Disclaimer: I do not own the X-men.
Kurt's eyes opened, eyelids fluttering in lazy contentment. He had just awoken from the most peculiar dream. The details were hazy but he knew it had something to do with the color pink, a couple of lonesome but friendly grizzly bears, and a brown something that continually swung back and forth in front of his eyes like a pendulum.
Well, now that he thought about it, maybe it hadn't been as pleasant as he had initially thought. He couldn't for the life of him imagine what had been so nice about a dream that contained grizzly bears. But no matter how hard he strained to remember the dream, the details of it drifted further away from him.
Though it still bothered him that he couldn't remember it right off, Kurt pushed it to the back of his mind for now. After all, it was Christmas Eve today and the schedule was bound to be full.
Yawning widely, he threw the cover off of himself and swinging his legs off of the bed, he stood and headed for his closet. He had only taken three steps however, when he tread on a sock that he had taken off the night before and thrown aside. The sock slid on the hardwood floor and in response, he lost his balance. His elbows took the brunt of the fall, but his head hit the floor hard enough to make him wince.
Somehow he knew that if Kitty had been there, she would be yelling at him for never cleaning his room. This was, after all, the reason he had injured himself. Grunting, rubbing his elbow, and feeling grateful that Kitty hadn't been here to witness his ungraceful moment, Kurt brought himself back to his feet.
As he finally made it to his closet, he grumbled about evil socks that took sick pleasure in tripping innocent teenage boys and harming their elbows. He managed to dress himself without anymore harmful incidents, making sure to wear something that covered his elbow so that Kitty would never have to know what had happened here.
He made it down the hall and into the bathroom without running into anyone and once there, brushed his teeth, combed his hair, applied the necessary amount of deodorant, and smoothed the hair on his tail.
Once finished, he stepped back out into the hallway, feeling refreshed, hungry, and eager for the day ahead.
And that was when a pair of underwear smacked him on the side of the head.
Embarrassingly enough, this was not an altogether unusual occurrence in a house of full of hyper-active teenagers. All sorts of unmentionable objects were flung through the air each day but eventually you just learned to duck.
Sighing to himself, Kurt looked sideways at the pair of white underwear now resting on his shoulder.
"Guess what!" Bobby, obviously the one who had thrown the underpants, rushed up to meet him, his face flushed and a look of pure mischief covering his features.
"What?" Kurt asked warily, shaking his shoulder to try and make the underwear fall. He didn't want to touch them...
Bobby grinned. "You just got hit in the face with Wolverine's underwear."
A very uncharacteristic shriek came out of Kurt as he did a while jerking motion to the get the evil thing off of his shoulder. The underwear flew and landed behind him on the doorknob of the bathroom door.
"You dill-hole!" He yelled at Bobby but there was no way he heard him, not over all of the other boy's laughter. "Dude, why do you even have those?"
Bobby stopped laughing at once. He locked eyes with Kurt as a small grin spread over his face. "That's the beautiful part. Remember how we thought of a prank for everyone except Wolvie? I thought of one, Kurt." Bobby cackled evilly. "And when he see's it, he's gonna flip-"
A deep, rough voice suddenly interrupted. "What's that, Snow cone? You really think this is funny?"
Both boys swung around in horror. Behind them Wolverine stood only five foot seven but somehow, in that moment, he seemed to be growing taller, inch by inch...He glowered at them, feet braced apart, one arm dropped to his side, his fist clenched. The other arm was raised and one of his claws was extended. On the end of said claw dangled a very lacy, very red, very, very feminine thong.
The realization of what Bobby had done struck Kurt. It was horrible. It was so wrong. It was genius. And it was all that Kurt could do to keep from bursting into hysterical laughter on the spot. On the other hand, he also wanted to pee his pants because of the look he was receiving from Wolverine.
"Bobby-" Kurt said in a strangled voice, fighting to keep his amusement from showing. "Did you exchange all of his underwear for women's thongs?"
Wolverine shifted his gaze from Bobby to Kurt in one, terrifying instant. "Don't try to play it off like you weren't in on it too, elf. Your guilt is written all over you."
"But I didn't-"
The thong was flung over Wolverine's shoulder as he tossed it away. He looked madder than he had in a long time. "Get ready to pay."
For all the bravery the two boys showed right then, you never would have guessed that they were two of the X-men, protectors of mankind and keepers of peace. They both yelped at the same time and then ditched each other, Bobby taking off in the opposite direction of Wolverine and Kurt teleporting into a downstairs hallway.
It was no matter that Wolverine was upstairs and Kurt downstairs. The fuzzy dude knew that he had to hide, and that he had to hide quickly. It was his only chance for survival. He sprinted down the hallway and then opened the first door he came to. This was just a closet but he could hide out in here for as long as he needed to, or at least until Wolverine found him and he could teleport somewhere else to spend the day hiding.
But as soon as Kurt jerked the door open, a horrible sight met his eyes. This was worse than Wolverine's scary and intimidating look. This was worse than Wolverine's underwear. This was his one and only sister, Rogue with a certain Cajun man attached to her face.
They were glued to each other, stuck in a fierce lip-lock that made Kurt's stomach roll unpleasantly. All he saw was a lot of tongue and a lot of groping...and they hadn't even noticed that he had opened the door on them.
"Excuse me!" He said in a voice that betrayed how nauseous he was suddenly feeling.
Both of them jumped apart quicker than he could blink.
"Oh hey, Kurt," Rogue smiled as if nothing was out of the ordinary. "What's up?"
Narrowing his eyes, Kurt slid his gaze over to Gambit. The man didn't look at all ashamed of himself.
"What the crap is going on?" Kurt asked, his voice much shriller than he ever remembered it being before.
Gambit and Rogue looked at each other, then at Kurt, then at each other, then at Kurt, then in separate random directions and then back at Kurt. Rogue opened her mouth to say something, but a sudden crash and a yell from upstairs stopped her.
"What was that?" She asked worriedly, but Kurt, having recognized Bobby's voice and fearing for his own life, ignored her and jumped into the closet with the two of them, pulling the door closed behind him.
It was pitch black in here and they were all crammed uncomfortably together.
Kurt, feeling as though his last shred of dignity was now lost, asked in the most normal voice he could muster, "Is there a light in here?" To which Gambit replied by simply lifting a hand and pulling the string above their heads to cut the light on.
The swinging light bulb overhead cast light over them and Kurt was able to take in his surroundings. They were so jam packed in here that Gambit was uncomfortably standing halfway on a bucket while his other leg pressed against Kurt's. Rogue, whose mouth was red and swollen, was squished under a shelf that held various cleaners of all kinds.
"What's going on here?" Kurt asked again. "Why are you with him?" Unable to move his arms, he cocked his head back at Gambit. "I thought you hated him! And, wait a minute..." He drifted off as another thought struck him. "HOW ARE YOU TOUCHING?"
"Uh-" Rogue bit her lip. "Look Kurt, I'm sorry, I know this is a shock and I promise that I'll explain the whole thing to you later. Just please, please, if you love me at all, DON'T TELL WOLVERINE."
"Why would I-?"
"And don't tell Kitty." She added quickly. "She'll tell everyone."
Well that was a different matter. There was no way he would ever tell Wolverine, not even on a day when the man wasn't out for his blood. He was far too protective of Rogue and since the Cajun had joined the team he had hated his guts and made no secret about it. But Kitty was different. Not only was she his best friend, but she had this way of getting things out of him. Most of the time all she had to do was smile...and do that little twirly thing with her hair...and look at him with those big blue eyes...
"Oh, mon ami," Gambit's teasing voice said in his ear. "And you were judging moi."
Kurt didn't understand what he meant by saying this, but before he could ask, Rogue had shot Gambit a look and then continued talking to Kurt.
"Please Kurt, I'm askin' you as your sister—please keep this to yourself."
He sighed in defeat, his shoulders drooping. Rogue always knew that playing the sister card won him over. "Ok but...I can't keep this a secret forever."
"I know," Rogue beamed at him, "We're going to tell everyone after the holidays. I don't want to bring stress on anyone during Christmas..."
"All right," Kurt relented. "I'll keep it a secret."
Ten minutes later, Kurt felt safe enough to leave the safety of the closet. He kept a close eye on Remy and Rogue as they left and parted ways, making sure that he saw them go in opposite directions before he headed for the kitchen. He walked carefully the whole way there, trying not to make too much noise as he walked and peeking around corners before he turned them to make sure that Wolverine was no where in sight.
When he felt for sure that he was safe, he darted into the kitchen and shut the door behind him. He was met by the sight of Kitty, who was covered from head to toe in flour but looking happy, and Ororo, who was putting a turkey in the oven and appearing to be very stressed over something.
"Hi Kurt!" Kitty greeted him happily.
"Hi Kitty..." He looked her up and down. "Why are you covered in flour?"
"I'm making a cake!" She pointed to a bowl on the counter that was also covered in flour.
Kurt eyed it uneasily, remembering all too well the other experiences that he'd had with Kitty's cooking. "Is there supposed to be that much flour?"
"Um, I don't think so..." Kitty picked up the cookbook in front of her and bit her lip in thought. "I think I'm supposed to butter the cake pans with it."
"Kitty," Ororo interrupted. She had come over and was pointing over Kitty's shoulder at the recipe book. "You're making a bunt cake. You don't need cake pans, just one specific pan. And you don't need flour at all."
"Whoopsie." The younger girl blushed slightly at her mistake. "Ok, I guess I'll start over..."
Sighing, Ororo left the room. As soon as the door shut behind her, Kitty stopped cleaning up the mess on the counter and swung around on Kurt.
"What are you hiding?" She asked suspiciously. She looked him up and down, as if she could see his secret printed out on his shirt.
"I'm not hiding anything." He said quickly.
Her eyes narrowed. "Then why did you say that so quickly?"
"I..." He trailed off, trying to think of something to tell her. He was hiding quite a few things from her this morning, but which one was she seeing written on his face? The fall in his bedroom? Wolverine's thongs? Remy and Rogue's secret affair?
"Come on, Kurt," she pleaded. "Tell me. Please?"
He looked at her big blue eyes, her kind face covered in flour, and her ponytail swinging behind her and he found that it was impossible for him to say no to her. If he refused to tell her anything, he couldn't stand the look of disappointment she would give him...
"You were right, I should clean my room because I tripped on some of the mess this morning and got hurt and then I came out and turns out that Bobby replaced all of Wolverine's underwear with thongs and now he's coming to kill me because he think I did it." He blurted all of this out very quickly, but Kitty seemed to take it in. "Oh, and I walked in on Gambit and my sister making out."
Kitty gasped dramatically and her hand flew to her heart. "WHAT?"
"Yep." Kurt nodded.
"I knew it! I like, knew it! And when I confronted Rogue about it the other day she acted like I was crazy..."
"But Kitty," he said quickly. "Don't tell anyone, ok? They told me not to tell anybody but I have so you can't let them know."
"Oh, of course. I won't tell anybody."
"Ok," he said, feeling relieved. "Good."
The morning went by slowly and it was evident to Kurt that everyone was a just a tiny bit more crazy than usual. He hadn't seen Gambit and Rogue again (thankfully, he didn't think his stomach could take it), but he did run into Tabitha, who flirted furiously with him, causing his face to go up in flames. For the first time in his life, he had been thankful that he was covered in blue fur. Around lunch time, he and Bobby found each other and went ahead with the prank they had actually planned together...stuffing Scott's closet full of marshmallows. They threw a whoopee cushion under Jean as she went to sit down and it sounded like she let a big one rip.
"Oh dear." Professor had said as Jean glared at them.
He helped Kitty a bit with her cooking-
"Hey, is the white stuff, sugar?" She asked him, to which he replied, "MMYesf," through his mouth of oatmeal.
He managed to evade Wolverine over and over again as his insane teacher attempted multiple times to catch him. Then, as if the rest of the activity going on around the house wasn't enough, he had walked into the rec room to find Piotr sitting on the couch and avidly watching the Christmas parade. Strangely, as soon as Kurt walked into the room, the large Russian clumsily fumbled with the remote before he quickly switched it to a (much more manly) football game.
Kurt wisely kept his mouth shut before he teleported back upstairs in the living room.
And that was when the very stressed and very harassed looking Ororo found him.
"Oh Kurt, thank God it's you." In an uncharacteristic move, she grabbed the front of his shirt and spoke to him quietly, sounding very desperate. "We have a problem."
"I didn't do it!" The blue boy said quickly. "It was all Bobby's idea, I swear!" He was such a liar.
Ororo narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously. "That's not what I meant."
Kurt laughed nervously, all the while mentally slapping himself on the forehead. "Oh, then uh...what did you mean?"
The white-haired woman stared at him for another moment, debating on whether or not she should attempt to get the truth out of him. Eventually she decided against it, instead opting for what she had originally approached him to say. "We have a problem." She sighed and gently let go of his shirt, but staying close to him. "We have a VERY big problem."
"Which is...?"
She looked very pained by this question, but answered him anyway, though her voice sounded strained. "We forgot to get Charles a Christmas present."
For a moment he just stared at her. Then what she was saying finally registered. They forgot to get Professor X a Christmas gift. They forgot to get a Christmas present for the man who fed them, sheltered them, and showed them more love and understanding than anyone had ever shown them before.
"Wow Miss Ororo...that's jacked up."
"Yes it is." She agreed. Reaching into her pocket, she said, "and that's why I'm putting the burden on you to find him something," before she promptly put a wad of cash into his hand and disappeared before he could refuse.