Give Me Love: Part 2/6
Title: Give Me Love
Author: glitterbomb15
Rating: T/PG-13
Warnings (if any): Some descriptions of blood/injury
Total Word Count: 19,159
Summary: Kurt Hummel is stuck in the monotony of his life, completely alone and unsatisfied. Until he wakes up one morning to find that he’s grown a pair of wings and been gifted a bow. Destined to give love to other people, Kurt finds himself at a loss, never having experienced love himself. Until he meets Blaine, a paramedic who saves him in more ways than one. Based on the music video for the song "Give Me Love" by Ed Sheeran.
Masterpost
Fic Art
… … …
We'll play hide and seek to turn this around
… … …
Kurt awoke the next morning feeling even more tired than he did the night before. It had been a restless night full of changing positions every hour because none of them felt comfortable. The thought of Blaine drugging him seemed more ludicrous than logical in the light of day, so upon waking Kurt immediately dismissed the idea as crazy brought on by exhaustion. He was ready to dismiss the whole night, really, until he sat up and noticed the bloody feather still lying on the floor by his bed.
Kurt sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know what it is happening, I don’t know why it’s happening, but until I wake up with full wings sprouting from my back, I’m not going to think about it,” he said out loud.
That was the attitude he adopted throughout the week. There were no more feathers; there was no more itch or pain, so Kurt just ignored it. He couldn’t deny it had happened, there was a white feather on his desk as proof, but he could pretend to forget. For a few days, everything was normal. Kurt was even able to put aside all thoughts of the enigma that was Blaine. Kurt knew that there was a good chance Blaine would come to Murphy’s on Tuesday night again, probably stutter his way through an awkward apology for his awkward behavior during their last encounter, and until then Kurt would focus his thoughts on other things.
Like his art.
Kurt decided that maybe if he stopped feeling sorry for himself and started actively trying to get his life together, he could make something of himself. Sure, Vogue didn’t work out, but that was only one avenue for Kurt. His love for the arts didn’t stop at fashion and performance. Maybe if he tried his hand at other skills, like drawing or sculpting or painting, he could find a new passion. He lived in New York City, for Christ’s sake. The city where dreams come true. He just needed to find a new dream.
That was how Kurt Hummel found himself sitting on a blanket underneath a tree in Central Park on Sunday afternoon sketching the view before him. He picked a perfect spot, giving him several different options for drawing. He could draw the bridge that went over the body of water to his left, or the skyscrapers directly in front of him, or the open field with colourful flowers and children playing to his right.
Kurt liked the way the pencil felt gliding over the page. He liked the scratching sound it made. He really liked stopping every once in a while to take in his drawings. He loved the way he could transform a blank sheet of paper and turn it into something of his own creation.
In that moment, for the first time in a very long time, Kurt felt empowered.
“I see you’ve found my spot,” a vaguely familiar voice said. Kurt looked up to see Blaine taking slow steps towards him, smiling shyly and gripping the back of his neck with one hand. “I knew it was only a matter of time until someone did. It has a great view, right?”
Kurt narrowed his eyes. The ridiculous suspicions of Blaine being a psycho-drugging-rapist-killer had evaporated completely by now, but Blaine mysteriously finding Kurt in a random place in Central Park was still odd. “Are you stalking me?”
Blaine dropped his hand and laughed nervously. “Uh, no. I can understand why it seems that way, though.” After a moment, he gestured to the area on the ground beside Kurt. “Do you mind if I sit with you?”
Kurt hesitated for a moment, deliberating. He really just wanted to be alone, but he also wanted to figure out who this Blaine guy was and why he kept following Kurt. So, Kurt scooted over on his blanket to make room for Blaine and patted the space next to him.
Blaine smiled again as he sat down next to Kurt. “Thanks.”
Kurt nodded and looked down at his drawing. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t his best. He’d been focusing on the bridge over the water, but it just wasn’t inspiring him like he wanted it to. He supposed he could try the buildings next, but something told him that wouldn’t exactly make his heart sing either.
“That’s a nice drawing,” Blaine said.
“Thank you.” Kurt closed his sketchbook and set it aside.
They sat in silence for a few minutes. Kurt watched the children playing in the field and wondered what it must be like to grow up in the city. All Kurt had ever known in the first 18 years of his life had been the tiny confines of Lima, Ohio. Even after living in New York City for 3 and a half years, he still couldn’t shake the feeling of being caged.
“Look, I’m sorry about the other day. I’m sure I seemed like a maniac.”
Kurt pulled his knees up to his chest and leaned his head back against the tree trunk. “Only a little.”
“And now I’ve shown up here and that’s probably not helping my case.”
“Not so much,” Kurt agreed. He looked over at Blaine, who was biting his lip and fiddling with his hands in his lap. “But hey,” Kurt added, “at least you’re not stuttering and jittery today. You almost seem like a halfway normal human being.”
Blaine laughed lightly. “Yeah, sorry about that, again. I’d been awake for 36 hours and had had about seven cups of coffee at the time. It wasn’t my most shining moment, I know.”
“Why had you been up for 36 hours?”
“My job. I work crazy hours sometimes.”
“Are you a male prostitute? A stripper?”
“No,” Blaine laughed again. “I’m a paramedic.”
Kurt paused for a second, studying Blaine. “Really?”
“Yes. Is that really so surprising?”
“Kind of.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I just didn’t think of you as a paramedic.”
Blaine met his gaze and said, “You’ve been thinking of me?”
“Uh…” Kurt looked down and shook his head, trying to gather himself.
What was he doing? Not ten minutes ago he was still wary of Blaine being some kind of stalker, and now they were having a conversation with vaguely flirtatious undertones?
“Sorry, that was weird,” Blaine rushed to say. “I came over here to try to have a normal conversation with you this time around, but every time I try to talk to you I say the wrong thing, it seems.”
“Why are you so nervous around me?” Kurt asked. He knew it was strange to ask, but if he was going to keep talking to Blaine, he needed to stop with the flirting and get the information he wanted.
“You’re beautiful,” Blaine said. Something about the way he said it struck Kurt. Blaine made it sound so simple, so obvious.
“What?”
Blaine laughed and shook his head at Kurt’s confusion. “Oh, come on, Kurt. There’s no way you can look like that and be completely unaware of the effect you have on people. You’re inhumanly stunning.”
Kurt opened his mouth to reply but shut it again, realizing he had no answer to that. He wasn’t supposed to be flirting, that was his resolution, but here he was blushing and flustered because Blaine called him pretty. He needed to get back on track.
“So is that why you wanted to talk to me? Because you find me attractive?”
“No! I mean, yes, you caught my eye, but that’s not why I keep trying to talk to you.”
“Then why?”
Blaine looked down at the ground for a moment. Kurt watched Blaine fiddle with his hands again. Suddenly, Blaine stood up.
“I should get going. It was nice speaking with you, Kurt.”
“Wait.” Kurt rose, too, frowning. “Why do you keep trying to talk to me?”
But Blaine was already walking away. He called back over his shoulder, grinning, “I’ll see you Tuesday!” before disappearing around the corner of some trees.
Frustrated, Kurt plopped back down and began sketching what he could see of the New York City skyline.
… … …
All I want is the taste that your lips allow
… … …
A loud slam jarred Kurt from his nap. He immediately snapped awake, rubbing his face, and looked up to see Rachel fuming above him.
“Kurt, get off of the couch.”
“I’m sleeping. Or at least I was until you so rudely woke me up.”
Rachel huffed and crossed her arms. “When was the last time you left the apartment?”
Kurt grabbed the pillow from under his head and pulled it on top instead, shoving his face into the couch cushions. When it was ripped from his hands, he groaned. “Rachel, come on. I’m in mourning. I lost the perfect job and any shot I may have had at making all of my dreams come true. If you were in my position, you know I’d be forced to cater to the Rachel Berry Pity Party for at least a year.”
“It’s been six months, Kurt.”
“So I still have six months left.”
He heard Rachel sigh. “You still have a shot at reaching your dreams. When one door closes, another one opens.”
“Gee, thanks. Where’d you find that piece of wisdom, a bumper sticker?”
“A fortune cookie, actually.”
Kurt scoffed and sat up. “Look, if this is about the rent, I’ll find another job, okay? I know I’ve been kind of mooching off of you, but I’ll find something. I’ll even be a waiter if I have to. I will give in to the New York City cliché just for you.”
Rachel sighed again and sat on the coffee table in front of Kurt. He could see in her eyes that she was about to tell him something he really didn’t want to hear.
“Kurt, it’s been six months…”
“So you’ve said.”
“Do you remember when Santana moved out?”
Kurt’s heart dropped to the pit of his stomache. “You mean when we kicked her out because she couldn’t pay rent?”
“No, we decided that a little tough love would be the best way to get her back on her feet, remember? We were being good friends.”
“She hasn’t talked to us in a year.”
“She just needs some time to accept that we did what was best for her. Look, I’ve talked it over with my dads, and-”
“Rachel, please don’t do this to me,” Kurt begged, closing his eyes.
“-And we’ve decided that maybe some tough love is what you need right now.”
Kurt couldn’t reply. What was there to say? Once Rachel made a decision, she stuck with it. If she spoke to her dads, that meant she had already made her mind up. There was nothing Kurt could say. He was out.
“Where am I supposed to go?”
“I know you don’t want to disappoint your dad or jeopardize his health, but I think it’s time you told him the truth about your situation and asked him for help.”
Kurt shook his head and opened his eyes, glaring hard at Rachel. “No.”
“Kurt, you’ve been lying to him for six months. You can’t keep doing this. He needs to know what’s going on with you.”
“I can’t.”
Rachel stood up and started walking towards her bedroom. “Either you call him, or I will.”
“No you won’t.”
“Try me.”
She disappeared behind her curtain. Kurt snatched up one of the pillows on the couch and threw it at the wall. After a minute he stood up and stomped to his room.
“I guess I’ll just start packing then!” Kurt yelled.
“I believe that would be in your best interest!” Rachel called back.
“Bitch!”
That was the last thing Kurt ever said to Rachel.
… … …
My, my, my, my, oh give me love
My, my, my, my, oh give me love
… … …
After another hour trying to sketch the skyscrapers in Central Park, Kurt started to lose his light-and his patience-and left. When he got home, he made dinner and collapsed onto his bed. Kurt spent all of Monday replaying Blaine’s words in his mind. “I’ll see you Tuesday!” Did that mean Blaine would be joining him at Murphy’s on Tuesday again? That was the only logical implication of his words. Was that a thing, now? Was Blaine going to show up on Tuesday’s at Murphy’s from now on?
By early evening on Tuesday, Kurt was buzzing with anticipation. No, he wasn’t excited to see Blaine. He was… Well, in all honesty, Kurt didn’t know what he was. He didn’t know how he felt. All he knew was that if he stayed in his apartment for a second longer, he’d go insane. So, he headed out.
He would be a couple hours early if he went to Murphy’s now. Kurt needed to find something else to do. He could stop into a bar, maybe have a drink. He hadn’t done that in ages, and meeting someone and having a casual, meaningless flirtation with a stranger could rid him of whatever this was that he was feeling towards Blaine.
Yes. That’s exactly what he’d do. He actually knew of a bar a couple blocks away from Murphy’s that wasn’t too bad. He’d been there a few times before with Rachel and Santana and vaguely remembered it being fairly decent.
The second he set foot in the bar, he noticed one thing above all else. It wasn’t the rowdy group of college guys in the corner, or the couple of women eyeing him from the bar, or the cigarette smoke being blown in his face by the seemingly homophobic prick by the door. No, it was the bartender.
It was Santana.
He made a beeline for her and sat in the stool directly in front of where she was cleaning a glass.
“Pick your poison,” she monotoned, not even bothering to look up from her glass.
“Hey, Santana.”
Her head immediately shot up. Her jaw dropped for a second before she quickly composed herself, eyes going hard. “Leave.”
“Santana, come on.”
“No. Leave. You and Berry put me out on the streets. I’m doing the same to you.”
“That’s not what we were trying to do.”
“Right. You fed me that ‘tough love’ bullshit. Real sweet.”
Kurt sighed and looked down at the bar. “Yeah, Rachel convinced me at the time that it was what was best for you, but after she did the same thing to me, I’m starting to think that Rachel just wanted the apartment to herself.”
“She kicked you out too?”
“Yep.”
“When?”
“About a year ago.”
“Where do you live now?”
“Trust me, you don’t want to know.”
Kurt heard Santana snort and looked up to see her turning around. He watched her grab a glass and pour a few bottles in it before handing it to him. “I live upstairs.”
He eyed the glass warily before taking a sip. It wasn’t bad. “You live here?”
“Yup. When you and Berry kicked me out, I came here to get wasted. The owner recognized me, asked me where the two of you were. When I told him my situation he offered me the apartment upstairs if I worked every night for half the pay.”
Kurt nodded and took another sip of his drink. “Doesn’t sound too bad.”
“It could be worse.”
“It could be worse,” Kurt agreed.
Santana walked away to help the couple of women down the bar, refilling their martini glasses, before returning to Kurt.
“Why’d Berry kick you out?”
“I lost my job at Vogue and never got a new one. After six months of moping around the apartment, Rachel gave me that stupid ‘tough love’ spiel and I was out on my ass.”
“If you don’t have a job how are you paying rent at your new place?”
“My dad.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah.”
Kurt took a gulp of his drink, draining the glass to half empty. Santana refilled it.
The night played out much the same. Every time it looked like Kurt’s glass was getting close to being empty, Santana refilled it. Honestly, Kurt couldn’t tell you how much alcohol he drank. He doubted Santana would be able to tell him either. He had the good sense to ask what she was giving him about two and a half glasses in. She brushed him off by telling him it was some kind of new concoction she was trying out on him. He had a feeling it was probably three different types of alcohol masked by one sweet mixer. Whatever it was, after a few hours, he felt good.
They spent those few hours catching up on their lives. Santana was being surprisingly friendly and open to Kurt after what he and Rachel did to her, but Kurt wasn’t going to question it. He figured Santana was probably just as lonely as he was. Of course, Santana still had to serve all the other customers, and the bar-he thought it may have been called On the Rocks-was a lot more busy than Murphy’s ever was.
Shit. Murphy’s.
“What time is it?” Kurt demanded, slapping a hand on the wooden surface.
Santana frowned and looked at the clock behind her. “A quarter past nine. Why?”
“Shit. I have to go.”
“Where?”
“I just have to go.”
“You’re drunk off your ass. You won’t get very far.”
“I only need to get two blocks from here.”
Kurt didn’t take any more time to explain. He was out the door and headed down to Murphy’s. His equilibrium was way off and he knew he was running into people left and right on his way there, but he couldn’t get his brain to give him the proper manners to apologize.
When he reached the diner, he spotted Micah through the window.
“Micah! Hey, Micah!” Kurt giggled and grabbed Micah’s shoulder. “Your name is so funny. Micah. So weird!”
Micah frowned and shrugged Kurt off his shoulder. Kurt knew that Micah had never liked him that much, but in his drunken state, he couldn’t bring himself to care.
“Yeah, isn’t it a little late for you to be here, Kurt? You’re usually gone by the time I start my shift.”
“Hey, yeah, is Shirley here?”
“Yeah, she’s in the back. She’s about to head out.”
“Oh!”
Kurt staggered towards the back, but noticed the person who he was looking for on his way there, seated at a table in the back corner.
“Blaine!”
Blaine’s head shot up. “Kurt.”
“Hey! I was just about to ask Shirley if you’d come in!”
“I haven’t left yet.”
“Hey, that’s so awesome!”
Kurt made his way to Blaine’s table and fell into the chair.
“Kurt, are you drunk?”
Kurt giggled and nodded. “Yeah. I went to this bar down the street; I think it’s called On the Rocks. Isn’t that so clever? My old friend, Santana, she works there! She gave me lots of drinks. I never really questioned what they were. I probably should have.”
“I see.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here. We had kind of an implied meeting, didn’t we?”
“You have no reason to apologize to me, Kurt. Maybe I should take you home, though.”
“No, it’s fine! I’m okay! I need to get my Tuesday Murphy’s coffee!”
“You can get it next Tuesday. Come on.”
Blaine stood up and walked around the table, grabbing Kurt’s arm and pulling him up too. Kurt sagged against him, pouting, but allowed himself to be dragged from the diner. He was getting kind of tired, anyway. When Blaine asked for directions to Kurt’s apartment, Kurt pointed in the proper directions, giggling the whole way home.
Inside Kurt’s apartment, he started to toe off his shoes, then lost his balance and almost fell onto the floor. Blaine caught him at the last minute and led him over to his mattress.
“Here. I don’t want you to fall over and hit your head and get a concussion.”
“Hey, aren’t you a paramedic, though? You could fix me up real good!”
“I don’t have my kit, Kurt.”
“Oh.”
Blaine looked around Kurt’s apartment. It made Kurt uncomfortable, like Blaine was scrutinizing and judging him.
“Look, I know my place is kind of a shit hole,” he said. He felt really warm so he started taking off his shirt. “You don’t have to say it.”
“No, it actually kind of looks like my first place in the city.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” Blaine looked at him but seemed unperturbed by his sudden half-nakedness.
“Your first place was a dump.”
Kurt dissolved into giggles and fell back into his bed. He felt a dull throbbing in his back, similar to the pain he felt a week ago. The pain he’d resolutely pretended never happened.
“I don’t feel so good,” Kurt moaned, rolling over onto his side.
“Yeah, alcohol does that to you.”
The coldness in Blaine’s tone made Kurt flinch, but he was actually too drunk to protest to it.
“Well, you look okay, so I’m going to go. Make sure you drink lots of water. Do you have aspirin here?”
“Probably.”
“Then it looks like you’re all set. I’ll see you around, Kurt.”
Kurt wanted to say something, wanted to ask Blaine when they’d see each other next, wanted to tell him goodbye, but the pain in his back had quickly increased from a dull nuisance to a sharp stabbing.
He cried out, curling into a ball and then stretching, arching his back. He sat up, but the alcohol and pain worked together to make him lightheaded and he quickly fell back onto the bed.
The last thing Kurt registered was a searing, white-hot pain in his spine before he blacked out.