The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER CHAPTER SEVEN (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, Billy and Joaquin are doing a happy dance to send good luck your way. You really should see it...they've even choreographed a bit for Dodo and Joris. Kristen and Lucas are working the lights... InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink, and now Ironic Paradise are shiny and happy archivists. * happy pagan dance * Readers/Reviewers: The Killer Kitties (tm) are plotting...I saw maps and charts and even an abacus... I didn't know cats could use an abacus!


Amanda swirled her last fry through the puddle of ketchup on the burger wrapper between her and Kurt. "Thanks for coming out here so late at night...I'm sorry I called..."
"Don't be silly, Amanda! We're friends now, and friends are there for each other, ja?" Kurt smiled encouragingly and finished off his chocolate shake. "Just be glad the Burger Barn is open until two, huh?"
Amanda laughed weakly. "Yeah, I guess... I bet Kitty's gonna be mad at you for coming to see me!"
"Nein...in fact, she was there when you called. She knew I was coming to see you." He failed to add that she looked sick at the prospect and closed her self off immediately, crossing her arms over her chest and drawing into a small ball on the couch, avoiding his gaze and sending him off with a perfunctory, 'Love you, Fuzzy.' "She says hi," he lied.
Amanda raised a brow. "Really? When we parted ways, I got the distinct feeling she didn't care much for me..."
"Amanda, Kitty isn't the jealous type..." _Maybe a little _ ... "We just had a tiring winter break and we're still recovering."
"Oh?" Amanda grinned then, flicking a straw wrapper at her former boyfriend. "Tiring how? Fun tiring?"
"_Amanda _ !" Kurt knew he was blushing under his fur and wondered if it showed through on his holo. "We just went on a trip with Jean and one of the Professor's friends and it...ran into complications." His tone made it clear that he would entertain no questions about the winter break and Amanda nodded faintly in compliance. The clatter of mop and bucket drew their attention to the front and Kurt sighed. "It's really late..."
"Or early. Depending on how you look at it." Amanda winked at him and laughed when he made a throat-clearing noise in embarrassment.
Kurt bused their tray and he met her outside under the flickering Burger Barn sign. "You going to be okay?"
"Yeah, I'll be fine. I just couldn't stay in the house one more minute with him yelling at me like that." She shrugged and adjusted her jacket. "You're a great guy, Kurt. Kitty's really lucky."
Kurt ducked his head. "Nein, _I'm _ lucky..." He offered her a small smile and held out his arms for a hug. "Come on, for friendship's sake!" Amanda snickered and hugged him, the two rocking side to side in the long embrace. "You'll be fine, Amanda. Just call me if you need to talk, okay? I don't care what time it is..."
"I may just take you up on that," she sighed, thinking of how lonely it would be when she got home, the cold shoulder her father was sure to give her for the next few days.
"You know, I don't think you have the number to the phone in my room, do you?" Kurt turned his head to look at Amanda as she turned to speak to him, and, to his horror, their lips brushed. He gasped as she did, but what she did next caught him entirely off guard. She pressed her mouth against his again, more firmly, decisively, making him stiffen in her embrace. His body reacted before his mind did, his lips softening against hers for a brief moment before he shoved away frantically. "Amanda! Nein!"
"I'm so sorry Kurt!" she cried, clapping her hand over her mouth and bursting into tears. "I don't know what I was thinking... I mean, I know you're with Kitty but after spending all this time talking tonight and the hug... I guess part of me just sort of hoped..." she sobbed brokenly. "I'm so sorry! God, you probably hate me now!"
"No, I don't hate you, but...but..." Kurt felt ill. Not because the kiss was bad, but because part of him had enjoyed it, because part of him had kissed her back. "I've got to go!"
Duncan Matthews smirked in the dim light of the parking lot, sitting on the trunk of his car with Patricia Garrison and one of his goons. Kurt did not even notice them as he fairly dove into the car and sped away, Amanda following at a slower pace, still crying as she crumpled into herher'her's station wagon and pulling out of the parking lot several minutes after Kurt. Duncan shook his head in vague disbelief at his good fortune. "Man, I'm gonna love Monday..."

Amara was still mildly annoyed with Lance when the downstairs clock chimed two a.m., but she was slowly finding his rather bad serenade to be, for want of a better word, charming. _I can tell his heart was in it, but gods! In front of everyone? _ She huffed out a sigh and flounced her nightdress around her legs, admiring briefly the effect of the falling cotton swirling around her dark skin. _Okay. I'll just go explain to him why I snapped and tell him I kind of liked the gesture. This doesn't mean we're back together though. Maybe. I don't know. _ Slipping her feet into her house shoes, Amara tied the sash to her robe securely and let herself out of the room, padding down the hall to the room Lance shared with Todd. Knocking softly, she said, "Lance? Lance, you in there?"
"No."
Amara sighed. "Please open the door. I need to talk to you." Silence greeted her words and she thumped her head gently against the wooden door, biting her lip in thought. "Lance, if you don't open this door, I'm going to sing. And I sing worse than you ever dreamed."
"I thought Princesses did nothing badly," he snarled back from the other side of the door, sounding closer than before but no friendlier.
"Don't make me do this, Lance."
"You wouldn't."
_Damn it. _ Amara tried to think of the most annoying song she had ever heard, preferably in English to spare her mother tongue the indignity of poor singing, and smiled as an image from a movie flashed across her mind. "Okay, Lance, one last chance. Open the door." Her most imperious tone elicited nothing more than a snort from the other side of the door and the sound of footsteps crossing away from the door. "Fine. You asked for it." Amara closed her eyes and cleared her throat, and, pitching her voice deliberately off key and too loud, sang, "I'm Henry the Eighth I am, Henry the Eighth I am, I am, I got married to the widow next door, she's been married seven times before!"1
Lance felt his eyes become near-perfect circles at the sound of Amara singing so poorly. "Shut up! Everyone's gonna hear you!" he hissed, throwing the door to his room open and grabbing her by the arms to drag her inside. She bore a smug smile on her lips as he shut the door firmly behind her, closing off the sounds of people up and down the hall calling for her to shut up. "What the Hell is wrong with you?"
"You wouldn't let me in..." She pushed past him and dropped gracelessly onto the bed. "Now, we need to talk."
"You told me what you thought of my...my gesture earlier," he snapped, not looking at her in the face but glaring at her toes instead, as if it were all those digits' fault. "I see that you don't really want me to try and make up for earlier."
"Lance, listen to me. Just shut your mouth for a second and listen..." Amara pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes for a moment before she began, finally saying, "I was wrong. There. I said it. I overreacted when I saw Patricia Garrison hanging on you and I got mad because you don't seem to want anyone to know we're together. I've been thinking about it and I've decided I can get over it. I can deal with no one knowing we're together, with girls hanging on you. I mean, if you can deal with guys hanging on me. Just this afternoon, during gym class, that exchange student...Paolo?...he was telling me how lovely my eyes were. If you can deal with it, I can." Amara did not smile, did not act coy. She was rather proud of that moment. She was not lying to Lance, Paolo had told her that he liked her eyes, and some of the guys had been expressing interest in her since the semester started, but she had rebuffed them all firmly, usually in Latin to spare them her more violent insults.
Lance stared hard at her then, trying to determine if she was toying with him or not. Her bland expression and lack of elaborate detail led him to believe her. "If I see any guy pawing you, I'll kick thess."ss."
"Now, now...did I hurt Patricia? No. So I expect you to show my...interested parties...the same courtesy I show yours. Deal?"
"Pardon?" Lance's jaw dropped. "Are you suggesting we see other people?"
Amara blanched. "Gods above, no!" Her hands fluttered to her throat in frustration. "Never! It's just, if we're going to be like this about it, all secretive for some reason, letting people flirt, then I'm not going to go stomping on your girls if you don't go harassing my guys."
Lance boiled with anger. "_Your _ guys? You're mine, Amara. Mine and no one else's!" He crossed to her and shook her slightly, making her jerk her chin up in defiance of his words.
"Oh?" She extricated herself from his grip and rose as stately as she could. "Lance, never doubt that I love you, but know this-I will treat you with the same accord as you treat me. Think on it." She stood on her toes and captured his chin in her fingers, pulling him down to meet her kiss. She bit his bottom lip sharply, making him gasp in pain and press against her in known pleasure. Amara swept her tongue inside his mouth, teasing at his warm interior and making him grunt softly in growing enthusiasm. His hands stole up her sides and his thumbs made lazy circles on her ribs as she ground against him, his arousal obvious against her abdomen. Her pain was palatable as she pulled away, though she kept her face neutral. "Good night, Lance. Sweet dreams..." His growl of frustration drove her from the room to the succor of her own bed, where she flung herself face down on the pillows. _That had better work... _

"Remy, what are you doing?" Jubilee opened one eye to see her lover standing at the foot of her bed, smiling at her with a school boy-like innocence that made her instantly suspicious.
"J'ai un ide, ma chere2." He chuckled softly as Jubilee sat up, still only peering at him from one eye. "Ain't you gonna open both eyes pour Remy?"
"No. It's after two in the morning, I'm sleepy, and you look like the cat that ate the canary. What'd you do?" She scooted over to make room for the Cajun, patting the side of the bed to indicate that he should sit down. Jubilee felt a vague moment of regret for the sleep she knew had just flown out the window, for Remy began rubbing her neck and shoulders with practiced strokes as soon as he sat down. "Gumbo..."
"Hear me out, cherie..." Remy pressed a kiss to the back of her neck where he knew it would make her shudder. "I been tinkin' on de rash o' broken hearts round here an' I decided we kin do somethin' bout it."
"Oy."
"You been 'round Kitty..." Remy moved so that Jubilee was laying against his chest as he sat against he headboard, her hands resting idly on his knees as her breathing slowly deepened in relaxation as he continued his massage. "What I decided is dat we jus' gotta play Cupid."
"You been into the wacky weed, LeBeau?" she asked around a yawn. "Or you drinking?"
"Neither, ma chou3," he chuckled. "I jus' see dat you an' me, we happy, eh? We ain't got no prollems wid us so we be de bes' ones ta help 'em out..."
"What about Scott and Jean? Or Kitty and Kurt? I don't want to be thrown into this mess with the breakups, Gumbo. Let one of the others help Todd and Rogue and Lance and Amara." Jubilee snuggled against his chest and sighed happily as one of his hands drifted downward and slid beneath the waistband of the purloined boxer shorts she slept in.
Remy spared a moment to nuzzle her hair, smelling the faint scent of frangipani and salt sweat left from her day. Her stomach was warm and taut under his hand and the lower he moved, the more enthusiastic mewling noises she made, encouraging him. Running one finger along her core, Remy sighed to himself and soldiered onward with his idea. "You didn' see Kitty earlier, eh? She be jalouse4 et Kurt not got ide un in his head 'bout how ta deal wid it. We kin add 'em to de lis' o' de gens we gonna help, eh?" He slid his questing digit into her rapidly dampening warmth and was rewarded with a squirming sigh and a nod from Jubilee. With slow strokes to her womanhood, making her bite her lip in rising desire, Remy continued, "Scott an' Jean, mebbe dey help, mais dey be straight an' narrow, eh? Dey not be up on de subterfuge comme nous, eh?"
"N...no...Oh, Remy!" Jubilee's legs parted further to give him better access, her hips rising slightly as he found her most sensitive spot and concentrated there, feeling her slickening heat and knowing she was close to climax.
"We kin plan how we hep later, eh?" he murmured in her ear, moving to suckle on her neck. Jubilee gasped and he pushed his finger inside her, feeling her convulse around him.
"Yes!" She threw her arms around his neck, pressing back into him to raise her pelvis against his probing thrusts. She cried out wordlessly and fell back on to the bed, shuddering again around his finger. Remy smiled against her shoulder and withdrew the digit, which she promptly grasped and brought to her lips, sucking on as he wished she would do elsewhere.
"Ah, bien," he murmured, "I knew you see tings mah way..."
1 Herman's Hermits sang "Henry the Eighth" and the movie Amara was thinking of was "Ghost," where Patrick Swayze's character is singing that song to annoy the medium.
2 I have an idea, my dear.
3 I've said it before and I'll say it again, I have no idea why Francophones find it desirable to use cabbage as a term of endearment.
4 Viva les Acadiens. Jealous.