Michael Guerin had just been "returned" from his first foster home when Jim Valenti told his son that he was getting a brother. Kyle hadn't ever really thought about his life as an only child, and he hadn't thought about having a sibling but in the space of a talk one night to the next morning all of that changed.
Michael seemed no happier with being there than Kyle felt in those first days, and even months. Everything had changed, but there were words that Jim told Kyle that first night when he and Michael had a screaming fight that had ended with broken dishes and no one had been in the kitchen.
Your brother is special and he will need you, Kyle. If you do nothing else in this world, always make sure you're there for him.
He'd thought it a guilt trip at the time, but things have gotten better. Least they're not breaking things.
But now Jim has brought them to his brother's place in Careyes though no one else is there but the three of them. It's meant to be a summer vacation but Jim is off doing God knows what and Kyle is, in a word...
"Bored."
Okay he has more words than that.
"Oh. My. God. Michael. I am so bored," he grumps, hopping to sit on a sideboard, his heels drumming against it in frustration. The sound is odd, a solid thump and then a hollower sound but he hasn't noticed. Not yet.
Saying Michael Guerin was difficult at first would have been an understatement. He'd been through a foster home that left him with new scars and even less affection for humans. He'd learned how to talk while he was there, but it was difficult to tell, since he was withdrawn and all but silent, resentment all over his expressive face over every little thing. He snuck out repeatedly to try to get to the siblings he could feel but not see, and he always watched with big, wary eyes when Kyle's parents came near him, as if waiting to see what they'd do.
With Kyle at least he'd been more openly disdainful at first. The screaming fight a few weeks in had still mostly been on Kyle's side, but Michael HAD called him an asshole, which had oddly been progress.
Still, since then there'd been movement. Michael started to bend, a little. He started to answer out loud when he was asked things - briefly at first, but gradually to talk. When Jim caught him going through an old text book, idly penciling in answers to the match questions, Michael was obviously tensed and ready to be yelled at, and seemed startled and then slowly a little flustered when he was praised for being smart instead, the same way Kyle was. He tried to come across as sullen and angry, and sometimes he was. But Michael was alone and he'd been hurt, and sometimes the fear came through just as much. The little startled flashes of wary appreciation when he was appreciated or praised showed the same way, despite his best efforts.
He stopped hiding away when he did his homework so much, and didn't deliberately get things wrong anymore. And one weekend Michael and Kyle both ended up staying up all night, watching reruns on TV and trading comics and the remote back and forth and talking, they came out of it friends. Or at least something closer to it than Michael had ever had before, excepting his siblings. He'd found them again, once he'd gone to school, since they went to the same school as Kyle and him. Seeing them again had been a massive relief that made things easier, even if he'd still tried to push them away a little too, at first - despite how hard he'd tried to find them. And the Valentis didn't refuse to let him go anywhere or see anyone, so he stopped trying to sneak off and escape so much, instead spending time after school or on weekends with them - much to the dismay of the Evans who didn't want him influencing their perfect kids.
Michael isn't entirely settled. He's not sure he knows what that feels like. But he's starting to feel like the Valentis, at least, he can trust some. Like Sanders, even if he's a crank. And Kyle's smarter than he seems and not entirely terrible. He's even funny, sometimes. His friend Alex is, too. Michael still feels the distance between him, Max, and Isobel like a physical hurt, and he still can't help but push sometimes, just to see what happens when he does something wrong. But so far, no one's tried to exorcise him or throw him out or beat the hell out of him. And he still dreams - the lamps have shaken more than once. But no one's blamed him yet, even if he's seen a few odd looks.
The trip should have set off warning bells, but Michael had actually tried NOT to freak out about it, even if the distance still made him edgier.
He's surprised that it's ... kind of neat. It's an old house, cool by design as much as by air conditioning. There's nooks and crannies for Michael to poke his nose into, and something about it just feels ... calm to him.
So he's trying to just zone out Kyle's drumming feet and feel the calm and not the distant hum of Isobel, clearly annoyed about something. It doesn't work since Kyle starts talking, and Michael cracks open his eyes from where he's sitting, head tipped back and unusually still, for him. Michael's hands are at least almost always busy moving. "HOW is that my problem?" he asks, but gives in with a grunt, sitting up and stretching his neck a little. "Want to go look through the library again?" he asks, even though he knows if Kyle wanted to do that, he wouldn't be here complaining.
"Because I'm making it your problem," he admits, watching Michael get to his feet. Maybe it's being dickish because it's obvious he was trying to ground and center or something but Kyle can't help but drag Michael into his issues.
"There's not a single diary about the mystery of my family in there, or a book with hidden hundreds between the pages. I could read back home. What do you think about riding? Think you could manage?"
There was a stable there, and someone came often to check on them so no reason not to ride them, right?
Yet even as he says that, the panel under his foot goes from making a tapping sound to a cracking sound.
"Shit!"
He leapt off the sideboard instantly, positive he had cracked the wood. Instead a panel had been popped inward and off it's track, the wood not cracked but something not right either.
"Thanks for that," Michael says wryly. He doesn't really mind though. He's, by Michael's standards, mellow-seeming here, a little slower to fidget and look for something to do or reasons to be suspicious.
The idea of riding does get lifted eyebrows behind too-long curls though. "Like on a horse?" Michael says. He tries to sound dubious and a little disdainful instead of unsure. Michael's been around cows. But horses are tall and heavy looking and he's not sure he wants to sit on something that tall that can just decide it doesn't want him sitting up there anymore and throw him off. Cows just kind of cow around, chewing and minding their own business. He's not trying to sit on them.
He jerks at the sudden exclamation though, flinching slightly at the crack, automatic wave of alarm going through him. He hadn't broken it, but there's still a part of Michael that can't forget breaking things means he'll be punished for it. "I'll fix it," he says, reflexively, dropping down to crouch next to it.
He frowns though, realizing it's not broken. "No, you're okay. It's just ..." Michael reached for the panel, deftly adjusting and popping it back into place, then sliding it cautiously all the way open, peering into the space behind it. "It's just a secret door," he finishes, a little delighted. "Here, look," he says, reaching up to tug absently at Kyle's shirt.
Kyle is hopping a little from one foot to the other, nervous because of what he's done.
"Shit. I didn't mean to. Fuck, my uncle is never going to let us come down here again." And he knows things are tough between his dad and his brother so he hates that he might have made it worse by breaking the furniture. And any excuse he can come up with isn't going to make it any better.
All the talk of horseback riding and finding something to do goes out the window though, even his fear of what he did, in that moment as Michael says those words.
"Wait, what?"
He drops down on his knees next to Michael, peering at the darkness beyond, and the hinges on the edge of what is definitely a door.
"It's fine, it's a door. It just came off the track," Michael tells him, reassuring him without thinking about it. He knows what it's like to break something and then have to hold your breath and wait for the fallout. It's not the same thing, but still. He wants Kyle to not feel like that.
"I don't know. It's hard to see," Michael says, crouching down more and stretching to reach as far as he can. His fingertips brush something, but it's not close enough, so he shuts his eyes and pulls it closer, trying to be careful. It's stupid, he knows, but he's caught himself being less than cautious around Kyle, sometimes, when it comes to hiding his powers.
It flies into his hand a little too hard and Michael almost loses his balance, the little hidey-hole hiding the movement, hopefully. He sits down, pulling a book box and book out, looking at them curiously before holding them out toward Kyle.
He isn't ready to get in trouble for that, to have to listen to his dad point out how they're guests here and if they can just fix it, it'll be for the best.
Except he's not thinking about that.
Still mesmerized by what Michael can do, even though he takes seriously the trust of having Michael with them. Knowing he's there and that they, Kyle, is willing to do what he can to protect him. He may not be entirely sure about a lot, but he knows he will keep his word to his dad about protecting Michael.
Even if Michael can maybe kick his ass without his abilities and then he has telekinesis so there's that.
For a moment Kyle finds himself caught up in Michael's profile, at how he works to draw the object to him, and he finds himself lost in the soft curls about his face, the concentration... and then he's having something thrust at him and he finds himself blinking.
"What? Oh... Huh..." He takes them into his hands, running his fingers along the cover. "I don't recognize these symbols... except that one." The one he knew was about Michael and his people. About the aliens. "Do you like... I don't know. Feel anything?"
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Discovery - Careyes, Mexico
Michael seemed no happier with being there than Kyle felt in those first days, and even months. Everything had changed, but there were words that Jim told Kyle that first night when he and Michael had a screaming fight that had ended with broken dishes and no one had been in the kitchen.
Your brother is special and he will need you, Kyle. If you do nothing else in this world, always make sure you're there for him.
He'd thought it a guilt trip at the time, but things have gotten better. Least they're not breaking things.
But now Jim has brought them to his brother's place in Careyes though no one else is there but the three of them. It's meant to be a summer vacation but Jim is off doing God knows what and Kyle is, in a word...
"Bored."
Okay he has more words than that.
"Oh. My. God. Michael. I am so bored," he grumps, hopping to sit on a sideboard, his heels drumming against it in frustration. The sound is odd, a solid thump and then a hollower sound but he hasn't noticed. Not yet.
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With Kyle at least he'd been more openly disdainful at first. The screaming fight a few weeks in had still mostly been on Kyle's side, but Michael HAD called him an asshole, which had oddly been progress.
Still, since then there'd been movement. Michael started to bend, a little. He started to answer out loud when he was asked things - briefly at first, but gradually to talk. When Jim caught him going through an old text book, idly penciling in answers to the match questions, Michael was obviously tensed and ready to be yelled at, and seemed startled and then slowly a little flustered when he was praised for being smart instead, the same way Kyle was. He tried to come across as sullen and angry, and sometimes he was. But Michael was alone and he'd been hurt, and sometimes the fear came through just as much. The little startled flashes of wary appreciation when he was appreciated or praised showed the same way, despite his best efforts.
He stopped hiding away when he did his homework so much, and didn't deliberately get things wrong anymore. And one weekend Michael and Kyle both ended up staying up all night, watching reruns on TV and trading comics and the remote back and forth and talking, they came out of it friends. Or at least something closer to it than Michael had ever had before, excepting his siblings. He'd found them again, once he'd gone to school, since they went to the same school as Kyle and him. Seeing them again had been a massive relief that made things easier, even if he'd still tried to push them away a little too, at first - despite how hard he'd tried to find them. And the Valentis didn't refuse to let him go anywhere or see anyone, so he stopped trying to sneak off and escape so much, instead spending time after school or on weekends with them - much to the dismay of the Evans who didn't want him influencing their perfect kids.
Michael isn't entirely settled. He's not sure he knows what that feels like. But he's starting to feel like the Valentis, at least, he can trust some. Like Sanders, even if he's a crank. And Kyle's smarter than he seems and not entirely terrible. He's even funny, sometimes. His friend Alex is, too. Michael still feels the distance between him, Max, and Isobel like a physical hurt, and he still can't help but push sometimes, just to see what happens when he does something wrong. But so far, no one's tried to exorcise him or throw him out or beat the hell out of him. And he still dreams - the lamps have shaken more than once. But no one's blamed him yet, even if he's seen a few odd looks.
The trip should have set off warning bells, but Michael had actually tried NOT to freak out about it, even if the distance still made him edgier.
He's surprised that it's ... kind of neat. It's an old house, cool by design as much as by air conditioning. There's nooks and crannies for Michael to poke his nose into, and something about it just feels ... calm to him.
So he's trying to just zone out Kyle's drumming feet and feel the calm and not the distant hum of Isobel, clearly annoyed about something. It doesn't work since Kyle starts talking, and Michael cracks open his eyes from where he's sitting, head tipped back and unusually still, for him. Michael's hands are at least almost always busy moving. "HOW is that my problem?" he asks, but gives in with a grunt, sitting up and stretching his neck a little. "Want to go look through the library again?" he asks, even though he knows if Kyle wanted to do that, he wouldn't be here complaining.
no subject
"There's not a single diary about the mystery of my family in there, or a book with hidden hundreds between the pages. I could read back home. What do you think about riding? Think you could manage?"
There was a stable there, and someone came often to check on them so no reason not to ride them, right?
Yet even as he says that, the panel under his foot goes from making a tapping sound to a cracking sound.
"Shit!"
He leapt off the sideboard instantly, positive he had cracked the wood. Instead a panel had been popped inward and off it's track, the wood not cracked but something not right either.
"Oh shit, what did I do?"
no subject
The idea of riding does get lifted eyebrows behind too-long curls though. "Like on a horse?" Michael says. He tries to sound dubious and a little disdainful instead of unsure. Michael's been around cows. But horses are tall and heavy looking and he's not sure he wants to sit on something that tall that can just decide it doesn't want him sitting up there anymore and throw him off. Cows just kind of cow around, chewing and minding their own business. He's not trying to sit on them.
He jerks at the sudden exclamation though, flinching slightly at the crack, automatic wave of alarm going through him. He hadn't broken it, but there's still a part of Michael that can't forget breaking things means he'll be punished for it. "I'll fix it," he says, reflexively, dropping down to crouch next to it.
He frowns though, realizing it's not broken. "No, you're okay. It's just ..." Michael reached for the panel, deftly adjusting and popping it back into place, then sliding it cautiously all the way open, peering into the space behind it. "It's just a secret door," he finishes, a little delighted. "Here, look," he says, reaching up to tug absently at Kyle's shirt.
no subject
"Shit. I didn't mean to. Fuck, my uncle is never going to let us come down here again." And he knows things are tough between his dad and his brother so he hates that he might have made it worse by breaking the furniture. And any excuse he can come up with isn't going to make it any better.
All the talk of horseback riding and finding something to do goes out the window though, even his fear of what he did, in that moment as Michael says those words.
"Wait, what?"
He drops down on his knees next to Michael, peering at the darkness beyond, and the hinges on the edge of what is definitely a door.
"Whoa. That's so cool. What's in there?"
no subject
"I don't know. It's hard to see," Michael says, crouching down more and stretching to reach as far as he can. His fingertips brush something, but it's not close enough, so he shuts his eyes and pulls it closer, trying to be careful. It's stupid, he knows, but he's caught himself being less than cautious around Kyle, sometimes, when it comes to hiding his powers.
It flies into his hand a little too hard and Michael almost loses his balance, the little hidey-hole hiding the movement, hopefully. He sits down, pulling a book box and book out, looking at them curiously before holding them out toward Kyle.
no subject
He isn't ready to get in trouble for that, to have to listen to his dad point out how they're guests here and if they can just fix it, it'll be for the best.
Except he's not thinking about that.
Still mesmerized by what Michael can do, even though he takes seriously the trust of having Michael with them. Knowing he's there and that they, Kyle, is willing to do what he can to protect him. He may not be entirely sure about a lot, but he knows he will keep his word to his dad about protecting Michael.
Even if Michael can maybe kick his ass without his abilities and then he has telekinesis so there's that.
For a moment Kyle finds himself caught up in Michael's profile, at how he works to draw the object to him, and he finds himself lost in the soft curls about his face, the concentration... and then he's having something thrust at him and he finds himself blinking.
"What? Oh... Huh..." He takes them into his hands, running his fingers along the cover. "I don't recognize these symbols... except that one." The one he knew was about Michael and his people. About the aliens. "Do you like... I don't know. Feel anything?"