The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER CHAPTER 17 (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, Kristen and Lucas are glued to CNN, as are the rest of us... Just in case you were looking for them. InterNutter, TC and Maxwell Pink, thanks much for archiving (I'm out of superlatives after this weekend). Readers/Reviewers: Thanks to y'all, too. I am a little...off...after sg Cog Columbia as it happened. So, no platypi today or ducks or Killer Kitties(tm).



Kurt felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end and, for him, that was quite an uncomfortable feeling. He shuddered unconsciously, squeezing his eyes shut against the feeling prickling up and down his spine. "Damn..."
"What's wr" Sc" Scott asked under his breath, not daring to raise the ire of the mteacteacher, lurking in the back of the room as they finished their test
"
"My Spidey Senses are tingling..."1 Kurt surreptitiously dropped his pencil and made a show of bending over in his chair to pick it up, checking behind him to see who was staring at him. _Shit. _
"What is it man?" Scott turned his paper face-down on his desk, so the teacher would not accuse him of cheating if they got caught talking.
"Amanda," Kurt muttered, though it came out sound like "Mmmda" from the lack of lip-movement. He did not want her to hear him say her name for fear she would take it as a sign of interest. He had become suddenly paranoid around her since Friday night, Kitty's transformation into a barely-clothed, apparent (if that morning was anything to judge by) hellion. He was sure his girlfriend's personality change was directly related to Amanda, and he did not want to chance making things worse.
Scott nodded once. "Lunch in five...you can make it..."
_I hope so _ , Kurt thought to himself, sliding down in his seat and willing Amanda to look away. He saw Paolo, two rows over and his recent object of irritation, looking over at him curiously, so he bared his teeth.
"Mister Wagner," the strident tones of the math teach cut through the scratch of pencils on paper, "are you quite done making faces?"
"Ja..." he sighed, ignoring the titters of his classmates. Paolo was still looking at him with an expression akin to confusion on his face but he was doing so now sideways, not turning to face Kurt full on. _What the Hell does he want? I swear, if he asks me if Kitty is single... _ He bit his lip to keep from growling aloud, but made a mental note to be sure Paolo saw him holding hands with Kitty later. Kurt checked the clock and saw that there were less than three minutes left in class and he still had not seen Kitty. She had missed every class that morning, as far as he could tell from asking around. Duncan had missed first period, but apparently, as Kurt heard, showed up for second with a growing bruise on his neck, making jokes about Kitty being upset he turned her down. At the time, Kurt had been too worried about Kitty to seek out Duncan and port him directly into the path of a truck, but now that he had time to process the morning, he filed away the notion of bodily harm towards the jock for later reference.
Scott nudged him, startling Kurt out of his reverie of imagined bloodshed for Duncan. "Didn't you hear the bell? C'mon...let's get out of here before you're mobbed..." He nodded in the direction of Paolo and Kurt surged to his feet. At some point, Miss Marks had taken up his test and all he had to do was gather his books before....
"Kurt! Wait up!"
_Amanda! No! _ Scott's amused expression was doing nothing for Kurt's plummg mog mood. "Yes?" he said neutrally, turning and plastering a pleasant expression on his face at the same time.
Amanda fidgeted with the strap on her book bag and looked past him to Scott. "Can we talk? Alone?"
"Whatever you have to say to me, you can say in front of Scott." Kurt straightened his back defiantly, turning to look over his shoulder at Scott, who was edging towards the door.
"Oh, uh, yeah...In front of me...sure..." Scott sighed and stopped halfway to the door, eyeing the circling Paolo with some annoyance.
Amanda scowled momentarily and then seemed to resign herself to the inevitable. "Fine, if I have to say it in front of him, I will. Kurt," she said seriously, laying one hand on his arm only to feel him flinch under her touch. She sighed and took her hand back, starting again. "Kurt, I'm not going to deny that I still have feelings for you but I know you're with Kitty now. I can't say that I like it, but I'm going to have to learn to deal with it." She paused and looked up at him with moist eyes, somewhat stricken by his set features. After a long, shuddering breath, she said, "And I'm not going to apologize for the other night. I know you feel awful for it, but I...I liked it. It felt right to me, like it was supposed to happen. I'm sorry it messed things up with you and Kitty..."
"How do you know what's going on, if anything, between me and Kitty? Things are just fine between us!" he said a little more harshly than he intended.
Amanda jerked at the tone in his voice. "I...I heard Duncan talking. I heard some people saying she hit him this morning because she found out about the kiss and she was trying to get back at you with Duncan..." At Kurt's incredulous expression and Scott's snort of derision, Amanda turned an almost impossible shade of red. "Guess I heard wrong..."
"Guess so," Kurt said with a sigh. "Look, Amanda...I'm not going to deny that I liked the kiss, but I don't love you. I love Kitty more than even I can understand and...and I just can't be around you if you are going to make things hard for me."
Amanda frowned deeply at this. "Kurt, are you saying you don't want to be friends with me?"
"Nein! I'm just saying...I'm saying..." He pushed his bangs back in frustration, turning to Scott for help.
"On your own man," Scott said, holding up his hands in self-defense. Paolo was lingering by the door, irritg Scg Scott by coming a few steps towards him, then darting away as if afraid of being struck. _Do it one more time, exchange boy, and you will be... _
Kurt growled in frustration and closed his eyes against Amanda's mute discomfort. "Okay. I don't know how to say this without sounding mean and vain, but if you can't keep from...from..."
"Mauling?" Scott put in.
"I was going to say paying overt attention to me," Kurt said through clenched teeth, "Amanda, if you can't handle just being friends, tell me now."
Amanda chuckled weakly. "Kurt, I care about you very much. You're my first love. But if the only way we can be around each other as is friends, I can handle that. I want you to be happy, and Kitty is what makes you happy."
Paolo finally spoke. "If that's true, Amanda, why did you just try to insinuate yourself, saying that you thought Kitty was off him?"
Kurt and Scott turned in some surprise to the foreign exchange student, Kurt being quicker to regain his sense of center. "As much as I hate to say it, our foreign friend here has a point,"2 he broke his gaze from Paolo's suddenly red face to look at Amanda again. "Why did you make a point of mentioning how you thought Kitty was "off" me?"
Amanda smiled crookedly and laid her hand on Kurt's arm again. "Can't blame a girl for trying, can you?" Heartened somewhat by the fact that Kurt did not flinch this time, she squeezed his arm lightly and said, "It's going to be a little painful for me, seeing you two together, but I like Kitty. She seems really nice. I'd like to get to know bet better but I don't want her to think I'm trying to get to you or something. Eventually, I'd like for all of us to be friends." She looked up at the clock and gasped. "Oh! I didn't realized we'd missed so much of lunch! I'm sorry!" She backed towards the door and called "I'll talk to you later, okay? Sort out the loose ends?"
Kurt nodded dumbly and turned to Scott as Amanda darted out the door. "That was odd..."
Paolo cleared his throat and murmured, "Excuse me, please..."
"What is it? You've been lurking around since we've been in here..." Scott stepped towards the youth menacingly. "Something wrong?"
"It's just..." he eyed Scott warily and darted around him to talk to Kurt. "I thought maybe you'd like to know...I was in the office earlier talking to the assistant principal about my ent ent visa and..." He became very jumpy then, edging away from both mutants, "Um, Kitty got kicked out of school today..."
Scott had to admit, in retrospect, that he was impressed with Paolo's reflexes. Both he and Kurt lunged towards the exchange student as one, the Italian teenager first freezing, then scrambling away as if, as Kurt put it later, "his legs were independent from his body."3 Scott made contact first, seizing one of Paolo's arms in a vice-like grip, forcing the shorter teenager to rise on his toes in order not to have hhoulhoulder pulled painfully. "What did you say?" Scott bit out, trying his hardest not to shake the boy.
"I...I said I was talking to the assistant principal because I had a problem with getting my student visa renewed and I heard that Kitty had been kicked out of school!" Paolo, to his credit, did not yelp or cry out when Scott tightened his grip, jerking him to stand between Kurt and himself. "Um, can I go eat lunch now?"
Kurt narrowed his gaze at Paolo, moving close enough so that, if he chose to, the other teenager could reach out and feel past the holo, touch that which made Kurt so different. Speaking carefully so as not to lose his temper, Kurt said, "I want to know exactly what you heard. Details, all of them..."
Chancing a glance at Scott and finding himself well penned, Paolo sighed. He told them everything, overhearing Kitty's cries of denial, Duncan soundly blaming her for the fight, another girl seconding Duncan's statements and then Principal Kelly leading the trio past the assistant' principal's open door. He told Kitty in no uncertain terms, related Paolo, that she was not welcome back at the school for a week and then only after he had spoken with her guardians and some form of apology was drafted.
"Bullshit!" Scott exploded. "That's fucking bullshit!" In his outburst, he let go of Paolo who skittered away like a nervous crab, shooting wary glances over his shoulder at the two teenagers still in the room.
Kurt's fury was nearly tangible. "I don't believe this!" He kicked at one of the desks, sending it sliding into it's neighbor, before whirling back to face Scott. "I'm going to kick Duncan Matthew's ass!"
Scott nodded grimly. "Good plan...first, what about Kitty?"
"Kitty will kick his ass when she comes back." Kurt paused mid-stride. "I'm going home. Cover for me...tehem I goI got sick or something."
"No way, man-if you go, we all go. You've missed too much school this year as it is...anymore and they may not let you pass."4
"Fuck!" Kurt kicked another desk, this one giving up immediately and keeling over rather than live to suffer another attack.
Scott's brow furrowed. "Okay, here's what I'm thinking. Kelly said he wanted to talk to you, too...play dumb, like you don't know Kitty is gone. Maybe he'll tell you something we haven't heard. Meantime, call the house from the payphone. They'll tell you if she's there...."
Kurt's stomach grumbled loudly, cutting off his protest before it could rise in his throat. Nodding somewhat glumly, Kurt said, "Can I still Dun Duncan's ass?"
"Sure, buddy...right after Kitty gets through with him, you can have what's left."
1 I think y'all know that one...
2 I was watching "That 70's Show" and one of the characters said that about Fez making a point.
3 Another stolen line...this one from "Friends." Chandler hates Michael Flatley because his legs flail about as if independent from his body...
4 Some school districts have a rule that if you miss more than such amount of days, no matter what your GPA, you can't pass.