Christmas Eve at Xavier's

[SheCat]

This was inspired by a work of Karen Bruce at the LeBeau Library. 'Tis the season to be jolly...we need Christmas smilies.


Kurt Wagner loved Christmas. Maybe it had to do with the fairly new experience of it, being able to celebrate with family. Maybe it had to do with the warmth, or the sense of home, or maybe the idea of everyone celebrating something he truly believed in. Maybe, he thought, It has to do with my guilty pleasure of eating the candy canes off the tree.
He adjusted the position of the Macy's bag on his shoulder yet again. So many people to consider, so little time before the hoards of shoppers came to the sales. The best time to buy was on Christmas Eve, when the clerks were in the spirit and the mobs had died down. He had managed to find a gift for almost everyone in the past three days.
As he walked through the gates of Xavier's Institute, he flipped a switch on his rather bulky watch and reverted to his true form. The gates closed behind him. Perfectly spherical and devastatingly cold, a snowball came hurling from nowhere and splattered all over his shoulder.
"Guten Abend, Angelo. Guten Abend, Jubilation." Two younger mutants poked their heads out from behind the trees lining the driveway. A slender arm, adorned in all manner of charm bracelets, flung a clump of snow at him again. Similarly, while Jubilee distracted Kurt, Angelo extended his skin long enough to drop a handful of snow down the back of the blue mutant's jacket. Despite his fur, Kurt shivered, overexaggerating it for the pleasure of the two youngsters. A long strain of giggles erupted from behind the tree.
"Hey, Mr. Wagner." Jubilee called through her fit of laughter. She didn't notice that he had put down the Macy's bag.
"Hi, Mr. Wagner!" Skin poked his head around the tree, then gave in to a look of surprise as he realized that Kurt was no longer there.
"Hello, Lieblings!" Kurt bamfed onto a branch above them both and dropped an armload of snow onto their heads, relishing in their delighted shrieks. After both had managed to remove most of the snow from their bodies, they unleashed a vicious volley of frozen missiles at him. He teleported to the gifts, grabbed them, and ran happily to the mansion.
Wiping some snow out of his hair, Kurt was greeted by the sight of Bobby Drake creating an ice sculpture for Christmas Eve dinner. Bobby's brow was furrowed in concentration as he kept re-adjusting the wings on the enormous swan. Kurt smiled appreciatively and applauded, padding the Iceman's already humongous ego even more.
"Hey Kurt. How ya doing?" Bobby focused on changing the curve of the beak on his artwork.
"Just fine. And you?"
"Peachy."
Kurt walked out of the room, keeping care to hide the bag from Bobby's sight. It was white, and brand names were faintly visible beneath its surface. Bobby kept talking, more to himself than to Kurt.
"Do me a favor and make sure Jean-Paul and I don't enter the ballroom at the same time. It's completely decked out in mistletoe and I know he's looking for an excuse..." Kurt allowed himself a smile as he pictured Bobby's reaction if Northstar and he happened to meet "underneath the mistletoe".

The smell of gingerbread and sugar cookies wafted from the kitchen where Gambit and Rogue were working. Rogue busied herself with decorating and removing from the oven, while Remy mixed and poured the batter. Intermittently, they would swap.
Remy cast an unreturned look at Rogue. She had her hair up in a bun, white bangs falling in her eyes. A smudge of flour and a smear of chocolate on her face made her look, as he thought, even more "edible". Decked out in Reeboks, jeans, a blouse and a knit sweater, she returned his look with a smile.
He started singing under his breath. Despite the fact that his speaking voice could woo women as easily as a knife could cut warm butter, he couldn't hold a tune to save his life. Rogue winced as he butchered "White Christmas".
"Sugah, do me a favor. Shut. Up."
"But 'tis de season..." He changed songs to "We Wish You a Merry Christmas". Rogue's eye twitched.
"Shut your yap before Ah shut it for you!" He shut up instantly.
After a second, "And a very merry Christmas t'you too, chere."
After a swap of positions again and a few seconds of deliberate silence, he broke the ice.
"Lookit what we're standin' under!" He turned his head up and indicated for her to also. A sprig of mistletoe hovered in the air above them.
Rogue sighed. "Remy, y'know Ah can't touch you..."
He grabbed her and popped a gumdrop into her mouth. "Den I guess dis'll have to do."
"What'll hafta do?"
"Remy needs a hug." After a look from his best puppy-dog face, she complied. For a minute or so they held each other happily as Jean levitated the mistletoe back out through the crack under the door.
"Merry day-before-Christmas, Remy."
"Joyeux Noel, chere."

Jean and Scott considered the decorating of the tree their personal tradition. Despite the fact that Cannonball had been erked that they didn't want him to help, they figured that a few days of him being cranky was a fair price for some time alone.
Cyclops, like the man he was, sat in the lounge chair by the fire as Jean did all the work. On the other hand, it was not much work, as she simply used her telekinesis to levitate ornaments into place. She stopped at a specific one.
"Ooooh, Scott, look. This was the one that Ororo gave us for our first married Christmas!" A glass dove with the words MERRY CHRISTMAS: YEAR 1 engraved in it floated over in front of him. He admired it as much as any man would, knowing he was supposed to care but still not able to bring himself to care enough.
"That's nice, dear." he replied with an air of unintentional boredom.
Jean snorted indignantly and placed it on the tree. Stupid men, they never cared about anything important, just cars and sports.
Scott sighed. Mentally, he made a note to go out and get her a diamond necklace and a box of chocolates before the night was through.

Kurt was stopped in the hall by the two Guthries, Paige and Samuel. With their child-like playfulness they tried to reach the bag as he held it as high as he could over their heads.
"Did you get us anything?"
"Can we see?" Their happy little fingers twitched as they strained to touch the M in Macy's.
"Please, you're acting like children! Leave a well-minded soul alone!" He bamfed up to the light fixture above and hung from it, teasing them by dangling the bag just out of their reach.
"Okay, okay...We were just joking with you." Husk flashed her pearly whites at him. He bamfed down to them again.
"Yeah, we were just joshin'." Cannonball gave him a playful slug on the shoulder. Together, brother and sister left down the hall with a wave. Kurt waved back, then entered his room and began wrapping gifts.
Game of Yahtzee for his friend Gambit, beautiful jacket for his adoptive sister Rogue, a videogame for his buddy Iceman, a toolbox with many of the necessary components for his best friend Logan...he direly hoped he had gotten the right thing for Ororo. He had gotten it as a set, and it had used up a good deal of the money that he had gotten from odd-jobs around the mansion. It was a tiara and necklace, both of diamonds. He had taken a picture of her to the jewelry store and compared her eyes, her skin, her hair to everything he could afford. This had seemed the best choice, but what would she think of him getting her expensive jewels, even if it did match her to perfection?
Well, it was wrapped now. No going back. He set down the stairs to place the gifts under the tree. He would have to make two trips to get all the gifts he had accumulated in the last few days downstairs. He grabbed an armful and waddled out the door.
When he reached the Christmas tree and set down his gifts, he noticed a solitary present buried under a bough in the corner. Feeling a slight bit guilty as he did, he reached for it and read the names written, in perfect flourish, on the gift.
TO: KURT WAGNER
FROM: ORORO MUNROE



Okay, that was sappy. What d'ya think?

[thylacine]

That's a really nice story... ! What did she get him?

[silver_frosted_roze]

hmmm... chapter two? please? *big puppy eyes* I wanna know what Ro got Kurt! I like christmas stories.

[NightPoofer]

That's a pretty interesting story. I liked it, I don't like fics that much but I guess this is another exception.

[SheCat]

Wow, and that was probably the second most half-@$$ed story I've ever written! Yet it gets more replies than the one I spent 8 weeks on! Whoa...

Yes, there will be a second part sometime this century...hopefully before Christmas after i figure out what Kurt's gift was...

[Siona]

Will there be more, or is this just a one-shot thing.

If you're looking for more reviews, luv, sign up with fanfiction.net, that one site of InterNutter's, or one of the NC fanfiction sites.

~Siona

[SheCat]

Thank you, Siona, and I'm making a portfolio of my writings on x-alteds.4t.com soon. Tomorrow, to be exact.

[jinfiesto]

Um, em It's at www.animewell.i8.com. Unless D changed the home URL

[SheCat]

Josh, it's www.x-alteds.4t.com for his website on the X-Alteds and my multiple fics. We've got two sites.