In and Out of Time 4/10

Title: In and Out of Time (4/?)
Author: wonderbread9
Rating: PG-13 - R
Characters: The Cast of Kyle XY, OCs here and there
Pairings: Kyle/Amanda, Kyle/Jessi, implied Jessi/Josh (you’ll get it soon enough)
Warnings: The story is, from here on out, an AU (Alternate Universe). The themes may get a bit darker as time progresses, but hopefully not by too much. I’m trying to curb this with a realistic standpoint on a, yet as determined, unrealistic show. Bare with me a bit.
Disclaimer: Welcome to my little funpark, where I own none of the characters or themes expressed in Kyle XY, but do borrow them every once and a while when I’m bored.

Author's Note: Okay…so, you’ll probably find out answers in this chapter about Kyle. This particular story isn’t going to be thousands of pages long, but it does set the stage for a much longer piece that I really want to get started working on after this.

Summary: A pained expression crossed his face before he wiped it away immediately and swallowed. “You may not know it yet, Jess, but you’re going to save the world.”

IV.

That night, Josh dreamed.

Now, there was nothing unusual about the start of the dream; it began like any other: Andy was approaching him in some sequined, skimpy outfit with a fire blazing in her hooded, bedroom eyes and he was grinning from ear to ear because he knew what was coming next. He felt his body stir in anticipation, watched as her hair fell over her shoulders in a cascade of blazing red hues, veiling his vision of her desire-ridden eyes. Her hands touched his ankles, gently, gently and trailed up his legs, massaging and caressing in languid strokes that made him shiver with want and desire. His eyes fell shut and the grin remained plastered on his face in satisfaction.

He loved these dreams, loved the unbridled passion that his girlfriend displayed in his nighttime fantasies that she would never display in the real world, no matter how daring, creative and uncompromising Andy could be. There were just some things that he didn’t even think that she would think were normal enough to engage in so all he had, really, were his dreams. Blurry around the edges always and sometimes misty like those cheesy sci-fi horror flicks that he loved so much, he would always be position on a bed in some exotic locale: India, Hawai’i or Asia; it didn’t matter. Andy would always be there and her voice, usually so harsh and brutal during the day with her quips and snarky witticism, would be dropped an octave, dropped to a seductive whisper that did more than a few interesting things to his hormonally driven body.

He felt the bed beside him shift, felt the comfortable weight of a feminine form near, the heat radiating from her smooth skin. He reached out, eyes still closed and touched her, a gentle caress over her warm skin, hearing her slight gasp and her breathing quicken in answering anticipation. His grin widened, her pulled her close and smelled the tangy scent of citrus shampoo and the equally intoxicating smell of the skin lotion of the same brand. Something in his mind echoed, disrupting his dream sequence momentarily, that Andy never wore anything like citrus; she was more of a kiwi-strawberry kind of gal: bitter, but sweet all wrapped in one delectable package.

But Josh pushed that voice away, breathed into the scent of her, pulled her close and crushed her ample chest against him. Her breath caught again, and his grin fell as he landed kiss after kiss along her smooth shoulder, pale like milk crystal and just as fragile…if only she would let him in. There was moonlight above them and the scenery had changed drastically. Gone were the palm trees that hung low in his window and the jungle sounds that had come vaguely to his ears at the start of it all. Hard, cold earth was rough against his naked skin and he could feel the rough scratch of five o’clock shadow along his brow when he brushed it playfully against her chest.

She giggled; it did not sound like Andy.

As the drama unfolded, Josh felt himself pull back and shush her quiet, but she only giggled at him again, an impish sound that he never thought he would hear coming from such a stoic woman.

Wait…woman?

But he couldn’t stop himself. Clouds passed over the face of the moon, shielding her face from him, but somewhere deep inside, he knew who it was that lay on her back beneath him, looking up at him with eyes that set him on fire. The world around them was that of a forest, the last bit of greenery left in a Seattle that was—even as they lay together, caressed each other and explored each other’s bodies—was being destroyed in a ground assault. But the sounds of cannons firing and guns of war ripping through the bodies of innocent soldiers didn’t pierce the canopy of the wood, and here…He could pretend for one second that his life wasn’t going to hell and that she was all that he had to cling to, that she was all that was left of a world he wanted to desperately to return.

Her hand came up, cupped his face and returned his attention back to the love making at hand. She needed this, even if she didn’t need him, and if it stung to high heaven when she called out a name that was other than his, he didn’t say a word. Just moved with her, breathed in her scent, mapped out everything about her that he possibly could with his hands wandering over the curves and contours of her body.

“Don’t worry,” she whispered, in a voice that sounded so soft, so alluring. “We’ll figure something out.”

“We will?” he asked, dream still fuzzy around the edges, a voice inside of him telling him that this was wrong, wrong, so very, very wrong. She nodded, smiled at him and he smiled in turn.

“Okay, Jessi.”

It was then that Josh sat up in his bed, breathing hard and ragged, his body feeling like it was on fire. Early morning sunlight slanted into the venetian blinds of his window and he looked around, immediately confused and bewildered. Where was he? What was going on? Why—?

When his mind finally caught up with him, and reminded him that he was in bed and was going to be late for school, Josh groaned, plopped back down on the sweat soaked sheets, flinging a hand over his eyes.

Jessi. He had dreamed about Jessi. That was just…too weird. What the hell was he thinking? He was supposed to be dreaming about Andy, his—hello!—girlfriend. Not about the weird freaky, science experiment that was taking up residence in his mother’s old office.

And speaking of science experiments…

Josh sat up immediately again and looked around. It was empty. Kyle was nowhere to be seen. Josh rose from his bed, temporarily pushing aside the disturbing—but still very, very arousing image of a very adult Jessi and a very adult him engaging in…—dreams that suddenly decided to take up residence in his head and disrupt his normal sleep patterns, and left his room, seeking out the wayward teen that had come into their lives only three short years ago.

“Kyle!” he called loudly as he walked down the hall, passing Lori’s room. Her door came open immediately, emitting his very annoyed, very un-caffeinated sister.

“Geez, shouting much,” she growled, shuffling in her pajamas passed him and down the stairs to make herself a cup of coffee in the kitchen. “C’mon, Josh, don’t start being aggravating now. It’s way too early in the morning.”

He made a face at her before following her down the stairs.

“It’s not like mom and dad aren’t already awa—“ he began and stopped immediately when he saw his sister frozen on the bottom step, staring into the living room with a look of shock.

“What’s going on?” he asked, stepping passed her and peering into the living room himself. There he saw Kyle, seated on the couch in a hunched over position, staring off into space. He stepped further into the room, a frown creasing his features as he approached his brother, hand outstretched.

“Kyle?” he called, but the other teen did not stir at his approach, did not move or shift from his position. Josh swallowed, feeling a wave of unease wash over him and coil his stomach into knots. Apparently, Lori felt the same and the two Trager children glanced at each other before Lori mouthed, ‘I’m going to go get mom.’ And dashed off immediately. Josh wanted to roll his eyes and glare at her retreating back. Great, just great. He didn’t do touchy-feely emotions or things like that. Not unless it was with Andy—or Jessi, a snide voice snickered in the back of his mind that sounded oddly like Declan’s.

He brushed it away and touched Kyle’s shoulder gently with his still outstretched hand. Kyle started, turned and the look that Josh saw in his brother’s eyes would’ve sent him reeling and rushing off to find his mom and dad had Lori not gone off to find them herself. A pained look haunted the deep pockets of Kyle’s normally expressive and emotive blue eyes and dark bags dragged his eyes down at the corners; there was such an emptiness in their depths that Josh was sure that if he stared too hard and for too long, he would get lost in the sadness that he found there and never, ever find his way out again. He wondered worriedly what it was that could seriously depress the usually so cheerful, optimistic Kyle; what could possibly have devastated him so much that he would sink into this state?

And then, he figured he knew: Amanda.

Josh plastered on his best sympathetic smile and crouched down beside Kyle, hand still gripping his brother’s shoulder in as reassuring a touch as he could manage. He swallowed.

“Hey, buddy,” he started, trying for a friendly tone. “Are you okay?” He paused, not wanting to skirt the deadly waters where any subject of Amanda Bloom immediately drove Kyle deeper into sadness. He steeled himself and asked, “Is…Are you…Is it Amanda?”

The pained look that crossed Kyle’s face made Josh think he hit the nail on the head. He breathed a sigh of relief. This he could handle, anything else…anything like Latnok or weird conspiracies or anything WAY out there like that…well…

“Look, Kyle,” Josh began, “everything’s going to be okay, you know? Maybe you and Amanda just weren’t right for each other…Or, maybe, just maybe, somewhere down the line the two of you will get back together and make superhuman, hybrid babies or something…But, you know, you gotta give this time—”

“This doesn’t concern Amanda,” Kyle cut in softly, his eyes shifting away from Josh’s. The other boy frowned in puzzlement. Well, if it didn’t deal with Amanda then who…

Realization dawned on him, and could he help that a snake of something hot burned in his stomach when he thought of brown eyes staring up at him with eyes hooded with lust? He breathed a shuddering breath that Kyle didn’t notice and said, “Jessi.”

The pain flared in Kyle’s eyes anew.

“What happened?” came the urgent sound of Stephen’s voice as he and Nicole came quickly down the stairs, Lori in tow. Josh stood immediately to give his mother and father room, but watched Kyle, watched every move that he made and every shift in his expression. Kyle’s eyes fell on Nicole’s kind face first and then Stephen’s before his eyes welled up with tears and they poured down his cheeks. His lips trembled and he hastily wiped the tears away.

“It’s Jessi,” Kyle began, stopped and breathed a trembling breath. He met all of their gazes with his sorrowful blues, “she’s gone.”

8o8o8

It only took the Trager’s a few hours to assemble, dressed fully, and Nicole immediately manning the phones, dialing the local police. Stephen and Josh had immediately taken off to investigate the place where Kyle had indicated that Jessi had disappeared, and despite his protests to wanting to go out and help, Lori had been left with the charge of taking care of her adopted brother. He sat on the couch, in the same position that she and Josh had found him in, playing with his fingers and twiddling his thumbs, face creased in a troubled frown; she wondered what was going on in his head.

Jessi was gone. That’s what he said, and his explanation for her disappearance was strange, even for Kyle: that some man had come and waved his magic wand or whatever and she and he both disappeared. What? Things like that just never happened. People didn’t just up and vanish into thin air. It was impossible. She glanced over at Kyle and sighed.

Then again, both Kyle and Jessi were impossibilities to begin with. So, then…why was this out of the realm of possibility at all? Lori wanted to hit her head against something in frustration. She had come to believe, that even though Kyle and Jessi were weird oddities that certainly had changed her view of the way the world worked, they most certainly had not transformed her viewpoint of the world in such a way that she believed pigs could fly and the ocean would suddenly produce talking fish. It was still as crappy as it had been, it just had the existence of two extraordinary people within it.

But now…

Now…

Lori sighed and turned to Kyle, saying, “I’m going to go find mom.” She stood and was about to seek out her mother, when a thought occurred to her and she turned back to her brother and said firmly, “Stay here, Kyle.”

He didn’t answer, just remained seated, face still pursed in that troubled frown. She sighed again, turned on her heel and sought out her mother. She found Nicole in the kitchen, talking to the police on the phone, trying yet again to explain who exactly it was that they were looking for and why. Her face was flushed in irritation and anger and she looked like she was about ready to slam the phone back into its holder in frustration. She held up a shushing finger to Lori, who waited patiently while her mother finished her conversation with the police deputy and hung up the phone with a calm that Lori was very sure her mother did not feel.

“Yes, Lori,” her mother said evenly, and had it been any other day and her mother’d used that tone with her, Lori might’ve taken offense. But now wasn’t the time or the place.

“Anything?” Lori asked with an anxiousness that she was surprised that she could feel. Her mother sighed in frustration and shook her head.

“Nothing,” Nicole admitted, gritting her teeth. “How’s Kyle?”

Lori shrugged, helplessly, shaking her head. “No change. He just sits there, you know? Frowning. I don’t know what to do.”

Nicole nodded herself and flashed her daughter a reassuring smile. “I’ll talk to him. See if there’s anything else he can give us to go on.” She started out of the kitchen, tossing over her shoulder: “Man the phones. If anything comes up—”

“I’ll call you immediately,” Lori finished, walking over to and grabbing the cordless phone from the wall. She held it in her hand and wrapped herself in a protective hug, going straight to the front door, opening it and walking out into the cool air of a spring morning. She stepped onto the front porch, glad to be out of the house and looked around. There wasn’t much activity on the street, but when was there ever? Just a man walking his dog, birds singing in the trees and the mailman down the street carrying on his monotonous task of giving people their bills. The sun was shining, clouds drifted across the sky’s face and Lori couldn’t understand—could quite wrap her head around—why nothing had stopped, why nothing had just stopped dead and frozen in its tracks the moment Jessi had disappeared.

Life shouldn’t have been going on as normal. The world shouldn’t still be turning on its axis. The man across the street should not be walking his dogs, the mailman should be pausing her car and bowing his head in respect: Jessi was gone. Jessi was taken, and no one seemed to understand that. No one seemed to see that something was suddenly missing in the Trager household: a snarky quip here or a sulking comment made there. Nothing, not even a shadow of her haunted the place, save Lori’s memories and the dawning fear that she had growing in the pit of her stomach: what if they never found her? What if this were Latnok and its evil schemes? What if this were MadaCorp?

She hadn’t realized how important Jessi had become—they all hadn’t—until suddenly they were faced with the terrifying prospect of her not being there at all. She could only imagine how Kyle must’ve been feeling about all of this. Here he was faced with the daunting prospect of being alone again. She knew that he cared about her and her family and knew that he loved them with all of his heart, but she also knew that—when Kyle had discovered Jessi’s existence—a weight had been lifted off of him and a much lighter emotion had come over him: he’d finally found someone who could share the weight of the world with him, he didn’t have to be alone and baring the brunt of everyone else’s problems all on his own.

Lori swallowed, clutched the phone tightly. She hoped, prayed, that nothing had happened to Jessi and that Kyle wouldn’t left alone again. She didn’t want that for him; he was already devastated over Amanda, would fate be so harsh as to take Jessi from him as well?

Lori sighed, her shoulders slumping in despair.

Just let Jessi be alright. Just let her be okay.

8o8o8

Everything hurt. From the smallest cells in her body to the very skin that stretched over her muscles and bones, Jessi could count every single pain center in her mind that was reverberating in agony, could tell anyone who was willing to hear, why her body was reacting in such a way: the human body is made up of thousands and thousands of cells, her voice echoed in her mind in a clinically detached tone, and at any given time said cells are constantly active, constantly moving, so that a feat—such as teleportation—could never be humanly possible unless all variables of cell activity were taken into account. Human bodies were not meant to teleport and yet this man had done the impossible and was suffering no ill effects from it. If she had been in a better position, Jessi would’ve demanded how he had done it, but instead, she lay on the cot that the man had scrounged for and whimpered even as he crouched down beside her on the bed, his expression unreadable and he dabbing her forehead with a cool wet cloth with a gentleness that she had not expected from someone who clearly had to be apart of Latnok.

She swallowed, her throat raw, and shifted, trying to get away. He grabbed her, gently, gently and pushed back down on the cot, his brown eyes as razor sharp as they had been when he first brought her to this place, where it was. She knew she was in a warehouse, could hear the way the wind whistled distantly through the empty rafters of a high-vaulted ceiling. She could smell rust and age and a musty odor permeating the space and she when she looked up with pain-filled eyes, she saw water stains marring the concrete walls of the room around her, the bulletin board to the far side of the room and the sunken in remains of what had once been a desk. Ah, so an office then.

Her gaze immediately snapped to the man as he approached with a canteen of water in his hand. She could smell the H2O and despite her pain, fished her senses out to detect if there were any poison or foreign substance sloshing around in the metal container that could possibly do her harm. When she was sure that there was none, she took a quick sip, just enough to soothe her throbbing throat, all the while glaring up at the man with the wariness of a cat.

“Don’t worry,” he said softly, his voice a low whisper, “I’m not going to hurt you, Jessi. It’s gonna be okay.”

She pulled back immediately and spat the water at him. He pulled back immediately and cursed when the water hit his shoe. He glared at her, nostrils flaring and growled, “Whether you believe me or not, I’m not going to hurt you, Jessi.”

She growled at him, her voice coming out grating even to her ears, “Then why did you kidnap me? Who are you?”

The man rotated his neck in irritation and sighed, shaking his head. “You’re not ready for that. Not until you get stronger.”

She growled again, and he smirked. “You always did have that temper on you. I forgot about it, and it didn’t show up nearly as much in the war.” A pained expression crossed his face before he wiped it away immediately and swallowed. “You may not know it yet, Jess, but you’re going to save the world.”

This gave her pause and she frowned at him, struggling to sit up on her hunches. He immediately sprang to her, hands outstretched to push her down again, but the glare she shot him stopped his movement cold. He watched her warily, but dropped his arms to his sides.

“Who are you?” she asked firmly.

“I told you,” he started, but Jessi cut him off.

“I am strong enough,” she hissed angrily. “I’m strong enough. I’m strong enough to—”

“You can’t do anything,” he replied, steel lacing every word. “I will tell you this much: there’s a dampening field that’s surrounding this room. You can’t use your powers here, trust me. And, you want to know what’s really ironic?” He smirked mirthlessly. “You made it. So, sit back—“he went to her and forced her down on the bed again—“ and relax. Heal up. We got a lot to talk about later.”

He walked away from her, to the other side of the room, but before Jessi begrudgingly complied to his wishes, she stated, stubbornly, “You called him ‘Destroyer’.”

“What?” the man asked, puzzled. Jessi fixed him with a brown-eyed glare that she saw made him visibly shiver.

“Kyle,” she admitted, with a little hesitation. “You called him ‘Destroyer’. Why?”

The man looked uncomfortable.

“Later,” he promised. “Later…I’ll tell you everything.”

That didn’t satisfy Jessi in the least, but she could do nothing about it for now. All she could do was lay down and settle on the cot. She shut her eyes against the harsh, stark sunlight that streamed in through the small cracks in the wall of her temporary prison and gather up all the reserve strength that she had. She tested out the man’s claims about there being a “dampening field” surrounding the room that they were in, pushing passed the pain to seek out knowledge of where every single cell was in her body and command them all to do as her powerful mind bid. But nothing happened. She could not summon up the will to force her cells to rapidly travel to every aching muscle in her system. Nothing worked, and for a moment, very real fear ensnared Jessi in its clutches.

If this man could easily take her down, then what about Kyle? What did he have planned for Kyle? She had to better, had to get stronger because nothing and no one was ever going to hurt Kyle, not if she could help it. So, Jessi settled down in her sleep, angry at how very mortal she felt, but biding her time nonetheless.

Soon, very soon, she’d get her answers.

Soon.

8o8o8

It was even more disconcerting dealing with her past self then the future self that he had come to care about. Joshua watched as Jessi finally listened to him and settled on the cot, finally going to sleep. He picked up the faint sounds of her soft breathing and went over to check on her, just to be sure. She was asleep, thank god. He didn’t know what he would do if he had to peer into those intense brown eyes again, sharp lasers that pierced that very depths of his soul without knowing that she did. He’d almost slipped, almost told her everything when she had demanded it. It was a wonder that her voice had power over him, even after her young age.

He didn’t remember it ever doing things to him. He didn’t remember him wanting to lay all of his troubles at her feet and letting her dissect him in that clinical way of hers, logically telling him every solution that he needed to hear. He was sure that she could do it even now, that she possessed that kind of discerning eye that he had fallen so deeply in love with. Joshua swallowed, stood and paced on agitated feet.

He needed to watch himself. He couldn’t get sloppy. The entire mission was riding on what he did, how he proceeded and what events in the past that he influenced. He had to be precise. He had to make sure that whatever that had went wrong, never repeated itself…or, at least, never went wrong in the first place.

He turned, sat down in the rattling chair that he had procured from another office within the warehouse aside from this one and watched the sleeping teen across from him. Her hair shone in the light that slanted in through the cracked walls of the office. Her face looked so serene in her slumber. There was no blemish save a slight bruise that was blossoming along her jaw line and if this were any other time—say, fourteen years into the future—he would’ve crossed the room right now and caressed that cheek, kissed her awake and apologized for his gruff behavior. But he couldn’t, wouldn’t.

If he were at all successful in what he was trying to do here that future wouldn’t exist. He would never get the chance to touch her, to be showered with her affections such as it was. He wouldn’t get to know what it felt like to see her naked and in all of her glory, to hear her laugh, to see her smile or her eyes twinkle when they fell on him. He would never…

Stop it, Joshua, came the hard voice of Declan from a future long, long gone by. Just stop it and man up. You know what you’re here for.

And he did, even though he didn’t want to be the one to do the job. He had to stop the Destroyer. He had to him—Kyle—from decimating everything. Even now he cringed at saying his former adopted brother’s name. It had caused so much fear and loathing and hatred and pain that most in the resistance had taken to just calling him ‘Destroyer’. No one had to attach emotional significance to that title save antipathy and anger. No one had to remember that he had, at one time, been a kind, vibrant boy who had looked upon all that came into his presence with innocence and open affection.

But those memories of the Destroyer were dead and gone, buried under years and years and years of anger and hate and the ugly beast of revenge clawing its way up Joshua’s body every time he was a broadcast or a newspaper bearing the face of someone he had trusted so implicitly at one time. How stupid he had been, and how foolish to think that the Destroyer would always remain the steadfast brother that he could depend on.

His eyes fell on Jessi once again.

No matter. He would change the course of history no matter what the cost, no matter what he had to do, and if Jessi wouldn’t—or couldn’t—help him…then, he’d do the only thing that was left: he’d kill him; he’d kill Kyle.

He’d kill Kyle dead.