“More boyfriend troubles?” he asked, sliding her cup towards her. She took a long drink from it, holding the cup to her nose as if trying to inhale the caffeine from the steam. “You came,” he said when she didn’t answer.

“So did you.” They took a sip in unison. “You first.”

“What makes you think I have anything to say?”

“Why did you come if you don’t?”

“Maybe I thought I’d give you someone to talk to.”

“You got a large drip coffee. That’s not the drink of a person whose life is just the way they want it.”

Blaine picked at the lid, sliding his thumb around the edge. “Have you ever wanted to forgive someone for something, but you’re not sure how to do it?”

“More times than is healthy. I always manage to convince myself in the end.” She watched him as he slumped his head onto his hand. “This is a boyfriend thing, isn’t it? Did he cheat on you?”

“Not exactly.”

“He either did or he didn’t. There is no middle ground. Believe me, I’d know.”

“If anything, I cheated on him. Does it count if it was a girl and I was drunk?”

“Spin the Bottle?”

Blaine shivered at the words, letting out a nod and lifting his cup to his lips as if to wash out the memory. “I didn’t know beer could do that to a person.”

“You should try tequila.”

Blaine snorted. “Long blacks and tequila. What are you, thirty?”

“Feels like it sometimes.” She sighed again – like this was her one slot of opportunity in the week to do so and she wasn’t wasting her time – and stood up, heading to the counter. Blaine watched her slip her breastplate and helmet back on and smile brightly at the barista, rewarded a minute later with a plate of biscotti. She set it on the table and took a piece of biscotti for herself. Blaine followed suit, popping the cap on the hot cup and dipping, waiting for the coffee to soak up, before sucking it back out again.

“You have the weirdest quirks, you know that?” she said, watching him. Blaine rolled his eyes at her, biting the coffee-softened end of the biscotti. “I sometimes think my boyfriend’s cheating on me. Then I realise he’d never be able to keep that kind of secret. He has the biggest mouth known to man and not in a good way.”

Blaine thought of Finn, of how he even knew who Quinn was in the first place. He managed to stop himself from laughing too loudly at the apt description, but a small chuckle escaped all the same. “Why date him?”

“Because he’s the quarterback. We’re going to be Prom King and Queen, get married and be the high school sweethearts everyone in this town wishes they were.” Blaine just sucked on his biscotti, waiting while she paused. “And I love him. For a long time I thought he was just – that he was just a trophy, but he’s not. He’s dumb,” she let out a small laugh, “so, so stupid sometimes, but he has a big heart. He took me back when he shouldn’t have, he’s good to me, he can be the sweetest guy in the world.” She blinked rapidly and drank more coffee. “I love him. I hate myself for using him, but I did it and I still do it. I deserve him cheating on me, even if it is with Rachel Berry.”

Blaine forced himself not to flinch, not to wince. “You don’t. No one deserves to be treated like that.”

Quinn laughed at that, but the sound was unsettled in the air; it left a black tinge that made Blaine’s bones itch. “You really don’t know anything about me, Blaine.”

“So tell me.”

“Why should I?”

“Because you want to.” He reached over and took her hand. “That’s why you came today and it’s why you’re going to come next week, and the week after that, and the week after that.”

Quinn turned her palm over, grasping at his fingers and squeezing. “Why do you make it sound so easy?”

“Because you deserve at least one thing in your life which is.”

Quinn didn’t tell him anything that day. Blaine had known she wouldn’t, so he was content to wait. They talked about other things; gossip at McKinley, Quinn’s Yale dreams, show choir. They skirted and deflected, held tight to their walls for just a little bit longer, just one more week at least, but it was temporary and they knew that.

When he got home, Blaine checked his phone for the first time since he’d left that morning, finding a couple of missed calls and numerous texts. He knew their origin before he even read them.

From: Kurt (10:23 am)
Ready to talk yet?

From: Kurt (11:15 am)
I never meant to hurt you, you know that

From: Kurt (2:32 pm)
This isn’t easy for me either. I hope you know that. I’ve lost a person I love.

From: Kurt (5:04 pm)
You can’t still be in Warblers practice. If you need more time, please just tell me

From: Kurt (5:30 pm)
Please don’t break up with me via text.

From: Kurt (5:31 pm)
That sounded flippant. It sort of was, but also please don’t.

From: Kurt (6:12 pm)
Are you okay? Please tell me you’re okay.

From: Kurt (7:14 pm)
Please tell me you’re alright and just don’t want to talk to me because I’m kind of freaking out here.

Blaine checked his watch. Just after seven thirty.

To: Kurt (7:33 pm)
Didn’t check my phone all day. Had coffee with a friend after practice. I’m not going to break up with you. I love you, I just need to sort out my head first. I’m turning my phone off now.

It was just after three in the morning when Blaine realised what he was doing. He sat up with a gasp, body aching from lack of sleep, eyes prickling from staring at ceiling for so long. He immediately felt sick, grasping for his water glass and lifting it to his lips, only find it empty. With heavy limbs he dragged himself out of bed with a few stumbling steps. He gripped the banister hard on the way down.

Once in the kitchen, he poured himself a glass of water, drank it down, and poured another. After standing there, sipping at it, he went into the fridge.

He curled up on the couch with his mug of warm milk, sprinkled with cinnamon, and clenched his toes into the cushions to warm them up again. He let the liquid heat him up on the inside, felt the heat slipping down into his stomach. His eyes were itching and his head felt too heavy, but sleep wouldn’t take him; his brain was powering too hard, reliving and imagining and self-flagellating.

He was being selfish, he realised that now. Kurt had hurt him by connecting to someone else and not telling him. He had also given Blaine an odd flip in his stomach with the realisation that anyone could take Blaine’s place, any person Kurt touched could be someone he loved and neither Blaine nor Kurt had any control over that. That knowledge, that helplessness, scared Blaine more than almost anything else. He could lose Kurt through no fault or even will of their own. He wanted to believe the romantic part (the predominant part) of his brain that told him Kurt could fall in love, but it wouldn’t be as deep and wouldn’t replace their connection, but his logical and self-doubting sides were beating that hope back. The possibilities were too much for him to think about without his chest aching, but he couldn’t seem to stop.

He wasn’t so much angry with Kurt as he was scared. He was afraid of what it was that led Kurt to that point in the first place, the point of literally throwing himself into heartbreak. He was scared for Kurt, Kurt who had never experienced direct prejudice in his life, and was now being slurred at by a person his heart so desperately wanted him to love. He was scared for them; for what it meant that Kurt had kept it to himself. He was scared of how many things he had kept from Kurt, how many things he was still keeping: the man who wanted to buy him, Sadie Hawkins, his parents; Quinn. He hated the idea that he was hiding things from Kurt, even though some of them felt necessary. Quinn was something other in Blaine’s life, something he didn’t truly understand yet, and he wasn’t sure how to explain it to Kurt at all.

Mostly, at that moment, as he curled up on himself with a swiftly cooling mug of milk, he hated how blind he was being to the needs of the boy he loved. Kurt had said it himself: he had lost someone. He was heartbroken, dealing with adversity he had never felt before, lonely or hurt enough to put himself in that position, and Blaine had abandoned him. He had removed himself from the equation to sort out his own thoughts, but hadn’t given any consideration to how much Kurt needed him. Kurt wasn’t reliant, he knew that – Kurt had been taking care of himself for years; but everyone needs a person to lean on in their low points and Blaine wasn’t giving Kurt that opportunity. He had been selfish and self-absorbed, wallowing in his own importance and leaving Kurt to scramble through a mess of emotions that would be difficult for the strongest of people.

Blaine had felt guilty many times throughout his life. A great deal of that guilt he had come to realise was unfounded, as what had occurred was no fault of his own. All the same, the sensation of twisting fingers in his gut was familiar, strong. He set his empty cup on the table and curled his arms around his knees, pressing his face into them.

He didn’t know how long he stayed like that, twisting in his own thoughts with nothing but the creaks of his house to keep him company. When he lifted his head, dawn was bleeding across the sky, wisp by wisp. He rested his chin on his knees and watched the world’s ceiling paint itself in the spectrum from mauve to orange to coral.

He heard footsteps on the stairs some time after, but he didn’t move from his spot. The feet, his father’s, moved through to the kitchen and there was the sound of coffee brewing. There was more shuffling, back up the stairs in search of something, down again. The steps paused in the hallway, then his father was standing in the doorway, looking at him curled up, Blaine’s tired skin illuminated by the morning light. Blaine turned his head, offered him a bland smile. His father nodded and left again.

More coffee sounds. The clink of cups, a hiss, liquid on ceramic. Footsteps.

A cup and plate were set on the table in front of him. Coffee, black, steaming. A croissant, cold. Blaine reached for the hot drink without even thinking. He blinked up at his father over the rim, blowing on the dark liquid. “Thanks.”

His father shrugged and settled in on the chair opposite him. “You don’t look like you’ve slept.”

“Couldn’t.”

“Any reason?”

“Does it matter?”

Robert Anderson sighed and took a bite of his toast. “Polo season starts soon. You should start riding more often. You’ve fallen back a little.”

Blaine balanced his croissant plate on his knee, biting into it. He simply nodded in reply.

“Teenage boys don’t lose a night’s sleep over nothing, Blaine.”

“Dad—”

“No, listen. I know we don’t… talk as much as we used to.” Blaine held back a snort, which his father seemed to notice. “I can’t make excuses for that.”

“I’m sure Mom could give you plenty of reasons why I’m going off the rails and disconnecting from my parents.”

“I don’t doubt that she could.” He pulled the belt of his robe a little tighter. “Doesn’t mean I agree with any of them.” He took another bite of toast, watching Blaine frown at him. “I know things in this house aren’t as they should be. Everything’s going backwards and maybe we can’t stop it completely, but I’m going to try. We’re starting with why you’re not sleeping.” He pointed his toast-toting hand at Blaine. “It’s not nothing.”

There was silence for a minute as Blaine drank his coffee, watching his father for any indication that this was some kind of joke. When he got none, he took a last fortifying bite of croissant and laid the plate on the table, chewing around his words and trying to best think how to say them. “I have a boyfriend.” He stared at his dad, waiting. Robert seemed to have a moment of pause and Blaine felt it; he watched it, wondering whether they were going to stop their regression, or whether they were swinging right back to square one.

“What’s his name?” was what eventually came.

“Kurt.” Blaine blurted it out, shocked that this was happening so easily.

“Have you been dating long?”

“A couple of months.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“Well, like you said.” Blaine looked at his knees. “We don’t exactly talk.”

He heard his father’s sigh and the creak of his chair before he was settling in beside Blaine. “So what about Kurt is keeping you up all night?”

Blaine tilted his head, staring at him. He didn’t understand how this was happening, how they were actually progressing after so much pause and rewind. “I’m being stupid.” His father just nodded, so he continued, taking a sip of coffee and letting himself talk. “Well, we’ve both done things. Kurt… Kurt has a lot to deal with, constantly, and I worry about what that does to him but there’s nothing I can do to change it. At least, not yet. And he… he kept something from me, something important, because he knew it would upset me. I reacted… probably exactly how he expected me to react.”

“And now?” Robert prompted.

“Now I feel awful. And I probably look like crap.”

Robert chuckled. “Not going to argue with you there.” He sat back in the cushions, leaving Blaine to stare into his cup for a few moments. “What are you going to do now?”

“I was going to go and speak to him.”

“Was this going to involve missing school?”

“Dad,” Blaine said with a laugh, reaching back to hit him lightly. “This is important.”

“School’s important.”

“Stop,” Blaine laughed, “okay, I know.” He looked back at his dad, smile still on his face, and felt the normality of the moment build up on him. They were talking about his boyfriend like it was any other day; like they hadn’t been stuck in a stilted form of communication for far too long.

“I’m sorry,” Robert said, catching onto his thoughts.

“I know, Dad.”

They stayed there for a moment, watching each other, feeling out the new water. “So,” Robert said, hauling himself up off the couch, “you going to rush off before school and pray he’s awake?”

“I don’t think he’ll have slept, either.”

Robert gathered their cups and plates together, straightening up with a clink. “Blaine, I… I’m not going to tell your mother about this. About Kurt. I think you should do that.”

Blaine nodded. “I don’t think she wants to hear it.”

Robert sighed, shook his head, and retreated to the kitchen. Blaine tugged himself up, mind still reeling, and dragged his feet up the stairs. He threw on his uniform, grateful for its predictable parts, and stumbled back down just as his father came out of the kitchen. Robert patted him on the shoulder, squeezing gently, then retreated upstairs. Blaine slipped out into the morning light, shoulders hunched against the cold, and headed for his car.

He was going to make this right.

A decidedly awake Kurt answered his phone call, and the door was opened a few moments later. Kurt just stared at him, teetering on the balls of his feet. Blaine sighed and tugged him into his arms, shuffling them back into the hall to close the door against the freezing morning air. Kurt clung to him and Blaine didn’t stop him, hugging back just as fiercely. Even just a couple of days without Kurt made him miss the contact and he couldn’t bear to pull himself away.

They ended up at the kitchen table with coffee. Blaine hadn’t expected anything else. The sturdy wood of the Hummels’ table felt like an amalgam of his and Kurt’s entire relationship – right from the start, with so many important moments woven into the woodwork. He wondered where they would be without it.

“Do you want to go first or shall I?” Kurt asked, blinking at Blaine over the table (their table). Blaine could tell he hadn’t slept, but he didn’t suppose he looked much different.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you,” Blaine said, taking over. He slid his hand across the table to tangle his fingers with Kurt’s. “I wasn’t angry, I want you to know that. I’m scared.”

“Of what?”

“Everything. What’s happening to you, what’s happening to us, all the things that could go wrong.”

“Nothing’s happening to us, Blaine.”

“It is, can’t you see that?” Blaine clutched at Kurt’s fingers, eyes flitting across lines in the wood tabletop, years of age, hours of their moments. “We keep things from each other.”

“I didn’t understand my own feelings enough to tell you at first, you know I’m sorry about that.”

“It’s not just you. I didn’t tell you about that guy for far too long, or about not being ready for the things we were doing. I – Tuesdays. On Tuesdays, I have coffee with Quinn Fabray. It started last week, I met her by accident. I didn’t know who she was. We talk.”

Kurt stared at him. Slowly, his fingers slipped from Blaine’s. “You have coffee with Quinn Fabray. Quinn Fabray, my stepbrother’s girlfriend, who knows… knows about me.”

“She doesn’t know that we’re dating. She has no idea that I know who she is.”

“So you’re lying to her, too.”

Blaine bit his lip. “Kurt.” He flicked the backs of his nails against the side of his cup. “Would you rather I told her who I was? She can talk to me because she doesn’t think I can judge her for it. She thinks I’m outside of it all.” He paused, letting out a heavy breath. “She told her dad, you know. He worked with the guy.”

“You mean the… the one who wanted…”

“You. Yes.”

“And you still sit down and have coffee with her.”

Blaine groaned, pressing his thumb and forefinger into his eyes. “I don’t know how it happened and I don’t know why I do it. I can’t explain Quinn, I just can’t. We help each other.”

Blaine heard Kurt shifting on the other side of the table, then arms were wrapping around him from behind and a nose was pressed against his neck. Kurt seemed to breathe him in for few moments before speaking. “If you want to spend time with her, I’m not going to say anything against it. Just be careful, okay?”

Blaine hummed in agreement, lifting his arms to wrap around the back of Kurt’s neck. He twisted his head quickly to capture his lips. “God, I hate not seeing you. I hate not being able to touch you.”

“How did we ever survive with just gloves?”

“Well, I didn’t know how addictive kissing you was then.”

Kurt laughed, pressing their lips together again. He straightened up, moving to sit on the table, legs hanging either side of Blaine’s, linking their hands together.

“Are you okay?” Blaine asked, blinking up at him. “Really?”

Kurt shrugged. “I’m getting there. It just… it just hurts sometimes.”

“Why did you do it?”

Kurt looked down at Blaine’s large, earnest eyes, staring up at him full of worry and exhaustion. He stroked his fingers through Blaine’s hair, sighing gently. “I felt pathetic. I know that I have people who love me, but at the end of the day, you can all leave this house with freedom. Even Rachel isn’t chained to her house the way I am. She told me how it feels and I just wanted something to stop me feeling so useless and – god, Blaine, I’m boring. What have I done? Everyone has stories that make up their life, things to tell people and experiences to draw from. I feel like I’m missing out on everything.”

Blaine leaned his head into Kurt’s hand. “I want to tell you there’s no need to feel that way, but.” He sighed. “I never quite got how lonely it is. My house is lonely enough most of the time and I don’t have to be there all the time.” He frowned. “Although I had a conversation with my dad this morning.” Kurt stroked behind Blaine’s ear, raising his eyebrows as a request for more information. “I told him about you.”

“Everything?”

“No, no,” Blaine said, wrapping his fingers around Kurt’s forearm. “No, I wouldn’t do that. Just… just that I was dating a boy named Kurt and I was being a total idiot.”

Kurt’s lips twitched. “How did he take it?”

“He… he accepted it. I don’t really understand. It was so normal.”

“Maybe he doesn’t want things between you to be the way they are.”

Blaine shook his head, stroking Kurt’s arm. “Mom was always the one with the more… obvious problem with me. Dad just never really said anything about it. I think he’s accepted it, but he knows that Mom hasn’t. I just… I wish he could have been there sooner.”

“He’s your dad, Blaine. I’m pretty sure he wishes he had been, too.”

Blaine nodded, smiling up at him. Kurt stroked through his hair, wanting to laugh at how obvious Blaine’s hurried dressing was. His hair was completely free of gel, curls knotting around Kurt’s fingers. Blaine caught him laughing and pouted at him. “I thought you liked it without the gel.”

“Oh, I do, believe me,” Kurt said, still grinning as he leaned down to kiss him. He wrapped his arms around Blaine’s neck, sliding off the table and into Blaine’s lap, parting his lips against Blaine’s.

“Morning,” came Burt’s gruff voice from the doorway, and they jumped apart, Kurt banging his back against the table and letting out a yelp. Burt just watched them, eyebrows raised, as Kurt rubbed his back and Blaine tried with all his might to stop blushing. “Little early for Blaine to be here, isn’t it?”

“He couldn’t sleep,” Kurt said. “Well, neither of us could. We were – we needed to talk.”

“It couldn’t wait?”

“No,” Blaine said, standing up. “I’m sorry, Burt, I would have asked, but I thought you were probably asleep.” He glanced at the kitchen clock. “I can just leave for school now, I’m so sorry to interrupt your morning.”

“Sit down, kid,” Blaine said, a smile pulling at the corners of his lips. “Grab some breakfast before you go. We haven’t seen you in a couple of days, Carole will want to smother you some before you get out of here. Just keep your hands to yourself,” he said, chuckling. He patted a mortified Blaine on the shoulder and headed for the fridge.

Blaine looked to Kurt, who was still blushing. Kurt shrugged and followed his father, already reprimanding him for the bacon he knew he was reaching for.

Blaine picked Rachel up from school that afternoon. She’d stayed late to use the auditorium and Finn had picked her up that morning, so she didn’t have a car. Blaine wondered whether Quinn knew about these morning drives Rachel and Finn were taking more and more of. Blaine knew for a fact that Finn wasn’t treating on Quinn, because he physically couldn’t be when he and Rachel hadn’t connected. Emotional infidelity, though, of that he wasn’t so sure. Blaine was starting to realise how stretched he was now – he had his loyalty to Rachel to feel happy for her, but he also had his anger on Quinn’s behalf. He was letting most of his confusion out through internal rants towards Finn and his complete brainlessness.

Rachel wasn’t waiting outside when he pulled up, so he hopped out, wondering whether he could catch her in the auditorium. He entered the school, looking around at the locker banks and considering which way to turn. The sound of voices echoed around the corner and he shrank back a little. Football teams had a very specific kind of voice to them: male posturing and ribbing that carried over other sounds in a crowded hallway, across pitches, and throughout parking lots at night while the music of a school dance hummed in the background. Sure enough, a sea of red and cream came crashing around the corner, shouting and shoving. Blaine tried to sink back into the lockers without being too overt.

“Blaine!”

Blaine flinched and gasped at the hand on his shoulder, whirling to find a confused Finn staring down at him.

“Hey, dude. You okay? You here for Rachel?”

“I.” Blaine forced himself to breathe. Letterman jacket or not, it was just Finn; gangly, harmless Finn. “Yeah.”

“Hey, Karofsky,” one of the guys yelled back down the hall, the call aimed at a figure lagging far behind the group, “you coming or what?”

The guy looked up and his eyes slid across Blaine standing at the other end of the hallway. He looked him up and down, frowning, and Blaine just stared back, feeling something fiery awake in his gut. His jaw set hard and he didn’t notice Finn talking in his ear. They stared at each other, Karofsky’s gaze hardening when he realised Blaine was glaring. He jogged to catch up with the guys, but not without bumping his shoulder into Blaine, making him stagger.

“What you staring at, homo?” he hissed before joining the group piling out of the doors.

Blaine stared after him, hands shaking. He jumped violently when Finn put a hand on his arm.

“Dude, you’re shaking. Sorry about Karofsky, he’s a real dick sometimes.”

Blaine snorted, shoulders still drawn up tight. He was about to walk off and search for the auditorium again, leaving Finn far behind, when Rachel came around the corner.

“Blaine,” she said as she spotted him, a huge grin spreading across her face. She started to scurrying towards him, then caught sight of who was standing beside him. Immediately, her smile grew to an almost manic level. “Hi, Finn.”

“Hey, Rachel.”

Blaine huffed, knowing that his presence was lost on both of them now. “Shall I let Finn drive you?”

Rachel nodded, not really looking like she’d heard him. Finn asked her something about the auditorium and they were gone, Blaine knew it. He sighed, extricating himself from between them and heading for the parking lot. He could hear them following behind, could almost catch the sound of Rachel’s overly interested gaze being directed at Finn. He climbed into his car and watched them wander off together, oblivious.

He started his car, fully prepared to seethe all the way to Kurt’s house. The radio lit up, commercials blaring out of the speakers. After a moment, Burt’s campaign commercial started up. Blaine grinned, turning the volume up to listen to it. It was just the start, but Blaine knew there would be more. Blaine had only heard a few of Burt’s plans from Kurt, but he had a feeling he would be hearing a lot about Burt Hummel over the next few weeks.

His optimism was quickly dashed, however, when the hourly news update announced further support for the bill; another senator had given his two cents. Blaine slammed the radio off, slumping back in the driving seat.

One step forwards, two steps back.