Warnings: minor slut-shaming, a couple of slurs mentions of canon infidelity, non-graphic panic attack. Brief mentions of Blaine/Others. Sebastian and Finn have brief appearances. If you're the type to need warnings for sex, sitting sex with bottom!Blaine.
Notes: Huge, huge, huge, HUGE thanks to my beta, Hannah, for not only being an awesome cheerleader throughout, but for helping me develop the idea back when I first thought of it, and helping me make the fool thing make sense after. Also for cheerleading and putting up with my general flailing and complaining, Sammi and Jenny. This fic has been a real effort to write (I'm looking at you, sex scene), and it wouldn't exist without any of them.
Also, more insurmountably massive thanks to my absolute star of an artist, tortugax, for making both the perfect playlist (with perfect cover art!) and the perfect art. Especially since she only had a half-written mess to work from. You can find a link to the masterpost on my profile. :D
Not on the playlist but mentioned in the fic are 'A Song for Europe', 'Mother of Pearl' and 'Sunset' from the album Stranded, referenced is 'Nightingale' from the album Siren, all credited to Bryan Ferry.
(I recommend you actually read this on AO3, LJ or Tumblr. The formatting looks much nicer.)
Kurt tries to focus on the noises from outside the building; the engines and horns from the cars on the street, drunken shouts and singing. Music from the building on the other side of the road. The faint murmur of the guy who lives in the apartment below and comes out onto the fire escape at three in the morning without fail to smoke and talk to the aliens who were supposedly tracking him.
But every shift of fabric against fabric, every sigh and hitch of breath, every shudder and vibration that carries through the mattress and pillows brings Kurt back to the room and the person beside him. It's bad enough that the blanket doesn't lie completely flat around him, balanced between the two bodies and capturing the heat between them; Kurt has to fight to forget that Blaine was lying next to him, because every time he remembers, he remembers everything. Not just that night – not just 'I was with someone' and the heartbroken, heartbreaking rendition of 'Teenage Dream' and the largest bouquet of red roses Kurt has ever seen: he remembers Skype dates and serenades both public and private and picnics and linking arms in the corridors and their first kiss and RENT and innocuous moments of doing moment.
But worst of all, he remembers the passion and the heat and the intimacy, and every time he thinks of that he sees a faceless man fucking Blaine, touching Blaine and making him come, and it feels like another serrated knife is stabbed into his heart.
I wish I'd never met you, Kurt thinks as he turned his head further into the pillow and squeezes his eyes closed, hoping to stave off the tears. He feels the body next to him freeze, obviously still awake. Kurt doesn't want to cry again until he's alone.
He doesn't toss and turn. He desperately wants to – he wants to curl up on himself and spread out across the mattress and scream and throw his pillows at the wall . . . but he's terrified. He's terrified of what he might do if he brushes against the man next to him. He's terrified of what Blaine might do.
He must fall asleep at some point, although it can't be very long or deep, because suddenly the sun is piercing through his eyelids, making his head pound from all the tears must have shed while he was asleep. He groans without thinking, and then stops. He inhales slowly as the previous night comes back to him.
Blaine.
But the bed is empty. There is no warmth radiating from another body and he's completely twisted around in the blanket.
He wonders where Blaine is, and the worry he can't help but feel slices through his tender heart, spilling out hatred and anger and self-loathing. Blaine doesn't deserve Kurt's concern, not anymore.
Still, he can't stop himself from turning over and opening his eyes to look at Blaine's side of the bed. No. Not his side; just the side he has always slept on. To see if Blaine had left his pyjamas folded neatly on top his pillow or if his rucksack is still there – and, hating himself at how pathetic he is, he wants to roll over and bury his face into Blaine's pillow while he lets himself sob before he will have to inevitably get out of bed and face . . . whatever is out there.
Except Kurt isn't in his room.
Well, technically, he is – but it's his room in Ohio, not the makeshift room in New York. He's surrounded by his ornaments and knick knacks, collected over years – most of which he recognised, but the only picture is one of himself, his mom and his dad from when Kurt was about four on his desk – but the colour scheme is entirely different to how he'd left it. If he had the energy, he'd panicked about what was going on, but he finds he can only conjure up a mild sense of confusion and discomfort.
Kurt lies in his bed – the bed? is it his – staring alternatively at the ceiling and the scentless pillow next to him until a knock comes at his door and his dad calls through, "Kurt, you up, bud? Breakfast's on the table."
"Dad?" Kurt says before he can stop himself, voice rough.
"Yeah. You alright?" The door starts to open and a flash of panic races through Kurt, and he shouts, "Don't come in!" before it can open all the way.
After a short pause, the man who sounds like his dad asks, "You sure you're alright?"
"I'm fine, just getting dressed, I'll be down in a minute," Kurt says, stumbling over his words.
"If you're sure . . ."
"I am. Very sure. I'll see you in a minute."
A moment later footsteps lead away from the door, and Kurt slumps back against his pillows, staring unseeingly forward while he waits for his heart and stomach to settle. Why is he in Ohio? Why hadn't his dad said anything about New York? What the hell is going on?
(Where is Blaine?)
Kurt drags himself out of bed and to his closet. The clothes are plain, and mostly shades of blue and black. Kurt's just thankful there are loose jeans and a hoodie. He'd be ashamed of the apparent lack of variety, but what do clothes matter anymore? In fact, he's glad these are the only clothes in his wardrobe – they're made to make him invisible, and that's the only thing Kurt wants to be right now.
His body feels heavy as he makes his way downstairs. He's exhausted in more than one way: his stomach is twisting into all sorts of painful shapes, his face feels stiff and puffy, and he just wants the entire past two months to have been some fancy dream and he's finally woken up back in Lima.
He stops in the kitchen doorway, the hairs on the nape of his neck prickling from the sense of wrongness of the scene in front of him. His dad, Carole, Finn and Sam round the table, the table covered in breakfasts and crockery, Carole working on the daily crossword, Sam eating muesli while jealously side-eyeing Finn's plate – all of that is as it should be. But Sam's hair is too long, Finn's hair only became so short after returning from army training, and Finn isn't talking about Rachel; he's talking about co-directing the school musical.
"You're going to school dressed like that?" Burt asks. A lump rises in Kurt's throat, and he can't stop himself from going over and wrapping his arms around his dad's waist. Even if this is just a dream, nothing beats a hug from his dad. "Whoa, bud. You okay?"
Kurt shakes his head, and Carole's small, rough palm rests on his face.
"You don't feel warm," she says.
"You look like hell, though," Sam says.
A noise erupts from Kurt's throat, pained and plaintive and tiny, and he burrows his face in his dad's neck.
"I feel like hell," he manages in a low voice. Burt's hand is firm and comforting as it slowly runs up and down his spine; he feels eight years old again, where the only thing stopping the shattered pieces of his heart from spilling onto the floor is his father's strong arms and steady presence. "I wanna die."
For just a second, Burt's grip tightens, and his hand stills. "You're not having trouble at school again, are you?" he asks.
If only it were that, Kurt wishes, closing his eyes against more tears. He'd take bullies any day over B— . . . a broken heart and broken trust.
"No," he says, even though his dad's question doesn't make sense. Obviously, he's dreaming – more vivid than he's ever had before, and he's never managed lucid dreaming before, but he's dreaming all the same. "Just don't feel good."
Burt pulls back, and Kurt lets him go. After a moment of examination, his dad nods, and says, "Alright. You want me to call off work or are you alright staying on your own today?"
"I'll be fine on my own," Kurt says evenly. He'd love for his dream dad to stay home and hug him all day, since he's not going to see his real dad for at least another few weeks, but more than anything he just doesn't have the energy. And if he changes his mind later, this is a lucid dream, and from what he knows of those, he'll just be able to will his dad back.
Kurt excuses himself to his room as quickly as he's able and clambers back into bed. He curls up under the covers, feeling too numb to read or browse the internet. As he waits for the house to empty, he almost wishes he would wake up already. He's definitely not ready to face Blaine again, but at least in New York Kurt has a time-consuming internship in one of the busiest industries in the world to occupy his time.
When he wakes up, he resolves, he's going to call Isabelle and ask for overtime. He won't even try to get extra pay, just the hours.
His dad checks in again before he leaves for work, and then Kurt is alone.
For a long time, he stares at the spot on his shelf which used to house his senior prom photo, the ache in his chest expanding, until the pain feels too big for his body. His vision blurs and his body is shaking, the comforter clenched in his fist the only thing stopping his nails from tearing the skin of his palm. He curls up further, tighter, smaller, gasps harshly when his lungs burn for air – and it's only then he realises he's crying.
Tears roll hot down his face. Each exhale is wrenched ragged from his throat. He wants to scream, to force out his despair until he can breathe again; but all he can do is drown in his gasps as he desperately grabs for air.
When Kurt finally stops shaking, the light in his bedroom has changed. He drags himself into the bathroom, rubbing the crust left over from his dried tears from his eyes, and strips while the shower warms up, not caring where and how his clothes land. He makes the temperature too hot and just stands under the stream of water, barely feeling the droplets burn his skin.
The water cools quickly, and when Kurt turns it off, the heat has only managed to pink his skin. All he feels is numb.
He doesn't want to do anything more than sleep until everything's fixed, and without a job to force him to stay awake, it's certainly tempting. But, he decides, since he's dreaming anyway, it seems ridiculous to go to bed. And if he remembers one thing from Inception, it's to play along with a dream or else your subconscious will try to kill you.
He picks up his phone to tell Mercedes he won't be in school today – but she isn't one of the four conversation threads in his messages. She isn't one of his contacts, either. Tina is, and Sam, and Brittany, and Mike, and his family, but neither of his best friends are. (Blaine isn't, either, and Kurt is relieved this dream truly has given him some relief from the other boy's presence, even if it hasn't taken away his memory.) He tosses his phone to the other end of his bed, settles against the headboard, and pulls over his laptop. There is, surprisingly, no password on start up, so he opens up Facebook immediately. He's relieved to find he's still friends with Mercedes and Rachel there but—
The date according to his laptop is October 22nd, not October 6th; Mercedes is in LA and Rachel is in New York; and his profile claims he's to graduate from McKinley in the class of '13. Kurt would frown if he wasn't so desperate avoid wrinkles at all costs (if he had the energy to move one muscle, let alone move forty-two); nevertheless, he feels like he's not connecting dots correctly, that there's something he's missing.
(Finn's graduated in this dream too, Kurt remembers vaguely. Either that or his subconscious has gotten a few things mixed up. Although, to be fair, he wasn't exactly paying attention to what Finn was saying at breakfast.)
Rather than write on Mercedes or Rachel's walls, he goes into his photos. There are depressingly few over the last two years; there are significantly more in Rachel and Mercedes' profiles.
Even though this is only a dream and Kurt knows his friends love him, it still hurts to see pictures of his friends having fun without him. Especially at their graduation party.
He hovers the mouse over the search bar for several long moments before clicking out of Facebook and shutting down the computer altogether.
By the time a car pulls into the driveway, Kurt has combed through the entire house. He wasn't especially thorough, but more times than he would admit he had found himself standing or sitting or crouching and staring uselessly into nothing as tears rolled down his face so he's taking any exploration done as a success. Unfortunately, he didn't found out anything more than he already knew, so the afternoon was a waste.
A knock on the door is quickly followed by Finn's head, and then the rest of his body follows when Kurt doesn't tell him to go away.
"Hey, man, you feeling any better?"
"I guess." Numbness and emptiness is better than absolute agony, so it's not a complete lie.
"Awesome. Everyone was worried about you in Glee today. Mr Schue said to pass on a get well soon."
"Thanks."
Finn continues hovering, so Kurt forces himself to uncurl and take one of his headphones out.
"What else do you want?" he asks, and tries not to recoil from Finn's worried, studying eyes.
"You still kinda look like crap," Finn says. Kurt huffs, more to play along than out of any real offence. He knows how he probably looks; he doesn't wear devastation well. "Are you sure you're okay, dude? No rush to get back to school, y'know. Sam won't mind getting your homework for longer."
"I'm fine," Kurt snaps. "When's Dad gonna be home?"
"Five, I think. But I can call him home earlier?"
Kurt sighs, shakes his head and shuffles down the bed again. "No, I'm fine."
"Alright. I'll go get your work then." Kurt nods and puts his headphone back in his ear, thanks Finn when the boy appears with a small stack of sheets and then ignores him when he hovers again. It's going well, despite the insistently fidgeting blur out the corner of Kurt's eye, until Finn sits down on the end of Kurt's bed. "What'cha watching?"
"Inception," Kurt answers shortly.
"Huh. Uh. I didn't know you liked that film."
Kurt likes Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Leonardo DiCaprio. Liked. No, likes – there's nothing wrong with fantasising about handsome men.
"I don't," he says. Water rushes on the screen and Leo drops into the bathtub, and Kurt has to swallow back more tears.
"Okay . . . I'll just leave you to it?"
Kurt nods and doesn't wait until Finn's even closed the door to turn the sound up.
Inception is a stupid film, Kurt's decided. Well, he's always thought it was a dumb movie, but now he thinks it's more stupid. The only thing it's not wrong about is how realistic the dream feels while he's in it, because he pinched his arm and it hurt like hell.
Around eight, Burt comes into Kurt's room with a bowl of soup and a couple of slices of dry toast.
"Feelin' any better, bud?" he asks as he places the tray on Kurt's bedside table. He sits himself on the bed and reaches forward to put the back of his hand on Kurt's forehead. "Still no temperature so that's good."
"I guess."
Burt pulls his hand away, so Kurt shuffles forward to curl into his dad's side and breathes in the scent of motor oil and lingering aftershave. His dad wraps an arm around him but it only helps so much; Kurt's in pain, and there's nothing his dad can do but hold him. He wishes he were a kid again.
"Think you're okay to go to school tomorrow or do you want another day off?"
"I'll be okay," Kurt answers, because he never wants any version of his dad to worry, and it's not like he'll have to go anyway. He'll probably wake up before then – hopefully when he 'falls asleep' tonight. It's been nice to have a whole day to process, a relief before facing Blaine in the morning.
"Alright." Burt's voice rumbles in his chest, and Kurt's head slips down so he can hear the steady, reassuring beat of his heart. "Just don't push yourself if you do feel crap then, okay?"
Kurt nods, closing his eyes.
"Love you, Dad," he whispers.
"Love you too, Kurt." The man briefly squeezes tighter, drops a kiss onto Kurt's flat hair, and then starts letting go. "Eat something and then go to bed, yeah?"
"'Night."
"'Night. Sleep well."
Kurt forces down two thirds of the soup and a slice of bread, and then lies awake until dawn.
Kurt forgets all about Blaine for one almost blissful moment when he wakes up to an alarm and his Ohio bedroom. He freaks out until his alarm gets too irritating to deal with any longer, and then opens up Google to search for information about dreams.
Because the mind still dreams after a false awakening, there may be more than one false awakening in a single dream. Subjects may dream they wake up, eat breakfast, brush their teeth, and so on; suddenly awake again in bed (still in a dream), begin morning rituals again, awaken again, and so forth.Kurt strokes across his collarbone as he frowns at the tiny screen of his phone and thinks. He's woken up still in Ohio – and still in the same dream as before, if the number of contacts is anything to go on – so he's probably just having a reoccurring false awakening . . . but not everything fits. He knows, of course, that Wikipedia is hardly from the most reliable site on the web, but still, shouldn't everything fall into place? At the very least, shouldn't a second false awakening have the same date as the first?
Patients feel uncanny and that there is something suspicious afoot. Everything gets a new meaning. The environment is somehow different—not to a gross degree—perception is unaltered in itself but there is some change which envelops everything with a subtle, pervasive and strangely uncertain light.[…] Something seems in the air which the patient cannot account for, a distrustful, uncomfortable, uncanny tension invades him.Except Kurt doesn't feel 'uncanny' – his room is his room, his family are his family, most things are as they should be. Blaine isn't around (fortunately) and his lack of presence is obvious in the decor of Kurt's room, and for some reason Kurt didn't graduate on time, but he doesn't feel a sense of 'distrustful tension' in the air otherwise.
He closes the page with a huff and unsatisfying press of the thumb. Wikipedia is full of shit anyway.
He pulls himself out of bed and gets dressed. The closet is still as unfabulous as yesterday, but Kurt still isn't feeling particularly fabulous himself so he can deal with muted colours and a fraction of his scarf collection. In the kitchen, he assures everyone he's feeling better today (more points against a false awakening, but Kurt can't have been the only person to have a dream like this) and forces himself to eat again, and then follows Sam to the car.
"You wanna drive?" Sam asks, and Kurt shakes his head. If this is a dream and McKinley is in a different place – or there isn't even a McKinley at all – he doesn't want to end up driving in the wrong direction. "Sweet! I've always wanted to drive your car."
"Just don't scratch it," Kurt says. Sam grins and holds up his fist until Kurt taps it.
McKinley is exactly the same, which is simultaneously comforting and not. A couple of slurs are shouted his way as he walks through the corridor; a jock sneers at him when he passes; and there's still the faintly nauseating smell in the air and sticky patch outside one of the science rooms.
"Kurt!" Tina calls, and Kurt's walking towards her before it's even fully registered. He was mostly wandering around aimlessly, since he doesn't know what classes he's supposed to be in. She hugs him carefully and then links their arms together. "Have you been to your locker yet?"
"I knew I'd forgotten something," he says. Tina laughs – too brightly – and then starts leading him to, presumably, his locker. Fortunately, she also knows his combination and classes, and isn't suspicious when Kurt pretends he's just being particularly scatterbrained today. He's actually quite surprised by that, because he knows he doesn't have the energy to act very well. It's hard enough trying not to yawn every two minutes.
He separates with Tina to go to his first class and is immediately pushed into a locker. "Oh, how original," he snaps. "Really, the amount of creativity you display is as high as your destined-for-dead-end-jobs predecessors."
The nameless jock (with bad hair – why do they always have bad hair?) looks surprised for a moment, and then his face colors an ugly red. "Shut up, homo."
"If you're lucky Supercuts will let you clean up the floors. Trust me, with that hairstyle, you won't even need an interview."
The jock locker checks him again, hard enough for Kurt to lose his breath this time, and storms off without another word. Kurt scowls after the jock, his veins starting to flare for the first time with something other than despair, and Kurt embraces it, lets it flood his muscles until he's standing tall and proud and quietly angry.
Artie rolls up as Kurt spins gracefully on his heel. "Are you okay? That one looked especially painful."
"Who knew straight boys were so sensitive about their hair?" Kurt says waspishly.
Artie stops moving to stare up at Kurt. "You made fun of his hair?" He blinks a few times, surprised, and then holds out his fist. "Nice one, Kurt."
Kurt rolls his eyes as he exchanges yet another fist bump.
That night, Kurt falls asleep as soon as his eyes close, but he's not so exhausted that he manages to stay asleep. Over the course of the night, he wakes up four times, until dawn is beginning to break on the horizon and he can't get back to sleep. He researches false awakenings again, but he finds no reports of other people living out consecutive days in their dream.
He wakes up again, and again, and again, and he's still in Ohio. Throughout the days, he wishes he'd wake up with a ferocity that surprises him – but he misses New York. He misses his internship and Rachel and he desperately wants to talk to his dad, and he'll take having to face Blaine again if he can get everything else back. The anger that the jock had incited in him simmers inside him, expanding so that he's angry at everything – he's angry that he's stuck in this dream, he's angry that he misses Blaine at night and in the quiet moments when he's by himself, he's angry that he's not being able to be comforted by everyone and everything else in his life, he's angry that the family and few friends he has in this dream are treating him like he's a wilting daisy.
The calendar flips over to Tuesday again, and Kurt's anger explodes. He throws his phone against the wall; it shatters, and so does something in Kurt chest. He grabs his lamp, tears the plug out the socket and flings that across the room with a shout – and then he just starts throwing whatever his hands land on, moisturisers, ornaments, books, that single photo frame.
Arms encircle him, pull him against a chest, and Kurt convulses and twists and screams.
"Kurt!" his dad's voice shouts in his ear.
"Let me go!" he screams. "Let me go let me go don't touch me—!"
"Kur—"
"Don't wanna be here," Kurt cries. "Wanna go home, I'm so sick of everything, don't touch me!—"
His foot connects solidly with something, and the arms around him slacken enough so that Kurt can tear himself away. His hand lashes out when something tries to grab him – keys bite into his hand, gravel into his feet – a car door slams, and Kurt drives. He spins the wheel left, away from McKinley and everything it stands for, and the grooves of the accelerator and brake dig into his feet as he senselessly turns through the streets until all that surrounds him is farmland.
He doesn't know why he eventually stops – he just slams the brake and stumbles from the car, shaking from the chill and sudden lack of adrenaline, feeling every ache, and unable to remember the past half hour but feeling mortified anyway. He keeps his cool, withdraws into himself when he needs to; he doesn't fly off the handle and go on a destructive rampage.
Kurt closes his eyes, holds back tears, and wraps his arms around himself as he shivers, tired and morose and lonely. He's starting to lose feeling in his toes and fingers and nose, his feet have dried blood on them, his arms ache, his hands throb with every heartbeat, his throat is sore, his hair is unstyled, he's wearing his pajamas, he doesn't know where he is, and his heart is still littered along the bottom of his ribcage in tiny pieces.
"Wake up," he begs himself, voice rough and cracked. He curls over his knees and cries. "Wake up, wake up, wake up . . ."
He's chilled to his core and out of tears by the time his dad's car pulls up next to the Navigator. Two doors open and close, a hand brushes Kurt's shoulders and then drives away again, and his dad crouches down in the dirt and pulls Kurt close. He goes limply and shudders at his dad's warmth.
"C'mon, kid," his dad murmurs, "let's get you warmed up."
In the end, he practically carries Kurt to the passenger seat of the Navigator, because Kurt's feet are too numb for Kurt to feel them. Burt tucks a blanket around Kurt's legs, turns on both the heater and the heated seats, and lets the car slowly drain the battery until Kurt stops shivering.
"'M sorry, Dad," Kurt slurs. His face is turned towards the window – he's still embarrassed, perhaps more now that he's not the slightest angry anymore – and it's hard to keep his eyes open. "Didn't mean to worry you."
"Hey, Kurt, look at me." His dad's hand is heavy and comforting on his shoulder, so Kurt forces himself to roll his head towards him. "I always worry about you, okay? Especially after the other year, I'm gonna worry about you as long as you're in this town, and then every day after it too. You're my son."
"I should be in New York," Kurt says. Burt nods, the lines on his face deep.
"You'll get there," he says. "Just a few more months and you'll be in college and havin' the time of your life."
Kurt nods, blinks, forces his eyes back open. "'M sorry about my room."
Burt sighs. "Yeah. We'll talk about that later. But how about now we go home and watch some TV, huh? I'll let you choose." He smiles, a little forced but mostly the easy suffering of a parent who will do anything for their child. "I won't even complain if you wanna put on that Georgia Shore show."
"Jersey Shore," Kurt corrects him sleepily, and shakes his head. "Can we watch Sound of Music?"
"Of course," Burt says softly. He squeezes Kurt's shoulder once and then lets go to start up the engine. "Sleep on the way there, yeah?"
"Mm hm." Kurt lets his eyes finally slip closed. "Love you."
"I love you too, Kurt."
Carole comes home just past seven with take out, Finn and Sam. Kurt appreciates the time to calm down, but he's mortified that everyone had seen him like that. He blushes all through dinner, even though no one says anything, and then escapes to his room. Ten minutes later, Sam comes into his room with the opening: "I have a theory."
"You have many theories," Kurt says, "most of them conspiracies."
Sam closes the door and moves closer. "Like that. The Kurt I know is damaged and hates this town with a fiery passion. And he hasn't stood up to his bullies since he had to repeat his junior year – which I know you have done because Artie sent a mass text to everyone in the old New Directions."
Kurt's heart thumps wildly somewhere up in his throat. Oh, god, he's not ready to die. (And why the hell would he repeat his junior year?) "I can't just have gotten tired of being pushed around?"
"You could've," Sam acknowledges, "but that quick of a turnaround just after you started acting weird? The only explanation is that you're a pod person!"
Kurt can't help himself – he bursts into mostly mirthless laughter. "I think you've been watching too many sci fi movies."
Sam narrows his eyes at Kurt in study, and sighs. "Well, my second theory was that you're from a parallel universe. But the pod person seemed more likely, since it was a battle of aliens versus wormholes and I know which ones actually exist." His eyes grow wide. "Unless the Hadron Collider actually made a black hole in your universe!"
"Don't be ridiculous," Kurt says, but it comes out ineffective because his mind is spinning – could he really be in a parallel world, and not just dreaming?
"What's your universe like?" Sam asks, bounding over to join Kurt on the bed like a golden retriever. "Do you have any cool gadgets that don't exist here? Am I there? Do I have any superpowers?"
"Now you're being ridiculous."
"So you are from a parallel universe!"
Kurt nods reluctantly and Sam punches the air.
"Don't get too excited," Kurt says. "Everything's basically the same."
"So it's like in that one episode of Buffy?"
"Which episode?"
"Season 3, episode 9. Cordelia catches Xander making out with Willow and then wishes Buffy had never moved to Sunnydale and there's that whole alternate timeline with the vampires?"
"But I didn't wish any—" Kurt begins to retort, but the words catch in his throat.
He had wished. His boyfriend cheated on him and he, what, wished the world different? Except no one had been listening – certainly not a vengeance demon.
"But I only wished in my head," he says instead. And it isn't just the words catching in his throat now; his tears, his anger, his hurt are choking him. He looks determinedly away from Sam, but in his peripheral vision he can still see Sam's eyes are wide in panic and concern. "He – he was with someone else," he spits mockingly, "and I wished I'd n-never met him."
"Hey, at least you didn't wish yourself into a vampire apocalypse!" Kurt huffs and glares at Sam, who looks unperturbed. "No? Okay then."
"How could this have happened though? Vengeance demons are just as fictional in my universe as this one."
"Well, there are tons of ways to get to parallel universes. Did you happen to notice any portals?"
Kurt shoots Sam a dirty look. "Don't be ridiculous. And there was no futuristic gadgetry lying around either because parallel universes are something that belong in science fiction and not the real world."
Sam shrugs. "I don't know what to tell ya, man, I'm definitely a person. 'I think therefore I am', y'know?" He looks contemplative for a moment and then says, "Actually, I think your situation is more like Shrek Forever After." Sam frowns worriedly. "Wait, you didn't make a deal, did you? 'Cause you've been here for, like, a week already and the whole True Love's Kiss thing's expired already."
"If you're not gonna be helpful, get out my room," Kurt snaps, standing up to glare down at Sam.
"Whoa, wait. I'm sorry, I'll stop talking about . . ." He trails off as his eyes widen and his jaw drops. "Wait, you said he? As in, a boyfriend he?"
"Not anymore," Kurt mutters, and then he brushes the sudden tears from his eyes.
"So the point our timelines diverge is when you met the ex." Sam frowns. "Dude, your life sucks without him. You got bullied so bad in junior year you ended up in hospital because you were ridiculously underweight, and then you had to repeat the grade because you were still being treated over finals. Burt didn't even know about it 'til then. And you've been kinda . . . quiet ever since."
Kurt works his jaw against the surge of anger. None of this is Sam's fault, and Kurt shouldn't rip him apart for being tactless.
"I thought he was my soulmate," Kurt says icily. "Trust me, however I felt then is better than how I feel now."
"So you're saying you're better off without him." Sam looks dubious. "I dunno, Kurt. I mean, I seriously don't think you've smiled in, like, two years. I'm not saying you're not right to feel how you're feeling!" he hurries to add when Kurt glares at him again, "I'm just saying that if this . . . uh, guy made you happy, even if you feel like shit now, it's probably a good thing you met him."
Kurt turns away from Sam and closes his eyes.
"Can you please leave? I'm tired."
"Sure, man."
Sam closes the door behind him, and Kurt waits until he can no longer hear his footsteps to change into his pajamas, pull the comforter over his head, and cry himself to another night of fitful sleep.
Cordelia ended up dying in her alternate universe. Kurt sort of wishes he had, too.