We Can Explain...
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We Can Explain…Chapter Eighteen (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply
A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST
WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta…*sends luck energy
* InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink and
Dracena get big heap muse cookies for archiving/hosting.
in the mean time… Killer Kitties ™ go
marching three by three, hurrah!
Hurrah! ;)
It was well
near two in the morning when the last of the recently returned travelers
gathered in Kitty’s room. She hecourcourt from her bed, her legs crossed and nightshirt pulled over her knees,
Lockheed held in her lap like a scepter.
“Shhhh!” she hissed at Jubilee, who cracked her gum especially
loudly. “Logan might hear…”
and shuddered unwillingly. “I don’t
wanna get yelled at. Again.”
Kurt patted
her knee soothingly, crouched as he was on the foot of her bed, his toes curled
around the wood railing. “We’ll be
fast, ja? He threw a rude gesture in Todd’s direction
as the amphibian-like teenager snickered.
“This is just to make it easier.”
He moved to sit next to her and nodded at Jean.
for Emma…”
Jean nodded
briskly in return. “I’m not going to
read all of you. Just…one.
Scott’s glare of concern. “It’s like,”
she paused, trying to come up with a decent analogy. “It’s like making notes in class and then letting someone else
borrow them.”
Amara’s
brow arched royally. “So…you’re taking
notes on what happened then letting Emma…borrow your thought/p>
/p>
“More
like,” Jean began to expound, her voice taking on cidecidedly educational
cadence, “a fax or email. I’m
transmitting the information to her.”
Lance
swallowed audibly. “Um, do you have to
show her…everything?”
of their week, while fun at the time and quite…interesting… were not something
he wanted to know Emma knew about him.
“And do WE have to show you everything?
I mean…” His fingers stole out
to capture Amara’s warmer ones and he forced himself to continue despite the
rising blush and the awareness that everyone was now looking at him.
Jean sighed
as Scott gave Lance a knowing smirk.
“If I see it in your thoughts, I will do my damnedest to keep f
rem
remembering the visual, okay?”
Remy
snorted. “Now dat you say dat, you
gonna have it burn in yo’ mind fo’ever…”
He smiled lazily and leaned back against Kitty’s desk.
Jean made a
face and tightened her ubiquitous ponytail in an expression of nervous
energy. “Now everyone relax.
me and…”
“Stop
talking and start scanning,” Rogue sighed.
“Get thisr wir with. I need my
beauty sleep.” She closed her un made
up eyes and hunched over, arching her back to Todd’s touch as he rubbed her
spine.
Jean
shifted her weight as she sat and tried to combat the sudden nervous dryness in
her throat. _I’ve done far more
dangerous taxitaxing things in my life.
Why is this making me so upset?
_ The thought quickly followed that it was because this time, the crux
of their mystery might rest in the minds of one of her friends, their well
being might be secreted away inside an idle thought or random brain
flutter. She did not like feeling
responsible while, at the same time, feeling like she was making a huge deal
out of nothing. “Clear your minds and
just…don’t fight me.” She heard the
sighs and mutters and used her telekinesis to shut the overhead light off.
Jubilee snickered and swatted at Remy’s hand, which Jean rewarded with a mental
pinch to each of them. It took almost a
full two minutes to find the strong impulse she sought but when she did, she
let it pull her in and did not fight it.
“Can’t you
fucking READ ENGLISH?” Jubilee shouted at Amara in the middle of the bus
terminal. “B-A-Y-V-I-L-L-E!
NEW YORK!”
“Jubilee,
lay off,” Lance warned, pushing Amara back gently. He could feel the rage shimmering in her body, making her tense
and her eyes snap. Heat radiated off
her like a thick blanket, a humid heat beyond what a normal person would possess.
“We’re in
Bay-fucking-onne New fucking Jersey!” Jubilee snarled, her voice going up a
step on the last word. She narrowed his
eyes and glared at them both. “How the
Hell is buying a bus ticket HARD?”
Lance was
just about at the end of his tether with Jubilee’s temper.
and read it yourself, dumbass! But
noooooooo! You had to ‘hold on to
them,’ ‘make sure they’re safe…’. You
just did what she did and saw “Bay” and ignored the rest!”
logical and rational thought but he had a feeling it would not last long.
Amara very gingerly laid her
fingers atop his hand and pushed it down and away from where it rested on her
shoulder. She smiled sweetly up at him,
then turned to Jubilee and her face became hard “Errare humana est.”
stalked past, heading towards the ladies’ room on he other side of the bus
terminal.
“What did she say to me?” Jubilee
demanded, staring after the departing Nova Roman with a look of incredulity on
her face. “What the fuck did she just
say?”
Lance wisely decided to play dumb
again. “Dunno.
a bus station anyway. Last I heard,
Shore stitle="">[2] didn’t have
one.”
Jubilee’s jaw snapped shut audibly
and she refrained from further comment as Remy ambled up, his face creased with
a frown. “Got hold o’ Jean.
truck stop ‘cross the way.” His eyes
drank in Jubilee’s features and his frowned deepened. “Chere, pissy don’ look good on you. Leave Amara alone, d’accord?
We deal wid it later.”
“Why the truck stop?” Lance asked
over Jubilee’s imminent protest. “We’re
fine here. They got food, the can,
somewhere to sit…”
Remy glanced towards the clock over
the ticket counter. “Mal ide, homme.”
looked studiously casual. “Dat stop
o’er dere, it got some showers an’ such…”
“Dude, we’ve been gone less than
six hours. How dirty did you get?”
derision. “I ain’t going anywhere.”
Jubilee’s eyes had automatically
followed Remy’s initial glance and she tensed.
Someone was watching them with a more than passing interest.
then pretend to read an outdated Times.
As Lance and Remy argued, Jubilee watched their watcher.
weather, in a black sweater and heavy boots, his jeans a little too neat and
pressed for her liking. She could not
place his face but she had the strong feeling she had seen him before
somewhere. He was nondescript, washed
out looking and a little too thin to be healthy. Years of intuition screamed at her to get out, to move and take
her friends with her, but it sounded like Lance was really digging his heels in
about going across the interstate. “Hey,
um, I’m gonna go get Amara, okay? You
two go on ahead…” She nodded at Remy
and hoped he could read her face. He nodded
slowly in return. He understood.
the ladies room, trying to look casual.
She passed the stranger without a sideways glance, seemingly fixated on
the soda machine near the restroom, fishing change from her pocket.
she muttered for the benefit ossinssing passengers. The ladies room door swung open and she looked up sharply, only
to sigh in disappointment. Unless Amara
had grown six inches, become blonde and pregnant, it was not her.
“Excuse me, miss?” a sibilant voice
murmured near her ear.
Jubilee paused and turned
slowly. “Yes?”
milky complexion unsettling.
“You’ve got something there, on
your neck.” His finger touched her
throat and she gasped, a burning sensation shooting through her entire
body. “Just thought you’d like to know…”
turned sharply and was gone before she could even form a word of pain.
“P’tite, what he say to you?” Remy
demanded, at her side before she knew it.
“What is it?”
“Nothing,” she breathed, her
fingers flying to touch the hot spot on her neck. “God, what is that? Is
that a lump?”
Remy tilted her chin up and
peered. “Like a skeeter bite…you get
bit?”
She pressed her lips together in a
tight line and shook her head. “We’ve
got to get out of here now. I don’t
care if you have to carry Lance. You
two start and we’ll meet you over there.”
She ignored Remy’s protest and went into the ladies room after
Amara.
name="_ftn1" title="">[1] First, “To
err is human,” second, literally to eat dirt but colloquially “drop dead.”