Chapter 11

-Part II-

In the past he had never appreciated having people to lean on. They had been nannies to him, advisors but never worthy enough to be called friends. It took him seven years to come to the realization that trust was best placed in their hands since they were the only ones sharing his burdens.

It was too late now, they knew

. Somehow all of them knew that he had backstabbed them and every step with his jittery legs was accompanied by another glare and another insult. Hunter trudged behind him, making sure that Kurt would not go anywhere but his former apartment. As if he had a place to run to, as if he really had a reason to fight. He had not. That was why it didn´t hurt as much when Santana flung her stiletto at him, yelling at him in Spanish. He just kept on putting one foot in front of the other with Hunter´s snickering like a soundtrack to the walk to his condemned future.

His eyes were downcast and his shoulders slumped further with every person he recognized. His world tilted dangerously before he processed the pain in both his shoulders and stared at Nick in shock. Dizzily Kurt supported his weight with a hand to the wall he had collided with after being shoved. Then he kept on walking, every word being yelled at him leaving a cut he supposed he would feel later, when he did no longer feel numb.
“You fucking bastard!” Nick grunted because people kept on restraining him.”Don´t walk away! I will fucking kill you for this! You self-serving, lying piece of shit, when I get you alone I-“
Hunter´s voice cut him off. “That´s quite enough! Go back into your rooms. I am sure you have work to get to.”

The muttered curses were loud enough to pierce through Kurt´s conscious but as soon as he stood in front of his apartment door, reality started to blur. This was the last time he would go in there, of that he was sure. For years this door had lead him into the closest thing resembling a home he would ever get to and while the majority of memories clinging to this house were clinging to him like the breaths of the men using him, in there he had found an escape. In here he had kept Finn save, had watched him grow up and now that would just be added to a collection of things too painful to be visited.

The doorknob in his hand was moist with the sweat of his palm until he understood that he had been standing there for several minutes. Hunter seemed to wait patiently until Kurt turned it and stepped inside. The first thing Kurt noticed was the placement of the furniture was off. Then the missing smell that usually filled his apartment with live and finally how clean the floor was without Finn´s stuff littering. He turned to Hunter questioningly before he noticed the man still standing a few steps behind him, outside of the threshold.

“You have twenty minutes to bring me all your money and take a few things with you. The rest will be burned.”

For a lack of things to say, Kurt nodded. There were no positive feelings attachable to Hunter and yet he was grateful for this tiny act of kindness before he would be punished. Even as he dared to shut the door he felt no resistance and in the silence and solitude of his home he finally let go of his restrictions. His limbs gave in under him and he didn´t notice the shaking of his own body until he looked at his jittery hands that acted as catch tank for his tears.

His whole past would soon be kept under lock and this was his last chance to try and hold onto the shadows of it. Kurt felt like he would join the shadows soon.

When the crying finally stopped he noticed the crack in Finn´s door and the colorful interior inside as he had left it. Once upon a time he had sat at the same spot in his old house, crying and stuck, peeking into a room he would leave behind when they would come the police arrived.

There was not much he remembered about his past life before Finn. There were a few vivid memories etched into his brain that he could replay like an old tapes that the longer he let them untouched, the worse the quality got until parts of it were skipped or blurred. The functioning ones he treasured for the darkest nights, but nowadays everything was drenched in darkness and with every passing hour the light dimmed more and more.

Some of them consisted of colors, smells and impressions, especially when they concerned his childhood. When he closed his eyes, he could almost replace the stale smell with that of the batch of cookies his grandmother had made. The smell of dirt and wood of when they had wandered through the forest. The clean smell of linen when his mother let his blanket fall down on him to make him giggle before she cuddled him in before she read him his favorite book. The scent of oil he had been greeted by whenever he visited his father at work. His home reeking of smoke when his mother had fallen down while making dinner and couldnt get up to shut down the oven. The stench of medicine and chemical cleaning agents making him gag now that he remembered why that was the most familiar to him.

He remembered his father, a broad man who always smelled sweet and sharp but was always so soft when he carried Kurt around. His voice was gruff and often Kurt thought he was being reprimanded but he also remembered never hearing a single bad word against him. Instead he recalled the smell of him changing as it slowly turned into that of the hospital. His mum´s had done that long before his, going from floral to sterile. Apart from smell he remembered the deep sadness of the one conversation in particular. The voice of his father was lost by now but he remembered the overall tone very easily.

That day was colored bright in his mind, vivid in the things he recollected like his teacher´s joke or the rain making his new jacket so wet that he cried because he thought it was ruined. Then the moment that had made his day so much more happy, had him run home so fast his knee got scraped up as he had tripped and fallen on the small staircase of his house. He had barely felt the pain but he had seen the blood. His father was putting on his shoes when Kurt entered.

“Dad, Dad, I´ve got the part! They have me playing Pinocchio! Candis said Wendy would be more fitting, like this is Peter Pan when it is not. Mr.Harris got mad at her for it, but, I , I got the part in the end and Lenny did not which made him very sad!”

His father´s face did not look happy, which dampened his mood slightly. A drawn sigh left his father´s  mouth instead of laughter.”That is great, Kurt.” It did not sound convincing.”But I have to tell you something as well.”

“Where is Mom? The play is in a few weeks and she has got to put it in her calendar before she forgets it again.”

“Kurt?” His father obstructed the way.”Kurt, bud, listen to me. Your Mommy will not be able to come and watch.”

“What?” Instantly tears were blurring his vision.

“Your mom´s condition is getting worse, so we have to be extra careful with her. F or now she has to spend some time in the hospital so people can look over her better than we can. It is why even though she is your biggest fan, she will have to miss your play. Maybe I can record it though and we will watch it together on the screen, huh bud?”

Kurt shook his head.”Ca-cant she take this one day off?”

“That is not how it works. You know she would do that if she could.”

In that moment he had felt like everything mattered more than him to others. He had been young and selfish until his dad explained to him what it meant to sacrifice some things for the people you love. Even the things important to you.

“No one ever cares for me!” He had screamed, over the hiccup accompanying his tears. ”All you care about is mommy and all mommy cares about is Grandma and no one ever cares for me.”

“Your mom and I care so deeply for you, but that doesnt mean that we cannot love other people as well.” His dad said calmly.

Kurt struggled out of his father´s hug. “Then why wont you come to my play?”

“Because sometimes you have to think about what is more important. If you could make someone who is sad better when you share your candy, would you do it?”

Kurt frowned and wiped away a tear.”Not my banana Go-Gurt!”

The shape of his shoes was what he remembered about this conversation the most. How he had played with his zips as fresh tears ran down his cheeks.

“Not even with your Mommy?”

“Of course Mommy can have some. You could too.”

Burt had hummed.“And who would be the person you would save from the dragon?”

Without hesitation he let his father wipe the remains of tears from his face. He had still smelled sweetly then.”You and mummy and a prince.”

“Even if you were scared of the dragon?”
“Yes! I would always save you two!”

His father engulfed him in his arms once more, crushing him against his big belly.”You see, sometimes you have to make small and sometimes you have to make bigger sacrifices. What is important is that you do it for the people you love.”

That conversation still rang with such clarity because it had become his mantra. In the following months he had watched his mother become sicker and sicker until she couldn't leave her bed anymore. She only ever did to walk to the phone whenever Grandma would call. She said she did it when Grandma needed her because she did not have anybody else and his Mom would rather work up the energy to walk a few steps than to leave her alone. Kurt´s mom had always been his idol and he spent her last days imitating her former persona that had been replaced by the mere shadow of what had once been so bright. He had put on her heels, her lip-stick and her perfume, even under the criticizing eyes of his father to then marsh on the makeshift catwalk in front of her bed. Kurt presented his clothes with her accessories to make her laugh and be brighter again. With one of the cameras she always filmed him and said she would show it to Granny but his Grandma never came to watch the tapes. He was fine with that, it was her show alone.

In school he got bullied a lot whenever he wore her bright scarves or her lilac perfume but he had come to realize that his own discomfort was outweighed by his mother´s joy and he understood his father´s words so much better then. The bullying stopped shortly after when he dropped out of school prior to the premiere of the school play, as being homeschooled would benefit his mother´s health. Her immune system could not withstand a simple illness like the flu, but Kurt was very willing to give up on Pinocchio if that meant that he could spent more time with his mom at home.

“Kurt,” Her whispery voice had said in one of the conversations he did remember.”Tell me about your future. What do you think will happen once you have grown-up?”

He had pondered about that, the thought about being an adult exciting. His Dad had entered the room at some point and sat down next to her on the bed, taking her frail hand in his giant one. She had looked at him like she often looked at Kurt, her eyes full of life even if her body had weakened.

“In the future, you will be healthy, Mom, and then you can go out again and buy new stuff that I can show you. And then I can take care of my little sister or brother and I make sure to protect them from all the bullies in the world!” giddily he jumped on the corner of her bed. ”I will go to college and learn to sing just like the people in those musical movies do and this time you can come and watch the show. Maybe I will even play Pinocchio there with many, many people to watch who give me flower afterwards. And then I want to have a giant marriage, with a huge cake and expensive suits and perfect music. You will be there and Daddy and my siblings will be too and I want to love this person the way you love each other and then we will kiss and it won´t be yucky. “He giggled at this atrocious thought. “I will have a house just like ours, with a garden where my three children can play in. Dad can build a hoop swing like I have at Grandma´s house and me and my love will watch them grow bigger and bigger. Maybe we can even own a dog or a cat, I am not sure which. Maybe even both. On Sundays we will go to the park, on Wednesday to the waffle house and on Fridays we come and visit you. And when I am old I will make sure to call you every day, no matter how busy I am and to bake cookies the way Grandma does for you.”

It was easier to comprehend why she had cried now, why his Dad sounded so chokes when he answered, ”Oh, Kurt, I am not sure-” but had broken off to never end his sentence. Her days were numbered, Burt had known that, but neither had known the future to be such a fickle and heartless creature.

His vision of the future had been so pathetic and naive that Kurt scoffed at it now, his fists hitting the ground. He must have always been wrong and twisted, because if there was a thing like fate, it had to have its reason to turn him into this. The only cause for hitting high notes was whenever he was fucked and not for the sake of music. Instead of protecting the people he loved, he had left them with scars. His only drive, his only purpose now was the pleasure of other men and the memories of their hands groping and their dicks slamming into him. They only served to taint the few happy memories he had. Love, marriage, a little house, all of those things were a fantasy he had long gotten rid off before they imbedded themselves to become something he would long for.

Slowly, the specs of happiness dimmed as he recalled memories much sharper in his mind. The day his grandmother died and his mother stopped talking and only stayed in bed. She would not even look at him. His father got quieter too and he never managed to read to Kurt like his mother did. He never laughed at Kurt dressing up. He never laughed period. Of course he remembered the biting smell of burned chicken for dinner and the day his father had snapped at him for putting on his mother´s perfume. The tears on his father´s face when his mother did not wake up one morning and the harsh, cold words of the people who carried her out. He had wanted to be taken with her, had held on to her hand until his dad pulled him away.

The silence in the house only grew after that, with no music playing, no voice sounding, no TV playing. It had felt like his parents were both dead even before Burt went out to shovel snow a few weeks later to never return. It had taken hours and Kurt remembered every minute of them, before he went to look outside and found the glittering snow turned red near his father´s head.

Slipped, cracked and gone, like Kurt found himself wanting to do now with Finn gone. He could vanish so easily with no further word.

Two funerals, two small families all dressed in black and still not a unity as they avoided any proximity to Kurt. He had worn his mother´s perfume and scarf and his father´s far too big base cap, the only color popping out in the sea of darkness. The sadness of that day still clung to him even now and he did not bother to wipe away stray tears.
Neither of his relatives allowed him into their houses but at that moment he had not felt any remorse.

He stood up now, struggled to go to the couch but halfway through he had to rest at his couch. His breath got caught while he looked at the dark green smudge on the floor, Finn had left there on day when he had colored outside of the paper. It was the same color of  Greenwich´s Orphanage and it still made him sick.

The sadness had weighted too much to feel anything but the pain and the weeks of being handled by the government before his arrival at Greenwich´s Orphanage were a big gaping hole in his memory. The first thing he recalled after the chasm of his mind was the bright green color the orphanage had on the in and outside. Then a sweet smell and the room he shared with three other kids. Rosa, Lucas and Steven and how they were of different ages with Lucas being the one closest to his.

 That was all he knew of them for a very long time because he never got out of bed when he was not forced to. He constantly cried, slept and woke up with nightmares he then cried from as if the circle of the last weeks picked up again. He was mostly left alone, even though he started taking in everything like a sponge that never lost its capacity after the numbness faded. He still knew that Connelia, one of the social workers, had yellow fingertips from smoking too much and that she had a boyfriend who always looked at the teenage girls in the orphanage for too long. That Rosa always sorted her socks every few hours and always pretended to be tough as she would beat boys but always sobbed when she mumbled about her flaws as she wrote in her diary. Steven was colorblind, Eric was sneaking food into his room, and Lucas could not walk without crutches.

Every other day when he was forced out of his bed, he had felt David and Warner watch him with squinted eyes before they shoved Lucas into the doorframe , or when they tied the laces in his shoes so his dysfunctional leg would no longer support his weight and he´d crash. How they had beat Lucas one time when he spoke up against them. The bullied were always watching him like they threatened him to be the next if he ever did more than sleep and cry in his bed. He had no intent on ever doing anything else, especially when fear slithered under his skin whenever they entered his room to make Lucas´ life worse. They watched him in challenge and left when he never interfered.

The day they snatched away Lucas´ crutch right in front of him and he watched the boy fall backwards was the day he awoke from his stupor. Lucas head had bumped loudly onto the floor that day and a vision of stark red snow flashed before Kurt´s eyes. Lucas had then been still on the floor and the laughter of the bullies had subsided.

So very still like his mother. Cracked like his father.

Kurt had not said anything to Warner as he was yelled at for gaping too long and had not helped Lucas before they hadn´t vanished. He only had dared to go and check his pulse then, like he had for his father, had forcefully heaved the smaller boy onto his bed and laid the crutches next to it. He had undone his mother´s scarf afterwards and wrapped it around the boy´s wrist several times.

This tiny boy needed protection, his protection and apart from the scarf and base cap, what else had he to give from his parents but that?

He had gone to his favorite social worker that night, the one who was genuinely concerned about their well-being and told on them, but not before filling their pillows with bugs and worms he had gathered from outside, not before buttering up their threshold and not before smashing their video games. The social workers kept Lucas safe from then on and even though Lucas had never acknowledged his protector, Kurt would sometimes find a new drawing on a piece of paper that was placed on his sheets. On the nights that they bullied him as his substitute, the drawing would still bring him smiles.

The truth was that having something to focus on had filled his life with purpose again. Like a fresh breath of air after suffocating, even if he got hurt in the process. Being a shield had made him leave his bed day after day. That was the reason why, when they arrived, they noticed him.

His elated feelings from that day clashed noisily with those of the hatred he felt towards them now. The Hudsons were a big part of the reason his life went downhill from then on but he could not deny how happy he had felt in the first weeks of knowing them. Not even with their memory tainted by knowledge.
“Oh my god, button-nose!” He remembered the grown-woman with the blond bob saying. It was her nickname for him that stuck. “What is your name?”

“K-Kurt?”

The Hudsons, mostly Mrs. Hudson. had asked him questions referring to his age and hobbies and his parents, the last one choking him up and she needed to shush him.. She was a sweet woman, slightly softer features and a high voice and full of energy. The clothes when he hugged her smelled bitterly and he remembered liking her eyes because the pupils were so huge, but they had always been this way because she never was sober, which he only were to know later on.

The man standing next to her was intimidating through his height and yet the red flannel shirt had filled Kurt with nostalgia and the man was nicer than he looked.
The day they had seen him, him who people always passed by for another child, a younger child, a normal child, that day he thought he had found another family. It only took three weeks for them to get the right to be their foster parents and every bruise he had from the bullying finally had the potential to fade. Warner and David scowled at him while he smiled at them at the dinner table the last day before they would come and get him out.
Lucas had helped him pack hours after, both being quiet because they barely knew the other. It felt like the first time when Lucas finally spoke up. “Thank you. For everything uhm- I still have that scarf of yours and I haven´t let it be washed yet so I´m sorry-“

“Keep it.” He said and he had not regretted it then, but now he thought he could use the calming presence of his mother´s belongings.
“Do you think that those people are nice?” Lucas had asked, gently squeezing the yellow scarf in his hands.”I heard about children being returned by their fosters. Maybe you will come back here and we could be friends?”

Kurt had smiled.”I don´t think I will. They really seem to like me and I like them.”

Lucas looked at him before shrugging, which turned out to be the only goodbye he would get, as Cornelia came in then followed by the Hudsons. A last longing gaze from Lucas, then he turned his back on the green always surrounding him with its sick presence and went to go not the next circle of hell.

It was harder now to drag himself away from the memories now, but not as hard as it was walking into Finn´s room and seeing that they had left this room untouched. There the scatter was still as intact as unplanned chaos could be but it served to calm him. Signs of Finn being left alone during the week of Kurt´s punishment were apparent in the candy wrappers and plates on the bed and Kurt sat down, taking a deep breath to savor the smell clinging to the room.

Finn hadn´t smelled like this on the day they met. His room had been a mixture of baby oil and a kind of stench Kurt had not been able to place. In the moment he hadn´t cared since his mind was addled because of the mixed feelings he felt toward the shy toddler pulling at the  tail of the cat while giggling.
“This is our son Finn.” Mr. Hudson said.”Finn let go of Mors right now!”

Kurt did not flinch at the yelling, not like Finn did, because he was a good boy. He would just have to be a good boy and he would never be of the receiving end of anyone's anger. Still he looked at Finn and saw the threat in him. The potential to shatter every hope of having a new family that loved him, because they already had a child. A younger one, a normal one and they would likely never love Kurt the way they did their son. All his life he had been forced to take a step back in favor for others and the only time he had wanted to be the center of his new parent´s attention it was snatched away by this toddler. By this quiet little boy who had scrambled to hide behind his bed frame when he was being screamed at.

In the following weeks Kurt had come to despise Finn. No matter what he did, no matter what perfect grades he had, no matter how well he sung, all the attention was snatched away from Finn who could never do right. They were polar opposite. Kurt was the good boy, Finn the bad and yet he was always discarded because Finn needed reprimanding. That was the reason he stopped taking pity on Finn whenever he was scolded or got lightly hit on the back of his head.

On rainy days the house would smell weird and his new mom would be very happy. Too happy to play cards with Kurt, too happy to watch TV because she couldn´t sit still. Later Kurt found out that the medicine he watched her snort in being the cause for her good mood and being the good boy, he never asked her about it. Finn did and Finn had gotten scolded and hit in front of his eyes.
That night he couldn´t sleep, wondering if sooner or later they would do the same with him. He couldn´t stay perfect forever, it started to strain him even now, a month later and when he messed up, maybe they would no longer be that nice to him. Until that day came, he would try and be the best he could be and if that included lying, so be it.

It didn´t take long for him to screw up. One second he wasn´t careful and the next thing he knew was mom´s medicine covering the floor  next to the wooden box she kept it in. he must have ran against the piano on which top it sat. Finn had come awkwardly waddling towards the noise, looking at him with his giant brown eyes.
“I-Is Kurtsy hurt? One time in kindergard-“
“What happened here?” Dad had thundered then and the talkative toddler retreated back into his shell making himself smaller.”Is that-? Who is responsible for this?”

The lie had come so easily. He didn´t want to be screamed at or hit.”Finn! I saw him climb on the piano and drop the box.”
Maybe, that day, if he had not lied, if he had done something more than watch Finn be dragged away and yelled at, maybe he would have found out sooner. Instead he felt like his new parents still loved him and he just did more to make up for his mistake.

The memories of the Hudsons was so much sharper than that of his real family. While the smile of his mother was fading like the contours of the face he tries to recall, Mrs. Hudson's anger lined features were still so clear to him even now. The way she would sometimes forget to take a shower, the way she would cuddle Kurt but never Finn. The way she would paint his nails red like hers or watch him do the laundry, the dishes, the vacuum cleaning. She was always friendly when she wasn´t angry and that were the two emotions she was capable of. Finn made her angry, made her lash out and scream at Finn how much she hated him before returning to Kurt and telling him how good he was. How Finn should be more like him.
Mr. Hudson always insisted on being called Daddy and he was a busy man. He seldom had time to spent with his children and yet he always was there the minute Finn did something wrong. The time when Finn took a match and tried to burn a worm in the garden, the time Finn peed on the couch and the time Finn walked over the street in front of their house on his own. All these times Kurt watched the boy shrink as his cheek was slapped or he was being dragged down the staircase into the attic when he did something really wrong. After the time in the attic Finn would not be allowed out of his room for a week and Kurt wasn´t allowed to see him either.
Not that he wanted to but with passing time the anger had subsided. How was he supposed to be jealous of someone who was constantly told that he wasn´t loved by his parents? Finn´s parents now loved Kurt, so maybe it was time to share some love he was given with his new brother.
They often were left alone, with Kurt being the babysitter, but that mostly happened when Finn was supposed to stay in his room. That one day, after Finn had been punished for biting into his mother´s arm, Kurt slid into his room after the Hudsons were gone for the evening.
Finn´s room was bland and Kurt only noticed that now. A toy or two was put way up high on a shelf but other than that Finn only had a tiny bed and a dresser. For a second Kurt panicked when He couldn´t see Finn until he noticed the bump on the bed and the sniffling.
“Finn? Do you want to play something?” Kurt asked attentively as he sat on the edge of the bed.

“G-go away!”

“Mom and Daddy are gone and I thought we can try and be like brothers. What do you say? Don´t you want to play games with your big brother?”

He lifted the blanket a bit to reveal the wet cheeks of the toddler and the angry eyes.”You lied! Daddy was an´ry be-because of you!”

“I´m sorry. I want to make up for it.” Kurt lifted more of the blanket to stare at Finn and the brown spots on the linen he lay on. He couldn´t place them then but now they made him take in a sharp gasp of air as he connected the smudges to dried blood.

“Yo-you just tell Daddy again.”

“I won´t. Come on let´s play with cars or whatever you want.”

Finn´s face softened then but he still kept on crying.”I can´t. My body has ouchies!”

They didn´t play that night because Kurt had gotten impatient and had left him alone. It had made him angry that Finn would refuse and his past hatred reared its head once more. It wasn´t until an indefinite time later, he heard a loud cry out of the attic one night. He was scared, of course he was, because the attic was a place where the shadows could hide any possible danger, and yet he had to think of his father and how Kurt had not looked for him until it was too late. Hesitantly he had made his way downstairs, the base cap of his father wrung in his hands as he slowly approached the muffled sound of crying after the sharp sound of air being cut.
In the present, Kurt gripped tightly onto the bed while the pain of memories crashed into him and made him hold onto the sheets in need of being anchored to the here and now instead of the horrors of the past.

Blood. Finn´s tiny back covered in welts and bruises. In blood. He was bleeding. Why was he bleeding? Daddy, who stood leaning over him said nothing as the small belt, surely taken from one of Finn's toddler jeans, snapped through the air before hitting flesh.
´Da-Daddy what are you doing?´ was what he had wanted to say. What he actually did was feel the first time of his chest being bound and restricted by a sharp coil, so that his lungs did not receive a breath he was taking. Then he puked right onto his feet the moment his new daddy turned to him with the belt raised.