Chapter Fourteen

Every time Kurt tossed in his sleep Finn's hand found its way back under his shirt and over his belly. His palm was warm against his skin, and Kurt snuggled back against his chest. Maybe if they never got out of bed Death would get bored waiting for an opportunity to strike and leave him alone. Or he could end up dying in some humiliating sex way… Yeah, he was getting up in the morning.

"Kurt," Finn's murmur was scrambled up with sleep. "Dream wake you up…? See somethin'?"

Kurt twisted around lethargically and wrapped his arm around Finn's side. The hand on his stomach slid to his back. "No." He whispered. "Dad again."

Finn moaned sleepily in understanding, pushing a lazy kiss against his forehead. Kurt suspected that Burt had talked to Finn about the specifics of Kurt's vision and concluded that he was next.

Carole drove his escalade back from the hospital and Kurt sat in the back of his dad's truck watching Finn doodle messily on his new cast. He tried to get him to stop the tacky graffiti but after he saw his name inside a small heart he just dropped his head to Finn's shoulder and let him add the Bart Simpson head next to it. His dad glanced at him repeatedly in the rearview mirror as if he was worried he might spontaneously combust. With his current run of luck, he wouldn't have been surprised if a line of flames had shot across his arms without a stimulant.

It was late when they got back. Finn had followed Kurt into his room and neither Burt nor Carole said a word about it. Kurt had a feeling his father didn't mind the extra pair of eyes on him all night even if he did mind the hands. They climbed into bed and crashed, but every hour or so Burt would crack the door open and peer inside. Yep, Kurt was still alive, and they weren't doing anything.

"Sleep, baby…" Finn mumbled against his hair, pulling him even tighter against him. "I'll take care of you."

Kurt's eyelashes fluttered but he stared at the patch of t-shirt in his view, curling his fingers into it softly. That was the problem, though, wasn't it? Finn couldn't take care of him. When he tried to take care of Puck he broke his arm and almost got himself killed. In fact, Kurt didn't know when Death would make its move. It could try to get him in his sleep, strangle him with the sheets or have Finn roll on top of him and smother him to death. That was a nightly concern anyway.

It was dangerous staying so close to Finn. He was putting him in harm's way. If there was a tree coming for him, he didn't want Finn to push him out of the way and take the hit. He had taken enough hits lately as it was. He waited for the steady sound of his heavy breathing and the return of his light snores before gently pulling out of his embrace and rolling onto his back.

There was his father and Carole to think about too. He had no doubts Burt Hummel would willingly give his own life in exchange for his, but that was not a swap Kurt was willing to make. They knew he was next. Carole might still be skeptical, but she had looked at him a little differently at the hospital earlier that evening. It was a curious look. He suspected her sense of logic was beginning to weaken under the repeated 'accidents' affecting her son and his group of friends lately. She hardly suspected Kurt of initiating them, but even she had to have a limit as to how many things she could deem 'coincidence'.

That meant they would all be on the lookout for him. His danger would become their danger. He couldn't let anything else happen to the people he loved. This one he would do on his own.

Silently sliding out of bed, Kurt went to his closet and grabbed his overnight bag.

It was a miracle he was able to sneak out of the house and pull out of the driveway without being detected. His absence didn't go unnoticed long, though. In under twenty minutes his cell phone began ringing nonstop. The Caller ID bounced between 'Dad', 'Carole', 'Home', and 'Lover Boy' in a choppy pattern. Finn was particularly insistent, because his text inbox was filling up along with his call log. He didn't pick his phone up off of the passenger seat until he reached his destination though.

Pulling the Escalade into the empty parking lot outside of the foreclosed skating rink, he scanned through his missed calls and checked out his texts first.

From: Lover Boy

where r u?

From: Lover Boy

kurt ur freaking me out. Where did u go?

From: Lover Boy

this isn't funny. Why did u leave?

From: Dad

Answer the phone. Now.

That one was particularly unnerving. He had never disobeyed a direct order from his father before. He was going to be furious, but technically he hadn't read the text until now.

From: Lover Boy

y aren't u answering the phone? R u ok?

From: Rachel

Kurt, your stepmother called me asking if you were at my house. Where are you? Are you all right?

From: Lover Boy

KURT WHERE R U?

From: Dad

Come home NOW!

From: Mercedes

Boy, I'm coming.

Kurt furrowed his brow. What?

There were a ton after that, but they were all variations of the same thing. They wanted to know where he was, if he was okay, and when he was coming home. Well, they weren't so much questions as orders to come home. He couldn't call them back until he knew what he was going to do though.

He relaxed against the seat as he went to his voicemail and tried to think about what his next move should be. As he punched in his password, he looked over at the closed skating rink with nostalgia. It was admittedly a very dorky hangout, but it was the one place in tiny Lima where the jocks and so-called McKinley elite wouldn't be caught dead at, so he used to go there all the time with Mercedes, Tina, and Artie.

He breathed through the temptation to cry thinking about Artie rolling around the rink in his wheelchair after Tina. She was a great skater, but he and Mercedes always clung to the wall and inched around the perimeter. Falling, even at that pace, was inevitable and the four of them would laugh hysterically until they crawled off to go sit at one of the tables and waste their quarters in the claw machine. It was a nice memory, but knowing that Tina and Artie would only exist within those memories now made his breathing shakier.

The place was closed down now, but for a while it had been their safe haven. He stared at the boarded up doors as the first voicemail started.

"Kurt, where are you, man? This is not cool." Finn sounded semi-frantic and almost angry. "I woke up, and you were just gone! Where are you? Call me back! Or better yet, come home! Or even better than that, call me so I can come get you. Too much sucky stuff could happen to you on the way back. God, Kurt… What are you doing?"

His shoulders slumped at the tone of his voice. He didn't want to scare him, but scaring him was better than getting him killed wasn't it? The robotic voice introduced the next message.

"Kurt, sweetheart," Carole's voice came up next. "Your father is really worried about you. Finn's in a state. He keeps saying something about you being next. I really don't understand what you boys have been thinking lately, but he's really upset. Please call and let us know you're okay."

Then the undeniable voice of his father. "Kurt Hummel, get your ass back home NOW!" Click. Uh-oh.

Someone knocked on his passenger side window, and he nearly jumped out of his skin, jerking and banging his elbow on his own door. Mercedes was standing outside of the car, frowning in at him. How in the world-

Kurt reached over and unlocked the passenger side, pulling on the handle to open it for her. Mercedes climbed in and looked out the windshield at the wet pavement from the storm the night before as Kurt studied her with confused surprise.

"How did you know I was here?" He asked.

She turned to him unimpressed. "Please. Remember when Karofsky was at his worst, and you were considering transferring to that private school, Dumplings or whatever."

"Dalton." Kurt corrected.

Mercedes waved him off. "Right. We sat out here for two hours discussing the pros and cons. Pros: No Karofsky."

"Cons: No you or Finn." Kurt recalled with a faint smile.

Mercedes nodded with an arched eyebrow. "This is where you do all of your deep parking lot thinking. Something told me the occasion called for it."

Kurt smiled in earnest, reaching over and taking her hand. He sighed and turned on his side, resting his head against the seat. "No one knows me like you do, Cedes."

She smiled back but the look was quickly replaced by a steady stare. "So you wanna tell me what you think you're doing? I know your family is worried about you." She glanced at the clock on the dash before Kurt shut off the engine. The sun was beginning to creep up to open the day, long pink streaks cutting over the dark sky with renewed light. "It is way too early for this kind of stress. You're lucky I didn't just tell Finn where you were when he called me earlier."

That would have defeated the whole purpose. "Thank you for that. And thank you for loving me. But I need you to leave. Being around me right now is dangerous."

"So what exactly is the plan then? You're going to go live in the middle of the woods and Unabomber it until Death either skips you or takes you?" Her tone suggested something less than admiration in her opinion of that. "You didn't tell any of the rest of us to go quarantine ourselves when it was our turn. Why should you be any different? No one likes a martyr, Kurt."

He could think of quite a few occasions where martyrdom was looked kindly upon. "That's debatable."

"Not now it isn't. Right now it's selfish." She accused. "You're my best friend. You're Finn's boyfriend. You're your father's only son and the last link he has to your mother. Do you think any of us would ever forgive ourselves if something happened to you? The whole world doesn't start and end with you, but occasionally ours do. You are not alone in this, Kurt, and you're not helping anybody by trying to be."

Kurt's eyes welled up, but he blinked the moisture away. "You are quite fabulous, Mercedes. And very bossy."

She shrugged. "I'm not going to win a Grammy for nothing."

He grinned and they both leaned forward, resting their foreheads on each other.

"I don't want anyone to get hurt because of me." He whispered sincerely.

She squeezed his hand. "I don't want you to get hurt because of you."

They sat in silence for a while until Mercedes finally pulled back and leaned against her seat staring at the old building with the horrible paintings of skating silhouettes on the front. There was a distant look in her eyes.

"Remember when Artie used to-"

"-chase Tina in the rink," Kurt nodded laughing. He looked at her softly and his traitorous tear ducts dropped another line down his cheeks. "I'm so happy you're okay, Mercedes."

She fixed him with her best look of faux cockiness and let it slip after getting the smile she was going for. She nudged him. "Let's make sure you're okay now."

He nodded and started the car. "So do you trust me to follow me back in your car or do you need to ride shotgun to make sure I don't take off in a blur of speed for the Canadian border?"

She snorted. "Maybe I'd go with you if it was the Mexican border. I could go for a Mojito, not gonna lie."

He laughed quietly. If they got through this he would buy them all a round on him.

Alcohol certainly would have helped the arrival back home go smoother. His father was red faced and angry, Carole was awkwardly trying to settle Burt down, and Finn was avoiding eye contact and ignoring him. Kurt was still arguing with his dad about how he wasn't entirely convinced that coming back was such a wild idea when Finn slipped out of the room and went upstairs. It took a long lecture that ended with him having to give his car keys up and apologize twenty different ways for worrying them before he could go up too.

His room was empty, so he went to Finn's, knocking softly and gently pushing the door open when he didn't get an answer. Finn was sitting up in bed with his legs stretched out and crossed in front of him. He was flipping through his ipod and pointedly not looking up despite Kurt's attempts to catch his eye.

He wasn't sure what he was expecting; perhaps a little more understanding from the one person in the house who fully understood what it meant to be knocking on Death's doorstep. Finn completely freezing him out was a bit of a surprise, and it made him nervous. Edging slowly over to the bed, he bit his lip and sat down beside him. Finn ignored him, scrolling through his playlists while the noisy rock blared out of his earbuds.

Taking a risk, Kurt reached over and pulled the right one out of his ear. Finn's jaw set, but after a moment's hesitation he pulled his headphones completely out and set his ipod aside.

"I'm sorry I worried you." Kurt apologized sincerely. Perhaps there was a better way he could have gone about his short-lived attempt at martyrdom.

Finn ducked his head, staring at his lap. "Were you trying to get yourself killed?"

Kurt's eyes widened. "Of course not!"

"Then I don't get it." Finn protested. "Why would you do that? Someone has to interweave-"

"Intervene."

"Whatever! You know what I mean!" Finn finally looked at him, eyes set in a hard squint that made Kurt swallow. His frustration was a lot higher than he originally guessed. "So how do you intervene yourself? We're so close to all of this being over, and you sneak off in the middle of the night without telling me! I woke up to your dad shaking me and asking where you were! Do you have any idea how terrifying that was? You weren't answering your phone!"

Finn pushed away and got up, putting the bed between them as the words he allowed out swayed his mood more and more out of control. Kurt shrunk in on himself.

"You could have been dead! I thought that you might be…" The second the admission left his lips, the color drained out of his face and his breath seemed to run out. His eyes glazed with tears, and Kurt physically ached.

Crawling over the bed, he got to his feet and stood in front of him. Finn shook his head, but he reached out and wrapped his arms around him before he could legitimately protest. He was stiff in his embrace and didn't relax even as Kurt pulled his head back enough to look up at him. If anything, he grew more tense as their eyes locked.

"Kurt, you can't do that to me." Finn stared down, eyes dark in earnest.

Kurt nodded immediately, folding his hands over his face. "I'm sorry. You're right. I'm sorry." He repeated himself as he let the weight of Finn's hurt look wash over him. He felt horrible. "I'm sorry, Finn. I'm sorry. I-"

Finn's arms lifted quickly as he grabbed his face and kissed him hard. His tongue swept over Kurt's mid-apology, probing insistently as he deepened the kiss.

His breath was hot against his lips as he nudged his nose and looked him in the eyes seriously, voice a husky whisper. "I love you, Kurt. You had my back when it was me that was next. You gotta let me do that for you. I sort of have a plan for us to be happy for a long time. It involves you being alive. And me too. So you think you could, like, not give me any more heart attacks, because I super know what Burt felt last year now. And, yeah, it sucks."

Kurt smiled and ignored the tears in his eyes. They were a permanent fixture these days. "Deal."

Dawn had arrived, and the beginning warmth of the sun cut softly through the thin curtains. He hugged Finn tightly letting himself calm down in the safe moment he was in.

"Stay with me." Finn mumbled as he curled his arms securely around him.

"Not going anywhere." Kurt whispered into his chest, breathing evening out. They could afford to rest, and for a little while, held and mellow against Finn, the approaching shadows felt far away.