III.

Tear down

He has been doing the chores, going through empty motions. Sleepwalking.

That is why Kurt presses the intercom without a second thought. Without a first, really.

The player on screen is still open. There was no courage to be found to play it again, so the video's paused at the frame with Blaine standing up, the chair shoved away, Blaine's face invisible behind a tense set of shoulders, blurred by movement.

The screensaver is disabled. Let it all burn into the surface, like into his mind. Shadows, colours, dots disconnected.

It's been on there for five hours, when the doorbell rings.

"Kurt?"

Kurt freezes, needs a second to believe the voice and his memory of it, distorted through the speaker and by tension.

When he hears himself stutter into words, his voice is coming to him from far away, as if he didn't use it in forever. He probably didn't.

"Blaine? What... why...?"

"Kurt, I need to speak to you..."

Kurt's body stays immobile, not able to decide, to move. Kurt leans, then slumps against the wall with the speaker, brain working and not. Suddenly overextended by the situation, so that his body takes charge, seems to think even standing is too much.

Blaine waits, but then he is talking into his end of the line, blurts, urgency and so much emotion, while Kurt listens with wide eyes.

"Kurt I tried to sing it, I did, tried to do it, see if it would fit, if I could fit in it, but I... I wanted to try and accept that you feel like this, but I... this is not me, not us, can't be what you... God, you probably have no idea what I am talking about..."

But Kurt does. Bites his lip as his thoughts are soberly rearranging, distantly. The video. Why Blaine stopped. The look on his face. Blaine tried to understand it. And Kurt was right when he instinctly felt that Blaine got it. Because Blaine did. But he didn't want it, couldn't accept it.

And so he's here. Blaine is here.

Blaine keeps talking, when Kurt doesn't answer.

"Kurt, I know you asked me to respect you, and I do, but that is not the way we do things, we talk, we work through them..."

It starts as a shiver across Kurt's skin.

"I am thankful for the time we had, too, but... This is not where I am, I am not yet prepared to let go. Not in the least.

I will fight for this, when you can't right now, but... You're not yourself right now. I know you... I know you, Kurt."

Not even the inconstant connection of the intercom breaks the passionate tone of Blaine's voice now. Kurt closes his eyes.

"This is not over yet. I am not done yet. We aren't."

Static. White noise everywhere.

"Kurt?

Open up.

Open up.

Let me in."

Kurt's resolve shakes. Is dissolving, disintegrating with the sound of Blaine's voice. Hollow walls crumble.

And Kurt is too tired to oppose. Doesn't know why he would want to anymore.

Hot tears are streaming down his face, for the first time in a long while stinging his skin again.

He feels them.

Feels that those might be the real tears he needs to get through this. After all the empty ones.

Blaine breathes into the line.

And suddenly it is there in Kurt's mind: Don't let go. Let him in.

Kurt reaches up, a stretch of his whole body and presses the button of the door opener.

.