PART FIVE: If only Bobby had read the National Enquirer…

Okay, I know this is turning into one of the most inaccurately titled fics in the history of fan fiction. I mean, no sun, no sea, no surfing, just sarcasm. Well one out of four isn't all that bad. Well, compared with none out of four. I will deal with the rest later. Worry not, dear reader, they're all in the plan. Even the promised ice cream scene will come. Eventually. Reviews please!

The rest of the team sat in the rec room somewhat uneasily. They all knew what had happened. Annie's passion for the National Enquirer and movie star and celebrity non-entity rumour meant that when faced with some real ground breaking stop the press gossip, she wasn't a slouch when it came to disseminating it to nearly everyone in a five mile radius. Especially when she'd always known that Northstar had had a thing for the not-nearly-as-sexually-hung-up-as-I-thought-he-was Iceman. Another victory for Annie's sexual tension radar, even if the gaydar needed a little more practice, which she was pretty damn sure she was going to get now, what with two very hot gay men on campus and a sexually ambivalent giant cat person, any gay guys (and maybe gals as well) were just bound to come out of that closet. She'd decided that she could live with secret identities, burning desires for revenge, evil doppelgangers and weird sister fetishes provided she could gossip about them to her heart's content, although she might just store up the weird sister fetish for a while, she had more than enough material for the moment, and next week might be really dull once everyone had calmed down a bit.

Any of the team who hadn't been enlightened by Annie's quick Iceman-and-Northstar-in-Surprise-Snog synopsis had probably found out from Warren's surprisingly terse summary of events. Terse, because wrapped in a blanket and seated near the fire as he was, he couldn't stop shivering. Indeed, he'd turned blue again and Paige was hoping to God that it was just the cold and it wasn't permanent. Jubilee was blithely trying to assuage her concern by telling Paige everything she'd heard about blue men and what she'd heard was pretty, well, blue, if you caught her drift. Paige wasn't really listening, or else she too would have changed colour, instead she was wondering what she'd have to husk into to gain that superspeed she'd got that time at the airport with Gen. X, because what she really wanted was to kick Northstar's ass into the next state.(1)

The door creaked open and Kurt stepped into the room, he really wasn't used to entering through the door, and this added to his nerves, since he knew that he had to get the team to take their lead from him, and that meant that he had to be calm, accepting, and friendly, and teleporting into the room and frightening the heck out of them wouldn't help in the least, and from the looks on their faces he needed all the help he could get. He sauntered across the room and joined the huddle, sitting on the high back of Wolverine's armchair, just 'cause he had to radiate calm and normality didn't mean he couldn't be comfortable and anyway he was counting on Wolverine for back up if things got out of hand. And if he behaved too normal, he reluctantly thought, everyone would be sure that something weird was going on and they'd be looking for some mind controlling mechanism all week.

"Hi guys!" Nightcrawler exclaimed with a cheery smile.

Everyone stared at Kurt. He clearly knew something they didn't, and if they believed Annie, that was rather more than they might otherwise suspect.

"Erm… You'd better come in, everyone's dying to see you."

Bobby walked into the room dragging Northstar in behind him. Northstar actually looked really nervous. These weren't his friends, not really his friends, he hadn't known them all that long and they all knew how things worked round here and he didn't, he didn't even know that you were meant to avoid the meatloaf in the refectory. Nobody noticed Jean-Paul's nerves, their attention was much more focussed on the fact that Northstar and Iceman were standing in front of them holding hands and that Iceman had an odd little smile on his face.

"Erm…" began Bobby rapidly brightening, "well, I guess, you all know, what with the fact that this place is a grade A rumour mill and Annie being queen of informative gossip, that Jean-Paul and I have been kissing in the medlab. And no, I wasn't practising my resuscitation technique. So, it goes like this. During the ruckus in the danger room this morning I found out some really surprising information. (Well, it surprised me, but then I don't read the National Enquirer from cover to cover). Jean-Paul's gay, mutant and single. And would you know it, I am too. And the more we talked the more we realised that we'd both been labouring under a misapprehension, as Hank would put it, and that well we really liked each other and had been acting like goofballs…"

"…staring at each other when the other guy wasn't looking, finding stupid reasons to spend time together, the usual…"added Northstar blushing.

"…because we both thought that the other guy was straight and would run a mile if we shared our feelings…"

"when actually we kissed and made out like there was no tomorrow. Which, given some of the looks on your faces, might be the case."

"But we thought we ought to tell you guys, that we are from this moment officially dating," said Bobby with a silly grin and gave Jean-Paul's hand a reassuring squeeze.

Everyone was quiet. Nobody wanted to speak first. Well almost nobody.

"Har har har hardy har," it was Cain. Somehow nobody was surprised.

Northstar snapped back to his normal self, or at least that's what it looked like until you noticed that he'd moved slightly in front of Bobby and seemed ready to shield him from any danger, "What's so fricking funny?"

"You said you liked men with hair on their chests. Drake don't have none."

"That's a double negative. I've hardly been in a position to inspect cher Robert's chest myself. Fascinating, n'est pas, that you have. Anyway if I was after hair, I'd be dating Sasquatch. It's not as if he hasn't asked me out before. And he's really missing my sister, come to think of it."(2)

"Urgh! Ixnay the Entalmay Agesimay Vega!" whispered Bobby.

"You said you weren't a girl."

"I'm not!"

"Yer right. Drake is. Roberta Drake, who'da thunk it!"

"Hey I'm not a girl, you tin can wearing goon!"

"Are too"

"Am not"

"Merde! Not again."

"Are too"

"Am not"

"Are too. Are too."

"Drake's proved himself. He's a man. More than you are. He's covered my back before." Logan stopped the conversation dead.

THUD! Kurt had fallen off the back of Logan's chair. What's gotten into Kurt, thought Logan, it's not like him to be knocked for a loop like this, he musta been just as surprised as Worthington but Logan had been sure he'd figured it out too. Logan himself was immune from surprise, his highly advanced sense of smell kept him pretty damn well informed and the scents of confusion, embarrassment and lust rolling off these two were enough to overpower even the smell of Beaubier's noxious aftershave. It wasn't just Stacy X who could taste emotions, come to think of it where was Stacy? The girl had made herself scarce and that had got Logan worried, she wasn't as tough as she made out and he'd taken quite a shine to her, meant to help her with her powers too. She'd have to sharpen up pretty soon or she'd be getting all the wrong messages and into way more trouble than she could handle. He'd talk to Kurt, he was damn sure he liked her too.

Everyone else took Kurt's less than graceful dismount as a chance to snigger without being snikted.

Kurt eventually returned to is perch rubbing his head theatrically. He'd known he could rely on Logan, he wasn't the type of guy to let little things like sexual orientation get in his way, although Kurt wasn't sure that this would still be the case if somebody was foolhardy enough to explain the other reason everyone was laughing, the one totally unconnected with gravity. Kurt decided he'd tell him after he'd bought him a beer or six as a thank you for backing him up.

Kurt's return to the top of Logan's wing back armchair was taken pretty much universally as the signal to stop giggling before Logan suspected something. And sure enough, the laughter died down and once again an uneasy silence descended upon the room.

Paige broke the silence, "Whose idea was it to dump my Warren in the lake? Look at him! He's gone all blue! Again! Jean-Paul Beaubier, if you had anything to do with this, I'm going to punch you into next week!" Warren had clearly been rubbing off on Paige.

"It was my idea. Sorry," admitted Kurt, "I didn't know that Bobby had frozen the lake yesterday, I was too busy getting the X-Jet ready for its six week service. It's the first we've had last that long for ages and it would be sad for it to crash just because the sprocket on the starboard fuel injector hadn't been tightened. And Warren just doesn't realise how scary he looks with that big sword of his. And I just panicked. I'm really sorry. You can punch me into next week if you like; it's got to be less total verruckt than this one."

"Paige, Kurt was just trying to stop Warren from doing something he might've regretted later, he had his best interests at heart," said Jean-Paul calmingly, "And if I'd had anything to do with it, Warren would now be enjoying a nice educational holiday in San Francisco."

"What the heck do you mean by that?" cried Paige, distinctly uncalmed.

"Well, he could have learnt all about the Golden Gate Bridge and the street cars and the earthquakes. Oh, and there's a gay mutant pride rally this weekend, or at least so I've been told."

"So, see, we're not weird and freaky at all! There are other gay mutants out there! It's not just Hank looking for an excuse to play the drums! See, we're perfectly normal!" exclaimed Bobby.

"Duh! Of course there are gay mutants! I mean, hey, you've all heard about what Rictor said to Jamie at the Chunnel disaster thing," said Jubilee.(3)

"I haven't!" whispered Annie

"I'll tell you later if you let me borrow your National Enquirer."

"That just proves that Rictor has really poor taste. We aren't like that!"

"Aren't we, Cher Robert? I have wondered."

"Shut up! We need to convince them that we're really nice and not a threat to the team dynamic or anything."

"Oh merde!"


What a shocking cliffhanger! How are Bobby and Jean-Paul going to prove themselves to be no threat to the team whatsoever? Tune in to our next thrilling instalment for the exciting resolution! In the mean time, here are the answers to the questions you weren't going to ask!

1 Paige Guthrie had superspeed? Yup! Back in the House Of Correction story line in Generation X 62 onwards. Funny, everyone seems to have forgotten.

2 When did the Northstar get asked out by Sasquatch, I hear you ask, that can't be in Comic Continuity. Oh Yes it is! Dear reader, it was when Walter got turned into (the much better looking) Wanda and found that Aurora wouldn't date him in his new body. He really should have twigged when Northstar said that he preferred him as a guy.

3 What did Rictor say to Multiple Man? He only asked whether he'd ever had an orgy with himself. Evidence suggests that Jamie hasn't: he's been too busy practising his one-man barbershop chorus.