The X-Men and other X-Properties mentioned within this story belong
respectfully to the rightful owners and not to me. This story is written
for simple enjoyment purposes to be shown only to interested parties that
seek it out. In our own defense, can we help it if the X and all it's
facets are now subliminally impressed upon the universal psyche?
Summary: Okay, so the Kurt and Kitty from my X-Men: Evolution fic 'It only hurts a little (all the time)' have grown up to become the Kurt and Kitty of the eXcalibur comics. And the story line resumes in flashbacks and dialog over orange juice.
Brunch with Mutants By Remedy=Chill
Kurt stretched out to his full, albeit diminutive, height.
The sun had long since risen, although the English seaside refused to admit it, staying tucked beneath a thick blanket of clouds as though it had a hangover.
Kurt was the leader of the Mutant team eXcalibur. Although on most days it was difficult to tell who ran the group due to Kurt's lax style of command. And furthermore, so far as a mutant team goes, it hosted more than it's fair share of aliens, enemies, and interdimentional fantasy creatures, on numerous occasions.
Kurt felt himself smiling. That generally meant he was done with his stretching.
He held the stretch a second longer just to be sure, and broke in to a wicked grin, admiring his view. It was hard for Kurt to believe that some people would never even set foot in a lighthouse, let alone know the pure joy of waking up every morning with a lighthouse view of the world.
Kurt loved to watch the sea in the morning. It was as honest a thing as he believed could exist in this world; Just like a child. You knew when it was relaxed, when it was tense, when it was angry, and when it was too quiet and still for too long, you knew something must have pissed it off or hurt it's feelings, because it was up to something.
Kurt admired honesty. It was a defense mechanism that sprang from one too many honesty shudders and gasps upon seeing him close up.
Of course, it was a different age now than it was years ago, when it seemed that hiding would be a way of life, or waiting to die on some mission for Xavier as he always thought he would.
The world had really opened up to him. He had seen more history unfold than he cared to admit. There had been no hiding recently. Not in a long time. His image was occasionally plastered all over the news, most of the time in a good way, and no one seemed to mind his looks all so much. Most everyone seems to understand.
Sometimes he gets letters. The naughty adult kind from admirers.
And Kurt had to lower his eyes from the view for a moment, feeling caught by the ocean, wearing his emotions on the surface, in the form of a gentle blush.
But then Kurt regained his composure and took in the view for one last moment, breathing in deeply, as though the power and majesty of the ocean were in that breath, he turned to face his day.
He trotted lightly down the spiral staircase on his way to the kitchen.
And almost immediately he wished he hadn't.
"Oh, Ki-tty. I'm so, so sorry." Kurt clapped his hand to his head. "I pro- missed I'd hel-p."
For a moment Kitty was confused.
She was disheveled to say the least. Her hair had once been tied back, but now the wild strands were evenly numbered with those that hung, almost mockingly, loose in the hair-tie.
She carried the telltale dust and grime of the infamous eXcalibur crawl space.
For those who do not know the story of the infamous eXcalibur crawl space, read on. The rest of you can skip ahead eight paragraphs.
You see, once upon a time the lighthouse exploded. No one remembers when exactly, or to be precise, which time. As the lighthouse has in fact exploded, seemingly of it's own volition at times, on too many separate instances to count.
But explode it did, and it left absolutely no where to put anything. All the salvage from the explosion was exposed to the elements. The Blackbird (on loan) needed to be unloaded or refueled before returning it, and the gas card had yet to be recovered.
So Kurt unloaded the Jet and nailed the crates it contained to the top floor of the lighthouse in something like a strait line.
He left a gap before the last crate, and filled this space with their now meager belongings and salvageable goods. He then covered this gap with a tarp and nailed it all down as tightly as he could.
He called his contractor who by now understood reasonably well how not to ask questions, and then Kurt more than likely set about saving the world, or some other such activity that he finds similarly engrossing.
The point being that he wasn't around when construction began. Or when construction proceeded. Nor had he arrived when mistakes were made, and walls went up. He did get home before they finished construction mind you, but he was probably really tired. And it wasn't for about three weeks after the construction ended, that he ever got around to wondering where those crates went.
When in fact, that had gone no where at all. Instead, the workmen had simply walled around them on all sides. It was a little hard to tell, because they had reconstructed the floor with levels, which coincidentally was done to offset the crates!
And so began the tedious process of cutting open each crate, emptying it, and proceeding down the line, crate to crate, until they were all empty. Theoretically, anyway. It never really seemed to get finished, largely due to the things that have been moved IN for storage and crippled any efforts at forward motion.
"Oh. Right!" She gestured wildly with an uncapped bottle of spring water. "Tomorrow. You were supposed to help tomorrow. I just couldn't wait."
"Couvent vait?" Kurt gave her an obvious raised eyebrow of suspicion.
"Couldn't sleep." She admitted. "I've been up since four." She looked slightly embarrassed.
"Bad dr-eams?" Kurt asked, feeling sympathetic.
Kitty flushed. "No." She smiled slyly "The other kind."
And Kurt flushed back.
"Oh." He smiled despite himself. "I try to go BECK to b-ed for do-es."
Kitty swatted at him. "Kurt! I can't believe you said that."
Kurt jumped and smiled, enjoying the game. "So har y-ou goink to tell me abou-t it?" he chided, slipping bread in to the toaster and depressing the handle.
"I will not." She announced rather resolutely.
"Not ev-an if I mak-e eggs?" Kurt held up the frying pan temptingly.
Kitty waffled. Eggs? Breakfast? It sounded awfully tempting. But in the end it was the quiet that won her over. A nice quiet breakfast? If he could pull that off, maybe he deserved the story. Not the truly embarrassing details, but the story? Maybe?
"How about this, if you cook, we can discuss our dreams, I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours." She felt a bit like teasing "Provided your dreams are worth it."
He cast her a disarmingly confident glance and cracked an egg.
Kitty took off to shower before breakfast.
She stepped out of the shower a moment later to the smell of kosher bacon and buttered toast. She wiped at the foggy mirror and looked herself in the eye. "How much do you plan to tell him?" Her reflection seemed to say.
And try as she might, she had no answer. Because it was Kurt.
She trusted Kurt with her life. More importantly, with her soul. She could be fighting anywhere, with anyone. She was one of Xavier's finest. But day in and day out this is where she chooses to be. And for one reason; Her faith in Kurt.
Sure Xavier fights the good fight, and he cares, but he's hard to get close to. His mental discipline and his knowledge of human potential are carried in a heavy and intimidating gaze that he seems totally unaware of.
Kurt on the other hand is. . . Cuddly.
She shook her head. She had meant to say he was endearing. Personable and charming. Maybe a little cuddly too, but not a cuddly as he was. . . Noble, in a swashbuckling sense of the word.
And he fights the good fight as well as anybody, anywhere.
A part of Kitty didn't want to face him. Didn't want to talk about it. And he'd understand too, despite the eggs.
And she knew she would anyway, no matter what kind of a mistake it was, because Kurt didn't mind mistakes. Xavier wanted a well-oiled machine with clearly labeled parts and some form of warranty against mistakes baring catastrophic developments. It was always a little too much pressure for Kitty.
Kurt doesn't work like that. It's much more like Kurt owns a ship with a talented crew. He's just happy everyone's on board and looking to get through the storm. Most times you can't even tell he's the captain, because he's usually busy pitching in wherever he's needed, and letting his crew do their jobs.
And for a moment Kitty wondered when she first knew there was something special about Kurt. And then she remembered something from her excursion through the crawl space.
She pulled on a sweatshirt and shorts, toweled her hair, and headed off to grab a piece of history. "And then" She thought, "to breakfast!"
"Remember this?" She asked, holding out a small sword in a red wooden scabbard.
"Ach!" Kurt gasped and a lump caught in his throat. "I vorgot it was down there." He shook his head, taking it gingerly, and wiping at the dust.
"Lo-gan gave me dis!" He smiled. It seemed like so long ago and yet he could still remember the smell of the oiled blade and the leather strap. He could still recall the sound it made the first time he drew it and the smug 'click' in made when it closed. "It vas his." He concluded.
"It was?" Kitty found herself suddenly interested.
"Yes." He said the word quickly. "He to-ld me dat he would te-ach at da skool, and instrucdt oders in da use of a blade, bu-t dat I vas mo-re dan dat. I vas his app-rentice, HEES stu-dant. And he vould on-ly teach one app- rentice da sord, ev-er."
Kitty looked at the sword. It was short now for Kurt's frame, and maybe a little too big when he got it. She had realized that his weapons training classes with Wolverine were brutal but she had no idea. No one did. Logan never let them watch. And the one time he found them trying to peek? Kitty phased out of pure fear, right out through a wall, and left Bobby and Jubilee to take the heat.
Neither one ever tried that again. "Come to think of it" She reasoned silently "it's quite possible that Jubilee's still mad about that."
"Kurt. We never knew it was like that." It was part apology for snooping and part shame as a result of finally understanding the intrusion.
"No one did." Kurt smiled and set the sword aside. "Do you vant to know how I graduated?"
Kitty cocked her head to the side.
"How my lessons ended?" He asked, smiling intimately, hoping up to sit on the kitchen counter next to his sword.
"How?" She asked hesitantly.
"He tried to kill me." He said as sincerely as possible. "I vas'nt even seven-teen."
He smiled wickedly. Kurt didn't boast unless it was at least half in jest. This was just plain amazement on his part.
"It vas a good ting I did it den, ven I vas dumb enough not to know how dangerous he vas." He rolled his R's as he spoke the word 'dangerous' and it made the hair on the back of Kitty's neck stand up.
There might have been a kernel of truth in there somewhere, but Kitty knew better. Wolverine had most everybody beat hands down when it came to being a savage, and most everyone else when it came to relying on training and discipline. But she knew Kurt better than that. He could handle Wolverine. She'd seen him handle worse.
"Good thing for him that fight isn't happening today." She said with a smile, swiping the plate with the bigger pile of eggs and making for the next room.
Kurt smiled slyly until she had left the room, then uncovered a frying pan full of scrambled eggs and redoubled the amount on his plate, so he had more. He then recovered the pan and followed her to the next room.
"So tell me ab-out dis dream." He laughed at her as he sat down the plate and seated himself behind it. Her eyes were darting from his pile of eggs to hers and back again. She seemed to be trying to calculate how much egg she had eaten and how much was left on her plate. She was probably forgetting to factor in the large lump of egg she had stuffed in her cheek.
In a moment she resumed chewing and shook her head subtly side to side.
And Kurt had a moment.
It was one of those moments when a person looks back in time and is young again.
He could see how he had always found her beautiful. All he needed was to see it when she had an awkward mouthful of scrambled egg, and he knew that he had been right all those years ago. She was beautiful, and shone like a light, all the time.
And once he had the right eyes. He could see it anytime, just by looking. And somewhere inside a small knife turned. Things he had not felt in years suddenly pained him, just a little.
She swallowed her egg and wiped at her mouth. "Kurt?" She took a long leisurely look at him as she tore her toast in to little pieces and ate it apiece at a time.
He shook his head free of the micro-sleep that had him. "Sorry." He cast his eyes around the table, picked up a knife and began buttering more toast in mock distraction.
"It's been a long time since you looked at me like that." Kitty had stopped eating and had pushed her plate off to the side. She leaned forward, over the table, lying her arms between them. She took his toast hand and made him put it down so she could hold it.
Once upon a time his skin was alien to her. It's texture and feel were just too different from her own for her comfort. It embarrassed her. The memory still does.
There was that one-day, the day Kurt picked the fight with Logan. She had held his hand that day. Gone out of her way to touch him, like he was a rock star or a celebrity.
Was it then that she knew Kurt was special? Surely, she already suspected, if not knew.
She would have kissed him that day. She wanted to kiss him. She had left him quite disappointed in herself. Absently muttering about being friends and being on the same team. When what she really wanted was to jump up and down, kiss him and hug him, and celebrate his victory like a friend and a team mate.
And a thought struck her "That's exactly what we are now."
Is it really possible that nothing has changed between them since that day?
"I kind of, like it." She squeezed his hand a little. "When you look at me that way." She smiled as he swallowed his breakfast slowly "I forgot how much I like it, actually."
"I vorgot how easy it vas." He smiled and she saw his large gold eyes relax around the edges as he again allowed himself to get lost in her as he had in his youth.
Then she had seemed perfect to him for a million childish reasons.
Now she seemed perfect for one: Because he truly knew her.
"Kitty?" He was still unsure. Where had this come from?
"I had a dream about you last night Kurt." She told him, holding his hand and staring him in the eye. "You know, the kind you like to stay in bed for."
He brushed his plate aside and leaned in to hold both her hands with his. And yet he was having trouble believing what he was hearing.
"And it got me to thinking Kurt, about a chance I didn't take once." She bit her lower lip playfully, feigning worry. "It's not too late? Is it Kurt?"
Kurt shook his head, half rising from his seat when she leaned in and kissed him. In a moment her arms were around his neck and she was clinging to him.
When the kiss finally ended Kurt looked her in the eye. "Ki-tty, vat does dis mean?"
She pressed her finger to his lips "You're missing the spirit of the moment." She told him. "I did it because my life would be less by all accounts if I never. . ." She reached out and stroked his odd and angular face with her fingertips, not he back of her fingers as she had done so often before.
"I ave regrets too." He told her. "I tr-ied to kiss you once."
Her mind reached out. When could it have been?
"Bach in skool." He dropped his eyes "Sco-tt cal-led you. Car-pool to da mall."
He could see that she didn't remember.
"It vas da first time you saw me avter Weapon's Training." He told her, and he watched the recognition register on her face.
"Strike first and mean it." She remembered and repeated. "Oh, Kurt, it was too. . . Smooth!"
Kurt was visibly shaken "Smoove?" He asked with an inquisitive eyebrow.
"Do it again." She said, ducking in to the kitchen to grab the old sword.
She handed it to him. "Do it again." She said. "I was standing here."
A part of Kurt wanted to say that this was silly. That these kissing games could be potentially bad for their friendship.
But he didn't. Some part of him was still there, standing in that hall, with a face full of ponytail.
He considered the sword in his hand and then her.
"I can see you un-der-stan-d about striking virst." He told her, advancing on her as he never had before.
He put the sword on the table and hooked the front of her shorts with one thick finger, pulling her close.
"But dis is how to mean it." He scooped her mouth with his and took her gently by the back of the head with one hand while wrapping the other around her supple waist.
Her hands traveled over his solid form and up in to his hair. Dear God, what would she have done, if someone had kissed her like this in high school?
And last nights dream returned in full force. Instead of being disturbing now, it made perfect sense. She knew exactly what she would have done if he had kissed her like this in High School. That truth had woken her in a sweat, with a racing heart, at three fifteen a.m.
It had driven her to try to burn off that energy, to redirect her mind, hell, she even tried cleaning out the crawl space. But it was all for nothing.
He eased away to consider her for a moment without letting go. "Dis idea, ex-pressing our veelings be-cause ve can."
"Yes?" She wondered if he had found some logical loophole that would undo them.
"Vhy don't ve try it ov-er nite and see if ve like it?"
And he kissed her again, and cupping her close, he teleported.
And the kiss continued there, more passionately and uninhibited, in front of Kurt's bedroom view, as the sea stretched out before them, rolling and swelling in time with the rhythms of life.
Summary: Okay, so the Kurt and Kitty from my X-Men: Evolution fic 'It only hurts a little (all the time)' have grown up to become the Kurt and Kitty of the eXcalibur comics. And the story line resumes in flashbacks and dialog over orange juice.
Brunch with Mutants By Remedy=Chill
Kurt stretched out to his full, albeit diminutive, height.
The sun had long since risen, although the English seaside refused to admit it, staying tucked beneath a thick blanket of clouds as though it had a hangover.
Kurt was the leader of the Mutant team eXcalibur. Although on most days it was difficult to tell who ran the group due to Kurt's lax style of command. And furthermore, so far as a mutant team goes, it hosted more than it's fair share of aliens, enemies, and interdimentional fantasy creatures, on numerous occasions.
Kurt felt himself smiling. That generally meant he was done with his stretching.
He held the stretch a second longer just to be sure, and broke in to a wicked grin, admiring his view. It was hard for Kurt to believe that some people would never even set foot in a lighthouse, let alone know the pure joy of waking up every morning with a lighthouse view of the world.
Kurt loved to watch the sea in the morning. It was as honest a thing as he believed could exist in this world; Just like a child. You knew when it was relaxed, when it was tense, when it was angry, and when it was too quiet and still for too long, you knew something must have pissed it off or hurt it's feelings, because it was up to something.
Kurt admired honesty. It was a defense mechanism that sprang from one too many honesty shudders and gasps upon seeing him close up.
Of course, it was a different age now than it was years ago, when it seemed that hiding would be a way of life, or waiting to die on some mission for Xavier as he always thought he would.
The world had really opened up to him. He had seen more history unfold than he cared to admit. There had been no hiding recently. Not in a long time. His image was occasionally plastered all over the news, most of the time in a good way, and no one seemed to mind his looks all so much. Most everyone seems to understand.
Sometimes he gets letters. The naughty adult kind from admirers.
And Kurt had to lower his eyes from the view for a moment, feeling caught by the ocean, wearing his emotions on the surface, in the form of a gentle blush.
But then Kurt regained his composure and took in the view for one last moment, breathing in deeply, as though the power and majesty of the ocean were in that breath, he turned to face his day.
He trotted lightly down the spiral staircase on his way to the kitchen.
And almost immediately he wished he hadn't.
"Oh, Ki-tty. I'm so, so sorry." Kurt clapped his hand to his head. "I pro- missed I'd hel-p."
For a moment Kitty was confused.
She was disheveled to say the least. Her hair had once been tied back, but now the wild strands were evenly numbered with those that hung, almost mockingly, loose in the hair-tie.
She carried the telltale dust and grime of the infamous eXcalibur crawl space.
For those who do not know the story of the infamous eXcalibur crawl space, read on. The rest of you can skip ahead eight paragraphs.
You see, once upon a time the lighthouse exploded. No one remembers when exactly, or to be precise, which time. As the lighthouse has in fact exploded, seemingly of it's own volition at times, on too many separate instances to count.
But explode it did, and it left absolutely no where to put anything. All the salvage from the explosion was exposed to the elements. The Blackbird (on loan) needed to be unloaded or refueled before returning it, and the gas card had yet to be recovered.
So Kurt unloaded the Jet and nailed the crates it contained to the top floor of the lighthouse in something like a strait line.
He left a gap before the last crate, and filled this space with their now meager belongings and salvageable goods. He then covered this gap with a tarp and nailed it all down as tightly as he could.
He called his contractor who by now understood reasonably well how not to ask questions, and then Kurt more than likely set about saving the world, or some other such activity that he finds similarly engrossing.
The point being that he wasn't around when construction began. Or when construction proceeded. Nor had he arrived when mistakes were made, and walls went up. He did get home before they finished construction mind you, but he was probably really tired. And it wasn't for about three weeks after the construction ended, that he ever got around to wondering where those crates went.
When in fact, that had gone no where at all. Instead, the workmen had simply walled around them on all sides. It was a little hard to tell, because they had reconstructed the floor with levels, which coincidentally was done to offset the crates!
And so began the tedious process of cutting open each crate, emptying it, and proceeding down the line, crate to crate, until they were all empty. Theoretically, anyway. It never really seemed to get finished, largely due to the things that have been moved IN for storage and crippled any efforts at forward motion.
"Oh. Right!" She gestured wildly with an uncapped bottle of spring water. "Tomorrow. You were supposed to help tomorrow. I just couldn't wait."
"Couvent vait?" Kurt gave her an obvious raised eyebrow of suspicion.
"Couldn't sleep." She admitted. "I've been up since four." She looked slightly embarrassed.
"Bad dr-eams?" Kurt asked, feeling sympathetic.
Kitty flushed. "No." She smiled slyly "The other kind."
And Kurt flushed back.
"Oh." He smiled despite himself. "I try to go BECK to b-ed for do-es."
Kitty swatted at him. "Kurt! I can't believe you said that."
Kurt jumped and smiled, enjoying the game. "So har y-ou goink to tell me abou-t it?" he chided, slipping bread in to the toaster and depressing the handle.
"I will not." She announced rather resolutely.
"Not ev-an if I mak-e eggs?" Kurt held up the frying pan temptingly.
Kitty waffled. Eggs? Breakfast? It sounded awfully tempting. But in the end it was the quiet that won her over. A nice quiet breakfast? If he could pull that off, maybe he deserved the story. Not the truly embarrassing details, but the story? Maybe?
"How about this, if you cook, we can discuss our dreams, I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours." She felt a bit like teasing "Provided your dreams are worth it."
He cast her a disarmingly confident glance and cracked an egg.
Kitty took off to shower before breakfast.
She stepped out of the shower a moment later to the smell of kosher bacon and buttered toast. She wiped at the foggy mirror and looked herself in the eye. "How much do you plan to tell him?" Her reflection seemed to say.
And try as she might, she had no answer. Because it was Kurt.
She trusted Kurt with her life. More importantly, with her soul. She could be fighting anywhere, with anyone. She was one of Xavier's finest. But day in and day out this is where she chooses to be. And for one reason; Her faith in Kurt.
Sure Xavier fights the good fight, and he cares, but he's hard to get close to. His mental discipline and his knowledge of human potential are carried in a heavy and intimidating gaze that he seems totally unaware of.
Kurt on the other hand is. . . Cuddly.
She shook her head. She had meant to say he was endearing. Personable and charming. Maybe a little cuddly too, but not a cuddly as he was. . . Noble, in a swashbuckling sense of the word.
And he fights the good fight as well as anybody, anywhere.
A part of Kitty didn't want to face him. Didn't want to talk about it. And he'd understand too, despite the eggs.
And she knew she would anyway, no matter what kind of a mistake it was, because Kurt didn't mind mistakes. Xavier wanted a well-oiled machine with clearly labeled parts and some form of warranty against mistakes baring catastrophic developments. It was always a little too much pressure for Kitty.
Kurt doesn't work like that. It's much more like Kurt owns a ship with a talented crew. He's just happy everyone's on board and looking to get through the storm. Most times you can't even tell he's the captain, because he's usually busy pitching in wherever he's needed, and letting his crew do their jobs.
And for a moment Kitty wondered when she first knew there was something special about Kurt. And then she remembered something from her excursion through the crawl space.
She pulled on a sweatshirt and shorts, toweled her hair, and headed off to grab a piece of history. "And then" She thought, "to breakfast!"
"Remember this?" She asked, holding out a small sword in a red wooden scabbard.
"Ach!" Kurt gasped and a lump caught in his throat. "I vorgot it was down there." He shook his head, taking it gingerly, and wiping at the dust.
"Lo-gan gave me dis!" He smiled. It seemed like so long ago and yet he could still remember the smell of the oiled blade and the leather strap. He could still recall the sound it made the first time he drew it and the smug 'click' in made when it closed. "It vas his." He concluded.
"It was?" Kitty found herself suddenly interested.
"Yes." He said the word quickly. "He to-ld me dat he would te-ach at da skool, and instrucdt oders in da use of a blade, bu-t dat I vas mo-re dan dat. I vas his app-rentice, HEES stu-dant. And he vould on-ly teach one app- rentice da sord, ev-er."
Kitty looked at the sword. It was short now for Kurt's frame, and maybe a little too big when he got it. She had realized that his weapons training classes with Wolverine were brutal but she had no idea. No one did. Logan never let them watch. And the one time he found them trying to peek? Kitty phased out of pure fear, right out through a wall, and left Bobby and Jubilee to take the heat.
Neither one ever tried that again. "Come to think of it" She reasoned silently "it's quite possible that Jubilee's still mad about that."
"Kurt. We never knew it was like that." It was part apology for snooping and part shame as a result of finally understanding the intrusion.
"No one did." Kurt smiled and set the sword aside. "Do you vant to know how I graduated?"
Kitty cocked her head to the side.
"How my lessons ended?" He asked, smiling intimately, hoping up to sit on the kitchen counter next to his sword.
"How?" She asked hesitantly.
"He tried to kill me." He said as sincerely as possible. "I vas'nt even seven-teen."
He smiled wickedly. Kurt didn't boast unless it was at least half in jest. This was just plain amazement on his part.
"It vas a good ting I did it den, ven I vas dumb enough not to know how dangerous he vas." He rolled his R's as he spoke the word 'dangerous' and it made the hair on the back of Kitty's neck stand up.
There might have been a kernel of truth in there somewhere, but Kitty knew better. Wolverine had most everybody beat hands down when it came to being a savage, and most everyone else when it came to relying on training and discipline. But she knew Kurt better than that. He could handle Wolverine. She'd seen him handle worse.
"Good thing for him that fight isn't happening today." She said with a smile, swiping the plate with the bigger pile of eggs and making for the next room.
Kurt smiled slyly until she had left the room, then uncovered a frying pan full of scrambled eggs and redoubled the amount on his plate, so he had more. He then recovered the pan and followed her to the next room.
"So tell me ab-out dis dream." He laughed at her as he sat down the plate and seated himself behind it. Her eyes were darting from his pile of eggs to hers and back again. She seemed to be trying to calculate how much egg she had eaten and how much was left on her plate. She was probably forgetting to factor in the large lump of egg she had stuffed in her cheek.
In a moment she resumed chewing and shook her head subtly side to side.
And Kurt had a moment.
It was one of those moments when a person looks back in time and is young again.
He could see how he had always found her beautiful. All he needed was to see it when she had an awkward mouthful of scrambled egg, and he knew that he had been right all those years ago. She was beautiful, and shone like a light, all the time.
And once he had the right eyes. He could see it anytime, just by looking. And somewhere inside a small knife turned. Things he had not felt in years suddenly pained him, just a little.
She swallowed her egg and wiped at her mouth. "Kurt?" She took a long leisurely look at him as she tore her toast in to little pieces and ate it apiece at a time.
He shook his head free of the micro-sleep that had him. "Sorry." He cast his eyes around the table, picked up a knife and began buttering more toast in mock distraction.
"It's been a long time since you looked at me like that." Kitty had stopped eating and had pushed her plate off to the side. She leaned forward, over the table, lying her arms between them. She took his toast hand and made him put it down so she could hold it.
Once upon a time his skin was alien to her. It's texture and feel were just too different from her own for her comfort. It embarrassed her. The memory still does.
There was that one-day, the day Kurt picked the fight with Logan. She had held his hand that day. Gone out of her way to touch him, like he was a rock star or a celebrity.
Was it then that she knew Kurt was special? Surely, she already suspected, if not knew.
She would have kissed him that day. She wanted to kiss him. She had left him quite disappointed in herself. Absently muttering about being friends and being on the same team. When what she really wanted was to jump up and down, kiss him and hug him, and celebrate his victory like a friend and a team mate.
And a thought struck her "That's exactly what we are now."
Is it really possible that nothing has changed between them since that day?
"I kind of, like it." She squeezed his hand a little. "When you look at me that way." She smiled as he swallowed his breakfast slowly "I forgot how much I like it, actually."
"I vorgot how easy it vas." He smiled and she saw his large gold eyes relax around the edges as he again allowed himself to get lost in her as he had in his youth.
Then she had seemed perfect to him for a million childish reasons.
Now she seemed perfect for one: Because he truly knew her.
"Kitty?" He was still unsure. Where had this come from?
"I had a dream about you last night Kurt." She told him, holding his hand and staring him in the eye. "You know, the kind you like to stay in bed for."
He brushed his plate aside and leaned in to hold both her hands with his. And yet he was having trouble believing what he was hearing.
"And it got me to thinking Kurt, about a chance I didn't take once." She bit her lower lip playfully, feigning worry. "It's not too late? Is it Kurt?"
Kurt shook his head, half rising from his seat when she leaned in and kissed him. In a moment her arms were around his neck and she was clinging to him.
When the kiss finally ended Kurt looked her in the eye. "Ki-tty, vat does dis mean?"
She pressed her finger to his lips "You're missing the spirit of the moment." She told him. "I did it because my life would be less by all accounts if I never. . ." She reached out and stroked his odd and angular face with her fingertips, not he back of her fingers as she had done so often before.
"I ave regrets too." He told her. "I tr-ied to kiss you once."
Her mind reached out. When could it have been?
"Bach in skool." He dropped his eyes "Sco-tt cal-led you. Car-pool to da mall."
He could see that she didn't remember.
"It vas da first time you saw me avter Weapon's Training." He told her, and he watched the recognition register on her face.
"Strike first and mean it." She remembered and repeated. "Oh, Kurt, it was too. . . Smooth!"
Kurt was visibly shaken "Smoove?" He asked with an inquisitive eyebrow.
"Do it again." She said, ducking in to the kitchen to grab the old sword.
She handed it to him. "Do it again." She said. "I was standing here."
A part of Kurt wanted to say that this was silly. That these kissing games could be potentially bad for their friendship.
But he didn't. Some part of him was still there, standing in that hall, with a face full of ponytail.
He considered the sword in his hand and then her.
"I can see you un-der-stan-d about striking virst." He told her, advancing on her as he never had before.
He put the sword on the table and hooked the front of her shorts with one thick finger, pulling her close.
"But dis is how to mean it." He scooped her mouth with his and took her gently by the back of the head with one hand while wrapping the other around her supple waist.
Her hands traveled over his solid form and up in to his hair. Dear God, what would she have done, if someone had kissed her like this in high school?
And last nights dream returned in full force. Instead of being disturbing now, it made perfect sense. She knew exactly what she would have done if he had kissed her like this in High School. That truth had woken her in a sweat, with a racing heart, at three fifteen a.m.
It had driven her to try to burn off that energy, to redirect her mind, hell, she even tried cleaning out the crawl space. But it was all for nothing.
He eased away to consider her for a moment without letting go. "Dis idea, ex-pressing our veelings be-cause ve can."
"Yes?" She wondered if he had found some logical loophole that would undo them.
"Vhy don't ve try it ov-er nite and see if ve like it?"
And he kissed her again, and cupping her close, he teleported.
And the kiss continued there, more passionately and uninhibited, in front of Kurt's bedroom view, as the sea stretched out before them, rolling and swelling in time with the rhythms of life.
