(Author's note: I was spending some time cleaning out my story docs, and found this little tidbit I started over a year ago. I definitely knew who the mystery person was supposed to be at the time, but I think I intended it to turn into Finn/Kurt eventually. I thought it would be more fun to ask you, dear readers, to tell me who you think the mystery person should be, and if I should have Kurt and the mystery person stay together or work toward Finn/Kurt. So... read this excerpt, comment afterwards with who should be Kurt's mystery lover, and weigh in as to whether Kurt should stay with his lover or end up with Finn. And thank you so much for reading! -amy)
Finn didn't mean to read the letter. It was just one of dozens of papers that fell out of Kurt's upended messenger bag when Kurt collided with Finn on his way out of the bathroom that morning. It wasn't even clear whose fault it had been, and Kurt hadn't been angry or anything; they'd said mutual apologies, and Finn had helped him pick everything up and stuff it back into his bag. And when they'd been done, there was just the letter, still in his hands.
He should have just given it right back, but something about the way it had been addressed caught his attention: for K. It made him uncomfortable, in a pit-of-the-stomach, know-in-your-heart kind of way. It was definitely inside his guts somewhere. Maybe in his liver.
Nobody called Kurt K. Not Blaine, not Rachel, not Mercedes. Not their great-aunt Mildred. And the brief sample of writing wasn't a kid-writing, not even a neat senior-in-highschool-writing. It was from a grownup, someone with tidy script, the kind of writing that nobody learned how to do anymore.
Now the feeling was creeping up his spine, down his arms and into his hands. It was making him do things. Sneaky things. He knew he was going to feel guilty about it afterwards, but he justified it inside by telling himself Kurt is being sneaky; that means I get to be sneaky, too.
He opened it with one sweep of his thumb before he realized it had already been opened from the short end, neatly, with a letter opener. Even he had to roll his own eyes at himself for that. But there was the letter, peeking out, a plain white sheet of paper. When he unfolded it, he could tell it had been opened and refolded (neatly) at least a dozen times.
I'm sorry, but I just can't keep doing this. It's too dangerous, for you as well as for me. I hope you understand that it's for our protection, and not because I don't want it as much as you do. You've made me so happy, I can't even begin to tell you. Please, just a little longer, and we'll be able to pick up just where we left off.
I love you, baby.
That was all. But that short paragraph and its accompanying last line had turned Finn's gut feeling into a horrified, sit-down-I've-got-something-to-tell-you feeling. And nobody had told him anything. He'd snooped it out.
He had no idea who the mystery writer was, but even he could tell it was serious. He could also tell it was a grownup. Which one? Who, out of the dozens, if not hundreds, of grownups who passed through Kurt's life each day, could have written him this letter, ending with I love you, baby? Apparently the feeling had spread to all of his limbs, now, because it made his toes curl.
That's what made it so easy, in the end, to bring the letter to Kurt and confess what had happened. Because otherwise, he might have been tempted just to hide the letter, or recycle it and pretend he'd never seen it. But the letter had been opened, had been read more than once. That meant Kurt knew who had sent it to him, probably. And Kurt would tell him, if he showed him the letter. Maybe he would even give him a knowing look and say Wow, I wonder who gave you this, huh? and fake him out into thinking he knew already, and that would make Kurt talk.
But when Finn walked into Kurt's room and found him frantically searching everywhere, his bag upended again, this time deliberately, over his bed, he realized it was a bigger mistake than he'd thought. If Kurt hadn't spotted the letter in his hand, he might have turned right around and walked right out again.
But what Kurt did made the feeling travel back up to his heart and give it a little kick: Kurt turned ash-white, snatched the letter out of his hand, noticed the ripped edge (of course he did; this was the boy who folded his own laundry and filed his school papers into color-coded file folders marked with four colors of ink), set his mouth into a line, put a firm hand on Finn's chest, shoved him out the door of his room. Slammed and locked said door.
And burst into immediate, heartbreaking tears.
"Kurt," Finn protested. "Let me in. I'm sorry I opened it, really. Talk to me."
"Go away, Finn," he heard, angry through the tears, but more than that. Devastated. "I can't tell you about this."
"You can tell me about anything," Finn said, leaning on the door. "I already read the letter. I'm sorry. Can we just move on from there? I want to help."
"There's nothing you can do." He was really crying, now, and Finn realized he'd heard this sound more than once in the past week, at night, when Finn had been mostly asleep and wasn't willing to get out of bed to check out anything that wasn't on fire.
"Did this just happen, or was it an old letter?" Finn's gut feeling was hovering somewhere around his shoulders, making him hunch over. Kurt had needed him, and he hadn't been there. Some kind of brother he was. "Come on, Kurt. Give me something."
"It was Thursday," Kurt said.
That was progress. "What happened on Thursday?" He put a hand on the door, as though he could will Kurt to open up. "Let me in, please? You don't have to tell me any more than you want to. I just can't stand hearing you like this."
Kurt unlocked the door and opened it a crack, and let Finn push the rest of the way. He was picking up his spilled bag, slowly, without any kind of feeling at all, not angry or sad or anything. Just blank. The tears were still streaming down his face.
"Kurt," he said, and Kurt stumbled into him and stayed there, shaking. Finn wrapped him up in his arms, rocking him back and forth a little, the way his mother had when he'd cried like this, when he felt like he might die from the feelings. Finn knew how this was, even if he'd never received a letter from a grownup that ended I love you, baby.
"Is it somebody I know?" he asked softly, stroking Kurt's hair.
Kurt nodded, face still buried in Finn's chest.
"Do you want me to guess?"
A pause, then a head shake: no. Finn sighed.
"You've been dealing with this since Thursday on your own?"
"Nobody can know," he said, muffled, and absolutely certain. "Nobody. Not even you."
How could it be that Kurt, his brother-in-law, who couldn't even take a second cookie at dinner without telling on himself, could have kept this secret? And for how long? "When did it start?"
"Kind of at the beginning of sophomore year," Kurt said, wiping his eyes. "But not really - anything - until I went to Dalton."
Dalton? "Is it somebody there?" he said, but Kurt was glaring at him, and he quickly said, "Never mind. You don't have to tell me."
"Thank you, Finn," Kurt said. His hands dropped to his sides and he stepped away from Finn, glancing at the floor. "I'm sorry I can't say more."
Finn spent the rest of the afternoon imagining possibilities, and each one was more wild than the last. A relative? A teacher? A woman? What the hell could Kurt be hiding?