It's forty-five minutes later, but true to his word Wes makes himself known at Pixie's. He slips in with his keys, but the man's footsteps can be heard across the upstairs floorboards before he finds Kurt at his task. It's difficult to tell if it's a matter of habit or anxiety that urges the man to clean and organize things that have already been cleaned and organized, but there's enough familiarity in the routine to make Wes pause to appreciate it for a moment before he makes the effort to let himself be known.
He sets the small knapsack he carries to his feet and stamps a boot against the floor. Townsfolk keep trying to talk to me, he says by way of explanation for his tardiness.
It's not exactly been an easy afternoon for Kurt. Though he's been somewhat removed from the gradually increasing tension between his partners over the last few weeks, the red strings and the closeness created by living in such a small space have meant that his ability to stay out of it -- trusting, of course, that they will come to him when they need to -- has been tested to the very limits. By the time Blake's revelation comes around, he's spent enough of his time on edge that he finds himself considering the idea of sitting the lot of them down at the dinner table and refusing to let them leave until they sort the entire mess out.
With so few avenues of expression open to him, he's been channelling the uneasiness created through the afternoon into a project of cleaning out the fridges and sorting the various liquor bottles behind the bar, which he's stretching out as much as possible in order to give him an excuse not to look at his Fluid, carefully placed at the other end of the counter.
Wes' arrival is noisy enough not to be surprising, though the tug of the thread around his finger and a certain undefinable sensation of closeness would have warned him in any case. He straightens up and stretches, watching the man come in, a little more reserved than usual, though it doesn't do much to hide the fact that he's clearly worried as well.
At least they're only trying to talk. I have to keep asking Petunia to stand guard on the door so they stay out of the shop. His tail loops around two bottles of beer he's been keeping in an bucket of ice in the sink; he takes one and holds the other out in Wes' direction.
They keep bringing bundles of flowers into the shop and trying to put them in people's hair. It's bad for business. Wes accepts the beer gratefully and lets his fingers linger on the back of Kurt's hand for a moment longer than necessary. The touch seems to take some of the anxiety out of him for a time, and he lets his shoulders slacken as he uncaps the bottle and takes a long swig.
Despite promising Logan he'd have this conversation, it's difficult to know where to start. Wes is inclined to want to make excuses -- to blanket the actions of both he and Grady under the shroud of manufactured addiction. Despite the proclivities of his partner, there's been no substance in his own life to date that he's sought with the kind of fervor of a man out of his mind. But he understands addiction through his relationships with people, and knows the humiliating lengths he's gone to when it's come to his behavior to keep them around. Wes can blake the circumstances of Rapture -- he'd like to, in fact -- but he doubts any substance could have made him act that way if not for a core of true rot inside him. That, more than anything, is what he fears. That no matter how hard he tries, it's wasted effort when his bad outweighs any attempts at good.
With the bottles removed, there's a cleared space at the back of the bar. Kurt leans back against it, arms loosely crossed over his chest when he's not signing. It's not the sort of warm and welcoming posture Wes' presence usually earns, but it's not forbidding, either. If they'd known each other longer and in a different world, his partner might have recognised the patience of someone used to standing in front of a class of students and awaiting their silence. Or of a priest expecting a confession.
Start at the beginning, he suggests. I lost track of you in Rapture. He'd lost track of lots of things, between his injuries and the still faintly shameful way he'd dealt with their circumstances -- but he leaves that aside and tries not to think about it, focusing on Wes instead. What happened to you after Logan came back?
I don't know. Kurt's prompts are gentle and accommodating, but pure panic grips Wes for a moment and makes him impatient with himself. It's still a point of intense frustration that he can't sort it all out in his mind, but after the forceful retort he takes an uneven breath. The air seems to shudder past his lips going in and coming out, and he raises the beer bottle and knocks back another generous swig. Holding it in his mouth, he sets the bottle aside and closes his eyes to swallow. If only something so simple could reset him that easily. When he opens his eyes, he finds Kurt waiting patiently and wishes he had something better to offer.
It's all hard to keep right. At first I just remember feeling starved, and exhausted. I don't think I've ever been that hungry before, or tired. I felt like I was breaking apart. Maybe dying, I didn't know. I felt helpless. I thought the plasmids would do something good. I thought I could use them to protect all of us, but my body couldn't handle it. Or my mind. I don't know which, but it didn't go well. It felt like they were trying to destroy me too, and the only thing that could save me was getting more.
You know what happened to Logan? He pauses there, and meets Kurt's steady gaze. Wes searches his eyes for any indication of understanding, or memory of what transpired.
Wes' honesty is difficult to process, not only because of the vague ripples of feeling that run down through the string in the wake of those memories, but also the reflection it finds in Kurt's own mind. The idea that his partners were all suffering so deeply while he was incapacitated and unable to help is unsettling; he finds himself gripping his bottle a little too tightly and forces himself to step back from those thoughts, leaving them aside for another time, when -- and if -- he can consider them alone.
Some of it. Kurt chases a mouthful of beer with a sigh, rubbing his lips with the back of his hand as he thinks through what he knows and what he suspects, given the strange and confused time that caught them all up like a riptide along the ocean floor.
I remember finding him, bringing him back. He had something inside of him that was driving him to find and protect a small girl, who he called Lucy. I'm still not sure if she actually existed or not. And then something happened, Jean-Paul found him and you were gone, Grady had to get you back. And Logan said that this girl saved him, I think. He shrugs slightly, frowning. I'm not sure. So much of it was confusing and doesn't make sense.
I never saw any kids. Wes interjects with such insistent force it must seem like he's been accused of something. It still hurts him more than anything else. He can accept every one of Logan's accusations -- admit that he deserves them even -- save the implication that he might injure a child. He isn't certain whether the older man still believes it of him or not, but his expression implores Kurt for his understanding. Maybe now, before he admits to anything else, he'll be granted that at least. Perhaps in the midst of everything else his partner will believe that some things are beyond even Wes. That no matter how terrible of a person he may be, he would never do that.
He wants to close his eyes to avoid the worst of it, but even blinking threatens momentary flashes of the image of their mutual partner lying in the grit and the filth of Deerington, bleeding from that belly wound. He can't sleep without dreaming of it, and even now the scent is still stuck up his nostrils. When Wes thinks about it, he catches a putrid whiff of that terrible place and the thing he did to an unsuspecting Logan.
No, not unsuspecting. Trusting. Logan had laid down willingly when he'd convinced the man that he was Lucy.
Wes's breath trembles again. The big man sounds close to tears as he puts his eyes anywhere but on the steadfast expression that Kurt wears. I hurt him. I cut him open to take that thing out of him. But I didn't do it to save him. I did it because I knew it would give my body what it needed. I knew it would boost the power, and I felt like I was dying without it. I cut him open and I took it out, and when I realized what I'd done I ran.
The strength of Wes' disavowal, the aftershock of emotion that plays across his features, is enough that Kurt starts to raise his hands to offer something comforting, a reassurance that he wasn't trying to accuse him of hurting any child and that he remembers, like it was yesterday, those nights in September after Wes' doppelganger had tried to convince the entire town otherwise.
But Wes isn't done. As he lets out that shaking breath, a memory that doesn't belong to him surfaces in the back of Kurt's mind. A dirty floor, a familiar figure stretched out across it, dark splatters of gore and wet tearing sounds. The images aren't new to him -- they've been featuring in his own dreams, threaded through the stuttering recalls of Logan's own nightmares. He'd assumed, until now, that they were more of those dark memories courtesy of Weapon X. He hadn't realised whose eyes he had been looking through, or at whose body.
No, he signs, automatically, as his tail sets down his drink on the bar and he takes a step closer to gather Wes' fingers briefly between his own, then touches his chin, encouraging his gaze back up.
And he doesn't know what you did, he guesses, though it's scarcely a guess given the conflicting accounts.
No? What do you mean no? Wes snaps. He doesn't expect Kurt's generosity, nor the tenderness of the hand reaching out for him. The tall man takes a step back warily, eyes shining with misplaced desperation. He's halfway through formulating a firm insistence when he catches himself in the realization, and his shoulders slump. Kurt's not trying to put more space between them. The man isn't finding an excuse to make a clean break. And Wes can't properly comprehend how he can stand there so gently, still seeking connection, still trying to understand.
It's more kindness than he knows what to do with, and he feels the lump forming in his throat around his shame and his hopelessness. Wes tries to swallow, but makes a strangled sound instead as he tries to find his breath again amid so much pressure in his chest. He knows, he insists, though even that feels like much too little too late. I told him as he was leaving. I wanted to explain that the nightmares are my fault. He called me Wrench, said he doesn't know me. It still stings to admit, and he imagines that Logan knows that better than anything. That the man's firm dismissal and insistence that he is someone beyond recognition is the sharpest knife.
"Liebchen," Kurt sighs, the translation given through his hands simpler but no less heartfelt. That Wes is trying to back away isn't lost on him. He doesn't bother going around to the end of the bar, just hops up and onto it in a single smooth motion, sitting himself down on the edge so he can resume talking almost immediately.
Logan is sensitive about being lied to like that, he offers, almost hesitant in offering up another man's secrets, but wanting to explain and perhaps take some of the sting out of those recent wounds. Though you didn't mean it like that, that will be how he sees it. He has been used many times. Had his mind broken and turned into a weapon many times. When he thinks it's happened again.. it's hard for him to react rationally.
He lets out a breath, searching Wes' face, his hands open and reaching when he's not signing. Sweetheart, he says again, I love you. He loves you. Give him time. You both need time to heal this trauma.
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(action)
It's forty-five minutes later, but true to his word Wes makes himself known at Pixie's. He slips in with his keys, but the man's footsteps can be heard across the upstairs floorboards before he finds Kurt at his task. It's difficult to tell if it's a matter of habit or anxiety that urges the man to clean and organize things that have already been cleaned and organized, but there's enough familiarity in the routine to make Wes pause to appreciate it for a moment before he makes the effort to let himself be known.
He sets the small knapsack he carries to his feet and stamps a boot against the floor. Townsfolk keep trying to talk to me, he says by way of explanation for his tardiness.
no subject
With so few avenues of expression open to him, he's been channelling the uneasiness created through the afternoon into a project of cleaning out the fridges and sorting the various liquor bottles behind the bar, which he's stretching out as much as possible in order to give him an excuse not to look at his Fluid, carefully placed at the other end of the counter.
Wes' arrival is noisy enough not to be surprising, though the tug of the thread around his finger and a certain undefinable sensation of closeness would have warned him in any case. He straightens up and stretches, watching the man come in, a little more reserved than usual, though it doesn't do much to hide the fact that he's clearly worried as well.
At least they're only trying to talk. I have to keep asking Petunia to stand guard on the door so they stay out of the shop. His tail loops around two bottles of beer he's been keeping in an bucket of ice in the sink; he takes one and holds the other out in Wes' direction.
no subject
Despite promising Logan he'd have this conversation, it's difficult to know where to start. Wes is inclined to want to make excuses -- to blanket the actions of both he and Grady under the shroud of manufactured addiction. Despite the proclivities of his partner, there's been no substance in his own life to date that he's sought with the kind of fervor of a man out of his mind. But he understands addiction through his relationships with people, and knows the humiliating lengths he's gone to when it's come to his behavior to keep them around. Wes can blake the circumstances of Rapture -- he'd like to, in fact -- but he doubts any substance could have made him act that way if not for a core of true rot inside him. That, more than anything, is what he fears. That no matter how hard he tries, it's wasted effort when his bad outweighs any attempts at good.
I don't know where to start.
no subject
Start at the beginning, he suggests. I lost track of you in Rapture. He'd lost track of lots of things, between his injuries and the still faintly shameful way he'd dealt with their circumstances -- but he leaves that aside and tries not to think about it, focusing on Wes instead. What happened to you after Logan came back?
no subject
It's all hard to keep right. At first I just remember feeling starved, and exhausted. I don't think I've ever been that hungry before, or tired. I felt like I was breaking apart. Maybe dying, I didn't know. I felt helpless. I thought the plasmids would do something good. I thought I could use them to protect all of us, but my body couldn't handle it. Or my mind. I don't know which, but it didn't go well. It felt like they were trying to destroy me too, and the only thing that could save me was getting more.
You know what happened to Logan? He pauses there, and meets Kurt's steady gaze. Wes searches his eyes for any indication of understanding, or memory of what transpired.
no subject
Some of it. Kurt chases a mouthful of beer with a sigh, rubbing his lips with the back of his hand as he thinks through what he knows and what he suspects, given the strange and confused time that caught them all up like a riptide along the ocean floor.
I remember finding him, bringing him back. He had something inside of him that was driving him to find and protect a small girl, who he called Lucy. I'm still not sure if she actually existed or not. And then something happened, Jean-Paul found him and you were gone, Grady had to get you back. And Logan said that this girl saved him, I think. He shrugs slightly, frowning. I'm not sure. So much of it was confusing and doesn't make sense.
no subject
He wants to close his eyes to avoid the worst of it, but even blinking threatens momentary flashes of the image of their mutual partner lying in the grit and the filth of Deerington, bleeding from that belly wound. He can't sleep without dreaming of it, and even now the scent is still stuck up his nostrils. When Wes thinks about it, he catches a putrid whiff of that terrible place and the thing he did to an unsuspecting Logan.
No, not unsuspecting. Trusting. Logan had laid down willingly when he'd convinced the man that he was Lucy.
Wes's breath trembles again. The big man sounds close to tears as he puts his eyes anywhere but on the steadfast expression that Kurt wears. I hurt him. I cut him open to take that thing out of him. But I didn't do it to save him. I did it because I knew it would give my body what it needed. I knew it would boost the power, and I felt like I was dying without it. I cut him open and I took it out, and when I realized what I'd done I ran.
no subject
But Wes isn't done. As he lets out that shaking breath, a memory that doesn't belong to him surfaces in the back of Kurt's mind. A dirty floor, a familiar figure stretched out across it, dark splatters of gore and wet tearing sounds. The images aren't new to him -- they've been featuring in his own dreams, threaded through the stuttering recalls of Logan's own nightmares. He'd assumed, until now, that they were more of those dark memories courtesy of Weapon X. He hadn't realised whose eyes he had been looking through, or at whose body.
No, he signs, automatically, as his tail sets down his drink on the bar and he takes a step closer to gather Wes' fingers briefly between his own, then touches his chin, encouraging his gaze back up.
And he doesn't know what you did, he guesses, though it's scarcely a guess given the conflicting accounts.
no subject
It's more kindness than he knows what to do with, and he feels the lump forming in his throat around his shame and his hopelessness. Wes tries to swallow, but makes a strangled sound instead as he tries to find his breath again amid so much pressure in his chest. He knows, he insists, though even that feels like much too little too late. I told him as he was leaving. I wanted to explain that the nightmares are my fault. He called me Wrench, said he doesn't know me. It still stings to admit, and he imagines that Logan knows that better than anything. That the man's firm dismissal and insistence that he is someone beyond recognition is the sharpest knife.
no subject
Logan is sensitive about being lied to like that, he offers, almost hesitant in offering up another man's secrets, but wanting to explain and perhaps take some of the sting out of those recent wounds. Though you didn't mean it like that, that will be how he sees it. He has been used many times. Had his mind broken and turned into a weapon many times. When he thinks it's happened again.. it's hard for him to react rationally.
He lets out a breath, searching Wes' face, his hands open and reaching when he's not signing. Sweetheart, he says again, I love you. He loves you. Give him time. You both need time to heal this trauma.