Fic: "My Body Betrays Me," Chapter Five. Non-con Kurt/Karofsky, Kurt/Blaine -- COMPLETE!!!!!!
I can't believe it's over, you guys. I almost don't want to post this, so that the experience of sharing "Body" with you all will still be happening. But all things must come to an end.
I'm so, so happy to have shared this experience with each and every one of you. Thank you for being such incredible individuals and giving me such an amazing response to this fic. <3
Title: "My Body Betrays Me" (Chapter Five: Kurt, Blaine, and Dave)
Author: emilianadarling
Fandom: Glee
Pairing: non-con/dub-con Kurt/Karofsky, Kurt/Blaine
Rating: R this chapter, NC-17 overall
Warnings: Vaguely explained magic, non-con, dub-con, angst, brief mentions of suicide, awful situations, manipulation, crack prompt gone serious.
Length: 14,500 words for this chapter, 62,000 overall
Spoilers: This is an AU, so not really.
Story Summary: Kurt’s been in a secret relationship with his roommate at Dalton for months. That would be fine... if he wanted any of it. If he could say no, and if Dave would listen. If he were with Blaine, his wonderful friend from the school’s glee club, instead.
Prompt: Written for a prompt on the kinkmeme. Kurt is magically compelled to follow orders. Dave takes advantage. Blaine just wants to make everything all right again.
Notes: You guys... I honestly cannot believe this is over. Writing "Body" has been, without a doubt, one of the very best fandom experiences I've had in all my ten years in many different fandoms. Thank you all for making this fic so very special, and for caring so much. You're all brilliant and amazing, and I can't wait to hear what you think. <3 For all of you who are interested, I'm now flailing around on tumblr and twitter, which will probably be where new fics get discussed long before they get posted.
Also, a million and one thank-yous for the incredible piece of fanart drawn for this fic by Jackie/Muchacha11, which can be found here, and by glitterp_fic/sparklepirate which can be found here!
Chapter One: Dave
Chapter Two: Kurt
Chapter Three: Blaine
Chapter Four: Kurt -- Part One
Chapter Four: Kurt -- Part Two A and Part Two B
The boy runs through the sparse woods, feet pounding on the forest floor and sweat running down his forehead and neck as he goes. There’s a cramp in his side and the uniform he’s wearing is getting heavy and sticky and clinging to his arms, but he can’t stop. Can’t stop to breathe or figure out where he’s going because it’s over, it’s all fucking over, and he has to get out get out get out get out -
Thoughts of food and shelter and money keep bursting along the edges of his mind in panic-washed moments of practicality, but none of it matters. Nothing matters because it’s over, it’s all fucking over. He ruined this like he ruins everything.
Like he was willing to ruin him.
You’re weak. The words pound in his ears, high and beautiful and horrible. You’re weak, and awful, and you repulse me.
The last two months are pounding in his head like a motherfucking drum, and he feels so sick he can barely breathe. Can’t go back, can’t go back -
There’s snot running down his face, mingling with the tears and sweat, but the boy keeps running. Stripping off the navy-and-red blazer when it gets too hot - it’ll just make him easy to recognize, anyways - and going at a sprint as the trees fly by. Until the foliage thins and the road appears ahead, straight black asphalt to take him anywhere. He gasps out a few breaths, scans the road - and picks a direction.
--
The door to the nurse’s office shuts with a too-loud slam that makes the windows shake; they’re old-fashioned and poorly sealed, and the reverberation is enough to make the glass shiver and creak in its frame. Mouth open and a million unspoken words on his tongue, Blaine sits on the bed clutching gauze to his face and replays the image of Kurt walking out the door over and over in his head. There’s a lump in his throat and his eyes are stinging, and every single breath sends sharp little jolts of pain through his chest.
It had all happened so fast. Kurt leaving, yes; one second Kurt was there, the next he was gone, and Blaine can barely remember what he’d said. But not just that. The entire day has been like a television with the fastforward button held down; all new information and no time to handle it and speeding and rushing and planning so quickly, no time to stop and think, and all of it barely seems real without Kurt in the room. It’s as though the world’s been jolted back into regular speed, achingly slow in comparison, and Blaine doesn’t know what to do.
He hurts. All of the aches and sharp twinges and sprained fingers and his broken nose, fuck, that hadn’t seemed important at all a few seconds ago are coming back into sharp focus. None of it had mattered because Kurt had done it, really done it, and that was everything important in the entire world and Blaine couldn’t believe it and Kurt was free. But now Kurt’s gone. Kurt’s gone and everything hurts and less than an hour ago Blaine was getting the shit kicked out of him by someone twice his size. He’d been so scared, too. For Kurt, for himself. Scared and on the ground and there was nothing he could do, nothing at all.
Everything Blaine’s been shoving down for the past few days is starting to swell and simmer in his chest. The anxiety, the fear. The utter, utter horror at Kurt’s story that he’d tried so hard to hide because Kurt didn’t need that right now, didn’t need to deal with Blaine’s own freak-out when he was being raped and forced and broken down. It’s all building up and pushing at his insides, a frantic desperation trying to push up and escape through his mouth. The fact that Kurt willingly let himself get assaulted this afternoon; that Blaine let it happen. The fact that it was such a close thing, in the clearing: so close, too, close and Kurt had almost been gone. Completely gone, hollowed out and emptied and stolen away, one hundred per cent gone forever. It had all happened, and Blaine had tried so, so hard to follow Kurt’s instructions: later, Blaine. Later. Later. Later.
But now it is later, and Kurt’s not here anymore. There’s suppressed hysteria bubbling up inside that Blaine can’t hide anymore. It won’t be pushed down.
“Hey,” someone says softly, and Blaine nearly jumps out of his skin. The movement makes cruel pain twist in his chest so hard he cries out, tensing his whole body and clenching his eyes shut to stop it from happening again. “Sorry,” says Nurse Manning apologetically, putting a hand on Blaine’s shoulder to keep him steady. “... are you okay, Mr. Anderson?”
There’s something too sad in his voice, and Blaine knows the nurse isn’t really talking about his ribs.
“I -” Blaine tries to begin, but is cut off by sound of the office door flying open. He looks up - and there is his mother. Standing in the doorway wearing a stylish navy dress and pumps, she looks frantic and discomposed in a way that is so rare for her. There are a few strands escaping from the dark brown lacquer of her hair, and she’s breathing hard in a way that suggests running.
“Oh,” says Marita Anderson, voice catching and hand flying to her mouth. “Oh, darling boy.”
“Mom,” chokes Blaine, and she’s already striding across the room. Snapping off her oversized white sunglasses as though they didn’t cost a great deal of money and looking at him with such a devastated look that it makes his lip tremble.
“Your face,” his mother whispers, crouching down in front of the bed. She reaches out with one long, elegant hand and ever-so-gently traces his hairline with her fingertips. The touch still makes Blaine wince: his entire face is practically one big bruise, and every single inch of it hurts. Marita takes a shaky breath, eyes already damp, and looks into his eyes. Blaine looks into the hazel eyes that are so, so like his own; there is sadness there. Sadness, and heartbreak, and anger at the world. “Oh, beloved,” she whispers, voice snagging on the endearment. “Not again.”
“Mom,” says Blaine again, because he thinks it’s all he can say, and his face is hot and crumpling up and the whole room’s gone blurry and everything hurts. Without even realizing it’s happening, there’s something coming hot and wet down Blaine’s cheeks that won’t stop, and all at once his mother’s long arms are around his shoulders in the gentlest, most careful hug he can imagine. He doesn’t want to cry - crying hurts, makes his whole chest ache and pain shoot up his back - but he just can’t make himself stop.
“It’s okay,” she whispers, and the sweet smell of her perfume is filling his nose. It smells like being a child, being safe, and it just makes him cry harder. Every sob sends horrible jolts of pain through his torso, and he can’t reach up to hug her back in case that hurts, too. “Darling boy, I’m here. I’m here.”
Blaine cries. He cries because his whole body hurts, and because it’s all too much, and because his best friend got raped today. He cries because his heart won’t stop aching, and because of what very well could have happened if anything had gone differently in the clearing, and because of how stupid they were about everything. He doesn’t know what to do to make any of this better, or if it even can be made better at all.
He cries because he finally can.
And Blaine understands. He really, really does. Knows that Kurt’s been through more in the past months than most people go through in a lifetime; that he deserves a chance to heal without someone else’s confusing emotions getting in the way. That Kurt’s mind has been broken down and put back together so many times that Kurt must barely know who he is anymore, and that getting away from everything is probably the healthiest thing he could possibly do. Kurt deserves all the time in the world, like Blaine said. He’s willing to give Kurt forever if necessary, is willing to wait days or weeks or months if that’s what Kurt needs.
Blaine understands, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less. It makes it hurt more.
Perched on the edge of the bed, his mother holds him so softly he can barely feel her wrapped round him. They stay like that for what feels like hours but is probably only a few minutes, until the tears haven’t dried up but the pain gets too much to keep sobbing. They slide quietly down his face, Blaine holding up the icepack to his nose his mother gets a quick rundown from the nurse. Afterward she and Nurse Manning lead him carefully to her car, a slick silver Jaguar with cream interiors that Blaine’s barely ever driven in before, and load him inside.
They don’t speak on the ride to the hospital, although the occasional wetness still manages to escape and streak silently down his cheek. But his mother keeps a soft hand on his knee, and plays music quietly on the radio, and hums along to every song she knows for the entire drive there.
--
Walking all the way to the Westerville bus station in town takes just under an hour, but the boy doesn’t care. He can barely feel the exhaustion tugging at his limbs, or the hunger aching in his stomach. Being without the blazer makes him less conspicuous, but the tie is still a dead giveaway to anyone who knows anything. He strips it off and trashes it in the first garbage can he sees.
At the ATM outside the bus station, he takes out his bank card - thank god his wallet was in his pants pocket, thank god - and draws out everything in his pathetic account. It’s all from summer jobs and allowance when he was a kid, but it’s going to have to do because he hasn’t fucking got anything else. He throws the bank card away afterward, because he’s seen enough crime shows to know people can be traced that way.
Jesus fucking Christ, crime shows, he’s a criminal, they have a fucking video and he then beat that fucking kid to pieces -
The boy buys his ticket to Columbus with cash. The ride there doesn’t feel very long, and when he arrives he buys another ticket, this time to Chicago with over an hour before his bus leaves. He goes into the skeevy-as-fuck bathroom and locks himself in one of the stalls, sitting on the toilet with his head in his hands. Breathing too hard, too fast as he tries to think of what to do next, where to go, how to live, how to hide. He isn’t quiet; a couple of guys open the door and leave after a few seconds. But eventually he manages to calm down again.
When the boy boards the bus, the tears have been wiped away. He sleeps curled up into the window, sitting on all the money he has in the world and dreaming of bright blue eyes that shine with tears and fury.
--
The door slips out of his hand and closes with a loud slam, but Kurt can’t muster any remorse. He keeps his eyes straight ahead, tears streaked down his face, as he walks determinately down the hall. It only takes a few paces, though, before Kurt starts to go faster. Speeding up, and taking bigger steps, until he’s flying down the hallway, almost tripping over his feet with sudden desperation to get out, to leave, to get out of this place. He speeds down the main staircase, almost tripping over his feet, and all but throws himself at the heavy main door separating him from the outside world. Kurt slams into it, shoves it open -
-and chokes in a deep breath of air as he’s sent stumbling onto the large stone steps of the entrance. It’s bright outside. Bright and warm and sunny, cool air filling his lungs. Not closed in by the stuffy walls and doors and hallways anymore. Outside, in the open. Free.
Shaking, Kurt glances up. There is a familiar brown truck turning into the school grounds, taking the corner too quickly as it speeds toward him. The sight of it alone is practically enough to set him off again, and he bites down hard on his lip. The truck slows down as it winds to the front of the school, and Kurt can see his dad through the window. He’s wearing his usual hat and a red plaid shirt, and Kurt can see from a distance that his rounded face is pulled into an expression of confused concern.
“Kurt -” begins his dad in a worried tone, but Kurt’s already speeding down the steps. He reaches the passenger side, flings the door open, and clambers hurriedly inside.
“Drive,” Kurt orders, slamming the car door shut. His hands are shaking as he reaches for the seatbelt, but they just need to go right now. “Please, dad, just drive. We need to go. Please -”
Without wasting a moment to ask why, Burt slams on the accelerator. The truck may be old, but it’s tuned and maintained to within an inch of its life. It starts quickly, and within a few moments they’re speeding down the road; through the main gates of Dalton, flying past a fancy silver car headed toward the school. Out, out, out. Away from everything he couldn’t stop from happening to him: the pain, the humiliation. Away from what came so close to happening in the clearing.
Away from Blaine, and how Blaine makes Kurt’s heart ache with confusion and doubt.
Burt doesn’t say anything for the first few minutes of the drive, staring hard at the road in front of them with an inscrutable look on his face. It gives Kurt a chance to catch his breath; pressing himself back into his seat and trying to focus on the in and out, in and out. He knows he must look an absolute disaster; eyes red and face damp, with leaves still clinging to the backs of his uniform trousers. His dad doesn’t say anything; just looks straight ahead and drives.
And then they begin to slow. Before Kurt knows what’s happening, they’re turning off into a small rest area.
“What...?” Kurt asks, not understanding.
“It’s a long drive to Lima,” Burt explains, pulling the truck into an empty parking space. Not even bothering to back in the way he always does, just driving the truck in front-first. The rest area is practically empty. There’s a gas station and not much else; there are only four other cars in the large parking area, spread out far apart from one another. A sparse smattering of foliage lines the outskirts where asphalt turns to dirt. Burt turns the keys in the ignition, and the low rumble of the truck ceases. He turns to face his son. “You’re too upset to wait until we get there, and I want to look you in the eyes when you tell me what’s wrong. Now: what’s wrong, kiddo?”
The words hit Kurt hard in the chest, and for a moment all he can think about is how very much he’s missed his father. Missed talking to him, and their weekends together, and the way Burt knows him better than anyone else in the world.
“I missed you, Daddy,” Kurt whispers in a tiny voice, tears starting to choke in his throat again. His father’s eyes widen at the long-lost term of endearment: it’s something Kurt hasn’t called him regularly since he was perhaps six years old.
And he just can’t hold back any longer. Unbuckling his seatbelt with trembling fingers, Kurt closes the space between them and lets his dad pull him into a tight, warm hug. It’s an awkward position; leaning over sideways with the gearshift digging into Kurt’s side, but none of that matters. The smell of Old Spice and motor oil makes nostalgia edge along his mind as he buries his face in his father’s shoulder.
“I did it, Dad.” Kurt can hear the words, high and shaky and stifled by the rough material of his dad’s shirt. They’re coming fast and uncontrollable from his mouth, as though without permission. “I really did it. I broke it. I don’t - it’s not in me anymore.”
His father’s arms tense around him, and Kurt clings on tighter.
“What?” Burt asks, quiet and careful and not-too-hopeful. There’s a rough edge to his voice. In case he misunderstood, or misheard, because Kurt knows it’s more than he’s ever hoped for. “You mean...?”
Growing up, Kurt imagined this scene a thousand times. Somehow finding a way to break the curse, to make himself free. He’d spent hours fantasizing about how it would feel to have every single path open to him. The idea that maybe one day, if he tried hard enough, he could go anywhere, do anything, and not have to be terrified of discovery or consequences the entire time - it was a beautiful one, and he’d thought about it often. He’d imagined telling his dad, and celebrating, and hugging him so tight they’d find it hard to breathe.
Kurt had never imagined this moment would hurt so much.
“The curse,” Kurt sobs, and the tears are back again. Sliding down his cheeks , and he has no idea if it’s happiness or grief that’s put them there. Can’t tell what’s up or down in his head; can barely tell if this is even real. “It’s gone now, Dad, I - I broke it, it’s -”
“Kurt,” his dad croaks, clinging onto his son’s shoulders. He’s shaking, and Kurt can feel his heart beating in his chest so hard it starts to worry him. “Kurt, oh my god. Are you - you’re sure -?”
“Tell me to do something,” says Kurt, pulling back. His father’s face is ruddy with emotion, and dampness around his blue eyes. Burt blinks hard, and Kurt can see the hope - but also the carefulness, the doubt. The disbelief. “Tell me to do something, Dad.”
“Are you sure?” Burt asks seriously, brows furrowing together. Kurt honestly cannot remember the last time his father gave him any kind of order, even by accident. Finn tended to forget often; he frequently had to undo stupid commands while the two of them were living together, flushing in embarrassment and stammering out awkward apologies. Even Carole occasionally blanked and slipped in motherly orders - put on a jacket before you go out, sweetie and make sure you’re home by ten - if she was distracted by something. His dad, without exception, never gave him orders. Any sort of instruction was always phrased as a request, a suggestion. And he never, ever forbade Kurt from doing anything while he was growing up.
Kurt can’t remember the way his mother dealt with his condition anymore. Those memories are lost, or tucked away, or never existed to begin with.
“Yeah,” says Kurt, nodding hard and swiping a hand across his eyes.
For a long moment, Burt hesitates. He fidgets guiltily before opening his mouth and, as though the words are foreign to him, saying tentatively: “Open the car door.”
And Kurt shakes his head. “No,” he whispers. There is no pain. No dizziness, no aching muscles. There is just the soft syllable of the denial as it hangs along the air. “No, Dad. I won’t.”
“Oh my god.” Whispered words, rushed in disbelief. Tears swelling up in blue eyes. “You - Kurt, you -”
“I know,” Kurt chokes out, and his father pulls him into another tight hug.
“I can’t believe - Kurt -” Burt grips his son’s shoulders hard, pulling him in closer than can possibly be comfortable in the small space. He can feel his father’s chest shaking as he cries unashamedly into Kurt’s shoulder. Kurt twists up his face and tries to commit this moment to memory. This pure, untainted happiness and pride.
“It’s - it’s all I ever wanted for you,” Burt says brokenly into his shoulder. “Kurt, it’s - it’s all we ever wanted for you. Your mom -” His dad shudders hard, drawing in a ragged breath as he squeezes Kurt so hard it’s almost hard to breathe. “Your mom would be so proud of you. And so happy.”
“I know,” Kurt says again, clutching at the red plaid fabric of his father’s shirt.
For a few minutes, there is nothing but their shared breathing as they cling to one another in the cab of the truck. His father, who loves Kurt more than anything. Who’d hoped since he was a child that he could maybe, one day, have a normal life. Who grieved for Kurt’s curse before Kurt himself could even understand what it meant. They hold each other tight, and Kurt knows that the embrace isn’t just for him.
After a long minute, Burt pulls away.
“How?” he asks, and unbridled joy is coming off his voice in waves. It makes something awful twinge in the base of Kurt’s stomach. Burt laughs, squeezing Kurt’s shoulders hard. “How did it happen? Kurt, you can do whatever you want! Be whoever you want! You can have a proper life, the way we always wanted for you! I can’t even - you’ll have to tell me everythi -”
But before Burt can even finish the sentence, he freezes. Looking into Kurt’s face, the laughter and delight begins to slide away from his father’s expression. In its place, concern is swelling up large and real. Kurt winces, curses his face for being so fucking emotive. For showing everything before he wants it to.
He wishes he could have postponed this moment a little bit longer. Let his dad be happy for just that little bit more.
“Kurt?” his dad asks, eyes darkening. “What’s-?”
“I have to tell you something else,” says Kurt in a quiet monotone, folding his hands into his lap. His dad pulls back, looking at him with a confused look on his face. Anxiety and disgust for himself swirl unpleasantly in the bottom of Kurt’s stomach. For all he’s desperately wanted to talk to his dad - to find his dad, to tell his dad - over the past months, the words seem to cling to his tongue.
When he’d confessed his story to Blaine, he’d had the benefit of just tell me what’s wrong to push him through the difficult parts. The aspects that scraped at his insides and hurt to talk about, because it meant that all of it had happened. Because the whole story... the whole story is ugly, and brutal, and humiliating. But every time he’d hesitated when telling Blaine, or had wanted to avoid an aspect, the faintest touch of dizziness had spurred him on. The thing that had kept him imprisoned had allowed him to reach out for help.
But there is no curse now. There’s nothing to support him through this. The past two months have been unthinkably wrong in every possible way, and telling his dad... telling his dad means that it was real. That it happened, to him. That he wasn’t strong enough to stop it from happening.
He’ll never look at me the same way again. The thought twines along the corner of Kurt’s mind, dull with horrified resignation. And if he tells his dad, it won’t be the end. There will be trips to the police, to doctors, and information making it into the news. Submitting evidence and doing interviews and figuring out witnesses and accounts. He won’t be able to keep the last two months quietly in the past as he’d hoped; they’ll be splashed across his life, a constant reminder.
But after long wordless pause, Burt leans forward and puts a hand on Kurt’s knee. The touch is gentle, and steady, and not going anywhere. His hand feels warm.
Don’t fall apart, he tells himself. Just hang in for a little bit longer. Just get through this.
Straightening up, Kurt forces himself to push down the emotion and the hurt. How close, how soon, how much it all is. He opens his mouth, takes a deep breath - and begins to speak.
--
The boy arrives in Chicago late at night. He has no place to sleep and no money to buy a room, so he naps on a park bench outside and waits for the buses to start running again. It’s cold and he hasn’t got a jacket, and it’s probably incredibly stupid to sleep with so much cash on him in a place like this, but he can barely care enough not to lie down right on the ground. He hides the money in his shoe and drifts in and out until the sun rises again.
He spends most of the rest of his pathetically small savings on bus tickets. Running farther and farther away, with no idea who’s coming after him or how fast or if they’re even coming at all. It only hits him when he’s three capitals away and trying to figure out where to sleep for the night that he’s never going to see his parents again. Not his father with his greying hair and patient eyes, or his mother with her tiny stature and strong embrace. The realization hits him so hard he dry heaves in the bus station bathroom for fifteen minutes, tears running down his face that aren’t from the retching at all.
He wonders if this is punishment for what he tried to do - for what he almost succeeded at.
Kurt, he thinks desperately as he clings to the hard, cold porcelain. Kurt, Kurt, Kurt, Kurt, Kurt.
--
In the next weeks, Kurt often finds himself vaguely surprised that the days keep coming and going. It feels, having told his family what happened to him in the past two months, that time should somehow stop working. That the clocks should stop, and the world should stop spinning, and that everything should change because of it.
It doesn’t, though. Days turn into nights, which turn into nightmares, which turn into sheets soaked with cold sweat as he wakes up to the sun just beginning to creep through his curtains. Burt, Carole, and Finn all lead busy lives, even if his dad decided it was necessary to take a few weeks off work to spend time with him. There are tears, of course, and devastated expressions when they find out what he’s been forced to hide from them for months. But it continues to shock him, the little ways that life keeps moving forward. Finn still has programs he likes to watch on television, and Carole still cooks dinner. His dad still listens to sports on the radio when he thinks Kurt is tucked up in his room and won’t be coming out for a few hours.
There are some differences, of course. The trips to the police station, or the hospital, or the friend-of-a-friend-of-an-employee therapist his dad was able to find. Dr. O’Reilly is kind, and collected, and willing to believe Kurt about his former condition with only a few moments of scepticism. But for the most part, Kurt stays at home.
He loves his family, but they have no idea how to act around him. How to talk about or respond to this horrific thing that has invaded their lives; what to say that won’t make him flinch, or draw back into himself, or lash out.
And he doesn’t know how to act around them, either.
Kurt doesn’t know how to act around himself. He feels as though someone has taken a dealing with grief and loss book, turned it upside down above his head, and shaken it out until all the possible symptoms tumbled down around him like standing in a rainstorm. Some days he feels matter-of-fact, and other days he can’t dredge up the energy leave his bed. Some days he goes hours without thinking about it all; and others his dad saying ‘good morning’ will set him off into hysteria-tinged tears that last for hours, feeling disgusting and filthy and wanting to strip off his skin like a snake. It’s frustrating beyond words, not knowing what to expect. He hates having to go through all of it more than anything else, wishes he could just skip this bit and get over everything and be done with it already. To not let the memory of Karofsky control him anymore. Kurt feels impatient with himself more consistently than anything: upset that his family has to deal with him like this.
Sometimes he thinks that the only one who’s frustrated by his process is himself.
Life chips away slowly at the hard, mercenary-like veneer of surviving he’s had to take on. It’s terrifying, letting it go. Letting it go means being a victim, being someone who had something happen to them that they couldn’t stop.
The first time Kurt accidentally calls himself a whore out loud during one of his slightly-frenetic crying jags, his dad slams his hand down onto the kitchen counter so hard the cupboards shake. The action makes Kurt’s whole body freeze and an inexplicable flash of fear shoot through his body - before he realizes his dad is trembling. Eyes squeezed shut and wavering, shaking his head back and forth with tears leaking out of his eyes and before Kurt knows it, he’s the one with his arms wrapped around his dad. Whispering Daddy, it’s okay and I know, Dad, I know and it’s stupid, I know I didn’t - it’s stupid, I’m sorry, I’m sorry over and over again.
Burt spends all night on the phone and books Kurt’s first appointment with Dr. O’Reilly the next day.
In the weeks after he comes home, Kurt sees his father cry more than in the rest of his life put together. Even when Elizabeth died so many years ago, Burt had kept that grief private. Separate; soldiering on to raise his son alone. This time, Kurt can’t help but see how devastated his father is that he wasn’t able to protect his son. Couldn’t ignore it if he wanted to.
Finn and Carole try their hardest, but Finn has no idea what to say or how to act and Carole just doesn’t know him well enough. They try. Finn attempts to let him choose what they watch on television, and Carole asks him what he wants for dinner every day when she comes home from work, but the strangeness of both those things puts him on edge instead of at ease. Makes his skin feel tight and wrong along his body.
When Finn tries to pull him into a hug for the first time since he came home, he jolts back before his arms can even wrap all the way around Kurt’s shoulders. Face a map of horror and regret and guilt, Finn stammers out apologies with wide eyes until Kurt can’t take it anymore. Until he snaps forward and grabs Finn around the stomach, pressing his face into Finn’s wide chest and refusing to move. Burying himself in the safety of the warmth of his stepbrother’s body, smell and feel so utterly different from what Finn is scared of reminding him of, until Finn finally relaxes and hugs him through the tears he didn’t even realize were there.
Physical contact becomes accepted, after that, as long as he initiates it. Carole’s hand tracing up and down his arm as they sit next to one another on the couch, or burying himself in his father’s side, or Finn wrapping an arm around his shoulders. It’s instinctual and base and raw and Kurt wants it so badly, wants to feel safe and held and cared for by people he loves. By people who think he matters.
It still feels surreal, not having the sickness or the dizziness or the compulsion screaming at him inside his own mind. Kurt feels oddly empty, as though a tumour that’s been there his whole life has been sliced out and taken away all at once, without any time to adjust or heal or come to terms with it. He barely knows what to do with himself, most days. Barely has any idea how to think, or react to mundane situations, or think about himself. Has no idea how to approach the world.
The days come and go, sickly slow like dripping honey, and Kurt tries to relearn who he is.
--
It isn’t until he’s been in this city for a few days that he sees the news reports. The television set in the shelter is a piece of shit, at least ten years old. It sits on the kitchen counter and is always on, image flickering dully as the men and women in front of it eat Cheerios out of industrial-sized boxes without milk because there isn’t the money for it at this time of year. The boy sits in a pair of jeans three sizes too big and a hoodie he got for free from a church clothing drive as the story splays across the screen.
“This week, an Ohio boy from a small private school in Westerville was charged with both assault and sexual assault against his classmates,” says the pretty blonde newscaster in a sombre voice. Her eyes still sparkle charmingly despite the content of her story. “The names of all parties are being withheld due to minor status. The boy in question is seventeen years old, and has not been seen for over a week. His parents claim to have no knowledge about his whereabouts. Authorities are on the lookout, although an officer with the Ohio State Police has stated that they ‘are inclined to believe he may have fled the state’.” She shuffles her notes, smiling at the screen. “Now, on to the weather, Alex...”
There’s a loud clang, and the boy is jolted out of his terrified daze to realize that he’s dropped his spoon onto the wooden table. A couple of people glance up briefly, but no one looks at him for too long. The eyes of these people are clouded with regret and drugs and loneliness, and they don’t have time for some stupid newcomer who’s too young to know what real trouble is. No one here even knows his real name.
And no one seems to have noticed the news report.
It’s with shaking hands that the boy picks up the spoon again and continues to eat, keeping his head down and his eyes pointedly fixed on the table below.
--
By mid-May, the weather is finally beginning to warm up. Around campus, more and more students are starting to go without their blazers when not in class; dozens of boys in white dress shirts with the sleeves rolled up can be seen, excited for the transition into summer weather. With final exams and papers coming up in just over a month, an air of anxiety is mixing with the anticipation for summer holidays. Dalton teachers have high standards, and the school itself orients toward preparation for post-secondary education. Even with Blaine only in junior year, the pressure to perform well is high.
Missing a few days of school after the confrontation in the woods hadn’t helped his preparedness levels, either. Neither had the fact that Karofsky had managed to sprain two fingers in his writing hand. They’d swollen and bruised and hurt badly for the first week, and only now is Blaine able to attempt any sort of mobility in them at all. Writing notes by hand is still completely out of the question, although the school had done their best to accommodate him. Every one of his teachers had been instructed to allow him to bring his laptop in order to frantically type sloppily with his left hand only, and most had organized for one of their other students to photocopy their notes and provide him with a copy. It isn’t ideal, but it’s better than nothing at all.
It’s been a week and a half since the encounter with Karofsky in the woods, and Blaine hasn’t heard anything from Kurt since he walked out of the nurse’s office refusing to look Blaine in the eye. In his more honest moments, Blaine knows that having no idea how Kurt is doing hurts worse than all his injuries combined.
But he understands. He does, and Blaine doesn’t want to be that friend. Who promises space and then crowds around, shoving himself into Kurt’s personal space where he doesn’t belong and making everything harder. So aside from the single text message he sent on the day of the confrontation, Blaine hasn’t tried to contact Kurt at all.
The text had been typed out with his left hand after returning home from the ER, lying in bed and wincing at the pain in his chest with a mug of his mother’s salabat steaming on his bedside table. His father had hovered anxiously outside his bedroom door, obviously debating whether or not to come inside, as he typed:
To: Kurt Hummel
May 9th 2011, 10:54pm
Whenever you’re ready. I care about you so much, Kurt. I can wait. - Blaine
It’s been a week and half, and he hasn’t received anything back. But at least this time Blaine know the reason for Kurt’s drawing away, understands it. Is willing to give Kurt the room he needs. Besides, finals and notes and dealing through the pain of three cracked-not-fractured-thank-god ribs have all been at least a decent distraction.
And when he finally hears anything at all about Kurt’s well-being, it doesn’t happen quite in the way he’d expected.
Blaine is walking from the main building back to Tower Residence, a bookbag slung over his wrong shoulder and fretting slightly about an assignment for Law when he notices a vehicle pull into the residence parking lot. That in itself is unusual at this time of day, and so is the vehicle in question. It’s a large brown truck, odd when juxtaposed against a lot filled mostly with sleek silver sedans. Without fully understanding why he bothers, Blaine pauses to watch as the door opens and a man slides out.
The man is older and bald, wearing a black cap and a tired expression. His shirt looks like some sort of uniform in a rough blue, and when he turns Blaine gets a look at his face. He doesn’t look much like the kind of adults who usually come to visit their children here, even as Blaine feels guilty thinking it. Something twinges in his head, like a memory half-forgotten. As though Blaine’s seen him somewhere before...
When it hits him, his eyes fly wide open.
“Mr. Hummel!” Blaine shouts, because the man is walking toward the main building at a quick pace that Blaine can’t keep up with without his chest screaming in protest. “Mr. Hummel, wait!”
Burt Hummel turns at the sound of his name being called, the confused expression on his face twisting into a fusion of shock and suspicion when his gaze falls on Blaine’s face. It’s a look that Blaine’s grown extremely accustomed to over the past few weeks: the swelling in his nose has gone down a lot, but there are bruises still fading along the ridge of his nose and eyes. It doesn’t exactly make him look friendly.
“Do I know you?” Burt asks slowly, eyes lingering on the gash above Blaine’s eyebrow that Karofsky left with his school ring.
“Sorry,” pants Blaine, coming over as fast as he can without hurting himself. “Sorry, no, but - Kurt had a picture of you and him as his Facebook profile for a long time, so -”
“Wait, you know Kurt?” The older man’s face hardens, and something distrustful comes into his eyes. It hurts to see, even if Blaine understands. “How do you -?”
“Blaine Anderson,” he says, too quickly, stepping on Burt’s words like on a partner’s feet in a dance. “Sorry. I don’t - I don’t even know if he mentioned me, but...”
Blaine trails off when he sees the recognition twinge in Burt’s expression. Kurt’s father seems to freeze, staring down at Blaine’s face as though for the first time. Taking in the bruises and the cuts with a new eye. Blue eyes dart down to where Blaine’s right hand is motionless down by his side, the way he’s holding himself slightly awkwardly. Blaine doesn’t know this man at all, only has Kurt’s stories to go on. Has no idea how much Kurt’s decided to tell his father, or how Burt will react.
But Burt’s posture is loosening, slumping. His eyes are sad.
“Oh, Blaine,” says Burt, shaking his head. “That son of a bitch really did a number on you, didn’t he.” It isn’t a question, and it’s all Blaine needs to know that Kurt has told his father everything.
“Is he okay?” Blaine can’t stop himself from asking. “Is Kurt okay? Or. Not okay, of course, but...” He bites down on his lip. “He’s all right?”
“He’s dealing,” says Burt without inflection, and the words make Blaine wince. Of course Kurt’s dealing. He’s not all right, or okay, or anything resembling those things. It would be stupid to think otherwise.
In front of him Burt crosses his arms, and for a horrifying second it hits Blaine that maybe Burt thinks he abandoned Kurt when things got hard. That he threw up his hands and let Kurt walk away without offering any help at all. The idea of Kurt’s dad thinking that sort of thing about him makes Blaine feel slightly sick.
“Space,” he blurts, sounding more and more like an idiot with every passing second. “Kurt wanted space, so I’m giving it. Space, I mean. And time.” Burt's expression doesn’t shift at all, so Blaine keeps going. “And that’s fine, I get it, I really do. But I saw you and knew who you were, and I just thought...” Blaine looks down at his feet, feeling heat rush into his face. Awkwardness is clenching in his chest. “It’s just... hard, you know? Knowing he’s hurting and not being able to help. So it’s stupid, but could you... could you maybe give him a hug from me? You don’t have to say it’s from me, or anything,” he hastens to clarify. “Just... make sure he knows there are people who really care about him.”
There’s a long, long pause. Blaine’s hearts sinks with the complete certainty that he’s gone too far, he’s overstepped boundaries. He’s just about to try to duck away when Burt nods.
“Sure,” says Kurt’s dad, nodding slowly. “I can do that.”
“Oh,” says Blaine weakly. “Thank you, sir. Really.”
“Burt’s fine,” says Burt, and Blaine fully expects him to make his excuses and continue on his way toward the main office. He doesn’t. Instead, he keeps looking right at him. Looking at Blaine as though he’s seeing something more than bruises and slicked-down hair and a nice uniform. It makes Blaine feel incredibly uncomfortable, exposed. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other.
Eventually, Burt is the one to break the silence.
“Kurt... he’s not very good at doing nothing. I think it’s hard for him, in a funny way, being at home so much.” A pause. “Did you hear that Karofsky kid pulled a runner?” Burt asks, as though trying to make conversation, but something awful and bitter twists in Blaine’s chest.
“Yeah,” Blaine mutters, shaking his head. “My parents tried to press charges for -” he gestures with his left hand, as if to encompass the bruises and the cuts, “- but no one knows where he is. The last thing we heard, someone saw him get on a bus to Columbus, but... nothing since then.” Blaine shakes his head, and there’s a strange numbness edging at his fingertips. “I can’t believe he’s going to get away with it,” he says dully. “With everything, with... with what he did to Kurt.”
“I know,” says Burt gruffly. There are bags under his eyes, and for the first time Blaine realizes how exhausted Kurt’s father looks. Blaine can’t even imagine finding out about what happened to his son, or how powerless Burt must feel about the entire thing. And it’s all so fucking unfair. It doesn’t seem like it’s possible that they should live in a world where sometimes bad people don’t get what’s coming to them. That one person could irrefutably damage so many people’s lives and walk away scot-free, and that there’s nothing anyone can do to make it better.
In a strange way, it makes Blaine angry with the fairy tales and children’s books his mother used to read to him when he was small. The ones where the good guys always saved the day, and the bad guys got punished, and everything ended in happily ever after no matter how horrible everything had been before. Those books had never prepared him for anything like this; for how unfair it could all be.
All at once, Blaine comes back to himself. “Sorry,” he mumbles, giving his head a shake, but Burt’s giving him an understanding look that even edges on pity. Because this is a man who has known for years. Who watched his son grow up and knew exactly how unfair and awful the world has the potential to be.
It occurs to Blaine for the first time to wonder why Burt is at Dalton at all. “Mr. Hu - I mean, Burt - if it’s okay to ask, what are you doing here?”
“Picking up Kurt’s stuff out of his room,” the older man explains. “Everything got left there he when we took off, and I haven’t had the chance to come get it yet. Kurt... he didn’t really want to go back again to pack, you know?”
An image drifts into Blaine’s mind. A tangle of naked limbs and the slide of sweat-on-sweat, choked gasps and pleasure that wasn’t real emanating off Kurt in waves. And another image, from that awfulsickdisgustingwrong video. The one Blaine had been forced to edit on his laptop in order to convert it into the right filetype to put on a CD. A little clip of Kurt on his knees, small body jolted with every rock as Karofsky slams his cock into Kurt’s mouth playing over and over in his mind.
“God, of course,” Blaine mutters, shuddering. He catches Burt’s eye. “Do you need any help?” When Burt looks dubiously down at Blaine’s right hand, he clarifies. “I mean, I can show you where his room is if you have his key.” The Law assignment can wait until later tonight, Blaine decides. This is more important. “And I can carry some of the lighter things, if you want the help.”
“I do have his key,” says Burt slowly. “Was just going to go ask the main office for directions, but... yeah. Why not? Show me the way, kid.”
Blaine smiles, and leads the way. Kurt’s father walks with him to the Milward-Hopkins building in a manner that Blaine finds himself truly appreciating, even if he can’t quite put his finger on why. Burt Hummel doesn’t walk ever-so-slightly too quickly like his own father, as though challenging Blaine to go that little bit faster, push that little bit harder to catch up. And he doesn’t baby him like Blaine’s mother, who winces every time he takes a step and looks as though she means to catch him if he falls. Instead, Burt slows his pace and they walk side by side. It’s nice.
When they reach the door to Kurt and Karofsky’s dorm room, Burt turns the key in the lock - and both of them freeze as the door swings open.
The room looks as though there are two boys still living there. There’s a Dalton sports hoodie thrown over the back of one of the computer chairs, and an iPod plugged into the wall and charging next to what Blaine can only assume was Kurt’s bed. There’s a crumpled piece of paper on the floor that Blaine is almost positive is the note they wrote together. The bathroom light is still on.
Neither of them can look at one another for a few minutes, hovering in the doorway until Burt finally takes a deep breath and steps inside.
Emptying out Kurt’s room takes a while, in the end, and the two of them don’t talk very much in the process. Burt brought boxes and bags in the car, and the two of them fill them all up with clothes that Blaine folds and Burt carries, pots of moisturizer, books, CDs, rolled-up posters, and a million other things left here like relics of the past.
Words hang between them, unspoken and loud amid the shuffles of sorting and packing up Kurt’s life.
Click here to move on to Chapter Five, continued.
I'm so, so happy to have shared this experience with each and every one of you. Thank you for being such incredible individuals and giving me such an amazing response to this fic. <3
Title: "My Body Betrays Me" (Chapter Five: Kurt, Blaine, and Dave)
Author: emilianadarling
Fandom: Glee
Pairing: non-con/dub-con Kurt/Karofsky, Kurt/Blaine
Rating: R this chapter, NC-17 overall
Warnings: Vaguely explained magic, non-con, dub-con, angst, brief mentions of suicide, awful situations, manipulation, crack prompt gone serious.
Length: 14,500 words for this chapter, 62,000 overall
Spoilers: This is an AU, so not really.
Story Summary: Kurt’s been in a secret relationship with his roommate at Dalton for months. That would be fine... if he wanted any of it. If he could say no, and if Dave would listen. If he were with Blaine, his wonderful friend from the school’s glee club, instead.
Prompt: Written for a prompt on the kinkmeme. Kurt is magically compelled to follow orders. Dave takes advantage. Blaine just wants to make everything all right again.
Notes: You guys... I honestly cannot believe this is over. Writing "Body" has been, without a doubt, one of the very best fandom experiences I've had in all my ten years in many different fandoms. Thank you all for making this fic so very special, and for caring so much. You're all brilliant and amazing, and I can't wait to hear what you think. <3 For all of you who are interested, I'm now flailing around on tumblr and twitter, which will probably be where new fics get discussed long before they get posted.
Also, a million and one thank-yous for the incredible piece of fanart drawn for this fic by Jackie/Muchacha11, which can be found here, and by glitterp_fic/sparklepirate which can be found here!
Chapter One: Dave
Chapter Two: Kurt
Chapter Three: Blaine
Chapter Four: Kurt -- Part One
Chapter Four: Kurt -- Part Two A and Part Two B
The boy runs through the sparse woods, feet pounding on the forest floor and sweat running down his forehead and neck as he goes. There’s a cramp in his side and the uniform he’s wearing is getting heavy and sticky and clinging to his arms, but he can’t stop. Can’t stop to breathe or figure out where he’s going because it’s over, it’s all fucking over, and he has to get out get out get out get out -
Thoughts of food and shelter and money keep bursting along the edges of his mind in panic-washed moments of practicality, but none of it matters. Nothing matters because it’s over, it’s all fucking over. He ruined this like he ruins everything.
Like he was willing to ruin him.
You’re weak. The words pound in his ears, high and beautiful and horrible. You’re weak, and awful, and you repulse me.
The last two months are pounding in his head like a motherfucking drum, and he feels so sick he can barely breathe. Can’t go back, can’t go back -
There’s snot running down his face, mingling with the tears and sweat, but the boy keeps running. Stripping off the navy-and-red blazer when it gets too hot - it’ll just make him easy to recognize, anyways - and going at a sprint as the trees fly by. Until the foliage thins and the road appears ahead, straight black asphalt to take him anywhere. He gasps out a few breaths, scans the road - and picks a direction.
--
The door to the nurse’s office shuts with a too-loud slam that makes the windows shake; they’re old-fashioned and poorly sealed, and the reverberation is enough to make the glass shiver and creak in its frame. Mouth open and a million unspoken words on his tongue, Blaine sits on the bed clutching gauze to his face and replays the image of Kurt walking out the door over and over in his head. There’s a lump in his throat and his eyes are stinging, and every single breath sends sharp little jolts of pain through his chest.
It had all happened so fast. Kurt leaving, yes; one second Kurt was there, the next he was gone, and Blaine can barely remember what he’d said. But not just that. The entire day has been like a television with the fastforward button held down; all new information and no time to handle it and speeding and rushing and planning so quickly, no time to stop and think, and all of it barely seems real without Kurt in the room. It’s as though the world’s been jolted back into regular speed, achingly slow in comparison, and Blaine doesn’t know what to do.
He hurts. All of the aches and sharp twinges and sprained fingers and his broken nose, fuck, that hadn’t seemed important at all a few seconds ago are coming back into sharp focus. None of it had mattered because Kurt had done it, really done it, and that was everything important in the entire world and Blaine couldn’t believe it and Kurt was free. But now Kurt’s gone. Kurt’s gone and everything hurts and less than an hour ago Blaine was getting the shit kicked out of him by someone twice his size. He’d been so scared, too. For Kurt, for himself. Scared and on the ground and there was nothing he could do, nothing at all.
Everything Blaine’s been shoving down for the past few days is starting to swell and simmer in his chest. The anxiety, the fear. The utter, utter horror at Kurt’s story that he’d tried so hard to hide because Kurt didn’t need that right now, didn’t need to deal with Blaine’s own freak-out when he was being raped and forced and broken down. It’s all building up and pushing at his insides, a frantic desperation trying to push up and escape through his mouth. The fact that Kurt willingly let himself get assaulted this afternoon; that Blaine let it happen. The fact that it was such a close thing, in the clearing: so close, too, close and Kurt had almost been gone. Completely gone, hollowed out and emptied and stolen away, one hundred per cent gone forever. It had all happened, and Blaine had tried so, so hard to follow Kurt’s instructions: later, Blaine. Later. Later. Later.
But now it is later, and Kurt’s not here anymore. There’s suppressed hysteria bubbling up inside that Blaine can’t hide anymore. It won’t be pushed down.
“Hey,” someone says softly, and Blaine nearly jumps out of his skin. The movement makes cruel pain twist in his chest so hard he cries out, tensing his whole body and clenching his eyes shut to stop it from happening again. “Sorry,” says Nurse Manning apologetically, putting a hand on Blaine’s shoulder to keep him steady. “... are you okay, Mr. Anderson?”
There’s something too sad in his voice, and Blaine knows the nurse isn’t really talking about his ribs.
“I -” Blaine tries to begin, but is cut off by sound of the office door flying open. He looks up - and there is his mother. Standing in the doorway wearing a stylish navy dress and pumps, she looks frantic and discomposed in a way that is so rare for her. There are a few strands escaping from the dark brown lacquer of her hair, and she’s breathing hard in a way that suggests running.
“Oh,” says Marita Anderson, voice catching and hand flying to her mouth. “Oh, darling boy.”
“Mom,” chokes Blaine, and she’s already striding across the room. Snapping off her oversized white sunglasses as though they didn’t cost a great deal of money and looking at him with such a devastated look that it makes his lip tremble.
“Your face,” his mother whispers, crouching down in front of the bed. She reaches out with one long, elegant hand and ever-so-gently traces his hairline with her fingertips. The touch still makes Blaine wince: his entire face is practically one big bruise, and every single inch of it hurts. Marita takes a shaky breath, eyes already damp, and looks into his eyes. Blaine looks into the hazel eyes that are so, so like his own; there is sadness there. Sadness, and heartbreak, and anger at the world. “Oh, beloved,” she whispers, voice snagging on the endearment. “Not again.”
“Mom,” says Blaine again, because he thinks it’s all he can say, and his face is hot and crumpling up and the whole room’s gone blurry and everything hurts. Without even realizing it’s happening, there’s something coming hot and wet down Blaine’s cheeks that won’t stop, and all at once his mother’s long arms are around his shoulders in the gentlest, most careful hug he can imagine. He doesn’t want to cry - crying hurts, makes his whole chest ache and pain shoot up his back - but he just can’t make himself stop.
“It’s okay,” she whispers, and the sweet smell of her perfume is filling his nose. It smells like being a child, being safe, and it just makes him cry harder. Every sob sends horrible jolts of pain through his torso, and he can’t reach up to hug her back in case that hurts, too. “Darling boy, I’m here. I’m here.”
Blaine cries. He cries because his whole body hurts, and because it’s all too much, and because his best friend got raped today. He cries because his heart won’t stop aching, and because of what very well could have happened if anything had gone differently in the clearing, and because of how stupid they were about everything. He doesn’t know what to do to make any of this better, or if it even can be made better at all.
He cries because he finally can.
And Blaine understands. He really, really does. Knows that Kurt’s been through more in the past months than most people go through in a lifetime; that he deserves a chance to heal without someone else’s confusing emotions getting in the way. That Kurt’s mind has been broken down and put back together so many times that Kurt must barely know who he is anymore, and that getting away from everything is probably the healthiest thing he could possibly do. Kurt deserves all the time in the world, like Blaine said. He’s willing to give Kurt forever if necessary, is willing to wait days or weeks or months if that’s what Kurt needs.
Blaine understands, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less. It makes it hurt more.
Perched on the edge of the bed, his mother holds him so softly he can barely feel her wrapped round him. They stay like that for what feels like hours but is probably only a few minutes, until the tears haven’t dried up but the pain gets too much to keep sobbing. They slide quietly down his face, Blaine holding up the icepack to his nose his mother gets a quick rundown from the nurse. Afterward she and Nurse Manning lead him carefully to her car, a slick silver Jaguar with cream interiors that Blaine’s barely ever driven in before, and load him inside.
They don’t speak on the ride to the hospital, although the occasional wetness still manages to escape and streak silently down his cheek. But his mother keeps a soft hand on his knee, and plays music quietly on the radio, and hums along to every song she knows for the entire drive there.
--
Walking all the way to the Westerville bus station in town takes just under an hour, but the boy doesn’t care. He can barely feel the exhaustion tugging at his limbs, or the hunger aching in his stomach. Being without the blazer makes him less conspicuous, but the tie is still a dead giveaway to anyone who knows anything. He strips it off and trashes it in the first garbage can he sees.
At the ATM outside the bus station, he takes out his bank card - thank god his wallet was in his pants pocket, thank god - and draws out everything in his pathetic account. It’s all from summer jobs and allowance when he was a kid, but it’s going to have to do because he hasn’t fucking got anything else. He throws the bank card away afterward, because he’s seen enough crime shows to know people can be traced that way.
Jesus fucking Christ, crime shows, he’s a criminal, they have a fucking video and he then beat that fucking kid to pieces -
The boy buys his ticket to Columbus with cash. The ride there doesn’t feel very long, and when he arrives he buys another ticket, this time to Chicago with over an hour before his bus leaves. He goes into the skeevy-as-fuck bathroom and locks himself in one of the stalls, sitting on the toilet with his head in his hands. Breathing too hard, too fast as he tries to think of what to do next, where to go, how to live, how to hide. He isn’t quiet; a couple of guys open the door and leave after a few seconds. But eventually he manages to calm down again.
When the boy boards the bus, the tears have been wiped away. He sleeps curled up into the window, sitting on all the money he has in the world and dreaming of bright blue eyes that shine with tears and fury.
--
The door slips out of his hand and closes with a loud slam, but Kurt can’t muster any remorse. He keeps his eyes straight ahead, tears streaked down his face, as he walks determinately down the hall. It only takes a few paces, though, before Kurt starts to go faster. Speeding up, and taking bigger steps, until he’s flying down the hallway, almost tripping over his feet with sudden desperation to get out, to leave, to get out of this place. He speeds down the main staircase, almost tripping over his feet, and all but throws himself at the heavy main door separating him from the outside world. Kurt slams into it, shoves it open -
-and chokes in a deep breath of air as he’s sent stumbling onto the large stone steps of the entrance. It’s bright outside. Bright and warm and sunny, cool air filling his lungs. Not closed in by the stuffy walls and doors and hallways anymore. Outside, in the open. Free.
Shaking, Kurt glances up. There is a familiar brown truck turning into the school grounds, taking the corner too quickly as it speeds toward him. The sight of it alone is practically enough to set him off again, and he bites down hard on his lip. The truck slows down as it winds to the front of the school, and Kurt can see his dad through the window. He’s wearing his usual hat and a red plaid shirt, and Kurt can see from a distance that his rounded face is pulled into an expression of confused concern.
“Kurt -” begins his dad in a worried tone, but Kurt’s already speeding down the steps. He reaches the passenger side, flings the door open, and clambers hurriedly inside.
“Drive,” Kurt orders, slamming the car door shut. His hands are shaking as he reaches for the seatbelt, but they just need to go right now. “Please, dad, just drive. We need to go. Please -”
Without wasting a moment to ask why, Burt slams on the accelerator. The truck may be old, but it’s tuned and maintained to within an inch of its life. It starts quickly, and within a few moments they’re speeding down the road; through the main gates of Dalton, flying past a fancy silver car headed toward the school. Out, out, out. Away from everything he couldn’t stop from happening to him: the pain, the humiliation. Away from what came so close to happening in the clearing.
Away from Blaine, and how Blaine makes Kurt’s heart ache with confusion and doubt.
Burt doesn’t say anything for the first few minutes of the drive, staring hard at the road in front of them with an inscrutable look on his face. It gives Kurt a chance to catch his breath; pressing himself back into his seat and trying to focus on the in and out, in and out. He knows he must look an absolute disaster; eyes red and face damp, with leaves still clinging to the backs of his uniform trousers. His dad doesn’t say anything; just looks straight ahead and drives.
And then they begin to slow. Before Kurt knows what’s happening, they’re turning off into a small rest area.
“What...?” Kurt asks, not understanding.
“It’s a long drive to Lima,” Burt explains, pulling the truck into an empty parking space. Not even bothering to back in the way he always does, just driving the truck in front-first. The rest area is practically empty. There’s a gas station and not much else; there are only four other cars in the large parking area, spread out far apart from one another. A sparse smattering of foliage lines the outskirts where asphalt turns to dirt. Burt turns the keys in the ignition, and the low rumble of the truck ceases. He turns to face his son. “You’re too upset to wait until we get there, and I want to look you in the eyes when you tell me what’s wrong. Now: what’s wrong, kiddo?”
The words hit Kurt hard in the chest, and for a moment all he can think about is how very much he’s missed his father. Missed talking to him, and their weekends together, and the way Burt knows him better than anyone else in the world.
“I missed you, Daddy,” Kurt whispers in a tiny voice, tears starting to choke in his throat again. His father’s eyes widen at the long-lost term of endearment: it’s something Kurt hasn’t called him regularly since he was perhaps six years old.
And he just can’t hold back any longer. Unbuckling his seatbelt with trembling fingers, Kurt closes the space between them and lets his dad pull him into a tight, warm hug. It’s an awkward position; leaning over sideways with the gearshift digging into Kurt’s side, but none of that matters. The smell of Old Spice and motor oil makes nostalgia edge along his mind as he buries his face in his father’s shoulder.
“I did it, Dad.” Kurt can hear the words, high and shaky and stifled by the rough material of his dad’s shirt. They’re coming fast and uncontrollable from his mouth, as though without permission. “I really did it. I broke it. I don’t - it’s not in me anymore.”
His father’s arms tense around him, and Kurt clings on tighter.
“What?” Burt asks, quiet and careful and not-too-hopeful. There’s a rough edge to his voice. In case he misunderstood, or misheard, because Kurt knows it’s more than he’s ever hoped for. “You mean...?”
Growing up, Kurt imagined this scene a thousand times. Somehow finding a way to break the curse, to make himself free. He’d spent hours fantasizing about how it would feel to have every single path open to him. The idea that maybe one day, if he tried hard enough, he could go anywhere, do anything, and not have to be terrified of discovery or consequences the entire time - it was a beautiful one, and he’d thought about it often. He’d imagined telling his dad, and celebrating, and hugging him so tight they’d find it hard to breathe.
Kurt had never imagined this moment would hurt so much.
“The curse,” Kurt sobs, and the tears are back again. Sliding down his cheeks , and he has no idea if it’s happiness or grief that’s put them there. Can’t tell what’s up or down in his head; can barely tell if this is even real. “It’s gone now, Dad, I - I broke it, it’s -”
“Kurt,” his dad croaks, clinging onto his son’s shoulders. He’s shaking, and Kurt can feel his heart beating in his chest so hard it starts to worry him. “Kurt, oh my god. Are you - you’re sure -?”
“Tell me to do something,” says Kurt, pulling back. His father’s face is ruddy with emotion, and dampness around his blue eyes. Burt blinks hard, and Kurt can see the hope - but also the carefulness, the doubt. The disbelief. “Tell me to do something, Dad.”
“Are you sure?” Burt asks seriously, brows furrowing together. Kurt honestly cannot remember the last time his father gave him any kind of order, even by accident. Finn tended to forget often; he frequently had to undo stupid commands while the two of them were living together, flushing in embarrassment and stammering out awkward apologies. Even Carole occasionally blanked and slipped in motherly orders - put on a jacket before you go out, sweetie and make sure you’re home by ten - if she was distracted by something. His dad, without exception, never gave him orders. Any sort of instruction was always phrased as a request, a suggestion. And he never, ever forbade Kurt from doing anything while he was growing up.
Kurt can’t remember the way his mother dealt with his condition anymore. Those memories are lost, or tucked away, or never existed to begin with.
“Yeah,” says Kurt, nodding hard and swiping a hand across his eyes.
For a long moment, Burt hesitates. He fidgets guiltily before opening his mouth and, as though the words are foreign to him, saying tentatively: “Open the car door.”
And Kurt shakes his head. “No,” he whispers. There is no pain. No dizziness, no aching muscles. There is just the soft syllable of the denial as it hangs along the air. “No, Dad. I won’t.”
“Oh my god.” Whispered words, rushed in disbelief. Tears swelling up in blue eyes. “You - Kurt, you -”
“I know,” Kurt chokes out, and his father pulls him into another tight hug.
“I can’t believe - Kurt -” Burt grips his son’s shoulders hard, pulling him in closer than can possibly be comfortable in the small space. He can feel his father’s chest shaking as he cries unashamedly into Kurt’s shoulder. Kurt twists up his face and tries to commit this moment to memory. This pure, untainted happiness and pride.
“It’s - it’s all I ever wanted for you,” Burt says brokenly into his shoulder. “Kurt, it’s - it’s all we ever wanted for you. Your mom -” His dad shudders hard, drawing in a ragged breath as he squeezes Kurt so hard it’s almost hard to breathe. “Your mom would be so proud of you. And so happy.”
“I know,” Kurt says again, clutching at the red plaid fabric of his father’s shirt.
For a few minutes, there is nothing but their shared breathing as they cling to one another in the cab of the truck. His father, who loves Kurt more than anything. Who’d hoped since he was a child that he could maybe, one day, have a normal life. Who grieved for Kurt’s curse before Kurt himself could even understand what it meant. They hold each other tight, and Kurt knows that the embrace isn’t just for him.
After a long minute, Burt pulls away.
“How?” he asks, and unbridled joy is coming off his voice in waves. It makes something awful twinge in the base of Kurt’s stomach. Burt laughs, squeezing Kurt’s shoulders hard. “How did it happen? Kurt, you can do whatever you want! Be whoever you want! You can have a proper life, the way we always wanted for you! I can’t even - you’ll have to tell me everythi -”
But before Burt can even finish the sentence, he freezes. Looking into Kurt’s face, the laughter and delight begins to slide away from his father’s expression. In its place, concern is swelling up large and real. Kurt winces, curses his face for being so fucking emotive. For showing everything before he wants it to.
He wishes he could have postponed this moment a little bit longer. Let his dad be happy for just that little bit more.
“Kurt?” his dad asks, eyes darkening. “What’s-?”
“I have to tell you something else,” says Kurt in a quiet monotone, folding his hands into his lap. His dad pulls back, looking at him with a confused look on his face. Anxiety and disgust for himself swirl unpleasantly in the bottom of Kurt’s stomach. For all he’s desperately wanted to talk to his dad - to find his dad, to tell his dad - over the past months, the words seem to cling to his tongue.
When he’d confessed his story to Blaine, he’d had the benefit of just tell me what’s wrong to push him through the difficult parts. The aspects that scraped at his insides and hurt to talk about, because it meant that all of it had happened. Because the whole story... the whole story is ugly, and brutal, and humiliating. But every time he’d hesitated when telling Blaine, or had wanted to avoid an aspect, the faintest touch of dizziness had spurred him on. The thing that had kept him imprisoned had allowed him to reach out for help.
But there is no curse now. There’s nothing to support him through this. The past two months have been unthinkably wrong in every possible way, and telling his dad... telling his dad means that it was real. That it happened, to him. That he wasn’t strong enough to stop it from happening.
He’ll never look at me the same way again. The thought twines along the corner of Kurt’s mind, dull with horrified resignation. And if he tells his dad, it won’t be the end. There will be trips to the police, to doctors, and information making it into the news. Submitting evidence and doing interviews and figuring out witnesses and accounts. He won’t be able to keep the last two months quietly in the past as he’d hoped; they’ll be splashed across his life, a constant reminder.
But after long wordless pause, Burt leans forward and puts a hand on Kurt’s knee. The touch is gentle, and steady, and not going anywhere. His hand feels warm.
Don’t fall apart, he tells himself. Just hang in for a little bit longer. Just get through this.
Straightening up, Kurt forces himself to push down the emotion and the hurt. How close, how soon, how much it all is. He opens his mouth, takes a deep breath - and begins to speak.
--
The boy arrives in Chicago late at night. He has no place to sleep and no money to buy a room, so he naps on a park bench outside and waits for the buses to start running again. It’s cold and he hasn’t got a jacket, and it’s probably incredibly stupid to sleep with so much cash on him in a place like this, but he can barely care enough not to lie down right on the ground. He hides the money in his shoe and drifts in and out until the sun rises again.
He spends most of the rest of his pathetically small savings on bus tickets. Running farther and farther away, with no idea who’s coming after him or how fast or if they’re even coming at all. It only hits him when he’s three capitals away and trying to figure out where to sleep for the night that he’s never going to see his parents again. Not his father with his greying hair and patient eyes, or his mother with her tiny stature and strong embrace. The realization hits him so hard he dry heaves in the bus station bathroom for fifteen minutes, tears running down his face that aren’t from the retching at all.
He wonders if this is punishment for what he tried to do - for what he almost succeeded at.
Kurt, he thinks desperately as he clings to the hard, cold porcelain. Kurt, Kurt, Kurt, Kurt, Kurt.
--
In the next weeks, Kurt often finds himself vaguely surprised that the days keep coming and going. It feels, having told his family what happened to him in the past two months, that time should somehow stop working. That the clocks should stop, and the world should stop spinning, and that everything should change because of it.
It doesn’t, though. Days turn into nights, which turn into nightmares, which turn into sheets soaked with cold sweat as he wakes up to the sun just beginning to creep through his curtains. Burt, Carole, and Finn all lead busy lives, even if his dad decided it was necessary to take a few weeks off work to spend time with him. There are tears, of course, and devastated expressions when they find out what he’s been forced to hide from them for months. But it continues to shock him, the little ways that life keeps moving forward. Finn still has programs he likes to watch on television, and Carole still cooks dinner. His dad still listens to sports on the radio when he thinks Kurt is tucked up in his room and won’t be coming out for a few hours.
There are some differences, of course. The trips to the police station, or the hospital, or the friend-of-a-friend-of-an-employee therapist his dad was able to find. Dr. O’Reilly is kind, and collected, and willing to believe Kurt about his former condition with only a few moments of scepticism. But for the most part, Kurt stays at home.
He loves his family, but they have no idea how to act around him. How to talk about or respond to this horrific thing that has invaded their lives; what to say that won’t make him flinch, or draw back into himself, or lash out.
And he doesn’t know how to act around them, either.
Kurt doesn’t know how to act around himself. He feels as though someone has taken a dealing with grief and loss book, turned it upside down above his head, and shaken it out until all the possible symptoms tumbled down around him like standing in a rainstorm. Some days he feels matter-of-fact, and other days he can’t dredge up the energy leave his bed. Some days he goes hours without thinking about it all; and others his dad saying ‘good morning’ will set him off into hysteria-tinged tears that last for hours, feeling disgusting and filthy and wanting to strip off his skin like a snake. It’s frustrating beyond words, not knowing what to expect. He hates having to go through all of it more than anything else, wishes he could just skip this bit and get over everything and be done with it already. To not let the memory of Karofsky control him anymore. Kurt feels impatient with himself more consistently than anything: upset that his family has to deal with him like this.
Sometimes he thinks that the only one who’s frustrated by his process is himself.
Life chips away slowly at the hard, mercenary-like veneer of surviving he’s had to take on. It’s terrifying, letting it go. Letting it go means being a victim, being someone who had something happen to them that they couldn’t stop.
The first time Kurt accidentally calls himself a whore out loud during one of his slightly-frenetic crying jags, his dad slams his hand down onto the kitchen counter so hard the cupboards shake. The action makes Kurt’s whole body freeze and an inexplicable flash of fear shoot through his body - before he realizes his dad is trembling. Eyes squeezed shut and wavering, shaking his head back and forth with tears leaking out of his eyes and before Kurt knows it, he’s the one with his arms wrapped around his dad. Whispering Daddy, it’s okay and I know, Dad, I know and it’s stupid, I know I didn’t - it’s stupid, I’m sorry, I’m sorry over and over again.
Burt spends all night on the phone and books Kurt’s first appointment with Dr. O’Reilly the next day.
In the weeks after he comes home, Kurt sees his father cry more than in the rest of his life put together. Even when Elizabeth died so many years ago, Burt had kept that grief private. Separate; soldiering on to raise his son alone. This time, Kurt can’t help but see how devastated his father is that he wasn’t able to protect his son. Couldn’t ignore it if he wanted to.
Finn and Carole try their hardest, but Finn has no idea what to say or how to act and Carole just doesn’t know him well enough. They try. Finn attempts to let him choose what they watch on television, and Carole asks him what he wants for dinner every day when she comes home from work, but the strangeness of both those things puts him on edge instead of at ease. Makes his skin feel tight and wrong along his body.
When Finn tries to pull him into a hug for the first time since he came home, he jolts back before his arms can even wrap all the way around Kurt’s shoulders. Face a map of horror and regret and guilt, Finn stammers out apologies with wide eyes until Kurt can’t take it anymore. Until he snaps forward and grabs Finn around the stomach, pressing his face into Finn’s wide chest and refusing to move. Burying himself in the safety of the warmth of his stepbrother’s body, smell and feel so utterly different from what Finn is scared of reminding him of, until Finn finally relaxes and hugs him through the tears he didn’t even realize were there.
Physical contact becomes accepted, after that, as long as he initiates it. Carole’s hand tracing up and down his arm as they sit next to one another on the couch, or burying himself in his father’s side, or Finn wrapping an arm around his shoulders. It’s instinctual and base and raw and Kurt wants it so badly, wants to feel safe and held and cared for by people he loves. By people who think he matters.
It still feels surreal, not having the sickness or the dizziness or the compulsion screaming at him inside his own mind. Kurt feels oddly empty, as though a tumour that’s been there his whole life has been sliced out and taken away all at once, without any time to adjust or heal or come to terms with it. He barely knows what to do with himself, most days. Barely has any idea how to think, or react to mundane situations, or think about himself. Has no idea how to approach the world.
The days come and go, sickly slow like dripping honey, and Kurt tries to relearn who he is.
--
It isn’t until he’s been in this city for a few days that he sees the news reports. The television set in the shelter is a piece of shit, at least ten years old. It sits on the kitchen counter and is always on, image flickering dully as the men and women in front of it eat Cheerios out of industrial-sized boxes without milk because there isn’t the money for it at this time of year. The boy sits in a pair of jeans three sizes too big and a hoodie he got for free from a church clothing drive as the story splays across the screen.
“This week, an Ohio boy from a small private school in Westerville was charged with both assault and sexual assault against his classmates,” says the pretty blonde newscaster in a sombre voice. Her eyes still sparkle charmingly despite the content of her story. “The names of all parties are being withheld due to minor status. The boy in question is seventeen years old, and has not been seen for over a week. His parents claim to have no knowledge about his whereabouts. Authorities are on the lookout, although an officer with the Ohio State Police has stated that they ‘are inclined to believe he may have fled the state’.” She shuffles her notes, smiling at the screen. “Now, on to the weather, Alex...”
There’s a loud clang, and the boy is jolted out of his terrified daze to realize that he’s dropped his spoon onto the wooden table. A couple of people glance up briefly, but no one looks at him for too long. The eyes of these people are clouded with regret and drugs and loneliness, and they don’t have time for some stupid newcomer who’s too young to know what real trouble is. No one here even knows his real name.
And no one seems to have noticed the news report.
It’s with shaking hands that the boy picks up the spoon again and continues to eat, keeping his head down and his eyes pointedly fixed on the table below.
--
By mid-May, the weather is finally beginning to warm up. Around campus, more and more students are starting to go without their blazers when not in class; dozens of boys in white dress shirts with the sleeves rolled up can be seen, excited for the transition into summer weather. With final exams and papers coming up in just over a month, an air of anxiety is mixing with the anticipation for summer holidays. Dalton teachers have high standards, and the school itself orients toward preparation for post-secondary education. Even with Blaine only in junior year, the pressure to perform well is high.
Missing a few days of school after the confrontation in the woods hadn’t helped his preparedness levels, either. Neither had the fact that Karofsky had managed to sprain two fingers in his writing hand. They’d swollen and bruised and hurt badly for the first week, and only now is Blaine able to attempt any sort of mobility in them at all. Writing notes by hand is still completely out of the question, although the school had done their best to accommodate him. Every one of his teachers had been instructed to allow him to bring his laptop in order to frantically type sloppily with his left hand only, and most had organized for one of their other students to photocopy their notes and provide him with a copy. It isn’t ideal, but it’s better than nothing at all.
It’s been a week and a half since the encounter with Karofsky in the woods, and Blaine hasn’t heard anything from Kurt since he walked out of the nurse’s office refusing to look Blaine in the eye. In his more honest moments, Blaine knows that having no idea how Kurt is doing hurts worse than all his injuries combined.
But he understands. He does, and Blaine doesn’t want to be that friend. Who promises space and then crowds around, shoving himself into Kurt’s personal space where he doesn’t belong and making everything harder. So aside from the single text message he sent on the day of the confrontation, Blaine hasn’t tried to contact Kurt at all.
The text had been typed out with his left hand after returning home from the ER, lying in bed and wincing at the pain in his chest with a mug of his mother’s salabat steaming on his bedside table. His father had hovered anxiously outside his bedroom door, obviously debating whether or not to come inside, as he typed:
To: Kurt Hummel
May 9th 2011, 10:54pm
Whenever you’re ready. I care about you so much, Kurt. I can wait. - Blaine
It’s been a week and half, and he hasn’t received anything back. But at least this time Blaine know the reason for Kurt’s drawing away, understands it. Is willing to give Kurt the room he needs. Besides, finals and notes and dealing through the pain of three cracked-not-fractured-thank-god ribs have all been at least a decent distraction.
And when he finally hears anything at all about Kurt’s well-being, it doesn’t happen quite in the way he’d expected.
Blaine is walking from the main building back to Tower Residence, a bookbag slung over his wrong shoulder and fretting slightly about an assignment for Law when he notices a vehicle pull into the residence parking lot. That in itself is unusual at this time of day, and so is the vehicle in question. It’s a large brown truck, odd when juxtaposed against a lot filled mostly with sleek silver sedans. Without fully understanding why he bothers, Blaine pauses to watch as the door opens and a man slides out.
The man is older and bald, wearing a black cap and a tired expression. His shirt looks like some sort of uniform in a rough blue, and when he turns Blaine gets a look at his face. He doesn’t look much like the kind of adults who usually come to visit their children here, even as Blaine feels guilty thinking it. Something twinges in his head, like a memory half-forgotten. As though Blaine’s seen him somewhere before...
When it hits him, his eyes fly wide open.
“Mr. Hummel!” Blaine shouts, because the man is walking toward the main building at a quick pace that Blaine can’t keep up with without his chest screaming in protest. “Mr. Hummel, wait!”
Burt Hummel turns at the sound of his name being called, the confused expression on his face twisting into a fusion of shock and suspicion when his gaze falls on Blaine’s face. It’s a look that Blaine’s grown extremely accustomed to over the past few weeks: the swelling in his nose has gone down a lot, but there are bruises still fading along the ridge of his nose and eyes. It doesn’t exactly make him look friendly.
“Do I know you?” Burt asks slowly, eyes lingering on the gash above Blaine’s eyebrow that Karofsky left with his school ring.
“Sorry,” pants Blaine, coming over as fast as he can without hurting himself. “Sorry, no, but - Kurt had a picture of you and him as his Facebook profile for a long time, so -”
“Wait, you know Kurt?” The older man’s face hardens, and something distrustful comes into his eyes. It hurts to see, even if Blaine understands. “How do you -?”
“Blaine Anderson,” he says, too quickly, stepping on Burt’s words like on a partner’s feet in a dance. “Sorry. I don’t - I don’t even know if he mentioned me, but...”
Blaine trails off when he sees the recognition twinge in Burt’s expression. Kurt’s father seems to freeze, staring down at Blaine’s face as though for the first time. Taking in the bruises and the cuts with a new eye. Blue eyes dart down to where Blaine’s right hand is motionless down by his side, the way he’s holding himself slightly awkwardly. Blaine doesn’t know this man at all, only has Kurt’s stories to go on. Has no idea how much Kurt’s decided to tell his father, or how Burt will react.
But Burt’s posture is loosening, slumping. His eyes are sad.
“Oh, Blaine,” says Burt, shaking his head. “That son of a bitch really did a number on you, didn’t he.” It isn’t a question, and it’s all Blaine needs to know that Kurt has told his father everything.
“Is he okay?” Blaine can’t stop himself from asking. “Is Kurt okay? Or. Not okay, of course, but...” He bites down on his lip. “He’s all right?”
“He’s dealing,” says Burt without inflection, and the words make Blaine wince. Of course Kurt’s dealing. He’s not all right, or okay, or anything resembling those things. It would be stupid to think otherwise.
In front of him Burt crosses his arms, and for a horrifying second it hits Blaine that maybe Burt thinks he abandoned Kurt when things got hard. That he threw up his hands and let Kurt walk away without offering any help at all. The idea of Kurt’s dad thinking that sort of thing about him makes Blaine feel slightly sick.
“Space,” he blurts, sounding more and more like an idiot with every passing second. “Kurt wanted space, so I’m giving it. Space, I mean. And time.” Burt's expression doesn’t shift at all, so Blaine keeps going. “And that’s fine, I get it, I really do. But I saw you and knew who you were, and I just thought...” Blaine looks down at his feet, feeling heat rush into his face. Awkwardness is clenching in his chest. “It’s just... hard, you know? Knowing he’s hurting and not being able to help. So it’s stupid, but could you... could you maybe give him a hug from me? You don’t have to say it’s from me, or anything,” he hastens to clarify. “Just... make sure he knows there are people who really care about him.”
There’s a long, long pause. Blaine’s hearts sinks with the complete certainty that he’s gone too far, he’s overstepped boundaries. He’s just about to try to duck away when Burt nods.
“Sure,” says Kurt’s dad, nodding slowly. “I can do that.”
“Oh,” says Blaine weakly. “Thank you, sir. Really.”
“Burt’s fine,” says Burt, and Blaine fully expects him to make his excuses and continue on his way toward the main office. He doesn’t. Instead, he keeps looking right at him. Looking at Blaine as though he’s seeing something more than bruises and slicked-down hair and a nice uniform. It makes Blaine feel incredibly uncomfortable, exposed. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other.
Eventually, Burt is the one to break the silence.
“Kurt... he’s not very good at doing nothing. I think it’s hard for him, in a funny way, being at home so much.” A pause. “Did you hear that Karofsky kid pulled a runner?” Burt asks, as though trying to make conversation, but something awful and bitter twists in Blaine’s chest.
“Yeah,” Blaine mutters, shaking his head. “My parents tried to press charges for -” he gestures with his left hand, as if to encompass the bruises and the cuts, “- but no one knows where he is. The last thing we heard, someone saw him get on a bus to Columbus, but... nothing since then.” Blaine shakes his head, and there’s a strange numbness edging at his fingertips. “I can’t believe he’s going to get away with it,” he says dully. “With everything, with... with what he did to Kurt.”
“I know,” says Burt gruffly. There are bags under his eyes, and for the first time Blaine realizes how exhausted Kurt’s father looks. Blaine can’t even imagine finding out about what happened to his son, or how powerless Burt must feel about the entire thing. And it’s all so fucking unfair. It doesn’t seem like it’s possible that they should live in a world where sometimes bad people don’t get what’s coming to them. That one person could irrefutably damage so many people’s lives and walk away scot-free, and that there’s nothing anyone can do to make it better.
In a strange way, it makes Blaine angry with the fairy tales and children’s books his mother used to read to him when he was small. The ones where the good guys always saved the day, and the bad guys got punished, and everything ended in happily ever after no matter how horrible everything had been before. Those books had never prepared him for anything like this; for how unfair it could all be.
All at once, Blaine comes back to himself. “Sorry,” he mumbles, giving his head a shake, but Burt’s giving him an understanding look that even edges on pity. Because this is a man who has known for years. Who watched his son grow up and knew exactly how unfair and awful the world has the potential to be.
It occurs to Blaine for the first time to wonder why Burt is at Dalton at all. “Mr. Hu - I mean, Burt - if it’s okay to ask, what are you doing here?”
“Picking up Kurt’s stuff out of his room,” the older man explains. “Everything got left there he when we took off, and I haven’t had the chance to come get it yet. Kurt... he didn’t really want to go back again to pack, you know?”
An image drifts into Blaine’s mind. A tangle of naked limbs and the slide of sweat-on-sweat, choked gasps and pleasure that wasn’t real emanating off Kurt in waves. And another image, from that awfulsickdisgustingwrong video. The one Blaine had been forced to edit on his laptop in order to convert it into the right filetype to put on a CD. A little clip of Kurt on his knees, small body jolted with every rock as Karofsky slams his cock into Kurt’s mouth playing over and over in his mind.
“God, of course,” Blaine mutters, shuddering. He catches Burt’s eye. “Do you need any help?” When Burt looks dubiously down at Blaine’s right hand, he clarifies. “I mean, I can show you where his room is if you have his key.” The Law assignment can wait until later tonight, Blaine decides. This is more important. “And I can carry some of the lighter things, if you want the help.”
“I do have his key,” says Burt slowly. “Was just going to go ask the main office for directions, but... yeah. Why not? Show me the way, kid.”
Blaine smiles, and leads the way. Kurt’s father walks with him to the Milward-Hopkins building in a manner that Blaine finds himself truly appreciating, even if he can’t quite put his finger on why. Burt Hummel doesn’t walk ever-so-slightly too quickly like his own father, as though challenging Blaine to go that little bit faster, push that little bit harder to catch up. And he doesn’t baby him like Blaine’s mother, who winces every time he takes a step and looks as though she means to catch him if he falls. Instead, Burt slows his pace and they walk side by side. It’s nice.
When they reach the door to Kurt and Karofsky’s dorm room, Burt turns the key in the lock - and both of them freeze as the door swings open.
The room looks as though there are two boys still living there. There’s a Dalton sports hoodie thrown over the back of one of the computer chairs, and an iPod plugged into the wall and charging next to what Blaine can only assume was Kurt’s bed. There’s a crumpled piece of paper on the floor that Blaine is almost positive is the note they wrote together. The bathroom light is still on.
Neither of them can look at one another for a few minutes, hovering in the doorway until Burt finally takes a deep breath and steps inside.
Emptying out Kurt’s room takes a while, in the end, and the two of them don’t talk very much in the process. Burt brought boxes and bags in the car, and the two of them fill them all up with clothes that Blaine folds and Burt carries, pots of moisturizer, books, CDs, rolled-up posters, and a million other things left here like relics of the past.
Words hang between them, unspoken and loud amid the shuffles of sorting and packing up Kurt’s life.
Click here to move on to Chapter Five, continued.