Work Text:
In Darkness
by Culumacilinte
Kurt liked being alone; he always had. Shunned as a boy for his strange appearance, he had learned to love the silence and the solitude. To be alone, with no one to stare, no one even to speak; those were the times when he could feel his Lord's presence about him; it whispered over his skin, through his mind, around him everywhere. He relished the sensation. When he was alone, the only sound to be heard was his own voice, murmuring prayers and devotions, the soft clink of the beads of his rosary as his fingers traced over them, taking comfort in their smooth, cool familiarity.
Unser Vater, der kunst im Himmel; geheiligt dein Name sein.
Those words, which had been with him his entire life; those words, sweet and soothing on the familiar shapes of his lips and tongue. When he had been small, he used to send himself to sleep by murmuring that prayer over and over again; thin though his voice was in the darkness, it helped fend away tears and dark thoughts
Dein Königreich kommen, dein Wille wird getan, auf Masse, während es im Himmel ist.
There were moments, when he had still been with the Zirkus München, of complete and utter silence, and it was for those that he performed. In that instant after having released the trapeze or the cloud swing, that moment when the rope of the Spanish web reached a speed so high it began to twist in on itself- in that there was solitude. It was Kurt, alone and aloof above the crowd; their dark faces open with shock and delight, yes, but soundless, distant, unreal. His Lord was present for Kurt then, just as much as he might be in any high-vaulted cathedral. The great circus tent was his church; it's lofty ceiling just as tall as any cathedral's, the crowd it hosted just as awe-filled and reverent. In this church, he was the angel of the Lord; ethereal and beautiful, soaring and then vanishing in a bloom of dark blue smoke.
Uns diesen Tag geben unser tägliches Brot, und uns unserem Eindringen verzeihen, wie wir denen verzeihen, die gegen uns übertreten.
It was hard, sometimes, but Kurt had never believed that his Father could hate him for being what he was. Not really. He had sinned, yes; his life was marked with the stains and scars of sins uncountable, but none of those included having blue skin, or the eyes and tail of a devil. He knew this from his moments alone. When he was around people, there was inevitably mocking and avoidance and fear; this was to be expected, he had learned. But when he was alone, there were no voices hating him and deriding him; it was only him. Kurt Wagner.
Nightcrawler.
Uns nicht in Versuchung führen, und uns vom übel liefern
That was who he was, alone in the darkness. That was how the name had come into being, after all; with his bright cats-eyes, he saw in the dark as no other human could, and his night-dark skin concealed him from prying eyes. "Kurt!" the hausfrau had laughed nervously when she had chanced upon him one night, "you are a regular nightcrawler, leibling!" So Nightcrawler he was, and it seemed right to him that he should be, for the way the mind worked in silence and in solitude was the way it really was intended to. There were no distractions; no-one to sway his thoughts, to bend them this way or that. It was just him; him and that unnamable Presence which never really left him. So he was Kurt. And he was Nightcrawler. And that was the way he preferred it.
Amen