Beating, Ch. 6

"You're looking good, Kurt." Mercedes, sitting by the side of Kurt's bed in the chair his father had occupied for so long, slapped Kurt's good knee lightly. "You feeling any better?"

Kurt smiled, picking up a tin of makeup from his nightstand and waving it at her. "Thanks to you. Do you know before you brought me this I was working with makeup from the drugstore? And completely the wrong shade, I might add." His fingers trailed lightly over his cheek and jaw, the fading bruises there now skillfully camouflaged with Kevyn Aucoin's Sensual Skin Enhancer. "I really can't thank you enough."

Mercedes laughed. "Ain't that the truth! I'm all up in Sephora going through the whitefolks' makeup, and the salesgirl's coming up to me every two seconds going 'Can I help you, ma'am?' I finally told her, "Girl, if I was looking to steal some makeup, I sure wouldn't be wasting my time in y'all's store. You see anything in here that'll match my skin?'" Kurt was giggling with her by now. "She started telling me, 'Oh, well we have a broad range of product lines...' and that's when I plugged in my headphones to look for your stuff in peace. MAC's the only place for a black girl to shop."

"I'll keep that in mind," Kurt told her, and they both laughed. But Kurt was toying with the tin, rolling it restlessly between his fingers, and Mercedes wasn't one to miss much.

"But enough about that. Yeah, you're looking better. But how are you feeling?"

Kurt tried to keep his tone light. "Fine. The doctor says everything's going fine."

Mercedes leveled a keen glance at him. "Don't shit me, now."

Kurt sighed and slumped against the pillow. "It's true. It really is, all right? They're taking the catheter out on Thursday. And even with this thing –" he touched the wheeled IV pole beside his bed lightly – "I got up and down the hallway a few times yesterday on the crutches."

"Hey, that's great news!"

But Kurt didn't look like it was great news as he continued: "They're talking about letting me out in two weeks or so."

Mercedes was about to let out a whoop and descend on Kurt with a hug, but she caught sight of the look on his face in time. "Baby, if you're getting out of here in two weeks... isn't that good news?"

Kurt gave a slight nod. "I guess so. Sure."

"Then why are you looking like that? What's wrong?"

Kurt closed his eyes, not knowing how to answer. Mercedes had been a great friend and a rock-solid support through all of this; she visited him most days, and she was the only one who consistently came alone. She'd never treated him like she pitied him, never acted like she was scared of him. If there was anyone he could trust to talk to it was Mercedes... but...

Those football cleats, kicking and stomping. Concrete and gravel cutting into his face as a spiked heel cleaved into his cheek. Fucking fag. Cocksucker. Gasping for breath, gagging on the taste of his own blood. A foot on his neck, a voice in his ear: Who was it? Who the fuck were you with, you queer-ass motherfucker? Choking, coughing, unable to answer, but shaking his head no, no, he wouldn't tell, no. A vicious kick to his Adam's apple, sobbing with no breath and no voice, a snippet of thought flashing through splintering consciousness – can't breathe can't talk never sing again – and then his temple smashing in and it was over -- but it would never be over, would it? They were still there, the boys with their football cleats, walking the halls of McKinley and walking the streets, too. And even if they were caught, even if they were put away for life, there would always be more of them, wouldn't there? If he were incredibly lucky he might live a life full of hate-filled looks, obscene remarks, flashbacks and panic attacks every time another newspaper told him of another hate crime committed against a boy like him. Less lucky: another beating or two, less severe than the first, maybe some muggings where he got called a fag while he emptied his wallet or his coat was torn from his back.

And unlucky: another beating like this.

Very unlucky: dead.

Mercedes saw it all on his face. She couldn't speak for a moment either, listening to Kurt draw ragged breaths, letting him be. Then, quietly: "You're afraid."

Kurt nodded.

"Are you going back to McKinley?"

Kurt closed his eyes.

Because he was scared of McKinley, oh, God, was he scared of McKinley, but the fear was everywhere, it would stalk him with every step he took for the rest of his life. But there was something else at McKinley, something he wasn't sure he could face along with all the rest of it --

Man, that's what you care about? You're worrying about losing your boyfriend?

Mercedes' face was set in firm lines that told him she would hear whatever he had to say and never judge a word of it, but every time Kurt tried to concentrate on her, reality morphed strangely and what he saw was Puck. The look on Puck's face when he'd slipped up and mentioned Finn, the look that told him how revolting he was and how incomprehensibly foolish, too, lost in schoolboy fantasies of love after what had happened to him. And then, too... the way Finn always hung at the back of the room when the group came to visit, never came on his own, never even met Kurt's eyes...

"It's a bad place." He hadn't known he was going to say that, and the words surprised him. Mercedes squeezed his hand.

"You do whatever you need to do, baby. You know if you come back, we got your back."

Kurt smiled at her. "I certainly know that you do." Mercedes reached down to hug him.

Eventually she straightened up. Both their eyes were bright with tears, and Kurt sighed. "Sometimes I do want to give up, you know? Walk away from McKinley and never look back. Move out of Lima, even. But – would it be any better anywhere else?" Mercedes studied his face silently, knowing she had no answer. "And at McKinley... maybe it would be best to stay there. You said a lot of the kids are angry about what happened."

Mercedes nodded emphatically. "Oh, honey, they are bullshit. We did a day of silence for you, did I tell you? About three-quarters of the kids at school did not say one word for a whole day. Not at school and not at home. We wore signs around our necks explaining that if you were silent – you were still in the coma – we were gonna be too. A bunch of us got sent to the principal for not answering teachers, so we all wound up overflowing into the hall, sitting there cross-legged with the signs. After school we did a march, answered reporters with note cards."

"No one told me this," Kurt said quietly.

"There was so much going on. And it was kind of chaotic at school." Mercedes sighed. "Figgins wanted to sweep it under the carpet, you know, 'cause of the football players who... he figured it could get real messy, so there was some fighting with the administration about it. But it didn't stop. We had candlelight vigils every night until you were out of the coma –"

"My dad told me about that."

"And the black armbands. A lot of us still wear those. And – you got all the cards, right?" Mercedes looked around the room. "I never noticed. Where'd they go?"

Kurt looked down. "I got them. I mean, Dad gets them. He's been holding them for me. I just... I haven't been able to read them yet. I guess I haven't been ready."

Mercedes nodded. "Whatever you need to do. But if you want to read them you better start soon, 'cause you got hundreds of them stacked up by now." Kurt smiled, but his mind was on something she'd said a minute ago. He glanced up at her.

"You held a day of silence. And you wear black armbands?"

"Every day." A corner of her mouth quirked up. "None of us wear them in here 'cause it looks kind of depressing. It's not like you're dead –"

Kurt gave a laugh that surprised Mercedes with its naturalness. "Not that I've noticed, no."

" – but we all agreed: the day you get out of the hospital is the day we take the armbands off. We're not letting anyone forget what went down that day." Her gaze hardened. "Especially not those football players."

"But don't you worry about being hurt?" Kurt asked softly, and his eyes were haunted.

"No." Mercedes met his gaze squarely. "There's too many of us. They can't fight us all."

Kurt was silent for a long moment. "Maybe..." He looked back up at Mercedes. "Maybe I can..."

He didn't finish the sentence, but he didn't need to. And Mercedes kept holding his hand, and they let the silence be, a tenuous peace settling into the space between them.

But across town Will was sitting in Principal Figgins' office, and what he had just heard had left him white-knuckling the arms of the chair he was sitting in to keep himself from lunging across the desk. "No," he said, his voice cracked and dry as a parched riverbed. "No, there's no way. You can't do this."

"I'm sorry, Will, but I cannot –"

"No!" Will leapt up and began pacing. His sleeve caught a trinket on the edge of the principal's desk, and it thudded to the floor. "I'm not letting you do this, how could you possibly even think --? It's illegal –"

"It is at my sole discretion –"

"It absolutely is not!"

"Sit down, Will!" Will didn't. He stood stock-still, and Principal Figgins' words hit him like a slap in the face. "When he is out of the hospital, that boy will not be returning to my school!"