Flicker from View (16/25)
Summary: There have been stories of the Anderson house for as long as Kurt Hummel can remember: stories about music playing from the second story, and whispers of a crying boy. So when his Glee Club decides to check it out as a pre-Halloween trip, he doesn't expect anything more than some dusty floorboards and a creaky staircase. What he finds instead, will change his life.
Rating: Mostly PG-13, with some R stuff for triggers.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Except the order of the words.
A/N: So, I know I said I was going to have this finished... But then I got sick and you just can't write a good ghost story when your brain is coming out of your nose. So. Here's the plan: I shall update this morning, tonight, and tomorrow. Then, when I return, I shall finish it. So, unfortunately, you have to wait until May 10 for the rest of it. Hopefully these three chapters will tide you over.
Chapter Sixteen
Coming out, although terrifying to fifteen-year-old Kurt, had brought him a lot of relief and brand new opportunities. Not only was it the beginning of a much better relationship with his dad - and that was worth everything - but it also paved the way for slackening some of the boundaries between him and the girls.
Or, in simpler terms, it made the parents of some of his friends comfortable enough to permit him to join the girls’ many sleepovers. The girls who had welcomed him into their group last year, and possibly saved his life, could now feel free to gossip with him and whisper about boys… Even if it wasn’t always in a way he could really understand.
(It also led him to knowing far more about their biology than any male wants to know; but that was such a small price to pay for their friendship.)
Things had changed this year. With the bullies finding a particular pleasure in torturing Kurt, and the discovery of Blaine, he had been drifting away from his girls. There was also Rachel, who finally had her Finn and often asked Kurt to play spy for her, and Tina, who actually had a boyfriend who seemed to adore her and might have actually been perfect for her. In fact, those two had slipped away from him just as easily as Kurt had slipped away from them. The one left behind was Mercedes, the one that Kurt felt indebted to the most. But when the choice came down to Blaine who saw all of Kurt and understood all of the hell he had to go through every day, and Mercedes who was just as vocal about demanding solos as Kurt but unable to see the bullies right in front of her face, there was really no choice at all.
But today he had decided to make amends, even if only a little, and had requested a sleepover while his dad and Carole were honeymooning. He was a little ashamed at how quickly the three girls had jumped on board; had they been missing him that much?
So he spent the morning after the sleepover munching on a mixed can of fruit and pointing at different fashion icons with his fork, educating Blaine to the best of his ability. Blaine had been an eager learner, eyes wide and fingers nearly brushing the glossy pages of Kurt’s magazine, asking questions and presenting his own opinions. And then, when Kurt was trying to pack everything away to leave, Blaine decided to send him off with a song and a dance, making it practically impossible to leave him.
The afternoon had been spent baking - vegan cupcakes for Rachel, and two batches of cookies for himself, Tina, and Mercedes. He had tidied up the little bit of clutter in his room, texted Finn and requested a house for himself (Finn had agreed eagerly - apparently Santana and Brittany were studying and with Tina and Rachel with Kurt, that left four lonely Glee guys who wanted to do a campaign or something; Finn’s explanation had something to be desired), and then readied the movies. By supper, the girls had come with sleeping bags and their own food, makeup kits and pajamas, and eager, giggly smiles.
Within the hour, Kurt was distracted enough that he wasn’t thinking of Blaine at all.
Well. Maybe he was thinking about him a little, but not in a guilty way. It was more of a, “I think Blaine would really like this movie; Does Blaine like sour gummy worms or chocolate chip cookies more; Would he be as disgusted with Rachel’s pajamas as I am?” And those thoughts were perfectly reasonable to have.
They had done the usual catching up - Kurt now knew far more about Finn’s arrival and securing of Rachel’s second base than he wanted - and it was time for music and hair playing. Tina and Mercedes had managed to convince Rachel that Funny Girl was not appropriate for this sleepover (“Rachel, Kurt’s dad just got married. He doesn’t want to watch a movie about Fanny Brice’s failed one.”), and instead they had pulled out this decade-old movie that Tina had just discovered about an ex-surfer who finds the love of his life and rediscovers his love of the sea in the course of a month. It was funny and ridiculous and perfect for the atmosphere of the night.
Kurt didn’t know the lead man and missed the opening credits due to Rachel’s diva-tantrum, but he looked rather familiar. There was something about his face, his eyes, and the way he used his voice that made Kurt positive he had seen him in something before. But what it was, he couldn’t tell the girls.
The lead - his character’s name was Seth, and he was a little dopy like Sam with just as good a heart - was incredibly attractive and spent a good third of the movie shirtless on a beach. So, if Kurt got a little bedroom eyed and breathless - honestly; he must have been the most attractive man in all America - then it wasn’t his fault and the girls shouldn’t have teased him about it. But, oh did they ever tease.
“Ooooh, look, Kurt; it’s the lurve-making scene,” Mercedes giggled, slapping at the nearest part of Kurt - his left calf, incidentally.
Rachel turned her head around, lying on a pile of blankets and cushions in front of the TV, and grinned. “Kurt Hummel, your face is redder than Fanny Brice’s hair. Aren’t you comfortable about sex?”
Kurt ducked his head and focused on the braid he was trying to perfect in Tina’s hair. No, he was not comfortable about sex, and neither were you, Rachel Berry.
In front of him, Tina gasped. “Oh, look at that ass!”
“Tina!” Rachel cried, appropriately aghast.
Kurt couldn’t quite help his eyes from drifting up just in time to watch the screen pan from a lovely shot of a firm, round male ass in boxer-briefs up a lovely span of bare back that looked like it was sculpted from a magazine shoot before landing at the two leads with their mouth fused together. He knew his own mouth was falling open a little, and his face was turning redder and redder, but he couldn’t stop imagining his face in place of the very pretty blonde woman.
“Like what you see, boy?” Mercedes asked, snapping Kurt’s thoughts back into the present.
Kurt’s jaw clicked shut and he narrowed his eyes down at Mercedes sitting on her own blanket-cushion pile and leaning against his bed. “Oh, like you don’t, ‘Cedes,” he snapped.
Tina’s body seemed to slump a little. “Mike has abs like that,” she whispered, obviously as affected as Kurt was by the scene.
“Tina!” Rachel cried again.
Kurt leaned forward so his mouth was poised by Tina’s ear. “Lucky girl,” he whispered, before wrapping the elastic around her hair and giving it a quick tug.
Tina hummed in agreement, facial expression a little too dreamy.
“Kurt, what are you saying to her?” Rachel demanded, setting up on her elbows. “There are to be no secrets at a sleepover!”
Mercedes giggled and slapped at Kurt’s calf again. “The girl’s right; speak, Hummel.”
Kurt raised his head and, taking care not to glance at the screen where there were shadows moving beneath a canopy, said delicately, “I was congratulating her on her boyfriend, if you must know.”
Rachel’s shoulders slumped a little, clearly hoping for more dirty intelligence. Mercedes rolled her eyes and turned back to the TV. “Oh, please don’t encourage her, Kurt. She’ll go on for hours if we let her.”
“And besides!” Rachel added, sitting up completely, her own braided hair beginning to come loose. “You haven’t congratulated me on my boyfriend!”
Kurt leveled a dry look at her. “Congratulations, Rachel, on winning a boy who leaves his half-full chip bags next to his sweat-stained T-shirts and finds them three days later and finishes them then.”
Even as Rachel’s face scrunched up in an annoyed frown, Mercedes and Tina burst out into chuckles. “Fine,” Rachel sniffed, tossing her braid back over her shoulder. “But may I remind you of your own crush on my boyfriend just last year.”
Kurt rolled his eyes. “Please, Rachel. I am completely over that misguided lummox. And besides,” he added, casting a cool look her way as he mirrored her own phrase, “we’re bros now.”
“Ooooh,” Tina and Mercedes cooed. “Bros.”
“Yes,” Kurt said, feeling his own smile grow. Although he still wasn’t sure of what, exactly, Finn had meant by that, he knew that the end result was one of Finn and Kurt being better friends and better brothers, and that was all that mattered. “Bros.” He softened his look at Rachel and even smiled. “Trust me, I will not be stealing Finn away from you.”
She looked mollified, which he couldn’t really blame her for. Her battle for Finn and been long and hard-won.
“But you might be stealing Sam away from Quinn Fabray, right?” Mercedes countered, hand reaching to pause the movie as the sun rose for the morning after.
“Sam?” Kurt parroted. Steal Sam? Why? What was the point? They were already friends without any effort; why would Kurt try to ruin their careful, wonderful balance?
“Yeah!” Tina asked, twisting around to look at Kurt, face alight. “How is the tutoring going?”
“Fine,” Kurt answered with a blank blink. “We have a quiz next week, so we’ll see how much help I’ve been with those results.”
“You two have become a lot closer, Kurt,” Mercedes added, resting her arms on the bed. “Are there any signs of… you know…”
“Latent bisexuality?” Kurt ended with an eyebrow raise. At her smile - and bless her, she only wanted Kurt to find someone - he rolled his eyes. “No, but it’s not like that. We’re friends. I…” And he stopped, mouth falling shut. What he was going to say: I’ve never had a friend who’s a boy before… well. That wasn’t exactly true, now was it? What was Blaine, if not a friend who was a boy?
But Blaine and Sam, and his relationship with the two, were completely different. And it wasn’t so much the dead versus alive thing. It was far closer to the gay versus straight thing. And what could that suggest? Was it even worth exploring?
No. No, it wasn’t. Not when Kurt was supposed to figure out and then help Blaine move on. Why explore something that he wasn’t even supposed to have at all? It would only hurt him more in the end.
Tina’s hand fell on his knee; it broke him out of his thoughts. “Kurt,” she said softly. “It’s okay. Sam’s a good guy.”
Kurt blinked once, twice, and then found a smile touching his face. “He is. And he’s also my friend. And that’s it,” he emphasized, looking at all three girls.
Mercedes narrowed her eyes, but seemed to accept that. Tina smiled before twisting so she could see both Kurt and the TV screen. Rachel pursed her lips before gesturing dramatically, “Well, it’s not like you were going to be able to pry him from Quinn’s vulture hands anyways.”
“Of course, Rachel,” he said patiently, shooting a look at Mercedes. In response, Mercedes ducked her head and muffled her giggles into the comforter of his bed. Kurt sighed, leaving her to it, then clapped twice. “And why aren’t we watching this movie? I expect another twenty minutes of shirtless Seth, at least.”
The movie played on, the girls commented until someone shushed them, Kurt watched the blonde - Kerry - support her shirtless Seth, and Seth wandered around the beach with his shirt off and surfboard under his arm. He didn’t think about Blaine at all.
It was at the end, when the girls started to stretch out and Rachel began her loud commentary about what she would have done differently if she was the main female lead, that Kurt saw the credits list. And, right across from SETH LOTHMAN was a clear, simple COOPER ANDERSON.
Kurt froze, his hands falling limp and heart thudding in his hollow chest. Cooper Anderson - that was the name of Blaine’s brother. Blaine’s older brother who had wanted to be an actor; wasn’t that what Blaine had said? This movie was ten years old - maybe a little older; the fashion dated it at the late nineties - Seth was obviously in his thirties, Blaine had said Cooper was nine years older than him… And he was just as handsome as Blaine was, possibly even more so…
It all fit. Except, and here was the clincher, it was all too crazy to be true. But - and here was the thing - if there was even a slight chance of it being true, it was his responsibility to look into it.
He cleared his throat a little and wondered how exactly he could do this with raising suspicion. “Cooper Anderson,” he said aloud, aiming for casual curiosity.
Tina twisted as quickly as she could, wrapped in a blanket as she was. “Yeah! Isn’t he the most handsome thing?”
“He certainly has promise,” Rachel announced. “I feel that Finn is a much better catch, of course; and I clearly have far superior skills as an actress-“
Tina carried on talking, ignoring Rachel as best as she could. “He’s old now, unfortunately, but he’s still so handsome! He does soaps now.”
Oh. That’s where Kurt had seen him. “Soaps?” Kurt said, watching Mercedes turn around, her eyes curious. They often watched those together. “Which one?”
Tina’s grin was a little bit evil. “The Sea of Our Hearts.”
Kurt frowned. It was a fairly new soap, as far as those went. Only five years old with a much smaller fan base as a result. But, Kurt had watched it almost religiously last winter; so which character was like Seth Lothman…
“Oh my God,” Mercedes cried. “Not Brandon Winters?”
Kurt’s mouth fell open a little at the visual of Brandon Winters, grey-haired with reading glasses whose daughter, Gloria, was one of the main characters. Everything came into place, especially with Carole’s voice ringing in his ears, “He would be our age now, Burt.”
Brandon Winters, who Kurt had always thought was attractive and had wondered what he must have looked like as a younger man. That Brandon Winters… was Seth Lothman… who was Cooper Anderson… who was - who could be-
“God,” he breathed. “Him?”
Tina nodded furiously. “Yeah! Can you believe it?”
“Boy, didn’t you say he was one attractive silver fox?” Mercedes said with a glint in her eye.
Kurt felt the blood rush to his face as Rachel turned on him. “Kurt! You can’t be serious; finding an older man attractive-“
“I can appreciate the aesthetics of an older man the same as any,” Kurt said loftily, turning his eyes away. “That doesn’t mean I’m about to chase one.”
Mercedes shook her head with a knowing grin, even as Tina beamed. “But, Kurt! He was born right here!”
And Kurt’s heart hit a wall, stopping in his chest, even as he thought of Blaine’s curled form and bitter voice. There was no chance of there being two Cooper Andersons born in the same small town at the same time with the same acting ambitions. No chance. Which meant that the egotistical, ridiculous man that Blaine had mocked just last night (even as he had always referenced him before with a little brother’s reverence) was the same handsome, talented man Kurt had spent the last two hours drooling over.
Awkward.
“No way,” Mercedes was saying to Tina. “There is no way that came from here.”
“Mercedes, you really must be more open minded,” Rachel said. “After all, I will be famous one day, even though my roots are unsubstantial-“
“No, I looked it up,” Tina assured them, nodding. “1961, Lima, Ohio. He had a little brother that went to school with my aunt.”
Kurt closed his eyes, trying to soothe the ache that was growing in his heart. 1961 - nine years before Blaine’s 1970 birthday. It all fit oh so damn perfectly.
“Wait,” Rachel said. “Not Anderson as in the Anderson house?”
Both Tina and Mercedes turned to her, mouths open slightly and gaping as they considered this new possibility. Kurt didn’t even have the energy to attempt to look surprised; instead, he waved his hand and adopted a bored look. “Oh, please. There are more than one Anderson family in this town.”
Mercedes relaxed into her comfy pile. “Kurt’s right. There’s just no way it’s the same family.”
Tina still didn’t look convinced. “I don’t know… Can you even imagine? What if we were in his house?”
Rachel was still set on her idea. “That means that his little brother committed suicide.” Instead of watching to see how that announcement sat with her audience, she continued, “Oh, no wonder he has such grief-riddled expressions when he lost to the sea; he had real-life experience-“
“Suicide?” Tina cried.
“Girl, what are you talking about?” Mercedes was saying at the same time.
But Kurt, Kurt was thinking about Cooper and about Blaine, because his job was to help Blaine move on, to help his beautiful boy find happiness. And surely some of Blaine’s regret must come from his brother, his brother that he mentioned three times as often as he mentioned his parents. And Cooper, Cooper must have felt terrible when Blaine died - even worse, perhaps, then Kurt did when his mother died because Blaine did it to himself and no one saw it coming.
They had to know. Cooper had to know about Blaine, and Blaine had to know about Cooper. There was no doubt in Kurt’s mind that that was the next step.
“…a dance,” Rachel was saying when Kurt finally tuned in again. “And because Blaine was gay, he couldn’t go, so he killed himself in his desperation for attention.”
Kurt’s head snapped around. “Where did you hear that story?” he demanded, feeling suddenly possessive over Blaine. From the little he’d heard, he knew that that was all wrong, and if they were going to tell stories about Blaine, then they would tell the right one!
Rachel gaped a little. “Well, Finn said-“
Kurt rolled his eyes. “Of course, that’s how Finn told it. No. I know how it really happened; desperation, my ass,” he added in a mutter.
All three girls turned to him with three pairs of wide brown eyes. And then, the reality hit him: he was about to tell the story of how Blaine died. He paused, mouth suddenly dry, and wondered how he was going to do this. Because they should know - not all of it, not the little details that Blaine told him about the stars and the suit, but the loneliness and the aching.
He swallowed, and said, “Blaine Anderson was gay in 1987. He was the younger of two sons of a fairly wealthy family in which appearance was everything. His father was a high-ranking businessman and his mother accompanied him everywhere he went for meetings and seminars. Not knowing what to do about their musical, gay son, they left him alone in a huge house and a school of homophobic Neanderthals.
“It didn’t take long for Blaine to get very, very tired of being terribly lonely.”
He told his story with as much elegance as Blaine deserved, making sure he crafted the correct atmosphere without betraying too much of Blaine’s trust. And if, by the end of it, all four of them had their eyes filled with tears, then Kurt had done his job well.
Rating: Mostly PG-13, with some R stuff for triggers.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Except the order of the words.
A/N: So, I know I said I was going to have this finished... But then I got sick and you just can't write a good ghost story when your brain is coming out of your nose. So. Here's the plan: I shall update this morning, tonight, and tomorrow. Then, when I return, I shall finish it. So, unfortunately, you have to wait until May 10 for the rest of it. Hopefully these three chapters will tide you over.
Chapter Sixteen
Coming out, although terrifying to fifteen-year-old Kurt, had brought him a lot of relief and brand new opportunities. Not only was it the beginning of a much better relationship with his dad - and that was worth everything - but it also paved the way for slackening some of the boundaries between him and the girls.
Or, in simpler terms, it made the parents of some of his friends comfortable enough to permit him to join the girls’ many sleepovers. The girls who had welcomed him into their group last year, and possibly saved his life, could now feel free to gossip with him and whisper about boys… Even if it wasn’t always in a way he could really understand.
(It also led him to knowing far more about their biology than any male wants to know; but that was such a small price to pay for their friendship.)
Things had changed this year. With the bullies finding a particular pleasure in torturing Kurt, and the discovery of Blaine, he had been drifting away from his girls. There was also Rachel, who finally had her Finn and often asked Kurt to play spy for her, and Tina, who actually had a boyfriend who seemed to adore her and might have actually been perfect for her. In fact, those two had slipped away from him just as easily as Kurt had slipped away from them. The one left behind was Mercedes, the one that Kurt felt indebted to the most. But when the choice came down to Blaine who saw all of Kurt and understood all of the hell he had to go through every day, and Mercedes who was just as vocal about demanding solos as Kurt but unable to see the bullies right in front of her face, there was really no choice at all.
But today he had decided to make amends, even if only a little, and had requested a sleepover while his dad and Carole were honeymooning. He was a little ashamed at how quickly the three girls had jumped on board; had they been missing him that much?
So he spent the morning after the sleepover munching on a mixed can of fruit and pointing at different fashion icons with his fork, educating Blaine to the best of his ability. Blaine had been an eager learner, eyes wide and fingers nearly brushing the glossy pages of Kurt’s magazine, asking questions and presenting his own opinions. And then, when Kurt was trying to pack everything away to leave, Blaine decided to send him off with a song and a dance, making it practically impossible to leave him.
The afternoon had been spent baking - vegan cupcakes for Rachel, and two batches of cookies for himself, Tina, and Mercedes. He had tidied up the little bit of clutter in his room, texted Finn and requested a house for himself (Finn had agreed eagerly - apparently Santana and Brittany were studying and with Tina and Rachel with Kurt, that left four lonely Glee guys who wanted to do a campaign or something; Finn’s explanation had something to be desired), and then readied the movies. By supper, the girls had come with sleeping bags and their own food, makeup kits and pajamas, and eager, giggly smiles.
Within the hour, Kurt was distracted enough that he wasn’t thinking of Blaine at all.
Well. Maybe he was thinking about him a little, but not in a guilty way. It was more of a, “I think Blaine would really like this movie; Does Blaine like sour gummy worms or chocolate chip cookies more; Would he be as disgusted with Rachel’s pajamas as I am?” And those thoughts were perfectly reasonable to have.
They had done the usual catching up - Kurt now knew far more about Finn’s arrival and securing of Rachel’s second base than he wanted - and it was time for music and hair playing. Tina and Mercedes had managed to convince Rachel that Funny Girl was not appropriate for this sleepover (“Rachel, Kurt’s dad just got married. He doesn’t want to watch a movie about Fanny Brice’s failed one.”), and instead they had pulled out this decade-old movie that Tina had just discovered about an ex-surfer who finds the love of his life and rediscovers his love of the sea in the course of a month. It was funny and ridiculous and perfect for the atmosphere of the night.
Kurt didn’t know the lead man and missed the opening credits due to Rachel’s diva-tantrum, but he looked rather familiar. There was something about his face, his eyes, and the way he used his voice that made Kurt positive he had seen him in something before. But what it was, he couldn’t tell the girls.
The lead - his character’s name was Seth, and he was a little dopy like Sam with just as good a heart - was incredibly attractive and spent a good third of the movie shirtless on a beach. So, if Kurt got a little bedroom eyed and breathless - honestly; he must have been the most attractive man in all America - then it wasn’t his fault and the girls shouldn’t have teased him about it. But, oh did they ever tease.
“Ooooh, look, Kurt; it’s the lurve-making scene,” Mercedes giggled, slapping at the nearest part of Kurt - his left calf, incidentally.
Rachel turned her head around, lying on a pile of blankets and cushions in front of the TV, and grinned. “Kurt Hummel, your face is redder than Fanny Brice’s hair. Aren’t you comfortable about sex?”
Kurt ducked his head and focused on the braid he was trying to perfect in Tina’s hair. No, he was not comfortable about sex, and neither were you, Rachel Berry.
In front of him, Tina gasped. “Oh, look at that ass!”
“Tina!” Rachel cried, appropriately aghast.
Kurt couldn’t quite help his eyes from drifting up just in time to watch the screen pan from a lovely shot of a firm, round male ass in boxer-briefs up a lovely span of bare back that looked like it was sculpted from a magazine shoot before landing at the two leads with their mouth fused together. He knew his own mouth was falling open a little, and his face was turning redder and redder, but he couldn’t stop imagining his face in place of the very pretty blonde woman.
“Like what you see, boy?” Mercedes asked, snapping Kurt’s thoughts back into the present.
Kurt’s jaw clicked shut and he narrowed his eyes down at Mercedes sitting on her own blanket-cushion pile and leaning against his bed. “Oh, like you don’t, ‘Cedes,” he snapped.
Tina’s body seemed to slump a little. “Mike has abs like that,” she whispered, obviously as affected as Kurt was by the scene.
“Tina!” Rachel cried again.
Kurt leaned forward so his mouth was poised by Tina’s ear. “Lucky girl,” he whispered, before wrapping the elastic around her hair and giving it a quick tug.
Tina hummed in agreement, facial expression a little too dreamy.
“Kurt, what are you saying to her?” Rachel demanded, setting up on her elbows. “There are to be no secrets at a sleepover!”
Mercedes giggled and slapped at Kurt’s calf again. “The girl’s right; speak, Hummel.”
Kurt raised his head and, taking care not to glance at the screen where there were shadows moving beneath a canopy, said delicately, “I was congratulating her on her boyfriend, if you must know.”
Rachel’s shoulders slumped a little, clearly hoping for more dirty intelligence. Mercedes rolled her eyes and turned back to the TV. “Oh, please don’t encourage her, Kurt. She’ll go on for hours if we let her.”
“And besides!” Rachel added, sitting up completely, her own braided hair beginning to come loose. “You haven’t congratulated me on my boyfriend!”
Kurt leveled a dry look at her. “Congratulations, Rachel, on winning a boy who leaves his half-full chip bags next to his sweat-stained T-shirts and finds them three days later and finishes them then.”
Even as Rachel’s face scrunched up in an annoyed frown, Mercedes and Tina burst out into chuckles. “Fine,” Rachel sniffed, tossing her braid back over her shoulder. “But may I remind you of your own crush on my boyfriend just last year.”
Kurt rolled his eyes. “Please, Rachel. I am completely over that misguided lummox. And besides,” he added, casting a cool look her way as he mirrored her own phrase, “we’re bros now.”
“Ooooh,” Tina and Mercedes cooed. “Bros.”
“Yes,” Kurt said, feeling his own smile grow. Although he still wasn’t sure of what, exactly, Finn had meant by that, he knew that the end result was one of Finn and Kurt being better friends and better brothers, and that was all that mattered. “Bros.” He softened his look at Rachel and even smiled. “Trust me, I will not be stealing Finn away from you.”
She looked mollified, which he couldn’t really blame her for. Her battle for Finn and been long and hard-won.
“But you might be stealing Sam away from Quinn Fabray, right?” Mercedes countered, hand reaching to pause the movie as the sun rose for the morning after.
“Sam?” Kurt parroted. Steal Sam? Why? What was the point? They were already friends without any effort; why would Kurt try to ruin their careful, wonderful balance?
“Yeah!” Tina asked, twisting around to look at Kurt, face alight. “How is the tutoring going?”
“Fine,” Kurt answered with a blank blink. “We have a quiz next week, so we’ll see how much help I’ve been with those results.”
“You two have become a lot closer, Kurt,” Mercedes added, resting her arms on the bed. “Are there any signs of… you know…”
“Latent bisexuality?” Kurt ended with an eyebrow raise. At her smile - and bless her, she only wanted Kurt to find someone - he rolled his eyes. “No, but it’s not like that. We’re friends. I…” And he stopped, mouth falling shut. What he was going to say: I’ve never had a friend who’s a boy before… well. That wasn’t exactly true, now was it? What was Blaine, if not a friend who was a boy?
But Blaine and Sam, and his relationship with the two, were completely different. And it wasn’t so much the dead versus alive thing. It was far closer to the gay versus straight thing. And what could that suggest? Was it even worth exploring?
No. No, it wasn’t. Not when Kurt was supposed to figure out and then help Blaine move on. Why explore something that he wasn’t even supposed to have at all? It would only hurt him more in the end.
Tina’s hand fell on his knee; it broke him out of his thoughts. “Kurt,” she said softly. “It’s okay. Sam’s a good guy.”
Kurt blinked once, twice, and then found a smile touching his face. “He is. And he’s also my friend. And that’s it,” he emphasized, looking at all three girls.
Mercedes narrowed her eyes, but seemed to accept that. Tina smiled before twisting so she could see both Kurt and the TV screen. Rachel pursed her lips before gesturing dramatically, “Well, it’s not like you were going to be able to pry him from Quinn’s vulture hands anyways.”
“Of course, Rachel,” he said patiently, shooting a look at Mercedes. In response, Mercedes ducked her head and muffled her giggles into the comforter of his bed. Kurt sighed, leaving her to it, then clapped twice. “And why aren’t we watching this movie? I expect another twenty minutes of shirtless Seth, at least.”
The movie played on, the girls commented until someone shushed them, Kurt watched the blonde - Kerry - support her shirtless Seth, and Seth wandered around the beach with his shirt off and surfboard under his arm. He didn’t think about Blaine at all.
It was at the end, when the girls started to stretch out and Rachel began her loud commentary about what she would have done differently if she was the main female lead, that Kurt saw the credits list. And, right across from SETH LOTHMAN was a clear, simple COOPER ANDERSON.
Kurt froze, his hands falling limp and heart thudding in his hollow chest. Cooper Anderson - that was the name of Blaine’s brother. Blaine’s older brother who had wanted to be an actor; wasn’t that what Blaine had said? This movie was ten years old - maybe a little older; the fashion dated it at the late nineties - Seth was obviously in his thirties, Blaine had said Cooper was nine years older than him… And he was just as handsome as Blaine was, possibly even more so…
It all fit. Except, and here was the clincher, it was all too crazy to be true. But - and here was the thing - if there was even a slight chance of it being true, it was his responsibility to look into it.
He cleared his throat a little and wondered how exactly he could do this with raising suspicion. “Cooper Anderson,” he said aloud, aiming for casual curiosity.
Tina twisted as quickly as she could, wrapped in a blanket as she was. “Yeah! Isn’t he the most handsome thing?”
“He certainly has promise,” Rachel announced. “I feel that Finn is a much better catch, of course; and I clearly have far superior skills as an actress-“
Tina carried on talking, ignoring Rachel as best as she could. “He’s old now, unfortunately, but he’s still so handsome! He does soaps now.”
Oh. That’s where Kurt had seen him. “Soaps?” Kurt said, watching Mercedes turn around, her eyes curious. They often watched those together. “Which one?”
Tina’s grin was a little bit evil. “The Sea of Our Hearts.”
Kurt frowned. It was a fairly new soap, as far as those went. Only five years old with a much smaller fan base as a result. But, Kurt had watched it almost religiously last winter; so which character was like Seth Lothman…
“Oh my God,” Mercedes cried. “Not Brandon Winters?”
Kurt’s mouth fell open a little at the visual of Brandon Winters, grey-haired with reading glasses whose daughter, Gloria, was one of the main characters. Everything came into place, especially with Carole’s voice ringing in his ears, “He would be our age now, Burt.”
Brandon Winters, who Kurt had always thought was attractive and had wondered what he must have looked like as a younger man. That Brandon Winters… was Seth Lothman… who was Cooper Anderson… who was - who could be-
“God,” he breathed. “Him?”
Tina nodded furiously. “Yeah! Can you believe it?”
“Boy, didn’t you say he was one attractive silver fox?” Mercedes said with a glint in her eye.
Kurt felt the blood rush to his face as Rachel turned on him. “Kurt! You can’t be serious; finding an older man attractive-“
“I can appreciate the aesthetics of an older man the same as any,” Kurt said loftily, turning his eyes away. “That doesn’t mean I’m about to chase one.”
Mercedes shook her head with a knowing grin, even as Tina beamed. “But, Kurt! He was born right here!”
And Kurt’s heart hit a wall, stopping in his chest, even as he thought of Blaine’s curled form and bitter voice. There was no chance of there being two Cooper Andersons born in the same small town at the same time with the same acting ambitions. No chance. Which meant that the egotistical, ridiculous man that Blaine had mocked just last night (even as he had always referenced him before with a little brother’s reverence) was the same handsome, talented man Kurt had spent the last two hours drooling over.
Awkward.
“No way,” Mercedes was saying to Tina. “There is no way that came from here.”
“Mercedes, you really must be more open minded,” Rachel said. “After all, I will be famous one day, even though my roots are unsubstantial-“
“No, I looked it up,” Tina assured them, nodding. “1961, Lima, Ohio. He had a little brother that went to school with my aunt.”
Kurt closed his eyes, trying to soothe the ache that was growing in his heart. 1961 - nine years before Blaine’s 1970 birthday. It all fit oh so damn perfectly.
“Wait,” Rachel said. “Not Anderson as in the Anderson house?”
Both Tina and Mercedes turned to her, mouths open slightly and gaping as they considered this new possibility. Kurt didn’t even have the energy to attempt to look surprised; instead, he waved his hand and adopted a bored look. “Oh, please. There are more than one Anderson family in this town.”
Mercedes relaxed into her comfy pile. “Kurt’s right. There’s just no way it’s the same family.”
Tina still didn’t look convinced. “I don’t know… Can you even imagine? What if we were in his house?”
Rachel was still set on her idea. “That means that his little brother committed suicide.” Instead of watching to see how that announcement sat with her audience, she continued, “Oh, no wonder he has such grief-riddled expressions when he lost to the sea; he had real-life experience-“
“Suicide?” Tina cried.
“Girl, what are you talking about?” Mercedes was saying at the same time.
But Kurt, Kurt was thinking about Cooper and about Blaine, because his job was to help Blaine move on, to help his beautiful boy find happiness. And surely some of Blaine’s regret must come from his brother, his brother that he mentioned three times as often as he mentioned his parents. And Cooper, Cooper must have felt terrible when Blaine died - even worse, perhaps, then Kurt did when his mother died because Blaine did it to himself and no one saw it coming.
They had to know. Cooper had to know about Blaine, and Blaine had to know about Cooper. There was no doubt in Kurt’s mind that that was the next step.
“…a dance,” Rachel was saying when Kurt finally tuned in again. “And because Blaine was gay, he couldn’t go, so he killed himself in his desperation for attention.”
Kurt’s head snapped around. “Where did you hear that story?” he demanded, feeling suddenly possessive over Blaine. From the little he’d heard, he knew that that was all wrong, and if they were going to tell stories about Blaine, then they would tell the right one!
Rachel gaped a little. “Well, Finn said-“
Kurt rolled his eyes. “Of course, that’s how Finn told it. No. I know how it really happened; desperation, my ass,” he added in a mutter.
All three girls turned to him with three pairs of wide brown eyes. And then, the reality hit him: he was about to tell the story of how Blaine died. He paused, mouth suddenly dry, and wondered how he was going to do this. Because they should know - not all of it, not the little details that Blaine told him about the stars and the suit, but the loneliness and the aching.
He swallowed, and said, “Blaine Anderson was gay in 1987. He was the younger of two sons of a fairly wealthy family in which appearance was everything. His father was a high-ranking businessman and his mother accompanied him everywhere he went for meetings and seminars. Not knowing what to do about their musical, gay son, they left him alone in a huge house and a school of homophobic Neanderthals.
“It didn’t take long for Blaine to get very, very tired of being terribly lonely.”
He told his story with as much elegance as Blaine deserved, making sure he crafted the correct atmosphere without betraying too much of Blaine’s trust. And if, by the end of it, all four of them had their eyes filled with tears, then Kurt had done his job well.