Kurt drummed the steering wheel and seriously considered not going to Dalton. He didn’t know how he’d handle seeing Blaine, not to mention the ‘friends’ who had to have known about Sebastian’s plans to slushie him, whether they knew about the rock salt or not…and Gaga did he hope Sebastian wasn’t there. Even if he hadn’t turned up until his senior year, Kurt put nothing past his subconscious. He turned on the radio to drown out the argument he was having with himself in his head, wondering if all the stress and long hours at Vogue.com, not to mention the caffeine, had finally made him have a breakdown.

“I’ve finally found you, my missing puzzle piece. I’m complete. Let’s go all the way tonight, no regrets, just love.” Katy Perry’s voice filled the car and, taking it as a sign, Kurt put the car into drive and headed home for a quick change of clothes. Even if he hadn’t got the blazer, he could still co-ordinate with their colour scheme.

Once he’d decided to put himself through meeting Blaine for the first time again, Kurt knew that he’d be able to forgive him eventually. He wasn’t there yet. It still hurt like hell that Blaine had been ‘with’ somebody else, had a ‘hook-up’…whatever he meant by that. Heartbreak was an imperfect concept, implying the heart was something as brittle as it was beautiful, like a figurine made of glass, or porcelain, irreparable once broken. Kurt knew from bitter experience that, for him, the heart was like any other muscle. It could be torn and it could be crushed. The tearing he’d inflicted himself, declining calls, not finding the time to answer texts…the crushing had been Blaine’s doing…and his mom’s, although dying obviously hadn’t been something she’d chosen to do.

The pain was almost too big to breathe around but that wouldn’t last forever, when he stopped struggling for breath he knew there would have to be a Conversation, not just about whatever happened between Blaine and the other guy, but everything else too. For the first time since he moved to New York, they would communicate properly. Kurt had promised Blaine that he wouldn’t lose him, that he’d never say goodbye…and he wasn’t ready to break those promises yet.

Distracted by his new-found hope, he almost missed the turning for Dalton Academy and nearly scratched the immaculate, and brand new in 2010, S-Class in the next parking space…which, given his dad’s likely reaction, would turn the lucid dream into a nightmare PDQ.

Kurt managed to get to the top of the fateful staircase without further incident and tried not to think too much. Students were already beginning to gather and head towards the senior commons so he began surreptitiously scan the neatly turned out young men on the stairs, searching for Blaine’s perfectly gelled curls and trying to ignore the voice in the back of his head that kept repeating unhelpful things like ‘what if he doesn’t turn around?’, ‘what if we don’t take the shortcut?’, ‘what if he doesn’t hold my hand’.

As it turned out, he needn’t have worried. He’d caused something of a tail-back looking for Blaine and however polite the Dalton student body was, they were still teenage boys with somewhere they wanted to be. Kurt was in the middle of taking a step down when somebody’s bag caught him on the shoulder, sending him off balance and causing him to grab the nearest person to save himself from landing on the beautiful marble floor face first…of course the nearest person was Blaine, because, duh, it was a dream and his mind was nothing if not efficient. Blaine turned around to see who’d manhandled him and Kurt tried not to spontaneously combust because…well, Blaine was his everything, despite everything and…damn…Blaine in that blazer was like, a thing of his.

“Oh, excuse me…um, hi. I’m new here.”

“My name’s Blaine.” Kurt shook the offered hand, remembering how amazed he’d been that another boy initiated physical contact with him, wanted to touch him. It had been such a culture shock, such a wonderful surprise. Until Mercedes, the only people who had hugged Kurt or held his hand since his mom died were his dad, aunt and grandmother. He’d been profoundly lonely at school and soon learnt that the only time boys touched him was when they wanted to hurt him. Increasingly aware that he hadn’t yet given Blaine his name, Kurt introduced himself and tried to be wittier than he’d been the first time around.

“So what caused the stampede? As much as I love The Lion King, that’s not a scene I particularly wanted to re-enact.” The corners of Blaine’s eyes crinkled as he smiled, betraying the knowledge of Disney films that had taken a few weeks for Blaine to confess before.

“It’s the Warblers. Every now and then they throw an impromptu performance in the senior commons, it tends to shut the school down for a while.” It was adorable how proud Blaine was of The Warblers being so beloved by the rest of the school, how his apparent ignorance of all things Dalton let Blaine brag, just a little bit, about his talent and success without fearing somebody would pull a Cooper and start tearing him down. Kurt did his best to stay cool and avoid giving Blaine heart-eyes, not something he had a brilliant track record in, it must be said.

“I thought the existence of schools where Glee clubs were cool was an urban legend.”

“The Warblers are like rock stars.” Kurt wondered how Blaine managed to make arrogance hot …maybe it was the confidence, the sexy-and-I-know-it of it all. Mostly though, he wondered how much of this dapper self-assurance was a front and how much had been lost when Blaine had transferred to McKinley. “Come on, I know a short-cut.” Blaine took his hand and they ran down the empty corridor. Kurt wished they could have kept going, followed Katy Perry’s suggestion and never looked back. There would have been no Karofsky, no Sebastian, no Chandler, no hook-up, no regrets, just them…just love. Knowing he was close to tears, Kurt made himself not think about what had gone wrong. He, they, had a second chance, a clean slate for as long as he stayed asleep…they didn’t have a clean slate in the waking world, though he hoped they had a second chance, they deserved one…he would do his best to use the past as an example of what not to do and not waste this precious dream dissecting it.

“I stick out like a fabulously dressed sore thumb.” Blaine gave him elevator eyes and Kurt felt the heat rise in his cheeks. It had taken a while for Blaine to be that overt when they’d started dating; Kurt blamed his baby penguin phase. Thankfully, that was no longer an issue…but Blaine really did lack self-awareness if he’d been attracted to him when they first met and done nothing about it until Pavarotti died. Of course there was always the possibility that he’d been too much of a gentleman to make moves on somebody who needed a friend more than he needed a boyfriend…however welcome those moves would have been.

“Next time don’t forget your jacket new kid, you’ll fit right in.” Blaine gave him a friendly pat on the arm which was either an attempt to downplay the flirting from before, or, considering the master-class in seducing the teenage gay that was Blaine’s performance of Teenage Dream, just an excuse to touch him. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

Oh sweet mother of Gucci.  This was it. There was no way in Walmart that he was going to get through the song with his emotional equilibrium intact. Nope. Not gonna happen.