Family Ties

CHAPTER SIX




CHAPTER SIX

Disclaimers
Apply

 

A/N Goddess
Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE ™ and Prophetic Muse,
one of the Tims is under my bed, confused.
I think he needs Frosties.
InterNutter, TC and Maxwell Pink are lovely bunnies for archiving. J ProPhile
abandoned us for a trip but we love him anyway, lol, and Tex, Ramsey and
Jubilee are all extra sparkled because I said so. ;) Readers/Reviewers:
*swoon * (take that as you will, lol).

 

 

Amara tapped her thumbnail against a
tooth in vague distraction. She was
trying valiantly to drown out the sound of Rogue and Todd not talking
baby talk to Lucas as she and Lance ignored each other, but it was a losing
battle. Finally, after one coo too
many, she burst out, “Can’t you two take the damned infant somewhere else?”



There was a heavy pause and then an
ear-splitting howl as Lucas protested this assassination of his character. Tabby flew into the room as if she had wings
and snatched her son from Rogue’s very carefully covered arms before anyone
could react. “What’s going on here?”
the blonde demanded in a tone that made them all cringe and remember their own
mothers less than fondly. “Why is he crying?”

 

“Maybe he’s hungry,” Lance said
quickly, before Amara could unleash a barrage of vitriol against anyone. He glanced helplessly at Todd as they both
noticed the same thing. Triggered in
part by the baby’s cry, Tabby had begun leaking milk at an alarming
rate…alarming to two teenage males at any rate. “Um…”

 

“Shit,” Tabby hissed and wordlessly
handed Lucas back to Rogue as she unbuttoned her top.

 

“Whoa!” Todd shouted. “I’m outta here!”

 

“Right behind you,” Lance muttered,
his face flaming red as Tabby’s left breast made an appearance.

 

“Wusses,” she called after them,
taking her son back into her arms. “I
swear…if men were the ones who were supposed to bear children the human race
would’ve died out eons ago.”

 

Amara sniffed haughtily, biting back
her agreement, and said with no small amount of ire, “Do you have to do that
here?”

 

“Would you rather me take him to the
kitchen and give him a menu?” Tabby snapped.

 

“Geez, Amara,” Rogue sighed, “it’s
natural…you did it yourself…unless Nova Roma was more advanced in formula
technology than we’re led to believe.”

 

Amara flushed. She had been somewhat stunned when she found
out women could use formula to feed their babies and the concept of a wet nurse
was almost unheard of in most of the non-Nova Roman world. “As you well know, I was nursed by a woman
of superior stock, selected by my parents in my best interests.”

 

“Now that’s an ew,” Tabby muttered,
wincing as Lucas chomped down on her nipple gummily.

 

Amara remained silent, unwilling to
open her mouth because a plethora of personal questions had just sprung to
mind, such as did it hurt when Lucas fed and does it hurt to have full
breasts. Instead, she turned away from
the other two females and headed towards the door. “Hold up,” Rogue said behind her. “Tabby, I’ll be back in a few…”

 

Amara gritted her teeth and followed
Rogue out into the hallway where she was treated to the most vicious glare of
her short life. “What?” she finally growled.

 

“We leave in less than forty eight
hours and I have enough problems on my mind without you being turbobitch all
the way to Mississippi,” Rogue said without preamble. “Now you either suck it up and make nice with Lance or stop being
such a prima donna and let the relationship go as a mistake.”

 

“It wasn’t a mistake,” she replied
before she could stop herself. She
stopped just short of clapping her hand over her mouth once the words were out.

 

“Really?” Rogue drawled. “Then stop trying to pretend it was.” She pushed past Amara and reentered the
study where Tabby was gritting her teeth against Lucas’s enthusiastic feeding.

 

“She’s right you know.”

 

“Do you have nothing better to do
than lurk?” Amara said sotto voce, knowing full and well that Lance could hear
her clearly. She did not even look at
him as she turned and headed towards the stairs, his footsteps loud in her ears
as he followed her. “You’ve been
skulking around after me for weeks now.”

 

“I’m not skulking,” he said firmly
as they stopped outside her bedroom.

 

“And you’re not coming in here,” she
said just as firmly, ignoring any sort of veiled double entendre he could
possibly construe from her words.

 

“I don’t want to,” he rejoined, though he could not help the flicker
of disappointment in his eyes. “I just want to see if you’ll give me your
ticket.”

 

She flared briefly, not fully
flaming but glowing a hot orange for just a moment, long enough for Lance to
take a large step backwards and away from her.
“No. &nb  

“Look,” he began, though not as
steadily as he had hoped, “you don’t really want to come anyway. You hate this kind of music…the only reason
you agreed in the first place was so that we could spend some time together!”

 

“You…you…” she took a deep breath
and bit back some choice curses in both Nova Roman and English. “I’ll have you know that I happen to like
Rob Manson and Marilyn Zombie.” Against Lance’s growing, helpless amusement,
she added, “And I’m not adverse to having strange men drink beer out of my
navel!” She stuck her tongue out at him
in a chsh msh manner and slipped into her room, slamming the door before he
could laugh out loud.

 

 

 

“She said quoi?” Remy asked, his brows
creeping upwards. He, Lance and Todd
sader der the cover of the garage door as Scott puttered with his convertible,
all avoiding the Wrath of Logan.

 

“That’s Rogue’s fault,” Todd sighed,
slapping mindlessly at a mosquito and catching it before realizing he did not
have to eat it this time. “She was
teasin’ Amara cause she didn’t know what to do at these big concerts and told
her that in the States, it’s traditional to drink beer out of female
concert-goers’ navels.”


“Might make the whole thing more
interesting,” Lance said, distracted.

 

“Might make de whole ting more
illegal,” Remy added, though he grinned as he said it.

 

“Still,” Lance sighed, “if she’s
just gonna be a bitch all weekend, I don’t want her coming along.”

 

“Are you gonna be a bastard?” Todd
asked blandly, doing his best to ignore the temptation a June bug was
presenting on the garage floor.

 

“Maybe.”

 

Remy snorted. “You ain’t got one clue, homme…if you act a
prick to de fille, she gonna be a bitch right back. You want her back, eh?”

 

“Duh,” Todd said befornce nce could
answer, but his affirmation was seconded by a firm nodded of the taller youth’s
head.

 

“Fine, den you gotta use some
finesse…act like you all kinds a happy she wid y’all dere, for starters…”

 

“Then what?” Lance asked, leaning
forward slightly.

 

“Den you on you own…ma belle femme
come to take me away,” he grinned, rising to his feet as Jubilee stomped into
view. “Cherie, mon amour de toutes
amours…”

 

“Can it Gumbo!” she snarled, drawing
even with the group. From under the hood of his car, Scott snorted but did not
comment otherwise. “Where the fuck have
you been for the past three hours?”

 

“Uh…”

 

“Smooth, Remy,” Todd muttered into
his can of soda, leaning out of kickingge. ge.

 

“Finesse, Remy…” Lance added
helpfully, sniggering.

 

“Fuck you both,” Jubilee said before
Remy had the chance to. “My whole
fucking family is fucking here and I’ve been fucking dealing with the fucking
lot of ‘em for the past three fucking hours!”

 

“Fuck it!” Todd interjected
helpfully, waving his soda like he was brandishing a sword.

 

“Chere,” Remy began helplessly.

 

Jubilee cut him off with a
gesture. “I’ve been upstairs in that
fucking library with twelve angry Chinese people who haven’t seen me since I
was spitting up peas on their shoulders!
No one could find you, you know that?”


Scott peeked over the hood
guiltily and caught Remy’s eye. He knew
where Remy had been because he had dropped him off there earlier. He also knew who Remy had been with but not why. Instead of commenting on the situation, he
threw his grease rag to one side and said brightly, “Family? That’s great, Jubes!”

 

Remy’s frantic “no” sign came too
late. Jubilee rounded on Scott like a
banshee. “Great? How fucking great is it that they want to
take me back to China with them? I’ve
never even fucking BEEN to China! It’s
a fucking Communist country, for fuck’s sake!
I didn’t think they COULD take me back!” She ran her hands through her already disheveled hair and sighed
roughly. “I told them I was getting
some water. I have to get back before
Lily comes looking for me.”

 

“Lily?” the Greek chorus asked
around her.

 

“One of my cousins or second cousins
or neighbor’s dog’s babysitter’s Lesbian lover or something…they’ve appointed her
my duenna apparently.”

 

Even as she spoke, the mud room door swung open and one of the most
beautiful young women any of them haer ser seen fairly drifted into the
room. She was fine-boned and had
ivory-tinged skin that was as fair as porcelain. Her rosebud mouth drew into a frown as she saw Jubilee standing
amidst the males and her dark winged eyebrows snapped together in
displeasure. “Jubilation,” she said in
her light, accented voice, “we are alitiniting for you…we do not like to wait.”

 

Jubilee said something rapid in Mandarin and the other girl, Lily, frowned
more deeply. Lily shot back a response
and for several minutes, there was a mildly heated conversation that was
watched like a tennis match—eyes to Jubilee, eyes to Lily, repeat. Jubilee finally threw her hands up and said
“Fine!” with the air of someone conceding a hard fought battle. “Remy, you are requested and required to
join us upstairs…it seems your presence in my life has been made known.”

 

Lily nodded curtly. “We have much
interest in you, Mister LeBeau.”

 

“Um…” Remy looked at Jubilee and saw the pleading expression in her eyes
under the anger. “D’accord. Cherie, après-vous…” He swept Jubilee a
gallant bow and motioned for her to go forth.

 

Lily’s expression bordered on the incredulous. “You are not usual for this place, are you?” she murmured, but
edged back into the house, never turning away from them.

 

“Whoa…looks like you missed out on the family looks, Jubes!” Todd said with poor timing, lurchto oto one
side when Remy kicked him in passing.
“Ow!”

 

 

 

Kurt blinked slowly awake, aware that he was no longer in the rec room but
rather in his own bedroom and it was still daylight. His second awareness was that he was not alone. With a slow inhale and a smile, he said,
“Liebes…”

 

“You were out for three hours.
Ish.” She yawned. “Watching you sleep is kinda dull…”

 

“I’ll try and be more entertaining next time,” he pd, rd, rolling onto his
side and smiling fetchingly, despite the dull throb in his tail.

 

“No…activities…for a few more days,
babe,” she said, rolling her eyes, “and don’t give me that nature crap. No way are we doing THINGS while Aunt Flo is
visiting.”

 

“Aunt Flo?” he asked without
laughing, though he wanted to.

 

“Euphemism. Nicer than saying my uterus is sloughing off
superfluous blood and tissue.”

&n

“Point…” He scooted over to make
room and patted the bed. “Sit? No one knows I’m up yet. We’ve got some time…”

 

“Evil little elf, aren’t you?” she
grinned and eased onto the bed next to him, mindful of his rapidly healing
injuries. All thoughts of propriety
were quickly banished, however, as his uninjured hand began stroking her side
and he nuzzled her neck. Soon, the only
audible noises were soft sighs and the ru of of some articles of clothing
being removed. Kitty sighed loudly as
his teeth grazed one turgid nipple and she arched into his touch. “Well, we can’t do everything but some
things are alright…” Kurt murmured
against her soft skin and gathered her more closely to him. So enrapt were they in each other that they
did not hear the muffled scramble at the door or even the door swinging open
until someone gasped.

 

Kitty shoved Kurt away hastily and
pulled her shirt down over her naked breasts.
“Hi!” she gasped.

 

A small Asian woman was stag atg at
the door and looking quite shaken.
Rogue’s voice filtered down the hall, coming closer as she spoke. “Mrs Lee?
That’s not the bath…oh. Damn,
you two just can’t catch a break, can you?”