Disclaimer: I wish I could just steal my lil' Cyclops and run away with him, but sadly I'd get in big trouble. So I'll only be burrowing Scott for a good long while. (In otherwords, I own nothing.)

Fun fact: this chapter was actually inspired by a quiz I saw online. Though the Wafer part...

Nilla Wafers

July 2nd, 1977
1:43 am

Nights were always still in this suburban stretch of road. By eight, the shouting youngsters have fallen quiet as they tumbled into dreams. By nine, teens were attempting to evade their parents in their constant promptings to get ready for bed. By ten, sleep was starting to take hold on the entire household; the television programs were ending, the smells of chicken dinner were fading out the back door, parents were having the last swigs of beer before they retired to their beds, drowsiness sped along by the alcohol. And by eleven, things were silent. Muffled by a black velvet sky.

The only things that moved today were late-night hunters adowning their feathers and flexing their claws, patches of mist descending for their appearance early morning, and the Jedi in Alex's old television set.

Meanwhile, two brothers sat side-by-side on the old, cyan sheets of the elder's bed and their eyes were fixated in front of them, watching as blasters exchanged fire in the screen. Pillows were piled high behind them and a comforter spread across each of their laps.

"You know. I have t'say, this is the best idea you've had yet."

The younger of the pair turned his head a moment towards his now-adult brother, Alex. He had a faint smile playing at his lips, something that rarely showed in his expression, even as its slightest.

"Better then even the ice cream idea last week?" teased Alex, a wide smirk forming.

"That was a disaster."

"Nah, that was hilarious."

"You didn't get in trouble."

"Face it. It was worth it."

Scott only rolled his eyes and returned them to the screen. It was only followed by a playful bump of the shoulder by the older brother. By the stern stare and hard nudge he earned, Alex concluded his action was justified.

"We all know how this'll end," Alex warned, but in jest.

"Shh, I'm watching the movie."

They both knew that was a way to escape the proposed idea the elder gave.

"You've seen it before. Many times."

"And? It's just as good."

It was Alex's turn to roll his eyes, falling silent for only a moment or two. "Cookie?" he prompted and held out a familiar yellow-and-red box with one large hand. Scott said nothing for a while, stubbornly watching the film play out, but with the temptation remaining just beside him Scott succombed.

Foil rustled as he reached into the box and pulled out a single wafer. When he got a raised eyebrow his way at the amount, Scott only took a decent sized bite out of the disk if only to spite his brother.

But they both knew it was in jest.

Tease and joke in the best of times, that's what brother's did. After all, who knew when things would end?

Things did end.

It began when he destroyed a bathroom. When he burnt down a tree. And when he skipped out to town with irresponsibility on his shoulders. He knew he should have stayed. He and Alex would have been together, Alex would have been upstairs, the explosion wouldn't have occurred…

But it occurred. And things did end.

August 6th, 1983
5:20 pm

Lightsabers were red now. All of them. And Nilla boxes were orange.

He watched absently as the indigo mutant across from him picked at the cookies. His nimble fingers turned one over and his large, inquisitive eyes studied it closely. A pointed tail swayed lazily beside him, moving just how Scott felt: slow. In his defense, though, it was a Saturday afternoon and the pressing humidity of the summer was getting to him.

There was one thing that kept him from dozing off completely. The Nilla Wafer box.

His gaze was trained on it—the vibrant yellow seeming orange, but the red remaining just that—and his mind jogged with memories it brought to surface. There was a running joke associated with it. Alex always had a box on him. When they were watching movies, playing on their downstairs foosball table, just teasing his little bro, a box would pop up sooner or later.

Thus, the treats inside evolved to be his favourite snack.

Scott grimaced as he returned to reality.

No more would there be a brother to hold out that familiar box, give a wink, and follow up with some teasing.

He turned his gaze away from Jean's apologetic look, glad she knew not to say anything aloud. But that was the thing about telepaths; you couldn't hide a thing from them.

"Are you going to eat that, or just stare at it?" Jubilee's voice cut through the awkward tension in the air. It brought the mutants out of their (and other's) thoughts and fixated the attention on Kurt. His tail wrapped around the box and his head snapped up.

"I vas just…observing them," he explained, a slight sheepish grin revealing a row of pointed teeth. "They'are strange."

Jubilee seated herself rather promptly on the back of Kurt's armchair. "Yeah, well, cookies are made for eating. Not observing," she corrected, leaning in slightly. Jean stifled a chuckle from the sidelines, saying nothing.

"We didn't poison them either," Scott put in, still reclining in his own chair, legs up on the coffee table before him. "You have to try one, they're good."

It seemed to be their ongoing, yet unspoken rule to get Kurt more situated in the American culture. And Scott wasn't going to be the one that forgot it. Meanwhile, Jubilee attempted to sneak one of those golden disks—her hand darting into the box—but Kurt's tail flicked it away reflexively. A look of joking disappointment crossed her face and Scott tried not to think of Alex's similar looks during the times they would tease each other. Nonetheless, he raised a brow Kurt's way, it just being visible over his glasses.

"Vhat?"

Three sets of eyes fixed silently on Kurt, all with a smirk hidden between the lines, and all with the same message: get him to try one.

Slowly, tentatively, he did.

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