TITLE: Lunch at Subreality: Second Star On The Right, Straight On 'Til Morning
AUTHOR: Sare Liz
EMAIL: TeknoVamp@yahoo.com

*****

Jubilee looked over at her partner in crime. Well, reluctant partner in crime, but when had that stopped them? Kitty was always waffling and never seemed to take the initiative to do the really interesting things. The kind of things you tell your grandkids about when their parents are getting them down. Luckily enough, Kitty had Jubes, the Gutsy. And somehow, together, each one managed to save the other's ass in the end.

Which is, of course, the reason they were sitting in the café that they were. Jubes had been bemoaning her loveless fate to Remy a little too much apparently, seeing as he finally did something about it. For a price.

No, Remy didn't sweep her off her feet and have done with it, though that might have been easier.

Jubes had been bitching and complaining that Rogue was the only one with a snowball's chance in hell at a 'real man' and she wasn't even making the most of it. Remy had a few suggestions about the situation that had Jubes and Kitty strapping on their ice skates. Well, Jubilee was. Kitty only just realized what kind of a place they were in.

Looking around and taking in all the range of …versions… Jubilee had plans forming. Maybe bad plans, one could never tell. Maybe she wouldn't act on any of them, cause hell, three-quarters of the plans she had were complete bombs, but the remaining… The ones that did work, worked like a charm. Sweet things always happened, and that was the Universe According to Jubilee. So, looking around, the girl had plans.

But then again, she also had questions.

"Why do you think it's just us three?"

Looking around to see the amazing range of couples and hell, threesomes, she saw people together she would have never even thought of on a dare. Which made you wonder that maybe there was a hell of a lot of pent up lust at home, cause maybe a lot of the combos were possible. Maybe. So how come there were only three diehard members of Logan's fanclub?

"Nah. There's Jean too," Kitty replied, sipping on her coke while standing at the counter, looking around with wide eyes and trying not to stare at an Xavier who could walk and was currently performing that amazing feat with Magneto, hand-in-hand.

"No," Jubes responded without looking away at a version of 'Ro with kick-ass hair. "Jean so does not count. She's old. And married. And - "

"He's old. Like, probably way old."

Jubilee looked at Kitty as the blasphemer she was.

"And somehow it doesn't matter, does it?"

"Well, no."

"See? That's my point." Jubilee grinned. "Rules don´t apply to our Wolvie."

Kitty's eyes went wide as she glared at her friend in worry and reprimand. "You better not let Rogue catch you calling him that. She'll wig. Fierce. You know how she gets."

Jubes snorted. "Bullshit."

"Bullshit?"

Rolling her eyes, the young Asian beauty in the yellow tech vest attempted to clarify. "Well, okay. I know how she gets. The whole damn school knows how she gets. We live with her. Of course we know. All I'm saying is bullshit, she'll get pissed. She gets all wiggy and defensive when people start knocking him, but we ain't knocking him. All I wanna know is where the line is."

Kitty had her standard confused look firmly attached. Not to say that Kitty wasn't the smartest whip in the collection, but match her with her best friend's schemes and she was much happier finding out things after the fact. "What line?"

"Kit-kat! What line we been talking about?"

"I'm totally confused."

The large hoops in Jubes' ears jangled as she shook her head in mock frustration. "The line to jump ole Wolvie's bones. Duh, anyone?"

Kitty went red. "Oh, that line."

"Yea, that line." Eyebrows went up, daring Kitty to deny that there was such a line.

"I think I'm in that line."

"I say again, duh."

Trying, apparently, to bring a little realism into the conversation about jumping their best friend's boyfriend, Kitty pointed out the following obvious statement. "You realize if Rogue walks in and realizes there's a line to her man, it'll all be moot, cause we'll be dead. You know that, right Jubes?"

Never one to be daunted by reality, Jubilee plunged on. "Oh, like that's an issue anyway. We can drool all we want, but Rogue's the only one who's got a fighting chance. The two of us might as well be twin snowballs in hell." That seemed to be Jubilation's concession to realism. Henceforth she was a goner. "Besides," Jubes continued. "Look around you. There is no way Rogue is just gonna stumble upon this place. You have no idea what kinda favors I had to pull to get directions."

Kitty raised an eyebrow, as if Jubes could honestly hide something like that from her. "Uh, second base, Gambit?"

Jubilee's eyes narrowed as her best friend got the better of her, if only slightly. "Fuck you, Kit-kat."

Kitty rolled her eyes, knowing she was right. "In that case, Rogue *could* show up at any minute. You know all she has to do is bat her eyelashes at the Cajun and he'd do almost near anything to impress her."

"True enough, true enough. But she's not here right now, and that's the most important thing." Again, the Universe According to Jubilee. If anything can go wrong, don't worry; it won't.

"Well, I guess. But what about her? And her? And the one over there?" Kitty was, of course, pointing to any one of the other half dozen Rogue-type women that were in the café.

"Okay, other than the fact that that one is hanging off… ugh, I don't know if I can say this, *Magneto*, that one is chewing out… well, I guess it's Remy… with the kind of fervor reserved *only* for the Wolvster, and hell - none of them actually *look* like Rogue."

"Well, yea, but isn't that the point of this - ohmigosh," Kitty lost track of her thought and her features went slack. The best she could do was chant a litany of the general location that she was staring at. "Door. Door. Door."

"Geez, Kit, you sound like a broken rec- ohmigosh." The moment Jubilee had turned around her attention was captured as well.

"Is that you?" By the door, she was younger looking, shorter and with a truly ugly looking yellow trenchcoat… but it was yellow. And the longer you stared, the more of a kinship in feeling that was there. Like perhaps it could have been the same person, in a different life. Or so Kitty's reasoning ran. Jubilee's thoughts weren't nearly as coherent.

"Uh… I really think it is."

"Is that Wolverine?" Well, asking really was necessary. The guy looked different. There were some definite similarities sure, but… This one looked meaner. Nastier. More wolfish. Sexier, maybe.

"Uh… I kinda think it is."

"Do they have their tongues down each other's throats not three feet into the café?"

Long live Kitty, Queen of the Rhetorical Question. "That would be a definite yes."

"Whoh." Then again, perhaps Kitty was just dealing with her shock in her own way.

"Totally. I gotta sit down," Jubilee declared, promptly falling into a nearby booth.

"He's a lot shorter than ours." Kitty noted sagely.

Jubilee looked at her friend as if perhaps she'd taken leave of her sense. How could she be analytical at a time like this? This was like, moral crisis. "I think you need to sit down too."

Kitty apparently had no pangs of conscience, staring at the two near the door. "Scruffier too."

"Sit down, Kit."

"And what on earth is with all that hair?"

"Kit," Jubilee yelled, "Sit."

Snapping out of the watchful daze she'd been so happy in, Kitty looked around momentarily, then down at her friend. "Oh, right. Yea."

Unfortunately, Kitty was not the only one who heard Jubes yelling. Very few people cared, of course, but there were one or two interested individuals. That were no longer kissing.

"Oh shit. We're busted," Jubilee whispered to Kitty, who could no longer see, but managed to glare at Jubes anyway, just because. "They're closing in."

"Oh, Jubes," Kitty whined in complaint. "Now what?"

The younger, stranger, less fashion conscious version of Jubilee strolled up to the booth than held her near double and snapped some gum that she had somehow managed to kiss her Wolverine around. The Wolverine that was somehow both in tow and with an arm slung around her waist. Completely ignoring the other occupant at the table, the new arrival grinned at the tech vest. "Heya girlfriend, what's the sitch?"

It was entirely too surreal for Jubes. Seeing was one thing. Having conversation was another. Really, she needed another forty-five seconds to assimilate this into the Universe According to Jubilee, and forty-five seconds she didn't have. "Uh, hey. Nothing," she responded to the question, motioning to the dark haired young woman who had barely managed to collapse next to her in the booth, instead of on the other side where logic dictated she should have. "Just hanging with the Kit-kat."

A look of pure distaste crossed the young Asian's features. "You're hanging out with Kitty? Oh, I'm so sorry." It was an odd reaction, but the priceless moment was when her Wolverine slipped his hand from her hip and smacked her in the butt. "Ow… Wolvie!"

An eyebrow arched and Kitty and Jubes' breath stopped entirely. It was way too familiar. "You be nice if it kills ya, kid."

Instantly there was a petulant frown that followed Wolverine as he sat down at the booth. "I'm not a kid."

He growled. He bloody well growled, and dragged her down to his lap - an interesting thing considering that they were in a booth - and just before he kissed her, and somehow whilst growling, managed to say, "I know."

"Holy fuck," the tech-jacketed Jubilee exclaimed loudly, but garnering no stares from around her. She looked on with a sort of twisted fascination at the couple who were making out right before her eyes. Wolverine's hands were underneath yellow trenchcoat, undoubtedly beneath her shirt as well. The girl's hands were combed through his hair, clutching his scalp fiercely as she writhed slowly on his lap. "You two are having sex?" She could not believe it. Wanting and having were two distinctly different things "Damn, I got gypped."

"You and me both," Kitty muttered next to her.

After a moment of close analyzation, Kitty continued. "How well you think they can breath, sucking face like that? Or would breathing take all the romance out of it?"

Jubilee snorted derisively. "You realize you implied Wolverine and romance were involved in the same sphere of action, right?"

None of the three females at the table were ready for the slow, steady growl that started off sounding almost threatening, and ended up something of a mating call. One by one, they all whimpered in response, a nearly involuntary reaction on their part.

Kitty and Jubes looked at each other, their eyes equally pained. Maybe being here wasn't such a good idea. Maybe they should just go. Maybe…

And then their lunch arrived.

TBC