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Peter Maximoff drifts for a while.
It's like being caught in the seconds in-between sleep. It's those moments in the middle of night when you awake for a few fragile seconds, when the house is quiet and the world is dark. It's when your eyes can't quite adjust to the darkness, and your limbs are heavy and numb, and you can feel your pillow case—wet with drool—sticking to your cheek. It's those few soft breaths still caught on the edges of a dream before drifting to the next.
There are a few gaps in the darkness where he's able to pull his head above that murky water clouding his mind and reach out towards consciousness. There are times when others' voices wash over him in waves before being swept back away by the tide.
In those moments, there's an ache in his bones. A heavy pain sits deep inside of him, thick and heavy like waterlogged clothes. The light peeking through his eyelashes is a sharp prick of pain to the senses. The cold embracing darkness is comforting in contrast.
He remembers running. He remembers falling. He remembers skidding across cracked concrete and pavement and freshly-mowed lawns and dew-soaked Earth. He remembers sharp little pebbles digging into his flesh, each tiny rock like a bee-sting to the body. He remembers moans so low in pain they sound animalistic—then remembers those sounds came from him. He remembers the red-hot pain of his body being moved, screaming out as firm hands gripped his limbs and lifted. He remembers his head jostling about with the jerky movements of the plane, the engine's roar muffled to his ears. He remembers being strapped to the stretcher, body confined, limbs restrained, and wanting nothing more than to just run, run, run.
After that, he remembers a gentler touch. He remembers a hand to his forehead, ever-so-carefully pushing back his bangs. He remembers the press of soft lips there. He remembers a whispered promise of, "I'll be back."
Then, there's nothing left to remember, for he lets the darkness take him.
——————
When Peter wakes—finally wakes—his ears are filled with the voice of a low murmur. The words themselves become mush inside his brain, and thinking too much about them has a headache emerging. He's begun to think that perhaps one of the wires in his head got crossed when he realizes the words aren't English at all, and that bit of information has a small exhale leaving his lips.
He lets his eyes flutter open. His vision is blurry and unfocused, and the lights hanging above him are harsh and bright, but they don't hurt as much as he expected them to. A few slow blinks helps clear his sight, and he lets his gaze lazily drift to the side.
Kurt's sitting there in a chair at the bedside. It's plastic and rickety and doesn't look comfortable in the slightest. The blue mutant's eyes are closed, lips moving in quiet prayer, and rosary clasped between his hands. The long beaded end dangles downwards and grazes across Peter's bandaged chest. A heavy weight against his lap proves itself to be Kurt's tail, and Peter doesn't even think before reaching out to touch it.
As his hand lightly brushes over the appendage, Kurt's eyes snap open revealing golden irises. His gaze flicks downwards to meet Peter's face. Peter can't help the lazy, lopsided grin that forms on his face.
"You look like shit," Peter says in a tone that's supposed to be teasing, but it comes out as a rasp and has his throat feeling all scratchy and raw.
Kurt doesn't hesitate to slide an arm around his shoulders and carefully help him sit up. A glass of water is pressed to his lips, and Kurt holds it there for him, letting him take small, slow sips. The water's warm—must've been sitting out for a while—but it's like heaven to his parched throat.
"You should see yourself," Kurt murmurs back, but the smile on his lips doesn't quite reach his eyes.
Peter knows he looks like death. He feels like death. His face is all hot and red and puffy, surely bruised and beaten to hell and back. He thinks one of his ribs might be cracked because there's a sharp sort of pinprick in his chest every time he inhales. In one of his ankles sits a dull throb, and it's elevated by a pillow underneath his foot. He's glad it doesn't look like either of his legs are broken—he's been through the whole schtick before, and he's grateful that his leg hasn't been snapped like a toothpick once more. There is an ache underneath the skin near his knee where the metal plates and screws sit holding an decade's old injury together. But that leg's always been finicky since the injury, and maybe he is getting old because he swears he can tell when it's going to rain based off the ache in the joint.
He's sure that he's on all sorts of pain meds because despite all the bruising and bandages covering his body, it doesn't hurt too bad. And that certainly means something because he burns through any sort of medication like crazy. He's pretty sure that whatever medicine Hank's concocted is more powerful than any sort of horse tranquilizer.
But Kurt looks worse for wear himself. The small cuts and scrapes along his skin aren't too worrisome—minor injuries like that are a given in their line of work. But there's a tiredness in Kurt's eyes that Peter doesn't like, something that makes the mutant look so much older than thirty. There's more than just sleepless nights by Peter's bedside weighing him down. There's a sadness there, something haunting and melancholy and tiring, and Peter doesn't like the look on Kurt's face for one minute.
"...What happened?" Peter asks quietly. He wants to make a joke, crack a grin and ask 'did someone die?', but it seems entirely possible and all too inappropriate for the moment.
Kurt glances downward at the rosary still trapped between his hands. He fiddles with the beads as he chews on his bottom lip. It's not something he wants to talk about, and Peter almost wants to tell him he can wait until he's ready, but they both know Peter will find everything out sooner or later, so they might as well rip the band-aid off while they can.
Peter reaches out and places his hand atop Kurt's. The male's eyes flick upwards to him, lower lip wobbling, before he exhales softly and explains everything.
Grief is a funny thing. Everyone reacts differently to it, and there's stages to cycle through, and you never really get over it, per say, but you learn how to live with it. Still, experience doesn't make managing grief any easier the next time it comes around.
When Kurt finishes, Peter just feels numb. His retelling leaves Peter's head feeling heavy and strangely hot while something sickly curdles in his stomach. He wants nothing more than this to be a dream, but Kurt never lies, so he's forced to accept it as truth.
He closes his eyes and exhales deeply, letting it all wash over him. Raven’s dead. Jean’s dead. Charles is gone. It makes him sick and guilty and angry. He'd been stuck here, out of commission for who knows how long while his friends—his family—risked their lives. He could've helped them, should've been there. Maybe if he was faster—
There's water dripping onto his face. It hits his cheeks and drips down the side of his nose. He opens his eyes and sees that Kurt's are filled with tears.
He opens his mouth to say something, but Kurt beats him to it.
"It is my fault," Kurt gasps out. His hands are still clasped before him, forearms braced on the edge of the bed. His knee is rapidly bouncing up and down as tears continue to spill from his eyes.
"Kurt," Peter says softly. "Kurt, no, that's not—"
"It is," Kurt sobs out. "It is my fault. It is all my fault. If—If I had been faster up in space, o-or more careful, and gotten us out in time—"
Peter's face falls. "Kurt no, no—"
He struggles to push himself up into a sitting position. His ribs ache in disapproval at the movement. His arms feel like noodles, shaking as he tries to haul the rest of his body up. The thin sheets covering him crumple and shift off of his body. He hisses slightly as he swings his legs over the side of the bed, ignoring Kurt's weak cry of protest and nudging their knees together so Kurt will make room.
"C'mon, Kurt, don't—please don't cry," Peter begs in a quiet whisper. He slings an arm over Kurt's shoulders, feeling how they bounce up and down with sobs. Kurt bends over, elbows braced on his knees, and sobs into his hands. It makes Peter feel sick. He hates when Kurt cries, hates how someone so godly and virtuous as Kurt can be forced to suffer like this. How long had this guilt been festering inside of him while Peter was unconscious? Kurt—who did he have to talk to? Was there any time to process his emotions after burying Raven, or watching Jean die?
Kurt lets out a sort of low moan of agony into his hands. "None of this—none of this should have happened! If only I had grabbed her! We could have—I should have—they should be—"
His sorrow overtakes him once more, leaves his words unintelligible. The noises leaving his mouth sound primal, filled with a grief that sits deep inside his soul and tears its way out of his chest.
Peter shushes him softly. He holds him close and lets his head drop to rest atop of Kurt's. He feels his own tears drip down his cheeks and into Kurt's dark curls. His hand rubs up and down Kurt's back in a weak attempt to soothe him. Kurt's hands tremble as they move to gingerly wrap around Peter's back, still mindful of his injuries, and press himself close. He buries his face near Peter's collarbone, breath hitching as he hiccups and sobs.
As they sit there holding each other, Peter closes his eyes. He thinks of how wonderfully terrifying space had looked and how small he had felt in comparison. The way his body was weightless and how running through the ship felt like flying. But then the alarms of the ships had sent dread into his gut, and all he could hear were the alarms blaring in his ears, red warning lights flashing over his body. He remembers Kurt going back in, Jean attached, and how it had felt like this was goodbye. But Kurt had come back and Jean did not. He'd watched as she floated in space, hues of red and purple surrounding her form—and it was almost pretty in a way, that same sort of mind-numbing ethereal beauty that had filled him upon first reaching space. Then, Jean had absorbed it all, and for a while, it was like he was watching someone die right before him, helpless to it all.
And maybe he had. Someone came back that day from space, but it wasn't Jean. Not his Jean.
Peter sighs softly. He knows what it's like to wish you were just that little bit faster, to think that maybe if you had that one extra second, you could've made it. He thinks of shattered glass and a dozen bullets and exploding mansions and shattered kneecaps and concrete and rubble cutting into his skin. His hold on Kurt grows a little tighter.
"It's not your fault," he whispers, and he shushes Kurt when he tries to argue. "No, no—it's not your fault, Kurt. I'll say it as much as it takes for you to accept it. Jean...she had her own issues she needed to deal with. And from what it sounds like, that...entity. It was meant to find Jean, and it would've eventually, with or without the X-Men."
Kurt sniffs. His cries have quieted down to a few quiet hiccups here and there and some tears slipping down his cheeks. He's slumped against Peter's form, the sorrow and grief giving way to exhaustion.
"If you're going to blame anyone," Peter begins, and the corner of his lips twitches upwards, "blame Charles. Yeah?"
Kurt huffs a laugh. It's wet-sounding, but it's enough to bring a smile to Peter's face. Kurt takes a deep breath, collecting himself, and pulls back to look Peter in the eyes. He smiles sadly, and his face is wet and smeared with snot and tears. "...Thank you," Kurt murmurs.
"Anytime, dude."
The casual tone of Peter's voice has Kurt grinning. He wipes his nose off on his sleeve, but the smile remains. It grows more tender as he moves to coax Peter to lay back down in bed. He dotes on him with the utmost care, helping to elevate his foot once more and drawing the sheets back over his body. He settles back down in his seat near Peter's side. There's a warmth to his eyes as he takes Peter's arm, smoothing back down the tape that keeps his IV in place.
"We...we are going to be okay?" Kurt asks, his voice soft and hesitant. His eyes shine, filled with the need for reassurance that he had gone without for so long.
Peter exhales. He lets his arm slide back until his hand is clasped tightly with Kurt's. He nods, seemingly convincing himself before his voice becomes more certain. "Yeah...Yeah, I think we're gonna be okay.”