xp_logs | Brothers and Sisters: Amanda, Kurt

Amanda's hermiting is interrupted by the appearance of Kurt on her doorstep. Sometimes the price can be worth the end result.

Amanda was curled on the couch, reading one of her Mandarin books and idly reflecting that maybe she should maybe leave the apartment at some point. And for somewhere that wasn't the roof, where she'd been curling up in one of the battered chairs left up there, smoking and listening to the city below. The train of thought was interrupted by a soft knocking on the door. Doug, she supposed, or Marie-Ange - the pair of them had been checking in on her periodically since she'd gotten back from the mansion.

It wasn't either of them, as it happened, as she soon found out when a voice called through the door. "Amanda? May I come in?"

She was off the couch and half-way to the door before he'd finished talking. Opening it - it wasn't locked, they'd gotten out of the habit during the lockdown, just walking in and out of each other's apartments - she looked over him with a bright smile, glad to see him upright and happy and healthy. "Hey Bl--" was as far as she got as she was suddenly engulfed in a hug.

Very healthy, to judge by the strength of his hug, though he let her go after a moment to smile at her. "Good morning, jel'enedra."

"Morning." She reached up to touch his cheek, the skin smooth and unscarred. "Woah. Is that... did I...?" She gave him a half-guilty look. "Oops?"

"I had thought you knew even before I did", he said, a little surprised. "You saw me after the healing and before I reached a mirror, after all. But there is nothing to be sorry for."

"I was a bit out of it," she said with a wry shrug. "Didn't really sink in at the time." She touched his cheek again - it was soft and slightly fuzzy, like the skin of a peach. "You sure you're all right with it? I mean, the scars... they're important to you." She'd never understood what drove him to do it, but she'd come to respect that it was something he felt he had to do.

"They were", he corrected gently. "But I have decided... New Year, new name... new start. My knife is now at the bottom of the lake."

There was a certain pleased relief in her smile and she patted his cheek fondly. "Glad I could help then," she said, then tilted her head. "You wanna come in, have a cuppa? 'S about that time."

"Why not", he said with a smile. "It would be a shame to leave immediately, after all."

"You'll have to excuse the mess," she said, stepping aside so he could enter and closing the door behind him. Her living room was rather more chaotic than normal: magic books were scattered around and on the couch, a few lying open to display pages on healing magic and energy transfer; a full ashtray and a series of used plates and bowls were stacked on the coffee table, accompanied by several mugs; a bundle of printed pages, with notations in red pen on them were sitting next to her open laptop. "Been doing the hermit thing over the last fews days, trying to work out some details about the healing thing," she continued, moving onto the kitchen, gathering up some of the dirty dishes on the way. In the morning light that filled the apartment, she looked tired, a little thinner than normal.

Kurt gave her a sharp look, seeing her more clearly in the better light. His voice was still conversational when he spoke, though. "I thought you said you had been ill in bed?"

"I fibbed." She busied herself with filling the kettle, not wanting to look at him. "The spell... it was a bit more complicated than the usual magic. I had to... use a different power source." She sighed a little and then turned to face him. "I had to use people. The energy... it had to come from someone else. So Jean asked Logan and Cain to volunteer and they did." She bit her lip. "'S not something I wanted going around the school, me being able to still do that. After the last time."

"I could hear the talk over my bed", he reminded her. "I know what happened to allow my healing. And I have told no one the details of it who does not already know. Did you think I would turn away from you if I knew?"

"Not you," she said immediately. "You'd never do that, I know that. But... I scared people, Kurt. Last time, with Remy. I don't want them looking at me, and wondering if I'm gunna start draining them for a quick fix." She dropped her eyes. "Healing was the best thing I could do, and I've fucked with that, going to Selene. It feels... dirty, I s'pose. Tainted."

"And this time", he said quietly, moving forward to put his hands on her shoulders, "was very different. You asked, and you made sure there would be no one in range except those who could take it. It was a proper procedure."

"I didn't want to, but..." It was looking into his eyes and knowing he could see her, seeing uninjured skin where there had been bandages and burns, that made her realise that perhaps the price had been worth the reward. "I would have used just me, if I could have and managed the full job. But I couldn't."

"And what would have happened to you, if you had?" he asked gently but pointedly. "I can see that you are not yet recovered even from doing it with Logan and Cain's help."

"I'll be fine," she said, perhaps not as defensively as she would have with most others. "Just took a bit out of me. Literally." She stepped in, wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her cheek against his chest. "I'll be all right, Kurt. 'S just... a lot to process, y'know? Finding out I can still heal, what it takes to do it... 's taking me a bit to get used to. 'm just glad that you're all right. Makes it worth it."

He looked at her for a long moment, then simply picked her up, using the seven inches he had on her and his upper body strength, and carried her over to deposit her on the couch. "And I am all right", he told her, sitting calmly next to her. "In many different ways."

Once she'd gotten over the surprise of finding herself suddenly picked up and bodily moved, she had to smile at him. "Still hauling my arse around, are you?" she asked rhetorically as she studied him. He did seem more... settled, less uncertain than he had been. Apparently many things had changed in the past few days. "I just couldn't leave you like that. Not if there was a chance I could help."

"Of course not. You would not be the sister I know if you could have."

She blushed a little at that, and leaned over to rest her head on his shoulder. "You always did have more faith in me than I did for myself," she told him softly.

He wrapped an arm around her, smiling down at the top of her head. "I told you once I would always have enough faith in you for both of us. That still stands."

"Maybe I should have made it a resolution? For the New Year?" she joked, leaning against him with a small, contented noise. "How about you? What are you wanting to do with the shiny new you this year?"

"I think", he said slowly, thinking it out as he spoke, "one of the things will be to not... Nathan calls it second-guessing myself. There are things I will try to do, but if I cannot do them, I will try not to... give time to it."

She chuckled a little, poking him. "Well, one of us has figured that out, at least," she teased affectionately.

Kurt laughed, prodding her right back. "Yes, yes. Perhaps that should be another resolution for you as well."

"We keep this up and I'll end up with a list of resolutions the size of a bloody phone book," she told him, batting at his hand.