Carne Vale

CARNE VALE CHAPTER FIFTY ONE (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, Dodo is lost, I think... the Bay can be kind of confusing at times... InterNutter, TC and Maxwell Pink are shiny happy people for archiving. :) Readers/Reviewers: The Killer Kitties (tm) and their Killer Minions(tm) sent me a missive saying they will not stop until Rei is in love with the black kitty...be afraid, Rei...very afraid. In the meantime, the ducks are wearing kangaroo suits and I have no idea why. I didn't think they made them duck-sized.



Kurt was enraged. Not annoyed, not miffed, not even angry...he was enraged. He could not understand how Kitty was so calm about what was going on around her, even as he had one particularly ferrety member of the tennis team pinned to the locker in the eastern corridor of the school. Kurt had kept his temper as long as he could that day, weathering the rising urge to beat the living daylights out of anyone and everyone who made a comment, snickered or even *looked * at Kitty, Laneingeing one of the early almost-victims, until she had told him that if she could bear it, he could, too.1 "Besides," she said matter-of-factly, "I think I've got a friend in high places..."
Kurt snapped back to the present as Ferret Boy, as he was starting to call him in his head, made a squeaking noise of protest. School was almost empty and Kitty was nowhere to be seen. In fact, Kurt knew that she was waiting for him in the gym, with the other Mutant Cheerleaders, as they decided for their "official" title. "Klappe! Tell me who put out these pictures!"
"I don't know!" the other teenager whined, struggling against Kurt's surprisingly strong grip. "They were just everywhere this morning...the lockers, stuck between the pages of some of the library books, on the internet..."
"What?" Kurt snapped, shaking Ferret Boy slightly, making his head knock against the lockers. "Show me!" He frog marched the boy into the library and stood sentinel as Ferret Boy muttered about being late to practice, tapping nervously on the keyboard as if expecting the librarian to swoop down like an avenging porn angel and smack his knuckles for daring to look up smut on school property.2 Kurt checked the time once and saw that he was running late by ten minutes. He hoped Kitty would not come looking for him until he was done shaking down Ferret for information. "What's taking so long?"
Swallowing nervously, oth other teenager said, "I guess the librarian or someone must've found out and blocked the site from the computers...there's filters on 'em but sometimes they can slip through. Here," quickly, he wrote the web address down and shoved it at Kurt. "Don't hurt me!"
"Do me a favor," Kurt said, baring his teeth just enough to look menacand and cast doubt on his sanity, "next time you see one of these pictures, let me know who has it. And let whoever has it know that I know they have it..." Ferret Boy nodded and scampered off, but not before saying something that Kurt thought sounded like "Yes sir!Am IAm I really that frightening? For once, I think I want to be... _ Kurt heard the library door open and knew without turning around that Kitty had run him to ground. "Katzchen," he said easily as if he had not a care in the world.
"Thought you wanted to watch practice," she said somewhat sulkily. "We waited..."
"We?" Turning, he saw the female contingent of the institute minus Jean, Jubilee and Storm staring at him like angry owls. "Er...hello. Why aren't you at your first practice?"
"Canceled," Rogue snapped, thrusting a wad of white fabric at him. "And your girlfriend is on Prozac or something to not care about this..."
Kitty grabbed for the fabric but Kurt held it over his head as Amara explained, "Practice was called on account of bitchiness."
"Shut up, Amara!" Kitty snapped, jumping to reach Kurt's hand and missing by an inch. "Kurt, give it!"
"Nein...what's going on?"
Rahne sighed loudly and poked Kitty in the side, making her spin and slap at the Scottish girl's hand. "Yer gel here is the victim of a rather cruel prank."
"Rahne!" Kitty looked horrified and hid her face in her hands.
"I know about the pictures, Liebes," Kurt said, a little confused now.
"No, you idiot...look at the uniform." Rogue snatched the white cloth from Kurt and shook it out, manifesting it's shape as that of a cheerleader uniform. In black marker, written somewhat sloppily across the back, was one word. Slut. "Everyone said I did it cause it was Todd in the picture with her, but I know better..." Though, she admitted to herself, she did have brief start when she first saw the image. It had taken her most of the day to find Todd as he had been hiding from her, for fear she would believe the pictures.
Kurt felt alternately sick and depressed. _This is all my fault...if I hadn't asked her to the movies, if I hadn't gotten her on the Jeep... _ "Katzchen..."
"I want to go home now." Her calm seemed to be fracturing at a rapid pace. "Can we go now?"
Rahne cleared her throat. "Um, I'm going to hike it over to meet Jamie at the rec center...he was going to play basketball with some guys from his school..." she trailed off, feeling strangely uncomfortable as Kitty sniffled softly, turning her back to all of them.
Rogue took Amara by the elbow and began leading her towards the door backwards. "We're gonna go wait for Jubilee to get outta gymnastics...she's 'bout done so...well...bye!"
It was not that Kitty dreaded being alone with Kurt, but she just did not think she could face his eyes. He had a way of looking at her that made her feel exposed, and not in the good naked sort of way. To his credit, Kurt waited. She could feel him staring at her, though, and she wanted to scream at him. _I'm not mad at him, it's just because he's here. Don't do it, Kitty. Keep your temper. _ "I'm sorry," she finally said.
"For what?"
"For everything...for my parents, for my mini-nervous breakdown, for being a walking talking episode of _Twilight Zone _ and dragging you into it..."
Kurt could see her shoulders shaking as he stepped forward, hesitantly sliding his arms around her waist and resting his chin on her head. "Don't be. I don't even want to think of how terrible my life would be without you...You know what will make everything better, though?"
"A reset button on reality?"
Kurt chuckled a little, glad that she had at least some humor left. "That, too, but...well, this summer, Mama has asked if you would like to come visit with me for a week in June. It's Erika and Anya's birthdays and Marta has been asking if you can come with me..."
Kitty blinked, a little taken off guard. _He honestly thinks that a visit will make me feel better now? Well...damn it. It kinda does... _"I'll...well, I guess so. Weren't you going to summer school?"
Kurt sighed. "Ja, that's why the visit is only a week. But still...it'll be nice to be there again."
Kitty sighed. "Well, now that this summer is somewhat settled, what about now?"
"Who was this friend in a high place you told me about earlier?" he asked seriously, tightening his hold on her when she would twist free.
"Miss Blau," she finally admitted, giving him a bare-bones run down of what had transpired between the principal and herself that morning. "And the thing is...Well, I don't know." She finally managed to turn and face him, craning her neck to look him in the eyes. "She was just so weird. But not threatening..."
Kurt narrowed his yellow gaze and seemed to focus on something in the distance. "I'll go talk to her tomorrow..."
"And tell her what? You're my boyfriend and you wanted to see what I thought was so weird?"
"Nein...just talk to her. I'll figure out a line of bull."
"My fuzzy Elf...always good with the b.s." Kitty patted him on the arm and sighed. "I really do want to go home now..."
Kurt shifted from one foot to the other as he contemplated telling Kitty what he had found out about the extent of her...exposure. "Katzchen," he said finally when it looked like she was about to try and drag him bodily from the library, "I kind of...roughed up Ferret Boy a little..."
"Ferret Boy? Oh! Fenton, on the tennis team? Weak chin, glasses, smells weird?"
"Ja...that's him."
"Mind if I ask why you'd do something unlike yourself?"
"Because he said something about you..."
"Everyone said something about me today," she pointed out a bit sadly.
"Well, he said it to me. Loudly. It involved...speculation as to your fees..."
"Ah. Good show then." Kitty was flushing brightly but her voice, remarkably, was steady.
"Well, he told me that the pictures were pretty much everywhere, including...um...here." He handed her the paper Fenton, lately Ferret Boy, had given him.
Kitty looked long and hard at the web site address. "Well." She calmly folded the paper into a tiny square and clutched it in her hot fist. "I would like to go home now and make a little website..."
"Duncan?"
"You betcha."

"Just hurry up, yo...I don't wanna hang out here any longer than we have to, kay?"
Lance snorted. "We lived here for years, man..."
Todd shoos hes head and said, "But we don't now. Pietro's just fucked up enough to do some crazy shit if he catches us here...go get the damn strings and let's go." Making his words final, Todd crouched into a corner of the rickety front porch of the Boardinghouse and set his jaw resolutely.
Lance just rolled his eyes and went in through the recently repaired front door without slowing his stride. _I used to fuckin' run this place, man...Pietro just whined around like the daddy's boy he is. Until Magneto got pissy and made him de facto leader. _ He marched up the creaking stairs and grimaced at the plaster dust permeating the air. _What the Hell are they doing in here? Fred finally bust through the floor or something? _ "What the fuck?" he said aloud, irregardless of the fact he was technically breaking and entering. His old room was empty. Absolutely empty. Where the closet had been was a smooth white wall, the window braced with black security bars an inch thick. The carpet had been ripped up and the floorboards, though rotten, were sanded smooth where the wood was thick enough. It smelled of insecticide and paint, making Lance's head hurt. "The Hell?"
"Like it?" Pietro's rapid but pacific voice broke his horrified reverie. "It's for the new recruits."
Lance turned slowly, not sure what he would be facing. The Pietro he knew was dangerous enough if pushed, but this Pietro, the one who had been on a slow slide since the past autumn, was an unknown commodity. The silver-haired boy was smiling and standing almost perfectly still, a strange occurrence in and of itself, but what really made Lance nervous was the tiny trickle of blood trailing from the corner of Pietro's mouth and the bruise flourishing on one cheek. "You okay man?" he asked, stepping closer by one pace but still out of arm's reach. "You look like you got popped."
"Never better, Lance..." Pietro grinned wider and stepped back from the doorway. "This is where the first recruit will be staying...the bars are to...well, keep 'em in, really. Once they meet my new partner. We're gonna show Magneto that we know what's what."
Lance felt like his veins were filling with ice water. "New partner?"
"Yeah...you know him. Remember?" Pietro's smile had taken a turn for the feral. "You hated him, you said. He reminding you of your father..."
"Dude, if you're fucking with me, stop it now." Lance wished he were telepathic for one moment. He did not know who he would call, but he thought it might be nice to call someone for help. _Wonder if Amara would burn this joint down if I asked her to? _
"Come on, Lance...chill. He's not here for you."
"How long as Incubus been back?"3 Lance felt very tired all of a sudden, as if his body was being sapped of energy.
"He never went away," a new, familiar voice said from behind Pietro, the speaking becoming evident asstepstepped around the doorframe. The face, as always, was indistinguishable, a benefit of his mutation. Incubus smiled, at least it seemed to Lance that he was smiling. Every time he had met Incubus, he had never been able to make out his appearance. It seemed that he was able to somehow make people either unable to discern details or blur his own features to be incognito. "Hello, Lance."
"What do you want now? The last time, it was blood and sex...still on your Anton LeVey4 k" L" Lance wondered where Todd was, if Incubus had found him or if he even cared about the younger mutant. Part of Lance was a little disturbed that he was worried about Todd but he shoved that aside, deciding to deal with it next time he was drunk and introspective.
Incubus laughed. "Nothing so exciting as that...Your old friend Magneto recruited me, actually. Pietro here needs a little help rebuilding the Brotherhood now that you pussies defected and Mystique is...well, soon to be out of commission. Tell me, Lance...are you prone to headaches?"
"Not really..."
"Then this will bother you some when you wake up..." Lance felt the impact but never saw what hit him as the world flared brightly and he hit the ground. _Man, Amara's gonna kill me...I'm supposed to pick her up at five, _ he thought just before everything went black.


1 That's almost a rip off of that scene in Rob Roy where Mary is washing herself in the water after the English go off and Alastair finally snaps to the fact she'd been raped. "If I can bear it to be done..." *Ahem * Maybe I need to go out more and stop watching so many movies...
2 And to those of you reading my fic on school property (I know there's at least two of ya...) FIGHT THE POWER! LOL...
3 For the life of me, I could not remember if there was already a character in Marvel canon named Incubus, so let's pretend there isn't if there is and if there is, this isn't him/her/it. Kay? Kay. Back to the fic...
4 Popularized Satanism and the Church of Satan. Don't even get me started...*sigh * At least he gave Marilyn Manson something to talk about in interviews.