The Proper Way to Go From Bad to Worse

Generally I'm someone who goes with the flow. The big stuff roles off my shoulders and so does most of the other stuff, but sometimes the little things get to me in a big way. When my mood takes a turn, it makes it count, complete with body pushing momentum, two tires suspended in the air, and screaming pedestrians running for their lives. Cooper used to tell me I was the most over dramatic easygoing person he had ever met. I proved him right that first night I went to Kurt's dorm...

Kurt didn't tell me to but I made myself at home anyway, flopping onto his bed and settling myself comfortably against the pillows there. I had enough manners to toe off my shoes before I stretched my legs out at least.

Kurt studied me with a calculating expression. "Comfortable?"

"Yes, actually," I grinned. "You don't mind, do you?" I probably should have asked that first, but the damage was already done.

He lifted an eyebrow at me. "Does it matter?"

I smiled at him. "If you really wanted me to get up I might contemplate considering it."

On principle, I was a button pusher. My new favorite button to push was Kurt's. Still, if he had asked me to get up and meant it I probably would have done it.

"Contemplate considering it," he repeated slowly, eyebrows draw together. "Should I be flattered?" He sat himself down backwards on the cushioned bench in front of the desk that no longer looked like a desk. He had turned it into some sort of vanity table, complete with a humongous mirror that was bordered on all four sides with light bulbs. In front of the mirror sat a collection of jars that were to my guess filled with lotion or cream or some other crap people smeared on their skin.

I looked away from the jars and back at Kurt. "Oh, very." I grinned and shifted a bit against his pillows. "You don't have to try to entertain me or anything. Just do whatever you would normally do. I'm just here for the bed."

He rolled his eyes, but I could tell he was amused. With a shrug he spun on his bench to face the mirror and I remained still, content to lay back and watch him. He turned his music back on (something in French that I didn't recognize) and screwed the caps back on to the jars that had already been open when I came in. Then he pulled three others forward and opened those one at a time. His eyes flicked to mine in the mirror as he dipped his fingers in one of the jars and smeared it around on his fingers with his thumb. He looked away once he started applying the cream to his cheeks.

It was oddly fascinating to watch. I had never really gotten to know any of the guys I had been interested in, so I really didn't know much about them other than how tight their asses felt wrapped around my dick, but I liked to think that I wasn't into girly men. Before that night I would have put owning a vanity table and globing your face up with a zillion different lotions right up there with putting on a blonde wig and parading around in a dress, which was great and all if that's what you're into, but it wasn't for me.

Kurt surprised me, though. There was nothing feminine about what he was doing. Sure, his movements were soft in the way I imagined most women's would be, but I seriously doubted that a woman's biceps would flex under his rolled up sleeves the way Kurt's did as he moved his hand from the cream to his face and back again. And when he tipped his head back, the way his Adam's apple pressed against the skin of his neck and bobbed each time he swallowed was definitely not girly. And those leggings he was wearing... if that thigh-length sweater hadn't been in the way I was sure there would be a definite bulge there that a woman certainly wouldn't have.

I was transfixed. I was also really turned on.

Kurt's eyes found mine in the mirror again and his cheeks flushed. He squirmed a little in his seat. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

I ignored the pulse of blood between my legs and shrugged. "Watching you do that is way hotter than I thought it would be."

His mouth fell open. I heard him speak, but didn't comprehend the words because I was too busy staring at his lips. I heard the truth in my head, though: You can't just say things like that. We barely know each other.

"I know," I conceded his point. "But that doesn't make it any less true."

His expression told me he didn't know what to do with that bit of knowledge, and I didn't really know either, so I broke eye contact and looked up at the ceiling. I took a few breaths through my mouth.

"So," he said, trying and failing to sound nonchalant when his voice came at a higher pitch than what was normal, "what happened with Sebastian?"

"I whipped him in the nads." I grinned at the memory.

Kurt's eyes got wide. "You whipped him?"

"Relax, gorgeous, I didn't do it with a real whip or anything if that's what you were thinking. I had to improvise with my blazer, which was soaking wet because I used it as a towel so it connected a lot harder than it would have otherwise."

"That's not sadistic or anything," he commented dryly at the happy grin on my face and my detector corrected his sarcasm. My condition lumped sarcasm in with lies apparently so did Kurt's. I was learning a lot about him today.

"Hey, I had no choice," I argued. "He wouldn't get off my bed."

He deadpanned at me and I laughed at the look on his face. "Are you serious?" he asked.

I grinned at him. "You can whip me if you want to. I'll strip down for you and everything."

I had to admit, the thought of Kurt whipping me wasn't exactly unappealing. So long as he steered clear of my cock and balls, it might not be so bad. I was learning a lot about myself as well.

Kurt scowled at me, unimpressed.

"Just a suggestion, gorgeous. You might like it. Hell, I might like it, which would be a new thing for me."

He opened his mouth to say something but his cellphone cut him off. I was surprised to hear John Mellencamp's "Pink Houses."

Kurt wiped his hands on a towel before answering. "Hey, Dad," he greeted with a smile.

I didn't know if it was the volume on Kurt's phone or if his father just had a voice that carried, but I heard every word. "Hey, kid, do you know where my tie is? The gray one?"

"Which one?" Kurt asked.

"I have more than one gray tie?"

Kurt sighed. "What is Carole wearing?"

"Uhh... that blue dress I think. The one you got her for her birthday."

Kurt nodded. "It's not in your closet," he lied. It's in your closet.

"Closet. Right. Where in the closet? Around the bar, looped around a shirt-Kurt, what the hell is this thing? When did I get a hanger for ties?"

"Focus, Dad. Do you see them?"

"Yeah, I see 'em. A gray one and a light gray one. This hanger thing was a waste of money, kid. A regular hanger would have done the job just as good."

"Granite and gray marble, Dad. Wrinkles."

"Yeah, yeah. Which one am I going with here?"

"Granite." Gray marble.

"English, Kurt."

Kurt huffed. "The dark gray one." The light gray.

"Light gray. Got it. Thanks, Kurt. Wish me luck okay? I'll text you her answer later."

"Night, Dad."

"Love you, kid."

Kurt smiled but didn't reply. He disconnected the call. His smile became apologetic as he looked back at me. "My dad," he said.

I nodded because I didn't trust myself to speak just yet. Jealous was exactly the word to describe how I was feeling. There was an ugly pit right at the center of my stomach and with each word I replayed in my head from Kurt's conversation with his father, the pit got a little bit wider.

They had sounded perfect together, like the poster men for successful father-son relationships. The way they had maneuvered so effortlessly around Kurt's condition made my stomach ache. I didn't even know the man's name, but I knew without a doubt that Kurt's father would never make his son feel ashamed for being conditioned the way he was.

I finally found my voice. "Does he know you're gay?"

Kurt's truth echoed in my head: Yes, he knows.

Of course he knew. Suddenly the voice and the perfect conversation weren't enough. I had to torture myself with a face too.

"Do you have a picture of the two of you together?"

Kurt studied me for a second. He looked like he wanted to say something but in the end he pointed to the nightstand beside me and said nothing.

The man in the framed picture matched the gruff voice I had heard over the phone, but was completely different from the image I had created in my head of what accepting fathers with homosexual sons should look like. In my mind, those fathers, the accepting ones, were the more effeminate men, and effeminate Kurt's father was definitely not. He looked like someone who worked with his hands and wasn't afraid of dirt and sweat and grime. He looked like someone who had been on the football team in high school and maybe even college; the guy who had dated the all prettiest girls and expected his son to do the same. That was the man who had his arm around Kurt. He wasn't smiling, but he looked proud to have Kurt under his arm-Kurt with his head tilted to one side, a ready-and-perfect-for-the-camera smile on his face, hair purposely and perfectly styled, dressed in a gray shirt, black leggings, knee high boots, and a fucking skirt. They were standing in what appeared to be a car shop.

"What's his name?"

Kurt couldn't tell me of course, not verbally anyway. My detector had to do it for him, whispering Burt Hummel in my head. The picture went slack in my hands and I frowned. "How have they not locked you up?" I asked without really meaning to.

Kurt flinched at the question.

"I mean, SIIPA is ruthless, so how come they haven't put you away in an institution?"

I was surprised when he answered me. I hadn't expected him to.

"I don't know," he said softly. My aunt is my handler. She protects me.

My eyebrows shot up. "How is that possible? It's against SIIPA's policy for handlers to be related to their assignments." Well, it was supposed to be against policy. There were two exceptions to that rule.

Again, he told me he didn't know. She's not my blood relative. She was my mother's best friend.

I nodded and studied the picture of Kurt and Burt in my hands. "You're lucky," I told him, "to have a handler that cares about you."

Kurt frowned at me. "Are you okay?"

I tore my eyes away from Burt's proud eyes and grinned hollowly at the boy in front of me. "Not really, gorgeous, but I'll live."

Kurt stood up from the stool and walked over to sit beside me on the bed. He reached out with his right hand to take my left one and laced our fingers together. The gesture felt familiar by then and I let my body lean against his enough so that our shoulders would touch. We stayed that way for a long time.

I didn't leave Kurt's room until after one in the morning. He said good night to me with a worried frown on his face, but I was in a crap mood and once I got like that I tended to stay that way for a while, so my attempts to reassure him that I would be fine were half assed at best.

I was in one of those shit moods that really had no business being that serious. I mean, so Kurt's father was awesome and mine sucked. So what? I needed to get the fuck over it and stop acting like a fucking girl on her period.

I collapsed onto one of the couches in the lounge scowling and completely annoyed with myself.

I woke up a couple hours later feeling sleep deprived and pissed off. I wasn't a morning person on the best of days, but that morning my mood was especially fowl. It was lucky for Sebastian that he was out of my dorm by the time I dragged myself upstairs.

"There you are," Steven said as soon as I walked in. He placed his hands on his hips. "We need to talk about your penchant towards violence when it comes to-"

"Do me a favor, Steven, and just shut the fuck up. I'm not in the mood."

Steven blinked at me. "What's wrong with you?" he asked, confusion evident in his voice.

Steven and I didn't like each other, but our relationship usually didn't involve me talking to him like that. I would go out of my way to annoy him and get under his skin, but unless he did something to really piss me off, usually I was an ass and not an asshole. I wasn't about to apologize though.

Still frowning confusedly, he turned to look over at his desk. I really just wanted to take a shower and clear my head so I left him to do whatever it was he was doing and started searching around on the floor for a blazer that wasn't still soaked. I realized too late that I probably shouldn't have left the one from the night before balled up on the floor.

I had barely started looking when an obnoxious groan escaped Steven's lips. "Oh my god, forget I asked. I forgot the last Saturday of the month is this week."

I froze bent over one of my larger piles of clothing. "What?"

There was no way. There was just no way I had forgotten.

Steven looked at me like I had three heads. "You didn't know?"

I shoved by him in my hurry to see for myself, completely forgetting that I had a calendar on my phone, which was in my pocket. That pit that had formed in my stomach the night before grew as I looked over month of September on Steven's desk calendar. Steven was one of those narcotic people who crossed off each day with a large black X, and sure enough, the Xs indicated that it was Thursday, two days before Saturday the twenty-fourth, which was indeed the last Saturday in September.

"You seriously didn't know?" Steven asked as he came to stand beside me. "What's got you in such a bad mood then?"

I didn't answer him. My head was a mess. I had never forgotten before. The last Saturday of the month was always there in the back of my mind, taunting me with the promise of good and bad things to come.

Guilt settled in and stayed with me throughout the day. I went through the motions of going to class, which mostly consisted of staring out the window. Kurt watched me, looking worried, but I was too busy trying to mentally prepare myself for what I should have been preparing for all week to respond to his worried looks.

I sang like shit at Warblers practice. Wes grimaced often, but bit his tongue and kept pushing us as if I didn't sound like dying cat. After practice, I showered for over an hour. When I got back to the dorm, I pulled Sebastian off of Steven and propelled him into the hallway before slamming the door in his stunned face. It was way too early to try, but I struggled to force myself to sleep. I managed it eventually but woke up several times during the night.

On Friday, Kurt kept giving me odd looks in class but otherwise didn't try to communicate with me, which I was grateful for. My singing at practice was even worse than it had been the day before and Wes ended practice early.

I didn't avoid Kurt that night. I couldn't. There were some things I had to do to get ready for the next day, but I couldn't face the thought of going by myself despite the fact that I had always gone alone before.

I knocked on Kurt's door dressed in jeans, a black hoodie, and my nearly worn out converse. My hair was still soaking wet from my shower; the chill I would feel once I was outside would help unscramble my thoughts. Kurt answered the door in his white leggings, but his sweater tonight was green and it fell off one shoulder. I noticed Sebastian sitting on his own bed for a change, and he glared when he saw me. It was strange to see him fully clothed outside of class.

"Go away," Sebastian said, obviously still upset over the night before.

I ignored him. I didn't want to go inside anyway. I wanted Kurt to come out. "I have to go somewhere. Will you come with me?" I asked softly enough that Sebastian wouldn't be able to hear. Not because it was a secret, or anything. I just wanted to annoy him.

Kurt gestured to his outfit.

"I can wait for you to change."

I waited Kurt to get changed sitting in the hallway against the wall opposite Kurt's dorm with my head tilted back. I tried not to think too much about the next day. It was going to be one of the really bad ones.

I looked at the clock on my phone. Less than twelve hours now.

Kurt came out looking perfect and beautiful, like always. His jeans were almost as form fitting as his leggings, but it was the shirt that caught my attention and held it for a few seconds. The sweaters he wore with his leggings were long and loose, more for comfort than style in my opinion, though I was pretty sure each one of them cost more than my entire outfit. The button-up shirt he was wearing wasn't loose or long. It was tucked into his pants to show off his long legs and it clung nicely to his chest. Not too tight, but tight enough to prove that his upper body was definitely nice to look at. His shoulders were broad and looked powerful and I felt the truly strange desire to curl my arms around his neck and rest them there. I was turning into such a fucking sap.

I stood up. "Come on. We'll take my car."