Title: Impressionism
Summary: Sometimes, what appears to be is what it is. Sometimes, what appears to be is not that at all. Smoke can be sulfur; rivers can be washing machines; accidents can be experience, and a name can be friendship for life. Kurtty pseudo-flirtation.
Disclaimer: No money, no franchise ownership, no suing.
Dedication: This was written for bigtimelive, the one and only person who made a live action Kurtty video over at Youtube. All of us realize that the pairing would be (is more or less) impossible in this universe…but since when has that ever stopped the creative process for an OTP? And I, myself, like impossible romance—within some semblance of reason. (Kurt did laugh at the mention of Kitty at the end of X2, so it stands to reason that he COULD have met her when she gave Xavier what he needed. I know it's a stretch, but it's possible.)


-:-
The very arrangement of molecules is fluid: tables can be clocks, faces, flowers.
-Girl, Interrupted.


Kitty once went through the wall of a mental facility. It was an accident from around the time that her powers were manifesting and she was just pressing her hand against some building to tie a shoelace (traitorous strip of binding thread and cheerful pink with yellow ladybugs imprinted at each end)when some car horn blared around the end of the alley she was in and then she was suddenly toppled over on a plain white linoleum floor with bright florescent lights above.

It was a really big (freaking) deal, considering that she had only discovered her ability a week before, and also considering that the building was famous for housing young girls of all varieties of mental illness. She happened to fall right into the hall of the main ward where three young—one older than her, fourteen at the time, so maybe sixteen and still quite young for the onset of any mental break—girls who she would later realize had severe problems with recognizing what was reality and what was not. One of them just kind of smiled at her in what was meant to be a friendly way (but unfortunately came off as a read between creepy and why-aren't-you-as-freaked-out-as-you-should-be) while the other two hugged each other and assured in silent whispers to each other that they were both seeing the same thing—the doctors probably would believe them this time.

There had been a loud banging from around the corner that the hall lead to and Kitty had bashed her head into the wall before getting back out the way she came. Blood from the impact (forehead skin against solid brownstone and wood siding did not go together) would not be noticed until she got back to her house and after hyperventilating into a cushion, where the stain of her blood had soaked into her blue pillow (two little black kittens that her mom had sewn in for her drenched in the red drops of body fluid).

In hindsight, it gave her quite the ability to tell that what appeared to be was often misleading. That girl that had smiled at her was a simple ebony haired teen with blue eyes not too different from Kitty's and had looked as normal as they came, but had been bound in a straightjacket for reasons Kitty thought might have had merit to normal people, and those two other girls had been happy to realize that they had both seen the same impossible thing at once; they had thought they'd have proof for someone to believe that all of their fantasies might have been right for however long they had been locked up (and wasn't that a kick in the head for Kitty to realize later; raising the hopes of disturbed girls and then having those hopes dashed when she left again).

Perhaps that incident was the reason why, when Professor Xavier had her do him a favor, she didn't really react to seeing the man that looked like a big, blue demon. She just did her duty to the man in the wheelchair and nodded at the other mutant on her way back to the Institute (and the mess that had been left for everyone to pitch in with cleaning up; her abilities useless for most of the chores, save for pulling bullets from the walls and putting in new glass windows), like he was nothing special; just another person she may or may not see back at school as a teacher or just a guest the Professor might invite back after the confrontation Xavier needed her to get evidence for.

When Kitty did see him at the Institute and he spotted her on her way to breakfast a few days later and well after everyone had heard the news about Dr. Grey (Kitty standing barely at five feet in high socks and her jacket making her look even more like a stick figure near anyone else), he surprised her with a fanged smile and a three-fingered wave from where he was speaking with Wolverine and Storm.

She smiled and waved back easily before disappearing through a wall so she could get a blueberry muffin before they were all gone.

Kurt has a bit of a problem


When he's first brought into the mansion. It's not that he's ungrateful for being offered room and board when he's not able to pay any money (okay, that's partly a lie and may God forgive him, but it's not thereason), but something much more grating.

He is not used to using laundry rooms and doing anything to clean his clothes other than standing at night in the middle of a river, rock in hand to pound out the stains he could see as best he could. When he found himself asking Storm what he was to do with his clothing (those he'd worn for years, not the ones the Professor had given him—a whole closet full—to wander about the mansion while undergoing consideration of what he might be able to teach the students that didn't have to be language; Logan had jokingly suggested him being the art teacher and had caused Rogue sitting with them to choke on the tea she had been drinking) after his first couple of nights in the room provided to him, she had blinked and told him where to find the laundry room. She'd told him where the soaps and laundry baskets were as well and sent him on his way as she was getting ready to teach her next class.

As he was conditioned to be weary of most things, he went to the laundry room later that evening while the students were either at dinner or scattered about in groups and single walks to do whatever teenagers did in their spare time; the laundry basket in his hands filled to the brim with his trench coat and clothes from life before the Institute and himself in a simple grey T-shirt and drawstring sweats, rosary twined in the loop of the bow that tightened the drawstring and his cross glinting from its place around his neck and just over the brim of his shirt. His feet made little echoed taps on the floor with each step he made until he got to the room Ororo had described; four washing machines and three dryers sitting in an alcove waiting for use.

Two other machines were clanging in their destined spaces, grooving and sloshing around the clothing of the little girl who could walk through walls; her figure atop the one making the most noise, looking bored and blinking at him the second he stepped into the light.

"Oh, hello," she greeted easily, giving Kurt a small smile that bellied no fear, merely curiosity in seeing him up close and his tail swishing back and forth on the floor of the hallway as he stepped in (always cautious so he didn't strike a chord of fear in new acquaintances at first sight) and set his laundry down next to one of the machines that weren't rumbling almost like they were giants with stomach problems.

"Hello," Kurt greeted back, fingers fiddling with each other as he stood, not knowing quite what to do with himself and the clothing he'd brought down, "I vas not avare that there vas anyone down here or I vould have come later."

"It's no problem," the girl smiled, feet waving back and forth on the edge of her seat and occasionally touching—going through—the metal, "I don't think I got your name a few nights ago, did I?"

"Kurt Vagner," the older mutant smiled, teeth not quite so scary in the ultra white lighting of the room that seemed a different planet, so far away from everything else that it was (almost a different universe, given that the girl hadn't shrieked at the sight of him and that despite the noise caused by the machines, it was peacefully calm all the way down the long halls that both connected to the elevators to upstairs and the tapered off halls towards Cerebro or the med lab or the Danger Room he'd been shown to by Logan) and leaving him less drawn in than if he hadn't seen the girl before, "But in the Munich circus I vas known as the Great Nightcrawler."

She smiled even more and almost laughed outright at how he straightened up and his chest puffed up at his title (perhaps he didn't get to say that very much?) that made him seem displaced in such a common place as a laundry room. She leaned a little forward, wrists seen as very thin in the light as her palms braced the metal and he couldn't stop the thought from entering his head as one of her hands stuck out in front of her for him to take and shake in proper introduction, 'Mein Gott, she has tiny little bones…'

"Kitty Pryde," she said, shaking his hand and then dropping off of the washing machine when it ceased wiggling under her and a button at the top most corner of it beeped and flashed twice, "No special title."

She let go if his hand and he was surprised to be disappointed at missing the warmth when she turned back to the machine and opened the hatch on top, starting to unload her own laundry and fold them (they were still wet and he could see the moisture of the cold water on her fingers when she crossed the arms of a black sweater and put it atop one of the machines not in use; leaving him with the impression that the cold of the liquid would leave her joints stiff by the time she was done; not unusual but he never liked to see anyone uncomfortable). Each piece of clothing smelled like a specialized blend of dampness, cleaning detergent and some sort of vanilla extract that seemed out of place until he realized it wasn't coming from the laundry, it was coming off of her (either it was a very cheap perfume or the residue of some sort of body wash from when she bathed).

Going with the flow and not wanting to remain in silence for long, Kurt took up his own laundry, opening up the hatch of another machine on the other side of the one Kitty was using as a makeshift table to hold her folded laundry (mostly shirts so far, with pants being carried over to one of the dryers and spinning around and around with some of her underclothes as well; which he didn't pay attention to…not at all) and spoke over the noise of the clanging still going on in one of the other machines, "No special title to anyone in this school? I can't believe that. Everyone has their own private nickname, at the very least, ja?"

She watched (her blue eyes were a grand contrast to his golden orbs, but she liked them from where she stood; it went well with his indigo skin in her opinion—much better than if he had plain brown or green eyes, anyway) Kurt stuff his large trench coat in with pants and tattered shirt, all looking makeshift and too old to put on 'fast spin' like he did and with a lot more softener and dry bar Tide, but it was his clothing and she wouldn't comment; he probably knew how to take care of his own clothing, "Well, despite the whole walk-through-walls thing I have going for me, I am actually quite boring. No need to give someone a more exciting name when they're the vanilla in an ice cream shop of Rocky Road and Cherie Garcia and so on."

Kurt gently set the lid to his machine shut, water dribbling inside immediately at that and making him raise it, turn it off, lower it, turn it on and so forth a couple of times (Kitty did giggle at that, until he set it down), before he got the idea and blushed at his own embarrassing situation, bamfing out of existence and then bamfing back atop his machine, looking innocent and not mortified at all in front of the teen girl still folding her clothes, just with a kind smile, "Every person in the vorld is unique. Don't your friends call you anything special? A pet name, a codename, something?"

She shook her head and waved off the smell of smoke and brimstone that always came with his teleportation, her hands finished with her clothing and working to pull her back to where she had been when he entered (the effort allowed him to count most of the tendons leading from her wrist to her knuckles to her fingers and enjoy seeing how the tips of her fingers turned rosy under pressure). She made a little hollow clang when she took her seat and he was looking sideways at her like they were the same age (he hadn't felt so familiar with anyone since the Munich circus and then again with Storm; it was not unwelcome, but still strange…in a really nice way); the situation becoming obvious that she intended, possibly, to wait with him for his laundry to finish while she still waited for her own.

She hummed like she was thinking, eyes looking over the tattoos she could see on his face and neck and arms ('Tough guy, I'll bet.'), before shrugging her shoulders and tapping her fingers on the machine that separated the both of them from touching wet clothes or each other, "Well, I told you that I am quite boring."

"You did not scream when you first saw me a couple days ago," he counted off in invisible numbers plucked from the air like chicken scratch in bad schooling, "You easily helped Herr Xavier obtain documents to show the president that not all mutants are bad and not all humans are good, and you are sitting here with a former circus acrobat while I attempt to do my own laundry for the first time using something more futuristic than smooth rocks by a river in a country across the sea. That is not boring…Katzchen."

Kurt would later in the evening (after Kitty got used to his pet name for her and after the washing machine he'd been using spat out bubbles and his ruined clothing in droves) realize that he could not just toss laundry in a washing machine, press a few buttons, add whatever to the mix and hope for the best.

He would also realize that when someone like Kitty Pryde says she is boring, that it isn't so. If she was boring, she wouldn't have turned out to be the best friend he would make in his years following their first and second meeting, after he was made into the school's history teacher and after she asked him if Shadowcat would be a good codename when she joined ranks in the X-Men.

A girl who can appreciate something for what it does not appear to be is never boring.