The Grad Night bonfire was one of those charming Dalton traditions that was spoken of like a universal rite of passage that would never die under any circumstances. In truth, Kurt almost wished he were staying around another year to be part of it - there was an excitement in the air as the seniors all stood in their uniforms around a roaring fire (buckets at the ready just out of the way of clumsy boys), paraphernalia tucked into jacket pockets, waiting for the moment of the big reveal when they would one by one, reveal where they would be come September. He saw Rick setting up frankfurters and roasting forks over near the bottles of soda pop, which he could only assume meant the well-trained, well-groomed boys would be ditching their blazers and setting their dinner on fire as soon as the school choices were displayed and congratulations issued. The entire affair had a festive feel, a celebration both of having gotten into the many prestigious schools that were represented by pennants and sweaters and ties, and of surviving four years of Dalton's rigorous curriculum.

In a way, Kurt felt like it was a celebration for him, too. Considering Dalton was a place he had never wanted to have to go, he had certainly made the best of it all. He had come into a world that was nothing like anything he had ever known, where every rule and social cue was different, and managed to fit in better than he ever had in Lima - all without losing everything he liked about himself. The work was harder, but the people were kinder and he had certainly thrived academically; no one at McKinley could challenge his academic record from this year, that was for sure. He had met some fantastic boys and made some incredible music...gotten his first solo and his first duet... While he was looking forward to returning home and getting the year he and Mercedes had been looking forward to for as long as he could remember, while he couldn't wait to settle back into his bedroom with its privacy and plush linens, while he was practically jumping for joy at the fact that he was going to get to wear his own clothing again (and did he ever have a lot of shopping to do over the summer, he was an entire year behind!)...a part of him was really going to miss this place.

He felt like a wholly different person than he had been in September, as though every bit of him had changed, and he really liked the person he had become. Nine months ago, he had jumped up and down and waved to be noticed; now, he could let people see who he was more deeply, more honestly, and without screaming it from center stage. Nine months ago, he didn't understand why he felt wrong - now he knew, and he knew that he wasn't. Nine months ago, he had never understood what all this 'love' fuss was about...and now he knew. So much was different now, so much of him was different, and he was much happier for it.

Yes; Kurt Hummel had had a pretty good year.

The only non-seniors standing around the fire were his fellow Warblers; they had performed earlier as people arrived, so that by the time they closed their set with Rama Lama Ding Dong, the onlookers were cheering and dancing along with them. It reminded Kurt of his first day at Dalton, of seeing the Warblers for the first time. They really were like Elvis, he knew now; he would miss that when he returned to McKinley. It was nice to be at the top of the social foodchain, even if that did make him a little bit shallow. It felt nice to be cheered for, to be wanted. He hadn't known that feeling when he transferred - now he was almost too used to it. It would be quite an adjustment period to go back...though with everything going on, he doubted that the glee club would be the main target of hatred from the rest of the school.

Things really were simpler here, but he wasn't going to change his dreams for sake of making things easier for himself. He had never been that person and wasn't about to start now. Besides, he would get his own in a year when he was living his dream in Manhattan with Blaine and Rachel and maybe Mercedes if she wanted. It would all be more than worth it.

But for the moment, he could let himself enjoy this night - this celebration of accomplishment and symbolic moving-on. His life was good and about to get even better. What was not to celebrate?

He grinned at Blaine, who had taken his place in the circle around the fire. Things were shaky, but they were better than they had been. Blaine had given him the dance he was owed - they couldn't move very much, but Kurt had been more than content to let Blaine hold him close as they turned in tiny circles between Blaine's bed and his desk to the strains of the Peguins' "Earth Angel". They felt more normal again...still not perfect, no but not nearly as desperate as things had felt the night of their argument.

They didn't talk about it - who wanted to open those wounds again when neither of them could fix it? - but things were inching closer to comfortable again. They had all summer to just be alone, too, before Blaine left for Columbia. Kurt wasn't sure where precisely, since it was much easier to be alone at Dalton, but Blaine could come visit in Lima. They could spend time with Sam, too, then sneak off to...well, some drive-in, even if theirs wasn't still operational, or go park in a less-populated area, and they could go have dinner with Rachel and her dads...it would be good for them. Great for them, even. Time to come back together after the past few weeks had tried to rip them apart.

The reveals began with the class president, a boy Kurt knew only vaguely who held far less power than the Warbler Council; the crimson pennant with a large H signified Harvard. He doubted it would be the last one of those he would see over the course of the evening. The first several held up memorabilia from various Ivy League schools to a mix of cheers and good-natured jeering from those attending rival universities. In most cases, it seemed that a few boys knew where each other boy was going, as each had told just a few close friends of his decision; the Council all appeared to know where each other were going, for example. Kurt wasn't sure whether that was unusual or not, or how it stacked up against other years. If it were him, he couldn't imagine anyone in that circle not knowing he was on his way to New York, but he was still a little unusual amongst Dalton boys even if he was no longer seen as completely eccentric.

As the reveals worked its way around the fire, Kurt felt the anticipation building. He didn't know why this moment felt huge, but it was undeniable. Maybe it was the first real tangible move toward their future together, he realized as the boy four from Blaine announced his intention to attend Notre Dame. It was the first step toward everything they had been planning and dreaming about - it was the first time any of it was going to be real, to go from being just something they envisioned to something that would actually happen.

They would have all summer to work out details, he thought excitedly. The boy two down had just pulled out a tiny American flag and a equally-small Navy flag to show he had been accepted to the Naval Academy. That got a bigger reaction - it wasn't a school they saw all the time, if only because so few students nationwide were selected, but all Kurt could see were VJ-Day photographs, sailors kissing girls in Times Square. And if it were anything like what Leroy said, sailors kissing other sailors. But they could spend all summer researching the best places to live, the best areas to be near everything, how to decorate- Because Blaine couldn't get an apartment the first year anyway, Kurt was sure, he would have to live in the dorm, but that was even better. He could only imagine how may fabulous discounted pieces he could find and how many secondhand things he could restore given a year to do so.

The moment was here. Blaine was going to reach into his jacket and pull out the Columbia pennant he had bought for him about a month ago. He was going to announce his destination with a grin, and their eyes would meet across the ring, and it would mean they were really doing this. Kurt clapped his hands together, grinning as Blaine reached into his jacket pocket and revealed-

What was that he was holding and why did it look so red?

Maybe it was just the firelight, or maybe Blaine had gotten another one somewhere - though red wasn't anything like the school colours. Maybe-

He looked at Blaine's face, trying to catch his eye, trying to ask him what was going on, but Blaine wouldn't look at him. In fact, he looked almost the opposite direction past the fire, hesitated for a moment, drew in a deep breath, and plastered on a fake, over-confident grin, and announced "Stanford!"

That didn't make any sense. Was there another Stanford he wasn't aware of? Was there some other school he could be talking about? Because there was no way they had spent the past five months talking about moving to New York together and living their dreams only to have Blaine depart for California. There was simply no way-

...There had to be a mistake.

But if there was...if it was a mistake...then why couldn't Blaine even look at him?

He felt suddenly like the world was closing in on him, like his field of vision was slowly narrowing in all directions and a band was tightening around his chest until he couldn't breathe ad he could barely see except for Blaine's face in the flickering glow of the firelight - with that smile that no one i their right mind should believe but apparently people did. People were cheering and congratulating him and debating the merits of its new physics program ad the moving on to the next boy who was announcing that he, too, would be going to Harvard, and suddenly Kurt felt like if he stayed there another second, he would collapse in on himself and stop breathing ad die. He took a few steps back, trying to back gracefully out of the circle - he had already fled the last social event he had attended, and while someone (he suspected Thad at Sam's faux-confirmation) had spread the rumour that Blaine was going out with Kurt's ex-girlfriend, the last thing Kurt wanted right now was to have to explain to the entire senior class why he looked as though he was going to start sobbing in the middle of the bonfire when he wasn't even graduating.

He made it only a few steps before the forced external calm dissipated and left him with only a sense of frenzy and unparalleled betrayal.

How dare he? How dare he, after everything they had been to one another? How dare he just leave without even bothering to look at him, let alone to tell him? How dare he keep turning to Kurt for help, to keep taking and taking only to split for the other side of the country and leave him to fend for his dream - for their dream - alone? How dare he swoop into his life like that and make him feel hopeful and like he could do anything and then just leave?

He couldn't breathe. He couldn't see, he couldn't speak, he couldn't do anything except run for the nearest escape route. He found it in the side door of the main academic building, the wing closest to the auditorium they used only for formal performances - Founders' and he thought maybe once or twice more, he couldn't remember, all he could think of was that he had walked away from Blaine here and now Blaine was running full-steam away from him.

And if he wasn't crying before, he certainly was now.

"Kurt-"

Blaine had followed him? How surprising. He was surprised Blaine had been willing to be seen with him, with the way students at Dalton might start talking and all.

"I think you already ensured they're going to ask questions."

...Had he said the last part out loud? He turned to look at Blaine who was staring at him with a long, even gaze, as though somehow he were the one who was going to have to talk Kurt down from his frenzy instead of being the one who had caused it in the first place. As though he were outside of all of this when he was the one who made every single bit of this happen. He had to be so damned charming and make Kurt fall in love with him, he had to seek Kurt out and strike up a friendship and then give Kurt hope because they might be able to be together and then kiss him-

"Well, we can't have that now, can we?" Kurt asked dryly, his voice hard and angry, eyes fixed in a glare. If he were one of those strange villains in the comics Sam left lying around their room, the kind who could shoot laser beams out of their eyes, Blaine would be a tiny sizzling pile of ash right now.

"I know you're upset..."

The patronizing tone was back, the one Kurt had always hated and despised even more now because who was Blaine to act like he knew anything? "Really."

"Kurt, please."

There were so many things he wanted to say, to scream at him in the hallway and not care who could hear him. There were so many questions he had that it felt like they were all trying to bubble out of him at once and all he could manage was a single word: "Why?"

Blaine didn't know how to answer that. It was...it wasn't a simple question. There were too many other questions to answer first, and even then he couldn't explain it. He couldn't explain to Kurt why because Kurt didn't understand - and he never would. He fundamentally had no idea what the world was really like and it was only because Blaine did that he had made the choice he had. He wished he could be as naive as Kurt was, that he could let himself just believe in the ridiculous idea of a future together. He wished he didn't know the things he knew about the world - the way they would be treated if anyone ever found out, the way his father would strap them both down in separate rooms to administer the therapy, the way they would become cautionary tales at best and institutionalized misfits for the rest of their lives at worst. He desperately wished he didn't know what that would look like, what Kurt would look like if that happened to him? He wished he had no idea what chlorazopram did to a person after they were too different for the rest of society to bother dealing with, he wished he didn't know for a fact that one of these days in the not-so-distant future, he would be an emotionless, heartless, lifeless man, another guy in a double-breasted grey flannel suit and a fedora and wingtips who had to shove his feelings so far down they couldn't be unearthed by an archaeologist because that was the only way to fit in, to survive.

He wished he had no concept of the fact that one day, one day very, very soon, they were both going to have to find wives and try to pretend to care about being together...about not sharing their lives with one another but with those women instead. And he wished he didn't know that, if they didn't, if they kept living in Kurt's well-meaning, ridiculous fantasy, it would raise nothing but questions for the rest of their lives. And when the wrong person found out, when they answered one of those questions incorrectly...when his father found out what they were doing and where they were and that they were together...

He couldn't be around for that. He couldn't watch that happen to them, to Kurt...which meant walking away.

But he couldn't take his place as a miniature version of his father, either, at least not yet-...which meant running away at full-steam.

Maybe if he were far enough away, he could be solitary but himself. Not forever, just for a little while. Just long enough to get Kurt out of his system, to slowly taper down the music until he didn't miss it anymore. He didn't need to escape forever, just long enough to transition slowly into who he needed to be instead of being thrust violently into it. That way he could become his father instead of his mother and he could learn to be happy.

But he couldn't explain any of that to Kurt. He couldn't express that because that would require Kurt to understand the reality of their situation, and he never would until it was too late. So he gave the only answer he could:

"Because I had to."

"You had to?" Kurt demanded, folding his arms angrily across his chest. "Really. And how long have you known about this?"

"What do you mean?"

"When did you pick this? When did you throw Columbia out the window?"

Kurt said Columbia, but he meant "us", and they both knew it.

"At the last possible moment," Blaine replied quietly, staring just past Kurt's head. Kurt stepped sideways into his line of vision, refusing to let him look away.

"So...yesterday then?" Kurt was clearly being sarcastic because even he, who knew nothing about college, knew it couldn't be that late.

"A couple weeks ago."

It felt like the air had been physically sucked out of Kurt's lungs and he had to gasp to draw in a breath, wheezing in oxygen as his hand reached out for anything to hold onto. That didn't even make sense, how precisely had Blaine known for a couple weeks and not told him? How had he not even mentioned it before now? How had he not even though to include Kurt in the decision-making process, or at least given him a heads-up that he was stomping on everything they had planned together and taking delight in watching it shatter?

"A-...a couple weeks?" he repeated, his voice shaky even as his glare grew more steady again. "When? Was it-...after the dance? After I wanted to-"

"No, Kurt, no," Blaine tried to soothe him; it didn't work. "It wasn't because you wanted to dance, I-...we fought, yes, but that wasn't why. I had already sent in the letter by then." From the way Kurt's eyes widened, he could tell it was the wrong answer, though he did have to wonder if there was such a thing as the right answer under these circumstances. Kurt appeared to be furious with him regardless.

It was before the dance. It was before they had tried to have a conversation and it felt like Blaine was slipping away, but they had been mending. They had been coming back together, they had been feeling comfortable again, how in the hell could he just stand there and act like there was nothing for him to answer for?

...It was before Blaine held him in his arms and they swayed slowly to the music and Kurt felt so safe and contented and normal. That had all been a lie, a ruse. It hadn't been real for a second, it hadn't meant nearly the same thing to Blaine as it meant to him - clearly.

Somehow all of that hurt more than any other part of the decision.

"Why?" he asked again, his voice quieter this time. Tears were streaming down his cheeks even through his anger, but he didn't bother reaching up to wipe them away. What good would it do when they were only going to be replaced by more? "What happened? Why would you just suddenly decide to throw away everything we've been planning, everything we've wanted-"

"You mean everything you've wanted?" Blaine shot back angrily, six months' worth of frustration bubbling out all at once. "You mean that ridiculous fantasy you've been clinging to?"

"You have, too-"

"No," he replied shortly. "I haven't. I wanted to. I- I wanted to believe it for you, but I never did."

"Well isn't this a fine time to say something," Kurt mumbled.

"You honestly thought it was a guarantee? That it was something we were doing? That it was anything other than a wistful daydream?"

"I thought it was a plan at least!" Kurt shot back. There were a lot of things he could abide - the stares and people treating him like some kind of twisted freak, and his brother making stupid comments, and Rachel's hideous plaid skirts, and being forced out of his town by racists - but he couldn't stand there and listen to Blaine destroy the one thing he had left. The one thing that had made him feel like there might be something better out there. The one thing that had gotten him through the past several months, through every rough patch they had. Hell, it had been getting him through for longer than that - he'd had the image of the apartment since he was ten, since he didn't know why he wanted the things he wanted but he knew he needed them in order to survive. "I-...I don't understand, Blaine, since when do you think it's ridiculous? Because it's certainly a better plan than anything you've come up with. We would go to New York, you would go first because you're graduating," he said, listing off the elements almost as much for himself as for Blaine. To prove he wasn't imagining things...was he? Blaine had agreed to it...hadn't he? They had only been talking about it for almost as long as they had been together. "Then I would follow you, and we would get an apartment-"

"And throw fabulous parties?" Blaine shot back sarcastically. "And be happy forever without so much as a single dark cloud? Be magically carefree together? Live our entire lives as perpetual bachelors and have no one be remotely suspicious?"

"Why would it matter? It doesn't matter in New York - let them be suspicious, it won't matter there," Kurt stated emphatically.

"Of course it matters there!" Blaine shot back. "You think because it's a city of artistic types and chorus boys, that because it's a city on a coast, it's going to be any different? Everything that's illegal here is illegal there, too. The raid that happened here could just as easily happen there-"

"No, it couldn't. Not if there are a lot of us. If there are a lot of us, people can't touch us-"

"Or they can round us up more easily. And print our photographs in the paper. You think just because it's somewhere else that people are going to think what we're doing is okay? It's not."

"Why do you care what they think? Your parents, the people who don't even know you - why do you care so much if they approve? We won't even be around them anymore."

"Because we live in the real world, Kurt! Not in some fantasyland, not in a Broadway production. We can't just change the script and suddenly have the two boys end up together in the end. Life doesn't work like that."

"Why not?" When Blaine rolled his eyes and shook his head, Kurt demanded, "Seriously. Why can't it work like that? It's our lives we're talking about, why can't we make them what we want?"

"Because that's not the way it's done," Blaine replied quietly in a patronizing tone Kurt hated more every time he heard it. It was making quite a few appearances in this conversation and it made him want to grab Blaine by the shoulders and shake him and tell him he didn't know everything. "I hate when you get like this, so...sanctimonious, as though you know everything and are above it all. You don't know anything about the world you think you want. You have no idea what you're getting yourself into, and then you look down on those of us who know what the future actually holds even though you still have a girlfriend to fool everyone. You still hide behind Rachel. Just because her father's a pervert like us doesn't make it any different."

His eyes widened in hurt surprise at the word 'pervert,' then narrowed into a fierce glare. "At least she knows," Kurt shot back angrily. "Would your wife?"

They both flinched at the word, but Blaine replied, "No, because she wouldn't have to."

"Right," Kurt scoffed. "Because she won't find it at all strange when you can't even kiss her and find men attractive."

"It won't matter. Once I have her, it won't matter anymore," Blaine stated with a quiet, almost resigned kind of confidence, a certitude in something Kurt found so facially ridiculous that he almost wondered if this was how Blaine felt when he talked about New York since apparently he had always found Kurt's dream just this side of hysterical. "I won't feel like this once I have her."

"You can't possibly believe that."

"I only feel this way with you. With everyone else, I can keep control, but with you...I only feel this way with you."

The statement weighed heavily on them both. Kurt felt like he should have been overjoyed - Blaine was saying he was special, making clear that the way Kurt felt about him was reciprocated. But he was flinging it in his face like a wet towel, trying to make it as insignificant as possible. As though he could flick it away and forget about it forever like some speck of dust instead of the thing he was building an entire world around.

To Blaine, the feeling meant nothing at all; to Kurt, it meant everything.

"It's never going to be okay to be this way, Kurt," Blaine stated, but there was a sadness he seemed to be trying valiantly to cover. "There's never going to be a time we can have the life you've planned for us - a normal life like everyone else's. Not together, not like this. As much as I may wish that were an option, it isn't." He put his hand on Kurt's shoulder and looked him in the eye. "And it never will be. You need to come to terms with that. Even in New York, we would still be breaking the law. Every law they have here, they have there - it's not any different. So go to New York, and be happy with Rachel. But I'm not going to move there and wait for you."

"Well then," Kurt replied, his jaw quivering as he refused to be the one to break first. "Enjoy your life, Mr. Anderson. I hope the California sun is good for you - and that when you get caught with the boys, your wife understands and cares about you enough to keep your secret instead of filing for a messy public divorce. I'm sure your parents would hate that." He turned on his heel and strode down the hall, frustration burning in him as he stalked towards the auditorium.

All that work and what did it get me?

His steps quickened as he felt himself rapidly coming undone. He would be fine if he could make it to the auditorium, to somewhere he could let it all out. He needed to express himself, to belt out exactly how he was feeling at that moment. To have the moment that only he and Blaine understood.

God, didn't that hurt more to think than he expected?

There was no more 'he and Blaine.' There was Blaine...and there was him. That was it.

Why did I do it?

Where had he gone so wrong, anyway? What was so wrong about wanting the things that he wanted? He was sure Blaine could give him an answer, but really - what was wrong about wanting a future, about wanting something happy in a person's life? Wasn't that what everyone else did? For a boy who was so caught-up in wanting to be - or at least wanting to appear - as normal as possible, he certainly had a strange idea of what that meant. He wanted to make himself miserable so he could be like everyone else, but it seemed to Kurt that everyone else was trying to find some sliver of happiness in a world that wasn't always kind. Everyone else took comfort in friends and found safety in family and what the hell was so abnormal about what Kurt wanted?

So the person he was in love with was a boy. Why did that mean he shouldn't feel the same way as his father felt about Carole?

Scrapbooks full of me in the background

He was willing to give things up for Blaine, why didn't that matter? Why didn't that count for anything? He was willing to never be a star, to never get top billing, if it meant having this boy in his life - wasn't that important? Wasn't that a sign that he recognized the dream wasn't perfect? In an ideal world they would share credit, but he knew that wouldn't be the case, not as charismatic and universally-loved as Blaine was...and he was fine with that. He was perfectly willing to give up that part of himself if it meant Blaine was in his life.

If it were truly an unrealistic dream, that would be the first part he would add back in: he would get all the credit. And all the solos. And all the glory. But no, he wanted Blaine to be happy.

Apparently that wasn't what Blaine wanted.

Give 'em love and what does it get you?
What does it get you?
One quick look as each of 'em leaves you

He flung open the door of the auditorium, storming his way up onstage. The more he sang, the more angry he was becoming, the less sad and the more full of unrepentant, unrestrained, untamed wrath and resentment. How dare he? How dare Blaine try to act as though this was some stupid fantasy that had no hope of coming true? How dare Blaine take everything they had together, everything they planned together, and throw it back in his face like that with a patronizing smile as though he hadn't believed in it for a second? How dare Blaine just run away from him without so much as talking to him first? Without so much as pausing to say "Kurt, I'm scared" - would that have been so hard? They already knew the rest of each other's secrets.

Well. Blaine knew all of his. For all he knew, he hadn't even scratched the surface on Blaine's.

All your life and what does get you?
"Thanks a lot" and out with the garbage
They take bows and you're battin' zero

All this time and Blaine hadn't wanted any of it?

It wasn't just his own thing to cling to, his own little liferaft of hope to remind himself that there was something out there besides what he'd known. It wasn't just for him - he wasn't envisioning grand salons and duets for himself - it was for them. For both of them. For the two of them to have happiness together. Because as much as Hiram and Leroy were an inspiration, they still didn't have quite the life that would make either of them very happy or fulfilled, so he had modified it a little, bringing what he wanted alone together with what he thought they wanted as a couple. But apparently not. Apparently it was just for him - a fact it might have been nice to know before right now.

He was amenable to changing small parts, did Blaine not know that? It didn't have to be a chaise, and the parties could be smaller and more intimate, and they could wear matching jackets if it would make Blaine feel more at home. The music could be Judy Garland instead of old movie soundtracks featuring other starlets...but somehow he doubted that was the problem.

I had a dream
I dreamed it for you, Blaine
It wasn't for me, Blaine

And to throw Rachel back in his face like that, as though she were some lie on his part - she had proposed it to him. She had suggested it to him, to get just as much from it as he did - maybe more. They both knew she cared more about what the people in Lima thought of her than he did, and she always would even when they both escaped. They were in a mutually-beneficial relationship that had nothing to do with dating except for the part where they pretended it did, and Blaine of all people knew that. Blaine of all people knew that there was a difference between something real and something fake, and just because he had tried to date a girl and failed didn't mean that was what Kurt was doing at all.

And if it wasn't for me
Then where would you be,
Miss Rachel Berry?

It was Blaine's loss, he told himself. Blaine was the one who had given something up tonight, not Kurt. Blaine was the one who was going to go make himself miserable because he thought it made him more normal - he was going to have a fantastic life. He would go to New York in a year, he would have everything he ever wanted, and he would be so happy Blaine would have no idea.

Well someone tell me when is it my turn?
Don't I get a dream for myself?
Starting now it's gonna be my turn
Gang way, world, get off of my runway!
Starting now I bat a thousand

He could see it now - standing on the stage in front of thousands of people cheering for him as he sang, with no one to upstage or outshine him. With people singing and dancing behind him and the audience enraptured by his talent. Wanting him. Beautiful musical boys who would chase him instead of him chasing incessantly after them. They would want him and not be terrified of whta he meant to them or how he made them feel. And the world would adore him...and someday understand him, too.

This time, boys, I'm taking the bows and
Everything's coming up Kurt!
Everything's coming up Hummel!
Everything's coming up Kurt this time for me

He would have everything Blaine told him he couldn't. He would get every single last piece of the perfect little puzzle and then who would feel superior, hm? Then who would be sanctimonious and patronizing all at the same time? because that world was out there, he knew it was - he just knew it. He would be famous, and fabulous, and he would have everything he ever dreamed of having that Blaine was too scared to demand for himself.

He would have the beautiful apartment.

For me!

And the elegant chaise he could drape himself across while he read.

For me!

And a job he loved where he could be as creative and eccentric as he wanted as it would be an asset.

For me!

And a circle of friends who found him charming and talented and appreciated him and knew his secrets.

For me!

And fantastic parties with interesting guests and free-flowing champagne and impromptu serenades.

For me!

And a boyfriend who could enjoy all that with him instead of running away.

For me!

He finished the song with a flourish before practically collapsing onto the stage, drained of all energy and emotion. After the night he'd had he could barely move, let alone after the year-...the six-month roller coaster of a relationship that was apparently meaningless now, all the work, all the hope and the agony...he wanted something. He needed something, someone...

He wanted Blaine. He wanted his boyfriend to hold him and kiss him and make him feel better the way he had before. He wanted his best friend to come sing to him with such genuine enthusiasm and charisma that he couldn't help but start smiling again. He wanted the only other boy in the school who could understand what it was like to have a boyfriend to fix him hot cocoa and let him cry about how much it hurt to be rejected by the boy he had envisioned his entire future with.

He needed Blaine like he needed oxygen.

All that answered him was the echo of the empty auditorium and the sound of his own ragged, exhausted, hitched breathing.