No Start, No End

TITLE: No Start, No End

AUTHOR: Jos Mous

DISCLAIMER: Not owning any of the main characters, not making a profit.

UNIVERSE: X-Men Evolution

PAIRING: Kitty/Rogue

RATING: PG

NOTE: And now for a round of “Spot The Discworld Reference” cunningly disguised as another instalment in my still-unnamed Kitty/Rogue series.

Biers wasn’t exactly a bar and it wasn’t exactly a disco and it certainly wasn’t a club. Its clientele consisted mostly out of mutants and a certain type of teenager who thinks it’s cool to “hang out” with the Outcasts of Society. As such, Biers had to cater to a variety of tastes, although these could be broadly divided into people who wanted to get drunk in silence and people who wanted to act silly while being drunk.

Rogue and Kitty were sitting at a table. An awkward silence filled the space between them, and not even the blaring music coming quite literally from Biers’ DJ Soundsystem could penetrate it. The awkwardness had started the day before when Rogue had said to Kitty that she kinda knew this place that was pretty cool and that, if she had, you know, not a lot to do, they could sort of go there together, you know.

“So…” said Kitty.

“Well…” said Rogue.

“Nice music,” said Kitty. “Bit loud though.”

“Yeah, Soundsystem isn’t very good at thinking quietly,” said Rogue.

“Right,” said Kitty.

Rogue took another sip of her drink. Another one of Biers’ strong points was that they didn’t ask for ID. Normally this meant that Rogue could look forward to inebriation, but today she had ordered a coke on account of Kitty being with her. Rogue was slowly beginning to regret this decision.

The Southerner put down her glass and looked over at the other end of the table, where Kitty was quietly observing the dance floor. Rogue noticed that Kitty had put on one of her prettier dresses and was wearing a touch more make-up than usual. Rogue figured Kitty had tried to look good for her while trying not to make it look like she wanted to look good for her.

Rogue tapped the table a couple of times, thinking. There were a couple of options here, none of which were very tempting.

Oh well, time to jump off the deep end then.

Rogue stood up and walked over to the bar where Soundsystem was quietly nipping a sherry. She tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention.

“Yes?” said Soundsystem, turning around on his chair, the music faltering slightly as he did so.

“Do you do requests?” Rogue asked.

“Sometimes,” said Soundsystem. The music was suddenly interrupted by lines of a different song, which started with money, money, money.

Rogue sighed and pulled out her wallet.

A few moments later a new song started up, which sounded nothing like the semi-rock Soundsystem had been thinking about earlier. It was slow and soft, even though the volume hadn’t been turned down. It wasn’t a “real” love-song, since Soundsystem didn’t know any, but it sounded appropriately romantic.

Rogue walked back to her table and extended a gloved hand.

“Well now gorgeous, care to dance?”

Kitty’s mouth fell slightly open out of surprise. She recovered magnificently, however, and accepted the offered hand, standing up with a smile.

The two girls walked over to the dance floor and started dancing, standing as close to each other as possible.

There was still silence, but it was no longer awkward, and Soundsystem’s gentle tones formed a nice background to it.

“So how long did you know?” Kitty asked after a while.

“About you or me?”

“Me.”

“Couple of weeks. Maybe a month or so,” Rogue said.

“I thought I wasn’t very obvious.”

“You’re not. I only noticed it by accident.” Which wasn’t true, but Rogue wasn’t about to tell her that she had started paying attention to Kitty after listening in on one wet dream too many.

“And how long did it take you to figure it out about you?”

“I still haven’t,” Rogue answered. “Somewhere I’m convinced that I’m really straight.”

“Know the feeling.”

“You do?”

“Actually, no. I’ve always known.”

“Must be nice to be so sure.”

“Sometimes.”

After some time during which the girls danced in comfortable silence, the music slowly petered out, died down and then ended completely. Rogue and Kitty lowered their arms, but didn’t let go of each other’s hands.

New music started. It was the kind of music where you expected the artist to be some kind of long-haired ruffian who smashed guitars on a regular basis.

Kitty and Rogue didn’t hear it, filling the space between them with music only they could hear.

“So, like, what day is it?” Kitty asked.

“Don’t know,” said Rogue. “Why do you want to know?”

“Well, I’d just like to get the date for our one-month anniversary right, is all.”

The corners of Rogue’s mouth twitched upwards. “Thinking ahead are we?”

“Just a month.”

“A lot can happen in a month.”

“Yes,” said Kitty, a mischievous smile spreading across her face. “I know.”

The thing with dates is that there is a very definite point where they end. This is usually at the doorstep of one of the lovers. But since Rogue and Kitty shared a room it became a tad problematic to figure out where the date ended and the rest of the evening went on.

It could’ve been somewhere on the way back to the mansion, where the girls held hands and Kitty’s leaning of her head on Rogue’s shoulder surprisingly didn’t strike the Southerner as being too sappy.

Then again, it could also have been in the empty recreation room, where the girls settled down to watch a spot of television before going to bed.

It might’ve been in the bathroom, where they kept looking at each other in the mirror whilst brushing their teeth.

Maybe it was when the girls were starting to take off their clothes and put on their pyjamas and Kitty grabbed Rogue’s arm and, closing her eyes at the last moment, pressed a kiss on Rogue’s still-gloved fingertips.

Or perhaps the date never really ended and just went on.