Lucky Me

Chapter 070


I scratched the back of my hand so much I thought it was going to bleed.

Chris looked over at me curiously.

"What's your problem? Got fleas?"

I glared at him.

"I don't have fur, moron, I have feathers." We were supposed to be doing the simulating flying thing again. This was our second attempt to fly the fake ship without crashing it. Heh, I kind of wrecked it earlier when a spider decided to drop down on my lap, I freaked, and nearly knocked Chris out.

Jean, trying to be patient, told us to try again, and next time-just kill the spider before attempting to kill myself or my teammate.

Giving the back of my hand a break, I started to scratch my knee.

"Man, quit it! You're acting like a dog!"

"Who are you calling a dog, Fido?" I pushed back, pretty soon the flight simulation turned into a name-calling match (just like old times) and then the whole simulator went red.

Chris tried to recover the mistake of completely ignoring the controls, and I went into another bored yawn. We weren't really going to die-at least not in there, but once we got fussed at about being thoughtless actions and blah blah, then we might meet our doom.

I guessed the doom would be a speech; the relief would be the death where I wouldn't have to hear the lectures anymore!


Still Thursday (seemed like it was never ending!).

I lifted my head from the nest of my arms, sleep temporarily blinding me as I tried to focus on the person who had turned on the light.

"Who is it?" I asked in a broken-type voice.

"You should really be in bed," It was him; I guess he just wandered in from somewhere.

"Why?" I questioned sleepily. "You're not there."

I turned my head away from him and settled back into my arm nest—and then blushed like as hot as the rising sun.

"A friends with benefits arrangement? Never thought you'd go for that."

I kept my head turned away, and tried to will the floor to open up and send me crashing on Prof's desk a floor below.

There was a groaning noise and then the sensation of being lifted from the chair. My eyes popped open as I felt one of his hands go behind my back, under my wings and the other sought the crook of my knees.

"What are you doing!" I yelped in my tired and pathetic voice.

"Making sure you get some sleep. I don't care if I have to tie you to your bed, which would be fun, but first you're going to get more than four hours of sleep before you go postal on us."

I tried to fight.

"This is crazy! It's not like it's even time to sleep."

"It's three in the morning. You're not Gambit and you don't have enough hair on your chest to be Logan, so you should be asleep." I had to admit, no matter how much he tended to hurt and tick me off, he was still warm and it felt good to be close to him again.

He made his way from the kitchen up the stairs.

"Insane."

"You're so exhausted; you can't even come up with a decent insult. You're no fun to pick on when you can't even insult me properly." He shot me a suggestive smile, "Though you seem more than willing to be flirty."

Yawning, my mouth cut the link with my brain, "I am not flirty, just—things come out wrong. Maybe just don' wanna play verbal boxing with you."

He made a funny noise in the back of his throat. "But you still wouldn't mind playing other games with me."

"Shut-up," I remarked, smiling as I almost felt him roll his eyes. "Though I win for being the most creative."

"Childishness is not the same as creative." He kicked open my door as quietly as possible. And a few seconds later I felt my bed, my beautiful bed that I had spent way too much time away from as of late.

"Whatever," I yawned, snuggling into my pillow. "But you are a lot stronger than you look. I didn't think you'd be able to pick me up." My voice was starting to get that 'wistful' sound to it.

I felt something furry and soft touch my arm. I cracked an eye to see Stitch staring back at me.

"I bench press twice your weight every morning and then some."

My eyebrows perked of their own accord at the information. "Always liked being held," I muttered, grabbing my furry little friend and burying my noise into his softness. I sighed out something I hoped he heard because I really was too tired to repeat it.

"Why so nice to me all of a sudden?"

There was a soft laugh and a quick 'talk about it later' and then he left-or I fell asleep, who knew?


It was Friday and the time for the 'two-single-friends-who-are-still-attracted-to-each-other-but-this-was-not-a-date-date' date. I was getting ready for my 'friend' when someone came banging on my door.

"Come in!" I screamed, hiding my mascara (borrowed from Daisy a while ago) behind my back. Adrian walked in with a goofy smile on his face. "What are you doing here?"

"Visiting. Can't I come and bug my favorite leader?" Adrian asked, tipping his face to the side. "Honestly, with that type of reaction I would think you almost didn't want me here."

I glared at him and answered in my best snotty voice, "What on earth would give you that impression?"

He shrugged. "Just the whole 'what are you doing here' line I guess, it's not exactly encouraging."

Oh darn.

"Is that all?" I turned back to my dresser where my small mirror was placed. I tried to stuff the make-up in a drawer before he noticed, but I heard him snort.

"What are you getting all girl for?"

That was it!

"Out!" I screamed, "Getout! Getout! Getout!"

Adrian didn't budge, so I picked up my Stitch and began to hit him over the head with it until he stumbled out of my doorway and into the hall. Where, I might add, I met up with my cat. The dumb cat that had, apparently, been shopping in my laundry.

He had a pair of my panties with the word 'angel' written all over it.

I went redder than Jean's hair.

"You dumb creature!" Note to self, when wanting an animal (a male animal at that) to cooperate with me, do not start screaming at it and threatening to cut off its tail.

I ended up chasing the annoying demon with fur around the east wing (the male half) for about ten minutes before it scurried into Mr. Bishop's room. I did not follow into the room, but instead wanted to (once again) curl up in a little ball and evaporate because of the pure embarrassed heat coming off of my face. Mr. Bishop came out with the cat in one hand, my underwear in the other.

With all his strictness he simply asked, "Are these yours?"

Without even looking I grabbed it out of his hands and turned to quickly make an exit before my brain tapped on my smart door and asked why I grabbed the cat. Looking down in my hands, sure enough, there was the fat cat. Dropping the thing with a 'thud' I hurried over to a now smiling Mr. Bishop, grabbed the other item from him and had to do everything to not run to my room and slam the door.

That dumb cat was so embarrassing…and it somehow beat me back to my room as it sat on my bed purring.

"Don't do anything dumb," I ground out. It just yawned and then started to clean itself.

I picked up my mascara and finished what I had been doing before Adrian's interruption.

Of course, I was little Miss Popular that night when someone else came knocking. Staring at the door as if I was going to get X-ray vision (I would gouge out my eyes eventually) to see who it was, but all I knew was that they kept knocking.

"Come in." My danged curiosity caved in on top of my annoyance and common sense.

Bobby-Jerk popped his head through the door. "Hey!"

My eyebrows shot up and then down to knit together. "What the heck are you doing here?"

He opened the door all the way. "I came to ask if you saw Chris."

"Nope, but he's a big boy, probably out zapping frogs or something."

"Okay, I wanted to ask that, and if you know how this," Bobby-Jerk stuck his hand out, and on the end of his fingers was another pair of my underwear. I opened my mouth to say something but my humiliation captured my voice. "Got into my room."

"I…." was what I got out before Bobby-Jerk tossed my clothing into the room and simply said he didn't want to know.

The cat must have known it was in trouble because it started making its way toward the door. There could have been fire flying out from my eyes I was so mad at that dumb feline!

Grabbing the offending little jerk, I tossed it back on the bed and slammed the door. I finished getting ready and then gave the cat a nasty little smile. Picking it up, I made my way downstairs and found Mr. Remy in the kitchen concocting some type of something that he tried to pass off as food. Without much of an explanation, I shoved the cat into his hands and said, "Here's an extra ingredient."

When I was going back up the stairs, I found Chris staring at me from the landing.

"Drake was looking for you."

He continued to stare.

"What's wrong? Did you accidentally electrocute yourself or something?"

Shaking off his stupor, "Where are you going?" Chris' voice sounded weird, like almost a shy whisper or something equally un-Chris like.

"Are you feeling okay? You look like you just saw a ghost." Which, at the mansion, I wouldn't even begin to doubt.

Then the scowl came. "Nothing."

As he pushed past me, I rolled my eyes, what a boy. I shrugged it off, until I heard him whisper something so low that I wasn't sure I was supposed to hear him or not.

"You look good."

I twisted around but he was still making his way to wherever he was going without so much as a hitch in his step. Deciding that I didn't need any extra drama, I just filed it under 'later' and kept going.

When I was once again back in my room and waiting, the third knocking person came. Opening the door I found a smiling Jack.

"It's about time!"


"So," I dragged out the word, playing with my straw. "What is this?"

"This," he said, motioning around the Taco Bell, "is a fast food restaurant, called such because they used to be fast about the food."

I flicked a packet of hot sauce at him. "Smart aleck."

He smiled. "By birth. Why would I change that about myself?"

"To get a date?" I wanted to kick myself in the wings for that remark as a shocked expression came across his face, and then it ever so slowly turned into an ever charming smile.

"Speaking of…" Oh man, here it was. "Our food is here."

I almost fell face first onto the table. I couldn't believe this guy sometimes!


After the sidestepping of my questions at the oh-so-elegant restaurant of Taco Bell, we went to the movies. Was this a date-date yet? Or did this constitute as a simple 'forgive and forget' thing still?

We were there to watch something I'd been waiting for since I saw the first preview, some comedy called, 'Demon Mistress's Reign.'

Pointing to the tall man and shorter woman I smirked.

"Hey, isn't that—" Then I felt my wrist being grabbed and my whole body being pulled down. I almost fell on my behind! My wrist was still in his hand. "Oh crap!"

"What's the matter, big brave boy? Scared of a little red head and her hubby?" I joked. He gave me an astonished look.

"No, I'm afraid of optic beams and telepathy. Not to mention telekinesis which lets her land a perfect bull's eyes every time." He cringed, and started to pull me (still hunched over) toward the large display of some muscle head poster cut out stand thing.

"What are we going to do? Hide behind a piece of cardboard all day?"

"No, just until they leave," he clarified. "Or go to their movie."

"Who knew they actually went to the movies. I thought they'd just tap into someone's brain and watch it through the mind or something."

He quirked a dang eyebrow at me. "And they think I'm crazy."

"No, they know you are," I revised with a frowned. Whatta creep. A creep who still had my wrist securely in his grasp (not painfully or I'd have punched him through the wall). Allowing myself a small smile, one he wouldn't see, but then again I had to remember that this guy hurt me before. So slam, up went the shields again.

He looked over at me and sighed almost as if he had been defeated. Then, looking back over the crowd, he cursed.

"I take my eyes off of them for one second and they pull a Kurt and disappear!"

I blushed, yeah, even Mr. Kurt brought to mind a lot of his and my past. All the times Mr. Kurt had conveniently interrupted us-

"Come on, Ker, we're going to be late." Without hesitation he moved us quickly to through the lobby, to the correct theater, and we pushed our way to decent seats. At least we would have if the previews hadn't started to play.

"Uh, I hate to be the bearer of bad news," usually because the bearer got the snot beat out of them, "but—uh,"

"Come on, there are two seats over there. I should have known better than to come during an opening weekend."

I tried to pull back to get his attention, but he was a man on a mission. The mission was going to be a bomb but did Dumbo listen to me? Ooohhh, no. He had to be such a male about it.

When we sat down, I slumped far down in my seat. Tapping me on the shoulder he asked what was wrong. Without a word of explanation I jabbed my finger a row in front of us and to the left.

One second later he was deep in his seat as well.

"Why did they pick this movie?" He cursed.

Oh yeah, Scott and Jean, who else? I was about to give a smart aleck reply when I remembered that I had been the one who told them how great this movie was going to be. So, for once, I was to blame and the blame was actually deserved!

Then a thought visited my brain in the 'duh' department.

"You're not you right now, you're Jack." I pointed out; he seemed to think about this, rolled his eyes and sat up in his chair.

I found my image inducer and fiddled with it as the little popcorn and hotdog danced across the screen (how morbid was it for food to sing about how they wanted you to eat them?). I sighed when the inducer glowed with life.

"Better?" I asked.

I wasn't sure whether to fight or to be freaked as he put his hand on my head and pushed me far down into the seat until I slid out of the chair and hit my knees.

"Hey!" I screamed in-a gargle?

"Sssshhhhh!" Someone hissed in the back.

"This isn't the time to be funny!" he whispered harshly, ducking his head to my level. "Change into-something else!"

"What's wrong with this?" I asked defensively.

"You're not human!" His voice rose with every word.

"Down in front!" another voice shouted, and I decided that person was going to be the first to kiss the concrete next time I got into a bad mood. I didn't know who the theater king was who kept shushing us, but I would find out!

"What do you-" Then I looked down at my hand. It was a tentacle! Oh man! I must have grabbed the wrong spare! This was the one I used to freak Dr. Frese out!

I started to jab in different commands, but my fumbling and worry made me drop it.

"Perfect," I muttered, reaching beneath the seat where the stick machine had rolled, only to have my hand trampled on as soon as I wrapped my fingers around it.

The lady was wearing high-heels. I bit back a scream and jerked my hand, with image inducer, back to me. I small spark flew from the machine as I tapped the control button.

"Come on, hurry up!" Jack insisted. I looked up at him. My face must have screamed trouble.

"We have a problem."

"Don't tell me you're stuck to the floor." I glared at him, but then my fear took me over again.

"It's stuck-or broken. I can't turn it off."

Even with his own image inducer, I could still tell he went white. "You're kidding me."

"Do I look like a person who would willingly put herself in a predicament like this?"

"Maybe if you were wrapped in black leather-" I pinched his leg, beneath his knee.

"Ow!" That turned heads. He smiled nervously at the menacing people. When they had all looked away again, he leaned down to talk to me. "Can't you just break that one and use your normal one?"

"I can't. I'm either this creature feature or Kookie Summers. Either I'm scary or I face the wrath of an angry Jean. Personally I'm willing to be selfish and make other people wet their pants." I sighed, "Are they watching the movie yet?"

He looked over the seats and nodded. "Are you going to try to make a break for it?"

"Yeah." Glancing behind me, all I saw was a sea of legs, drinks and popcorn tubs. I could just shoot Adam-if I hadn't been the one who requested he do this for me. Why had he used this flimsy thing!

"I'll go in front of you, that way they'll move their legs." I smiled meekly at him as he started the process of the 'excuse me' and 'sorry' lines. I crawled after him; people seemed annoyed with him blocking the opening credits than the blob of pus popping goo on her hands and knees at their feet.

When we got to the aisle without much incident (though I did find someone's gum and had several kernels of chewed popcorn in my hair) I almost stood up. Then I saw Scott stand through the corner of my eye.

"This just keeps getting better and better," Jack muttered. Thankfully, Scott was going the other way and we still were slowly making our way to the doors. How I was going to be unnoticed by those in the lobby I wasn't sure. I mean, in the theater the lights were dimmed and no one was really paying attention. Out there was a different matter entirely.

In the small crook between the door to the lobby and the aisle of the theater, Jack helped me to my feet and almost went green when he got a good look at my monster.

"Do I want to know why?"

Groaning, "Not right now," He shook his head in disbelief I supposed, "But how are we going to keep the people out there from noticing a blob with acne?" I tapped my chin (well, if my blob image had a chin) "there needs to be a distraction."

I got an idea, and with one wicked smile (like this monster could give anything else but a wicked smile) toward Jack.

"Whatever it is, forget it. I don't trust that look in your eyes, or—eye." He cringed as I played with the image eye ball which hung by a nerve.

"I'd do it for you," I tried in a low voice.

"Do what?" And then I told him, I wasn't sure if the situation was funny until he made his shocked and 'no-way!' face, or if it was funny before it. "No way!"

We got shushed again.

"Please?" I begged, "Don't you like me?"

Childish tactic, but it worked! He glared at me and sighed.

"Fine, but you owe me big time for this." With that, he started to tamper with his image inducer. Instead of Jack Little, he was now Jacquelyn Big Bust was in front of me. Oh yeah, I talked him into changing his look to a female with a very large chest, which was barely covered. I figured that should get most all the males attention and their girlfriends' attention as well when they started to beat their guys back into submission. He sighed and mentioned about not feeling like a guy anymore and stuck his nose in the air and strutted out.

Wondering why I didn't request his image inducer and just switch out? Because if I had, he wouldn't be Jack, he'd be himself and since the image I have on was stuckand wouldn't turn off, it wouldn't have helped.

I stuck my big blob head out to see if my idea had worked, poor Jacquelyn was stumbling her way through the crowd. As predicted, many, if not all, of the men turned to watch her and the women watched them in turn.

I held my breath and made a run for it. I was almost to the doors when I looked over my shoulder, and then stumbled into another person. As my luck was, I was sure I had tackled Scott yet again, but it wasn't him (thanks to some higher power!) it was just some poor startled kid.

"Ahh!" The kid kicked me away and started to crab walk as fast as he could from me.

"Hey, hey! Calm down!" I gurgled out, trying to keep the attention we were getting to a minimum. "Don't be scared-this is just a promotional costume!"

The kid stared at me, then with a huge smile started to poke at my body. I laughed nervously, and then continued to make my way out the door. The guy who got paid minimum wage to open and shut the door was yawning, and then he was choking as he opened the door for the gray blob to pass through.

Waiting in the alley, I quickly squashed the dumb image inducer into tiny sparking chips of trouble. The gray blob image faded, thankfully, and the 'natural' me (complete with moveable wings!) was there again. Jack came out, the male version of himself, grumbling and almost walked right past me.

"Hey!"

His eyes didn't hide any resentment he felt toward me about this whole ordeal.

"That was the last time I ever want to do that."

I smiled impishly, "Oh come on, it wasn't that bad was it?"

Jack's glare wasn't a full, serious glare (which was a good thing). "One guy pinched me so hard I think he broke a blood vessel."

Uh-oh, "What did you do?"

He snorted as he checked to make sure it was all right for me to make my way back to the car. "What any self-respecting female would do, punched him so hard he caught some air time."


Once we got home, I made sure to fly up to my room instead of walking through the front door with the guy. With the highly suspicious nature of well, everyone in the mansion I didn't want them to jump to conclusions (and they could have some very colorful conclusions). I didn't bother wiping off any of the make-up but decided it was wiser to just 'mingle' with those who might be up at twelve something in the morning.

What I found in the Rec. Room was a snoring Julie (who knew little monsters slept?) and an irate looking Chris.

"What'cha watching?" I asked, plopping down beside him.

"Nothing," he grunted, shooting daggers at Julie who chose to snore a bit louder, "Which is a good thing because I can't hear it over the British chain saw anyway!" It took him a few minutes, but eventually Chris looked over at me, that same weird expression crossing across his face before turning bitter. "Have a nice night with Romeo?"

I paled, "You knew?"

"I saw you leave with some guy." There was no mistaking his almost jealous attitude.

For a small instant I felt almost guilty, but then I shook it off. I only felt bad for hurting Chris' feelings, not because Jack wasn't Chris.

"Did you spend your entire time with Julie-et over there?"

His blue eyes went north.

"She wouldn't leave me alone! Just kept nagging me about some dumb things and getting me mad over the dumb things."

I raised an eyebrow and studied sleeper. Her hair was not the neatest, but then again she never really brushed it. But then something caught my attention. Her bright red, fingerless gloves. After the whole Daisy-Mae thing, I wasn't going to take any chances with 'surprises' lurking around in the shadows of anyone's past.

Especially when Julie's only positive aspect was that she -she-well, heck. I guess I was going to have to attempt to find something positive about the annoying girl. Anyone who could make Chris look like a bright ball of sunshine must have something about how they got that way.

Or at least have enough intelligence to make something up! Inquiring Kookie's wanted to know…