One Wild Night
Chapter 3
Unrequited Love
Kitty shut her locker as Rogue stormed off down the hall. She had wanted to call out 'just don't get caught, ok?' but that probably would have gotten her into a shouting match with Rogue. She trudged off to lunch, so entrapped in her thoughts that she didn't even notice when she knocked over Kurt on his way back from getting seconds.
"Like, sorry Fuzzy. I didn't even like, see you there." She said, picking up his fallen soda, which luckily had not exploded all over the place upon impact with the floor.
"Ze image inducer must be vorking better zhan I zought." Kurt said, getting up off of the floor. She helped him pick up the rest of his lunch that had fallen on the floor, making a face at the now ruined salad.
"Ew, you like actually eat those things?" She said, throwing the wilted lettuce into the trash.
"Jean eats them, and she looks okay to me."
"Jean was sick this morning." Kitty pointed out.
"Ach, vell, better it fell on ze floor then." Kurt shrugged and they started off towards the lunch tables outside. They waked in relative silence, something that was unusual for Kitty. Usually she was going on and on about something that happened in some class at a million miles an hour, pushing the language centers of Kurt's brain to their limits.
"Somezhing vrong Katzchen?" he asked.
"Huh? Oh, no, nothing's wrong. Why?" said Kitty, hugging her books to her chest.
"You seem quieter zhan usual." A lot quieter. He added on mentally.
"I just got a lot on my mind is, like all." She said and forced a weak smile at Kurt.
You lie. He thought at her. Your eyebrows don't crinkle zhat vay vhen you really smile. But he kept those thoughts to himself along with his affection for her and just said, "You know vhere to find me if you ever vant to talk, Ja?"
"Gut Bomb or the arcade?" Kitty said, this time with a stronger smile.
"Zhat's right." Kurt said with a fanged smile, sitting down at the table where Scott and Jean were already seated. "Vhat's vrong vith her?" he asked, seeing that Scott was snapping his fingers in front of a non-responsive Jean's face.
"I don't know, man. It's like she's not even in there." Scott answered. "She just sat down and blanked out on me."
"You don't think she's having, like, another power spaz, do you?" Kitty worried asked
"I hope not, or we're in serious trouble."
Today was going surprisingly well so far for Jean. Her second period teacher had been out today so she used the opportunity to study for her Chemistry test, which was the period after lunch. She felt pretty good so far too and had even been able to get so involved in a conversation with Taryn that she momentarily forgot about her problem. But now she was pretty sure that her good day was going to take a turn for the not-so-good.
Why does cafeteria food have to smell so revolting? Jean thought, swallowing down a gag. She grabbed a salad from the questionable salad bar and headed outside to sit with Scott, Kitty and Kurt. She could feel her mind wanting to fall into to chasm of anxiety about Duncan but willed herself not to. She had certain appearances to keep up, and if people saw her going to pieces, they would talk. And then the rumors would start. And then Duncan would get on her case and then Scott and then Scott would talk to the Professor and then—
Stop it! Jean chided herself. It's probably just a stomach flu . . . that I can't seem to get over.
"Earth to Jean, come in Jean."
Jean started and realized that her feet had carried her to their usual lunch table and that she had been sitting and staring at her salad for a few minutes.
"Space case much?" Scott asked.
"Um, yeah, just a little distracted." Jean said, knowing it to be the biggest understatement of the century. "Chem test next period and all."
"Relax." Scott said, putting an arm around her shoulder and giving it a reassuring squeeze. "I'm sure you'll do fine."
"Yeah, I mean, you like totally own that class." Kitty said, and took a bite of her Veggie Burger.
Kurt also said something encouraging to Jean, but it was lost in the amount of food that he had managed to shove in there.
"That is like so gross." Kitty said to Kurt, making a face. Kurt just attempted to smile, which caused him to look like a chipmunk getting ready for winter.
The lunch period went on with out much incident, until near the end of the lunch period that Duncan and someone his jock friends sauntered up to the table.
"Hey Jeannie." Duncan said, with that slightly disgusting half smile on his face.
"Oh, hey Duncan." Jean replied, tucking a lock of red hair behind her ear and ignoring the glare from Scott.
"Did you hear about the party I'm having tonight at my house?"
"Yeah, kinda hard not to, there's flyers all over the place."
Duncan shrugged with a proud smile at the sheer brilliance of his idea. "I figured I'd go all out considering it's near the end of the school year and everything."
"Sounds like it's going to be fun."
"Yeah, well, I just wanted to invite you personally." Duncan said, tossing his ever-present football into the air and catching it. He then leaned forward and whispered in Jean's ear, "Maybe you could come by early and we can have our own private party."
Jean felt a wave of nauseated panic sweep through her and she tried her hardest not to let it show on her face. Her skills as an actress were tested even further when he gave her a quick peck on the cheek.
"See you at 8." He said and left, taking his jock friends with him.
"Wow, could he like, be any more ape-ish?" Kitty said in Duncan's wake. "He makes Kurt's English sound perfect."
"Hey!" Kurt shouted, indignant.
"What, it's a compliment . . . I think." Kitty said, sounding none too sure of herself.
Kurt's retort was cut off though, but the shrill ringing of the bell signaling the end of the period. They all set off their different ways, heading off for different classes.
I have to tell him. Tonight. Jean thought, shakily heading off to chemistry.
Logan's eyes opened slowly and a cracked ceiling came into focus above him. He sat up in the strange bed he was in and rubbed his head. He had no idea where he was or how he had even got there. It was nothing new to him though, he had been plagued with memory problems for as long as he thought he could remember. He wasn't even quite sure whether or not he was really barely twenty years old. He just said he was because that was what some gas station attendant in Indiana had told him that was how old he looked.
Logan's eyes roamed the room around him, deciding that even though he couldn't remember it, he had had a good time. The women's undergarments thrown haphazardly around the room told him so.
Chick must be in the shower. He thought, the sound of water running through the pipes finally registering in his brain. Getting out of bed, Logan saw that his pants were on the floor next to the bed. He put them on and then started looking for his shirt. If he was lucky, he might be able to get out of here before whatever-her-name-was got out of the shower. Women tended not to like when he woke up in the morning and couldn't remember what their name was. He found his shirt and quickly pulled it on over his head, hearing the shower turn off. He managed to sneak out the front door just as she came out of the bathroom.
&
His boots thunked against the concrete as Logan walked around, hands in the pockets of his blue jeans, looking every bit like the delinquent he was. He stopped at a street corner and took a cigar out of a pocket in his jacket and lit it up, thick gray smoke curling into the air. He felt something cold and metal touch the back of his neck and sighed in exasperation.
"Cajun, I could smell ya half way down the block, yer not pullin' that stupid 'my-lighter-is-a-gun' thing again."
Remy put his lighter back into his pocket. "Yo' no fun."
"I'm plenty fun, yer just too stupid to see it." Logan said and started crossing the street.
"You? Fun? Please, a bag of hair is mo' fun den you, old man." Remy teased, jogging a few steps to keep from getting clipped by a car.
"Old man? I'm a year older than you, shithead."
"Says who?"
"Says my driver's license." Logan growled, growing steadily more and more annoyed with Remy's antics.
"Which one?" the Cajun asked
"The good one." Logan stopped his walking and turned to face Remy. "There a reason yer here annoyin' the hell outta me or are ya just lookin' to get hit?"
"Harry's lookin' for all de rent money we owe him and I didn't feel like goin' back dere an' hearin' him yell so I figured I'd find you." Remy said, fishing around in his coat for his pack of cigarettes. "Merde, all out."
"Those things'll kill ya, ya know."
Remy looked up from rummaging around in his coat and fixed Logan with a stare. "And like dat t'ing stickin' out of yo' mouth won't?"
Logan grinned in a feral way around his cigar and shrugged his shoulders once. "I don't gotta worry about it."
"Prick." Remy muttered. "Y'know, I t'ink Harry's serious about throwin' us out dis time."
"He won't." Logan said.
"What makes you so sho'?"
"Cause we give Harry too much good business." Logan said. "That and we can always just go and report him for sellin' to minors."
Remy thought it over for a few seconds and then shrugged. "Sounds good t' me."
Rogue sat in her last class of the day, blatantly staring at the clock. Kitty, who was sitting next to her, kept nudging her in the arm every once in a while in hopes to make Rogue pay attention. It never worked though; Rogue always stared down the clock the last fifteen minutes of class. It was something of a ritual of hers. She sighed roughly and leaned back in her chair as the last four and a half minutes of class lagged on and on and on. For some reason Duncan Matthew's party kept popping into her head, more specifically what she should wear. She was torn between going for catcalls of 'freak' from the jocks at the party or for just regular catcalls from just Remy. She would enjoy both either way; it was just a matter of what she wanted more.
Ah could do both. . . Rogue thought, starting to doodle in the margins of her notebook. Ah wonder if Ah still have that corset.
The final bell for the day rang and Rogue dropped her thoughts for the moment and gathered her books to go home.
"God Rogue, could you like be any ruder? I swear, it looked like Mr. Ward was going to shoot lasers out of his eyes." Kitty said as they moved through the throngs of people to get to Scott's car.
"Do ya think Ah could care any less?" Rogue deadpanned.
Kitty rolled her eyes at Rogue. "I'm just sayin', ya know? You're always kvetching about how you can never get any one to leave ya alone but then you're always doing stuff to make people pay attention to you."
Rogue's booted feet stopped in their tracks and she fixed Kitty with a threatening glare. "Ya callin' me a hypocrite?"
Kitty's eyebrows shot up on her head. "Well, no, I just, like. . ."
Rogue stepped closer to Kitty, as close as she dared before her reflexes took over and forced her to move away from Kitty lest she risk skin to skin contact. "Ah think it's high tahme ya started mindin' ya own business Kitty. What Ah do is my business and my reasons for do it are my own. Stay out of it."
With that Rogue turned and walked off, away from Scott's car.
"Vhat vas zhat about?"
Kitty let out a frustrated growling noise and threw her arms up in the air, her books and various papers falling and fluttering to the ground. "I, like, don't even know anymore! I am like so close to giving up on her, you know? I don't even know why I do it!"
It was Kitty's turn to walk off leaving a perplexed Kurt behind.
Girls are vierd. He thought as he picked up Kitty's forsaken books and walked over to Scott's car.
The ride home was much different from the ride to school. Jean was stressing out about how she might have answered every question wrong on the test to Scott, who reassuringly disagreed with her, telling her that she did just fine like she always did. Rogue was MIA, which was somewhat of a plus for Kurt. On one hand there was actually room to sit in what little of a backseat Scott's corvette had, but then on the other hand he had no excuse to sit almost indecently close to Kitty. Kurt looked at her from the other side of the backseat, seeing that she was obviously upset about something. Usually she was singing along with a song on the radio, bouncing in her seat to the music or gabbing his pointy elf ears off about what totally outrageous thing happened to her today. At first he found it somewhat annoying but at some point in time, when he hadn't been looking, he grew to like it, maybe even enjoy it. Now Kitty sat in the corner opposite of him, resting her face on her fist as the wind swept through her bangs, making them dance around her face. A slight scowl was set on her face which was unusual for her, since Kitty rarely ever showed any outward signs of anger other than the occasional swear word.
Kurt caught Kitty's attention and waved at her, a fanged smile curving his lips. She smiled and waved back.
"Vhat's up?" he asked.
"Nothin'. Just . . . stuff." Kitty said cryptically, clearly sending the message that she did not want to talk about it.
"Cool." Kurt replied. How come whenever it came to actual conversation with Kitty, his mind became a complete blank? He could think of a thousand things he wanted to talk with her about during the day but then when he saw her, he just sort of shut down.
The rest of the ride home Kurt spent resigned to silence, wondering how to get around the weird mental block he had whenever it came to Kitty. When they were getting out of the car, he decided to ask Kitty what was going on, why was she so tired and glum lately, no matter what language it came out in. It could lead to her opening up to him, possibly even crying a little bit, and then Kurt would have to console her maybe even get to hug her. It was absolutely horrible of him to think this way, he knew, but hormones overrode a Catholic conscience some days.
Just as he was about to open his mouth, Jean came by and whisked Kitty away claiming to need to talk to her about something in private.
Scheisse.
Kurt closed his eyes slowly and let his head loll back so he was looking at the ceiling while balling his tridactyl hands into fists. He counted to ten in German before opening his eyes and disappearing in a cloud of sulfurous smoke.
Kitty looked back as she was practically frog marched by Jean outside. She saw Kurt standing there looking disappointed about something and felt a twinge of something in her chest. He looked like he had wanted to talk about something and she was just about to ask him to join her in the kitchen for a snack, but then Jean grabbed her arm and said something about needing to talk.
"Jean, you're like, hurting my arm." Kitty said, planting her feet down and forcing Jean's vice-like grip off of her arm.
"Oh." Jean said, like she had just noticed Kitty was there with her. "Sorry Kitty."
"It's okay." Kitty said, rubbing her now sore upper arm. "What is it that you wanted to talk to me about?"
Jean looked around and tucked a hank of red hair behind one ear. "Kitty, I can't go to that party tonight."
"Then, like, don't go."
"No you don't get it." Jean rolled her eyes. "I have to go. But I don't want to go alone."
"Why?" Kitty asked, giving Jean a slightly suspicious look.
Kitty swore she saw Jean go at least five shades paler, but as soon as she blinked, it was gone.
"Well, it's going to be a big party, and the professor is always saying that we shouldn't go to parties alone unless we know most of the people there and I think that this would be a good opportunity for the kids of the Xavier Institute to prove that we're really normal."
Kitty stared at Jean like she had had just spouted off a bunch of nonsense, which in Kitty's opinion, she just had. "We aren't normal though."
"Yes we are." Jean said with practiced ease. "We're just different."
Kitty laughed aloud. Was Jean hearing what she was saying? "Whatever." Kitty said. "If you didn't want to tell me, all you had to do was say so."
It then hit Kitty that this would be a chance to hang out with Kurt, maybe get him to come out of his shell a little bit and not be so weird.
"Do you want me to go with you?" she asked.
Jean's face flooded with relief. "Would you?"
"Yeah, I mean, I'm not, like, a freshman anymore and Duncan did say he was inviting the whole school so I don't see why I can't go."
"Thanks Kitty." Jean said, giving her a hug.
"Uh, you're welcome." Kitty awkwardly said as she was squeezed by Jean. Maybe Jean was having another freak out with her powers. Whatever the case, it made Kitty ant to get out of here. "I have to go talk to Kurt about . . . something, in the kitchen." That's where he'll be, right?
"Sure," Jean said, nodding. "I'll see you later Kitty."
"See ya." Kitty said, making herself not jog away to escape the weirdness. She had heard that Senior year could really stress a person out and maybe Jean was finally starting to snap under the pressure. There were rumors that Jean was trying to get into Harvard or Yale or one of those hoity-toity schools. Once inside the mansion, Kitty phased through all the walls that were in her way of getting to the kitchen. There was almost a need to see Kurt and talk to him, making her progress to the kitchen that much faster. She finally phased out of the cabinets and saw Kurt at the table, alone, already working on some of his homework while chowing down on some of last night's left over pizza.
"Hey Fuzzy." Kitty greeted him, sitting down at the table across from him.
Kurt looked up from his Algebra homework. "Katzchen, vhat brings you here?"
"Want to go to Duncan's party with me tonight?"
Kurt was momentarily lost in his incredibility. Did Kitty just possibly ask him out? Kitty just possibly asked him out. Kitty just possibly asked him out! Kurt surreptitiously pinched his leg underneath the table. It hurt, which meant that he was not dreaming and that this was real and that Kitty was not going to turn into his kindergarten teacher and try to eat him.
"Kurt?" Kitty asked, waving a hand in front of his face.
"Ja?"
"Do you wanna go or not?"
Kurt schooled his features into casualness. "Sure."
A/N: Wow, sorry that took so long to get out. But you know, Harry Potter came out and I didn't feel much like working on this for a while. And then I got the first season of "Rescue Me" (Dennis Leary is a god) so I had to watch all of that. But I'm back, for now at least, I go on vacation in two weeks and a week after that I start my first week of college so don't be surprised if you don't hear from me for a while.
Sorry if the Logan part sucked. I had this whole different idea for him in this story but then I realized that he would be a little more OOC than I would like. Oh and while I'm at it, I'm sorry if the prison break from last chapter sucked too. I don't know if I mentioned this before either, but Charlie from Driveshaft is from the TV show "Lost" which is owned by JJ Abrams. So JJ owns him. Well, I think that's it for now.
Reviewers:
IvyZoe: You really feel sorry for Jean? Wow, that's cool. I'm really trying to go for a good degree of realism in this story and I guess that's a good sign that I'm doing it! I wish I could answer your questions, but that would be giving stuff away. But as Miss Frizzle always said: Keep asking questions and you'll keep getting answers. At least, I think that's what she said.
Ishy: I thought Rogue insulting him and then kissing him was cool too. Kinda brings out the love/hate aspect of their relationship. I'm glad you're really enjoying this and sorry for the absence of Romy in this chapter. It's really hard for me not to just make this whole thing a Romy and forget all the other characters. There'll be Romy next chapter, I'm pretty sure.
Nettlez: Hmm, I think might up the rating later on. But then if I up it, not as many people will see it because ff dot net tends to hide the "M" fics in my opinion.
Toxic-Touch-727: Another lesson learned! Maybe someday fan fics will replace textbooks. Or maybe just mine, cause then I would get royalties and not have to do anything. Lol. I'm glad you like the portrayals, I think it's kind of cheap when an author says 'that's the way they are, deal with it'. It almost robs the reader getting to know the character.
Sheisbeautiful-sheisnotme: thanks for the 2 reviews! Made me feel special.
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Shockgoddess