Name: Ambivalent
Author: Mercuria
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Vignette. Logan watches Kurt in the garden.
Author's Note: I've been bitten by the Logan/Kurt bug. And let me tell you, it's one STRANGE bug. But anyway, here it is, my random vignette which took me two weeks to write. Have fun! Takes place right after the movie, assuming that Kurt comes to stay at the school. Rating is for roundabout references to sex. Oh, and slash. But you're a bright bunch, you knew THAT already.
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He's in the garden, sitting by the water. No, not sitting. He's kneeling, the flowering trees the only stained glass he can find to cast colored lights across his face. Is that why he hung out in those abandoned churches, Logan wonders. To reinvent himself, to change like a chameleon from red to yellow to green, and even, when he wanted, to hide himself completely in the shadows?
Or maybe that's thinking too little of him. Maybe he doesn't care about his appearance. Maybe he converses with devils and angels instead of with the mirror.
But even so ...
His lips open and close: prayer. His eyes are shut, lashes fluttering. There's a new scar, on the left side of his chin. Logan sees all this, and he knows he has come too close. He should leave, or those eyes will open, the lips stand still. There will be one moment of complete panic as the saint sees his ties with the divine severed. And when Kurt reenters reality, sees that it's him, will he be happy?
Of course not.
So why is he drawn closer still?
Kurt is so silent, a statue, a being of spirit and plaster. But no, that isn't true; his forked tail moves lazily, rhythmically. Is it temptation? Even a summons? In Logan's mind, the tail tickles his fingertips, daring him, willing him, to reach out and touch. Touch what, Logan asks himself bitterly. He could grab Kurt as roughly and possessively as he dared, but he would have only an instant before he turned to smoke.
It seems to Logan that he's always reaching for something that, like a teleporting Kurt, is out of reach, or simply not there. There was a wall between himself and Jean, a wall of her distress, her doubts, her dilemmas. Logan had felt then that he had only to push, and it would crumble. He was right, and he was wrong, and it hadn't made anything better.
But Kurt ...
Kurt doesn't need a wall. He is simply ... elevated. Sitting on the couch and watching TV with Jones, telling the younger kids stories about his life in the circus, smiling gently as he sips hot cocoa, he is present but not THERE. He tries to belong to the world and its inhabitants, but he cannot. He's gone too long being good, innocent, truthful; he cannot be anything more or less than a generous spirit. And here, in the garden, he is revealed for what he is. It is clear to Logan that someone so pure and intangible could not possibly ...
So why is he reaching forward?
A thousand reasons to retreat clamor to be heard, but Logan isn't listening. He isn't listening to the blood pounding in his veins. He isn't listening to his own quickened breathing. Desperately, Logan struggles for clarity, for coherence, for anything ...
... and his hand finds Kurt's cheek.
Slowly, Kurt's eyes open. Logan winces, but to his surprise, there is no hurt or confusion in them. Kurt looks at him with complete serenity, and it's infectious; Logan's hand, which had frozen where he had first made contact, begins to stroke the length of his face. Up and down, up and down. Kurt is so trusting; he looks up at Logan and tilts his head to one side, leaning into his hand. This complete surrender ... it feels so good, seeing Kurt trust him implicitly, but ... but a person like him, he's only going to drag him down. He may try to delude himself by claiming that Kurt's swaying tail betrays the devil in him, but Logan knows that it's just that: delusion. Logan's dark, Logan's blunt, Logan's not what Kurt could possibly desire. Kurt's angelic, demonic, or maybe just angelic; damned if he knows. But does he dare tempt himself with this ambivalent creature? Does he dare?
And now Kurt rises to his feet, and he says softly, "You will not harm me, Herr Logan."
One of Kurt's three-fingered hands, soft, reassuring, settles on his forearm. Logan's breath catches in his throat. This, this is more than permissive.
"Hey ..." And his voice is too rough, but there's no helping it. "Call me Logan ... just Logan."
Kurt smiles, the hand on his cheek just beyond his peripheral vision.
"Very well, Logan," he says.
And Logan expects to fling his free arm around Kurt's waist, pull him close, shatter the sanctity of this place with the impious pleasures of touch and taste.
He surprises himself by not doing any of it.
His hand travels down to Kurt's chin, lifting it. They understand, the two of them, that nothing more is necessary.
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