Summary: Jacob needs to get as far away from Washington as he possibly can. He doesn't know where he's going, but he finds a very special someone when he gets there. Eventual Jacob/Kurt.
School has started up, and my schedule is fantastic— if a little hectic. Updates will be slow, if at all, for a while; I'm already loaded down with homework. First semester I've got English, French, Math, Science, & MSIP and next semester I've got Drama, History, Business, Dance, & MSIP, so hopefully I'll have a lot more free time next semester.
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28: Morning
Carole drove Burt home once he was signed out of the hospital, and Puck was once again entrusted with the Navigator's keys to drive Kurt and Jacob back to the Hummel residence. It was almost noon when they finally got there, and the lengthy police interviews and many statements to sign were to blame for it.
Kurt was exhausted; all he wanted to do was crash in his own bed and sleep off the headache he was developing from delivering the same lies over and over again, explaining every fabricated detail in detail what felt like dozens of times in total. Burt was in the living room already when Kurt and Jacob arrived, wrapped up in a blanket on the couch with the TV on low. Carole was in the kitchen fixing him some soup, her humming barely audible over the news coverage of a house fire in Colorado.
Kurt had dragged Jacob into the house with him, the grip on his good hand tight around his fingers. Puck had already left, gone home to go back to bed. Jacob was planning on doing the same, and just hoped that his injury wouldn't take too long to heal. His whole arm felt like was on fire, and the inside of the bandage Kurt had put on him was slick with blood, the bite still leaking and open and new.
"Dad? Can Jacob stay for a while?" Kurt asked meekly, and Burt looked up from the TV before giving a nod.
"Sure. Stay as long as you want, Jake," he sighed, reaching out and picking up the remote to change the channel to something worth watching. He didn't even tell them to leave the door open as they headed toward the basement, he was so out of it. Pain killers, Jacob surmised.
Jacob sighed, wishing he had refused as Kurt dragged him down the stairs. He didn't want to worry Kurt, didn't want to tell him he was in pain, but the shell-shocked look Kurt was supporting drove him to stay, anyway. He could stay for a little while, just until Kurt felt comfortable again, and then he would go home and lock himself in Puck's bedroom.
There was an odd silence in the poorly-lit basement as Kurt led him to the couch. They hadn't been alone together in what felt like years, and there was this sudden gaping hole between them that Jacob couldn't explain. Kurt sat down on the pristine white sofa, letting go of his boyfriend's hand and smoothing down his jeans, pushing out imaginary wrinkles. It was a habit of stress, an attempt to break the ice for many an awkward conversation.
"Jacob," he said, and Jacob sat down next to him, because the sound of his voice told him that whatever Kurt was hoping to talk privately about, it wasn't going to be good news. "I'm sort of overwhelmed." It was an understatement, and they both knew it. Kurt's brain had finally caught up to his body, and all the impossibilities that had suddenly become possible were driving his thoughts in a million different directions.
"I'm sorry this was all sprung on you so fast," Jacob apologised, wishing, not for the first time, that he'd told Kurt sooner, prepared him for what had happened. Kurt shook his head, biting down on his lip.
"It's not your fault that a vampire... kidnapped me." He seemed to have trouble saying it, like making it vocal made it real.
"I should have been able to protect you," Jacob mumbled, sounding as guilty as he felt.
"You did," Kurt assured him, looking him straight in the eyes for the first time since leaving the hospital, "You saved me, Jacob, and I'm not about to forget that fact." He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck in an odd imitation of his father's nervous tick. "I just..."
Kurt paused, and Jacob could feel the blood pounding in his ears as he waited for more. Was this it? The possibility of Kurt dumping him hadn't occurred to him until just now, but it suddenly took purchase in the forefront of his mind. Had Kurt decided that loving him wasn't enough to put up with the supernatural world he had been involuntarily thrust into?
"I wish you had trusted me enough to tell me before it became a necessity to," was what Kurt finally said, and it took a moment for the words to sink in. Whatever Jacob had been expecting, it hadn't been anywhere close to that. Kurt looked away, his eyes sad and downcast as he held his hands loosely in his lap.
"Oh, Kurt," Jacob groaned, reaching out to grab Kurt's hands and hold them, his one hand easily covering both of Kurt's dainty ones. "It's not like that at all. I wanted to tell you, I just didn't want to scare you off. I didn't want you to think I was a... a monster, or something. It was eating me alive, knowing I was hiding this from you. But I never assumed you wouldn't keep my secret. I trust you."
Kurt frowned, but it wasn't because he was unsatisfied with the answer he had been given. "Why would I think you were a monster?" he asked quietly, still frowning as he looked back at Jacob, his eyes watering a little. "I don't think I could ever think of you as anything less than my hero, Jake. Especially now."
He seemed vehement, for someone so tired, his eyelids trying to droop while he stubbornly held them open, looking at Jacob with a strange intensity, as though willing him to believe it. There was something really, really drawing about that intensity, that feeling, and Jacob found himself leaning closer and pressing his lips to Kurt's before he could even form a coherent thought. Kurt kissed him back, his hands unfolding from his lap and wrap around Jacob's neck, pulling him closer.
They pulled apart and stared at each other for a moment, the connection between them like electricity jumping from one to the other. Then Kurt yawned, and the moment was broken. Jacob laughed, standing up and pulling Kurt to his feet along with him.
"You need to sleep," Jacob reminded him, and Kurt nodded, the movement making his head feel too heavy for his body.
"Yeah," he agreed, walking over to his dresser and pulling out a clean pair of pyjamas. He glanced at Jacob, biting his lip. "I feel kind of... icky. Will you wait here while I take a quick shower? I won't be long— promise."
Jacob nodded, sinking back down onto the couch as Kurt scurried into the bathroom, shutting the door loudly behind him, the sound of water running starting up almost immediately afterward. Jacob sat there for a long moment before it occurred to him that he should call Bella, but once it did, he pulled out his cell phone and held down her speed-dial button in an instant.
Bella quietly listened as quickly he explained the night's strange events and only interrupted to ask the odd question ("Did Irina say how her sisters resurrected her?" "How did Kurt react?" "You made sure to burn all the pieces, right?"). She handed the phone off to Carlisle when he came to the part about his bite, and he quietly asked him how Seth had handled the injury. Carlisle's words were not at all reassuring.
"It's going to hurt," the doctor explained, "And it's going to take a while to heal. The first night after Seth was bitten he was in bed with a fever of almost a hundred and twenty-five, burning off the venom. The wound will need to irrigate, so keep it clean. You should probably have Puckerman constantly monitor your condition after the first twenty-four hours, because that's when it really all came to a head for Seth— and tell him not to try to cool you off, because the fever is going to be what kills off the venom, what will stop you from becoming one of us."
Jacob shook his head, not liking what he was hearing at all. "So I have twenty-four hours from when I was bitten before it gets... really bad?" he asked, making sure, because it sure as hell already felt 'really bad.' Any numbness that had been masking the pain before was now gone, leaving trails of agony to periodically race from his palm up to his shoulder and back down again like electrical shocks.
"Yes. And then it will start to slowly calm down from there, but it might take weeks for the actual bite itself to heal," Carlisle agreed.
"And I won't just spontaneously shift into wolf form?" Jacob continued, Puck's words from earlier echoing at the back of his mind.
"No. As far as I could tell, Seth couldn't shift at all until the bite was fully healed."
He sighed with relief at Carlisle's reassuring words. "So I can't accidently hurt Kurt if I stick around for a while. Okay, that's good. Really good."
"Jacob, I don't recommend that you—"
The sound of rushing water from the bathroom stopped, and Jacob smiled. "Thanks Carlisle, you're the best," he said, interrupting Carlisle's advice.
"Jacob—"
Jacob cut off the call, hanging up on the doctor and quickly turning his phone off so he couldn't be called back. He shoved the small device into his pocket as Kurt came out of the bathroom, dressed in the pyjamas he had brought in with him, and his hair slicked back with water.
"Who was that?" Kurt asked, yawning again as he sat down on the couch next to his boyfriend tiredly.
"Nobody. Come on, you look exhausted. Let's get you to bed, darling."
Kurt groggily mumbled something to the affirmative, standing and stumbling over to his sleeping area. The pristinely white sheets were mussed from the struggle he had put up against Irina taking him. Kurt tried to smooth them down, running his hands over the silk to straighten it, his hands shaking a little as he thought about what exactly had occurred since the last time he had been lying in this bed.
Jacob pulled back the sheet for him, practically pushing Kurt into the bed before pushing his bangs off his forehead, a comforting gesture. Kurt settled back onto the familiar mattress, relaxing as Jacob carefully tucked the sheets around him and leaned down and pressed his lips to the top of Kurt's head. He turned to leave, expecting Kurt to want his privacy, but Kurt's small hand jerked out from beneath the sheet and caught his bicep before he got even a step away from the bed.
"Wait," he said, his voice more distressed than he would have liked. Jacob stopped and turned back to him, catching the hand on his arm and holding it gently. "Don't go," Kurt pleaded, his lip trembling ever-so-slightly in a way that made Jacob melt.
"Kurt—" he started, unsure of what he was supposed to say.
"Stay with me? Just for a little while?" Kurt asked, eyes big and blue and pleading. Then, more quietly, "I'm scared," as if he were afraid to admit it. Jacob sighed, his resolve to leave Kurt as soon as he was settled crumbling into little pieces.
"Alright," he agreed, "But just for a little while, okay?"
Kurt nodded a little too eagerly, moving over in his bed to make room for Jacob beside him. Jacob slowly sunk down next to Kurt's little body, once again noticing the huge size difference; Kurt was so small, so fragile. The smaller teen instinctively curled up against Jacob's chest, and Jake put an arm around him to hold him there. They fit together perfectly, as cliché as that sounds, as Jacob held his imprintee against him protectively.
A thin beam of sunlight filtered through a gap in the curtains of Kurt's small window, casting strange shadows on the walls. Kurt closed his eyes and snuggled up against the warmth of Jacob's chest, sighing contently, finally safe from the monsters who wanted to hurt him.
Jacob through his other arm, the injured one, across Kurt's hip, leaving his bandaged hand hanging beside Kurt's stomach so it didn't touch anything. The sharp shooting pain he had been experiencing had dulled to an ignorable ache, which he was thankful for; it didn't take too much work to keep a look of pain off his face, to protect Kurt from the horror he would undoubtedly be going through in less than a day.
Kurt's breathing slowly evened out, but Jacob didn't disentangle himself from him even when he knew he was asleep. The constant rise and fall of Kurt's chest was mesmerising, the little noises he made in his sleep too adorable not to stay and listen to. It might have been half an hour into his sleep that Kurt froze up, his muscles clenching as he whimpered and cringed away from Jacob's body. Jacob sighed, smoothing back his hair and pressing another kiss to his temple.
"It's okay, darling, I'm here," he said quietly, tightening his grip around the countertenor more securely. "It's alright. I've got you." Kurt relaxed, his breathing evening out once more as Jacob's reassuring words washed over him, bringing peace to the nightmare he had been experiencing.
After that, Jacob couldn't bring himself to leave. He didn't want Kurt to suffer any more pain because of him, because of what he was; sticking around to protect him from his dreams was the least he could do. He relaxed a little, his stiff muscles unwinding as he let himself lie there, listening to Kurt's contented sleep noises.
Maybe he closed his eyes after a while, exhaustion from the night finally overtaking him. He couldn't remember.
