Interviewer: If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
Adam: Sometimes my lack of filter gets me into trouble. I have a big mouth.
The next night, when Noah picked up the phone to call Adam, he gave Kurt a very pointed glance and said, "You want to say hi when I'm done?"
"Sure," said Kurt, not looking up from his English essay. "And then you're going to do your Spanish homework, right?"
"Uh," said Noah, and sighed. "Yeah."
"All right," he said placidly, but it was only a few minutes later before Noah tapped him on the shoulder and handed him his phone.
"That was quick," Kurt said, but Noah scowled.
"He told me I have to do my fucking homework first, before we talk. Here - I'm supposed to have you check it before he'll let me say anything else." His expression was indignant, and Kurt suppressed a smile, tucking the phone to his ear.
"You're a harsher taskmaster than I am, Adam," he said. "I was going to let him have his call first." He pressed a kiss to Noah's temple as he rose to go in the other room, carrying his water glass.
"Hey, I'm the grownup with 20/20 hindsight," Adam said, sounding amused. "Trust me. I know exactly how important homework is. I lasted five weeks in college before I gave up and went the starving artist route. I wouldn't recommend it."
"I'll keep that in mind." Kurt left the door open to the bedroom and positioned his desk chair so he could watch keep an eye on the green couch. "Didn't study much in high school, mmm?"
"Oh, I did all right. I definitely had my moments. I just knew I wanted to be a performer, and school wasn't going to help me with that. So - thanks for keeping him on task. I'm glad he's got you there."
Kurt smiled. "It's Spanish tonight, so I won't be much help. Do you speak Spanish?"
"Yo vivo en Los Angeles, cariño. Por supuesto hablo Español."
"Of course," Kurt agreed, puzzling it out. "I suppose you'd have to. Well, Noah could use all the help you're willing to offer him. I'm taking French next year. Spanish is so bourgeois."
Adam clucked his tongue. "Not very PC of you."
"What, you don't speak French too?" Kurt said.
"Nah, I just kiss French." Kurt choked on his water. "Oh, did I just say that?" added Adam blithely.
"That was a little more information than I needed," said Kurt.
"Really. I always figure more sharing is a good thing - I mean, aren't you the one in the three-way relationship?"
He set his glass down on the desk. From here he could barely see Noah's head peeking over the edge of the couch as he worked.
"Kurt?" he heard Adam say softly.
"Well." Kurt closed his eyes. "We're... we're working on that."
"I'm sorry." Adam sounded repentant. "I don't always think before I speak. I knew you were having trouble, but I thought... from the way Noah talks about him, there's nothing to keep them apart anymore. Haven't they been friends forever?"
Kurt barely knew him, but he could have sworn he heard a healthy quantity of envy in that comment. "You'd think they would have figured it out by now. But..." He shrugged, even though he knew Adam couldn't see it. "Things are different, now. They still love each other, but there was a huge breach of trust, on both sides. They're only just putting their friendship back together. It'll take time."
"I'm sorry," he said again. It made Kurt feel funny to hear Adam saying that to him. "You, and Finn... you're still together, though, right?"
"Yes..." Kurt tried not to feel the absence of Finn too keenly. "Though I don't see much of him right now. He's spending most of his time in the evening with... someone new, these days."
Adam sighed. "Kurt. I had no idea. Between the two of us, I imagine... well, I can see why you'd be feeling left out."
"I don't feel like that with you," Kurt protested. "You've been very kind."
There was a silence, during which Kurt listened to the agitated sound of his own breathing, and watched Noah working quietly in the family room.
"He loves you," Adam said at last. "That's very clear. But it's equally clear that he needs Finn." He didn't sound happy about this. "And I think Finn needs him. God help them both."
Kurt let out a bitter laugh. "I don't think God gets much to say about this."
"You'll have to allow me to differ with you on that. How do you put up with it?"
"What, precisely?" asked Kurt.
"Their dancing around each other. Waiting for it to get better. Is it better?"
Kurt thought about the way Finn and Noah avoided each other at school. Finn hung out with Rachel these days more than anyone else. Now that they were out at school, he spent most of his time with Noah, but though he was calm and reasonably focused, he couldn't exactly say Noah was ecstatically happy. "A little," he finally said.
"Well, I'm not much for sitting around waiting for shit like that, Kurt. I'll put some thought into this, but eventually I'm going to have you get in action on my behalf. You got the paddle, right?"
"The... the what?"
"The paddle," he repeated patiently. "The package I sent."
Kurt felt a shock as he realized what Adam was talking about. "That was you?" he squeaked.
"Oh my." Adam sounded really surprised now. "You had no idea? I wonder what happened to that card. Huh. Yes - Kurt, it's for Noah, from me. I want you to keep it for me, and when he needs it, use it."
He just sat there in stunned silence until Adam said, "Kurt."
"Um," he said. "I've never... used one before."
"Well, I can talk you through it, if you need it."
Somehow the idea of Adam instructing Kurt on how to paddle Noah's behind was... no. Not happening. "You're saying he needs... that?"
"God, Kurt," Adam said, sounding astonished. "Can't you tell? He's begging for it. I'd say every day, at least. Morning and night, if you have time."
Kurt recalled, with aching clarity, the sensation of the suede flogger on his back. Had it been four days or five? Too long, he realized, suddenly able to identify the sensation of tightness and constriction in his own body for what it was. He needed it, too.
"I keep forgetting, somehow," he murmured. "It's still... surprising. I don't think about it."
"Mmmm. You're telling me he hasn't had any spankings since he got back?" Adam took a sip of something and swallowed. Kurt wondered what he liked to drink. Beer? Wine? Coffee? Maybe a cocktail? He thought, fleetingly, of Noah's cup of tea and had a sudden urge to make him a fresh pot. "Kurt... that's not good. No wonder he's not coping well. All right. That's the first thing. Next: you and Finn and Noah. You need more time together, the three of you."
"Yes," Kurt agreed, and there was a tangible relaxation of his neck muscles at that admission. Adam was taking care of it, he thought, almost in a daze.
"Why are you doing this?" Kurt demanded.
"Doing what?"
Kurt made a collective grouping gesture - as though Adam could see anything he was doing. He sighed in frustration. "This. Finn and me and Noah. It seems like you'd have a vested interest in keeping us apart, not in helping us stay together."
Kurt heard another sip and swallow. Wine, he guessed. Not beer. Maybe a cosmopolitan. "Kurt," he said, very gently. "I think you, of all people, might get... who Noah is to me. How he came into my life, suddenly, without warning, and changed me. Without my permission, which is not something I'm accustomed to. If you know what I mean."
Kurt exhaled, and it came out as a shaky laugh. He looked again at Noah's form, stretched out before the couch, and felt his heart skip a beat. "I do," he said. "I do know."
"Yes. And perhaps you can also understand how he might have awakened certain... needs, certain desires for things I didn't even realize I wanted. Me, someone who was pretty comfortable in who I was: an ordinary - if flamboyantly gay - man. Do you, Kurt?"
"Yes," he whispered, mouth dry.
"Yes," Adam echoed, his voice low and smooth. "Then perhaps you will believe me when I tell you I have no desire to change Noah, in any way. That I want him - I need him - to be exactly who he is. And that includes you, and Finn. The three of you, together." He chuckled, still low, and Kurt shivered at the sound. "Someone told me recently about the experience of knowing someone - knowing them so well, so completely, it was almost as though you knew them better than they know themselves. I think... if that's available to a person, if that is possible... then not embracing it would be a sin of the greatest magnitude."
Adam had lost him, but he was too caught by the sound of his voice to do anything except say, "All right."
Then he laughed, and Kurt could breathe again. "Well. Now I have something to tell you to use the paddle for. We're going to get to the bottom of this." He snickered, and Kurt put a hand to his mouth to muffle the hysterical laughter that bubbled up.
"You are completely awful," he accused, which just made Adam cackle louder.
"I would never deny it. Would you put Noah on the phone, please?"
He stood and peered through the door at Noah doubtfully. "Maybe I should go upstairs for this."
"Are you kidding? You're the muscle here. I'm just the Voice. And I have no idea if it's going to work over the phone, so let's consider this an experiment."
"I..." Kurt shook his head, and smiled. "I don't think you need to worry about that." He reached over the couch to touch Noah on the shoulder. Noah jumped, startled, and looked up to smile at Kurt.
"Maybe," said Adam. "We'll see, shall we?" His voice grew soft, even intimate, and Kurt felt warmed from within. "This was an important conversation, Kurt. Thank you."
"My pleasure," Kurt replied, and handed the phone to Noah. He gazed at him impassively. "You've got some questions to answer, sweetheart."
Noah went from confused to alarmed to guilty in the space of three seconds. "What did I do?"
"Talk to Adam," was all Kurt would say, crossing his arms.
It became clear, though, that Noah hadn't hidden anything on purpose, and that the mystery gift had truly been a mystery for all of them. "So was that for me, or for Kurt?" was Noah's perplexed question, and apparently Adam's answer didn't clear it up. He just shrugged. "I'll make sure he has it, then. … What other thing?" He glanced at Kurt. "Was there something else in that box?"
The Christmas tree was long gone, but all the cardboard boxes were still sitting in the garage, waiting to be broken down for recycling. Kurt watched as Noah snapped on the light and sorted through the stack, recovering the Priority Mail box that the paddle had come in. "I think once we found the paddle, we just put it aside in a hurry," Noah muttered. "So maybe... aha - found it."
From under the paper stuffing the box, he triumphantly recovered a cream-colored card, marked Kurt. A little more digging revealed a rectangular package wrapped in tissue paper with the word Noah written in the corner.
"I totally would have thrown them away," Noah said into the phone, looking embarrassed. "Shit. I'm sorry, man."
They carried them back into the house and closed the door. Kurt ripped into the edge of the cream-colored paper with a careful thumb and slid the card out of the envelope - and burst into laughter.
"Yeah, he did," said Noah in bemusement. "Let me see, Kurt."
The card had a picture of Han Solo, holding a menorah, and the caption read: Keep the Han in Hanukkah. Noah snorted, shaking his head.
"You guys are both totally warped," he said, but he was grinning. Kurt opened the card to see the following tidy inscription:
Dear Kurt,
I hope Noah's return home finds you and your family healthy and happy. This present serves two purposes. One, a peace offering to you and Finn, for my unexpected intrusion into your established relationship. And two, a tool by which the two of you might assist in my management of Noah's moods. I hope together we can assure a blissful 2012 for all involved.
Chag Chanuka Sameach,
Adam
"Well, that makes a lot more sense now," Kurt mused. Noah looked both pleased and uneasy.
"You want Kurt to use that on me?" he said doubtfully into the phone, but the answer he received seemed to impress him, and he just said, "Okay. I mean - yes, Adam." He turned to the tissue-wrapped package. "This one next?"
He carefully tore away the tissue to reveal a carved wooden box. The bottom half of the box was plain, but the surface was satiny smooth to the touch. It was clear someone had taken pains to sand it until it shone. The top half was a darker wood, almost black, and lustrous in the light. It was ornately carved with a repeating pattern around the edge. At first it appeared to be a Celtic knot design, but upon closer inspection Kurt realized it was multiple figure-eights. In the center of the top of the box was carved an Egyptian eye design. Kurt had seen it before.
"The eye of Horus," Noah said, with a faint smile. He touched the repeating pattern of figure-eights. "And the symbol of infinity."
He carefully took the lid off the box and looked inside, but it seemed to be empty. Noah turned his eyes to Kurt's, and Kurt was startled to see tears hovering there.
"It's the box, Kurt," he said softly. "I'm the box. It's me. And... now it has a Top."
Kurt reached out a hand and placed it on top of Noah's, covering the box underneath. "May I speak to him again?" he asked, and Noah handed him the phone without a word.
"What's the eye of Horus?" he asked.
"It's a magical symbol of protection," came Adam's light voice. "I have it tattooed on my arm, along with the infinity symbol." He sounded pleased. "Does he like it?"
Kurt's lips twitched. "I think you know the answer to that. What's the box made of?"
"Bird's-eye maple. I'll find something to send him to put in the box, but for now, what it has inside is enough."
"It doesn't have anything inside, Adam," Kurt said.
He could hear the smile. "Look again."
Kurt worked the lid off again, putting an arm around Noah, and together they looked into the box. Carved on the bottom, right in the center of the silky smooth surface was one word: Mine.
Noah leaned his head on Kurt's and sighed. It wasn't an unhappy sigh, exactly, but Kurt could hear the tension inherent in the expression. He could understand it better, now. "It's beautiful," Kurt said into the phone.
"Yeah?" Kurt thought he sounded a little uncertain. "You don't mind?"
"No," Kurt said. "It's all right. I think... he needs you, too."
Together they closed the box and set it on the coffee table. "I'm going to look over Noah's homework," he said. "Do you want to talk to him now?"
"That'd be nice," Adam said softly. "Thanks."
Kurt passed him the phone and he took it, scooting down so his head was resting in Kurt's lap and his feet were propped up on the edge of the couch. "I'm freaking out that we could have thrown that away, man," he said, first thing.
Kurt knew if Noah could jump right to feelings, he must be doing all right, but even by the end, he suspected he knew what Adam was going to ask him to do. Noah's uncomfortable expression confirmed it, and after his final I love you, he passed the phone back to Kurt. "He said..." he began, but Kurt stopped him.
"We'll discuss it," he said. "Don't worry about it. You just relax here. You did fine."
Noah turned on one side and closed his eyes with a sigh of contentment, tucking one hand under Kurt's thigh. Kurt stroked his head absently as he put the phone back to his ear.
"Could you hear it?" Adam asked. "In his voice. You can hear what he needs, now?"
"Yes," Kurt agreed. "He's exhausted, though. He looks like he might fall asleep right here."
"Tomorrow, then," said Adam. "If you think he can wait for it."
Kurt looked at his peaceful face. Noah was happier than he'd seen him all week. "I think he can manage," he said. "That gift was enough, for now. He won't forget it any time soon."