Paradigm Shift

PARADIGM SHIFT CHAPTER TWELVE (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies and BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE (tm), don't look now but Joris is reading Pern over your shoulder...he's interested in how other dragons live. ;) InterNutter, TC and Maxwell Pink are sparkled for archiving. :) ProPhile is sparkled, too, but in a different way for sending me this plotbunny. * g * Readers/Reviewers: *sigh * Okay, since I know you're out there, I'll stop kvetching. In the meantime, the ducks are trying to learn to ice skate. It's very, very, very disturbing. Especially because there's no naturally occurring ice down here. They just sort of slide around a lot on watery surfaces....

Kurt decided in an instant to make the best of the situation. _ I'm stuck here until the Professor finds Forge and he can retroengineer the malfunction that got me here... May as well ease the path for my counterpart, as it were _... Kitty was faintly pink as she slid a glance his direction, the look becoming irritated as she noticed Amanda standing there. Kurt barely suppressed his growl of annoyance as he leaned away from the clinging girl and closer to Kitty. "Would you like to sit down wai wait while I stand in line? It's very hot out and I'd hate for you to become ill from it..."
Kitty's color deepened somewhat as she mentally cursed herself for finding Kurt attractive and enjoying this sudden change in his personality. "Um, sure...I'll go sit over...there..." She backed away slowly, not quite meeting his eyes, turning suddenly and almost dashing to a low bench outside the fortune teller's set up.
Amanda kicked Kurt's ankle. He yelped sharply and hopped on one foot for a moment as she said in low tones, "What the hell are you doing? I don't need to be here to see you drool all over Kitty! I'm leaving!"
"Hey!" Evan said suddenly from Kurt's left. "What's going on?" He was holding two cups of lemonade which were actually mostly ice as he shifted from one foot to the other, glaring at Kurt before softening his glance at Amanda. "Is he being a dork again?"
"Something like that," she growled. "I'm leaving. I don't need to stand here and watch him flirt with _her _. I've got better things to do than spend my day with...with..." She bit her tongue, wanting to spit the word 'mutant' but not sure how to do it without insulting the others as well. "With him," she finished lamely.
Kitty was somewhat heartened, though not sure why, by the sight of Amanda stomping towards the gate without a backwards glance. Evan and Kurt seemed to be in deep, heated conversation, the line moving around them as they seemed oblivious to those around them. _ Well, at least I got to see Amanda in a snit. That was fun. I'll get a drink later. _ She sighed and stretched her legs out in front of her, studiously _not _ watching Kurt argue with Evan.
"Hey there, Pretty Kitty," a voice above her ear said tersely. "Didn't feel like telling me you were back in town?"
She felt the color drain from her face and her previously good mood vanish in a blink. "Lance," she said flatly.
"Not happy to see me?" he asked, sitting down next to her. Toad hovered nearby, close enough to overhear everything but not close enough to be intrusive. Lance rolled his eyes as his friend snatched a fly from the air, the faint crunch making him cringe. "Kitty, I thought you were going to call me when you got back."
"I, um, forgot."
"You _forgot _?" His fingers curled around her upper arm and squeezed tightly, making her gasp as his fingers dug into her flesh. "You _forgot _ to call me and instead you go to this Podunk fair with the freaks!"
"They aren't freaks!" she said through clenched teeth, her one show of bravery against Lance in their entire history together to that point. "They're my friends!"
"What about blue boy there?" he said, jerking a thumb in Kurt's direction and tightening his grip even further. "It's fucking mutie day and he won't even shut off his holo. He's a freak among freaks, trying to hide even from the ones who look weirder than him!"
Kitty squirmed miserably, each movement making her arm hurt worse. "Lance, let me go. Please!"
"Not until you tell me why you blew me off!"
"Because I just forgot!" she said a little more loudly than her previous words. She saw Kurt snap to look over at her out of the corner of her eye and she was not sure whether to be happy or worried that he was coming towards her. "Lance..."
"Let go of her arm, please," Kurt said with thinly veiled irritation.
Lance did let go then, shoving Kitty slightly as he stood, so close to Kurt then that they were practically touching. "Hey, _freak _... I was just discussin' with Kitty why she blew me off to come here with you."
"I didn't," she began but was silenced by a sudden pinch from Lance. He did not even break eye contact with Kurt as he did it, reaching down to grab the skin on her upper arm and twist it suddenly and release it. "Ow!'
Kurt had enough. He remembered Lance from his own world, despite having forced himself to almost forget how he had treated Kitty before having changed, before he got with Amara and became, in some odd way, a better person for it. "Apologize to her immediately!" He was only dimly aware of Evan close behind him and a small audience building.
"No," Lance said slowly, smiling. "She knows she fucked up."
"She did no such thing!" Kurt snapped. He could not look at Kitty. She was hunched forward, her fingers clasped around her knees as she seemed to try to disappear into herself. _You're not supposed to be like this, _his mind railed against the sight. _You're supposed to stand up to the idiot! _ "She just chose to spend time with her friends, away from you!"
Lance narrowed his eyes and made an face as the wheels in his mind turned. "You think you're her great defender or something? You have no idea what's going on. Back the hell off and leave me and Kitty to talk. We've _lot_lots _ to discuss."
"You've got nothing left to talk about." Kurt grabbed the front of Lance's shirt with both hands and swung him around, away from the bench, before shoving him away, making the taller youth stumble backwards.
"You just fucked up!" Lance snarled. The ground rumbled beneath his feet, cracks radiating outwards and making the entire carnival shake as the tremors built in intensity. "Get away from me before I skin your blue hide and have a new rug."LancLance, stop it!" Kitty said tremulously, hating the sound of her own voice.
"Alvers, back off!" Scott snarled, pushing Evan aside. "You know what'll happen if we all get busted. Powers around norms..."
Lance took a deep breath and the trembling stopped. Breathing harder than normal, he said to Kitty without looking at her, "Take your fucking friend home before I rip his head off right here!"
Evan finally found his voice. "Lance, leave her alone. All we're doing is trying to have a nice day before summer school gets underway."
"Don't fucking tell me to leave her alone! Kitty knows she fucked up and we're gonna talk about that later, aren't we Pretty Kitty?"
Rogue's strident voice cut through the murmurs of the small group gathered in hopes of seeing a fight. "Fuck off, Alvers and take your little freak friend with you!"
Toad snapped, "Hey, I resemble that remark!" He edged closer to Lance and Kitty, glaring at Rogue, who grinned for half a second at his response.
"What're you staring at?" Evan asked him, not liking how Toad's murky eyes were fixed on his semi-girlfriend's face.
Toad blinked, finally looking away from Rogue, shifting his glance to Evan. "That's what I'm trying to figure out," he drawled.
Rogue's grin lingered a little longer this time before she cleared her throat. "Enough of this damn pissing contest. We're leaving. This place is full of _freaks, _" she said, jerking a thumb at Lance. "Oh, shut up," she added, encountering a glare from the purple man Kurt had seen earlier.

The ride back to the Institute was marked by a tenuous silence, no one willing or wanting to break it. Kurt was not sure what had been more upsetting to them, the almost-fight with Lance or the fact that Kitty was sobbing quietly in the back seat, refusing to let anyone near her, even Jubilee who had offered her a purple stuffed dragon won at a shooting gallery as a gesture of comfort. Kurt remained silent, not sure how his other self would have reacted in the situation but fairly certain he would not have taken on Lance in any case. They reached the mansion in nearly record time, Rogue's driving something to be envied by the professional racing circuit, Scott out of the car and storming into the house before the engine was even turned off. Jean sighed. "He's going off half cocked again. Fearless leader my ass..." she unbuckled and went after him, the door flinging open seemingly of it's own accord as she strode onward.
Jubilee looked from the silently seething Evan to the agitated-looking Rogue and said almost timidly, "Well, I'm sure they'll have another Mutant Day again before they pack up and go..."
"Jubilee," Rogue growled, "that isn't the point..."
"This wouldn't have happened if you'd kept your nose out of other peoples' business!" Evan said flatly, shifting in his seat to glare at Rogue.
Kurt felt like something inside him was being torn open as Kitty sobbed louder than before, pressing herself against the door as if she could become part of it. "Kitty," he said, ignoring Jubilee's nearly silent entreaties for him to move so that she could get out, "Kitty, would you like me to take you upstairs?" He held very still as she nodded frantically, sniffling her misery. "I'm going to take your hand, okay?"
"Okay," she said, her voice watery.
_Please let this work and don't let us end up in some place even more screwed up than this! _ Kurt begged silently as he gently meshed their fingers together. He ported with held breath, not daring to open his eyes for several seconds after they appeared in her room. "Katzchen?"
"You can look," she sniffed. "I'm not, like, naked or something..."
"Aren't you going to tell me to go?"
"No," she replied, sounding surprised. "Do you want me to?"
"Katzchen, what was that about earlier? Why do you let him treat you like that?" he asked urgently, making no bones about things as he led her to sit in the chair at her desk.
"I don't _let _ him...he just does."
"Kitty, you're too strong of a person to let that happen!" He fisted his hands at his side, his tail lashing back and forth incongruous with his holographic image.
"No, I'm not," she said quietly. "Why do you think that? Why are you so different today?"
"What do you mean?" he asked carefully, not sure how to proceed.
"You're not...you're not clingy today. You're not a puppy...you stood up to Lance..."
Kurt looked away from her teary gaze. "Kitty, tell me why you're with him and I'll leave you alone if you are truly happy."
"I'm with him because he loves me."
He bit back the urge to laugh. _If that's love, I'm so screwed in this universe. _ "Do you love him?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know." It was a statement, not a question.
"I don't know!" she cried loudly. "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know!" She stood, shoving her chair back and tipping it over in the process. Pacing furiously, she said hotly, "He loves me and that's all I need to know!"
"I love you," Kurt said quietly. He knew that she was not _his _, but by the same token he knew that whoever he was in this place loved Kitty, too. "That isn't enough for you?"
"What are you doing?" she snapped. "You're not acting normal!"
"I'm making you nervous, aren't I?" he said, slowly walking towards her. She had cornered herself in her pacing, pressed herself into the window seat overlooking Storm's gardens. _Good _, he thought to himself perversely. Kitty shook her head in negation of his words but he noticed that she was still pressed against the narrow wall making up one side of the sitting area. "If you can tell me honestly that you love Lance and that how he acted today did not bother you in the slightest, I will leave you alone for now. I won't follow you, I won't do things for you, I won't...I won't show you how I feel."
"And if I can't?" she asked in a near-whisper.
"Then...you're stuck with me being a puppy after you."
Kitty closed her eyes for a moment, seemingly gathering her strength. She parted her lips to speak but then pressed them tightly closed and buried her face against her knees, drawn up to her chest as she cowered. "I have to love him, don't I? I slept with him after all."
Kfeltfelt sick. Very, very sick. The floor tilted under his feet and he sat heavily down on the wooden surface. "You...slept with him?"
"Once...he says...he says I'm just being a...a..."
"Don't say it."
"He says I'm holding out because I want him to stop sleeping with Tabby, too."
Kurt bit his lip, tasting blood. "He's...with her while with you?"
"We just did it the once and why am I telling you this?" she asked, her mood shifting rapidly. "You've been with her, too!"
"When?" he challenged, hoping he didn't sound as shocked as he felt.
"You know when!" She slid off the window seat and towered over him, glaring. "I know because she told me!"
"Oh...well," he said, rising, trying to sound composed, "have we done it since, she and I?"
"Not that I know of," Kitty said carefully. "But you didn't stop moping for weeks."
_Because I was probably afraid I'd lost any slight bit of a chance with you. _ "Kitty, you don't have to stay with Lance because you had sex with him."
"But...but I have to! I mean, I lost my virginity to him!"
"Katzchen, if everyone stayed with the person they lost their virginity to, this world would be full of miserable couples and happy divorce lawyers."
She looked at him shrewdly. "Who are you?"
"Was?"
"You're not you...something is wrong with you..._who are you?" _
Kurt sighed and shut off his holo. "I think...I should let the Professor explain things to you."

A/N Plot in the next chapter, I promise.