The More Things Change

Chapter 9: Discoveries.

Author: RoguesKnight

Disclaimer: Xander, well for that matter any of the Scoobies or Fang Gang in general, doesn't belong to me, they are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, 20th Century fox and scads of lawyers. Same goes for Rogue, Kitty, any of the X-Men, who belong to those wonderful folks at Marvel, and their lawyers. I'm just hanging with them for a bit. I swear they'll be none the worse for wear. …as long as nothing bad happens.

Dedication: Yea, I know it's been a while since I updated, far, far too long in fact. Had a massive does of writer's block and more work than I could handle for a while. Fortunately, it's the school year, so of course I have plenty of time to write when I should be studying. Hehehe. As always, dedicated to my wonderful fiancée and my fabulous reviewers.

The room that had been arranged for Xander's stay was sparsely decorated without being Spartan. In addition to the twin sized bed pressed against the far wall, there was medium sized mahogany desk and a high backed wooden chair. Clearly a testament to the early days of the institute. A large window overlooked the front lawn, with a clear view of the driveway leading up from the main gate to the institute. Xander stood with his back to the bed, putting his few things into the closet and trying not to be bowled over by Kitty and Jubilee's obvious flirtations while having a serious conversation with them at the same time. There were few men who'd be capable of such a feat. Fortunately, his experience with Anya had prepared him for just about anything.

" So," Jubilee said, leaning back against the headboard of the bed between Kitty and Rogue, " Come clean. The eye patch, it's just a gimmick to impress girls, isn't it? Make you seem all tough and dangerous." Beside her Rogue groaned, burying her face in her gloved hands and Kitty drove a very sharp elbow into her side.

Hanging his last shirt, Xander turned to face the bed, leaning against the closet door. He seemed to consider the comment for a moment, a flash of pain flitting across his rugged features before finally coming to a conclusion. " You know, I hadn't thought of that potential. No, it's real. Behind this oh-so-wonderful little black patch is an honest to god disfiguring scar. Just a little parting gift from the Hellmouth." Jubilee at least had the good grace to look embarrassed. Her mouth worked soundlessly as she searched for something to say to that. Kitty fortunately came to her rescue.

" So, you're serious. Vampires and demons are real?" She delicately fingered the star of David hanging from the gold chain around her neck, a worried frown darkening her pretty features, " I mean Rogue gave us a little background info about how you two met and everything when she got the ok for you to come out here, but I just can't accept that you saved her from a Vampire. I mean, it just can't be…" She trailed off, obviously disturbed. Without a word Rogue and Jubilee wrapped their arms around their frightened friend. This of course meant Rogue ended up holding both other girls, careful not to make contact with bare skin.

Xander smiled, seeing just how close the three girls seemed to be. Marie's definitely changed since the last time I saw her he mused. Good to see that she's made some friends for herself and settled down . Xander pulled the chair away from the desk for himself, flipping it around and straddling it, his arms crossed on the back of it comfortably. " You know, my friend Willow had a similar reaction when we first found out" He said amiably as the girls took a seat, " in fact most people do the denial thing pretty well. But trust me, unfortunately it's true. The world's a lot older than anyone realizes, and some of the older things in it, like demons and vampires are real."

Kitty looked like she was going to faint, prompting Rogue and Jubilee to readjust their grips on their friend. " If what you're saying's true," Kitty managed, " then why are any of us still here? I mean let's ignore the other kinds of demons, cause I really don't want to know just how many there are out there, and just talk vampires." She seemed to gain a little strength and color back and pulled away slightly from Rogue and Jubilee, meeting Xander's eye with a challenging stare. " If the literature on vampires is remotely accurate, why haven't they wiped us out? I mean, inhuman strength, impervious to most weapons, able to control people's minds…" Caught up in her train of logic, Kitty failed to notice the slightly embarrassed look that crossed Xander's face at that last part. Rogue, however, didn't miss it and made a mental note to ask him about it later. " And then there's feeding and reproduction," Kitty continued " It's exponential. One makes two, two make four, and so on." She finished, " So I ask again, with all that in their favor, why are we still the dominant species on the planet?"

"You'll have to excuse her," Jubilee said with a grin, " She thinks she's a genius." Kitty lunged across Rogue's lap to grab a pillow and turned back to attack her smart-assed friend. Rogue caught Xander's eye and shook her head, smiling, as if to say this sort of thing happened all the time.

" It's ok," Xander said, humor evident in his voice, " I think smart girls are sexy" He tossed a wink Kitty's way making her blush bright red and begin to phase through the bed in embarrassment. Well Xander thought, That explains what her mutant ability is. That would have come in handy back in high school, I could have actually sunk through the floor instead of wishing the earth would just open up and swallow me." He waited as Kitty pulled herself together and back out of the bed. " Seriously though, it's a good question. The answer's a little involved. Partly it's because they, for the most part, though I could name a couple of exceptions, aren't just mindless animals. They don't turn everyone that they feed off of. After all, if everyone eventually got turned into vampires, there'd be no food left for them. Well that and the whole allure of being 'creatures of the night' wouldn't be nearly as strong. And then how would they be able to lure young women into the sack?" The faintest hint of bitterness in his voice caused the three young mutants to burst into uncontrollable giggles.

" Ah swear Xander," Rogue said with a smirk, " if Ah didn't know you better Ah'd swear you were jealous" Xander glared daggers at the younger woman, eliciting more giggles from Jubilee and Kitty and turning her smirk into a full fledged grin, " Ah mean, you oughta know that girls don't just go for the whole dark, bad boy, mystery guy thing. They much prefer perfect Angels" Kitty and Jubilee had the distinct feeling that they were missing something, and judging from the way Xander's face darkened, it was something big.

" Oh really Rogue?" Kitty asked, " Then explain why you were mumbling Logan's name in your sleep last night instead of Bobby's". A sudden stillness fell over the room and Xander had a strong suspicion that a line had just been seriously crossed. Jubilee carefully extracted herself from the bed and crossed to stand by Xander's chair, obviously worried about what was going to happen. On bed, Rogue slowly turned fully to face Kitty, who was backing up against the headboard, the realization of just how much trouble she was in finally sinking in.

"What did you just say?" the young southerner drawled out slowly, her gloved hands clenching and unclenching in barely controlled anger. Xander almost swore that he heard something akin to a growl under the words, and rose from his chair, ready to intervene somehow if things went too much further.

" Hey, not my fault that you have unresolved issues concerning a certain bad boy here at the institute," Kitty said remarkably flippantly considering the rage she could see building in her friend's eyes. The remark almost instantly got the response she'd wanted. With a wordless roar of anger, Rogue dove at, and then through, Kitty, who'd had the common sense to phase seconds before the attack. Unharmed, she scampered to the foot of the bed and turned for face Rogue. " You can't hit what you can't touch" she smirked.

" Ladies, ladies," Xander said in what he hoped was a placating tone as he approached the bed, his hands outstretched in front of him, " I enjoy the thought of two beautiful young women wrestling around on my bed as much as the next guy. Well, ok, so the circumstances are usually a little different and there's a lot less clothes…ok, off track and non-productive…let's try again. How about we just call a truce and talk this out like reasonable adults, or almost adults?" He tried to ignore the snicker he heard from behind him, which wasn't easy considering it wasn't that long ago that he'd have snickered at the thought of saying something so mature himself. However, as the only "adult" in the room he felt it was his duty to try and get things back under control, he was actually surprised that the noise hadn't brought anyone else to see what was wrong and knew that if things didn't cool down soon it wouldn't be long before someone, probably Logan, came to investigate. I soo do not want to be here if that happens Xander thought, keeping his eyes on the girls, he could see that Kitty was starting to warm up to the idea, but had his doubts about Rogue.

" Fine," Kitty said, turning her back on Rogue deliberately, and facing Xander. " I just figured that turnabout was fair play considering how she just loves to get on me about Piotr. And," she added darkly noticing a smirk tugging at the corners of Xander's mouth, " if you make one smart-assed remark about her getting on me, I swear I will phase you right through the wall and drop you into the holly bushes, about fifteen feet down." Xander's smirk broke out into a grin, he had to admit, the young auburn haired girl definitely had spunk. He turned his attention to Rogue and was about to ask if she could discuss things like a civilized adult when she launched herself at Kitty's back. There was no time to even think about shouting a warning; however, it was almost as if Kitty had sensed the attack coming and let Rogue sail once again through her body. This time once her friend passed through, Kitty solidified herself and grabbed Rogue by the ankle, and pivoted enough to keep her from going off the bed and possibly through the window, before releasing her, straight into Xander. The combined momentum of Rogue's lunge and Kitty's toss, knocked Xander back into Jubilee, and Jubilee went down over Xander's chair leading to the three of them ending up a pile of bodies on the floor and the chair in pieces. Fortunately no one's exposed skin was in contact with Rogue's.

"Oops," Kitty said sheepishly from her position on the bed.

" Oops?" came the reply from a slightly smushed Jubilee, as she tried pushing both Xander and Rogue off of her, " Oops? Oops is when you accidentally spill something on your friend's sweater that you borrowed and don't remember to get it dry cleaned. This is so much more than oops." With a grunt she finally managed to roll Xander and Rogue off of her and stand back up, looking at the demolished chair. " Damn girl, you know Logan's going to hit the rough when he hears about this, I mean if he hasn't heard it already."

Great Xander mused, somehow I know that Mr. Congeniality is going to find a way to blame me for this, and then it's on the first Blackbird flight back to L.A. Maybe if I'm lucky he'll actually land the jet to let me off. Standing slowly, he offered Rogue a hand, " You alright?" he asked his old friend.

" Never better, sugah", Rogue said sarcastically, the slightest blush coloring her cheeks as she took his hand and stood up, " Ah just love being tossed around like a rag doll." As if to emphasize her point she suddenly winced and put a hand to her back. " Ah'm gonna have a nasty bruise there Ah think."

" I'm like, so sorry Rogue," Kitty said getting off the bed and hurrying over to her friend. " I didn't mean to hurt you, and if I hadn't been worried about you going out the window I could have just kept phasing all day, or until you wore yourself out, whichever came first."

" It's ok Kitty," Rogue answered, " Ah overreacted to your teasing me. Ah guess Ah'm still sensitive where my men are concerned."

" Ok," Jubilee piped up, drawing all eyes to her, " Is it just me, or did anyone else notice that she said her men? As in the plural of man?" Xander dropped his head, let out a long sigh, and wished that she had just let it go. Fortunately Rogue decided to take the high road and let the comment slide.

" You know," she said, casting an irritated glare in Jubilee's direction, " the only reason that Ah'm letting you get away with that, Jubilation, is that we've somehow managed to avoid attracting any attention to ourselves already. Ah, for one am not willing to push it any further." Suddenly all three girls went still, and one by one their faces slowly slid from relief and humor to utter dismay.

"Hey, everything alright?" Xander asked, perplexed. This can't be a good sign he thought as he waited for an answer from anyone. He tried again, shaking Rogue gently, " Marie? What's wrong?"

Before she could respond, the door to the bedroom swung open to reveal Logan, a dark, almost feral, grin on his face. " You heard the man ladies. Danger room, now." One by one the young mutants filed out of the room and it dawned on Xander that the switch in their moods must have been triggered by a telepathic message from the Professor. He wasn't sure what the "Danger room" that Logan mentioned was, but he was suddenly glad he hadn't been included in the telepathic tongue lashing. Maybe he'd actually been able to avoid trouble for once. "As for you, patch," Logan said, "I'll figure out something else. For now though, why don't you come down with us? Get more of an idea of what goes on around here and just why it's a bad idea to ever piss me off." Without another word her turned and headed out the same way that Kitty, Rogue and Jubilee had, leaving Xander to catch up.

So much for managing to stay out of trouble He mused, hurrying after the others, " But hey, at least he hasn't tried sending me back to L.A….yet".