November 24

Blaine’s sleep is interrupted by an all-too-bright light in his living room.  He doesn’t remember the lights being this bright when he got out that bottle of SoCo last night.  Figuring it must be the sun, he sucks in air, his head pounding.  His room has blackout shades, and he plans on going there, as soon as he can pick himself up off the couch.  Cracking one eye in an act of mock-bravery against the daytime light, Blaine is suddenly confused.  

“...Kurt?”

He’d meant it to be louder than it had come out.

Having fallen asleep, Kurt blinks and slowly lifts himself up at the motion on the other end of the couch.  Seeing that Blaine is awake, he straightens up immediately.

“Blaine, thank god you’re okay!”

“Yeah, I’m okay.  Can we talk a little quieter?”

Blaine’s eyes are almost squeezed shut; everything seems to echo around the inside of his head at an extremely increased volume.

“Blaine.  I’m talking really softly.”

“It just... sounds louder.  I guess.”

“You drank a lot last night.  You must be hungover now.”

“Yeah.  I am.  A lot.”

Blaine’s hands move to his forehead, and he rubs his eyes, his thoughts about the previous night collecting in his mind.  He’d been upset, so he’d gotten out his boxing gloves.  That whole ordeal had only lasted a little while, and he remembers finding Wes’s gloves too.  And chugging a lot of SoCo.  And texting Wes.  And Kurt showing up.  (How is that again?)  He looks at Kurt while the wheels in his head turn, slowly.

“You slept here...”

“Yeah.  I was... worried about you.  Can I get you anything?”

“Um, water?”

“Alright, one sec.”

Kurt gets up and walks to the kitchen, staring at the cupboards.  He’s been at Blaine’s apartment before, but he hasn’t memorized where everything is.

“Where are the cups?”

Blaine watches Kurt head to the kitchen, the memories of his own horrible jokes about him calling Kurt ‘Wes’ coming back to him.  He winces when Kurt asks where the cups are.

“Above the sink, to the right.”

Kurt goes where Blaine says and grabs a cup, filling it with water from the tap.  Coming back to Blaine, he holds out the cup of water.

“I hope tap water’s okay.”

Reaching out and taking the glass, Blaine suddenly remembers Kurt taking the bottle away from him last night, and making an attempt to leave soon after.  He takes a sip of the water that turns into him drinking half of it in one go.  His memories are blurry, but they keep coming, and he remembers chasing after Kurt while he tried to leave, and convincing him to stay.

“Thank you. I appreciate it.  Man, this place is a mess.”

“Yeah.  So... what now?”

“I guess...”

Blaine is about to say that he wants to go back to sleep in his room, when the rest of the memories from the night prior slam back into his head.  All the things he’d said to Kurt.  Everything he’d never have said sober had some out last night, and Kurt surely remembers.  Blaine’s face turns a bright shade of red and he glances around, noticing the snowflakes that are all over his floor.

“Oh my god.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I just remembered... uh... something.”

“What?”

“Something I said.  That probably wasn’t the right thing to say.”

“Remind me what you said again?”

“Kurt, why do you do this to me?  ...I told you how I felt... about you.  In an extremely sloppy way.”

“You did.  How much of that was alcohol induced?”

Blaine is quiet for a long time, staring past his hands in his lap and at a snowflake on the floor.  Despite his extreme hangover, the nerves are still showing through.

“I’ll be honest.  I’d never have said any of that if it weren’t for all of that alcohol.  But none of it was a lie.  None of it was less than the truth.”

“I see.  I... I need a moment.”

Blaine nods and leans forward into his hands, resting his elbows on his knees.  He wants to get up and move, but he’s afraid Kurt is going to leave after the brutal honesty.  Briefly, Blaine wonders why it is that he can’t seem to lie to the other.

“Um... Rachel may be freaking out right now.  I don’t remember if I told her I was going to be here...”

“Oh.  Yeah, sure.  I’ll uh, talk to you later then.”

His voice is obviously disappointed, but he makes himself get up and heads into his room to find clothing in the dark.

Rachel

OHMIGOSH I’VE BEEN TEXTING YOU ALL NIGHT WHERE ARE YOU?

I’m at Blaine’s apartment

Oh.  So you two are speaking again?

Yeah.  I guess.  But I’m gonna stay with him for a bit

Okay!

“Blaine?  I’m not leaving right yet.  I was just letting Rach know where I was.”

Blaine peeks out of his room.

“Y-you’re not?”

“Yeah.  Well.  Unless you want me to leave.”

“N-no, no no, I don’t.  I just... I thought you might.”

“Oh, okay.  I... I’m...”

“You don’t.. have to stay.  I’m not making you.”

“No, I want... to...”

“Are you sure?  Cause... I can... I mean, yeah.”

“Yeah, I’m sure.  Um, I... I wanted to apologise for a couple of nights ago.  If I haven’t already...”

“It’s, um, it’s okay.  I hardly remember it anyway.”

“You need to know that nothing happened.  Chandler got the most drunk out of all of us and suggested spin the bottle, and Sebastian said no.  So we didn’t.  And nothing happened.  I don’t know why Chandler lied to Rachel.”

“...Why didn’t you just tell me that in the first place?  I … I broke your...the jar...”

“I know.  I saw.  Think about my state of mind that night.  And then we fought.”

“Yeah.... and then we fought....”

“Why did we fight again?”

“Is this another one of those things where you make me say it out loud?”

“I don’t know.  Is it?”

“Kurt.”

“Blaine.”

“This hurts my brain.”

“Right.  Hungover.  Sorry.”

“It’s not even that.”

“It’s not?”

“No.  And before you ask, I have no idea what it is.”

“Right.  Well, I’ll say it straight.  Tell me why we were fighting.”

“We’re fighting because I was mad about something I didn’t know about.”

“And that was...”

“That you were with Sebastian.  And didn’t tell me.”

“I’m going to ask you an honest question now.  Not one of my attempts to make you say things out loud.”

“...Okay...”

“Why was me hanging out with a group of my friends that just happened to include Sebastian a problem?”

“I don’t know... I... was jealous.  I shouldn’t have been, I’m sorry.  I just... I don’t trust Wes, and I don’t trust Sebastian.  I don’t even know Chandler.  And Rachel had me all freaked out that you were missing and not answering texts... and then you were weird, and she told me you’d been drinking with them, and my head... just exploded...”

“... My point being, you overreacted.  Yes, I was a little tipsy.  I had no control over what Chandler did, though.  If I had known he had lied like that...”

“Would you really have told her where you were and who you were with?”

“I would have told her where I was.  Who I was with wasn’t important.”

“It wasn’t?  It wasn’t important that you were playing spin the bottle with your ex?  And my ex? And how many other people?  Maybe you’re right.”

Trying not to get irrational, Blaine backs into his dark room and fumbles around for a new shirt, taking his other one off in the process.

“Okay, one, we didn’t play spin the bottle.  The idea was shot down.  And two, I actually didn’t know Seb and Wes were going to be there until they showed up.  By that point, my phone was long forgotten because I was talking to my friends!  Yes, Blaine, I actually have friends.  I’m not a social recluse who only talks to you and Rachel!”

Blaine comes back to the door, new shirt in hand, but an expression on his face that can’t be read.

“Is that some kind of joke?  Cause, I could talk to people other than you and Rachel.  I could talk to... Jeff.  Or the kid who sits behind me in English Comp.  I could.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.  But seriously.  These are people I’ve met at work or through other friends.  And I deserve to be able to hang out with them when I want to without having my best friend freak out and you get jealous!”

“You know, you’re right.  There’s not even a reason for me to get upset, because there’s apparently nothing for me to be jealous of.  Cause, what is this even?  We fight, we’re cool.  You hang out with your friends, and I write songs and you do whatever, and I’m a text message.  Fine.  What am I even?  Tell me.  So that I can stop spilling things and making an ass out of myself like, every other day.”

“I could ask you the same question.  What are we, really?  Because we text.  And the moment I do something with my friends you get jealous.  I’m sick and tired of us fighting--”

“You’re sick and tired of us fighting?  Every time something happens between us, I get hurt.  Physically!  Break my hand, oh, break my hand again.  Then I trash my apartment.  And then I destroy your stuff.  Yeah I get jealous! Give me a reason not to!  I’ve been freaking--”

“What are you trying to tell me, then?  Do you NOT want to do this anymore?  Because I could be down for that.  Ever since I started texting you, things have gone downhill.  I lost my BOYFRIEND because of you, Blaine--”

“I lost EVERYTHING!  Not that I really had much to begin with.  I had Wes.  And my peaceful coffee shop and the park and my roof.  Now you’re ALL of those places!  I can’t go anywhere without being reminded of you.  I can’t do anything without thinking about how you might like it--”

“Is that so?  Honestly?  You’re turning this all on ME?  You know what?  Maybe I should leave.  It’s obvious whatever we had--”

“Don’t!  Don’t say it Kurt.  You don’t mean it.  I don’t mean it.  If we meant any of this shit, we’d have stopped talking a long time ago, and you know it.  I’m sorry if I ruined your life.  There.  Now if you want to leave, go ahead.”

“......... I-I... after all this time.  I’ve trusted you.  Why couldn’t you trust me about this?  That’s why I’m upset, Blaine.  That’s why I’ve been yelling at you.  And... put a shirt on, why don’t you...”

Kurt turns away from Blaine, his anger slowly deflating.

Blaine stares at Kurt from his bedroom doorway, at a loss for words.  He can hear his own heartbeat in his head, but he ignores it and follows the instruction from Kurt to put his shirt on, which now has a wrinkled spot where he’s been gripping it in a fist for who knows how long.  It’s a long time before Blaine responds, and when he does so, his voice is quiet.

“... I am so afraid... that I’m going to lose you.  I overreacted.  I’m jealous.  I’m crazy.  Because I am terrified of what will happen if you go away.  … There.  I said it.”

Walking past Kurt and to the kitchen, Blaine gets himself a new glass of water and stands at the sink, his back to Kurt, drinking it and trying not to let his emotions get away from him yet again.

“I...I...”

Kurt gives up on trying to speak and walks to the door to Blaine’s apartment, hesitating for only a moment, glancing back at Blaine.  Without speaking he leaves, although he can’t stop himself from leaning against the wall once Blaine’s door is closed all the way.

Blaine is sure that this isn’t happening.  This is just some kind of tequila/worm hallucination, and he is going to snap out of it any second.  There was a dull ringing in his ears, but he hears the door close, signaling that Kurt had left.  He’s trying, he really is, but the emotions are all coming so fast that he can’t sort them out.  No longer caring about the water, he throws the glass at the wall, shattering it all over the floor.  

Hearing the crash from inside the apartment, Kurt turns and puts a hand on the doorknob, once again hesitating.  After a brief period of thought, he twists the doorknob and reenters the apartment.

“Blaine, is everything okay?”

Blaine’s hands find his messy hair, and he doesn’t even pay attention to how there’s no more gel in it, and it’s been a big poofy mess this entire time.  He tries to hold it together, and freezes when he hears the voice from behind him, slowly turning to face Kurt.

“No.  Everything is not okay.  I can’t keep doing this.”

“Doing what?”

“If you don’t care, then go!  I’m falling apart with this fighting.  Or whatever this is.  Kurt.  I haven’t eaten anything in like three days.  Before I passed out last night, I hadn’t slept either.  Stop. Doing. This. To. Me.”

“BUT I DO CARE!”

“WELL, YOU HAVE A REALLY WEIRD WAY OF SHOWING IT!”

“WHY DO YOU THINK I’M STILL HERE?”

“I HAVE NO IDEA! ENLIGHTEN ME, WHY DON’T YOU?!”

“BECAUSE YOU’RE THE PERSON I THINK ABOUT THE MOST THESE DAYS.  BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP.  WHEN I WAKE UP.  WHEN I’M SITTING IN STARBUCKS!”

“I THINK ABOUT YOU ALL THE TIME TOO, YOU KNOW?  WHEN ARE WE JUST GOING TO MAKE THIS WHOLE THING OFFICIAL?  DON’T YOU THINK IT MIGHT FINALLY BE TIME FOR THAT?”

“... Did you just... ask me... out?”

Blaine clears his throat.

“Yeah- yes.  I did.”

“Um... I’m confused.”

“What about?”

“This morning.  We’ve gone from... I don’t even remember how it started.  To fighting.  To me leaving.  To me coming back.  To yelling.  To this.  What the hell is wrong with us?”

“Have you ever played with two magnets?  You know, where you try to get them to push together at a certain spot, but they refuse, but then when they get to ...just the right spot... for them... they suddenly attach to each other and you can’t get them apart?  I think that’s what just happened to us.  Maybe.  Please correct me if I’m wrong, and I’ll take my nerdy magnet theory elsewhere.”

“Blaine Anderson, what are you talking about?”

“I’m apparently rambling about things that don’t make sense.”

“You are.  But I think I may understand.  So... you want to go out with me?  Honestly?”

“You’re already my everything.  Let me be yours.”

“Like that isn’t the cheesiest line I’ve ever heard.  How’s tomorrow?  Dinner and a movie?”

“I would love that.  And, come on.  I thought it was really clever.”

“Dream on, Anderson.”