What Night May Hide, Chapter 5
I feel like writing Gambit in. I think I will.
Remy snored loudly as he stretched out on the couch. He had stretched his coat over himself as a blanket. It was raining. Before going to sleep, he had placed pots underneath the various leaks and turned the electricity off. The house was as much a dump as ever. The door slammed loudly. The whole building shook. "I don't believe this!" Lance bellowed from the foyer. His threw his backpack in a fit of rage. It flew through the living room, over Gambit, and crashed against a far wall.
The Cajun stirred and sat up to look at the storming mutant, his coat sliding down off his chest to the level of his waist.
"What now?" He muttered.
He sighed.
"Condamner, you are so easily aggravated. You should learn to control your temper." Avalanche stomped into the living room and gripped the back of the couch, staring at friend. "That... that... punk... blue..."
"Oh. That again." Gambit flopped back down and closed his eyes.
Pietro and the remainder of the brotherhood entered the house a bit more calmly. "Lance? Buddy?"
Lance was too busy steaming to reply. "Oui, he's in here!" Remy yelled, sitting up and swinging his legs onto the floor. He was obviously not going to get any sleep. He stood and dusted himself off, pulling on his jacket. "Perhaps I will go for a walk until I can be assured he won't bring the roof down around our ears." Toad dropped onto the couch Remy had vacated a moment before.
"Yeah, Lance. You really ought to learn to control your anger, yo." Lance was still fuming. Remy sighed as he walked out of the house. "So, tell us, what happened?" Pietro asked.
"Kurt."
"What, the blue boy?"
Attention students of Bayville High! Prom is next week! Guys ask girls, semi-formal attire! Don't be caught without a date! -Bayville High Student Council
Earlier that day, Lance and Kurt had argued. They had run into each other in the halls.
"Excuse me." Lance mumbled.
"Ja. Sorry." Kurt rubbed his head. Run into each other was probably the best description, yes. "Oh, scheist. I lost her."
"Lost who?" Kurt finally noticed who he had run into. "Oh, ah, no one."
"Who?"
"Really, you wouldn't care?" Lance stood up. He looked back and caught a glimpse of Kitty between the students.
"What were you going to ask Kitty about."
Kurt looked away.
"Um, well, you see..."
A light bulb went off in Lance's head. He grabbed Nightcrawler by his shirt collar and slammed him against a wall. All business, he put his face uncomfortably close to Kurt's.
"Tell me."
"Well,"
Kurt began to speak incomprehensibly fast.
"IfyoureallymustknowIwasaskingKittytothedancebutI'msureyouwouldn'tcareabouts omethinglikezatsoifyoupleaseI'llbeleavingnowgutentag!" BAMF! "That little..."
Lance took off through the crowd.
Kurt bamfed inside the cafeteria.
"Whew. That was close. Now, where could she have gone?"
"Out of my way!"
"Geez, chill man." A student yelled at him as he forced his way through a knot of friends.
"Emergency." "Whatever!"
BAMF! "Nope. Not here." The gym was empty, actually.
BAMF!
There she was, up ahead! Lance slid past an opening door, shifting past a teacher, sliding around other students, and began to close the distance between himself and Kitty. He had to ask her now, before Little Boy Blue beat him to it.
BAMF!
"Not here either!"
"Young man, what do you think you are doing in my classroom?!"
"Sorry miss, no time!"
BAMF!
"Kitty!"
She looked over her shoulder.
"Oh, hey Lance!"
He caught up with her, finally.
"So, what's up?" He asked.
"Nothing. We've got new students at the institute."
"That's nice. Hey, uh, about the dance..."
BAMF!
"Keehty!"
"Kitty!"
They both grabbed one of her arms and babbled in unison. "You've got to go to the dance with me! Just look at this loser!"
They split for a moment, each using the hand not latched onto Kitty to point at the other.
"He can't even spell idiot!"
"He's a freak of nature!"
Then they again babbled in unison.
"So you've really got to go with me please please please!" Kitty stared at both boys. There was an awkward silence as her eyes went from Kurt (Smiling with every bit of charm he could muster) To Lance (Glaring daggers at Kurt) to Kurt again (Now glaring daggers at Lance) to Lance (Now smiling with every bit of charm he could muster). Then, she put one hand over her mouth and giggled. She turned around and ran away, still giggling. Both boys watched her go, jaws down. Lance slowly turned to Kurt. Kurt slowly looked at Lance.
The sheer amount of malice and hatred in their glares can only be adequately described in a language much more descriptive and explicit than English.
"Uh, Logan?" The Institute was adjusting to the new students. They were adjusting to the institute. David had arrived only a few days before Van, and all the students had to adjust to seeing a boy appear from nowhere and having to prune the Institute's trees more often as a result of David's lack of control. Logan kept walking, barely acknowledging Scott. "What?" Scott hurried to catch up. "Well, eh..."
Logan stopped. Something was embarrassing Cyclops, but what? Scott was usually never embarrassed about anything, always blunt and to the point.
"Well, we, the other mutants have been talking."
His confidence was returning. Good. He was starting to pester Logan. "We wanted to know why you've been acting so strange."
Wolverine's heart dropped into his boots.
"What?" Scott swallowed. He silently cursed drawing straws and whoever invented it. "Well, there's just been something... well, off about you for the last few weeks."
"There's nothin'!" Logan yelled and stormed off.
'Tensions are mounting. Something is going to happen soon, I think.' Gambit walked in the rain, approaching the Xavier institute. The sun was setting, and not a soul was anywhere to be seen.
"So, Van, you've come back into the light. I had been wondering where you had gone, and I think that it's best you're with friends. But still."
He easily vaulted the fence.
'Perhaps it is best to meet again, no?'
"C'mon, Van! Be a pal!" Van laughed as he headed back to his room, pushing Evan away. The mutants were celebrating, exactly what they weren't sure. Scott and Jean laughed together. Kurt snapped an easily misunderstood photo of Evan and Zero. They chased him for a moment before he bamfed away. Van shook his head and ducked into his room, flicking on the light. The first thing he noticed was a chill. The window was open. He closed it.
"Little one." He recognized that voice. From far away, the earliest of memories...
"Ah, Your garçon es adorablé." "What?" "Remy, you have to speak English."
"Sorry. He's an adorable child. Is that better, ma'am?" "You can call me Mother if you want, Remy."
"Non, thank you. I will eventually." He had been held by strong arms, held close to a warm body. Not that of Father or Mother, another...
"Remy!"
"Well, we meet again, little brother." He turned around.
"It's been a very long time."
"Fourteen years. I thought you might want to see me.
There was a long silence as they looked at the changes in each other.
"He's dead, you know." Said Van. Remy nodded. He hadn't seen his father in a long time, and his stepmother never had concerned him. He had left New Orleans before he'd had a chance to really know her. Van had still been a little boy. He had heard, a few days ago, of a new mutant joining the X-Men. One whose powers to remove himself from others' perception paralleled his father's letters about their son disappearing into thin air at times. They began to talk, catch up on the times.
Professor Xavier wheeled down the hallway, heading for his own bedroom. He sensed the consciousnesses of his students, all preparing to retire for the evening. He passed Kurt's room, Scott's room, David's room, and Van's... He stopped. There were two people in Van's room. He reached out with his senses. Van, and another. He tried to place the mental pattern... Gambit! The Brotherhood! 'Jean, Scott, Ororo. Come to Van's room, immediately.'
"Merde."
"What?" asked Van.
"They know I'm here."
He ruffled Van's hair.
"It was nice to see you again. I have to leave." "Good-bye!"
"I'll drop by again sometime."
Gambit dropped back out the same window from which he had entered. A knock came at his door.
"Van!"
It was Scott.
"Van, is everything all right in there?" Van walked across the room and opened the door. "Yeah, everything's fine."
David watched this from down the hallway, poking his head out the door to his room. He looked out the window, watching Gambit dart between the trees. So, Gambit and Van had some sort of association. David shrugged and sat down at his chemistry set again. He drained the fluidal discharge of a stem into a beaker, then dropped in a root that bubbled away once it hit the concoction, changing the shade to a brown. David began measuring the next element for his experiment. All in all, he was the stunning image of a mad scientist, concocting some strange potion.
It was actually a miracle he hadn't blown himself sky-high yet. One of his abilities was the power to manipulate plant DNA and mutate it however he pleased. He exploited this to give his concoctions everything they needed. However, a large number of the mutations he devised were highly volatile. No matter what they were supposed to do, everything he made was always in danger of bursting into flames. He had lost eyebrows once or twice. He remembered that incident and muttered to himself.
"A true scientist is never put down by poor results."
The particular incident had involved his beaker shooting green flames five feet high. It had happened shortly before he'd come to the institute, and his room at home still smelled like dead fish.
"Kitty..."
Logan's hands were sweating. He couldn't focus. He couldn't think. He lay in bed, looking at the ceiling. "What... what am I feeling?" As far as he could remember, he'd never felt this, from his birth, through the war, through everything, he'd never felt this. An emotion pulling at him, telling him that he had to do something completely irrational. He wanted to... he wanted to protect Kitty. He wanted to keep her safe from everything, any harm. He wanted to be a kind of knight to her. He wanted her to come to him with her troubles, and to cry on his shoulder when she was sad. He wanted to see her laugh, and hold her close... always. That was it. That was what this feeling was.
From the diary of Kitty Pryde:
Dear Diary,
I don't get it. Mr. Logan is kind of gruff sometimes, but I think he's a really sweet guy. There are times when I think that I should go with what everyone thinks. Maybe I should be Lance's girlfriend. That's what everyone wants, right? Or Kurt, maybe. But I keep thinking about Logan. Why? I don't get it. I keep thinking about the times he's saved me, about us fighting together, how right it felt. I can't feel that near anyone else, and I feel... I feel this need to help him. His past has been so bad, and I just can't stand to see him face all the things ahead of him on his own. I don't know how to describe it, or even if I can. I just... I just need time to think.
Yours,
Kitty
"You're going down, Alvers!"
"Yeah, right, Maximoff! Let's see you try!"
"Bring it on!"
Remy threw his cards on the table. "Gin. Now shut up." The rest of the brotherhood groaned and threw their cards down. "How can he win thirty-six times in a row?" Toad groaned.
"It's impossible!" Lance joined in. Remy shook his head, gathered up the cards, and reshuffled.
I feel like writing Gambit in. I think I will.
Remy snored loudly as he stretched out on the couch. He had stretched his coat over himself as a blanket. It was raining. Before going to sleep, he had placed pots underneath the various leaks and turned the electricity off. The house was as much a dump as ever. The door slammed loudly. The whole building shook. "I don't believe this!" Lance bellowed from the foyer. His threw his backpack in a fit of rage. It flew through the living room, over Gambit, and crashed against a far wall.
The Cajun stirred and sat up to look at the storming mutant, his coat sliding down off his chest to the level of his waist.
"What now?" He muttered.
He sighed.
"Condamner, you are so easily aggravated. You should learn to control your temper." Avalanche stomped into the living room and gripped the back of the couch, staring at friend. "That... that... punk... blue..."
"Oh. That again." Gambit flopped back down and closed his eyes.
Pietro and the remainder of the brotherhood entered the house a bit more calmly. "Lance? Buddy?"
Lance was too busy steaming to reply. "Oui, he's in here!" Remy yelled, sitting up and swinging his legs onto the floor. He was obviously not going to get any sleep. He stood and dusted himself off, pulling on his jacket. "Perhaps I will go for a walk until I can be assured he won't bring the roof down around our ears." Toad dropped onto the couch Remy had vacated a moment before.
"Yeah, Lance. You really ought to learn to control your anger, yo." Lance was still fuming. Remy sighed as he walked out of the house. "So, tell us, what happened?" Pietro asked.
"Kurt."
"What, the blue boy?"
Attention students of Bayville High! Prom is next week! Guys ask girls, semi-formal attire! Don't be caught without a date! -Bayville High Student Council
Earlier that day, Lance and Kurt had argued. They had run into each other in the halls.
"Excuse me." Lance mumbled.
"Ja. Sorry." Kurt rubbed his head. Run into each other was probably the best description, yes. "Oh, scheist. I lost her."
"Lost who?" Kurt finally noticed who he had run into. "Oh, ah, no one."
"Who?"
"Really, you wouldn't care?" Lance stood up. He looked back and caught a glimpse of Kitty between the students.
"What were you going to ask Kitty about."
Kurt looked away.
"Um, well, you see..."
A light bulb went off in Lance's head. He grabbed Nightcrawler by his shirt collar and slammed him against a wall. All business, he put his face uncomfortably close to Kurt's.
"Tell me."
"Well,"
Kurt began to speak incomprehensibly fast.
"IfyoureallymustknowIwasaskingKittytothedancebutI'msureyouwouldn'tcareabouts omethinglikezatsoifyoupleaseI'llbeleavingnowgutentag!" BAMF! "That little..."
Lance took off through the crowd.
Kurt bamfed inside the cafeteria.
"Whew. That was close. Now, where could she have gone?"
"Out of my way!"
"Geez, chill man." A student yelled at him as he forced his way through a knot of friends.
"Emergency." "Whatever!"
BAMF! "Nope. Not here." The gym was empty, actually.
BAMF!
There she was, up ahead! Lance slid past an opening door, shifting past a teacher, sliding around other students, and began to close the distance between himself and Kitty. He had to ask her now, before Little Boy Blue beat him to it.
BAMF!
"Not here either!"
"Young man, what do you think you are doing in my classroom?!"
"Sorry miss, no time!"
BAMF!
"Kitty!"
She looked over her shoulder.
"Oh, hey Lance!"
He caught up with her, finally.
"So, what's up?" He asked.
"Nothing. We've got new students at the institute."
"That's nice. Hey, uh, about the dance..."
BAMF!
"Keehty!"
"Kitty!"
They both grabbed one of her arms and babbled in unison. "You've got to go to the dance with me! Just look at this loser!"
They split for a moment, each using the hand not latched onto Kitty to point at the other.
"He can't even spell idiot!"
"He's a freak of nature!"
Then they again babbled in unison.
"So you've really got to go with me please please please!" Kitty stared at both boys. There was an awkward silence as her eyes went from Kurt (Smiling with every bit of charm he could muster) To Lance (Glaring daggers at Kurt) to Kurt again (Now glaring daggers at Lance) to Lance (Now smiling with every bit of charm he could muster). Then, she put one hand over her mouth and giggled. She turned around and ran away, still giggling. Both boys watched her go, jaws down. Lance slowly turned to Kurt. Kurt slowly looked at Lance.
The sheer amount of malice and hatred in their glares can only be adequately described in a language much more descriptive and explicit than English.
"Uh, Logan?" The Institute was adjusting to the new students. They were adjusting to the institute. David had arrived only a few days before Van, and all the students had to adjust to seeing a boy appear from nowhere and having to prune the Institute's trees more often as a result of David's lack of control. Logan kept walking, barely acknowledging Scott. "What?" Scott hurried to catch up. "Well, eh..."
Logan stopped. Something was embarrassing Cyclops, but what? Scott was usually never embarrassed about anything, always blunt and to the point.
"Well, we, the other mutants have been talking."
His confidence was returning. Good. He was starting to pester Logan. "We wanted to know why you've been acting so strange."
Wolverine's heart dropped into his boots.
"What?" Scott swallowed. He silently cursed drawing straws and whoever invented it. "Well, there's just been something... well, off about you for the last few weeks."
"There's nothin'!" Logan yelled and stormed off.
'Tensions are mounting. Something is going to happen soon, I think.' Gambit walked in the rain, approaching the Xavier institute. The sun was setting, and not a soul was anywhere to be seen.
"So, Van, you've come back into the light. I had been wondering where you had gone, and I think that it's best you're with friends. But still."
He easily vaulted the fence.
'Perhaps it is best to meet again, no?'
"C'mon, Van! Be a pal!" Van laughed as he headed back to his room, pushing Evan away. The mutants were celebrating, exactly what they weren't sure. Scott and Jean laughed together. Kurt snapped an easily misunderstood photo of Evan and Zero. They chased him for a moment before he bamfed away. Van shook his head and ducked into his room, flicking on the light. The first thing he noticed was a chill. The window was open. He closed it.
"Little one." He recognized that voice. From far away, the earliest of memories...
"Ah, Your garçon es adorablé." "What?" "Remy, you have to speak English."
"Sorry. He's an adorable child. Is that better, ma'am?" "You can call me Mother if you want, Remy."
"Non, thank you. I will eventually." He had been held by strong arms, held close to a warm body. Not that of Father or Mother, another...
"Remy!"
"Well, we meet again, little brother." He turned around.
"It's been a very long time."
"Fourteen years. I thought you might want to see me.
There was a long silence as they looked at the changes in each other.
"He's dead, you know." Said Van. Remy nodded. He hadn't seen his father in a long time, and his stepmother never had concerned him. He had left New Orleans before he'd had a chance to really know her. Van had still been a little boy. He had heard, a few days ago, of a new mutant joining the X-Men. One whose powers to remove himself from others' perception paralleled his father's letters about their son disappearing into thin air at times. They began to talk, catch up on the times.
Professor Xavier wheeled down the hallway, heading for his own bedroom. He sensed the consciousnesses of his students, all preparing to retire for the evening. He passed Kurt's room, Scott's room, David's room, and Van's... He stopped. There were two people in Van's room. He reached out with his senses. Van, and another. He tried to place the mental pattern... Gambit! The Brotherhood! 'Jean, Scott, Ororo. Come to Van's room, immediately.'
"Merde."
"What?" asked Van.
"They know I'm here."
He ruffled Van's hair.
"It was nice to see you again. I have to leave." "Good-bye!"
"I'll drop by again sometime."
Gambit dropped back out the same window from which he had entered. A knock came at his door.
"Van!"
It was Scott.
"Van, is everything all right in there?" Van walked across the room and opened the door. "Yeah, everything's fine."
David watched this from down the hallway, poking his head out the door to his room. He looked out the window, watching Gambit dart between the trees. So, Gambit and Van had some sort of association. David shrugged and sat down at his chemistry set again. He drained the fluidal discharge of a stem into a beaker, then dropped in a root that bubbled away once it hit the concoction, changing the shade to a brown. David began measuring the next element for his experiment. All in all, he was the stunning image of a mad scientist, concocting some strange potion.
It was actually a miracle he hadn't blown himself sky-high yet. One of his abilities was the power to manipulate plant DNA and mutate it however he pleased. He exploited this to give his concoctions everything they needed. However, a large number of the mutations he devised were highly volatile. No matter what they were supposed to do, everything he made was always in danger of bursting into flames. He had lost eyebrows once or twice. He remembered that incident and muttered to himself.
"A true scientist is never put down by poor results."
The particular incident had involved his beaker shooting green flames five feet high. It had happened shortly before he'd come to the institute, and his room at home still smelled like dead fish.
"Kitty..."
Logan's hands were sweating. He couldn't focus. He couldn't think. He lay in bed, looking at the ceiling. "What... what am I feeling?" As far as he could remember, he'd never felt this, from his birth, through the war, through everything, he'd never felt this. An emotion pulling at him, telling him that he had to do something completely irrational. He wanted to... he wanted to protect Kitty. He wanted to keep her safe from everything, any harm. He wanted to be a kind of knight to her. He wanted her to come to him with her troubles, and to cry on his shoulder when she was sad. He wanted to see her laugh, and hold her close... always. That was it. That was what this feeling was.
From the diary of Kitty Pryde:
Dear Diary,
I don't get it. Mr. Logan is kind of gruff sometimes, but I think he's a really sweet guy. There are times when I think that I should go with what everyone thinks. Maybe I should be Lance's girlfriend. That's what everyone wants, right? Or Kurt, maybe. But I keep thinking about Logan. Why? I don't get it. I keep thinking about the times he's saved me, about us fighting together, how right it felt. I can't feel that near anyone else, and I feel... I feel this need to help him. His past has been so bad, and I just can't stand to see him face all the things ahead of him on his own. I don't know how to describe it, or even if I can. I just... I just need time to think.
Yours,
Kitty
"You're going down, Alvers!"
"Yeah, right, Maximoff! Let's see you try!"
"Bring it on!"
Remy threw his cards on the table. "Gin. Now shut up." The rest of the brotherhood groaned and threw their cards down. "How can he win thirty-six times in a row?" Toad groaned.
"It's impossible!" Lance joined in. Remy shook his head, gathered up the cards, and reshuffled.