Unspoken Truth
The air was colder now, the winter biting into his skin, but Kurt didn’t notice much beyond the pulse of his own thoughts. His feet crunched in the snow, each step moving him forward, but his mind was elsewhere. Logan walked ahead, his stride heavy and purposeful, as if the weight of the mission was something to bear alone. Kurt knew better than to push him. Logan was like that, gruff, distant, but still the first one to step in when needed.
Kurt had come to understand that about him over the last few days. It wasn’t just his anger that held Logan at arm’s length; it was something deeper. Something Kurt couldn’t always see but felt beneath his skin when they were near each other. The way Logan’s eyes would linger just a second too long when he looked at him, the way his posture would shift when Kurt was around. Kurt had grown accustomed to reading people, his whole life had been spent navigating social cues, avoiding overload, keeping his own feelings tightly guarded. But this? This was different.
Every now and then, the tension between them was palpable, thick enough to make Kurt’s breath catch. It was a storm was brewing beneath the surface, and though he tried to ignore it, to put it away where it couldn’t be felt, it lingered. Was it the mission? The sense of danger? Or was it something else entirely?
Kurt shifted his gaze to Logan, noting the way the snowflakes caught in his hair, how his expression remained closed off despite the world around them slowly coming to life. He could feel his heart beat a little faster, a knot forming in his stomach. He’d never been good at these kinds of feelings. He understood the logistics of emotions—why people acted the way they did, what social cues meant—but the quiet stirrings inside him were a new language he hadn’t learned to speak.
"Focus, Kurt," he whispered to himself, pulling his mind back to the mission. They were close to cracking Purelight, the cult that had been terrorizing this small town. But even as he told himself to stay focused, the thoughts that had been building for days crept back.
The evening before had been a blur. They’d spent hours scouring old town records, looking for any connection between the Purelight cult and the disappearances. They had found a few leads—disjointed, fragmented—but it was enough to make Kurt’s gut twist with the possibility of what was really happening here.
But now, as they walked through the snow-covered streets, those thoughts felt distant compared to the internal noise that had been plaguing Kurt all day. It wasn’t just the mission. It wasn’t just the urgency of what they were doing. It was something else. Something he didn’t quite know how to label, but could no longer deny.
Logan.
He liked him. More than liked him.
The realization hit Kurt like a brick, sudden, overwhelming, and all-encompassing. It was the kind of truth he couldn’t escape, couldn’t shove aside, no matter how hard he tried to ignore it. And as the truth settled within him, another layer of confusion formed.
Kurt was Catholic. He had been raised in the church. Faith had always been his guiding light, even in the darkest moments of his life. It was through his belief that he had learned to accept himself, despite his appearance, despite the stigma attached to mutants like him. His faith was not just a part of him; it was woven into his very being. It had shaped how he saw the world, how he navigated relationships, how he understood his own heart.
But now? Now there was this strange, unsettling feeling when he looked at Logan. The way his breath caught when Logan was near. The way his thoughts spun out of control whenever Logan spoke to him, as if his words were too soft, too sharp, too much all at once. Kurt had no words for this feeling. No scripture to explain it. It was beyond anything he could explain with faith.
Kurt had often struggled with his own sense of self. As someone with autism, his emotional experiences were often more complex and intense than those around him seemed to understand. His sensory overloads, his need for routine, the way his mind would latch onto patterns—all of it made navigating the world a constant challenge. Relationships, especially, were tricky. He could understand others on a surface level, but emotional nuances were harder to navigate.
But with Logan... with Logan, it was different. It felt less like a puzzle to solve and more like a language he needed to learn, one that was uniquely their own. And as much as that terrified him, it also felt strangely comforting.
They reached the warehouse just before dusk. The snow continued to fall around them, an eerie quiet settling over the abandoned structure. Kurt stopped just outside the gate, his eyes scanning the perimeter. The tension in the air was thick, a sense of impending danger lingering like the calm before a storm. Logan was already moving forward, his hand resting on the hilt of his claws.
"Stay alert," Logan muttered.
Kurt nodded, but his mind was elsewhere. The weight of what he was feeling, too much to ignore now. He had never allowed himself to feel this way about anyone. Sure, he had his fleeting crushes, his moments of admiration, but nothing had ever come close to this. The pull toward Logan was undeniable, something primal and deep, like it had always been there waiting for the right moment to surface.
In that moment, as they stood side by side in the cold, with the looming threat of Purelight hanging over them, Kurt allowed himself one last moment of clarity. He didn’t need to have everything figured out. He didn’t need to know what came next, whether it was faith or confusion or something entirely new. What mattered was that he was here, now, with Logan, fighting for something that felt real.
And for the first time in days, Kurt allowed himself to breathe, to feel, without any of the walls he usually erected around his heart.
"Let’s end this," Logan said, turning to him with a look of determination.
Kurt nodded, the knot in his stomach tightening for reasons that had nothing to do with the mission.