The night that Blaine told Kurt that he'd slept with someone else, he left. Kurt didn't go back to Lima to visit, he didn't phone Blaine at Thanksgiving, they didn't go ice skating and have Christmas dinner together. They just got on with their lives.
Kurt worked his way up at until he was eventually writing his own Men's fashion column. He had an office in Times Square where he could look over the city.
Rachel graduated from NYADA with honours and dove headfirst into Broadway, starring in the Broadway Revival of Funny Girl as Fanny Brice. Most of her days were devoted to rehearsing with her fellow actors and actresses, while her nights were spent performing in front of full houses to standing ovations and cries of "encore!". She would return from swanky after parties in the early hours of the morning to the lonesome apartment that she lived in on the Upper East Side.
Quinn Fabray graduated from Yale university with a Theatre Studies degree and a hole in her heart. She returned to Lima later in the year and exposed Shelby Corcoran for having sexual relations with a minor. The courts deemed her an unfit mother and her four year old adopted daughter was packaged back to her birth mother.
In the autumn of 2014, Quinn turned up at the tiny studio apartment that Kurt and Rachel shared and begged to be let in, claiming that she and Beth had nowhere to go. The pair grudgingly obliged.
For the next year, Rachel and Quinn bickered and squabbled over every little thing. Rachel showed no shame in her distaste for the heavy number of men which traipsed in and out of the apartment, while Quinn seemed to use the men as a way to taunt Rachel, to remind her of her gawky school years which Rachel had hoped to leave behind in exchange the glamour of the New York skyline and its romance.
On Christmas Day 2015, Rachel packed her bags and left, leaving Kurt with a five year old child and a triumphant Quinn. Rachel stayed with her co-star Brody Weston for a few weeks until she plucked up the courage to buy her own apartment. It was a modest, one bedroom on the Upper East Side.
Noah Puckerman turned up at the Hummel-Fabray residence in the summer of that year, relieved, breathless and enraged. He dashed straight to Beth, hugged her and promised that he would never leave her with her psychotic mother again. Kurt took Beth to see the ducks in Central Park so she didn't have to listen to her parents scream at each other.
By September, Puck had moved into the two bedroomed apartment across the hall. Two months later, Finn joined him. Kurt wrote his Christmas column on his motley crew of friends and entitled it "Life Doesn't Always Go As Planned".
By the time 2017 rolled around, he hadn't thought about Blaine Anderson in nearly five years.
"Uh, I was just wondering if you had a, um, a towel or something I could use?"
Kurt groaned inwardly and slowly lifted his head from the column he was attempting to write for the February issue to smile tightly at the gangly, half naked man standing awkwardly in his kitchen.
"Sure." He said smiling through his gritted teeth. He gulped the last of his coffee and stood up, taking in the man's shoulder length bedraggled hair and sparsely grown stubble, he shuddered involuntarily thinking of his high school chum 'homeless Brett'. Then he smiled at the man again who was looking at him uncertainly and indicated the linen cupboard.
"I'll just get you one," He said as he strode across the room. A silence ensued. Brett 2.0 cleared his throat.
"Nice place you've got here," he said glancing around for the first time. The early morning light was streaming in through the large window which took up most of the wall on the street side of the apartment. In the five years he'd lived here, Kurt had never got around to putting up drapes. The tiny wooden scrubbed table in the kitchen area was covered in newspapers, photographs, fabric samples, post-it notes and a large, old-fashioned type writer sat in the middle of the table, a half written column poking out the top. The middle of the apartment was the living room area where the mismatched chairs all sat around the large coffee table which the whole flat was centred around. Kurt could see one of Quinn's black, lacy bras draped across the arm of the sofa.
"I guess you didn't really get a chance to have a good look around during to last night's festivities." Kurt said, eyeing the Brett-look-alike again.
"Yeah," Brett replied, missing the not-so-subtle sarcastic tone in Kurt's voice, "Me and Quinn had a lot of fun, she really knows her -"
"Here's your towel!" Kurt said hurriedly, shoving the towel into Brett's face and ushering him towards the bathroom. The details of Quinn and her homeless one night stand's sex life was something he really did not need to be hearing on a Sunday morning.
Kurt sighed to himself as he heard the bathroom door click. He'd been meeting Quinn's "friends" at least three times a week for the past three years but he still wasn't used to it. It was also confusing for Beth who'd had been tossed from mummy to daddy to other mummy to daddy and back to mummy so many times in her short little life, and all Quinn's boyfriends and lovers weren't making it any easier.
She was a smart kid for her age though and Kurt sometimes thought that she understood why Quinn would spend days in her room without eating, only getting drunk and not talking to any of them, even if none of the rest of them could figure it out.
It was hard going for Puck as well who had to watch as the mother of his child wasted her life away. Kurt suspected that when Puck had first arrived in NYC, he'd thrown about the possibility that the three of them could be a proper family, but either he'd changed his mind or Quinn had laughed in his face.
When Beth awoke, Kurt fixed her a poptart and she sat eating it, watching cartoons on the tiny TV which Rachel had found in a junk store. Sometimes he thought about what his co-workers and employees would say if they saw the way he lived but most of the time he didn't really care.
At mid morning, Puck wandered into the apartment with a bagel in hand and began fixing himself a cup of coffee. Kurt just nodded his head in acknowledgement and continued on with his work.
"Daddy!" Beth cried, running over and jumping into Puck's arms.
"Hey Bethie!" Puck said, burying his head into her blonde curls, "Where's yo' mamma?"
"She's still sleeping but the man is awake."
Puck glanced over at Kurt who raised his eyes, they shared a knowing look. Puck put Beth back down on the floor and patted her head.
"Why don't you go and watch your cartoons, Bethie?" He said smiling at her, she grinned back then hopped back over to the TV.
Puck sat down at the table opposite Kurt and leaned in, "This has got to stop." He said in a low voice. Kurt scratched his head, a resigned expression on his face.
"I know, but what can we do?!" Kurt said, "This has been going on for three years, it's getting ridiculous."
"What's getting ridiculous?"
They both turned to see a scantily clad Quinn in a silk kimono standing in the doorway of her bedroom, eyebrows raised. She was still as beautiful as always but the late nights, the drink and the crying had changed her. Her face was now more hollow, the dark shading under her eyes and cheek brows gave her an edge. She was intimidating almost, standing there, glaring down at them all, last night's lipstick still staining her lips.
Kurt glanced at Puck, who was staring down at the coffee in his hands.
"The length of time that man's been in my bathroom is what's ridiculous." Kurt said quickly.
"He's still here?" Quinn asked, grabbing the bagel from Puck's hand and sinking her teeth into it.
"He smelt homeless," called Beth from the couch.
"Excuse me, Beth?" Quinn said, her raised eyebrows turning to the little blonde head in front of the TV. Puck sniggered
"She's right though." Kurt said, shrugging his shoulders.
"I know," said Quinn.
Kurt glanced at Quinn, he was worried about her but he'd learnt from experience never to confront her. It would always end in tears and shouting.
"Hey, I'm meeting Rachel at the coffee house later if any of you want to join me?" Kurt said, suddenly remembering the plans he's made with her ladyship earlier in the week. Quinn rolled her eyes. Kurt didn't expect anyone to go, he was the only one who could still put up with her droning on about herself and her hugely successful career for hours on end but that was only because a little bit of his heart still ached for the Broadway lights that he'd abandoned.
Suddenly a rancid smelt rent the air. Kurt's hand leapt to his nose and he looked up to see Brett standing in the kitchen, grinning sheepishly at them all.
"Sorry, I think I used up all the toilet paper." He said. Quinn wrinkled her face in disgust while Puck just glared at him.
"I think maybe you should leave now," Quinn said, her tone was still filled with disgust.
Brett looked confused and a little hurt. Kurt often found it hard not to feel sorry for Quinn's victims, as he liked to call them.
"Hang on," Brett said, reaching into his pocket.
"Just leave." Quinn said sharply, her voice dangerous. She stood up and Brett pulled out a few notes from his trouser pocket. Quinn's eyes flashed alarmingly as he began counting out the money.
"How much did you say it was for the night again?"