Posted as a reaction ficlet fpr 5x07 on tumblr; originally in 3 small installments. Crack, not blaine-friendly. Enjoy!

PART ONE

"I can't believe only one guy showed up to see Pamela Lansbury's first gig," Kurt muttered as he unplugged Dani's amplifier and sat down on it, facing away from the depressingly dark and empty bar. Elliot gave him a sympathetic smile. He looked as if he was going to say something, but then he saw something behind Kurt.

"Actually, two guys showed up," a voice said in a familiar accent. Kurt turned around in surprise.

"Adam!" he let out.

Adam smiled, and suddenly the bar seemed less gloomy. "Hey Kurt," he said, "you looked great up there." He waved a hand at the stage. "You look great now, too, of course."

"I'm gonna go," Elliot whispered in Kurt's ear, startling him a little. Kurt had almost forgotten he was there.

"No, no, it's okay," he said quickly, feeling a little awkward. "Elliot, this is Adam. Adam, Elliot. He's in my band." Kurt couldn't repress the pride in his voice at the last part. His band.

"I know," Adam said, an amused smile on his lips. Kurt realised his introduction had been a little redundant after Adam had watched them play, and he blushed. Elliot nodded at Adam and took up a few instrument cases, making himself scarce. He knew a private moment when he saw one.

"So you were here the entire time? Why didn't you sit in the front?" Kurt asked.

Adam looked around the bar. "I didn't want to distract you," he said, and paused. "To be honest, I wasn't sure if you wanted to see me."

"Of course I do," Kurt said, feeling a surge of warmth envelope his heart. Seeing Adam again was like settling down in a hot bath after a hard day. They looked at each other for a moment. "So what made you change your mind?" Kurt asked.

Adam shrugged. "I figured the worst you could do was send me away-" Again. He didn't say it, but Kurt heard it quite clearly. He swallowed thickly, but before he could say anything, Adam broke the awkward tension. "And I wanted to congratulate you. You sounded great together. And Pamela Lansbury? genius. Honestly. I will tell everyone I know, so they'll be sure to come at your next gig. I'll make it mandatory for the Apples." He winked.

Kurt smiled. "How are they?"

"Oh, same old, you know? Chaotic. Loud," Adam replied, the fondness for his group audible in his voice. "They miss you, though."

Kurt nodded. He missed them too.

"You can always come back, you know," Adam offered. He stepped up to the stage until he was nearly at Kurt's feet, looking up. Kurt twisted the ring around his finger, slipping it up and down over his finger joint; a nervous habit he had developed over the past weeks.

"I can't," he said sadly. "With vogue and the broadway diner and Pamela Lansbury and NYADA, I just-…" Kurt didn't add that he had told everyone Adam had kicked him out and going back would make him look like a doormat.

"I understand," Adam offered, his smile still in place. He raised his hand as if to put it on Kurt's knee, but changed his mind at the last moment and put it down on Kurt's shoe instead. "I just wanted to say that, just in case." He squeezed softly and then let go.

"Thanks."

"So… see you at your next gig then," Adam offered, stepping away.

"Yeah, I… no!" Kurt let out, feeling torn. Adam turned back. "Can you please stay?" Kurt asked. "I… we were going to go out for drinks to celebrate, but-" He gestured at the empty bar. Adam looked back at him, looking hesitant. "I could really use one person there who won't say 'I told you so'," Kurt added. Adam took a deep breath and let it out.

"Of course," he said. "I'll stay as long as you like."

Relief washed over Kurt. He knew he was going to have to deal with Blaine and bear the consequences of hanging up on him as he did, but all of that could wait. For now, he just wanted to be with a friend.

PART TWO

"You've got to be joking me!" Adam let out incredulously. His beer was going stale in the glass, forgotten as soon as Kurt started telling him about the phonecall with Blaine. It was late, and it was only them left. Santana and Dani had left early with a very flimsy excuse to hide the fact that they were going to Dani's to make out, and Elliot had offered to walk Rachel home. Kurt and Adam had tried to keep their topics neutral and light at first, but as the night got longer and their glasses emptier, eventually they reached the inevitable; Kurt's fiancé.

"I'm not joking. He actually said that was the reason he wasn't here tonight. Because he had to break into the principal's office to retrieve a puppet he had made of me. I don't even know what to make of that. I mean, if he'd rather be with some…thing that looks like me than be with the actual me, I just…" Kurt broke off and downed the last of his wine. "I mean, he keeps saying he misses me, but then when I get him a flight to New York-"

"Wow," Adam interrupted. "You booked him a flight?"

Kurt shrugged helplessly. "What was I gonna do? I wanted him to be here, but he can't afford to fly over all the time. He's still in high school, Adam. He doesn't have a job…" He sighed. "Hundred and fifty dollars. That's four shifts including tips, for what? So he could get his puppet!" Kurt shook his head, starting to feel angry all over again, and he snapped his fingers at the barkeeper to get him and Adam another round. Adam quickly lay his hand flat over his beer glass to signal that he had had enough. If Kurt was going to drink this much, one of them was going to have to stay (more or less) sober to make sure nothing bad happened. As Kurt's wine arrived, he discretely ordered a coke.

"He didn't even cancel the flight," Kurt continued, getting warmed up. "Or even called me. You know? He said he didn't want to hurt me. Like I wasn't gonna find out! Like I wasn't gonna go 'gee, I wonder where my fiancé is at the first performance of my band'-" Kurt laughed mirthlessly and took a large sip of wine.

Adam looked at him, not sure what to say. He knew what he wanted to say, but to take a swing at Blaine felt like trying to undermine the competition. Then again, anyone who made Kurt feel like this deserved it. "To be quite honest," he started carefully, "It sounds more like he was afraid of your reaction than of hurting you."

"Yeah," Kurt agreed. "And you know what the worst thing is?"

Adam shook his head. There was more?

"Every time he starts saying stuff like 'I need to tell you something', or 'please don't be mad, but-' or even when he just has that look on his face, I just-" Kurt closed his eyes tightly for a moment before making himself continue. "I am just expecting him to tell me he cheated on me again." He rubbed his hand over his face and rested his elbow on the table to prop up his head. "I mean, I feel like it's just a matter of time…"

"Kurt…" Adam started, but his hand on Kurt's shoulder did nothing to relieve the miserable expression on Kurt's face.

"That's why I got him that ticket, you know? Because last time he couldn't come over, he- Ugh!" He pulled at his hair in frustration, ruining his perfect performance coiffure.

"No, don't, come on Kurt," Adam soothed him, catching the hand in his and carefully pulling it from his locks. As he did, his eye fell on the diamond ring on Kurt's finger. "Kurt, may I ask you something?" he asked, keeping Kurt's hand in his. Kurt shrugged. "Why…why did you say yes to Blaine?" Adam ran his finger over the ring.

"I don't know," Kurt replied. "I guess… it was just easier."

"Easier than what?"

"Than disappointing everyone. Than letting Blaine down. And my dad… He's not gonna be around forever and he just wants to see me taken care of, you know?" He shrugged again. "It kind of felt like… I had these two keys in my hand. One would open the door to a nice house, the kind that everyone wants, white picket fence and everything…but inside, it has…terrible wallpaper or… or stained carpet, and no matter how nice the house is, you're always gonna see those walls. You might get used to them, but they're not going to go away…"

"And the other key?" Adam asked, not sure if he wanted to hear it but asking anyway.

"The other one could open the door to a castle or to a brick wall. Only I didn't know which it was gonna be. And taking the first one meant that no matter what, I'd have a house, at least." Kurt hid his face in his hands. "I'm sorry, Adam," he said, his voice muffled. "I'm drunk. I don't know what I am saying. It makes no sense."

"No, I understand," Adam said quietly. "But you know what, Kurt? You forgot about door number three."

"Huh?" Kurt lifted his head out of his hands.

Adam offered him a smile. "The loft. You already have your own place." He squeezed Kurt's hand. "You don't need to settle for a house you don't want just so you won't be homeless. And you know what we say in England? A man's home is his castle."

Kurt blinked. Adam wondered if he had taken the analogy a bit too far for Kurt's alcohol-clouded mind. Finally, Kurt spoke.

"The loft doesn't have wallpaper."

"Right."

Kurt grinned at him. Whether he had understood or not, Adam didn't care. All he cared about was seeing Kurt smile again.

"Hey," Kurt said, "do you wanna go do something crazy?"

"Um, that depends, but generally, yes," Adam replied.

Kurt plucked the ring from his finger and held it up so the small diamond sparkled in the light. "Let's go to an all-night pawn shop. I'm pretty sure I can get my 150 dollars back for this, at least."

PART THREE

"Kurt. Kurt!"

Kurt groaned and rolled over in his bed, snuggling his face deeper into Bruce's soft embrace.

"Kurt!"

"Mmm…go away Rachel, I'm sleeping," Kurt mumbled groggily. "I'm not in the mood for Funny Girl rehearsals."

"No, Kurt, it's me: Kurt. Wake up!"

"Huh?" Kurt sat up and looked around the room. He blinked to try and focus, which wasn't easy, because the bed was kind of spinning. He suddenly remembered why. Adam had brought him home a few hours ago, aftermuch insistence from Kurt's part that they go to Adam's place and celebrate his un-engagement. Adam, ever the gentleman, had resisted temptation and told him he'd be back in the morning with breakfast and coffee, leaving him alone (and a little bit frustrated) to sleep it off. Kurt raised his hand to his face and moved his empty finger. It felt weird. There was a smooth indentation where the ring used to be. He rubbed the skin with his other fingers. Then he heard it again. Someone was definitely calling his name.

He looked around. The room was empty. He glanced at his night stand to check his phone, and then he saw it. The Kurt puppet. It was lying propped up on a stack of NYADA textbooks by his bedside. Kurt blinked again.

The puppet blinked back.

"What the hell?!" Kurt pushed himself back in his bed, scooting away from the nightstand.

The puppet cocked its head and blinked again. "Hello Kurt," it said.

"Oh god," Kurt mumbled, rubbing his hands over his face. "I'm so drunk. This is not real…"

"We need to talk," the puppet said crisply. "Get a grip, will you?"

Kurt dropped his hands and stared at it. Its voice sounded so much like his own inner voice… "Am I going insane?" he asked, though the answer was already in the question. He was talking to a puppet.

The Kurt puppet shook his head a little. "Could you please put me upright? I'm getting a crick in the neck looking up like this."

Still not quite sure why he was actually listening, Kurt carefully gripped the puppet under the arms and set it down on the bed so that its head was held up by Bruce. It shifted a little. "Nice…" Kurt-puppet said. Kurt sat back so that he was facing the puppet.

"So, what do you want to talk about… Kurt?" he said hesitantly. It had been bizarre finding the puppet on his doorstep earlier. He had opened the box while Adam was there, planning to put the receipt for the pawn shop in with the forgive-me present and send it back like he had all of the other gifts Blaine had sent him when they were broken up. Blaine had to have sent it off the day before, because even FedEx took more than a few hours to cross state-lines… which means Blaine had already anticipated Kurt's disappointment before they talked on the phone. And rather than calling to explain or to apologise, he had sent a present. After all this time, Blaine still hadn't learned that Kurt's forgiveness was not for sale. But instead of a DVD set or yet another collage of pictures of them together, he had found the puppet. A perfect likeness of him, down to the miniature hippo brooch and the tiny engagement ring. It was flattering and creepy at the same time. It was actually Adam who told him he should leave it until the morning before packing it up again, saying he might want to rethink the note he had written to go along with the receipt. Somehow, Kurt had ended up taking the puppet into his bedroom before going to sleep.

"It's about our fiancé," the puppet said.

"Ex-fiancé," Kurt corrected it. "He just doesn't know that yet."

"Right," the puppet conceded, waving its tiny, ringless hand (Kurt had taken its little ring off the moment he saw it). "I think you should know what happened in Lima this week."

Kurt frowned. "Blaine told me something about the Glee club not valuing his input…?"

The puppet nodded its tiny head. "He told me that too, after he made me. He was very upset about that, and so to make himself feel better, he made me say that his ideas were great and Glee club was stupid."

"Okay…" Kurt replied, not sure what to think of that. "You mean he… played with you? Pretending to be me?"

"Uhuh."

"Well, I would never say that just because they had a different opinion. The New Directions are not his back-up singers."

"I know, right?" Puppet-kurt said, waving its little arms. "But I didn't really have a choice, with his hand up in my head moving my lips and all…"

"I'm… sorry?" Kurt offered. The puppet waved it off.

"That's not what I wanted to tell you. There's more. After that, he started practising ways to tell me, I mean you, us - that he wasn't coming to New York."

Kurt slumped a little. "I thought he was given detention?"

"He was! But he never planned to go in the first place. He said he was too busy with school and his clubs to go see a stupid cover band, and that his trips to New York should be something special, like Christmas or Valentines' Day. Days when you'd have more time to spend with him as a couple."

The contents of Kurt's stomach rose in his throat, and he swallowed them down again. A stupid cover band? That's what Blaine thought of Pamela Lansbury?

The puppet coughed to get Kurt's attention again. "And then he showed me what he liked to do on those days," it said, wrinkling its face.

Kurt's eyes grew wide. "You mean-?" he whispered.

"I mean you may not want to put me under a UV-light," the puppet replied discretely.

"Oh. My. God," Kurt said, horrified.

"I had no choice in the matter," the puppet reminded him sadly.

Kurt wasn't sure what was worse. The fact that Blaine didn't want to come and see his band, or the fact that he had apparently used a puppet-likeness of him to get his rocks off.

"I thought you should know," Kurt-puppet said.

"Thanks," Kurt said weakly. "Anything else?"

The puppet seemed to hesitate. It hung its head. "He said he forgave us for what happened last year," it confessed. "I don't know what that means. I wasn't made yet. But it seemed important to him. He said it still hurt what we did, but that some guy named Sam told him it was time to let it go."

Kurt puzzled for a moment and then felt like the sheets around him had been dipped in ice. He had hurt Blaine?!

"I'm gonna be sick," he mumbled, clasped a hand over his mouth, and stumbled off the bed to hurry to the bathroom.

When he came back, the puppet was on his nightstand, lying propped up against his textbooks.

LIMA, OH

A few days later, Blaine Anderson received a large box by FedEx. It was quite heavy, and for a moment he thought it might be the extra order of hairstyling products he had bought in bulk on ebay. Then he saw it was actually his own box, returned to sender: the one he had shipped the puppet in. He carried it to the auditorium before opening it. Inside was the puppet, along with various other items: picture frames, two shirts, a set of monogrammed towels, a dried rose and a small red jewellery box. Pinned to Kurt-puppet's lapel was a note. The puppet-ring was slipped around it.

Frowning, Blaine took out the note. A smaller sheet fell out, which he ignored for now.

Blaine.

You disgust me. We're over. I never want to see you again. Enclosed in this box are the things you gave me; I don't want them any more. You can reimburse the pawnshop to get your ring back- or not, that's up to you. I only took 150 $ for it to pay my creditcard bill for the plane ticket. Pawn-guy seemed pretty happy about that. He said he'll have the engraving sanded out to re-sell it by next week if you don't call him before that.

Blaine looked down on his lap and saw that the smaller sheet was, in fact, a receipt for a pawn-shop in New York. He read on.

Don't contact me again. Even if you end up going to NYADA (good luck btw, I found out there's a youtube video of your performance of Teenage Dream at Callbacks and I took the liberty of forwarding it to Madam Tibedeaux. She doesn't like that kind of exposure in her students) I don't want to know about it. The school's big enough to avoid me and I'll be a year ahead of you anyway.

Kurt.

P.S. I lied about Adam. There was a story. I hope we can go into the next chapter now.

P.P.S. The puppet talks.