Childish
Disclaimer: I do not own Kurt Wagner, or any of the X-Men Marvel comic/movie/cartoon characters that may be mentioned in the duration of this piece of writing. However, Amy and her family and friends are owned by me, as I thought them into some sort of abstract reality, so no stealing them.
Chapter 1
Kurt made his way through the small town, jumping from trees to power line poles and anything else that he could land on safely. He would have simply teleported across the whole thing, only he didn't quite know if where he was going still looked like it did and so took precaution instead, taking the slower, and safer, route. Only problem was that he had been doing it for four hours now, and he had fallen off a few poles, being slick with rain and now-turning ice. His head hurt, seeing as that was what he had hit before he had grabbed onto anything, and despite the careful bundling he had done, he was getting cold.
" This is no way for a Nightcrawler to be." He muttered to himself as he stopped on an iceless power line pole and searched the area for a tree that might not shelter him from the cold, but at least from the rain that was now coming down.
His eyes caught one a few blocks away, in the backyard of a light blue house with navy blue trim. It was taller than the others, very obviously a stately and sturdy oak with its leaves still on it. He grinned thankfully to whichever gods had heard his small prayer and started sluggishly leaping towards it, also glad for the cover of night as he scared a bird out if its nest, and himself out of his wits.
Kurt would have made himself at home in the top of the tree where the leaves covered everything rather well, but it also neighbored some of the meanest bluejays that he had encountered.
He meant to swing down from the branch that he was on, and swing he did, but the branch that he had held onto turned into a ledge and there was a wall that he smacked face-first into. Pain exploded in his face and he bit his lip to keep from shouting from it and waking up anyone. Dropping into the cleft of two branches and swearing quietly, but colorfully in his native German, he grabbed his nose and blew a hard breath through it, spraying blood all over his legs. He could breathe after that, and nothing thicker than blood came out, so he knew that his nose wasn't broken. A small miracle. Wiping his nose off on his sleeve, he looked closer at the offending wall and found that a few feet to the place where he had crashed into it, there was a small window. He nearly laughed out loud when he realized that a child's treehouse had nearly killed him.
" Well, it is so late that no good, parent minding child would be out so late, so..." He grinned and glided cat-like through the window.
The room was small. If he raised himself fully up in his knees, his head hit the ceiling. That was the only problem though, because there was much space otherwise, and it was nicely furnished for just being a treehouse. There were pink drapes on all of the other windows, with ruffles and darker pink trim; and a matching pink rug on the floor. It was very soft, and he had to admit, it was big enough to sleep on if he curled up enough. Kneeling and wiping his nose on his sleeve again, he looked to the entrance of the treehouse, seeing that it had no door whatsoever and looked right into the room of the owner of the place, seeing as that the curtains in the room across the way matched the one in the treehouse.
Suddenly a small light snapped on and he ducked down, keeping his eyes on the window. A small figure sat up in bed, and he could not see any features as the girl came closer to the window and opened it, so he waited for her move.
* * *
Amy woke with a start from her half-hearted sleep. She thrust her hand out of the covers and switched on the bedside lamp and sat straight up in bed, her head turning to the east window in her room. She could have sworn that she had heard something outside in the tree, but there was nothing there but the rain of the coming storm. She made a face and crawled out of her bed and walked to the window, looking closer at the tree and the house that her father had made her that summer.
She hated storms. She always knew when they were coming, and she was filled with unknown energy when they came, but the energy left when the storm did, leaving her drained and lifeless for a few days after. Already she could feel the itch in her limbs that knew she was going to be hyper as a gnat tomorrow, but she also knew that for now she could control it.
Just like she knew there was something outside. She may have been a mere seven year old, but she wasn't a stupid one, or slow at that. Slipping the latch open, she pushed her window open and deftly climbed onto the outstretched branch of the oak that let her get to her treehouse late at night. As deftly as a lizard, she stuck to the branch until she got to the safer part and stood up on her hands and knees and continued her journey. " I'm not going to be able to do that when I'm eight." She thought aloud, something she did often.
It wasn't that she didn't have an inner monologue, it was just that verbalizing some thoughts made it easier to understand them, and at this moment, she felt she was going to do a lot of talking.
" Look," She said, picking up the thick braid that had fallen over her shoulder and flinging it behind her as she sped up, finally reaching the entrance to her house. " I know something is here, and you had better know that I am not a mean girl, but I don't really appreciate people being in my treehouse without my permission."
Amy thought that it was a mere raccoon as it had been the last time, or the neighbors cat like it had been the time before the raccoon. She wasn't sure, and so she stood up in the doorway, making sure she was in a few feet so if whatever was in there suddenly startled and flew past her, she wouldn't fall the twenty feet that it was to the ground. Between falling to her death and facing a wild animal, she'd take the wild animal any day.
Nothing replied to her, no sound, no movement, nothing. And yet... there felt like there was something in front of her, something bigger than a cat, definitely bigger than any of the raccoons around town, bigger than any of the dogs that were on the block, though she didn't see how a dog would have gotten up there.
" I won't hurt you, I promise." She inched forwards on her feet and held out her hand tentatively, though she wasn't touch anything yet. " I promise."
* * *
" I promise."
The girls' voice was soft and tempting, as if she was calling a scared cat out of a tree. Her eyes were bright and shining in the dark, and sadly he could not see what color they were, but her hair was a definite soft golden red, like brass polished to a new gleam. She was short, tall enough to stand in the house, and her skin was pale in the moonlight, though he knew that with all children, they bronzed in the sunlight as they played. Her nightclothes were not those that he had ever seen on any child, a mere green tank top and a matching pair of baggy pants, both featuring the face of some wild green creature with a gaping mouth and wild eyes. Above the face on the tank top were stark black words, declaring " Cram it!"
Kurt stifled a giggle and turned his face to the girl again, raising himself up a little so that he was facing her. " If you promise, then you have to keep it." He said quietly, so as not to shock her too much.
Her eyes widened and he watched her body stiffen, though she did not withdraw her hand, merely curled it into a fist that shook. " You aren't a cat at all." She breathed, her nostrils flaring because she could not get breath past her tightly clamped lips.
Kurt shook his head. " Just because I have a tail like one does not mean that I am one." He did not draw any nearer to her, just shifted himself into a more comfortable position with his legs under him and his tail curled around his feet. He put out a hand a few inches away from hers.
" I am Kurt Wagner, also known as Nightcrawler to the fair circus folk." She did not take his hand, but nor did he lower his. " I was just passing by here, looking for a place out of the rain and cold until morning."
Her eyes studied him, the only part of her body that moved in that second until she relaxed and let her hand fall to her side. " Why are you bleeding then?"
Kurt let his own hand fall, realizing that it had been the sleeve that he had wiped his nose on. " I crashed into your wonderful wall on my way in here." He didn't see why lying to her would help any, so he told her the truth.
" Does your nose hurt anymore?" She asked, rubbing her fist on the side of her pant leg.
" A bit." He waved the statement away. " I have stopped the bleeding, it does not matter anymore."
She shook her head, her long braid falling over her shoulder. " No, you are still bloody. Please," She looked towards her house to make sure of something. " come inside. I'll clean you off and give you a blanket to sleep with."
Kurt nodded and followed her back into the house, mimicking her movements to get to the window, because obviously you could not get back into the house through the window without squatting down on the branch like a constipated monkey. Kurt nearly laughed at the thought and quietly slipped through the window behind her.
* * *
Amy's mind screamed at her. ' Why are you doing this?' It raged as she moistened a washcloth in the bathroom in her room, warming the water a bit more. ' He is a mutant! Can't you see that? Your mother is going to kill you both if she finds out.'
" He needs help. I promised Da that I would help anyone who needed it." She told the little voice as she wrung the water out and walked silently to her bed, handing it to the blue demon thing that she had found hiding in her treehouse. " Here you go."
Kurt, as that was what he had said his name was, took the washcloth and wiped off his wrist and face before holding it to his nose. " Thank you." Amy sat on the small chair that she had dragged out of the closet and observed him.
He was blue all over, and she thought that it was fur of a kind, since it shone in the darkness the way that cats fur usually did, only his was blue. His hair was black and shining, slicked back to the nape of his neck, a strange, but oddly pleasant contrast to the beastly yellow of his eyes and the white of his teeth. He only had three fingers and toes, and his tail was slightly thin with a strange spade at the end. Definitely not like a cat. His ears and teeth were pointed, but it didn't scare her. In fact, nothing about his scared her, yet.
" I'm Amy." She said into the silence, knowing that he was watching her as avidly as she had been watching him. " Amy MacConnors."
" Irish?" Kurt asked, slightly tilting his head to the side.
" As Irish as you are German." Amy said, her eyes glinting as she smiled at him.
" And a tongue for accents." Kurt took the washcloth away from his nose and started scrubbing the dried blood off his sleeve and legs. " You father must be proud."
Amy winced, and Kurt could see it in her smile. It faltered, but never really waned. He guessed he knew what that meant, but it could mean anything to a small girl.
" He was proud of me." Amy said. " When he was alive enough to still be proud of anything, it was always me."
" A good thing to be proud of, a daughter." Kurt gravely intoned, still rubbing the wet cloth on the front of his leg. " But since I have none, I think that I should be proud of other things."
" Like what?" Amy asked, and he could hear the carefully hidden intonations of the accent that her looks spoke of. He wondered why she would hide it, but answered her question. He looked her straight in the eyes, finding that they were rich blue orbs, large in such a small face, and yet so intently studied on him.
" Friends and family, goals, wishes, dreams, comrades." His voice melted off as a smile came to his face, remembering the women and men of the X-Team back at the mansion that he had taken leave of to make this trip down memory lane.
" Comrades?" The growing lilt of her voice made it a question.
" The people I have fought beside. Some were friends already, most became friends in the end." ' The ones that survived.' His mind told him, but he refused to let a little voice ruin his safekeeping.
" You... fought?" Amy asked, her eyes getting a little wider. " Who?"
" Many people, bad ones and good ones alike." Kurt shook his head, not knowing that Amy was imagining all kinds of horrible scenes in her head, like any active minded seven year old would, especially when presented with a mutant of his caliber.
He turned to nicer things, hoping to get both of their minds off of what they had just brought up. " So," He said, picking up the pirate rag doll that lay haphazardly on her bed.
" Who is this charming fellow?"
Amy spent the next few minutes telling him that her father had read 'Cutthroat Island' when she was little and she loved it so much that he had gone out and made her her own little pirate captain. " He's been with me ever since." She declared.
Kurt handed him to her, and Amy took him reverently, settling him in her lap. " Have you been a mutant long?" She asked suddenly, fixing her hands around her stuffed rag pirate.
" Oh, ever since I can remember." Kurt said flippantly. " How long have you been human?"
" I don't know." Amy shrugged. " I thought that they were one and the same."
Kurt was quite taken aback by her statement. She was young, too young to be speaking with the wiseness that she appeared to be displaying. " Explain this to me, please?"
Amy sighed and moved herself off the chair, sitting on the bed beside him. She turned to him and crossed her legs, settling the pirate in her lap. " I figure that mutants are like humans, only better in some ways. It's like comparing a celebrity to my mother perhaps. Their both beautiful and talented in their owns ways, but the celebrity has fame and fortune, therefore making her better in the eyes of society." She shrugged and looked out her window. " Maybe I should make it easier to see in here." She reached behind her and turned up the lamp a notch, making it clear that she had a small smattering of freckles across her nose and under her eyes.
" I see, kind of. But how a small girl can see, that I do not."
Amy shrugged again. " My da and I used to talk about it all the time. We both like mutants, but my mother doesn't. It's odd, that I liked hearing them argue about things involving mutants, it was almost as if I learned more from them shouting at each other than I did from the tv and Internet and radio and school." Her voice got quiet again and she looked away for a second.
" It's getting late. You can take a few blankets out to the treehouse, but it's raining now and it's going to ice over in the morning." She shut the window with a decided finality and latched it. " You can sleep under the bed, because my mom comes in in the morning and wakes me up in time for school. I know there's room, my da used to hide under there when we played hide and seek."
Kurt nodded and took the offered blanket, falling to his knees and picking up the edge of her comforter to slip under. He heard her getting into bed and turning out the light above him, then the toss and turning of her as she tried to get comfortable.
" Kurt?" She asked quietly, and the edge of the blanket was picked up so that he saw her luminous face upside down.
" Ja?" He replied.
" I hope you weren't a dream. It'll have been the best one that I've had since Da died." She now sounded her age, small and fragile and afraid of something.
" Would you like me to stay in the morning so that you know it wasn't a dream?" He asked, putting his arm under his head for a pillow and then finding a big teddy bear that worked better. She was right, there was more than enough room under here for him. " So that after your mother wakes you up, you can check on me and know that I'm real?"
Amy nodded. " Yeah, that would be good." She popped her head back up and he heard her lay back down, snuggling into the covers with her pirate man. " And Kurt?"
" Ja?" He couldn't help but let a little annoyance into his voice, but not much.
" Good night." Her dulcet tones reached his ears and his body relaxed in thanks that it was not another question, but also with the quiet glee that she was so kind to him.
" Good night, minute fraulein." Kurt said, then rolled over and closed his eyes, tucking the blanket around him with his tail.
Disclaimer: I do not own Kurt Wagner, or any of the X-Men Marvel comic/movie/cartoon characters that may be mentioned in the duration of this piece of writing. However, Amy and her family and friends are owned by me, as I thought them into some sort of abstract reality, so no stealing them.
Chapter 1
Kurt made his way through the small town, jumping from trees to power line poles and anything else that he could land on safely. He would have simply teleported across the whole thing, only he didn't quite know if where he was going still looked like it did and so took precaution instead, taking the slower, and safer, route. Only problem was that he had been doing it for four hours now, and he had fallen off a few poles, being slick with rain and now-turning ice. His head hurt, seeing as that was what he had hit before he had grabbed onto anything, and despite the careful bundling he had done, he was getting cold.
" This is no way for a Nightcrawler to be." He muttered to himself as he stopped on an iceless power line pole and searched the area for a tree that might not shelter him from the cold, but at least from the rain that was now coming down.
His eyes caught one a few blocks away, in the backyard of a light blue house with navy blue trim. It was taller than the others, very obviously a stately and sturdy oak with its leaves still on it. He grinned thankfully to whichever gods had heard his small prayer and started sluggishly leaping towards it, also glad for the cover of night as he scared a bird out if its nest, and himself out of his wits.
Kurt would have made himself at home in the top of the tree where the leaves covered everything rather well, but it also neighbored some of the meanest bluejays that he had encountered.
He meant to swing down from the branch that he was on, and swing he did, but the branch that he had held onto turned into a ledge and there was a wall that he smacked face-first into. Pain exploded in his face and he bit his lip to keep from shouting from it and waking up anyone. Dropping into the cleft of two branches and swearing quietly, but colorfully in his native German, he grabbed his nose and blew a hard breath through it, spraying blood all over his legs. He could breathe after that, and nothing thicker than blood came out, so he knew that his nose wasn't broken. A small miracle. Wiping his nose off on his sleeve, he looked closer at the offending wall and found that a few feet to the place where he had crashed into it, there was a small window. He nearly laughed out loud when he realized that a child's treehouse had nearly killed him.
" Well, it is so late that no good, parent minding child would be out so late, so..." He grinned and glided cat-like through the window.
The room was small. If he raised himself fully up in his knees, his head hit the ceiling. That was the only problem though, because there was much space otherwise, and it was nicely furnished for just being a treehouse. There were pink drapes on all of the other windows, with ruffles and darker pink trim; and a matching pink rug on the floor. It was very soft, and he had to admit, it was big enough to sleep on if he curled up enough. Kneeling and wiping his nose on his sleeve again, he looked to the entrance of the treehouse, seeing that it had no door whatsoever and looked right into the room of the owner of the place, seeing as that the curtains in the room across the way matched the one in the treehouse.
Suddenly a small light snapped on and he ducked down, keeping his eyes on the window. A small figure sat up in bed, and he could not see any features as the girl came closer to the window and opened it, so he waited for her move.
* * *
Amy woke with a start from her half-hearted sleep. She thrust her hand out of the covers and switched on the bedside lamp and sat straight up in bed, her head turning to the east window in her room. She could have sworn that she had heard something outside in the tree, but there was nothing there but the rain of the coming storm. She made a face and crawled out of her bed and walked to the window, looking closer at the tree and the house that her father had made her that summer.
She hated storms. She always knew when they were coming, and she was filled with unknown energy when they came, but the energy left when the storm did, leaving her drained and lifeless for a few days after. Already she could feel the itch in her limbs that knew she was going to be hyper as a gnat tomorrow, but she also knew that for now she could control it.
Just like she knew there was something outside. She may have been a mere seven year old, but she wasn't a stupid one, or slow at that. Slipping the latch open, she pushed her window open and deftly climbed onto the outstretched branch of the oak that let her get to her treehouse late at night. As deftly as a lizard, she stuck to the branch until she got to the safer part and stood up on her hands and knees and continued her journey. " I'm not going to be able to do that when I'm eight." She thought aloud, something she did often.
It wasn't that she didn't have an inner monologue, it was just that verbalizing some thoughts made it easier to understand them, and at this moment, she felt she was going to do a lot of talking.
" Look," She said, picking up the thick braid that had fallen over her shoulder and flinging it behind her as she sped up, finally reaching the entrance to her house. " I know something is here, and you had better know that I am not a mean girl, but I don't really appreciate people being in my treehouse without my permission."
Amy thought that it was a mere raccoon as it had been the last time, or the neighbors cat like it had been the time before the raccoon. She wasn't sure, and so she stood up in the doorway, making sure she was in a few feet so if whatever was in there suddenly startled and flew past her, she wouldn't fall the twenty feet that it was to the ground. Between falling to her death and facing a wild animal, she'd take the wild animal any day.
Nothing replied to her, no sound, no movement, nothing. And yet... there felt like there was something in front of her, something bigger than a cat, definitely bigger than any of the raccoons around town, bigger than any of the dogs that were on the block, though she didn't see how a dog would have gotten up there.
" I won't hurt you, I promise." She inched forwards on her feet and held out her hand tentatively, though she wasn't touch anything yet. " I promise."
* * *
" I promise."
The girls' voice was soft and tempting, as if she was calling a scared cat out of a tree. Her eyes were bright and shining in the dark, and sadly he could not see what color they were, but her hair was a definite soft golden red, like brass polished to a new gleam. She was short, tall enough to stand in the house, and her skin was pale in the moonlight, though he knew that with all children, they bronzed in the sunlight as they played. Her nightclothes were not those that he had ever seen on any child, a mere green tank top and a matching pair of baggy pants, both featuring the face of some wild green creature with a gaping mouth and wild eyes. Above the face on the tank top were stark black words, declaring " Cram it!"
Kurt stifled a giggle and turned his face to the girl again, raising himself up a little so that he was facing her. " If you promise, then you have to keep it." He said quietly, so as not to shock her too much.
Her eyes widened and he watched her body stiffen, though she did not withdraw her hand, merely curled it into a fist that shook. " You aren't a cat at all." She breathed, her nostrils flaring because she could not get breath past her tightly clamped lips.
Kurt shook his head. " Just because I have a tail like one does not mean that I am one." He did not draw any nearer to her, just shifted himself into a more comfortable position with his legs under him and his tail curled around his feet. He put out a hand a few inches away from hers.
" I am Kurt Wagner, also known as Nightcrawler to the fair circus folk." She did not take his hand, but nor did he lower his. " I was just passing by here, looking for a place out of the rain and cold until morning."
Her eyes studied him, the only part of her body that moved in that second until she relaxed and let her hand fall to her side. " Why are you bleeding then?"
Kurt let his own hand fall, realizing that it had been the sleeve that he had wiped his nose on. " I crashed into your wonderful wall on my way in here." He didn't see why lying to her would help any, so he told her the truth.
" Does your nose hurt anymore?" She asked, rubbing her fist on the side of her pant leg.
" A bit." He waved the statement away. " I have stopped the bleeding, it does not matter anymore."
She shook her head, her long braid falling over her shoulder. " No, you are still bloody. Please," She looked towards her house to make sure of something. " come inside. I'll clean you off and give you a blanket to sleep with."
Kurt nodded and followed her back into the house, mimicking her movements to get to the window, because obviously you could not get back into the house through the window without squatting down on the branch like a constipated monkey. Kurt nearly laughed at the thought and quietly slipped through the window behind her.
* * *
Amy's mind screamed at her. ' Why are you doing this?' It raged as she moistened a washcloth in the bathroom in her room, warming the water a bit more. ' He is a mutant! Can't you see that? Your mother is going to kill you both if she finds out.'
" He needs help. I promised Da that I would help anyone who needed it." She told the little voice as she wrung the water out and walked silently to her bed, handing it to the blue demon thing that she had found hiding in her treehouse. " Here you go."
Kurt, as that was what he had said his name was, took the washcloth and wiped off his wrist and face before holding it to his nose. " Thank you." Amy sat on the small chair that she had dragged out of the closet and observed him.
He was blue all over, and she thought that it was fur of a kind, since it shone in the darkness the way that cats fur usually did, only his was blue. His hair was black and shining, slicked back to the nape of his neck, a strange, but oddly pleasant contrast to the beastly yellow of his eyes and the white of his teeth. He only had three fingers and toes, and his tail was slightly thin with a strange spade at the end. Definitely not like a cat. His ears and teeth were pointed, but it didn't scare her. In fact, nothing about his scared her, yet.
" I'm Amy." She said into the silence, knowing that he was watching her as avidly as she had been watching him. " Amy MacConnors."
" Irish?" Kurt asked, slightly tilting his head to the side.
" As Irish as you are German." Amy said, her eyes glinting as she smiled at him.
" And a tongue for accents." Kurt took the washcloth away from his nose and started scrubbing the dried blood off his sleeve and legs. " You father must be proud."
Amy winced, and Kurt could see it in her smile. It faltered, but never really waned. He guessed he knew what that meant, but it could mean anything to a small girl.
" He was proud of me." Amy said. " When he was alive enough to still be proud of anything, it was always me."
" A good thing to be proud of, a daughter." Kurt gravely intoned, still rubbing the wet cloth on the front of his leg. " But since I have none, I think that I should be proud of other things."
" Like what?" Amy asked, and he could hear the carefully hidden intonations of the accent that her looks spoke of. He wondered why she would hide it, but answered her question. He looked her straight in the eyes, finding that they were rich blue orbs, large in such a small face, and yet so intently studied on him.
" Friends and family, goals, wishes, dreams, comrades." His voice melted off as a smile came to his face, remembering the women and men of the X-Team back at the mansion that he had taken leave of to make this trip down memory lane.
" Comrades?" The growing lilt of her voice made it a question.
" The people I have fought beside. Some were friends already, most became friends in the end." ' The ones that survived.' His mind told him, but he refused to let a little voice ruin his safekeeping.
" You... fought?" Amy asked, her eyes getting a little wider. " Who?"
" Many people, bad ones and good ones alike." Kurt shook his head, not knowing that Amy was imagining all kinds of horrible scenes in her head, like any active minded seven year old would, especially when presented with a mutant of his caliber.
He turned to nicer things, hoping to get both of their minds off of what they had just brought up. " So," He said, picking up the pirate rag doll that lay haphazardly on her bed.
" Who is this charming fellow?"
Amy spent the next few minutes telling him that her father had read 'Cutthroat Island' when she was little and she loved it so much that he had gone out and made her her own little pirate captain. " He's been with me ever since." She declared.
Kurt handed him to her, and Amy took him reverently, settling him in her lap. " Have you been a mutant long?" She asked suddenly, fixing her hands around her stuffed rag pirate.
" Oh, ever since I can remember." Kurt said flippantly. " How long have you been human?"
" I don't know." Amy shrugged. " I thought that they were one and the same."
Kurt was quite taken aback by her statement. She was young, too young to be speaking with the wiseness that she appeared to be displaying. " Explain this to me, please?"
Amy sighed and moved herself off the chair, sitting on the bed beside him. She turned to him and crossed her legs, settling the pirate in her lap. " I figure that mutants are like humans, only better in some ways. It's like comparing a celebrity to my mother perhaps. Their both beautiful and talented in their owns ways, but the celebrity has fame and fortune, therefore making her better in the eyes of society." She shrugged and looked out her window. " Maybe I should make it easier to see in here." She reached behind her and turned up the lamp a notch, making it clear that she had a small smattering of freckles across her nose and under her eyes.
" I see, kind of. But how a small girl can see, that I do not."
Amy shrugged again. " My da and I used to talk about it all the time. We both like mutants, but my mother doesn't. It's odd, that I liked hearing them argue about things involving mutants, it was almost as if I learned more from them shouting at each other than I did from the tv and Internet and radio and school." Her voice got quiet again and she looked away for a second.
" It's getting late. You can take a few blankets out to the treehouse, but it's raining now and it's going to ice over in the morning." She shut the window with a decided finality and latched it. " You can sleep under the bed, because my mom comes in in the morning and wakes me up in time for school. I know there's room, my da used to hide under there when we played hide and seek."
Kurt nodded and took the offered blanket, falling to his knees and picking up the edge of her comforter to slip under. He heard her getting into bed and turning out the light above him, then the toss and turning of her as she tried to get comfortable.
" Kurt?" She asked quietly, and the edge of the blanket was picked up so that he saw her luminous face upside down.
" Ja?" He replied.
" I hope you weren't a dream. It'll have been the best one that I've had since Da died." She now sounded her age, small and fragile and afraid of something.
" Would you like me to stay in the morning so that you know it wasn't a dream?" He asked, putting his arm under his head for a pillow and then finding a big teddy bear that worked better. She was right, there was more than enough room under here for him. " So that after your mother wakes you up, you can check on me and know that I'm real?"
Amy nodded. " Yeah, that would be good." She popped her head back up and he heard her lay back down, snuggling into the covers with her pirate man. " And Kurt?"
" Ja?" He couldn't help but let a little annoyance into his voice, but not much.
" Good night." Her dulcet tones reached his ears and his body relaxed in thanks that it was not another question, but also with the quiet glee that she was so kind to him.
" Good night, minute fraulein." Kurt said, then rolled over and closed his eyes, tucking the blanket around him with his tail.
