Disclaimers: If any of them were ours, they'd get drunk more often.
And dance.

Spoilers: Um. No.

Summary: Impromptu party.

Ratings Note: R.

Authors' Note: It just occurred to us that we ought to give Kyle
a little attention.

Feedback makes us remember that we're not just writing for
ourselves. <g> janestclair15@hotmail.com, teland793@sbcglobal.net
 

*

Kyle hunkers down on the roof of Alpha's Toronto house and
stares at the summer pollutant sky.

It's been too hot and smoggy in Toronto to work seriously during
the days, so like all other sensible, non-corporate people on earth,
most of Alpha Flight has inverted its Circadian rhythms, started
daysleeping and playing at night when the air is thinner.  Only
Heather's still on a day-schedule.  Kyle's only seen her for a couple
of hours every day.  Red eyes from the bad air and the brightness
and she comes and curls up on the couch with them while Kyle's still
in his pajamas and Puck's wandering around in those oddly truncated
Judo pants of his.

And sometime around eleven or midnight, somebody -- and he
thinks it might have been Northstar -- dropped into the pile of
people in front of the TV with a bottle of sub-zero Stoli and a fifth
of Crown Royal and announced they were going to get stupid drunk
on the roof.

Which has been, all things considered, pretty fun.  Kyle's been
drunk before, but only for the sole purpose of passing out and
being not-Kyle for a while.  Whereas this is.  Social.  Yeah.
Friendly and stupid and more group-togetherness than he would
have bet Alpha Flight had in it.  Most of them in cutoffs and
undershirts and Aurora in that gravity-defying bikini top that
makes him grateful for his oversized cargo shorts, and even if she's
insane she's *gorgeous*, and her brother in *just* shorts, showing
off those flat muscles of his and somehow ignoring everybody's
eyes on him.

And Kyle is... not happy exactly, but kinda like belonging.  Puck
ruffles his hair and twists a handful of it until Kyle screams like a
sissy girl.  Which is sort of the point -- he's the only guy on the
senior team with long hair, and unlike Heather he doesn't tie it
back, and it *is* a hazard, and he's keeping it anyway.  Damn it.

Pulls himself together once the dwarf gets off him and turns
around to see Northstar and Walter wrestling over the saltshaker
that's apparently part and parcel with the tequila and lemon
that've wandered up to join them.  Long, muscled bodies, *sweaty*,
damn it, and making serious attempts to mash each other into the
loose gravel lying around on the tar paper.  Rolling, eventually,
towards the edge.  They pause when Heather sticks her head up
and screams at them to be careful.  Just long enough for Northstar
to break free, grab the salt shaker, and fall over the edge.

"Jean-Paul!"  Heather wide and horrified and maybe, Kyle thinks,
just a little stunned.

Because he pops right back up, grins at her like only a man
standing in empty space can, and drops down onto the roof,
evading Walter and offering the shaker to Heather when she
comes storming over.

She hits him.  Really a lot of times, actually.  Over and over,
mostly on the head, not hard enough to say, knock his teeth out,
but probably enough to rattle his brain if he has one.

"Ouch!  Chrisse, Heather, stop it.  Ow ow ow.  Wal-tair, Heather's
beating me.  Make her stop.  Ow!"

"You get your ass kicked by a girl, that's your problem."

"Oww!  Always beating me, Heather.  Stop it!"  And just batting
back at her, softly, shit-faced drunk and just wayyyy too happy
and apparently he's forgotten what a bastard he's supposed to
be.

Kyle catches himself grinning at the spectacle and doesn't bother
to stop. Heather can make anyone look (and feel) helpless,
anyway, but somehow the effect's that much funnier on Jean-Paul.
Like Heather's bear-hugging a cactus and somehow winning just
the same.

Besides, having Jean-Paul *and* Heather distracted makes it possible
for him to lick a salt-stripe from Aurora's palm before taking another
shot without getting his ass pummeled by five feet eleven inches of
joual rage. Kyle's good, but speed counts for something.

As severe drunkenness and being on a rooftop counts *against* the
guy who can't fly.

Or even glide.

Maybe Heather'd catch him by the hair. Maybe.

He eases off the new and fun game of grinning at Aurora, despite
the fact that she has a habit of showing off every last one of those
pearly whites when *she* grins.

Kyle appreciates that in a woman. Like maybe she could at any
moment just reach out and chuck him on the canines.

No one *ever* chucks him on the canines.

Or scratches behind his ears for that matter. Kyle shakes it off. It's
always way too easy to get maudlin about the belly-rubs his mother
never gave him when he's drunk.

And he is, most assuredly, drunk.

Much drunker than Puck, who's apparently just a cleverly designed
empty keg, infinitely drunker than Heather -- though she might be
faking it some.  Not drunker than Walter, though. Wal-tair.
Walterbear. Heh.

Walterbear is singing. In French. With Jean-Paul doing a tinkerbell
act around his head.

Kyle makes himself a solemn promise to remember this in the
morning. Poor JP.  Probably never gets to act like a complete fairy.
Not ever. Now for himself, he could dress in a pink tutu and hit
on the archbishop and *no* one would twig.

Unless they just assumed that the whole of Alpha Flight had
gotten hit with Big Gay Photon Rays. Huge ones. In lavender. And
Heather and Aurora would have hot, sweaty, cyborg lunatic
lesbo sex. Wow, would they have a lot of sex.

Lots and lots of sex. In public. Yeah. Because it would be...
there'd be aliens making them do it. Or Magneto. And Jean-Paul
would leap to save them, promising to fuck the *hell* out of
Walterbear in their place, but Walterbear would be in the lab
saving lives and also naked and it would have to be Kyle.

Because Puck and Wolverine had finally declared their unspoken
love.

So, there are Kyle and Jean-Paul, stripping down to the howls of
millions across the world, only the howls won't be for them
because Aurora and Heather are having incredibly hot lesbo sex
but that's OK because when Jean-Paul gets one look at his mighty,
manly, man-tool --

"Kyle!"

Kyle blinks, shakes himself, attempts to stand up and falls right
back on his ass. Ooofs as Puck stands on his chest. "Wha?"

"You, my friend, are shitfaced."

And then jumps off and walks away.

Leaving Kyle flat and happy on the roof.  Staring at the
not-really-dark sky, thinking residual thoughts mostly about Aurora
and Heather getting it on.  He rolls over, eventually, and licks a
strip off a white arm, rolls the sharp-salty Aurora taste around in
his mouth and thinks about what else might taste like that...

"Um, Kyle?"

So he looks, and he really must be shitfaced, because it takes some
time to process that he's licked the wrong twin.  Though the
absence of a shirt -- or, well bikini top, anyway -- shoulda clued him
in.  But considering all the hot lesbo sex, you couldn't expect
Aurora to keep her top on, not with breasts like that.  They could
rule the world just by pointing her shirtless at the enemy.  Or
maybe just whore her and her brother at the next Canada Day party
on Parliament Hill.

Canada Day had been good, actually.  They hadn't been doing
security for a change, just being Canadian Content, prowling
around and getting petted by drunk college kids.  Groped by
the occasional roving band member whose band wasn't due on
one of the open stages for a couple of hours.  Kyle'd attracted a
following of skinny Goth kids with a lot of piercings, and he
hadn't quite figured out whether he liked them or even what they
were doing at an event so unashamedly nationalist that it was
being *televised*, for fuck's sake, on the fucking *CBC*.

And then Northstar had come prowling through.  Dark and lithe
and dripping sex appeal, just in jeans and one of those
way-too-see-through Stanfield undershirts he liked, letting his
nipples and the shadow of his belly button show.  Beer bottle in
one hand sorta casually.  And while Kyle and his multi-pierced
followers watched, the next wave of hyperactive, shiny-faced
celebrants swept forth and just *swallowed* Northstar.  Petted
him and rubbed up against him and did some fairly obvious
groping and it occurred to Kyle then, too, that they should have
charged admission.

Kyle smiles blearily up at Jean-Paul now, suspecting that maybe
he said that last part out loud.  Contemplates life with his nose
broken.

"Hey, JP, don't hit 'im just 'cause he's drunk."  Walterbear, warm
and kinda furry in spite of being human and mostly naked himself,
props Kyle up.  Hands him the bottle and braces his head while he
drinks.

Oddly focused for a second, enough to very clearly hear Jean-Paul
say, "Are you going to share that?"

Sets the bottle down, perfectly upright, and crawls forward.  Into
Northstar's lap.  Takes that pretty, pale face between his palms
and pours the last mouthful between his lips.  Waits for the man
to swallow.  And then kisses him.

Hard.

And shares.

"And with that, I'm going to bed. If God loves you, I will forget
everything that happened tonight."

Kyle watches Heather weave vaguely towards the open window
and continues sharing with Jean-Paul. The tequila's gone, but
Kyle's finding he still has quite a lot to share.

Pauses only when sharp teeth close hard on his ear. Low, distinctly
female growl. "Wrong choice, fur-boy," and then Aurora and her
Tits of Maximum Goodness are gone, too, and Jean-Paul's look is
somewhere between amused, arch, and utterly plastered.

Walter yawns. "*Right*. I'm off."

And then Jean-Paul's very much gone and Kyle's face is very much
pressed to the roof. He attempts to lever himself up, only to have
something large and distinctly Walter-like land on him with a
whuff of air.

"You didn't have to throw me, JP!" Walter yells.

"You really, really didn't." Kyle gasps.

"I, Jean-Paul, have made a mountain of men!"

And suddenly there's still more weight, and a large amount of pain
along with it, but there's wrestling, too, which is fun, and not very
painful at all, except when Jean-Paul or possibly Walter bites him,
which has its fun moments too.

It ends, not unpredictably, with a very real danger to life and limb.
Kyle scrambles back a little, and finds himself hung out over the
edge of the roof.  His centre of gravity past the point of no return,
and just *way* too drunk to think of twisting somehow back to
safety.  No agility *at all*, and it's just fucking embarrassing that
he, Kyle, mutant-feral survivor, is going to end his career by
smashing his brains out on Alpha Flight's front steps.

It's going to be a big mess, too.  Bloody and messy and it's
possible -- *just* possible -- that he's pissed the guys off enough
that they might forget to mention it until morning, and when the
letter carrier trips over him -- pretty woman, early thirties,
recycles their junk mail for them in the big, blue box -- she's going
to need *years* of therapy.  Another good Canada Post employee
down the tubes.  Another not-too-bad Alpha Flight employee too,
for that matter.

And about one more second to wonder if he's going to puke before
he hits the ground, and then Jean-Paul grabs him by the back of
his shorts and hauls him in.

Stands behind him for a minute, still hanging onto his waistband,
one arm around his chest to hold him steady while he shakes.
Knocks his forehead gently on the back of Kyle's skull.

"Sobered you up?"

"Ooooh, yeah."  Beat.  "Tell me you didn't do that on purpose."

"I didn't.  If I were going to drop you off a high building, I would
do it when Walter was not around to save you."  Snarky, but
something shaky underneath.  Cold skin, suddenly, on both of
them.  And Jean-Paul's fingers are still there in the back of his
shorts, knuckles half-rubbing along the base of his spine.

What occurs to Kyle at this point isn't that they should go inside,
or even anything about being drunk and a hazard to himself and
others.  More to do with Toronto being really pretty at night.  The
smog's a low, reflective wall against the sky, lit white-orange by
the streetlights.  And there must be an air layer between it and
them, because there's real oxygen moving now.  Smells good,
even.

He wishes it would rain.  He hopes, really hopes, that Jean-Paul
doesn't stop touching him any time soon.

Kyle turns his head, eventually, and stares up at the razor-line
curve of Northstar's jaw.  Tilts his head back even farther and
kisses it.  Gets a moment of startlement when the hands on him
still, and he wonders if he's pushed it one step too far.

Whisper of air behind them.  "I'm going to bed.  Take care."
Walter's already gone by the time Kyle figures out that he was
watching, that he definitely saw the kiss.  Not that he'd tell, or
anything, but just having it witnessed is freakish enough. Which
is odd, because it hadn't seemed to matter *before* he nearly died.

"It's OK.  Go to bed and in the morning it won't have happened."
It's comfort, and he should be grateful for it, but instead he's just
fascinated by the way "OK" comes out through a quebecois accent.
Adds it to this list of English-in-French words to get Jean-Paul to
say as often as possible.  "Bye" is good, too.  Pretty much
anything monosyllabic, because the accent swallows the word, and
for a second you're locked into the sound, and the way it doesn't
*mean* anything but still brings this of low-grade arousal with it.

The arm's gone from his chest, and the touch from his back.  He
turns around and Jean-Paul's stepped back, enough to let Kyle get by.
Just being.  Well, polite.  Wayyyyy too understanding, being as how
it's Jean-Paul, and he doesn't usually give you slack in anything but
the rope you need to hang yourself.

This is different, yeah.  But still.

Black hair, white skin, hands shoved in the back pockets of his shorts.
One of his runners is untied.

Kyle thinks about his goth kids from Canada Day.  The one boy --
black t-shirt that turned out to say Amnesty International,
though Kyle'd thought at the time it was the name of a band,
black jeans.  Rings through his eyebrows and the rims of his ears,
and a very small stud in his tongue.  How he'd caught Kyle's wrist,
sometime after Northstar vanished into his throng of supporters.
Took him very seriously off behind the sound trailers, like he had
something to show him.  And then backed him up against one hot
aluminum wall, and kissed him.

First kiss from a stranger.  Maybe the fifth adult, sexual kiss of his
life.  Not much a record, really.  But good.  Warm hands on the back
of his neck.  Hot and humid and he'd pushed back at the thigh rubbing
between his legs.

And in spite of the fact that he's never done it before -- never
*initiated* -- it's easy.  Just step in, tilt your face up, open your
mouth, and kiss.  Hold Jean-Paul's head down a bit because he's so
goddamned *tall*.  Lick the inside of his mouth.  Make sure you get
your legs tangled with his so that you can be sure you understand
each other.

He gets pushed back, but not for a while, and when he does, it's
a pink-faced, panting Jean-Paul holding him off.

Who says, "Don't."

"Why not?"

"Because you're drunk, and this isn't very funny."

Oh.  Ouch.

"I didn't mean it to be.  Just want you."

"Not likely."

Kyle thinks about that.  Decides it's not the answer he was going for
and then decides to celebrate the alcohol-induced loss of his
inhibitions by throwing his not-inconsiderable mass against Jean-Paul
and bearing him down.  Sitting on his legs and grinning for a second,
then bending and kissing him -- very gently, no tongue at all -- on
the mouth.  Because, and let's get this very clear, this isn't about
forcing, just convincing.  And about the really wonderful body
underneath him, and the many interesting ways in which he's decided
he likes it and wants to explore it.

And after a couple more of those kisses, he gets an arm around his
shoulders like he wanted, and slides off to one side, sort of props
himself up and gets kissed a few times.  Good ones.  Wet and messy
and friendly.  Oddly not pushy.  Just once or twice hands rove over
him, down from his lower back and up from his thighs, and he's not
proud of it, but he tenses.  Not quite ready to go there.  But still
wanting.  Hanging on every time the man tries to roll back.

And *fuck* he's hard.  Going to have to do something about that.
Later.  Alone.  Just because... not yet.  Maybe ever, but definitely
not yet.

Eventually, Jean-Paul disengages.  Lifts Kyle's hands off him one at
a time, kisses their knuckles, and gives them back.  Gets up into a
crouch and tugs on the loose hair lying across Kyle's head, and
stands.

"I need to go.  It's not personal, I'm just restless."

And he really is.  Vibrating, almost.  Which probably has something
to do with sex, but more the way you can't keep him in a meeting
for more than an hour, and how riding in a car with him is hell.
Can't sit still.

"Yeah.  OK."

And he goes.  Just stands there, still like a picture for a second,
then takes off.  Hits the cloud layer so hard you can see it break
open.  And gone.

Kyle wonders what the air's like up there.  Must be nice.  Stars.
Yeah, definitely stars.  Good view.  Maybe you can see into
people's windows, check out what they're up to.  Heh.  Peeping
superhero.  How come nobody ever accused Superman of that?
Honest face, maybe.

And rolls onto his back, stares at the clouds re-forming.  He's
almost aching hard, almost ready to take care of that.  For now he
just lays flat and hooks his fingers into the waist of his shorts.
Stares at the sky and thinks some.
 

End
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