Kurt is tired. He's always tired. Maybe it's because he stays awake all night and then tries to keep his eyes open in the daylight as well. He has two jobs. One is from eight am until five pm, and he stocks shelves for minimum pay while humming songs that he would once belt out for all to hear. But he stopped singing a while ago. Around the time Puck convinced him to move to L.A, maybe.
He's never liked Puck, but that hate has intensified lately. Puck's the one who got him into this mess in the first place. It all started in the last year of High School. Kurt hadn't really talked to any of the football team, he stayed out of the way, having decided to keep his sexuality a secret and wear less flamboyant clothes after his initial year of being shoved into a dumpster on a regular basis. He hadn't had any friends after that, but he had slipped under the radar, wearing jeans and generic t-shirts, until… "Kurt, I've got some good news. Carol and I are getting married." Of course Kurt had known that his father was dating Finn Hudson's mom, but Finn—captain of the football team, obviously—had never approached him about it, nor given him any trouble over it. But then it changed, all after the stupid proposal that shouldn't have changed all that much. It did, though. Finn moved in, and he called Kurt a Faggot and Burt didn't even hear. No one defended him because no one knew what was going on. Finn wasn't a mean person, but he'd been brainwashed by his 'friends'. Especially Puck.
Puck was Finn's best friend, and he spent a lot of his time loitering around in Kurt and Finn's room, ignoring Kurt for the most part but occasionally taunting him. Finn just laughed along when Puck picked on Kurt's latest hairstyle (which was never meant to stand out, but somehow it did), and Kurt managed not to cry. Puck never graduated, but neither did Kurt. Kurt was too terrified to say no when Puck broke in and told him they were moving away. And his grade point average had been slipping due to the incessant bullying, and Finn playing Call of Duty until two am on weekdays.
He supposes, now, that Puck kidnapped him. He supposes that, if he wanted to, he could go back home. He could finish school. But he's too proud. Too stupidly proud to go groveling back, to admit to it all. Why didn't he ask for help while he had the chance? It's a question that's never far from his mind. He thinks about it day and night, he thinks about it while a random guy is pounding into him and money is transferred and he realizes…fuck, this is who I am. A cheap whore. He thinks to himself, why don't I just go home? But he shakes it off, again and again. This will stop, soon. I'll find a real job and everything will be fine.
It doesn't stop, not as the months turn into a year and the snow falls once again (even in LA, although it's more like a dust of frost if he's honest), and he wonders again and again if this interview will lead to a job that will mean he can end his association with prostitution. None of them do. He goes home to a crummy flat and calls his 'distributor' (he prefers that word over any other descriptive term), and the man on the end of the line tells him the address he's got to go to. It's all very organized. If Kurt's honest, that's worse, because it makes the whole thing seem more real.
He can't tell you what his distributor's name is, because he simply doesn't know. He's an old friend of Puck's, as far as Kurt knows, but they can't be close because after Kurt kicked Puck out for good, he still kept his job.
So, nothing changes. Nothing ever does. The world just keeps spinning around Kurt, people have moved on but he's stuck, cemented to a dark, overlooked spot where nothing counts unless it makes you richer. In this spot, nobody sees him but Kurt soon forgets to see. His eyes darken over and his heart, that once ruled his life, hardens. It used to hurt. The process that iced his heart over made him weep in agony until the tears blanched out the little colour in his skin and his eyes turned a misty grey. Kurt knows he's broken, but he also knows nobody can fix him. But now it doesn't hurt anymore. Nothing hurts anymore. Not the bruises and the cuts that he receives on street corners, not the slurs, not the spit, not the burn that used to make him limp whenever a 'client' was too quick to shove himself inside and not the humiliation.
A rosy blush has been absent from his cheeks for a long time and he doesn't blame Puck. Not anymore. It's been a long time since it's been Puck's fault because, if he's honest with himself, he's given up. His heart just doesn't have the strength to make him speak, stand out or even, to simply walk away. So, he wakes up and shrugs on his white shirt and black slacks and even though doesn't have the heart to put on the hideous vest adorned with the sickening 'How may I help you?', he hides it in his ragged rucksack. Shoving a sharp, green apple in his mouth and stumbling out of his door, he sucks in a last breath before beginning his fifteen minute walk to his favoured, but detested, work.
Kurt thinks L.A is busy, but not the right kind of busy. The dull busy, the normal busy and the boring busy. To Kurt, everyone he walks past seems the same—or at least has the same aims - to make money and fast, no matter what the consequences. It may be a bitter and cynical view but that's what Kurt is. He knows he hasn't seen the real city…or perhaps he has. Kurt has a first class seat for watching and sadly experiencing the underside of the city. He experiences the poorest, the most wretched side of L. A. He sees the desperation.
He recalls last week watching a haggard young woman with dirty hair and ill-fitting clothes, clutching a baby, steal a loaf of bread. Kurt let her go. He has let a lot of them go. How much money does the store make a minute? Enough to let a couple of the poorest people take the smallest amount they can? Kurt thinks so. He slinks in the back entrance, dumps his bag and pulls on the horrific vest, grimacing. He fits his perfectly practised, glittering smile onto his pale face and stalks out of the locker room, grabbing his clipboard. Shelf stacking. It means that Kurt is running the risk of having to converse. He has to direct people, chat, and make small talk. Small talk. Kurt shudders and grabs his trolley. He wheels the cart up the aisle; rips open the package of tins and starts placing them on the shelves. Kurt has no energy; his eyes are blinking fast in an attempt just to stay conscious.
He is still stacking shelves eight hours later - just milk this time when he realises someone is staring at him. Patchy, long, grey hair and dark eyes, he is staring from under the brim of a low hat. His clothes are shabby and broken, ripped and dirty. Even from a distance Kurt can see the mud on his face and under his nails, even smell him.
He quickly realises his man is drunk. His eyes aren't focused and his fingers are trembling slightly. Kurt turns back to the shelves, eyes flicking towards the man but he keeps, although hesitantly, stacking the milk. It stays like that for some time. Stacking and staring. Stacking and staring. It is unnerving.
Kurt turns to pick the last box out of the trolley, bending down to grab it; he feels a pressure against his back. He swallows the lump that had begun to form in his throat. Slowly, he turns around to be face to face with the foul smelling man. He belches. Kurt heaves. His hands shake as the man places his rough, ugly fingers tenderly on his lips. The two men are inches apart and Kurt stares into his lusting, intoxicated eyes with his own brimming with tears; a woman turns into the aisle but quickly reverses, eyes wide like a rabbit.
Kurt doesn't move; he barely takes a breath. The man leans in, his face close far too close and inhales. A tear leaks from Kurt's eyes, his whole body shivering. Suddenly, he is pushed away. The man is growling now with fierce eyes and a face twisted with loathing (for himself or Kurt, he doesn't know) then he spits. The thick globule of phlegm rolls down Kurt's cheek, mixing with the tears. Kurt takes off, leaving the cart and the homeless man, sprinting back to the store room.
He rips off his vest and scrapes it across his face before throwing it at the wall. Big choking sobs shake through his body. Kurt weeps and the tears sting. He wipes his face and still shuddering, he scratches frantically down his arms, leaving long white lines in their wake but it seems to drain a little of the panic until he can breathe. He had been lying, his heart burns. It's as though the man's fingers had been blades and his heart had been cut up the moment he had touched him. He crawls towards the sinks and splashes his face with icy liquid, raises his head, stares into the mirror and then for the first time in three years, sees his own drained, sorrowful eyes. Kurt cringes.
He realises, almost distantly, that he recognises the man. He was a customer, once upon a time, but he looks different now. Older. Before, his hair had been a sleek, shiny grey, and his matching sliver pin-striped suit had been neat and orderly. Now, he's changed, and it just goes to show how fast everything can crumble in L.A. He was one of Kurt's firsts, a little over a year ago now, and yet so much is different, for both of them.
The man's still-grey hair is grizzled and wild, unkempt and so much longer now. His eyes are wild and clogged with sticky dust. Kurt shudders and tries to expel the image from his mind, but it stays. He even remembers a name, now: Andrew. It might not be the man's real name—it rarely is, with Kurt's customers—but it'll do. Kurt hopes never to see this man again: a name is irrelevant to him. He splashes his face with water and gulps in a deep breath before steeling himself and heading for the door. I can do this… he repeats it like a mantra.
It's the end of his shift anyway, so he sneaks out of the back door, shutting it carefully behind him.
"Hey, a voice from behind him says. "Sorry about my dad."
"Your…?" Kurt starts quizzically, turning around.
"That guy—the one who spat at you?—uh…yeah, that was my dad. Bit of a dick, really."
"Bit of a dick?" Kurt grumbles challengingly, his usual sarcastic exterior taking over. To the rest of the world, he was fine. Inside, he was crumpling.
"I haven't seen him in months, and then he turns up here, of all places! I'm going for a job, actually…I guess he remembered that it was today and turned up to ruin my chances." No, he came here for me, Kurt thinks.
"Um…what's your name?" he asks instead.
"Blaine Anderson," the guy replies promptly. "And you?"
"Oh, don't worry about me. I just stack shelves; I'm no one special."
"I'm just curious." Kurt snorts. No one's 'just curious'. Everyone wants something; if you wait long enough you'll discover what it is. Kurt doesn't really plan on sticking around for this guy. But then again…
"I'm Kurt." His smile is empty, but it does the trick. Blaine brightens and smiles back instantly. Kurt feels bad, using this kid for the money (and he is a kid, can't be more than seventeen), but he reckons the apple never falls far from the tree, so this guy—Blaine—is probably just as bad as his father. Kurt may as well get a good shag and some cash out of it.
"Nice to meet you, Kurt. My interview's in five, so I'd better go," Blaine grins.
"Uh, lemme give you my number," Kurt replies quickly, grabbing an unused napkin from his pocket. He scrawls out his digits and hands it to Blaine, letting their fingers brush for a moment. Blaine blushes and clears his throat before taking the napkin and wandering off.
Kurt allows himself a moment of staring at Blaine's ass before he goes into panic mode. He just gave Blaine his real number. And Kurt doesn't do that. He doesn't go around giving his number to handsome strangers; he gives them the agency's phone and they reach him through that…but Kurt doesn't think Blaine is the kind of person who would be comfortable with that. He groans and tries very hard not to think.
Kurt sits in his apartment, holding his favourite red (thrifted), cushion against his chest, knees curled up, his arms tight and secure. He doesn't know what he has been watching for the past hour, something that flashes with the occasional scream but otherwise, he hasn't noticed it.
To be honest, Kurt is not really sure what is wrong, something is, but he doesn't know what. All he knows is that he has ignored the last three calls from the agency and now, for the fourth time, his phone is vibrating on the arm rest of his chair. Kurt sighs and places the cushion back on the couch and snatches the irritating phone from the side.
"What?" He barks.
"I'm sorry, Hummel. Wrong time to ring?" The caller growled. "Well, get the hell of that podium and start doing your job. I've called you three times already. Get the hell down to the block of apartments on East Street. Number 43. Go. Now. Otherwise, I'll sell your sorry ass to another pimp and you know how nice I've been to you, Hummel."
"Okay."
"What the hell are you waiting for?"
Kurt puts the phone down and brings his fists up to his eyes and growls, he's shivering, with rage, fear and hate. Pure blinding hate for the man on the end of the phone. His mind is fighting, does he go and get the money, get the abuse, get the disgust that sits in his stomach for the rest of the day or does he stay and lose his money and risk being beaten until he is black and blue with weeping cuts and dark ringed eyes? He feels sick. The hand that life had given him was obscene. How could anyone be so chronically unlucky? No family, no friends, no safety. Surely, most people had at least one good thing that they could rely on so they could tell themselves that they weren't quite at rock bottom? Kurt couldn't think of anything, except maybe he wasn't homeless - yet.
He shoves his feet into shoes and throws on an unassuming yet beautifully tailored jacket. The one good thing he owns. Stolen. It had just been there, slung over the back of one of the sumptuous hotel chairs and after his 'customer' had paid him and was in the shower, had taken it. It earned him the thin, raised, white scar on his forearm but God, was it worth it.
For the second time that day, he sets out to work, in the same direction, just a little past the superstore and into the blocks of apartments that littered the concrete foundations and made the sky ugly and cluttered. A broken sofa, a hideous green, just sits in the road. Kurt circles around it. But, the thing he hates most about the buildings is the netting that covers the balconies. The little balconies that Kurt sees people sucking cigarettes on are surrounded by netting so if a person wanted to lean out, they couldn't, the netting would be in the way. Kurt hates that people can be so neglected that the authorities' only solution is to just net them in. Those people are so desperate that they cannot be trusted in their own homes.
The elevator smells of vodka and pot.
He strides along the corridor, swerving around the bits of still-wet gum until he is standing in front of number 43. Kurt thinks that the paint on the door could have been red at some point. It might have been. He curls his fingers into a fist and raps on the door meekly. He hopes that no one is home or that they didn't hear him. He slowly, hopefully, turns away from the door.
"You who I ordered?" Slurs the man who had just swung open the door.
"I…um…"
"Well, are you or not?"
Kurt turns round and looks at the man. Suddenly, he feels sick. Really sick. The thought of sleeping with this man is almost unbearable. No amount of money was about to change his mind.
"I have no idea what you are talking about." Kurt mutters.
The man's white vest has a streak of red sauce smeared in and his boxers are greying but bulging horrifically.
"Well, I called him and you suit the description, son."
"I know."
"Well, get inside."
"Okay. Sir…."
Kurt steps inside the house. It is mouldy. Everything feels mouldy and his skin is prickling with disgust. He can't touch anything, he can't. He moves down the hallway, his hands firmly clamped to his sides until he is ordered into the main living space. The air feels foul.
"What do you want me to do?" Kurt utters.
"Something longish. I'm paying for two hours. I've been saving for you."
"Uh hu." Kurt is distracted by some pictures pinned to the man's wall. Kurt looks back. "If you don't mind, who is this? Sir."
"My son. I don't see him all that much. He got himself a job and a tie and a wife and don't bother seeing me no more. I call him sometime."
"Oh." Kurt says.
The boy is about his age in the picture. Black hair, softy brown eyes and olive skin. He is smiling but sadly. Kurt decides it is not a happy picture. He is wearing a bow tie and seems to know that he can get out, do better, succeed. A lump rises in Kurt's throat and he turns back to the man.
"You go to the bedroom and I'll just, I'll just get ready."
"Sure. Don't keep me waiting."
Kurt winces and watches the man amble to the bedroom and shut the door. He takes off into the hallway, his feet skidding on the carpet. He bumps into that front door, his fingers fumbling on the door latch until his fingers stopped slipping and Kurt managed to wrench open the door and tear towards the elevator.
When he was finally on the other side of his door, in an apartment that he was, for once, grateful for, his hands still shook. Kurt took steadying breaths.
He has never run away before. Not once. That old man was probably looking for him now or with any hope, he might have fallen asleep and forgotten all about Kurt. The moon had been low and shy that night and he had managed to slink back home without being recognised.
But now, he was afraid. He knew that he would come for him and he had nowhere else to go. Kurt threw off his coat and ran to the little cupboard under the sink where he kept cleaning supplies and alcohol. He wasn't in the mood to be picky and grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniels, slugging the thick, burning liquid down, his mind cleared a little and his hands stopped shaking.
Pulling it from his lips and setting it down, he took a final shaky breath and turned back to hang up his coat. He slid it onto a hanger and put it into the wardrobe. In the pocket of his ugly vest was a little white square, the alcohol was making him forget, so curious, he unfolded it and gasped. It was Blaine's number and he had signed it with a tiny heart. Stumbling over to the phone, he picked it up and bashed in Blaine's digits. He heard it ring.
"Hello?" A sleepy voice answered.
"Please. Help. I need you." Kurt slurred.
"When did you give me your number?" Kurt asks when Blaine arrives.
"I didn't," Blaine says, bewildered. "Where'd you find it?"
"In the pocket of my—" Kurt gasps and breaks off, realizing who must have given him the number that became his lifeline. "Your dad."
"My…?" Blaine begins, and then realization dawns on him as well. "Oh, God. Anyway, what happened?"
"I can't do it any more," Kurt says, a sob building somewhere in his throat. "You know what I do, right?"
"Um, work at the store?" Blaine asks, and Kurt chuckles at his naivety; it comes out slightly hysterical.
"I'm a whore. Your dad used to…" Kurt shudders and his speech cuts off abruptly. "That was why he gave me your number. Well, his number, too, I suppose."
"He came back last night," Blaine replies softly. "We didn't see him for months and he came back and expected us to give him a place to stay. My mum kicked him out. Finally had the strength to, I suppose."
"I just ran away from a customer," Kurt says, expecting Blaine to understand, but he just looks at Kurt blankly. "That's bad," Kurt explains. "That means someone is likely to come here, and…and hurt me."
"Why?"
"Because I'm not meant to leave!" Kurt answers hysterically. "Don't you see? I'm trapped, and I can't get out! I just, I just—" he cuts off, tears flowing.
"Shh, shh," Blaine soothes quickly, rushing to Kurt's side and rubbing his arms. "It's okay. C'mon, you don't have to do this. It's fine, sweetie."
"Why are you being so nice?" Kurt asks quietly.
"Because you need help, and that's what normal people do. You can stay at my house, okay?"
"You don't have to…"
"I don't want to see you getting hurt," Blaine states fiercely.
When they get to Blaine's house, it's pitch black and his mum is asleep. Blaine puts a finger to his lips and pulls Kurt through the house (which is larger than anywhere Kurt has ever lived).
"My brother Cooper's staying here at the moment, so he's in the spare room," Blaine whispers. "You'll have to share with me, if that's alright?"
Kurt nods and tiptoes behind Blaine until they reach a large room, which Kurt assumes is Blaine's. Blaine turns on the light, and he sees that it's painted purple, an adorably queer room with fairy lights and everything.
"And here I was thinking you might be straight," Kurt finds it in him to joke, and Blaine giggles in a whisper.
Blaine pulls some pyjamas from a drawer, with cute printed bowties on them. Kurt raises an eyebrow but doesn't comment as Blaine hands them to him. He begins stripping off, pulling off the clothes that feel grimy and unclean, and it feels like their absence cleanses him. Blaine blushes, and Kurt realizes that not everyone is as adjusted to nudity as he is.
"Sorry," he mutters.
"It's okay, I quite like the view."
"You're a cheeky one. I like it," Kurt smirks before pulling on the clothes.
"Will it ever be okay?" Blaine asks, distracting from the light-hearted banter.
"I don't think so," Kurt admits. "I don't have anyone. I'm alone, and I always will be."
"Shut up," Blaine replies. "You've got me. And tomorrow, you'll have Tina as well. Then you'll have Mike, and Brittany, and Santana. You might even get Sam, if you're lucky."
"I won't be able to stay," Kurt whispers.
"You can stay as long as you like," Blaine insists, reaching out and cupping Kurt's cheeks, stroking his rough thumb along the soft, pale skin there.
"Thank you, Blaine," Kurt says.
"That's okay. D'you think…can I kiss you?"
"You're the first one who's not paying for it, so go ahead."
"You've never been kissed?" Blaine asks, startled.
"I have!" Kurt responds defensively. "Just…not by anyone under the age of thirty."
When Blaine leans in, Kurt can feel his heart hammering in his chest. This is a big deal for him, although he'll never admit it. He feels the soft pressure of Blaine's mouth (which tastes a bit like strawberry lipbalm, and Kurt stores that information away for later), and he feels the butterflies congregate in the bottom of his stomach.
It's only for a second before Blaine pulls away, eyes full of anxiety. Kurt smiles at him gently, grabbing his hand and pulling him over to the bed before climbing under the covers and motioning for Blaine to join him.
They cuddle under the blankets, and Kurt wonders if this is what being safe feels like.