 Geplaatst: ma jul 18, 2011 9:48
Chapter One: And I am all alone
Not entirely awake yet, Kurt stumbled into the Lima Bean with the intention of just grabbing his medium drip before he had to face an hour and a half of English literature. He definitely needed his coffee to be able to not fall asleep during the endless discussions about the representation of the Catholic church in the works of James Joyce. Stifling a yawn, he shuffled forward as the queue slowly progressed. Looking up to see whether he had to place his order yet, his eye fell on a lonely figure at the end of the coffee shop. A guy he’d never seen before, although he was obviously of his age. He definitely didn’t go to McKinley, or Kurt would’ve known. Oh yes, he would’ve known – he was hard to miss. He possessed a head full of untamed, dark curls and, when he raised his head from his arms, a pair of long-lashed olive eyes blinked at the sunlight streaming through the windows. He looked sad though.
‘Good morning. May I help you?’
Kurts head snapped back to the counter in front of him when a Lima Bean employee with long blond hair asked his order. For a second, Kurt’s eyes trailed back to the other end of the coffee shop. The curly-haired guy had buried his face in his arms again.
‘Sir?’
‘Ah, yeah, sorry,’ Kurt said. ‘One medium drip, please.’ The blond girl turned away to ready his order, when he made up his mind. ‘Make that two,’ he added quickly. He distractedly paid for his purchase and then, with the two steaming cups in his hands, walked over to the lost looking loner, hoping he liked his coffee this way.
‘I’m sorry to disturb your undoubtedly refreshing nap in the corner of a noisy coffee shop, but I couldn’t help noticing you were looking like you could need some of this stuff,’ Kurt said, holding out one of the cups to the curls.
Slowly, the guy raised his head, looking at Kurt with a face that spoke only of exhaustion. Kurt raised his eyebrows and decided to sit down opposite to him.
‘Apparently, my eyes didn’t deceive me,’ he added, chuckling a little.
‘Thanks,’ the heavy-lidded stranger replied, taking a little sip. He looked at Kurt.
‘I don’t mean to sound rude or anything, but why would you care?’
He didn’t sound rude. Kurt smiled at him. ‘I don’t know. I think I just felt like you could use a friend, and I know the feeling. So here I am. I’m Kurt, by the way.’
‘Blaine.’
They drank their coffee in silence for a while, Kurt not wanting to pressure Blaine into telling him anything he didn’t want to share. After a couple of minutes of drinking and staring (on Kurt’s part, anyway – Blaine seemed too distracted by the windows of the coffee shop and what was outside of them), Kurt put down his almost empty cup.
‘Well, I should probably get to class,’ he said unenthousiastically.
Blaine looked up. ‘Oh. Right.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know.’
Kurt looked at the guy and sighed. ‘Okay, here’s the deal. I’ll skip class and stay here with you if you want, but then you have to quench my curiosity by telling me what you’re doing here.’
For the first time, Blaine smiled a little. ‘I’m sorry. I’m just so tired I can only seem to concentrate on one thing at a time. I would really appreciate it if you would stay.’
‘Okay then. Spill.’
-
‘Well, that was definitely more interesting than listening to Mr. Gordon drone on and on about the use of stream of consciousness in Ulysses,’ Kurt said. ‘So you ran away because both your dad and pretty much everyone at your high school are a bunch of homophobic narrow-minded idiots, you ended up here and now you’re out of money and you haven’t got a place to go. Correct?’
Blaine nodded, screwing up his face whilst swallowing the last bit of cold coffee from his cup.
‘Okay,’ Kurt sighed. ‘So, first of all, you need a place to stay. That’s easy: you can come with me.’
‘Wait, what? You mean – your place?’
‘Of course I mean my place! Well, obviously I don’t have my own place, but I’m sure my dad and my stepmom and Finn won’t mind when I bring you. We have a guest room.’ Kurt smiled at Blaine. ‘So that’s your first problem solved.’
Blaine looked at Kurt, incredulous. ‘Are you kidding?’
Kurt raised his eyebrows. ‘Oh no. I never kid. Now, you’re also out of money, but that’s something we can take care of easily enough while you stay with me. I’m sure you can get a job at a Gap or something. They always need people.’
Blaine shook his head. ‘I can’t believe this.’
‘What?’
‘That you’re doing this for me.’
‘Why wouldn’t I?’
Blaine frowned. ‘You have no idea who I am, I could be a serial killer or a cannibal or something!’
‘I know exactly who you are. You’re a gay guy who was bullied every single day of his life, desperate to escape and feeling like nobody cared one bit.’ Blaine looked at Kurt, mouth open and eyes wide. Kurt smiled a little bitterly at him. ‘I know exactly who you are.’
‘You too?’ Blaine asked softly, after a couple of seconds of stunned silence.
‘Yeah, well, it got better after a while, and I’m so lucky as to have an understanding father who just needed to do a course of Queers 101, but yeah – me too.’
They stared at each other for a moment, and then Kurt put his hands on the table. ‘Shall we get going, then? I suppose you could do with a shower and a clean bed.’
‘I don’t smell like I’m homeless, do I?’ Blaine asked worryingly.
Kurt chuckled, throwing away the empty coffee cups and making his way to the door. ‘Don’t worry, I would’ve told you if I did.’
-
‘I can’t believe you skipped school, Kurt! When Figgins called I thought you had gotten another death threat or something. Don’t do that to me!’
‘Dad, I told you – it was an emergency! You should’ve seen him, he looked so helpless. I had to do something. Besides, with Karofsky on the other side of the country on his sports exchange death threats aren’t exactly part of my daily routine anymore.’
Burt sighed.
‘So what’s his name again? And why is he sleeping in our guest room as we speak?’
‘His name’s Blaine and his dad’s a homophobe.’
Burt stopped cleaning the bumper of the ancient Chevrolet he had gotten off of eBay a couple of weeks ago. ‘Oh.’
‘I told you it was an emergency.’
‘Well, he should at least call his parents to let them know where he is. It’s a terrible thing for a parent, not knowing where your child has run off to.’
‘Dad, did I mention his father is a homophobe?’
‘Kurt, as soon as he wakes up, he’s going to call his parents. They need to know where he is.’ Burt looked at his son. He understood how Kurt saw himself in this kid, and it hurt him to be remembered of all the things his son had had to go through. As if they could possibly forget. And to know that this happened to other kids too was something he shouldn’t think about for too long or he would probably wreck his new car. Kurt was standing by the door of the garage, eyes wet with frustration. ‘Son, I understand you want to help him. Of course I understand. But this is not our business. He has to figure this out himself. We can help him get in the right direction and we should support him where we can, but ultimately he has to solve this issue by himself.’
Kurt nodded and quietly slipped back into the house.
-
‘They’re coming to pick me up tonight,’ Blaine said, his voice flat. He put the phone back on it’s dock and looked at Kurt, who couldn’t stand the helplessness they showed. Kurt sighed, then stood up resolutely.
‘Okay. It’s almost four hours from Waterford to Lima, so even if they would leave right now we still have some time. What do you want to do?’
Blaine frowned. ‘Um. I don’t know.’
‘Well, what do you usually do in your free time?’
‘Sing, I guess. I love singing.’
Kurt’s eyes widened. ‘No way! Me too, I’m a member of the glee club at my school!’ He beamed at Blaine, who smiled back.
‘Wow. Two gay guys who both like to sing and dance. Way to establish the stereotype.’
Kurt laughed. ‘See, I knew you had a sense of humor down there somewhere. So, anything in particular you like to perform?’ And with that he revealed a huge stack of sing-a-long CDs next to his stereo.
‘Got any top 40?’
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