Paradigm Shift

PARADIGM SHIFT CHAPTER TWO (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies and BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE (tm), the menagerie has staged a protest and hidden my needlework. *sigh * InterNutter, TC and Maxwell Pink get huge sugar cookies of thanks for archiving. :) ProPhile gets herds of penguins to do his bidding because he's the one who sent the plotbunny to bite my ankles. Readers/Reviewers: * blush * Aww....thanks! :)


Kitty stared off into space for a considerable amount of time before sighing. "You know," she said abruptly to Jubilee, who was trying her best not to spill nail polish on the rec room floor, "I think there's a lot of thing out there I'll never understand."
"Like David Hasselhoff's successful overseas music career?" the Asian girl asked, stretching to reach her toes with the brush full of polish.
"That and the entire dimension thing."
"Dimension....you mean that plus-size store in the mall?"
Kitty sighed again. "No, you know...space-time continuum, multiple dimensions of existence..."
Jubilee looked up at her friend and raised a brow. "Deep much?"
"I've been reading these books Kurt gave me for my birthday and..."
"Ah, yes," Jubilee said seriously, "I was part of the great Kitty Gift Search of 2003. I told him to get you jewelry."
"I like the books better."
"Nerd."
"Proud of it." Kitty slid off the couch to sit on the floor next to Jubilee and picked up one of the bottles of nail polish that had not been chosen in favor of the current blazing yellow, glittery shade gracing the smaller girl's toenails. "I mean, I thought I understood a lot of stuff about space and physics and all that, but now I'm just..." she sighed and rolled the bottle of polish between her hands, thinking for a long moment as Jubilee stared at her, waiting. "I just think that a whole lot of things are possible that maybe I didn't believe in before."
"Like people who can burst into flames and not burn or girls who can turn into dogs?" Jubilee asked dryly, returning to her nail painting.
"No, goofus. Not like that. Mutants are different. Everyone, even people who can't do things like we can, carry mutations on their genes.1 It's just logical that people like us would develop eventually."
"Remind me again how shooting sparklies from my hands is evolutionarily advantageous."
"That's another subject entirely." Kitty shucked off her sandal and uncapped the nail polish as she continued talking. "I mean things like time travel and folds in the space-time continuum... I wonder where Kurt goes when he ports?"
"Usually your room."
"I mean, when he's between places. He has to go _somewhere... _"
"Ask him."
"I don't think he knows..." Kitty sighed and set to painting her toe nails a very bright pink. "I mean, does he even notice that he's porting? Like when I phase, I feel a little weird, especially if I haven't done it for a while."
"When I do the sparkle thing, I don't feel weird... well, at first I did. I've got little scars from the first few times," she said conversationally. Giggling suddenly, she said in a half-whisper, "Did I ever tell you what Remy likes to do with his tongue and those scars on my fingers?"
"Yes!" Kitty all but shouted. "I had to take scalding showers for a week to feel clean again!"
"Prude," Jubilee teased.
"Hey, I'm not subjecting you to my sex life!"
"I think," Jubilee said, closing the bottle of yellow polish and taking the pink one from Kitty, "we've all seen your sex life often enough to have a good idea of what you two get up to, Miss Plain Vanilla Sex." She picked up Kitty's foot with only two painted nails and started in on the third.
Kitty laid back on the floor and sighed. "Just because we don't do freaky things doesn't mean it isn't great."
"And what's your basis for comparison?"
"I don't need one, thank you!" Kitty jumped as Jubilee accidentally got polish on her skin. "Cold!"
"Sorry, babe...So, you're all into the science geek thing now?"
"I've always been a science geek, as you put it. I just don't go around with a pocket protector and taped up glasses, rattling off chemical formulas or anything."
"Hmmm...you know, honestly, I never wouldn't guessed you had a brain in that cute little skull of yours, the way you go on an and and on about clothes and boys and food and Kurt and clothes and Kurt and music and Kurt..."
"I'm not like that!"
"Not anymore," Jubilee said, taking up Kitty's other foot and pulling the sandal off none too gently. "But at first...man, you were such a ditz!"
"Thanks, miss California Stereotype."
"Shaddup, youse." Jubilee smirked at her friend and the two giggled, Kitty laying back on the floor staring at the ceiling and Jubilee holding her feet in her lap.
"Like, totally," Kitty chirped.
"Like, oh my God!" Jubilee crowed.
"What_ever!" _
"Gag me!"
"Oh dear god," Scott groaned from the doorway. "They've reverted!"
"Hey, baby!" Kitty giggled from the floor, turning her head to see Kurt standing next to their friend in the doorway leading to the kitchen. "We're pedicuring!"
"Ah...sounds...fun..." Kurt said cautiously.
Scott sighed. "Don't scare me like that! I thought we were going to have to deprogram the two of you!"
"Stow it, Cyclops," Jubilee growled, mock-offended "We're just in touch with our inner Valley Girl."
Kitty giggled again. "Kurt doesn't have an inner Valley Girl. I don't know what the German equivalent is..."
"We don't have one. It's against the law there," he said with as serious an expression as he could muster.
Jubilee snorted and pushed Kitty's feet off her lap, carefully onto the floor. "Okay, chica...you're done. Flamingo Pink on the toes. Want me to do your fingers?" She wiggled a set of bright yellow nails at Kitty and said, "I've got glitter!"
Scott made a comment under his breath about girls and cosmetics, turning his attention to the refrigerator instead. Kitty glanced at Kurt and noticed him shifting anxiously from one foot to the other, his tail lashing violently. "Um, can you do it after dinner?"
Jubilee grinned, following her friend's gaze and coming to the wrong conclusions. "Sure, girly. Just don't smudge the paint job, kay? Stay on your back till they're dry!"
"Jubilation!" Kitty cried as her friend sprung to her feet and tossed a wave her way, sauntering from the room and leaving her collection of nail polish behind. "What's wrong, Kurt?"
Kurt bit his lower lip and crossed to her, helping her to her feet and steadying her as she balanced on her heels due to the wet polish. "I need to talk to you...I did something bad..."
"Just to clarify...some_thing , right? Not someone _?"
"Katzchen!"
"Just checking! What's so wrong?"
Kurt looked furtively around. "Come with me..." He held tight to her wrist and ported to his room. Kitty blinked and swayed a little but Kurt did not notice as he made a beeline for his closet.
"Kurt...you're making me a little nervous here. What's going on?" Kurt reappeared with a shoebox clutched between his hands. The name on the side proclaimed a women's style of footwear and Kitty raised a brow. "Sweetie, I love you and support whatever decision you make in life...just don't ask to borrow my good pink sweater."
Kurt made a face and looked down at the box. "Klappe, Liebes...you know that's not it!"
"How do I know? You're not telling me anything!"
Kurt looked at the box in his hands and then at Kitty. Sighing, he nodded towards the bed. "Sit down...this may take a few minutes...I'm fuzzy on the details."

Kitty was still a little fuzzy on the details herself as she and Kurt, two hours after their talk in his room, tramped through the woods behind the middle school five miles from the Institute. It was early evening and their footsteps seemed unnaturally loud in the thick undergrowth. "Tell me again why..."
"Because," he said, more irritated with himself than with her for asking, "I want to have some sort of control over my mutation!"
"You _do _," shid aid a little more shrilly than needed, grabbing his arm to stop his progress. "Rogue doesn't have control...you have tons of it!"
"Kitty, if this works, I'll be able to port further! And I can go into places without having to know the inside first! Think of how useful that would be!"
"And if it doesn't work?" she demanded. "Kurt, I hate to say this, but this is kind of a dumb idea. Forge will forgive you for taking this...Hell, let me take it back into the workroom tonight! No harm, no foul!"
"Katzchen..." Kurt did not quite know how to explain the excitement he felt at being able to manipulate something that was the bane of his existence for so long. _How do I make her see _? Part of him knew this was a selfish desire, something usually alien to his nature, but an overriding portion of his brain was telling him to just give one try, see what it could do. _Forge wouldn't have shown it to me if it wasn't already in good order... _
Kitty knew she had tears in her eyes. She was scared and not afraid to show it. "Kurt, what happens whou pou port? Where do you go in between? I was wondering earlier and..." she sniffed, "What if you get stuck or die or something?"
He laughed, trying to shake off the mantle of doubt that had just settled over his shoulders. "Katzchen, I'm just going to port to my room and back here. My body won't _let _ me get stuck in between!" He grabbed her shoulders and forced her to look him in the eye. "Have some faith, Schatz. The worst thing that can happen is I get a little woozy...if I can't go as far as this thing is supposed to let me go, I'll end up at the limit..."
"How do you know?" she demanded, really nervous now. She was letting the tears fall freely, a little frightened of his insistence but mostly of the gnawing pangs of certainty in the core of her being, the certainty that something was not right, something bad was about to happen. Her mind flitted to her experience seeing Shiva and she wondered if maybe she had some random mutation popping up, the ability to see the supernatural or maybe some precognition. She did not have long to dwell on it, though, because Kurt pulled her into a fierce kiss, claiming her mouth with a hard press of his lips against her, making her gasp in surprise before she returned the embrace, some part of her thinking that if she kissed hird erd enough or poured enough feeling into it, he would see how silly he was being and drop the whole idea until Forge made the device perfect. Kurt broke the kiss and smiled at her. "Kurt..."
"Katzchen, stop worrying so much!" He ran his hand down her ponytail and kissed her again on the tip of her nose, turning away slightly then to fiddle with the watch-like mechanism. He muttered to himself as he pressed first one button then another, frowning as nothing happened.
Kitty had begun to hope that maybe it would not work at all when the thing emitted a loud beep and lit up bright yellow. _Shit _. "I want you to promise me that you'll take this stupid thing right back to Forge when you're done," she demanded hotly, mad at him for making her so scared. The worry in her belly was now a raging inferno of panic and she tasted bile and acid, nausea borne of panic almost overwhelming.
"I'll be back before you can blink twice." He stepped back and, smiling mostly to himself, vanished.
Kitty stared at the spot where he had been and counted. "Three times...four...five fucking blinks, Kurt! Where are you?" She counted to ten and broke into a run back towards the Institute, calling Kurt's name the whole way.

Kurt knew something was very wrong as soon as he ported. The first indication of trouble was the fact he did not appear in his room instantly but rather seemed and felt suspended in nothingness. Not darkness, not wherwhere...no where. Absolute nothingness. He was not falling and somehow that bothered him more than if he had been. He tried to scream and teleport again but nothing happened. The next thing he noticed was that he was not alone. He was staring at himself as if looking in a mirror, right down to the ragged hems of his jeans. _Was? _ Before he could reach out toward the mirror-self, he felt a sharp pull in his chest and then blackness descended.
"Kurt, wake up!"
"Is he breathing?"
"Yeah...Elf, open your damn eyes!"
Kurt blinked slowly, his entire body aching. "Where _am _ I?"
"The infirmary... Scott found you in the hallway outside your bedroom, out like a light. What happened?" Jean leaned over him and peered into his eyes with a clinical detachment. "They're not dilated...you didn't hit your head, did you?"
"I was with Kitty in the woods and I...I ported," he said, editing out the part about Forge's device for his own protection while Logan looked down at him in ill-disguised concern.
"Wait....you were with who?" Scott demanded.
"Kitty..."
"Try again, blue boy. Kitty's visiting her parents in Chicago until tomorrow."
"No...she's probably still in the woods." He half sat up, his head swimming with the effort. "She'll probably be here any second..."
Logan snorted. "He must've conked something. Kitty's definitely in Illinois, Elf. She's been there for a week-I dropped her off myself. I'm pickin' her up tomorrow morning."
Jean glanced at the clock on the wall and sighed. "You seem to be fine, Kurt. I'll let Beast know...I've got to go get ready for my date. Duncan's going to be here in about twenty minutes."
Kurt fell back on the thin pi beh behind him, feeling strangely numb. "Hey, Kid," Logan said softly, "you don't look so good..."



1 It's called point mutations. Everyone has 'em and usually, they don't affect much. Maybe give you a dimple or make one skin cell misshapen or something.