Tell No One
Pairings: Blaine/Kurt
Rating: PG-13 (language) to R.
Spoilers: To 2x18. Kurt is back at McKinley.
Word Count: 4589
Warnings: dark/angst, underage sexual abuse, sap, some OOC.
Summary:
"In all honesty, Blaine's the perfect boyfriend. And like all boys, he wants something more. But Kurt's not all boys. Kurt's got a secret." (AU. Klaine. Childhood Fic.)
A/N: (Disclaimer: Obviously none of these characters are mine!) I assume Kurt's mom's name is Eleanor, and that she died when he was around nine (though I've heard elsewhere that it was six, I wanted her to leave a longer impression). This is a bit of a personal fic for me, with a some of it coming from my own background, even my nostalgia for Ohio, so I'm not really plotting it so much as trying to use it to process certain emotions...So I apologize in advance if the plotline is meh or if I take too many liberties with the characters. Kurt interested me as the POV since he is, for me, simultaneously the strongest and the loneliest character on the show, and I've curious what it means to be strong, and what it means to be lonely. This is also probably the companion fic/prequel to another series from Blaine's POV that I've been plotting from much earlier, but strangely enough I've written this first.
/**********/
The first time Kurt sees his father cry isn't when the nice police officer finishes talking, hands still crossed over his cap, or at the funeral, when Kurt's trying to sit all quiet and still through the speech Grandpa can't finish, or afterwards, when everyone gathers around the rose-dorned headstone in their black overcoats and black umbrellas like a flock of crows wheeling above a cherry tree.
It's fourteen months later, when Kurt's coming home late, and the back door's unlocked as he nudges it open without a sound. He's still kicking away the leaves and wiping his thick sandals on the homey Christmas-themed doormat when the emptiness sinks in and he knows she's gone. It's her face, her many, many smiling faces, that welcome him home as he pads down the hallway but it's her voice that's missing, and Kurt dreams in voices. He's about to head up the stairs to start on his homework when something makes him glance back.
The living room offers an unobstructed view of the kitchen through the broad, open arch; it's good to get more sunlight in the house, his dad said. His dad's standing behind the counter now, back turned to Kurt, a massive cookbook perched against the wall and held open to a vaguely greenish page with a gas duster. (Burt has been discovering vegetables after his son mutinied over the consumption of only three colors the whole year.) His shoulders are shaking, though, and it's not the onions; and before Kurt can even feel the shock his face is buried in the soft sweatshirt, the smell of gasoline and paprika in his nose, the Ohio State badge scratching his cheek. Murmuring -
"Dad -"
But the warmth of a hand on the top of his head is a long time coming. Kurt shuffles his feet and doesn't mind; he's a big boy now, up to Burt's chest. Kinda the Mom of the family, if boys can be moms. It's that Mom-power he tries to transmit through the skinny arms clutching his father's waist, head turned, watching the sunlight filter through the stained glass he'd made in art class, becoming colors you could hold and keep forever.
"I'll make dinner - I'm better at cooking -"
Burt lets him go a while later with a pat on his shoulder, and Kurt listens to his footsteps creak up the old stairs before turning to the cookbook, musing that most boys his age couldn't even spell vegetable, much less asparagus.
He doesn't tell his dad about the bullying.
/**********/
"Is it...anything to do with your boyfriend? Bain?"
"Blaine, Mr. Schuester," Kurt folds his arms across his vest and tries not to look as irritated as he feels. "And no, it does not. Blaine's perfect, thank you. I'm just being adolescent...you know, emo. I'm your veritable rebel with a cause. If James Dean were out, and had a better hairdresser."
God, Santana was right about the gassy infant face. "Well, are you sure it's not Karofsky? I know we don't have the best anti-bullying policies at McKinley -"
"I've dealt with Karofsky and his ilk for years, Mr. Schu."
"But it's got to be a big shock, coming back to McKinley after what you had at Dalton. You yourself said they were much nicer, right?" The music teacher kneels down to Kurt's eye level, where the reflection of the halogen light on the helmet some call his hair manages to be particularly blinding. "The guy who drove you away...he's not gone, obviously. I just want you to know, you're going to have better support this time, Kurt. Don't be afraid to come to any of us or the other Glee kids if Karofsky, or the hockey team, or whatever, go after you again."
Oh, Mr. Schu. If Kurt were allergic to slushies or gay slurs or a failing education system, he'd be moping in the janitor's closet all day. Though that's not a bad thought, if he could spend the whole time texting Blaine.
"Acting out - well, I can understand it. I know it's tough to re-adjust. But you're a good kid, Kurt. It's not like you, so we just want to help you get through this stressful period -"
"Fan~tastic." Kurt wets his lips into a bright plastic smile. "I'm sorry for being a witch with a capital B today. I appreciate the concern. But really, it's called being a teenager. And, like, gay, gay, gay. Can I go now?"
A sigh. "Just think about the camping, Kurt. It'll be a great trip and a chance to re-bond with the other kids. Not just McKinley, the Dalton kids. They've all really missed you."
"Mr. Schu, I might cause accidental homicide if they saw this -" circling a hand over his face, "without the benefit of several intimate hours with my vanity cabinet. So if you prefer to avoid a lawsuit, I'd leave me at home, with the humidifier and the copious foundation. And - hello? Mosquitoes? That is so not Kurt Hummel."
"But you know, you've got benefits too," Schuester continues. A grin that looks strikingly conspiratorial suddenly spreads over his face. Kurt blinks. "Come on, Kurt. Think of the possibilities. A few days away from home, no parents, you've got your boyfriend with you -"
"Whew, and here I was worried creepy Schu had disappeared," Kurt mutters. The heavy messenger bag digs into his shoulderblades as he slings it across his back, door in his sights. "As if I need reminding, Mr. Schu. Sixteen year old male, remember?"
He pauses at the exit. "Anyways...I'll sleep on it."
/**********/
"That. Is. The cutest thing I've ever seen," Blaine mumbles from where his face is buried in Kurt's neck, one eye peering down drowsily at the photos splayed out on the checkered bedspread. "I know we're all into, like, facebook photos and stuff now, but I think real albums are way more charming."
"You think everything is cute." But Kurt says it fondly.
"I think everything to do with you is cute." One of Blaine's hands is playing with buttons on Kurt's cuff for no apparent reason. His touch there feels light and tingly next to the warm and comfortable and heavy weight on Kurt's chest.
"I'm still amazed that I brought photo albums to Mercedes's party," Kurt says, shaking his head. "I can't believe this. Everyone else is drinking downstairs -"
"Well, we've drunk -"
"And now we're sitting here looking at my trend-setting baby pictures." Kurt can't suppress a small giggle of disbelief. "Can I blame Lima? It's soul-destroying. We are never bringing up our gay babies in Ohio, Blaine."
"Hey, I was the one who wanted to see your fashionable baby clothes," Blaine laughs, before nuzzling a random sequence of soft kisses under Kurt's jawline. Kurt closes his eyes in approval. Part of his boyfriend's tee has gotten trapped under his weight, revealing the tanned cords on the left side of his neck. Blaine's shoulders have been distractingly broad. Honestly, Kurt muses, he really ought to get Blaine in more short sleeves to show off those biceps. "And your mom...she looks beautiful, by the way."
"She gets her looks from me." Kurt, dryly.
Blaine chuckles. Falls silent. Locks their fingers together, before surging up to press his mouth against Kurt's, wet, eager. The tip of his burning tongue flickers teasingly on Kurt's lips and Kurt opens with the briefest resistance, obliging. Blaine tastes like spearmint and - well, cheap beer, though Kurt can hardly say any better.
The room feels a little smaller.
/**********/
See: here's the problem.
Kurt knows he has one of the most amazing, gorgeous, sweetest men on earth in bed right now, and he has all these amazing warm and fuzzy and butterfly feelings in his chest just at the mention of his boyfriend's name. His heart's always beaten a little faster when their hands skim against each other, hell, whenever Blaine even shows up in the building. It's not so much a radar as an innate wavelength, one that can't help but respond to the right note, crest upon crest, trough beneath trough, until it feels like all his atoms are rebelling against physics and melting into a sappy puddle of bliss. Kurt's never felt this way for anyone else. He'd give Blaine the world if he could. Or at least, like, the name of his own men's line.
It's just that kissing is so, so gross.
/**********/
"I - Blaine," Kurt whispers, when they break for air.
"Hm?" Blaine's voice is husky.
Kurt tries to make his voice all hot and bothered. He doesn't want Blaine to think he's a loser, after all. (Even though he basically is.) "Do you think it's kinda . . . weird to be making out in Mercedes's room?" In a rush: "I just don't want to make a mess, since it's her bed and all and she'd probably be a little grossed out. Plus there's a crucifix of Jesus staring at us from the wall and totally judging us, and that's reallycreepy."
Blaine pulls away a bit, hmms low in his chest, considering. "It probably is, actually," he says. His mouth quirks. "Damn."
God, his eyes. Puddle puddle puddle. It's not that Kurt's insides aren't screaming TAKE ME!, obviously, but the hardware's not - obeying -
"Are you okay with taking it slow?" Blaine, sweet, merciful Blaine, is flushing. The room spins. "I don't want you to think I don't desire you, Kurt -"
"No! No, it's fine." Kurt cuts him off with a flap of his hand. "I know you're into me, Blaine. Don't worry about it. We have plenty of time. We're sixteen. We met when we were like, ten. One of our parents hasgot to have a convention sometime, right?"
Actually, they were eleven. And their first meeting doesn't really count, since they never stayed in touch after that summer, until fate swept Kurt in her broom five years later and deposited him at the gleaming Victorian gates of the Dalton Academy for Boys, where he stood eyeing the immaculate hedges, rubbing an anxious palm on the leather shorts that were supposed to approximate the trust funds of the preppiest boys in the Midwest. (Ah, well, close enough.)
He made it to the stairs. The boy who turned around and smiled - smiled! - at him was unbelievably handsome.
Kurt hadn't even remembered him.
"Wait - what? Sorry, didn't catch that."
"I said," the boyfriend murmurs sleepily, "We can add patience to your rapidly expanding list of virtues. How'd a small-town prep like me hit the jackpot?" And then his voice drifts off, mumbling something to the pillow that Kurt can't catch with an amused look.
But Blaine says, a second later:
"Crap" - with a soft laugh, "this is where I wake up and realize it's all a dream, right? Anyways, pleasedon't wake me up."
"Because you," he says, in the same heartbeat, every syllable a breathstroke on Kurt's ear, "are perfection."
/**********/
"Well, I think that the loss of a parent is an incredibly traumatic event in childhood." The hands Miss Pillsbury presses primly on her stack of brochures are ridiculously dainty, Kurt thinks. It's a random thought. (But he approves of the nails.) "Lots of adults go through depression because of it, Kurt. Much less children, or teenagers."
"But she died when I was nine, and I've never had a huge...emo period about it. Or even a 'The Smiths' period. I miss my mom, obviously, I just - think I went through the whole anger, denial, grief, yada-yada thing already."
"Well you've been through a lot lately, Kurt. You've changed schools twice, you confronted your bully, you've got the whole adolescence thing going on...Your emotions are going to be a bit topsy turvy right now. That's going to throw you in a loop."
"I had no problems when Karofsky was being a jerkface. Freaked, yes, considering he was three hundred pounds of undeodorized homophobe, but that was his problem." Kurt leans back in the cheap office chair Figgins probably procured in his annual spree at Walmart. They're purposefully uncomfortable to keep kids like him from using the school counselor as their therapist. "I don't have any real issues now. My dad's doing a lot better, I've somehow ensnared an amazing boyfriend, and I just returned to the first group of people who ever accepted me. So I should be happy, right? Happy."
"Well, in your contentment you have fewer distractions too," Miss Pillsbury smiles, a bit wistfully. "Now you have the time to think about these things. I keep wondering to myself, you kids have so much going on these days. Not just the glee club, but you know, TV, videogames, dating, that sort of thing. It's hard to find your own thinking space, you know? Where you can just - stare out the window, and reflect."
Kurt has the feeling that Miss Pillsbury does that a lot.
"What about - bad memories?"
"Bad memories?" That brings out a frown. The petite counselor leans forward, brushing back a strand of hair, her eyes appearing all solemn and flat and huge in her small face, like orbs stapled to a Hallmark card. "What do you mean by that, Kurt? Is it Karofsky?"
"No. No, I just..." Kurt hesitates. "Some bullying in my past. As you know, growing up in Lima, Ohio hasn't exactly been a Mardi Gras for someone like me -" Miss Pillsbury nods in indignant agreement - "But...I don't see why they should be bothering me now, considering that's pretty much the story of my life. I don't feel like I'm hugely traumatized or anything, I obviously don't do drugs, or cut myself, or starve myself - okay, I'm a serial South Beacher, but you know what I mean - or have serious anger management issues like Karofsky, so I don't feel like anything of it has affected me much. Is that weird? That is pretty weird."
"Well, you're a very strong kid, Kurt. Maybe you just cope well."
Strong. Everyone says that about him, because he's out and proud in Lima freaking Ohio. Even Karofsky implies it, with that jealousy in his tone.
"When you hit triple digits in slushies, you start remembering to bring the extra shirt."
The small smile on Miss Pillsbury's heart-shaped face is pained. "If you're not feeling well Kurt, I do have some references to some great therapists who specialize in children and youth nearby..."
"No." It comes out so hastily that Kurt halts, biting his lip. "No, I don't want my dad finding out."
"Mm." Miss Pillsbury looks sad. It fits her, unfortunately, like a dress she's worn a long time, so long that it's made her fit it rather than the other way around. It catches him by surprise: the sudden fierce fondness for her, this woman who still uses honey and gosh and B number two pencils. Kurt usually doesn't care for adults.
"What about talking to your friends? Your boyfriend?"
"I - Blaine?" The smile that breaks over Kurt's face is as fond as rueful. Miss Pillsbury gives him a knowing girlish smile.
The bell's ringing. Kurt's gaze turns out the window, where the students are still milling around after lunch."Nah, I don't want to burden him. We have this incredibly happy relationship where everything is rainbows and puppies and honeymoons in Paris. Not that we're dishonest with each other at all - I complain a lot, which the poor guy has to put up with, but it's usually about Rachel and solos and my dad's addiction to carbs. I'd rather not be a huge Debbie Downer around him."
"Seriously," Kurt says, "he thinks I'm perfect."
/**********/
After his mother died, Kurt's dad took out a lot of the old storage boxes from the attic and opened each one of them in turn, strewing their covers on the living room carpet: antique jewelry boxes that played Mozart when opened, picture books Kurt hadn't colored since kindergarten, stuffed Eeyore and Piglet (Mom was a Pooh fan too), videocassettes harking from the Stone Age, an old teaset from England, souvenirs from Portugal and Morocco and Macchu Picchu, reams and reams of exotic fabric squares and triangles, some still left gaping with loose threads, her nursing textbooks, her wedding dress.
The family photo albums were stuffed in one of the boxes. Kurt's dad had taken them out, wiped them with one of the cleaner towels from the garage, and set them in the lower shelves of the living room cabinets, beneath the Noh dolls they'd bought in Japan when Kurt was small.
They look like an all-American family in the pictures.
Well of course, they are American. It's only the last few years that have made Kurt feel out of place, like he doesn't belong here, where the boys are big and rough and quicker to smash tea sets than exchange Wildean repartees over them. He knows he's hardly alone even in redneck country (after all, he does have Blaine, and not many can claim that) but sometimes it feels like he's meant for the canals of Amsterdam or the white plazas of Vienna, places he can't capture on the stage, or in song. Like after his mom's death, two roads diverged. The pictures show one of them: a family that had barbecues, that had picnics, that had trips to Disney Land, their nosetips smeared with ice cream, the little kid carried first by Mom, then Dad, after her arms tired.
The little kid looks ridiculously pleased with life in almost every shot. Kurt snorts as he closes the album, slipping it into the shelf alongside the others.
There's a massive space after Mom's death.
Then the glee photos show up - Burt Hummel doesn't get the whole showtune thing, but - I want to be part of it, Kurt.His dad does like to take pictures, in all honesty, so Kurt indulges him.
The young man in those photos looks happy too - but then again, he's supposed to. It's called glee, after all, not Les Miz.
Kurt's turned out all right despite everything. That earlier road hasn't vanished; there's much about Kurt's life that's normal and healthy and fulfilling, from his dates with his boyfriend, his affection for his club, his patronage of Breadsticks, his ability to text one-handed beneath the desk, his partying at friends' houses (with perfectly acceptable alcohol levels), his caroling at Kings Island, tucking in his dad at night. The new intimacy issue with Blaine is annoying, but he'll get over it. Eleanor Hummel wouldn't be happy about the crap her son's gone through, but she'd be proud of him. That crap's actually made him who he is, in a way; what hasn't killed him has made him stronger.
Kurt's meant to be strong, even regal. He's taken punches, but he's no victim. He dusts off his new Marc Jacobs and holds his head high and keeps going on his own. There's more than a few things he doesn't really like about himself, but hell would freeze over before he gave the losers any glimpse of a chink in the ice; they'd love to think they got to him, and he can't give them that satisfaction. He's spent his whole life demanding the right to sing girls' songs, to dress the way he wants, to like who he likes, to be treated the same as everyone else. He's not sure if he'd really call it courageous, since he doesn't feel like he's ever had any choice in being who he is; but for some reason, that's hard for a lot of other people.
So he should be getting over it.
/**********/
Just checking . . . What about memories that come out of nowhere? (I was actually harassed earlier by this guy at school, who went so far as to force a kiss on me, but that didn't trigger anything.) How can you tell they're not made up?
How can you even forget something like that?
/**********/
"Are you sure you've got all your underwear?" Auntie has a habit of saying the most embarrassing things as loudly as possible, as if the neighbors need to care. Her droopy left eye is squinting over the rim of the Starbucks at the yellow bookbag and plaid suitcase lined neatly under the window by the shoes, one of her hands flicking blindly through her purse.
Kurt's hoping fervently that she won't brush her long fingernails through his newly coiffed hair again because she smells all like citrus and smoke. "Yeah, I checked. Your sunglasses are on your head, by the way."
"Hn. Smart kid," Auntie plucks the sunglasses off and slides them on her nose. She looks more like his mom this way. "Burt, George - you two done yet?"
"Coming!"
Kurt shuffles his feet. "I wish my suitcase were yellow too."
"Oh, so yellow's your favorite now?" Auntie grins. "I thought it was pink."
"No, I just want them to coordinate." Kurt rubs his hand on his trousers. He feels like he's trying to convey a complex idea to an adult, so he might as well give up now.
"Well, you don't want to look like a raincoat, right?"
Auntie's not looking for an answer so Kurt doesn't say anything. He watches his Uncle and his dad traipse in, heavy footed, saying something about fishing and Memorial Day and this Camaro. His dad's just changed into a fresh t-shirt for the first time in ages, and his face looks clean-shaven and relaxed as he pats the other man's meaty shoulder. Something like relief washes over Kurt.
His dad sees him, kind of. "Now you're going to love it, aren't you, Kurt? You know," he turns to Auntie, "I . . . I've thought about it, and I hate to say it, but I think I agree with you. Hanging out with the other kids will be good for him."
Auntie pats Kurt's head; the jade pendants of her bracelet feel cold on his scalp. "The camp's wonderful, Burt. Robbie loves it, he'd go again this year if it weren't for soccer trials. There's plenty of chorus and band things that Kurt could go into, if he loves music that much. Just hanging out with kids his own age for a few weeks will be a fantastic experience."
There are few things in this world Kurt hates more than kids his own age.
"I know. I just don't know about the safety -"
"Oh, don't," Auntie laughs. "Lemme tell you, you are such a mother hen, Burt Hummel. If you don't let them go off into the world on their own once in a while, they'll never grow. Seriously, does Kurt really do all of the groceries and cooking around here?"
"I like buying organic," Kurt says. He looks at his father, gnawing his lip. "You're not going to eat Pizza Hut all summer, right."
Dad puts his hands up. "I'm going to stick to your mealplan, Kurt. Whole foods. And I won't mess up the shoes."
"Gosh, I wish our Lindsey was like that. That girl's been hounding me all month for KFC. They don't even use real chicken!"
Uncle snorts. "They're kids. They're growing. No candy, no pizza - hell, that's not a childhood."
"Moderation, George, moderation." Auntie leans in to Kurt's face with a wink. "Anyways, you won't have to worry about your dad so much at camp. We even have a name for that, you know - parentification. Eleven year old boys should be playing outside, not doing all the house chores!" She shakes her head. Her droopy eye is huge. "Come on, sweetie. Let's go have some fun and let your dad be boring on his own."
"My dad's not boring," Kurt says.
"Alright, alright," Burt claps a hand on Kurt's slender shoulder, the way he did to Uncle. He's not looking at his eyes anymore. "Go have fun, Kurt. Don't forget to call, or I'm going to be showing up with the flamethrower. I'll see you in eight weeks."
Their red Buick Enclave is covered with bumper stickers saying their kids are in the Honor Roll and the Stanley Sturgeons. Their kids sound obnoxious. Kurt watches his aunt pick up his suitcase and bookbag and slide them in the massive trunk next to the soccer balls, the lacrosse sticks, the blue and brown bags from Old Navy.
They're so small they look like kids' toys in the gray trunk. It's a bright day, breezy, blue, where the sun can't permeate the skin through the wind. For some reason, that's what he remembers the most later; not what anyone said, not what he felt, even though it must have been kinda panicky, since he's never left home for this long. No, what he remembers is -
(the glint of the sun on the windshield)
(the yellow bookbag poking through the suburban clutter, like a lollipop)
Footsteps on the gravel. His father's shadow emerging from behind, engulfing his. A clearing of the throat. "You sure you don't want one of your bears, Kurt?"
Kurt doesn't glance back. "Yeah. Come on, dad. Nobody my age plays with stuffed animals." With a roll of the eyes.
"Well, I wouldn't - I wouldn't say that," Burt says.
"Okay," Kurt says.
Kurt feels like he should've said something, like normal kids would've hugged their parents and then jumped in the van, clamoring for ice cream from the indulging relatives, but all Kurt does is nod his goodbye before climbing in the backseat, which smells like smoke and a bad attempt to cover the smoke with Febreeze. He brushes away the Nabisco crumbles on his seat before closing the door and fastening his seatbelt; the shoulder strap digs into his neck because he's not tall enough yet. His tie feels damp against the pads of his finger.
"Got the seatbelt? Great. Say goodbye to your Pa!"
They're already driving away by the time he looks back. His dad's figure looks small in the driveway next to their thirty-year-old oak, smaller than Kurt can remember him being for a long time, maybe ever, like there are all these forces, the sun and the windshield and the clouds overhead, trying to pull him away.
/************/
To be continued . . . .