Sin

By Kate, with Stefan logged by Rossi.

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"Kurt!" There might have been an edge of exasperation in Stefan's voice, but none would have begrudged the young man that, considering the strain the whole family was under. Since Ivan's death, they'd all been struggling with grief.

Kurt didn't startle, just turned slowly and deliberately to look at him. "Yes, Stefan?"

"I've been looking for you for ages. Jimi was calling for you..." Stefan's voice trailed away as he took in the knife in Kurt's hand, the blood. "What the hell are you doing?" he burst out, more worried and shocked than angry.

There was a flash of guilt on his face at the mention of the little girl, and he knew he'd have to go and see her later. "I think you can see what I'm doing. But you want to know why."

"Considering you're carving yourself up, yes, I'd like to know why." Stefan came closer, untying the kerchief around his neck in preparation to bandage the cuts, concern in his eyes. "Kurt... I don't understand."

They were deeper than they looked on first impression, but thin... and very clearly a pattern, incised into the skin of his inner arm at the elbow. "I didn't think you would", he said calmly. "But I'm marking my sin."

"Your what?" Stefan paused in the act of wiping the blood away, gaping at his younger brother. "Kurt, what are you talking about?"

"You heard. Sin comes out in the blood, they say, and, well, look at me. Perhaps if I mark each one, if I bleed for them, I can rid myself of it all." He was speaking perfectly calmly still, despite how insane the words might sound.

Insane was certainly how they sounded. "Look at you? Kurt, I'll tell you what I see when I look at you. My idiot little brother, hurting himself over some imaginary wrong he thinks he's done." Stefan bandaged up Kurt's arm, far more gently than his tone suggested. "How long has this been going on for?"

"Perhaps two or three times." He shrugged with his free arm, not fighting the bandaging. It wouldn't stop the cuts scarring, so his work was done.

"Two or three... What madness is this, Kurt, that you'd do this to yourself?" Stefan was visibly distressed, taking hold of his brother's shoulders. Was the whole family going mad in the wake of Ivan's death? Margali never laughed now, never sang to them like she used to. It was like she'd turned to stone. And Jimiane was growing more bratty by the day. "Kurt, I need you, to help me keep the family together. Not to... do this."

"I've been keeping the family together", Kurt snapped back. "The family, and myself. Would you have noticed anything wrong if you hadn't found me today?"

"This is keeping yourself together?" Stefan shot back, nodding at the bandaged arm and not letting go of Kurt just yet. "This talk of sin and bleeding it out? Is it that old priest? Has he led you to this?"

Kurt went very still for a moment at that accusation... but the next moment was a blur of movement as he punched his brother in the face.

Stefan never saw it coming - he and Kurt had fought when younger, as brothers do, but not since reaching their teens. Kurt's fist caught him right between the eyes, and there was a crunch as his nose broke. He stumbled backwards, hands to his bleeding face, swearing virulently in Romany and German, which would have shocked anyone else overhearing him - Stefan was known as a quiet, polite young man, overly serious and not inclined to swear. Blinking tears of pain from his eyes, he fixed a shocked - and possibly a little impressed, at the accuracy of the punch - gaze on Kurt. "Was that a yes or a no?" he asked at last.

"You do not speak against him", was the response, accompanied by a dangerous yellow-eyed glare. "He has never done me anything but good."

"Does he know?" Stefan fished in his pocket for something to hold to his bleeding nose. "About what you're doing?"

"He knows everything", Kurt told him. "He doesn't approve any more than you do, really, but he understands."

"Then that's something." Stefan dabbed at his nose gingerly, and winced. "I'll have to get Mother to set this," he complained, and then met Kurt's eyes again. "I don't approve, and I don't understand, but... I won't say anything further. I just hope one day you realise you don't have anything to atone for." Or that this priest his brother held such stock in would be able to talk him out of the habit. "Just... don't let Jimi see."

"Jimi will never see me doing this", Kurt assured him, not touching the rest. "None of you were meant to. Let me see your nose." It wouldn't be the first time he'd patched up his brother's 'war wounds'.

Stefan nodded and held still. "You've been practicing," he said wryly. "That was quite the punch." He winced again as Kurt touched his face.

"You may not always be there to take on my fights for me, big brother", was the quiet response as he assessed the damage. "So, I spar with the men, when they allow it."

There was a click and a gasp of pain from Stefan as Kurt twisted and reset his nose. "Thank you," he managed once the pain had ebbed enough to speak again. "And it is good to know that you are working to take care of yourself." They both knew Kurt would always face some kind of hostility, even among the clans. "I... Kurt, you know you're my brother, yes? Nothing will ever change that for me." It was said with a certain anguished intensity, and he reached out again to grip the younger man's shoulder with one hand. "Nothing."

Kurt looked up into his brother's eyes - Stefan had always been appreciably taller - and nodded. "I know, Stefan. It's the same for me. Whatever happens." He knew that very fact might bring trouble on his brother, later, when the time came for the succession, but... he'd cross that bridge when they came to it.

Stefan didn't reply to that in words, simply squeezing Kurt's shoulder tightly before letting go. "Come on," he said, managing a strangled sort of half-grin. "We should get back. And you can help me think of a good lie to tell Mother."

"We were sparring and you didn't dodge fast enough?" Kurt suggested with a faint grin of his own.

"Oh, my wounded pride," Stefan deadpanned.