SONG: All It Is (Katherine Calder)
TITLE:25 Is Not Exactly Dying Age
PAIRING; No Pairing, Friendships with Blaine, Dave, Sebastian, and Puck
RATING: Hard R for angst
WARNINGS: suicidal idealization, angst, character death
SUMMARY: Kurt comes home from Lima numb.
NOTES:Future!fic Cannon to OMW Posted for the porcelain_fans Song Challenge on lj
"I just got home." Kurt spoke into his blue tooth as he opened his suitcase. Each carefully folded and pressed item of clothing was taken out and placed in its precise place in his closet.
"How about dinner? No need to cook something right after you got back." Blaine's voice was edged with worry.
"I think I want to spend the night in. Settle back into the apartment. I'm sure there's a pile of e-mail clogging my inbox." Kurt dismissed the worry. What was there to worry about? Kurt was home now, back to his real life.
The day moved slowly, simply. Kurt did two loads of laundry, checked his mail box, shredded credit card applications and searched his kitchen. A long overdue cleaning was in order. The light outside was gone and the lights of his neighbors were out by the time he'd taken himself to stop scrubbing the tile of his counters.
He ordered in, eating on a plate despite the perfectly good Chinese food box it came in. Kurt laughed a little, Finn would be shocked. The sound rattled in the empty hall like an echo. Kurt slept, an empty and full Kung Pow Chicken left on the flatware.
His phone woke him the next morning. The clock coldly stated 11:34am and his phone shows the image of a rather irritated meerkat. It was left over from a time that he and Sebastian had only begrudgingly put up with eachother. He pressed the answer button. Without being able to greet, Sebastian's voice assaulted him.
"Four rings? That's an awful long time for you to take picking up. Do you have some big man buried in you? I'm proud of you shucking that virginal mask and unleashing your inner slut, Porcelain."
Kurt groaned. The insults had never really changed, they just were no longer loaded with a threat to Kurt's relationship or lack of one.. "I slept in."
"Are you ill?"
"I just got home Sebastian. I'm allowed some rest."
"All the beauty sleep wouldn't hel..."
"Stop." Shockingly Sebastian did.
"Clubbing tonight?"
"I'm catching up on things." Kurt said firmly, not wanting to deal with Sebastian's well-meaning but crude personality today.
Kurt kept true to his words. He reviewed all of the designs he was supposed to oversee, marking each one with his special brand of meticulous notes. An fellow assistant called them the 'hummel halts'. Whatever he made a criticism it was likely to halt the production. It took him into the evening before he was finished.
~
Two days before the next call. This one was a call he would always take. Since the unfortunate incident senior year Kurt would never ever miss a call from David even in the deep recesses of fashion week, or his own mind. He opened the phone.
"Hello Dave."
"Hey Kurt." Dave's voice was always soft, gentle. He'd gained a new kind of tone during college. It was gentle, he was still physically imposing without meaning to be he kept his voice a contrast for his own sake.
"What's going on?"
"Missing you." There was another change in his dear friend. Once he'd gone to honesty he'd never went back to lying, no matter how hard it was.
"I've been out dealing with..."
"I know. I'm sorry." Dave was always like that, trying to save him from pain even if it was just a painful truth.
"Yeah... everyone is."
"I'm heading out, can I grab you food or something?"
"I need to go grocery shopping."
"I have a strong pair of arms to help out."
"Stop."
"I'm happy to..."
"Stop. I don't want you trying to take care of me."
There was the crux of why they had never attempted a relationships even all these years later. Dave still had this way of thinking that put Kurt first, second and third. He would bend backwards for Kurt and in no way was that a fair relationship for either of them. A long pause stretched between them.
"I'm just worried."
"I know. I'm fine."
~
Kurt had to leave the house, it was inevitable. He pushed it off by ordering in, by scrubbing everything and then by letting it do. He stopped taking out the garbage, stopped cleaning dishes, stopped even eating off of them. There was a small tower of pizza cardboards buttressed with white folding take out boxes. Kurt himself was not in any state to leave. Really he couldn't leave like this. His hair was a mess. So he didn't.
His work was looking for an in-office consultation, but he put it off another month. It was easy to do, really. It was amazing what grief could do. And he barely felt a thing. Really, he felt nothing. He typed out the words, the excuse about his...
A hotdog hastily snatched away from huge clumsy fingers right before an ill-fated glob of mustard ruined the tux. A huge dopey smile and 'Thank you! Rachel would have killed me!' A perfect score on Rock Band. A vague plan to form a band that only got to planning stage before...
Kurt ran himself to the bathroom. An hour later he lay curled in a ball and sobbed. He would wake there the next morning.
~~
He had to leave the house the next day. His car was in need of a tune-up. He dressed in his stained overalls and a baseball cap. His feet stuck out from under the car as he checked on his baby. His Expedition was still in excellent shape thanks to his upkeep. He nibbled on his lower lip as he checked at the fuel line.
Huge oil stained hands holding onto the tube as the deconstructed engine lay in pieces around the Hummel men. A smile and a squeeze on his shoulder when he lost Blaine to the distance of college. A excited shout when he had landed himself a lead role. A line of worn out and tattered baseball hands on top of a coffin.
Kurt never realized the sun went down. He stumbled back to his apartment and fell into bed with the scent of oil and grease surrounding him.
~~
Somewhere around the month mark he decided. He pulled the phone, the messages had been sitting in his e-mail too long.
"Sell it."
"Are you sure sir. There's quite a few items of no doubt sentimental va..."
"Sell it all."
He hung up the phone and dialed a number. It only took a ring and a half before it was picked up.
"Come over."
The man on the other side of the mine gave a relieved sigh. "Thought you'd never let us help, Princess. I'll round up the posse."
"Thanks Puck."
"Seriously you have no idea how many times I had to say no to a bj from Seb. You know how he gets with sex when worried. Dude might propose when he sees you."
Kurt found himself smiling. It was a ghost of a smile, but it was the first since the funeral. He needed his friends. They were his family now. Time to move on.
end