notannie | (no subject)

Entry tags:

kurt darkholme,
psl

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It's not uncommon that Ani drops in on Darkholme--he's long since given up trying to make the man answer to his given name--without much or anything in the way of forewarning.

The ability to instantaneously be where you want to be rather precludes that, and the divine mandate to look after someone who doesn't want looking after means it's usually to the better if he gives as few clues as possible to a visit. This time isn't much different, and Ani folds his wings back tightly to make it through the doorway, eyes landing on the familiar face obscured by a bottle rim.

"You're going to kill more brain cells than you can really afford with that, you know," he says. "And gluttony is still a sin."

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"I know," Ani sighs, lifting a hand slowly to brush the backs of his fingers over Kurt's cheek. His skin still breaks out in goosebumps, no matter how small the touch is. "She knows."

He doesn't say that Kurt's wife wouldn't want him to drink himself to death; the wishes of the dead are not his purview, and even if they were the platitude rarely helps the living. "I'm so sorry."

For all that Kurt takes great care to avoid touching the celestial being in anything approaching tenderness, when Aniel's fingers brush across the fur of his cheek he leans into the touch, rather than jerking away. He quite literally can't help it; he's always been physically affectionate by nature, and regardless of how much he hates it something in him feels drawn to the angel, like Linda's sunflowers to the light.

"She can't know anything, she's dead," he chokes out, forcing his eyes shut before the tears in them spill out. His shoulders hunch in, as does his spine, as though he might actually curl into a ball. "They're all dead, so let me drink in peace won't you?"

"She knows," he repeats, wings carefully and slowly enfolding them both in twilight darkness, light filtering in between the feathers.

"You know I won't, because they're all dead. You don't need to be alone with all of that." He wants to be, Ani is almost sure of it, but he doesn't want to see Darkholme hurt himself even if the comfort of despair would take over. The learning curve to adapt to this world is hard, and Ani wishes it weren't, but it is. "It won't make bring them back."

"You know I don't believe in that shit." It seems too cruel, to deny the dead their peace by forcing them to live again. They've all fought so long for their final reward to be separated in death, even if that means ceasing to exist altogether.

Despite his very real and desperate desire to pull himself back together and force the angel to leave, when Aniel folds his wings around them both Kurt finds his muscles starting to relax, a tear slipping out from his lashes. "Aniel, stop. I don't want--" 'I don't want to feel this, I'll break.'

"I won't let you break," he murmurs, not touching any more than the brush of fingers and the enfolding of his wings.

"You don't have to hold yourself so stiff, Kurt. I'll pick you up when you fall."

Another tear, followed by another, and Kurt realizes he's begun to shake. "I can't," he whispers, switching thoughtlessly to his native tongue. The angel's never seemed to have difficulty parsing it before, and his second language feels too clunky for this conversation.

"I have to--I'm the last of us, last to remember. I can't fall apart, Aniel." Which means fighting the urge to lean into the angel and take comfort in the feeling of a warm body against his, of wings and arms that he knows offer peace and security. In his mind is all that's left of his world, and that's too precious to risk losing to madness.

Ani sighs, and breathes slowly, hoping to impart some measure of calm to the man nearly trembling in front of him. "You won't forget, Kurt. You'll always remember them, as terrible as it is. If you stumble I'll catch you."

It's that promise which breaks him. Nightcrawler is a thing of darkness, vengeance and bloody justice. But he's never been alone, even in another dimension. The X-Men were there for each other even in their darkest hours. They ~~Bobby~~ held him together after the death of his wife, closing rank to let him grieve, to give purpose to the pain that would’ve consumed him.

Now they’re gone, and Aniel is making the same promise. As much as Kurt despises what he is and represents, the angel has never broken a promise.

Kurt abruptly leans forward, forehead thumping into Aniel’s chest. The sound that comes out isn’t weeping; it’s a pained whine, the sound of a wretched animal somehow clinging to life despite a fatal wound. One of his hands comes up to grasp at the angel’s arm; the other wrapping around himself as though supporting a gut wound.

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