Quixotic

Quixotic Chapter Twenty One (NC-17)

Disclaimers Apply

 

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST
WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta…Too much sugar.
Crashing now… InterNutter, TC, Maxwell
Pink and Dracena rock my socks off for archiving/hosting! ProPhile is very quiet…I think he’s up to
something. Readers/Reviewers: Happy
Boxing Day, unless you’re here…then good luck at the mall! *shudder *

 

 

 

 

“I’m fine!”

“Miss, you
hit your head…”

“And I’ll
hit yours next if you don’t move!” Amara snarled, struggling to her
feet. “Oh…” The ground rushed to meet
her as she sat back down on the pavement.
Hard.

“Did anyone
call an ambulance yet?” the woman who had been fretting over her demanded. Someone muttered assent and she returned her
attention to Amara. “You’re going to be
okay,” she said with great exaggeration.

“Just…go
get my friends, please. I was supposed
to meet them at…he phe paused. Was it McClellan’s or Woolworth’s she was
supposed to meet them at? Jubilee and
Remy had argued over it…What had they decided?

“Oh,
no! She’s got amnesia!”

“I don’t
have amnesia,” Amara snarled. “I have
indecisive friends!” She tried to stand
again and found herself pressed back down.

“Elevate
her feet!” someone suggested.

“No, it’s
her head!” came another voice.

“Leave her
alone,” Amara suggested. The faint
whine of a siren was coming closer and she groaned. “I may as well rent a room there,” she muttered. Her head did hurt, thought. Badly.
A sticky warmth stained her neck and made her hair feel matted. “Am I bleeding?”

“It’s okay,
dear,” the first woman soothed. “Head wounds bleed a lot!”

Amara
groaned inwardly. Which god did I
offend in my arrogance? She closed
her eyes against a wave of nausea and sighed.
Bellona, Venus, Mars, Jove…I offended you on Nova Roma and you sent
me here. I cannot be happy so long as I
am cursed by your displeasure… She
opened her eyes to find the ambulance had arrived. “Lance is going to have kittens,” she muttered, using a Jubilee
phrase.

 

Remy
dropped the remains of his cigarette into the ash can outside the story and
rolled his head, popping his neck. “She
prolly jus’ go on home,” he said as Jubilee sighed in boredom. “Lance all upset now…”

Jubilee
shrugged. “Amara’s been a freak of
nature lately…Picking on me. I should
kick her ass.”

“Didn’t
you?”

“I just
popped her,” she pointed out, snapping her gum. “Remy, I’m bored!
Can’t I just take the car and you get a ride with Lance?”

He sighed
now. In some part of his mind, he was
on a constant search for the right time to tell Jubilee he knew her secret,
that he wanted to be there for her even if it scared the Hell out of him on
several different levels. As she stood
blowing bubbles then popping them loudly, he gazed down at her with a mixture of
fondness and abject terror. He tried to
imagine them in a domestic setting and failed miserably, torn between images of
them living in a room at the Institute with a baby at the foot of the bed in a
crib or the image of them living in some dingy apartment after they got ki
ou
out by the Professor. He wouldn’t…Scott
an’ Jean still dere…mais she ain’t knocked up.
Pregnant… He tried to think
of when it could have happened and drew a blank. They were always careful, he knew, she on the pill and he using
condoms as often as possible. Nothin’
perfect, he sighed inwardly. His
eyes skimmed down her body for some outward sign of her condition and found her
to be the same as ever—short, athletic and wearing really bad shoes. “Dem ain’t good for yo’ back,” he said with
a nod at her bright yellow Converse.

She
snorted. “I wear arch supports if it
makes you feel better. Nearly flat as a
pancake from all the running and landing hard,” she said as an aside. “Look, Amara probably just went off on some
princess trip and is lurking, waiting for the maximum amount of piss-off before
showing up.” Her stomach twinged in hunger,
sending a hot sp of of nausea through her body. She had not eaten anything since the night before, intending on
getting something while they were in town.
Now, she grumbled to herself, thanks to Amara, her blood sugar was
reaching interesting new lows and she was going to vomit all over Remy’s
boots. “I’ll be back,” she said
suddenly, making a split second decision.
“I feel like crap and need a doughnut.” “A…quoi?” Her sudden lurch into the street drew him
out of his planning. Jubilade ade a
beeline towards the bakery across the road, barely missing being hit by an
ambulance swinging around the corner. She flipped off the driver and kept
walking. Remy gritted his teeth and
followed…Lance could very well find them later!

 

“Ooooh…shiny!”

“What?” Lance stopped short and turned to face Todd,
who had his face pressed against a shop window.

“Think
Rogue’d want that for Christmas?” he asked, pointing to a necklace in the
display that bore a strange resemblance to a dog collar.

“I think
she’d kick your ass for the implications,” Lance snapped. “Come on!”
He grabbed Todd’s elbow and dragged him away, inwardly surprised at how
heavy his friend was. “Lay off the
pizza, man!”

“Leggo my
arm!” Todd ordered, twisting loose. “What’s
the big fucking deal anyway? You get
some call and tell me I gotta come with you to town…dude, is this a commando
date or something?” Todd look
distinctly disturbed. “You got somethin’
to tell me?”
Lance was on the verge of
snapping temper-wise. “If I told you
why, you wouldn’t have come!”

“How you so
sure?”

“Because…” Lance paused. How am I so sure? “Fine…Amara’s
disappeared!”

“Again?” Todd
sighed. “Dude, we never lost people
with the Brotherhood!” He shook his
head sadly. “We need collars with tags
on ‘em or something… Leashes.”

Lance’s
fists tightened by his sides. “That’s
why I didn’t tell you!” he growled. “You’d
make jokes and dick around…”

Todd rolled
his eyes. “I don’t deal with stress, yo…
I either get pissed or make jokes. Deal with it!”

Lance
closed his eyes and counted to ten. “Amara
has been really…depressed…lately. I’m
worried that she’s gonna do something stupid.”

Todd sighed
silently. He felt a little bad for
being so jocular about the situation but he had told the truth—he did not deal
well with stress and seeing Lance so upset was close on the verge of stress for
him. “Okay,” he finally said. “I’m a dick. Sorry.”

“Scott’s a
dick. You’re just a twit,” Lance
responded.

Todd
smirked. “Nah, he’s not a dick. Just very, very tense,” he said with a
grin.

Lance conceded
with a laugh. Becoming serious once more, he said, “Remy told me he and Jubilee
would be waiting outside McClellan’s for us.
We’re going to spread out and look for Amara that way.”

Todd
managed a nod, keeping his comments to himself. “What happens if we can’t find her?” Lance’s lack of response was all the answer he needed. Then we keep looking.

“So you ain’t
got a present for Rogue yet?” he asked apropos of nothing. They had parked far away from town center,
lacking money for the parking meters, and the walk to the meeting spot was a
long one.

“No,” Todd
sighed. “Nothing. I was gonna get her a book but…” he
shuddered. “Bookstores, ya know?”

“I know.” Lance shrugged and made a random noise of
consideration. “If you’re gonna give
her jewelry, don’t give her that dog collar thing.”

“Yeah, she’s
got two already,” Todd replied. “Bracelet?”
“She wears gloves all the
time,” Lance pointed out.

“So? She can wear it outside the gloves…” He shrugged then. “Eh. I’ll figure
something out. Green light!” He started across at the crosswalk only to
have Lance pull him back. Hard. “Dude!”
A moment later, an ambulance came flying past. “Wow…precog much?”

“No…I just
wasn’t running my mouth and saw it coming,” Lance responded sharply. “Now go!”


The station
wagon from the Institute was parked outside the small grocery store, time still
on the meter, but Remy and Jubilee were nowhere in sight. “Damn it,” Todd muttered. “Probably off fuckin’ in the alley, knowing
those two.”

“Like you
wouldn’t.”

“Nah, man…
Got be classier about it.” A brief
pause ensued before they both snickered.
“Sorry. Thought I could say it with
a straight face…”

“Well…how
nice to see you again,” a voice purred superciliously from behind them.

“Fuck,”
Lance breathed as he turned. “And today
was going so well…”

Pietro and
Piotr filled the doorway, bags in hand.
Actually, Piotr did most of the filling. “Evan was wondering about you just this morning,” Pietro
continued. “How life was at the
Institute, how his aunt was…blah blah blah…”
Pietro smirked. “Frankly, I was
wondering how he lasted so long at the place without dying of boredom.”

Todd rolled
his eyes. “How’s life back at the
house, man? Still got rats? Roaches?
Dry rot? And what about the
house itself?”

Pietro
shoved his single bag at Piotr, who nearly dropped it as he tried alanalance it
atop four others. “You little freaks
are gonna pay for turning your backs on us…”

Lance
finally snapped. “Pietro, you’re the
biggest fucking idiot I’ve ever met!”
All his stress and worry and tension seemed to be instantly relieved as
his fist met his former friend’s stomach.
Todd barely had time to think a coherent thought before the fight was
officially on.

 

“Xavier
Institute, Ms. Frost speaking,” Emma drawled into the phone. “Yes, they’re resident here…They what?” She closed her eyes. “Fine.
I’ll be down to post bail in an hour.
Tell them…tell them nothing. Let
them stew!” She slammed the receiver
down and took a deep breath. She knew from the Professor that some of the
students had “issues,” but this was ridiculous… Shielding herself from any errant telepathy, she gathered her
purse and keys to the jeep. If I
keep this from Charles and handle it myself, that’ll keep the stress down to a
manageable level for another few days.
Merry Christmas, Alvers and Tolensky.
Piss me off once and it’s all over…