“I’m so sleepy…” Penny yawed, rubbing her eyes as Walter parked in front of her house. “See you tomorrow, Walter!” she smiled and grabbed her purse from the back seat.

“See you, Penny,” he said, before his cell phone began to buzz.

“What is it now?” Walter grunted, picking up his phone. He wanted to go home and sleep. Who could be calling at such a time? “Penny, wait! It’s Artie!” He grabbed his partner’s wrist.

Artie wouldn’t call without a good reason, especially at this time of night. Something must’ve happened.

Penny sat down and closed the door behind her, watching as Walter spoke with Artie.

“What? Your computer? B-but how?” exclaimed Walter, looking perplexed.

“What happened?” Penny asked.

Walter held his hand up.

“Alright… No, don’t worry, we’re heading to your house in a bit…. Alright, see you…” Walter put his phone back into the pocket of his trench coat. “What happened?” Penny asked anxiously.

Walter pressed his lips in a thin line, clenching onto the wheel. “Someone broke into Artie’s computer, and apparently, Eugene got damaged in the process…” he explained, staring the engine.

“What?” Penny exclaimed, almost hissing. Artie was supposed to be the best; everyone thought of him as the best, that was what the all the files and lists in the FDTC’s reports said. The hacker community treated him like some sort of Yoda… “How?” she cried in disbelief.

“Well, that’s what we are about to find out,” Walter murmured, his hazel eyes fixed on the road.

Sitting on Santana’s couch, Kurt looked down at the empty cup red cup in his hands. The party had ended a long time ago and he was waiting for Blaine to sober up so that they could head home. Quinn had already left with Puck.

Brittany was staying over and apparently Sam was too, who was pretty much passed out on the floor. Mike was sitting across the room, talking to Blaine, and they both were holding mugs of black coffee that Santana had made for them.

Kurt felt bad. There was this empty feeling in his stomach and this bitter taste inside of his mouth. He knew he should be at least a little proud of himself, after all this was his first party and well, he hadn’t had a panic attack or gotten disturbingly drunk to the point of vomiting on someone-actually, he hadn’t gotten drunk at all-, but still, Kurt couldn’t get rid of the gloomy feeling overtaking him.

He just couldn’t wrap his head around what had happened on Santana’s balcony. For one moment, he actually thought Blaine was going to kiss him, but then Sam showed up and Blaine began to act all weird, as if he was ashamed of what could have happened. He didn’t know what he had been expecting, but Kurt had hoped for more than this, for more than rejection and the vague sense of shame simmering inside of him.

He never thought of himself as gorgeous, and he definitely didn’t have Sam’s abs or Mike’s legs, but he wasn’t that bad… And he dressed fabulously, didn’t he? So why did Blaine keep ignoring him, making it a point to stay at certain distance, as if Kurt had some contagious illness? That stung, and not only a bit, but a lot, especially because Kurt wasn’t human, at least not by the biological definition of the word and ever since he had discovered that, all his dreams of finding a prince charming began to seem more and more like childish fantasies, things that would never become reality.

After all, who would want to know what he was? He was an illegal form of technology, and knowing what he was and associating with him was against the law. And if boys were already feeling ashamed of being close to him while they thought he was human, there was no way someone would ever want him after knowing the truth.

He looked up and met Blaine’s eyes. The boy was staring at him with an expression Kurt could only describe as “uncomfortable”.

Kurt looked away, trying to avoid showing how he was feeling. He wondered how Blaine would look at him if he knew the truth, and he couldn’t stop the word “freak” from echoing inside of his head.

He crushed the red cup in his hands.

Kurt had never hated being an android as he did at that moment.

Artie’s hands were shaking. He couldn’t type.
He looked down at Eugene who was lying on the bench, at the way he was shaking and trembling…

Artie couldn’t stop shaking.

There were stabbing pains in his chest, and lumps in his throat suffocating him. His lab seemed to be moving, blurred by tears. He couldn't even describe this feeling. He felt so much guilt spreading throughout his body. How he could be so arrogant? Thinking he was so good and that no one would ever be able to break into his security system. God, he was so stupid.

Another crisis of violent throws overtook Eugene’s metallic body.

Artie clenched his fists tightly, trying to gain control of his hands again. He needed to stop shaking. It didn’t matter if the muscles of his hands were already sore or if he could barely feel his fingertips after having desperately tried to reestablish Eugene’s system for the past half hour. He needed to fix Eugene.

He had to.

Eugene was his friend.

He heard footsteps entering the room. A hand gripped his shoulder.

“Oh my God, Artie!” Someone shouted at him. He looked up. Penny’s eyes were wide and she was standing beside him, her hand clenching his shoulder and the other covering her mouth as she looked down at Eugene.

“W-what happened?” Walter asked.

“Someone hacked my computer,” Artie managed to get out before being interrupted by another of Eugene’s metallic cries.

“I-I’ve been trying to reestablish his system…” Artie gritted his teeth. “B-but he keeps restarting and then shutting off again… I-I just-” Artie choked, sobbing. He was losing control of himself. It was just like what had happened to C3PO once again, he wouldn’t be able to do a thing. This time it wouldn’t be his mother fault, but his because he just couldn’t control his hands!

“You’re going to make it,” Penny assured him, squeezing his shoulder.

“And we’ll be here with you,” Walter said, grabbing a chair and sitting beside Artie. He placed a hand above Artie’s and suddenly, the boy stopped shuddering. “You can do this, Artie,” Walter said to him calmly.

Artie closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

He could do this.

Eugene’s sensors were fuzzy. The flashing red lights and the echoing alarm that crippled his functions and had swallowed him into an inky darkness seemed to be gone but there was this blinding blue light piercing through him which was going to the back of his mind.

He felt disconnected from his sensorial functions.

But this light’s just so bright.

Out of instinct, Eugene tried to raise his hands to block the light. But he couldn’t, his arms felt too heavy, as if his joints weren’t functioning properly.
Little by little, the environment around him began to gain some shape.

There were shadows above him.

What were they?

Where was he?

Eugene’s scans couldn’t tell.

“E…ge…” He heard a feminine voice. But it didn’t make sense, it seemed too distant. His hearing sensors were still adjusting.

He felt a small spasm in his left hand. He clenched it and felt warm fingers tangled in his. They were soft, small, human fingers.

“Eugene?”

“Oh my God, you did it, Artie!”

“He’s back!”

Suddenly, there was a heavy weight on his upper body. It seemed as if someone was supporting themselves on him. They were trembling and their sobs echoing through Eugene’s metal surface. The Robot felt something wet on him, and trembling hands gripped at his sides as arms encircled him around the middle.

Someone was hugging him.

Funny, He thought. No one had ever hugged him before.

Eugene finally gained enough strength to raise his hand and place it above the weight on his torso. He tangled his fingers in short locks of soft brown hair.

His sensors adjusted and his vision become less blurry.

A pair of glassy blue eyes looked up at him. “Genie?”

‘Artie.’ The name echoed inside of his mind.

Star Wars manic.

Cries when watching sad movies.

Addicted to red vines.

Friend.

If he could, Eugene would have smiled. “H-HELLO ARTIE,” his metallic voice echoed, a little rusty. Artie looked up and smiled with the widest smile the robot had ever seen.

Blaine pointed to the bed. “Where do you wanna-”

“You can have the bed,” Kurt cut in. He didn’t look up. His eyes were focused on his shoes as he untied them, but Blaine didn't miss the way the android had shifted uneasily.

Blaine gulped, trying to keep his face expressionless.

“Are you sure? I mean, I can-”

Despite the weariness Kurt felt tugging at his limbs, the android still managed to put his bitchiest face on. “And break one of your precious rules? I don’t think so,” He said, his voice sharp and his blue eyes cold.

Kurt just couldn’t help it, even if Blaine was actually trying to be nice to him. He didn’t care. He was too tired to care. He didn’t want Blaine’s pity, not now, not after the other boy had made a point of spent the whole night treating Kurt as if he something to be ashamed off.

“As you wish, Ice Queen.” Blaine gritted his teeth, trying to keep his voice steady. Kurt wasn’t the only one choking on feelings he didn't understand.

Kurt sighed. They were back to the offensive nicknames stage. Great, the android considered, and this time in a non-sarcastic way. He knew how to deal with that, with Blaine being a jerk, and it wasn’t confusing and surprisingly it didn’t make him feel half as bad as it should have.

“I’m gonna take a shower. Don’t turn the lights off,” Kurt murmured tiredly as he stood up and grabbed his shoes.

“Okay.” Blaine nodded before licking his lips.
Kurt felt as if he was being punched in the stomach. He quickly turned his back to Blaine and left the room. He refused to think about how hours ago he actually thought we would have happily had those lips against his.

“God,” Kurt hissed under his breath as he closed the bathroom door behind him. “I’m so stupid.”

When Walter returned to his apartment, it was 4 in the morning. He spent practically the whole night at Artie’s place, not leaving until the hacker made sure Eugene’s system had been reestablished.

It was stressful and exhausting. More than once, Eugene would gain some consciousness, only to shut off again a few seconds later, and even if he and Penny didn’t do anything besides give Artie moral support and occasionally hand him something, it was still a tiring experience.

Watching Eugene tremble and convulse like that… Walter knew that in theory, robots like Eugene didn’t have sensors which allowed them to feel pain, but they also weren’t supposed to develop emotions, and Eugene was a sweetheart, so Walter couldn’t shake off the feeling that Eugene was experiencing excruciating pain as he struggled to keep functioning.

So yeah, Walter was exhausted. The past 24 hours had been a roller coaster for him. First, fighting with Blaine, then interrogating Drizzle and finally helping Artie and trying to keep Penny from having a panic attack as she burst into tears on their way back from Artie’s, saying she would quit the FDTC and that she just couldn’t keep doing what she did when there were robots like Eugene and Kurt out there… And he agreed with her. Even though he had to pay Barbara’s allowance and two hypothecs, he also would quit and probably join some pro-robot rights movement.

Sighing, Walter supported himself against the kitchen sink after drinking a cup of water. “How’s this become my life?” He murmured to himself, before yawning and turning the kitchen light off. Every single muscle in Walter’s body ached, and he could barely keep his hazel eyes open.

Crossing the living room as he headed to his bedroom, Walter chuckled at the sight of Penny curled up on his couch. She had accompanied him upstairs to get a few files that she would need to finish some reports, but in the minute it had taken Walter to go to his room and get the papers, the ginger girl had fallen asleep on his couch.

And Walter just couldn’t bring himself to wake her up. Penny was pouting, and kind of wrinkling her freckled nose at the locks of ginger hair that had fallen on her face. Waking her up when she was sleeping so peacefully would have been just too mean, and Walter was too tired to drive her home anyway. So he put some blankets on top of her, a pillow under her head, and turned the living room’s lights off.

Walter didn’t want to do anything but collapse in his bed and sleep for a week, but he stopped by the boys’ room to check up on them. He slightly opened the door and caught a glimpse of Kurt curled up in the futon.

I really need to buy another bed, he thought. That futon seemed very uncomfortable. He looked to the bed and surprisingly, Blaine was still awake, staring at the roof.

“Hey,” Walter murmured, catching Blaine attention. “Is everything alright?” he whispered.

“Y-yeah,” his son answered. He didn’t sound convincing.
Walter frowned. “Are you sure?”
Blaine nodded.

“A-and are we alright?” Walter asked tentatively, as he searched for Blaine’s eyes in the darkness. He knew this wasn’t the time or the place to have this conversation, but he still needed Blaine to say something, anything. He just felt so bad for how things had ended between them the previous morning.

“I guess,” Blaine murmured, lunching his shoulders.

And well, that a start wasn’t it?

“Alright then.” Walter nodded, smiling slightly.

“’Night, son,” He murmured before closing the bedroom door behind him carefully and heading to his room.

Kurt awoke the next morning shivering a little, despite the amount of blankets piled on top of him. His pillow was still a little wet from his wet hair last night.

Exhausted, he had collapsed on his futon without even bothering to dry it properly. He rolled around in the futon, fixing his blue eyes at the single bed across the room.

It was empty.

Ignoring the small twinge he felt in his chest, Kurt got out of the bed.

He brushed his teeth and took a good look at himself in the mirror. His eyes were slightly red, and his face was completely white. He was a mess. Even his hair seemed to have decided have a bad day. Sighing, Kurt washed his face and tried to coif his hair. In the end, it didn’t look as flawless as usual, but it was the best he could manage to do.

He opened the door. There stood Penny, staring back at him with drowsy eyes through locks of messy red hair. And well, that was quite unexpected. He hadn’t even noticed when Walter had arrived home, but he definitely wasn’t expecting Penny to have spent the night.

“Hey Kurt…” The ginger woman yawned.

“Hey Penny,” He answered, an eyebrow raised. “Did you spend the night here?”

“Yeah, I fell asleep on the couch while Walter was grabbing some papers. It was pretty late when we arrived.” She turned the faucet on and washed her face. “Do you guys have an extra toothbrush?” she asked, grabbing a towel.

“Third drawer,” Kurt answered, standing in front the door of the bathroom. “What kept you out so late? Did you guys discover something?”

“Is the name Sandra Jordan familiar to you?” Penny asked, squeezing the toothpaste tube and putting some on her toothbrush.

Kurt raised an eyebrow. “No.”

“Apparently, she was involved in your building,” Penny said, brushing her teeth. She leant over and took a sip of water. “We think she was the responsible for the development of your skin and tissues.”

Kurt gasped. “Did you find her? Did you talk to her?” he asked anxiously.

“No, she’s dead.” Penny sighed “But we talked to her sister, a really weird hippie who kept complimenting Walter’s aura…” She rolled her eyes and made a face.

Kurt chuckled knowingly. “Oh really?”

“Oh yeah, she kept saying Walter’s aura was orange and that orange was a really beautiful color…” Penny’s simmering brown eyes indicated her annoyance. “But do you think she made any comment about my aura?”

Kurt opened his mouth but before he had the chance to answer, Penny spoke again. “She didn’t! And you know what? I have an awesome aura! Believe me, I looked it up on the internet.” Penny held her toothbrush up in the air.

When Kurt just chuckled lightly and ducked his and nodded, Penny sighed. “I’m serious! That hippie’s up to something!”

“Alright, alright.” Kurt nodded. “So besides the fact that the woman who made my skin is dead and that her twin hippie sister totally digs Walter’s orange aura, did you found out anything else?”

“We didn’t get anything else… Also, Sandra knew Gunther.” Penny supported her weight against the sink. “But then something really bad happened… Artie’s computer was hacked.”

“What?” Kurt gasped. “B-but I thought that Artie was like, the best damn hacker in the country!”

Penny shrugged. “We thought that too, but apparently there’s someone even better out there because someone managed to break into Artie’s computer and steal every single file Artie had stored, damaging Eugene who was connected to the computer in the process.”

Kurt frowned. “Eugene?”

“Oh, you didn’t meet him! He’s a robot. Artie took him in after some brats damaged his center of processing...” Penny trailed off, her lips parted. The image of Eugene on that bench filled her mind.

“He’s really sweet and I felt really, really bad seeing him like that. It was heartbreaking.” Penny took a deep breath and looked up into Kurt’s eyes. “I’m quitting work at the FTDC after we find out who built you, and Walter told me he’s going to the same.”

Kurt didn’t know what to say to that. He felt torn. He was incredibly happy because Penny and Walter wouldn’t be working for the division that destroyed and confiscated robots like him anymore, but at same time Kurt couldn’t help but feel this small twinge of guilt. Not because Penny and Walter were planning on quitting their jobs, well, that was part of it too, but due the fact it wasn’t until then that Kurt actually thought about the existence of others like him. Abstractly, he knew that there were others out there, but it wasn’t until he saw Penny moved by another robot that these “others” became something much more solid, not only an theoretical concept that sometimes made him feel less alone.

There were others out there. There were other robots that were being attacked for fun by spoiled brats. Robots who had feelings but were forced to hide them.

The guilt rose in the form of a painful lump in his throat, and Kurt felt his eyes water a bit. “Really?”

“Yes.” Penny nodded. She took a deep breath before speaking again. “I just can’t keep doing this… no matter how much they pay me. I can’t do this damn job after meeting you and Eugene… And the others Eugene and Kurts that are out there? I want to be there for them as well, and I can’t do that while working for the FDTC.”

“Thank you, Penny,” Kurt said. He just didn’t know what to say besides that, so he repeated it again. “Thank you so much,” he murmured, as if saying it once couldn’t possibly express his gratitude.

Walter was boiling water for instant coffee when his son crossed the hallway in a rush.

“Blaine?” Walter raised an eyebrow, unpacking some frozen waffles.

Blaine stopped dead in his tracks, and Walter was quite sure he had heard the boy swearing before turning around and meeting his eyes. “Hey Walter...” The boy greeted.

Walter noticed Blaine had his car keys in his left hand.

“Going somewhere?” Walter asked as he put the waffles in
the toaster.

“I’m gonna have breakfast at Brittany’s…” Blaine lied bluntly, avoiding meeting Walter’s eyes. He wasn’t going to Brittany’s. Britt was at Santana’s place. He just wanted to get out of that house before he was forced to face Kurt.

“Right.” Walter nodded, cleaning his hands on his baby blue apron. “You’re not trying to avoid me, right? Because we definitely need to talk about what happened… I-I just want to make things work between us…” he trailed off, looking at his son.

Blaine looked at his shoes. “I’m not avoiding you,” he said. It wasn’t a lie. He was avoiding Kurt. Sure, there were a lot of unsolved things between him and his dad, but right now he just wanted get away from Kurt and from the glimpses of hurt he saw in the boy’s eyes, and the dejected lump on his shoulders only perceptible through the cracks of his Ice queen facade.

“So breakfast at Brittany’s, huh?” Walter murmured. He was giving Blaine space. Walter himself sometimes needed that, to breathe a little and put his thoughts in order. It worked for him when he wanted to put things in perspective, and maybe that was what Blaine wanted. Something was going on, Walter could tell that, but to pressure Blaine to open up to him, it wouldn’t work. They weren’t close enough. Blaine didn’t trust Walter enough. Asking a bunch of questions would only make Blaine even more uncomfortable around him. So Walter would trust his son. He would trust that Blaine wasn’t going to do anything stupid, and would pretend he believed his “breakfast at Brittany’s” story.

“Yeah,” Blaine said, his eyebrows furrowed in slight surprise by his father behavior. “I heard Penny’s voice… did she sleep here last night?” Blaine inquired, standing in the doorway.

“Yeah.” Walter nodded, preparing a mug of black coffee.
“We worked late last night and she ended up falling asleep on the couch, and I just couldn’t wake her up.”

“Really?” Blaine smirked.

“Yeah,” Walter said and at the look on Blaine’s face, frowned. “Wait- why’re you making that face?”
Blaine shrugged “I’ll just go, I’m already late so…” He trailed off, turning his back to his father. He was still smirking.

“Alright…See you later,” Walter called out, as he put the waffles that had just popped out onto plates.

Just as Walter began to smear butter and syrup on the
waffles, Penny and Kurt entered the kitchen.

“Was that Blaine leaving?” Penny asked, supporting herself against kitchen table.

“Yep.” Walter nodded, handing her a mug of coffee. “He went to Brittany’s,” Walter explained, missing the hurt expression on Kurt’s face.

But Penny didn’t. She frowned and took a sip of coffee.

What was going on?

Settled on the old futon, Kurt didn’t even bother pretending that he was reading the Vogue issue that Penny had bought him. He was just so tired, not only physically but emotionally as well. It was actually quite ironic, but only after what happened, well, after what didn’t happened on Santana’s balcony, that Kurt realized what he probably would never have. Kissing, holding hands, romance... Who would want to do that with him? He was an android, and no matter what Artie could come up, Kurt’s system was nothing but a replication of a human body.

And it took someone to be ashamed of being caught almost kissing him while still thinking he was a human for Kurt understand that.

“Are you busy?” Penny’s voice brought Kurt back from his thoughts. He looked up to see the woman’s ginger head poking through the doorway.

“Not really,” he said with a sigh. “I thought you were leaving?”

“I was… but first I want to talk to you. You seem a bit gloomy today,” she said, sitting on the floor beside the futon. “Did something happen?”

Kurt looked away from her worried glaze, shifting uncomfortably. Should he talk to her about the way he was feeling? He knew Penny was probably going to try to cheer him up, and change his mind, but was there really an argument that could change the fact that he was an android and that having any kind of relationship with him would not only be seen by society as bad but also illegal?

“If I tell you something, promise me you won’t tell anyone, not even Walter?” He murmured quietly.

“Of course!” Penny exclaimed, nodding. “You can tell me anything!”

“Blaine almost kissed me last night,” Kurt said evenly, but with a subtle undercurrent of sadness.

“During Quinn’s movie marathon?” Penny gasped, her eyes wide.

Kurt sighed. “There was no movie marathon, Penny.” He flopped back onto his pillows with a slight huff. “We went to a party and Blaine got pretty wasted and then he almost kissed me…”

Penny frowned. “Did he force himself on you…? Is that why you’re gloomy? Did Blaine disrespect you, Kurt?”

“No, no, it’s not like that…” Kurt sat up, supporting his chin on his knee. “It’s just that Sam interrupted us, and then Blaine left and has been ignoring me ever since.”

“Oh honey, maybe he was just embarrassed… It’s normal,” Penny offered, trying to make Kurt feel better.

Kurt snorted. “I know exactly why he was embarrassed. He was embarrassed of being caught almost kissing someone like me.”

“Kurt, you’re gorgeous,” Penny interjected

“Yeah right,” Kurt murmured sulkily.

“K-Kurt-”

“You don’t get it Penny,” Kurt snapped, cutting in with surprising heat. “Boys are already embarrassed of being seeing with me while they think I’m human. Do you really think anyone will want me if they know I’m an android?” He inquired, lifting his face.

Their eyes locked and Penny felt a twinge of sadness inside her chest. “Kurt…”

“I’ve always been this silly romantic, I dreamt of walking hand in hand with boy, slow dancing, and kissing in the rain just like in the Notebook…” Kurt trailed off as Penny watched his face slowly morph into something not as sharp, but exponentially more painful. “But tell me, Penny, who’ll want to do any of that with a robot?” He concluded, looking away from her, his voice soothing after all the anger of before.

Penny dropped her arms and stared at Kurt in sheer disbelief. “You’ll find someone,” she stated. She knew it was a fact. Kurt deserved that kind of happiness, and was just a boy. He was so young. He couldn’t just give up on love. “Someone special will want to do all that, someone will love you for what you are and that will never grow tired of letting you know how much he loves you for how perfectly imperfect you are…”

An uneasy feeling began to stir in the pit of Kurt's stomach. “And risk ending up in jail for being with an illegal form of technology?” he asked bitterly.

“Kurt-”

“You know what?” Kurt stood up. He fixed his clothes.

“Tina invited me over to watch Moulin Rouge and I’m already late so...” he trailed off. He just didn’t want to talk about what happened anymore.

Maybe in another life, another reality, he would be able to dream about love and romance, but not here, not while being what he was. Kurt wouldn’t keep feeding childish fantasies that would never be fulfilled. He wouldn’t let himself hope for it, what was the point anyway?

“Tina?” Penny frowned.

“Yeah, Tina Cohen Chang,” Kurt dismissed. “She moved to 214 last week.”

Penny kept an eyebrow risen but didn’t say anything.

“Well I have to go now.” Kurt smiled weakly “See you.”

Blaine stared blankly down at his phone, thoughts far away. He couldn’t stop thinking about the previous night and about what he had almost done and the hurt and dejection in Kurt’s eyes when he had ran away.

For a second, Blaine considered calling Quinn, but then he brushed the thought away. His friend was probably too busy with Puck, and Blaine himself wasn’t sure if he would be able to talk about how he was feeling. Because that was the whole point of Blaine’s confusion, the fact he was actually feeling.

And he didn’t like to feel things, not like that. Anger, pain, longing, loneliness? Blaine was used to those feelings. They were familiar, now easily controlled and suppressed. It was twisted and pretty much fucked up, but it was the truth. Blaine had learned to deal with those feelings. He knew how to disconnect himself from them, how to become numb before they hurt him too deeply. But what he was feeling at that moment, the feeling he was desperately trying to suppress alone in that empty parking lot? That was something completely new for him.
What Blaine had felt the previous night, when he stared into Kurt’s blue eyes was something Blaine had never felt before, not with any of his previous buddy fucks. Not even when he had a crush on Ted and still was dapper and naive to the point of actually believing in happy endings and prince charmings.

Blaine didn’t know how to deal with this unfamiliar feeling. It made him feel sick and anxious. It didn’t seem like something he would learn to control or suppress over time. It seemed like something that would only grow bigger and bigger, until it became more than only a feeling, becoming a need. And in Blaine’s experience that was a really, really bad thing. Needing someone always ended badly, and only the prospect of maybe developing this kind of necessity was more than enough of a reason for him to run in the opposite direction and never look back. It was a reason to call his mom and promise her he’d be good, and to take him back.

Actually that seemed like a pretty good idea. Blaine looked back at his phone. His mother would take him back wouldn’t she? If he made a convincing scene, if he made her believe he could change…

Blaine laughed humorlessly. Who was he trying to fool? Not even Barbara would fall for that. He was so screwed up and even his mother knew that… That’s why she got rid of him, because she knew he was fucked up. Everyone did.

But then, why didn’t Kurt seem to know that as well? Why had he looked so hurt when Blaine ran away? What could
Kurt have possibly seen in him that made him not laugh in Blaine’s face when he began to babble about his brother? And why wasn’t Kurt the one who’d pushed Blaine away when Sam caught them?

Kurt would have every right of feeling ashamed caught in such a situation with a loser like Blaine.

So why he didn’t?

Kurt hadn’t been drunk. Blaine had been, even though he knew that being drunk wasn’t the reason why he almost kissed Kurt. He had done a lot of stupid things while drunk and Blaine knew the difference. He had wanted to kiss Kurt. He had wanted to, and still wanted to, because he just couldn’t take his eyes off of Kurt’s beautiful blue eyes, because of the way the boy had blushed when Blaine caressed his cheeks last night... Blaine had almost kissed Kurt because of his pink lips and cute little nose and the way it adorably crinkles when he laughs, the boy’s dimples, his toothy smile and his damn face…

Blaine knew exactly why he almost had kissed Kurt. It was simply because Kurt was, well, Kurt, and that was more than enough of a reason for anyone to want him.

Regardless of the way Blaine had been acting towards Kurt, the first time he had set his eyes on the boy, he had known that Kurt was special. That was why he felt that urge to protect Kurt. Kurt just kept surprising him, proving himself to be someone who just wouldn’t put up with Blaine’s crap. Kurt was so strong. Apparently, he also had a fair share of crap in his life, but he still didn’t act like a jerk towards other people. He was brave enough to face what the world threw at him without hiding his true self behind facades and lies, without hating everyone around him and blaming others for his own misery.

Kurt was nothing like him. He was better.

And that was why Blaine had to run away. That was why he was sitting in that empty parking lot, holding back tears, repeating over and over again how bad and damaged and broken he was. Because more than anything, Blaine wanted to grab his car keys, drive back to Walter’s place, and make that dejected look on Kurt’s face go away.
Blaine wanted to dress his best. He wanted to put on decent clothes, gel his hair back, and then invite Kurt to go out and get coffee. He wanted to memorize the boy’s coffee order, get a sweet lemon tart and make Kurt laugh while they talked about nothing and everything… And in the end, Blaine would insist on paying the bill like a gentleman and if things went well enough, he would finally finish what he began the previous night, kissing Kurt like he had never kissed anyone before, with care and gently, truly savoring the moment.

Blaine wanted all that, but he also knew that he couldn’t have it all. He was no longer the dapper young boy who dressed like he was part of some 50’s sitcom, always paying the bills, carrying tissues with him and singing about his feelings while jumping on the furniture. That boy didn’t exist anymore. Blaine was the boy that would break the furniture for fun now, the one that repressed his feeling and fucked people whose names he didn’t even know.

If they lived in a different reality or in some sort of an alternative universe, Blaine would stand up, grab his keys and go after Kurt.

But they didn’t, Blaine was still the fucked up Blaine, and he wouldn’t hurt Kurt for something that would never work out anyway. So Blaine stood up, grabbed his keys, started his car and drove away, but not to Walter’s apartment, but to the liquor store where the owner would overlook his fake ID and provide him with some cheap alcohol.

Blaine still didn’t know how to suppress these new and confusing feelings, but he was willing to try.

He had to.