After he’s finished with his homework, Kurt carefully packs his school bag and stacks the things on his bed into neat piles on the desk, before going to his closet. He stares into it for a moment before reaching in and pulling down a vest, and then another, a scarf, that plaid suit, and everything else that he has ever designed and made for himself, even the pieces that were based on something he simply couldn’t afford. He usually took some creative license after all. When his closet is looking much emptier, he goes and drops it all on the bed.

He blinks at it for a moment.

Really, all of this?

Not really sure what he’s doing, he quickly sorts it all into neat piles, things he had replicated over here, pieces that were entirely his own over there and the few things that were odd mixes of the two in the middle. Then he starts going through it, piece by piece, examining the stitching, the cut, the hems, anything he can think of. He’s not sure what he’s looking for.

He can remember making each piece: measuring and cutting the fabric, the panic when he ran out the perfect shade of blue thread half way through that shirt, that vest had taken days to sew by hand when the motor in his sewing machine had died, it had taken a dozen tries to get the lines of these pockets right. He loves the thrill he gets when a piece if finally perfect, struggles to ignore the disappointment when nobody compliments him the first time he wears something new, that strange rush of adrenaline he gets when Mercedes looks impressed with his latest project.

He finds himself sitting amid the mess, a pair of skull printed pants in his lap, staring at the wall in front of him.

How many times has he hemmed Blaine’s new pants in the last year? Simply because he enjoys it? Yes he thinks that the Andersons’ tailor has a sloppy stitch, and things always end… well… when Kurt has to measure Blaine’s inseam, but there’s something in the repetativeness of the task that he finds relaxing. There’s no pressure for it to be perfect, to be McQueen inspired or anything else. It’s just a hem.

But it’s Blaine and seriously, if he won’t buy pants that fit, why should he ave to pay for something so simple?

How many times has he altered dresses for the girls?

He’s completely remade at least one of his dad’s suits, probably all of them.

Hell, he completely changed Carole’s wardrobe the third time he met her. But then, acid wash, seriously?

And maybe he’s ordered his own clothes a size too large once or twice so he can tailor them properly.

But it’s never really been more of a hobby right? A way to relax after getting slushied five times that day?

Okay, yes, he admits, there’s a challenge to it, one even more addicting then hitting a high F perfectly on the first try. It’s not something he can explain, not really. There’s just something about making the vest he could find to complete that perfect outfit, something about the rush he gets when he finds a gorgeous accessory in a second hand store and working an outfit around it. He knows he can get a bit obsessive sometimes, his dad refuses to go shopping with him unless absolutely necessary for that reason.

But Carole seems to think he could make a career out of it, or she certainly seems to be hinting at it.

He stares at the pants in his lap, the stitching is really good on these. He’s proud of it. And they make his ass look fantastic, that’s always a plus.

He’s never really considered it. Making clothes for himself and helping out friends is one thing, but making money off of it?

He’s still not entirely convinced he can make it on Broadway. He knows his voice inside and out, he’s reasonably certain it won’t change on him now. Wouldn’t that be his luck if it did though? He knows his limits. He knows he’s good, and there’s nothing quite like applause, even if it’s not his. Yes, even if it’s Rachel’s. He also knows that he’s not particularly suited for any role, his voice is too high, he looks too elven, he looks too gay. He doesn’t know if he can offset that, first impressions are everything and it’s hard to change the way people see him. He needs to prove them wrong, break through those barriers and just go for it, especially after West Side Story. He could always do what his dad suggested and write his own parts, but then he’ll probably just get distracted by the costumes again.

On the other hand, he’s never really thought about going into fashion, never seriously. He has no idea where he stands in that field. There’s so many things he wishes people were making, so many ideas he has, plans for things he could where himself. He doesn’t think he could work for somebody, what if he started his own fashion house? What would he call it? Not important. He’d certainly enjoy it, he doesn’t see himself falling out of love with clothes anytime soon, and-

As much as he loves the stage it’s really Rachel’s place to shine. She needs it in a way he doesn’t, a way he probably never will. Rachel’s been training for this her entire life and-

God, he really just needs her there with him. She’ll drive him insane within a week but, he can’t go alone.

Make sure you’re doing this for the right reasons.

He can’t do this for Rachel. He can’t do this because he’s afraid of being alone now that he knows what it’s like not to be. He has to do this because he’s decided that he doesn’t want NYADA anymore.

Can he do that?

*~*

When Blaine meets Kurt at his locker with coffee the next morning, Kurt practically throws himself at him, pressing his cheek against the gel and hugging him tightly. They’re in the crowded halls of McKinley High so he refrains from shoving Blaine against the lockers and kissing him until they can’t remember their names, but he wants to. Oh does he.

Blaine laughs as he slides backwards a little, his boat shoes don’t have the greatest traction on the tiled floor of McKinley’s halls, and just manages to keep the coffees he held in each hand from spilling. When Kurt pulls back, seemingly just remembering where they are as he glances nervously around the hall and accepting his grande non-fat mocha with a grin, Blaine says, “I not complaining or anything, but what brought that on?”

Kurt slowly lowers his cup, setting carefully inside his locker as he finishes arranging his Calculus book and notebook just so and grabs what he needs for first period AP history. It’s a moment before he responds, his voice low and full of meaning, “I just missed you yesterday, that’s all.”

Blaine leans against the locker, looking at him sadly.

“And I… god, I couldn’t move. I haven’t even left yet and I saw that picture Mike took when we went on the picnic and it just… ran me over.”

Blaine sighs softly, tilting his head back against the locker with a faint, metallic thump, when he speaks his voice is soft, so full of emotions that it cracks slightly, “How can one person have you so completely that-“ He swallows, not wanting to break down in the hallway. Or at all, it feels like he’s done nothing but cry since the beginning of April.

Kurt tips his forehead against Blaine for a brief moment, “I’m sorry, Carole showed up and – she knew and I didn’t even notice when you-“ He cuts himself off, god this hurts so much. He knows people do this all the time, the forced long distance for reasons not completely in their control. He thinks that if people knew what it was like, nobody would ever fall in love in high school. Of course he hadn’t really been able to help that either, not that he had wanted to.

“Hey. Hey,” Blaine reaches up and cups Kurt’s cheek as he pulls back. He doesn’t have to say anything else, Kurt just nods, setting his shoulders slightly, grabs his coffee and shuts the door as the five-minute bell rings, but he does anyway, “You couldn’t have known,” he laughs weakly, “I did my best to keep you from noticing at all. I just don’t want you do stay back because of me.”

Kurt gives a tight smile, “I know, you’d be all guilt-ridden and I’d be miserable, we’ve gone over it.” He takes a deep breath and adjusts the strap on his shoulder as they walk to Blaine’s class. “But Rachel’s not going anymore, not right away at least…” He has to say this, they have to talk about it and now might not be the right time, but if he doesn’t get it out now, he probably never will. “I’m scared, Blaine. I always thought I’d be going on my own, and now I shouldn’t have to be… I don’t know if I can do it, not when I’m leaving everything I need behind me.” He stops outside the door. This was easier to admit to Carole while his emotions were shot, but then, her opinion, though helpful, wasn’t the one that really mattered. “I can’t go alone.” He’s not entirely proud of the fact that his voice is barely above a whisper, but he said it.

Blaine swallows, trying to ignore the way his heart clenches, “Honey-“

“I know, I just… I had this idea, and then Carole said something and you’re probably going hate me and try to talk me out of it, but I think…” He sighs, he eyes drifting to the clock just visible on the far classroom wall. “It’s gonna have to wait though, Christ I should have waited until-“

Blaine laughs, “You about strangled yourself there for a minute getting out, if you’re sure that you’re going to be okay, it can wait,” his eyes are full of love and concern so intense that Kurt feels himself melt a little.

Blaine tends to have that effect on him.

“I’ll be fine, really. I know we’re meeting Mike and Tina for lunch, but the more opinions the better, so as long as Rachel doesn’t invite herself…”

Blaine chuckles and goes up on his toes to kiss Kurt’s cheek, ignoring the stares they must be getting, “Don’t be late then, you have about thirty seconds.”

AP classes are a joke at McKinley, Kurt’s teacher doesn’t bother to take attendance and his class is so far behind that he’s surprised that Blaine’s hasn’t caught up with his, so Kurt just winks and shoots Blaine a, still slightly shaky, grin as he walks down the hall backward for a few steps, turning on his heel just before he reaches the corner and disappears.

Blaine watches him go for a moment and ducks inside his class just before the final bell rings.

It’s going to be a long morning.

Blaine’s not sure what he thinks is going on. It’s obvious to him that Kurt thinks that it’s important that they talk about it, whatever it is, but it’s just as obvious that Kurt really doesn’t want to. They agreed a year ago, when Kurt first brought up going to New York that Blaine wouldn’t be there for the first year. They hadn’t known how hard it would be, even the lead up to Kurt leaving Lima was physically painful and Blaine is sure that it’s only going to get worse. But they had agreed, Kurt would be miserable in Lima with nothing to do but help out in Burt’s shop while Blaine was a school all day. He wouldn’t bring it up again only to say he was staying, would he? No, of course not, this is Kurt not Rachel.

Rachel.

She’s not going to New York in August because she doesn’t want to have nothing to do, says she doesn’t want to turn into Kurt’s housewife. Kurt had rolled his eyes at her, as if he needed a housewife. But her decision not to go throws all kinds of things into chaos. Does Kurt find a teeny, cramped hellhole of an apartment he can afford himself? Does he live in the dorms for a semester? Does he find a different roommate among the other sixteen million people that live in the city? Really, Blaine doesn’t see any of that happening and as spoiled as Rachel is, he doubts Leroy and Harim will pay for half of an apartment she’s not even living in yet.

Blaine’s vaguely aware that his teacher has taken her spot at the front of the room and digs out his pen and notebook to take notes. He writes automatically as he continues to think.

Kurt can’t go to New York alone, the very thought of him going home to an empty apartment with nothing but that all-encompassing painful loneliness that Blaine has been feeling for months to keep him company makes Blaine’s heart hurt even more. It’s enough to make him want to cry. Still, if that’s what Kurt wants… Blaine’s not going to ask him to stay another year. As much as he wants to, he won’t do that.

But what if there was a way to convince Rachel to go to New York this fall anyway? Even without NYADA? She loves the city, surely there must be a way.

Blaine thinks about it all morning, mentally going in circles until it’s nearly enough to drive himself crazy, but he can’t come up with anything. Rachel settling for the NYU theater program is a stretch enough, there’s no way she was going to go to New York for the sole purpose of keeping Kurt from getting lonely. It just isn’t something she would do.

By the time he sits across from Mike and Tina with his barely edible cafeteria food, he’s giving himself a headache and he knows he looks at least a little stressed out. He instantly pushes his tray away a bit so he can rest his elbows on the table and press his hands to his eyes. Why was this making him so nervous?

“You okay, Blaine?”

Blaine drops his hands and stares across the table at Mike. He looks genuinely worried, Blaine’s not entirely sure how to handle that, he’s still not used to seeing the expression on Kurt’s face let alone anyone else’s.

“I’m fine, really.”

There’s a moment of unconvinced silence. Mike stares at him with his eyebrows raised in a surprisingly effective ‘judging you’ expression (or at least that’s what Kurt calls it) and Tina has her head cocked slightly to one side. It’s strange how effective silence can be even when in a crowded, noisy high school cafeteria. Or something like that, Blaine head hurts too much to allow for philosophical thinking.

Blaine sighs, “Kurt got into NYADA.”

“That’s fantastic! Oh wait-“ she jumped out of her seat and tore off across the cafeteria.

Blaine and Mike stared after her just in time to see her hug a startled Kurt around the neck. Her enthusiastic “Congratulations!” was loud enough to bring a large amount of the conversation around them to a sudden halt.

Mike laughed at her for a moment, stopping abruptly when he turned back and saw the look on Blaine’s face, “So what’s the problem?”

Blaine sighs again, heavily, he seems to be doing that a lot recently. “Rachel didn’t.”

Mike’s eyebrows shoot up and he slowly lowers his slice of pizza. “Shit.”

“Yea and she didn’t apply anywhere else so she’s not leaving until January.” Blaine rubs the back of his neck. “Kurt doesn’t want to go alone. I guess he and Carole had some idea last night and-“ he shrugs, “I don’t know.”

Mike shakes his head, “Why does growing up have to be such a mess?”

Blaine just laughs, his eyes following Kurt as he makes his way through the lunch line, Tina bouncing slightly at his side.

“Well how bad can it be? It’s not like he can give her his slot, I mean, it’s NYADA they’ve probably got a back-up list a mile long, if she’s not on it, she’s not on it.”

Kurt and Tina are nearly at the table before Blaine speaks again. “She’s not on it, she didn’t even finish her audition.”

Mike blinks and Tina looks briefly confused for a moment as she sinks back into her seat then completely disbelieving.

“Rachel didn’t-“

“Shh,” Kurt waves a hand at her frantically, “the last thing I want is her barging in.”

“Sorry.”

Mike blinks again, perplexed, “What happened?”

“An inconveniently timed break-up phone call from Finn, but that’s not important.”

Tina frowns, “So she’s not going then?”

“Not unless she gets into NYU and not until spring.”

“And you don’t want to go alone.”

“It’s more like I’ll go insane without a distraction,” Kurt says, his eyes flicking between Mike and Blaine, “and Rachel is a very good distraction.” He stabs his salad with a surprising amount of viciousness.

“And you can’t afford the rent on your own.” Mike says, “Have you started looking yet? It’s ridiculous.”

“That’s Manhattan, seriously, what did you think you were getting into?”

Mike falls silent. Blaine and Tina grin.

“I’ve been thinking about it all morning, the idea is to get her to go anyway… right?”

“Naturally.”

“Wait,” Tina gestures with her fork, “what’s she a distraction from?”

“The separation anxiety from hell.”

“Ah that,” she pauses for a moment, “took you long enough.”

“Yea,” Mike adds, “it’s a bitch.”

“Okay…” Blaine hesitates, “I can’t think of anything that will get her to go, not without NYADA.”

Kurt swallows and looks away. “Exactly.”

It’s barely more than a whisper, but Blaine hears it anyway. “You can’t just give it to her, they’ll never let you do that. Especially not if she screwed it up as much as she said she did and they must have a back-up list, it’s not fair to those kids-“

“Don’t you think I know all that, Blaine?”

Tina’s staring at him, “You can’t just give up your dream for Rachel, I mean if it was Blaine it’d be one-“

“I’d never ask it, and that’s what started the end of Finchel, isn’t it?”

Tina makes a huffing noise, “That’s beside the point.”

“But that’s the thing, it’s not my dream, not like it is for Rachel.” He glances at Mike, “not like dancing is for you. It’s a dream, yes absolutely, but if it doesn’t happen, I won’t be completely devastated.” Kurt sighs, “And Finchel ended about the time we were singing Baby its Cold Outside at Dalton, they just didn’t know it, not really.”

Mike snorted.

Blaine’s staring at Kurt like he’s never seen him before, “But you love-“

“And I’m not denying it, I love cars too, doesn’t mean I’m want to take over the shop.”

Blaine scrubbed a hand over his face, but all he said was, “What’d Carole say?” He reaches for his soda.

Kurt’s eyebrows rose, “That I make sure I do it for the right reasons. And that she thinks we’re going to get married, but that was just in passing.”

Blaine chokes on his coke, spewing some across the table, but managing to miss everybody’s food. They joke about their honorary married status all the time, and talk about someday, but it was completely unexpected for him to hear it from somebody else. Especially Kurt’s parents.

Mike and Tina laugh at him, Kurt just grins smugly.

“Anything helpful?” Blaine asks, grabbing a napkin from the holder in the center of the table and wiping up the mess he’s made.

“She thinks I should go into fashion.”

“That’s kinda what we all expected in the first place,” Mike says, dropping his pizza crust to his plate and wiping his greasy hands on his own napkin.

“We were all kind of surprised when you decided to go the Broadway route,” Tina adds. “It really never crossed your mind?”

“Never. I spent a lot of time thinking about it last night. Woke up this morning, half of my wardrobe was on the floor and my laptop had fifteen different schools up in firefox.”

Tina laughs.

“It’s too late to get in anywhere else-“ Blaine starts.

“I know, that’s Rachel’s problem, but NYU doesn’t have a fashion program anywhere. So if I major in business and Italian-“

“Why Italian?”

“Because you need a language for a requirement and I’m already fluent in French, shush.” Kurt cuts him off and continues, “And probably a few art classes. Then get into a two year program at a fashion school-“

“Oh my god, you’re going to start your own.” Tina’s staring at him wide eyed.

“That’s what I was starting to think, yes.”

Tina’s already muffling a shriek behind one hand and shaking Mike’s arm with the other, “I’m so excited. Do you need a model or anything?”

Kurt stares at her, blinking, “I… what?”

“That’s how you get free clothes isn’t it?”

Kurt stares at her, “Wait… you really…”

Tina raises an eyebrow as the bell rings, “What, did you think we invited you to come shopping with us because you’re nice to look at? I was disappointed when you started going on about NYADA.” She grabs her tray and stands, “Seriously, go for it.”

Kurt watches as Mike and Tina walk away, mouth still hanging open slightly in shock. He shakes himself out of it in a moment and goes to grab his own tray, but finds that Blaine has already stacked it with his. He stands and they walk in silence to the counter.

After Blaine hands their trays over and they leave the cafeteria for the hall he asks, “What is your dream then?”

They stop outside Kurt’s class and he meets Blaine’s eyes, “You.”

“You’ve got me.”

“Exactly.”

Blaine smiles, glancing at the floor and fiddling slightly with the strap of his bag and Kurt reminds himself that he needs to find something that will prove to Blaine how sure he is they will make it. “You sound like you’ve pretty much made up your mind,” Blaine says when he looks up again.

“Do I?” Kurt sighs, “I suppose I do. Now, how to get Rachel into NYADA?”

“We’ll think of something.”