That night Blaine felt like he woke up twice as many times as he fell asleep.
He couldn't make himself go into the bedroom, even though the couch was too soft for his back and his shoulders were bound to go stiff. But at least that was for sure. As was that he'd go through the next day with a splitting headache. The next day however, seemed like light years away in the semi sober, half asleep and full on anguished state he was in. Sometimes twisting and twirling, sometimes so still he barely breathed – the hours of the night appeared endless.
That was why, when it was still dark but the people outside coming home from parties were replace by those who worked on Sundays, Blaine sat up and decided that the night was over.
He blinked a few times, getting used to the stickiness and forcing them to stay open. He shivered from the effort of being awake, the early morning frost outside not helping his case. But while his body wanted, his mind craved. He had to do something and sleeping was both too inactive and complicated.
He threw the blanket over his shoulders and stood up and his head immediately started throbbing like a second heartbeat, low and steady. He walked to the kitchen sink on sore feet, his skin felt cold and thin, not quite ready to be used. He poured a glass of water without waiting for it to get cold, licking his dehydrated lips before drinking.
The sound of him putting the glass down reached his ears but inside his mind it sounded distant and strange, like someone else had caused it. Everything around him seemed different.
The kitchen table chairs with perfectly clean satin cushions, the ticking of the clock above the door, the ever growing mix of photos, magazine cut outs and a notepad for shopping lists on the fridge, Kurt's collection of aprons on the wall, and the kitchen table, with a burnt down candle and two wine-stained glasses. An icy tingle went through Blaine's spine because it felt a little like standing in an exact replica of their kitchen, except everything was lifeless and empty. Blaine wasn't used to the cold light illuminating from the living room window and he wasn't used to the ringing in his ears when everything else was so silent.
Somewhere a door slammed shut and it made Blaine's throat clog up, trying not to see Kurt when he squeezed his eyes shut but wanting just that.
The urge to take action grew. Most of all he wanted to find Kurt and bring him home, bring him anywhere where they might be happy. Bring them back in time would be ideal. But he felt trapped in an alternate universe, on the other side of a door that Kurt had walked out of.
Nevertheless, he had his phone in his hand and before he could think about how it got there he had Kurt's smiling face plastered over the screen and signals beeping through the speaker. He held his breath as he lifted the phone to his ear and listened to the monotone beeps, the space between them infinite.
“Hello, you have reached Kurt Hummel's voice mail. You can either leave me a fun little message or try again later, whatever floats your boat. Don't be a stranger!”
Kurt's voice pierced through Blaine's brain, bright and clear, and he barely got to the hang up-button before another beep initiated the recording. He threw the phone back on the table and inhaled shakily. He didn't know what to say. He didn't even know if he would be able to speak – he'd left his voice at the other side of the night.
Hearing Kurt, calm and untroubled, further alienated him from the prospect of tomorrow. And Kurt hadn't picked up, probably having put his phone on silent to sleep without interruption.
Because surely he couldn't be awake in that very moment? In some hotel room that was as dim and hostile as this apartment? With the same iron fist around his heart and gravity pulling the weight of his body down, heavy heavy heavy.
Blaine slid down against the dishwasher, sprawling his legs out in front of him and leaning his head back. He forced himself to think about last night. It wasn't very hard to remember because it was all he had thought about anyway. He tried to understand why Kurt would leave like that, when they so obviously needed to talk it out. Never had there been a fight so big that they hadn't been able to work through it within hours. Except maybe on a few occasions when they still were in high school and didn't see each other every day. Blaine vaguely recalled some big drama about how the Warblers had been accused of cheating at regionals or something and Blaine had thought Kurt hadn't stood up for him enough. Kurt had stormed out then, gone back to Lima, and Blaine had been so upset to be eliminated that he'd refused to contact Kurt for days. He'd been absolutely miserable, about Kurt more than the competition, and eventually he missed him so bad that he'd swallowed his pride, realized his mistake and apologized in song at McKinley. Turned out that Kurt had been feeling just as bad because when he got home the same day (after making up for lost time in the choir room) he had found a letter with two tickets to a musical addressed to him in Kurt's handwriting. It had been so easy to work around the problem, everything had still been so new and exciting and romantic. Blaine didn't think there was anything romantic about sitting on the kitchen floor and wondering why your life was crumbling down around you.
It may sound like a whole lot of self pity, but the reason for Blaine's despair was that he was on the brink of losing it. He'd barely cried when Kurt left, just fallen down in some kind of painful numbness, if that was possible. He was so aware of what just had happened, the image of Kurt actually walking away hitting him again and again, but still he didn't let himself think about what that could mean, if that could be the final outcome of all this.
He tried to focus on understanding, tried to be rational and just hold out until a decent hour. But it was difficult with what had been left out there, revealed and played out in the worst possible scenario.
Blaine looked down at his hands in his lap and played Kurt's words in his head over and over again. On one hand, he'd said he was sorry, that he was an idiot and that they'd talk tomorrow. On the other hand, he'd said that he didn't know if he could do this anymore and he had left. Blaine didn't know what to believe. He didn't understand Kurt's reasons for turning away like that and the wait was becoming a little unbearable.
That is why felt his heart hitch in his chest as he got an idea, pushing himself onto his feet and leaving the kitchen. He found himself in the bedroom, in front of Kurt's nightstand where Blaine knew that Kurt kept his journal. He opened the drawer and there it was – a black leather book with a red ribbon hanging out from the middle and a ballpoint pen on top if it.
Kurt had an entire case of old books like these, dating way back to his early teenage years. He'd read some particularly amusing entries to Blaine, with great enthusiasm and a healthy dose of embarrassment, when they were packing up their boxes to this apartment. He had often written when he was going through something emotional or eventful, as an outlet back when he didn't really have anyone to talk with. And then it had just continued. Although Blaine knew he didn't write as much as when he was younger – he'd seen this book around for over a year – he was pretty sure Kurt had kept to the pattern of only writing when he had something to write about. And he was standing there wondering, with his fingers on the spine, if maybe there were some answers in there.
Blaine didn't think off himself as a person who read other people's journals so it wasn't without guilt he lifted the book out of the drawer and sat down on the bed. But as it things were, he found himself feeling that Kurt owed him some explanations, even if he had to hunt them down himself. For all Blaine knew, Kurt might just spend the entire night coming up with words that made things kinder, but not at all better. Or maybe he was just thinking of ways to let Blaine down gently.
His mind was racing again so he opened the journal at the last entry which dated about two weeks ago. He bit his lip and looked at his knees over the edge of the journal before getting to the actual text.
I'm worried about Blaine.
Blaine's jaw clenched and he stared at the way Kurt wrote B's before daring to continue.
It's been going on for some time now, him acting a bit weird and aloof, but it's not even that. I can't quite put my finger on it. It's just like knowing that turtlenecks will be back in fashion this winter – it's intuition based on years of research and paying attention to the subtlest of details.
Last night he told me that he misses me. How do I even begin to describe the look on his face? I swear that sometimes it's like not a day has gone by since high school when he looks at me like that. But yesterday there was this sadness in his eyes, and even though I've seen that before too it just tugged at my heart when it just should have been a beautiful moment. And he tells me that he thinks that we never see each other anymore. And I get where he's coming from. These last few months have been crazy. My whole life has been turned upside down, including my life with Blaine. It has been fantastic for the most part but I guess stardom really does come with a price...
But I do miss Blaine, and I hope he doesn't doubt that. Despite what various sitcoms will tell you about people in longterm relationships, it's not fun having to leave every day he gets home from work, or wake up alone in the mornings. But I think it's harder for him, because what caused this in the first place is that my wildest dream came true and I refuse to feel sorry about that.
Lately I can't help but to wonder... I know he loves his job, but it has been a good while since I saw him speaking really passionately about it and his students. He doesn't have that spark in his eye, he doesn't light up in excitement and get that dreamy look on his face. I choose to believe that it has nothing to do with getting older, it's never too late to have high hopes.
Blaine is the most passionate person I know (I count Rachel as manic) so to see him so... faded is really starting to get to me. I hope that maybe it's just a reaction to the downright depressing weather, I still remember the winter of 2015 thank you very much, but I've got an unsettling feeling that it's more than that. (Although this autumn is enough to have anyone jumping from Brooklyn Bridge, I've already broken one of my Alexander McQueen umbrellas.)
I wonder what happened to those dreams he had, that we both had, and would lie awake and talk about until the morning broke. Sure it's easy to dream when you're young but Blaine is also so, so ambitious, he's always gone after what he wants, committed to 106 percent. Maybe this just isn't what he wants anymore, to be a teacher.
He played me a song the other night and it was beautiful as always. If not a little cheesy because it was the same one that he serenaded me with once upon a time in a land far far away. God, I can't believe it's been almost ten years, it feels like an eternity and the blink of an eye at the same time. Oh shit, I keep getting sidetracked because it's so hard to put all this into words, partly because I can't really describe it, and partly because it hurts a little to think about.
I think of Blaine on stage, moving like he was born to perform. I think he kind of was. I think he misses it more than he lets on, probably more than he misses me.
It was the end of a page, but Blaine didn't turn it. The words blurred as he focused on nothing, unblinking to keep the water in his eyes from spilling down on the paper. It was not at all what he had expected.
But what had he thought he would find?
Did he think it would be something that would justify him reading his diary? Something that would open up the sky and have a rainbow lead him happiness? Something that would make him love Kurt less, preparing him for what might come?
No.
Blaine hadn't been thinking much. It had just been an instant fix to Kurt's heart, a desperate attempt to calm his own mind.
Mission failed.
Not only did Blaine feel disgusting for intruding into Kurt's mind, especially since it had been such a long time he'd had a true, real piece of it, but what he'd written was so unheard of. Before their argument a couple of nights ago, Kurt had never dropped a hint of his theories of Blaine being under-stimulated. Never asked, more than casually, how he was feeling or how his job was.
And Blaine felt a swoop in his stomach when he realized that this had been exactly what he'd been fearing all week – that Kurt would think he had failed.
Expect that this was before Blaine had lost his job, before Blaine had had a thought of future crisis concerning his career. Or?
Blaine simply could not think about that right now. It was another thundercloud in his head, standing in line to release its wrath. Blaine simultaneously wanted to crawl in under the bed, sink through the floor, and stand in the window and scream all things that needed to be screamed.
He closed the book, clutching it so hard that his fingernails left dents in the leather. Then he dusted it off, as if it would erase his interference, and threw it back in the drawer. He fell back on the bed and rubbed his eyes until he saw stars behind his eyelids. Then he stopped, making a feeble attempt to massage his temples before grabbing onto his hair and thinking what the hell have I done?

The hours did go by. He'd fallen asleep on the bed despite himself. When he woke up it was past 9 o'clock and it was a relief to leave the lonely night behind. Now there was the usual sound of the city outside the window, even a sunbeam or two streaked through the living room as Blaine headed to the toilet.
It made everything better and it made everything worse.
There was an air of normalcy, just another day in the life and what do you know, the sun rose again. It gave Blaine some hope that it really couldn't be that bad, that the world hadn't stopped because of this. False alarm. Today things would work out.
Then there was the part of him that ached with fear, that made his spine weak, of that the world would go on without Kurt. That the sun would continue to shine on the floor and the sirens on the street would always be loud, because they didn't know and didn't care.
Blaine took a shower, head snapping to his phone that he'd placed on the handbasin every ten seconds when the water drizzling past his ears sounded like a signal.
He throughly ignored the fact that he was terribly hungover and felt like he had a lump of lead pressing against his skull. His body was sore with tension and his mouth and throat dry as autumn leaves. Normally he'd gone through the usual day after drinking routine of swallowing pills and ordering pizza from the couch and being as lazy as humanly possible, but the idea was strangely repulsing.
Instead he got out of the shower, threw some old jeans and t-shirt on and made coffee. Strong coffee. The kind that he made on early mornings when he didn't care if he put salt or sugar in it because he just needed to wake up already. He made some toast and couldn't resist putting three layers of cheese on top and was grateful that he'd bought the kind with high percentage of fat.
It was all with the best of intention, but also against his better judgement. He sat down at the table, put the phone beside his plate and drank half of the cup of coffee way too quickly. He bit down on the bread and realized that instead of staring across the table, he could be reading the paper. He stood up and made it to the threshold of the hall before spinning on his heel and finding himself on the bathroom floor, throwing up in the toilet.
That was when he called.
The phone vibrated in his pocket as he was flushing, and for a brief second the only thing that went through Blaine's mind was the question of when he'd put his phone there.
He stood up as fast as he could on shaky legs and washed his hands and face and mouth in a rapid speed before fishing out his phone and...
“Hello?” Blaine's voice sounded like it had gone through a grinder, coming out thin and broken.
There was no answer though and Blaine looked at the screen and it said 1 missed call. He'd missed it by a nanosecond and it was enough for him to feel dizzy and have to sit down on the floor and lean against the laundry basket while trying to dial Kurt's number, not even thinking about that he could hit speed dial.
He finally managed to get it right and tried to clear his throat as he lifted the phone to his ear again. Beep beep beep beep. Kurt must be leaving him a message, under the belief that Blaine hadn't answered, thinking that Blaine hadn't unlocked his phone three times a minute to make sure the sound was on, that Blaine had something else to do than talk to him.
Blaine hung up and counted to ten before he hit redial, although it was probably only three seconds. The busy signal shouted in his ear and Blaine started to panic. Why had he bothered drying his hands? When Kurt wanted to speak to him and when Blaine needed to speak to him.
He hung up again and put his elbows on his knees, thumping the phone against his forehead to the beat of his curses. After a minute or so his phone notified him about a voice mail and without even contemplating to listen to he called Kurt again. One short signal went through but it was enough for Blaine to notice how his heartbeat had gone up.
“Hello?”
Kurt's voice wasn't raw like Blaine's, it actually sounded sharper than usual. A tad higher and on edge.
“Hi,” Blaine said and swallowed. What was he supposed to say?
“Hi,” Kurt said after a moment of silence. Uncomfortable, horrible silence. “I take it you didn't listen to my message?”
“No, I missed your called just by a second so I just wanted to call you back as soon as possible,” Blaine said with closed eyes and tried to take a deep inaudible breath.
“Oh, I see.” A moment's pause... “I just called to say that perhaps we could have breakfast together. Have you already eaten? Or lunch. I know it's early but...”
“Yes, yeah, sure,” Blaine said and coughed.
“Okay, good.” Kurt sounded relieved and then his voice softened. “Are you okay? You sound like you're coming down with something.” Blaine rubbed his eyes and shook his head, almost laughing.
“No, I just... couldn't sleep,” he said and rolled his eyes at this obvious statement.
“Me neither,” Kurt told him and Blaine let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. “I... I'm so sorry about running out like that it just... seemed like a good idea at the time.” Blaine clutched the phone so hard he would either break it or climb through it.
“It was a really fucking bad idea,” Blaine said shakily and listened to Kurt's shuddering laugh.
“I just... there's just...” Blaine heard him swallow. “Shit, Blaine, I can't do this over the phone.”
“Come home then,” Blaine said and tried to keep his voice steady. No such luck. “What can't you do?”
“I need to see you, we need to talk this through.” Blaine nodded even though he knew that Kurt couldn't see. “Can we meet at Rosemary's in an hour?”
It was one on their favorite caf�s in the heart of Greenwich Village. Blaine hesitated – why couldn't Kurt just come there?
“I... Sure. I'll be there,” he then said. On second thought he'd probably would have gone to Egypt it Kurt had asked him to.
“Okay, good. I could kill for a cinnamon latte right now,” Kurt said and Blaine appreciated his attempt to lighten the mood but resented that it made him cringe. Blaine cleared his throat.
“I'll see you there then.”
“Mhm, yes, one hour, sixty minutes, don't be late!” Kurt said, in a chipper manner, as if it was just another casual lunch.
“Stop that,” Blaine said before he could regret it. “Stop sounding like everything's alright, Kurt. Stop talking about coffee, I don't care about coffee, coffee makes me sick. It's not alright so just... stop.”
“Stop being such a drama queen, Blaine,” Kurt said and Blaine could tell he was trying to sound nonchalant but he was just as scared as Blaine was.
“Drama queen? Well, I'm not the one who stormed out into the night, Kurt.”
“Yes, I know that. I know, Blaine.” He sounded very tired. “Just meet me at there and we'll talk about all this then.”
“Fine.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
Click.

When Blaine entered Rosemary's 55 minutes later, Kurt was already sitting by a table in the back. He was stirring his tall glass of coffee and didn't see Blaine come in. Blaine stood in line and observed Kurt.
He was wearing the same clothes as yesterday, a discrete black outfit with the addition of a pale blue scarf that Blaine didn't recognize. His hair wasn't messy, but it also wasn't fixed like usual and he'd let his bangs show. He looked younger like this, with his head bowed in solitude, Blaine thought, and almost ordinary.
Kurt looked up then, but not at Blaine. He looked out the window, or in that direction. His eyes didn't move as if lost in thought. Blaine was nervous and Kurt looked like he needed a hug. It would have been laughable hadn't it been heartbreaking.
“Um, next please?”
Blaine tore his eyes away and found himself first in line, although a good bit away from the counter. The young cashier smiled at him politely.
“What would you like?” she asked as Blaine took a step forward, thought “Him” and inwardly rolled his eyes at his cheesiness and frowned a little as he saw the cashier's eyes travel in Kurt's direction and he swore he saw her mouth twitching upwards.
“Ehm, I'll have a bagel with cream cheese and just like a... big glass of water?” Blaine said. After the phone call he'd come to his senses and tried to cure his hangover, making eggs and swallowing pills. This day would be hard enough as it was.
“Absolutely,” the girl said and reached for the bagel. “Water's on the counter.”
Blaine helped himself, payed and grabbed his plate. When she handed him the change she leaned in a little and whispered “He's totally checking you out too,” with an encouraging nod. Before Blaine could react she was helping the next costumer.
Great, they looked as nervous as if they were on a first date or something. The girl flashed him a quick smile before he turned around and Blaine couldn't help but to find it a little endearing. He smiled back. At least someone was rooting for them.
And Kurt was looking at him. He removed his bag from the chair across the table as Blaine strode over to him, zigzagging between chairs and tables and feet.
“Hey,” he greeted and put down the plate and glass and Kurt pushed the chair out with his foot.
“Hi,” he said as Blaine sat down. He eyed Blaine seriously and bit his lip. “So... we need to talk.”
“Yeah,” Blaine said and met Kurt's eyes. Neither of them looked away for a couple of seconds and in that moment, it was like they understood each other perfectly. There they were, just Kurt and Blaine, facing another obstacle, mirroring fears and gaining strength.
But this time they were the obstacle, and they needed to break the silence and speak.
Blaine had thought about this all night, how he would explain, not lose his temper, listen, find all the right words. He looked away first and down at the table quickly before looking back up at Kurt, breaking the spell to gather all things that needed to be said and force them out.
“I guess we need to talk about my job, or the lack thereof,” he said reluctantly and Kurt looked down at Blaine's hands.
“Blaine... I'm really sorry about last night. I shouldn't have... left like that. I thought about it all night, how... broken you looked.” Kurt sighed and avoided looking at Blaine for too long. “It was selfish to make it about me, when you're the one who lost your job. I can't even imagine what that's like. How... how do you feel about it? When did you find out?”
Blaine could see that this was hard for Kurt, he was hurt because Blaine had betrayed their trust for one another. But more than anything he saw real concern, and guilt.
“On Wednesday,” Blaine said and Kurt nodded and looked like he tried to remember.
“That was the day you came home and tickled me,” he said and frowned.
“Yes. Kurt, you need to know that I was planning on telling to from the beginning. But when I came home that day, after that shitty day, I saw you sleeping, and then you woke up. And we had that wonderful moment and it didn't matter for a while, it was just us. And... I didn't want to ruin that. You know how we've been lately, those moments have just gotten further and further apart and then...” Blaine closed his eyes for a quick second because he was going with brutal honesty here. “You didn't ask.”
Kurt's eyes pierced him faster than lightning.
“I didn't ask? What do you mean? I should have asked whether or not you had been fired?”
“Of course not. It was just... Kurt, you have always been able to see straight through me. Like right now. I know you won't let me get away with anything but the truth, because I don't want to lie to you. I never wanted to lie, and you didn't make me lie to you, of course not. But given everything that has been going on lately and feeling like... Like you're slipping away, that made me afraid that things would just go downhill from there, you know? Like, oh god this sounds so ridiculous, but you don't look at me the same way. You don't demand the truth from me anymore. Like you're afraid of what you'll find out or... don't care.”
Blaine knew that it wasn't true that Kurt didn't care. Obviously he did care, otherwise he would be sitting there with a distressed look on his face, jaw clenched.
It was fear then.
“Blaine, of course I care.” He almost sounded angry but then he grabbed Blaine's hand on the table. “Don't even say that.”
“I know. But you can't deny that something has changed,” Blaine said and he thought about what he had found this morning with an uncomfortable sensation in his stomach. He took a bite of his bagel.
“I know that things haven't exactly been ideal but was it really so bad that you couldn't tell me something of that level of importance? We share a life, Blaine, or at least we're supposed to.”
“Yeah, at least we're supposed to...” Blaine found himself mumbling. Kurt was one to talk, having avoided this kind of conversation for months. “That's just it thought, isn't it? We share an apartment, the food in the fridge and a bed, just living alongside each other and sometimes not even that. I come, you go.”
“What has changed though? It's not like we haven't been busy before. Remember when you worked double shifts in that godawful restaurant while I was in college? You came home every night smelling like deep fried onion and we were fine!”
“No, actually I distinctively remember you pushing me into the shower with a ten foot pole and forcing me to scrub every night,” Blaine said and Kurt offered him half a smile, because even in moments like these, when things were serious and scary, it was so easy to fall back on the wit of memory lane. But the smiles soon faded, and it was just as well. “It's... strange. Because right now everything could be fine. You're here and we're talking, I mean really talking, and that's all I ever really wanted all along.”
But that was when Kurt's gaze dropped, a subtle hint but as carved in stone to Blaine. There was still so much unsaid, words Blaine had no control over. But perhaps he could make sure that they were spoken.
“You can say it you know,” he said and withdrew his hand from under Kurt's to lift the glass of water to his lips.
“Say what? What exactly is it that you want me to say all the time?” Kurt was getting frustrated, panicked, but Blaine felt strangely calm. He knew where this was going.
“What's really on your mind. Look, I know that you have every right to be angry about me not telling you. I deserve it and I can handle that. I can even understand how you might have been upset last night about Fiona, she had no right to say... whatever she said. But I can't handle you keeping things inside. That makes you just as dishonest as me, Kurt.”
It wasn't with complete ease that Blaine watched Kurt reaction, but he knew he was right and that counted for something. And Kurt nodded slowly and bit the inside of his lip before speaking.
“You're right,” he said hollowly. “Tell me something though, Blaine. What did you tell her? Fiona. What did you say about me?”
“I...” Blaine frowned. He couldn't remember exact words and he didn't see how this was of any importance anyway. “I guess I told her what I've been telling you. How we don't see each other as much. And... that I was afraid how you would react when you found out about the job, what it would do to us.”
“Why?”
“Kurt, she's a friend and I needed someone to listen and –”
“No, I don't mean that. I'm sure she was very understanding. What did you think you think was gonna happen when you told me? Obviously you must have had some dreadful scenario evolving in your head that you couldn't shake.”
Blaine wondered what Kurt was thinking behind his wrinkled forehead, if he was genuinely curious or fishing for something. Why couldn't he just ask Blaine straight out about those things Blaine had found in his diary? Blaine didn't necessarily want him to, but now that he knew about it he would prefer if it was all out in the open.
“Yeah. Yeah, I guess did,” Blaine said after a second or two. He was sticking to what he had been thinking all along, and then Kurt could do all the digging he wanted. “Ultimately I was afraid of you leaving. That we would drift even further apart and over time the way you see me would keep changing, until there wasn't anything left to hold on to. Then you would leave.” Blaine snorted. “I guess it happened a bit quicker than that.”
“Blaine, I haven't left you,” Kurt said and Blaine let himself close his eyes and be comforted by the frustration in Kurt's voice, that told him that that was not what he wanted at all, if just for a second. “And you are a complete idiot for thinking that, that I would see you differently just because of your job? Because your boss is the asshole you've always claimed him to be? I would never do that. But perhaps we should talk about why you think that I would.”
“Can't you see it happening already? You said it yourself, Kurt – that I was jealous of you, that you got to live your dream.” Kurt opened his mouth to protest but Blaine didn't let him. “And now I've failed with whatever I did have. These things affect the dynamic of any relationship, obviously. I never thought they would affect ours though.”
Kurt tilted his head to one side and Blaine felt very conscious of every movement. He didn't want to seem weak, or pleading. But it was hard when that was how he was feeling.
“So is that it? You are envious,” Kurt said quietly and Blaine groaned and run a hand through his hair.
“No! That's not my point at all. The thought that it should be me up on that stage instead of you never once crossed my mind. What I'm afraid of is that... Look, this feels like a failure to me, I'm losing my job, my income, all that I've known for the past three years and I'm thinking that 'how can he not see that? How can this not be an issue when everything else is?'” Blaine argued for what he had tried to prove himself was wrong so it didn't make much sense, perhaps none of this really did. And now Kurt was sitting across from him and he looked like he wanted to understand, he looked like he wanted to ask the right questions and touch Blaine's knee and comfort him.
But. Things are not always what they seem.
“I don't think you're a failure, Blaine. But this...,” he waved his hand in front of his face, waved away the softness in his eyes. Or maybe it was the fact that they were focused on a spot beyond Blaine's ear that gave that impression of vacancy. “I don't know what you're saying to me right now.”
Blaine frowned and grunted in confusion.
“I'm... saying that I'm losing something very dear to me, but it's not the only thing that I feel like I'm losing. How can you not understand...”
“Of course I get that it's hard for you to lose your job, but I'll be here for you, won't I?”
Blaine blinked several times. Who was this person and why did he claim to be Kurt Hummel?
“Will you? You can't even look at me right now. Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what? I'm just trying to understand,” he looked at Blaine then, and it was with a weird mix of relief and pain that Blaine saw the specks sorrow in Kurt's eyes. But it wasn't enough. This wasn't enough and something bubbled up inside Blaine. Something that had been growing for a long time, and was directly related to the seal over Kurt's lips.
“Oh, for the love of... Would you drop the charade?! You sit there and say how it's so important that we talk but you're not telling me what you're really thinking. I'm so, so fucking sick of having to read your mind, Kurt! And I know that you think that I've been unhappy but you can't even climb out of your shell enough to ask me straight out about it. Instead you make assumptions that I'm... jealous of you?! Fuck, sometimes I feel like I don't know you anymore... and I pretend not to see how you're pushing me away but it's becoming impossible because it makes me heart ache and it's unbearable, Kurt. And what the fuck is this, anyway, meeting in a caf�? I asked you to come home to talk, where we fucking live, but you want to meet over coffee. And then what?”
What Blaine was saying, louder and louder, came from a place where he was shaking and the reasonable part of his brain had blacked out. It was pure emotion and it all added up to this pondering anger, repressed and transformed from fear and loneliness. He had tried so hard to be understanding, the bigger man, whatever. The core of his being ached to scream because he didn't want Kurt to act this way, he hated that he had to deal with this and that it hurt so bad.
He regained some consciousness of this, some reasonability, as there was nothing blank about the expression on Kurt's face. He looked on the verge of tears but Blaine's voice only lowered a notch as he continued.
“Will you go back to your hotel? Go to the theatre? Will you come home afterwards? Or you don't want to listen to me breathing all night?”
Blaine could see that Kurt was trying hard to hold it together, not to start crying in front of a bunch of strangers having breakfast, or perhaps in front of Blaine. If Blaine's blood hadn't been boiling he had been crestfallen by the realization of that Kurt knew exactly how bad this was. Blaine leaned forward a little and captured Kurt's eyes his own.
“It doesn't have to be like this, you know. We could go back to being Kurt and Blaine and get through it all, like we always have. But then you need to be there for me and let me be there for you, even when the truth hurts. Don't... don't you think we've been through too much to give up now? I love you, Kurt, but I want all of you, your opinion when I don't agree and I don't want you to give in without a fight, because that means you give up on us and yourself and I can't live like that. I can't.”
The meaning behind his words hit Blaine at the same time he said them, and instead of loudly proclaiming his frustration he was almost whispering, all of the sudden close to tears himself.
This morning and night he had thought he wanted Kurt any way he could have him, as long as he was there it would be alright, he just couldn't leave. And Blaine still felt like that, because this was Kurt and he didn't know of a life without him. But now he was making demands, saying that he'd had enough.
“I want to give you everything that you want, Blaine,” Kurt said and his voice was so fragile. He swallowed a couple of times. “But I don't know how I can give them to you.”
“Just! Just be you, Kurt. It's all I'm asking,” Blaine said and reached over the table for both his hands.
“That's an awful lot of pressure to put on someone. Even me,” he said. “You need something more than that, Blaine. You just don't see it yet.”
“What? No, what are you talking about? You will always be enough for me. You mean more to me than an-”
“Yes, Blaine, I know,” he lifted one of his hands from Blaine's grip to dry away an escaping tear from his cheek. “And I love you more than anything. And that's that. But you need to figure yourself out, what you want out of life. And I want to be there, if you'd let me. But it's true. Things are changing. We have become people that we weren't when we first met and I don't want you to confuse me for anyone else. I need you to be happy, Blaine, and right now you don't seem very happy with me.”
Blaine didn't, couldn't understand what Kurt was saying, if he was playing the martyr or being sincere. Because that sounded dangerously close to good bye.
It also sounded dangerously close to the truth. Blaine had not been very happy lately, and a lot of the time that had to do with Kurt. At this point it wouldn't have taken much for Blaine to concede, walk out of that coffee shop, because frankly he was disappointed in the way Kurt was handling this, shooting big words in the general direction of nothing.
“You're right, I'm not,” he got to saying and felt Kurt's fingers twitching a little under his. “Right now, I'm not happy. God knows how many nights I've been upset with you for being gone for too long. And how sad it makes me that I can't get through to you sometimes. And right now I think you're being unreasonable. But I have known you for too long not to see through your bullshit, I know that there is something you're not telling me, there is something holding you back and no, that doesn't make me very happy, it scares the hell out of me, but this is not you, Kurt.”
Blaine fixed Kurt with a stare that he hoped was piercing. If this didn't get the message across he didn't know what would. He squeezed Kurt's hand a little harder.
“You are what makes me happy,” he said because if that wasn't true, the last ten years of his life had been a lie. “To have you by my side no matter what life throws at us. I'll wait up for as long as I have to if it means falling asleep next to you every night. It doesn't matter, Kurt.”
“But it does matter. That's what you've been saying for the last few weeks, and just now. It matters because I can't be there for you when you want me to be.”
“No, Kurt, we've been inseparable since day one, I want you to be there for me all the time because in case you hadn't noticed – we get along quite well.” Kurt snorted and the corner of his lips twitched. “But I need you to be there for me, or at least there with me, even when things suck. Even when I'm mad at you I'd rather you prove me wrong than leave me hanging because neither of us wins on that. We're just losing.”
Kurt swallowed hard and put his free hand over Blaine's.
“I have to go now. We have a new understudy and...” he sighed and traced the tendon from Blaine's middle knuckle. Blaine was so transfixed by the gesture that it took a couple of seconds before he heard what Kurt had said. He snatched his hands away like he had been burned.
“Have you even listened to a word I've been saying?”
“Of course I have, Blaine, but I really –”
But Blaine had barely rolled his eyes before he found himself standing, coat and scarf on his arm and an overwhelming urge to make a dramatic exit. But it was the desperation in Kurt's eyes that held him back, if only for a moment.
“I'll see you at home,” Blaine snarled and then stood for another second, just long enough to catch the nod of Kurt's head, just long enough not to leave a permanent scar.