Paradigm Shift

PARADIGM SHIFT CHAPTER FIFTEEN (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies and BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE (tm), I think the menageries left for the beach. Damn. ;) InterNutter, TC and Maxwell Pink are lovely bunnies for archiving. :) ProPhile gets big heap muse cookies for the plotbunnies here. ;) Readers/Reviewers: Critters aside... THANK YOU!!!!!!! :)

"You smell bad."
Rogue rolled slowly onto her back and looked up at the source of the insult. Jean and Amara stared down at her, somewhere between disapproving and pitying. "Go to Hell."
"When was the last time you took a bath?" Jean asked.
"I don't bathe. I shower."
"When was the last time you showered then?" she sighed, already prepared for the fight.
Rogue closed her eyes. Her head hurt too much to pay attention for very long. She wished they would go away and let her rot but Amara jabbed her in the ribs through the top sheet. "Rogue, we're talking to you."
"Go away," the Goth muttered.
"I'm going to guess three days, at least," Amara said to Jean.
"Longer," Jean said. She was not actually scanning Rogue but she was getting unwilling mental images that bespoke the depths of her friend's depression and feelings of unworthiness. "Rogue, I know how hard it is to have someone else in your head. I know..."
"You know nothing," Rogue hissed. "Go away!"
Amara cursed under her breath in her mother tongue and yanked the sheet off of Rogue in one quick motion. "Lance is keeping Todd busy for two hours so there's no one to help you. Jean, her arms."
"I can just move her telekinetically," Jean pointed out as she grabbed Rogue. The Southern girl was not protesting, just hanging limply, which worried Jean more than the fact she had not showered and apparently not eaten in several days.
"No," Amara said sharply. Rolling her eyes, she shook her head and mouthed, _Just move her! _ Rogue hung between them like dead weight as they struggled to get her into the tiny half-bath. "One of us is going to have to get in there with her."
"Put her down," Jean said, slightly breathlessly. She and Amara were clad in their uniforms, all the way to the gloves and boots, in order to make sure they did not accidentally come into contact with Rogue's skin and the idea of getting soaking wet in the body-hugging gear made her shudder. "Both of us," she said decisively. "One to hold her up, one to do the soaping."
Rogue said thickly, "Why are you doing this to me? Just let me go back to bed!" She tried to sit up but Amarahed hed her back down easily. "Please..."
"Empath is dead but you're not," the Nova Roman said without so much as a comforting tone. "We're not going to let you fester in your bed out of self pity."
Jean glared. "What she means is that we're concerned. We know you've been working with the Professor since we came back, but we think maybe you've been closing yourself off from the rest of us for too long now."
Rogue crossed her arms over her stomach slowly, as if her joints hurt. "I'm fine."
"Liar," Amara said simplyHow How hot do you like the shower?" She stepped over the prone girl and began fiddling with the knobs. "Ew...you have got to get some different shampoo. That stuff will make your hair all weird."
"Shut up," Rogue said quietly.
Jean shut the door and squatted down next to her friend. "Rogue, you can either cooperate with us and have this go easy, or fight us and make this hard. Not much of a choice but it's the only one you've got. You haven't showered in days, you haven't eaten...Todd is just about to have a nervous breakdown over you and the Professor can't give you anymore help if you don't come out of your room. Rogue, get up."
"Water's hot," Amara said, shaking droplets from her hand. "Okay, let's get her up." Struggling a little, they got Rogue to her feet, the Goth still not being helpful. Jean got into the shower first, taking Rogue's weight against her as Amara got in after them, the three crowding the small cubicle. "We should take off her night shirt I guess."
"Where's Kitty when you need her?" Jean grunt, trying to pull the wet garment over Rogue's limp arms. "I thought she was going to help us!"
"She won't come out of Kurt's room. She's sitting there with a box, saying how she needs to talk to him. Watch it!" Amara ducked an errant arm as Jean finally gave in and used her powers to lift Rogue's arms over her head and make her stand straight as she pulled the night shirt off.
"I feel like a puppet," Rogue muttered.
"If you'd cooperate, we wouldn't be doing this," Amara said diplomatically. "Soap."
Jean could not help the slight grin that crept across her lips at the sight of Amara not only being concerned and helpful but stooping to wash someone else, someone who would have been so beneath her notice just a few months ago that she would not have even said hello to them in the hallway. "You know," the red head said after a few moments of careful balancing and shifting of Rogue's limp form, "almost every guy in this house would give his eye teeth to be in here right now."
Amara snorted and rocked back on her heels. "Wait till I get above her knees...then we can call them in here and give 'em a thrill."
Jean was about to respond but Rogue surprised her. The sullen girl's fingers tightened where they rested on Jean's shoulders and she made a strangled noise that the fully clad girls took for sobbing. "What is it?"
Rogue said somewhat weakly, "We should take pictures...maybe we could use 'em for bribes next time we want 'em to do something for us."
_She's laughing! _ Jean thought with some wonder, glancing down at Amara who was fighting a smile of her own. "Well, we don't have a camera but I'll make sure to keep the mental picture for later, in case I need a favor from one of the guys."
Rogue snorted. "I'm so tired," she finally said.
"I know," Jean soothed, taking the girl's weight against her nearly entirely. She could feel Rogue's ribs under her gloved palm and sighed inwardly. _*Amara, when we're done here, let's take her down to the kitchen. _ *
Amara looked up at Jean partially to avoid looking at Rogue's backside and partially to acknowledge she had heard her. _*Do you honestly think that's a good idea? _ *
_*You're the one who wanted to commando raid her room and get her cleaned up. _ *
_*I know... _ * Amara sighed audibly then and Rogue mimicked the sound unknowingly. "I think you can get the middle bit." She took Rogue's hand and forced the washcloth into it. "Scrub!"
"I'm wobbly," Rogue said almost childishly, keeping one hand on Jean's shoulder as she began to half-heartedly pass the soapy washcloth over her stomach. "And I'm naked."
"Nice tattoo," Amara noted with little sarcasm.
"Did it myself," Rogue sighed. Amara pushed her gently towards Jean when she swayed back drunkenly and the Goth sighed. "Am I going to be okay?"
"When the Professor gets back," Jean said, "we'll go with you to talk to him." Amara looked briefly mutinous but nodded in agreement.
"You didn't answer my question," Rogue said, her voice gaining strength.
"No...I didn't, did I?"

Kitty was restless by the time Kurt finally made his appearance. He slunk into the room as if he did not belong there, head ducked and posture screaming for solitude. "Kurt," she said softly, hoping not to startle him.
"Kitty," he said, sounding flat and dull. "What do you want?"
She sighed and set the box to one side, standing and folding her hands in front of her primly. "I want for you to come all the way into your own room, for one. And I have some things to show you."
He sighed painfully and edged further into the room. "If that's the same stuff you showed me earlier, I don't want to see it."
Kitty unfolded her hands and spread them in supplication. "It's some other things that I think will help you understand how to fit in here, things that'll help you understand...well, us."
"There is no us here, Kitty. There's you and another me, but I'm not yours."
She groaned silently. _I regret ever saying that aloud... _ "Kurt, you're still you. I am in love with Kurt Wagner and last I checked, that's your name."
"Look in the phone book. I'm sure there's more."
She pressed her fingers to the forehead and sighed. "This isn't going well...okay, sit down."
Kurt looked at her warily but moved past her to sit on the edge of the bed. "You always just come into my room like this?"
"Pretty much." She closed her eyes briefly when he flinched as she reached for the box next to him. "You were doing so well earlier...what happened?"
_People are committing crimes because of me. They might be caught and found as mutants out without permission because of me... I'm too much trouble around here. _ "Nothing."
_I don't believe you _, she thought, but did not press the issue. "Here..." she pressed the container into his unwilling hands. "I'm not going to walk you through this because I don't want to get upset, but this is everything." She turned to go but he stopped her with a slight sniffle. "Are you crying?"
"Nein." He shuffled through some of the papers in the box as Kitty stood, halfway to the door, watching him. "What's this?" he asked, pulling up a thick sheaf of papers.
"Ah..." she moved a few more steps towards him and stopped, just out of arm's reach but close enough to see what he was looking at. "That's all the paperwork dissolving my legal relationship with my parents and making me Logan's ward. "
"Was?" Kurt seemed more confused than sad then and Kitty was marginally grateful.
She finally sat next to him and began the rather drawn out process of explaining the minutiae of the past year, skipping over the details that she felt were far too personal, even if this was, technically, Kurt. The sounds of the mansion outside the bedroom slowly evolved from the usual comings and goings of a summer evening to the sounds of people going to bed, some together and some alone. Kitty wound down, realizing that Kurt had not spoken since she had begun talking and she was thirsty, as well. "Sorry," she said sheepishly, looking down at the floor to avoid Kurt's wide-eyed stare. "There's a lot to tell."
"I noticed," he said faint The The box on his lap felt heavy all of a sudden and he placed it gently on the floor. "Katzchen, I don't know what to think right now. So much is going on...Forge may be onto something," he added as an afterthought. He chose not to tell her about Remy being asked to steal for him, so ashamed was he.
"Ry?" y?" she said joyfully, throwing herself into his arms perforce, hugging him so hard he lost his breath. "That's great!"
_ Not really...not so long as you're hugging me...I'd rather stay here and be lost than go home and be ignored._ "Kitty...did we...do we really sleep together here? I mean...sleep together, not...not the more intimate sort..."
She drew back and looked at him calmly. She had felt his heart pound against her chest, felt the slight hitch in his breath when she wrapped her arms around him. She had missed that a lot. "Yes, almost every night. Sometimes, we couldn't for whatever reason, but one of us would always find our way to the other's bed before morning, even if it was just for a little while."
Kurt felt her hands burning on his arms, their slight weight making him feel painfully aware of the fact she was close enough for him to smell her skin and shampoo and see the rise and fall of her breath beneath her thin top. "Is it...is it too forward of me to ask you to stay here for a little while? Until..."
"Until you get to sleep?" she asked quietly. "I haven't slept well since the incident."
"Me, either...but for a different reason I think."
"I'll stay." She said it firmly but felt almost guilty, like she was cheating on Kurt with himself. "Do you need me to leave so you can change?"
Kurt blushed darkly under his fur. He had felt strange about sleeping in someone else's clothes-wearing them daily was bad enough-so he had been sleeping naked. "Nein, I'll just...wear this..."
"You can't sleep in your uniform!" she said, horrified. "I'll go put on my sensible flannel high necked granny jammies and you put on something less...uniformy... I'll be back in five minutes!"
Kurt found he could barely swallow as Kitty darted from the room. _Kitty's going to stay with me tonight. Okay, not all night. And not in all the sinful ways I want her to, but still...Kitty, so close to me...I could easily die appyappy now! _ Kurt had barely changed into a pair of pajama bottoms his other self kept for social purposes, seeing as how most nights he slept in little else besides the sheets and Kitty's grasp, when the girl herself phased back through the door. "I'll sleep above the sheets," he said kindly.
"Don't be a goose." She did not want to let on how she was feeling. On one hand, she was guilty and felt like bursting into tears all of a sudden, but on the other, she was excited at the prospect of sleeping with Kurt or a reasonable facsimile thereof, seeking to recapture the feeling if only for a night. _He's been gone a few nights and I'm losing sleep. This is ridiculous! _ Even as she chastised herself, though, she crawled into the bed and motioned for Kurt to get in, too. "I'll sleep above the sheets. I'm wearing enough flannel to warm the entire eastern seaboard. I'll be fine."
Reluctantly, Kurt slid under the thin cotton sheet and lay flat on his back, his arms crossed over his stomach and tail wrapped around his thigh. "Good night, then," he said.
"Good night," she replied, shutting off the lamp beside the bed. Kitty sat there for a minute in the dark, looking at Kurt's eyes glowing as he stared at the ceiling. "Kurt, can I...I mean...don't jump or anything..." She did what she was secretly longing to do and laid down, her head on his chest. "I sleep best this way," she said softly. "I guess it's your heartbeat or something."
"Oh," he squeaked. After several minutes of agony where he commanded his body not to respond to her nearness, her touch, her breath on his chest, Kurt laid one hand on her back. She stiffened momentarily but soon relaxed into his grasp. "Good night again," he whispered.
"Love you," she murmured, already half asleep.
"Me, too," he sighed. He did not know how long he laid there, wishing there was some way to have this when he went back home, but Kurt soon found himself embroiled in a wonderful dream of Kitty pressed against him, murmuring his name over and over, her soft curves pushing against his stiff length, her tiny moans growing louder as he touched her breasts, first tentatively then with growing confidence as her sounds grew louder, her back arching against his chest as he pulled her closer by virtue of his tail around her waist. The very tip of he tail skimmed along her bare thigh, the feeling so intoxicating anvitiviting that he could not help but grind his ever-throbbing arousal against the swell of her buttocks to relieve some of the torture. When he brushed against the damp curls at the entrance to her womanhood, something in Kurt's mind screamed for him to stop. Kitty was still murmuring and moaning softly, pressing against him, grinding in response to his actions, but Kurt realized with a sick jolt that he was wide awake. During the few hours they had been asleep, they had shifted so they lay on their sides, her back against his chest, and her nightgown hiked up somewhere around her hips. _Nein nein nein nein! Not good! Not good at all! What is going on? I havego! go! I have to get out of here! _ Slowly, he brought his tail back to his side of the bed and began edging away from her. His arousal was still painfully obvious and begging for release, but he would not even consider taking care of things himself. _Offer the discomfort for the souls in purgatory! _
"No," she said, sounding put out, though not awake. She rolled onto her other side, facing him, and slid her arms around his neck. She fell deeply asleep again within seconds and Kurt sighed. Tomorrow, he decided, he would make sure he was not causing any more trouble.