driftfleet | first one to make that doctor who joke loses

Who better to? You're rusty and I'm old, but we still know each other well enough. [Said from the grand old age of thirty, if that much. The shadows stay the same, but his expression darkens slightly when she mentions Erik. Theirs was older than either will likely ever be, but in Kurt's mind he still died too young. He's secretly grateful this one is so young, as it makes differentiating the two a little easier.] Generous of him. Done out of the goodness of his heart, or fair trade? [He needs to get a read on what kind of man this one is.]

Who're you calling rusty? [Yeah, yeah, she knows.]

Goodness. At least trade didn't come up. Have you talked to him much? [It's always a strange thing meeting someone you know well, but who is also a stranger. Then again finding her Kurt surprised her more.]

The woman that's been at peace for the last--year for you.

[He does not look particularly thrilled to hear that, his tail twitching like it wants to lash behind him. If this Erik didn't know him, and his Raven was young enough not to be a mother herself, then Kitty can't have even been born yet. Why would Erik help her?] Just when I first arrived. You?

[Peace. It's strange to think how accurate that is. The place had felt like a paradise to her most of the time. A paradise that played with your mind and body every few days and seriously jacked up some of your relationships, but also the place that kept her alive.] I still fought dinosaurs and ex-boyfriends sometimes.

[She sees that displeased look and she'd expect it from any other mutant here knowing how they tend to feel about their world's Magneto. She's less sure why it's coming from Kurt.]

When he arrived and then we met up to talk on the station and then he came over to the Windrose to give me these. [And a few miscellaneous chats in between to arrange those meetings. So, more than she's talked to some people.] You don't trust him? [Not that Kitty really trusts him. Not the way she would her own Magneto. Not the way she trusts Kurt.]

And when I was in that other world, I rode an undead unicorn and fought a wizard. Was no less a more peaceful time for me. [That he says all that with a straight face is a miracle, despite it being entirely true. He named the unicorn.

The information is taken in with a thoughtful nod, the bit of information slotting into place. Kitty's question gets a shrug, then a gesture with one hand to emphasize.] I don't know him, and he doesn't know us. We don't exist yet, for him. In his world, my mother's too young to have a child my age. So, why be so helpful?

You had a zombie unicorn? Why do we even talk about other things? [This is the new topic forever. She's smiling under the mask but it reaches her eyes. She retracts those claws and somehow managing to talk about something else for a moment.]

My natural effervescence and charisma? I don't know. It's his third [she waves her hand.] multi-dimensional trap. He knows the drill. Maybe he just wanted a project. And I recognized him. [Which, no, she shouldn't have been able to do. Her time in the prison helped there too.]

Did you name the zombie unicorn? What do they eat? Dead apples? Living unicorn brains?

Edited 2016-03-31 00:46 (UTC)

Because other things are important topics of discussion, Kitty. [Oh, but it's good to see her smile, even if the mask impedes seeing it properly. Idly, he makes a note to take his off at some point to see how long he can breathe without it. Not right now though.

The humor in his eyes dims when Kitty admits she's not entirely certain as to why he helped her.] I don't know either, and that worries me. I--it's too easy to trust his motives. In the world I went to before this, Magneto had in the past tried to destroy homo sapiens multiple times. Is there any proof this one won't try the same? [It's a genuine question, because he doesn't want to believe this one would. Erik, their Erik, was a dear friend and mentor back home. Not automatically trusting this one is a struggle.

And then Kitty, bless her, pulls him out of the beginning of a brood.] Yes I named it, and I don't think it did eat. Poor thing was just bones. [He's being literal here.] But it was a good unicorn, held together long enough for me to save my team-mate and get the girl. Well, almost get the girl; her husband showed up. [And if anyone needs proof that he's Mystique's son, he sounds not the least ashamed of hitting on a married woman. He who holds his own so sacrosanct.]

[Those eyes of hers look amused again as she takes a seat on the tree she was attacking before he arrived.] Of course he did. Gotta watch out for the husbands. [She would kind of love to just keep discussing zombie unicorn skeletons and Kurt's conquests, but her thoughts drift back to Erik.]

It is easy to want to like them. Trust them. [This doesn't just go for Erik. It goes for all of the other mutants here. She misses their counterparts and she likes that they've taken her in as much as they have.] I know how dangerous trust can be. [It's why she didn't phase when Piotr charged toward her.]

Everyone from every world but ours has stories of Magneto being the bad guy. I'm up to at least different realities there. Maybe more. He's admitted doing things to me that didn't entirely sound right. He's also been through two other places like this and that changes a person.

They're the leading cause of death for Darkholmes. [What, like he's going to deny where he gets his dubious moral outlook on things like fidelity? No one who's ever been around his mother for more than five minutes would believe it.]

You're the only one here I do trust, and I hope you won't be insulted if I tell you I question the wisdom of that. I'm still suspicious as to whether this is all a dying hallucination. [He says this off the cuff, as though it isn't something that contributes to keeping him up at night. His night at least, his shipmates' early morning.

Kurt starts to say something and then pauses, tilting his head in thought.] These realities; how many of them had Charles Xavier?

[No dying under any means, please. She has you back now and she intends to keep you.]

No insult. I question trust all the time. [Or at least she questions herself wanting to trust anyone really. Piotr was far from a stranger when she trusted him. And still she finds herself letting it build up little by little with people. Maybe paranoia and mistrust just don't suit her.]

I think they all had an Xavier. Actually, I met an Xavier at the prison. He was younger. [At least younger than most others spoke of him.] More in the planning stages of something than a leader.

I liked him. We went to prom together. [She smirks a little. Because how ridiculous is that fact?]

Edited 2016-04-05 12:33 (UTC)

[So that's a promise she won't point and laugh if he gets himself accosted by an angry husband?

And congratulations Kitty, that last tidbit of information has him completely flabbergasted. She might want to take a picture of his face, this doesn't happen often.] You went to what?

[And then, a second later when he belatedly remembers what a prom is:] Aren't you a bit old to be in American secondary school? [High school, Kurt. It's called high school.]

[That is a promise too far. She's still laughing. Willing to negotiate on the pointing.]

Everyone was invited, and I was a teacher at the prison's all-ages school. [Pause] I guess I was technically a student too, but those were more college-level classes. [She took Criminology from Reid and occasionally checked out other things.]

The prison was a strange place. Like being in Oz or something. As in Wizard of. You never really knew what was going to happen, nothing seemed impossible, and it could be light and fun or dark and twisted or somewhere in between. [Should she clarify that Xavier and her went together as friends and not as an actual date?]

You were able to go to college. [Despite his many misgivings about the prison she was in and what it might have done to change her over the years--year for her, hearing that she was finally able to further her education makes him smile softly. His Kitty was always so smart.

And there's his opening to get more information. Also, get away from the question of what kind of relationship Kitty had with a dead man (obviously not dead there, however.)] Was it? I haven't heard you talk as much about where you were as the people you met there. How the hell did they even hold you?

[There's a little smile happening behind the gas mask because if she's not mistaken he sounds proud of her. Happy for her at least.] Um, yeah. I guess I kind of did. They also had a huge library. I taught myself some Portuguese. [For reasons.] And read up a lot on physics. [It had always interested her and she wanted to be able to hang with Reid in conversations.]

They secured a few areas from me. I couldn't phase through the outer dome or into the warden's main facility. And if they put the place on lock down I couldn't get through any sealed building. They also sometimes put anklets on us that neutralized powers completely. [Guess how much she hated that? SO much.] Also, we were deep underwater. Even if I could have gotten out I was never going to get to the top before drowning without a submarine or someone with super speed. Plus, it turned out it was all a shared virtual reality anyway, so there was that. [Has she mentioned that bit before?]

[His smile widens enough to narrow his eyes slightly. So smart.] You say this like anyone could do it. So modest for such a brilliant woman. [So it's safe to say that yes, Kurt is proud of her. The urge to hug her and ruffle her hair is nearly overwhelming.

Her explanation is a good distraction from both urges, thankfully; he suspects she wouldn't enjoy walking around this moon with her hair in a halo.] Shared virtual reality. Then why the hell go to all the trouble of the rest?! [He pauses, then adds in a tone that's more statement than question.] They're sadists, aren't they?

I have my moments. [There's a smirk. She is at least more aware of her intelligence than the beauty he was claiming for her.]

I guess they just wanted it realistic? I don't know. I wish I'd figured it all out and brought them down before... You know, before this. And speaking of this... [She tilts her head to the side a bit, looking at Kurt.] You know, my ship needs a communications officer. Know any good ones? [As if it has anything to do with filling a role. They could have fifty people with a communications augment already and she'd still want him on her ship. It's strange how odd it feels to ask though. Like it's an imposition and something sort of intimate with a dose of possible rejection. She would like him with her though. You never know how long these things last and she doesn't want to spend their time so apart.]

Perhaps when we leave here, you will. [Because there's little he has faith in anymore, save his team-mates from home. They will escape in the fullness of time, and when they do he'll willingly go with her to the prison she came from.

He blinks at Kitty for a second, then starts to laugh. The sound is muffled by and rattles inside his gas mask, but is still recognizable.] Kitty, please. You think I'd say no?

Maybe. [It's a bittersweet kind of thought. She loves that he'd go with her, and she does miss it and feels responsibility there, but the longer she's in the fleet the more her resolve to return lessens because it means leaving the other mutants who she could never see again back home anyway and probably wouldn't see in the prison if things continued the way they had there. Always the briefest of stays and they usually made her feel more alone than anything else. Still, when she thinks "home" she's more likely to think of the prison than anywhere else. The prison or her parents of course, but there's only one she can ever hope to return to.]

So, I should have recruited you sooner is what you're saying? [Because she didn't want him to leave again after the first time he visited. She's actually been working on it. Things were fine as they were, but she put some of her money down to help make some improvements to the ship with him in mind more than herself or even her current crew.] So get on it already. [He'd be seeing a little smile if it weren't for the mask. And since that does seem like a shame she'll step forward to show it off in another way with a hug. There are precious few people she's willing to hug here and only one she's really comfortable with, so he must endure them! She is careful about her arm placement since those claws aren't functioning at 100%. She hasn't had one pop when it wasn't supposed to yet, but knowing their luck that's how this story would end.]

[There's no question in his mind that he'd follow her, whether it be to the prison or another world entirely. With their world gone and their X-Men with it, Kitty is all that's left for him of home. She's a reminder of, not exactly better times, but happier in retrospect; a time when they all had enough hope to raise a child in defiance of their own plans to end everything.

(He'd say it was a time when he still believed in Erik's ability to persevere against the odds, but the truth is that right until he laid eyes on the man's grave Kurt still had more faith in him than in the rotation of the earth.)]

You should have thrown me over your shoulder and carried me off like a brute. Unless your year of peace atrophied your arms? [Despite what he's just implied, Kurt moves in easily for the hug. He's fairly certain she won't stab him for such a little jest, and being able to reach out and touch is still new enough to be mindboggling. Kurt keeps expecting to wake up back home, struggling to breathe the poisoned air for the weight of their dead on his chest. But here is one of their first lost, breathing in his arms with the echo of her voice still in his ears. He could cry still, but instead he chooses to chuckle, his tail coming up to loosely wrap around the arm bearing the claws.] I might rethink it if you run me through.

[This would all be more comfortable without the breathing masks except for the part where breathing would suddenly be a lot less comfortable. But it still feels really good. And if he gets on his ship he'll be a lot closer for her to go find and remind herself that he's not a dream. He's here and solid and real.] I just learned some manners and figured asking was the right way to go before I demanded it and threatened to phase your tail into a wall.

[She smiles under that mask.] The claws are still a work-in-progress, but I'd phase as quickly as I could if I did stab you. [Teasing about the dark things without worrying he's going to take it harshly is one of the nice things about having someone from home.]

Manners? Clearly I owe someone a drink for managing to pound the rules of etiquette through that skull of yours. Are you quite certain it isn't laced with adimantium?

[Rude, Kurt. So is the snort when she promises to phase quickly of the claws pop out.] Darling, if you stab me then you'll be the one caring for me while I re-cooperate. Alone. [It sounds like a threat because it is; Kurt's always been a horrible patient who alternated between trying to push himself too soon and whining about being laid up.]

Wow, some people find my stubborn ways charming, you know.

[She smiles, remembering times before when he was hurt. Kitty, you monster, don't smile at those memories.] In that case consider yourself safe. No one needs that kind of hell. [Of course he's safe in her arms though. As if anyone is doubting that, right?]

[She pulls back and there's a smile not that he can see it through the mask.] Want to explore the forest some? [And so take a walk together.]

first one to make that doctor who joke loses

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