We Can Explain...

We Can Explain... Chapter Eleven (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE (tm), Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta... Beware of Billys bearing gifts. I think it's an early April Fools... InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink and Dracena get big huge heaps of squishy muse love for archiving/hosting. :) ProPhile gets musecookies for being a smutmuse. Morgan...you alive? Readers/Revie: Th: The armadillos send their regards. It's rodeo season so they're tetchy. Watch your ankles.

Remy blew out a harsh breath and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, homme, like it my fault de tire blew!"
"It sure as Hell wasn't mine!" Lance snapped.
"Children, settle down." Storm strode into the room ahead of Emma, who was smirking faintly. "The Professor is in a meeting and will be delayed. He has requested we begin without him. I believe you had something to add, Rogue?"
The Southern girl glanced at Todd, sitting down the table from her. ybe ybe you want to?" she suggested, coloring slightly.
Todd shrugged and picked at the tablecloth. "I dunno...I'm kind of interested in how Lance and Remy's trip was..."
"Tais toi1," Remy snapped. "It all your fault anyway!"
Amara frowned. "Not really...It was your fault, as far as I remember."
Storm held up her hands in a restraining motion. "I do not care who's fault it was. I am simply interested in the next part of the story. Rogue, are you going to tell me or not?"
Rogue sighed painfully. "I'd rather not." She colored even more deeply, visible even under a layer of pale makeup. "It's kind of...dumb." Her fingers were twisting around each other in nervous knots, her nails obviously chewed and the polish chipped from her nervous habit of biting. "Can we just skip?"
"Rogue..." Emma leaned forward, bracing her hands on the table, pinning the girl with her cool gaze. "I know. And it isn't dumb. Would you rather say it yourself or have me do it?"
Rogue felt her eyes go wide. The idea of Emma stripping her mind of the memory and revealing it on her tongue, knowing that the former White Queen would not be as politic as Professor Xavier nor would she wait for permission to be granted drove Rogue to speak. "Okay, okay. Fine. But first person who so much as snickers, I'm kickin' your ass!"
Todd bit his tongue on an involuntary snicker and instead said quietly, "It wasn't dumb, yo. We was just scared..."
Storm sighed. Closing her eyes briefly, she opened them to glance at each student in turn. "The Professor wants to hear the truth as you each know it. This is not merely an exercise in vocabulary. We," she paused, not sure whether to refer to them as the teachers, mentors or merely adults, "we," she continued, heedless, "would rather hear it from you than be forced to resort to less conventional means. Yes, letting Miss Frost or the Professor 'read' you would be more expedient but it would not be fair to you, would it?"
Rogue blinked. "But if we said it was okay..."
"Just start talkin', yo," Todd sighed.

"You didn't hear Kurt and Kitty," Rogue insisted for the third time as they trudged down the broken sidewalk away from the abandoned building. One car passed them, the occupants throwing an empty fast food restaurant cup out of the window. "Nice," she sighed.
"I did too!" Todd stopped in his tracks and glared, first at the disappearing car then at Rogue. "I heard 'em clear as day!" The longer he thought about it, the more sure he was, though part of him was whispering that it might be the power of suggestion, like the time Fred was sure there had been half a piece of pizza left in the box Tabby had just thrown out.
"If you heard 'em so loud and clear," Rogue growled, turning to face him while walking backwards, "why didn't you say something then?" She rubbed her finger absently on her thigh, the digit still tingling and throbbing faintly beneath her glove. She wondered if she were having an allergic reaction to something she had touched, something other than the silver button in the building. Maybe, she thought to herself, it's detergent. I washed my gloves in something weird, she reasoned. _If that's so...why don't all my fingers and my hands and arms itch, too? _
Todd blew out a breath of frustration, his eyes automatically tracking a horsefly that danced by in front of his nose. "Marie, I heard 'em. Kitty was saying somethin' about a vending machine..." He cocked his head to one side as if he could still hear them. "And Kurt was all groany, like his gut ached." He could almost hear them again, if he really strained.
"Why the Hell would she be talking about a vending machine?" Rogue snapped. She snarled inarticulately and ripped off her glove, throwing it to the ground as she scrubbed furiously at her now-bright red finger with the nails on her other hand. "And why the fuck won't my finger stop itching? And why the Hell is it so hot out?"
Todd blinked in surprise at her rabid outburst. He took a few tentative steps towards her and held out a hand. "Marie, I'm sorry..." He was not quite sure what he was apologizing for but he found the words just spilling out of his mouth as she glared first at her finger, then at him. He closed his open hand and stuffed it in his pocket, shrugging. "Sorry."
She pressed her lips into a thin line, trying hard not to say something she would regret. The horsefly bobbed between them again, seemingly inspecting Todd's eyes. She almost wished he would snap his tongue out and eat it, just so she could yell for a reason. "It's okay," she finally ground out. "Let's keep moving. Scott won't wait forever." She turned her back on him and began to walk down the broken concrete again.
Todd vented a tiny groan of frustration and, seeing that her back was turned, snapped up the fly with a twinge of glee, like a child getting away with something he had been forbidden to do. He regretted it almost instantly-it tasted funny, more bitter than he remembered, and filled his mouth with a coppery tang akin to fear. He almost spit out whatever was left on his tongue when he noticed something very strange. A blue car rolled by, a familiar paper cup bouncing it's way from the window to the street to the curb near his feet. "Uh, Marie?"
"What?" she shouted, never breaking stride.
"Do you believe in déjà vu?" Huld uld not tear his eyes away from the cup, not even to look up at her snort of derision. The coppery taste in his mouth was fading to a dull bitterness, filling his senses and seemingly seeping into his blood. He felt hot, like he was melting inside in a most unpleasant way.
"What?" Her footsteps crunched to a halt. "Damned fly..."
His eyes flicked up. A large horsefly wove between them again. Down the road, a blue car was advancing. "This is a little too Matrix for me," he whispered beneath her hearing. "Marie, notice anything...not different?"
She sighed raggedly and looked at him, following his gaze. He could tell the moment when she noticed-her eyes went almost perfectly round and her lips parted. "It's a coincidence." The paper cup came skittering across the pavement again. "A really weird one."
"I really think we need to haul ass out of here," he said urgently. _There was a green guy who swallowed a fly...I don't know why I swallowed the fly, perhaps I'll die! _2 He felt shaky, his vision swimming. Rogue looked like she was standing behind thick glass. "Or maybe not..." He barely heard Rogue's shout as his knees buckled.

"I think," Rogue said after a moment of silence, "Todd'd better take it from here."

A/N Todd DOES go next, and there will be some smut in ch. 23 so persevere, dear ones!1 Pr1 Proper spelling of "shut up" in French rather than Creole.
2 The actual rhyme is "There was an old lady who swallowed a fly..." and so on and so on...