Hiding

All X-Men characters belong to Marvel, I’m just letting them out to play. Anyone you’ve never heard of comes from my brain and makes me no money…
A/N: Sorry the last chapter was such crap- I felt like I needed to put something out there and will rework it at some time, but for now I’m just going to try and continue the story….Tough couple of months- mom has breast cancer now- so EVERYONE do your BSE’s and make sure you see your doctor! Look into donating to causes to find cure. And now for something completely different…utter lack of action here, more dull expository stuff. Action soon. Really.

Logan and Roisin watched Glen walk off down the corridor full of glass cabinets packed with the various collections that other antique sellers had leased space to display. Logan’s face was drawn, and the look in his eyes was one Ro had had seen only rarely. His eyes were downcast and he looked, for once, closer to his age than his mutation would ever let show.

“It’s not something Kurt can understand.” He said quietly, taking Roisin’s nod as incentive to continue. “Glen has lived and died probably thirteen times. He’s grown isolated from the world. Too many lives spent watching those he allowed himself to care for die, watching the world destroy itself. His life means nothing to him- he knows he’ll come back. He distances himself from others now. The last time he let himself get involved…that was the woman he mentioned before. Eleanor. As you know, life spans weren’t what they are now back in those days. I don’t even know how many women he’d lost before, to puerperal fever, consumption, yellow fever, whatever. All those diseases we never think of- he’s probably lost one wife to each. But Eleanor was different. Her illness hit him like none had before. When she told him she was dying, he killed himself. Told me he couldn’t bare to watch her waste away. Not again, and not her.” Logan was quiet again. Roisin took another sip of wine and lit a cigarette. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to fall in love at all and then watch him waste away and die. A quick flash of Kurt laying in a bed hooked up to IV’s, feeding tubes, and a ventilator flashed in her mind. She pushed the thought away- first of all because she couldn’t honestly be sure that she loved Kurt, much less that she was in love with him, but more so because the image was just so painful. She blinked back the tears at her eyes and walked over to where Logan sat, suddenly overwhelmed with the need to hug him. He pushed back his chair and patted his lap, and Roisin climbed on. She put her arms around him and rested her chin on his head.


“You know how he feels, don’t you?” she whispered to him. He nodded, not looking at her. She felt him shudder slightly, and knew that if she were to move from her position, she’d see tears streaming down his face. She closed her eyes and held Logan tighter, thankful that no matter how strange it was that even after all this time, she never felt as safe as she did with when she with Logan.


Glen found Kurt gazing up at a display case full of vintage circus posters. He felt awkward, not knowing this man at all but believing that the simple fact that Logan trusted him made him someone worth explaining himself to. The fact that he’d read newspaper clippings and seen him on the news with the other X-Men over the years did nothing to make him feel any less intimidated.

“Kurt? Look…” he paused, not really sure how to continue.

“ Um, Roisin told me you were in seminary for awhile, and that you’ve been very religious your whole life. Usually I try to avoid theological conversations like the plague, and I've seen the plague firsthand, but for some reason I feel like I owe you an explanation, even if it’s just to try and rationalize what I’ve done. Can we talk for a minute?” Glen watched the blue furred man, intrigued by the way he slid his three fingered hands down the glass of the case before him. He truly was a marvel of creation- a perfect combination of a devil and man. The pointed ears, the fangs and the bizarre hands and feet, topped off with a layer of blue fur, bright yellow eyes and a tail with a triangular tip embodying what was clearly the traditional depiction of the big man downstairs. If he’d been red instead of blue, it probably wouldn’t have mattered what he said or did, add in a little pencil thin mustache and a goatee, and people would run screaming. Come to think of it, that probably wasn’t too far from the truth anyway.


“Yes…I don’t quite know why I got so upset. Clearly you’re not the first person to consider suicide, or I suppose, to actually do it…It’s just…there’s been much upheaval in my life recently. Losses- too many to count, of friends, of my purpose in life, my path- it’s all overwhelming at times. I’ve no right to judge you. I’ve counseled people, back when I was in “seminary” or so I thought, who were considering suicide. The pain that they felt…to really believe that it was the only option…let’s just say it makes me grateful that I’m not an empath like Roisin is.” Kurt laughed a little under his breath, turning his yellow eyes away from the circus posters and towards Glen.

“She’s an empath?” Glen asked, suddenly unnerved. He’d always felt uncomfortable around those he knew were telepaths- who wouldn’t, with people who could read your thoughts- and an empath, well that was even scarier. She could read emotions he hadn’t even put into thoughts. Creepy. “Why does she have a tail? And the eyes? What’s up with that? Is that part of her mutation?” Glen looked up at Kurt, aware of how even without pupils, the fuzzy blue man’s eyes seemed to look right through him.

“To be honest? I don’t know. I think perhaps the tail and eyes aren’t actually part of the mutation, per se. She also can manipulate cloth matter.” Glen just looked blankly back at him so Kurt continued. “I get the feeling that the tail and eyes are more of a…family trait. A recessive gene, perhaps. You must have seen evidence of the other races in our universe in your many years, no?” Kurt had templed his fingers together and was looking thoughtfully down at Glen. Glen quickly revised his earlier thinking about if Kurt was red. He didn’t need to red- clearly if he chose to, Kurt could seriously frighten the living fuck out just about anyone.

“Yeah. I guess…I’ve seen things, in small towns in Europe, small villages here in the states…people who seemed, it was like the air around them moved in a different way. A camouflage effect. Ever seen Predator? Like that. I wondered…I’ve seen people with tails before too, but…usually after consuming large amounts of whatever passed for liquor at the time. But I think I get your point. Do you think she knows?”

“No. She suspects, perhaps, but she’s embraced it and doesn’t allow it to interfere with her daily life. But I’ve digressed from my original point. It must have been awful to watch those you love suffer so.” Kurt started walking down the corridor of glass cases, running his long fingers along the wood edgings. He stopped in front of a case full antique medical implements. Glen walked over and joined him in front of the case, looking at it’s contents thoughtfully.

“Yeah. I’ve seen every one of those things in use. The lancets, the bleeding bowls and cups, the amputation knives, you name it.” Glen closed his eyes, visions of Eleanor in her bed, lying on her stomach and crying quietly into the pillow as the doctor placed the heated cups over the incisions on her back, watching as the blood bubbled up into the cups. He shuddered at the memory of her hand in his, squeezing as hard as she could with little bit of strength she still possessed. As though in a movie, he saw Eleanor replaced with all the wives he’d had before, all dying before him, all looking up at him with that same pleading look in their eyes to help them. It was Eleanor’s face, though, that came back to haunt him. As it always did, one hundred and twenty-six years later.

“I don’t know that I could name these devices. They look brutal.” Kurt saw the other man shudder but chose not to comment on it. “I’m sorry for what I said. I think it’s not unlikely that were I in your circumstance, I might have chosen the same thing. Now that we’ve laid this distressing topic to rest, may I ask you a question?” Kurt crouched down into his gargoyle stance and Glen was amazed at the change this posture elicited in him. He looked comical now, more a jester than a devil. Unnerving, really.

“Of course.” Glen picked up the keyring and fidgeted with it. At night he liked to walk down the corridors of glass cases and whistle, imagining he was a prison warden in an old film with the huge keyring and all it’s keys dangling in front of the prisoners as they watched with hatred in their eyes. The antiques in their cases were relatively uncooperative, being the inanimate objects they were. The antique dolls looked sort of pissed though… Damn, he thought, he needed to get out more. Maybe Logan showing up with his friends was the kick in the ass he needed. He was getting maudlin in these lives. Thinking about dolls looking at him angrily? Imagining he was a prison warden? He’d turned into a loser.

“Do you live the same way each time? I mean, are you the same person? I’m sorry, let me rephrase that. I realize you’re the same man inside, despite your outward appearance. But do you try to live a different way, do you try to be someone else?” Kurt’s breath hitched, and Glen understood that he really asking a different question.

“I think any man, or woman, for that matter, can change the way they live their life at any time. If they really want to. It wouldn’t happen overnight, but in small steps. Like each time I’m born , I have years and years to grow up in a different environment but surrounded by my memories, frustrated at not having the language to say what I already know, resenting the people who love me because they’re so clueless. They think I’m a blank canvas for them to imprint on but I already know more than they ever will. I have to take small steps throughout those years to decide how I’m gonna do it this time. Will I be the good, studious child, the one who brings his parents pride? Or, more likely, the one they’ll blame each other for ruining? " He paused before continuing, taking a deep breath. "What do you want to change, Kurt?” he finally asked, realizing that if he’d misunderstood Kurt he’d be back where he started, apologizing.

“You are perceptive…I suppose after all this time you’d have to be…I am not certain what I want to change. I don’t want to give up my faith, but I don’t want to allow it to control me anymore. I want to not question my every move…I don’t want to be manipulated anymore. I don’t want to be constrained by anyone else’s morals. Logan doesn’t kill when he’s with the X-Men because those are the rules. But when he’s in Madripoor, or when he’s just the Wolverine…He makes his own rules. What these Church of Humanity members are doing…I think it’s time I do the same. I can’t sit by and pretend we can talk about this and make it go away. They violated my mind- for almost two years- they made me believe I was something I wasn’t. I’m going to show them that they’re wrong. They made me into something else.” Kurt disappeared in a cloud of purple smoke and a distinct reek of sulfur and brimstone with a strange popping sound, reappearing on top of a case a couple of yards away from Glen. “They made me into something they’re going to fear. Sie wünschten einen Teufel, Recht? Ich werde ihnen ein geben.*” He broke into a grin, his fangs glinting off the soft light emanating from the cases. He disappeared again, reappearing next to Glen, extending his hand. Glen took the outstretched hand and shook it firmly, grinning. So Kurt was going to give these bastards the very devil they thought they’d wanted? This was going to be great. He could feel the urge to go out and live coming back to him. He wanted to fight. It’d been too long since he’d had a good spot of violence. Time to dig out the Scimitar.

“Thank you for this talk. You’ve helped me realize some things…I was wondering…since we’re such good friends now, perhaps you could give me a small discount on a little trinket for my lady?” Kurt bowed and winked.

“Absolutely. Pick out whatever you like and I’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse.”

“Danke. Let's erhalten unseren Schlachtplan begonnen, sollen wir?*”

“Ja. Let's zerstören diese bastard.*”

*they wanted a devil, right? I’m going to give them one.
*Thank you. Let’s develop our battle plan, shall we?
*Yes. Let’s destroy those bastards.

(all from babel fish so probably not exact but hey, I’m not german.)