Quixotic

Quixotic Chapter Twenty Seven (NC-17)

Disclaimers Apply

 

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST
WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta… Watched Dinner
for One last night. Giggled like
mad. J InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink and Dracena
are extra sparkled and wonderful for archiving/hosting! ProPhile has staff! Readers/Reviewers: Happy New Year!
Ouch! Too loud! Why’s all my rum gone? (couldn’t help myself with that line, lol) Here’s to hoping 2004 won’t suck and that
AFFN will keep running after all the trouble Ayla’s had with PayPal! Thank y’all heaps for reading and reviewing!

 

 

 

“Well…it’s…green.”

Jubilee
nodded absently and popped another bubble.
“And…sparkley.”

St John
sighed. “There’s not enough queer eyes
in the entire state to save this tree.”[1] With an air of finality, he plugged the
lights in. “There. Sparkley and shiny…”

Jubilee
snorted. “Sparkley and shiny trumps
not-crappy any day of the week.” The
Christmas tree listed disconcertingly to the left, the majority of broken
branches now facing the wall. Some
quick work had gotten most of the broken ornaments off the floor and the salvageable
ones arranged artfully if not evenly amongst the traumatized needles. “You know, if I was going to be a good
Buddhist person, I’d say that the true gift is the giver, not the material
object.”

“And if you
weren’t going to be a good Buddhist person?”
“I’d be shaking presents
trying to figure out what Remy got me.”
She grinned and sl sid sideways glance at St John, nudging him in the
ribs with her elbow. “So…you know?”

“I think,” St
John replied after a judicious pause, “that he’s more concerned about what he’s
getting than you are.”
“Huh?”

He shook
his head to stave of further questions and busied himself with adjusting a sad
strand of garland. “So, what’d they do
with Kurt?”

“Uh uh,
CryptoBoy. You tell me what you meant by that!” She grabbed him by the back of
his shirt and pulled him away from the tree, forcing him to face her. “Did he figure out what I’m giving him?”

“Well…” He made a face, trying to decide if he was
more afraid of Remy killing him or Jubilee stalking him until she got her
answer. “Um…”
“I will give you a purple
nurple[2]
if you don’t tell me!” she threatened, waving her fingers like pinchers.

St John
leaned back warily, crossing his arms over his chest. “Remy knows…”

“How the
Hell did he find out? I hid it in Kitty’s
room and kept it wrapped and even put a box of tampons on top of it, just to
make sure no guys touched it!” She
raked her fingers through her hair in agitation. “Damn it!”

St John
shook himself. “Huh?”

Her eyes
narrowed. “What dhe the think it
is?”

“Not
something you can hide in Kitty’s room…Unless…” His eyes raked her athletic
form. She did not seem to have
gained weight at any point in the past nine months, but some women just didn’t
show a lot…

“Unless what?” Jubilee reached for the general vicinity of
his nipple again. “What?”

St John
damned himself for being weak in the face of an angry girl nearly a foot
shorter and a good thirty pounds less his weight. “He knows you’re pregnant and he’s going to ask you to marry him!”

Jubilee had
to take a moment and replay St John’s words ment, se, separating them into separate
sounds rather than the long rush in which they had left his throat. “He….I am going to kill him. It’s that simple. He’s a dead man.” She
turned on her heel and stalked towards the stairs. “Belladonna better have a mailing address cause I’m shipping her
a body!”

St Johnlpedlped audibly. “Fa la la la la,” he
managed shakily, hoping that maybe Remy would forget who he told.

 

Kitty was
on her second cup of tea, chamomile at Storm’s urging, by the time Logan
finished explaining the situation to for for the third time. “But he’s okay now?” she asked somewhat
stiltedly. “I mean…is he…is he still
out of his head?”

“That’s the
thing,” Logan sighed, sitting across from her with the air of one much put
upon. “He was in his head the whole
time, to hear the Professor tell it.
Kurt was just…deluded. He needed
a break from his reality so he fell back into a fantasy one.”

“Emma told
me to play along…really play along…is that still right?” she asked faintly,
turning the cup in her hands. “I mean,
I’ll go do it now if that’ll help. I
think I can dig up another costume somewhere and it’ll take me ten minutes to
work up a sim so he can rescue me…”

Logan shook
his head, silencing her. “He’s not fit
for company, Half Pint. Especially
yours.” Kurt was, in truth, heavily sedated
and under observation by Beast with Cecilia on the way to take over when the
party started, if need be. Kurt had
been raving quite loudly and nearly violently by the time Logan had managed him
into the lab, switching between his Robin Hood persona, the panicked knight
errant, and traces of Kurt Wagner himself with a healthy dose of chisthistic paranoia
thrown in. “The best thing right now is
for him to rest.”

“Then what?”
Kitty demanded. “He’ll wake up and we humor
him again? I can’t take this, Logan!” She shoved her chair back roughly and shook
her head. “No.”

“Half Pint,
calm down…”

“I’m tired,”
she said, her voice rising as she spoke, “of people telling me to calm down! If
one more person tells me to calm down, I’m going to kill something!” She moved around the table and started to
leave the kitchen, but Logan’s grip fell on her wrist iron-hard and tight. “Let me go!”

“Where are
you off to?” he asked steadily, not letting her budge from the spot. “Beast ain’t going to let you in…”

“I’m going
to call the one person who can help. I’m calling Astrid.” She
grinned almost maniacally as Logan’s hand sprang open. “Let’s see her tell me to calm down!”

 

 

Jamie
stared glumly at his cast. “I just… I
can’t.”

Rahne nodded
vaguely. “I know. Don’t worry about it.”

An
uncomfortable silence fell between them as she rummaged through her dresser
drawer. Jamie had insisted on coming
with her when she said she had to get some things together before Mass, mainly
because he was curious as to what sort of “things” she would need for a simple
church service and also because he just wanted to be with her, to make sure she
did not hate him for refusing to go with her.
“What’s that?”

“Scarf,”
she said shortly, folding the piece of ecru lace neatly and tucking it into her
little-used purse.

“Doesn’t
look like it’ll be very warm…”

“It’s not
for me neck. It’s for me head[3].” She did not once look up at him as she
continued to open drawers and remove items, considering them then disregarding
them. “Ah…” With a tiny smile, she produced a wooden box no larger than her
palm, highly polished and bespeaking great age. “I knew I didn’t loose ye,” she murmured to it.”

“What’s
that?”

R Rahne shot
him an irritated look and Jamie felt immediately guilty. He knew he had been annoying her on several
levels but he was running on panic. “It’s
a rosary.” She removed the lid to the
box carefully, as if fearful it would break, and poured out a strung of
rosewood beads and chain, the crux atx at the end dull with age. “Belonged to me great-grandma.” She let the berun run between her fingers
and hang loose. “She taught me the
prayers when I was but five…maybe six.
Before me first communion.” She
smiled fondly but her eyes were sad. “I
miss her a lot.”

“Ah…” He licked his lips and sought a good phrase
or some words that would not sound doltish and heavy. “Rahne…”

“Jamie, if
you’re going to apologize, don’t. I
shouldn’t have tried to make you come with me by guilt or other means. If you choose not to go to any service, that’s
not my business.” She tucked the rosary
back into box box and the whole thing into her purse. “My faith is very important to me and so
long as you understand that, that’s all I ask.”

Jamie
nodded vaguely. “Okay…”

“Now,” she
sighed. “I need to change.”

“It’s not
even noon yet!”

“I’m going
to confession…” She smiled
tightly. “Can’t take the host without a
clean soul.”

He blinked
a trifle bemusedly. “I never made it
that far in Sunday school.”

“Live and
learn,” she shrugged. “Kurt was going
to come with me but…”

“Yeah. That whole flipping out thing.”

Rahne
sighed again. “Scoot. I’m not changin’ in front of ye.”

He
swallowed the “Why not?” and instead struggled to an upright position,
balancing on his crutches. “Are you
coming to the party before you go tonight?”

“I don’t
think so…I’m just not in a party mood this year.”

Jamie
hobbled from the room and winced as her door shut just a little too hard behind
him. He did not know whether to be mad
at her for making him feel guilty or mad at himself for not unbending a little… With some difficulty, he hopped to his room
and managed to get inside before loosing control of his crutches and falling on
his rear. Okay, okay… I get it! I can take a hint!

 

A/N Next chapter… All Kurt, all the time…



 

 



[1] Two things…take
off on the show Queer Eye for the Straight Guy which makes my mother
laugh so hard I think I may need to invest in defib paddles, and second, I
think it was also a line on Will and Grace or some other show taking off
on the name.

[2] AKA Texas
Titty Twister for some reason. It
hurts, apparently (no one’s ever tried it on me since I got big enough to kick
their ass) and involves grabbing someone’s nipple(t) and twisting. Hard.


[3] Strict
Catholics and High Mass requires women to cover their head, now usually done
with a lace scarf. And technically, you’re
supposed to go to Confession before you take the host each time but most people
don’t, from what I can tell.