ax_main | Kurt and Jay, backdated to 1/22/18

Kurt and Jay talk about being sick and their respective loves of music and the circus.

It was cold out, but Jay couldn't stand it in his room anymore, and he'd grabbed his guitar and headed for the patio tables outside that were typically empty at this time of year. With freezing fingers it was difficult to play with much delicacy, so he was taking his frustrations out on the instrument playing intense, aggressive songs. Not particularly mindful of the volume.

Kurt heard the music as he passed the patio. It was loud and angry and...was coming from outside? He peered out the patio door and spotted the boy (Jay, if he remembered correctly) playing his guitar out in the cold. Frowning, he opened the door and stuck his head out. "Hello?"

Jay cringed. He hadn't expected anyone. Was he disturbing the general peace? "Hi," he called back. "Sorry, am I too loud?”

“No. Not at all. You are just…sitting out in the cold,” Kurt explained as he came out onto the patio. “You will get sick.”

Jay took his fingers away from the strings and sat with his arms draped over the guitar in a pose that looked perfectly natural for him. The grin he showed Kurt was less so. "Gettin' a cold means skippin' class for a few days, right? Don't seem so bad to me.”

“Skipping school is fun when it is—Ach, what is the word? Schwanzen. When you skip school for fun. ” Kurt knew that wasn’t helping him or Jay, so he just continued with, “When you are sick, you are tired and achy and you keep sniffling and everyone is like, God, why doesn’t he just blow his nose already.”

Kurt had definitely caught Jay off balance, and he burst out laughing. "That's too true. While the sick kid's all 'if I blow my nose, everyone's gonna stare at me.’"

“Exactly!” Kurt crowed. “Being sick is no fun. It is a total waste of a day off.”

"Guess I'd better go inside then, huh?" He put the guitar strap over his shoulder and turned it so that the instrument was hanging between his wings. "Whew! Didn't realize how cold I was 'til I got up. I'm gonna lose a finger.”

Kurt opened the door. “That would be even worse.” He laughed and held up a hand. “Especially for me. I do not have many to lose.”

"I'd love to try t' teach you guitar. It'd be an epic test a' both our skills." Jay went inside, blowing into his hands to thaw them.

“If you teach anything like you play, I have no doubt I’d be a master in no time,” Kurt replied with a grin as he closed the door behind them both.

"I never tried before, honestly. Jeb never wanted to..." He flexed his hands, a ritual motion to calm himself down. "An' the other ones was too little, mostly.”

Kurt rubbed his arms to warm himself up some. Even with his fur, it had been cold outside! “Are those your siblings?” he asked.

"I have nine," Jay confirmed. "Jeb goes here, actually. We...had a fight a while back. T' be truthful, that's why I was tryin' t' kill my guitar." He gave a nervous little laugh, and pushed his thick curly hair back from his face, leaving it standing awkwardly on top of his head.

“I am sorry to hear that,” Kurt said with a small, consoling smile. “It can be hard having siblings. As much as we love them, sometimes we just want to shake them.”

"You've got some brothers 'n sisters? Almost everyone else I've met here's an only child." It would be nice to talk to someone who understood what it was like to have a big family.

Kurt nodded. “A brother and a sister. Stefan is my age, but Jimaine is older.”

"One of each flavor of sibling misery," Jay chuckled. "I have to ask, though--where are you from? Your accent is…lovely."

Kurt noticed the pause before the compliment, but smiled all the same. "Germany. A small town in Bavaria called Winzeldorf. Yours is lovely as well. Where are you from?”

"Heh. Don' think any American would ever call my hick accent 'lovely.' I'm from Kentucky. Much less glamorous than anywhere at all in Europe, I reckon.”

“Europe has its glamorous parts and it’s not so glamorous parts just like anywhere else,” Kurt replied as he plopped himself down in a nearby chair. “Where in Kentucky are you from?” He didn’t know much about Kentucky (he wasn’t even sure where in the States it was), but he was eager to hear about it.

"Nowhere you'd 've heard of. Just down in a valley in the middle of nowhere. A coal town." Jay pushed his hair back, which ended up making it stand up at the top of his head--a habitual nervous gesture. "I'm lucky t' 've escaped the mines, myself. So far, anyway. My older brother...he dropped out of school after pa died an' went t' work in the mine. T' keep the family afloat." Jay, the second oldest boy, was sometimes wracked with guilt for not following in Sam's footsteps.

Kurt nodded in understanding. “Where I am from, we get into the family business young as well.”

"What business is that, if'n ya don't mind me askin'." After all this talk of origins and accents, Jay was finding his coming out more strongly than he liked. He'd spent a great deal of time trying to rid himself of it. A boy with a deep Kentucky twang wouldn't fit in on the rock circuit. He'd be dismissed as another country crooner.

"Show business," Kurt answered with a charming, fanged grin. "The circus, specifically. I was a trapeze artist."

"That's..." Jay couldn't keep himself from gawping. "That is actually fucking amazing."

Kurt couldn't argue with that. He grinned. "It was great," he said.

"I honest to god would pay good money just t' get up on a trapeze platform an' chicken out of trying it." Jay smiled at Kurt, visibly a bit shy now, a little pink in the cheeks under all those freckles. "Hell, I'd pay just t' watch you do it.”

As if Kurt needed any encouragement to show off. “I would be happy to show you sometime. The Danger Room makes for a great gymnasium. I practice there all the time.” He winked playfully at Jay. “I would even let you watch for free.”

Jay's blush deepened. He felt silly, having spoken without thinking about how he sounded. "I haven't been in there yet. It can really make a trapeze?"

Kurt nodded. "I am told it can make a lot of things.”

"I don't plan to be a fighter and my mutation isn't hard t' handle, so...no reason for me to go in so far. I'd definitely try it on with you sometime if y' want to.”

“Ja,” Kurt replied with a smile. “That would be fun.”

Jay rubbed at his cheek. Something to focus on. Get himself back on track. Stop acting a fool in front of the cute boy. "The funny thing is? I'm still kinda scared o' heights when I'm not really thinkin' about it." If he fell from a trapeze platform he'd plummet just like anyone else, but it wouldn't do him any permanent harm--almost nothing could do him permanent harm anymore. And if he fell off a cliff, he could recover midair. "Old instincts, I reckon.”

“It is common sense to be afraid of something that can kill you,” Kurt reassured, then grinned with a good-natured self-deprecation. “It is those of us that are not afraid that I think there is something wrong with. But, you do not need to worry. It is perfectly safe. There is a net under you.”

Jay chewed his lip. He was feeling increasingly awkward, feeling as if he were utterly fumbling this conversation. "You would really want to try this out with me sometime?”

“Of course! I cannot promise how good of a teacher I am, but I will be happy to give it a go.” Kurt was actually excited by the prospect of sharing something he loved as much as he did the trapeze with someone.

Jay pulled out his phone--an old model cracked iphone--and held it up as he spoke. "Can I get your number, then? So we can set this up?”

“Sure!” Kurt recited his number to Jay, then took out his own phone to get Jay’s number.

Jay looked down at his phone with satisfaction, after their exchange. "I'll text you?”

“It is a plan,” Kurt replied with a grin.