A/N: Hey there! Moulin Rouge rocks!

Okay, the updates for this story may take a bit longer because I just adopted a story from the amazing Jinxeh. It's called Hindsight, and it's for Pirates of the Carribean (my first story outside the X-Men fandom)! I'll do my absolute best, though.

Disclaimer: Own nothing. As usual.

Chapter Twelve

Kurt's forehead wrinkled slightly as he gingerly pulled the tape off of his hands. He growled a little from the minor pain, although he was more than used to it. It was necessary for practice on his routine, and complaining about it was fruitless. Everyone else had to wear it as well. Besides, the ache was nothing compared to what it had felt like to carve the scars into the now exposed skin.

Momentarily, he traced one of the markings on the back of his wrist with the large index finger of his other hand, feeling his insides squirm slightly at the memory of the knife sliding across his body and leaving a thin trail of welling blood in its wake. For an instant, it was as if he could see this morbid sight once more. He quickly shut his eyes.

Despite what people naturally assumed when they first noticed his scars, Kurt was not the type of person who enjoyed gory things. True, injuries were a huge part of an acrobat's life – he couldn't say how many times he'd seen his coworkers break their various limbs – but even so, when watching horror films or such, he usually spent a good part of the movie trying to turn away from the bloodier parts as surreptitiously as possible.

Kurt had been very young when he had put the scars on his skin, perhaps too young to really know any better. But there wasn't a day that went by when he regretted his actions. He had come to think of the markings as a physical testament to his faith, and was used to seeing them move with his skin as fluidly as water droplets down glass. They were a part of his body the second he had made them so, and had become a part of his soul as he grew older.

Feeling a little less queasy, he opened his eyes, brushed his hair out of his eyes (it had gotten very long – he needed to ask Amanda to cut it again), and briefly glanced out of the window of his caravan. It was very close to midnight, and the black sky was dotted with a multitude of bright stars. It was dark inside as well, although there was glowing light coming from the kerosene lamp, illuminating the room. Kurt grinned as he saw who had been responsible for this radiance. Beside the table that the lamp was resting on was a pullout cot, and on top of that was his foster brother, Stefan.

The older man was in a deep slumber. He lay on his back with a book in his limp hand, barely held open to a particular page by his thumb. Kurt's smile widened. He, Margali, and Amanda rarely got to see him, so naturally he spent their time together reading books from his monastery. Kurt walked over to Stefan and tugged the paperback from his grip as gently as possible, trying to not wake him up. His efforts, however, were useless; he began to stir the instant his arm was moved.

"Hmm?" he mumbled sleepily as he sat up. "Who's-"

"Sorry," Kurt told him. "Go back to sleep, Stefan."

Stefan did not obey this command. Instead, he rubbed his eyes, looking a bit more alert. "How long have you been here?"

Kurt pushed his curls out of his face once more. "Only a few minutes. How long have you been asleep?"

"Oh, I can't remember. An hour or so...?" Stefan swung his legs over the side of his bed and stood, stretching his sides. "How was rehearsal?"

"Fine. It ran quite long, though, I've only just gotten back." He sighed, feeling a bit guilty about waking his brother up – he hated being disturbed when he was asleep – and strode over to his own bed, flopping down exhaustedly onto his front with much less grace than usual, his face resting in his pillow. "What are you doing?"

"I was hoping to finish that book tonight, so I'm making some tea. Care for any?"

"No, thank you," Kurt replied, his voice muffled. "I'm planning to sleep for the next twelve hours."

"Then I'll try not to make too much noise," Stefan replied, with a hint of a smile in his usually somber voice. Kurt grinned again, his fangs rubbing against the pillowcase before he rolled over onto his back, running his tongue over his teeth to remove the sensation.

He was still in his day attire, he realized as he tried to slip beneath his blankets. Groaning quietly, he looked over at the chair where his nightclothes had been messily tossed early that morning. In his current state of fatigue, it seemed as though standing up, walking those three feet, and changing were like performing a marathon. Instead, he pulled off his shirt while remaining in his horizontal position and threw it towards the end of his bed.

For a brief moment, while Kurt's bare skin brushed against his sheets, he was strongly reminded that he hadn't been alone with Amanda for a very long while...

However, the feeling quickly passed as his studied his brother bustling about his makeshift kitchen. It was extremely odd that he thought of his girlfriend's blood brother as his own true sibling, but then again, nothing in his life could really be considered normal. He could clearly remember a time when he would have given anything for this statement to be false. Now he was more thankful for it than anything else.

Sighing contentedly, Kurt sank further beneath his covers, letting his eyelids droop shut of their own accord. He hadn't been kidding when he had revealed his plans for rest to Stefan; it had been an extraordinarily long day for him. Give it a few more minutes, and there would be only a slight amount of distractions that could bother him. This knowledge seemed to encourage his soporific mood, for barely any time passed before his mind went completely, blissfully blank.

Nevertheless, Kurt had the benefit of just a couple seconds of rest before he was woken up by Stefan's shocked shout, followed by the sound of a splash and a loud shattering. He immediately shot up out of bed, the blankets bunching around his hips. Heart pounding in alarm, his head swiveled around to locate the source of his brother's terror, before following the other man's gaze to the window of the caravan.

He started when the sight that had scared Stefan so met his eyes: a grotesque face was pressed against the glass, its nose flattened wide and the eyes crossed towards each other. A heavy tongue hung out of the mouth as well, tapering into a point that just barely stopped short of licking the pane. Surrounding all of this was a veil of tangled curls. On either side, a hand was squashed palm-down on the window.

It took Kurt a moment for his mind to truly register who was standing outside. The instant he jumped out of bed and rushed over, the face pulled itself away from the glass, laughing. It was only then, in their natural state, that he was able to recognize the young features.

"Gwen!"

"May I ask, my dear child, what possessed you to try and frighten your uncle at this late hour?" Stefan asked Gwen as he swept up the shard of clay that now littered the floor of the caravan. "Not to mention scaring the wits out of me at the same time."

The girl carefully picked up one of the larger fragments by her foot and tossed it into the nearby trash bin. "I really don't know. Again, sorry." Her eyes flickered over to Kurt, and her expression changed from sober to amused. "You guys jumped a lot, though," she muttered under her breath, just loud enough for them to hear.

Kurt, who was more than used to this sort of response from the girl, simply rolled his eyes. Stefan was a different matter, however, having never met her until that night. He opened his mouth to reply, looking slightly frustrated, but appeared to change his mind when he saw his younger brother shake his head.

"I've heard a lot about you."

"Whatever they said, it's a lie." Gwen threw another shard into the trash and grinned up at him. "Just kidding. Only half of it is true."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Gwen, I thought you weren't coming for another few weeks." Kurt interrupted their conversation, before she gave his brother even more reason to find her irritating. She turned to him.

"Dad really wanted to come. I figured I would surprise you." Her smile widened. "Surprised?"

"Yes." Kurt noticed, with a little disbelief, that she had referred to Sigfried as 'Dad' rather than her usual 'Vati,' and wondered at the sudden change. His eyes swept over her frame, as though he would be able to find out why from her physical form. However, he realized that the sight did indeed tell him what he wanted to know.

Gwen had grown quite a bit during the year, and not just in height (though she was a few more inches taller – even so, she was still shorter than the average child). Her unruly hair was much longer, now just stopping short of the small of her back, and her round, childish face had begun to grow more angular as well. The discrepancies were not limited to her head, however, and Kurt winced as he noted with the protective eyes of her relative the slight budding beneath her shirt. Even the way she dressed had changed. She still wore jeans, but they fit her properly, rather than sagging around her hips (these too had widened), and there wasn't a single one of her father's articles of clothing on her. Everything had been tailored for a girl who was making the transition into a young lady.

"What are you looking at?" Gwen brusquely inquired of him, scratching her scalp.

Maybe not a young lady.

Even so, she was definitely growing older. Kurt had met her only a year before, but in corresponding with her, had gotten quite attached. At the moment, it seemed a bit painful to have to watch her turn into the woman she would become one day, but he realized that it was part of being family with someone. There was nothing he could do but put it out of his mind and let nature take its course.

"I'm not looking at anything. How are Tony and Linda?" Kurt sat at the table, figuring that Stefan would be able to finish getting the last two shards off the floor. Gwen knelt by his feet, facing him.

"They're good. I can't believe I have to go two months without seeing them, though." She smiled. "How cool is that? I miss someone at home."

"It's...cool," Kurt replied, the word fitting in his mouth uncomfortably. At the same time, her sudden depth impressed him. "Miss me?"

"Of course."

"How's Sigfried?"

"He's looking for a job. It's not going as well as it could be, though, it's that stupid jail time thing-"

"Your brother went to prison?" Stefan asked Kurt, setting the trash bin in its rightful place. His eyes were wide.

"Yes," he said, looking down at Gwen. She was rubbing her tongue between her cheek and gums, a little embarrassed.

"What for?" came the inevitable question.

"Er...sleeping with my mom when she was like sixteen and he was eleven years older," she mumbled quickly, just barely decipherable.

Stefan looked shocked. "Oh, my," he muttered, crossing himself.

"He's not a pedophile-"

"No, he's not. How are your – our – cousins?" Kurt once again intervened between the two, sensing the possibility of an argument.

Gwen's gaze stayed on Stefan. "They're good too. Alice got a really cute new haircut, a short bob, and she doesn't have to use the wheelchair anymore. Harriet and Edward are still being all careful about her, though." Her line of vision trailed onto Kurt's face. "Where's Amanda?"

"She's staying with Mom while Stefan's here. She might be here tomorrow night, if you come by."

"I will. Tell her I say hi in the morning." She lowered her voice. "Is Christophe...is he okay?"

He nodded. "There's nothing to worry about. It's not unusual. He's just getting used to me."

"But hasn't he known you for like four months now?" she asked crossly, waving her fist in the air.

"I'm fine, Gwen. Don't worry about it."

"But you kept mentioning him in your letters." She narrowed her eyes in concentration. "You are so worried."

"No mind-reading without my permission." Kurt stood up. She straightened as well.

"Then what's the point? Tell me where he stays at night. I'll go talk to him."

"No, you won't. You'll kick him in the shins."

"Well, he'll at least get the message, won't he?"

Stefan piped up. "Gwen, conflict won't help."

"Oh, yes it will," she said, turning to face him.

"No, it won't." He sat down in the chair opposite to the one Kurt had been in a moment before. "With all due respect, I know more about this than you do. Retaliating has never solved anything when it came to those who had problems with my brother's appearance. There have been far worse cases than this. Leave it alone."

"But-"

"Stefan's right, Gwen." Kurt sat down again. She furrowed her brow in frustration, before relaxing and resuming her spot by his feet.

"Oh, fine. But if anything happens, don't cry to me." She glared at Stefan, who raised his eyebrow in response.

Kurt ran his fingers through his hair, sighing. This had been, undoubtedly, the worst possible way for his uncle and his niece to be introduced to each other.