Family Ties

Family Ties Chapter Twenty Nine (NC-17)

Disclaimers Apply

 

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST
WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse and Hamster Witch…the Frosties made a reappearance. So I ate them.
InterNutter, TC and Maxwell Pink are extra groovy for archiving. J ProPhile gets sparkley muses for being a
smutmuse and everything. J Jubilee (who is good with the ideas), Tex
and Ramsey (all hail Ralph) get musecookies because…just because. Readers/Reviewers: If I come over all
Gollum, sorry. I’m on a LOTR kick today
(when aren’t I, huh, Foxy? LOL). But the ducks are doing their best to keep
me from digging a hole in thekyarkyard and setting up housekeeping, so I think
I’ll be fine in the end.

 

 

 

 

“Here,
breathe into this paper bag… “

“He’ll
suffocate!”

“Trust me,
St John, he’ll be fine…That’s it. Nice,
slow breaths.” Beast d fed feel Bobby’s
heart pounding through his back as the teenager tried to steady his
breathing. “What happened to cause
this?”

St. John
looked as flustered as Beast had ever seen him, including the time Rahne had
accidentally popped a gay porn video from the teenager’s stash of movies into
the rec room VCR, thinking it was a copy of Armageddon. “His parents. It kinda came out that he’s a mutant and gay and, by association,
so am I.”

“Oh, my.” Beast patted Bobby’s back sympathetically,
the rustle of the paper bag a counterpoint to the rhythmic thumping. “Should we be expecting a phone call or
visit this evening then?”

“I don’t
know,” St John sighed as Bobby made a frantic noise low in his throat. “Shhh.
It’ll be okay.”

“No, it won’t!”
Bobby said roughly, though muffled. “They’re
gonna kill me! They’re gonna expose the
institute!”

Beast
sighed. “Bobby, even if they went to
every media outlet in the free world, there’s no way to expose this place as a
school for mutants. Professor Xavier
has us officially listed and registered, all the bells and whistles, as a
private boarding school. I am easily
hidden, if you must know, and even if they wanted to test each and every last
one of you, there’s no publicly available test they can perform that will
expose you as a mutant. Except for Kurt
and I’m sure he can make himself scarce, too.”

Bobby
crumpled the paper bag and worried it between his hands. “But…”

“But
nothing,” St John said. “No matter what
happens, you have us here. The Professor
will protect you. So will Beast and
Logan and…Hell, everyone here! We’re
all in this together, remember? You have us.
You have me…” He offered a weak
smile and patted Bobby’s thigh absently.
“I know it’s not the same as parents, but…”

Bobby
sighed, shaken. “I knew the day would
come but I never thought it’d be so soon!”
He handed Beast the crumpled bag and slid from the exam table. “I think I need to go lay down.” He gave St John a half hearted embrace and
wandered from the room like a man recently wakened from a deep sleep.

“I’m
worried,” St John said earnestly.

Beast
nodded. “I understand, but a little hyperventilation
won’t kill him and in a few days, maybe a bit longer, he will calm down enough
to see there are more ways this can go than downhill.”

“You think?”

“I do…” Beast glanced at the clock over St John’s
head. “Stars and garters! It’s feeding time!”

St John
followed distractedly as Beast knuckled to the en suite refrigerator in the lab
and shoved aside several bottles of mysterious fluids and a petri dish that
bore something resembling pudding out of the way and produced a bottle full of
milk. “Lucas is still here?”

“Until we
find Tabby,” Beast sighed. “This is
growing to be quite worrisome. At
first,” he said as he heated the bottle in the microwave, “I was fairly certain
she just took off for a few days and would return. But the Professor has not been able to locate her using Cerebro
and Wanda called in earlier to say her last lead was a dead end…I really don’t
know anymore.”

“What’re we
going to do?”

Beast
smiled faintly at St John’s use of “we” before saying, “We keep looking. We take care of Lucas and…” he trailed
off. He did not want to add his fears
that Tabby might not ever come back.
Instead, he said, “We go on.”

St John
nodded glumly and followed Beast from the lab, diverging as the doctor turned
to go into the Professor’s study where Lucas was firmly ensconced, finding the
Professor’s lap and the seemingly endless availability of fresh shirts more
amusing than his play pen any day of the week.
Alone in the hallway, St John cursed fluently and kicked the oak
baseboard before forcing himself to go to his own room rather than Bobby’s. We just go on.

 

Jubilee
stifled a yawn behind her hand and slid her glance sideways to Jamie. He was wide eyed but otherwise seemed calm
as they walked down yet another labyrinthine street in Chinatown. “So, we should be getting back now.”

Troy smiled
as if he did not understand her and continued walking. Grandmother, as Jubilee finally gave into
calling her for lack of anything better, smiled toothily and motioned for them
to hurry up. “Come, come,” she said,
tugging Jubilee and Jamie by their wrists.

“Jubes,”
Jamie muttered, “where are we going?”

“No idea,”
she murmured. “It’s going to take hours
to get home from the City and no one knows where we are… Wherever we’re going,
we’re not leaving easily.”

“Don’t talk
like that,” he said, a hint of begging in his voice.

Troy drew
to a halt and motioned towards a window display behind him. “This looks interesting.”

Jubilee
looked the storefront up and down. “It’s
closed. Let’s go home and maybe we can
come back before you go back to China. When’s your visa up again?”

Troy’s
smile broadened. “Come.” He took Jubilee’s hand and pushed the door
open at the same time, the glass and metal swinging easily at his touch. There was a moment of hesitation and Jubilee
followed, Jamie and Grandmother following closely. The door clicked shut metallically and they were in darkness.

The door’s
covered with that plastic shatufftuff they use on cars. Why don’t they want
people to see in? She inhaled
slowly and detected spices and something else, something organic and sweet that
had no place in a store. “Jamie?” she
said firmly, though not loudly. She
felt movement around her and knew they were not alone. “Turn on the fucking lights,” she snarled,
her muscles tensing in readiness.
Jubilee silently hoped that Jamie realized they were in for a fight once
the lights came up and wondered if she would be able to defend him should it
come right down to it. “Lights!” she
yelled.

“Certainly…” The room—for that was what it was, not a
store at all—flooded with a neon glow.
Lilly stood, illuminated harshly and smiling grimly. In Mandarin, she said, “It took you almost
too long, Troy.”

“I know,”
he responded in kind. “She kept trying to get us to stay in Bayville.”

“Aw,” Lilly
said in English, “how sad. Homesick
already?”

Jubilee
edged in front of Jamie, who, she noticed, did not seem so much scared as
angry. “I know who you are,” she said
steadily. “And I know what you want.” Damn me for a liar…

Lilly, Troy
and Shuang exchanged amused glances.
Grandmother—Shuang—said in clear English, “You are witless, child. You know nothing. You are a sewer urchin destined for nothing but sleaze and
filth. Your service to us is to fulfill
yourentrents’ debt and after that, we’re finished.”

Jubilee
blinked in disorientation but did not respond directly to the older woman. Instead, she said, “My parents owe not nothing. I owe you nothing.” Edging forward, towards Lilly and away from
Jamie, she continued, “I’m going to count to ten. If you don’t let us leave, I’m
blowing this place up and all of us with it.”
She heard a sharp intake of breath from Jamie and wished he could read
her mind, that she would never let anything happen to him. Outwardly, she
ignored him and continued to stare at Lilly, willing her to break.

“You’re a
foolish girl,” Lilly snapped, her voice much older than her countenance. “Troy, get him.”

Troy
disappeared behind a partition and came out leading a hooded figure that
Jubilee recognized easily Suppressing a
groan, she said in Mandarin, “One, two, three…”

“He dies,
too.” Shuang seemed on the verge of
giggling. “Your debt to us is great,
Jubilation. We demand payment…”

Jubilee
felt like she had been gut shot as several things became apparent at once. Every single one of the other Asians in the
room were missing at least one finger tip; a tattoo peaked out from beneath
Grandmother’s sleeve, Troy’s collar and from underneath Lilly’s hair, and, most
disturbing of all, a silver glint of a knife caught her eye at Lilly’s
waist. Remy, still hooded, moaned low
in his throat. “Jamie, take that hood
off him,” Jubilee ordered.

After a
moment’s hesitation, Jamie hurried forward and pulled the black cloth off Remy’s
head unimpeded. “Oh, shit,” the younger
man breathed. Remy looked as if he’d
been beaten badly and his lips were bleeding around the gag stuffed deep in his
mouth. “Jubilee…”

“Not now,
Jamie,” she said sharply. I can’t
look at him or I’ll lose it. “Enough
of this dicking around. Someone tell me
what the fuck is going on!”

Lilly
snorted. “You really are stupid, aren’t
youApprApproaching Jubilee with an even
gait, she said, “It was clever of you to run away when your parents had their…accident. If not, you might have been made to pay
sooner, before you were ready.”

“Fucking hell,”
Jubilee snapped. “Enough of this!” With a sudden lunge, she shoved Jamie to the
floor and rolled to her feet as he multiplied into four more of himself. He looked momentarily stunned but quickly
regained equilibrium Out of the corner
of her eye, she saw Troy startthe the sight of Jamie’s multiplicity but he
quickly sprung into action. He dove at
the younger man, knocking Remy down as a matter of course as he grabbed one of
the Jamie’s legs. Jubilee launched herself
at Lilly, hesitant even in her rage to attack an old woman. She was met with a spinning heel kick to her
chin as Lilly defended herself. “Jamie! Get him out!” Jubilee lost herself to the struggle, barely aware that Jamie had
multiplied yet again and at least four were fighting off Troy while the others
were struggling to get Remy to his feet and drag him towards the door. A sharp, clattering explosion told her when
Jamie had gotten Remy to the door, the Cajun’s hands pressing to the glass to
free them messily but surely. A painful,
cracking punch to her face sent Jubilee reeling and she fell to the floor,
rolling again to miss Lilly’s foot swinging towards her ribs. Shuang was nowhere to be seen, but Jubilee
did not register this fact as the world swam around her. Lilly was over her then, reaching for her
shoulders to pull her up. Mustering
herself, Jubilee braced for the explosion and let her powers flow.