Limits
Summary: Taken from a prompt on the Glee Angst Meme. Burt Hummel's dead, Kurt Hummel's doing his best to stay under the radar of Child Services, and the bullying is quickly bringing him to the end of his steadily shortening rope. The tiny, unused razor in the jewelry box seems to agree with that assessment. So it is really any wonder that when he catches sight of a blue police box left open just a crack that he would run inside?
Disclaimer: Nope. No, no, no.
AN: Thank you all so much for your response on the last chapter! I got a couple of questions, but I hesitate to answer them because eventually, they'll be answered in the story and I'd rather not spoil the plot. I hope you all continue to read and enjoy, I read and take into consideration every little bit of feedback.
On with the show!
Chapter Fourteen: Galliard
Kurt hadn't been allowed to walk out that door without making a plan for a glee get-together for the day after next, mostly because tomorrow was the last day of finals and had everyone crawling the walls because it didn't matter how old you got or where you were, tests sucked.
Somehow, Kurt left Mercedes' house feeling more worried than he'd started.
She hadn't asked but it was only a matter of time before someone did, asking the one question that Kurt was dreading most.
He could talk about why he'd left, or what he'd done in the interim. He could even talk about the things that hurt most, the experiences that had marked him or made him cry or laugh like he'd never be sad again. He'd talk about dates and kisses and people and adventures.
What he couldn't talk about was what came next because eventually, someone was going to ask him what he was going to do now that he was home, and Kurt didn't know how he was going to tell people, his people, that he had no intention of staying in Lima. Not now, not after all this. Not while he was uneven like this, not while he was scarred like this, not while he just couldn't seem to identify with them quite like he used to.
He loved Mercedes. He'd always loved her and probably always would even if at times he'd want to kill her.
But Kurt couldn't look at her anymore and know, without thinking about it, that she'd understand him.
That he could look at them and see them as younger instead of as his peers was disorienting and upsetting. They'd all been so helpless in that classroom and it had been up to Kurt to protect them. He used to be the one who needed protection, had a couple of years changed that much?
But it wasn't about time anymore.
Kurt had been different even before he'd set foot in the TARDIS. Not stronger, necessarily, but made different by his experiences. And now? Those experiences set him apart even more and it hurt because that wasn't what he'd wanted.
Somewhere along the line, traveling with the Doctor had stopped being something about recuperation and had become something that Kurt wanted simply because he wanted it, because he loved these people and loved seeing new things and never wanted to stop. When had he stopped loving the people he'd left?
No.
No, that wasn't it.
That wasn't it at all.
He'd didn't love them less, not at all. But he loved them differently, now. Kurt used to dream about Broadway, about getting out of Lima and never coming back, about big stages and bright lights because that was the biggest thing he could think to reach out for. He dreamed about competing with Rachel for solos and parts and eventually performing together, he dreamed about conversations with Mercedes, with both of them as huge stars and household names, waxing lyrical about what their lives had become.
That still might happen, but it wouldn't include Kurt on that huge stage because it just wasn't big enough now. Like being confined to a single room in a single house, and then suddenly gaining access to a window.
God, the Doctor had spoiled him so and he couldn't even regret it because who could pass that up?
Kurt realized, then, that a lot of people would pass it up. Had passed it up. Mickey passed up that chance every time they stopped in London and Kurt had always wondered why. Finn would never have taken up that offer. Quinn wouldn't, Tina wouldn't, Mercedes wouldn't. Rachel might if only because that would mean she'd have a bigger audience, but to open that door and walk through just because you could, because you wanted to know?
Kurt wondered how his friends saw him, now. Did Mercedes still see him as her peer, or did she look at him and see him changed as he did? Did she feel disconnected, like she'd lost a tether that she'd thought would always be there?
He wasn't sure if he wanted to know the answer to those questions.
They were his people but they weren't all he had, and he loved them but who could stand to stay in that single room in that single house when they could suddenly see the world?
Kurt had thought that there was nothing to do in Lima when he spent most of his time in school. It was about three times worse when all he had to do was wander around with one of both of his companions in tow. He'd wander around by himself but really, it wasn't as if they had much of anything to do either, especially not somewhere like here.
None of them had said anything about what was going to happen next and Kurt didn't know if it was because they assumed that he was going to stay, because they assumed that he would want to keep traveling with them, or because they didn't assume anything at all and were leaving the ball in his court to deal with. It was probably for the best that way because Kurt knew that he'd probably be having one hell of a blowout over this and he really didn't want to deal with a second one.
As it was now, Kurt was on his own, mostly because the Doctor had caught sight of the lone entertaining thing in Lima and gone after it.
Unfortunately, the most entertaining thing currently in Lima was the 3-for-1 sale at the donut shop and Kurt had no intention of partaking in such a thing, thank you.
Also unfortunately, because of this little fact, Kurt found himself picking the lock to get into his own former home because there wasn't anything to distract him from it.
All the doors had been barricaded by the police but it seemed now as if no one had so much as breathed near it in months, and Kurt knew for a fact that the back door had wiggly hinges. He'd wiggled them loose himself years back when he'd gone through his period of teenage rebellion which had lasted all of a month and two days and had wanted to try sneaking out creatively.
Somehow, despite the fact that his father had known and Kurt had known that he'd known, those hinges had never been tightened or set back into place. In retrospect, maybe it had been left on purpose, since it wasn't like the back door was used much anyway. Just in case. The potential reasons for that just in case left him just a little bit cold but he went ahead anyway, prying the wiggling hinges even looser with a pair of scissors to shoulder the door open.
People often thought that memories were tied to sight, but Kurt knew in that instant that they had to have been wrong because it wasn't what he saw that rushed through him but the scent, the smell of home despite that it hadn't been inhabited in months. Kurt stepped, lightly and silently, through the back door and into the living room. For a good while, he just stood in the middle of the room and breathed, letting the memories flow.
He supposed that this was what happened when a house –a home- was abandoned by those who lived in it.
No one wanted it; no one had claimed the things inside.
So it was just left, left as it had always been, locked up and forgotten.
Some things had been moved, probably by the police who did the search, but as a whole, it was as he remembered. The pictures, the furniture, the paint on the walls, the lamp on the side table. The painstaking neatness that Kurt had slaved obsessively for, all here. All so familiar, all so close.
Home and not-home because now, home was a time machine that had welcomed him with a bedroom without being asked, with a cherry-stained wood door with a brass knob, with spiraled clothing racks and a bed that wasn't too big. Home was a library with a swimming pool, with a kitchen that always had bananas and never had pears, with a man who was cockamamie and eccentric at best, wonderfully deranged at worst.
This home, this not-home that was so familiar, had years of memories and safety and love and terror. This not-home had seen death.
Kurt breathed and his shoulders went slack because it didn't matter how long he'd been gone, this not-home was still his no matter how much it hurt.
A look in the drawer revealed one more thing that hadn't been changed, and Kurt drew in a choked breath when he drew out a single sheet of paper drawn over with crayon.
Me and Mommy and Daddy was written on the back in a childish hand and the front depicted three figures having what couldn't be mistaken for anything other than a tea party. There was his mother –with that thick, chestnut river for hair that she'd passed on to her son- offering a cookie to a bear. Tiny Kurt had drawn his father, looking exceedingly confused, holding his pinky out.
There was a moment in which Kurt almost took that paper, folded it up, and stuck it into his pocket.
In the end, he did no such thing, choosing instead to put it back in the drawer.
It had been put there, Kurt decided, out of love, and it would stay there out of love.
When he'd first left, he'd taken only his clothing and toiletries. Now, he found himself pocketing things here and there, nothing major that would be missed, mostly things that people would never think to look for in the first place.
Into the bag slung across his good shoulder went some photos, the unframed ones that he treasured most and kept hidden under the basket of CDs next to his bed. Kurt couldn't help sitting down on it and giving an experimental bounce. It felt the same, if dusty. Into his bag went the trophy from Nationals because he'd really loved being a Cheerio, if only because he was good at it, it gave his ego a boost, and actually gave him a set of abs. Into his bag went a few of his favorite books: The Art of War, I'm a Winner and You're Fat, and The Phantom Tollbooth.
He took just two things from the master bedroom.
Into his bag went his father's ratty old baseball cap that Kurt had bitched about at least every week, as steady as the tides.
Kurt's fingers closed around that velvet ring box and popped it open. That simple, piano key necklace had never really fit that box. It could just barely be maneuvered into the ring slot and even then it tilted awkwardly. When Kurt removed the necklace, he left the box.
He'd never be coming back for it.
There was someone standing in front of his house.
A very familiar someone.
A very familiar someone who made his skin crawl even after all this time and Kurt's mind jumped back to a place it hadn't been in a long time, back to dry, roughened lips on his, hands on his shoulders that he couldn't get away from, to being pushed up against the lockers and touched where he didn't want to be touched.
As fast as that flash of fear had slithered through him, it was replaced with something that was unmistakably anger. How dare he show up here? How dare he be here? How dare he stand there, watching Kurt's front door as if he was someone to be welcomed into Kurt's not-home?
The red of that jacket, stark and bright, was the cape in front of the bull.
Unfortunately for Dave Karofsky, he was no matador and Kurt was no bull, because bulls didn't come with claws and fangs, an extra two years, and experience of infinitely scarier things than a closeted bully.
From where he stood pressed up against the side of his house, Kurt adjusted his sunglasses and straightened his very much un-rumpled clothing. He waited, briefly, to see how long Karofsky was going to stand there. After he hadn't so much as taken a step in three minutes, Kurt scowled.
No more of this.
Kurt stepped away from the house and approached, making himself as tall as possible.
"Oi," he called out, voice settling into an unmistakable growl, "This is private property. Be on your way."
Karofsky looked up at him with no recognition and Kurt fought the urge to take off the glasses and hat just so he could see that look turn into shock.
"Who the hell are you?" the other boy asked, ignoring Kurt's demand, "Why are you here?"
"I'm a relative," Kurt replied shortly with an imperious toss of his head, "Kurt was my cousin." He watched the expressions flash across Karofsky's face: skepticism, anger, and then fear. And then, finally, something that looked suspiciously like guilt.
"Since when did Hummel have a cousin? It's been months." Apparently Kurt's bearing, state of dress, and height was enough to convince him of the lie.
"That's none of your business, is it?" Kurt adjusted the sunglasses on his face. He couldn't see it but he knew exactly where the TARDIS was, set in the backyard on the other side of the house. He knew exactly what he'd be doing after this was over. "I'd ask who you were, but I don't need to." The bored tone was faked but the sneer that made his lip curl wasn't. "Dave Karofsky."
The boy that had once towered over him took a step back, face draining of color.
"W-what'd that fairy tell you?"
Kurt tsk'd and took a step closer, reaching out to adjust Karofsky's collar in a blatant threat, letting his hand linger as if he'd yank any second.
"That fairy, as you call my beloved cousin, told me more than enough about you. He told me about what you did, how you hit him, shoved him, scared him," Kurt leaned in to whisper poisonously, "Kissed him. Touched him. Broke him."
Karofsky was a statue, still and wide-eyed.
"Are you happy that he's gone, Dave? I bet you are. He knew about you and we couldn't have that, could we?"
"I didn't kill him!" Karofsky interjected, color rising high in his cheeks, "I didn't kill Hummel! Quit acting like I did!"
"No," Kurt mused, "No, I suppose you didn't. But let me tell you something, David Karofsky," One more step was breached. To anyone walking by, they might have looked like close friends who hadn't seen one another in a while, reminiscing, until you saw their faces. "You didn't kill him, but by the time you were done with him? You may as well have. You took what was already a miserable existence and you destroyed him. But you're okay with that, right? Because you're safe, at least." Kurt broke off. He was getting to the point where he wouldn't be able to keep his voice steady if he continued.
Without another word, he turned on a heel and began to walk back from where he'd come, back towards the backyard.
Karofsky's voice stopped him.
"Y-you won't tell anyone, right? That I'm… that I'm-!"
"Why you did what you did to my cousin?" Kurt asked levelly, wishing that he didn't enjoy the look of panic that he received in return. The streets were deserted. "No. You're a bully, a danger, and frankly a terrible human being, but Kurt didn't believe in doing something like that. I don't either." It'd be so easy, he realized, to drop a few ideas into people's heads, to out the other boy and have him see how it felt to be terrified for his life. It would have been terrifyingly easy, actually, and the idea of doing such a thing to someone else made him feel physically ill. Karofsky deserved a lot of things, but being dragged out of the closet was not one of them. "Stay away from this place; it doesn't belong to you."
Not a minute later, he was slipping back into the TARDIS. His bag was set gingerly on the floor and Kurt followed it, leaning up against the wall and sinking down.
His hands were shaking.
AN2: Please, please, please leave a review if you have anything at all to say about this. I really do live off of writing most of the time and even though I write for myself, I treasure the things that other people have to say about my stories. Thank you!