A/N: Welcome to our craziest chapter ever! Please know that Tea wasn't actually drunk during this…her asthma inhalers were just having a really odd effect on her…and she'd drunk an awful lot of Dr Pepper and coffee. Kaya wasn't drunk either.
But don't say we didn't warn you about the weirdness…
And thank you again to everyone who took the time to review the last chapter! It is so very much appreciated, and we're sorry it took so long for us to get this next bit up. RL has been getting in the way far too much!
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The next morning, Tea was the first to slouch in, only this time, she appeared to be unable to walk in a straight line. The reason for this soon became apparent when one saw that she held a bottle of rum in her hand. Logan saw her, and cocked an eyebrow, but said nothing until Kaya came on a few moments later. He glanced from Tea to Kaya, and then back again.
"Are you sure you should be letting your little sister at that?" he asked gruffly. "'Cause I'm sure she ain't 21."
"You try getting it away from her," Kaya sighed. "Every time I try to get it from her, she just teleports away from me. It actually was a bit haphazard in getting here today."
"Ooh, light-headed," Tea said, wobbling sideways a bit until she crashed into Kaya, who herself had to try hard not to fall over completely.
"Anyone know a good cure for drunk mutants?" Kaya asked.
"Black coffee," Remy suggested, grinning at the sight of it all.
"Better schooling," Charles said as he wheeled onto set.
Kaya sighed, helping Tea into her director's chair before taking another swipe at the rum.
"My rum!" Tea said, snatching it well out of Kaya's reach.
"Look, I haven't got any idea how you got to that rum, but you're not old enough to buy it in any dimension that I know of," Kaya scolded, trying to get Tea to listen to reason.
In reply, Tea simply gave a smile, and teleported the rum out of view. Kaya smiled, but it vanished a moment later as the bottle reappeared and emptied itself over her head.
"Thank you!" Kaya shouted, dripping wet with rum.
Tea burst out into laughter, almost falling out of her chair. "Sorry!" she said through her laughter, so that it wasn't entirely convincing.
"No you're not," Kaya sighed. "Look, I'm gonna go and get something else to wear from the wardrobe department. Could everyone else just get ready while I'm gone? You just sit there," she added, turning back to Tea, then walked off. "Oh, and Logan," she called back a moment later. "Could you keep an eye on Tea for me?"
"Why me?"
"'Cause you're the tough guy. Just make sure she doesn't teleport you anywhere."
A couple of minutes later, Kaya arrived back on set, dressed in one of the movie's gowns and blow-drying her hair as she walked.
"Okay, are we ready to get going?" she asked as she fetched Tea some black coffee. "I'll take the resounding and enthusiastic silence as a yes, then."
"Is there any rum in this?" Tea asked hopefully as she got the coffee handed to her.
Kaya rolled her eyes and sighed. "No, there isn't."
"Meanie," Tea said , staring at her cup. "I must be drunk; I don't have my bullhorn on me."
"Thank God for that," Kaya said as she sat down in her chair and put down the blow-dryer. "Places everyone!"
"Heh, that can soon be solved," Tea said, holding out her hand as she teleported her bullhorn to herself. "Lights! Camera! Action! Drink up me hearties yo ho!" she shouted through the bullhorn, taking everyone by complete surprise.
"Just carry on and ignore the drunken mutant," Kaya advised.
"Somebody's in trouble," Jean said in a sing-song voice as Rogue walked on set in the manor house.
"What do ya mean?" Rogue asked cautiously, already afraid that they'd found out about her posing as a courtier.
"You stupid, stupid girl!" Raven shouted as she came into the room, pushing Rogue into a chair. "How dare you do this to me? To Jean? It all makes me sick! It's deceitfulness and I will not have it in this house!" she carried on fiercely, completely in her element of yelling at people.
"What did Ah do?" Rogue asked timidly.
"Think, Anna. Think really hard," Jean said spitefully, while Kitty made motions of a horse running with her hands.
"Prince Remy stole our horse this morning?" Rogue asked, truly hoping that was all it was.
"Yes!" Raven spat. "And that would explain why he returned it this afternoon. How dare you let him surprise us like that!"
"Ah'm sorry," Rogue said quietly.
"Luckily for you, Jean turned in a beautiful performance," Raven said, looking over at her smiling 'daughter'. Rogue however wasn't sure on why this should be lucky for her at all. "She and the Prince had quite an interlude."
"Yes, I shouldn't be surprised if he drops by again," Jean said in that same happily annoying voice.
"Come, come!" Raven said, snapping her attention back to Rogue. "I must know exactly what was said. The simplest phrase can have a thousand meanings. He said you were forceful. What did you say?"
"I called him a thief, madam. I did not recognise him!" Rogue said by way of explanation
Raven laughed cruelly, hardly able to believe it. "Oh, Anna," she said in mock sympathy. "You poor, little country girl. Well, we must work extra hard to make sure the manor is spotless. We cannot have a royal bottom sitting on a dirty chaise, can we? No." she asked in a patronising voice as Rogue nodded and shook her head obligingly.
There was a shuffling in the doorway then, and Raven looked up to see Amara and Tabitha standing there with the newly returned Bobby.
"Maurice!" came the slurred shout from Tea's chair, as it rocked dangerously back and forth, before Kaya waved her hand and it was still.
"You'll fall out of your chair if you keep doing that," she said, speaking in the tone that one might address a five year old with, before turning her attention back to the play.
"What is he doing here?" Jean asked haughtily as she looked at Bobby.
"I have worked off your...My debt, madame," Bobby replied, quickly correcting himself. "They told me I could go home."
"Fine," Raven said, as though his return was nothing. "Go... catch a chicken," she suggested, waving him and the others away.
"Scene change!" Kaya called out, as all those not needed for the next scene headed back towards the changing rooms to get out of their costumes. Kaya sat in her chair, happily changing the set pieces with her telekinesis, barely having to move.
"Let's sing the doom song now!" Tea called out in her best Gir impression.
"Okay, that's it," Kaya said, finishing with the set changes. "No more rum and Invader Zim for you."
"I was the turkey all along!" Tea cried out, again quoting her favourite cartoon as she raised her mug of coffee like a bottle of rum.
"Yeah, okay," Kaya said. "Okay, everybody ready?" she asked the newly assembled cast of three for the next scene.
"Yeah, but I think Slouchy needs some tranquillisers or somethin'," Logan said.
"Just ignore her," Kaya said. "Okay, on with the play!"
"Who, dear?" Ororo asked as she and Remy walked through the gardens in the night.
"Comtesse Marie de Lancret," Remy said, explaining to Ororo how he had met her earlier that day. "She's a cousin of...Actually, I don't know who her cousin is. Surely you have heard of her?" he asked hopefully.
"Oh, darling, there are simply too many courtiers to remember them all by name," Ororo said with a slight wave of her hand. After being a Goddess in Africa, playing the part of the Queen was actually quite natural and easy for her. "Why do you ask?"
"Mm?" Remy said absent mindedly. "Oh, never mind," he said as he saw Logan striding towards them.
"In honour of Signor da Charley, I have decided to throw a ball," Logan announced as he stopped in front of his wife and son. "A masked ball. At which point, you and I will strike a compromise."
"Compromise? You?" Remy asked, surprised.
"If love is what you seek, I suggest you find it before then, bub," Logan said gruffly. "Five days hence…Hence? What's this hence stuff, Flouncy? I can't go on speakin' like this."
"It's just how they all spoke, Logan," Kaya explained. "Actually, it's not how they would have spoken at all. They would have been speaking French, for a start, and it would have been Old French, at that, not just modern French with some eloquent words flung in, but there. If they actually spoke in the movie as they should have done, not even the French would have understood them very well…But we can try it in French if you like?" she offered.
"No, thanks, Flouncy," Logan sighed, then got back to his lines. "Cinq jours par conséquent, à la course du minuit…what the? Am I speaking French now?"
"Haha! Logan's speaking Japanese!" Tea shouted out inanely, making the entire cast look at her and wonder if she weren't merely drunk, but also totally insane!
"Charley!" Logan growled, expecting it to be Xavier playing a trick on him. But Charles simply shrugged, and looked over to Kaya.
"Oh, yeah. Sorry, that was my fault," Kaya said apologetically, while not quite convincing Logan that she hadn't done it on purpose.
"Five days hence," Logan said, a little testily, "at the stroke of midnight you will announce your engagement to the girl of your choice... or... I will announce it for you. Are we agreed?"
"What of your treaty?" Remy asked, still surprised by this sudden concession.
"Let me worry about Spain," Logan replied, wondering if he could take on the whole Spanish army at once and survive. "You've got bigger problems."
"Choose wisely, Henry," Ororo said gently, before turning to face Logan. "Divorce is only something they do in England."
"Cut!" Tea yelled, a little enthusiastically as her chair tipped over backwards and she landed flat on her back.
"Is she out?" Remy asked as he stepped nearer.
"I think so," Kaya said tiredly.
"Aren't ya gonna do anythin' about it?"
"Could do," Kaya said as she looked around. In the corner, she saw a bucket of cold water, stood there in case of Pyro-induced emergencies. She smiled, picked up the bucket with her telekinesis, and brought it over before tipping the water all over Tea.
"Curse ya for breathin' ya slack-jawed idiot!" Tea spluttered as she woke up, unintentionally quoting Gibbs of Pirates of the Caribbean fame.
Kaya rolled her eyes, then tipped another bucket of water of Tea's head.
"Blast it, I'm already awake!" Tea yelled.
"That was to sober you up!" Kaya said. "We need to get home, remember?"
"Oh yeah," Tea said, then passed out again. Luckily, her head landed on Kaya's feet at the instant she began to teleport, so Kaya went back with her.
Kaya sighed as they landed somewhere near their home, but as she turned around, she screamed.
"Remy?" she asked, having taken a moment to recover from the surprise.
"Ya didn't have to scream at me, chere," Remy said, rubbing his ears.
"How did you get here?" Kaya asked, still half panicked.
"Mah hand was on your shoulder as she teleported, Ah guess," Remy said, looking around.
"We have to get you back," Kaya said, taking both Tea's and Remy's hands. "Tea!" she shouted to her sister. "Teleport us back!"
Kaya waited for a moment, and then Tea teleported them…to about five feet behind where they had been standing.
"Not that sort of back!" Kaya groaned as Tea gave a little snore. "Back to the other dimension."
"Hey, mebbe we should wait until she sobers up a bit?" Remy suggested. "Ah don't feel like takin' mah chances with a drunk inter-dimensional teleporter."
"But you can't stay here!" Kaya said.
"Why not?"
"Because you belong back in your own dimension!"
"So? You belong in this one, but ya'll are always hoppin' over to ours," Remy pointed out.
"True, but it's not the same," Kaya said, exasperated.
"Why not?" he asked.
"Because…it's just different, okay?"
"I don't want the panda hat…I want the tiger," Tea mumbled in her sleep.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Remy asked as Kaya began to giggle uncontrollably.
"We were sitting at my computer once, co-authoring a parody story, and while I was furiously typing away, Tea grabbed the lid of a paper bin that was shaped like the head of a tiger, and she put it on her head. I didn't notice for a long, long time, and when I glanced at her…I saw her wearing this ridiculous 'hat', and she just smiled and waved, as though everything was perfectly normal in the world," Kaya explained between giggle fits. "It took me about five minutes to recover from the randomness of it all."
"Ah see…" Remy said uncertainly. "An' the panda?"
"Oh, we have another paper bin in the house and it's lid is shaped like a panda head," Kaya explained.
"Suddenly Ah understand why Ah'm not supposed to be in this dimension…"
"And I thought you wanted to see it?" Kaya asked teasingly.
"Ah did…Ah just didn't know it was entirely inhabited by crazy people."
"Don't worry," Kaya said with a wave of her hand. "She's the craziest one here."
"Suddenly Ah feel so much better…" Remy said as he helped Kaya pick up Tea.
