Kurt's eyes opened, eyelids fluttering in lazy contentment. He had just awoken from the most peculiar dream. The details were hazy but he knew it had something to do with the color pink, a couple of lonesome but friendly grizzly bears, and a brown something that continually swung back and forth in front of his eyes like a pendulum.
Well, now that he thought about it, maybe it hadn't been as pleasant as he had initially thought. He couldn't for the life of him imagine what had been so nice about a dream that contained grizzly bears. But no matter how hard he strained to remember the dream, the details of it drifted further away from him.
Though it still bothered him that he couldn't remember it right off, Kurt pushed it to the back of his mind for now. After all, it was Christmas Eve today and the schedule was bound to be full.
Yawning widely, he threw the cover off of himself…and then realized what had just happened.
"NO!" He yelled and punched his pillow with all the strength he could muster…which wasn't a lot first thing in the morning. "NO! NO! NO! NOOOO!"
This could not be happening again. It WASN'T. He wouldn't let it! He couldn't do this AGAIN. He stood and stomped angrily towards his closet. It took three stomps before a sock decided to intervene. Bump went the elbow and smack went the head.
But this time Kurt took his anger out on the inanimate object, sitting up to throw it across the room and scream at it. "Will you STOP DOING THAT? YOU STUPID SOCK! I HOPE YOU BURN AND DIIIIIIE!"
The sock had no response to this.
Now with his elbow smarting and his head aching from screaming so loud right after he had bumped it, the anger slowly receded as panic set it. He drew his legs to his chest and rocked back and forth, feeling the teensiest bit crazy. He had really been hoping that all of that had been a really long and really vivid dream. But now he was absolutely sure: This was real. This was really happening. He was in a lot of trouble.
X-men lesson number one: Keep your head. He had to pull himself together now because freaking out over it wasn't going to help matters. There wasn't much that he could think to do besides what he had already assumed for himself yesterday. Or today…or today yesterday. Yeah, that sounded right.
Doing the right thing. Making things right. That's what he had to do. He had to calm down, follow his instincts, and protect his team-mates. He still struggled to figure out how flying the jet might help him out of this.
He had to do this now, and he had to do it right. If he did everything the right way this time around, maybe that would stop all of this…craziness.
He allowed himself ten more seconds of insane time, rocking himself on the floor.
Ten.
What if he didn't find a way out? What if he did everything right and still he was stuck here?
Nine.
If he wasn't already there, surely he would go insane.
Eight.
Was the rest of the world stuck in the merry go round or was it just him?
Seven.
At least there was one thing he could look forward to.
Six.
Every night he would get to kiss Kitty. But what had made her kiss him for real the last time?
Five.
And what had she lied about? Would she kiss him again tonight?
Four.
If this kept up, then for the rest of his days, Wolverine would always be trying to hunt him down and kill him. Oh joy.
Three.
Wasn't it weird that Warren had shown up to dinner yesterday but he hadn't the first time around?
Two.
Eventually he was really going to get tired of turkey and oatmeal.
One.
And now was the time to buck up and be a man. Sighing, he stood with a new determination and headed for his closet. This would be the last time he would relive this day. It was. No matter what he had to make everything right. He had wanted a second chance at this in the first place, and he got it.
Kurt froze halfway through pulling out his shirt from the closet. That was it. He had done this. The first night he had been laying in bed and he thought to himself…If there had ever been a day that he wished he could go back and do over, it was this one. That was what he had thought. He had wished so hard for it that he hadn't even realized what he was doing.
Well then. If that was the case, then he would live up to his wish. He would redo things and do them right. And he should probably try to be a little grateful for the second chance fate was giving him.
Quickly he dressed and then headed for the bathroom where he brushed his teeth, combed his hair, applied the necessary amount of deodorant, and smoothed the hair on his tail.
Feeling refreshed, he walked out into the hall and ducked to avoid the flying underwear.
Bobby appeared, frowning at him. "Dude, why did you duck?"
"Because you threw Wolverine's underwear at me." Kurt couldn't help but glare a little as he said this.
"What? How did you know that?"
"Instinct." He shrugged. "Gotta go, catch you later." And he teleported to a downstairs hallway before Wolverine showed up.
Knowing what was waiting in the closet closest to him, Kurt simply strolled on past it without stopping. Sure he already knew about Remy and Rogue and could still reveal their secret, but if their secret came out anyway and Rogue didn't know that he knew already, she couldn't get mad at him. Yes. Inside the genius mind of Kurt Wagner, it was awesome.
That still didn't stop him from shuddering a little when he heard a thump on the door. He walked faster toward the kitchen and walked in to find Ororo putting a turkey into a pan and a bag of flour falling out of the cabinet and onto Kitty's head as she tried to pull it down. Ororo didn't say anything to this, just pursed her lips together and started to look stressed.
"Hi Kurt!" Kitty said cheerily as she blinked through the flour covering her face. "I'm making a cake!" She pointed to a bowl on the counter that a bunch of the flour had fallen into.
"That's great, Kitty." He smiled slowly, wondering what she would do if he ran up and kissed her right now…In all probability she would smack him across the face, turn red, and then go into a rant, somehow incorporating the word 'like' in there fifty billion times and somehow make it sound menacing.
…She was so adorable.
He very nearly punched himself. Men did NOT use words like adorable.
UNLESS they were talking about puppies. Then how could you not use that word? Puppies were adorable.
"What are you thinking about?" Kitty asked suspiciously.
"Puppies." He said quickly.
Her eyes narrowed the tiniest bit as she studied him. "Why did you say that so quickly?" Suddenly she gasped. "You're hiding something! What are you hiding?"
He tried not to let his surprise show. Instead he attempted to merely appear confused by her question. It was hard though. How had she known he was hiding something? And more importantly, how was he ever going to keep her from questioning him about it? There had to be something that he could tell her to get her to back off. Because he couldn't let Rogue get hurt, not again.
Thankfully, Ororo chose that moment to interrupt. After putting the turkey in the oven, she came over to stand next to Kitty and looked at the open recipe book on the counter.
"Kitty, is this the cake you're making? This is a bunt cake. You don't need any flour…"
Kitty turned and they started conversing so Kurt took the opportunity to slip away and grab a poptart (he was tired of oatmeal) and warm it in the toaster. By the time it was finished, Ororo had left the room and Kitty was staring at him.
"So, like, what are you hiding?" She questioned as if she were an interrogation officer rather than his friend. "And don't try to tell me that you aren't hiding anything, I'll know if you're lying."
"I um…" he munched on his poptart to buy some time. He had to think of something to tell her… "I got you a present. A really cool one. And I'm not telling you what it is so don't even try to get it out of me."
Her hands clasped together in front of her chest and her whole face lit up. "Come on, just a little hint?"
"Nomph," he said through a mouthful of sweet, sugary goodness. "I fon't."
Drooping her shoulders, she made a 'hmph' sound at him and turned back to the counter. "I know Ororo said that I don't need the flour but…" she tapped her lip in thought. "I already poured this in the bowl and I don't want to waste it. So I think I'll just mix it in with the cake anyway."
Kurt swallowed his food. "But won't it taste weird?"
She rolled her eyes and then gave him a look as if he were a little child. "Flour doesn't have a taste. DUH." Shaking her head, she turned back to the counter and reached up into the cabinet.
"Now I need some sugar…" She shuffled around on the shelf. "Hey, is the white stuff sugar?"
"MMYesf," he replied through another mouthful of poptart. But then his eyes widened as he looked up and realized that she was about to add salt to the 'cake mixture'. "No!" He sprayed poptart on the kitchen floor as he yelled.
Kitty turned to stare at him questioningly. "What?"
"That's salt. The sugar is in that bag that says sugar."
"Oh." Shrugging, she put the salt back into the cabinet and pulled down the sugar while saying, "I thought it was salt since it said so. But since you said it was sugar, I thought that it must be wrong."
Kurt let out a sigh of relief. At least he had managed to avert one disaster. Now there were only a hundred more to go.
The morning, for the third time, went by slowly. And this time, it was because he was being tortured.
Avoiding walking into that downstairs closet in the first place turned out to be quite pointless because he ran into Gambit and Rogue again. Three times. The first time he was innocently going to the bathroom. As soon as he opened the door, there they were, wrapped up in each others arms and eating each other's faces. Disgusted, he teleported away before they could see him.
Tabitha spotted him about an hour later and he recognized that 'I want to be flirtatious and make you flustered' look on her face and so he ran, escaping down the hall and into the laundry room…only to find Remy and Rogue, their faces pressed together and their hands…groping…things.
Rogue had enough time to break away and say casually, "Oh hi Kurt, what's up?" Before he teleported away. So much for the not catching Rogue and Gambit plan.
Around lunch time, Bobby found him and wanted his help stuffing Scott's closet full of marshmallows. Kurt made up some lame excuse about how he had to help Mr. McCoy in the lab and then hightailed it out of there.
A while later Bobby found him standing in the living room. He pulled a whoopee cushion out of nowhere and threw it on the couch cushion that Jean was about to sit on. Kurt, remembering that he had to do the right thing (and being pretty sure that letting Jean sit on a whoopee cushion was in fact, NOT the right thing), leaned down quickly and swiped it away—
Only for Logan to appear and sit down on it. Reeeaaaally slowly too.
Somehow he hadn't noticed Kurt or Bobby standing there before, but he certainly did now. When the last note of the farting noise finally ended, his dangerous and beady eyes found theirs; the killing intent in them was palpable.
"Oh dear." Professor X said, clearly embarrassed by the sound the whoopee cushion had made.
Wolverine stood and then made a menacing move towards them before Kurt grabbed hold of Bobby and teleported. Once upstairs, they ran in separate directions. Kurt skidded around a corner and jerked open the first door he came to, which he knew to be a closet.
And there was Gambit, pressing his sister up against the wall and doing something to her ear with his tongue-
Kurt was pretty sure he threw up in his mouth a little bit.
"Kurt!" Rogue gasped when she saw him and Remy jumped backwards and away from her.
"Rogue." He tried not to sound too grossed out. "I won't tell anyone what I saw here; I promise. I'm gonna go now-"
"Wait-" Rogue tried to stop him but he was already gone, running away down the hall in search of another hiding spot to hide from Wolverine. But as he turned down another hallway, there he was, standing at the end of it as if he had been waiting for him.
"ELF!" He roared. "Don't you teleport-"
Kurt teleported down to the rec room. Piotr, who was avidly watching the Christmas parade, fumbled around with the remote quickly before he managed to turn to a football game. But Kurt had already sighed, rolled his eyes, and teleported up to the living room where Ororo found him, assaulted him, and then forced him into finding a gift for Professor X.
He asked Kitty to come along and she did, of course, lighting up at the idea of shopping. Instead of going to Wal-mart again, he decided to do things right this time and go to the only other place that was open. The gas station.
"Shouldn't we like, you know, go to Wal-mart or something?" Kitty looked at him as though he were crazy as they pulled up.
"Wal-mart is going to be jam-packed. It'll probably be safer to find something here." It would probably be something crappy too. But if he had to go to Wal-mart one more time he was going to stab something.
They climbed out of the car and walked in. Surprisingly it wasn't very crowded, though the man behind the counter told them as they walked in that they had just missed the rush-hour crowd. That was evident just by looking at the shelves. The empty shelves. There was hardly anything here. Hardly being the important word.
There was…a jump rope. A dog leash. Some nail polish. Some very inappropriate magazines. A couple packs of cigarettes. And not surprising to Kurt at all, a box of honey buns and a funnel. And since he knew for a fact that Professor X was not a pervert who wore nail polish, did freaky things with jump ropes, walked an invisible dog, and have a nicotine addiction, he decided to go with the honey buns and the funnel.
Kitty asked Kurt to take her to the Brotherhood house. Feeling that this was the right thing to do, he agreed. Now he was driving and listening to her talk about the same thing for the third time…
"And I like, want to know what he's thinking, you know?"
Kurt grunted.
"But he's just so anti-social. And I'm not like that. Maybe we don't match up or something…maybe I'm trying to make something work that like, just isn't meant to." She sighed. "Sometimes I don't feel appreciated when I'm with him. Like, I see Remy and Rogue and they're not even together but he's so attentive, you know? I just like, want that thing that everyone else seems to have. I mean, we broke up a while ago but then we got back together again and he seemed like he really wanted it; I really wanted it. But now I haven't heard from him in like, two weeks. And that's what he did the last time we broke up." She chewed worriedly on a thumb. "You don't think that's what he wants do you, that he wants to break up again?"
"I think he's no good for you." He replied without taking his eyes off of the road. "He sounds like a jerk. You don't deserve that. You deserve someone who will love you and treat you like the funny, extraordinary, beautiful woman that you are, not like he might treat his garbage."
Kitty seemed to be shocked into silence. He smirked a little at the road in front of him. He had never done thatbefore.
"What," she said a little shakily, "you think I should be with someone more…"
"Blue?" He said nonchalantly and shrugged. "If you like."
Silence. He forced himself to keep looking at the road. For the first time in days he hadn't wrecked yet.
"Kurt!" She said, shocked. "What do you—I mean, why are you—I mean, what's going-I mean-"
"Yes, Kitty?"
"What are you saying, exactly?"
He pressed on the brake, coming to a stop at the stop sign without crashing. When the car had come to full halt he turned his gaze to her and raised a single eyebrow. "What do you think I'm saying?"
She just stared at him. He tried to keep up the cool demeanor. It was a little hard when his nerves were on high alert and his heart was pounding in his ears.
"I think you're…" she bit her lip and studied him for a moment before continuing. "I think you're asking me out."
"Hm."
"Hm? What's hm? Are you asking me out or not?"
"Why do you want to know? Do you want me to be asking you out?"
She glared. "Ok, that's getting annoying."
"Hm."
"That is too."
"Ok." He turned away from her and looked both ways before pressing on the gas. She sat quietly next to him, not saying a word but he could feel her eyes on him constantly. He hoped he wasn't sweating too much. Whenever he wore his image inducer those things tended to show up better.
Neither of them spoke another word until they were there and standing on the front porch. Kitty jabbed the doorbell and Wanda being the delightful, happy, bubbly person she was, opened the door to greet them graciously into her home.
"What?" She grunted.
"I brought cake!" Kitty cheered as she pushed her way inside.
"Oh, um, thanks."
"You're welcome." Kitty smiled happily. "And Merry Christmas!"
"Sure, yeah." Wanda took the cake from her and walked into the next room.
"I'm just gonna go see Lance," Kitty told Kurt as he walked in and closed the door behind him. "I'll be right back."
"Right. Ok. Take your time." I love you he added miserably inside of his head as he watched her run up the stairs.
Now was the time to make things right. After thinking about it all morning long, Kurt kind of had a good idea of what he might have done wrong here. All he had to do was swallow his pride and suck it up. No big deal, right?
Toad walked into the room at that moment and tension appeared and swelled, flooding into every corner, every nook and cranny. Their eyes met and an EXPLOSION HAPPENED! But not the good kind. It was the violent kind that utterly destroyed everything in its path. The fire from this explosion shot between their shared gaze and then ripped through Kurt's eyes, through his brain, down to his heart, and then into HIS VERY SOUL.
Whoa. Perhaps he was feeling a little dramatic today.
BUT THE FIRE WAS THERE! It was raging! It was crazy! He hated Toad so much! He had to say something cruel to make him PAY for his misdeeds, whatever they were because Kurt couldn't remember them at that moment because he was so consumed by-
Wanda chose that moment to walk through the foyer. "Will you two idiots just drop it? No one cares."
What was that about swallowing his pride?
