CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE:
Meet the Cubs
/or/
Meet the Teacher
AN: Only one….or is it two….days since my last update. Be patient with me my constant readers…..or at least semi-patient…. Kami knows I'm not very patient with Bamon right now. I WANT ANOTHER CHAPTER IN 'PRIMAL INSTINCTS' DAGNABIT !
Oh, and by-the-by, due to popular vote, I will NOT be taking down this fic to . . . . . revamp it. You'll just have to deal with my little mess-ups and authors notes, duckies!
(chuckles sheepishly) Right. Okay. Onto the story.
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LAST TIME:
His eyes swam with a chaotic mess of bright, primary colors; one wall was painted an orange that couldn't possibly exist naturally in the world while the other was an impossible acid green, the third neon yellow, and the fourth electric blue. To add to those color nightmares were bright yellow smiley-face suns and cartoon butterflies with crazy smiling faces.
"*&^% , it's like a psych ward, Jimmy." Victor mumbled out of the corner of his mouth. "Those butterflies are cannibals, I just know it."
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Logan couldn't stop the snort of laughter that came out of his mouth at the older ferals last statement. "Don't be a wimp, Vic." He prodded, carrying Jonesy into the room.
Victor gave him a warning growl, but grumbled; "If the teacher is the one who did the decorate'n, I'm send'n her to get a psych eval."
Cassie snorted herself, still holding onto Jonesys hand as she followed Victor into the room, stopping to study the cartoon butterflies on the wall. Victor was right. They DID look like cannibals.
She was startled out of her examination of the artwork when two five year-old kids (one noticeably mutant with purple skin and the other 'normal' looking) barreled into her holding little toy laser guns that made shrill beeping noises and lit up red. She fell up against the wall, using one hand to catch herself and the other to pull Roddy to safety behind her, then watched the two kids (completely oblivious to the slight trouble they had just caused) race off in another direction.
Cassie gaped after them then looked down at Roddy who looked a little frightened. "I think we were just a victim of a hit and run." She told the blue-skinned mutant, eyes wide.
Roddy just blinked at her.
All around them, similar cases of crazy play-time were going on. Two kids were tossing a huge rubber ball around (and managing to knock toys off shelves in the process) a little boy was building a tall building out of cardboard blocks and two more little girls were fighting over a stuffed sunflower doll very loudly.
"It's MY turn to play with Sunny!"
"No, it's not, it's MY turn, you had him last time!"
"NO IT'S MY TURN!"
Cassies head was starting to hurt. She could only imagine how Victor and Logans heads felt.
In the middle of the room stood a blonde woman of about thirty-years old who looked like she had stuck her finger in an electric socket. Her hair stood up on end everywhere and her eyes were huge like she had just been shocked with eighty volts of electricity. She was dressed appropriately enough in a light-blue T-shirt and a black pencil skirt, but her shirt was stained and her skirt had a rip in it.
All in all, she looked like a woman on the edge.
It didn't help her appearance that she was trying to stop one little boy from crying on the ground while a little girl she held in her arms was pulling at her already messed hair.
"Alex—OW!—how many times must I—OW—tell you not to levitate the toys when someone else wants to—OW—play with them! Suzie, honey, please stop pulling on my—OW—hair."
The little girl—Suzie—only pulled harder.
Victor had taken in the chaos going on around him, the screaming squalling kids and knew his temper couldn't take the noise much longer, when Logan went to stand beside him and spoke quietly in his ear. (Well, to his shoulder at least, he WAS much shorter) "Purr on three?"
Victor gave a gruff nod.
"Okay, one, two, three."
As one the two ferals began their purr.
It was like someone had hit an 'Instant-Calm-Down' button. The childrens noise started to quiet at first, as they stopped their rambunctious play to listen to this new sound. Then the quiet turned into drowsy eyes and yawns and smiles. Even the teacher began to look a little less electrified.
Logan knelt down to eye-level with the children. "Hey kids," he said gently, "why don't you all take a nap, huh?"
Several sleepy-eyed children blinked at them.
Cassie yawned and pushed her way over to the ferals, trying to use her annoyance to combat the purrs effects. "Is this your guys idea of controlling the kids? Tranquilizing them?"
Victor rolled his eyes. "You got a better idea?" he wrapped an arm around her waist and supported her up against his body when she sagged a little and yawned again. He smirked. "Maybe you should take a nap yerself, frail." when she just growled at him he nodded his head towards the teacher. "Besides, Teach here looks like she's about to jump into the looney-bin herself."
The woman DID look a few beans short a burrito. At least now little Suzie had stopped yanking on her hair and was yawning, beginning to fall asleep.
Cassie chewed on her lower lip, thinking. "Well, okay, you've calmed them down. Now how about stopping this whole purr thing before you send the entire room to sleep except you two and let me try something."
Victor arched an eyebrow at his mate, then turned to see Logan looking at him with an answering question in his eyes, waiting to see what his verdict would be.
Victor shrugged. Why not. Slowly, he let his purr taper off, Logan following example till the sound was gone.
The children started to rouse.
Before they could take up their previous energy, Cassie clapped her hands for attention. "Hey guys! How about a story? I know a really cool one about a little gremlin named George." She sat on the floor and gathered the children around her, placing Roddy in the 'seat of honor' in her lap. As Victor and Logan watched briefly on, amused, she began to spin a tale of a gremlin named George who hid in the basement of her house and ate unpaired socks.
Victor and Logan finally turned their gaze from the impromptu story-session and then looked back to the teacher who had sat Suzie down so that she toddle off to the story time.
Victor gave the woman a low, disapproving growl. "Is this how ya usually run the class? Damn shoddy leadership if ya ask me." He crossed his muscled arms firmly, a mass of bulk and furs and barely-controlled wildness.
The teacher—her nametag said 'Stacy'—didn't seem to notice as she slouched down into one of the childrens chairs. "It's absolute chaos." She let her head drop into her hands. " I told the Professor I can't possibly do this by myself, not with the childrens powers. What am I supposed to do when Alex starts levitating the toys so he doesn't have to share them, or when Lindsay decides that everyones skin should be purple."
Logan blinked at that and glanced down quickly at his own skin to make sure it wasn't purple….Nope, normal peach color.
Victor sniffed the air around the teacher. "Yer not a mutant?" he asked, though his scenting had already confirmed it. "How the hel…heck does the Professor expect you to keep up with these cubs?" He just barely managed to stop himself from cursing when he sensed his mates glare at him even though his back was turned.
Stacy rubbed her forehead wearily with one hand. "The Professor thought it would be best if someone who wasn't a mutant was the childrens teacher, because that way they would grow seeing that just because someone isn't a mutant doesn't mean they're inferior or cruel."
Victor blinked at her in disbelief. "Whaddya do if a cub starts to throw a temper-tantrum and levitates you right into the air?"
Stacy sighed. "Thankfully, that only happened once."
Victor growled low. "It shouldn't happen at all. Why do you stay if the job's this hard?"
Stacy looked up at the scary looking wild man—who was definitely a mutant, if the claws on his fingertips were anything to go by—and blinked wearily. "Who else would watch the kids?"
"Geez, Stacy, at least ask for a helper." Logan commented, turning to briefly check on the kids who were still listening, enraptured, to the closing story of George the Gremlin. Cassie then passed out paper and crayons and asked the kids to draw what they thought a gremlin would look like.
"Don't you think I have?" Stacy asked, turning Logans attention back to her. "Somehow, though, the Professor keeps putting it off."
Victor gritted his teeth angrily. "Do you have rooms here, frail?"
Stacy blinked at him. "What?...oh, yes."
Victor grunted. "Get ta bed. Sleep. The Runt and I will watch the cubs."
Stacy didn't look at all reassured at this statement till she looked over to see Cassie overseeing the drawing of 'gremlins' and smiling at a young mutant child with skin that constantly changed color.
"Well," the teacher said slowly. "If you're sure….."
Victor gave one of his alpha growls. "Quit stall'n and get ta bed, frail."
Stacy practically shot out of the room like a bat out of Hades. Victor and Logan both turned as one to look at Cassie who was on the floor with the kids, Oohing at one childs depiction of a gremlin, which actually looked like a blue peanut shape on sticks.
"It looks like she's got this covered." Logan said, arching an eyebrow and smiling softly."
Victor smirked proudly. "Yeah." The bulky feral then moved with all his predatory grace towards a little arts and crafts table hat was dwarfed even more by the Sabretooths huge size.
Logans jaw almost dropped at the sight of the killer feral picking up a sheet of pale green construction paper and a black washable marker. "What the h—" Logan stopped himself from cursing just in time with a very quick glance towards the group of kids. "What are ya doing?"
Victor snarled. "what's it look like I'm doin', Jimmy?"
Logan walked over cautiously as the older feral settled himself down on the floor with all the grace of a jungle-cat (the little toddler chairs would have snapped with just the weight of one of his feet.)
"I'm tell'n ya right now, Vic." Logan said cautiously. "If you start drawing butterflies, I'm give'n ya a full frontal lobotomy."
"And I'd let ya." Victor scoffed. "It's not butterflies I'm draw'n, Jimmy. Creepy b &^%$ds." He spared the butterflies a glance. "I'm make'n a check-list."
Logan WASN'T reassured. "A checklist for WHAT?"
"Fer you, runt." Victor replied, withdrawing his claws to make writing easier. Still, it had been ages since he had even held a PEN let alone a childrens marker and his writing (though still legible) was clumsy and blocked.
Logan snarled. "I'm not yer errand boy, Sabretooth."
Victor didn't even look up from his writing. "While I'm gone, you are. I TOLD you, Jimmy, this school needs a lot of changes and, during my leave, yer gonna be helping to MAKE these changes. Get ole' fuzzy blue-butt and yer mate ta help ya." He spared a quick, checking glance towards his mate and the cubs and, seeing and smelling no sign of trouble, turned back to the paper.
Victor frowned down at the piece of blue construction paper which he had, surprisingly, already filled with writing, and flipped it over. "Gonna need some more paper."
Logan groaned.
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VOCAB:
TAPER: narrowing to a point
RAMBUNCTIOUS: full of energy, running around
IMPROMPTU: sudden and unplanned
LEGIBLE: able to read