Learning to Trust, part 2
Honey
I was quiet for a long moment. Then finally I answered, "With my life, Kurt."
"Good." Then he caught me up in his arms and teleported.
When my sight cleared, the first thing I noticed was that my hair was displaying upside-down gravity, but I wasn't falling. Looking around and "down", I saw that Kurt's tail was wrapped around a fire escape ladder.
"Hold still," Kurt told me. "Which pocket is your token in?"
"My right back pocket, actually."
I felt Kurt's right arm tighten around me, and his left hand slipped into my pocket. I chose to focus on staying calm. Yeah, yeah. So there's a boy effectively setting his hand on your rear end, who cares? He's trying to help you.
I felt the token move as he managed to get a hold of it, and he got it out of my pocket without dropping it. Swapping it into his right hand, he grabbed hold of my chained wrists. "Still trust me?"
"Yes…"
Then Kurt let go with his right arm, giving my legs just enough of a kick to send me hanging right side up by my wrists from his left hand. I couldn't help it – I squeaked, grabbing hold of his wrist with both hands.
And that was probably a good thing, because right then I smelled brimstone and felt hands – adult, male, and relatively normal – grab hold of me!
Then I smelled more brimstone and we were falling. I craned my neck around to try and see my captor.
And…wished I hadn't. He looked exactly like what I pictured a devil to look like: red skin, black hair, a narrow goatee, and pointed eyebrows and ears.
Kurt still had hold of my manacles, and I still had hold of his wrist. And then…
It was like being in a tug of war game, where both teams could teleport, and I was the rope. Each was trying to get the other to let go of me by teleporting into the craziest directions in midair.
Finally, Kurt remembered the token. Or rather, he realized why I'd let go of his wrist with my right hand. He slammed the token against my doctor cross. Then I felt his tail wrap around my ankle manacle and he gave me a signal with his eyes, Let go!
I let go. Clearly he didn't want to be anywhere near my wrist manacles when they blew.
As he let go of my manacles and swung down out of my line of sight, I heard a laugh behind my head. "Your friend thinking about giving up?"
I charged my cuffs. This will hurt both of us, you…what's the best insult? Then I squirmed around, hoping that Kurt could hang on through my legs thrashing, and shoved my glowing cuffs into the creep's face while turning my own face away. "Eat this, Hellfire-reject!"
Then my cuffs exploded, hitting his face and ripping through the skin on my wrists at the same time.
He and I yelled at the same time as well, and he let go of my waist, leaving me and Kurt - he'd succeeded in hanging on that whole time - free-falling.
Kurt swung up again and put his own arms around my waist. "You ready?"
"Wait…" I wasn't sure what brimstone smoke would have on my healing, but I didn't want to find out a negative the hard way. I watched in a kind of morbid fascination as my wrists healed right before my eyes. When I effectively had new skin covering the slashes, I said, "Okay, now!"
We teleported to a location closer to Jean, and she caught us, killing all our momentum. Then we all ran to the X-Jet and went home, Kurt still carrying me.
"Are you okay?" Jean asked, as Scott blasted my ankle cuffs off.
"Sure I'm okay; in the end, that explosion just ripped my tan off, effectively." I studied my hands. Both were bare. "And…my other glove."
Well, I got Kurt to relax enough to doze in the jet while we went home. And he was still holding me in his arms as I myself dozed off.
