seven for a secret (never to be told) - chapter 2 (3/7)
Pairing: Blaine/Kurt, OC/Kurt, eventual Puck/Kurt
Rating: R
Spoilers: none
Warnings: domestic abuse (physical, sexual, emotional), noncon, dubcon, eating disorder, violence, infidelity, homophobic language
Wordcount: 3,479
Summary: Rick and Kurt were perfect together. Now they're not, because Kurt isn't good enough anymore.
In this chapter: Burt and Finn arrive in New York.
A/N: this is an ancient (almost) fill for this prompt over at the angst meme.
Chapter 2
“We’re here.”
Burt was almost completely out of the car before it even stopped. Finn wasn’t far behind, either, scrambling through the door on the other side.
“Wait here," they both told the cab driver, simultaneously, voices breathy because damn it, it was Kurt. Kurt who hadn’t so much as called in almost three years. Kurt who had been so out of it that Burt had no idea what was going on with him. Kurt who said he was bleeding.
“It’s that building over there," Finn told Burt, pointing at the large letter H painted on one side. “Come on, dad.”
They all but ran to the large glass doors.
When Kurt had called, Burt hadn’t been able to believe his ears. He wasn’t amused at all, either, though the silent disapproval turned into fear with every word that passed his son’s lips. They might have drifted apart during the past few years but Kurt was still his son despite everything. His baby boy. And there was something wrong with him.
The doors slid open automatically, allowing the two to set foot in the large lobby. There was a rounded countertop on their left side, next to a door proclaiming ‘for employers only’. A young woman with curly blonde hair stood behind the desk, looking embarrassed as an older one nagged at her about something.
“--and I tell you, those faggots can’t keep it silent! I can’t hear my own thoughts in my building with that small one screaming so loud and it’s completely--”
“Excuse me, miss, but I’m looking for my son… He lives in here but I never got the apartment number.”
Burt ignored the graying woman by his side.
“I’ll--” the blonde - Ella Greene, her tag read - was cut short.
“Young man, you--”
“I don’t care!” Burt snapped back. “My son is somewhere in this building, hurt, and I have no time to listen to your bigotry! Now, miss Greene, can you please tell me where I can find him? His name is Kurt Hum-- ah, Alvaro.”
The reactions were immediate. The blonde paled, first shocked and then… relieved, was it? While the older one screeched, slapping Burt. His head turned to the side. Finn yelped behind him.
“You’re his father?” the elder gasped, mortified. “I cannot believe you let him act in sin--”
“Mrs. Taylor," Ella cut in. “Sir? I’ll show you to his apartment. Just a moment.”
Mrs. Taylor didn’t really get a chance to reply before Ella had grabbed a set of keys and turned to drag Burt and Finn to the elevators, quickly pushing them in before the old woman could follow. The blonde looked nervous, almost guilty for some reason.
“You’re his father? Kurt’s father?” she asked, gazing at Burt with what appeared to be hope. The man couldn’t understand it.
“Yeah. Burt Hummel. This is--”
“You’re going to take him away, right?”
Burt was stunned. “I don’t know… should I?”
“Yes!” the word was a gasp, a plea, and all Burt could think of was his son, how bad it all seemed. “I mean, I… His husband, you know, well, see - he gets kind of… violent, and, well…”
Burt felt like someone had thrown ice-cold water over him in large buckets full of icy chips and chilling liquid.
Violent? Kurt’s husband? Rick?
Finn cursed somewhere in the background but Burt couldn’t quite hear it anymore. He was staring at the stuttering girl, disbelieving. What was she saying? Was she really implying what Burt thought she was?
He didn’t have time to ask before the elevator stopped, letting out a quiet noise, and Ella rushed them outside.
“Mr. Alvaro is out at the moment," she spoke, stopping in front of one of the doors. Number 157. “Your son is alone. Help him. Take him away, please.”
Burt didn’t step through the door. “You knew.”
“Dad, come on…” Finn hurried.
“You knew that he’s hurt. You haven’t done a thing.”
Ella bit her lip and shook her head, blonde curls falling everywhere. She his behind the door, eyes cast downwards. She didn’t speak.
Burt looked past her when he walked into the apartment behind Finn. The door closed and quick footsteps disappeared, leaving the two men alone in the house of his first son.
“Kurt?” Finn called out, walking deeper into the house. They passed a brightly lit kitchen and a door that seemed to be the bathroom, both of them empty of everything living. There was a pool of coffee on the kitchen floor and a pack of Tylenol on the table. The coffee machine was still on, the scent of the drink heavy in the air.
“Kurt? Are you here?”
There was no reply. Feeling his heart beat faster than in long time, Burt moved to the living room - decorated in shades of purples and browns, clearly a handiwork of Kurt - and then, finally, there it was. The bedroom. The scent of blood and - oh God - semen.
Burt didn’t want to think of that. He didn’t have the time to as the second he set his foot in the dimly lit room, all he could see was a white figure curled up next to a mahogany nightstand.
“Oh Kurt…” was all Burt could say or do at the moment. He couldn’t even move.
Kurt lay curled in tangled sheets, originally white but now dirtied by countless dots of different shades of red and brown. He’d never been a big boy but he looked smaller than the last time Burt had seen him, skeletal and so thin that all Burt could see was bones and skin painted in blues and yellows, mixing together with purples and greens. Kurt’s face was swollen and bloody but there was something wrong with the amount of red in the room. It didn’t match, Burt thought idly - headwounds bled a lot but it had dried by now. The pool beneath Kurt was still fresh.
Beneath him. Burt saw white at the realization.
“Finn, go find a blanket or something," he spoke, voice quiet as a whisper yet audible at the same time. “We need to take him to a hospital.”
“Got it.”
Burt kneeled in front of Kurt, feeling his heart clench when the brunet didn’t respond to anything. He looked dead, cold to the world, but his chest moved ever so slightly - a breath in, a breath out, in and out again - and he was alive despite the horrors done to his body.
Burt wanted to cry. He wanted to yell at the skies about the unfairness of it all. He wanted to rage, break something, destroy everything in his sight - but first, he needed to take care of his son.
“Kurt?” he spoke, gently touching the better side of the small brunet’s face. “Kurt? Can you hear me? It’s me, Burt. Your father.”
Kurt didn’t react. His lone eye stared at the world in front of him unblinking.
“Kurt?” Burt tried again, this time tapping Kurt’s shoulder with more force. The body shifted. Burt wasn’t sure of why. “Hello?”
It was like watching dead come back to life, Burt thought, petrified, as Kurt lifted his head. His lips pursed in a way that screamed pain and a soft noise escaped a throat that had possibly seen better days but he looked up, he really did. It took a long time for Kurt to focus on his gaze but when he did, a small smile graced his lips.
“Dad?” Kurt whimpered.
“Yeah," Burt whispered back. “Me and Finn.” He let that sink for a moment. “We’re gonna take you to a doctor.”
Burt knew that look. He’d seen it before. ‘No, I won’t go to the doctor’ was all it said. ‘It will not happen’. But it would. Burt would make sure of that.
“Dad? Here.”
Finn had returned with a quilted blanket, deep fuchsia with golden stitches. Burt took it gratefully, cringing at the thought of what was to come next.
“Kurt? I need to move you. I won’t do anything else, okay? We’ll get you in the blanket. Those sheets seem cold and dirty. Come on.”
Manhandling Kurt out of the sheets and onto the blanket wasn’t an easy task. The brunet cried out with every jostle of his body, lashing out with his hands whenever Burt’s fingers slipped too close to his privates. Finn stood awkwardly by the bed, grunting with some sort of negative feeling when another bit of Kurt’s skin was revealed.
When Burt was done, Kurt had gone unresponsive again.
It might have been a good thing.
They were in a hospital room, Kurt on the bed, Burt standing next to it with his hand atop Kurt’s. The brunet was sleeping. Not unconscious, the nurses had said - they’d given him some pills to keep him calm. Sedated him.
“He’s malnourished," the doctor, a young man in his thirties explained, shifting through a pile of papers. “Four cracked ribs, none broken, though, which is a good thing. His ankle is rather bad - it’s not broken but very close to that. The bone bent but not enough for it snap. It will still be extremely painful, however, and thus the cast.” He paused. “He has multiple wounds and bruises… but so far we’re convinced there are no injuries to his head, aside from the wound which we have sewn. Kurt’s actions are purely psychological, I can assure you.” Another pause, this time longer, more stagnant. “As for his rectum… The tears are bad and he lost quite a lot of blood. That has been fixed but a specialist will come and explain about it later on - he’ll have to change his diet to a completely liquid one for some time.”
Burt was silent. He didn’t really know what to say.
“You said that he’s been abused?” the doctor asked. Burt nodded his head. “The police will want his statement when he’s lucid enough… Though, seeing that he refused the rape kit, I doubt he’ll say much.”
The rape kit. Burt had to shut his eyes at the words. His son. His baby boy. Abused for years without him knowing.
Why had he given up so easily?
“So, Mr. Alvaro… How did you get those bruises?”
“I fell.”
Burt bit his lip to keep from saying anything. Kurt glared at the two police officers, a man and a woman, his eyes blazing with distrust and defiance. His mouth full of lies.
“That’s quite a lot of bruises from one tumble…” the man noted, quirking an eyebrow.
“I’m clumsy. There are a lot of stairs in my house.” Lies, lies, lies.
“Right.” The woman sighed, glancing at her partner. “Look, Mr. Alvaro - Kurt. We can’t help if you won’t tell us anything.”
“I don’t need help. Nothing has happened. I simply fell and hit myself in the stairs. I bruise easily.”
A quick shake of the man’s head and Burt closed his mouth. ‘Speak and get out’, the police officers had said. He wouldn’t leave his son. Not again. Never again.
“You were raped.”
Kurt pursed his mouth shut. “It never crossed your minds that maybe I like it rough?”
“You were bleeding. That’s not rough. That’s abuse, especially if your partner--”
“My husband, please.”
“--your husband leaves you alone after everything. Another day and you would have bled to death.”
Burt had to focus on his breathing. The longer the talk became, the more fatigue he felt. He was too old for this.
“Rick was meant to come home this… yesterday evening?” Kurt looked around the room, puzzled. “These medicines mess my head. Anyways, he must be worried about me.”
“He left you bleeding. That’s a crime, Kurt.” The man spoke softly.
“I wasn’t bleeding until after he left.”
Why was Kurt defending the bastard? Burt wanted nothing more than a honest confession from his son’s lips. Something for the two police officers to work for. Anything to keep Rick away from in.
“Oh? What happened?”
Kurt took his time answering. He bit his lip, stopping immediately, teeth rubbing the raw skin in the worst way imaginable; a strong blush covered his face and Burt just knew that he didn’t want to hear whatever excuse the brunet had come up with this time.
“The toy was bigger than I expected," Kurt mumbled, not looking at anyone anymore.
“Yeah, about the size of a human fist, I guess.”
Burt wanted to snap at the woman. First they were gentle and sweet, then accusing, guilt-tripping, waiting for Kurt to slip, and it really wasn’t helping at all.
“Something like that.” Kurt attempted to shrug.
“Right. Do you seriously want to go back to him that badly?”
Even in his deathbed Burt would still wonder if that had been a good question to ask. Kurt opened his mouth to answer but the words never came. Instead the brunet seemed to shrink, leaning against the plush pillows behind his back, shoulders hunching as he gazed wildly around the room, searching for something.
“I…” Kurt gasped, breath coming in quick gulps. “I - dad? Dad? I don’t - dad?”
Burt was leaning over the bed in seconds. Kurt cried out and hid his face behind his father’s body, shaking like a leaf in Burt’s arms, panicking, almost hyperventilating. Burt heard two chairs scratch the floor as the police officers stood up.
“We’ll get a nurse," the man spoke, quickly patting Burt’s back. “When he’s calmed down enough, come outside so we can talk a little.”
The nurse came soon, taking one look at the young man in the hospital bed before skipping to the IV to insert something to it. Kurt didn’t even notice her presence, Burt realized in something akin to terror.
He’d blanked out again.
The nurse left as soon as she arrived, casting a pitying smile at Burt, and left the two alone. Kurt calmed down quickly and turned to sleep, eyes fluttering closed and lips parting to let air pass through roughed-up throat. Burt stayed until the heart monitor fell into a steady rhythm.
“We’ve met him before," the officers explained as Burt stepped out of the room. “Every now and then one of his neighbors gets enough of the constant fighting and alerts the police.”
“If that’s so, then how come no-one has done nothing about it?”
Burt knew the answer before he finished his sentence. The woman smiled sadly, a bemused laugh rising from her chest.
“Kurt denies it all," she said. “It doesn’t matter how bad he’s, he always says that everything is fine. We can’t do anything when he refuses the help.”
“Get him away," the man continued. “Just get him away from here. There isn’t anything else to be done as long as he refuses to press charges. Take him home, Hummel.”
A week later Finn carried a dozing Kurt through the front door of their home. Burt followed right behind, carrying a large bag filled with whatever little they had bought during their stay in New York - mostly clothes, a teddy bear from the hospital shop, and a never-ending pile of papers concerning Kurt’s state.
Carole appeared in the hallway in a matter of seconds.
“I had Noah empty the basement," she spoke, voice tight with worry. “It’s clean and, well… safe. Just in case. Finn, take him there. Is he okay?”
“Kurt didn’t like the airplane," Burt explained. “We had to give him some of the harder drugs.”
“Oh. That’s… that’s good, I guess. I don’t know. Oh God.”
Not bothering with his shoes Burt evaded Finn and pulled Carole in a hug.
“We’ll talk later," he whispered. “Let’s get Kurt downstairs first.”
They’d used the basement as a storage room for the past few years. After it had become clear that no, Kurt wasn’t coming back anytime soon, they had started carrying all the old things down there, brown cardboard boxes lining up one wall while a pile of carpets hid the large bed.
Now, though, it was clean. Clean and empty. Burt nodded his head at Carole as they made their way down the stairs. There wasn’t much furniture in the room, only a low table between the bed and the sofa, all pieces originally chosen by Kurt. They’d work.
“I emptied the bathroom," Carole murmured. “There were old medicines and soaps there… And. Well. It’s empty.”
Burt watched as Finn settled Kurt in the bed, carefully wrapping the mangled body in clean blankets. Blue blankets. Burt would have to thank Carole for that. He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to look at white silk ever again.
A shiny new baby monitor was tied to the headboard of Kurt’s bed. The other pair was somewhere upstairs.
High risk of suicide, the doctors had said. High risk of suicide.
Burt wanted to kill Rick Alvaro.
Burt sat alone in the kitchen, head buried in his hands. He could still hear Kurt screaming despite the silenced monitor. Carole was downstairs trying to console him, aiming to drive away the memory of whatever had caused the panic attack this time. Burt couldn’t. Not at the moment. Not when he couldn’t even clear his head enough to be patient.
It wasn’t whatever, though, the reason behind Kurt’s flashback. It was food. Simple food. Nothing more than that.
The doctors had finally cleared Kurt well enough to eat solid food again. Something soft and not much of it, they had warned - but the tears were healed and the stitches removed, so at least that was okay.
Carole had thought they could celebrate a little. Burt had agreed.
It had turned out to be the worst idea ever.
When Kurt walked into the kitchen, at six o’clock sharp - because that’s when they ate, now, when all Kurt could do was live by routines they were all slowly learning - he looked like a lost lamb. A lamb that had barely escaped the teeth of a wolf. Every inch of visible skin was colored with purples and greens even after a whole month of tranquility and it was clear that every move hurt him.
They didn’t have to lead him to the table by hand this time. Kurt sat down on his own accord, somewhere between Finn and Burt, away from both, and looked around, searching for a bowl of soup.
“The doctor gave you an A-okay," Carole smiled. “So we made fish… You still like it, right?”
Fish cooked in the oven had been Kurt’s favorite food when he still visited his parents. Rich cream, a whole stick of butter and more sodium than Burt was allowed to eat in a month, it had been a rare delicacy. Now, though, Kurt’s eyes wandered from one dish to another, still trying to find his portion.
Burt bit his lip.
“You can eat real foods now," he spoke slowly. “So. Fish. Would you like some?”
“I don’t eat solid foods.”
Burt exchanged worried looks with Carole and Finn.
“Kurt," Carole began, “you can eat it. The doctor--”
“No.”
It hadn’t been about the doctors, Burt thought bitterly. It had been about Rick. Rick fucking Alvaro. The man who broke his son. Burt had no idea what he had said to Kurt but really, he didn’t need to - he wasn’t blind. He saw Kurt every day, now, still skeletal and pale, skin almost translucent where the bruises had mellowed to a yellowish white.
The family wasn’t enough anymore. They’d gotten to the point where Kurt did things independently - small things, like going to the bathroom without asking for a permission, or pouring himself a glass of water when he got thirsty, things like that - but not past that. Kurt refused to speak to a counselor. He hid in his bathroom during the first time the woman came to visit, and after Burt removed the door - removed the door! When did things get that bad between them? - he just kept silent, wrapped around himself in a safe cocoon.
Burt didn’t know what else he was supposed to do.
“You can look into admitting him into a hospital if things get worse," the therapist, Mrs. Anne Brooks, had said. “In fact, unless he starts eating, I would suggest you do that.”
Burt didn’t want to. He knew he had to if the situation didn’t take a turn for better.
“Finn," he called hesitantly after a long moment of pondering. “Finn?”
It took a few seconds for the tall man to appear.
“Yeah?” he asked. “Is something wrong?”
“You wouldn’t happen to have Blaine’s phone number, would you?”
Blaine Anderson. They boy who had made Kurt grin bright as a sun. The boy who had been able to fix Kurt before.
The boy who might be able to fix Kurt once again.
>>chapter 3