Work Text:
Thursday evening, after an eventful day of looking for places to live, choosing the loft in Bushwick, doing some preliminary shopping, and turning in the paperwork to move out of the dorm, Rachel managed to sneak Kurt up to her dorm room to spend the night to avoid the cost of staying in a hotel.
"Isn't this against the rules?" Kurt asked once they were in her room.
"As many guys as my roommate brings up here, I'm sure no one is paying any attention. Feel free to shower or whatever. The bathrooms are all co-ed. I'll let you in when you come back."
Late Friday morning, Blaine called Kurt. "Hey, Kurt."
Kurt answered as he opened the loft door. "Hey, Blaine. Just a minute."
He pointed to the area of the loft where he had stacked the palettes he was using for a bed frame. The delivery guys carried the bed in and left it leaning against the wall. One of them wrote something on a card and handed it to Kurt. He stuck it in his pocket, thanked them, and they left.
"I'm back. Sorry. My bed was being delivered. I signed the lease on this place right after we talked yesterday. We had to act quickly or risk losing it. Now, I have to make it livable."
"It's fine. I just have five minutes before the bell rings for class to start. I signed up for a bunch of clubs. I'm excited." He went on talking about stuff at McKinley until the bell rang. "I gotta go." Blaine disconnected the call.
Kurt looked down at his phone and sighed heavily from not having had the opportunity to say anything for the previous five minutes. As he slipped his phone into his pocket, he said, "The guys I hired to put up a wall for our kitchen should be here this afternoon. I've rented a U-Haul and a dolly for tomorrow, so I can pick up a stove and fridge I found earlier this morning. I still need to find a sink and some cabinets." His hand brushed against the business card. He pulled it out and read what was on the back.
Hey gorgeous! Call me if you want any help breaking in the new bed. Jaime 555-xxx-xxxx
He crumpled the card and tossed it in the trash and went out to grab some lunch before the workmen got there.
Kurt looked through his to-do list on his phone while he waited at the end of the counter for his coffee and his sandwich. A really good-looking barista, who reminded him of Sam, handed him his order. He winked at Kurt and smiled as he very obviously looked at the coffee cup. Kurt followed his gaze to see a phone number and "Corbin" written on the cup.
Kurt shook his head slightly. "I have a boyfriend."
"The cute ones always do." Corbin shrugged. "If you change your mind, you know where to find me." He winked before he turned back to make the next customer's drink.
Kurt talked to Blaine various times throughout the day on Saturday as he shopped at secondhand stores for things they needed.
On Sunday, he texted Blaine before he left the loft on yet another errand.
--I have to run out for a while. I'll be back in plenty of time to watch Treme tonight.
Monday afternoon, Kurt was so excited after his interview with Isabelle Wright that he stopped at the first bakery he came across and went inside. He got in line and ordered the most decadent-looking piece of raspberry swirl cheesecake. He took his plate and grabbed a fork before he turned to find a place to sit. The only seat he saw available was along the counter, so he placed his plate down and sat on the stool. He took his phone out and texted Blaine.
--I got the job at Vogue dot com. Isabelle Wright is my boss.
--That's great. Congratulations.
--I'm in shock. I'm treating myself to a slice of cheesecake.
He took a photo and texted it to Blaine.
--Looks amazing. I'll call later. Mrs. Cartwright keeps glancing this way.
Kurt hadn't really spent any time with Chase after their unproductive meeting the morning when some completely unusual leather options were pitched. But after Anna had accepted the makeover video idea, Isabelle's mood had improved significantly. They were working through lunch on the ideas for the outfits for the shoot. Chase and Kurt went down to meet the delivery guy for the lunches that they ordered. On the way back up in the elevator, Chase congratulated him on his idea for the makeover video.
"I haven't seen Isabelle so excited before."
"I'm just glad to have been of some help."
"Would you be interested in going out this weekend? I could show you around town and take you to my favorite club."
"If you're asking me out on a date, my answer is no because I have a boyfriend, but I appreciate the offer."
"Never hurts to try. Your boyfriend's a lucky guy."
As soon as Kurt felt like he could leave without getting fired, he walked out of the meeting that had turned social. He headed to his office to grab his bag.
Matthias, one of the interns from the art department was sitting at Kurt's desk, working on his own laptop. "Hey, Kurt."
"Hey."
"Sorry to hijack your desk. I wanted to talk to you before I left, but I saw that you and the others were still in the conference room with Ms. Wright when I walked past."
"It's fine. Big paper due at school? Where do you go anyway?"
Matthias rolled his eyes. "NYU."
Kurt nodded.
"Sometimes I wish it were a paper. That way I could at least do research and have sources and feel a little more certain about how well I'd done. With art, it's so subjective. You put all this effort into something, and it's hard to know how it will be received."
"I get that. It's like performing. You can work and work on something and it can just fall flat to the audience. I wrote a musical summer before last, but no one I let read it liked it."
"Why?"
"It was based on the royal family, and no one knew enough about them to get the humor—or the shade."
He chuckled. "Ah. Wrong audience. So, yeah, it's like that with my art classes. I always wonder if I'm going to hit my target and my professor will love it or if I'll miss the mark entirely. I'm just hoping that working in the field is more fun than studying to work in the field. After being here for the last month, I'm pretty convinced that it will be, even though this is a pretty intense place to work."
"This is just my first week, but it's been amazing so far."
"I actually waited for you because a group of some of my friends and I are going out dancing tomorrow night. I was wondering if you'd like to go out to dinner with me, and then out dancing with everyone."
"As a date?"
"Yeah."
"I can't. I have a boyfriend."
"Oh, okay. That's alright. We could have dinner as potential friends. We're going to be working here together all year. I'd like to get to know you a little better. If not, you're still welcome to go out dancing with all of us."
"I'll pass on dinner—too date-like. But I'll let you know about the dancing. Would it be alright if I bring my roommate? She wanted to go out this weekend."
"Yeah, sure." He shut his laptop down and put it in his backpack.
Kurt grabbed his bag and put it over his shoulder. "Give me your phone and I'll put my number in. You can text me the details. I'll talk to her about it as soon as I get home." He took the phone, quickly put in his number, texted himself so he would have Matthias's number, and handed his phone back. "I'll text you later—after I talk to her." He picked up his bag.
"Sure. See you tomorrow."
As soon as Kurt got outside the building and was on his way to the Metro, he returned Blaine's call that he had rejected earlier. "Hey, Blaine. Sorry about that. A meeting I had to attend ran longer than I had expected. I'm on my way back to the loft now."
"It's nearly 7:00."
"I know. I can't just walk out if a meeting runs long. I'm new. Even though it got more social towards the end, I'm too new to know at what point I can just say that I need to go. I'm still learning my way around my job. This is just my third day."
"We're supposed to have our Skype date in 30 minutes," Blaine complained.
"We can have it a half-hour late. It's not like I stood you up. I can't control what my boss does. We can talk while I walk to the subway and we can try to talk while I'm on the train. If we lose our connection, I'll Skype you as soon as I get home. What did you call to tell me earlier?"
"Oh, I won the election."
"That's amazing, Blaine!" Kurt's voice was full of enthusiasm.
Blaine began to talk about the party at Breadstix.
An hour later, Kurt finally made it back to the loft. He opened the door to find Finn and Rachel sitting on Rachel's bed talking. He dropped his bag in his room, changed into some sweats, and took his laptop out onto the landing outside their door. Before he Skyped Blaine, he texted Matthias and declined his invitation to go out dancing.
"Hey, Blaine."
"Where are you?"
"Sitting on the landing. Rachel has company. I can't move much farther away without losing my connection to the WiFi." Kurt didn't say anything about Finn because he didn't know what was going on and whether Finn wanted anyone to know where he was.
"Okay. I get it. This will just have to do. I had hoped for a little more privacy."
"I get that, but it won't be private if I go inside the loft either. We'll have to try again for the privacy. Maybe she'll go out during the day tomorrow and I can stay home and Skype you then."
Blaine just nodded.
"I can't believe I've only been here a week," Kurt said. "It's nuts."
"Yeah …" Blaine's voice trailed off.
Kurt continued to text, call, and Skype with Blaine over the weekend. They watched Treme together again Sunday night.
Finn stayed with them at the loft for the week, and Rachel had gotten permission for him to shadow her in all of her classes at NYADA for the whole week.
Friday, Kurt called Blaine between classes.
"Hey, stranger."
Kurt explained how he was going to have to postpone their phone date that afternoon because he had to work late. He apologized and shared his frustration over the issue with Blaine. He talked about how working at Vogue dot com could become a career.
"I get that. I really do. I get it. It's just … I really miss you. A lot, okay? I miss talking to you. I miss hugging you."
"Me too."
"I miss—" He lowered his voice to barely above a whisper. "—messing around with you."
"You're coming in two weeks, right?"
"I know, but … what am I supposed to do until then? Just hold my breath?"
Kurt had to return to his job. "I will call you or text you on a break."
Blaine tried to call Kurt back after lunch but got no answer. He headed to the auditorium and sang "Barely Breathing" to an empty audience, blowing having to postpone talking to Kurt way out of proportion. He went to the choir room but ended up leaving and skipping his afternoon classes after he agreed to meet up with Eli.
He went home and changed quickly into something more casual before he went over to Eli's place.
When he left, Blaine sat in Eli's driveway and changed his flight to the next available out of Toledo since it was a shorter drive than Columbus. He went back home, showered, redressed, packed an overnight bag with two changes of clothes, and left for the airport.
He bought two dozen roses from the airport florist and took a taxi to the loft, arriving at nearly 10:30. Kurt pulled the door open and his face lit up. He pulled Blaine into a hug because was so excited to see him. Rachel hugged him quickly as well.
Kurt took the flowers over to the kitchen. Blaine dropped his bag in Kurt's area and went into the kitchen with Kurt.
"I called you several times after we finally finished, which was obviously long before midnight, but my calls went to voicemail, which makes sense now that I know you were on the plane when I was calling. I just finished changing when you got here. We're going out to Callbacks."
"So that was—moving. I guess I'm just kind of wondering why that was."
"Well, you know, I, uh, I really missed you."
"I missed you too. And I'm really glad that you're here. But you've been so emotional and weirdly sad. Please stop pretending that there's nothing wrong."
Blaine stopped walking and turned to look at Kurt. He quietly said, "I was with someone."
Kurt froze in place. His heart dropped and he felt like he had been kicked in the gut. "It was Sebastian, wasn't it?"
"No, it wasn't Sebastian. But it doesn't ... it didn't mean anything. It was just a hookup, okay?"
"Who was it?"
"It doesn't matter who it was with, Kurt. What matters is that I was by myself. I needed you. I needed you around and you weren't there. And I was lonely and I'm—" His voice dropped to a whisper. "I'm really sorry." He began to cry.
"You don't think that I've been lonely? You don't think that I've had temptations? But I didn't act on it because I knew what it meant. It meant something horrible and awful and—" Kurt couldn't continue to speak.
"I'm so sorry, Kurt. I really am."
"How alone could you have been? You had Sam and Tina and the rest of the New Directions, with you as the 'new Rachel'. You won the election. You joined a bunch of clubs. You've been telling me about learning to play D&D and making a superhero costume in the sewing club. It's been two weeks, Blaine. I've been propositioned once on the back of a business card handed to me and asked out three times in two weeks. And in no uncertain terms, I told each of those three guys that I had a boyfriend. No one has ever flirted with me. NO ONE. You don't think it was tempting to go out with one of those flirty guys? One of them actually told me that you were a lucky guy to have me for a boyfriend. Do you know that NO ONE has ever said that to me? It's always been the other way around—how lucky I am to have you. You were the catch. I wasn't even your first choice, or second for that matter. But I didn't even consider going out with one of those guys, not even for a second. What we had meant everything to me."
"I'm so sorry."
Kurt flashed back to what he had said to Rachel in the loft not long after they moved in. I've really learned a lot about myself over the last couple of months. I feel like I have a newfound resilience and focus. Kurt pulled himself together and tapped into that resilience. He dug deep and found the reservoir of inner strength he had drawn upon to steady himself against the bullies who harassed him during his sophomore year. "I'm sure you are." He took a deep breath and steeled his voice. He spoke evenly and severely. "I wasn't there because I was here, where you sent me two weeks ago. I will not accept the blame for the choice you made to have sex with someone else. You have irrevocably broken the bond of trust between us. It was tenuous many times, but I continued to give you the benefit of the doubt. And I extended my trust to you again when you had broken it, believing that you had only acted the way you had out of immaturity, not actual malice."
"What are you talking about?"
Kurt began walking to catch up to Finn and Rachel. Once the couples were alongside each other, Kurt spoke directly to Rachel, "Blaine and I are taking a taxi back to the loft. We have some things to talk about."
She nodded.
He could see the tears in her eyes but didn't have the time or the wherewithal to deal with it at the moment. He walked to the edge of the park, with Blaine trailing slightly behind him. He stepped into the street just enough to hail a taxi. One stopped.
He turned to Blaine, "You're paying for this."
He nodded and got inside. Kurt slid in after him and gave the driver the address.
"As for your question—what was I talking about? You led me on and then sang to Jeremiah. You turned me down when I told you how I felt about you. Instead, you decided to explore dating Rachel. Then, when I was just about over you, you kissed me. Tony, Scandals, two leads at Sectionals. I gave you something that mattered, but it wasn't enough to keep you from Sebastian—whatever it was you had going on with him. Passive-aggressively ignoring me and canceling our dates after Regionals. Accusing me in front of everyone during Whitney week when I had done nothing. I apologized for upsetting you." Kurt's voice became icier as he spoke. "You never apologized for falsely accusing me. I extended forgiveness to you for things you never apologized for, over and over. You told me you loved me. I excused the pain you caused me, always believing it had been accidental. But this? This was malicious. This was a choice. We've spoken on the phone and texted every single day of the two weeks that I've been gone. We've Skyped numerous times. We watched Treme together on both Sunday nights. Even with Finn here the last week and me not having heard from him in four months, I still called and texted you every day. I didn't ignore you. You don't get to use that as a cop-out." He took a deep breath and then spoke with finality. "Every step you took for this to happen was a choice. You chose to destroy what we had. It's over."
"No, Kurt. Please?" Blaine had tears streaming down his cheeks.
Kurt closed his eyes and let Burt's words of affirmation flow through his mind. I matter. He let Isabelle's words of confidence in his talents bolster him. "I have just one last question for you. If you had the ability to change your flight and come early, why didn't you do it and come to me for what you needed? You said I wasn't there, but you had the ability to come here. You and I could have pooled our money and gotten a hotel room tonight or for the whole weekend where we could have spent every moment together. I could have given you whatever it was that you needed. But you went to someone else. That's all on you."
"I love you, Kurt."
"I love you too, but I don't trust you. Relationships are built on trust. It's over."
"What am I going to do?"
"Research colleges. Figure out what you want to study. Figure out where you want to study whatever you choose. Go to counseling. Get help for your constant need for validation and reassurance. No one can be there for you 24/7 like I was in Lima. We were high school students. We had a lot of free time. As adults, not so much. My half of the rent is $900. In addition to that, I have transportation costs, food, utilities, laundry, personal hygiene items, the internet, and my phone. The minimum wage in New York is $7.25. I'll save you the time of doing the math. I'll go into debt every month while working full-time. I'm going to either have to dip into what's left of the money I got from selling my Navigator in order to make ends meet or I have to find a way to make more money than I do right now. That means I'm going to have to take on independent tailoring jobs if I can find enough. Or I'll have to get a second job on the weekends. That's not going to change if I get into NYADA for the spring. I'll have to work fewer hours at the Vogue office, and I'll have to continue to work evenings and weekends. I'm not going to go into the details any more than that. But I need a partner. Someone who won't let someone else fuck him because I've worked too many days in a row to be at his beck and call."
"I wouldn't. I won't. I was stupid."
Kurt sighed, half shrugged, and rolled his eyes. Sarcasm dripped from his words, "You think?"
Blaine continued to cry.
Kurt turned away, watching the blurs of color go by as he stared out the window with unfocused eyes. He pulled his phone out a few minutes later. When they pulled up outside the loft ten minutes later, Kurt paused before opening his door. "Stay here. I've booked you a room at a hotel between here and the airport. I'm going to go up and get your bag and bring it back." He asked the driver to wait and gave him the address of the hotel. He went up and came down quickly. He put Blaine's bag in the backseat with him. "I put the room on my emergency credit card. The statement will go to my dad. Be sure to pay him back before the bill comes due."
"But Kurt—" Blaine wiped his eyes.
"I have nothing left to say. Don't try to contact me or get anyone else to speak to me on your behalf." Kurt shut the door and walked away as the driver pulled off.
Kurt showered as quickly as possible, put his headphones on, and lay in the dark knowing that Finn and Rachel would be back any time. He tried to will himself to sleep before they arrived, but it didn't work, although he did manage to lie still enough that they believed him to be asleep, or at least left him alone.
Kurt slept restlessly and awoke before dawn. He got dressed and sat in the upcycled leather bucket seat in the living room, going over everything that had happened the night before. It had all happened so quickly, so late at night, and he was so sleep-deprived at that moment that it all felt like a nightmare.
Finn came out of Rachel's room. "Hey. You were asleep when we got back." He stopped and actually looked at Kurt. "You look terrible, dude."
Kurt rolled his eyes. "That would match how I feel, which is kind of like I'm dying."
"Why? Are you and Blaine okay?"
"Not at all. I broke up with him last night. He cheated on me."
"You mean like Rachel cheated on me?" he said in frustration.
"The two situations have absolutely nothing in common, actually."
"What do you mean?"
"Put your bag down and have a seat. You're not just going to sneak off without saying goodbye. That's the coward's way out."
Finn sighed. He put his duffle bag down and sat on the opposite end of the couch from the chair Kurt was sitting in.
"Rachel did not cheat on you."
"She's been seeing that Brody guy and they kissed."
"You broke up with her the day she thought she was marrying you, and then you vanished off the face of the earth. You set her free, Finn. You don't just get to disappear for four months and show back up expecting her to have been faithful to someone she wasn't in a relationship with. She called, texted, and emailed you for months. You never responded. You didn't keep in contact with me either. You can't call her a cheater. She just started to move on in the last couple of weeks. Four months, Finn. Four months. That's how long you have been broken up. Her kissing Brody was absolutely something she was freely allowed to choose as a single person."
Rachel came out and sat at the opposite end of the couch, near Kurt. "He's right, Finn. I love you. You are the first boy who ever saw me, who loved me, who made me feel desirable. You were my first love, and I thought you were going to be my last and only love. But you broke my heart last summer. I thought I was on my way to becoming your wife and you 'set me free'. I don't know how I was supposed to interpret that as anything other than you breaking up with me. And you were going to leave this morning without even settling things between us? I'm not doing this anymore. We're through, Finn."
"What am I going to do if I don't have you? If I don't have the Army or anything?"
"You have yourself," she said. "And you are worth figuring things out for. For yourself. Not for me. Not for anyone else. I don't think I know how to stop loving you, but I can stop letting you hurt me. Maybe someday things will be different, but right now I'm here in New York. You've made it perfectly clear that you don't want to be here. You can go back to Lima and figure yourself out." Rachel looked around. "Where's Blaine?"
"At a hotel down near Howard Beach."
"What? Why?"
"He cheated on me. Not just kissing someone."
"Oh, my God, Kurt," Rachel reached out and grabbed for his hand. "How could he do that?"
"He said that he needed me and I wasn't there for him."
"Well, duh," Finn said. "You live here. Of course, you weren't in Lima."
"I pointed that out as well. Anyway, it's over. No reconciliation possible. Please don't tell anyone else until I get a chance to call Dad in a couple of hours. I don't want him finding out from some gossip chain somehow."
"I'm not telling anyone, dude. Not my place. I don't want in the middle. I obviously have enough of my own problems. I have to go home and face my mom and Burt. I really do have to go. I have to be at La Guardia at 9:00."
Kurt got up to walk Finn out, but he stepped towards Kurt and pulled him into a hug. Rachel followed him to the door and out onto the landing. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him goodbye. She turned and went back inside, then slid the door closed and locked it before crumpling to the floor and beginning to sob. She pulled her knees up and leaned back against the door.
Between her tears, she said, "I heard what you said. You defended me. He set me free. Last night he told me he was 'stupid' for doing it. He was stupid, but he did do it. You know Quinn warned me, junior year when you were at Dalton still."
Kurt got up and sat on the floor facing her.
"We met on stage to work on writing a song together and she said some pretty hateful things. She was adamant that Finn and I weren't meant to be together. She said that as long as I continued to live in my schoolgirl fantasy, I was never going to get it right. That part of what she said actually inspired me to write the song I sang at Regionals. But the other thing she said was that Finn would take over your dad's tire shop and that I didn't belong in Lima. She wanted him, so I just took her words as ammunition that she was using to make me feel like giving up. They were back together at the time."
"This was when Quinn cheated on Sam and got back together with Finn, right?"
"Yeah. But what if she was right? Not about her and Finn being destined to be together, but about Finn belonging in Lima. What if we're not meant to be like I kept holding onto?"
"We're in the same spot with that, Rach. Blaine and Finn were our first loves." Kurt didn't say anything for a minute or two. "Doing the math, my mom would have been 26 when she had me. She didn't grow up in Lima. So, it seems unlikely that my mom was the first girl my dad ever dated since he was a popular football player. And now he's happily married to Carole. She wasn't his first love, but that doesn't make their love any less real. I think we've been putting too much pressure on ourselves."
"I guess …" she said half-heartedly.
"I wanted Blaine to be my first and only too, Rachel. But he ruined that. He made the choice. There was no accident involved. It was a deliberate choice. Finn ruined that for you. He planned. How else would he have had a train ticket? They made decisions about our relationships without consulting us."
"That's true."
"We need to get up and dust ourselves off." He stood up and grabbed her hands and pulled her to standing. "Take a shower. We'll pamper each other with facials and we'll do our nails. I'll paint yours. Later on, you can put on one of those new outfits you got last week, and we'll go out to dinner and go dancing."
"That sounds more like a celebration."
"Well, I refuse to mourn. If he didn't value what we had enough to remain faithful for two weeks, then I don't want what we had. I don't want it back. I don't want him back. Whenever I'm ready to date again, I'll give it another go, but I'm not willing to put my life on hold because of a choice he made. I'm choosing as well, and I'm choosing me."
"You're right. I'm not willing to go back to Lima. Finn isn't willing to live here. We're at an impasse. I'm not going to live like a married woman or a nun. I'm neither. If someday, Finn and I are both single and we want to live in the same town, the situation could be re-evaluated."
He took her by the hand and twirled her. "Today's going to be the first day of our new Lima-free lives in New York. We need to stop hanging on to the past. It's time to embrace the here and now while moving toward the future. We didn't endure years of pining to be in New York City to let two guys dictate our happiness now that we're here. They made their choices to not be part of our lives here."
"You're right. You're absolutely right. I mentioned Quinn's speech, but I argued with her then. I actually realized it when we came for Nationals. You and I stood in front of Tiffany's. I knew before Finn and I went out on stage. But we kissed, and I was hooked again." She took a deep breath. "No more. I'm where I want to be, and since that's not where he wants to be, I'm going to move on."
He stepped back, threw his arms up, and posed like he did at the end of "Rose's Turn". He stated in a most confident voice. "Kurt Hummel is too fabulous to be kept down by a cheating ex."
She smiled and laughed. "That's true, absolutely true." She took his hand, then twirled herself back towards him and dipped herself. She came back up laughing and hugged him. "Breakfast, pampering, and maybe we should go shopping. I really need some new shoes that are amazing, but actually comfortable to dance in because you are definitely taking me dancing tonight."