The first time Blaine Anderson saw Kurt was a bad night. Well, another bad night. He hadn’t really wanted to come to the club, but his protests had either fallen on deaf ears, or been drowned out rudely,
 
“No, Blainers really, I think what you mean is that Ryan won’t want you to go.”  Steve called, causing an embarrassed Blaine to look away and clench his fists. Steve was a good guy, but seriously lacked in the tact department. Blaine had shut up after that comment, realizing he was either going to end up at the club, or subjected to another round of snarky and pointed remarks aimed at his boyfriend. 
 
So he had ended up at a table in a loud club, minding other’s drinks, bored and frustrated and getting increasingly antsy and agitated as he ignored the vibrations of his phone signaling incoming texts. He knew Ryan was texting him, but he really didn’t want to text back now, because it would only lead to a phone call, and for once, Blaine just wanted to try to have fun and relax.
 
Blaine knew better than to drink, because alcohol and Blaine Anderson mixed together usually ended up with either inappropriate babbling, hugging, and large amounts of awkwardness the following day, or an angry and sullen boyfriend to pacify.
 
So he sat, sipping a diet soda, watching people shifting and moving around him in waves. The music was disorienting; the faces and bodies in the flashing darkness seemed surreal and untouchable. There was something, something like sleeping, blanketing his skin, dulling his brain.   Sometimes, Blaine wasn’t all that sure how present he was, how alive he was in a life he seemed to be watching instead of living.
 
This night, for example: he sat alone, quietly observing as people around him played out various incarnations of the same old ritual.  There was a fair amount of hooking up, some raunchy dancing, shy introductions shouted over terrible club music.  And yes, there were plenty of good looking men; athletic and put together and confident. Single and willing and just there.
 
 Blaine might have been in a long term relationship, but he wasn’t blind.  It was looking, but it wasn’t intention. Because he wasn’t interested in dating other people, really; and he could not imagine not being with Ryan- it was just…something. Something to do, some way to feel, acknowledging small sparks of interest that almost felt like kindling life.
 
Blain was reasonably sure he wasn’t meant for relationships; if his with Ryan was any indicator.  It just always seemed like so much work; maybe Blaine was too selfish, inherently, because he often felt so frustrated and tired and overwhelmed by the whole process.  Blaine had learned in time that it was just easier to go along with the flow, learned to stop fighting and pressing, because this way, he didn’t feel as much. So much. Hardly ever, nowadays.
 
Which was why when he spotted the boy, he was surprised by the rush of warmth.  He seemed tall, taller than Blaine; even in the club this boy had perfect posture. He was sitting with an animated brunette, sipping a drink. There was something almost aloof about the way he held himself. Blaine watched as the boy stood, making his way over to the bar to get more drinks, and damn. Those jeans.  Nameless boy was all leg, long lean lines absolutely squeezed into the tightest jeans Blaine had ever seen.  Blaine caught glimpses of his face as he made his way back, struggling through the crowd at the bar.  The lighting was all wrong, but Blaine had the impression of pale skin and light eyes. There was something compelling about his face, the angles and planes that seemed at once young and impossibly good looking.
 
Blaine felt his shoulders twitch as he forced himself to look away, his buzzing phone a guilty reminder, snatching him back into his skin heavily.  Weary and vaguely ashamed, he pulled his phone out, scrolling through the messages. There were 15, increasing in worry and Blaine absolutely was not up for this tonight. He sent off a quick text (sorry, phone under bed, didn’t hear it, can’t call doing a dorm thing xoxo), that while not strictly the truth, at least would serve to make his night a little easier.
 
 Blaine rolled his shoulders, choosing to ignore the curl in his stomach (god, I don’t even care that I’m lying, I’m such a terrible boyfriend), eyes accidentally finding those of the boy he’d seen earlier.  They held for a moment until the other boy turned away; he seemed embarrassed to have been caught; Blaine was staggering under the impression of those eyes and the wave of something that was just a little too much.
 
 And that was really overwhelming and Blaine had to push down a sick sort of dizzy, feeling too present, prickling into his skin and brain, fingers aching with the sudden need to move.  Breathing carefully, Blaine willed himself empty, closing his eyes to tune out his surroundings until there was nothing left but that same sort of numbness. This he could do, this he was familiar with. It was not enough and at the same time, just what he needed.
 
By one, he was ready to go. Blaine had a headache from the pounding music, his back hurt from being perched on the stupidly uncomfortable stool, and thanks to the seven diet cokes, he really had to pee.  Pushing his way back to the bathroom was a challenge; actually making his way into an empty stall a lesson in awkward and uncomfortable as he tried to avert his eyes (oh my god, people actually do this in bathrooms?). He’d never before in his life felt so naive and sheltered.  He tried to go as quickly as he could, desperately trying to ignore the moaning confession from the stall next door, (“Was that ok?” “Mmhmm, yeah …” “I’ve never done this…I’m just…oh”).
 
Blaine tried to wash his hands without looking anywhere but at the sink. He  shuddered a bit when the stall door behind him opened, but it was him; the beautiful boy he’d spotted earlier, lips red and kiss bitten, bleary eyed and so so drunk. Blaine blushed, hard, when the boy knocked into him.
 
“Mmm, sorry.”  His eyes were an amazing color- not blue or green, and his voice light and breathy. Blaine stuttered something, he wasn’t sure what. All he could hear was this boys voice in the stall next to him ”I’ve never done this”, and his stomach was twisting up and he was out of there, not even stopping to find his friends before he was out in the cool night air, red faced and tangled and stupid with emotion.
 
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
 
By the time Blaine had seen him next, he’d completely forgotten about that night in the club.  The rest of that night was a complicated series of memories- the two hour phone call with Ryan that had quickly spiraled into a fight, followed by a tense week and many sleepless nights spent arguing with himself, trying, somehow, to find a way to justify his happiness over someone else’s. 
 
Blaine often found himself outside his dorm alone, sitting on a cold stone bench in the tiny courtyard.  He liked to sit in silence, finding the quiet of the falling leaves and the muted sounds of dorm life fading behind him soothing.  Others rarely came out here; fall was taking a serious turn toward winter and it had been weeks since Blaine had been interrupted. He didn’t even take books or his I-pod with him any more. Instead he just sat, turning his thoughts over and over, repeating the same useless words in a loop until they lost all meaning, until he could feel himself losing all meaning; dissolving into this shapeless grey thing.  He would say the words, over and over, waiting for the time something would click, a key ready to spring this lock, validate actions he could not see himself ever having the courage to follow through on.
 
He’d been alone for almost half an hour, examining a particularly startling leaf at his feet. It was the most beautiful thing, a deep honey gold shot with burst of crimson and burnt orange. The air was brittle with cold; the promise of leaning heavy into the grey. Blaine jumped, startled from his thoughts by the voice suddenly behind him, rapid fire and annoyed,
 
“No, Dad I swear…oh my god,” Blaine looked up to find that boy, the one from the club that he’d forgotten, not five feet from him. He was on the phone, annoyance and frustration written on his face, “Where the hell..?” He covered the phone for a moment, turning to Blaine, “I’m sorry, I’m trying to find the stairs to the west hall, do you know where they are?”   He waited, eyebrow rising a bit as Blaine just stared.  Whoever this boy was, Blaine realized, he was gorgeous- really, seriously fucking beautiful. And well dressed. For a moment Blaine was torn between staring at his face (clear skin that was obviously well cared for which juxtaposed beautifully with rich dark hair), and the absolutely breathtaking coat and cashmere scarf combo. Realizing he was gaping unattractively, Blaine nodded,
 
“Yeah, umm, just go in and turn right…it’s two doors down on the left-“ He was cut off as the boy smiled and mouthed a thank you, speaking into the phone again as he turned back into the building, “Sorry Dad, I got lost trying to find my new room…yeah, God I can’t…” His voice was cut off by the slamming door, leaving a baffled Blaine staring into the space he had left behind, blinking into the darkening evening.
 
Blaine had a sudden flash from his childhood, how his eyes would retain a burnt image from staring into a bright light for too long.  Looking around him, he felt the urge to blink and clear his eyes. He saw now, surrounding him, all the fall leaves strewn on the ground and clinging desperately to the barren branches above him; exploding with color, startling against the cloudy sky. Everything was bright, so bright, and it hurt; he could feel the colors searing into his eyes. He had to resist the idea that this boy’s image had burnt itself onto his retinas, that he’d been left with something permanent and indelible, but bafflingly foreign.
 
Blaine had forgotten about that night at the club- by the time he’d gotten home Ryan was already yelling on the phone and it had taken hours to sort anything out, and then Blaine had been so exhausted and done with the whole situation he’d collapsed into bed, determined to put the whole night behind him. Seeing that boy again (and really, Blaine needed to put a name to the face, because even thinking of him as that boy made him feel like someone’s grandmother) brought the whole night back- the phone call with Ryan, the horrible feeling of sitting alone in a club watching everyone else act young and unafraid, and of course, that. That moment in the bathroom when he’d been both aroused and repulsed, ashamed by his response to this boy but also intrigued.
 
 There had been something about the boy; the naked vulnerability of the whispered confession, the idea that boys like him, like them, could find themselves in these places- desperate and lonely and turning to strangers. Blaine was no saint- without Ryan in his life, he doubted that he would ever have found someone to be with in high school, would have been so unsure and afraid to start college where it was suddenly ok to be gay, ok to have feelings for other boys and to act on them.  A few small changes in his life and Blaine would have been that boy. For a muddled moment, Blaine almost wished that were the case, until guilty, he shook his head and stood, brushing off his pants and clearing his mind. His nose and fingers were cold, and it was past time for dinner.
 
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
 
Blaine succeeded in forgetting about the boy again for about a day. He should have realized, when he heard that phone conversation, that “I got lost trying to find my room” meant the boy was moving into the west hall, where Blaine lived. But he’d been occupied thinking about other things, and it hadn’t really sunk in.
 
It did, in a hurry, the first time he ran into the boy (literally, he’d tripped over his shoe lace and crashed into the taller boy) in the cafeteria.  Blaine was embarrassed to feel himself flushing a deep red, and mumbled a quick apology before turning away. Behind him he heard a laugh, and someone asking, “Kurt, you ok?” and the boy (Kurt, his name was Kurt!) murmuring some quick assent.
 
There was no real reason Blaine could think of that explained his compulsion to avoid Kurt at all costs. He wasn’t remotely ready to examine his knee jerk and instinctive reaction to him; the way his stomach twisted and his skin seemed suddenly too tight, and most embarrassingly, how much he wanted to reach out and take his hand. To take this stranger’s hand and ask him to just be his friend.  Because there was something about Kurt, something he carried in the air that surrounded him; a little lonely and unsure, something searching. Feelings that were a little like home to Blaine; spaces so familiar and well lived in.
           
And really, none of that made any sense. As far as Blaine could see, this Kurt was confident and sassy. Blaine often watched him across the cafeteria with his friends, laughing, moving between conversations with easy grace, always covered in some sort of ridiculously attractive and intelligent outfit.  He wasn’t sure what it was, but despite this confident demeanor, under the smiles and the easy grace of his limbs and eyes, there just seemed to be something more about Kurt.  Something Blaine routinely told himself was imagination, run away from him and extrapolating ridiculous scenarios based on one whispered sentiment he wasn’t even supposed to have heard. I’ve never done this before.
 
And it had become increasingly clear to him, as the weeks dragged on, that probably a large part of his interest (infatuation? insanity?) was nothing more than misdirected emotion.  Because as time wore on, Blaine had found it harder and harder to pretend. To find reasons to explain why he kept Ryan in his life, why his happiness was worth less to him than someone else’s. Why he kept justifying making something work that was so sadly and obviously broken. Kurt was just a dream, a sweet idea; but it was a dream that made him feel. It was a bright shot of red and gold in a life that was, more often than not, depressingly grey.
 
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
 
Despite all of this, his interest and curiosity, the quiet watching that made Blaine feel a bit like a stalker, it was still a shock to find himself drunk, dancing pressed up against all the long, pale lines of Kurt’s body. It maybe shouldn’t have; if Blaine had been paying attention, if Blaine had any real idea where his emotions had been at for the past year or so. But he hasn’t been paying attention- he’s been doing everything he could to ignore that persistent nagging in his head, how increasingly monotone he and his life have become.
 
Blaine really doesn’t know what he’s doing, at all, right now. There’s music, crowding into the air and into his skin, and this almost mythically gorgeous boy is licking his way into Blaine’s mouth, insistent and dirty and god, he just has no defenses. Blaine has no experience to help him here, no way to stop the way his head is just spinning away from him and he can’t help but feel both wrong and yet stimulated.
 
 They’re still dancing somehow, or some semblance of movement that passes for dancing, and Blaine is reminding himself that Ryan is gone. Blaine has finally figured out that nothing is worth feeling as vague and disassembled as he has these past months, not even someone else’s unhappiness. But it just happened, he’s just ripped the band-aid off (metaphorically, the truth was a long phone call with tears and accusations and a feeling of complete sickness with himself and the situation), and tonight was meant to be fun and for forgetting, not for this.
           
Because he doesn’t know this boy, not at all, but he wants to. Blaine is so, so lost. He doesn’t understand himself, or what he is doing most of the time. He has a feeling that he needs to relearn everything in the coming months; there’s a sneaking suspicion that a phone call won’t be enough to deter Ryan and, oh god that will be something to deal with, won’t it? And this boy? This boy is something special, somehow Blaine just knows. He doesn’t know if this boy is meant to be his friend, an inspiration, maybe someone to hold onto, or even one day to love.
 
But Blaine is damn sure he isn’t going to figure any of this out in a dirty bathroom stall in a terrible club; he’s positive that he wants more than a few minutes with this boy, more than just a quick spark. The way he’s feeling, Blaine wants a whole fucking bonfire, and whether or not he gets that with Kurt is not really in his hands, right now. Blaine knows that if he goes with Kurt now, it’s all this will ever be, just a snapping light in the darkness, extinguished before he’ll ever really feel the warmth. Maybe Blaine hasn’t known it for a while now, but he feels sure, he feels this is right when he smiles and shakes his head at Kurt and asks him if he’s hungry. Because, damnit, this matters. He matters.