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Kurt had to hold it in. He knew he couldn’t break down in front of his friends when they were having such a nice time, but he had to give them the news. News that would certainly ruin the night and Peter would title him Dogpiss of the Day.
He bit his lip as he remembered what all happened just a few hours earlier.
***
“Kurt, I know this is frightening to you, but this is mandatory. Being apart of the X-men means risking your life for not only mutants but humans alike,” Charles Xavier tried to explain the good of the mission he was being sent on. Alone.
“I know you’re scared. It’s a dangerous mission and we may not be able to contact you throughout most of it, but-“
“Then how will you know if I’m dead or not?! I- who will I call out to if I’m captured and tortured? Professor, please. Send somebody with me. I don’t think I can do this,” Kurt said, out of breath and on the verge of a panic attack, walking slowly backwards out of the Professor’s office.
“Calm down, Kurt. The chances of that happening are very slim.”
“Oh please, Charles,” Erik Lehnsherr scoffed. “If you’re going to send the boy on this mission you might as well be honest. We all know, Kurt especially, that he may die, or worse be experimented on,” Erik crossed the room and put his hand on Kurt’s shoulder, feeling the boy tremble under him.
“I’m so sorry, Kurt,” he whispered sincerely, his lips creasing together.
“Herr Lehnsherr,” Kurt whispered back, holding his own hands so they wouldn’t shake as much. “Ich habe angst,” he admitted. Erik squeezed his shoulder again.
“Go out with your friends tonight, okay? Talk with Raven, too,” he paused and said, “just try to have fun tonight.”
***
Kurt bit his lip and snapped back to reality when Scott began snapping in his face.
“Earth to Kurt. Hello? You there?” He asked, laughing as he did so.
“Yeah.. yeah I’m okay,” Kurt inwardly winced, knowing that’s not what Scott asked.
“Well, in case you didn’t hear, all of us are going bar hopping and hopefully don’t get kicked out. Fake IDs, yeah know?”
The German nodded, in a daze.
I really won’t be able to tell them. They won’t even know. After tonight… I may never see my friends again.
“Go have fun,” Kurt whispered, putting on a fake smile, not wanting to ruin the mood. The group of mutants left, including Jean, Jubilee, Ororo, Scott, and Peter, and Kurt stood up and walked over towards the couch, not caring that other younger students were there, playing games or watching TV.
Curling up, Kurt held a pillow close to his chest and desperately held in a sob. He couldn’t let it out. Not right now. The reason he didn’t want to go to his room and cry the night away is because he wanted to be near people he knew he was safe with and in a loving environment, not a cold, dark, messy room full of swords and German and Russian poetry.
His tail wrapped itself around his waist as he held the pillow closer to his face and shut his eyes tightly. Kurt could feel the tears coming as his body trembled with fear and emotion.
“What the hell, Crawler?” Kurt heard from his right. Looking up with watery eyes, he saw Warren standing from the other side of the couch, eyebrow cocked.
“I’m sorry,” Kurt whispered, quickly wiping his eyes to disperse of any tears that were threatening to fall at that given moment. “I-I’ll leave,” he said as he began to get up.
“What? You fail another English test?” Warren huffed as he plopped down on the couch, his left wing closed and closer to his body and his right wing freely spread across the couch.
Kurt turned around and shook his head, wiping his red eyes again, although it proved fruitless seeing as more tears took its place.
“I have a mission.”
It spilled out of Kurt before he could even stop himself. Warren sat up straighter, intrigued.
“Oh?”
Kurt nodded, hugging himself and trying to keep himself from shaking.
“You wanna…” Warren looked harshly at some of the kids who hadn’t fled the room as soon as he arrived, and the picked up their toys and games and walked out. “You need to talk about it?” Warren asked more quietly, sounding uncomfortable even though it was he who asked.
Kurt didnt know what to think of this. Warren? Asking if Kurt needed to talk?
“I don’t want to ruin your night,” Kurt said truthfully.
“Well, it looks like you’re going to shatter at moment’s notice, so take the offer or leave it. I’m not asking again.” There he was. The Warren Kurt knew. Not sitting down, Kurt began.
“I’m being sent on a mission to Syria. A place not only dangerous to humans but to mutants also…” Kurt looked away, trying to focus on something, anything, so he didn’t cry while he told his story.
“There’s a group of Russians inside Syria, working with a terrorist group, trying to build a weapon of some sort… a gas… to disperse into the air and kill every person with a mutation,” Kurt bit his lip and closed his eyes, not caring how he looked in front of Warren.
“Warren, blue eyes are a mutation. They’re going to kill almost every person on earth. The Professor and Herr Lehnsherr thinks it’s best if I go because of my mutation, the watch I have to hide my mutation, and because my father used to work with those Russians when they were pro-mutant,” Kurt continued, looking up at Warren who seemed to be listening carefully.
“There have been reports of people trying to stop this… organization. They haven’t come back alive. Some came back, sure, but… some had been completely skinned. Some had missing eyes, fingers… the people they have let live- they cut away their mutation with scissors and a scalpel.”
“Jesus Christ…” Warren whispered, his left wing hugging himself slightly.
“If I’m caught, they will most likely try to cut me and torture me… but I will likely bleed out or die of pain before they can finish,” Kurt’s voice wavered as he finished. “They want me to go alone because they don’t want more than one x-man dead from this mission,” he whispered.
Warren stood up and walked to Kurt.
“Isn’t that, like…” he didn’t finish his sentence.
“It’s what the Professor thinks is right. He says I’m their best bet for getting rid of these awful people,” Kurt looked up at Warren, tears threatening to fall down his face.
“I’m scared, Warren. I’m really scared,” he whispered, blinking, and tears began to fall for the first time that evening. What Warren did next surprised him even more than if the angel would have slapped him and told him to man up: he hugged him. Tight.
The embrace broke Kurt and he let out the sob he so desperately needed to. He let Warren hold him as his body racked with tears.
“I’m scared,” he sobbed, not knowing if the other could even understand him. “I don’t want to die, Engel. I don’t wanna die!”
“Shh,” Worthington hushed him, holding him close. Kurt couldn’t tell how long the two of them stood in the lounge, Kurt sobbing and Warren holding him, he just knew that by the time they stopped, his tears had run dry.
“There is so much I haven’t done, Engel,” Kurt said quietly, sitting on the couch next to Warren.
“Like what?” The angel turned to look at Kurt. The elf paused.
“Wait here.”
When Kurt returned, he was carrying a small notebook in hand. It was labeled ‘To Do Notebook’.
Warren smirked as he took it from Kurt and opened it up, seeing the first few pages were filled up and each bullet point had already been crossed out, such as “eat popcorn” and “go to a movie” and “drink coca-cola”. The angel flipped to the fourth page and saw bullet points that hadn’t been crossed out.
* Eat spaghetti
* Watch a horror film
* Go to a dance
* Forgive
* Have first kiss
* Spend the night under stars
* Learn French
* Drink with friends
* Become friends with Warren
* Go to a club
Warren’s smirk faded as he read over a few of the bullet points and realized how little Kurt has done in his lifetime.
“Forgive who?” Warren asked as he flipped the page and saw ‘roller skate’ at the top of the page.
“My parents,” Kurt said simply, not explaining. There was silence before Warren closed the book and stood up and walked towards the kitchen. He turned on the light and looked over at Kurt and asked, “you coming?”
Walking to the kitchen, Kurt sat on a stool.
“What are you doing?”
“First things first, you tell nobody I can cook. You got that?” Warren turned back to look at Kurt. He nodded fervently, looking curiously at Warren and what he was planning.
“Secondly, if you might die within the next week, I’m not gonna let you die without eating some bombass spaghetti,” he said, taking out some pasta out of the cabinet.
“Really?” The German asked, excitedly.
“Really,” Warren nodded, grabbing more supplies and pouring water into a pan with the intent of boiling it.
“Third, repeat after me and don’t fuckin’ question me. Je m’appelle,” Warren began.
“Je m’appelle,” Kurt repeated, knowing exactly what Warren was doing. He was crossing things off of his To Do List before Kurt inevitably dies on his upcoming mission.
“Then you say your name,” Warren informed, breaking the noodles so they would fit in the pan.
“Je m’appelle Kurt.”
“And now you know French,” Warren ran his hand through his curly, blond hair and smiled fondly.
“Je m’appelle Kurt.”
“Yeah, don’t wear it out.”
***
By the time the spaghetti was cooked and served on two plates and the sauce had been poured on said noodles, Kurt had learned several other French phrases and happily crossed two bullet points off his notebook.
“You can mark the one about me off too. Fuckin ridiculous,” he muttered.
“Are we friends?” Kurt looked up from his spaghetti with sauce covering his mouth.
“Strangers don’t fix each other spaghetti at 11 PM. Wipe your mouth,” Warren said, gesturing to Kurt’s napkin. Kurt picked it up and wiped the sauce off his face, slightly embarrassed.
“It’s fine,” Warren said after Kurt’s apology. “‘S a messy food if you haven’t eaten it before.” Kurt nodded.
“What’s next?”
“Oh.. um, watch a horror film,” Kurt said, reading off his list.
“Save that for later. After that?”
“A dance.”
Warren nodded and asked what was next. Kurt paused.
“A night under the stars,” he said, skipping ‘forgive’ and ‘kiss’.
“Easy,” He said, standing up and putting his plate in the sink along with Kurt’s. “Grab some blankets from the couches and a few pillows and meet me on the roof,” Warren instructed. Kurt did exactly what Warren told him to and eagerly so. When Kurt bamfed to the roof, Warren wasn’t there yet, so Kurt began to put the pillows on the ground to protect their butts from the hard concrete.
Warren flew up a few minutes later with something in hand that Kurt couldn’t quite make out until he was closer. An MP3 player with a pair of earbuds.
“Good, you got them,” Warren sighed, landing on the roof softly and walking over towards Kurt.
“Put this earbud in,” the angel instructed, handing Kurt the left earbud and hoped the shape of the elf’s ear was more normal on the inside than it was on the outside.
The two of them stood rather close as Warren out in the right earbud and picked some music.
“It’s not one of their well known songs, but it’s an absolute banger,” Warren smiled slightly as the tune came in.
“What is it?” Kurt asked quietly, as if not wanting to disrupt the beautiful singing.
“The Prophet’s Song by Queen. Shut up and listen to the words,” Warren whispered back, holding the MP3 player tightly in his palm.
“It’s… beautiful,” Kurt said 2 minutes in. “I don’t understand it, but I do.”
Warren nodded and chuckled, “That’s most of their songs.” He picked another song and smiled. “You know this one.”
Kurt smiled too when he heard the familiar tune. It was Warren who actually introduced the song to him. It was a bit of a joke to them too.
They were having one of the biggest verbal fights they’d ever had and Killer Queen was playing in the background of the Training Room. Kurt came back to Warren later and meekly asked what song was playing because he liked it.
“Here,” Warren whispered, taking Kurt’s hand and Kurt nearly pulled away, shocked by the action. Kurt’s hand was placed on Warren’s shoulder as Warren’s other hand was on the teleporter’s hip.
Drop of a hat
She’s as willing as
Playful as a pussy cat
Then momentarily out of action
Temporary out of gas
The two of them began to slowly sway to the music as Freddie Mercury sang his wonderful vocals. Kurt made the mistake of looking up at Warren and his heart began to rapidly beat.
Warren’s blond curls shown under the moonlight and his skin seemed as porcelain as a doll’s, but Kurt knew better. He knew that under Warren’s shirt was a scarred boy from years of fighting and defending himself not only in the cage but in the streets too.
“Why do your eyes change color?” Warren mumbled, not wanting to disrupt the song.
“I don’t know,” Kurt admitted truthfully. “Red is for anger. Yellow is normal… sometimes they’re black.” Warren nodded, understanding a little, but not quite.
Killer Queen ended and the next one on Warren’s playlist was Somebody to Love. Kurt laughed when Warren spun him and pulled him close.
Oh somebody
Ooh somebody
Can anybody find me
Somebody to Love?
The pair were close now, closer than they’d ever been before, even when they grabbed their shirts when they fought.
“If I kiss you right now…” Warren started.
“Please,” Kurt interrupted, and blushed purple when he realized what he had said. Before he could apologize, Warren dipped his head down and took Kurt’s lips into his own.
The kiss was warm despite the cool night breeze making Kurt shiver.
The kiss lasted four seconds. Four seconds of bliss and happiness. Happiness that Kurt would remember when he was being tortured to death.
“That a good first kiss for you?” Kurt nodded, unable to speak. He wanted more but he knew somebody like him shouldn’t ask for more than he received. It would be considered selfish.
“You gonna talk?” Warren raises an eyebrow.
“Yes,” Kurt quickly responded. “Sorry… I-,” Kurt shook his head but continued to hold on tightly to Warren.
“Hey,” Warren quietly, turning off the music and tossing the MP3 player on the bundle of blankets and pillows. “Look at me.”
Kurt looked up and suddenly felt very sad.
“What’s wrong?” Warren saw right through him. How? Kurt couldn’t tell you.
“I don’t want this to end,” Kurt told truthfully. “Ever. I don’t know why you are doing this, whether it be pity or whatever, but I really like it. I think I like you, which doesn’t make sense because you’re a boy and you also hate me, I think. And, I look like this and I’m going to die this week and I just like you,” Kurt knew he wasn’t making sense and that he was also going to cry again.
“Kurt, calm down,” Warren held onto Kurt’s arms, trying to keep the other from not having an anxiety attack.
“It doesn’t have… to end?” Warren offered but Kurt gave him a face. Warren sighed. “Why do you have to go?” he whispered. “Why can’t you say no?”
Kurt looked down.
“Because if I don’t, that means somebody else will have to go, and somebody else will have to die because I’m too selfish and too scared to go.”
Warren shook his head and held Kurt tight in a hug, Kurt snaking his arms around the angel as well.
“Thank you, Warren,” Kurt sighed. He should be contempt with this… he was contempt. He would make sure to thank Warren again when he was being skinned alive by anti-mutant Russians.