Hiding

Same disclaimers, blah blah, I own nothing except some exorbitant credit card bills. Anyone want to help out? Didn’t think so…
There will eventually be more sex. Need to do more research. Yeah. That's it.


Roisin and Kurt both looked at Logan and back at the bloodied priest’s collar he held in his hands. The look on his face was so clear that Roisin didn’t need to be empathic to know something really, really bad was happening.

“Was it them, Logan? The same ones?” Kurt asked quietly. Logan didn’t answer right away and he looked over at Roisin.

“Can we go sit somewhere? Is there another way out of this place besides the shop door?” he asked, his voice low.

She nodded. “Yeah. We can sit…there’s an exit off the kitchen, but it goes into this really slimy alley and-“

“Doesn’t matter. Just need to know that’s there’s another way out. Just in case.” He said, gruffly, in a voice that brooked no argument. Roisin nodded uncomfortably and reached for Kurt’s arm, leading him and Logan into the living room. Logan looked down at the tea tray and the mess of pillows on the floor and sniffed the air slightly. Roisin turned bright red as he looked over at Kurt, raising his eyebrow and chuckling quietly. She fumbled around the room, knocking over a few more gargoyle knick-knacks and other little impulse buy displays she’d carefully put on the counter earlier as she looked for her cigarettes, finally finding them and lighting one jerkily.

“Logan, what happened out there? Were there really more mutants killed? Was it the Church of Humanity?” Kurt asked as they all sat down. Roisin was fidgeting like mad, the feelings coming off of Logan were making her really nervous- he seemed to be on alert as if waiting for some kind of attack.

“I’m not a fucking X-Man! I’m a shopkeeper. I don’t know how to fight, I don’t have any kick ass battle skills, other than what would likely be some impressive incontinence followed by hysterical paralysis…How am I supposed to defend myself? Ask them nicely to let me tie them to something and then whip them to death? Fuck, I haven’t even run since gym class like, thirteen years ago…and even then it took me like 20 minutes to run one damn mile..what isn’t he telling us? This totally fucking figures…he’s gone for a decade then shows up, brings me this amazing guy who I could totally lose myself for and then this happens. Whatever this is. This bad thing…” She thought to herself, trying to keep her outward appearance calm but knowing that both Kurt and Logan could surely feel her shaking as they sat next to her.

“Yeah, Elf. Three of them. The oldest was maybe sixteen. No clue what their powers might have been. Two of them looked human. The one that didn’t…” he trailed off and Roisin instinctively knew what he was going to say. “well, he was the oldest looking one…he had pointed ears…a tail…hell, Kurt, he could’ve been your younger brother for the way he looked like you. From what we could tell that is, after what they did to him. “

Kurt just nodded. There was really nothing to say, after all.

“This collar? It was on him. They haven’t forgotten you, Kurt. We all thought we’d finished it back in Montana. But that’s the thing about those extremist sects. They tend not to die easily. Even though their pope is dead, there are still factions out there trying to repeat what she had done. They don’t have the same scent, so I know it’s not technically the same people, but the signs were the same. “Evolution is NOT the will of God”…that was the placard hanging on the blue kid. They’re not messing around this time, though. The mutants at the mansion- we were able to get to most of them in time. But…they killed these kids, Kurt. Tortured them. Then they put them up on the crosses. This small town, Wichita Falls- not a very mutant friendly place. They weren’t too happy to see us flying into town. We took the kids bodies’ back with us. Gonna bury them at the mansion, get in touch with the families, let them know where they are in case they’re not too afraid to come forward.” Logan grew quiet. This was possibly the longest he’d ever spoken as far as Roisin was aware.

“What are you leaving out, Logan?” Roisin asked in a small voice. The feelings coming off of Logan and Kurt combined were making her feel nauseous and tired and wanting very much to crawl up into a tiny little ball and dissolve through the floor. For a moment she tried to remember which one of the X-Men could do that…dissolve through a floor…

“They left a letter there, Kurt. For you. Just a little note scribbled in one of the kids’ blood, nice and neat. “I will take vengeance on my adversaries and I will repay those who hate me”. They know you were supposed to be their way to destroy the church. They know that you “failed” them. There’s been murmurings of other hate crimes. Assault, threats, beatings, firebombs, Molotov cocktails, that kind of thing. All wrapped up with a cute little symbol of their own, left as a marker. Victims have varied. Prostitutes, mutants of course, gays and lesbians, unmarried couples, sex workers of all kinds…” He trailed off again, looking towards the shop. Suddenly it became very clear to Roisin what was going on. The “reason” that Kurt had “failed” the Church of Humanity had been his inability to curb his lustful desires. Punishing those who were seen as the purveyors of such sin wasn’t too much of a stretch.

“Are you saying you think they’ll attack here? Roisin’s shop? Roisin? Why haven’t we heard anything about any of this? How long has it been going on?” Kurt asked, now pacing across the room, his tail whipping around.

“Past 48 hours or so. Media coverage squashed. Maybe someone figures it’s not the kind of thing anyone’d get riled up about. ‘Cept us of course. They’re taunting us, Kurt, all of us. At the mansion…we’ve been getting phone calls- on the unlisted numbers. They obviously have some pretty powerful mutants under their control and they’re using them. They had that illusion casting mutant in Montana? His holograms had scent, Kurt. It got so even I couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t.” Logan stopped- biting his lip and not looking at his friend. Obviously Kurt was familiar with the illusion casting mutant. After all, that was how he’d been convinced that his several years of training for the priesthood were finally realized in an ordination ceremony. Nice going Logan, I’m sure Kurt loves being reminded of how they fucked with his mind for a few years and none of us even noticed.

“We don’t know how much they know yet. They may very well know we’re here right now. They may know where you are, hell they may know you and her were rolling around on the floor before.” Logan looked up to where Kurt was standing- eyes closed, sighing heavily.

“We can’t stay here.” Kurt said quietly. Roisin jumped up from the couch, tail swishing, eyes wide, hands shaking.

“Need cigarette” she whispered and went to grab another pack from the shop out front, inadvertently putting Kurt and Logan on high alert for the five seconds she was out there and then instead of returning to the living room continued down the hall to the kitchen.

“Ten bucks says she’s getting wine.” Kurt said to Logan, trying to smile. Logan laughed quietly and shook his head.

“That’s a little too obvious of a bet, Elf.”

Roisin’s voice came out from the kitchen amongst the now expected sounds of things getting knocked over.
“Getting more wine! Wine good, bad religious freaks not good…” She trailed off and they heard her rifling around in the kitchen.

“Look, Kurt, you’re right. You can’t stay here. It’s too dangerous. I don’t know how Roisin is going to take just packing up and leaving her shop- it’s her whole life. But she might not have much of a life left if they come here. They know the mansion is nearby- it’s not too much of a stretch for them to attack here. I don’t know where you can go- I don’t know where she can go.” Logan put his hand on the blue man’s shoulder.

“Kurt, this is different than some of the other things we’ve faced. These religious extremists- they’re not afraid to die for what they believe in. And that makes them really dangerous. I’m sorry to have dragged Roisin into this. She doesn’t have any experience with this kind of thing. Typical of me, huh? It’s the frails that always end up suffering because of me. “ He looked down at the floor for a moment, and Kurt knew he was thinking of Mariko again.

“Will Xavier be able to find a place for us to hide?” Kurt asked Logan quietly, hearing Roisin approaching. “Logan, I want to stay with her. She needs me to protect her.” This wasn't chauvinism from Kurt, it wasn't because he thought Roisin was helpless, it was because he needed her to be ok.

Logan raised his eyebrow at him as Roisin walked back into the room, carrying only the bottle of wine and her cigarette. She wasn’t bothering with glasses, it seemed. She looked up at Kurt and Logan saw the look on his friend’s face when she gazed up at him. Apparently, unlike Amanda, Roisin had no trouble looking right into Kurt’s eyes. His gut told him that this wasn’t just about the fact that Roisin apparently was helping Kurt get all the priestliness out of his system by reintroducing him to the pleasures of the flesh. There was more to this. It’d been what, a little over 24 hours? And he could almost smell the emotion radiating from Kurt- lust, sure, that one’s easy to pick up but there were more subtle scents, too. Increased adrenaline- probably protectiveness going there, plus that other scent that he’d never gotten around to asking the science types exactly what neurotransmitter or whatever the hell kind of chemical message was, but that he knew meant only the one thing. It was the same scent he’d always gotten off Scott when Jeanie was around. Hell he’d probably given it off when Mariko was near. Great. Now all Logan had to do was make sure he didn’t get Kurt or Roisin killed. Oh, and convince a very stubborn girl that she had to grab her shit and get the hell out of the shop she’d worked years and years to build up and leave her home and go god knows where because a bunch of psycho religious freaks were trying to kill her for supporting that same lust that had completely ruined their fallen Pope’s big plans for the destruction of the Catholic church. Hell not just supporting it but actually encouraging it in what was, according the the fading scents of the room, a very direct way.

He reached for the bottle of wine and took a huge swallow. Kurt and Roisin looked expectantly at him. He wished he had a cigar right now and a house on a beach somewhere where no one could find him.

“No problem, Kurt. I'm sure Xavier can find a place. Everything will be fine...” He said, not really believing the words as they came out and knowing that Roisin literally could see right though that.

tbc