Fanfic - Visions of Rain (part one)
Fandom: Glee
Characters: Blaine, Kurt, various
Warnings: Some violence, potentially triggering descriptions of mental illness
Summary: Blaine learns the true meaning of love when something happens to Kurt.
Disclamers: Glee is not my intellectual property
Written for this prompt on the glee_angst_meme. This is by far the longest thing I have ever written at almost 58,000 words and 114 pages. I still have trouble believing I wrote this. Enjoy.
---
Kurt wasn’t answering his phone. It had happened before, (though Kurt was almost religious about making sure his phone was always on him) but this time felt different, like the bad taste left in one’s mouth after a really long sleep. He knew it was late, but this just wasn’t like Kurt. Blaine frowned at the recording of Kurt’s sullen, almost bored voice as it told him through the tiny phone speakers that he wasn’t available and to leave a message after the tone.
He listened to the quick chirp signaling the start of the recording for his message. He opened his mouth and then shut it again, lost for words. Something was wrong. Nothing felt quite right.
“Hey, Kurt. It’s Blaine. If you get this, give me a call. Thanks,” he spat out quickly before tapping the screen to end the call. He briefly entertained texting Kurt, but if he was ignoring calls, he might not have his phone around. It was a stupid idea; it was stupid to worry. Kurt was fine. The boy just wasn’t answering his phone. Nothing to worry about. Blaine was getting upset over nothing. But the niggling feeling in the pit of his stomach would not let him be.
The more he thought about it, the more he realized that Kurt had been acting weird while they were still at school, before the break. Not overly strange, just more subdued, more distant as the school year dwindled to a close. And maybe he hadn’t looked as clean and crisp as he normally did every day, but he’d be back to himself the next day if he slipped.
He’d also seemed kind of distracted-spacing out during Warblers practices, grades steadily falling (though not enough to overly worry Burt or Carole); he even wandered away in the middle of conversations every now and again, sometimes singing to himself under his breath. It was a bit unnerving now that he thought about it.
He’d also stopped caring properly for Pavarotti, to the point that Blaine had taken the bird in secret before finals; he was sitting on his perch in Blaine’s room right now in fact, tilting his head to the side in that cute little way that he always did. No one knew he had him, and Blaine wouldn’t tell. He couldn’t do that to Kurt. But the bird had been in pretty bad condition when he’d taken him: kind of rumpled, cage lining piled with chalky white excrement and discarded grey and yellow feathers, food dish nearly empty with only the shells of seeds coating the bottom, water cloudy and dotted with something Blaine couldn’t identify.
It had been a pretty sad sight, but Blaine had shrugged it off. Kurt was busy; he was tired; he was probably having trouble adjusting to the new environment he’d been thrust into; and he probably didn’t know a thing about caring for a bird (Blaine vaguely remembered Kurt saying that his dad had been adamantly opposed to pets, and hey, it helped him keep things clean around the house, so who was he to complain?). Kurt had only asked after Pavarotti once after he’d been taken, when he’d been unable to find the cage in his room, though there were sunny little feathers still scattered across his desk. It was odd because Kurt was normally such a tidy person. It wasn’t like him at all. The whole thing was even more unsettling now that he thought about it.
But that had been it. Nothing big or really out of the ordinary, just little things. Kurt was still mostly Kurt. There wasn’t anything to worry about. But he still hadn’t answered his phone, and that something in Blaine’s gut, in the back of his brain, wouldn’t leave him alone.
He’d try Kurt at home. Yeah, he was probably home. Maybe he had left his phone where he couldn’t get to it, or he had walked out of the room with it set to silent, or perhaps he was taking a shower or something. It wasn’t anything to worry about. Kurt was fine. He’d just call the house phone and verify.
If nothing else, Burt or Carole or even Finn could tell him where Kurt was and maybe just what in the heck was going on, if anything at all.
He turned his phone over in his hands once, twice, before looking at the screen. He sighed and scrolled through his contacts. He knew Kurt’s cell number by heart, but his home number still escaped him. He needed the help of his trusty contact log.
He thumbed through the names. David. Frank. Jeff. There. Kurt. He hit send and waited. One ring. Two. Three. Four. Fi-Hello, you’ve reached Burt, Kurt, Carole and Finn. It looks like nobody’s here right now, but if you leave your name and number at the beep-Blaine cut the connection. No one at home, even at this time of night. That was bad. Something was up.
He got up, his bare feet brushing comfortably against the soft carpet of his room. It was nice to be home, to get out of uniform, enjoy the nice cool breeze of the summer night as it wafted in through his window. He opened up Pavarotti’s cage and plucked the bird up in his cupped hands. He chirped and hopped and was generally being cute, even if Blaine had just woken him up. Thank goodness he’d thought to clip the his wings-Blaine couldn’t have him flying out the open window, even if it was night and the bird was likely too tired to think of escape.
“You think something’s wrong with Kurt too, don’t you, buddy?” He stroked a thumb over the soft feathers of Pavarotti’s head. The canary closed his eyes in contentment. Then it hit him-Finn. Finn had a cell phone.
He placed Pavarotti on his bed and fumbled with his phone. Finn, Finn, Finn; he was sure Kurt or his dad or somebody somewhere had given Finn’s number to him. Yes! There. He hastily pounded the number and waited. One ring. Two.
“Yeah?” He sounded tired and shaky, but yes, it was Finn. He needed answers.
“Finn? It’s me, Blaine. You know, Kurt’s friend?” Stupid. Of course Finn knew who he was.
Finn sighed. He sounded beat. “Yeah? What’s up?”
“Well, I-I was trying to get in touch with Kurt, but he’s not answering his phone.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Oh. Well, I was wondering if something was up. He’s usually really good about answering his phone, and you guys weren’t picking up at home. I was just curious to know if something was up and where he might be. I was, uh, kind of worried.” God, he sounded stupid.
“Um, look, Blaine. Why don’t you come meet us here? I can’t really explain everything over the phone and I think it might make Burt feel a little better to see you here. He knows Kurt trusts you.” He paused. Blaine could almost feel Finn running a hand through his hair in that way he seemed to do when he was nervous or anxious about something. “We’re at St. Rita’s. Kurt was just admitted. I’ll tell you everything when you get here.”
---
Admitted. Admitted. Admitted. The word rang through Blaine’s head as he sped toward the hospital. He didn’t even bother to sing along to the soft music of the radio filling his car like he always did, he was so distracted. Kurt had been admitted. To St. Rita’s. Finn hadn’t told him any more than that, and the lack of information was ripping Blaine apart with worry.
What had happened to Kurt? Was he hurt? Did it have anything to do with his odd behavior lately? Blaine suddenly felt cold as he remembered the string of suicides among gay teens late last year. Had Kurt…? Had he tried? But Kurt wouldn’t do something like that, would he? Blaine thought-no, he was sure Kurt was stronger than that. And the bullying had stopped; Kurt was safe at Dalton now. Why would he do something like that? And why wouldn’t he talk to Blaine about it first? Kurt knew that he was there for him and always would be, so why?
His mind buzzed with speculation, none of it all that good, and he felt sick. No, Kurt wasn’t like that. He’d never do something like that. Not to his dad. Even if Kurt ever got that desperate, he’d never do anything to hurt his dad like that. Yeah. But that meant something else was wrong, and Blaine couldn’t stop running the possibilities around and around in his head. The GPS informed him in its calm feminine voice that his exit was approaching. He’d get his answers soon. He tightened his grip on the wheel and pressed a little harder on the gas, watching the signs along the road whip past in blurs of yellow and white.
---
Walking into St. Rita’s was like entering a beehive. There were people everywhere-a man hastily filling out paperwork while the pregnant woman beside him rubbed his shoulder in a comforting manner, her other hand resting lightly on her distended belly; an elderly woman getting wheeled behind the set of double automatic doors leading into the back while her tiny little husband followed behind the nurse pushing her wheelchair like a lost puppy; a man who must have stumbled in only minutes before Blaine (maybe that’s whose car was double-parked outside the doors), supported by what looked like his brother, clutching a bleeding wound over his left eye; nurses wandering through various sets of doors-people kept streaming in and out of the groups and clusters lining the room, lost in their own worlds, burdened with their own problems, and it was somewhat overwhelming.
He looked around the waiting area and saw Finn standing near the wall beside a wilting plant, gaze fixed on something outside the large windows, though it was almost too dark to see anything outside, even with the bright lights of the hospital building and parking lot shining onto the pavement and lines of parked cars ringing the building.
Finn was alone and looked to be both immensely tired and worried. The bright yellow tag that declared him a visitor stuck out like a beacon on his chest; a little sunny spot on Finn’s thin black jacket. Where were Burt and Carole? He’d assumed Kurt would be in the back somewhere, lost in the maze of rooms and patients, but Blaine was certain that at least one of the adults would have kept Finn company. In the end he supposed it didn’t matter. They were probably with Kurt.
He strode over to the other boy, careful of the few people sprawled or hunched over in the light green chairs of the waiting room. Finn didn’t notice his approach.
“Uh, hey.” He waved his hand awkwardly at Finn, trying to catch his attention without drawing that of the other people in the room.
Finn looked up and saw Blaine’s reflection in the over-large glass. Good. He was here. He turned and Blaine could see the tracks of exhaustion carved into his face. Finn was beat.
“Hey, man. Glad you could make it,” he said with a sad imitation of a smile. He fell silent for a moment, eyes falling to his shoes. Ex-crush-turned-stepbrother and mentor-slash-sort-of-new-crush-but-also-kind-of-boyfriend. Standing together in the waiting room of a hospital with the link between them somewhere in the back. This was awkward. Painfully awkward. Finn shuffled his feet, though Blaine couldn’t tell if it was an attempt by Finn to keep himself awake or just something to break the terrible silence. “So, uh, I guess I should tell you what happened. They won’t let anybody outside of family see Kurt just yet, and they’re kind of keeping us in the dark too.”
Blaine nodded and gestured to an empty space in the line of chairs propped against the wall. Finn slumped into the nearest one and Blaine sat beside him, body thrumming with nervous energy.
Finn sighed deeply and slouched down against the slightly flat cushioning of the chair. “So, uh, first I actually have a question for you.”
Blaine went rigid. Did this have something to do with him? His mind shot back to his suicide theory from the drive over. Oh god, had Kurt tried to kill himself because of him? A knife of pain shot through his chest as he waited for Finn to speak.
“Was Kurt acting weird, well, weirder than normal while you guys were at Dalton?”
That was unexpected. “Weird how? Like, not himself?”
Finn nodded.
“Um, well, he seemed really distracted the last couple of weeks of school, but not overly so, just kind of spacey. He was also a little messier than normal-just little stuff, like not folding his jacket or forgetting to comb his hair every now and again. But finals were coming up, so I thought he was just stressed about them, or devoting a lot of time to studying or something.”
Blaine frowned and looked at his hands folded over his knees. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to tell this part, but it was Kurt, and it might be important. He drew in a deep breath. “He-well, we gave him a canary to take care of as the newest member of the Warblers.” Finn shot him an incredulous look, not too sure about the whole bird situation. Kurt hadn’t told him about a bird, not even during the breaks. “Yeah, it’s a Dalton thing-well, a Warbler thing. A warbler for a Warbler. Sort of a tradition. They gave me one too when I joined, though I gave him to my sister as a gift when she left for college.
“Kurt seemed to like him, but I had to take Pavarotti-the bird-away from him. He wasn’t really getting taken care of. I just thought Kurt might not know how to care for him, or he was too busy or something, but I guess that should have been a sign that something was wrong. I don’t know. Kurt really seemed to like having Pavarotti around.”
He turned to Finn, puzzled and nervous. “Do you think that has anything to do with this?”
Finn nodded, still silent. There was more to this than either boy wished to say. They didn’t look at each other. Blaine desperately wanted answers but wasn’t willing to push it, wasn’t willing to push the other boy into anything. Not now. Not when he looked so defeated. Finn would tell him eventually. Things would be okay.
They watched the bustle of the hospital staff as they moved throughout the room, giving news and helping people as they went. Yeah, things would be okay. He just needed to be patient. They had time.
---
They sat there in companionable silence for what felt like an eternity, simply watching the comings and goings of the hospital around them. It was calming in a way-a distraction from the fact that Kurt was in the back somewhere and Blaine still had no idea what was going on, even though he’d been here for who knows how long.
“Kurt talks a lot about you, you know?”
“Huh?” It was somewhat jarring to hear Finn’s voice again. “What?”
“Kurt. He talks about you. All the time. It’s kind of funny, actually.” Finn turned his head to face the boy beside him. There was a strange sort of grin on his face, too tired and sad to be comforting but closer than his earlier attempt. “I think he likes you.”
Blood rushed to Blaine’s cheeks and the room suddenly felt far too warm. He had been pretty sure that Kurt had been crushing on him (and Blaine had been crushing on him back, if he was honest with himself) but it felt different hearing it from someone else, like some kind of elicit affair. Finn was talking again. “He didn’t say much to anybody at all, though-after coming home for the summer, I mean-but I didn’t think much of it. We hadn’t really talked in about a month-you know, with finals and all the stuff that piles up at the end of the school year-you know how it goes, but he had even gotten kind of lax on talking to his dad over the phone and stuff. I guess we just figured he was busy, and summer was just around the corner, so why make it an issue? Makes me feel pretty stupid that we didn’t pick up on anything then. Maybe things wouldn’t have gotten this bad if we had.”
Blaine leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, staring hard at Finn when he quieted. The other boy remained silent for a short while, but Blaine was done being patient. He needed to know what was up with Kurt, why the heck he was sitting here with Finn waiting for news on him in St. Rita’s Medical Center.
“Go on,” Blaine encouraged him. When Finn didn’t speak Blaine frowned a little in frustration. It was time to pull out the big guns. “You said you’d tell me what was going on when I got here. I’ve been sitting with you for,” he glanced at the clock on the wall, “twenty-some minutes now, and all I know now that I only guessed at before is that Kurt thinks I’m cute. Cut the crap, Finn. What’s going on? Why am I spending a Saturday night in the waiting room of a hospital that’s almost two hour’s drive away?”
Finn sighed deeply and looked up at the ceiling tiles. The one above him had a brownish stain in the shape of a hat.
“I guess I should start when Kurt came home for the summer.”
---
Kurt was home when Finn pulled into the driveway, if the black Navigator parked beside the sidewalk outside the house was any indication.
Strange; he usually called or texted when he was on his way home. Odd. Maybe his phone was discharged or he’d only told his dad he was on his way home. That was fine. It happened every now and again. Finn shrugged and made his way up the walk, backpack slung over one shoulder. He swung his keys around his finger. The tinkling sound they made filled the air. Dalton got out before McKinley (lucky bastards) but he only had, like three days left. No biggie. And Kurt would be home, which was a plus. He’d kind of missed him the past couple of weeks.
He whistled a little to himself as he approached the door and turned the handle. Huh. Locked. He frowned. Why the hell would Kurt lock the door if he was home? He shrugged. Whatever. Maybe he was asleep or showering or something. It was Kurt after all. Finn flipped through the keys on his ring, quickly locating his house key and unlocking the door.
The smell of cookies hit his nose. He could hear pots and pans clattering in the kitchen. The hell?
“Kurt?” No response. “Kurt, is that you?”
He plopped his backpack down beside the door in a heap and pocketed his keys. “Kurt, if that’s you, man, this really isn’t funny.” More clattering from the kitchen.
He carefully made his way over to the kitchen, fully aware of the shuffling his shoed feet made on the carpet. He didn’t have any weapons on him if it was some sort of psycho, but he was pretty strong. Well, at least he thought he was. He wasn’t a football player for nothing. The thought still didn’t help to quell the furious beating of his heart as he peered around the corner into the kitchen. Oh god, what if he’d already gotten to Kurt? What if he was holding him hostage or something? Finn really wished he had a bat or something right now.
But it was only Kurt in the kitchen when he rounded the corner, crouched low to the floor on his knees, head stuck inside one of the cabinets near the stove. Pots and pans were scattered everywhere-on the table, the floor, the counter. The cookie smell was even stronger here. Finn looked around. There was a bowl of what looked like dough sitting against the sink. Huh.
“Kurt?”
Kurt jumped a little, his head thumping lightly against the inside of the cabinet. Finn swore he could hear a muffled curse before the other boy peeked his head out. “Finn? That you?” He squinted at Finn a little, rubbing the back of his head.
“Uh, yeah. Wasn’t expecting to see you home. You didn’t let us know or anything.”
“I didn’t?” He stood up and grabbed for his phone, which he’d left sitting on the counter above him. He scrolled through his messages and call history. “Crap, I guess I forgot. Give me a second to text dad and let him know I’m back.”
Finn nodded and looked around while Kurt’s fingers tapped over the keys of his phone. He didn’t think he’d ever seen the place so messy, so chaotic. He wondered briefly what Kurt was doing.
“So you’re home early.” Kurt was smiling at him and leaning back, completely at ease. He was still sort of in his Dalton uniform, though the tie and jacket were missing. The white sleeves of his school shirt were rolled up just above his elbows, and there was a light dusting of flour on the tops of his thighs, white against the dark grey of his pleated pants.
“Uh, yeah. I don’t have a seventh period class on Tuesdays.” He looked uncomfortably around the room. “Um, no offense, dude, but what the heck are you doing?”
Kurt looked confused for a moment before glancing around the room. His eyes widened, almost as if he were seeing the mess for the first time. “Oh wow, I didn’t realize I’d gotten this far. I was um, I was organizing the pots and things because I had some trouble finding what I needed earlier. Guess I got a little carried away.”
He frowned a little at the mess, straightening and placing his phone on the counter before brightening with a sudden revelation. “Oh, and there’ll be cookies soon. They’re chocolate chip-dad’s favorite. Classic and simple, kind of like a black dress and pearls. I figured you and Carole might like some as well. They were going to be a surprise, but, well, seeing as you’re home earlier than expected, I guess that’s out. Um, so, surprise!” he said with a smile with a little wave of his fingers, and Finn couldn’t help but smile back.
“Well, thanks, dude. That’s really cool of you.” He looked around the floor at the assorted cookery. “Hey, listen, if you need some help with this, I can, uh, sort stuff. I guess.”
Kurt waved him off. “No, that’s perfectly fine. I’ll get this. If I need help, I’ll give you a shout. How’s that sound?”
Finn’s smile widened. “Awesome.” He started back to the front door to retrieve his bag, but looked back before he turned the corner. “Oh, and Kurt?”
Kurt was already back on the floor, this time placing small pots into larger ones, kind of like those little dolls Finn’s grandma loved and had littered throughout her house. Kurt looked up at him, not bothering to stand. “Yes?”
“Welcome home.”
---
Things had been pretty normal throughout the rest of the week. Kurt had settled back in at home and was helping Burt out in the garage during the day while Carole worked and Finn suffered through the never-ending dredge that was the last few days of the school year. They all sat and ate dinner together as a family in the evening-made by Kurt and Carole, who gossiped together in the kitchen while they baked and stirred and whipped and made strange but delicious creations (Kurt’s recipes, most likely). And after dinner, they would watch TV and fight over the remote and talk about work and glee and school and all the things that families do. It was nice to have everybody home. Everything was normal. Everything was happy. Nothing unusual. Nothing out of place.
Until Friday.
Kurt had opted-out of going to the garage that day. Said he was feeling a little tired and then proceeded to hole himself up in the basement. Burt had looked a little worried, but let it go. Kurt was probably just being moody again, or maybe he was coming down with something. Kurt rarely got sick, but when he did, it could get pretty bad. Or maybe he really was tired or just didn’t want to work that day. It didn’t matter. Kurt had been a big help at the shop the past couple of days. He deserved a break.
Finn had left the school as quickly as he could (he’d even gone so far as to empty his locker out early so he could just grab his backpack and hit the parking lot the second the last bell sounded), but he still ended up caught in the never-ending line of cars trying to escape the prison of school. Stupid other kids trying to get home, messing up his plans. Oh well, might as well enjoy his time in the car if he was going to be here for a while. He turned up the volume on his stereo, letting the beats pulsing from the speakers wash over him.
Ah, summer. It was finally summer. Time for goofing-off with Puck (even if he was still kind of ticked at him) and making out with Rachel and teasing Kurt like good brothers are supposed to. Yeah, life was pretty sweet.
He air-drummed a bit on the steering wheel to the music, the cars around him still and rumbling with anxious teens eager to get as far away from the school as possible. He was so distracted, he almost missed the familiar tones of his cell phone jingling from the seat.
Yeah, so it wasn’t exactly manly to have “Single Ladies” as a ring tone, but after Kurt’s stint on the football team, the tune had kind of been Finn’s song for Kurt. It’s not like it was his main ring tone or anything. Kurt just needed something special, something that stood out. That’s all. And Finn hadn’t really bothered to change it, even after getting to know Kurt better. But why was he calling him? He looked at the cracked face of the clock in his dash. Three forty-two. He was late. Maybe Kurt was wondering where he was. He looked at the line of cars in front of him. Not going to be going much of anywhere for a while. Better answer, let him know he was okay and would be home whenever the idiots at the front of the line decided to finally move.
He turned down the music and picked up his phone, answering the call. “Hey, Kurt. What’s up?”
There wasn’t an immediate response. “Kurt? Kurt, you okay?” His mind shot back to the kitchen a few days ago. Kurt had been acting weird then, but he was fine now. Well, at least Finn thought he was fine now. Nothing else strange had happened since that he was aware of. “Kurt?”
Kurt’s voice was barely above a whisper, kind of raspy and strained. He sounded almost like he’d been crying. “Finn? Finn, are you there?”
Probably a bad connection. That’s why Kurt hadn’t answered right away. The school had never really had good cell reception. “Yeah, man. Sorry I’m kind of late; people don’t know how to drive around here, and I’m stuck behind the slowest guy in the world. What’s up? Are you okay? You sound kind of funny.”
“I have to be quiet. I think…I think someone’s in the house.”
Finn’s heart leapt into his throat. Oh god, someone had broken in. He thought about the threatening phone calls that hit the house every so often, all aimed at Kurt. Burt had said something about them when he and his mom had first moved in, and they hadn’t stopped after Kurt left for Dalton, just more infrequent. What if they were finally making good on their threats?
“Dude, call the police!”
“Shh! Be quiet!” Kurt rasped. “They’re going to find me.” There was a desperate edge to Kurt’s voice that scared Finn more than the fact that someone might have broken in. Kurt was silent for a moment and Finn could feel his heart start to race. Someone was in the house. Kurt might be in real trouble, and he didn’t want the police involved.
“Kurt, man, if someone’s there, you need to call the police. You could be in real trouble, dude, and I don’t want you getting hurt,” he said, much quieter this time.
“I can’t,” Kurt moaned. “They’re going to find me.”
“Find you? Who’s going to find you? What’s going on? I-Do you need me to call the police?”
“No! No, I-” he breathed into the phone, suddenly falling silent. Finn could hear him breathing into the speakers. “Could you call my dad? I think-I think he could help.”
“Okay, dude. Just, just stay there. I’m going to be there as soon as I can, okay?”
Kurt didn’t respond.
“Kurt?”
Finn pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at the screen. The call had ended, the time marking the duration of the call blinking merrily at him in light blue. Shit. Kurt was in trouble. He quickly dialed the garage. Burt would know what to do.
“Hummel Tire and Lube. This is Alex. How can I help you?”
Alex. Okay. Not who he wanted, but at least he wouldn’t try to jerk Finn around like some of the other guys would. “Hey, Alex, this is Finn. Uh, Burt’s stepson. I need to talk to him-it’s kind of urgent. Can you get him for me?”
“Sure thing, kid. Just hang on a second.” Finn could hear the man shouting for Burt and the muffled sounds of the garage at work. What he wouldn’t give to be there right now. Even if Finn knew next to nothing about cars, it was so much closer to home and Burt was there-he’d know what to do. He always seemed to know what to do.
“Finn? Alex said you needed to talk to me. What’s up?” Finn had never been so glad to hear the other man’s voice in his life.
“Yeah, um, I just got a call from Kurt at home. He thinks someone might have broken in, and I’m stuck here in the parking lot at school.”
“Has anyone called the police?” Burt’s voice was rushed; he was starting to panic. Someone had broken in? Oh god, was Kurt okay? Was he in trouble?
“No, he didn’t want me to. He wasn’t really clear about anything. I mean, he sounded pretty freaked, and he didn’t really give me much information. Can you go check on him? Like I told you, I’m kind of stuck at the school and the garage is pretty close. Traffic getting out of the parking lot is really bad today-last day of school and all-and Kurt didn’t want me calling the police.”
“Okay. Okay. Thanks Finn. I’ll give you a call when I know what the heck is going on.” And the call was ended. Finn swore and gripped his phone tightly in his fist. So much for a relaxing afternoon.
There was an inordinate amount of honking coming from behind him. He looked up. The cars ahead of him had started to move. There was an open expanse of road between him and the next car. He stomped his foot on the gas and jumped forward. He needed to get home. Summer vacation wasn’t looking so bright anymore.
---
Burt didn’t think he’d ever driven so fast in his life. Kurt was in trouble. Someone was in the house, and Kurt didn’t want the police involved. He couldn’t hear anything over the mad rush of his beating heart. He couldn’t lose Kurt. That’s why he and Carole had sent him to Dalton-because it wasn’t safe for him at McKinley anymore. What could he do if that danger suddenly moved into his home?
He saw the Navigator still parked outside the house. It looked fine, undamaged. Maybe it was just a robbery, a simple break-in-grab-the-silverware-get-out kind of thing. Or maybe Kurt had misheard-maybe it was nothing. Or maybe they were specifically targeting Kurt, waiting for him to be left alone in the house. He swerved up to the curb and flung himself out of the car.
The house looked untouched from the outside, but that didn’t mean anything. They could have gotten in through the back, through a window, through the screen door. He was cautious as he approached the door. Locked. Good. Kurt was thinking properly on that front; that meant that whomever might be inside didn’t just walk in. He dug out his keys and hastily opened the door, no longer caring about being quiet. Kurt was in there. He needed to help him. Nothing else mattered at that point.
He opened the door and looked around. Nothing seemed out of place. He carefully stepped inside and moved toward the kitchen. The screen door was still shut, undisturbed. The glass was intact there and on all of the windows. No signs of forced entry.
The oven was on, the little red light signaling that it had reached preheated levels glared brightly from its place atop the stove in the empty stillness of the kitchen, like a dot of blood on a sheet of white linen. He opened up the oven door. Nothing inside. Odd. Had Kurt been trying to cook something when he thought someone had broken in? Maybe Kurt was overreacting. Maybe he’d been taken. He shut the oven door and switched it off. Better safe than sorry. He needed to find Kurt.
He went around the entire circumference of the downstairs and found nothing. Everything was the same as it had been when he’d left for work that morning: Carole’s coat still hung on the banister, Finn’s shoes were still laying in the middle of the living room floor, the spare keys were still in the bowl atop the mantle. No sign of a break-in. He just couldn’t find Kurt.
“Kurt?” he called. There was nothing. The house remained as still and silent as when he’d first entered.
He made his way down into the basement. The boys had assured him and Carole that they could share a room, that it would be okay this time around now that there weren’t any misunderstandings. They were bigger than that, they’d insisted. Besides, it would take a lot of effort and ingenuity to clear out and redo one of the other rooms as a bedroom unless Finn decided to take over the guest room, which he adamantly refused to do. Burt had been highly hesitant-the last thing he wanted was a repeat of last year-but had relented after reassurances from Carole and the boys that they could handle it, they were mature enough for this.
And of course there had been little disputes here and there (Kurt had been really upset when he’d come home for Winter Break to find the walls painted green; he’d refused to sleep down there for several days, instead choosing to camp out on the couch in protest before finally relenting after Carole had promised to take him shopping the following weekend), but for the most part, the boys had been civil, friendly, maybe even a bit brotherly. He supposed it helped that they weren’t around each other twenty-four seven like before, but it was still comforting to see them getting along so well.
He peered around the corner into the room, expecting to see Kurt somewhere. He was right-the green walls were kind of ugly. “Kurt, are you down here?“ Nothing. He opened up the closets, but didn’t find him there either. Where the heck was he? Maybe upstairs.
Burt was fully convinced by now that there was no intruder, but the lack of Kurt’s presence was highly unsettling. Had someone taken Kurt? Taken him and locked the door behind them as some sort of sick joke? “Kurt? Son, where are you?” He headed up the stairs toward the master bedroom. Check there first, then the bathroom, and if he wasn’t in there, then Burt was calling the police. His heart was pounding furiously in his chest, the rush of blood loud and fast in his ears. He slid back the door to the closet.
“Kurt?”
Kurt was huddled inside, lodged between Burt and Carole’s shoes and a box of Burt’s previous wife’s old things that he’d never had the heart to throw out, pressed flat against the closet wall. Kurt was shaking like a leaf, curled up and terrified, his phone clutched tight in one white fist. Burt’s heart broke a little at the sight. He knelt down, crouching low to Kurt’s level. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Kurt so frightened, so defenseless.
“Kurt? Son, are you okay?”
Kurt turned bloodshot eyes to him. “Dad?”
“Yeah, bud. It’s me. There’s no one in the house. You’re okay.”
Kurt flung himself into his dad’s embrace, still shaking madly. Burt wrapped his arms around his son, but was afraid of holding him too tightly; he felt so very fragile, so very small, under his hands.
“I’m sorry, dad. I’m so sorry. I just thought…I heard someone moving, someone talking, and I thought-oh god, I was so scared.” Kurt was still trembling, but there were no tears. Burt rocked back and forth a little, still trying to calm himself down. Kurt was here. No one had broken in. Kurt was safe. Nothing else mattered.
“You’re okay. You’re okay,” he whispered softly into his son‘s hair. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
---
Finn didn’t remember the drive home after turning out of the school parking lot. He might have cut a few people off and run a stop sign or two, but Kurt might be in trouble. Not Kurt’s normal do-these-jeans-make-my-butt-look-big trouble, but, like, psycho-murderer-in-the-house kind of trouble. And that freaked him out. A lot.
He didn’t think he’d ever been more relieved to see Burt’s truck in the driveway. That at least meant Kurt wasn’t alone. And there weren’t any police cars-probably a good sign. He knew Kurt didn’t want the police involved, but Burt would have called them if something was up. That didn’t do much to quell the furious beating of his heart.
Finn dashed into the house, leaving his backpack slumped over in the backseat, almost forgetting to remove his keys from the ignition. Adrenaline was still pumping heavy through his veins. The front door was unlocked, and he wasn’t really sure if that was a good sign or not. There weren’t any unusual footprints or stains on the carpet as he entered. Okay. The house was quiet, still, the silence so pervasive he could hear the ticking of the clock in the hall echoing loudly against the plaster walls.
He made his way over to the living room and deflated, finally able to breathe again, when he found Burt and Kurt sitting together on the couch. Neither one looked like any harm had come to them. They looked okay, and the house looked just as it had when he’d left that morning, nothing amiss or broken. Maybe this was all some big misunderstanding-the thought was strangely comforting. Even if this fiasco was a cause for panic, the idea that nothing happened was such a huge relief that he couldn’t find himself angry. Kurt looked okay-a bit shaken, maybe (who wouldn’t be?) but intact.
He quietly approached the couch, coming around the corner slowly so as not to intrude on the pair. He didn’t want to freak them out with his sudden appearance. Kurt was pressed up against his dad like a little kid who’d wandered into his parents’ bedroom after a nightmare. Finn couldn’t see his face, but he seemed smaller than usual, curled up against his dad’s side. Burt was looking straight ahead, eyes focused on some spot on the wall. His hand rested gently on Kurt’s hair, fingers threaded through chestnut bangs.
“Hey,” said Finn softly, raising his hand a little in a wave to catch the man’s attention as he rounded the edge of the couch.
Burt looked up. He looked exhausted-the lines of his face somehow deepened, the curve of his jaw tightened-but relieved. Having Kurt safe and sound probably helped a lot on that front. “Hey,” he replied.
Finn gingerly sat down in the loveseat next to the couch. The dark canvas covering dipped with his weight and sighed softly beneath him. “He okay?” He gestured at Kurt, who looked to be fast asleep, leaning heavily on Burt’s stocky frame.
“Yeah.” Burt looked at Kurt’s sleeping form. One of his socked feet was curled up beneath him and the other dangled free over the edge of the couch, brushing the carpet. His shirt was a little rumpled and his hair was askew from being pressed up against the wall and his father’s chest for so long. Kurt would throw a fit when he woke up and saw the state he was in. His face was relaxed in sleep, his mouth slightly open, his breath heavy and warm against Burt’s shoulder, but god, he was here, he was okay, and that was what mattered. “Yeah, he’s okay.” He turned to look at Finn. “You really freaked me out, you know that?” he said with a tired grin, “Callin’ me up at work to tell me someone might have broken into the house. Nearly gave me another heart attack.”
Finn ducked his head a little in embarrassment. “Sorry about that. I kind of felt the same way, though. I mean, when Kurt called me.” He looked over at Kurt, who hadn’t moved, still fast asleep. “He sounded really freaked; said he thought that whoever had gotten in the house was gonna find him or something. I dunno. It was pretty terrifying, especially since I was stuck at the school. I couldn’t help him and he didn’t want me to call the police. It was kind of freaky. I’ve never heard him like that.”
Burt nodded and pulled Kurt a little closer. The boy didn’t stir. He really didn’t want to deal with this right now. He sighed and turned back to Finn, a little smile painted on his lips. Better to just forget and move on. Nothing happened. Everything was fine. “How’s takeout sound tonight? Kurt probably won’t be happy about it, but I don’t think he’s in any shape to be cooking right now. He was really pretty beat when I got him to calm down. I already called Carole and she seemed fine with it if you were.”
“Sure.” Finn looked back at Kurt and a wicked smile cut across his face. “Kurt’s gonna complain about how he’ll never get rid of his pear hips if we eat like that, though.”
“Pear hips?”
Finn shook his head. “Don’t ask.”
---
Finn had been absolutely right: Kurt hadn’t exactly been happy when he’d found out they were having takeout that night. He’d fretted over his figure and his father’s health for nearly an hour after Carole got home before finally relenting and ordering some supposedly vegetarian dish that Finn refused to touch.
“Are you really going to eat that, Kurt?” Finn prodded at the lumpy greenish mess with his chopsticks. “Gross, dude. You know, you can always have some of my chow mein. It’s good and crispy tonight.”
Kurt grimaced and pulled his plate closer to his body, away from Finn’s wandering utensils. “No, Finn. Do you know how long it would take me to work that off? How long it’s going to take me to work even this off?” He gestured at the dish in front of him. “Some of us may have be lucky and have a high metabolism, but others must work for their figures.” He picked up a droopy pea pod in his own chopsticks and gingerly bit off the end, crunching lightly as he chewed.
“Whatever, Kurt. Suit yourself. Just don’t expect me to eat any of your…” he inspected Kurt’s dish, eyes narrowed in intense scrutiny, “whatever that is.”
Kurt rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t expect you to, Finn. You have the culinary abilities of a sea cucumber and your impressive palette encompasses little other than a few of the various forms beef and potatoes can take on.” He turned away from Finn, food still clutched tight to his chest, and stuck out his tongue.
Carole chuckled at the sight. Finn looked at her, chopsticks still raised. “What is it? What’s so funny?”
She smiled and leaned forward, resting her head on her hands. “You two. You’re just like little kids sometimes.”
“Am not!” Finn protested, even as he shoveled food into his mouth.
“Please, do not compare me to him. I am like a fine piece of art. He, on the other hand, is akin to a puppy that continually runs into walls-cute, perhaps, the first couple of times, but otherwise just kind of irritating and sad.”
Finn scowled at him, mumbling incoherently behind a wad of food caught in his mouth. “Now Kurt, Finn, play nice,” Burt scolded, though he smiled at the boys, his sons. It was nice they could be so relaxed after a scare like today. He’d never been so relieved at a false alarm in his life.
Finn hunched over his food, shooting a poisonous glare in Kurt’s direction. “He started it.”
But Kurt wasn’t paying any attention. He was looking out the screen door at something. Finn frowned. “Kurt? You okay?”
He jumped a little. “What?”
Carole was growing concerned, her face turned down in a frown. It wasn’t like Kurt to wander away in the middle of a conversation like that. “Kurt, are you feeling okay?”
He was still staring at the glass. “Yeah. Yeah, I just-do any of you hear that?”
Burt and Carole looked at one another in confusion. Finn was completely lost. He turned his eyes toward the screen door, trying to see what Kurt was seeing. He couldn’t hear a thing. “Hear what, dude? There’s nothing out there.”
Kurt shook his head and turned back to his green mush. “Never mind. Must have been my imagination. Hey dad, is that Mustang still in the shop? The one with the tacky yellow paint job? I’d like to take a look at it tomorrow if that’s okay with you. Jeff’s a great guy, but he didn’t seem to know what he was doing with it when I was there yesterday.”
“Yeah, sure thing, Kurt. I have to go in tomorrow anyway since I took off early today. You can come along with me in the morning.”
“Thanks.”
“You sure you’re okay, Kurt?”
“Never been better. Just thought I’d heard something outside. Probably the Carters’ dog again.”
Finn was still a little worried, but let it go. Kurt would let them know if something was wrong, and Burt didn’t seem all that concerned.
“Sure thing, son. I’ll have to talk to them sometime about keeping that mutt on a leash.”
---
“Dude, you okay?”
Finn was kind of worried. Kurt wasn’t one to sleep in, even on the weekends, so when Finn woke up and found the other boy still asleep past ten o’clock, he knew something was wrong. Even worse now that he was awake was the way Kurt kept glancing over in his direction, like a wild animal that had been backed against a wall, trapped. Even though he’d slept more than two hours later than he normally did, Kurt had huge bags under his eyes and his uncharacteristically hunched posture and wild expression gave him the appearance of a rabid dog. That combined with the fact that Kurt had refused to move from his bed until Finn left made him extremely uneasy.
“Yes, I’m fine. Why do you keep looking at me like that?”
“Like what?”
“You’re watching me, Finn! And it’s freaking me out. Why the hell are you even here, anyway?”
“Uh, I live here?” He felt his face heat with sudden anger. What the heck was Kurt’s problem today? “This is my room too, you know.”
Kurt rolled his eyes dramatically. “Oh, I hadn’t noticed. So it was you who decided that we should be surrounded by puce and oversized pictures of scantily clad women night and day? I’d never have guessed. Fantastic.”
“I don’t even know what all of that means, but I’m sure it’s not a compliment. And I’m not watching you.”
“Yes, you were. I saw you.”
Finn sighed heavily and pushed himself out of bed. He couldn’t deal with this right now. It was the freakin’ first Saturday of summer break, and Kurt just had to start the day off by being a bitch. “Whatever, man. I really don’t want to argue with you right now. I’m gonna go get my shower.” He stood to leave, but a thought occurred to him and he turned back. “Hey, weren’t you supposed to go with your dad to the garage today? Some car you wanted to work on that you didn’t trust Jeff with?”
Kurt’s eyes widened and his head snapped to the left. He stared for a split second at the large red digits of Finn’s alarm clock before flying from his bed in a flurry of sheets. He pushed past Finn to get upstairs, muttering curses under his breath as he went, slamming the door shut behind him. Finn was left standing in the empty bedroom, toes curled into the white carpet. What the heck had just happened?
Kurt was kind of a freak on the best of days, but this was kind of excessive. Yeah, so he might have had a near-death scare yesterday. That didn’t mean he had to be a snot about…whatever the heck was bothering him today. Finn snorted and stepped over to his closet to find a clean pair of jeans. Whatever. If Kurt wanted to be irritating, he could do it somewhere else. Finn had better things to do.
---
Finn didn’t see Kurt again until that evening. He’d spent the whole day with Rachel and her dads (they were surprisingly good company, though one of them kept giving him the evil eye for being so comfortable with his little girl), but Finn was ready for a nice, relaxing night at home. Maybe he could cajole his mom into channel-surfing with him. They hadn’t done that in forever. And he did feel a little bad about this morning, though he hadn’t started anything. Maybe he really had been irritating, and Kurt had just been calling him out on it. Or maybe Kurt was just being touchy and needed to chill. Whatever. It still didn’t change the fact that he felt bad, so maybe an apology and a weepy chick flick were in order. Kurt would like that. It wasn’t as if they had anything better to do tonight.
He kicked off his shoes the second he walked into the house, leaving them sprawled in the middle of the floor. His sneakers were comfortable, sure, but he’d been on his feet all day, and he knew how Kurt could get about him leaving his shoes on and tracking dirt all over the carpet. He really wasn’t in the mood to argue with him about something like that. He made a beeline for the fridge and was pleased to see his mom sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper with what looked and smelled like a fresh cup of coffee in her hand.
“Hey, mom,” he said as he passed. She looked up at him with a little smile and then turned back to the newspaper. He opened the fridge door and studied the contents carefully, not really pleased with what he saw. Maybe some bread. He shut the door and made his way over to the pantry, digging out the slightly lumpy bad of bread. Two slices. One sandwich. Done deal.
As he slathered peanut butter onto one slice, he looked up at his mom. She was still reading intently, focused on the tiny print of the newspaper in front of her. “Hey, mom, have you seen Kurt? I saw the Navigator outside, so I assumed he was home. I need to talk to him about something.”
She turned her head to meet his eyes, placing her paper fully on the table. “Yeah, he’s actually downstairs. But be careful; he’s in one hell of a mood.”
So he was still pissed about this morning. Great. “Anything happen?”
“Nothing he would tell me about. Just came home around two this afternoon looking really agitated about something and disappeared into the basement. He’s been down there ever since.”
“Did he say anything to you?”
“No. He just came in and made straight for the basement door. He looked pretty upset, but I didn’t think he’d appreciate me questioning him. He doesn’t usually like it when I pry.” She set the newspaper on the table and looked up at him. “Why? Did something happen this morning?”
Finn wasn’t quite sure what to say. “Uh, sort of, I guess, but not really. He got up late, like way later than usual, and we sort of argued, but I dunno. He just seemed kind of off this morning.” He looked toward the basement door. “Maybe he’s calmed down a bit. I’ll go check on him.”
He grabbed his sandwich and made for the basement door. He took the stairs slowly, one at a time-he wasn’t really sure he wanted to talk to Kurt just yet, but there was something in the back of his mind that just wouldn’t let it be. He thought back to when Kurt first came home from Dalton for the summer and how he’d torn apart the kitchen trying to organize it. Come to think about it, Kurt’s words this morning were pretty weird too.
You’re watching me, Finn!
Why the hell are you even here?
The basement was quiet as he entered. Odd. Kurt usually liked to have music playing when he was alone. Maybe he had his earphones in or something. Finn swallowed hard. The sound of scissors cutting paper could heard from around the corner. “Kurt?”
Kurt was sitting cross-legged on his bed, furiously cutting apart what looked like a magazine from atop his comforter. His iPod was sitting on the nightstand beside his bed, screen dark and untouched. No music, then. “Kurt?”
Kurt startled, nearly cutting off his finger in the process. He looked up at Finn and smiled, though the effect was far from comforting. Finn suddenly didn’t want his sandwich anymore.
“Finn. You’re back. How was your day?”
“Uh, fine. I guess. What are you doing?” He gestured vaguely at the decimated magazine and the scraps of paper littering the floor.
“What, this? It’s nothing. Just housekeeping.” He turned back to his task, scissors flying.
Finn cautiously stepped forward and peered at the tiny pieces of paper scattered across the carpet. These looked familiar to him somehow. He glanced back over to Kurt, who was diligently cutting out a neat rectangle from the middle of the page. Finn couldn’t see the cover from where he was standing and so turned his attention back to the pieces on the floor. What the heck? He picked up one of the scraps of paper and inspected it in his fingers. It was someone-some model’s-eyes. He let it flutter back to the floor and peered closer at the pieces near his feet. They were all eyes! He looked back over to Kurt, who was now flipping through the pages, inspecting his handiwork. Wait a minute…Finn squinted and looked hard at the cover.
“Dude! Isn’t that, like, your favorite Vogue or whatever?’
Kurt didn’t look at him, just kept flipping through the pages. “Yes, Finn. It is. And now it’s perfect.”
Finn couldn’t contain his bewilderment. “What do you mean, perfect?”
“Can’t you see? Now they can’t watch me anymore. They can’t steal my secrets.”
Okay. Now Finn was starting to freak out. That was definitely not normal. “Are you all right, Kurt?”
Kurt slapped the magazine down flat on his bed. “I’m fine! Everyone keeps asking me that. Why do you keep asking me that?”
“Because you’re freaking me out! You’re not acting like yourself. You’ve been all funny ever since you came home from school. What the heck happened to you at Dalton? Did someone hurt you? What? Talk to me, man.”
Kurt’s blue eyes bore into him and Finn backed up a step. He could see a flash of steel from the scissors still clenched in Kurt’s fist.
“Were you with Rachel today, Finn?”
“What?” That was completely out of left field.
“I said, were you with Rachel?” His voice was low, quiet, calm. It scared Finn down to his core.
“Y-yeah. Why?”
Kurt bowed a little and got to his feet. Finn took another step back.
Kurt began pacing the floor in front of his bed, the little cut-out eyes fluttering across the carpet with each step. He was muttering something to himself.
“Look, dude. I’m…I’m gonna go upstairs. I’ll just-I’ll wait for you to calm down and we can talk later, okay?” he said as calmly as he could, backing towards the stairs as he spoke.
Kurt suddenly stopped and looked at him. “I can’t let you do that, Finn.”
“What?”
“I can’t let you do that. I see now that it’s all your fault. You’ve seen too much. You’re giving away all of my secrets to Rachel. That’s why you saw her today, isn’t it? To sabotage me? Yeah, and I bet you’ve been talking to them, haven’t you? That’s why they tried to get me yesterday. Well, I can’t let that happen. Not again.”
“What? Who are you talking about? Y-you’re not making any sense. You’re scaring me, Kurt.” Finn was almost at the stairs now. If he could just get to them, then he could get his mom and everything would be okay again. Kurt was getting closer.
“I can’t let you leave, Finn. They’ll come back if I do.”
His heel hit the first step and he took off at a run. His sandwich fell from his fingers to the carpet, forgotten in his haste. Finn could hardly hear anything over the mad beating of his heart. Oh god, oh god, Kurt was trying to kill him. He dashed up the stairs, his socked feet slipping on the carpeted steps. Oh god, oh god, oh god. Kurt was screaming and everything was wrong, and oh god, oh god, oh god.
---
Next
Characters: Blaine, Kurt, various
Warnings: Some violence, potentially triggering descriptions of mental illness
Summary: Blaine learns the true meaning of love when something happens to Kurt.
Disclamers: Glee is not my intellectual property
Written for this prompt on the glee_angst_meme. This is by far the longest thing I have ever written at almost 58,000 words and 114 pages. I still have trouble believing I wrote this. Enjoy.
---
Kurt wasn’t answering his phone. It had happened before, (though Kurt was almost religious about making sure his phone was always on him) but this time felt different, like the bad taste left in one’s mouth after a really long sleep. He knew it was late, but this just wasn’t like Kurt. Blaine frowned at the recording of Kurt’s sullen, almost bored voice as it told him through the tiny phone speakers that he wasn’t available and to leave a message after the tone.
He listened to the quick chirp signaling the start of the recording for his message. He opened his mouth and then shut it again, lost for words. Something was wrong. Nothing felt quite right.
“Hey, Kurt. It’s Blaine. If you get this, give me a call. Thanks,” he spat out quickly before tapping the screen to end the call. He briefly entertained texting Kurt, but if he was ignoring calls, he might not have his phone around. It was a stupid idea; it was stupid to worry. Kurt was fine. The boy just wasn’t answering his phone. Nothing to worry about. Blaine was getting upset over nothing. But the niggling feeling in the pit of his stomach would not let him be.
The more he thought about it, the more he realized that Kurt had been acting weird while they were still at school, before the break. Not overly strange, just more subdued, more distant as the school year dwindled to a close. And maybe he hadn’t looked as clean and crisp as he normally did every day, but he’d be back to himself the next day if he slipped.
He’d also seemed kind of distracted-spacing out during Warblers practices, grades steadily falling (though not enough to overly worry Burt or Carole); he even wandered away in the middle of conversations every now and again, sometimes singing to himself under his breath. It was a bit unnerving now that he thought about it.
He’d also stopped caring properly for Pavarotti, to the point that Blaine had taken the bird in secret before finals; he was sitting on his perch in Blaine’s room right now in fact, tilting his head to the side in that cute little way that he always did. No one knew he had him, and Blaine wouldn’t tell. He couldn’t do that to Kurt. But the bird had been in pretty bad condition when he’d taken him: kind of rumpled, cage lining piled with chalky white excrement and discarded grey and yellow feathers, food dish nearly empty with only the shells of seeds coating the bottom, water cloudy and dotted with something Blaine couldn’t identify.
It had been a pretty sad sight, but Blaine had shrugged it off. Kurt was busy; he was tired; he was probably having trouble adjusting to the new environment he’d been thrust into; and he probably didn’t know a thing about caring for a bird (Blaine vaguely remembered Kurt saying that his dad had been adamantly opposed to pets, and hey, it helped him keep things clean around the house, so who was he to complain?). Kurt had only asked after Pavarotti once after he’d been taken, when he’d been unable to find the cage in his room, though there were sunny little feathers still scattered across his desk. It was odd because Kurt was normally such a tidy person. It wasn’t like him at all. The whole thing was even more unsettling now that he thought about it.
But that had been it. Nothing big or really out of the ordinary, just little things. Kurt was still mostly Kurt. There wasn’t anything to worry about. But he still hadn’t answered his phone, and that something in Blaine’s gut, in the back of his brain, wouldn’t leave him alone.
He’d try Kurt at home. Yeah, he was probably home. Maybe he had left his phone where he couldn’t get to it, or he had walked out of the room with it set to silent, or perhaps he was taking a shower or something. It wasn’t anything to worry about. Kurt was fine. He’d just call the house phone and verify.
If nothing else, Burt or Carole or even Finn could tell him where Kurt was and maybe just what in the heck was going on, if anything at all.
He turned his phone over in his hands once, twice, before looking at the screen. He sighed and scrolled through his contacts. He knew Kurt’s cell number by heart, but his home number still escaped him. He needed the help of his trusty contact log.
He thumbed through the names. David. Frank. Jeff. There. Kurt. He hit send and waited. One ring. Two. Three. Four. Fi-Hello, you’ve reached Burt, Kurt, Carole and Finn. It looks like nobody’s here right now, but if you leave your name and number at the beep-Blaine cut the connection. No one at home, even at this time of night. That was bad. Something was up.
He got up, his bare feet brushing comfortably against the soft carpet of his room. It was nice to be home, to get out of uniform, enjoy the nice cool breeze of the summer night as it wafted in through his window. He opened up Pavarotti’s cage and plucked the bird up in his cupped hands. He chirped and hopped and was generally being cute, even if Blaine had just woken him up. Thank goodness he’d thought to clip the his wings-Blaine couldn’t have him flying out the open window, even if it was night and the bird was likely too tired to think of escape.
“You think something’s wrong with Kurt too, don’t you, buddy?” He stroked a thumb over the soft feathers of Pavarotti’s head. The canary closed his eyes in contentment. Then it hit him-Finn. Finn had a cell phone.
He placed Pavarotti on his bed and fumbled with his phone. Finn, Finn, Finn; he was sure Kurt or his dad or somebody somewhere had given Finn’s number to him. Yes! There. He hastily pounded the number and waited. One ring. Two.
“Yeah?” He sounded tired and shaky, but yes, it was Finn. He needed answers.
“Finn? It’s me, Blaine. You know, Kurt’s friend?” Stupid. Of course Finn knew who he was.
Finn sighed. He sounded beat. “Yeah? What’s up?”
“Well, I-I was trying to get in touch with Kurt, but he’s not answering his phone.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Oh. Well, I was wondering if something was up. He’s usually really good about answering his phone, and you guys weren’t picking up at home. I was just curious to know if something was up and where he might be. I was, uh, kind of worried.” God, he sounded stupid.
“Um, look, Blaine. Why don’t you come meet us here? I can’t really explain everything over the phone and I think it might make Burt feel a little better to see you here. He knows Kurt trusts you.” He paused. Blaine could almost feel Finn running a hand through his hair in that way he seemed to do when he was nervous or anxious about something. “We’re at St. Rita’s. Kurt was just admitted. I’ll tell you everything when you get here.”
---
Admitted. Admitted. Admitted. The word rang through Blaine’s head as he sped toward the hospital. He didn’t even bother to sing along to the soft music of the radio filling his car like he always did, he was so distracted. Kurt had been admitted. To St. Rita’s. Finn hadn’t told him any more than that, and the lack of information was ripping Blaine apart with worry.
What had happened to Kurt? Was he hurt? Did it have anything to do with his odd behavior lately? Blaine suddenly felt cold as he remembered the string of suicides among gay teens late last year. Had Kurt…? Had he tried? But Kurt wouldn’t do something like that, would he? Blaine thought-no, he was sure Kurt was stronger than that. And the bullying had stopped; Kurt was safe at Dalton now. Why would he do something like that? And why wouldn’t he talk to Blaine about it first? Kurt knew that he was there for him and always would be, so why?
His mind buzzed with speculation, none of it all that good, and he felt sick. No, Kurt wasn’t like that. He’d never do something like that. Not to his dad. Even if Kurt ever got that desperate, he’d never do anything to hurt his dad like that. Yeah. But that meant something else was wrong, and Blaine couldn’t stop running the possibilities around and around in his head. The GPS informed him in its calm feminine voice that his exit was approaching. He’d get his answers soon. He tightened his grip on the wheel and pressed a little harder on the gas, watching the signs along the road whip past in blurs of yellow and white.
---
Walking into St. Rita’s was like entering a beehive. There were people everywhere-a man hastily filling out paperwork while the pregnant woman beside him rubbed his shoulder in a comforting manner, her other hand resting lightly on her distended belly; an elderly woman getting wheeled behind the set of double automatic doors leading into the back while her tiny little husband followed behind the nurse pushing her wheelchair like a lost puppy; a man who must have stumbled in only minutes before Blaine (maybe that’s whose car was double-parked outside the doors), supported by what looked like his brother, clutching a bleeding wound over his left eye; nurses wandering through various sets of doors-people kept streaming in and out of the groups and clusters lining the room, lost in their own worlds, burdened with their own problems, and it was somewhat overwhelming.
He looked around the waiting area and saw Finn standing near the wall beside a wilting plant, gaze fixed on something outside the large windows, though it was almost too dark to see anything outside, even with the bright lights of the hospital building and parking lot shining onto the pavement and lines of parked cars ringing the building.
Finn was alone and looked to be both immensely tired and worried. The bright yellow tag that declared him a visitor stuck out like a beacon on his chest; a little sunny spot on Finn’s thin black jacket. Where were Burt and Carole? He’d assumed Kurt would be in the back somewhere, lost in the maze of rooms and patients, but Blaine was certain that at least one of the adults would have kept Finn company. In the end he supposed it didn’t matter. They were probably with Kurt.
He strode over to the other boy, careful of the few people sprawled or hunched over in the light green chairs of the waiting room. Finn didn’t notice his approach.
“Uh, hey.” He waved his hand awkwardly at Finn, trying to catch his attention without drawing that of the other people in the room.
Finn looked up and saw Blaine’s reflection in the over-large glass. Good. He was here. He turned and Blaine could see the tracks of exhaustion carved into his face. Finn was beat.
“Hey, man. Glad you could make it,” he said with a sad imitation of a smile. He fell silent for a moment, eyes falling to his shoes. Ex-crush-turned-stepbrother and mentor-slash-sort-of-new-crush-but-also-kind-of-boyfriend. Standing together in the waiting room of a hospital with the link between them somewhere in the back. This was awkward. Painfully awkward. Finn shuffled his feet, though Blaine couldn’t tell if it was an attempt by Finn to keep himself awake or just something to break the terrible silence. “So, uh, I guess I should tell you what happened. They won’t let anybody outside of family see Kurt just yet, and they’re kind of keeping us in the dark too.”
Blaine nodded and gestured to an empty space in the line of chairs propped against the wall. Finn slumped into the nearest one and Blaine sat beside him, body thrumming with nervous energy.
Finn sighed deeply and slouched down against the slightly flat cushioning of the chair. “So, uh, first I actually have a question for you.”
Blaine went rigid. Did this have something to do with him? His mind shot back to his suicide theory from the drive over. Oh god, had Kurt tried to kill himself because of him? A knife of pain shot through his chest as he waited for Finn to speak.
“Was Kurt acting weird, well, weirder than normal while you guys were at Dalton?”
That was unexpected. “Weird how? Like, not himself?”
Finn nodded.
“Um, well, he seemed really distracted the last couple of weeks of school, but not overly so, just kind of spacey. He was also a little messier than normal-just little stuff, like not folding his jacket or forgetting to comb his hair every now and again. But finals were coming up, so I thought he was just stressed about them, or devoting a lot of time to studying or something.”
Blaine frowned and looked at his hands folded over his knees. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to tell this part, but it was Kurt, and it might be important. He drew in a deep breath. “He-well, we gave him a canary to take care of as the newest member of the Warblers.” Finn shot him an incredulous look, not too sure about the whole bird situation. Kurt hadn’t told him about a bird, not even during the breaks. “Yeah, it’s a Dalton thing-well, a Warbler thing. A warbler for a Warbler. Sort of a tradition. They gave me one too when I joined, though I gave him to my sister as a gift when she left for college.
“Kurt seemed to like him, but I had to take Pavarotti-the bird-away from him. He wasn’t really getting taken care of. I just thought Kurt might not know how to care for him, or he was too busy or something, but I guess that should have been a sign that something was wrong. I don’t know. Kurt really seemed to like having Pavarotti around.”
He turned to Finn, puzzled and nervous. “Do you think that has anything to do with this?”
Finn nodded, still silent. There was more to this than either boy wished to say. They didn’t look at each other. Blaine desperately wanted answers but wasn’t willing to push it, wasn’t willing to push the other boy into anything. Not now. Not when he looked so defeated. Finn would tell him eventually. Things would be okay.
They watched the bustle of the hospital staff as they moved throughout the room, giving news and helping people as they went. Yeah, things would be okay. He just needed to be patient. They had time.
---
They sat there in companionable silence for what felt like an eternity, simply watching the comings and goings of the hospital around them. It was calming in a way-a distraction from the fact that Kurt was in the back somewhere and Blaine still had no idea what was going on, even though he’d been here for who knows how long.
“Kurt talks a lot about you, you know?”
“Huh?” It was somewhat jarring to hear Finn’s voice again. “What?”
“Kurt. He talks about you. All the time. It’s kind of funny, actually.” Finn turned his head to face the boy beside him. There was a strange sort of grin on his face, too tired and sad to be comforting but closer than his earlier attempt. “I think he likes you.”
Blood rushed to Blaine’s cheeks and the room suddenly felt far too warm. He had been pretty sure that Kurt had been crushing on him (and Blaine had been crushing on him back, if he was honest with himself) but it felt different hearing it from someone else, like some kind of elicit affair. Finn was talking again. “He didn’t say much to anybody at all, though-after coming home for the summer, I mean-but I didn’t think much of it. We hadn’t really talked in about a month-you know, with finals and all the stuff that piles up at the end of the school year-you know how it goes, but he had even gotten kind of lax on talking to his dad over the phone and stuff. I guess we just figured he was busy, and summer was just around the corner, so why make it an issue? Makes me feel pretty stupid that we didn’t pick up on anything then. Maybe things wouldn’t have gotten this bad if we had.”
Blaine leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, staring hard at Finn when he quieted. The other boy remained silent for a short while, but Blaine was done being patient. He needed to know what was up with Kurt, why the heck he was sitting here with Finn waiting for news on him in St. Rita’s Medical Center.
“Go on,” Blaine encouraged him. When Finn didn’t speak Blaine frowned a little in frustration. It was time to pull out the big guns. “You said you’d tell me what was going on when I got here. I’ve been sitting with you for,” he glanced at the clock on the wall, “twenty-some minutes now, and all I know now that I only guessed at before is that Kurt thinks I’m cute. Cut the crap, Finn. What’s going on? Why am I spending a Saturday night in the waiting room of a hospital that’s almost two hour’s drive away?”
Finn sighed deeply and looked up at the ceiling tiles. The one above him had a brownish stain in the shape of a hat.
“I guess I should start when Kurt came home for the summer.”
---
Kurt was home when Finn pulled into the driveway, if the black Navigator parked beside the sidewalk outside the house was any indication.
Strange; he usually called or texted when he was on his way home. Odd. Maybe his phone was discharged or he’d only told his dad he was on his way home. That was fine. It happened every now and again. Finn shrugged and made his way up the walk, backpack slung over one shoulder. He swung his keys around his finger. The tinkling sound they made filled the air. Dalton got out before McKinley (lucky bastards) but he only had, like three days left. No biggie. And Kurt would be home, which was a plus. He’d kind of missed him the past couple of weeks.
He whistled a little to himself as he approached the door and turned the handle. Huh. Locked. He frowned. Why the hell would Kurt lock the door if he was home? He shrugged. Whatever. Maybe he was asleep or showering or something. It was Kurt after all. Finn flipped through the keys on his ring, quickly locating his house key and unlocking the door.
The smell of cookies hit his nose. He could hear pots and pans clattering in the kitchen. The hell?
“Kurt?” No response. “Kurt, is that you?”
He plopped his backpack down beside the door in a heap and pocketed his keys. “Kurt, if that’s you, man, this really isn’t funny.” More clattering from the kitchen.
He carefully made his way over to the kitchen, fully aware of the shuffling his shoed feet made on the carpet. He didn’t have any weapons on him if it was some sort of psycho, but he was pretty strong. Well, at least he thought he was. He wasn’t a football player for nothing. The thought still didn’t help to quell the furious beating of his heart as he peered around the corner into the kitchen. Oh god, what if he’d already gotten to Kurt? What if he was holding him hostage or something? Finn really wished he had a bat or something right now.
But it was only Kurt in the kitchen when he rounded the corner, crouched low to the floor on his knees, head stuck inside one of the cabinets near the stove. Pots and pans were scattered everywhere-on the table, the floor, the counter. The cookie smell was even stronger here. Finn looked around. There was a bowl of what looked like dough sitting against the sink. Huh.
“Kurt?”
Kurt jumped a little, his head thumping lightly against the inside of the cabinet. Finn swore he could hear a muffled curse before the other boy peeked his head out. “Finn? That you?” He squinted at Finn a little, rubbing the back of his head.
“Uh, yeah. Wasn’t expecting to see you home. You didn’t let us know or anything.”
“I didn’t?” He stood up and grabbed for his phone, which he’d left sitting on the counter above him. He scrolled through his messages and call history. “Crap, I guess I forgot. Give me a second to text dad and let him know I’m back.”
Finn nodded and looked around while Kurt’s fingers tapped over the keys of his phone. He didn’t think he’d ever seen the place so messy, so chaotic. He wondered briefly what Kurt was doing.
“So you’re home early.” Kurt was smiling at him and leaning back, completely at ease. He was still sort of in his Dalton uniform, though the tie and jacket were missing. The white sleeves of his school shirt were rolled up just above his elbows, and there was a light dusting of flour on the tops of his thighs, white against the dark grey of his pleated pants.
“Uh, yeah. I don’t have a seventh period class on Tuesdays.” He looked uncomfortably around the room. “Um, no offense, dude, but what the heck are you doing?”
Kurt looked confused for a moment before glancing around the room. His eyes widened, almost as if he were seeing the mess for the first time. “Oh wow, I didn’t realize I’d gotten this far. I was um, I was organizing the pots and things because I had some trouble finding what I needed earlier. Guess I got a little carried away.”
He frowned a little at the mess, straightening and placing his phone on the counter before brightening with a sudden revelation. “Oh, and there’ll be cookies soon. They’re chocolate chip-dad’s favorite. Classic and simple, kind of like a black dress and pearls. I figured you and Carole might like some as well. They were going to be a surprise, but, well, seeing as you’re home earlier than expected, I guess that’s out. Um, so, surprise!” he said with a smile with a little wave of his fingers, and Finn couldn’t help but smile back.
“Well, thanks, dude. That’s really cool of you.” He looked around the floor at the assorted cookery. “Hey, listen, if you need some help with this, I can, uh, sort stuff. I guess.”
Kurt waved him off. “No, that’s perfectly fine. I’ll get this. If I need help, I’ll give you a shout. How’s that sound?”
Finn’s smile widened. “Awesome.” He started back to the front door to retrieve his bag, but looked back before he turned the corner. “Oh, and Kurt?”
Kurt was already back on the floor, this time placing small pots into larger ones, kind of like those little dolls Finn’s grandma loved and had littered throughout her house. Kurt looked up at him, not bothering to stand. “Yes?”
“Welcome home.”
---
Things had been pretty normal throughout the rest of the week. Kurt had settled back in at home and was helping Burt out in the garage during the day while Carole worked and Finn suffered through the never-ending dredge that was the last few days of the school year. They all sat and ate dinner together as a family in the evening-made by Kurt and Carole, who gossiped together in the kitchen while they baked and stirred and whipped and made strange but delicious creations (Kurt’s recipes, most likely). And after dinner, they would watch TV and fight over the remote and talk about work and glee and school and all the things that families do. It was nice to have everybody home. Everything was normal. Everything was happy. Nothing unusual. Nothing out of place.
Until Friday.
Kurt had opted-out of going to the garage that day. Said he was feeling a little tired and then proceeded to hole himself up in the basement. Burt had looked a little worried, but let it go. Kurt was probably just being moody again, or maybe he was coming down with something. Kurt rarely got sick, but when he did, it could get pretty bad. Or maybe he really was tired or just didn’t want to work that day. It didn’t matter. Kurt had been a big help at the shop the past couple of days. He deserved a break.
Finn had left the school as quickly as he could (he’d even gone so far as to empty his locker out early so he could just grab his backpack and hit the parking lot the second the last bell sounded), but he still ended up caught in the never-ending line of cars trying to escape the prison of school. Stupid other kids trying to get home, messing up his plans. Oh well, might as well enjoy his time in the car if he was going to be here for a while. He turned up the volume on his stereo, letting the beats pulsing from the speakers wash over him.
Ah, summer. It was finally summer. Time for goofing-off with Puck (even if he was still kind of ticked at him) and making out with Rachel and teasing Kurt like good brothers are supposed to. Yeah, life was pretty sweet.
He air-drummed a bit on the steering wheel to the music, the cars around him still and rumbling with anxious teens eager to get as far away from the school as possible. He was so distracted, he almost missed the familiar tones of his cell phone jingling from the seat.
Yeah, so it wasn’t exactly manly to have “Single Ladies” as a ring tone, but after Kurt’s stint on the football team, the tune had kind of been Finn’s song for Kurt. It’s not like it was his main ring tone or anything. Kurt just needed something special, something that stood out. That’s all. And Finn hadn’t really bothered to change it, even after getting to know Kurt better. But why was he calling him? He looked at the cracked face of the clock in his dash. Three forty-two. He was late. Maybe Kurt was wondering where he was. He looked at the line of cars in front of him. Not going to be going much of anywhere for a while. Better answer, let him know he was okay and would be home whenever the idiots at the front of the line decided to finally move.
He turned down the music and picked up his phone, answering the call. “Hey, Kurt. What’s up?”
There wasn’t an immediate response. “Kurt? Kurt, you okay?” His mind shot back to the kitchen a few days ago. Kurt had been acting weird then, but he was fine now. Well, at least Finn thought he was fine now. Nothing else strange had happened since that he was aware of. “Kurt?”
Kurt’s voice was barely above a whisper, kind of raspy and strained. He sounded almost like he’d been crying. “Finn? Finn, are you there?”
Probably a bad connection. That’s why Kurt hadn’t answered right away. The school had never really had good cell reception. “Yeah, man. Sorry I’m kind of late; people don’t know how to drive around here, and I’m stuck behind the slowest guy in the world. What’s up? Are you okay? You sound kind of funny.”
“I have to be quiet. I think…I think someone’s in the house.”
Finn’s heart leapt into his throat. Oh god, someone had broken in. He thought about the threatening phone calls that hit the house every so often, all aimed at Kurt. Burt had said something about them when he and his mom had first moved in, and they hadn’t stopped after Kurt left for Dalton, just more infrequent. What if they were finally making good on their threats?
“Dude, call the police!”
“Shh! Be quiet!” Kurt rasped. “They’re going to find me.” There was a desperate edge to Kurt’s voice that scared Finn more than the fact that someone might have broken in. Kurt was silent for a moment and Finn could feel his heart start to race. Someone was in the house. Kurt might be in real trouble, and he didn’t want the police involved.
“Kurt, man, if someone’s there, you need to call the police. You could be in real trouble, dude, and I don’t want you getting hurt,” he said, much quieter this time.
“I can’t,” Kurt moaned. “They’re going to find me.”
“Find you? Who’s going to find you? What’s going on? I-Do you need me to call the police?”
“No! No, I-” he breathed into the phone, suddenly falling silent. Finn could hear him breathing into the speakers. “Could you call my dad? I think-I think he could help.”
“Okay, dude. Just, just stay there. I’m going to be there as soon as I can, okay?”
Kurt didn’t respond.
“Kurt?”
Finn pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at the screen. The call had ended, the time marking the duration of the call blinking merrily at him in light blue. Shit. Kurt was in trouble. He quickly dialed the garage. Burt would know what to do.
“Hummel Tire and Lube. This is Alex. How can I help you?”
Alex. Okay. Not who he wanted, but at least he wouldn’t try to jerk Finn around like some of the other guys would. “Hey, Alex, this is Finn. Uh, Burt’s stepson. I need to talk to him-it’s kind of urgent. Can you get him for me?”
“Sure thing, kid. Just hang on a second.” Finn could hear the man shouting for Burt and the muffled sounds of the garage at work. What he wouldn’t give to be there right now. Even if Finn knew next to nothing about cars, it was so much closer to home and Burt was there-he’d know what to do. He always seemed to know what to do.
“Finn? Alex said you needed to talk to me. What’s up?” Finn had never been so glad to hear the other man’s voice in his life.
“Yeah, um, I just got a call from Kurt at home. He thinks someone might have broken in, and I’m stuck here in the parking lot at school.”
“Has anyone called the police?” Burt’s voice was rushed; he was starting to panic. Someone had broken in? Oh god, was Kurt okay? Was he in trouble?
“No, he didn’t want me to. He wasn’t really clear about anything. I mean, he sounded pretty freaked, and he didn’t really give me much information. Can you go check on him? Like I told you, I’m kind of stuck at the school and the garage is pretty close. Traffic getting out of the parking lot is really bad today-last day of school and all-and Kurt didn’t want me calling the police.”
“Okay. Okay. Thanks Finn. I’ll give you a call when I know what the heck is going on.” And the call was ended. Finn swore and gripped his phone tightly in his fist. So much for a relaxing afternoon.
There was an inordinate amount of honking coming from behind him. He looked up. The cars ahead of him had started to move. There was an open expanse of road between him and the next car. He stomped his foot on the gas and jumped forward. He needed to get home. Summer vacation wasn’t looking so bright anymore.
---
Burt didn’t think he’d ever driven so fast in his life. Kurt was in trouble. Someone was in the house, and Kurt didn’t want the police involved. He couldn’t hear anything over the mad rush of his beating heart. He couldn’t lose Kurt. That’s why he and Carole had sent him to Dalton-because it wasn’t safe for him at McKinley anymore. What could he do if that danger suddenly moved into his home?
He saw the Navigator still parked outside the house. It looked fine, undamaged. Maybe it was just a robbery, a simple break-in-grab-the-silverware-get-out kind of thing. Or maybe Kurt had misheard-maybe it was nothing. Or maybe they were specifically targeting Kurt, waiting for him to be left alone in the house. He swerved up to the curb and flung himself out of the car.
The house looked untouched from the outside, but that didn’t mean anything. They could have gotten in through the back, through a window, through the screen door. He was cautious as he approached the door. Locked. Good. Kurt was thinking properly on that front; that meant that whomever might be inside didn’t just walk in. He dug out his keys and hastily opened the door, no longer caring about being quiet. Kurt was in there. He needed to help him. Nothing else mattered at that point.
He opened the door and looked around. Nothing seemed out of place. He carefully stepped inside and moved toward the kitchen. The screen door was still shut, undisturbed. The glass was intact there and on all of the windows. No signs of forced entry.
The oven was on, the little red light signaling that it had reached preheated levels glared brightly from its place atop the stove in the empty stillness of the kitchen, like a dot of blood on a sheet of white linen. He opened up the oven door. Nothing inside. Odd. Had Kurt been trying to cook something when he thought someone had broken in? Maybe Kurt was overreacting. Maybe he’d been taken. He shut the oven door and switched it off. Better safe than sorry. He needed to find Kurt.
He went around the entire circumference of the downstairs and found nothing. Everything was the same as it had been when he’d left for work that morning: Carole’s coat still hung on the banister, Finn’s shoes were still laying in the middle of the living room floor, the spare keys were still in the bowl atop the mantle. No sign of a break-in. He just couldn’t find Kurt.
“Kurt?” he called. There was nothing. The house remained as still and silent as when he’d first entered.
He made his way down into the basement. The boys had assured him and Carole that they could share a room, that it would be okay this time around now that there weren’t any misunderstandings. They were bigger than that, they’d insisted. Besides, it would take a lot of effort and ingenuity to clear out and redo one of the other rooms as a bedroom unless Finn decided to take over the guest room, which he adamantly refused to do. Burt had been highly hesitant-the last thing he wanted was a repeat of last year-but had relented after reassurances from Carole and the boys that they could handle it, they were mature enough for this.
And of course there had been little disputes here and there (Kurt had been really upset when he’d come home for Winter Break to find the walls painted green; he’d refused to sleep down there for several days, instead choosing to camp out on the couch in protest before finally relenting after Carole had promised to take him shopping the following weekend), but for the most part, the boys had been civil, friendly, maybe even a bit brotherly. He supposed it helped that they weren’t around each other twenty-four seven like before, but it was still comforting to see them getting along so well.
He peered around the corner into the room, expecting to see Kurt somewhere. He was right-the green walls were kind of ugly. “Kurt, are you down here?“ Nothing. He opened up the closets, but didn’t find him there either. Where the heck was he? Maybe upstairs.
Burt was fully convinced by now that there was no intruder, but the lack of Kurt’s presence was highly unsettling. Had someone taken Kurt? Taken him and locked the door behind them as some sort of sick joke? “Kurt? Son, where are you?” He headed up the stairs toward the master bedroom. Check there first, then the bathroom, and if he wasn’t in there, then Burt was calling the police. His heart was pounding furiously in his chest, the rush of blood loud and fast in his ears. He slid back the door to the closet.
“Kurt?”
Kurt was huddled inside, lodged between Burt and Carole’s shoes and a box of Burt’s previous wife’s old things that he’d never had the heart to throw out, pressed flat against the closet wall. Kurt was shaking like a leaf, curled up and terrified, his phone clutched tight in one white fist. Burt’s heart broke a little at the sight. He knelt down, crouching low to Kurt’s level. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Kurt so frightened, so defenseless.
“Kurt? Son, are you okay?”
Kurt turned bloodshot eyes to him. “Dad?”
“Yeah, bud. It’s me. There’s no one in the house. You’re okay.”
Kurt flung himself into his dad’s embrace, still shaking madly. Burt wrapped his arms around his son, but was afraid of holding him too tightly; he felt so very fragile, so very small, under his hands.
“I’m sorry, dad. I’m so sorry. I just thought…I heard someone moving, someone talking, and I thought-oh god, I was so scared.” Kurt was still trembling, but there were no tears. Burt rocked back and forth a little, still trying to calm himself down. Kurt was here. No one had broken in. Kurt was safe. Nothing else mattered.
“You’re okay. You’re okay,” he whispered softly into his son‘s hair. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
---
Finn didn’t remember the drive home after turning out of the school parking lot. He might have cut a few people off and run a stop sign or two, but Kurt might be in trouble. Not Kurt’s normal do-these-jeans-make-my-butt-look-big trouble, but, like, psycho-murderer-in-the-house kind of trouble. And that freaked him out. A lot.
He didn’t think he’d ever been more relieved to see Burt’s truck in the driveway. That at least meant Kurt wasn’t alone. And there weren’t any police cars-probably a good sign. He knew Kurt didn’t want the police involved, but Burt would have called them if something was up. That didn’t do much to quell the furious beating of his heart.
Finn dashed into the house, leaving his backpack slumped over in the backseat, almost forgetting to remove his keys from the ignition. Adrenaline was still pumping heavy through his veins. The front door was unlocked, and he wasn’t really sure if that was a good sign or not. There weren’t any unusual footprints or stains on the carpet as he entered. Okay. The house was quiet, still, the silence so pervasive he could hear the ticking of the clock in the hall echoing loudly against the plaster walls.
He made his way over to the living room and deflated, finally able to breathe again, when he found Burt and Kurt sitting together on the couch. Neither one looked like any harm had come to them. They looked okay, and the house looked just as it had when he’d left that morning, nothing amiss or broken. Maybe this was all some big misunderstanding-the thought was strangely comforting. Even if this fiasco was a cause for panic, the idea that nothing happened was such a huge relief that he couldn’t find himself angry. Kurt looked okay-a bit shaken, maybe (who wouldn’t be?) but intact.
He quietly approached the couch, coming around the corner slowly so as not to intrude on the pair. He didn’t want to freak them out with his sudden appearance. Kurt was pressed up against his dad like a little kid who’d wandered into his parents’ bedroom after a nightmare. Finn couldn’t see his face, but he seemed smaller than usual, curled up against his dad’s side. Burt was looking straight ahead, eyes focused on some spot on the wall. His hand rested gently on Kurt’s hair, fingers threaded through chestnut bangs.
“Hey,” said Finn softly, raising his hand a little in a wave to catch the man’s attention as he rounded the edge of the couch.
Burt looked up. He looked exhausted-the lines of his face somehow deepened, the curve of his jaw tightened-but relieved. Having Kurt safe and sound probably helped a lot on that front. “Hey,” he replied.
Finn gingerly sat down in the loveseat next to the couch. The dark canvas covering dipped with his weight and sighed softly beneath him. “He okay?” He gestured at Kurt, who looked to be fast asleep, leaning heavily on Burt’s stocky frame.
“Yeah.” Burt looked at Kurt’s sleeping form. One of his socked feet was curled up beneath him and the other dangled free over the edge of the couch, brushing the carpet. His shirt was a little rumpled and his hair was askew from being pressed up against the wall and his father’s chest for so long. Kurt would throw a fit when he woke up and saw the state he was in. His face was relaxed in sleep, his mouth slightly open, his breath heavy and warm against Burt’s shoulder, but god, he was here, he was okay, and that was what mattered. “Yeah, he’s okay.” He turned to look at Finn. “You really freaked me out, you know that?” he said with a tired grin, “Callin’ me up at work to tell me someone might have broken into the house. Nearly gave me another heart attack.”
Finn ducked his head a little in embarrassment. “Sorry about that. I kind of felt the same way, though. I mean, when Kurt called me.” He looked over at Kurt, who hadn’t moved, still fast asleep. “He sounded really freaked; said he thought that whoever had gotten in the house was gonna find him or something. I dunno. It was pretty terrifying, especially since I was stuck at the school. I couldn’t help him and he didn’t want me to call the police. It was kind of freaky. I’ve never heard him like that.”
Burt nodded and pulled Kurt a little closer. The boy didn’t stir. He really didn’t want to deal with this right now. He sighed and turned back to Finn, a little smile painted on his lips. Better to just forget and move on. Nothing happened. Everything was fine. “How’s takeout sound tonight? Kurt probably won’t be happy about it, but I don’t think he’s in any shape to be cooking right now. He was really pretty beat when I got him to calm down. I already called Carole and she seemed fine with it if you were.”
“Sure.” Finn looked back at Kurt and a wicked smile cut across his face. “Kurt’s gonna complain about how he’ll never get rid of his pear hips if we eat like that, though.”
“Pear hips?”
Finn shook his head. “Don’t ask.”
---
Finn had been absolutely right: Kurt hadn’t exactly been happy when he’d found out they were having takeout that night. He’d fretted over his figure and his father’s health for nearly an hour after Carole got home before finally relenting and ordering some supposedly vegetarian dish that Finn refused to touch.
“Are you really going to eat that, Kurt?” Finn prodded at the lumpy greenish mess with his chopsticks. “Gross, dude. You know, you can always have some of my chow mein. It’s good and crispy tonight.”
Kurt grimaced and pulled his plate closer to his body, away from Finn’s wandering utensils. “No, Finn. Do you know how long it would take me to work that off? How long it’s going to take me to work even this off?” He gestured at the dish in front of him. “Some of us may have be lucky and have a high metabolism, but others must work for their figures.” He picked up a droopy pea pod in his own chopsticks and gingerly bit off the end, crunching lightly as he chewed.
“Whatever, Kurt. Suit yourself. Just don’t expect me to eat any of your…” he inspected Kurt’s dish, eyes narrowed in intense scrutiny, “whatever that is.”
Kurt rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t expect you to, Finn. You have the culinary abilities of a sea cucumber and your impressive palette encompasses little other than a few of the various forms beef and potatoes can take on.” He turned away from Finn, food still clutched tight to his chest, and stuck out his tongue.
Carole chuckled at the sight. Finn looked at her, chopsticks still raised. “What is it? What’s so funny?”
She smiled and leaned forward, resting her head on her hands. “You two. You’re just like little kids sometimes.”
“Am not!” Finn protested, even as he shoveled food into his mouth.
“Please, do not compare me to him. I am like a fine piece of art. He, on the other hand, is akin to a puppy that continually runs into walls-cute, perhaps, the first couple of times, but otherwise just kind of irritating and sad.”
Finn scowled at him, mumbling incoherently behind a wad of food caught in his mouth. “Now Kurt, Finn, play nice,” Burt scolded, though he smiled at the boys, his sons. It was nice they could be so relaxed after a scare like today. He’d never been so relieved at a false alarm in his life.
Finn hunched over his food, shooting a poisonous glare in Kurt’s direction. “He started it.”
But Kurt wasn’t paying any attention. He was looking out the screen door at something. Finn frowned. “Kurt? You okay?”
He jumped a little. “What?”
Carole was growing concerned, her face turned down in a frown. It wasn’t like Kurt to wander away in the middle of a conversation like that. “Kurt, are you feeling okay?”
He was still staring at the glass. “Yeah. Yeah, I just-do any of you hear that?”
Burt and Carole looked at one another in confusion. Finn was completely lost. He turned his eyes toward the screen door, trying to see what Kurt was seeing. He couldn’t hear a thing. “Hear what, dude? There’s nothing out there.”
Kurt shook his head and turned back to his green mush. “Never mind. Must have been my imagination. Hey dad, is that Mustang still in the shop? The one with the tacky yellow paint job? I’d like to take a look at it tomorrow if that’s okay with you. Jeff’s a great guy, but he didn’t seem to know what he was doing with it when I was there yesterday.”
“Yeah, sure thing, Kurt. I have to go in tomorrow anyway since I took off early today. You can come along with me in the morning.”
“Thanks.”
“You sure you’re okay, Kurt?”
“Never been better. Just thought I’d heard something outside. Probably the Carters’ dog again.”
Finn was still a little worried, but let it go. Kurt would let them know if something was wrong, and Burt didn’t seem all that concerned.
“Sure thing, son. I’ll have to talk to them sometime about keeping that mutt on a leash.”
---
“Dude, you okay?”
Finn was kind of worried. Kurt wasn’t one to sleep in, even on the weekends, so when Finn woke up and found the other boy still asleep past ten o’clock, he knew something was wrong. Even worse now that he was awake was the way Kurt kept glancing over in his direction, like a wild animal that had been backed against a wall, trapped. Even though he’d slept more than two hours later than he normally did, Kurt had huge bags under his eyes and his uncharacteristically hunched posture and wild expression gave him the appearance of a rabid dog. That combined with the fact that Kurt had refused to move from his bed until Finn left made him extremely uneasy.
“Yes, I’m fine. Why do you keep looking at me like that?”
“Like what?”
“You’re watching me, Finn! And it’s freaking me out. Why the hell are you even here, anyway?”
“Uh, I live here?” He felt his face heat with sudden anger. What the heck was Kurt’s problem today? “This is my room too, you know.”
Kurt rolled his eyes dramatically. “Oh, I hadn’t noticed. So it was you who decided that we should be surrounded by puce and oversized pictures of scantily clad women night and day? I’d never have guessed. Fantastic.”
“I don’t even know what all of that means, but I’m sure it’s not a compliment. And I’m not watching you.”
“Yes, you were. I saw you.”
Finn sighed heavily and pushed himself out of bed. He couldn’t deal with this right now. It was the freakin’ first Saturday of summer break, and Kurt just had to start the day off by being a bitch. “Whatever, man. I really don’t want to argue with you right now. I’m gonna go get my shower.” He stood to leave, but a thought occurred to him and he turned back. “Hey, weren’t you supposed to go with your dad to the garage today? Some car you wanted to work on that you didn’t trust Jeff with?”
Kurt’s eyes widened and his head snapped to the left. He stared for a split second at the large red digits of Finn’s alarm clock before flying from his bed in a flurry of sheets. He pushed past Finn to get upstairs, muttering curses under his breath as he went, slamming the door shut behind him. Finn was left standing in the empty bedroom, toes curled into the white carpet. What the heck had just happened?
Kurt was kind of a freak on the best of days, but this was kind of excessive. Yeah, so he might have had a near-death scare yesterday. That didn’t mean he had to be a snot about…whatever the heck was bothering him today. Finn snorted and stepped over to his closet to find a clean pair of jeans. Whatever. If Kurt wanted to be irritating, he could do it somewhere else. Finn had better things to do.
---
Finn didn’t see Kurt again until that evening. He’d spent the whole day with Rachel and her dads (they were surprisingly good company, though one of them kept giving him the evil eye for being so comfortable with his little girl), but Finn was ready for a nice, relaxing night at home. Maybe he could cajole his mom into channel-surfing with him. They hadn’t done that in forever. And he did feel a little bad about this morning, though he hadn’t started anything. Maybe he really had been irritating, and Kurt had just been calling him out on it. Or maybe Kurt was just being touchy and needed to chill. Whatever. It still didn’t change the fact that he felt bad, so maybe an apology and a weepy chick flick were in order. Kurt would like that. It wasn’t as if they had anything better to do tonight.
He kicked off his shoes the second he walked into the house, leaving them sprawled in the middle of the floor. His sneakers were comfortable, sure, but he’d been on his feet all day, and he knew how Kurt could get about him leaving his shoes on and tracking dirt all over the carpet. He really wasn’t in the mood to argue with him about something like that. He made a beeline for the fridge and was pleased to see his mom sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper with what looked and smelled like a fresh cup of coffee in her hand.
“Hey, mom,” he said as he passed. She looked up at him with a little smile and then turned back to the newspaper. He opened the fridge door and studied the contents carefully, not really pleased with what he saw. Maybe some bread. He shut the door and made his way over to the pantry, digging out the slightly lumpy bad of bread. Two slices. One sandwich. Done deal.
As he slathered peanut butter onto one slice, he looked up at his mom. She was still reading intently, focused on the tiny print of the newspaper in front of her. “Hey, mom, have you seen Kurt? I saw the Navigator outside, so I assumed he was home. I need to talk to him about something.”
She turned her head to meet his eyes, placing her paper fully on the table. “Yeah, he’s actually downstairs. But be careful; he’s in one hell of a mood.”
So he was still pissed about this morning. Great. “Anything happen?”
“Nothing he would tell me about. Just came home around two this afternoon looking really agitated about something and disappeared into the basement. He’s been down there ever since.”
“Did he say anything to you?”
“No. He just came in and made straight for the basement door. He looked pretty upset, but I didn’t think he’d appreciate me questioning him. He doesn’t usually like it when I pry.” She set the newspaper on the table and looked up at him. “Why? Did something happen this morning?”
Finn wasn’t quite sure what to say. “Uh, sort of, I guess, but not really. He got up late, like way later than usual, and we sort of argued, but I dunno. He just seemed kind of off this morning.” He looked toward the basement door. “Maybe he’s calmed down a bit. I’ll go check on him.”
He grabbed his sandwich and made for the basement door. He took the stairs slowly, one at a time-he wasn’t really sure he wanted to talk to Kurt just yet, but there was something in the back of his mind that just wouldn’t let it be. He thought back to when Kurt first came home from Dalton for the summer and how he’d torn apart the kitchen trying to organize it. Come to think about it, Kurt’s words this morning were pretty weird too.
You’re watching me, Finn!
Why the hell are you even here?
The basement was quiet as he entered. Odd. Kurt usually liked to have music playing when he was alone. Maybe he had his earphones in or something. Finn swallowed hard. The sound of scissors cutting paper could heard from around the corner. “Kurt?”
Kurt was sitting cross-legged on his bed, furiously cutting apart what looked like a magazine from atop his comforter. His iPod was sitting on the nightstand beside his bed, screen dark and untouched. No music, then. “Kurt?”
Kurt startled, nearly cutting off his finger in the process. He looked up at Finn and smiled, though the effect was far from comforting. Finn suddenly didn’t want his sandwich anymore.
“Finn. You’re back. How was your day?”
“Uh, fine. I guess. What are you doing?” He gestured vaguely at the decimated magazine and the scraps of paper littering the floor.
“What, this? It’s nothing. Just housekeeping.” He turned back to his task, scissors flying.
Finn cautiously stepped forward and peered at the tiny pieces of paper scattered across the carpet. These looked familiar to him somehow. He glanced back over to Kurt, who was diligently cutting out a neat rectangle from the middle of the page. Finn couldn’t see the cover from where he was standing and so turned his attention back to the pieces on the floor. What the heck? He picked up one of the scraps of paper and inspected it in his fingers. It was someone-some model’s-eyes. He let it flutter back to the floor and peered closer at the pieces near his feet. They were all eyes! He looked back over to Kurt, who was now flipping through the pages, inspecting his handiwork. Wait a minute…Finn squinted and looked hard at the cover.
“Dude! Isn’t that, like, your favorite Vogue or whatever?’
Kurt didn’t look at him, just kept flipping through the pages. “Yes, Finn. It is. And now it’s perfect.”
Finn couldn’t contain his bewilderment. “What do you mean, perfect?”
“Can’t you see? Now they can’t watch me anymore. They can’t steal my secrets.”
Okay. Now Finn was starting to freak out. That was definitely not normal. “Are you all right, Kurt?”
Kurt slapped the magazine down flat on his bed. “I’m fine! Everyone keeps asking me that. Why do you keep asking me that?”
“Because you’re freaking me out! You’re not acting like yourself. You’ve been all funny ever since you came home from school. What the heck happened to you at Dalton? Did someone hurt you? What? Talk to me, man.”
Kurt’s blue eyes bore into him and Finn backed up a step. He could see a flash of steel from the scissors still clenched in Kurt’s fist.
“Were you with Rachel today, Finn?”
“What?” That was completely out of left field.
“I said, were you with Rachel?” His voice was low, quiet, calm. It scared Finn down to his core.
“Y-yeah. Why?”
Kurt bowed a little and got to his feet. Finn took another step back.
Kurt began pacing the floor in front of his bed, the little cut-out eyes fluttering across the carpet with each step. He was muttering something to himself.
“Look, dude. I’m…I’m gonna go upstairs. I’ll just-I’ll wait for you to calm down and we can talk later, okay?” he said as calmly as he could, backing towards the stairs as he spoke.
Kurt suddenly stopped and looked at him. “I can’t let you do that, Finn.”
“What?”
“I can’t let you do that. I see now that it’s all your fault. You’ve seen too much. You’re giving away all of my secrets to Rachel. That’s why you saw her today, isn’t it? To sabotage me? Yeah, and I bet you’ve been talking to them, haven’t you? That’s why they tried to get me yesterday. Well, I can’t let that happen. Not again.”
“What? Who are you talking about? Y-you’re not making any sense. You’re scaring me, Kurt.” Finn was almost at the stairs now. If he could just get to them, then he could get his mom and everything would be okay again. Kurt was getting closer.
“I can’t let you leave, Finn. They’ll come back if I do.”
His heel hit the first step and he took off at a run. His sandwich fell from his fingers to the carpet, forgotten in his haste. Finn could hardly hear anything over the mad beating of his heart. Oh god, oh god, Kurt was trying to kill him. He dashed up the stairs, his socked feet slipping on the carpeted steps. Oh god, oh god, oh god. Kurt was screaming and everything was wrong, and oh god, oh god, oh god.
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