XMM: "My Girlfriend Is a Telepath" (Kitty/Mindee, Bobby/Rogue)
Title: My Girlfriend Is a Telepath
Fandom: X-Men Movieverse
Pairing: Kitty/Mindee, Bobby/Rogue
Timeline/Spoilers: The not-too-distant future, post-X3. Spoilers for all three movies.
Summary: What it's like to be dating one-third of the Three-in-One.
Warnings: Homophobia. (Also implied off-screen noncon bestiality, I suppose.)
Rating: PG
A/N: Sequel of sorts to " I'm Awfully Fond of You." Also, to be clear, I'm assuming that there have always only been three movieverse Cuckoos. And finally, special thanks to slashfairy for the beta.
My Girlfriend Is a Telepath
"What are these rumors I'm hearing about Mindee Cuckoo and you?" Bobby practically hissed at Kitty when he saw her walking to class Thursday morning.
Kitty didn't even slow down, just kept on walking to class. "Since when did you ever listen to rumors?"
Bobby reached out and grabbed her arm--a futile gesture, of course, as she simply phased right through his hand as if it weren't there, but an offensive one nonetheless. "I heard it from Phoebe," he said. "I think she'd know."
"So what about it?" Kitty asked, realizing there was no way she was getting out of this conversation, little as she wanted to have it in the hall on the way to math class. "It's nobody's business but mine and Mindee's."
"And Phoebe and Celeste's," pointed out Bobby as he sped up to keep pace with her. "Were they like, you know, there?"
"They weren't there there," Kitty answered truthfully. "I guess they were in Mindee's head; they usually are. I didn't really think about it."
"So are you dating all three of them now, or just Mindee?"
Kitty sighed, stopped walking, and looked at Bobby. "You're the one who was apparently discussing all of this with Phoebe Cuckoo. What did she think?"
Bobby shrugged. "She said Mindee had good taste and that you were hot."
Kitty smiled. She didn't get called hot very often, and twice in twenty-four hours was a pleasant experience--even if the two people did share the same mind half the time. "Well, you can tell her I'm game, but only if it's okay with Mindee."
"You'd really have a relationship with all three of them?"
Kitty looked her friend in the eye. "You're telling me that if you could have sex with all three Cuckoos, you wouldn't?"
Bobby froze, apparently knowing that there was no right answer to that question. "Don't worry," Kitty assured him, "I won't tell Rogue."
Bobby relaxed. "Consecutively or concurrently?" he asked thoughtfully.
Kitty looked at him skeptically. "Does it matter?"
Bobby smiled, defeated. "Okay, you win. Just be careful?"
Kitty frowned. "You're not my brother, Bobby."
. . .
James Alfredson, watched as Mindee Cuckoo and Kitty Pryde exchanged a kiss in the courtyard. "Pedro, come here," he called. "Isn't that hot?"
Pedro peered out the dorm room window. "What?"
"Pryde and Cuckoo. Isn't that hot?"
Pedro shrugged. "I guess."
"You know what this means, Pedro?"
"That I shouldn't ask Kitty to go to Homecoming with me?"
"That the Cuckoos have wants and needs! They're not some goddesses above petty sexuality. They're available!"
Pedro frowned, still looking out the window. "At least one seems pretty interested in women."
"One, Pedro! That leaves two left. Just think: me, with Celeste Cuckoo. Or Phoebe. Or both."
Pedro looked doubtful. "Do you really think that they would go out with you?"
NOT IN A MILLION YEARS.
"Hey!" exclaimed James as he covered his head with his arms, as if that would somehow shield him from the Cuckoos' telepathy. "No eavesdropping!" Then he smiled and, in a whisper, added to Pedro: "They're just playing hard to get."
. . .
Celeste Cuckoo glanced out of the corner of her eye at her sister's girlfriend as the group of girls made their way through the mall's Gap. She stayed with that thought for a moment: Her. Sister's. Girlfriend.
The memories of her tryst with Kitty had been running through Mindee's mind all day (seriously, all day, it was becoming annoying already) and Celeste wasn't quite able to look Kitty in the eye. Are you sure about this? she thought to her sister again.
Mindee took Kitty's hand in her own. If you have something to say, she thought back, you can say it out loud.
"Look at that dress," broke in Phoebe as they passed a rack of sleek navy blue sheath dresses. "Don't you think that would be just perfect?"
Celeste looked at it uncertainly. "Don't you already have one just like it?"
"It doesn't fit my hips," Pheobe answered, looking the dresses on the rack for one in her size. "You can have it if you want; you're slimmer than I am."
Mindee, meanwhile, had wandered off with Kitty. "This top would be so hot on you," she told her girlfriend, pulling a lime green sleeveless bellyshirt off a rack.
Celeste's eyes were still on Phoebe's proposed purchase, but she could see through Mindee's eyes the flush that rose to Kitty's cheeks, and could feel the spike in her sister's libido that resulted. Okay, I admit it, she conceded to Mindee. She's adorable.
. . .
"Three girls!" James said excitedly as he watched out the window. "What in the world did Drake do to deserve three girls?"
Pedro glanced out the window. Sure enough, Bobby Drake was leaving the Xavier Institute campus with Rogue, Kitty, and Mindee. "It's a double date," he explained, not quite sure why he had to explain. "Only one of them is his girlfriend."
"Same difference," James answered, not taking his eyes off the four teenagers.
Pedro just eyed his roommate warily, then finally gave voice to the question that was just begging to be asked. "Why are you wearing tinfoil on your head?"
"It's a helmet," James answered, turning toward Pedro and crossing his arm. "You know, like Magneto's, to protect against telepathy."
"Magneto's helmet isn't made out of aluminum," Pedro pointed out.
"It's metal," said James, although a note of uncertainty had entered his voice. "That's the important thing."
Pedro frowned. "I'm pretty sure it has to be a particular, special metal--you know, like vibranium or adamantium or something."
James froze. "You're sure?"
Pedro nodded. "I think so."
James gulped. "So the Cuckoos can still read my thoughts?"
Pedro shrugged. "If they wanted to, I guess."
James quickly crossed himself. "They are going to kill me."
. . .
Bobby looked across the mostly-eaten remnants of a large veggie pizza at Kitty and Mindee, who seemed awfully comfortable in the booth seat across from him and Rogue. Mindee had her arm around Kitty and was running her fingers through Kitty's hair, while Kitty rested her head on Mindee's shoulder.
Bobby envied them. Even now that he and Rogue had, ahem, consummated (God, that made it sound like they were married or something) their relationship, Rogue's body was still like some strange foreign land to him. If she had been sitting farther away from him in the booth, she'd be through the wall.
A silence had settled over the table while they ate, but now as they were mostly finished it was slowly tipping over into awkward. "So, Mindee," he said just to break it and then, realizing he had nothing else to say, hurriedly tried to think of something. "What did you think of Dr. McCoy's talk at the assembly yesterday?"
Mindee shrugged. "Celeste was on paying attention duty. I can ask her if you want."
Bobby was about to tell her not to bother when Mindee's eyes ghosted over for a moment. "She thought it was boring."
"It was, sort of," agreed Rogue.
Kitty lifted her head from Mindee's shoulder. "I thought it was interesting," she said firmly.
"That's what I love about you," Mindee said, pulling Kitty closer and quickly kissing her cheek. Kitty smiled and leaned in for another kiss, this time on the mouth.
Bobby glanced at Rogue out of the corner of his eye. If she was discomfitted by Kitty and Mindee's display of physical affection, she gave no sign. If anything, she looked distinctly bored.
It wasn't as if Bobby had any problem with Kitty dating a girl, of course (as if he had any say at all in the matter). It just took some getting used to, after all.
Mindee had her tongue as far down Kitty's throat as possible without mutant physiology or abilities involved and Bobby intently stared at a pizza crust which lay on the silver platter in the center of the table. This was definitely going to take some getting used to.
. . .
The four were walking back to the mansion, Kitty and Mindee holding hands in their "shiny brand new love" sort of way. They were most of the way back when Rogue saw a young boy, standing on a corner with about a half-dozen of his friends, glance over, and she could tell in an instant that there was going to be trouble. "Look, Joey," he said. "It's a couple of dykes." He smiled and walked menacingly towards Kitty and Mindee.
"We don't want to hurt you," said Kitty right before the boy's flew right through her face.
"But we totally will if we have to," Mindee finished for her.
"Hey look," called out one of the attacker. "Not only are they dykes, they're muties too!"
"What about you, mutie?" one of the boys asked as he grabbed Rogue and pushed her against a wall. "What can you do?"
"I'm not a mutant," she answered truthfully as she struggled to break free.
"Well, that's too bad," said his friend as he helped keep her pushed up against the wall. "Because you're still a mutie-lover, and you know what we do to--" He broke off with a cry of pain as Rogue's knee connected solidly with his groin. His accomplice followed shortly thereafter.
"Just 'cause I'm human doesn't mean I'm helpless," she said with a grim smile as she made her way to help the others. Bobby and Kitty, of course, were have more difficulty trying not to hurt their attackers than in actually defending themselves. The boys had, however, succeeded in pushing Mindee up against the wall the way they had with Rogue.
"Enough," said Mindee, her eyes flashing white. The six boys stopped immediately, the two who had been holding her against the wall releasing her.
"You will go home and go to sleep," Mindee informed them. "When you wake up, you'll remember nothing. And whenever you use the words 'dyke' or 'mutie' you will be seized by the uncontrollable urge to make love to a duck. Do I make myself clear?"
The six boys nodded in unison, then began to walk away.
"Why can't we just do that to everybody?" Bobby asked, cracking his neck, and was met by unrelenting glares from all three girls. "I'm kidding, okay?"
Rogue just felt sorry for the ducks.
. . .
"Members of the International Brotherhood of Mutants have succeeded in grinding portions of the NYC subway system to a halt and have taken numbers of hostages believed to be in the hundreds. The group of mutant vigilantes known as the X-Men has also arrived on the scene--"
Mindee hit the "mute" button. "I think we don't need to hear the right-wing commentary," she said. "Hey look, there's Kitty and Bobby."
Sure enough, the two junior members of the X-Men were shown prominently on the screen, apparently squaring off against some Brotherhood mutant in a long leather coat who seemed to be indiscriminately throwing what appeared to be explosive playing cards.
"God," said Mindee. "Kitty looks really hot in that uniform."
"She is," confirmed Rogue. "I don't know who thought black was a good choice of color, but those things are pretty uncomfort--" She broke off. "And that's not what you meant at all, is it?"
Mindee smiled and shook her head. "Not quite."
Rogue nodded, and looked more carefully at the image on the television. She guess that the uniform did accentuate Bobby's figure somewhat. She had never really noticed before.
She sighed. "That would have been me, right there with them," she said. "Sometimes I wonder if I made the right decision."
"Do you," answered Mindee noncommittally, and Rogue wondered if she had just told a telepath something she had already known perfectly well.
"I don't know," Rogue said. "I think I did, but look at me now. Useless, watching my boyfriend fight evil on the television." With Kitty right next to him, she didn't say, although with the possibility that Mindee was reading her thoughts it might not have made a difference one way or the other. Although she did feel a little bit better about Bobby and Kitty together now that Kitty was not only in a relationship of her own, but apparently seemed to be batting for the other team altogether.
"We're the girlfriends who stay home," answered Mindee, "while they save the world?"
"No offense," said Rogue. "But yeah, it does sort of feel like that." She wasn't sure why she was confiding all of this in Mindee. It's not like she would ever admit it to Bobby. And here was Mindee Cuckoo, who wasn't even so much Rogue's friend as just Rogue's friend's girlfriend (or even Rogue's boyfriend's friend's girlfriend), and she was baring her soul. Then again, it's not as if there were all that many people she could have the conversation with. Bobby and Kitty were out for obvious reason, and she couldn't see herself having the discussion with Logan either. Whereas with Mindee, well, for all Rogue knew the telepath already knew all of this anyway.
"I've spent my entire life with my sisters in my head," Mindee answered. "I can't even imagine what it would be like to lose that, suddenly being alone." She looked at Rogue. "Being cut off from other people is about the most horrible fate I can imagine. If that happened to me, I would do anything in my power to fix it. No matter what it meant giving up."
Mindee hit the power button on the remote, then jumped up, grabbing Rogue's hand and pulling her along as she did. "Come on," she said. "We're allowed to have fun on our own; they'll still win the fight even if we're not watching. Let's go."
Rogue had no idea where they were going to, but just shrugged and went with it.
. . .
You should just do it.
Kitty jumped as Mindee's telepathic voice broke into her consciousness. You've been staring at the phone for half an hour, baby. If you're going to do it, then you might as well get it over with.
Kitty nodded but didn't move.
Nervous?
"Not really," Kitty said, speaking out loud. She found it made it easier to keep her telepathic conversations with Mindee going in a single direction. "I mean, when Mom and Dad found out I was a mutant, their reaction was pretty much everything that could be hoped for. You know, reading the books, taking the classes, and, in the end, sending me here. But . . . it's still weird, y'know?"
I know, said Mindee. Kitty smiled; of course Mindee knew. She was a telepath, after all. She probably knew more about the way people thought and acted than most people learned in their entire lifetime.
"What about your parents?"
There was a pause and Kitty realized that she had never heard any of the Cuckoos ever talk about their parents. I don't think that'll be a problem.
Pick up the phone and call your mother, honey.
Kitty nodded, dialed her home number, and took a deep breath.
. . .
The conversation started out fairly normally: Theresa Pryde berated her daughter for not calling more often, inquired as to her health, shared a story about how Kitty's brother and father had been working on upgrading a 2010 VW minibus they had bought cheap off some crazy old woman on the internet.
You're stalling, Mindee intruded with a gentle reminder.
Kitty nodded, and didn't even stop to take a breath before blurting out, "I'm seeing someone new."
"Oh, that's nice, dear. Is it that Drake boy you keep on taking about"
"I talk about him because we're on the team together," Kitty said. "We're still just friends." She paused. "Her name is Mindee."
"Oh." There it was: that single restrained syllable, reserving judgment and yet containing a wealth of unwilled judgment, of shock and surprise, the primal response which cried out even when the rational tongue was successfully silenced. She could remember it well from her first coming out, when she informed her parents for the first time that she could walk through walls. "What does she do?"
"All mutants don't do things, Mom," Kitty reminded her. It was a conversation she had had with her mother a thousand times, but that made it safe, comfortable, familiar ground. "Some just are."
"Oh," her mother says, the syllable speaking itself once again. "Is she--?" The question hung unfinished, undecided, but Kitty knew she had planted in her mother's mind the idea that Mindee might be some physiological freak, a bird-woman or some girl with her head in her stomach. Suddenly just being a girl wouldn't seem like such a big deal at all.
"She's a telepath."
"Oh." The syllable asserted itself a third time, and this time it came with a palpable sense of relief. "Well, find out what her plans for the holidays are; we'll have to have her over sometime. And find out if she can ski."
. . .
Kitty stayed on the phone with her mother for another ten minutes, chit-chatting about inoffensive topics: her schoolwork, the weather, whether she thought the Red Wings might not have a chance of winning the Cup that year with the strong start they'd been having. Eventually she hung up, setting the phone down on her nightstand.
That wasn't too bad, was it?
Kitty sighed. She could still feel her beating so hard it felt like it would break out of her chest. "I guess not." After all, it could have been worse. Much, much worse.
You did well. Kitty could feel the warmth of her girlfriend's pride through the telepathic link. And tell your parents that I'll totally spend the holidays with them.
. . .
rdwingzkikass: hey sis
arielsprite129: hey
rdwingzkikass: mom sez ur gay now?!1?
arielsprite129: i dunno. i guess. maybe.
rdwingzkikass: cool. B-]
rdwingzkikass: is she hot?
The End
Fandom: X-Men Movieverse
Pairing: Kitty/Mindee, Bobby/Rogue
Timeline/Spoilers: The not-too-distant future, post-X3. Spoilers for all three movies.
Summary: What it's like to be dating one-third of the Three-in-One.
Warnings: Homophobia. (Also implied off-screen noncon bestiality, I suppose.)
Rating: PG
A/N: Sequel of sorts to " I'm Awfully Fond of You." Also, to be clear, I'm assuming that there have always only been three movieverse Cuckoos. And finally, special thanks to slashfairy for the beta.
My Girlfriend Is a Telepath
"What are these rumors I'm hearing about Mindee Cuckoo and you?" Bobby practically hissed at Kitty when he saw her walking to class Thursday morning.
Kitty didn't even slow down, just kept on walking to class. "Since when did you ever listen to rumors?"
Bobby reached out and grabbed her arm--a futile gesture, of course, as she simply phased right through his hand as if it weren't there, but an offensive one nonetheless. "I heard it from Phoebe," he said. "I think she'd know."
"So what about it?" Kitty asked, realizing there was no way she was getting out of this conversation, little as she wanted to have it in the hall on the way to math class. "It's nobody's business but mine and Mindee's."
"And Phoebe and Celeste's," pointed out Bobby as he sped up to keep pace with her. "Were they like, you know, there?"
"They weren't there there," Kitty answered truthfully. "I guess they were in Mindee's head; they usually are. I didn't really think about it."
"So are you dating all three of them now, or just Mindee?"
Kitty sighed, stopped walking, and looked at Bobby. "You're the one who was apparently discussing all of this with Phoebe Cuckoo. What did she think?"
Bobby shrugged. "She said Mindee had good taste and that you were hot."
Kitty smiled. She didn't get called hot very often, and twice in twenty-four hours was a pleasant experience--even if the two people did share the same mind half the time. "Well, you can tell her I'm game, but only if it's okay with Mindee."
"You'd really have a relationship with all three of them?"
Kitty looked her friend in the eye. "You're telling me that if you could have sex with all three Cuckoos, you wouldn't?"
Bobby froze, apparently knowing that there was no right answer to that question. "Don't worry," Kitty assured him, "I won't tell Rogue."
Bobby relaxed. "Consecutively or concurrently?" he asked thoughtfully.
Kitty looked at him skeptically. "Does it matter?"
Bobby smiled, defeated. "Okay, you win. Just be careful?"
Kitty frowned. "You're not my brother, Bobby."
. . .
James Alfredson, watched as Mindee Cuckoo and Kitty Pryde exchanged a kiss in the courtyard. "Pedro, come here," he called. "Isn't that hot?"
Pedro peered out the dorm room window. "What?"
"Pryde and Cuckoo. Isn't that hot?"
Pedro shrugged. "I guess."
"You know what this means, Pedro?"
"That I shouldn't ask Kitty to go to Homecoming with me?"
"That the Cuckoos have wants and needs! They're not some goddesses above petty sexuality. They're available!"
Pedro frowned, still looking out the window. "At least one seems pretty interested in women."
"One, Pedro! That leaves two left. Just think: me, with Celeste Cuckoo. Or Phoebe. Or both."
Pedro looked doubtful. "Do you really think that they would go out with you?"
NOT IN A MILLION YEARS.
"Hey!" exclaimed James as he covered his head with his arms, as if that would somehow shield him from the Cuckoos' telepathy. "No eavesdropping!" Then he smiled and, in a whisper, added to Pedro: "They're just playing hard to get."
. . .
Celeste Cuckoo glanced out of the corner of her eye at her sister's girlfriend as the group of girls made their way through the mall's Gap. She stayed with that thought for a moment: Her. Sister's. Girlfriend.
The memories of her tryst with Kitty had been running through Mindee's mind all day (seriously, all day, it was becoming annoying already) and Celeste wasn't quite able to look Kitty in the eye. Are you sure about this? she thought to her sister again.
Mindee took Kitty's hand in her own. If you have something to say, she thought back, you can say it out loud.
"Look at that dress," broke in Phoebe as they passed a rack of sleek navy blue sheath dresses. "Don't you think that would be just perfect?"
Celeste looked at it uncertainly. "Don't you already have one just like it?"
"It doesn't fit my hips," Pheobe answered, looking the dresses on the rack for one in her size. "You can have it if you want; you're slimmer than I am."
Mindee, meanwhile, had wandered off with Kitty. "This top would be so hot on you," she told her girlfriend, pulling a lime green sleeveless bellyshirt off a rack.
Celeste's eyes were still on Phoebe's proposed purchase, but she could see through Mindee's eyes the flush that rose to Kitty's cheeks, and could feel the spike in her sister's libido that resulted. Okay, I admit it, she conceded to Mindee. She's adorable.
. . .
"Three girls!" James said excitedly as he watched out the window. "What in the world did Drake do to deserve three girls?"
Pedro glanced out the window. Sure enough, Bobby Drake was leaving the Xavier Institute campus with Rogue, Kitty, and Mindee. "It's a double date," he explained, not quite sure why he had to explain. "Only one of them is his girlfriend."
"Same difference," James answered, not taking his eyes off the four teenagers.
Pedro just eyed his roommate warily, then finally gave voice to the question that was just begging to be asked. "Why are you wearing tinfoil on your head?"
"It's a helmet," James answered, turning toward Pedro and crossing his arm. "You know, like Magneto's, to protect against telepathy."
"Magneto's helmet isn't made out of aluminum," Pedro pointed out.
"It's metal," said James, although a note of uncertainty had entered his voice. "That's the important thing."
Pedro frowned. "I'm pretty sure it has to be a particular, special metal--you know, like vibranium or adamantium or something."
James froze. "You're sure?"
Pedro nodded. "I think so."
James gulped. "So the Cuckoos can still read my thoughts?"
Pedro shrugged. "If they wanted to, I guess."
James quickly crossed himself. "They are going to kill me."
. . .
Bobby looked across the mostly-eaten remnants of a large veggie pizza at Kitty and Mindee, who seemed awfully comfortable in the booth seat across from him and Rogue. Mindee had her arm around Kitty and was running her fingers through Kitty's hair, while Kitty rested her head on Mindee's shoulder.
Bobby envied them. Even now that he and Rogue had, ahem, consummated (God, that made it sound like they were married or something) their relationship, Rogue's body was still like some strange foreign land to him. If she had been sitting farther away from him in the booth, she'd be through the wall.
A silence had settled over the table while they ate, but now as they were mostly finished it was slowly tipping over into awkward. "So, Mindee," he said just to break it and then, realizing he had nothing else to say, hurriedly tried to think of something. "What did you think of Dr. McCoy's talk at the assembly yesterday?"
Mindee shrugged. "Celeste was on paying attention duty. I can ask her if you want."
Bobby was about to tell her not to bother when Mindee's eyes ghosted over for a moment. "She thought it was boring."
"It was, sort of," agreed Rogue.
Kitty lifted her head from Mindee's shoulder. "I thought it was interesting," she said firmly.
"That's what I love about you," Mindee said, pulling Kitty closer and quickly kissing her cheek. Kitty smiled and leaned in for another kiss, this time on the mouth.
Bobby glanced at Rogue out of the corner of his eye. If she was discomfitted by Kitty and Mindee's display of physical affection, she gave no sign. If anything, she looked distinctly bored.
It wasn't as if Bobby had any problem with Kitty dating a girl, of course (as if he had any say at all in the matter). It just took some getting used to, after all.
Mindee had her tongue as far down Kitty's throat as possible without mutant physiology or abilities involved and Bobby intently stared at a pizza crust which lay on the silver platter in the center of the table. This was definitely going to take some getting used to.
. . .
The four were walking back to the mansion, Kitty and Mindee holding hands in their "shiny brand new love" sort of way. They were most of the way back when Rogue saw a young boy, standing on a corner with about a half-dozen of his friends, glance over, and she could tell in an instant that there was going to be trouble. "Look, Joey," he said. "It's a couple of dykes." He smiled and walked menacingly towards Kitty and Mindee.
"We don't want to hurt you," said Kitty right before the boy's flew right through her face.
"But we totally will if we have to," Mindee finished for her.
"Hey look," called out one of the attacker. "Not only are they dykes, they're muties too!"
"What about you, mutie?" one of the boys asked as he grabbed Rogue and pushed her against a wall. "What can you do?"
"I'm not a mutant," she answered truthfully as she struggled to break free.
"Well, that's too bad," said his friend as he helped keep her pushed up against the wall. "Because you're still a mutie-lover, and you know what we do to--" He broke off with a cry of pain as Rogue's knee connected solidly with his groin. His accomplice followed shortly thereafter.
"Just 'cause I'm human doesn't mean I'm helpless," she said with a grim smile as she made her way to help the others. Bobby and Kitty, of course, were have more difficulty trying not to hurt their attackers than in actually defending themselves. The boys had, however, succeeded in pushing Mindee up against the wall the way they had with Rogue.
"Enough," said Mindee, her eyes flashing white. The six boys stopped immediately, the two who had been holding her against the wall releasing her.
"You will go home and go to sleep," Mindee informed them. "When you wake up, you'll remember nothing. And whenever you use the words 'dyke' or 'mutie' you will be seized by the uncontrollable urge to make love to a duck. Do I make myself clear?"
The six boys nodded in unison, then began to walk away.
"Why can't we just do that to everybody?" Bobby asked, cracking his neck, and was met by unrelenting glares from all three girls. "I'm kidding, okay?"
Rogue just felt sorry for the ducks.
. . .
"Members of the International Brotherhood of Mutants have succeeded in grinding portions of the NYC subway system to a halt and have taken numbers of hostages believed to be in the hundreds. The group of mutant vigilantes known as the X-Men has also arrived on the scene--"
Mindee hit the "mute" button. "I think we don't need to hear the right-wing commentary," she said. "Hey look, there's Kitty and Bobby."
Sure enough, the two junior members of the X-Men were shown prominently on the screen, apparently squaring off against some Brotherhood mutant in a long leather coat who seemed to be indiscriminately throwing what appeared to be explosive playing cards.
"God," said Mindee. "Kitty looks really hot in that uniform."
"She is," confirmed Rogue. "I don't know who thought black was a good choice of color, but those things are pretty uncomfort--" She broke off. "And that's not what you meant at all, is it?"
Mindee smiled and shook her head. "Not quite."
Rogue nodded, and looked more carefully at the image on the television. She guess that the uniform did accentuate Bobby's figure somewhat. She had never really noticed before.
She sighed. "That would have been me, right there with them," she said. "Sometimes I wonder if I made the right decision."
"Do you," answered Mindee noncommittally, and Rogue wondered if she had just told a telepath something she had already known perfectly well.
"I don't know," Rogue said. "I think I did, but look at me now. Useless, watching my boyfriend fight evil on the television." With Kitty right next to him, she didn't say, although with the possibility that Mindee was reading her thoughts it might not have made a difference one way or the other. Although she did feel a little bit better about Bobby and Kitty together now that Kitty was not only in a relationship of her own, but apparently seemed to be batting for the other team altogether.
"We're the girlfriends who stay home," answered Mindee, "while they save the world?"
"No offense," said Rogue. "But yeah, it does sort of feel like that." She wasn't sure why she was confiding all of this in Mindee. It's not like she would ever admit it to Bobby. And here was Mindee Cuckoo, who wasn't even so much Rogue's friend as just Rogue's friend's girlfriend (or even Rogue's boyfriend's friend's girlfriend), and she was baring her soul. Then again, it's not as if there were all that many people she could have the conversation with. Bobby and Kitty were out for obvious reason, and she couldn't see herself having the discussion with Logan either. Whereas with Mindee, well, for all Rogue knew the telepath already knew all of this anyway.
"I've spent my entire life with my sisters in my head," Mindee answered. "I can't even imagine what it would be like to lose that, suddenly being alone." She looked at Rogue. "Being cut off from other people is about the most horrible fate I can imagine. If that happened to me, I would do anything in my power to fix it. No matter what it meant giving up."
Mindee hit the power button on the remote, then jumped up, grabbing Rogue's hand and pulling her along as she did. "Come on," she said. "We're allowed to have fun on our own; they'll still win the fight even if we're not watching. Let's go."
Rogue had no idea where they were going to, but just shrugged and went with it.
. . .
You should just do it.
Kitty jumped as Mindee's telepathic voice broke into her consciousness. You've been staring at the phone for half an hour, baby. If you're going to do it, then you might as well get it over with.
Kitty nodded but didn't move.
Nervous?
"Not really," Kitty said, speaking out loud. She found it made it easier to keep her telepathic conversations with Mindee going in a single direction. "I mean, when Mom and Dad found out I was a mutant, their reaction was pretty much everything that could be hoped for. You know, reading the books, taking the classes, and, in the end, sending me here. But . . . it's still weird, y'know?"
I know, said Mindee. Kitty smiled; of course Mindee knew. She was a telepath, after all. She probably knew more about the way people thought and acted than most people learned in their entire lifetime.
"What about your parents?"
There was a pause and Kitty realized that she had never heard any of the Cuckoos ever talk about their parents. I don't think that'll be a problem.
Pick up the phone and call your mother, honey.
Kitty nodded, dialed her home number, and took a deep breath.
. . .
The conversation started out fairly normally: Theresa Pryde berated her daughter for not calling more often, inquired as to her health, shared a story about how Kitty's brother and father had been working on upgrading a 2010 VW minibus they had bought cheap off some crazy old woman on the internet.
You're stalling, Mindee intruded with a gentle reminder.
Kitty nodded, and didn't even stop to take a breath before blurting out, "I'm seeing someone new."
"Oh, that's nice, dear. Is it that Drake boy you keep on taking about"
"I talk about him because we're on the team together," Kitty said. "We're still just friends." She paused. "Her name is Mindee."
"Oh." There it was: that single restrained syllable, reserving judgment and yet containing a wealth of unwilled judgment, of shock and surprise, the primal response which cried out even when the rational tongue was successfully silenced. She could remember it well from her first coming out, when she informed her parents for the first time that she could walk through walls. "What does she do?"
"All mutants don't do things, Mom," Kitty reminded her. It was a conversation she had had with her mother a thousand times, but that made it safe, comfortable, familiar ground. "Some just are."
"Oh," her mother says, the syllable speaking itself once again. "Is she--?" The question hung unfinished, undecided, but Kitty knew she had planted in her mother's mind the idea that Mindee might be some physiological freak, a bird-woman or some girl with her head in her stomach. Suddenly just being a girl wouldn't seem like such a big deal at all.
"She's a telepath."
"Oh." The syllable asserted itself a third time, and this time it came with a palpable sense of relief. "Well, find out what her plans for the holidays are; we'll have to have her over sometime. And find out if she can ski."
. . .
Kitty stayed on the phone with her mother for another ten minutes, chit-chatting about inoffensive topics: her schoolwork, the weather, whether she thought the Red Wings might not have a chance of winning the Cup that year with the strong start they'd been having. Eventually she hung up, setting the phone down on her nightstand.
That wasn't too bad, was it?
Kitty sighed. She could still feel her beating so hard it felt like it would break out of her chest. "I guess not." After all, it could have been worse. Much, much worse.
You did well. Kitty could feel the warmth of her girlfriend's pride through the telepathic link. And tell your parents that I'll totally spend the holidays with them.
. . .
rdwingzkikass: hey sis
arielsprite129: hey
rdwingzkikass: mom sez ur gay now?!1?
arielsprite129: i dunno. i guess. maybe.
rdwingzkikass: cool. B-]
rdwingzkikass: is she hot?
The End