2
Scott had been on probation since the incident at homecoming, and was more than a little miffed at not being able to take his car to school, but Jean said she wanted the practice, anyway; she hadn't had her license as long as he had, and she liked the power that was offered in driving the X-van. Scott supposed he should be grateful she was driving with them anyway, and not with her new boyfriend, Duncan Matthews.
Kurt just seemed nervous about the whole thing. Jean tried to engage him in conversation, asking him how close he was to getting his license, and he kept scrambling his phrases, making them almost incomprehensible.
"Ich hab kein—ach—s-sorry, I mean to say I have not—I have—no? Ja, stimmt. I have no…ahm…Geburtsurkunde," he said absently, fidgeting with the straps of his backpack, having not noticed that he had ended his phrase in German.
"Is that…important?" Scott asked, and Kurt frowned.
"Ja," he said slowly. "Ich bin nur hiergekommen—"
"English, Kurt," Jean said softly, and the hologram that was Kurt's face appeared concerned.
"Again?" he said, and his tone was bitter anguish. Unglaublich. I mean…Ah, I don't know what I mean! Why is this of a sudden so schwer?"
"You're just nervous. But hey—don't be! Everything will turn out all right," Jean said peppily, and it seemed to deepen Kurt's frown even more.
"You don't have the—the wrong language in your tongue."
Scott tried a half smile. That one…made sense. It just wasn't…your everyday colloquialism.
"Und! Noch was!" Kurt exclaimed, and held his tail up to show them.
"Oh," Jean said, and Scott echoed with his own,
"Yeah."
"Was soll ich den machen damit?" Kurt spat, waving it like a pointy party favor. Then, when he realized he'd been speaking German again, he sputtered. "I mean…that…oh, you know what I mean!"
His wide movements brushed his watch against the X-van's window, and he was suddenly his normal self, pointed ears and all, wearing the same outfit as his hologram, albeit sans shoes.
"Scheiße!" Kurt exclaimed, pulling his arm to himself and frantically jamming his large first finger on one of the buttons, restoring the hologram.
Scott knew that one. He knew what that one meant. Several things danced through his head, then.
He wears the same outfit under the hologram? That's…kind of smart, actually.
I wonder if his feet ever hurt?
Kurt can swear?
"Oh," Kurt said belatedly, and Scott was impressed that Kurt's hologram could blush. "Please…don't tell my Mutti," he mumbled.
There was a stunned moment, and then—he could hardly help it—Scott laughed loudly.
Kurt relaxed a little at last and joined him.
Todd Tolansky snapped his long, green tongue at a dragonfly, missing on purpose and snapping it again. Raven Darkholme snapped her tongue at him in return, though in the form of annoyed words.
"If you're so deliriously bored, go and do something with your life," she growled, flipping through the stack of papers in front of her in agitation.
"Like what?" he whined, gulping down the dragonfly with relish. "I got sacked from my job because I "smell weird," and that's the only job I wanted." He'd put finger-quotes around "smell weird," and his brusque companion let out a bark of what could pass as laughter.
"Perhaps if you made your hygiene something more of a priority."
Todd shrugged. "What's the point, yo? I could get money like that." He snapped, grinning. He quite enjoyed his foray into using his powers to thieve.
Well, to thieve here. He'd done a fair bit of the sticky-fingers thing when he was living in the city. But he was respectable, now. He lived in a Boarding House. He had a psycho lady who fudged paperwork for him. It was an entirely different game, here.
Mystique hummed; she used her powers for thieving, too, but in a different way. She had a "sponsor," she said, and didn't have to worry about petty things like having money to spend. The Boarding House she currently resided in, with Todd, would never have been a possibility on her salary as Principal of Bayville High. Not in New York.
"That Summers boy has destroyed enough of my school, thank you," she murmured, bringing Todd's thoughts back to focus. "Last year it was the gym. This year, the home bleachers. So far. It's only September."
Todd blinked slowly. "It's October."
There was a strange, inhuman growling noise, but it was suppressed by the normal, albeit annoyed voice of Raven Darkholme: Principal. "Don't you have mid-terms to study for?"
Recently, Mystique had been using monstrous transformations to scare Todd into cooperation with her schemes. More recently, Todd had taken a trip to the Xavier Institute, where Scott Summers lived, to spy on them, or something. He hadn't actually been clear on what he needed to do, once there.
Needless to say, Mystique hadn't considered the night a success, and she was back to doing her scheming the old-fashioned way: lots of research, lots of eavesdropping, and lots of being in the right place at the right time.
That was how she'd managed to get to Todd. So, he figured she didn't need to be all obsessive with a new method. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Right?
Todd glanced at the piles of paperwork Mystique was perusing.
School budget stuff, sprinkler system timers, Union paperwork, and a copy of a foster care check. He recognized the seal. Hmm. One of these things is not like the others.
His hands were naturally…grippy. Came with the whole Toad thing. Helped with the whole sticky-fingers thing, too. He slid a finger to the paper in question, and it came neatly away from its pile.
"Who the heck's Constance Jones?" he asked, eyes narrowed in concentration, reading the miniscule writing on a very badly-done copy.
Cue another inhuman growl from Principal Darkholme. "That's none of your concern!"
Todd sniffed. He could tell when he wasn't wanted. He just usually chose to ignore it. "Fine, teach. But someone's stealing her checks."
Mystique plucked the paper from Todd's hand, looking at it. "What makes you say that?"
"The signature on the back. That ain't no Constance Jones. That's a dude. A 'never learned no cursive' dude trying to fake it. And succeeding, because someone's a moron. My money's on the foster kid. I used to steal my foster mom's checks, too."
"How did you…catch that?" Mystique murmured, no growl detectable in her voice at all.
Todd grinned. "I gots eyes, teach. Toad's eyes can see through weird shit that other people can't. Didn't you know that?"
"Mind your tongue in my school, Mr. Tolansky."
Todd grunted. He hated that phrase. 'Mind your tongue.' Mostly, he hated how applicable it was to him. "Yeah, whatever," he shrugged. Mystique was looking thoughtfully at the check, and then she was suddenly picking up the phone, grabbing an outside line, and on the phone with a bank. She was back in her zone, and Todd was officially bored.
Jean decided she hated Mid-Terms. Not on their own merit, really; she understood the need to be tested on the material they'd covered in their classes thus far, to ensure the students were prepared for finals and end-of-year testing. Like, she got the logic.
But as a mutant? Who was still learning what Professor Xavier called "filtering" and what she often called "annoying"? Mid-Terms sucked.
Oh, my God, if Ms. Vasquez talks about the stupid symbology in 'The Scarlett Letter' again, I'll just kill myself. We get it! Nathaniel Hawthorne had no life!
I just don't get it! Do I keep studying it? Or do I just hope it won't come up on the test? I wonder how much my grade will slide if I utterly bomb the Mid-Term?
I can't believe this! The stress is bloating me out! These pants weren't so tight, before! Can they all see my panty lines?
"Jean?"
She bit back her automatic desire to growl aloud in frustration.
"Sorry. Spaced out for a sec," she said. Normal tone of voice. Friendly. Not frustrated. She smiled. "What's up?"
It was…Linda. From soccer. She smiled. "I just asked if you got any good pictures from the Homecoming game. Did you take pictures when—you know. The explosion happened?"
She hadn't. She'd taken a few pictures of the game proper, a few of Duncan to tease him, but she'd actually dropped the camera when the explosion happened. She'd figured out that Scott and Duncan were arguing—again—and come to break them up. Then Scott had hit that support-beam. His glasses had flown off. It had all happened so fast.
To Linda, Jean offered a light laugh. "No, I actually didn't. Guess I'm not a good journalist, huh? I was too worried that anyone had gotten hurt. Duncan got a concussion, did you hear?"
Jean sort of tuned the conversation out, once she'd steered it to a place with no substance. She didn't feel too bad doing it, though, because she'd promised Kurt she'd keep mental tabs on him. He'd all but been on the verge of a panic attack, this morning, and in the sudden deluge of minds she'd suddenly had to filter out once she stepped into the lunchroom, she'd lost track of him, for the first time that day.
She reached out for him mentally, struggling to do so without moving her hands to her temples. It didn't even help, really, to do it, but she noticed that she did it, now, because Scott had said something, and so she was hyper-vigilant about it. Like how she opened her mouth to put on mascara.
They were out of class. He had lunch now, too. He had stayed behind, packing his backpack with exaggerated slowness because he didn't want to bump into anyone in the hall. She saw Scott appear in the doorway.
"Hey, slowpoke. Get a move on! It's stroganoff day! The burger line will be surreal!"
Jean eased back, feeling better knowing that Scott and Kurt were together.
"Hey, Linda! Jean! Come here!"
Jean turned to the voice, smiling. Taryn. Also from soccer. She was sitting at a table with a few other girls from the team and Duncan, and a few of his friends from the football team.
She gave herself an inward sigh of relief. Amidst the maelstrom of Mid-Term stressing, it was actually so easy to sit with this group of people. Because she could tune out. They didn't often talk about anything deeper than the upcoming games, complaining about school, or other gossip.
Maybe it was rude, but it was necessary, lately.
"I just don't know what to do about Hawkins' class," Taryn was saying, and Jean nearly groaned aloud.
Mid-Terms sucked.
"Hey, you're friends with Scott, right?" Linda asked Jean, and Jean nodded.
"Yeah, we live at the Institute together."
"I heard he's like, scary good at Geometry. My friend Celia said she wouldn't have passed last year if Scott hadn't run his whole…what was it? Like, a tutoring…camp?"
"Woah, really? I could totally get in on that action," Taryn chimed in, "I had to retake it, and my mom flipped out."
Duncan rolled his eyes, but stayed silent. Jean frowned. Why didn't Duncan and Scott get along? After all this time?
"Hey, Jean."
Jean turned, smiling to see Paul Haits. He'd been a regular guest over the summer, and was a good friend of Scott's.
"You seen Scott around?" he asked, returning the smile, but not sitting down.
"Probably in the Burger line, if he fears the Stroganoff as much as he did last year," she joked.
"I'll track him down, then," Paul nodded, and made to leave.
"Wait! I'll come with you," Jean gladly took the excuse to extract herself from more Mid-Term talk. "Um, Taryn?" she directed her question as she stood. "Did you want me to tell Scott to contact you about tutoring? He'll have prices and stuff."
"Oh!" Taryn smiled, and Jean didn't roll her eyes.
She didn't.
"Um, sure! That would be awesome! Thanks, Jean!"
"See you around, Jean," Duncan called, and she waved.
Once they were a bit away, Jean sighed.
"Your friends exhausting you?" Paul said in amusement.
You have no idea.
"Just…Mid Terms," she said dismissively. "Oh, have you met Kurt?" she asked as an afterthought. "He just moved here from Germany. He's staying at the Institute with us."
"Oh, I haven't. From Germany? Wow. I dunno how your Professor finds you guys. I mean, Scott's from, like, Alaska, right?"
"Right," Jean smiled.
"And it's a…scholarship program? Or…"
Jean's smile became slightly more forced. What was it exactly that the Professor told people? "Um, I'm not sure what he calls it. It's a program for Gifted Students."
"I bet that looks nice on the college applications, too," Paul muttered.
"You're looking at colleges already?" Jean frowned. She did not need more stress. College? It was October! Their Junior year had just started.
"It's way too soon, right? Could you come to my house and tell that to my dad?" Paul chuckled, and then raised his hand—he'd found Scott and Kurt. "Braving this line? You'll waste away!"
Kurt's expression looked confused, and Jean frowned in sympathy. She had no idea there were so many idioms for him to sort out.
"Nah, it's worth it, right Kurt? Hamburgers are the best," Scott intercepted smoothly, and Kurt just nodded.
Paul introduced himself, and before he could extend his hand to shake, Kurt put out a fist; the universal sign for 'pound it.'
Jean smiled. That was clever. A handshake would reveal the fur on Kurt's hand.
Scott caught her eye, and they shared a smile.
You sick of Mid Terms, yet?
Jean arched an eyebrow at Scott's deliberately projected thought. Kurt and Paul were making conversation about Hamburgers, and how they related to frikadellen, which was a close German equivalent, thought the name 'Hamburger' was also German.
Mid Terms can go die.
Scott started laughing aloud, and then had to come up with a feeble explanation that he'd thought of something funny.
Jean wasn't amused.
AUTHORS NOTE
Trying to finish my WIP stories. This one came next, because it was easier to pump out than another chapter for my Diadem story. :)
I'm trying to fix a proper timeline into place, based on what info I have from the series. Episodes should be informed by the series, but largely taking place outside of the episode-by-episode canon. (This wasn't necessarily a problem in the first story, because it took place a year before the series even started, and I only had the X-Men: Evolution Comic-Book canon to go by.)
So, like, I'll have Kitty and Lance and Evan and Rogue; but like, moments we don't already see in canon. That's how I kind of wanted to do this. So this should last the duration of a season? I'm thinking? Or else the school year, if I can slow it up that much. We'll see.
So...I'll have a plan, more or less. A structure. I'm just bad at timing. (Remember when I said I was gonna update every two weeks? and how that...didn't work out? Yeah...)
Let me know in reviews or PM if you have questions!
~Angeladex
**Addendum** Um...German? Anyone? Since writing the first story, I have learned German, which greatly helps in Kurt-writings. It's straightforward, methinks? Like...'unglaublich' is 'unbelievable' or 'geburtsurkunde' is birth certificate? And I figure y'all have Google. (And I also figure y'all know the scheiße word. I mean. Scott knows it, too.) And I remember learning German, and thinking 'damit' was the funnest word, because it's literally just a preposition. Kurt's all, "What am I supposed to do with that?" and he's talking about his tail. But...in English, we just think 'damnit,' so it adds a layer of humor because, of course, they don't know what he's saying.
IDK. If y'all wants German translatings, shoot me a message. Unless y'all say something, I'm cool with you thinking Kurt is foreign and mysterious.