I started this shortly after The Breakup aired and was tempted not to finish and post it because there are already so many excellent reaction fics to that episode, but I kinda like it, so. *shrugs*
I don't own Glee.
Burt saw the back of his head first. The second he saw him he knew he should've expected to run into the kid here. This was their place, Kurt and Blaine's go-to spot when they wanted to be out of the house and it was too early for dinner.
Still, he was surprised. It wasn't everyday Burt glanced to the side while sneaking a guilty cup of coffee at the Lima Bean and caught sight of a picture of Kurt on someone's phone.
The kid was completely isolated from everyone else in the shop, his shoulders hunched in as though hoping that making himself smaller would make him invisible too. Judging by the plate of crumbs next to him and the amount of homework spread across the small expanse of the table in front of him he'd been sitting there a while.
Burt's first reaction when he saw the kid's lonely pining was to think a bitterly triumphant, "Good," before he caught himself.
Blaine looked miserable. He looked like someone who didn't have a friend in the world and was starting to wonder why he cared so much, why he tried so hard when he rarely got anything in return. He looked desperately lonely.
He looked like Kurt used to in some of his unguarded moments before he met Blaine.
Burt sighed and collected his suddenly unwanted drink before he walked over, seating himself at Blaine's table and causing the boy to practically jump out of his seat in shock.
"Burt!" Blaine shook his head slightly. "Mr. Hummel. What're you doing here?"
"Saw you sitting over here looking like your world had ended. Figured I should come over and make sure you weren't planning to do something stupid."
Blaine snorted quietly, his face contorting into a mask of self-loathing before he paused and looked up, studying Burt. "Have you talked to Kurt?"
"Yeah," Burt said slowly. "Past few days I've kinda wanted to kill you for what you did, but then I saw you sitting here looking like crap and figured I should probably hear your side of the story instead."
Blaine shook his head and looked away, retreating into himself again. "Whatever Kurt told you is the truth. I don't deserve anyone's sympathy."
Burt looked at him closely. The skin under his eyes was puffy from lack of sleep or too many tears. Maybe both. His mouth was drawn in tight with tension but his shoulders were slumped in defeat, more so than Burt had noticed earlier. Even Kurt hadn't looked this bad during their last Skype call and he was the one who had been cheated on.
"I don't know how much sympathy I could give you right now," Burt said honestly. "But you do look like you could use someone to talk to."
Blaine looked at him sharply.
"Why do you care?" Blaine's voice broke on the last syllable. "After what I did to Kurt-"
"People cheat because they're stupid or there's something they're not getting from their relationship." Burt cut in bluntly. "You may have questionable judgment sometimes but you're not stupid and I'd prefer to think you're not so horny that you'd throw what you have with Kurt away for an orgasm. So I've got to wonder what really happened."
Blaine stared at him for the better part of a minute with his mouth slightly open. Burt took a sip of his coffee and waited him out.
"I-" Blaine stopped himself and closed his eyes. "It doesn't really matter what I say, does it? There's no excuse."
"No, and I'd be pissed off if you tried to give me one. Doesn't mean there isn't a reason you did it though."
Blaine looked hopeful. He was quiet a while longer, then licked his lips and spoke.
"Do you ever doubt things? I mean, really doubt them because part of you never quite believed they were real in the first place?"
Burt furrowed his brow but didn't respond. Blaine fiddled with the lid on his own coffee cup.
"I tried really hard to be a good boyfriend to Kurt," he said, staring down at the black plastic. "I tried to support him and be there for him when he needed me to be. I did things for him even when I was terrified about what might happen. I mean, that's what you're supposed to do, right?" he asked, finally looking up. "Give everything to the person you love cause that's what they are to you?" his lips quirked up bitterly. "But it didn't matter. Kurt never really said anything about it but I always got this feeling that it wasn't enough. That I wasn't enough. But I did it all anyway because Kurt's the best thing that's ever happened to me."
"If Kurt's the best thing that ever happened to you why'd you cheat on him?" Burt asked, his concern for the kid in front of him losing the war with the protective rage he felt for his son.
Blaine squeezed his eyes shut and lowered his head. "I thought he didn't care anymore. Months of insecurities and missed phone calls and I let one stupid disappointment take over everything else," he blinked quickly. "I messed everything up and now he won't even talk to me."
"Can you blame him?"
Blaine flinched. "No. I just wish he'd say something so I'd at least know if we've broken up or not."
"Why?" Burt asked, trying his best not to snap at him. "You got this other guy lined up to take his place?"
Blaine's face crumpled even further and Burt's anger on his son's behalf was lessened slightly by guilt.
"There's no other guy," Blaine whispered. "It wasn't like that. It's not like that."
Burt drew in a steadying breath, reminding himself to have a little compassion. "Then what is it like?"
Blaine clenched his jaw and looked away. "I just want to know if I still have a chance to make it up to Kurt, to at least try to talk to him about it, or if I really have broken everything the way I always knew I would. It's what I'm best at," he continued, almost to himself. "I always manage to break things that aren't broken. I don't know how I ever managed to convince myself otherwise," he paused for a moment then huffed. "I should probably be alone anyway so I can't hurt anybody else with my stupid decisions. I always knew I wasn't any good at romance."
Burt was taken aback. As far as he knew Blaine was Mr. Popularity and Charisma, the boy with more confidence and charm than was good for anybody, but that had always been based more on Burt's assumptions about the kid than on anything he'd actually noticed about him. He thought about their first one on one conversation at the garage, how broken up the kid had seemed about his dad and how hard he tried to play at being an adult. He thought about the adoring heart eyes he always used to catch Blaine shooting at Kurt and how pleased he seemed whenever anybody included him in a conversation at the house. He thought about how lonely the kid looked before Burt sat down at the table with him.
Blaine was friendly with everyone, but Burt realized that in losing Kurt the kid might have lost his entire world. Sweet as that might sound in those romance books Carole liked to read, Burt knew from experience it wasn't actually a healthy way to live.
There was clearly a lot more going on here than he thought when he first sat down and he wasn't sure he was the right person to be dealing with it all.
"Have you said any of this to Kurt? Ever?"
Blaine huffed. "Not recently. He won't let me. I tried talking to him but he's so caught up in his great new life it's like he can't even hear me. Ever since he moved to New York it's Vogue this and Rachel that and Isabelle's so great. I mean, I get that he's excited and I want to be happy for him that he's getting what he wants, but… sometimes even before he left it kind of felt like what he wanted didn't really include me anymore."
Burt shifted in his chair.
"I'm not trying to blame him, I'm not," Blaine said quickly, his gaze darting to Burt like he was afraid of something. "I just…"
"What?" Burt prompted when he didn't continue.
Blaine studied him again for a moment. "I just wanted to be noticed," he murmured. "I'm sick of feeling like I'm invisible, like I don't even exist if I'm not winning someone something. I thought it would help." He laughed bitterly. "But it just made it all worse. And now on top of everything else I feel sick to my stomach every time I think about what I did and how… wrong it felt to have someone else's hands on me." He glanced at Burt then looked away, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. "Sorry. I know the last thing you probably want to think about is me in bed with anyone."
Burt closed his eyes briefly, ashamed. It wasn't quite as bad as finding out how terribly he'd failed his own son a couple years ago, but he felt he should have known something wasn't right with Blaine. The kid used to be in his house almost every day of the week before Kurt left. Hell, Burt had encouraged it. Blaine didn't have anybody around at home to tell him how the world worked, not if the stories Burt heard about his whack-job brother were true and certainly not if his relationship with his parents was as distant as he claimed.
It was no wonder he'd thought sex was a fix to all his problems. It was something he could do that felt good and pushed away the rest of the world for a while. Blaine had flat out told Burt everything he knew about sex he pieced together from what he learned on the internet, and who knew what kind of context he'd found that information in. Maybe Kurt had talked to him about it at some point recently, but Burt knew his son, and although he assumed the two of them got intimate ages ago, he'd bet money Kurt still had issues speaking plainly about sex.
"It don't feel so great to throw yourself around like that, does it?" Burt asked gruffly. Somebody needed to talk to the kid about this stuff and it might as well be him.
Blaine smiled darkly at the table. "No. I kinda felt like I was gonna throw up the whole time. I think I spent two hours in the shower after trying to get the smell off me. I didn't feel any cleaner for it, though."
"Look," Burt said, looking Blaine straight in the eye. "You hurt my kid and I'm pissed off at you for that. But I'm even more pissed at you for sleeping around like you did. Did you even know whoever you screwed around with?"
Blaine shook his head shallowly and whispered, "No."
"I take back what I said about you never being stupid. You could've gotten hurt or, I don't know, wasn't there some Craigslist killer or something a while ago?" Blaine was withdrawing into himself, cutting himself off from the conversation, Burt could see it. He shook his head and continued. "My point is, even if you weren't with Kurt, hooking up with some random guy is a dumb idea. And you know it. You're too smart not to."
Burt sighed. He wasn't saying what he wanted to and the last thing he needed was to leave Blaine feeling worse about himself than he already did. The kid was doing a bang up job of beating himself up without any help from Burt. He tried a different tack.
"Sex makes an emotional connection with whoever you're doing it with, right?"
Blaine blinked at him, listening. "Right."
"So why the hell would you want to do that with someone you've never met? Someone you don't particularly care about one way or the other? You're better than that. And that sick feeling in your gut right now is screaming that at you. You matter, Blaine."
Burt felt a little odd recycling part of the speech he gave to Kurt on this kid who broke his son's heart, but the hope was back on Blaine's face even if the tears he'd been trying to hold back most of the conversation were now streaming down his cheeks.
"Nobody's ever said that to me before," he choked out.
"If Kurt never told you you matter I'll have to call him up and yell at him next."
Blaine laughed wetly and wiped at his face. "No, he- it just, it means a lot coming from you," he smiled.
"Yeah, well, try to keep it in mind next time," Burt grunted uncomfortably.
"There won't be a next time," Blaine said, shaking his head soberly.
Burt studied him again. His shoulders were a little straighter, his mouth not so tense, but he still looked like a teenager with too much on his mind. Given the circumstances, Burt wasn't entirely sure he believed him. Low self-esteem always seemed to lead to dumb decisions no matter what earnest proclamations were made to the contrary.
"Just how long have you been feeling like crap?" he asked because someone needed to.
Blaine blinked. "I… um."
"Don't tell me you don't know. You know. Somewhere inside you've been keeping track of times you felt worthless or something somebody said or did made you feel less than them. So how long?"
Blaine blinked again and swallowed. "I don't know. Puberty? I mean, I've always known most people don't care about me unless I'm on stage, and sometimes not even then, but I think that's probably when most people started letting me know it."
Burt felt a protective fury well up in his throat. What the hell was wrong with this kid's family that he didn't grow up knowing he was loved?
"Kurt helped for a while," Blaine continued. "Dalton used to. Before Sebastian almost blinded me." He fiddled with his empty coffee cup. "But yeah. Probably puberty."
Burt took another measured sip of his coffee. It was starting to get cold.
"You got anyone to talk to about any of this stuff?" Burt asked. "Someone at school maybe?"
Blaine frowned. "They pretty much all took Kurt's side. That or they don't care enough to have an opinion."
"I meant a teacher or a counselor or something."
"Oh. Not really. I've found they don't tend to help. Or care, most of the time. At least not about me."
"What about a therapist or something?" Burt pursued. There had to be somebody other than him the kid could talk to. Blaine's shoulders took on a defensive tilt and Burt quickly held up his hands to placate him. "I'm not saying you're crazy or anything, but it might not be a bad idea to talk to someone who actually knows how to help you. From the sound of it this cheating crap is just the tip of the iceberg."
"It doesn't help," Blaine scowled.
"How do you know until you've tried?"
"Because I have tried! It doesn't help!" At Burt's surprised look Blaine sighed and crossed his arms defensively in front of him. "I went to this guy right before I transferred to Dalton and all he tried to do was change me, turn me into a man who liked manly things. I learned how to wear a mask so he'd say I was better and leave me alone but I'm not." Blaine blinked quickly a few times and sat back in his chair. "I'm not okay," he whispered.
"So see someone else," Burt counseled gently. "Look around until you find someone you think gets you so you can work this stuff out, cause bottling it up the way you have been isn't healthy. You need to have someone you can talk to, someone who can offer you real advice who's not involved in any way."
Blaine was quiet for a while. Burt hoped the kid was thinking over everything he'd said today. He hoped he'd made some sort of difference.
"Do you think Kurt might take me back if I fix myself?" Blaine asked softly.
Burt sighed. "I don't know what Kurt's gonna do. He's got his own way of seeing the world and he's stubborn. I wouldn't blame him if he didn't take you back, but I wouldn't be surprised if he wound up giving you another chance either. He'll do what he wants when he figures out what that is and nothing either of us says or does is really gonna change his mind on that. You know it, I know it and you can grovel all you want, but in the end it's entirely up to him."
Burt took a breath and tried his best to get the point he wanted to make across. It was important Blaine hear this.
"What I do know is that you won't be in any shape to date anyone, Kurt or not, until you talk through this stuff and at least start to get yourself sorted out. I'm not saying you have to be perfect or 'fixed' or whatever, but you have to know who you are, what your limits are before you can be part of a couple or you're just gonna self-destruct again and take that other person with you."
Blaine looked away, nodding slowly. "That makes sense."
Burt watched him closely. Blaine appeared to be thinking things over, but Burt thought he recognized now what desperation looked like on the kid's face and he still saw it there.
"You want some help finding somebody to talk to?" Burt asked gruffly.
Blaine looked up at him, surprised. "I- that'd be great, actually."
Burt nodded. The kid would probably chicken out if left to his own devices; he was too used to trying to do everything himself. "We'll talk to that school counselor of yours first. I know you said you don't really trust anyone there, but she might be able to give us some names of people you can try. I can call her up right now if you want me to."
Blaine paled and gulped visibly, but he nodded.
Burt stood up and took his phone out of his pocket. He only had about half an hour before Carole got off work and wondered where he was. He never meant to stay out this long.
Blaine was staring off into the distance with a nervous look on his face when Burt glanced at him again, so he clapped him on the shoulder before he made the call.
"You're gonna be okay, Blaine," he said when the kid looked up at him.
Blaine smiled minutely and blinked away a few more tears.
"Thank you," he sniffed.
Burt nodded in acceptance. Part of him was still pissed at the kid for what he'd done, but that part was smaller now, diminished by his parental need to make things right.
"You're a good kid," Burt said.
He found Emma Pillsbury's number in his contact list and dialed.
"Hello?"
"Emma, this is Burt Hummel. I was wondering if you could do something for me."
He looked down at Blaine and felt his heart warm. The kid didn't look so alone anymore.
Thoughts?