A/N- This one is coming at you a little later than usual, with a slight warning that Rogue is not in this chapter. Lest you should decide to stop reading at this point, due to the fact that Kitty'a life does not revolve around Rogue.

:)

As usual, thanks for the words of support. You guys are the best. Hope you enjoy this one! It was a fun one to write for sure... If not slightly weird.

The following does not reflect the views or opinions of Marvel or the author known as 'Kinetically Charmed'.

Entry number thirty seven:

Against my better judgment, I took Remy's advice. I went back to school on Monday with the new resolve to act as if absolutely nothing had happened if I happened to bump into Doug. Which I didn't, thankfully. That just meant it gave me another day to work up my courage. So on Tuesday, I went over to his place as usual. I just waltzed right in, grabbed the WiiU remote right out of his hand and jumped into Super Mario 3D. Doug just stared at me for a good 2 minutes while I played, probably partially because I literally just walked into his home without invitation and took over his game, but after enough jeering on my part he finally grabbed the second remote and joined in.

As it turned out Remy's advice seemed to pay off for a bit, because he'd totally been right. Once Doug saw me acting like nothing had happened, he quickly followed suit.

It was so great. I can't even begin to describe to you the relief that was felt. We hung out on Tuesday and made our last minute concert plans on Thursday, all without a single ounce of awkwardness. I drove into the city early Saturday afternoon, and we spent practically the entire day together. The concert was the BEST, and shockingly enough it was a completely sold out show, which in all honesty, I hadn't anticipated at all. And as it turns out, Doug's plan to book a hotel room months in advance was solid, a fact which we both came to realize when we arrived at the hotel to find that it was completely booked up.

Everything was going swimmingly. We checked in at the front desk, had some pleasant, albeit one sided chit chat with the receptionist about the Weird Al concert, and about how crazy busy she'd been thanks to said concert, and we were on our way up to our room.

"Apparently Weird Al made an appearance on My Little Pony." Doug said as he stepped out of the elevator, "A... pony appearance. Or... I don't really know. Russell told me."

"Wait, so he actually watches My Little Pony." I clarified with a frown, because I'd genuinely thought he'd been just teasing Russell when he'd bring it up, "Like, un-ironically."

Doug smiled and gave me a nod, "Yep. He's a Brony. But he's pretty new to it, and he's still kind of embarrassed by it-"

"Ch-yea, I should think so." I scoffed, "I don't even watch My Little Pony, and I own the Powerpuff Girls on DVD."

He laughed and we came to a stop at our door, "It's actually got quite a cult following, you know. I guess guys find it... relatable." He shook his head as he slid the key card through the lock, "I mean, I don't get it, but there was enough of a following to convince Weird Al to guest star."

I smiled, "Because clearly he doesn't need the money."

Doug laughed and pushed the door open, and then both of us froze, the smiles instantaneously wiped off of our stupid smug faces as we stared at the one bed in the room.

And it's not even like it was a King sized bed, I'm talking a Double. A single double bed, in our hotel room.

"No." Doug breathed, letting his hand drop away from the doorknob before turning to me with a serious frown, "There's supposed to be two beds in here. I swear."

Honestly, the thought hadn't even crossed my mind that Doug might have orchestrated this, but he seemed to be incredibly concerned that that was exactly how I was going to take it. So I forced a pathetic smile and shook my head,

"It's okay-"

"No, it's not okay. They screwed up our reservation." He rubbed the back of his neck, "I'll just go down to the front desk and get us another room."

"Doug, they're not going to have another room, they're completely booked up." I reminded him with a deep breath, "It's... not that bad." Yeah, it was. "We can figure this out."

"I'll just call down and have them bring up an extra cot."

"Oh my gosh, no." I grimaced, "Those things smell disgusting and they never get cleaned. No, I'm not letting you sleep on a gross cot."

Seriously guys, I watched a special on hotel cleanliness, and I wouldn't even make my worst enemy sleep on one of those damn things.

I stepped past him into the room and put my bag down on one of the lounge chairs before turning back to inspect the bed, "It's... big enough."

He eyed me hesitantly before turning to the lounge chairs, clearly considering sleeping upright in one of them, before deciding against it and nodding reluctantly. "Yeah. You're... probably right."

"There will be plenty of room." I went on and shook my head, "It'll be fine."

We both stood there silently for a moment, not quite sure what to do in this sudden vat of awkwardness, when I suddenly shot out a breath and announced, "I'm gunna go get my pajamas on."

"Yeah, okay." Doug nodded again, "That's... good."

I brought my bag with me into the bathroom and took my dear sweet time changing into my very modest looking jammies. Anything to postpone the cripplingly awkward situation we'd found ourselves in. So I washed off all my makeup carefully, brushed my hair for at least 5 straight minutes, brushed my teeth much more diligently than I normally do before eventually coming to the conclusion that I could no longer put it off. I gave myself a quick glance in the mirror to make sure my shorts weren't too short and that my t-shirt was baggy enough, before pushing through the bathroom door.

Doug was in his pajama bottoms and t-shirt, sitting on the bed with the comforter folded down. He had the TV remote in his hand and he was grinning at the TV, glancing up at me vaguely with a short laugh,

"Check it out; AFV. I friggin' love this show..."

Oh boy. A man after my own heart.

I chuckled blandly and shrugged, "I'm not a big fan." I lied before hesitantly moving to sit next to him on the bed. I figured this whole thing was just a mind over matter situation. If I could trick my mind into thinking that this was seriously not a big deal, then maybe I'd actually start to believe it.

Anyway, Doug turned to me, knitting his brow slightly and I was beginning to wonder if he could see through my blatant lie, before he gave me a tight smile, "So... I wasn't sure which side you wanted..."

"This one's fine." I shrugged, gesturing to the side I was already sitting on, "I'm easy."

Yep, my face instantly went bright red.

And I'm pretty sure I even saw Doug go a little bit red too.

"Easy going." I clarified, and he nodded in understanding.

"Yeah." He continued to nod, "Well, look at the time. We should turn in. Hit the hay. You know, early mattresses were actually stuffed with hay, which is where that term comes from. Technically, they used any sort of soft padding, even hair. Probably even like-"

"Oh my God you're boring me to sleep." I cut him off and flopped back down onto my pillow.

He smiled and shut the TV off, "Yeah, I've been known to do that. To you."

I snorted into my pillow and peered up at him, "One time!"

"Yeah yeah, likely story." He muttered with a grin before reaching over and flicking out the bedside lamp, "Goodnight."

But it was not. It was the worst night. It's one thing to sleep in a double bed with another person, and it's an entirely different animal to sleep in a double bed with another person while actively trying not to touch them. At all. In fact, it is next to impossible. The two of us were virtually motionless for three hours, and I don't know about him, but I didn't sleep a single wink in that time. Some time around four in the morning, Doug shifted ever so slightly and accidentally grazed my outer thigh, and then he instantly went completely rigid out of sheer panic. I was chewing on my lip anxiously as I stared up at the ceiling, silently pleading with God to make morning come faster, when he suddenly busted out with,

"You kissed me!"

I blinked at the ceiling a few times before saying, "... Yes, I did."

He let out a slow breath, "Are we gunna... you know, talk about that at all? I mean, I'm okay with just ignoring it, we should just ignore it. Just forget- go back to sleep." As if he believed for a second that I'd been sleeping. "It's not like I'm complaining about it at all, it was good- it was a good kiss. People like being kissed. Kissing is good." He chuckled awkwardly, "It's all good..."

I considered for a moment that this is exactly what people hear from me when I turn into a bumbling idiot, before glancing over at him through the corner of my eye, "Okay."

"No, not all. Not like, more than kissing. Not... I don't..." He let out a breath and ran a hand through his hair.

I cleared my throat, "Okay, maybe we should talk."

"Yeah, okay. Well, only if you want." He said as casually as he could. "I mean, it was a mistake, right?"

"Yes." I said firmly. A stupid leather pants mistake. "And I'm so sorry. I screwed up a perfectly awesome friendship-"

"What? No." Doug shook his head on his pillow, "You didn't screw anything up. I'm just glad we're on the same page. We're friends."

"Yes, exactly." I sighed in relief, "Friends."

"And like, yeah okay, you're obviously beautiful and everything-"

"Obviously."

"-and we have the best time together, that doesn't mean we need to be anything more than friends."

"Of course not." I snorted, "In fact, it makes sense that we don't be anything more than friends. What if it doesn't work out?"

"Exactly." He pointed at me and continued to stare at the ceiling, "Nobody wants to hang around with an ex. And I like hanging out with you."

"Right!"

"So... we're good." Doug asked, glancing over at me in the dark.

"We are so good." I agreed with a nod.

"Okay. Good." He nodded back, folding his hands on his chest as we settled into a slightly less awkward silence. "I'm still probably not gunna sleep."

I smiled and shook my head, "Relax, I've seen this bed sharing scenario done in like, a billion sitcoms. 40% of the time, it turns out totally fine."

He laughed and rolled over onto his side, where he presumably didn't fall asleep at all until around 5:30 AM. At least that's what happened on my side of the bed. I was out cold for a solid 3 hours, squinting my sleep depraved eyes open at 8:30 when our neighbour turned on their shower, causing the pipes to squeak and bang, effectively scaring the crap out of me.

I yawned and rubbed a hand over my face, feeling incredibly grateful that Doug and I hadn't inadvertently started to sleep snuggle once we'd fallen asleep, when I suddenly realized that Doug was already up. I sat up in bed and scrubbed my eyes, glancing around the room to see that he wasn't even in the room. I decided to take this opportunity to get up and showered, since I didn't exactly feel comfortable showering with Doug actually in the room.

Despite our mutual agreement, it still felt weird.

So I rolled out of bed and quickly showered and dressed, I'm talking like, record time for me. I was all ready within 15 minutes, even though my hair was still damp. I went back to the room and sat down on the bed, flicking the TV on to watch some morning news program, when Doug pushed through the door.

"Hey!" He said with a grin, and a plate in each hand. "I got up early to get breakfast, I figured it was the least I could do, after the whole... sharing a bed thing." He kicked the door shut behind him and handed me one of the plates, "I felt really... waffle about that."

I took the plate and looked down to see a rather large waffle with whipped cream and strawberries on it. I snorted and rolled my eyes, "That joke was waffle."

"Seriously though, they have a waffle maker down there. Batter and everything. There was a group of old ladies, and I just stood there making them waffles for like 15 minutes, it was the best." He smiled, sitting down next to me on the bed.

"Yeah, it sounds like a real party." I smirked before cutting into my waffle with the plastic fork he'd brought up for me. I took a bite and looked over at him with a nod, "This is really good though."

"I'm kind of a pro. The key is to close the lid." Doug demonstrated for me what closing the top of the waffle maker looked like, and I snorted and choked on my waffle.

"It's all in the wrist." I managed to laugh between coughs.

"Yeah, I call it The Doug." He grinned, stuffing forkful of waffle into his mouth.

"Wherever did you come up with that name?" I asked with mock interest as I licked some whipped cream off of my fork.

"It came to me in a dream." Doug said with a faraway look in his eye, "Of course, not last night, because that would have required actual sleep."

"Yeah, I didn't sleep much either." I admitted, taking another bite of waffle, "But I am glad that we... cleared the air a little. At least."

"Yeah, me too." He nodded as he chewed on a strawberry, "Now we can just go back to the way things were before, right?"

"Absolutely!" I grinned, "I mean could you even imagine, us? Like... you know, dating? Or whatever?"

He scoffed and shook his head, "I almost wonder if we have too much in common."

"Right?" I tossed a hand at him and nodded in agreement, "Too much!"

"It'd be like," He let out a laugh and rolled his eyes, "I don't know, dating myself."

"Psych student Rogue would have a field day with that one." I snorted.

"It'd probably be pretty weird." Doug concluded as he twisted his fork around in his whipped cream.

"Yeah, probably." I agreed with a quick nod.

"It's a good thing it was just that one, tiny little kiss. Because that's totally not enough to... you know, really... get a complete grasp of just how weird it'd be." He said.

And then we both fell quiet, plunging the room into an incredibly pregnant silence, in which we both considered this.

For about three seconds.

That's how long it took for us to both decide that, you know what? That kiss wasn't nearly long enough to make an informed decision.

The next thing I know, he's dropped his plate on the bed and I've got a fistful of his t-shirt, yanking him towards me, and we're making out. I pulled away just enough to say,

"Wait, my waffle."

He jerked back and frowned, "What?"

"My waffle." I said, by means of clear explanation. I grabbed his plate and moved to toss them both onto the night stand. This wasn't one of those magical "sweep everything off the desk" moments, and I definitely wasn't about to drop my waffle on the hotel room floor. It was a damn good waffle; So not worth ruining for some facade of romanticism. I turned back to him and moved back in, totally macking it up. I'm talking tongues and everything. Hands were everywhere, waffles were safe. We started to lay down on the bed when Doug abruptly stopped and pulled away.

"Hold on." He breathed, pushing the bedspread clear off the bed and onto the floor.

"What are you doing? I just made that!" I protested.

"Haven't you ever seen CSI? Hotels don't clean the comforters." He explained quickly before moving back in yet again. I settled back onto his pillow, and found myself thinking that this wasn't entirely horrible. He certainly was a good kisser, so we have that going for us. And then I felt his hand move down over my rear, and felt the sudden urge to laugh, and in order to keep myself from laughing, I suddenly pressed my lips together. Forgetting that... our lips were still... together.

Which caused me to basically bite down on his tongue.

"Oh my gosh! I'm sorry!" I gasped when he pulled back in pain.

"Nope, it's okay." He said, despite the fact that his eyes were watering, "I'm okay."

"Are you sure?" I frowned, "Stick it out, let me see."

His eyebrows shot up and I felt my face go bright red, "Your tongue!" I clarified.

"I'm okay." He assured me again with a nod as he rapidly blinked away the tears. He opted to move onto my neck from here, rather than risk getting bitten again. It was probably a wise decision on his part.

"Okay," I sighed, tangling my hand into the hair at the back of his head as he trailed his way down my neck, "Well at least it still works."

"We're still talking about my tongue, right?" He murmured against my skin.

"Yes." I clipped, feeling incredibly awkward at this point.

"Sorry. Just checking." He cleared his throat, "Did you know that kissing burns around 3 calories a minute?"

I sighed and sat up, detecting that he was clearly feeling awkward too, judging from the "useless facts" tick he does when he's nervous.

"How long until we've burned off the calories from those waffles?" I asked.

"Like, one hundred and thirty more minutes."

"Yeesh." I nodded slowly, "That's a lot of tongue."

He let out a light laugh and cleared his throat again, "Maybe less talking?"

"Yeah, that's good." I nodded in agreeance, before we went back to the kissing stuff. We settled back down onto the bed and I rolled onto my side, laying partially on top of him, and I felt his hand moving down my hip again. He hesitated before he reached my backside, because as they say; once bitten, twice shy.

I don't know that this saying was ever meant to be taken literally, but here we are.

He moved his hand back up my back and I smoothed mine along his chest.

I have to say, you'd never know it with the geeky Grad student Doug facade, but my Conductor is kind of ripped. I mean, I could definitely feel some muscles beneath that Mario Brothers T-shirt, living with Ethan is obviously paying off for him.

I traced my fingertips down to his side where he suddenly sucked in a sharp breath and abruptly jolted to the side, effectively flipping me clear off the bed.

He sat up and looked down at me with wide panicked eyes, "Oh my God."

"What the hell was that?!" I gaped up at him.

"I'm sorry! I'm just... incredibly ticklish..." He frowned and ran a hand through his hair.

I snorted, and then started to laugh right there on the hotel room floor, "You're ticklish?!"

"I just went into self defense mode!" He explained defensively, "It's a natural, self preservation thing!"

"Sure, it makes perfect sense, you know, if ninjas should ever try to tickle attack you." I continued laughing.

"Yeah yeah, laugh it up, chuckles." He muttered wryly with a half grin, offering me a hand to haul me up off the floor. I settled back down onto the bed next to him and he gave me a once over, "Are you alright? I didn't hurt you at all..."

"Oh geeze, no. I'm fine." I said, flipping a hand with a shrug. I take worse beatings than that on a weekly basis in the Danger Room, falling off a bed onto a carpeted -albeit likely very dirty- floor is absolutely nothing.

"So, should we keep going...?" He asked hesitantly.

"I don't know," I turned to him with a thin smile, "I think we've... collected sufficient data."

He leaned back on his hands and grinned at me, "Sure, okay. Would you care to report your findings?" He asked in his best "official" voice.

"Alright well," I let out a breath and folded my hands on my lap, "For starters, great kisser. In my top five for sure. Not too much tongue, you know, before I... bit it."

"Yeah, well you understand the shift from that point. It's another self preservation thing." He said with a smirk.

"The pacing was great, nothing seemed too rushed." I continued with a nod, before frowning, "It's just..."

"Too grabby?" Doug asked with a concerned frown.

"No, nothing like that." I shook my head reassuringly, "It was just... It was definitely weird."

Doug let out a deep sigh of relief as if our original suspicions had been confirmed and said, "Right?!" He sat up again and knit his brow, "I mean, don't get me wrong, the kissing itself was great, it was just-"

"There weren't any fireworks." I elaborated.

"Exactly!" He agreed with a nod, "It was like kissing a friend. Like if Ethan... had... breasts." He considered that for a moment before knitting his brow, "Except maybe not quite that weird."

"No, I totally agree. It was like kissing a friend. It was like when I had to kiss Remy. I'm not gunna lie and say it wasn't great, but that doesn't mean I want to go and do it again. Plus," I chuckled and shook my head, "He is too grabby."

"Wow." Doug's eyebrows pricked up and he gave me a judgmental look, "You've have this issue quite often, don't you?"

I snorted and rolled my eyes, about to protest that I most certainly don't, when too-much-tongue Summers popped up into my mind and I frowned, "Yeah, I guess I do."

He laughed, and to our joint relief, there was no longer any sense of lingering tension. No underlying "what if?" questions, no more awkwardness at all. Aside from the horrific memories of this entire awkward event, which we both agreed would stay our terrible little secret.

We both went back to our waffles, incredibly grateful that I'd had the foresight to save them, when Doug looked up at me with a grin, "So, this top five list."

I snorted through a mouthful of whipped cream and waffle, "Yes?"

"Where exactly would I fall on this list?"

I pressed my lips together thoughtfully, "Number four." I said with a confident nod before stuffing some more waffle into my mouth, "Three would probably be my ex-boyfriend Lance."

I mean yeah, the guy was kind of a dickhead, and he walked around wearing a denim vest and mullet, un-ironically, but I did have my reasons for sticking around with him for so long. He definitely had skills.

"Don't ever repeat this, but two would have to be Remy." I rolled my eyes and licked some whipped cream off my fork, "To be fair, the guy has a stupid amount of experience, so it's not exactly a fair fight."

Doug grinned, "So what you're saying is that I now have blackmail material on you?"

I gave him a tight smile in response and he let out a laugh, "Alright, what about number one?"

I was suddenly very focused on my waffle, finding it incredibly important to get just the right amount of strawberry to waffle to whipped cream ratio. "Uh well, that one is easy, I guess. Definitely Ryan Gosling."

Doug knit his brow skeptically, "Come again?"

"Yeah." I nodded and looked up at him with a casual shrug, "You know, I figure I'll just reserve the spot for him."

He smiled and stared at me with that unnerving, scrutinizing look he does, before nodding and stuffing the last bit of waffle into his mouth, "Sure, planning ahead. It just makes good sense."

It actually does make good sense, even though I was obviously using this as a blatant excuse to lie. I kind of feel like I could legitimately use this. Definitely never to Rogue though, because she'd bump Remy for Adam Levine in a heartbeat.

And probably Michael Keaton too. And that would definitely be weird, but for a whole plethora of different reasons.