Music, Love, And Healing Drugs: A Klaine Story (Warning: It's Dark& has possible triggers)
Summary: Kind of A/U. A depressed, anxious Kurt is re-introduced to music, fashion, and other kinds of love when Blaine strays from the Warbler’s performing at Green Meadows, Mental Health Hospital, which Kurt is checked in to.
WARNING: This has possible triggers.
A/N: I know that this is a very sensitive topic and I really do no want to offend anyone, so if you do not think that I approached something right, please let me know and I will try and change it. Thank you.
Also, this was written for a request over at the Glee_Angst_Meme. The prompt was amazing.
Without further ado, I present to you:
Music, Love, And Healing Drugs: A Klaine Story
Green Meadows Mental Health Hospital was a secret in the community that surrounded it. People saw the towering, mossy, stone walls running for miles and the birds flying back and forth over the wall as they pleased, but everything beyond the walls was a complete mystery to most. People who lived in the nearly-by towns guessed that it was a school, a hospital for people with chronic illnesses, an elderly care home, an orphanage, or even an old abandoned mansion, and all of their guesses described the people who lived behind the walls- but none were exactly right. Lawyers, health professions, and a few citizens knew the truth, but they rarely said a thing about the facility. For the patients treated inside, the mystery was good for them. It gave them privacy. They deserved their privacy, at least from the community, as they no longer had it from their doctors, families, or friends.
Behind the walls, there was a sprawling building. Inside the East Wing of the building sat a sixteen-year-old boy with a china- doll complexion and golden colored hair. He had frown lines on his face, dark circles under his eyes, and his face emitted an aura that only a person who considered death an old friend could have. The boy sat on his twin bed that had clean, crisp white sheets put Mondays and Thursdays, or when a patient got them dirty. The sheets were covered with a standard thick, tan blanket and navy blue comforter. There were no buttons and no frills, all for the safety of the patient who slept in the bed.
The boy stared at the carpet and pushed his toes into the floor with five inches of thick, firm foam beneath the carpet, which was in place of hard floors which patients might have slammed themselves against to cause damage to themselves or others. The boy looked down past the white bandages that were wrapped around his wrists with some burgundy blood coloring noticeable a gauze layer or two deep, likely from a stitch or two that had snapped.
“It’s time for your morning pills,” a woman in sky blue nurses scrubs, standard white Velcro nurse shoes, and a Grandmother’s perm, said as she pushed a cart full of medicine and tiny paper cups into the room. The boy’s face tightened more, which the nurse didn’t think was possible, at the sight of the older woman. The boy didn’t comment on her outfit, which he might have done a year ago. He didn’t resist the pills, as he did three months ago. He even considered the woman pushing the cart into his room a some-what familiar sight.
The golden haired boy looked up. “I know.” He responded. “It’s 8AM.”
The women handed the boy a paper cup filled with three pills.
“Same as yesterday?” The boy asked.
The women nodded. “The same as the past two weeks.”
“I know. But after the allergic reaction to Paxil, Nurse Marie, I’m terrified of all medicine. Each day is terrifying.”
“It’s not my place to talk, but I think that you have improved greatly since the doctors took you off the Celexa.”
“When I did nothing but cry all day?”
Nurse Marie nodded. “Yes.”
“I don’t want to leave this place.” The boy bowed his head and stared at the blue carpet with great intensity.
“You can’t hide out in Green Meadows forever, Kurt.”
“I can. Burt and I can agree on one thing: We’re both happier with me here.”
“I thought Mediation Therapy was working.”
“It is. I mean, I know now that he meant for the best when he sent me here. But Carol and Finn pushed it too hard. They still think that I’m crazy. And I know that I did things, but Burt, Carol, and Finn did too…” the boy called Kurt trailed off. “But don’t tell the doctors I put the blame on someone else.”
“Tricking me into finding a reason to keep you here longer will do you no good, Mr. Hummel.” Nurse Marie glared at the boy, but only playfully. “I can’t keep you here longer because you’re not accepting what you did, anymore.”
“I wish I wasn’t anywhere.” The boy’s voice was low and he spoke with a seriousness that most would find terrifying.
“Don’t joke about that.” Nurse Marie glared seriously, her large gray eyes stern and her voice stoic from years of being a mental health facility nurse. Still, neither the nurse nor Kurt could deny that she had a soft spot for the boy.
The boy didn’t respond. He wanted to. But he didn’t want to be pushed back to a Level Two or a Level Three. He liked his level one privileges. He enjoyed reading Vogue Magazine, he enjoyed listening to Gypsy and Katy Perry CD’s for his allotted hour and a half a day. He did not exactly want to be at Green Meadows, but he definitely did not want to be at school or at his father’s house. He was not accepted there, he was not welcome there. It was not his house anymore. It had not been since his mother died.
“I have to deliver the other patient’s meds, but see you tomorrow and Nurse Jamie will be here to give you your evening meds at 8.”
Kurt nodded and opened his mouth and dumped the three pills from the cup into his mouth. The nurse handed him one of the tiny paper cups from her cart filled with water. The boy accepted the cup threw his head back in an almost-practiced gesture that practiced eyes could tell still looked awkward.
He handed the paper cup back to the women, who tossed it in a garbage bag on the front of the cart.
“Wait. Open your mouth.” The nurse ordered.
The boy glared at the brown-turning-silver haired women.
“You know just as well as I that you have been known to push your pills to the sides of our mouth or keep them under your tongue and spit them out later. So, please, open your mouth… Say ‘Ah’!”
Kurt sighed and opened his mouth and said ‘Ahh!’ as the nurse looked around.
“Tongue up.” The nurse ordered and Kurt complied. “Thank you.”
“I don’t get it. I am a Level One and I’m well enough for them to release me, as they have deemed me no longer a threat to myself or others; I’m well enough to joke about the situation; we have my med doses worked out; and I am no longer literally dying of side- effects, which would have been fine by me, but you know… And yet, they don’t trust me not to take my own pills.”
“I can’t tell you anything, Kurt. Sorry.” The nurse changed the subject. “Independent study starts in fifteen minutes.”
The boy responded with a glare and a wrinkled nose. Before he arrived at the Green Meadows, he would have never scrunched up his face, in fear of wrinkles, but since he had arrived, he had changed, he lost some of his previous self.
The nurse walked out and the boy sat on his bed thinking about what he looked like, something that he had not done in a long time.
He knew that his hair was darker that it had been sixth months ago- he spent little time outside even though he had been allowed to go outside since he was a Level Three and his hair had not seen a salon or highlights in at least four months. Still, his hair was a perfect golden color. He thought that it was a gross flat color, but he had become almost- accustomed to it over the past months. His eyes were blue, but they were dark. He could feel face was slightly rounder than it has been, as a result of the weight gain side effect of several of the medicines that he had been on. He wore no beauty product, as they were strictly forbidden, but he wished that he could wear them. Then, he might have felt remotely beautiful. He didn’t like anything, but he accepted it.
The boy looked down again- this time at his wrists. He wondered why he couldn’t have just died. He wondered why he freaked out after he cut deeper than he had done ever before- he blamed the alcohol and the pills- and the fact that his step- brother had decided to stop back home after Glee club practice one day. In a matter of hours, he’d gone from marked- for- death to survivor. It was pathetic. He was pathetic. Still, the drugs were stupid, not worth the side effects, but they kind of helped. He kind of liked Vogue Magazine and he kind of liked music when someone made him listen to things he liked. He kind of wished that he could see non-industrial standard clothes again. Not enough to leave Green Meadows, but still some. There were too many fashion regulations here- too many potential hazards, weapons, tools, whatever word one chose to describe scarves, chains, belts, buttons, or anything the boy once considered high- fashion.
Sighing, the boy made his way out of the sleeping quarters. He walked down a hall past 10 doors just like his, with Level One boys sleeping in them at night and sometimes passing time in them during the day. He only passed two nurses on 24- hour watch as he made his way down the hall.
At the end of the hall, he turned left, then he stopped at the door on his right. He arrived at a room used as a classroom. He entered the room to hear a blur of voices over- lapping. He knew that something was happening- excited people in any setting all reacted in the same way.
He glanced around the room and his eyes stopped at a tall, blonde girl. “What’s going on?” The boy asked his friend, whose enormous blue eyes were wandering the room, distracted by anything and everything.
“They’re bringing in a Glee club. For us to listen to. I guess that they go around singing to people. Charity cases. Kind of like us.” Lily explained and rolled her eyes. But then her tone changed. “I hope they’re not old.” She wrinkled her nose. “And I hope they’re boys!” Lily was, after all, a girl who hadn't seen anyone not on her doctor's ‘Allowed To See’ list in months.
The boy’s interest sparked automatically. Then he thought about it and frowned. Then, memories flooded his mind. He bit his lip. He squished his eyes closed as hard as he could so that he wouldn’t even try to cry. He didn’t think that he could anymore.
Still, the boy’s eyes glimmered. Just a little. His face was still worn, but there was no denying that something was there.
“Students!” A forty- something with frizzy red hair and green eyes clapped her hands together twice. “Line up single file and I’ll give you your file for the day.” The woman said, as the boy went to retrieve his file with assignments emailed from his teachers back in Lima, Ohio, where he went to high school, for him to complete. With thoughts of schoolwork, any and all thoughts of a visiting Glee club were forgotten. Not really, but the boy had convinced himself that measurable assignments were better than music.
After all, music required passion and passion was something that required heart, which he could not allow himself to have. He couldn’t love, because the world only knew how to break his heart. There was not enough love in the world for him. After all, the boy was one of those people. The kind that had to lose, so everyone else could win.