Their rings clink together in his palm where they are cupped loosely. Shaking a little, Blaine tries to stand, coffee and letter forgotten on the counter. He feels euphoric and somehow weak, kitten legged and as he makes his way toward their bedroom, eviscerated.

Through the words in that letter, ink scrabbled into cheap paper, he could feel every word. Kurt’s words, Kurt’s memories, cutting into his delicately thin skin, until he’d been left bleeding love for this man he’d chosen. No, he shakes his head, coming to a stop in the door of their room. Kurt is curled away from the door, and even in his sleep there is a hitch in Kurt’s breathing that tells Blaine he cried himself to sleep.

It was never a choice. He didn’t choose Kurt, and Kurt didn’t choose him. Blaine doesn’t believe in fate, or luck really. But he does know that there was no choice. It might have taken him months to recognize it, but he was lost from the moment Kurt stopped him on that stairwell. He was lost and helpless to it and there is no chance he’ll ever be able to walk away from this man.

Mindful of the early morning hush, Blaine strips off his wrinkled clothes, down to his boxers, before crawling into bed next to Kurt. Even in sleep they’ve always sought each other, and this morning is no exception. Mumbling, Kurt turns into his arms, still sleeping, face drawn with sadness. Blaine waits, running fingertips gently over the planes of Kurt’s face. It’s not often that he can take the time to admire Kurt’s beauty like this, at peace, objectively.

But Kurt is waking now, eyes fluttering, dark grey and heavy.

“Blaine?” His whisper is plaintive and hopeful, fingers clutching at Blaine’s arms and something inside of Blaine cracks a little, at the sound.

“I’m here.” He breathes it out, the words invisible ghosts running over Kurt’s skin, and his face relaxes infinitesimally. Kurt burrows in, burying his face in Blaine’s neck. Kurt’s skin is sleep warm and his body lose in a way he can never achieve when awake, no matter how many dance classes he’s taken.

“I’m here.” Kurt is waking up in earnest now, limbs stiffening a little, shocks of awareness and memory sparking through his muscles.

“You’re here.” Kurt’s voice isn’t flat, exactly, and not quite questioning, but there’s something, an undercurrent that Blaine might just be too tired to catch.  Frowning, he takes Kurt’s hand, now ring-less, and threads his fingers through.

“I’m here.” Kurt looks down at their hands, seeing the white line, a memory of where Blaine’s ring once was. When his eyes fill, Blaine presses into his space.

“No, it’s ok. Here.”  He fishes behind him, on the bedside table, for his ring. After checking the inscription to be sure it is his, he hands it to Kurt, closing Kurt’s matching ring with it’s separate inscription in his hand.

“I want you to hold onto this. I want it back when it’s right.”

Kurt pulls back, taking the ring with both hands, tracing the circle of gold. Blaine thinks of those chains, hopelessly snagged, in his mothers jewelry box. He’s anticipating long months of delicate work, unwinding every strand of doubt and jealousy and hurting they’ve gotten themselves trapped in.  But he wants to take more care, more care than his mother had, with these rings, with their lives, with their selves. So when the moment is right and he knows they’ve done it, unwound it all, he wants them both to make that promise to take more care in the future.

“I’m in this Kurt. It won’t be easy, but I know now…I think  I know now where to start. I know you’ve put the ball in my court, if you’ll pardon the sporting metaphor,” a ghost of a smile crosses his face at Kurt’s annoyed laugh, “Jan said something last night…it wasn’t really important, but it made me realize..”  Kurt waits as Blaine thinks, body shifting slightly closer, so that his knee is touching Blaine’s thigh, and Blaine smiles. He thinks of the small bridge, a temporary way to span the space between them, and presses his leg just a little closer.

“It made me realize I was looking in the wrong direction. I was thinking about you cheating, worrying about other men and if you were going to do it again. And honestly, I know that won’t happen. I know it won’t ever happen again, I’ve known, somewhere, the whole time.” At Kurt’s raised eyebrow, a question unspoken but heard all the same, Blaine sighs,

“Maybe it was easier, to believe that’s what it was? Maybe it was easier to believe in something that would never be true, because the truth hurts so much worse?”  He doesn’t stop the tears that begin to gather, leaning into Kurt’s cool fingers as they brush them away, touch tendersoft and tentative. The next words are hard, and Blaine can feel that block, that weight in his chest and mouth that makes him want to stop, to pull away. But Kurt is still holding his ring; his finger feels naked without it, he feels naked without it. Blaine closes his eyes and takes a breath and lets the words out on the exhale, rushing through them.

“The truth is that you broke the trust. Not the trust that you wouldn’t cheat, but that thing, that thing between us that was just always there. That thing that made me feel safe and loved and like I never had to question that I had a place with you and in your life and that I just belonged and that we just belong.”  Opening his eyes, Blaine examines Kurt’s face, white and a little shocked and creased with hurting.

“I want that back, and we need to both want it back and I know now what was missing and that we both do. I…it’s not there, quite yet. I just…need more time. But I am here with you, and you are here with me and I know that if we just stay with each other we can make our way through this, right?”

Kurt nods frantically, placing his long fingers and smooth palms on his cheeks, rough stubbled,

“Yes. Please, Blaine, yes.”  And Blaine is nodding too and they are both crying, but just a little, looking into each others eyes. “You’ll give me the ring when you’re there, ok?”

“Yes.” And now Blaine kisses him. Because it isn’t perfect, and they both still hurt, and Blaine still aches for this thing that they’ve lost, that Kurt broke, but he wants it back more than he wants his anger and pain and distrust, no matter how justified he is in having those feelings. When Kurt kisses him back it’s sweet and tentative and for a moment Blaine feels sixteen again, kissing Kurt for the first time in the commons room, unsure and afraid but brave enough to take the leap.