It took about ten IBproufen and half an hour before Kurt stopped smacking Lance with a pillow in a rage of pain. The fact that Kurt subsided had little to do with feeling better and a whole lot more to do with being worn out. His straight yellow eyes glowered at whoever wandered within sight and his arms were tightly and sullenly folded around his chest.
Kurt had always been something short of social and friendly, but agony that was partially caused by the Brotherhood's hastiness gave him an almost menacing edge. Lance already regretted pulling him out in the first place.
"Er, Kurt, are you 'ungry in any way? We could get you food, y'know. Wouldn't be no trouble."
"Eef you gave me food, I'd (long stream of German) then puke it all over your stupeed black shirt."
Lance did not consider his black shirt stupid in the slightest, but stifled an angry rejoinder for the sake of being hospitable to the invalid. He could always pound Kurt later.
"Com'mon, Kurt. Ain't that bad. Can't be worse than the flu, right? I mean, not as though you was beat up or nothin'."
"It feels like I vas crazy vrung through the dryer. A dryer full of knives."
"Well, we're sorry you feel that way, but, man, they weren't gonna let you out."
"Maybe I haf someting contagious and you vill all die, ah hah." He leaned back against the pillow and smiled.
"Lance, maybe Kurt-boy needs some alone time, you think?" Toad hissed in an undertone.
"He's fine. He's just grouchy." And in a normal tone. "Why don' we move ya downstairs and you can watch TV, huh? We could wake Freddy up."
"I vill not be hauled downstairs by a crazy sack auf . . ." he paused . . . "adipose teessue . . ." Lance didn't even know what that meant, but Kurt was in biology and had to pick up English somehow, he guessed. " . . . to vatch 'Fameely Ties' aur 'Bugs Bunny.' You can vatch ze screen, I vill stay here and slowly spread my germs until you all . . . ja, die."
Kurt was definitely not in a good mood, Lance concluded. "Well . . . all right. We'll go downstairs and leave you . . ."
The door banged open. "HELLO! HEY! ANYONE IN THE HOUSE? I'M BA-ACK!"
Kurt winced and pressed his hands over his ears. "Aaach, not Tabi-"
Boots were already clattering up the stairs and before Lance had time to turn around, Tabitha was leaning into the doorway, swinging a tiny shopping-bag-a-la-Claire's from her ring finger. "Didja miss me? I mean, not as though I've been gone forever but, whhooooa, what happened to you, Kurt?"
"I vas abducted," Kurt grated, his arms folding even tighter over his skinny chest. Lance didn't think that was possible.
"No ki-idding." Tabitha plopped on the foot of Kurt's bed, rocking back and forth on the springs. "And you're in Toad's bed, too! Where'd you sleep, Toad?"
"Dumpster," Toad muttered, trying to stay out of sight.
"Well, gee, as long as it was comfortable -- that is totally a hospital band you got on your wrist, Kurt-boy." As if to illustrate, she'd already grabbed Kurt's arm, and was squinting at the black-print-on-yellowed paper while Kurt's expression became all pained tolerance.
Well, serves him right, thought Lance.
"What'd you do to yourself?"
"I vas teleportink accidentally and I fainted. Ees all I know. But I still hurt."
"Awww, poor Kurt." Tabitha bounced on the springs, already bored. "But you'll probably feel better tomorrow."
"It has been two veeks, actually."
"Tomorrow's a new day! Hey, wanna see what I bought?"
Kurt was frozen in obvious indecision on how rude it would be to frantically shake his head when Lance carefully sidled out, followed by Toad.
"I don' know what to do wi' 'im." Lance's voice was quiet and high with exasperation.
"No one's cheerful when they're wracked by inexplicable, endless pain," Toad explained. "Wouldn't you know it, yo."
Lance glanced carefully at the other mutant. "Er, no offense, man, but you've been . . . talkin' differently lately. It's like your yo's don' make any sense with all the other stuff yer sayin'."
Toad shrugged. "Everyone's been a little under the weather."
"Not Tabitha. She ain't changed a bit. An' I'm still the same and I reckon Pietro's still the same, but some o' yer are gettin' real weird, no offense again."
"None taken. What are we going to do with Kurt?"
Lance pursed his lips. "I dunno. Never 'ad one of the Brotherhood 'urt terribly bad before and I still don' know what's wrong wi' him, right?"
"I still think we oughtta take him to the Institute."
"No way. We don' 'ang with them preps, Toad. 'Ow many times I gotta say that?"
"The preps have money for drugs," Toad pointed out.
"They got money for everythin'. Soon as you know it, we'll start gettin' our bills paid by 'em and pools and Playstations and . . . clothes and then we'll be preps an' . . . "
Lance's tirade was interrupted by yet another scream from Kurt. Only this one didn't seem to be a mere call for pain relievers.
Kurt had good reason to be snitty. Talking was an effort and he couldn't even do it with more than half of his brain or so, because the hurt was there and kept getting stronger and everyone kept trying to engage him with inanities. Kurt felt like he was burning. A slow, hungry roast like being held over flames until your skin singed into over-cooked meat and the peasants screamed "BACON, BACON!"
. . . Or not bacon. It was that general idea, right, of skin sizzling until it was half charred and crinkled and the fat was sizzling on the pan and okay, maybe he was a little hungry and horrifically sick at the same time.
The really odd thing was that the source of the greatest agony was at the base of his spine. It made him terribly uncomfortable to think about it, but it felt as if he had been mounted up on a pointed stick in a very comprimising position. And as Tabitha kept chattering on about some bauble that was just a blur in his light-fearing squint, the pain kept getting worse and worse until it exploded out his back end.
That was when he screeched and he could hear footsteps come running and even some particularly lumbering creaks as Blob finally extricated himself, and all that was nothing to the general oh dear me ow of it all.
Kurt might have expected the general effect of the back-end explosion to resemble that of, if he may be indelicate, a really firm fart (one has no idea how much it pained him to think that), but, instead, the pain climbed up his spine and wrenched it, until his pointed nose collided with his knee, and his arms wrapped around those knees as if to secure some kind of stability. His hands seemed to get heavier even as they tightened and his thighs seemed to be boiling under the skin, like someone finally had set the bacon on fire with the intent to evaporate all extraneous things like fat and, well, fat. It was an odd sensation, and, yes, very unpleasant, no matter what one's views on dieting happen to be.
All thess stabs and scorchings began to run together in a loose muddle until the pain stopped. Abruptly, after two weeks, it was mostly gone, save for an almost bearable sizzling just on the surface of his epidermis. Slowly, he opened his eyes a slit and the light didn't seem quite so oppressive, but the presence of the entire Brotherhood staring gape-jawed at him was a little bit, yes.
"Augh," he managed.
"Oh . . . crap," Lance provided.
"I feel a leetle better," Kurt tried.
"That . . . won't last long." Lance seemed to be positively in shock.
"Vhy?"
"Augh," Toad belatedly echoed, just as Lance ran out the hall. A moment later came some very emphatic retching and flushing.
"Vhat?" Kurt blinked and raised his hand to scratch at a new and fierce itch at his shoulder. His hand was placed just so he could get a good, sidelong glance at it. And . . . then he screeched again. The next twenty minutes ended up fairly full of screeching in general until the Brotherhood left the poor creature alone to vent until he collapsed from exhaustion.