Chapter Text
Surely it wasn't that bad.
So he had horns. So he couldn't seem to cut his nails enough to keep them from becoming claws. So his tail was sprouting spikes that hindered its dexterity and were also, frankly, pretty uncomfortable.
He was still himself. He'd lived with the appearance of a demon his whole life, and had only had a hundred nightmares about waking up with horns. Really it wasn't as bad as it was in the dreams. He could deal with it.
No one else was concerned - so why should he be?
He just wished he knew why.
Was it simply the natural progression of his mutation? Something to do with binding himself to Azazel? Genetic fiddling from Sinister? A disease spreading through Krakoan mutants? Or something else? Punishment for challenging God and attempting to throw off death?
He never expected his mother to be involved. Even after everything else Margali had done, this betrayal still hurt. How could a mother do such a thing? was a question he'd asked himself his whole life, and still didn't have an answer.
That wasn't even the worst part of it though. Neither were the horns.
The worst part was becoming something else - appearances, he knew, were nothing, you could look like a monster and still be a man, an inherently good person - but when the hunger started, when running children looked like the quick dart of prey, he knew that he really was becoming a monster.
So he did the only thing he could. He shut himself off from everyone else, everyone he could hurt. Krakoa made his tower almost impenetrable, and maybe that was for good reason. Maybe it wasn't to keep others out, but him in.
*
"I remember when you used to ground me." TJ appeared on the ledge at the top of the tower where Kurt perched, watching all of Krakoa crawl by down below. The pink flash of light that accompanied her was a sure sign of Blink's teleportation powers. "Other you. I never thought I would see you ground yourself."
Kurt didn't really feel like bantering. He didn't really feel like seeing TJ or anyone else while looking like this...he'd thought he could be okay with the horns if there was nothing he could do about them, but it had finally gotten under his skin. He looked like a demon. He didn't want her to see it.
"I'm going to be honest," TJ said after a long moment of pensive silence, "this kinda freaks me out."
"You shouldn't be here. I don't want you around me when I'm like this..." Kurt shook his head, looking away, the knot in his chest cinching tighter. Roughly, he said, "It freaks me out too, Liebling."
"You're not going to hurt me," TJ said with perfect sincerity and trust, plopping down on the ledge beside him. "You're still my dad. I'm worried about you, not myself."
"But I'm not your dad, TJ. That has never been more apparent. Can you really look at me and see him?" His voice spiked up a few octaves, and he sounded angry - was that a growl in his voice? - but he was frustrated with himself, with all this, not her. "I want you to go back down there and leave me alone, Talia. I don't want you to catch whatever this is."
"Do you know how many viruses I've been exposed to? I have cooties from like, a thousand different universes. I'm probably immune." She put her hand on his arm where it was still covered in fur instead of spikes, tilting her head thoughtfully. "Actually that might be true. I don't ever get sick anymore. Huh. I've never really thought about that."
Kurt smiled despite himself - TJ always took everything in stride - but his amusement was brief. It could do little to combat the monster inside him; the hunger for blood was not loud, but it was ever present. "I'm afraid it will only get worse. I'm not sure...there's anything that can be done for me."
"Oh my god, don't be so fucking fatalistic." TJ threw up her hands in exasperation. "You're not a monster. You're not going to lock yourself up in your ivory tower of martyrdom. You're not going to lose your humanity - because I won't let you."
"Then what am I going to do?"
"You're going to go see mom."
*
TJ made Kurt go alone.
I'll be here when you get back, she said, I've got a date tonight. He wasn't sure if that were true, or if she was still trying to set him and Wanda up, or if she just knew that he didn't want her to come. He still didn't want her to see him like this - having her here in his universe, having family again after the obligations of Krakoa broke up the X-Men, was more important to him that anything else.
Finding Wanda was easy.
Her door simply appeared when he decided he needed it, and he stepped through into a small, unassuming shop full of books and comfortable furniture. There was no one at the desk, but a small bell chimed when he came in, a sound that carried much farther than the deceptively small space in which he stood.
Wanda came down the stairs a moment later, dressed in a light sweater and jeans, her dark curly hair loose around her shoulders.
"Kurt! TJ told me you would be coming to see me." She smiled when she saw him, and her expression when she saw the horns and spikes was openly concerned but not horrified, not pitying. "And look at you - what happened? TJ told me the basics but she didn't really get into it."
She didn't shy away from him or his new mutations any more than a doctor would shy away from the sight of a bone sticking out of his arm. Her cool hands very lightly touched the spikes on his shoulders, brushing his hair back from his horns, her touch soothing in a way that had to be magical. He could feel the hunger retreating until he felt more like himself.
"I don't really want to talk about it." When he said this she pursed her lips slightly, but didn't push. He added, looking around her shop, "I don't know what I expected, but this is nice. It suits you."
"I like helping the lost more than fighting them," she brushed her hair back from her face, brows pinching as she conjured up a series of glowing red symbols around Kurt, "which I still do, but it's nice to do something more constructive." She bit her lip as the symbols glowed and changed, some of them flaring up while others died out. "Well then, that is a nasty one."
"Nasty what? Curse?"
"It's more complicated than just any curse, but yes, for simplicity's sake."
Relief poured through Kurt. It wasn't him. It wasn't a part of who he was, it wasn't something he would have to live with until it consumed him. It was something done to him - and as much as he hated being the victim of anything, it was still a relief.
"Here, sit down," Wanda said, clearly seeing the sag of Kurt's shoulders, and suddenly there was a comfortable wing-backed chair beneath him. He felt dizzy. And she hadn't even done anything yet.
"Can you fix it?" He swallowed down the hope welling up inside him. He didn't yet know that anything could be done.
"I believe it can be reversed, yes," her hand rested on the arm of his chair as she knelt beside it, the scarlet glow of her magic still surrounding them both, "but I can't simply fix it. This will require something on your part as well."
Of course it wouldn't be so simple, but whatever he had to do he would, up to and including giving his own blood just to be free of this.
He was glad TJ made him come here, and he was also glad knowing that her mother, the Scarlet Witch of her world, was a good mother to her. She wouldn't abandon or curse or willfully harm her child.
"Wanda...I think that maybe..." Kurt hung his head, trying to breathe past the tight fist of his ribs and the hoarse feeling in his throat. "I'm lost. I think I've been lost a long time."
"I know." She put her hand over his and gently squeezed his long clawed fingers. "But we're going to get you back."