Notes: This chapter is a little bit different from previous chapters as it spans over several months. It's sort of an "in-between" chapter, but I hope you will still enjoy it!
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Chapter 21 - The Aftermath
A month had passed since Kurt said goodbye to Blaine and Blaine got in Burt's and Carole's car and moved to Ohio. Blaine had packed the few belongings he owned in a worn backpack and said goodbye to his friends right there by his boat. There had been a lot of hugs, a lot of tears and a lot of promises to keep in touch.
Burt, Carole, Kurt and Blaine had then gotten into the car and driven to Kurt's apartment. Carole had filled the car with small talk to lighten the somber mood. Blaine had said nothing, just stared out the window, watching his city for the last time. When they arrived at Kurt's apartment, they had all gotten out of the car and Kurt had hugged Burt and Carole goodbye and whispered 'thank you' in both of their ears.
When it came to saying goodbye to Blaine, Kurt still remembered the intensity in Blaine's hug, how it went on forever without Blaine wanting to let go. Kurt knew Blaine had been scared, he had felt the way Blaine's heart pounded against his rib cage, and he had held him tight and whispered that everything would be better now, that it was over.
"Call me whenever you want," Kurt had said. "I mean it. I will always make time for you."
"Thank you, Kurt," Blaine had said, his voice thick with emotions, as he had hugged Kurt even tighter. "I don't want to let go."
"You have to," Kurt had answered with no attempts of letting go himself. There was a tight knot in his chest and his heart was falling apart. How could he let Blaine go when he was in love with him? How could he let him go and watch him move a thousand miles away? How would his heart survive?
It had been so hard to finally let him go, let him get into the car, but at the same time it had been a relief to see him leave. For Blaine's sake. Kurt had stood on the pavement and watched the car drive down the street until it made a left turn and disappeared out of view. He had gone inside, laid down on his couch and stayed there for the rest of the day. He had felt completely empty inside as he laid there and stared at the ceiling. It had felt unreal that Blaine was on his way to Lima with his dad and Carole.
Blaine had been quiet the whole car ride to Ohio, Kurt later learned, only spoken when spoken to. The same was the case the first week in his new home. The guest room became Blaine's new room, where he stayed most of the time. Blaine was reserved, his dad told Kurt over the phone, and a bit uncomfortable.
When, after a little more than a week, Blaine's motorcycle finally arrived in Lima, Blaine would take it out and disappear for hours. Burt and Carole had no idea where he went but when he returned he always seemed happier and he that's when he started to interact more with them. That was also when he started to return Kurt's calls.
Talking to Blaine always made Kurt calmer, but it also made the longing in his heart grow larger. Blaine usually told Kurt about his days and if anything interesting had happened at the auto shop where he was slowly starting to get the hang of it. Kurt in his turn told Blaine about Santana's latest antics or the progress he made in his writing. None of them mentioned their past relationship or a possible future together. Kurt knew what he felt, those feelings didn't fade just because Blaine had moved to a different state, but he didn't want to put any pressure on Blaine by asking if Blaine still felt the same way about him. Blaine needed to heal and focus on himself first.
A month had gone by now and Blaine was slowly settling in in the Hummel-Hudson household. Life was changing for him and sometimes he had a hard time keeping up he told Kurt. The transition from living alone, taking care of himself, to having people around whom he needed to adapt to and who expected things from him was hard and not without obstacles. Despite that Blaine sounded happier. He didn't like when Kurt brought up the harbormaster or the other men, didn't want to talk about it at all. Kurt felt Blaine should talk about it, process it, but Kurt didn't like talking about it either, so he dropped the subject when he heard how uncomfortable Blaine got.
Even if Blaine only wanted to forget, Kurt knew that his dad and David were keeping in touch and that they were discussing which actions to take. Kurt stayed out of it. He got too angry and felt too much like screaming at the injustice of it all when he talked to his dad about it. He couldn't be rational or levelheaded when it came to Blaine and the things he'd been through. His dad decided it was best if Kurt wasn't involved in those discussions.
Life wasn't only changing for Blaine, it was changing for Kurt, too. A new semester was starting, and Rachel had just moved to the city. She was a distraction for sure, wanting to experience the city with Kurt as her tour guide. Kurt happily showed her around, glad to have something to keep him busy. He also showed her where he worked and Rachel instinctively disliked Santana and vice versa. Kurt decided to keep them separated from each other from now on.
The new semester meant more studying and more writing. After Blaine left, Kurt had managed to complete the story he had written over the summer. It was therapeutic somehow, since so much of Blaine was written into it. Finishing it had helped him process what had happened. His professor praised him for the depth and the emotions he portrayed in his words and Kurt felt new motivation to work even harder that year.
August soon turned into September and October, and summer faded into fall. Not that it was noticeable in Florida where temperatures were still in the high eighties in early October. Kurt missed the falls in Ohio. He missed the scarves and the gloves he liked to wear. He even missed the rain a little bit. Several months with constant sun and warm weather actually drove Kurt a crazy and he longed for when he could go back to Ohio the next time.
As the seasons moved on, life settled into a new rhythm for Kurt. In addition to school and his friends from school, Kurt now also spent time with Rachel, Santana and Blaine's friends (though rarely at the same time), and he still worked at the diner some weeknights and some weekends.
At first it had been difficult to hang out with Blaine's friends because when they met, they couldn't seem to talk about anything but Blaine. They drank too much and got too emotional, but as time went on and Blaine settled in in his new life and appeared to be doing better, their friendship moved beyond just Blaine. Kurt felt more and more like one of the guys around them. He now knew all of their names and could call any of them if he wanted to talk.
David and Kurt's dad had decided to report the harbormaster to the police. An investigation was started, but as the harbormaster denied all allegations and Blaine refused to witness, the investigation was soon closed and filed. The rumors that started to surround the harbormaster after the investigation made it impossible for him to stay though, and soon a new harbormaster was seen at the harbor. If the old one was fired or if he left on his own free will, Kurt still didn't know.
When Kurt asked Blaine why he didn't want to witness, Blaine only answered that he wanted to move on from it, not dwell in it. Kurt tried to argue that the harbormaster should pay for his crimes, but Blaine only changed the subject then. Blaine started to see a therapist, Carole told Kurt. She was the one who had suggested it and who had made an appointment for Blaine. Blaine had reluctantly agreed to go. Kurt was glad, because even if Blaine seemed to be doing better now, sooner or later what he had been through would come back and haunt him if he didn't deal with it. Maybe seeing a therapist would help Blaine open up, at least to her.
Kurt kept his promise to Blaine to always pick up whenever he called. He liked talking to Blaine but it was always a balance of being honest but not saying too much. Not saying the thing that would get Blaine to clam up. He missed Blaine. Lying on the couch where they fell asleep that one night, he could remember the way Blaine smelt and the way it felt to have Blaine's arms wrapped around him, and he just wanted to be there again.
Sometimes talking to Blaine was hard because he was so far away and Kurt just wanted to hold him and tell him that he loved him. Other times were extra hard because Kurt could tell Blaine wasn't feeling well. He would be quiet and downcast, and Kurt couldn't get Blaine to tell him why. Those times he really wanted to be there, in Lima, and hug Blaine and tell him everything was going to be okay. Or that someone would hug Blaine and tell him that. But he knew nobody would, because no one really knew Blaine in Lima and even if someone did Blaine wouldn't let anybody that close.
But even when it was hard and just seeing Blaine's name on the screen made the longing in his chest unbearable, Kurt still answered.
Santana tried setting Kurt up on a date. She didn't like the way he was 'moping around' (according to her, though Kurt didn't feel that he was) with a low-spirited aura around him. Kurt agreed to go, mostly to get her off his back. The guy was probably a nice guy and it could have been a really good time, but Kurt's heart just wasn't in it. It was a thousand miles away.
Sometimes it was easy to talk to Blaine because they would laugh so hard at something that had happened at the auto shop or in Kurt's life. Those times Kurt didn't feel guilty for persuading Blaine to move in with his parents and away from his friends. Blaine was making a new friend in the guy his dad had recently hired to work in his auto shop. The guy was only a few years older than Blaine and apparently shared Blaine's passion for riding motorcycles.
Kurt was happy for Blaine, happy that he was making a friend and did something with his free time other than sitting around the house, but when Kurt remembered that his dad had told him that he believed his new employee was also gay, suddenly Kurt didn't like the new friendship all that much. He never told Blaine and he never asked his dad if he figured out if the new guy was gay or not. He didn't want to seem jealous when there was no spoken promise between himself and Blaine. But the worry gnawed in him.
What if Blaine and this guy, Alex, spent so much time together they became more than friends? Had he made the right decision when he decided not to tell Blaine how he still felt about him after everything that had happened? What if Blaine still believed Kurt didn't want to be with him because of what he used to do? Maybe it didn't matter. Maybe Blaine hadn't forgiven him for sleeping with Nick, even if he had asked Kurt to lay next to him that day on the boat.
One evening in October Kurt decided to ask all the questions he'd held back on asking for weeks. It probably wasn't the right time at all, but the not knowing and constant wondering became too much for him. Kurt was in his car on his way home when Blaine called him first. His heart pounded in his chest when he answered the phone, he'd never been this nervous talking to Blaine. But it all changed into something else when Blaine told him not to call him anymore.
Dread and a feeling that it was all unreal settled in Kurt's chest. Blaine told him that his therapist didn't want him to have any contact with Kurt for a while, but Blaine didn't tell Kurt why. Blaine said he wanted to feel better, and he believed his therapist was helping him with that so he wanted to listen to her and do the steps she thought were necessary. Kurt didn't understand. Was he holding Blaine back from getting better? How would not talking to Kurt help Blaine? Blaine had no answers and soon ended the call.
Kurt felt hollow. And numb. He drove home on autopilot, parked his car and walked to his apartment without registering anything around him. It took Kurt a few days and a talk with his dad to accept that although Kurt thought it was a stupid idea, it might be what was best for Blaine (though he still didn't understand why). It took some additional days for Kurt to realize how empty his life felt and how much time he spent at home alone in case Blaine would call him.
Kurt started to hang out more with his college friends, with Blaine's friends, with Rachel and Santana (though never at the same time). He kept himself busy with study nights and nights on the town. He wrote and he worked. He got his weekly updates about Blaine from his dad and knew Blaine was doing good, that Blaine was chattier and happier than before. Kurt missed him. Oh, how he missed hearing his voice, missed not being the one Blaine called when he wanted to talk to someone. He missed Blaine's laughter and even his gloomy mood when he was feeling low.
It felt like a break up, the abrupt ending without premonition or an explanation that helped him understand. It took days to accept and weeks to feel somewhat okay about it, but time didn't take away his feelings or heal the sense of loss in his heart. There was also a fear that if Blaine wasn't talking to him, he must be talking to someone else and that that someone might be Alex...
Kurt's trip back home for thanksgiving had been planned since before Blaine told him not to call him and Kurt was nervous getting on the plane. He was even more nervous stepping off the plane in chilly Ohio. Rachel, who was sitting next to him, did her best to keep him distracted but it didn't really work. She didn't know everything about Blaine but enough to understand why he was living with Burt and Carole and why Kurt was nervous. They said goodbye when they exited the airport where Burt was waiting for Kurt and her dads were waiting for her, with a promise to meet up on Friday morning for the Black Friday sales.
Burt greeted Kurt with the widest smile and Kurt hugged him tightly. It was great to be back home, in Ohio, with his dad. He'd been so busy missing Blaine that he'd forgotten how much he missed his dad, too. Sitting in the car next to him, chatting about everything and nothing particular at all, it felt so normal and comfortable. They'd done it a hundred times before, driven somewhere while just talking to each other. But the closer they got to the house, the less normal and comfortable it felt. Blaine was in the house and that wasn't normal at all.
If Burt noticed Kurt being nervous, he didn't mention it. He knew his son well enough to know his reasons. All he said when they walked up the steps to the front door was a casual, "Carole and Blaine are in the kitchen preparing Thanksgiving dinner." As if he knew Kurt needed that prior notice before he stepped through the door.
Kurt's heart pounded in his ears and his hands were clammy as he opened the door. He hadn't spoken to Blaine in over a month and he had no clue how this weekend would play out.
