After the play, Kurt, Rachel, Santana and Adam go out for a little celebration dinner before the after show party.

Kurt is- satisfied. The play wasn’t perfect, of course it wasn’t. But he is just glad that the girl in the chorus managed to get off stage before she barfed. (And god, he doesn’t want to be there when James tears her apart)

Kurt himself has stumbled (both through some lines as well as literally) but he thinks he has managed to act as if that was part of the play, part of George.

His friends are proud, even Santana hugged him before making snarky comments about sex and people in the audience having an innocence-kink thanks to him now. He guesses it was meant as a compliment.

They are at a small, reasonably low-priced Italian restaurant, eating gnocchi and pizza and Kurt is still high on all the excitement.

He has never been so glad to be friends with Rachel as they dissect every little scene, every move, everything that could have gone better and should be improved.

“Okay, we get it, you two are a sexlessly married theatre-nerd-couple, but could we please talk about something fun now?”

Both Rachel and he glower at her but they know that they should be impressed that she said “please” between her insults.

Adam raises a fork. “I have something to talk about.”

And well, if Santana and Adam are on the same page for once..

“I’m listening.”

“What’s going on between you and the Max-guy? Are you together?”

And then he wishes that he hadn’t been listening. Kurt ponders whether it’s worth it to stuff his mouth with the last of his pasta to avoid answering but seeing the glint in Santana’s eyes he knows there’s no getting out of this one.

“No. No, Blaine and I are just friends.”

Rachel squeezes his knee underneath the table and he looks at her, unnerved that she seems to think that he needs to be comforted.

“But you want to be more.”

It’s not a question; Adam states it like he knows it the same way he knows that Kurt will order cheesecake for dessert.

“I- I don’t know. I like him. And for some time, when we got to know each other better, I thought maybe.. But he’s just so nice. To everyone. Which made it hard to distinguish whether he is kind to me because he is a nice person or- well. And now I know that he only sees us as friends. For some reason he’s into older, more experienced guys. I don’t know if there’s someone in particular he likes, but it’s clearly not me. And I don’t really want to be with someone who thinks someone who has not slept with half of Manhattan is not worth dating. So- we’re just friends. And that’s fine.”

Everyone at the table is staring at him and Rachel’s hand is still on his knee. He shakes it off, irritated.

“Boy, you’ve got it bad.”

Santana looks both pleased and surprised and Kurt rolls his eyes, finally stuffing his mouth with the last of his food a minute too late.

“Honey, if you like him that much, you should just tell him. Show him that whoever he’s pining for is nothing compared to Kurt Hummel. The few times I’ve seen you together, he seemed to really like you, too.”

Rachel’s voice is too soft, too close to pitying, and Kurt doesn’t need that. He needs to forget about this mess and celebrate his leading role success.

“And when I borrowed Kurt for a round of smooching, he was watching us like a hawk the whole time. I’m pretty sure he was jealous.”

Kurt looks up at that, disbelieving. Adam looks like he wants to be helpful, but that’s also not what Kurt needs. He needs realism. And an oblivion potion.

“How about we change the topic?” he asks once he has swallowed. He looks around for the waitress; desperate for the cheesecake he’d been promised.

The after show party is already in full swing when they arrive. It’s only him and Rachel now. Adam had early rehearsals the next day and Santana mumbled something about a booty call and took off. They didn’t ask any further questions.

The first thing he notices is Hailey, who is sitting on an uncomfortable looking bar stool in a corner of the room, nursing some kind of weird yellowish drink and looking moody.

Rachel announces to get them some drinks and Kurt makes his way over to Hailey.

“Fancy seeing you here”, he says and pulls over another bar stool to sit next to her. She looks genuinely surprised that he is coming over and Kurt is immediately concerned.

“What’s up? Why aren’t you celebrating with the rest of these drunks?”

He motions to the makeshift dance floor where people are gyrating against each other in a way that has Kurt avert his eyes.

“Why are you talking to me? Everyone’s mad at me; no one is talking to me.”

 Kurt furrows his brows, and not only because Hailey is clearly tipsy, if not on her way to mind-numbingly drunk.

“Who is mad at you?” he asks, looking around. As far as he knows, she didn’t mess up any of her lines or did anything else that would explain her solemn mood.

“Everyone! Blaine! Everyone!”

Kurt looks over to where Blaine is standing. He is talking animatedly with Rachel (which has his red lights flare up), his shirt is rumpled and his hair is finally winning the fight against his hair gel. He doesn’t look upset. He does look good though and Kurt quickly looks away and back to Hailey.

“Why is Blaine mad at you?”

But he can already imagine why and though Kurt has gotten to know Blaine as one of the most forgiving and nicest people, maybe even he has his limits.

“Because! Because first I told you and James that he’s a virgin and then I told you that he wanted to sleep with James. When you left last night, he got so mad. Like, really mad. I’ve never seen him so mad. He will never speak to me again.”

And oh god, she is close to tearing up right now and though Kurt has been living with Rachel and Santana long enough to know how to deal with hysteric (drunk) girls, he would like to avoid it if he can.

“Well, that wasn’t exactly nice of you. Why did you even do it? Blaine trusted you with these things.”

So maybe that wasn’t the right way to get her to not cry, but Kurt thought it was so out of character for her that he just couldn’t understand.

“I was just looking out for him! He’s been making some really bad decisions and I hoped that if I told James that he was a virgin that he would lose interest and back off. Who would have thought that James is actually more of a perv than we had initially thought? He was all over him after that. Which is why I had to tell you. Because I knew that even if I wouldn’t be able to talk him out of it, you would!”

Kurt rolls his eyes and ignores the way she is gesticulating with her hands, spilling some of her drink onto her black leather skirt. Anything out of the glass that wouldn’t land in her mouth is a win.

“Why would he listen to me if not to you, his best friend?”

It’s a rhetorical question but Hailey just snorts and thrusts her glass forwards in Blaine’s direction.

“He hasn’t even spoken to James for the last two hours. What you said clearly worked. And of course he would care more for your opinion on that than for mine.”

Kurt isn’t sure why she thinks so; most likely because they both know what it’s like to be in college without having sex, feeling society’s pressure on them. Or maybe because they are both gay. Kurt also can’t ignore the relief he feels at hearing that James hasn’t put his paws on Blaine yet.

“Well. Have you apologized to Blaine yet?”

Hailey slumps back into her stool. “No. Because what I did was for him. I was only doing what any good friend would do. I was protecting him from doing something he would regret.”

It’s clear that even she doesn’t actually believe what she saying.

“Hailey”, he looks at her until she looks up and meets his eyes. “I know you only want what’s best for him but you can’t just break his trust like that. Those were personal things he trusted you with and you told me and James and that’s not okay. And I know that you know that too. And you should trust him to make his own mistakes and to know what he wants to do. Just- apologize. I’m sure he’ll forgive you. He’s not exactly the most unforgiving person I know.”

He winks at her and she offers a watery smile in return.

“I will. And you’re right. I just- I want him to be happy. I’ll apologize. Tomorrow. When we’re not on the verge of very drunk. I don’t want to ruin his night with this. You should go talk to him. He’s been literally watching the door every 5 seconds before you arrived.”

He nods and stands, giving her shoulder a last squeeze and making his way over to where Rachel and Blaine are still talking.

“.. and he’s such a talented cook, you know? Whenever I’m upset he will bake me these amazing cookies. And no one is a better cuddler than him. I just love cuddling him when we’re watching movies and he knows all the words to all the musicals and-“

Blaine catches Kurt’s eye over Rachel’s shoulder and gives him an amused grin and Kurt speeds up, uncomfortably sure he knows just who Rachel is talking about.

“Rachel!”

And maybe his grip on her shoulder is a bit to firm if the way she squeaks and spins around is any indication.

“What are you doing?” he asks through gritted teeth, eyes momentarily flitting to Blaine who still looks way too amused.

Rachel’s eyes go big and round the way they always do when she tries to act innocent.

“Blaine and I were just talking. He’s impressed with your acting and singing talent, did you know? And he likes musicals just as much as we do.”

Kurt keeps his mouth firmly shut, counting to ten in his head to avoid screaming at her.

“We are at a dramatic arts school, Rach, Blaine would be in the wrong place if he didn’t enjoy the arts the way we do”, he finally offers and turns more fully to Blaine in an attempt to stop this conversation from continuing. Have all their friends lost their minds?

“You were really great tonight, Blaine.”

Blaine grins, bright and happy, and nods. “Thank you. The only reason I was great was because I got to play with someone as talented as you. We brought the house down.”

Kurt blushes and Rachel makes a small noise next to him, like she would like to coo at them.

“I will get us some drinks”, she announces instead and is gone within a second. Kurt watches her go, unsure if he wants to be left alone with Blaine but the alternative would be that she stayed and talked and that would be unacceptable.

“I’m sorry if Rachel was weird. She’s always keyed up when she gets near a stage, whether she’s on it or not.”

Blaine chuckles and shakes his head. “Don’t apologize, she’s great. You should be happy to have such a good friend. She couldn’t stop praising you.”

Kurt hangs his head and groans, which makes Blaine laugh even more.

“No, don’t, it was cute. She just really loves you, and she wasn’t wrong, you are kind of amazing.”

He looks up at that and Blaine looks bright-eyed and earnest and his cheeks are pink and Kurt wants to kiss him so badly.

“Thanks”, he says instead and Blaine nods. “No problem. I’m glad you came, by the way. I was starting to think you were ditching the party.”

Kurt grins and shakes his head. “No, we just wanted to get some dinner since we figured that there would be no acceptable food here.”

They both look at the set up buffet that consists of chips and cake and something that looks vaguely like meat balls. “It’s pretty disgusting”, Blaine agrees and then abruptly asks, “Would you like to dance?”

Kurt looks at the dance floor and back at Blaine who watches him and seems to be holding his breath.

“Sure.”

Blaine’s smile lights up his face and he grabs Kurt’s hand and pulls him over to the dance floor. Kurt is sure that he will regret being this close to a moving, sweating Blaine. But for now, he ignores it and dances his heart out.