The statement of frustrated near-despondence was more than a passing thought as he stared at the seemingly-endless pile of work to be done. Instead it was a thought that seemed to lurk beneath every broader topic, a kind of cynical hopelessness bubbling up every so often whenever it felt like something was expected of him.

When the Warblers talked about what they should be working on for the rest of the year, and Blaine's mind turned to the momentary promise of competing at Nationals. That had been a solid goal to work toward, something concrete with a date that they could prepare for rather than the sort of general "We should practice something" feel that had taken over the meetings of late. They had a few minor performances coming up around campus, but for the most part they were on a mini-vacation until the year-end festivities began to ramp up again in a few weeks. Then there would be grad night and graduation and probably a few parting serenades, but it all felt distant and unchallenging. The exuberance that had been there before whenever the Warblers talked about performing around campus was gone, dampened by the knowledge that what they thought was so simple - a bunch of boys singing together - was actually frowned-upon in so many other places.

He still wasn't sure why it hadn't occurred to him to look. He knew David had family far enough away that anything south of the Mason-Dixon line warranted a glance, but he...he should have known, right? He had grown up with his father's paranoia and obsessive attempts at blending in, he should have known that the man was trying to protect himself from something. Otherwise it would just be a mental illness, wouldn't it? And he did remember the comments people made at his old school, but somehow...somehow being around Kurt had made so much of his own guardedness dissipate in a way he didn't realize until it was long gone - like not realizing how much you've grown until you see photographs from last summer.

What were the Warblers meant to be doing? How were they supposed to go back to merrily doo-wopping along to popular hits when it felt like everything they unintentionally represented was under attack?

And that wasn't the only problem. With the impending end of the year came so many decisions to be made, so many potential avenues-

Staring at the stack of college materials on his desk, the choice seemed impossible. How was he supposed to plan out his entire future when it felt like the past few months had changed something so fundamental in him that he couldn't imagine where the next few months would leave him? How could he be expected to know what was right for him when everything felt so impossible?

How should he know where would be best for him when it felt like nowhere was safe? Going to college in his dorm room at Dalton didn't seem like a viable option, and the drive-in didn't sound much better. For all Kurt had talked about New York, there was no guarantee that it would actually be any better there. Not when everything that was illegal in Ohio was just as illegal in New York. Not when they still couldn't live any differently there than they did here, when everyone would still think they were wrong.

The acceptance letter from Columbia stared up at him like a challenge: risk it? Play it safe?

What was safe anymore? He didn't even know.

He heard a knock at the door that he knew came from Kurt - the boy had a very distinctive rap, authoritative and yet not demanding - and he slipped the four acceptance packages back into his drawer before he stood. As he opened the door, Kurt looked so enthusiastic it was almost painful. Clutching a flier in both hands, he practically bounced into the room and closed the door behind him, then looked at Blaine as if to say, "Ask me why I'm so happy right now."

Blaine saw little choice. "What's that?" he asked, indicating the flier as Kurt perched on the edge of the bed.

"We have a spring formal coming up," he stated proudly.

"Right," Blaine replied. He knew they did - they had one every year. He had been to most of them by minor force and extreme peer pressure, so he didn't understand why Kurt was so excited about the prospect of spending an entire evening surrounded by Warblers in ill-fitting tuxedos trying to show off enough to entice their dates - girls culled from a variety of sister schools, town hangouts, and cousins - to make out with them behind the social hall.

Maybe Kurt was planning to finally put into action his longstanding grand plan for social etiquette classes for the boys who weren't used to seeing girls more than twice a year. Maybe the light in his eyes was put there by dollar signs. Blaine couldn't blame him; the way some of the guys acted, there were high profits to be made if Kurt could tolerate them long enough to change their ways.

He, on the other hand, would fake as much enthusiasm as he possibly could while wishing the Warblers were performing instead of the band; at least then he would have the chance to express himself during the dance and feel a little less like he was suffocating as he tried to blend into the crowd, fade into the background. It was never easy when one went stag - suddenly boys were trying to walk a fine line between tossing their dates his way out of sympathy and keep their dates for themselves because who knew when they would have the opportunity to go out with a girl again? In either event, it made him all the more conspicuous.

He wondered if Jean-

He probably couldn't just call her up and ask her to go to a dance with him, could he? Not when they hadn't been out together in four months and hadn't spoken much in the interim. But taking a girl was definitely the only way to avoid drawing unwanted attention.

"Why aren't you excited?"

Blaine wasn't sure why he would be. "It's just a dance, Kurt."

"What about dances, Blaine?" Kurt sounded irritated by the flippant response.

"They're just...not that much fun is all," he replied. The way Kurt looked at him, eyes narrowed and trained on him fiercely, Blaine was struck by sudden fear.

Did Kurt want them to go-

No. For all his insistence that things weren't nearly as bad as Blaine knew they were, Kurt still had to have more self-preservation instinct than that. Surely. Surely he couldn't be foolish enough to think they could go together.

"I wouldn't know," Kurt replied. "I never got to go to mine."

"Really?"

"Who would I go with? Rachel was either trying to get Finn's attention, or last year she was dating Jesse before he broke her heart in a million pieces. And Mercedes was never allowed to set foot on the school grounds before. I usually helped a few girls select their dresses, helped a few boys coordinate their ensembles to their dates', then Mercedes and I would grab dinner and spend all evening as the only people in the movie theater. It was a nice ritual, but I thought this year might be better," he said, holding up the flier again as if to say 'exhibit A.'

But his question about who to go with did not make Blaine less uneasy.

"You...don't mean going with me, right?" Blaine asked.

Kurt stared at him. "Don't be ridiculous, Blaine. Even if you are my boyfriend, two boys can't go to a dance together," he stated as though it were the most insane thing he had ever heard, but his eyes were wistful. It didn't take an expert to know Kurt wished things were different...but at least he understood, Blaine consoled himself. At least Kurt understood the way things had to be.

"So I'll take Rachel," Kurt said with a fake brightness, clapping his hands together. "On the up-side, it does mean I'll get full outfit approval rights. She can look fantastic, it just requires praying the plaid from her cold, dead hands and forcing her into a hairstyle that doesn't make her look seven."

"You shouldn't be so hard on her all the time, you know, she's not so bad."

Kurt cocked his head, regarding Blaine carefully as though trying to figure out where the statement had come from. "I know that," he replied. "I've known that for longer than you have. She's eccentric and occasionally irritating, but she's also a good friend and better at keeping secrets than I feared. We're allowed to give each other a hard time."

"I'm just saying, you put her down a lot, and if you're dating her you shouldn't-"

"We're not really dating, Blaine, the regular rules don't apply." When Blaine didn't have anything to say to that, Kurt's face softened a little as he continued to lay out the plan. "We'll drive over to Lima to pick them up that Saturday afternoon. I'm not sure exactly what we'll do afterward, because driving to and from Lima twice in one night isn't exactly my idea of a good time and it's a pretty long trip back after the dance is over, but maybe if we spend the night at my house and get a start back Sunday morning-"

"Pick them up?" Blaine asked, cutting off Kurt's lengthy train of thought as he planned the entire weekend aloud.

"Hm?"

"You said we would go to Lima to pick them up?"

"Rachel and Mercedes," Kurt replied like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Anyway. It will mean dodging out of Sunday church and brunch, but that's nothing I haven't done before so we could be back here by-"

"I'm taking Mercedes?"

"Yes." Kurt looked at him with confusion, not sure why that was even a question. "Why? Who else would you take?"

It was a loaded question if ever Blaine saw one, and he knew what Kurt was waiting for: the name Jean to creep into the conversation. Or, for that matter, the name of any other girl he hadn't heard of before because that would clearly be a sign of something going on. Because if Blaine wanted to take a girl to be able to blend in, if he wanted to retain the ability to not attract attention, if he wanted to just feel normal for one night instead of thinking about all the ways people outside Dalton hated his mere existence, then clearly that was wrong. How dare he?

He took the simpler road. " Why can't you take Mercedes? She's your best friend."

"What's wrong with Mercedes?" Kurt asked defensively, and Blaine had to remind himself that it was probably just a reflex.

"Nothing," he replied honestly, raising his hands in a symbol of surrender. "But I've only met her once, and you've known her forever. I know Rachel a lot better, and I like her - I like her more than you do."

Kurt shook his head. "She's my fake girlfriend, get your own," he stated, then stopped. The change was barely perceptible - a tightening in his jaw, a slight narrowing in his eyes, a stiffness in his shoulders, his head tilting just to one side as he asked, "You like her, don't you?"

"I just said-"

"No, I mean...you want to take Rachel because you like her."

He didn't, but he might. He might, given time, and if he were going to be attracted to any girl she was probably the closest to his type, and she had an appreciation for music that surpassed that of any other girl he'd met including Jean, and she was ambitious which he could appreciate. She was quirky in a way he found adorable even when it was strange, and more importantly-

...if his first choice was unacceptable, she was a reasonable facsimile to be his second choice.

Because if New York didn't pan out, if it wasn't everything Kurt swore up and down it was going to be - the way he said that cities along the coasts were safe for them and it turned out they weren't...if the vision Kurt kept trying to paint for him that seemed to grow dimmer and less probable by the day was, in fact, merely an illusion that Kurt had talked himself into the same way he was trying to talk Blaine into it...

He needed a backup plan.

He didn't know why Kurt didn't understand that. Or maybe Kurt did understand the need for a backup plan but was in denial. He didn't know - to be entirely honest, he didn't care what the difference was. In either event, it meant that he was left staring at alternatives while Kurt tried to blithely swipe them off the table and tell him that if he just believed a little harder, it would be true. If he just pictured the lights of New York a little brighter, just envisioned the future a little warmer, just wished and hoped and closed his eyes and flew to Neverland, then he wouldn't have to ever grow up and take responsibility.

Whether he liked it or not, one day he was going to have to grow up. He would have to grow up and-...and give up music, and give up boys, and...at least Rachel would understand if it took him a little bit of an adjustment period. She would be going through an adjustment of her own, probably, when she was forced to grow up and abandon the Great White Way the way everyone had to.

Kurt stared at him as though there was something wrong with him for not being able to immediately deny that he liked Rachel, and it was the most repulsive he had felt in a long time. But what right did Kurt have to make him feel that way, anyway? Considering the naive fantasyland he inhabited, did he really get to cast stones just because Blaine lived in the real world and understood what was going to happen in the future?

He wished Kurt could be right, but he wasn't. Kurt was like one of those governors who stood on the front steps of a school as integration happened around them, convinced that if he just sang Dixie long enough and loud enough, the world would change into what he wanted it to be...only in this case Kurt stood on the steps of something crumbling and envisioned it rebuilt and resplendent, a glorious palace where only a worn-down pre-war brick facade remained.

He gave a small shrug, a flick of the eyebrows, and replied, "Maybe."

Kurt stood and stormed out. Blaine couldn't help but notice the way he clutched the flier to his chest, as though he was desperately trying to hold onto the image he had of what the dance could be; the fact that it would be nothing like that in reality...Kurt would never let himself acknowledge that. Blaine wasn't sure if it was more cruel to force him to face reality now, or to let something else jolt him into reality later.

He didn't know what he was supposed to be doing anymore.

* * * * *

Kurt could feel Blaine slipping away.

He couldn't put his finger on specifics for the most part. It was a lot of subtle things, a lot of what felt like a change but might have been nothing. For instance, maybe it just felt like Blaine was more tense than he used to be. Maybe he wasn't. Maybe they were mutually more tense because there were finals coming up before very long, and that was the reason that most of their conversations felt so much more awkward.

But that didn't explain the way Blaine got so quiet around him now. Had they always been like this? Kurt swore they used to chatter on about everything under the sun...but maybe that had just been exaggerated in his memory. After all, that made it seem like they couldn't be silent together with one another, and that wasn't the case. He knew there had been times they just laid together, listening to music on Blaine's bed, curled together and touching but not doing anything overtly sexual...they were silent then, and it was comfortable. Now it felt like two people i the same room who were trying to avoid each other.

It used to feel good, right? It used to feel amazing?

And then the idea of Blaine saying maybe he liked Rachel- he didn't. That much was obvious. He was scared. He was afraid because he had thought for some reason that Baltimore was supposed to represent hope or something - Kurt didn't know why, of all the cities in the world he would never have selected Baltimore as an indicator of class, culture, or tolerance, but in any event...Blaine was upset over Nationals. He didn't actually like Rachel, he liked the idea of things being easy. He liked the idea of feeling normal: that had been Blaine's modus operandi for the entire time Kurt had known him. He didn't want anyone to know his family background, he was terrified of anyone finding out his secret attractions, he didn't want anyone to know anything about him that might mean he wasn't the picture perfect everything.

But Kurt had something stronger on his side. He had truth. He had love. And once Blaine realized that there was absolutely no chemistry with Rachel - and there could never be because Rachel was a girl and Blaine was a homosexual - it would be like Jean. Once Blaine knew what his options were, he would pick Kurt just like he had picked him over Jean, who had been perfectly nice enough but not what Blaine needed.

The problem was getting to a point where it felt like that was a reasonable choice to make.

Blaine wasn't going to retain his belief in their glorious future together if he felt like everything was as tense and terse as Kurt felt like they were. They needed to get back to a good place first. They needed to stop feeling quite so...hopeless with one another.

Relationships were about hope, not about fear. He just needed to make sure Blaine could remember that. This was a setback, but not a fatal one.

He hoped, at least.

No - not hoped. He knew. He knew himself, he knew Blaine, he knew the two of them together. There was no one else he would rather be with, rather be around, than Blaine. And he knew that Blaine felt similarly.

He just needed to remind Blaine of that.

All it would take was one good date, he was sure of it. One good date night, one night where they could relax and Blaine could let himself believe again...because he had believed it at one point. Kurt thought so, at least - if Blaine hadn't actually believed it in the first place, then his beliefs couldn't very well have been shaken like this, could they? A loss of faith required faith in the first place. If he had gotten Blaine to believe in their future once, surely he could do it again by bringing them back to that place...

That was it. That was the answer.

There had been two places they had ever been able to be completely themselves together: Blaine's room, which of late hadn't been much help, and the drive-in. That's where they could go. Blaine would feel safe there, they would see other people like them, and that would be enough. In an ideal world, he would ask Rachel to set up dinner for them with her dad and Leroy again, but considering he wanted Blaine and Rachel to have as little time together as possible right now that didn't seem like the best option. But the drive-in...

Quite pleased with himself, he strode toward the senior dorms. At the sign-in desk, where copies of both the local paper and the Columbus Post-Dispatch resided daily for students to keep up with current events, Kurt paused long enough to snag the poorly-refolded copy of the Post-Dispatch; the drive-in wasn't close enough to Westerville to print movie times there. Someone had been reading the sports section last, he knew, because that was what stared up at him. How could these boys, Kurt wondered, many of whom would be attending Ivy League universities in the fall, be unable to handle something as simple as refolding a newspaper correctly. Honestly. He really should think about teaching etiquette classes; it was a little late for this year, but he supposed that were he to find a suitable location somewhere between Lima and Dalton it wouldn't be a horrible way to earn money after school or on the weekends. And there were plenty of all-boys schools in the area, he knew that much from the selection process last summer. The Kurt Hummel Academy for Young Men in Training - he liked the sound of that. He and Blaine could talk about it on their date, since Blaine had at one point had an aversion to his discussing anything of the kind where people might hear them.

See? he reminded himself. There had been times they were worse together than they were now. At Sectionals, when Blaine had outright shushed him and told him to stop talking about understanding what girls liked in potential dates in public...that had been far more tense than they were now. He had nothing to worry about. They were fine, this was just a minor stumbling block.

Blaine answered the door after he rapped twice. "Kurt."

"Hey," he replied, smiling. Blaine stepped back automatically to allow him in as if by habit rather than out of a desire to actually have him inside, but Kurt didn't care. He would be able to fix this. The Bill Haley record playing in the background was unusual but not unprecedented - Blaine's taste in music was eclectic, certainly, and usually when the singer was female it was Kurt's doing (with Judy Garland or any soundtrack being a noted exception).

Now he was reading into Blaine's music choice to do homework. This was what the tension was doing to him, it was making him crazy. But that would all be fine after Friday.

"We're going out this weekend," he stated as he perched on Blaine's desk chair.

"We are?"

"Yes," Kurt replied, brandishing the paper for a moment before he set to refolding it the right way. "Things have been strained lately, and I understand - you've been worried. You were blindsided by what happened with Nationals, and I can appreciate that. But what we need to do isn't to slow things down - we just need to take time together. So we'll go out this weekend - to the drive-in."

Blaine's smile was faint, hesitant, but genuine. "What's playing?" he asked, moving to look over Kurt's shoulder.

"That's what I'm trying to look up now," he stated as he finally realigned the sections to their proper order. "Maybe it'll be another Judy Garland - I'm in the mood for Meet Me in St. Lou-"

The drive-in showtimes were usually in the Arts and Entertainment section, after the Sports but before the circulars, sometimes shoved onto a back page next to advertisements for the automat downtown. It was generally a small box, as the place was small and out of the way and didn't bring in the kind of money or traffic to warrant a large splashy ad like the one near Polaris always ran. It often took Kurt - or Sam, whoever was looking for it - a few minutes to find the listing.

Which was why the last place Kurt ever expected to see their drive-in was on the front page.

17 Perverts Nabbed in Crackdown

It felt for a moment like he couldn't breathe. That-...that had to be a mistake, right? There was on way that-...that something like happened at the bar in Columbus would happen there, could it? Bars were places people could get rowdy, it was somewhere that a person might be considered disorderly and therefore have cause to be arrested - he had seen more than his share of local drunks outside one of the bars in Lima too late on a Sunday or too early on a Friday, arguing and being belligerent with officers. But no one so much as spoke to anyone else at the drive-in. He had never seen anyone else exchange even a few words, it was all glances and nods and smiles. What in the world could they be arresting people for?

The sub-headline wasn't much better: Drive-In Hosts Underground Cabal of Immoral Conduct - and the picture beneath it was so surreal. There it was, their drive-in, with the little snack stand they had sent Rachel to so they could have a few minutes alone, the screen flanked by thatches of pine trees, the screen still playing some film in black and white but mostly blocked by the police paddy wagon. A few men were being loaded into it, hands held up to obscure their faces.

That was their place.

Did they know those men? Kurt felt like they should have, they had been there twice and it felt like home and surely they knew some of the homosexuals being arrested-

But it still didn't make any sense. How could something like that happen-

County officers were dispatched to the Pineview Drive-In on Sparrow Road outside Hilliard after receiving a tip that the drive-in was in violation of state liquor laws which prohibit the service of spirits to known or open homosexuals, as well as in violation of a city ordinance which prohibits the gathering of more than three deviants for the purposes of committing a felony.

When officers arrived, they found nineteen men and four teenagers. The patrons were informed that they were violating the city ordinance, and six of the men left. The remaining seventeen were arrested; of these, six have been charged with lewd conduct in a public place, crimes against nature, and sodomy. Two habitual reoffenders were referred to Belleview for pretrial treatment and detention as is customary for psychopathic offenders. Four were charged with violation of the city ordinance only and have been released from custody; likewise, five were released after proof of identity was established and will not be charged.

His hands were quivering by the time he reached the end of the first portion of the article. He needed to turn to page A4, it told him, but he couldn't quite get his fingers to cooperate.

It could have been them. Any other weekend- It could have so easily been them. They could have been arrested for watching a movie. Nothing more. How was that even possible?

There had to be an explanation, he knew. There had to be some explanation of what precisely these men had done wrong that meant being arrested. With that in mind, Kurt drew in a deep breath and turned to page A4.

Staring up at him were fourteen mug shots. Fourteen men - no; ten men and four boys his own age - stared back at him, arranged neatly in two lies of five and one line of four, right there in black and white. Beneath each photograph was a name and city, identifying the man and where he was from. Where he lived. Where he could be found and derided and mocked and harassed because now everyone would know his secret.

It could have been them.

There could have been sixteen photographs, including one that read "Kurt Hummel, Lima", and that-

He looked up at Blaine, needing desperately to know that this wasn't the only place, to remind himself that Ohio was but a holding grounds until they could get somewhere safe; Blaine's face was positively ashen as he stared at the pictures. Kurt knew he was imagining his father seeing a photograph with the name "Blaine Anderson" under it. How the elder Anderson would explain that to his professional colleagues, Kurt could only guess.

Blaine reached past Kurt's shoulder to point at one photograph: a sullen man in his thirties whose head practically hung even as the picture was taken. He looked ashamed and as though he was trying so hard to disappear it was almost curving his spine. "We saw him," he said quietly. "The first night."

Blaine was right. Glancing across the rows, Kurt pointed to a second man. "This was his lover." The man looked so much younger in the photograph than in the dim light of the parking lot that it was almost comical to see the two pictures near each other. In person it had been obvious they were near the same age as one another, but here...maybe it was because the second man appeared terrified.

More terrified than Kurt appeared, though not by much.

Blaine wanted to be able to say something that would make Kurt feel better. He wanted to be able to reassure him, to say that they would have been lucky. To say that maybe there was a reason they hadn't gone last weekend, some sort of divine protection, but neither of them put much stock in dogmatic explanations. But the truth was...this was exactly what he had been afraid of. This was precisely what had made him fear the first time they had gone to the drive-in, it was what made him nervous going back even though the positive experience with Kurt the first time had been able to override his trepidation. He had known something like this could happen-

And Kurt hadn't.

As blindsided as he had been by the revelations about Baltimore, now Kurt was about their lack of safety at the one place in Ohio that had seemed secure.

As much as he had wanted Kurt to understand...he hadn't wanted this.

"Come here," he urged Kurt quietly, holding out his hand, and Kurt took it and allowed himself to be led across the room. Lying down, Blaine opened his arms and quickly found Kurt within his embrace.

"I'm sorry," Kurt whispered, shaking his head. "I know it's stupid to-...I thought-..." His voice cracked, and Blaine rubbed his back wishing there was anything he could say. "It was supposed to be safe," he managed finally.

Blaine didn't know how to tell him that nowhere was safe. As much as he wanted to be honest with Kurt, to tell him that this was indicative of everything else as long as they were together, as long as they were what they were-...he couldn't do that. He couldn't hurt the boy worse than he was already aching.

He knew too well how that felt, and he couldn't-

"It's just Ohio," he said quietly, and he felt Kurt nod against his chest. "It's just one stupid place..."

He didn't believe that for a second, but it didn't matter because Kurt did. Kurt sniffed, nodded again, and pulled back to look him in the eye. "This couldn't happen in New York," he stated with the utmost conviction, but it was obvious he was trying to convince himself a little as well. "This...this wouldn't happen there. It couldn't. I was reading - there's an organization there of homosexuals. An entire group with a magazine and meetings and everything. It only happens here because there are too few of us - when we get there? Once we find other people, we'll be safe."

Blaine didn't know how to point out that the problem here wasn't a lack of people - in fact, had it just been the two of them at a drive-in somewhere else, the police wouldn't have been tipped off. And he had no idea where that left him, because if the only way he knew to be safe was to blend in, but it turned out that the more people like one's self were around the more danger it created, how precisely was he supposed to ever find a place?

...To appear normal in a group of other normal people, even if that wasn't how he felt.

"I'll go to the dance with Mercedes," he said quietly, and Kurt stared at him, wondering where the comment had come from.

"Really."

"Yeah," he replied. "It would attract more attention if suddenly I was dating your girlfriend, wouldn't it?"

"Probably. I think only Sam has met her-"

"And a few Warblers at competitions."

"That's right," Kurt acknowledged. She had come over to congratulate him after their duet and insisted on being introduced to any Warblers who happened by. Then she had tried to cajole Kurt into kissing her in public "for appearances' sake"; as far as Blaine could tell from the conversation, despite the fact that they had been dating for more than seven months they had yet to actually kiss. He could only imagine how many arguments that had caused - Rachel was very serious about her acting.

"So we'll go - the four of us," Blaine confirmed. Kurt nodded, looping his arms around Blaine's waist as he leaned in for a quick kiss. That was what was important...whether Blaine believed the rationale or not.