Story: Someone Like You – 8/8

Fandom: Glee – Written for the Kurtofsky Reverse Bang
Author: ibshafer
Rating: R – for language and non-explicit sexual situations
Characters: Kurt, Dave, Blaine, "OC" Gwen

Disclaimer: I don't own these people, they own themselves and are just nice enough to let me spin them around the page now and then.

Summary: [Written for the kurtofskyrebang using jennybliss's art and story concept.] In the end, Kurt got everything he wanted out of life and Dave fulfilled his own dreams, so why aren't they happy? A chance encounter in NYC brings the boys together again after many years. Can they help each other deal with their pasts (and their futures) and finally figure out what they truly need to be happy?

Length: 30,000+

Feedback: Yes, of course! I'm like Tinkerbell (and Rachel Berry) – I need your applause (and hopefully not your rotten tomatoes!) to live…

A/N: Thanks again to The Rain Girl, Aetheriata, Vankoss, GayforKurt, silje24, LizzyPoodle(!), and PowerLad! And to everyone who favorited and alerted me/the story! You guys are the best!

Someone Like You – 8/8

~ibshafer

[From the previous part…]

Kurt was close enough now that he could smell the almond of his shampoo and the clean sweet scent of his skin and…

And Dave was lost.

Hands sliding over Kurt's face, one slipping deep into all that hair, Dave caught the elation as it registered on Kurt's face, and then he was aware of nothing but the sweetness of those lips against his, tongue searching, Kurt's hands on his face, on his back, pulling him in, pulling him close.

This time, Dave recognized the "switch" and he was ready for it when it flipped.

Fourteen years of longing and of love (because he was being honest now and this "loving Kurt" thing was not new to him), of hunger and adoration and denial, and here they were, mutually, at the same time.

Dave's hands were at Kurt's back, guiding him down flat against the couch, and Kurt's wonder of a mouth was worrying at a sensitive spot on Dave's neck, his tongue tracing along the hollow of Dave's throat, and at the juncture of shoulder and neck. Dave's heart was beating like a drum in his ear, frantic and jubilant, crazed and happy all at once, and as he settled against Kurt, against the long smooth planes of him, Dave let out a slow, awed breath; all he could feel was pure and utter relief.

"Kurt," he whispered.

"Dave…" came the smiling response.

[SECTION BREAK]

A heated moan of surrender – whose? Who knew?

Greedy kisses, a tongue tracing along another, hands seeking and finding skin, fingers running over smooth hard planes, slipping lower…

Bodies arched against one another, a whispered declaration and kisses once again, mouth against mouth, hungry, desperate.

Hands unsure, determined, tracing lower still, releasing fastenings, slipping deep inside, laughing in wonder while sweet lips kissed tears from flushed cheeks, breathed reassurances and adoration.

Finally free to feel fully, clear of mind and heart, staring in awe as pale hands freed that which was more tangible than mind and heart, gasping in surprise and need and wonder, suddenly certain, suddenly sure; skin sliding against skin, breath and cries mingled, pleasure and love inseparable, perfection—

The sound of Dave's phone trilling the arrival of text message sent him sprawling nearly out of bed.

He groped for it, saw it was from Gwen, then dropped back against the bedding, wide palm slapped over his burning eyes; guilty as if he had been caught, as if something really had happened.

Damn dreams…

As if he hadn't, after surrendering to what he was feeling, suddenly come to his senses and hurt the last person in the world he would ever have wanted to. Again.

'…I'm sorry, Kurt, but…but I just can't. If things were different…'

'Fuck you, Karofsky. Fuck you…'

He's right – fuck me.

I really am dog shit.

As if hearing Dave's miserable thoughts, Jesse stirred in his sleep, a ghostly mound of black and grey white, shining in the moonlight streaming through the window.

Ah, god, how could I have done that to him?

Dave knew Kurt had been mad, how could he not have been, but what the man seemed, more than anything else, was broken; like he'd offered up his heart and his soul to Dave, and Dave had taken them both and played with them for a moment, and then thrown them on the floor where they'd shattered.

After that, Kurt hadn't been interested in anything more Dave might have had to say, not that he loved him, not that he wanted to be with him. All Kurt would remember of this night was that Dave was a coward and a fraud. And Dave accepted that, owned both outright, and hated himself intensely for it.

Because he'd made a commitment to a woman who might or might not even love him.

Gwen…

Unable to stall any longer, and afraid another text's trilling might wake Kurt in the other room (if it hadn't already), Dave unlocked his phone and pulled up his messages…

…and was instantly freaked.

Over the last three hours, Gwen had left a handful of voice mails and ten, fifteen, no – twenty text messages!

Before he'd crawled into bed, he'd turned his ring-tone to 'silent', not wanting to wake Kurt, but had forgotten to do the same for his text alert. Somehow, he'd been so deep in sleep, he hadn't heard it until this the last had come in just now.

Feeling his stomach clench, the guilt almost palpable, he looked up to make sure the door was completely closed, then read the first text message.

*WHERE R U! Been trying since 10pm r time! Tried office. Tried home. Tried cell. No luck! CALL ME NOW!*

Shit!

Did she know something? Could she know something? Between their housekeeper and Kurt and Blaine's, and shit! there was Celie and Miri, and his entire office, really, someone could have said something to someone who…

But they weren't doing anything! They just met for lunch and dinner sometimes. They were just friends.

Except that now, well, he didn't know what they were now, but they certainly weren't friends anymore…

Screwing up his courage, Dave scrolled down to his voice mail and queued up the first, this one at 1:05 am.

"Dave? I just tried you at home and got no answer. It's after 1 am there. Where are you?"

1:20 am:

"David. I don't know what's going on, but I just tried your office and got some canned message about the phone system being down. Are you there working? Where are you? Call me immediately. It's URGENT."

2:00 am:

"Look, we're chartering a plane and coming home tonight, or well, this morning. I have…I have to talk to you immediately, David. Please don't talk to anyone else before you call me. We'll be there [fumbling, sounds of airport announcements] at 9 am your time. No baggage claim so I should be home by 9:45 at the latest. I… Call me as soon as you get this."

That was the last voice mail.

Pulling up his text messages again, Dave grabbed the first one after that.

2:15 am:

*Knowing u, u turned off yr ringer, but u always forget the text alert. Answer me ASAP.*

2:30 am:

*R U around? What r u doing, D? I need 2 talk 2 u NOW. Text, call – NOW.*

From 2:45 to 3:45 they were pretty much the same, growing increasingly more impatient and annoyed as they progressed.

All that wine must have disrupted his usual sleep cycle, most nights he slept 8 hours without waking up once; thank goodness he'd heard that 4 am text.

*WHERE R U! Been trying since 10pm r time! Tried office. Tried home. Tried cell. No luck! CALL ME!*

Fuck…

Well, guilty conscience or not, he was not going to call her now, even though her plane hadn't taken off yet. He was notgoing to risk waking Kurt, whom he'd heard tossing and turning in that big wrought iron bed for more than an hour before he had finally settled down and, Dave hoped, slept.

Sitting up, composing himself, composing his lie, he texted her back.

*Sorry, G. Fell asleep desk again. Rothman reno a bear. Didn't hear phone. What's wrong?*

The response was almost immediate.

*Finally! Been freaking out out here. Glad ur ok. We'll talk when I get home.*

Blood running cold, but not wanting to push it, he responded simply.

*OK, c u L8r.*

Another quick answer.

*D – don't talk to anyone until I get home, OK? I'll explain when I see you.*

Cryptic and not at all reassuring…

*OK.*

Her last text was short and more than a little confusing.

*Good. Love you, D.*

She loves me?

Is that what someone who's caught their fiancé cheating and wants to put a beatin' on him says?

Dave was too exhausted, too hung over, too fucking heartsick to make sense of it now.

Looking at his watch – it was 4:20 – he knew they were going to have to book it to make it home before their, how did Kurt put it? Before there 'not-insignificant others' got home from the west coast.

Dave wondered if she'd notice if he drank a quart of scotch before she got there…

Now, though, now…

Now Dave had to wake Kurt and tell him they had to get their cheating asses back to New York before their sham partners got home to dump them for their not-cheating. Or, well, nearly cheating? Falling in love, at least?

Fuck, no matter how you looked at it, it was going to be bad, bad, bad.

Grabbing his sweats from the back of the chair – he'd gone to bed in his underwear, too upset with himself to bother with more – he pulled them on and navigated his way into the hall.

And stopped short.

Kurt's light was on.

Before the guilt of also causing Kurt a sleepless night could set in, Kurt had opened his door, hair disheveled – but god, Dave wanted to touch it – squinting and holding his phone.

"We have to leave – now. I just heard from Blaine." His voice was raw, his eyes, what Dave could see of them, were red. Dave couldn't tell if he'd been crying or if he was just hung over, but whichever it was, he wasn't happy.

Dave was nodding. "I know. I just talked to Gwen. Do you think they…" He trailed off, unable to say more.

Kurt grunted, scrubbing his face with his hands. "I don't know. He sounded weird. It's possible." Kurt grabbed his stomach suddenly. "I'm gonna puke…" Running into the bathroom, he retched into the commode.

Dave watched him quietly, hesitant, then went to the sink and got him some water.

"Feel better," he asked, handing Kurt the glass.

Kurt didn't look at him, but took it with a curt nod of thanks.

Dave just stood there, aching to say more, aching to touch him.

"Kurt, look, I'm s—"

"No, no. No talking," he muttered, shaking his head, then steadying himself on the sink. "We're going to pack and then we're going to leave. And I'm not interested in hearing anything you have to say."

Chastened, Dave nodded. "I'll drive."

"Good, because I will either be sleeping or throwing up."

Dave had to stop himself from smiling; it was just such a typical Kurt thing to say – even in his misery.

Even in Dave's misery. Even in his guilt – at what he'd done to Kurt, at what he'd done to, or been about to do, to Gwen.

He really, really was starting to hate himself. Again.

First things first, though; get Kurt home.

[SECTION BREAK]

They were on the road by 5 am, Kurt sacked out in the passenger seat clutching a gallon-sized Ziploc (hidden in a plastic Wal-Mart bag) like a life preserver. Thankfully, the dogs had been cooperative, both peeing and pooping for Dave, then jumping into the back seat and falling right back to sleep.

Noticing the gas gauge was dangerously close to a quarter of a tank, Dave had stopped at a mini-mart to fill up.

This early, the sun wasn't up yet and the October morning was damp and cold. He'd left his gloves in the car, but didn't want to risk waking Kurt to get them, so he stood at the pumps, switching off hands every so often, shoving the one that was free deep in a pocket for warmth. A hybrid, the big SUV's tank still seemed to take a lot of gas, and he felt like he was standing there forever.

Dave had paid at the pump, but his hands and his exhaustion demanded a hot cup of whatever they called coffee in there, so he made his way into the shop.

Five minutes later, he stumbled out shell-shocked, carrying two cups and a bag with a buttered roll, a bagel, and a folded up tabloid in it…

Kurt looked so peaceful, finally comfortably asleep after the last time he'd vomited…but Dave knew he had no choice. He had to wake him.

Pulling into an empty space near a light post, he took a deep breath, and put his hand on Kurt's arm, shaking him very, very gently.

"Uugh…" Kurt mumbled. "I told you, no talking. Even if the car is on fire, no talking. You don't get to talk, Dave, got it?"

Now Dave laughed, but softly.

"I remember my orders, Captain, but I have something you really have to see – right now."

"Right now?" Kurt passed a hand blearily over his eyes. "Why does it have to be right now?" Looking up and seeing Dave peering at him with concern, he reached out and flailed a hand at him, managing to connect with Dave's arm, barely.

"Because," Dave said, not sure himself how he felt about what he had to show Kurt. "Because it's the real reason why we're driving home at 5 o'clock in the morning."

Kurt opened both eyes to look at Dave, confusion and nausea making a colorful mix on his pale face.

"I know it's in not my usual flawless syntax, Dave, but what-the-actual-fuck are you talking about?"

There he is.

Pulling the tabloid out of the plastic bag, he opened it and held it up against the dashboard for Kurt to see.

Kurt grunted once in irritation then turned to squint at it.

There, on the cover of the Hollywood Enquirer, was a pair of dimly lit yet clearly discernable photos of…their not-insignificant others.

The caption read, "BROADWAY GAY AND LADY LAWYER CAUGHT AT HOLLYWOOD ORGY."

The images had been heavily masked with black bars to protect those with delicate sensibilities, but there was no mistaking Blaine and Gwen, each tangled naked with an equally naked counterpart. Blaine was waving a hand at the camera, vainly trying to block himself from the shot. Gwen, on the other hand, was looking straight at the lens, a smile that was somehow proud curving her full lips.

Dave had had to turn the paper sideways and stare for a minute to figure out what was off, or well, what was unexpected about the picture. (Other than the fact that there was a picture, that is.)

It wasn't that she'd been caught naked and smiling about it on camera, and it most certainly wasn't that she'd been caught boffing some sun-tanned Hollywood B-list Adonis, because it wasn't some sun-tanned Hollywood B-list Adonis. Or even a D-List Adonis. Or an industry big-wig. Or a muscle dude with a guitar and a garage band. Because it wasn't any kind of dude at all.

Gwen Reynolds, Cheshire cat grin and all, had been caught at a big Hollywood orgy having sex with a woman. And not just any woman, but a rising starlet who'd been cast as the lead in the very film Blaine had been brought out to read for.

Dave didn't know whether he should be screaming, angry, or laughing his ass off. (Or thanking someone up there because clearly, They had been listening to his prayers tonight…) This simplified things, didn't it? Or did it just make it worse?

I knew it all along, though, didn't I? How could I not?

He wasn't so stunned by the revelation that his fiancée was a lesbian, though, that he couldn't think outside his own box, as it were. To Kurt's…

Shit…

Blaine had faired only slightly better on that cover, but that was only because the picture limited his revelatory transgressions to a single one (Cheater!); Blaine, as it turned out, was having an affair with his bodyguard, according to the caption anyway, but at least said bodyguard was of the expected gender. The guy was a big, beefy brute, too.

Blaine likes Bears, eh? That explains a lot…

More than a little worried for him, Dave looked from the tabloid to Kurt's face, not sure what he'd find there, but Kurt's response was no response at all. (Though, Dave realized, than in itself was a response…) If it weren't for the faint hint of high color in Kurt's pallid cheeks, Dave wouldn't have been certain he'd actually even looked at the picture.

I'm such an asshole…

While he'd been cracking jokes in his head about Bears and beefy brutes, Kurt's world had fallen in on him.

How could this have not been devastating to Kurt; no matter how he'd been hurt by Blaine these past few years, no matter how he felt about Dave (and even Dave didn't know now), some part of him still loved Blaine. And Blaine had betrayed him, had been betraying him for who knew how long? What's more, he had betrayed Kurt in a very tawdry and public way; betrayed and humiliated him.

Dave wanted to say something, wanted to touch Kurt, wanted to find some way to protect him and make this right, but right now, the best thing he could do for him was to let him deal in his own way.

And take him home.

Setting the coffee and the roll in the cup holder on Kurt's side of the car in case he was up to them, Dave turned off the dome light, shoving the tabloid into the door pocket. As gently as he could, he got them back onto the road, and after that, onto the highway.

Kurt stirred a few times during the trip back to New York, but Dave doubted that he slept much. At least he was done with the vomiting, though he touched neither the coffee nor the roll.

At this hour, the traffic into the city was fairly light and they made good time.

Dave pulled up in front of the San Remo and, realizing that Kurt was actually finally asleep, he parked on the street, got out quietly, got the dogs out quietly, and took them for a quick walk a few feet away. Coming back to the car, he opened the passenger side and damning the circumstances (and himself), kissed Kurt gently on the forehead, rubbing his arms slowly until he woke up. Kurt looked a little surprised to see Dave standing so closely, but was also clearly too done in to care at the moment.

Dave insisted on going up to the apartment with him and though Kurt looked like he wanted to argue the point, he clearly didn't have the energy or the heart. Carrying both their bags in one hand and holding the leashes in the other, Dave guided Kurt from the parking garage to the elevator.

Once there, Kurt let Dave unlock the apartment door, Dave still had the keys, after all, but he declined Dave's offered help to get settled in. Dropping Kurt's bag in the foyer – where Dave fully expected it would sit for days – he handed Fiyero's leash over and with the briefest pause, turned to leave.

Just before the door, he was stopped by Kurt's hand on his arm and though he remained silent, his expression as blank as it had been since they'd left Beacon, he looked Dave in the eye – one count, two counts, three counts – then was turning away again.

Dave watched him trudge down the hallway (to his bedroom, Dave hoped), and wondered if he would be okay. For a split second, he considered staying for a while, finding a book and sitting in the living room, just in case Kurt needed something, but then he remembered he had his own…whatever you want to call what this awful situation was, arriving home in – he checked his watch – an hour and a half, and he had to go.

Making sure the door was locked, he pulled at Jesse's leash – he was sniffing for crumbs around Fiyero's dish – and left, closing the door quietly behind him.

Catching a cab back to the Shelly, Dave wondered how this would all shake out, what it would mean for each of them.

He was certain of nothing right now, but that at the very least, he knew he wouldn't be getting married any time soon…

[SECTION BREAK]

The story stayed in the news for one full week – until it was eclipsed by word of Lindsay Lohan's drunken crime spree at a Neiman Marcus in downtown Los Angeles.

During that time, the guilty pair was featured in every tabloid in the country, and some overseas, naturally, but the worst of the coverage, the most relentless and bloodthirsty, came from the New York City tabloids who felt they had rightful ownership of the scandal because the players lived there, and they set about to prove that with a sleazy war of words.

That two people in apparently happy relationships had strayed and cheated under the influence of Hollywood's bright lights was not a news flash.

The revelation that one of thosecouples, the one that had been celebrated for the last two years as shining example of a committed and loving gay marriage, had never actually been married, and that the marriage had in fact been a sham and a promotional ploy, was attacked by both the Right and the Left, and by free press everywhere.

The other couple (so-called couple) involved in the scandal, had (coincidentally?) been perpetrating a sham relationship, as well, with perhaps a similar motivation; family acceptance in this case, not public. The ruse had been perpetrated this time to cover someone's homosexuality, but when new information came to light from an "undisclosed" source that the "injured" half of this couple was also, in fact, gay, the media practically creamed itself with joy.

Cameras followed allfour of them wherever they went – the tabloids, the legitimate press, the networks. By Tuesday, when the photographers and cable news grunts were out in full force, both Kurt and Dave had opted to work from home. (Though in Kurt's case, it was more like "rage and throw Blaine's belongings into the hallway.")

The response from the press was typically thorough and obsessive, as it was to anything deemed "newsworthy" by virtue of its unfortunate impact on the individuals involved.

Of the four, judgment seemed to be lightest on Kurt. Articles labeled him as "naïve" and "sad," while one focused entirely on his work and, of all things, on his physical attributes calling him "haunting," "willowy," and "androgynous."

Judgment of Dave was, naturally, harsher; he was described as everything from "hapless" and "clueless," to "complicit" and "dishonest." It was the gay press, though, that really had a field day with Dave, accusing him of being "a self-hating closeted homophobe afraid of himself" and calling him "a delusional rube who knowingly let the wool be pulled over his own eyes."

And this was the comparably milder treatment of the "good guys" in this story…

The press's response to the guiltier half was, as would be expected, more venomous, gleeful, even, and as vindicating and entertaining as that vitriol might be, it is not actually relevant to the telling of this particular story, the story of Kurt and Dave. It need only be said that cameras followed Blaine, sporting a shiny new bodyguard, into the Gershwin every day, that they were waiting for Gwen at her office building in the morning, and that the swarm of them camped out in front of the San Remo and the Shelly Netherland were a nuisance and a hindrance to all four of them…

And of the personal fall-out?

Dave, having finally acknowledged his feelings and his identity, sat Gwen down and told her about Kurt. All of it. She only seemed mildly surprised by the story and then only because she hadn't realized Dave and Kurt knew each other.

They were able to speak with surprising rationality, despite Dave's humiliation at discovering just what kind of beard he'd been all these years. He understood her motivation, though not how far she'd been willing to go with it or the fact that she'd also been willing to let him continue to deny who he was when she was living her life, in secret anyway, as she wished. For that, and perhaps for a few other things, he would never quite forgive her.

But they parted amicably enough, fortunate in that for all the betrayal this scandal was steeped in, neither had, in fact, betrayed their true feelings for the other; they really were more like brother and sister.

Bloodied from the fray, but still strong in her conviction, Gwen was heading out to Chicago to see her father then back out to Los Angeles where, it turns out, her long-time girlfriend was waiting for her.

Before she left, she'd hugged Dave hard and told him she would always feel love for him and always owe him a debt of gratitude. She also made it clear to him that he had paid the debt he seemed to think he owed his past – that he deserved to be happy now. She made him promise that from now on, he would do what made himhappiest – and if that was being with Kurt, then he'd better not let him go.

Dave had promised her he would, but in his heart, he knew he no longer had that right.

As for Kurt, once the hangover and shock had worn off, which by coincidence occurred the moment Blaine walked through the front door, Kurt found his mad.

Before Blaine could spin the story as he'd been hoping to ("we'd just been swimming, babe, and since no one had brought trunks…" "I didn't know he had a thing for me, Kurt, and I fired him the minute I found out…" Blah, blah, blah…), Kurt lit into him, letting out two years' (ten, really) worth of repressed resentment, bitten tongues, and bent-over-backwards "allowances." He accused Blaine of betraying Kurt's love and trust, of using him to "gay-up" his image, of always always thinking of himself first, and for being the worst boyfriend in the history of homosexuality. (Which was saying something.)

He demanded Blaine get his duplicitous ass out of the apartment and not to worry about his things since they would all be in the hallway by the end of the week and he could bring his hired fuck-buddy over to help him drag it all away.

Blaine, to his surprising credit, didn't argue any of this, mostly because he had not a leg to stand on. Before he left, he whistled and grabbed Fiyero's leash from the brass hook by the door – the dog, after all, had been his choice – at which point Kurt told him that the tiny poodle was not one of the things Blaine could take with him…

Over the next week, a week in which both Kurt and Dave were, for all intents and purposes, housebound, each did what they could to put their affairs in order. Kurt cleansed the apartment of signs of the "infidel dog" and Dave made phone calls in search of a new apartment. (This one belonged to Gwen's father, after all…)

They thought of each other often during that week, with sadness and not a little regret, but neither had the strength to call the other and each respected the turmoil the other no doubt was going through.

Their feelings for each other, and the impact the turmoil – and the drama that had preceded it – would have on those feelings, remained to be seen.

Perhaps, when the dust settled…

[SECTION BREAK]

On a clear day, unseasonably warm for early November, he'd come to the park, dog in tow, to sit on a bench for a while.

He'd sent a text before he'd come and though he'd gotten no response, he'd come out anyway.

After all, the dog needed to be walked, regardless.

And so he was surprised to suddenly find himself not alone on that bench.

As the dogs yipped their joy at being reunited after so long, because two weeks is unbearably long in dog-years, they quietly sat and watched them play, neither speaking, but both sitting closely on that familiar bench.

And when, after a few minutes, pale fingers reached across the worn slats and threaded themselves through the strong hand they found there, still no words were exchanged, though flushed faces now smiled faintly.

They sat that way for some time, as the dogs, now exhausted, lay sleeping at their feet, and when the sun started to dip lower on the horizon, spreading pink and gold along the tree line, they rose silently, roused the dogs, smiled to each other, and headed off together out of the park.

Fini

[A/N: As a special thanks to all of you who commented and read and favorited, here is a tiny piece of the next chapter… I'm not sure how far I'm going to go with this, but if nothing else, I owe you all a lemon… ]

Epilogue - Someone (Exactly) Like You

~ibshafer

There had been no agenda, no signal, no expectation from either of them.

Hand in hand, dogs walking excitedly ahead of them (it was dinnertime, after all, even if one of them was unfamiliar with the route they were taking), they simply crossed the street after they left the park, as though it were the most natural thing for them to do.

Across 59th Street.

To the Shelly Netherland…

tbc…

14