Chapter Notes:
Hola reader! Okay, so here's where things get a little spicy. (Spicy? That is so not the right adjective, but I'm way too tired to think of the right one.) This is the last "setting everything up so you understand why this is possible in the first place" sort of story, and the end of this is the start of the self-mutilation part of the story, so this is basically where plot heats up. (Heats up. Maybe that's where I got spicy from? Who knows?) Anyway, this one's a lot longer. Uncomfortable gay bashing in this one, way more so than in chapter 2. Indeedy.
Happy reading.
(Oh, and as always, REVIEWS MAKE ME A HAPPY CAMPER! 8D )
Chapter 3:
After almost an entire week, the letter incident was just about clear from Kurt's mind. He had told Blaine about Karofsky's unexpected visit on his doorstop, telling him more than he had told his father – why he was leaving town, and what had happened when Azimio had found out – but again he avoided mentioning the jock's warning about his ex-friends and their vengeance. Blaine had been as sympathetic to Karofsky's troubles as he could be, but Kurt knew it was mainly for his benefit – Blaine still wasn't particularly fond of the jock who had sent Kurt running to Dalton in the first place. He didn't like seeing Kurt hurt, no matter what the reason.
And that, seemingly so, was that. Everything was back to normal. Blaine was working about twenty hours a week at a Gap, after not getting into the Six Flags show. (The manager at the Gap knew him from the Warblers, and was almost beside himself with respect and admiration at the natural, talented charm that was Blaine Anderson. Getting the job had been a snap.) Meanwhile, Kurt, inspiration now completely restored, was working hard on his musical, which Blaine still couldn't listen to him talk about without chuckling and trying to resist – normally to no avail – rolling his eyes.
"You just don't understand the social importance this musical could have," Kurt would say pointedly, to which Blaine would laugh and nod his head vigorously, saying,
"You're absolutely right. I haven't a clue."
Guard officially down, Kurt was thrown completely off course when he was checking the mail one muggy afternoon, after arguing with Finn over whose turn it was to grab it. (Finn had won the argument by simply not moving from the couch, knowing Kurt wouldn't be able to stand the thought of the mail just sitting there in the box.) He came back inside, throwing the small stack of letters onto the table, casting an annoyed look in the direction of the living room where his stepbrother was continuing to lounge without guilt, when he noticed, through the splayed out way the letters had landed, one envelope which had no addresses written on it, and he could see a bold, letter "K" scribbled on the front.
He pushed aside the other envelopes, which contained several bills, a "Why Don't You Subscribe to Us So We Can Pressure You to Buy Stuff" postcard thing, and a letter for Finn, which was probably from Rachel ("I just think snail mail is so much more romantic than just phone calls! Please, can we try for it for a little while?" Kurt had overheard her telling her stepbrother). The other letters clasped tightly in his hand, he saw the nearly unmarked one in full view. As he suspected, the "K" actually was the start of the word "KURT", it addressed, once again, in bloody, bold red.
Kurt chewed on his lower lip for a moment, as he contemplated the letter. Should he open it? Presumably, it was just another empty threat, sent by a couple boys who were mad that their friend had turned out differently than they had expected or accepted. Why should he aide their ignorance? But in truth, he knew he would not be able to not open the envelope. Adrenaline already rushing from the mere worry of what it might say was more than enough reason to read what that envelope might contain.
Not there in the dining room, however. He set the other letters in his hand back down in a nicely stacked pile, and then took the one addressed to him, and hurried to his room, mumbling to Finn, "Letter for you on the table," and scooting past fast so that the lounging boy didn't have a chance to ask him to bring it to him.
Plopping down on his bed, he rifled through his bedside drawer and pulled out his letter opener (which he had gotten in order to practice opening rejection and acceptance letters when he was older), and slid it across the top of the envelope with ease, careful not rip any of the contents. He then shook the contents out into his hand, the red bleeding through the back of the page in an illegible mess. It was longer this time, he could tell. Unfolding it, he read,
"HOPE YOU HAVEN'T GOTTEN TOO COMFORTABLE. WE HAVEN'T FORGOTTEN YOU, DON'T WORRY. KEEP YOUR GUARD UP, FAGGOT. YOU NEVER KNOW WHERE WE MIGHT SHOW."
His stomach did a few flip flops. This seemed angrier than the last one – fueled, somehow, with more hate. What if one of his family members had gotten the mail? What if they had asked him what the strange, unaddressed envelope, which must have been placed there by hand, contained? What would he have told them?
Suddenly thankful his brother was a gigantic couch potato, Kurt refolded the letter into a nice, even rectangle, and slid it back into its home. He then stuffed it in the way back of his drawer, where the other letter sat the same way he had left it a week or so ago, and closed it shut, trying not to think of the implications of what had just happened.
The first phone call came when Blaine was over at the Hummel-Hudson house one Thursday afternoon a few days after the second letter incident.
It was an average day, hot and humid as any, both boys thankful to be away from their respective job and writing endeavors. Kurt had kept to his agreement about not spending every hangout session with a musical and a lethargic day on his bed. Instead, they were taking turns doing improvisational performances for one another, doing their best to come up with suitable dance moves on the spot. (Finn had joined them until he managed to almost break Kurt's desk lamp in a particularly horrifying show of choreography when he sang Aerosmith's "Walk This Way", and the boys had promptly sent him out.)
"Bravo!" Kurt cheered, clapping his hands in his cutesy, held-up-close-to-his-face way, as Blaine finished a riveting rendition of "Alejandro" with dramatic hand gestures and facial expressions abound.
He collapsed next to Kurt, breathing heavy and grinning. "That was fun," he said, fanning himself. "Although I'm not sure it's gonna make me any less tired than if we were just watching a movie."
"There's plenty of coffee to share, I promise."
"Is that your phone or mine?"
"Huh?"
"One of our phones is ringing."
Listening closely, Kurt could hear what Blaine was referring to. Muffled vibrations sounded from underneath the tangled up comforter on the bed. Digging around furiously like wild, burrowing animals, Kurt said, a little breathless, "Got it, it's mine!" as he held up his lit up, vibrating phone. He glanced at it, furrowed his brow and mumbled, "Don't recognize the number…" before pressing the talk button, just in time.
"Hello?" he asked into the receiver, not sure who to expect on the other end. At first he didn't hear anything. "Hello?" he asked a little louder. That's when he heard it. A deep, muffled voice, as though they had a piece of cloth or a hand pressed up lightly on their mouth, rumbled through the phone into Kurt's ear.
"Stupid faggot, watch your back."
The sound of a phone hanging up came next, and a second later, a very loud amount of nothing droned on, snapping Kurt out of his surprised, mouth-gaped moment of fear.
"What's wrong? Who is it?" Blaine asked, suddenly worried. Kurt almost told his boyfriend what he had just heard, but thought better of it, shook his head, took the phone off his ear, and smiled in what he hoped was a sincere smile.
"Wrong number."
"Oh." Blaine looked a little quizzical, but Kurt didn't give him a chance to inquire further. He stuffed his phone in his pocket and jumped to his feet.
"My turn," he said, not really feeling up to singing after the call he'd just received, but wanting to distract Blaine.
"The floor is yours."
Kurt thought a moment and then belted out the first thing that came to mind. For just a little while, he got into the music and forgot about the sick call he'd just received. What did it matter, anyway? He'd gotten a call like this before. Ignorance, he reminded himself, was all this was, and he would handle it just fine, without feeding it.
"'Telephone'," Blaine said, nodding appreciatively once his boyfriend had finished. "Gotta love Gaga. Are we having some sort of theme here, or…?"
"No, no, you can sing whatever you wa-" but he got distracted. Against his leg, in his pocket, he felt his phone vibrating again. He grabbed it and looked at it briefly. It was the same number as before. This time he chose not to answer it, placing the phone back into his pocket and shrugging at Blaine. "Same people," he muttered.
"Maybe you should tell them they're calling the wrong person?"
"They'll figure it out when they hear my voicemail. It's your turn." He sat down on the bed, trying not to look as wary as he felt.
"Hmm," Blaine thought aloud as he stood and took his place on the mock dance floor that was Kurt's bedroom carpet. He smirked. "Okay, here."
He started to sing "S&M", dancing as dirtily as he could, complete with hip-thrusts, air-lasso throwing, and head whips. Kurt was more than fully engaged in the show for a good minute, turning bright red in the cheeks at all the best parts. That is, until he felt his phone, once again, vibrating against his leg. He didn't even bother checking to see who it was – he was certain he knew. His face fell instantly, then, realizing how that must look to Blaine, he tried to put a happy face back on, but felt like he was grimacing rather than smiling.
When Blaine finished, he bent forward and put his hands on his knees, taking quickened breaths. "That," he said through pants. "Took some effort." He walked over and grabbed a pillow off the bed and smacked Kurt over the head with it playfully. "And you didn't even pay attention to half of it!"
"I did too!" the other boy cried, trying to defend himself, even though his mind really had been otherwise occupied about wondering why these people kept calling his phone. He thought very seriously about telling Blaine about it, knowing he would want to know, and realizing that if the roles were reversed, he would be furious at his boyfriend for keeping that secret from him. But telling Blaine about the phone calls would probably lead to telling him about the letters, and that, inevitably, would lead to telling him what Karofsky had said about Azimo, and he didn't really want that conversation to happen – he was sick of everyone worrying about him. He could handle it on his own.
"Hello in there!" Blaine was saying, waving a hand over Kurt's eyes. He jumped and blinked a few times.
"Huh?"
"Where'd you go?"
"Nowhere, I've been sitting right here."
"Honestly, Kurt, with as much hip-thrusting as I did, I must deduce that you just don't find me that sexually attractive," Blaine said in a mock-offended voice.
"You're insane."
"There is truly no other explanation."
"I promise you're the most gorgeous man I've ever seen. Say for maybe young Marlon Brando."
"Oh yeah?" Blaine was remarkably close to Kurt's face all of a sudden.
"Yeah."
Blaine leaned over and whispered into his boyfriend's ear in a low voice. "Prove it."
No other prompting needed, Kurt took the other boy's face in his hands and kissed him hard on the lips. Blaine reciprocated the action. Their lips parted a little, and Blaine took this as an opportunity to slip his tongue into the mix. He could almost feel the heat radiate off of Kurt's cheeks, as he went red very quickly, both from arousal and vague prudence. Kurt was suddenly thankful kissing was done with eyes closed.
Blaine pushed Kurt forward a little, until they were lying flat on the bed. Underneath him, Blaine could feel Kurt's heart pulsing at the speed of light. Grinning, he slipped a hand under the other boy's shirt and felt his way around the smooth skin on his back for a little while, taking a chance against his boyfriend's somewhat inexperienced, awkward perspective on physical affection. Kurt shuddered, turned redder, but did not pull away.
A weird feeling came from Kurt's left leg, and Blaine pulled away just long enough to say, "I think your phone's ringing."
"Let voicemail get it."
And so, as Blaine obeyed this order, returning his mouth to its proper place, the unknown number, which just a few minutes ago, had been causing Kurt so much trouble, went unanswered for a third time.
It wasn't until his boyfriend kissed him goodbye and waved with a hand holding a thermos of coffee did Kurt dare to take his phone out of his pocket. It read "three voicemails", much to his dismay. Again, he had an inner turmoil of "should I or shouldn't I?", and, like with the letters, reluctantly opted with the former.
"You have three unheard messages," a robot woman's voice told him. "First unheard message," it announced. Kurt waited. The message started out with the same, eerie silence the phone call had started out with. Then,
"What's wrong faggot, don't want to pick up your phone? Doesn't matter. We told you: it only gets worse from here."
Grimacing, Kurt pressed "9" to erase the voicemail.
"Message erased. Next message."
Shuffling, heavy breathing, and, "You're such a fucking faggot, and you keep turning everyone around you into faggots." Distant laughing could be heard behind the voice that was muffled and rough in Kurt's ear, so he knew there was at least more than one other person involved in this. "I guess that explains that gay glee club you're in. A whole club of faggots, spreading your faggy disease."
Kurt was chewing on the inside of his cheek, trying to remind himself, over and over "ignorance, ignorance, ignorance," but not really believing it at all. With shaking hands he pressed "9" and waited for the last message to sound.
"Message Erased. Next message."
The voice was a different person's this time. It was just as muffled, just as unrecognizable, but it was a little higher, and was talking in a grotesque sing-song voice, as it chanted cheerfully, "What do you do with a faggot's head? Drag it up and tie it up, tightly to the bed. Cut it up and chop it up and leave it left for dead."
Kurt didn't even bother to press "9" this time. He turned his phone off and threw it away from him onto his pillow, as if it suddenly had caught flame. His eyes were wide, his mouth open, and he felt his heart going at a million times faster speed than was normal. He clamped his eyes shut and started taking long, deep breaths in an attempt to calm himself down. Never in his life thus far, had he gotten so much hate. Not even when Karofsky had threatened his life. This was different. What the jock had said was right – bullying fueled by nothing but hate was a lot scarier than anything he was used to.
'I should report this,' he thought to himself, starting to pace around his room, suddenly too ancy to stand or sit still. But what good would that do? Although he knew Azimio was behind this somehow, he had no idea who else was involved. He could try having the numbers traced or blocked, or having his phone number changed, but all of those things would risk his family and Blaine finding out what was going on, and after keeping it secret this far, he had no intentions of worrying them. He was 17. He could handle himself. He could handle this. He just had to think of a way.
So instead, he stored the voicemails away in the back of his mind and went and got ready for bed. He called goodnight to his family from his room, not trusting himself to actually face them. After his numerous facial treatments, he was finally in bed, a new Pippa Middleton biography (this one he had ordered on Amazon) in his hand.
He pulled down his covers, settled in, and then took his phone off the pillow. When he did so, he saw he had a new text message. It wasn't from Blaine, telling him he had made it home, but it wasn't the other number either. He opened it.
"Like our rhyme 4 u faggot? Im a poet & didnt even no it."
They were using more than one phone number, and Kurt wondered distantly, while his stomach sank and a wave of nausea hit him, if it was in case he tried to trace or block them, like he had thought of doing so before.
He erased the message and went to turn the phone off when he remembered Blaine still hadn't gotten a hold of him. He couldn't put away his phone until he knew his boyfriend was home safe, no matter the risk. So instead, he put the phone on his bedside table, and began to read. He read two full pages without really taking a word of it in before his phone started ringing, the vibrator making an awful noise against the wood of his table.
He looked. It wasn't Blaine. It was the number the text had come from. He forced himself to ignore the loud vibrations the phone was making and read.
"… the stunning sister of Kate has become all a buzz in no time at all…"
The phone gave a short vibration to let Kurt know a voicemail had been left. He didn't bother with it.
"… the stunning sister of Kate has become all a buzz in no time at all…" he read the same sentence again without even realizing it. His phone began ringing again. Glancing, he saw it still wasn't Blaine, but it was a new number entirely. But he knew better than to answer it.
"…the stunning sister of Kate has become all a buzz in no time at all…" hadn't he read that already? The phone stopped rattling against the table, a voicemail was left, and then it started up again. Kurt's chest began to throb with how fast his heart was going, and adrenaline started pouring into his stomach. Why wouldn't these people just leave him alone? He hadn't done a thing to them.
He could picture them – Azimio, and other nameless faces of the football team, sitting around outside at a park somewhere, probably with a few beers, laughing as they all took turns dialing Kurt's number that they got from God-knows-where, leaving threatening messages with muffled voices, dying from the hilarity of it all.
"…the stunning sister of Kate has become all a buzz in no time at all…" By this point it was the fourth or fifth time the phone had started ringing – he had started to lose count. He was staring at the same sentence for a good five or ten minutes, just listening to the rattle of his phone against wood, hoping it would subside. This time, he reached over without bothering to look at the number, pressed the talk button, and said with a tired, miserable voice,
"What the Hell do you want?"
"…Kurt?" Blaine's voice sounded through from the other end of the phone. Kurt was overcome with the feeling of relief and horror at the same time.
"Oh, Blaine, sorry, I… I fell asleep waiting for you to call, and I didn't realize that was you calling just then." He tried to make his voice sound drowsy, like he had just been woken up. "I trust you made it back home?"
"Yeah… Kurt, are you sure you're okay? You sound a little… morose."
"That's just me being groggy, don't worry," he tried to assure. A beep sounded in the phone, closely followed by another a few seconds later. Kurt realized this was the call-waiting, and knew who had to be on the other line. "Hey, can you… do you have to go right now? Could you talk to me for a little bit?"
"Well, yeah, I can. Why, what's up?"
"Nothing. I just… I just like hearing the sound of your voice."
"You're sure that's all that's up?"
"Of course."
"Well… alright."
They talked for about twenty minutes about nothing in particular. The first few minutes of the conversation had been littered with beeps from the call-waiting, but after a while they finally subsided. Feeling exhausted after he was pretty sure the phone calls had stopped, he murmured into the phone,
"Hey Blaine, would you do me a favor?"
"Sure."
"Could you sing to me?"
"Over the phone?"
"Yeah."
"What do you want me to sing?"
"Anything," he yawned, and he could hear Blaine chuckle on the other end.
It was a quiet a moment, and then,
"Golden slumber kiss your eyes,
Smiles await you when you rise.
Sleep,
pretty baby,
Do not cry,
And I'll sing you a lullaby.
Care you know not,
Therefore sleep,
While I o'er you watch do keep.
Sleep,
pretty darling,
Do not cry,
And I will sing a lullaby.
"
And Kurt was fast asleep before the last note even touched Blaine's lips.
The next morning, Kurt blinked his eyes open groggily and rubbed his face with the back of his hand while he yawned. He lifted his head and saw his phone lying next to him on the pillow, sticky and smudged from the sweat of his face. He picked it up. 7 unread messages. 'Perfect,' he thought to himself. 'Exactly what I needed to wake up to.'
He sat up and dialed his voicemail number. The robotic woman talked at him for a minute, before the first message came on. He pressed "9" as quickly as he could, but he still heard the word "faggot" uttered in a muffled voice before the robot voice said, "Message erased."
He did this to the other six messages, trying to erase them before he heard any of what they said. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn't. He felt his stomach plummet lower and lower with each "Next message." was spoken so calmly from the robot woman, who clearly didn't understand how sickening this was.
Finally, she said, "No new messages, and one saved message… First saved message."
Before Kurt had time to react, the sing-song voice from yesterday was suddenly playing in his ears.
"What do you do with a faggot's head? Drag it up and tie it up, tightly to the bed. Cut it up and chop it up and leave it left for dead."
He pressed "9" four times in a row, ignoring the, "invalid entry, please try again," from the woman who lived in his voicemail. He began to feel really nervous again, and sick, like he might throw up. This was insane. Certainly it wouldn't go on at this degree anymore. Certainly.
Shaking, heart pounding, and stomach clinched, Kurt dropped his phone back onto his bed and went into the bathroom to take a shower, hoping it would calm his nerves. He stripped down, turned on the water extra hot, and got in, letting the hot steam embrace his body and calm his tense muscles.
He ran a hand down his leg and felt that it was scratchy. He grabbed the shaving cream and put some on his leg and grabbed his razor. (Yes, he shaved his legs, and as he had told his father when he started doing so, "Just because I prefer to look well-kempt instead of a grizzly bear, does not make me into a stereotype, thank you very much.") He did the first leg, missing several spots, his hands shaking worse than he thought from the nerves.
He readied the other leg, and took the razor down in a long swoop. It must have been during a particularly nasty tremble, because out of nowhere, he shook even harder, uncontrollably, for just a moment, making a big, jagged cut in his skin.
"Damnit," he hissed, putting his leg under the water stream quickly to get off the rest of the shaving cream. Blood streamed down his leg, and the sliced flesh stung even worse when the water hit it. He gave a sharp intake or breath, and tried to stopper the bleeding a little, but it not really helping. For a moment he just stood there, letting the wound leak freely, the small pool of water at his feet turning red.
Finally, the bleeding tapered off on its own a little bit, and Kurt washed the rest of his body and his hair with his many products and soaps, feeling considerably calmer now. The sharp pain, although unpleasant, had been the perfect distraction from his anxiety. Now he was breathing easier, was fresh and clean, and say for a pretty nasty cut down the side of his leg, he was physically doing alright.
He got out of the shower, dried off, and thought nothing of it, as he went to the kitchen to get some breakfast. When he would think about it later, wondering where it had all started and why, he would pinpoint it back to that moment in the shower. That moment where the blade made a wrong turn and his skin broke apart like paper being torn.
But he didn't know that now – didn't know that those first phone calls, and the razor which now sat on the porcelain edge of the bathtub, a small, almost invisible trace of Kurt's blood still resting on the blades – was the start of something more than even Azimio and his gang could have ever predicted.