Chapter Text
warnings: non-con, self-harm, suicide, incest (parental abuse). PLEASE HEED THE WARNINGS. I cannot stress this enough.
Chapter One-
Kurt wakes up in the morning aching all over. Bruises run along his skin, covering his thighs, and a bite mark on his shoulder. One of his wrists is sore and raw from being tied to the headboard. He can hear Finn in the bathroom which connects their rooms, so he sits and waits, staring at the carpet while the events of last night play over and over in his head. He doesn't know how it happened. How something like this could have happened.
When Finn returns to his own room, Kurt stands and winces at the sting to his backside, then shuffles to the bathroom door, which he opens slowly, painfully. The mirror shows a boy, just a few years shy of being a man, with wide, staring eyes. He'd kept them closed the whole time, his face pressed into the pillow beneath him in the hopes of suffocating himself out of the situation.
The shower is scalding hot at first, but Finn's managed to use up the hot water because it soon turns tepid, then morphs into ice cold. Kurt doesn't care. He stays huddled under the water for almost an hour, until Finn bangs on the door and asks when he's coming out.
He yells back, not even sure what words he's used to answer, but it makes Finn go away. His body shivers violently when he steps out of the shower, but he barely even notices the goosebumps that raise up along his skin as he makes his way back to his own room.
Dressing is a chore today. He digs out one of his long-sleeved shirts from the closet and pulls it stiffly over his head, muscles protesting as he moves his arms through the armholes. The fabric is thick and will keep him warm and covered, and the sleeves end at his fingertips. No one will notice how damaged his wrist is, how damaged he is.
He lets Finn drive them to school today. They'd most likely get into an accident if he does it, the way last night keeps playing over and over in his head. The way puffs of hot breath hit the back of his neck, how large, rough hands gripped him tightly, and the noises. Grunting, panting, animalistic sounds.
"You okay, dude?" Finn asks, glancing away from the road to look at his stepbrother. "You look like kind of pale."
"I was raped last night," Kurt says.
"You really should set your alarm. Did you, like, totally skip that skin care thing you do at night?"
Kurt doesn't answer, just huddles against the door and stares out the window, oblivious to the looks Finn keeps giving him. It's almost a relief to stumble out of the car and onto the concrete of McKinley High's parking lot. Last night had been dark, but now the sun shines on Kurt's face as he stares up at the early morning rays. They burn his eyes and leave a ringed aftereffect of red when he finally looks away.
Mercedes finds him at his locker as he's staring at the cool metal door in front of him. All he can see on the reflected surface are two bodies moving together, one much smaller than the other, so fragile underneath.
"What's wrong?" she asks at the blanked-out expression on his face.
Kurt leans into her, a hand latching onto her sleeve, and gasps out, "I can still feel him all over me."
"I'm sorry, boo. Do you want some aspirin?" She digs around in her purse and pulls out a small bottle of pills.
He takes two from her outstretched palm, fingers brushing lightly over her dark skin, and downs them quickly. They stick in his throat without any water to help, but it's a momentary discomfort. The medicine eases the aches and pains, dulling them down, though it never really goes away.
In math class, Kurt draws a line on his paper, a slight curve from the top left corner down to the bottom right. It's a slow, sinuous slide, like the hands on his back as they run up and down his body before settling on his hips, his thighs, the padding of his backside.
He stops at the corner of the page and stares at it blankly, unaware of how Artie, just a few seats away, look at him with eyebrows drawn. The math test he didn't take gets a zero and Mrs. Clarke tells him to stay after class. He zones out while she talks, listening to how his body pulses and thrums. Artie passes slowly by on his way out the door, stopping once to glance at Kurt's still frame.
Lunch is pizza today but Kurt doesn't eat. Instead, he curls up under one of the stairwells with his knees drawn up and his messenger bag tucked into the space between his arms and legs. It plays over and over in his mind what happened, like a bad dream that won't go away, no matter how hard he rocks back and forth under the stairs in a manic attempt to shake the memory loose from where it's latched onto his brain.
Afterwards, Kurt slips into a seat in the back of his French class and puts lays his head on the desktop in front of him. ignoring snickers which quickly cut off.
"Kurt?" Mr. Schue carefully approaches and puts a hand on Kurt's shoulder, causing him to jerk at the touch. His textbook and spiral notebook crash to the floor. The sound is loud, too loud, in the silence of the classroom.
"Finn," Mr. Schue calls to the front of the room. "Why don't you take Kurt to the nurse?"
"Should we call his dad?" Finn asks.
Kurt twitches. "He's the one who did this, Mr. Schue."
Schuester frowns at him. "Are you sure? You don't look so good."
Kurt lets Finn gather his things and leans on him as they leave the room for the nurse's office, where Kurt curls up on the little bed in the corner.
The nurse takes his temperature, but Kurt's cold. Clammy. She lets him stay there, anyway.
He clasps his hands together in front of him and a film of sweat stick them together. They'd been coated with lotion right before hands clamped over his mouth, another over his eyes, and yanked him from his chair only to throw him face-down on the bed. He'd felt it on his leg and then in him, and-oh!-how it hurt.
Kurt curls into himself with a whimper, though it makes the pain stronger.
"Kurt?" Ms. Pillsbury's shoes tap quietly on the floor as she enters the room. "Are you okay? I heard you weren't feeling well."
Kurt pulls further into himself.
Behind him, Ms. Pillsbury gasps. "Oh my. Kurt...what happened to your neck?"
Small hands poke at the sudden gap between his scarf and shirt collar where a strip of skin now shows.
Kurt bolts up and reties the scarf so that it once again covers the bruised wound on his neck. Ms. Pillsbury opens her mouth to speak, but Finn bursts into the room. Kurt mumbles something about Glee Club and hurries from the room, Finn following behind like a dumb pack animal, both his and Kurt's things piled high in his arms.
Kurt sits between Mercedes and Lauren, who give each other a look over his head. The girls' perfumes mingle together to form an overpowering smell. His dad always smelled like Pennzoil, even whe...motor oil and the smell of sex suddenly clogs his nose and mouth. The taste of it on his tongue makes him gag and his stomach clenches painfully.
Sam is the first to realize what's happening and rushes for the nearest wastebasket. Kurt heaves into it but only acidic bile comes up, burning his throat and making his eyes water. The tears, now that they've come, won't stop falling.
Mercedes rubs hi back. He wants to throw her arms off, to tell her to stop touching him, but all he can do is shake helplessly in his seat. The people around him fuss and worry, their voices all around him, until Mr. Schue holds up a hand to stop them.
"I think you should go home, Kurt."
"I don't want to," Kurt whispers back, head still bowed.
Mr. Schue draws back. "What? Why? Did something happen?"
They stare at each other, Kurt suddenly speechless.
Finn takes him home. Mercedes follows them out into the parking lot and crawls into the backseat where Kurt sits propped up against the window again. At home, she buries Kurt under a blanket while Finn makes a sandwich. It sits there, untouched, while Kurt huddles under the blanket, his feet buried in a crack between the couch cushions.
Mercedes hand is at his back, rubbing small circles. Kurt shudders at her touch, at how her fingertips press between his shoulder blades.
"Dear god, Mercedes, stop touching me," he finally snaps.
She gets him another blanket.
Kurt pulls both of them over his head and wraps himself up in a cocoon of heavy, quilted material. When he emerges, maybe it'll be as someone new, someone with bright, shiny memories of things that didn't happen but could have, if he pretends hard enough.
He can't feel Mercedes's hand anymore.
Sometime later, Kurt doesn't know when, the door rattles. He presses back into the couch at the sound of his dad's voice. He and Carole are talking in low whispers. Kurt strains to listen but hears only faint murmuring. He thinks they might be talking about him, but the world keeps going out of focus in a last-ditch effort to shield him from reality.
After a moment of blissful stillness, a hand breeches the cocoon he's built-a strong hand that once held teacups and finger sandwiches on a hot, sunny day, all to make a strange boy happy.
Burt peers in at him. His mouth moves but the world has gone away again, and all Kurt registers is that his dad's mouth is moving. He jerks back from the hand that reaches for him, which makes everything come painfully back into focus. Burt pulls him from the nest of blankets and sets Kurt on his feet. He freezes when a heavy arm drapes itself across his shoulders.
Kurt stares at the room Burt leaves him in. It looks just like he left it this morning. A crumpled ball cap still lies between the bed and vanity table, the chair of which sits askew from its normal place. The covers on his bed are rumpled, but when Kurt goes to straighten it, a wave of revulsion overcomes him and he's forced to step away.
He feels dirty, unclean, and needs to scrub himself clean. A shower won't help him now, he knows that, but he can't help wanting to try. Maybe it's a new compulsion, one to add to the list of things he has to do.
Eat healthy, look perfect, scrub clean.
Shedding him clothes as he walks, Kurt steps into the bathroom and locks the door. He stands under the hot, stinging spray of water and scrubs at himself with a special loofa he'd bought ages ago. His skin turns red from where he frantically runs it over his chest and arms, his back and legs. He even slips it briefly between his legs but still can't get rid of the feel of disgust that rolls over him, so he throws it down and begins to claw at himself, desperate sobs rising in his throat.
Finn's knock on the door startle him enough that the nails of his first two fingers slice into the thin skin of his inner arm.
"Go away!" Kurt shouts at the door. By the time he looks back down, the small beads of blood that had started to form have already washed away, leaving him disappointed to have missed it.
But there are other ways...
Heart thudding at the sudden realization of what he's compelled to do, he steps out of the shower, leaving the water running, and rifles through the drawers. Both he and Finn have electric razors, but a pack of disposables are shoved to the back of the cabinet under the sink.
The first cut is midway up his arm, and he stares, fascinated, at the thin line of blood that drips from his arm to the bottom of the tub. A small pool of red lingers like a whirlpool before draining away, taking all relief with it.
He has the blade poised for another cut when a fist hammers at the door, causing his hand to jerk.
Pain hits like a hammer, and he clamps a hand over the new cut in a vain attempt to stop the bleeding. Stumbling from the bath in a panic, Kurt stumbles, catching his foot on the edge of the tub. He falls forward and hits the doors, then slides down it.
Finn is shouting is name. Kurt wants to answer, he really does, but he's tired and in pain and it just seems like so much work to call for help. Beneath him, the door buckles. There's distance yelling, hurried footsteps, and the bathroom door leading to Finn's room is flung open.
Finn is a dim figure in Kurt's graying vision.
"It's okay," Kurt tries to tell him but can only mouth the words as something presses against his wrist. Maybe a towel.
He wishes he could say he's sorry, that it was an accident, but he settles instead on, "Love you," before the last bit of consciousness leaves him.