And now each night I count the stars,
And each night I get the same number.
And when they will not come to be counted,
I count the holes they leave.
Nobody sings anymore.
~*~*~*~
Bobby loved to watch.
He loved to watch Kurt eat. Kurt normally ate quickly, shoveling food into his mouth without regard for all those table manners that Bobby had learned as a small child. (Smaller than he was now, if that was ever possible; sometimes he felt so small that he thought he could shrink down, down, down, through the spaces between himself and loneliness, until he could sink into the white and become nothingness. Become ice.)
He knew that having your belly full was a necessity of life, but Kurt behaved as though he might not get this again, might not have this luxury for much longer.
(What did they do to you in that circus?)
Bobby loved watching Kurt wash up in prequel to the meal. The soap would leave suds in his fur that try as he might, he couldn't scrub away, and they both laughed at that, somehow. (Amidst all this, it was amazing anyone could laugh anymore.) But then Kurt's laughter would die down and he would blink down at his hands and continue washing. (Scrubbing away the sin, trying to cleanse himself of everything he'd ever done wrong… Bobby had been there, too many times to count.)
Bobby, above all, loved watching Kurt sleep, because that was the only time that Kurt looked truly at peace with himself, with his appearance, with everything.
I want to be the one to give you rest, Bobby thought, reaching out to Kurt in the (becoming more frequent) nights that Kurt would get sad and then get drunk and then fall asleep in the middle of Bobby's bedroom, and… I want you to know that I'm your friend and I care about you and want you to be… content, if not happy. Maybe happiness is too much to ask.
Kurt never admitted his nightmares. Bobby didn't either. Dreams of melted ice-water flowing into his lungs and blood spilling over his teeth (Kurt's blood, sometimes, or Amara's, or Mystique's…). Dreams of a past only really half-remembered, when he tried to focus, of bruises and words, and the voice of his parents in unison, dark and taunting, "Why can't you bring home a normal girl?", lodging itself into his skull when he tried to go to sleep himself.
He hated dreaming, sometimes. But he loved waking up afterwards, if only for the feeling of relief washing over him. He hated knowing Kurt's thoughts whenever Kurt would look at him, and the way that they mirrored his own.
(Why can't I ever be normal?)
He knew what Kurt needed, always. Somehow telepathy wasn't necessary when it came to them. The touch of their hands – accidental brush of fingers over ice cream cones eaten out back on the porch (Kurt's melted in sticky rainbow over his hands; Bobby let his own run as well, sometimes). The sound of their mingled laughter over a bad pun about Warren. Bobby savored every minute because he knew that his parents would hate it.
(I just want to be normal.)
Kurt would wake in the dark of Bobby's room with his eyes wide and his breath uneven in his mouth, and Bobby simply knew.
"I'm here," Bobby said sometimes, though different words lingered on his tongue. Kurt said it back to him after his own nightmares, though neither would admit to this in daylight.
Even if Kurt had never said it back, Bobby would've been okay with that.
So Bobby watches. Just sits back and takes in their rare moments alone, without the noise of battle or the clattering of other X-Men.
If Kurt noticed, he never said a word.
~*~*~*~
Bobby's dreams often made no sense.
Really, they were only swirls of color and a mixture of tastes, smells, pictures that hardly moved. A picture of his father with his smile crooked and worn with age. A picture of Amara with her eyes sad, her mouth forming words that Bobby couldn't hear because he was watching the ice cubes melt in her cup, and thinking that maybe he was melting away too. A picture of a cloud of orange smoke that smelt of brimstone, and a bright smile that would fade, eventually, into a dark, dark blue.
A picture of Bobby himself, his face drenched half in light and half in shadow.
He didn't like to talk about it.
It hurt to smile sometimes the next morning. Kurt's smile hurt even more to look at. It would quirk the corners of his mouth, but it never reached his eyes; Bobby's heart would flutter at the sight of it, and he often reached out to touch just to be sure that it was really there, if not genuine.
Bobby thought he was in love sometimes. Other times he just blindly denied it in favor of the delusion of a normal life. He wouldn't know, of course. Mystique had taught him enough to know that love didn't really exist, only something raw and instinctive. But Bobby wanted it to be love when it came to Kurt (if not in love, then at least a love deep enough to bruise). He wanted that false smile that echoed the ghosts of his past, with those golden, golden eyes that could make him lose his balance.
(Could make him melt.)
He also knew that it was a game, when it came to Kurt's affections. Kurt had Kitty, usually (don't let the elf catch it Kitty don't let him get it keep running keep running don't let him catch you), and when he didn't have Kitty then he had Amanda (something at least resembling what a normal teenage boy should want) and if he didn't have Amanda then he had Tabitha (you know blue is really her color anyway).
Could have all those women fawning on him if he wanted to, with Kitty's delicate hands tracing over his face…
An intimate gesture. A sign of love and a promise of safety. Bobby had nothing to offer but cold.
But he did love Kurt, really, even if he kept denying it. Loved everything about him, right down to the very last awkward laugh or the barb of his dexterous tail.
Bobby tried touching Kurt's face in the moments when he would be braver than he felt, just to let Kurt know that he had someone close. Kurt always pulled away as though the touch burned.
"Don't do that," Kurt would plead with a sort of broken harmony to his voice. And the hidden message could be heard, could be seen through those eyes: I don't deserve it. I'm ugly.
Bobby would pull away too, then, but still remain close enough to nearly taste the burning want under their skin.
(Hot enough to melt away the doubt. Almost.)
And in the middle of the night, alone, he would whisper, "you're beautiful" to nobody in particular because he knew that the person intended couldn't hear.
Pretended he didn't say it anyway. Nobody got hurt that way.