Ghosts of Christmas- Past and Present
A/N: A quick, reasonably festive offering that didn't intend to be this way, but it ran away with me, producing nearly 5000 words of fluff and silliness. Ohdears. It wasn't even meant to be festive. Timeline-wise, we're pre-X2, so Logan's not there, although he is mentioned a couple of times in passing. Also, I'm fully aware that it wasn't December at that point, but run with me here. And I did say that I'd take a two week break from X-Men to finish a couple of nagging projects, but I doubt that'll happen. Merry Christmas, guys.
Oh, and this is a one-shot. Simply because other things that intend to be short and sweet seem to be turning into longer projects.
0-0-0-0-0
"So, now what?" Scott asked Jean, collapsing on the couch. It was the middle of the Christmas holidays, most of the students were at home- and some had been invited to stay with various friends for the break. Effectively, this left around half a dozen teenagers left, and since they were all old enough to be let out on their own, the Professor had given them permission to attend some social gathering somewhere- Piotr, being nineteen, acting as responsible adult.
All in all, with Logan having buggered off for the foreseeable future, Ororo gone down to New York to a teacher's conference, plus the Professor having exited the mansion to meet a friend and discuss the developments with the Mutant Registration Act, this left two adults and a whole school full of opportunities.
"I feel like acting like a kid again," Jean replied, snuggling next to him. "Let loose and be able to act strangely with no one there to watch."
"I'm not even going to ask where this idea came from, just worry for your sanity," he told her. "I didn't do the whole kid thing properly in the first place; I wouldn't know where to start."
"Well then, time to learn," she replied with a smile, and dragged him off the couch. "Step one; clothing."
0-0-0-0-0
Scott had no idea how he had been talked into this. The idea seemed mundane, downright weird and if someone found them… it'd be worse than the first time they were walked in on kissing in the library.
Stop thinking so rationally, Scott. Let go for once- no one's going to be home until tomorrow morning -- and by that time everything'll be cleared up and there'll be no trace.
The telepathy still didn't reassure him. Hence, he was sceptically watching Jean search through their closet looking for something or another.
"Do you not own one pair of jeans?" She asked, turning around and pretending to be annoyed.
"There's a pair in the back somewhere, I just don't need them any more." Sighing melodramatically, she literally plunged into the neat line of coat hangers and pressed items of clothing, knocking everything askew, and came out about a minute later in victory.
A flying pair of black denim trousers knocked Scott backwards as they impacted into his chest with a thump, and he landed spread eagled on the duvet cover. Around thirty seconds later, a dark red T-Shirt was added to the heap.
"I think I remember those jeans, you know. You always used to wear black and red; the variation in your wardrobe was astounding," Jean told him, moving from one cupboard to another to select some appropriate clothing for herself. "Put that on; you in jeans is an occasion I wouldn't want to miss."
"You always used to wear the strangest clothing, all of which I assumed got thrown away after it went horribly out of fashion," he replied, hoping that she wasn't going to emerge with a mix of nineties clothing on (the things that were high fashion then were horrible, in his opinion, which was why he'd been fine in black jeans, red tops and a black shirt over the top for warmth). However, to his relief, she exited her closet with recent teenage clothing, and began to climb into a pair of brightly coloured leggings underneath the red suit skirt she was currently wearing. Rolling his eyes behind his glasses, he eyed the t-shirt he'd been thrown critically, and pulled it on before going back to his clothing cupboard to find a shirt to stick over the top.
0-0-0-0-0
"Happy now? I still think this is risky," Scott told her, sitting cross-legged on the bed. Pulling on a hooded top, she turned to face him and inspected his attire.
"God, if you grew your hair you'd still be Slim," she replied, jumping onto the mattress and laughing at his shocked expression. "Lighten up a bit, jeez. You'd think you'd just been shot or something."
"No one's called me Slim since college," he replied in a tone of shock, "and I doubt my college roomie would recognise me now. The only thing he'd have to go on is my glasses. I did still have hair down to my chin then, you realise, plus a fringe." The idea was almost laughable now, but yes, he had used to have long hair and a fringe. Oh, the joys of being a teenager.
"You were such a… what's the word… Emo?" Jean replied, giggling and snuggling next to him. "I will always cherish the memory of walking in on you asleep and bouncing on your bed at five am."
"One, I had all right to be… whatever it is. Two, I don't care whether it was Christmas Day or not, I was actually having an undisturbed night sleep for once and you wrecked it. I had a reason to be moody."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Come on, let's go and make a den downstairs in the Rec Room." Jean began to drag him out of the room when he processed what she'd just said properly.
"I beg your pardon?"
0-0-0-0-0
"You must be joking. Kids don't do this stuff, do they?" The pair were now stood in the middle of the Rec room, facing each other, with Scott standing there in disbelief.
"They do; trust me. Go upstairs and raid the airing cupboard, we need every piece of material we can get to make a good hideout." Jean began to study the room critically, whilst he tramped back upstairs and headed towards the house linen cupboard. Of course, he was taking Jean's word that normal kids did do this; he couldn't remember having made a den, or anything like that (not that he could really remember much before the age of nine, but that was against the point), but if it was building something, that could be quite fun. Right… What to take…
"Anything else you need?" Scott shouted from the top of the stairs. Jean smiled, and watched her fiancée cross the hall laden with sheets and duvet covers.
"We'll need lots of sweet stuff, drawing pins, and a large amount of heavy books from the library to hold everything in place." As a large pile of linen was dumped unceremoniously on the carpet, he turned to her with a raised eyebrow.
"You can do the heavy books in the library," he said smugly, and sprinted for the kitchen door. In indignation, Jean ran after him, and grabbed him by the waist in a rugby tackle, dragging him to the floor with a clonk.
"Not if I get to the kitchen first!" She vaulted over him and skittered across the hall, slamming the kitchen door behind her. Making sure his glasses were securely on his nose, Scott scrambled to his feet and slouched dejectedly off to the library.
Well, as proper teenagers go, I've never seen our lot do this… he thought to himself absently, scouring the bookshelves for heavy textbooks and the like.
They live in a boarding school, and if they did, you wouldn't be best pleased, came an entirely unexpected response.
Stop listening in, Jean- that was a private sceptic thought, he mentally replied.
Oh, sorry. Hurry up; I'm getting bored in here. Rolling his eyes, he generally emptied the psychology section of the library, and carried back the pile of heavy tomes back to their previous location, where Jean was waiting, sitting on the couch with an array of sugary and/or unhealthy food arranged around the floor.
"Oh, ha ha. Very funny. Help would be appreciated, if you don't mind." Jean smiled warmly and half the books floated from the pile, but didn't quite make it and fell to the floor with a crash.
"Whoops. Knew I couldn't do that many. Right, you're the math teacher who was going to be an engineer, let's get some building done."
Hence, the next hour and a half was spent constructing a masterpiece of a child's hideout. Sheets were stretched, looking fragile as a spider's web, to the far corners of the room, clinging onto the chandelier with a prayer, making an equivalent of a tepee with thick duvet flooring, anchored in place by Goodwin et all's theses on behavioural patterns. It was a masterpiece, Scott reflected. A good thing comes out of this seemingly pointless and stupid afternoon.
Until, of course, Jean started a pillow fight, and then he did end up acting like a kid. Whoops.
"You are going down, Slim!" Of course, she didn't seem to realise that using the nickname that someone who tended to annoy him thought up was not going to make it any easier on her, and the resulting whack round the back of the head with a cushion she received meant that he had to run for his life into the dining room whilst being chased by a not too happy red head with very mussed hair.
"Ah! No! Sorry! Didn't mean to!" Why had he even agreed to do this?
"You so did! You're going down." Next thing he knew, he'd been cornered and was being laid into with a couch cushion. Feathers were flying around the room before he managed to escape a glancing blow and flee, grabbing another discarded pillow from the floor as he went.
"You get yourself back here, Scott!" Jean shouted from the dining room
"Or what!" He hollered back.
"Or I'll tickle you until you cry uncle!" Scott gulped, and only ran upstairs. He was horribly ticklish, and Jean was going to use that to his disadvantage. Damn it.
Jean ran into the entrance hall, thought for a second, and went after him. False apologies meant nothing. Boy, was he going to get his ass kicked. (Damn, she was even starting to use the teenage vernacular.)
0-0-0-0-0
"Hah. Found you." Five minutes later, after a game of cat and mouse around the house which had resulting in vaulting over furniture, a couple of the rooms downstairs getting completely trashed- namely the drawing room and part of the library (though luckily, none of the books were ripped, just a bookshelf had been bashed into and the contents had flown to the floor,) back in the Rec room, Scott had been cornered. He really did have to stop doing that. "You are going to pay, Scott." And, before he could do anything, she'd taken him at a ninety degree angle (damn you, bad peripheral vision: wait… damn you, glasses) and was letting her telekinesis get to work. Next thing he knew, Scott was in a rolled up ball in the floor, laughing hysterically and trying to get her to stop it.
"No, mercy! I won't do it again!" However, it wasn't going to work, and whilst trying to protect all ticklish pieces of skin, he missed a vital one. Feet. The pair were running around in socks (or tights, in Jean's case), and this left him completely unprotected.
"Oh, dear, Scottie. It has to be done." The next thing he knew, Scott was once more in a frenzied giggle fit, trying to shuffle away from his attacker.
Behind them, someone cleared their throat. The pair sprang apart, Scott scrambling to his feet, only to see Storm standing in the doorway, looking rather amused.
"Oh, fuck," Scott muttered to himself.
"Ro!" Jean exclaimed. "Come join the party. Slim and I were just about to get something to eat." Ororo looked slightly confused, before the penny dropped and it dawned on her what they were doing.
"Let me get changed, and I'll be right with you, Jean. Keep some popcorn for me." With that, she walked serenely out of the room and ran upstairs.
"Well, this has just gone from weird to weirder," Scott said thoughtfully. "You and Ro have done this before, I presume?"
"Yep. We invited Elsie over once too; that was good fun. Come on; let's go and get something to eat. I'm staaaarving." She dragged him into the tepee, where the pile of food which Scott would have normally have regarded as junk and not worth eating was sitting almost reverently in one corner, just in the light so it looked as if there was some kind of heavenly aura around it.
"Remind me… how often do you do this?" He asked her, bemused.
"Whenever there's no one in the house and I haven't got any research that needs to be done immediately. So far… this has to be the third time, seeing as normally I do have pressing things to do and there has to be someone else here too; no point being a Billy no mates and acting weird on your own."
"We'll go with that…" he replied.
"Never mind that; I might phone up Elsie this afternoon and see if she can come down. That'd be fun. Set the food out, Slim; Ro should be ready in a minute."
Rolling his eyes behind his glasses (Slim wasn't his favourite nickname), he turned and asked sardonically, "Aren't you going to help, Marvel Girl?"
Jean, knowing she'd been caught, sighed, and went over to assist.
"What crap is this? Oreos, chocolate sauce, popcorn, crisps and sweets, Christ, there's nothing worth eating." Jean whacked him on the arm.
"It's perfectly good food, but we forgot the ice cream. I'll get it in a minute. Broaden your horizons, and try some, Scott. Jeez, you didn't use to care."
"It used to be, 'wow! Food! I probably won't get any more for the next few days, so I'd better keep my stocks up,' Jean. And where's Ro buggered off to?"
"Nowhere. Shift up a bit, please, Scott." Ororo stood at the door of the effective tent, clad in similar attire to Jean (much different from her incredibly smart clothing beforehand), came in and literally dropped to the floor beside him, landing with a flump on a pile of cushions. "You forgot the peanut butter and jelly, Jean." She passed over a pot of the sticky substance, while Scott mentally cringed. So much sugar…
"As you can probably tell, Slim isn't at all happy with eating like a teenager- he grew out of it," Jean informed Ororo, "which means we'll have to introduce him to the mastery of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and dipping popcorn in chocolate sauce." Ororo smiled in anticipation, and although he was trying to quell it, Scott inwardly began to salivate. He had a horribly sweet tooth, which would be displaying itself scarily in a minute. Especially when she opened the lid of the pot she was holding and dipped a finger in; tasting the substance inside.
"Hmm… not bad," she affirmed. "Try some." She offered the pot around, and everyone took a scoop (his was more of a furtive dip, but never mind), critically tasting it. To his surprise (never having tasted the stuff before), Scott found that peanut butter and jelly did actually taste very good, and apparently, the expression on his face was enough to show it.
"There we are, Cyclops. Thought you'd like it," Ororo said, smiling. "Jean, I think sandwiches are in order." Three minutes later, by aid of telekinesis, there was a large pile of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in their midst, even sliced neatly.
Amid the munching, laughing and reminiscing, lunch was one of those occasions which seemed to be far too short for your liking, and having a heyday with all the sweet stuff, everyone was having a good time.
"Ice cream!" Jean said, muffled by the biscuit she was eating. "Ro, you're a genius." Spoons were passed around, and in less than five minutes, the half litre of cookie dough ice cream had been effectively demolished.
"Hang on," Scott had just noticed that something was wrong, and questioned it. "What happened to the history teacher's conference you were supposed to be at, Ro?"
"The speaker went down with heatstroke," she replied. "Pass the popcorn." Somehow, the excuse didn't seem to hold water, but he ignored it and leaned round Jean to take a bottle of fizzy, whilst throwing a packet of toffee popcorn as requested.
"To no one being here to see us do this," he said, lifting his bottle. "And that Jean's stopped tickling me."
"To being able to act like a kid again," Jean toasted, raising her drink accordingly.
"To be able to remember good times without Elsie here!" The toast was almost made triumphantly.
"Well, that's nice," Jean said reprovingly.
"You can't blame me; she made my life more hellish than it already happened to be. Fine, to good, or bad, times, and being able to short sheet someone's bed without a conscience." Scott clinked his bottle against the others and took a swig of the sugary liquid inside, before remembering that he hated the stuff.
The toasts continued, becoming more random as they went, until finally everyone's coke had been drunk.
"Scott… you know you said about short sheeting beds without a conscience?" Jean remembered, putting it in such a way to attract his attention.
"Yeah, what about it?" he asked, swallowing the piece of chocolate covered toffee popcorn piece he'd just been presented with.
"Dare ya to do it to Logan," she said, spawn of the devil at play. Ro burst out laughing. "And sew it in place."
Scott fell back with a thump. "You do have to be joking; he'll kill me."
"He won't think it's you. He's never heard the tales of you being revenge extraordinaire. Go on; we'll help. Honest."
Literally pushing him in front of them, they advanced on Logan's room.
"You do realise that he's not going to be back for ages; and he took my bike, so he'll be spending as much time away as possible," Scott told the pair, standing in the doorway.
"Stop thinking rationally and do it, Slim, it'll be fun," Jean replied, pushing him into the room, at which point Scott nearly choked and ran to open the window. "I'll go get my sewing kit."
Advancing on the bed, he ripped the duvet off, leaving a top sheet and the mattress between him and the bed frame. "Ro, come and help."
"I've never done this before, you realise. I've got no idea how to start," she told him, joining him in the middle of the rug, as he critically observed the situation.
"Time to learn then. We'll do the simple method; make it a bit easier for him to get out of." Taking the top sheet, he tucked it underneath the pillows and around the mattress, tucking it in neatly as if in an army barrack and not the mansion. "Jean!"
The red head poked her head around the door. "White thread, Slim." The cotton reel flew through the air, and he caught it, as Jean walked in and gave him a needle.
"Right then, if you'd be so kind to sew that bit into place, I'll do the duvet." Two giggly accomplices and one recently reborn spawn of Satan set to work, and a creditable ten minutes later, Scott was tucking the duvet underneath the mattress, to set the scene perfectly for their unknowing victim.
"How long do we think that'll last?" Jean asked him, as they returned back downstairs, only to hear the grandfather clock dinging, telling them it was four o'clock.
"I'd bet, with Logan dealing with it, about 2 minutes, if less. He'll get severely pissed off and slice the sheet to smithereens. It'll be good fun to gauge his reaction; I might put a camera in his room so we don't miss it."
Jean pushed him playfully. "We'll leave that for later, shall we? Meanwhile, I feel like playing sardines. Ro, go hide, I'll send Scott in around 5 minutes." They returned to the tent, and Scott set an alarm on his watch.
"You do realise that Ro's far too good at hide and seek, and that I'll never find her," he told her, as they sat down on the piles of cushions once more.
"Well, duh. I want five minutes of you to myself, thank you." With that, she leant forward, put one arm around his neck, and the pair scooted together, into lip lock. Oh, the joys of spontaneous actions.
However, four and a half minutes later, whilst still making good use of the time they had, an alarm went off, and they separated.
"Do note we'll probably be in a very small space, so be prepared for a squeeze. Oh, and no telepathic cheating. See you in a minute." Leaving her with a kiss on the cheek, he got up most unwillingly and slouched out of the room, to go and find the hidden mutant.
Five minutes… now, where would Ro hide? He went down to the atrium, only to find nothing, and then skirted all the rooms on the ground floor. Sprinting upstairs, he discovered her eventually inside one of the student's bathrooms, inside a (mercifully empty) dirty linen holder, whilst trying not to giggle.
"How the hell am I meant to get in there, jackass?" Storm took one look at him and began to laugh. "What now?"
"You've got lip gloss all over your face, Scott," she said, trying and failing to stop giggling. "Jean sent me away to have a kissing session with you? Ew."
"Well, aren't we acting like a pre-teen? Shift up a bit." She did as she was asked, and he barely squeezed into the space next to her. The basket may have been big, but not that big, and it was somewhat painful to breath, but it didn't matter especially.
"How long until she finds us?" She asked him.
"Depends whether she cheats or not. If not, I'd give her quarter of an hour. Otherwise, around fifteen seconds, tops."
"Could be worse, I suppose," Storm said, contemplating the matter.
"What'll be the bad thing is that she's got to get in here before all of us can get out, so it's going to hurt. Be prepared. Knowing her, in this current mood, she'll launch—" he was stopped halfway through the sentence as the top of the basket was unceremoniously flung open and one very bouncy red head jumped in to join them.
Scott could swear that two of his ribs had just cracked.
0-0-0-0-0
"Jean, you're insane. We're going to die. At best, break bones, plus the basket will get wrecked."
"Zip it, and enjoy the adrenaline rush. You, of all people, should understand the concept of risk," she replied, and pushed all her weight against one side of the basket, sending it down the stairwell with a crash.
Scott was somewhat pleased that the lid of the linen holder was closed. However, the basket did have casters on it, and so was bumping up and down like nothing on earth.
"You're dead when we get out of- ow, my spine…" Why did the staircase have to be so long?
"Calm down and enjoy it, dear, we're not getting any younger and I've always wanted to do this." Finally, they reached the ground floor with an undeniably loud bang, and Scott flew out, landing flat on his face on the carpet. He'd been at the back of the impromptu vehicle, with Ro in the middle (who'd been praying to some deity for her good health) and Jean in front, giggling like a kid at Christmas.
"Holy Christ, I think I've died and gone to hell," he muttered, checking that he didn't have a nosebleed and that his glasses were intact before getting up. It was an impulse reaction to cover his face with his arms if and when he fell over, because breaking his glasses was a worst case scenario that not even he wanted to contemplate.
"God, I'm tired," Jean said, climbing out of the 'cart' and helping Ororo up. They'd been going flat out over the last few hours, and everyone suddenly did find themselves in need of a nap. Leaving the basket where it was, they trooped back into their den and curled up on the floor, in a heap, and fell asleep.
0-0-0-0-0
Coming back up to the mansion at six o'clock that evening, Xavier was bemused to find that everyone inside was either asleep or unconscious.
What have they been up to? He thought to himself, and wheeled into the house, only to find complete devastation.
There was a laundry basket in the main hall, feathers absolutely everywhere, and in the Rec Room, something that could only be described as a tent had been erected: and all three teachers were inside.
About to go in and tell them off for using his absence as an excuse to turn the mansion upside down, he wheeled to the door, only to see all three fast asleep, and looking more like students than the members of staff they normally moonlighted as. Smiling warmly, he decided to leave them as they were, and went to find something to do in his office until they woke up.
Then, if they were going to act like children (he couldn't imagine Scott doing so, but Jean had probably persuaded – or press ganged – him, as he was looking more like the teenager he used to be, just with shorter hair, then he'd treat them like children.
Now, whose idea was this in the first place, I wonder…
0-0-0-0-0
"Professor! Mr Summers! Dr Grey! Everyone! We're home!" Jubilee strode into the mansion, and waited for someone to enter the entrance hall, probably Mr Summers, wondering why they were home early. However, it was the Professor who greeted them.
"Shh," he said quietly, one finger on his lips, "they're fast asleep." Bobby, Piotr, Kitty, Rogue and John entered the building behind her, saw the devastation around them, and then peered in the direction Xavier was pointing in.
"Holy Christ, have you lot never heard of – oh, crap." Jubilee's shouting had woken the three previously slumbering inside their tepee, and they emerged without thinking about it.
Six jaws dropped.
"Scott, I believe an explanation would be on the cards," the Professor said calmly, whilst the six actual teenagers watched in awe. Were the teachers, of all people, about to get told off?
"Yeah, so would I, if this whole mess wasn't Jean's fault," he said smoothly, and pushed her in front of him.
"Oh, thanks, Slim. You're really kind."
"I try my best, Jeannie. Go on, tell him." Jean turned to face the Professor, and took a deep breath.
"Well, I felt like some escapism and so, we built a den, had some harmless fun-"
"Including a pillow fight, I don't doubt," Xavier said, bemused by the whole situation.
"Yeah, well, come on, sir, it wasn't that bad. It wasn't like we totally trashed the place--"
"Most of the ground floor and part of the first storey," Scott put in, and had to duck as she went to hit him.
"But, honest, we were going to clear up before you got back, and the students, for that matter – aren't they meant to be at a sleep-over?"
"Change of plans," Jubilee supplied. She was still in awe of Mr Summers wearing a pair of jeans – which no-one had been sure he'd even owned.
"Yes, well, you'd better tidy up, hadn't you?" The three stood in front of him, almost as if they were in an identity parade, nodded ashamedly and muttered apologies. "And you're supposed to be responsible adults. Go on: I hate to think what would have happened if I hadn't got back early."
"Everyone got back early," Scott muttered under his breath. Pretending to be exasperated, the Professor shooed them away, and they went to start clearing up.
"Does anyone else have a clue what's happening here?" Bobby asked the others, who shook their heads, still in wonder of what was Mr Summers in casual clothing. Meanwhile, Professor Xavier was trying (and somewhat failing) not to laugh.
0-0-0-0-0
Of course, when Logan got back- only to find that sleeping in bed wasn't working properly, he never guessed that it was the teachers, and not some of the students, who had short sheeted his bed and then sewn it into place for good measure. In fact, his only hint would have been Scott peeping through the crack in the door jamb and suppressing a snort of laughter as he forcibly ripped the sheet apart.