[ at first, it doesn't quite register - he tilts his head in confusion, as if he just heard her wrong.
and then she repeats it, explains it, and it's like someone just took a kryptonian to his heart. his breath catches in his throat and just like that - he falls from the top of the world to the bottom of the dead sea - and he's too crushed to even fear the fall.
how could she be dead? no - she's not dead yet. his grip slightly tightens around her - reassuring himself that she's still there.
kurt could be from another world, one that's very similar except for this one significant change.
it's slim, and he knows it, but he'll grasp for anything now, he's desperate. it's too cruel. ]
We can figure this out -- you're definitely alive now. We can take you back to my world - if you don't go back there, you should be alright, right? [ if her universe, her timeline, are done with her -- she's welcome to his. one thing's for certain: he's not giving up on her. ]
[Not that. Not the offer to go back to your world. It makes her think of Reid and the way he asked her to do the same before...] Winn...don't offer something you might want to take back later. We don't even know if something like that's possible. [She can't get her hopes up again. Not for that. Don't ask her to.]
Listen. [She lifts her free hand up to his cheek and then starts to fall into those eyes.] It's okay. You're right. I'm alive now. For the last year and almost three months I've cheated it.
[ but she's right. he's not even sure he'll ever be able to get himself home, let alone bring someone else along for the ride, and it hurts. it hurts more than he knew he could hurt. if they stay here -- that would be one thing. but what would he do if one day he'll wake up and she'll be gone - and he'll have no way of knowing if it's to some other arena of whatever sick experiment they're on -- or if she's gone? he's never been a hero, he's never had powers, and he's never hated his ordinary-ness more than at this moment. what kind of a man is he, if he can't even save her?
no. he can't give up. so long as they're both still here - there's still hope. and while there's hope - he's going to keep fighting, keep trying, keep working. there has to be a way. if he can't create a portal back to his earth himself, he just has to find the one atroma used. one way or another, he's taking kitty home with him.
but he can't say that, because hope is powerful, but a crushed hope is just as strong and as much as he wants to believe that he won't fail - a part of him isn't wholly on board. so he'll work alone. he'll figure it out. this is his super power, this is what he does, this is what he's good at. he'll figure it out.
it's all he can do not to fall apart in her arms; she's being strong for him again, when she's the one who's hurting. he can't make this about himself, as painful as it is. ]
[She hugs him tightly again. If she could read his brackets there would be no chance for protecting her heart against him. There may not be much of one as it is.] I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. [He deserved that, didn't he? The right to decide if he wanted to walk away before he got even this invested?] There's more I should...
[ he hugs back just as tightly, desperately, and shakes his head. it's cruel, that this happened, but the thought of backing away from her doesn't so much as cross his mind. what they have is too precious to him and she's -- she's too precious to him. ]
It's ok. This can't have been easy to say. Thank you -- for telling me.
[ his voice sounds foreign to him, nothing really feels right anymore.
he didn't think his heart could sink any lower -- and yet when she says there's more it seems to somehow whip out a drill. he barely manages a nod, and moves to the couch, his knees nearly buckling beneath him.
[She sets the slinky down carefully on the floor and just curls up against him on the couch. She doesn't want to leave space. Space will just get filled in with doubts and fears and she doesn't want any of that.]
I don't really know how to start... [Maybe not by blurting out the headline this time though. She curls in just a little bit closer and shuts her eyes.] After I watched my parents get murdered I, um, I always felt like it was just a matter of time for me. I mean, we're all mortal, but I never expected to get old or suffer natural causes. Part of why I picked up smoking I guess. [Not that she's been doing it much at all with the fleet. She's all out of cigarettes and she wasn't sure about the kinds they sell here. And hasn't really been under enough stress to need to find out.]
So, I just...tried to live more? Faster? ...I got married when I was still really young to one of my teammates. [Yep, she just said that and she's pushing onward, not looking at Winn.] Piotr. And for awhile it was great or at least as close to great as things ever got there. Then he was injured badly in battle. It was a mortal wound. There was nothing anyone could really do except... His power was transforming his flesh into techno organic metal and Erik could manipulate metal so he was able to put him back together as long as he never transformed back. He was different after that. Colder and harder and not just on the outside.
I still loved him. I tried to make things better and to be patient and just... Tried to ignore or hope it away. Then one day we were sent on a mission to rescue his sister who we thought had been dead. We got her and lost all of our students in the process. I wanted to go back for them. [She pauses a moment because talking about her students still hurts. She still feels like she failed them.]
Then in the final battle he found out that his sister wasn't alive in the other timeline we were trying to create. [She knows these pieces can't all be making sense to him. It's such a big story and she feels like she's already rambling too much, avoiding the final chapter while also trying to make it make sense when she gets there.]
He completely lost it. He charged at the other X-Men setting things up. I stood in front of him. Because he needed to stop and I knew he could never hurt me. That's why...[Voice falling much lower.] I didn't phase when he trampled me.
[ she leans against him, and he instantly wraps an arm around her - an arm that gets progressively more protective as her story unfolds.
he can't imagine surviving so much pain, having the strength and the goodness to keep going, to help, to smile, to laugh, to care.
despite his best efforts, his eyes well up with tears as she speaks. he manages to swallow the sob that's fighting for freedom through most of her tale, but chokes on it at its conclusion.
what can he even say to that? he can't let her down, not after all she's been through, but it's too much; how can he, who has never been particularly good with words, find the right ones to offer now? he has to say the right thing, do the right thing, she deserves it, more than anyone. but how can he find the right thing to say or do when it doesn't seem like anything anywhere in the multiverse is right anymore?
'I'm sorry' just feels hollow. like a band aid to an amputated limb. but what else is there?
he kisses the top of her head, and pulls her tightly into her arms. ]
You're too good for that world.
[ his voice is choked, shaking, and his resolves strengthens. he's taking her back, if it's the last think he does. ]
[Tears are spilling through her eyelashes now too as she hugs him back. It wasn't even the story even if it is still hard to tell in that kind of detail. It was hearing Winn start crying for her. That he cares that much about her. This man who she has been trying so hard to enjoy without committing to or opening up to completely.] Winn... No.
[She pulls back to look at him, ready to phase herself back if there's too much resistance.] I was that world. I was hard and I could be cruel and... I killed. I killed so many people. There was nowhere to... [She looks at him, both imploring him to understand the desperation of the situation and not hate her for it, but also needing him to know. Because he can't tell her things she so badly needs to hear about being good when he doesn't know what she's been.]
There were just a handful of us against an army and they were slaughtering millions of people. [It was necessary. Even with the distance and peace for all the reflection in the world she still sees the necessity but it doesn't make her feel less blood stained.]
[ there is no resistance. right now, in his need to give her whatever support and comfort as he's able to - he would resist no matter she did. ]
Kitty -- you said it yourself -- you were up against an army. It was a war. It's not your fault.
[ it may sound empty coming from him - all he knows about her world is what she told him, so he's sure to have a very narrow and biased view of what went on there - but to him it doesn't matter. kitty is good. that she's been forced to do evil - is intolerable. he takes her hand, and squeezes it. he doesn't know what he could possibly say to make her believe him -- other than maybe...his own story. he owes her that, too. ]
A few months back, my dad broke out of jail. He took me, and he wanted me...to kill the guy he was after. If I didn't do it -- he had bombs stashed all over a toy convention - there were so many people there - kids. [ just thinking about it makes him feel like he might lose his grip on reality. ] I know what it's like to stand there - with that awful choice in your hands - without having a good option. I was lucky enough to have Supergirl to save me. But without her -- I wouldn't be any different. [ he would have either murdered one man himself - or condemned hundreds of others with his inability to act. ] You didn't have Supergirl. You are Supergirl, for all those people who needed to be saved. [ he sniffles, trying to regain control of his face - he needs her to believe him when he looks into her eyes and says it again. ]
[He might be trying to control his own face, but she's losing that battle. Tears are slipping down her cheeks as she listens to him, wishing she'd been there for him that day, but glad Kara was. So glad he didn't have to make that decision and wondering if...maybe he did. Maybe he knew his choice and was already haunted by it even if it didn't play out to the gruesome end.
Then he says it again and it hits her harder and there's no defense to it. No push back. He still didn't see it play out. He didn't see the deaths or the fierce and unforgiving way she trained her students. But he still seems to see her. To see the caring and protectiveness that went into things she questions now that she has time to look back on them. At least she wants to think he does. She wants to think there is good there to see.
She collapses back into his arms. She's not ready for one L-word. Another seems too small. She goes with a third.]
[ her tears break what bits of his heart that somehow managed to hold together this long. he didn't want her to know, he didn't want her to see - he wanted to just be winn, not toyman jr. not...someone who might at any day - lose his mind. he's spent years not understanding how his father could go from being a doting father to a homicidal madman overnight but now, holding kitty, hearing her story...he can conceive it, and it terrifies him to his very core.
I don't want to lose you hits him harder than he was prepared for. she could lose him in so many ways he has no control over - their overlords could take him away, or his mind could - and after what she's already been through - how can he keep that possibility from her? selfishly, he wants to. he wants to believe that kara's right - that this could never happen to him, that he's good. but what if he isn't? kitty's been through enough. ]
I don't want to lose you either.
[ he clings to her for a moment, before pulling back. more than anything, he wishes he could reassure her right now - say you never will. but it would be dishonest, it would be selfish. and he can't be selfish with kitty. ]
There's something -- you deserve to know. My dad - before everything - he was a really good dad. And I am -- just like him, his mini-me, his greatest creation is what he called me. He snapped and those genes, that possibility...it's in me, too. [ she deserves an out. and even if she takes it -- he won't stop fighting to save her. his world is big enough for the both of them, even apart. ]
[Once again she finds herself reminded of Reid—the last love of her life. A man whose mother had schizophrenia and feared his mind would eventually turn against him, hurting the people who loved him. But the comparison is the most fleeting as she stays focused on Winn. She reaches out, touching the side of his face gently like it could crumble if she was too harsh.]
You aren't just like anyone but Winn. [His father, even if she never actually knew him, or Reid.] And Winn is...amazing. [She has never looked or sounded more sincere than this moment.] He ate up his entire week to make me a beautiful dress, he somehow found a slinky just to make me smile, and he held me no matter what terrible thing from my past I brought up. [She sniffles and there are still unshed tears making her eyes glassy, but she just keeps looking into his eyes.]
[ he's not sure what he expected her to say or do -- but still, she catches him by surprise. kara is amazing. kitty is amazing. he's just...him. that she would place him at their level - somehow, despite everything they've just shared - makes him smile through his tears.
he gently places his own hand on hers, stroking it with his thumb. ]
Actually, he made that slinky.
[ he's not sure that's an appropriate change of subject - but he would give anything about now to make her smile again, if only just a little bit. there has to be hope, hope that they can get through this, or there will be nothing to save him from the bomb that ticks away in his head. if he can't help kitty - he'll surely go mad. ]
[He doesn't just get a smile he gets a soft, surprised laugh. It's a little akward and shaky after the tears, but it feels good after everything.] You made me a slinky?
You're...[Well, she's not going to say "crazy" even affectionately after his confession.] the best boyfriend. [Yes, she just said that and it scares her even now after all this that they've shared to test that out both with his reaction and her own.]
[ all those pieces of his heart that shattered feel like they've been hit by a wave of warmth. it has been a long time since he was anyone's boyfriend, and it has never been someone he connected with on so many levels. ]
Is it weird to be really happy about being abducted? [ also avoiding the word 'crazy'. it's just a little too soon, he'll get back to it at a less emotional time.
[She kisses back and then stays close resting her head on his shoulder as she snuggles in closer.] Not for me. [Of course because she's dead otherwise, but also because of moments like this. Of connection and bonding and affection and intimacy. Moments she never thought she'd have again when she woke up in that prison.]
[ he holds her, caressing her arm. they've gone through an entire amusement park worth of emotional loops today to finally get to a place that's good - or at least, he hopes it is. not wanting to spoil it, he just sits there quietly, enjoying the closeness, and trying to focus on hope: it's not all gone, not while they're both still here. ]
[It's definitely a better place. She feels more accepted than she ever could have without telling him those things and she hopes he does too. And now she just wants to stay here like this—quiet, secure, warm. She'll need to go or just watch him work eventually since the masquerade is on their heels, but not just yet. Not this minute. This minute is theirs.]
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momijizukamori and
Action
Date: 2016-04-20 08:01 pm (UTC)and then she repeats it, explains it, and it's like someone just took a kryptonian to his heart. his breath catches in his throat and just like that - he falls from the top of the world to the bottom of the dead sea - and he's too crushed to even fear the fall.
how could she be dead? no - she's not dead yet. his grip slightly tightens around her - reassuring himself that she's still there.
kurt could be from another world, one that's very similar except for this one significant change.
it's slim, and he knows it, but he'll grasp for anything now, he's desperate. it's too cruel. ]
We can figure this out -- you're definitely alive now. We can take you back to my world - if you don't go back there, you should be alright, right? [ if her universe, her timeline, are done with her -- she's welcome to his. one thing's for certain: he's not giving up on her. ]
Action
Date: 2016-04-20 08:07 pm (UTC)Listen. [She lifts her free hand up to his cheek and then starts to fall into those eyes.] It's okay. You're right. I'm alive now. For the last year and almost three months I've cheated it.
Action
Date: 2016-04-20 08:19 pm (UTC)[ but she's right. he's not even sure he'll ever be able to get himself home, let alone bring someone else along for the ride, and it hurts. it hurts more than he knew he could hurt. if they stay here -- that would be one thing. but what would he do if one day he'll wake up and she'll be gone - and he'll have no way of knowing if it's to some other arena of whatever sick experiment they're on -- or if she's gone? he's never been a hero, he's never had powers, and he's never hated his ordinary-ness more than at this moment. what kind of a man is he, if he can't even save her?
no. he can't give up. so long as they're both still here - there's still hope. and while there's hope - he's going to keep fighting, keep trying, keep working. there has to be a way. if he can't create a portal back to his earth himself, he just has to find the one atroma used. one way or another, he's taking kitty home with him.
but he can't say that, because hope is powerful, but a crushed hope is just as strong and as much as he wants to believe that he won't fail - a part of him isn't wholly on board. so he'll work alone. he'll figure it out. this is his super power, this is what he does, this is what he's good at. he'll figure it out.
it's all he can do not to fall apart in her arms; she's being strong for him again, when she's the one who's hurting. he can't make this about himself, as painful as it is. ]
I'm so sorry, Kitty.
Action
Date: 2016-04-20 08:26 pm (UTC)Maybe we could sit?
Action
Date: 2016-04-20 08:33 pm (UTC)It's ok. This can't have been easy to say. Thank you -- for telling me.
[ his voice sounds foreign to him, nothing really feels right anymore.
he didn't think his heart could sink any lower -- and yet when she says there's more it seems to somehow whip out a drill. he barely manages a nod, and moves to the couch, his knees nearly buckling beneath him.
what more could there be? ]
Action
Date: 2016-04-20 08:55 pm (UTC)I don't really know how to start... [Maybe not by blurting out the headline this time though. She curls in just a little bit closer and shuts her eyes.] After I watched my parents get murdered I, um, I always felt like it was just a matter of time for me. I mean, we're all mortal, but I never expected to get old or suffer natural causes. Part of why I picked up smoking I guess. [Not that she's been doing it much at all with the fleet. She's all out of cigarettes and she wasn't sure about the kinds they sell here. And hasn't really been under enough stress to need to find out.]
So, I just...tried to live more? Faster? ...I got married when I was still really young to one of my teammates. [Yep, she just said that and she's pushing onward, not looking at Winn.] Piotr. And for awhile it was great or at least as close to great as things ever got there. Then he was injured badly in battle. It was a mortal wound. There was nothing anyone could really do except... His power was transforming his flesh into techno organic metal and Erik could manipulate metal so he was able to put him back together as long as he never transformed back. He was different after that. Colder and harder and not just on the outside.
I still loved him. I tried to make things better and to be patient and just... Tried to ignore or hope it away. Then one day we were sent on a mission to rescue his sister who we thought had been dead. We got her and lost all of our students in the process. I wanted to go back for them. [She pauses a moment because talking about her students still hurts. She still feels like she failed them.]
Then in the final battle he found out that his sister wasn't alive in the other timeline we were trying to create. [She knows these pieces can't all be making sense to him. It's such a big story and she feels like she's already rambling too much, avoiding the final chapter while also trying to make it make sense when she gets there.]
He completely lost it. He charged at the other X-Men setting things up. I stood in front of him. Because he needed to stop and I knew he could never hurt me. That's why...[Voice falling much lower.] I didn't phase when he trampled me.
Action
Date: 2016-04-20 09:12 pm (UTC)he can't imagine surviving so much pain, having the strength and the goodness to keep going, to help, to smile, to laugh, to care.
despite his best efforts, his eyes well up with tears as she speaks. he manages to swallow the sob that's fighting for freedom through most of her tale, but chokes on it at its conclusion.
what can he even say to that? he can't let her down, not after all she's been through, but it's too much; how can he, who has never been particularly good with words, find the right ones to offer now? he has to say the right thing, do the right thing, she deserves it, more than anyone. but how can he find the right thing to say or do when it doesn't seem like anything anywhere in the multiverse is right anymore?
'I'm sorry' just feels hollow. like a band aid to an amputated limb. but what else is there?
he kisses the top of her head, and pulls her tightly into her arms. ]
You're too good for that world.
[ his voice is choked, shaking, and his resolves strengthens. he's taking her back, if it's the last think he does. ]
Re: Action
Date: 2016-04-20 09:23 pm (UTC)[She pulls back to look at him, ready to phase herself back if there's too much resistance.] I was that world. I was hard and I could be cruel and... I killed. I killed so many people. There was nowhere to... [She looks at him, both imploring him to understand the desperation of the situation and not hate her for it, but also needing him to know. Because he can't tell her things she so badly needs to hear about being good when he doesn't know what she's been.]
There were just a handful of us against an army and they were slaughtering millions of people. [It was necessary. Even with the distance and peace for all the reflection in the world she still sees the necessity but it doesn't make her feel less blood stained.]
Action
Date: 2016-04-20 09:42 pm (UTC)Kitty -- you said it yourself -- you were up against an army. It was a war. It's not your fault.
[ it may sound empty coming from him - all he knows about her world is what she told him, so he's sure to have a very narrow and biased view of what went on there - but to him it doesn't matter. kitty is good. that she's been forced to do evil - is intolerable. he takes her hand, and squeezes it. he doesn't know what he could possibly say to make her believe him -- other than maybe...his own story. he owes her that, too. ]
A few months back, my dad broke out of jail. He took me, and he wanted me...to kill the guy he was after. If I didn't do it -- he had bombs stashed all over a toy convention - there were so many people there - kids. [ just thinking about it makes him feel like he might lose his grip on reality. ] I know what it's like to stand there - with that awful choice in your hands - without having a good option. I was lucky enough to have Supergirl to save me. But without her -- I wouldn't be any different. [ he would have either murdered one man himself - or condemned hundreds of others with his inability to act. ] You didn't have Supergirl. You are Supergirl, for all those people who needed to be saved. [ he sniffles, trying to regain control of his face - he needs her to believe him when he looks into her eyes and says it again. ]
You're too good for that world.
Action
Date: 2016-04-20 09:55 pm (UTC)Then he says it again and it hits her harder and there's no defense to it. No push back. He still didn't see it play out. He didn't see the deaths or the fierce and unforgiving way she trained her students. But he still seems to see her. To see the caring and protectiveness that went into things she questions now that she has time to look back on them. At least she wants to think he does. She wants to think there is good there to see.
She collapses back into his arms. She's not ready for one L-word. Another seems too small. She goes with a third.]
I don't want to lose you.
Action
Date: 2016-04-20 10:10 pm (UTC)I don't want to lose you hits him harder than he was prepared for. she could lose him in so many ways he has no control over - their overlords could take him away, or his mind could - and after what she's already been through - how can he keep that possibility from her? selfishly, he wants to. he wants to believe that kara's right - that this could never happen to him, that he's good. but what if he isn't? kitty's been through enough. ]
I don't want to lose you either.
[ he clings to her for a moment, before pulling back. more than anything, he wishes he could reassure her right now - say you never will. but it would be dishonest, it would be selfish. and he can't be selfish with kitty. ]
There's something -- you deserve to know. My dad - before everything - he was a really good dad. And I am -- just like him, his mini-me, his greatest creation is what he called me. He snapped and those genes, that possibility...it's in me, too. [ she deserves an out. and even if she takes it -- he won't stop fighting to save her. his world is big enough for the both of them, even apart. ]
Action
Date: 2016-04-20 10:34 pm (UTC)You aren't just like anyone but Winn. [His father, even if she never actually knew him, or Reid.] And Winn is...amazing. [She has never looked or sounded more sincere than this moment.] He ate up his entire week to make me a beautiful dress, he somehow found a slinky just to make me smile, and he held me no matter what terrible thing from my past I brought up. [She sniffles and there are still unshed tears making her eyes glassy, but she just keeps looking into his eyes.]
Action
Date: 2016-04-20 10:43 pm (UTC)he gently places his own hand on hers, stroking it with his thumb. ]
Actually, he made that slinky.
[ he's not sure that's an appropriate change of subject - but he would give anything about now to make her smile again, if only just a little bit. there has to be hope, hope that they can get through this, or there will be nothing to save him from the bomb that ticks away in his head. if he can't help kitty - he'll surely go mad. ]
Action
Date: 2016-04-20 10:50 pm (UTC)You're...[Well, she's not going to say "crazy" even affectionately after his confession.] the best boyfriend. [Yes, she just said that and it scares her even now after all this that they've shared to test that out both with his reaction and her own.]
Action
Date: 2016-04-20 10:57 pm (UTC)Is it weird to be really happy about being abducted? [ also avoiding the word 'crazy'. it's just a little too soon, he'll get back to it at a less emotional time.
he leans in for a short, soft, loving kiss. ]
Action
Date: 2016-04-20 11:01 pm (UTC)Action
Date: 2016-04-20 11:05 pm (UTC)Action
Date: 2016-04-20 11:08 pm (UTC)