Name: Ambivalent
Author: Mercuria
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Vignette. Logan watches Kurt in the garden.
Author's Note: Hi, all! This is the ... well, I suppose one could call it a sequel ... to "Ambivalent". It's not that important to read "Ambivalent" first, so don't feel like you're missing anything. This is difficult to explain ... okay, this fic and its companion are written in elevated prose. There are occasional lines or thoughts in ... um, let's call it character prose. Usually these lines are indicated by the surrounding narration, but sometimes I take it on faith that you'll all know when it's switching. If it really bugs people or is difficult to understand, I can change it. Just let me know, okay?
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Kurt stumbles into the kitchen to find that Logan's already there.
"Guten Morgen," he yawns, giving Logan a sleepy smile.
"Mornin'," Logan growls over his cereal, but he smiles too, when Kurt isn't looking.
And when Kurt isn't looking, Logan watches him; watches him pull a bowl from a cupboard, open the door of another with his tail, get the cereal, pour the milk. The loose t-shirt and boxer shorts he wears don't disguise his lithe, muscled form. (The pale morning light surrounds him, giving him a dusty aura of the angelic, but Logan tries to focus on the way the muscles move beneath his clothes. He won't let Kurt become a saint again, he won't.)
Kurt sneaks shy glances at Logan as he moves through the kitchen. Each time, Logan is staring at him, and even when Kurt looks away he can feel Logan's eyes upon him. He was going to ask Logan what the night before had meant: does he love him now, or is he only seeking to relieve tension ... but under Logan's critical gaze all that seems so silly, so childish. Kurt looks at Logan nervously and, seeing no change in expression, picks up his bowl of cereal and looks for a place to sit down. It's a risky business, choosing a chair- he'd sit next to Logan, but he feels so uncomfortable around him now that it seems like it would be false familiarity. He'd sit across from him, because in another time and place, or maybe even this place at another time, it would be quite dramatic and romantic- but now it seems confrontational. Kurt decides to sit one place down from Logan on the other side of the table. Still close, but not too close. Saying, "I want it ... but do you?"
And now, Kurt thinks, maybe now it's all right to ask. He wants it to be simple- something like "Do you love me?" will do nicely ... but Logan still looks so forbidding.
'Please, Lord, give me strength ...'
"Logan," Kurt says slowly, "d-do you-"
"Were you a virgin?" Logan demands suddenly.
A pause.
Why ask him THAT?
Is he jealous, Kurt asks himself, feeling slightly breathless. Does he want to have been the first one to hold him, touch him? Or, he thinks, gloomily and more realistically, is Logan just curious? Might there even be an insult behind those words?
No matter what, speculation cannot change the truth. Kurt looks at Logan, then down at his soggy cereal.
"No," he says softly. "I was not."
If Logan's surprised, he hides it masterfully.
"So who was your first?" he presses with his usual bluntness.
"One of my fellow performers, back in the circus," Kurt replies in the same soft voice. He remembers it in bits and pieces; sees flashes of winks and touches, glances exchanged, kisses by firelight, dancing to the tune of a gypsy violin. "He was-"
"A he," Logan points out.
Kurt makes milky trails through his cereal with his spoon.
"Yes, he was," he says. "My first ... and only."
"Until me," Logan says aggressively.
Kurt nods, but he's remembering:
"You, my friend, are a liar," he had said in Kurt's ear, arms wrapped around him loosely. "You told me you were a virgin, which is clearly not true."
"Not anymore," Kurt had muttered, but he smiled.
"You're either extremely talented or cheating," he said solemnly. "Perhaps that tail gives you an advantage ..."
Kurt's smile vanished as he remembered that that his tail was one of many reasons that most people wouldn't even look at him, much less be intimate with him. Outside the safe haven of the circus he was an outcast, feared and hated.
"Thank you," he had whispered.
"For what?" came the soft reply, all joking gone; he knew exactly what Kurt was thanking him for.
"For not caring what ... what I look like."
Kurt finds himself at the sink, letting water fill his bowl and spill over the sides. He stiffens, feeling the sudden pressure of Logan's hands on his biceps.
"Listen to me," he growls in Kurt's ear, making the fur on the back of his neck prickle. "I don't care who you have or haven't been screwing, because you're mine now."
Logan's body is pressed against Kurt's; his breath loud and hot in his ear.
"Mine," he whispers fiercely.
"But ..." Kurt whispers. His voice sounds strange to his ears. "Do you love me?"
Logan tenses; Kurt can feel it. The hands are removed from his arms, and he feels inexplicably cold.
"I don't know," Logan says quietly.
He turns around and strides out of the kitchen.
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