Kurt felt like if he were in a dream. The world had seemed to stop spinning, and his heart was pounding a thousand times a minute. His lips were attached to Blaine's, locked in an anxious and chaste kiss. Kurt heard Blaine exhale, and then felt the air hit his face. He blinked and realised that he wasn't in a dream at all. He was actually kissing Blaine, the boy he had only known for a week! The boy who saved him from falling to his death. The boy who dragged him into a pool. The boy who was perfect. He felt Blaine push gently against his mouth, coaxing some kind of action from Kurt. In response, Kurt hummed and pushed back. Then Kurt felt Blaine part his lips and brush his tongue against Kurt's lower lip.
With wide eyes, Kurt pulled out of the kiss, breath heavy from the unexpected action. If he had continued, he knew that his jacket would get ripped by his wings as they struggled to stay in their confinement. He looked down at Blaine, who was looking back at Kurt with curiosity in his eyes. Kurt then noticed that they were still holding each other. Quickly, Kurt released his hold on Blaine and wrapped his hands around his own body in a protective position and turned around.
"This can't be right." Kurt whispered to himself. He knew that he liked Blaine, but he didn't want to force Blaine into a relationship that fast into a new life. That kiss might have just not meant anything, just off an impulse. Slowly, Kurt turned around to Blaine, who had also turned around, but was staring into the corner of the cubicle. Kurt heard Blaine mumble something to himself that he couldn't pick out. He stood staring at Blaine's back and wings, deciding to get out of the cubicle to let Blaine change by himself. "I'm going outside so you can finish changing." Blaine gave a small nod and Kurt exited the cubicle.
Outside, Kurt sat down on the chair that he had sat on before and waited for Blaine. He figured that if he stayed around Blaine, the atmosphere would become more awkward and they wouldn't be able to enjoy their day properly. He waited for at least 20 minutes, but Blaine didn't come out of the cubicle. The taller boy sighed and reached for his bag and extracted a pen and a piece of paper.
Blaine. I'm really sorry, but I have to go. It's a Finn-emergency, and you know how he is. I'll make it up to you again one day, I promise. And don't worry about me. I've taken your/my helmet and I'm catching a taxi home. - Kurt
There was no Finn-related emergency and Kurt felt bad for lying to Blaine, but he thought that it was what was best for the two of them. He folded it up neatly and slipped it underneath the door. Then he left to collect the helmet.
Kurt arrived home and headed straight to his bedroom, ignoring questions and statements from Carole and Burt. He slammed his door and dumped his bag and helmet and shedded his coat. The time was only 1.30 pm. Kurt had arrived home much earlier than he had expected. He and Blaine hadn't managed to consume lunch; in fact, they were going to get food straight after Blaine had changed back into his clothes.
With his stomach growling, Kurt changed out of his outing clothes and put on some home clothes, clothes which he wore around the house and didn't care about. He pulled on a baggy t-shirt and a pair of shorts and sank heavily onto the base of his bed. He stared at the ground, not knowing what to do next. His wings were straightened out behind him, covering the length of the bed, tips of the feathers brushing the headboard. Kurt sighed and pulled out his phone. He was expecting a message from Blaine. Something, anything to tell him that Blaine had gotten his note and understood. He replaced his phone and fell backwards onto his back, flattening his wings and throwing his arms above his head as he stared at the ceiling.
Burt eventually came to check up on Kurt at 2.00 pm. He knocked on the door, but got no response, so he tried the doorknob and opened the door to find Kurt lying face up on this bed in his home clothes and his eyes wide open. Burt knocked again on the door frame, and this time, Kurt raised his head.
"You okay, kiddo?" Burt asked. Kurt sat up and nodded in response. "If you need anything, Carole and I are downstairs." Burt turned to leave.
"Wait, dad." Kurt held out this hand as if about to catch his father's hand. Burt paused and turned to face Kurt. "Do you remember how you told me about an argument you had with a man with the surname of Anderson?" The man nodded slowly, grey wings twitching in the mention of the name. "Can you tell me about what happened?"
"Why do you want to know?"
"Well, I'm stuck at home, and the only thing that can entertain me right now is a story." Kurt said as he looked up to his father. The boy could see his father's eyes becoming misty. He immediately felt bad for bringing it up. "Actually, don-"
"You're not doing anything tomorrow, right?" Burt asked. Kurt shook his head, confused by his father. "Good. It's about time I told you about what happened to your mother." He paused. Kurt was staring open mouthed at him. Burt chuckled to himself.
"What do you mean by what happened to mom?"
"I'll tell you tomorrow." Burt paused, but the silence was broken by Kurt's stomach. "And I'm guessing you haven't eaten." Kurt nodded guiltily. "Come downstairs. I'm sure that Carole has something for you to eat."
Kurt stood up and followed his father down the stairs into the kitchen. Carole served him some food, which he accepted politely and started consuming it. During his meal, he kept his eyes on his food, shoulders hutched and wings down. His parents watched him with worry. Only in one day, his mood had flipped from being excited and happy to gloomy and sad. They exchanged worried glances, wondering what had made Kurt feel so down. Eventually, Kurt finished his meal and began to do the washing up. Carole insisted that he take a rest and let her to wash up for him. Kurt let her and trudged up the stairs to his room, where he shut the door again.
Blaine's helmet was sitting on his desk, the dark silver colour contrasting against the white pained wood. The golden wing stood out on the side, glistening in the early afternoon sun. Kurt picked up the helmet and sat down on his bed, slowly re-examining the article of protection. He turned it upside down to inspect the inside, as he began to do that morning. There were a few small cushions attached to the interior to support the different parts of the skull. The inside looked pretty ordinary, dark and confining, but two, small white letters stood out from the darkness.
At the base of the helmet, where the back of the neck enters the headwear, there were the letters L and A, engraved in a curly script. Kurt squinted at the two letters, trying to figure out what they stood for. Los Angeles? The initials of the brand that made the helmet? Kurt didn't know. Sighing, he put down the helmet and laid down again. He pulled out his phone once again to check for messages, only to find none. He dropped his phone on his bed and covered his eyes with his hands, silently hoping that Blaine wasn't angry with him.
"There are two things I want to make sure you are clear of before we start," Burt began. It was noon the next day, and Kurt was ready for his father's story. He slept well last night, except for the few times he thought his phone vibrated to the signal of a new message. "One, this story is going to be long. Two, prepare yourself."
"For what?"
"Shock? Horror? Unexpected circumstances? I'm not sure myself, but just prepare yourself for what is about to come." Burt leaned back in his arm chair and gathered his thoughts. He was silent for a few minutes, with Kurt waiting patiently in his own chair, wings stretched in attentiveness.
Eventually, Burt spoke. "Meet Lawrence 'Larry' Anderson," Burt said as he pulled a faded picture of a young man from a display folder resting on his lap. "Born 24th December, 1965, in Columbus, Ohio." Kurt took the photograph from his father and inspected it. The man was only captured from the waist up, and wore a sky blue polo t-shirt. He appeared to have light brown, short cropped hair, blue eyes. His mouth was wide open, as if he were laughing at something before the photo was taken. Behind him were two strong, feathery wings in their relaxed form. "He and his family moved to Lima when he was 17, and we met in our senior year in high school." Burt paused. "We were great friends, and, as you can see by that picture, a wing carrier." Kurt looked up from the picture to look at Burt.
"So this is the man you had an argument with?" Kurt asked. Burt nodded.
"As soon as we met, we were inseparable, 'tight' as you might call it these days. We had lots in common: football, cars, food, girls, you name it. What made us even closer were our wings. Nobody else had wings in our school, so we'd parade around with them out, even though we knew that no-one could see them. Our families were also friends, so we could go over to each other's houses without the feeling of being rude." Burt chuckled to himself. "Apart from the Andersons and my own family, I didn't know anyone else who was a wing carrier.
"Eventually, we moved into college. Larry and I were accepted into the same college, in the University of San Francisco on a football scholarship." Burt reached down to pull another photograph from the folder. He looked at it, gave a small smile, and handed it to Kurt. The son examined it and gave out a small laugh. In the photograph there were two boys, maybe a year or two older than Kurt himself. They stood dressed in their shoulder pads and gold and green coloured football uniforms of their college, grinning at the camera. They had an arm over each other's shoulder, with their free arms holding their respective helmets. "Guess which one is me." Both boys had short, light brown hair and similar facial features, and since they were both boys, their faces would have changed a lot as they grew up. Kurt squinted at the photograph and noticed that one boy had blue eyes, while the other one had green.
"This one is you." Kurt said as he pointed to the boy with green eyes. Burt laughed and nodded.
"That match was taken at the quarter-finals of our first year. We won that game." He said with a smile. "Larry was quarterback and I was fullback. Together, we were quite a team. As we won more games, our popularity rose on the status ladder, and with that came girls. Larry would prefer the loud, fashionable girls, while I would prefer girls who were smart and sensible. Eventually, we had dated nearly every girl in the school. Nearly." Burt's eyes shone with excitement. Kurt motioned for his father to go on. "Together, we had dated all but one girl in the college. She was beautiful, funny and smart and in our year. But she would always reject our offers."
"Who was that girl?" Kurt asked. Burt laughed loudly.
"That girl was your mother, of course." Kurt stared at Burt in shock. The man chuckled. "I told you to be prepared."
"I was prepared," Kurt said in a huff. "And what do you mean by 'of course'?"
"You have her attitude." Burt replied simply. "So back then, we had no idea that she was a wing carrier. We thought we were still the only ones with wings. We were so distracted by her beauty and stunning characteristics to notice that she always wore a jacket, no matter what temperature. She knew that we were carriers, and if we knew she was one, we would have probably begged her to go out with us more."
"But why didn't you choose any other girl?"
"I'll get to that in a moment," said Burt. "Your mother was very clever when it came to Larry and I. She would invite both of us on a date, on the same day, at the same time, so she could compare us. Anderson would show off his muscles and his strength like any other boy attempting to win a girl, but that's not what I did. From the moment I saw her, I knew she was different, but I didn't know how. Instead of showing her my skills, I talked to her, got to know her better, so she got to know me better as well.
"Soon, that girl started to ask me out. It was hilarious though, a girl asking a boy out. It should have been the other way around, but she had rejected all of my offers. I accepted and we started dating. Lawrence was angry. He had tried all of his techniques used to win other girls on your mother, and she chose me over him. He tried to steal her from me, by talking to her, getting to know her like I did, but she stuck with me.
"Before I knew it, I started to fall in love with her. She had the voice of an angel and a heart of gold. She was perfect."
"How did you find out she was a wing carrier?"
"Well, one summer day, she invited me to the park. We were eating ice cream, when I accidentally dropped some onto her jacket. Unfortunately, it was a new jacket that she had bought only a few days before, so she needed to wash it before the ice cream stained the coat. She dragged me back to her apartment, where she took off her jacket and asked me to wash it. However, she forgot about her wings. I ended up staring at her long and elegant wings, for at least five minutes, thinking that she was absolutely the one."
"The one?"
"This was the reason why I didn't choose any other girl. All wing carriers can only truly be happy for the rest of their lives if they are in a relationship with another wing carrier. I didn't want just any girl, I wanted a girl who was a carrier. And she was the one."
"So what happened after?"
"She realised that I could see her wings, and she started trying to hide them, saying that this wasn't how I was supposed to first see them, and that I had every right to be angry at her for hiding her wings. I said I wasn't angry with her. She looked at me, then I saw the real her. Beautiful was an underestimate. There were no words to describe her. I stared at her, taking in everything. Then I said those words."
"You mean 'I love you'?"
"No." Burt thought for a moment. "Do you remember that day when you were about to jump off your tea party table because you wanted to fly?" Kurt nodded with a faint smile, then realisation spread across his face.
"You said 'Oh, there you are. I've been looking for you forever' to mom?"
"Yes I did. Here's another thing about wing carriers. When you find 'the one', you say that line. Don't ask me why. I guess it just seals the deal." Kurt nodded slowly in understanding. "So, as I was saying those words to her, she was saying them at the same time to me."
"And you two lived happily ever after." Kurt smiled.
"Not at all." Burt's voice was cold and Kurt's smile disappeared. "Lawrence still tried to court your mother. He didn't even know that she was a carrier. He tried and tried to steal her away from me. One day in our final year, we were out and your mother had her wings out. Larry saw us and literally pounced on her, trying to separate us. I grabbed her and took her to her place, only to find that Anderson had followed us. I made sure that your mom was safe, before turning to Anderson to clear things up. I explained things, but he wasn't happy. He punched me in the face, the stormed off, vowing to take my girl away from me." Kurt listened with a shocked face. "For the rest of the year, Lawrence ignored me, but still tried to win over your mom.
"We finished college and headed back home for Ohio. Lawrence eventually gave up on chasing your mom and he stayed in San Francisco. A few years later, we got married, we bought our own house in Lima and your mother found out she was pregnant with you. We were overjoyed that we were going to have a child. We prepared everything and in 1993, you were born. Your mother and I were so happy." Burt withdrew another picture from the folder. In it was a picture of three people in the hospital; Burt, his wife on a bed and baby Kurt, who was being cradled by Burt. "A few months after you were born, Lawrence found out, and he was furious. He hadn't found a partner yet, and he thought that your mother would lose interest in me and go to him.
"He tried to bribe her into going with him. Even though Larry and I had so much in common, there was one thing that separated us, and that was money. Lawrence came from one of the richest families in the country, and he had all of the money a man could dream of. He told her that he would give her money if she left me and you. She didn't. He said that he would buy her a car and a mansion if she left us. She still refused to budge." Burt smiled. "I remember her saying that we were her family, and something like money could not tear her away from what was most important to her. I was real proud of her then. Lawrence left, and we didn't hear from him for years."
"But you did hear from him eventually?" Kurt asked. Burt hesitated, but nodded slowly in sadness. Kurt noticed. "What happened?"
"We didn't hear from Anderson for exactly eight years."
"Eight years? When I was eight years old?" Burt nodded slowly again. "What happened when I was-" Kurt cut off. He realised what happened. "Mom died when I was eight. You said that she died in a car accident. It was raining and the road was slippery, so she crashed into a pole." Burt nodded again. There was silence. "That was how she died right? Just a freak accident."
Burt inhaled a deep breath. "Yes, that was how she died, but it wasn't an accident." Kurt looked at his father with a puzzled look. "She took my car to get it checked at a mechanics. I wasn't a mechanic then, because I had an office job in the city, and I was at home looking after you that day. I was supposed to take the car in to be checked, but she argued that I wasn't spending enough time with you. On the way home, there was a huge mechanical fault, and she lost control of the car. It swerved onto the opposite lane and crashed into a pole. By the time paramedics reached the scene, she was dead." Burt let out a sniff. "The police took the car to be inspected. They found that most of the rods and wires inside the car had been damaged before the crash, and their damage led to the malfuction of the car. They checked the mechanic who 'fixed' our car, and he said that he was bribed to damage the internal parts. When asked who bribed him, the mechanic said that the man had blue eyes, lots of money, and told him to call him 'Larry'. When I heard this, I knew exactly who it was."
"Lawrence Anderson," muttered Kurt with tears in his eyes.
"That's right. The thing is, I was the one that was supposed to take the car in for servicing, so I was the one who was supposed to be killed. Your mother sacrificed herself for me." Said Burt with a shaking voice. Kurt got up from his seat to go comfort his father. "Lawrence was charged and sent to jail for a few years, I'm not sure how long. He deserves to be in there." His father finished with a shuddering exhale. Kurt rubbed his father's back until he calmed down. He gave him back the photographs.
"Thank you for telling me this story, dad."
"No problems, son." Burt replied with a teary smile. He packed up and stood.
"One more thing." Kurt said. "You said that wing carriers can only be truly happy with another carrier." Burt nodded. "Then, are you happy with Carole?"
Burt considered the question for a while, and then nodded. "I may not be completely happy, but it's good enough for me. After all, I still have you." Kurt smiled. "And remember the two rules of wing carriers, got it." Kurt nodded and Burt walked away.
Kurt looked at the clock. It was 2.30 pm. He went to his room and laid on his bed. He thought about Lawrence Anderson and his obsession with Kurt's mom. The boy shuddered in disgust.
He glanced at his phone, to find one new message from Blaine:
Can I come over to your house tomorrow? I need to apologise for my actions yesterday. I promise I won't do it again. - Blaine
Kurt replied back:
Sure, you can come over whenever, I don't mind. - Kurt
He smiled. His friendship with Blaine may be rekindled. He relaxed on his back, thinking about Blaine, forgetting about Lawrence.
Reviews? Long chapter is long. Hope you enjoyed it, though. :D
I realised when I was writing this chapter that I made Burt and Kurt nod a lot. Actually, I've made everyone nod a lot through the story. OTL
No preview this week because I was really busy and with my migraine, yeah, you get the point. But I'm on holidays starting next week, so expect better chapters.
Fifthteen down, five to go.
See you on the 13th. :)