"Ze town is very…um…"
"Historic, picturesque, cobbled?" asked David helpfully.
Kurt shook his head and looked around him. The quaint street and stone buildings were everything that David had said they were. However, the street was crowded. Crowded places that weren't under the fabric of a circus tent made him nervous. He'd been chased out of too many towns because of the narrow-mindedness of the population.
Yet, he wasn't really worried about that. He had been when David had first suggested gallivanting in the local town of Lincross a day after his father had left. His cousin had repeatedly assured him that it would be fine, but Kurt had still been nervous. However, from the moment they'd entered the crowded market afternoon only one in ten people had given him a second glance. David caught on and sighed.
"I told you the people here weren't like that," David said, putting a hand on Kurt's shoulder.
"Vell, you said that, ja, but still…" said Kurt, "Zis town is more…open zen I had thought it vould be."
"Kurt, they've lived next door to a school and hospital for mutants for twenty years," said David, "They've sort of gotten used to it."
He made a face.
"Maybe not everyone," he admitted, "Every now and then you get some moron who shows up at a town meeting. They get shouted down pretty quickly though."
"Vhy ist zat?"
"Scotland isn't exactly immune to the X-gene. A lot of people here were carriers or hiding mutations," David said, "So The Muir Island Institute for Higher Learning was something of a godsend. Others got jobs there. It's mutually beneficial."
David smiled.
"I grew up here for the most part you know," he said, "When I was younger I visited New York and I went to the States more often as I got older, but sometimes I'm surprised that I don't hear a Scottish accent from these lips. It'd be quite the family then; my mother with her American accent, father with his British, you with German, and me with Scottish."
Kurt felt a ripple of pleasure at being included in the count.
"I zink I vill be ze vone vith the prize for ze best accent in zis family," Kurt said.
"Definitely," laughed David, "Anyway, want ice cream? They do a pretty good cherry strawberry pecan."
"I haf never heard of zat."
"Most people haven't. Their loss," David said, pushing the door to a small shop open, "Morning Mr. Aberdene."
"Morning," the man behind the counter said, swiping the counter with a cloth.
He cocked his head at Kurt. Although Kurt flinched out of instinct there was no hostility in the gaze; only curiosity.
"Who's the new guy?"
"My cousin, Kurt Wagner," David said.
"Nice to meet you," Kurt said.
"Likewise," Mr. Aberdene said, "So, usual?"
"Two this time," David said, "Kurt hasn't had the cherry strawberry pecan."
"Why no one else makes this I'll never understand. It's not that unusual of a flavor," sighed Mr. Aberdene, plucking two cones from behind the counter, "By the way, those Summers boys going off to boarding school yet?"
"Next year."
Kurt watched as a pink ice cream with streaks of red was scooped into the cones.
"Shame."
"And here I thought you liked them," David said.
"They're good kids," said Mr. Aberdene, "But you tell one to stop running and when you look back the other one is tearing napkins. They need a legion to look after them."
David smiled privately to himself as he fished around for his wallet.
"Maybe that's why I end up doing so much babysitting," he said, money and ice cream exchanging hands, "Thanks."
"See you around, David, Kurt."
Kurt nodded and accepted a cone. Together they walked to a bridge away from the market, almost eerily empty. They ate their ice cream in silence for a few minutes. The flavor was sharp but delicious. He licked a few drops of ice cream off his fingers and looked around him. It still felt surreal to be walking the streets of a town.
"You know," David said, "mother and I were wondering if you wanted to get training for your mutation."
There was a silence.
"There's no pressure," he said, finishing his ice cream, "But we do have teleporters who would be able to help you gain a greater control. Clarice Ferguson for one. She's rather talented although her methods of teleportion are different than yours. You know, if you were interested."
"Zat…zat vould be gut, ja," said Kurt slowly.
His cousin frowned.
"Is something wrong Kurt?" he asked.
Kurt hesitated and sighed.
"I…vhen you told me my looks did not matter much here," he said at last, "I didn't know zat you meant it. Not like zis."
David stopped in mid-lick, turning and looking at his cousin.
"I haf tried not to care about vhat I look like," said Kurt, "Ze Lord made me zis vay for vatever reason. But...only in ze circus vhere everyone thought it vas a costume did I feel like it didn't matter. And zen only for a little vhile."
He took a deep breath, feeling odd for confiding such feelings outside of a confessional. Even then he had never fully opened up about his mutation.
"I vould alvays pity zhoze who did not understand," he said, "But it did not make things any easier. I know exactly vhat I look like; some sort of dämon."
David started to shake his head but Kurt held up a three-fingered hand.
"Vhen I vas younger I vondered if I vas a monster, like Frankenstein," he said, "And zen I vondered if I vas a dämon spawn zat had escaped from hell. I had a dream vonce zat I voke up in my room and ein rot teufel vas vatching me."
"I...I don't know what that means," David said, crinkling his brow.
"You call zem devils," he replied, not looking David in the eye, "I zought he vas going to take me to hell and I started screaming. Vhen ze Vagners turned on ze light nozing vas zere. It took months to stop hafing nightmares from zat zough."
With a flick of his tail he sigh. A strange feeling was rising in his gut; sureality. Everything that had happened to him in the past two months couldn't possibly be real. He hadn't done anything to deserve it. He wouldn't be able to hold what he had there forever. Soon it would disappear like his life at the circus had.
"But now zat I am here, valking ze streets, eating ice cream, it feels strange," he continued, "Like somezing ist about to go wrong. Nozing could be this easy for me; I am not like ozzer people. I never zought I could have a normal life."
"Do you still think that?"
"Somevhat, ja," said Kurt, "I haf zis feeling, like I could do somezing horrible at any moment-"
"But you haven't," David argued, "I mean, Kurt, you're one of the best people I know. The way you understand people, can just look at the best in them-"
The words were kind but Kurt shook his head.
"I nearly killed ze president."
"You can't count that," argued David, "You didn't do it because you wanted to. You did it because some madman drugged you into it."
Kurt didn't answer. His cousin stared at the rail of the bridge.
"You won't do anything bad Kurt."
"And if I do?" asked Kurt sharply, "I do not zink everyone vill be so accommodating then. Vhen I do somezing and there is no 'madman' telling me to vhat vill happen zen?"
"We'll be right there," David said, "Family isn't about loving someone because they're perfect. It's about loving them when they're not perfect."
"Tell zat to my mutter."
It wasn't until the words left his mouth that Kurt realized their significance. Despite having gained family from his mother what she had done had still hurt him deeply. He didn't understand why, he had been willing to listen until he had learned she was also a terrorist. Now he had taken it out on David.
He turned away.
"What my...'aunt' did was inexcusable," said David, saying the word like it was a curse, "But you can't…you can't judge everything by that…."
Feeling ashamed Kurt didn't answer. David put a hand on his shoulder.
"Kurt," he said, "I know that I can't fully understand your feelings. But…I know what it's like to feel like there's something wrong with you, like you have a monster inside that you can't contain."
"Vhat?"
He looked over at David whose face had become miserable.
"When…when I was eight," he said, "I went to visit my father. My mother and I went out because we ran low on coffee at the mansion. We ended up getting fruit and cookies too because I begged. And then we got pizza for that night, some pasta. I rode in the cart at the supermarket; she pushed it fast when we were in the parking lot. It was like a rollercoaster."
David gave a choked laugh.
"I think I remember it all so clearly because it was so normal," he said, "And because what happened next wasn't. We were just about to get into the car when this man in a mask grabbed my mother. I yelled but someone came up behind me…I think. In any case they knocked me out. When I woke up we were in a van with no windows. My mother was handcuffed but had wormed her arms around me, murmuring things and trying to keep me calm. I was so scared."
Kurt's lips parted wordlessly. The Professor had mentioned that his son and wife lived separately because of security. He had never imagined that anything had happened though.
"You have to understand that I didn't really have control of my powers back then. My telekinesis was shaky at best," he continued, "I could faintly hear my father, give him a few scraps of information, but my fear was too strong for more. I wish I hadn't been so afraid, so cowardly. I could have done something-"
"You vere eight," Kurt protested.
David ignored him, pressing on.
"The ride in the car was the longest of my life but all too soon we were being jerked into this house and I was still crying. My mother was trying to be strong, but I could she was scared too."
He made a vague gesture with his hand.
"My powers were going everywhere. I could hear all their thoughts, and I mean all of them," he shuddered, "I knew they were the Friends of Humanity and that, although they'd just told my father we were hostages on the phone I knew they were going to kill us. I could hear them thinking about when they'd discussed methods earlier, guns or knives. They decided on knives. Nothing quick for mutants."
His voice became bitter towards the end and fingers gripped into the stone rail of the bridge.
"One of them went for my mother and I knew what was going to happen next," he said, "I started screaming 'no' as loud as I could and then…"
David's voice trailed off.
"You don't haf to-" began Kurt.
"No," David said, "Just…"
He breathed out.
"I killed them," he said, "I didn't know it would happen, how could I at that age? I just wanted them to stop thinking that, to stop wanting to kill us. My father thought that I sent out a mental shockwave that gave ten people instant aneurysms. Like that."
Bitterly David snapped his fingers.
"I did not know," Kurt said quietly.
"It's not something you talk about," said David, "I was so young. I didn't understand what had happened until weeks later but…"
David hesitated.
"…but that's not all," he said, "I didn't…imagine, when someone dies, a mind with all of their personality, thoughts, strength, ideas, and ingenuity going out. It's not just that though, it's them, it's their soul. When they die it goes out. What I did was more…more…more like a vacuum, with me as the dirt collector."
Kurt's eyes widened. He tentatively put a hand on his cousin's shoulder.
"I don't remember much of what happened next," he said, "But was like two things were happening at once. It was dark and all these hands were clawing at me, trying to lock me away and I could hear what they were thinking and feeling. And I felt that my head was too small and I was trying to widen it so they could get out and leave me alone so…I could feel the pain and fear but I didn't really know what I was doing…"
He took a deep breath.
"When my father and the X-Men they found us my mother was trying to restrain me as I tried to bash my head open," he said.
Shock rippled through Kurt as they stood there, silence descending. He had never thought that his cousin could have possibly gone through what he had. David sighed.
"My father…he had to put me under psychicly, barricade me against them. Then he came into my mind but it took him days to lock them all away in some dark corner of my head," he said, "There are so many barricades, sustaining themselves on my powers, locking them far away. Sometimes I get these quiet whispers and these headaches, but it decreases each year. My parents helped me through it."
Seemingly recovering himself David shook his head again.
"What I think that I'm trying to say," he said at last, "was that sometimes we do things, lose control. Sometimes we fall and the consequences are terrible. You never think it will happen to you, but sometimes it does and you can't stop yourself. But…when we do, if you have someone there to catch you then you can get through it. You can keep living, become what you want to be. For me it was my parents who caught and carried me."
David turned to Kurt and gripped his arm.
"And I want you to know that no matter what I'll be there to catch you," he said, "If I can prevent you from doing something that will compromise yourself , or even if all I can do is help you back up, then I won't give a second thought to doing it. None of us would."
Kurt swallowed, feeling shaken.
"Danke lieber Vetter," he said quietly, "Danke."
A/N:This actually happened to David in the comics in a similar situation. However, in that version his father didn't know he existed and he was left to deal with the multiple personalities on his own. Being so young he failed and that's why he's pretty much insane in the comics. Still, he seemed like someone who always wanted to do the right thing in contrast with Proteus who, at least in the comics I read, was very 'whatever' about the way he lived. I'd been kind of curious to see what would have happened to David if he'd been helped back when help was the most needed which was another reason that I chose him over Proteus for this fic. Of course, Proteus also killed one character in my favorite X-Men series 'The Exiles' and posessed my favorite. That's probably another reason. I'm only human.
