#klainebigbang

Blaine texts him periodically throughout the day, at every one of Dalton’s passing periods, a couple of times during his lunch period, even more regularly once Dalton lets out for the day. Kurt can’t bring himself to text back most of the time, can’t fall into Blaine’s honeyed words and his own damned memories, especially after Saturday.

Was Mrs. Lamberg this boring when you were at Dalton?

Damn, I forgot to bring lunch today. You said you like to cook, right? Do you have any recipes for a single, starved teenage boy? :P

Italy in WW2 – ally or axis? I can never remember.

I love it when I put my iPod on shuffle and it cycles from Kelly Clarkson to three Beatles songs in a row.

Kurt replies once and then leaves his phone in his room while he has dinner.

His phone rings just after nine, long after he’s dismissed his homework and been sucked into the Etsy vintage section. He picks up without looking at the screen, thumb swiping across the screen on muscle memory, and rests the phone between his cheek and shoulder while he flips his hand round so his arm is no longer contorted.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Kurt,” Blaine says quietly. Kurt would think him timid but . . . this is Blaine. There’s Roxy Music playing in the background and Kurt’s heart ices over. “I hope this isn’t a bad time.”

“Just some online shopping. There’s some gorgeous original pieces on Etsy.”

“I feel like I should know what Etsy is . . .”

Kurt breathes out a quiet laugh. “I think you’d like it. There are some retro bow ties you’ll love.”

Blaine’s breath hitches as Kurt screws up his fist and silently berates himself. He keeps slipping – he can’t stop himself from slipping, not when it comes to Blaine.

“I’ll look it up next time I’m online.”

“I could just send you the link now, if you want, over Facebook?” Kurt’s mouth says without prior permission.

“Actually, I, ah, don’t have Facebook.”

Kurt frowns. “Why not?”

Over the static of the phone line and the crackle of vinyl, Kurt hears Bryan Ferry sing, I remember all those moments, Lost in wonder that we’ll never . . .

“Well, it’s sort of impossible to control people over the internet. I keep in contact with my old friends by email, mostly.”

“Oh.”

And here by the Seine, Notre-Dame casts a long lonely shadow. Now - only sorrow, no tomorrow, there’s no today for us.

“Roxy Music,” Kurt says softly. Blaine makes a noise of question, and Kurt can almost see the way he tilts his head and looks up ever so slightly through his eyelashes. “Nothing. What are you up to right now?”

“Just relaxing. Listening to some music. Do you know Bryan Ferry?”

“I do.”

A second of silence. Blaine’s probably waiting for Kurt to continue, because that’s what Blaine does, he listens to Kurt, even when Kurt forgets to extend the same courtesy. It’s only really happened once, which is one of the things caused the whole Chandler debacle (he now has enough hindsight to admit), but it’s enough for Kurt to realise that bad things happen when he gets too self-involved.

He gets a peculiar feeling in his stomach, as if he’s on the edge of an epiphany. But Blaine starts talking again, so Kurt puts the thought away to think about later during the hours he has nothing to do but stare at the ceiling.

“If I had a time machine, I’d go back to the seventies and give Bryan Ferry a high five.”

Kurt shoves his finger between his teeth and bites hard enough to stop more than a few tears from falling as a soldering pen is thrust between his ribs.

“I swear, the man’s a lyrical genius,” Blaine babbles on. “And what I wouldn’t give to go to a Roxy Music concert in their prime!”

“Isn’t Bryan Ferry still alive now?” he asks, voice wavering dangerously.

“Yeah, but it wouldn’t be the same.”

After a few moments of silence, the album continues on with the next song. Turn the lights down way down low, turn up the music as hi as fi can go . . .

Kurt closes his eyes, tilts his head back, and presses his hand to his mouth to muffle the few sobs he’ll indulge in tonight. He hopes Blaine can’t hear him crying, even when the music decrescendos.

Oh, mother of pearl, I wouldn’t change you for the whole world.

“Kurt?” Blaine murmurs.

“Can we—” Kurt’s voice trembles and cracks. He takes a deep breath and blinks harshly at the ceiling, sending more tears down his cheeks. “Can we just listen to the music?”

“Yeah, y—of course! Just – just hold on, I’m gonna put the phone down for a second.” Underneath the song and Kurt’s uneven, hitching breaths, he can hear the rustling of material, and the music gets louder moments before Blaine speaks into the phone again, “I’m back.”

“Where did you—?” A sob, loud and unmistakable, cuts through Kurt’s question like a blade. Blaine makes a soft noise but Kurt barely hears it. Where do you go? But Blaine didn’t go anywhere – it was Kurt who went, to New York, to a new life, where he forgot to listen to Blaine and Blaine forgot he needed to make Kurt listen to him. It would be so easy to blame it all on Blaine, because the other boy had encouraged him to go to New York in the first place. But it was only after Kurt got the internship atVogue.com that their communication started to fall apart.

If he ever gets home, he needs to talk to Blaine.

“I moved my record player closer,” Blaine says comfortingly. Always looking out for Kurt. “So you can hear the music better. Is that okay?”

Kurt wants to say, I love you. I love you so much, even though I want so desperately not to.

But he can’t. He’s only known Blaine – this Blaine – or more accurately, this Blaine has only known him – for less than a week. Blaine may not question Kurt’s declaration, because after all, this is the same boy who declared himself in love with the bullfrog after only two coffee not-dates, but Kurt’s heart would break if Blaine didn’t say it back.

His heart would probably break if he did say it back, too.

“Okay. Thank you,” he whispers back instead, curling up around a pillow and the warmth of his laptop. With shaking hands, he plugs his headphones into the jack and puts them in his ears, clutches the phone to his chest, and stares ahead with tears slipping steadily down his cheeks and heart heavy in his chest. The music is louder this way, but that means so are the noises Blaine makes. Every rustle of fabric, so loud in Kurt’s ears but out of his sight, hits him with the memory of the last time he was with his own Blaine, their backs to each other with the sounds of New York drifting up from the street.

And then Blaine starts to sing, quiet and deep and smooth and so hesitant that, for a moment, Kurt’s sobs become audible again.

“Oh look at the sun – it’s all aglow, slow burning star – sinking low. Heaven knows where you go. Out of sight, out of mind’s eye, no. Such a shame. You must leave. All day long, you were a friend to me.”

Kurt’s eyelids droop of their own afford; despite the tears steadily dampening his hair and pillow, his sobs fade. It hurts so much to hear Blaine sing again when the last time was Teenage Dream, but Kurt has never been able to resist the lure of Blaine’s voice. Not since the first time was Teenage Dream, too.

“Still, the moon’s company, until morning when larks sing horizon’s appointment you’ll keep, for sunswept flamingos must sleep. Scenes like these from my dreams cover cutting-room floors all over . . .”

The instrumental section brings with it a chance for Kurt to think again, and he tries to shut his eyes against it.

He wonders if he’ll ever see his own Blaine again. The selfish, cowardly part of him wants to stay here, pretend he’s always been a part of this universe and just . . . be with Blaine. Not have to face the one who cheated on him, who broke his trust, whom he doesn’t know if he’ll ever be okay with again.

“Courage,” he mouths to himself, lips too dry and grossly gummy for him to speak aloud, and then Blaine and Bryan Ferry sing to him again.

“Warm heart, we spin slowly from view. Why are you sad? Do you disapprove how we’ve wasted our time? Sunset – end of day – my decline. Postscript, you trace colours, they sky red-letter fades, is filed away. Sunburst fingers you raise. One last sigh of farewell. Goodbye.”

Blaine’s voice is tight when he reaches the last few lines and the vinyl runs into white noise, and Kurt’s mouth is too heavy to comfort him. He forces himself to hum into the microphone instead, just random snippets of tunes until Blaine giggles.

“Was that Kelly’s My Dark Side?” he asks.

“You texted about her earlier,” Kurt slurs.

“Thank you, Kurt,” Blaine says, barely audible, but the gratitude washes through Kurt like the tide.

He’s too tired to respond but it doesn’t matter; the static stops and Blaine puts down another side of Roxy Music, which makes Kurt smile. To know that, even in this universe, Blaine still has the entire vinyl box set eases something in Kurt’s mind.

He falls asleep pretending his pillow and laptop his someone else’s body, and dreams of nightingales.

~*~

Kurt wakes up with a start, heart thumping from dreams he doesn’t remember and almost kicking his laptop (now dead, having been off charge for hours) off the bed. His headphones are tangled in a knot under his body, the wire twisted round his fingers, and the light of his phone screen momentarily sears his eyes when he checks the time.

But the first thing he notices is the glowing red bar at the top of the screen, and slowly, it filters through that he’s still connected on a call.

He’s still connected on a call to Blaine, who heard him crying over the phone, who sang him to sleep . . .

His blood runs cold, and he fumbles with numb fingers to disconnect the call without checking to see if Blaine’s still awake. The light disappears immediately, and Kurt stares blankly at the dark shapes of his knees underneath his blanket.

He only vaguely notices the room getting brighter as the sun rises. When his alarm blares, he flinches against the sudden noise and then moves mechanically through his routine with the addition of Tylenol before brushing his teeth, all the while thinking about anything but how vulnerable he was last night.

He’s always felt safe with Blaine. He doesn’t know how he should act now that he rationally knows he shouldn’t and does anyway.

Blaine’s texts start coming in just after seven. There’s no mention of last night, and Kurt just puts the phone back in his pocket and forces his focus back onto the lessons he’s already taken.

Like yesterday, Blaine texts Kurt almost every time the Dalton boy isn’t in a lesson; unlike yesterday, by lunch time, Kurt has resolved not to even read them. It’s so much harder than he expects it to considering he usually has iron-strong self-control, and he hates himself a little more every time he caves within ten minutes of his phone vibrating in his pocket.

He actually works on his homework tonight, and the assignments he put off yesterday. He stretches it out for as long as he can, answers every question in as much detail as possible, and takes over the kitchen to make the most extravagant meal their mediocre kitchen supplies can create. When he catches Burt watching him from the kitchen door, he smiles and pretends he doesn’t see the concern in the man’s eyes.

He tosses and turns all night, both willing Blaine to call again and dreading it. He wants to talk to Blaine – he wants to talk to his dad – he wants his life to just be uncomplicated for once. He needs to sort through what he’s feeling but he doesn’t think he can do it on his own; he’d go to his dad but, well, Burt would ask too many questions; unfortunately, the best he has is Sam, who tells him he’ll figure it out and then starts speaking Na’vi to either diffuse to tension or scare Kurt away, though whatever his purpose, Kurt leaves anyway. Even Finn, who spent many a late hour playing mindless video games, kicks Kurt out of his room at one in the morning. “I’m, like, a teacher now,” he says, “I need to sleep. And you should, too, dude, you kinda look like hell.”

When Blaine does call, the next day at six in the evening, Kurt panics. He slides his thumb to ignore the call, throws the phone across the room, and flees to the family room where Burt and Carole are watching a cooking show.

At three am, his phone flashes with Blaine’s name again. Kurt stares at it from across the room, his heart pounding, counting the vibrations.

Five until it rings out.

Four until it rings out.

Three until it rings out.

Kurt shoots across his bedroom, cracking his knee against the floor as he trips in his haste, and picks up the call at the last second. “Hi.”

“Kurt. Are – are you okay?”

“Yes, yes, I’m fine. Blaine, I’m—“

“Did I do something wrong?” Blaine’s breathing is labored and his voice wet. Kurt recognises the tone as the one so close to breaking down, and his heart plummets.

“No,” he answers, clenching his eyes shut. “No, hon—you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I’m sorry,” Blaine says, barely keeping control. “For overstepping the other night. Or singing to you, I know I’m not that good—”

A gasp of air escapes Kurt’s lips. “Blaine, stop,” he begs, and Blaine falls silent but for his damp breaths loud in Kurt’s ear. “You have nothing to be sorry about, really. I just – I’m not used to – to being vulnerable around people. I didn’t really know how to process it.” It’s not a total lie. Not the total truth, for sure, but it isn’t a lie. “You did everything right,” he finishes quietly, gripping tightly onto his aching knee so that the pain flares. And that isn’t a lie.

“R-really?”

“Your voice is amazing. I – the other night – that was—” He cuts himself off with a harsh huff, and then repeats, “Your voice is . . . amazing.”

“Kurt,” Blaine says, and then there’s no noise from the other end of the line for so long that Kurt quickly checks they haven’t somehow disconnected.

“Blaine, I-I’m really tired so I’m gonna go to bed now.”

“I’m sorry for waking you up,” Blaine says in a heavy voice.

“You didn’t,” Kurt says. Blaine makes a low noise of acknowledgement, and Kurt opens and closes his mouth a few times, trying to think of something else to say.

He can’t, so he hangs up.

As an afterthought, he sends Blaine a text:

My school has a half day on Friday. I can come pick you up from Dalton and we can get coffee again? Goodnight.

He hesitates before sending it, and then he turns off his phone and creeps downstairs to get an ice pack for his knee.

It’s another sleepless night. Kurt finds no relief in online shopping anymore, unable to use the credit card in his wallet because this Kurt has a different password for everything. So his mind wanders. He manages to keep it (mostly) away from the Blaine from his own universe, except in the most distant sense of wondering if he’s been missing from there for almost two and a half weeks, too. Perhaps the two Kurts just swapped places.

Kurt doesn’t know how he feels about that, quite honestly.

After about an hour and a half of tossing and turning and torturing himself with thoughts of this universe’s Kurt forgiving Blaine in Kurt’s stead just so he can have a boyfriend (because Kurt knows what he’s like, and he knows he’s capable of some really thoughtless things when it comes to Blaine, and Blaine would probably so self-effacing but so grateful . . .)

After about an hour and a half, Kurt gives up trying to sleep, but he doesn’t stop thinking about the other Kurt. He moves to his desk and turns on his desk lamp, digs out the untouched stationery set he found his first day here, and begins to write.

Dear Kurt . . .

~*~

Kurt remembers to turn his phone back on during lunch. He has one text:

Coffee would be great. :) I’ll see you on Friday. Sweet dreams xx

He looks up at Tina when she calls his name and pulls her into a tight hug. He closes his eyes, pretends, and kisses the side of her head.

“Are you okay?” she asks. Kurt nods and offers her a smile, and she smiles widely, if confusedly, in return.

“Wonderful. Now, would you do me the honor of accompanying me to the petri dish of food poisoning?”

Tina giggles and links her arm through Kurt’s. “Hey, now, the food’s actually a lot better now Marley’s mom is in charge of the kitchen.”

“And she does an amazing job. But that doesn’t change the fact that we eat prison leftovers.”

~*~

Kurt pulls into the Dalton guests’ parking lot about fifteen minutes before the final bell, which gives him enough time to toss his empty coffee cup into the trash can by the gates and check his appearance in the mirror on the other side of the sun flap. His hair is still perfect and, after tugging his scarf back into place, so is his outfit. Then all that’s left to do is wait.

The gates open mere moments before the bell rings; Kurt can’t actually hear it this far from the school, but Kurt knows from many an afternoon waiting for class to end so he can go home. It takes a few moments more for the rush of students to start coming out the door, and Kurt, along with some of the girls from nearby public schools who have come to meet their boyfriends, starts heading up to the school itself. He doubts Blaine could miss him in his pale green shirt but it’s been impossible to ignore how low Blaine’s self esteem is.

He gets a few looks as he leans against the column at the bottom of the entrance steps – Dalton or not, this is still Ohio, and Kurt is still obviously gay – but he ignores them, watching the doors for Blaine’s exit.

What he is not expecting is for Blaine to exit with Sebastian Smythe’s arm over his shoulders as the taller boy whispers in his ear.

For a moment, Kurt sees red, and when that fades, he’s left with a broken heart. He’s about to turn around and storm off, damning Blaine to hell, delete his number from Kurt’s phone and wash his hands of his very much ex-boyfriend for good, when Blaine’s eyes find him. They’re wide and scared and pleading, and Kurt finds himself storming forward instead.

He almost regrets it when he hears what Sebastian’s saying (“Come on, baby, don’t be such a prude. I’ve missed you so much”) but his face when Kurt knocks his arm off Blaine’s shoulders and pulls the shorter boy away is so, so worth it.

Sebastian looks Kurt up and down and smirks that damned cocky smirk. Kurt glares coldly at him in return. He ignores the way everyone else around them slows and stops; the air is almost cracking with the possibility that Kurt might finally be able to say everything he’s wanted to.

He starts with, “If you want to keep certain body parts attached to your body, I’d suggest you leave Blaine alone.”

Beside him, Blaine lets out a tiny gasp; the crowd around them solidifies; Sebastian laughs.

“What are you going to do, shriek at me until I run away?”

“More like I’ll cut them off with a handsaw.”

Kurt’s icy tone seems to assure the other boy of his seriousness, and Sebastian’s smirk falters for a second before he looks at Blaine, and all the worry seems to fall off him.

“This your boyfriend, baby?” He grins a shark’s smile and steps into both Blaine and Kurt’s personal space. He lowers his voice and says to Blaine, intimately, running a hand down Blaine’s arm, “Does he know all the things we did together? How much you liked it? How you begged for more?”

“S-stop,” Blaine begs quietly. Kurt can feel him shaking, and he quickly steps between the two. His chest brushes against Sebastian’s and, even though Sebastian is taller, he’s caught off balance and stumbles back.

“Hey—”

“He said ‘stop’,” Kurt snarls. “You know what it makes you when you continue without his consent?”

Blaine jerks against Kurt’s back, and his hand comes up to grip Kurt’s bicep.

But Sebastian’s grin doesn’t go anywhere. “Oh, he consented. Every single time. Isn’t that right, baby?”

“I’m not your baby,” Blaine mutters, letting Kurt slip out of his hold when he steps forward to further the distance between Blaine and Sebastian. “Kurt. Kurt, please.”

“Yes, Kurt, please,” Sebastian mocks. “Please, harder, faster, stronger. Although.” He snorts, scanning Kurt’s body again. “I can see why he wants other people to fuck him if that’s what he’s working with.”

“And yet you’ll be the one at twenty-three dying of clamydia in an empty apartment,” Kurt snaps. “Let’s go, Blaine,” he says, spinning tightly on the spot, grabbing Blaine’s hand and pulling the other boy away. The crowd parts with no more than a glare from Kurt, and Blaine almost immediately catches up with Kurt’s strides.

“See you on Monday, Blaine!” Sebastian calls after them. Neither looks back; Blaine turns his wrist to lace his fingers between Kurt’s and holds on tight, as if Kurt is his lifeline from the laughter and catcalls.

When they stop at Kurt’s car so he can unlock, a girl shouts over, “Did you really go out of state to find another guy? When are you gonna give a girl a chance?” while her friends wolf whistle. Blood floods Blaine’s cheeks and he doesn’t look away from Kurt’s car, even when Kurt walks him round to the passenger door and opens it for him. On his way back to the driver’s side, Kurt glares at the group of assholes, but they just respond with rude gestures.

The radio starts up with the engine—that’s Madonna’s classic, Like a Virgin, and now here at the studio we have—and Kurt turns it off. He’s not much in the mood for noise right now, whether that’s music or mindless chatter (though he wouldn’t be totally opposed to some angry punk music right about now).

He’s driven past two coffee houses and four cafés, unwilling to stop within the Dalton and Crawford district, before Blaine speaks up, his voice quiet and breakable as a glass vase.

“Kurt? Can you take me home? I don’t want you to leave but . . .”

Kurt leaves one hand on the wheel, and with the other, he reaches over the center console and slips his fingers over Blaine’s palm, resting their hands together on his lap. Blaine’s returning grip is enough to almost immediately slow the circulation to Kurt’s fingers, but all he says is, “Okay.”

He, of course, does know where Blaine lives, but he pulls over and holds Blaine’s hand and wonders when he stopped caring that this Blaine is almost identical to the one who cheated on him until Blaine manages to stop himself shaking enough to plug his address into the sat nav.

As Kurt pulls away from the kerb, he wonders when he started forgiving Blaine for cheating on him. Well, no, ‘forgiving’ may be the wrong word . . . ‘understanding why’, maybe, or at the very least wanting to.

“You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to,” Blaine says, looking out the front window so Kurt can’t catch his eye when he looks over. “I know I said . . . But I probably won’t be very good company.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Kurt says. “We can just watch a movie or something. Do you have a mani-pedi kit?”

“Yeah.”

“Then we’ll pamper ourselves. We are allowed to feel good about ourselves, after all.”

In the silence of the car, Kurt hears Blaine’s breathing become more shallow, but this time allows the shorter boy to get himself together by himself.

The next time they talk is almost forty minutes later when they arrive at Blaine’s house, when Kurt compliments the interior.

“Thanks, though we actually had very little to do with it; my mom hired a designer.” Kurt knows this already, but he goes along with it, nodding as if it’s the first time he’s heard it. “Do you want to come up to my room?” Blaine asks, peering up between his lashes as a blush rises on his cheeks, though this time it’s sweet instead of humiliated. “It’ll be a lot more comfortable watching movies up there.”

“Sure,” Kurt replies, resisting the urge to hold Blaine’s hand, tug him up the stairs and pull him onto the bed. He’s so suddenly, incredibly nervous; he knows the implications of going into someone’s bedroom, and he can think of little else but Sebastian’s remarks and the way Blaine feels when they’re making love.

He’s also suddenly, increasingly hard, so at the top of the stairs he asks Blaine where the bathroom is and leaves with a wink and a wave of his hand, “You can put on whatever. I’m not particularly in the mood for anything, though I will never say no to a musical.”

“Okay,” Blaine says, almost shy. “Shall I make some popcorn?”

“Yes, no preference for flavor.”

Blaine goes back downstairs; Kurt locks himself in the bathroom and leans against the door, takes three deep breaths, and looks down.

Oh, hell.

But he can’t jack off in Blaine’s bathroom – he didn’t even do that when they were dating, at any point in their sexual relationship. In Blaine’s bedroom, okay, but that was sexy. This is wrong.

Although, maybe if he’s clinical about it . . .

Kurt shakes his head roughly and feels a few strands of hair fall onto his forehead. No, he can’t just be clinical about masturbating in Blaine’s bathroom, especially not when it’s Blaine himself who Kurt will be thinking about, and especially when in his own universe, they are probably broken up, and in this universe, they’ve never been together. It’s gross and rude and Puckerman levels of disgusting, and Kurt absolutely refuses to be a victim to his hormones. He will think unsexy thoughts. He is Kurt Hummel, and he will force his erection away.

As a last resort – because he still isn’t softening, damn it all – he remembers that one time when Rachel and Finn had forgotten to make sure the house was empty before having sex and he heard Rachel’s caterwauling. It works like a charm.

He flushes the toilet and washes his hands, just for verisimilitude, and then goes back to Blaine’s bedroom. Blaine’s already back sans blazer and tie and with the popcorn, which smells delicious, and is crouching in front of his DVD case.

The bedroom is exactly the same: striped bed set, dark green walls, trophies everywhere, a shelf of old cameras and model cars, the gramophone. It even smells the same, of Blaine’s cologne and the slightest hint of raspberries.

“Is My Fair Lady alright?” Blaine asks, snapping Kurt out of his trance. “I’m not really in the mood for anything that’ll make me cry.”

“My . . . ? Oh, yeah, yes, that’s perfect. There’s never a bad time for Audrey Hepburn.” He smiles at Blaine and settles on the bed before thinking about it, and he feels his face heat up when he realises what he’s done. Blaine’s blushing too when he climbs onto the bed, but he doesn’t shy away from Kurt’s gaze. In fact, he returns it tenfold, and the intensity makes Kurt both blush more and look away. And, shamefully, begin to get hard again.

He rearranges himself on the comforter, tugs off his scarf and grabs a handful of buttery popcorn to distract himself.

“Please tell me you know all the songs,” Kurt says over the opening credits, because otherwise he’d start singing and feel kind of awkward just expecting the other boy to join in. He steadfastly does not look at Blaine.

“Of course,” Blaine says. “Like you said, it’s Audrey Hepburn.”

“Favorite Hepburn film? Be advised,” he says, look at Blaine slyly out of the corner of his eye, “the continuation of our relationship depends entirely upon your answer.”

“Roman Holiday,” Blaine answers immediately. He turns his head against the headboard to look at Kurt and smiles. “Conclusion?”

Kurt smiles back. “Good answer.”

It is two songs – to which Blaine and Kurt both sing along, at first quite calmly, but then they both get into it and start belting them out regardless of key – before Kurt can’t hold back any longer.

“Blaine, can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“. . . Did you really have sex with Sebastian?”

Blaine’s smile drops, he looks down at the almost empty popcorn bowl, and his shoulders and arms curl inwards. Kurt’s stomach plummets.

“Can’t we just watch the movie?” he mutters. Kurt swallows and nods once, and the rest of the movie passes in silence, and it isn’t until Eliza turns up at Higgins’ house at the end that it’s broken.

“Did you know,” Blaine says quietly, “that the scene in Roman Holiday where Peck’s character pretends to lose his hand wasn’t in the script?”

“Yeah, I think I heard that somewhere.” Kurt copies Blaine’s tone; the moment feels fragile, somehow, and Kurt can’t find himself to be loud anyway when that ‘somewhere’ was Blaine back in his own universe.

“Peck had seen the trick somewhere else and he didn’t tell Audrey Hepburn about it, so her scream is real.”

The credits begin to roll; Blaine watches them, while Kurt watches Blaine.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs. Blaine startles, turning his head to blink in surprise at Kurt.

“Kurt, you have nothing to be sorry for.”

Kurt doesn’t bother arguing. He knows Blaine won’t accept it no matter how hard he pushes, because to him, Kurt’s only offence is a tactless question. But honestly, even if Blaine had pushed for a reason, Kurt wouldn’t have known what to say. He’s just . . . sorry.

“Do you want to watch Roman Holiday next?” Kurt asks, and Blaine shakes his head.

“Actually . . .” He takes a breath, and his eyes flick down to Kurt’s lips for less time than it would take to blink. Kurt catches it anyway. He was looking for it.

Blaine gently cups Kurt’s cheek; Kurt lets out a shaky gasp, and Blaine takes it as the invitation it is; Kurt falls.

The kiss is warm and soft and gentle. Kurt balances on one arm and uses the other to trace his hand up Blaine’s arm, from his wrist to his shoulder, and then higher to Blaine’s neck.

Kurt pulls back enough to be able to see Blaine without crossing his eyes. Blaine’s eyes stay closed for a few moments more, his eyebrows drawn upwards – in surprise or bliss, Kurt isn’t sure – and Kurt takes the opportunity to look closely at the veins on Blaine’s eyelids, at every long eyelash casting a soft shadow underneath Blaine’s eyes; to feel the roughness of Blaine’s callouses on his skin, their breath mingling in the inch between their lips.

“Blaine,” Kurt whispers, and the other boy opens his eyes. The amber burns beneath Kurt’s skin, alighting embers into flames and flames into an inferno, and their lips crash together again. Kurt doesn’t know who moved first, but it doesn’t even matter when Blaine licks vertically across Kurt’s lips, light and tickling, and then he lets out a short, high gasp when Kurt bites at his bottom lip in retaliation.

Blaine pushes forward and swings himself over Kurt’s legs, straddling Kurt’s thighs and pushing their bodies so closely together that Kurt can feel every hot inch of him: his strong thighs over Kurt’s, his hardening cock against Kurt’s abdomen, his firm chest against Kurt’s with not the slightest gap. Kurt tangles his tongue with Blaine’s, keeps him close by his grip of Blaine’s neck and the small of his back as he and Blaine work together to swivel Blaine’s hips.

“Kurt, I want,” Blaine whines before Kurt draws him back in with lips and teeth. He pulls back to skim his lips along Kurt’s jaw and then tilting his head back so Kurt can kiss his neck. Kurt acquiesces, sucking down the tendon, and the only noise Blaine can seem to make is a breathless ‘ah! ah! K—ah!’ every time Kurt tugs Blaine’s skin between his teeth and broadly licks his tongue over afterwards to soothe the mark.

“Kurt,” Blaine tries again, his stomach moving quickly and heavily against Kurt’s chest when Kurt lifts his body up higher to bite at the hollow beneath his Adams apple, “I want to ride you.”

Kurt swallows thickly. “Yeah. M-me too.”

Blaine’s hands slip from Kurt’s body to start unbuttoning his own shirt, and Kurt whines. He wants Blaine’s hands on him, needs Blaine’s hands on him, because Blaine’s body is like coffee and Kurt’s been drinking him in with eyes and hands for almost a year now, but if Blaine isn’t touching him then Kurt might start to get his sense and judgement back.

“Help me take my clothes off?” Blaine whispers, dipping down to kiss Kurt’s lips again.

“Only if you help me take off mine,” Kurt answers, but he’s already slipping his hand is already slipping round Blaine’s waist to undo his pants. One-handed and with heavy fingers, the button requires fumbling; the zip is shockingly loud amidst their heavy breathing, taking less than a second to open but Kurt hears every tooth unlock.

He pulls Blaine forward and up onto his knees by his buttocks, slipping his hands down Blaine’s pants and briefs and gripping his fingers in the crease between Blaine’s ass cheeks and his thighs. As he slowly removes Blaine’s clothes, caressing whatever skin he touches, Blaine hums a happy three-note ditty, and Kurt can’t help but surge up and cover Blaine’s mouth again in an effort to keep them joined together.

But Blaine, eventually, pulls away, because there’s a different endgame than this, and that endgame requires lubrication and a condom. Kurt keeps stroking him with one hand, feeling the tightening and loosening of muscles and trailing lightly enough along Blaine’s hole to make him shudder, and with the other he fumbles with the zip of his jeans and starts pushing them, and his briefs down.

Blaine moans and captures Kurt’s face between his hands to give him another long kiss. The bottle of lube is uncomfortably chilly against Kurt’s overheated skin, and the crinkle of the condom is far too loud, but then Blaine twists his tongue and Kurt forgets about everything but the hot tightness of his body, the thrum of electricity under his skin, and the aching of his dick. He grabs Blaine closer again, bringing their bodies to touch again. The head of his dick brushes up Blaine’s ass, from behind his balls, over his perineum, catching on his hole; Blaine cries out, twitching in time with the dribbles of pre-come from his own cock onto Kurt’s stomach as his legs shake, and Kurt thrusts up helplessly and moans against Blaine’s neck.

“We need – we need to,” Blaine says, voice hoarse, swallowing heavily, “to take our clothes off.”

Kurt smiles faintly, his hands shaking as he pulls off Blaine’s shirt, casts it aside and picks up the lube. “I agree. Far too many layers.”

Blaine laughs breathlessly. “You’re one to talk. You’ve got, like, f-four—ah!” Kurt rubs two lubed fingers over Blaine’s hole, pressing with his middle finger without penetrating, at the same time he trails a hand up Blaine’s side and tweaks a nipple with his thumb. Blaine moans and thrusts back, only succeeding in spreading the lube more, and yanks on Kurt’s shirt, accidentally slipping one of the buttons through the hole. “Kurt, p-please, you need to—”

“I know, honey,” Kurt whispers. He slowly slips a finger into Blaine’s ready hole, and he gasps; he’d forgotten how hot the inside of Blaine’s body is, how loved and powerful and powerless he felt to be let in like this.

Blaine gives up on Kurt’s shirt, wraps his arms around Kurt’s shoulders, and quickly sits down until Kurt’s entire finger is snug in his ass. He groans into Kurt’s cheek, and Kurt can feel the vibrations everywhere. He pets Blaine’s face, watches his eyes roll up before his eyelids close as Kurt works in a second finger and begins to slowly pump them in and out.

“God, Kurt, your fingers,” Blaine moans, opening his eyes to turn that burning intensity onto Kurt again. He shudders when Kurt spreads his fingers inside, arches his back, face screwed up in a silent cry when Kurt twists his wrist to pass over Blaine’s prostate again and again and again until Kurt can feel Blaine’s sweat on his thighs, and that’s when he adds his third and fourth fingers in quick succession, when Blaine is trembling and almost overwhelmed with pleasure and gripping the base of his cock to stop himself from coming.

“You’re so beautiful,” Kurt murmurs, pushing back Blaine’s loose curls and ineffectually wiping the sweat of his brow with shaking hands. Blaine slowly, blearily blinks his eyes open, wide and wet and surrounded by eyelashes gathered into points; Kurt feels every one in his heart like Cupid’s arrows. “Are you ready, honey?” he asks.

“Mmhm.” Blaine noses along Kurt’s jaw and down his throat before stopping to mouth at his collar bone. He shivers and presses closer when Kurt’s fingers slip free with an almost lewd noise, and Kurt allows himself a few moments to hold Blaine and calm down; his body is so slightly trembling, and Kurt’s had enough sex to recognise that it isn’t just because of arousal.

It’s a bit of a struggle to open the condom wrapper, but almost no trouble to all to put the condom on. Blaine pumps some lube onto his hand and spreads it over Kurt’s dick; he takes his time, feeling every vein and bump and curve and the shape of his cockhead despite his heavy movements, and Kurt shudders and moans and shallowly thrusts his hips up and feels sweat drip down his back. He’s suddenly very aware of his pants still round his knees, but then his focus narrows down to Blaine – Blaine with his strength back from somewhere, thighs lifting him up and only slightly trembling with the exertion, holding Kurt’s dick with one hand and the other clinging to Kurt’s shoulder, trusting Kurt to keep him balanced. Kurt swallows thickly, unable to look away from Blaine’s face, eyebrows furrowed together in concentration, a flush high and bright on his cheeks and down his neck, lips parted and swollen and tulip red.

When Blaine smoothly slips down onto Kurt’s cock, something inside Kurt explodes like a light bulb in cold water, hot and sharp. He pulls Blaine forward, clutches Blaine’s back to hide his shaking hands and buries his face in the corner that his shoulder and neck meet. Blaine gasps and rocks forward, a hand moving to wrap completely around Kurt’s shoulders. He circles his hips on Kurt’s lap for stimulation as waiting for Kurt to release him enough for him to drag himself back up; Kurt knows that Blaine prefers the bouncing and thrusting movements to the grinding, especially in this position, but Kurt can’t let go yet. His face is damp with more than just sweat.

“Kurt,” Blaine whines. “Kurt, please, I need to move.”

“I know. Yeah, I know.”

He forces himself to shift his grip back down to Blaine’s hips, strokes his thumbs over the bones, and mouths down Blaine’s sternum for a last moment of stalling before he picks Blaine up and drops him back down himself. There are sharp bursts of pain across Kurt’s back: Blaine scratching over his shoulders as he wails. But he doesn’t give himself time to recover from the burst of pain, and Kurt is torn between watching Blaine’s thighs work himself up-down-up-down-up-down, watching the rest of Blaine’s body, the way his arms and abs and pecs tense and relax with every movement, and watching Blaine’s face.

Really, it isn’t even a contest. Kurt sits up straighter (Blaine moans as the movement shifts Kurt’s dick inside him) and pushes their bodies together so he can feel all of Blaine’s muscles moving, one hand gripping his ass cheeks and the other splayed across Blaine’s back. Their bodies are slick enough with sweat that it’s easy for their chests to move against each other, but their nipples still catch on each other enough to send minor shockwaves throughout Kurt’s body. Blaine’s own dick rubs against Kurt’s stomach with every shift, and Blaine cries out in frustration more than once because he can’t get pressure on his cock and prostate at the same time.

When Blaine is fully seated in Kurt’s lap, they breathe into each other’s mouths, too far gone to even attempt real kissing, let alone kissing with any finesse; when Blaine raises himself up onto his knees, Kurt looks up and admires every minute twitch of his lover’s expression, the glow of Blaine’s skin heightened by sex and the setting sun.

They move together for a while, Kurt making small thrusts as Blaine sits and otherwise caressing whatever skin his hands touch; only the fact that they’re slightly out of sync gives away that, though Kurt has had sex with Blaine many times, to this Blaine he is still a near stranger.

But, eventually, the need to orgasm grows. By this time, Blaine is barely able to rise himself, mostly gasping into Kurt’s mouth.

“Come here, honey,” Kurt says breathlessly. He lifts Blaine up onto his knees so that Kurt is only just inside him anymore and pulls Blaine’s arms tightly around his neck; the boy follows the direction easily, despite his piteous whine. Kurt sympathizes; without Blaine around him, his dick feels almost cold. “Can you hold on?” he asks.

“I can, I will,” Blaine promises. He presses his lips to the side of Kurt’s nose in a facsimile of a kiss and then subtly adjusts his muscles. “Okay.”

Kurt holds onto Blaine’s hips again, folding his thumbs upwards so the pads are above the bone, awkwardly sets his feet despite his pants, and thrusts up, and again, and again, and again. Blaine gasps and grunts and stutters out groans, encouraging Kurt to chase his orgasm. One of Blaine’s arms moves; Kurt realises he’s stroking himself, hard and fast and using sweat and pre-come as lubrication, and he moans.

There is a second which seems to last for an eternity; everything freezes: Kurt’s burning muscles; his cock surrounded by the furnace heat of Blaine’s ass; cool sweat being covered by new heated beads and trickling between the fine hairs covering his body; Blaine’s knuckles and the head of his dick an impossible mix of hard/soft on Kurt’s stomach; the pulse in Blaine’s wrist fluttering wildly against Kurt’s shoulder.

And then the second ends and the moment breaks. Kurt rushes towards the precipice; and he falls.

With a clumsy hand, Kurt reaches between their bodies to help Blaine jerk himself off, rubbing the spot under the head and running his finger over the slit, and it’s barely seconds before Blaine is coming too, body spasming almost painfully around Kurt’s oversensitive, slowly softening cock, his come spurting over their stomachs and dribbling over their hands.

Blaine slumps against Kurt’s body, hiding his face in the crook of Kurt’s neck. His body is lax as Kurt maneuvers him again, holding the base of the condom and flinching when his dick pops out. He pets Blaine’s back when the other boy whines again, and then awkwardly reaches for the tissues: he cleans off his hand first, then wraps the condom in three because he only has one hand free, and then the semen that is splattered on Kurt’s stomach and Blaine. Blaine starts shivering, and Kurt can feel the chill of the room and sweat start to get to him too; but he’s far too spent to find the energy to shower now.

“You have to move, honey,” he says in a low voice as he tries to shift Blaine to the clean side of the bed. Blaine just clings, face still hidden, so Kurt is wake up enough to pull off his pants, briefs and shirt, shuffle over, and get both himself and Blaine under the cover. Blaine slips off Kurt’s lap easily enough, sliding his legs until they’re tangled with Kurt’s, and unwraps his arms from Kurt’s shoulders to wrap them around Kurt’s chest instead.

“Kurt?” he whispers, voice hoarse and rough.

“Hm?”

Blaine turns his head to press his lips and breathe against Kurt’s chest, moves his mouth over Kurt’s ribs for no other reason than he wants to.

“G’night.”

Kurt pulls Blaine further onto his chest, tangling their bodies together so Blaine won’t fall off. He presses a kiss to Blaine’s damp, raspberry-scented curls, a shiver running up his spine at Blaine’s cock against his hip, and doesn’t know what to name the weight in his chest. Blaine has already drifted off, his chest moving steadily and the rapid beating of his heart slowing back down.

“Goodnight, Blaine,” he whispers into Blaine’s hair, curls himself closer, and follows Blaine to sleep.

~*~

For the first time in what feels like forever, Kurt wakes up slowly, satisfied, and warm. His thighs, glutes and abdomen ache, but the blanket is a comfortable weight over Kurt’s body. He’s not smiling as he gradually blinks his eyes open, but he feels like he could be; at the same time, he stretches.

His hand brushes against smooth skin and muscles that aren’t his own, his eyes see curly black hair and a birthmark on tan shoulders, and his brain is slow to connect the dots and remember last night. But when it does, Kurt squeaks and scrambles backwards, so far he almost falls off the bed.

“Shit,” he hisses at himself, and then freezes when Blaine moves. It’s only to curl up and shiver once, since Kurt has taken the comforter with him (and he very much ignores that he and Blaine are both entirely naked), so he relaxes when Blaine doesn’t otherwise stir.

Except he doesn’t really relax. He can’t relax – because he had sex with Blaine, and they spent the night cuddling. He doesn’t even know why; not beyond missing Blaine with every atom of his being, missing being with Blaine with every beat of his heart.

Or maybe: For a moment, he had forgotten. Watching a movie in Blaine’s room, it had felt like he’d never gone to New York in the first place. There have been countless days, from all points of their relationship, where they’ve done nothing but spent hours in Kurt’s room or Blaine’s room, doing nothing but being together until they fall into bed.

He knows he’s making excuses for himself, making it okay. The truth is, there’s very little about this situation that’s okay at all. Blaine this may be, but it’s a Blaine who is clearly vulnerable and damaged, and if Kurt can’t make himself regret anything about last night, he can at least hate himself for taking advantage. He should have kept his head on straight – he shouldn’t even have allowed Blaine to kiss him in the first place.

Kurt decides to finish freaking out and beating himself up later. For now, he has to figure out how to deal with this situation. (He can’t call it a hook up. Not when he’s still so raw from his own universe’s Blaine’s hook up. But he can’t call it a mistake, either.)

Dressed is probably a good start. Cover Blaine with the comforter, get dressed, wake Blaine up to make it clear what happened last night can never happen again, no matter how much they want it to, and then drive home as fast as he can so he can get grounded and cry into his pillow.

He watches Blaine carefully while he untangles himself from the blanket. There are no signs of waking, no movement at all . . . but Kurt hesitates when it comes to lying it over him. For a moment, he can’t figure out why, and then he notices the too-rigid line of Blaine’s shoulders, the stiffness of his spine, the tightness of his fists.

Kurt swallows a silent gulp of air, and then another, and then, barely above a whisper, he says Blaine’s name.

“It’s okay.” Blaine’s voice cracks and wobbles, too loud in the fragile air. “You can leave. I won’t . . .”

“Leave,” Kurt echoes, hollowly, red seeping into his soul. “Blaine,” he says in a low voice, ‘why do you think I would leave?”

“You didn’t mean to fall asleep. It’s okay, I get it, I’m nothing—It-it’s ok-kay.” He trembles, body thin and naked and tiny and taking up hardly any space on the large double bed. Last night is written on his body – a hickey peeking over his shoulder by his neck; faint red marks on his ass; light bruising crescent moons where Kurt dug his fingernails into Blaine’s skin; his hole still pink and open.

With all the gentleness of a nurse wrapping a newborn, Kurt lays the comforter over Blaine’s body and tucks it in close. At the first touch, Blaine’s breath stutters, but after a moment, he finally turns his face away from the pillow. His eyes are pink, and the tops of his cheeks are wet.

“I wouldn’t just leave,” Kurt says. “I’m never saying . . . I was gonna make some coffee. So we could talk.”

Blaine nods slowly, pushing himself up into sitting position with minimal disturbance to the blanket. Kurt suddenly becomes very aware of his own nakedness so, blushing, he grabs a pillow to cover his lap.

Before Kurt can even open his mouth, Blaine says, “I did have sex with Sebastian.”

Kurt recoils before he can stop himself; Blaine tightly folds his arms in front of his chest and keeps looking miserably at his own lap.

“I don’t really remember it,” he continues. “I hadn’t . . . I transferred to Dalton during my freshman year. Something happened . . . Anyway. I. It took me a while to find my place there. I was pretty popular, I guess. I was in the Warblers, and they’ve always been kinda like rock stars . . .

“Se—He transferred last year and h-he was . . . kinda out there. But he-he was interested in me. I’d – I’ve never had a boyfriend and I thought, you know, this guy’s obviously experienced but he could—I was hoping he could maybe guide me through it. A relationship.

“I was so stupid,” he mutters to himself. His shoulders are up around his ears, his hands clenched into fists on his lap, and Kurt doesn’t know what to do; he’s never known what to do when Blaine’s like this. But he thinks he’s starting to figure it out.

“You were lonely,” Kurt whispers. Blaine jerks and stares up at Kurt as if he’s forgotten he was there.

“He told me the first time we went out that he didn’t do boyfriends and I thought I could change that,” Blaine says harshly. “If that’s not stupid, I don’t know what is.”

Kurt wants to reach out and hold Blaine’s hand, give him the physical support Blaine relies on, but right now Blaine is a fortress of thorns and Kurt already knows the colour of his blood.

Instead, he curls his arms closer to his stomach and murmurs, “I know what it’s like to want someone to look at you like you’re something special.”

“I bet you didn’t let him fuck you after getting a couple of drinks in you.”

“No.” He tries to keep his voice steady. “But he was straight. And I thought, ‘if I can sabotage his relationship with his girlfriend. if I set our parents up, if we spend enough time together . . .’ I thought I could change that.”

Blaine looks at him, brows furrowed sympathetically, and his voice is soft again when he asks, “What happened?”

“I could ask you the same question.” For a moment, Blaine looks uneasy, but then he nods. “It was awful for a while. He . . . threw around a couple of slurs, I thought my dad preferred him over me. But we got over it. Our parents are married now and he’s not . . . not a terrible brother. He’s there when it counts, mostly.”

When the silence stretches on, he gently prods, “Your turn.”

Blaine nods again, drops his gaze again, and opens his mouth a few times before he quietly goes on. “After a few weeks, I found out he was saying stuff about me. My friends asked me about it, if the stuff he was saying was true, and then it was like . . . they didn’t respect me anymore. I asked Sebastian to stop but . . .

“Things got really awkward with my friends, and they stopped hanging out with me so much. And there was the teasing and I just kept thinking – it could be worse – it’ll get better – you know? I was lonely but at least no one was beating me up.” He flinches and hides his face further. Hesitantly, Kurt shuffles forward again and rests his hands over Blaine’s.

“And then there was this guy,” he finally continues in a whisper. “He was nice to me. We went out a few times, and I was really happy. I thought . . . But he didn’t want to be my boyfriend. I keep hoping but I’m not – good enough. For them. I’m not a good enough boyfriend, or at sex, and I try so hard for them to stay but they always leave. They—”

He breaks off, and Kurt feels numb. “What about your parents?”

“They’re both really important where they work, and they need to work more because of Dalton tuition. My mom especially goes on a lot of international trips. And I’m eighteen now, anyway.” He shrugs and finally glances back up at Kurt. “Why?”

Kurt swallows, but the lump in his throat remains. “Nothing,” he whispers, and then somehow manages, “I . . . I can stay for breakfast. If you want.” Blaine’s eyes widen to almost Disney size, and Kurt’s heart trips over itself. He smiles awkwardly and squeezes Blaine’s hand. “We should probably shower first though. Creased isn’t a good look for either of us.”

Blaine ducks his head with a smile. “Okay,” he says quietly.

“You should take the first shower,” Kurt says.

Blaine licks his lips and nods, and Kurt looks away politely while Blaine shuffles round the room. He pauses at the door to make sure Kurt will be alright on his own, and then Kurt is left alone in his room.

The first thing he does after the door clicks shut is pull on his boxers and shirt. It’s not the relief he thought it would be, but he doesn’t have time to worry about whatever the hell is going on in his head.

Burt picks up on the third ring, saying Kurt’s name with relief.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call last night,” Kurt says softly. “We were watching movies and fell asleep.”

“We’re gonna talk when you get home,” Burt says. Kurt swallows.

“How – how grounded am I?”

After a tense pause, Burt says, “I haven’t decided yet. You’re nineteen but . . . god, Kurt. I was so worried. And none of your friends had heard from you so you’ve gotta be hiding stuff from me again—”

“Dad! It’s not li—Dad. He’s just a f—I—” He cuts himself off and hides his hot face in a raspberry-scented pillow. He doesn’t even know how to begin explaining it. In this universe, Kurt has never had a boyfriend; he has never been in love, nor had his heart shattered

“I wanna meet this ‘friend’ of yours,” Burt says. The exhaustion, the disappointment in his voice slices through Kurt’s heart. “And we’re gonna have a long talk when you get home.”

“Okay,” Kurt says softly. “It’ll be a couple of hours, though. I’m in – I’m in Westerville?” He flinches immediately, and then, before Burt can start yelling at him over the phone, he rushes out, “I need to have a shower, I’ll leave straight after breakfast, I’m sorry, I love you, bye,” and hangs up.

Across the hall, the shower still runs, but other than that, the house is silent. He can’t think of a time after sex when he and Blaine haven’t sung to each other, dancing around the kitchen or the bedroom, or shouting lyrics to each other while they clean up in the bathroom and get dressed.

The silence whispers against Kurt’s skin, reminding him of every mistake he’s ever made.

With more energy than the task calls for, Kurt starts cleaning up. The lube goes back in the drawer. The tissues and used condom are scrunched into a ball, surrounded by a clean tissue and thrown in the bin. The window is opened. The bed gets stripped, rough tugs to release the mattress and blanket, shaking the pillows loose.

He doesn’t notice when the water shuts off, focused as he is, so he startles when Blaine speaks from the doorway. He is, fortunately, now fully clothed.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“I felt a bit awkward just sitting here,” Kurt says. “It’s fine. Can I borrow a towel?”

“Of course. There’s one you can use on the rail in the bathroom – it’s clean, I promise.” His lips smile, the corners wavering uncertainly. “Do you – would you like to borrow some clothes too?”

Kurt hesitates. It would be nice to wear clean clothes (that he didn’t wear while he was having sex, oh, god). But what message would Blaine read from that? And he’s in enough trouble as it is. And . . .

“I’ll manage. I’ll just change at home.”

Kurt has the shortest shower he’s ever had, including all those times he showered in the locker room at McKinley. He washes his body with his hands, and tries to ignore the scent of Blaine’s shampoo and Blaine’s body wash and Blaine’s hair gel that lies heavy on the air. He’s starting to get hard by the end of his shower, so he briefly twists the temperature down before turning the shower off entirely.

He doesn’t use any of Blaine’s hair products. He’s aware of them the entire time he dries off and dresses, sees them out of the corner of his eye, but he already smells too much like Blaine.

“Breakfast?” he suggests once he gets back to Blaine’s room, the bed remade and dirty sheets in the laundry basket.

“Breakfast,” Blaine agrees. He picks up the popcorn bowl and gestures for Kurt to lead. “Do you have anything in mind?” he asks, tone too bright. “There’s cereal, bread, fruit, or I can make pancakes or waffles or a full English breakfast, if you’d prefer.”

“As tempting as all that grease sounds,” Kurt says, “I think I’ll just have fruit and a couple of slices of toast.”

“Sure. Do you want – I can show you where everything is?”

“Thanks.”

They ignore the thread – or rope – of tension in the air as they go about breakfast. As Blaine deals with the popcorn bowl, he points out where fruit, bread, jams and crockery are (“Help yourself to ask much as you want”), which is the same as ever. He feels Blaine’s eyes on him more than once as the other boy makes himself an omelette, but he focuses on spreading honey evenly over his toast and slicing his fruit into identical segments.

“Would you like a drink?” Blaine asks, hand hovering over the kettle.

“Just water,” Kurt says. He’s too wired for coffee right now, anyway. “Uh, thanks.”

“No problem!”

They sit at the breakfast bar almost simultaneously. In a moment of panic, Kurt’s eyes flick over to Blaine, but the other boy doesn’t seem to have noticed that Kurt didn’t wait for his cue.

If Kurt’s around for much longer, he’ll have to tell Blaine everything. He can’t cut his best friend out of his life – cheating, parallel universe or no – and he’ll end up having a breakdown if he tries keeping it a secret for the rest of his life.

But not now. It’s far too soon and his nerves are far too raw.

Kurt is mostly eating with his hands, but everything crunches loud in his ears. Blaine’s knife and fork clink and scrape against his plate, and the usually gentle tap of their glasses as they rest them back on the bar after taking a drink seems to reverberate through the air.

“Is your food alright?” Blaine asks.

“Yes, it’s delicious. This is good fruit.”

“Good. I’m glad.”

Kurt nods and pops another grape in his mouth. The skin breaks. The juice is sharp and sweet on his tongue. He takes another mouthful of water. The glass clanks against the granite top.

It’s only because the silence is so loud that Kurt notices immediately when Blaine’s noises stop. He continues eating, looking down at his breakfast, until, unsteady but not breaking, Blaine asks, “Why did you stay?”

Kurt’s eyes dart up, too wide for a denial. His throat is thick as he swallows.

“I told you.”

Blaine shakes his head. “You said you wouldn’t leave,” he says non-confrontationally, “but you didn’t say why.”

Kurt licks his lips, fingers twitching into fists before he clasps them in front of him.

“I . . .” His voice falters. Everything’s so twisted up inside him, truths and half-truths and the outright lies he’ll have to tell. He could deflect – the Blaine in his own universe wouldn’t let him get away with it, but this Blaine already has. “I really like you,” he says, and he doesn’t know how much of a lie it is.

For several long moments, they just look at each other in silence, Kurt’s stomach twisting in time with the circles he traces with his thumbs, Blaine’s eyebrows furrowed as his posture slowly relaxes. There are so many expressions warring on his face, all of them familiar, but none of them pause for long enough for Kurt to identify them. He would pick at his hands anxiously, but his skin will be damaged enough already.

“Like . . .” Blaine eventually says, slow and heavy and cautious and hopeful, “Like in a boyfriend way?”

Kurt’s heart lurches, a denial – or a refusal, maybe – pressing at the backs of his teeth.

“I can’t. I don’t trust—” But how can Blaine trust, still, after so many assholes like Sebastian? He corrects himself, “Maybe. I had my heart – broken. Recently. I think it’s too soon for another relationship, right now.”

There’s a moment, before Blaine closes down in a way the other Blaine hasn’t mastered, mouth and eyebrows parallel to each other and the floor, blinks slow and purposeful, posture perfect, grip on his cutlery relaxed, when his expression collapses completely. But that moment is all it takes for the rubble to be brushed away, and Kurt is left in the cold.

He swallows thickly. He might regret this later – he probably will regret it later, tonight when all he has is endless stars and a credit card he can’t use . . . but he might not.

He says, in a low voice that nonetheless seems to echo through the large kitchen, “But we can go slow.”

Blaine’s cutlery clatters against the plate and countertop, his knife rebounding onto the floor, and Kurt jumps at the suddenness of the noise, even as he’s reaching over – but Blaine’s hands are too far away, one wrapped around his side and the other pressing against his mouth as his eyes stretch wide.

“You want to,” he chokes out, not blinking against the tears.

“Try,” Kurt finishes, “I want to try. Slowly. Can we – can we be friends first?”

“Do you regret last night?” Blaine blurts out, and looks immediately horrified.

“N-no.” Kurt trips over the word, surprised at how much it truly isn’t a lie, and takes a moment to figuratively get to his feet again. “It would be easier if we hadn’t—but I don’t regret – it.”

“Okay,” Blaine whispers, voice damp but smile peeking from behind his hand and crinkling his eyes. “I’d love to be your friend.”

Kurt smiles back at him as best he can. His heart aches, but he can’t tell if the pains are telling him he’s done the wrong or right thing; it feels like both. He wiggles his fingers and Blaine slides their hands together without hesitation, and Kurt tells his heart to shut the hell up.

The rest of their breakfast passes in silence, but now its ice from before has evaporated and the air flows warmly around them, matching the hues from the rising sun which fall unobtrusively through the windows. Kurt can feel Blaine’s eyes on him, even when the other boy is awkwardly cutting up his omelette one-handedly with a fork. He peers up occasionally through his lashes, head tilted down enough that Blaine’s face is blurred; he’s scared to break the moment, because he doesn’t know what will come rushing in through the cracks.

After they’ve both finished, Kurt leaves the dishes for Blaine to do while he gathers together his things – the rest of his layers, yesterday’s failed armor against Blaine; his accessories; his shoes and bag. They meet again at the bottom of the stairs, and Blaine’s hand is damp in the creases and soft and warm and large and intimate, and they hold hands all the way to the front door.

“I’ll be grounded when I get home,” he says, “for staying out all night without telling my dad. I’ll let you know how it goes but his favourite punishment is phone and internet privileges taken away in addition to the usual.” He quirks his lips upwards. “You’ll be my one phone call so if you know any attorneys, now’s the time to cash in any old favors.”

Blaine laughs, tightens his grip on Kurt’s hand. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

They stand in front of Kurt’s car. Blaine hasn’t loosened his fingers, and as much as Kurt wants to go, he desperately never wants to leave, either.

Kurt licks his lips, and then stares straight into Blaine’s eyes and says, as kindly as he knows how, “I know we’re not boyfriends y-yet, but I want to ask you to stop . . . – to stop.”

“Of course,” Blaine quickly agrees, his eyes wide and earnest and achingly regretful. “I wouldn’t do that to—”

He cuts himself off and Kurt smiles, because otherwise he might start to cry.

The sun has left the horizon behind; the sky is blue and clouded and chilly, and Blaine is only wearing a cardigan, and Kurt needs to go back to Lima. He hesitates for a moment, and then darts forward to place a tentative kiss upon Blaine’s smooth cheek. The scent of his aftershave lingers for several moments after Kurt moves back.

“I’ll let you know when I get home,” he says softly, and Blaine only nods and releases Kurt’s hand.

~*~

Burt is waiting for Kurt in the living room, sitting on his armchair and looking at the empty TV screen. Everyone else is out. Kurt swallows; the dread and guilt which has been binding in his stomach for the drive hardens and settles in his stomach like cement.

“You can probably guess you’re grounded,” Burt says. Kurt swallows, nods, and says yes. “Three weeks, you go to school and Glee then you come home. You can tell your ‘friend’ and then I want your cellphone. You’re only allowed it back during school and I will check. And no more spending hours in your room. Sound fair?”

“Yes,” Kurt says, even though it doesn’t. He doesn’t want to go for three weeks without talking to Blaine – what if he slips back, so that he’s not okay with even looking at Blaine anymore? But maybe, if he’s good and suffers his punishment without complaint, Burt will let him off early.

“Look, kid.” Burt runs a hand over his face and suddenly looks very tired. “I know you’re an adult, but especially after last week . . . I don’t like not knowing where you are. I don’t like not knowing anyway but you can’t just disappear overnight.”

“I’m sorry,” Kurt says quietly. He hesitates, and then adds, “I’ll go call Blaine.”

“Three weeks,” Burt reminds him. “And then he comes over to dinner.”

Kurt backs out of the room and runs up the stairs. He can hear Finn and Sam playing video games in Finn’s room, and quietly shuts the door to his own. He doesn’t want to talk to either of them – especially Sam – right now. He drops his bag on his bed and methodically undresses, moisturises, puts on fresh clothes, styles his hair. He carefully unpacks his bag, plugs in his phone, and waits for it to hold enough charge that it will turn on.

Blaine picks up on the first ring.

“Are you in lots of trouble?” he asks anxiously, even before any greetings. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Kurt assures him, and sighs. “Or, actually, I guess, it’s at least just as much my fault so you don’t need to apologise. Anyway, yes, this is my one phone call before my phone gets heavily monitored for three weeks.”

“Three weeks is a long time,” Blaine says quietly.

“Yeah.” Kurt licks his lips and bunches his free hand into a fist. “So in exactly three weeks, what do you say I take you out on a date? It’s theatre season so there’s gonna be something good playing somewhere.”

There is silence on Blaine’s end, and Kurt’s stomach squirms uncomfortably, until finally the other boy breathes out a quiet, light laugh.

“Kurt,” he says, “yes, that sounds amazing.”

Kurt deflates and he smiles. “Good. I’ll pick you up at noon in three weeks.”

“Okay.” Blaine laughs again. “See you in three weeks.”

“See you in three weeks,” Kurt echoes, and hangs up. He gives himself a moment to bask – god, how long has it been since it’s felt so happy? It feels like months; has he ever felt like this in New York? – and then forces himself to go back downstairs to surrender the only lifeline he has to . . . to the love of his life.

~*~

The first thing that comes to Kurt is the sound of far too many cars for sleepy, suburban Ohio, even in downtown during rush hour. Then the smell: exhaust fumes under the floral scent of the fabric softener Rachel insists they use because her skin reacts badly to change.

It doesn’t hit him for a few blissful moments, and when it does (Blaine’s side of the bed made and neat, no pajamas, New York New York New York no sound in the apartment, was that really a dream, what if I’ve left that Blaine too), Kurt scrambles out of bed and tears aside the curtain separating his bedroom from the rest of the apartment.

Blaine is sitting at the table (Kurt’s table, the one he found in a flea market during his second week in the city), shoulders hunched as he stares into a cup of coffee. His eyes look up at Kurt, and oh – he looks so tired, and completely heartbroken. Kurt rocks on his feet – does he go forward to Blaine? back into his room to hide until Blaine disappears into the city until his flight leaves? This is his Blaine, the one who cheated on him and broke his heart. But the ache of that thought doesn’t sting the way it did, and he feels so relieved to be back where everything is familiar . . .

“I’m sorry.” Blaine’s voice is quiet and tremulous and thick with unshed tears. His eyes have dropped back down. “I’ll pay you back for the coffee. I just needed some before I went.”

Kurt rocks once more – forwards, backwards, forwards again, and uses that momentum to step quickly across the room until he’s sitting at the table too, directly opposite to Blaine. His boyfriend – ex-boyfriend, they may not have explicitly broken up but it hadn’t needed saying – his ex-boyfriend looks up again, surprised and so cautiously hopeful it makes Kurt’s heart break for an entirely different reason.

“When does your flight leave?”

“T—uh, tomorrow evening. About seven. Kurt—”

Kurt frowns. “So what were you gonna do until then?”

Blaine licks his lips and shifts the coffee cup in his hands before he answers. “I brought enough money for a hotel. I didn’t know if I would tell you straight away. Kurt—”

“Stay.”

Blaine breathes in sharply, blinks quickly but not quick enough to stop tears from beginning to fall. Kurt has a flash of a boy sitting in bed, naked but for the blanket covering his lap, crying because everyone leaves him – and now he reaches out, because this is the Blaine who loves him and who will never turn him down, so he stretches his arm over the table and slips his palm over the back of Blaine’s hand, the tips of his fingers resting against the fragile bones of Blaine’s wrist. Blaine jerks, staring at Kurt’s hand, and then at Kurt’s face. Kurt can’t tell his expression; he’s feeling far too much of too many things; but he thinks – it’s okay.

And, slowly, shakily, Blaine’s other hand comes to rest over Kurt’s, his fingers curling so that Kurt is nestled between them.

“I’m not ready to forgive you or to – get back together,” Kurt says. Blaine nods, a curtain falling over his face, but it’s thin and Kurt can see the despair there easily. He presses his hand against Blaine’s more firmly and finishes, “But I still love you.”

“I love you too. Kurt,” Blaine says, and then doesn’t seem to know how to continue, but it hardly matters because he’s crying properly now.

Blaine’s eyes on him – full of love and sorrow and hope and home – Kurt slips his hand free only to walk around the table, pull Blaine to his feet and wrap his arms around his neck. Blaine’s arms come up and his hands cling to Kurt’s shoulder blades as he cries.

Kurt holds him, closes his eyes, and breathes.

End notes: Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed, despite how weird it may be to read a fic such as this when KLAINE ARE ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED, FUCK YEAH! (Because whether or not you did, there's gonna be a companion fic in the next couple of months from parallel!Blaine's POV, and it would be absolutely swell if you read that one too.)

The thing is: Blaine did an awful thing but he isn't a scumbag. He's the most kind-hearted person Kurt's ever met. He comforts lost children in theme parks, pets every animal he comes across, listens to the crazy homeless guy behind the library ramble on about god knows what, constantly puts himself second, takes the hand of a lonely stranger who broke into his school.

The thing is: Kurt thought Blaine was better than that. Better than the McKinley cesspool where – loved them though he did – everyone cheated with everyone else. Kurt thought he and Blaine were a solid 'forever' kind of couple, like Kurt's parents, like Burt and Carole.

Which is why he doesn't understand. He's shouted and screamed and cried until his voice went hoarse and his eyes burned; now he just wants to grab Blaine's shoulders and ask why the fuck he'd fuck someone else, why Kurt wasn't enough for him, why he couldn't just wait for two goddamn more weeks until they were supposed to spend the weekend together anyway.

A gentle knock pulls Kurt from his own head. His door slowly creaks open and, after a moment, Kurt rolls onto his back, sits up, and looks up at Burt.

“Hey, kid,” he says. The lines of his face are deep, the skin under his eyes swollen, but otherwise his expression is cautiously blank. “Sleep alright?”

“Yeah,” Kurt answers roughly. They both know he's lying but neither man indicates otherwise. It reminds Kurt so much of before Kurt came out, of the first couple of months of junior year. It tastes bitter.

“Everyone's already left for the day,” Burt says as if Kurt hadn't heard everyone stomping around the hallway and kitchen, “but there are still some pancakes if you want any. Blueberry. And I can scramble some eggs whites if you don’t want carbs today.”

Kurt twists his fingers in his blanket as his sluggish brain remembers what food group eggs belong to. Burt waits patiently, and Kurt finds it unsettling; if he were with his real dad, in his own universe, the man would be telling Kurt to hurry up and pick a breakfast or he’ll get the lot and eat it all. He’s sick of being treated like he’ll break at any moment. Sure, it’s partly his fault – Sam is the only person here who knows the true reason behind his outburst the other day, that Kurt was frustrated and scared because he has apparently fallen into a science fiction novel. He doesn’t want to think about what it must have looked like to everyone else. Especially because of what Sam’s told him about this parallel version of his life.

“Pancakes are fine,” Kurt eventually says.

“Take your time, alright? I’ll put the pancakes in the oven until you’re ready for them.”

Kurt nods and forces himself to smile. It feels twisted and wrong but it makes Burt’s shoulders relax and, even if this is only be the doppelgänger of man who raised him, that’s what counts.

He takes his time getting ready for the day. His shower is twice as long as usual, the mix of its fantastic water pressure and cool temperature speeding Kurt’s brain up from a crawl to a light jog, and as he slowly rubs moisturiser into his skin and gets dressed, his thoughts reluctantly fall into place.

He can’t ignore Blaine’s absence anymore. It was inevitable, Kurt is forced to admit, but he had hoped he would be able to last longer. But he can’t pretend he doesn’t pick up his phone to text or call Blaine several times an hour, or that the worry of not knowing where Blaine is makes him sick. Kurt remembered feeling so lost without Blaine with him when he first moved to New York, except this is thousands of times worse because Kurt doesn’t even know if the number he has for Blaine is the right one in this universe. It probably isn’t; Blaine finally joined the age of the iPhone last Christmas with the help of money from one of his aunts.

The only thing left is to find Blaine in person. Kurt suspects that will be at once  worse and better than just talking on the phone. He’ll need to be able to see that Blaine is fine – or perhaps just alive will do, says the spiteful part of his mind – with his own eyes to truly believe it, but the last time he saw Blaine . . .

I was with someone.

Kurt doesn’t speak much through the rest of the day, too busy planning how to find Blaine again (Dalton is his best shot, he decides, because that’s where Blaine would have stayed if he hadn’t met Kurt) and then trying to control his stomach.

He helps Burt make lunch and then takes over for the making of dinner and dessert, but the man stays in the kitchen with careful, watching eyes. Tina texts him a couple of times, and Sam practically blows up his phone asking questions about Kurt’s universe every few damn minutes. No matter how many times Kurt tells the him that literally everything about McKinley is the same, down to the members of the New Directions, Sam doesn’t let up.

The next day, Kurt convinces Burt to go to work: yes, he’ll be fine on his own, he just wants a day to relax to himself before the house is full all weekend.

He doesn’t even wait for Burt to have left the driveway before tearing his closet apart for the closest approximation to the Dalton uniform he can manage.

~*~

Kurt anxiously plays (and loses) round after round of Angry Bird on his phone until the bell rings, although he waits for the noise level to rise before leaving the bathroom. His heart pounds as he unlocks and slips through the door to join the mass of boys heading towards the cafeteria, and he tells himself he’s just nervous in case someone noticed him coming out the disabled toilets or in case he passes a teacher. He manages to mostly believe himself.

The noise gets louder the closer he gets to the cafeteria, where the sound bounces off the walls like at a swimming pool. Lacking a bag, Kurt folds his arms and grips tightly onto his elbows in an effort to stop them from shaking.

When he enters the hall, his eyes immediately dart over to the table where he and Blaine spent many a flirtatious lunch period, both before and after they started dating. He remembers being amazed at how neatly and politely Blaine ate his food, how self-conscious it made him about his own careless eating habits. He remembers the few weeks they got to spend holding hands and cuddling surrounded by their peers before Kurt transferred back to McKinley, before things started getting complicated.

Blaine isn’t there.

But Sebastian is.

Kurt freezes in the middle of the doorway, stumbling when boys knock into him and ignoring their apologies, because he’d completely forgotten about Sebastian. Sure, he didn’t know how old Sebastian was last year, or really anything about him apart from he transferred from somewhere in Paris, he thinks he’s much more worldly and mature than he actually is and he’s a giant dick, but the possibility of Blaine and Sebastian being at Dalton at the same time hadn’t even crossed his mind. He believed his Blaine – the Blaine in his own universe – when he said that the guy he was with wasn’t Sebastian, but he has blocked out all thoughts of how Blaine would have reacted to Sebastian’s advances. If in this universe, Blaine is friendly with Sebastian, or worse . . .

Kurt turns around and runs, and he doesn’t stop until he’s left the last of the crowd behind him.

The rush of adrenaline – or panic, though it’s not thanks to McKinley’s subpar science lessons that Kurt knows they’re the same thing – quickly fades, and Kurt is left with trembling legs and unsteady breath. He leans against the closest wall and tilts his head back against it until his pulse is no longer roaring in his ears.

“—been gloating all period about how good he is at sucking dick. Better than his ex-girlfriend.”

Kurt jolts away from the wall, staring at the corner. He’s a little revolted (Dalton boys were never so crude when Kurt was a student) but he doesn’t run away again. For one, his legs are still too weak to carry him so quickly; for another, he doesn’t need to make a fast exit anyway.

“Well, have you seen his lips? I’m not even gay and I’m tempted,” he hears the conversation continue as he slowly backs away, careful not to make any noise.

“Yeah, I’ve heard all you have to do is take him out on a date and he’ll spread his legs easy as.”

Kurt grimaces as the two boys round the corner laugh. It’s one thing to talk about sex – Puckerman and Santana did it all the time, and in much cruder terms – but they were never so . . . rude. Neither of them seemed to particularly respect their sexual partners (admittedly, Santana doesn’t really respect anyone) but they were never so insulting either.

He breathes a silent sigh of relief when the boys fall silent.

And then Blaine turns the corner, feet quick so he’s almost jogging through the corridor. Kurt stumbles over his feet and his lungs contract so that he can’t help but gasp, and Blaine’s eyes dart up to meet Kurt’s. It’s only for a second, but the shape and color identical to the eyes that broke Kurt’s heart rips through his body.

Blaine looks away and moves faster, red-faced and damp-eyed, and Kurt can’t feel his body.

The voices round the corner start upon again, and Kurt jerks back into action. He trips over his feet and knocks a painting off-center before finding his balance again.

The corridors are empty now, the students either in the cafeteria or their classrooms. Kurt gets the feeling back in his legs as he makes his way back to the parking lot, and by the time he reaches the study and common rooms, he has almost entire control over his body again.

Movement from one of the study rooms startles Kurt, and his head jerks around in case it’s a teacher. It’s not. It’s Blaine, with a book open in front of him, a pen held loosely in his hand, and an open lunchbox on the chair next to him. Kurt can’t tear his eyes away, fascinated with this Blaine-who-isn’t-Blaine. His mannerisms are smaller, more sedate somehow, but otherwise identical; and to see Blaine wearing the Dalton uniform again makes him ache for every time Blaine has serenaded him.

He steps into the room before he can stop himself, and Blaine looks up.

“Hey,” he says. There’s no recognition in his voice or eyes and it hurts almost as much as the way he shifts his body to hide his insecurity. Still, Kurt can see Blaine’s fingers tapping a tune against the edge of the desk, how Blaine’s smile is only on his lips, the way Blaine’s shoulders slightly curl inwards, ruining his otherwise perfect posture. “Sorry, do you want to use this room?”

Kurt shakes his head and takes a steadying breath. “No,” he says quietly, and then, “No, it’s fine. I was just . . .”

“You don’t go here, do you?” It sounds more like a statement than a question as Blaine takes in Kurt’s clothes, his mouth twisting into a smile. If Kurt didn’t know better, he would describe it as coy; as it is, Kurt reads hope in the widening of his eyes, bittersweet in the upwards tilt of his brows.

“Not anymore,” Kurt answers honestly without thinking. Blaine’s chin dips as his smile loses his teeth, and he looks up at Kurt through his eyelashes.

“Well, why on earth would you come back?”

“Glee club. Spying,” he says awkwardly. It’s not like he can say that he was looking for Blaine – he’ll get himself escorted out by security at the very least. “Sectionals is coming up.”

“Yeah, it’s about that time of year,” Blaine says. “Though I’m afraid you’ve made a waste of a trip; the Warblers rehearse tomorrow.”

“Aren’t you one of them?”

Blaine’s mouth twitches. “Not anymore,” he echoes with a faint grin. “The captain and I had a falling out last year so it was part ways or turn the practice room into a battle zone.” He laughs. He sounds so carefree, Kurt feels a surge of anger. He has to remind himself that this isn’t the Blaine who broke his heart; he crosses his arms in front of him anyway. “Anyway, if you want to try again on Friday, their practice room is just down the hall.”

“Those boys,” Kurt blurts out. Blaine tilts his head questioningly. “In the hallway before.”

Blaine’s expression shuts down, except for the forced smile, and his eyes slip to Kurt’s shoulder.

“You, uh, you heard that?”

“They were being kind of loud. They – were they talking about you? You looked kind of upset when you went past me but I don’t understand why you would sleep with someone you’re not dating or–or—” Kurt cuts himself short before he can work himself up and give something away.

“People say a lot of crap,” Blaine says sharply. Kurt stares at him with wide eyes, sympathy covering his anger like a fire blanket. There’s a headache beginning to develop behind his temples.

“They do,” he says softly. Blaine glances back to Kurt’s eyes and whatever he finds there makes his own widen and his eyebrows draw upwards. For that single moment, he looks devastatingly heartbroken, like when he sang Teenage Dream at Callbacks, and further, in Miss Pillsbury’s office, when he was confessing every single one of his fears about Kurt going to New York. “What happened to the zero-tolerance policy?”

Blaine shrugs, and though his eyes move from Kurt’s again, they don’t stay away. “If they don’t say anything to me . . . The teachers can’t do anything about rumors, especially if no one remembers the source.”

Kurt bites his lip. He knows full well the damage a well-placed rumor can do, especially to someone who’s at the top of the proverbial social heap. If their meeting is the point their timelines diverge, Blaine will, at one point, have been one of the most popular boys in the school. (He doesn’t know whether to thank or hate Sam for all his science fiction marathons over the last year – seriously, ‘timelines diverge’?)

He takes four quick steps and pushes his hand out.

“Hand me your phone.”

Blaine blinks at him. “Why?”

“I’m giving you my number,” he says. The words taste like ash. A small part of him is relieved he’s had the same number since his sixteenth birthday, and it grows larger at Blaine’s bright eyes as he digs through his satchel for his phone. When Blaine takes his phone back, he stares at the contact list with smiling eyes.

“Kurt Hummel,” he says to himself, so quiet that Kurt knows he wasn’t supposed to hear it. Blaine looks up at him again; he looks almost like himself. “Thank you, Kurt.”

“Just text me whenever,” he says brusquely, with a wave of his hand.

“Yeah,” Blaine breathes out. Kurt nods shortly at him, turns around, and absolutely not does flee the scene.

By the time Kurt arrives home, he’s worked himself into a near frenzy. He barely manages to park neatly and slams both car and house door behind him. Sam runs out of the kitchen, his eyes wide, and Kurt doesn’t even care that the other boy is holding a bag of chips.

“Dude, where the hell have you been!? You’re lucky Finn stayed behind to talk to Mr Schue ‘cause you know he’d tell Burt you took your car out.”

“I gave Blaine my number.”

Sam pauses and scrunches his face up. “What?”

“I went to Dalton and it’s so screwed up because I think Blaine’s just sleeping with people but he looked so sad and I offered to give him my number and then I couldn’t take it back so now he has my number and I think I’m having a panic attack, oh my god.”

“Shit. Shit, man, just breathe.” Sam’s hands rest on Kurt’s biceps, guiding him to a chair in the dining room, and Kurt can’t keep his head straight for long enough to tell Sam to get his cheese-dusty fingers off of Kurt’s clothes. “Follow my breathing, alright? That’s what you do with someone having a panic attack, right? Or do you need a paper bag or—?”

“Sam!” Kurt shouts, his voice at least an octave higher than usual.

“Right! In – hold – and out. In – and out. In – is this helping?”

“Yes, keep going,” Kurt snaps.

“Okay, okay!”

It takes almost ten minutes for Kurt to calm down, although for the last few minutes that only consists of Kurt sipping at a glass of water while Sam sits next to him, watching with wide, worried eyes.

“So, I think I got all of that before you totally lost it,” Sam says.

“I did not ‘totally lose it’,” Kurt grumbles.

“You did but whatever, no judgement, man.” Sam shrugs. “I’m the guy who got caught stripping for cash, you know?”

They sit in silence for a while longer, until Kurt has finished his drink and Sam has rinsed out the glass and put it in the drying rack.

The silence is broken by Kurt’s ringtone, making both boys jump.

I’m glad you gave me your number today. I realised I never told you my name so . . . Hi, I’m Blaine Anderson. It’s nice to meet you. :)

Kurt swallows heavily and stares at his phone, feeling Sam’s cautious gaze on him.

“Why did I give him my number?” Kurt whispers.

“I’ve never been in love,” Sam says gently, “but I’m pretty sure your feelings don’t quit just because something crap happens. And this guy may not have been your boyfriend, but he’s still the same person.”

Kurt looks up at Sam again, and the action knocks a few tears loose.

“Parallel universes are kinda confusing. I never thought about that before.”

Kurt snorts, and then he lets out a short laugh, and then he’s doubled over almost in hysterics, his hand clutched around his phone so tightly the edges dig into his fingers.

~*~

Kurt doesn’t text Blaine back. He knows it’s rude to ignore Blaine, and it’s painful in the worst ways, but he doesn’t know what to say. He’s drafted countless responses but every single one has been either horribly rude or horribly, achingly flirty; he can’t be rude for Blaine’s sake, and he can’t be flirty for his own. So he doesn’t reply. He just stares at that single text, wishing he’d never given this Blaine his number, wishing he had his phone and the years of texts between him and Blaine.

He still doesn’t know what he was thinking, even having a conversation with Blaine, and his conversation with Sam the other day didn’t help at all.

Or, at least, Sam didn’t give him the answer Kurt wants to hear.

Another text pops up in the conversation thread at the same time it vibrates, and Kurt startles so much he drops his phone on his face.

“Ow, dammit . . .”

Do you want to get coffee sometime? I don’t have any plans this weekend.

It isn’t until Kurt’s eyes burn that Kurt remembers to blink.

Can’t. School, rehearsal, you know how it is.

And then, as an afterthought, because he realises after he’s sent the text that he’s been really rude:

I’m sorry.

Kurt throws the phone to the end of his bed and rolls over, burying his face into his pillow. He squashes the pillow against his ears, and then he stays like that until his lungs burn for air.

There’s no response from Blaine waiting when he fishes his phone from the tangles of his blanket. He flops back against bed and types out, Raincheck? four times without sending it, before he deletes it entirely and waits anxiously for Blaine to reply. He’s had background, low-level nausea ever since he came to this universe – his thoughts have been on getting home and missing his own loved ones even more than on Blaine’s confession – but right now he feels like he might genuinely throw up.

Why did he give Blaine is fucking phone number?

Of course, I’m sorry. I guess that was really forward of me. I forgot you’re probably busier than I am and you look like a senior so you’re probably doing college stuff too, right? Anyway, it’s fine. Not that I’d force you to meet up anyway. Just let me know when you’re not so busy and we can compare schedules or something?

Kurt drops his forearm over his eyes with a groan. The only time Blaine sends texts too long to fit on the screen, it means he’s gotten carried away, and even then it’s because he got excited.

Because Blaine isn’t a rambler. He doesn’t end statements with question marks or weak, insecure ‘or something’s, and he doesn’t start them back pedaling with ‘I guess’. When he’s upset or emotional – especially when he’s upset or emotional – Blaine is collected and almost unnervingly calm, and always far more eloquent than he gives himself credit for.

This really isn’t his version of Blaine. And it certainly throws out the rest of Kurt’s doubts about being in a parallel world: he wouldn’t dream Blaine as anything else than what he is, good, bad and all; but if their timelines split because Kurt never went to spy on Dalton, maybe . . .

—Kurt remembers Blaine’s expression as he ran past Kurt in the hallway, humiliated and running away because he doesn’t believe how strong he is, and Kurt will never hate Blaine enough that his entire being won’t hurt when Blaine hurts. He doesn’t remember how to not care—

Sam bursts into his room with a loud, “So!” and Kurt startles, too caught up in his own head. “My movies about parallel universes have finally arrived – did I tell you I asked my parents to send them? – anyway, now we can have a marathon! Maybe see if there’s a way to get you back home!”

“Not so loud!” Kurt shushes, running over to make sure the hallway’s empty and then closes the door.

“Everyone’s out,” Sam assures him as he dumps the DVDs onto Kurt’s bed. He catches sight of Kurt’s phone and picks it up, and Kurt refuses to flinch at the other boy’s raised eyebrow. “Wow, that’s harsh, man.”

“I’d like to see you do better,” Kurt retorts. He grabs for his phone but Sam holds it above his head. Kurt glares at him; he could easily jump high enough – Sam is only two inches taller than him – or kick Sam somewhere to make him drop the phone, but he refuses to play Sam’s game.

“I know Blaine is your ex in your universe, and I get that it hurts, I really do, but our Blaine hasn’t done anything to you except exist,” Sam says. His voice is firm (is Sam this mature in Kurt’s universe, or has Kurt never meeting Blaine affected more than just the two of them?) but his eyes are kind. Somehow, it deflates Kurt’s defences, and he drops his glare.

“I know,” he says. “I just . . .” He trails his eyes up to his phone, on which he can still see the conversation thread.

“Just let him down easy,” Sam says, bringing Kurt’s eyes back to him. Kurt swallows and nods, and lets himself be given his phone back. Sam pats him on the shoulder. “You want me to stay?”

“Give me half an hour?”

“I’ll be back,” Sam agrees, voice deepened and accent put on, but Kurt doesn’t care to figure out the source of the impression.

Kurt pushes aside the DVDs and sits heavily on the bed. He stares at the screen, hesitating over the keyboard. It’s simple, in theory: ‘Sorry, I don’t think I’ll be able to do coffee, there’s too much going on in my life right now.’ He’ll understand.

But. But, but, but – Kurt promised he’d never say goodbye to Blaine. If he’s going to break that promise, even if he never made it to this Blaine, he can’t at least be so cold as to do it over text.

And, well, if he’s never going to hear Blaine’s voice again . . .

Before he can change his mind, Kurt switches to his contacts and presses Blaine’s number. Tension coils in Kurt’s chest, grows tighter with every ring that passes unanswered until—

“Kurt!” Blaine’s voice melts through the phone, high and surprised.

“Uh, hey, Blaine.” The words come out clunky, Kurt’s mouth dry. “I didn’t interrupt anything, did I?”

“No, no, you didn’t interrupt anything,” Blaine says quickly. “You didn’t have to call me though – unless I’m that awkward over text?” He laughs. If Kurt didn’t know Blaine as well as he did, hadn’t heard the implied question mark, he wouldn’t have been able to tell how forced the laugh was.

“You’re not awkward,” Kurt says without thinking, because it’s true. Blaine is suave and effortlessly charming and he finds endearing all the awkward moments Kurt’s sense of humor creates.

“I’m glad you think so,” Blaine says warmly. Kurt can imagine the small smile on the corners of Blaine’s lips, the slight crinkling of his eyes; heart thumping painfully, Kurt wills himself to say something, anything, that means goodbye.

“About coffee . . .”

“Mm?”

“I’m free tomorrow.” Crap. Why did he say that? He shouldn’t have said that. He’s supposed to be cutting ties, how the hell will he be able to cut his Blaine out of his life when he gets home if he can’t even tell not-Blaine he’s too busy for coffee?

“I can do that! We could meet around twelve-thirty, have some lunch at the same time—”

“Not lunch,” Kurt blurts out. “I mean, I already have lunch plans. With a friend. And I can only do a couple of hours.”

“That’s fine. Uh, so where do you wanna meet? I just realised I don’t know where you live.”

The problem is, there are very few places of interest in between Lima and Westerville, and even fewer which would be suitable for . . . two gay acquaintances to hang out. There’s the Lima Bean, which has always been a failsafe backup, but even if it didn’t hold innumerable memories (god, they’d spent way too much time at the Lima Bean), Kurt really had seen a mouse in the kitchen when he’d worked there.

“There’s a coffee house in Bellefontaine,” Kurt says. “The coffee itself isn’t great but they don’t deep fry their entire menu and it hasn’t been involved in any drug busts. None that reached the evening news anyway.”

“It sounds charming,” Blaine says, completely free of sarcasm.

“Yeah, charming as a house made of sweets.” Blaine laughs, and the tension in Kurt’s chest slowly begins to unwind. “I’ll text you the address and see you tomorrow.”

“What time?”

“Three. Is the earliest I can get there.”

“Then, Kurt Hummel, I will see you tomorrow at three.” Once again, Kurt can almost see Blaine’s smile, but this time there’s a flirtatious lilt to his voice that seizes Kurt’s throat.

“‘Bye,” he stutters out, hangs up the phone, and drops his head into his hands. He’s still berating himself in that position when Sam returns seven minutes later, and he looks up at the other boy with defeated eyes. He tells Sam, “We’re having coffee tomorrow.”

To his credit, Sam just pulls Kurt into a quick hug and inserts the first DVD into Kurt’s laptop.

~*~

Kurt’s on eBay looking for clothes to spruce up this universe’s Kurt’s wardrobe (because it is seriously dire – Kurt’s almost ashamed, but then, if he’d been stuck at McKinley for another year then his wardrobe might have taken a hit as well) when Burt pokes his head round Kurt’s bedroom door.

“Hey, kid. You think you’re gonna be able to go to school tomorrow?”

Kurt runs his fingers across his computer keyboard as he thinks. He absolutely does not want to go back to school. He’s graduated already, he’s got a job in New York, he’s fed up of being treated like a joke or a china plate. But he doesn’t know for how long he’ll be stuck here. He doesn’t even know if he’ll ever get home. It’s a terrible thought, and he tries to ignore it as much as possible, but Sam has a habit of forcing him to confront his deepest fears.

“Yeah, I guess,” he sighs.

“I know it’s tough but just a few more months and you can be done with Lima forever.”

Kurt looks up at the man who is almost his father and mostly smiles. “Since you’re gonna be around forever, I’ll always come back to Lima.”

Burt huffs out a laugh. “Yeah, yeah. Give it half a decade and you’ll be dragging me and Carole out to New York to show off your fancy apartment. Still plannin’ to be married by thirty?”

Kurt swallows back the sudden sting of tears, sets his laptop aside, and throws his arms around Burt’s shoulders. “I love you, Dad,” he murmurs into his own arm. It feels like a betrayal, even though he knows it really isn’t.

“I love you, too,” Burt says back, confused, but happy nonetheless. Kurt wishes he could talk to him about Blaine. More than anything, he just wants his dad’s advice right now. But this Burt has never met Blaine, this Burt would only care about Kurt’s wellbeing because he hasn’t adopted Blaine as another teenaged fixture in the Hummel-Hudson household.

He hates how he doesn’t hate Blaine enough to allow Burt to badmouth him as only a hypothetical boyfriend.

After Burt leaves, Kurt takes an Ambien and scrolls through eBay until his alarm goes off the next morning.

~*~

On Saturday, Kurt is the first to arrive. The parking lot is mostly empty, and Kurt can see through the windows that the coffee shop is, too. He's very tempted to turn around and drive out of Blaine's life – or, more accurately, Blaine out of his life – but if there's one thing Kurt Hummel isn't, it's a coward. If he can face his entire class and be crowned prom queen, he can have coffee with Blaine.

He marches through the door and up to the counter with purpose, ignoring the scent of coffee beans on the air for the first time since; he orders, and it's not until the cups are handed to him that he realised he's ordered a grande nonfat mocha and a medium drip. It's not a huge shock – he still orders a medium drip half the time in New York – but it's unpleasant. If this is going to be a hard habit to break, Kurt's going to have to stop drinking coffee.

Or just stop going out for coffee. Homemade doesn't taste the same but Kurt is pretty sure he can’t survive without is daily fix.

Blaine arrives five minutes later and still ten minutes early, after Kurt's rearranged the tabletop condiments twice. He looks surprised to see Kurt but then he smiles, and Kurt's heart skips a beat, and Blaine joins him at the table.

"I got you a coffee," Kurt says, gesturing to the cup in front of the empty seat. "I, uh, wasn't sure so I got you a medium drip."

Blaine's smile spreads and softens, dark chocolate melting in a pan. "That's my coffee order."

"Good guess," Kurt says with a stiff smile. Blaine takes off his jacket—

—he's wearing dark wash skinny jeans, a tight checkered green shirt that shows off his biceps and pecs and a lack of tummy that throws Kurt for a loop, a dark green skinny tie, loafers; his hair is slightly puffy, curls in the controlled waves of mousse rather than gel; he's polished and ironed and perfectly styled and as beautiful as ever—

—and while he's looking away, Kurt tries to relax.

Blaine moans at his first sip, eyelashes fluttering, almost pornographic. It makes Kurt's skin tingle with memories and he quickly drinks a mouthful of his own coffee before he does something he’ll regret. Like pull Blaine over the table by his tie and kiss him.

"Thank you, Kurt." Blaine smiles at him; it's definitely flirtatious, and this isn't Blaine but it is and Kurt – gets angry.

"It's just coffee," Kurt says shortly. Blaine shrugs easily, his smile thankfully mellowing into something friendlier, and that makes Kurt inexplicably angrier. The feeling wells in his chest like beads of poison on a cobra's fang.

"It's much better than Dalton's coffee," Blaine says. "They only provide us with instant and a two-sugar limit."

"Yes, I know. I did used to go there," Kurt bites out. Blaine ducks his head and then Kurt literally bites his tongue between his molars. It would be so easy to carry on until Blaine walks out – and then he would never have to reconcile the boy in front of him now with the boy who ripped out his heart mere days ago.

They finish their coffees in painful silence: Kurt stares stoically out the window, and he sees Blaine every now and then out the corner of his eye looking up at him. Kurt’s mocha is barely warm by the time he finally gets to the bitter dregs but he keeps drinking anyway, and he ignores Blaine quite successfully until the other boy clears his throat.

“Do you want another coffee?” he asks. Kurt’s stomach squirms at the thought, and Kurt shakes his head. Blaine’s face falls – but then the mask is right back up, charming and fragile, and Kurt’s broken heart stirs.

“I need to go shopping,” Kurt says.

Blaine nods. “Ah, yeah, you should do that then before everything closes.”

“No, I—” Kurt clenches his fist to stop himself from rearranging the sugar packets again. “You should come with me.” He tries to smile; it probably comes out wonky but Blaine’s eyes have always been too expressive and now they’re starting to shine. “I could use another fabulous eye.”

“Well, I don’t know about ‘fabulous’.” Blaine grins.

“Don’t be ridiculous, not everyone can pull of that shade of green.”

“So I look okay?”

You look gorgeous, amazing, fashionable, delicious, sexy, adorable, fantastic, damn hot—

“Yes.”

Blaine ducks his head again, but this time, he’s smiling.

“Follow me,” Kurt says. “The mall’s not far.”

“Okay,” Blaine murmurs, and beams when Kurt holds the door open for him.

~*~

“So where are you from?” Blaine asks as they head into the mall.

“Lima.”

“Oh, you’re in the New Directions?” Kurt glances at him sideways and nods. “I was still in the Warblers when we faced you guys at Regionals - you were amazing.”

“Thank you, though I - uh, I wasn’t able to compete that year.”

“I’m sure you’re fantastic,” Blaine assures him, bumping their shoulders together. “If you’re even half as good as that girl with the solo – and your voice is beautiful.”

A blush warms Kurt’s cheeks; he turns on his heel and heads towards the first clothes store he sees, which is fortunately a Topman. “Come on.”

Blaine trots after him, unable to quite keep up with Kurt’s strides but not complaining. Dark wisps gather at the back of Kurt’s mind, but he puts up a wall and carries on.

“So, what are we shopping for?”

“Oh, just shopping for the sake of shopping,” Kurt says. “My closet needs revamping.” He looks sidelong at Blaine again. “I hope you don’t mind. My usual shopping partner is living in LA now.”

“Not at all,” Blaine says with a pleasant smile. “I love shopping.”

“Good.” Kurt picks up a sweater, cream with brown thread in the hems, and drapes it over Blaine’s arm. “Go try this on.”

And so that’s how the next hour goes: Kurt piling clothes and accessories in Blaine’s arms, both for Blaine and himself, and Blaine enthusiastically going along with him. There are no comments about his arms hurting, or doesn’t Kurt have enough outfits now?, or perhaps Kurt should carry more bags than the tiny one from Body Shop. Blaine offers his credit card at every shop they buy something – it’s the only thing he gets more insistent about as the time goes on, no matter how much Kurt refuses.

“You bought the coffee,” he tries, and Kurt eventually just responds, “It only cost three dollars. If it’s that big a deal to you, coffee’s on you next time.”

“In that case, I’ll need to know your order.”

Kurt has to dig his nails into his palm to stop himself from crying. You know my coffee order? Of course I do. “It’s, um, it’s a grande nonfat mocha.”

“Sounds yummy,” Blaine says, and glances at Kurt’s lips.

“It is,” Kurt agrees breathlessly. He catches himself looking at Blaine’s lips too (pink and soft and so familiar, and untouched by random sleazeballs from Facebook) and tears his eyes away, turning to head to the tie rack and grabbing Blaine’s arm to drag him over. “We need ties.”

That turns out to be a mistake, too. Kurt holds the ties up to his face – he only needs one – but Blaine takes his tie off to try on the bow ties. It slides through his collar almost sensually, like the so many times Kurt’s done it himself after pulling Blaine into a kiss with it; Blaine’s fingers are deft and confident as he does up the bow ties, and Kurt can feel his blood start to run south.

“Try this one on,” he says quickly, thrusting a random tie at him. “But I saw a shirt that might go with it so I’ll meet you at the changing rooms.”

“Okay.” Blaine smiles and picks up the bags, leaving his own tie off and Kurt can barely look away from the hollow at the base of his neck.

It takes Kurt a few minutes to find a shirt that will go with the tie – it’s certainly the fastest he’s ever browsed through a rack. When he finally gets to the changing rooms, he finds Blaine already waiting inside one, their bags stacked neatly against a wall and – shirtless. Very shirtless. So shirtless that Kurt’s eyes get stuck on his abs-pecs-nipples-shoulders for a few moments, his head spinning because the last time he saw Blaine naked was the night before Kurt left for New York and Kurt has honestly never seen a more beautiful man.

Somehow, he manages to hand over the shirt and close the curtain behind him without embarrassing himself or throwing up, and while Blaine changes, he breathes slowly and deeply and is so glad he decided to wear a long t-shirt today. When he realises Blaine is humming, and his heart races for an entirely different reason.

“What do you think?” Blaine asks, pulling aside the curtain and doing a spin.

“You should buy it,” Kurt says. “And then we should get soft pretzels.”

“Um.” Blaine licks his lips and slowly begins to unknot his tie. “I was actually ho—thinking we could get dinner? Since we’ve been out for so long.”

“Is it that late already?” and even as he asks, Kurt digs his phone out his pocket. “Wow. Actually, I do need to be going now. But I’m still craving pretzels. Eat as we walk out?”

“Sure.” Blaine smiles, and Kurt takes some of the bags off him.

They begin swapping items between the bags as they walk, sorting out if they both have all the right things, because Kurt doesn’t want to get crumbs and sugar all over his brand new clothes, and fall silent to enjoy their cinnamon-dusted baked goods.

“You know,” Blaine says, “I haven’t had this much fun shopping since I first got a credit card.”

Kurt laughs – it’s small, barely a giggle, but it’s there, the first time he’s even been able to laugh since, and it’s so good but unexpectedly painful.

“All it takes is the right girl friends,” Kurt says, body lighting up along with Blaine smile, “or gay friends.”

“Maybe we can do this again? While your shopping buddy’s in LA?”

“Maybe. Oh, I think that’s one of my bags.”

They get their bags and boxes into the right vehicles. Blaine’s eyes and hands linger on Kurt’s skin, tickling Kurt’s hairs even as he ignores him, and when Blaine again looks at Kurt’s lips, he says, “I’ll text you later,” and slips into his car. He’s got his keys in the ignition when Blaine knocks on the window, smile fixed in place but eyebrows too low to be anything but worried.

“Can I call you tonight?” he asks, quiet and tone not quite right. Kurt is torn in equal parts between yes and no because this afternoon has been – it’s been wonderful, it’s felt more like a dream than any other time here has, from last year when everything was perfect and happy and Kurt was naive and thought himself so grown up. Even like this, Kurt’s resisting the urge to lean up and pull Blaine down to meet their lips together, because that’s what they do when one is about to drive off.

“Tomorrow?” he offers instead, flicking Blaine a small smile. “Try around nine in the evening.”

Blaine nods and steps back, and waves as Kurt backs out the parking space. Kurt wiggles his fingers back, not quite willing to let go of the steering wheel. In his rearview mirror, he sees Blaine standing next to his car and watching Kurt drive away, until Kurt’s car rounds the corner, and all he can see is the gray sky behind him.

Kurt lies in his bed – the bed? is it his – staring alternatively at the ceiling and the scentless pillow next to him until a knock comes at his door and his dad calls through, “Kurt, you up, bud? Breakfast's on the table.”

“Dad?” Kurt says before he can stop himself, voice rough.

“Yeah. You alright?” The door starts to open and a flash of panic races through Kurt, and he shouts, “Don't come in!” before it can open all the way.

After a short pause, the man who sounds like his dad asks, “You sure you're alright?”

“I'm fine, just getting dressed, I'll be down in a minute,” Kurt says, stumbling over his words.

“If you're sure . . .”

“I am. Very sure. I'll see you in a minute.”

A moment later footsteps lead away from the door, and Kurt slumps back against his pillows, staring unseeingly forward while he waits for his heart and stomach to settle. Why is he in Ohio? Why hadn't his dad said anything about New York? What the hell is going on?

(Where is Blaine?)

Kurt drags himself out of bed and to his closet. The clothes are plain, and mostly shades of blue and black. Kurt’s just thankful there are loose jeans and a hoodie. He’d be ashamed of the apparent lack of variety, but what do clothes matter anymore? In fact, he’s glad these are the only clothes in his wardrobe – they’re made to make him invisible, and that’s the only thing Kurt wants to be right now.

His body feels heavy as he makes his way downstairs. He’s exhausted in more than one way: his stomach is twisting into all sorts of painful shapes, his face feels stiff and puffy, and he just wants the entire past two months to have been some fancy dream and he’s finally woken up back in Lima.

He stops in the kitchen doorway, the hairs on the nape of his neck prickling from the sense of wrongness of the scene in front of him. His dad, Carole, Finn and Sam round the table, the table covered in breakfasts and crockery, Carole working on the daily crossword, Sam eating muesli while jealously side-eyeing Finn’s plate – all of that is as it should be. But Sam’s hair is too long, Finn’s hair only became so short after returning from army training, and Finn isn’t talking about Rachel; he’s talking about co-directing the school musical.

“You’re going to school dressed like that?” Burt asks. A lump rises in Kurt’s throat, and he can’t stop himself from going over and wrapping his arms around his dad’s waist. Even if this is just a dream, nothing beats a hug from his dad. “Whoa, bud. You okay?”

Kurt shakes his head, and Carole’s small, rough palm rests on his face.

“You don’t feel warm,” she says.

“You look like hell, though,” Sam says.

A noise erupts from Kurt’s throat, pained and plaintive and tiny, and he burrows his face in his dad’s neck.

“I feel like hell,” he manages in a low voice. Burt’s hand is firm and comforting as it slowly runs up and down his spine; he feels eight years old again, where the only thing stopping the shattered pieces of his heart from spilling onto the floor is his father’s strong arms and steady presence. “I wanna die.”

For just a second, Burt’s grip tightens, and his hand stills. “You’re not having trouble at school again, are you?” he asks.

If only it were that, Kurt wishes, closing his eyes against more tears. He’d take bullies any day over B— . . . a broken heart and broken trust.

“No,” he says, even though his dad’s question doesn’t make sense. Obviously, he’s dreaming – more vivid than he’s ever had before, and he’s never managed lucid dreaming before, but he’s dreaming all the same. “Just don’t feel good.”

Burt pulls back, and Kurt lets him go. After a moment of examination, his dad nods, and says, “Alright. You want me to call off work or are you alright staying on your own today?”

“I’ll be fine on my own,” Kurt says evenly. He’d love for his dream dad to stay home and hug him all day, since he’s not going to see his real dad for at least another few weeks, but more than anything he just doesn’t have the energy. And if he changes his mind later, this is a lucid dream, and from what he knows of those, he’ll just be able to will his dad back.

Kurt excuses himself to his room as quickly as he’s able and clambers back into bed. He curls up under the covers, feeling too numb to read or browse the internet. As he waits for the house to empty, he almost wishes he would wake up already. He’s definitely not ready to face Blaine again, but at least in New York Kurt has a time-consuming internship in one of the busiest industries in the world to occupy his time.

When he wakes up, he resolves, he’s going to call Isabelle and ask for overtime. He won’t even try to get extra pay, just the hours.

His dad checks in again before he leaves for work, and then Kurt is alone.

For a long time, he stares at the spot on his shelf which used to house his senior prom photo, the ache in his chest expanding, until the pain feels too big for his body. His vision blurs and his body is shaking, the comforter clenched in his fist the only thing stopping his nails from tearing the skin of his palm. He curls up further, tighter, smaller, gasps harshly when his lungs burn for air – and it’s only then he realises he’s crying.

Tears roll hot down his face. Each exhale is wrenched ragged from his throat. He wants to scream, to force out his despair until he can breathe again; but all he can do is drown in his gasps as he desperately grabs for air.

~*~

When Kurt finally stops shaking, the light in his bedroom has changed. He drags himself into the bathroom, rubbing the crust left over from his dried tears from his eyes, and strips while the shower warms up, not caring where and how his clothes land. He makes the temperature too hot and just stands under the stream of water, barely feeling the droplets burn his skin.

The water cools quickly, and when Kurt turns it off, the heat has only managed to pink his skin. All he feels is numb.

He doesn’t want to do anything more than sleep until everything’s fixed, and without a job to force him to stay awake, it’s certainly tempting. But, he decides, since he’s dreaming anyway, it seems ridiculous to go to bed. And if he remembers one thing from Inception, it’s to play along with a dream or else your subconscious will try to kill you.

He picks up his phone to tell Mercedes he won’t be in school today – but she isn’t one of the four conversation threads in his messages. She isn’t one of his contacts, either. Tina is, and Sam, and Brittany, and Mike, and his family, but neither of his best friends are. (Blaine isn’t, either, and Kurt is relieved this dream truly has given him some relief from the other boy’s presence, even if it hasn’t taken away his memory.) He tosses his phone to the other end of his bed, settles against the headboard, and pulls over his laptop. There is, surprisingly, no password on start up, so he opens up Facebook immediately. He’s relieved to find he’s still friends with Mercedes and Rachel there but—

The date according to his laptop is October 22nd, not October 6th; Mercedes is in LA and Rachel is in New York; and his profile claims he’s to graduate from McKinley in the class of ’13. Kurt would frown if he wasn’t so desperate avoid wrinkles at all costs (if he had the energy to move one muscle, let alone move forty-two); nevertheless, he feels like he’s not connecting dots correctly, that there’s something he’s missing.

(Finn’s graduated in this dream too, Kurt remembers vaguely. Either that or his subconscious has gotten a few things mixed up. Although, to be fair, he wasn’t exactly paying attention to what Finn was saying at breakfast.)

Rather than write on Mercedes or Rachel’s walls, he goes into his photos. There are depressingly few over the last two years; there are significantly more in Rachel and Mercedes’ profiles.

Even though this is only a dream and Kurt knows his friends love him, it still hurts to see pictures of his friends having fun without him. Especially at their graduation party.

He hovers the mouse over the search bar for several long moments before clicking out of Facebook and shutting down the computer altogether.

~*~

By the time a car pulls into the driveway, Kurt has combed through the entire house. He wasn’t especially thorough, but more times than he would admit he had found himself standing or sitting or crouching and staring uselessly into nothing as tears rolled down his face so he’s taking any exploration done as a success. Unfortunately, he didn’t found out anything more than he already knew, so the afternoon was a waste.

A knock on the door is quickly followed by Finn’s head, and then the rest of his body follows when Kurt doesn’t tell him to go away.

“Hey, man, you feeling any better?”

“I guess.” Numbness and emptiness is better than absolute agony, so it’s not a complete lie.

“Awesome. Everyone was worried about you in Glee today. Mr Schue said to pass on a get well soon.”

“Thanks.”

Finn continues hovering, so Kurt forces himself to uncurl and take one of his headphones out.

“What else do you want?” he asks, and tries not to recoil from Finn’s worried, studying eyes.

“You still kinda look like crap,” Finn says. Kurt huffs, more to play along than out of any real offence. He knows how he probably looks; he doesn’t wear devastation well. “Are you sure you’re okay, dude? No rush to get back to school, y’know. Sam won’t mind getting your homework for longer.”

“I’m fine,” Kurt snaps. “When’s Dad gonna be home?”

“Five, I think. But I can call him home earlier?”

Kurt sighs, shakes his head and shuffles down the bed again. “No, I’m fine.”

“Alright. I’ll go get your work then.” Kurt nods and puts his headphone back in his ear, thanks Finn when the boy appears with a small stack of sheets and then ignores him when he hovers again. It’s going well, despite the insistently fidgeting blur out the corner of Kurt’s eye, until Finn sits down on the end of Kurt’s bed. “What’cha watching?”

“Inception,” Kurt answers shortly.

“Huh. Uh. I didn’t know you liked that film.”

Kurt likes Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Leonardo DiCaprio. Liked. No, likes – there’s nothing wrong with fantasising about handsome men.

“I don’t,” he says. Water rushes on the screen and Leo drops into the bathtub, and Kurt has to swallow back more tears.

“Okay . . . I’ll just leave you to it?”

Kurt nods and doesn’t wait until Finn’s even closed the door to turn the sound up.

~*~

Inception is a stupid film, Kurt’s decided. Well, he’s always thought it was a dumb movie, but now he thinks it’s more stupid. The only thing it’s not wrong about is how realistic the dream feels while he’s in it, because he pinched his arm and it hurt like hell.

Around eight, Burt comes into Kurt’s room with a bowl of soup and a couple of slices of dry toast.

“Feelin’ any better, bud?” he asks as he places the tray on Kurt’s bedside table. He sits himself on the bed and reaches forward to put the back of his hand on Kurt’s forehead. “Still no temperature so that’s good.”

“I guess.”

Burt pulls his hand away, so Kurt shuffles forward to curl into his dad’s side and breathes in the scent of motor oil and lingering aftershave. His dad wraps an arm around him but it only helps so much; Kurt’s in pain, and there’s nothing his dad can do but hold him. He wishes he were a kid again.

“Think you’re okay to go to school tomorrow or do you want another day off?”

“I’ll be okay,” Kurt answers, because he never wants any version of his dad to worry, and it’s not like he’ll have to go anyway. He’ll probably wake up before then – hopefully when he ‘falls asleep’ tonight. It’s been nice to have a whole day to  process, a relief before facing Blaine in the morning.

“Alright.” Burt’s voice rumbles in his chest, and Kurt’s head slips down so he can hear the steady, reassuring beat of his heart. “Just don’t push yourself if you do feel crap then, okay?”

Kurt nods, closing his eyes.

“Love you, Dad,” he whispers.

“Love you too, Kurt.” The man briefly squeezes tighter, drops a kiss onto Kurt’s flat hair, and then starts letting go. “Eat something and then go to bed, yeah?”

“‘Night.”

“‘Night. Sleep well.”

Kurt forces down two thirds of the soup and a slice of bread, and then lies awake until dawn.

~*~

Kurt forgets all about Blaine for one almost blissful moment when he wakes up to an alarm and his Ohio bedroom. He freaks out until his alarm gets too irritating to deal with any longer, and then opens up Google to search for information about dreams.

Because the mind still dreams after a false awakening, there may be more than one false awakening in a single dream. Subjects may dream they wake up, eat breakfast, brush their teeth, and so on; suddenly awake again in bed (still in a dream), begin morning rituals again, awaken again, and so forth.

Kurt strokes across his collarbone as he frowns at the tiny screen of his phone and thinks. He’s woken up still in Ohio – and still in the same dream as before, if the number of contacts is anything to go on – so he’s probably just having a reoccurring false awakening . . . but not everything fits. He knows, of course, that Wikipedia is hardly from the most reliable site on the web, but still, shouldn’t everything fall into place? At the very least, shouldn’t a second false awakening have the same date as the first?

Patients feel uncanny and that there is something suspicious afoot. Everything gets a new meaning. The environment is somehow different—not to a gross degree—perception is unaltered in itself but there is some change which envelops everything with a subtle, pervasive and strangely uncertain light.[…] Something seems in the air which the patient cannot account for, a distrustful, uncomfortable, uncanny tension invades him.

Except Kurt doesn’t feel ‘uncanny’ – his room is his room, his family are his family, most things are as they should be. Blaine isn’t around (fortunately) and his lack of presence is obvious in the decor of Kurt’s room, and for some reason Kurt didn’t graduate on time, but he doesn’t feel a sense of ‘distrustful tension’ in the air otherwise.

He closes the page with a huff and unsatisfying press of the thumb. Wikipedia is full of shit anyway.

He pulls himself out of bed and gets dressed. The closet is still as unfabulous as yesterday, but Kurt still isn’t feeling particularly fabulous himself so he can deal with muted colours and a fraction of his scarf collection. In the kitchen, he assures everyone he’s feeling better today (more points against a false awakening, but Kurt can’t have been the only person to have a dream like this) and forces himself to eat again, and then follows Sam to the car.

“You wanna drive?” Sam asks, and Kurt shakes his head. If this is a dream and McKinley is in a different place – or there isn’t even a McKinley at all – he doesn’t want to end up driving in the wrong direction. “Sweet! I’ve always wanted to drive your car.”

“Just don’t scratch it,” Kurt says. Sam grins and holds up his fist until Kurt taps it.

McKinley is exactly the same, which is simultaneously comforting and not. A couple of slurs are shouted his way as he walks through the corridor; a jock sneers at him when he passes; and there’s still the faintly nauseating smell in the air and sticky patch outside one of the science rooms.

“Kurt!” Tina calls, and Kurt’s walking towards her before it’s even fully registered. He was mostly wandering around aimlessly, since he doesn’t know what classes he’s supposed to be in. She hugs him carefully and then links their arms together. “Have you been to your locker yet?”

“I knew I’d forgotten something,” he says. Tina laughs – too brightly – and then starts leading him to, presumably, his locker. Fortunately, she also knows his combination and classes, and isn’t suspicious when Kurt pretends he’s just being particularly scatterbrained today. He’s actually quite surprised by that, because he knows he doesn’t have the energy to act very well. It’s hard enough trying not to yawn every two minutes.

He separates with Tina to go to his first class and is immediately pushed into a locker. “Oh, how original,” he snaps. “Really, the amount of creativity you display is as high as your destined-for-dead-end-jobs predecessors.”

The nameless jock (with bad hair – why do they always have bad hair?) looks surprised for a moment, and then his face colors an ugly red. “Shut up, homo.”

“If you’re lucky Supercuts will let you clean up the floors. Trust me, with that hairstyle, you won’t even need an interview.”

The jock locker checks him again, hard enough for Kurt to lose his breath this time, and storms off without another word. Kurt scowls after the jock, his veins starting to flare for the first time with something other than despair, and Kurt embraces it, lets it flood his muscles until he’s standing tall and proud and quietly angry.

Artie rolls up as Kurt spins gracefully on his heel. “Are you okay? That one looked especially painful.”

“Who knew straight boys were so sensitive about their hair?” Kurt says waspishly.

Artie stops moving to stare up at Kurt. “You made fun of his hair?” He blinks a few times, surprised, and then holds out his fist. “Nice one, Kurt.”

Kurt rolls his eyes as he exchanges yet another fist bump.

~*~

That night, Kurt falls asleep as soon as his eyes close, but he’s not so exhausted that he manages to stay asleep. Over the course of the night, he wakes up four times, until dawn is beginning to break on the horizon and he can’t get back to sleep. He researches false awakenings again, but he finds no reports of other people living out consecutive days in their dream.

He wakes up again, and again, and again, and he’s still in Ohio. Throughout the days, he wishes he’d wake up with a ferocity that surprises him – but he misses New York. He misses his internship and Rachel and he desperately wants to talk to his dad, and he’ll take having to face Blaine again if he can get everything else back. The anger that the jock had incited in him simmers inside him, expanding so that he’s angry at everything – he’s angry that he’s stuck in this dream, he’s angry that he misses Blaine at night and in the quiet moments when he’s by himself, he’s angry that he’s not being able to be comforted by everyone and everything else in his life, he’s angry that the family and few friends he has in this dream are treating him like he’s a wilting daisy.

The calendar flips over to Tuesday again, and Kurt’s anger explodes. He throws his phone against the wall; it shatters, and so does something in Kurt chest. He grabs his lamp, tears the plug out the socket and flings that across the room with a shout – and then he just starts throwing whatever his hands land on, moisturisers, ornaments, books, that single photo frame.

Arms encircle him, pull him against a chest, and Kurt convulses and twists and screams.

“Kurt!” his dad’s voice shouts in his ear.

“Let me go!” he screams. “Let me go let me go don’t touch me—!”

“Kur—”

“Don’t wanna be here,” Kurt cries. “Wanna go home, I’m so sick of everything, don’t touch me!—”

His foot connects solidly with something, and the arms around him slacken enough so that Kurt can tear himself away. His hand lashes out when something tries to grab him – keys bite into his hand, gravel into his feet – a car door slams, and Kurt drives. He spins the wheel left, away from McKinley and everything it stands for, and the grooves of the accelerator and brake dig into his feet as he senselessly turns through the streets until all that surrounds him is farmland.

He doesn’t know why he eventually stops – he just slams the brake and stumbles from the car, shaking from the chill and sudden lack of adrenaline, feeling every ache, and unable to remember the past half hour but feeling mortified anyway. He keeps his cool, withdraws into himself when he needs to; he doesn’t fly off the handle and go on a destructive rampage.

Kurt closes his eyes, holds back tears, and wraps his arms around himself as he shivers, tired and morose and lonely. He’s starting to lose feeling in his toes and fingers and nose, his feet have dried blood on them, his arms ache, his hands throb with every heartbeat, his throat is sore, his hair is unstyled, he’s wearing his pajamas, he doesn’t know where he is, and his heart is still littered along the bottom of his ribcage in tiny pieces.

“Wake up,” he begs himself, voice rough and cracked. He curls over his knees and cries. “Wake up, wake up, wake up . . .”

He’s chilled to his core and out of tears by the time his dad’s car pulls up next to the Navigator. Two doors open and close, a hand brushes Kurt’s shoulders and then drives away again, and his dad crouches down in the dirt and pulls Kurt close. He goes limply and shudders at his dad’s warmth.

“C’mon, kid,” his dad murmurs, “let’s get you warmed up.”

In the end, he practically carries Kurt to the passenger seat of the Navigator, because Kurt’s feet are too numb for Kurt to feel them. Burt tucks a blanket around Kurt’s legs, turns on both the heater and the heated seats, and lets the car slowly drain the battery until Kurt stops shivering.

“‘M sorry, Dad,” Kurt slurs. His face is turned towards the window – he’s still embarrassed, perhaps more now that he’s not the slightest angry anymore – and it’s hard to keep his eyes open. “Didn’t mean to worry you.”

“Hey, Kurt, look at me.” His dad’s hand is heavy and comforting on his shoulder, so Kurt forces himself to roll his head towards him. “I always worry about you, okay? Especially after the other year, I’m gonna worry about you as long as you’re in this town, and then every day after it too. You’re my son.”

“I should be in New York,” Kurt says. Burt nods, the lines on his face deep.

“You’ll get there,” he says. “Just a few more months and you’ll be in college and havin’ the time of your life.”

Kurt nods, blinks, forces his eyes back open. “‘M sorry about my room.”

Burt sighs. “Yeah. We’ll talk about that later. But how about now we go home and watch some TV, huh? I’ll let you choose.” He smiles, a little forced but mostly the easy suffering of a parent who will do anything for their child. “I won’t even complain if you wanna put on that Georgia Shore show.”

“Jersey Shore,” Kurt corrects him sleepily, and shakes his head. “Can we watch Sound of Music?”

“Of course,” Burt says softly. He squeezes Kurt’s shoulder once and then lets go to start up the engine. “Sleep on the way there, yeah?”

“Mm hm.” Kurt lets his eyes finally slip closed. “Love you.”

“I love you too, Kurt.”

~*~

Carole comes home just past seven with take out, Finn and Sam. Kurt appreciates the time to calm down, but he’s mortified that everyone had seen him like that. He blushes all through dinner, even though no one says anything, and then escapes to his room. Ten minutes later, Sam comes into his room with the opening: “I have a theory.”

“You have many theories,” Kurt says, “most of them conspiracies.”

Sam closes the door and moves closer. “Like that. The Kurt I know is damaged and hates this town with a fiery passion. And he hasn’t stood up to his bullies since he had to repeat his junior year – which I know you have done because Artie sent a mass text to everyone in the old New Directions.”

Kurt’s heart thumps wildly somewhere up in his throat. Oh, god, he’s not ready to die. (And why the hell would he repeat his junior year?) “I can’t just have gotten tired of being pushed around?”

“You could’ve,” Sam acknowledges, “but that quick of a turnaround just after you started acting weird? The only explanation is that you’re a pod person!”

Kurt can’t help himself – he bursts into mostly mirthless laughter. “I think you’ve been watching too many sci fi movies.”

Sam narrows his eyes at Kurt in study, and sighs. “Well, my second theory was that you’re from a parallel universe. But the pod person seemed more likely, since it was a battle of aliens versus wormholes and I know which ones actually exist.” His eyes grow wide. “Unless the Hadron Collider actually made a black hole in your universe!”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Kurt says, but it comes out ineffective because his mind is spinning – could he really be in a parallel world, and not just dreaming?

“What’s your universe like?” Sam asks, bounding over to join Kurt on the bed like a golden retriever. “Do you have any cool gadgets that don’t exist here? Am I there? Do I have any superpowers?”

“Now you’re being ridiculous.”

“So you are from a parallel universe!”

Kurt nods reluctantly and Sam punches the air.

“Don’t get too excited,” Kurt says. “Everything’s basically the same.”

“So it’s like in that one episode of Buffy?"

“Which episode?"

“Season 3, episode 9. Cordelia catches Xander making out with Willow and then wishes Buffy had never moved to Sunnydale and there's that whole alternate timeline with the vampires?"

"But I didn't wish any—" Kurt begins to retort, but the words catch in his throat.

He had wished. His boyfriend cheated on him and he, what, wished the world different? Except no one had been listening – certainly not a vengeance demon.

"But I only wished in my head," he says instead. And it isn't just the words catching in his throat now; his tears, his anger, his hurt are choking him. He looks determinedly away from Sam, but in his peripheral vision he can still see Sam's eyes are wide in panic and concern. "He – he was with someone else," he spits mockingly, "and I wished I'd n-never met him."

“Hey, at least you didn’t wish yourself into a vampire apocalypse!” Kurt huffs and glares at Sam, who looks unperturbed. “No? Okay then.”

“How could this have happened though? Vengeance demons are just as fictional in my universe as this one.”

“Well, there are tons of ways to get to parallel universes. Did you happen to notice any portals?”

Kurt shoots Sam a dirty look. “Don’t be ridiculous. And there was no futuristic gadgetry lying around either because parallel universes are something that belong in science fiction and not the real world.”

Sam shrugs. “I don’t know what to tell ya, man, I’m definitely a person. ‘I think therefore I am’, y’know?” He looks contemplative for a moment and then says, “Actually, I think your situation is more like Shrek Forever After.” Sam frowns worriedly. “Wait, you didn’t make a deal, did you? ’Cause you’ve been here for, like, a week already and the whole True Love’s Kiss thing’s expired already.”

“If you’re not gonna be helpful, get out my room,” Kurt snaps, standing up to glare down at Sam.

“Whoa, wait. I’m sorry, I’ll stop talking about . . .” He trails off as his eyes widen and his jaw drops. “Wait, you said he? As in, a boyfriend he?”

“Not anymore,” Kurt mutters, and then he brushes the sudden tears from his eyes.

“So the point our timelines diverge is when you met the ex.” Sam frowns. “Dude, your life sucks without him. You got bullied so bad in junior year you ended up in hospital because you were ridiculously underweight, and then you had to repeat the grade because you were still being treated over finals. Burt didn’t even know about it ‘til then. And you’ve been kinda . . . quiet ever since.”

Kurt works his jaw against the surge of anger. None of this is Sam’s fault, and Kurt shouldn’t rip him apart for being tactless.

“I thought he was my soulmate,” Kurt says icily. “Trust me, however I felt then is better than how I feel now.”

“So you’re saying you’re better off without him.” Sam looks dubious. “I dunno, Kurt. I mean, I seriously don’t think you’ve smiled in, like, two years. I’m not saying you’re not right to feel how you’re feeling!” he hurries to add when Kurt glares at him again, “I’m just saying that if this . . . uh, guy made you happy, even if you feel like shit now, it’s probably a good thing you met him.”

Kurt turns away from Sam and closes his eyes.

“Can you please leave? I’m tired.”

“Sure, man.”

Sam closes the door behind him, and Kurt waits until he can no longer hear his footsteps to change into his pajamas, pull the comforter over his head, and cry himself to another night of fitful sleep.

Cordelia ended up dying in her alternate universe. Kurt sort of wishes he had, too.