Blaine is having a fucking awful day.

It’s not just that the weather is lousy; his luck kind of sucks. His bus broke down, meaning he had to run the last two blocks to school in the pouring rain. He’s absolutely overloaded with work. Back to back parent-teacher meetings monopolize his entire afternoon before the sure-to-be-crowded Open House tonight, and oh, did he spill mustard down the front of his shirt - the only shirt he has with him?

Yes. Yes, he did.

Normally he carries a spot treating pen, and brings extra clothes along for hectic days like this just in case, but he’s been so overwhelmed, it slipped his mind. He manages to swipe a forgotten bottle of flat soda water from the fridge in the teacher’s lounge and gets the mustard mostly out, but it still leaves a faint yellow-brown shadow that makes him self-conscious about how he looks. Someone’s bound to notice tonight. They’ll notice and make a comment, then the principal will find out and he’ll make a comment …

This isn’t like Blaine, and Blaine will say that, except that today, it is, and he can’t fix it. There’s nowhere he can go to buy a replacement shirt, and even if there was, he has zero time.

Blaine feels useless. Pathetic and useless.

Useless because there’s no Kurt around to be of use to.

Blaine woke up this morning to an empty loft. He did his chores per usual, as if Kurt were there, but Kurt wasn’t there. Kurt is on a business trip … in France. Kurt is away on business and Blaine is alone. And he feels that alone-ness in every inch of his skin, every muscle, every bone. He goes about his daily schedule the way he’s supposed to, continues to serve because service to his Dom is service to his Dom whether Kurt’s there or not. But there’s a part of him that feels ridiculous kneeling beside an empty chair or sleeping on the floor beside an empty bed.

He didn’t really sleep at all last night, which adds to the misery of his day.

Kurt not being there doesn’t mean that Kurt doesn’t keep in contact with him. Blaine still does his check-ins at pre-determined times every day, telling Kurt when he eats and what he eats, when he exercises, every time he goes to the bathroom – basically everything he does from sun up to sun down. There are the pictures he needs to send and the tasks he has to complete. They Skype in the morning and the evening, and it’s almost enough.

But it’s not the same as Kurt physically being there, watching him, touching him, commanding him.

Holding him.

This feeling of loss weighs Blaine down, makes it hard for him to function. It’s as if the universe realized his Dom was gone and declared open season on him in the form of anxiety.

Blaine has to get past this. That’s actually one of Kurt’s tasks for him – to be more comfortable alone. Kurt would rather take Blaine with him on all of his business trips, but between Blaine’s job as a teacher and his Kinky Boots rehearsals, Blaine just couldn’t get away. Blaine has coping mechanisms in place – his Master’s monogrammed plug up his ass, his Master’s cock in a cage (new, and slightly annoying, but still a comfort since it comes from Kurt), and the harness he’s managed to tie by himself around his chest, perfectly hidden by his dress shirt and sports coat. But they’re not helping the way that they should because, without Kurt to come home to, they’re just things.

Objects.

Blaine tries to escape by becoming an object, too, but his mind constantly drifts away, wondering where Kurt is, what he’s doing, how he’s handling being without his submissive.

Does Kurt miss Blaine as much as Blaine misses him? Is he handling things better than Blaine? Of course, he is. Kurt’s completely independent. He’s an expert at creating structure for himself as well as others, better at keeping calm under pressure, at improvising when he has to. He probably would have made himself a new shirt in five seconds using the old curtains in storage. Kurt doesn’t need Blaine the way Blaine needs Kurt.

Assuring himself of that, Blaine ends up in the bathroom in tears.

It’s a long eleven hours from the time he gets to school till parents start showing up for Open House, flooding the halls in search of their children’s homerooms, examining their art on the walls or the assignments teachers have left on their desks for parents to see. Being a part time A.P. teacher, Blaine shares his room with another teacher, but they haven’t made an appearance yet. So Blaine’s alone with a room full of parents he’s only interacted with one at a time before. But now they’re all together, like a gaggle of ex’s, whispering to one another and, in his mind, judging him. He’s probably overreacting, but he knows that one or two of them are. He overhears one mother comment to the mother sitting next to her: “He’s so young … and attractive … but he dresses like my Uncle Rupert. I mean, a bowtie and a cardigan? At least it’s not a vest. But look at those pants! They’re atrocious!”

Blaine doesn’t know what to do. If this was happening during the school day between students, he would tell his kids to ignore comments like that, then he would remind the class that rude remarks have no place in his classroom. But these women are adults. He can’t call them out for hurting his feelings. Aside from being adolescent, that would kill his reputation at this school.

Kurt would tell him that those women are immature, beneath him, not to pay them any mind, but Blaine feels like he’s back in high school – at the public school he attended before his parents put him in Dalton. The anxiety that’s been tickling the back of his mind starts to grow, overshadowing things around him, turning conversation into noise, making the lights too bright, transforming the dull pounding in the front of his skull into a full-blown headache.

He’s about to excuse himself to the bathroom so he can splash cold water on his face, catch his breath, when he feels a buzzing in his pocket, perilously close to his cock cage. He fishes his phone out before it can cause any discomfort. He didn’t expect a message from Kurt just yet. Kurt had said during this morning’s Skype call that he would be busy all day today. Blaine has made all of his check-ins so far (the only thing he’s managed to pull off perfectly today), so there’s no reason for Kurt to demand an explanation for a missed one. Even though he should be getting the ball rolling, Blaine decides to take a peek. He wants to know why his Dom is thinking about him.

After the day Blaine’s had, he deserves it.

He opens the message, reading with a poker face so as not to elicit anymore unnecessary commentary.

From: Kurt

You are gorgeous today. Positively stunning, pet.

Blaine rolls his eyes. He feels guilty immediately after, but it had been a reflex.

From: Blaine

I beg your pardon, but you haven’t seen me since this morning, Sir. Trust me when I tell you, I’m not holding up that well.

From: Kurt

Don’t argue with me, pet. I don’t have to see you. I know you, inside and out. Even if you sprouted a face full of acne and gained thirty pounds, you would still be gorgeous to me. You are an amazing human being, Blaine Anderson. And I don’t need to see the way you look tonight to know that.

Blaine bites his lips together. It suddenly doesn’t matter that people are watching him or what they think. He realizes it never did. The only person who matters just called him amazing.

He also scolded Blaine, which makes Blaine’s skin prickle all over in the best possible way.

From: Blaine

Thank you, Sir. You’ve just made my day.

From: Kurt

You’re very welcome, pet. When you get home, we’ll Skype, and you can make my day.

From: Blaine

Yes, Sir. But just so you know, I might be later than usual.

From: Kurt

Do you think I care about the hour, pet? The time doesn’t matter. You do. Have to go. Talk with you later. Love you.

From: Blaine

Love you, Sir.

“Hey! Mr. A!” One of Blaine’s students calling from the doorway, walking in with his folks in tow, reminds Blaine that he’s in a room full of people – students and parents waiting for him to speak. “Lookin’ sharp.”

“Thank you, Tyrell,” Blaine says, slipping his phone back in his pocket.

“Op! But you’ve got mustard on your shirt, man.”

“Yeah, well, I needed to take attention away from my atrocious pants.”

Tyrell laughs, but from the front row, Blaine hears a dual gasp.

It’s a petty dig, but it feels excellent. Blaine only glances at the women in the front who had been discussing his pants moments before. One woman blanches, the other turns bright red. Blaine’s sure Kurt would be proud, and after that, Blaine knows he can handle the rest of the evening.