The X-Project

Nick goes down to the kitchen to talk about Shiro. Instead he's greeted by a discussion from two of the "Big Brothers" of a certain purple-haired mansion dweller.



Nicholas Gleason had a rough month behind him and he was happy that it was coming to an end. An awkward situation with Catseye he still didn't understand entirely. A roommate that looked at him with daggers whenever he left the room. And a mentor that had just left him. He shuffled his feet as he found his way down to the kitchen of the mansion. He found it ironic that he was once again meeting Jay in the first room that they had run into each other, although this time he was pretty sure there would be no bloodshed. But as he rounded the corner, pulling his eyes up from the ground, he wasn't so sure about that assumption.

Jay wasn't alone in the kitchen like Nick had expected. While the blue-skinned flyer was perched on the island in the middle of the kitchen like a hawk, Forge was leaning casually on the other side of the large butcher block, a can of Red Bull in one hand and – utterly out of place in the otherwise clean kitchen – a grease-stained pipe wrench in the other.

After a quick glance at Nick, Forge flicked his eyes up to Jay. "This is Nick, right? The Nick?"

He couldn't help the wings that arched behind them, for once, purposely out on his accord and not their own. His body was on full alert, though he slouched, hands on his knees, trying to keep a casual posture instead of stiffening his spine with the impulse to give chase.

"Yup," he said and gripped his knees a little, mindful of the sweat coming up between his fingers. There was a whole lot of metal between the pair of them and it was a glaring fact that they weren't there to talk about Shiro.

"Sup Nick," he said brightly.

Nick swallowed hard as his eyes quickly shifted from one thing that could be used as a weapon in the room to the other. Not that either of the two really needed a weapon, but still, it added a few more degrees to the shiver that shot down Nick's spine. The boy quickly noticed that his mouth had been gaping open since he rounded the corner. He instantly tried to form it into a nervous smile. Time to try and play it cool. "What's up guys?" The voice sounded like that of a 7 year old girl.

"What's up, guys?" Forge repeated, "What is up, that's the question, Nick. What's up. That's always been a weird phrase to me. The assignation of 'up' to mean something happening, something going on. 'What's happening?', that makes sense. 'What's going on?' - even more. You see what I'm saying? Language is a tricky thing."

He perused the wrench, then laid it down on a paper towel as he took another drink from the silver-and-blue can. "I mean, I'm a genius and sometimes it doesn't make sense to me. So I can only imagine how some things might be confusing to someone who doesn't get the subtleties of language. Human interaction. Acting human, all that stuff. You think that'd be confusing, Jay?"

"Maybe it is," Jay reasoned, gripping his knees. "Actin' human when all you've known is being someone, somethin' else can be confusin'. Maybe you wanna try things out that you've never tried before. Maybe somethin's got you curious and you wanna see what it'll do.

Actin's human is a funny thing, Ah reckon. There's the golden rules, writtin' in law that you know is wrong and then there's all that middle stuff inbetween, stuff that makes you ask who's gonna answer your questions when you don't understand? When you're doin' somethin' new? When you're tryin' to act how you think a human would act but you wanna please everyone at the same time?"

Nick paused for a second, his eyebrows beginning to furrow together as he turned his head to the side, still trying to play the catch up game. His voice dropped to a whisper that he was hopeful was only audible to himself. "How you think a human would act." suddenly the realization came to him, his eyes opening wide. "Oh God..." He quickly began waving his hands up in front of himself as he looked back in front of him. "I know how this might look guys, but Catseye and I..." He caught himself in the process. If he couldn't explain their relationship to himself, how could he two her two 'big brothers'. "I would never dream of hurting her..."

"And yet," Forge replied nonchalantly, "sometimes these things happen. Don't get me wrong here, Nick. No one's telling you to stay away from her. But Catseye is... different. She trusts people implicitly, because she just plain doesn't know any other way to be. And if some person she starts getting close to is... how do we put this, Jay?"

"Someone who gets handsy with other girls," he supplied for Forge. "Then someone's gonna have a real big problem peelin' wolf bits off the pavement." Short and to the point, he was sure he was being clear.

"Handsy with other girls?" Nick again began waving his hands around in front of him. "I haven't even been handsy with the first girl." He quickly began darting his eyes around the room, realizing that probably wasn't the best course of action. "I mean I..." He quickly moved his hands up to the side of his face. "I think I need to lie down." The boy was hoping now not just to change their opinions of him, but had a more urgent goal of not being the kabob meat at Lex's next barbeque.

"Not just yet, Nick," Forge said, metal fingers beginning to compress the empty drink can into a small cube. "If we can be serious for a moment, you've probably noticed Catseye's...well, she's not like other girls. There are things out there she's still learning. She might be nineteen, technically, but experience-wise she's still catching up on a lot of things that normal teenagers take for granted. She doesn't understand the complexities of relationships, and as a result she's incredibly trusting. None of us want to see that trust taken advantage of."

"Like if she wants to sleep with you at night, we'd expect you to be a gentleman about it and say no. It's different if she sleeps with us, she's always slept with us and we ain't ever gonna try to get in 'er pants--" he held up his hand, wings shifting as he kicked a leg to bounce against the cupboard, holding off the arguement coming. "We ain't sayin' you're gonna try. We're saying sometimes you get caught up in the moment and then you ain't thinkin' with the right head, but we also ain't sayin' yer not gonna try."

Nick tried to hold up his hands in defense again, but quickly realized that it would do him no good. He had to do his best to explain his way out of a situation that he didn't fully understand himself. "I would never think of trying to take advantage of her. The fact that she's still inexperienced is part of what draws me to her." He pause for a second before he realized how that must have sounded, quickly backing up and starting again, talking as quickly as possible before he found something lodged into his head. "I mean the fact that she isn't so tainted about the world, reminds me that there still are innocent people out there. It reminds me of my sister." His eyes grew to double their size, realizing how that one must have sounded. This wasn't going well. "What I mean to say is that I didn't mean to be attracted to Catseye, it just happened by mistake, and I would never take advantage of her, and if something like that did happen, I would come to you guys for help first thing and admit my mistake."

"So," Jay started, confusion crossing his expression and he turned his wrist out, counting off what they'd be over so far. "You don't wanna take advantage of her but.... she's innocent and ain't tainted and you like that and.... you like yer sister--" his gaze flickered to Forge briefly."-- but you ain't meaning to be attracted to her..." he trailed off.

"...and you like what you see in her too much to lose it by screwing things up," Forge finished, turning over the marble-sized cube of crushed metal that was once a Red Bull can. "I can respect that, Nick. Can't always control who we fall for, but we can control what we do about it. Well, not Jay. But everyone else can. So yeah, if you need any advice on dealing with Cats... we're here for you, man. Just... treat her right."

"I promise that's all I ever intended." A shaky smile pushes up the corner of his lips. "So is it safe to say I won't see the same fate as that can today?"

"Today, sure," Forge answered with a grin.