Kurt has just finished breakfast when Santana walks in, rubbing her eyes.

"Do you really have to make that much noise this early in the morning?" she says grumpily, slouching down on a chair.

"Did you really have to make that much noise coming home even earlier this morning?" Kurt bounces back, secretly enjoying how Santana winces when he puts down his cereal bowl a tad too hard.

"It was Saturday night! In New York!"

Kurt, however, is unimpressed.

"I've had a ton of those and I guarantee you I have never looked even nearly as bad as you do. Although I assure you it would help if you would actually bother to moisturize regularly."

He ignores the glare she sends him as he returns the milk to the fridge.

"So, are you girls packed already? I arranged a cab for tonight to get you to the airport."

"Sure," Santana snorts, "although I'm still disappointed you're not even bothering to spend our last day with us."

"You demanded we pick you up from the airport and give you a decent bed. Nothing was said about providing you with entertainment 24/7," Kurt says airily as he leans back against the counter, his hands wrapped around his coffee mug. "Besides, I've got to go to the library to do some research, and then I'm meeting with Blaine to watch football."

Santana doesn't even try to hide her surprise.

"You're whát?"

"Buckeyes. Obviously. But I forgot who they were up against. Blaine!" Kurt shouts towards the bathroom, ignoring the way Santana puts her hands over her ears. "Who are we playing again today?"

"Wo'verines!" comes the muffled reply.

"Buckeyes vs. Wolverines, it appears," Kurt repeats with a nod, turning back to Santana.

"What I meant," Santana says indignantly, lowering her hands, "is - since when do you watch football?"

Kurt shrugs, taking a sip of his coffee.

"Blaine went with me to a fashion exhibit a couple of weeks back, so now I go watch football with him. It's a trade-off."

He ignores the look Santana shoots him and instead focuses his attention on Blaine, who's just entered the kitchen and goes straight for the plate with two slices of buttered toast Kurt prepared for him earlier.

"Oh god, thank you!" he sighs, taking a quick bite before he gives Kurt a peck on the cheek. "I can't believe I'm running late again. Why am I always running late?"

"Because you always promise yourself one snooze but end up doing two in the end," Kurt teases as he hands him a cup of coffee. "You're lucky your skin isn't as sensitive as mine or you'd never actually get anywhere."

Blaine smiles back at him coyly, taking a sip from the coffee and another bite of toast.

"I'm lucky I have a flatmate who anticipates all that by making me breakfast," he winks, and Kurt rolls his eyes, pointing at the door.

"Out!" he says sternly, although there's a sparkle in his eye. "Before Justine calls me to ask whether you're even planning to show today. Shoot!"

Blaine laughs, taking a last gulp of coffee before he puts the mug down, but before he has so much as taken two steps towards the door, Kurt grabs him by the sleeve of his sweater and pulls him back, adjusting one or two of his curls that were threatening to escape the tyranny of the hair gel before he presses his lips against the other man's cheek.

"11.30 at O'Leary's?" he asks softly, and Blaine nods.

"Did you put those prescriptions in my bag?"

"I did - please don't forget, I need them. Now go, break a leg."

Kurt closes his eyes when Blaine returns the goodbye kiss, putting his hand on Blaine's waist to gently steer him towards the hallway.

"And don't forget your sca-!" he starts when he hears the door open. It falls shut before he can finish his sentence, however, and he makes a mental note to check whether or not Blaine took his scarf, and to take it with him later in case he didn't.

When he turns back around he catches Santana looking at him, a pensive look on her face.

"What?" he asks defensively, avoiding her eyes as he empties his mug in the sink. "Can't I wish my flatmate good luck when he goes off to perform?"

"You two are so married."

Kurt's gasp for air is clearly audible, and he takes a moment to recompose himself before he turns around to face her.

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh please, Kurt," Santana rolls her eyes. "You prepared his breakfast, he's taking out prescriptions for you, you're going to watch football with him - you fixed his hair for christ's sake!"

"He's playing a set this morning, he needs to look nice!" Kurt snaps. "If I hadn't made him toast he would've just left off without breakfast. And the pharmacist is right across the street from where he's performing, it's just easier for him to pick them up."

He's turned back towards the sink, rinsing his mug and breakfast bowl for the second time, but Santana doesn't need to know that.

"And yeah, he takes me places, I take him places, because that's what friends do."

"Friends take each other places they both like," Santana argues. "Tagging along with something just because the other person loves it so much, that's something couples do. I honestly don't know who you think you're fooling but-"

"Drop it, Santana!"

Kurt's voice is stark and even more high-pitched than usual, and there's a blush on his cheeks that wasn't there two minutes ago.

"We're friends. Blaine and I... we're just friends."

"Oh please," Santana smirks, rolling her eyes again, "you're so sickeningly in love with each other you make marshmallows look like a sugar-free snack. The only thing missing is a wedding ring and you could go straight into a commercial for life insurances. Trust me - you're not friends, you're dating."

We're not dating! Kurt screams internally. If we were I wouldn't be so damn miserable all the time because I want to touch him so badly but I can't!

He doesn't actually trust his voice enough to say anything though, and so he simply stands and stares at the ground, his mouth a thin, angry line as he wills Santana to leave.

She doesn't.

"Now, the curious thing is that you're obviously well aware of each other's feelings," she continues. "Which begs the question: what the hell made you split up in the first place? It has to be something big, something serious. Not cheating, the hottest guy on the planet could be giving the both of you a lap dance and you'd still be making doe eyes at each other. So it mus-"

"I thought I said drop it!" Kurt shrieks, seething now. He feels nauseous just from listening to Santana, and even more so because he can't even pinpoint what it is that's bothering him so much. "You don't know the first thing about us, or why we broke up - there's more to a relationship than love alone, I thought you of all people would understand that!"

To his surprise, Santana doesn't try to argue back. Instead, she looks at him with an almost amused look on her face, a smile tugging at her lips.

"You're right," she says, standing up. "There is more to a relationship than just love."

She emphasizes the last word just a little, as if she wants to make sure Kurt is aware of exactly what he has just said, and he winces as he hears his own, spontaneous words being repeated back to him. But Santana is still talking.

"And no, I don't know the first thing about you two or what happened, but let me ask you something: if whatever is keeping you apart could be reversed or undone somehow, would you be together?"

Yes.

It's scary how easily the answer comes to him, and although Kurt's sure he hasn't said it out loud, he can see Santana smirk.

"That's what I thought. So here's a pro-tip, twink - deal with it. Because all you seem to be doing now is ignoring it and take it from me: if you don't step up soon, you might throw away something potentially amazing."

Kurt just stares at her. It was one thing to have Nick tell him off and accuse him of ignoring the problem, but it's a whole other thing to have Santana do the same - and not just because she doesn't even know what she's talking about.

"Alright, I'm going to wake Brittany, you have fun researching and cheering today. I'll see you later."

And with that, she disappears into Kurt's bedroom, leaving Kurt to fall against the counter, still shaking.

She has no right telling me what to do, he tells himself. I don't have to listen to her.

Blaine and him, they're special, he knows that. What they have is special. They've been through so much the past six months but somehow they're still hanging in there, even if sometimes it feels like it's by loose threads only. Which is exactly why he isn't planning on ruining it by hasting into things.

Both Nick and Blaine had been very clear on one thing: he needed to be sure. It wouldn't be easy to be in a relationship with Blaine, and he needs to be sure that that's what he wants. So until he is absolutely, positively, 100% sure, he won't make a move. He can't.

And yes, meanwhile him and Blaine are still close friends. They cook for each other from time to time, they run the occasional errand for each other, hell - Kurt even takes over some of Blaine's laundry sometimes when he knows Blaine is too busy (and because Blaine isn't always as careful with certain items of clothing as Kurt wishes he was). But they're flatmates, it is only natural, isn't it? So what if Kurt tags along to the football game solely because he knows it makes Blaine happy? So what if he doesn't really mind what they're doing if it gives him an excuse to spend time together?

He groans as he buries his face in his hands.

Oh god.

They really are dating, aren't they?

He's spent weeks trying to figure out where he wants to take their relationship, getting more frustrated with every day that goes by when it has been right in front of him the whole time: his very frustration about not being able to touch Blaine, being away from Blaine -even if it was by his own choice- is the exact answer he's been looking for.

Nick and Blaine had told him he needed to be sure, and Kurt had thought that meant he needed to be sure whether or not he would be able to manage a relationship with an HIV positive man, while really what they meant had been that he needed to be sure whether or not he wanted to be in a relationship with Blaine.

And he wants to be with Blaine.

He wants to be with him so badly it hurts.

He knows he shouldn't. For years, Blaine has lied to him, hasn't said a word about his HIV status. And Kurt meant what said the night before: he understands it, now, understands where Blaine was coming from. But that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt, or that Blaine really should have told Kurt when they got together, at least. It was selfish, and stupid, and quite frankly so out of character for Blaine that it had Kurt wonder if he'd ever even known him at all.

But that was just it. There was something that had been so big, so important for Blaine that it had caused him to do something he ordinarily never did, had led him to be selfish: Kurt. Kurt was that something. Because for all the crap Blaine had been through before -at school, at home- in Kurt he'd finally found something good, something that made him happy. And his not telling Kurt stemmed from wanting to hold on to that, not from a lack of concern about Kurt's wellbeing - if it had been, Blaine wouldn't have been so adamant about not wanting to take things beyond just kissing and touching.

It wasn't right. It never would be right, and Kurt wasn't sure if he would ever be able to fully forgive Blaine for what he had done - for what he hadn't done. But he was sure of something else: the anger and disappointment he felt towards Blaine paled in comparison with the love he had for him. Because after all said and done, he was still Blaine. He was still the guy who serenaded him within five minutes of meeting each other, who asked him to Senior Prom, who Kurt could laugh with, cry with, and be quiet with. He was still the guy who knew exactly what to say to comfort him, who surprised him with crepes for breakfast every so often, who had given Kurt the happiest ten weeks of his life. He was still Blaine. And he was still the guy that Kurt wanted to be with.

So really the question wasn't if Kurt could deal with dating an HIV positive man.

The question was how.