Title: Oh Simple Thing, Where Have You Gone?
Author: ashiethewriter
Rating: PG
Pairings: Sam/Kurt
Author Notes: Yeah, I know this is a Klaine song now, but I just love original Keane song a lot and it always makes me think of Kum.
Warnings: Nothing really
Summary: Kurt's wants to find himself once again and one small thing will teach him so much.
Disclaimer: I do not own the song "Somewhere Only We Know" nor do I own Glee, no matter how much I wish I did.
"I walked across an empty land…I knew the pathway like the back of my hand…I felt the earth beneath my feet…Sat by the river and it made me complete"
A soft sigh escaped his trembling lips and he looked towards the sky, the glaring sun made his eyes squint and he closed them for a brief second before opening them again and looking ahead at the familiar path. It was a bright, beautiful spring day. It was not yet afternoon and it was not exactly morning, also. It was that time of the day when the suburbs were as quiet as a graveyard, making it seem like the apocalypse had erased every living thing from existence. Kurt missed this quietness of the suburbs. He got it at Westerville but the silent suburbs of Lima held its own special for Kurt.
Kurt walked slowly, taking small fragile steps, as if he might break this old path or maybe he was just afraid that he would be heard in midst of all this quietness. His feet were taking him somewhere, anywhere. Kurt's brain had no idea where they were going and Kurt liked keeping it that way. Whenever his brain took over, it always made Kurt take decisions which his heart would never approve of but reluctantly accept anyway.
Soon his designer shoes came to a halt. He was too lost in the depth of his thoughts to even realize where he was. His feet knew where to bring him. His heart was leading the way for them.
A single tear rolled down his cheek as he looked at a distant. Taking a deep breath he walked towards a familiar spot and kneeled down in front of a tombstone. Reaching out, he ran his hand over the engraved epitaph "To love is to place our happiness in the happiness of another" The quote described the deceased woman perfectly. She always placed her happiness in the happiness of Burt and Kurt. Kurt wishes to be just like her. He wants to be selfless for the persons he loves, especially his father and now Blaine. But somewhere he feels that he is failing badly. He is unable to keep everyone happy. Kurt and his dad have been growing distant lately and Kurt isn't able to figure out if it's because of the distance or is it something else. And then there is Blaine, whom Kurt is in love with, or at least he thinks he is. They are together and Kurt is doing everything to keep Blaine happy, he even let go of his diva attitude, to become perfect for the man he adores so much. But, for some reason all this is not making him happy anywhere.
"What am I doing wrong?" the question slips softly from his lips and a tear slowly falls down on the grass in front of him. Coming here always made him feel complete and always gave him answers to his questions but today… he could not say the same.
"Oh simple thing, where have you gone... I'm getting old and I need something to rely on… So tell me when you're gonna let me in… I'm getting tired and I need somewhere to begin"
His feet were moving again, taking him along familiar paths which seemed to alien to him suddenly. His arms wrapped themselves around him, he wasn't feeling cold since it was warm today, but he just felt the need to protect himself suddenly. He doesn't know what he was protecting himself from. There wasn't any danger here. This was the safest place in Lima. The Lima Bean Children's park, which was now famously owned by the Lima Bean of course, but Kurt remembers coming here when it was known as the Carey Johnson Park, named after the deceased child of affluent family in Lima, who moved away and decided to sell the park and requested for the name to be changed. Kurt sighed thinking how easy it was just to change names and the whole identity of something would suddenly change. How he sometimes wished he could do that, but then as he looks carefully he realizes how there isn't much difference between the Carey Johnson park and the Lima Bean Children's Park. The change of name could not change the green grass where he once used to play with his mother, nor did it change the "ancient" pine tree which gave them shade after a long day of play.
Sitting down one of the new black benches, he leaned forward and pressed his palms to the seat as he intently looked at the small kids playing. Some were playing "tag", some where playing or at least attempting soccer, others were doing their own thing. Everyone was doing something. No cliques, no barriers, no judging. Just innocent playing of games. His eyes followed a spot where two of the boys were playing, one had fallen down and was crying, and the other sat down beside him and hugged him tightly. This gesture made Kurt smile. Yep, there was no judging. How he wished for friend to be there for him sometimes. He had friends, yes. He had Mercedes, Tina, Rachael, Brittany, Quinn and heck even Santana to hug him and console him, but that's the thing, they were all girls. He wasn't being sexist, he loved his girls more than anything, but Kurt sometimes wished for a guy friend to be there beside him, when he needed him. Yes, the boys of Glee club "had his back" but still they were quite distant from him because he wasn't all "macho" like them. He even had Blaine now, but the curly haired boy was now his boyfriend, so that whole relationship had changed. Even when they were friends, Blaine did not fully understand Kurt. The point was that Kurt wanted things to be simple and less complicated again. He just wanted someone to understand what he was going through but there was no body for him. He did not have a shoulder to lay his head and just sigh on.
"I came across a fallen tree…I felt the branches of it looking at me…Is this the place we used to love...Is this the place that I've been dreaming of?"
His thoughts were running a relay, changing from one track to another in short intervals. His eyes wandered the park and soon stopped at a familiar golden haired head. He furrowed his eyebrows as he concentrated. "What's he doing here?" he wondered to himself as he watched the boy. Realization then hit Kurt when he saw the boy with two more blonde haired people. They were kids who looked like they must be in grade school. A small smile appeared on Kurt's face as he watched the older male interact with the two children. One of them seemed to have been crying so the older sibling was making attempts to make the younger girl smile with some silly impressions and by the look of his face, Kurt could tell that the oldest blonde was making different voices. He found himself getting up on his feet and walking towards them. It's not the blonde haired boy's face or the blonde himself which intrigued Kurt, but it was his attitude which did.
"Do you know if Batman or even Wonder Woman cried like you, they would never be able to fight people guys again? Those stupid bad guys would make fun of them. Do you want those idiots to make fun of you?"
Kurt heard the oldest blonde ask the crying child. The child looked up her sibling with a pout, which made Kurt look at her in awe.
"But they're so big, I can't do anything!"
The child complained and sniffled. Sam put a hand on kid's shoulder and gave her a stern look.
"It doesn't matter how big they are. You are way smarter than them and awesome than them! If they pushed you, you don't have to push them back, you just have to be brave and do something which would make them regret messing with you and it doesn't have to be physical"
Kurt raised an amused eyebrow as he heard the jock give his two cents to his younger sibling. The blonde was definitely being a hypocrite because if it was him being picked on it would be his fist talking and not his brain.
But the whole pep talk seemed to have worked on the little child as she was smiling now and if Kurt knew that smile any better he would say that she was already plotting something. This almost reminded him of his childhood days, when he used to get back at his bullies with his intellect, like sending them on a goose chase or even sneakily tying their shoe laces together.
Shaking his head he came out of his reminiscence and narrowed his eyebrows as he watched the jock with a black cape tied around his neck as he ran around in the park with the two children on his tail. This was definitely not the Sam he knew. Or as a matter of fact probably no one in Glee club knew. This guy was a total dork, which meant he was living a lie at McKinley. The thought of it made Kurt shake his head in annoyance. The Glee club was all about being your true self and showcasing that to the whole world and here was this new kid who had a mask on his face; the mask of a tough, athletic jock that was into football and hot cheerleaders. If Kurt even had a little respect for the boy, he had lost it all right now seeing how fake it all was. Sam was nothing more than a dork that had a childish side and could give pep talk to children. Oh, and get excited for ice cream like the other children who were with him. He watched as the blonde excitedly bought ice cream for himself and his siblings and teased them before giving it to them. It was all adorable but it still did not change the fact that Sam was a fake.
As his mind trailed off he noticed something; a huge smile on Sam's face. Even though Kurt did not know Sam very well, he did however notice that he had never that smile on the boy's face. It was smile which emitted innocence and freedom. Not only that, Kurt realized that this boy was not happy for himself, he was happy because those two little children with him were happy. Their whole happiness was mutual. He made THEM laugh and they made him laugh in return. This is when it clicked Kurt. His mind went straight to the epitaph on his mother's grave "To love is to place our happiness in the happiness of another" He suddenly realized what it meant. It was not just a one sided thing. It did not just mean that his mother had to find her happiness in the happiness of him and his dad's, it meant that they also had to find their happiness in her happiness. That's how it worked. And this is exactly why he was not satisfied because Blaine did not find his happiness in the things which Kurt happy, like his free, bitchy self. Blaine would have called him out and told him not to change himself because it made him sad; instead he just let Kurt go ahead with it. And his dad was not happy because Kurt was not happy. Kurt was changing and his dad could not find his son in him anymore. Kurt was pulling himself away from everything, even his father.
"And if you have a minute, why don't we go…Talk about it somewhere only we know...This could be the end of everything…So why don't we go somewhere only we know…Somewhere only we know"
Tears were streaming down his eyes uncontrollably as the thoughts lingered in his head. What was he doing to himself? He let people get the best of him. First there was the Neanderthal who made his life a living hell at McKinley and harassed him; this is when Kurt started changing. The person who was once not scared of anything, let himself be terrified to the point where he did the thing his mom had always warned him again; running away. He ran away from his fears. He ran away from everything he had believed in. He was not in the wrong but yet, he…ran…away. He was back at McKinley now but the boy who once terrified him still had that power over him somewhat. He still trembled at the sight of him, even if he was not as worse anymore. Secondly, he changed more and completely lost himself when he fell in love. The man of his dreams was perfect and he needed to make himself perfect for him. He shed his designer clothes and donned the Dalton Academy uniform, conforming to fit into the all boys' school. He stopped fighting for solos; the only thing he fought for was Blaine's attention. Kurt looked up at the sky as he cried, sobs audibly escaped his lips. He wanted to find himself once again.
The brunette's body stifled when he felt a pair of arms wrap themselves around him. He looked down and his blue eyes met a pair of hazel ones. The eyes' radiated off innocence and concern but it held no judgment. The boy pulled him into a tighter embrace and forced Kurt's head onto his shoulder, while he stroked his hair to calm him down. "You looked like you needed a hug" the boy whispered and Kurt closed his eyes ignoring the hand which was upsetting his hair. He needed this right now. No matter how vulnerable he may seem, he was glad that, that shoulder was there for him to lay his head on and just… cry. "Shhh… everything is going to be fine" the blonde whispered, making Kurt smile slightly and let out a soft huff. "You don't even know WHY I am crying, Sam Evans" the diva retorted. "I don't need to know the reason, you just needed a shoulder to cry on and there's nothing wrong with that. I need that sometimes, too" Those words filled Kurt's heart with so much warmth and he began sobbing again. This time he buried his face into the boy's shoulder and grasped onto his shirt as he cried. "I have lost my self. Please help me find myself" the younger boy was pleading and even though he knew Sam wouldn't understand what he was talking about, he still didn't care. He just needed to say it all.
"Shhh… don't worry, I'll help you find yourself, if you help me find myself, also" the blonde replied and this made Kurt stop crying for a while and he pulled away to look at the boy. "..Wha…what do you mean?" confusion clearly spilt from his voice as he asked the question. "I need to find myself, also, Kurt. And if I help you, then maybe you can help me. We could help each other end our search" Sam's voice sounded full of hope and assurance and Kurt bit his lips as he looked at the boy. All the respect which thought he had lost for the boy came back and Kurt smiled slightly, not his usual awkward smile, but a real, beautiful smile as he nodded. "So, wanna go somewhere, where we can talk?" that one question from Sam gave Kurt so much hope. He was yearning for someone to understand him just minute ago and now here was this boy he barely knew, offering to do just that. Kurt suddenly felt courageous, he felt like he wasn't alone in his confusion and search. "I know the perfect place, where we can go" he brunette said with confidence to his new acquaintance. They were not friends; they were just each other's helping hand for now.