suchmiracles | IC; Deerington Inbox

yeah
if you aren't busy
and you don't mind me being tired

I'll be there soon

Conscious of trying to set a good example, Kurt doesn't teleport to the treehouse, so it takes him a little longer than usual to arrive. He also stops to grab the last couple of tins of puppy chow and a small stack of paperbacks he's been saving to give to Fern.

When he arrives, he climbs straight up to the little porch, pausing to rap his knuckles against the door.

"Fern?"

Just as he said, Fern is indeed at the treehouse. After retrieving his belongings from Varian he made his way back to the forest and promptly collapsed on the main floor rather than up in the little loft where his bed is, so it doesn't take him long to answer the door.

He looks terrible. His grass is dry and greyish, and because it's having to exert more effort than normal to keep him in his usual Finn-shape it's loose, making him appear scruffier than normal. His limbs, his fingers in particular, are rough and jagged - more like the idea of human limbs than actual ones. There are prominent bags under his eyes, as if he hasn't slept in a week, and he's wobbling where he stands.

It isn't that he's only physically exhausted, either. Coming off of several text conversations he never wanted to have he's emotionally drained as well. If he looks like he's been crying when he answers the door it's because he has.

"Hey."

A chubby, fluffy raccoon is hanging out behind him, digging into a bag of birdseed. Fern doesn't seem to care.

By now Kurt's had enough experience of what Deerington inflicts on its residents post-death to not expect Fern to be in the best of shape, but he's still a little shocked at the way it's taken hold of his unique physiology. Without a moment's more thought, he sets down the fabric bag of cans and books and moves forward to wrap his arms around Fern.

"I'm sorry, Fern," he murmurs. "I'm sorry I wasn't there."

Fern leans heavily against Kurt, returning the hug after several moments. "It was just a bunch of mistakes. That's all," he mumbles quietly, not sounding that concerned about it. Honestly, the part where he died is the least of his problems right now. "I think I just need to sleep for a week."

Kurt's more than happy to let Fern lean against him for as long as he needs, though he pulls back a little bit to be able to look at him. By now Kurt has spent enough time with his young friend to be able to tell that he's clearly exhausted, not just physically.

"Maybe more than a week. Come on and sit down at least." He pats Fern on the shoulder, then straightens up again and fetches his supplies. He pulls out the cans of puppy food, then brings the bag back over to Fern and offers it to him. "Here, I found these a while ago and meant to give them to you earlier."

Fern gives Kurt a small nod in return, taking the bag with both hands before turning and heading inside. Since there isn't much in the way of furniture, he's just setting it down on the floor before dropping down onto there himself, his back against the wall.

"Thanks," he says, not really caring where Kurt puts the dog food. He does, however, look mildly concerned. "Hazel hasn't been burning down the forest, has he? Fire wolves can do that."

"Hazel? That's a good name." Kurt glances at the puppy in question, then eyes the raccoon who also seems to be studying him. He sets the puppy food on a windowsill for lack of anywhere else to put it.

"He hasn't burned down anything. Though.. now I'm a little worried that you're keeping him here." He turns his head to look around at the wooden walls and ceiling. "Um. Can you train him to not burn things?"

Hazel toddles on over to the windowsill, trying to reach up and sniff the cans. It's too high for him to reach, so it's probably safe. Ruddiger, meanwhile, goes straight for the bag to dig around in it.

"Um, probably." Fern takes a moment, trying to root around in his memories for stuff on fire wolves. "Back home CB taught his to fly, so it can't be that hard."

How a wolf can fly at all is a big question mark, though it isn't a train of thought Fern is going to try pursuing right now. Instead he shifts a little, reaching up to rub his upper arm, where his antler tattoo is located. "I know I said this before, but I'm really sorry you had to find out I died by... y'know."

Calling Varian.

A flying fire wolf isn't, at least, too strange of a concept for a man who once spent a few months criss-crossing the multiverse on a train powered by a giant purple dragon, so when Fern continues Kurt's only thought is concern. Almost absently, he reaches down to pick Hazel up, by now used to the heat against his fur, and carries him over to Fern.

"There are worse ways to find out," he replies gently, his expression fading a little as he remembers the icy winter's night when he and Logan had found Wes' body. The memory brings a shiver of recalled nausea; he backs away from it, and sits down beside Fern instead, knees drawn up and his tail curling neatly around his feet.

"Varian seemed very upset," he continues, scratching behind Hazel's ears. "About.. a lot of things."

Apparently immune to the depressing mood of the treehouse, Hazel wriggles in Kurt's grasp, tail wagging happily. Fern will reach over to give his head a scratch when Kurt sits.

"Yeah, well, pretty sure he wasn't." He couldn't have been that upset, given what he did. The knowledge of that is still fresh in Fern's mind, and his voice turns bitter. "We aren't friends anymore, so it doesn't matter."

A benefit of not having pupils is being able to glance at someone without them knowing. Kurt studies Fern out of the corner of his eye for a moment, then releases the squirming fire wolf pup to go and play.

"That's a shame," he says carefully, his tone deliberately even, "it sounded like he cared quite strongly about what happened. And I saw how he was when there was the fire -- he was worried about you, Fern." He folds his arms over his knees. "Friends like that aren't always easy to find, in my experience."

Fern stares down at the floor, pulling his knees to his chest so that he can hug them. The fight still has him torn up, feeling raw, and the flu symptoms aren't letting him get out and destroy something to feel better. It's like he wants to explode, but he's too tired to manage it.

"You're wrong. He doesn't care. I thought he did, but...." He drops his forehead to his knees, making a frustrated noise. "Right after I died he went and told someone I hate. He didn't tell anyone I actually care about. You only found out because he didn't ignore your call."

When Fern draws himself into a miserable huddle, Kurt abandons any pretence of not being concerned. He wants to reach out and comfort him, but holds back, knowing enough about teenagers to understand that sometimes things can't be solved so easily.

"Well.." He eyes Fern thoughtfully, wondering whether he wants to be argued out of this feeling and which parts of it are exacerbated by his illness. "How much did he know about what you wanted? To me it sounded as though he was scared. He panicked. That happens to everyone sometimes, especially here."

As much as he's been trying to keep the details surrounding his death vague, with Kurt he doesn't bother trying to hold back. He already knows what happened, that Varian was involved, and he needs to tell someone. He has no idea how he's supposed to deal with any of this, and if he keeps it all to himself he's pretty sure he's either going to fall apart or do something he really regrets later.

"He knows I hate her. He would've known I wouldn't want her to know." As he says that he digs his fingers - which are too rough-looking to really be called fingers, they look more like claws - into his legs. "It was that girl hanging around when we exploded that tree. Ruby. He's friends with her, not me."

"Ah." Kurt frowns to himself, watching Fern push and pull at the withered grass on his body. Even though he knows it doesn't hurt him, it's not a habit he enjoys seeing Fern retreat to. It brings back memories of their difficult conversations on the Titanic, when they'd both come dangerously close to testing each other's limits.

"You can't always control people, Fern. They're unpredictable and sometimes they do things we don't like, or become friends with people we hate. If you want to be friends with someone, you sometimes have to deal with the fact that they're capable of doing things that are difficult to accept. You need to draw a line for yourself, of how much you will tolerate." He pauses, watching the raccoon and the fire wolf pup.

"You don't have to keep being friends with him if you don't want to. You're the only one who can decide where that line is."

Fern is silent, listening to everything Kurt says even though he's making friendship into this horrible, complicated, scary thing that he doesn't want to face. It was never this complicated when he was Finn, so why does it have to be, now? Does he just suck so bad at relationships that this is an inevitability? Should he just give up on other people - people his age?

"I don't know. I don't know what I want to do," he says miserably. "I liked hanging out with him. He gets me better than most people. Now it feels like there's a hole in me that's getting bigger, and I feel like an idiot for being angry with him. But I'm still angry, and even if I tell him I wanna draw lines, I don't think he's gonna care."

"It's okay to be angry with him, Fern," Kurt ventures slowly, crossing his arms over his knees, almost mirroring the teenager curled up at his side. He wants to console Fern, to make him feel better, but at the same time he's all too aware that these problems aren't something that he can solve. Honesty, he resolves, might be the best thing to offer.

"If it were me.. I would let myself be angry for a while. Trying not to be angry is a difficult thing and it usually ends up hurting more than just letting yourself feel it. But then.. I would try to forgive him. We both know how difficult it is to be here. And how important it is to find people who understand you." His tail curls up to gently touch the back of Fern's hand. "Who want to be around you."

Hearing that his anger isn't some terrible thing he needs to sweep under the rug is a surprise to Fern. In most of his experiences so far it's never been a good thing, and while it's not like Kurt is saying that specifically, to receive the suggestion that he should feel it is... wow, it's weird, and it's a little validating. He isn't completely wrong for feeling this way. He just needs to make sure it doesn't get destructive, and unfortunately for everyone his track record with that isn't so great.

He glances down at Kurt's hand, now a little more thoughtful. "You're making this sound really, really easy." It isn't, he knows it isn't. It'd be a lot easier to just give up right now. Still....

"I think I want to try." He doesn't sound the least bit confident in his own abilities, he's just hoping that trying is a step in the right direction.

"It's not easy," Kurt replies. As much as he wants Fern to feel encouraged, it's not something he wants to lie about. He's had enough experience with friendships formed in the most difficult of circumstances, and with some very difficult people, to know that it's best to be aware of the risks. A certain Canadian comes to mind, drawing a small smile to his face as he looks at Fern.

"I'm proud of you, Fern," he offers gently. "Sometimes the battles we don't fight with swords are the hardest ones. I hope Varian appreciates it," he adds, a small amount of protective frustration sneaking into his tone.

"Thanks," he mumbles. He means it, sincerely. All of this probably sounds stupid and inane to a regular person (a regular person could probably solve all of this in about five minutes), but it's important to him. Hearing that Kurt is proud of him makes him feel like he's actually doing the right thing for once, like maybe if he keeps going in that direction he won't be a total failure like most of the time.

"This kind of stuff was always easier when I was Finn," he adds, a little morosely. It's really, really unfair that he just can't go back to being Finn when there isn't even a Finn here.

Though Kurt is pleased to hear Fern accept the praise, he's far from convinced that he's helped lighten his friend's burden, or even cheered him up in any way. Part of that he knows could be put down to the post-death flu, but not all of it. He watches Fern thoughtfully.

"Mm. What would Finn have done in this situation?"

Fern sighs heavily (or at least, makes a noise akin to that), and leans back against the wall, looking upwards at the ceiling.

"He wouldn't have gotten in this situation to begin with. He wouldn't have even died," he replies flatly. "He's handled a lot worse than a stupid book. That thing would've been nothing to him. He would've taken care of it, made sure Varian didn't get hurt, wouldn't have fought with him. He'd probably be hanging out with him right now."

"That does sound like he would have had it easy." Kurt lets his gaze wander back around the treehouse, keeping a tiny thread of attention on the antics of the fire wolf puppy. His tail winds back into his hands; he rubs an idle circle over the spade with his thumb.

"Sometimes I think.. what it would be like to have had an easier life. To have been born looking like everyone else, in a happy family. Would it have made me a better person? Or am I who I am because of what God chose for me? 'What ifs' are difficult questions to answer, even when you're not unwell."

Hazel barks a little, flopping over in front of Kurt to get more scratches. Fern glances down at him, then away. "It's hard, since I know what my life would've been like. I saw it every day back home with Finn. I had to do the same thing when I was Finn Sword, but it didn't feel as bad back then. Now it just drives me crazy, and Ruby reminds me of him, and it's just -"

He drags his hands down his face, making a frustrated noise. "How you keep yourself from thinking that kind of stuff?"

IC; Deerington Inbox

no subject

action

CYA books I love it

<33

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)