Chapter Twenty Two

It was the right thing to do.

It was inevitable.

It was for the best.

It was the adult, responsible choice.

It was...

The worst thing Kurt had ever done.

Until now, Kurt hadn't known it was possible for a person's soul to physically ache. He felt as if every cell in his body was empty and wretched, as though his heart was hollow and dark, bleeding black blood from a gaping hole in his rib cage.

"But I love you..."

Kurt could still feel Blaine's words, his confession, knifing a blade laced with loss, pain, love, desperation into his chest. It had taken all of Kurt's willpower not to turn around, he had needed all of his tattered soul to somehow choke out that rebuke, his refusal, a denial of Blaine's love.

The first time he had ever sensed Blaine without the need for touch, and it was the most painful experience Kurt could describe. How? How could that be the right choice?

"Freak!"

"Do you really think this relationship is healthy?"

"What if none of it's me anymore? What if I'm already gone?"

"You're killing my son!"

That was why...

"Hey, Kurt... umm, Mom says it's dinner..." Finn hovered awkwardly in Kurt's doorway. He looked fidgeted, clearly not sure what to do. In the end, he just settled for nodding jerkily before stumbling away.

Kurt didn't blame him. The two brothers had been getting along really well towards the end of the school year, but now Kurt just couldn't bring himself to care. About anyone. Why make the effort? Why try and make others feel comfortable around him and his freakiness? What was the damn point?

He didn't follow Finn down for dinner. His dad came in with a warmed up plate an hour later and sat next to Kurt on the bed, watching his son make an attempt to eat.

Part of Kurt was annoyed, but a larger part was grateful. His dad didn't know much more than the bare bones of the break up – that Kurt had been the one to end it – but he never tried to pass judgement. He was just there, same as he had always been, offering tight hugs and brief touches and warm smiles.

But his dad wasn't enough anymore. He wasn't a child. He knew what he wanted, what he needed, what he'd already had tightly in his grasp and then willingly let go. Blaine.

00000

Kurt was alone in the house when it heard it. He had been listlessly channel hopping, unable to settle on anything because every other crappy show somehow managed to remind him of Blaine. He frowned, muting the TV to listen. At first he thought he had just imagined something, but then the noise became more persistent.

Groaning, knowing his curiosity wouldn't let him leave it be, Kurt heaved himself off the sofa. He had no energy for this crap. He didn't care.

He followed the sounds into the kitchen, and stopped. On the other side of the window was a pair of accusing sapphire eyes, accompanied by a flicking tail and a batting paw. It took Kurt quite a few moments to process that his boyfri- ex-boyfriend's cat was sitting outside his house. "Molly? What're you doing here?"

The cat looked a little worse for wear. She was thinner than Kurt remembered, but that might just be an illusion created by her coat, which was matted and dull. Kurt's first horrified thought was that something had happened to Blaine, but then he managed to think a little more practically. Molly wasn't Lassie for god sake, and seeing as Blaine was destined for a sense refuge if he hadn't left already, it was doubtful he would have been able to take his cat.

Kurt's stomach twisted. That just seemed wrong, the idea of Blaine without Molly ­– like the idea of Blaine without Kurt...

Kurt opened the back door, and Molly jumped down to meet him. She wound herself in and out of his legs, a soft rumbling resonating in her throat. Kurt bent to scratch her ears, furious at himself as he felt his throat burn and his eyes sting, his vision blurred.

He had to straighten up, viciously wiping at his eyes as he took a shaky breath. Stop it!

Molly had wandered into the house while Kurt was trying to collect himself, jumping up onto a chair to settle herself. The look she fixed him with was as perceptive as always, and Kurt couldn't help but reply to her. She might just be a cat to him, and to her he might just be some strange human who was around Blaine a lot... but she had come here. She had somehow sought him out, and whatever doubts Kurt had about how much Molly really understood, he knew one thing for certain, "I know. I miss him too."

Kurt gave it twenty four hours before calling the Anderson residence. He told himself because it was a weekday there would have been no one home, but really he just wanted to keep Molly for a little while, and she seemed perfectly content to be kept. It was just... she was all he had left. And, just like she didn't flood Blaine with emotions, she didn't flinch away instinctively whenever Kurt came close.

"Hello?"

Kurt's stomach lurched. He hadn't expected Blaine's brother to still be at home. "Cooper? Hi... it's Kurt. Kurt Hummel?"

There was a very long pause on the other end of the line, but finally the other man replied in a tone that was terrifyingly neutral. "Kurt. What can I do for you? Blaine's away at the moment."

Away. Could he have made it sound any more horribly mundane? "I... I, well..."

"Spit it out, Kurt. I've got packing to do."

Kurt flinched. He had never heard Blaine's brother sound so cold. There was no smile in his tone, all brightness was stripped away to a formal husk. "I have Molly. She showed up outside my kitchen."

"Molly's with you?" Finally some emotion was injected into his voice, but what, Kurt couldn't tell.

"Yes. She's trying to trip me up as we speak." Kurt found himself smiling as he spoke, until he remembered why Molly was in his hallway in the first place, and why Cooper sounded so wrong.

A pause. "Can I come over?"

Too soon, and Cooper was standing in the hallway, eyes flicking between boy and cat with clear disbelief. Molly was regarding the Anderson with a look that bordered on fond distain, but was careful to sit high enough up the stairs to be just outside of grabbing reach. "She just showed up." Kurt shrugged, not knowing what else to say.

"And she hasn't bitten you?" Cooper asked, a little too incredulously.

"Why would she? She never has before, and..." Kurt swallowed roughly, "I guess we both miss Blaine..."

"Do you?" Cooper asked harshly.

"Of course I do!" Kurt hated how high and cracked his voice came out, but he was tired and stressed and the only person who could make him feel remotely better right now was the one person he would never see again! His stomach swooped nastily, clenching as it always did whenever that thought crept back up on him, because never was such a long time...

"Then why did you end it?" Cooper was quieter now, his eyes melancholy and defeated, the complete antithesis of the man Kurt had come to know.

"Because I had to." Kurt choked out, surprised at his honesty. "Because I wasn't good for Blaine, and this way at least he's got a chance at a better, safer life..."

Cooper just stared, but Kurt couldn't begin to decipher the emotions behind his eyes, "In what world were you not good for Blaine?"

Kurt just shrugged, his throat too tight to voice his faults. He was just so tired of hating himself and his stupid ES level. "Did you bring a carry case for Molly?"

Cooper watched him silently, before shaking his head, "If I try and take her home she'll only end up back here again. Like you said, you both miss Blaine. Will that be a problem with your family?"

Kurt shook his head mutely, an odd relief swelling in his chest.

"Look, I have to go... My flight back to New York is tonight, but... call me? If you want to chat about anything, okay?"

Kurt accepted Cooper's cell number, but he knew he wouldn't use it. "Thanks."

Cooper shrugged lopsidedly, his eyes serious, "For the record? Blaine isn't better without you."

Kurt couldn't bring himself to answer.

00000

"Kurt! Visitor!" Finn's voice hollered up the stairs.

Kurt rolled his eyes as he shoved his laptop to the side and yelled back, "Thanks for the detail Finn!"

He jogged down the stairs and frowned. He didn't recognise the boy on the porch. Straight backed and confidently smiling, the neat Asian boy looked like a senior, or perhaps even on his way to college in a month. "Hi, you're Kurt?"

"Yes..." He already found the boy unnerving. He hadn't caught any reaction in the stranger's face, no flinch or jerk of shock as Kurt drew close enough to sense – or not sense as was more accurate. Adults were good at masking their discomfort. Teenagers weren't.

"I'm Wes." He didn't hold his hand out to shake. There was one shred of normalcy, at least. "I'm a friend of Blaine's, from Dalton."

Kurt's chest seized, "You know Blaine?"

"Yeah, I'm his sense buddy." Kurt blinked, nonplussed. "It means I help him. I'm in prep training to eventually become a sense doctor. I'm living at Dalton on an internship until I go to college in a year."

"Oh..." He didn't want to do this. He didn't want to meet Wes, or talk to him, or invite him in. He didn't want to get to know this boy who could still see Blaine everyday, who knew how he was, who could help him by being there, not by avoiding him.

"Cooper – Blaine's brother? – sent me here... He said I might find Blaine's cat Molly living here?"

Kurt stared, unsure where this was going, "Uh... yeah... she's sort of moved in."

"Right... Look I'm just going to cut to the chase. Blaine misses her. Badly. And I know that school policy dictates he can't have her but I've researched it and not only is it absurd that she could do him any harm in terms of emotional stability, there's a lot to suggest that she could really do him good and-"

"Really?" Kurt couldn't help but interrupt, his voice dry and sarcastic, "I never would have guessed that the animal that helped him recover from his first empathic episode would do him good."

Wes blinked. "That's... he told you that?"

Irrational jealousy reared its head, and Kurt snapped, "Of course he told me! I'm... I was his boyfriend! We told each other everything! Don't think because you've got this fancy title and go to this fancy school and can talk to his stupid doctors that you know him better than I do! Because you don't, and you couldn't!"

Infuriatingly, the other boy hardly seemed fazed by Kurt's explosion. He simply regarded him with that same calm, passive look. "I would never assume to know Blaine that well. But right now, I'm all he's got, so I'm trying."

"Yeah? Well so am I." Kurt's huffed pettily, before managing to pull himself back. This wasn't about him. It never was. And Molly should be with Blaine. He stepped back to allow Wes room to come in. "She's probably in my closet again. I'll go get her."

"Wait!" Wes was suddenly in front of him, blocking the stairs, hands still carefully out of reach despite their closeness. "I don't want to just take her from you... You've clearly been looking after her all this time..."

"What I want isn't the issue." Kurt shook his head, his voice hollow and lost as so many of his emotions fell into those words. Wes looked like he was going to say something else, but the moment was lost.

It didn't matter anyway.

TBC