It’s terribly difficult to pack his last bag, Kurt thinks that next morning as he shoves his last bottle of moisturizer inside before zipping it shut. He stares, unblinking, at his bare mattress and his empty desk. This room had become Kurt’s second home, a home away from home. He had changed so very much as a person inside these walls and it’s hard to think about leaving it all behind, if only for a few months.

He turns his attention to Blaine.

Beautiful Blaine, wrapped up in his sheets, clutching the pillow where Kurt’s head had rested the night before. The skin of his naked torso glows in the morning sunlight and Kurt already misses touching that skin, kissing and caressing.

Blaine’s side of the room is in complete disarray; boxes and suitcases are stacked haphazardly atop one another, some shoved under the bed and others crowding his desk area. He would be leaving later this afternoon, long after Kurt himself departs.

Kurt drops his last bag onto the floor and seats himself on the edge of Blaine’s bed. Still asleep, Blaine curls into his warmth, nuzzling Kurt’s thigh with his nose. Kurt smiles easily and cards his fingers through Blaine’s soft, messy hair as he thinks back to last night.

“How often do you think I’ll get to see you over the summer?” Kurt had asked as they crawled into Blaine’s bed. “We’ll be so far apart.”

“We’ll make it work,” Blaine had assured him, tucking Kurt’s head under his chin. “It won’t be that bad.”

“We’ll be two hours away from each other,” Kurt had said.

“The drive will be worth it,” Blaine had whispered, kissing the top of Kurt’s head.

Kurt sighed into the night, relaxing into Blaine’s arms and shuffling closer to him underneath the blankets. He breathed in the familiar scent of Blaine and his sheets and his shower fresh skin. How is he supposed to survive so many months without Blaine in his bed?

“I’m going to miss you so much,” Kurt had said softly.

“I’m going to miss you too,” Blaine had replied. “But we’re not saying goodbye. Never goodbye.”

“No,” Kurt had agreed before his eyes became too sleepy to remain open. “Never goodbye.”

Blaine had kept his promise to Kurt’s father and they had not had sex last night. Honestly, Kurt’s pretty sure they were both far too exhausted from yesterday’s drama to even consider sex. Instead, Kurt had slept restlessly, waking in the middle of the night to assure himself that Blaine was still there and he still had a few hours left before he had to slink out of his arms and finish his last bit of packing.

Ten o’clock was on the horizon. Kurt cups Blaine’s face and leans down to press a kiss to his cheek.

Blaine stirs. His eyes are bleary but he smiles when he sees Kurt.

“You have to leave, don’t you?” Blaine asks, voice scratchy from disuse.

“Yeah,” Kurt nods, fingers still entwined in Blaine’s hair. “I do.”

“Text me when you get to your dad’s house,” Blaine instructs and Kurt notices how Blaine refuses to use the word ‘home’ because maybe home wasn’t home anymore.

Maybe this was home now. Right here, on a thin, dormitory mattress with two young hearts as the morning rays of light filtered into the room.

“I will,” Kurt whispers, kissing Blaine on the lips, heedless of his morning breath.

He stands and Blaine catches his hand.

“I love you,” Blaine says.

Oh.

Right. They could say that now.

“I love you, too,” Kurt smiles.

He fusses with his last, heavy bag and pulls it onto his shoulder before snatching up his pillow.

“I’ll see you soon,” he says with one last look to Blaine.

“Definitely,” Blaine says, watching Kurt as he moves across the room to the door.

Kurt doesn’t want to walk through the door, he doesn’t want to leave Blaine behind but he does it anyway because he knows it isn’t goodbye.

Never goodbye.

“Kurt, honey! Welcome home!” Carole greets enthusiastically as soon as Kurt walks through the door, bag heavy on his shoulder and pillow tucked under his arm. “Here, let me take your things. I just put lunch on the table. Cucumber sandwiches for you and me and roast beef for your dad and Finn.”

It’s like a punch in his stomach whenever Carole mentions the cucumber sandwiches because now all Kurt can think of is an impromptu, candlelit picnic on his dorm room floor and stolen glances across the ballroom at the spring formal.

“Thanks, Carole,” he says despite his memories.

Her smile is too bright as she takes his bag and pillow upstairs. As he wanders into the kitchen, he sends Blaine a quick text message, letting him know he arrived safely, and as he walks through the hall he realizes how foreign this house seems to him. Sure, he’s come back for a few weekends since they moved from their old house to this one, but he always knew that he would be returning to Dalton. He knew he wasn’t staying and it had always felt so temporary. To come back, knowing he would stay for months, is extremely surreal and almost unsettling.

“Hey Kurt,” Finn says around a mouthful of roast beef.

“Hi Finn,” Kurt greets, making his way around the table to kiss his father’s cheek. “Hi dad.”

“Hey, kiddo. How was the drive?”

“Not too bad,” Kurt says, seating himself at the table. “Almost no traffic.”

“Good, good,” Burt nods. “Eat up, ‘cause I gotta talk to you when you finish.”

Kurt freezes. “About what?”

“Just some stuff about school,” Burt replies. “Go ahead and eat first, though.”

Knowing he won’t be able to eat with so much worry eating away at his insides, Kurt looks directly into his father’s eyes.

“Just tell me.”

“We don’t need to talk about it in front of-”

“What’s the difference?” Kurt asks flatly. “They’re going to know what we talk about anyway. We’re a family now.”

Burt’s eyes soften at Kurt’s use of the term. Kurt remains immobile, hands in his lap, preparing himself for whatever his father plans on telling him. He doesn’t know why he expects something so bad, but it must be really important if his dad has planned on talking to him in private. Carole reappears and seats herself at the table, eyes darting from Burt to Kurt.

Nodding, Burt wipes his mouth with a napkin.

“Yesterday, after we finished loading all your stuff up in the truck, I drove around the main office and had a little chat with the headmaster,” Burt begins.

Oh god.

“I was not impressed with the way that school was run, Kurt, I just wasn’t. Who lets a bunch of teenage boys run around and just do whatever the hell they want? I’m not throwing away my money on some private school just so you can mess around and get drunk and…other stuff.”

“I won’t – I won’t do that stuff anymore, dad, I swear. We just drank that one time, it was just once, I promise,” Kurt says desperately.

“I believe you, kid,” Burt says calmly. “But the people at that school are way more concerned about appearance than your actual wellbeing. I’m not down with that.”

“No,” Kurt breathes, already knowing what his father is about to say.

“So I withdrew you.”

“No,” Kurt says again.

“You’re going back to McKinley in the fall. I don’t like not knowing what’s going on in your life, Kurt. I’m not some kind of parent that sends his kid off to boarding school because I don’t want to deal with you or your attitude. I know you liked it there, I know you did. But I can’t have you getting into trouble just because the people that run that place are willing to turn a blind eye. You’re my son. And I’m not letting it happen.”

Kurt swallows the acidity in his throat, suppressing the urge to vomit. No – how is – no, no, he has to go to back to Blaine, back to their room, back home. Dalton is – his friends, what about his friends? He doesn’t even know if they’re still going to want to be his friends anymore after everything that happened yesterday, but – but Wes and David and boozy Jeff and – no.

“Dad-”

“I’m sorry, kid. It’s not gonna happen.”

“What about Karofsky?” Kurt blurts out, desperate for any reason he has that can fall in his favor. “He’s still there. He still hates me, he said he wanted to kill me! Don’t you remember that?”

“Actually,” Finn interrupts, looking uneasy, “Karofsky’s family is moving to Columbus. His dad got a new job there, I think. He’s…not coming back.”

God damnit, Finn, Kurt curses in his head. This isn’t helping. He shoots an evil look at his stepbrother who looks down at his plate and continues to eat his lunch.

“I thought you missed your friends, honey,” Carole comments softly.

“I – I do, but-”

He misses Blaine more.

“Please,” Kurt begs. “Please don’t do this. I’ll – I’ll stay away from the parties and I’ll – I’ll get a new roommate,” he attempts to compromise. Even if Blaine isn’t his roommate, at least they’d still be at the same school and he’d still get to see his smile and –

“It’s not you I don’t trust, Kurt,” his father says. “I know you’re into Blaine and everything and I know it’s hard but-”

“You have no idea how hard I had to fight for him!” Kurt explodes, shoving his chair back and standing up. “We had to keep it a secret for so long and now – after everything – I can’t even see him? It’s bullshit!”

“Hey!” Burt snaps. “You don’t use that language with me!”

“It isn’t fair! I love him!”

“You’re seventeen, Kurt! You can only love someone so much at seventeen!”

That, Kurt thinks as his vision goes red, is something he never expected his father to say.

“You don’t even know me anymore,” Kurt says, anger boiling in his blood while he wills his voice to remain low.

He never, in a million years, thought his father would say something like that. He’s never been this angry with an adult in his life and he hates that he feels this way, hates that he can’t control how he reacts and even he knows something is wrong inside his head.

“Y’know, maybe I don’t,” Burt says evenly. “How can I? You’ve been at that place for months with hardly any rules and that’s not how I raised you. You’re a teenager! You don’t get to run around doing whatever you want!”

“I wasn’t!”

“Damn near!” Burt returns.

“You just hate the fact that I was having sex!” Kurt shouts, any semblance of reason flying out of his brain and he doesn’t know why he’s saying all these things.

“I’m pissed about that, sure! But look at you, Kurt! Look! You never used to talk to me like this. Never.”

“People change, dad. Get over it.”

“Well they sure as hell change when they’re stuck at a school with no god damn discipline. This isn’t you!”

“Well maybe it’s better this way!” Kurt snaps. “Maybe the person I was before was weak and I hated him! Maybe he was a coward and refused to fight back!”

“You were never a coward!”

Finn’s voices rings loudly in the room and everyone falls silent.

“You were – you were never a coward,” Finn says again, staring directly at Kurt. “You were the strongest person I knew, Kurt. You – you dealt with all that crap every day and you did it by yourself and you never told anyone. I know it was always way worse than you ever let on but you – you did, you handled it. I know I wasn’t…the best person, I know I don’t see a lot of things but I always thought you were – were one of the strongest people I ever met.”

Kurt’s throat becomes thick with emotion and his eyes sting with unshed tears because Finn.

“And maybe I miss that person. I miss you all the time, Kurt, when you’re not at school. I know you like Dalton and I know you like Blaine but – but I was really glad when Burt said he took you out of that school because I miss my brother. We all miss you, everyone in Glee. I never got the chance to really be there for you and I – I want it.”

Knees trembling with coiled energy, Kurt clenches his fists at his sides.

“I don’t want to leave,” Kurt admits brokenly. “After everything, I – I can’t leave him there alone.”

“I know,” Burt says softly. “You boys got yourselves into a hell of a lot of crap.”

“And now you’re taking me away and he’s going to have to go back and everyone’s going to look at him and see all the bad things. We messed up together.”

“He’ll be okay,” Burt assures him.

Kurt wants to punch something.

Instead, he glares at his father and storms away from the table, lunch uneaten, and races up the stairs to the privacy of his bedroom. He slams the door and nearly trips on a box on the way to his bed. He throws himself on top of his duvet, tears finally spilling from his eyes.

Everything hurts.

His emotions are all over the fucking place and he wants to slap his father and he wants to hug Finn and he doesn’t know why he feels so betrayed.

This isn’t him.

He knows that.

He knows he’s quicker to anger now than he used to be. He knows he’s more volatile but maybe he never really noticed it at Dalton because everyone just did what they wanted and said what they wanted. The teachers never cared. God, look how they reacted during the fight yesterday; they stood by and did nothing because they know that half the kids there are from some seriously wealthy families. They never reported any incidents or any issues because they knew that the adults were all about reputation and public image and they weren’t going to be the ones to taint those images with stories of their kids fucking like rabbits.

It’s an entirely different world at Dalton, the kind of world no one outside of it would ever understand.

But Kurt had integrated himself. It had become his home.

And now he’s being ripped away from it.