Spoilers: *Slight spoilers for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in this chapter!*
Chapter Ten
Dragging the mouse across Jacob Ben Israel's YouTube Channel, he pressed play on the featured video for the third time since he snuck downstairs before sunrise. Like every time before, Kurt saw himself at the zoo outside of the aquarium, hysterical and crying. There were blurry jostles after Puck slapped the camera away, but Kurt's eyes watered when it was over. His friends were all dying during the recording of that video. He dragged the mouse back to the play button, but right after he clicked it, a hand reached down and closed his laptop.
He looked up and squinted in the darkness toward Finn's frowning face. He hadn't been able to sleep well after getting home from Rachel's house. He tried to reach Quinn repeatedly, but she wasn't taking his calls. She needed to. Her thoughts on him or his precognitive abilities aside, she needed to take his calls.
He spent the night tossing and turning so much on his side of the bed that Finn repeatedly mumbled himself awake, scooped Kurt up and dragged him back on top of him. Each time was the same. He never whined or complained, shoved him off the bed or got up to go back to his own. He just hummed, surprised to be awake again, reached for Kurt and settled him down. Again and again. At five in the morning, Kurt got up as carefully as possible, grabbed his laptop and went downstairs. One of them should have been able to sleep.
The sun was still down, and the curtains were drawn with the lights off so the living room was a quiet black hole with his laptop shut. Finn sat down next to him on the couch and stretched his arm around his shoulders blindly. He leaned into him and rested his head over his.
"Why are you watching that?" He whispered, and Kurt closed his eyes.
"Sweetie, you should go back to sleep. There's no reason for both of us to walk around like zombies tomorrow." He urged, rubbing the thin material of Finn's pajama pants. He was sweet to get up and look for him even after he spent the night jostling him awake. In fact, Finn was too sweet for his own good. He needed to take a page out of Kurt's self-serving book and treat himself to a drama-free REM cycle.
"I brushed my teeth. I'm up." And it was that simple to Finn. "Why are you watching that? Don't tell me you have a crush on Jacob Ben Israel. I might have to barf."
Kurt wrinkled his nose in disgust. "Gross. No, I do not. Nor could I, or any other earthbound species, ever."
"Good. Cause I'd hate to have to kick his ass. He's kind of scrawny." Finn yawned and draped even more of his tired weight on Kurt. "Let's go back to bed. And you can drool over his Jew fro in the morning."
It was hard to tell sometimes when Finn was being purposefully obtuse and when he genuinely didn't understand something. This time, though, catching him watch the video of his meltdown at the zoo, Kurt had a pretty good idea that Finn was just trying not to push. Teasing was a much easier way to lend support.
Kurt dropped his head against his shoulder in the darkness, marveling at how different it felt not to be able to see anything when he wasn't crammed into a tight space against his will. Being trapped in the trunk had been terrifying. At home, the darkness was peaceful and calming. He was glad there was no light for Finn to see his eyes sparkling with tears over the video. The video with over a million hits thanks to CNN's interest in the sensational story. Not to mention the puff pieces on the local news. Kurt would be lucky if he made it out of Lima and wasn't recognized as that Freak From The Zoo. New York might spit him right back out and leave him lost.
Kurt teased him back after his request. "So much for you brushing your teeth and being up."
Finn rubbed his arm, shifting on the couch. "Yeah, well, I mostly just did it so I could do this."
Reaching out in the darkness, he cupped Kurt's face and leaned in, pressing their lips together with more vigor than his normally low morning energy allowed. Kurt melted into it, happy to sit back and let Finn do the work. His eyes were beginning to adjust to the darkness, and Finn's outline was a dull focus point when he pulled back. Kurt's fingers ran up and down is forearm, and Finn leaned his head toward him seriously.
"But since I see how upset you are, I'd rather you just tell me why you were watching that video." He called him out, and Kurt dropped his weight back against the couch. If Finn was blind he would still be able to reach out with his gentle giant feelers and tell when someone was distressed, though it wasn't like that was a surprising mode for any of them lately.
The time for hiding was over, and Kurt leaned over the arm of the couch and flicked on the little lamp beside it. The coming dawn kept the room shadowed and tranquilly dim, but they could at least see each other now.
Kurt swallowed and dropped his eyes to the computer on his lap. "I could have saved them. If I took a breath and thought clearly for five seconds I could have convinced them not to go down there."
"Kurt, you have to stop." Finn insisted, grabbing his chin and turning his face toward him. His eyes were soft and sad, empathy that Kurt didn't think he really deserved. He had the opportunity to save their friends and the other people who went down into the aquarium that day, and he blew it. "I would have done way worse. I probably would have been like Brittany if I saw the shit you saw and just ran screaming off of the bridge."
Kurt scoffed and leaned forward, setting the laptop down on the coffee table in front of them. "No, Finn. You need to stop saying things like that. That you would have done worse or wouldn't have handled it as well. Everyone in Glee Club has always looked to you for guidance. You're the natural leader. All I would have had to do was think for a second and I would have remembered that. I could have taken you aside and asked you to please just do me that favor and get everyone to listen. They would have grumbled, but if you had said to get off they would have."
"I guess there's no way we'll ever know." Finn's hand caught his chin and turned his face back again when he looked obstinately away. "You did the best you could in the time you had. You saved a lot of us that day, and you're still dealing with everything that happened while trying to keep saving us. You said you might believe in God now?"
Kurt raised his lowered eyes to him warily, surprised by the sudden change of subject. He nodded minutely.
Finn reached down and covered his hand with his larger one. "Maybe we weren't supposed to die. Maybe it was God's design that got messed up and not this Death thing. So He like picked someone to see the glitch or whatever and fix it. He picked you, Kurt. Not me, not Mr. Schuester, even though he's older and literally could have just ordered us all off of the bridge. He picked you, and I gotta believe that was for a reason. You gotta start believing that too. Trust yourself, Kurt. I do."
For the umpteenth time in the last few weeks, Kurt felt like a blubbering little girl. His eyes welled up quickly and sent fat streaks down his cheeks. Finn's faith in him was really sweet and possibly entirely misplaced, but there it was. And he was right. If he was going to get the last of them through this, he needed to put his doubts aside and own this 'gift' or 'curse' or whatever horrible thing it was and use it to their advantage. He couldn't change the past, but it seemed that he could rework the present and alter their futures.
"Thanks, sweetie."
Finn thumbed away his tears with a grin, satisfaction written all over his face at getting him to see it his way. Kurt laughed airily at his smugness.
"There's actually something else I've been wanting to talk to you about too." Finn said.
Kurt wiped at his own eyes, dabbing his cheeks with his long sleeved pajama cuff. "Oh?"
"Yeah." Finn cleared his throat a little nervously. "I've been thinking."
Kurt was still wrapped in his own thoughts, but now that he was feeling a little better, he patted Finn's thigh distractedly in response. "Don't hurt yourself." He joked.
Finn reached down and grabbed his hand. "I'm serious." He said, and he definitely sounded like it. Kurt turned to him as he brushed the last of the dampness from his cheeks. "I think I should go with you to New York."
Kurt froze. Finn stared at him. After a moment, he asked monotonously. "What?"
Finn fidgeted, uncharacteristically uneasy with him. "I know there's no way I could get in to where you're going, but I could go to community college and get a job so we could get an apartment and keep living together. I don't know. We'll figure all that out, but I don't want you to leave me behind."
Kurt's heart shrank in on itself painfully. With all of the stress of recent events, Kurt's looming departure date was clearly adding to Finn's feelings of helplessness. He threaded their fingers together and squeezed the hand holding his affectionately. "Finn, honey, you know it wouldn't be like that."
They hadn't had an in-depth discussion about it yet, the ins and outs, rules and scheduling issues of maintaining a long-distance relationship. Neither of them had wanted to think about it too much. Honestly, the idea of being away from Finn for a few days was a struggle. To be away from him for entire weeks or months at a time made Kurt feel sick to his stomach with despair. The only reason Kurt hadn't broken down and begged Finn to go with him was because Finn had a game plan here in Ohio and he didn't want to be the one to screw that up and be resented by Finn later on.
"I know." Finn agreed half-heartedly. "But long distance would, like, kill me. I don't want to be without you. I don't want you to find someone else. I don't wanna go to the dark side and moon after you forever."
Kurt blinked thickly with a tiny shake of his head. "You're losing me."
Finn shrugged. "You know, like Snape in that Deadly Hallows movie. You're my Lily, and I don't want you making Harry Potter babies with some other person."
Kurt openly gaped. Finn still hadn't read Harry Potter. If it didn't come with pictures, panels, heroes in tights and villains with maniacal laughs, odds were, he never would read it. But he had watched all of the movies, and Kurt felt like a horribly infatuated tween girl for hearing that comparison come out of his boyfriend's mouth and having his heart flutter and take off like he had been on the treadmill for an hour.
"I'm your Lily?" The question left his lips quietly under big, round watchful eyes.
"Well, yeah, Kurt." Finn smiled sheepishly and leaned forward, teasing him with the movie quote that Kurt obsessively swooned over for a week after they saw it. "Always."
Finn's lips were curling in a playful smile, but any chuckles that might have come with it were ground out as Kurt jumped him. Careful to avoid his bandaged hand, he clamped his legs around his lap and kissed him so hard that Finn's head dropped to the back of the couch and his eyebrows shot up in shock. He wasn't complaining though. After a second of surprise passed, his hand shot up and grabbed Kurt's butt, squeezing him through his pajama pants and anchoring him down against him.
"Mmm, I love you." Kurt mumbled lazily between kisses.
"Yeah?" Finn panted, leaving his hurt hand limp but bringing the arm around Kurt's back and holding him close.
Kurt pressed against him, tongue sliding out and running across his bottom lip. His mind was a hazy mess of Finn, and the cloudy tunnel vision was a massive relief on his overworked nerves.
"Of course…I want you," he groaned and tilted his head, kissing him harder, "to come with…me to…New York."
Those seemed to be the magic words. A deep growl reverberated through Finn's chest, and Kurt was suddenly on his back with Finn pressing him down into the cushions. His legs locked around him, and his arms encircled his neck, letting Finn take over. His lips trailed down the line of his jaw, to his throat and over his collarbone. One hand disappeared under his shirt, fingers gliding over his flat, if not exactly ripped, stomach. Finn's long fingers spread out and webbed over his soft skin, rubbing and touching everywhere that he could.
Kurt's eyes fluttered closed, and he moved his hands down to Finn's waist, slipping them both under his t-shirt and exploring his broad toned back. As always, as Finn grinded hard against him, he was ready before he was. But that wasn't going to be a problem, because Finn noticed it too. Without any finesse, he moved his hand from his stomach and shot it straight down his pants. Kurt gasped and arched, fingers curling and nails digging into his back as revenge. Finn only moaned happily and began moving over him as he got Kurt going.
Kurt was reaching the whiny stage that Finn seemed to love but always embarrassed him, mewling and rocking against Finn's hand, when a horrified bellow filled the silent house and nearly made Kurt jump out of his skin. His eyes went wide, and his head flipped to the side spotting his father in his bathrobe a few feet away. If there was any blood left anywhere else in his body it would have drained from his face. Unfortunately it was all down south, where Finn was still touching him, flinching over Kurt and staring at Burt in horror.
"Finn!" Kurt shoved at him. Was he next on the list? He couldn't think. Was this how he went? Busted by his dad with his boyfriend's hand down his pants? The horror of this humiliation felt like much worse than the other's faced.
Finn looked down, eyes widening even more as he saw and seemed to only realize then that he was still cupping him. With a gasp and a start, he pulled his hand back and shot up, scrambling off of Kurt and to the other side of the couch. Kurt did the same, reaching for a pillow and shoving it over his lap as his dad's head whipped between them, mouth open. Yeah, he was absolutely two seconds away from letting Death take him.
"I…We…!" Finn was so stiff, his shoulders were almost at his ears. Obviously, they messed around and had sex. They were together for a long time and teenage boys weren't exactly the demographic that campaigned for abstinence. Their father knew this. But knowing and seeing were two wildly different things, and for the first time since they started going out, their luck at keeping it out of sight ran out. "Because!"
"Finn, shut up!" Kurt snapped. Where was the Bermuda triangle again? He wondered if he could catapult himself into it from Lima, Ohio. At least his problem was going away rapidly under his father's horrified stare. That was The Mood Killer, nothing else even compared.
"What do I always say?" Burt yelled as he was finally able to make words, cheeks reddening with scorching embarrassment and a mix of what might have been rage but could have just been an extreme case of trauma. Kurt could only imagine the horror of walking in on Carole with her hand anywhere near his father's waistband. And with that thought, he might actually be sick. "I don't care as long as you're safe and out of sight! Safe and out of sight!"
"I know." Kurt squirmed guiltily. God. If he thought he was scarred for seeing them, Kurt thought he and Finn would be much worse off knowing that they were seen. Actually, Finn would bounce back faster. At least Carole wasn't with him when he walked in. Finn would probably be in a state of mute shock if his mother was down there. Then again, muteness might have been better.
"I'm moving to New York with Kurt!" Finn blurted.
What? Why? Timing was not Finn's thing.
"Finn!" He exclaimed.
Burt did a double take on him, unsure whether he was deflecting or sincerely just frazzled enough to let slip random things.
"Oh no you're not." He said after a moment. He was working himself up too, Kurt realized unhappily. His dad was not happy about what he had seen, and if Finn was picking a fight he would take the bait. Though, of course, that wasn't what Finn was doing. He was just being Finn and panicking under pressure.
Finn seemed to get the floor under him a little better when he had something clear and nonsexual to focus on. His shoulders dropped a little bit of their aching stiffness. "Yeah, I am." He argued. "Me and Kurt are going to get an apartment together, and-And when you love somebody-"
Kurt's eyes grew huge. There were too many horrible ways that sentence could end. Problem now utterly taken care of, he threw the pillow at Finn's head and knocked him into silence. Standing quickly, he edged around the couch.
"Can we just go to bed? I'm really sorry, Dad. You will never, ever walk in on anything like that again." He was careful not to meet his eyes. Maybe if he was really careful, he would never have to look him in the eyes ever again for as long as he lived. "Finn." He urged, because the last thing he wanted was to leave him in there to say more stupid things to his dad and make everything much worse. Finn shot to his feet.
"Separate rooms!" Burt reasserted his parental control. "I'm checking!"
Kurt nodded rapidly and turned on his heel, hand clasped around Finn's wrist to tug him on.
"At least it wasn't my mom." Finn whispered on the stairs. "Then I might have to get mad at you for not letting me burn alive earlier."
Kurt scowled.