Carne Vale

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

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, Dodo is still somewhere in the Gulf...the dark waters make it hard to see, I guess... InterNutter, TC and Maxwell Pink are fanfreakingtastic for archiving. :) Readers/Reviewers: The ducks are wearing cammo these days. Do you know how disturbing that is? They blend in with everything... Walk to the kitchen and QUAK!!!! Ducky death from above... I'm almost rooting for the Killer Kitties (tm) and their Killer Minions(tm) now.



Brian tried not to sigh out loud, but it was difficult. He knew that he was not the only gay student at Bayville High, but he was certainly the most unlikely. He was also the least obvious and the one with the most to lose, at least in his estimation. He was graduating in just over a month and his entire future rested on the results of the rather aggressive recruiting campaign of two major universities and he knew without being told that, even in the twenty first century, in a supposedly liberal society, that an openly gay football player would not be an asset to many universities.1 His self-derisive mood was compounded by the fact he wanted to help Kurt, the object of his recent and deep affection, in some way but was rather torn by the fact that, not only did Kurt have a girlfriend that he did not seem to be tiring of anytime soon, but he had no idea how to go about it. Duncan interrupted his thoughts with a crude comment about Kitty. "Shut up," Brian snapped, moved to defend the girl he was coming to like a bit, despite his innate jealousy. "You know those weren't real pictures. Any idiot with two eyes can see it...Tolensky's hands are malformed, for one..." Brian kept his back to Duncan while he was speaking, changing into his practice uniform for soccer. He could feel the eyes of the rest of the team burning into his back when Duncan fell silent. Most of the soccer team was composed of football players looking for something to do in the off season since they canceled the rugby games on account of rampant violence after the coach had his nose broken in a fight with a parent; Brian knew that they would side with Duncan before him should this come to blows.2
"Dickhead...you don't know what you're talking about," Duncan said after a pause. He glared at the back of Brian's head and said, "Sounds like you've got it bad for Kitty or something..."
"Not hardly," someone snickered. "More like Tolenksy."
Brian rolled his eyes. He learned long ago that this was just usual locker room teasing for the members of the team; no one actually would think he was gay. He just went with it. "Yeah, yellow teeth and gray skin do it for me." He snorted and added, "Like I'd want that Rogue chick to kick my ass..." The chatter around him degraded into the mysteries of the Rogue-Todd relationship, mostly speculation on what sort of information he had on her to get her to date him.
"I don't know what you're getting at, Brian," Duncan's voice hissed in his ear suddenly, "but you'd better shut your goddamned mouth or I'll make sure you never open it again."
When Brian turned to confront him, he saw the blond teenager across the locker room, nowhere near enough to whisper. The fuck... Before he could draw any conclusions about stress induced audio hallucinations, Coach McGurk3 threw the door to the locker room open and shoved Todd Tolensky, the subject of the soccer team's mass speculation, into their midst. "Okay, girls, lissen up...this is Tolensky. He's joinin' for the rest of the season. Don't break him."
Todd found himself horribly alone with the rest of the soccer team. He mentally cursed the Professor, Logan and Storm for getting him put on the soccer team and everyone else he could think of for doing nothing to stop them. He wished he had been able to stick to their first choice, but eat one bug in front of a teacher..."Uh...hey."
"Tolensky...just the man we wanted to see..." Duncan oozed a charm that made Todd want to take a long, hot shower with steel wool. "Tell me...Rogue. A screamer or moaner?"
He glared at the much larger teenager. "Wouldn't know," he lied, trying to move past the sudden wall of flesh that blocked him from the lockers. _ Where's Lance when you need him? I can't slime these fucks...Damn it... _ "We're just friends, yo..." _Don't let that get back to her...she'll kill me. _
"Not what I heard," Duncan snorted. "In fact, I d qud quite a bit more than that..." He cleared his throat aaid aid in a high-pitched voice that sounded nothing like Rogue, despite his affected drawl, "Harder, Todd! Harder!"
With great confidence, Todd said, "Rogue's never said that in her life!" _And I would know... _
There was a general swell of catcalls as Todd ducked around Duncan and behind a row of lockers to change clothes. His respite was short lived, however, as Duncan and some of the larger members of the team rounded the corner. "Who's Marie?" he asked, pointing to the tattoo on Todd's chest.
"Girlfriend," he said shortly, pulling the rather musty second-hand uniform shirt over his head.
"Come on, ladies!" Coach McGurk shouted from the doorway. "Ten extra laps if you're late!"
Todd sighed with visible relief as there was a mass exodus from the locker room, leaving only himself and Brian, who was lurking near the mirror over a gritty sink. _Great _, Todd sighed to himself as he pulled on the much-too-long shorts, _they've left a point man. _"Scuse me," he said, trying to move past Brian without touching him.
"Wait up," the older teenager said, grabbing Todd by an arm. "I know you haven't got a reason to trust me, but ask Kitty if you need references. Watch your back out there. Duncan's up to something and for some reason, you guys from the Institute are his target."
"Didn't have to tell me that, yo." Todd did not move to extricate his arm from Brian's grasp, but rather felt pinned by the intensity of his gaze.
"I don't care about you and Rogue or Amara and Lance or whoever else is fucking like bunnies up there, but Duncan is intent on Kurt and Kitty. Especially Kitty. He'll try anything to get to her and if he knows you're friends with her, you're screwed."
"Man, I don't know what you're talking about," Todd said nervously, feeling as if Brian knew a little too much about the outer rings of hife.ife. "And I ain't runnin' no ten laps cause you wanna shoot the shit."
"You're not running any laps...Trust me on this one." Brian seemed very uneasy all of a sudden, the color draining from his face and his hands shaking. "Just..." His words were cut off by a sharp report, loud and bone-jarring.
Todd felt his heart race. He had grown up in a not-specifically-good part of Brooklyn and he recognized the sound of a gunshot anywhere. "Shit!"
One of the team members, someone Todd barely recognized as a senior named Bradley, ran pell-mell into the locker room. "Call 911! Someone shot Miss Blau!"


Amara paused in the doorway to the Journalism classroom, debating whether or not she should actually knock. She was saved from the decision when Lance looked up from where he was hunched over the computer keyboard, hunting and pecking. "Hey," he said sullenly, looking a little worse for wear after the previous afternoon's incident. "You didn't come see me."
"I didn't know about it until this morning...I just figured you and Todd had hung out with Fred or something. I only heard about what happened when Jubilee told me at breakfast." She shrugged, a little guiltily. She felt bad for not knowing but realized that it was not her fault no one told her. "So this is what they have you doing?"
"Yeah...sucks." He pushed away from the computer table and sighed, lolling his head back. "It's abandon the new guy day, apparently. They shoved a bunch of stuff that needed to be edited at me and ran away."
"I thought you were doing the photos for the yearbook," she said, strolling over as if she did not have something almost devious planned.
"And I thought you had cheerleading practice." He turned in the chair to face her, assessing her with narrowed eyes.
"My uniform caught on fire. Damnedest thing, so did Rogue, Kitty and Rahne's. Tragic, actually." She sat on his lap with a smile, "Did you know that polyester melts?"
"Good to know," he chuckled, leaning back in the chair and taking her with him. "Isn't the cheerleading coach gonna catch on that you guys are doing this stuff on purpose?"
"Already has. We have to have new uniforms by tomorrow afternoon, so I've got to go to some weird supply store in town and get a rush order. Rogue threatened me with bodily harm if I didn't do it since I'm the one who kinda had the pyromaniac moment." She sighed and glanced at the computer Lance had been working on. "What the Hell is that?"
"Ah...all part of Kitty's retaliation against Duncan..." He reached around her and tapped some keys and grinned as the full layout of the page appeared. The caption read "Quarterback of the Year, All State Finals." The picture was in full, livid color and very detailed. "The one damn thing I know how to do on a computer and this is it."
"You mean aside from download porn..." She giggled when he tickled her. "A princess of Nova Roma does not giggle!" she said shortly, schooling her features into firm lines.
"Does Princess of Nova Roma put out?" he asked, drawing her down for a kiss. "No one is in this side of the building and there's no surveillance cameras in this room," he said pointedly, not quite breaking the contact of his mouth on her throat.
"If she's asked nicely..." She dug her nails into his arms as she turned and shifted in his lap to face him, straddling his legs. "Or even if she isn't, if it's the right person."
Lance did not respond verbally, instead kissing her neck and throat, working on the buttons to her shirt as she glanced at the door, making sure it was shut. He kissed her bare chest, taking a breast in each hand as she leaned forward. He began flicking his tongue over one of her nipples as she rocked against him, making his arousal even more pronounced as she pulled at the button on his jeans. "You break it, you sew it back on," he muttered.
"Insolent," she growled, scraping her nails across his stomach eno enough to draw a thin line of blood. In the process, she pushed open his ever-present army vest and something fell out of the inside pocket. "What's that?" she asked, attention diverted.
Lance made a hasty grab, his longer arms furthering his reach, and snagged the plastic baggie containing two joints and a roach clip before Amara could get to it. "Nothing...just...uh..." His girlfriend's glare made certain body parts retreat for safety. "Damn."
"I thought you were quitting."
"I'm down to two a day..."
"That's not quitting. That's just cutting back." She removed herself from his lap and stood before him, arms akimbo, and fairly spat, "Just tell me the truth when I ask you! Say you're not quitting instead of promising me that you are!"
Lance scooted back a few inches, acutely aware that Amara's skin had taken on a faint orange glow, her powers simmering below the surface, literally. "I *did *tell you the truth! I said I was cutting back...look, I don't have to change for you. I'm doing it because I...I love you, damn it. And if it makes you happy, then I'm going to try and stop smoking weed, okay?"
"Try?" Amara was once again Princess Royal of Nova Roma and her tone brooked no peasant's arguments.
Lance felt his irritation spill over into anger. "Fuck all, Amara! Get off my back about this! I don't bitch because you burn that opium crap! And I don't get all pissy when you do that creepy thing with your blood and that statue..."
Amara's eyes flared with momentary rage before her face settled into a blank mask. "First of all, the opium incense is not actually opium...even I know that is illegal in this country. Second, that "creepy thing" is part of my religion! Try and show it some respect!" she snapped. Her accent was slipping from a studied, bland could-be-from-anywhere-in-North-America sort to a clipped, almost Italianate one, her urge to hurl every curse she knew in her native language at him almost overwhelming.
Lance rose to his full height, towering nearly a foot over her, and said in a low voice, "It's one thing for you to run roughshod over me in bed...that I like. But it's another for you to do it in the rest of our relationship. Stop being so bitchy about my habits and I'll try and start being more understanding about yours!"
Amara spat something at him in Nova Roman, something that involved, to his limited understanding, a goat. "And further," she began, really gearing up, when a loud bang, muffled by the window glass, seemed to sound from the practice field just past the courtyard. "The hell?"4

A/N Next chapter, Kurt and Kitty get one teensy step closer to either sex or actually combusting from pent up frustration, Who Shot Miss Blau or...did she really get shot? And Hell, Scott and Jean need to get laid eventually.
1 One more time for those of you in the cheap seats...this is not my opinion. It is a fictional character...personally, I don't care if you're a dendrophiliac just stay offa my trees. Gay, straight, bi...whatever. Just be safe about it.
2 Really not as perverted as it sounds. Really.
3 From the Cartoon Network show Home Movies. Pretty damned funny if you ask me, which you didn't, but there it is...
4 Well...didn't that just take a turn for the American Beauty?