pas de chat
TITLE: pas de chat
FANDOM: x-men: first class
PAIRING: azazel/raven
RATING: r
SPOILERS: x-men: first class and - a few for comic!canon, I guess?
WARNINGS: graphic imagery (sexual - oral); language; schmoop; pregnancy
WORD COUNT: 2,691
DISCLAIMER: x-men: first class belongs to marvel and matthew vaughan. all characters within belong to marvel. anything you do not recognise is mine.
SUMMARY: for the prompt on 1stclass_kink:
ok, since the movie's basically ret-conned everything (but then again, the comics tend to do that themselves), can i get azazel's flawlessly badass self teaching raven how to fight (did you SEE him fighting? tt was like art in constantly teleporting motion!) and as they progress in training, they fall in love? and THAT'S where nightcrawler comes from? ^__^
A/N: de-anon from the kink meme, now with bonus kurt as inspired by this fanart :D original thread here
translations:
koschecka | kitten/little cat (fem.)
pravda | truth/correct
nyet | no
moy sladen'ky | you are my sweet/candy boy
train
"What is the point of you?"
Raven stiffened, her jaw locking and tightening as Azazel walked around her with long, measured strides, sparring staff (shorter than a bō, but thinner than a quarterstaff - because Azazel was a swordsman, despite his demonstrated prowess with staves, and he was teaching Raven in the safest way he knew how, on Erik's insistence) balanced neatly on one shoulder.
"That was a question, Mystique," he said, leaning in and over-enunciating the plosive. "You cannot honestly expect to be useful unless you are able to fight. Unless," he added, turning his back on her and strolling away, "you are here only as the Magnetisch whore."
Her lips curled back in a snarl at that, and she launched herself forward in a stop-thrust that would have made any fencing instructor proud; only Azazel countered it easily, parrying her blow aside without even registering her attempted strike before cracking the staff whip-fast at the side of her head. Falling to her knees, Raven dropped her own staff and touched her fingers gingerly to the side of her head. The tip of Azazel's staff touched beneath her chin, tilting her head up. Scowling, she blinked back tears, swallowing against the brain jolting through her skull.
"What are you going to do now, koshechka?" he asked, mouth tilting in something that might have been a smile and was more likely a smirk. "If this was a real fight, you would be dead." His eyes flickered over the point of impact, where his enhanced vision could probably make out the spread of broken capillaries. Raven did not comment about how, if he hadn't been trying not to hurt her, he could have broken her skull. "Very dead."
The staff tapped her chin, lightly. "Up now, koshechka," he said, stepping back.
Pushing herself slowly to her feet, Raven swayed, the world spinning off-balance for a worrying moment. "You hit me too hard," she mumbled through gritted teeth, eyes clenched shut as she fought to regain control. "I - the room's spinning."
"The enemy will not take into account your youth, or your inexperience," Azazel said - and was it the blow to the head, or did he sound more kindly than amused, now? "They will strike you as hard as they can, and hope to shatter your pretty little face."
She opened her eyes to see his face in line with hers, eyebrow quirked. She met his gaze, straightening her spine.
"Better?" he asked. She nodded, and flexed her grip on her staff. Azazel's body dropped into 'relaxed' ("like a cat," he had told her, "you must have all your joints loose. Stiffness makes everything hurt more.") and she, as always, stepped in to make the first strike.
"You are not concentrating," Azazel reprimanded, twenty minutes later, when Raven was spread-eagle on the floor, panting. "This is not a difficult set of manoeuvres."
"Yeah, well," she spat, irritated and angry and hurting all over, "we can't all have had a hundred years to practise."
Something flickered over Azazel's face at that, evidenced in the slant of his mouth and the amused quirk of his eyebrows.
"Pravda," he allowed, "but you have other skills. Janos tells me that you have great flexibility."
Raven sat up on her elbows. "I - used to dance," she admitted. "And gymnastics. While Charles was in university."
"Show me," Azazel said, offering the end of his staff to help her to her feet. She shifted a little, settling on the balls of her feet and pursing her lips before pushing up and forward -
"Why can you not use that when you fight?" Azazel said, when she dropped her heels and turned back to face him. "It is all a dance."
Raven frowned, confused, dragging her eyebrows in; Azazel stepped forward and said, "we are dancing," before grabbing her by the arm and tugging her towards him. Automatically, Raven pushed her hand into his chest, palm flat, to catch herself; then shifted her weight to stabilise herself as Azazel twisted sideways. "You see?" he said. "It is all a dance."
Raven smiled, unwittingly. "It is all a dance," she agreed, and tripped him.
love
Raven had never been in love with Erik. No more than she had been in love with Charles; Erik had given her something that Charles had not. Erik had not been ashamed of her natural form, whereas Charles (always so desperate to fit in) had wanted her to look - normal. Human.
Azazel couldn't look less human if he tried.
She had thought that he might have been trying, what with his penchant for suits and his stupid, floppy hair; but then it became immediately apparent that that was all it was: a penchant.
("I fear I would blind you, koshechka," he told her, once, when she complained that he would never walk about in his bare skin, "with all my glory unveiled." She had laughed, and he ran one long finger over the skin below her breasts, and she slid a hand beneath the waistband of his dress trousers.)
Neither of them spoke of their pasts; no one in their little brotherhood did. Still, Raven had the impression that Azazel had had bad experiences with cold, because he enjoyed the sun of South America far more than she would have anticipated of a Russian. He liked it best when they were staying near the coast - not that it, in all honesty, made any difference whether they were near the coast or not when he wanted to go to the beach, but Erik didn't approve of them just 'taking off', and Raven didn't like to make him sad - and would willingly laze hours away on the sand, soaking in the sun.
"You are a lizard," she said, poking him with her toe. His skin was as searingly hot as the sand beneath them, and had darkened to the rich, shimmering hue of flesh blood.
"I am not the one with scales," he said, without opening his eyes. His fingers closed around the curve of her foot, nails catching against the sensitive skin on the inside arch.
"You do have a tail, though," Raven said, watching as Azazel rolled onto his side to face her.
"Really?" He was smirking, a flash of teeth behind his lips. "I had not noticed."
His tail wrapped around her ankle and pulled her forward, gently but firmly, until she had no option but to roll on top of him.
"Cheat," she said, smiling down at him over her folded arms; the contrast of blue against red thrummed against her retinas, and his skin pulsed burning hot against hers. She bent her legs at the knee, crossed her ankles, enjoying the way that her entire body fitted onto his with flesh to spare.
"Always," he responded, and pulled her down by her chin to slide his tongue into her mouth. She hummed against his lips, pleased and soporific in the sunlight, smoothing her fingers across the smooth planes of his pectorals as she slid her elbows out and down. Her thumb caught on his nipple, and his teeth caught on her lip.
"Now who is cheating?" he said, breaking apart and raising an eyebrow at her. "You do not have areola for me to take advantage of."
Her form flickered, becoming smooth, pale skin and blonde hair that framed their faces. Her nipples were hard and swollen, pressing against his chest. She grinned at him, satisfied that she had won the argument, and bent down to continue the kiss, but Azazel pushed her back. He frowned at her form, fingers tangling in her newly blonde hair and pushing it away from her face.
"What is this?" he asked, voice only just on the unimpressed side of angry. "Why are you wearing -" his fingers tightened in her hair, pulling it sharply against her scalp, "-this."
"You were accusing me of cheating," she said, tilting her chin up and looking down her nose at him; because she'd seen him orgasm. She wasn't afraid. "I thought you might like-"
"Nyet," he interrupted. "I prefer you blue."
Her skin rolled back into its natural colour as she smiled at him. "Do I make you feel less alien?"
"Sheath your bitter claws, koshechka," he said, fondly; tracing the outlines of her collarbone. "You could be one of my people," he added, quietly. "We would have called you many beautiful names."
"Moy sladen'ky," she said, and he laughed.
"One day," he promised, "I will to teach you what that means."
life
She ran her fingers lightly over the stretched skin of her abdomen, the tips catching on the upturned mound of her belly button where it protruded from her stomach. The scales that traced her hip bones and wrapped around her lower back had been pulled outwards with the steady growth of the being inside her, the harsh ridges smoothing flattening out until they were akin to filigree tracing on her skin. Her breasts were heavy, swollen with lactic fluid but not to the point of discomfort, yet. The birth was still a few weeks away.
The air shifted, wafting the stench of carbon and chlorine against her nostrils, and she smiled at Azazel as reality shifted and reformed around him.
"You are feeling better, I see," he said, eyes crinkling up in the corners. "And the little one?"
"We're both fine," Raven answered, feeling her previous smile lingering around the corners of her mouth, smoothing out her forehead and relaxing the muscles around her eyes as she watched him press his large, scarlet hands against her stomach. "Your hands are cold."
"Just because you are able to laze around all day," he said, lowering his face until it was level with her stomach and inhaling the scent of their child, his lips curling back to touch his sharp, wicked teeth to her skin, " doesn't mean that the rest of us do not have things to do."
Her eyes flashed. "It wasn't my idea to keep me locked away in here," she said, scowling down at him. "That was all you and Erik."
"Mostly Erik," Azazel said, lightly. "I have no doubt that you are still just as dangerous, even incapacitated as you are. In fact," he added, as she grumbled above him, "I have it on good authority that pregnant women are doubly as dangerous."
She hummed, mollified, as he nipped the skin of her lower stomach; then carded a hand into his hair and took a firm at the back of his head as his hands gripped the back of her thighs. The ground shifted beneath her feet and everything slid sideways, and if it weren't for the fact that Azazel was scraping his nails down the inside of her thighs as he dragged his teeth over her pubic mound, she would have complained about the vertigo and nausea that teleporting her without warning caused; as it was, his tongue darted out to probe at the folds of her labia and she slid her calves over his shoulders, leaning back into the folds of the duvet.
(Often - and by that, she meant before the pregnancy - they would have done this standing, with Azazel on his feet and his hands bracing Raven by her arse whilst she wrapped her legs around his neck and used her formidable abdominal muscles to prevent their overbalancing. She enjoyed the free-floating sensation of being held aloft by only his arms, and he enjoyed the position of power - and submission, because she had killed many humans by crushing their heads between her thighs, and he knew it - of holding her where he wanted her to be.
Or, he would tease her endlessly with nips and kitten-licks against her clitoris whilst she went down on him, and she would moan around his cock as he tormented her to orgasm.)
Now, with the child inside her, this was the most sensible way, due to the size of her stomach making most other angles difficult. She relaxed into it, scratching her nails lightly over his scalp, moaning softly as he caught her clitoris between his teeth. He suckled on it, and she bucked towards him, back curved in one smooth arch that he ran his fingers over, following the ridge of her spine. She tensed around his tongue, muscles quivering moth-like against him.
"It’s a boy," she told him, as he lapped, rough-tongued, against her labia.
"I know," he said, moments later, as her legs slipped off his shoulders and he stood over her to press an open-mouthed kiss into the dip where her jaw met ear. "He has his mother's eyes."
kurt
Hallowe'en.
Despite their ideological standpoint, this really was one of the only days of the year that they felt truly safe going about in society in their natural forms; and safe was especially important, what with Kurt reaching the all-inquisitive age of seven.
("How did he become seven?" Raven asked, handing Azazel his glass of expensive, blood-red wine. "I swear, it was only yesterday that you were teaching him to hang upside down by his tail.")
Still, seeing as they had spent the past four years trailing around Africa and Malaysia, licking their wounds after Erik's last blow-out with Xavier whilst determinedly pretending that that was exactly not what they were doing and recruiting new mutants to top-up their Brotherhood, it was Kurt's first time in human society without risk of him being hunted.
("Will it be like in the circus, Vater?" he asked, as Azazel swaddled him in his blanket. "Will I have to preform?"
"Nyet," Azazel said, firmly. When Kurt's face fell, Azazel realised how his tone might have come across a little harsh. "I mean to say," he said, "that you should not, because there will already be preformers. You can just watch."
Kurt's yellow eyes widened and he blinked excitedly at his father. "I never got to watch," he said, voice belying his apparently-awake appearance with its soft and sluggish fashion. "Mütter Szardos said that it was too distracting."
"Well, you'll get to watch all you like tomorrow." Raven was leaning against the doorframe, watching as Azazel tried to settle their son for bed. "But only if you go to sleep."
"Promise?" Kurt said, twisting onto his side and burrowing deeper into the blanket, eyes reflecting the light from the doorway as he stared at his mother.
"Promise," she said. "Now. Sleep.")
Even with his curiosity almost seeping from his pores, the moment they entered the populated areas, with humans in masks and outfits swirling around them in a throng of gaiety and flowers, Kurt ducked back next to his parents.
"What do you think?" Azazel said, feeling Kurt curl his small fists around Azazel's hand. "Better than the circus?"
Kurt was staring about them, wide-eyed and fascinated and not a little afraid, although this last emotion was dampened severly by the ease with which his parents wove their way through the crowds. They received compliments on their costumes on multiple occasions, one stall-vendor even going as far to offer Raven a free floral necklace in appreciation. People were particularly enamoured with Kurt, but he was unused to the attention and clutched Azazel's trouser leg.
The admirers cooed and clucked and exchanged knowing looks with Raven and Azazel before moving on.
"They will not hurt you," Azazel said, quietly, seating Kurt on a wall and leaning against his next to him.
"They are human," Kurt said, tucking himself against Azazel's shoulder. "The humans always try to hurt you and Mama."
"I will not let them hurt you," Azazel said, watching as Raven joined in a dancing ring with evident delight. Kurt didn't answer, leaning his chin on Azazel's shoulder as he watched his mother. "Have I ever broken a promise to you?" he asked.
"Nein," Kurt said, quietly. "But -"
"No buts," Azazel said. "You are my son, and I will not let anyone hurt you."
Kurt still didn't reply, but his tail entwined with Azazel's and his little arms wrapped around his bicep, and Raven was spinning in a haze of flowers and multi-coloured fabric.
FANDOM: x-men: first class
PAIRING: azazel/raven
RATING: r
SPOILERS: x-men: first class and - a few for comic!canon, I guess?
WARNINGS: graphic imagery (sexual - oral); language; schmoop; pregnancy
WORD COUNT: 2,691
DISCLAIMER: x-men: first class belongs to marvel and matthew vaughan. all characters within belong to marvel. anything you do not recognise is mine.
SUMMARY: for the prompt on 1stclass_kink:
ok, since the movie's basically ret-conned everything (but then again, the comics tend to do that themselves), can i get azazel's flawlessly badass self teaching raven how to fight (did you SEE him fighting? tt was like art in constantly teleporting motion!) and as they progress in training, they fall in love? and THAT'S where nightcrawler comes from? ^__^
A/N: de-anon from the kink meme, now with bonus kurt as inspired by this fanart :D original thread here
translations:
koschecka | kitten/little cat (fem.)
pravda | truth/correct
nyet | no
moy sladen'ky | you are my sweet/candy boy
train
"What is the point of you?"
Raven stiffened, her jaw locking and tightening as Azazel walked around her with long, measured strides, sparring staff (shorter than a bō, but thinner than a quarterstaff - because Azazel was a swordsman, despite his demonstrated prowess with staves, and he was teaching Raven in the safest way he knew how, on Erik's insistence) balanced neatly on one shoulder.
"That was a question, Mystique," he said, leaning in and over-enunciating the plosive. "You cannot honestly expect to be useful unless you are able to fight. Unless," he added, turning his back on her and strolling away, "you are here only as the Magnetisch whore."
Her lips curled back in a snarl at that, and she launched herself forward in a stop-thrust that would have made any fencing instructor proud; only Azazel countered it easily, parrying her blow aside without even registering her attempted strike before cracking the staff whip-fast at the side of her head. Falling to her knees, Raven dropped her own staff and touched her fingers gingerly to the side of her head. The tip of Azazel's staff touched beneath her chin, tilting her head up. Scowling, she blinked back tears, swallowing against the brain jolting through her skull.
"What are you going to do now, koshechka?" he asked, mouth tilting in something that might have been a smile and was more likely a smirk. "If this was a real fight, you would be dead." His eyes flickered over the point of impact, where his enhanced vision could probably make out the spread of broken capillaries. Raven did not comment about how, if he hadn't been trying not to hurt her, he could have broken her skull. "Very dead."
The staff tapped her chin, lightly. "Up now, koshechka," he said, stepping back.
Pushing herself slowly to her feet, Raven swayed, the world spinning off-balance for a worrying moment. "You hit me too hard," she mumbled through gritted teeth, eyes clenched shut as she fought to regain control. "I - the room's spinning."
"The enemy will not take into account your youth, or your inexperience," Azazel said - and was it the blow to the head, or did he sound more kindly than amused, now? "They will strike you as hard as they can, and hope to shatter your pretty little face."
She opened her eyes to see his face in line with hers, eyebrow quirked. She met his gaze, straightening her spine.
"Better?" he asked. She nodded, and flexed her grip on her staff. Azazel's body dropped into 'relaxed' ("like a cat," he had told her, "you must have all your joints loose. Stiffness makes everything hurt more.") and she, as always, stepped in to make the first strike.
"You are not concentrating," Azazel reprimanded, twenty minutes later, when Raven was spread-eagle on the floor, panting. "This is not a difficult set of manoeuvres."
"Yeah, well," she spat, irritated and angry and hurting all over, "we can't all have had a hundred years to practise."
Something flickered over Azazel's face at that, evidenced in the slant of his mouth and the amused quirk of his eyebrows.
"Pravda," he allowed, "but you have other skills. Janos tells me that you have great flexibility."
Raven sat up on her elbows. "I - used to dance," she admitted. "And gymnastics. While Charles was in university."
"Show me," Azazel said, offering the end of his staff to help her to her feet. She shifted a little, settling on the balls of her feet and pursing her lips before pushing up and forward -
"Why can you not use that when you fight?" Azazel said, when she dropped her heels and turned back to face him. "It is all a dance."
Raven frowned, confused, dragging her eyebrows in; Azazel stepped forward and said, "we are dancing," before grabbing her by the arm and tugging her towards him. Automatically, Raven pushed her hand into his chest, palm flat, to catch herself; then shifted her weight to stabilise herself as Azazel twisted sideways. "You see?" he said. "It is all a dance."
Raven smiled, unwittingly. "It is all a dance," she agreed, and tripped him.
love
Raven had never been in love with Erik. No more than she had been in love with Charles; Erik had given her something that Charles had not. Erik had not been ashamed of her natural form, whereas Charles (always so desperate to fit in) had wanted her to look - normal. Human.
Azazel couldn't look less human if he tried.
She had thought that he might have been trying, what with his penchant for suits and his stupid, floppy hair; but then it became immediately apparent that that was all it was: a penchant.
("I fear I would blind you, koshechka," he told her, once, when she complained that he would never walk about in his bare skin, "with all my glory unveiled." She had laughed, and he ran one long finger over the skin below her breasts, and she slid a hand beneath the waistband of his dress trousers.)
Neither of them spoke of their pasts; no one in their little brotherhood did. Still, Raven had the impression that Azazel had had bad experiences with cold, because he enjoyed the sun of South America far more than she would have anticipated of a Russian. He liked it best when they were staying near the coast - not that it, in all honesty, made any difference whether they were near the coast or not when he wanted to go to the beach, but Erik didn't approve of them just 'taking off', and Raven didn't like to make him sad - and would willingly laze hours away on the sand, soaking in the sun.
"You are a lizard," she said, poking him with her toe. His skin was as searingly hot as the sand beneath them, and had darkened to the rich, shimmering hue of flesh blood.
"I am not the one with scales," he said, without opening his eyes. His fingers closed around the curve of her foot, nails catching against the sensitive skin on the inside arch.
"You do have a tail, though," Raven said, watching as Azazel rolled onto his side to face her.
"Really?" He was smirking, a flash of teeth behind his lips. "I had not noticed."
His tail wrapped around her ankle and pulled her forward, gently but firmly, until she had no option but to roll on top of him.
"Cheat," she said, smiling down at him over her folded arms; the contrast of blue against red thrummed against her retinas, and his skin pulsed burning hot against hers. She bent her legs at the knee, crossed her ankles, enjoying the way that her entire body fitted onto his with flesh to spare.
"Always," he responded, and pulled her down by her chin to slide his tongue into her mouth. She hummed against his lips, pleased and soporific in the sunlight, smoothing her fingers across the smooth planes of his pectorals as she slid her elbows out and down. Her thumb caught on his nipple, and his teeth caught on her lip.
"Now who is cheating?" he said, breaking apart and raising an eyebrow at her. "You do not have areola for me to take advantage of."
Her form flickered, becoming smooth, pale skin and blonde hair that framed their faces. Her nipples were hard and swollen, pressing against his chest. She grinned at him, satisfied that she had won the argument, and bent down to continue the kiss, but Azazel pushed her back. He frowned at her form, fingers tangling in her newly blonde hair and pushing it away from her face.
"What is this?" he asked, voice only just on the unimpressed side of angry. "Why are you wearing -" his fingers tightened in her hair, pulling it sharply against her scalp, "-this."
"You were accusing me of cheating," she said, tilting her chin up and looking down her nose at him; because she'd seen him orgasm. She wasn't afraid. "I thought you might like-"
"Nyet," he interrupted. "I prefer you blue."
Her skin rolled back into its natural colour as she smiled at him. "Do I make you feel less alien?"
"Sheath your bitter claws, koshechka," he said, fondly; tracing the outlines of her collarbone. "You could be one of my people," he added, quietly. "We would have called you many beautiful names."
"Moy sladen'ky," she said, and he laughed.
"One day," he promised, "I will to teach you what that means."
life
She ran her fingers lightly over the stretched skin of her abdomen, the tips catching on the upturned mound of her belly button where it protruded from her stomach. The scales that traced her hip bones and wrapped around her lower back had been pulled outwards with the steady growth of the being inside her, the harsh ridges smoothing flattening out until they were akin to filigree tracing on her skin. Her breasts were heavy, swollen with lactic fluid but not to the point of discomfort, yet. The birth was still a few weeks away.
The air shifted, wafting the stench of carbon and chlorine against her nostrils, and she smiled at Azazel as reality shifted and reformed around him.
"You are feeling better, I see," he said, eyes crinkling up in the corners. "And the little one?"
"We're both fine," Raven answered, feeling her previous smile lingering around the corners of her mouth, smoothing out her forehead and relaxing the muscles around her eyes as she watched him press his large, scarlet hands against her stomach. "Your hands are cold."
"Just because you are able to laze around all day," he said, lowering his face until it was level with her stomach and inhaling the scent of their child, his lips curling back to touch his sharp, wicked teeth to her skin, " doesn't mean that the rest of us do not have things to do."
Her eyes flashed. "It wasn't my idea to keep me locked away in here," she said, scowling down at him. "That was all you and Erik."
"Mostly Erik," Azazel said, lightly. "I have no doubt that you are still just as dangerous, even incapacitated as you are. In fact," he added, as she grumbled above him, "I have it on good authority that pregnant women are doubly as dangerous."
She hummed, mollified, as he nipped the skin of her lower stomach; then carded a hand into his hair and took a firm at the back of his head as his hands gripped the back of her thighs. The ground shifted beneath her feet and everything slid sideways, and if it weren't for the fact that Azazel was scraping his nails down the inside of her thighs as he dragged his teeth over her pubic mound, she would have complained about the vertigo and nausea that teleporting her without warning caused; as it was, his tongue darted out to probe at the folds of her labia and she slid her calves over his shoulders, leaning back into the folds of the duvet.
(Often - and by that, she meant before the pregnancy - they would have done this standing, with Azazel on his feet and his hands bracing Raven by her arse whilst she wrapped her legs around his neck and used her formidable abdominal muscles to prevent their overbalancing. She enjoyed the free-floating sensation of being held aloft by only his arms, and he enjoyed the position of power - and submission, because she had killed many humans by crushing their heads between her thighs, and he knew it - of holding her where he wanted her to be.
Or, he would tease her endlessly with nips and kitten-licks against her clitoris whilst she went down on him, and she would moan around his cock as he tormented her to orgasm.)
Now, with the child inside her, this was the most sensible way, due to the size of her stomach making most other angles difficult. She relaxed into it, scratching her nails lightly over his scalp, moaning softly as he caught her clitoris between his teeth. He suckled on it, and she bucked towards him, back curved in one smooth arch that he ran his fingers over, following the ridge of her spine. She tensed around his tongue, muscles quivering moth-like against him.
"It’s a boy," she told him, as he lapped, rough-tongued, against her labia.
"I know," he said, moments later, as her legs slipped off his shoulders and he stood over her to press an open-mouthed kiss into the dip where her jaw met ear. "He has his mother's eyes."
kurt
Hallowe'en.
Despite their ideological standpoint, this really was one of the only days of the year that they felt truly safe going about in society in their natural forms; and safe was especially important, what with Kurt reaching the all-inquisitive age of seven.
("How did he become seven?" Raven asked, handing Azazel his glass of expensive, blood-red wine. "I swear, it was only yesterday that you were teaching him to hang upside down by his tail.")
Still, seeing as they had spent the past four years trailing around Africa and Malaysia, licking their wounds after Erik's last blow-out with Xavier whilst determinedly pretending that that was exactly not what they were doing and recruiting new mutants to top-up their Brotherhood, it was Kurt's first time in human society without risk of him being hunted.
("Will it be like in the circus, Vater?" he asked, as Azazel swaddled him in his blanket. "Will I have to preform?"
"Nyet," Azazel said, firmly. When Kurt's face fell, Azazel realised how his tone might have come across a little harsh. "I mean to say," he said, "that you should not, because there will already be preformers. You can just watch."
Kurt's yellow eyes widened and he blinked excitedly at his father. "I never got to watch," he said, voice belying his apparently-awake appearance with its soft and sluggish fashion. "Mütter Szardos said that it was too distracting."
"Well, you'll get to watch all you like tomorrow." Raven was leaning against the doorframe, watching as Azazel tried to settle their son for bed. "But only if you go to sleep."
"Promise?" Kurt said, twisting onto his side and burrowing deeper into the blanket, eyes reflecting the light from the doorway as he stared at his mother.
"Promise," she said. "Now. Sleep.")
Even with his curiosity almost seeping from his pores, the moment they entered the populated areas, with humans in masks and outfits swirling around them in a throng of gaiety and flowers, Kurt ducked back next to his parents.
"What do you think?" Azazel said, feeling Kurt curl his small fists around Azazel's hand. "Better than the circus?"
Kurt was staring about them, wide-eyed and fascinated and not a little afraid, although this last emotion was dampened severly by the ease with which his parents wove their way through the crowds. They received compliments on their costumes on multiple occasions, one stall-vendor even going as far to offer Raven a free floral necklace in appreciation. People were particularly enamoured with Kurt, but he was unused to the attention and clutched Azazel's trouser leg.
The admirers cooed and clucked and exchanged knowing looks with Raven and Azazel before moving on.
"They will not hurt you," Azazel said, quietly, seating Kurt on a wall and leaning against his next to him.
"They are human," Kurt said, tucking himself against Azazel's shoulder. "The humans always try to hurt you and Mama."
"I will not let them hurt you," Azazel said, watching as Raven joined in a dancing ring with evident delight. Kurt didn't answer, leaning his chin on Azazel's shoulder as he watched his mother. "Have I ever broken a promise to you?" he asked.
"Nein," Kurt said, quietly. "But -"
"No buts," Azazel said. "You are my son, and I will not let anyone hurt you."
Kurt still didn't reply, but his tail entwined with Azazel's and his little arms wrapped around his bicep, and Raven was spinning in a haze of flowers and multi-coloured fabric.