Kurt feels like he was just shot.

I have a boyfriend.

Of course he does. Kurt's sitting there, staring straight at Blaine over their coffee cups, attempting to make his face as expressionless as possible.

Of course he does.

"O-oh," Kurt's finally able to speak again.

"Yeah…"

Okay, so then what the hell? Yes, Kurt gets it. Blaine's beautiful. He's attractive in pretty much every single possible way so there was obviously a chance that he wasn't single. Except Kurt hadn't thought about that possibility until right this freaking second. But the fact that Blaine was a hot commodity wasn't really the issue in Kurt's mind.

You have a boyfriend, yet you take me on a motorcycle ride, Kurt thinks. You have a boyfriend, yet you let me keep my arms around for as long as deemed publicly decent. You have a boyfriend, yet you 'never stopped wanting to spend time with me'. You have a boyfriend, yet you're looking at me like you're about to cry, please STOP looking at me like that, I can't handle it.

Kurt sips his coffee. His throat is too dry.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Kurt rasps. "I can't believe I didn't…even consider that you might be in a relationship. I should be the one apologizing."

"No," Blaine says, shaking his head. "I should have told you."

"Before you had me pressed up against your back with my arms around your body on a motorcycle?" Kurt says a little too forcefully. "Maybe. But it doesn't matter either way."

"It does matter. Don't pretend like you aren't…upset."

"I'm not pretending anything. Sarcasm is how I handle situations I can't really change. Sarcasm is how I handle pretty much everything. You'll get used to it."

Blaine's eyebrows scrunch together and Kurt has to look away.

"What's his name?" Kurt asks flatly.

"…Elliot."

Stupid Elliot. Elliot should have a stupid name like Edgar. Or…or Bob. So I can hate him even more.

Oh. Best not to say that out loud.

"How long have you been together?"

He feels like he's interrogating Blaine but right now he's hurt and he just doesn't care.

"Just a month."

"Just a month?" Kurt asks suspiciously. "You don't sound too thrilled about the situation."

"I…never said that. I just meant that it hasn't been all that long," Blaine tries to backpedal.

"Ah. So…it's not very serious then?"

"Is anyone's relationship very serious when you're only a month in?" Blaine retorts.

"I wouldn't know," Kurt snaps. "I've never been in one."

Blaine freezes in the middle of lifting his coffee to his lips. "Not one?"

"I'm the only one out at my school," Kurt informs him. "As such, not too many rainbow-colored fish in the chlorinated dating pool."

"Oh. I – I'm sorry."

"There's no need to be sorry," Kurt says and he doesn't know why he's being so hissy. Yes, Blaine should have told him. But Blaine doesn't deserve his ire, doesn't deserved to be snapped at. He's simply in a relationship and really, it's Kurt's fault for making the default assumption in the first place.

But for some reason he simply can't stop.

"I take it you've been in plenty of relationships then? I mean, you seem like you're such an expert now."

"Why are you being so cruel?" Blaine asks, his feelings obviously hurt.

Fine.

"Because I've been in love with you since I was about twelve. Happy now?

Blaine remains motionless, his eyes locked on Kurt's face even though Kurt's not looking at him. He can't look at him. He can't believe he actually admitted that on the first quasi-date they've ever been on.

But it isn't a date.

And he can feel Blaine's gaze burning against his skin.

"What?" Blaine asks softly.

"Don't make me say it again," Kurt pleads, his anger dissipating into the air. "Please."

"I don't…why…Kurt…"

Kurt stands up so quickly that he knocks the table with his hip, almost upending both of their forgotten coffee cups.

"Can we go?"

"Don't you want to talk-"

"No," Kurt says immediately. "Right now I just feel like going home and crying into my pillow so please, take me home."

Blaine is just about to open his mouth to speak but Kurt snatches the borrowed helmet off the table and walks straight out of the coffee shop. He's just out the door and almost to the motorcycle when he feels a hand on his forearm. Blaine wrenches him around to face him.

"I don't want you to go home and cry," Blaine whispers. "Please don't. I never could stand it when you cried. You were so…tragically beautiful and it broke my heart."

"Blaine, you can't-"

"I wasn't right either," Blaine interrupts him, referring to what Kurt had told him in the senior commons at Dalton. "I was a mess. I wasn't eating right and I hid myself away from people. I was broken. I think I – I really resented you for a long time."

"You hated me."

"No," Blaine says, shaking his head slowly, reaching his hand up to brush away a tear from just under Kurt's sad blue eyes. "I never hated you."

"And now?" Kurt asks in hard voice. "Do you still resent me?"

"Do you think I'd be in Ohio if I still resented you?" Blaine asks him. "You were right. I could have gone to a private school in Maryland. But I'm here."

"Yeah," Kurt spits out, shoving away Blaine's hand that still lingered on his cheek. "You're here. And you're with someone else. I obviously don't mean enough."

"Things with Elliot just…developed. I wasn't expecting to like him. Just like I wasn't expecting you to waltz into the senior commons when I was about to start singing. I didn't…I honestly didn't think that I'd ever see you again," Blaine says.

"Then why didn't you just go to school in Maryland? You knew where I lived. We haven't moved. You could have sought me out!"

"Maybe I needed…I needed you to find me again. Like you did once before. When we – when we were seven. On the playground," Blaine says brokenly.

"But you don't need saving anymore, Blaine. You're doing just fine."

"I'm doing okay, yeah. But the point still stands. You…you found me anyway."

"I don't understand. You're taken. You're spoken for. You're dating someone. Why drag me out here, why flirt with me, why force me on the back of a death trap and ask me if I still trust you?" Kurt needs to ask because none of this makes sense, not one bit of it.

Blaine lowers his eyes to stare at the ground. He shrugs his leather-clad shoulders.

"Does Elliot even know you're with me right now?" Kurt asks him.

Blaine remains silent.

"He doesn't, does he?"

Kurt watches as Blaine gives a shake of his curly head.

"I won't do this," Kurt says, taking a step back from Blaine. "I won't be – I won't be second best or your – your childhood science experiment."

Blaine's head shoots up in alarm. "What? No! Kurt it isn't like that at all. It isn't."

"Then what? You can't do this to me. I know I hurt you when I stopped calling…wait," Kurt pauses, holding his hand up between them. "Is this…payback?"

"No!"

"Is this some disgusting form of - of willful karma?" Kurt demands to know.

"This isn't payback or karma or me trying to hurt you!"

"Then what the hell is it?"

"I needed to know!" Blaine shouts. "I needed to know if I still felt that way around you! I needed to know if you still felt as perfect when you were pressed up against me and I needed to know if I'm just stuck in the past! I needed to know if I could get over you and let myself love Elliot or if, somehow, for whatever reason it's only you! I needed to know if your lips still - I needed-" Blaine's voice breaks. "I needed to know if it really was some form of fate that day on the swing set. Or if I was just imagining it all."

Kurt stops breathing for a few seconds.

"If my lips what?" he asks in a whisper.

"I-"

"Blaine," Kurt says, taking a step forward to stand nearly toe to toe with him. "If my lips what?"

Blaine's looking up at him, pain and confusion and a memory clouding his eyes. His lips are slightly parted in awe, as if he's startled that Kurt is standing so close, and Kurt can feel Blaine's warm breath on his face.

"If your lips still taste like candy the way they did before," Blaine breathes.

Kurt can see Blaine's gaze dart between Kurt's lips and Kurt's eyes, as if he's expecting Kurt to give him exactly what he needs.

Kurt wants to kiss him. He wants to close those few inches of space and he wants to know if Blaine tastes like mocha. He wants to feel Blaine's hands on his face and in his hair and he wants it so desperately that he's aching from the need alone.

He leans forward ever so slightly and cups Blaine's cheek with a gentle hand.

"I won't let you kiss me while you're with him," Kurt whispers in a single, hot breath against Blaine's lips. "Because if I kiss you…and you realize that it isn't fate…I'll lose you forever. And he wins. He gets you."

Blaine lets out a soft sigh, his body going nearly completely lax from the tension that leaves him and his forehead comes to rest against Kurt's chin.

"But you still have to take me back to my car," Kurt says into Blaine's dark curls. "And I promise to hold on to you really, really tightly."

Kurt doesn't know when he suddenly became the rational one throughout the course of the argument. He doesn't know how he went from prissy bitch to 'I won't do that to your boyfriend'. And he doesn't know why he presses a kiss to Blaine's forehead.

But they smile sadly at each other, put on their helmets, climb onto the sport bike, and head back.

Kurt holds on to Blaine as if he'd slip away and disappear into that mesh of colors and blurred lines on that straightaway road, that desolate one where Kurt knew he was very, very safe when he was surrounded by the scent of leather, of autumn, and the rev of an engine.

When they pull up next to Kurt's Navigator in the school parking lot, Blaine kills the engine and Kurt pulls off his helmet, handing it to Blaine. Blaine takes it without a word, but Kurt does not immediately climb off the bike. Instead, he wraps his arms around Blaine once more, leaning back into him and pressing his cheek to Blaine's shoulder. Blaine pauses and Kurt can feel him tense, but then after a few seconds, Blaine folds his arms over Kurt's, his hands squeezing each of Kurt's elbows. Kurt hears him sigh softly inside his helmet.

But then he has to slip his arms away and slide of the bike.

When he drives out of the parking lot, he looks through his rearview mirror and sees Blaine, immobile, still straddling the motorcycle, hands on the handles, hanging his head.

There's nothing he can do.

"What is your problem?"

Kurt doesn't know why he's in the boy's locker room, the only other person inside his most hated rival and resident asshole extraordinaire. All he sees in his mind is a text message saying 'courage' and at the moment, he's shouting things like 'I don't dig on chubby boys who sweat too much' and 'you're just a scared little boy'.

In hindsight, Kurt would realize the courage can often backfire.

But right now, he's suddenly forced against a locker by the sweaty boy and Karofsky's lips are on his and his tongue is down Kurt's throat and Kurt wants to vomit. He tries to push him away but the bulky boy is having none of it so Kurt's forced to down bite down on Karofsky's lip. He bites hard enough to draw blood.

Suddenly, Karofsky takes a step back and Kurt knows he should leave, he should run but he's too stunned by what just happened to get his legs to work properly.

Karofsky makes to lean in again but finally Kurt has enough presence of mind to shove him away.

"Don't touch me!" he hisses at the jock.

Kurt's standing there, his hands up against his chest, but so is Karofsky. Karofsky's just – just there, and he's staring at Kurt's lips and he's breathing heavily and Kurt just wants him to get out but he's not going anywhere and Kurt's find of freaking the hell out.

He tries to run.

But Karofsky yanks him back by his arm and pulls him close, covering Kurt's mouth with his own, like he can't get enough, like he can't live without Kurt's lips on his and Kurt can taste a bit of blood on the boy's lips from where he had to bite him earlier and Kurt can't move can't think and why why why is Karofsky holding him so tightly?

Kurt does the only other thing he can think of.

He snaps his knee up, colliding it with Karofsky's groin and the boy finally releases him, groaning in pain. Kurt stumbles backwards in fear, smashing into a row of lockers and the sound catches Karofsky's attention. He's still doubled over, trying to catches his breath, but he sneers at Kurt and then –

Karofsky spits, quite literally, in Kurt's face.

Kurt freezes. His body freezes, his blood freezes, and he feels like he's going to throw up. Karofsky glares at him for a few, long, agonizing seconds and then he rushes out of the locker room and Kurt's left behind.

Alone.

He feels the rapidly cooling saliva drip down from his forehead, over the side of his nose and down to his chin.

He's afraid to wipe it away with his hand.

Kurt slumps to the ground, tears welling in his terrified blue eyes. He sees a dirty towel hanging on one of the benches in front if him and grabs it, wiping hastily at the spit on his face. He can feel the other boys spit seeping into his pores and he gags at the sensation.

What…what just happened? Why – what –

The locker room door opens and a few boys file in, so Kurt scrambles to his feet and rushes past them and out the door.

His shaky legs take him down the hallway, out the main doors, through the parking lot, and straight to his car. He fishes his keys out of his pocket, unlocks the door, climbs inside, starts the car, and drives away. He's already on the highway by the time he realizes he doesn't have his bag or his phone but he doesn't care, it doesn't matter, he needs to get away, he's leaving he's leaving he's leaving, he needs to feel safe.

He needs to see Blaine.