Quick Summary: Amid Messiah Complex, Kurt is badly injured rescuing Logan. Will the healing process illuminate all the reasons they shouldn't be together, or all the reasons they should? Slash.

Longer Summary: This story is set in the comics universe. It takes place during the Messiah Complex event (around Uncanny X-Men #492; the beginning of the prologue is from X-Men #205). But you don't have to be familiar with Messiah Complex to read this; it's all fairly self-explanatory. The relevant basics are that Kurt gets shot and badly hurt amid the X-Men's attempt to rescue baby Hope. Logan's version of X-Force is also formed around this time. The only major chronology adjust is that I'm saying Kitty's still around at this time (ie. that it's just before she gets trapped in that big space bullet). Ending's a bit melancholy but no character deaths or anything—don't worry!

Review if you like; but most of all enjoy!

And remember to check out the sequel, Give and Take!

Disclaimer #1: I don't own the X-Men or make any money from writing about them.

Disclaimer #2: Even when I don't indicate it specifically, my characters are practicing safe sex—because condoms are heroic!

Chapter 1: Prologue

"Kurt!" Ororo yelled, voice barely audible over the chaos, including the crackling energy she summoned around her. "Get Logan out of there. We're leaving!"

"But if I leave you—"

"Go now! I will cover our retreat."

It took Kurt two teleports through the swarm of Marauder goons to find Logan. Once he located him, though, at the mercy of Malice and Regan Wyngarde, Kurt realized he could have just followed the reek of Logan's burning flesh.

Kurt teleported instantly to Logan's side, booting Malice and Wyngarde out of the action on his way.

"Rest easy, Logan. I'll get you out of here."

Logan was trying to tell him something, something about the baby, before Scalphunter's 9mm fluted hollowpoint bullet sliced through Kurt's shoulder and lodged there. Then all Kurt knew was pain, explosions of pain lighting up his skull a split second before he teleported himself and Logan, by instinct, as far away from danger as possible. Kurt was screaming as they materialized on a mountaintop of untouched white snow several miles away from the action and several feet above the ground. They landed hard, Logan stopping largely where he was while Kurt's greater momentum caused him to tumble several more feet down the slope, finally coming to a rough stop against a hard, frozen mound of ice and snow.

They both lay still where they fell for a long moment, stunned by their injuries and the sudden silence. Finally, Kurt used what seemed like his last ounce of bodily control to throw himself roughly onto his back. He fought vainly against his pain-saturated consciousness to either move or teleport, but nothing came; it felt like his mind had become separated from his body, trapped within an igloo of abstract, numbing pain.

"Logan I… I c-can't…"

It took Logan some time to even identify the sound of Kurt's voice, let alone what it was saying. His every synapse was on fire, as though he were burning to death from the inside. He squinted in the direction of Kurt's crumpled body, which was ten feet away though it might as well have been miles. In Logan's blurred vision Kurt's body was a vivid splotch of red, blue, and black on the pristine white snow; but the red was expanding.

"Kurt," he managed to growl, throat aching. "You need to… the bleeding…"

Kurt didn't move. What if he was already unconscious, what if…

"KURT!" Logan punctuated his cry by hurling a fistful of snow in Kurt's direction that hit him below the chin and exploded in his face.

Kurt groaned softly. Logan thought it might be the sweetest sound he'd ever heard.

"You alive, elf?"

"Ja…"

"You won't be if… Can you get your glove off?"

Kurt took a moment to gather himself and then pushed his body into a more upright position against the frozen mound at his back. His left arm seemed inoperable but he used his teeth to clumsily pull the glove off his right hand, pressing it into the hole in his left shoulder. The white was quickly washed out by red.

"Schiesse… Logan… I can't put… I…"

But Logan was already crawling across the seeming miles that separated them, numb to the point where he couldn't be sure he hadn't left whole limbs behind in the snow. He threw his body against the ice next to Kurt and started his raw, awkward fingers working at removing his other glove. Kurt uttered an involuntary grunt of pain, trying his best to help in the only way he could, which was to remain still and try not to let Logan know how much his clumsiness was hurting him. Logan pushed the glove into the red hole next to the other one and pressed Kurt's hand down under the weight of his forearm.

"Stay conscious," he growled. "Or I'll hurt you."

Kurt, struck by a wave of delirious humour, actually tried to laugh, though it came out as more of a broken sputtering of breath. "S-sure."

"What's… your mouth's bleeding. Are you…"

"I'm… my fang bit my…"

"Does it hurt?"

Kurt's dim eyes squinted open in involuntary disbelief. He realized his mistake quickly.

"Fuck you," he groaned, face surrendering back into a controlled grimace of pain.

"If I got to make jokes to keep you alive…"

"Fuck."

"Right."

They exchanged weak smiles more by instinct than sight, Logan's eyes still bleary and Kurt's pinched shut. Then they lay there for a while in silence, Logan trying to synchronize his own swimming world to the rhythm of Kurt's heart beating out against his body, Kurt's soaked gloves, the snowbank…

"Logan."

"Mm?"

"What if…"

"No."

"But—"

"You're not gonna die."

"I—"

"Shut up."

Deep within his dimming consciousness, Kurt knew he'd never hated Logan more than at that moment, when there was so much he needed say and he didn't have the strength to fight for it. Idiot—how could Logan not realize it wasn't just himself he was worried about? But what Kurt didn't consider was how badly Logan needed to believe his own words.

Logan opened his eyes and realized he'd been unconscious. He groped desperately, frantically, for Kurt's vanished body. "Kurt? Kurt?"

"Logan."

It was Ororo.

"Where's Kurt?"

"He's on the plane. Can you walk?"