Very much NSFW fic continued from yesterday:
Fracture Nineteen: Way Out
Logan found the scent trail and followed it under the bridge. His nose said the Elf, Half-pint and someone else were there, but his eyes said different. The plant life around the path made an ideal patch of darkness where bridge met earth. He’d have to wait until the bint from hades had gone away, though, before he investigated further.
He picked a relatively comfortable spot and sat himself down, watching the bitch.
She glared at him. “What are *you* doing here?”
“Lookin’ fer a coupl'a students that went missing. Said they’d meet me here.”
“Obviously, they are playing games with you.”
“Don’t think so. These are good kids. I’ll wait. What’re you doing?”
“Looking for missing property.”
Logan smirked. A palpable lie for a palpable lie. On any other day, he’d enjoy fencing, but the kids, according to Chuck and Red, were next to panic. “All I see is a dented shoppin’ cart, darlin’,” he said. "‘Less that’s what'cher missin’, I suggest you move on. Try another bridge.“
Bitch-lady stalked off. Logan waited until her car departed the scene and he was sure she was gone.
He turned back to the dark spot under the bridge and focussed. Elf was notoriously hard to spot in the dark, he knew that. But usually, even Logan could find the dark outline and work from there.
This time, there wasn’t even an outline.
*Smelled* like the Elf was right there, but all Logan could see was mud and brickwork. He smelled fresh blood. Logan growled. If the Elf was hurt…
Waitasecond. The mud just blinked.
Frightened blue eyes stared at him.
"Is she gone?”
“Yeah, she’s gone.” The brickwork was breathing. Logan squinted. Just here and there, he could see faint outlines of the Elf. “Neat trick he's got. Does he know he’s doing it?”
“Um. Kurt’s like, out of it. I can only like, feel him, y'know? It like, totally freaked me out when he like, started.”
A pair of green, glowing gems were staring at him from the dark. Much like the Elf’s eyes, in that they glowed in the dark. All he could really see at this point was a dark shape. “Who’s the kid?”
“That’s kinda a long story,” Kitty allowed. “Can you like, help us? Kurt’s like, totally heavy and something like, hairy and creepy wants to like, make friends with my thigh…”
Logan dragged the Elf downhill a little. The half-light made him more visible the instant it touched him. “Don’t move a muscle, Half-pint.”
Kitty nodded.
He lined up his arm with strict precision. He had to make it quick. This was a once-only thing.
{Snikt}. Both Kitty’s jeans and the tarantula inside them were instantly sliced.
“Mm!” The little shadow tried to back into the wall.
Logan retracted his claws and backed away in a traditional _I'm harmless_ posture.
Frightened emerald eyes watched him from the dark.
“Hey. Hey. It’s okay, Bluebelle. Like, Mr Logan’s like, totally friendly. He just like, had to kill that -um- thing that went up my pants.”
“Tarantula,” Logan supplied, keeping his voice soft and meek. “If I hadn’t'a killed it, it would’ve killed her.”
Kitty shuddered and looked like she was going to be sick. “Like, *eeewwwww*… Can we go home now?”
“Sure thing. Van’s up top. You handle the kid. I’ve got the Elf.”
Kitty nodded. “Right.” She sighed. “Soon as we get home, I’m like, *totally* going to collapse in like, a screaming heap.”
Logan scooped up the Elf. Judging by the heft of the boy, he’d been overdoing things again. Probably teleported too far with too many passengers.
*
Ororo was driving the X-van, while Jean and the Professor nursed what looked to be killer headaches in the back. Which meant that the only other person Kitty could cling to was *Logan*, and he didn’t 'do' clinging.
She personally didn’t want to go *near* Bluebelle, because of the contents of her backpack.
Logan divested Kurt of his coat, then strapped him in. “Okay, kid. You next.”
“It’s okay, Bluebelle,” Kitty said as she buckled herself into her seat. “These people are friends.”
Bluebelle nodded and undid the coat. It snagged on the backpack. She then, very carefully, took the backpack off and did a quick calculation, and must have come up with exactly what Kitty was thinking: _Give it to Logan._
She offered it forward. “Hold brother Michael?”
Logan took it with a shocked, “There’s a *kid* in this?”
Kitty was too busy shivering to try and tell him. It was all she could do to try and say the word, “don’t”.
Logan sliced the buckle holding the knapsack closed and flipped it open. His eyes bugged practically out of his skull. Then he did something he’d never done before.
“Sweet mother of God…” he whispered. He put the top back over it and then strapped the whole thing into the seat next to Kurt. Then he spent about a solid minute staring at Bluebelle. “Elf’s been a busy boy,” he finally said. Then he strapped Bluebelle into the seat next to Kitty.
Kitty finally got a word out. “Go,” she said.
Bluebelle fingered the harness nervously as she stared at everyone. She was getting awful squirelly about so many people around, and Kurt being out for the count. She practically jumped out of her skin when the Professor spoke.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t warn you about Frau Rosafarben,” he said. “It wasn’t until Logan was there that I could actually get a handle on her.”
“She’s a very sick person,” Jean managed. She sounded tired. “She's also -er- fractured.”
“Like Kurt?” Kitty managed, hugging Bluebelle to help her calm down.
“Not at all like Kurt,” said the Professor. “Kurt developed his personas as a survival mechanism, along with an advanced code of ethics about using them. Rosafarben - Hess - whatever she chooses to call herself… she has no such code. Once she makes up her mind about someone, that’s it.”
Kitty shuddered. “So - why kids? I mean, I can *guess* why she picked on Kurt… and it’s like, *sick*.”
“She was drawn to the idea of shaping them. Making them into something - 'magnificent’. Her words. Not mine.” Everyone was looking slightly green around the gills, except for Bluebelle, who was staring out the front of the van in wonder, flinching a little at each passing car.
Logan spoke, once they were past the halfway point of the bridge. His voice was low and quiet, but it spoke volumes. “It ain’t Kurt who’s got monsters,” he said. “He’s just been preyed on by one.”
Bluebelle actually spoke. “Are *you* a monster?”
Logan grinned. “No, darlin’. Not at all. I eat monsters for breakfast.”
*
Rogue welcomed Kitty back with the all-but-forgotten pregnancy test wand, and looked like she was glad she wore gloves 24/7. “Ya dropped this. Congrats.”
_Congrats?_ Kitty flipped it over and stared at the little indicator windows. Then she started laughing.
Bluebelle, already flighty and scared of everything, hid behind a couch and peeked out at her. Kitty laughed at her, too.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. Come on. I’m like, not gonna hurt you. It's okay. It’s just… I guess I’m relieved.” Slowly, she walked over to where Bluebelle was hiding and showed her the test result. One line. Not two. She didn’t have to fret about whether or not she wanted to have Lance’s baby. “See this? It’s saying that I’m *not* going to have a baby.”
“Is that good?” Bluebelle asked. “Are babies bad?”
“Babies aren’t bad,” said Kitty. “It’s just that I didn’t really want to be carrying one that was put there by - a bad man.”
“Does that happen?”
“Sometimes.”
“How?”
_Oh God…_ “I am like, *not* having like, *that* talk with a kid that’s like, hiding behind the couch, okay? You’re gonna have to like, come out of hiding for an answer.”
Bluebelle crawled over the back of the couch and hunkered next to her. So like her father it was eerie. She was officially Paying Attention.
“You’ve probably like, seen your Mom and boys -er- doing stuff, right?”
She nodded.
Kitty tried to think through this. She wasn’t completely naive, but she’d seen some things that Kitty didn’t exactly want to think about. How the hell did one explain the birds and the bees to a Seven-year-old who’d been sexually abused? “You might like, want to talk to some of the grown-ups about this, too. I’m like, not too good at like, explaining things. And it’s like, complicated. In your case it’s like, *really* complicated. It sorta goes like this…”
What was really unnerving, besides Bluebelle’s rapt stare, was that she kept interrupting with the proper names of the parts. That, and Evan dropping by every five seconds to make wise-assed comments.
Kitty got even with him by asking *him* to explain it. He promptly turned as red as a beet and remembered a skating appointment across town.
When she got to the any questions part, Bluebelle didn’t seem concerned over the whole making babies thing at all.
“Is Kurt going to go dead?”
“Die,” Kitty corrected. “No. He’s just really tired, and probably like, starving. He’ll be okay soon.”
“Did he really put me inside Mistress like you said?”
“Yeah. He did. She made him do it.”
“Did he want me to happen?”
_Oh *God*…_ “You’ll have to ask him when he wakes up. I don’t know. We only like, met you today. I know he’s like, really sorry he couldn't rescue you any earlier.”
“What’s rescue?”
Kitty was relieved to be on a different subject. “It’s taking someone out of a bad place and bringing them to a good place.”
“Oh.” Bluebelle closed her eyes and sniffed deep, her head turning automatically towards the kitchen.
_If she’s like, anything like her *Dad*…_ “You want to like, see what’s cooking? I can like, show you where the kitchen is, and if we're like, good, I’ll bet we can get you a cookie.” She stood up and offered her hand.
“What’s a cookie?”
Kitty had to grin. “Come on. You’re in for a treat.”