Rogue's Kiss

Kitty Pryde was making her way down the hallway towards the elevator that would take her down to the subbasement levels. She had just heard that Evan had gone down there to take Rogue some juice and it may help her out to have more then just one person visiting her all the time. Maybe she could even get all the others…

“Katchzen! Vhere are you going?” Kurt asked frantically, racing to catch his friend/ultimate crush.

“I’m going down to, like, see Rogue. What’s your problem?” asked with an annoyed expression. Kitty had been sure that if anybody would go down to see Rogue it would be Kurt but he didn’t even like to talk about her as if she were still dead.

“You can’t go down there! She is nosferatu! She may hurt you!” he went on frantically, trying to pull her away from the elevator door that was hidden behind a wooden panel.

“Nosferatu? Wha…. OH, YOU HAVE GOT TO BE, LIKE, FUCKING KIDDING ME, KURT!” Kitty screamed at the blue demon, wrenching her arm away after remember what a nosferatu was. You didn’t share rooms with Rogue and not know that it meant vampire.

“Katchzen. Listen to me…” Kurt pleaded.

“NO! I will not!” Kitty shrieked, so angry her vision seemed to blur. “Of all people…I would think you would, like, understand that being scared of her is not the answer!”

“No, kitty,” Kurt said very seriously, accent thickening. “I am not afraid of her. I’m afraid of what’s inside her. That’s not Rogue down there anymore! There maybe some of Rogue still in that body but it’s quickly being eaten away. I know this! My family tells stories of it.”

Kitty, calmed down but the sheer stupidity of what she was hearing said, “You’ve been watching way too much Buffy! What is wrong with everybody? Yesterday I heard Ray saying to Jamie not to go down into the basement levels or Zombie Rogue would eat his brains and now you…”

“Vell how do you explain it then?” Kurt cut in. “Katchzen, e die died, was autopsied, embalmed and then buried. How do you explain that thing sitting down there? I mean, really, Kitty! That’s NOT normal!”

Kitty just stood there glaring at him, finally acknowledging the fact that she had purposely not thought about how it was possible Rogue was alive and breathing. Her mind tried to tell her this but she pushed it away and replied.

“And what about you, Kurt? Are you normal?” the stricken look on Kurt’s face told her she was hitting far below the belt but she didn’t care.

“Katchzen, don’t go there,” Kurt said in some warning.

“Well, , th, think about it Kurt. Are you normal? Am I? Is anybody in this damn house ‘normal’? Answer me! Are we?” Kitty stated.

“Kitty, that’s not the point,” Kurt started.

“Yes it is,” Kitty calmly cut off. “All of a sudden something weird happens that we can’t explain and everyone gets, like, scared.s jus just like how all those people in the world will feel about us when we come out. They won’t understand and they’ll be scared but we’re like supposed to show them there’s nothing to be scared off. Kurt, how can we do that if we can’t even accept one of our friends back when she needs us?”

Kurt didn’t think he had ever felt so ashamed of himself as at that moment. This guilt trip haen oen one journey he wouldn’t return from for awhile. He had to admit that when he had heard of Rogue’s return the first thing that had come into his mind was all those stories the elders had told of olden times, of monsters and demons that prayed on people. And the biggest shame-hit of the whole thing was that he should have known better because of who he was and how he looked.

“Alright, I surrender,” Kurt said guiltily. “I don’t know what came over me. Just the old childhood training I suppose.”

Kitty let her anger flow away in a deep breath and said, “its okay. I guess I'm a little scared too. I haven’t even thought how all this was possible.”

“I don’t think even the teachers really know,” Kurt said. He looked timidly at the wooden panel. “Are you still going down there?”

Kitty looked at the panel again, totally forgetting the reason she was here and nodded. “Yep. Wanna come along? Evan’s down there.”

Kurt swallowed hard and said “Yeah, its time I did I suppose.”

They both approached the panel and slid it aside into the wall. A metal door was shown with a thumb print analyzer beside it. Kitty placed her thumb on it for three seconds then took it away. Kurt flinched a little when they heard the faint hum the elevator ascending upwards towards them. When it reached and opened they stepped inside and proceeded down. Kurt was visibly shaking in his fur even though he knew it was nonsense.

“Just remember not to turn on any lights, they hurt her eyes” Kitty said in a nonchalant tone.

“Kitty,” Kurt whined. “Your not helping!”

“Sorry,” Kitty said a little sarcastically.

They stopped at the third level down and stepped out of the opening doors. Kitty could hear Kurt breathing heavily as the approached the room. Kitty shot a look at Kurt to make sure he wouldn’t do or say anything stupid she turned the handle and opened the door.

The room was very dark of course, which was too be expected. But what wasn’t expected was a dark form lying on the floor in the middle of the room. The two students stepped into the room and looked down, already knowing in the back of their heads who it was. All that night training with Logan kicking in.

From the first moments of dumb shock that all people feel when the first see a friend dead, Kitty thought “all that guilt tripping on Kurt just down the drain.”

Kurt seemed to kneel down in extreme slow motion and take Evan’s grayish wrist in his three furry fingers.

“He’s dead,” Kurt said simply before he keeled over in a dead faint.