Kyle's Briefs or Boxers, a collection of short stories (ficlets) featuring Kyle. Anyone who's read my Amanda's Shorts will know who inspired this idea (Alexander Ripley). I thank him for this. To Matt Dallas for portraying a sweet, innocent, and fledgling superhero.

Disclaimer: I do not own Kyle XY

Author's Note: Text in italics are Kyle's monologues, which I've routinely left out of all of my stories to date. Well, in Kyle's Briefs or Boxers, I will be trying to use his monologues frequently, especially at the beginning and at the end.

I stood in my room, fresh from my morning shower, with the biggest problem I was going to face that day: should I wear briefs or boxers?

(Joke monologue)

Now I'm serious!

***

First Mission

I often wondered why people chose self destructive activities: things like drinking alcohol or using drugs or prostitution. There are so many vices in the world that I wondered if Adam meant for me to even tackle these issues at all. Perhaps he intended me to meet the greater challenges of energy, climate change, and perhaps even space travel.

But what could I do? How could I start with the complex if I couldn't handle the smaller problems facing humanity? And so I attempted my first rescue.

Kyle discovered Declan drunk again and in a sorry state. Not only was his lip swollen and split, a viscous string of clotting blood hung from his lower lip while he held three of his permanent teeth in his hand. "Kyle," he slurred and pointed erratically, "those guys beat me up." He hiccoughed, and finished, "Teach them a lesson will ya?"

Kyle took a deep breath and instantly analyzed how drunk Declan really was; he was severely inebriated and almost certain to be vomiting repeatedly that night, and more than likely the next hour. The four guys who had beaten his friend up stood to the side of the room, conferring loudly but staring at him. Even without his hearing ability he could read their lips just fine. "Who's he?" and "Doesn't look too tough," came through loud and clear. They too had been drinking.

It irked Kyle to see normally level headed people – guys most of the time – become brainless idiots after they imbibed a certain amount of alcohol. It was his theory that many guys knew very well the stupid things they were capable of when they drank in excess but that they actually wanted to feel the power of doing something reckless, dangerous, and even potentially fatal.

These guys were thugs; that was clear. He turned back to Declan. "What did you tell them?"

Declan burped a particularly noxious wet one. The air seemed to be coated with a mixture of alcohol and bile. Kyle just bumped up his friend's visit to the toilet to within five minutes. Nonetheless Declan seemed nonplussed about that upcoming activity – whether the idea even occurred to him was in question. He pointed and shouted, "Spikey thought I was hitting on his woman! But," he blurted as he missed his step and almost crashed to the floor in a heap, "she was all over me. I'm irrit— irresta—" Declan started snickering. "I'm sexy, man!"

"Go to the bathroom Declan," Kyle said, none too lightly pushing his friend in the right direction.

Declan turned and almost fell again, "Why man?"

"You're going to be sick in ten seconds."

Declan's face paled and he started staggering and hurrying to the nearest toilet. He was suddenly green and he held his stomach and tried to keep his mouth closed as he shouted, "Git outa the way; I'm hurlin'!"

Kyle had to intentionally deaden his hearing to avoid hearing the inevitable splashing of vomit on tile. He was quite certain that happened at least once a week, if not more. He shook his head as he approached the quartet of trouble makers. They were also drunk but nowhere near Declan.

The guys had just shared a laugh at Declan's expense – not that that wasn't warranted – and now looked at him with open hostility. "Ooh, look, hot shot got a tough friend," the tallest one said. He was very scrawny and posed absolutely no threat. The shortest of the group laughed raucously.

"Go away if you know what's good for you," another guy said. He had a tattoo on the back of his neck.

Kyle took a small breath and determined who the alpha male was of this group. It was the guy who hadn't yet spoken, a guy with spiky hair. He directed his comment to him. "My friend was too drunk to know what he was doing; you didn't have to beat him up."

"Did that give him the right to jump Bobbie's girl?" the shortest shouted.

Kyle shook his head. "I don't dispute that. You could just as easily have pushed him and he would have toppled over."

To this the guys just laughed. To them it didn't really matter what had happened; they were just happy to have been able to vent some of their testosterone out into the open, regardless of the victim. The leader finally spoke up. "Your friend grabbed my girl, end of story. You want me to grab yours and make out with her, just point." With both hands the guy – clearly nowhere near as intoxicated as his friends – gestured expansively. "Which one of these fine ladies is your squeeze?" His expression turned vicious. "Let's see how you like it."

The sad fact was that he no longer had a girlfriend. He'd had to drop both for entirely different reasons. Although at this point in time they didn't matter, it still panged his heart not to be able to be with either of them.

Not willing to explain himself to these brutes, Kyle said simply, "She's not here."

The tall lanky guy took a step forward, "So he's a playa too!"

The roughly built guy added, "Knew it."

The short one only laughed while the leader scowled.

It was then Kyle noticed the leader was on something quite a bit more potent than plain alcohol: pain medication, and a lot of it. He found himself blurting out the question, "How long have you been given to live?" He knew it was a strong narcotic too so perhaps he was just one of those poor saps who got stuck taking them in ever higher doses to keep the mostly phantom pain away.

"What?" the man said. He was now seemingly much paler despite the darkness. His friends on the other hand all raised their fists.

Kyle ignored the three others and instead named the medication by its brand name and then by its street name. "How long have you been taking it? I assumed it was by medical order." As he looked closer he saw very faint traces of make-up on the man's face, mostly under the eyes and on the cheeks. Even before the first punch flew toward him he knew very well this guy was not merely addicted to the medication but was in fact on his last legs.

As Kyle halted one punch and swept the legs out from under the other two, he turned to the leader, who, as yet, had not moved. "I'm fine," he muttered mostly to himself.

Kyle pushed the remaining fly to the ground. The two he'd swept to the floor he held in place to keep them from getting hurt. "You're not."

The leader's jaw set as he threw a punch at Kyle. Through gritted teeth he shouted, "Get him!" Of course none of his friends could as they were all in somewhat uncomfortable positions on the ground, groaning from the effort of freeing themselves. Kyle didn't enjoy violence by any stretch – in fact loathed it much of the time – but he knew that sometimes he had to defend himself with force.

Of course, this wasn't one of those times. These were simple savages and he had complete control of the situation. He did notice with regret that the bouncers had also taken note of the proceedings and were heading his way. Why hadn't they noticed them beating up Declan?

Kyle raised his hands and pretended to let himself get struck by the punch. "You should get help for your addiction; I'm sorry about your health though."

The bouncers tackled the guy who'd thrown the punch and Kyle allowed himself to be held by another.

It took almost ten minutes for the bouncers to determine that Kyle wasn't the aggressor in the situation and so they let him stay. The others were thrown out though, and Kyle knew well they weren't done for the night.

When Declan came back – still looking somewhat green – Kyle said, "Let's go home."

"Why? They haven't announced last call yet," Declan said.

Kyle had a thought that just might make a difference in his friend. "We're done here." When Declan began to laugh and turn around, he added, "Or would you prefer I made you allergic to alcohol?"

Declan turned around swiftly. "No way! You wouldn't…" Declan couldn't seem to finish the sentence.

Kyle smiled. Perhaps the dark smile would have made Tom Foss giggle like a school girl. He wondered if it might indeed. "Or maybe I'll just make it so everything you drink tastes like puke. Would you prefer that?" He put his hand on his friend's shoulder and closed his eyes.

Declan squirmed out from under his hand. "No, no! Anything but that!"

He allowed his smile to broaden. "Promise me you'll quit cold turkey on the alcohol and I might help you with the withdrawal symptoms – maybe."

"Well, I gotta finish what I got at home first—"

Declan didn't get to finish because Kyle put his hand right on Declan's mouth. "Puke flavour it is then," he said.

Kyle didn't do what he'd promised – he couldn't be that cruel – but he knew Declan didn't like olives, at all, and so kind of modified his taste buds to register his current breath (alcohol and a mixture of bile) as a particularly fragrant pile of olives.

He made sure the affected taste buds would die in the next few hours to be replaced by new ones in about ten days. It was surprising to learn that few people even knew taste buds died regularly on your tongue. Only if you had them all die at once did you ever really discover this.

Declan started smacking his lips together. "Aw man, that's really gross!"

Kyle smacked his friend hard on the back, "You still want the puke flavour? I'm happy to oblige…"

When Declan pushed him feebly, Kyle smiled.

***

When they stepped outside they had barely gotten to his car when they were discovered by the rabble who had been kicked out of the bar. Kyle had expected it, had in fact determined there was a 92% chance of it occurring; he only didn't really have a way to predict how poorly they would take their defeat.

"I hoped you'd gone home," Kyle said to the leader. Two other guys had joined them so now they were six.

Declan whispered from behind him, "Kyle."

Kyle had already noticed their predicament; he was thoroughly unimpressed. He saw the guy's limp and suddenly understood. "Is it a brain tumour?"

The two new arrivals hefted their baseball bats and walked slowly toward him.

***

The leader – his name was Andrew – had been too proud to admit it out loud but Kyle had received confirmation when all five assailants were lying unconscious on the ground. When people believed their knees to be broken, or their Achilles heel to be snapped in two like an elastic band gone bad, they went down in a heap in a hurry.

Kyle really hated knocking them out though, but it was also clear Andrew wouldn't talk unless there were no spectators.

"Why are you even out here? You should be with your friends and family," Kyle said.

Declan added, "Or with your girlfriend."

"She was my girlfriend until two nights ago. I kind of beat her up," Andrew said.

Kyle exhaled noisily and ignored Declan's furious rambling behind him. He made sure Declan couldn't get to Andrew's throat; he was still quite drunk. "Kind of, that's nice," Kyle said sarcastically. And yet compassion still found a hook in his heart even for this puss-filled human. Brain tumours were vile things and could alter personality to such a degree to make them unrecognizable. The afflicted often became particularly violent, even the most docile.

Kyle took a step closer to Andrew, who visibly tried to withdraw but was already plastered against the wall. "I won't harm you. I only need to know why you're not with your friends and family before…"

"I die? Has it occurred to you that I haven't told anyone about my tumour? How do you even know about it?" Andrew became incensed and put a hand to his head. Screaming he said, "You didn't even touch them!" He pointed, indicating the unconscious young men on the ground. "What are you?"

Kyle still didn't enjoy lying but now knew better than to say the absolute truth. Yet, was there really anything he could say to answer the question without revealing too much? It was true Andrew was dying – and quite possibly within a week or two – but that left a lot of time to alert the authorities to him.

He sighed before saying, "I'm a hallucination. You have to go home before you have a seizure."

Andrew smiled and said, "Yeah right. The guys saw you just fine. Are you an alien or something?"

Declan restrained outright laughter but sputtered through his hand anyway. "His own brother thought that too!"

Kyle turned and spoke loudly, "Puke flavour if you open your mouth one more time Deck."

"You're messed up! You can do stuff without touching people but you worry about a lost cause like me. Just kill me, or eat my intestines or something!" Andrew moved forward and tried to punch Kyle. He twirled like a top from the force of the punch and crumpled to the ground, unconscious.

When the six awoke they only remembered they'd been drinking heavily. Andrew had a sense that something else happened, but couldn't quite place the reason for the feeling. Besides, Kyle made sure he wasn't in too much pain before he died, all of three days later. Andrew had even smiled five minutes and twelve seconds before he passed.

***

Declan didn't touch another drink for months – and those he'd had at his place he gave them away to friends and family. It was never easy and he understood that it required his total commitment to stay clean but Kyle kept his promise to help dull that edge he sometimes felt, especially when others were imbibing drinks in front of him.

When he next took a drink it was after Kyle had given him a small pink pill.

The alcohol tasted great going down but he never got a buzz or anything even after a fifth drink.

When Kyle returned with his blood test results, Kyle was all smiles. "It's as though you were drinking water. You have no alcohol in your blood."

Jessi appeared from behind him. "You might want to hold your nose when you next take a dump though. The alcohol will be in there in concentrated form. It really reeks!" They shared a very good laugh.

The alcoholic drink industry was too big at that time for me to take down or even negotiate with, even with Jessi's help. But together we concocted a solution for alcoholics. The occasional prescribed use of the Drink Popper as it was affectionately later called by alcoholics everywhere gave them a chance to have a drink with no risk of getting drunk while also later preventing the urge to drink further. Without the rowdiness of the mostly male drunk population, even the police and politicians agreed it was a great invention.

Now, if only I could make the waste product smell better…

FIN