A/N: DING DING DING DING DING!
The titles of the chapters ARE all songs! Sorry they were a little obscure, but it's what I listen to:
Chapter One: 83 is a song by John Mayer; Chapter Two: Something Bad is from the play Wicked (which I want to see!); Chapter Three: Sunday Morning is a song by No Doubt; Chapter Four: I Fought the Law is a Clash song; Chapter Five: Goodbye Love is a Rent song (I also want to see Rent); Chapter Six: Smells Like Teen Spirit is a Nirvana song; Chapter Seven: Hell is for Children is a Pat Benatar song; Chapter Eight: You Okay Honey? is also a Rent song; Chapter Nine: All I Care About is a song from the play Chicago; Chapter Ten: Point of No Return is a song from The Phantom of the Opera; Chapter Eleven: Comforting Lie is a No Doubt song; Chapter Twelve: I Know the Truth is a song from the play Aida. Whew. I'm done now.
Jujube111: Please don't do bad things to me, I'm so young! Hahahahaha! And yes, everyone hates Caroline. Like me, even though I created her. Lalalala.
Toxic-Beetle: Give her something to complain about, teeheehee. Coheed and Cambria freak me out. You did get it right, though. Songs!
ChibiChew: Yeah, well, your FACE is not realistic…just kidding. I know it wasn't realistic, but oh well. It does actually play a part later, so, uh, stay tuned! And yes, they're songs. Cookies for all!
Oh, wait, am I not allowed to reply back here anymore? Oopsy. Well, don't report me.
A/N 2: If you want to find out what happened in my school play, please go look in my profile. It's there. I don't want to talk about it anymore. It's so unfair. Go, go look. Now. It's under: Another Tragedy.
Disclaimer: I do not own the X-Men. If I did, I'd hire Dr. McCoy to fix my stupid cold, unlike the stupid doctor I just saw, who made me wait for an hour outside her office, then did not prescribe anything, leaving me in total misery. Oy vay.
Chapter Thirteen: Feeling This
Germany, 1986Kurt peeled off his shirt, sticky with sweat, and tossed it to the ground, barely pausing in his activity. It was hot outside, probably the hottest day of the year (although he had said that about all of the days that summer, he realized), and he had just heard Caroline drive off in her car a few minutes ago, leaving him free to play in the backyard.
She had been doing that often, lately, instead of staying in the house during the summer like usual. Kurt suspected it had something to do with Emmett, but he didn't really care. He got to play outside during the day, and not bake in his room like always.
Ever since Raven had left and Rolanda had died suddenly, Caroline had only spoken English around the house, both to him and to Emmett, who came over a lot. Kurt had quickly picked up on it, and eventually he could speak it relatively well. It didn't matter, because he had no one to speak it with, but it gave him a small sense of pride to have learned it in less than a year.
That feeling was the same one he'd been getting again recently, one that had started when he started playing outside. He had learned to climb the towering trees, with a lot of help from his tail (which, over the past year, had grown several inches, as had he). His hands had grown rougher with wear and tear, and he was a lot stronger than he had once been. A few weeks before, when Caroline had been trying to hit him with her brush, he had grabbed it out of her hands and threw it away, then proceeding to run to his room as fast as he possibly could, which was something he couldn't have done some months ago. Caroline had a steely grip.
While Kurt had been climbing a tree a week before, though, he had discovered another special little talent he didn't know he had. It had rained the night before, and the branches were still slippery with water residue. Kurt knew he shouldn't have taken such a big risk as to try and still reach the top of the big oak, but Caroline had been in a bad mood the previous night, and his legs still ached, so he was looking for any distraction.
Halfway up the tree, he had realized exactly how bad an idea it had been to do it. His hands were torn open from losing his grip a few times, and he was very close to falling out of the tree. His feet had slipped from the branch below, and he had just managed to catch the one above him, but he couldn't get a landing; the bough was too far beneath him; and his hands were sliding off. Kurt was pretty high up off the ground, and he knew it wouldn't be pretty if he fell right then.
So, using his seven- year old logic, he saw the tree branch only a few feet away from him, and using his tail as leverage, he began to swing his body back and forth. When he finally found his momentum, he muttered a short prayer, locked his view on the other tree branch closest to him, and on the frontward swing, let go of the branch and almost as fast, grabbed the other one.
He wouldn't have been surprised to find out that he was falling, and for a few seconds, he thought he was. He shut his eyes tight, but when he realized that he wasn't dead, he opened them and cried out in amazement. He had actually made it.
Every day since then, he had practiced swinging around on the trees, then adding his legs to the mix, then his tail, never once falling. He could even do a flip in midair, if he had enough space between two branches. Kurt didn't know what the word was for these tricks he did, but he knew he had a talent for them. He spent every day when Caroline was gone practicing them, perfecting them. He had come to realize, over the past few days, what it felt like to be good at something, even though the chances of him ever needing to perform those flips and cartwheels were slim to none.
But still, he thought, running over to the trees, it was a nice feeling.
A/N: Mwahahahaha. Get it? Get it? Get it? GET IT? Do you get the point of this chapter?
I'm nuts, excuse me.
A/N 2: Okay, for the skeptics out there who think a) no kid would be stupid enough to try to do a flip from tree to tree and b) he wouldn't actually make it, I have this to say:
a) you'd be surprised by what seven – year olds think they can do. I have a bump on my nose from trying to do a flip on my bed and smacking my face into a wall and b) he's KURT, AKA NIGHTCRAWLER, I think he'd make it. Bye for now!