Monday September 16th 2019
Who: Lyle and Kael What: Lyle meets his half brother Where: CPS Office in New York When: Later evening (around 8) Rating: PG
Mrs. Kline had insisted on doing things what she considered the proper way, which meant that all the necessary paperwork had to be completed before she would introduce Lyle to Kael. But once that was all squared away, she rose from her desk and asked, "Are you ready to meet him now?" She waited his response before leading him down the hallway to retrieve the seventeen year old.
Kael was in one of the rooms where they held children while they were waiting on their placements. It was geared more toward younger children, filled with random toys and a television that was placed high up and played nothing but family friendly channels. He was slouched down in his chair, staring absently at the television which was currently playing some random episode of Spongebob Squarepants. He looked over when the door to the room opened, and then sat up a bit more when he saw Lyle, feeling his anxiety at finally meeting the other man welling in his stomach.
"Well, you two.. take your time and.. when you're ready to go, let me know. I'll show you both out." Kelly smiled and then took her leave, leaving the brothers to get aquainted in what was hopefully a nice neutral place. It was hard to feel nervous about any of this because it all felt very... surreal. It wasn't that he couldn't believe he had a half brother- his father was apparently spreading his seed all over the state- but the fact that Lyle had been called, instead of his mother, was odd. More odd was that this kid actually knew who he was, but Lyle knew nothing about him. It made him wonder if there wasn't some kind of scam going on, or something less simple than a poor kid with two dead parents. But Lyle had signed the paperwork to take Kael out of foster care because there was some reason he was wanted, and Lyle needed to figure out what it was.
The second he saw the kid, though, there was no question about what was really going on. Kael looked exactly like his dad. Swallowing, Lyle went over to the kid, and sat in one of the small chairs nearby. "Um, so," he said finally, "you're um... Hi." --- Kael didn't speak until Lyle did. He just watched him as he walked over to have a seat, taking him in. He had seen pictures of Lyle. Unlike Fisher, he had never managed to see him in person, but it was.. uncanny and a tiny bit creepy. Apparently he and Lyle took more after their dad than Fisher did. He could only assume that Fisher looked like the other two boys' mother.
Even after Lyle spoke, it took him a moment to actually bring himself to say something in return mostly because he had no idea what to say. Finally he settled on, "Hi." It seemed like way too little, but it wasn't as though they actually knew one another, right? He quieted for another moment before he added, "Crappy way to find out about your half brother, huh?" He managed to smile a little at that remark. --- Returning the smile, but keeping his lips tight so as not to show off his fangs, Lyle shrugged. "I could think of worse ways," he said simply. Quiet for another moment, Lyle watched Kael, watched his mannerisms, just looked him over. Watching for him doing anything that Fisher did. After a moment, there it was- he glanced somewhere where there was nothing to see. "Can I ask you something?" he said finally. "Well a few somethings, actually. Starting off with, how did you know about me? And how did you know how to contact me?" --- It was strange being watched by someone in such a way, but it wasn't exactly unwarrented. He had or would do the same when he had a chance, though he might be less obvious about it. And then his mother was there, and she was telling him something, a warning, which was what he was focused on when Lyle spoke again. He looked back at him, a bit of surprise registering upon his face. He didn't share what he'd just been told, instead focused on the questions presented with a frown. "My mother told me. She uhm... she was dad's secretary. But I didn't know until I was older, until after he'd died. We were in Vegas and Fisher was on tv and.. It just kind of came out." He gave a small shrug of his shoulders. "I guess I've.. I've kind of been stalking you both since then." He chewed his lower lip for a moment and added, "I lived in Boston for a long time, not far from you, but... I didn't think... it'd be a good idea to go find you." --- Nodding, Lyle seemed to accept this with an ease unnatural to the circumstance. But then again, nothing surprised him anymore. His ex girlfriend was part alien and he had watched a man die. The concept of strange was just too foggy. "Okay," he said after a moment. "Next question. Who were you looking at over there?" --- Lyle's calm told him one thing and one thing only, he had picked the right brother. Mostly he had chosen him because he was closer, but he also seemed far more... together than Fisher did, from what he knew about them both anyway. And apparently he was... unflappable. He wasn't freaking out at all which was strange but comforting. Of course the next question made him blanch slightly and give him the very practiced, confused look that he had had years to master. "What? I... there's... No one else in here." He exhaled a bit of a laugh, trying to play it off as if he had no idea what he could possibly be referring to. --- Folding his hands in his lap, as though this were a business meeting which it sort of was, Lyle proceeded calmly. "Let's be honest here," he began. "If I'm going to bring you into my home, where my husband lives, someone I want to keep safe, we should at the very least be straightforward with one another. So. When Miss Kline called me, she told me that you've been behaving strangely, talking to yourself, seeming very distant. Someone close to you has died recently, you're talking to yourself, which means, I'm guessing, that you're a medium." He paused, watching briefly for a reaction, before continuing. "And the reason I know this is because Fisher is one too. And if I watch him long enough, eventually, he'll glance over at someone that isn't really there. Or, is, but no one else can see. Like you did just now." --- Crap. This was about to go downhill and fast. Or at least that was what Kael thought. He inhaled a breath and squared his shoulders, preparing his fight or flight response to react to whatever it was that Lyle was leading up to. And then he dropped that word and.. It was like he had tossed a bucket of ice water right in his face. But what came after was even more of a shock and it showed clearly upon his expression. "He is?" He asked, his voice going soft, as though he was afraid of saying anything about this too loudly, and truth be told, he was. That explained... a lot, though. His mother had never believed him which led him to believe that it wasn't her side of the family where that gift came from but his father's instead. Apparently he was right.
"My mother," he admitted, his expression tightening with the effort of keeping his emotions contained. "She.. found me right after..." He exhaled a breath. "I already knew before they even came to tell me." He paused and then added, "She says you aren't human." --- It was a hard thing to accept, knowing that other people in the world didn't think you were a freak of nature. Being different had almost killed Fisher, and it had turned Lyle's life upside down completely. It was understandable that Kael was having a hard time with this. Lyle nodded, letting Kael talk, letting him say as much as he needed to get out. He had a feeling that he was the only person, aside from Kael himself, who really knew about it.
Hearing the accusation about himself made Lyle chuckle, and glance in the direction where Kael had been looking before. "Tattletale," he smirked, before directing his attention back to Kael. "I'm not. She's right. But... okay, you have no need to be nervous, okay? I'm not dangerous or anything." Clearing his throat slightly, Lyle paused before finally confessing, "I'm a vampire." And then, for proof, he showed his teeth. --- It was.. definitely a bit of a shock to have someone be so open and accepting of what he was telling them. Kael wasn't even sure how to respond to that other than to just be stunned and, in some ways, glad. It would make life a lot less complicated for the next six months to not have to keep his issues to himself like he had done for as long as he could remember. --- Though it was the reaction to his accusation that really astounded him. Kael looked at him for a moment, arched a brow slightly, especially at the teeth, and then laughed. "Okay. That's funny." He clearly did not believe him. There was no such thing as vampires, after all. --- Funny? For a second, Lyle was confused. But then he remembered that this wasn't TJS, and Kael wasn't in a place where it was just as normal to be dead as it was to not. "Okay," he said, with a small laugh. "You're skeptical. I guess that's understandable. Sometimes I forget that it's not normal." Holding out his hand, he turned his arm wrist up, offering it to Kael. "I don't have a heartbeat," he said simply. "And I'm cold. And pale, obviously. I'm dead. Which sounds weirder to you than it does to me, but... it's a long story. But go ahead. Try to find a pulse on me." --- Looking at him, Kael started to get a bit uncomfortable. He glanced over Lyle's shoulder, at his mother, trying to make sense of what they were both trying to tell him. But he didn't want to touch him, not even when he offered. And he shook his head. "I'll take your word for it." Of course he was still a skeptic. But if he could be a medium then... Well maybe it was possible that Lyle was... dead? He just wasn't sure about all of that. But if being around a guy who thought he was a vampire was the only way to get away from having to go back to a place where he had been for the last several days, he would take it. "Guess that means we should probably go soon since, you know, you'll turn to dust at dawn or something, right?" --- Standing up, Lyle nodded. "I'll burn in the sunlight," he clarified. "But it's the same problem. We've got a bit of a drive ahead of us. Which will give us time to... um, bond, I guess?" Now that Kael was here, and that this was real, and he was taking him home, things seemed incredibly... weird. "Or at the very least I can tell you about where you're going. It's, um... well we can talk about it on the way." He didn't want to get into it while Kelly was nearby, just in case. "Let's get out of here." --- He was really serious about this and Kael was.. starting to get a bit concerned. He moved to his feet though, picking up his backpack and slinging it over his shoulder before grabbing the handle of his suitcase. These two bags were all that was left of his life. The rest would be sold or put into storage and the money would be placed into a trust for him to have once he turned eighteen. But for right now, this was all he had. "It's a school, right? A boarding school or.. something?" That's what he understood the place to be. But now he thought there might be more to it than just that. "Is that where I'll be going? I'm a senior this year." --- Heading toward wherever Kelly had disappeared to, Lyle nodded to Kael, not wanting to explain anything just yet. "We're ready," he informed her with a small, closed mouth smile, following her to the exit and thanking her for everything. After the handshakes, the goodbyes and the sincere but overly practiced "good luck" speech to Kael, Lyle brought his new brother person out to his BMW, unlocking it and helping him to set his stuff in the trunk. Once they settled into the car, buckled in and engine started, Lyle drew in a breath to sigh, worrying his bottom lip with his fangs. "Okay," he said at last. "So... this school we're going to. It's not really a normal school. It's um... it's for people like us. Supernaturals. Not... entirely human. I teach math at the high school. Some of my students are just gifted humans, like mediums, and telepaths, things like that. But some of them are more... unusual. Lycanthropes, witches, demons and angels... vampires. Things like that." --- It was clear that they were not going to discuss this further just now, so Kael quieted and followed Lyle's lead. He nodded his head in goodbye to the woman who was kinder than most but that he honestly wasn't at all displeased to be parting ways with, and headed out into the parking lot. "Nice car," he remarked as they loaded his things into the trunk, and then he climbed in, hooked his seatbelt, and was ready to go. What he wasn't ready for was what Lyle began telling him next.
"That's.. crazy." He said, a laugh parting his lips as he glanced over at the other man. "You're.. joking around, right? Strange sense of humor?" Like their dad. He was always making the worse jokes. That was one of the few things that Kael remembered about him. Clearly this was a trait that Lyle had inherited, right? "Those things... don't exist," he said, his voice soft. "I mean.. everyone would know about it if they did." --- Of course Kael wasn't going to believe him. He would, soon enough, when he saw his English teacher had wings and a quarter of the students had fangs and some had scales and fur and some of them caught fire at random. Then, he would have to believe it. But Lyle wanted to at least try and prepare him for it now.
"Right, definitely," he agreed seriously. "Because everyone knows you talk to dead people. They believe it, too. It's that simple, isn't it?" --- Kael gave him a look at that remark. Sure, perhaps he deserved that BUT... "That's a bit easier to hide." And he would know. He had plenty of experience in dealing with that sort of thing. Of course the statement had gotten to him, reminded him on the scar on his jaw which his hand moved up to lightly touch before dropping back down at his side. He was quiet a moment and then he asked, "Okay, so suppose you are telling the truth. How.. how do they keep from knowing about it? I mean about what the place is and... How do you keep people from figuring out that you're dead?" --- With a look of his own to Kael, Lyle asked simply "Did you know I was dead? The truth of the matter is, I'm not really sure how vampires do it outside the school. I guess we live in a detached enough society where nobody asks a lot of questions, and when someone looks a little weird, we ignore it. I mean, there's a dude with enough tattoos on him to make him look like a lizard. Fangs are pretty unnoticeable in comparison. We just sort of... hide, I guess. Keep our heads down. Live in places that are safe, where people know what we are." --- He had a point. Kael would have known nothing if his own mother hadn't told him that there was something not quite human about Lyle. She was still hovering, as uncertain as he was. She had not been the model parent when he was growing up, but Heather had done all that she could to care for her son. She loved him. He had never doubted that. "I guess." It all made sense. There were weirdos on the corner of almost every street in the US so no one really noticed much. "So is Fisher... dead too? And what about your husband. What's he?" --- When Kael asked if Fisher was dead, Lyle laughed out loud. "Only on the inside," he chuckled. "No, he's a human. Still alive. Nico, my husband, is a banshee. And anal retentive, but that's not classified as a race, I guess. Um... oh, but Fisher's um... partner, I guess he is, or maybe they're married now, I dunno... Anyway. He's part demon. My friend Frankie is a fire sprite, and she's married to an incubus... They're all really nice- well. Not all of them, some of them are aassholes. Like humans. It's actually really normal, when you get used to it." --- This.. was a lot to take in. Kael was trying his best to process it and to keep his skepticism at bay but.. Maybe he'd actually believe it when he saw it. He did have one thing to comment on though. "Fiance. It was in some article I read a while back, about the mayor announcing their engagement." He shrugged his shoulders slightly. "You don't talk to him much?" Great. So it would be just like a normal high school only people had fangs and razor sharp claws and other such things and all he could do was talk to the dead. Lovely. "So are there a lot of gays in your family? Or.. our family, I guess.I don't.. really know much about dad's family outside of.. of the two of you." --- Engaged? Perfect. Wasn't that just lovely. James was possibyl still married to Will, Lyle wasn't even sure. He frowned, and grunted, and rolled his eyes at what Kael told him, but he didn't comment. "We're both busy," was all he really said on the matter.
"I'm not gay," he said right off, which probably didn't make sense in the mind of a teenager. "It's sort of... complicated. But Fisher is, yeah. Obviously dad was not." If it had a skirt, apparently Kenneth would sleep with it. "What specifically did you wanna know? I mean... we don't talk much to dad's side of the family, he was an only child and only our grandma on that side is alive now. Honestly, I thought only my mom's side had the medium thing to it, but I guess not." --- "Oh." So obviously there was some dissention there. He wondered if that meant that he would miss out on the chance to get to know the other brother, the one that shared the same gift as he did.
"But.. you're married to a man." Of course that didn't make sense. How could you not be gay and be married to a man? He frowned a little and then glanced over at him. "I have a grandmother?" He didn't know that. "My mother knew yours. She.. met her at an office party once. She was pretty shocked when.. Well, you know." It wasn't every day that a wife killed her husband for no apparent reason. --- Staying quiet for a moment, lips pursed, Lyle focused on the road as they drove. "You mean when she shot her husband in the chest at point blank?" he asked finally, his tone light. Julia had been acquitted, on the grounds of self defense, but it had still changed his mom in an irrevocable way. She wasn't all there anymore. "Yeah, well... it was a weird circumstance." --- "Yeah, that." Kael's response was quiet, his gaze fixating out on the road. That hadn't changed just Julia's life, but it had changed his too, and Heather's. And not necessarily for the better but he couldn't hold that against people who had nothing to do with it. He just.. wished that he had been around longer, that he had had more time with him other than just seeing him a handful of times over the seven years of his life during which Kenneth was alive. "I'm kind of tired. Is it cool with you if I just.. crash out?" He could sleep and ride. He's prefer to sleep rather than talk right now, honestly. This was all just.. too much by every measure of the word. --- Glancing over, Lyle nodded. "Yeah, sure. Go ahead. I'll wake you when we get there." The poor kid was probably completely spent, and all this new information was being dumped on him all at once, plus he had to pack up his entire life in suitcases, say goodbye to his mother and then move in with some stranger that had full time possession of his father. It was pretty amazing that Kael was as polite, outspoken and normal as he seemed to be.
Lyle kept quiet for a while, his eyes on the road ahead of him. Finally, he whispered softly, just soft enough that it wouldn't wake Kael if he had already dozed off, "I'm sorry you lost your mom. And your dad."