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chocoholicannanymous · 9 months ago

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Evil Author Day #3

February 15th is Evil Author Day - you can read more about it on Jilly James’ site, but in short it’s about posting titles or descriptions or parts of stuff that’s not actually ready for posting, the evil part being that there are no promises what so ever that there will be more.

What I’m posting under the EAD-tag either isn’t finished and might never be, or it could be considered finished only I’m not happy with it.

Either way: Enjoy. Or not.

Follows Doesn't Hurt At All, A Little Hurt (Goes A Long Way) and (It Hurts) To Have To Be This Honest With The One You Love.

Posting this one under the EAD-tag as I have never been able to be satisfied with it.

AN: Timelinewise, Kurt goes to London during the first week of April, Adam returns to England first week (or so) of June, and Kurt sends the first email to Adam beginning of August. This takes place about two weeks or so later.

Love Hurts (When You Do it Right)

Part 4 of Doesn't Hurt At All

Kurt picked up his book, read two paragraphs, then put it down again with a sigh. He'd been repeating that process now for close to twenty minutes. He'd also shredded two napkins, rearranged everything on the small table, and finished half a lemonade.

Being early for this meet-up had probably not been one of his brightest ideas.

Then again, it was possible that the meet-up itself wasn't that bright of an idea.

Kurt swallowed, looked at the time, and considered – for at least the tenth time – if it might not be best to cancel. Just...walk away, send Adam an email about being detained, and then never approach the subject again. He could do that, right? After all, it wasn't as if Adam even knew that Kurt was staying in London for the time being – he'd assumed Kurt was on vacation. (Which, admittedly, had been exactly what Kurt had been aiming at. He'd wanted to reduce the pressure on Adam. Maybe he had, but the pressure on himself? Very much present, and very much too much.)

Four minutes until he was supposed to meet Adam for the first time in nearly six months – for the first time since spooking, and refusing to be in a committed relationship. And see how well that worked, with the running back to Blaine and the getting engaged... Kurt ignored the snide inner voice. He'd messed up, and he'd done so repeatedly, and horribly. To leave now would be another mistake, and that's why he was going to stay, no matter how many butterflies seemed to have taken up residence in his stomach.

The seconds ticked by slowly, and a minute past their agreed upon time Kurt's stomach sank. No Adam. Adam, who never was late. Kurt blinked to avoid the tears that wanted to well up, and gave himself a stern talking to. First of all, he didn't really have any reason to be upset – he'd placed himself, and Adam, in this position on his own – and second, well, public transportation could be tricky. Maybe Adam was simply stuck on the Tube?

Either way, he would wait. He'd finish his lemonade, to begin with, and then reassess.

Twenty-four minutes past the hour saw Kurt out of both lemonade and hope. It didn't look like Adam was showing. Still. He'd give it until half past, and then... Then he'd go back to the apartment and cry into a pint of ice cream or something.

(A Long Island Ice Tea or five sounded tempting, but Kurt had learned by now that alcohol acted as a depressant and thus did not make him feel any better. Quite the opposite. Plus, if he drank when already down... Well. “Stupid” was a kind description of his behavior then.)

“Kurt?”

Oh! Kurt looked up, and was met with Adam's kind face. Looks like maybe I won't need that ice cream. At least not quite yet, he amended after taking a second look – it was obvious from the other man's body language that he wasn't entirely comfortable, or happy, with the situation, and it was as if he'd tried to close the shutters of his usually expressive eyes. Maybe I should make that two pints.

Kurt tried to keep his trepidation from being noticed though, choosing to nod and send a small smile the Brit's way.

“Adam. I'm happy to see you.”

And he really was. No matter the outcome of their meeting, Kurt would be happy – and grateful – that he'd gotten to see the other man again. He wanted to know that Adam was fine, that he'd gotten on with his life even after Kurt had screwed things up. In the end, that knowledge meant even more to Kurt than the possibility of losing some of the guilt he carried over his cowardly actions and the end of their relationship.

“Kurt.” There was a standoffish quality to Adam that Kurt had never seen before, not even when mocked by other students, and his heart ached knowing that he deserved it. “I have to say I was surprised to hear from you, and even more so when you asked to meet up. To be quite honest, up until just now I wasn't sure if I should go through with it.”

The confirmation of his suspicions shouldn't hurt so much, but yet it did. It wasn't anything he hadn't expected, or earned for that matter, but the words still made his heart sink even further in his chest.

“Well, while I understand that – and I really do – I'm happy you came. I know I could have tried to apologize through email, but it didn't feel right. I wanted – no, I needed to actually talk to you. And if you never want to see me again, I'll understand. I'm not going to lie, I want us to stay in touch, I really do, but I am going to respect your wishes here.”

It would be hard, yes, but somehow Kurt suspected all things worthwhile were. Also, considering he'd complained about others not being willing to respect his wishes, well. “Do unto others” and all that, right? Treating others the same way he himself wanted to be treated was a good way to live, Kurt knew, and it was time he did. Adam was a really good place to start.

“Not to be rude, but why should we? I was willing to try that, you know, when you got back with your ex, only I couldn't even get you to look at me. I have absolutely no desire to be someone for you to use when trying put yourself back together again. Once was enough. Actually, no – once was one time too many, but. I'm sure you get my point?”

Yeah, he got it. He got it straight into his bruised and battered heart, alright. But. As much as it hurt, Kurt felt he deserved it – and more, considering how he himself had hurt Adam. Still...

“I do. And you're absolutely right, it shouldn't have happened even once, regardless of how it was never my intention. I never meant to use you, never. I do understand how it looks though, I really do.

“And I don't expect you to be there for me again – I don't expect anything from you. I would love it if we could be friends, or even just friendly, but also know exactly how badly I screwed up. So, as I said, if you never want to talk to me again after today, I promise you that I will respect that. If that's what you want, I will do everything in my power to make sure you never have to see me again.”

And he would, no matter how little he wanted to. Because Adam deserved so much, the least of which was respect. Kurt had failed him too many times when it came to that. He refused to do so again.

“I just... I owe you, Adam. So, so much, for all you gave me. And if you want me to repay that by leaving you alone, then I will. But don't you want closure? To be able to let all that crap go? Because I do. I'm trying to get over it, and heal, but honestly? The past has a way of dragging me down, and I would love to be able to cut that loose, and just live.

“And I think that as long as I feel this guilty over what happened with you that's going to be hard. As for you, well, in your shoes? I'd want to know what the hell happened.”

Adam's mouth twisted into an unhappy, sour grimace for a second, then relaxed again.

“But I already know what happened, don't I? You lied to me, and you used me – intentionally or not, there's no other way I can take what you did – and then you went running back to your ex, like it was all a game to you.”

“It wasn't!”

“But that's what it felt like. You were happy to date me for weeks, months even, but god forbid you commit. Instead you went back home and had sex with the guy who cheated on you. Then you didn't tell me about it, not until Santana basically forced you. And yeah, sure, we weren't exclusive, as much as I wanted to be, but Kurt? Not being exclusive didn't mean it didn't hurt. Because unlike you? I was committed.

“Still, I thought 'okay, he's been burned, he doesn't mean to hurt you, it'll be fine, we'll get through this'. Because you promised me I wasn't your rebound, that you wanted to be over him, and that you wanted to try. And so I trusted you. I trusted you, only to have you go back to Ohio only to come back with an engagement ring. You didn't even have the decency to give me a heads-up, Kurt. I had to find out through others. Hell, I wasn't even lucky enough to hear the gossip. Oh no.

“All those stuck-up brats that only stopped outright mocking me to my face because you pulled rank with them? Yeah, they took great pleasure in informing me about your changed relationship status. Telling me how you'd finally decided to 'get rid of the trash' and such.”

Kurt felt sick to his stomach, not just because of his guilt but also because of the hurt and the venom in Adam's voice. He had a good idea of exactly how nasty some of them had been, and how they'd relished in hurting Adam. And it was all his fault. He'd fucked up, and while he'd certainly paid for it, Adam had suffered just as much.

“I could have dealt with you deciding to break things off with me, Kurt. I wouldn't have liked it, no, but I would have accepted it. But that's not what happened. Instead you just threw me aside, showing me less respect than you do than yesterday's paper. Not only did you start dating someone else, after telling me you weren't ready for a relationship, but you started dating the guy who treated you like crap and who you told me you didn't want to go back to. And to top it all off you agreed to marry him?

“And as if all that wasn't enough, you waited until everyone who cared to bully me had had a go before trying to talk to me yourself.

“You owed me better, Kurt. I don't care that we weren't boyfriends, that we were only dating casually, you still owed me more than that. As someone who was both in love with you and trying to be your friend, I deserved more.”

Kurt swallowed down his tears and his shame, because Adam was right. The way Kurt had acted was so beyond okay it was hard for him to understand why Adam hadn't simply just spat him in the face when Kurt had tried to talk to him – both back then and now.

It was, he acknowledged, a testament of exactly how much of a good guy Adam was.

“You're right. You deserved so, so much more, and the way I acted was deplorable. I owe you so much, the least of which is an explanation. It's just hard finding the right words. It's always been. And all of this, it's going to sound like a bunch of excuses, like me trying to shift the blame of my behavior onto others, I realize that. Just, this is the result of hours of therapy. Because yeah, I needed that.

“I've needed it for years.

“When I left for Lima it was only to be there for my dad. I had absolutely no intention of getting back with Blaine – he wasn't even on my radar. I was planning to come back and keep trying the dating thing with you. We were going somewhere, I thought, and I wanted to see where that was. I wanted to see what we could be. Because I looked at you, and I saw sunshine, and I liked that.

“And then I was back, and everything was closing up on me. Blaine was around from day one, everywhere that wasn't the hospital, and sometimes there too. And he was...familiar, I guess. And I know, that's not an excuse, or even a good explanation, but it's the truth.

“And the longer I was there, the harder it was to see past him. Past the memories connected to everywhere I went, past the memories all over my room, because I hadn't had the heart to clear them out. Past everyone telling me we'd been so good together, that we belonged together, that part of being a couple was forgiving each other for mistakes, on and on.

“Add that both Rachel and Santana, the only ones who knew you, kept comparing you and what we had to Blaine and what I had with him, and making it all negative. Not putting you down, just... Making you sound less. Making our relationship sound like a cheap knockoff, and all emotions between us like a pale copy of what love and passion was supposed to be. And I was enough of an idiot to think that they had a point.”

Adam's face closed off and he started standing up, making Kurt panic.

“Being with you didn't hurt!” he blurted out, terrified that Adam wouldn't let him explain. Then he flushed scarlet, as the people at the next table turned and looked at him.

“Adam, please...”

He blinked back tears as Adam sat down again, both grateful for it and terrified it'd be for nothing as Adam looked as close to furious as Kurt had ever seen him.

“What are you talking about, Kurt?”

“Do you know how many guys have been interested in me? The first was so deep in the closet that his response to kissing me – without my consent, by the way – was a death threat.

“The second was Blaine, and he only went for me after he got shot down by who he really wanted, and he wanted to change like 90% of who I was.

“The third was you.

“That's it. That's my romantic history.” Kurt swallowed back a lump of humiliation and old hurt, and continued.

“Between the two of them Blaine and David made love into something twisted. They probably didn't mean to, it just... It happened. My friends... They were always in relationships, but never truly healthy ones. There was always something, you know? Mike and Tina came close, I think, except for how they got together when she was still dating someone else.

“And my brother was going to marry Rachel, only on the day of the wedding instead of taking her to the town hall he took her to the train station and sent her to New York alone. And that's not healthy, that one person feel that they can make that kind of decision about the relationship. Of course, Rachel saying she was going to stay in Lima to marry Finn instead of going to NYADA was hardly healthy either.”

And then there was Kurt's stupid crush on Finn, and how twisted that had made things, and... Well. No need to drag up everything.

“I used to think they'd end up together some way in the end after all, but now... They loved each other, I know they did, but I don't know if they could ever have been healthy together.

“It took me quite a lot of therapy to realize that I'd pretty much told myself that it wasn't love if it didn't hurt. It took even more before I could say that love shouldn't hurt, that if it hurts there's something wrong. It took me months to be able to say that what you and I had was real. That the fact that it didn't hurt proved it was. That it could have been everything – if I'd only let it.”

Kurt hated how his voice broke and wavered, hated that even after all the work he'd put in to become stronger talking about how fucked up he'd been made him feel anything but strong.

“When I told you about what happened at the wedding you acted as if it was okay. The same happened when I wouldn't commit to you. You never pushed for more, never pressured me to do – or be – something else. And I took that as meaning that you didn't really care.

“Stupid, I know. But... It was what I knew. I didn't understand that allowing me to decide for myself was something you did because you cared – because you did like me, and because you liked me, not who you could make me into. I had forgotten what it was like to have my wishes respected, because to be honest no one's done that fully since my mom died.

“I didn't know how to be in a relationship with someone who wouldn't push for me to do as they wanted, not what I needed, who didn't try and make me less so that they could be the one looked up to. Some part of me expected you to take offense at me doing well, or use it to your own advantage. Not because of anything you did, but because it was what I was used to.

“I was fucked up, and I should have found a therapist a long time ago.”

Once he'd started it was as if he'd forgotten to keep things inside, and he just kept talking even though Adam looked at him as if he'd pulled of a mask, revealing himself as an alien. The doors were open, and everything was coming out.

“It wasn't just about romantic love either. My dad was a part of it too. He... I love him, I do, and I don't doubt that he loves me, but sometimes... Sometimes I need more. Sometimes I resent him for not giving me more.

“Dad never said it out loud, but I always knew I wasn't what he'd hoped for in a son. Parts of me, yes, but me as a whole? Never. And that made me feel as if I had to earn his love, and acceptance. It drove me into doing all kinds of things I wasn't really into, in the hope that he'd be happy.

“I learned basic mechanic skills to please dad, I watched shows that made me so bored I wanted to cry, I hid things I loved, I gave up ballet, I tried out for the football team, I tried dating a girl... All so that dad would approve. Not just of my interests, but of me.”

Saying those things hurt, because Kurt really did love his dad, and criticizing him was hard. But, they were all true, and holding back had never helped. Quite the opposite, I'd say.

“After mom died I kind of got into a mindset of doing whatever it took to keep dad – in every way. Turns out, that also meant accepting a marriage proposal because dad thought I should. I remember coming out to him, and how scared I was, because I knew that his love wasn't unconditional. I knew that I was most likely going to disappoint him, and that he might love me less for not continuing to pretend I was 'normal'. And I would have, only I felt like it was killing me. I was scared that I would lose my dad by being honest, but I was even more scared that I would lose the will to live if I wasn't.

“And then when he told me he knew, and continued to tell me he loved me even after, I was so grateful that I ignored all the warning signs. Dad loved – loves – me despite being gay, and having to accept that breaks my heart.”

“Dad hated the idea of me dating in New York, and since I never told him any of the bad things about my relationship with Blaine he thought we had been good. He liked the idea of me only being with one boy – it was the next best thing to me staying single and celibate until I turned 30 or something, you know?

“So when we broke up, and I told him it was because we couldn't do long distance, well, dad never expected us to stay broken up. He figured it was just us being young and that we'd get back together once Blaine was in New York if not before.”

It had been so obvious, or should have been, that this had been the reasoning behind Burt bringing Blaine with him to New York over Christmas. Helping the two of them reconnect. Kurt avoided even thinking about the possibility that his dad would have pushed for him to get back with Blaine even if he'd known the whole truth, but he could tell that Adam was thinking something along those lines.

“For some reason dad thought that me getting married to Blaine was a good idea, and somehow I took that as me having to do just that. As me having to repay dad's acceptance with compliance.”

He choked out the words, feeling as if his life depended on no longer holding them in. And, miracle of all miracles, Adam reached over and rested his hand on Kurt's arm in a gesture of support. Only for a few seconds, but it felt like everything Kurt could ever have asked for.

His next words came out in a whisper.

“Sometimes I wonder if me not telling dad the truth about all the ugliness in my life was because deep down I didn't trust him with it. Didn't trust him to side with me, instead of saying I deserved it for being myself.

“The same goes for the ugliness in my relationship with Blaine. I didn't tell dad, because subconsciously I didn't expect him to take my side. He... Well. Let's just say he doesn't have the best track-record when it comes to taking my side against other guys.

“And when it came down to it, he didn't this time either. When I broke off the engagement my dad immediately sided with Blaine. He didn't even stop to listen to me, or consider my wishes. In the end that was what drove me out of New York. Not Blaine stalking me, or all my friends siding with him, but my dad's failure to support me and trust that I had good reasons for my choice.”

Bringing it up still hurt so much, even after all the therapy he'd had, and Kurt knew that just a month ago he would not have been able to to have this conversation, to lay himself this bare in front of Adam.

Burt Hummel had failed as a dad, utterly and completely, and that hurt more than anything. More than his friends failing him. More than Blaine betraying him. It was almost as painful as losing Finn.

Almost, but not quite, because while it felt like Kurt had lost his dad just as brutally as he'd lost his brother, at least Burt was still alive. The option to mend the fences some day was still there.

“Anyway, that's not an excuse, just like none of it is, but it's part of why I had such a hard time believing fully in you. Having a stranger be that accepting and supportive when my blood couldn't be bothered? It had to be fake. It had to be, because I couldn't deal with what it said about my life if it wasn't. It wasn't fair to you, and you deserved so much better, but that's how it was.”

“I'm not saying we ignore everything that's happened, and just go back to dating like I never went back to Lima and got stupid. Like I didn't hurt you. I know we can't do that. Not only would it be impossible, but it also wouldn't be healthy.” He should know – he had, after all, done exactly that with Blaine. “Too much has happened, and we're not the same. At least, I'm not, and I don't really think you are either.

“But could we start again? Could we try? Because Adam, I know it was my fault, but I'm not ready to lose you. I miss you. I want you in my life. You're one of the best people I've ever met. You're someone I'd be honored to call my friend.”

Kurt almost stopped there, almost allowed fear to keep him quiet. He'd come too far though, and something told him that unless he put all his cards on the table now he'd come to regret it.

“I'm not going to lie. I'd love for us to be more than friends again – would love it if you gave me a chance to love you, because I could. So easily.

“And if you're willing to try, again, if you're willing to trust me with your heart? This time? This time I'm ready. This time I'm free to move on, to commit. It would be just the two of us, no ghosts, if you're willing to give me a chance even though I haven't deserved it.”

Kurt held his breath, impatient for an answer and scared of one at the same time. Seconds ticked by and became a minute, then two and three, and Kurt's heart sank. Maybe he was too late. Maybe he'd misread Adam, again, and all this was just about closure to the other man.

You know you had to try though. Even if nothing comes of it, you hadto. The inner whisper came, as it occasionally did these days, in Finn's voice, and Kurt listened. You had to do this for your sake, because you'd never have been truly free otherwise, but most of all? You needed to do this for him. Either way you'll be fine, little brother. You know you will. You're strong enough to stand on your own if you have to.

He was broken out of his musings by Adam drawing a shaky breath, then speaking, voice a little wavering with emotion.

“Hi. My name is Adam.”

“Hi, Adam. I'm Kurt. It's a pleasure meeting you. I don't want to be too forward, but you seem like a really amazing guy. Would you like to meet up for a cup of tea some day? Maybe catch a movie?”

And as Adam met his smile with one of his own, almost as brilliant as the ones from before, Kurt felt his heart burst with joy and the soft hum of a triumphant melody rise in his soul.

See? I told you you'll be fine. Love doesn't have to hurt, little brother. Not when you do it right. He'll show you, just you see.

~ The End ~

#chocoholic fics #ead #ead 2024 #evil author day #glee #kurt hummel #adam crawford #kadam #doesn't hurt at all 'verse

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