Kurt wasn't sure what to expect when he pulled up to the student circle of the University of Chicago in the station wagon he'd borrowed from a friend of his dad's. When Sebastian had called to tell him that the guy he'd been seeing was also New York bound and could use a ride, Kurt had been wary. On principle, he didn't do anything blind, especially when it was recommended by Sebastian. Albeit, he made himself think about it, because an eighteen hour drive from Chicago to New York was a little ridiculous to make on his own. Even if he ended up hating this guy, at least he'd have something to occupy his mind. So, reluctance be damned, he had called Sebastian back and agreed to letting his boyfriend hitch a ride.

When he saw Sebastian lip-locked with some short guy with dark curls, he realized it was almost exactly what he'd expected. Kurt had known Sebastian long enough to know that he was never without a man for very long. He was putting on quite the show with this short guy too. There were roaming hands and flashes of tongue and Kurt was starting to get a little queasy. He rapped sharply on the window before rolling it down and clearing his throat loudly.

Sebastian and the young man - Blaine, if Kurt remembered right - split apart, startled. "Kurt," Sebastian greeted, a smarmy smile curling his lips. "This is Blaine."

Blaine's face lit up with a stunningly bright smile, and Kurt could see why Sebastian was so attached. A smile like that was infectious, and Kurt felt his own lips curling slightly in response. "Blaine Anderson." He stuck out a hand enthusiastically, which Kurt took delicately.

"Kurt," he said with an answering smile. "Kurt Hummel."

Blaine picked up a guitar case and a duffel bag and shrugged in Sebastian's direction. After he'd loaded his supplies in the backseat, Sebastian grabbed him by the front of his sweater and pulled him into another dramatic kiss.

"I love you," Sebastian giggled. Kurt rolled his eyes. Never once in their entire friendship had Sebastian ever giggled. Apparently whatever he had with this Blaine guy was the real deal.

Blaine shrugged back. Shrugging seemed to be a thing for him. "I love you, too." Kurt pretended not to notice how much less genuine the words sounded coming from Blaine. Granted, he and Sebastian weren't necessarily the best of friends, but he still felt a protective twinge over him.

They kissed some more until Kurt tapped the horn in annoyance. Blaine pulled back, keeping his hands on Sebastian's hips. "I'll call you when I get to New York."

Sebastian practically pouted. "Call me from the road."

Blaine shrugged. Again. "I'll call you before."

Kurt tried not to sigh too audibly as Blaine slid into the passenger seat and Sebastian waved goodbye to the both of them. He waved back with a small smile and peeled away from the curb.

It was unbearably awkward for a moment. Kurt shot a sidelong glance at Blaine and decided that it would be better to break the silence now rather than set a precedent for the entire trip. "So, what was your major again?" he asked weakly.

Blaine kept his eyes ahead, his expression flat. "Music composition with a minor in piano. You?"

"Double major in musical theatre and fashion design." He couldn't help the hint of pride that slipped into his tone.

Blaine nodded in acknowledgement. Before Kurt knew what was going on, Blaine was unbuckling his seat belt and leaning back over the center console to dig something out of his bag. Kurt wouldn't have minded, but Blaine's ass was almost directly in his face, and as nice as it was in those tight-fitting Levis, it was not a position he preferred to view nearly complete strangers in.

Blaine dropped back into his seat a moment later with a plastic bag in his hands and a triumphant expression on his face. "Grape?" he asked, offering the bag to Kurt.

Kurt raised his eyebrows. "No thanks."

Blaine grabbed a grape for himself and popped it into his mouth. He chewed with his mouth mostly open and his lips smacking, and Kurt resisted the urge to reach over and physically force his jaw shut. He spit the grape seed in the direction of the still-closed window and stared at the tiny explosion of spit on the glass. "I'll open that," he conceded. "So what's your life's story?"

Kurt snorted. "My life's story?"

"Sure!" Blaine ate another grape. "We've got an eighteen hour drive ahead of us."

"My life's story won't even get us out of Chicago. Nothing's happened to me yet," he shrugged, then cursed himself. Already Blaine's habit was rubbing off on him.

"So that's why you're going to New York. So something will happen to you." The way he phrased it made it a statement rather than a question, and Kurt wondered briefly if the same was true for Blaine.

"Yep. I'm going to Parsons for a graduate degree in design." He grinned again, preening a little. Chicago was a huge step forward from his hometown in Lima, Ohio, but it still wasn't anywhere close to New York. For years, he'd dreamed of a future there, and it was all finally coming true.

Blaine raised his eyebrows. "Design. Huh. So what happens if you don't find a job?"

Kurt glanced incredulously over at Blaine. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that if you don't find a job, all of this work you've put into it is all for nothing, and then the only thing that's ever happened to you is crushing failure. And then you have to live with that failure, and you'll be so obsessed with it that you end up completely alone and you die one of those New York deaths in your apartment where nobody notices for two weeks until the smell drifts into the hallway," he deadpanned.

Kurt stared at Blaine, unsure if he should be more horrified or impressed. He turned back to the road after a beat, shaking his head. "Sebastian mentioned you had a dark side," he responded finally.

Blaine's tone perked up at the mention of Sebastian. "That's what drew him to me."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, don't you have a dark side?" Kurt opened his mouth to answer, but Blaine cut him off before he could. "Nah, I bet you're one of those cheerful people who dots their i's with little hearts."

Kurt rolled his eyes. "I have just as much of a dark side as the next person," he said loftily. He wasn't sure if it was entirely true, but he got the impression that Blaine took great pride in his dark side, and he felt the need to bring him down a level.

Blaine shook his head dismissively. "You know what I do when I get a new book? I read the last page first, so if I die before I finish, at least I'll know what happened. That, my friend, is a dark side."

Kurt tried his level best not to sigh and roll his eyes again. "So what? That doesn't make you deep or anything. I mean, yes, basically I am a happy person. And I don't see anything wrong with that."

"Of course not, you're too busy being happy," Blaine agreed easily. "Do you ever think about death?"

"Yes," Kurt said, because of course he thought about death. Everyone thought about death.

But Blaine shook his head again. "Sure you do, but it's fleeting, a thought in passing. I spend hours. I spend days."

"And you think this makes you a better person."

"Look, when it all comes down, I'm going to be prepared, and you're not," he said with a shrug.

"Well in the meantime you're going to ruin your whole life waiting for it."

Blaine, apparently, had no comeback to this, so he continued to chew his grapes and stared out the window.

Once it was dark, they stopped at a tiny diner off the highway at Blaine's adamant insistence. It had been Blaine's turn to drive, and they somehow found themselves arguing heatedly about Casablanca as he pulled into the parking lot.

"I wouldn't want to spend the rest of my life in Casablanca married to a man who runs a bar!" Kurt insisted. "I'm sure that sounds snobbish, but it's true."

"You'd rather be in a passionless marriage?" Blaine asked with wide, disbelieving eyes.

"And be the first lady...well, I guess the first gentleman, of Czechoslovakia," he added, but Blaine started talking over him before he finished.

"You wouldn't want to live with the man you've had the greatest sex of your life with just because he owns a bar?"

Kurt pondered for a minute. "Yes." Blaine started to say something else, but this time Kurt was the one to cut him off. "And so would any other rational, practical person, which is exactly why Ingrid Bergman gets on the plane at the end of the movie," he finished simply, as if there were no other argument. He pulled down the sun visor and combed his hair carefully back into place from where it had drooped during the long ride.

"I understand," Blaine said as he got out of the car.

Kurt followed suit. "What?"

"Nothing."

"What?" Kurt insisted, growing annoyed with Blaine's ever-passive attitude.

Blaine rolled his eyes as he walked faster towards the restaurant. "Forget about it."

"No!" Kurt followed closely behind him.

"It's not important."

Kurt sighed in frustration. "Just tell me!"

Blaine stopped with his hand on the door handle and turned to look Kurt directly in the eye. Kurt was struck suddenly by how wide and deeply golden they were, and forgot for a moment what they had been talking about. "Obviously you haven't had truly great sex yet," Blaine stated matter-of-factly as he turned back around and walked into the diner.

Kurt's eyes went wide as he followed Blaine. "I have had plenty of good sex!" he defended himself loudly, drawing looks from the rest of the patrons surrounding him. He stared at the floor sheepishly as he followed Blaine to a booth.

Blaine smirked. "Sure you have."

"I have!" He was a mix of annoyance and embarrassment, furtively glancing back around to make sure nobody was still listening to their conversation.

Blaine casually perused the menu. "With whom?"

"What?" Kurt was struck once again by Blaine's complete nonchalance. In the six hours they'd already driven, he hadn't been able to pull a single emotion out of Blaine.

"With whom have you had this great sex?" Blaine asked as he turned his attention back to Kurt.

How Blaine could remain so completely casual and so completely invasive at the same time Kurt didn't know. "I'm not going to tell you that!" He cast another look around for eavesdroppers.

Blaine turned immediately back to his menu with his usual boredom. "Fine, don't tell me."

Kurt stared for a moment before opening his own menu. He couldn't shake Blaine's judgement, though, and felt the need to prove himself. "Chandler Evans."

Blaine looked up again, and Kurt saw the beginnings of disbelief crossing his features. "Chandler?" His expression changed to one of complete dismissal, and he practically snorted. "No. No, you did not have great sex with Chandler."

Kurt shook his head. "Yes, I did."

Blaine gave him a challenging look. "No, you didn't."

Kurt dropped his head, trying not to let Blaine see how much he was infuriated by him. Blaine leaned forward and levelled his gaze at Kurt.

"Look, Chandler can do your income taxes. Root canal? Chandler's your man. But humping and pumping is not Chandler's strong suit." Blaine shrugged easily with a shake of his head.

Kurt's mouth dropped open, his eyes wide. His brow started to furrow as Blaine continued.

"It's the name; 'Do it to me, Chandler', 'You're an animal, Chandler', 'Ride me, big Chandler'," he drew out the name as if to emphasize its lack of sex appeal. "It doesn't work."

Kurt was about to protest, caught between chastising Blaine for discussing his sex life with so little regard to his own feelings and defending Chandler - who, in all actuality, had not been that great in bed - when the waitress approached their table and Blaine dropped the subject completely.

"Hi, what can I get for you?" she asked kindly.

"I'll have the number three," Blaine said easily.

The waitress looked to Kurt, who looked back at the menu briefly. "I'd like the chef's salad, please, with the oil and vinegar on the side and the apple pie ala mode."

"Okay, chef's salad and apple pie..." she repeated as she scribbled on her notepad.

"But I want the pie heated, and I don't want the ice cream on the top, I want it on the side. And strawberry instead of vanilla if you have it. If not, then no ice cream, just whipped cream. Except only if it's real, if it's out of the can then nothing," he finished, looking back at Blaine, who was staring at him in shock.

"Not even the pie?" the waitress asked, her pen hovering over the pad in confusion.

"No, just the pie, but then not heated."

The waitress nodded slowly and walked away, tucking her pen behind her ear.

Kurt met Blaine's gaze again. He was still staring at Kurt with his eyebrows drawn together and his eyes wide, regarding him as if he had suddenly sprouted antlers.

"What?" Kurt asked defensively.

Blaine shook himself out of the expression. "Nothing," he waved off. "So how come you broke up?"

Kurt smiled coolly back at him. "How do you know we broke up?"

"Because if you didn't break up, you wouldn't be here with me, you'd be off with Chandler the Wonder Schlong," he sighed.

Kurt's annoyance peaked again, and he leaned towards Blaine as his voice grew with his frustration. "First of all, I am not with you, and second of all, it's none of your business why we broke up!"

Blaine sat back and put his menu aside. "Yeah, you're right. I don't want to know." The tiniest of smirks graced his lips, as if he knew Kurt was going to tell him anyway.

Kurt sat silently for a few seconds before he felt that subconscious need to prove himself claw its way into his brain. "Well fine, if you must know, it was a matter of career differences."

"Career differences?"

"Yes, career differences. We met in this little sheet music store that he worked at, and he seemed perfectly content to work there for the rest of his life, and my New York aspirations were too big for him. He had Broadway dreams, too, but he didn't have the talent or the drive to get there."

Blaine narrowed his eyes slightly. "That's all?"

Kurt regarded him carefully, deciding how much he should reveal to someone who so freely judged him. "Well, I also caught him with another guy."

For a moment, Kurt thought that Blaine was going to laugh at him, but he just shrugged and pursed his lips. "I guess he is good in bed."

Kurt was about to be offended, but something about the way Blaine said it made laughter bubble up in his chest.

Once they had finished eating and the bill had come, Kurt carefully did the calculations in his head, talking himself quietly through the math as he added up his share. Blaine watched him almost fondly the whole time, eyes narrowed as if he were trying to figure something out.

Kurt triumphantly came up with the correct total and looked up to see Blaine looking at him. "What is it?" Blaine smiled a little, and Kurt panicked. "Do I have something on my face?" He covered his nose and mouth, wiping at nothing.

Blaine settled back with his arms crossed. "You're a very attractive person," he said at last, his eyes roaming over Kurt's face.

Kurt dropped his hands in surprise, then looked back down with the pretense of counting out his money to hide the surge of warmth that rushed through him at the compliment. "Thank you," he said coolly, as if he were used to accepting such things.

Blaine was still staring, and Kurt tried not to let his blush grow too deep at the attention. "Sebastian never mentioned how attractive you were."

Kurt glanced up and back down just as quickly. "Well, maybe he doesn't think I'm attractive," he said, trying to keep his voice level. He knew very well how Sebastian felt about him. The words 'gay face' floated in his mind as he shuffled his bills on the table.

Blaine leaned forward again and rested his folded arms on the table. "I don't think it's a matter of opinion. Empirically, you are attractive."

Kurt opened his mouth to reply, then thought better of it and stood up from the table. The part of his brain that was still preening and reeling at the compliment was warring with the other part that knew it wasn't right to accept such praise from Blaine, who was dating Sebastian. He knew that some people considered him attractive, but for it to come from Blaine, whose golden eyes and glossy dark curls made Kurt's heart stutter if he focused on them for too long made his thoughts stop working properly.

"Sebastian is my friend," he settled on finally, shooting Blaine a harsh look.

"So?"

"So you're going with him!"

"So?"

The part of his brain taking offense at the exchange was winning out. "So you're coming on to me!" He tried to keep his voice from growing shrill as he stepped back out of the restaurant and into the cool evening.

"No I wasn't!" Blaine insisted, but Kurt just stared at him with wide eyes and raised eyebrows, unable to come up with any better explanations. "Can't a gay man say another gay man is attractive without it being a come-on?"

Kurt started for the passenger door before he remembered it was his turn to drive, then began to go around to the other side and almost collided with Blaine. He threw up his hands in frustration and snaked around him, fumbling with the keys.

"Alright, so let's say, just for the sake of argument, that it was a come on. What do you want me to do about it? Take it back? Fine, I take it back." Blaine's voice rose to a level of emotion Kurt hadn't heard from him yet.

"You can't just take it back, it's already out there," Kurt argued shrilly.

Blaine threw up his hands. "Oh god, what are we going to do? Call the cops, it's already out there!" he said, voice heavy with sarcasm as he rolled his eyes.

Kurt finally managed to unlock the car and lifted his hands as if to stop any further verbal attacks. "Just let it lie," he asserted as he climbed into the car.

"Fine, let it lie. That's my policy," Blaine said in annoyance as he dropped into his seat. His mouth curled into a leering smile. "Want to spend the night in a motel?"

"Blaine."

The smile dropped from Blaine's face, replaced by his blank nonchalance. "See what I did? I didn't let it lie. I said I would and I didn't."

"Blaine."

"I went the other way."

"Blaine!" Kurt had just about reached his boiling point, and Blaine kept pushing him without so much as batting an eyelash.

"What?"

Kurt closed his eyes to regain control of his annoyance. "We are just going to be friends," he stated with finality.

Blaine stared at him for a minute before turning his attention to the windshield. "Great, friends. That's the best thing."

Kurt started the car and pulled out, happy to have won for once.

They made it a few more miles down the road before Blaine started again. "You realize of course that we can never be friends."

Kurt sighed. "And why not?"

"All I'm saying is - and this is not a come on in any way, shape, or form - is that two gay men can never be friends because the sex part always gets in the way."

Kurt thought about it for a minute while Blaine chewed at a toothpick. "That's not true," he decided.

"Sure it is," Blaine shrugged.

"Is not."

"It is too."

"Is not!"

Blaine sighed and shook his head. "Look, a gay man cannot be friends with another gay man that he finds attractive. It just doesn't work."

Kurt thought about his relationship with Sebastian, and a smile curled his lips as he found a flaw in Blaine's reasoning. "So you're saying that they can be friends if one of them finds the other unattractive."

Blaine considered it. "No, you pretty much want to nail them, too."

"No you don't," Kurt said, but it was less sure this time. He remembered back to his freshmen year at Chicago, when he'd first met Sebastian and been enraptured by his twinkling green eyes and easy smile, before he'd opened his mouth and proved how ugly his personality was. They'd still become friends despite it, but there had been a brief moment of attraction. Of course, Kurt didn't know how Sebastian felt, but he'd always figured that he thought Kurt wasn't worth his time.

"Yeah, you do."

"But what if they don't want to have sex with you?" Kurt reasoned, thinking again of Sebastian.

"It doesn't matter. The sex thing is already out there, the friendship is ultimately doomed, and that is the end of the story." Blaine stuck the toothpick back between his teeth and stared out the window.

Kurt looked over at him, his profile dark against the streetlamps streaming through the window. "Well, I guess we're not gonna be friends, then."

Blaine shrugged. "I guess not."

"That's too bad," Kurt said, a twinge of real disappointment hitting him. "You were the only person I knew in New York."

Despite Blaine's obnoxiously grating personality, it would have been nice to start the next chapter of his life with at least one friend. It wasn't so terrifying that way. Kurt didn't notice the way Blaine's face fell ever so slightly at the realization.

The next morning, Kurt was tired and frustrated over Blaine and traffic and driving all night, but he finally pulled up in front of Washington Square Park. The sun was shining brightly over the city, and Kurt felt an odd sense of peace temper the anxiety growing in the back of his mind. He and Blaine got out of the car at the same time, and Kurt followed him back to the trunk to open it for him.

Once Blaine had gathered his things, he closed the truck and looked awkwardly at Kurt. "Well, it was nice meeting you," he said lamely.

Kurt nodded. "Yeah, you too."

They stared at each other for a few long seconds, unsure of what to do. Kurt finally lifted his hand and offered Blaine a quick, impersonal handshake before walking back to the driver's side door and turning to watch him go. "Have a nice life!" he called at Blaine's retreating figure.

"Yeah, you too," Blaine offered over his shoulder.

Kurt watched Blaine walk out into the bustling crowds of New Yorkers, taking with him the last reminders of Kurt's old life. He felt a pang of longing to call out to him and try to be friends in spite of it all, but instead he did what he had always done, and climbed back into the car to start his life alone.