A Dark and Stormy Night
3
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A Dark and Stormy Night Chapter Three
Disclaimers Apply
A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST
WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta… I so need to get
paid for this, lol. J/kstyle="mso-spacerun: yes"> Readers/Reviewers: Sorry it’s taking so
long but RL sucks, lol. Thanks for reading/reviewing!
Kurt
stretched out in his narrow bed and sighed.
He felt more than a little upset, considering, and was extra glad Pietro
had not been at dinner. Wanda had been
very…friendly…and that bothered him on several levels.style="mso-spacerun: yes"> But as soon as dinner had endede hae had
disappeared to her room and he had been able to have a long visit with
Eric.
coming along nicely in your lessons,” he told Kurt as he finished his lengthy
recitation in Latin. “Your
pronunciation is nearly perfect.”
“Danke,” he
murmured, twisting his fingers in his lap nervously. “Father…Eric,” he
corrected, using the name the man who had brought him into the world insisted
he use now, “Pietro seems to be unhappy with me. How can I make him like me again?”
Magneto
paused in his shuffling of papers and glanced up at Kurt.style="mso-spacerun: yes"> He did not have the heart to tell him that
his ersatz brother had never liked him in the first place. Kurt was too kind
hearted, too gentle, to try and wrap his mind around that, Magneto
thought. “Do you know why he is unhappy
with you?” he asked neutrally.
“He seems
to think..think Wanda might like me in a different way than a sister should.”style="mso-spacerun: yes"> Kurt blushed furiously under his fur and
began lashing his tail from side to side in agitation.style="mso-spaceruns"> s"> “She doesn’t!”
Magneto
leaned back in his chair and sighed. She could hardly be considered a sister in
spirit, even. Most of her childhood had
been spent at a very exclusive school for young girls, an horom rom the villa
and deep in the mountains. It had only
been in the past year that she had been allowed home on long visits, then
finally home for good. Kurt’s view of
her as a sister only served to prove Magneto’s theory that he had the mentality
of a child, too innocent to comprehend evil or the baser side of human nature.style="mso-spacerun: yes"> “Kurt, how old are you?”
“Sixteen,”
he answered promptly. “Sixteen as of
last month.” He remembered the strange
little party in the dining room, Pietro downing glass after glass of his father’s
wine, Mystique lurking silently in the corner, her yellow eyes blazing in the
shadows as Kurt tried not to let his nervousness show.style="mso-spun: un: yes"> It had been as if he were on display, being
studied by his progenitor’s intense gaze as he nibbled cake. Eric had let him
have as much as he want, let Wanda sit next to him and even attempt to feed him
a slice of the chocolate cake. Kurt
blushed a little harder at the memory.
It had been…uncomfortable to say the least.
“Kurt,
Wanda is not your sister, you know. She
is not related by blood to you.”
“But she is
Pietro’s blood sister and Pietro is my foster brother.style="mso-spacerun: yes"> So she is my sister!” Kurt frowned mightily
at the implications becoming apparent in Eric’s comments.style="mso-spacerun: yes"> “She is my sister and I will never think of
her like that! Pietro is…misguided!”
Magneto
hed hed and leaned back in his chair. “Never
is a very long time, Kurt. I am pleased
with where you are in your lessons. Continue
your studies and we’ll meetin lin like this in a few days.style="mso-spacerun: yes"> Understood?”
He knew
dismissal when he heard it. “Yes, sir.”style="mso-spacerun: yes"> He rose and rubbed his sweaty palms on his
pants idly. “Eric…might I ask one more
question?”
Feeling
indulgent, he nodded. “Just one. I have
many things to do before I can retire for the evening.”
Kurt
cleared his throat and forced the words out.
“Might I invite Mama Wagner to the house for dinner one night?”
Eric’s face
clouded. “That damned gypsy?”
“She’s Rom,
sir…” Kurt was already backing away as
his foster father rose slowly to his feet.
“She’s very nice and her family is camped just across the river in the
woods…”
Eric
struggled to keep his temper. “No
gypsy,” he spat the word like a curse, “will ever set foot in this house.style="mso-spacerun: yes"> If they so much as ford the river, I will
have them killed.
Kurt nodded
stiffly. “Jawohl.” He did not linger a
second longer, teleporting to his room before letting out a shaky breath.
Now, laying
in his bed in the darkening room, Kurt felt a bit more relaxed.style="mso-spacerun: yes"> “He was just stressed,” he murmured to the
night. “Eric is not so cruel as that.”style="mso-spacerun: yes">
“You’d be
surprised,” a soft voice responded.
Wanda stepped out of the shadows near the foot of the bed like a
phantom, her white nightdress too thin to be decent, much less warm enough in
the cold, ancient castle. “My father
has a most unusual cruel streak.”
Kurt
scrambled into a sitting position, pulling bla blankets up to his chin.style="mso-spacerun: yes"> “Wanda!
Couldn’t you sleep? What’re you
doing in here?” His eyes swept down her
form involuntarily, taking in the transparency of the gown and the shadows that
hinted but did not reveal femininity. “Aren’t
you co
She smiled
faintly. “A little.style="mso-spacerun: yes"> Want to share the blankets with me?”style="mso-spacerun: yes"> She moved around the side of the bed,
sitting on the very edge as she spoke.
“Nein!” he
yelped, pulling the blankets tighter. “I
mean…nein. I’m rather cold myself…”style="mso-spacerun: yes"> He shrugged apologetically.
Wanda
arched a brow and tugged on the covers.
“Liar. You’re like a living blast furnace. I’ve stood next to you, remember. You radiate heat…” She
was slowly tugging down the blanket as she talked, and by the time she was
done, she had pulled it down to his waist.
“And I need some right now.”
Kurt stared
at her, unblinking. His brain was short
circuiting, everything that Eric eve ever taught him about being a gentleman
filed neatly away in some locked mental file cabinet and unable to be accessed.style="mso-spacerun: yes"> “Wanda…please go. Bitte. Go…”
She smiled
in the dark, the moonlight making her face ghostlike. “No…I don’t think I .”
A/N Next chapter is smutty so…be ye warned.