Aug. 22, 2012, 12:22 p.m.
How Kurt Hummel lost and found his family
Oh Father, where art thou?: Chapter 21: Betrayal
T - Words: 2,699 - Last Updated: Aug 22, 2012 Story: Complete - Chapters: 29/29 - Created: Aug 22, 2012 - Updated: Aug 22, 2012 928 0 0 0 0
Chapter 21: Betrayal
Lima, OH, February 17, 2011
Four weeks after Kurt had talked to Mrs. Anderson at the PFLAG meeting in Toledo, Blaine's mom showed up at his doorstep when everyone else was out … with a black eye. Kurt was shocked and immediately asked her to come in.
"I'm sorry to just show up, but I didn't know where else to go. I told my husband that I wanted to see Blaine and he didn't take it too well," she explained once Kurt had sat her down on his couch.
"I'm so sorry, but I'm really glad you came here. It's just … I haven't had the chance yet to talk to Blaine about all this so I'm not sure how he would react to seeing you here." Mrs. Anderson immediately squared her shoulders and gave him a fake smile.
"That's alright dear. I'll find something." "No," Kurt immediately exclaimed. "I just think it would be better if we drive over to my other house now, so you can get settled and I get a chance to talk to Blaine." "Oh, okay." Mrs. Anderson's shoulders sagged in relief.
Kurt quickly ran upstairs and got the second set of keys because Blaine still had the other one. Once he and Blaine's mom had both put on their coats, they went outside and Kurt told Blaine's mom to follow his car.
Once they reached his house, he helped her unload they two suitcases she had managed to pack while her husband was at work and ushered her into the house.
"The phone's shut off, but everything else should we working. I regularly check on the house to make sure everything is okay, because Blaine and I have plans to move back here once I'm eighteen."
Blaine's mom kept nodding as he gave her a tour of the house and explained what he thought was important.
"My room is in the basement, but there are two more upstairs. The one on the left was Blaine's bedroom and the other one was my mom's. I guess you can use either." Mrs. Anderson shot him a grateful smile.
"Thank you so much, Kurt. And please call me Tala. You're basically family already." Kurt was positively surprised to hear her say that.
"What do you say to some take out? I can tell you more about Blaine if you like," he offered Tala who immediately accepted.
They talked for another hour until it was time for Kurt to go home if he wanted to be back before the rest of his family came home, and Kurt promised to talk to Blaine the next day after his math test.
He knew the conversation wouldn't be pleasant but he hoped Blaine would give his mom a chance.
When Blaine came back home after work the next day he was exhausted. Math was the only subject he was really struggling with and Ms. Miller had been back. By now he suspected the young woman might have a crush on him. Or she was just a horrible driver. Who knew? All he wanted was a nice relaxing evening, possibly fooling around with Kurt if no one else was home yet.
Kurt was already sitting on his bed when he came into his room looking nervous.
"What's wrong?" he immediately asked his boyfriend.
"I kind of want to talk to you about something," Kurt told him. He hoped it wasn't anything bad, but judging by the look on Kurt's face it might very well be.
"You are not still angry that Shelby asked me to sing a duet with Rachel for Regionals." Kurt shook his head.
"I wasn't angry about that. I know you sound great together and I get to do an awesome song with Santana, Mercedes and Brittany. But that's not what I want to talk about." Kurt said but still didn't tell Blaine what is was. He raised an eyebrow at Kurt.
"I want to talk about your mom." Blaine immediately paled. Why the hell did Kurt want to talk about her? "Don't you want to know how she is doing?" Kurt soldiered on, ignoring Blaine's discomfort.
"Why would I? It's not like she protected me from my father or something. Who knows if she would even want to see me?" Don't get angry at Kurt. Stay calm, he told himself.
"I'm sure she would want to see you. She's your mom." Kurt still wouldn't stop. "Yeah well she's not like your mom so would you please just drop it!" He saw Kurt's eyes water and immediately felt guilty. Great now he had made Kurt cry.
"At least you still have one and I know she wants to see you," Kurt suddenly yelled at him. He couldn't believe they were fighting about their respective parents again. Then it registered what Kurt had just said.
"How do you know she wants to see me?" he asked trying to keep his voice calm. Kurt suddenly looked incredibly guilt.
"Because I met her. Burt accidentally met your father in Cleveland and he recognized your mom in a picture from the PFLAG meetings. I wanted to talk to her before I told you."
Blaine couldn't believe Kurt had kept something so important from him. "When, when did Burt tell you?" he demanded. Kurt just looked miserable now and Blaine hoped that was what he felt like. "After he tried to talk to you about your parents and you ran out on him. I told him I would take care of it."
Blaine quickly did the mental math in his mind. "So you've known for a month and didn't tell me! I thought our relationship was based on total honesty, but apparently I was wrong." He needed to get out of here.
Kurt was crying now, begging him not to leave so they could talk about it, but Blaine just couldn't right now. He hadn't felt that betrayed in a long time. He grabbed his keys and phone and sidestepped Kurt who was trying to block his way.
He quickly ran down the stairs and nearly collided with Burt who was walking up at the same time, but ignored the man as he called after him. He was too mad at either of the two Hummel men to talk right now.
Burt was longing for a long hot bath after a long day at work, but he had promised Carole to take her out to dinner that night to celebrate getting an A on one her tests.
As he walked up the stairs he nearly collided with Blaine who was running down the stairs and ignored him as he called after him. He wondered what that was all about and went all the way up. He paused when he heard someone crying in Blaine's bedroom.
His son was sitting on Blaine's bed clutching a stuffed animal while tears were streaming down his face. He immediately stepped inside and approached his son.
"Kurt, what's wrong? Did Blaine hurt you?" He didn't think so but you never knew. Kurt just shook his had, but stayed silent otherwise. "Come on, buddy. You got to give me something if you want me to help you." He thought he could hear a sniffled you can't but wasn't sure about it.
He sat down on the edge of the bed and awkwardly patted his son's leg. He really was in over his head when it came to situations like that. For a while he just sat there listening to Kurt's sobbing. After what felt like hours, Kurt finally released his death grip on the animal and looked up at Burt.
"I tried to talk to Blaine about his mom, because she came here yesterday and I told her she could stay at my house. We were arguing and I accidentally told him about Cleveland. He ran away before I could explain why I didn't tell him earlier." Crap. He should have told Blaine the truth about that when they had had their talk in his office, only to avoid a situation like that.
"And now he's probably on his way over to the house and he'll find his mom there and then he's going to be even more angry with me." Burt wanted to hug Kurt but wasn't sure if Kurt would allow it. Their relationship had improved lately, but he wasn't sure if they were there yet.
"Maybe that's a good thing," he offered, but immediately went on to explain when he saw the incredulous look on Kurt's face. "Not your fight, but him seeing his mom. Maybe she can explain things to him."
"You think so?" Kurt sounded like a little child again when he asked that, a glimmer of hope in his eyes. "I hope so. I don't like seeing you this sad. It will all work out eventually. Just give him time to cool off." Kurt nodded.
"Thanks for talking about it with me, I guess. I know that's hard for you." Burt hated that Kurt was right. It was still not easy for him, but he had never been good with feelings. "I just want you to be safe and happy."
He squeezed Kurt's leg and made his way to his bedroom to get ready for his date with Carole. He really hoped everything would work out between the two of them, because as hard as it would have been for him to admit that months ago, Blaine did make his son happy.
Blaine was furiously wiping tears from his face, because he did not want to crash his car on the way to the other house. He needed time to sit down and think about all the stuff without anyone else around.
He just didn't understand why Kurt hadn't told him. They didn't keep secrets. Sure he hadn't told Kurt what he and his father had talked about, but that was nothing compared to that.
Kurt had met his mother, had talked to her – probably about him – without his permission and he just didn't know if he could trust Kurt again, if he kept something so important to himself.
Once he reached the house he quickly unlocked the front door with the set of keys he had kept after their last fight. He didn't want to think about that now, but he and Kurt had often used the house if they needed to be alone and thought they could get away with it.
He was hanging up his coat when he heard a thump upstairs. He froze. Had someone broken in? He quickly grabbed the baseball bat Burt had held when they had found Kurt and tiptoed upstairs. The noises seemed to come from his bedroom. He gripped the bat as tight as he could, pushed the half closed door open and promptly dropped the bad at the sight that greeted him.
"Mom," he gasped. His mother was standing in the middle of his room, frozen with some clothes in her hand, she must have taken out of the suitcases next to her feet.
"Hello Blaine," his mom whispered. "What are you doing here?" How did she get in? How did she even know about this place?" His mom looked confused.
"Didn't Kurt talk to you? He sad it would be alright if I stayed here for a while." Kurt had done what? Apparently he hadn't just talked to his mom, he had invited her to stay at his house. What the hell was going on here?
"Why are you here?" he forced out. "I left your father, because I really wanted to see you again." He couldn't stop himself from laughing dryly.
"Why now, mom? It's been over a year." "I tried to call, but you changed your number." Great more excuses. "You knew where I went to school. You could have visited me at Dalton if you really wanted to see me." Blaine was exhausted after his fight with Kurt and he couldn't deal with all this now.
"Blaine, I'm so sorry I didn't. I just…" He didn't need to hear more excuses. "I can't do this right now. Talk to Kurt if you have to. Apparently the two of you are best friends now," he yelled before he ran out of the house and went back to his car.
Now he had to find another place to stay, because he sure as hell wouldn't go back to Kurt right now and he had no desire to share the house with his mom.
After his talk with Burt, Kurt had tried to call Blaine, but his boyfriend had never picked up. He didn't have Tala's phone number and their landline had been disconnected, so he couldn't call her either to ask about Blaine.
It was close to eleven when he heard the front door open. Finn had come home from his date with Sarah an hour ago, and Burt and Carole were already back as well, so it could only be Blaine. He just hoped Blaine would give him the chance to explain.
He took a deep breath and knocked on Blaine's bedroom door before he opened it. Blaine, who was with his back to the door, was throwing clothes into a duffle bag. Kurt had been afraid that Blaine would stay at the other house until he was ready to talk.
"I don't want to talk to you Kurt," Blaine said without looking up. "I can't even look at you right now." Kurt flinched. Blaine had never treated him like that before.
"By the way, thanks for letting me know my mom was living in your house," Blaine spat while still not looking at Kurt. "I can just hope that one of my friends will let me stay with them." Kurt felt his stomach churn.
"You don't have to leave," he begged. "I'll give you space, but please don't leave." He couldn't let Blaine go, what if he never came back?
"I can't, not right now. Please leave me alone." Kurt felt as if he got punched in the stomach and quickly backed out of Blaine's room, his heart breaking a bit.
He had just wanted to protect Blaine, but in the end he had caused them even more pain. Just a week ago, they had spent an amazing weekend in Columbus, and now Blaine might as well have broken up with him. He threw himself onto his bed and buried his face into the pillow. Maybe it would all turn out to be a bad dream if he just wished it hard enough.
Carole had a hard time enjoying her date with Burt after he told her about Kurt and Blaine's fight. She hadn't necessarily agreed with Kurt and Burt when they had kept things from Blaine, but in the end she had trusted Kurt's judgment because he knew Blaine best.
She wanted to help them, but she didn't know how without appearing to be choosing sides.
They had gone home early and witnessed Blaine coming back to the house and leaving again soon after, but had decided to let Kurt be for the night.
Kurt hadn't left his room all Saturday though and had refused to talk to anyone in the family. Carole had left him food outside his door and at least the plates were mostly empty when she collected them again.
It was Sunday afternoon when Kurt finally came downstairs, his eyes red rimmed from all the crying she had heard coming from his room.
"Oh honey," Carole said and pulled a reluctant Kurt into her arms. "It's going to be okay. He'll just need some time." Kurt shook his head.
"He won't answer my calls or texts and I don't even know where he is. I spoke to his mom and she told me he didn't come back to the house. Can you please call him and make sure he's okay, or did he text you?" Carole shook her head. "I would have told you if he had."
Carole was worried too now that Kurt had told her he didn't know where Blaine was living right now. She took out her phone and prayed that Blaine would pick up if she called him.
The phone rang twice before it went to voicemail. Carole quickly left Blaine a message asking him to tell her he was okay. A few minutes later she got a text from him.
"Don't worry about me, I'm taken care off. Tell Kurt to stop calling. I'll talk to him when I'm ready," she read aloud before pulling Kurt into her arms again.
"Just give it time. Just give it time."