Demon In My View
Chapter Four: Ave Maria
by
Libby Edwards
Disclaimer: Property of Marvel Comics. I do not own them. I sure-as-hell wish I did.
Author's note: I originally posted the first two chapters of another X-Men story of the same name on ff.net, as well as on a personal page I had created. After the second chapter, and despite some very nice reviews (thank you, those that gave me feedback!), I decided that I really wasn't happy with where the original story was going, although I was excited about the basic premise (which unfortunately was not made very clear in the initial posting). I took some time off, rethought my idea, and this story you are now reading is the result of that retooling process.
While I have tried to stick as close to canon as possible, I am a firm believer that canon is there to be a support, and not a stranglehold, so if there are a few departures from canon here and there it is because I truly did not feel that those elements were necessary. Also, as in all my Logan-centric stories, Wolverine is tall, because I don't like a short Wolverine. Call it artistic license, if you like. :)
Enjoy!
Saturday morning, a few hours after breakfast, Ororo could be found strolling gracefully down the third floor hall in the western wing of the mansion. The hall was peaceful and quiet, dim with rose-tinted sunlight as it slipped softly through the heavy drapes over the windows on either end, and her bare feet made no sound as she walked easily across the thick pile of the hallway's carpet.
There were only a few doors here, leading off the hallway into various rooms, most of them not presently in use. She stopped in front of the last door, however...the one just before the curved mullioned window at the far end...and without a pause knocked gently on the dark wood.
"Kurt?" she called.
Kurt's pleasant, cheerful voice replied almost immediately. "Come in! Come in!" he called, sounding muffled through the door's thickness.
"I thought you might be here."
"Of course!" There was a clatter from inside, followed by an "Ow!" and Kurt muttering something vile-sounding in German, and Ororo laughed quietly to herself, turning the knob on the door and opening it into the priest's private quarters. She stopped just inside, however, the door sighing quietly shut behind her as she stared around the room with interest.
"Kurt?" she called again.
Father Wagner was nowhere to be seen, but for the moment Ororo's attention was held by the furnishings and decorations of the large apartment. She was a bit shocked, actually...so much seemed to have changed. She had been in Kurt's room many times over the years, as he had been her teammate and close friend for some time, but this was the first look she had acquired since Kurt joined the priesthood and returned to Xavier's school.
"Make yourself comfortable!" Kurt called from what seemed to be the vicinity of the bathroom.
"Thank you," Ororo replied absently.
So much had changed, indeed...gone were the brightly colored comforters that used to cover his bed, blankets that had various superheroes emblazoned on them. They had been replaced with others, no less warm but much more subdued in scheme...a simple, nameless design, done in dark burgundy and brown. The posters that had once festooned his walls...vanished. The stacks upon stacks of comic books that he had once owned...all gone. Ororo walked past the bookshelf to her left, running her fingertips lightly over the heavy tomes that had replaced them...books with unfamiliar names that struck Ororo as being both cryptic and somehow ominous. Lives Among the Saints: a History of the Martyred Church. The Blood of the Risen Lord. And here, tucked in between a German-language Bible and the Holy Roman Catechism, The Mass and the Lamb of God: a Study.
Ororo frowned a little, then moved away, her eyes falling thoughtfully on a set of shallow shelves just below the television set at the foot of the bed...but after a moment, a slow smile lightened her face once more. Ah, yes...one could clothe the man in priestly robes, clothe his room in vestments as well, but the boy he had once been would still peek through. There, snuggled deliciously underneath the television, was what appeared to be a complete collection of Errol Flynn movies, asserting themselves quietly like hidden treasure.
"Guten morgen, Ororo!"
She jumped a little, turning to see Kurt standing in the doorway of the bathroom, his ever-present cassock blending into the shadows of the unlit room behind him. For a split second, there was something distinctly ominous about him as well...something about the way his dark blue fur seemed to fade into the midnight folds of his robes, and his eyes, gleaming yellowly at her from the shadows. Then he took a step into the muted light from the window, his face suddenly splitting into his familiar, boyish grin...and he was no longer Father Wagner. He was just Kurt again, smiling out from under all those religious trappings like...well, like a bunch of Errol Flynn movies, shining in the shadows.
"I thought you might come see me today," he said, gesturing at the bed with his strange, two-fingered hand. "Have a seat."
"Thank you." Ororo sat down gingerly, the bed yielding nicely to her weight as she settled herself upon it. The momentary pleasure was ruined, however, as Ororo's gaze drifted across the room, falling upon a small crucifix mounted to the opposite wall...she recoiled without thinking, her eyes wide as she stared at the tortured Christ that hung there, painted with such perfect and ghastly art that every wound and drip of blood seemed to scream at her from the wall.
"Dear God, Kurt...!"
He paused, following her eyes, then shrugged and smiled slightly when he saw what she was looking at. "Well, after a manner of speaking...ja. Dear God indeed."
"How do you sleep with that staring at you all night?"
"Quite well, actually." He slid a lumpy armchair that stood behind the door into a place near the side of the bed, curling himself into it with his feet tucked under him like a contented cat. "I have a feeling," he continued with a light laugh. "That this is going to be quite an experience...the both of us teaching this religion class."
Ororo laughed shakily, trying hard to focus on his dear, friendly face...and not the mutilated man hanging from the wall behind him. "I think that might be the understatement of the year," she said, her eyes drifting reluctantly again and again to the crucifix on the wall.
"Does it bother you?" Kurt asked, cocking his head slightly as he regarded her.
"In truth..." Ororo forced herself to look closely at it, then sighed and fixed her eyes on him once more. "Yes. I am sorry, Kurt...but I find it appalling."
"Why?"
She blinked. There was no animosity in his simple question...she couldn't even detect a trace of righteousness in his soft voice. He just seemed honestly curious.
"I...I am not sure."
Kurt regarded her in thoughtful silence.
"I...I suppose it is the blood, and the expression on his face," she said finally. "He looks like he has been tortured."
Kurt smiled gently. "He was."
"And that is something to venerate?" Ororo lifted a delicate eyebrow.
"It is the foundation stone of my faith, liebchen."
"To build an entire religion on the mutilation of one man and his death...I am truly sorry, Kurt, but I find that disgusting."
"If my faith were truly based on just that, Ororo, I would agree with you," Kurt replied, still speaking in that same soft, lilting voice. "But we do not honor His death merely due to its existence...it is the fact that He died for us, suffered for us, so that we would not have to."
Ororo's lips curved in a faint smile. "Once again, Kurt, I must apologize...but the notion that one man's sacrifice can somehow magically wipe out all the wrongs of all mankind...it simply is not logical."
Kurt blinked, then surprised her by suddenly laughing. "And who said that religion had to be logical?"
"I think my faith is extremely logical."
"And what is logic?"
Okay...this was getting silly. "Reasoning, deduction...and not placing one's misguided faith in something that cannot be seen nor felt."
"Yet you worship a goddess, do you not?" Kurt countered. "Have you seen your goddess? Felt her? Known beyond all doubt that she is there?"
Ororo gave him an arch look. "Of course. I feel her presence always...She is the wind, the water. She is the earth beneath our feet. She is always there."
"Ach, but cannot your Goddess simply be the wind, or the water? Or the earth?" Kurt hugged his knees and smiled at her. "Can you measure the presence of your Goddess with logic and reasoning?"
"No, but..."
"But what?"
Ororo opened her mouth to speak, took one look at Kurt's gently laughing expression...and instead she shrugged. "Point well taken, Kurt," she replied, smiling.
He shook his head. "There was no point to be made. Just an observation...religion will never be logical, my dear Ororo. That is why faith was given to us by God."
"Goddess, you mean," she replied, a twinkle in her blue eyes.
"Don't you mean Mother of God?" Kurt countered, grinning merrily.
She groaned. "I give up!"
"A wise move," he said, giving her a wink. "But somehow I don't think you came all the way up here to compare and contrast my religion with yours."
"Well," Ororo sighed, her smile fading slightly as she leaned back and stretched out on the bed. "How exactly are we going to do this?"
"Do what?"
"The class, I mean...have you given it any thoughts?"
"A few." He stood up, skirting the back of the chair gracefully and stopping just in front of the bookshelf. "Let's see...I have this..." He plucked a huge book from the lower shelf and let it drop to the desk beside him with a dull thud. "And this..." Another book. "Oh, and this is a particularly good one..."
"Kurt," Ororo said warningly, watching from the bed as he scooped up an armload of books and began to cross the room to where she reclined on the bed. "These better not be a bunch of Catholic books...this is supposed to be a world religions class."
"Catholicism is a world religion, liebchen."
"You know what I mean," she retorted, scooting over to make room as Kurt dumped the pile in an untidy heap next to the pillows. She turned one of the books over gingerly. "What is this...How to Become a Martyr in Five Easy Steps?"
"No," Kurt replied with great solemnity. "It's 101 Ways to Spike the Sacramental Wine."
"What?"
"Sorry, bad priest joke." He chuckled and sat down on the bed beside her, spreading the books out on the bedspread carefully as his expression grew slightly more serious. "Actually, these are some of the books I collected while in seminary school. Buddhism, Hinduism, it's all here." He picked up the heaviest book with both hands and studied it casually. "And this one...it's a comprehensive overview of the major faith systems of the world. You can still get this...in a new edition, I believe. I thought we could consider it for our textbook."
Ororo took the book from him and regarded it with interest. "This is probably fascinating," she said softly, stretching out comfortably on her stomach as she began to leaf through the pages. "I would not have expected you to own anything like this, Kurt. I mean..." She glanced up at him briefly. "I did not think that priests could, you know, study other religions."
Kurt snorted laughter. "Are you serious? Of course we can...in fact, it's encouraged."
"Really?"
"Being a priest isn't a death sentence," he said with a grin. He leaned closer, appearing a trifle uncomfortable as he tried to look at the book over Ororo's shoulder.
"Lay down next to me, Kurt," Ororo said suddenly. "That way we can both look at it." Then she turned her attention back to the book...completely missing the quick, strange expression that flickered momentarily across Kurt's face. He looked shocked, taken aback...and then that expression melted into one that was a cross between indecision and what almost looked like pain.
"Well?" Ororo said absently.
Just as abruptly, the expression was gone. Kurt allowed himself to relax on the bed beside her, his head propped up on one hand as he watched her turn the pages...although it seemed to Ororo, now that she noticed it, that he was so close to the edge of the bed he seemed in danger of falling off.
She regarded him with a touch of amusement. "Do your vows of chastity extend to lying in a bed, fully clothed, with one of your best friends?"
Kurt's eyes widened slightly, then he lowered them...although Ororo was pleased to hear him laugh a little. "I'm sorry, Ororo. I can't help it."
"Do all Catholics have such guilty consciences?" she asked with a smile.
"Ach, definitely." He lifted his eyes again, meeting hers, and this time they laughed together, the small awkwardness of the moment passing away.
They spent the next few minutes with their heads bent over the book, the sleepy silence of Kurt's room broken only by their soft whispered conversation, and the crackle of the pages as Ororo turned them one by one. She was content for the most part looking at the pictures. Photographs of far-off lands...images of brown-skinned Indians, crowded together on the banks of the Ganges...a boy in Peru, covered in a blanket of huge leaves as he participated in a healing ceremony....people in white, baptized in some nameless river out West. Occasionally, Kurt would point out something particularly interesting...as he did when Ororo turned another page and the interior of St. Peter's Basilica came into view, in a magnificent full page picture that had captured a moment during the Easter Mass.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Kurt breathed.
"Very lovely," Ororo agreed. "So much stone, though...I would probably get claustrophobic again," she added with a quiet laugh.
"Nein, you wouldn't. See here? And here?" Kurt asked, pointing out the high curving dome of the ceiling, lost at what seemed an impossible height above magnificently soaring pillars. "Look at all that space. Incredible. And that illumination."
Ororo frowned. "Candles?"
"Some of them, ja, but those shafts of light are sunlight, coming in from the dome windows high above." He glanced at her and smiled. "Even in the house of God, nature has a presence."
"Here, maybe," Ororo said, returning his smile as she tapped the picture for emphasis. "But not all Catholic churches are like this, are they? Surely not this big."
"No, they are not. But there is the same attention to detail, and to beauty," he replied. "Have you never been in a church yourself, Ororo?"
"Once or twice."
"A Catholic church?"
She smiled. "No, I am afraid I have not."
"Ach! It is settled, then," he said cheerfully. "You must come with me to church. Tomorrow."
"I cannot. I am going with Logan to New York tomorrow, remember?"
"Next week, then," Kurt persisted, his boyish grin nearly infectious with charm. "Come on, Ororo. It will be fun!"
"Fun?" She watched him for a moment, returning his smile helplessly. "Are you sure about that, Father Wagner? I'm the heathen, remember?"
"All the more reason for you to go," he laughed. "Please?"
"Oh, bother." She glanced at him sideways, then shrugged her shoulders. "Fine. I will go with you...since you insist."
"Wunderschön." He was still smiling, watching her as she bent her head back over the book, but then his face faded into a slightly more serious expression. "You are going because you want to, ja? Not simply because I asked?"
"I will admit...I am a little curious," Ororo replied, glancing at him again.
"Okay."
"Okay?"
He nodded, then looked back at the book, studying the pages. "Ja. It is good."
Ororo glanced back at the book herself, flipping a page softly, and the gentle silence of the room returned, filling in the empty spaces between their breaths like a silent heartbeat. She turned another page...there was a clock ticking somewhere in the room, very faintly, and she was suddenly conscious of Kurt's soft, even breaths as he lay beside her, his eyes gleaming as he looked at each page one by one.
"Oh, stop," he said softly. "There's another nice one..."
Ororo paused, allowing Kurt to lean closer to the book as she let her eyes drift over him, really looking at him for what seemed like the first time in a long, long while. How many years had it been since Kurt had left them? How many years since she had truly seen him, with or without the priestly guise he wore now?
"Kurt?" she asked quietly. "Can I ask you a question?"
"Certainly, liebchen."
"Why did you decide to become a priest?"
He looked startled, but only for a moment...then he shrugged slightly and gave her a gentle smile. "I was called," he replied. "That is how most men are led to service...they are called by Christ."
"What do you mean?"
"You just know," he explained patiently. "You know in your heart that this is the life God intended for you."
Ororo pondered this in thoughtful silence, resting her chin on her hands as she allowed Kurt to continue to turn the pages of the book. His face was close to hers, leaning over the pages studiously...and Ororo found her eyes drifting almost lazily over the lines of his face...the way his blue-black curls tumbled into his eyes, and the sheen of his fur, covering his skin like blue velvet...
I wonder what it would feel like, to really touch that fur, she thought, almost sleepily. The warm silence of the room was making her drowsy. Part of her was mildly surprised that she would think such a thing...but the other part of her was more surprised by the realization that she had never really touched Kurt's fur. All these years she had known him, and nothing more than a few passing brushes against each other. Funny...
"Kurt?" she said.
"Ja?"
"What does your church teach about people like me?" she asked. In response to his questioning look, she smiled a little. "I do not believe in your God, or your Christ. The very foundations of your faith I find illogical. Yet you are my friend."
"Of course I am, Ororo."
"Does that not go against the teachings of your church?" she persisted. "Like Remy said yesterday...I am a pagan in your eyes, am I not?"
Kurt met her eyes steadily, his expression serious as he considered her words. "Well," he said after a moment. "Although I am a priest, and a representative of my faith, I can only speak for myself. The truth that is in my heart."
Ororo studied his glowing eyes quietly. "And what is that truth, Kurt?"
He seemed to be choosing his words carefully. "The Lord has said, in my Father's house there are many mansions."
"And that means?"
"I think that God has many faces, Ororo," Kurt said gently. "And I believe that all that is good in this world serves Him, whether they know it or not." He smiled at her, his sharp teeth somehow softened by the sweetness in that smile. "All that is good serves Him, Ororo...even pagan storm goddesses."
Ororo shook her head. "You're a wonder, Kurt Wagner."
"So are you, liebchen," Kurt replied, still smiling. "So are you."
* * * * *
Ororo left Kurt's room hours later, her arms laden with books as she made her way back to the stairs and down them to the first floor. She hadn't wanted to leave...conversations about religion with Kurt were more fascinating than she cared to admit...but Kurt had an evening Mass to attend at the tiny Salem chapel in town, and Ororo, apparently, had a lot of reading to do, if she intended on being any help for Kurt where this class was concerned.
It had stunned her, how little she really knew about other religions. It just wasn't a subject that had particularly interested her before...living at Xavier's, she had been insulated from most of the tension and discourse on these subjects...after all, when one is a mutant, religion is usually the least of one's worries when it comes to religious intolerance or persecution. And they had always lived together here quite happily, with their individual differences meaning little more than a source of distinction between them. She, with her animistic African faith...Kurt, with his devout Catholicism...Kitty, a more or less regular attendee at her synagogue...Logan, with his irascible atheism...and Remy...
Ororo paused, a slight frown on her face. What religion was Remy? Wasn't that funny, now...she had never thought about it before.
Kurt would be so proud, she thought with an inward chuckle.
She descended the stairs quickly, hugging the books Kurt had lent her to her chest. As she reached the first floor, the low murmur of mingled voices drifted to her from across the hall, coming from the rec room on the far end of the downstairs foyer. Ororo shifted the books slightly in her arms, trying to decide whether she would prefer to read in peace, or with company...but then the sound of Kitty's light, girlish laughter ringing from the room made up her mind for her. She smiled and crossed the hall, entering the rec room curiously.
Kitty was indeed in the room, sprawled on the floor and looking very fresh and pretty in a pair of cut-off shorts and a white blouse that laced up the front, peasant-fashion. Remy was beside her, lying on his back with a length of string wound in an intricate design between his long fingers...it was a cat's cradle, Ororo realized. He was apparently showing off for Kitty. The only other person in the room was Logan, who was watching television while stretched out comfortably on the sofa. All three of them looked up as she came into the room.
"How's it goin'?" Logan drawled easily.
"Very well," Ororo replied. She stepped lightly past Remy and Kitty, passing the high banked windows that covered the far wall (and noting with mild surprise that the sun had passed its peak and was beginning to wester...she must have spent nearly three hours pouring over books with Kurt, and never even realized it). Pausing at the foot of the couch, she regarded Logan quizzically.
"May I sit?"
"Sure, darlin'." Logan glanced at her briefly and moved his legs off the couch, promptly returning his attention whatever show it was that he had been watching before she came in.
"What are you watching?"
"Cheerleader Camp Massacre."
Ororo sat down, watching the screen for a moment, then she sighed and rolled her eyes heavenward as a bunch of scantily-clad women ran across the screen shrieking. It figures, she thought with a touch of disgusted amusement, carefully setting the books she had carried on the cushion between her and Logan.
The books thumping together turned Logan's attention back to her again. "What's that?"
"Just some books Kurt allowed me to borrow," Ororo replied. "It is for the class we will be teaching together. Apparently," she added with a laugh. "I have quite a bit of catching up to do on the subject of world religions."
Logan made a noncommittal grunting sound, then picked up one of the books curiously...it was a thick paperback with a white cover. "Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church," he read aloud, then he looked up at her with a lopsided grin. "You studyin' to be a nun, 'Ro?"
"Not hardly," she replied with a laugh. "But I was amazed at how little I knew about Kurt's faith. I asked him for something that would 'bring me up to speed,' and he recommended this."
"You know," Logan said thoughtfully. "I really was kinda shocked when I found out the Elf had become a priest. I really didn't see it comin'."
Ororo shrugged. "He does not seem any different, though...not really."
Logan opened the book and began leafing idly through the table of contents. "Hmm," he said after a moment. "See, this is why I could never be a Catholic. This right here."
"What?" Ororo leaned close to him to see what he was pointing at, then sighed in exasperation. "The law of chastity?! Oh, honestly, Logan..."
"Yeah, I always had a problem wit' dat law, too," Remy spoke up from the floor.
Ororo and Logan both turned to stare at him in mild surprise. Even Kitty gave him a funny look. "Why would you care, Cajun?" Kitty asked.
"Because I have to. Papa LeBeau's boy Remy is a good Catholic," he said in slightly injured tones...then his face split into a devilish grin. "At least, most of de time I am."
"You are a Catholic, Remy?" Ororo asked, her brow furrowing slightly.
"Dat I am," he said. "I can 'Hail Mary' wit' de best of dem."
Everyone laughed that time, except Ororo. She was looking at Remy curiously, trying to fathom why he would be so antagonistic toward Kurt, especially if they shared the same faith.
Not that that necessarily meant anything, of course...
"Where were you, by de way?" Remy asked suddenly. "Don' mean to change de subject, but me an' de Kitty-Cat were looking for you at lunch time."
"I was with Kurt," she replied, firmly removing the catechism from Logan's hand. "Now go back to watching that horrible drivel you call a movie," she added with a smile. "I have some reading to do."
* * * * *
Upstairs, Kurt leaned against the door of his room...where he had been standing, virtually motionless, since he had seen Ororo to the door. He had been smiling, of course...warm, friendly...just good old Fuzzy Elf, Father Wagner...Kurt to his friends. As soon as the door had closed behind her, though, the gentle expression on his face had faded into something else...
Something that looked like torture.
He leaned his forehead against the door, the cool surface of the wood as welcome as a benediction. His eyes were closed tightly...tight enough perhaps, to seal out the sight of her walking down the hall, the soft whisper of her long white braid as it swung against her back as she walked...but not tight enough to erase the persistence of his memory.
Mein Gott. Something like a cry whispered inside his heart, and he lifted a trembling hand to his eyes, desperately willing the traitorous image to go away. It was laughable...in a twisted way, he supposed. Everyone, every single friend he had in this house...they all thought it was Kitty, if they bothered to think on it at all. Perhaps it made sense to them...Kurt supposed he could see it, if he really tried. After all, they had been very close once...better than close. Like siblings. But that was all they were to each other...all he desired to be with his Katzchen. Like a brother.
And that is what he had tried to do with Her. The other dream...the one that tortured him and delighted him by turns. The one that no one had ever guessed...she who lived in the most secret, dark, and untouchable places within his heart.
His hand stole down to his belt, almost of its own volition, and he felt his fingers curling about the wooden beads of his rosary...hanging there at his waist, the beads clicking together smoothly as he clutched them like a drowning man.
(This is my blood, shed for you and for many...)
He sank slowly to his knees, never moving from the door...he didn't kneel so much as come unhinged at the knees...and with head bowed, he began to pray the rosary, slowly and softly at first, then faster, desperately, as if their violent repetition could somehow pound out the painful memory of Ororo lying on his bed, her breasts rising and falling beneath the tight fabric of her blouse, her snow white hair spread out like a fan over her shoulders as she leaned close and laughed only for him.
"Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee..."
(You are a priest...a priest, Kurt Wagner...)
"Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus..."
(...cannot touch her...dear God, I love her still...cannot have her...you are a priest...)
"Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and in the hour of our deaths..."
(Pray for me...)
(Pray for me...)
"Amen," Kurt murmured quietly, making the sign of the Cross with measured reverence...then his eyes slowly lifted to the crucifix hanging on the wall above his head.
(Forgive me, father, for I have sinned...)
Kurt covered his face with his hands and wept.
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