This one is in the the X2 universe - post movie. Kurt is looking to finish one of his tattoos.
"Kurt, this is Tom..."
The heavy-set, grandpa-ish man whistled long and low as he caught sight of the Nightcrawler. Kurt ducked his head in embarrassment, unused to being so conspicuous, preferring the shadows of vaulted ceilings where his indigo skin blended into the darkness. He felt more aware of his demonic appearance here and almost regretted allowing Ororo to talk him into this.
"I guess ink would have been a bit rhetorical, eh mate?"
Kurt suddenly realized that it wasn't his strange features the man was occupied with, it was the raised angelic etchings trailing their strange pattern over his face that he had an eye for.
"Ach...yes," Kurt said as the tension of the moment before faded. He stepped forward to shake the man's hand, his bright, amiable smile completely at odds with the darkness of his physical character. "Ze traditional method vas not readily available anyvay...but zen, I do not really live in a traditional...vay...you see."
The man nodded in understanding and ran a thumb over some of the designs on the back of Kurt's hand with artistic interest. "You can call me Ink by the way," he said. "My friends always do and any friend of Storm's is a bosom companion to me by default."
"Ink is the best tattoo artist on the east coast, Kurt." Ororo gestured to the impressive artwork on the walls. "He's honestly the only person I would trust with this."
Ink's boyish face lit up. "Well, are you finally going to let me blemish that beautiful mahogany skin, lass? Be the honor of a lifetime," he said enthusiastically with eyes hungry for the desired canvas.
Storm gave her friend a teasing look. "Not today, Ink, or tomorrow or likely ever. It's Kurt I'm putting into your skilled hands."
The balding man looked truly pleased at this information; Kurt could almost see the stylized vision that was probably running through the Ink's mind. "Non-traditional it is then!" he said in excited tones.
He beckoned them through a partition and into the studio which, like the show floor, was covered floor to ceiling in mock-ups and bright blazes of Ink's designs. "I haven't had much of an opportunity to do anything but biker logos and barbed wire all week, so this'll be a real treat," he said, pulling out a few chairs from under their piles of books and snapshots. "So what's your taste mein freund," he chuckled at the unfamiliar phrase. "Or the occasion as it were?"
Inwardly, Kurt's spirits fell. His first impression of the man had been a good one and he liked Ink's friendly attitude. But a spiritual journey was a very difficult thing to put into words and Kurt was not sure he was ready to share such a painful experience (both emotionally and physically) with the jocular artist. But Ororo was obviously close with the man and had a deep respect for him. For that reason above all others, Kurt was willing to try.
"Maybe at ze beginning," he said almost to himself, and then to Ink: "It iz more zen an affectation heir Ink," he said, using the German honorific seriously and not in the teasing manner of the tattooist. "Every one tells a geschichte ... a deep story..." he trailed off, tracing the neat scars that ran their dangerous pattern on the insides of his wrists, his sensitive nature coming back into play in the light of trying to explain his profound feelings about Catholicism.
Ororo slipped her warm hand into his and Kurt looked up, first at her and then to her friend. Ink's eyes still held their friendly light, but he had acquired a more serious, understanding air than before. Under their gaze, Kurt started to explain again, but this time he lapsed into articulate German - his native language allowing for a release that his heavily accented English just couldn't encompass. Whether they understood the words or not didn't matter, the feeling he put behind them transcended language altogether.
"They're angelic symbols, aren't they?" Ink inquired quietly of Kurt after the younger man's outpouring had run its course.
"Yes. They vere handed down to man from ze Archangel Gabriel," Kurt said, smiling ruefully and squeezing Ororo's hand, thinking on the similarity of this discussion to a past conversation.
"How many do you have?"
"One for every sin, so quite a few."
Ink nodded knowingly and didn't ask what sins, or whose for that matter. He cleared his throat and asked in a professional tone: "May I see?"
As inconsistent as it seemed with his modest demeanor, Kurt didn't seem to have problem with shrugging out of his shirt for Ink's inspection. Years of wearing form melding costumes and changing in crowded tents had at least left him with few inhibitions when it came to the human (or mutant) body, including his own.
The intricate designs covered his chest and arms in a raised, labyrinthian pattern that was nearly hypnotic if one got to following the trail. What Ink very much noticed, though, was that the symbols didn't cover Kurt's entire body. They stopped at the curve of his ribs - his back was a blank canvas, an area that was inaccessible to his own reach.
Ink was suddenly and deeply impressed when the realization dawned on him that the acrobat had carved those complex designs into his skin with his own hands.
"I'm honored at what you're trusting to me here, mate."
"Your vork is beautiful," Kurt said, gesturing at the wall. "But...vell...how is it you do not carry any of it vith you?" He glanced meaningfully at Ink's bare skin. Not even so much as a dot of art was apparent on his burly arms or any other part Kurt could see. He wasn't sure he wanted to entrust such an operation as this to a man who had never touched the needle to his own skin.
"Oh" said Ink, suddenly laughing. "You mean these?"
The older man's skin was suddenly infused with color that moved and swirled before coalescing into an elaborate portrait.
"Mein Got!" Kurt drew back, startled at the sudden revelation.
Ink blinked and the colors shifted and ran together to form different designs. It was like the man had walked into the light from a projector and the slide show was playing out with him as the screen.
"You didn't tell him?" he asked Ororo through his amusement at Kurt's reaction.
Storm shrugged. "You're my friend for who you are, not what. It shouldn't matter whether you're a mutant or not."
"Just not one with any talent that would save the bloody-world is all." Ink let the drama playing out on his skin fade. "You know what it's like to be addicted to the ink when you're a kid and have every design you put on fade within a day? Frustrating as hell, if you'll excuse my French. Took me the longest time to figure out how to bring them back to the surface."
"I vould say I had a similar problem," Kurt said, becoming companionable now that the two of them were on familiar ground together. "Ze ink would not show vith my skin... and zere was no-one all zat willing to try anyhow. I used ze only method I could think of."
"That's why it's been used for thousands of years, mate. Was the dark skinned tribes of Africa that started that particular practice for obvious reasons."
"I am glad you understand, hier Ink. Zere are many who see it az...how to say...a vay to hurt oneself." Instead of a way to stop the hurting, Kurt said, keeping the last to himself.
"And the one we're going to work on tonight - if you'd so honor an old artist - I take it you already got it all planned out and were just waiting for the right hands." Ink displayed his palms to Kurt. On one, the image of the cross appeared; on the other, the latin phrase "dirige nos Domine."
The Nightcrawler was moved by the gesture. To know that the task would be in the hands of a man not only of superb talent, but also of faith was deeply comforting to him. He purposefully pulled out the designs and folded them out on Ink's workbench, revealing a strange design composed of curving and intersecting lines.
"It iz the sigil for Michael himself," Kurt explained. "Ze commander of ze army of God, but iz also known az an angel of mercy. He iz a patron saint for ze German nation."
Ink just sat back and listened as Kurt spoke passionately of the seraph closest to his heart. Any good artist knows that to make a piece worthy of that person on whom it would appear, you had to know the story behind the image. He came to understand how deep faith ran with Kurt; it was what gave life meaning and explained the inexplicable. But what the elf had said before: "One for every sin..." that told Ink that there was a lot of pain behind his need to follow that faith. One couldn't look as Kurt did with lamp-like eyes, demonic blue skin, and prehensile tail and not have some "sin" forced upon him.
"It vas never finished, see?" Kurt showed Ink the half of the symbol sketched out on the paper that had not been applied to his body, then pointed out where the first part of it started just under his eye. The scar trailed down his cheek and stopped just beneath his ear.
And then, Ink truly understood what it was Kurt was putting into his hands. The latter part of the design looked simple enough on paper, but when it came to applying it, simplicity would be the last thing on the artist's mind. To achieve the raised pattern of the rest of the design, Ink would have to use a hatching method of scarification with a very sharp scalpel down Nightcrawler's neck, following the curve of the pattern around to a looping W at the base of his skull. If his hand were not steady or he cut to deep anywhere in the process, Kurt could bleed to death in a matter of minutes.
"Like I said before," Ink said quietly when Kurt had finished. "You're trusting me a hell of a lot further than I think a lot of people ever have. I'm honored by that."
"Ach, but you see, ze instrument may be in your hand, but vhat happens iz not." Kurt turned toward Ororo at this as if he sensed the sudden pain that crossed her features. "Zis one vill not be just for ze sin visited upon me, or for what I was forced to do to others. It iz for a friend who taught me what . . .Verwirkung . . .sacrifice truly means." It had taken him a long time to understand that Jean had only been an instrument of God's will and that neither he or any of those who loved her could have made any difference in that fact.
The hours of the night grew small as Kurt sat under Ink's bright light and his careful ministration. The artist saw the way Ororo held Kurt's hand, how the talked quietly during the whole process. He knew he wasn't the only one who would be causing some little pain in the next few days, nor that he would be the one taking Kurt from her. His hand was steady as it had ever been and somehow the well trained acrobat kept his muscles relaxed under the deep cut of the blade, though he became alarmingly silent and withdrawn as Ink etched out a swirl of the sigil around the strange, angry scar at the base of Kurt's skull.
Later, after they had gone, Ink would sit down and carefully sketch out all he could remember of the symbols covering the devout mutant's body, and then spend even longer contemplating such fierce devotion as he had witnessed that night.
The day seemed short that Kurt lay in Ororo's arms, tired beyond his nocturnal nature. A white bandage protected Ink's work, but a distinct replica of the pattern now etched on Nightcrawler's skin worked its way to the surface. The angelic symbol blazed in red and seemed to burn like a supernatural fire surfacing from the deep.