In the morning the heavy snowfall had changed into rain that was hitting the window panes with rhythmic pounding. Kurt was stirred from his sleep by a slight sniffle and clearing of throat emanating from his left side. He rubbed his eyes and turned to face Joe that was now just laying on his side and gazing Kurt right in the eyes:
"Good morning."
"Morning. Is it morning yet?"
Kurt looked at his bedside table clock:
"Yes it's definately morning. How's your head?"
"It is fine. A bit muddled but otherwise just fine."
Kurt sat up and wrapped his arms around his knees. From sitting up in the bed you could just see the heads of people that were walking in the opposite sidewalk. The rain made people walk faster and quirkier than usually and they would bounce and hurry between awnings and storefronts protecting their heads with newspapers and bags. What happened to old fashioned raincoats? Kurt could come up with dozens of different ways to incorporate a beautiful rain coat or an umbrella to your regular wardrobe. Not those hideous yellow ones though, they'd be difficult to camouflage into anything but to a fishing village somewhere in the coast of Maine or Nova Scotia.
"I find the rain soothing." Joe was lifting himself up and was now leaning into the headboard. "It's regular and makes things look organized and calm."
"Rain means calmness to you?"
"Yeah. Every summer we'd wait for these rains to come from the sea and just fill everything with water. It was fun just to stand outside and get completely wet. Like going to the shower with all your clothes on." Joe grabbed the glass of water and gulped it down with one go. "Thanks for this."
"Where did you grew up?"
"Mostly in Wilmington, North Carolina."
"Mostly?"
"Well mom tried to live in here as well..."
"New York?"
"Yeah, but it just didn't work out for her, not the way she wanted it to."
"Your dad's from here right?"
Joe kicked his legs around under the covers and pulled his back straighter:
"Mmm...well about my father. He lays his nest where ever it's the most convenient and where the authorities aren't looking for him in questions about short selling or insider trading. It's as if banks and investors don't care what he does as long as he's making money and not getting caught."
"Wait, he's like a banker or one of those guys in the NYSE?"
"Yeah, something like that. I thought he'd really go down in the big crash but he's like a snail, he moves slowly and unnoticed, but does move and gets around anyway."
Suddenly Joe was laughing:
"Well he has to be making money to pay all the alimony he's been ordered to pay. I shouldn't blame him so much, he did pay our clothes and living until we were eighteen."
"So he's not the kind of father that sticks to look after for his offspring?"
"No, I don't think he really understands how many kids he's left loitering around in this world."
"What? You're serious."
"Yes. I've got a lot of half siblings out there. Dad can be a real charmer. Some of the kids he's even admitted to, god knows how many are part of familys on a non-DNA level."
"Oh my god." Kurt covered his mouth and regretted looking so shocked. It made him look like a child and innocent.
"OMG indeed."
"Is...was your brother really your brother or just in the army sense of your brother?" Kurt resumed hesitantly, not ready to face another breakdown from Joe that morning.
"Yeah, he was. A genuine article. We were both born during the period in dad's life where he thought it was time for him to grow up and settle down. That phase lasted about four years until he found out that life in Wilmington and being a son-in-law to grandpa wasn't such a great deal after all."
Joe crossed his legs and continued to look to the window: "First he thought moving back to New York would bring back his good times but it made things worse: smaller apartment, restless mom and the difficult task of dragging his ass to home every night to that restless wife and two noisy kids. Kids that were always taking things apart and trying to escape from the fire escape stairs and wander around the streets because that's what we'd done back in Wilmington. Reality hit him hard. Six months after moving here he'd filed papers for the divorce and mom called grandpa to pick us up. Grandpa was the one that made sure dad walked out of the marriage without penny of mom's side of the family money."
"What was his name?"
"My grandad's? No you meant Tim. Timothy. He was a great kid, a bit unfocused most of the time, but a great kid. Much smarter than I'll ever be."
Joe was shaking his head with a smirk. Kurt casually smiled back and leaned his head to his knees.
"What about you? I know you're from Lima like Finn right?"
"Yes, home sweet home Lima. The Central Jewel of Allen County. The home of the McKinley Titans and corn."
"Is that sarcasm I sense there?"
"No just annoyance and...forget it. I don't hate Lima. Lima has dad and Carol and that's much more goodness than it deserves."
"Everybody has to come from somewhere."
"Is this where you say that in order to succeed you have to suffer?"
"No. I don't know what it takes to succeed. Hard work? Talent? I'd like to have talent like yours. Your sketches are beautiful."
"What do you mean?" Kurt recoiled and moved to the edge of the bed.
Joe seemed to be take this as a reprimand and a step too far and gave an uncertain face.
"I might have looked through the sketchbook left lying at the kitchen counter before the flower terrorists attacked full force yesterday. I didn't realise what it was until I'd opened it."
"Well you can't just do that! You can't just riffle through my stuff! Where did you put it?"
"It's with the magazines on the sofa table..."
Kurt sprung up and walked to the messy living area and stormed the pile of old Vogues and Elle's lying there in the middle of paper cutouts and plastic cups. His trusted notebook wasn't there. He turned to another pile of Rachel's sheet music and threw them around until the entire floor around the sofa was covered with an array of music sheets and fashion magazines.
"It's not here!"
Rachel was standing leaning into a corner and rubbing her eyes:
"What's not here?"
"My sketchbook. I left it here yesterday and now it's gone." Kurt was now turning pots, trays and pans over at the kitchen counter in a feeble, panicky search.
"You've messed up my showcase order Kurt! It'll take me forever to get these back in order!" Rachel screamed and knelt next to the music sheets. "They were in perfect order. Kurt how could you do this!"
Kurt had stopped in a dramatic pose with a tiny paper rose held between his hands. His eyes were filled with tears and his breath had become uneven: "Who's done this?"
"You messed up my notes Kurt, I have..." Rachel shut her mouth and looked at what Kurt was holding with widened eyes: "Oh baby, oh no!"
"Who did this!?" Kurt was now yelling.
Finn had sat up in the small uncomfortable couch and was just awakening to the noise: "Why do you two have to always be so noisy? Can't you solve matters simply by talking?"
"Where's the rest of it!? Where!?" Kurt was now crawling around the floor in vain search for those small, light yellow roses like the ones he was holding in his hand. The real panic in his brothers voice had made Finn instinctively hunch and scan the floor in search of something that seemed important and that could not be found.
"What...what are we looking for exactly?" Finn thumped down to his knees and started to crawl after Kurt.
"Kurt, what am I looking for? Give me something here man."
Kurt suddenly stopped and slumped against the refridgerator:
"It doesn't matter. It's not here anymore. Someone's cut it up. Your friends are idiots Rachel."
Rachel was now sniveling in the other side of the kitchen and was hugging her bunny slippers in a tight grip:
"I'm so sorry Kurt. I didn't know. I just told everyone that they could use the magazine's as well. You said you were going to throw those away anyway."
"It wasn't a magazine! It was my sketchbook!" Kurt was knocking his body against the fridge door like a five year old in a temper tantrum.
"I'm so sorry!"
Finn seemed to be on the verge of tears because he didn't understand why both Kurt and Rachel were so upset this early in the morning and no one was telling him what was going on.
"It's fine!" Joe's booming voice came from right over Kurt. Kurt looked at his sketchbook now in Joe's hands.
"Someone must have realised what they were cutting and placed it between these recipe books here. Some of the empty pages at the back have been hacked off but most of it is still there. So everyone can now calm down."
Kurt jumped up and ripped the book from Joe's hands. He skimmed over the pages and touched each one as if to reassure himself that they were still there. The book looked tarnished and violated. His thoughts seemed now to be violated.
"How can someone do this? You can clearly see this is a notebook! Can you not? Joe realised that this was a notebook. Finn can tell this is a notebook! Your friends are stupid Rachel."
Rachel's crying face became even sadder when she felt her general queasy state set in from the previous night's drinking.
"I know it's a notebook and my...my friends are n...not stupid. You're stupid for leaving it lying a... around!"
"She has a point though, it was just lying around. That's how I found it." Rachel was moaning now. Joe nodded towards Finn: "She's about to hurl and by the state of her she's not going to realise until it's too late. Bathroom." Finn clambered up and more than shoved Rachel towards the bathroom.
Kurt was now furious:
"Of course it was lying around because this is my apartment. I can leave whatever I want lying around! All of this..." Kurt spun around "is mine. I fixed everything in here. I blocked the mouse holes and empty the dead ones out of the traps, I sealed the windows and connected the oven. I clean and I cook in here, so that gives me right to leave my shit wherever I want to. I fixed the lock on the door so we don't have to be afraid of someone sneaking in at night and killing us both in our sleep. I collect the quarters for the laundromat and pay for the internet. Itake care of things. No one tells me what to do anymore! Ever!"
Kurt banged the sketchbook against the table and continued shouting:
"You know what? I don't care if this would have been cut up, because it doesn't matter. This, this is nothing." He hurled the book across the living room landing it next to the TV. Pages fluttering like bird wings."It's a silly dream and I can't have it anymore or even if I want it now. It's just that sometimes, just once I want to have something, anything! I work really hard and it's stupid how little I'm ready to settle for. Like I don't have the right to wish more because it's me and not somebody else."
Kurt sat on the edge of the table and sighed: "I always settle. I fight but in the end I settle." His voice was rough from the screaming but he was resolute, he was feeling empty: "When I left Lima dad said that I could always go back home. And I know he likes his life now that it's just Carol and him but having a home doesn't sound so bad right now. Last week I even looked through and calculated what it would cost to ship my stuff back to Ohio, find a suitable apartment for Rachel, one that she could afford on her own and accept to live in and I called Isabelle and asked what kind of references I'd be getting if I left right now. I figured I'd make ends meet if I'd work just til the end of February, sell my extra Paul Smith shirts to Will at the graphics and use dad's frequent flyer miles. And that would get me just back to Lima, gods knows how I'd manage there." Kurt rubbed his temples. "I shouldn't be worried about this shit. I'm nineteen! I'm supposed to party hard and waste my brains and...shit."
Joe was laughing cautiously and sat next to Kurt.
"Party hard?"
"Yeah I know. My party hard's are friday night's at the Callbacks fending of crying girls left and right because they all want to be my Julia Roberts and complain about their miserable SOB boyfriends. I'd like to be bitchy and say that my girlfriend quota is already full and I don't have time and money to see those few friends already existing either so no way I can accept new applicants for the hag position. That was witty enough coming from a gay guy right?"
"Yes, definitely. A bit crass perhaps but good enough. You'll get there eventually if you want to, but I don't think you should."
"To turn into an Ice Queen you mean?" Kurt was swiveling his head around while regally waving his hand in the air.
"What's wrong with being emotional Kurt Hummel from Lima Ohio who can sort of design and apparently also sing?"
"The world..."
"And is beautiful and has elocution and a good heart?"
"I'm...wait what?"
"...who is beautiful and has amazing eyes." Joe's hand landed on Kurt's cheek and his thumb traced the line of the eyebrow. Kurt glanced down and felt blood rush to his cheeks: "I'm not bea..."
"Don't say it out loud because mind can make you believe things that are not true." Kurt laughed. "Were you sent to spy on me or something?"
"Why? Because you are not believing what I'm saying? Hey, look up. This is morning and your non existing carriages haven't turned into a pumpkin and I'm not a prince, and you made clear there aren't any mice and fairy godmothers in here, but would you consider going out for a date with me? Just the two of us. Without the distraction of Pinky and the Brain there?"
"I just insulted you and just about everyone in here and had one of the biggest meltdowns of my life, but you want to go out with me?"
"That was a meltdown? I'm not comparing but let's just say this, and perhaps give you an ample opportunity to decline my request for a date: I had your brother sized bumper following around me for a month so that my epic meltdown wouldn't happen again and lead down to more harm than these." Joe spread his scarred hands in front of Kurt. Kurt nodded and again traced the small scars now fully on display in the daylight.
"I'm sort of good now, but still there's lot going on in this head, but that doesn't mean what I've said about you yesterday and today aren't true." Kurt took a moment to glance around the room and swallowed: "But you have to leave today?"
"I can come back next weekend."
The silence was overwhelming and his answer came out louder than he had expected:
"Yes. I'll go out with you."
