Procrastination
Written for Genarti for Yuletide 2007

"I think I should start wearing my hair like this every day," Illyana said, managing to not look at Dani and yet look at her at the same time, anticipating her reaction.

Dani tried to make a grumpy face, but failed. "You look more like Heidi than a Cheyenne," she said, eyeing Illyana's freshly-braided hair.

"Heidi?"

"The little Dutch girl--"

"--I think she was Swedish," Doug piped up unhelpfully.

"Dutch or Swedish or Austrian or something. Red cheeks, button nose, hair always in braids, wooden shoes--"

"I'm not wearing wooden shoes," Illyana sniffed. "What was this, a cartoon show or something?"

"A book."

"Well, I wasn't trying to look like Dani," Illyana said. "I just wanted to try out her hairstyle."

"We've already wasted half an hour doing your hair," Doug pointed out, glancing at his watch. "Didn't you two tell me that you wanted to study?"

"I, at least, was lying, as demon queens are wont to do," Illyana said airily, already undoing one braid that Dani had spent nearly ten minutes on. "Ooooh, it makes my hair wavy. I bet if I did it up like this when it was wet and--"

"We only have one hour left before training in the Danger Room," Doug persisted. "It's trigonometry now or trigonometry never."

"I had my turn," Illyana said, completely ignoring him. "Now it's either Dani's or Doug's turn. Hmmmmm." She twirled in her desk chair, eyeing Dani and Doug in turn. Dani was sitting on a beanbag chair, an unopened trigonometry textbook tossed casually at her feet. Doug was sitting on Illyana's bed, looking increasingly impatient. He had been a good sport when Illyana had originally delayed their study session with her insistence that Dani do her hair, but Illyana knew that even easygoing Doug had his limits.

Well, she liked to push limits.

"The mystic finger," she intoned, waving her finger back and forth between Dani and Doug, "shall choose, according to this ancient and bloody creed: Eenie, Meenie, Miney, Moe!"

Doug blinked at the finger pointing squarely at the center of his face.

"Makeover!" Illyana declared, standing dramatically up out of her chair.

"Trigonometry!" Doug countered, holding up his textbook like a shield.

Illyana glanced at Dani, wondering which side Dani would take. She shouldn't have wondered. Dani may have been the mature and responsible leader, but even she wasn't adverse to having fun - when the proper opportunity presented itself. Dani grabbed at Doug's shoulder and said, "Come on. Thirty minutes. Then we'll study for thirty minutes. Promise."

"Whatever you're going to do to me, make sure that you can undo it before we have to go to the Danger Room..."

"I'm a sorceress," Illyana said. "Trust me."

"I know that you're a sorceress, but are you also a beautician?"

"Of sorts." Illyana climbed onto the bed beside Doug. She plucked at the shoulder of his short. "Your problem, Douggie-boy, is that you're so straight-up and boring." She frowned to herself for a moment. "Well, that does seem to be the type that Kitty goes for, but--"

"Ouch," Doug said.

"Hey," Dani added. "'Yana, that was..."

"Uncalled for. I'm sorry. But look at him, Dani! He's like Blonde Peter Junior. Only with brains."

Dani laughed. "I'll tell your brother that you said that."

"He knows I don't mean it."

"Um," Doug said, "Excuse me, but, could we please stop rubbing salt into the open Kitty wound?"

"Yes. Okay. No more rubbing salt in Doug's wounds, I promise." Illyana raised her hand solemnly. "Now, let's makeover!" She frowned at Doug again, assessing him. "Hmmmmm. I'm thinking we should really go for something unusual. Something outside his comfort zone."

"Oh, great." Doug rolled his eyes. But Illyana could tell that we was still willing to play along, at least for the time being.

"I'm thinking that Doug would look particularly good in the fashions of Limbo," Illyana said. "Chainmail pants, leather vest, maybe some attractive scarring on his bare chest--"

"NO," Doug said. "I am willing to wear a silly hat, though. But no chainmail pants. Nuh-uh."

"Silly hat it is then." Illyana turned toward Dani. "Do we have any silly hats?"

"If Professor Xavier is hiding a secret stash of silly hats somewhere in this mansion, I'll eat my shoes."

"So no silly hats, then." Illyana frowned. "Where is Warlock? He could be a silly hat."

"Warlock could be anything," Dani said. "We should make sure that he's with us the next time that we try to play dress-up in order to avoid having to do homework."

Illyana nodded sagely. She had seen Warlock cover Doug's body with his own mass before, making him appear as a robot or a muscleman or anything else Warlock's alien fancy happened to think of. Warlock could make a person look like anything, and he would have fun doing it, too. Warlock could make a person look like a mermaid or a dinosaur or a giant fat blob--

Illyana suddenly felt her thoughts grinding to a halt.

Damn. I didn't want to think about that. Dammit, I was trying NOT to think about that!

"What is it?" Dani asked, apparently having seen the sudden dark look on Illyana's face.

"Nothing," Illyana said quickly. She couldn't tell Dani that she had suddenly remembered Xian. For days they had all been working so hard to stay upbeat and cheerful, for Xian's sake. They were always smiling, always playing, always laughing all the time, especially when Xian was around. None of them could bear the look on Xian's face - or could bear the look of her hideous bloated body, Illyana privately allowed herself to admit. What had happened to Xian was unimaginable, horrible, and cruel. And Illyana knew that her teammates all felt the same way that she did about Xian. They sympathized with her, they pitied her, they feared that the same could happen to them, they didn't want Xian to feel bad, they were terried of her fatness as they had all been conditioned into being terrified of fatness from the age when they had seen their very first fashion model, they were ashamed of being afraid of her fatness, they were ashamed of being disgusted by her, and all they could do was be cheerful for her sake because they were afraid to do anything else.

That was why Doug was trying to hard to return to a routine of normality, with these study sessions. That was why Illyana was trying so hard to goof off and have fun, so that she wouldn't have to think about the elephant--

--Dammit, Illyana, even your inner monologue is tasteless and cruel!--

--in the other room.

"In the absence of silly hats," Doug said, opening up his textbook, "I think that we actually should do some real studying."

Illyana sighed, defeated. "I did want to see you in chainmail pants and a leather vest," she said.

"I'll tell Roberto that you said that."

Illyana stepped back toward her desk and picked up her trigonometry textbook reluctantly. "Hey, I've got an idea," she suddenly said, holding her textbook without opening it.

"Enlighten us," Dani said.

"We study for thirty minutes," Illyana suggested, "And then we go pay X'ian a visit."

Silence. Then Dani nodded. "Yes," she said. "Yes, we should. She needs us."

Doug nodded, perfectly echoing Dani's gesture.

"Then it's settled." Illyana sat down on the bed beside Doug, and opened up her book. "Teach me, o wise Mathematician. I can understand the inner secrets of the universe and travel between worlds at a whim, but this stuff? It's still gibberish to me."

"Then we're going to need more than thirty minutes." Doug frowned, catching himself. "Sorry. X'ian is more important."

"Yeah," Illyana said quietly, "she is." More important than spontaneous makeovers or silly hats or jokes about Doug's failed crush on Kitty. More important than any of the things that Illyana and her teammates were doing in order to pretend to still be happy and normal, in order to avoid their friend when she truly needed them the most.

Illyana sighed inwardly as Doug began explaining something from the trigonometry book. X'ian, we're going to find some way to fix what happened to you, Illyana swore silently. I'll find some way. I promise.