Hey guys! Sketchy and Kchuu here again. How you folks diggin' the daily updates? Thanks for all the great reviews; we really appreciate your kind words! In this chapter, Sketchy didn't get to play her beloved Todd, but instead knocked Scott and Logan out of the park!! Kchuu played Kurt and Kitty. Stay tuned for the next chapter, coming to an internet near you tomorrow!
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Kurt jumped through the woods. He didn't want to risk 'porting, not after that.... fiasco, with Todd.... He eventually saw the three X-Men who had been searching for him. Kitty, Scott, and -ulp- Logan... He straightened his shirts, Vhy didn't I vear my costume under my hologram today.....?!, wiped off his mouth with the back of his hand, and jogged over to them.
"H-hallo everyone..."
Scott was concerned. Kurt hadn't shown up for the danger room session, and as much as Kurt complained about them, he still always came on time. So he had asked Jean to track Kurt down with her powers, and to his suprise it turned out that Kurt was in the woods by the Institute. Jean had also said that Kurt wasn't responding to her mental touch, meaning he was passed out. So he had grabbed Kitty (the only one who wasn't exhausted from the danger room session) and Logan to help him track Kurt down. After only two minutes of searching, Kurt had finally responded. Scott let out a sigh of relief at seeing the younger X-man apparently unharmed, but couldn't help feeling a bit annoyed as well.
"Where were you Kurt? You're over half an hour late! And why are you out here in the woods anyway?"
Kurt's mind raced. "Uhm.... Vell.... There vas a little bit of a--" His sublimely eloquent sentence was cut off by a higher voice. Kitty Pryde's eyes flashed adamantly as she started in.
"We were, like, really worried about you, Kurt! Jean told us that you were like, not responding to her mental messages! Were you passed out or something?" Kitty sounded mad, but her true feelings were betrayed by the hint of concern in her voice.
"Vell... I... uh.... got in a little fight, I guess..."
Logan raised an eyebrow, "A fight, who with elf?" He stopped and sniffed the air, and a sudden rush of a very familiar musk hit him, "Ugh, never mind. What'd that Tolensky kid want with yah?"
Scotts eyes widened under his visor, and he turned back to Kurt, "Toad? What happened Kurt, was Todd giving you trouble or something?"
Kurt struggled for an answer. He didn't want them to beat Todd up or anything! I mean, he was their enemy, but he didn't deserve to get a pounding just to protect Kurt's reputation.....
"Vell, it vas nothing too major... You know zose Brotherhood boys, always looking for trouble!" He looked at Kitty, hoping for some sympathy. Everyone in the Xavier Institute knew about the flouncy teen's on-again, off-again relationship with the Brotherhood's second-in-command, Lance Alvers.
"Well Kurt..." Kitty started, looking a little unsure, "If it's just the way you and Todd normally fight, you know, like a little spat or something, I get that... But you were unconscious!! And... you look pretty ruffled, to be honest...." Kurt knew he must look like a bit of a wreck... hair messed up, mud on his clothes, smelling like a dead frog... and smelling like a boy for whom a once-a-month shower was regular....
"If he tried to hurt you Kurt, then it's not just something we can ignore." Scott folded his arms over his chest and looked Kurt in the eyes. By the way Kurt was fidgeting, Scott knew something was up. "There's something you're not telling us, isn't there? Did Toad do something weird?" Scott knew that Kurt could be sensitive about some things, especially to do with how he looked. Something as simple as even name-calling could put Kurt in some real pain, so Scott tended to be a little overprotective of him. If Toad had knocked out Kurt, while near the institute, and Kurt didn't want to talk about it....Well, any explanation Scott could come up with didn't make sense, but it couldn't be good.
"Ach, I... I guess I'm just feeling a little off because I teleported too much... You know, I feel pretty sick vhen I teleport two people a lot.... so....uhm.... I'm going to go to my room now...." Kurt began walking quickly towards the house, and looked back, waving his hand in a dismissive way. "I promise I'll make it to ze next danger room session, okay?" His crooked smile (while very cute) wasn't a very good mask for the way he was feeling.
"Uh, sure Kurt, but if you need to talk or something, you know where I am." Scott gave a puzzled look towards Kitty, and she just shrugged. The two then headed back towards the danger room, leaving Logan standing there with a frown on his face.
Five minutes later Logan was walking down the halls of the institute, silently counting the doors as he searched for Kurt's. Logan usually tracked people down by smell alone, but the huge mansion was constantly overrun by hormone filled teenagers, and Logan prefered to save his nose the torture of that whenever possible. So instead of that he had memorized the huge house and assigned each room a number, the elf's room was door thirty two. Finally reaching the desired count of doors, he gave a short knock on the wooden barrier. "Hey elf, I'm coming in."
Kurt's muffled voice came from inside. "Vhat do you vant...?" He was sitting on his twin bed, wearing some clean pajamas. His red-flannel-covered knees were up at his chest, and his fuzzy blue arms, exposed by the white tank-top, clutched a pillow that he was smooshing his face into. His hair and fur were still slightly damp from the all-too-necessary "feel-clean" shower, and his tail lay in a loose curve around his feet.
Logan opened the door, poking his head through first to make sure the boy was decent. Satisfied that he wasn't interrupting anything private, he walked into the room, quietly shutting the door behind him. "We need to talk."
"Vhat do you vant from me--LOGAN?!" Kurt's face jolted up from the pillow, and his tail twitched into a straight bolt of surprise. "I... I'm really sorry I missed today's training but you see I just took a shower, so, uhm, now might not be the right time to..."
Logan frowned. He was used to people being intimidated by him, lots of people were at some point (most of them never grew out of it), so it didn't bug him. What DID bug Logan was the scent coming off of Kurt. Logan could read scents like Xavier could read minds, and Kurt's scent screamed 'Go away, I want to be alone!'. That wasn't an unusual scent for some people, but it sure was for Kurt.
"We both know that your story doesn't check out Fuzzball, what really happened between you and the Tolensky kid?"
Kurt's face fell. His shoulders fell. His whole body visibly slumped as the boy averted his eyes from the gruff man.
"Ve just got in a little tiff, that's all... you know how it is vith nemesises, right? Nothing more than a little fight, that's vhy ve vere close to each other and that's vhy I blacked out..." Kurt's thick fingers fidgeted, and his tail twitched nervously.
Logan sighed and put one of his hands through his hair, avoiding looking at the teen for a moment. "Look Kurt, Everyone gives off certain hormones at certain times. Some for when yer angry or fighting, some when yer stressed or upset, and some are for attracting other people who you wanna get 'closer' to." Logan looked back at Kurt, who was still holding himself defensively, and was now giving off a scent of fear and embarrassment. "When we found you, you were givin' off the last two."
Kurt's eyes remained downcast for a moment, his face turning crimson under the fur. Slowly, he looked back up at Logan, and his yellow eyes were shiny with tears. He swallowed a lump in his throat, and squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened his eyes, he seemed more calm.
"Todd... vas very upset, because ve vere supposed to dissect some frogs, so... So ve rescued them, and gave zem a proper burial, but... I must've teleported too much in a short period of time, so I blacked out... and vhen I voke up.....Ach..!!" Kurt thrust his head back into his pillow furiously with an utterance that sounded like "since I vas fucking twelve..."
Logan blinked, the elf never used that kind of language, and ...since he was twelve? "What, 'since you were twelve?'" Logan growled.
Kurt moved to a sitting position on the edge of his bed, halfheartedly shoving the pillow to the floor. He stood, suddenly unable to sit still any longer. He paced over to the mirror, and then back towards the bed, eyes never leaving the ground. Finally, leaning heavily on the bedpost, he looked over his shoulder at the older mutant.
"Logan.... I'm gay." He flinched instinctively, scrunching his eyes closed and wrinkling his nose. After a moment, he looked away, face still tense.
Logan froze. Christ, why couldn't Ororo or Chuck be here to do this? Logan was good at a lot of things, but being an advice and comfort giver was not one of them. He walked over to Kurt, still leaning on the bed, and put a hesitant hand over the boys shoulder, "It's okay elf, nothing wrong with that."
Kurt flinched hard at the man's touch. Still not looking at him, he said in a strangled voice that was closer to a moan than a whisper, "P-please don't tell zeh others.... If the rest of zeh X-men knew that I -kissed- Todd Tolensky--"
Logan blinked again, Kurt had kissed Tolensky? That explained quite a bit, and if combined with the half-hearted, but ringing true, frog story from before then most of it fit together. Most of it, but not all. The real issue at the moment was how Kurt was practically in tears with shame, Logan barely had to breathe to smell the scent of misery coming off of the boy... This must be hard for him to confess to.
"My lips are sealed elf, but you wanna tell me how this kissing thing happened?"
Kurt flinched even more against the bedpost, his tail tightly between his legs. He said nothing, but his shoulders shook. Every part of his body seemed to be shouting his fear.
Logan sighed, he doubted he would get much else out of the boy while he was like this. Logan removed his hand from Kurt's shoulder and sat down on the edge of the bed.
"Kurt, you know that everyone here's not gonna turn on you for something like this. Heck, I couldn't care less if you were gay, straight, or had a bizzare attraction to squirrels." Logan paused and gave a smirk, "Well, I guess I'd be a bit weirded out by the last one. The point is, you don't have any reason to be ashamed of yerself. You are who you are kid."
Kurt let out a little chuckle. Logan was gruff, but he could be kind... and pretty funny, too. He sat next to the older man, dangling his legs off the bed.
"I'm just... I'm just afraid that.... Todd might like me, and I... I might like him, too. I always tried to chase girls so that I'd seem more normal... I mean, what's weirder than a fuzzy blue queer, huh?" He smiled weakly. "And I mean... it's TODD... The Toad.... that's like, If you and Sabretooth were secretly getting it on, you know?"
Logan immediatly tensed up at that last part. He turned to glare at Kurt, a look of half-concealed irritation on his face.
"Kid, believe me, you an 'Todd' are more likely to elope in the next ten seconds than I am to ever consider Sabretooth as a..." Logan just growled after that, the very idea of what the fuzzy elf said was enough to make him want to go beat the sand out of every single punching bag he owned (and that was quite a few). Logan forced himself to calm down, throwing out that thought from his mind. He turned back to Kurt, "So is the fact that you kissed the frog kid what's bugging you? Or the fact that you want him to like you?"
"Ach... I guess it's more of zeh latter, really..." Kurt seemed more relaxed, annoying Logan seemed to have lightened his mood. "It vasn't a kiss so much as.... Unnecessary CPR." He chuckled slightly. He turned his face to Logan, looking the older man straight in the eyes. "So... You promise vhat I told you doesn't change anything? Just because I told you doesn't mean I'm out of the closet or anything... I mean, Kitty'd certainly be dissapointed--you know how chicks dig the fuzzy dood!"
Unnecessary CPR? How did--... Never mind, he didn't need to know all the little details of the blue teen's love life.
Logan got up off the bed, putting his hands in his pockets. "Heh, Won't change anythin' between us two, elf. An' like I said, I'm not telling anybody, so half-pint can just live in sweet ignorance for now." Logan started for the door, but stopped halfway, turned to Kur,t and said, "But Fuzzball, I think you need to tell Chuck about this."
Kurt's eyes widened. He did NOT want to admit this to anyone... it was hard enough telling Logan, and the guy had practically forced it out of him. He bent, and grabbed his beat-up pillow off the ground.
"You're right... I'll... I'll tell him.. Vhen I feel up to it, okay?" As the older mutant started to leave, Kurt added hastily.
"Danke, Logan..."
Logan frowned, he could smell that Kurt didn't really mean what he said. But he just shrugged, "Okay elf, when you're ready. G'night." Logan exited the room, closing the door behind him. He left thinking to himself that if Kurt was fine with keeping that information from Chuck, then he was fine with keeping from Kurt the fact that he had smelled signs of Todd being attracted to him mixed in with the Brotherhood boys usual scent.