Constant Craving

CONSTANT CRAVING CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather is the Mad Queen of Plotbunnies. And she has a good recipe for chocolate-covered consort... ;) I tried to tell Kristen and Lucas that you just can't have chocolate covered dolphins, but they had to find out the hard way... InterNutter, TC and Maxwell Pink get much good mojo for archiving. :) Vampyre: did they find all the piercings yet? Readers/Reviewers: ((sigh)) Okay. This is all under control. I had a nice, long talk with all critters involved. The Killer Kitties(tm) have stopped wearing cammo and are now in costume, the ducks are abandoning the idea of canned pumpkin sculpture for traditional ice (don't want to know how they're holding the chainsaws...) and the platypi have stopped sniggering evilly. They're scaring me a little now...


"So..."
"Yeah...so..." Scott cleared his throat nervously. "Well, um...you know, I think me and Lance and them are getting along now..."
Jean pushed a hank of red hair out of her face with the back of one hand and smiled. "I see that...think you can keep it up?"
Scott blushed at the double meaning, so lost was his mind in the depth of Jean's comforts that anything she said was likely to sound like a sexually -charged statement in his ears. "I think that won't be a problem..." Scott sidled closer to Jean and peered into the floury mess before her. "What're you making?"
"Well, it started out as bread but I think it's rapidly devolving into rolls. Weren't you going to go to the store for those packs of dinner rolls?"
"Kitty needed the Jeep to get raisins or something so I just told her to go by the bakery before it closed." Scott shrugged and poked the dough dubiously. "So," he said again, blushing faintly, "does this mean I'm going to have something else to give thanks for tonight?"
Jean blinked rapidly in surprise and blushed herself. "Well, if all goes well...maybe."
"Maybe?"
"I know how sleepy you get after turkey..." she teased, ducking around him to dump the dough onto the floured surface of the table.
Scott snorted. "If it means the difference between Happy Thanksgiving and _Happy Thanksgiving, _ I'll skip the bird tonight."
Jean grinned faintly but kept her mouth shut as Rahne burst into the kitchen like the hounds of Hell were on her heels. "Kurt's mad as a wet hen an' he's lookin' for blood!"
Scott frowned. "What's wrong? He was just at Church..."
Rahne, slightly out of breath, shook her head. "I just ran into him and the girls out front. He seems ta think Tabby som somethin' ta do wit' some trouble Kitty's in."
Jean shoved the dough back into it's bowl and dusted her hands on the front of her shirt. "Let's go and see..."

"I didn't hide nothin', Freakshow!" Tabby snarled. She was not as dumb as Kurt wanted to think, using the double negative. _Not really a lie, now is it? Can't accuse me of that... _ Jean and Scott arrived at the door as Kurt stepped between Tabby and the blonde girl.
Kitty pushed past Kurt, shoving him gently back into his sisters who closed ranks to keep him from lunging forward. "Tabby, I don't smoke pot. Never have. A simple test can prove that. Why did you do it?"
"A piss test can be fixed...you probably already know that! You can get out of that easy!"
Kitty sighed. "A hair test can prove that I haven't smoked it ever...well, at least for the past six months. That's as far back as they can tell with those things." _Is it my imagination or does Tabby look a little green? _
Kurt snapped, "Just tell us what you're on about, Tabby! You fucked yourself -you and Kitty both got cited and now you have to go to court!"
Tabby narrowed her gaze and stepped dangerously close to Kitty, growling into her ear, "You'll be sorry you ever crossed me, Kitty. You and all these X-Freaks...you don't fuck with the Brotherhood and win!"
"Children..." Storm's calm voice broke the tense atmosphere. "In the house. Now. Kurt....go help Scott and Jean in the kitchen. Start your pie." She stopped Kitty from passing her, following Katja as she was. "Kitty, you and Tabby go see Professor Xavier. _Now. _ " At Tabby's mutinous glare, Storm nodded to Jean. "Go with them. Scott, you can handle bread making duties on your own."
Scott sighed wearily but went to the kitchen, leaving Storm standing in the front hallway with the beginnings of a thunderstorm-level rage in her belly. "Something wrong, darlin'?"
Storm tensed briefly. "Yes. Very."
"Want to tell me 'bout it?"
Storm sighed. "I'm not sure what all is going on...I sent Tabby and Kitty to see Charles. There is something rotten in Bayville."
"And it's name is Tabitha," Logan said softly. He wanted to take Storm to bed right then and there, soothe away the worry-lines between her eyes, but knew that she would most likely reject an overture as inappropriate. "Anything I can do?"
_Yes. Proposition me. Take me to bed, make me forget all this...this chaos for just a while... _ Storm sighed audibly. "No...I don't think there is."
Logan watched with an almost hurt expression as Storm went back to the kitchen and the soft sounds of teenagers trying to create edible food in the midst of worry. _What are we doing here? We're running hot and cold...was she wrong? Did sleeping together ruin our relationship after all? I'm too old to fall in love like one of these kids but damned if I don't want her to be happy more than anything else...Damn it. _

Remy was huddled over the large metal container on the back patio with Lance and Todd. Rogue stayed a safe distance away, sitting on the low brick wall with a fire extinguisher in her hands. "Y'all don't fry yourselves, right? I don't got anything to wear to a funeral!"
"Baby, all you got is black clothes...you've got plenty." Todd said offhandedly, poking at the contents of the container with a long metal skewer. "That enough?"
Lance chewed his lip worriedly. "Remy, you sure you know what you're doing?"
"Homme, we do dis all de time down South, right Rogue?"
Rogue snorted. "I don't know...we're sane where I come from. New Orleans got some weird mojo-y'all are all strange down there."
Remy laughed and shook his head. "You all gonna see I right. Deep fryin' de only way to cook one of dese tings..." He gestured to the turkey in Lance's hands. "Where Jubilee go off to?"
"Here!" a voice drifted over the wall.
"She's hidin'," Rogue snickered. "Thinks y'all are gonna blow us to bits."
"Chere, come help ol'Remy get dis ting lit, eh?" Remy called as Lance and Todd chuckled.
"No! I love you but no! Ain't no way you're gonna get my skinny ass over there and set sparks flying around oil!"
Remy sighed. "Please, chere?"
"No! Get Amara! Fire doesn't bother her!"
Lance perked up. "Be right back!" He handed the turkey off to Todd and dashed around the side of the house. Two handfuls of decorative gravel brought her to the window. "Princess! We need some help down here!"
"Oh?" she asked, raising a brow. "What sort of help do you need at this hour of the morning?"
"It's half past nine!" he sighed. "We need to get a fire going."
"Use a match!" she snapped, sliding the window down a fraction. "Fire for what?"
"Remy wants to deep fry a turkey in oil...Jubilee's afraid of sparking it and none of us want to chance it." Lance toed the ground sheepishly.
Amara barked in laughter. "Big, strong Avalanche is afraid of fire?"
"Yes, Miss Arachnophobia, fire freaks me out..."
Amara snorted. "Thanks for the compliment!" The window closed with a dull thud and Lance winced.
_That could've gone better... _ He trudged back to the patio to be met with varied looks of pity and amusement. "What?"
"Voices carry, homme..." Remy grinned. "Mais here she is..." Amara flung open the back door and strode through with the air of a queen.
"Where do you want it?" she sighed. Remy indicated just how the fire needed to be and, with a bored look on her face, Amara flamed up and set the fire going. "Better?"
"Mucho, chica!" Todd said happily. "Here...take this!" He shoved the turkey at Remy. "I gotta make time..." He grabbed Rogue's gloved wrist and waved to his friends, pulling her behind him. Her half-hearted protests were heard as he dragged her to the gazebo.
"I don't even want to picture that," Jubilee's voice drifted up from behind the wall. Her head cleared the bricks and she rolled her eyes. "Amara, cheezit. Flame off, baby..."
Amara rolled her eyes, discernable even behind the wall of flames and became normal again. "If you are quite done with me..." Remy nodded in a courtly manner and she returned the gesture. "I've got things to do...Lance, walk with me. We need to talk."
Jubilee made whip-cracking noises and Remy meowed as Lance trotted after his girlfriend, flinging a rude gesture back at the Cajun as he shut the door behind him. Jubilee snickered for a moment longer and then turned to Remy, who was devouring her with his eyes. "So I guess tonight is it, huh? If you can be good..."
"Oui, cherie...I be good..." he crossed his heart in childish fashion. "You gonna do it?"
Jubilee tittered. "I'm still a little...you know...nervous. But yeah. I promised you so I'll do it."
Remy smiled charmingly and bowed over her hand like a chevalier of old. "Until den, mademoiselle..."
Jubilee blinked at him owlishly, feeling an insane urge to giggle. Instead, she managed a mock-curtsey and scurried inside to practice for that night.

Amara did not speak to Lance until they were drawing even with the laundry room. "In," she ordered, shoving the door open with her hip.
"Amara, what's going on?" he sighed, following her into the room and jumping to sit on the dryer. "Are you mad at me again?"
"What makes you think that?" she asked, sounding opening offended. "Just because I'm forceful....I thought you liked me that way!" she sniffed.
Lance closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I don't get you..."
"You don't have to," she said softly. "You _have _ me."
_Whoa. Paradigm shift. _ "Huh?" he said inelegantly.
"I've been thinking," Amara said slowly, crossing to him and standing between his spread knees, "that you deserve _something _ for being _so nice _ to Scott and Kurt. I don't love them myself and I know how hard it is to treat them like equals...so I decided to reward you for doing one of the things I asked you to do." She smiled wickedly at Lance, making him gulp audibly.
"One of the things?" he managed to ask as she trailed her fingers up the inside of his thighs.
"Mmm-hmmm...unless Tabby is gone now?" she asked. When Lance shook his head, she sighed theatrically. "Well, then. Only one reward." With deft fingers, she unfastened Lance's jeans and paused, looking up at his rapidly reddening face. "What's wrong? It isn't like we haven't done this before..."
"I know, but...Amara, we're in a semipublic room!"
"So I guess you'd better just be quiet, then..." Before he could respond, Amara had taken a good deal of his length into her mouth. Biting his lip against the noises that rose naturally in his throat, Lance clutched at the edge of the drying as she laved and sucked on his most sensitive part, making his eyes squeeze shut in painful pleasure. Unbidden, his fingers tangled in her hair as she moved on him, increasing her rhythm and pace until he could not stop the strangled noise that came from between his clenched teeth. She drew hard on him, scraping him with the bare edge of her teeth. This was enough to send Lance over the edge, pressing her down over his engorged member as she swallowed his release, laving him as she drew away, sending spasms of pleasure up his spine even as he softened from her ministrations. Amara straightened and, as Lance struggled to catch his breath, she said brightly, "You get the rest once the Hell Bitch is gone!" She sauntered from the room even as he was still trying to regain equilibrium.
_Remy's right...women are dangerous. _

Kitty curled around her large purple pillow, drawing into a ball of anger and embarrassment. It was there that Kurt found her, finally 'porting in after she would not open to his knocking. "Katzchen, everything will be fine!"
"Easy for you to say!" she sobbed. "You're not the one in trouble!"
Kurt sighed. He had rushed through making the pie as quickly as he could, sending Katja and Anja to help Jean set the large table in the little-used dining room and Erika to play with Jamie and Rahne out near the woods. Kurt had not even bothered to take off his apple-filling dotted apron in his hurry to get to Kitty. "Liebes, you're not in trouble. The Professor knows you didn't put the pot in the car. It's blindingly obvious that Tabby did it."
Kitty sniffed loudly. "But it's gonna go on my permanent record!" she wailed.
Kurt bit back a laugh. "Remy once told me something that you might find comforting, Katzchen..." He eased himself onto the bed next to her, sliding his tail around her leg to stroke half alf in an almost absent-minded gesture of comfort. "Once you turn eighteen, you don't have a permanent record..."
"What?" she raised her face to blink tears away rapidly, staring at Kurt's smile.
"If, God forbid, you get fined and probation for this, once you turn eighteen, the record is sealed and it's like it never happened." Kurt snapped his fingers. "Poof! All gone!"
"I wish Tabby would be 'Poof! All gone!', " Kitty growled. "What am I going to do, Kurt?"
He disentangled himself from her leg and rose, tugging her to her feet. "What you are going to do is finish making those carrot thingies, go find my sisters because they are going crazy with worry about you, and then find me so we can watch a movie until dinner."
Kitty's lower lip jutted out briefly as she pouted. "What about Tabby?"
Kurt shook his head resolutely. "She doesn't exist today. You don't see her, you don't hear her, you don't know who ss, js, ja?"
Kitty sighed and leaned against him. "Okay." After a moment she tilted her chin to look up at him. "Since everything is going so well with the Brotherhood, how about another German lesson tonight?"
Kurt nodded happily as Kitty kissed him on the cheek, her footsteps thudding down the stairs in a fair approximation of her usual bouncey stride. _Leave Tabby to me...Think on her no more1, Schatz... _

Rahne was not amused. Erika followed Jamie around the yard like a lost soul, hanging on his every word, laughing at his jokes. _Mine, girlie _ , she snarled inwardly, unwilling to snap at Kurt's youngest sister for something she herself was guilty of doing not so long ago. _ I wish I could mark him like a real beastie...let the other lasses know to keep their mitts off... _ "Jamie," she called, breaking his attention from Erika. "Come here a sec..."
"Yeah?" he asked brightly as he trotted up, leaving his admirer staring after him google-eyed.
"This..." she said softly, pulling him into a deep kiss. Jamie made a brief muffled noise but soon melted against her. Erika, Rahne noted through parted lids, looked crushed, then annoyed. With nary a word, she stomped back to the mansion. "There."
"What was that for?" he breathed.
Rahne shrugged. "Because I can..."

Anja was sure she had never met anyone more fascinating than Beast. He had come into the dining room while she helped Jean and Katja set the massive oak table and struck up a conversation, asking questions about growing up with a mutant in the family, among o thi things. The conversation turned to personal interests and Anja was off and running, finding a ing ing conversationalist in Beast when it came to things scientific. They had been talking about the nature of mutation for nearly an hour when Katja shook her sister's shoulder. "Vas?" Anja all but snapped.
"Erika's mopey."
Anja sighed. "Excuse me, Dr McCoy...Can we talk later?"
Beast waved merrily at her as Katja dragged her off. "Sure, sure! I am always willing to chat with such a bright young person as yourself!" He was not sure, but he thought he heard Anja giggle as she disappeared around the corner.

"What was that about?" Katja prodded her sister as they sat on either side of Erika in Kitty's room.
"What was what?" Anja shrugged. "Just talking."
"Suuuure you were..." Katja eyed her sister narrowly before turning her attention to Erika. "What's with you?"
"I hate boys."
"Kurt's a boy. Do you hate him?" Anja asked dryly.
"Nein...but he's our brother. He doesn't count."
"Good to know," the brother in question said from the open doorway. "Does that go along with 'You're my dad...you're not a man!' and 'That's no lady-that's my mother'?"
Erika rolled her eyes. "You're silly."
"But you love me anyway," he said loftily, drawing sniggers from the o gir girls at the fait approximation of their grandmother back home. "What's wrong with you? You all look...mopey."
"People here act one way then do something else," Erika said harshly.
"Here the mansion or here the country?" Kurt asked, sitting on Katja's right.
"The mansion, goofus. We haven't seen any other part of the country to maket ast assessment," Anja pointed out.
Katja sighed. "Want to tell us what's going on, munchkin?"
"No...just...well, it's like that Tabitha girl earlier."
"What do you mean?" Kurt asked with a tinge of a growl in his voice.
"Well," she looked askance at her sisters, and, seeing as they had no idea what she meant, she sighed. "Okay. Tabitha was all nice to us while we were waiting for Kitty to get her purse. She didn't let us talk at all but chattered about how great living here was, how wonderful everyone is...then, when Kitty gets pulled over, she tells the police man that Kitty has drugs in the car. She said something to Kitty that she picked the wrong car to drive..."
Kurt growled loudly then, making Anja jump. "I really hate it when you do that..."
Katja made a shushing noise and motioned for quiet. "Wait a second...I have an idea." She muttered to herself for a moment then leaned over and whispered to Anja who nodded vigorously. "Erika, you sure none of us spoke to Tabitha?"
"Ja, very sure...remember, we talked about her in German to see if she understood us and she didn't..."
Kurt's eyes widened. "Katja, what's going on in your head?"
"Brother dear, I think I have a way to clear Kitty..."


1 Been watching Rob Roy. "I'll think on you dead until my husband makes you so, and then I will think on you no more," is the line.