Boxes

by AngelicToxin

"I wonder if Kurt keeps the cards in a box in the back of his dresser and he forgets about them, and one day in New York he finds them and realizes that the boy that loved him most is the one that got away."

Title: Boxes

Rating: K

Summary: Written for the prompt: "I wonder if Kurt keeps the cards in a box in the back of his dresser and he forgets about them, and one day in New York he finds them and realizes that the boy that loved him the most is the one that got away."

Author's Note: Written for the prompt. Inspired by 3x14 so it could contain spoilers up to that point though I don't know that it gives that much away that you couldn't have figured out by living anywhere other than under a rock for the past couple days. I hope you enjoy.

Boxes

It's been six, maybe seven years since he opened these boxes. They were the ones that he had thought he would be opening every couple weeks, at most, when he wanted a warm reminder of home. That's what you did when you moved six hundred miles from home, right? You kept reminders of what it was like so that you could smile when you were feeling down and feel closer. That's what he'd thought, anyways.

But New York had held other plans.

The top box had been opened during his freshman year at NYADA. Kurt had put some photos, a memento or two around his dorm room. But the other boxes had stayed taped shut, locking away his past. He'd never thought to go through them, getting rid of what he had no longer needed because how was he supposed to know what he would want to keep and what he would want to get rid of? What if he'd made a mistake and thrown out something he actually wanted years down the line?

So the boxes had followed him through the years. First the four years at NYADA, and then the extra two at NYU in their graduate acting program… they'd been there, lurking in the back of his closet and collecting dust. More than one person had asked why he didn't just throw them out—he would respond that he didn't know what was in them that he might want to keep. So, they would ask, why didn't he open them? To that, Kurt didn't have a response. At least, not one that he could verbalize. How did you express that you were scared of what you might find?

Kurt had left Lima, Ohio and most of the people from it far behind a long time ago. The memories of high school were sacred. He had organized them, sorted them, then tucked them away in that box neatly so they stayed that way. Why should he unpack things that didn't need to be unpacked?

But here he was. He was out of school, on his own, at the age of twenty-four. And there just wasn't enough space in New York for boxes that weren't a necessity.

The first box was innocuous enough. Most of the things, he didn't even have to really look at. He knew what they were. Photos of Rachel, Mercedes, Blaine, Finn, the Glee Club. He hadn't spoken to any of them except Finn in years—even Rachel he had lost touch with after they graduated from NYADA. That was life. There were millions of people, each like one of the lights in Times Square—there, bright and loud when you were there, not so easily forgotten even when you left… but even those lights faded when you didn't go to the Square for a long time.

The second box, bigger and as such, untouched since the first week of August six years previously, was slightly more interesting. This box had a couple things that Kurt set aside, rescuing from the oblivion of memories long since forgotten. The photo of New Directions when they won Nationals his senior year. The photo from Carole and his father's wedding. A microphone covered in pink rhinestones—a graduation gift from Rachel.

Slowly, Kurt worked his way through the box, placing most things aside in their proper piles—recyclable, trash, donation. The deeper he dug, the less familiar the items were. At some point, they may have had importance… no, must have been important, for him to rescue them from Lima. But now, they were as unfamiliar as the memories they were associated with, remnants of a life that he still looked on fondly but no longer thought himself a part of.

He finally reached the bottom of the box, tossing one more small, stuffed monkey onto the donation pile. He was about to fill the box up again with one pile of trash when his fingertips brushed against something in the bottom, too smooth to be the old cardboard. Trying to pick the object up, he found that it was slipped along the bottom of the box so he tore his attention from the television, broadcasting the Emmys to an otherwise empty and unfurnished apartment, and looked into the bottom.

There were a couple of cards and a sheet of paper, stuck together and slightly washed out from years of sitting in the bottom of a box. Like everything else that had come out of the box, they screamed neglect. The top corner of one of the cards was folded haphazardly from getting stuck under something else and the paper had clearly been well-worn, well-loved, read repeatedly years ago and was now just well-worn.

But unlike everything else in the box, Kurt knew instantly what they were.

"You make my heart sing."

"Be my Valentine."

"Bee mine forever."

"I think I love you."

Picking up the cards, Kurt placed them on the top of the recycle pile. He then stood up and walked swiftly out of the room into his small kitchen. Agitatedly, he pulled a pot out of the cupboard above his sink and filled it with water. Jabbing the buttons on the front of the stove, he waited anxiously for it to turn on and then dropped the pots on top of it. Running a hand through his hair, he paced back and forth across the tiny room.

It wasn't hard to place his agitation. He hadn't thought of Dave Karofsky in years. Well, maybe he had. It was impossible not to at times. When he and Blaine had broken up during his second semester at NYADA, part of him had really wanted to get in touch with the boy. But he had resisted. What would there be to say anyways? He hadn't seen him or heard from him since turning him down at Breadstix on that Valentine's Day. There would have been nothing to say but empty words.

And he had known it even then. He knew it now.

So, why was it so hard to throw out those cards like everything else? He'd thrown dozens of cards from Blaine in that pile, saying a lot more than "Be mine." And then there were the letters that Blaine had written, pages long. All of those. Gone.

They were just cards. Kurt leaned back against the counter, running his palms over his face and kneading his temples. It was just a couple pieces of paper. They meant nothing.

But they meant everything.

No. Kurt pushed himself off the counter and stalked back into the living room. Without hesitation, he pulled the cards off the recycle pile and put them on the keep pile. And then moved them back. And switched again.

Dropping onto his couch, Kurt stared up at the ceiling. He knew why it was that the cards were so familiar and why they resonated with him but he didn't know why he should care after all this time. It had been years. Years. He had no idea where Dave was or what his life was like or whether he ever thought of him. He didn't know Dave Karofsky. He knew who Dave Karofsky had been. But Dave Karofsky had been somebody who could love him.

And not in the way that Blaine had. Not in the outward cherishing, spending every minute together, I need you in my life, way. Because that way had clearly not worked. When Kurt wasn't there for every minute, couldn't always be together, that way had fallen apart. And that type of love hadn't seemed to work in any of his other relationships. Even the other types… they never seemed to work out.

But Dave had loved him. Kurt knew that now. Dave had loved him even though everything was stacked against it. Even though nobody, not even Kurt, had wanted him to. That was the kind of love they wrote plays and films about. And that was how Dave had loved him.

Had maybe loved him.

There it was.

Now that he had pinpointed the emotion, he could control it a little better. He took deep breaths, closing his eyes and trying to relax. That's why those cards had brought out a rollercoaster of emotion. Because Kurt didn't know whether Dave had actually loved him. He could see it now, he knew that he had. But what if he was just grasping at straws because nobody but his father had told him, "I love you" in the past two years?

He had to know. He needed this closure. He needed the reassurance that somebody had loved him, truly loved him for exactly what he had been. Not for what they had wanted him to be, but for who he actually was. The only person who that could have been was Dave. It wasn't Blaine. He had loved Blaine fiercely and Blaine had loved him but that was different. Maybe because that story did have closure—he knew how it ended. But Dave… Dave had just walked out of his life, exactly as he had come in. There was no closure there. Maybe Dave had really loved him but maybe it had been exactly as he and Blaine's love had been. There, honest, but not real. Kurt just needed to know.

He jammed the crumpled piece of paper with "I think I love you" written on it into his pocket.

Standing up, Kurt strode through the kitchen, turning off the stove as he passed, and grabbed his black pea coat handing by the door. Shrugging it on, he swiped his keys off the stand by the door and exited his apartment, locking the door behind him. He needed fresh air. As he walked, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed a familiar number.

It was barely ten Eastern Time, so when the voice that answered managed a groggy "Hello?" Kurt couldn't help but be slightly incredulous.

"Finn, it's nine. Were you asleep?"

"Yeah. We had a big house fire last night so I'm trying to catch up on my sleep."

"Oh." Kurt always seemed to forget that Finn's life, while nowhere near as fast-paced as his own in the city, had it's own irregular schedule to keep. Sincerely, he said, "Sorry."

"Yeah, man, don't worry about it, my shift starts in about a half-hour anyways. What's up?"

Exiting his building, Kurt turned right and started to walk a familiar path toward Times Square and the theater district. He bit his lip momentarily before deciding that since he'd already woken Finn up, he couldn't chicken out now. "This is going to sound incredibly out of the blue and I really have no reason for asking you this but…" When Finn didn't interrupt as he'd been hoping, to buy a moment of time, Kurt continued. "Do you happen to have any idea what Dave Karofsky's phone number is?"

"What?"

"Phone number. David Karofsky," Kurt responded, voice clipped. He didn't know who else to turn to—Finn was the only one from the old days that he kept in touch with and that was because he was his brother. And he had known that even Finn would be a long shot but it had been worth a shot. Maybe it was better if he never knew.

"Yeah, actually, give me a sec." Kurt felt a surprised look slip across his face as he walked down the busy street, weaving his way through people walking in the opposite direction.

"Really?" he asked, trying to keep his voice even.

"Yeah," Finn replied. "My mom sold his parents a new house a couple months ago and he came down to help them move in."

"Came down?"

"Yeah, I mean, he's not in Lima anymore so I hadn't seen him in ages but I offered to help and we talked a couple times."

"It's a small world," Kurt mused aloud.

"Why do you need it?" If it were anybody else, Kurt would have immediately become defensive and questioned their motives, especially since even he himself hadn't really figured out the answer to that question. But this was Finn. And Finn was just… good. He had long ago lost the boyish innocence but a different kind of innocence remained.

"I just have something I need to ask him."

"Oh." The confusion in Finn's voice was clear but he didn't push for more details and Kurt was once again reminded of how he did actually miss Finn. "Okay. Ready?"

"Yes," Kurt replied, snapping to attention. One of the talents that he had discovered in the process of memorizing scripts was that he had become very good at memorizing phone numbers, at least momentarily. As soon as Finn had rattled off the series of ten digits, Kurt was punching them into his phone. "Thanks, Finn."

"Yeah, no problem. You doing okay up there? I feel like I never hear from you."

"Yeah, I'm doing well, just getting settled into my new apartment. Let's Skype sometime over the weekend and I'll give you the virtual tour, okay?"

"Sure, sounds good."

"Thanks again. I'll talk to you later."

"See you." As the line went dead, Kurt turned off onto a side street, planning on avoiding the actual Square. He still didn't have a plan in mind. He was just acting, doing something because doing nothing was not longer an option. His free hand was still in one pocket, tracing the piece of paper crumpled up there. With his other hand still around his phone, he dialed the number and held his breath.

When he heard the first ring, Kurt's heart jumped a little and his breath hitched. He suddenly hoped that it would jump to voicemail or would just keep ringing forever.

Click.

"Hello?"

He sounded the exact same as he had in high school, voice maybe a shade lower. Kurt opened his mouth to speak but found that everything he wanted to say didn't seem right.

"Hello?"

"Hi. Dave."

"K—Kurt?"

He recognized his voice. He knew who this was. Kurt stopped underneath a dim bar sign, finding that he suddenly couldn't think and walk at the same time.

"Yeah, it's me."

"Wh—How did you get my number?"

"I got it from Finn. Look, I just needed to ask—"

"Hold on," Dave interrupted. "I… This is going to sound crazy but I think I… I think I see you."

"What?" Kurt asked incredulously. He turned his head both directions down the street, trying to spot Dave in the thinner crowds of the street.

"Wait. No… Maybe…"

"Where are you?" Kurt asked bluntly, not seeing anybody who could even pretend to be Dave on the street.

"Huh." Dave sounded surprised, his voice edged with just a little bit of curiosity. "Turn around."

Kurt turned. And that's when he saw him, perched on a stool at the bar, phone still in his hand, staring at him, looking barely a couple years older than when he had last seen him. And he stared back. This was not the kind of thing that he had been seeking when he wanted closure. He just wanted to know—a quick phone call, hello, did you love me, goodbye. That was it. This was something entirely unexpected.

He should have left. Nothing good could come out of this, he knew that much. He should have just gone. No, he never should have even been out here. He should have been curling up on his couch and watching glamorous people be glamorous while eating his dinner. He should have thrown the cards back in the box and never thought about them again. He had forgotten once, he could have again.

But here he was.

Tentatively, he opened the door and walked into the bar. Sliding into the stool beside Dave, he stared at the hardwood bar for a moment, avoiding Dave's eye. He was grateful when the other man started to speak first.

"Wow. I can honestly say that this was not what I was expecting when I came out to watch the Knicks play."

"You're a Knicks fan?"

"We all have to start somewhere." Kurt looked up and found himself looking at the brown eyes that he hadn't seen in a full seven years, staring right back at him. Dave's face was hard to read, not letting anything betray how he felt. As he sipped from the bottle of beer in front of him, Kurt was painfully reminded of their encounter at Scandals years before. Funny how memories seemed to slip your mind until they were terribly relevant. He strummed his fingers lightly on the bar, raising his eyebrows slightly before speaking, slowly.

"So… I didn't really expect to run into you here, in New York, a couple hundred miles away from Lima."

"Yeah, I wouldn't have either. But I'm, um, I'm finishing up my law degree at Columbia."

"Columbia? You're a long way from campus."

"You know New York City pretty well."

"Well, I've been here for six and a half years so that's to be expected."

A silence fell between them as Dave took another sip of beer, eyes glancing between Kurt and the ongoing basketball game. When Kurt seemed reluctant to initiate a new topic, Dave turned back to him fully, facing away from the screen, surveying him evenly.

"You called me."

Kurt opened his mouth to respond but just wound up nodding instead, choking out a soft, "Yeah."

"After seven years."

Subtlety had never been one of Dave's strengths. Kurt wished that it was.

"Yeah."

"Why?"

Kurt took a deep breath, eyeing the drinks behind the bar slightly enviously. This would be the perfect time to be drunk. Honesty was easier when you weren't cohesive enough to care about the consequences. It was a lot harder when the truth, no matter what it was, was what you wanted to hear. As Dave reached for his beer, Kurt noticed for the first time that he was wearing a simple band around his left ring finger. He was glad that he wasn't drinking anything then, because he would have choked on it.

"You're—Wow, um," Kurt tried to pull himself together and form a cohesive thought but he couldn't bring his eyes from Dave's left hand. Nodding toward it, he attempted to finish his thought. "When… You're married?"

"Not yet," Dave said simply, a light smile ghosting around the edges of his mouth as he responded, though the smile failed to reach his eyes, which were tinged with something Kurt could only describe as sadness. "But as soon as gay marriage becomes legal in New York."

Kurt was suddenly aware of the absence of his heartbeat. After the adrenaline rush he had felt had kept it pounding for what had seemed like hours, its conspicuous drop into the pit of his stomach was magnified in its unpleasantness. So the answer was no, then. No, Dave hadn't loved him. Because love like the kind that he had thought Dave had felt didn't just disappear. Not even after a decade. And somebody who was about to get married clearly didn't love anybody but their fiancé.

Dave either didn't want to press the issue or didn't notice Kurt's discomfort. His smile dropped a bit but he still stayed focused on Kurt. "You called me?"

"Um, yes." Kurt refrained from adding that it was all a moot point, that it didn't matter anymore. Because now that he was here, with Dave in front of him, he realized that it really had mattered.

"Why?" Dave asked again. Kurt shook his head. He couldn't say now. But he couldn't lie. Digging into his pocket, he pulled out the crumpled piece of paper, placing it on the bar. He pushed it across to Dave, who reached out and unfolded it gently. Kurt watched as Dave's eyes skimmed the brief message. His eyebrows twitched, betraying an otherwise blank façade.

When he was done reading, Dave placed the piece of paper back on the bar. He propped his elbows on the wood, burying his face in his palms. A long silence passed. Kurt began to play with a loose thread on the sleeve of his pea coat, waiting for Dave to say something, anything. Finally, he heard Dave speaking and looked up.

"Wow. It's… It's been a long time since I thought about those cards. Maybe not as long as it should have been," Dave confessed, speaking slowly and appearing to choose his words carefully. "But it's still been a really long time."

"Me too," Kurt said, careful to keep his tone steady. Another silence dropped until Dave spoke up. Kurt watched his face, noting as each expression crossed it as Dave spoke, searching for any sign that Dave remembered what Kurt did.

"Kurt… In movies, there's always a bad guy, the villain. You know, the one who isn't destined to get the girl and is just in the way of the person who is." Kurt tried to process this, to fit it into a possible direction that Dave could be taking this. He couldn't see where it was headed though, so he didn't interrupt.

"You never find out what happens to that guy at the end of the movie. He's just…part of the scenery. He's a plot device. Everybody except for him could see exactly what was going to happen, so they never stop to think that maybe he didn't. They never realize that when the movie ends with a happily ever after for everybody else, he's still trying to figure out where he went wrong. What he could have done differently." Dave sighed, taking a swig of beer before continuing.

"Well, even that guy eventually has to move on. He can't wait forever for a girl who already found her prince charming. Those movies never have sequels. She never comes back." Dave was twisting the ring on his finger rapidly, staring at the dark wood of the bar. Kurt couldn't tell if he was avoiding his gaze but he was glad if he was. He didn't think he could handle trying to keep his face neutral. "But as long as she's happy, so is he. Because the thing is… the bad guy is never really the bad guy. He's just doing what we all are… trying to figure out what's right and trying to be happy. So if she's happy, he can't really complain. All that's left to do is for him to find somebody who can fill her shoes."

Kurt bit his lip, trying to keep from letting out a sob, a sigh, anything. Because he couldn't believe what he was hearing. Seven years. That's how long it had been since he had seen Dave. Five, maybe, since he'd last thought of him. But Dave hadn't forgotten him. He shook his head, looking around the bar. He honestly didn't know what to say. What could you say to that? Dave was looking down at his hands, so when he spoke, Kurt had to focus to make out what he was saying.

"I think you'd like him, Kurt. He's a lot like you. Maybe not quite as bold and ready to take on the world… but you two share a lot of qualities."

"Really? You think so?" It slipped out before he could stop himself and Kurt immediately regretted it. He had his answer. He had already heard what he had come to find out. He shouldn't stick around and try to pry out more, anything to make him feel better about himself. That wasn't why he was here. But he couldn't help it.

Dave let out a forced laugh, clasping his hands together before looking up and nodding. "Yeah. I do. He's a good guy."

"I'm happy for you." That, at least, was true. Kurt may have been second-guessing everything that he had ever done, trying to figure out where he had gone wrong, how he hadn't realized who Dave was when he had been right in front of him—but he couldn't begrudge him anything. Dave had done what anybody would do. And Kurt couldn't be bitter about something that wasn't Dave's fault.

"Thanks."

There was a silence. Kurt reached out and slipped his hand over the note in front of Dave, pulling the piece of paper back toward himself. His voice cracked a little as he spoke again and he couldn't help but let a sigh escape his lips. "I wonder why they never have sequels. Sometimes her prince charming leaves and there's nothing that she could do."

Dave choked out another laugh, looking at Kurt, the sadness returned to his eyes. When he spoke, it was in the same honest tone as ever but there was a new shake to his voice. "Maybe that's why there never is a sequel. Because then the bad guy never waits around, holding out hope that his girl will be one of the ones who gets lost along the way and needs a sequel."

Kurt shook his head. "You were never the bad guy, Dave."

"Yeah, I was," Dave responded, pushing himself away from the bar. "But as I said, they're never really all that bad."

"No. I guess they aren't." Kurt slipped the piece of paper back into his pocket, standing up. "I'm glad you didn't wait for me."

It was a lie wrapped up in a truth and Kurt could tell from the way his face dropped a little that Dave knew it. Kurt wished that Dave had held out hope. He wished that Dave was still waiting for him, ready whenever Kurt had eventually come to his senses and realized that he loved him to. But that was unfair. He couldn't ask him to wait for seven years without a word. Kurt knew that he wouldn't have waited.

But he wished he had.

Dave stood up with him. "I'm sorry, Kurt."

"Sorry?" Kurt asked incredulously. "Sorry for what?"

As they made their way toward the door, Dave shook his head. "I'm sorry that I didn't wait. I am. But…" The larger man hesitated, pausing right inside the door. Kurt stopped, turning to face him. He was just about to prompt him to continue when Dave looked at him and said, "I found somebody I love. And he loves me back. I… I can't lose that for something that may not have ever worked."

Kurt stared at him. He had never thought Dave to be eloquent with words, though he should have guessed earlier, if he had been studying to be a lawyer. But in twenty-something words, Dave Karofsky had just ripped out his heart and put a new one in its place. One that understood, even if it didn't want to. And one that couldn't stay mad at this man for doing exactly what he himself would have done.

The pair made their way out onto the street, Dave flagging down a taxi as they stood on the curb. The air was cool and Kurt could see their breaths, white puffs of air mixing together briefly before fading into the night. As a cab pulled up to the curb, Dave turned to Kurt one more time, clapping him lightly on the back.

"You'll find someone, Kurt. You're too special for nobody else to see what Dalton and I saw all those years ago."

Kurt met his eye and forced a smile, pulling up the edges of his mouth as he looked into the darker ones across from him. "Thanks."

Dave nodded, seeming to have nothing to say. He stepped off the curb and opened the back door of the taxi, before pausing with one foot in the back seat. "Kurt?"

Kurt looked up, meeting his eyes once more.

"I really did love you, you know." Dave paused for a moment longer, lingering with his hand on the door of the cab. He opened his mouth for a second, seeming to want to add something else. After a moment passed and no words came though, he met Kurt's eyes with a small, slightly sad smile. Kurt didn't break the eye contact. He held Dave's gaze until the larger man's smile broadened and Dave finally looked down. He slid into the back seat of the taxi. The doors of the car shut and left Kurt standing staring through the darkened windows at a face that he could no longer see.

As yellow of the taxi pulled off the curb and was enveloped by the bright lights of the city, Kurt was suddenly taken back to a place far away from the noise and the crowds and the lights, to a small diner in Lima, Ohio when Dave had come forward to confess his feelings for him. Kurt hadn't known how he had felt back then… but he knew now. Placing his hands in his pockets to start his own walk home, he caught one last look at the taxi before it was gone completely. "I know. I loved you, too."