Paper Training

Chicken Hawk

She sighed as she pulled on the gown, adjusted the necklace she was wearing, and then took a deep breath. "Okay, I'm ready!" she called out, and Kurt 'ported in front of her in an instant, dressed to the nines and grinning broadly as he took her in.

"Du siehst hübsch aus," he said as he took her in his arms, and she just grinned nervously, glad that he couldn't quite see her expression in the hug.

"You look pretty handsome yourself," she told him as she took a step back and raked her gaze over his outfit. She paused and bit her lip. She had the next line. She'd been practicing what she'd say all day. It was easy. Simple. Just say: I think you're missing something. That was all she had to do. That was the line, and then she'd give him the ring.

Instead, what she said was, "I like the cuff links."

He grinned as a few of the bamfs chattered for her attention as well until she'd told them each that she liked their ties too — though her little flirt was giving her that same look, arms crossed, tail twitching, and when he saw that he'd caught her attention, he pointed at his eyes and then at her before he teleported over to Kurt's shoulder, gave her another look, and then broke into an impish grin Kurt's way.

Kurt just smiled and offered Kate his arm. "Shall we, frauline?" he asked with a bit of a bow, and Kate wordlessly took the proffered arm and let him lead her down toward the ballroom, as with every step they could hear the jazz music getting louder and she cursed herself for punking out when she'd had a plan.

When they got to the party, it looked like several people were already out dancing, including Noh and Jubilee, who both looked like they'd just stepped out of a black and white movie together. When they saw Kate and Kurt, Noh picked Jubilee up as they spun so that she could see them too, and as soon as the song was over and the band played something different, the newlyweds all but skipped over to Kate and Kurt.

"This music travels through your smile," Noh declared once they'd arrived. "It's impossible not to move to." He gestured across the dance floor at Logan and K, who weren't dancing so much as they were demonstrating the most popular past time of the pre-war era; already overly involved with each other. "Not even our quieter friends seem to be able to resist its draw."

"They both lived through this era the first time around," Kurt said. "Though I believe their experiences were starkly different."

"Probably," Kate agreed, taking a tighter grip on Kurt's arm and wondering if it was too late to try again. It was probably too late. They were in public now.

"Doesn't Jubilee look stunning in this era's clothing?" Noh said to Kurt with a wide smile. "I have only seen her look so beautiful once before, though perhaps I am biased in my remembrance of that day at the beach."

"It's entirely possible," Kurt said with a grin before he turned to Kate and asked her to dance while the band went into a nice, slow Ella Fitzgerald song.

"You... you really do look nice," Kate said after a few moments of spinning to "Dream a Little Dream." "The debonair look really suits you. You should — you should wear it more often."

He grinned and stole a quick kiss. "And you are a vision tonight," Kurt replied.

She just smiled almost shyly. "Then everybody else must be jealous."

"With few exceptions," Kurt laughed. "Though they seem only to be those that are too preoccupied to notice how you're stealing the show."

"How we're stealing the show," she corrected him before she stole a kiss and lost herself in the music for a while.