Chapter 2- Ceilings
“*She WHAT?!?!*” Screeched four voices at the same time, one mental and the others vocal. Kurt winced. The only good side effect was that Xavier’s mental screech was probably going to keep him awake long enough to tell the about this particular aspect of his -- well, he had to admit it some time -- girlfriend.
“She caught me teleporting one day after school. You know the image inducer I had at the moment got screwed up by teleportation; I had to turn it off a second before I ‘ported, and she saw me.”
“But she didn’t tell anyone, and still asked you to the dance?” Forge’s eyebrows rose. “I think I like her.”
*What happened with the creatures, Kurt? Where did you go?*
“I ‘ported us out of the gym to get away from one of them -- by this time she’d told me she knew -- and when we finally got away from all the ruckus, she asked to see me. Without the hologram on.”
“And . . ?” Evan prompted.
Kurt grinned with what energy he had left, surprising his classmates. “And she likes me furry!”
BAMF!
*
Amanda really did have to concentrate as she drove the Oldsmobile toward what she now considered home. As she thought about the night she’d just spent, a smile hugged her lips. She’d missed him so . . . And he’d never seen her sugar high.
Still, I suppose I wasn’t being quite fair. He did show me his secret, and did I revel the truth? Amanda glanced at her rearview mirrors as she turned a corner, but this block was as deserted as the last. She felt herself wishing for a moment for Kurt’s teleportation, but squelched that wish when she thought about their last jump. I hadn’t considered instantaneous travel might cause a headache!
Still, her smile widened. Pulling the orange monster into the communal driveway, she turned it off and spent a moment listening to the 16-year-old car cool down. Then she heaved herself up, shut the garage door, and climbed the stairs to her apartment. Knocking on the door, she heard someone call from within. “Back, Amanda?”
“Morning, Cassie,” Amanda gurgled. “Why’re you still awake?”
“Because I took the opportunity to dig my boyfriend out of his studio and had him take me downtown,” Cassie grinned at her young charge. Amanda was something like a third or fourth cousin, sent from overseas to live with her for educational purposes. “We saw Les Miserables, and he actually liked it!”
“A guy? Like Les Mis? Astounding,” Amanda yawned, and smiled again. “Well, I’m going to bed.”
“If you haven’t been there already . . .”
“CASSIE!!” Amanda screeched indignantly, knowing her cousin was teasing.
“I’m joking, I’m joking. Go to bed! I’m waking you at 11:00, remember; you have yoga,” Cassie reminded her.
Amanda made a face. “Blech. Fine.” the teenager groaned and stalked off to her room. Cassie shook her head. She wasn’t much older than Amanda, about twenty one or so and putting herself through college. The only reason she had agreed to keep watch over her cousin was that her family was paying for the apartment, Amanda’s schooling, and the computer Cassie would never have been able to afford on her own. Still, she liked having her younger cousin around. Amanda was more like the little sister she’d never known she’d had.
Of course, the letter from her family had surprised her, as she’s only heard vague things about any family who didn’t live in the U.S. Still, she wasn’t going to turn this down.
Cassie shook herself. She’d been out all night herself; a trip to Manhattan with Steve didn’t come often. She flicked off the lights and made her way to the other bedroom.
*
Kurt would have been quite happy to never see another ceiling ever again. After two blistering lectures, he had to admit that his punishment had been rather unique.
The mansion was huge. Rooms for everything, and the entire complex underneath the Institute was just as big, if not bigger due to the hanger, and the blackbird. The students and teachers alike shared the job of cleaning everything, but there was one surface that didn’t get cleaned very often. And it was ideal for Kurt’s punishment.
“Can I leave the hanger ceiling till tomorrow?” an exhausted Nightcrawler asked Xavier. “My arm is going to fall off.”
“Yes, Kurt,” Xavier replied. It was, after all, nearly time for dinner, and the poor elf had been working all day. And all day before that. He did have homework yet to do; the teachers weren’t about to let the dance get in the way of homework!
Kurt BAMF-ed up to his room to change. The grunge clothes Logan’d lent him were covered in dust and worse.
Rogue was grumbling when she sat down between two empty seats. Betsy’d been pestering her all weekend about Forge. That and she was having severe trouble in her German class, and Kurt had been suspended on the ceiling for two days. She hoped he’d at least come down to dinner today.
BAMF.
“Hey, Kurt. Done the hanger yet?” Jean asked, drawing a groan out of him.
“Do I even want to know why you’re asking me?” he inquired.
“’cause I think Bobby and his cronies might have left some wreckage up there that never got cleaned up,” Jean shrugged. “I’m not sure. We work that hanger pretty hard.”
“Great. I have sooo much to look forward to tomorrow,” Kurt rolled his eyes. “I’m hungry. Where’s Kitty?”
“Right here,” came an indignant voice from above. Kitty phased through the ceiling and dropped slowly into her seat next to Rogue. “And Bobby said to start without him.”
The group stared suspiciously at the food. “That’s never a good sign. Jubes? Did the icicle tell ya anything ‘bout him rigging this tonight?” Wolverine asked. Of all the adults, he’d been the only one to get past Jubilee’s talkative wall. Even her partner-in-crime, Bobby Drake, hadn’t managed what Logan had. Not that anyone was willing to admit it, the least willing being Logan and Jubilee.
“No-o-o,” the Chinese-American orphan eyed the food with the same suspicion as the others. “Not that ice cube wouldn’t pull something on me.”
Jean sighed, surrounded herself in a telekinetic armor, and reached for the chicken. When nothing happened, she let it down and everyone else dug in. Bobby walked in to find everyone stuffing themselves and yapping. “Drat,” he muttered. “Didn’t work.”
Then Rogue reached for the single untouched mashed potato bowl, and managed to pull her hand back when she realized what was about to happen. The bowl, on a spring, flew across the room.
The expression on Bobby’s face, when revealed from under the potato, was priceless.
*
Jean was sitting in a couch across from the tv, watching a random show with glazed eyes. “Um, Jean? You’re, like, totally glazed. Jean?”
“Wha- oh, sorry Kitty. I was thinking about Kurt’s little adventure on Friday.”
“And Saturday,” Kitty giggled. “I can’t believe Kurt, like, did that.”
Jean nodded as Kitty phased through the back of the couch and sat down. “I know. Neither can I. That’s just the point. I mean, Kurt may be a trickster who could give Bobby a run for his money, but he’s never done anything like this.”
The younger girl nodded. “You think, like, Amanda had something to do with it, like, right?”
“Yeah,” Jean sighed, and leaned against the back of the couch. “And I mean, we really don’t know what happened. She knows Kurt’s a mutant, and they stayed out for nearly six hours. It’s just -- not like him.”
“But Kurt isn’t, like, even taking his punishment work that hard. I mean, he’s, like, complaining about it, but he like, never argued that he deserved it. Wouldn’t he be, like, fretting, if Amanda’d been bugging him? Kurt’s so, like, a perfectionist.”
The telepath listened but didn’t really seem to hear. Her own thoughts occupied her. “Maybe,” she murmured and Kitty rolled her eyes.
“When you’re, like, not watching ‘The Price is Right’, like, tell the rest of us,” Kitty stood and walked up air as if climbing stairs, and vanished into the second-floor hallway.
Jean was still muttering to herself when she turned the tv off with telekinesis and walked up to her room. “I don’t like it.”