Blaine doesn’t even notice when Kurt puts the magazines away, until suddenly it is two weeks later and he opens his bed table drawer searching for his glasses and sees the stack of post-it notes.  He looks through them slowly, smiling a little, feeling for the first time the aching in his chest that seems to always be there. It’s a feeling he’s been carrying without realizing; it’s missing Kurt and banked anger and he has no idea what to do with any it. He remembers that first week of January, the way it had felt to be so close to Kurt again; he promises to try harder, to make things better.

The next few weeks bear the fruits of this promise. They both work harder to connect, to laugh with one another and to ignore everything that’s being left unsaid. Kurt doesn’t bring up the skipped meals, the way Blaine has forgotten three weeks running about their standing Sunday’s at home. Blaine skips study group to spend time with Kurt in the evening, cooking meals together. Kurt’s been skipping his weekly get together with his theater friends for months anyway, he works during the day when he doesn’t have class, so he’s home more often as well. They enjoy their time together, and soon enough they both start to feel it again- a sort of tingling that is hope and excitement and relief.

One night Blaine comes home to find Kurt singing, shimmying and filling the apartment with noise and laughter. He’s wearing his skinniest jeans and a tight black t-shirt with a graphic print; some sort of explosion of color. Every time he moves the shirt shifts a little, exposing a sliver of skin- so unusual for Kurt. His hair is messed, styled to look messy, and Blaine’s mouth waters.

“No, no, no.” Kurt dances away from Blaine’s grasping hands, laughing and shaking his finger at him, “We’re going out. There’s a new club opening, and it’s been way too long since we’ve had some fun.”  Kurt is manhandling Blaine into their bedroom where he can clearly see an outfit picked out for him. Kurt steamrolls him in the best way possible; Blaine loves Kurt in this sort of high mood, giddy and compulsive and pushy. He doesn’t bother to protest when Kurt assaults him with eye liner, then proceeds to push him against the wall of the bathroom, lips and teeth and a desperate groan as he rolls his body slowly against him before pulling away.

“Mm, no, no more.” He holds Blaine to the wall with one firm hand. He is smirking, but his color is high, cheeks red under the glitter he’s dusted over his skin, his eyes are blown wide and Blaine bites back a whine that wants to escape. He wants Kurt, but he wants this too. This fun, and the feeling of freedom and how them they are right now, inside this moment.  His smile back is a bit dangerous, his hands low on Kurt’s hips register a faint tremor.

“More later?” His voice is low and intimate; he can see the way it washes over Kurt, who bites his lip, eyes cast down.

“Mmmhmmm.” Kurt is breathing against his neck, lips tracing a gentle line up to his ear. When he pulls away Blaine is shocked at the cold, how cold he is without Kurt’s body, and then he’s following as Kurt leads him away, down the hallway and into the night.

The club is crazy packed, so full of moving bodies Blaine wonders idly if there is enough air to go around. But it’s new, and nice. Kurt’s friend Sheila knows someone who knows someone, which is how they’ve gotten in at all.

And right now, Blaine doesn’t care. It’s dark, lights flashing and moving, it’s dark and close and Kurt is touching him, neck to toe, moving his body against Blaine’s back in time to the music.  He’s drunk, they’re both a little drunk and a lot handsy which would normally embarrass Blaine but there’s a level of anonymity in the press of bodies and the random pattern of strobe lights and fuck, he doesn’t care. Kurt’s teeth are in his neck and his thumbs are pressing under the waist of his jeans.  When Blaine turns, he does with a sensual roll of his hips, hooking one hand around Kurt’s neck and looking, looking up into Kurt’s eyes. It’s not anything he notices on an everyday basis, but times like this, Blaine fucking loves the differences between their bodies. The way Kurt is taller, how owned and wanted it makes him feel to have Kurt looking down at him.

Things begin to get a little jumbled, after this. There’s more shots, drinking in a group around a sticky table near the crowded bar. The next morning he’ll remember a snapshot, frantic and desperate in the bathroom; the memory will wash over him, shame and guilt and disbelief.

But guilt won’t begin to cover how Blaine will feel about what happened next. Alone in bed the next morning, Blaine will try to piece together when things started to go wrong, and all he’ll  remember is Jason. He’ll remember pushing Jason, hard; Jason swinging back, there’s  a sliver of memory of that. Then it’s being escorted out of the club, wondering where the fuck Kurt is, swearing and no one is really listening because they don’t know him and don’t give a fuck.

Blaine will wake up in the morning and remember making an ass of himself. He won’t remember how they got separated, but he’ll feel it again, the thread of righteousness, being positive that Kurt knew Jason was going to be there. That Kurt was in the club with Jason, laughing at his drunken fool of a boyfriend.

It’s morning now, and despite the vestiges of too much alcohol; the dry mouth and pounding head, he remembers. Remembers too little and yet far too much. Memories that make him wince and pull the sheet over his face.  There’s nothing rational about his thought process the night before. No reason for him to have behaved the way he did. He’s still not sure how he made his way home, but he remembers, clearly, shouting at Kurt when he’d come in, flushed and frightened because he’d lost Blaine at the club. He remembers the way his words tripped out, drowning Kurt’s exclamations of fear. The way he let himself pretend that the caring and worry in Kurt’s eyes was guilt, or fear. But he cannot forget Kurt shrieking, drunk and out of control in a way he rarely gets,

“Fuck you, Blaine Anderson! Fuck you and your fucking inability to just…god, fuck no matter what I do, I’m wrong.”  His voice had risen to the point that Blaine wondered what the neighbors must be thinking. Kurt, by this point, had been almost unhinged, voice cracking, “When will you have enough? What do I do to be sorry enough? How long are you going to punish me?” For a moment, Kurt had looked ready to hit something, to throw something reigning himself in with obvious effort, visibly pulling himself together.

“When will it be enough for you,” His voice had been quiet then. Sobering a little, Blaine found himself shaking, limp on the couch and looking up at Kurt. “You got kicked out of that club. Fuck I don’t even know why!” Kurt, his deliberate and controlled Kurt, was twitching, muscles moving and jerking with anger and frustration, his hand rising and falling, looking for something, some way to fidget. But Kurt never fidgeted; he’s always been still, careful with the lines of his body, and even drunk this sort of unwinding, unhinged sort of Kurt is frightening and deeply unnerving.

In the light of day, the memory of Kurt like this is enough to have Blaine curing up in a ball, ashamed and disgusted and a little sick to his stomach. He can hear Kurt still, voice too loud and high and on the edge, “All I know is I lost you in that club and panicked. And I find you here only to have you screaming at me th- that,” he remembers Kurt’s voice breaking, this time not with strain but with tears, “That I’m fucking Jason, and oh my god,” his laugh was weak, “I can’t… I can’t deal with this coming out of nowhere. Sometimes I’m not sure I know you at all any more.”  His face was heartbreaking, tears leaving lines trailing through glitter, and the last thing Blaine remembers the next day is the sound of the apartment door closing behind Kurt, closing with a quiet, but firm, click.