Disclaimer: "I think I'm going to have a heart attack and DIE of not-surprise!"
(An: For the record, I did have the previous chapter written on time, but FFN was having issues when I got on...)
Everyone is pointedly ignoring Ororo and Forge, who have been making out since the last chapter. This is nothing new, after all.
"And now we start again," Remy says. "Kurt, what did you do with m' burboun?"
"Ask Logan," Kurt says. "He said he would take care of it."
Remy makes an incensed threatening gesture at Kurt, but before he can say anything, Kitty says, "Do you hear something?"
"I hope not..." Remy mumbles. "This is just begging for a gag cue."
"It's coming from the supply closet," Kitty goes on. "Isn't that where you left Hank?"
"Maaaaybe..."
"Just open the damn door, LeBeau!"
"Kurt, y' do it."
"No!" Kurt cries. "And if you pull absolute power again, I'll bite you!"
Remy pulls a face. "Ok, Bobby."
"Why me?" Bobby demands.
"Because you haven't been tortured yet this chapter," Remy says.
"But we just started!"
"No time like de present!"
Bobby mutters something about union meetings, but goes over and opens the supply closet door. He gets ready to scream girlishly... "Hey, it's not mind-scarring for once!"
Nope. Just drunk Logan and a very shaved Hank singing the rum song. "Rum, they told me, rum rum rum rum rummmm..." (1)
"I hate you, Kurt Wagner," Remy mutters, facepalming. "When you die, I shall LAUGH."
"It was just some burboun!" Kurt objects.
Remy pauses, hand over face. "Just burboun?"
Kurt realizes his mistake and instantly tries to RLF away, but Kitty steps on his tail. "This is too amusing."
"YOU'RE GOING DOWN, BLUE BOY!"
TWENTY MINUTES, THREE CANS OF SHAVING CREAM AND TWO ROLLS OF TOILET PAPER LATER...
"You're just evil," Kurt says, hanging from the ceiling.
"You could just bamf down," Kitty says.
"I'm naked under these clothes," Kurt replies gravely. "It would be messy."
"Er... that's what one would assume, Kurt."
"HE SHAVED ME, WOMAN!"
"You mean like he did Hank?" Jubilee says. "It's not really that much of a surprise, then."
"I'm shaved and trapped in a toilet paper cocoon and you dare talk like that!" Kurt demands. "I'll- I'll- well, I don't know what I'll do yet but it'll be bad!"
"You know what we need?" Jamie says.
"If it's suggested by you, then we probably don't need it, Jamie," Rogue replies.
"Soothing dolphin music!" Jamie cries, putting in a CD.
Remy stops in his threatening gestures, Kurt stops in his spazzing, and Jubilee stops treating Kurt like a pinata. They all sit down (except Kurt, who goes really still, which is remarkable enough) and start humming.
"Works every time," Jamie says.
"Can Ah borrow that when you're done with it?" Rogue asks.
FIVE MINUTES LATER...
"Now that everyone's calm and Kurt's... bald but at least on the floor, we can start again," Jamie says. He reaches over and turns off the CD player.
"What just happened?" Remy asks.
"I felt happy... which is a big deal... for me... when I'm shaved..." Kurt says, looking all hippy-ish. (2)
"Ok, we can start now," Remy says, having apparently given up on the whole WTF-is-up-with-this bit. He sits down in his chair. "I feel very Zen now."
"Have you been at the aspirin again, mate?" John asks.
Remy shoots him a dirty look.
There is the sound of off-key clock chiming, and we see Kurt standing in front of a busted, creepy clock. "Just what I need," he mutters, "riddles!"
"He doesn't seem too upset about the whole shaved thing," Kitty comments.
"Dolphin music always does it," says Jamie. "No doubt he'll be spazzing by the end of this chapter, but right now he's in a good mood."
"When the wine drinks itself," Kurt mutters, "when the skull speaks, when the clock strikes the right time... as if I didn't have enough troubles."
We notice a skull... that looks remarkably like Lucas would, if Lucas had no hair and skin and stuff. "Why me?" the skull asks.
"You're not supposed to talk yet!" Remy objects.
Author: I couldn't think of anybody else who would probably have a good evil laugh.
"You've never seen 'Sins of the Son,'" Lucas says, "so how would you know what I laugh like?"
Author: You're an evil Scottish guy with schizo. You've GOTTA have a good evil laugh. (3)
"Feh," Lucas mutters, and goes back to being a skull and stuff.
Kurt stares up at the clock (which has struck the hour about fifteen times in the past thirty seconds), and mutters, "I wonder what time it is."
There is a pause.
"Why is there a pause?" Kurt asks. "There's no pause in the script."
Remy just raises his eyebrows.
"Don't tell me Ororo and Forge are STILL making out!"
"Yep. Somebody get the crowbar."
FIVE MINUTES AND SOME PLUNGER-LIKE NOISES LATER...
"Why did you interrupt us, again?" Forge demands.
"You've actually got a part in this parody other than making out, you know," Remy points out.
Ororo and Forge just stare at him.
Remy facepalms. "Just say the damn lines!"
"Well, of course you're of noble birth," Forge says to Ororo as they come down that all-purpouse staircase. "I mean, you can't really be that ridiculous magician's niece. You're at least ten years older than him, for a start. That's out of the question."
Kurt hides behind the clock as they go by, muttering something that probably isn't very polite.
Sooo... random QSC to a tower where Ororo is staring out at the sea. How suprising.
"Your majesty?" she asks, as Magneto joins her on the tower.
Magneto chuckles evilly and stuff. "Love is slowing you down, my lady. I will catch you at last, if you love much more."
Ororo blinks. "Ok... has he had his medication today?" she hisses at Remy.
"I dunno, why're you asking me?" Remy replies.
"I have had my medication," Magneto says.
"So... you're this crazy... naturally?" Ororo asks. (Remy gets a like-that's-a-surprise face at this.)
"They're lines! On a script! What part of that don't you understand!"
Ororo decides that Magneto's just a touch crazy (that was SARCASM) and edges away, looking out over the road. "Look, your son is coming home."
"Forge? He's none of mine," Magneto says.
"And thank God for that!" Forge says.
Magneto is Not Amused. "I picked him up on a doorstep where some peasant had left him. I was thinking that I had never been happy and never had a son."
"I feel so unloved," Pietro says.
"How did you get out of your cage?" Wanda demands.
Pietro just smirks at her.
"It was pleasant enough at first," Magneto goes on, pointedly ignoring them, "but it died quickly. There is only one thing that has ever made me happy."
"What is that?" Ororo asks, and then says, "Do I really want to know?"
"Do not mock me," Magneto says. "For once, the script is actually what I would say."
"Nobody cares 'cause you're a DIRTY OLD MAN!" Kurt yells in the background.
"Think of the dolphins, Kurt," Kitty advises. "Soothing. Imagine the smell of lavender."
Kurt gets an extremely happy look on his face, grabs his feet, and starts rocking back and forth on his butt.
"What... is he doing?" Remy demands.
"The Happy Hamster Dance," Kitty whispers. "It's kind of creepy, but at least he's not spazzing about being shaved." (4)
Magneto goes on, grabbing Ororo by the shoulders. "I know very well what you have come for. Try to take them if you can, but do not mock me!"
"DIRTY OLD MAN!" Ororo yells. "Oh, God, now I'm agreeing with Kurt. Somebody shoot me."
"SHH!" Kitty yells.
"Sorry," Ororo says. "My lord, in all your castle, in all your realm, there is nothing of yours that I desire! Good day, your majesty." She turns her back on him.
"I know you!" Magneto yells. "Well, yes, thi is a given."
"He hasn't had his meds, has he," Remy whispers to John.
"We are out of Prozac, you know," Bobby says.
"I almost knew you as soon as I saw you on the road coming to my door," Magneto goes on, apparently getting into it. "Since then, there is no movement of yours that has not betrayed you. A pace, a glance, a turn of the head. The flash of your throat as you breath. Even your way of standing perfectly still. They were all my spies."
"Ooookay..." Ororo says. "That's just a little bit creepy." Again, SARCASM.
"You made me wonder for a little while," Mags goes on, ignoring her. "But your time is done."
"Nope," says Remy. "Definitely no meds."
"The tide is turning. Come and see it." He glances over at Ororo, who is looked extremely squicked. "Come here."
"Do I have to?" Ororo whimpers.
"The sooner you do, the sooner we're done, and the sooner we can kill him," Remy says. "...Did I say that last bit out loud?"
"There!" says Magneto, looking down at the sea. "There they are! There they are! They are mine! They belong to me!"
"Am I supposed to see something?" Ororo asks.
"Nope," Remy says. "On second thought, maybe he's had too much medication. Hallucinations."
"They said that acid only had permanent effects after the third hit," Magneto sighs. (5)
Ooookeydokey then.
"The Orange Bull gathered each one for me, and I bade him drive each one into the sea!"
"Not the sea! Large bodies of water terrify me!" John cries.
"We've been dealing with it for three chapters now," Wanda says.
"Yeah, but I wasn't paying attention then."
"Now, they live there, and every tide carries them within an easy step of the land, but they dare not come out of the water. They are afraid of the Orange Bull."
Ororo stares down at the water. "He's a dirty old man AND a crazy guy," she mutters.
"I like to watch them," Magneto says, in the way someone might say "God." "They fill me with joy. The first time I felt it, I thought I was going to die. I said to the Orange Bull, 'I must have them. I must have all of them, all there are, for nothing makes me happy, but their shining, and their grace."
Ororo takes another step backward, trips over the hem of her skirt, and promptly knocks down the backdrop. "I did that on purpouse!" she yells. "Just so he wouldn't get the wrong idea!"
"Er..." says Forge. "Right."
Through the amazing powers of special effects (run by Alex, no less), we switch to a black and white meadow. Two unicorns run by, all slow-mo and graceful and stuff.
"So the Orange Bull caught them."
Switch from unicorns cuddling to WHOAH! Big flames and explosion-y type noises. And then that shot of them running down the roads (accompanied by swelling violin music, no less) and a wave. Yep. Horsies in the sea.
"So... we've solved all the foreboding bits and stuff?" Ororo says.
Author: Yep. It's not that much of a surprise.
"Every time I see the unicorns, my unicorns, it is like that morning in the woods and I am truly young in spite of myself!" Magneto DOES need his meds.
So. Back to color, and back to Maggie's ugly mug. "You were the last," he murmurs.
"My lord," Ororo says, "I do not understand."
He takes her hands and Ororo looks like she might vomit.
"I see nothing at all in the water," she goes on, looking all "Eh?" and stuff.
"Do you STILL deny yourself?" Maggie demands. "Do you dare still pretend to be human? I'll hurl you down to the others with my own hands, if you dare deny yourself!"
Ororo gasps. "What are you saying?"
Magneto grabs her by the shoulders again.
"GODAMMIT, I NEED MY PERVERT SKEWER!"
"It must be so," he mumbles. "I cannot be mistaken. Yet... your eyes. Your eyes have become empty as Forge's, as any eyes that... never saw unicorns." There is nothing at all important about that statement. Nope... dammit, why isn't there a sarcasm font!
Biiiig closeup on Ororo's eyes again, to see Magneto reflected in them. Scary sight.
"Makes no difference. I can wait. The end will be the same. I can wait." He bows for no apparent reason and leaves.
"He is mad!" Ororo cries. "Mad!"
"Again, not that much of a surprise," Jubilee says.
Kurt apparently has been lurking in the background this whole time.
"And he calls ME a dirty old man," Magneto mutters.
"You ARE a dirty old man," Remy says.
Well, anyway, Kurt comes up behind Ororo, who is now sobbing against the turrets. "Don't, don't. It's all right, we'll find them. Come on, come with me. Oh, please, please don't cry. If you've become human enough to cry, then no magic in the world can change you back."
"But technology can!" Forge cries.
"Shh, don't cry. Just come with me. I promise you we'll find them."
So. Another amazing QSC to the great hall, where Lucas is laughing his head off.
"What did you do to get him to laugh?" Kitty asks of Remy.
"I got Bobby to get some more Prozac," Remy explained, "and Lucas OD'd."
"Yes I did!" Lucas proclaims, laughing hysterically.
Ororo, Kurt, and Kitty approach him, and this just makes him laugh harder. "Shut up, you pretentious kneecap- I'll have to write that one down-! How'd you like a punch in the eye?"
"I don't have eyes," says Lucas.
"It's the principle of the thing!"
"Kurt, you made it laugh, anyway," Kitty says. "Maybe that's all you need for the riddle."
This apparently amuses Lucas more than anything, because he starts to snicker. "It isn't!"
"Oh, you can speak!" Kitty says. "Kurt, it worked."
"Boy, you just know how to annoy the answers out of anybody, huh," Remy says.
Kitty grins.
"Come on," Lucas says, gasping for breath. "Ask me how to find the Orange Bull. Even Prince Forge doesn't know the secret way... but I do!"
"Oh, you do, eh? Answer the riddle, then. Tell us the way," Kurt says.
"Say please," Lucas gasps.
Kurt sighs, rubbing his temples. "Please."
Lucas sucks in his breath, and- "No. No. How 'bout nooo, you crazy German bastard?" (6)
"Kill... you..." Kurt growls.
"LAVENDER!" Kitty shrieks. "Think of the lavender!"
Kurt sucks in a deep breath. "Dolphins. Cute little dolphins. I am calm."
"Why not?" Kitty demands. "What kind of game is this?"
This starts Lucas off again. "Oh, it's so nice to have someone to play with!"
Author: Also, the other reason I picked you is because you're a sadist like that.
"Sadism is fun!" Lucas cries, snickering madly. "Try me tomorrow. Maybe I'll tell you tomorrow."
"We have no time!" Kitty says. "We may be too late now!"
"I have time," Lucas objects. "I've got time enough for all of us."
"Never mind about him," Kurt says. "Give me the wine, let me see what I can do with the wine."
"Wine? Did you say wine?" Lucas demands. "Speak up."
"I couldn't find any," Kitty says. "I looked everywhere... I looked! I thought... if you had some burboun to start with..."
"Dat's MY burboun!" Remy shrieks.
"Yes, well, it's being sacrificed in the name of fanficcery, deal with it," Kurt says, accepting the bottle from Kitty.
"I'm going to go cry in a corner somewhere," Remy says.
Lucas finds this hilarious. "I take joy in other people's pain, yes! Him?" he demands of Kitty. "Turn burboun into wine?"
"Keep quiet," Kurt snaps. "Let me have it, I'll try it. Now, you understand it's not going to be very good wine, vin ordinaire if that. And it'll be too sweet and- Well, here goes." Kurt turns his back on Lucas and starts to randomly chant.
"What're you doing?" Lucas demands. "Hey, do it over here, I can't see a thing!"
"Well, yeah," Kitty says. "You just said you don't have eyes."
"But STILL!"
Now, a clever watcher will notice that now, as Kurt samples the wine, there's nothing left in the bottle. Weird. "Didn't work," he mutters. "No nose, no body, hardly any bouquet at all... hey, that sounds like you, Lucas!"
"Hah, hah," Lucas mutters.
Kurt tips the bottle and mutters, "Well, that's done it, that's finally done it."
"No! No wait! Hey, don't do that!" Lucas objects. "Give it to me if you don't want it, but don't throw it away!"
"But you're dead!" Kurt says.
"Since when has that made ANY difference in the Marvel universe?"
"...This is true. But you can't smell wine, can't taste it!"
"But I remember," Lucas sighs, sounding almost orgasmic.
"Well," Kurt says, "if you should happen to remember the entrance to the Orange Bull's lair as well as you remember wine-"
"Done!" Lucas cries. "Give me one drink now and I'll tell you everything you want to know."
"You can have all of it," Kurt says, snatching it back before Lucas can grab it. "After you tell us the way."
"That's just not nice," Lucas mutters, then gets back to the task at hand. He points at the creepy old clock. "The way is through the clock."
"Through that?" Kurt asks, with a WTF expression. "I think you've had too much Prozac."
Kitty ignores him. "You mean, when the clock strikes the right time it opens, and there's a secret stair?"
"That clock will never strike the right time," Lucas replies. "You just walk through it and the Orange Bull is on the other side. Give me the wine!"
"Walk through a clock," Kurt says. "What am I, a magician?" To his credit, he says this totally deadpan.
Author: Ok, we can stop there.
"Just as long as we do it-" Kitty starts.
"AUGH!" Kurt yells, looking down at himself. "I'VE BEEN SHAVED!"
"Too late," Kitty mutters, facepalming.
"DEATH TO YOU!" Kurt tackles Remy.
Author: God, this is practically a new running joke...
In the background, Ororo and Forge shrug at each other and start making out again.
(Next chapter is the last. Endless joy.)
(1) Sung to the tune of "The Little Drummer Boy."
(2) A modified line from Finding Nemo.
(3) I really have no idea what Lucas is like. Such is the sadness of us who haven't seen the fourth season
(4) The Happy Hamster Dance is from Shaw Island. It really is soothing.
(5) Again, from Shaw Island.
(6) From Goldmember. Best Austin Powers movie, EVER.