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Post by Nightcrawler on Oct 22, 2006 4:25:13 GMT -5
Kurt chuckled at the thought of everyone running around without any clothes on, his heart skipping a beat as again his mind brought up the image of the white-haired woman sitting across from him.
Gott in Himmel, I'm going to be doing a lot of praying tonight.
Thinking back to the phone conversation he'd had with Maddie, he nodded, his tail looping lazily over the arm of the couch. "Ja, that's why I contacted her. We're going to be discussing it when we meet." He scratched the fuzz on his chin thoughtfully. "I'm not sure she believes our findings are correct, but I'll discuss that with her too."
As the sly look slipped onto her face, Kurt felt the heat rising under his collar again, but he grinned at her. It was rare that she joked with him about anything, and he wasn't about to pass it up. "Göttin, I am ein Deutches Mann. I never give up the chance for a beer."
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Post by Storm on Oct 22, 2006 5:44:40 GMT -5
"Good. I trust you most to introduce such a sensitive subject with someone we don't want to scare."
She was interested by the fact that Maddie did not believe their findings; it had not occurred to her to doubt them. "Well, we can easily prove it. What is a mystery is not her DNA, but herself - I would very much like to know what else you can find out about her."
She laughed again at his joke, and crossed her legs, angling more towards him. "Ah, a beautiful woman and a tall drink! You men are all the same, German or no.
"Although this may explain why Logan was angrily looking for his beer the other day." Ororo eyed Kurt mock-suspiciously.
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Post by Nightcrawler on Oct 22, 2006 5:54:22 GMT -5
Kurt smiled, shrugging off his coat casually as the heat under his collar grew with her compliment, his cheeks showing the barest signs of dark purple, a color almost no one would have seen to know that it was Kurt blushing about as deeply as he could. "You always have faith in me, Göttin. Danke schön.
"When I talk to Maddie, I'll do my best to pay attention," he said with a chuckle. "I'll let you know whatever I learn from my metting."
Watching her with a smirk and an arched eyebrow, Kurt shrugged comically at her accusation. "Perhaps all men enjoy a beautiful woman and a tall drink, but only German would think of the tall drink first. And if Herr Logan is so concerned about having his beer, he shouldn't leave it in the kitchen where students will find it. I had to remove them so that none of the students would get any ideas."
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Post by Storm on Oct 22, 2006 6:32:31 GMT -5
Storm smiled. "A compliment for faith from you is high praise indeed.
"Then again, it's not really about faith. You have a comfortable manner, and it spreads." She amusedly remembered Hannah shaking Kurt's tail. It was an immense compliment to his kindness that a little girl should be unafraid to play with perhaps the most unsettling part of him.
Ororo wondered briefly why Kurt would have to make any effort to pay attention to Maddie. She was very attractive. Then again, perhaps that's what he meant.
"When are you meeting?"
She was enjoying the back-and-forth that they were having. Everything lately had weighed so heavily on their minds; Ororo found it hard to be cheerful when even Kurt seemed to be under a little dark cloud that not even her powers could disperse. But sometimes, when she was talking to him, they lifted the cloud for a while.
"You had to remove them! What a sacrifice of time and energy you made."
She lazily traced the patterns on one of his now-exposed arms. "You are a martyr and a saint."
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Post by Nightcrawler on Oct 22, 2006 7:04:39 GMT -5
Kurt smiled again, the blush fading but his spirits climbing as she kept improving his self-esteem. "You flatter me. I just am, and if that works to my advantage, so be it."
Which just served to remind Kurt that God had not left him without help. He may have had the appearance of a demon, but people seemed to like him well enough, something that he didn't mind at all.
"We're meeting tomorrow night. I'll teleport in to New York. One of the advantages of being me."
Kurt smiled happily as Ororo seemed to lighten, obviously enjoying their conversation. They had so little opportunity to interact like this anymore, what with everything that was happening. Battles, arrests, espionage... there was hardly any time to relax, making moments like this all the more important.
"You had to remove them! What a sacrifice of time and energy you made. You are a martyr and a saint."
Kurt shivered slightly as her fingers brushed over the scars on his arm, one of the few places on his skin that the fur didn't grow. No, Ororo, definitely not a saint, he thought, his mind dredging up the images of her yet again, tracing his scars much as she was doing in reality now...
He forced himself to ignore the tingling left behind by her fingers and grinned at her. "Ja, Liebling, it was so difficult for me. I was surprised I could go on after it."
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Post by Storm on Oct 22, 2006 15:59:41 GMT -5
Ororo nodded as he told her when they were meeting. There was a time when she would have inquired as to how Kurt would teleport such a far distance, but she had known him for long enough to know his powers too.
She couldn't think of anything else she wanted to ask about the meeting; but she felt a little unsettled, as if she must be forgetting something important. She put it out of her mind.
At the feeling of his scars, Ororo remembered the last time she had traced them. Kurt had practically been frightened of her and Jean; what a long way they had come.
She looked up at him as her fingers left his arm. "You don't do them anymore." It was a statement but also a question.
His words of sacrifice were amusing. "I would be surprised you could go on too, if you drank them all."
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Post by Nightcrawler on Oct 22, 2006 19:55:27 GMT -5
Kurt breathed a bit easier as she nodded without another comment; apparently there had been nothing to worry about. Ororo was marvelously understanding, something for which he was quite grateful.
Something about her apparent lack of concern bothered him a bit, though he couldn't figure out why. He blinked the thought away, determining to think about it more during his reflection before he went to bed. He found that it helped keep him calm if he meditated on his actions and reactions from the day.
As her blue eyes focused on him, he realized again that he'd need a bit more time for reflection than normal.
"Ja, I gave it up," he said, glancing away from her eyes down to his arms. "I would like to keep at least some of my skin intact." His shut his eyes tightly with a sort of grimacing chuckle, thinking about how often he'd be carving symbols now if he'd continued with the penitent self-mutilation.
Ja... no skin left.
"Oh, it wasn't the drinking that was difficult, Göttin, it was carrying it all to my room. After that I was almost too tired to open the bottles."
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Post by Storm on Oct 22, 2006 21:07:57 GMT -5
Storm looked at Kurt's blue skin and smiled again, wordlessly. She had always thought Kurt's tattoos were a good metaphor for himself; strange and beautiful, artistic and religious, and a little bit mournful. Then again, she supposed, it was probably a sign of emotional health that he had given it up.
"I take it beer does not survive teleportation well?"
Storm ran one hand through her long white hair, untangling a few knots on the way with her delicate fingers. She regarded Kurt comfortably, thinking of all the serious issues she could choose to discuss with him; but she was weary of Baltimore and arrests and DNA testing. Instead, she turned her attention to something a little more in their mutual comfort zone: the students.
"I assume Logan has talked to you about the training pair-ups? I would think you would want to be a part of it. Do you have a trainee partner yet?"
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Post by Nightcrawler on Oct 22, 2006 21:29:13 GMT -5
"Unfortunately, no. The beer itself is not hurt, but the smell of brimstone tends to cling to the bottle. No other bottles, just the bottles of beer. Very strange."
Regarding her with a soft smile, Kurt found himself suddenly feeling content with the position he'd taken at Xavier's. He'd been having doubts about his usefulness, but he was giving useful advice to the students, and here he was lightening Ororo's burden for a least a moment. It made him feel peaceful.
Her talk of the made him think back to his talk with Logan. He knew there were no students with abilities similar to his, but when he'd been given his assignment, he had no idea of why. And worse, Logan had stalked off in his way to give the next assignment before Kurt had fully absorbed the information he'd been given.
"Ja, Logan paired me with Herr Foley." He scratched his chin. "I am not sure what I am going to be able to teach him. Perhaps how to dodge, but beyond that I have very little for him to learn."
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Post by Storm on Oct 22, 2006 23:15:20 GMT -5
"Oh, yes, our healer. It was so lucky that he found us; I don't know how Bandero, in particular, could have survived without him." Storm looked serious, remembering the danger Forge had been in. She rubbed the cloth arm of the couch with absentminded concern.
"But Elixir is new to mutanthood, and anything you could teach him would be helpful. Particularly regarding what is probably the most important part of our lives - learning to be comfortable with ourselves and our mutations." She smiled at Kurt's tail. "You know something about that.
"Well, in his case it will be more about having a mentor than a teacher. In the future when his skills need more precise honing, we can match him with someone else."
She spread her hands. "And don't underestimate the importance of learning to dodge. Consider the alternative."
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Post by Nightcrawler on Oct 22, 2006 23:31:05 GMT -5
Kurt nodded, rubbing his ribs absently. "Ja, he has helped a few of us. I would still be in pain if not for him."
Re-rolling one of his sleeves, Kurt gave a half-grin as she looked at his tail, and he let the point at its end twitch before he slowly curled it over his knee. "I have some sense of what it is to look different, I suppose."
His face grew a little more serious. "But Ororo, I am no mentor. I still have trouble with myself."
He thought about the training he'd been undertaking in the Danger Room, with projectiles flying at him from all sides, testing not only his ability to dodge but also forcing him to rely on his inherent spatial awareness. Somehow, he didn't think Josh would be able to start at the same level.
One side of his mouth twitched in a grin. "We'll start him off slowly, I think."
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Post by Storm on Oct 23, 2006 0:56:14 GMT -5
Storm put a hand to her ribs too. "Me too, although from a different fight." She looked at him, remembering their struggle in Baltimore and how he had saved her.
She shrugged at his mild protestations, but she had a pleasant look on her face. "A mentor shouldn't be a perfect model anyway. Students learn much more when they know their teachers have gone through the same struggle."
She laughed lightly, seeing that he was clearly reconsidering dodging as a skill. "Sure," she joked. "Dodging paperclips, and then ping-pong balls, and then baseballs... basketballs... civilians... trucks..." They were far enough from Baltimore that she managed to laugh a little at the memory of Juggernaut throwing cars.
"Actually, at some point he should probably be paired with Forge. I would imagine mentally entereing a human body is much like entering a machine."
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Post by Nightcrawler on Oct 23, 2006 1:14:02 GMT -5
Kurt winced slightly at the memory of Baltimore. The image of Ororo flying through the air still haunted him occasionally, so he tried not to think about it. "Ja, you took quite a beating." He scratched his chin, partly to hide his mouth as he muttered, "Verdammt Sentinel."
He sighed and let his tail slide off to the floor again, shifting his knees up onto the couch and leaning back against the arm lazily. "Well, I will do what I can. We will have some interesting conversation, if nothing else."
Chuckling at the idea of Foley sitting in the Danger Room dodging paperclips, Kurt dropped his hands down and set his elbows behind him on the couch arm. "Well, trucks we may have him practice with eventually... Civilians? I think we'd have trouble getting volunteers.
"That sounds like an excellent idea. I'll talk to Forge about working with him on practical skill and analysis."
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Post by Storm on Oct 23, 2006 1:26:10 GMT -5
"At least I don't remember it." The tranqs had worked quickly. Of course, she remembered other parts of the battle, and that was plenty. All right, enough thinking of that.
"There you go. At the least it's an opportunity to get to know trainees better. I have not been paired with anyone yet, but I hope to be. Logan is in charge, and I leave that to him."
As Kurt shifted to face her, Storm moved too, recrossing her long legs at the ankles and resting her knees on the edge of the seat. "Angel would probably be happy to throw himself at someone for an afternoon." Storm smiled at the thought. "As long as his wings didn't get messed up." She said the last words with a joking little emphasis, imitating the language of a surly boy.
"Speaking of students, how are your classes going?" She reached behind her and began to put her hair into a loose braid. It was getting warm. She could have changed that, of course, but she found it pleasant.
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Post by Nightcrawler on Oct 23, 2006 1:56:12 GMT -5
Kurt's tail unconsciously moved up, the pointed tip hooking under the hems of his pants one by one and pulling them off of his feet, letting cool air into the legs of his pants. "That is probably for the best," he said with a wry smile. It hadn't been a good day for any side, but between the mutants present, the X-Men had received worse.
"It is good to see Logan taking an interest in something here at the school," Kurt said earnestly. "Hopefully there will be someone for you to work with soon. Someone will surely benefit from your teaching."
The image of Warren dive-bombing Josh in the garden made him laugh, letting his head fall back briefly. "I think it will be a while before we work out way up to that. And who knows? Perhaps I can teach Herr Foley how to fence."
Yellow eyes followed her hands as they pulled the hair back from her shoulders, watching the casually graceful movement with interest before Kurt shook his head slightly in an attempt to clear it, listening to her speak. "Classes are going nicely. I'm sure Jubilee will get back to antagonizing me at every turn I get." He gave her a small smile, doing his best to not pay attention to what Ororo's elbows at her eye level were doing to the rest of her torso.
Mein Gott, are women actually aware of what they do?
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Post by Storm on Oct 23, 2006 2:09:57 GMT -5
Storm noticed Kurt was airing out his pants. "Too warm?" Her eyes flashed pale for a moment and she blew a gust of wind at his face, with a wicked look on hers.
She agreed with his talk of Logan. "He's being uncharacteristically helpful. Sometimes I fear he will snap out of it and run for the hills. Then again, perhaps we have tamed the Wolverine; or perhaps one person did," she said, thinking sadly of Jean.
Ororo brought her arms down as the plait passed her shoulders, and left it hanging untied over her chest. She was proud of her long hair, but sometimes it was a nuisance to keep neat. Then again, she knew it was an impressive sight, blowing in the winds that sometimes held her aloft; and she still had some of the goddess in her.
"Jubes!" she laughed at the mention of the girl's famous attitude. "I'm sure she will too.
"What are you teaching this week?"
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Post by Nightcrawler on Oct 23, 2006 2:38:34 GMT -5
Kurt narrowed his eyes as the blast of cool air hit his skin, laughing at the expression on her face. "Danke, Ororo, but it is cool enough without the air conditioning." His tail darted out and poked her in the side. "You can turn it off now."
Talk of Jean and Logan brought him back to his meeting and the logical problems that could arise. "Ororo, we need to keep the information about Maddie from Logan until we know for sure what is happening. He does not know about the DNA, nor about my meeting with her."
Watching her fingers move over her soft hair as she pulled it over her shoulders, he tore his eyes away as they began to travel down the strands draped over her chest and rather deliberately thought instead about Jubilee's problem. He didn't know if Jubilee had told Ororo yet, but he wasn't going to chance that she hadn't. "This week we're starting the tenets of Islam. It should be interesting having the students draw parallels between it and Christianity."
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Post by Storm on Oct 24, 2006 1:41:12 GMT -5
"Would you prefer the heater?" she asked, but quickly bent over with a laugh as Kurt's tail prodded her. "Oh, I surrender!"
She nodded at the mention of Logan. "He seems to have gotten over the shock of Jean," she said a little sadly, knowing that Jean had faded into memory for her too. "We should not risk overturning him again.
"I am glad you are teaching the theology of more than one religion. Is it a learning experience for you to put together these lesson plans? Or are you an expert on every religious ideology?" she smiled. "Although I notice you do want to bring Christianity in as well.
"If you ever need a guest lecturer on the subject of African deities, I may know someone with first-person experience," she said, looking innocent and letting tiny sparks of electricity play on her fingers.
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Post by Nightcrawler on Oct 24, 2006 1:59:49 GMT -5
"I am sure there is some sort of plunder for the victor." He looked around her office before plucking a pencil off of her coffee table and tucking it behind his ear. "Ah, this will do for now.
"I am worried both for Logan's mental health and for the damage his actions could have on any sort of relationship the X-Men could have with Madelyne." He scratched his chin thoughtfully. "I get the distinct impression that she does not care for Logan at all."
Chuckling, Kurt leaned back against the arm of the couch again. "I am reading much in order to put together these lessons. I know much about Catholic theology, but the differences to the other Christian sects and knowledge of other religions are new to me. I am actually rather enjoying it.
"Comparison of Christianity and Islam is only logical; their beginnings stem from the same point of origin, and they are so similar on so many points. Soon we'll move back farther and analyze Judaism before moving on to Eastern religions."
He shot her a grin. "And if your source on African deities would like to come give a lecture after that, she is more than welcome to. But I think it would be preferable that she wear her normal clothing and not what she did - or didn't - wear during her goddess stint." He'd come across illustrations of African depictions of gods and goddesses during his research before agreeing to teach, and he'd seen what little clothing they wore, if they wore any at all. "It would cause quite a ruckus in my class."
A nearly imperceptible shiver ran through his body. And distract me from teaching.
His smile slipped slightly. This is Ororo! What are you thinking? Keep your mind together!
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Post by Storm on Oct 24, 2006 2:23:07 GMT -5
"A worthy prize," Ororo smiled at Kurt, looking as rakish as he possibly could with a yellow pencil behind his pointy ear.
"Well, Logan is... an acquired taste." She put a hand to her neck, where he had clawed her during his first time at Xavier's, and turned up one side of her mouth. Nothing more need be said, really.
"I am glad you're enjoying teaching; I thought you would. You like getting to know the students, too?" She listened with interest to his plans for comparisons. "I should sit in on one of your lectures."
Kurt's reference to her nudity made her laugh. Perhaps her talk of it had made an impression on him. She wondered briefly whether that would be a good or a bad thing.
"Well, I was not always unclothed, although it was not frowned upon. Ceremonial dress was particularly beautiful... the bright patterns and beading..." her hand strayed to her collarbone again, remembering the weight of the collars on her neck and shoulders. It took her a moment before she met Kurt's yellow eyes again. "No, I would not do that to a class." She smiled, although her eyes were still misty. It grew a little warmer and dryer in the room.
Which, she realized, was probably good, because Kurt had shivered slightly. Perhaps she shouldn't have blown that cool air at him.
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