A few days later, Kurt came home early with a numbness from head to toe. His eyes stung as he drove from McKinley, his foot pressing on the petal enough to earn annoyed honks from the other drivers on the road. He didn’t want to think of what had just happened, it had never even occurred to him that it would. He ran inside to an empty house trying to hold back his tears. Burt and Carole were still at work, Finn was back at school- he had a few hours. Despite the rather abrupt ending to Blaine’s and his conversation the night before, he knew he had only one person to go to. Even if that person was only in his head.

He was already there when he had reached his bathroom. The neat cursive of Blaine's words quickly wrote itself upon the glass.

What happened?

Kurt began to sob not caring to hold back the tears anymore. “It was Karofsky…he p-pushed me into the lockers again. I was just going to ignore it,” he took a breath. “But then I thought of you and what you said about having courage.” he took an unsteady breath. “I went after him, cornered him in the guy’s locker room. He s-started threatening and yelling at me, I thought he was going to b-beat me up since there would be no one to witness anything, but he didn’t.” The next part came out in a broken whisper.

“Blaine, he kissed me.”

Blaine made a silent gasp, his eyes were open wide with a hand over his mouth. He went up to the mirror immediately placing his other on the glass.

“No!” he yelled backing away from the mirror. Blaine’s hand flinched away. “I am so tired of you! Every time I’m going through something all I get from you is pity and sympathy! How does that do any good? I spill out everything that I am and tell you all about the pain I suffice and I just get an ‘I’m sorry’? You don’t even talk and the closest we’ve ever been near each other is blocked by a sheet of glass! Why can’t I have a shoulder to lean on or a boy to hold me? We literally can’t be together Blaine! Don’t you realize that what we have isn’t always enough for me? It doesn't even matter that you told me that you love me, what's the point of that when nothing can literally happen between us!”

Blaine just stared at him with worried eyes and Kurt let out an unamused laugh.

“God I am so stupid. I keep forgetting that you’re not even real. You’re just this stupid idea stuck in my mind all these years as an outlet for me to feel sorry for myself. I make up these emotions to make myself feel better. Isn’t that how imaginary friends work? They’re only there when you’re upset or need help. That’s what you are, Blaine. Imaginary.

"That's how pathetic I am because I've had to rely this mirage for almost eight years now. I've never had many friends, and the ones I do have are always being chased away by me. Mercedes is suppose to be my best friend, but look how I've blown her off almost three times just this month when all she wanted to do was hang out. I'm so addicted to this image that I've created that I can't even be around other people, even when most despise me anyway. They hate who I am, how I dress, how I act, but that's me and the person who accepts me the most isn't even real! So fuck you "Blaine", and I hope I never have to see you again."

When he stopped Blaine had tears forming in his eyes. Kurt wiped his own away with the back of his hand. “God, just disappear or something.” he voice hard as he looked away from the most pained expression plastered on the boy‘s face. He glanced back up a few seconds later to only see his cold reflection staring back at him. Blaine was gone. Kurt collapsed onto his vanity and began crying again.

________________________________________

No. No.

Blaine fell to the floor in front of his bedroom mirror. He sat in silence, the same way he always did when he and Kurt were together, the boy that no longer believed that he was real. The boy he loved thought that he was just a figment of his imagination, but he couldn’t have been more wrong. Finally a broken sob escaped from his tightly pressed lips and he clutched his stomach as if he were going to be sick. He looked up to his mirror hoping, praying that Kurt’s image would be there waiting for him. It wasn’t.

“I am so tired of you!” The words pricked at his eyes. The anger in Kurt’s voice, it beat down his heart and he couldn’t do anything to stop it.

"Don’t you realize that what we have isn’t always enough for me?” Blaine did because it wasn’t enough for him either. All he wanted to do was to hold Kurt, to kiss him and make him happy, but he couldn’t do that.

Blaine stared up to the foggy mirror before him that no longer held the clear sharp image of Kurt in his bathroom that was always nearly spotless. That’s how it always looked when Kurt wasn’t there waiting for him, though the haze was particularly haunting right now. As long as Kurt didn’t want him there, Blaine had no way of seeing him, only the dull fog in the glass that didn’t even reflect what was in his bedroom. Blaine reached a hand to touch the glass. “Kurt, please.” He began to sob, the tears now freely flowing down his face. “Please Kurt I need you.” Of course nothing happened though. Kurt was the one who had to need him, it never worked the other way around. Blaine was the guardian, it was his job to watch over from his mirror, to be there when his mirror mate was in need even if he needed him too.

There was a knock at the door.

“Blaine, it‘s Nick.” a voice called. “Are you okay?” Blaine just wailed in response. “I’m coming in, okay?”

Nick opened the door and ran over when he saw his friend curled up on the ground. “Blaine, what the hell happened?”

“K-Kurt.” his voice croaked.

Nick’s eyes widened. “Did something happen to him? Is he okay?”

“N-no. B-but he was screaming at m-me, Nick. He s-said that I w-wasn’t real. That I w-was in his head.”

His friend got down on his knees and reached out to hug the mess of a boy in front of him. “Oh, Blaine.”

“H-he doesn’t even l-love me.” Blaine sobbed into the other boy’s shoulder. “What am I going t-to do?”

Nick pulled away taking out a handkerchief from his coat pocket and handing it to his friend. “Here.” Blaine choked out a ‘thank you’ before blowing his nose. “Look, you and Kurt are meant to be together. Whatever just happened between you two isn’t going to stick. Remember the other day when you told me how Kurt told you that you looked handsome in your new sweater and afterwords was blushing terribly?” Blaine nodded. “He totally loves you.”

“I just told you that he doesn’t think I’m real.” Blaine scoffed, his voice muffled by the handkerchief. He was beginning to calm down.

“Sometimes telling yourself that something isn’t real makes it easier.”

Blaine sighed. “Well if that’s true how am I going to convince him otherwise? He has to want me to see him and even if he did that doesn’t mean…what the hell are you smiling about, Nick?

His friend laughed and pointed to the large mirror before them which had begun to give off a luminous glow. “Look.”

Blaine turned his head and gasped. “But that means…”

“You’re going home, Blaine.”

________________________________________

Kurt had been crying in his bathroom for almost thirty minutes when Blaine had disappeared. He was scared and alone, Karofsky had forced himself onto him and he was so frightened that it would happen again. He was too scared to tell anyone and too ashamed of himself for letting this happen. He knew he shouldn't have stood up for himself, look where it got him.

There was nobody to talk to, not even the boy in his head and even that had hurt him for how real it all felt. He remembers the time when he was younger and had gone to a shrink for a few times after his mother’s death. He had told his father all about Blaine and how he was his best friend. His father thought that this was normal at first, a coping method for him to use in the form of an imaginary friend, even if Kurt was a little old for those. Kurt never stopped talking about Blaine though, even after a year with his mother gone and was still not making too many friends at school. Being a concerned parent of course, Burt went to go seek help. The shrink had tried after a few visits to convince nine year old Kurt that his friend stuck in the mirror wasn’t real. Of course he didn’t like hearing that however and began to yell at the plump old man that he wasn’t lying and quickly kicked him in the shin before stomping out. Needless to say, Kurt never went back there again. The night after the visit Kurt told Blaine all about his visit to the “crazy doctor” which only worried the boy in the mirror.

“-And then I left! Well actually daddy made me say sorry to the man before we could leave. I didn’t mean it when I said it though, he said you just in my head! Blaine?” Kurt cocked his head to the right when he saw the other boy frowning. “Why do you look so sad?”

you kno i’m real right?

Kurt scoffed. “Of course I know you’re real, silly!” Blaine’s smile returned and the two pressed their palms together. A feeling of warmth and comfort drifted through their bodies…

Kurt shook his head away from the memory. “He’s not real.” he thought, but the feeling of regret still managed to linger and the feelings of Blaine still scratched at his skin.

Shedding away the last of his tears, Kurt reached to turn his sink faucet on. After splashing the cool water against his skin, he reached over to grab a towel when he saw Blaine once again standing in the mirror.

“What are you still doing here?” he snapped. “I told you to go.”

“Kurt.”

He froze when he heard the voice that matched the boy’s lips in the mirror. “Blaine?” he called back, but then realized that the voice had come from behind him and not from the mirror. Kurt sucked in a breath before standing up and turning around. There, standing on his bathroom tile, was no other than Blaine himself.