In Cold Blood

“got ya’ something.” the girl was unsuccessfully hiding some coffee behind her back. what could she say? she didn’t have a lot of money, but she did have enough for caffeine. and eva felt like that was worth for something.

Kurt glanced up from the mess of textbooks and papers in front of him. Just like last semester, he found himself in the library more than any other place. The semester may have only just started, but he already felt like he was behind in his classes. “I seriously owe you one. I think I’ve almost dozed off several times already.”

Anna looks up at Kurt, who had easily become one of the most important people in her new life. She couldn’t ask for a much better big brother, all things considered, “why do they have to hate each other? Isn’t it tiring, hating all your exes or something?” She scoffs with a sneer that she’d only show a couple people before it melts into a groan, “I don’t like my chances of not getting shouted at, but….” She sighs now, “I really wish it wasn’t so hard to make friends. i know you’re right, though.”

“I don’t know. To be honest, I’m not really sure what happened between them.” Not all the details at least. It wasn’t because he didn’t care, he’d just rather not get wrapped up in all the drama. “I’d imagine so. You’d think they’d have to get over whatever happened at some point.” Kurt gave her a small sympathetic smile. The mutant had never been great at making friends himself. “He might be upset for a little while, but I doubt he can stay mad at you for long. Seriously, I’m sure he’ll eventually come around.”

grunting a little in response, the mutant leaned back. he knew kurt wasn’t really a people-person, and that the experience would have been especially troubling, but with the year they’d all had, he couldn’t help but worry – but only quietly, of course. he wouldn’t want people to think he was going soft.

of course, kurt knew better. nodding surely, believing his brother on face-value that it really was just a lack of sleep that had been upsetting him, claude tried not to push the issue further. he’d never really felt secure in his place within the rogers family, despite it being five years this year he’d been with them, and this year’s addition of anna had really rocked the boat for him. he wasn’t really sure what kurt had kept up with, but he was sure the other knew that much. at least the bruises on his face from his fight club were healing – thanks to anna herself, no less. “ah, things are going, i guess. work’s alright. things are… getting better. i s’pose. i dunno.”

Kurt wasn’t sure how convincing he was, but at least the matter of how he was doing was dropped for now. Whether or not it was for the better, he appreciated that Claude didn’t push the issue any further. The mutant was sure all he needed was a little more time to figure things out and then it’d all be relatively fine so there wasn’t a point in talking about it.

A small smile started to form on his face. He knew things had been rough for his younger brother and the new addition to the family didn’t exactly help matters so hopefully things really were getting better. “Well I’m happy to hear things might be looking up.” It was relieving to hear, not only because he deserved some peace after everything, but also because Kurt was starting to worry another one of his siblings was going to take off. He’d understand if Claude wanted to go, but he’d still be sad to see him go. “On the bright side, I really doubt next year can be any worse than this year.  Who knows maybe things will be semi-decent, at least for a little while.”

anna groans as the thoughts come to the forefront, finally having someone to voice them to. she turns to kurt, silver eyes full of concern as she starts to explain, “George is angry. he was going on about me being friends with Percy but….” she folds her arms and sinks further into the couch, pulling her knees up, “it’s not like i have many normal friends to begin with.”

Kurt gives her his full attention and quietly listens to the problem. A soft sigh escaped his lips. “Did you tell him that? I honestly don’t know if it’ll help much, but maybe he’ll be a little more understanding?” The older Rogers had never been the best at giving out advice. “Maybe he just needs a little time to get over it.”

she should’ve been miserable, considering everything that had happened, and continued happening in their crazy, hectic, messed up lives. with families like theirs, in a town like the one they lived in, nothing was guaranteed. so she was aware his words weren’t a promise he would always be able to keep, but they were enough. ❝ that’s all i want, ❞ she whispered back. she should’ve been miserable, but still, she smiled. ❝ i’ll do what i can to keep you safe, too. ❞ even if she didn’t know it at first, keeping kurt safe had been her goal since long before she acknowledged her feelings for him. ❝ and myself, i guess, ❞ that bit was slightly more difficult, surprisingly. ❝ you know i love you, right ? ❞ she tried to maintain a somewhat casual air, but couldn’t hide the weight of her words. ❝ i don’t know if i’ve ever said it, but you should know i do. ❞

Despite the events that put them here, a gentle smile remained on his face as they continued talking. “That’ll definitely make things easier.” He softly joked. Sure he could take care of himself, but it didn’t hurt to have other people look out for him, especially when he had a habit of making some incredibly reckless decisions from time to time. “Thank you.” The mutant said, growing more serious. “I don’t want to see you get hurt again.”  

His soft smile returned as soon as he heard her next words. It would have been impossible for him do anything but smile, as different as that was for him. “You should know I love you too.” Kurt couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment his feelings for her shifted from a small crush to something more serious. If he was truly being honest with himself though, he knew those feelings had been there for quite some time now despite how hard he had previously tried to ignore them. At the start of the year he would have denied it and wouldn’t have even dared to entertain the idea of his feelings being reciprocated. But now they were here, being completely honest with each other about their feelings. Funny how things could change so much with a little time.

chewing on a cube of cheese slowly, claude watched kurt carefully. he knew stuff had been really rough for him this year, and so the jokes and ribbing were few and far between. when he’d grown up – at least, for the last five years he’d been with the rogers, anyway – claude had a habit of ragging on, and really being rude to, a lot of men in the family out of defense, even if it was unnecessary. now that he had settled a little, gotten a bit older, it had simmered down to light-hearted teasing.

but still, he’d noticed stuff had been going on all the same. “you get me anything good?” and yeah, okay, christmas shoppers were the worst, but claude wanted to know if that was the only thing going on. “seriously, you sure that’s all?”

“Not yet. The shittiest part is that I didn’t even end up getting anything for anyone. It was just a giant, frustrating waste of time.” Kurt complained. The fact he’d have to go back out again sometime was probably the most upsetting part of the whole experience. 

The mutant was quick to shrug off the question. “I could probably use more sleep, but honestly other than that I’m fine.” While he was still dealing with the aftermath of the gas leak, it wasn’t anything he felt ready to talk about just yet. “I know it’s been a long year, but it wasn’t all bad. There were a few good things to come out of the year.” Optimism wasn’t usually his thing, but he did genuinely mean it. “What about you? I feel like I’ve been half asleep at most of these lately and don’t know what’s happening with any of you anymore.” He half joked to try to keep the conversation lighter.

Aside from family dinners, Kurt hadn’t spent much time with his family in what felt like forever. It was of course something he felt terribly guilty about and now that he had a little more time and less on his plate, he planned on hanging around a bit more. So as soon as he heard his sister’s words, he figured he’s at least offer her a person to talk to. “You want to talk about it?” 

family dinners were blessings and curses to claude. he didn’t love them, but he loved the people who went to them – even if he never said those words – and so it was always a struggle to make it. especially lately, but he was warming up to anna, so hopefully that was something that would make things easier. sliding into the kitchen next to kurt, taking a cracker off the cheeseboard in between them and sitting up on the bench, claude raised his eyebrows. “you’re late.” [ @blcodxs-thicker ]

it probably didn’t warrant pointing out, but claude had always been trouble, and he didn’t really know how to do anything but be irritating. “dad’ll be so disappointed.” ( god, the word ‘dad’ tasted weird in his mouth, even still ) “what’s the hold up?”

Kurt let out a tired sigh before responding. “For what it’s worth, I planned on being on time.” Looking back that might have been his first mistake seeing as though things hardly went the way he planned them to. The older one rolled his eyes. “I think he’ll survive me showing up late. At least I managed to show up. Better late than never.” The mutant had skipped out on quite a few family dinners this year, and even though it was only when he really needed time to himself to sort out whatever mess he had managed to get himself into, he still felt guilty about it.

“I had some time to kill before dinner and tried to get some Christmas shopping done. I somehow forgot how ridiculously crowded and busy everywhere is this time of year.” At this point he wasn’t sure if he was more annoyed with himself or all the over the top shoppers he dealt with.

[ text // blood bro ]: yeah but i trust you [ text // blood bro ]: just tell them??? [ text // blood bro ]: i could but like [ text // blood bro ]: what if it goes badly? what if they don’t like me?

his eyes shifted back to the mutant, forcing a smile and a certain level of confidence. “yeah. there are too many scientists around this place, they wouldn’t pass the opportunity to study this.” the problem was that he had a feeling no answers about any of this would come easily or quickly. “we can ask around, and i can take a look at the labs database, see if there was any bloodwork around that time.” not entirely legal, but who cared? “something is always happening, but we have enough people here to deal with anything. we’ll be fine.” 

“That’s what I’m hoping.” That and that they were actually able to find something useful. He wasn’t sure how confident he was in them finding answers easily. “If you have some time we can go now. I’m not really finding anything useful here anyway.” Kurt sighed and then nodded, despite not sharing the same optimistic view. While it was true that there were enough people here to deal with whatever happened here, he wasn’t sure that would ultimately be enough to keep everyone safe.

“ with that attitude we’d definitely get caught. “

“I seriously doubt my attitude is going to be what gets us caught.”

“Hmmm I haven’t yet found anything but i’m thinking maybe it could be something that is still being tested and maybe who ever is behind it, decided that the campus was the perfect place to test it out. My sources in the chem business haven’t gotten back to me yet.” Ela needed to to make contact with her source to see if they have found anything new. “It is because there is alot of the obvious choices like your typical government or some big corporation but it could also be someone completely new.” Ela was relieve that when this had happen she and her sibling weren’t anywhere near here. “I’m sure if we can find someone who is willing to talk to us we can ask them to see if they saw anything.” Usually she would find a way to get herself to infiltrate a place but that would be hard to do here.

“Makes sense. I can’t really imagine something like that existing for awhile and never hearing about it. And testing it here is a smart move. How many other places have this number of different species and powers?” It was something he had previously thought highly of, but now he couldn’t help but wonder if it just put a bigger target on all of them. “There’s also the countless people who are probably pissed and looking to get revenge on any number of people here. Or like you said, it could be something new we don’t know about.” The mutant let out a small sigh of defeat before he stood up. He was tired of waiting around for others to give him answers, seeing the people he cared about getting hurt, and feeling powerless to do anything about it. As exhausted as he was, he was determined to figure this out and do something about it as soon as possible.“We can go ask around now if you have some free time. It’s not like I’m getting anywhere with all this.” He said as motioned towards the books and papers.

[ text // blood bro ]]: what do i do when i like someone [ text // blood bro ]]: *someoneS [ text // blood bro ]]: and i don’t know if they like me

“I just need to sit down for a few minutes and I’ll be good to go,” Daniel explained with a laugh as he took a seat on a conveniently placed booth, gently placing Mjolnir next to him. “I’m not sure how dad does this,” he sighed, “It’s only been a couple of hours and I’m already exhausted,” he continued, allowing a small sigh to escape from his lips. “And if one more person asks for a picture, I might smash their camera,” he continued, this time adding a small laugh to his sentence. 

The mutant wasn’t normally one for parties and festivities, but he could definitely use a night away from everything he had been stressing over, which is why he had shown up without his usual complaints. “Well he’s had plenty of years to get used to it. Being a god probably doesn’t hurt either.” Kurt chuckled softly as he sat down in the booth across from him. “There are probably better ways to go about getting out of a picture.”

there’s nothing so bad that it couldn’t be worse, the proverb said it already. it didn’t mean whatever had gone by wasn’t bad enough, though. he doubted kurt would admit to anyone how bad it had been anyway. “i guess.” when he thought about the prospect of powers, it was easy to focus only on the cool part of it all, but depending on what kind of power it could just be a mess. especially without any control. leo nodded, eyes still keen on the notes before he looked back up. “did anyone collect blood samples when it all happened?” admittedly, biochemistry wasn’t his forte, but that seemed like the best way to try and find what exactly the gas had affected. “i sure hope not,” he mused. but if this had been more a test than an accident, no amount of hope could change the prospects.

“I’m not sure.” He replied with a frown. There were a lot of things he wished he had thought to do at the time of the leak. Maybe if he had done some of them, he’d be closer to getting the answers he wanted. Unfortunately though, so much happened so fast causing him to panic and act without much thought. “Someone had to have, right?” It would have been foolish not to, but completely understandable if it didn’t happen among all the chaos. The mutant had never been an optimist which is why he could only see things getting worse from here. “I really hope not too.” He shook his head, “But with everything that’s happened in the last year, I wouldn’t be surprised by something worse happening.”