Chapter 7 – The Eye Of The Hurricane

Kurt shot upright, breath coming quick and heavy.

Mike's arms tightened around him. "Hey, hey, you're okay. I'm here, you're okay. You just fell asleep."

Kurt rubbed his eyes, face paler than usual. "I had a dream that the voice was back. It was telling me to do things. Things I didn't like."

Mike kissed Kurt's cheek. "You're safe. We don't have to—."

Mike was interrupted by the lights flickering on and off, before finally extinguishing, leaving them in darkness.

"Worry?" Mike finished with a chuckle.

Kurt sighed, moving to light a candle. "I told Josh to double check the generator before we came up here. Now he'll have to go and fix it."

Mike smiled. "That just means we can stay here. In this bed. Together."

"Slow down, cowboy. You have to take me to dinner first."

"Just as soon as we get back home."

Kurt bit his lip. "About that…I was thinking. Maybe we should leave early. It's already been a long night, and we've been drinking since the early afternoon. The game really messed everyone up and I don't think it's a good idea that we stay up here for the rest of the night."

Mike nodded. "I'm with you. But we don't have access to the cable car until dawn."

Kurt gaped. "That's…extremely counterproductive. What if there was an emergency? Fuck, there is an emergency. There's a psycho stalker roaming the outskirts of the cabin, one who has access to our connectivity and literally kidnapped one of us not an hour ago. Who decided not to activate the cable car until dawn? That's so dumb."

Mike chuckled his agreement. "Josh's great, great grand-something. This lodge is as ancient as they come. It may look swanky and new, but it's years old."

"When did you become an expert on the Washington property?"

"My dad," Mike said slowly.

Kurt leaned forward slightly. Mike had never spoken about his dad. Kurt had never even met him.

"He was in the army, now he has a bad case of paranoia. He wouldn't let me go until I knew exactly where I was going. He doesn't leave the house unless he absolutely has to. He works from home, but I have to pick up his pay checks. He doesn't trust the banks to keep his money for him."

Kurt rubbed his thumb across Mike's wrist. "That must be a lot."

"It can be," Mike admitted, "but there's nothing I wouldn't do for him. If it makes him happy, I don't mind doing these things. Sometimes I think he'd be happier in a facility that could properly look after him, but there's a selfish part of me that couldn't see him go."

Kurt nodded, a little tearful. His response and the tender moment they were sharing was interrupted by a knock at the door.

"Who is it?"

The door opened a crack. Hannah peeped through the space. "Sorry, I didn't want to interrupt, I just wanted to talk to Mike. If you two aren't busy."

Kurt looked to Mike, obfuscated from Hannah by the darkness, the candlelight not enough to illuminate them.

"I can go," Kurt suggested. "You two probably need to talk it out."

Kurt climbed off the bed and Hannah slipped into the room. Kurt passed her, a blank expression on his face. As much as he didn't blame her for speaking her mind, he also wasn't ready to be friendly with her just yet.

Hannah sighed and closed the door behind him. "I really fucked up, didn't I?"

Mike nodded. "Yeah, but it's only half your fault. We all say and write things when we think nobody can see us. It's just bad luck that he had to hear them."

"You're not mad at me are you?"

"I was," Mike shrugged, "but then I realised that you hadn't said anything about me, so I didn't have any right to be mad. It's Kurt's grievance to bear, only he has a right to feel any way about it."

"Try telling that to Jess," Hannah retorted.

Mike smiled. "Rather you than me. Hannah, I was going to talk to you earlier."

Hannah didn't reply.

"This is going to sound like a lie, but I need you to know that it's not. I had no idea that you liked me. Beth thought I was being a jackass by staring at Kurt right in front of you, but I didn't know. As soon as she told me, I wanted to go find you. But I didn't know where you were. I thought you wouldn't see anything.

"Sam said I should give you some space after you ran off. I probably wasn't the person you wanted to see then."

Hannah went a deep shade of red. "Thank you for saying that. I've made so many mistakes. I know that I fully deserved everything he said about me."

"Just give it some time. He'll come around and, trust me, he'll feel worse about what he said to you than you do right now."

"He shouldn't."

"I think we all know that. It took a lot for you sit there, anyone else would've done it in private."

Hannah exhaled shakily. "I wanted to show him that I knew what I did was wrong and that I wasn't trying to hide from it. I thought that's what he would've done too."

Mike nodded. "You're right. The thing you should take from this is just to be honest. With him and everyone else. As much as you can be, anyway. I think we've all been open enough for one night."

Hannah chuckled. "Can we still be friends?"

"Yeah, of course. Nothing that's happened tonight changes anything, Han. I still think you're awesome. But I do think I should tell you that Kurt and I are going on a date once we get back home."

"Good," Hannah forced a smile. "He deserves someone like you. And vice versa."

"Thank you for saying that. And for what it's worth, I'm sorry I couldn't be what you wanted me to be."

Hannah got to her feet, sensing the natural end to the conversation. "That's alright, Beth is right anyway. I need to stop living in fantasy land and wake up to the real world where things don't always go the way I think they should. Thanks for being so nice about all of this. I'll leave you guys to it."

"See you in a little while," Mike smiled as Hannah left. He expected Kurt to come straight back in, but he didn't. Suddenly anxious, Mike shot him a text telling him that Hannah had left.

He received no reply.

Kurt wisely dodged Hannah as she left his and Mike's bedroom. He slipped into one of the adjoining rooms, knowing that it was a spare.

He leaned against the door, eyes closed.

"Uh…Kurt."

Kurt's eyes snapped open, seeing a shirtless Matt opposite him.

"Oh Matt, I thought this room was empty."

Matt smiled. "It is, Em and Ash are in ours."

Kurt smirked. "Come to think of it, they would make a cute couple."

Matt rolled his eyes and reached for his shirt. "I thought you'd be impaled on Mike's dick by now."

Kurt gaped. "How crass of you, Matthew. Not that it matters, but we're deciding to wait until we go out on a date. Do it the classy way."

Matt slipped on his shirt and pulled it down over his body. "I'm glad you guys are finally sorting things out."

"And things with Emily?"

"Better than ever, surprisingly. After what I did, I couldn't blame her if she wanted to dump me."

Kurt softened slightly and leaned against the wall. "So you liked someone else before you guys got together, it's not the end of the world."

"So you don't think I'm a bad person?"

Kurt smiled. "Not at all, dummy. You might be the best of us. Mike says that's me, but he's biased. You're probably the most selfless person I know. You keep the peace, you make sure everyone feels comfortable."

Matt beamed. "Emily said that too. So you'd give me a lifeboat?"

Kurt turned stern. "Matthew Taylor, if that's a serious question I'll lay you out right this second."

"I suppose you think Sam was lying."

Kurt thought hard for a second or two. "No, I don't. But I also think it's unsurprising. Not that she'd pick you for you, but because you two know each other the least. There's eleven of us. It's hard to constantly be friends with everyone. You and Sam are the quietest of us, but you're also the beating hearts of this group. It makes sense that you two aren't as deeply connected as you might like. If I were you, I'd do something to change that."

Matt sat down on the spare bed. "You seem to have no problem being everyone's number one."

Kurt moved to sit next to him.

"I'm sorry, I don't mean to make you feel bad or anything. I just sometimes wonder if giving my best is enough. Maybe I'm just not the type of guy who's going to be liked the most by everyone."

Kurt nudged him gently. "As someone who is liked the most by everyone, I can tell you that it's exhausting."

Matt grinned.

"Got you to smile. Look, Matt, Sam values you a lot. We all do. She might be closer to me or Jess or Mike, but that doesn't mean she doesn't see you. We see you, Matt, and we know what a great person and friend that you are. The way I'm wired forces me to either be someone's everything or nothing to them at all. When I moved here and met you all, I saw you tightly you were bonded. I would have given anything to be part of that, so I befriended you all and you accepted me."

Matt shook his head. "I genuinely can't remember a time without you around."

"That's my point. I was so insecure about having no friends that I worked too hard to make them. It worked out for the best, but I easily could been overbearing and alienated you all. And I would have never fallen in love with Mike."

"Love?"

Kurt smiled. "This has been a long time coming for me, Matt. I didn't know that Mike would ever see me like that, but my heart's always been open to it. Even when I liked Josh, a part of me was hoping to see if it would trigger something in Mike. It didn't, of course."

"To think all you needed was Beyoncé and tequila and you would've had him," Matt chuckled.

"My two vices," Kurt nodded his agreement. "I don't think eleven year old Kurt would have taken too kindly to the tequila though, do you?"

Matt slung his arm around Kurt. "You really are the best."

Kurt cuddled up to him. "You see what I want you to see. It's about time you saw yourself the way we see you. I think you'll like him."

"I love you, man."

"I love you too, Matthew. Now I'd better go before Mike or Emily find us in here. Honestly, I'm not sure which one you'd rather face."

"Me? Alone?"

Kurt smirked. "I have an instinct for self-preservation. I'd be out of there before you could even say 'help me'."

"Get going, traitor."

Kurt paused before the door. "Remember what I said."

Kurt smiled at the boy before leaving the room, creeping across the hall and slipping back into his and Mike's room.

"How's your finger?" Jess asked cautiously.

Sam winced. "Or the stump where it once was? I have to say, Josh did a very clean job of making sure I have no finger left."

Jess sighed. "We put it in the fridge, so it should last up to a few days. At least that's what Kurt said and he's probably going to be a doctor someday."

Sam continued to stare at the wound. She had taken some painkillers and was managing the physical damage as best she could with the limited first aid supplies at the lodge, but it was the trauma of losing a finger that was going to sit with her. It may have been a fairly useless finger and wouldn't really prohibit her much in life, but still she only had nine fingers. And that was going to take a huge readjustment.

"Why did you volunteer?"

Sam swallowed heavily. "And see someone else go through that instead? After seeing what happened to Ashley I wasn't going to let that happen to anyone. And I know that nobody was going to volunteer. So I stepped up. You all needed me."

Jess pulled her sleeves over her hands. "We all owe you one."

"A finger?"

"A favour. You took one for the team alright. You probably had the worst time playing that damn game."

"How so?" Sam wasn't blind to her own pain, but she thought that other people were suffering much more than she was. Hannah and Ashley seemed positively defeated, and not to mention the weight of Beth's guilt.

Jess frowned. "Not to point out the obvious, but you lost a finger. You had your private thoughts invaded, had to go first with a tough question that's bound to affect you, not to mention my round."

"I suppose so, but I don't really think about it like that. The finger thing sucks and I'm going to be plenty devastated about it once the shock wears off, but I'm lucky really. I don't think about Josh that way anymore and you and I are okay. I should probably speak with Matt at some point tonight."

Jess nodded. "It'll be okay, Sam. Matt's a cool guy, he'll understand."

"No he won't, he took it very personally. I just basically confirmed everything he's been insecure about since we met. That he's not good enough no matter how hard he tries."

Jess smiled warmly. "You really do see us, don't you?"

Sam smirked. "I didn't see you."

Jess blushed. "I…nobody did. I only told Kurt tonight because I didn't want to hide anymore. I had no intention of even telling you."

"You keep saying that," Sam replied. "I'd like to think we're closer than that."

"You know I tell you whenever I'm into anyone. I just didn't want to risk anything. I always remember Kurt going through the same thing with Josh back in the day. He didn't want to say anything because he didn't know Josh was going to take it. It's one thing to accept someone for being gay, or bisexual in my case, but when that person is crushing on you, you don't know how they're going to respond."

Sam nodded. "I understand. Well, as much as I can without having gone through it myself. I don't know if this is uncool to say, but I'd like to think that if I was into girls, I'd probably be with someone like you."

Jess blinked rapidly. "Me? Really?"

"Please," Sam scoffed. "Jess, you're hot shit and you know it. You're funny and thoughtful and a lot of fun to be around. I could do worse."

"Yeah, you could be with Emily."

"Be nice," Sam smirked. "I should probably talk to her too. Wow, maybe you're right, tonight really sucked for me."

"It'll be dawn soon," Jess pointed out, "I don't know about you but I'm leaving as soon as I get the chance. I'll hitchhike back to town if I have to."

"Oh I'm with you. I'm not staying on the estate any longer than I need to. Any chance of running into that psycho, I'm out."

Jess rubbed her arm tentatively. "Is this okay?"

Sam eyed her firmly. "Nothing's changed, Jessie. I'll come and stay at your house when things are crazy at mine, I'll still change next to you in the locker room. I meant it when I said that you're still my best friend. And even though I've friend-zoned you several times tonight, you mean the world to me."

Jess went for it and put her head on Sam's shoulder. "Thank you."

"Besides, I wouldn't be much of a lover with a finger missing."

Jess gaped. "Sam!"

"Keeping it real," she muttered with a smirk.

Emily crouched down as she opened the fridge, scanning its scarce contents with a dismayed frown. "I'm hungry," she said to nobody in particular.

"I have some gummy worms upstairs," Ashley piped up from behind her.

Emily turned with a scowl. "What am I, eight? Lead the way!"

Ashley grinned and led Emily up to her room.

"So, where are your boyfriends?"

"They needed to talk some stuff out on their own, I'll meet up with them later."

"Yeah you will," Emily crowed, holding out a hand for a high five.

Ashley blushed. "So you don't think I'm crazy for doing this?"

Emily shrugged. "I don't know, Ash, I've never known people who've done this before. As long as you're careful and open, I don't see why it couldn't work out."

"So I'm not a freak?"

Emily sighed very deeply. She had never thought that her words would come back to bite her in such a way, but she very much regretted them now. "You'll never know how sorry I am for tonight. I don't think you're a freak. As long as we're being mushy, I'll always think that I'm more of a freak than you are. I just lash out so it doesn't seem that way to other people."

Ashley looked at the scarring on her arm. "Well at least your handwriting is neat."

Emily glared. "Don't joke about this, Ash. I feel horrible for having to do that you and I swear once we find this psychopath, I'm going to kill him."

Ashley rolled up her sleeve. "It's not huge, I can learn to live with it. I don't blame you, if that's what you're worried about. I've certainly said much worse about people in the past. You never expected it would stick like this."

"I think we're the only people who got some kind of good thing out of all of this," Emily said carefully. "You got your boys and Matt and I have never been stronger."

Ashley smiled. "He's good for you, he really mellows you out."

Emily chuckled. "He tries his best. I know I'm too high-maintenance for him, but I'm glad I have him. I can help him be a little more confident and he can bring me down when I'm on one."

"It's weird, I never would have put you two together but, seeing it, it makes so much sense."

"Thanks, I think."

"No, it's a good thing," Ashley nodded, "I mean, I never would have seen myself dating two guys who were also dating each other, but I think this could be really good for me."

"I think so too. For some reason, you've always been way too hard on yourself. Again, that's probably my fault for tearing you down, but you're awesome. And Chris and Josh obviously realise that and I think that someday you will too."

"We've never talked like this before," Ashley muttered.

Emily grinned wolfishly. "And we never will again, I have a reputation to uphold. The group has to have an Ice Queen."

Ashley tilted her head. "Kurt has you beat on that one. But every group needs a bitch, and Kurt's too rational to be that all the time."

"That was the most backhanded compliment I've ever received."

Ashley nudged her. "Not all bitches are bad. You can be a good bitch. One that uses her powers of brutal honesty and outspokenness to do good. Tell people what they're doing wrong and help them grow. Tell people when they've got food in their teeth. That sort of thing."

Emily frowned. "I suppose I could do that. What do you think the boys are talking about?"

Ashley sighed. "I would think it was about them reassuring each other about their own feelings. Josh knew Chris and I liked each other, but Chris didn't know that Josh and I did. They knew nothing of each other's feelings, likening it to a really close best friendship rather than actual romantic attraction."

"Makes sense. When you're as close as those two are, it could be hard to tell the difference."

Ashley nodded. "Right. So it came as a surprise to both of them, now I guess they'd be telling each other that they don't have to worry about anything."

"You think they're making out?"

Ashley turned a deep shade of red. She hadn't considering herself an overly sexual person, but thinking about her boyfriends kissing passionately across the hall was something that created a stirring feeling inside her stomach. "I should hope so."

Chris slammed Josh against the wall, firmly grinding his hips forward, trapping the smaller boy there with his strength. Their lips met blindly; kissing, biting, and licking in a heated frenzy of passion.

"You think we should be doing this without Ash?" Josh gasped as Chris lightly bit into his neck.

The reminder of Ashley drove Chris even wilder, nuzzling deeper into Josh's neck. Josh's knees buckled as he tried to keep himself upright.

"I think she'd want us to have this time together," Chris breathed before returning his lips to Josh's. "God knows I'd want you two to be doing this if it you were you guys down here."

Josh chuckled. "You wouldn't be jealous?"

Chris sobered, pulling away from Josh, eyes brightening. "I don't know, man."

Chris perched on their bed. He would have to figure out how to get Ashley in their room without making it a thing. Ashley was the only one with a room to herself as there was an odd number of them and he doubted that she would want to sleep alone tonight.

"We should probably talk it out," Josh suggested.

"You sound like Kurt."

"I could do worse," Josh grinned. "Before we meet up with Ash again, I did wanna talk to you first."

Chris nodded. "Probably a good idea."

"As we've already established, I like you Chris. I'm not sure when you went from being my best friend to the guy I was crushing on, but I like you."

"As you know from my diary, I like you too. I have for a while actually, but I didn't know what to do with that. I didn't know if you even thinking about guys like that. I thought that if you were, you'd be with Kurt already."

Josh's mouth tightened. "He was always into Mike, there was never really a place for us."

"You mean you liked him?"

"I don't know, man, it's like I said, I can't pinpoint when I started liking you in that way. After you, Kurt's probably my closest friend. I don't think I feel that way about him, but it's hard to tell sometimes where the boundaries are."

"I get that," Chris said, "God, we could've saved so much time by just talking to each other."

"It sucks that it had to begin in such an awful way, but I'm sort of glad it happened, if that doesn't make me sound like a complete psycho."

"I'm with you."

Josh grasped his hand. "You really are, aren't you?"

Chris leaned over and traced his tongue around Josh's earlobe. "I don't just kiss all my friends like that."

Josh shivered and smirked. "We're such boys. A meaningful conversation just turns to sex."

"I haven't done that yet."

Josh blushed. "Me neither. Neither has Ash. We're going to have our first times all together."

Chris gasped. "How are we gonna…?"

Josh caught his meaning instantly. "I've thought a lot about that. You and Ash and me, it's kinda one of my fantasies."

"Not such a fantasy now, bro," Chris chuckled.

Josh's eyes darkened. "I can't wait. Obviously, we'll talk about with it Ash, but do you wanna know the way I always saw it?"

"God, yes."

"Close your eyes," Josh instructed, and Chris' eyes fluttered closed. "Good. Now I want you to imagine it like this. Ash is on the bed." Josh's hand rubbed Chris' shoulders, voice hot in his ears. "I'm fucking her, leaning over her."

"Fuck," Chris breathed.

"And you're fucking me. Ash is gonna feel everything you do to me, I'm taking and giving at the same time. It's beautiful and rhythmic."

Chris clenched his fists. He was not about to start jerking off right now.

"And then we switch."

Chris unconsciously clenched his ass thinking about it. For something that hadn't even happened yet, he could imagine it so vividly.

Josh gave him a low chuckle. "Thought you'd like that. Now you're on top of Ash, and I'm behind you. And if we get to that point, I'd want Ash to fuck us too."

And that was what did it.

Chris Hartley came in his pants.

Josh kissed behind his ear and held him through his surprise orgasm. "And we haven't even touched each other yet."

Chris blushed, head in his hands. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry? That was hot, Chris. Watching you feel that way, I'm never going to get tired of it. And it's only going to get better knowing that I'm going to be one of the people making you feel that way."

Josh slung his arms around Chris' neck. Chris brought his hands up to hold Josh's.

"You'd better change," Josh grinned deviously.

Chris raised a brow. "You're right." He headed for the door, but Josh pulled him back.

"I want you to change in here. I want to see you."

"You've seen me naked before," Chris pointed out.

"Not like this. This is different. I'm not going to touch you because then we'd both be in trouble and I want to wait for Ash for that. But I just want to look at you."

Chris made a show of it, sensually stripping his clothes off, suddenly feeling lots better about his physical appearance, knowing that Josh had seen everything and still wanted him was something he was grateful. There was still a niggling doubt when he thought of Ash seeing him like this, but he had a feeling that she was experiencing much of the same doubts. They would work through it together.

A little later, everyone was assembled in the living room, led by a furious Beth.

Beth paced back and forth across the room. "Okay, so I'm mad. Nobody gets to make me feel the way I felt tonight. The way we all felt while playing that game. I'm glad you guys have forgiven me, but I still haven't forgiven myself. What I need to know is how this person knew so much about us."

And, as if in unison, the whole group stopped to think about that at the same time, as though it was one collective revelation.

Beth stared pointedly. "Right? We were so focused on what we were going to have to do for our dares, that we didn't think about why they were being chosen. Or how.

"Like…who was sitting around Matt on the bus? Who knew that Ash read Chris' diary? Who had access to Sam's phone?"

In between Matt and Mike, Kurt tensed so infinitesimally that neither boy noticed.

Emily hummed. "I don't know what kind of person could be in all of those places, unless they were specifically looking for something."

"You mean like a stalker?" Hannah gasped.

"Exactly," Beth nodded. "And I'm willing to bet that they know a lot more than they made us reveal tonight. This person knows us all personally. And they really hate us."

Kurt stood up abruptly, walking to stand next to Beth. Beth sat down in his place. His authority needed no words.

"There's something you guys should know."