Author's note: another update! I really don't like to keep you guys waiting lol. I promise I haven't abandoned my other multi-chapter fic, I just haven't had any inspiration for it recently. Hopefully I can update it soon, in the meantime, enjoy this chapter :)

Content warning: strong language, homophobic slurs, misogyny, drugs/mentions of drugs, minor character death (mentioned)

Chapter 6: Stars in Cities

I sleep in the next day, having managed to push interview duty onto a willing Seb and a resentful Nick. My hotel room has windows to the river, and I smoke a morning cigarette in the nude and watch Canada on the other side. We're heading over there after Detroit.

Tonight's show is sold out. Tomorrow's too. Ryder said that the longer we are on this tour, the more our album is getting played, the more the word spreads, the more sold out shows lie ahead of us. And the biggest venue we're hitting now has the capacity of thirteen thousand, but the tour after this? Maybe even twenty thousand. Ryder's eyes shone as he said it, and I don't know when this band's success stopped being my dream and began being his instead.

Someone knocks on the door, and I pull on some underwear as I go to open it, expecting breakfast but getting Beiste instead. "You're not breakfast," I observe.

"I'm the next best thing," he deadpans, pushing past me. Beiste goes to the suitcase I have in the corner and begins to throw clothes on the bed. I've never figured out who Beiste works for. Is he Ryder's minion when he does stuff like this - forcing me to eat, to get dressed, to take better care of myself? Or does that make him my bitch? Beiste probably just works for himself.

"What are you doing?" I ask him pointedly.

"We've got time to kill before soundcheck, so let's see what Detroit has to offer."

"Not interested."

"Yes, you are," he states as he compares one of my floral-patterned shirts with the next. "We're all going. Even Nick is excited to go. He's been really happy lately, have you noticed? The kid's weird. Weirder than you."

"Hey!"

Beiste ignores me. "Anyway, the girls want to go shopping for Bowie, and basically, it'll be really good for the crew to just chill out for a bit. But what's the point if Blaine is moping in his hotel room, not talking to anyone as usual? No point at all. This shirt," he decides and shoves it at me. "Ten minutes, meet us in the lobby."

I scoff. "You're not the boss of me."

Beiste lifts an eyebrow and shoves me backwards with a push of his hand. "You think?"

Twelve minutes later, we cram into four taxis and take a ten minute ride to some hip clothes boutique Kitty demands we visit. We spot a music shop right next to it, and our team is divided into two as the girls plus Mason and Puck, who is obsessed with Penny, go check out clothes. Mason squeals more than the girls do, and seriously, he is so in the closet that, if he were any further in it, the bastard would be in Narnia.

The rest of us head to the music store to mess around with the gear.

Kurt and Kitty don't glance at each other. Why would they? Kurt wouldn't want to fuck her, anyway. In daylight, I see much clearer, and the things I thought I saw in the middle of the night after an exhausting show seem nothing more than just a bit on this side of ridiculous.

They recognize us in the music shop, the owner throwing out other customers and temporarily closing down the place so we can browse without being harassed by fans.

"Why don't I have a double-necked guitar?" Seb asks demandingly while I fall in love with an ES-335. Nick's made himself comfortable behind the drum kit at the back, just messing around.

"You know any songs about Detroit?" I call out to him, sitting down on a stool and picking the strings of the Gibson.

Nick scratches his head thoughtfully. Yeah, why would anyone write a song about this place?

"Detroit City," Kurt says, having armed himself with a Gibson Explorer. "Bobby Bare, sixties song?" We all blink at him, and he rolls his eyes. "Jesus, don't you rockers know any country music? Here, you'll recognize it when you hear it. Can I get a twelve string?" One of the workers rushes to get him one. Kurt strums a few chords on it. "So it goes like this. I wanna go home... I wanna go home..."

I recognize the song, Nick already having picked up the tempo. He drums the simple rhythm, and I start playing along with Kurt. Kurt grins when he sings, "I dreamed about that boy who's been waiting for so long," and I roll my eyes as he modifies the lyrics and makes the country song gay friendly. Matt is making up a bass line, and Seb cracks up, starting to add heavy solos between the choruses. Beiste and Ryder let us jam as they stay by the main doors of the shop. I look over my shoulder and realize a crowd of people has gathered outside.

They've found us. Simple, really. A fan walks by, sees us, runs to the nearest payphone to call his local radio station, the host tells every rock fan in the city who is tuned in, and they come swarming.

But now, the audience is outside and not in my face. And we used to play around and jam so much on our previous tours, but we don't anymore. Magically, we are doing it, and it feels good. It has the spark of enjoyment we used to have. Seb shouts a rocky, "Yeah!" and I laugh and shake my head.

We all join Kurt in the last chorus of, "I wanna go home, I wanna go home, oh I wanna go home, I wanna go home..." Nick crashes cymbals for the hell of it.

The shop owner has fetched his camera, asking for a group picture he could frame on the wall behind the counter. We pose for him as Matt snaps the picture. The bell rings, and the girls rush in with Mason and our bassist. We hear screams of, "Puck! PUCK!"

"Quite a crowd out there," Puck muses, clearly pleased. The girls and Mason have bags upon bags, and Ryder looks slightly torn between amusement and despair. Of course, Puck paid for everything the girls bought, but who pays for it in the end? Not Puck.

"Might as well stay," Nick suggests, and I shrug, and we start a new song as Puck takes over bass. We haven't jammed in a long time, but in the cozy music shop in downtown Detroit, we seem to find the same tune. Penny sits on the counter, her feet dangling and three-inch platform shoes banging against the front slightly, and she looks at Puck adoringly. Bree is showing Mason her new headband.

We're in the middle of a song with Puck providing the rather crude vocals when I notice Kurt and Kitty in the corner. I can't hear anything, but I can read the nervous body language, Kurt's questioning face and Kitty's upset one. There it is again, that tension between them that I picked up on last night. I'm not insane, at least, which is mildly comforting. They know each other, so why are they pretending they don't?

Kitty notices me looking, and she flashes a smile at me, ending the conversation with a short comment to Kurt, who looks annoyed. Then Kurt becomes aware of their surroundings and looks as unnerved as Kitty does.

What's the deal with those two? Not former lovers since Kurt wouldn't put his dick in her, so what's going on?

"Okay, the police are here!" Ryder informs us as the song finishes. We all flinch.

"Shit! Hide the drugs!" Puck tells us frantically, and we all start going through our pockets in a hurry.

"No, they're here to safely escort us back to the hotel! There's a few hundred people out there, blocking the street."

Seb stares in astonishment. "So now, like... we're not against the cops but with the cops? We're with the man? Fuck, that is so not rock 'n roll."

"Call it whatever you will," Ryder shrugs. The roadies and groupies leave the shop first, and the fans outside scream though they can't know for sure who is coming out. The police have pushed fans away from the door of the shop, and I hurry to buy the ES-335 while I can. Ryder gives me a look that clearly says I don't need the guitar, but I want it. The owner shakes our hands, eyes shining. Ryder makes sure I am the last one out of the shop. I have to go last; it would feel anticlimactic otherwise. The policeman that takes me and Ryder to one of the police cars pushes my head down and tells me to walk fast, and they scream, god, do they scream my name.

I get squeezed in the backseat of the car between Seb and Ryder with my new guitar in a gig bag on our thighs. "The last time I was in the back of one of these, the situation was quite different," Seb jokes. The cop driving us doesn't look all that amused and takes off, slowly pushing through the crowd that bangs the windows. Jesus fuck.

Once we are out of the masses, the police car speeds down the road easily.

"What do you guys know about Kitty?" I casually ask my companions. Seb probably knows her the best.

"The same I know about every groupie," Seb shrugs, which means nothing. We never know anything about them apart from the fact that they love us. "She once said she has six siblings, but that's about it."

"Six siblings?" I clarify, my thoughts running amuck. The car slows down in front of the hotel as one of the cops at the front kindly asks Ryder not to bother the Detroit Police Department further during our visit. Ryder assures them that he will keep his rock 'n roll band at bay. His band? Right.

I spot Kurt and Kitty in the hotel lobby, my eyes taking in their faces as Kitty rushes to Seb and Kurt looks sour. The secrets. The eyes. The bickering.

They couldn't be brother and sister... could they?

Midnight showing of Chinatown. Kurt goes to buy the tickets with the money I give him just to be on the safe side, though I figure that all Warblers fans were at the venue and we won't bump into them here. Still, I really don't want to sign any more album covers today.

It's a new movie, a detective story of sorts. Some guy called Jack Nicholson stars in it, but neither one of us has ever heard of him. I look at the poster; he's not a very attractive man either. A shooting star, clearly.

Kurt noticed the cinema from the taxi this morning, and I have my reasons to ditch my bandmates and join him. I'm also going because no one else would go with him. Even Mason refused after Bree got bored of Beiste and moved onto him. Well, Mason needs to keep up his fake straight boy image somehow.

I brush my hair that's wet from the post-gig shower. Kurt comes back with a grin and shows me the two tickets. Once inside, I ask, "You want popcorn?"

"Sure, yeah."

I get us popcorn and a Coke for him. I've got my flask of vodka in my pocket. Kurt munches on the popcorn happily as we wait to be let inside. I don't really see the family resemblance between him and Audrey, though maybe they just have the same mother or father? Both are beautiful. Maybe that's the similarity.

"So where are you from?" I ask him.

"I live in San Francisco," he replies, which isn't a reply at all.

"Huh," I note, reaching for the popcorn he is holding. Our fingers brush as he grabs some too, and I notice it. Not in the way that I register it happening and my brain moves on to new, insightful observations, but in the way that I stop and acknowledge the brush of his fingers against mine like I've been waiting for it to happen all day. A few days.

I rush out, "When did you move to San Francisco?"

"About a year and a half ago?" he asks in a pondering tone.

"And before that?"

"Around," he shrugs, and just as I am about to ask him to specify, he stops me with, "Oh, the doors are open."

I have no chance of grilling him during the movie, which turns out to be pretty interesting. I keep glancing at Kurt, comparing his eyes with Kitty's. I just want to know what's going on. It's not that I find Kitty a puzzle that needs solving; it's that I'm writing song lyrics around Kurt because he's caught my imagination.

I make sure I reach for the popcorn only when Kurt's own hands aren't in it. It's hard for me to relax when Kurt is sitting right next to me in the dark.

After the movie, I go to the toilet to empty my flask. Kurt waits for me outside, and we start walking back to where we think the hotel is. He tries to pay me back for the movie, but I refuse. I'm a hell of a lot richer than he probably is. Kurt looks up to the sky and says, "You can never see stars in cities."

"Look a bit to your left, and you can see a star."

He frowns, gazing at the sky, before looking back at me and bursting out laughing. "Oh, I see. You're the star, huh?"

"Yup," I shrug not-so-modestly. "So do you come from a big family?"

He looks surprised, but shrugs. "Depends on what you consider big."

"Six siblings?"

"One."

"Ah." A singular sibling but it still doesn't match. But what does Seb know? He's coked out half of the time, anyway. "You the older one or the younger one or..?" I go on. Kurt laughs, a bit embarrassed and averting his eyes. "Well, I mean. Psychologists say it defines a person later in life. The middle kids are the bridge builders, for example. And the oldest are the responsible ones and so on. I didn't have any siblings growing up so that means I'm selfish and can't compromise."

"I'm the youngest."

"The wild rascal, then. And how –"

"Jesus," Kurt laughs as we walk along.

"What?"

"You pay for the movie and popcorn, now you're asking these getting-to-know-you questions. Why don't we just kiss so we can officially call it a date?"

I laugh along with him, trying fast to say something. "No, man, just making small talk." Nothing suspicious about wanting to know what his story is. Definitely not letting myself think about kissing him. Or this being a date. I don't want either one of those things; I'm not a faggot.

"I'm sort of excited about doing the Canadian dates next. I've never been out of the country," Kurt says, changing the subject so smoothly that I don't even realize it for two blocks. Instead, I reminisce about the shows we've done in Montreal and how I was drunk enough to think I could speak French. I only made an ass of myself, but the crowd loved me being talkative for once.

"I think we're lost," I finally conclude when we clearly are not in the downtown area anymore, and I am sure nothing around our hotel looks this shabby.

"I probably should have told you I have the worst sense of direction," Kurt admits and looks around in confusion. "But you were leading us, so –"

"You were leading us!" I argue until I realize I was following him and he was following me. Well, that doesn't get us anywhere. I ask the first person we come across, who kindly informs us that we are completely in the wrong direction. "Tell me if you spot a cab," I grumble as we now start going to the right direction. "My dad was a cab driver for a while after he came back from Vietnam," I say conversationally. "Did any of your family go?"

"No. I mean, I don't know for sure, but – They wouldn't, no. They don't believe in that stuff."

"War?" I clarify, and he nods.

"Shedding blood. It's a big sin, you know?"

"No one said killing was nice," I point out, though I bet some soldiers do get off on it. My dad never had a problem with the killing. He didn't mind that at all. "So you don't keep in touch?"

"Do you?" he counters before cutting me off with, "Let's not talk about the past. It never flatters anyone. All that matters is right now when we're pathetically lost in Detroit, and I'm hanging out with the hottest name in rock 'n roll. Ah, the prestige I will get for this."

"Oh, I see, you're hanging out with me for the fame." I grin even as his words echo in my head. The past doesn't flatter anyone. True. Definitely true.

"Of course for the fame. You didn't think I actually like you as a person?" Kurt asks and quirks an eyebrow at me. I shove him slightly and call him an asshole, his laughter making the night feel that much warmer. He spots a taxi and successfully hails it over, and I don't ask any more questions of the past he refuses to talk about.

I find Kurt outside the dressing room as I come back from fetching my temporarily misplaced notebook from the bus. The roadie is leaning against the wall with his arms wrapped tightly around himself, pale and sweating, and I stop to take the sight in. "Whoa, hey, you okay?" I ask as I hurry over, thinking he's been beaten up again, food poisoning, lack of sleep, a drug overdose. Definitely a drug overdose.

Kurt looks up at me with big eyes, absolutely pale. "Uh..." he begins and points to the dressing room door.

"What?" My fingers curl around his shoulder, keeping him steady.

Kurt swallows. "David Bowie is in there."

"He's here?" I ask, delighted.

"No, listen to me! David Bowie is in there."

"Yup." I blink at him. He blinks back.

"The man is like a fucking god?" he asks very slowly as if to make sure we are talking about the same person. Well, he's certainly never been this star-struck around me. To be or not to be offended?

"I'll introduce you," I offer easily.

"No way."

"Yes way."

"Shit. Fuck. Shit."

I openly laugh at him, and he looks annoyed. He gingerly follows me to the dressing room, constantly looking like he is about to run the other way. He takes even breaths, reminiscent of a woman giving birth, and he fiddles with his sleeves and mutters something, clearly prepping himself for The Introduction. A party has started in the room in the ten minutes that I was away. David is the first one to spot me, breaking into a smile as I go give him a hug.

"You alright, mate?" he asks, smiling widely, still as tall and skinny as the last time, short and messy orangey hair over a mismatched pair of eyes. Kurt remains by the door, staring, as David and I launch into a discussion about different venues we both consider as our third or fourth homes. Even Puck likes David, not having forgotten the fabulous party David threw us in London on our so far only UK tour. A few more guys from David's crew are there, having come to see us play.

"You want to come out and do a song with us?" I ask, and David nods eagerly. I feel mildly bad for asking him to come on stage on his night off, but this is what we do. Musicians are all insane and addicted to what they do. Even I am. Addicted to the hell it puts me through. And I am not the least surprised I turned out masochistic. "Oh, you gotta meet this guy," I interrupt.

Kurt is still by the dressing room door, twisting his hands nervously. "Kurt, this is David."

"Pleased to meet you," David says politely, holding out a hand. Kurt looks like he wants to die because this, right here, is the happiest moment of his life and nothing will ever top it.

"You too. Definitely. Oh my god, I just – I saw you in San Francisco last year, and that show changed my life, I – You mean so much to the gay community there, you know? I swear, on Halloween I went to The Hard On, it's, er, it's a club in The Castro District, and half of the people there were dressed up as Ziggy. Myself included," Kurt adds in nervously, babbling away like he is terrified of the words coming out of his mouth.

"Cheers, that's nice to hear."

"Yeah," Kurt exhales dreamily. David is now looking Kurt up and down calculatedly, and I know that look. God, David's a fucking dog.

The crowd starts screaming so loudly that it echoes to our dressing room, and I realize that Canadian Experience is on. After their set, they will pack up and be gone. I'd like to see Sam on stage one more time. He looks good there. The heartless bastard belongs to the stage.

It's hard, somehow, to know that one of the men I've had the strongest musical bond with is leaving, and I will never see him again. Even if he was a damn douche and even if our affair was so short-lived it hardly happened. But I keep waking up with those songs stuck in my head. Goddamn Evans.

"Nick tells me you no longer put on any makeup when you go on stage," David says disapprovingly, and I nod to confirm it. "We can't have that!" he gasps, and I let him sit me down and make Kurt fetch Seb's make up kit.

I close my eyes and keep still as David begins putting makeup on me. Kurt makes approving sounds, sighing, "That is gorgeous!" every five seconds. When I open my eyes, a purple stripe decorates my face, stretching over my eyes and the bridge of my nose. David adds way too much eyeliner, and when I put on one of my feather hats, the combination is absurd.

David says, "Perfect."

Kurt says, "You are so talented."

"Thanks, Kurt," he says smoothly, casting Kurt a long, long look. "Hey, you wanna go out for a fag?"

"Sorry?" Kurt frowns.

David laughs. "A cigarette. We call 'em fags."

Kurt blushes, and seriously? Kurt makes an "er, um," sound as he is clearly flustered that David Bowie wants to fuck him. I've been asking groupies to go out for a cigarette with me for years.

Mason comes into the dressing room with a broad grin. "Ding, dong, the witch is gone! Or, you know, will be. Canadian Experience is on their way out of this tour; they're packing up right now. K, Beiste needs you on stage, and Ryder, we're out of the L-sized red shirts?"

The crew gets their act together and takes off, Kurt giving David an apologetic look, and David goes to the couch and puts his feet on the coffee table, and Seb gets out coke. I hear Finn and Thad's voices outside our room and then further away. I claim that I need to warm up my voice to get away from the coke, which I know is not good for me, and I also need to be somewhere where I don't have to acknowledge the departure of our support band.

I find a back corridor and walk up and down it as I hum under my breath, going high, high, high, low, low, low.

"Blaine."

I swirl around and silently curse my luck. I didn't want to see Sam. He's sweaty from their set, but there is a harshness to his jaw line and usually warm eyes. "Here," Sam says bluntly and presses a piece of paper to my hand. I look down and see a number.

"Whose is this?"

"Mine. It's for my place in Chicago for the day you realize what you let slip by you. Because those songs we wrote? They were fucking amazing." Sam cocks an eyebrow at me and turns around, walking out of my life for good with a hell of a lot more arrogance than he had walking into it.

I look at the piece of paper and scoff. Like I'll need this. Sam needs to be brought down a notch or two. Or twelve. Like I'd go running back to him? Please.

I let the note drop onto the floor and head back to the dressing room. Once nearly there, I turn around, rush back to where I was and pick up the note, pocketing it away.

Just because Sam owes me a beer.

The large hotel room has turned into a club with a mix of David's crew, our crew, the girls and a handful of Detroit's musical finest. Everyone is courting David or Seb or me, but mostly David, and I don't mind, but Seb clearly does. Kurt is sticking to the background with a slightly offended look on his face. Out of the guys available, I'd go for Kurt. He is clearly the most attractive choice.

If, well, I was David. And wanted to do a guy.

Kitty is winning by a long shot. She is sitting on David's lap and telling stories of the crazy shit the two of them have done on previous tours. Kurt is nearly fuming. It would suck, watching your sister steal the guy you want, but they're not siblings. Maybe distant cousins?

"In Santa Fe, Kitty talked me into going to a church and shagging in one of the corners." David laughs loud enough for me to hear, and Kitty grins wickedly.

"Blasphemy, that," Kurt comments casually. "Puts the whore of Babylon to shame."

The others laugh, but Kitty doesn't. She looks tired as she stands up, sends Kurt an offended look, grabs a champagne bottle and goes out to the balcony. Kurt looks pleased and quickly moves to sit next to David, who wraps an arm around Kurt and offers him a beer bottle. Kurt looks comfortable where he is.

I don't mind one of our roadies being so openly after David, though now everyone present knows we've got a fag in the crew. Well, it doesn't mean that the rest of us are. And I know what this courting accumulates to: a twenty-minute panting session and then they part ways. David is pretty irresistible, anyway. Hell, even I might do him if someone gave me the right combination of recreational drugs. This isn't like it was in Cleveland with that guy, that sleazy guy with those muscles and Kurt all cornered and tiny and looking like a coked up slut desperate for a fuck. David is a decent guy. Willing fan meets horny musician. Everyone knows how that'll go. They have my blessing to fuck.

The party is getting louder, but Kitty isn't back yet. I leave my own admiring crowd and go out to the balcony. Kitty is sitting on the bottom end of a wooden deck chair with a champagne bottle dangling between her slender legs, pink hair blowing slightly in the cool breeze. She is leaning forward, and she looks so much smaller than she usually does.

I close the door to the hotel room and go take the chair next to hers, letting my eyes wash over Canada on the other side of the river. Kitty glances at me, her eyeliner having smeared in the corners. I clear my throat. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, sure," she nods drunkenly and looks out. The city is a sea of a million little lights, but it feels like we're in the middle of a glimmering desert and everyone else is far away. "Just, you know. One of those nights."

She leans back in the chair and sighs. If I play this right, her admitting that something is off is a pathway to a whole bunch of more truths. Kurt won't talk, and I don't want to push him. Kitty, though... "Is it about Kurt?"

She turns her head to me, eyes widening in surprise. "No," she says after a long pause. "And yes." She giggles, and I take the champagne bottle she's offering. "It's not him exactly, just the things he reminds me of, and it just- It's weird here. In this place. Makes me kinda uneasy. I know him, you know. I mean I knew him." She licks her lips as if to taste the traces of champagne on them. I wait for her to go on, my insides squeezing together as she dangles the truth in front of me. "You're not surprised."

"No," I admit. Kitty and Kurt aren't very good actors. "How do you know him?" I help myself to a cigarette.

"We grew up on the same street," she explains, a cloudy look in her eyes like she can see it right in front of her eyes. My brother and sister theory suddenly doesn't seem as ridiculous. "It was a shitty town, not even worth mentioning. A two-hour drive from Columbus, which we hardly got to visit since it was the cesspool of depravity," she says in a booming voice and smiles. "Dad always said that. And that was Columbus. Los Angeles? New York? He paled just thinking about them! But not me, no. I always wanted to go myself, see what the fuss was about... Small town, everyone knew everyone. Really small place. I suppose it was cozy in its own way. Kurt was a few years older than me, but we played together sometimes. All kids played together back there."

I try to see Kurt as a small boy in this tiny place. I can't really picture it, especially not him playing together with Kitty. "A small town in Ohio," I repeat, trying to take it in. I try not to think about the fact that Kurt's from the same state I grew up in.

"Catholics."

I do a double-take. "Catholics?"

"Yup," she laughs and shakes her head disbelievingly. Kitty, a Catholic? Kurt a Catholic? She's a groupie. He's gay. What kind of Catholics are they? Kitty smiles lopsidedly, pushing long, pink hair behind her ear. She sways to the left slightly as she offers her hand. "Katrina, pleased to meet you."

I shake her hand in disbelief.

"It's a modern take on Catherine, like Catherine of Alexandria" she explains. "That town alone had fifty Catherines in it. I always hated the name; there was nothing unique in it. But I thought I was, you know? I thought I... I listened to the radio at night. I snuck downstairs after everyone had gone to bed and tuned into the only rock station we got around there. And I'd listen with my ear pressed to the speaker... The music. It just ran down my spine, and let me tell you, let me tell you, you listening? Good, here's some truth: that music was the only religious experience that I've ever felt. And when I was seventeen, I left the place. The Doors were playing in Columbus. I had to see them, had to. Had to see Jim Morrison, you know? And it was like... I was reborn. Right there, that night. I got backstage too. Jim told me I was beautiful. It was the first time anyone had ever said that to me, and he asked me what my name was and – it just came out. 'Kitty,' I said. Kitty." She laughs at the memory, and I don't have the heart to tell her that, although Jim probably meant what he said, he didn't feel it. It was just words. I know how we musicians think, and what we say is beauty in others we only see as reflections of ourselves.

Kitty takes the bottle back from me and takes two gulps. "So I met Jim that night. Met these amazing people, and that was that. I had left my family a note, saying that I had gone, so my parents knew. And then I was Kitty Wilde. I made up the last name later, I figured it's a nice representation of who I became as a person. I was free, rebellious, wild. Kitty Wilde," she repeats with a pleased smile. "You like the name? I like the name. I never went back after that."

I look over my shoulder and into the hotel room, seeing the guys hanging out. I see Kurt, who is from the same small town where there are fifty Catherines and rock 'n roll is a sin. How did that boy become that man?

"Is Kurt his real name?" I ask quietly. Something aches inside me at the thought of him having lied about that.

"Oh, yeah. He hasn't changed that." I relax slightly. I don't know why it matters so much. "God, I couldn't believe it when I saw him on that bus. I thought he was dead, you know."

The sip of champagne I was taking gets caught in my throat, and I end up coughing into my fist. "D-Dead?"

"Uh huh," she nods and now takes a slug. She finishes the bottle. "I think they all think he's dead! Kurt disappeared back in..." Her eyebrows knit together, her concentrated expression nearly comical. "Back in '66? '67? He must have been around fifteen, I think. Poof! Gone! Didn't come to school one day. No one knew anything. The Elders told us not to bother his extended family with it, not to ask questions. I remember how heartbroken all the Hummels were."

"Who?" I frown.

"The Hummels. Kurt Hummel?" she laughs, and it occurs to me that I don't know what his last name is. "I forgot about him, I guess," Kitty muses. "Most of us just forgot, though Bill Hinckley said that he saw Kurt's dad digging a grave in the back of their house. Someone told the teacher, and Bill got into so much trouble. Most people just forgot about him. And then he was on that bus, and I recognized him, and not only was he breathing, but he was all grown up too. I couldn't believe it! The dead Hummel kid. And we lived two houses apart. I broke free from the place, and here I am now! And here he is too, ended up right here too. It's like that, what's it called? Karma? No, like, uh..."

"Kismet."

"Yeah, kismet!" she nods eagerly, eventually shrugging. "No idea what happened to him. I didn't ask. Up until then, I didn't know people could disappear like that... And he seems oddly fascinated with David too."

"Well, he's gay. All gays are fascinated by David."

"Kurt is gay?" Kitty gasps, eyes widening, and broken free or not, I can tell what the tiny Catholic part of her brain thinks about that. "I-I mean, I have gay friends, but they are – They are not from where I'm from, I mean – Maybe it's good he disappeared. They would have killed him there. Shit. Are you sure he's gay?" she asks desperately.

"Yeah," I confirm. Kurt, disappearing at the age of fifteen, off the map until showing up in San Francisco less than two years ago. That's over five years of where the hell was he and what did he do? Did he run away or was he thrown out? Or maybe he didn't leave willingly at all, maybe he was taken?

Kitty laughs and covers her face with her hands. She laughs and laughs, and no wonder when I think of all the men she and Kurt have fucked, the drugs they've taken, the church gatherings they never attended, all in the name of rock 'n roll, both of them.

"His family adored him, especially his mom, before she and his sister died" Kitty says, smiling emptily and shrugging it off as a mystery of life. It leaves me with a haunting feeling I can't shake off. His mom and his sister died?

I finally go back inside and spot Kurt, who is now dancing on the table with Bree, and they are both laughing their heads off. Of course his family adored him. That bright smile, those warm eyes? Who wouldn't adore the kid?

But he vanished, and he won't tell anyone what happened. It must have been bad. Worry swirls in me at the thought, and I hope it wasn't anything too bad. He seems intact enough, but maybe it's just another cover up.

I keep my eyes on Kurt and Bree dancing, and David comes to me, following my gaze and saying, "Alright, you can have that one."

"She's all yours," I say half-heartedly, happy that the girls will be leaving with David. That way our band will stop letting their dicks dictate all of our actions.

"I was talking about the guy," David smirks and pats my shoulder. I freeze up. I wasn't aware that I wanted him.