He'd offered to get a hotel room. He'd offered to sleep on the couch. He'd offered to sleep on the floor. Kurt had shaken his head furiously at every suggestion, he held back his tears and he'd thrown a pair of pyjamas at Blaine's face and he'd snapped at him to get into bed. That was the only thing he'd said since Blaine had... told him.

So that was where they were, lying impossibly close and terrifyingly far away from each other in a bed that was far too small. Blaine on his back, every muscle tensed to the point where it was painful, trying not to touch Kurt. Kurt, on his side, his back to Blaine, shoulders hunched and shuddering. He was crying. Blaine knew he was crying, could tell by the way the whole bed shook with his silent sobs and the way the little gasps that Kurt just couldn't keep in were the only noise in the room. It hurt. There was a time when he had believed he would be there for Kurt, that he would be the one to make everything okay. He'd thought that he would be the one to wipe away the tears, not the one to cause them.

They lie in silence for maybe another hour, Kurt becoming increasingly worse at hiding the sobs that are coming from him, each shuddering gasp is a little louder than the last and every time he tries to move his body shakes just a little bit harder. The tears sting his eyes like the words stung his heart, shockingly sudden, devastatingly painful and undoubtedly real. He curls in on himself, shrinking away from Blaine and the other side of the bed where pain and conflict and clarity hide out, where every bad thing that could happen in the world is waiting for him to approach it. He brings his knees up to his chest, almost falling off the bed with how far over he is, and tucks his head against his knees, willing sleep upon himself, wishing this all away, wishing that for at least a few hours he can forget that all of this is happening. He can rest in blissful oblivion.

Blaine stares numbly at the ceiling, sleep an unrealistic option at this point, nothing more than a dream he gave up on hours ago, days ago. He gave up on it the minute he knocked on Eli's door. He watches the ceiling with ferocious intensity, eyes unwavering and breath unfaltering, his mind replaying every happy memory it can find, a merciless torture only Blaine himself could've come up with. He hates himself, he hates himself far more than his father ever could, more than any of his small minded relatives do and far more than Kurt ever will. He hates himself, and that's worse, because even the most awful punishment he could come up with would never be enough to make up for what he has done. He is weak.

Kurt always has been and always will be stronger than Blaine, it's a fact. But now he is the one breaking, he is the one crying, he is the weak one. It's Blaine's fault, he's toxic, he's passed on every bad part of himself to Kurt, the poison has seeped from his body and taken root in Kurt's, festering until Kurt is weak and Blaine is numb. He despises himself. He despises the toxicity that rots at the very core of his soul that spreads until he is the shell of the man he could be- weak and empty and numb- oozing out until everything Blaine touches decays to something rancid and bad and terrifyingly broken. This is what is happening to Kurt, and it is all Blaine's fault.

‘Kurt.' Blaine whispers, his eyes unmoving from their spot on the ceiling and his voice a tentative breath in the strained silence. Pleading.

‘Don't. Please don't. Just please don't talk to me' Kurt's voice is raw and gravelly like someone has taken a cheese grater to it. He sounds defeated, too far gone for pain or anger or sadness to even affect him.

‘I'm so sorry' Blaine sobs, verging on hysterical because if he has to lie here in silence all night, in the silence he's been running from his whole life, he doesn't know what he'll do.

‘Just go to sleep Blaine I don't want to do this now' Kurt doesn't want to do this ever.

‘I can't sleep' Blaine sounds very very small, like when he was a child and he used to creep into Cooper's room. He hates himself more, because he is most definitely not that scared little boy that he once was.

‘Well that makes two of us' Kurt snaps, vicious and accusatory and far angrier than Blaine's ever seen him. It's the first time all night that his voice doesn't crack in the middle of his sentence.

‘You think that sleeping will make this go away, that you'll wake up and it will all be a dream. It won't. I'll still be the worst boyfriend on this planet and I'll still have broken your trust, probably beyond repair and this will all still be real.'

‘You're the one that avoids things Blaine. Not me'

‘You seem to be avoiding things now'

‘SHUT UP! JUST SHUT UP! You are the one in the wrong here, you don't get to tell me what to do and you don't get to tell me when we talk about this.' Kurt jolts upright, whipping his whole body around to give Blaine the most disdainful glare he's ever received, it's tainted by the sudden blueness of Kurt's eyes in their red rimmed sockets and the devastatingly beautiful way the tear tracks are still making their way down his cheeks, but it still makes Blaine squirm, still makes him feel like the most awful person on this planet- he probably is.

‘I'm sorry' Blaine sits up too; he still can't bear to look Kurt in the eye, keeping his gaze firmly on his hands and the way they knot themselves together.

‘Stop saying that' Kurt snaps again, his voice like the crack of a whip in the tremulous night air.

‘I'm so-' Blaine looks up, feeling sick to his stomach, piercing blue eyes meet his, hard and determined despite the fact they are overflowing with tears.

They sit in silence for what seems like eternity, their gazes captivating, compelling to the point where both of them are terrified of what will happen when they look away. They used to be able to communicate with one look, now neither of them knows what the other is thinking.

‘Why?' Kurt finally gasps out, his voice breaking, coming out in a shuddering breath as his whole body crumples, curling in on itself, desperately trying to hold itself together, quivering through the pain and the anger and the betrayal.

‘I don't really have an excuse' Blaine looks away, can't bear the sight of Kurt falling apart in front of him.

‘I don't want an excuse. I want a motivation' Kurt is still staying strong, despite the fact that his body is completely wrecked, is betraying him in every way. He keeps his tear filled eyes on Blaine, demanding the truth in a way Blaine cannot ignore, he clenches his fists as if that will hold him together for as long as this pain is going to last. He still looks perfect.

‘I don't-I... I was alone.' Kurt scoffs, shaking his head like he's never been more disgusted in his life, and smiling sardonically at the fact that he ever thought that he was actually in a mature relationship.

‘I don't mean I was lonely, I mean  I was alone, I was the most alone I'd been since my parents left me, broken beyond repair, in that empty hospital room on the night of the Sadie Hawkins dance.'

‘You don't think I'm alone? With everyone I love stuck in Lima?'

‘No Kurt, your Dad calls you, every day. You have Rachel and Vogue and people who care about you, and I am so proud of you, I am so happy for you and it's not an excuse, never an excuse, but it's not the sort of alone that I am. I am completely alone, I have no family, no real friends, no one to care about me, you know I'd joined all these clubs, become the leader of New Direction, student class president, and none of it made people care, it just meant there were more people who didn't care. I go to school and next to nobody talks to me and I get home and nobody talks to me and I just feel so isolated I feel like I'm in this vacuum and I'm choking and- you don't understand'

‘Really Blaine? You don't think I've felt like that, you don't think I felt like that for the majority of my life? If anyone were to understand it would be me, you could just talk to me'

‘I tried! And you weren't listening'

‘Do. Not. Blame. This. On. Me.' Kurt's voice is dark, his eyes darker, every word is filled with venom, with a sort of rage Blaine has felt all too many times, the sort that consumes you until you are trembling with a destructive kind of anger that has been locked up for far too many years'

‘No. It is not your fault, it is never your fault. It will always be mine, but I needed you, I needed you more than I've ever needed you before and you weren't there. Our phone calls kept getting interrupted and I didn't want to keep bothering you and-‘

‘You slept with someone else because you didn't want to bother me? Gee, thanks for your appreciation. It really means a lot to me' Kurt clenches his jaw, narrowing his eyes and doing that sarcastic and superior thing he does when he thinks he's going to get hurt.

‘I didn't sleep with someone else' Blaine is shocked out of his apology, every emotion draining from  his body with the sudden realisation that this is actually what Kurt believes.

‘What?'

‘I didn't sleep with-‘

‘You said you were with someone, you said it was a hook up' Kurt's voice is incredulous, angry, and laced with just a little bit of hope.

‘Yes but I didn't- I didn't sleep with them, I would never- I couldn't. I've only ever had sex with you. Do you realise how awful that would be?'

‘Why do you think I'm so angry with you?'

‘Oh' His voice is even smaller than before, unsure what to say because no, he didn't have sex with Eli but he still did something unforgivable awful.

Neither of them look at each other, Blaine biting his lip and feeling even more awful that he led Kurt to believe that, Kurt holding his breath and trying to stop himself from asking the next question. Because he doesn't want to know, he never wants to know, but at the same time he has to, their relationship won't be the same if he doesn't.

‘What did you do?' He can see that the question hurts Blaine just as much as it hurts him but it doesn't matter because Blaine still cheated, after everything that happened with the Chandler fiasco Blaine still went out a found a boy and did something, whatever it was. Even if it wasn't sex that still doesn't make it right.

‘I... I went to his house and I... we flirted for a bit- I mean we'd been flirting, he'd been flirting over Facebook and I didn't stop him... and then I went to his house and. And... he kissed me. A bit. And then I stopped him and I went home and I changed my flight and I came here to see you.'

‘You kissed him?'

‘He kissed me... and I didn't stop him- so yes I kissed him and I am so sorry I am so so so sorry I can't believe I did it, I can't believe I would do it to you and you have every right to hate me but please don't because I'm so sorry'

‘You kissed him?'

‘Yes!' Blaine sobs, gasping for air that won't get into his lungs quick enough and breaking down there and then because Kurt always has and always will be the stronger one, Kurt had flirted with Chandler, he'd never kissed him but Blaine's weak, he's weak and he likes attention and he such an awful person. He hates himself and now Kurt hates him and that's just one more person to add to the list.

The overwhelming silence is shattered in the first few seconds it arrives, it flows out of the room until all that's left is the shattered gasps and choked back tears and the desperate inhales, until the only noticeable thing in the room is the noise of hearts breaking.

The boys collapse, into each other and against each other and Kurt's half-heartedly hitting Blaine while Blaine does nothing but tremble and allow him to. And they're both shuddering together, holding each other up while simultaneously tearing each other down and they are wallowing together in their collective heartbreak, both hating themselves and both wondering how any of this happened, because just yesterday they were smiling on a staircase in Westerville, Ohio and now they are crying in a bed in Bushwick, New York and when did everything stop being happy and perfect and young love and first love and flirty duets in empty classrooms and cups of coffee in crowded coffee shops and whispered promises in the middle of the night?  When did everything become real and mature and painful? And why can't they go back to that time when everything was care free and new and beginning? Why does life have to hurt and why do the ones we love the most cause us the most pain? And that's a pretty obvious question isn't it?

They exhaust themselves, emotionally and physically, resting awkwardly against each other, crying out all their pain and guilt and regret. They sit in that too small bed and they lay their hearts on the line, without words or actions, with their emotions and they realise just how easily they can hurt each other, they can break each other and they realise that life isn't high school, because if this was high school it would be far too easy to let each other go. They realise that with the pain they can cause each other comes the other side of the scale, the joy, the way a smile can consume them at the very sight of the other and the way a hug can give them all the strength they'll ever need and the way words can affect each other in the most beautiful of ways. And the most heart breaking. They realise that if someone you love is capable of hurting you that much, they are probably capable of healing you too.

‘We should sleep' They don't remember which one of them said it, because they were both thinking it, it could've been Kurt who always has been and always will be the strong one or it could've been Blaine who always has been and always will be trying to be stronger.

They slip down under the blankets, facing each other with their eyes closed and their hands fingertips apart, their breathing still uneven and their hearts still trying to fix themselves.

‘What was his name?' Kurt doesn't open his eyes, although he knows Blaine has opened his, he doesn't want to meet his boyfriend's puffy eyes and wrecked face and sad little frown at the question.

‘Does it really matter?' Blaine waits but he doesn't get a response. ‘Eli. His name was Eli'

‘You're not forgiven'

‘I don't want to be'

‘I still hate you'

‘You should' Blaine sighs, grappling with the thoughts that are taking over his mind.  ‘I hate myself'

‘You shouldn't'

They'll be okay, because people grow and people make mistakes and people learn to forgive. Kurt won't forgive him just yet and Blaine will probably still hate himself for quite a while and they can both learn to communicate better. Eli will become just another name on a list of people who have failed to defeat them. Jeremiah, Rachel, Sebastian, David, Chandler and Eli. No doubt there will be more, but they'll learn how to deal with that. They'll learn that it's okay to have doubts and it's okay to voice your worries and it's okay to make mistakes. It's okay to be weak. They'll learn to love each other more than they already do. They'll learn that they won't be young forever, but that's okay.

No regrets, Just love.