Not Less Than Everything
Chapter 3
by
Rex Luscus
DISCLAIMER: All poetry belongs to the estate of T.S. Eliot. Wolverine, Nightcrawler and the X-Men belong to Marvel Enterprises, Inc. Duh.
ARCHIVING: Just ask.
NOTES: A big, sloppy thank you to Lorelei and Dark Hedgehog for all their help with this monster. I'm serious when I say it wouldn't have happened without you. You guys are the shit. < G >
Oh, and thanks to Graham Greene. I think this story is some sort of homage to him, though I didn't realize that as I was writing it.
It was late summer, and already I could smell the season changing. Another couple of weeks and Jubilee would be going back to Massachusetts, the first flocks of birds going south would start appearing overhead, and the nights would get too chilly to have sex by the pool. I drained the last of a beer and used the empty bottle to tap one of its mates still standing upright in the sixpack.
"Want another?"
Kurt smiled and reached for the bottle I'd tapped. I watched the sunlight pick out ribbons of brilliant blue across his dark fur as he tipped his head back, neck stretching out sinuously, eyes slitting against the sun, to take a first swig.
"It's been a while, hasn't it?"
He took the bottle from his lips and looked at me, eyes all yellow innocence. "Since what?"
"Since we last had, y'know ... a roll in the hay."
He smiled mischievously and looked away. It had been six weeks since our first late-night encounter on the back patio, and there was no sign of this thing we'd let loose between us letting up in its force. When we met secretly, late at night in his room or sometimes in mine, or in some other hidden corner of the Institute's vast estate, it was always with the same urgency and intense thrill of that first night, that drunkenness with the new and the dangerous. I've faced enough physical danger in my day that it's become downright monotonous, but Kurt's body, with its weird beauty that's both alien and deliciously human, never stopped being an adventure for me.
"Has it been so long? Well, I guess we'll have to do something about that," he said, coyly taking another swig of beer.
"Tonight?" I asked, sounding a little too much like an eager kid trying to get himself laid.
"Where?" he countered.
"Let's do it out here. Summer will be gone soon."
"So it will indeed."
He inhaled deeply, like he was trying to savor the last of the summer right then and there, and then returned to his contented basking, apparently having had enough of our little erotic teasing for now. We were stretched out on the concrete deck by the pool, and a sixpack of beer between us was nearly gone. Behind us, the lawn was quiet and still, the air heavy with sun-warmed grass laced by an occasional draft of cool chlorine smell from the pool. The rich, ripe smell of the lawn was like the ripeness of summer itself, almost ready to drop from the branch. The only sound was the rhythmic splashing of a lone swimmer in the pool - Rogue, relentless and stubbornly alone, doing laps.
She hadn't heard a word of our exchange. She was too intent on her swimming regimen, which she attacked every afternoon single-mindedly. These days she only ever seemed to swim by herself, and naturally that bothered Kurt, determined as he was to thwart anyone's attempts to develop a loner habit or two. So we were keeping her company, even though she'd barely taken her head out of the water for the last half hour. I watched her as she approached our end of the pool, executed another flip turn, and shot back down toward the other end. I turned then to Kurt and slipped my hand around his waist, and before he could defend himself, I had him pinned to the concrete in a deep kiss.
He immediately struggled out of my arms (as I'd expected him to) and the stern look he fixed me with almost made me laugh. A bit of under-the-breath teasing was usually as far as Kurt was willing to go if it was at all possible that anyone was watching or listening. "She'll see us!" he whispered loudly, tossing his head toward our tireless swimmer.
I grinned and crawled closer to him. "She's barely paused the whole time." I reached out to caress one velvety knee. "We're as good as alone..."
His stern look relaxed a little, and he allowed me to run my hand up the inside of his bare leg. A warning glance halted me, though, as I reached mid-thigh.
"Don't be so uptight," I grumbled as I stretched out on my stomach, planting a kiss on his shoulder as I passed by.
"Me? Uptight?" I heard him say behind me, the grin obvious in his voice. Something tickled the back of my leg through my jeans and then slid up the space between my legs. There's definitely something to be said for the experience of being goosed by a tail, not least because of the sheer surprise of it - even if it's something that happens to you frequently.
"Careful," I growled, turning my head slightly. "Don't start anything you don't intend to finish."
Point taken, evidently, the tail removed itself. Then, a long, lithe body stretched out alongside mine, feet toward my head, and a contented sigh drifted back to me. I let my hand curl around one sturdy blue ankle - so strange, the way it was nearly human but not quite - while the tail reappeared to stroke lazily up and down the outside of my leg. I wondered absently, now that I could see the mansion's dark windows from where I lay, whether anyone looking out at us from the house would be able to tell that there was anything between us - assuming, of course, that they'd missed the kiss. Or did we look just like we'd always looked - like two best buddies, closer than brothers, who maybe, just maybe, secretly wanted to fuck each other - but a secret wish doesn't count for squat, since everyone's got a couple they'd rather not own up to. Nearby, the monotonous splashing of Rogue's laps continued, telegraphing its loneliness into the heavy late summer air.
Making sure that my back was to the house, I rolled carefully onto one side just as Kurt's tail was sweeping up my leg. He was propped up on his elbows and his eyes met mine as the tail brushed over the front of my jeans, then paused and brushed over it again. Throwing a glance toward the pool, I slowly undid the button and eased down the zipper. Kurt looked nervously from side to side, tail tip twitching next to my leg. Then his eyes returned to mine and he favored me with a wicked smile as the tail slipped inside my pants. I gazed at him, a little breathless, eyes raking down his dark body glistening like a seal's in the sunlight, and then back up to his face with its burning, otherworldly eyes.
And at that moment, for the first time, I saw him as a *thing* - a beautiful, shadow-colored thing, filled with light. And I wondered if I could ever get far enough inside of him, if I could ever fuck him deep enough or taste him fully enough, to touch the center of that light. My cock was hard now from all the rustling of that tail inside my shorts, which with a few more rustles had coiled around me like a snake. Kurt parted his lips slightly, tongue tip flickering behind sharp teeth, as he gave me one long, gentle stroke.
My elbow buckled and I let my head sink to the ground with a groan. He smiled again, raising a finger to his lips in a silent warning, then gave me another stroke, letting the coils of his tail slip and tighten, then slip again. We were lying close enough together that anyone would have to be nearly on top of us to see what was going on. I suddenly imagined Summers or Gumbo walking by, on their way to the boat house, maybe, and continuing on their way without giving us more than a casual glance, oblivious. Why that got me even hotter I'll never know, but within seconds I was on the edge. I reached out blindly for some part of him and ended up sinking my clawing fingers into the back of his thigh as I began to come, clenching my teeth hard to stifle my cry. When I came back to myself he had sat up and was stroking my face, drawing his fingers through my side whiskers, tracing the lines of wear and weather on my skin.
I looked at him, so beautiful in the late afternoon sun, and felt the need to say something welling in my chest. What came out was, "God I wanna fuck you," but I think he understood - I uttered those words with as much reverence as it's possible to utter them. He replied with that same sphinxlike smile and whispered, "Later." In another twenty minutes, Rogue had finished her laps, and the three of us went inside to dress for dinner.
"-Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence."
The Waste Land, [37 - 41]
~~~
Like before, I didn't go to him immediately. I knew that I had to wait a little while - don't know why, exactly; just call it hunter's instinct. As I've said, any good hunter knows about waiting. He knows waiting isn't wasting time, because there might be a payoff at the end. If he fails, he's bound to look back on the wait as so much squandered time, and he's liable to feel a little bitter about it. But at the beginning of the wait, he's got hope, and it keeps him going, makes the idle time mean something.
I knew I had to give him time - time to miss me, maybe, or time to think about what I'd said to him. Time to let down his guard. In the meanwhile, I tried to stay away from the mansion as much as possible - I couldn't stand the guilt I felt whenever Ororo was around, and I was starting to get paranoid that the others knew now. And for reasons I couldn't name, I hated the thought of Jeannie finding out particularly. I could see it happening - she'd be worried about me, and 'Ro wouldn't mean to betray my confidence, she'd just let it slip. Or maybe Jean or one of the other telepaths would figure it out for themselves. Of course, me and Kurt had kept it from the telepaths for months, but for some reason, pain is louder than pleasure to them. At any rate, it was only a matter of time, and I didn't want to be around when it happened.
I gave him two weeks. Then, unwilling to waste another second, I went back.
Sitting again in the converted living room of that brownstone seminary, I listened to the bespectacled receptionist tell me that Kurt was in the chapel. I quickly followed her directions there, but hesitated on the threshold - this was his sanctuary I was entering, and I knew instinctively that he wouldn't want me there. It was possible that an invasion like this could turn him against me. But that was a risk I had to take. I had to force myself in somehow; that was the only way I was going to pry him loose from this place. I needed to show him that there was nowhere to hide.
It was dark inside, and warmer than I'd expected - it was a small school chapel in a converted residential building, after all - and it smelled of paper and stale incense. I saw Kurt kneeling in the second pew, all the way over to the right. He was holding a small book, but he wasn't reading it - he clutched it between clasped hands like a talisman, his head bowed and his eyes shut. He didn't look up even after I'd shut the door, so I had a seat in the back and waited for him to finish. I've known enough religious types to know that interrupting someone during prayer is generally a bad idea, especially when you're trying to win them over. I might have been invading his church, but I wanted it to be a courteous invasion, one that he couldn't rightly object to.
After a while, he took a deep breath, then lifted his head and stood slowly, putting the little book back in his pocket. He turned toward me casually, having already sensed my presence, but froze as soon as he recognized who I was.
"Logan," he said, with half-concealed dismay.
"Can we talk in here, or should we go outside?"
"Let's go outside," he said, coming cautiously up the aisle. I rose to meet him, but he passed without looking at me, opening the door and gesturing me out.
There was a wooden bench in the hall outside, which I sat down on. Kurt sat beside me, again putting a polite amount of distance between us like he had the first time I'd visited. "So," he said, rubbing his knees anxiously, "what can I do for you, Logan?"
"Nothing," I said, all innocence. "Just thought I'd stop by and say hello."
He ventured an uneasy glance, obviously not believing me.
"So, um, how have you been?" he asked.
"Oh, you know - some days are better than others. How's about you?"
"I'm fine. Studying, mostly."
I nodded, smiling blandly. It was already the most strained conversation we'd ever had, and yet I found myself enjoying his uneasiness. I *wanted* this to be awkward. The day he could be at ease around me was the day I'd know he'd gotten me out of his system, and I couldn't let that happen. As long as he was sweating, I knew I had a chance.
"Actually, there is something you can do for me, Kurt," I said calmly.
He threw me a glance of utter dread.
"You can answer a question for me, point-blank. Can you do that, Kurt?"
"Well, I don't know..."
"It's just a question, Kurt. I'm only asking for you to be honest with me. Don't I at least deserve a little honesty?"
He nodded, swallowing.
"Okay then. Tell me truthfully: are you happier now than you ever were with me?"
He drooped and said nothing, and silently I rejoiced; I had a chance as long as he couldn't manage a simple 'yes' to that question. Then he spoke:
"I am happy to know that I am doing what is right."
"Yeah, but are you happier than you were before you left me? Just tell me 'yes' or 'no', Kurt."
Again he said nothing.
I kept at him. "When you wake up in the morning, are you happier to be alive now than you were when you woke up all those other mornings in my bed? Just answer the question, Kurt. Yes or no?"
"I - I can't answer. I don't know." He sighed shakily, raising his head, then fixed me with a look that begged me to understand him. "I was happy with you, Logan. I loved the time I spent with you. But it is over, and my life is very different now. Everything is different, even the way happiness feels is different. It is - a different kind of happiness, you might say."
"Nice try, Elf. But that's still not an answer."
"Then I'm afraid you'll have to live without your answer."
Maybe it was the callous, dismissive way he said it, but for some reason that last remark blasted all my patience. I forgot everything I knew about hunting and let loose with my frustration.
"Damnit, Kurt! You walk out on me without any warning, you leave me with nothing, and when all I ask for is an answer to a simple question, you can't even spare me that?"
"It's not a 'simple' question and you know it, Logan." His voice was drawn tight, like the string of a bow.
"Yeah, okay. Maybe I'm trying to trick you into admitting something. Maybe I got a motive here. But for pete's sake, pal, what do you expect? You might be happy as a clam here in your new life, but I don't get a new life. I'm still stuck being in love with you while you get to leave everything behind."
He stared at his feet glumly.
"Did you hear me? I said I *love* -"
"No, you don't."
I stared at him. "What are you talking about?"
"Logan," he sighed, "what is between us is not love. It is ... intense and powerful, but it isn't love."
I was suddenly a lot angrier. "Who are you to decide what it is I feel?"
He shook his head. "I don't doubt that you care a great deal about me, Logan." He paused, looking off into nothing, then laughed sadly like he was remembering something. "For my whole adult life you have been my best friend," he went on. "And I don't doubt that you like my body. But love - the kind of love that makes two people one flesh - is more than just those two things combined."
I stood up, beyond anger by this point. "I don't just 'like your body,' Kurt," I snarled. "You think that's what attraction is, just liking what you see enough to have a crack at it? I love all of you - your body turns me on because it's *yours*, because it's *you*. I want the whole package, Kurt, not just a pal to play pool with and a warm body to roll around with. Jesus, Kurt, I want *you*, I want everything about you. Now tell me, what is that if it ain't love?"
He was silent.
"So what are we missing?" I asked. "What's the magic ingredient that we ain't got?"
He hung his head wearily. "I don't know. But I think it ... it has something to do with God."
I narrowed my eyes. Him again, that Bastard.
"So," I continued, "we can't love each other because I don't share your god? Well, what about Amanda? Didn't you love her?"
He frowned, averting his face sheepishly. "I'm beginning to think I - didn't, no. We were very close, Logan, almost as close as you and I -" he looked at me as he said this, perhaps thinking it would appease me "- but it was not a love that lasted. It wasn't love, no."
"Then I guess I just don't understand." I sat down again heavily. "What does God have to do with any of it? Why can't we just be two people who have their differences but can see past 'em? Why can't we just be two goddamn *people*?"
"I'm sorry." Kurt shook his head sadly and looked away. "I don't have any answers for you. But I've made my decision already and you won't be able to change it."
"What, you think that gets you off the hook? If you don't have the answers then get them! Least you can leave me with is some goddamn answers! Why can't we be together, Kurt? Why did you throw me over for God?"
By the end I was standing and shouting; Kurt had shrunk back a little and was looking at me the way people always do when they think I'm going to snap. I had a funny little feeling then. That nervous look in his eyes, that *something* that looked an awful lot like fear - I was plenty familiar with that something. I'd seen it in hundreds of eyes before, always at the same moment. Right just then, Kurt wasn't this all-important, all-consuming *thing* to me - he was just another enemy suddenly realizing that he was outmatched, and trying to think of the quickest way out of there. I knew what fear looked like. And I knew how to make people fear *me*. Maybe I couldn't get to him with love anymore, but I had other ways.
Confidence rushed through me, suffusing my body with warmth, like liquor. Muscles and senses came to life like a dark land touched by the sun. It felt good - no, incredible. A nasty, teeth-baring little thought reminded me that this was the first pleasure I'd felt in months. I felt myself filling the room, impossibly strong, indestructible. And I knew what I looked like to Kurt - I could hear the liquid crinkling of his capillaries constricting as his automatic fear response kicked in. I could smell his blood. My body sang with excitement at that smell; my mouth watered, my claws itched under my skin.
And then a small, bitter laugh inside me froze my blood. I remembered what I had just been saying, not five minutes ago. How I loved all of him. How I wanted everything about him. It was all lies. What kind of love was it that could turn into - this? I didn't give a shit about him, about what he wanted. All I cared about was having him, one way or another - dead or alive, as long as he was *mine*.
And just as simple as that, I saw myself killing him. I knew as surely as I know myself that it could happen - all it would take was one little nudge over the edge. And I knew it would feel good, at least in that moment. At least as good as those other pure, still moments, when I was inside of him and I suddenly saw all time fit into the space of a breath.
I turned, terrified of myself and of him, and ran for the door.
"... I have heard the key
Turn in the door once and turn once only
We think of the key, each in his prison
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison..."
The Waste Land, [412 - 415]
All references to characters belonging to the X-Men Universe are (c) and TM the Marvel Comics Group, 20th Century Fox and all related entities. All rights reserved. Any reproduction, duplication or distribution of these materials in any form is expressly prohibited. No money is being made from this archive. All images are also (c) and TM the Marvel Comics Group, 20th Century Fox and all related entities; they are not mine. This website, its operators and any content used on this site relating to the X-Men are not authorized by Marvel, Fox, etc. I am not, nor do I claim to be affiliated with any of these entities in any way.