xp_logs | Nathan and Kurt, Thursday evening

Kurt's contemplating what he believes is an appropriate response to the accident with Marius. Nathan is a pushy, bossy telepath.

Marius was terribly hurt, and Kurt couldn't get past the idea that it was his fault. He'd slept, a little, when his body forced it on him, but it had been brief and troubled, and now he was awake again with his thoughts. And he knew that he'd failed one of the children in his charge, badly. Seventeen years old...

He was sitting on his bed, now, looking down at the thin sharp knife in his hands and trying to make up his mind if a failure like this counted as a sin.

Nathan, walking by in the hall outside, paused, then stopped entirely as his telepathy locked onto Kurt's exhausted thoughts. Kurt's mind was usually very disciplined, unsurprising in an X-Man who'd trained with Charles for so long, but he was an open book at the moment. Oh, no way...

Kurt didn't exactly hide the scars he already had, but he'd never actually shown them off, either. But now they were on his mind, as he tried to decide, and Nathan caught a very clear flash of the whorled lines on his skin.

Nathan walked up to Kurt's door and stopped, staring hard at it. Waiting.

If this didn't, he concluded finally, then nothing else for which he'd ever done penance had either. The sleep deprivation might have contributed to this decision, but it was made nevertheless. He looked for a clear patch of skin, and found one.

Nathan raised an eyebrow, and the door unlocked itself and opened so that he could step through. "Generally," he said as it closed behind him again, "I neither walk into other people's suites, nor interfere with their religious practices, but I'll be damned if I walk right by and let you go on punishing yourself for something that wasn't your fault."

Kurt was too tired to show any surprise at Nathan's sudden arrival, but he did look up with dull eyes. "It happened because of me."

"Give me that." Nathan came over and took the knife away from him, then sat down beside him on the bed. "I realize I'm still more or less an atheist, so you may not consider it worth explaining to me, but what the hell kind of God expects you to cut yourself up in penance?

He'd put up a token resistance as Nathan pulled the knife out of his hand, but there was no way he was winning that particular struggle, especially now. "My God", was the only answer he could give. "It is... difficult. But it should not be easy." This, he was aware, lacked something in eloquence and possibly coherence. But it was the best he could do.

"Crazy," was Nathan's verdict. "Religion makes people crazy. I knew that." He gave Kurt a sideways measuring look. "Or maybe that's sleep deprivation. That I knew, too."

"I am not crazy", Kurt objected weakly. He didn't even try to argue the sleep deprivation point.

"Kurt, you were about to take a knife to yourself because that poor kid had an accident with powers he got because you were trying to help him. Yes, the irony is awful. Yes, I see where the guilt's coming from, but that doesn't mean it's warranted."

Kurt fell silent, staring at his hands. The truth was, he had no way to explain the logic that had led him here, without further convincing Nathan he was crazy.

Nathan turned the knife over in his hands for a moment, fighting a particularly strong memory of the night he'd sat on his own bed and slashed at the Mistra tattoo on his arm until it was unrecognizable. "There's no logic to this, Kurt," he said, the other man's exhausted thoughts spilling out at him like weakly fluttering birds. "You're exhausted and you're upset, and you're being impossibly hard on yourself."

"I have to be", he muttered, almost inaudible, though it was echoed in his thoughts. "I have to... drive myself." Because if I don't...

"If you don't... what?" Fuck, was Scott contagious? Nathan's conscience pointed out he wasn't entirely innocent of similar behavior, and he shook his head, telling it to shut up.

"I do not want to slide", came the answer, at length, the best Kurt could scrape together. "Especially now."

"All right then. Kurt, you realize you sound exactly like Scott, which is unbelievably frightening on a number of levels."

That got a tiny, wry smile. "For different reasons, though, I think. Or perhaps not."

Nathan shook his head. "You need to sleep," he said. "I can knock you out for twelve hours and make sure you don't dream. It's one of the few telepathic tricks I'm good at."

"For twelve hours?"

"I think you need a solid twelve hours, from the look of you. You've barely closed your eyes since Marius was hurt, right?"

"I have slept a little", he admitted. But it was not good sleep.

"You're not going to be thinking at all clearly about this until you do." Nathan gave him a long look. "You do know that." Tell me you're not that far gone.

"I know", Kurt said quietly. "It is not my choice not to sleep." Not completely, anyway. And certainly not to sleep badly.

Nathan rose. Not giving the knife back. "Then take me up on the offer," he said. "I'll step outside, let you get into bed. You'll be asleep before you hear my foosteps heading down the hall."

Kurt looked up at him, then nodded slowly in something that would be defeat if it wasn't welcome. "All right. For twelve hours."

"I'll give this back to you after you've slept," Nathan said, waggling the knife as he turned towards the door. "You'll feel better in the morning," he said more quietly, pausing as he reached it, opening it by hand this time. "Clearer-headed, at least."

"I hope so", was the only answer as Kurt turned away, beginning to prepare for the much-needed sleep.