Kurt’s stomach was warm and soft against his face and he burrowed into as he shook apart.
The silence stretched taught around them, waiting to be broken, shattered, for noise and light and reality to come flooding in. Right now, Blaine was in pain, yes, but he felt like it was okay. Kurt hadn’t said no yet. He hadn’t left his apartment and walked out of his life again. Right now, pressed against warm flesh, Blaine had hope.
He waited there a while more, his sobs eventually dying down, when Kurt’s hand came down and curled in his hair. He stroked over the springy curls and Blaine’s relaxed a little.
Kurt started to speak above him.
"I fell in love with someone, you know? We were together for three years. And you know what? It was exactly what people had told me love was like. He was my other half. We completed each other. I didn't even know that happened outside of movies. But it was true. Every hole I had, even the one you left, was filled by him. I don't know if you've felt anything like that, but I need to tell you that when I was with him, I was the happiest I had been for a while."
Blaine stiffened against Kurt’s stomach. He wanted to tell him yes, he had felt something like that, and he had lost it and here was the only person he had ever loved talking about someone they had loved. Someone who wasn't him. Because there had never been anyone who did for him what Kurt was explaining, and Blaine wasn’t sure if that gave him moral high ground or not.
Kurt sniffled from above (Blaine hadn’t even realised he was crying) and took a deep breath. "We broke up, obviously. I wouldn't be here if we hadn't. Not even you could make me into a cheater, Blaine Anderson.” Kurt’s hand paused in Blaine’s hair for a moment.
“But we broke up, for a million valid reasons and not one single right one, and I was so broken. I was just this half person now, left in a life that had been lived with two people for so long that I wasn't sure how to just be me. So I was heartbroken, and it was like I could feel that he was physically missing from me and it was then I realised that I never ever loved him anywhere near as much as I loved you."
Blaine pulled his head away from Kurt, sitting back up, the tears dried now. He opened his mouth to speak, but Kurt held out a hand in a silent gesture to shut the fuck up, please.
"Because I lost you once, before we were ever together, and it hurt much than losing the person I had loved with my entire heart for three years. Blaine, we kissed once. I can't, and won't, even begin to tell you what I shared with him. It should have been completely different. You were my first crush, the reason I knew I was gay, the first person that I had ever let into my heart. And he was my first love and my first for so many things and I was going to spend the rest of my life with him. But losing him was nothing compared to losing you. I said before that losing him was like feeling that half of my heart was gone, well when I left you, I had no heart. I had no soul. Everything I ever was belonged to you. And if you didn't want it, then I didn't either. You didn't just complete me like he did, you made me me.
"I've thought about this on and off for two years, trying to work out why the love everyone described as the greatest wasn't enough for me. And I've come to a conclusion. You know how people believe that somewhere out there is your perfect half? The person who will fill you up and you'll know the second you fall in love with them that this is where you're meant to be? Well I think that sometimes, people are born in love. People like me are born loving one person, and it doesn't matter if you've met them yet or not, everything you do is for them. You could meet them when you are a child, or you can meet them the day before you die, but it still comes down to the same, you have lived your life loving this person. That's me, Blaine. That's me loving you. Even before I realised that I actually was in love with you, I knew that I was nothing without you. When you weren't there, it was like I didn't exist.
"I thought I was going to die when I left you and went to McKinley. Everyone did. People who had never met me looked at me saw a kid who was hanging so tightly to a single thread. I think people just assumed that I would finally do it. But I didn't let myself. I don't even know why. You know I would have done it, you knew that even before you caught me that time. I still haven't worked out why I held on, but I did. And I remade myself. I couldn't be me anymore, because you still had all of me, but I had enough to try. I made myself a new heart, and I made myself a new soul and in every moment since then I've been trying to forget that you have the real me. And then I saw you on that street and I was empty again. I don't want to be empty! I want to be whole! I'd rather be broken and hurt every day than be empty for just one more second. Make it stop, Blaine. Please."
Kurt had collapsed on the bed, folding in on himself, awful soundless sobs tearing from his body. Blaine had never seen him like this. He’d seen Kurt cry too many times. He’d held him in his arms as he broke apart. But right now? This was the worst. The most beautiful thing he had ever seen was reduced to this ghastly effigy of the true Kurt Hummel, and all because of him.
"Shh, baby. Of course I’ll make it stop. I'll make it okay."
Blaine scooped him up, and with a tenderness he had forgotten he was capable of, kissed Kurt on the forehead. On his cheeks. Eyes. Nose. He kissed away every tear, catching them as they fell, erasing the trace of salt they left as their reminder that pain had been felt here. He kissed everywhere and slowly, beneath him, Kurt started breathing normally again. His eyes fluttered open, and for the first time outside his dreams, Blaine saw the eyes he had loved for ten long years close as he kissed him.

They broke apart minutes later, lips wet and red, and smiled at each other. They could spend forever doing this, Blaine thought, just lying in bed memorising every inch of each other, inside and out. He begun to trace Kurt’s body with his eyes, intending to get a head start on forever, when Kurt blurted out, “I’m sorry!”
“What?” Blaine sucked his lips between his teeth, bemused as he watched Kurt’s face.
“I’m sorry that I was such an idiot ten years ago. I’m sorry that I didn’t let you explain. I’m sorry that I overreacted to everything. I’m sorry I scared you. I’m sorry that I didn’t know how to cope without you, even know I never needed to. I am so sorry for screwing it all up.” He covered his face in his hands and Blaine smiled at him.
“I forgive you.” Blaine pulled Kurt’s hands away from his face. “And I am sorry too. So sorry.”
Kurt kissed him quickly on the lips. “I forgive you.” He settled back on the bed, curling into Blaine’s arms and sighing.
Blaine watched him and had that feeling of forever again. The same feeling he got when they first kissed.
“Hey, we can do this.”
Kurt angled his head up to Blaine and fixed him with a wide grin.
“We can.”