Kurt and Cain, Friday afternoon

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Despite working together for three years, Kurt and Cain have rarely spoken. Today ends that streak, and results in some unexpectedly deep talk about family.




"...doesn't even know how to a keg stand. I swear to God, kids these days..." Cain mumbled to himself, words drowned out in the noise of the large industrial vacuum that he was sweeping across the carpet. Lifting a couch to clean under it, his grunted epithet concerning the parentage of whatever unnamed student had left a half-full bag of Cheetos under the sofa was actually audible over the machine's noise.

It was the machine that had drawn Kurt's attention first, as he wandered into the room to see what was going on. The words brought amusement, though, and he leaned against the door, pitching his voice to be heard as he answered. "In this place, anything is possible."

Kicking the switch to the vacuum, Cain let it whine down to silence as he casually reached down to remove the offending chip bag and replace the sofa. "I'd say 'including these delinquents behaving themselves for a change', but my sense of wonder only goes so far, y'know?" He turned around to notice Kurt, then acknowledged the smaller man with a nod. "They're generally good kids, the most of 'em. Although you didn't hear that from me. They usually..."

Voice trailing off, Cain cocked his head and peered at Kurt quizzically. "You... okay, there's something... hey, y'ain't all lumpy anymore. The, whatsit, scars are all gone."

Kurt blinked. "...has it really been that long we have lived in the same house and not seen each other? Yes, they are. Since not long after Christmas."

"Had a lot goin' on," Cain offered as an excuse, then shrugged and crouched down to carefully sit on the sofa. The few pieces of furniture that he could just drop himself into were either in the staff lounge or his suite, and the rest of the mansion's furnishings hadn't exactly been designed for a seven-and-a-half foot tall giant. "Was out for a while. Of course, I can't leave this place alone for ten minutes without someone either gettin' kidnapped or turned into a bomb or whatnot." He nodded, then looked over at Kurt quizzically. "You changed your name, too. What's that all about?"

"The name Wagner of itself means nothing to me", Kurt said with a slight shrug. "I thought perhaps I should share the name of the only family I have still willing and able to speak to me without secrecy."

That touched a chord with Cain, and he found himself nodding in sympathy. "Family's a tricky thing. Ain't got none left, myself. Had two aunts passed away back in... '84? '85? 'Course, we weren't exactly close. Been just me and this place, really."

He got up slowly, walking over to a bookcase set into the wall. Some of the old books, with the gilt inlays on the spines, ones that hadn't been moved from the shelf in years but still painstakingly dusted and cared for. Nestled in between two of them was a small leather portfolio, and Cain withdrew it gingerly. Opening it, he pulled out an old black-and-white photograph, holding it between his fingers. "Surprised this is still here. Probably ain't been moved for 'bout fifty years. That's when we first moved in here, my dad and me."

He handed the photo over to Kurt, holding it as carefully as he could. It showed the familiar facade of the mansion, and a family: two boys standing apart from each other, a man and woman between them. The larger of the two was standing close to his father, the subtle similarities of family resemblance evident even in the old photograph. The smaller boy, a blond-haired child who was the only one smiling in the photograph, stood next to his fair-haired mother, who stood next to her husband with a faraway look on her face.

"Hard to believe Chuck's three years older than me. Always was a bit of a scrawny kid," Cain chuckled.

Kurt looked at him sideways, holding the photo delicately - he didn't want to damage it, not when it so clearly meant a lot. "I think most people would find it difficult to believe he is only three years older than you. Those who do not know the story, at least."

Cain shrugged. "Miss Vance used to say we both looked like our mothers. That's his mom there, Sharon. Real nice lady, but always kinda... y'know. Distant. Her husband died, and what with him and my old man bein' best friends and all, and my mom passin' away in the same year... suppose that don't sound too weird nowadays. But when you're a kid, you don't really want no one else takin' the place of your mom."

Even if Chuck managed to take the place of a son as far as my old man was concerned, Cain left unspoken.

"No", Kurt agreed quietly. "And certainly not while you are still mourning her." He studied the picture a few moments longer, then carefully offered it back.

Cain replaced the photo in the portfolio, then produced another. A sudden hardness passed over his face, and he just grunted quietly as he brushed a thumb over the photograph. A faded color photograph, of Cain - who looked to be in his mid-teens, yet already nearly dwarfing the man he stood next to, obviously his father. The older man had dark, curly hair in contrast to Cain's bright red, and a thin, studious look that contrasted with his tall and burly son.

While the photograph would at first glance look to be a father and son in their Sunday clothes having a discussion, a closer look at their body language would reveal volumes more. Cain stood with his hands shoved into the pockets of his suit jacket, maintaining a discreet distance from his father, who looked to be more distracted by the presence of a camera than attentive to the young man before him.

"Small favor, I suppose, that I don't take much after my old man," Cain said quietly. "Worked himself to death, right here in this house. Always work with him, research, or papers, or visitors from schools. Drove himself right into the ground."

Kurt had always been good at picking out details. He nodded to himself. "What field was he in?" It seemed a fairly safe question.

"Atomic energy," Cain remarked. "Him and Chuck's dad both. Not like, with the big-name guys that made the bomb or nothing, but enough to take up all his time." He tucked the photo back into the portfolio with surprising care, given the rancor in his tone. "Shit, here I am goin' on like an idiot. You ain't got much in the way of natural family, do you?"

"Only one that I know for sure who it is", Kurt answered with a wry grin. "And she is not exactly the kind of natural family I can invite to gatherings."

"So I hear," Cain said wryly. While he'd read the appropriate team reports of the incident with Kurt and Mystique, he had refrained from passing judgement on his teammate either publicly or privately. "You got a pretty raw deal there, and from the last time your brother was around, I gather things ain't exactly ideal with the folks what raised you."

"Not... ideal, no", he said after a moment, looking down. "Margali will not speak to me or have me spoken of, and Jimaine cannot. Stefan does, when he can, but if Margali found out... it would not go well for him."

Cain snorted in derision, shaking his head. "Who the hell they think they are, passin' judgement like that? If I was you, I'd probably tell them exactly where they can shove that kind of bullshit. You're a hell of a lot more patient than I'd be, no surprise there."

"It is how things work, in the clans", was the quiet response. "Margali feels I betrayed her - them - and that she was acting in the clan's best interest. In the first part, she may not be entirely wrong."

"Say what?" Cain looked at Kurt like the blue mutant had grown a second head. "Last time I checked, you were a grown man who ain't got any apron strings tied to him. I'm guessin' she got all pissy about you checkin' up on your birth mom?" Cain snorted again, shaking his head. "Sometimes I swear, I do not understand how some people work."

Kurt shrugged. "Given who my birth mother is... yes, she did. I think perhaps she thought I had made a choice I never did. She has been growing... harsher, in recent years. And so..." He left the rest unspoken, because Cain knew what the result had been.

"Still bullshit," Cain finished for Kurt. "Family ain't supposed to be like that."

"Is it not?" He looked up. "It is the closest I have ever known, or it was until I found Amanda. And Stefan has not turned his back on me. One day, he will be clan leader." And then I can go home.

"Well then," a nod from the big man signaled agreement, of a sort. "You got family, such as it is. Your brother sounds okay, and Amanda... well, girl's done right by herself. I certainly wouldn't have thought I'd see the day, what with all the problems she caused these past few years. Like to have knocked her head off a time or two myself, but she really turned things around. People will surprise you, even surprise an old fart like me."

"She has", Kurt agreed with a proud smile. "So many of the students and graduates here have come so far from where they were, not so long ago."

"And yet, we all seem to wind up right back here," Cain agreed. "In some form or another. I remember how pissed I was that Chuck turned our home into a school. I thought I was going to come back here and finally get some peace and quiet, y'know? But it's still a home. Still my home. Only real family I got left. Suppose it don't hurt to let some folks who ain't got much of their own share a little bit of it."

A quick smile crossed his face. "My old man's name was Kurt, I ever mention that? Small world, huh?"

Kurt smiled to himself in turn. "No, I do not think you ever did. Coincidence is a strange thing, sometimes... and it seems to be more of a factor here than in other places."

"Ain't that the truth?" Cain replied rhetorically. Maybe it had been just a coincidence that he'd come home at just the right time to have been here when he was needed, or maybe it was something more. Whichever, it was still home. Wasn't the same thing as family, but it was close enough.