Institutionalized

INSTITUTIONALIZED CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies and BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE (tm), I found the menagerie. They are hiding under the shrubbery, looking a bit nervous... InterNutter, TC and Maxwell Pink are fanspankingtastic for archiving. :) Readers/Reviewers: Too much of a crap week to write something that's supposed to be funny, so I'll just say thank you so much for reading and reviewing. I really, really, really, really, really...well, you get the idea...appreciate it and do many little happy dances in your honor. ;)


Kurt blinked as the room swam into focus. It was bright white and smelled medicinal. "Ugh..."
"Same here, yo," Todd said somewhat thickly from somewhere nearby.
Kurt felt strangely full and less woozy than before and thought that he might be sick for a minute. Scott spoke up before he had a chance to dwell on it too much. "They fed you some liquid crap so that you wouldn't drop dead on us...The one calling herself Firestar said it was for your metabolic needs."
"Ugh," he said again, trying to sit up. "Where are we now?"
A new voice answered. Jamie, sounding very tired and reedy, said, "They took the girls to another room and put all of us in this lab looking place. We were blindfolded."
Kurt finally managed to be upright without feeling teed eed to swoon and he saw everyone around him. Jamie, Bobby, St John, Scott, Evan, Sam, and Todd were sitting in a loose semi-circle in the middle of the large room. It looked as if it had been a lab at one time, various fixtures still in place along the walls, but there was a distinct absence of tables or other equipment. They all looked bad, but Evan looked the worst, his face ashy and drawn, score marks on his arms where they hung from his shirt. It took Kurt almost a full minute to realize that those were not score marks but rather the spots where his mutation burst through the skin, not healed as they should have been but gaping, bloodless and obscene. Kurt took careful inventory of his friends as he smoothed his singed fur, feeling the tender spots of exposed skin on his neck. Scott's eyes were tightly shut, his glasses missing and the skin around his eyes looking very red and raw as if exposed to high heat. Todd's legs were visiblytchitching as if the muscles had been overused and a thin line of slime was hardening at the corner of his lip, leading down towards his chin. Jamie was huddled on the floor, spent. Kurt could only imagine what he had been through and it was close to horrifying. St John and Bobby clutched each other, not caring who saw them anymore, seeking comfort from the proximity of the other. Bobby had patches of what looked to be frost on his fingers and face and St John was shaking. Kurt caught the faintest whiff of lighter fluid and wondered with bizarre fascination just what his friend had been made to do. Sam was the only one who appeared unscathed. He was seated furthest from Kurt and had his knees drawn up to his chest, his head bent forward to hide his face. "What happened to all of you?" Kurt finally asked.
Jamie seemed to be the spokesman of the group this go. "She took us one by one...she made us stand in front of Empath and..." he paused to gulp for air, trying not to cry in front of his older friends and belie his youthfulness, what he equated with childishness. "We all have been talking and it was the same for all of us...we couldn't control our powers. It was like they took over our bodies..."
Sam spoke heavily, not moving from the position that he was in. "Not me...all she did was look at me."
"Look at you?" Kurt asked. "That's it?"
"She said she didn't think I was useful at all."
"Oh." Kurt did not know if that was a good thing or not. "Has anyone seen Kitty yet?"
Scott almost sneered at the sudden change of subject. "No. The girls were taken before us and we haven't seen them in hours..."
"Hours?" Kurt felt fear surge anew. "How long was I out?"
Jamie answered again. "A long time...but you were sort of awake, enough to swallow those cans of drink the red head brought in."
"We have to get out of here...Scott, can't you blast through the walls?"
"My eyes..." he sighed. "I think there's something wrong. It hurts when it happens. I overused it, I think. I don't know!" Scott sounded more frustrated than angry. "I think I burned myself..."
Kurt sighed. He was not going to try and force Scott to do anything that would hurt him. "We're stuck then."
"Not quite," Sam said softly. "I didn't want to do it because I don't know where we are, what's all around us, but I suppose..."
"Suppose what?" Todd asked dully. "You know, I wish Kitty were here...she could phase out..."
"I've got one better," Sam said, looking up with a strange smile playing across his lips. "I can do some damage..."
"What do you mean?" Bobby asked, sounding tentatively hopeful. His fingers tightened around St John's and there was a faint hissing sound as Iceman's cold nature encountered Pyro's still-hot skin, warm from earlier forced use of his mutation.
"Stand back," Sam said with growing enthusiasm. "I'm gonna need space." He rose to his feet and helped Todd move, then Kurt, their legs still not quite willing to support their bodies. Once everyone was settled against the far wall, Sam grinned widely. "This may be fun... Um, I'd cover your heads if I were y'all."
Kurt ducked his head and pressed his face against his knees, not sure what was going to happen but knowing that he did not want to have to explain to Kitty in this world or the next how he nearly got killed by goggling at another mutant. There was a rush of air, as if it were all being sucked out of the room, then pushed back against them. A rushing sound filled his ears and then it sounded like something exploded before silence fell heavily. Kurt did not chance a peek, just in case...
"Kick _ass _," Todd breathed. "Dude...you are fucking _awesome! _"
Kurt finally looked. The opposite wall was _gone, _ reduced to it's basic components all over the floor, a gaping maw open to the night air. Sam stood, grinning and panting a little. "Sam?"
"We've got to get moving," Scott put in, fully the Fearless Leader despite the fact he could not see a thing. "Alarms have to be going off somewhere."
Kurt gained his feet and reached down to help Todd up. They leaned on each other, each thinking in part of how this would never have happened a year ago, that they would have most likely left the other to their own devices even in this situation, and hobbled towards the opening. Sam dragged Evan bodily, the wounds still gaping and the younger teenager still silent, seemingly stunned. The hole in the wall led to a broad expanse of greenbelt, sweeping towards a darkening forest. "Now what?" Todd asked.
"Keep moving," Scott and Kurt said together. "The trees," Kurt said. "It's the only place we can hide."
"What about the girls?" Jamie demanded, digging his heels in literally and figuratively. "We can't leave them..."
"We're not leaving them," Sam soothed, trying not to think about his sister in dire straits. "We're going to regroup."
"What's to regroup?" St John said, moving as fast as he could with Bobby hanging off of him. "We're regrouped now!"
"We need to plan," Scott sighed, the trees seemingly moving further away with his every step. "We can't go in without a plan!"
"We got out without one," Kurt said darkly.
"I'm not going to risk their lives because we go off half-cocked!" Scott spat, inwardly sighing with relief as they passed the first thin trees, heading deeper into the thicker woods.
"None of us want to risk their lives," Kurt soothed. "But we're don't want to waste time over planning this..."
Before a fight could start, Jamie said, "Uh-oh...we've been caught out..." Behind them, Roulette and Firestar emerged from the hole in the wall, heading strt fot for them. "Shit..."
"The trees," Kurt said sharply. "Keep going deeper into the trees..." He had years of practice hiding from people, but his friends did not, not like this. "We're going to have to split up. We'll be harder to catch then." He and Todd were forcing themselves to run then, their legs screaming protest. Kurt dropped to all fours in order to keep pace with everyone else. He called to Scott, just loud enough to be heard, "We'll meet up later...run now!"
"Run where?" Evan finally said, his voice not quite his own.
"Away," Jamie said, purposefully running into a tree. "Ooooh. That hurt..." Four more Jamies popped up and he shoved them towards their pursuers.
Kurt slowed enough to fall behind his friends. He knew that he could get back into the place without getting caught and did not want any of them trying to stop him. _Too weak to port yet...At least I'm still easy to hide in the dark... _ He crouched down and ducked behind thick undergrowth, closing his eyes to hide their shine as Firestar and Roulette moved past him. Roulette drew to a halt about a yard from him, her feet shifting softly in the carpet of pine needles as Kurt watched through narrowed eyes. A white poke chip fell to the ground and he sucked in a silent breath as she padded towards him, her steps very nearly silent. She stopped not six inches from his face, peering into the darkness. She inhaled deeply as if she could smell him. _PleaseGodPleaseGodPleaseGodPleaseGod... _ Kurt had no doubt in his mind that if she caught him, he would wish he were dead. He thought of Kitty and wondered who would tell her if he was to die and how she might react. Roulette took another half-step closer, her knee brushing Kurt's ear as she peered even deeper into the gathering darkness. "Not here," she said to herself. "Damn it..." She fished in her pocket and withdrew another poker chip, a black one this time. Kurt felt an impending sense of dread as she flipped it in the air and caught it, backing up a few paces to pick up the white chip. "A little luck never hurt anyone..." As soon as she vanished into the darkness on the trail of Firestar and their quarry, Kurt was on his feet and running towards the house they had come out of, his blood rushing in his ears as the grass and trees whipped past him, the open maw Sam had created beckoning him like a lighthouse in the night.

"Canada? _Canada? _" Kitty asked, sounding faintly horrified.
Logan nodded. "The trail dies out just over the border. It's probably a trap."
"Then why go?" she demanded. Logan and Wanda had returned barely an hour before, looking much worse for wear. They followed Tabby's trail as far as they could and now the Professor was using Cerebro for the third time in as many hours, trying to find a sign of her, of any of the missing teenagers.
"Half-Pint, think about that one..." Logan paused, not willing to change his shirt in front of his foster daughter. They stood in the middle of his room, Kitty looking furious with her hands on her hips and a scowl on her face.
"I know," she finally said, blowing out a breath harshly. "But you can't leave us here!"
Logan closed his eyes briefly as if asking for respite, then crossed to Kitty, putting deceptively gentle hands on her shoulders. "Listen, Kitty, we'll be back soon. You and Jono are gonna be fine with Cecilia and the Wagners. Stay in the boathouse and don't leave the grounds. If we're not back by morning..." he trailed off. "We'll worry about it then." He paused and his eyes became distant. "Chuck's found something."
"What?" Kitty asked, her heart in her throat. Truth be told, she had not stopped thinking about Kurt since the entire debacle began. "Is it Kurt? Is he okay?"
"It's not Kurt," Logan said with a strange look in her direction. "It's Tabby...he managed to track her down. She's in Canada...Stay here. We'll be back..."

Kitty and Jono watched the jet take off with every adult save the Wagners on it. "This fucking sucks," Kitty said.
_*Such language from such a pristine girl...1 _*
Kitty scowled and shot a look at where Astrid stood, staring out over the lawn in a state of semi-shock. It was nearly eight o'clock in the evening and the night was becoming black. "Jono...are you okay with just sitting here and letting them go off like this?"
_*Not really...but we don't have much of a choice, do we? _ *
"Oh, yes we do...They left Sunspot."
_*So? _ *
"He knows where we can find Mystique, I'm sure of it. And if we find her, we find Magneto and at least some of the others!"
_*What makes you think he'd tell us? _ *
"I have ways of making people talk..."2
1 Paraphrased from a scene in The Breakfast Club.
2 I think that's from Hogan's Heroes or something with a Nazi guard trying to get information out of some prisoner.