Fourth Prompt Post
Welcome to the Glee Angst Meme again! You know how these things work. You can come here and prompt your most angsty prompts, and write stories filling those angsty prompts to let our characters suffer
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"Let him sleep in today," Finn heard his mom whisper to Burt.
He glanced inside the bedroom to see Kurt had rolled himself up in his blankets, feet sticking out towards the foot of the bed-and his eyes were open, staring straight at Finn.
"Dude, you okay?" Finn asked as he inched towards the bed. "Did Blaine do something?"
Kurt sniffed. "We're over, Finn." His voice sounded wrecked, probably from all that yelling and crying he'd done last night.
"What happened?"
Kurt stared at him, mouth working silently, then buried his head back into his pillow.
"Finn," Burt called reproachfully from his place at Kurt's bedroom door.
Finn went to school with nervous butterflies fluttering around his stomach. He didn't like not knowing what was going on. He'd tried to call Blaine but had only gotten sent to voicemail. Blaine wouldn't even answer the texts he sent.
Whatever'd happened, it had to be big.
"What is up with my boy?" Mercedes asked between classes, cornering Finn at his locker. "First, he refuses to answer my calls and now he doesn't even show up to school. Is he avoiding me?"
Rachel strode towards them and overrode the other girl with her strident voice. "Finn. Did something happen between Kurt and Blaine? I tried to call Blaine to confirm our non-romantic date at the community theater on Saturday but he refuses to take my calls."
"Your his brother," Mercedes added. "Spill the details."
Both girls zeroed in on him with demanding eyes that made Finn squirm. "Uh, look, guys, I don't really know what's going on, either."
"Really?" Rachel looked at him doubtfully.
"It's not like I'd lie, Rachel," Finn said, finally letting the irritation he felt creep into his voice. "No one's talking about it-whatever it is. Not my mom or Burt and definitely not Kurt."
Mercedes shook her head. "Well, this just isn't going to fly." She whipped out her phone and started hitting buttons. "Kurt's going to call me if I have to call his number all day."
"I suppose she doesn't realize that he might have turned his phone off," Rachel said as Mercedes walked away.
"Well, this is Kurt we're talking about. Isn't he, like, attached to his phone?"
Rachel smiled at Finn. "Yes, normally. But these are hardly normal circumstances. You'll let me know when you find something out."
"Yeah, sure, Rach."
Finn sighed and rested his head on his locker when he was finally alone. Glee Club was going to be hell. He had no idea what to tell everyone when they asked, and they would definitely ask. That place was gossip central.
Well, he decided, slamming his locker shut, they'd have to figure it out on their own. He hadn't the slightest clue what was going on.
And he wouldn't. Not until someone at home talked.
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It used to be Burt Kurt would go to when he needed comfort. He might have just wrecked his relationship with his son for good, though he hoped not. But just the thought of Kurt hating him made him want to take all those secrets back in and...what? Let the two boys keep going as they were, never knowing they brothers?
If Burt hadn't told Kurt, Laura-or, worse, Laura's husband-would have, probably the first moment he crossed over the threshold and told them who he was. Hummel wasn't near as common a name as Anderson, especially in a small town like Lima.
Back in Westerville, the Andersons had probably told Blaine exactly what Burt had to tell Kurt. He wondered how the boy took it. If his parents cared enough to be kind about it. Neither Kurt nor Blaine ever said much about them but from his and Blaine's short conversation in the garage that day, he got the impression that they weren't very supportive.
That tiny bit of worry is what had him on the phone on his lunch break and dialing a number that hadn't changed in sixteen years. It was a miracle he'd even remembered what it was.
"Burt," Laura sighed when he said an abrupt hello. "What are you doing calling here?"
"How's Blaine taking the news?" No need to beat around the bush about this. They both knew what was going on.
"How do you think? We gave him something to calm him down."
"You drugged him?" Burt asked, incredulous.
"Oh, don't be so dramatic. It was just a little sherry."
Burt blew out a breath in frustration. "So he's okay, then?"
"As well as can be expected." There was an awkward pause, then, just as Burt was preparing to hang up, Laura stopped him. "Burt."
"Yeah...?"
"I want to see my son."
Burt's hand tightened on the phone. "You saw him at the concert thing. Christ, you met him."
"Richard has lawyers, Burt. You know he pays them well."
His face was probably scarlet by now, he reckoned, what with how anger was making blood pound in his ears.
His face was probably scarlet by now, he reckoned, what with how anger was making blood pound in his ears. "You can't threaten your way into seeing my son."
"I'm his mother-"
"You were never his mother."
Another silence fell between them but this time filled with tension. Laura didn't even warn Burt before hanging up, just left him with empty air. Burt rubbed a hand over his face and sighed, trying to ignore the slight ache in his arm.
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When Kurt saw him come in, he rolled in the other direction. Burt sighed and sat on the edge of the bed.
"Hey, kiddo. How you feeling?"
Kurt didn't answer, just huddled in on himself, arms crossed over his chest. He'd been giving Burt the silent treatment since he broke the news to him.
"Look, I know you're mad at me and I can't blame you, but we need to talk about this."
Nothing. Not even an indignant sniff.
"She wants to meet you."
Kurt's shoulders tensed. "I don't want to," he muttered.
"I know you don't. But she's going to keep pushing this until you don't have a choice."
"...fine. Whatever."
Burt placed a hand on his son's shoulder before getting up to leave.
"So what happened to it?" Kurt suddenly asked.
Burt paused, puzzled. "What?"
Kurt slowly sat up, leaned over the side of his bed, and pulled out a photo album from underneath it. "Mom was pregnant. There are pictures in here."
He flipped through the pages of his childhood, stopping at a picture of Connie. She had one hand pressed against her back, the other resting on the swell of her belly. She had a proud smile on her face. Her stomach poked out of the white tank top she wore.
Burt cleared his throat. "Miscarriage," he said roughly. It had gotten easier over the years to pretend that it really had been Kurt in these picture, that little pang of loss eased by the fantasy.
Kurt nodded knowingly. "So I was a replacement?"
"Hey!" Burt took hold of Kurt's chin and forced him to look up. "Your mom loved you like she was her own. She wasn't happy with what I did, that's for sure, but she loved you just the same. You were never a replacement."
"But-"
"The due dates were only a week apart. We were going to raise the two of you together, tell everyone she had twins."
Kurt's brow wrinkled. "Would that have worked?"
Burt gave a little laugh. "We had it worked out. But, then, you know...Connie had that fall and we lost the baby. You were all we had left. I think it made her love you all the more."
Tears dripped from Kurt's eyes and onto the plastic sheets of the photo album. He wiped at his eyes with the palms of his hands but pulled away when Burt tried to draw him in for a hug.
"Could you leave me alone?" he sniffed. "I haven't even started on my morning skin care regimine yet. The past few days have wrecked havoc on my complexion."
Burt stared at Kurt's pale, unblemished skin, then nodded. "You come get me if you need to talk."
Kurt's smile was watery and oh so fake. "Sure. I'll do that."
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"Hello, Mr. Hummel. I'm here to see Kurt." She held out a plate of cookies that were covered in clear plastic wrap. "I made some 'I'm sorry' cookies. I know I don't have anything to apologize for, but I thought they might help him feel better."
Burt hesitated but eventually nodded. Maybe having friends over would help Kurt. He did always say that 'girl talk' cheered him up, not that this was exactly girl talk.
Rachel brightened when he moved to let her pass. Finn hung back, shuffling his feet.
Kurt immediately straightened when the two of them walked into his room. Though he tried to look cool and composed at their entrance, his cheeks were too flushed and his eyes too bright to hide that he'd been crying.
He lifted his head imperiously. "Hello, Rachel. What are you doing here?"
Rachel hesitated, then sat beside him and nudged the plate of cookies in his direction. "I thought I'd come and cheer you up."
Kurt looked at the cookies, then back at her. "What'd you do?"
"Nothing! I was just worried, that's all. I thought..." Rachel's expression faltered. "Isn't this what friends do for each other?"
Kurt managed a small smile. "Thank you, Rachel. But I'm fine."
"Dude," Finn said, coming further into the room. "You haven't insulted me for, like, days. Something's up."
"Is it Blaine?" Rachel asked gently, ever mindful of her own failed romance with Jesse St. James.
Kurt looked between the two of them, debating on what to say. "It's...my mother," he finally settled on.
Rachel gasped. "She's alive?!"
"No." Kurt shot her a look. "But thank you for the painful reminder."
"Sorry," Rachel muttered. She exchanged a guilty look with Finn, who came to sit beside her.
"Why don't you just tell us?" Finn asked. "It'll probably get out anyway."
Kurt sighed. That was true. Lima was a small town. Things like this spread quickly...in fact, it was probably already making the rounds of the upper echelons of Westerville and would soon trickle their way. They might as well hear it from him first.
"My mom is Laura Anderson...B-Blaine's mom." He ducked his head down at the sudden silence.
Finn frowned in confusion. "Wait, what?"
Rachel made a shushing motion with her hand, then said, "Kurt. Does this mean you and Blaine..."
"Are brothers. Well, half-brothers. Apparantly, my father had a drunken reandezous with some strange woman at a bar once." Kurt sniffed disdainfully. "I was conceived in a dingy motel room-might as well have been in the back seat of his car."
"That sucks, man," Finn said after a moment.
"Yes, thank you, Finn."
"What are you going to do?" Rachel asked.
Kurt shrugged. "Wallow in self-pity, most likely. I'll probably be unbearable to around for quite a while."
"Well," Rachel said, "as someone who is accused of being unbearable on occassion-"
"So unbearable," Finn muttered a little too loudly. Rachel tossed him a quick glare before continuing.
"-I can help."
Kurt rolled his eyes. "I'm sorry, Rachel, this is nice and all, but I don't think you can help with this."
"Oh." She picked at the plastic covering the plate and pulled out a cookie to eat. Kurt took one for himself and handed another to Finn. The three of them sat in silence. The cookies didn't make him feel better, but the company didn't turn out to be so bad.
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"I don't think I can do this," Kurt said, taking a step back.
Burt placed a steadying hand against his shoulder. "Yeah, you can, kiddo. Just imagine we're having kind of fancy dinner or something-you know, the kinds you're always talking about having once you get to New York."
Kurt shot his dad a wry smile, laced with a thin line of bitterness. "I always imagined they'd be with Broadway producers, not with a woman who I have to..." He paused, eyes wide, and suddenly clutched Burt's hand. "Oh, god. I don't have to call her Mom, do I?"
Connie would have known what to do in this situation. Burt didn't. He could only flounder around helplessly and feel like the world's worst father for it.
"No," he began. "You don't have to do anything you don't want-"
"Except this," Kurt muttered.
Ignoring him, Burt went on. "Your mom will always be your mom, just as I'll always be your dad. So you call that woman in there whatever you want."
Kurt 's mouth opened.
"Within reason," Burt hastened to add.
He'd expected Laura to be there and her lawyers, all lined up along the wall behind her, but what he didn't expect to see was Blaine sitting beside her, his ungelled hair a curled mess and his face pale and sickly, like he'd been crying as much as Kurt had these past few days.
Burt glared at Laura, anger flaring painfully in his chest, and turned to block Kurt's view but the boy walked through the door before Burt could.
"Blaine," Kurt breathed in a pained voice. He stood frozen at the door with one of his hands curled up to his chest.
Blaine darted a glance up at him, but his eyes danced quickly away again, landing on the table in front of him, where he stared with a fixed determination.
Laura's eyes, however, looked Kurt over eagerly. "Hello, Kurt," she said. "I'm so glad you could make it. Why don't you sit down?"
Kurt gave Blaine one last, longing look, then went to sit stiffly in one of the chairs. Not the one directly in front of her, Burt noted, but one slightly to the side, away from both her and Blaine.
Laura frowned at him slightly but managed to keep a polite, even, dare Burt think it, concerned look on her face. "I know you must have a lot of questions," she said.
"Does he need to be here for this?" Burt interrupted.
Everyone turned to look at Blaine, who hunkered further down into his seat.
"Blaine's fine," Laura said, a hard edge creeping into her voice. "And I'm sure he has questions, too, don't you, honey?"
She put a hand on Blaine's arm and Burt could see it tense under the touch.
"So, Kurt." Laura removed her hand so she could spread them both in front of her. "Ask away."
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