Forever

Chapter Three




CHAPTER THREE---FOREVER

(Still NC-17!)

A/N All disclaimers still apply. Things are going to start get mor more chaotic for our couple in
the coming chapters, so the smut factor may drop a bit but I am keeping the
rating high for the entire story. A huge
thanks to the wonderful people who are reviewing and helping me out with the
story—you know who you are and may the gods of Kurtty goodness smile upon
you! Again, a special thanks to
Internutter for letting me use her springboard for this story.



 

 

Kurt was
fairly certain that Dr. McCoy knew he had been out last night. He kept asking him how he had slept, was the
bed comfortable, did he need any more sheets or pillows? “I checked on you once during the
night. You seemed quite…still.” Hank continued sipping his coffee while Kurt
choked on his orange juice.

“Um, I
sleep hard?” For once, Kurt was
thankful that blushes did not show easily under dark fur.

“You
certainly do. I called your name from
the door three times and you did not even budge. Or seem to breathe.”
Peering over the rim of his glasses at Kurt, he continued, “In fact, if
I had to guess, I think you were not in bed at all between half past twelve and
one-fifteen this morning.”

“Greck!”
Kurt’s throat closed around chunk of cheese and bacon omelet. He quickly downed the remainder of his
orange juice, then most of the jug of apple juice, trying to get his breakfast
down without dying first. “I mean, why
do you think that?” he asked when he finally regained some semblance of composure.

“Well,
mainly because there was a pillow stuffed inside your t-shirt and arranged on
the bed to look as if there were a person there.” Hank had been worried when Kurt did not answer him after the
third try so he turned on the overhead light and found the hastily made dummy
in Kurt’s place. Giving him an E for
effort, the doctor decided to take it up with the boy in the morning, let him
have this last fling. Besides, Storm
was a pretty light sleeper from what he knew of her and the kids would not be
able to get up to very much with her nearby.


“Are you
going to punish Kitty, too?” The only
thing Hank could see was the top of Kurt’s head and the tips of his ears poking
through his hair. Depression wafted off
the boy like heat waves off of pavement.
He stirred the remains of his breakfast around on his plate, waiting for
Hank’s pronouncement of punishment against all young lovers.

Seeing that
they were the only two in the dining room at this early hour, Hank decided he
could be frank with Kurt. “When I was
your age, I fell in love with an attractive girl, much like Kitty. And she loved me as well…. I understand what you’re feeling.” There.
Maybe that will help the bogeyman complex he is building around me.

“So?”

“So?”


“Where is
the girl now? If you loved her, where
is she? In twenty years, Kitty will be
with me. Wherever we are, we will be
together, if not physically then in here,” Kurt touched his chest over his
heart “ and here,” he touched his forehead.


“Kurt, things
that seem so clear when you’re seventeen rarely seem so when you’re older. Things could change between you and
Kitty. She never made her feelings
known before yesterday—why were you so quick to trust them? Was it because you are certain of her love,
or because you are so desperate for it?”
Hank felt bad about this jab at their relationship, but it needed to be
said. He left the young man fuming over
the remains of breakfast and lumbered to the rec room to brood.

How do
I know that she loves me? Maybe I just
want her to so badly that I made a horrible mistake last night. But what about when I went to see her
afterwards? She has to feel something
for me! Kurt, for once, was not
hungry. Shoving the last of breakfast
down the disposal in the sink, he ‘ported to the Danger Room to work out some
aggression.

Scott was there before him, running
his usual program of randomized obstacles and projectiles overlaid with a track
of some heavy music borrowed from Rogue and burned to a CD. Kurt watched for a while from the control
room then asked over the intercom if he could join him. Taken off guard, Scott narrowly missed
getting thumped in the head by a swinging pole and fell to his knees, calling
for the computer to stop the simulation.
“Sure, come on down. I’ll kick
your ass for nearly getting me hurt!”
Even though he could not see his eyes, Kurt could hear the smile in
Scott’s voice. He ‘ported into the
training area and stood there, not sure what to do. “Something on your mind, man?”
Scott still had not started the program running again and the
alley-inspired environment was a little surreal, objects frozen in mid-fall,
craters blasted into the scenery from Scott’s use of powers. Kurt looked…lost. Scott was not a “hey let’s grab some tea and talk” sort of guy,
at least not with other guys, but he felt for Kurt. Rogue had filled him and Jean in on all the gory details of the
previous night when they returned from the disastrous double date. Scott felt bad for Kurt—he knew that if Jean
had done to him what Kitty had done to Kurt, he would have been putty in her
hands. “Want tlk alk about it?” When
did I become such a girl? Kurt’s
eyes lit up.

“Ja!!! I mean, Ja.
Please?” He looked so hopeful
that Scott sighed, calling for the program to end.

“Where do you want to go?”

Kurt cast about for somewhere safe,
somewhere away from the prying eyes and ears of the other mutants in the
mansion. “I know somewhere. Somewhere quiet.” He took Scott by the elbow and all but dragged him out of the Danger
Room and to the elevator. “I found this
place when I first got here, it’s like a cathedral.”

“What? Is it a chapel or something?”
Scott thought he had seen every hiding place in the mansion. As far as he knew, the Professor X did not
have a chapel on site.

“Nein! You’ll see!” They were
heading down to one of the sub-basements, one Scott had only been to once. As
far as he knew, it was mostly empty save for some of the Professor’s family
heirlooms and some of the students’ personal belongings that they either did
not have room for in their own quarters or did not have the heart to throw away
entirely. The doors opened into the
cavernous room, the dark sucking up what little light shown from the elevator. Kurt stepped out, expecting Scott to follow
but Scott was left standing alone in the pale orangey light inside the
lift. “Are you coming?” Yellow eyes flashed about a meter ahead.

“I can’t see you! Turn on a light or something!” Scott was not about to move, not until there
was some light. His fear of the dark
was not something he liked to talk about—a little bit of light would beat none
in this deep black of sub-basement six.
He was about to call out for Kurt to come back to the elevator when a
row of emergency-type lights came glowed to life above his head. Breathing a
sigh of relief, he spotted a faint form moving towards him and deduced it to be
Kurt, semi-invisible in the twilight.

“Better?” At Scott’s nod, Kurt motioned for him to follow and took off
again into the depths of the basement.
Jogging to keep up with the blutanutant, Scott tried to piece together
some sort of speech in his head, a sort of
cheer-up-there’s-other-fish-in-the-sea speech, but he knew it would be futile. He knew that if he were in Kurt’s place,
he’d laugh in anyone’s face that tried to sell him such a load of tripe. He nearly ran into Kurt’s back, not
realizing they had reached their destination.
“Look! Like a cathedral!” Kurt gestured grandly to the clearing in the
boxes. The ceiling was hidden in blackness
above them, support beams barely visible in the light of the ancient
bulbs. Someone—Kurt, most likely—had
arranged the scant boxes into a circle, stacked about waist-high. Some boxes had been set as seats and a
pillow lay atop a neatly folded blanket in the corner. A small stack of magazines with strange
titles like “Fangoria” was mixed together with some German-titled books.

“So….come here often?” It did look a little like a cathedral—the
soaring ceiling and row of books lined up like hymnals lent to the image. Scott moved past Kurt, who was watching his
friend carefully for the first sign of ridicule.

“Only when I need to now. I used to come down here every night. I was afraid…” He gulped. “Afraid
everyone would think I was a freak and make me leave, so I hid down here when
the fear became too great.”

Scott sat on one of the
box-fashioned benches and fixed a steady gaze on Kurt. Take the bull by the horns, my man… “You know that we would never call you a
freak. You’re family to us. Family looks out for one another, cares for
one another. Kitty is no different, you
know.” There. Broach the subject obliquely and maybe he’ll
take over from here.

“What makes you think she has
anything to do with why I want to talk?
What if all I want to talk about is school? It’s almost time for finals, you know.” Stop babbling! Get on
with it!

“Rogue blabbed. She told Jean and me last night when we came
in. Don’t be mad at her. I…I want to help.” Kurt’s eyes went perfectly round. Scott labored on. “I know
that Hank and Storm want to keep you apart for a while, and I am pretty sure
that the professor will at least make you stay apart until Kitty’s birthday
this summer.[1] I can see their point, but I can also see
that you and Kitty care for each other very much.”

“How do you know she cares for
me? Yesterday was the first I had heard
of it myself.” Kurt shifted, playing
idly with his tail, a sure sign he was distracted.

“I have eyes.” Scott tapped his lenses with a faint grimace. “I see how she looks at you. It’s the same way you look at her. Jean tells me she wrote “Mrs. Kitty Wagner”
all over her speech notebook last month when she got bored in class. Thought
that might cheer you up… Kitty may not
have felt this way for you several months ago, but it’s grown in her. I’ve seen the two of you become friends;
I’ve seen her take up for you when no one else would. Did you know Kitty wanted to claw Boom Boom’s eyes out when the
two of you broke up? She thought you
were heartbroken over her. Despite the
fact she was already head over heels for you, she hated the thought of anyone
hurting you, even another girl. That’s
how I know she loves you.” Well,
damn it. That’s the best I could do on
short notice!

Kurt had stopped playing with his
tail when Scott told him about the notebook.
His heart was beating hard in his chest, like it was trying to get
out. If Scott can see it, why
couldn’t I? Forest for the trees and
all that… “Last night happened so
fast. What if it was a mistake? Kitty is never that forward. What if it was the painkillers making her….want
me? What if she hates me today?” Back to the tail again…

There’s our problem. Morning-after doubts. Scott did not have much experience in
morning-after situations, but he knew enough about Kurt and Kitty as people to
help him out in this area. “Kitty never
acts without reason. There are some
things that have happened in Kitty’s life before the Institute that you’ll have
to ask her about sometime that may explain her personality change over the past
few months.”

“What? We’re best friends! I’m
sure she’s told me everything!” Kurt was a little annoyed. How dare Scott imply that Kitty had secrets from
him? Katzchen tells me
everything. Well, almost
everything. She didn’t tell me she
loved me until yesterday, even though it seems everyone else knew before I did.


“Some things are just too hard for
her to explain, especially when it involves you, Kurt.” He mentally slapped a hand over his
mouth. Scott knew too much and said too
much. “Look, before you go off on a
tear, just ask her yourself.” She’s
going to kill me. “The only reason
I know anything about it is because I overheard her.” Kurt made an angry slicing motion with his hands, dismissing the
subject but not forgetting it. Scott
decided to try again, with more couth.
“Kitty would never have made any sort of move on you if she didn’t have
some feeling for you. And sex is
something she would never enter into lightly.
I know for a fact that she turned down Lance on more than one
occasion. If sex were all she wanted,
she would have taken him up on the offer months ago.” Kurt did not seem comforted.
“And I know Dr. McCoy would not give her anything that made her loopy
for just a broken toe or two. The
strongest thing he’d give her is Advil or Aleve[2]. Listen to me, “ Scott leaned across the
short distance and forced Kurt to look him in the eye. “Kitty loves you. She would never intentionally hurt you. How can I help you believe this?” Scott was at the end of his rope. He was not exactly patient, and as much as he wanted to help
Kurt, he was running short on good grace.

Kurt finally seemed to have a spark
of acceptance. “You’re right, mein
freund. But I can’t help but think
things are too fucked up now to ever be right between us. People want to keep us apart and I can’t
keep away from her! She’s like a needle
in my veins[3]and I can’t
get enough of her!” Kurt was pacing
now, his tail narrowly missing Scott’s face by mere centimeters in the small circumference
of the box-cathedral.

He must be pissed. Kurt never
swears. Not in English, anyway. “Look, man.
I’ll do what I can to help. I
don’t know what’s going to come tomorrow or even later today, but I’ll do what
I can to help you see each other. Just
don’t let on that I’m being nice to you.
You’ll have everyone thinking I’m a good guy, then.” He softened his last words with a smile and
Kurt finally settled down.

“Thank you, Scott. I don’t know what they’re going to do to
keep us apart all hours, but now that I know you’re on our side, I feel a
little better about everything.” Kurt
smiled sadly and stood, heading back to the elevators leaving Scott to follow.

 

Kitty woke to Storm staring
intently at her, a mere foot from her face.
“Wha?” Damned cottonmouth. Storm’s brow furrowed. “Morning, Storm.”

“When did Kurt come in last night?”

“What do you mean?” Play
dumb—it’s what they’re used to.

“Don’t play dumb with me, Kitty Pryde. I found blue fur caught on one of the
hanging baskets. There are two mutants
with blue fur in this mansion and Dr. McCoy always comes in through the
door.” Storm was not so much angry as
disappointed. Kitty would rather have
had her angry.

“I…I…” Tears flowed hotly down her cheeks, her chest heaving with
sobs. “Don’t punish him! Please!
It’s all my fault! If I hadn’t
thrown myself at him, if I had just told him instead of shown
him…” Kitty could no longer form
coherent words. Between the throbbing
in her foot and the electric panic in her brain, she did not know which way to
turn.

Storm sat back on her heels,
contemplating the girl before her. The
tears were obviously real, so Storm would not fault her for crying. She was put in mind disturbingly of “Romeo
and Juliet” and hoped Kitty had not developed a flair for the
melodramatic. She is not the type to
consider a death pact romantic. Still,
though, one must be careful.
“Kitty, I am willing to let this slide if you can keep away from Kurt
all day, to show me you have a modicum of self control. I do not wish to know what the two of
you did or did not do in here last night.
I just want assurance that it will not happen again.” Kitty nodded frantically. “Can you stay away from him today?” The nod came slower this time.

“He’s my best friend. I can’t just not talk to him…”

“Just for today. To show me you can control yourself.”

“If I have to. Can I email him, though, to let him know I’m
not, like, ignoring him for no good reason?”
Kitty was worried Kurt regretted everything that happened and wanted to
make sure he knew she did not.

“I will let Dr.McCoy know of our
agreement and he will inform Kurt. But
you may email him after lunch if you wish.
You have slept through breakfast and the doctor wishes to examine your
foot in the infirmary as soon as you are up and about.” Storm stood in one smooth movement,
extending a hand to Kitty. Truth be
told, she felt bad for the couple.
While she did not relate to their actions, she could understand the pull
of attraction and the power behind their emotions. Contrary to their belief, she and Hank were not trying to keep
them apart because they felt they were immature but because they worried about
the legality of their relationship and the fact they rushed into the sexual
aspect. They need time to learn
their hearts before they learn how to express their love physically.

Kitty picked at her fruit salad at
lunch, sitting in the rec room while Kurt, Scott, Evan, Jamie and Rogue ate in
the kitchen. Amara and Rahne kept
sniggering, alternately embarrassed and jealous of Kitty’s newfound sex life
and their knowledge of it. Every once
in a while, she could hear Kurt murmur something in his accented voice and her
heart would skip a beat. He sounds
so sad. I need to see him, I need him
to see me, to know everything will be fine. Ideas slowly formed in Kitty’s head and one finally gelled,
making Kitty smile for the first time in almost twenty-four hours.

Storm finally let her email Kurt
after Dr.McCoy examined her foot again, poking and prodding and apologizing
until Kitty thought she would scream.
Hobbling back to her room, she promised Storm she would be back in the
sitting room in half an hour. Kurt was
on laundry detail for the male contingent of the household and would be out of
pocket for another two hours or so, so the older woman felt comfortable leaving
Kitty on her own. As soon as she was
alone, Kitty hopped on one foot to her closet and dug out a box of photographs. She made her way back to the computer,
ignoring her crutches (Damned inconvenient things. I wish I had Jean’s ability to levitate) and began to shuffle
through old old photographs of her life before Bayville. A-ha!
I knew I’d find you here, my pretty. Kitty cackled in her head and selected the better of the two pictures
she had been looking for. Now. What
to write…

Dear, Dearest,

My love,

I promised Storm I would stay away
from you today—she knows we saw each other last night. She wanted to see I could control
myself. Maybe we can see each other a
little now? I miss you a lot. We need to talk in person, though. Tomorrow night the Professor and Logan will
be back and I think it’s going to really hit the fan then, worse than last
night. No matter what, though, I will
always love you. Never doubt that. I’ll show you somehow, even if we are
apart. Until then, though, I attached
something for you to…enjoy…until we next see each other.

Love always,
Kitty

 

 

With a snicker, Kitty scanned in the photograph and attached
it to her email. “Hope you like…” She hit send, imagining the look on Kurt’s
face when he saw his email later.

 

Much later that evening, Kurt, depressed and vaguely
irritated at the workings of the adult mutant mind, sat down to the computer in
the library. “Junk, junk, junk, forward
from Scott…ah! Katzchen!” He was perversely happy that she had changed
her online nickname to his pet name for her.
His eyes scanned the letter hungrily, savoring the few words she could
give him. At least I know for sure
why she avoided me today. Small comfort,
though. He clicked on the
attachment titled “For Your Eyes Only” and waited idly for the computer to open
it up. Kurt’s chair tipped dangerously
backwards and he caught himself with his toe-tips on the edge of the desk. Before him, on the screen, as Kitty as she
was a few years ago but so much like his fantasy-Kitty. The caption below the picture read “K. Pryde—First
Place—Middle Eastern and Mediterranean Dance Competition, Junior
Division.” So much skin…so little
fabric. I can die happy now. Beast found him much later, laying in bed
grinning stupidly, muttering something about seven veils…

 

TBC



[1] I don’t know
when her birthday is offhand, so I decided it’s at the ef Juf June for sake of
this story. If anyone knows any
different, let me know and I’ll make note of it for future reference.

[2] Some people
(like my mother) get a little dopey off of Aleve. Weird but true.

[3] Lyric from a
Nine Inch Nails song. Kinda icky, but
it works.