The Search
Filling this prompt on the glee_angst_meme. In the search to find themselves, they're going to end up losing each other. Klaine. SPOILERS FOR 2x14.
Again, already posted over on ff.net, but I wanted it on here too. Angsty, but not tragic. Enjoy!
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Blaine Anderson had been so sure he was gay. Sure, he doesn't walk around in Marc Jacobs' new collection or Alexander McQueen boots, but he's known instinctively from the time he was eight years old and he spent the whole of Dirty Dancing ogling Patrick Swayze rather than Jennifer Grey. Still, he can't deny that the feeling of Rachel's lips on his was good. And she smelled better than any of the boys Blaine's roomed with at Dalton, even with breath that smelled and tasted like wine coolers and hard liquor. He doesn't know whether it's because Rachel was his first kiss, or whether it's because she's a girl that he's feeling like this, but he figures he should at least work it out by going on a date with her.
So yes, Blaine's in the middle of a sexuality crisis. And he supposes it's a good thing that he and Kurt are mad at each other, because it's allowing him to have some clarity. Kurt's been wonderful to him (and yes, he's starting to realise how awful their fight was and how much he just wants to make up), but the space between them is taking away the voice that's telling him that he should be totally, one hundred percent gay. If there's one thing Blaine doesn't want, it's to be forced into his sexuality and later on be resentful because of it. And God, staying away from Kurt is going to be hard, because the boy has been a constant source of comfort, Red Vines, fashion and laughter for months now (even after the awkwardness of their coffee trip on Valentine's Day), but maybe, just maybe, if they never get over this stupid fight, Blaine will be on his own and ready to find himself and his own definition of love.
He can't figure out whether it's a good thing or not, but it's kind of necessary.
It's after the sixth time he's cried because of Blaine that he's totally over feeling like this. He never used to cry. In fact, before the Karofsky incident, he could count the times he'd actually shed tears on one hand. Now, it seems like he's crying ever other day over something his overly gelled best friend has done, whether it's been intentional or not. There used to be days where he got tossed in dumpsters after being slushied three times and all he'd say was, "You'll all be working for me one day." Sometimes he wonders where that fabulous boy has gone and whether he still exists. Sure, on the outside, he's still a diva with a prickly demeanour and a mysterious smile. But on the inside he wonders if he's just become dormant, just another Dalton boy.
He remembers after Blaine compared him to Karofsky, he spent forty minutes in the shower crying and scrubbing at his perfect skin, trying to rid himself of the imprint his tormentor had left on him. He muttered over and over to himself like some mental case, trying to convince himself that "I'm not Karofsky. I'm not." When he'd emerged, stepping into the swirling steam of the room and the foggy mirror, he saw someone that looked broken and defeated and weak.
And he hates that. He hates the fact that he and Blaine have made up with barely a sharp word from Kurt during Blaine's (rather pathetic) apology. He hates that he doesn't bother arguing about Warblers song choices anymore with Blaine. He hates the fact that he spent five hours crying over the GAP performance and he hates that he spent even more time blubbering over this whole Blaine/Rachel situation. Most of all, he hates this robotic, phony version of himself.
So he's decided that Mercedes was right. He was fierce and fabulous long before Blaine came along, and for Gaga's sake, why should Blaine stop him being fierce and fabulous now? Waiting around for the right guy isn't going to get him a fashion empire or the lead in a Broadway production. Kurt had admitted his feelings to Blaine. If the older boy didn't feel the same way, that wasn't Kurt's problem. Kurt's issue now is to return to the strong, independent, utterly divalicious individual that he'd known before Blaine started breaking his heart.
Yes, it was going to be hard getting over his feelings for Blaine, and he'd probably cry a little more, but he was so sick of this constant ache. This is the last time he was going to stick around wishing for a relationship that would never happen. He's done. He should have been done after Finn. But this time he's learned his lesson…
No boy is going to hold Kurt Hummel back.
It's been three weeks of dates with guys and girls. Three weeks of questioning every aspect of himself. Three weeks of going over that kiss with Rachel. Three weeks of internal conflict, confusion, tears and a kind of loneliness he can't expel. Perhaps it's the absence of a label to put on himself. Or perhaps it's the absence of his once best friend.
After all, it's also been three weeks since he's had a proper conversation with Kurt Hummel. And it makes him feel kind of awful.
Every time he tells Kurt that he can't go out to lunch because he's got extra homework, or turns down a coffee trip because he's "trying to get rid of his dependence on caffeine," or tells Kurt that their weekly musical marathon in Blaine's room is cancelled because he's too tired, Blaine feels something akin to an axe chiselling away at his heart. Yes, he's been on five dates in three weeks (none of them that he's actually kissed), but he feels emptier and lonelier than ever.
It doesn't help that Kurt seems pretty happy without him.
The boy seems surrounded by people all the time. He's strutting around (in that fabulous way Kurt Hummel does), hi-fiving boys in the corridor, laughing with guys from his French class, having lunch with his new friends and flirting with some of them - yes, Blaine can pick up Kurt's flirty cues now. Even Wes and David (well, more so David, but Wes is just like that) are enamoured with him. He's seen Kurt help David with what to wear on a date. He's seen him tutor freshmen in French. He's seen the boy stand up in the middle of a Warbler's meeting, begging the council to let them cover what turned out to be a pretty mindblowing version of 'Born This Way.'
He's seen Kurt blossom in this new environment, just as Blaine knew he would. It just breaks Blaine's heart that Kurt managed to do it without him. It physically hurts to realise that he hasn't been there to see Kurt's megawatt smile return, or that he isn't there to help pick out the boy's daily brooch (a fabulous and subtle addition to his uniform). Most of all, it hurts him to see that Kurt doesn't need him or want him anymore.
After all, it's two days since Blaine has realised that he's well and truly gay. It's also two days since he's realised that he wants Kurt back.
"Hey Kurt!"
Kurt's feeling more fabulous than he'd ever though he would at Dalton. Like, a level of fierce that Tyra Banks would be proud of, and he'd managed to do it all in a rather drab uniform. He has legitimate male friends that aren't scared of 'catching the gay' when they touch him, and don't worry when he's in a ten foot radius of shared bathrooms. He's feeling kind of like a repressed and miserable fifties housewife that has been told she can be whoever she wants to be, even if she wants to be the CEO of a major corporation. It's utterly empowering, being himself. He loves every second of it. So when he hears Blaine's first words to him in almost a month, he stiffens, feeling the need to protect his revamped, shiny, 2.0 version of himself from attack.
"Hello Blaine. What can I do for you?"
Blaine looks bewildered at the formality of Kurt's greeting, but he falls into step beside Kurt after the junior's French class anyway. "Well, the new issue of Vogue came out today, although you probably know that because you're subscribed and have the date memorised anyway, but I saw the spread with-"
"Look, Blaine," Kurt looks around the hallway, looking for some of his friends to save him, but his search was in vain. "I've got lunch plans with Jake and Ryan. Sorry, but we never have lunch anymore. After you started cancelling, I just figured I needed to make other plans." Kurt spotted Ryan and stepped around Blaine. "Have a great time reading Vogue! I'll see you around."
When Kurt's sitting with his own friends at Lima Bean, he can't help but feel that pang of loneliness. And yes, it's sort of maybe his fault for trying to get over the boy, but he's not the one that ignores his friend (well, former friend) in the hallways. It hurts him more than it should. Seriously, he's strong now, he's back to that amazing boy he knew before. He supposes the ache will go away in time. Perhaps, like the imprint his mother left on his heart, it will never fade, but he can move on, right? He can deal with another year of seeing Blaine ignore him while the guy dates every person under the sun (except him, of course), and then he'll be off to New York, being the person he's always wanted to be, and Blaine will be nothing but a familiar name in his old yearbook.
For some reason, that really makes Kurt want to cry. But he's done crying over Blaine Anderson.
So when Jake cracks a stupid joke, Kurt laughs with the rest of his new friends and tries to forget about the look on Blaine's face when he'd faced a Hummel rejection this afternoon. After all, maybe he just made it up in his head, like every other good thing in his life.
It's been six days, fourteen hours and forty-three minutes since Blaine's realised what Kurt means to him. And every second of that time, he's been filled with a unique, excruciating brand of pain. He's stood in front of Kurt's door every morning, a shaking hand poised to knock, but he's such a coward that his planned proposal for a coffee date has yet to exit his mind and into those dainty, perfect ears of Kurt's.
Every morning, he stands in line, ready to order a medium drip and a grande non-fat mocha before he realises the absence of a body next to him. Every morning, he pulls out eight dollars and forty cents before he realises he doesn't even need half of it. Every morning, he turns to his side while waiting in line, mouth open and a half-sound coming out before he realises that he's alone. Every morning, he walks back to school with a coffee in one hand and the other hand cold and empty - searching for its warm and friendly companion.
He thought that Jeremiah's rejection had been painful, but now all he thinks of is the boy that sat in his room comforting him until two in the morning, calling the GAP employee a string of colourful names. Kurt had told him that night that anyone who let go of Blaine was clearly mentally challenged and had a whole lot of karma coming their way. Blaine wonders when Kurt had stopped fighting for them. He tries to think back to the moment Kurt let him go, but all he can focus on is the way he avoided the countertenor, and the awful feeling that's plagued him since.
Wes and David have stopped trying to ask him what's wrong. Blaine has a feeling they know what happened and they can't forgive him for it. He spends his days with mere acquaintances. People that care enough about him to ask how he is and how his classes are, but don't know him well enough to ask why there are dark circles under his eyes or why he looks at his morning coffee with sadness. In other words, he spends his days alone. He wants to be bitter about it, and blame the world, but he knows it's his own fault. He's pushed away those who mattered.
He can see a day ten years into the future where he runs into Kurt on a New York street and they ask casually about the missed decades of each others lives. He hates that vision.
But he hates himself more.
"We've decided that we're going to try out a duet this year for Regionals."
Wes' voice sends ripples of excitement and nervousness through the room. Some are questioning Warbler tradition, some are considering this their chance at a solo and some are throwing song suggestions around. But Kurt and Blaine are sitting on opposite ends of a large couch, quietly contemplating their broken hearts.
"We don't want to go with anything too flirty." Says David. "I mean, it's adorable, but we're in a pretty conservative competitive circuit here, and polarising the judges is probably not the greatest idea this early on. Maybe at nationals. We're voting for something heart-wrenching. Something that shows the ladies on the panel that we have sensitive sides."
So that's how Kurt and Blaine end up sitting side by side in the middle of the room, trying to still their shaking hands and beating hearts. Blaine can't bear to compare this to the last time they dueted because his heart kind of wants to tear open at the prospect of flirty smiles and seductive moves. He knows that this will be different and will probably end in tears and screaming, but he needs a cathartic release almost as much as he needs Kurt.
"Don't know what to do anymore. I've lost the only love worth fighting for."
Every movement of Blaine's lips signal the biggest effort of his life to keep it together (and that's saying something, because he's een through some really awful moments). He can't, won't look at Kurt. But he can't look anywhere else either, because that couch and that fireplace and that desk all have memories with Kurt and bits of his heart attached to them. Like, the window opposite him marks the place they both sat after the Christmas holidays and reconnected over hot cocoa. And that piano is where he once played an original song for Kurt. And the doorframe on the other end of the room hosted a sprig of mistletoe that he and Kurt had both awkwardly and studiously avoided. If he looks he'll lose it, so he closes his eyes ridiculously tight and sings.
"It's such a shame. To let you walk away"
There's deathly silence from the rest of the Warblers. Somehow Kurt expects the awkward coughs and shuffling, but it never comes. David and Wes look spellbound and kind of sad. Thad's jaw is practically on the floor. Flint's eyes have widened to the size of Saturn. Kurt's always wanted to get a speechless reaction from the Warblers for a performance, but this wasn't quite what he'd had in mind. Because as fabulous as he was, he wasn't feeling so fabulous singing this.
"…the thought of your kiss, coffee laced intoxicating on her lips."
No one seems to notice that Blaine gets to school early now. There's no morning medium drip in his hand, and they can't pinpoint the day when he stopped turning up with it and did morning revision with an apple in his hand instead. He knows, though. He remembers that day so clearly, when he told the regular barista to keep the change from ten dollars and thanked her for her morning services. Then he just didn't bother going back anymore. Sure, he misses the caffeine, but not as much as he misses the smell of Kurt next to him as they drank it.
"I've got no claim on you now."
Oh, Kurt so wants to feel a sense of vindictive pleasure at the tone of Blaine's voice and the way the boy is scrunching his eyes closed like the world would end if he opened them. He wants nothing more than to smirk at his fellow Warbler's pain (and when did he start referring to Blaine as anything other than a friend?). But as much as he wants to, as much as his inner bitch is telling him to, he just can't.
Blaine's changed him. Whether that's a good thing or not, he really can't figure out. In some ways he hates it, because he feels so much more vulnerable now. He feels more exposed than when he was trapped in that locker room with Karofsky and more emotionally volatile than Mercedes when she's PMSing. Right now, he wants to cry and scream and hug and punch at the same time. It's incredibly aggravating, but on the flip side, he's never experienced feelings this complex before, and that tells him it's a good thing because at least he's learning about life now.
"Is there a chance…a reason to fight?"
Blaine can't stop dreaming about the proverbial 'them' though. Every night he suffers through visions of Kurt leaning over him, a pair of beautiful red lips poised over his own slightly chapped ones, the scent of coffee mingling between them. He dreams of milky, porcelain skin touching every part of him, sliding over his body like white satin. They come together, all fights and apologies forgotten for the purpose of love. It drives him insane. He wakes up, ecstasy and angst warring for dominance inside of him. Every time he moves to relieve the former though, the guilt seems to win, and he draws himself back into a fitful and uncomfortable sleep, dreaming once more of Kurt only to face the morning where Kurt is touching Flint's hand or David's arm and not Blaine's everything.
"Or are we ashes and wine?"
After their duet, the room stands silent before a quick and vigorous applause erupts. Within five minutes, they're both zoning out from setlist arguments that neither of them could give a damn about. Kurt bows flamboyantly to his adoring audience, but it's a bit pathetic, because he really couldn't feel any less fierce and fabulous inside. Blaine sits, pale and bloodshot, on the other end of the couch. He doesn't hear when David and Wes ask him a question (regardless of how rhetorical it might have been), he doesn't feel the congratulatory bumps on his shoulder. He doesn't feel anything but tired and hollow.
But he certainly feels something when Kurt passes him a note that says nothing other than "Coffee?"
His smile has never been so wide.
Again, already posted over on ff.net, but I wanted it on here too. Angsty, but not tragic. Enjoy!
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Blaine Anderson had been so sure he was gay. Sure, he doesn't walk around in Marc Jacobs' new collection or Alexander McQueen boots, but he's known instinctively from the time he was eight years old and he spent the whole of Dirty Dancing ogling Patrick Swayze rather than Jennifer Grey. Still, he can't deny that the feeling of Rachel's lips on his was good. And she smelled better than any of the boys Blaine's roomed with at Dalton, even with breath that smelled and tasted like wine coolers and hard liquor. He doesn't know whether it's because Rachel was his first kiss, or whether it's because she's a girl that he's feeling like this, but he figures he should at least work it out by going on a date with her.
So yes, Blaine's in the middle of a sexuality crisis. And he supposes it's a good thing that he and Kurt are mad at each other, because it's allowing him to have some clarity. Kurt's been wonderful to him (and yes, he's starting to realise how awful their fight was and how much he just wants to make up), but the space between them is taking away the voice that's telling him that he should be totally, one hundred percent gay. If there's one thing Blaine doesn't want, it's to be forced into his sexuality and later on be resentful because of it. And God, staying away from Kurt is going to be hard, because the boy has been a constant source of comfort, Red Vines, fashion and laughter for months now (even after the awkwardness of their coffee trip on Valentine's Day), but maybe, just maybe, if they never get over this stupid fight, Blaine will be on his own and ready to find himself and his own definition of love.
He can't figure out whether it's a good thing or not, but it's kind of necessary.
It's after the sixth time he's cried because of Blaine that he's totally over feeling like this. He never used to cry. In fact, before the Karofsky incident, he could count the times he'd actually shed tears on one hand. Now, it seems like he's crying ever other day over something his overly gelled best friend has done, whether it's been intentional or not. There used to be days where he got tossed in dumpsters after being slushied three times and all he'd say was, "You'll all be working for me one day." Sometimes he wonders where that fabulous boy has gone and whether he still exists. Sure, on the outside, he's still a diva with a prickly demeanour and a mysterious smile. But on the inside he wonders if he's just become dormant, just another Dalton boy.
He remembers after Blaine compared him to Karofsky, he spent forty minutes in the shower crying and scrubbing at his perfect skin, trying to rid himself of the imprint his tormentor had left on him. He muttered over and over to himself like some mental case, trying to convince himself that "I'm not Karofsky. I'm not." When he'd emerged, stepping into the swirling steam of the room and the foggy mirror, he saw someone that looked broken and defeated and weak.
And he hates that. He hates the fact that he and Blaine have made up with barely a sharp word from Kurt during Blaine's (rather pathetic) apology. He hates that he doesn't bother arguing about Warblers song choices anymore with Blaine. He hates the fact that he spent five hours crying over the GAP performance and he hates that he spent even more time blubbering over this whole Blaine/Rachel situation. Most of all, he hates this robotic, phony version of himself.
So he's decided that Mercedes was right. He was fierce and fabulous long before Blaine came along, and for Gaga's sake, why should Blaine stop him being fierce and fabulous now? Waiting around for the right guy isn't going to get him a fashion empire or the lead in a Broadway production. Kurt had admitted his feelings to Blaine. If the older boy didn't feel the same way, that wasn't Kurt's problem. Kurt's issue now is to return to the strong, independent, utterly divalicious individual that he'd known before Blaine started breaking his heart.
Yes, it was going to be hard getting over his feelings for Blaine, and he'd probably cry a little more, but he was so sick of this constant ache. This is the last time he was going to stick around wishing for a relationship that would never happen. He's done. He should have been done after Finn. But this time he's learned his lesson…
No boy is going to hold Kurt Hummel back.
It's been three weeks of dates with guys and girls. Three weeks of questioning every aspect of himself. Three weeks of going over that kiss with Rachel. Three weeks of internal conflict, confusion, tears and a kind of loneliness he can't expel. Perhaps it's the absence of a label to put on himself. Or perhaps it's the absence of his once best friend.
After all, it's also been three weeks since he's had a proper conversation with Kurt Hummel. And it makes him feel kind of awful.
Every time he tells Kurt that he can't go out to lunch because he's got extra homework, or turns down a coffee trip because he's "trying to get rid of his dependence on caffeine," or tells Kurt that their weekly musical marathon in Blaine's room is cancelled because he's too tired, Blaine feels something akin to an axe chiselling away at his heart. Yes, he's been on five dates in three weeks (none of them that he's actually kissed), but he feels emptier and lonelier than ever.
It doesn't help that Kurt seems pretty happy without him.
The boy seems surrounded by people all the time. He's strutting around (in that fabulous way Kurt Hummel does), hi-fiving boys in the corridor, laughing with guys from his French class, having lunch with his new friends and flirting with some of them - yes, Blaine can pick up Kurt's flirty cues now. Even Wes and David (well, more so David, but Wes is just like that) are enamoured with him. He's seen Kurt help David with what to wear on a date. He's seen him tutor freshmen in French. He's seen the boy stand up in the middle of a Warbler's meeting, begging the council to let them cover what turned out to be a pretty mindblowing version of 'Born This Way.'
He's seen Kurt blossom in this new environment, just as Blaine knew he would. It just breaks Blaine's heart that Kurt managed to do it without him. It physically hurts to realise that he hasn't been there to see Kurt's megawatt smile return, or that he isn't there to help pick out the boy's daily brooch (a fabulous and subtle addition to his uniform). Most of all, it hurts him to see that Kurt doesn't need him or want him anymore.
After all, it's two days since Blaine has realised that he's well and truly gay. It's also two days since he's realised that he wants Kurt back.
"Hey Kurt!"
Kurt's feeling more fabulous than he'd ever though he would at Dalton. Like, a level of fierce that Tyra Banks would be proud of, and he'd managed to do it all in a rather drab uniform. He has legitimate male friends that aren't scared of 'catching the gay' when they touch him, and don't worry when he's in a ten foot radius of shared bathrooms. He's feeling kind of like a repressed and miserable fifties housewife that has been told she can be whoever she wants to be, even if she wants to be the CEO of a major corporation. It's utterly empowering, being himself. He loves every second of it. So when he hears Blaine's first words to him in almost a month, he stiffens, feeling the need to protect his revamped, shiny, 2.0 version of himself from attack.
"Hello Blaine. What can I do for you?"
Blaine looks bewildered at the formality of Kurt's greeting, but he falls into step beside Kurt after the junior's French class anyway. "Well, the new issue of Vogue came out today, although you probably know that because you're subscribed and have the date memorised anyway, but I saw the spread with-"
"Look, Blaine," Kurt looks around the hallway, looking for some of his friends to save him, but his search was in vain. "I've got lunch plans with Jake and Ryan. Sorry, but we never have lunch anymore. After you started cancelling, I just figured I needed to make other plans." Kurt spotted Ryan and stepped around Blaine. "Have a great time reading Vogue! I'll see you around."
When Kurt's sitting with his own friends at Lima Bean, he can't help but feel that pang of loneliness. And yes, it's sort of maybe his fault for trying to get over the boy, but he's not the one that ignores his friend (well, former friend) in the hallways. It hurts him more than it should. Seriously, he's strong now, he's back to that amazing boy he knew before. He supposes the ache will go away in time. Perhaps, like the imprint his mother left on his heart, it will never fade, but he can move on, right? He can deal with another year of seeing Blaine ignore him while the guy dates every person under the sun (except him, of course), and then he'll be off to New York, being the person he's always wanted to be, and Blaine will be nothing but a familiar name in his old yearbook.
For some reason, that really makes Kurt want to cry. But he's done crying over Blaine Anderson.
So when Jake cracks a stupid joke, Kurt laughs with the rest of his new friends and tries to forget about the look on Blaine's face when he'd faced a Hummel rejection this afternoon. After all, maybe he just made it up in his head, like every other good thing in his life.
It's been six days, fourteen hours and forty-three minutes since Blaine's realised what Kurt means to him. And every second of that time, he's been filled with a unique, excruciating brand of pain. He's stood in front of Kurt's door every morning, a shaking hand poised to knock, but he's such a coward that his planned proposal for a coffee date has yet to exit his mind and into those dainty, perfect ears of Kurt's.
Every morning, he stands in line, ready to order a medium drip and a grande non-fat mocha before he realises the absence of a body next to him. Every morning, he pulls out eight dollars and forty cents before he realises he doesn't even need half of it. Every morning, he turns to his side while waiting in line, mouth open and a half-sound coming out before he realises that he's alone. Every morning, he walks back to school with a coffee in one hand and the other hand cold and empty - searching for its warm and friendly companion.
He thought that Jeremiah's rejection had been painful, but now all he thinks of is the boy that sat in his room comforting him until two in the morning, calling the GAP employee a string of colourful names. Kurt had told him that night that anyone who let go of Blaine was clearly mentally challenged and had a whole lot of karma coming their way. Blaine wonders when Kurt had stopped fighting for them. He tries to think back to the moment Kurt let him go, but all he can focus on is the way he avoided the countertenor, and the awful feeling that's plagued him since.
Wes and David have stopped trying to ask him what's wrong. Blaine has a feeling they know what happened and they can't forgive him for it. He spends his days with mere acquaintances. People that care enough about him to ask how he is and how his classes are, but don't know him well enough to ask why there are dark circles under his eyes or why he looks at his morning coffee with sadness. In other words, he spends his days alone. He wants to be bitter about it, and blame the world, but he knows it's his own fault. He's pushed away those who mattered.
He can see a day ten years into the future where he runs into Kurt on a New York street and they ask casually about the missed decades of each others lives. He hates that vision.
But he hates himself more.
"We've decided that we're going to try out a duet this year for Regionals."
Wes' voice sends ripples of excitement and nervousness through the room. Some are questioning Warbler tradition, some are considering this their chance at a solo and some are throwing song suggestions around. But Kurt and Blaine are sitting on opposite ends of a large couch, quietly contemplating their broken hearts.
"We don't want to go with anything too flirty." Says David. "I mean, it's adorable, but we're in a pretty conservative competitive circuit here, and polarising the judges is probably not the greatest idea this early on. Maybe at nationals. We're voting for something heart-wrenching. Something that shows the ladies on the panel that we have sensitive sides."
So that's how Kurt and Blaine end up sitting side by side in the middle of the room, trying to still their shaking hands and beating hearts. Blaine can't bear to compare this to the last time they dueted because his heart kind of wants to tear open at the prospect of flirty smiles and seductive moves. He knows that this will be different and will probably end in tears and screaming, but he needs a cathartic release almost as much as he needs Kurt.
"Don't know what to do anymore. I've lost the only love worth fighting for."
Every movement of Blaine's lips signal the biggest effort of his life to keep it together (and that's saying something, because he's een through some really awful moments). He can't, won't look at Kurt. But he can't look anywhere else either, because that couch and that fireplace and that desk all have memories with Kurt and bits of his heart attached to them. Like, the window opposite him marks the place they both sat after the Christmas holidays and reconnected over hot cocoa. And that piano is where he once played an original song for Kurt. And the doorframe on the other end of the room hosted a sprig of mistletoe that he and Kurt had both awkwardly and studiously avoided. If he looks he'll lose it, so he closes his eyes ridiculously tight and sings.
"It's such a shame. To let you walk away"
There's deathly silence from the rest of the Warblers. Somehow Kurt expects the awkward coughs and shuffling, but it never comes. David and Wes look spellbound and kind of sad. Thad's jaw is practically on the floor. Flint's eyes have widened to the size of Saturn. Kurt's always wanted to get a speechless reaction from the Warblers for a performance, but this wasn't quite what he'd had in mind. Because as fabulous as he was, he wasn't feeling so fabulous singing this.
"…the thought of your kiss, coffee laced intoxicating on her lips."
No one seems to notice that Blaine gets to school early now. There's no morning medium drip in his hand, and they can't pinpoint the day when he stopped turning up with it and did morning revision with an apple in his hand instead. He knows, though. He remembers that day so clearly, when he told the regular barista to keep the change from ten dollars and thanked her for her morning services. Then he just didn't bother going back anymore. Sure, he misses the caffeine, but not as much as he misses the smell of Kurt next to him as they drank it.
"I've got no claim on you now."
Oh, Kurt so wants to feel a sense of vindictive pleasure at the tone of Blaine's voice and the way the boy is scrunching his eyes closed like the world would end if he opened them. He wants nothing more than to smirk at his fellow Warbler's pain (and when did he start referring to Blaine as anything other than a friend?). But as much as he wants to, as much as his inner bitch is telling him to, he just can't.
Blaine's changed him. Whether that's a good thing or not, he really can't figure out. In some ways he hates it, because he feels so much more vulnerable now. He feels more exposed than when he was trapped in that locker room with Karofsky and more emotionally volatile than Mercedes when she's PMSing. Right now, he wants to cry and scream and hug and punch at the same time. It's incredibly aggravating, but on the flip side, he's never experienced feelings this complex before, and that tells him it's a good thing because at least he's learning about life now.
"Is there a chance…a reason to fight?"
Blaine can't stop dreaming about the proverbial 'them' though. Every night he suffers through visions of Kurt leaning over him, a pair of beautiful red lips poised over his own slightly chapped ones, the scent of coffee mingling between them. He dreams of milky, porcelain skin touching every part of him, sliding over his body like white satin. They come together, all fights and apologies forgotten for the purpose of love. It drives him insane. He wakes up, ecstasy and angst warring for dominance inside of him. Every time he moves to relieve the former though, the guilt seems to win, and he draws himself back into a fitful and uncomfortable sleep, dreaming once more of Kurt only to face the morning where Kurt is touching Flint's hand or David's arm and not Blaine's everything.
"Or are we ashes and wine?"
After their duet, the room stands silent before a quick and vigorous applause erupts. Within five minutes, they're both zoning out from setlist arguments that neither of them could give a damn about. Kurt bows flamboyantly to his adoring audience, but it's a bit pathetic, because he really couldn't feel any less fierce and fabulous inside. Blaine sits, pale and bloodshot, on the other end of the couch. He doesn't hear when David and Wes ask him a question (regardless of how rhetorical it might have been), he doesn't feel the congratulatory bumps on his shoulder. He doesn't feel anything but tired and hollow.
But he certainly feels something when Kurt passes him a note that says nothing other than "Coffee?"
His smile has never been so wide.