Stumbling home took much longer than Blaine had expected.

No- not home. He'd given up his home back when he insisted he attend NYADA. It hadn't been much of a home anyway. Not after he came out to his parents. Not since his father had told him he was sick. Not since his father had told him his faggot boyfriend must have finally straightened up and he should do the same. And now, a young adult and mostly self-sufficient, with the help of the government loans he would probably be paying off into his 40's, Blaine was somewhat glad that his father told him not to come back home.

Not much of a home, indeed. A home, Blaine thought, should be warm, safe. A home should be someplace that would always welcome you back, no matter where you'd been or how long you'd gone away. Dalton had been that home until he abandoned it for Kurt. Kurt had once been that home too.

Blaine tore off his clothing, stripping down to his boxers, thankful that his roommate's girlfriend had apparently decided to sleep in her own room for once. Too dizzy to finish getting ready for bed, he fell into his covers and buried his face as deep as he could into his pillow.

It didn't smell like home. It smelled like sweat and his roommate's dirty socks. Not like chamomile and honey and Kurt.

He rolled over to stare at his blank ceiling. It was a stale white cement ceiling, dreadfully cold and impersonal. Not like his room at Dalton, where he'd taped Kurt's picture above his bed so he could gaze up at that magnificent face and those twinkling blue eyes that he could fall into forever as he drifted off to sleep, eager for the morning to arrive so he could behold the real thing. That picture- any picture- never could do such a glorious creature justice.

No- this was most definitely not home.

And then, laying there, Blaine realized that he really had no home. Nowhere to hide when the world was too cruel. Nowhere to miss when a day was too long, and to rest when it was finally over.

The faint sob that escaped Blaine's chest surprised him. His roommate stirred, but only to scratch himself and roll over, letting out a muffled grunt.

Blaine squeezed his eyes shut, willing the room to stop spinning. Willing his foggy mind to stop turning. Wishing that, by sheer determination, the world would cease to rotate. That it would go backwards.

--

Light pounded through Blaine's window the next morning. The static from his roommate's alarm felt like pins and needles in his brain. As he tried to cover his head with his sheets, his stomach churned. He shifted to face the wall his twin bed was positioned against, however, when he stopped turning, the room didn't. Only a week into his college career, and Blaine had discovered the one thing worse than being hung-over- being both hung-over and still drunk at the same time.

Today, he supposed, was an excellent day to skip. He knew he'd regret it later, but there was no way anything he learned in class would stick anyway- it took all his concentration just to keep himself from throwing up.

As he lay there, unmoving, his thoughts flashed back to the night before.

How he had waited two hours, praying that he'd look up from his little bowl of pretzels and see Kurt, standing there, for him. How he hated looking up because he knew no one would be there. And how that emptiness, in a building overflowing with students, fractured his heart a little more every time he checked the door. And how he couldn't stop himself anyway.

How at some point, a group of senior girls had asked him if he was expecting someone and he'd told them he was waiting for his boyfriend (it was embarrassing enough to admit to having been stood up, much less by his ex).

How he'd seen Kurt walk in just as he was finishing his last song. How he had pled to sing just one more. How Kurt's eyes stayed on him throughout his performance.

How he wanted to cross that tight room and make Kurt his again, to show everyone that that boy could only love him. Months of longing for the boy did something to Blaine. Those radiant blue eyes, the skintight pants, that vest that held his chest just a little too close, they did something to him. How he wanted to run his lips all over the boy's skin, to rediscover the body he'd ached for so much.

How as he'd stepped off the stage, and saw the sadness in those sapphire eyes, the handsome face that was now so incomprehensibly melancholy, that same room became a vast ocean. A great depth that pulled him down further than he knew possible, that left him gasping for air. As though there had never been a greater distance between them, an expanse he could never hope to cross. And if he did, he wasn't sure what was waiting for him on the other side.

How he couldn't bear to see that boy walk away from him ever again.

How the last time he had sung there for Kurt, he'd broken that beautiful boy's heart.

When it's time to say goodbye, there are two kinds of people. In that moment- where you grasp desperately for the fluttering scraps of something you've longed for so dearly, and feel it brush by your fingertips, and hesitate, and let it wisp away- you ask yourself one of two questions. You ask yourself why you didn't hold on. Or, you ask yourself why you've only now let go.

Blaine wasn't sure what his question was, or what his reasons could be. Maybe there's a third type of person who asks both questions at once, and might not want the answer to either.

His stomach lurched, and this time there was little stopping it. It tasted like free pretzels and beer and regret.

--

Unintentionally, that last song had become Blaine's goodbye. His final words as he was washed away from the boy he'd once loved so completely. So painfully.

But, as Kurt lay in bed, thinking about the emotion he'd seen flash in those hazel eyes, he realized it was the same look he'd given Blaine once before. When he said he couldn't forgive. That it was too hard.

That it was too much, the betrayal. Kurt had stayed strong, he had believed in Blaine with all his heart. And Blaine had hurt him. More than anyone had hurt him before. Those words, I was with someone..., they stung more than an ice-cold slushy, more than that kiss Karofsky had forced upon his lips, more than the death threat that followed. They had shattered him.

But those eyes. Had he hurt Blaine?

No, Blaine had hurt him. Blaine had cheated on him. But that brief moment, as Blaine exited the stage, told Kurt another story. A story, he thought, that he might be ready to hear.