(no subject)
Title: Control (Chapter 3)
Fandom: Glee
Rating: R
Characters: Kurt, Burt & Mama Hummel (This chapter)
Pairings: Eventual Puck/Kurt, Kurt/OC
Warnings: Mental illness(ED's), emotional abuse, death/illness
Word count: 1498 (this chapter)
Summary: Anorexia is not a disease. Anorexia is not a game. Anorexia is a skill, perfected only by a few. The chosen, the pure, the flawless. Anorexia is about control. And if there's one thing Kurt Hummel has learned from life it's that being in control is more important than anything else.
Previous chapters: Chapter 1 Chapter 2
The ride to the hospital is spent in deafening silence. Burt is concentrating on the road and Kurt puts all his attention into removing the pieces of glass from his feet. They don’t cry. Kurt feels like he should, but there is a part of him that is still desperately trying to keep up facades. To pretend that he’s fine. That this isn’t breaking his heart and that he’s a big boy now. Which is silly, because he is pretty sure that if there was ever a time were it was all right to cry it would be now.
They arrive at the hospital after a few more minutes of tense silence. And as they enter Kurt feels blinded by the white walls. His entire body is frozen and he is shivering badly. He feels disoriented and dizzy; the only thing keeping him grounded being the sharp pain radiating from his feet. Burt seems to notice and grabs Kurt’s hand as they enter the intensive care unit. The place where is mothers body is now lying dead and cold and broken. Before he knows it they’re being taken aside by a doctor who apologizes and Kurt can hear the man talking, but is unable to really comprehend what he is saying. And then, finally, they’re guided to her hospital room and the door is being slid open. Nothing could ever have prepared Kurt from what he would see then.
The hospital room is different from the last time they were here. All the machines are gone and the light has been dimmed. By the bed is a vase with flowers and a few lit candles. And, in the middle of the room, is his mother. Her body is completely still under the covers, the only thing moving being the light from the candle dancing over her face. They’ve put make-up on her, Kurt notices, and she looks more like his mother now than she has for months. She looks beautiful. There’s only one thing wrong with the picture and that’s how her chest is completely unmoving. The undisputable proof of her passing. He doesn’t say anything as his father starts crying, sobbing, next to him practically lying on top of his wife. Burt keeps stroking her hair and kissing her face. Kurt doesn’t know how long he stands there just watching his mothers face in silence before his father is cupping his face and talking to him in a hitched voice.
“Do.. Do you want some time alone…? I mean, to say goodbye and stuff. ” Kurt doesn’t answer but his father leaves the room anyway closing the door behind him and suddenly Kurt is alone with the body. And really, that’s all it takes before he’s crying, feeling the wetness on his cheeks like through a trance. He walks over to the bed and hesitantly touches her hand. She is cold. He should have expected it, they always point that out in movies, but it comes as a shock anyway. He grabs her hand and squeezes it before trying to place it on his own shoulder, like she used to, but the hand falls down immediately. Lax and heavy. Dead weight. Later he’ll look back and think about how fucked up he was acting at this moment, but right now he doesn’t care. He just wants to feel her reassuring hands on his body again. He desperately curls her fingers around his own and keeps them like that; giving the illusion that she really is squeezing his hand back. He then half lies on top of her burying his face in her neck, hair and chest wanting to feel her, but somehow it’s not working. It’s like her presence is gone and being close to her stopped being satisfying. There is emptiness in the room that is scaring him more than anything has ever done before. He feels frustrated and angry and sad and the emotions are all so overwhelming and contradictory that Kurt feels suffocated. But there is one feeling that is making him more disgusted than all the other ones put the together. It’s only a tiny part of him, but for just one second Kurt is just a little bit relieved it’s finally over. He hates himself for that.
---
After that everything is a blur. Looking back Kurt can’t for the life of him remember what happened between crying over his mother body and lying in his bed back home. He’s pretty sure there were some more doctors and crying and that he managed to choke out a goodbye to his mom before they left, but that’s it. Kurt sits on his bed, staring at the wall, his hands clutching at the hem of a big t-shirt. He feels numb. In this kind of painful way, like when you’ve been out too long in the snow and you can’t feel your feet anymore and you realize that’s probably a bad sign. He’s sitting with his knees tucked under his chin, a position that always makes him feel just a little less vulnerable, and he can feel his stomach fat pushing against his legs. It’s disgusting and makes the position awkward. Which pretty much sums up how he feels about himself at the moment. And that’s what he ends up thinking about. Because it’s either thinking about his mom and how she’s dead or his dad and how he’s drinking or it’s thinking about himself and how he sucks. It’s not a hard choice at all and only the third one is even remotely productive. At least it’s within his control, it’s something he can work at and change.
He takes of his t-shirt, leaving him in only his boxers, and folds it before getting up from the bed, settling on the floor in front of his full-body mirror. And then he just looks. Looks, and maps out every flaw he can possibly find: He’s too fat. Especially around the stomach and his hips. He has a mole under his knee that’s really ugly and his skin is too dry. Except on his face where it’s too greasy. His hands are pudgy and not elegant at all and his nose is too big. His cheeks make him look like some sort of disfigured hamster and his hair is an unruly mop. He continues like this for hours. Picking at his skin and pinching his fat, making notes. Inspiration for the next time he feels like eating a cookie. Or skipping his skin-care ritual. He hadn’t started his diet to change his looks. Not really, but it was a pleasant side effect and a great motivator to stay on it. Kurt understands that he’ll never be beautiful, and that’s okay, he just doesn’t want to be ugly.
In the end he falls asleep like that. Lying half naked in front of his mirror, alone and cold. The floor is hard and smells like dust, but he doesn’t move to his bed. Doesn’t want to be comfortable. He’s not sure why. Maybe it’s a punishment or maybe he just wants his body to match the cold, painful numbness of his mind. That could be it. There’s a dissonance between his body and his mind and it’s unsettling him.
He wakes up a meager two hours later, his neck and body aching and shivering from the cold. And even though he can’t explain it, the pain feels kind of good. Distracting. He gets up from the floor and grabs a big sweater before trudging up the stairs in an attempt to find his father. He does find him and pretty quickly too. Lying on the couch next to pile of vomit and half a dozen bottles of booze that Kurt doesn’t recognize the name of. Kurt doesn’t know how to feel about it at all. On one hand he really doesn’t want to face his father, but on the other hand anything got to better than this. He enters the room, avoiding the disgusting puddle on the floor, and hesitantly checks his fathers pulse and breathing. It’s fine. He’s fine. Then he stares at the bottles, and for a second he’s almost a little tempted to bring some of the full ones down to his room and follow his father’s example. Drown his sorrows. But he’s still conscious of his health. And of how unhealthy alcohol is for your body and how it would go against everything he is been trying to achieve with his new diet. But it is tempting. Especially since an entire day of no food is starting to make Kurt feel the hunger burn in his stomach and he knows the alcohol would quench it. But he’s not going to give in. No way. He can do this. So instead of picking up a bottle or entering the kitchen he leaves the room and goes back to his basement and writes a list.
20 reasons why I shouldn’t eat or drink tonight.
Fandom: Glee
Rating: R
Characters: Kurt, Burt & Mama Hummel (This chapter)
Pairings: Eventual Puck/Kurt, Kurt/OC
Warnings: Mental illness(ED's), emotional abuse, death/illness
Word count: 1498 (this chapter)
Summary: Anorexia is not a disease. Anorexia is not a game. Anorexia is a skill, perfected only by a few. The chosen, the pure, the flawless. Anorexia is about control. And if there's one thing Kurt Hummel has learned from life it's that being in control is more important than anything else.
Previous chapters: Chapter 1 Chapter 2
The ride to the hospital is spent in deafening silence. Burt is concentrating on the road and Kurt puts all his attention into removing the pieces of glass from his feet. They don’t cry. Kurt feels like he should, but there is a part of him that is still desperately trying to keep up facades. To pretend that he’s fine. That this isn’t breaking his heart and that he’s a big boy now. Which is silly, because he is pretty sure that if there was ever a time were it was all right to cry it would be now.
They arrive at the hospital after a few more minutes of tense silence. And as they enter Kurt feels blinded by the white walls. His entire body is frozen and he is shivering badly. He feels disoriented and dizzy; the only thing keeping him grounded being the sharp pain radiating from his feet. Burt seems to notice and grabs Kurt’s hand as they enter the intensive care unit. The place where is mothers body is now lying dead and cold and broken. Before he knows it they’re being taken aside by a doctor who apologizes and Kurt can hear the man talking, but is unable to really comprehend what he is saying. And then, finally, they’re guided to her hospital room and the door is being slid open. Nothing could ever have prepared Kurt from what he would see then.
The hospital room is different from the last time they were here. All the machines are gone and the light has been dimmed. By the bed is a vase with flowers and a few lit candles. And, in the middle of the room, is his mother. Her body is completely still under the covers, the only thing moving being the light from the candle dancing over her face. They’ve put make-up on her, Kurt notices, and she looks more like his mother now than she has for months. She looks beautiful. There’s only one thing wrong with the picture and that’s how her chest is completely unmoving. The undisputable proof of her passing. He doesn’t say anything as his father starts crying, sobbing, next to him practically lying on top of his wife. Burt keeps stroking her hair and kissing her face. Kurt doesn’t know how long he stands there just watching his mothers face in silence before his father is cupping his face and talking to him in a hitched voice.
“Do.. Do you want some time alone…? I mean, to say goodbye and stuff. ” Kurt doesn’t answer but his father leaves the room anyway closing the door behind him and suddenly Kurt is alone with the body. And really, that’s all it takes before he’s crying, feeling the wetness on his cheeks like through a trance. He walks over to the bed and hesitantly touches her hand. She is cold. He should have expected it, they always point that out in movies, but it comes as a shock anyway. He grabs her hand and squeezes it before trying to place it on his own shoulder, like she used to, but the hand falls down immediately. Lax and heavy. Dead weight. Later he’ll look back and think about how fucked up he was acting at this moment, but right now he doesn’t care. He just wants to feel her reassuring hands on his body again. He desperately curls her fingers around his own and keeps them like that; giving the illusion that she really is squeezing his hand back. He then half lies on top of her burying his face in her neck, hair and chest wanting to feel her, but somehow it’s not working. It’s like her presence is gone and being close to her stopped being satisfying. There is emptiness in the room that is scaring him more than anything has ever done before. He feels frustrated and angry and sad and the emotions are all so overwhelming and contradictory that Kurt feels suffocated. But there is one feeling that is making him more disgusted than all the other ones put the together. It’s only a tiny part of him, but for just one second Kurt is just a little bit relieved it’s finally over. He hates himself for that.
---
After that everything is a blur. Looking back Kurt can’t for the life of him remember what happened between crying over his mother body and lying in his bed back home. He’s pretty sure there were some more doctors and crying and that he managed to choke out a goodbye to his mom before they left, but that’s it. Kurt sits on his bed, staring at the wall, his hands clutching at the hem of a big t-shirt. He feels numb. In this kind of painful way, like when you’ve been out too long in the snow and you can’t feel your feet anymore and you realize that’s probably a bad sign. He’s sitting with his knees tucked under his chin, a position that always makes him feel just a little less vulnerable, and he can feel his stomach fat pushing against his legs. It’s disgusting and makes the position awkward. Which pretty much sums up how he feels about himself at the moment. And that’s what he ends up thinking about. Because it’s either thinking about his mom and how she’s dead or his dad and how he’s drinking or it’s thinking about himself and how he sucks. It’s not a hard choice at all and only the third one is even remotely productive. At least it’s within his control, it’s something he can work at and change.
He takes of his t-shirt, leaving him in only his boxers, and folds it before getting up from the bed, settling on the floor in front of his full-body mirror. And then he just looks. Looks, and maps out every flaw he can possibly find: He’s too fat. Especially around the stomach and his hips. He has a mole under his knee that’s really ugly and his skin is too dry. Except on his face where it’s too greasy. His hands are pudgy and not elegant at all and his nose is too big. His cheeks make him look like some sort of disfigured hamster and his hair is an unruly mop. He continues like this for hours. Picking at his skin and pinching his fat, making notes. Inspiration for the next time he feels like eating a cookie. Or skipping his skin-care ritual. He hadn’t started his diet to change his looks. Not really, but it was a pleasant side effect and a great motivator to stay on it. Kurt understands that he’ll never be beautiful, and that’s okay, he just doesn’t want to be ugly.
In the end he falls asleep like that. Lying half naked in front of his mirror, alone and cold. The floor is hard and smells like dust, but he doesn’t move to his bed. Doesn’t want to be comfortable. He’s not sure why. Maybe it’s a punishment or maybe he just wants his body to match the cold, painful numbness of his mind. That could be it. There’s a dissonance between his body and his mind and it’s unsettling him.
He wakes up a meager two hours later, his neck and body aching and shivering from the cold. And even though he can’t explain it, the pain feels kind of good. Distracting. He gets up from the floor and grabs a big sweater before trudging up the stairs in an attempt to find his father. He does find him and pretty quickly too. Lying on the couch next to pile of vomit and half a dozen bottles of booze that Kurt doesn’t recognize the name of. Kurt doesn’t know how to feel about it at all. On one hand he really doesn’t want to face his father, but on the other hand anything got to better than this. He enters the room, avoiding the disgusting puddle on the floor, and hesitantly checks his fathers pulse and breathing. It’s fine. He’s fine. Then he stares at the bottles, and for a second he’s almost a little tempted to bring some of the full ones down to his room and follow his father’s example. Drown his sorrows. But he’s still conscious of his health. And of how unhealthy alcohol is for your body and how it would go against everything he is been trying to achieve with his new diet. But it is tempting. Especially since an entire day of no food is starting to make Kurt feel the hunger burn in his stomach and he knows the alcohol would quench it. But he’s not going to give in. No way. He can do this. So instead of picking up a bottle or entering the kitchen he leaves the room and goes back to his basement and writes a list.
20 reasons why I shouldn’t eat or drink tonight.