Author's Note:
And the story continues... Kurt's point of view again this chapter. Enjoy!
As always, a big thank to my wonderful beta hkvoyage and to the artist who sparked my imagination with her cover art, cc-graphics.
Chapter 3: MovingKurt had kept his fingers crossed, and that must have helped, because a few days later, Burt and Carole announced that they would be moving to the house with the amazing kitchen and the hidden treasures. The magnet was now decorating the Hudmel's fridge, and the black fabric with silver stars had proved to be a truly magnificent bow tie that had gotten pride of place in Kurt's bow tie collection. He'd kept the photograph of the adorable little boy, too, though he couldn't really have explained why.
"They accepted your offer?" Kurt gasped, overjoyed.
We're really going to live there? Oh wow! I can't WAIT! And I'm going to check every nook and cranny for more delightful surprises.
Burt grinned from ear to ear. "They did. We're signing the deal tomorrow. Oh, and the owner wants to meet all of us, so we'll go together."
Kurt quirked an eyebrow. "That's kind of weird."
"Yep," Burt agreed. "Apparently, she wants to make sure the house goes to a nice family."
"Hmm. Okay, I'm dressing all of you tomorrow. We need to look presentable."
Burt rolled his eyes.
"I'm serious!" Kurt insisted. "You never get a second chance at a first impression. You and Finn can both wear the outfits you had on for the wedding, and Carole, sweetie, for you I'm thinking of your teal blouse… Oh, and I have the perfect brooch to go with it!"
Kurt spent the rest of the evening planning his own outfit. At long last, he found a combination he was happy with, only it still seemed to lack a finishing touch, so Kurt looked for a scarf or a brooch or a tie to give it that extra pizzazz. When he came to his bow ties, his eyes lingered on the most recent addition - the black one with silver stars he'd found in the house they were now going to live in. He'd been thrilled when he realised it was a bow tie, and so obviously a high quality one. Would it be weird for him to wear it when they met the house owner? It complemented his outfit to a T.
Kurt fingered the bow tie reverently, and then suddenly his head was full of images - memories? - that weren't his own. He saw a curly-headed boy in a tux and in this bow tie playing the piano and then bowing to loud applause. He saw the same boy filling in what seemed to be a test, frowning and then tugging at his bow tie while he thought hard. He saw the boy walk a dog to the park, laughing when the dog picked up its speed and he had to jog instead of walk to keep up.
Kurt sucked in a surprised breath and took his hand off the bow tie. At once, the images vanished. All he could see now was dust particles swirling through the air in front of him.
Huh… That was… interesting. Is everything in that house magic? The magnet and the photo made me see things, too. I think I'll wear this tie tomorrow. If the house owner notices, I'll explain that I found it. Maybe I shouldn't mention the visions, though, if I don't want to be committed to a mental institution.
K&B
"Finn, stop fidgeting," Kurt admonished his brother. "Hands off that tie. And don't you dare spill ketchup on your jacket or shirt."
Finn had gotten hungry on the way to their appointment at the notary public's office, and was now happily munching on a burger, and less happily yanking at his tie, which was too tight, he said, and itchy.
Kurt rolled his eyes, and handed Finn another napkin to wipe his chin. "Seriously, Finn, I know you're five years old on the inside, but just this once, could you pretend to be at least slightly more mature than that? Just until the house is ours?"
"Stop bickering, boys," Carole said, changing lanes to catch her exit. "Finn, as soon as we've signed and are back in the car, you can ditch the tie. Kurt, relax. We're not visiting the queen of England."
Ten minutes later, Carole parked the car in front of the notary public's office. Finn had finished his burger, but had spilled ketchup on his shirt, and the stain wouldn't come out whatever Kurt tried, so Finn had to button up his jacket.
"And don't you dare open it! I don't care if it's hot in there! You'll wait until we're back in the car, got it?"
"Do I really have to come?" Finn whined.
"Yes!" The three others answered in unison.
In the office, the notary public and the house owner were already waiting for them.
"Mr and Mrs Hummel, nice to meet you. This is Mrs Anderson."
Mrs Anderson's hands fluttered in protest. "Oh, call me Pam, please."
Burt shook hands with her. "I'm Burt, this is my wife, Carole, and our sons, Finn and Kurt."
"Nice to meet you all," Pam smiled, looking at each of them in turn. Her eyes lingered on Kurt. More specifically on the bow tie he was wearing.
Uh-oh… I shouldn't have worn it today, should I? Though… I might have bought this. It's not one of a kind. Pam has no proof that I found this in her house.
"My youngest son used to wear bow ties too," Pam said softly, now addressing only Kurt.
Kurt smiled politely. "I wear ascots more often, but this outfit seemed to call for a bow tie."
"It looks perfect," Pam agreed. "Blaine's favourite bow tie had silver stars on it, too."
"But then he got teased about his bow ties and stopped wearing them?" Kurt surmised, and it was hard to keep the bitterness out of his tone.
Pam swallowed. "No. He was gay-bashed, and we lost him."
That made Carole gasp and grab Pam's hands. "I'm so sorry for your loss. I don't know what I'd do if…"
Pam nodded. "It's been four years, and it still hurts as much as the first day. And the house… The house is full of memories. I… I couldn't bear living in it anymore, but I don't want it demolished, either."
"Of course not!" Carole agreed. "It's a lovely house."
"It is, so I'm glad it's finally going to be lived in again," Pam said. "By a family."
Kurt couldn't help but grin happily at the thought of living in the house, and Pam, catching his elated expression, gave him another smile.
"Okay, I have the papers right here," the notary public said. "You're to sign here… and here… and here."
Once the formalities were taken care of, Pam shook Burt's and Carole's hands again. "Here are the keys to the house. I live quite close by, in an apartment four blocks away, so if you have any questions or concerns, you can always call me. Here's my card."
"Feel free to drop in," Carole said. "I know what it's like to lose someone and then move house. Every time I drive past the house where I used to live with my late husband, the memories hit me. Even Finn misses our old house sometimes. So… If you find yourself really missing your son and want to talk about it, come over for a cup of coffee and a chat."
Pam nodded. "I… I might take you up on that."
The Hudmels filed out of the office, Kurt mentally planning the move already and grinning from ear to ear.
A week later, they moved to the house they'd bought, and Kurt was busy opening boxes and putting their contents in the right spot when the doorbell rang.
Carole opened the door, and it proved to be Pam.
"I saw you were moving in, and wanted to bring you this as a housewarming gift," Pam beamed, holding out a cookie tin. "Peanut butter cookies, my sons' favourite."
"Thank you," Carole said. "That's so thoughtful of you. Come on in, and please don't mind the mess!"
Carole proposed a coffee break, and soon the whole family plus Pam were munching on the peanut butter cookies.
When Finn kept grabbing more, Kurt said, "That's enough, Finn, leave some for the rest of us!" and took the tin away from his brother. As soon as he touched it, though, he found himself having another vision, a slideshow of pictures flashing through his head. It was the curly-headed boy again, from a tiny toddler to a teenage boy, enjoying cookies from this very same tin. Was it the son Pam lost? And why did Kurt keep seeing him?
Kurt saw Pam look at him quizzically, and he flushed. He must have spaced out for a minute there, and Pam had noticed. He held out the tin for her to take another cookie and then placed it on the table again.
"So I meant to ask you," Pam said. "I have a gardener who comes twice a week to keep this garden in order. Do you want him to keep coming, or do you plan on taking care of the garden yourselves?"
Burt laughed. "Buying this house set us back a pretty penny. We'll do it ourselves. Carole likes to putter in the garden, and Kurt and Finn will help."
"Okay," Pam nodded. "The trees need pruning, though, and Mark was planning on doing that tomorrow, so if you don't mind, I'll send him here one last time. Don't worry, I'll pay for it. I wanted the garden to be in tip-top shape when I sold the house, but Mark hasn't gotten round to the pruning yet, and it needs to be done."
K&B
The next day, the gardener arrived, tall and dark and handsome and full of compliments, charming Carole thoroughly before heading to the garden to prune the trees. When he was done, Carole offered him a cup of coffee and told Finn and Kurt to go pick up the pruned branches and put them on the pile for the wood stove.
"Hey, look!"
Finn pointed to one of the bigger trees.
"There's a tree house in there!"
Kurt and Finn looked at each other, grinned and climbed the tree in a flash.
The tree house seemed in great shape. It wasn't damp or creaky at all, and whoever had come here last had left their things there without a care in the world. Kurt spotted a half-empty two-litre bottle of Seven-Up, an unopened bag of Red Vines, a well-thumbed paperback from the Harry Potter series and a black notebook.
Finn pounced on the Red Vines with a gleeful shout, but Kurt paid him no mind. He'd picked up the Harry Potter book, and now another onslaught of memories not his own assailed him.
He saw the curly-headed boy waiting in front of a bookshop dressed in Gryffindor colours, with even a red lightning bolt on his forehead, bouncing up and down excitedly. He saw the boy watch one of the Harry Potter films, cuddled up to Pam and a much older boy - his brother? The last vision showed him the boy lying on his stomach in the tree house, reading this very same book and chuckling.
A hand on his shoulder startled Kurt, and he whipped his head around with a squeak, but it was only Finn.
"Hey, you okay, dude? You kinda… spaced out for a moment there."
Kurt nodded. "Yep. Sure. Let's go back inside. It's cold here."
They climbed down again with their loot - Finn with his bag of Red Vines, and Kurt with the Harry Potter book and the notebook, which he'd carefully wrapped a handkerchief around before taking it. If there were any memories attached to the notebook, he'd rather find out in the privacy of his own room.
After dinner that evening, Kurt excused himself to his room, under the pretext that he was going to unpack some more. Well, maybe he would, but more than anything, he wanted to check out the notebook.
He sat down on his bed cross-legged and took the handkerchief off the notebook. There was nothing written on the cover, but he had a feeling it belonged to the curly-headed boy. He opened the notebook, and then gasped as a swirl of golden dust particles swept out of it. For a moment, they formed a silhouette that had become very familiar to Kurt by now, and then they dispersed, leaving Kurt gaping. What was it with this boy that Kurt kept seeing? Was he haunting the house?
Kurt looked down at the notebook and smiled at the neat handwriting on the first page, proclaiming that this was the property of Blaine Devon Anderson and not to be read by anyone else. Especially Cooper, the notice specified.
Kurt felt a bit guilty when he turned the page, but figured that Blaine was now gone anyway, so this wouldn't really violate his privacy anymore.
Before long, Kurt was fully immersed in the diary. Blaine had a knack for describing anecdotes in a funny, pithy way that had Kurt in stitches. Often, they involved his brother Cooper and the pranks they played on each other, and Kurt, who'd been an only child for nearly sixteen years, found himself envying the close bond the Anderson brothers seemed to have.
Towards the end of the diary, the tone of Blaine's musings changed, however. He confessed that he was bullied at school. "And that's with me keeping as low a profile as I possibly can. I wonder what they'd do if they knew the real me."
Kurt's throat burnt with unshed tears. That sounded very familiar. He'd been terrified to come out himself, even though everyone already seemed to have guessed, due to his voice and his looks.
A few pages later, Blaine was agonising about whether or not to come out to his parents. "I don't think they'll take it well. They're so traditional, about everything. Should I keep this to myself until I no longer depend on them for everything? If Dad throws me out, there's nowhere I could go. It's not like I have friends. I'll die homeless in a ditch somewhere."
Kurt sighed. "Well, at least you avoided that. I'm not sure a gay-bashing was the better way to go, though. You must have been in so much pain."
On the last page where Blaine had written something, it was about new neighbours across the street, one of them a boy his age and very friendly. "I think I'm going to ask Thomas to come to the Sadie Hawkins dance with me. Just as friends. I know he doesn't go to my school, but it would be nice to have one friendly face there. Just for once."
Kurt swallowed with difficulty, and wondered what had happened to the other kid. Was he dead too? There was no family with children his age living in the house just opposite. Just a retired couple, who'd complained about the moving van waking them up and loudly and rhetorically asked what the world was coming to if just about anyone could buy a house in their neighbourhood these days. "This used to be such a nice classy street to live."
Kurt put the notebook on his nightstand and put a cardboard box labelled "Scarves" on his bed. He and Carole had been unpacking for two days now, and the living room, kitchen and bathrooms were fully furnished by now. Burt and Finn had teamed up to assemble the furniture and had occasionally called on Kurt to help out. Everything was slowly coming together, but Kurt hadn't found the time yet to arrange his clothes in the walk-in closet. They were still all in boxes - sacrilege, but it couldn't be helped.
A few hours later, he heard a knock, and Burt stuck his head in. "You still unpacking, bud? It's late! Get into bed. You can do the rest tomorrow after school."
K&B
Kurt had taken such a liking to the bow tie that he wore it to school, too, that Monday. He quickly found out that it was slushie-resistant. Azimio and Karofsky had each thrown a slushie at him, but the red dye left no traces on the bow tie, and that made Kurt beam happily.
For lunch, he sat with the other glee club members, and was discussing Beyonce's new single with Mercedes when Santana and Brittany arrived at the glee club table, too. Brittany sat down next to Kurt, but left an open space between them.
"Who's your new friend?" she inquired.
Kurt gaped at her. "What are you talking about?"
"Who's the boy sitting next to you?" Brittany clarified. "He looks nice. I like his curls. And his smile. Is he your boyfriend? He looks at you like you're his boyfriend."
Kurt opened and closed his mouth a few times with all the grace of a fish. Then, he hopped off the bench, grabbed Brittany by the arm, ignoring Santana's "Hey, watch it, Lady Lips!", and tugged her to a quiet spot a bit further away.
Brittany, bless her, didn't seem at all surprised or disgruntled at being hauled around like a bag of potatoes, and smiled at Kurt.
"Britt, tell me, who do you see with me?" Kurt asked her. "Can you describe him for me?"
Brittany described Blaine to a T, and Kurt's head whirled. Did that mean Blaine was a ghost? And how was it that Brittany could see him and Kurt couldn't? Then, an idea hit Kurt.
"Britt, can you talk to him?"
"Well, no, he's still erased," Brittany explained. "You first have to bring him all the way back to life."
"Erased?" Kurt frowned.
"Yep. It's one the potions my aunt makes. Makes people disappear. But sometimes, they're not completely gone. And then you can bring them back when you're their true love."
Kurt's eyes nearly bugged out of his head now. Was Brittany making fun of him? Potions? Making people disappear?
Brittany smiled at him again. "Come over after glee club. I'll show you my aunt's website. There's a lot more info there if you want to rescue your true love."
"True… True love?" Kurt sputtered. "Britt, you can't seriously believe…"
But Brittany was already walking back to the glee kids' table to eat her lunch, with just a wave and a "You'll see!"
Kurt watched her go and then looked around him. Though it made him feel ridiculous and completely out of his depth, he whispered, "Blaine? Are you really here?"