I don't want to be lonely no more - I don't want to have to pay for this

Lonely No More – Rob Thomas

Her husband does not touch her anymore.  She craves the attention, the devotion that the lovers give each other in the fictionsfilmsbooks.  The Disneyfication of Reality.  She needs to be needed.  She wants to be wanted.  She's tried to stimulate him to encourage him to reciprocate.  He seems just happy with sex.  The sex is always mind-blowing.  She's not complaining about that.  She just wants to feel sexy.  To have someone explore her.  To be desired.

At the beginning of their relationship, that ‘honeymoon phase', they explored each other.  Learnt what the other needed.  Discovered what made the other moan with desire, pupils blown with need.  She misses that.  She knows logically that it never stays like that, that it couldn't.  It would be exhausting.  But she misses it.  She misses him needing her in that forceful animalistic way.   Primal.

She knows it is not all about her.  She knows he's not happy in his own skin at the moment.  That he's stressed with work.  That when he comes home he wants to relax.  That there are things she wants him to do to her that he has never been comfortable doing even though she still does similar things for him.  She knows that.  But it doesn't stop the sadness that washes over her when she thinks about it. 

She still feels the little pulse deep and low within herself when she thinks about him.  More muted recently.  She supposes she's lucky to still feel it.  She wonders if he feels anything similar.  She's tried to talk about it.  He never seems to want to.

So she turns to the escapism romances.  Lives through their want, their desires, their need, their pain.  The dramatized is always so amplified.  It resonates.

                Blaine misses Kurt.  It feels like his heart is missing - torn from his chest.  A gaping emptiness – a raw wound.  The distance stretches him, leaving him empty and weak.  The weekend of the wedding-that-almost-was – those few days together in the same state – he'd felt almost whole again for the first time in so long.  He'd allowed himself to hope. 

He hadn't noticed how much he had let himself be defined by Kurt.  He'd moved schools to be with him.  He'd redefined himself as Kurt's.  Everything he did had been for Kurt.  To make him proud to be with him.  Even becoming Senior Class President - it had all been for Kurt.  It absolutely terrified him that he didn't know who he was without him anymore. 

He had not anticipated how hard it would be without Kurt's presence; his physicality.  He'd seen how stuck Kurt was when term had started after the summer – he could almost see Kurt's drive and essence slip away with every coffee he'd made whilst working at ‘The Lima Bean' café.  And it had made Blaine ache. 

Blaine is a physical relationship person.   He needs to be needed.  He thinks too much and when he's left alone, without attention - without someone to focus his attention on and receive attention from, he over-thinks.  Over-analyses.  Self-sabotages.  For attention is attention. 

He should have talked to Kurt.  Should have told him how he was feeling.  How much he was struggling.  Explained it to him.  But Kurt had been so wrapped up in his new life without him he hadn't listened, hadn't seen the warning signs.  Maybe Kurt had been avoiding it.  It wouldn't have been the first time Kurt put his fingers in his ears, closed his eyes and ignored everything he didn't want to hear, didn't want to see.  They'd spoken less and less as calls, texts, e-mails were missed or went unanswered.  As Skype dates were rescheduled and rescheduled. 

I'm so sorry, B.  I'll make it up to you – I promise! – K xox

Digital hugs and pixel kisses.  Empty.  Easy.  Hollow.

Blaine had started to wonder whether Kurt was truly the one for him.  They'd been each other's first everything.  He had no frame of reference.  His absence had hurt; hurt so deeply, so badly, that he just wanted to make it stop.  To make everything stop.  To cut his dependence on Kurt.  To make the pain go away.

The attention Eli had given him via Facebook had made him feel like he was sexy again, like he was wanted.  It was a faceless distraction.  He had not realised how much he had missed the attention.  Part of the emptiness was numbed by the diversion - like the part of Blaine that Kurt had taken with him when he had left was, not returning, but healing over.  

Part of him had suddenly understood why Kurt had exchanged all those texts with Chandler during their Dry Spell.  He cringed when he thought back to how he had reacted – accused Kurt of cheating - calling him out in front of all their (Kurt's) friends.

When he cheated he simultaneously destroyed his relationship with Kurt and realised what love was; that what he and Kurt had shared was is truly a Once-in-a-Lifetime thing.  It was the real deal and deep down he had always known that.  The horror of that realisation had drowned him.  Dragged him down, down, down.  The undertow.  That dreaded Undertoad of Garp's.

Kurt had been his sun, his moon, his East, his West, his anchor, his reason to get up, his clichés, his Reason, his.

He had never felt so utterly disgusting before in his entire existence.  He was worthless.  He was nothing.  He had hurt the one person he loved more than life itself.  Kurt deserved so much better than that; than him.

After he'd come clean, after he'd cried himself to sleep every night for weeks, after he'd begun to face the fact that he alone had done it; he had struggled.  For months he had struggled to get himself to a place where he could be Blaine again.  To work out what that meant now.  To find himself again.  He'd searched everywhere.  Tried everything.  Joined every club and activity he could.  Things had begun to get easier, especially after Kurt's phone call over Thanksgiving – the first time Kurt had called him since Blaine's fateful trip to New York - his Guilt Trip.  A seed had been sown during that conversation and his needy desperate self-loathing had grasped it and held on so tight.  Kurt had said he missed him.  Kurt said he still loved him.

When Burt had taken him to New York to see Kurt over Christmas and the three of them had spent time together he'd started to allow himself to truly hope.  To hope that Kurt could forgive him (he didn't deserve it but he needed it).  To hope that, one day, they could be KurtandBlaine again not just Kurt and Blaine.  Until then he would be whatever Kurt needed him to be.

Then the events of the Wedding-that-almost-was had happened - They had kissed.  They had made out.  They had slept together.  They had…

Blaine stopped his train of thought with effort.  He needed to stop this.  He needed to steel himself.  He needed to be patient.  Kurt hadn't called since.  They'd sent a couple of texts, but Kurt had closed down again.  Back in the friend zone and it stung.  He felt so used.  But he deserved to be used.  If that's what it took for Kurt to feel better then he'd take it.

Adam.  He'd heard from Rachel about Adam.  Kurt had even mentioned that he was

                ‘kinda seeing someone in New York.'

Denial, Desperation, and Desire had not let him pay attention.  He was split in two about Adam.  Part of him, the self-loathing part, wanted Kurt to be happy and if Adam made him happy then that was great.  The other part of him, the jealous irrational part, was terrified – what if he wasn't Kurt's one-true-love?  What if Adam was better than him?

His subconscious tormented him with images of other hands touching Kurt in all the places Blaine knew made Kurt shudder in ecstasy.  Other lips gradually moving over Kurt's body removing all traces of Blaine.  Other lips kissing Kurt.  Other hands making Kurt moan, other eyes watching him fall apart.

STOPSTOPSTOPSTOP Ican'tdothis

STOP

A command.  Blaine shook his head carding fingers through his hair.  He would give anything to take it back.  But he can't.  He would give anything to know what Kurt was thinking, what Kurt is feeling.  But he doesn't – he can't know.  He tries to let it go - he'll never win Kurt back like this.  Kurt deserves better than this mess. 

He needs to find himself.  He needs to become Blaine again.