It's a Bad Way (4/?)
Title: It's a Bad Way
Chapter title: Lawns
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Kurt, Ensemble, pairings specified eventually
Word Count: 1, 771
Spoilers: None, it's an AU.
(Working) Summary: Kurt Meier is relocated from San Francisco's red light district to live with his dead father's wife and son in Lima, Ohio. He has a hard time adjusting.
Kurt wakes up at around 4 AM the morning he starts school. He's never really gotten used to a set sleeping schedule--he never needed one, he used to just curl up and go to sleep ("like a kitten", Candy had described it) when he felt like it, and went to the store when he needed food or new clothes, and went to work when he felt like it or when somebody told him to.
He doesn't go back to sleep, instead starts getting ready for the day with those distasteful clothes that that woman had bought him the other day. At least they're new, not nearly the high fashion he looks at in Vogue, but they have a new smell, one he'd always liked when he stole new clothing, before the thrill wore off. He puts on dark wash jeans and a white t-shirt under a blue swearshirt.
When he looks in the large bathroom mirror, he examines his hair, which is now much shorter than it used to be, and he clips it a bit more to give it some shape. He looks in the mirror afterwards and decides it's good enough. He's always liked how nice his hair looks when he has access to a shower. Shiny. He's always liked shiny things.
He slips on too-big sneakers and then walks over to the wall of the bed room, where there's a full-length mirror. He's never had an uncracked one of these before. He looks at himself and rolls the pants up a little, because heaven knows tripping over them would just look stupid. They're a little big, really, that woman obviously doesn't know his exact size. She must have estimated. Not too badly, but rolled-up jeans look decidedly unfashionable. He combs his hands through his hair, and decides it looks pretty good.
He still hasn't gotten that concealer, and he looks at the ugly purple-ish bags under his eyes distastefully and decides that if he ever gets to a store, he'll sneak a couple of containers of concealer with his skin tone to cover up these imperfections.
He takes a deep breath and leaves the room blindly, going down to the living room where he sees on the digital clock that it's close to five AM.
He wanders around the house, guessing that the other occupants of the house are going to be asleep for a while longer. He sees a bookshelf in the living room, next to the CD storing place. There are several books there, and he grabs a few random ones from different places on the shelves and goes up to his room to store them under his bed for later. He stops when he sees a plain black backpack laying outside of his bedroom. Obviously the woman bought this for him after the clothes, and must have put it outside of his room later. He wonder how he didn't notice it when he left the room the other day, then remembers that he was craving something to drink. He can't really be expected to notice much when he's looking for alcohol.
He picks up the backpack and notes that it's heavy with something, and as he takes it into his room he sees it's filled with notebooks and a pencil case and a folder. He looks in the folder, and sees a schedule. He's never had much of a schedule before, and seeing his whole school day planned out there almost awes him. He feels a little amused at this a bit later--he must be easily impressed.
He shoves the books he's taken under his bed and puts the folder back in the backpack and zips the thing up again. This used to be a fantasy of his when he was little, going to a real school with shiny hallways and people his age. It's not a fantasy anymore, having been replaced with more relevant things.
He decides to just sleep for a while more. He feels a headache coming on.
***
At 6:30 Finn goes to wake up Kurt, because he's trying to be helpful. It's kind of a stressful situation for his mom, really, and he knows that because she was talking to Ms. Fabray for, like, two hours yesterday and he accidentally eavesdropped for a good five minutes. The door opens quicker than he thought it would, showing a fully-dressed Kurt who is holding a new black backpack. The smaller boy looks at him and says, deadpan, "Don't you have somewhere to be?"
"Oh, uh, yeah. I mean, school, right? But you have to go too."
"Yes, so I would sincerely appreciate if you would move out of the way."
"Oh, yeah, right." Finn moves aside and Kurt quickly heads down the stairs.
"Do you have any painkillers?"
"What? You mean, like, Advil?"
"Exactly,"
"What's wrong?"
"Just a headache, can you hook me up or what?" Kurt says with mild irritation in his voice, and even though Finn's a little uncomfortable about the wording of that statement, he goes grab the half empty bottle of Advil from the bathroom and throws it to the other boy, who doesn't catch it and has to pick it up.
Kurt makes a short noise of acknowledgement, pouring out a couple of pills and swallowing them dry.
"Ew, man. Why don't you just take them with water?"
Kurt gives him a short look, as if wondering exactly why Finn is still talking to him, and then shrugs. "They taste okay. Sort of sweet."
Finn remembers the old times when he and Puck would suck the coating off of Advil pills before they hit the yucky medicine tasting part when they couldn't find any real sweets.
"Oh, yeah."
Kurt's mouth twitches in the closest thing to a smile Finn has seen from him, so he beams. "Ready for your first day of school?"
"Not really. Where's your mother?"
"At work. She's a nurse."
"Hm."
"Want breakfast?"
"No."
"Oh, uh, okay."
Kurt leaves quickly without saying goodbye, and Finn thinks optimistically that this might be a breakthrough. At least they talked, right? He makes himself his own breakfast. He can't really cook that well, but he knows how to make toast, so he does that, even though it ends up a little burnt and he accidentally puts butter and jam and both sides of one piece. He eats it anyway because it covers up the burnt taste.
***
Kurt doesn't speak to Finn on the car ride over to the school. He just stares out the window, seeing all of the houses and the clean streets and the people who are wearing normal clothes and have mowed lawns and lawns at all. It's all very different, and he can't help but resent it.
***
The school is large and not very clean--he almost steps into some sort of blue congealed substance on the floor-- but has white hallways and lockers lining them, and it's so abnormal Kurt feels agitated just being in this environment.
He sighs slightly and holds his head high, clutching his schedule tightly and heading to his homeroom class.
He sits next to a tall boy with curly brown hair. Very attractive. His eyes move to look at Kurt even though he doesn't actually move his head. Then he does, flashing a million-watt smile that looks close to painful and holding out a large hand. "Jesse St. James, pleased to meet you. I'm assuming you're Kurt?"
Kurt looks at the boy coolly, and Jesse smiles on unfazed, not showing any sort of emotion other than the one he has chosen to put on his face. Kurt can appreciate that. He nods slightly and takes the hand offered. Jesse pumps it up and down once. "Yes, I am. I'm assuming you're a friend of Finn's?"
The smile finally disappears, leaving instead a calculated friendliness. "You could say that, or be a little more accurate and say I'm his teammate. I'm in glee club with him, though, not football."
"He seemed like a football type."
"Yes, he's the quarterback, not to mention our lead male. But just because he's the lead, he's not the most talented in our group."
Kurt lets slip a cold smile. "And you're saying you are."
Jesse almost mirrors his smile. "I may be biased."
The class starts before he can answer.
***
School isn't boring, per se, but it's too fast-paced and far too different--by the end of the day all Kurt sees are blurs of color.
People aren't nice here, and he's aware of this largely because he sees people shoved into lockers, pushed around, made fun of, even sees a couple of people get a cold drink dumped on them. It seems somewhat barbaric. Of course, he's seen people shot, he's been pushed around and beaten up. But he can defend himself, and obviously the kids who are getting beaten up can't or won't. Weak, really.
He begins to walk to Finn's locker, to see exactly when he can get home, when somebody grabs his shoulder. Reflexively, he tears away from the touch. A large boy is behind him, and Kurt glares. "Don't touch me."
"Hah, what can you do about it, pretty boy?"
Kurt stares angrily and tries to move past the large boy. He tries to push the guy back when he doesn't move, but instead the large boy grabs his shirt.
"Hey, you got a problem, fag?"
Kurt tears away, shouts, "You got a problem, fucker?"
He feels his body connect against lockers and the wind is briefly knocked out of him. He's ready to at least try to puch this guy when he feels another hand on his shoulder. He turns, exasperated, and then notices Finn and another boy (a large, well-built, and, he admits, pretty hot one). The other boy, who has his hair cut into a ridiculous stripe, walks up to the large boy and a few lackeys who seem to have magically appeared, and pushes him back. "Get the fuck away, Karofsky, before I punch in your face!"
"Yeah, like you could. Don't you have Homo Explosion to get to?"
"Well, I can be a bit late today."
Karofsky backs down, but glares at Kurt menacingly. "I'll be back."
"Says you and every cliche villain ever!"
Finn drags him away, and he lets him even though he doesn't like it when people touch him. "Are we going back to your house?"
"Nah, I have glee."
"Great."
Everybody looks at him curiously, but nobody approaches him to talk, and he doesn't talk to anyone. He doesn't want to.
Chapter title: Lawns
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Kurt, Ensemble, pairings specified eventually
Word Count: 1, 771
Spoilers: None, it's an AU.
(Working) Summary: Kurt Meier is relocated from San Francisco's red light district to live with his dead father's wife and son in Lima, Ohio. He has a hard time adjusting.
Kurt wakes up at around 4 AM the morning he starts school. He's never really gotten used to a set sleeping schedule--he never needed one, he used to just curl up and go to sleep ("like a kitten", Candy had described it) when he felt like it, and went to the store when he needed food or new clothes, and went to work when he felt like it or when somebody told him to.
He doesn't go back to sleep, instead starts getting ready for the day with those distasteful clothes that that woman had bought him the other day. At least they're new, not nearly the high fashion he looks at in Vogue, but they have a new smell, one he'd always liked when he stole new clothing, before the thrill wore off. He puts on dark wash jeans and a white t-shirt under a blue swearshirt.
When he looks in the large bathroom mirror, he examines his hair, which is now much shorter than it used to be, and he clips it a bit more to give it some shape. He looks in the mirror afterwards and decides it's good enough. He's always liked how nice his hair looks when he has access to a shower. Shiny. He's always liked shiny things.
He slips on too-big sneakers and then walks over to the wall of the bed room, where there's a full-length mirror. He's never had an uncracked one of these before. He looks at himself and rolls the pants up a little, because heaven knows tripping over them would just look stupid. They're a little big, really, that woman obviously doesn't know his exact size. She must have estimated. Not too badly, but rolled-up jeans look decidedly unfashionable. He combs his hands through his hair, and decides it looks pretty good.
He still hasn't gotten that concealer, and he looks at the ugly purple-ish bags under his eyes distastefully and decides that if he ever gets to a store, he'll sneak a couple of containers of concealer with his skin tone to cover up these imperfections.
He takes a deep breath and leaves the room blindly, going down to the living room where he sees on the digital clock that it's close to five AM.
He wanders around the house, guessing that the other occupants of the house are going to be asleep for a while longer. He sees a bookshelf in the living room, next to the CD storing place. There are several books there, and he grabs a few random ones from different places on the shelves and goes up to his room to store them under his bed for later. He stops when he sees a plain black backpack laying outside of his bedroom. Obviously the woman bought this for him after the clothes, and must have put it outside of his room later. He wonder how he didn't notice it when he left the room the other day, then remembers that he was craving something to drink. He can't really be expected to notice much when he's looking for alcohol.
He picks up the backpack and notes that it's heavy with something, and as he takes it into his room he sees it's filled with notebooks and a pencil case and a folder. He looks in the folder, and sees a schedule. He's never had much of a schedule before, and seeing his whole school day planned out there almost awes him. He feels a little amused at this a bit later--he must be easily impressed.
He shoves the books he's taken under his bed and puts the folder back in the backpack and zips the thing up again. This used to be a fantasy of his when he was little, going to a real school with shiny hallways and people his age. It's not a fantasy anymore, having been replaced with more relevant things.
He decides to just sleep for a while more. He feels a headache coming on.
***
At 6:30 Finn goes to wake up Kurt, because he's trying to be helpful. It's kind of a stressful situation for his mom, really, and he knows that because she was talking to Ms. Fabray for, like, two hours yesterday and he accidentally eavesdropped for a good five minutes. The door opens quicker than he thought it would, showing a fully-dressed Kurt who is holding a new black backpack. The smaller boy looks at him and says, deadpan, "Don't you have somewhere to be?"
"Oh, uh, yeah. I mean, school, right? But you have to go too."
"Yes, so I would sincerely appreciate if you would move out of the way."
"Oh, yeah, right." Finn moves aside and Kurt quickly heads down the stairs.
"Do you have any painkillers?"
"What? You mean, like, Advil?"
"Exactly,"
"What's wrong?"
"Just a headache, can you hook me up or what?" Kurt says with mild irritation in his voice, and even though Finn's a little uncomfortable about the wording of that statement, he goes grab the half empty bottle of Advil from the bathroom and throws it to the other boy, who doesn't catch it and has to pick it up.
Kurt makes a short noise of acknowledgement, pouring out a couple of pills and swallowing them dry.
"Ew, man. Why don't you just take them with water?"
Kurt gives him a short look, as if wondering exactly why Finn is still talking to him, and then shrugs. "They taste okay. Sort of sweet."
Finn remembers the old times when he and Puck would suck the coating off of Advil pills before they hit the yucky medicine tasting part when they couldn't find any real sweets.
"Oh, yeah."
Kurt's mouth twitches in the closest thing to a smile Finn has seen from him, so he beams. "Ready for your first day of school?"
"Not really. Where's your mother?"
"At work. She's a nurse."
"Hm."
"Want breakfast?"
"No."
"Oh, uh, okay."
Kurt leaves quickly without saying goodbye, and Finn thinks optimistically that this might be a breakthrough. At least they talked, right? He makes himself his own breakfast. He can't really cook that well, but he knows how to make toast, so he does that, even though it ends up a little burnt and he accidentally puts butter and jam and both sides of one piece. He eats it anyway because it covers up the burnt taste.
***
Kurt doesn't speak to Finn on the car ride over to the school. He just stares out the window, seeing all of the houses and the clean streets and the people who are wearing normal clothes and have mowed lawns and lawns at all. It's all very different, and he can't help but resent it.
***
The school is large and not very clean--he almost steps into some sort of blue congealed substance on the floor-- but has white hallways and lockers lining them, and it's so abnormal Kurt feels agitated just being in this environment.
He sighs slightly and holds his head high, clutching his schedule tightly and heading to his homeroom class.
He sits next to a tall boy with curly brown hair. Very attractive. His eyes move to look at Kurt even though he doesn't actually move his head. Then he does, flashing a million-watt smile that looks close to painful and holding out a large hand. "Jesse St. James, pleased to meet you. I'm assuming you're Kurt?"
Kurt looks at the boy coolly, and Jesse smiles on unfazed, not showing any sort of emotion other than the one he has chosen to put on his face. Kurt can appreciate that. He nods slightly and takes the hand offered. Jesse pumps it up and down once. "Yes, I am. I'm assuming you're a friend of Finn's?"
The smile finally disappears, leaving instead a calculated friendliness. "You could say that, or be a little more accurate and say I'm his teammate. I'm in glee club with him, though, not football."
"He seemed like a football type."
"Yes, he's the quarterback, not to mention our lead male. But just because he's the lead, he's not the most talented in our group."
Kurt lets slip a cold smile. "And you're saying you are."
Jesse almost mirrors his smile. "I may be biased."
The class starts before he can answer.
***
School isn't boring, per se, but it's too fast-paced and far too different--by the end of the day all Kurt sees are blurs of color.
People aren't nice here, and he's aware of this largely because he sees people shoved into lockers, pushed around, made fun of, even sees a couple of people get a cold drink dumped on them. It seems somewhat barbaric. Of course, he's seen people shot, he's been pushed around and beaten up. But he can defend himself, and obviously the kids who are getting beaten up can't or won't. Weak, really.
He begins to walk to Finn's locker, to see exactly when he can get home, when somebody grabs his shoulder. Reflexively, he tears away from the touch. A large boy is behind him, and Kurt glares. "Don't touch me."
"Hah, what can you do about it, pretty boy?"
Kurt stares angrily and tries to move past the large boy. He tries to push the guy back when he doesn't move, but instead the large boy grabs his shirt.
"Hey, you got a problem, fag?"
Kurt tears away, shouts, "You got a problem, fucker?"
He feels his body connect against lockers and the wind is briefly knocked out of him. He's ready to at least try to puch this guy when he feels another hand on his shoulder. He turns, exasperated, and then notices Finn and another boy (a large, well-built, and, he admits, pretty hot one). The other boy, who has his hair cut into a ridiculous stripe, walks up to the large boy and a few lackeys who seem to have magically appeared, and pushes him back. "Get the fuck away, Karofsky, before I punch in your face!"
"Yeah, like you could. Don't you have Homo Explosion to get to?"
"Well, I can be a bit late today."
Karofsky backs down, but glares at Kurt menacingly. "I'll be back."
"Says you and every cliche villain ever!"
Finn drags him away, and he lets him even though he doesn't like it when people touch him. "Are we going back to your house?"
"Nah, I have glee."
"Great."
Everybody looks at him curiously, but nobody approaches him to talk, and he doesn't talk to anyone. He doesn't want to.