As the title implies, this goes back to the beginning for Kurt and Rogue, when they were 'just friends' and pseudo-siblings. As with Survival, it is written in role-playing format with Quing writing Rogue and taekwondodo writing Kurt. This story also contains a third character, Mariko Yashida (Sunfire), written by the lovely and talented Skids.

Kurt

Kurt checked the clock - again - and this time his face split in a grin. Sweet! One-thirty. Plenty of time to con Rogue into watching with him - because she had to watch with him - and still have time to snag snacks and get settled in before the movie started at two. He'd already made sure no one would snake the tube by sticking a big old note - featuring a large picture of Herr Professor with a multi-colored mohawk - on the TV, reserving it for the afternoon. He was already having entirely too much fun with the fruits of his and Kaetzchen's efforts this morning.

Of course, he could have just recorded it - or rented it, for that matter - but there was something...special...about it actually being on television. He didn't really know why, but there definitely was. Especially, for some reason, when it involved tormenting Rogue.

Flipping his stereo off, just a little disappointed that it was in the middle of Les Boys, he checked his pockets - yep, still there - and, whistling quietly under his breath, ported off to collect his victim.

bamf

Rogue,
—
She draped the shirt over the balcony and headed back to her bed. Hopefully, it would dry. And soon. Her clothes had been sitting out there in the sun for awhile, and were still wet. She didn't like walking around in just a tank top, for obvious reasons. Sitting down, she flipped on the radio and contemplated possible ways to kill Bobby. Even though the incident had been much earlier, at breakfast, she hadn't been able to get to a dryer in the laundry room or find the little brat. She'd instead headed back to her room to dry her clothes the old fashioned way. Digging through her dresser, she'd decided that it was probably best if she just stayed in her room for awhile, maybe avoided running into the flamer. So instead of getting fully dressed, she'd pulled on a pair of shorts and a dry tank top.

She closed her eyes and smiled a little bit. As much as she threatened to kill him, she actually liked Bobby. He was funny. Not that she'd admit it to anyone, but she liked most of the mansion's residents. There were, of course, a few exceptions. But she generally didn't even bother talking to them. Oddly, the death threats were in a way how she showed that she actually cared about someone. Because if someone didn't matter, neither would killing them.

Not like she'd ever actually kill someone. She wasn't even close to that level of psycho. Or at least she liked to think that, even if the voices in her head disagreed. She laughed, thinking about that train of thought. She wasn't crazy, even if the voices said so. Right. That was healthy.

Looking over at Kitty's side of the room, she spotted the girl's tickets to the concert. Dazzler, not really her thing. Concerts in general tended to be more trouble than they were worth, she'd learned. She was surprised that she'd been invited along at all after the way that the last concert she'd attended had ended. Property damage wasn't on her to-do list, though. Neither was systematically morphing into everyone she'd ever absorbed. On the other hand, Mystique probably wouldn't be at this one. So the chances of finding out that one of her best friends was in fact her bitch of a mother were probably slim to none. That always made concerts more enjoyable. Even with that, she wasn't really up to heading back out to that kind of an environment again. Performers tended to hate it when they were upstaged by people going crazy.

No, not crazy. Not crazy. Yes, you are. Despite her inability to consciously kill another person, if any one of the psyches in her head were tangible, she would not hesitate to kill them. Unfortunately, she tended to take her anger toward the voices out on the people to whom they belonged even though they really had no control over what the voices were saying. But they sort of did, because it was their minds that were coming up with the comments, so there was no way of knowing if they were thinking the same thing and oh, no, she'd gone cross-eyed. Closing her eyes again, she sighed. She needed to stop thinking. It would make things a lot easier.

Kurt
—
bamf

Got it in one, there she was! Still whistling under his breath, Kurt grinned cheerily down at Rogue from his perch up near the ceiling above the door...though the tune faltered slightly as he blinked down in surprise. Shorts... Tank top... No tights. No long-sleeved mesh top. Just...shorts...and a tank top.

Weird, how something that probably revealed less than half of her usual wardrobe was so much more...distracting...just by benefit of there being actual, uncovered skin on display. He blinked owlishly down at her for a heartbeat and then remembered abruptly to close his mouth before hopping lightly down to the floor, because he was an Elf on a Mission...and it wasn't to sit on her wall like a gasping fish...

"Rogue! You won't believe what's on television!" he announced with a fang-baring grin as his tail poked over his shoulder as though it were trying to get in on the conversation. "I've got the flat screen in the rec room reserved, we just need to grab sodas and popcorn and we have a whole afternoon of Rhett and Scarlett to look forward to!"

Rogue
—
She was just about to verbally attack the people in her head that were being inappropriate or just plain annoying, when a familiar sound jarred her out of her little inner battle. Cracking one eye, she looked up to see Kurt staring at her from above the door. Really staring. In a most disturbing way. "Can I help you?"

He composed himself then hopped to the floor, bouncing toward her. She opened her other eye and got herself ready to roll off the other side of the bed if he somehow missed the memo that smashing up against her while she was in any state of undress was a bad idea. "Rogue! You won't believe what's on television!" If it was something retarded like Crocodile Dundee, she was going to slap him. Hard. "I've got the flat screen in the rec room reserved, we just need to grab sodas and popcorn and we have a whole afternoon of Rhett and Scarlett to look forward to!"

She groaned as she swung her legs over the bed and ran her hand through her hair. Time for the obligatory complaints about his exploiting her accent. "Kurt? Do I make you watch 'Das Boot?'" She frowned, trying to think of another, better excuse. "You know how much Vivien Leigh's eyebrow bothers me." No, that was probably not good either. Sighing, she stood up and walked over to her dresser. As much as she complained and argued, she actually enjoyed watching movies with Kurt. As long as he didn't ask her to quote Scarlett just so that he could giggle and clap, it would be fun. Who was she kidding? It'd be fun then, too.

Pulling a pair of pants and a long-sleeved shirt out, she instructed Kurt, "Turn around." She would have asked him to leave, if she gave a damn. As it was, she quickly undressed and pulled on the new clothes without bothering to check if he followed her simple instruction. If he wanted to be a pervert, that was his business. Grabbing a pair of gloves, she gestured toward the door. "As God is my witness, I'll never go... oh, fuck it. To the kitchen."

Kurt
—
She groaned as she swung her legs over the bed and ran her hand through her hair and he shook his head teasingly at her.

"Tsk, lying around in bed in the middle of the afternoon," ...pretty much like he'd been doing until just a few minutes ago, of course, but that didn't mean he couldn't tease her about it.

"Kurt? Do I make you watch 'Das Boot?'" She frowned and he raised his eyebrows expectantly, bouncing slightly in place on his long toes and a slight, attentive smile on his face as he waited for her next attempt at an excuse. Mentally taking odds on which of her 'standards' it'd be. He'd obviously won already, of course, because there was no way she could possibly resist the allure of watching Gone With the Wind and snarking at the Southern Belles and...

"You know how much Vivien Leigh's eyebrow bothers me." Yep, there it was, Vivien Leigh's eyebrow! Right up there with the accents.

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," he informed her with a cheeky wink, and in a not too unfortunate imitation of Clark Gable as she stood and headed for her dresser. "Besides," he added, "that's half the fun, isn't it?"

And, okay, it was just wrong, so very very wrong, that she looked more clothed in a leather miniskirt and a bra with a transparent overshirt and stockings than she did in a pair of shorts and a tank top... Flopping on the edge of her bed, he grabbed the first plushy that came to hand and found himself holding Pepe le Pew, of all things.

"Turn around," Rogue instructed, and he compromised by focusing on the toy, parading it across the foot of the bed with sotto voce quotes from the cartoon in an almost pitch perfect imitation of the Cajun's swamp-water French accent.

"As God is my witness, I'll never go... oh, fuck it. To the kitchen."

Snickering, he tossed the hapless plushy back onto the bed, where an unfortunate bounce carried the little skunk to the floor as he hopped up, grinning in anticipation. Oh yeah, this was gonna be great, she was gonna be quoting along with Scarlett in no time flat.

"The kitchen it is, Stinktier," he agreed, wrapping his tail around lightly around her waist a heartbeat before the pair of them disappeared in a burst of sulfurous smoke.

bamf