Not Less Than Everything
Chapter 2
by
Rex Luscus
DISCLAIMER: All poetry belongs to the estate of T.S. Eliot. Wolverine, Nightcrawler and the X-Men belong to Marvel Enterprises, Inc. Duh.
ARCHIVING: Just ask.
NOTES: A big, sloppy thank you to Lorelei and Dark Hedgehog for all their help with this monster. I'm serious when I say it wouldn't have happened without you. You guys are the shit. < G >
Oh, and thanks to Graham Greene. I think this story is some sort of homage to him, though I didn't realize that as I was writing it.
It was three in the morning. The deep silence of the mansion breathed around me as I slid out of bed and pulled on the jeans I'd left lying on the floor. Walking quietly down the halls, I listened to the resting bodies of everyone asleep in their beds - breathing, heartbeats, digestive systems, all sluggish, fluid pulsing, forward and back like a tide. Outside on the patio the sounds were different, farther away, and the crisp, night-heavy air woke me up further.
I let deep lungfuls of air wash me out and realign me like they'd taught me in Japan. Then I tried to be still, hands braced on the marble railing, body balancing lightly in the dark, focusing eyes on the gray nothing of the lawn below. Nothing but breathe in, breathe out. Trying to empty my head of all thoughts.
But the animal wasn't having any of it tonight. The animal that always has to resist and oppose, always bares its teeth for a fight instead of following the flow of things - years of training in Japanese martial and meditative arts had only taught me how to lull him to sleep. On nights when he was restless, when nothing could coax him into peace - well, there was nothing I could do.
I stared into the dark lawn, trying to lose myself in its featurelessness. But that stopped working as soon as my eyes adjusted to the dark, revealing painful amounts of detail in the grass. My sharp senses are part of the animal, too; they keep him awake and aware. Sometimes I wish I were blind, deaf and fumbling like other folks. It would certainly make it easier to sleep. And sure enough, under the surface of the still night, like stars appearing one by one as the dusk fades, all of the night's little noises emerged - insects scraping and burrowing in the grass, dry leaves rattling in the gutters, even the sound of the highway miles off. No peace. There's never any peace.
Then something broke the menace of all that twittering and rattling - the glass door behind me sliding open and then shut. I relaxed a little as a familiar scent drifted over to me - Kurt, sleep-warmed, fur and flannel. He must've known somehow that I was up. He'd be concerned, wanting to talk. I started to tense up all over again as I realized I'd now have to deflect Kurt's worrying. Sometimes you just don't want to explain yourself. Kurt is always begging me to tell him what's wrong - but what's the use of it? I want to ask him. You won't be able to help.
But for some reason, I didn't get the third degree tonight. He came up quietly behind me, since I'd decided not to turn around and greet him. And without saying a word, he came all the way up to me and pressed himself against my back, his slender arms curling around me, his sharp chin coming to rest on my shoulder.
I froze - it was weirdly intimate, and though we were close, we weren't *that* close. But it was the middle of the night, beyond the middle of the night really, and a body doesn't have much use for inhibitions at that hour. What was the truth: yourself in the daylight, when everyone's looking at you and you've got to put your best foot forward, or yourself in the dark, when there's no one to hide from? Funny thing: Kurt and I - him with his night vision and me with my nose - are both impossible to hide from in the dark.
So I tried to relax. He certainly had. Unlike me, Kurt's never had to struggle much to follow the flow. Showing him that stuff was some of the best teaching hours I ever spent; he took to it like a fish to water, so to speak. He was even doing it now - molding his body to fit against mine, answering all my tensions with soothing replies. Somehow, him pressed up against me like that muffled the noise of my overworked senses, took the edge off my dangerous mood. I pressed back into his warmth and he squeezed tighter, sighing softly and nuzzling his face into the crook of my neck. I felt his lips touch my skin, not in a kiss exactly, just resting there, affirming his presence.
A tremor ran through my insides. Something in me woke up, and it wasn't the animal. I had a flash of a memory - some night not unlike this one, playing our old, lethal version of hide and seek. I had him pinned to the ground - he'd made a wrong move again and I'd caught him. We were both laughing, both breathing hard. His scent and heat surrounded me, and maybe I was just keyed up from the chase but it suddenly felt like my heart was pounding for another reason, and his too. I buried my face in his hair and pressed our bodies together. We were both aroused, I realized, and the shock of it rushed through my limbs. For a while we both just lay there, frozen stiff, too scared to move. Then we pulled apart, laughed it off, went inside like nothing had happened.
The memory came back to me unlooked for, and I wondered how long this thing had lain under the surface, and us just too stupid to see it.
"Couldn't sleep either, huh?" I joked softly, my voice sounding hoarse and unused.
"Mmm...nein."
I kept waiting for him to explain himself. Had he known I was up, or did he have his own problems? Wasn't he going to ask me anything, try to make me confess to all my frailties like he always did? Geez, he was so much easier to love like this, just keeping his mouth shut. His mouth was occupied anyway, pressing moistly against my neck. I wondered where the fear of that almost-first time was. Everything felt natural now. Neither of us was afraid.
After a few minutes, I thought maybe he'd fallen asleep there on my shoulder; his breathing had become deep and even.
"Hey, you still with me?" I whispered.
"Mmm? Oh. Ja." I felt his smile against my neck.
He shifted as if to pull away and my hunter's reflexes awoke just in time - I grabbed his hand where it rested on my chest and held it there, feeling as his brief resistance turned into understanding. He rested against my back, motionless and ready, like prey that knows it's been spotted. Then I pulled down on his hand, gently unbalancing him, and turned to nuzzle a corner of his mouth.
And then all it took was a tiny shift of his head to make it a kiss. Now I understood - this was a dream; I'd finally gotten to sleep after all. Nothing I did now was hard, nothing I touched resisted or fought back. This was peace - all things moving together, moving with me. Kurt parted his lips to let in my tongue before I even knew I wanted him to, and the way his mouth tasted was *familiar*, the way things in dreams are just how you imagine they'd be. I heard myself laugh a little, a laugh of sheer wonder, and he smiled back as we started to kiss deeper - I guess he was having the same dream.
I pulled his body against mine and felt the slipping of too much fabric between us, so one hand went north to push away his light cotton T-shirt while the other hand travelled south, tugging elastic over the edge of muscled hips, soft flannel floating noiselessly to his ankles. Balancing himself on my shoulders, he stepped neatly out of his pajamas and his tail, still caught in its little opening just below the waistband, flicked them carelessly away.
I guess maybe I figured he'd be embarrassed, or nervous about being naked under the windows of the rest of the team, or just plain cold. But he wasn't. I held him by the waist, my hands on those powerful obliques that framed a hard, undulant belly, and I could feel the joy his flesh felt at the touch of the air, how he arched into its caress. We were still kissing, and now my hands couldn't stay still, mapping out that territory of dark, velvety planes. Not a body like, say, Scott Summers's, with a small hard ass and broad shoulders and long, raw-boned strength. Kurt had a body that was meant to be looked at, graceful as a dancer's. No awkward bulk or reedy leanness, just gentle, sculpted curves and angles, filled out in all the right places. I took two satisfying handfuls of his ass and squeezed, then pulled upward hard, grinding his bare erection against my jeans. His blunt fingers scrabbled against my zipper and then worked their way inside.
The shock of cold air on my dick broke the trance. It suddenly hit me with a kind of teenaged panic that I was going to do something that couldn't be undone. This wasn't a dream; this wasn't me lying on my back in the dead of night jerking off to the *thought* of Kurt's body in all its lithe, sensuous glory. He was here with me, and I was getting us both into this whether I was ready for it or not.
The flow hit a snag, like a boat grounding itself in the mud; I came awake, startled and cold, pulling back from him before I knew what I was doing. The seal of our kiss broke and two yellow eyes snapped open inches away.
He should have been angry; nobody likes being pushed away, whatever the reason. I could never have afforded to act so mixed up with anyone else. But Kurt, bless him, Kurt already knew what I was thinking. It's creepy when someone knows you so well that you don't even have to say anything for them to understand. He followed me, smiling, as I tried to pull back.
"It's okay," he said, keeping his voice low. "You don't have to worry. You can stop worrying, just for a little while."
I wasn't worried. Who was he to tell me I was worried? I was only feeling up my best friend and getting ready to turn him into an ex-lover who had once been my best friend. I'd be laying him on the sacrificial slab, changing him forever - at least to me. Like taking his virginity or something. It made me sick, and a chill bloomed in my gut - it was impossible to pull him closer without also pushing him away, far away, into that weird shadow world that lovers are a part of. A lover is a person but also not a person; they're this *thing* that you can't help but clutch at jealously. And it's worse because they have a will of their own and can leave if they want. And you can never know their mind entirely, never understand what it is that *they* want.
My mind raced ahead into this vision of the future - me, alone again except for my desire for *him*, and him always just out of reach, no longer my friend. Just a stranger, forever a few steps ahead of me up the road, vanishing into the shadows.
I saw he was staring at me. He didn't look worried, just ... compassionate. When he saw that I'd come back, he gave a little sigh, and his smile was sad.
"Logan," he said, "things will only go wrong if we let them. And you're not alone. You've got me. Remember?"
Looking into his eyes, those strange eyes that seemed to open onto golden, light-filled space, that horrible future I'd imagined started to fade. He was still my friend. He understood me. We could never lose each other for good. The more I studied his face -angular, beautiful, totally familiar - the less I could imagine ever seeing him as a stranger. When I took his mouth again, all I could think was how stupid I'd been to give it up in the first place.
Now I couldn't keep my hands off him, running them the wrong way through his fur so that my skin could find his, heated and soft, at the downy roots where the blue strands parted. Somehow, despite being roughly fondled and pulled every which way, he'd managed to get my jeans down to my knees, and the damp fur of his belly tickled the head of my cock. I built up the saliva in my mouth and licked my hand. His eyes hooded over as he watched my tongue scouring my skin, then he reached out quickly and grabbed my wrist, lunging for my hand with his own mouth and catching a finger between sharp teeth. He teased the uncalloused insides of my fingers with fangs as delicate and sharp as a wolf pup's milk teeth, and followed their trail with a long, clever tongue.
I had to pry my hand away from his suckling mouth to slide it, slippery with saliva, between our bodies. I took his cock in my hand first, grinding the hollow of my palm against the slick head, then giving the full length a hard, long stroke through my fist. Instantly his body surged against mine. I opened my hand to accept my cock too and felt one of his hands join in, tightening around mine as he thrust, hard, with a deep groan. His head lolled against my shoulder, chest moving hard with fast breaths.
Turning to nibble the corner of his jaw, I saw he'd let his eyes slip shut. "Hey," I whispered. "Look at me."
His eyes opened into mine and he smiled. I watched, amazed, as the beginning of the end appeared on his face and the crinkles in his brow deepened, a look of deep seriousness creeping over his sharp features. Then his eyelids fluttered shut. A tension seized his hips and then spread out, like a wave, sweeping out to his scalp and tail-tip. He gasped as though impaled, then collapsed against me with a panting groan as sticky warmth spilled over our hands.
When he opened his eyes again, he gave me a sheepish look and I nearly laughed. "Don't worry, not everyone can have my endurance."
"Sorry," he said, still panting, "I couldn't help myself."
And before I could answer, he'd slipped down my body like receding water, leaving the top of me cold as he withrew. Then a tentative warmth touched my cock and I stopped thinking for good.
He had to figure out how to do it first, and it started out slow. Furred fingers lifted then slipped behind my balls and wet heat crept up my shaft. I encouraged him with a little thrust and gradually his mouth got more confident. Then he sucked me all the way out to the tip and I groaned, way too loud, as a fuzzy palm stroked briskly over my shaft. An agile tongue swirled and traced around an eager head and I gave up trying to control myself.
He moved easily with my frantic thrusts and I came with teeth gritted, swallowing a shout. After a second he let me slip out of his mouth and rested his cheek against my hip bone, just rested there, catching his breath. I let myself lean against the marble railing and slipped my hand through his hair, then down to cup his cheek, thumb stroking the convolutions of his pointed ear. I stayed like that for a minute, fondling his head gently, wishing he'd come back up to me.
Eventually he drew himself up and snuggled in against my chest, arms squeezing my ribs. I wrapped him up tightly in my arms.
"First time you ever did that?" I asked.
I could feel his smile. "Ja."
"You did a bang-up job."
He laughed, a startled, genuine laugh, then closed his eyes and sighed contentedly. After a moment, he lifted his head, his face serious. "Do you think you can sleep now?" he asked.
I chuckled. "You bet."
"Come with me?" He pulled out of my arms reluctantly and bent to pick up his clothes.
I watched his naked form in the dim light and felt a little rustling of fear. Was he going to get the wrong idea about what had just happened? And what the hell was the right idea, come to that? Then I caught sight of his eyes again, smiling, full of love. "Yeah, I'll come with you," I replied.
Arms around each other, we tiptoed back through the house and climbed into his bed, and I slept, God bless him, I slept the whole night through, my tired head resting on his heart.
~~~
Ororo was the first to notice that anything was wrong. Other folks, they see me come home in a black mood, park myself on the back patio with all the liquor in the house and drink myself cockeyed, they don't think much of it. Just par for the course for ol' Wolvie, they say. Maybe Ororo believes that too, but it never seems to stops her.
She also considers that I'm not a guy who takes getting tanked lightly. I may rarely be without a beer in my fist, but if I'm looking to get drunk, I have to plan ahead. This particular night, after driving back to the Institute from Brooklyn, I had marched down into Hank's lab and downed enough formaldahyde to pickle Westchester. That maxed out my healing factor enough to let the liquor do its thing. A little later, out on the patio, I worked my way through all the beer, wine and spirits (including but not limited to a pint of bathtub gin Kitty had made as an experiment six months ago and some Johnny Walker Blue that Summers had been saving for a special occasion) till I was on my way to dreamland.
Drinking to soothe a broken heart always feels great at first. Your senses go numb, your thoughts slow down, and that person you're missing fades into a shadow on the wall. It's when you wake up in the morning and realize you can't spend your life doing this - though lord knows I've tried once or twice - that it all catches up with you.
That's about when 'Ro found me. I opened my eyes to the sight of her concerned face as she knelt above me, wrapped in a silk kimono. It was very early in the morning - I could tell that 'Ro had only just taken her hair down from the night before. I rolled onto my side and the stones of the patio burned me with their coldness; I shifted a little more, and my foot toppled one of many bottles, which rolled loudly for several seconds until stopped by something out of sight. 'Ro ignored the noise and continued gazing at me with compassionate, ice-blue eyes.
"Logan?" she said. "Can you hear me?"
I groaned and stretched, discovering unpleasantly that my clothes were soaked with dew. "Yeah, I can hear ya." I sat up slowly, upsetting some more bottles.
'Ro sat back on her heels, then gently touched my shoulder. "Do you want to talk about it yet?"
"No."
"Do you want some coffee?"
"Yeah."
She stood up, her hand trailing over my drenched shoulder. "Ready in five minutes," she said, opening the door. "And Logan - you'll want to dispose of that scotch bottle before Scott wakes up."
After going to the john to take the longest piss of my life - after all, I had the formaldahyde on top of the liquor to contend with - I stumbled back to the kitchen and Ororo's coffee. We sat at the table and drank the coffee, not talking. 'Ro is one of the best friends I've ever had, but one way she's different from Kurt is that she'll accept my silence - if I don't want to talk, she'll leave me alone. At some point I must have had this thought as we were sitting there, and it was probably followed by the realization that my whole life was going to be like this - finding little reminders of him everywhere, even in the smallest things, always catching me off guard. And these thoughts must have showed on my face somehow, because suddenly 'Ro reached across the table and laid her hand over mine where it held the coffee cup, and simply stroked my fingers for a moment, the way one strokes the head of a crying child.
Maybe it was the liquor and the dehydration catching up with me, maybe the exhaustion of having blitzed my healing factor, but for some reason I just fell apart. I dropped my head into my arms and sobbed - deep, heaving, ugly sobs that surprised me with their rawness, like they came from the body of a much larger man. 'Ro's fingers wove their way into my hair so that her nails grazed my scalp, and that gentle grazing calmed me a little. After a while, I stopped as abruptly as I'd started, a snotting, sorry mess. I wiped my face messily on my sleeve, embarrassed. I couldn't look her in the eye.
She squeezed my wrist and kept quiet.
"You're one of the few who's seen this and lived," I joked weakly, and I felt rather than saw her smile.
"It's a compliment I will always treasure."
We sat there and finished the coffee, and I tried not to sniffle like a goddamn kid. After we'd drained the pot, 'Ro got up and put some more on, then came back to the table. She looked straight at me with business in her eyes.
"So tell me, Logan: is it for love that you are like this?"
I stared at her. It was so strange to think that nobody knew - this thing between me and Kurt had been going on for months and we'd managed to keep it entirely to ourselves. So this huge thing that was happening to me now, the fact that my world was falling apart - nobody had a clue about any of it. And I wanted it to stay that way.
So I really have no idea why I told her.
"There's something you don't know about, darlin'," I began awkwardly, and I watched the curiosity bloom on her face. "We kept it a secret. Kurt and me -"
I stopped, staring at her helplessly. I didn't have the energy to keep explaining to her, and besides, I'd said all she really needed to know.
A series of reactions chased their way across her face: shock, followed by wonder, and then compassion. She reached across the table and took both my hands. It had been no secret in the mansion that Kurt had left for a life of celibacy.
"I'm sorry."
"This stays between us," I said, and she nodded her assent quickly.
"Of course. I wouldn't tell a soul."
The percolator switched off, and she got up to get the coffee. When she sat back down, she asked, pouring, "You have talked to him?"
"Yeah. Yesterday. Didn't go well."
She nodded, setting down the coffee pot.
"Gonna try again, though."
She looked up. "Are you sure that's wise?"
"Don't care if it's wise. Have to, 'Ro."
"But what about him?"
"What *about* him?"
"Logan, this can't be easy for him, either. He has made his decision; perhaps it would be best for both your health and his if you simply respected it."
I shook my head, more violently than I'd intended. "Can't do that, 'Ro."
"Then you must know that you'll be hurting him."
"Maybe; and I'm sorry for that. But that's the way it is."
Her gaze was no longer quite as compassionate as it had been before. "Look, 'Ro," I growled, unnerved by her disapproval, "what he did was *wrong*. It was the wrong decision, and I'm gonna show him that, gonna change his mind."
She shook her head sadly. "You know that's not true."
"What?"
"In your heart, you know you've lost him for good. Why else would you be in this state? What you want is to punish him for hurting you. And I urge you not to do that."
I stared at her for a long, tense moment, hating her. Then I stood up, pushed the chair away hard, and left her sitting there, ignoring the sting of her sad gaze on my back.
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