Work Text:
He flopped onto his bed and turned on his phone, swiping to unlock. He didn't see a need for pin or password. It wasn't like anything on the phone was inherently private.
Just phone contacts and a few bland texts. A call log with a few outgoing calls and two incoming calls, one of which had been a wrong number and the other of which had been a telemarketer.
He opened his contacts and looked at the short list for a time. He'd had the number, The Number, in his phone a few days before he'd mustered the courage to open it in his texting app.
[Hello, this i]
He erased the message without even finishing his thought, exited the app, and tossed his phone a few feet away.
The phone bounced off the mattress and fell to the ground. Kurt was too busy burying his head under his pillows to notice.
He couldn't just. Text him.
He didn't even give Kurt the number...! Not that Kurt had asked him to. He had gotten it from his sister, instead.
--
The second time he tried to text the number, he was holed up on a window seat in an upstairs library/study room of the Institute.
It was quiet, except for the buzz of students studying. And one sniffling quietly somewhere. He hopes they weren't sick. Or crying.
Anyway, he had the texting app opened, again. This time he had managed to type almost a whole sentence out.
[I really enjoyed our d]
Maybe not a whole sentence.
But look, what if it wasn't a date? What if he was just really nice and longsuffering and had taken pity on Kurt? It was the one time, right?
He sighed, deleted the text, and turned his phone all the way off.
He had homework to finish, anyway.
Besides, date or no, it was days before. It was kind of late to send some halfassed thanks over text. Right?
...and was that the appropriate use of "halfassed"?
--
Attempt number three was when he was watching a movie, maybe a week later.
He was huddled into the corner of the couch, sitting with friends he had made at the Institute. Jubilee, Kitty, Megan, Jean, Scott...
Friends. And they were fine. They were lovely, of course. But.
[This movie would be more fun if you were here to watch with me.] stood out in the texting app on Kurt's phone.
It felt a bit mean to the friends he already had with him, even if he was pretty sure it was true. If only because Kurt kind of missed him and was distracted from the movie by that quiet melancholy of loneliness that you only really get from being around people while missing specific persons. Person.
He deleted the text and tried another tactic.
[I miss you.]
No, wait. That was just sappy.
He deleted that text, too, and quickly backed out of texting app and contact when Jubilee nudged him. "Es tut mir leid," he grinned at her.
She looked unimpressed. Or suspicious. She was a bit hard to read.
--
The fourth time was sometime in the middle of the night.
It was a nightmare that had him up, curled into a corner at the far end of the room instead of in bed.
It was the inside of that box. The one from the fight.
It was the darkness, the claustrophobia, and the noise of the crowds he couldn't see.
[Can I sleep in your room]
He deleted that.
[Do you want to watch a movie?]
And that. It was, like, three in the morning.
[Can I talk t]
That.
[I want to see y]
That.
[Is it too late to call]
That too.
[I had a nightmare]
It was three. What if Kurt woke him up?
[Are you awake?]
No.
[I can't sleep.]
No.
[I ]
No, never mind. It was stupid, anyway. It wasn't that bad of a dream, right? And it was really late.
He set his phone on the floor and curled up a bit more, sighing.
This was ridiculous.
He didn't go back to sleep, though. He thought it might suffocate him, next time. Or maybe he wouldn't get out of that box the next time.
--
The fifth time was a whim he almost followed through with, some few days later.
[Do you really like the fur? The blue?]
He wasn't even especially self conscious, in the moment, but he remembered those pretty comments. The ones like "I wish you didn't have to hide" and "next time we'll go where you can be yourself."
Kurt tried to be a positive person. But he was...
He had a tail. Glowing eyes. He was called a demon. Sometimes it got to him. It got to him a bit more when he was looking in a mirror, though, because he could see all the reasons people said that.
Well. It was silly. Kurt didn't need to make him worry by sounding so self conscious.
He deleted the text and put his phone back into his pocket.
--
He hadn't thought he needed a pin or anything, but apparently he was wrong.
He hadn't even left for very long.
His phone was on the arm of the couch when he did leave, though, and sitting on the seat cushion when he got back.
He wasn't even immediately alarmed, though. Cell phones were new to him, really. Cell phone etiquette, as well. It didn't immediately occur to him that someone might poke through his phone.
But he did pick up the phone, turn the screen on, and slide to unlock as he sat down on the couch.
And then he died inside a little.
He dropped the phone into his lap, as if burnt.
The texting app was open to Pietro's number and a new text had been composed and sent. Several new texts had been composed and sent.
[Do you have a Band-Aid? I just scraped my knee falling for you.]
[Are those space pants? Because your ass is out of this world!]
[Hello. Cupid called. He says to tell you that he needs my heart back.]
[I think there’s something wrong with my eyes… I can’t take them off of you.]
[How was heaven when you left it?]
[I need your picture so that I can let Santa know exactly what I want for Christmas.]
And what must have been the coup de grace:
[Your legs must be tired because you’ve been running through my mind all day.]
Who and why.
He didn't even understand some of those.