Second Kiss
"Oh, Kitkat! Not you, too!"
Kitty blushed furiously when she saw John Allerdyce's expression of mock dismay. It was just her rotten luck that the most horrible boy in school would catch her wandering in the hallways dressed only in her ratty purple bathrobe and with Jubilee's bright pink curlers in her hair. And, oh, don't forget the toothbrush she had in her mouth.
"I'm really disappointed, Kitkat," John said, pretending to glare at her though his eyes held that familiar teasing glint that she had grown to absolutely hate. "I thought that you of all people would have enough sense not to humiliate yourself like this."
She scowled at him. And barely remembered to take the toothbrush out of her mouth before retorting, "It's just a prom, John. What's so humiliating about going to the prom? Oh, I know! Not having a date?"
"Ouch!" He touched his chest as if her words had deeply wounded him. "The kitten has claws. So, anyway, who's the lunkhead that you managed to blackmail into going with you as your date?"
Kitty suddenly saw red. But then she always developed that particular problem with her vision whenever John was around. However she still managed to reply quite coolly, "Oh, I'm going with Peter. You know, that guy who can turn into steel, and who's several feet taller than you."
"Oh, yes. The height thing." He sounded completely unaffected by that jibe. "You better wear very high heels then, too, because you're not exactly supermodel material yourself. And another thing, did he ask you to finish all of his homework first before he picks you up?"
"Oh, you –!" Kitty sputtered uselessly since she couldn't think of any insult to top that one. As much as it galled her to admit it, she didn't quite have the same level of talent that John possessed in terms of snarkiness. The jerk had won another round in their never-ending battle, and he knew it.
He was now looking at her with his usual arrogant smirk. "Yes, kitten?" he prompted.
"Oh!" Completely infuriated, she gave in to a very childish fit of temper. She threw her toothbrush at him.
It hit him in the face.
"Eew!" he exclaimed.
Humiliated as well as infuriated, she stomped off and phased through him as she hurried to put as much distance between the two of them as possible. It was small comfort but she took some satisfaction from the startled shout he gave when she passed through his solid form. She had made sure that the experience really rattled his molecules.
"What's up with you?" Jubilee asked in surprise when she slammed the door to their room as she came in.
"That asshole, John Allerdyce! I hate him!" she spat out.
"How many times have I told you that the only way to treat fire boy is to ignore him completely?" her roommate said. "Then he gets bored with the teasing and he leaves you alone after that."
"Easy for you to say!" she snapped. "I've tried everything, Jubes! I've done the ignoring bit, the fighting back bit, and I've even tried to be friends with him! But he seems to be so focused on making my life as miserable as possible."
"That's because he always gets a reaction out of you! Yeah, you did try to ignore him once. For about two minutes! Then you were snarling at him like you always do."
Well, he's so – snarlable!" She angrily took the curlers out of her hair. "I swear, one of these days, I'm gonna get the better of him. I swear!"
"Yeah, yeah. That'll be the day. Now stop thinking about John Allerdyce and concentrate on getting ready. Peter and Sam will be picking us up at any minute."
"Jubes, the dance doesn't start till three hours from now."
"Kitty," Jubilee gave her a patronizing smile, "you may be book smart, but I'm girl smart. And it is a fact in the universe I live in that three hours is just barely enough time to get yourself ready for a big event such as the prom. Come on. This is going to be one of the most awesome nights of our entire lives!"
"It's just a prom," she grumbled.
"Just a prom? Kitty, it is the prom! It's the coolest thing that's happened in the history of this school. Finally, the teachers have decided to join the human race in observing this age-old schoolyear-ending ritual. Just imagine, we could have had another one of those awful family events again."
Kitty had to agree with her friend on that. Every year at the end of the school term, the academy would hold its customary commencement slash family affair to honor its outstanding students. The Professor and his staff were very much into the general patronage type of activities that everyone could enjoy. Of course, it was very rare though that the students' families would actually be present at these gatherings. Most of the kids in school had parents and relatives who had disowned them once their mutant powers had manifested, so it was a safe bet that those people never even bothered to open the envelopes of the engraved invitations the academy sent them. For those students who had supportive families, like Kitty's, they would go to the events once or twice, but then their own children would beg them to stop attending sooner or later since it just made the rest of their schoolmates who didn't have anyone uncomfortable.
This year, though, Jubilee had taken matters into her own hands. Being the school's self-appointed queen of social functions, she had waged a tireless campaign for the academy to have its very first prom. Employing bullying and blackmailing tactics that would have made Magneto himself shake his head in amazement, she had managed to convince the powers that be - the teachers - that it was in everyone's best interest to have a prom. She had even gone so far as to hold a PowerPoint presentation in the Professor's office about the issue.
So, now, they were having a prom.
And Kitty had an actual date.
She had been flabbergasted when Peter Rasputin had asked her to be his date once the Professor had announced that they would be having a prom. She had had a crush on the tall, silent boy almost from the first moment she saw him. But due to the difference in their ages, she had despaired of ever getting his attention. Then, earlier this year, she had been given an opportunity to spend time with him when Mister Summers had requested her help in tutoring Peter in Physics. She had found it incredibly difficult to concentrate on the task since being near him made her nervous, but he had been nice, though he never said much. Their relationship had never progressed beyond the casual friendship stage, though, which disappointed her, but she had accepted it and buried her head deeper in her books. Then, from out of nowhere, this date to the prom. Kitty had never been more nervous and more excited in her entire life.
"Oh, God!" she groaned when it really sunk in that she was going to the prom with Peter. "Jubes, what am I going to do? I've never been on a date before in my entire life! What are we going to talk about? The half-life of uranium isotopes? I'm going to be an incredibly boring geeky girl and he'll run screaming away from me before the first dance is over!"
"Girl, relax! If you've got absolutely nothing else to say and you're tempted to give him a lecture on covalent bonds or whatever, just kiss him," her friend advised.
"What!"
"Kissing will take care of all sorts of conversational awkwardness," Jubilee said sagely.
"I'm sure it will," she said doubtfully, "but what will take care of the kissing awkwardness?"
"More kissing."
She covered her face with her hands in hopelessness. "I'm doomed."
"Oh, don't be so dramatic. So it's your first date and, most likely, your first kiss by the end of the night, too. You have to start somewhere so you can practice. And you're really lucky because it's gonna be a guy that you really like." Jubilee beamed at her proudly. "The first time for anything will always have problems. It's the second time that really counts."
"I highly doubt that there will be a second anything after the disaster of the first."
"That's right. Think positive thoughts," Jubilee said sarcastically. "Now let's get you ready!"
Kitty submitted herself to the Jubilee grand makeover. When it was over, she had to admit that when it came to all things girly, her friend knew her stuff. She actually looked pretty after all the junk that was applied to her face and hair.
"You think he'll like me?" she wondered as she stared at the young woman that she barely recognized as herself in the mirror.
"Of course, he will!" the other girl assured her. "Now come on. I bet the guys are already waiting for us."
Their dates were waiting by the doors to the ballroom. Ordinarily, the room was used for art classes, but it had been transformed into a wonderful sight of silver colors and sparkling lights for the occasion. Kitty gave a little gasp of wonder when she stepped into the room. "Oh, it's lovely!" she exclaimed.
"It should be," Sam Guthrie grumbled with Jubilee on his arm. "We were up all night taking orders from Mister Summers, the closet prom dictator. 'Everything has to be perfect, boys!'" He gave a fair imitation of their teacher's tones.
Kitty laughed at the idea that the normally very serious Mister Summers could be so prom-crazed. Peter smiled down at her and she felt a blush cover her face in sudden inexplicable embarrassment.
"Would you like to dance?" he asked.
Not trusting herself to speak, she just nodded her agreement.
They moved on to the dance floor. It was a bit awkward at first finding the right bodily position for the slow dance since Peter was so tall and Kitty barely reached up to his shoulders, but they figured it out eventually. Kitty closed her eyes as they swayed together and smiled dreamily. Everything was perfect.
A strange feeling came over her suddenly and she opened her eyes. Her gaze immediately locked on John Allerdyce.
He was standing in one corner of the room, leaning back against the wall, the customary smirk on his face as he surveyed his schoolmates. He must have sensed her stare since he turned his head and looked right at her. Startled that he had caught her watching him, she stumbled and stepped rather hard on Peter's foot.
"Ouch!" Peter almost lost his balance, too, but righted the two of them in time. However, she had phased them both in her nervousness and they were falling halfway through the floor before she realized what she was doing and caught herself. Now the two of them were stuck.
She heard someone laugh and, soon, other voices joined in. She felt tears threatening to spill from her eyes.
"I'm sorry," she said, mortified at the sudden turn of events. "I'm so sorry. I'm such a clumsy –"
"It's okay," he smiled at her reassuringly. "It's okay, Kitty."
She phased them again until they were standing on the ballroom floor. "This is – this is just awful! I'm sorry!" She could barely meet his eyes. She couldn't take the embarrassment anymore and ran out of the room.
"Kitty, wait!"
Peter finally caught up to her in the garden. She was sitting on one of the stone benches near the fountain, crying.
"Kitty." He knelt before her, his face looking very solemn. "Please don't cry. It's all right."
"I've ruined everything, haven't I?" she asked in between sniffles.
"No." He shook his head gently. "How can you say that? How can you have ruined things?"
"I made everyone laugh at you. And this whole date has been horrible."
"No. It has not been horrible at all. Merely memorable." He smiled when he saw that his remark had earned him a weak grin.
"I'm really sorry about all this. It's just that I've never been on a date before, and I have absolutely no idea what I'm supposed to do during a date," she babbled, "then there's you, and you asked me out, and ever since you asked me to go with you to this prom, I've been a mess since I really like you and I want you to like me, but now I've probably turned you off completely and you never wanna speak to me again, then I'm just going on like this, like an idiot, and Jubilee told me that whenever I don't have a clue what to say, I should just kiss you, and –" she paused, "I just actually said that out loud, didn't I?"
He cleared his throat. Kitty saw that he was blushing, too. A big guy like him, actually blushing. She couldn't help but smile at how endearing he looked.
He was now looking at her very intensely. "I like you very much, Kitty," he told her. "I've been trying to find a way to let you know that all year, but I always hesitated. You always made me very nervous. I didn't think that you liked me. You never smiled at me while you were tutoring me in Physics."
She laughed softly. "Well, you never talked to me," she pointed out.
They shared a laugh over that. Then the mood was serious again.
"Kitty?" He looked very serious. "May I kiss you?" he asked, his voice soft and husky.
She was speechless for a long moment, then, "Yes," she nodded.
He was still kneeling before her, so he tilted his head upwards slightly and she leaned over him. Their lips met and held.
Kitty was grinning like crazy when they finally pulled apart. Peter was blushing again. She couldn't help herself. She giggled.
A sudden loud explosion rang out. The two of them were on their feet in an instant.
"What was that?" she wondered. Her first thought was that the school was under attack.
Then they heard Jubilee's voice screeching at a volume that rivaled Siryn's. "Sam Guthrie, you are so going to pay for ruining my dress!"
Other voices screamed in laughter and excitement. The mansion was rocked by several bursts of explosions.
"What on earth could be going on?"
"Let's go!" Peter said.
They ran back towards the ballroom. They saw that the romantic prom they had left some minutes ago had now degenerated into the mutant version of a school brawl. Their schoolmates were putting on a dazzling display of powers much to the outrage of the teachers. To Kitty's amazement though, she saw that Professor Xavier, unlike Miss Grey and Miss Munroe, was doing nothing to regain control over the students. Instead he was laughing.
There was a clap of thunder and rain, rain of all things, began to fall. Inside the ballroom. "That's it!" Miss Munroe called out loudly, her eyes all white. "Prom is over! Everyone get cleaned up then lights out!"
"What!" She heard Jubilee wail. "No! It can't be over!"
But it was. An hour later and Jubilee was still grieving.
"All my hard work!" she moaned as she paced restlessly in their room. "The effort, the blood and sweat and tears! I made the whole thing happen and I barely got to experience it! Why? Why is this universe so unfair?"
"I really don't know, Jubes." Kitty said dreamily. She was still reliving the kiss.
"I swear, this is so not over! When the next schoolyear starts, we'll have another prom! I don't care even if it's September but we will have another prom!" Jubilee said in the tone of an implacable prophet.
"Sure thing, Jubes."
Kitty couldn't sleep a wink after all that had happened during the night. Tossing and turning in bed only seemed to make things worse as she kept replaying the scene by the fountain again and again in her head until she could swear that she was still in that moment, kissing Peter forever and ever. Finally, she couldn't stand it anymore. She got out of bed and tiptoed out of the room. She found herself making her way back to the fountain, her heart pounding with excitement.
She was actually surprised when she saw that no one was there. She had been half-expecting that maybe –
She heard footsteps behind her and she whirled around, a nervous smile on her face and her heart pounding harder than ever. "You couldn't sleep, too – oh!" She found herself face to face with John Allerdyce.
"Hey, Kitkat. Had a good prom?" he inquired coolly.
"As a matter of fact, I did," she replied, matching his tone perfectly. "And now I'm going to bed."
She headed back towards the mansion, careful to keep a good distance between them as she passed by him. She thought she had gotten away free but then she was suddenly jerked backwards, turned around and pressed hard against him.
Then he was kissing her.
In her head, she could hear Jubilee's voice saying over and over, "It's the second time that really counts." Her mind was still trying to assimilate the astounding idea that John Allerdyce was kissing her – John Allerdyce was kissing her! – when she realized, to her horror, that she was kissing him back.
She didn't even think to phase. She just pushed him away then glared at him, her mouth opening and closing helplessly as she tried to think of something, anything, to say.
John, however, never had the problem of being at a loss for words. He gave her a jaunty nod. "Goodnight, kitten. Sweet dreams." He left her still gaping at him.
"By the way, Kitkat." He turned to face her again. His trademark smirk was back in place.
"Only wimps need to ask."
Then he was gone.
Kitty blindly made her way to a bench and sat down. She finally thought of something to say.
"That was – weird."
The end
(writer's block. it's a bitch. i apologize for the diabetes-inducing fluffiness of certain scenes.)