Five Years Later

Blaine checked his watch, breathing out a little sigh of relief when he realized he wasn't as late as he thought he was going to be. JFK airport was as busy and bustling as usual, and he figured that he might be able to grab a quick cup of coffee before he had to get to his gate.

Just as he was heading in that direction, rushing a little to get to his coffee, he did a double take as he passed a couple so completely intertwined that he couldn't tell at first that it was two men. Interest sparked, he backtracked a few steps and realized that he recognized the taller of the two, a blond that used to live in his building. He stared unabashedly for a few seconds until the other, slightly shorter and lankier, noticed him and pulled back from the kiss, enchanting blue eyes wide and blinking, his eyebrows drawn together in confusion. Somewhere deep in his mind, a memory prodded at him, but he couldn't place those eyes with a name, though he was sure he'd seen them before.

"Adam, I thought that was you!" he said to the blond man, who smiled good naturedly at the interruption. "Blaine Anderson," he reminded him, reaching out for a handshake.

Adam's grin grew as he shook Blaine's hand. "Blaine! It's been a while," he said, his accent just as thickly British as Blaine remembered. The other man seemed to be carefully avoiding Blaine's eyes, sneaking inconspicuous, wide-eyed glances at him whenever he thought Blaine wasn't looking. He turned around a few times as Blaine and Adam continued to chat, as if to hide his face.

"Are you still working at that theatre down on eleventh?" Blaine asked. From what he could recall, Adam worked crew for off-broadway productions and occasionally got lucky with chorus parts.

"No, no, they moved me up a little closer to the action. I'm on Broadway now, and I'm the musical director for an a cappella group back at NYADA."

"Impressive! I'm still working for Saunders. Still a nightmare," he half-joked. In his few years out of college, he'd landed a job for a playwright and his musical composition partner, but he mostly did revisions and grunt work. He tried to see it as just paying his dues before he could get off the ground and start his own composing, but his boss often made him feel like he was trapped in a rut.

Adam shot him a sympathetic look. "Oh, yeah. Oh!" he said suddenly, seeming to remember his companion, who was now almost completely turned into his shoulder. "Blaine, this is Kurt Hummel. Kurt, this is Blaine. We used to live in the same building."

Blaine's brow furrowed at the name, but still no spark of recognition came to him. He shook Kurt's hand, giving him a warm smile. Kurt kept staring at him with that same doe-eyed look, and it unnerved Blaine slightly. "Well, it was nice to see you, Adam, but I've gotta run." He nodded at Kurt. "Nice to meet you."

Kurt gave him a tiny nod and a fast smile, and Blaine looked at him awkwardly for a few more seconds as he tried to place him. When nothing came to him, he turned and walked quickly away, worrying that his allotted coffee time had been cut too short.

* * *

"Thank god he couldn't place me," Kurt sighed as he watched Blaine walk away. He turned back to see Adam regarding him with a quizzical look. "I drove from college to New York with him five years ago and it was the longest night of my life," he explained with a bitter edge to his voice. His old conversations with Blaine regarding his sex life and the old pang of disappointment at their scrapped friendship surfaced in Kurt's mind.

Adam glanced over Kurt's shoulder at Blaine's still-retreating figure. "What happened?"

Kurt waved his hand nonchalantly. "Oh, he made a pass at me and I said no because he was going with this good friend of mine..." he trailed off as he hit a roadblock in his memory. Whose boyfriend had Blaine been again? "Oh god, I can't even remember his name." He stared off to the side as if the businessmen in their suits held all of the answers in their briefcases. "Don't get involved with me, Adam, I'm twenty-six years old and I can't even remember the name of the guy I was such good friends with that I didn't get involved with his boyfriend." Kurt looked back at Adam, who was still staring at him in confusion. He got lost for a moment in the deep blue of Adam's eyes and the sharp cut of his cheekbones.

"Ah. So what happened?" Adam asked again.

Kurt smiled at him dreamily. "What happened when?"

"When he made a pass at you, you said no..." he prompted, circling his hand for Kurt to pick up the story.

"Oh! Well, I said we could just be friends." His brow drew together as he remembered very clearly the next part of the story. "And this part I remember - he said that two gay men could never really be friends." He paused, checking to make sure Adam was following him. "Do you think that's true?"

Adam thought about it for a second. "No."

"Do you have any gay men as friends? Just friends?"

He thought again. "No." Kurt's face fell a little, and Adam wrapped his arms around his slim waist. "But I will get one if it's important to you."

Kurt grinned happily and leaned in slowly for a kiss. "Sebastian Smythe!" he said in relief just as their lips were about to touch. "That was his name, thank god." He shook his head at his own absent mindedness.

Adam smiled at him, drawing his attention back. "I will miss you. I love you."

Kurt's grin grew wider. "You do?"

"Yes," Adam said easily, the same adoring smile on his lips.

Kurt felt his happiness seep into his toes. "I love you," he answered sweetly.

He gave Adam one last kiss goodbye, feeling lighter than air even as he walked away and boarded his plane.

***

Blaine tended to hate planes. Thankfully, he didn't have to travel often for work, so he got to stay on the ground most of the time. It wasn't exactly that he was afraid of heights, it was just that he hated people on planes. The seats were too close together, which made small talk inevitable, and then the awkward atmosphere grew and grew and he was never sure if he should try to keep up a conversation or let it lie. He was grateful this time around to be seated between a man engrossed in a thick novel and a woman preoccupied with a baby, so he was free to let his eyes and mind wander.

As the plane took off and leveled out, he noticed a familiar head of chestnut hair sitting just in front of him. He leaned forward in his seat, trying to catch a glimpse of his profile, and recognized him as the guy Adam had been with earlier. Blaine was still convinced that he had met this man before, but he couldn't for the life of him think of where. Just as he was about to reach forward to tap the man's shoulder and ask, the flight attendant reached his row to take drink orders.

"Do you have any Bloody Mary mix?" His voice sparked yet another wave of recognition in Blaine, but it still wasn't enough.

"Yes." The stewardess made to get the mix from her cart, but Kurt held out a hand to stop her.

"No, wait. Here's what I want. Regular tomato juice, filled up about three-quarters, and then a splash of Bloody Mary mix - but just a splash - and then a little piece of lime on the side." He said decisively.

Blaine grinned as the recognition finally clicked into place and memories of bickering over movies and apple pie a la mode washed back over him. He leaned forward a few more inches and nudged Kurt's shoulder, causing him and the balding man beside him to turn and stare. "University of Chicago."

Kurt smiled flatly. "Yes."

Though Blaine had already placed him, he still couldn't remember all the details of that night. He remembered being mildly attracted to Kurt, but the man sitting in front of him was nothing like the wide-eyed boy from five years ago. Kurt's features were more defined, giving him an almost elegant appearance, and he appeared to have grown a few inches and broadened out in the shoulders. He was dressed better, too, in a slimming, casual grey suit and navy tie. "Did you look this good at the University of Chicago?" he asked.

Kurt had turned his attention back to the front, but the balding man was still staring at Blaine. "No."

Blaine squinted, trying to remember. "Did we ever, uh...?" He gestured crudely with the arm that was slung casually over the seat.

Kurt batted it away. "No!" The man beside him looked especially amused now, and Kurt turned to him to explain. "We drove from Chicago to New York together five years ago."

The man nodded, smiling. "Would you two like to sit together?"

Kurt began to say no at the same time Blaine said, "Great!"

The two of them switched seats, and Blaine settled in next to Kurt. He was pretty sure he had the story figured out now. "You were good friends with..." he trailed off, trying to put a name to the sly smile he remembered.

Kurt rolled his eyes. "Sebastian." He shook his head. "I can't believe you don't remember his name."

Blaine nodded as the name struck a chord with his memory. "No, no, I remember. Sebastian Smith."

"Smythe," Kurt said with another eye roll.

Blaine shrugged. "Right, Smythe, that's what I said. Whatever happened to him?"

Kurt raised his eyebrows as he turned back to his copy of Skymall. "I have no idea."

"You have no idea what happened to the guy you were such good friends with? We didn't make it because you were such good friends with him." He remembered now the way that Kurt had turned him down cold when he'd made the slightest of passes at him.

Kurt stared back at him incredulously. "You went with him!"

Blaine smiled. "And was it worth it? The sacrifice you made for someone you don't even keep in touch with?"

The indifferent expression was back, but there was a glint in Kurt's bright eyes that hadn't been there before, and a sly smile was playing at the edges of his mouth. "Trust me, Blaine, I never considered not sleeping with you a sacrifice." He turned back to his magazine, evidently thinking that Blaine was finished.

"You were going to be a diver."

"A designer," Kurt corrected warily, fixing Blaine with an unimpressed stare.

"Right, that's what I said. How'd that work out?"

His lips twitched up briefly, but he composed himself quickly. "I am a designer. I work at Vogue," he said boredly.

Blaine nodded, wondering for a moment why he was the one to initiate the kind of small talk that he usually hated. There was something about Kurt, both now and that night five years ago, that had him intrigued. "And you're with Adam now," he continued.

Kurt didn't try to hide his smile this time. "Yes."

Blaine considered for a moment, thinking back to the scene he had stumbled upon at the airport. "You've been together what, three weeks?"

Kurt looked up at him, his carefully cool facade cracking. "A month." He searched Blaine's face with wide eyes that were reminiscent of the expression he wore five years before. "How'd you know?"

"You take someone to the airport, it's always the beginning of a relationship. That's why I've never taken anyone to the airport at the beginning of a relationship," he said easily.

"Why?" Kurt asked, one eyebrow arched.

"Because eventually things move on, and I never wanted anyone to say to me, 'How come you never take me to the airport anymore?'" He nodded once to punctuate his point.

Kurt stared at him, eyes narrowed and eyebrows raised. "It's amazing. You look like a normal person, but actually, you are the angel of death."

Blaine was unfazed. "Are you going to marry him?"

Kurt scoffed. "We have only known each other for a month, and neither of us is ready to get married right now," he recited slowly, turning away and shaking his head.

"Oh. I'm getting married," Blaine said into the rim of his drink.

"You are?" Kurt asked incredulously, giving Blaine his full attention again.

Blaine smiled. "Sure."

"You're getting married."

"Yes!"

Kurt still looked disbelieving. "To who?"

"Eli Coulson. He's a lawyer, and his name's going first," he said simply.

Kurt blinked rapidly, his expression torn somewhere between astonished and impressed. "You're getting married," he repeated.

Blaine nodded, unable to stress the point further. Kurt, who still looked slightly confused, started to laugh. "What's so funny about that?"

"Well," he sputtered slightly. "That's very optimistic of you, Blaine," he teased.

Blaine grinned and leaned back in his seat. "Well, you'd be surprised at what falling madly in love does for you."

Kurt smiled pleasantly. "I think that's wonderful. It's so nice to see you embracing life in this way," he said, his tone still mildly teasing.

"And you know, you get to the point where you just get tired of the whole thing." He looked over at Kurt, whose expression was slowly slipping back to unimpressed.

"What whole thing?"

Blaine quirked his eyebrows. "The whole life of a single guy thing." Kurt's raised eyebrows prompted him to continue. "You know, you meet someone, you do the safe lunch. Then you decide to move on to dinner. You go dancing, do the white man's overbite," he bit his bottom lip and demonstrated his signature move, which made Kurt scoff and roll his eyes, "and then you take him back to his place, you have sex, and the first thing that goes through your mind is 'how long do I have to lay here before I can get up and go home?'"

Kurt's brow furrowed. "That's what you think about?"

"Of course." He stared at Kurt searchingly for a moment. "You're the kind of guy that likes to stay all night, right? Wake up, maybe cuddle a little, have breakfast?" Kurt glared at him. "Right. Well, that's the problem."

Kurt blinked at him. "I don't have a problem," he challenged.

"Yeah, you do," Blaine shrugged.

***

Kurt had never been more happy to get off a plane in his life. Of course, once he was on the moving sidewalk and properly engrossed in a copy of Vogue, he felt someone brush up against him and turned to see that Blaine had caught up with him. He stared at him for a moment before turning back to his magazine.

"Staying over?" Blaine asked, his eyes fixed on the businessman in front of them.

Kurt glanced at him. Five years had done well for Blaine, as painful as it was to admit. His hair was a little shorter, and he had tamed the wild curls with product. The sweater vest and highwaters he was wearing were a far cry from the sweatshirt and ill-fitting jeans Kurt remembered. "Yes," he answered finally.

"Would you like to have dinner?"

A stab of frustration flared up in Kurt. Five years, and nothing had changed. Blaine was still invasive and cynical, and then acted as if none of it was a problem when Kurt made it clear that it was. It was exhausting. He swung his gaze toward Blaine, raising an eyebrow sardonically.

Blaine shrugged simply. "Just as friends," he assured him.

Kurt sighed. "I thought you believed gay men couldn't be just friends."

Blaine's thick eyebrows drew together. "When did I say that?"

"On the ride to New York," Kurt sighed, facing forward again.

"No, I never said that," he said. Kurt rolled his eyes and tried to ignore him. "Wait, yes. That's right. They can't be friends," Blaine decided solemnly. Kurt nodded along with him, eyeing the end of the sidewalk that was still too far away. "Unless," Blaine began again, "both of them are otherwise involved. This is an amendment to the previous rule; if both of them are in relationships, they can be friends."

Kurt shook his head as if to clear it and started walking, but Blaine easily kept up.

"No, that doesn't work either, because then the people you're in relationships with wonder why it's so important for you to have these friends. Then they wonder if something is missing from the relationship, and no matter how many times you tell them that there's not, they won't believe you. And then the person you're involved with starts accusing you of being secretly attracted to the person you're just friends with - which, let's face it, of course you are - which brings us back to the original rule. Gay men can't be friends. So where does that leave us?" He leaned forward, trying to catch Kurt's eye.

Kurt finally stopped walking and fixed Blaine with a withering stare. "Blaine."

"What?"

"Goodbye." He continued staring for a minute before turning around.

Blaine blinked at him. "Okay," he shrugged good-naturedly.

Kurt almost smiled, counting the experience as a victory, before he noticed that Blaine was still walking next to him.

"I'll just stop walking and let you go ahead," Blaine said, gesturing forward.

Kurt kept going, shaking his head as he went. He couldn't believe he'd run into Blaine Anderson again. What was worse, he couldn't believe he'd felt a slight twinge of disappointment when Blaine had proved to be the exact same person he had always been. Once again, Kurt found himself annoyed, confused, and alone in a strange city, having left behind the one person who could have changed it all.