*~*~*~*

When he came to, Blaine found himself lying down. The hardness of the wall and floor replaced by soft. He was on a couch, Blaine realized. His vision was fuzzy, but Blaine could make out a face above him.

“…Kurt?”

“Oh, Blaine, you’re awake! Good, I was starting to panic,” Kurt’s hand was suddenly on his forehead, and Blaine couldn’t stop himself from flinching away. He really didn’t want Kurt’s hands on him. Not when they’d been all over that man before. Blaine sat up quickly, looking around the room for the tall blonde. When he realized he was nowhere to be found, Blaine turned to Kurt again.

“How long?” He asked darkly.

“You were out for a good five minutes. That’s why I was panicking, I mean five minutes can’t be good, ca—”

“No, Kurt. How long?”

Kurt’s confusion was blaringly obvious on his face as he attempted to move closer to Blaine, who just scooted farther down the couch. “I… I don’t get what you’re asking, Blaine.”

“How long have you been with him?” Blaine spat with a scowl. He didn’t want to play these games with Kurt anymore.

“Uh… two months…”

“I thought you said you were single.” Blaine said, his voice gradually getting louder as he stopped fighting his anger, his jealousy.

“I never said that…” Kurt’s voice was weak and he was cowering back into the couch.

“You never said you weren’t, though!”

Something seemed to snap in Kurt and he stood up. Blaine couldn’t tell if Kurt’s face was red from anger or embarrassment. “Why does it matter, Blaine? My personal life stopped being your business five years ago!”

As Blaine stood up he thanked the heavens that he didn’t fall back over, though he saw spots of white fill his vision. “It kind of is when your ‘boyfriend’” Blaine laced the word with as much hatred and disapproval as was physically possible, “tries to fucking kill me!”

“He wasn’t trying to kill you! Jesus, Blaine. So he’s a little protective, big deal!”

They were shouting so loudly at each other that Blaine was sure half of New York could hear them by now. “Protective is one thing, Kurt. He’s fucking insane.”

“No, he’s not!” Kurt shouted with tears in his eyes. Under normal circumstances it would crush Blaine to see Kurt like this. “Ellington was just trying to make sure you weren’t some creepy fan! It’s not like you entered gracefully, or anyt—”

“Wait, Ellington?” Blaine asked with a snort, “Seriously?”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Kurt shook his head. “Don’t even try to change the subject!”

“Wow, okay. Sorry princess.” Blaine responded with a roll of his eyes.

“Princess?” Kurt demanded, his voice at least an octave higher than usual, “I am not a fucking princess.”

“Well you sure are acting like one. Jesus have you changed Kurt. And to be frank? It’s for the worse. You may think you’re so hot now that you’re on Broadway, but you need to get over yourself, because I hate to brake it to you, but there are some people that are just better than you.”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh, you’re excused. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to my room,” Blaine turned in the direction of the hallway but paused and glanced back over his shoulder, “Oh, I’m sorry. Do you require my services, princess?”

Blaine didn’t wait for an answer, heading straight for the comfort of his own room instead of continuing the pointless argument that had no winner. Once he was safely inside with the door locked, Blaine threw himself onto the unmade bed. This idea was going horribly. He numbly felt a pain in his hipbone and wondered for a moment what it was. Oh right, Blaine remembered, sketchbook. He brought his knees to his chest, pulling the book up with him. Hm, it’s open to a different page. Blaine noticed briefly before falling into an exhausted slumber.

*~*~*~*~*

Kurt fell to the couch as soon as Blaine entered his room, a small sob escaping his lips as he pulled his knees to his chest. Everything Blaine had said in their argument had hit Kurt harder than a slap to the face, but he couldn’t help but feel that each and every comment was true.

“I’m a horrible person.” Kurt mumbled into the couch.

“Oh, Kurt. You are not.” Kurt looked up so quickly he felt his neck crack.

“Tia?” He croaked.

“Oh, Kurt sweetie. What happened?” She sat down beside him and touched his cheek. Kurt was reminded of Carol and he felt a pang in his heart. He missed his family, why did he let himself loose contact with them? “Kurt?” She prodded softly.

“Blaine… Blaine walked in on Ellington and I…” He coughed awkwardly, “More than making out.”

“Ellington? Is this someone you met at the club tonight?”

“No… I’ve been dating him for a while.”

“Oh…”

“I wanted to tell you, Tia, but you’ve seen pictures of Blaine. I couldn’t do it.”

Her brows furrowed in confusion, “What does Blaine have to do with it, sweetie? I mean, aside from him walking in on you guys.”

“Oh, Tia, I’m such an idiot!” Kurt whined as he buried his face into one of the couch cushions.

“Well, honey, if you’d explain maybe I could help a bit.”

“No, I’ve already made a mistake and I’m going to end up hurting at least one person thanks to it. And myself.”

“Okay, Kurt,” The cooing tone Tia was using before was gone, replaced by a stern and demanding voice, “you need to tell me what’s going on now.”

“I’monlydatingEllingtonbecauseheremindsmeofBlaine.” Kurt said quickly, his voice muffled even more by the couch cushion.

“Pardon?”

“I’m only dating Ellington because he reminds me of Blaine!”

“…Oh.”

With a groan Kurt pulled his knees tighter, closing his eyes as he tried to get rid of the nagging pain in his chest and the tears threatening to fall. “I feel like such a horrible person.”

“Well, if it’s just personality similarities it’s really not that big of a deal. It’s just you’re type of—” Tia paused when she noticed Kurt blush and burry his head into his knees, “—Kurt, it is just his personality, right?”

“No,” Kurt admitted guiltily, “He looks a lot like him, too. But tall. And blonde. And he’s kind of a jerk.”

“Kurt, why?” Tia asked after a couple minutes of silence. Kurt couldn’t stop the tears anymore as they fell freely.

“I-I don’t know, Tia! I-I just… I just… I couldn’t get over him! And then… then E-Ellington came along and he just… he reminded me so much of Blaine! B-but I never saw Ellington during the, er, sexual parts of our relationship, and I was… I was always calling out Blaine’s name… and then he walked in on us today… and when Ellington found out it was him he… he punched him and I… I kicked him out. Jesus, Tia, I can’t do anything right when it comes to Blaine.” Kurt continued to cry, and Tia just rubbed circles in his back as she tried to comfort him. In less than ten minutes Kurt was out cold.

“Oh, you poor baby,” Tia whispered.

“Kurt!” Blaine shouted as he walked into the living room. Tia looked quickly to Kurt, who merely shifted in his sleep.

“Blaine shut up!” She hissed, “Let the poor boy sleep.”

“Whatever. Just tell the princess that I’ll be back to pick my stuff up tomorrow. Then I’ll be out of his perfectly styled hair.

“What?”

“Obviously it’s not working here, Tia. And frankly, I don’t see why it should’ve. It was stupid of us, trying to be friends again. We had our time, and I can’t sit here and be forced to look at this Kurt. I want to hold onto the Kurt I used to know, the Kurt I loved. I want to remember my Kurt, not Ellington’s.”

“So you’re going to run, Blaine? You’re just going to run away because one little thing went wrong? What happened to Courage?”

*~*~*~*~*

Blaine had stormed out of Kurt’s apartment. Tia sure did have some nerve, bringing up his past like that. Blaine had no idea where he was going, nor what he was doing when he walked out of the building and into the cold night air. All he knew was he needed somewhere to escape to, maybe let his anger out if possible. As he passed all the clubs he started to consider something. Blaine chose one of the less populated clubs and walked in. No live band. Perfect. He walked over to the bar and called over one of the bar tenders.

“How can I help you, kid?”

“Would there be any chance I could speak to the owner of this place?” Blaine asked. He was bouncing a bit on the balls of his feet, and he knew it made him seem childish, but he felt so nervous and excited.

“That’d be me. What do you need?”

“I was wondering if there was any possibility that I could borrow your stage. Just for one song?”

“Yeah, I’ve got no problem with it. You might get booed off the stage though.”

“Okay, thanks!” Blaine said, ignoring the last half of the old man’s comment. He wouldn’t think about that possibility right now. When he got on stage he picked up one of the really crappy electric guitars and played a few chords. Out of tune, Blaine thought, why did I see that coming? He spent a minute or two working at the strings, tuning it as best he could by ear before plugging it into the amp and adjusting the volume to it and the Mic. When Blaine approached center stage the entire club went silent and stared at him. Blaine cleared his throat awkwardly.

“Er, hi. I’m going to play a song, hope you don’t mind.” Blaine started immediately on the fast-paced guitar intro, swallowing the nervous lump in his throat before singing.