April 2013

It was the ringing sounds coming from Kurt’s laptop that woke him up.

He’d been sprawled across his bed, head resting where his feet usually were, toes digging into the softness of his pillow, when the vaguely spacey sounds of Skype call filtered through his ears. He jerked up at the noise, blinking blearily as he frowned at the innocent-looking laptop. The screen had lit up again – he must have left it on some sort of sleep mode, with the lid fucking still up, god – and Blaine’s cheery Skype icon was displayed(a puppy with a bowtie – his boyfriend was nothing if not predictable) along with the words “Blaine Anderson is calling”. Kurt yawned as he accepted the video call, realizing a beat too late that he was in no physical state to be seen by Blaine.

Blaine’s face appeared on his laptop screen, eyes so eager and wide. “Can you hear me?” his boyfriend asked, like he did every time he called. Kurt mustered up a smile, despite the fact that his head was pounding like someone had taken a cement block to it, and returned Blaine’s small wave.

“I can hear you,” he replied, “and see you too.” He wasn’t quite able to stifle another yawn, and saw Blaine’s eyes soften even through the shitty webcam connection. Kurt vaguely registered something about college and work, but his mouth was so fiercely dry that he couldn’t quite concentrate on Blaine’s words, kind as they were. So he merely nodded, sitting up and scrabbling for the water bottle he always kept on his bedside table. He heard a surprised sound coming from the laptop, but ignored it in favor of unscrewing the cap of the bottle, only to find it empty.

“Fuck,” Kurt muttered, dropping the bottle carelessly on the ground and pulling open drawers. The inside of his mouth tasted awful, a combination of sour and bitter – and his throat was so parched, and his head just kept hurting, and god he was never drinking again.

“Kurt?” Blaine’s voice sounded uncertain. “Are you… are you okay?” Kurt waved a reassuring hand towards the webcam, letting out a sound of satisfaction as he unearthed a bottle of mineral water. He popped the top off and gulped the liquid down, moaning softly. Nothing had ever tasted so good. Now, if he could only find aspirin…

But Blaine was waiting, and Kurt knew his boyfriend would be worried. So he crawled back to the edge of the bed, flopping himself onto his stomach and smiling into the webcam. The chug of water had rejuvenated him, and the sight of Blaine’s honey-hazel eyes and warm smile registered more clearly. “Hey, sorry about that,” he apologized. “Last night was sort of rough.” He noted how Blaine’s eyes narrowed in confusion at his words.

“You don’t have to apologize to me, Kurt.” Blaine sounded stiff – he often lapsed into a cooler tone during their calls, more and more often as their time apart had grown. “Bet you’re the life of the parties, huh?” Blaine propped an elbow on his knee from where he was sitting cross-legged, his chin coming to rest on top of his fist. “Sounds like you’re having fun.” His tone was wistful.

Kurt swallowed. “Never mind that,” he spoke glibly, “look at you. You look all proper and fine, just like a good Columbia student should.” The tactic had worked – Blaine flushed with pleasure, trying to hide his grin but failing miserably. Kurt felt a flare of pride, deep inside him. Blaine’s acceptance into Columbia had been fairly recent, just a few weeks ago, and it still made Kurt a little giddy. His boyfriend was coming here, to New York, and they were going to go to college in the same city. True, NYU and Columbia were on completely opposite sides of town, but the fact remained that Blaine would be only a subway ride away. Kurt squirmed a little, feeling as flushed as Blaine looked. He couldn’t be happier for his boyfriend.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Blaine teased lightly. “I’m still your high school jailbait boyfriend.” Kurt snorted at that, bringing a hand up to avoid doing so all over his laptop. Blaine laughed again, eyes twinkling fondly as he gazed forward – his eyes dropping a little below the webcam so that he was not looking directly at him, but lower. At his screen. At Kurt’s image.

“Jailbait boyfriend - you make me sound like a pervert,” Kurt flirted back, batting his eyelashes exaggeratedly. Blaine giggled, the sound high and sweet, and something flopped around in Kurt’s stomach. It wasn’t an entirely pleasant feeling, especially because it felt like there was something heavy residing there as well. Blaine winked at him playfully.

“Don’t deny your pervertness, Hummel, I’ve seen what that mouth can do,” he spoke lowly – but Kurt’s mind flashed to something else entirely, and the hot blush that crept up his neck was not one of lust. Blaine didn’t seem to notice, though, as he happily chattered about the last few months of school, and how the New Directions had lost at Regionals to the Warblers.

“How’s Sebastian?” Kurt eventually chimed back in, because he couldn’t continue to be a silent spectator to the conversation. Blaine would notice something was up if he didn’t say anything. Blaine’s mouth, however, fell open in surprise – so clearly Kurt had asked the wrong question. He worried his lower lip and ducked his head, trying to avoid Blaine’s curious gaze. He’d honestly just said the first thing that had come to mind, but the way Blaine was looking at him…

“He’s okay,” Blaine finally answered, his tone a little incredulous. “I mean, he’s gotten. Better. We don’t really talk much, but he was nice enough.” He shrugged, clacking his teeth together absently as he drew a pillow close and hugged it to his side. Kurt shrugged as well, unable to feign much interest in the Warbler. He knew Blaine and Sebastian weren’t on anywhere close to friendly terms anymore, and he didn’t even feel jealousy toward the smirky little meerkat anymore… Sebastian, therefore, was a safe topic. Unlike talks of mouths and debauchery.

Clearly, Blaine had noticed the same thing. “Ba- is something wrong?” he asked again, leaning forward and frowning at the screen. Kurt shook his head vigorously, a mutter swear escaping him as his head throbbed. Blaine’s frown, however, only deepened. “Look, we know each other pretty well. And I know when you’re hiding something.” Blaine’s voice was gentle, coaxing. And Kurt only wanted to get rid of the horrible, leaden feeling in the pit of his stomach. He would feel better after telling Blaine.

He fidgeted with his hands, rubbing across his nose and then immediately snatching his hand away, remembering how that was a universal tell for lying. And he wasn’t going to lie. He was going to tell Blaine the truth, and they could laugh about it. “Well,” he began, clearing his throat, “when I say last night got a little crazy… that is, to say, I might have had too much to drink…”

Blaine’s eyes widened. “Kurt?” He broke off the ‘t’ much earlier than he usually did, and the sound was like a slap in the face. “What are you- what are you saying?” Kurt felt his heart leap to his throat as Blaine’s expression clouded over, and he hastened to explain.

“I didn’t – not like that!” he cried out, flapping one hand in front of his face anxiously. “I didn’t, oh god, I didn’t cheat on you. Never.” He swallowed past the dryness in his mouth, even as moisture rose to his eyes. “I just… Imighthavekissedsomeone,” he blurted out, the words jumbling together.

But they weren’t jumbled enough for Blaine. His boyfriend’s face stilled, draining of color almost instantly. Kurt could taste fear at the back of his throat.

“You…” Blaine trailed off, looking lost for words. “Wow. Some, um, some party it must have been.” Kurt squeezed his eyes shut, fighting against the tears that refused to be quelled, because he would not cry. He hadn’t cheated on Blaine. It had been an accident.

“It was an accident,” he told Blaine, sitting up and folding his legs as he drew the laptop into his lap. “I didn’t, it was just so crowded and I’d had a lot to drink, and he was just… he was pushy…” Kurt tugged distractedly at his bottom lip with two fingers. “I’m really sorry, I really am, I can’t-”

“What was his name?” Blaine interrupted, and Kurt’s next words died in his throat as he blushed a little – because how could he not blush at the thought of Timothy? Timothy, who was older than Kurt, more experienced, and with a lithe body and shaggy black hair and mysterious eyes. So yes, maybe Kurt had harbored a small crush on Timothy for a while. But it was all in fun, all in jest – he’d never dreamed of Tim trying something on him –

“Timothy, he’s just some guy from the music department that I’ve met a few times,” Kurt explained, wishing desperately that he could reach out for his water bottle – but it felt like the wrong moment for that. “But it was just a kiss, I swear, I didn’t…” The tears were pressing even more insistently at his eyeballs. “Don’t be mad, please,” he begged in a broken voice. Because Blaine wasn’t smiling, Blaine wasn’t playing it off and laughing about how drunk Kurt must have been to kiss a guy named Timothy – Blaine looked angry.

“You know him? You’ve met him before? And you… you just…” Blaine’s eyes darted around, apparently unwilling to look directly at Kurt. “And what is that supposed to mean, just a kiss? You got totally hammered, kissed this guy, and I’m supposed to be totally fine with it? Laugh and smile? You’re my boyfriend, Kurt!”

Anger stirred within Kurt as well at those words, because did Blaine think he didn’t know? Did he honestly think Kurt had felt anything from that drunken press of lips, anything close to what he felt for Blaine? He’d promised Blaine the entire goddamn world, promised them a future together – how could his boyfriend be so insecure about this?

“I really thought you’d gotten over your possessiveness after Chandler,” he said coldly, and immediately knew that it was the wrong thing to say. Blaine’s entire face fell.

“My posses- do you even have any idea what it’s like for me?” Blaine’s voice cracked in the middle of the sentence, but he still looked so angry. “To be sitting here, miles away, while you’re in New York – while you’re out partying, getting drunk, kissing other people – knowing that I’m just your stupid high school boyfr-“ He choked on the word. “Do you know? Do you even understand, Kurt?”

“What I understand,” Kurt shot back sharply, even as tears dripped down his cheeks, “is that you’re making a huge deal out of nothing. The kiss meant nothing to me, I don’t care about Tim – I love you. It was a stupid mistake, a big fat stupid mistake, but doesn’t the fact that I’m t-telling you mean anything?” And suddenly he was crying, actually crying, because the lead in his stomach hadn’t gotten any lighter – if anything, it had only solidified further.

Blaine, however, remained cold. “Oh, so I’m supposed to be grateful to you for actually telling me you cheated this time?” he sneered, prodding the embers of Kurt’s anger. Kurt wiped furiously at his face.

“Don’t you dare act like that,” he shouted, stung by Blaine’s words, “don’t you- I didn’t cheat! I didn’t want it, it was a fucking mistake, why are you making such a big deal about it…?”

“If this isn’t cheating, what would you call it?” Blaine looked wild, one hand raking through his curls, the other one digging into the flesh of his thigh. “What could you possibly categorize this as, Kurt? Some experimenting? Just trying things out?” Kurt covered his eyes with his hands, pressing harshly on his eyeballs to stem the flow of tears; he had to stop crying, he had to reply strongly, he hadn’t done anything wrong…

“I d-didn’t mean to!” he sobbed out, anger and sadness warring in his voice. “P-please don’t, I love y-you, I d-don’t care about him… don’t go…”

He felt more than saw Blaine deflate. Kurt wiped his nose, breath catching a little, hope bubbling in his chest –

“I can’t do this right now,” Blaine muttered under his breath. Kurt’s heart dropped.

“Don’t- don’t, no, don’t hang up on me,” he pleaded shamelessly, “I didn’t sleep with him, it was just a kiss, it meant nothing… I’m so sorry it hurt you, I’m so sorry baby, so sorry…”

Blaine exhaled through his teeth. “The fact that you’re trying to convince me that you didn’t sleep with him is reason enough for this,” he spoke quietly. Kurt felt as if he couldn’t breathe as he saw Blaine’s arm shift – a second later, his boyfriend’s(were they even boyfriends anymore? what were they? what was Blaine, what was KurtandBlaine?) face had vanished, and Kurt was left with was a white window, displaying only the words ‘call ended’.