Prologue
-Wednesday, call received at 4:18 p.m.-
Call from Blaine Anderson to Finn Hudson
"Hi, Finn. It's Blaine. I need your help. Kurt hasn't been picking up my calls or answering my texts, I think he's avoiding me here at school, and I really need to talk to him." The silence stretches for a moment. "Finn?"
"Go screw yourself." The reply is hoarse and angry.
Then there is a "click", followed by the dial tone.
-Thursday, the front steps of William McKinley Public High School, 3:17 p.m.-
The immaculately dressed Warbler straightened his jacket -again- then began moving towards the front doors of the hellhole at which Kurt had once been a student.
It was when he was a few steps from the top that someone flew at him.
Flinching, mind shooting back to all of Kurt's stories about the McKinley bullies, he felt a hard blow land on his jaw. Stumbling back a few steps, blinking through the pain and the sudden tears in his eyes, he was shocked to find that the person who had attacked him -and who was being held back by several of the boys from New Directions- was the tall, normally bubbly blonde. What was her name again? Kurt had told him something about Britney Spears… Brittany! That was her name!
"Brittany, I don't know why you did that-" he started, but was quickly cut off as she began screaming.
The rage and despair that twisted her face scared the hell out of Blaine, especially when he actually listened to what she was saying.
"It's your fault! It's your fault! He was nice and pretty and his hands were soft and he took care of me and watched The Little Mermaid with me and let me sing all the good parts and I loved him, even though he was Capital G gay! But you didn't! You didn't love him, and it's all your fault!"
"Wha- What?"
Then the girl collapsed, sobbing like her heart was broken, and not even when the Latino girl (Santana, if he remembered right) who Kurt had said she was in love with, dropped down to the cement beside her and held her close, rocking Brittany back and forth, did the blonde calm down.
Blaine knew his eyes were huge and panicked and confused as he looked from one member of New Directions to another, and didn't find Kurt anywhere, or Finn. For that matter, the way they were looking at him- A few of them couldn't even meet his gaze, the asian couple was hugging while the girl silently cried, and everyone else was glaring at him like they wanted to rip off his limbs. Rachel stood by herself, separate from the group, and her arms were wrapped tightly around her torso.
"I don't understand. 'Cedes," he turned desperately to the black diva. "Please, what's going on?"
The girl just shook her head, tears in her eyes.
-Sunday, four days earlier-
Sunday, voicemail received at 2:47 a.m.
Call from Kurt Hummel to Blaine Anderson
The message begins with a drunken giggle. "Blaine. Hi, Blaine. Blaine. You know, I always really liked your name, even though Sanny always calls you Bland 'cause they sound a lot alike. But you're not bland at all. You're dapper and charming and sweet, and you took care of me when you found out what was going on. And I fell in love with you, and I know it's cliché to fall for the first out gay boy I meet, but it's the truth. Which is why I'm not surprised, not really, that you keep breaking my heart. I mean, I'm just a project to you, aren't I? You're the dapper, dapper mentor and I'm the crybaby, bullied gay kid who needs a dapper mentor to lead him back to the light, I suppose. I don't know what it feels like to like someone and have them like me back. I thought maybe it was like that with you and me, after you agreed with the Harry Met Sally thing I said on Valentine's Day, but this just proves I've been fooling myself, again. First Finn, then Sam, and now you. And in the middle of all of that is that neanderthal Karofsky, who I just want to leave me alone finally. But I don't think he will, Blaine, because he's in love with me when I'm not in love with him, so I guess you were right when you said I was like him, because I'm in love with you when you don't like me. And I don't want Karofsky around me, so you probably don't want me around you.
"Do I seem like a rapist or a sexual predator? I don't know if you think of me that way, but that's how I think of Karofsky, even if I do pity him a teensy bit for how he's scared to come out, but that's how Finn feels about me. I know he tries not to show it anymore, but I noticed since he called me a fag some stuff that I didn't before, like that he always locks the bathroom door, even if he's just brushing his teeth, and he won't change while I'm around, even if it's to put on costumes for glee, and he makes sure not to leave any of his dirty laundry in the bathroom, like he thinks I'll steal it, and I think he tried to find out if I had a journal somewhere, or a diary, to see if I wrote anything about him. He even tried to hack my computer." A pause, and a pale chuckle. "Even though he has no idea how, and I probably would have gone ahead and told his mom about the porn he was watching to get back at him, but I used that to blackmail him into letting us go to the party from hell.
"And I may not believe in God, but I know there's a hell, because it's watching your best friend, and the guy who you are in love with, kissing the same girl who is supposed to be one of your other best friends, even though she knows how you feel, and knowing there's something wrong with you when she isn't even loyal enough to not ask him out the next day, and he says yes, and I was just sitting there wondering what is so repulsive about me that, even though you admitted you kind of like me and were just too scared to try a relationship, and even though you're gay, you'd rather kiss a girl and go out with a girl, who is even one of my best friends, instead of trying to go on a date with me. And then when I tried to explain, and I got mad and said stuff that I didn't believe, because there are people who are bisexual, like Brittany, and I love Brittany and I'm her dolphin and I don't really think it's just a phase for anyone to be bisexual, but I didn't want you or Rachel to get hurt, even though you were hurting me really, really bad, because you two would be bad for each other even if you weren't gay. And then you told me I was just like Karofsky, and I didn't know what to do, and I just wanted to cry and scream and break things, but I couldn't because I'm at Dalton now and a Warbler, so I have to be quiet and fit in, and I realized that I text you and call you and bother you as much as Karofsky does to me, and I just want him to leave me alone, so that must mean that you want me to leave you alone, but I don't know if I can.
"And if Rachel gets you, that's not fair, because she always beats me at everything, even though my fashion sense is so much better than hers, but that doesn't matter because she's better than I am, and because people love her, when everyone just hates me, or they don't hate me because they don't even see me at all and just want me to be gone, and I miss my Marc Jacobs and Alexander McQueen clothes, because that way I knew people would have to see me, even if I was invisible, and-" Broken sobs, before a click, and the message ends.
tbc…
a/n What? Me? Evil? Noooooo! *snicker* this is one I've had waiting in the wings for a while and finally decided, what the heck, let's just friggin' post it already!
I've already got the next several chapters written, and am trying to decide whether I have the patience to wait and only put one up every two or three days. We'll see.
And, yes, there will be an absurd amount of angst in this fic. Also, doc manager has been acting weird, so you may have received an alert for this when it was not actually up. CURSE YOU, AQUASCUM! If you did, I apologize.
