For the World Is a Mirror
Chapter One
How Not to Make a Decision
Everything must be perfect. The thought looped through his head like a merry-go-round, sing-song and somewhat absurd.
6:30: Wake up. Shower, brush teeth, etc. Put on best black trousers, the pressed lavender shirt and white tie. Aim for mature, classy, but not so French couture that you look like a cuckoo in peacock feathers. Borrow (steal) Scott's hair gel, but go easy on it.
7:00: Breakfast is important even if it makes your throat thick or gives you bad breath. At least grab a slice of toast. Bring mints. (Crash a Gut Bomb on the way home.)
7:10: Borrow (don't steal) the Queen. If the Queen cannot be borrowed, settle for another, however less flashy, vehicle. Flashy isn't her style anyway. Leave for White Plains Airport by 7:20 latest. Do NOT forget image inducer.
8:00: Farewells said.
Everything must be perfect. The thought ricocheted off the inner walls of his skull like a pinball in a frenzy. Buried within his cocoon of sheets, Kurt peeked at the flashing red numbers of his digital clock, red as her dress when she told him:
"Kurt, we – we're moving. To Wisconsin. They... my parents want out of the center of mutant politics."
I'll miss you, she'd said. And then, almost like an apology, I love you.
Words he wished he could taste.
He lay on his back and savored them. Maybe if he didn't move, time would stand still. Or better yet, rewind – give them a few more days together. A few more days, and maybe he'd begin to understand his own heart. Why he hadn't said I love you back.
Well, he'd see her today, and maybe in those last few moments, he'd know.
Kurt, we're moving… Kurt…
"Kurt!"
He blinked sleepy yellow eyes.
"What are you doing? Shouldn't you be up by now?" came Kitty's voice, brisk as ever as she half-phased through the wall. His reliable, toothbrush-wielding defender of punctuality. "It's after seven o'clock!"
"What!?" He burst straight into the shower, leaving her choking on a sulphurous cloud. The boys' bathroom was mercifully empty. He grabbed the shampoo and lathered his hair.
Through the frosted shower door, he saw Kitty phase into the bathroom with the clothes he'd laid out for himself last night. "Your robes, Majesty," she said. If he'd been his normal self, he would have bowed.
"Thanks," he called over the spray. "So it's after seven? How much after seven?"
"Oh, like, seven-oh-six or something. 'Manda's flight isn't till nine, right?"
"Yeah, but she needs to go in earlier to board. Gott, I hope she waits."
"She'll wait," Kitty assured him. "It's her last few minutes with her boyfriend. Her parents will understand that much." She paused, and Kurt could sense the question hanging in the air. "… Will you still be her boyfriend after she moves?"
He frowned as he overloaded his hands with soap. "I don't know." The shower muted his answer somewhat, but he was fine with that. Louder, he said, "Why are you still in here anyway? Can't a guy get some privacy?"
"Come on, Fuzzy, anything you've got to show is just reruns for me."
"Kitty! I never knew you were a woman of such loose morals!"
"I prefer 'woman of specialized knowledge.'"
"And I prefer you get out."
She stuck out her tongue and disappeared through the wall. In spite of his mood, and his headache, he couldn't help smiling. Somehow Kitty managed to bring the sunshine wherever she went.
By the time he returned to his room, dry and clothed, the clock read 7:20. He decided (with deep regret) to forego breakfast after all, and ran a comb through his hair several times until it looked glossy. Then he smoothed in Scott's hair gel. Someone had left a dark tub of cologne in the medicine cabinet – a scent called "mountain musk," whatever that meant – so he'd nicked it too. He wasn't sure how to use it, so he shut his eyes and held the bottle at great distance to spritz it on, before realizing his error as he got a jet of liquid in his face. Great, now he'd spend the whole trip wondering if the smell was too strong. Oh well.
Throwing his backpack over his shoulder, he just remembered to grab his image inducer before bolting down the stairs.
As he passed the lounge, Bobby glanced up from his magazine and gave him a funny look. "Where are you off to in such a hurry?" he asked, never shifting from his lazy-morning sprawl on the sofa.
"Airport," Kurt mumbled.
"Can't you just 'port there?"
He shook his head. "Too far. Besides, I don't want to smell like rotten eggs for Amanda." Though that might be a moot point now that his fur was coated in mountain musk.
Bobby squinted at the top of his head. "Your hair looks stiff as a board."
Kurt doubled back to look himself over in the hall mirror and winced. Bobby was right – the gel had bound to his hair like plaster. He gave it an experimental poke. It had an unusual matted texture, like twine.
But Bad Hair Days would have to wait.
Scott's red convertible, the Queen, was missing from the garage. So were the two X-vans and Jean's SUV. Kurt looked around, bewildered, cursing himself for not reserving one of the vans when it was the weekend and he knew competition would be fierce.
Then he saw Her – Logan's bike, sleek, shining, groomed like a prized racehorse. Not that, even for a moment, he entertained the thought of stealing Her. In spite of the hour, he still hoped to make it to the airport looking more or less respectable. Which would not be likely after narrowly escaping a mauling once Logan got a whiff of his intentions. Logan's hypersensitive nose was not limited to the normal range of odors: Kurt was convinced that he could smell what people were thinking. (Hank would postulate something about picking up pheromones, but Kurt did not feel like sciencing it out right now.)
All the quads were latched up securely – not teleportation-proof, of course, but the minute he bamfed one out the Professor would know, and that would mean a month of X-jet cleaning duty.
Sometimes living in a house full of mutants sucked.
He surprised himself with how seriously he was considering taking the risk anyway, when Logan lumbered in.
"Gotta have a chaperone if you want to ride, Elf," he rasped around a cigarette.
If, instead of being Kurt, he were Kitty (or Jubilee, or Rogue, or Bobby), he'd say: "Then chaperone me, or I'm going on my own and you'll have to waste an hour chasing me down."
Since he was, lamentably, stuck with himself: "Pleeeease just this once don't tell, just this once! I will never do it again. After this once. And I will cover maintenance for a month."
Logan puffed a stream of smoke and plucked the cigarette from his mouth. "What's so important that it's made you go stupid?" he asked, grinding the butt into the floor with the toe of his shoe.
"Amanda," he blurted out, feeling embarrassed and pathetic.
"Ah. S'always some girl."
"She's moving. I have to be at the airport by eight. By eight. And I overslept and I didn't get any mints and my hair is hard as rock –"
"Shut up," Logan said, and: "Get on." He threw one leg over his bike, his beauty, and kicked it into gear. The engine went vrmmm, warming with power. In trying to hide his total and complete astonishment, Kurt screwed up his nose and mouth into an expression which Logan incorrectly read as nausea.
"Look, if you're gonna puke, just lean over the side."
"No! No," Kurt interrupted in a hurry, still not sure if Logan's unusual generosity would prove his saving grace or the instrument of his destruction, but either way he needed to get to Amanda, now. "There will be no puking. All internal organs will stay exactly where they are meant, which is out of my esophagus."
"I never know what the hell you're going on about," griped Logan under his breath as Kurt climbed on behind him. The bike thrummed as he searched for a comfortable position for his tail.
Logan handed him a helmet. After a moment's pause during which Kurt considered what effect helmet head might have on gel-stiff twine hair, he decided to leave it behind. If Logan noticed, he chose not to say anything. Good. It felt kind of stupid that he had to wear a helmet ever, when every day at four p.m. he was leaping around a "danger room" where the fears were simulated, but the pain was real. Besides, for all his daredevil exploits and flagrant shirking of rules, there weren't many bikers who could keep a passenger as safe as Wolverine could.
"Don't fall off," Logan instructed, and they sped down the drive.
Arriving at White Plains Airport on a motorbike made possibly an even flashier entrance than Scott's car would have. It was certainly louder. Kurt's heart rate didn't start to slow until they braked under the sign that read United Airlines, and then he hiccupped all the way inside.
"Hold up, Elf," Logan said, grabbing his arm and dragging him into the men's room. Logan never waited for anyone. In the bathroom, he looked Kurt up and down with an appraising scowl that made the hairs on his chin jut out. "Filched my cologne, did ya?"
Kurt froze. "That was yours?" He hadn't known Logan owned a bar of soap, let alone cologne. He stared at him sidelong. "... 'Mountain Musk'?"
"It was a gift from 'Ro," growled Logan irritably. "What, you thought I'd be a 'vanilla and eucalyptus' type of guy?"
This was quite possibly the most awkward conversation he'd ever had with the Institute's resident grumpy old man. "Well, sorry," he said, mystified.
"Not what I meant. Just sayin', it's kinda pungent. My senses might be tuned a notch or two higher than everyone else's, but I doubt anyone's gonna miss you coming for miles."
"Oh no," Kurt groaned. "What should I do?"
"Port around a few times," Logan suggested.
"That will make it worse!"
"At least you'll smell more like yourself."
He'd never heard a more distasteful plan, but he really didn't want Amanda to know how magnificently he'd messed up just making it this far. Without leaving the bathroom, he teleported into each separate stall, until he felt reasonably assured of his own stink. Fighting the urge to just forget everything and port home, he walked back toward Logan, who was covering his nose and grimacing.
"Well," Logan mused, "I think you'll get points for effort. Don't get all worked up," he added when Kurt let his shoulders slump. "You're always doin' weird things. Must be she likes that about you. Don't ask me why. And is that what you're wearing?"
"What's wrong with what I'm wearing?" Kurt said defensively, turning to peer in the mirror even as he spoke. His shirt had come untucked during the ride, but otherwise he thought he looked decent.
"Purple shirt with a collar, to see a girl off at the airport? Looks more like you're headin' to Easter service, choir boy."
"Unlike you, Amanda appreciates clothes that don't look like they've been slept in every day for a year."
"Come on, kid, lose the tie. You're sixteen goin' on sixty."
"Fine," Kurt muttered, wanting out of the debate. It was tiring. He yanked off the tie and jammed it in his pocket. "Happy?"
Logan only shrugged. "How about turnin' off that image-thingy?"
Kurt glared.
"Don't ya think she'd rather give her good-bye to the real you?"
"I am the real me," Kurt shot back. "Whether my face is behind a hologram or not. I don't want her parents to keep her from me. I don't want to cause a mass panic. I just want to see my girlfriend, and tell her thank you, and see you again."
Logan took a step back, out the door. When Kurt exited the bathroom, he'd already gone outside, and stood with his back against the window, puffing another cigarette. Kurt watched him for a second, struggling to hold on to his irritation, but grateful, really, that Logan cared enough to give him advice.
And then there was no more procrastinating.
There she was – the Main Event – huddled on a chair by a food stall. A Styrofoam coffee mug in one hand, napkin-wrapped bagel in the other. Her hair in a tumble of a thousand braids, silver beads strung throughout. Amanda.
Already he felt tongue-tied, and he hadn't even tried to say anything yet.
She spotted him and stood, leaving her food on the seat. Kurt forced his feet to move, determined to meet her, to not leave the bulk of the performance entirely on her shoulders. He owed her that much. But it was so hard.
"Hey," she said, once they'd come close enough to talk. Three feet of indifferently patterned carpet yawned between them.
"Hello," he choked out.
She smiled tremulously. Shyly. It didn't matter. She... she was so beautiful.
"I'm glad you came."
"Wouldn't have missed it."
Her dark eyes searched his face. The thing about Amanda was, he'd never been able to prevaricate with her. Not that he made much of a liar in general; he had an amazing list of tells, beginning with his tendency to babble and ending with the self-conscious swish of his treacherous tail. But there was something about her in particular that defied him – damned if he knew what it was, but it existed. Somewhere in the way one corner of her mouth subtly lifted when she was amused, in the eyebrow ring she'd decided to get to give her parents something else to be angry with her for other than dating him. And he was helpless before it. Any attempt to feint would be laughably useless.
He did not think teleportation was an especially interesting or impressive power, but at the very least, it should mean he could run away when he felt this terrified. But no matter how much he wanted out, this time, he had to stay.
"So... Wisconsin. I hear they've got really great... really great... cheese." Where even was Wisconsin? Manitoba?
"Cheese?"
"Yeah, uh, I looked on the Internet, and it's the biggest producer of cheese in the country, cheese of any kind you can think of. And people say cheese is great with wine. So you can go to a wine-tasting festival, and hit up the cheese mart on the way home."
She looked somewhat mystified. "Oh. Okay. Thanks."
"Although I guess you can't do that because Americans aren't allowed to drink until they're twenty-one. Scheiße, I forgot. Sorry."
"Well, I'll try to sneak a sip, just for you." She rubbed her thumb along his wrist. When had he taken her hands? "Kurt, I have to go through security in a few minutes."
So soon?
"Hold on, I have something for you." Assuming it hadn't been crushed during the motorbike debacle. He dug around his pocket, pulled out a little velvety box... and his crumpled tie, which he buried again with a hasty shove. "Oops."
"Did you bring a tie?" She was doing that one-corner-lift thing with her mouth.
"Hahah... yeah. I know, weird. Who brings a tie just to say good... It's not like this is a funer... who brings a tie to an airport? I mean, besides businessmen. And lawyers."
"And James Bond," Amanda added.
"And the Men in Black," Kurt grinned, feeling better about the tie now. None of those examples were slightly nerdy mutant teenagers, but still.
"And, uh. While I'm confessing things. Sorry about the smell. I tried to do something about it, but I probably should've just stepped on a stink bug."
"Is that you? I thought it was that sketchy-looking bratwurst stand over there." She stifled a giggle. Everything he did made her giggle. A lump formed in his throat as he clamped down on the feelings that threatened to bubble over. Everything he did made her giggle.
Damn, he really was not himself if he hadn't even noticed the brat stand.
He thrust the little box at her. "It's a going-away present. I know I'm woefully bad at guessing what you'll like when it comes to jewelry, but, I don't know, I saw it and –"
"Let me see," she said with a playful ring to her voice, plucking the box out of his palm and giving it a mock-critical look. He hadn't wrapped it, just taped a curl of ribbon to the top, so all she had to do was snap it open. "You don't have much taste in jewelry, but I forgive you. You try, and we women are hard to please. Supposedly we're what's known as 'fickle' – oh, Kurt!"
She actually squealed. He'd never heard her squeal before.
"You like it?" he ventured tentatively.
"Like it? Kurt, it's – oh, wow!" With a gentle tug she lifted the chain out of the box. The pendant swung down: a silver flowering tree enclosed in a circle. Amanda covered her mouth and stared as the tiny filigreed leaves caught in the light.
"You like it!" he exclaimed, barely managing to stomp down on the urge to backflip off the airport wall. "You like it, you do! I did good! I was thinking that it looked like the white tree of Gondor – because that was the first movie we watched together, and –"
She made a tearful sort of cooing sound. "We are such incurable geeks, Kurt! Oh gosh. It's so pretty. Help me put it on."
Of course it ended up that she did most of the work, the digits of his hands being far too bulky for the delicate task of threading the necklace chain and clasp. But he held her hair aside and helped guide her fingers. The brightness of the smile she turned on him afterward came from both her unexpected joy and the moisture in her eyes.
"Thank you so much," she said, and it seemed she could not contain herself any longer. She threw her arms around his neck. He wasted no time in pressing her to him.
"Now I'm doubly glad I didn't go for the bunny earrings," he said as he smiled into her neck.
"That makes two of us. Bunnies, Kurt?"
"Rahne thought they looked cute."
Amanda squeezed him before letting go, but he kept her close, fingers linked into her belt. "I hope you get them for Rahne, because I'm pretty sure that's what she was hoping you'd do."
The bunny earrings would take a chunk of his allowance, and that on top of the chunk he'd already paid for the necklace. But he didn't care. It was Amanda's idea, so giving the earrings to Rahne would be kind of like giving a present to her.
"So... so does this mean...?" Amanda bit her lip, looking up at him briefly. With soul-crushing hope.
His good mood evaporated. All this time, and he still hadn't made a decision. And as he stalled, the long hand of the clock ticked to 8:20; her parents were being surprisingly reasonable, letting them stay together this long, in spite of the fact that their boarding time was 8:40 and they still needed to pass security and find their gate. In spite of the fact that technically, they weren't supposed to be dating. In spite of the fact that he was a mutant – he was what they were moving to get away from.
Did they not understand that mutants were everywhere? That their new neighbors in Wisconsin – who lived in a two-story house with a wrap-around patio, who did tai-chi on the lawn every morning at eight and took one of those stolid family photos every year for their New Year's cards – that those average, normal, cozy Midwesterners could just as easily, were just as likely to be mutants as anyone in New York?
But maybe it wouldn't matter if they were. He suspected that their problem was less with mutants, and more with one mutant in particular. Him. Because their daughter loved him. Because he looked the way he did. Maybe they wouldn't care about his mutated genes if his blue eyes and pasty Teutonic complexion were more than just a hologram to mask the fact that he could never not be what he was, not even for a day. Not even for the most perfect girl in the world.
And they had every reason to understand. Margali was Roma, for God's sake. Her husband was black. You could find people of all types in New York without trying, but prejudice was as imprinted in society as Christmas, as hailing Philadelphia cheesesteak as the best there is without having tried it yourself. The Seftons understood. Their lives were comfortable, happy, but they understood.
Maybe this was all just to prevent their daughter from backtracking. From ending up in a place they'd done everything to protect her from. He couldn't blame them, if that were the case. To them he must look like a one-way ticket to the Morlock sewers.
The hope on Amanda's face had begun to die. He'd hesitated too long. "So the answer's no, then," she said quietly, letting her arms fall to her sides.
He stared at their feet as guilt flooded in. The answer wasn't no, but he – he wasn't even sure of the question. "Amanda. Listen. You are so important to me. These past months have been... the best in my life. I never imagined what I'd do if a situation like this popped up, because I never thought I'd get this far."
This wasn't perfectly true. If anything could be said about Kurt Wagner, it was that he had a very active imagination. He thought about going with girls who didn't mind his fur and pointed ears. Sweet, cheerful girls who maybe even liked his strangeness. He just never invested much in believing in them beyond the world of daydreams.
Amanda was the epitome of kindness. She liked the same kind of movies he did, and joked around with him as if they'd known each other forever. She chewed her lip when she was nervous. When she danced her body became a river.
He made himself forge on. "You're off to a new place. You'll meet so many new people. Who knows when we'll be able to see each other again? I don't want to tie you down –"
"Please, Kurt," Amanda interrupted. "If I didn't want to be 'tied down' I'd break up with you myself. Don't make a decision for me – make it for you. I've already made mine." She paused. "As for meeting new people, we're already partway through our senior year. No one transfers now, Kurt, no one. Everyone wants to spend their last year with their friends. With the people they've studied with and goofed off with for four years. I'm sure I'll make friends, but it's going to be hard to break in at this point. Especially since I would rather be here."
"Don't worry about that, Amanda. Everyone likes you. I bet you wind up prom queen, new girl."
"Mmm, you know I'll take any excuse to wear a tiara."
Their attempts at levity went stale in the air.
"My dad's calling," Amanda said, reluctantly, toying with the necklace.
Desperation began to overwhelm him. "Maybe we should just leave things like they are."
"You mean do long distance?"
"We could try. We have cell phones, and I'm not so bad at texting if I poke at the keys with a pencil. Wisconsin's too far for me to teleport, but –"
"Mandy! Let's go," bellowed her father over the tidal noise of the airport.
"– But I might be able to fly out and take you to prom," Kurt finished.
Amanda hugged him. "Okay. Let's do that." Leaning up and kissing him, her hands found his again, and there was something telling about the gentle way she squeezed them. She knew he was only saying what he thought she wanted to hear. But it made sense to try things her way, since he didn't know what he wanted himself. Long distance relationships were not always doomed. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Maybe everything would work out.
"I meant it, you know." She blinked away tears. "I really love you."
The lump in his throat coalesced into a sharp, solid mass, a bulging splinter of flint. "Yeah. I – I –"
"Amanda, now! I'm sorry, honey. We're out of time." Margali stepped between them, a hand on her daughter's arm.
Amanda threw him another sad look over her shoulder. Her fingers fluttered in a hint of a wave. "Bye, Kurt."
"Bye," he forced out, in a daze. He watched as she disappeared into the line of frantic travelers going through security. On the chair her coffee and bagel lay forgotten.
Now she was searching her pocketbook for her boarding ticket. Now she was going through the body scanner. Now he could no longer see her. She must be headed for her gate, towing her carry-on, shoulders tight, braids swinging, probably resolved to speak to her parents as little as possible in return for this mid-semester uprooting.
He stayed at the barrier long after she'd gone, watching her flight number on the departures board until the plane took off, allowing himself a moment of self-pity. He'd expected to feel sad, lonely – cursed. But that niggling sense of unfinished business itched like nothing else. And he had only his own indecision to blame.
A/N: Thanks for reading! If you liked it, a comment would totally make my day! Next chapter coming soon.
