Chapter Text
December 3, 2011
"Get up."
As he swam out from under his deep sleep, Kurt processed Finn's words and promptly ignored them. His eyes were closed but he could feel clouds overhead. Winter was bearing down with heavy, wet snow and short days. A long series of icy rainstorms had left their home in a state of perpetual gloom, and it had become increasingly difficult to get up each morning. Carole worried about depression. He preferred the term "hibernation."
"Get up," Finn said more insistently. "It's eleven. You've got stuff to do." Kurt mumbled something into his pillow and pulled his blankets more securely around him. "You told me to not let you sleep in," Finn pointed out. "And I think eleven is pretty much, uh, 'in.'"
"I'll do it later," he said. He slit his eyes open when Finn made more noise, but the sight of snow mixed with rain outside his window was hypnotic. Kurt felt his eyes fall inexorably closed.
He hadn't reacted like that last winter, and he suspected one explanation above all others: safety. The previous winter had brought plenty of white, fluffy snow while that December threatened to be greyer and wetter, but the real difference was his comfort level. That year his life had been in turmoil, and his first grab at real safety had been a temporary guesthouse. Now they were in their own, permanent home. His room had plate glass windows looking west into the valley and south across the mountains. His mother's dresser was carefully positioned in a corner. The adjoining bathroom's shower was more like a tiled room, with two rainfall-style heads and a multitude of steam vents. Everything was perfect.
"Oh, come on," Finn said. "You're just sleeping. You can get up." After a pause he reached down and ripped the covers off Kurt, and then waited expectantly.
Kurt yawned, curled up more tightly where he lay, and spread a wing across himself to replace the lost blanket.
"...Right," Finn decided before he reached down, scooped Kurt up, and began carrying him out into the hall. "You told me to get you up," he reminded Kurt, who yawned yet again and then went slack against his chest. Despite Carole's concern, he wasn't troubled at all by his sudden fatigue. By that point he felt that his changes had gone about as far as they ever would and he'd started to become accustomed to new impulses. During winter storms when he couldn't fly, no food grew, and he had a safe refuge, his body wanted to let the useless hours pass by in sleep.
"Was he still asleep?" Carole asked when they'd gone down two flights of stairs and Finn presented Kurt pointedly to her. "I really think something's wrong."
"Not wrong," Kurt said sleepily. Being held out like that, aware that Finn could drop him, was enough of a threat to keep him awake. "It's just bad outside, and...." His jaw cracked with its biggest yawn yet. "And it's safe in here. I told you. It's like hibernating. I mean. I assume."
Finn, grumbling, put him down on the floor. The stones were cold against Kurt's bare feet, which did help wake him. "I have been in school all week," he said through a thin smile. "And you were supposed to clean the bathrooms. And kitchen. And... well, pretty much everything."
"I will," Kurt said, but his gaze began to wander back toward the stairs. "I think the sun'll come out in a few days," he finally said in a bargaining tone. "I'll wake up more then. And I'll clean."
Finn actually grabbed the top of his head and forced him to look away from the stairs. As Kurt whined he said in a low voice, "Look, I've got finals coming up and Burt's working six days a week at the garage. So you need to help."
"I cooked," Kurt pointed out. And he had; he'd used his rare hours awake that week to keep the fridge stocked with leftovers in convenient portions.
"Okay," Finn allowed. "But you've already let the cleaning go way too long, and pretty soon Mom's going to give in and do it herself. If she can." Carole was nearly full term by that point. The twins were clearly heavy and her walk was beyond awkward. "So if you need coffee or whatever then I will make it, but wake up."
"No, you make terrible coffee." Kurt rubbed his eyes and tried to focus on the discomfort of the cold stones. "Okay. I'm up."
Three hours later Carole found him slumped over the side of a bathtub. "Are you sure you're all right?" she asked gently as she prodded him awake with her foot. "You fell asleep in the middle of cleaning. That's a little extreme, Kurt."
He turned on the faucet and splashed a handful of cold water into his face. "No. No, I'm fine. It's just been so wet and windy that I can't go outside, and it's so warm and safe inside. Believe me, I can tell that nothing's wrong. It's right, really. That's how I can trust enough to sleep."
"Oh. Well, it's good that you feel so safe," she said. "You go back upstairs and sleep for a while, and maybe you can do a little more cleaning after your nap. I appreciate what you've already done, so just help out like you can."
"Are you kidding me?" Finn asked as he gawked at the sight of Kurt walking past his door and into his room. He trailed behind him and said, "You are not going back to sleep, dude."
"It'll be sunny in a few days," Kurt said as he happily burrowed back under his heavy blankets.
"No it won't, the forecast says—" Finn cut off when Kurt looked at him pointedly, and rolled his eyes. "Fine. It'll be sunny in a few days."
"I do work a lot normally, Finn. And I will. Then. Later." Finn tried to rouse him but Kurt found the words increasingly easy to ignore, and he was soon out for another two hours. A glowering face was waiting for him when he woke. "Have you been sitting there all this time?" he asked, squinting at Finn in the lamp-lit darkness.
"Just checking, it was good timing. I finished cleaning the bathrooms, by the way."
"Oh." Kurt smiled. "Thanks."
"Not 'thanks,'" Finn seethed. "I don't know if you're faking this or not, but you don't get to just sleep all the time when I am losing my mind during senior year and our mom is about to need a trip to the hospital."
"I'm not faking," Kurt said as he sat up. "It's been... what, a solid month of bad weather?"
"You went through bad weather last winter!"
"That was just cold and snowy. This has been too wet and windy for me to be outside. It's unusual. Next winter will be different." He smiled proudly. "Hey, I can feel it out a whole year. That's the first time."
"I don't care!" Finn exclaimed. "Clean the kitchen!"
"We have to finish putting up the Christmas decorations," Kurt said as he rolled out of bed. When Finn once again told him to clean the kitchen, now, Kurt made a face at him and walked toward the hall. "It's really not my fault, Finn," he grumbled as he skimmed lightly down the flight of stairs. They made no sound under him, while Finn sounded like a cattle stampede. "I was telling Carole that I feel so safe here. I know nothing will happen to me, and this is apparently the result."
Finn eyed him and said nothing. His gaze sharpened when Burt, back from his Saturday work at the garage, suggested that Finn team up with Kurt to tackle the kitchen more quickly. Kurt shrugged apologetically and said he didn't have to, but there really wasn't anything to be done. He could no sooner stop responding to the natural world around their house than the three of them could stop aging, and finally feeling safe and secure had let those instincts out to play at full strength. "Just put things away in the cabinets," he told Finn. "I'll handle the actual cleaning."
"Fine," Finn grumbled. He hesitated in front of one cabinet, looked at Kurt, and then went back to work.
The next day no one woke Kurt up. He yawned, looked over to the clock, and saw that it was past noon. He felt like he could get at least four hours awake before he felt compelled to take another nap; hopefully he could put them to good use. Stretching, he climbed out of bed, picked out clothes, and ambled into the bathroom. He began brushing his teeth and habitually turned to check on how feathers were resting, even though they'd soon be under the blast of a showerhead.
He choked on his toothbrush, spit out foam onto the floor, and threw the brush against the sink. With an expression of utter horror Kurt fluffed out his wings and stared at the gaudy stripes of red, yellow, and blue scoring many of the feathers. He grabbed for one; it was dry and the color didn't come off.
Kurt's eyes narrowed as he realized which cabinet had caught Finn's attention, and he bolted for the third-story landing. "Finn!" he yelled down into the open atrium above the living room. "You are dead!"
"I added more to the shopping list," Finn said sweetly, only to go wide-eyed when Kurt pitched himself over the side of the railing, just barely caught himself from smashing against the floor, and leapt for Finn's throat as soon as he landed. "Stop it!" he said as he tried to disentangle Kurt.
"...What did you do to his wings, Finn?" Burt tiredly asked as he took in the sight before them.
"Food coloring," Finn giggled as he got the advantage and pinned Kurt against the wall by his wrists. "If he sleeps all the time, then he'll have to be afraid of me dying the feathers. So he won't feel safe enough to blow off his chores."
"I swear to God I will kick you in the balls," Kurt said as he struggled against Finn's hands, realized it was futile, and then assessed how they were standing. His threat made Finn release him in a moment, and with a triumphant crow Kurt lunged for his throat again.
That was when Carole announced that her water had broken.
Finn did poorly on his finals that semester.