A/N: I am so so sorry. Summer came and I didn't update and I swear I worked on this. I worked on this while I was in another state for three weeks but then my computer crashed. I put in part of chapter 4 to jog your memory a bit because it has been embarrassingly long since I've updated.
By the end of the song Kurt knew what he had to do. He had to stop having Anthony be such an important factor of how he lived his life. It was going to be hard with the two of them going to the same school and having similar courses, but he would do it. Anthony didn't deserve a place in his thoughts any longer, he had tried to help and it had blown up right back in his face. He was getting stronger thanks to Blaine and his friends.
Funny, he thought to himself as he finished cleaning the apartment. I separated Blaine from all my other friends when that is all we are… friends.
Blaine walked into the library and walked towards the nonfiction section. He got that far before becoming completely lost, so he turned to the librarian who had conveniently been sorting books a little ways down. The man was in his late fifties or early sixties with gray and white hair. He was a round man with sparkling, warm brown eyes. He was dressed exactly like his grandfather used to dress. Blaine smiled at him and asked for his assistance.
"Excuse me," Blaine began. "Do you happen to know where the books of musical studies are?" The man looked at him and smiled. "Right on this way m'boy," said the man with traces of a Bostonian accent. "May I ask why you would need some of those books? It's a rare day when someone even looks at them."
Blaine looked at him, "That seems really sad. Society should be more interested in the way their current culture has been formed."
The man began beaming at him. "Sir is something wrong?" Blaine asked worriedly.
The man just continued to beam at him. "None at all boy. Tell me, what your name is?" "Blaine. Blaine Anderson," said the curly-haired boy.
"Well, Mr. Anderson, I'm Alexander O'Rourke," said the elderly man.
"It is really a pleasure to meet you Mr. O'Rourke," Blaine said as they reached the destination.
"Same to you chap," said Mr. O'Rourke. "You seem like a lad of the all right sort. Visit the library sometime in the near future. I have a feeling you would like some poetry we have stored away."
"How would you know that?" Blaine asked. He had only known this man for about ten minutes and he was able to tell that about him?
"You're fingers are callused, you obviously play an instrument. You have a piece of crumpled paper sticking out of your pocket with song lyrics written on it, and finally, you have a collection of Frost poking out of your bag. It's obviously a worn copy by the way it is almost completely dog-eared and if the ink smudges on the back are any indication, there are millions of inspirational quotes circled in there."
Blaine stared at the man. They had only just met, and yet he knew so much? Strange. Maybe he was a detective in another life? Stop it, Blaine thought to himself. You're starting to sound like Wes and David.
"How did you know all that?" he finally asked. Alexander only smiled in response. Blaine shook his head and promised Mr. O'Rourke that he would come back to discuss poetry. Among other things, he added as an afterthought. And with that Blaine began his monster of a paper.
Later that evening…
Blaine walked back into his apartment building after his day at the library. That was one weird man, he thought to himself as he put his laptop on the kitchen counter. Wes looked up from where he was sulking on the couch.
"Hey Blaine," Wes said in a dejected voice.
Blaine looked at his friend, and then turned to the TV to see what he had been watching. To his surprise, he found that the screen was blank. "Hey…Wes…" Blaine said, carefully sitting down next to him. "What's wrong buddy? Do you want to talk about it?"
"No…" Wes said, bottom lip quivering.
Blaine sighed, "Are you sure?" Before anything else could happen, Wes burst into tears and fell onto Blaine's shoulder.
"E-Emma B-broke up wi-ith m-me!" Wes said into Blaine's shirt. Blaine sighed and rubbed comforting circles on his friend's back as he continued his stuttering speech.
"She said th-that she wan-wanted to s-see oth err pe-people. A-and th-that I w-was getting nowhere i-in life."
Blaine sighed and continued rubbing comfortable circles on Wes' back as he continued to sob. After about a half hour the crying ceased and became little whimpers. Wes pulled away from Blaine sheepishly. "Sorry man…" Wes said, ducking his face.
Blaine looked at his friend. "No need to be sorry, we've all been there. You, dear sir, need some cheering up. How about we call that friend you made yesterday… Mike wasn't it?"
Wes cheered up immediately at the thought of seeing his new Asian friend again. "And Kurt can come too!" Wes said excitedly, thinking of the fun they were going to have later that night.
Blaine sighed and stood up, making his way over to the phone and dialing Kurt's number.
"Hello?" Kurt answered
"Hey Kurt, it's Blaine. Wes was wondering if you and Mike wanted to go out later tonight."
"Wes?" Kurt questioned into the phone.
Blaine walked into the hallway and into his room so that he would be out of ear shot of Wes. "His girlfriend dumped him and David left. He's really lonely and sad, so I wanted to know if yuou would like to go clubbing with us in an attempt to make him… feel better."
Kurt was silent for a long time and Blaine began to get worried, until…"Why is Mike coming?"
Blaine thought about it for a second before he replied, "He and Wes got along so well last, plus I don't think going clubbing with two gay guys is really going to help him get girls. We probably wouldn't be the best wingmen."
"Did you just insult my skills in being attractive to women?" Kurt said through the phone, acting offended.
Blaine laughed and said, "Will you invite Mike or not?"
"Sure," Kurt said, before promptly hanging up to go dial the boy in question.
Rachel was incredibly miffed about Kurt leaving her alone that night until he argued with the fact that now she would be able to "have the apartment all to herself to do whatever she wanted." That perked her up quite a bit and she set work to finally finding places for all of her stuffed animals that Kurt had always refused to let her decorate the apartment with.
While Rachel was flitting about the apartment and placing them everywhere, Blaine was at his apartment with Wes freaking out over what he should wear. "Why did you tell me to invite Kurt," Blaine groaned at Wes who had just popped into the doorway to check and see if Blaine was ready yet. He was not.
"Because you have fallen in love with him, but you haven't even asked him to be your boyfriend. I mean, seriously man? What the hell is wrong with you? He already made the first move?" Wes replied, sliding into the room and staring at the mess Blaine had made on his bed. "Dude, did your closet throw up or something?" Wes said, picking up a pair of jeans that was strewn across his pillow.
"I don't know what to freaking wear," Blaine replied in desperation. Kurt obviously loved fashion from the elaborate outfits he wore. Of course he would never talk to Blaine again if Blaine wore something horrendous like he was bound to with his luck. (Not, but let's not let Blaine know this little tidbit of information yet.)
Wes sighed, before picking up a forest green v-neck t-shirt and a pair of fitted jeans. He then proceeded to the hallway and grabbed Blaine's leather jacket off the hook by the door. "Done!" he said proudly, handing the outfit to his long-time roommate and best friend.
Blaine stared at the outfit in awe, before looking at Wes a little guiltily, "I'm the one who was supposed to be cheering you up."
Wes sighed and said, "All of your gay rainbow crises have taken my mind off her." He said this last part a bit darkly, his facial expression changing into one of disdain. "Plus, you're really funny looking when you're stressed. You're eyes get all big and you start to wring your hands. You look kind of like a puppy who hurt his paw."
Before Blaine was able to reply, the doorbell rang. Blaine looked at the door in a panic with the "puppy" look on his face. Wes laughed and left the room, shutting the door behind him, but not before telling Blaine to hurry up and get dressed.
Wes opened the door and saw Kurt and Mike. He invited them in with a smile, laughing internally as he imagined Blaine's reaction once he saw what Kurt was wearing. "Blaine's just finishing getting ready. He'll be out in a sec."
Blaine came out two minutes later looking completely composed and not at all like the wreck he had been before. His composure dropped, however, once he had seen Kurt. At that point, Wes was just glad that he wasn't a drooling mess. Kurt was wearing super skinny jeans tucked into a pair of white combat boots. A silky, white button down behind a deep purple vest that hugged his frame completed the outfit and made Blaine speechless.
Wes let Blaine make a fool of himself in front of a confused Kurt for a good five minutes before hurrying them all out the door, down the stairs, and into a taxi.
Blaine was moping silently in the corner by the bar. He had managed to make a complete fool of himself in front of Kurt. Kurt, who was now dancing with some random guy. Said random guy seemed to be glaring at a confused Blaine every couple of minutes.
Wes, who seemed a considerable deal less depressed then he had been earlier, was trying to pick up some girls with Mike. Even though Mike was married, he was doing a pretty good job getting girls to come over to talk to him and Wes, so there was no more reason to be concerned about Wes for the time being.
Because of this, Blaine turned his attention back to Kurt only to see him dancing, no wrong word… grinding, with some stranger. Well, the stranger was grinding against Kurt, Kurt on the other hand was trying to move slightly away from him. It wasn't that he looked like he was trying to get away, no, it looked like he was trying to put a little distance between him and his … partner.
Then… the kissing started. The man was very, very, noticeably drunk. He was kissing Kurt's neck incessantly. The blue-eyed boy seemed shocked, and instantly began to try to wrestle his way out of the grip of the other man. Blaine saw the entire thing unfold an in an instant. Before he was able to get over there however, you would never be able to guess who came and stole the show from our curly-haired hero. Or maybe you do know? I'm not one to tell, I barely understand my own head sometimes, so who am I to judge yours.
Anyway, as the story was meant to progress, Anthony came flying in and did not hesitate to sock the other guy square in the jaw. Blaine stared in a mixture of horror and relief as the bum waddled out of the club, and his enemy held his crush. Blaine rushed over as Anthony cradled Kurt's sobbing body underneath the glow of the strobe lights.
"We need to get him out of here," Anthony said, not caring that the person he was talking to was his ex-boyfriend's kinda-sorta new boyfriend. Just not officially, if you asked either boy they would definitely say that they were well on their way to that stage.
Blaine nodded desperately, grabbing kurt's other arm as the two supported the countertenor out of the club.
"Where's his apartment?" Anthony asked, putting Kurt in the back of a cab and climbing in after him.
Blaine told him, and the cab sped off, leaving Blaine standing on the sidewalk in despair of how awry the night had turned.
It's all my fault, he thought to himself. God, why couldn't have I watched him better?
Wes and Mike stumbled out, laughing hysterically with a blonde and a redhead. "And then, and then," Wes said drunkenly, "he kicked the waiter in the shins."
The entire group laughed, and Mike, noticing Blaine standing on the corner wantonly, started, "hey, hey, Ho-hobbit, where's K-kurt."
"With Anthony," Blaine said, not caring that his audience was drunk.
"Wait what," Mike cried, seeming to sober up at the mention of the Italian boy. "You let Anthony take him home?"
"Well yeah…" Blaine said. "Kurt was crying and—"
"We have to go. Now," Mike said, pulling Wes away from their "friends."
"But… Anthony seemed like he was helping Kurt," Blaine said, looking longingly in the direction that the cab had sped off into, until he was, of course, dragged into another one by Mike.
"You didn't hear what we hear Anthony say," Mike said, sitting back in his seat after he had given directions to Kurt's house to the cab driver. "He said that he had the perfect plan to get Kurt back. He was going to pay this guy to make Kurt fall into his arms."
"And you didn't want to tell me any of this while we still had time to prevent it," Blaine cried, getting angry at the fact that this whole mess of manipulative exes could have been avoided with a bit of warning from Mike.
"I was going to, but then … well Wes…" Mike tried to reason, but Blaine was done listening.
"All that matters is getting Kurt safe. Is Rachel there?"
"No, she's working the late shift at the coffee shop near Central Park," Mike said.
"Why did we have to leave the pretty girls? I like pretty girls, they make me… happy," Wes said drunkenly from his place sprawled out next to Mike.
Blaine sighed and ignored his friend's drunken ramblings, "Well, I guess we'll just have to hurry then. How much more if you get us there in under ten minutes," Blaine said, addressing the last part to the cab driver.
When they reached the apartment they hurried in and instead of bothering with the elevator, the two men just raced up the stairs, leaving a drunken Wes sprawled out on a chair in the lobby.
"Kurt! Kurt! It's me, open up!" Blaine cried, fists banging on the door.
"Stand back," Mike ordered. After Blaine complied he ran and did a spin-kick on the door. "Tai-Kwon do since I was ten," Mike said in explanation before the two opened the door to an appalling sight.
Kurt was pinned up against the wall, while his mouth was being molested by a certain Italian.
"Kurt!" Mike yelled, rushing over to the two and pulling Anthony off a certain brunette countertenor.
Kurt gasped for breath, and once his eyes met Blaine's, he broke. Sobs racked his lithe frame, causing the already emotionally drained boy to sink to the floor.