Title: Our Own Fairy Tales
Summary: "Be American and read something prolific for your troubles, fool." A piece on Kurt/Todd for the friendly at heart. One-shot.
Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Man franchise, I make no money off of writing this. I also don't own Lolita, Catcher in the Rye or Murder by Numbers.
Warning: I suck at accents and so don't expect much there.
Dedication: All because of the wonderful Lady Devonna. The fic 'Ripples' has kept me awake trying to finish reading for the last week and I am anticipating chapters to come with fingers crossed. Seeing as I can't shake her hand and throw a party in honor of that fic (GO and READ it NOW), I'll settle for putting this out instead.
-:-
Certain things they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone. I know that's impossible, but it's too bad anyway.
-Catcher in the Rye.
Sometimes, walking through a park when it's freezing cold and people can see their breathe in the air, is like living a fairy tale for just a second that can maybe stretch out for five minutes. Or, at least, that was Todd Tolansky's opinion, fingers pressing deep into his rather threadbare grey jacket (he'd had the thing since most of the Brotherhood and X-Geeks had come to an almost unanimous decision that they should go about their lives and not fight each other; a great idea in theory, but in practice Summers and Lance still got into verbal arguments, the old people still remained on shaky ground and everyone pretty much stuck to their own corners except for the girls that actually went out together at the mall) to retain some heat before it got sucked out of him. He really needed to buy gloves before the full brunt of winter came along and the affects of his mutation started making it difficult to leave the breaking house he called his residence and get to school or the library without falling into a coma (it happened the year before and Lance could be a real mother hen when he thought one of the boys or Wanda was going to die even after he dragged them back from some alley and spent two hours piling hot water bottles and blankets on top of them).
He wouldn't have even been in the park, walking along the gum riddled and water fowl excreted upon sidewalk that traced the grooves of the tiny little pond at the far end of the place, but he wanted to get to the library and check out some book they'd been talking about in class that afternoon. He wasn't going to do the report or anything, but it sounded interesting at least and gave him the excuse to sit in the fantastically warm building until closing. And it was quiet there—no Pietro complaining about where his hair products had gone or Wanda yelling up from the kitchen how it was good to share—with few people to make nasty little faces at his scent. He'd be hiding in one of the third floor corners in the classical literature section anyway (nobody walked around there that was his age and recognized him from the news; and even if there were, it was a public place and so, legally, he couldn't be thrown out unless he was caught vandalizing something or whatever).
His breathe floated up in a little silver and white cloud as he hopped over a log that had been breaching onto the sidewalk since the fall when they'd had a freak windstorm (not by the white haired chick from the X mansion, but still weird) that had shattered an old willow into oblivion. In a way, it made the place prettier and more natural, so despite the pain in the ass it was to go around it, the city council had decided to let it stay until it rotted away naturally. Todd landed precariously close to the pond, but didn't slip on the ice leading to it, so it was okay by him.
The book, the book he'd wanted to look into at the library (when he got there a few minutes later, the dead feeling of his skin being felt up and dismantled by the wonderful heat provided through the extra large vents on every floor) was actually in the hands of a certain of the X-Geeks when he got up to the third floor and found the spot the book had occupied empty like a hole in a cloud when a plane passes through the body of its expanse. Kurt Wagner (or Fuzzball or Nightcreeper, whatever name fit depending on what mood the Toad was in when confronted with the other) was sitting in one of those cushy seats the city usually sprang for so the patrons of the library would be more inclined to come back often enough to give reason for the place to stay open, a set of identical seats standing like the four corners of the earth beside and across from him. He looked comfortable reading 'Lolita' by Vladimir Nabokov (this version of the book bigger than the one Todd had broken into the literary teacher's desk to get a peek at before he'd headed out of school and then gathered the nerve to visit to hall of knowledge that was quiet and not loud like the school) so if Todd wanted to get his hands on the thing he would either have to wait it out or set up a scenario in which Kurt would leave in a huff (preferably without taking the book with him).
Being himself, Todd picked the second option and started humming a chord from one of the bands Lance had a tendency to play on the crappy radio he had while working on his jeep (a little spiel that went "…There really isn't any need for bloodshed…If you do it with a little more finesse…"), trailing along the rest of the bookshelves (in and out of sight like one of those weird birds in slasher films that showed up just before the murderer or monster or Headless Horseman) in search of another book to occupy his time.
He settled next to a row of Salinger novels and short stories, perfectly in sight through the parts in the bookcases (it allowed for Nightcrawler to see Toad's middle, knees, dirt and snow mottled shoes and his chest leading up to his Adam's Apple) and upped to volume of his humming as he pulled out 'Catcher in the Rye'. This was a book he'd been told by Lance explicitly to read (it was like half of his final grade or something and Avalanche wanted him to try for the love of God) and review for a school paper and turn in on time or the older mutant would kick his ass and never give him a ride again. He'd done as asked (threatened) and found it wasn't terrible, but actually kind of cool book. It was written out in a way that was the quintessential teenage language (swearing every other paragraph, violence, suicide, male hookers—small wonder it had been banned in quite a few town and public libraries for, what, thirty-plus years) and so Todd had turned in the paper and gotten a moderately good grade for his work (the only B he'd gotten in that class since he lost interest in everything but his own survival).
He hadn't noticed he'd stopped humming (what, it wasn't like he didn't entirely appreciate literature; it was just he had no interest in explaining it on paper to a teacher that seemed to think he knew the answers to everything) until he smelled hint of daylight scented cologne (wonderful how some perfume places could snap up the ingredients to make a person smell like a warm hamper in a way that wasn't awful and too heavy) mixed with light traces of sulfur. Then he turned around nonchalantly and found Fuzzy glaring holographic features at him. Perhaps in his real form Kurt would look a little scary (not to Toad of course, they'd fought to many times for him to be scared of him even in the beginning of their mutual rivalry), but as he stood with Caucasian skin and five fingers on each hand with no tail visibly lashing behind him like an angry cat, Todd just greeted him with a smile showing his colored teeth and a wave a five year old would give an adult, "Yo."
"Vhat are you doing here, Toad?" Kurt growled lowly, abiding by library policy to retain a low decibel if he was to speak.
The Lolita book was held in hand so Todd took the opportunity to point at it with the hand not holding onto the Catcherbook like it was the X-Man's fault entirely, "Came lookin' to impov on my current standin' in school. But, uh, seein' as you have what I was aimin' for, I thought I'd make myself busy until you put it back or whatever."
Kurt blinked and then looked down at the book in his hand, obviously a little stunned at the unsettling grin directed at him from the Brotherhood boy. The leather of the spine slid along his wrist as he looked at the title before looking back at Toad. He seemed expectant, and Kurt didn't know why, but he didn't like it very much. Thus, coming to the conclusion that it would be good to get more information, he opened his mouth, "It's not a school assignment. Vhy vould you bother vith it if you couldn't get anything out of doing so? The only reason I hear you read that book," he pointed to the little thing in Todd's hand, pages moving back and forth where they could as the grip on it wasn't very tight and almost threatened the chance of falling to the floor if Toad moved, "Vas that Lance made you."
The hairs on the back of Todd's neck prickled at that. His grip tightened on the spine of the book and he slipped it easily back where it came from (not smashing the cover against the other book and with no damage at all; almost a reassurance that he wasn't lying, in Kurt's opinion), before shoving his hands back into his coat pockets, "Lance can't make me do anythin', fool."
Kurt gave him a look and Todd changed gears for a second.
"Okay, he can, but that don't mean he did."
The look remained and, to prevent himself from having to elaborate and dig further into his own grave, his hand flitted out and nabbed the Lolita book from Kurt with no real complication as Kurt didn't think he was about to do it. The wonders of being a pick-pocket since as long as Todd could remember.
"I think the bigger question here is why you, dawg, are reading something that, if I remember the teacher's words right, is considered extreme even in this day and age? It's not an assignment, after all, yo."
Instead of looking embarrassed or chagrined at having the book snatch away from him (a part of his character that Toad liked to bring to the light for reasons he never could pinpoint, but would continue to enjoy as long as he could get away with it) or even insulted at the hints the other put out, Kurt folded his arms in front of his chest (he looked a little like Scott when training new recruits, which Todd found creepy) and gave a little half smile, "I've already read that book since I vas rather young. The teacher just reminded me about it today. I've never read it in English so I thought I'd see how different it was from German or Russian."
"…And?" Todd questioned, leafing through to the chapter the teacher had called a "tremendously bold" thing to write about in any country; the chapter the middle-aged Humbert Humbert took Dolores Hayes to a fine hotel. Not that he was a perv; he just wanted to see if the literature teacher had been pulling the leg of everyone in class.
Not as though it mattered that he was talking to Todd Tolansky (technically speaking, the Brotherhood was not operating as it used to before the whole problem with the Egyptian crazy mutant, so there was no real harm in talking. If anyone asked, he would just tell them it was about school—not a lie), Kurt brought a hand to his chin and made himself look contemplative before answering with, "Eh, it's different. I mean, it has the same general tones, but in English it seems much more raw and precise than in Russian and more—how you say—morbid than in German."
If something could be more morbid in English than it was in German than that would be something, in the Toad's opinion, worth reading. Like the original Grimm's Fairy Tales.
"If you've already read it, then you don't really need this, do ya?"
Kurt let out a mix between a sigh and a snort (not attractive, but then, why should he try to be when the situation was obvious and pathetically so?) and stepped out from behind the book shelf they found themselves talking almost civilly behind, out of sight from the other patrons that were not around the third floor so close to closing time, "Take it. Just don't ruin it—it's a classic."
Before the Nigthcrawler could wander back over to the chair he had been sitting in before being annoyed by the humming of the other mutant (he'd heard that song too many times in the morning as that was Scott's alarm tone, he could recognize it even if it was hummed through a harmonica under-water), he found a book tossed over his head and directly into his seat. The cover had a red horse blazing on the platform of a merry-go-round and that was all Kurt looked at before turning around to whisper harshly at the Toad not to mistreat the books of a public library (how pathetic he felt about that was private).
Todd looked completely unrepentant as he made way back down the giant staircases that lead to every floor of the library and called over his shoulder, "Be American and read something prolific for your troubles, fool. That one's actually kinda good for something written in the early fifties. Aside from that, you have a nice day."
"…Uh, danke." No need not to be polite, at least.