nothing rhymes with 'circus'. chapter 4. part 2.
previous.
When Kurt is left alone with William, he doesn’t know how to feel or what to say. At least he stepped out from the drowsy state that the Chloroform provided, but he still feels very anxious regarding the recent events. He can almost hear his heart beating hard and fast inside his chest.
William stares at him with his all time kind eyes. “We’re alone now. I assume you have… some questions.”
Kurt swallows hard, suddenly feeling slightly angry. “You didn’t tell me that David could do that.”
The older man leans back against the chair, letting out a loud sigh. “I didn’t think it would be wise for you to know. At least not for now. I didn’t know you know him already.”
“Of course I know him,” Kurt grits between his teeth. After all what they all have been through, has William forgotten about what Kurt does?
William scratches the back of his neck, looking remorseful. “I’m sorry, Kurt. I was trying to take care of you.”
“The show was great, Em. You should have seen it,” William tells Emma on the phone of some local store.
“I’m sure it was, Will. Everyone loves your show.”
“Yeah, but this one… it went so good, and the crowd was so ecstatic-”
Kurt’s body jerks, at the sudden image that caught him out of guard.
William walks down the crowded street, smiling and greeting some strange people as they walk by.
“Do you know when you’re coming home? Or to Ohio?” Kurt blurts out, with several mixed visions in his head. They are there, all together before he can do something about it. “I miss you, Will.”
“Kurt?”
He hardly hears William’s voice. Yet, he hears Santana’s laugh loud and clear.
“Will, I love this town! It’s almost like a big city! One that hasn’t had been hit by the big depression and that’s something odd to find. We have to come here more often! I’ve got the most gorgeous dress,” Santana tells William in the middle of the streets.
Sebastian joins them; Santana locks arms with him and they all start walking down the streets. “I couldn’t get Mercedes and Tina out of the shoes store.”
William laughs. “Not every day we get money to spoil ourselves a little, Seb. You have to be understanding.”
“But they have been there for the last half an hour!” Kurt complains out loud. “It took me just ten minutes to buy some new records. We had to add two more shows, Emma. We haven’t done that since Aurora. Brittany is going to adore my new dress. And I bought something to her too! William, William! Look, Will, ice cream parlor! Will, look at my brand new shoes! I can’t wait to see you too again, Will. Kids, we have to get-”
“Kurt! Come back, Kurt! Focus!”
Kurt blinks, and he’s panting again. He opens his eyes and finds himself pressed back onto his mattress, and William almost on top of him, holding him tightly by his shoulders, shaking him. William’s grip eases as he notices that Kurt is staring at him, and the older man sighs.
The images of the city streets, his friends crowding together around William, and William talking to the phone with Emma still pass before his eyes, but Kurt can see William as well.
The older man stands up, and grabs the empty glass that is now laying on the bed. Kurt sits straight up back in the mattress and he sees William filling his glass with water. Kurt does his best to stay focused, but it’s hard to do it when he’s so stressed.
There’s so much silence… for a while, Kurt practically forgot that he has to keep his guard up constantly when he’s with someone. The echo of William’s future is still in his head, but Kurt suppresses it as much as he can.
“Here, have some water,” William offers him the glass, and Kurt takes it, drinking the whole of it in one shot. “That was a big one. For a moment, I thought I lost you. I was about to slap you,” he says, trying to be funny but Kurt feel terrible, so he can’t join the joke.
“I’m sorry.”
The older man sits down in the chair that he was previously occupying before Kurt’s moment. “It’s not your fault, so don’t feel bad about it. And you don’t have to be nervous. It’s just me.”
“It was too silent,” Kurt tells him, exhausted but needing to explain what happened. It never happened something like this before. “When I was with him… I even tried to see something; to hear something. I couldn’t understand that, he was there and at the same time, he wasn’t in me. But then he told me what he could do, and I stopped trying. I was only awed at the silence and the nothing he provided. It’s never so quiet unless I’m alone and far away from everyone else.”
Kurt is suddenly experiencing a huge mix of feelings. He feels a little betrayed; he still doesn’t understand why they kept the information about David’s abilities from him. They haven’t have done that when Jesse, Tina and Quinn joined them. Then there’s the guilt; everyone has to walk in tiptoes around him because he’s so damn fragile, and that leads him to the anger and frustration towards himself and the little control he has over his abilities. There’s also the disconcert; to be around another human being and not be able to see anything, it’s such a novelty that Kurt can’t step out of his amazement. And finally, there’s the longing of having… what he got from Dave’s presence forever.
“You were afraid of the guys when they walked in,” William breaks his train of thoughts. “Was just a habit, or you could see all of their futures in spite of David’s presence?”
Kurt frowns, trying to remember what happened then. He’s mentally and emotionally drained. “I couldn’t see anything until now. I guess… I was very defensive. I’ve just had the future of hundreds of people in my head, it was so scary. When I saw them all here and-”
“It’s alright.”
“David…” he tries to remember how is that Dave had called it. “He... cancel is what he said? He cancelled everyone? Not just me?”
William nods. “We call it ‘cancel,’ yes. Some others call his ability ‘power negation.’”
“But they left, you were here and I couldn’t see you until now.”
“I guess David is far from us now.”
Kurt frowns. “I’m sorry?”
“His ability works just like yours. You have visions of the people who are around you up to a certain distance, even if they are not right next to you. We measured David’s ability in the same way we did with yours before deciding how far to park your trailer from the camp. David cancels the abilities of every person who stands within a two hundred and thirteen feet with three inches radius around him. Or seventy-two yards, quite powerful I must say.”
Kurt nods, understanding this part. His visions works in the same way, but his radium is sadly of two hundred and sixty-two feet. William also calls it ‘powerful’; to Kurt it’s just a curse.
“How do you work if he cancels you all?” Kurt can’t help getting curious.
William smils. “Like we do with you. His trailer is far from the camp. It’s not hard since it’s not like we’re using our abilities constantly, but just in case, we always let everyone know when David is going to be around.”
Kurt nods again. Dave is far, but obviously not close to Kurt’s far away parked trailer either, otherwise, Kurt would have noticed it long ago.
“Why didn’t you tell me what he could do?”
William fidgets in his place. “I… I guess, right now I think that we didn’t handle that part very well. But we were trying to protect you.”
Kurt snorts. “Protect me?” he inquires, unbelieving. Someone like Dave is nothing but a blessing to him. “How could he be any harm to me? With the ability he has?”
“We don’t know him very well yet, Kurt,” William tells him with a firm voice. “We all know how much it could mean to you, but he’s been with us for only three days. I think he’s adapting very well, but this is too overwhelming for him.”
“How come?”
“Well, for starters, he has never seen a couple like Mercedes and Sam,” William tells him almost laughing. “Thankfully, he’s very comfortable with that, and with the girls. But imagine that that’s something that it’s not something usual for people to see, imagine how awkward must have been for him to find out that there are people like us, and that he’s one of them.”
Kurt raises a brow. “People with abilities?”
“Yes. Unlike most of you, he never even knew that there was something special with him. David has never been aware that he had any kind of ability. To most of you, not to say to all of you, you noticed the abilities you had and finding this circus meant to find people who were just like you. People you could relate to,” William explains him quietly. “But David got to learn that, he has a gift and that people fly, or read minds, or breathe under water exist, all at once.”
“Oh.”
Kurt actually spent years thinking he was crazy until he met William and the rest of the circus. He even spent a whole year in a horrible asylum because of his visions, and he never knew that the visions he had were actually the future of all the people he had around until a lot later.
Finding out that he was not crazy was certainly a blessing, and finding that there were other people who could do things that were beyond what was explainable was also a blessing.
But Kurt still remembers how his life was when he was nothing but a normal kid, so he can imagine how it must feel to be a normal person, who’s suddenly introduced to the world that he and his friends lived in.
“I don’t think that David is going to feel this is too much for him to handle,” William continues. “But we couldn’t be sure of that, and it’s still too soon to tell. I just considered that, introducing him to you, knowing what he could mean to you and then losing it, it could be bad for you.”
“I guess you’re right,” Kurt can’t help agreeing.
He spent with Dave not even half an hour, and he really got too used to the nothing that he could get from someone else’s mind. Suddenly he couldn’t see Dave’s future, or Rachel’s, Finn’s, Mercedes’ and even William’s at first, when they were left alone.
Without even realizing of it, Kurt embraced that nothingness so hard that he even forgot that there were still people around him, and that there was something to be cautious about.
And William was just one person. Yet, Kurt was in such an ease in spite of his anxiety, that he couldn’t control the mix of flashes that he got just from one person. They were all inside his head, abruptly and Kurt couldn’t help getting lost in them.
“The guys wanted you two to meet though,” William tells him with a smile on his face. “They think that, if David is around, you could be with us as well. They crave for having you with us at least during lunch or dinner.”
Kurt tilts his head to one side, not embracing the idea a lot. Just the sight of more than three people together scared the hell out of him, and while he adores all of his friends to death, he can’t imagine how comfortable or not he’s going to feel at being surrounded by all of his friends at the same time.
There’s nothing that Kurt wants more than being part of the circus in a normal way and share with his friends all the things his friends usually share together. But Kurt can’t forget about his own fears.
“Whenever you feel ready to do such a thing,” William tells him, apparently being able to read the anxiety in Kurt’s face.
“Thank you.”
“I should go and check on David,” William says, standing up. “Are you going to be alright?”
“I think I’m going to sleep for awhile,” Kurt tells him, feeling pretty much exhausted. “Tell David I’m sorry. He didn’t know about me, and… well, he’s quite new in this special people world, so I guess I didn’t cause the best impression.”
Now he feels quite ashamed. Dave must think that Kurt is out of his mind, and with good reason. Jesus, Dave surely thinks that he’s crazy or that he’s a freak; Kurt hates people thinking he’s crazy, but he wouldn’t be able to blame Dave if he thought that way.
“I’m sure he doesn’t mind, Kurt. Don’t you worry,” William says, squeezing his shoulder. “Sleep now. Alright? I’ll send someone with the dinner later.”
Kurt nods, laying back onto his mattress. “Bye, William.”
William offers him one last smile, and leaves. In the solitude of his room, William’s future fades before Kurt’s eyes, as the older man walks away far from his trailer. Kurt’s still in his circus clothing, and he hates himself for feeling too tired to take them off but he doesn’t even feel like moving.
Overwhelmed, Kurt decides that sleeping is all what he’s going to do now. Kurt would sleep forever if he could, because while sleeps, the future is gone; nothing upsets him, hurts him or worries him. In his dream land, he’s in a safe place where there’s anything that could harm him.
So after letting a deep sigh, Kurt closes his eyes and sleeps.