The Night Is Long and I Have Far To Go [2/?]
Title: The Night Is Long and I Have Far To Go
Genre: Suspense, Mystery, Drama, Romance
Overall story rating: NC-17
Current chapter rating: PG
Spoilers: None. This story is AU.
Disclaimer: I don't own Glee. You probably already knew that.
Summary: A premonition of disaster has Kurt desperately searching NYC for his ex-boyfriend Dave before it's too late. But madness rules the night and Kurt quickly finds himself mired in a series of bizarre encounters with mildly out-of-character, wildly out-of-context Gleeks. Featurs all the Glee characters.
Chapter 1: The Witching Hour
Chapter 2: Of Sweat and Premonitions
"Kurt? Are you alright?" When he finally stopped hyperventilating, Kurt registered tapping on his apartment door and the high, tremulous voice of his multi-phobic neighbor Emma Pillsbury. He looked at the clock. 11:25 PM.
"Kurt! Kurt, open this door!" Her soft taps became louder thuds. "I heard screaming, are you being attacked? If you're being attacked, kick him in the unmentionables! Answer me, Kurt!" As much as he appreciated the concern, Kurt couldn't resist rolling his eyes when he heard her start to hyperventilate. Emma was a classic 'sympathy spazz'.
"I'm alright, Emma," he called in as steady a voice as he could muster, which was surprisingly steady, thanks to years and years of vocal training. Kurt blinked rapidly and the waking world gradually became more real. His blue silk pajamas were damp with persperation and his jaw hurt, apparently from clenching during the hellish dream. "I'll open the door, but you might want to hold your nose. I'm pretty sweaty."
"Oh? Oh! That kind of screaming. I...um... I didn't realize, Kurt." Overcome with embarrassment, the prim and proper immunologist began babbling quickly. "I'm so sorry to disturb you. And your friend," she added hastily, picking up speed. "Uh, say 'hi' for me to whomever it is. Well, I suppose it must be a man, of course. So, yes, say 'hi' to your gentleman caller and I'll just slip away so you two can get back to... um... I mean, I assume there are only two of you... but I'm not passing judgment if you've got a more... um... plural arrangement… Actually, even if it's just you in there alone, that's perfectly okay, too, and not anyone else's business. Self-pleasuring is completely natural and healthy, no matter what Mother said."
Kurt straightened his pajamas with one hand, while he quickly flipped the four deadbolts on his door with the other, trying all the while to quell his trembling. Taking a deep, steadying breath, he pulled the door open and smiled sweetly at the flustered woman. Kurt knew his screams could practically shatter glass, and could only imagine what they must have done to her nerves. But he wasn't smiling out of guilt, and he wasn't smiling at her prudish euphemisms. He was smiling because amid all the 33 residents on that floor of their apartment building, only Emma had cared enough to come check on him. God help me if I ever do get attacked in this rat-trap, Kurt thought ruefully.
"See, still in one piece," he said, faking a calm he did not at all feel. "And I'm the one to apologize. I was having a nightmare about a guy I used to know." Emma's huge doe eyes widened with curiosity "Well, an ex-boyfriend, actually. It was..." He was going to say it was no big deal. He was going to say he was fine. But the image of Dave, dead, cold and mutilated, flickered in his cyan eyes and he started to unravel. "It was... Oh, Emma, it was horrific!" Kurt began to sob and without hesitation Emma folded him into a gentle embrace.
They weren't close friends. Just chatted a bit in the elevator, watered each other's plants when one went out of town, that short of thing. She'd only been in his modest but tastefully decorated apartment once before. They were both fundamentally private people. But Emma closed the door and nudged him onto his cream Bjork dromedar loveseat. Then she sat lightly beside him, rubbing his back and making soft, maternal shushing noises, as Kurt choked out the details of his nightmare.
"Pretty pathetic, huh? A grown man sniveling over a nonsensical dream about a guy I haven't seen for years." Kurt plucked self-consciously at his drying pajama top, finally getting the last of his sniffles under control
.
Emma's countenance became very serious. She straightened her posture deliberately, and then bent forward slightly to fuss with the fashion magazines on Kurt's coffee table. She sorted them alphabetically, and then resorted them in descending order of size as she spoke. Her voice was eerily controlled and measured.
"Kurt, do you believe in premonitions? Some people call it divine revelation, some people call it heightened intuition."
"I..." Kurt hesitated. He wanted to say no. But there was that one time, wasn't there, when he auditioned with like 800 other guys for the bit part in Legally Blonde: The Series, which turned out to be his "big break," and he just knew he was going to get it, even before his agent called a few hours later.
"I..." And then there was that time in middle school, when he woke from another nightmare, crying and clinging to his dad. He couldn't remember the dream, but he was in such hysterics Burt had to stay home from the garage that morning. Thank god the other mechanics got out before the fire reached the gasoline tanks. And even farther back, as a young boy -
Kurt's breath hitched and his eyes flew wide. He'd forgotten. No, not forgotten. Repressed. In the playground at recess, swinging away on the jungle gym, laughing and clowning with the other kids, when suddenly his little eight-year old soul was engulfed in crushing, overwhelming grief. That night, driving home from work, Katherine Elizabeth Hummel, beloved wife and mother, released her last earthly breath amid the wreckage of a four-car pile up.
"Do you believe in premonitions?"
"I'm a scientist. I was trained to accept the truth of hypotheses only when all efforts to prove them wrong have been exhausted. But yes," The red head's eyes were shining with moisture now and she grasped Kurt's hand almost painfully hard and nodded vigorously, "I agree with Hamlet."
"There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy," Kurt recited. "I know it sounds stupid, Emma, but I can't shake the feeling that the dream was a warning, that Dave's in terrible danger. You don't think I'm overreacting?"
"I don't think you are overreacting."
"What should I do?" His voice was very small and fragile.
"Do you know how to reach Dave, where he lives?"
"The last time we spoke was when I told him to get out of my life forever. He moved in with a college buddy in lower Manhattan. Finn something. That was six years ago, just after he got his accounting license." Kurt's mouth quirked up at the corners, although he didn't realize it. "Dave was gifted with math and part of his brain was always counting something. I was 23 and thought that was the most unimaginative habit in the world. That was eight plays, four college credits, three unsuccessful sitcom pilots, one soap opera and several long-term gentlemen callers ago."
"And a partridge in a pear tree," Emma replied with mock solemnity. Kurt gave a light laugh and immediately felt better. "I think you have to find him, Kurt, for your own peace of mind, if nothing else."
"Then I have to do it now, right away!" Kurt jumped up and looked again at the clock. 12:07 AM. Based on past experience, his premonitions had a short shelf life. If he failed, Dave could be dead by morning.
Chapter 3: The Many Kinks of Jacob ben-Israel
Chapter 4: Taxi to the Dark Side
Chapter 5: Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang
Chapter 6: Who Shot JFK?
Chapter 7: Lord Tubbington Holds Court
Chapter 8: The Ghost of Christmas Past
Chapter 9: ...and Here's How it Ended