DISCLAIMER: I do not own Glee, nor am I associated with it or Ryan Murphy. I am just an out-of-college daydreamer who sometimes gets into these writing funks and ends up tossing out a story after letting the idea sit in my brain for a few days!
Confused
By: xSlythStratasfaction
Pairing: Kurt x Blaine , Rachel x Blaine
A/N: This takes place right after BIOTA and it's mostly about what happened between Kurt and Blaine during the entire Blaine-Rachel dating ordeal and what Kurt's feelings were like about the matter.
A/N #2: I AM SOOOOO SORRY! I haven't updated in almost a month and I feel so bad because I should've updated this a LONG time ago! I just haven't had the time (or the internet access thanks to a weeklong vacation in the mountains of Tennessee in a cabin with no wifi, haha) and I've been sick, but I'm back now and I'll try to make up the lack of updates ASAP. Sorry once again!
"Last year, something eerily similar to what's going on between you and Blaine happened to me and one of my close friends."
Luka leaned forward a bit in his seat, reaching across the table to grab a few napkins. Kurt wondered if this story was going to get emotional if Luka needed to grab that many wipes from the bin. He watched the younger boy with concerned eyes, wondering what the blonde sophomore was about to tell him.
"My Blaine was called Caleb. He was a few years older than me; in fact right now, he's supposed to be a freshman in college." The blonde took a sip from his cappuccino, "I met him during a party a couple of years ago. I was the new kid in town and only went to try and meet some new people before school started up. Unfortunately, I ended up going to a high school party, even though I was actually starting my final year in middle school."
"So you were starting 8th grade then, right?"
Luka nodded, "Yep. I ended up at this random high school party and since I didn't know anyone, I spent all evening on the couch people watching. After about an hour of just sitting there, this cute guy came up and sat down next to me and we got to talking… the rest – you could say – is history."
"Cliché." Kurt smirked, earning a grin from his Warbler friend.
"Terribly! Anyway, I found out that he was in high school and that he was openly gay – something that I had recently admitted to being to my friends and family – and I guess he sensed how uncomfortable I was at the party and came to talk to me."
Kurt raised a brow at his, "What? Like his gaydar was going off or something? He sort of sounds like a creeper, no offense."
"None taken," Luka smiled, "I thought he was a creep in the beginning as well, but as we got to talking, I found out that we had a lot of things in common. We ended up becoming really close friends over the next few weeks before school started up and even though I was at a completely different school, we still stayed in touch."
"And let me guess… you fell head over heels in love with him?"
The blonde Warbler sighed and sipped his drink once more, "I did. I wasn't wanting to because he was quite a bit older than me and was going to be graduating soon, but the way he flirted with me and how I flirted back – falling for him was inevitable."
Story of my life, Kurt thought to himself with a sigh and a roll of his eyes.
"Over the next few months, I stayed in touch with Caleb. We went out for milkshakes quite a bit and we were regulars at this little diner on the corner near his house. Every Wednesday we'd go there and I'd get the key lime pie and he'd get a piece of peach cobbler with vanilla bean ice cream. It got to the point where the waitresses at that diner would just bring us out food as soon as we arrived because they had gotten to know us so well. Hell, sometimes I'd even hear them whispering to each other about us and how cute we were together. They thought we were boyfriends…"
Lemme guess… and then he pulled the friend card and held you at arm's length!
"I honestly thought something was going to happen between us; I really did. It got so bad that I used to doodle little hearts with our names in them all over my notebooks at school. Luckily, since he was at a different school, he never saw my silly drawings, but everyone else did and they all assumed that we were together as well."
Luka quieted for a moment after that. Kurt stared across the table at him, watching him closely as he sipped his coffee. The blonde seemed to have stumbled into a pretty emotional part of his story and was trying to gather the strength to continue.
"Everything alright?" The junior whispered as he watched his gleemate. Luka hummed and continued on.
"A few weeks after school let out, Caleb asked me if I wanted to go to the movies with him. I had been out with him plenty of times, but that night seemed different because the movie he picked was uber romantic and he even took me out to dinner too – and it wasn't the diner; it was someplace else that was really, really fancy!"
Kurt watched as Luka's face fell then and he knew that this was the point in the story where things changed; much like how things sank over Valentine's Day when it came to him, Blaine, and that damned Jeremiah.
"I spent all night with my stomach in knots, Kurt. I really thought something was going to happen, but as usual, nothing did. We spent all night flirting, cuddling at the movies, acting more lovey dovey than normal… and then at the end of the night, I tried to kiss him. It wasn't like I threw myself at him, but I leaned in and for a moment, he did too… and then he stopped-"
Luka brushed a hand through his thick blonde hair and sighed shakily. Kurt could see his eyes gloss over slightly and he reached across the table, grabbing up his friend's hand in his own, giving it a slight squeeze before he released it.
"The next thing I knew, his hands were on my shoulders and he said he couldn't do that with me, that I was his friend and he didn't want to mess up what we had and all that jazz. Then he was off, running to his car. We didn't speak for several days and the next time we talked, he acted like the almost-kiss had never happened. I tried to talk about it, just to see what his problem was with being with me, but he shied away from it every single time. Every. Single. Time."
Kurt honestly didn't know what to say. In some instances, the story Luka was sharing with him reminded him of the weird ongoings that went down between him and Blaine; then there were instances where things were different. Like, for one, Kurt had never tried to kiss Blaine – though he honestly wanted to, oh God did he want to.
"I finally gave up; I thought that if he wanted to discuss what almost happened between us, he could be the one to start the discussion… and everything between us slipped back into normalcy. We went back to going to the diner every so often, caught a random flick – he even spent summer days lounging with me in my family's pool. And still, nothing ever changed."
Luka swirled his cappuccino in one hand as he tapped nervously on the table with the other, "It wasn't until near the end of the summer that he came out and told me about Sammi."
Ahh yes, the Rachel to my Blaine – Sammi and Caleb, Kurt thought as he took a sip of his coffee. He wondered how Luka's situation would mirror his own as the younger boy launched back into his tale.
"Sammi was a new hire at that diner we always frequented. I guess Caleb met her on her first day; I was running late and she was sent to take our table. They got to talking before I showed up and exchanged numbers. She didn't know he was gay; honestly, sometimes people had to do a double take whenever he admitted that he was… he really reminds people of a ladies man-"
"Always breaking the stereotype?" The countertenor questioned.
"Yeah, he was." Luka sighed, "They talked for weeks and not once did he mention her to me at all. I stayed in the dark about his new friend and you'd think that I would've noticed the constant text messaging between them and such, but I didn't. I thought he was texting his sister or something, but no, he was texting Sammi. They had a phone-only friendship for quite some time because she ended up getting fired from the diner and I guess they grew close from their hourly phone convos."
At the mention of phone conversations, Kurt rolled his eyes in the memory of Blaine chatting it up with Rachel just the day before. He took a quick gulp of his coffee and locked eyes with Luka, quietly urging the boy onward with his story.
"One night, just a few weeks before school started, I got a call from Caleb asking me about our plans that evening. He wanted to cancel because something came up within his family and he needed to be there. I fully understood his problem because his grandfather had been ill for a while, so I told him we could hang out later. I ended up going out with one of my female friends from school and we went to the movies…"
Kurt knew where this story was going. The churn of his stomach let him know that things were going to go downhill in Luka's flashback.
"Mary and I got to the theater and bought our tickets and that's when I saw them: Caleb and Sammi. He was all curled up around her and she was being all flirty. Just the sight of them ate me alive. When Mary saw them, she started to yell and wave and I was horrified because I hadn't told her about Caleb cancelling on me. The minute Caleb turned around, he saw me and I sort of hightailed it out of there."
"Did he go after you?"
"No," Luka whispered. "I ran all the way to the bus stop and caught a ride home. I didn't speak to him for weeks after that and when high school started up, I ended up transferring to Dalton instead of going to the local public school. My parents thought Dalton could give me a better education and while, at first, I was initially against going, after the entire thing with Caleb, I welcomed being away from him."
Kurt nodded solemnly as he stared across the table at his friend. After the whole Blaine-Rachel fiasco, Kurt had wanted nothing but to be away from Blaine for a while. Hell, even earlier that morning on the drive to Dalton, the countertenor found himself weighing the pros and cons of even being at Dalton anymore – as dramatically horrible as that sounded. Sure, he cared about Blaine a ton and seeing him with someone else was heartbreaking, but he knew that running back to McKinley due to his heartbreak was not something he could do. It was just the drama queen inside of him having a fit over not getting what he wanted… With a sigh, he dropped his thoughts and continued to listen to the boy talking to him.
"I moved to Westerville, boarded at Dalton, and didn't speak to Caleb for months. When Thanksgiving rolled around, I came home for the break and went out with a few of my public school friends to the diner. Everyone was shocked to see me there without Caleb, but no one knew that we had just stopped talking – that had I quit contacting him. Well, anyway, I sat at the diner with my friends and found myself ordering the peach cobbler with vanilla bean ice cream.
"I was in the middle of picking at the cobbler – honestly, that stuff was not my favorite – when Caleb actually came up to my table and made a joke about me having not ordered the pie. It was shocking to see him because it had been months since we last spoke and all of my old friends jumped at the opportunity to make jokes about us being long lost lovers who were recently reunited after so long."
"Friends will do that to you," Kurt mumbled, his mind filling with flashbacks of Wes, David, and even Mercedes cracking jokes about his flirtatious 'relationship' with Blaine.
"I know and it hurts, doesn't it?" Luka watched as Kurt nodded before he continued, "What hurt me the most about seeing Caleb again was that when my friends teased him about us being reunited lovers, he played along. I don't even think he noticed how upset it was making me, being so close to him and all."
The sophomore paused for a moment to take a deep gulp of his coffee.
"Caleb stayed with us for the rest of the evening and then asked if he could drive me home. I originally told him no, but my friends took it upon themselves to leave me behind so that I could catch up with Caleb. The entire car ride home was awkward. He asked me how Dalton was and how I was adjusting to high school and then he asked me if I wanted to hang out sometime before I went back to school.
"I really didn't want to shoot him down because it felt right being around him, so I told him we could hang out and we made plans for the very next night. That following afternoon, we got together at the park and we just hung out, acting like we normally did."
Kurt watched the younger teen closely, noticing the way the boy's green eyes narrowed, "When you say 'normally'… do you mean like flirting or something?"
"Yeah, like flirting. He did all the same stuff he used to do before our near kiss and I spent the rest of the afternoon with a racing heart and sweaty palms."
Story of my life, the countertenor thought once more.
"He took me out to a Mexican restaurant later on and we sat and talked like nothing weird had happened between us. That was when he confided in me that he was somewhat seeing Sammi. When he first told me, I thought he meant that they were just hanging out more or something… but I was wrong. He was dating her.
"I don't know what happened next – one minute I was freaking out, the next I was yelling at him for leading me on, as well as leading her on. I told him that he was gay and dating chicks was just not something we gay men did and the next thing I know, he's yelling back at me, saying that I was biphobic and I didn't understand."
Kurt frowned at Luka's words. He remembered the things thrown out between him and Blaine during their fight not too long ago. Things seemed so similar between Luka's story and what had went down at the Lima Bean. It sort of scared him.
Luka sighed, once again raking his hand through his thick hair. "That fight destroyed Caleb and me. I stormed out of the restaurant and hitched a ride home; he must've paid and went home not long after. Days later, I came back here to Dalton and I didn't speak to anyone back home until Christmas rolled around. By then, word had gone around about the fight and people started saying that I was mad that Caleb didn't return my affections."
Which wasn't entirely untrue, Kurt voiced in his head.
"I came back home over winter break and ended up having to tell all my friends the reason why Caleb and I fought. They all agreed that while they understood why I lashed out at Caleb due to my heartbreak, they didn't agree on my comments over his bisexuality. Later on, I understood that I was definitely in the wrong over what I said and I really regretted it."
"'Bisexual' is a term that gay guys in high school use when they want to hold hands with girls and feel like a normal person for a change."
The harsh words Kurt had thrown at Blaine at the coffee shop came pouring through his brain. Kurt started to recall every hurtful word he slung at his friend, as well as the things Blaine flipped back at him. He remembered how Blaine's face scrunched up in anger and disbelief over the things that Kurt had said and he also remembered the tiny flicker of hate – or was that disgust? – that ghosted Blaine's features as he stormed out of the Lima Bean.
"I know what it's like to be in the closet a-and here you are about to tiptoe back in!"
He hadn't even bothered to care; he said mean things to rile up Blaine. His heart was so crushed by the other boy's acceptance of a date with Rachel, thus possibly ruining any chance he had with the handsome singer, that he let his anger take a hold of everything. It ended up with him practically ruining his friendship with Blaine. And now here he was, sitting in a coffee shop with another guy, discussing his ignorance and rudeness when he could've been back at Dalton making amends to the one person who deserved his apologies.
"Oh wow," the blue eyed boy whispered once his clouded mind cleared. "That's exactly what I did."
"You mean those things I said to Caleb?"
Kurt nodded at his classmate, "Mhmm. I told Blaine he was in the wrong for leading Rachel on and I made a remark about bisexuality that I honestly probably shouldn't have made. Then we said some other stuff before he stormed out. I should've been more supportive." He groaned and placed his head into his palm, "I feel like such a fool."
"You acted out of love. It's not unusual. I did the same exact thing, Kurt. Your heart and your feelings were on the line and you lashed out to protect yourself and to possibly persuade Blaine into thinking that he was making a mistake. That's exactly what I did with Caleb and it wasn't until my friends and I talked about it that I realized that I needed to fix what I had broken."
Both boys sat in silence for a moment. Luka allowed Kurt to sit and brood for a moment while he stood up and went to the bathroom. He needed to take a breather and he was sure that Kurt needed to as well.
"Knock, knock!"
Blaine sat up and glanced at his closed dorm room door. Someone was standing outside, incessantly rapping on the wooden door with their knuckles while cheerfully mimicking the sound the knocking made.
"Blaine Anderson, are you in there?"
The tenor rolled over on the bed and looked at the wall. He hoped that whoever the person was outside his door would just give up and leave after a while; he wasn't in the mood for company. All he wanted to do was sit in his room and think - just think.
"Okay, Blaine, listen up! The other guys and I are tired of your moping. It's dinner time, the cafeteria will be closing in about an hour and we're hungry! So, you have two choices: one – you can get up, get ready, and willingly come with me to the dining hall or two – you can go to the hall looking like crap after I come in there and drag your butt out. Your choice!"
After that entire speech, Blaine was positive that the annoying person in the hall was Jeff. The blonde was probably standing outside the door with some of the other Warblers, each of them waiting to strike at any given moment, depending on whenever Jeff (or someone else) gave them the go ahead.
Not caring whether or not the guys tried to break into his room, Blaine growled out, "I'm not hungry. Go to dinner without me."
Seconds after he stopped talking, the door flew wide open and a few blazered boys rushed in.
Damnit, I forgot to lock the door.
"Hey there, Blaine! Ready for dinner?" Jeff chortled as he stopped in front of his friend's bed. Blaine offered him nothing, as he stayed rolled over facing the wall. "Oh come on! It's taco night and you know how I feel about tacos!"
"I'm not hungry."
Someone in the group of guys laughed and then there was someone poking at his shoulder. Blaine groaned.
"C'mon Anderson! We get it that you and Kurt are having a moment and everything, but you'll make up soon! Plus, did I mention that it's taco night? You love tacos!"
"Not hungry."
"David! A little help here?" Jeff called out, backing away from Blaine's bed to allow the older councilman to step up to the plate. The African American boy stepped closer to Blaine's bed, took one look at the lounging soloist, and then turned back to his friends.
"Can you guys give me and Blaine a minute?"
The other Warblers shared a look with one another before silently agreeing that it would be best for David to have a moment alone with Blaine; if anyone in the group was able to talk Blaine out of something, it would have to be David. Well, him or Wes, but the other senior was off somewhere in the dormitory, probably going over setlists or doing homework or something.
With a quiet click of the door, the other Warblers exited the room, leaving Blaine and David alone. The senior took a seat next to his forlorn friend and patted the boy's shoulder.
"You wanna talk?"
"What happened between you and Caleb when you went to apologize?"
Luka wasn't even seated in his seat when he was assaulted with Kurt's question. He knew that the older boy would want to know what had went down when the two friends finally got to talking again, mostly because it would probably give him ideas on how to apologize to Blaine. With a sad smile, Luka answered Kurt's question.
"I wanted to talk to Caleb as soon as possible after I figured out how in the wrong I was. I tried to call him, but he never answered. I stopped by his house, but he was never there. It finally came down to me having to go back to Westerville for the spring semester to start up that I finally gave up trying to reach him."
Kurt visibly flinched at the information he was receiving. Would Blaine start to ignore him more? Sure, they had almost spoken to one another that afternoon in the hall, but what if Blaine grew tired of everything and decided to cut Kurt off once and for all? The countertenor wasn't sure if he could deal with that or not.
Luka continued, snapping Kurt from his thoughts. "Caleb and I were still friends on Facebook. He was still in a relationship with Sammi and he was always posting new pictures of them at parks, concerts, and what not looking happily in love. It made me sick – not because she was his girlfriend, but because she had what I wanted. I spent the rest of the spring semester in this weird slump that took me forever to get out of. All that time, I still hadn't apologized or even been able to talk to Caleb."
"What about spring break?"
"Dalton's spring break is a little longer than others'. When I went back home, I was hoping to spend those two weeks with my friends and possibly get some closure with Caleb. Unfortunately, Caleb went on vacation with Sammi at the time and he wasn't home for the first week I was in. The next week, he was back in school and I still didn't get to talk to him."
"Oh," Kurt mumbled.
"Yeah… finally school let out and I came home for the summer. I spent a few weeks frequenting the diner by myself, ordering that damn cobbler while I hoped to see Caleb come in. He had just graduated and I knew he was celebrating senior week with his friends-"
"Whoa, whoa, wait!" The blue eyed junior interrupted, "Luka, did you go to his graduation?"
"No," the sophomore grumbled, "Dalton's finals were that week so I couldn't go. I did send him a card though and his mother sent me a thank you note back… but that was it. After that, I heard nothing. Then near the end of August, I was sitting in the diner when Caleb just waltzed in and took a seat across from me. He took the cobbler I was picking at and started eating it, like it was nothing.
"I just sat there and stared at him in shock because I was not expecting him to just be there, you know? We sat there for a few minutes and then he looked at me and said he was sorry. The next thing I knew, I was crying in the middle of that freaking diner, telling him how sorry I was and how stupid I felt. He came over and hugged me and those stupid feelings I had for him just sprang back into action."
The younger boy paused.
"Caleb then asked me to come over to his house because we needed to have a heart to heart, so I went with him and we spent all night talking about the time we spent apart and what was going on in our lives. I told him about how sorry I was about what I said and he told me that he understood and was sorry for not returning my feelings. He then said he was going to take a year off and instead of trying to go to college, he was going to road trip with Sammi across the United States. It was then that I knew that things with that girl were serious.
"I also knew that I had to let my feelings go. I knew that while it would hurt to say goodbye to my first love, it would hurt even worse if I kept on pining for him while he was in a relationship with Sammi. So, I told myself I'd get over him. Hell, I even hung out with him and Sammi a few months before Dalton started back up and I found out that Sam wasn't that bad of a girl at all. She made Caleb happy, so that's all that mattered, you know?"
Kurt nodded.
"Now I know that the things between Sammi and Caleb are much different from Rachel and Blaine, since Rachel is one of your friends and all, but I just want to let you know that if it comes down to it, as hard as it will be, if Rachel makes Blaine happy, then you should be happy too. I know that you care a lot for Blaine and that's a lot like how I felt about Caleb, but if you love someone, you've gotta let it go – you know, like that one saying says." Luka offered the countertenor a sincere smile as he grabbed his hand and squeezed it. "If Blaine and Rachel truly do get together, your best bet would be to be there for the two of them and support them."
"That is going to suck," Kurt groaned matter-of-factly as he slid his hand out of Luka's grasp. "I just don't know how I'm going to deal with it all. Seeing Rachel there with Blaine, watching them go on dates… watching them kiss." The last word came out in a low hiss that even made Luka shiver.
"To be honest, Kurt, it does suck. It sucks a lot. When I left for Dalton last fall and said my goodbyes to Caleb and Sammi, I felt like crap. I didn't want to see them leave for their roadtrip together because it still hurt to see Caleb with someone else who wasn't me. But now, here I am, sitting in a coffee shop with you, rehashing my experience and while I still feel kinda crappy about it all, I feel loads better now than I did then."
"How did you get over it all?" Kurt questioned. His voice was soft and quiet.
Luka smiled, "I went out to meet other people. I stopped mourning my lack of love life and started talk to others like me. There are quite a few gay boys at Dalton, Kurt, not just us and Blaine. Heck, there are available men all over the place. You just have to look for them." As he finished his sentence, his phone buzzed cheerily on the table. With a grin, Luka swiped up his phone and flipped the screen over to show Kurt something.
"For example, this fellow here-" he showed Kurt a text from a guy named Julian, "is someone that I met during Sectionals. His grandmother was in the Hipsters, remember them? I went off during intermission to get some snacks and boom, there he was. We got to talking and he gave me his number."
"Are you two an item now?"
Luka's face brightened considerably, "Not yet, but I'd like to be. He's amazing, he really is! We've been texting non-stop for the last few weeks and he asked me out to dinner tomorrow. He wanted to go tonight, but I told him that I needed to talk to you." Noticing the skeptical look on the countertenor's face, Luka began to reassure the other teen. "You're my friend, Kurt, and even though I know we haven't had the time to talk much, I would like to be there for you through all this. I know what it's like, I know the pain. So, if you need to talk, I'll be there."
Kurt shot the younger teen a small smile as he watched the blonde pocket his phone and stand up. "I appreciate all of this, Luka. I really do. I just hope I can talk to Blaine about all of this without freaking out on him or something." He reached down and grabbed up their empty coffee cups, tossing them into a waste bin near the door.
"You'll do fine," Luka hummed as he opened the door to the café and let Kurt pass through it. The two boys walked slowly to Luka's car.
"I hope you're right, Luka. I hope you're right."
A/N: Sorry if this chapter sucked. I sorta lost my writing mojo over the last month since I came back from TN and got sick. I know this chapter was mostly filler of Luka's story, but it was there to explain to Kurt about how he should better understand the Rachel-Blaine thing. Also, I know I didn't get into the Blaine-David convo, but I will next chapter, which should be up within the next day or so (I hope). Also, I apologize for any grammatical errors or what not. I'm all over the place right now and I know this chapter probably sucks because of it! :] Thanks for being patient with me!