Disclaimer: I don't own XME.
Tail
"Oh my god," Kitty came forward to the little pompom of dirty fur. It squeaked weakly and Kitty caught a glimpse of a mouth with tiny, sharp little teeth, pale gums, and a pink tongue. She could make out four little legs, a short tail, and two tiny rounded triangles of ears.
"Its eyes aren't even open yet," Kurt said, transferring the tiny kitten to his other hand. "It must be only a day old."
"We can't just leave it here," Kitty said, her mind churning. "What do we do with it?"
"I say ve take it home," Kurt said, looking out of the loading bay up the Institute, which sat on a hill overlooking downtown Bayville. "I zink I can teleport home."
"But what about Scott's—" Kitty was cut off as Kurt grabbed her wrist and the two disappeared with a muffled bamf! Half a second later, the two reappeared with a flash of light, another bamf, and the smell of brimstone in the lobby of the Mansion. Kurt switched off his image inducer and let his tail free. Then, he bounded off down the hall toward the medical bay on four legs, with the kitten clutched in his tail. Kitty had no choice but to follow Kurt to the medical bay.
Kurt skidded to a stop outside the glass doors of the medical bay as Hank McCoy, the mutant who acted as doctor, was closing the door behind him.
"Where's the fire?" he asked with a smile.
"Keety and I found zis keeten in a Dumpster – I don't zink it's healzy." Kurt said very quickly, standing up straight and taking the kitten from his tail, which dropped to swish with agitation. Hank took the kitten from Kurt and held it up to his face to look critically at it.
"You're right. It's not healthy. Judging by how small it is and how its eyes aren't open, I'd wager to say it's only a day or two old."
Hank opened the door to the medical bay and walked in, shadowed by Kurt, as Kitty came panting around the corner. She slipped in as the door was closing, apparently unnoticed by the two men.
"I don't think it's good that its gums are, like, pale like that," Kitty breathed as she looked around Kurt at the ball of fur on the exam table.
"You're right. Pale gums indicate poor blood flow and or malnutrition. I'd say both. Let me see . . . you two can clean it up, and I can give it some vitamins. After that, you two will have to clear it with the Professor if you want to keep it here." Hank said, looking up at the two teens, who were still standing quite still, staring at the kitten. "Well, get to work!"
Kitty and Kurt snapped into action. Kurt picked the kitten up gingerly and took it over to the sink, which Kitty was filling with warm water. Kurt put his hand in the water and splashed a little on the kitten, which mewled faintly but didn't protest much. It didn't have the energy to. Kitty took over the kitten, using the advantage of her ten fingers over Kurt's six to wash it by rubbing little circles in its wet fur until the dirt and mud started coming out.
"I have an idea – vait here!" Kurt said suddenly, teleporting away with a puff of acrid black smoke that left Kitty coughing slightly.
"Where do you think I'm going to go?" Kitty muttered sarcastically, still rubbing the little cat. Seconds later, Kurt reappeared, holding a pink bottle. Kitty looked at it.
"Hey! That's my, like, shampoo!" she protested. Kurt ignored her and squeezed some onto his hand and put it on the kitten. Soon, the kitten and the filthy water were covered in suds. Kitty pulled the plug in the sink and let the brown, tepid water drain away before turning the faucet on warm again. She rinsed the soap and remaining dirt out of the kitten's fur.
Kurt went and found a towel to dry the little cat with. He gave it to Kitty and watched carefully as she rubbed the kitten's fur the opposite direction.
"Vy are you doing zat?" Kurt questioned.
"I saw it on animal cops. When you have a wet puppy or kitten, you, like, rub their fur the wrong way so it warms them up and, like, dries them faster." Kitty explained, setting the now clean kitten down on the towel. Hank came back into the medical bay and looked at the clean kitten sitting on the towel.
"Good job, you two. Now I can tell where its mouth is," he said somewhat jokingly. Hank picked up the kitten on the towel and put it back under the light on the exam table. He walked off to go get something and came back with a dropper with thick golden liquid in it. "This is a vitamin mix to help it. If it's as malnourished as I expect, it will have to have three milligrams of this every day until its gums start getting color. Meanwhile, you two go to the Professor and hope he'll let you keep it. I'll find a recipe for cat's milk. I think it's something like cow's milk with honey and baking soda . . ."
Hank walked off with the kitten. Kitty looked at Kurt expectantly. He sighed and held out his arm for her to hold on to. With a bamf and a flash of light, the two appeared in the Professor's study. He looked up from his desk with mild surprise at the arrival.
"Professor, we found a kitten in town today –" Kitty began breathlessly.
"And ve vant to know if you'll let us keep it—" Kurt continued.
"We'd take care of it and it wouldn't get into trouble—"
"It'd stay in Keety's room—"
"So can we please keep it?" Kitty implored. The Professor looked at them over steepled fingers.
"Taking care of a pet, no matter how small, is not an easy task. You two would have to get together some funds to get the necessary supplies for a kitten, and you would also have to keep your word and keep it out of trouble. I'm afraid to say that it would have to be confined to Kitty's room. We can't have a cat wandering the mansion – lord knows what would happen if it managed to get into Cerebro or the Danger Room," he mused.
Kitty and Kurt looked on hopefully as the Professor made up his mind.
"You may keep the kitten."
The two smiled at him and Kitty said,
"You're the best, Professor X!" before Kurt teleported them back to the medical bay. The kitten, wrapped in the towel, was back on the exam table, but appeared to be fast asleep.
"I just fed the kitten. You'll have to give it some of this milk about every hour – even at night. It appears that this kitten is a boy, but I'm not sure what breed it is. Perhaps you'd know, Kitty." Hank said, handing Kitty a bottle of thick, off-white liquid. She put the bottle down out of the way and bent down to get a closer look at the kitten. Kitty spent several minutes looking at the kitten before straightening up and announcing,
"I think it's a Maine Coon. It has, like, an 'M' on its forehead and long hair, which are, like, characteristics of the breed."
"A Maine Coon?" Kurt repeated. He wasn't very familiar with cats.
"Yeah. Maine Coons are one of the biggest breeds of, like, domestic cats. They came from Scandinavia with the Vikings." Kitty said, knowing this because she liked to watch Cats 101 on Animal Planet.
"So what did the Professor say?" Hank asked.
"He said ve could keep him," Kurt said. He picked the cat up gently. The kitten yawned and squeaked. Kurt stroked the cat lightly with the tip of his tail, and to everyone's surprise, it opened its eyes and purred. "I like ze name Cyrus. How about you?"
Kitty nodded, and stroked Cyrus's head with one finger.
"Let's, like, take him to my room now," Kitty suggested. Kurt nodded and started walking to the door. "What, no teleporting?"
"I don't vant to . . . ich weiβ nicht, kill Cyrus," Kurt retorted sharply, saying, 'I don't want to, oh, I don't know, kill Cyrus.'
Kitty shrugged and followed him. Up two flights of stairs, Kurt pushed open the door to Kitty's room. He looked around and saw the room was pretty neat, with the exception of the bureau, which had makeup scattered over it, and the mirror, which had a message written on it in lipstick.
Live, love, laugh, and someday, love again from past life.
Kurt couldn't identify the handwriting, and just as he was about to get a closer look, Kitty walked in and ran over to the bureau. She shoved the makeup in one of the drawers, and Kurt caught a glimpse of what had made Kitty so panicked: the little blue box. He turned away and put Cyrus on the bed and watched Kitty finish stashing her makeup and tuck the ends of her bangs behind her ears.
"What? Why are you, like, looking at me like that?" Kitty asked rather sharply, turning to face him and perching on the bureau.
"Nozing," Kurt said distractedly. How had he never noticed so many things about her? The way she tucked her bangs back when she was nervous, or the way she batted her eyelashes at him when she said she was making fun of him, but he knew she was flirting? How she said they were only best friends, but he knew she wanted them to be more?
"And to think you lost your mother," Kitty commented harshly. Kurt's mind tore back to Margali. Depression flooded his head again, like a drug. He frowned at her. Why did she have to bring that up?
"I vas in such a good mood before you said zat," Kurt stated sourly, picking Cyrus up to distract himself. The kitten mewed when Kurt lifted him off the bed, and the boy realized he was being a little rough. He softened his touch and absentmindedly petted him.
"What would you do if I, like, died tomorrow?" Kitty asked suddenly, making Kurt's head snap up.
"Vat? Vy vould you ask such a stupid qvestion as zat?" Kurt demanded.
"I just wanted to know," Kitty tucked her hair back again. Nervous.
"Vell, I vould be sad," Kurt began, frowning and trying to imagine what it would feel like.
"You would only be sad?" Kitty asked coyly, batting her eyelashes. Flirtatious. What was she trying to do? Ruin him with all these emotions?
"I vould be very sad. All ze vomen in my life vould be dying!" Kurt said with a hint of humor, playing into Kitty's hands.
"Really? And what would you do if I decided to do this?" Kitty murmured, crossing the floor between the bureau and the bed quickly. She was so close to him, the tiny space between their bodies practically crackling with the tension. Kurt breathed in her rich, warm scent and put Cyrus down. Kitty looked through her eyelashes at him and placed her fingers, one at a time, carefully on his cheek. Kurt felt helpless, lost in her eyes and scent, nothingness swirling in his mind except Kitty – her wonderful closeness, the temptation, the desire . . . he wanted Kitty to just kiss him already! And then, it was gone. All gone.
"Don't play viz me like zat! It's not fair," Kurt protested weakly. He looked up and Kitty was, once again, perched on the bureau, smiling slightly.
"It's fair enough . . . you're so fun to toy with," Kitty said seductively, daring him to come closer, to advance, to take what he wanted and have fun with it. Kurt shook his head and picked the cat up again. Cyrus had a calming influence on him. Kurt caught the sound of car tires rumbling up the drive and he went to the window. Kitty, all thoughts of messing with Nightcrawler's affections gone, followed and looked over his shoulder at the car.
It was a dull grey-green Jeep. Lance's Jeep. Lance Alvers was another mutant that chose not to join the student body of the Institute in favor of the troupe of mutants Mystique commanded at the run-down Bayville Brotherhood Boarding House. He seemed to like Kitty, and for appearances' sake, Kitty pretended to like him. Lance had often tried to go on a date to the movies with Kitty, but she either refused point-blank or arranged something quickly with Rogue or Kurt. Rogue was Kitty's good friend and used to be her roommate, until a room opened up and Kitty and Rogue were able to have their own rooms.
"I'd better go, like, intercept him before he sees you or Scott," Kitty said quickly, sinking through the floor to the Library, which was beneath her room. From the Library, she would phase through the wall into the lobby to get Lance. Kurt stayed upstairs with Cyrus, who had fallen asleep in his arms. Once Cyrus was tucked up in his towel, Kurt teleported back to his room and went straight to the chandelier to hang upside down, his favorite way to think.
*
Twenty minutes later, after Kitty managed, just barely, to turn Lance away, she phased back up to her room and found Kurt gone, but Cyrus in his towel. Kitty knew Kurt well enough to know that he had gone back to his room. She phased through her door out into the hallway and down to Kurt's room, knocking before entering.
"What's, like, on your mind?" Kitty asked. Stupid question. She knew what was on his mind.
"I don't know if I should go back to Germany to see Jimaine und Stefan. Our mozzer died, and I'm still here, in America. If your mozzer died, vouldn't you go back home to see her buried?" Kurt asked from the chandelier. He let go of the metal and dropped, but right before he hit the ground, teleported and ended up standing in front of Kitty.
"Well, yeah, I guess," Kitty said. Kurt's intense gaze was uncomfortable.
"I need to go see ze Professor und ask him if I could go back to Germany," Kurt said, more to himself as he started walking away, to his mirror.
"Yeah . . . but Fuzzy, how long would you, like, be gone?" Kitty asked. Kurt didn't seem to hear her.
"I caused Margali to die," he said quietly to his reflection, then whirled around and addressed Kitty. "Two veeks, at most."
"Oh, that's, like, a long time," Kitty said.
"Not nearly long enough for vat I'm going for. Kätzchen, do you mind if you give me some space?" Kurt asked. Kitty shook her head and left the room. As soon as the heel of Kitty's sandal had disappeared through the door, Kurt turned back to the mirror.
"Vy do you kill people, Kurt? Do you like killing people? Maybe you don't even know you're doing it . . . or do you?" Kurt asked his reflection. "You're ze reazon Margali died, you know. You killed her. Stefan und Jimaine vould never do anyzing like zat, so vy do you do it? Anyvay, Margali vasn't your real mozzer. She found you wrapped in a blanket floating down ze river. She took you in because she felt sorry for you. Margali war falsch. Du bist ein hässlicher Dämon!"
Instead of working himself into rage by saying, 'Margali was wrong. You are a horrible demon!' Kurt slumped forward and let his head hit the mirror. He was tired of emotions. He didn't want to be depressed, but he was. It rebelled against his nature to be depressed, yet at the same time, when he acted happy, it felt to him as if he didn't care that Margali died for him. There was a gentle knock on the door, but Kurt didn't hear, withdrawn into himself as he slid down the wall to sit with his knees to his chest and tail curled around his feet, eyes staring at nothing.
"Kurt? Are you feeling okay?" It was Evan Daniels, one of Kurt's good friends. Though Evan was talking rather loudly, Kurt didn't hear. He was lost inside himself with no hope of getting out; it was like walking into a pit of tar. One way ticket: in, not out.
"Hey, Kurt!" Evan came over and shook his shoulder. Acting on instinct alone, Kurt jumped up suddenly, baring his fangs and growling like a cornered dog. Evan jumped backwards and held out his hands, as if to stop Kurt from doing something.
"Kurt, Kurt, it's me! You know me! Evan!" Evan's shouts fell only on Kurt's deaf ears. He advanced, growling lowly.
Kurt, stop!
Professor X was attempting to reach Kurt telepathically. Kurt turned his head around, looking for where his voice had come from, growling more loudly. The door to Kurt's room opened and Jean ran in and took in the scene.
Kurt, I'm warning you, back down.
Jean was now trying to talk to him through her mind. Kurt snarled at her.
"You leave me no choice," Jean said sadly. She put her hands to her temples in concentration. A sharp blast of energy narrowly missed Evan, but hit Kurt full-on. He was strong, but not that strong. The boy fell to the floor, eyes rolled back in his head. Jean levitated him out the door and down the hallway. Evan didn't know where she was taking him, but it was either the medical bay or Professor X's study. He went back to his room to clean his skateboard.
Kitty came out of her room as Jean walked past. She saw Kurt being levitated down the hall.
"Jean! What happened?" Kitty shouted. Jean shook her head.
"I'll tell you in a minute." Kitty sighed. Nobody ever said 'in a minute' and came back and told you what happened.
*
In the Professor's study, Kurt had been laid down on the couch and the Professor, Jean, Storm, Logan, and Scott were standing around him.
"So whaddya gonna do to the Elf?" Logan asked.
"First, we have to find what's causing his very uncharacteristic aggression. Then, we can help him with whatever's going on," the Professor said, putting his hands on Kurt's temples.
"This could be hard."