Ladies And Gentlemen, Listen Up Please: Kurt (6/29)
Title: Ladies And Gentlemen, Listen Up Please: Kurt (6/29)
Pairing: Rachel Berry/Quinn Fabray, Santana Lopez/Brittany Pierce, minor Artie Abrams/Tina Cohen-Chang
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Spoilers: AU
Summary: “Sometimes, people are born a little different.”
Kurt Hummel is really getting tired of headaches.
Thirteen years old and more fabulous than ninety-eight percent of his peers (disregarding a young lady named Emily, whose loyalty towards designer labels is flat-out incredible), Kurt likes to think his life is a decent one. It’s not perfect, of course; his father runs a car shop, of all things, and can’t tell the difference between synthetic and organic polymers to save his life. But all in all? It could be worse. California is warm and balmy, they own a pool, and Kurt feels like he’s finally coming into his own in a big way.
It helps that fewer nights are rent by his father’s wracking sobs lately, and that Kurt himself has been sleeping more soundly in consequence. The dreams are still there, frustrating as ever, but he’s stopped seeing her there all the time, drawn and slim and broken in that hospital bed.
Five years isn’t enough, but it’s a start. Since his mother died, Kurt has learned to take what he can get.
Things are better, until the headaches begin.
They hurt like nothing should, jerking him from sound sleeps with jolts so violent, he more than once has awoken on the assumption that he has been struck by a car. He does not understand why they come, only that he’s been getting them for about six months now.
Most boys his age deal with no night terror more aggravating than unwanted sticky sheets.Kurt Hummel feels as though his brain is blasting apart. There are levels of justice in this world, and none of them seem to apply to his home or family.
His father grows more concerned with each morning that finds Kurt bent over the kitchen table, head in his hands. There is no explanation for the steady pulse within his skull, nor the accompanying images-they have been to four doctors so far, with zero results of any kind. The good news is, Burt Hummel’s initial terror-that his son might possess a tumor rivaling the one responsible for his wife’s untimely end-seems to be unfounded. The bad news is, not a single doctorate-toting individual within a fifty mile radius seems to know what’s going on inside Kurt’s head.
Luckily, it doesn’t happen every night. Whole weeks have trailed by, in fact, when Kurt has allowed himself to forget he is ever struck with these brain-batterers to begin with. These are the majestic, thrilling moments of his youth, when he can pretend he is a normal boy with a brain that stays put inside his skull and a general distaste for Shakespearian plays. And yes, okay, a dead mother, but he thinks he’s going to have to get used to that eventually. It isn’t like he can bring her back. It isn’t like he’s Superman or something.
(He doesn’t remember if Superman ever had any powers of restoration or whatever, because Kurt? Not so big on the comic books. He’s really more of a magazine kind of guy, and anyway, who reads that kind of thing? He’d be doomed to a life of pimply Comic Con voyages. No, thank you.)
The point is that he appreciates daylight because it brings normalcy. The headaches the dreams bring peter off after a couple of hours, and he is usually able to handle the rest of the day without unreasonable hassle.
So, when the dreams begin to invade his waking world as well, Kurt is less than impressed.
His father finds him that first day, shrieking at the bathroom sink, his forehead ground against smooth glass. His whole body is trembling, his legs too weak to hold him up; the second Burt’s hand touches his shoulder, the boy crumples into his father’s chest, weeping unabashedly.
“It hurts,” he keens, afraid to so much as reach for his own head. “Oh my God, Dad, it hurts-“
It is by far the worst of them, made all the more agonizing by the stunning burst of images behind his eyes. The dreams are usually fairly basic-faces, colors, perhaps a building. More often than not, he does not recognize them; the only relevance he can find in the visions is an abrupt upswing in deja vue while awake. They do not concern him nearly as much as the pounding in his brain.
Today, though, it is different. He still doesn’t recognize the names, or the faces, but they are crystal-clear. A man. Tall, foreboding, kind of a youthful Jafar swagger to him. An army. An overwhelming sense of destruction.
He doesn’t realize he has vomited until his father is guiding him to the toilet, strong hands rubbing nervous circles upon his son’s back. He’s rubbing the fabric of Kurt’s sweater all the wrong ways, but the boy can think only of the man in his vision.
“Dad,” he says weakly. “Dad, I think I know-“
It’s as far as he can get before he vomits again and passes out, collapsing-thankfully-backwards into Burt’s shaking arms.
When he next wakes, his head feels more or less like a steamroller passed over it for twenty-four hours straight, and the visions are no less clear. Burt is seated at the foot of his bed, his eyes gray with anxiety. Kurt has the unpleasant feeling that he has been here longer than a couple of comatose moments.
“Dad?” he rasps, rubbing the back of his head. Burt’s head rises, his mouth trembling.
“I called the doctor,” his father informs him, running a hand across the brim of his customary baseball cap. “He said I should bring you in for another MRI, or-or whatever it was last time. He said if it’s getting this bad, there must be something they’ve missed, so-“
“Dad,” Kurt says again through the haze of acid pent up in his throat. “I’m not sick.”
Burt blinks at him, eyes droopy and sad like the basset hound Kurt used to see on his way to school. “What are you talking about? Of course you’re sick. Kurt, you’ve been unconscious half the day! You missed school and everything!”
Kurt grimaces; he was supposed to have a history test today. Whoops. “I’m not sick,” he repeats as patiently as he knows how. “I know what it is. The headaches, they’re…Dad, it’s like Mom.”
His father’s eyes about bulge out of his head, his face going ashen in the next heartbeat. “Kurt, no, don’t say-“
“No, no, not that,” Kurt clarifies hastily, leaning forward until his vision goes fuzzy. “The other thing. How she was special. I think…I think maybe I’m special too.”
Someday not too far from now, he will learn to say this with a certain haughty distaste, as though “special” will never be good enough. But right now, he is thirteen, and earnest, and the memory of his mother’s compassion still beats strong within his breast. Five years haven’t been enough to dim it; he thinks fifty could go by without that flame diminishing by even a flicker. Eyes fixed on his father, he smiles through the pain.
Burt does not look nearly as thrilled. “You think you’re…like her?”
Kurt’s smile fades just enough for his father to shake his head and thrust out a calming hand to ruffle the boy’s already-beyond-saving hair.
“You know what I mean, Kurt. Of course you’re like her, you’re…you’re beautiful, and strong, and incredible. But the other thing, I mean…it’s a long shot. How do you know?”
The shot isn’t that long, Kurt thinks. There isn’t a lot of literature out there on people like him-like her-but there is enough to suggest a strong genetic link. Genes are principle when it comes to passing down whatever funky mutation causes these ridiculous things to happen in the first place. His mother had it, and therefore, Kurt does too.
Not so strange, and somehow, it fosters a wildfire warmth deep inside. He’s like her. As long as he’s like her, it’s like she’s not completely gone, and that is worth the world.
The estranged hope in his father’s eyes suggests the same.
“I don’t know,” he says at last, probing one temple with the flat of his palm. “But remember how she used to talk about her dreams? About seeing things before they happened?”
His father nods, stoic in that way Kurt is so familiar with-that way that tells him the man is inches away from a minor breakdown. The boy forces himself onward before he too can get caught up in emotion.
“That’s what’s been happening to me,” he explains, gesturing towards his head. “I didn’t realize it at first, because I was more focused on the pain than anything else, but today…there were pictures, Dad. There are always pictures, and today they were so vivid and so real…I think I was seeing something like she used to, something that’s going to happen in the future.” He pauses and swallows, remembering. “Something…”
Something bad, he wants to say, something incredible and awful, but he can’t bring himself to put it into words. Not with his father staring at him like that, wide-eyed and hopeful, afraid and unsure.
“She never got headaches,” Burt muses softly. “She never…Kurt, these things hurt you.”
They do, and Kurt has to admit that’s strange, but it does nothing to jar his newfound certainty.
“I’m having visions,” he insists stubbornly. “I’m having visions like her, and Dad, I think they’re getting bigger.”
Burt shakes his head, standing from the bed and leaning his forearm against the wall. His face is drawn, his posture stiff. Kurt doesn’t understand.
“It’s okay,” he says excitedly. “Dad, this means I’m not sick, there’s no cancer or anything. It’s going to be okay.”
“It’s not,” Burt mutters. “You don’t get it. It’s not okay.”
“Why not?” Kurt demands, struggling to push the blankets aside and clamber from the bed. “What’s so wrong with it? Is it…” An idea dawns on him, heavy and terrible. He inhales. “Do you think I’m a freak?”
The man’s eyes light with anger, his body jerking away from the wall. “Don’t you ever,” he snaps, “ever use that word, Kurt. You are my son. She was my wife. There is nothing…nothing I would not do for you, nothing I wouldn’t have done for her. There is no room for words like that under my roof, you understand me?”
He can see it now, a memory so deep Kurt has never been aware of it before. Things have happened to this man, to the people he loves-things Kurt has not yet been bothered with. He has attracted barbs for his swishy way of walking, his love of face creams and fine garments, his undeniably pitchy young voice. But for all of that, he has not yet known pain-and he can see so clearly that his father cannot say the same.
“I understand,” he says in a small voice, eyes dropping. His father sighs.
“Get some sleep, Kurt. School in the morning and all that.”
He pauses at the foot of the stairs, fingertips tapping restlessly against the banister. “If there’s anything else tonight, any-“ He hesitates, head shaking. “Any more visions, or headaches. Just call.”
He’s gone before Kurt can say goodnight.
The next morning is better-the relentless pound and scrape inside his head has dulled, leaving behind almost nothing to suggest it was there to begin with. Kurt showers methodically and dresses, darting into the kitchen just in time to gather up a piece of whole-wheat toast with jelly and his backpack. Burt looks up from the morning paper with barely a grunt-he’s never been a morning person, per se-and Kurt pats the man’s shoulder. It’s as close as they’ll ever get to talking about the previous night. Hummels don’t exactly do heart-to-hearts, after all.
“Have a, y’know.” Burt tucks into his coffee mug, glancing up over its rim. “A good day.”
Kurt nods, delicately clenching the toast between his teeth and prying open the door. The sun is out full-force, blasting the street with its visage; Kurt decides to take it as a sign that today will be considerably less painful, considerably more prone towards happiness and jokes and all the normal things thirteen-year-old boys should be focusing upon.
He believes it right up until the second stop sign, when he realizes he is being shamelessly followed, and has been since he stepped off his front lawn. He sighs.
“Words cannot describe how not in the mood for abuse I am,” he snaps, filtering as much bitch-tone as he can muster under the exhaustion still creeping around his body. He’s too young to really intimidate anyone just yet, but it’s certainly not for lack of trying.
“Whoever said anything about abuse?” a bright voice chirps. He turns to find himself face to face with a midget of a brunette, wearing a mega-watt smile and a perfectly hideous sweater set. His lips curl.
“What foul beast dressed you this morning? That outfit is atrocious on a level I can’t even begin to comprehend.”
The girl glances down at herself, indignant. “What’s wrong with it?”
“Should I begin with the owl or the checkerboard pattern?” Kurt drawls. His gaze catches on movement just over her left shoulder. “Hello there. Who are you?”
The boy, slim and Asian, with brooding dark eyes and coal-black hair, shuffles uncomfortably. “Mike,” he says at last, mouth crooking in a tentative half-smile. Kurt beams.
“Nice to meet you, Mike. I’m-“
“Kurt Hummel,” the girl cuts in obnoxiously, hands on her hips. “We know. We’ve heard all about you.”
He cocks his head, eyes rolling. Twenty seconds with this girl, and he hates her already, but Mike’s cute. He might be worth a few more minutes with the pint-sized stalker.
“Heard what, pray tell?”
The brunette smiles, arrogant in her own miniature way. “That you suffer from migraines of astounding power, the signature of a gift with twice that strength. And that you are the son of Margaret Hummel, champion Seer.”
He fumbles on his next step, tromping heavily on the over-long laces of his boot. “Long dead, if you’re looking for her,” he forces himself to say coolly. Mike’s eyes flash with what looks strangely like sympathy. The brunette inclines her head.
“We know. It isn’t her we’ve come for.”
He doesn’t have time for this, much less the patience. The first bell will ring in less than twenty minutes, and he’s barely halfway to the school. So much for catching up with Mr. Blihn and groveling over that history test.
But, from the excited way Smurfette is checking him out, Kurt can’t imagine this will end in an easy getaway.
“What?” he snaps at last. “Are you waiting for me to give some bated-breath response? If you aren’t looking for my mother, you’re clearly looking for me. Color me unimpressed.”
“You don’t even know the reason,” the girl argues, eyes wide and berating. He scoffs.
“I’d imagine it has something to do with my little skull-splitting visions. In which case, I’m sorry to say, I do not have the energy to deal. I’m tired, I’m bored, and I’m going to be very late, so if you will be so kind as to get out of my way-“
“What is it with you people and talking like you’ve been swallowing college textbooks?” Mike mutters, rubbing his head in annoyance. The girl ignores him.
“You had a vision recently, didn’t you? A big one.”
“So what?” Kurt snaps. “It’s none of your business what goes on in my head. It’s none of your business who my mother was. Who are you people? Leave me alone.”
“Is he always so hostile, d’you think?” Mike asks conversationally, prodding the girl in the shoulder. She scowls back.
“I didn’t prepare for this.”
“For what?” Kurt mocks. “Someone with a personality? Sorry to disappoint.”
It’s rude, and unnecessary, but he’s so tired, and this girl is so frustrating. Something about her rubs him all kinds of the wrong way, and no amount of cute Asian boys can shake that sensation. He sighs, doing his best to press it back.
“I’m sorry,” he manages, jamming two fingers hard against his head. “I just…I don’t know what you want from me, but I can tell you it isn’t something I’m up for giving right now.”
“But we need you,” the girl implores, stamping her foot lightly in punctuation. He shrugs.
“You’re ten. What do you know about need?”
She bristles. “I’m thirteen, thank you very much, and you have no idea what it is I know. Or what I can do.”
“Or me,” Mike chimes in, hooking his hands behind his head. Kurt lifts an eyebrow.
“Not that you don’t make an imposing duo, but I really don’t have time for this. I didn’t make it yesterday, so if I don’t get to school on time, they’ll think I’ve died or something, and then Dad will get a rather upsetting phone call-“
“Kurt,” the girl interrupts, “I understand your predicament, truly, but there are more important matters at hand right now. Your vision last night, do you remember it?”
He rolls his eyes. “Of course I remember. But it was just a jumble of things, nothing worth stringing together.”
“Are you sure?” the girl demands, stepping entirely too close and resting a hand on Kurt’s shoulder. He grimaces and brushes her away.
“He’s lying,” Mike says calmly. Kurt frowns.
“No, I’m not. I honestly don’t think there is any value in-“ He hesitates, remembering. The face. The man.
The army.
His head droops. “There was a guy…a…I think he’s a bad man.”
The girl looks like she’s strongly resisting the urge to touch him again. “What else?”
He shakes his head, curling his fingers against one temple. “What is your problem?” he demands. “Why are you asking me these things? How did you even find me?”
“We met a woman,” she says simply. “In Albuquerque. A shut-in-germaphobic or something, but perfectly gentle and lovely. We stumbled onto her property, into her garden, and one thing led to another…”
He makes an impatient gesture, signaling for her to get on with it.
“She has a book,” the girl explains hurriedly. “Sometimes, when things go very still inside her head, she goes to it, writes things down. Prophecies. I gather it’s an ability with some correlation to your own, except instead of blinding headaches, she simply blacks out when the pen touches to paper. When she woke most recently, your name and address had been scratched in. She seemed to think it crucial that we reach you as soon as possible. She said you could help us.”
He can’t imagine what two kids his own age had been doing roaming Albuquerque-or, in fact, how they managed to get here without any apparent aid from parent figures-but it’s not the most pressing question. “Help you do what?”
The girl’s eyes shine, all big dreams and endless hopes. It instantly makes his stomach turn. “Find more,” she breathes. “People like us. And stop people like that bad man in your vision.”
He’s already shaking his head, wrenching away when she tries again to lay hands on him. “We could,” she insists. “We could do it. Mike and I, we’re already pretty strong, and we grow more so every day. You will too. Kurt, we could help people-we could save people. We could make a difference.”
From the look on her face, he suspects this little pipe dream isn’t one he’ll be able to dissuade so quickly. He settles for rolling his eyes again.
“That all sounds perfectly lovely for you,” he gripes, “but some of us have lives to attend to and fathers who worry about us. What about your parents? Are they waiting in the car around the corner or something?”
The smile falls off her face, shattering in an instant. Something in Kurt’s chest twists at the sight, the same rocky feeling he gets when looking at another person’s scabbed knee or broken arm.
“They’re in Ohio,” she says dully. “They don’t know I’m here. They can’t.”
“Why not?” he can’t resist asking. She shakes her head.
“They’re safer there. I can’t…the things I did, I can’t go back.”
He won’t get much more out of her than that, he senses. His gaze slides instead to Mike, who rolls his shoulders almost carelessly.
“Dead,” he answers the silent question. “Can’t imagine they’re too worried.”
“Well…” His mouth works soundlessly for a second, caught between sympathy and a forced disinterest. He can’t afford to keep talking to these two, can’t handle the exertion of the conversation, and he is so very late. “I’m sorry to hear that. For both of you. But I’ve still got a parent, and he needs me. Whatever you think I can do for you, I’m sorry; he comes first. Always.”
He moves to shoulder past them both, knuckles pasty around the straps of his backpack. The girl calls after him, impossible to deter.
“He’ll be in danger if you stay.”
He shouldn’t turn. He shouldn’t listen. This girl is clearly a few creams short of a decent nighttime cleansing ritual, and no matter how attractive he is, no boy tagging along with that should be depended upon for sanity either.
All the same, his body walks back the way it just came.
“He’ll be in danger,” the girl repeats when he’s looking her in the eye. She squares her shoulders, sets her jaw. “That man you saw, in your vision-he’s dangerous. The Seer in Albuquerque couldn’t tell us much about him-that’s why she sent us to you-but she knew enough to say he’s bad. Awful, really, and someone has to stop him. If we don’t…”
“Why does it have to be us?” he demands. “We’re kids.”
“We won’t always be,” she says seriously. He sighs.
“If my dad is really in so much danger, I’m better off here, where I can protect him.”
“Protect him with what?” she asks gently. “Your ability isn’t an active one meant for violence of any kind, and, no offense, but you don’t look very strong. This man, this terrible, awful man-he’s powerful. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he grows as interested in you as the other Seer was.”
“That’s assuming he could find me,” Kurt protests, more weakly this time. The girl’s smile goes grave, humorless.
“We did.”
She has a point, as much as he hates to admit it, but he’s still not going down without a fight. It’s time to bring out the harsh, stinging reality of the situation.
“My dad…” He hesitates, uncomfortable with airing his family problems to two completely insane strangers. “Look, since my mom died, he’s been barely hanging on. He works, he eats, he sleeps. If I were to leave, it would completely destroy him. I can’t…I can’t do that to him. I can’t lose him too.”
To his surprise, the girl’s dark eyes brighten. “I’ve got a solution for that!” she says excitedly, wrapping a hand around his bicep and ignoring the annoyed squeak she recieves in return. “I can get into your father’s head and make him believe something that will comfort him.”
“You want to lie to my father,” Kurt deadpans. “Magically.”
“It’s not magic,” she corrects with a flick of her ponytail, “and it’s not a lie. Exactly. More like a…suggestion. I’ll leave something in his mind, the idea that you are somewhere safe. Boarding school, perhaps.”
“In the middle of the school year?” he asks doubtfully. She shrugs.
“It won’t matter what I leave there. He won’t have the ability to work past what I’ve planted long enough to unravel the notion. What matters is that he will believe you are safe and comfortable, and he will have no reason to break down further.”
She looks entirely too proud of herself for his liking, and he can’t believe he’s about to agree to such a meddlesome, ridiculous idea. But the images in his mind burn bright, and he knows-despite how completely insufferable she is-the girl is right about one thing.
This bad man, whoever he is, can-and, if the vision is any indication, probably will-do a lot of damage. If going with these two crazy people right now means his father will be left alone…
“What’s your name, anyway?” he asks flatly, shuffling his backpack to one side and reluctantly following when Mike starts the walk back towards the Hummel abode. The girl beams.
“Rachel Berry.”
“Rachel Berry,” Kurt repeats, raising an eyebrow. “I think I kind of hate you.”
They make the rest of the trek in silence.
Pairing: Rachel Berry/Quinn Fabray, Santana Lopez/Brittany Pierce, minor Artie Abrams/Tina Cohen-Chang
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Spoilers: AU
Summary: “Sometimes, people are born a little different.”
Kurt Hummel is really getting tired of headaches.
Thirteen years old and more fabulous than ninety-eight percent of his peers (disregarding a young lady named Emily, whose loyalty towards designer labels is flat-out incredible), Kurt likes to think his life is a decent one. It’s not perfect, of course; his father runs a car shop, of all things, and can’t tell the difference between synthetic and organic polymers to save his life. But all in all? It could be worse. California is warm and balmy, they own a pool, and Kurt feels like he’s finally coming into his own in a big way.
It helps that fewer nights are rent by his father’s wracking sobs lately, and that Kurt himself has been sleeping more soundly in consequence. The dreams are still there, frustrating as ever, but he’s stopped seeing her there all the time, drawn and slim and broken in that hospital bed.
Five years isn’t enough, but it’s a start. Since his mother died, Kurt has learned to take what he can get.
Things are better, until the headaches begin.
They hurt like nothing should, jerking him from sound sleeps with jolts so violent, he more than once has awoken on the assumption that he has been struck by a car. He does not understand why they come, only that he’s been getting them for about six months now.
Most boys his age deal with no night terror more aggravating than unwanted sticky sheets.Kurt Hummel feels as though his brain is blasting apart. There are levels of justice in this world, and none of them seem to apply to his home or family.
His father grows more concerned with each morning that finds Kurt bent over the kitchen table, head in his hands. There is no explanation for the steady pulse within his skull, nor the accompanying images-they have been to four doctors so far, with zero results of any kind. The good news is, Burt Hummel’s initial terror-that his son might possess a tumor rivaling the one responsible for his wife’s untimely end-seems to be unfounded. The bad news is, not a single doctorate-toting individual within a fifty mile radius seems to know what’s going on inside Kurt’s head.
Luckily, it doesn’t happen every night. Whole weeks have trailed by, in fact, when Kurt has allowed himself to forget he is ever struck with these brain-batterers to begin with. These are the majestic, thrilling moments of his youth, when he can pretend he is a normal boy with a brain that stays put inside his skull and a general distaste for Shakespearian plays. And yes, okay, a dead mother, but he thinks he’s going to have to get used to that eventually. It isn’t like he can bring her back. It isn’t like he’s Superman or something.
(He doesn’t remember if Superman ever had any powers of restoration or whatever, because Kurt? Not so big on the comic books. He’s really more of a magazine kind of guy, and anyway, who reads that kind of thing? He’d be doomed to a life of pimply Comic Con voyages. No, thank you.)
The point is that he appreciates daylight because it brings normalcy. The headaches the dreams bring peter off after a couple of hours, and he is usually able to handle the rest of the day without unreasonable hassle.
So, when the dreams begin to invade his waking world as well, Kurt is less than impressed.
His father finds him that first day, shrieking at the bathroom sink, his forehead ground against smooth glass. His whole body is trembling, his legs too weak to hold him up; the second Burt’s hand touches his shoulder, the boy crumples into his father’s chest, weeping unabashedly.
“It hurts,” he keens, afraid to so much as reach for his own head. “Oh my God, Dad, it hurts-“
It is by far the worst of them, made all the more agonizing by the stunning burst of images behind his eyes. The dreams are usually fairly basic-faces, colors, perhaps a building. More often than not, he does not recognize them; the only relevance he can find in the visions is an abrupt upswing in deja vue while awake. They do not concern him nearly as much as the pounding in his brain.
Today, though, it is different. He still doesn’t recognize the names, or the faces, but they are crystal-clear. A man. Tall, foreboding, kind of a youthful Jafar swagger to him. An army. An overwhelming sense of destruction.
He doesn’t realize he has vomited until his father is guiding him to the toilet, strong hands rubbing nervous circles upon his son’s back. He’s rubbing the fabric of Kurt’s sweater all the wrong ways, but the boy can think only of the man in his vision.
“Dad,” he says weakly. “Dad, I think I know-“
It’s as far as he can get before he vomits again and passes out, collapsing-thankfully-backwards into Burt’s shaking arms.
When he next wakes, his head feels more or less like a steamroller passed over it for twenty-four hours straight, and the visions are no less clear. Burt is seated at the foot of his bed, his eyes gray with anxiety. Kurt has the unpleasant feeling that he has been here longer than a couple of comatose moments.
“Dad?” he rasps, rubbing the back of his head. Burt’s head rises, his mouth trembling.
“I called the doctor,” his father informs him, running a hand across the brim of his customary baseball cap. “He said I should bring you in for another MRI, or-or whatever it was last time. He said if it’s getting this bad, there must be something they’ve missed, so-“
“Dad,” Kurt says again through the haze of acid pent up in his throat. “I’m not sick.”
Burt blinks at him, eyes droopy and sad like the basset hound Kurt used to see on his way to school. “What are you talking about? Of course you’re sick. Kurt, you’ve been unconscious half the day! You missed school and everything!”
Kurt grimaces; he was supposed to have a history test today. Whoops. “I’m not sick,” he repeats as patiently as he knows how. “I know what it is. The headaches, they’re…Dad, it’s like Mom.”
His father’s eyes about bulge out of his head, his face going ashen in the next heartbeat. “Kurt, no, don’t say-“
“No, no, not that,” Kurt clarifies hastily, leaning forward until his vision goes fuzzy. “The other thing. How she was special. I think…I think maybe I’m special too.”
Someday not too far from now, he will learn to say this with a certain haughty distaste, as though “special” will never be good enough. But right now, he is thirteen, and earnest, and the memory of his mother’s compassion still beats strong within his breast. Five years haven’t been enough to dim it; he thinks fifty could go by without that flame diminishing by even a flicker. Eyes fixed on his father, he smiles through the pain.
Burt does not look nearly as thrilled. “You think you’re…like her?”
Kurt’s smile fades just enough for his father to shake his head and thrust out a calming hand to ruffle the boy’s already-beyond-saving hair.
“You know what I mean, Kurt. Of course you’re like her, you’re…you’re beautiful, and strong, and incredible. But the other thing, I mean…it’s a long shot. How do you know?”
The shot isn’t that long, Kurt thinks. There isn’t a lot of literature out there on people like him-like her-but there is enough to suggest a strong genetic link. Genes are principle when it comes to passing down whatever funky mutation causes these ridiculous things to happen in the first place. His mother had it, and therefore, Kurt does too.
Not so strange, and somehow, it fosters a wildfire warmth deep inside. He’s like her. As long as he’s like her, it’s like she’s not completely gone, and that is worth the world.
The estranged hope in his father’s eyes suggests the same.
“I don’t know,” he says at last, probing one temple with the flat of his palm. “But remember how she used to talk about her dreams? About seeing things before they happened?”
His father nods, stoic in that way Kurt is so familiar with-that way that tells him the man is inches away from a minor breakdown. The boy forces himself onward before he too can get caught up in emotion.
“That’s what’s been happening to me,” he explains, gesturing towards his head. “I didn’t realize it at first, because I was more focused on the pain than anything else, but today…there were pictures, Dad. There are always pictures, and today they were so vivid and so real…I think I was seeing something like she used to, something that’s going to happen in the future.” He pauses and swallows, remembering. “Something…”
Something bad, he wants to say, something incredible and awful, but he can’t bring himself to put it into words. Not with his father staring at him like that, wide-eyed and hopeful, afraid and unsure.
“She never got headaches,” Burt muses softly. “She never…Kurt, these things hurt you.”
They do, and Kurt has to admit that’s strange, but it does nothing to jar his newfound certainty.
“I’m having visions,” he insists stubbornly. “I’m having visions like her, and Dad, I think they’re getting bigger.”
Burt shakes his head, standing from the bed and leaning his forearm against the wall. His face is drawn, his posture stiff. Kurt doesn’t understand.
“It’s okay,” he says excitedly. “Dad, this means I’m not sick, there’s no cancer or anything. It’s going to be okay.”
“It’s not,” Burt mutters. “You don’t get it. It’s not okay.”
“Why not?” Kurt demands, struggling to push the blankets aside and clamber from the bed. “What’s so wrong with it? Is it…” An idea dawns on him, heavy and terrible. He inhales. “Do you think I’m a freak?”
The man’s eyes light with anger, his body jerking away from the wall. “Don’t you ever,” he snaps, “ever use that word, Kurt. You are my son. She was my wife. There is nothing…nothing I would not do for you, nothing I wouldn’t have done for her. There is no room for words like that under my roof, you understand me?”
He can see it now, a memory so deep Kurt has never been aware of it before. Things have happened to this man, to the people he loves-things Kurt has not yet been bothered with. He has attracted barbs for his swishy way of walking, his love of face creams and fine garments, his undeniably pitchy young voice. But for all of that, he has not yet known pain-and he can see so clearly that his father cannot say the same.
“I understand,” he says in a small voice, eyes dropping. His father sighs.
“Get some sleep, Kurt. School in the morning and all that.”
He pauses at the foot of the stairs, fingertips tapping restlessly against the banister. “If there’s anything else tonight, any-“ He hesitates, head shaking. “Any more visions, or headaches. Just call.”
He’s gone before Kurt can say goodnight.
The next morning is better-the relentless pound and scrape inside his head has dulled, leaving behind almost nothing to suggest it was there to begin with. Kurt showers methodically and dresses, darting into the kitchen just in time to gather up a piece of whole-wheat toast with jelly and his backpack. Burt looks up from the morning paper with barely a grunt-he’s never been a morning person, per se-and Kurt pats the man’s shoulder. It’s as close as they’ll ever get to talking about the previous night. Hummels don’t exactly do heart-to-hearts, after all.
“Have a, y’know.” Burt tucks into his coffee mug, glancing up over its rim. “A good day.”
Kurt nods, delicately clenching the toast between his teeth and prying open the door. The sun is out full-force, blasting the street with its visage; Kurt decides to take it as a sign that today will be considerably less painful, considerably more prone towards happiness and jokes and all the normal things thirteen-year-old boys should be focusing upon.
He believes it right up until the second stop sign, when he realizes he is being shamelessly followed, and has been since he stepped off his front lawn. He sighs.
“Words cannot describe how not in the mood for abuse I am,” he snaps, filtering as much bitch-tone as he can muster under the exhaustion still creeping around his body. He’s too young to really intimidate anyone just yet, but it’s certainly not for lack of trying.
“Whoever said anything about abuse?” a bright voice chirps. He turns to find himself face to face with a midget of a brunette, wearing a mega-watt smile and a perfectly hideous sweater set. His lips curl.
“What foul beast dressed you this morning? That outfit is atrocious on a level I can’t even begin to comprehend.”
The girl glances down at herself, indignant. “What’s wrong with it?”
“Should I begin with the owl or the checkerboard pattern?” Kurt drawls. His gaze catches on movement just over her left shoulder. “Hello there. Who are you?”
The boy, slim and Asian, with brooding dark eyes and coal-black hair, shuffles uncomfortably. “Mike,” he says at last, mouth crooking in a tentative half-smile. Kurt beams.
“Nice to meet you, Mike. I’m-“
“Kurt Hummel,” the girl cuts in obnoxiously, hands on her hips. “We know. We’ve heard all about you.”
He cocks his head, eyes rolling. Twenty seconds with this girl, and he hates her already, but Mike’s cute. He might be worth a few more minutes with the pint-sized stalker.
“Heard what, pray tell?”
The brunette smiles, arrogant in her own miniature way. “That you suffer from migraines of astounding power, the signature of a gift with twice that strength. And that you are the son of Margaret Hummel, champion Seer.”
He fumbles on his next step, tromping heavily on the over-long laces of his boot. “Long dead, if you’re looking for her,” he forces himself to say coolly. Mike’s eyes flash with what looks strangely like sympathy. The brunette inclines her head.
“We know. It isn’t her we’ve come for.”
He doesn’t have time for this, much less the patience. The first bell will ring in less than twenty minutes, and he’s barely halfway to the school. So much for catching up with Mr. Blihn and groveling over that history test.
But, from the excited way Smurfette is checking him out, Kurt can’t imagine this will end in an easy getaway.
“What?” he snaps at last. “Are you waiting for me to give some bated-breath response? If you aren’t looking for my mother, you’re clearly looking for me. Color me unimpressed.”
“You don’t even know the reason,” the girl argues, eyes wide and berating. He scoffs.
“I’d imagine it has something to do with my little skull-splitting visions. In which case, I’m sorry to say, I do not have the energy to deal. I’m tired, I’m bored, and I’m going to be very late, so if you will be so kind as to get out of my way-“
“What is it with you people and talking like you’ve been swallowing college textbooks?” Mike mutters, rubbing his head in annoyance. The girl ignores him.
“You had a vision recently, didn’t you? A big one.”
“So what?” Kurt snaps. “It’s none of your business what goes on in my head. It’s none of your business who my mother was. Who are you people? Leave me alone.”
“Is he always so hostile, d’you think?” Mike asks conversationally, prodding the girl in the shoulder. She scowls back.
“I didn’t prepare for this.”
“For what?” Kurt mocks. “Someone with a personality? Sorry to disappoint.”
It’s rude, and unnecessary, but he’s so tired, and this girl is so frustrating. Something about her rubs him all kinds of the wrong way, and no amount of cute Asian boys can shake that sensation. He sighs, doing his best to press it back.
“I’m sorry,” he manages, jamming two fingers hard against his head. “I just…I don’t know what you want from me, but I can tell you it isn’t something I’m up for giving right now.”
“But we need you,” the girl implores, stamping her foot lightly in punctuation. He shrugs.
“You’re ten. What do you know about need?”
She bristles. “I’m thirteen, thank you very much, and you have no idea what it is I know. Or what I can do.”
“Or me,” Mike chimes in, hooking his hands behind his head. Kurt lifts an eyebrow.
“Not that you don’t make an imposing duo, but I really don’t have time for this. I didn’t make it yesterday, so if I don’t get to school on time, they’ll think I’ve died or something, and then Dad will get a rather upsetting phone call-“
“Kurt,” the girl interrupts, “I understand your predicament, truly, but there are more important matters at hand right now. Your vision last night, do you remember it?”
He rolls his eyes. “Of course I remember. But it was just a jumble of things, nothing worth stringing together.”
“Are you sure?” the girl demands, stepping entirely too close and resting a hand on Kurt’s shoulder. He grimaces and brushes her away.
“He’s lying,” Mike says calmly. Kurt frowns.
“No, I’m not. I honestly don’t think there is any value in-“ He hesitates, remembering. The face. The man.
The army.
His head droops. “There was a guy…a…I think he’s a bad man.”
The girl looks like she’s strongly resisting the urge to touch him again. “What else?”
He shakes his head, curling his fingers against one temple. “What is your problem?” he demands. “Why are you asking me these things? How did you even find me?”
“We met a woman,” she says simply. “In Albuquerque. A shut-in-germaphobic or something, but perfectly gentle and lovely. We stumbled onto her property, into her garden, and one thing led to another…”
He makes an impatient gesture, signaling for her to get on with it.
“She has a book,” the girl explains hurriedly. “Sometimes, when things go very still inside her head, she goes to it, writes things down. Prophecies. I gather it’s an ability with some correlation to your own, except instead of blinding headaches, she simply blacks out when the pen touches to paper. When she woke most recently, your name and address had been scratched in. She seemed to think it crucial that we reach you as soon as possible. She said you could help us.”
He can’t imagine what two kids his own age had been doing roaming Albuquerque-or, in fact, how they managed to get here without any apparent aid from parent figures-but it’s not the most pressing question. “Help you do what?”
The girl’s eyes shine, all big dreams and endless hopes. It instantly makes his stomach turn. “Find more,” she breathes. “People like us. And stop people like that bad man in your vision.”
He’s already shaking his head, wrenching away when she tries again to lay hands on him. “We could,” she insists. “We could do it. Mike and I, we’re already pretty strong, and we grow more so every day. You will too. Kurt, we could help people-we could save people. We could make a difference.”
From the look on her face, he suspects this little pipe dream isn’t one he’ll be able to dissuade so quickly. He settles for rolling his eyes again.
“That all sounds perfectly lovely for you,” he gripes, “but some of us have lives to attend to and fathers who worry about us. What about your parents? Are they waiting in the car around the corner or something?”
The smile falls off her face, shattering in an instant. Something in Kurt’s chest twists at the sight, the same rocky feeling he gets when looking at another person’s scabbed knee or broken arm.
“They’re in Ohio,” she says dully. “They don’t know I’m here. They can’t.”
“Why not?” he can’t resist asking. She shakes her head.
“They’re safer there. I can’t…the things I did, I can’t go back.”
He won’t get much more out of her than that, he senses. His gaze slides instead to Mike, who rolls his shoulders almost carelessly.
“Dead,” he answers the silent question. “Can’t imagine they’re too worried.”
“Well…” His mouth works soundlessly for a second, caught between sympathy and a forced disinterest. He can’t afford to keep talking to these two, can’t handle the exertion of the conversation, and he is so very late. “I’m sorry to hear that. For both of you. But I’ve still got a parent, and he needs me. Whatever you think I can do for you, I’m sorry; he comes first. Always.”
He moves to shoulder past them both, knuckles pasty around the straps of his backpack. The girl calls after him, impossible to deter.
“He’ll be in danger if you stay.”
He shouldn’t turn. He shouldn’t listen. This girl is clearly a few creams short of a decent nighttime cleansing ritual, and no matter how attractive he is, no boy tagging along with that should be depended upon for sanity either.
All the same, his body walks back the way it just came.
“He’ll be in danger,” the girl repeats when he’s looking her in the eye. She squares her shoulders, sets her jaw. “That man you saw, in your vision-he’s dangerous. The Seer in Albuquerque couldn’t tell us much about him-that’s why she sent us to you-but she knew enough to say he’s bad. Awful, really, and someone has to stop him. If we don’t…”
“Why does it have to be us?” he demands. “We’re kids.”
“We won’t always be,” she says seriously. He sighs.
“If my dad is really in so much danger, I’m better off here, where I can protect him.”
“Protect him with what?” she asks gently. “Your ability isn’t an active one meant for violence of any kind, and, no offense, but you don’t look very strong. This man, this terrible, awful man-he’s powerful. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he grows as interested in you as the other Seer was.”
“That’s assuming he could find me,” Kurt protests, more weakly this time. The girl’s smile goes grave, humorless.
“We did.”
She has a point, as much as he hates to admit it, but he’s still not going down without a fight. It’s time to bring out the harsh, stinging reality of the situation.
“My dad…” He hesitates, uncomfortable with airing his family problems to two completely insane strangers. “Look, since my mom died, he’s been barely hanging on. He works, he eats, he sleeps. If I were to leave, it would completely destroy him. I can’t…I can’t do that to him. I can’t lose him too.”
To his surprise, the girl’s dark eyes brighten. “I’ve got a solution for that!” she says excitedly, wrapping a hand around his bicep and ignoring the annoyed squeak she recieves in return. “I can get into your father’s head and make him believe something that will comfort him.”
“You want to lie to my father,” Kurt deadpans. “Magically.”
“It’s not magic,” she corrects with a flick of her ponytail, “and it’s not a lie. Exactly. More like a…suggestion. I’ll leave something in his mind, the idea that you are somewhere safe. Boarding school, perhaps.”
“In the middle of the school year?” he asks doubtfully. She shrugs.
“It won’t matter what I leave there. He won’t have the ability to work past what I’ve planted long enough to unravel the notion. What matters is that he will believe you are safe and comfortable, and he will have no reason to break down further.”
She looks entirely too proud of herself for his liking, and he can’t believe he’s about to agree to such a meddlesome, ridiculous idea. But the images in his mind burn bright, and he knows-despite how completely insufferable she is-the girl is right about one thing.
This bad man, whoever he is, can-and, if the vision is any indication, probably will-do a lot of damage. If going with these two crazy people right now means his father will be left alone…
“What’s your name, anyway?” he asks flatly, shuffling his backpack to one side and reluctantly following when Mike starts the walk back towards the Hummel abode. The girl beams.
“Rachel Berry.”
“Rachel Berry,” Kurt repeats, raising an eyebrow. “I think I kind of hate you.”
They make the rest of the trek in silence.