Wow! People are reading this! Well, I'm always happy to make people happy. Here's more. Granted, it's mostly Jott for now, but for those of you who are looking for the Kurtty, fear not. The payoff's at the end. :D And the end is coming quick, as this is a four-parter. Hang in there! LOL
PART TWO: FYI
Scott was trapped. If he kept his eyes on the table, the tilt of his face made his neck hurt. If he let his eyes wander around, he would most certainly get dizzy. And if he looked straight in front of him, he'd be looking at Jean, which would result in him blurting out something stupid. Jean Grey was actually having lunch, with him, in public. And it wasn't like she'd come to sit down at the "geek" table he shared with everybody from the Institute, or that he'd said hello to her as he passed by the table she was sharing with Duncan and the cheerleading squad. Oh, no. Not this time. This time, she was actually seated across from him, flipping her hair back with one hand and holding her sandwich with the other, apparently enjoying herself. And he hadn't even said anything yet!
SCORE!
Jean snickered. "Scott, look at me."
He forced his eyes to meet hers, and felt heat creep into his cheeks. She smiled at him.
"Yes, I heard you," she said, answering his unspoken question. "You think waaaay too loudly."
Just the way she said "waaaay" made his heart pound. Some errant butterflies fluttered around in his belly. He cleared his throat.
"So, uh, you wanted to talk to me?"
"Mm!" she said, her mouth full of ham and lettuce. She swallowed. "Yeah, I did. I um, I kind of have some news for you. About me and Duncan."
Scott's face betrayed nothing, but his mind was racing ten ways from Sunday.
Oh God he gave her a promise ring or something stupid like that and maybe after graduation next year they'll get married and she'll have five of his children and there'll be four little Duncans running around just looking to terrorize the world and one little Jean won't be able to stop them all and BIG Jean will be barefoot and pregnant all the time and she'll be miserable with him and I'll never get to tell her I love her Oh God Oh God Oh Go---
~ SCOTT! SHUT UP! ~
The force of the mental yell nearly made him topple off his chair. When he came back to earth, Jean was glaring at him. He gave her a nervous smile. She snorted out a laugh and shook her head in dismay.
"Scott Summers, I'm going to shut off that panic button between your ears if it's the last thing I do. Duncan and I broke up."
Jean listened to Scott with her mind, only to hear … blessed silence. Actually it was more like static, like she'd accidentally shorted out his brain.
"Wh-What?"
"That's right. We broke up. We are no more. Finito, done, over, goodbye."
Scott gave her a very goofy grin and then replied, his voice dripping with insincerity, "Wow, I'm so sorry. Poor Duncan. How's he taking it?"
"Oh, like you care!"
"Oh, I do care," Scott said seriously, gently taking her hand. "But not about him."
~ X ~
Kurt hadn't seen anybody from the gymnastics team, and no one was at the usual "geek" table, so he was wandering around the quad at lunch, munching halfheartedly on his stale piece of school pizza, and checking out the Club Fair. The Club Fair, an event held the first day of every semester, advertised after-school clubs and things like that. Every club had a booth, and most of the booth attendants were, in typical high school fashion, using their position to harass passer-by and hail their friends with their megaphones. Hardly good advertising.
But Kurt wasn't paying attention to that. He was eyeing a solitary booth, where a pretty blond girl with rather large breasts was admiring her nails and looking utterly bored. More important, she was utterly alone. Kurt finished his pizza in two gulps, wiped his hands on his pants, and sauntered over to say hello. Amazingly, the girl looked up at him and gave him a coy smile.
"Hey, cutie."
It totally threw him off. Hot chicks simply did not throw themselves at him --- at least not in this universe. "Uh, h-hallo," he stammered.
"What's your name?"
"Uh, K-Kurt. K-Kurt Wagner."
"Well, Ka-Kurt, that's a niiice voice ya got there," she said.
He blushed. "Um, tank you."
"Listen … Can I tell you a little secret?"
He nodded.
"'Kay. Lean in."
He did. She got up close to him and whispered tantalizingly in his ear, "I'm in a club that would be perfect for somebody like you. You wanna know what it is?"
He nodded.
"Chorus. They need guys. Big time. Wouldja join? It would be so cool if you would."
He pulled back. She batted her eyes, showed him every one of her teeth, and handed him a contact info sheet on a clipboard.
"Okay!" he said, dazed and happy. And he filled it out.
Kurt walked back to the "X Table" and sat down with a smug grin on his face. Kitty, Rogue, and Evan were hanging out. Kitty looked despondent. Rogue looked angry, as usual. And Evan, his face dotted with band-aids from pulling a "killer trick" on the pavement during nutrition that had resulted in a trip to the Nurse's office, was looking sore. Kurt looked way too happy for any of their tastes.
"Well lookee here. We got us a grinnin' fool," Rogue commented.
As sad as she was, Kitty stuck up for her friend. "Leave him alone."
Rogue ignored Kitty. "Whut in tha heck didja do now?" she inquired of Kurt, with her usual tact.
Kitty elbowed her. "Lay off!"
"Can it!" Rogue shot back.
"Kurt … ?" Evan asked.
"You're looking at ze newest member of za Bayville High School Chorus!" Kurt said proudly. "Ziss is going to be so kül!"
Kitty gasped. Rogue raised an eyebrow. Evan shook his head.
"Dude! Didn't anybody tell you? The chorus is full of weird-looking girls with retainers! It's not cool. It's where geeks go to die, man!"
"Besides," Kitty added, "I heard them at the Christmas Concert, and Oh, My, God. They totally sucked. The chorus is, like, crap, Kurt!"
Rogue snorted. "It ain't like crap, it IS crap!"
"But, but za girl at za booth said …"
"I don't care whut 'za girl at za booth' said! Gitcher butt over there and say 'ya made a mistake! 'Ya ain't got time fer it!"
"Nein. I can't!"
"Whut? Wha' the hell not?"
"Because I signed a contract. I gave her my verd! I can't let her down!"
Then they ALL started carrying on, raging simultaneously about his responsibilities at the Institute, all the homework he had, etc. Kurt listened with half of a pointy ear and pretended he cared.
~ X ~
Choir practice started that very day. The school had just hired a new director, who everyone called Miss Kally. Most of the girls weren't astonishingly beautiful, but they were rather nice, and the chorus seemed to be devoid of weirdos with retainers. Unfortunately, it was also devoid of musical talent.
Kurt was one of eight guys in the group. Two of them he knew from the gymnastics team: Steve and Jim, twin brothers, both basses. Kurt was singing bass with them. Jack Takahashi, a friendly guy and captain of the Judo team, was singing tenor. They all eyed Fred Dukes warily as he went to the back and stood there. Kurt raised an eyebrow.
"I'm just here for moral support," the big guy said.
He thumbed at Lance Alvers, who was walking towards them, prepared to sing tenor, with Pietro and Todd backing him up. Word had it that Kitty had told him to stop robbing convenience stores and get a hobby, so this must have been his solution.
It was certainly a motley crew in the back. Worse, it seemed they'd had something in common: they'd all been taken in by the blonde girl with the big boobs, who was now nowhere to be seen. Realizing they'd been duped, they heaved a collective, "I'm such a hormonally-charged doofus" sigh --- particularly Lance.
"I cannot believe you!" Kurt hissed at him a few minutes later. They were standing next to each other, each on the border of their section. "I'm single, but for YOU to take a look at das hübsche Mädchen* and decide you'd rather spend time viss HER zan Keety …" He tsked in disgust. "For shame."
Lance fumed, then leaned in, so his nose was two inches from Kurt's. "Let's make a deal," he snarled. "You don't tell Kitty about the stupid blonde … and I'll let you keep your arms."
"BOYS!"
The shout came from down in front where Miss Kally, a small brunette with cropped hair, perpetual overalls, and an "I don't take any b*llsh*t from anybody" attitude was tapping her sneaker-clad foot. She cleared her throat.
"Time to warm up, gentlemen. Save the head-butting for afterwards."
~ X ~
The days passed quickly, and all too soon Kurt found himself sitting under a tree by the library, reviewing his music and panicking as only a trained performer knew how. The problem? Choir was sucking @ss, for lack of a better phrase, and they had a concert in 72 hours. Their songs were out of tune and screechy three weeks ago, and they were out of tune and screechy now. Kurt understood that Miss Kally was trying to get the group in shape by having them perform little mini-concerts of a few songs every few weeks, so that when they hit the big concert at the end of the semester, performing wouldn't be such a shock … but he was beginning to think that not performing at all might be the better option.
At least the past few weeks had been fairly kind to his friends. Scott and Jean had been spotted holding hands in the quad, much to the delight of the younger X-Men. Evan now sported a lot fewer band-aids, and was getting ready to enter a skating competition. "Power-8 Skate," or something like that. And the early spring air must have done something to Rogue, because she actually smiled one day at morning break. Of course, the drop-out Cajun hanging around on the other side of the fence making kissy faces at her might have had something to do with it. Whatever the reason, it was nice to see his sister looking happy.
Kitty, however, was looking sick. Her hair had lost its usual shine, and her pretty blue eyes were glassy and dull. Her skin didn't look so hot, either, and it even looked like she was losing weight, which was pretty dangerous for somebody as slim as she was. Kurt had tried to talk to her about it a few times, but she got very touchy.
"Keety, it looks like you haff za flu!"
"I don't have the flu, all right? Sheesh, Kurt, quit buggin' me!"
He sighed, but his ears pricked up at what she muttered under her breath: "As soon as these tryouts are over, it'll all be okay."
And so it went.
~ X ~
"I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine."
Kitty mumbled this to herself between coughing jags, all the while staring at her lunch, which was now in the toilet.
She let her eyes drift to the dirty walls of the bathroom stall, covered in an ugly scrawl of profanity, impromptu love notes, phone numbers, death threats, and political statements. Then she looked back at the toilet, and at her soiled, left middle finger.
"Oh God," she muttered, at war with herself. "I'm not fine."
But there was nothing to be done, now. She flushed, struggled with the latch on the stall door, and stumbled to the mirror. Her balance was off today, and the dizziness was worse. She just took some deep breaths, warded it off, and brushed her hair into its usual ponytail. The cheerleading tryouts were starting in a couple of hours. Surely BLT had noticed her "rear" problem was shrinking. She wasn't sick. This was just temporary.
Only temporary.
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Thoughts? Comments? Tomatoes? Whatever you've got, let it rip. :D
Translation: das hübsche Mädchen (dass HOOB-sha MEHT-shin) = literally, "the pretty girl." In this sense: "the hot chick."