AN: So, hi! It's me again, with yet another oneshot. I'm massively nervous about this one, because it's not exactly what I'm used to and, yeah. The plot was born from experience... sort of.
So, I'd like to toss in a good word for Samparam here, because if m'dear hadn't read this first and been generally awesome - as always - I probably wouldn't have the guts to post this.
If you're interested in the songs mentioned, you can find them on my LJ - I go by omnisvirtigris there :)
Warnings: nothing in particular. Perhaps a curse or two, overuse of music and italics.
Disclaimer: I do not own Glee, the characters not the songs. (Hey, better late than never. It's not at the top, but it's in here!)
There are a lot of people who say that music is their everything, that they can't live without music and can't imagine a world without it; many of those people limit themselves, though, and just listen to some genres and shun the rest, with meek excuses like, "it's all autotuned, this-or-that-person doesn't actually have any talent", "rap is all about curses and sex", "they're just yelling, you can't call that music" or "this song doesn't even have a melody, it's not music". And, sure, in some cases they may be right. Maybe.
But Kurt is of the firm opinion that every song ever made is music, every song is melodious and even if he doesn't necessarily enjoy all sorts of music, he's proud to say that he's at least tried listening to any music he's ever been able to get a hand on. Everything from Elaine Paige, Barbra Streisand, Rihanna, Bob Dylan, Celine Dion, Landon Pigg, John Legend, Britney Spears, Paul Anka and Bette Midler, to Elvis, The Beatles, Metallica, Kid Rock, ZZ Top, Marvin Gaye, Billy Joel, Eminem, Ella Fitzgerald and Taylor Swift. J-pop, J-rock, rockabilly, classic music, hard rock, metal, metal/rap, contemporary rock, indie, all sorts of soundtracks, broadway classics, top forties; the entire history of jazz, Disney songs, and any acoustic versions of everything.
Kurt can sing along with Finn when they drive somewhere together and Finn gets to choose the music and it's all about Kiss, ACDC and The Rolling Stones; he can keep up with Carole when she talks about the 80s classics and her undying love for Boy George; he knows his father's CD collection as well as his dad does; he knows the lyrics to every Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston and Gloria Gaynor song when he and Mercedes have diva-offs for fun; he can yell and jump and freak out with Tina when she channels her feelings through Kelly Clarkson, My Chemical Romance, Avenged Sevenfold, and Breaking Benjamin; he knows Journey just as well as Mr Schue (even if he doesn't enjoy their music as much); he hums along when Brittany plays her sweet pop as well as her surprisingly obscure, indie music by bands that very few know about and he knows every track on every album by The Script, Adele and OneRepublic before Quinn has them on repeat for hours.
Kurt's not proud of it, but he's listened to Justin Bieber - which is why he can't really blame Sam for doing it, even if Sam actually really likes the music (on the upside, Kurt's managed to get Sam to listen to the soundtracks of some of the Disney classics and Sam likes them almost as much as Blaine does! And that's saying something). He gets Artie's hiphop and penchant for cheesy soul/R'N'B from the 70s. Kurt knows Rachel's music collection like the back of hand, mostly because it matches his musical section quite well, but also because it's not very extensive outside of that.
The point is that Kurt knows what he's talking about when it comes to music; when he says that music is a large part of his life, he means it. He always turns to music, no matter what mood he's in; he applies songs to real life and sometimes to people. Finn's had his fair share of cheesy love songs - I Honestly Love You, I Will Always Love You, Burning Love, Bleeding Love, to name a few - and for a while he had Somebody Told Me and The Mixed Tape, but nowadays he's stuck with Just The Way You Are and On My Way (the latter because it's from Brother Bear and is sweet and happy-go-lucky in a happy-Finn kind of way). Sam had Ain't No Mountain High Enough for a short while, but received Barbie Girl after the duet deal, before friendlier, happy, platonic songs instead.
(Kurt would never admit it, but Blaine got Teenage Dream and Ain't No Other Man about two seconds after the ending notes on the Warblers rendition of Teenage Dream died out. They changed with time - well, not Teenage Dream, never that song - into softer, sweeter songs as Kurt's crush was run over and stomped on, but remained and somehow got even worse. Bad enough to use the nice-L-word. I'll Cover You is so not anywhere near the list of songs Blaine has, nor is I Won't Say (I'm In Love). Honest.)
Again, the point is that Kurt always, always uses music. It's his outlet.
So when Karofsky threatens to kill him and proceeds to loom darkly in every corner, behind every turn, Kurt is naturally bound to turn to music again. Only it isn't enough to just bury himself underneath dozens of pillows and blankets, earphones on and music turned to almost dangerous volumes. He feels slightly sick and faint, unbelieveably tired, but it's not physical; it's on a much deeper level and Kurt finds himself writing the word jaded into his sheets with his pinkie over and over again.
He comes to the conclusion that he's under too much stress - Karofsky, the kiss, the nightmares he brings, the bullying, the wedding Kurt is planning, his dad's health which is far from fully restored, school and the crushing sense of hopelessness that floods him when he walks down the corridors, glee club and how Mr Schue refuses to let anyone but Rachel, Finn or whoever shouts the loudest have the spotlight, his "new family", Mercedes pulling away because Blaine is getting closer, sectionals, clothes, fashion, life...
Somehow, Kurt ends up in the bathroom. He's not sure how he got there - if he tries, he can recall throwing the mountains of fluffiness away and slamming the bathroom door shut - and doesn't turn on the lights, just sits down on the floor and wraps his arms around himself. He's shirtless, dressed only in well-worn, soft sweatpants, and his battered back is exposed in the darkness, dark bruises standing out starkly against the otherwise pale skin.
Kurt still feels faint, not quite like himself, but it doesn't matter. He does what he knows he does best; sings.
He sings any and every song that comes to mind; if he knows the lyrics, it's good enough, because music touches in that deep spot within him, close to his heart, beating in his chest. Singing releases the tension in his shoulders even as he tightens the grip around himself and rocks back and forth absently, lets out everything he keeps locked up even if this particular song doesn't express all the emotions running through him right now.
Kurt sings quietly, he sings loudly; somewhere between so I stayed in the darkness with you and none of it was ever worth the risk and nevermind me, I'll just cast shadows on your wall he starts coming back to himself, but doesn't stop singing.
Eventually his throat closes up and his mouth goes dry, just as he runs out of words. Kurt rests his head against his knees and just breathes for a while. He can't find it in himself to move, but he knows he has too, because there are so many reasons why falling asleep in a locked bathroom is a bad idea. Not only would it kill his neck and back, but also probably give Burt another heart attack and that's the last thing they need. So he wills himself to stand up and stumbles out of the bathroom and falls onto his bed.
Kurt's exhausted now and it's mostly because he's still not wearing a shirt that he pulls the blankets back up. As his breathing slows and the world grows fuzzy around the edges, he realizes he can't remember a single song he sang.
~._.~
Over the course of the next few months, life changes quite drastically for Kurt.
He enrolls at Dalton, for one. He's a Warbler now, and member of a student body - all boys - who are against bullying. It's surreal, it's strange, but it only takes a couple of days to stop flinching when he turns a corner and sees someone who's tall and muscular and notkarofskybreathe; he even stops jumping a foot up in the air when people try to high-five his hand and not his face. It takes another few weeks to truly understand that no, these boys won't beat him to a pulp if he so much as breathes in the wrong direction.
When Kurt gets all that, though, it's pretty awesome. The Warblers are fantastic and Kurt's friends with all of them and is still gets stupidly giddy when he logs onto facebook and sees the amount of friends he has. It sounds pathetic, yes. Sad. But true, and it's all better now, so it's fine.
The Hummel-Hudson clan has changed locations and now live together in a new, bigger house. It feels sad and very... strange to move away from the house he's grown up in, a house that holds so many memories - particularly of his mother - but it is okay. Kurt spends as much time as he can at the new place, attempting to grasp the new group dynamic with Finn and Carole in their midst. It's surprisingly easy to become all buddy-buddy and brotherly with Finn; it's odd to have more people than just his dad around, but not in a bad way. Not always. It's definitely nice to have a woman in the house, though. Not to mention the inevitable prank wars; it starts with just Finn versus Kurt, but after a few weeks Puck joins Finn's team and Sam joins Kurt's. Sometimes Mike (team Kurt) comes over, sometimes he brings Artie (team Finn). It's all extremely entertaining.
Kurt becomes happy again. Happier than he's been in a long time, possibly ever, because even if Dalton's curriculum is decidedly more difficult and challenging than McKinley's is, the teachers are stricter and he has to drive back and forth between Lima and Westerville a whole lot, it's still much easier like this. It feels like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders and he can stand straight and breathe properly again.
But Kurt doesn't forget that dark, desperate night when just listening to music underneath piles of fluffiness wasn't enough. He doesn't forget the darkness that had been heavy in the bathroom, the feel of cold tiles under his legs and the cool air against his bruised back. He still can't quite recall the music, though. He has, over the past few weeks, found himself flashing back to that night, has remembered the faint, creaking sounds of footsteps from the floor above and been able to recall snippets from one song or another.
It's not like every song he's ever heard has been wiped off his mind, so Kurt can safely guess what songs he sang. He can imagine singing them, but what's bothering him is the fact that he can't connect the songs with the memories. It's weird, especially since he has this ability to remember most of the songs he's ever sung.
They are coming back, though. It just takes time. It's not like it would matter if Kurt never remembered the songs he sang that night, but at the same time there's a part of him that believes that until he can recall the music he sang that night, he won't get proper closure. It's quite silly, but that's how it feels. He can't really speed up the remembering process, so the only thing he can do is wait.
And wait he does.
~._.~
The songs come back to him at the strangest times.
He's cleaning his and Finn's bathroom - which, suffice to say, is a less-than-pleasant experience, but alas, one he has to live through at least once every other week, since Finn doesn't do cleaning (or anything that includes clean) very well - when he finds himself humming Missy Higgins Scar and is hit by a tidal wave of déja vu. He pauses in the middle of a gesture as Walking In Memphis trickles into his mind, when he's teaching his dad how to make perfect frosting to their blueberry cupcakes. Kurt's fixing Sam's car when he hears it's the perfect time of day to throw all your cares away, put the sprinkler on the lawn, run through with my gym shorts on, he's watching Mike fool around and trying new steps as Artie gives him a beat when he remembers Shake It, listening to Brittany chat about her cat and doing Santana's nails when his mind supplies him with the lyrics to Feeling Good.
Kurt finds himself muttering make it my fault, win the game - point the finger, place the blame, address me up and down, it doesn't matter now as he adds extra sugar to Blaine's coffee on one of their casual coffee dates and he feels someone glaring at his back. He's singing Toy Boy as he helps David pick out an outfit for some date, Do You Hear The People Sing? during his, Nick and Jeff's study session for a French exam.
Kurt's not particularly proud to admit it, but he totally cries when his subconscious retrieval process reaches the difficult songs. He excuses himself from Art class when he catches himself whispering the opening words to I Want To Hold Your Hand, sheds a few tears as he walks to his car after school and sings when I find myself in times of trouble, runs two extra laps during gym as living is easy with eyes closed rings in his head, because The Beatles was more or less the only band he listened to until he was eight, because his mom loved them and Ticket To Ride was always playing in the diner where she and Burt first met.
She had a thing for Queen, too, but mostly because she'd thought Freddy Mercury was hilarious. So, naturally, when Kurt turns on the radio in his car when he's headed to Mercedes' and their having a Queen marathon (he realizes, within moments, that he must've sung something by Queen that night and this doesn't bode well for his eyes; they're sure to be red-rimmed by the time he's actually started driving), he starts to laugh during Bohemian Rhapsody but is already bawling his eyes out when they reach Under Pressure and has to pull over to make sure he doesn't crash into something because his eyes are so blurry. It doesn't help that he knows, somewhere deep inside, that he sung these songs when he was on the brink of insanity, so incredibly desperate and as the songs click with the memories, it feels like something inside of him breaks.
It probably doesn't break, though - more like clicks into place.
But when he's still in the middle of the process, it sort of really hurts.
~._.~
It takes months for Kurt to go remember all the songs. Sometimes it takes a while between them; sometimes he remembers three on one day, sometimes it takes two and a half weeks to remember one. There is an entire month's gap between Mr Mistoffelees and Wonderchild.
About three months into his relationship with Blaine - his boyfriend Blaine, Blaine his boyfriend, Blaine his best friend and Blaine his best boyfriend (it's still amazing to even think about) - Kurt catches himself singing Teacher during Spanish, which is probably the most inappropriate and awkward timing of a song so far (or ever, because, seriously - Mr Schue's face as he overhears there ain't no joy for an uptown boy whose teacher has told him goodbye... it's just - very awkward). It is, however, also the song that makes him realize that there aren't many left. It's a feeling in his chest, a strange tickling in his gut that tells him that soon, this recalling of songs is over and he can actually, properly get over that stage of his life.
Sure, it's not ideal now either, but it's definitely much better than it was before Kurt transferred to Dalton. Kurt's... happier now, feels safer, more confident. He knows where he stands, without a doubt, and there's still idiotic Neanderthals that will toss ugly words his way as they pass him by in the corridor, the occasional slushy will bitch-slap him and forever ruin whatever fabulous outfit he's wearing unless he can get it off in time, but that happens to all the glee kids. Nowadays, it's not so much fucking homo and whispers about how he's going to hell because he spreads the gay disease, but more LOSER - in capital letters - on repeat, because they truly can't come up with anything cleverer. Considering everything Kurt's had to take, he barely bats an eyelash when the words are thrown at him.
When Mad World fall into place, Kurt begins to marvel at how much music has done for him. It sounds extraordinarily cliché - and Kurt Hummel, as much of a sappy romantic as he is, does not do clichés; classics are good, clichés are painful - but it's... true. Music has helped heal him (and he'll be damned if he ever admits that out loud), because the songs clicking into place doesn't feel like something twisting and breaking inside his chest any longer. About four songs ago, it started feeling more like smoothing over a crack, evening out a surface and making it whole again.
And all of our friends who think that I'm blessed, they don't know my head is a mess is strumming in his veins and Kurt realizes he's humming it as he reads a late-night text he just received.
From: Blaine
soo, we just got 2morrow afternoon off anyway. our date is on! what do u wanna do?
He also realizes it's the last song and laughs out loud at the nerve-tickling relief that rushes through him, the unadulterated happiness, the inexplicable but doubtless giddiness.
Kurt's still giggling slightly when he texts back his answer;
To: Blaine
I want to sing 3