Chapter 1- Ice Cream
When she first discovered exactly what she had caught a glimpse of that day a few months ago, Amanda backed away.
Then she saw his eyes, and his hunched, self-deprecating demeanor. Like someone screamed every time he turned his hologram off. The creature who looked at first glance to be a demon -- complete with pointed tail -- was nothing more or less than Kurt Wagner upon a second look.
And Amanda always looked twice.
“Well?”
“Did you know blue is my favorite color?” she replied, stepping back up to him and putting a hand on his cheek. Kurt’s astonished expression said everything she could have possibly wanted. A three-fingered hand grasped her own, and stuttering, Kurt tried to overcome his shock and speak at the same time.
“Ja -- um -- I know a shortcut to the ice cream shoppe. Care to join me?”
“My treat!” Amanda laughed, smiling at Kurt. At the real Kurt. You know, he’s really much cuter like this . . . Who’d have guessed the elf look was in? A giggle escaped as Amanda laughed at herself. She was very nearly giddy.
“Ah! An offer you may regret!”
BAMF! BAMF! BAMF! BAMF!
“Wh- why’d it take four, um-”
“Teleports? There are limits. I have to have seen a place to teleport there, and can’t ‘port more than two miles,” he explained as he reset his image inducer. Seeing Amanda glaring at him, he flinched. “What?”
“I liked you better before.”
“Vhich before?”
“When you were blue,” she clarified.
Kurt shook his head. “That’s a change. If I go in there as the blue elf, I’ll be mobbed faster than you can say ‘mutie’. I -- I scare people.” Kurt hung his head. Amanda put hers on his shoulder.
“Well, you don’t scare this person,” she grinned -- she seemed to have lost her shyness since he had revealed his fuzzy self to her -- and gestured towards the Ben an’ Jerry’s. “After you!”
*
“I cannot believe how much ice cream you ate!” Amanda twirled down the empty street, heedless of the darkness of the early morning or her formal dress.
Kurt, back to his adorable blue self, was walking on the building wall next to her. He was frankly astonished at how quickly she had gotten used to his rather unorthodox appearance. “Neither can I,” he remarked wryly, leaping from the edge of one building to another. “Although I think I feel a sugar high coming on . . .”
“About time!” she told him, jogging backwards so she could see him while she talked. “I think mine hit about ten minutes ago.”
“You’re certainly not the retiring little thing who asked me to the dance,” Kurt teased, pushing himself off the wall and doing a neat flip before landing next to her.
“Says the guy who turned out to be furry!” she accused him.
Kurt grinned. Ever since he’d met this girl, he couldn’t seem to keep a smile off his face . . . “At least you had prior warning,” he pointed out.
“True, true -- although it should have occurred to you that anyone would would knowingly date a fuzzy blue elf can’t be entirely the shy little doe!” she explained, rather loudly. Kurt wondered for a moment if she was really sugar high, or if she was drunk.
“Date?” he inquired.
“Well, sure!” she replied cheekily, smiling. “I do really like you. And you’re even cuter this way than with that hologram-thingy on.” she told him, shaking her finger at him like a mother scolding a naughty boy.
“Somehow I’m not sure I trust you to drive me -- or yourself -- home while you’re like that,” Kurt said slowly, eyeing her.
Amanda brown eyes sparkled. “Good, because Mom made me promise never to drive while sugar high again.”
“You’ve driven in this state?” the mock-frightened expression on Kurt’s face rivaled that of when she had told him she knew he was blue. “What happened?”
“I kinda got a little arrested.”
“She kinda got a little arrested,” Kurt threw up his hands, and was about to continue when she grabbed his hand.
“Wanna see a movie?” she asked, dragging him towards a theater that was open late because of the dance. Bayville held most of it’s important social functions at the same time, so places like this stayed open late for those who hadn’t had enough fun yet.
“It’d be safer than letting you drive,” he muttered, and then yelped as she started sprinting towards the theater -- still holding his arm in an iron grip. “Whoa!”
“Sorry. I have a little more energy than I really need at the moment,” The silly smile on her face was endearing. Kurt rolled his eyes and followed her.
*
BAMF!
“Whoa,” Amanda gripped her head in her hands, sitting abruptly on the hood of a hideous orange-and-purple car. “You were right. That last ‘port took something out of me.”
Kurt joined her on the enormous hood, tail resting looped around his ankle. “I told you I have limits. I thought for sure that guy was going to catch us. I think a few of our classmates went a little too far tonight -- or this morning. I don’t even know who that was -- probably one of the seniors.”
“Yeah, well, it’s just a good thing you got us out of there. I wouldn’t have liked meeting some drunk alone, and you’d still have been fuzzy, considering that,” she pointed at his image inducer. Even the watch part had stopped working. He still had no idea what he’d spilled on it to make it malfunction like this; he might even need a new one. “So. Think it’s safe for you to go back this late, or shall I just leave you here to make your way home all by yourself and put off the dreaded encounter. I’d do it, if I were you, but I’m the one with the car.”
“Nein,” Kurt shrugged. “If I don’t get into bed soon, I’m going to sleep where I fall.”
“Long as it’s not on top of me.”
“’Manda!” Kurt protested. He wasn’t sure at what point she had ceased being Amanda and had become ‘Manda. “Besides, you’re in fairly similar shape.”
“It might be better if I had a little sugar before driving,” she sighed. Kurt gave her a look that personified terror. ’Manda giggled.
“I think that if we don’t find your car right now I’m never going to make it back to the Institute. Which one?”
“This one,” Amanda answered, jabbing her finger at the car they sat on. Kurt’s almost invisible eyebrows vanished into his hairline. The elf leaped lightly off and stepped back a few paces to get a better look at it.
The Oldsmobile must have been twenty feet long, nearly as wide as a bus, and a strange, shiny shade of orange. “I’m in the process of repainting it, but . . .” Amanda sighed as Kurt walked back to the rather awesome car. The hood was half painted over with what looked like it had begun as purple flames, but had changed its mind halfway through. The interior was faded midnight blue vinyl.
Kurt practically fell into shotgun, waiting to hear Amanda’s reaction to the only bit of his mutant abilities he hadn’t yet demonstrated. “Kurt? Kurt, you’re --”
“Kinda not there? I blend in with dark background and nearly vanish in low light. With this blue seats, my eyes are about all you’ll probably be able to see of me.”
He turned towards her, and she stifled a yelp of surprise. His amber eyes glowed. “So I get to stare at glowing yellow eyes the whole trip?”
“Yup.”
“Great. My boyfriend has cat eyes.”
“That seems to be the least of it,” Kurt pointed out as she pulled out of the parking lot. As Kurt’s watch had stopped at 1:46, he wasn’t sure what time it was, but the horizon was showing the first hints of light. The Professor is going to murder me. When Logan’s done with me, that is. “It really doesn’t bother you that I’m -- not entirely normal?”
“It bothers me that you’ve asked me that four times tonight, that’s what bothers me,” she told him, somehow watching the road and managing to give him a Look at the same time. “I’m not that shallow.”
“I’m sorry. I’ve just had a few too many bad experiences with people seeing -- this,” he gestured toward himself.
“Calm down, fuzz ball. I’m certainly not going to tell anyone, and I don’t think you look demonic. You’re far too cute to be demonic.”
“Cute, am I?” Kurt ‘hmm’-ed . Then his fanged grin flashed in the dark.
“I’ve created a monster!”
When they finally got to the Institute, Kurt could barely summon the willpower to heave himself out of Amanda’s hideous car. He was so tired he thought he might sleep on the pavement outside the mansion gates, wasn’t looking forward to what was coming to him when he got back, and would rather have stayed with Amanda anyway. None of this helped.
“Hmm. You asked me to the dance, paid for the ice cream and most of the movie tickets, and drove me home. My turn, next time,” yellow eyes glowed teasingly from outside the passenger door window.
“Ah! An offer you may regret!” Amanda declared, repeating his statement from the beginning of their evening.
“Let’s see if I can steal Scott’s convertible, shall we?” the devious look on Kurt face broadened.
“Just don’t do anything illegal, besides stealing the car. See you in school on Monday?”
“Sort of,” Kurt tapped his hologram-producing watch that hid his adorable blue self from the world at large.
“Ah. Right. See your hologram on Monday, then!” with that last sentiment, Amanda drove the car away from the gates and toward home, where she herself faced a blistering lecture. Kurt waved as he BAMF-ed into the entrance hall. Sighing, he turned to go up to his room --
And found Scott, Evan and Forge, looking for all the world as if they were waiting for him.
“Um . . .”
“Where have you been, Kurt?” Scott demanded, always the one to get right to business.
“Yeah, man. We had to clean up after those monster-things you set loose! We spent, like three hours on it,” Evan glared at Kurt. As his date, Amanda, also had a rather frantic guardian, he was curious to know precisely what had happened that had kept Kurt from the mansion.
“So I get lectured by you, zen by ze professor, zen by Logan, all before I get to go to sleep?”
*No, Kurt, you’re going to bed right now. I prefer it that students be coherent when I chew them out. We are simply glad you’re back safe. Although I would like to know what happened to your watch, and how you explained things to Miss Sefton, as it stopped at 1:47 and it is now 4:18.*
“Um . . .”
*Yes?*
“She kind of knows I’m furry.”