Chapter 3

Landing in a crouch across the lake, Kurt felt his knees buckle and he sank to the grass. There was blood all over his hands, and he resisted the urge to retch. Quickly, he flipped his inducer back on, hiding his demonic appearance underneath a cloud of coloured pixels. Or whatever it was that made him look normal. Hadn’t dared ask how it worked, really. That could make the magic stop.

“Todd, Todd, bitte...oh, Gott, lieb.” What he wanted to do was sit down and sob, howl his horrified misery to the sky. Couldn’t do it. Had things to do. Otherwise, if Todd died, it would be partially his fault. Eyes burning with tears he didn’t have the time to let fall, he sacrificed his shirt and jumper to make a pad and bandage for Todd’s torso, wrapping the deep wounds as best as he could. Trying to put some pressure on it, stop the bleeding. Had to get him to the mansion, to McCoy. There wasn’t really any other choice. There wasn’t a hospital that would take him. “Festhalten, lieb. Bitte.”

Gott, hilf uns.

Picked him up again, cradled in his arms like a child and he felt so dizzy, like he was about to fall. The pad of his jumper was sodden already, maroon with blood and Todd looked so white. Teleportation helped cut the distance, the time, and for the rest of it, he ran. Whether he was seen or not was not in his mind; what would happen if he didn’t get Todd to medical treatment was. He could feel his lungs burning, muscles already aching, but he didn’t dare stop for a moment to catch his breath. No time to waste.

“Doktor McCoy!” Blood, so much of it he was almost sliding on it as he opened the front door with his shoulder, feeling frenzied. About to lose it. Copper scent so thick in the air he could almost taste it on the back of his throat. Like licking a penny. Metal and salt, covering his skin and dripping down his arms. Wide eyed with the dreadful numbing horror that was spreading through his soul, he bolted for the elevator downstairs to the medical lab. “McCoy!”

Maybe Todd was already dead.

Nein.

“McCoy!”

Skidded on wood paneling, brushed past a person he didn’t even really see and slapped the button for the lift. Blood was dripping warm and wet down his arms, across his fur and clotting in it like syrup. All he could hear in his ears was his own hoarse breathing, ragged pants of fear and exhaustion. So tired. Couldn’t rest. Had to get Todd to the doctor, immediately. It was at times like this that he wished his power was stronger, better. If it had been – if he had been – better, he could have brought Todd here right away. One step through and he would have been close to help. He had taken so much time to get here, with his lover’s life bleeding out through his hands, but he couldn’t have helped it. There was nothing he could have done. It didn’t make him feel any better.

Leaning against the wall after he’d smashed the button, almost swaying as his tail lashed around his feet, he watched anxiously for the elevator. Had to get Todd down there, to the doctor. Oh Gott, please let him be down there, waiting. Doing something. Please. Let it not be one of the rare days where he chose to get some air and move out from his comfortable lair of science and medicine.

“Nicht Berühren!” Hand on his arm, hand on his arm! Someone was trying to stop him. Didn’t they see that the doors were opening and he had to go? They were not the doctor and he couldn’t care less. Todd was bleeding and dying, and they wanted to talk? No, he would not waste time like that. No.

“Kurt!”

Useless, useless noise. Kurt wrenched himself away from the hand on his shoulder, golden eyes staring wide and fur wet with blood and sweat. The limp knock of a trailing white hand against his hip nearly made him lose it completely, more so then he had already. He could feel the howl building in the back of his throat, burning and twisting like something that had its own life as he stepped into the lift, half turning to see who it was behind him. Blond hair, blue eyes, country charm. One of the new mutants. What was his name? Sam. Yes. That was right. He slid in before the doors closed; pressing the button for the medlab level which Kurt was thankful for. He wasn’t sure if he could concentrate enough to hit the right one.

Blood, Gott, there was blood everywhere. So warm and wet.

“Könnten Sie mir bitte helfen...”

English, he should speak English. But he couldn’t. Speaking English required concentration, more then he could spare.

“God almighty, what the hell did this?” Sam’s hands pressed the pad of bloody cloth in harder against the wound and Todd moaned, the first sound he’d heard from him since Creed had ripped him open. Kurt’s heart stuttered a beat, and he just stared dumbly at the boy who was helping him. It was too hard to think through the all consuming panic, but he was fighting it so that he could actually help instead of being a hindrance. His ears were buzzing so he could barely hear Sam’s murmured Southern drawl, too focused on the ragged sound of Todd’s breathing. Laboured, broken breathing. He was dying, or maybe he was dead. No, he was still breathing. Still alive.

The doors slid open, and the clinical hallway was empty. Kurt ran, ignoring Sam as he tried to catch up. He would have dropped to all fours, which he was faster at running in because of the way his legs bent, but then he would have had to drop Todd. Which would have made the point of running faster moot. The terrified thundering gallop of his own heartbeat was so loud he couldn’t hear anything over it.

“McCoy!”

Everything seemed to happen in a blur after that, once the doctor had opened his door, foregone asking questions and taken Todd out of his arms. Kurt sat in a chair in the medlabs, still covered in blood and feeling incapable of moving. Shivered occasionally, and ignored the people who came to try and talk to him. Somewhere he was vaguely aware of their presence, but the only thing he was truly concerned with at the moment was the door to the operating theatre area.

It was a good thing that the professor had provided these things for his school. It was a bad thing that they’d ever been needed.

Tucking his knees up underneath his chin, Kurt stared at the door behind which the doctor had disappeared. Carrying Todd. He wasn’t sure when he had begun to care this much. This much. It was almost unbelievable that he could care this much for someone who he had had a violent dislike for from the start. They had gotten past their conceptions of each other, to find something like comfort, safety in each other’s arms. It wasn’t anything he had truly felt before, and he had been too ashamed and frightened to admit it to anyone. It was out now, so completely flushed into the open that he didn’t know how he was going to answer the inevitable questions.

Why Todd? Why the Toad of all people?

He didn’t know himself.

Burying his head in his folded arms, Kurt sobbed brokenly once before he wept, not caring who could see him. Prayed, almost wordless. Just pleas directed to the divine, hoping against hope that he’d been fast enough. That the doctor was good enough,

Todd had to be alive. Otherwise he had failed.

Sam settled into a chair next to the blue mutant, folding his arms and crossing his feet at the ankles as he stretched his legs out. He’d wait with him. It was hard to be the only one waiting at a hospital for some sort of news on a loved one. At least when his Daddy had gone into the hospital, he’d had the whole family behind him and with him in grief. Here, Kurt didn’t seem to have anybody. Or at least not family. Family was important in the hurting times, it gave you something to lean on and know it would not be moved.

Friends could help some, but it wasn’t the same as family. And maybe he and Kurt hadn’t exactly been bosom buddies, but he’d stand by him all the same. After all, he was somewhat in the same boat himself. He was doing his own spot of thanking, guilty as it was, that it wasn’t his lover in the white room behind the silent door. He knew what it was to keep something that important a secret from everybody, and he was still doing that.

Maybe he should get in touch with Pietro when he found out how the boy was doing. He’d have to care, wouldn’t he? It was his team mate. Yet as much as he adored the white haired speedster, he wasn’t blind to his inherent selfishness. Maybe it’d be better to try and get in touch with the dark haired boy...Lance? Yeah, it was Lance. He seemed to be the team leader, or at least care. Brotherhood...heh. If they didn’t care for each other, he didn’t see how they could call themselves that without busting a gut from laughing at the stupidity of the name.

Maybe they did. Maybe it was just something that somebody on the outside wouldn’t understand.

Torn from his thoughts as the door to the outside opened, he looked up at Cyclops, who seemed about to say something. Probably something to Kurt, who was still wailing in this quiet little way that sounded like he was dying or his heart was breaking. Which was probably true. The Southern boy shook his head quickly, and held a finger to his lips before getting up from the chair and going to join the older teen in the hallway.

“What’s going on?” Scott asked in a no nonsense fashion.

“I’m not sure,” Sam admitted easily. “Kurt came running in like the hounds were after him, carrying that Tolensky guy like he weighed nothing and yelling for the doctor.” Looking up the hallway to the elevator, he could see the spots of blood that had dripped down onto the ground as Kurt ran. There must be a sizeable puddle in the lift itself. “Look, if you’ve got anything to say to Kurt, it can wait until after he knows his boy is going to live.”

“His what?”

Sam stared at Scott with wide open eyes, projecting stupidity and innocence. It was amazing how many people believed it when he did that. Southern didn’t mean stupid, but so many people were willing to believe that it did. Being blond probably didn’t help. “His boy. You know, like Jean is your girl? But Tolensky’s Kurt’s boy. You mean you didn’t know?” Seemed to fluster him a little bit before what Sam had come to tag the Leader look slammed down behind the ruby shades.

“He didn’t tell anyone.”

“Look, I can guarantee you that at the moment, he ain’t listening to nobody. He’s waiting for the door to open and the doc to tell him that everything’s gonna be alright. I’m going back in to sit a spell with him. He’d probably like it if y’all did a bit as well.”

Scott nodded slowly, and pushed his fringe back from his eyes. “Alright. I better get upstairs before Rogue destroys somebody because she doesn’t know what’s going on. I’ll make sure somebody’s always with him.” He turned to go, back straight and Sam smiled in relief before ducking back into the medlabs waiting area.

Seems like Summers could understand human feelings after all. He’d had a few moments where he’d wondered, in the time he’d known him. Settling back down into the chair, he watched the door as the droning keen of Kurt’s anguish kept on sounding. He didn’t mind it. When someone else came down, he’d let them take over for a bit while he got word off to the Brotherhood that one of their own was down, but was being take care of by the X-Men.

This was going to set the cat among the pigeons and no mistake. Be interesting to see how it all turned out. Maybe it would wind up being a good thing for both of the teams. If Tolensky lived.

Read? Review!

Home