Unsnapping Sanity
Posted: Sat May 22, 2004 2:46 am
Logan didn’t go back to the hospital for a long time. He felt that this was necessary, since Kurt had nearly killed himself from their last meeting together. He just stayed away, keeping tabs on Kurt through reports that the doctors sent to Charles weekly about Kurt and his condition’s progress or lack of.
Most of the reports said that Kurt was sobbing often, spending most of the time in his new cell in the corner, humming and rocking back and forth, silent tears falling unchecked down his cheeks.
Charles told Logan that he shouldn’t blame himself for what had happened, but Logan just couldn’t help himself about this. He blamed himself for telling Kurt about leaving the hospital, which brought his hopes up too high in the end.
“I think you should go and visit him.” Hank said one morning over a cup of coffee. Logan snorted softly, shaking his head a bit.
“What makes you say that?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow. Hank shrugged a bit, turning the page of his newspaper lazily to read “Boondocks”.
“You and Kurt shared some kind of connection in the past.” He said. “A connection that is almost brother to brother in nature; kind of like Alex and Scott’s relationship with each other.
“He may have gone into a rampage the last time you met him, but his memories about more present things are not very long anymore. He can barely remember what he did the day before, and he always does the same thing anyway! So it is quite possible that he does not even remember you or the incident in question anyway.
“Go and visit him, Logan. I think it will do both you and him a world of good.” He finished.
Logan thought about it for a long time, a week to be exact. At the end of the week, he finally came to the decision that he would go to the hospital and visit Kurt one more time, just to see if there was still a chance with him.
***
When Logan slowly entered Kurt’s new room, he found that it was once again covered in messages scrawled in crayon. This time, the message was; I’m sad over and over again. Logan winced at this, and when he saw Kurt, he winced even more and silently cursed at himself.
The doctors didn’t want to put Kurt in a straight jacket, for fear that the sudden restrictions would drive him to smashing his head against the floor and doors once more. So, they simply bound his hands with a soft yet strong rope that stopped him from suddenly lashing out and slashing at himself or others quite so quickly as he used to when they were free. They also had his arms and legs bandaged more tightly, to stop him from slashing into them again, and also to stop the massive bleedings that had occurred after the big breakdown with Logan.
He was staring at his new “happy place”, humming faintly to himself as his tail thumped the ground lazily to keep up the tempo of his humming. Despite the fact that he was in his “happy place” and he was humming, tears were falling endlessly, leaving the fur under his eyes, sticky and slightly hard.
He turned his head slowly, and a line of drool fell from the corner of his mouth as he looked at Logan and continued to hum. He was moving very slowly and Logan guessed that Kurt had been heavily sedated before he came by to see him. Frowning, he made a mental note never to call ahead of time when he wanted to visit Kurt. There was no way that he was going to accept them drugging him up like this every time he came to see how he was doing.
“Hey.” He said softly. “Do you know what my name is?” Kurt shook his head, a line of watery snot falling down lazily onto his upper lip. Logan took out a handkerchief and he gently wiped away the snot and tears from Kurt’s face. Kurt tilted his head slightly and he looked at Logan curiously, his eyes slowly growing wide for some reason. Slowly, he reached out and gently took Logan’s hand, rubbing between his knuckles slowly.
“What are you doing?” Logan asked gently. Kurt continued to rub, opening his mouth slowly to speak.
“Sni…” he whispered, his voice watery from the drool as it fell down the corners of his mouth.
“What?” Kurt looked up at Logan slowly and tugged on his hand lightly.
“You… Go… Snic…” he insisted. Slowly, Logan realized what he was saying.
“Snickt. My claws go snickt!” he said. He let them out slowly and Kurt smiled faintly. The medication soon kicked in, and he laid back, his eyes half-closed.
“Sni…” he agreed drowsily. Slowly, he smiled at Logan and he fell asleep with his head on Logan’s shoulder. Logan smiled, gently laying him on his side before he left him.
***
The next day, Logan came back with the pictures Kurt had given him. Kurt was lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. Sitting up slowly, he looked at Logan and he gestured at his hands.
“Snic!” he said. Nodding, Logan let his claws out and sunk them back in before he sat down in front of Kurt.
“You drew these, Kurt.” He said, placing them in front of him one by one. “A few months ago you made these pictures of your friends and yourself.” Kurt looked down at them, poking them lightly with his finger.
“I do these?” he asked, looking up at Logan in wonder. When Logan nodded, he raised his eyebrows slightly and looked back down at the pictures. “I not do these! Snic tell fibs!” he said, wagging his tail at Logan sternly.
“I’m not telling fibs.” Logan said. Reaching into his jacket pocket, he took out a box of crayons and a pad of paper. “Try.”
“Can’t.”
“Don’t be afraid.”
“No, can’t.” Kurt said as he held up his bond hands in front of Logan’s face.
“Oh right.” Logan said. “I forgot about those.” Unsheathing his claws, Logan was about to unbind Kurt’s hands when the door swung open.
“No! No stings!” Kurt shrieked, running on all fours into the corner of the room. “No stings from bad men!” The two doctors frowned over at Kurt before they turned to Logan.
“He needs to be sedated.” One of them said. “He’s dangerous in this condition.”
“He’s not dangerous.” Logan protested. “We were both doing fine before you two busted in here with those damned needles of yours! Get out of here.”
“You forget yourself; this is our institution.” The other doctor pointed out. “You don’t give the orders around here and besides, his mood swings have not improved and you don’t know if he’ll snap or not.”
“You’re not sedating him again.” Logan said, narrowing his eyes.
“Your professor has given us permission to treat your friend as we see fit and we see fit that he be sedated when he has visitors to limit the chances of him going berserk and gouging someone’s eyes out.” The first doctor said calmly. “Now step aside or get out of here.”
“You don’t give a shit about him! You’re just as happy sticking him with those drugs than letting someone who cares about him handle him.” Logan shouted angrily. “Look at him! He’s terrified of you people! What the hell have you been doing to him to make him so afraid of you people?”
“Snic…” Kurt whimpered softly, covering his head with his arms. “Snic make them go ‘way. I scared, Snic.”
“I will, Kurt. Don’t you worry about that!” Logan assured him over his shoulder. Turning back to the doctors, he unsheathed both sets of his claws and he slashed them against each other, making sparks fly. “What do you say? You want to leave on your own or do I have to throw you out bit by bit?” he asked.
“You will never be allowed to come here again.” The second doctor said, narrowing his eyes dangerously.
“I’d like to see you stop me.” Logan spat back. Without a word, the two doctors left them.
“Snic sent bad men ‘way!” Kurt smiled, hugging Logan’s leg faintly. Crouching down, Logan unbound his hands and helped him get to his feet, picking up the papers and crayons and putting them away.
“Come on, Kurt.” He said, taking him by the hand. “You’re coming to live with me for a while.” Giggling softly, Kurt skipped beside Logan as he led him to his car and helped him put on his seatbelt.
Ignoring the protesting doctors as they ran up to try and stop them; Logan hit the gas and left them in a cloud of black smoke.
***
Sometimes, Charles wondered what the hell he was thinking when he went to Canada and asked Wolverine to join his new X-men. The man was headstrong and quite impulsive which came into light now when he received tons of calls from the hospital, telling him that Logan had just walked in and taken Kurt with him to some other place.
This was five weeks ago, and he still wasn’t sure where Logan had gone with Kurt.
He didn’t want to search for him mentally or with Cerebro, guessing that the man would notice and then change where he was, making him much more difficult to find in the long scheme of things, so he just sent out the other faculty members when they could be spared to go and look for Logan and Kurt. They looked where they used to hang around before everything had gone to hell.
So far, they had no idea where they were.
***
Logan had a cabin in the woods that was well hidden from the rest of the world. It was there that he and Kurt lived together, working on Kurt’s condition.
There were a few bumps on the way, concerning Kurt and his mood swings that seemed to change along with the wind. On several occasions Logan was forced to tie him down to the bed and let him howl and scream for a few hours before he finally calmed down and just burst into sobs, saying that everyone in the world hated him and wanted him dead.
These happened the first four days that Kurt and Logan lived together, but Kurt soon learned that if he went berserk and tried to gouge out Logan’s eyes about something, he would end up tied up and left alone. This made him work hard on restraining himself, and his violent outbursts were soon stopped with some tough love and patience.
The next crisis for the two was Kurt’s need to cut himself at some point for doing something wrong.
On one such occasion, Kurt’s tail had knocked over a pitcher of lemonade, making it shatter on the ground. Kurt was so distraught about this that he took a piece of glass from the mess and slashed himself across the cheek before Logan ran in and grabbed him by the wrist, taking the glass away and immediately cleaning up the wound, scolding Kurt lightly for doing such a thing to himself.
This caused Kurt to burst into sobs once more, and it took Logan three hours to calm him down and distract him by giving him a new box of crayons to draw and color with instead.
They were making some progress in Kurt’s condition, and Logan soon used a system of rewards to make it better. When Kurt did not have any kind of mood swing that upset the balance of the day, he was given a brand new coloring book. When he was good for two days, he received one of those sixty-four different color crayon boxes. The rewards got bigger by the amount of days Kurt was good, and it soon was not necessary for Logan to give him any kind of reward for his behavior.
Despite all of their progress, Kurt was still very much like a child, and his memories were still shot to hell when it came to more than a few days back. He talked like a child as well, sometimes reverting to Rom and German when his English got too complex for him to use.
Finally, Logan felt that they were ready to go and live at the mansion once more. He told Kurt that this was his final reward for working so hard in his coloring book, and Kurt smiled and wagged his tail, hugging Logan around the neck tightly.
Packing all of their things up in his car, Logan and Kurt drove back to the mansion.
***
“That’s Logan’s car!”
“Where?”
“Coming through the gates! It’s Logan and Kurt! Come on!” Excitedly, Jubilee and Rogue raced down the stairs and ran out the front door just as Logan was helping Kurt get out of his seat belt.
“Where have you been?” Jubilee asked, placing her hands on her hips. “We’ve been looking all over for you for a whole month! Those doctors have been going wild looking for Kurt you know.”
“He’s not going back to live with them.” Logan said simply as he handed Jubilee a few suitcases.
“We know that.” Rogue nodded, taking the rest of them easily. “The professor finally paid them off to make them look the other way with this whole thing.”
“What are in these things? Crayons and coloring books? What…”
“They’re mine.” Kurt said. “I can color in the lines.” He said seriously. Raising her eyebrows slightly, Jubilee looked over at Logan before she turned back to Kurt.
“Oh yeah? Maybe you can show me when we get in the house.” She said, smiling at him warmly.
“That’s not a house.” Kurt said as they climbed the steps. “It’s a mansion!”
“So it is! Silly me.” Jubilee said, shaking her head a bit in self-disgust. “I always seem to forget that! Thanks for correcting me.”
***
Kurt stayed in the den with Jubilee and Rogue, showing them how he could color in the lines of one of his many coloring books while Logan went to go and talk with Charles about this whole thing.
“Now Chuck, I know you’re mad…”
“A little? Logan, you left without telling anyone where you were going! You could have harmed Kurt further with this little adventure of yours!” Charles cried.
“But I didn’t now did I?” Logan countered. “I even made him better. He doesn’t have mood swings anymore, and there’s no chance of him hurting himself or anyone else.”
“You did this all by yourself?”
“And without those damned drugs too.” Logan added, narrowing his eyes faintly at the memory of Kurt cringing at the sight of those needles. “It was all done with some tough love.” Sighing softly, Charles shook his head, rolling his chair around his desk.
“I can’t deny that you’ve done good in regards to Kurt’s health.” He admitted. “But it was not a wise thing to just go off and not tell anyone where you were for so long either.”
“Yeah, I suppose so.” Logan agreed. “I’ll never do that again if it makes you happy.” Charles couldn’t help but chuckle softly at Logan’s attitude towards things in this world.
“Sometimes I wonder about you, Logan.” He said simply. With that, he went down into the den to see how Kurt was doing.
He was lying on his stomach, swinging his legs slightly back and forth in the air as he shared his many coloring books with some of the younger students that had come in to see the “new” person. They were all laughing and coloring with his crayons as they talked together about this and that.
“Kurt? Can I talk to you?” Looking over his shoulder, Kurt froze for a moment when he saw Charles, but he finally got up and walked over, standing a few feet away from him.
“Yes?”
“How are you feeling, Kurt?” Charles asked. Kurt looked down at the ground, scuffing the ground lightly with his foot.
“Okay,” He said softly. “Teacher…” Charles’ eyes grew wide slightly when Kurt said this.
“What did you call me?” he asked gently.
“Teacher.” Kurt said, looking up at him and blinking. “Is that bad?” he asked softly. Charles shook his head slowly, smiling faintly.
“No, that’s not bad.” He said. “You can go back to coloring if you want to, Kurt.” Smiling, Kurt ran back and started to color again, resuming his conversation with one of the students about which baby Loony Tune was the best*.
“Something the matter, Chuck?” Logan asked, lighting his first cigar in the longest time. Charles shook his head faintly, watching Kurt.
“Do you remember what Kurt used to call me when you and he first joined the X-men?” he asked. Logan narrowed his eyes slightly in thought, and then shook his head.
“No, I don’t.” he admitted. “What did he used to call you?”
“He used to call me teacher.” Charles said. “Just now, he called me teacher without knowing who I was. Did you ever tell him about me?”
“Not really, no. Why?”
“Think about it for a minute.”
“What are you…” Logan suddenly realized what Charles was saying, and he looked at Kurt in awe.
“He remembers us, Logan. In his own childish way, he remembers! He remembers us and he knows that we’re alive.”
***
Author’s Note: *Baby Sylvester rocks!
Most of the reports said that Kurt was sobbing often, spending most of the time in his new cell in the corner, humming and rocking back and forth, silent tears falling unchecked down his cheeks.
Charles told Logan that he shouldn’t blame himself for what had happened, but Logan just couldn’t help himself about this. He blamed himself for telling Kurt about leaving the hospital, which brought his hopes up too high in the end.
“I think you should go and visit him.” Hank said one morning over a cup of coffee. Logan snorted softly, shaking his head a bit.
“What makes you say that?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow. Hank shrugged a bit, turning the page of his newspaper lazily to read “Boondocks”.
“You and Kurt shared some kind of connection in the past.” He said. “A connection that is almost brother to brother in nature; kind of like Alex and Scott’s relationship with each other.
“He may have gone into a rampage the last time you met him, but his memories about more present things are not very long anymore. He can barely remember what he did the day before, and he always does the same thing anyway! So it is quite possible that he does not even remember you or the incident in question anyway.
“Go and visit him, Logan. I think it will do both you and him a world of good.” He finished.
Logan thought about it for a long time, a week to be exact. At the end of the week, he finally came to the decision that he would go to the hospital and visit Kurt one more time, just to see if there was still a chance with him.
***
When Logan slowly entered Kurt’s new room, he found that it was once again covered in messages scrawled in crayon. This time, the message was; I’m sad over and over again. Logan winced at this, and when he saw Kurt, he winced even more and silently cursed at himself.
The doctors didn’t want to put Kurt in a straight jacket, for fear that the sudden restrictions would drive him to smashing his head against the floor and doors once more. So, they simply bound his hands with a soft yet strong rope that stopped him from suddenly lashing out and slashing at himself or others quite so quickly as he used to when they were free. They also had his arms and legs bandaged more tightly, to stop him from slashing into them again, and also to stop the massive bleedings that had occurred after the big breakdown with Logan.
He was staring at his new “happy place”, humming faintly to himself as his tail thumped the ground lazily to keep up the tempo of his humming. Despite the fact that he was in his “happy place” and he was humming, tears were falling endlessly, leaving the fur under his eyes, sticky and slightly hard.
He turned his head slowly, and a line of drool fell from the corner of his mouth as he looked at Logan and continued to hum. He was moving very slowly and Logan guessed that Kurt had been heavily sedated before he came by to see him. Frowning, he made a mental note never to call ahead of time when he wanted to visit Kurt. There was no way that he was going to accept them drugging him up like this every time he came to see how he was doing.
“Hey.” He said softly. “Do you know what my name is?” Kurt shook his head, a line of watery snot falling down lazily onto his upper lip. Logan took out a handkerchief and he gently wiped away the snot and tears from Kurt’s face. Kurt tilted his head slightly and he looked at Logan curiously, his eyes slowly growing wide for some reason. Slowly, he reached out and gently took Logan’s hand, rubbing between his knuckles slowly.
“What are you doing?” Logan asked gently. Kurt continued to rub, opening his mouth slowly to speak.
“Sni…” he whispered, his voice watery from the drool as it fell down the corners of his mouth.
“What?” Kurt looked up at Logan slowly and tugged on his hand lightly.
“You… Go… Snic…” he insisted. Slowly, Logan realized what he was saying.
“Snickt. My claws go snickt!” he said. He let them out slowly and Kurt smiled faintly. The medication soon kicked in, and he laid back, his eyes half-closed.
“Sni…” he agreed drowsily. Slowly, he smiled at Logan and he fell asleep with his head on Logan’s shoulder. Logan smiled, gently laying him on his side before he left him.
***
The next day, Logan came back with the pictures Kurt had given him. Kurt was lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. Sitting up slowly, he looked at Logan and he gestured at his hands.
“Snic!” he said. Nodding, Logan let his claws out and sunk them back in before he sat down in front of Kurt.
“You drew these, Kurt.” He said, placing them in front of him one by one. “A few months ago you made these pictures of your friends and yourself.” Kurt looked down at them, poking them lightly with his finger.
“I do these?” he asked, looking up at Logan in wonder. When Logan nodded, he raised his eyebrows slightly and looked back down at the pictures. “I not do these! Snic tell fibs!” he said, wagging his tail at Logan sternly.
“I’m not telling fibs.” Logan said. Reaching into his jacket pocket, he took out a box of crayons and a pad of paper. “Try.”
“Can’t.”
“Don’t be afraid.”
“No, can’t.” Kurt said as he held up his bond hands in front of Logan’s face.
“Oh right.” Logan said. “I forgot about those.” Unsheathing his claws, Logan was about to unbind Kurt’s hands when the door swung open.
“No! No stings!” Kurt shrieked, running on all fours into the corner of the room. “No stings from bad men!” The two doctors frowned over at Kurt before they turned to Logan.
“He needs to be sedated.” One of them said. “He’s dangerous in this condition.”
“He’s not dangerous.” Logan protested. “We were both doing fine before you two busted in here with those damned needles of yours! Get out of here.”
“You forget yourself; this is our institution.” The other doctor pointed out. “You don’t give the orders around here and besides, his mood swings have not improved and you don’t know if he’ll snap or not.”
“You’re not sedating him again.” Logan said, narrowing his eyes.
“Your professor has given us permission to treat your friend as we see fit and we see fit that he be sedated when he has visitors to limit the chances of him going berserk and gouging someone’s eyes out.” The first doctor said calmly. “Now step aside or get out of here.”
“You don’t give a shit about him! You’re just as happy sticking him with those drugs than letting someone who cares about him handle him.” Logan shouted angrily. “Look at him! He’s terrified of you people! What the hell have you been doing to him to make him so afraid of you people?”
“Snic…” Kurt whimpered softly, covering his head with his arms. “Snic make them go ‘way. I scared, Snic.”
“I will, Kurt. Don’t you worry about that!” Logan assured him over his shoulder. Turning back to the doctors, he unsheathed both sets of his claws and he slashed them against each other, making sparks fly. “What do you say? You want to leave on your own or do I have to throw you out bit by bit?” he asked.
“You will never be allowed to come here again.” The second doctor said, narrowing his eyes dangerously.
“I’d like to see you stop me.” Logan spat back. Without a word, the two doctors left them.
“Snic sent bad men ‘way!” Kurt smiled, hugging Logan’s leg faintly. Crouching down, Logan unbound his hands and helped him get to his feet, picking up the papers and crayons and putting them away.
“Come on, Kurt.” He said, taking him by the hand. “You’re coming to live with me for a while.” Giggling softly, Kurt skipped beside Logan as he led him to his car and helped him put on his seatbelt.
Ignoring the protesting doctors as they ran up to try and stop them; Logan hit the gas and left them in a cloud of black smoke.
***
Sometimes, Charles wondered what the hell he was thinking when he went to Canada and asked Wolverine to join his new X-men. The man was headstrong and quite impulsive which came into light now when he received tons of calls from the hospital, telling him that Logan had just walked in and taken Kurt with him to some other place.
This was five weeks ago, and he still wasn’t sure where Logan had gone with Kurt.
He didn’t want to search for him mentally or with Cerebro, guessing that the man would notice and then change where he was, making him much more difficult to find in the long scheme of things, so he just sent out the other faculty members when they could be spared to go and look for Logan and Kurt. They looked where they used to hang around before everything had gone to hell.
So far, they had no idea where they were.
***
Logan had a cabin in the woods that was well hidden from the rest of the world. It was there that he and Kurt lived together, working on Kurt’s condition.
There were a few bumps on the way, concerning Kurt and his mood swings that seemed to change along with the wind. On several occasions Logan was forced to tie him down to the bed and let him howl and scream for a few hours before he finally calmed down and just burst into sobs, saying that everyone in the world hated him and wanted him dead.
These happened the first four days that Kurt and Logan lived together, but Kurt soon learned that if he went berserk and tried to gouge out Logan’s eyes about something, he would end up tied up and left alone. This made him work hard on restraining himself, and his violent outbursts were soon stopped with some tough love and patience.
The next crisis for the two was Kurt’s need to cut himself at some point for doing something wrong.
On one such occasion, Kurt’s tail had knocked over a pitcher of lemonade, making it shatter on the ground. Kurt was so distraught about this that he took a piece of glass from the mess and slashed himself across the cheek before Logan ran in and grabbed him by the wrist, taking the glass away and immediately cleaning up the wound, scolding Kurt lightly for doing such a thing to himself.
This caused Kurt to burst into sobs once more, and it took Logan three hours to calm him down and distract him by giving him a new box of crayons to draw and color with instead.
They were making some progress in Kurt’s condition, and Logan soon used a system of rewards to make it better. When Kurt did not have any kind of mood swing that upset the balance of the day, he was given a brand new coloring book. When he was good for two days, he received one of those sixty-four different color crayon boxes. The rewards got bigger by the amount of days Kurt was good, and it soon was not necessary for Logan to give him any kind of reward for his behavior.
Despite all of their progress, Kurt was still very much like a child, and his memories were still shot to hell when it came to more than a few days back. He talked like a child as well, sometimes reverting to Rom and German when his English got too complex for him to use.
Finally, Logan felt that they were ready to go and live at the mansion once more. He told Kurt that this was his final reward for working so hard in his coloring book, and Kurt smiled and wagged his tail, hugging Logan around the neck tightly.
Packing all of their things up in his car, Logan and Kurt drove back to the mansion.
***
“That’s Logan’s car!”
“Where?”
“Coming through the gates! It’s Logan and Kurt! Come on!” Excitedly, Jubilee and Rogue raced down the stairs and ran out the front door just as Logan was helping Kurt get out of his seat belt.
“Where have you been?” Jubilee asked, placing her hands on her hips. “We’ve been looking all over for you for a whole month! Those doctors have been going wild looking for Kurt you know.”
“He’s not going back to live with them.” Logan said simply as he handed Jubilee a few suitcases.
“We know that.” Rogue nodded, taking the rest of them easily. “The professor finally paid them off to make them look the other way with this whole thing.”
“What are in these things? Crayons and coloring books? What…”
“They’re mine.” Kurt said. “I can color in the lines.” He said seriously. Raising her eyebrows slightly, Jubilee looked over at Logan before she turned back to Kurt.
“Oh yeah? Maybe you can show me when we get in the house.” She said, smiling at him warmly.
“That’s not a house.” Kurt said as they climbed the steps. “It’s a mansion!”
“So it is! Silly me.” Jubilee said, shaking her head a bit in self-disgust. “I always seem to forget that! Thanks for correcting me.”
***
Kurt stayed in the den with Jubilee and Rogue, showing them how he could color in the lines of one of his many coloring books while Logan went to go and talk with Charles about this whole thing.
“Now Chuck, I know you’re mad…”
“A little? Logan, you left without telling anyone where you were going! You could have harmed Kurt further with this little adventure of yours!” Charles cried.
“But I didn’t now did I?” Logan countered. “I even made him better. He doesn’t have mood swings anymore, and there’s no chance of him hurting himself or anyone else.”
“You did this all by yourself?”
“And without those damned drugs too.” Logan added, narrowing his eyes faintly at the memory of Kurt cringing at the sight of those needles. “It was all done with some tough love.” Sighing softly, Charles shook his head, rolling his chair around his desk.
“I can’t deny that you’ve done good in regards to Kurt’s health.” He admitted. “But it was not a wise thing to just go off and not tell anyone where you were for so long either.”
“Yeah, I suppose so.” Logan agreed. “I’ll never do that again if it makes you happy.” Charles couldn’t help but chuckle softly at Logan’s attitude towards things in this world.
“Sometimes I wonder about you, Logan.” He said simply. With that, he went down into the den to see how Kurt was doing.
He was lying on his stomach, swinging his legs slightly back and forth in the air as he shared his many coloring books with some of the younger students that had come in to see the “new” person. They were all laughing and coloring with his crayons as they talked together about this and that.
“Kurt? Can I talk to you?” Looking over his shoulder, Kurt froze for a moment when he saw Charles, but he finally got up and walked over, standing a few feet away from him.
“Yes?”
“How are you feeling, Kurt?” Charles asked. Kurt looked down at the ground, scuffing the ground lightly with his foot.
“Okay,” He said softly. “Teacher…” Charles’ eyes grew wide slightly when Kurt said this.
“What did you call me?” he asked gently.
“Teacher.” Kurt said, looking up at him and blinking. “Is that bad?” he asked softly. Charles shook his head slowly, smiling faintly.
“No, that’s not bad.” He said. “You can go back to coloring if you want to, Kurt.” Smiling, Kurt ran back and started to color again, resuming his conversation with one of the students about which baby Loony Tune was the best*.
“Something the matter, Chuck?” Logan asked, lighting his first cigar in the longest time. Charles shook his head faintly, watching Kurt.
“Do you remember what Kurt used to call me when you and he first joined the X-men?” he asked. Logan narrowed his eyes slightly in thought, and then shook his head.
“No, I don’t.” he admitted. “What did he used to call you?”
“He used to call me teacher.” Charles said. “Just now, he called me teacher without knowing who I was. Did you ever tell him about me?”
“Not really, no. Why?”
“Think about it for a minute.”
“What are you…” Logan suddenly realized what Charles was saying, and he looked at Kurt in awe.
“He remembers us, Logan. In his own childish way, he remembers! He remembers us and he knows that we’re alive.”
***
Author’s Note: *Baby Sylvester rocks!