InsaneJournal

Who: Kyle Valenti & Yalena Yardeen
What: Kyle isn't thinking straight and somebody notices
When: After this
Where: The Ocean
Rating/Warnings: G/ None
Status: Complete

It had been a rough couple days since the unexpected and unwelcome realisation that Kyle Valenti had in fact been a pretty shitty friend when his best friend had needed him the most. He was really hung up on the fact how he hadn't noticed anything and how that even happened, was he honestly that wrapped up in himself that he just hadn't been paying any attention?

He wasn't angry, had no right to be, but he was hurt, disappointed in himself, worried and just... well, if he could go back in time and change things then he would but that wasn't possible. Alex had gone through some of the worst shit in his life alone and that really fucking sucked and it was that thought that haunted Kyle the most and played heavily on his mind. He had so many secrets and Kyle wondered if he'd ever know Alex the way he thought he had or if he was always going to be playing catch up. It wasn't like he'd had any secrets from Alex when they'd been younger save for one but that was a secret from everybody so it was not limited to Alex and Alex alone.

And then he wiped out again, not for the first time that afternoon, and he immediately broke the surface of the ocean with huge gasping breaths as he fished around for his board and slid up beside it. Fuck. Normally surfing helped to clear his mind but he couldn't seem to shake this no matter how hard he tried and he knew better than to surf with a busy head, it was just asking for trouble.

Kyle swept his fingers through the wet dark strands of hair now clinging to his temples and breathed out slow.

Lena had been out for a couple of hours herself, enjoying the surf and the freedom of being underneath the beating sun, feeling it kissing her skin as she'd forgone her wetsuit today since it was the middle of the day. The sun was high and the chill of the water was refreshing more than it was anything else. Her attention was drawn to Handsome McCheekbones when he wiped out again. She'd seen him here more than a few times and he was a good surfer, better than the one he was being today.

She paddled over, straddling her board amd bobbing slightly in the waves, watching the way his hands curled around the edges of his dark blue board and she lifted her eyebrows.

"You know you have to surf with a clear head or the water'll wipe you out."

Kyle lifted his head to rest a distinctly conflicted brown gaze on the attractive woman who had just paddled her way over to where he was lightly bobbing up and down on the ripple of the tide. "Yeah, I know," he answered as he sat up a little straighter. "I was hoping it would clear my head like it normally does but apparently not."

Which was never a good sign.

“You might wanna sit the next few waves out,” Lena said, leaning forward and resting her weight on her forearms, brown eyes concerned as she looked at him. “You don’t look like you’re in the headspace to be out here and I don’t even know you.”

Well he was definitely more bothered than he'd realised if some stranger was noticing that he was not in the right place to be out in the ocean. "It's been a rough couple of weeks," is what he went back with. "Starting to think I need a vacation."

"Seems to be going around," Lena offered, shifting again and paddling with one hand to keep her close to Handsome McCheekbones. "You need to get some shit off your chest? I'm a good listener."

Kyle blew out a breath and reached up with one hand to rub a particularly sore point on his shoulder as a patient in the hospital had gotten a little physical with the nurses and had only gone down after Kyle had put him on his ass, but not before he'd slammed him into a wall.

"Lots but uh I wouldn't want to burden a total stranger with my shit."

"Strangers are the best people to burden your problems with," Lena pointed out, sliding off her board into the water and bobbing up on the opposite side of his board, folding her arms over it and resting her chin on her wrist. "I don't know you, I'm not biased one way or another and if you want to, you don't ever have to talk to me again."

Kyle's eyes traced her movements until she was looking at him from across his board, a soft chuckle escaping him as she admitted that he wouldn't ever have to talk to her again if he didn't want to.

"Well, I should at least get your name first before I unload."

"Lena," she responded with a little smile, "but you can call me Dutch. Most people do. And it sounds a lot better than Lena." One narrow shoulder lifted and she tapped her fingers on the board. "Yours?"

"Kyle," he answered easily. "And no nicknames." Except for Magoo but that was something between him and his dad though he had no idea if his dad even remembered that given his current state of decline. "Okay so... where to start," he asked, a small self deprecating grin firmly in place.

"Nice to meet you, Kyle," Lena said honestly, "and you do have a nickname, 'cause I gave you one about a month ago when I started trying to identify the regulars here. But that's not the point." Her smile was impish, "And start with whatever's bugging you the most and we'll go from there."

Kyle arched an eyebrow. “Now you’ve got me curious.” He rolled his shoulders again and mirrored her posture with his chin brace against his hands. “Just coming to terms with the fact I might not have been as good a friend to my best friend when we were teenagers as I thought I was and it feels a lot like he had a lot going on that he couldn’t or wouldn’t trust me with.”

Dutch felt the waves bobbing the board and tilted her head, glancing behind just to make sure hers wasn’t about to concuss her from behind. When she was sure that it wasn’t, she turned her attention back to Kyle. “Talk first, nickname sharing later.”

She listened and wrinkled her nose. “That’s a rough thing to find out,” she said. “What was it? That he had going on, I mean.”

Wasn’t really his secret to tell but the likelihood of Dutch and Alex meeting? Slim to none.

Kyle took a breath and let it out slowly. “Abusive dad and a secret boyfriend.”

Appropriately, a wave jolted them and Dutch’s eyes widened. “Holy shit. In that order?”

“Yeah, in that order.” Kyle shook his head and pushed his fingers into his hair. “And the only reason I found out was because he dreamt it all over again and the injuries from the experience manifested.” Likely Alex never would have said anything had that not happened.

"...come again?" Lena frowned. "He dreamed it and he woke up with injuries?" That was one hell of a bloody nightmare. Was Kyle sure that his friend hadn't just done it to himself?

Kyle snorted quietly. "That's a thing here, dreaming about another reality and having that come through to haunt you." He gestured towards his jaw where a bruise was fading. "See that? That happened in a dream."

"I'm guessing it wasn't a sex dream that took a sharp turn to the left," Lena mused, leaning up over the board to get a closer look at Kyle's jaw, squinting at the fading bruise.

"Oh, I wish," Kyle said with a chuckle. "I think I would have been able to accept the bruise had it been the result of some very adventurous sex."

Lena snorted, "There's a lot you can accept if you have even halfway decent adventurous sex."

Kyle smirked and just lifted an eyebrow to echo the sentiments because yeah there was a lot you could accept for some halfway decent adventurous sex. "But yeah that's what's really bothering at the moment hence why I keep wiping out."

"Sounds to me like you a) need to talk to your friend and b) find a better way of taking your mind off things. Wiping out's just going to make you feel frustrated."

She had a point and he knew she had a point. He definitely needed to do both of those things, the first was probably more pressing than the second. "Frustrated is definitely one way of putting it," he muttered with a chuckle as he ran his fingers through his wet hair.

"You're a better surfer than this," Lena said with a lift of her shoulder. "And if you're looking for a better way to vent some steam and take your mind off this bullshit then I can think of a few better ways than repeatedly wiping out."

"You been watching me that much, huh?" Kyle returned with a teasing smile though his interest was immediately distracted and caught by her last comment. "Yeah?" An eyebrow lifted. "And what ways are those?"

"Have you seen yourself?" Lena asked, eyebrows lifting, "Of course I've been watching you." She leaned across his board, the waves bobbing them ever closer to the shore and hovered in his space, their noses almost touching. "I have a couple of ideas..." she told him, voice dropping suggestively. "If you think you could handle me."

"Well, you're not that hard on the eyes either," Kyle returned easily and honestly before he watched as she leaned across his board until they were practically touching, the heat in her gaze mirrored the same in his own as it focused on the fullness of her mouth before he finally dragged it up to catch her dark gaze.

"I like a challenge."