undergrounds | wake up

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wake up

(1)

Kyle was new to the area. Hell, he was new to the country. As easy as it was to pick up the basics - public transit, prices, slang - he was having a harder time learning the small and intertwining streets in his neighborhood. He felt almost constantly lost, which made him almost constantly anxious about knowing his exits and whether he would ever find his damn AWOL C.O. he'd come to find in the first place.

It's one such night, disoriented on the way back to his shared flat from a quiet drink at a pub, that he stumbles into something he thought he left behind. Kyle knows what he's looking at the moment he sees it. The vampire feeding on the teenage boy who seems near unconsciousness.

"Hey!" He yells without thinking, waving his arms as if trying to chase a coyote off from a stray stash of food. The vampire, in a stroke of luck for Kyle or perhaps to keep his face hidden, decides to take off rather than engage in a conflict, dropping the now passed out boy into the street. Kyle runs over, ripping off his shirt to apply pressure to the wound on the kid's neck, then looking around for someone - anyone - nearby. "Hey, I could use some help here."

(2)

Post traumatic stress is never an easy thing. Although Kyle never receives full on hallucinations like a couple of his brothers had struggled with, the traumas continue to sneak up on him occasionally, clouding his judgment and ratcheting his anxiety into high gear. This time, it's in the middle of his run. He's not even sure if it was a scent or a sound that set him off. Maybe the combination. Whatever it is, it forces him to stop and focus, to breathe through it.

He takes a seat on the nearby bench, legs shoulder-width apart, forearms on his knees, eyes closed, head down to hide his face. His mandated counselor told him it was the most efficient breathing position. Now he uses it to relax, to try to force the body working against him to calm down and get back to the present with him. And he probably looks troubled, if not a little crazy, to the passersby, but that's rarely been a concern for him.

(3)

Vampires are real. Kyle learned about that some time ago, when Cooper came to his hospital room and gave him a reason to live and fight through the Fever. He'd been trained in that specialty, hunting, and it had been most of his tour in South Africa. What unnerved him was learning that they were everywhere. The problem wasn't contained to an area, as he'd been lead to believe, but the creatures sprawled in various corners of the world, thriving on the suffering and death of humans. So, yeah, he took it upon himself to do something about it.

Kyle has a split lip, a couple seriously bruised ribs, a swollen and bruised cheek, and some bloody scratches on both an arm and his neck from the fight. But you should see the other guy. The vampire lays dead on the ground, a broken pool cue shoved through his heart. All things considered, Kyle feels like he got off pretty well.

To the casual observer, it looks like a bar room brawl gone bad. Which is why, when he hears someone behind him, Kyle tenses and silently curses in his mind. The soldier lifts his hands to either side of him in a gesture of surrender, showing he's unarmed. "It's not what it looks like."

(4)

Hoping to settle in faster than the average, Kyle's out running errands throughout the day. He's picking up some new clothes, having arrived with only his backpack's worth of stuff, and groceries for the apartment. At the same time, he pops in to occasional shops to apply for jobs. Sweeper, clerk. Anything with decent pay at a local joint who will accept an American with a military background in a questionable economy.

[Feel free to bump into him shopping, or be in a shop when he asks for work, or anywhere in between. Fairly open.]

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"Let me come with you," he replies practically before she's even finished speaking. There are a million reasons that helping her to pick out some decent food is a good idea and very, very few - if any - reasons not to. Unless she says no, of course. Kyle's an extrovert and a flirt, but he's not a stalker and doesn't like pressing most people on most things.

"I could use some groceries too. You get what you need and I can say sorry for grabbing you."

Alex's eyes drift away from him and her face falls. This guy seems nice, and she is kind of intrigued by his breakdown, but she doesn't know him. Grocery shopping seems fairly harmless, though, and she's trying to blend in and seem normal. It might arouse suspicion to say no. On the other hand, it might arouse more suspicion to say yes. Then again, maybe going shopping with somebody else would take the drudgery out of it.

"Sure," she says after a pause, looking at him again and mustering up a small smile.

The bag says Sainsbury's on it, so she can't exactly lie about where she's been. But she points to a different one, in the opposite direction of the one she usually goes to. It's a bit of a longer walk, but a few more blocks are worth it if it makes it harder for this guy to track her down later. "The store's a couple blocks that way."

And that's when she remembers that neither of them have introduced themselves yet. "I'm Alex, by the way."

Kyle drops his hands onto the bench's edge at either side of his legs, looking out at the park as she looks away from him. He doesn't mean to pressure her and wonders if he somehow asked something awkward of her at her hesitation. A second away from him withdrawing the offer, she agrees and he looks over towards her again, giving a light smile.

He nods at her pointing, pushing himself off the bench and immediately turning to face her. He offers a hand to help her stand, or for the introduction, whatever she prefers. "Kyle Sutton. The Sainsbury's, right? I know the one. Not too far from where I'm staying."

"Yeah." Alex almost asks where he's staying, but decides that might be too much too soon. She stands and grabs the bag before realizing he's holding his hand out for hers, and both of hers are full. She wraps the sandwich up and drops it in the bag as quickly as possible and then grabs his hand and shakes it.

"Nice to meet you." It comes out sounding a bit practiced. She knows it's the polite thing to say, but polite greetings aren't something she does a lot of. She has no clue what to say after that, so she simply lets go of his hand and starts walking, suddenly feeling overwhelmingly awkward. What were you supposed to talk about with a guy who had just had a panic attack and who you couldn't tell a single true thing about your life? The weather? She didn't know what to say about the weather and she really didn't want to talk about it anyway.

Kyle waits with no awkwardness at all until she shakes his hand. Then he turns on his heel to walk alongside her, matching her pace. While she stresses over what to say, he takes in the view, smiling at the sun in spite of the cold and sliding his hands into his jacket.

"Bread and eggs," he says randomly, before the silence can stretch for too long. "Those are the basics you should always have in your apartment. Noodles, if you can cook. Otherwise Spaghetti-Os work. Fruit's good. Salt, if you don't have any. Chicken, beef. Do you like fish? Fish is good. Smells though."

He glances sideways to her. Sensing her apparent shyness, Kyle's happy to pick up the slack and do more talking, but he's not about to steamroll her. He'll pause, ask small questions, and give her time to contribute. Besides, it's a subtle way of getting to know her by starting with innocuous things.

Alex tries to be as casual as possible, but the longer they walk the more tense she becomes. It's starting to feel like this may have been a terrible mistake when he starts talking.

"Huh?" It takes her a moment to process what he's saying. "Fish is okay." She prefers red meat, but she doesn't know how to cook it. So far, she's mainly been surviving on take-out and things that require only the minimum amount of preparation. "I can't cook though. At all."

She glances sideways at him as they pass by a busy tube stop, wondering if it might save her a lot of trouble to just lose him in the crowd. She ultimately decides against it, though, and sticks by his side. "I made a list, actually. I was gonna get bread and I forgot."

"Like you burn boiled water can't cook or a general 'I don't know how to make a meal?' Big difference." One of them is remedied with time and effort, where the other one means opting for an entirely different shopping list. Although he gets the feeling she wouldn't be the type to accept an offer to teach her the basics he knows. "I guess you could get some ramen and lunchmeat. Not to eat together."

The clarification is superfluous, in the hopes of getting a smile out of her. Kyle slows his talking, worried he's speaking too fast and leaving her behind. Maybe it's the energy, maybe she's distracted. Whatever it is, he chills out even more. "Don't eat Pop Tarts though. No matter what anyone says. It's not worth it."

Edited 2016-01-14 07:32 (UTC)

"I dunno, I haven't tried to cook anything more complicated than toast." She knows she probably should learn, but it always feels like there's something more important to do, and there are so many pubs and take-out places in easy walking distance of her apartment.

The remark about Pop Tarts almost gets a smile out of her. She's had a few stale Pop Tarts, and she knows exactly how terrible they can be. "Yeah, I learned that the hard way."

Kyle fakes a cringe at her admission of eating Pop Tarts. After nearly living on the damn things his first round of training, he'll be happy to never look at another one again. At least it seems to lighten the mood a little and he's pretty sure he almost got a smile for that one. Almost. Challenge accepted.

"How'd you do with the toast?" He asks teasingly, trying to gauge her cooking skills.

"I got it eventually." Another almost-smile.

Finally, they arrive at the store. Alex walks through the door and holds it open behind herself for him. She's walked past this Sainsbury's a few times, but hasn't actually been inside before. At least it's laid out almost exactly like the one she usually frequents so it shouldn't be hard to find anything - she can easily pretend this is her usual store that she always shops at.

It's second nature to quickly scan the room for obvious threats, and, as usual, there don't seem to be any lurking terrors hiding among the produce.

She looks over at Kyle as she tries to remember everything on her list. "I definitely need bread. And something to drink."

Kyle smiles at her admission, following her easily into the store. He grabs a basket and begins walking forward along the outer wall of the store, where the produce is. He trusts that Alex will catch up. Or she can leave him and grab her own stuff, either way, but he plans to add some things to her list for her. Besides, he really does need a few things himself.

"What kind of something? Juice, milk, water, soda?" He asks idly, incentive for her to follow along with him. Kyle begins browsing the vegetables, wondering if that's too advanced for her since most usually involve cooking. Maybe fruit instead.

Alex grabs her own basket, not willing to let a near-stranger pick out her food for her. She wouldn't like the idea of that even if she'd known him for more than a few minutes.

"Juice and milk. A little variety doesn't hurt, right?" She did remember to buy a bag of carrots and some lettuce, figuring she could take a shot at making a salad with those and the few bits of vegetables she has left over from her last shopping trip. In theory, it's almost impossible to mess up making a salad.

She can't remember the rest of her list, but she can't think of anything else she urgently needs. "I think that's it. Beverages and bread."

She starts walking towards the back wall, looking for the cooled shelves where the juice and milk would be kept. Turns out they're on the other side of the store, and she quickly makes a course correction, trying to cover up her mistake.

Kyle makes silent note of her insistence upon independence and the ferocious tenacity in which she seems to handle even the simplest of tasks. The mere idea settles a smile upon his lips as he watches her. For his own sake, he grabs a thing of strawberries, some oranges, spinach, and random other such basics. While she seems to hustle, he strolls leisurely about, keeping a casual eye on her without stalking her through the store.

He catches up to Alex as she makes a beeline for the back, then course corrects. Without missing a beat, he picks up pack of chicken from the back wall and drops it in his basket. "Thanks for remembering I need chicken."

Kyle stops her halfway to her destination, grabbing a dozen eggs from the shelf and offering them to her. He then carefully drops a dozen into his own basket before continuing on towards the drinks. Which is conveniently located near the breads. First thing's first.

"Orange, apple, grapefruit, cranberry?" He asks as he steps up beside her to admire the many varieties of juice. "It's an important decision."

Alex can't tell whether he noticed her going in the wrong direction and is covering for her for some reason, or if he didn't and he's just making a joke. Either way, she can't help smiling. This must be what normality feels like. It's almost fun.

When he hands her eggs, she takes them, not quite sure why he's giving them to her but willing to accept that maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to buy them.

She stops in front of the drinks, and frowns at them determinedly. "Orange, definitely."

She drops a carton of it into her basket and then heads for the bread, searching for a loaf of whole wheat. Of course the only one left is all the way at the back of the top shelf, so there's nothing for it but to climb. But even standing on the lowest shelf, her fingertips can just barely touch the edge of the plastic wrapping. Scowling, she tries to inch the bread forward by the wrapping until she can grab it.

Kyle follows along with her as before, grabbing some grapefruit juice for himself and tagging along to the bread aisle. He watches her from a short distance, as she stretches from the bottom shelf and her fingertips claw at the bag, only pushing it farther away. He can't help but smile watching her.

Instinctively knowing that she'll say no if he offers his help, Kyle sets down his basket and walks up behind her. He plants his hands on either side of her waist and lifts her a few inches before she can argue. It's a good way of learning more about her, the way she reacts to something like this. He has a bad feeling he's going to get hit for it, but what the hell else was he supposed to do?

When she either grabs the bread or fights him, he'll immediately lower her back to the ground, release her, and step back to give her her own space again.

Alex senses him coming up behind her, and manages to pivot partway towards him before his hands land on her waist. Almost immediately, she realizes it's not meant as an attack, but she doesn't like being touched without any kind of warning by a near-stranger, and her instincts kick in. She lashes out, aiming a one-two punch at his chest, quickly followed by a sharp strike to each wrist, trying to get him to let go.

"What the hell?" she demands, stepping back at the same time he does.

It suddenly hits her that those were obviously trained moves she was using, he's going to realize it, and he's going to want to know why someone who looks so girl-next-door has combat training and is ready to use it at the drop of a hat. She should have just shoved him or slapped him. By the time she finally comes up with self-defense class as an excuse, she's already grabbed her basket and started off down the aisle away from him.

Kyle's instincts are nearly as sharp as Alex's, thanks to years of military and hunter training. He twists his body to lighten the impact of the punches, already releasing her as she moves to strike his wrists. It's a conscious effort to resist fighting back. Instead, his hands are up in a gesture of surrender, palms open towards her, as she speaks.

He watches her go for a second as his mind races to catch up. She's a professional of some kind, military or otherwise. She probably has some level of Post Traumatic, something he knows all too well. Kyle silently curses himself for misjudging as he jumps up from the bottom shelf to snatch the loaf of bread she wanted. He then quickly picks up his basket and dashes after her.

When he finally catches up to her, Kyle holds out the bread and offers a reassuring expression, neutral other than the hint of a smile. "I think you forgot this."

He gets having secrets. There's a time and a place to pry and this is neither. Besides, he understands how much it sucks to be put on edge and how much it helps to have someone to help keep things normal. That's practically what she did for him earlier, on the bench. Hopefully he can return the favor.

Alex scowls as she hears him come up behind her. She mutters, "Yeah, thanks," sarcastically as she takes the bread from him, wondering why he's not prying and whether she wants to keep hanging out with him. Pretending to be normal was nice, but she's not normal. The fact that he seems willing to forget what just happened doesn't change that.

"I gotta go." She keeps moving towards the registers. "I have to get home soon."

Kyle watches her closely, noticing her shifting expression and sudden wall of isolation. It's amazing how quickly she went from open and smiling to painfully distant. He shakes his head and continues following her.

"Hey, come on. I'm sorry I touched you, okay? But that doesn't mean you have to cut ties." He keeps his voice as quiet as he can for the distance between them, attempting to keep her situation as private as possible for the public space. Kyle avoids touching her, instead trying to move in front of her to cut her off and force her to pause for a second.

"I know what it's like. Let me give you my number. And then you can call when you want to learn how to cook, or you need to go shopping again, or if you ever want to talk about it. But we don't have to. You want to talk about why you almost kicked my ass in a grocery store? Cool. You want to talk about tater tots? We can do that instead. And who doesn't like to talk about tater tots?"

He flashes a halfhearted grin at the end, trying to lighten the mood.

Alex stops when he steps in front of her, glancing around trying to find something to focus on other than him before finally giving in and meeting his eyes.

The apology was a good start. And taking his number was tempting. She didn't want to talk about it, but maybe she did kind of want a friend. Maybe she could, from time to time, keep pretending to be normal. "Why are you doing this? Why're you trying to be nice to me?"

Edited 2016-01-31 06:43 (UTC)

Kyle keeps a short distance from her and both hands in plain sight around the handles of his basket. The last thing he wants to do is spook her.

Her question catches him off guard a little. Maybe she's even more damaged than he realized. Still, without missing a beat, he shakes his head as if it should be obvious. "Because you're interesting. And fun. And you helped me at the park and you're American and you seem cool and I don't have a lot of friends here. And because I'm awesome."

Normally he would add a line about how damn attractive she is and wanting to spend more time with her, but Kyle has a fairly strong suspicion that kind of sentiment would only backfire here and encourage Alex to flee. Temperamental, isolationist women. He served with one for awhile and roughly knows the type.

Those are all fine reasons, nothing suspicious or creepy. The last bit is even kind of eye-rollingly charming. And apparently they're giving up pretending that he was just doing breathing exercises in the park. Maybe that's for the best. Alex likes pretending to be normal, but the honesty feels better.

"Fine, but don't grab me again."

She pulls out her phone and types his name in. Rather than handing it to him to put his number in, she says, "Okay, shoot," and waits for him to tell her. She doesn't want him poking around in her contacts and noticing that the only numbers she has are take-out places.

"You can talk about it too, if you want." She's been told that her symptoms aren't uncommon, that plenty of people who go through a traumatic event experience them. But she's never met anybody else with post-traumatic stress before, and even if she doesn't need to talk about it, he might. She can at least offer him a sympathetic ear. "Or you can just show me how to make tater tots. I've only had the frozen ones."

"I won't," he agrees immediately and without hesitation. Kyle's lips twitch with the hint of a smile when he sees her phone come out, feeling like he won some small victory. It's not that he views her as a challenge, but that he genuinely wants to help her and get to know her and anything in that direction is positive progress.

He pulls out his own phone as she asks for his number, muttering about 'a new phone' and 'not having the number memorized' as he looks up his own number. Then he reads it off for her before turning the phone around to show it to her as a way of confirmation. When she seems finished with it, he closes it out and pockets his phone again.

"You don't make tater tots. The frozen ones are the way to go. But I can teach you how to make eggs in a basket, or pasta, or maybe to steam some vegetables." He shrugs, ignoring her offer to talk almost entirely. Maybe he'll take her up on it sometime, but he's not going to talk about it now. "The possibilities are endless."

"I didn't know that about tater tots," she says, smiling at him. It's a little tight, but still a genuine smile. "I've already learned something."

Alex starts to move around him, heading for the registers again, but almost immediately turns back, taking a deep breath as she does. If she's going to dive into a friendship, she might as well really go for it. "I'm free tomorrow afternoon. How about then?"

Kyle flashes her a charming smile, intentionally showing off a little. He knows it's a good smile. When she moves past him, he takes a half step out of her way, not wanting to appear as a threat ever again. When she turns back, he tilts his head questioningly.

He offers the same flash of a smile with her words. "Tomorrow's great. Your place or mine?"

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