Kitty & Kurt

[blauerdamon]

Who: Kitty Pryde & Kurt Wagner
When: 2022, right after Kurt's return from Hell
Where: Xavier's Mansion
What: Kitty and Kurt talk about Kurt's return and what he missed.
Warnings: References to Kurt having a terrible time, Kitty stuck in phase form, general bummer vibes.

One of the things Kurt has appreciated most since returning home is feeling cold. Not uncomfortably cold, but the light breeze on his fur, the fresh air when he breathes it in. No smoke, only the brimstone he carried with him when he decided he was going to suffocate in the medical wing. In an impulsive moment he pulls off the loose linen shirt and throws it off the roof, watching the wind carry it away and into the garden. Parts of him are still singed and bruised, but it’ll all get better. The fur will grow back. The cracked ribs will heal. All in all, Azazel was very careful with him.

He was never in mortal danger.

He’d left an empty bed in the medical wing, and everyone had panicked. Not Kitty. She told everyone to calm down, and she’d find Kurt. She had, before. And this search was a lot easier. He’s there, on the roof, which she rises from, silently surveying his wounds from afar. They’re awful. A flame of anger bursts through her chest, stronger than she’d thought would be possible when it’s currently so ghostly. She swallows to dampen it, but of course it’s just dry.

“Hey.” She calls out,from far enough away to hopefully not startle him too much, but floats to his side right away, anyhow. “I didn’t think you’d actually want to make a run for it.”

Kurt tenses for just a fraction of a second, but Kitty’s voice is irreplaceable. His shoulders sink a little out of guilt, even though she’d never judge him for needing space, or feeling like this. He should have told someone he was leaving, asked permission, left a note, but…. He’s tired.

“Where else would I go, Kätzchen? You brought me home.” He smiles weakly and gestures for her to sit close. His tail is wrapped tightly around his legs, uncommonly still.

Kitty tries in vain one more time to force the atoms that make up her physical form to gather just a little closer together, so she could sit properly. They do not. They were stretched almost past their limit twice, in the past few days, extended far enough to reach him. She’d do it again. It’s just annoying right now. She ignores the panic rising, and makes a face, apologetic. She tries to be a comfort by leaning close into his shoulder, even if he can’t feel it.

“And you are home.” She reminds him. “...How’re you doing?” Stupid question. She has eyes.

He can’t resist trying to touch her. He wants to be positive, to reassure her all is well, but his optimism crumples when he reaches out to hold Kitty... and his hands pass right through her.

Kurt recoils and doubles over, hiding his face between his knees. “I’m so sorry, Kitty,” he mutters. “I feel fine. I really do. I’ll be alright.”

“Hey, no.”

Kitty insists, willing every portion of her being to solidify one hand for just a second. Through sheer boundless stubbornness, it works. A single hand presses to his shoulder, warm and definitively alive. She’s here. It’s important that he knows that. The hand remains solid for only a few moments, but her eyes stay just as warm, face huddled down to his.

“I’m good. Weird side effect. It goes away. Should be a couple days. It’s okay, if you take a little longer.”

She usually wouldn’t insist on this; let him say he’s ok. But he was just in hell.

The touch makes Kurt stir, looking up and meeting Kitty’s eyes. It’s hard not to smile at her, even as the sensation of her hand vanishes again.

“I’ll bounce back,” he promises, then more honestly, because Kitty has insisted: “eventually.” He exhales and turns his gaze out to the horizon, not focusing on anything in particular, just appreciating all the greens and blues. His tail curls in further, and he takes it in one of his hands. An old self-soothing habit. “I missed so much. The world has changed, and I was not here for any of you. It feels like years.”

Kitty can’t argue with that. It does feel like years have passed. She feels different. Older. The presence of the sentinels, the registration, makes her think she’s already failed. Hadn’t her older self come to help them prevent this? Had she lied? Or had Kitty, here, now, failed? It’s hard not to think about, but at least easy not to give it away, here in her disembodied form. She shifts closer, matching his gaze out into the distance. He’s back. She’d done one thing right.

“It’s a lot.” She admits, with the slight grimace of a smile, “But you have time to catch up. And you should probably let us be there for you for a little bit, while you do, for a change.”

“Verdammt.” Kurt sighs. Everyone has been encouraging him to rest. It makes a part of him want to do the opposite, to show everyone that this didn’t break him, and that he can lead the team just as well as he ever did. It’d be a lot easier to pull off if he didn’t know Charles and Emma were there, probably benignly keeping tabs on his mental state even now.

“Emma invited me to stay with her for a little while.” Kurt picks at the roof, tearing a shred off one of the shingles. “I think I might accept. I don’t know what to tell the students, or what I would say if some journalist finds me? Oh, ja, I was just visiting family, you see.”

He throws the little piece of debris, then watches as it rolls down the rest of the roof.

“Well, first of all, you tell them whatever you want, and we’ll back it up. The students and the journalists.”

This is possibly not good advice, but that’s not ever been Kitty’s forte. She always just says what’s on her mind, slipping from her tongue whether she wanted it to or not. Like now, as she bores a hole with her eyes in the thrown shingle in lieu of being able to throw one too.

“And that wasn’t your family.”

That draws a faint laugh out of Kurt, and his shoulders relax a little. He’s just realizing that his back is full of knots and aches. When was the last time he took a minute to stretch? Had he really spent that long wallowing, giving up..?

“You’re right.” He leans into Kitty, even though he can’t touch her. The gesture still feels important. “The only family that matters to me is right here.”

It really isn’t fair of the powers that be, Kitty thinks, to make her work so hard to get him back, and now have to wait even longer to hug him, when he needs it most. She throws her arms around his shoulders and presses close. She can pretend she feels it.


“Don’t go to Emma’s until I’ve hugged you for real.” is her one condition. She moves her gaze from the grounds to his face, searching to see how he’s really doing. Common habit for Kitty to fall back into immediately, she’s done this at him countless times.

“...Would it help, do you think, to talk about it? What happened down there, I mean.”

“Maybe later.” It’s the most Kurt can offer. A lot of what happened was so mundane and repetitive, what could he even tell her? A handful of terrible experiences, and then a lot of waiting around behind locked doors.

Which is fine with Kitty. She nods, silent, and hopes he knows if later never comes, that’s okay too. She’d be here either way.

“Are you sure you’re not a telepath, Kitty?”

She tilts her head at that, wondering if he possibly heard some of the thoughts going through her head just now. Living with both Emma and the Professor, it’s easy to assume everyone can just do that.

“Still working on that, sadly. I can see brains If I stick my head in there, but not what goes on inside them.” She says very seriously, to give him the gift of a ridiculous mental image.

Kurt smiles at her, his face wrinkling and his eyes scrunching up. Two glowing slits against the beginning of a sunset. “I’m teasing. I was also thinking… I won’t leave until I can hug you.”

This is the first smile of Kurt’s that has looked real, to Kitty. At least she’s pretty sure it reaches his eyes. Maybe it’s just the sunset reflecting off of them, but she finds herself mirroring it; her first real smile, no panic behind it, for the first time in weeks.

“Good. I missed you.” She says, and even thinking about those empty days makes the smile slip away again, a little ghost in itself. She turns away to stare at the sunset, at least enjoying the fact it can’t burn her retinas out. “...I’m sorry. It took us so long to find you.”

“I missed you, too.” And Kurt’s briefly overtaken by relief. He’s really home. This isn’t a hopeless daydream. “I’m lucky you found me at all. And I always, always, knew you were looking for me. I warned them.”

“Yikes. They should get better at listening.” A glint of familiar bravado, and then a weightless hand on top of his. “We would’ve never stopped looking. Not ever.”

“I know.” Kurt looks at their hands, overlapping but not touching. The second he started relaxing, sleep started calling for him, but that’s never shut Kurt up before. “I heard Scott stepped up while I was gone.”

“And then some. Scoot was amazing.” She assures him, but her eyes shift from warm to mischievous as she says in the same breath, “I recorded all his public speaking gigs if you want to critique them, though.”

Kurt sits up, immediately shaken from his sleepy stupor. Scott won’t be the one he’s critiquing. “Did any of the journalists give him a hard time?”

All right, maybe playful ribbing of someone not even there wasn’t the best move right now. She shakes her head, all serious again, “Nothing he couldn’t handle. And well. You know I would’ve personally broken their cameras if they were jerks.”

“I do.” Kurt exhales. “Sorry, you were teasing. If you weren’t, I’d be more worried. I already should have known he could handle it.”

“It’s okay, if you need a reminder. I know there’s a lot to catch up on.” Kitty leans in to knock his shoulder, but spiritually, at this point. “But just like, remember you trained us well. You made a good team. Nothing happened that we couldn’t handle, together. I know you’re going to be proud of Scott, but you should probably be proud of yourself, too.”

“I—” Kurt starts. It’s not easy. He is not particularly proud of himself right now. But he can hold onto what Kitty thinks. And how his team has done. “I am. I am very proud of you. Of all of us.”

He stretches his arms over his head, and his tail extends like a cat ready for sleep. “You can take me back to the medical wing now,” he says with a mostly content sigh. “Maybe I could use a little more rest.”

Kitty nods. She won’t say, so as not to be insulting or invite argument, but she plans the next few hours in her mind. She’ll stay with him until he’s awake again. It’s not like she can sleep in this state, or like anyone else could find her useful, as this ghost.

She rises, and grins despite that slightly dark thought creeping in. “Better yet. I’ll race you there.”

She disappears through the ceiling, and Kurt vanishes with a plume of smoke moments after..