Very much NSFW fic continued from yesterday:
Fracture Thirty-Five: Six Degrees
Mr Peeper was suffering from conflicting instincts. One said stick near Mom. The other said to run away from the big scary loud noisy thing.
Unfortunately for Mr Peeper, Mom *was* the big scary loud noisy thing.
He obeyed both instincts by running around in circles and making as much noise as he could.
*
Logan spent a panicked few seconds trying to identify the source of the unearthly noise. He really panicked when he realised it was the Elf, who’d dropped to his knees, looking heartbroken.
He’d never done anything like *that* before.
Maybe he’d never had the need…
Logan searched for a clue for what could have set the boy off. He found it in the shreds of the pink shopping bags that Half-pint always seemed to be bringing home from the Mall.
Half-pint had tied some of the branches together to make a secret entrance/exit from the estate. There was no security here. They thought they hadn’t needed it.
“*ELF*!” He yelled at the top of his lungs, “Knock it off! You're scaring the bird!”
He didn’t seem to hear.
_On the upside, he seems to have an amazing lung capacity…_ “Take a breath before you pass out, you stupid squirrel-boy!”
*
Kitty froze at the noise.
“What the hell is *that*?” Dad demanded.
Bluebelle burst out crying. “Somebody’s hurt Daddy,” she said.
She didn’t think. Just started running. Whatever it was that was making Kurt making that noise, it was going to find out what live was like with it’s insides phased into outsides.
_Professor! Scramble the others! Something’s wrong with Kurt!_
*
Tom Pryde hung on to Bluebelle, mainly because she was seven years old and she was crying. Then he clung to her because she was handy and a lot of very strange things were coming out of the woodwork and heading off in the same direction Kurt had.
One of them looked like a big, blue bear in trunks.
Another one looked like an ordinaryish girl until she turned into a wolf.
Thirty of them looked exactly identical.
One was on fire.
The weirdest thing was that the little girl was narrating the fly-by in a calm little voice.
“…And *they’re* all Jamie. He’s nice. That’s Amara. She’s a little mean, but she lets me play with some of her jewellery, sometimes. *That’s* Aunty O who just flew by, and that was Aunty Rogue. She's Daddy’s half-sister.”
“Does this sort of thing happen all the time?” asked Ruth.
Bluebelle shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve only been here a little while.”
*
He’d fallen into a ball, sobbing and gasping for air. At least it seemed to be over.
“Take it easy, Elf. Anyone could have used those–”
He was interrupted by Kurt getting his wind back and howling again.
_Well. So much for reason…_
Logan picked him up and shook him. “SNAP OUT OF IT!”
Of course, the rest of the team chose that moment to show up and demand to know what was going on. Damn their lousy timing.
_Let him *GO*!_ Red screamed in his head.
_He won’t stop it, Red,_ he thought back. _*Do* something._
She riffled through his short-term memories anyway. Nice to know he was so trusted.
*
Jean instantly switched from Logan’s head to Kurt’s.
And she thought his baying *aloud* was a problem…
Imagine at least nine voices raised in cries of pain and anguish. Add the howls of monsters. Now put the volume up to maximum.
Jean forced a merger between Kurt and RagDoll. At least it would quiet him down on the outside. She was going to need painkillers after *this*. Big time.
*
Mr Peeper stopped panicking. Mom had stopped being the big scary loud noisy thing and had gone back to being Mom again. Mr Peeper calmed down enough to find food-things in amongst the sharp non-food things.
Mom always went to weird places, but there was always food, so Mr Peeper didn’t complain.
Mom decided to settle down for a nap. This must be a very safe place to eat. Mom never napped out in the open much.
*
Kurt was still weeping.
Betrayed.
By his beloved.
She’d hurt him more than Hess ever could. With a simple shopping bag that was torn to shreds.
He’d helped her, loved her, treated her like a future wife. And she'd betrayed him.
She’d let the predators in.
Betrayed.
He wanted to throw back his head and howl again. Howl until his broken heart stopped hurting so badly. Except the forced influence of RagDoll kept his open reaction down to whimpering sobs.
He could feel Jean holding the two of them together in a grip like a vice. He knew why. He was scaring people. People who knew and trusted him. People who, she insisted, loved him.
He wasn’t too certain about that.
He’d been betrayed.
*
Kitty hid her mouth with her hands. They’d found her secret passage, and obviously put two and two together to get five.
Kurt, already emotionally unstable, was looking like the world had been pulled out from under him. Like his best friend had tried to kill him.
And, in a way, he was kind of right.
*Her* secret passage had been the means by which she and Kurt had been abducted. If it wasn’t for Kurt’s years of experience, or their powers, Hess would have certainly proved deadly.
She was at his side in an instant, looking into his eyes. “Kurt. Please. You have to believe me. I like, never told anyone but Lance about this place. I swear. I swear to God. If Hess knew, it like, wasn't from me. Please, Kurt? I never meant for it to happen.”
He settled down, at last, clinging to her while he did so.
Jean stopped concentrating so hard.
Kitty had to confess. “When I thought I was like, in love with Lance," she began. "I like, helped him make this like, little tunnel here so we could like, meet and talk without like, anyone giving us the third degree. It was supposed to be for a little slice of like, freedom. I never thought anyone would like, turn it around.”
Kurt shuddered, still gasping and sighing. “Oh, meine liebe. Meine geliebt… Es tut mir leid… I thought - I thought you’d betrayed me.”
She just held him tight. “It’s okay. It’s okay… Shhh…”
Wolverine was poking around in the hollow of the brambles with one claw. Picking up bits of debris, sniffing them, and dropping them again. He finally settled for two cigarette butts. “Someone else betrayed the both of ya,” he announced. “Someone who smokes.”
Kitty looked at the butts. One of them had lipstick on the filter. It wasn’t a ‘teenage colour’. “But - the only other person who knew about this was –” she stopped herself. _No…_
“Lance,” Kurt whispered. “On top of everything else, he sold you to Hess. Meine schlechtes geliebtes…”
Kitty started feeling more than a little unstable, herself. How much more would it take to make other people inside *her* head? Did Kurt feel like this, in the beginning, or did he just snap under pressure? What did it feel like, to suddenly have someone else in your head?
Logan unsheathed his claws. “*I’ll* sort him out,” he volunteered. "After I’m done, he won’t even wanna *think* about crossin’ our paths again.“
"No, Logan,” said Jean. “Let me.”
“Yes,” whispered Kurt.
*
Lance yawned as he watched the continuing exposure of tonnes and *tonnes* of Hess’ screwed-up shit. CNN was going on and on about Scientists’ efforts to match up the remains that Hess preserved with the families of missing children from practically halfway around the world.
Ms Rosa was into some seriously twisted shit.
She was also apparently turning on her best friends in the hope of a plea bargain.
_Eh. I’d probably do the same,_ he thought as his latest yawning fit threw him into sleep. He dreamed.
He smelled blood. Old blood, new blood. Someone was crying. He couldn’t move. All tied up in leather and chains. He opened his eyes and saw a chamber of horrors. Every possible part of a human body on display, and done so with artistic flair.
Then Hess/Rosa came out of the darkness behind him. “Hello, liebe," she cooed. "I couldn’t get the one I wanted, so I decided to settle for you. And it looks to *me* like you’re experienced in these matters…” A finger traced some scars from one of his many abusive homes.
Then he saw who was crying.
Kitty.
“Shall we begin?”
