Drain You

Still staring at his reflection, Kurdt wiped the smile off of his face and tried his best to put on the, as he described it, “brooding and pouty” expression that Kurt normally wore. It took mere seconds for him to master it, and after shooting his reflection one more wide smile, he exited the bathroom and made his way back to the living room where Anna, Krist, and Dave were still sitting. His original plan had been to try and fool them into thinking he was Kurt, but he could tell just by their facial expressions as he entered the room that they knew he wasn’t.

“He told you to come out,” Anna said, internally slapping herself for letting Kurt go to the bathroom. She should have known that he was going to do this.

“That he did, cupcake,” Kurdt said, instantly picking a rubber band up off the coffee table and typing Kurt’s hair back with it. “I will never understand why he insists on keeping this shit so long and ratty. It’s just annoying,” he said, quickly tucking a stray strand behind his ear.

“What do you want?” Anna demanded. She didn’t know why, but she was much less scared of him now, and a lot more angry at both him and Kurt.

“Ooh, feisty. Little Kurty likes it when you get all hot and bothered. He’s all excited in here,” Kurdt said, pointing to his head and shooting her a vicious smile.

“Answer her,” Krist said, standing up and once again moving to stand right in front of Kurdt.

“Whoa-oh-oh! Tell you the truth, Kurty likes it when you get all hot and bothered there too, Krissy,” Kurdt said, and Anna, seeing that Krist’s hands were curling into fists, put her hand on his shoulder, hoping he’d take the gesture as her telling him to calm down. It worked, and a second later, Krist’s fists uncoiled.

“And little Davey, oh sweet little Davey, there’s no need to be scared of me. I promise I’m not going to hurt you,” Kurdt said, directing his attention to the drummer, who was still sitting on the couch, a look of pure horror on his face. As soon as Kurdt’s eyes turned to him, however, Dave tried his best to change his expression to one of indifference.

“I’m not scared of you,” Dave said so convincingly that he himself almost believed it.

“Oh, but I know you are. You all are. You all think that I’m going to cause harm to precious little Kurty, but think about it, people! If I were to harm him, I like to call him “the vessel”, then I would cease to exist! So there would be absolutely no advantage for me to kill him. Or trust me, this little bag of bones would already be dead and gone,” Kurdt said calmly, perching lightly on the edge of Kurt’s favorite lounge chair.

“Okay, fine, you don’t want to kill Kurt. Then what do you want?” Anna asked as calmly as she possibly could. She moved to sit on the coffee table, right in front of Kurdt.

“It’s not about what I want. If it were about what I wanted, then I’d be sitting in some titty bar somewhere drinking a margarita and watching some girl named Sugar’s tits bounce up and down right now, not sitting here and talking to you incessantly dull people,” Kurdt said, smiling sweetly.

“Okay, then why… why are you here now, all of a sudden?” Anna asked, struggling to phrase it in a way that would actually receive a straight answer from him.

“Honestly? No clue. I suppose it has something to do with the precious one’s quickly collapsing mental state,” Kurdt said, and Anna Krist and Dave all three looked at him with puzzled looks on their faces.

“His “quickly collapsing mental state”? What does that mean?” Anna asked, and Kurdt suddenly broke out in a fit of giggles.

“You mean… you mean he hasn’t told you about the hallucinations? The nightmares? None of it?” Kurdt asked between giggles.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Anna asked, and just as suddenly as he’d broken out in giggles, Kurdt became deadly serious.

“Oh yeah, he’s been having quite the hard time lately. He’s been seeing things. All the time, but especially when he’s alone. At first he thought it was all the weed he was smoking, but then he quit that, but none of it went away. And the nightmares. Terrible ones. I haven’t been able to see them all, but what I have seen scared even me, and I’m not an easy one to spook,” Kurdt said quietly, speaking calmly and logically for the first time since he’d started appearing.

“So that’s why you’ve just started coming out? Because he didn’t want to handle it alone anymore?” Anna asked quietly, expecting Kurdt to start giggling again, or give some smart-ass answer, but to her complete surprise, he did neither of those things. Instead, he cautiously reached out a hand and hesitantly placed it on top of one of hers.

“I wish I knew what was wrong with him, I do. But I don’t. And I don’t know why he didn’t tell any of you about it. I have access to most of his memories and thoughts, but not all of them. And those particular thoughts are hidden to me. I don’t know why. I’m sorry you’re all scared. I really am. He’s scared too. He’s terrified. He doesn’t know what to do,” Kurdt said in a voice so quiet that Krist and Dave had to lean closer from their spots on the couch to hear him.

“Can… can you let him come back? Please?” Anna asked in a voice just as quiet, and Kurdt seemed to think about it for a moment.

“I can, but I can’t control when he lets go and I pop back up. Other than this last time when he specifically called for me, I don’t know what exactly it is that brings me out,” Kurdt whispered, and Anna nodded.

“Fine. Just let him come out,” she said, and Kurdt nodded at her, and then he closed his eyes, and kept them closed for what seemed like forever. For a minute she thought that he was going to open them back up again and yell “Psych! Got you idiots!” or something like that, but he didn’t. He just sat there, holding completely still and not making any noise.

Finally, what seemed like years later, his blue eyes opened and Anna was instantly able to tell that she was once again looking at her Kurt.

“Kurty,” she whispered, and he pulled her into a tight hug.

“Are you okay?” she asked as they pulled apart, reaching up to gently pull the rubber band out of his hair.

“I’m okay. It was weird though. This time I was… it was like I woke up in the middle. I could feel him; hear him talking to you as me. I think… I think that’s what made him stop being such an ass in the middle of when he was talking to you. It was like he sensed that I was awake and that calmed him down or something,” Kurt said quietly, reaching up to rub the sides of his head.

“Kurty, is what he said true? About the hallucinations, and the… the nightmares?” Anna asked, and Kurt nodded slowly.

“Yeah… I was going to tell you. All of you. But I didn’t know how without freaking you out,” he said quietly, and Krist scoffed.

“I would have been a whole hell of a lot less freaked out had you told us that than I am now, Kurt,” he said, and both Anna and Dave nodded.

“I know. I never meant for this to happen. It’s my fault, isn’t it?” Kurt asked quietly, and Anna instantly began shaking her head.

“It’s not your fault, Kurt. It’s not,” she said, pulling him into another tight hug.

“Well it sure as hell feels like it,” he whispered into her hair, just loudly enough so that only she could hear.