Chapter Ten: Turning Pages, Turning Points, Turning Words
Tabby waited until lunch before striking. Her target wasn't decided until he walked past, when she grabbed the back of his collar and dragged him backwards to stand beside her.
A few choking noises and cry of "The car's fine, I swear!" later, she had his full attention.
"Hey, Blue."
"Tabitha?" Kurt rubbed at the back of his neck, imperceptibly running a hand over his image inducer to check that it was okay.
She noticed, but didn't comment, instead choosing to ram her hands back into her pockets and raise one leg, laying her left foot flat against the lockers in such a manner as had gained her several past dates. It was a coy look; a combination of sexy and playful that she'd had perfected long before bombing in at Bayville High.
For a moment, it looked as though Kurt was going to make a break for it. Then he sighed, taking up a post next to her and folding his arms. "So what's with nearly taking my head off? The art of speaking to get a person's attention dead?"
"May as well be. Besides, I didn't wanna risk choking on my gum by shouting." To emphasise, she snapped a large bubble that somehow missed her cheek and drooped from her lips like a flaccid pink tongue.
"And is there a reason you're stopping me from getting my lunch? Or is this a freebie?"
Tabby held up a finger, replaced the gum in her mouth, and said simply, "Ray."
Kurt raised an eyebrow, not quite nonplussed, but doing a fair impression. That cemented Tabby's suspicions, as did the pseudo-casual, "What about him?"
"I've been hearing some pretty interesting rumours. Thought you could give me the heads up on what's going on. Y'know, an insider's viewpoint."
"Nothing's going on."
"Uh-uh." She didn't muster much in the way of conviction. "That's why I saw 'ol Badger picking him up outside school this morning? Chem. class," she explained at Kurt's inquiring look. "The lab's on the ground floor, right near the parking lot, and I sit by the window. Logan looked pretty pissed. Had a face that could sour milk." She cocked her head thoughtfully. "Well, more milk than usual. We're talking a whole tanker. So, what's the haps? I'm having the feeling it has something to do with why I saw Scooter-boy hobbling around on crutches, earlier…"
Kurt glanced around at the milling crowd. Tabby took the time to pop another bubble before he said, "All right. But can we talk somewhere more… private? I doubt Ray would like his life discussed in a public forum."
"Nah, that's what the Internet's for."
Kurt's frown made her pause, as did the slightly reproachful look in his eyes.
"Jeez, serious much?"
He looked around and gestured at a nearby door, grabbing her wrist with fingers permanently stuck like a Vulcan-greeting. "In here."
Tabby hung back and, despite herself, cracked a wry grin. "Uh, Blue, I highly doubt disappearing into the janitor's closet with me is gonna do wonders for your rep. Especially with Amanda."
"Huh? Oh, uh, jawohl. You could be right about that." His hologram blushed, and not for the first time she wondered how it knew to that at the correct moment. Then she filed the thought away under 'unsolved mysteries', along with how Lance always managed to find money for gas, and how exactly the extraordinary nano-techno-fabric of Evan's unique uniform worked.
She nodded, popping another bulgy pink bubble. "If you don't mind straying into enemy territory, I know a place we can go."
"Why do I already get the feeling I'm not going to like it?"
"Because you're a stuffed shirt. C'mon."
Swivelling her hand and turning Kurt's own grip against him, Tabby yanked him unceremoniously along the row of lockers. Several people looked their way as they strode and stumbled past, but such peculiar behaviour was pretty much the norm for her, so they looked away again just as quickly. Tabby was the school curiosity. Few people paid her any heed unless she was physically affecting them – or their property.
For an extrovert like Tabby, this was a double-edged sword. The facets of her personality took it in turns to revolt and demand more attention than she was being given, or else shut up and take advantage of it.
Right now the latter was in play. Taking momentary shelter in the lee of the row, Tabby cast quickly about. Two kids were heading towards the spot from the opposite direction, but by her estimation, ETA wouldn't be for another couple of seconds. Plenty of time.
"Right. Quick, 'port us to outside the science block. The side away from the street."
For a moment, Kurt just looked aghast. "Smokers' Country? Are you insane? I like having a spleen!."
"Time is of the essence, Fuzzy. Nobody'll be there yet, anyhow."
Chatter approached. In the face of it Kurt surrendered the argument quickly. She knew he'd been to their destination before, and so visualising it wouldn't be a problem. Contrary to popular belief, Tabby wasn't stupid. The blonde image was useful sometimes, but only sometimes. As such, strategising – even if only on a trifling basis – was not beyond her.
When the pair of kids passed from one hall into the next, all that was left was a gently dissipating cloud – not unlike that created by the stink bombs housed in a nearby classroom.
The Bayville High computer lab was an interesting place.
At first glance, it was just the same as any school lab – filled with softly bleeping terminals, all sat patiently waiting for someone to come and siphon off information for term papers, homework and/or class prep.
There were about a dozen computers, all told, each with its own keyboard, mouse, and disk drive, but all sharing the same expensive laser printer. The printer was a gamble on the part of the governors after what often happened to expensive equipment at this most – unintentionally – destructive of schools.
However, what was different about this particular school lab had nothing to do with the people who used it, or the faith of the governors who managed it. What was remarkable was actually very subtle, contained in the fabric of the machines themselves, and could be traced back to the time when one Ms. Darkholme had been principal.
Ms. Darkholme had, during the course of her career at Bayville, taken it upon herself to volunteer the school for a pioneering project to test out a revolutionary new software for a multinational corporation. The purpose of the project had been to trial the software, then only in a developmental incarnation, in such situations as would become commonplace when it was eventually refined and sold on to the highest bidder. There are few places as rigorous or well used as a school lab, nor so unlikely to use it for unscrupulous purposes. The partnership had been mutually beneficial. The company got to test their product without having to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on independent administrators, and BHS gained a set of brand new 'supercomputers'.
It was never really clear how Ms. Darkholme came by the venture in the first place, since she left Bayville shortly afterwards, but the changes she'd made were certainly valuable to the students. Modems were faster than any they'd ever seen before, and there were any number of other perks to being guinea pigs – one of which Kitty was making very good use of now that the lab was empty for lunch.
She hadn't known it until after the departure of 'Ms. Darkholme', but one of the reasons the school computers were so powerful was because the technology had been 'helped along' by technology previously belonging only to a certain section of the FBI. Right now, this was proving most useful in her online search for one Anton Sevarius, since she'd recently learned how to navigate more restricted areas using that kind of software without leaving 'footprints'.
That seemed to be the only thing that was useful, however. In all other respects, the previous free study period and subsequent chunk of lunch break had been a complete and total waste of her time. She had made no real headway in her search, and was currently staring in frustration at the screen, as though by doing so she could conjure up what she wanted.
She didn't even hear the door open and shut, nor the quiet footsteps across the room. So when a pair of hands suddenly grabbed her shoulders, she jumped, standing and turning ready to take her attacker's head off with a roundhouse kick. That she managed to keep her feet out of someone's skull spoke volumes for her self-control.
"Lance?" she said – for it was indeed he, holding his hands up in the universal gesture for 'please don't hit me, scary girl'.
"You were expecting maybe Prince Charming?"
Kitty ran a hand through her bangs, letting the heel rest against her forehead a moment. The fan wasn't working, and her face was covered in a fine sheen of perspiration. Her hand, by comparison, was cold as ice – the result of keeping it fixed to a mouse for several hours. "You startled me, was all. Sorry about that. Too many training sessions with Wol – er, Logan."
Lance shrugged and rammed his hands in his pockets. "So, this the right time to say hello? Or am I gonna get kicked in the head anyway?" He smiled that vaguely goofy half-smile that had the tendency to turn her knees to jelly, much to her own consternation.
"You can say hello if you want to," she replied primly, sitting back down in her chair and pulling it up close to the computer desk.
"All right then, I will. Hello."
Despite the frustration gnawing at the back of her brain, Kitty tittered. It was an unpleasant habit, she felt, and one much better suited to girls with far less grey matter than herself. Not that she was conceited or anything, but everyone had things they didn't like about themselves. For Kitty, dizzy tittering was one of them. It made her sound like a complete and utter ditz, which, though she had ditzy moments, was not something she was especially keen on encouraging anymore. Girls who dated seniors – even seniors like… well, Lance – were sophisticated and worldly, not silly giddy-brains with more sense in their big toes than between their ears.
A shadow fell across the keyboard.
"Lance, you're in my light."
"The sun was in my eyes on your other side. Besides, it's a self-lit screen."
She sighed, but didn't reply. Her fingers flew lightly over the keys, as she typed in another line of code. A few seconds, a faint beep, and she uttered a curse that would have shocked her mother.
Lance only raised an eyebrow. "Sounds like someone's a little tense. What exactly are you doing cooped up in here, anyway? It's lunchtime."
"I kinda promised the others I'd do something."
"Ah, the illustrious X-Men. If it's not evil teachers, it's mutant hero wannabes and their mission of the week." He hadn't mustered much in the way of cheerfulness.
Kitty shot him a vaguely reproving look. "Must you be so bitter?"
"It's in the job description. Plus, I have a rep to protect."
"What rep? We're the only two people in the room."
Lance held a finger to his lips and whispered theatrically. "Shhh. The walls have ears." Then he made a show of pressing the side of his head to the wall, face a mask of concentration.
Kitty laughed, a genuine laugh this time, and felt much the better for it. Lance had a way of making her feel better about situations beyond her control. It was a knack of his, one she appreciated much more than perhaps she even admitted to herself, and she was prepared to put up with any amount of flack from her teammates to keep it in her life.
Of course, had someone told her that a couple of years ago, when he was burying her in the rubble of their old school office, she would have called them crazy.
Kinda weird, the hand life deals you.
She turned back to the screen. Lance moved to get a better view of it.
"So, what exactly are you up to that's so damn important, anyway? This is the blessed hour of freedom. I had to give up having a smoke to come find you."
"'Blessed'? You been hanging around the fantasy section of the library or something?"
"Well excuse me for trying to act cultured. But seriously, Kitty-Kat, what's…" he narrowed his eyes, reading off what seemed to be the only words of any meaning on the monitor, "an Anton Sever… Sevi…?"
"Sevarius. I'm researching him. He's… just some guy we needed a heads-up on for something." She faltered, part of her clamping down on her tongue before it could wag. That, she reminded herself, was not her story to tell.
"Another Big Bad for Xavier's super-team to take care of?" Lance frowned. "Is this something the Brotherhood should be worried about?"
Kitty shook her head. "I don't think so. He's a bit of a loose canon we were wondering about, but information on him isn't, like, readily available on the more… official channels." She clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, choosing her phrasing carefully. No use in spelling it out. There might be something to Lance's 'walls with ears' theory, after all. In a place like Bayville, it was entirely possible.
"You're hacking? Kitty, I'm surprised at you." Lance wagged a finger. "You'll be setting fire to trash cans and egging Kelly's car, next."
"And spoil Todd's fun? I don't think so. And it's not really hacking, just… looking at things without anyone knowing about it." She sat back in her chair. "Not that I'm actually looking at anything useful about him. The guy, like, completely dropped off the map. No info anywhere, unless it's some totally weird rumour. Some of it is pretty, well, just plain bizarre…" She clicked on a few things, bringing up a finer list of the more unusual – and no doubt completely falsified - tittle-tattle. It all looked very daunting and well guarded.
"You're scaring me. You're not supposed to be able to do that."
Kitty grinned. "Thanks. I've had a lot of practise at it."
That made him blink. "Somehow, I get the feeling I shouldn't enquire further."
"You have been in the library, haven't you? I guess that theory about info osmosis might have something to it, after all." Kitty cracked her knuckles, hands stiff and fingers rigid from hours of typing. Her shoulders felt tense, too. She rolled them absently.
Lance shifted his stance a little, brushing her ponytail away from her neck with impossibly gentle fingers. Those kids who had been on the end of lunch-money swirlies would have been poleaxed to know that their personal bully could be so tender to anyone – let alone a giggly little freshman he'd begun his time at BHS treating to Glares of Doom.
Kitty found herself shivering at the light brush of his fingertips against her skin, and instantly berated herself for acting so.
"Don't you ever get found out?" he asked, apparently not noticing her reaction. "Like, by the faculty, or something? Getting caught is a bad thing, right?"
Kitty shepherded her thoughts back into place and passed a hand over her mouth. Just in case, mind. "Oh, I never get caught. I just worry about being caught. Big difference. I'm too careful to leave doorways open for other people."
"Again, not following that train of thought."
Kitty wished she could say the same thing. He seemed to be rearranging her topknot so that stray piece of hair were marshalled back into it, and the closeness of him made the flesh of the back of her neck go goosepimply. Uncomfortably so. She was even more restless when he spoke again.
"You tense? Here." He put his hands on her shoulders and began rotating both thumbs, pressing into the bone firmly, yet not unpleasantly. In fact, to her great surprise, a good chunk of tension instantly drained away from her cramped joints and muscles.
"Mmm, that's nice." Turning her head slightly, she fixed him with one beady eye. "You're just full of surprises, aren't you?"
"Meh, I try," Lance shrugged, though she though she could see a faint blush. Evidently, this sort of tenderness wasn't something he was used to, either.
The thought made her feel a little better, and she reached for the computer mouse with a quiet smile.
Lance's massage technique was such that Kitty had to wonder how he'd acquired it. And gotten so good, too. How many other girls had he practised on to be able to ease her stress and stiffness so skilfully…?
Stop! Bad thought. Very bad. Staying away from that one.
Kitty was not as naïve as a lot of people thought. In some respects, she was one of the shrewdest people in school. Certainly, with regards to Lance, she was under no disillusion. She knew he'd been out with other girls before her. she knew he'd done… things with them. She'd seen a couple of them, back in Illinois, when he'd been but a minor blip on her radar. Back then, anything and anybody willing to leave her alone and not shove her into her locker had been counted as non-threatening, no matter what other thuggish behaviour they indulged in.
That didn't mean she liked thinking about past girlfriends, though. Well, who would?
Thus it was she easily immersed herself back in conversation when Lance piped up with, "So… I guess the Internet's good for something other than porn after all, huh?"
"Lance!"
"Sorry, sorry," he said, utterly unremorseful, "too much time spent around Pietro. That's all he ever uses it for."
"You guys have Internet access at the Boarding House?" Though rarely discussed, she was well aware of Brotherhood finances, and knew that they barely stretched to bills, rent and food, let alone luxuries like the Internet.
"Direct line to his majesty's bedroom. Paid for via a private credit card, of course."
"Of course." An insistent beep. She hastily closed down the window she'd been operating in. "Aw, dammit. Not again."
"Is that a sign of surrender?" There was a hopeful note to Lance's voice.
"That's a 'I-hate-being-defeated-by-machines' sign," Kitty replied. She exhaled loudly, and spent a few silent minutes typing furiously in the remaining window. It was more stubbornness than anything else. She'd come to the conclusion that her search was not going to turn up anything solid on Sevarius about twenty minutes ago, but her misguided sense of perseverance had not let her give up so easily. After all, she'd reasoned, she was not doing this solely for herself.
Even so…
Kitty moved the mouse to the taskbar, hit 'Start', and selected 'Shut Down'. That done, she rolled her chair backwards, rising to her feet and dislodging Lance's hands in the process. A part of her was saddened by the loss of contact, but she swiftly hushed it. Now was not the time to become a slave to her own hormones.
"C'mon, let's go and see if there's anything edible left in the cafeteria."
"In our cafeteria? Optimistic much?"
In every school, in every city, in every state, and – probably – in every country, there is an out-of-the-way place reserved for those who enjoy inhaling nicotine smoke. Though given no official title, such places referred to by some as 'Smokers' Country'. They are also known as locations non-smokers must never go. In some more neglected neighbourhoods, presence is by invitation only, and woe betide any faculty member who mistakenly strays into that No Man's Land.
Bayville Smokers' Country was not so extreme as all that, but it was still a place people did not generally like to venture. A permanent pall of grey hung over the area. Kurt waved continually at it as he talked. Not that it did much good, but it seemed to make him feel better.
He was obviously uncomfortable being there, as evidenced by the way his eyes roved around and his weight shifted from foot to foot. That Smokers' Country was so close to Forge's old lab probably wasn't helping things. Mucho bad memories and all that jazz.
By comparison, Tabby was completely at home in the lee behind the science block. She had enjoyed many a covert cigarette there between classes. For all its faults, Smokers' Country provided an unprecedented view that allowed her to speak freely, safe in the knowledge that she could see anyone approaching.
Which proved to be just as well, as Kurt's story unfolded. He gabbled parts of it, hesitated on others – sometimes until she physically prodded him to carry on – but he didn't leave much out. She got the feeling there were one or two things concerning himself that he kept back, but since she had quite enough to digest already, she didn't dig for them.
The level to which Tabby's eyebrows were raised had been mounting ever since Kurt began. By the end, the space between brows and eyes was a significant fraction of the earth's diameter. She didn't even realise he'd finished at first. She was too busy contemplating what she'd been told, lips parted slightly in surprise.
"Tabitha?"
She jolted at her name, which resulted in a very unladylike snort. "Huh? What?"
Kurt peered at her, expectant and obviously anticipating a response. He seemed nervous, and she got the distinct feeling it wasn't anything to do with their location this time.
Oh. Yeah. Oath, secrecy, trust – those things he'd been careful to emphasise in his narration.
"Thanks, Blue. For telling me, I mean. With a bit of luck, that'll stop me from contracting the dreaded FIMD when I see Ray again. That's Foot In Mouth Disease, in case you were wondering."
Kurt tilted his head to one side, eyes searching. Since Tabby had met him in his fuzzy form first, and got to know him the same way, she always felt slightly freaked looking into his holographic eyes. Not least of all because the emotion in them was not always what was going on beneath.
"Is that all? Don't you want to say anything else?"
She leaned against the brickwork, arms folded and jaws bouncing off her gum. Her face took on as pensive a quality as it ever did. "What else do you want me to say? The staple 'I'm sorry' seems pretty trite. Besides, you're not really the person I'm supposed to say it to if I'm gonna say it, right?"
"Point. But still," Kurt moved in such a way as indicated his tail would like to be free and waving, "you must have something to say, jawohl?"
"The whole talky-talk thing really isn't my forte, Blue. You know that. I tend to end up with a sneaker halfway down my throat." She puffed out her cheeks, letting air out slowly, as a few things slotted into place in her brain.
It felt rather odd, the notion that there was such a large portion of Ray's life about which she'd known absolutely nothing. Less than nothing, even. When she and he did speak, they talked about a great many things; bluntly, even crudely, and she had to wonder after her own intuition as a friend that she hadn't sensed the enormity of the secrets he was keeping from her. Not that she was really one to talk about skeletons in the cupboard, but still. Running away from home and spending six months in a sewer with a whole tribe of subversive mutants… that was a pretty gigantic skeleton. Like, a skeleton that had been bathed in radioactive waste, grown to gigantic proportions and was about to eat Tokyo.
"Tabitha?"
"Just Tabby, Blue. Don't be so formal."
Kurt frowned a little. "Stop changing the subject."
"Not that the uniforms wouldn't be kinky-cool, but I'm not playing psychiatrist-patient with you, Blue. Yes, what you just told me is a bit of a shock, but not so much that I'm about to fall off the world because I'm so traumatised. Granted, the Morlocks thing knocked me for a loop – I never realised mutants existed in such numbers as to create a whole frikkin' tribe of recluses. And down in the sewers, no less. But suspension of disbelief is less a slogan, more a lifestyle for people like us." She tapped her chin thoughtfully. "You've gotta admit, we haven't exactly led conventional lives."
Kurt was forced to admit they hadn't. "But - "
Tabby cut him off, listing a few things off on her fingers. "Being mutants and having abilities most people would consider as superpowers; being taught Chemistry by a guy who takes leave to go back to nature and grow blue fur; having said teacher abducted by obsessed Big-Foot-ers; living in a town where a super-powered vigilante group is so mundane it doesn't make the news until three months after its first spotted – you want me to go on?"
"Okay, so you have a point about the weirdness in our lives. Even so – Ray's your friend. You've spent more time with him than I ever have, which I assume means you're closer to him. And since I feel pretty stinky for not picking up on the signs that something was wrong, I can't imagine what you must be feeling."
She was feeling rather crap, as it happened, but she wasn't about to let him know that. After all, she was Boom-Boom – the wild card whom nothing could touch or affect in any great measure. After the debacle that had ensued from her no good bum of a father rolling into town, Tabby had sworn to herself not to let anyone see her get angsty over anything. Showing that kind of emotion was like putting up a big neon arrow marked 'weakness here! Free for all manipulation buffet on the blonde chick!'
Fun loving, sure. Angry, yes. But upset? Nu-uh. Why be upset about something when you could just as easily blow it up, thereby removing its problem status?
Not exactly a good philosophy, and not one that stood up in most circumstances, but having a motto like that made her feel better about her limited sphere of influence.
"Tabby?" Kurt peered at her, twisting a little.
"Look, Blue, I'm not gonna go all weepy over this, so don't push me. I just … need a little time to let it sink in."
"Aha! So you do feel something."
"Never said I didn't. I just said I didn't wanna talk about it. Yeah, Ray's my bud, and yeah, I feel kinda guilty I never saw things the way they actually were with him, and, okay, yeah I feel bad about what happened to the Morlocks. But let's get a few things straight, shall we? One: I never knew the Morlocks, so it'd be pretty hypocritical of me to tear my hair out and mourn them a whole heap. Two: I did, in fact, think something was wrong with Ray recently, but I put it down to problems with his parents. It's a damn big leap from something like that to something so far out as… this. And you've gotta admit, Ray isn't exactly bubbling over with personal details enough to steer people in the right direction, is he?"
Kurt looked as though he was about to say something disparaging, but she cut him off before he became infected with his own variety of FIMD.
"On the other hand, whoever did that to the Morlocks, I could still happily feed to a pack of ravenous piranha."
Kurt did a very obvious double take.
Tabby allowed herself a slender smirk.
"Sevarius," he said, amending her words, if not openly agreeing with them.
Tabby shook her head. Then she tipped it back, tracing the outline of a cloud with her eyes. The day was a nice one, with blue skies and little white puffballs scudding through it. Hardly the kind of day to be told of mass murder, secret pasts and savage trespassers.
She supposed she really should be getting used to this sort of thing by now.
"We only have Ray's guesswork to say it's him. And from what you've told me, you gotta admit, the evidence is more than a little circumstantial."
She couldn't tell his reaction to that, since Kurt chose that moment to hide behind his hair and look at his feet. Although she thought she heard him mutter something that might have been grudging surrender. Then again, it could easily have been a rude remark. That was the thing about German as a language. You could be ordering out for sushi in it and still sound like you were cursing someone's family into the fourth generation.
Kurt was a joker by nature, but he did have his serious side – especially where family and friends were concerned – so it wasn't a black and white thing to call.
"When we know nothing, all we can do is suppose."
"Geez, this is the thanks I get when I try to be a voice of reason? Catch me doing that again – I don't think."
"Forgive me if accepting you as a voice of reason is a little bit of a stretch."
Tabby had no answer to that, so she gave none. Instead, she pushed off from the wall and ambled away.
There was the sound of footfalls, and Kurt fell into step beside her.
She was a little surprised he didn't just escape while he had the chance, but he was still hiding behind his hair, so she couldn't read his face to look for motive.
There was a loaded pause. It graduated to pregnant, as they mounted the steps to leave the gradient that marked Smokers' Country's territorial border. Its waters broke halfway up the stairwell, and the grizzling, mewling excuse for dialogue squirmed into the world with a; "I never figured you one for emotional constipation."
"That movie really gets around, doesn't it?"
Kurt blinked, face sliding into view at last. "What movie?"
Tabby paused, and then shook her head. Without warning, she pivoted on one foot and sat down on the step that marked midway between Smoker's Country and the rest of the world. "Sit," she commanded, in a voice that brooked no argument.
Kurt paused, wavered, and then obeyed. When he touched down, a small sigh breached his lips, like contact had driven it up from his lungs. He didn't bother to remove his backpack, though it could not possibly have been comfortable in that position.
"Something's bothering you," Tabby said bluntly. A small voice in the back of her brain had started up, demanding a cigarette, but she squashed it. However, it persevered, and she listened to Kurt's reply with silent remonstrations of how one should not have to deal with bombshells without nicotine, alcohol, or at least caffeine.
"Well, duh - "
"Not that. And don't give me any of that vicarious-pain-for-a-teammate crap, because we both know that's not what I'm talking about. It'd be an utterly pointless waste of air, Kurt."
She rarely used his real name. That she did now seemed to light the touch-paper within him. Kurt let his chin fall against the back of one fist. "It was just something Ray said," he confessed at length, proving her suspicions.
"Gonna need more details than that. Ray says a lot of things."
Kurt was reticent. When he did speak, it was like dragging the words out with rusty fishing hooks. He dodged her questions, parried her accusations, and eventually baffled her completely by saying, "I never thought about glass boxes since I came to America. Not since the very beginning, at least."
"Excuse me?" She waved a hand above her head meaningfully. "Me no speaky what you speaky, boyo."
"Glass boxes," Kurt said again, like that would make everything clear.
Tabby's mind sifted through memories, looking for a connection.
She hadn't been lying when she said that comforting people in distress was not her strong suit. Generally, she preferred coasting through life on a wave of good feeling, and, given a few of the things she'd had to deal with in her sixteen years, she felt entitled to doing so.
All the same…
Ping!
There it was.
It hadn't been a particularly long exchange, but at one point, when she still lived at the Institute, she'd run across Kurt transporting what appeared to be a very small tree in a glass container up to Ororo's attic. Bonsai, perhaps…? Meh, didn't matter. What mattered was what he had said. Something about privacy and people being able to see through glass…
God damn it. "Kurt."
"Hmm?" He looked up from where he'd been staring at a particularly riveting piece of gravel.
"You're not going to be buried in a glass box. Ever. Savvy?"
He coloured slightly. It was his own personal fear, as far as she knew, that a visual mutant like him would prove a magnet to hungry researchers and geneticists with… looser morals than most. Everyone had nightmares. Some more than others. Quite a few of his involved scalpels, restraints and screaming that was easily heard through a bedroom wall.
"You remember."
"My memory's not the thing we're discussing here." She perused a burnt umber fingernail so she wouldn't have to look at his expression. Damn mobile features. Damn them all to hell.
"It just got me thinking, is all," Kurt said with an expulsion of breath that bordered on doleful.
"What did?"
"That obvious mutants could be driven to living in filth just because they look different to everyone else."
"Blue, the only way you'd be moving into the sewer is if the whole X-Men team made a mass exodus down there for… I dunno, to learn Zen or something." She spiralled a hand at the wrist, cursing her own lack of general knowledge. "Zen and crap disposal. Ugh. Anyway, the point is, it's not gonna happen. Not in a million, billion, gazillion years. I can tell you that without even breaking a sweat."
"But it could've."
"You are far too good in picking holes in my arguments, which indicates far too much time spent dwelling on this kind of thing. I swear, Blue, you start quoting the multiverse at me…" She left the sentence unfinished, unable to think of a suitable conclusion.
"They were just like me, Tabby," Kurt said suddenly. There was an earnestness to his voice that made her take note. "What happened to them… it could so easily have been… I mean, not to sound selfish or anything, but…"
"Hey, we're all allowed a selfish moment or twelve. Altruism only goes so far."
Tabby tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear and contemplated what he'd said. For once in her life, she actually wished she had been blessed with the mutant ability of articulacy rather than boom-bombs. Her personality tended to have all the subtlety of a wrecking ball. "Whoever… did that to the Morlocks is scum, Blue. Pure and simple. But he or she wouldn't get the chance to even entertain the thought of doing that to you – or anyone else in this town, for that matter. You got friends watching your back." She shrugged. "Good friends who've put themselves on the line for you before. You think they'd let some sick fuck get his grubby little mitts on their Elf? Hell, you think Logan would?"
"I guess. It's just… it makes you evaluate a few things, being confronted with stuff like that."
See, even he admits it. Cigarette! Cigarette! Shut up, brain, Tabby admonished, returning her attention to the lump of depression sitting next to her. "Evaluation is good. From what I hear, it means maturity – though that's not a word I'd associate with you very often. However, dwelling is bad. Dwelling means asking questions you can't ever answer, and settling down into a funk nothing short of Ice-Cream Shack's Vanilla-zilla can break you out of. And I, for one, am too broke to buy you one of those right now. So," she slapped her hands against her thighs, "no funking, please. Fundage will not allow."
Kurt sighed once more and straightened up. Downbeat emotion still ghosted across his face, but it was faint and fading. Had it vanished instantly, she would have been worried. That it stuck around a few more seconds indicated he wasn't just spinning her a line about feeling better.
"You're right. Been doing way too much bad dwelling."
"I know I'm right. I'm always right. You just never trust me when I tell you that." Tabby got to her feet.
"Because your track record is just so encouraging in that area," Kurt said, doing likewise. "You know, you sell yourself short when you say you're not good at the comfort thing."
Tabby shook her head and proceeded up the stairwell. "Shrink is not a future job prospect, Blue, so halt that train of thought right there. Helping out a friend in danger of drowning in his own pessimism is one thing. But I just couldn't do for strangers I really don't give a shit about, all day, every day. I'd blow someone up before the first week was out."
Logan was deliberately avoiding the mansion's sublevels. He'd been alerted of the telepathic success with Feral, and told diplomatically that things had gone off without a hitch even without his help. He'd read between the lines, of course, but it didn't bother him. Much.
What did burn him up was that he couldn't trust himself around Feral now that she was awake. The compulsion to finish what he'd started last night was nigh impossible to ignore. Hence, avoidance tactics.
On a deeper level, he knew that his behaviour was irrational. Suspicions aside, what stood between him and the fearsome little refugee boiled down to his wounded pride. Unfortunately, Logan had endured nigh on two hundred years of honour in some for or another. You learned how to hold a grudge or two over that amount of time.
His room was not a comfort zone, as it was for some people. Logan primarily viewed it as a place to sleep and keep his clothes, nothing more. Those few people who had seen the inside had all been surprised at the barrenness of it all; the lack of personal items, the wanting in colour beyond what standard decoration Charles had installed in all the bedrooms. They all assumed that, with so many years under his belt, Logan would have at least a few keepsakes around of his life and extensive travels.
What they didn't know was that it was precisely because of those things that Logan didn't have any real personal effects. Nothing that couldn't be replaced, at any rate. Even his beloved leather jacket had not been mourned when it hit the trash. It was only a thing – an object. Something you learned after a few centuries was that objects never meant so much as the people that went with them.
Thus it was that Logan found himself stalking the halls, settling on no single task as he went. Usually, he would have gone down to the Danger Room to blow off a little steam, but that involved going further downstairs than he wished.
He could've gone for a ride on his motorcycle, but he didn't much want to leave the grounds. Hank, 'Ro et al could take care of themselves, he knew, but his protective instincts had been riled, and they had not allayed since last night.
The best course of action he could think of was a nice, stiff cup of coffee, since the zing of alcohol was pretty much negated by his healing factor. Logan's coffee was legendary, with Scott more than once comparing it to primordial ooze. It seemed just the thing to clear his head.
When he reached the kitchen, however, he was greeted by a most perplexing smell. It was not unlike sugar water, of the kind a thirteen-year-old Scott had once tried to catch ants with out on the driveway. Yet there was a bitterer edge to it, slightly sour, and stinging to Logan's sensitive nose. He paused, recognising it as fresh and new since his last cup of joe this morning, after the students had left for school.
There was a sound like metal clinking against ceramic. He advanced cautiously. Everyone was downstairs right now, so who could be –
He scented.
Ah.
Jamie looked up as Logan's squat frame filled the doorway. Logan could almost feel the kid flinch at the imposing figure he must have presented. Exposure to Ororo must have been affecting him, though, because he found himself deliberately relaxing the tense slant of his shoulders to put him at ease.
Damn. Too soft.
Jamie, due to the erratic nature of his mutation, was home-schooled. When he first came to Bayville, just Ororo and Charles had undertaken his education with the help of a training course or two and some mail-order curricula. When Hank joined the Institute, he had automatically undertaken the lion's share of the boy's education, though nobody stipulated he do so. It seemed Jamie gave a little purpose to his day, and that had been what got him through those initial, erratic weeks when first confronted with his new form and his inability to return to Bayville High.
Logan had never really gone in for all that teaching stuff outside Danger Room sims. Training sessions he could do, but academia escaped him. He couldn't even remember his own, though he must have had some, since he knew all the basics like the three R's. Thus it was that he sometimes forgot the youngest X-Man's presence when he was here during the day. Years of having the place primarily left to adults during that time had conditioned him to think it kid-free.
"Mister Logan," Jamie started, pausing in his task of vigorously beating something to death in a giant mixing bowl. it looked a lot like vomit.
He was stood on what Logan assumed was a plastic box, of the sort Ororo used to keep loose vegetables in. Littered across the tabletop were the remains of a very scattershot cooking affair – empty, half crushed eggshells; an open packet of flour; several dozen sugar sachets, torn open, their contents gone; melted chocolate chips; a small, unscrewed bottle of vanilla essence; a bag of crystallised ginger Ororo sometimes used in her more exotic dishes…
Logan raised an eyebrow at the mess. Jamie was not wearing anything even approaching an apron. As a result, a lot of it was splattered across him, as well as the worktop. One of the rotors on the ceiling fan looked drippy, as did parts of the floor.
"Okay, kid, you got me." Logan folded his arms and struck an expectant pose. "What is it?"
Jamie blinked, looked down at the mixture, and then back up again. His expression switched to one of embarrassment. He wiped at his forehead with the back of one hand, leaving a grainy smear of yellowish paste in his hairline. "Um… Mr. McCoy was busy, and there was nobody around to teach me today, so I… uh…"
Logan never would've figured Hank to forget his duties. Hmm. Seemed the good Dr. Beast was not infallible. "You decided to give yourself a crash course in Home Ec. in his absence?"
"Um," Jamie said, sounding a lot like the scared little boy he constantly professed he was not.
Being younger than the rest of the X-Men had the consequence that they tended to view Jamie as inferior, even if they didn't admit it to themselves. It was a subconscious thing, probably stemming from times when the human race lived in caves, and having a weak link in the chain meant becoming wild animal chow. The fact that Jamie was small for his age didn't help matters.
Logan had watched the rest of the group in training sessions, when they went through the 'pick-me-pick-me-oh-please-pick-me' style of working. Jamie always filled the last-one-standing-on-the-sidelines role. It was the same in playgrounds and Phys. Ed. everywhere in the world. Nobody wanted the weaker player on their team, and ignored him or her when they ended up playing alongside each other.
Jamie, through no fault of his own, was the perennial weaker player. And unless someday he figured out a way of controlling his mutation, it was likely always going to be that way. Even he admitted that he could be a liability sometimes, which meant that most of the past year with the X-Men had been spent cooped up in the mansion and grounds for fear of letting him out in public. They just couldn't risk him cloning himself at some inopportune moment. He had no desire to blow the lid off Mutantkind by being careless, either. As Logan recalled, it had been Jamie and his parents who suggested home-schooling in the first place.
The ceramic bowl was tilted to one side, revealing a syrupy yellow gunk, shot through with blotches of white. It was this that Logan had smelled before. Now the odd, dichotomous odour filled his nostrils, making him snort.
Jamie frowned. "It smells bad?" he said in a small voice. "I guess I must've remembered the recipe wrong." His volume never rose above a mumble.
He was a nice enough kid, shortcomings aside, but deathly afraid of Logan, which had been almost an amusement in the past, but now proved more of an irritation.
"Pungent," Logan said in return. Giving no more explanation than that, he asked, "What is it?"
"Sad Pudding."
"Say what?"
"Um, Sad Pudding? My Mom used to fix it for me when I was upset, to make me feel better. And I thought… since some people were cut up about what happened last night… um… I mean…"
Aw, how sweet, Logan thought humourlessly. I'm gettin' cavities. "By 'some people', who 'zactly do you mean?"
"Um, Ray? And Feral. And - " Jamie's words dissolved into a small squeak, as a growl exited Logan's throat at the taboo name.
Instantly, Logan could hear the echo of Ororo's voice. It wasn't bad enough his attitude stunk worse than overripe cheddar, now he was scaring kids into the bargain? For shame, Logan. For shame.
He moved around the table, coffee forgotten, and picked up a pitcher half filled with milk. Full fat of course, much to the Half-Pint's chagrin, owing to Porcupine's need for calcium and other nutrients that only milk could give him. It smelled rather sterile, some part of Logan noticed; an upshot of production line foodstuffs, where everything was cleaned, shuffled, cleaned, packed, and then cleaned again, before finally being allowed into the food chain.
He had a memory of drinking milk only minutes after it had left the cow. It arose in his brain quite suddenly and unexpectedly. So much so, in fact, that he nearly dropped the pitcher, and spent a few seconds marshalling his brain back into coherence.
Damn scrappy memory. If he ever got his hands on that Wraith guy again…
"Mister Logan, are you okay?" A pair of wide eyes filtered into his vision.
Logan grunted. "So how do you make this cr… stuff?" he asked minimally, setting the milk down and laying both palms flat against the table. One pressed into something sticky, and he grimaced, going to the sink to wash it off and kill two birds with one stone regarding hygiene.
Jamie was surprised. He did little to disguise it. "You… wanna know how to make Sad Pudding?"
"I don't like repeatin' myself, kid. You got a set recipe, or you just wingin' it with what we got?"
He scrambled. "Uh, my Mom made it up, but she said it's gotta have a certain base, and then you add the rest in according to personal taste. She said it's a little like pancakes. You've always gotta have batter to make them, but after that you can add in whatever you want to make them taste better."
"Uh-huh." Logan crossed the room and snagged an apron from the hook on the inside of the pantry door. Pausing a second to slip it over his head, he grabbed another and handed it to Jamie. "Put this on. Not that it makes much difference to you now, but you don't wanna be wearin' more than you're servin', savvy? One of the first rules of cookin'."
"You cook?" It seemed Jamie hadn't meant to say the words out loud, because his face instantly drained of colour. A hand hovered halfway to his mouth, as though thinking about clapping over it.
"Learned a long time ago," Logan said without batting an eyelid. He reached behind himself in a thoroughly gymnastic manoeuvre to tie the apron into place. "Some things are in this world that all folk should be acquainted with. Knowin' how to feed yourself properly's one of 'em."
He must look the very picture of domesticity, he thought, as he rolled his shirtsleeves and went about fetching utensils and a fresh mixing bowl. A towel appeared, dampened, and swept aside most of the debris. He couldn't have cared less about how he looked, though. This was proving a good enough distraction from his unwelcome ponderings – and he wasn't just talking about Feral. One or two of the kids were due a thorough chewing out when they got home for what he'd found in the perimeter wall.
"So, what's first?"
"Flour. And eggs to bind it with the butter." Jamie hopped off his box and fetched what wasn't already on the table. Carefully, delicately, he transported a fresh box of six medium eggs – free range, naturally – and set them down like a newborn.
Logan, content to take orders for now, did as he was told with nary a word that wasn't a question.
After fifteen minutes of this, Jamie stopped. In his hands large, gem-like fragments of crystallised ginger glimmered sweetly. One had already been crushed on a chopping board into smaller, more manageable pieces by Logan's more than capable hands. He was waiting patiently to be furnished with another.
"You know," Jamie said, in the voice of one who has just been confronted by some fantastic phenomenon even science is at a loss to explain. Few people at the mansion ever used such a tone, since so much of their lives were made up of the unbelievable and bizarre. When one lived with a werewolf, a human pincushion, and people easily able to level a whole city by accident, everything else tended to become just a little mundane. "You know," Jamie nevertheless said, "since I joined the Institute, I've been exposed to some major league eepiness."
Logan raised his aerobic eyebrow. "Eepiness?"
"Like creepiness, but more eerie. Even so, this is… just plain weird."
There went the eyebrow again. It was certainly getting a good workout today. "How?"
"Well, standing here. With you." Jamie gestured wide, wrist limp like it couldn't hold his hand up, "Teaching you how to cook. You. Logan. It's just a bit…uh, a bit surreal, is all. I mean, you're the teacher. Not me. I'm just a kid."
Logan went back to viciously assaulting his mixture for a moment, which had turned a shade of yellowish-green that could politely be described as puce. It looked revolting, but the smell coming off it was peculiarly alluring; a fusion of sweet and bitter that trod a very fine line between pleasant and offensive. "Ev'ryone can learn somethin' new, Shorty, an' ev'ryone's got somethin' valuable to teach. No exceptions. Now pass me one of those crystals before this stuff ferments and I gotta start over."
Jamie did so, watching intently as Logan used the heel of his hand to shatter the ginger. Sometimes adamantium bones could come in pretty useful, though Logan had never really considered the kitchen a place for them before.
"Is that my nickname? Shorty?" Jamie didn't sound entirely displeased at the notion.
"Didn't I give you one before?"
He shook his head.
"Hmm, an oversight on my part. Guess it is now, then. Why? You don't like it?"
A hasty raising of the hands to assuage any possible offence caused. The kid seemed awfully good at that. "No. I mean yes! Yes, I like it."
"Good." Having pressed the ginger into his bowl, Logan swirled the wooden spoon around once and tapped it on the side. A few splots of gloop flew off. "We got any raisins?"
"Uh, I don't think so. I didn't see any in the storeroom."
"Pity. Not too fond of chocolate, but this needs something." He tapped the spoon some more, as though that would incite inspiration to whack him about the head with a suggestion.
Jamie considered for a moment, and then said tentatively, "Would chopped apple do? It's kinda tangy, and if you bake it for a little while it'd be soft enough to use."
Logan allowed the corners of his mouth to quirk into a half-smile. It startled the kid, which made it grow into a full smirk. "Good idea. See? Ev'ryone's got something to teach someone else. Now stop lookin' like a scared rabbit an' get on with your own puddin' before it goes crooked."
To Be Continued…
Review Replies!
Psycho-Neurotically Disturbed – Ah, those darn technicalities. Still, stalker or no stalker, I still appreciate the review. Thanks.
Angel of the Fallen Stars – Sense is overrated. And you're right about Kitty's uses for the hole in the wall, though she wasn't the only one using it. She may be able to phase, but I doubt Lance would appreciate being prickled to death by brambles and suchlike. Been there and done that while picking blackberries as a child. Not fun. You usually find leftover thorns when you're putting your shoes on and they're between your toes.
Me – Yay! I love your reviews. I dig the whole stream of consciousness thing, dawg. And… it's entirely possible my meds are making me a little loopy. Yes, the hole in the wall is indeed an homage to DPM. For anyone else reading this, DPM stands for Don't Pity Me, and absolutely fan-bloody-tastic fanfic opus by InterNutter. It's available at her site and one request from her, if you want to try it. And I seriously recommend that you do. Now, Harry (and you really must correct me if you prefer being called Wriggle these days), the Rogue and Risty friendship fascinates me because we know of it, but we never really knew that much about it, did we? The show just sort of said "Oh yeah, they're friends. Yes. And now they're not. Deal with it." I think Rogue's reactions, insular person that she is, would be a little more complicated than meet-greet-and-attach-self-to-new-girl. I wanted to know why she preferred Risty's company instead of that of other people. And so this fic went along for the ride. 'Juxtapose' means to set something alongside something else, as in comparison. It's a term people tend to use when talking about the structure of poetry, but it can be used in any context, really. No, this fic isn't finished, and I've been working on it since early 2003. I just get distracted easily by shiny things. Ooh, look! Shiny thing!
AzKailani – Thank you very much. And thanks for the email, too. Did you get my reply?
Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man – I'm updatin'! I'm updatin'!