Part Twelve

"I really don't like this game," Brittany complained, throwing the white remote down onto the couch. "I wanna play with Rachel's kitten. Did you name her yet?"

"A reminder, Rachel, you are not allowed to name the kitten your boyfriend got you for Christmas after Barbra Streisand," Santana said, giving Rachel a pointed look. "Okay, if we're bored of MarioKart, anyone up for a couple round of Wii bowling?"

"I'm not going to, I named my kitten Penny!" Rachel exclaimed happily, looking adoringly at the ball of white fluff currently curled up on Kurt's stomach. "So I can say 'find a Penny, pick her up, then all day you'll have good luck!'"

"Corny, Rachel," Kurt said sullenly, shoving the kitten away and picking the white hairs clinging to his jumper off. "Don't they say the worst time to introduce a pet is at Christmas? Particularly when Brittany's the only one making a fuss of her and she's going home in a week."

"You're only sulking because of Anderson back in Ohio," Santana snapped. "Seriously, Kurt, you could've gone home instead of staying here. Although I might have stabbed you for leaving me with Rachel, particularly when she's in the alcohol like this."

"Brody gave it to me, I'm gonna drink it if I want!" Rachel shouted triumphantly, taking another swig from the bottle. "Let's play Wii swordplay. I'm gonna shove you off a big platform!"

"There's no point, Blaine doesn't want to be with me and I honestly can't go one more round of no-strings-attached sex before I just do the Rachel thing of bursting into tears and refusing to let go the morning after," Kurt grumbled, pulling his knees up to his chin and wrapping his arms around his legs.

"Hey!" Rachel exclaimed. "My great-aunt had just died and he was nice to me!" She grabbed the bottle and a couple of the glasses still standing upside-down from her and Kurt's drinking session while Santana had taken Brittany to see a local pantomime the previous night. "Who wants a drink? Merry Christmas!"

"Shouldn't your boyfriend know that you don't even celebrate Christmas?" Kurt asked, ignoring Rachel's offering of a glass. "Thanks but no, I'm so depressed I'll just cry all over everything."

"I think you should try going out with Charlie from the café," Santana said, withdrawing the hand she'd reached out to take a glass at Brittany's pointed look and glaring at Kurt's chuckle. "I showed him a picture, he thinks you're cute. Going to bed with someone else might stop you from being hung up on the whore."

"Blaine's not a whore," Kurt snapped. "Rachel, I changed my mind, give me that bottle before you drink yourself stupid."

"What are you doing, Kurt?" Brittany asked, lifting the kitten onto her knee, her purring filling the room as Brittany stroked her with a triumphant little smile tugging at her lips. "You never usually drink."

"There are extenuating circumstances," Kurt replied haughtily. "By which I mean the man I'm in love with rejected me," he paused to count on his fingers, "four-ish times and I'm surrounded by people who are totally in love."

"I'm not in love with Brody, it's early days," Rachel retorted intelligently. "I really like him, though. And he must like me to get me expensive wine and a kitten for Christmas!"

Santana rolled her eyes and grabbed the wine when Brittany was distracted playing with the kitten, swallowing straight from the bottle. "We should go out and do something," she announced. "We're slowly going crazy in here."

"It's snowing and everything's shut because of Christmas," Kurt said dully. "What are we supposed to do, build a time machine and go back to being five years old when Christmas was so exciting?"

"Play more MarioKart!" Brittany declared, seizing the remote and starting a new race. "Rachel, I bet you a glass of wine you'll run over your own banana again." Rachel grinned and grabbed the second remote, Santana sighing in long-suffering before doing the same with the third.

"I'll pass," Kurt muttered, skirting around the kitten now clawing at the bottom of the curtains and dodging out onto the tiny balcony. The snow was falling thick and fast and he wasn't really appropriately clothed for the weather, but with four people and a kitten in an apartment only really meant for two people it was the quietest place.

He'd been thinking for over a month, since he'd kissed Blaine goodbye. He'd hoped so much, when he murmured those three words in goodbye and asked what he'd meant by his words, that he would get the reply he wanted to hear. Until Santana had shattered the moment leaning on her car horn and only smirked at him when he climbed into the car and immediately told her off. Was he too hung up on a relationship he'd never have?

"Santana," he called back through the doors as a yell of triumph echoed through the apartment, "would your friend Charlie be open to meeting me here today?"

"Oh, awesome, you're gonna give him a chance!" Santana exclaimed happily. "I'll call him and tell him we have wine and MarioKart, he'll be over here in a flash. Rachel, go to your room and call your boyfriend, you'd be off-putting to Kurt's potential new squeeze."

"If I'm being kicked out you two have to go out too!" Rachel shouted over the sound of a slamming door. Walking back inside and shaking melting snow out of his hair, Kurt chuckled softly as her door opened again and she added, "There are sledges in the cupboard, go find a nice hill."

Kurt met Charlie half an hour later, a tall, thin man who smiled awkwardly at him when Santana opened the door and quickly introduced them before Brittany grabbed her by the hand and dragged her out into the snow. "This is…kind of awkward," Charlie observed as he followed Kurt into the living room.

"Really awkward, yeah," Kurt said with a slight laugh. "I'm going to make coffee, do you want anything?"

An hour later, they were both at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and talking like old friends. Charlie had initially seemed a little shy and quiet, but once they started talking he was funny and charming. "So, Santana said you've just come out of a bad relationship?" he asked curiously.

"In a manner of speaking, yes," Kurt answered carefully. "I wanted something more, he didn't and then I had to come back out here."

"Are you over him?" Charlie asked, his hand covering Kurt's on the table.

"Yes, completely, I barely even think about him," Kurt lied blandly. Charlie smiled and leaned slowly across the table.

The kiss was sweet, soft and mercifully short, though Kurt felt awful for thinking it. He couldn't help but compare Charlie to Blaine, remember how hungry Blaine's first kisses had been, a hand creeping across his thigh, his moans swallowed by Blaine's mouth.

He really wasn't over Blaine. And he doubted he ever would be.