These is just the drabbles I wrote to try and make angstyklainer (Emily) cry for our birthday (she did the same to me). I hope you enjoy! The goal of the competition was to make it through all of them without shedding a tear.
Mr. Anderson lives next door. His hair is curly and gray, and Kurt likes to poke it. All of the kids in the neighborhood love to come and sit on his rug every afternoon and eat the cookies he makes while the old man plays guitar and teaches them songs.
Other Kurt lives next door, too, but he's not as fun as Mr. Anderson. Kurt's mom says he's named after Other Kurt because he was a very good neighbor and friend.
"I don't think he's a very good neighbor," Kurt proclaims one day, arms crossed, glaring at his mother. "He never talks to us."
Rather than agreement he expects, he receives an explanation. "Mr. Hummel has been sick for a very long time now, before you were even born. He used to be very nice before he got sick, though."
"Really?" Kurt finds it hard to imagine Other Kurt as fun. All he does is sit in his rocking chair and stare.
His mother nods. "Really. When I was a little girl in this house, I used to go there every morning and he help me pick out an outfit for the day. His mother died when he was little just like Grandma did when I was little."
Not willing to admit defeat, Kurt uncrosses his arms and begins to make a properly triumphant exit.
"You're a lot like him, Kurt," his mother calls, and he frowns, because if there's anything an eight-year-old boy does not want to be, it's a voiceless old man in a rocking chair.
Two weeks later, Kurt wakes up to sirens in the middle of the night. When he peaks out his window, there's an ambulance next door at Mr. Anderson's house. Two men walk out with a strecher, Mr. Anderson trailing after them, and then he's crying and then he's screaming and Kurt runs back into bed, pulling the pillow over his ears until lights aren't flashing on his bedroom ceiling anymore and the sirens and screaming are far, far away.
His mother cries the next day, and then she and his father are gone the day after that while his babysitter explains to him how a funeral works.
"Why couldn't I go?" he complains.
"Funerals are very sad, Blaine," she explains. "Your parents didn't want you to be sad."
The next few weeks are boring. Instead of all the kids flocking to Mr. Anderson's house, a few moms and dads from around the neighborhood file in every afternoon and come back out looking sad.
Other Kurt, as boring as he was, ruined everything when he left, and Kurt is sad, not because he misses him, but because everyone else does.
The day finally comes again, though, when Mr. Anderson's windows open back up and the smell of cookies wafts out to alert the neighborhood: afternoons are back. Come ring my doorbell.
Mr. Anderson's smile is different, and his songs are slower, but he still seems happy.
"What song do you guys want to learn next? How about an old one? Maybe one your parents will recognize?"
Kurt smiles, because his mom still has her vintage ipod and he's allowed to listen to it if he's careful and his hands are clean. He raises his hand.
Mr. Anderson's smile seems to fade a bit when his hand goes up, but he points to Kurt, who proudly calls out,"Teenage Dream by Katy Perry!"
Something happens once he says that. Mr. Anderson goes still, then puts down his guitar, bringing his palms to his eyes. He sits there for a moment, as every child in the room stares.
"Mr. Anderson? Are you okay?" Melissa Middler finally asks, because she's the oldest (11!) and it's her job to take care of stuff like this.
"Go away, please," he says, almost to quiet to hear, and Kurt's lip starts to quiver because he knows he did something wrong.
No one moves.
"Get out!" Mr. Anderson yells. It's not as loud as when Kurt's dad yells, or even his teacher, but it's enough to make everyone else scatter, running out the front door while Kurt just sits there with tears on his face.
"I'm sorry," he says after a minute. "What did I do wrong?"
There is a choking sound from the old man, and when he finally pulls his face up from his hands and stares at Kurt, there's an expression on his face that's not happy, not sad, not any of the emotions on the poster that used to hang on the wall of Kurt's kindergarten classroom.
"Go," he whispers, almost too quiet for Kurt to hear, but the tone makes him scramble up and dart out the door, the sound of things being smashed in the house behind him, and then thescreaming from the night of the ambulance starts again.
Later that night, his mother sits him down on the couch and tells him not to visit Mr. Anderson anymore.
"Why is he mad at me?" Kurt asks, trying hard not to start crying again.
"He's not mad, sweetheart," his mother assures, wrapping him into a hug. "He's just very, very sad. You make him very, very sad because you remind him of Mr. Hummel."
"I'm sorry," Kurt mumbles into her shoulder.
"Don't apologize for that, sweetie. Don't ever apologize for that. Because you know what? Even though it makes Mr. Anderson sad to see you, I know he's very glad that there's still someone like Mr. Hummel in the world."