They exit the apartment together and even though it's been hours since that long, lingering, precious hug that Kurt will forever keep close to his heart, he's still feeling a little raw and a lot vulnerable by the time they make it to the bar that Kevin had suggested. They walk in, the music already too loud, and order a couple of drinks at the bar.

It suddenly hits Kurt that this is really the first time they'd gone out together. To a bar, anyway, for the sole intention of drinking. Yeah, last night they'd had a few beers, but they weren't drinking together and they didn't go out to have a drink. For some reason, Kurt feels very grown up, beyond his twenty two years of age and he kind of likes it.

He tries to keep his eyes from trailing up and down Blaine's small frame, but he can't help but admit that Blaine looks…really, really good. He's got on a pair of dark, tight jeans and a tight red t-shirt and just a little bit of gel in his hair to tame a few stray curls.

Fuck.

He orders a vodka soda (fewer calories than a vodka sprite) and doesn't hear what Blaine orders from the bartender, but he does hear it when Blaine instructs him to leave an open tab.

"Have plans to get trashed?" Kurt asked, swirling his straw around in his drink.

"Not too much," Blaine says loudly in order to be heard over the music. "But I know I'm going to have another. And so are you."

Kurt opens his mouth to say that he can pay for his own drinks, thank you very much, but Blaine cuts him off.

"No arguing. You saved me from paying for a hotel. The least I can do is buy you a few drinks."

And since Kurt can't really argue the point, he just shrugs and takes a drink. Blaine smiles in return and accepts his own drink from the bartender.

"Kevin!" Blaine shouts, waving him over to where they stood next to the bar.

"Hey!" Kevin greets loudly when he approaches.

Kurt's smile is strained. "Hi Kevin."

"I'm glad you guys came out," Kevin says before asking the bartender for a rum and coke.

"How've you been?" Blaine asks.

"What, since yesterday?" Kevin responds with a small smile.

"Whatever!" Blaine laughs, patting Kevin on the back.

Kurt tunes out as soon as Kevin starts rambling on about some music store that sells really awesome guitars. He's got Blaine smiling again and Kurt can't fucking stand it.

He downs the rest of the drink, asking for another.

Blaine lifts a curious eyebrow but he doesn't comment. Kurt watches Blaine and Kevin natter on about this and that and he feels a little lost when they start talking about chord progressions. He suddenly wishes he could join in on the conversation but…he realizes that's not what he wants.

It hits him hard.

He wants to be here with Blaine and only Blaine. He doesn't want Kevin there, standing on the other side of Blaine, entertaining him with his flat grey eyes and lackluster voice. Kurt wants to be talking to Blaine, just the two of them, laughing over drinks and memories and old inside jokes. He wants to be the one to make Blaine smile (that one that lights up the entirety of the west coast) and he wants Kevin to go the fuck away.

He finishes his second drink.

"Rough day?" Kevin finally asks Kurt when he notices he's moving onto his third drink when he and Blaine have only just finished their first.

"You could say that," Kurt replies, asking the bartender for a shot of tequila.

"You drink tequila?" Blaine asks.

"Sure."

Blaine orders two more and the three of them take their shots together, tossing the liquor back into their throats in one, swift motion. Kurt cringes and sucks on the lime he's offered, as do the other two men.

"I just never took you for the tequila type."

"I don't know how many times I have to tell you that a lot changes in five years, Blaine," Kurt says harshly, "but it does."

Blaine shrugs at his words, though Kurt can tell he's a little concerned as he orders his next drink.

And hour later and a half later, they're all quite tipsy (though Kurt slowed down after his third drink) and Kevin is leaning far too close to Blaine for Kurt's comfort.

"So how do you know Kurt?" Kevin asks aloud.

Kurt's slightly surprised that this question hadn't come up during their day together yesterday.

"We knew each other in high school," Kurt explains.

Blaine looks affronted at his words and he turns to Kevin. "We dated," he adds.

"What? Seriously?"

"Yeah," Blaine answers.

"And you're still friends?" Kevin wonders.

Blaine looks at Kurt, who says nothing.

"That has yet to be determined," Blaine states over the loud music.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Kurt drains the last bit of liquid left in his glass, mostly watered down vodka, and excuses himself to the bathroom, leaving Blaine to explain the dirty details.

He makes his way to the small bathroom at the back of the bar and grimaces at how unsanitary the little room is. He takes a piss and turns to the grimy sink to wash his hands, catching a glance of himself in the stained mirror. He looks awful. He looks washed out and his eyes look sunken. He feels too thin and he wonders if this was what Blaine saw earlier, when they hugged.

Jesus, that hug.

It was everything he needed and more. It felt like he was finally coming home after five years in a frozen tundra and the heat was seeping into his bones and he felt right.

But then again, it was everything he feared.

Don't let go, he had said.

What a fucking idiot. What a desperate, lost, useless fucking person he had turned in to.

He wants to go home, to his too small apartment and crawl into his bed where the world was far away and he didn't have to deal with this, where he didn't have to deal with Blaine's honey hazel irises and his perfectly angled jaw covered in just the right amount of scruff.

He sighs and exits the bathroom.

He returns to see Kevin's arm around Blaine and their lips pressed together.

Kurt wants to die.

He stands there, staring at the two young men with their faces so close in a gesture too intimate. He should turn away. He should go back into the bathroom or he should just…just leave because this is all too much and he doesn't want to watch this.

Kurt wants Blaine. Kevin doesn't deserve Blaine.

And what exactly had Blaine told him about their breakup and their not-really-friendship that would make Kevin think it was perfectly fine to start making out with Blaine when they knew Kurt would eventually return from the bathroom? What the hell kind of friend was that?

He wants to simply walk out and leave them to it, pay for their god damn taxi, send them on their way and go home and throw up into his toilet.

But he's got more balls than that.

So he walks right over to them, with long sure strides, and stops right in front of the two men, ignoring the fact that Blaine's hands are pressed firmly against Kevin's chest.

"Should I leave the door unlocked tonight?" Kurt asks, the question loaded and filled with sass.

They finally part and Blaine looks up at Kurt with terrified eyes and something akin to horror and then back to Kevin. Kurt notices the dim light of the bar doesn't make him look nearly as sad as he'd looked under the yellow light of the street lamp they'd stood under.

"Probably not," Kevin says with a grin.

"What – no! I'm not going home with him. Kurt!"

But Kurt has seen enough and he's already exiting the bar as Blaine hurries to pay his tab. He doesn't see Kevin's look of bewilderment or Blaine shooting worried, frantic glances at his back as he waits for the bartender to run his card. Kurt storms out of the place and down the street, wrapping his arms around his body as he heads back toward his apartment which, thankfully, is only three blocks away. The alcohol is clouding his mind just a tiny bit and he ignores the shouts coming from behind him.

"-ait! Kurt, wait!"

Kurt doesn't turn back when he hears his name, he simply walks faster and really, he doesn't remember how he gets to his front door so quickly but Blaine is stumbling in after him.

Kevin is no where to be found.

"I wasn't going to go home with him!" Blaine shouts, slamming the door shut.

"Why not? He's a perfectly normal guy, he isn't bad on the eyes, he isn't as fucked up as I am," Kurt stabs.

"You aren't fucked up," Blaine argues at once. "And I don't give a damn about Kevin."

"Didn't seem that way when you had your tongue down his throat."

"I wasn't – shit, just listen to me!"

"And you say I swear."

"Just stop!" Blaine yells, grabbing Kurt's shoulders and spinning him around so that they're facing each other now and Kurt doesn't like it. He doesn't want to see him. He doesn't want to look at those lips, those eyes, that face that doesn't belong to him anymore. "Just stop and listen to me!"

"You don't OWE me an explanation!" Kurt finally barks back, flinging Blaine's hands off him. "You can go home with whoever you want, you can drink with whoever you want and you can fuck whoever the hell you'd like!"

"I don't want to fuck him!"

"All evidence points to the contrary!"

"Why are you being so willfully dense?"

"Because I don't want you here!" Kurt snaps, malice evident in his words. "I don't want you invading my life!"

"Then you should have told me to leave!" Blaine shouts.

"Maybe I should have!"

"Why didn't you then?"

"Because I fucking love you, okay!" Kurt reveals.

Blaine freezes, all color draining from his face and his mouth hangs open in shock.

"I love you so much I can't think straight! I love you so much that it is physically painful to be in the same room with you without touching your face or kissing your neck or…or…"

Kurt's breathing hard now, his fists clenched at his side, his chest heaving with tension and he can't finish his sentence. Blaine's mouth is still agape and his eyelashes are fluttering quickly, as if he's trying to soak in everything he's seeing at the moment.

"You – you still love me?"

"I never stopped loving you! I've loved you since I was sixteen, I loved you when you left me at seventeen, and I've loved you every damn day since!"

Blaine still doesn't move, not even an inch.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Blaine asks, his face screwed up in a way that, for some reason, reminds Kurt of the expression Blaine had on his face five years ago when he told Kurt they had to end things.

"Well it's just not that fucking easy is it?" Kurt shouts back. "You LEFT, Blaine! You left me alone and you never – never called and all you left behind was a flower and a broken promise! You-"

"Kurt!" Blaine cuts him off, eyes wild and voice ragged. "I was always yours," Blaine breathes, the words hanging between them in the thick air of that too small, almost dingy apartment, over that tiny table they eat cereal at every morning and over that couch that he'd been sleeping on. "I never stopped being yours."

Kurt breaks.

He rushes forward and slams Blaine against the door, crushing their lips together in a kiss so hard, so full of everything he's feeling at the moment, yes yes this is right you belong right here don't leave me again, and he moans into Blaine's mouth when Blaine's arms wrap just as possessively around his body. Blaine tastes like liquor and something sweet and he smells like smoke, which doesn't bother him at all.

"You're mine," Kurt growls against his chapped lips.

"Yours," Blaine agrees, bringing a hand up to cup the back of Kurt's neck, forcing their lips together once more.

The kiss is hungry and hot and teeth collide and tongues are dueling and it's everything, everything, everything that Kurt needs. It's wet and his lips are going to be bruised in the morning but he can feel Blaine against him, beneath him, inside him and he snatches Blaine's wrists and pins them above his head against the door. Blaine moans loudly and thrusts his hips up.

Kurt feels like he's drowning.