Kurt still struggles to accept support from his friends and realizes some things about himself as he and Adam work through how to move on.
The week before Thanksgiving, Kurt arrived at The Apples' rehearsal to find that everyone was already on the stage. He didn't think he was running late, but he put his bags down quickly and went up to join them.
As he made it to the top step, Callie approached him. "We know something's been going on with you," she said. "But we're not going to pry. This isn't an intervention, well not THAT type of intervention. Just stand here." She stepped away from the group and went out the door to the small auditorium. She returned just a moment later with Adam in tow. "Just stand there with Kurt."
He nodded and crossed to the center of the stage and wrapped his arm around Kurt's waist.
Kurt leaned into him. "Any idea what this is about?"
"None, darling."
The Apples moved into a circular formation surrounding them and joined hands as they began to sing.
Sometimes in our lives,
We all have pain,
We all have sorrow.
But if we are wise,
We know that there's always tomorrow.
Lean on me,
When you're not strong.
And I'll be your friend.
I'll help you carry on.
For it won't be long,
Till I'm gonna need somebody to lean on.
Call me,
If you need a friend.
As the song came to an end, the group members stepped closer. Kurt couldn't keep it together and wiped the tears from his eyes, then stepped close enough to Callie to hug her. "Thank you." He stepped back again. "To all of you. I mean that. I can't tell you how much it means to me that you are all so supportive and that none of you are fair-weather friends. I know that I've not been the easiest person to befriend, but you all mean so much to me."
"We're not letting you go, Kurt. You're one of us," Callie said.
"Can I sing a song in response? It's a song that I have a history with that I'd like to reclaim in a way."
"Sure. We all love to hear you sing."
He looked around the group and saw positive responses from everyone.
He nodded and pulled up his favorite backing track and connected his phone to the speaker. He took a few calming breaths during the intro and sang "Defying Gravity" confidently, hitting the high F easily.
When he finished, he nodded slightly in response to their silent clapping reminiscent of his Midnight Madness win. He bowed in a silly showy way, then cheerfully asked, "Are we ready to practice Christmas carols now?"
Adam chuckled. "Isn't it a bit early for Christmas songs, darling?"
"Not if we want to come up with the most amazing arrangement ever and win the contest."
"Contest?" Callie asked.
"I saw it online. If we win, we get to perform at the tree lighting ceremony in Rockefeller Center in a little over two weeks on December 5th."
"Let's do it," Drew said. "We'd get to perform in front of a ton of people."
"I'm in," Calline said.
"Yes!" Kurt responded excitedly.
Callie said, "All in favor?"
Every hand went up.
"Alright, then. Let's pick a song to arrange."
That evening, after Kurt dried the last dish and put it on the shelf, Adam took the towel from him and hung it up to dry, then took his hands. "Come sit with me, darling."
"Is something wrong?" Kurt asked as he followed Adam to the sofa.
Adam lay back on his back leaving a bit of space between himself and the back of the sofa, space for Kurt to lie down and snuggle up on his chest, which was his favorite way to talk, holding Kurt close.
"Not wrong, per se. I just want to talk."
"Alright." Kurt slipped into the space, deftly taking his place quickly and snuggling into Adam's chest.
"You know I love you, darling."
"Yes. I love you too."
"I don't want to overstep my bounds by asserting myself into a situation that is yours to deal with."
"Alright. I appreciate that about you if I haven't said so lately—the fact that you trust me to deal with things the way I see fit, even if you disagree."
"I know, which is why this is hard for me to do, but I want you to listen, okay?"
"Of course."
"I don't want to give you the wrong impression either. I haven't misrepresented myself or my financial standing in any way ..."
"Okay."
"My grandfather left me some money that's in investments, a portfolio, I guess you'd say. He knew that I wanted to be an actor and playwright, which meant very little in the way of job security. It's meant to be something akin to what I've heard Americans call a 401K. It earns interest, but not in a way that I get monthly payments from it or anything. The interest basically just gets held in savings until I reinvest it, but honestly, over the last four years, I had never taken the time to look into it or learn anything about it since I am in no way near retirement age."
"Alright. That makes sense. Go on."
"I called my mum and asked her about it today. I can liquidate that savings account easily, and it could be done within a day or two. I'd like to do that to hire someone to figure out who hired those two to kidnap you. They were extradited here that Monday, and released on bail Tuesday morning, which was two weeks ago. The detective said that there will be a trial in December at some point. If we don't have more evidence by then, it's just going to turn into a he said/she said situation, and they have the emails to back up their claim. I think it will be easy for them to sway a jury. We need to hire someone who can do cyber-sleuthing or whatever the proper term is."
"I have thought about it, but I can't afford it."
"And I know you refused your dad's offer to hire someone, which is why I was leery to offer, but I am offering. And before you say anything else, think about the reverse. If someone had fake-kidnapped me, I would not have been able to escape the way you did. While the person who set this up knew a lot about you, they didn't know your background as a mechanic or your penchant for macramé as a child."
Kurt chuckled. "You're the only person who knows about my secret addiction to tying and untying knots."
Adam kissed him on the forehead. "That's because you're about 400 levels ahead of me in that phone game."
Kurt smiled. "It's addicting. Admit it," he teased.
"Not as addicting as you." He tipped Kurt's chin up and kissed him on the lips.
"Mmm." Kurt rearranged just a bit to be able to kiss Adam more easily.
Adam joined in but didn't let things get carried away. "No distractions until we finish talking about this."
Kurt pecked him on the lips. "You're right. If the situation had been reversed, if they had grabbed you, we don't know what the outcome would have been because we don't know their motivation. And you're also right that if I had access to money that could be used to bring the person who hired the two of them to justice for kidnapping you, I would want to use it."
"So, it's settled, then? I'll set my alarm and call my mum at 3:00, which is 8:00 in the morning there, to get the ball rolling, so to speak. And first thing tomorrow, I'll call a few of the places I found today and see which place seems the most likely to be able to help with this."
Kurt let out a long sigh. "Alright. Thank you for asking and not just going behind my back to do it, even with my best interest at heart."
"You're welcome, darling. So, those kisses?"
"Mm-hmm. All yours. Always."
Two days later, Adam found an agency with a high success rate and made an appointment for the following Monday.
Saturday morning after he returned from his shift at the shop, Kurt spent several hours writing down everything he could remember about the incident. By the time he was finished, he was emotionally drained from letting himself recall everything that he had pushed to the farthest recesses of his mind in order to get through his daily life for the previous three weeks.
Before he started, he set an alarm so that he wouldn't be late for his mid-afternoon jump roping date with Jennessa. He had taken up jumping rope in the gym at NYADA which had helped tremendously. And he had noticed a marked improvement in his balance in Intermediate Dance with Cassie July, which was a definite benefit to him maintaining a lack of an insulting moniker from her, still managing to be called by his last name.
Just before Kurt's alarm went off, Adam returned home from the coffee shop. He stopped in the study and ran his hand across Kurt's shoulders, then leaned down and kissed him on the neck just below his ear before he went into their room to change out of his uniform. After Kurt saved the file he had been working on and shut down his laptop, he joined Adam in their room. He added a thermal shirt and a hoodie to what he was wearing to avoid having to wear a bulky coat. After another quick hug and kiss, they grabbed the bucket of chalk, the paper Kurt had retrieved from the recycling bin at NYADA, and the container of cookies Adam had made the night before to take with them.
As usual, the kids were excited to see them. They all looked forward to the treats. A couple of the other younger siblings had taken to drawing with Adam and Benny while Kurt worked on his Double Dutch skills.
When they went back to the apartment, they both settled in at their desks and did schoolwork for the rest of the day, taking a break to eat dinner before going back to studying.
"You've been really quiet all afternoon, which is not a complaint, just an observation," Adam said as he curled up behind Kurt when they went to bed that evening.
"Writing all of that down took a lot out of me. I didn't just write out the facts, although I did do that in one file. But the other started out as a duplicate, but then I filled in the feelings and thoughts I had while those factual things were happening. It seemed so much less real before. I had done such a good job of pushing it out of my mind, it almost felt like I had made it up, but letting myself tap into the feelings and write them down actually brought up a lot of things. I need to simultaneously move on with my life, yet I have to remember those feelings to be able to push for whoever was behind this to be prosecuted properly. It's just hard."
"I can see how that would be difficult."
"I also am torn about spending the money to hire someone." He pulled Adam's hand up and put it over his heart, covering it with his own hand. "It sort of falls into the same vein. I want whoever did this to be brought to justice, but I don't want to have to spend a lot of money and time on this anymore. I want the impossible. I just want someone to confess, which, of course, is not going to happen. I'm through with living my life as a victim-in-waiting." He sighed. "It just gets old. And it's tiring and taxing."
"It is. And you're holding up remarkably well, which isn't good or bad per se, but—"
Kurt cut him off. "It's the status quo for me. Keep it together while things crash around me."
"Yes. That adage about practice makes perfect."
"Mm-hmm. I've been trying to hold things together for too long. I'm tired. And I know The Apples meant what they said, but I just can't bring myself to portray myself as a victim again. I know it's being stubborn and comes across as untrusting when it's not that at all. I don't think they'd blame me the way others did in high school, but they'd still pity me."
"Which you don't want either."
"I don't. It happened. It ended with me still here. I just want to move on."
"We'll do our best."
"Which I know involves trying to get more evidence, so we'll go see the P.I. on Monday. I'm missing work again to go, which just cuts another chunk out of my Christmas budget. The whole situation is just frustrating me." He scooted back against Adam's chest. "But you have been amazing through all of it. Earlier when I was working on detailing what had happened, I pulled out my old iPod and played my Madonna playlist, which, as I've told you before, was something I used to do to empower myself and boost my mood."
"Mm-hmm."
"I listened to quite a few of her songs that I hadn't listened to in a long time. And I really understood one song this time—because of you."
"What do you mean?"
"I'll sing it for you."
Adam did his best to pay attention as Kurt sang to try to figure out what it was about the song that made Kurt want him to hear it.
Things haven't been the same,
Since you came into my life.
You found a way to touch my soul,
And I'm never, ever, ever gonna let it go.
Happiness lies in your own hand.
It took me much too long to understand,
How it could be,
Until you shared your secret with me.
Something's comin' over, mmm mmm.
Something's comin' over, mmm mmm.
Something's comin' over me.
My baby's got a secret.
You gave me back the paradise,
That I thought I lost for good.
You helped me find the reasons why,
It took me by surprise that you understood.
You knew all along,
What I never wanted to say.
Until I learned to love myself,
I was never ever lovin' anybody else.
Happiness lies in your own hand.
It took me much too long to understand,
How it could be.
Until you shared your secret with me.
Adam kissed the back of Kurt's neck and gave him time to collect his thoughts.
"It started when you weren't angry with me about what happened at the wedding last winter. It absolutely floored me that you didn't just drop me like a hot coal. And when you told me that the reason you were upset was because it wasn't a positive experience for me, I could not have been any more shocked. But I took your words to heart and really thought about what you said. Most of the relationships I was in weren't positive most of the time. I just accepted scraps and fairly one-sided relationships as the norm. And I had fallen off of my own priority list to the point where I could have easily let myself be persuaded to maintain those lopsided relationships. In high school, I once told two of the guys that bullied me that the best thing about me was that I was different, and at the time I meant it. But over time, I became less me, less different. I lost who I was. I loved myself less and less. Being with you made all the difference. You helped me see myself again, to see that I was worthy of loving myself, of being loved unconditionally. You may not remember, but you told me that I didn't owe anyone a cheerful smile or continuous support."
"I remember. You had become the one that people went to when they needed something, but they weren't there for you when the situation was reversed."
"It's still a sore spot like I mentioned just a few minutes ago. I don't want pity, and it's hard to know how to be vulnerable and open about needing support from others when I don't want to be pitied. I'm going to try. I don't know how, but with you by my side, I can try to be strong enough to be vulnerable again. Keeping my walls up and not letting people in is my default setting, which creates that very situation of me being there for people and not letting those people be there for me. It creates an imbalance that doesn't work. Putting myself last isn't the answer and neither is closing myself off. I'm not saying that Rachel or Santana or Blaine would have been there for me if I had let them. I'm just saying that even if they had been the types to be there for others, I wouldn't have been open about needing their support."
"I get what you're saying. You're not sure how to be open and share difficult things with people because it's just not something you've done in the past."
"Except with you. You were different. The very first opportunity you had to judge me, you didn't. And every opportunity you've had since then, you also refrained from being judgmental or acting like you knew better than me how to deal with my issues. When I didn't just cut Rachel out of my life, you didn't tell me what to do. And when I stood up to her, you didn't tell me that I should have done it sooner. When you brought up paying for help with the case, you talked to me about it, giving me the option to choose your help or not. You're just so different, and when I heard that song today, it just all clicked. You live your life in a way that just draws people to you. You've been sharing your secrets on happiness since the day we met. It's just taken me a long time to let it sink in." Kurt turned over and faced Adam. "Thank you." He scooted closer and kissed Adam. "I never want this to end." Kurt kissed him again, then quietly sang the first verse of the song again.
Things haven't been the same,
Since you came into my life.
You found a way to touch my soul,
And I'm never, ever, ever gonna let it go.
"I really mean that. I know this isn't the proper way to go about this, although I'm not sure what the proper way would be since we're both guys. I never want to let you go. I want you to be my forever."
Adam wrapped his arms around Kurt and held him close. "I feel the same way, darling. If you're asking me if I want to marry you someday, the answer is yes."
Kadam Week 2023 Day 6 Prompt
Secrets