empty bedrooms
title: empty bedrooms
summary: kurt's absence is the hole sucking them all in -- burt doesn't really care.
rating: T
pairing: none
genre: gen
warnings: character death, suicidal thoughts
notes: inspired by a prompt over at glee_angst_meme
Bedrooms can say a lot about a life.
A decade back, Burt's home had two bedrooms. One for him and his (now dead) wife, with a somewhat lumpy mattress and a carved headboard. One for his (now dead) son, bordered by plushies and heaped with blankets. Kurt always got cold easily, had to wear little footie pyjamas. He looked so small in them, always looked small to Burt no matter how tall he got or how big his voice was. He'd looked the smallest in his coffin, swallowed up by --
Carole was outside with soup on a tray. Burt hated to see her look so worried, but even the thought of eating, moving, talking, laughing, crying, pissing, kicking, running, drinking ... anything when Kurt couldn't made his stomach roil. Burt didn't have much of an appetite these days. So Carole left the tray and ghosted off.
A decade back, Burt's home had two bedrooms for two people. Full, but not overwhelmed with people, love, like a home should be. Burt still slept on that lumpy mattress underneath a carved headboard, and Kurt curled up under his blankets but his wife was under six feet of dirt and that just wasn't right. Burt had always wanted to give Kurt everything, more than everything, knew it the moment he first held his son in his arms, knew it was all pointless the last time he got a chance to. In the cold dead night Burt liked to, had to, think of all the opportunities he had missed that could have guaranteed Kurt the life he deserved, the one he --
There was Finn, silent as his mother, drifting from room to room endlessly. If Burt had the energy to, he would've told Finn to sit his ass down because the constant movement made Burt sick. But he didn't, so Finn kept moving, and now he stood at the foot of Burt's bed looking lost. Finn glanced searchingly from side to side then met Burt's gaze before his shoulders slumped and he slowly left the room, and Burt knew exactly how he felt -- no matter how hard Burt tried, he couldn't find Kurt in this empty house either.
A couple of years back, Burt's home had three bedrooms, four people, and overwhelming love. Carole kept wildflower seeds in the spice rack, Finn left sport jerseys in the hallway and Kurt was neat and organized as ever. Burt and Carole had a new mattress but the same old headboard, because Carole had a bad back and the lumps didn't do her any good. Finn's blankets were always kicked into a ball at the end of his bed because he got too hot, and Kurt piled on extras because he got too cold. When Burt was burying his son, he left the most worn, trusted of those blankets tightly folded by Kurt's side. He would have covered Kurt with it, but he could imagine Kurt's reaction if Burt covered up his fancy outfit. He really could -- Kurt's eyebrows would snap together, and his lips would press tightly, and his hands would settle on his hips, and he would open his mouth and say --
This was the point where it fell apart, because try as he might Burt couldn't hear his son's voice anymore, not in his imagination, not in his memories. Years of carefully prepared performances in the living room, heartbreaking solos, conversations about school, delighted laughs, angry words ... it was all lost. Kurt was mute to Burt now, muffled by dirt and wood and time. How much time had passed since Kurt had died? Burt didn't know, but it couldn't have been long since he was still here.
Now Burt's home had three bedrooms, three people, and too much empty space. Kurt's bedroom stood a silent shrine, filled to the brim with Kurt and silence. Kurt, Kurt's absence, was a giant hole in their lives trying to suck them in, always getting closer. Finn kept on moving away from it, and Carole worked around it, but Burt wasn't fighting it all much, soup cold outside and this bed his haven. Not the bed of him and his first wife, and not even the bed of him and his second wife, because now just Burt slept here. He didn't know where Carole slept. He didn't really care.
Bedrooms can say a lot about a life, but they also speak death too.
***
the end