Waiting for a Happy Ending - Part Four A
Title: Waiting for a Happy Ending
Author: firefly_ca
Pairing,Character(s): Kurt/Blaine, with appearances by Stevie and the Evans family, the Andersons, and large swaths of Glee clubbers (New Directions and Warblers)
Rating: NC-17 for disturbing themes, scenes, etc.
Word Count: TBD - Part 4 is 26K
Spoilers: All of S2, up to 3x05
Summary: AU. Blaine Anderson lived under another name for almost nine years with an abusive man he was forced to pretend was his father. He always thought his own family had given up on him, but now that he's found out the majority of his life was spent believing a lie, he has to try to reconcile the life he had with the life that was taken away from him. Sequel to Looking for a Happy Ending.
Note: Huge thanks to my betas LoonyLevicorpus and callmerayray for taking the fic and trying to help me avoid stupid typos and things that make no sense this time around. Any mistakes you find are all from last-minute edits I made before I posted. Because sometimes I can't leave good enough alone.
A/N: TRIGGER WARNINGS ADDED - This is relevant for the very first section, so please make sure you've looked through them. I don't want to set anyone off. There are is discussion of child abuse (sexual and physical), some homophobia, and talk of cutting. I'll try to add these to the masterpost today as well.
This section is going to start looking a little like an acceptance speech from now on, but I've got a lot of people who helped me sort some things out about adopting older children in the States. There are a few areas where I took a couple liberties, but a solid 95% of Kurt's and Blaine's forays into adoption are true to life as I could make it. canuckpagali and callmerayray especially gave me a TON of information about this, and I couldn't have written it without either of them. They are both crazy awesome :D
Some Day
At first, they have such terrible luck with the adoption agency it almost seems like the universe doesn't want them to be parents, a fact that leaves Blaine almost too wrecked to function.
"Sweetheart, you've got to calm down a little," Kurt says in frustration, but Blaine honestly can't help it. All he can think about these days, all he's been thinking about ever since their names were put on a list, is that today could be the day when they find the rest of their family.
Adopting an older child isn't as straightforward as adopting a baby, though, and that's pretty damn complicated in and of itself. There are a lot of hoops that have to be jumped through, and if one little thing doesn't line up, it can ruin the entire process. Kurt and Blaine end up making a scrapbook, geared to the age of child they'd agreed with the agency would be the best fit: a boy or girl around 10 years old (give or take a couple years in either direction, depending on compatibility). The scrapbook is all about their lives together and what they do for work and the kinds of things they like. Sometimes it's just for the kid's benefit, so they can look through it and decide if Kurt and Blaine are interesting and worth meeting. Sometimes the birth parents look at it, too, if they're still present in their child's life and have any say in what happens to them.
Kurt hates the idea that their future son or daughter gets to pick them "out of a catalogue," but Blaine secretly likes it. He already feels like he's doing the same thing to them when the agency arranges meetings with children to get an idea if Kurt and Blaine will be compatible. This levels the playing field.
"The idea isn't to see if you instantly hit it off," says Nancy, the social worker with the name Blaine finally figured out a week after their first interview with her. "We've even adopted kids into families where they've physically lashed out at their adoptive parents the first time they met. We want to see if you can establish rapport with them, and mostly to see how you handle them and their responses. It's not a test, but it will give us an idea on if you have compatible personalities, which is something you need to think about when the child is older and you don't have any previous relationship with them."
The first meeting is a complete mess. The little 7-year-old girl is sweet, charming, a little on the slow side thanks to what Nancy terms as "severe neglect," and apparently staggeringly homophobic, if that's even the right word for it. It's something absolutely no one knew about, either, not until halfway through the meeting when she suddenly realized what the two of them being married meant. One second she's showing Blaine how she ties her shoes and the next she's literally clinging to the far wall, refusing to make eye contact, genuinely terrified and muttering, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," over and over again.
Blaine has no idea what she thought they were, since she knew they were married before she met them and had been told multiple times that he and Kurt "love each other." It's as though she has no comprehension of why people get married or what love means as a concept. The absolute worst part of it is the only people to get mad at have already been removed from the picture for being unfit parents. Even Nancy looks shaken when she joins them in the car a few minutes later, after leaving the girl in the care of her foster parents.
"I'm so sorry," she says, her voice tight with emotion. "We had no idea... That's never happened with her before. There's nothing in her file that indicated she'd have that response."
Blaine doesn't want to leave. He wants to go back into the house and hold her until she stops being afraid, even though he knows he can't. He just wants to help her.
"Someone will help her," Nancy says, firmly. "Her foster parents are very good, and they're long-term care besides. They'll figure out what the problem is before too long, and they'll help her get past it. Maybe one day she'll end up adopted into a gay family, who knows? But it won't be your family. It would be disastrous and cruel for everyone if we kept pretending it was a possibility at this point."
Blaine knows she's oversimplifying, but he knows she's also telling the truth when she says this is better for everyone. It doesn't stop him from worrying about the little girl constantly.
The next meeting is cancelled weeks in advance. The little boy, an 11-year-old this time, has a parent who gets some say in where her child is placed, and is only agreeing to adoption on the condition that the arrangement is open and she still gets to be involved with her son. Things seem to be progressing nicely on Nancy's end until suddenly one day they aren't. When Nancy calls to explain she says it's because the boy's father has shown up again and doesn't want his kid living in "a house full of atheists."
"Right," Kurt says, as he tries to keep his voice from breaking. Blaine reaches across the kitchen table and squeezes his arm. "All one of me."
"Under most circumstances, the parents are allowed to specify if they want their children to be raised in a religious environment," Nancy says.
"I'm sure," Kurt says, bitterly. "Of course that's what this is about - atheism and not some backwards-thinking physically-abusive alcoholic saying he doesn't want his kid to grow up with queers."
Nancy doesn't even try to deny it.
"I'm really sorry about this, guys," she says. "But please don't give up. These kinds of things can sometimes happen when the birth parents have a say in the adoption. It's just the nature of the beast."
After the second cancellation, it's months before they hear from Nancy again. They don't talk about it to each other, like they've forgotten they ever done so much as walked into a parenting class together 2 years earlier, or been subjected to home visits from social workers. But even pretending to forget is impossible with the second bedroom still in some strange sort of limbo and sadness and strain he knows is in his eyes mirrored back at him in Kurt's whenever they look at each other. Some nights he hears Kurt on the phone with his father in the other room, crying. Blaine always stays away until they've said their goodbyes and acts like he hasn't noticed when Kurt comes back into the living room with a watery smile on his face that he knows couldn't possibly fool anyone, let alone his husband. He holds Kurt closer than usual on the nights that they go to bed after there's been a phone call to Ohio.
Then one afternoon he gets a text from Kurt asking him to take the rest of the day off and come home. It's a bizarre request, since Kurt is supposed to be at the theatre rehearsing that evening anyhow, and he would never send a text message asking for Blaine to bail on work instead of calling unless he was too worked up to string a sentence together.
Blaine gets home in half an hour. Kurt is in the lobby waiting for him, one arm wrapped tightly around his torso, the other nervously chewing on a nail. His face is flushed and his eyes are darting around the room, not like he's scared, but upset nonetheless and too distracted by whatever is going on in his head to focus properly on anything.
"What's going on?" Blaine asks as soon as he's inside.
Kurt just shakes his head as he grabs Blaine's arm and hauls him towards the elevator. He doesn't say a word the entire ride to their floor, only fidgets silently as Blaine feels the tension build up inside him to near unbearable levels.
"Nancy called," Kurt says the second the door to their apartment closes shut behind them.
Blaine figured it would have something to do with the adoption, but his heart still gives a little lurch when Kurt says it.
"Does she have another name?" Blaine asks, hesitantly.
Kurt looks at him with a somewhat pained expression.
"She has two," he says. "I didn't know what to tell her. I told her I needed to talk to you about it before we agreed to meet anyone and I couldn't handle waiting until we both got home."
"Okay," Blaine says, a little slowly. "I understand you needed to talk to me first, but this is really good news, isn't it? We already told them we would be willing to take siblings if they think we'll be a good fit for them."
Kurt just looks at him. He's acting shell-shocked.
"What's the catch?" Blaine asks, cringing a little at his choice of words but he can't help it because Kurt is looking at him like his world is breaking apart and Blaine can't figure out why this has him so shaken.
"It's a boy and a girl," Kurt finally says. "The little boy is ten. He's a sports fan, and he likes cartoons. Nancy says he has some anger problems, and that he needs to learn impulse control - that it's not okay to hit when you get scared or angry, but he's a really good little kid who normally wouldn't be too hard to adopt out."
"So the problem's his sister," Blaine guesses, and when Kurt wilts a little more he knows he's right.
"She's way outside our age range, Blaine," he says.
"How old?" Blaine asks.
"Fourteen," Kurt says. "And she's... extremely unstable."
"Violent?" Blaine asks, but Kurt shakes his head.
"No," he says. "Nancy says she has a wonderful personality and is very polite and never puts a toe out of line, and that she's just about the only person who can make her brother behave himself instantly."
"Is the only problem her age?"
Kurt shakes his head again, and his eyes start to go glassy. It's beyond disconcerting to see him acting this way, but it's becoming clearer to Blaine why, anyhow. Kurt's acting like he normally does about these calls from Nancy, and has fallen hard for the kids without even seeing a picture.
"They keep getting bounced to different foster homes," Kurt says in a rush. "When she's not in a psych ward. No one knows what to do with her. Foster parents all say she's too much work."
"Psych ward?" Blaine repeats, suddenly starting to realize why he's having to fight through Kurt's explanations to get any real answers. There is no way he's going to like what he hears. Kurt is probably half terrified of triggering him in some way.
"She cuts herself," Kurt says.
"So do a lot of kids," Blaine says. "We told Nancy we were prepared to deal with that."
Kurt leans into Blaine's shoulder. Blaine can feel him trembling a little.
"It's a little more extreme than what most kids do. She's almost bled to death three times since they entered the system a year and a half ago."
"You're not telling me everything," Blaine accuses.
"I don't want to tell you everything," Kurt mutters. "I don't want to say it out loud."
This, Blaine decides, is why everyone jokes that there is only going to be one functional parent in their home at any given time, because as Blaine watches Kurt shut down he can feel himself switch to the side of his brain reserved for gathering and sorting facts as he weeds out any unnecessary emotions and pushes them off to the side to deal with later. He steers Kurt to the couch and sits both of them down.
"So she doesn't cut her arms, is what you're saying," he guesses.
"Her thighs," Kurt finally admits, looking a little grey. "And that...general area."
"Right," Blaine says. "So sexual abuse? Or is it something else? What happened to the little boy?"
"It's sexual abuse and other things," Kurt says. "The mother got a boyfriend, and things got really bad. They're pretty sure the only one he ever targeted was the girl, though. He's in jail, and the mother got a slap on the wrist. She was fighting to get the boy back for a while, which forced them to put off trying to adopt them, but then it came out that she wasn't exactly watching from the sidelines for all of the abuse, either. There's no way she'll be allowed to keep either of them anymore."
Kurt hugs Blaine tightly as he continues.
"The stuff he was doing didn't even sound like abuse. It was more like torture. It sounds like the worst things that ever happened to you, but all the time. Without a break for almost a whole year before anyone found out what was happening."
"So this girl is a danger to herself and is so creepy in the ways that she goes about it she scares the foster families, right?" Blaine says, waiting for Kurt to nod a little reluctantly, like admitting it will make Blaine's words the new reality instead of just an acknowledgment of a pre-existing fact. "Why does Nancy think she would work well with us?"
"Because her brother sounds legitimately perfect for us," Kurt says. "Because we said we'd think about adopting siblings, and she thought we wouldn't scare as easily as any of the other parents who are on the list. Because you're amazing and I think Nancy thinks saving children is a hobby you do in your spare time."
He's calming down a little now, and Blaine thinks that's a good thing, so he jokingly says,
"Only sometimes. Like, sometimes I'll stop speeding trains to help them out every now and then if they wander onto the tracks, but only if no one's watching. I don't like showing off."
"That's showing off?" Kurt asks, quirking an eyebrow at him.
"Kurt," Blaine says, seriously. "I'm fucking Superman. I don't rub people's faces in it."
Kurt sits up a little straighter and punches him lightly in the side, laughing a little as he says,
"So help me god, Blaine, if you're cheating on me, I'll serve you your balls on a platter. I don't care how nice his abs look in that spandex leotard."
Blaine leans over and tickles him in the side, the only spot on Kurt's entire body where he's ticklish. Kurt shrieks a little and squirms to get away, so Blaine swings his legs across Kurt's lap, pinning him in place while he continues the assault. After a few minutes Kurt is laughing gently and his body has relaxed as he mildly tries to fight Blaine off.
"Feel better?" Blaine asks. Kurt shrugs.
"Maybe a little," he says.
"I didn't think you'd let it get to you like that," Blaine says, moving his arm around to wrap Kurt in a half-hug. He's practically sitting on his lap now. "You were always so level-headed when it was my issues getting thrown at you."
Kurt laughs louder at that and sighs a little as he lets his head fall back against Blaine.
"Go say that to any of my family and see how they react," he says. "I was such a basket case when I started to date you. It wasn't as bad when I was with you, but when you weren't there? I was beside myself all the time. Some days I walked in the door and immediately start crying like I'd never be able to stop."
"I didn't know," Blaine says.
"I never wanted you to," Kurt says. "You had this awful habit of apologizing and acting like it was your fault when there was nothing you had done wrong."
"But that's awful," Blaine says. "I didn't know it was so hard on you. And I am sorry."
Kurt snorts.
"You still have that habit. Don't be sad about it Blaine. It's hard to deal with, and it was really hard to deal with when everything was new to me and everyday felt like there was some new horrible thing I was finding out about your life, but in the end it was worth it. Aside from the obvious, where nothing happened to you in the first place, I wouldn't change anything. Not if it meant I never got to have you in my life at all."
Blaine leans down and kisses the top of Kurt's head.
"Call Nancy back," he says. "If you can handle me all on your own, I'm sure between the two of us we can handle the girl. According to you, she'll be worth it."
"Maggie," Kurt corrects, finally remembering that he's sort of been leaving out one of the most important parts. "Their names are Maggie and Marshall."
"They match," Blaine comments. "I've never been part of a matching family before."
"You know when they get here, you may not be able to sit on my lap like this anymore," Kurt says. "It's sort of weird."
"Shut up, you love it," Blaine says, staying right where he is. "We're adorable. They'll get used to it."
***
For Now
Blaine doesn't understand why, but something about the conversation he and Kurt have about Tom that night sets off a chain of reactions in him he didn't even know he was capable of having. The next morning when he wakes up, still in Kurt's arms, he feels like he's been shoved through a wood chipper, like the guy in Fargo. His limbs are too heavy and feel like they're not properly attached to his body. His eyelids feel like sandpaper. His ears don't even seem to be working properly as he listens to Kurt's gentle voice encourage him into a sitting position so they both can get out of the bed. Everything sounds too loud and too far off at the same time. He can't remember the last time he's felt this tired. His joints ache with exhaustion, like he hasn't slept for weeks. Even when he first got home and was trying to sleep off cracked ribs, he didn't feel as run down as he does now.
The way his body feels is nothing compared to how muddled his thoughts are, though. It feels like his brain has been scooped out of him and someone's filled his head up with cotton wool in its place.
"Are you okay?" Kurt keeps asking. "You seem really upset."
But Blaine isn't upset. He feels hollow, like everything has been taken away and nothing matters anymore. He thinks maybe it should feel a little scary, but the thought of feeling scared about anything just exhausts him further.
That morning he gets sent to the principal's office three times for not paying attention in class before he's sent to the nurse and then finally the counsellor. Everyone stares at him with the same worried expression. Blaine doesn't understand what's so troubling, but when Kurt and Wes and a handful of the other Warblers find him at lunchtime, Thad sums it up nicely when he says,
"Blaine, you look like death. Are you sure you're going to be okay?"
"Wes and some of the guys heard part of our fight last night," Kurt tells him, blushing a little, like he's embarrassed that everyone heard what they were fighting about. Blaine probably would be too, if he didn't feel so...flat. "They were worried and wanted to talk to you."
"Kurt says his old glee club used to sing to each other when someone was upset," Jeff pipes up, looking at him with big sad eyes that look more like they belong on one of Cynthia's ridiculous pink teddy bears more than on an actual person. He almost looks like he wants to cry a little. Blaine absently wonders what he did to make these people like him so much. "Do you want us to take you to the choir room and sing you something? I don't know who will sing the lead because these days that's your job but I'm sure we can figure it out."
Blaine just shakes his head.
"No thank you," he says. "I'm just tired."
Jeff nods at him in understanding and for the next couple of hours the Warblers seem to try to give him a wider berth, so that he can work through whatever it is he needs to work through. They give up soon, after Wes catches him staring blankly at his desk, completely oblivious to the fact that class has let out and he's the last person in the room.
"Come on, Blaine," Wes says, frowning a little as he gently tugs on Blaine's blazer. "We'll be late for chemistry."
In the end, the Warblers end up leading him around from one class to the next, like a pack of seeing-eye dogs, and it almost feels like he's the new kid again, only his displacement is no longer coming from a lack of familiarity. He's lost because somehow he's trapped in a shell of himself, but his mind, his personality, everything that makes him who he is, has gone off into hiding somewhere he doesn't know how to follow.
Everyone is worried about him - Kurt, his parents, but the Warblers are especially bad. They hover around him like a flock of nervous hens as they try to keep his head above water with his schoolwork. They don't even seem to mind when his hours of listlessness becomes a day, then two, and then a week, and he hasn't so much as gotten out of his chair in the choir room to sing his share of backing vocals, let alone successfully manage to sing the lead on any of their songs for sectionals.
It's not that he isn't interested in music anymore. He still thinks he's lucky to be a part of the club, and even listens to all the songs they're practising whenever he's alone. In fact he's been listening to more music in general since that night than he has listened to since his parents gave him his iPod, but only to have something there to distract from the fog in his mind. The concept of standing up and singing something right now takes too much energy to even contemplate. Most of the time it's almost second nature to him to shut out the feelings cluttering up his mind to put on a different face and sing something top 40 and pointless. It's just a slight variant on the kind of acting he's been doing almost as long as he can remember, but it's different when there don't seem to be any emotions for him to block out and he can't get a handle on the ones he's supposed to be trying to emulate, either.
"Just take some time off," Nick says from his seat on the council, trying to look as encouraging as possible. "You're the strongest lead we've ever had, and most of what we need to work on right now is the backing vocals anyhow. You'll be ready when we're ready to work on your part again. Don't worry."
Blaine wasn't worried because he doesn't care about what happens at sectionals, but he doesn't tell them this. He has a feeling that deep down they know anyhow, and even if they didn't, the thought of being spiteful or hurtful to anyone is suddenly the last thing he wants to do. He's gone from insulting everyone inside his head at the slightest provocation to having no emotional response to them at all. His own anger has drained away from him with the rest of his energy and there doesn't seem to be much point anymore. Mostly he just wants to sleep.
Once the word about Blaine's problems hit New Directions back in Lima, Blaine starts to see more of them on a regular basis. The newly "reformed" Quinn, who has gone back to blonde hair and dressing like she doesn't know what sex is in an attempt to ingratiate herself with Shelby, starts coming over to his house at night again. It's awkward when his nightmares, which had died out for the most part over the summer, start coming back again, the terror and rage and pain he can't feel when he's awake finding an avenue when his defences are down and there's nothing to stop them from taking over. Quinn never asks if he wants to talk about it when he wakes up with his heart racing and embarrassing, anguished noises still in his throat. She only ever slides closer to him on the bed and puts an arm across his shoulders while her other hand brushes through his hair until numbness or sleep have a chance to creep back over him. Apart from Kurt, she's the only person who never tries to make him snap out of it.
Even his parents try to get him to talk about what's bothering him until Dr. Hong overhears them one day and gently pulls them aside to suggest that they give him a little more time to sort things out on his own terms. It might mean more to Blaine if he hadn't just spent an hour with her as she tried to make him explain why he thought he might be "shutting down" his emotions before he gives himself a chance to sort through them. She keeps trying to tell him that he should look into changing his prescriptions and talking to him about depression, but Blaine balks at the idea of any changes to his medications; it took them so long to find something that didn't make him feel like hell. The new appointments end up being made anyhow, but in the end, at least Dr. Hong knows what she's doing when she talks to Blaine or makes him change his routine. She never pushes him for the sake of her own comfort.
The same can't be said for Finn and Rachel, who are terrible at minding their own business, and always make a point of coming into Kurt's room to talk to him whenever he happens to be over, not even bothering to knock, like they know he and Kurt have been acting like monks around each other ever since this started anyway. It seems to be harder on Kurt than it is on Blaine, who just goes along with whatever pointless activity that gets thrown at him. But Kurt looks like he wants to slap the fake smiles off their faces, and starts acting like none of their friends are good enough at interacting with him to risk being allowed within 30 feet of him. He even starts trying to get out of shopping dates with Mercedes when she begins to invite Blaine along with them, like he has to protect Blaine from her questions. Blaine is at least aware enough to call Kurt on it and tell him that it's stupid for them to put their lives on hold until Blaine stops acting like a freak, since there's very little evidence that will ever actually happen. Blaine never has fun when he agrees to go with them, but in the end it serves the same function as the music: a distraction, and at any rate it seems to make everyone feel better when he shows up. Soon Santana and Brittany and, however implausibly, Puck begin to join them for "retail therapy" if they know Blaine will be there, too.
Even poor clueless Brittany can tell that something's wrong with him and tells him long stories with tears in her eyes about the time when she was little and her favourite doll was left too close to an iron and got it's hair burned off and "was never the same again."
"For God's sake, Brittany," Santana finally snaps. "Blaine's clown hair did not hold superpowers, okay? He's having a bad month or something; he didn't lose his Blaine magic when he lost his split ends."
"Maybe you should try locking in what's left with some hair gel, just in case," Brittany suggests as she looks at him, heartbroken. As ridiculous as her solutions are, Blaine wishes he could live in a world like hers, where there's an easy solution to every problem. She's so adamant about fixing him that she insists on buying a whole shopping cart full of hair product and driving back to Westerville with him and Kurt so she can save him before they lose any more time.
The end results are atrocious. It looks like someone has forced him to lower his head into a bucket of shellac and then forced his hair to lay flat on his head in carefully situated waves. Cynthia laughs delightedly when she sees it and runs to her room to grab a Ken doll and hold it next to Blaine's face.
Brittany claps excitedly when she sees them side-by-side.
"That's the look I was going for," she says. "A lot of people think Ken's a douche, but whatever people say about him, he never changes. He never starts being someone new."
Blaine thanks Brittany profusely for everything she's done, because that's just what you do after Brittany "helps" you with a problem, and washes everything out as soon as she's left with Kurt. That night he doesn't sleep, just stares at the ceiling thinking about her words. Has he changed again? He's spent so much time since coming back convinced he was too different to properly fit into this world again, but for a brief moment he'd actually thought that he was getting closer to belonging again.
The idea that he's somehow destroyed his one chance at normalcy eats away at him until daylight starts creeping in through his window. Things don't feel as bleak and meaningless as they did the night before, but in its place there is an uneasy restlessness. Blaine feels like there are spiders skittering around inside his chest, as desperate to escape as he is to have them leave. It gets worse as the day progresses, his anxiety warring against his apathy until he wants to scream and only stop once the tension and exhaustion have left his body.
"Nothing makes sense," he responds to Trent's "How are you holding up?" that afternoon as he's being dragged out of history class towards the choir room for practise. "It's like there's so many things inside me I'm not even here."
Trent looks at him strangely for half a second before he recovers and says, sympathetically,
"I know what you mean. I feel like that sometimes when I don't get enough sleep during midterms. It's like you're floating everywhere and nothing exists except important names and dates from the War of the Roses. Just awful."
Trent has no idea what Blaine means, but it's still pretty sweet to hear how he and the rest of the Warblers try so desperately hard to make him feel normal while he fights through whatever the hell it is he's going through.
Kurt comes up to them and loops his arm through Blaine's as he kisses him quickly on the cheek and smiles a hello. He doesn't bother to ask how Blaine's doing. They both know better than to ask Blaine questions like that at this point. He's turning to ask Trent a question when the smile drops off his face and is replaced by a look of incredulous disbelief. Blaine cranes his neck around a little to see what the problem is.
"Kurt, oh thank God I found you, I've been looking for you everywhere," she says as she hurries up to meet them.
"Rachel," Kurt says, in a strained voice. "What are you doing here?"
"Kurt, I have terrible news," Rachel says, so distraught that her agitation is almost three-quarters genuine instead of entirely put-on. "It's about you and the Warblers. I need to talk to all of you right away."
"What's going on?" Kurt demands. "Rachel, what are you talking about?"
"Kurt," Rachel says, clutching at his sleeve in desperation. "I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry, but one of my sources got access to all the sectionals competition brackets. I wasn't going to look, I didn't want to, but it's my senior year and I had to know the enemies of my enemies if I wanted to defeat them just this one time before I graduate. I had to know, Kurt."
"I take it we're going against each other in sectionals then?" Kurt asks, his tone indicating that he doesn't know if he should be amused or annoyed. But Rachel shakes her head, sombrely.
"Who McKinley is competing against doesn't matter right now," She says, her voice dropping as she steeples her fingers together and presses them to her forehead, taking a deep breath before continuing. "You're my favourite Kurt, when I beat everyone at Nationals this year, the only person I want to come in second to me is you. But the Warblers are in trouble and if you want to do this for me, you need to change your plan of attack right now, because they will wipe the floor with you."
"Rachel," Kurt starts again, sounding completely frustrated now, but Rachel interrupts before he can say anything more.
"It's Vocal Adrenaline, Kurt. The Warblers are going to be the first glee club of the year competing against Vocal Adrenaline."
To Part Four B
Author: firefly_ca
Pairing,Character(s): Kurt/Blaine, with appearances by Stevie and the Evans family, the Andersons, and large swaths of Glee clubbers (New Directions and Warblers)
Rating: NC-17 for disturbing themes, scenes, etc.
Word Count: TBD - Part 4 is 26K
Spoilers: All of S2, up to 3x05
Summary: AU. Blaine Anderson lived under another name for almost nine years with an abusive man he was forced to pretend was his father. He always thought his own family had given up on him, but now that he's found out the majority of his life was spent believing a lie, he has to try to reconcile the life he had with the life that was taken away from him. Sequel to Looking for a Happy Ending.
Note: Huge thanks to my betas LoonyLevicorpus and callmerayray for taking the fic and trying to help me avoid stupid typos and things that make no sense this time around. Any mistakes you find are all from last-minute edits I made before I posted. Because sometimes I can't leave good enough alone.
A/N: TRIGGER WARNINGS ADDED - This is relevant for the very first section, so please make sure you've looked through them. I don't want to set anyone off. There are is discussion of child abuse (sexual and physical), some homophobia, and talk of cutting. I'll try to add these to the masterpost today as well.
This section is going to start looking a little like an acceptance speech from now on, but I've got a lot of people who helped me sort some things out about adopting older children in the States. There are a few areas where I took a couple liberties, but a solid 95% of Kurt's and Blaine's forays into adoption are true to life as I could make it. canuckpagali and callmerayray especially gave me a TON of information about this, and I couldn't have written it without either of them. They are both crazy awesome :D
Some Day
At first, they have such terrible luck with the adoption agency it almost seems like the universe doesn't want them to be parents, a fact that leaves Blaine almost too wrecked to function.
"Sweetheart, you've got to calm down a little," Kurt says in frustration, but Blaine honestly can't help it. All he can think about these days, all he's been thinking about ever since their names were put on a list, is that today could be the day when they find the rest of their family.
Adopting an older child isn't as straightforward as adopting a baby, though, and that's pretty damn complicated in and of itself. There are a lot of hoops that have to be jumped through, and if one little thing doesn't line up, it can ruin the entire process. Kurt and Blaine end up making a scrapbook, geared to the age of child they'd agreed with the agency would be the best fit: a boy or girl around 10 years old (give or take a couple years in either direction, depending on compatibility). The scrapbook is all about their lives together and what they do for work and the kinds of things they like. Sometimes it's just for the kid's benefit, so they can look through it and decide if Kurt and Blaine are interesting and worth meeting. Sometimes the birth parents look at it, too, if they're still present in their child's life and have any say in what happens to them.
Kurt hates the idea that their future son or daughter gets to pick them "out of a catalogue," but Blaine secretly likes it. He already feels like he's doing the same thing to them when the agency arranges meetings with children to get an idea if Kurt and Blaine will be compatible. This levels the playing field.
"The idea isn't to see if you instantly hit it off," says Nancy, the social worker with the name Blaine finally figured out a week after their first interview with her. "We've even adopted kids into families where they've physically lashed out at their adoptive parents the first time they met. We want to see if you can establish rapport with them, and mostly to see how you handle them and their responses. It's not a test, but it will give us an idea on if you have compatible personalities, which is something you need to think about when the child is older and you don't have any previous relationship with them."
The first meeting is a complete mess. The little 7-year-old girl is sweet, charming, a little on the slow side thanks to what Nancy terms as "severe neglect," and apparently staggeringly homophobic, if that's even the right word for it. It's something absolutely no one knew about, either, not until halfway through the meeting when she suddenly realized what the two of them being married meant. One second she's showing Blaine how she ties her shoes and the next she's literally clinging to the far wall, refusing to make eye contact, genuinely terrified and muttering, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," over and over again.
Blaine has no idea what she thought they were, since she knew they were married before she met them and had been told multiple times that he and Kurt "love each other." It's as though she has no comprehension of why people get married or what love means as a concept. The absolute worst part of it is the only people to get mad at have already been removed from the picture for being unfit parents. Even Nancy looks shaken when she joins them in the car a few minutes later, after leaving the girl in the care of her foster parents.
"I'm so sorry," she says, her voice tight with emotion. "We had no idea... That's never happened with her before. There's nothing in her file that indicated she'd have that response."
Blaine doesn't want to leave. He wants to go back into the house and hold her until she stops being afraid, even though he knows he can't. He just wants to help her.
"Someone will help her," Nancy says, firmly. "Her foster parents are very good, and they're long-term care besides. They'll figure out what the problem is before too long, and they'll help her get past it. Maybe one day she'll end up adopted into a gay family, who knows? But it won't be your family. It would be disastrous and cruel for everyone if we kept pretending it was a possibility at this point."
Blaine knows she's oversimplifying, but he knows she's also telling the truth when she says this is better for everyone. It doesn't stop him from worrying about the little girl constantly.
The next meeting is cancelled weeks in advance. The little boy, an 11-year-old this time, has a parent who gets some say in where her child is placed, and is only agreeing to adoption on the condition that the arrangement is open and she still gets to be involved with her son. Things seem to be progressing nicely on Nancy's end until suddenly one day they aren't. When Nancy calls to explain she says it's because the boy's father has shown up again and doesn't want his kid living in "a house full of atheists."
"Right," Kurt says, as he tries to keep his voice from breaking. Blaine reaches across the kitchen table and squeezes his arm. "All one of me."
"Under most circumstances, the parents are allowed to specify if they want their children to be raised in a religious environment," Nancy says.
"I'm sure," Kurt says, bitterly. "Of course that's what this is about - atheism and not some backwards-thinking physically-abusive alcoholic saying he doesn't want his kid to grow up with queers."
Nancy doesn't even try to deny it.
"I'm really sorry about this, guys," she says. "But please don't give up. These kinds of things can sometimes happen when the birth parents have a say in the adoption. It's just the nature of the beast."
After the second cancellation, it's months before they hear from Nancy again. They don't talk about it to each other, like they've forgotten they ever done so much as walked into a parenting class together 2 years earlier, or been subjected to home visits from social workers. But even pretending to forget is impossible with the second bedroom still in some strange sort of limbo and sadness and strain he knows is in his eyes mirrored back at him in Kurt's whenever they look at each other. Some nights he hears Kurt on the phone with his father in the other room, crying. Blaine always stays away until they've said their goodbyes and acts like he hasn't noticed when Kurt comes back into the living room with a watery smile on his face that he knows couldn't possibly fool anyone, let alone his husband. He holds Kurt closer than usual on the nights that they go to bed after there's been a phone call to Ohio.
Then one afternoon he gets a text from Kurt asking him to take the rest of the day off and come home. It's a bizarre request, since Kurt is supposed to be at the theatre rehearsing that evening anyhow, and he would never send a text message asking for Blaine to bail on work instead of calling unless he was too worked up to string a sentence together.
Blaine gets home in half an hour. Kurt is in the lobby waiting for him, one arm wrapped tightly around his torso, the other nervously chewing on a nail. His face is flushed and his eyes are darting around the room, not like he's scared, but upset nonetheless and too distracted by whatever is going on in his head to focus properly on anything.
"What's going on?" Blaine asks as soon as he's inside.
Kurt just shakes his head as he grabs Blaine's arm and hauls him towards the elevator. He doesn't say a word the entire ride to their floor, only fidgets silently as Blaine feels the tension build up inside him to near unbearable levels.
"Nancy called," Kurt says the second the door to their apartment closes shut behind them.
Blaine figured it would have something to do with the adoption, but his heart still gives a little lurch when Kurt says it.
"Does she have another name?" Blaine asks, hesitantly.
Kurt looks at him with a somewhat pained expression.
"She has two," he says. "I didn't know what to tell her. I told her I needed to talk to you about it before we agreed to meet anyone and I couldn't handle waiting until we both got home."
"Okay," Blaine says, a little slowly. "I understand you needed to talk to me first, but this is really good news, isn't it? We already told them we would be willing to take siblings if they think we'll be a good fit for them."
Kurt just looks at him. He's acting shell-shocked.
"What's the catch?" Blaine asks, cringing a little at his choice of words but he can't help it because Kurt is looking at him like his world is breaking apart and Blaine can't figure out why this has him so shaken.
"It's a boy and a girl," Kurt finally says. "The little boy is ten. He's a sports fan, and he likes cartoons. Nancy says he has some anger problems, and that he needs to learn impulse control - that it's not okay to hit when you get scared or angry, but he's a really good little kid who normally wouldn't be too hard to adopt out."
"So the problem's his sister," Blaine guesses, and when Kurt wilts a little more he knows he's right.
"She's way outside our age range, Blaine," he says.
"How old?" Blaine asks.
"Fourteen," Kurt says. "And she's... extremely unstable."
"Violent?" Blaine asks, but Kurt shakes his head.
"No," he says. "Nancy says she has a wonderful personality and is very polite and never puts a toe out of line, and that she's just about the only person who can make her brother behave himself instantly."
"Is the only problem her age?"
Kurt shakes his head again, and his eyes start to go glassy. It's beyond disconcerting to see him acting this way, but it's becoming clearer to Blaine why, anyhow. Kurt's acting like he normally does about these calls from Nancy, and has fallen hard for the kids without even seeing a picture.
"They keep getting bounced to different foster homes," Kurt says in a rush. "When she's not in a psych ward. No one knows what to do with her. Foster parents all say she's too much work."
"Psych ward?" Blaine repeats, suddenly starting to realize why he's having to fight through Kurt's explanations to get any real answers. There is no way he's going to like what he hears. Kurt is probably half terrified of triggering him in some way.
"She cuts herself," Kurt says.
"So do a lot of kids," Blaine says. "We told Nancy we were prepared to deal with that."
Kurt leans into Blaine's shoulder. Blaine can feel him trembling a little.
"It's a little more extreme than what most kids do. She's almost bled to death three times since they entered the system a year and a half ago."
"You're not telling me everything," Blaine accuses.
"I don't want to tell you everything," Kurt mutters. "I don't want to say it out loud."
This, Blaine decides, is why everyone jokes that there is only going to be one functional parent in their home at any given time, because as Blaine watches Kurt shut down he can feel himself switch to the side of his brain reserved for gathering and sorting facts as he weeds out any unnecessary emotions and pushes them off to the side to deal with later. He steers Kurt to the couch and sits both of them down.
"So she doesn't cut her arms, is what you're saying," he guesses.
"Her thighs," Kurt finally admits, looking a little grey. "And that...general area."
"Right," Blaine says. "So sexual abuse? Or is it something else? What happened to the little boy?"
"It's sexual abuse and other things," Kurt says. "The mother got a boyfriend, and things got really bad. They're pretty sure the only one he ever targeted was the girl, though. He's in jail, and the mother got a slap on the wrist. She was fighting to get the boy back for a while, which forced them to put off trying to adopt them, but then it came out that she wasn't exactly watching from the sidelines for all of the abuse, either. There's no way she'll be allowed to keep either of them anymore."
Kurt hugs Blaine tightly as he continues.
"The stuff he was doing didn't even sound like abuse. It was more like torture. It sounds like the worst things that ever happened to you, but all the time. Without a break for almost a whole year before anyone found out what was happening."
"So this girl is a danger to herself and is so creepy in the ways that she goes about it she scares the foster families, right?" Blaine says, waiting for Kurt to nod a little reluctantly, like admitting it will make Blaine's words the new reality instead of just an acknowledgment of a pre-existing fact. "Why does Nancy think she would work well with us?"
"Because her brother sounds legitimately perfect for us," Kurt says. "Because we said we'd think about adopting siblings, and she thought we wouldn't scare as easily as any of the other parents who are on the list. Because you're amazing and I think Nancy thinks saving children is a hobby you do in your spare time."
He's calming down a little now, and Blaine thinks that's a good thing, so he jokingly says,
"Only sometimes. Like, sometimes I'll stop speeding trains to help them out every now and then if they wander onto the tracks, but only if no one's watching. I don't like showing off."
"That's showing off?" Kurt asks, quirking an eyebrow at him.
"Kurt," Blaine says, seriously. "I'm fucking Superman. I don't rub people's faces in it."
Kurt sits up a little straighter and punches him lightly in the side, laughing a little as he says,
"So help me god, Blaine, if you're cheating on me, I'll serve you your balls on a platter. I don't care how nice his abs look in that spandex leotard."
Blaine leans over and tickles him in the side, the only spot on Kurt's entire body where he's ticklish. Kurt shrieks a little and squirms to get away, so Blaine swings his legs across Kurt's lap, pinning him in place while he continues the assault. After a few minutes Kurt is laughing gently and his body has relaxed as he mildly tries to fight Blaine off.
"Feel better?" Blaine asks. Kurt shrugs.
"Maybe a little," he says.
"I didn't think you'd let it get to you like that," Blaine says, moving his arm around to wrap Kurt in a half-hug. He's practically sitting on his lap now. "You were always so level-headed when it was my issues getting thrown at you."
Kurt laughs louder at that and sighs a little as he lets his head fall back against Blaine.
"Go say that to any of my family and see how they react," he says. "I was such a basket case when I started to date you. It wasn't as bad when I was with you, but when you weren't there? I was beside myself all the time. Some days I walked in the door and immediately start crying like I'd never be able to stop."
"I didn't know," Blaine says.
"I never wanted you to," Kurt says. "You had this awful habit of apologizing and acting like it was your fault when there was nothing you had done wrong."
"But that's awful," Blaine says. "I didn't know it was so hard on you. And I am sorry."
Kurt snorts.
"You still have that habit. Don't be sad about it Blaine. It's hard to deal with, and it was really hard to deal with when everything was new to me and everyday felt like there was some new horrible thing I was finding out about your life, but in the end it was worth it. Aside from the obvious, where nothing happened to you in the first place, I wouldn't change anything. Not if it meant I never got to have you in my life at all."
Blaine leans down and kisses the top of Kurt's head.
"Call Nancy back," he says. "If you can handle me all on your own, I'm sure between the two of us we can handle the girl. According to you, she'll be worth it."
"Maggie," Kurt corrects, finally remembering that he's sort of been leaving out one of the most important parts. "Their names are Maggie and Marshall."
"They match," Blaine comments. "I've never been part of a matching family before."
"You know when they get here, you may not be able to sit on my lap like this anymore," Kurt says. "It's sort of weird."
"Shut up, you love it," Blaine says, staying right where he is. "We're adorable. They'll get used to it."
***
For Now
Blaine doesn't understand why, but something about the conversation he and Kurt have about Tom that night sets off a chain of reactions in him he didn't even know he was capable of having. The next morning when he wakes up, still in Kurt's arms, he feels like he's been shoved through a wood chipper, like the guy in Fargo. His limbs are too heavy and feel like they're not properly attached to his body. His eyelids feel like sandpaper. His ears don't even seem to be working properly as he listens to Kurt's gentle voice encourage him into a sitting position so they both can get out of the bed. Everything sounds too loud and too far off at the same time. He can't remember the last time he's felt this tired. His joints ache with exhaustion, like he hasn't slept for weeks. Even when he first got home and was trying to sleep off cracked ribs, he didn't feel as run down as he does now.
The way his body feels is nothing compared to how muddled his thoughts are, though. It feels like his brain has been scooped out of him and someone's filled his head up with cotton wool in its place.
"Are you okay?" Kurt keeps asking. "You seem really upset."
But Blaine isn't upset. He feels hollow, like everything has been taken away and nothing matters anymore. He thinks maybe it should feel a little scary, but the thought of feeling scared about anything just exhausts him further.
That morning he gets sent to the principal's office three times for not paying attention in class before he's sent to the nurse and then finally the counsellor. Everyone stares at him with the same worried expression. Blaine doesn't understand what's so troubling, but when Kurt and Wes and a handful of the other Warblers find him at lunchtime, Thad sums it up nicely when he says,
"Blaine, you look like death. Are you sure you're going to be okay?"
"Wes and some of the guys heard part of our fight last night," Kurt tells him, blushing a little, like he's embarrassed that everyone heard what they were fighting about. Blaine probably would be too, if he didn't feel so...flat. "They were worried and wanted to talk to you."
"Kurt says his old glee club used to sing to each other when someone was upset," Jeff pipes up, looking at him with big sad eyes that look more like they belong on one of Cynthia's ridiculous pink teddy bears more than on an actual person. He almost looks like he wants to cry a little. Blaine absently wonders what he did to make these people like him so much. "Do you want us to take you to the choir room and sing you something? I don't know who will sing the lead because these days that's your job but I'm sure we can figure it out."
Blaine just shakes his head.
"No thank you," he says. "I'm just tired."
Jeff nods at him in understanding and for the next couple of hours the Warblers seem to try to give him a wider berth, so that he can work through whatever it is he needs to work through. They give up soon, after Wes catches him staring blankly at his desk, completely oblivious to the fact that class has let out and he's the last person in the room.
"Come on, Blaine," Wes says, frowning a little as he gently tugs on Blaine's blazer. "We'll be late for chemistry."
In the end, the Warblers end up leading him around from one class to the next, like a pack of seeing-eye dogs, and it almost feels like he's the new kid again, only his displacement is no longer coming from a lack of familiarity. He's lost because somehow he's trapped in a shell of himself, but his mind, his personality, everything that makes him who he is, has gone off into hiding somewhere he doesn't know how to follow.
Everyone is worried about him - Kurt, his parents, but the Warblers are especially bad. They hover around him like a flock of nervous hens as they try to keep his head above water with his schoolwork. They don't even seem to mind when his hours of listlessness becomes a day, then two, and then a week, and he hasn't so much as gotten out of his chair in the choir room to sing his share of backing vocals, let alone successfully manage to sing the lead on any of their songs for sectionals.
It's not that he isn't interested in music anymore. He still thinks he's lucky to be a part of the club, and even listens to all the songs they're practising whenever he's alone. In fact he's been listening to more music in general since that night than he has listened to since his parents gave him his iPod, but only to have something there to distract from the fog in his mind. The concept of standing up and singing something right now takes too much energy to even contemplate. Most of the time it's almost second nature to him to shut out the feelings cluttering up his mind to put on a different face and sing something top 40 and pointless. It's just a slight variant on the kind of acting he's been doing almost as long as he can remember, but it's different when there don't seem to be any emotions for him to block out and he can't get a handle on the ones he's supposed to be trying to emulate, either.
"Just take some time off," Nick says from his seat on the council, trying to look as encouraging as possible. "You're the strongest lead we've ever had, and most of what we need to work on right now is the backing vocals anyhow. You'll be ready when we're ready to work on your part again. Don't worry."
Blaine wasn't worried because he doesn't care about what happens at sectionals, but he doesn't tell them this. He has a feeling that deep down they know anyhow, and even if they didn't, the thought of being spiteful or hurtful to anyone is suddenly the last thing he wants to do. He's gone from insulting everyone inside his head at the slightest provocation to having no emotional response to them at all. His own anger has drained away from him with the rest of his energy and there doesn't seem to be much point anymore. Mostly he just wants to sleep.
Once the word about Blaine's problems hit New Directions back in Lima, Blaine starts to see more of them on a regular basis. The newly "reformed" Quinn, who has gone back to blonde hair and dressing like she doesn't know what sex is in an attempt to ingratiate herself with Shelby, starts coming over to his house at night again. It's awkward when his nightmares, which had died out for the most part over the summer, start coming back again, the terror and rage and pain he can't feel when he's awake finding an avenue when his defences are down and there's nothing to stop them from taking over. Quinn never asks if he wants to talk about it when he wakes up with his heart racing and embarrassing, anguished noises still in his throat. She only ever slides closer to him on the bed and puts an arm across his shoulders while her other hand brushes through his hair until numbness or sleep have a chance to creep back over him. Apart from Kurt, she's the only person who never tries to make him snap out of it.
Even his parents try to get him to talk about what's bothering him until Dr. Hong overhears them one day and gently pulls them aside to suggest that they give him a little more time to sort things out on his own terms. It might mean more to Blaine if he hadn't just spent an hour with her as she tried to make him explain why he thought he might be "shutting down" his emotions before he gives himself a chance to sort through them. She keeps trying to tell him that he should look into changing his prescriptions and talking to him about depression, but Blaine balks at the idea of any changes to his medications; it took them so long to find something that didn't make him feel like hell. The new appointments end up being made anyhow, but in the end, at least Dr. Hong knows what she's doing when she talks to Blaine or makes him change his routine. She never pushes him for the sake of her own comfort.
The same can't be said for Finn and Rachel, who are terrible at minding their own business, and always make a point of coming into Kurt's room to talk to him whenever he happens to be over, not even bothering to knock, like they know he and Kurt have been acting like monks around each other ever since this started anyway. It seems to be harder on Kurt than it is on Blaine, who just goes along with whatever pointless activity that gets thrown at him. But Kurt looks like he wants to slap the fake smiles off their faces, and starts acting like none of their friends are good enough at interacting with him to risk being allowed within 30 feet of him. He even starts trying to get out of shopping dates with Mercedes when she begins to invite Blaine along with them, like he has to protect Blaine from her questions. Blaine is at least aware enough to call Kurt on it and tell him that it's stupid for them to put their lives on hold until Blaine stops acting like a freak, since there's very little evidence that will ever actually happen. Blaine never has fun when he agrees to go with them, but in the end it serves the same function as the music: a distraction, and at any rate it seems to make everyone feel better when he shows up. Soon Santana and Brittany and, however implausibly, Puck begin to join them for "retail therapy" if they know Blaine will be there, too.
Even poor clueless Brittany can tell that something's wrong with him and tells him long stories with tears in her eyes about the time when she was little and her favourite doll was left too close to an iron and got it's hair burned off and "was never the same again."
"For God's sake, Brittany," Santana finally snaps. "Blaine's clown hair did not hold superpowers, okay? He's having a bad month or something; he didn't lose his Blaine magic when he lost his split ends."
"Maybe you should try locking in what's left with some hair gel, just in case," Brittany suggests as she looks at him, heartbroken. As ridiculous as her solutions are, Blaine wishes he could live in a world like hers, where there's an easy solution to every problem. She's so adamant about fixing him that she insists on buying a whole shopping cart full of hair product and driving back to Westerville with him and Kurt so she can save him before they lose any more time.
The end results are atrocious. It looks like someone has forced him to lower his head into a bucket of shellac and then forced his hair to lay flat on his head in carefully situated waves. Cynthia laughs delightedly when she sees it and runs to her room to grab a Ken doll and hold it next to Blaine's face.
Brittany claps excitedly when she sees them side-by-side.
"That's the look I was going for," she says. "A lot of people think Ken's a douche, but whatever people say about him, he never changes. He never starts being someone new."
Blaine thanks Brittany profusely for everything she's done, because that's just what you do after Brittany "helps" you with a problem, and washes everything out as soon as she's left with Kurt. That night he doesn't sleep, just stares at the ceiling thinking about her words. Has he changed again? He's spent so much time since coming back convinced he was too different to properly fit into this world again, but for a brief moment he'd actually thought that he was getting closer to belonging again.
The idea that he's somehow destroyed his one chance at normalcy eats away at him until daylight starts creeping in through his window. Things don't feel as bleak and meaningless as they did the night before, but in its place there is an uneasy restlessness. Blaine feels like there are spiders skittering around inside his chest, as desperate to escape as he is to have them leave. It gets worse as the day progresses, his anxiety warring against his apathy until he wants to scream and only stop once the tension and exhaustion have left his body.
"Nothing makes sense," he responds to Trent's "How are you holding up?" that afternoon as he's being dragged out of history class towards the choir room for practise. "It's like there's so many things inside me I'm not even here."
Trent looks at him strangely for half a second before he recovers and says, sympathetically,
"I know what you mean. I feel like that sometimes when I don't get enough sleep during midterms. It's like you're floating everywhere and nothing exists except important names and dates from the War of the Roses. Just awful."
Trent has no idea what Blaine means, but it's still pretty sweet to hear how he and the rest of the Warblers try so desperately hard to make him feel normal while he fights through whatever the hell it is he's going through.
Kurt comes up to them and loops his arm through Blaine's as he kisses him quickly on the cheek and smiles a hello. He doesn't bother to ask how Blaine's doing. They both know better than to ask Blaine questions like that at this point. He's turning to ask Trent a question when the smile drops off his face and is replaced by a look of incredulous disbelief. Blaine cranes his neck around a little to see what the problem is.
"Kurt, oh thank God I found you, I've been looking for you everywhere," she says as she hurries up to meet them.
"Rachel," Kurt says, in a strained voice. "What are you doing here?"
"Kurt, I have terrible news," Rachel says, so distraught that her agitation is almost three-quarters genuine instead of entirely put-on. "It's about you and the Warblers. I need to talk to all of you right away."
"What's going on?" Kurt demands. "Rachel, what are you talking about?"
"Kurt," Rachel says, clutching at his sleeve in desperation. "I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry, but one of my sources got access to all the sectionals competition brackets. I wasn't going to look, I didn't want to, but it's my senior year and I had to know the enemies of my enemies if I wanted to defeat them just this one time before I graduate. I had to know, Kurt."
"I take it we're going against each other in sectionals then?" Kurt asks, his tone indicating that he doesn't know if he should be amused or annoyed. But Rachel shakes her head, sombrely.
"Who McKinley is competing against doesn't matter right now," She says, her voice dropping as she steeples her fingers together and presses them to her forehead, taking a deep breath before continuing. "You're my favourite Kurt, when I beat everyone at Nationals this year, the only person I want to come in second to me is you. But the Warblers are in trouble and if you want to do this for me, you need to change your plan of attack right now, because they will wipe the floor with you."
"Rachel," Kurt starts again, sounding completely frustrated now, but Rachel interrupts before he can say anything more.
"It's Vocal Adrenaline, Kurt. The Warblers are going to be the first glee club of the year competing against Vocal Adrenaline."
To Part Four B