"Kurt? Are you okay?" Nym asked. Kurt heard her step out of the lab closet and turned to see her. She had a loose fitting sweatshirt on coupled with a pair of too-long pants that hung off her slim frame pooling around her bare feet. Her hair was tied up in a low braid by a piece of worn string that mirrored the red color of her eyes.
"U-um yeah! I'm fine!" Kurt answered blushing as he stood up, "The clothes fit pretty well?"
"Hmm," Nym sighed twisting the loose fabric of the sweatshirt in her hand, "Well the pants are quite a bit too big see?" At once Nym lifted up the sweatshirt revealing her bare stomach and hanging jean waistband to him. Kurt looked away immediately embarrassed by her brashness. His mind ran wild with fantasies of her, of who he would touch her if he could.
"Do you have a belt or something?" Nym asked pulling her shirt down oblivious to Kurt's thoughts.
"Oh, um…" Kurt said looking around the lab room. 'Dumbass! There's not just going to be a belt lying around in the freaking lab!' Kurt's mind scolded him.
Nym's head tilted sideways before she began to lift up her shirt again this time tucking the edge under her chin to keep it lifted.
"What! What are you?" he asked frantically. Why was she tormenting him? Did she know what she did to him? The power her every movement had over him?
"I'm just making a belt." Nym answered running her hand along the trim of the sweatshirt. She absorbed a chunk of the end fabric in one hand as a long thin string came out of her other hand. In a flash she had the make-shift belt strung through the belt loops around her pants and tied tight around her waist.
"There, that should do it." She commented before letting her sweatshirt drop. Kurt merely stood and stared at her. He was at a loss as to what he should be doing with himself. On the one hand he was sad because her actions had been for nothing more than her own convenience. But, on the other hand he felt an immense amount of guilt for ever having even thought of her in such an impure way. She was his angel, his pure hearted love.
The back lab door sprang open suddenly revealing Dr. McCoy dressed in his lab coat. Kurt froze like a man caught in a criminal act while Nym took a defensive stance, though, no weapons formed from her skin.
"Hmm?" Dr. McCoy asked as he stepping into the room pausing as he saw the two very different expressions on the teens' faces, "Did I interrupt?"
"No! No, of course not!" Kurt said backing up slightly and waving his arms in front of him as a dark blush crawled up his face. Nym glanced over at him and raised an eyebrow. Dr. McCoy merely laughed to himself before walking over to the computer.
"Well, if you two don't mind I have a lot of work to get done and as much as I love having guest I'm sure the lady would like a tour of her new surroundings" Dr. McCoy trailed off.
"Oh! Of course, sorry to have bothered you!" Kurt quickly apologized as he spun on his foot and walked towards the exit. He stopped suddenly realizing that Nym wasn't beside him. Kurt glanced back and noticed that Nym was staring intently at Dr. McCoy's large computer screen.
"Radioactivity in mutant cells?" Nym asked breaking the silence. Dr. McCoy turned in his chair with an impressed look on his face.
"You could tell just by looking at the molecules?" Dr. McCoy asked, sounding astounded. Kurt glanced from one to the other not understanding what either was talking about. To him the blobs on the screen all looked the same, no one more identifiable then the other.
"Yeah, those are obviously mutant cells from the shape of the nucleus and then there are the radioactive particles there, looks like uranium." Nym answered pointing to one side of the screen and then the other.
"Well, I'll be. Seems like you're a regular biochemist! Kurt did you hear her! Amazing! You really must stop by again so we can chat more. I would love to hear what all you can identify both through your powers and your knowledge." Dr. McCoy finished sending Nym a delighted smile. Nym nodded slightly before she turned and walked past Kurt towards the exit. Kurt looked to Dr. McCoy and received nothing but a wink from the furry mutant before the doctor resumed his work, humming a very happy tune to himself.
"Kurt?" Nym asked standing next to the door. Kurt shook his head and quickly followed her out, his jaw still hanging open.
As soon as they left the lab room Kurt was assaulted with the crisp scent of bleach, the only produce the Professor would allow the underground tunnels to be cleaned with. The vast expanse of the mansion's underground stared Kurt in the face. He didn't know which way to turn at that moment.
"Wow, you weren't lying when you said institute. This place would need a fancy title like that." Nym commented. As she did she edged her body closer to Kurt's. Her hands delved into the too-long sleeves of her sweatshirt and she brought her shoulders down around her. Kurt recognized her position at once, it was the same one she had when she had first woken up, she was getting ready to bolt.
"Yeah, this place can be kind of odd," Kurt laughed leading Nym down the hallway, "But it's really not so bad once you get used to it. See, there's the elevator. It'll take us up to the mansion part of the institute where we all live." He explained. Nym shrunk into his side and wove her arm around his grasping at his sleeve. Kurt felt a pleasant rill go up his spine at their contact. He reached forward and pushed the button to summon the elevator.
At last the elevator came, announcing its arrival with a loud ding. Nym jumped back at the sound but Kurt assured her by weaving his hand into her own. As they boarded the elevator Kurt hoped Nym couldn't feel his heartbeat, which was by many standards off the charts, through her hand. It was like a dream to be so close to her to have her relying on him. Kurt inwardly prided himself as the elevator climbed to the upper floors.
Kurt dared a glance at Nym and found her looking at the control dial of the elevator, watching it go up and up as they neared the top of the mansion. He found it incredibly cute that her eyes followed each of the floor numbers as they lit up. Kurt's own eyes were automatically drawn to her face, which he could now appreciate freely without worrying if she would catch him. He traced her jaw and neck, appreciating their angular yet soft design. Just as he was about to follow her neck down to her shoulders the sweatshirt shifted slightly revealing the top of the back of her neck to him. Kurt looked greedily and found himself thanking the fact that she had tied her hair back. But, as he glanced over he saw them, two light pink scars, poking out of the loose fabric of her sweatshirt. He averted his eyes immediately, feeling some kind of shame drip down over him.
Kurt's mind raced back to when he had seen her in the lab closet, to when he had seen the scars still carved into her skin. 'Why doe she still have those? Shouldn't she have been able to get rid of them if she waned to?' Kurt asked himself worry clouding his face. 'It was true she had said she could mold her own flesh so then why not get rid of the scars? Why not rid herself of such a painful memory? Could it be that they mean something to her? Or am I just over thinking this and she just didn't take the time to fix them, I mean they are on her back.' His mind spun with questions that he was too scared to voice. He didn't want her to think him insensitive for asking. And there would still be the problem of explaining how he even knew they were there! But, would she care if he asked? Surely she had to know that he saw some part of her when he had come into the lab closet, right?
The elevator let out a coarse ding that made Nym jump slightly and grip his hand and arm tighter. Her movement shocked Kurt out of his thoughts. He had even bigger issues right in front of him, like how he was going to smoothly give Nym a tour. He felt ashamed for not thinking up a strategy on their way up.
Nym gave him an expectant look as the doors opened. Kurt took a careful step out of the elevator and onto the soft carpet of the west hallway. He glanced down each side of the hallway and gave a slight sigh of relief when he noticed there was no one around. 'Okay first things first I need to come up with a way to A) Keep Nym safe from everyone, B) Keep everyone safe from Nym, and C) make Nym think I have half an idea of what I'm doing!' Kurt inwardly screamed.
"Umm, hey, Nym do you mind if we go to my room first? I want to change out of my uniform, spandex it's exactly the most comfortable lounge wear." Kurt joked. He hoped to guide her to his room, change, and in that amount of time come up with a strategy to keep the afore mentioned A, B, and C in place.
"Sure, I can't say that it looks to comfortable. Why do you all wear those things anyway?" Nym asked, crinkling her nose as she looked Kurt over. Kurt felt his heart sink. Sure it wasn't his first choice of a fashion statement but he didn't think it looked that bad. He looked down sheepishly in embarrassment before turning to lead Nym down the hall and to his room.
"Of course, I can see why it would be useful to have a 'team look', so to speak. You all pretty much wear the same colors and the material seems to let you move easily enough. Though, I haven't seen you in normal clothes yet so I'm kind of curious…" Nym trailed off, her fingers under her chin in an exaggerated thinking pose. At once Kurt felt relived. Her words made the shame of earlier vanish, 'Though, it was her words that caused the shame in the first place.' Kurt reminded himself. He brushed off his negative thoughts and began to explain the different wings of the mansion.
"The west wing, where we are now, houses all of the male room while the inner section has the female rooms. The east wing is the kitchen and gym and the bottom floor core is the living room and dining room." Kurt explained, motioning with his hands as they walked. Nym nodded at each piece of information but she kept her head down, not looking at Kurt or her surroundings.
They finally reached Kurt's room, which Kurt was admittedly thankful for since the mood had somehow turned sour. Nym hadn't spoken and after a while she had even stopped nodding as he told her about the mansion.
"This is my room." Kurt said opening the door. At once he wished he had cleaned his room, or at least remembered the state of distress it was in, before he had brought her to it. Scattered clothes adorned the floor and piles of books and mismatched CD cases lined each corner of his room. His bookshelves were already jam packed with notes and school books that he hardly had a place to keep his less educational items.
Kurt watched as Nym's eyes swept the room. They seemed to land on his bed in the far corner. Kurt mentally smacked himself for not having made his bed before the mission.
"Aren't you going to change?" Nym asked, unhooking her arm with his. Kurt's face betrayed his disappointment with her loss of bodily contact.
"Oh, yeah, sorry I'll just go change in the bathroom and be right out." He answered. Kurt shuffled slowly towards the bathroom, trying to spot a clean, or at least seemingly clean, shirt and pants he could wear. Kurt bent low and swiftly scooped up one of the more clean looking piles of laundry in his arms. He gave a quickly glance back at Nym to see if she was looking. To his surprise, and relief, she had not turned her attention away from his bed and had in fact taken a few steps closer to it. Kurt turned quickly and headed into the bathroom to change.
'Be calm, be cool,' Kurt silently chanted to himself as he slipped his plain white T-shirt on over his head. His hands were shaking slightly as he turned to look at himself in the mirror. The same blue face greeted him with a worried expression. 'Figures' he thought, 'I can't even look a little less like a monster in front of her. Come on god give me some help here, just a bit less blue, just a little less fur, maybe even pop on another finger or two.' Kurt half prayed half pleaded. But another inspection of himself revealed no change.
Kurt let out a sign as he turned to exit the bathroom, doing one last check of himself in the mirror, this time not to see if he had somehow magically become human but to make sure that what he was working with didn't look too bad. 'Hair', well there wasn't really much he could to with his unruly hair being that the cow-licks he had almost numbered in the double digits. 'Clothes', hand-me-downs from Scott, a plain V-neck white T-shirt and khaki pants, nothing particularly attractive. 'Face', Kurt looked into the mirror and let out another sigh. 'There really is no helping me is there…' he thought sadly before opening the door figuring that the longer he stayed in the bathroom the more flaws he would find.
When Kurt first exited the bathroom he found himself in shock, Nym was no where to be found! His eyes scanned the room but he couldn't see her standing anywhere. Then he heard a shifting of fabric coming from his bed, and there she lay, half spread out over the covers holding a book and reading it intently. He let a relieve breath flow from his lungs before he crossed the room to see what she was doing. As Kurt neared her he realized just what kind of position she was in, laying on her stomach on his bed, legs bent at the knees sending her feet shooting up into the air as her too-long pants fell from gravity's oppression to reveal her creamy ankles.
'Stop it!' Kurt's more rational, and not hormone driven, side screamed. He shook his head as he neared her, trying to keep his mind focused. As he got to the bed Kurt bent down slightly to see that Nym was holding his copy of Lord of the Flies in her little white hands. She stared at the words on the page intently, the lighter center of her read eyes moving along each line to absorb the words.
"Do you like it?" Kurt asked motioning to the book. Nym stopped reading a looked up at him. Her eyes traveled down his body slowly causing Kurt to shift uncomfortably. He hadn't thought she would appraise him so openly.
"You look better in civilian clothes." Nym finally stated closing the book but keeping it in her hands. Well that did it Kurt was never going to be able to wear the uniform again after receiving her complement.
"Th-thanks." Kurt stammered happily, bubbles of pride and confidence welling up in him. For a few seconds neither spoke as Kurt came down from his complement high.
"So, have you read it before?" Kurt asked again once more nodding towards the book. Nym looked down and ran her fingers slowly over the crumpled cover.
"Yes, once before. I was in a library, you know using the free bathroom to clean up in, when I saw the cover of this book on a shelf and just grabbed it." Nym answered shifting the book so that the cover was right side up.
In Kurt's opinion the cover was just down right creepy. It was a close up of a child's face with twigs and leaves woven in around the boy's head while a nest of sorts sat in the corner covered in flies. But, it wasn't those images that made Kurt flinch when he looked at he cover, it was the boy's eyes. At first glance they seemed almost hollow and lifeless. But, a closer inspection relived them to be not empty but hardened. The kind of eyes that are product of seeing horrible things, or witnessing atrocious acts, the kind of eyes Kurt had seen on Nym's face when she had first awoken.
"I read it all in one night sitting by a lit up bus station sign." She said her mind drifting. Kurt watched as he eyes grew darker, traveled further away from him. He glanced won and saw the boy's eyes, and as he looked up he saw their exact reflection in Nym's.
At once Kurt's heart began to race. The likeness of the cold child on the cover and Nym's own hardened stare sent shivers through him. Nym seemed so far away, too far away, from him, as though she was already out the door and racing down the street. Kurt shook his head trying to dispel the thoughts from his mind. But they wouldn't leave, to more that he watched her as her hands smoothed over the cover to more he worried. How long before she too only looked at him with cold eyes? How long before she hardened her gaze completely? How long before she left him?