Chapter One
Puck finally spotted Kurt on a Monday after the holidays. The other boy was walking in the direction of his locker, dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, one of the straps of his backpack hanging off his shoulder.
Even without the calls from Kurt he never got and all the visits that were turned away, Puck could see something was wrong. Aside from Kurt's clothes, of course, which was a mystery all of it's own; the boy's posture looked completely different to the way he'd carried himself when he left for Dalton, which, Puck supposed, should be a good thing – it meant the fancy school had taught him not to be afraid to be himself.
But...there was a but. And a big one.
You see, there was practically nothing left of the things Kurt used to identify who he was. If he hadn't seen his face with every expression possible and from up close, Puck wouldn't even have recognized Kurt – the not-so-expertly plucked eyebrows, the red cheeks, the hair, flying all around instead of being perfectly styled.
Maybe it was just a new way to blend in. If it was, Puck was going to kiss it right off Kurt's mind.
If he was allowed to, of course – there was no way for him to know what was going through Kurt's head when he didn't call, when he sent all the weird guys with the messages of 'I don't want to see you' to meet him in front of Dalton's gates after he drove for two hours.
Puck supposed that was why, when he approached Kurt's locker and stood there untill the other boy noticed him, his palms were sweating and he could feel his left eye starting to twitch.
When Kurt finally raised his head, Puck could feel his heart dropping, plummeting through his stomach and landing at his feet, felt something die quietly inside him.
The mischievous, lively spark in the blue eyes was gone. They were as beautiful as ever, and yet, there was nothing he recognized – no warm affection, no softness, no love.
"Kurt?" he forced out and hated how it sounded.
"Puck," Kurt responded, straightening immediately to his full height and slamming the locker door closed.
Of course he'd call him Puck. That was the name everyone called him – Noah was only reserved for special people. Up untill a minute and a half ago, Puck still held on to the thought of Kurt being one of them.
"To what do I owe the pleasure?" Kurt continued, his tone suggesting he'd rather be dealing with a germ on a toilet seat, and call him a pussy, but Puck could feel the tears sting in his eyes at the same time his brain went into overload.
He was confused; more confused than in Math, and that was something. This...'new' Kurt didn't make a lick of sense.
"Well, until, like, two minutes ago, I was under the impression I was your boyfriend."
Kurt's head shot up at that, like he couldn't believe what he was hearing, and Puck caught a flash of something behind all the emptiness. It dissapeared just as suddendly, though, only leaving him to talk to a brick wall that decided to take on a form of Kurt's body.
"I thought I gave you a pretty clear message."
Puck tried to be angry, he did, but mostly, he just felt a little numb and a lot terrified. "By not calling?"
Kurt shrugged and opened his bag, propping it up with his knee and rummaging through it. When he pulled out something small and shiny, all the sounds around vanished – it was just the two of them in a corridor, and Noah's confusion, which was growing big enough to be it's own person.
"I figure I should give you this back," Kurt opened his palm.
This time, Puck couldn't stop a tear from escaping, immediately angry at himself when he saw Kurt trace it with his eyes.
Silently resting in Kurt's palm was a ring – the ring Puck gave him with a chuckle during their first night spent together – just sleeping - as a promise he'd still be there in the morning.
He'd never asked Kurt to give it back.
Shaking his head, Puck retreated a step. "I don't—I don't get it, Kurt. What the fuck happened?"
The stare he got in return was hard, ugly. "I found myself."
"What?"
"I've seen the light."
And if it felt like his heart landed by his feet a while before, now there was a tiny Kurt sitting on it, wearing plastic horns in his hair and stabbing the muscle gleefuly with his tiny fork.
Puck had seen and heard enough about 'see the light' and the likes. They were nothing but excellent manipulators and guilt-trippers and somehow, probably because Puck was a fuck-up, Kurt; his sweet, wide-eyed, innocent Kurt, fell right into their claws.
This was bad.
"So, now what? Are you...straight? Is that it?" Kurt's reply was silence and a clench of his jaw so hard Puck could see the muscles on his neck tighten.
"Jesus fuck, you are, aren't you?" And yeah, now he was getting somewhere. He was finally getting pissed; not at Kurt or himself, not at the see the light guys, not at Dalton or Karofsky for pushing his boy out in the first place. He was just pissed in general, enough to drive his first into a wall if he gave in.
It was a familiar feeling; anger, Puck could deal with.
"Excellent. Did you get yourself a pretty little girlfriend, too?"
Kurt's posture remained the same – arms crossed over his chest, head held high, empty eyes blazing.
"You did. Okay, great. Have a good fucking life, then," he snapped, kicked a trashcan, not paying attention to the sound of litter scattering across the hallway; made his way to the nearest empty classroom.
Shutting the door, he literally fell into a chair, every muscle in his body suddendly on fire. His breath kept coming in short gasps, white spots dancing in front of his eyes and he couldn't, for the life of him, figure out what was happening.
He could almost feel the wheels in his head rolling. When a wave of cold swept over him, coating his body in goosebumps, he started to sob, not even realizing untill he heard the sound, short and strained, bounce off the walls of the room.
His life was fucked.
~*~
It took almost forty-five minutes for Puck to get his shit back together. After that, he spent another half an hour pacing, kicking everything that crossed his way and finally, just as he'd thought he would, punching a hole in the wall. The pain in his knuckles felt somewhat satisfying; it calmed him down.
Hearing the bell outside the classroom, Puck decided he could maybe go eat lunch and find the rest of the glee club – check out if any of them had seen Kurt already. Except, when he opened the door, the main subject of his thoughts was standing right there, pulling and the collar of his t-shirt and grimacing.
"What do you want?" Puck asked, his throat still a little sore from practically screaming himself raw (he'd managed to end up in a music classroom; why not use it, right?).
"Look, Puck, I can help you." He was obviously trying to be sincere, but when you know what real sincere looked like on Kurt's face, it was nothing but a cheap knockoff.
"I seriously doubt that," Puck snarled, grabbing his bag and walking out of the classroom, heading towards the cafeteria. Kurt kept trailing after him.
"Admittedly, what you did to sleep with me wasn't very nice—" and Puck wasn't going to snap and give in and punch Kurt in the face, because the guy wasn't making any sense and probably didn't even know what he was saying, "but seeing the light can really help you find yourself. Make you realize that nothing like love can exist between two men, that it's wrong."
Yeah, okay. What Puck felt was deep friendship, then. And fuck, he didn't even manage to tell the little bastard before he went and let himself get fucked over.
"I can take you to see the guys, too. They're great, you'd be friends," Kurt went on babbling, almost managing to make it sound convincing.
Puck ignored him untill he stopped to wait in the line and realized the other boy was gone.
The empty feeling in Puck's chest wasn't.
~*~
"We have the pleasure to welcome a new member today!" Adrian announced enthusiastically, his fingers clutching at the writing pad in Dalton colors he was holding. The other students stopped talking and straightened, suddendly alert, looking like owls in the backlight of the tall glass windows. "Guys, say hi to Kurt!"
And really, if they all smiled their perfect, pearl white simles and said –
"Hi, Kurt!"
- he'd storm out and never come back. And call his boyfriend, so they could both laugh at the ridiculousness of 'See the Light' before having a round (or two) of phone sex.
"It's always exciting to see a new face in our circles, am I right, guys?" Adrian chirped, his fingers clutching the pad again untill his knuckles turned white – almost like he was trying to supress an urge to wave his arms around. And, looking at the rest of his body language – the way one of his legs started bouncing, only to stop seconds later and the smile that, for all it's width, looked sterile and fake - that might have been exactly what he was doing.
Kurt felt incredibly sad for him.
The thing was, he didn't intend to come to the meeting at all. He's read all sorts of articles and seen all sorts of documentaries about brainwashing poor gay teens and adults who didn't know better into 'seeing the light' and becoming the 'better versions of themselves, loved by God'. And, of course, he'd seen Emmett's tragedy in Queer as Folk and he knew he never, ever wanted to end up like that.
Not that he would – he was perfectly happy in his own skin, satisfied with who he was and in the most amazing relationship one could possibly imagine, thank you very much. He didn't believe in God; even if he did, he was pretty sure the guy wouldn't have made him gay just to hate him for it later.
"I can see you have your doubts – that's perfectly normal, Kurt. As a welcome to you, each of us would like to share our story of how we've seen the light. Isn't that right, guys?"
And seriously, what was wrong with him? If he ended one more sentence in a question with his voice breaking in the middle because he remembered he's not supposed to sound feminine, Kurt would just stand up and slap him in the face.
"So, Sebastian, how would you like to start?" Adrian, stiff fingers stretched out in invitation, looked over to a small, brown-haired guy with a seriously adorable smile. When he stood up, he was fidgeting a bit and a light blush rose to his cheeks.
"Well, um, hi. Y'all know me," he started in a small voice, and Kurt cringed at his (very badly) faked accent, "but you don't, Kurt, since...um, since you're new. Obviously, huh. So, I'm Sebastian, but you can call me Seb, bro," ...seriously? "and after joining this group, my life has changed so much – for the better, of course." He let out a nervous laugh and darted a glance at Adrian, who, by the way his jaw muscles kept tensing, was either gritting his teeth or biting his tongue and now apparently trying to break the poor writing pad into two or possibly more pieces.
"As all of us in See the Light, I used to think I was gay," Sebastian continued, letting his words sink in for a moment – long enough for other members to school their faces into serious, solemn looks. "I lived in Florida back then and I had a neighbor, his name was Fred, who used to work around the house all year long with his shirt off. I was in an all-boys school that, unfortunately, had no groups like this one, and I was almost never in contact with any girls except for my sisters, so, naturally, I was fooled into thinking Fred was attractive. In a, uhm, sexual way." The blush creeped up higher on his cheeks and he closed his eyes for a moment, obviously ashamed for stooping so 'low'.
'Naturally, I was fooled into thinking'? No way Kurt was ever coming back here.
"I was naïve enough to think me dating another guy is okay, just a part of who I am, like my green eyes or brown hair. Frank was so much older than me, but I approached him anyway – turns out he's had the eye for me for quite some time. We hit it off almost immediately – I thought I lost my virginity to him," several of the boys sitting around the circle flinched, "I thought we'd be in...love – forever and maybe even get married," he scoffed. "Like such a thing even exists."
Kurt didn't really have to be a genius to figure out he was talking about both gay love and marriage.
It was more than depressing.
Tuning out the murmurs of agreement from the other guys, Kurt closed his eyes for a moment and imagined Noah's face – his strong, masculine features and brown eyes that warmed when they looked at him – his hair, the chip at the back of his mohawk everybody thought came from a fight when in reality, he got pushed by his father when he was five and split his head open on a coffee table. Kurt was the only one who knew that secret – the only one Noah trusted enough to tell him.
In return, Kurt told him about Karofsky. About the kiss. About how the fear sometimes caught him in the middle of the night and he'd wake up paralyzed in a nightmare. He pleaded with Noah to keep himself in check and not beat up the guy while Kurt was away and couldn't keep an eye on things – later, a call to Mercedes proved that the promise was kept. And if a lot of twitching, raging and nervous pacing around the choir room on Noah's part was mentioned, Kurt was gladly willing to overlook it, because Noah stuck to his word and did what Kurt asked, even though it was against his every instinct.
He thought of their Thursdays. How everyone and everything would fall into the background and the whole universe would center around the two of them, lying in Kurt's bed, sometimes talking, sometimes kissing, never more, because Noah promised to wait as long as it took, even without the elaborate explanation on Kurt's part (of course he wanted to have sex with Noah – he was a teenage boy – but something always made him stop and he couldn't, not just yet...no problem with phone sex, though). Of them telling the truth to Carole, swearing her to secrecy because they weren't quite ready to tell Burt (or anyone else) yet, of her smiling at them and petting their heads and of the ridiculous happiness he felt afterwards, curled up in Noah's embrace with a pint of the world's unhealthiest ice cream, because it was Noah's favourite.
They might have never said it for some unknown reason, but they both knew they loved each other – there was no plot twist down the road, no evil plan, no kidnapping or murder.
Opening his eyes, Kurt resolved to tell Noah when he called him that night. It would probably be a very long call, with everything he felt he needed to get off his chest and nobody else to talk to – practically everyone he knew and would trust enough here at Dalton belonged into See the Light, which, apparently, was a group of lunatics.
Sebastian was still talking, Kurt realized, and somehow, even though everyone has already heard the story, probably more than once, they all appeared to be completely enthralled.
"I was 15 and he was 23 - it should've been obvious to me, how wrong it was. He just manipulated me and I even wanted to file a lawsuit, but my Mom told me off – said Frank was a nice guy who really liked me," Sebastian grimaced, "even though she didn't necessarily approve of the age difference. She told me it's okay to love whoever I want to love and I believed her. Now that I know better, though, I started working on making her see the light, too."
Kurt imagined his Dad if he tried to tell him love for everyone is a lie and all gays are just manipulative, child-molesting criminals after the incredibly long way he's come over the past years. He had to stifle a grimace on his own.
"I really lost my virginity just last month to my girlfriend," Sebastian was now smiling dreamily, looking up at the ceiling and blushing even harder, "I love her so much and I think she should be the woman I marry. I can't thank you guys enough for introducing us," he said, sweeping over the circle of people with a grin. His gaze stopped on Kurt.
"Coming here, man? You've made the best decision of your life."
After that, he sat down, accompanied by the sound of clapping and a few catcalls. Nobody saw the way he flinched when the guy to his right clapped him on the back roughly – or they just chose to ingore it.
After that, it continued in the same fashion. Each of the guys stood up, told a story of an evil gay friend/teacher/neighbor/plumber/ballet trainer, in one case, all of them sounding like the exact same thing set in a different place and time and entirely too structured or too twisted to be believable ("I was vulnerable, you know? I got a C and I knew I couldn't go home with it or my parents would give me hell, so I asked him if I could stay at his place – just for one night! – and I should've been suspicious the moment he said yes..." It would be funny, if it wasn't so damn terryfiyng). All of the stories ended with either a girlfriend, future wife or at least a looming relationship with this or that lady, a smile and a wave of claps.
Untill it was Blaine's turn.
As everyone knew from his brief infatuation period, Kurt had met Blaine the day he came to Dalton as a spy for New Directions. The guy was nice, charming, could sing and admitted to being gay and for a while, that was all Kurt needed to develop a crush the size of Ohio.
Fortunately, it only took a few days of spending time with him for Kurt to see they were way better off as friends. After that, they got coffee at least twice a week and after getting serious with Puck, Kurt was eager for any relationship advice he could get – apparently, Blaine has done some dating, even though he refused to reveal who was the lucky guy. He always got this sad, distant look, and Kurt didn't want to poke at other people's old wounds if he could help it.
When he transferred to Dalton, after the whole Karofsky ordeal, Blaine was there as a support and as a link between before, that was his friends and New Directions and Carole's cooking and Finn's loud videogames, and now, which was just plain, distant, cold and scary. All the other guys looked at him down their noses for a while – he was new, apparently had too many individualistic ideas and quite unashamedly gay, which wasn't as accepted as he'd first thought. People just didn't act on their scornful glances, kept the words they so obviously wanted to spit into his face to themselves.
Blaine was there through all of that, helped him make first, tentative friends and audition for The Warblers.
The audition was also the first moment Kurt truly, really felt fear. Raising your hands was a natural thing to do when singing Don't Cry For Me Argentina, everybody knew that; but Blaine's gesture drove home the point: Kurt was going to belong to a choir full of people making sounds instead of singing properly, wearing blazers and ties and coiffing their hair in an unfashionable way. If he wanted to fit in – which he did – he couldn't be himself the way he wanted to be.
A few miserable weeks passed, filled with long phonecalls with Noah and Mercedes and, sometimes, the whole glee club, when they had practice and he was alone in the library, supposed to be studying.
And then, Blaine invited him to a See the Light meeting. Kurt was immediately put off by the name; he immediately said no.
Which didn't really explain why he was here, watching Blaine stand up carefully and look around, never meeting anyone's eyes.
"Well, um, I'm Blaine. You know me too, Kurt, so I guess I'll just...skip ahead to my story."
Kurt tried not to notice how very non-Blaine were all of the boy's movements and gestures. The confident, open, easy-going posture was gone, he kept scratching his nose and his upper lip – Kurt could see him bite his finger accidentally more than once.
"I've thought I was gay since I was thirteen."
And yeah, okay, seeing as he was in the group and all, Kurt expected him to say something like that.
That didn't make the questions in his head dissapear, though. Has Blaine been playing him all this time? Take him under his wings, pretend to care just to lure him in and make him stay out of sense of obligation? Kurt was very well aware of his deer-in-the-headlights look and air of innocence (more often than not laced with bitchiness), but he was most certainly not a girl and when he didn't want to stay, he wouldn't – screw the relationship advice, the 'I know how you feel' and 'courage' talks, the coffee Blaine almost always paid for.
"With three sisters, I always used to see a lot of girls I didn't know around our house. When I started to grasp the concept of sexuality, I got the Talk from my dad – he advised me to start noticing my sisters' friends more and maybe try to talk to one of them, like it was this.. impossible task. It was never hard for me to talk to girls, I used to play house and doctor with them when I was younger and I didn't see anything wrong with it, it was just the way it was, me and Jayma and Lea having a tea party with their dolls and my Mom always baking us real cookies."
For some reason, everyone was looking away; like Blaine wasn't the same brand of crazy they were, like he didn't belong, didn't believe what he was saying. If the speech sounded a little rehearsed, Kurt could see his face – there was nothing out of the ordinary, not that he could see . Blaine was either being completely honest or was a really, really good actor.
"I realize now that it was my parents' failure that misled me and kept me in the dark. They should've raised me properly; taught me how to correctly see women and kept me away from girly toys. It was a mistake to try and kiss my neighbor Billy behind his Grandpa's barn," something akin to a smile ghosted over Blaine's lips when he saw no one was looking, "and it was definitely a mistake to start an affair with Adrian."
Wait.
"I'm just grateful he led me to the right path," he smiled. Kurt could hear Adrian's writing pad creaking and see everyone's eyes look even further away, into the dark corners of the room, far away from the airy windows.
"I was completely wrong. But now," he swallowed, his eyes suddendly glistening in the afternoon sun, "I've seen the light."
His chair creaked loudly when he sat down. No one clapped.
Kurt didn't really get a chance to think about anything before his brain assaulted him with the idea.
Blaine. And Adrian. Adrian and Blaine. The most faithful member of See the Light and Kurt's mentor since the first day at Dalton.
Adrian must've been Blaine's dating experience.
Kurt tried to recall the way Blaine's eyes misted over whenever he talked about 'the guy it didn't work out with'. His whole demeanor used to change – he'd become more distant, with a faraway look in his eyes, clutching at his coffee cup and smoothing a thumb over the lid over and over. There was an air of sadness about him that was easily interpreted, but dissapeared the second the conversation turned to something else.
Blaine had been hurt. Bad.
By Adrian.
And now there he was, making a fool out of himself in See the Light next to his ex and something just didn't frickin' add up. Before anyone else could stand up and start blabbering, Kurt resolved to find out as much as he could.
And maybe stop Blaine on his way to self-destruction, if he wasn't too far gone.
"Well, well, well," Adrian brought his hands together, still smiling. "Thank you for the inspiring experiences. I'm sure Kurt will have something to think about until next week."
His smile turned into a grimace – nobody seemed to notice - and before Kurt could say anything, he launched into another inspiring speech, not giving anyone space to speak. Nobody looked disturbed – that was probably the way it has always been and they were obviously used to it.
There were talks of recruiting new members in Westerville (apparently, the group wasn't limited to Dalton students), going out for coffee on the coming weekend and starting a study group, everyone throwing in an idea or two – had Kurt not known how messed up they actually were, he wouldn't notice anything different from other boys their age.
By six in the afternoon, the sky outside getting dark, everyone started standing up and putting away chairs. Kurt hoped to sneak away unnoticed and then somehow just fly under the radar for the rest of the school year, so they wouldn't notice him and drag him into another meeting,
Of course, his plans were interrupted by a very happy-looking Adrian, naturally clutching his writing pad. Kurt opened his mouth, ready to spit out the first excuse that came to his mind, but the other boy's hand on his arm stopped him.
He was led over to one of the windows overlooking the yard, small groups of students in blazers scattered around like blotches of blue paint deep underneath them.
"Look, Kurt, I know – we all know – how hard it is to admit you're starting to have doubts about yourself."
Kurt opened his mouth to protest, but Adrian didn't let him.
"We all went through it and I just want you to know we're here to help you. You don't have to live in fear, you know? I used to be like you, bullied for being who I thought I was. Only when I trasferred here, my life had started to make sense."
Adrian's voice was smooth and calm - Kurt found himself looking into the other boy's unblinking brown eyes and listening.
"It's not just me. All of us who have seen the light - our lives are happier, fulfilled, without fear. Don't you want that? Don't you want to have a wife, a family one day? You will never find love in other boys, you have to know that."
Noah, something in Kurt's head shouted. He'd already found love. He won't let himself be brainwashed and turned into a mindless sheep, following in the steps of the leaders.
"I have a boyfriend," he jutted out his chin, jaw set, eyes blazing. Adrian didn't seem fazed in the slightest – just raised one expertly plucked eyebrow.
"Oh, please. Didn't you hear our stories? That's what we've been trying to tell you, Kurt – there is no love that can exist between two men. There can be lust, if you're confused and not in contact with girls, but love is a privillege of a man and a woman, as is marriage and having kids. That's the way God made us and the way we're all supposed to be."
Kurt wanted nothing more than to turn on his heel and walk away, but the grip on his arm was surprisingly strong and Adrian's eyes were just drawing him in for no good reason, wide open and sincere. He wouldn't listen, he told himself. There was no truth in it. He wouldn't listen.
"We love each other, it's not my problem you're too scared of who you are!" he spat, his voice raising.
Adrian's gaze clouded over, swirls of dark swimming through his brown orbs.
"If he 'loved' you, as you say, do you think he'd let you fool yourself like this? Let you think you're this diva persona while deep inside, you're just another normal guy like us?"
Outside, the sun was setting, dark clouds gathering on the horizon, and Kurt was storming off before Adrian could grab at him again.
"Just ask him if he'd marry you, or start a family with you! He only wants sex, all of them do!" he still heard echoing in his head when he closed the door to his room, all thoughts of his self-assigned detective mission gone from his mind.