palm to palm, heart to heart
title: palm to palm, heart to heart
summary: kurt just wants to hold his dad's hand.
rating: pg13
pairing: some klaine
genre: gen/angst
warnings: none
notes: written for a prompt over at the glee_angst_meme
Strangely enough, Kurt thinks of his mother. How she would use kisses as bandaids and cradle him in her sweetly-scented arms for hours. Kurt loves his mother still and the memory is one of those few comforts when they operate on his hands and tell him that it will be a while before he can play the piano again. Or hold a pencil, or feed himself, or get clean without help. It's all sorts of humiliating powerlessness and Kurt hates it, hates it with a ferocity that does not surprise him but just makes him angrier.
He is not the only suffering here, of course. All of New Directions stop by, bearing so many well-wishes that Kurt wants to tell them to leave it at the door. Well-wishes are like prayers to him, and though he has made his peace with religion as a personal tool of grief that does not mean he can handle it when his hands are swathed in white and useless. The Warblers and some friends Kurt made at Dalton outside the Warblers also visit, and instead of half-baked prayers Kurt gets so many flowers and impromptu song-and-dance numbers he feels like he's traversed a jungle and found a colony of blue-and-red howler monkeys. It's more pleasant sounding to be sure but the constant hectic noise gets to him, especially since his friends at McKinley aren't shy of expressing themselves through song as well.
Kurt does like it when people do individual visits. Rachel is surprisingly quiet, hands held eerily still as if she doesn't want to rub them in his face as she lists off songs she would love to do if they weren't unsuitable for show choir. Mercedes feeds him a steady stream of gossip of both the local and celebrity type and though it's the last thing he wants to do he finds himself participating because it's normal.
Finn actually tries to find a way to warm up the little milk cup they give Kurt and it's rib-crackingly funny, and when he gives up he just fluffs Kurt's pillows and asks if Kurt minds that Finn's been sleeping in his room sometimes; Kurt does mind, but he sees enough in Finn's sad eyes that he relaxes his personal boundaries and says it's alright. Blaine is just short of living in Kurt's hospital room, reading him Vogue or wildly gesticulating as he tells fantastic stories of Kurt's future life that always send him to Paris or Milan while making millions, and end with him married to -- "whoever you want," he finishes slyly, shyly, and Kurt wishes he could touch.
He can't though, and oddly enough the thing that hurts the most about this whole painful, humiliating situation is that his hands are useless. Kurt always figured that the one thing he would hate to lose in some freak accident, no matter how temporary, would be his voice. He doesn't expect to feel so cut-off and ruined due to injured hands, and to be so angry at himself for not appreciating how much those hands do for him.
Kurt can't hold his father's hand, and it kills him.
It's not like they hold hands on a regular basis normally, but whenever Kurt was feeling so thrown down and trampled on by the world, whenever he visited his sick father in the hospital, he could always reach out. Kurt may not have his mother's gentle arms anymore, but he does have his father's callused, broad hand and now he can't do anything to take the comfort that's freely offered. His dad lays his hand on down on the bed, palm-up, and Kurt's bandaged hands can do nothing but lie uselessly by his side. Occasionaly his dad will cup his hand over one of Kurt's injured ones in a ghost of a touch Kurt can't actually feel and that hurts more than just seeing it lying out of reach, because he can't do the once-simple motion of turning his hand over and clasp hands.
Kurt can feel himself retreating during his moments with his father as a result, but he can't help it. It's like a monster has its grips on his emotions, telling him that if it hurts so much already he shouldn't make it worse by pining after a single hand-hold. Kurt knows that once he's healed he'll be able to do it as much as he wants, but there won't be an excuse and most teenage boys don't go holding their father's hands for no reason. Kurt has a chance to now, to steal his dad's warm comfort and wear it like a house to weather the storm, and he's too proud to ask for it when he isn't so weak, when his barriers are back up and his strength is returned. Kurt hates himself for being like that and hates that his dad's eyes seem to say he understands.
Kurt looks forward to the day things are easy again but still difficult in the sense that he won't take advantage of what's always there. Until then he hums Beatles songs to himself, but never around his father because Beatles were his mother's thing, and never around his friends because they're the only ones who would understand the emotions behind it. Blaine sings with him, and Kurt thinks that one day he might explain it. Explain how the singularly most wonderful thing to ever happen to Kurt is the feel of his father's hand in his, twitching slightly as he finally responds. Hopefully, Kurt will be able to return the favour some day -- the thought is what keeps him going when he's finally left alone at night.
end
summary: kurt just wants to hold his dad's hand.
rating: pg13
pairing: some klaine
genre: gen/angst
warnings: none
notes: written for a prompt over at the glee_angst_meme
Strangely enough, Kurt thinks of his mother. How she would use kisses as bandaids and cradle him in her sweetly-scented arms for hours. Kurt loves his mother still and the memory is one of those few comforts when they operate on his hands and tell him that it will be a while before he can play the piano again. Or hold a pencil, or feed himself, or get clean without help. It's all sorts of humiliating powerlessness and Kurt hates it, hates it with a ferocity that does not surprise him but just makes him angrier.
He is not the only suffering here, of course. All of New Directions stop by, bearing so many well-wishes that Kurt wants to tell them to leave it at the door. Well-wishes are like prayers to him, and though he has made his peace with religion as a personal tool of grief that does not mean he can handle it when his hands are swathed in white and useless. The Warblers and some friends Kurt made at Dalton outside the Warblers also visit, and instead of half-baked prayers Kurt gets so many flowers and impromptu song-and-dance numbers he feels like he's traversed a jungle and found a colony of blue-and-red howler monkeys. It's more pleasant sounding to be sure but the constant hectic noise gets to him, especially since his friends at McKinley aren't shy of expressing themselves through song as well.
Kurt does like it when people do individual visits. Rachel is surprisingly quiet, hands held eerily still as if she doesn't want to rub them in his face as she lists off songs she would love to do if they weren't unsuitable for show choir. Mercedes feeds him a steady stream of gossip of both the local and celebrity type and though it's the last thing he wants to do he finds himself participating because it's normal.
Finn actually tries to find a way to warm up the little milk cup they give Kurt and it's rib-crackingly funny, and when he gives up he just fluffs Kurt's pillows and asks if Kurt minds that Finn's been sleeping in his room sometimes; Kurt does mind, but he sees enough in Finn's sad eyes that he relaxes his personal boundaries and says it's alright. Blaine is just short of living in Kurt's hospital room, reading him Vogue or wildly gesticulating as he tells fantastic stories of Kurt's future life that always send him to Paris or Milan while making millions, and end with him married to -- "whoever you want," he finishes slyly, shyly, and Kurt wishes he could touch.
He can't though, and oddly enough the thing that hurts the most about this whole painful, humiliating situation is that his hands are useless. Kurt always figured that the one thing he would hate to lose in some freak accident, no matter how temporary, would be his voice. He doesn't expect to feel so cut-off and ruined due to injured hands, and to be so angry at himself for not appreciating how much those hands do for him.
Kurt can't hold his father's hand, and it kills him.
It's not like they hold hands on a regular basis normally, but whenever Kurt was feeling so thrown down and trampled on by the world, whenever he visited his sick father in the hospital, he could always reach out. Kurt may not have his mother's gentle arms anymore, but he does have his father's callused, broad hand and now he can't do anything to take the comfort that's freely offered. His dad lays his hand on down on the bed, palm-up, and Kurt's bandaged hands can do nothing but lie uselessly by his side. Occasionaly his dad will cup his hand over one of Kurt's injured ones in a ghost of a touch Kurt can't actually feel and that hurts more than just seeing it lying out of reach, because he can't do the once-simple motion of turning his hand over and clasp hands.
Kurt can feel himself retreating during his moments with his father as a result, but he can't help it. It's like a monster has its grips on his emotions, telling him that if it hurts so much already he shouldn't make it worse by pining after a single hand-hold. Kurt knows that once he's healed he'll be able to do it as much as he wants, but there won't be an excuse and most teenage boys don't go holding their father's hands for no reason. Kurt has a chance to now, to steal his dad's warm comfort and wear it like a house to weather the storm, and he's too proud to ask for it when he isn't so weak, when his barriers are back up and his strength is returned. Kurt hates himself for being like that and hates that his dad's eyes seem to say he understands.
Kurt looks forward to the day things are easy again but still difficult in the sense that he won't take advantage of what's always there. Until then he hums Beatles songs to himself, but never around his father because Beatles were his mother's thing, and never around his friends because they're the only ones who would understand the emotions behind it. Blaine sings with him, and Kurt thinks that one day he might explain it. Explain how the singularly most wonderful thing to ever happen to Kurt is the feel of his father's hand in his, twitching slightly as he finally responds. Hopefully, Kurt will be able to return the favour some day -- the thought is what keeps him going when he's finally left alone at night.
end