3. Creativity
Scott and Jean began their journey determined to be on time, their intentions good. Bobby had managed the books while Warren and Hank handled procurement. It wouldn't be fair to leave the heavy lifting and final delivery to them as well.
It's a good thing that Jean is faster than any car. They travel snugly in a telekinetic bubble. It is like being inside a snow-globe. Fat, swirling snow-flakes whirl above and spiral below them. The Hudson river glimmers brownly nearly a mile down.
Jean is caught up in the pleasure of mind-controlled flight. Her hands are tight upon Scott's arm. For him, this is like being alone but better. His thoughts are as much his as they ever are for all that her thrilled presence saturates them.
They're going fast through the air, and if Scott wasn't so familiar with Jean when she was enraptured, he might guess that she was in a temper. Hectic color dances in her face. She's bitten her lips blood-dark. Her hair curls damply on her slightly sweaty brow. Her jaw is clenched. The beginnings of a predatory smile has thrown her already high cheekbones into greater prominence. Anger on her was spectacular. This, this was better still.
Scott wonders if all X-women are hot-blooded.
Lorna's anger is pyrotechnical. The very air around her bends with her fury when her ire is aroused. Ororo's displeasure elicits visceral fear. Her hair crackles with static electricity and her eyes fluoresce. Kitty Pryde, still a child really, is good natured-- but volatile. Above all else she is energetic, and when in the grip of some excitement, no one can enjoy peace-of-mind unless they lend their energies to her or stay out of her way. With Jean, a raised voice is accompanied by flying objects. Hers is the stereotypical redhead's temper-- unpredictable and shattering.
And there were other things to consider, though some might think speculation rude. Lorna's passion for Alex, frank in any and all contexts; Ororo's ability to speak as if she had the mandate of heaven and wither an opponent where they stood; and then, there was Kitty and her fascination with Piotr. For all that she was a child, the longing looks she gave Piotr were unnerving.
"You used to look at me like that," Jean says aloud, breaking his concentration.
His look follows his thoughts.
She reaches for him and gives a breathless little laugh. "And you still do."
They are extremely late getting to the mansion.
They touch down on the snowy lawn behind the kitchen, Scott holds Jean close to him. Preparing to hold her upright if need be. As they land, they break through a crust of ice and sink to their ankles in the snow.
The snow is falling thicker by the second as they stamp to the kitchen. There, they are overcome by Hurricane Kitty.
Maybe all X-women are hot-blooded, Scott reflects as Kitty flies from hugging him and yelling "Happy New Year", "Your friends are mean" to hugging Jean while yelling "Happy New Year-- great hat!"
She pelts down the hall yelling, "Kurt?? I'm baaaaa-aaack!"
Jean and Scott know she's really looking for Peter. The way I'd look for you, you fraidy cat, Jean crows at him, mind to mind.
Scott grins guiltily. Then he frowns. Scott isn't sure that he's comfortable thinking of Kitty as a woman.
In the coat room, as he's lifting his snow crusted scarf over his head before taking off his coat, he finds himself off-balance and against a wall. Jean's turned off the light, but there's a little coming in from the hallway. He can make out the gleam of Jean's teeth, is caught by the luster of her mouth and then it is pressed against his, hot and damp. She traces his ears with her fingers, works her hands into his hair as she nibbles down the side of his neck. Her hands are busy and he yelps because he is afraid that his glasses will fall from his face.
Giggling, Jean releases him, but then digs her fingers into his lapel. Leaning forward, she presses against his mouth, whispers, "Worry-wart." Her voice is full of glee. "Those things are never coming off. And--" She kisses his cold lips once more, her eyes fluttering shut in showy ecstasy.
"What's gotten into you?" he asks rubbing his hands along her hips.
"As if it wasn't you," she replies. For a moment, she shows him how she sees him. His breath catches in his throat because in her eyes he's got a hero's jaw and a lover's mouth and his forehead is noble, meant for kisses. His face heats because where she wants to be relative to his face and body is where she only recently was. His hair is mussed, and there's a satisfaction that's entirely hers. "You're a fuddy-duddy, Mr. Summers. Bet you my telekinesis could put the bosh on your eye--" (kiss) "--beams--" (kiss) "--of concussive force."
Then she's slipped out of his arms and has danced back into the hall.
He follows. She's not gone far at all. A quick glance of her laughing, dimpled face, followed by two more at both ends of the hallway, and he's on her. Two quick turns of his scarf and he has her captured and dipped. Her hands are tangled up behind her, folded like a rose roughly center of her heart-shaped bottom. She gasps, her eyes wide. He raises his eyebrows enough that she should see them above the frames of his ruby quartz lenses.
"Don't you dare!" she nearly squeals. But, he chooses his kiss carefully, where her ear meets her jaw. She trembles involuntarily, her neck arches into his lips. "..oh, god.." she whispers before his lips cover hers.
"Why are we here again?" he asks, righting her eventually.
"Because we spent Christmas with my family, and New Year's was just for us."
"But why are we here, right now?"
A grandmother clock strikes seven.
They both groan. Jean buries her head in Scott's shoulder. "We're so late."
"Yes, we are."
They dart to the mirror at the end of the hallway, rearrange their hair and make sure their clothes lie correctly.
"You nearly tore the waistband out of my skirt," Jean murmurs ruefully, twisting it round so the pockets are at her hips.
"Interesting choice, considering." Scott says, adjusting his belt.
"I look a mess," she sighs, wrinkling her nose at her reflection.
"You're beautiful. You're always beautiful." he says.
"Oh, Scott," she replies, flushing. Mind to mind she tells him, No, that's you.
---
Piotr and Kurt are in the study. A fire burns in the grate.
Kurt perches in Scott's favorite chair, his tail wrapped around his feet. He is reading a book of poems he claimed Wolverine gave him for Christmas.
"I'd like to read to you," Kurt had said upon making his entrance. "Amanda likes poetry and I can't decide which to memorize for her. Our hairy friend tells me that Donne is the thing. But I do not speak Scottish particularly well. Will you let me know if I sound enough like Moira McTaggert to move a young lady's heart to passion?"
Kurt holds one hand to his heart. In a stage whisper, he reads aloud: "'I cannot breathe one other sigh--'" here Kurt sighs "'to move.'"
Piotr's face is hot.
Kurt's face isn't. Kurt continues, "'Nor can intreat one. Other tear…to…fall'"
Piotr has been blushing since Kurt teleported into the study. Piotr had flattened himself over the drawing paper spread before him, snapping the pencil in his hand nearly in two.
Coughing, red in the face, Piotr had waved his hand before his nose. "Did I startle you?" Kurt had asked cheerily, while making himself comfortable. The whiteness of his triangular grin as heartless as his tone.
"Yes." Piotr had said, and pointedly turned back to his poor attempt at a likeness of Ka- Kitty Pryde.
Kitty is due to come home from Chicago any minute. Piotr is frantic to have something suitable and heartfelt to give her-- but not too heartfelt as she is only thirteen and three quarters and this is foreign country.
Kurt says, "Ach. Too much with the 'ths' and the 'shouldsts'." There is a rustling sound of pages being turned. Piotr scowls. Kurt says, "Ah. Wonderbarr!" He clears his throat and says, "'I FIX mine eye on thine, and there pity my picture burning in thine eye.'"
The creations Piotr has deemed too foolish (heartfelt) are locked away and placed under his bed.
"You are not listening!" Kurt takes up two pieces of waxed fruit, and juggles them with the book. "Trouble with Katzchen's present?"
"You have no idea," Piotr intones. "Or perhaps you do…" The last is said very softly.
Kurt hoots at the uncharacteristic tone. "It doesn't really matter what you give her. And it's not like you've not given her sketches before."
Piotr draws one of Kitty's eyes. Badly.
"And it is the thought that counts."
Piotr grunts, turning the drawing pad to a new sheet.
"What was wrong with that candle-stick holder you were sculpting for her?"
Shaking his head, his lip curled to indicate that it was a terrible idea, Piotr stabs the paper in front of him gently. "It broke in the oven."
"Ach. Too bad. It's just as well. You cannot play piano under it for her."
Piotr is to polite to do anything other than grunt.
Still juggling, Kurt lifts his chin, stifling his laughter. His stomach trembles. Piotr will not look at him. The pencil whispers against the paper. Then Kurt says, "She likes you, you know," and adds a table clock to the objects he's juggling.
Piotr folds a dog-ear on the paper.
"She asked about you in every post card she sent."
Piotr tucked his hands under his chin, wrinkling his brow. "She wrote me often. Did you write her back?"
"But of course." Kurt's tail joins in the juggling. Another piece of waxed fruit joins the objects going round in the air. "You didn't?"
"...I'm bad with words. I thought that if I had a picture to give her for every day she had been gone..."
"Well. Perhaps poetry would inspire you!" Quite neatly, the fruit and table-clock leave orbit and return to their original places.
"Kurt?" Piotr said, picking up his pencil with resolve.
"Ja?"
"Hush."
Pleased, Kurt does so and re-opens his book of poems. But only for a moment before making that maddening exhalation.
"Kurt!" Piotr nearly shouts.
There is an even more alarming sound. It is that of a person running on her heels. "KURT?" Comes the question clearly, despite distance and doors between the shouter, Kurt and Piotr.
Kurt smiles. Maybe not as heartlessly as earlier.
"Bozhe moi. Katya!" Piotr says, color leaching from his face. He pulls his materials to his chest and stands. "Kurt, please?"
Confused, Kurt says, "Read to you? But I th--"
"Get me out of here!"
"Ah!" Kurt tosses the book of poems into the seat. "Certainly." He leaps from the chair and lights on Piotr's shoulders. They vanish in a burst of smoke.
