Author's Notes: The title of this story –Love in the Asylum- is a poem by Dylan Thomas of the same name. Dylan Thomas is my favorite poet, and this is my favorite poem, and since I like Kurt and Kitty I decided what the hell, let's see what happens when we combine the two. This fic is the result of this late night experimentation. Next thing you know I'll start submitting some of my horrible songfics. Perish the thought! I also won't be writing Kurt's accent because that takes time and effort, and I'll probably get it all wrong, not to mention I'm a lazy person. Anyway, enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own this poem or any characters from X-Men: Evolution. They belong to their respective owners, blah, blah, ect.
Love in the Asylum
Kitty Pryde sat on her bed and tried not to chew on the end of her pen. It was one of her bad habits that she was trying to break, but without success. She looked at the question in front of her and the poem.
"Aw, screw it," she muttered and went about biting her pen cap into submission.
"Is something wrong Kitty?" Kurt asked as he passed by her door. "Whatever the pen's crimes may be, I don't think it deserves that level of mutilation."
"It's not like, the pen's fault," Kitty sighed. "It's this homework that's like, giving me trouble, the pen was just like, a handy stress reliever."
"At least I know now why there are never any pens around. At least any of the non-chewed variety." Kurt walked over and sat next to Kitty. "Anything I can do to help?"
"I could use a little help on like, deciphering this poem."
She handed him a paper with the poem "Love in the Asylum" and a question underneath it asking what the author was trying to say in writing this poem.
"This is not so hard. One of his best poems in my opinion. What do you think it means?"
"I don't know." Kitty sighed again. She continued to bite her pen as she studied the poem once again. "It's just a poem about like, a guy in a mental hospital. Like, what is he trying to say about that?"
"You have to look deeper than the words. Try seeing yourself in this poem, then maybe you'll be able to understand it better."
"Like, if you say so."
"Here, it helps if someone reads it aloud to you." Kurt began to read the poem out loud. He stopped after the first line when Kitty began to giggle. "What's so funny?"
"You're accent makes it like, sound funny." She giggled again.
"If you don't want my help-"
"I'm like, sorry." She reached over and pulled him back down next to her. "Start over again, I'll like, pay attention."
"Are you sure?"
"I like, promise."
Kurt cleared his throat and began again.
"A stranger has come
To share my room in the house not right in the head,
A girl as mad as birds"
Kurt said to try to see herself in this poem, she could like, do that. "The house not right in the head" was like the mansion. The stranger could be any of the X-Men that lived here. They came here because of their mutations, their powers. They were all thrown together because they were different.
Not that different from the girl in the poem. She was considered insane, and if anyone knew what the X-men really were, they would be considered freaks, both shunned by society. No, not all that different at all.
"Bolting the night of the door with her arm her plume.
Strait in the mazed bed
She deludes the heaven-proof house with entering clouds"
She hides behind a mask, Kitty realized. Didn't she do the same thing? Pretend to be normal so no one would ever know what she really was. They all did. Scott, Jean, Rogue, Kurt…especially Kurt. He had it the worst.
Kitty couldn't even begin to imagine what it would be like to have to hide your true self everyday so people wouldn't freak out when they say you. Be called a demon when they see who he really is. Go running and screaming in terror. Not that she could blame them; she did the same thing. But now, now she loved to have the Fuzzy Elf around. It just wouldn't be the same without him.
It was funny how he became a part of your life that you couldn't really remember a time when he wasn't around. Kitty didn't think she would want those times back, even if it meant she could be normal again.
"Yet she deluded with walking the nightmarish room,
At large as the dead,
Or rides the imagined oceans of the male wards."
This was a little harder. The girl continued to hide behind her mask, Kitty guessed. Like she did. Never really coming to terms with who she was. Always trying to be someone different from what she was, even when she was phasing through objects.
"Or rides the imagined oceans of the male wards" – was the girl trying to hide behind them? Kitty knew she had a little crush on Scott when she first became an X-Men, but it wasn't anything serious, she didn't really know why she had it in the first place. Then there was Lance. He was ok, just not someone she really wanted to be involved with.
She knew that somehow it would never work out with Scott and Lance, but she went after them anyway. Why? Because by chasing them she could ignore someone who really did care about her. Ok the someone was different and she was scared of him at first, but that wasn't true now. So, why was she still hiding?
"She has come possessed
Who admits the delusive light through the bouncing wall
Possessed by the skies"
Hmmm…this required some more thought. Even though the girl was shut in an asylum, she still retained her freedom. That was a contradiction in itself, but it made sense, to her at least. Even though Kitty was an X-Men, she was still a normal teenaged girl. Sure she could walk through solid objects, but she still hung out with her friends doing normal teenage stuff.
"She sleeps in the narrow trough yet she walks the dust
Yet raves at her will
On the madhouse boards worn thin by my walking tears"
The girl was still who she originally was, just changed a little. She didn't lose herself by coming to terms with what she was. With being different and having so many expectations thrown upon her, Kitty was still Kitty. She was always going to be herself, no matter what surprises the future may bring.
"And taken by light in her arms at long and dear last
I may without fail
Suffer the first vision that set fire to the stars."
Now this was an easy one. The narrator finally realized he loved the girl. It took him awhile to realize it, but he loved her. The love came from an unexpected source, and in the most unusual place, but it was still love. And the girl loved him too, the fur and all.
Wait a minute…Did she just say fur?
I've just had an epiphany, Kitty realized. And all because of a poem.
"Did you get any new insights?" Kurt interrupted her thoughts.
"I think I like, did."
"What were they?"
"The girl was thrown into a new situation and she like, hid behind a mask. She also used others to like, hide behind. Like a cover for what she was like, really feeling. But in the end she like was still who she originally was." Kitty paused considering her next words. "But the most important thing this poem is like, saying, is that even though it comes in the most unlikeliest of places, love is still like, love. And you can't like, hide your true feelings you like, have for someone."
Kurt swallowed, some of Kitty's insights hit a little close to home.
"Was that so hard?" he finally managed to ask.
She gave him her brightest smile and took his furry, tridactyl hand in her own.
"No, that wasn't like, hard at all."
END
A/N: Maybe I should have left the two separate. I don't think introspection is really my thing. Ah well. Review and tell me what you think please.