Dance Alone

Kurt focused on breathing, trying to calm himself enough to drive. (Because at that moment? He was an accident waiting to happen.)

Blaine had accused him of cheating. Had stood up in Glee and accused Kurt of cheating. He... He just couldn't.

He'd been so sure that once Blaine had had some to to think he'd see that while it had been stupid of Kurt to trade texts with another boy, a flirty gay boy, it hadn't been cheating.

Only Blaine hadn't seen. Instead he'd walked into Glee and sung it out – sung a breakup song – dragging every single one of Kurt's friends into their fight. And judging from their behavior they'd all taken his side.

Okay, so maybe not Sam – but the jury was still out on him. He hadn't spoken up in defense of Blaine, sure, but he hadn't spoken up for Kurt either. And that? That was a little too telling for his taste.

Funny. Pretty much every single one of them had done worse than him, yet he was the bad guy? They hadn't even reacted to this when Rachel cheated on Fin with Puck, and hell, they'd practically supported Sam and Mercedes going behind Shane's back. Even with Blaine– Kurt cringed.

When Blaine had been talking to Sebastian no one had cared – until Blaine had blabbed their set list.

Kurt was suddenly shocked out of his panic. No one cared. Four months of Blaine talking to Sebastian, through text and skype and phone and sometimes over coffee. Four months of Blaine hanging out with the boy who was trying to steal him away. And no one had cared. No one had questioned it, or called it cheating. But one week – less than one week – of Kurt texting, and only texting, another boy and suddenly everyone cared. Suddenly they all acted like they'd personally been hurt by his actions, and as if he was the anti-Christ. (And wasn't that a familiar feeling?)

Because Chandler was flirty. (Never mind that he'd never made any kind of real move on Kurt.) Because Sebastian was "family friendly".

Kurt frowned. That still didn't seem right to him. The criminal chipmunk might be a lot of things, and some of them even decent, but family friendly? PG 13? With the filth that usually came out of Smythe's mouth in Kurt's presence he had come across as anything but, and it honestly didn't seem likely that he'd been that much different alone with Blaine. Then he wouldn't really know – he hadn't seen the texts exchanged, and had obviously not been present for their conversations.

Sure, he could always ask Blaine if he could see those "family friendly" texts for himself, but he had a strong feeling that not only would Blaine refuse – because Kurt was supposed to trust him – but that those texts were no longer present on his phone. Snooping was an option, yes, but only theoretically. Blaine was downright paranoid when it came to his phone.

And that meant, since there was no way Blaine would talk about it, that he had no way of telling what supposedly made the "Kurt-and-Chandler" situation that much different, so much worse than the "Blaine-and-Sebastian" one. None.

But, is it really? Or is it only different because Blaine says it is?

That thought...was painful. Because it somehow felt so very accurate. Honestly? The only difference Kurt saw was that Blaine's transgressions were worse. That was him though. No one else seemed to think that way.

It all hurt. Part of Kurt wanted to just ignore everything that had just crossed his mind, and instead go home to prepare his own song ("I Have Nothing" came to mind) but another part...

That part of him that had worn a kilt to prom and a corset to school, that had landed him spots on both the Cheerios and the Titans, that part wanted him to stand up for himself. Wanted to erase all doubt. And he knew exactly how to do it. Only... If he did? Then he just might ruin every possibility of him and Blaine ever fixing things – even if Kurt's new suspicions turned out to be unfounded.

However, something about Blaine's arguments had seemed off to Kurt, even if he hadn't been able to pinpoint exactly what in the panic, and the hurt and the – yes – guilt. Now though... Now the picture was getting clearer to him. No matter what Blaine said, or thought, there was one absolute fact talking against him: what Kurt had seen and heard for himself simply wasn't compatible with what Blaine was describing.

Basically, he had two options. He could walk into Glee the next day and grovel, taking responsibility for things he felt he hadn't done while excusing everything that Blaine had done wrong. Or... He could go with his gut. He could show some backbone.

"No one pushes the Hummels around" his memory whispered, and something told him his dad hadn't excluded partners in that. Just like that he made up his mind.

He pulled out of the parking lot.

The drive to the Anderson house had never been so short. Or so long. And now Kurt just sat there, staring into thin air as doubt ran wild through him. Did he really want to do this? He could still back out, could still decide to trust his boyfriend and to fight for their relationship. It meant forgetting every thought that had crossed his mind in the last hour or so though. It meant forgetting that Blaine had called him a cheater, and his misgivings when it came to Sebastian Smythe, meant swallowing the hurt and the doubts, and just go on as if nothing had changed.

Except...it didn't. It meant more than that – it meant begging for forgiveness while accepting that Blaine had done nothing to warrant some begging of his own. And Kurt didn't think he could do that.

He swallowed and kept staring in front of him. So. He had two options. The first was to leave and never ever revisit the thoughts of Blaine being a bad boyfriend. The other one... The other meant going into Blaine's home, invade his privacy and violate his trust. He'd be breaking the promises he'd made, both to Blaine and to himself, about how to act in this relationship. Chances were he'd also be breaking what remained of said relationship.

He couldn't see how he'd be able to save his relationship, to have it be healthy in any way, if he resorted to snooping. Only, he wasn't too sure there was anything left to save as it was.

Once he'd begun having doubts, begun thinking critically about Blaine's behavior? Once that happened "Klaine" had begun disintegrating, and the remaining pieces felt too small, too brittle, too painful to seem salvageable.

Before he knew it he was out of the car, using the key he'd been entrusted with during Blaine's convalescence, and quickly found his way to his boyfriend's room. Once there he sat down in front of the computer (He did not look at the bed, the bed he'd lost his virginity in. He didn't) and turned it on.

Blaine was a creature of habit. It sometimes annoyed Kurt, but it made searching his computer easy. There was a "communication" folder, with various sub-folders for different people.

His own was at the top, and he knew that if he were to open it he would find everything he'd ever sent Blaine – every text, every e-mail, every picture... Even the completely irrelevant ones, like the cake spam from when he'd gone cake shopping with Carole before the wedding. Blaine saved everything.

And that meant that somewhere there should be a folder for Sebastian Smythe as well. Scrolling down the list of names – Wes, Mike, Artie, Cooper, Rachel, Mr Schue... – didn't give any result, but there was a "Warblers" folder. That's where he struck gold.

"Seb".

The casual label burned. Blaine had said that Sebastian Smythe meant nothing to him, yet he'd had no issues with meeting up with him, and talking, and using nicknames... And he'd kept everything. Even after the slushie, and the operation, he'd kept all of Sebastian's messages. That was...rather telling.

There were a lot of messages too. The sheer amount of files was daunting, and made him feel more than a little nauseated. They'd been in contact that often? There was no way he'd have time to look at everything, or even a small portion, and honestly? The fact that there were so many messages made his snooping feel justified.

He pulled out the flash drive he'd pocketed before leaving his car and started transferring the contents of the folder. As long as he had them he could always read them later. Or not. His conscience was already going back and forth between telling him that he had a right to know and bugging him about this being wrong, no matter what Blaine had or hadn't done.

Kurt had no idea what side of himself to listen to any longer – he just knew he had to make sure he had the option. Anything else could wait.

~ TBC ~