“I WANT ALL OF YOU KURT!”

Almost as visibly as Kurt does, Blaine flinches with the sudden upward pitch of his own voice keening through hot, salty tears. Kurt reaches out for him but Blaine throws up his hands, steps away from Kurt. He really can't handle Kurt touching him right now. Even the sharp, brutally painful flash of hurt, thick and heavy, across Kurt's beautiful features does not deter Blaine from maintaining distance.

This is not how he wanted this evening to progress.

Defining his relationship with Kurt as merely platonic is laughable, even now when everything is quickly unraveling, carefully wound thread unspooling faster than either man can stop it. It was supposed to be a night of no interruptions, no phones, no contact with the outside world, just them, just Kurt and Blaine, sinking deeper, deeper and deeper still into the heady darkness of euphoric and natural desire.

It was supposed to be the night where they just were, all hard lines and sinuous muscle relaxing into the glide of exploratory and possessive touches, fiery kisses and want, burning want. It was supposed to be a night of reality, fulfilling hypothetical promises and drifting on that constantly churning sea of too much-not enough.

It was supposed to be their night, the night both men would allow themselves to actually reach out and grab what they most wanted in the darkest recesses of their hearts – each other.

But thirty minutes into the finite window of their time together finds them embroiled a bitter battle of wills, expectations and honesty. So many words, so many emotions have been left unsaid up until this point and now Blaine can't bring himself to really care if he says too much, or not enough, or obliterates the line between right and wrong.

He just can't. Not anymore.

Weeks and months of being so close but not nearly close enough has taken its toll on Blaine. He is tired of fighting it, tired of playing cat-and-mouse and dancing around the what-ifs and if-onlys. His sense of propriety and integrity has been worn thin, a shoddy, flimsy transparent film remaining in the wake of perpetual emotional chafing. He just wants. It's all he has energy for anymore.

Kurt reaches out again, a breathy sob-edged “B, please, please,” rounding out the desperate plea for Blaine to stand still, for Blaine to welcome rather than turn away from his touch. Blaine tries not to let that nickname – Kurt's nickname, a name so intimate and whispered passionately in the darkest of nights that just the sound of it makes Blaine feel like Kurt was making love to him – send him over the precipice.

Kurt's touch is like liquid fire.

It sears and burns and brandishes. It is tender yet rough, sweet yet possessive and it makes Blaine feel owned, in the best possible way. Kurt touches with purpose, assured flicks of fingertips, determined caresses and instinctive grips and grasps that often force a soft mewl from Blaine's lips. Kurt's touch is home, that firmament of safety and security that leaves Blaine dizzy with intoxicating addiction. No one has ever touched Blaine the way Kurt touches him and should Kurt actually surrender to the desperate plea in Blaine's whiskey-hazel eyes, Blaine would never surface.

Because this was it.

This is the night – a night of greedy having and tomorrow, tomorrow sees the rise of the sun and the acknowledgement that yes, yes it's finally time to end this chapter, to close this book. But then Kurt arrived at Blaine's West Hollywood apartment without an overnight bag and a thinly veiled excuse of having to return to New York for work.

Cue an explosive reaction, Kurt's frustrated demand, “For fuck's sake B, what do you want?” and the arrival of Blaine's impetuous, petulant answer of “I want all of you Kurt” summates the current chasm between the two men in Blaine's tastefully decorated living room.

Kurt overtly flinches again when Blaine shakes his head resolutely, “No, no! You promised Kurt, you fucking promised me. You said – damnit Kurt, you said, you fucking said you wanted this, wanted me! Me, Kurt! Without a stupid fucking contract! This was supposed to be the night – OUR night – to see if it can work!”

Blaine curls his fist up in the cotton of his undershirt over his heart. He bows in on himself, his sobs now dry and heaving. Inching ever closer, Kurt's hand finally grazes down Blaine's arm, a flutter of tentative fingertips along the smooth expanse of olive-toned, flawless skin. Blaine hiccups as he bats Kurt's hand away.

The sharp, sudden inhale of Kurt's breath echoes in the now thunderously quiet living room. Tears, hot and stinging, glisten in Kurt's eyes as he worries his bottom lip between his teeth, teeth sinking into the pliant flesh and leaving a bruising red color to the area. Hurt flares vividly around the darkening edges of Kurt's crystalline blue irises. Blaine has never denied his touch before, has never not wanted it, demanded it or sought it out because Kurt doesn't touch often or excessively.

And Blaine knows that.

It's hard for Blaine to not reach out just then, to not slide his hand down Kurt's bare arm until his palm meets Kurt's, their fingers naturally threading through one another's. It's such a simple action, holding hands, but it's always been one of Blaine's favorite things to do. Kurt, unlike most people in Blaine's life, is not tactile, shies away from any form of PDA, platonic or romantic, but that action – hands sewn together, palm against palm, an unconscious swipe of a thumb over knuckles – makes Blaine feel connected, tethered to the gravitational weight Kurt provides.

Often when they did hold hands, Blaine would bring up their clasped hands to press a chaste kiss to the back of Kurt's hand, instantly drawing a soft, almost imperceptible-to-anyone-other-than-Blaine smile across Kurt's lovely lips. A subtle pink flush usually followed that. It's a thing, their thing and now Blaine doesn't even want that, can see his own retreat reflected in blue eyes.

All of this – rejection, retreat, refusal – because Kurt won't let himself actually feel, actually ache enough to just take.

“Oh Blaine, baby I do, I do want you, God you have no idea how much I want you,” Kurt reassures in a stumbling mess of syllables.

Blaine scoffs, his face a mask of cold fury and fathomless hurt, “Don't. Don't do that. You're not allowed to do that anymore.”

Kurt's brow furrows with confusion, “Do what?”

“Call me baby. I'm not your baby. I never was and I never will be. Just go, okay?” Blaine's words start with definitive resolution but quickly taper into hollow echoes, layered with defeat and betrayal.

Blaine might as well have slapped Kurt; that tone shreds, strip by painful strip, Kurt's heart. Better than anyone, Kurt knows Blaine, knows Blaine's tells and Blaine's myriad idiosyncrasies, knows that Blaine has shut down, shut in on himself and to suddenly come face-to-face with the realization that he made Blaine – bright, effervescent, wonderfully open and earnest Blaine – shut down steals Kurt's breath from his lungs. Blaine is so small, so heartbreakingly diminutive and lost that Kurt curses internally.

He's done this.

He's torn Blaine asunder, cut the rope tethered to the anchor that is their relationship and left Blaine to drift alone, without a life vest. He's left Blaine to sink and that is precisely what Blaine is doing right before Kurt's very eyes – sinking, inch by demonic inch, and disappearing from view, obscured by the impenetrable darkness of abandonment.

Because really, that's what Kurt's doing. He knows he's doing it, abandoning Blaine, abandoning the breathy whispered promises and giggles of newly unfurled want and yes, even love.

“No, please B, please just let me explain, okay? Please Blaine? You have to understand – ”

Blaine, whose back was turned to Kurt, spins abruptly on his heel, pinning Kurt beneath a harsh, probing stare as he spats, “Understand what exactly? Understand that this has all been one giant mind fuck? Understand that this has been a game? Understand that I'm just some fucking dupe who believed his own lie? Understand that all those nights, all those hushed phone calls and stolen kisses were what, a detour, an impulsive vacation from your real life? Understand that you had absolutely no fucking intention of wanting me outside your stupid rules and your stupid contract? No, no thanks Kurt – I don't have to understand fucking shit. It's all perfectly fucking clear.”

Kurt can't stop the tears now, because Blaine has dropped his guard, dropped that carefully maintained wall in his eyes (which Blaine only employs in the most emotionally trying of circumstances) and lets Kurt seeexactly what is broiling beneath the surface. And it hurts, fuck, it hurts so much that Kurt really can't breathe and yes, okay, he wants, he practically aches with want for Blaine – just Blaine, no rules, no contract, nothing but the sweet surrender to just being.

“Blaine, please, no, God no, no you're not a dupe. You're not, okay? And this, you, weren't a detour or a vacation or anything. I wasn't lying. I wasn't. I promise you. I meant every word, every single fucking word. All those nights, all those hushed phone calls, fuck, all those kisses – they meant something, they meansomething, they do, I swear they do. But I – I just. I can't. I can't explain it Blaine. You deserve to know, you deserve to know everything and you deserve to be wanted outside my rules, my contract and I swear, I fucking swear that I do want you. I do. You're more than rules, Blaine, please believe me. I can't stay here – I just. I can't.”

Kurt loses steam, his circular, frantic response ending with a resounding defeat. He's not open like Blaine; he's not in possession of conviction like Blaine, not the kind of conviction that straddles the line of faith and hope. Blaine submits, surrenders to the pulsating emotions; Kurt controls them, dictates them, heavy-handed and without regard for any casualties, necessary or otherwise. Blaine reacts, feels everything with his whole body; Kurt clamps down on anything that resembles feeling and stoically strides through the liminal spaces of life.

Even this fight is out of the ordinary for Kurt – a picture of rarity epitomized. Blaine has done this to him, has unwound him and set him spinning like a top. Blaine has made him feel and it's sobering and terrifying and he will not go willingly. He's not ready.

He's not ready, he repeats in his head. He wants Blaine to understand that. He wants Blaine to understand that this has absolutely everything and nothing at all to do with him. It's contradictory, Kurt knows, but as the pieces fall into place, it's the only thing that makes sense. It has everything to do with Blaine because, again, Blaine makes Kurt feel – literally the world's molecules slipping around him like bathwater when Blaine smiles or kisses him, literally each emotion in its purest form in a swelling rush of heat and electricity. It has nothing at all do with Blaine because Kurt is a grown man, responsible for his own choices, his own thoughts and Kurt bends to no one's will, even his own.

But standing here, he just can't. He can't tell Blaine. He can't formulate the word. Doesn't even know how. How do you articulate thoughts that only barely coalesced into something recognizable in your own consciousness? How do you tell a beautiful man who looks at you as if you've hung the sun, moon and stars and kisses you like you're the rain and sunshine he needs to sustain his existence that you're not ready to love him back?

Even though you do. In your own way. In your own twisted, charred kind of way.

Blaine stops Kurt with an upturned palm. Kurt meets Blaine's direct gaze. The wall is back up, carefully repaired and decidedly intact, black and impenetrable and more solid than Kurt can ever remember seeing it. Blaine's shoulders are square, his jaw rigid and his body thrumming with something Kurt can't quite put his finger on.

Blaine has never felt further from Kurt than he does in this moment.

And when Blaine says, quiet but dangerously calm, “You haven't hurt me, Kurt. You've broken me,” Kurt realizes that it isn't Blaine that is drifting and sinking, it's he who has drowned.