Disclaimer – Textual poaching alert.

A/N – For Neva, who asked for Kurt/Amanda. Of course, I could've written something light and fluffy. Honest. But where would be the fun in that?

Side-flings - Draws a little from Bill Bryson's Notes from a Small Island. Title from an episode of Cowboy Bebop.

Sympathy For the Devil

© Scribbler, October 2005.

It was always weird going to the house on the hill. It wasn't as big or imposing as it could've been – should've been – but it was larger than the main building in the middle of the school courtyard, and that was pretty huge. The school was blocky and flat-roofed, but the house on the hill looked like it might have been someone's home once. It had French windows and ornate fixtures and – not that they ever used them – balconies offset from each room.

"But what do you mean he's not coming back? This isn't the Dark Ages. They can't just spirit you away if you get sick!"

"It's … a little more complicated than that."

The orderlies weren't called orderlies. They were called 'helpers', and wore big fluffy sweaters, or a variety of cotton blouses when the weather got warmer. The one who worked the desk was the kind of girl who answered adverts looking for 'someone bubbly', and she was just typical of the entire breed. When Amanda stepped through the sliding door she found herself on the receiving end of a nice bright smile – though not too bright, so as not to seem insensitive.

"Time sure does fly, don't it, Miss Sefton?"

"The days crawl when I'm stuck inside. Nothing to do except watch Jean practise levitating things and help Scott find his spare glasses. He's always losing them in weird places. I found them in the toilet the other day. Heaven knows how they got there."

"It sure does."

Dr. McCoy moved with a curious lumbering gait when he wasn't using his cane. His arms seemed a little long for him, though when they were away from his sides you could hardly tell, so it was probably a trick played by her imagination. He didn't smile as much as the helpers; perhaps because he didn't have as much to smile about.

He towered over her when he appeared from his office. There was a clipboard tucked under one arm, and the grip of his cane was looped over his wrist. It dangled uselessly as they walked and hobbled along the corridor to X-Wing.

The corridors were another weird thing about this place. They were all lined with lush red carpet, and had expensive looking pictures on the walls. She'd expected austere grey tiles to begin with, or maybe something metallic – sheets of industrial steel with naked bulbs hanging from the ceiling. Something from a Kubrick movie. Yet it was nothing like that. Each corridor felt like a part of an upmarket hotel, with Dr. McCoy as the slightly stopping concierge.

"You've got to help me. I can't … my head … please. Help."

Rancid tea taste in the back of her throat. She always got that when they were nearing the Rec. Room – a communal area where residents gathered to play games or watch TV. Usually it was turned to something mind-numbing, like Oprah or Jerry Springer repeats.

There was a girl with black hair and startling blue eyes who loved to watch Wheel of Fortune, and would snarl at anyone who tried to change channels. She was supposedly okay most of the time, if a little irritable – but then again, who wouldn't be, cooped up here unless someone came to accompany you into town? She'd been abused by a family member as a small child, but internalised the ordeal until it erupted in a slew of anti-social behaviour in her mid-teens. Stories said she'd once trashed an entire classroom with a stool before school security (i.e. the janitor, Leroy) came to subdue her. Her father was some bigwig type who had a reputation to uphold and enough money to stash her away where she wouldn't be his problem anymore.

"Poor Wanda. You think we could invite her with us one of these days?"

"Doesn't she have her own visitors?"

"Not very often. Her brother came to see her last week, but he left after, like, five seconds. Barely said three words to her the entire time. She has some real unresolved issues with him. She's tried to kill him before, you know."

"Really?"

"Oh, sure. Boxed him up and handed him over to the authorities. He's a mutant too, so they were sehr pleased to get their hands on him. Not that they could keep him once they had him."

"… Oh."

All of the residents were at least superficially lucid. They nodded at Amanda as she went past. She was a familiar face after all this time. The fat boy who didn't fit in any of the armchairs waved shyly at her and asked how she was. He was a morbid overeater and knew it. He'd told her before that he fully expected to die from it one day – one of the reasons he was staying in the house on the hill in the first place.

The house was its own little universe. It had its own atmosphere, replete with restlessness and expectation on shopping days. One of the perks of being mostly lucid was being allowed into town with an escort for short periods. Bayville was so small that the residents here nearly outnumbered the residents there, and the authorities reasoned that those who loved you were most likely to stop you doing anything stupid. Plus, there was always the threat of having the bonus removed if you misbehaved while outside the gates. It took two months before you were eligible for it, and a further two months probation if you broke the rules. Amanda thought it was all rather stringent, but then, she wasn't a psychologist.

Other visitors were already there; talking to their loved ones with fixed smiles hanging rigidly from their cheekbones. There was the redhead who kept her arms in long sleeves to hide her scars; and there was the anorexic girl with the nervy laugh as high as her ponytail. Over in the corner a manic-depressive kid who'd blinded himself with a bottle rubbed shoulders with a tiny girl, just a little thing who wore pigtails even though she was too old for them and ran rosary beads through her fingers so hard she'd rubbed all the glaze off. Amanda looked between the many faces, until finally coming to rest on the most recognisable of all.

Kurt was sitting at the table gripping a pen in his fist, tongue sticking sideways out of his mouth in concentration. His writing was slow and laborious, but it must have been important if he hadn't even noticed her arrival yet.

"He doesn't need to go into that place! Daddy, do you know what kind of people are there?"

"Darling, Kurt has a serious disorder and his mother is just doing what she thinks is best for him - "

"By locking him away where nobody can see? Yeah, very caring."

"Yo, Kurt!" yelled Todd. "Got a lady caller!" Todd had dietary problems and a big long word that basically meant he was a reverse obsessive compulsive. Underneath the grime, though, he was an okay guy. Kind of sleazy sometimes, but Kurt had set him straight once she was allowed to come see him and he remembered who she was.

Sort of.

"He's absorbed you into his fantasy world, recasting you as a secondary tier individual so as to justify your absence thus far in his design."

"Excuse me? I'm hearing the worlds, but what does all that mean, Dr. Xavier?"

"Essentially? It's because of the induction period. You've been absent from him for too long. He couldn't reconcile knowing your face with the role he's created for himself. You don't feature in his 'backstory', but he knew you were important to him in some way."

"Of course I'm important! We've been going out for, like, two years. I was going to as him to the Sadie Hawkins dance this semester."

"Which is why he made such an effort to absorb you and give you a part in his elaborate drama. To establish a pre-existing connection, you've become another student at school who has been … I believe the term is 'crushing on him'? Therefore, he feels he can return your affections while still remaining within the limitations of his character."

"I don't know. It all seems a little far-fetched."

"We're talking about a boy who translated his taped broken fingers into only having two fingers and a thumb on each hand. Far-fetched is not a word I'd use lightly."

"Amanda!" Kurt was waving furiously at her. "Over here!"

She wended her way through the chairs and coffee tables to him. He pulled out a chair with his foot, which she sat heavily on. Her feet hurt and her knees were locking the longer she stood up. The bus had been full and she'd been forced to stand for the whole journey from the suburbs on the other side of town. "Hey."

"Hallo. You ready?"

"Just let me get my breath back, huh? It's a long way up that driveway when you don't have a car."

"Sure thing. I've just been writing a letter home." His handwriting was all over the place, spidery and splotched where he'd dragged the heel of his hand over ink that was still wet. He didn't writer properly anymore, too inhibited by the sellotape around his knuckles. He'd had hysterics when the gruff night 'helper', Mr. Logan, sliced it off once, and had to be sedated. He only became lucid again when the tape was replaced.

It was one of many idiosyncrasies that had made Dr. Xavier and Dr. Munroe offer free residency so they could write paper after paper on him. Since a teacher's salary didn't stretch far, Kurt's mother had agreed. Amanda wondered whether Kurt would ever forgive her for sending him away.

"So much stuff's happened at the school lately! I can barely get it all down on paper. Man, and I thought it was going to be dull after Tabitha left."

School. His word. His name for it.

Tabitha Smith was a pyromaniac who'd been moved to the isolation ward when she set a flour bomb under her roommate's bed and then tried to smother the other girl. Kurt had made some kind of connection with her. It made Amanda apprehensive.

Abruptly, she reached out and laid a hand possessively over his. He looked startled, tightening the muscles in his wrist and thumb at the contact, before slowly relaxing them. He wouldn't even let most people touch him, much less put bare skin against his. It was as if he thought himself physically diseased in some way – like a leper living with the constant threat that bits of him might fall off at the slightest contact.

"I love you," she whispered.

"Uh, I love you too. What brought this on?"

He'd dyed his hair blue at the beginning. It was all growing out now, back to dark brown that only looked blue in disco lights. When he wasn't allowed any dye at this place he'd split open a few dozen pen cartridges and rubbed blue ink into his hair. It had taken hours of painful scrubbing to get only half of it off his hands afterwards.

"Somebody call an ambulance! Please! For God's sake, stop staring and call a fucking ambulance! Can't you see he's hurt?"

"Amanda…"

"It's okay, Kurt. You just … you just fell. We're going to take you to hospital to get some stitches. Nothing much."

"That girl on the roof … she was going to jump…"

"I know."

"Did she jump?"

"You just concentrate on not passing out again, okay? No – don't touch there! You, uh, you sort of cut yourself. A little. Nothing to worry about. Just don't – don't touch it, okay?"

"Ngg…"

"Stay with me, Kurt. Don't you dare pass out, or I'll do something really terrible to your Godzilla models."

"She jumped, didn't she? I tried to talk to her, but she wouldn't listen to me. Just shoved me. I think I … slipped … banged my head … she wouldn't - nng …"

"Kurt? Kurt!"

Amanda's smile was brittle. "Just a rough day. Same old, same old."

Kurt rolled his eyes at that. "At least you're out in the real world, instead of shut up in here like part of a leper colony. I can't wait to get back out there."

"Yeah. Me too."

FINIS.