The friends thing lasts for about five months, once Blaine gets to New York.

After a whole year in the big city, Kurt has become settled in his life, comfortable, but everything is brand new to Blaine. There's dorm life to get used to (not to mention his roommate's bizarre grooming habits – there is no reason, ever, to save toenail clippings), and no shortage of people to meet. There are a capella choirs and theater clubs and practically free tickets to Broadway shows available to him every weekend. There are lectures and readings and papers, and classes so big the TA will never know his name, much less the professor. It's a whirlwind and so exhausting that the city noise never keeps him up at night. And still, he makes time to see Kurt.

Kurt has designated himself Blaine's official tour guide. They spend weekends exploring this world of a city that even Kurt's only just begun to know. They go to karaoke every week with Rachel and Brody and watch Project Runway together in Bushwick every Thursday. They're best friends, again.

Things start to get complicated.

He stays over one night, when it gets late and he doesn't want to take the subway back into Manhattan, and he sleeps in Kurt's bed. They start the night stiffly held on separate sides and wake up with Blaine's nose burrowed into that soft space at the base of Kurt's neck and Kurt's arm draped heavily over his waist.

They go to parties together, sophisticated work parties and stupid dorm parties and, once, an even stupider frat party. They both drink in wary moderation, except for that one time when Kurt downs so many cosmos he can barely stand, and he kisses Blaine against a wall until they're both panting and, god, so desperate. And that time when they've both had too much and they make out on Blaine's bed until his roommate comes home and they pretend, badly, to be asleep until they actually are.

They don't talk about these things, in the morning.

Kurt goes out on dates with all sorts of suitable people, older guys with jobs at the website and, once, a male model. He gives Blaine a shifty-eyed look the first time he mentions that someone asked him out, but Blaine tells him with genuine goodwill that it doesn't bother him and that they should be able to talk about these things.

If he doesn't necessarily like it, well, that's no one's business but his.

Kurt doesn't see any of them more than a couple of times, despite Blaine's subtle and Rachel's not-so-subtle encouragement.

Blaine doesn't date. He goes to bars with his friend Toby sometimes, because Toby is a sophomore and knows where they'll get carded and where they won't. Blaine plays the part of wingman like he was born to it, but he shies away from the offers he gets, himself. He's told himself he wouldn't do this anymore.

He toys with the idea of going out to a real dance club, sometimes, alone, just an anonymous face with an anonymous body in a sea of people tied together only by the thread of the beat. It pulls at him. He puts it out of his mind.

Toby is the one who brings it up. Midterms are over, and Blaine's audition for Tisch is next week, and he's absolutely itching to blow off some steam.

"There's nothing like it for stress relief," says Toby. "How do you think I made it through finals last year?"

Blaine agrees, immediately, and calls Kurt to get him on board. It doesn't take much convincing.

Toby gives Blaine what he refers to as a "club makeover," which really just seems to entail dressing him in uncomfortably tight jeans and a v-neck t-shirt and swiping glitter over his cheekbones.

"Trust me," he says with a wink. "You'll thank me for it later."

The club is huge, and packed with dancing bodies. It's dark and bright all at the same time, colored light shifting constantly, carving out highlights and deepening the hollows left by muscle and bone. The music has a throbbing bass line that has Blaine's body moving without his consent.

It's overwhelming. It's exhilarating. Kurt doesn't look entirely comfortable.

Blaine steers them over to the bar.

"It's a little much, don't you think?" yells Kurt, right next to his ear. It's the only way to make himself heard.

"I don't know, it could be fun."

He's aching to get out to the dance floor.

They do shots and order cocktails, because they're in the city and no one needs to be designated driver. Someone asks Kurt to dance, but he turns him down.

"You don't want to dance?"

Kurt knocks back the rest of his drink. He turns around and attempts to flag down the bartender.

"Maybe later."

Some guy approaches Blaine with a hunger in his eyes that Blaine feels calling back in his gut. He buys Blaine a drink and tugs him out to the dance floor.

It's easy to lose himself, out there. It's familiar and so good, feeling this guy's body against his, heavy hands weighing warm against his back, moving together to the beat that's coursing through them and setting their pulses in synchrony.

If he thought about it, he'd know where this was leading. He doesn't think.

Kurt must, though, because it could be hours or it could be minutes, but it feels like all of a sudden that he's there, cutting in. Blaine lets his body sink into Kurt's, nuzzles his nose right up under Kurt's jaw, no longer thinking or caring even at all about No Name Guy who was breathing into his ear only seconds ago.

It's sweet here, solid and familiar and just so sweet-hot-good. He wants to wind himself up in this skin, just melt his body and sink right in and stay there forever. He presses their bodies close, so close, but never close enough.

Kurt stops moving, abruptly, and plants a guiding hand low on Blaine's back. Blaine can feel his pulse racing through his palm and hear the panting of his breath. Kurt won't meet his eyes.

"I think maybe we should go," he says, and Blaine wants to protest, but he promised they'd leave when Kurt wanted to, so he doesn't.

Kurt lets Blaine lean into him on the subway and ramble on about how he wants to go back there to that dance floor every night. He walks him up to his dorm room and doesn't stay the night.

Things are kind of weird for weeks after that. They get into a fight when Blaine tries to have a conversation about it, the kind they haven't had in so long they've almost forgotten how to do it. Almost.

They both say some ugly things, but Kurt is there the next day, waiting outside of Blaine's building with cooling coffee and an apology on his lips.

They talk.

They both still have issues, it seems, from last year.

Blaine isn't an idiot. He knows where things are going between them. He's just...terrified. He never wants to be that person he was, ever again.

He feels it, sometimes, the yearning of his heart to hand itself over, but he can't let it. He absolutely won't allow himself to build his happiness around just one person, not when he knows where that can lead.

They push at each other and pull. They're best friends, and they're more, and they don't talk about it.

Until they do.

It's the day before Valentine's. It's not in the heat of the moment, but the calm, when Kurt looks into his eyes and says, "I've never not been in love with you, you know."

It's suddenly hard to breathe, but Blaine manages anyway.

"Kurt."

"Can we just...stop pretending? I don't want to feel for anybody the way I feel for you, not ever. I want us to work this time, Blaine. I want to work at it every day with you. I don't care if it will be hard, I don't, because I'm just – I'm so tired of holding back."

Their faces are close, their eyes locked. Kurt is so clearly riding on the edge of something desperate, his eyes wide and willing Blaine to just, finally, listen. And Blaine wants to, he really does, but the fear in his gut won't stop casting up white noise. The silence between them stretches until the tension is almost too much to bear. Kurt is just starting to wilt into disappointment. Blaine's heart gives a violent tug, and it hits him, in a crystalline moment of clarity.

He's still running away.

Giving in to his fear is just another way of handing over control.

And, god, but he's tired of holding back, too.

He's a different person now, and so is Kurt. They'll never get back what they had, and Blaine wouldn't want to. They can build something new. Really, they already have.

A sense of calm settles over him, warm and lovely. He breathes in.

He reaches out and cups the curve of Kurt's jaw in his hand. He nods.

"Okay."

Kurt lights up so beautifully and leans in until their foreheads are touching.

"Can I?" he murmurs.

Blaine smiles and pulls him gently in.

It's their last first kiss.