared, pulling up the handbrake and then flinging his door open.

“Thank God!” Was Maria’s emphatic response. Much to his amusement she then proceeded to rouse Michael, none too gently and demand that he escort her to a store to purchase some clean clothing, because apparently magicking it clean didn’t make it feel clean anymore. Michael groaned and ignored her, and Isabel, who had been woken by Max’s attempts to get out of the car, said that she’d go with Maria. Max and Liz were already in the café. Kyle would bet twenty dollars (that he didn’t have) that they had just ordered a Cherry Coke and a lime milkshake. If Max and Liz were anything it was predictable, at least when it came to such mundane things as drinks orders.

He left Isabel and Maria to figure out what to do with the still sleeping Michael and began his search for a sports bar, or any place with a television really, on foot. Half an hour later he was firmly ensconced on a bar stool, sipping beer (May Buddha be praised for Michael and his drivers licence party tricks) and muttering at the hockey. Muttering because somehow it was impossible to have a good shout at the television when the only two other people in the bar were the aged bartender, and an odd shaped lump which Kyle took for a passed out patron. That was until Michael walked through the doors.

To Kyle’s mind Michael walked into a bar in the manner of a cowboy walking into a saloon in a western. Maybe it was the commanding, ‘I don’t give a shit about you, or what you think’ air that surrounded him, or maybe it was the fact that Kyle knew that Michael was a shoot first, ask questions later kind of guy. Whatever it was Kyle felt an unaccountable pang of jealousy over it. He then felt a wave of irritation wash over him, he was tired of being around the five of them, tired of being the misfit in the Czech club, tired of being jealous of Michael and Maria’s dysfunctional relationship, Max and Liz’s storybook romance, and Isabel’s ability to check in on her loved ones whenever she pleased. Could he not just have a few hours to watch Hockey on his own like a normal eighteen year old human male? Michael plonked himself down onto the stool next to him. Clearly the answer to that particular question was no.

“What’s the score?” He asked nonchalantly.

Maybe Michael was like Jasper in twilight, Kyle thought as he answered Michael, and then immediately berated himself for listening to Maria’s incessant chatter about the book she’d just discovered. One thing was for certain, he’d never have to read it. Nor would he want to, who needed Bella and Edward when you had a front row seat to Max and Liz? Whatever, he was getting sidetracked; Michael clearly had the undisclosed alien power of affecting people’s moods. It was the only way to account for the fact that Kyle, after a single question from Michael, felt about as comfortable watching the game with him as he would with one of his buddies from the football team. And that made him uncomfortable!

Kyle’s state of mental chaos was either ignored or unnoticed by Michael, who was glued to the television and drinking Snapple, paying Kyle absolutely no heed. One of the players shot for the goal, and Michael groaned loudly as the puck was deflected. Kyle finished off his beer and ordered another one, flinching along with Michael as two of the players smashed into the side. So maybe this wasn’t so bad, he had wanted someone to shout at the game with after all.

Four hours later an irate Isabel marched into the bar, and gave them both a sharp clip over the head in order to drag their attention away from the rerun of a football game that they were now watching. Kyle, feeling much more relaxed and happy than usual after four beers and a decent dose of sport, swivelled his seat to face her with a slightly vacant smile on his face. Michael on the other hand was less than pleased. Most unfortunately for him he couldn’t hold a candle to Isabel, who decided to drag them from their stools by their ears, doing her best impression of an angry school teacher rant as she pulled them through the door.

“Have you any idea how long we waited at the car for the two of you! Don’t answer your phone and say you’ll meet us in a minute and then make us wait a bloody hour and a half Michael! And have the jolly courtesy to answer your phone again! Maria is practically high on lavender oil because of this stunt!...”

Fortunately for Kyle he had long since learned to tune ranting women out, it came with the territory of being friends with Paulie. The beer didn’t hurt either. He grinned in Michael’s direction, and Michael merely rolled his eyes at Isabel in response.

Maybe a television and fellow sports fan was the cure to all woes, he thought, as he draped himself across the backseat and fell asleep.