Blaine sighed and stretched out his neck side to side, readjusting himself on the couch he'd parked himself on two hours ago. He woke this morning to rain. And not just any rain, it was almost impossible to go outside. Pouring would be an understatement. A massive one. And every twenty minutes, he swore hail joined the rain from the sounds it made against the window. Even if anyone had dared to go outside today, the rain drowned out the sounds they might have made. Classes had been cancelled. Weather advisories had played all morning. No one was going outside. Got it.

Blaine loved the rain, always had. He loved the dark skies and the sounds of the rain hitting a surface. He loved how everything smelled afterwards. So many memories were associated with rain for him, both good and bad. He thought back to one memory involving rain that occurred almost five months ago, and sighed.

———

The party for the Schuester wedding was starting to wind down, but some still stuck around, enjoying the calmer atmosphere and chatting among themselves, catching up with each other. It was pleasant. It was perfect. It was...

Bring! Bring!

The sound of a phone going off cracked through the atmosphere of the room , and some people turned to see who hadn't silenced their phone.

"Dammit." Kurt muttered, pulling away gently from the slow dance he'd been engrossed in with Blaine. "I'm sorry. I have to take this. It's Rachel. She's texted me a bunch and called me five times, but I...I better get this. Sorry." Blaine nodded and gave him a 'It's fine' smile, which Kurt returned, before ducking out into the hallway to answer the phone. Blaine could hear a 'Rachel, what did you...' before the loud, LOUD sound of one Jewish princess he knew well, cut him off. Blaine took a wild guess , from the tone of the yell, that Rachel was upset. Uh oh.

Blaine fiddled with the ring box in his pocket, his nerves still jumbled. He still was not sure what to do. He loved Kurt, he knew that much. They were supposed to be together, they were soul mates. Blaine knew this. He knew deep deep down that in the end, it would always be him and Kurt. That's what destiny was telling him, and he was sure it was telling Kurt the same thing, no matter how much he may deny it. Maybe though...yes, he'd start slow. Ask him on a date, restart the relationship, then after awhile...

"Yes, no...Rachel stop trying to change the subject, we're on you now, I thought you'd be thri... no...yeah I know." Kurt was leaning against the lockers, near Blaine's. Kurt knew which one was his, he must have gone there unconsciously. "Rachel for the love of... he what?! When? No! Ugh, I have no idea. Yes. Yeah, I did." There was a pause and Blaine saw him slump a bit, his posture loosening. "No, Rachel it was the right thing to do, I know it." He sighed and then picked at something on his jacket. " No, I just... yes. Rach we talked about this. Yes I am sure. Yes. I don't care if you think it was the right choice Rachel." Kurt's tone turned snappish, defensive. "It's my life, not yours, and the world doesn't revolve around... oh really? If you know that then why did you, and apparently you still are, assuming that my love life has anything to do with you? I don't care what your opinion is on the matter, especially not after what you said back in New York before I left. Yes, I remember and I am still mad. What makes you think..." There was another pause as Kurt grudgingly, he could tell, listened to whatever Rachel was saying on the other end. " Yes, I am sure about it. Yes. I know for a fact he is the one I love, the one I want to spend the rest of my life with, I mean how...how could he not be?" Oh...oh... he...they were talking about...

But who was he talking about? Blaine, Adam, or...was there someone new? Blaine's mind was racing and he felt his heart constrict. What if he was talking about Adam? Or someone else?

"Rachel, you know why I broke up with him, why I had to...it was never going to work and we both know it." Oh...yep, there was the feeling of Blaine's heart shattering again. So he was a part of this conversation, just not the part he had hoped... "You know I couldn't... Rachel why would I do that? That's ridiculous. I don't love him, I am not getting back together with him." It's an interesting feeling, your world crashing down in front of you, for the second time in under a year. Not a great feeling. In fact it was probably the worst feeling in the world, or at least that is what it felt like at the moment. "I did try Rachel, I just... it didn't work out. We just weren't meant to be."

A lump formed in Blaine's throat, his heart hurt , and he wished the world would open up and swallow him whole, just so he didn't have to be here feeling what he was feeling right now. Listening to the love of your life, the person you...thought was your soul mate, tell their roommate over the phone that they didn't love you and that you and him were never going to work... damn, why couldn't the floor open up right now? A light fall and brain him, some jock slushee him, anything to distract and or take him from this...how...

"I do. I want to be with him, I want to marry him, maybe when I'm 21 or older and can do a shot of vodka before the ceremony because holy shit, and... I want to raise kids with him, grow old with him, I want to be with him for the rest of my life. When I am with him Rachel I just... everything is right. It took awhile but I know...the last time I was with him, even standing next to him, my entire world was right, everything made sense. I need to be with him..."

Blaine knew Kurt wasn't talking about him, how could he ? The break up, the relationship Kurt apparently knew would never work out... the person Kurt knew he was not going to be with was Blaine, and the other was...

"Rachel will you just stop trying to change our topic of discussion? What happened? You were so prepared for that audition..."

Blaine felt the box fall out of his hand and heard the sound of it hitting the floor but his mind didn't register it, his heart and soul numb. He felt his feet pivot and turn his body around, walking the opposite way down the corridor, and he thought...he thought he heard the sound of Kurt calling after him, and...his mind adding hope that wasn't there, Kurt's voice was worried, frantic...sad. But no... that couldn't be right. Kurt wasn't leaving him now, he had left him when he'd left for New York, never to return. Not in the sense he really wanted him to. Kurt left, just like the other people in his life. What was Blaine to expect? Of course they left. Blaine was a mess. Cooper left, his pets left, his grandparents...the ones on his mom's side, the ones who had always loved him and never judged him, accepting him for who he was when he came out, they were dead. His cousins on his dad's side, the only Anderson family members who didn't treat him like he wasn't human after he came out, Carlee, Melody, James, and Russell, they were on the west coast, in California. He didn't get to see them as much as he wished. Gone. They were gone from his life. His parents were emotionally gone. They may have connected the night of the 'shooting', but it was more like a boat docking in a harbor, only there for supplies before it went back to sea. They left...they all left. Everyone he loved left him. It made sense. He was damaged and he knew that. Even before the Sadie Hawkins dance, he was never right. He'd always faced some form of depression or other issue that made him moot. Somewhere deep in the back of his mind, he knew he was probably overreacting but... in a way he wasn't , not really. Hearing that you will never have another chance with the love of your life can be damaging to the heart and the mind.

He blinked, and suddenly he was at his car in the parking lot, the rain starting to pour down hard. He didn't remember going to get his keys , wallet, and jacket, and yet his keys were in his hand , he could faintly feel his wallet in his pocket, and he was wearing his jacket. Why was he just standing there? Why wasn't he getting in his car, driving home, and then locking himself in his room to cry for the next three days and wonder how he got everything so wrong?

You know why, his mind told him, you are stalling. You're hoping he heard you leave and he's running after you.

But he's not going to and you know it, so why are you bothering? His mind asked him, almost scolding. Even if he did hear you, he doesn't love you remember? You guys aren't getting back together.

Meanwhile, Kurt was running around the school, frantically searching for the young, dark curly haired boy that had such a hold on him, his heart beating wildly. He was mad, mad at Rachel and mad at himself. He wished she'd left his love life alone, it was none of her business. When she'd called him for what felt like the billionth time, he'd been so tempted to just let it ring because screw it, whatever it was it could wait. He was so comfortable and happy, dancing with Blaine, his head was starting to droop and Kurt knew it was only a matter of time before his head became reacquainted with Blaine's shoulder. And Kurt had literally been thirty seconds away from opening his mouth and asking Blaine out on a date, telling him he wanted to try again and that he knew , deep down, they were supposed to be together. Him and Blaine. Forever.

Thirty seconds.

Then Rachel called AGAIN, ever so persistent and ever so blessed with incredibly awful timing.

And it's not like he could do the little speech he'd been preparing since he'd left New York (he even practiced on the plane, mumbling to himself the entire time, earning him a weird look from the old lady who sat next to him.) while his phone was ringing incessantly. Not very romantic. 'Blaine I...' BBBBBRING! '...wanted to tell you that I...' BRING BRING! '...will always love you and if you...' BBBBRING! BRING! BRING! '...and I hope that one day...' BRING!.

Nope, not good. Why couldn't there be like...an app that could sense you were in the middle of, or were about to be in, a very serious moment, and then just send everything to voicemail? The universe had cruel timing.

And now? Now he was running through the halls of his old high school, trying to track down the boy he loved, all because of shitty timing and , what he had deduced in a nano-second, an overheard and misunderstood phone call. He was going to kill Rachel for trying to change the subject like that. God, no wonder Blaine thought whatever it was, although Kurt had a feeling he knew, that made him run. The way his answers to Rachel were phrased, and the fact that Blaine obviously couldn't hear the names Rachel kept saying on the other end of the line...

He'd heard the thunk of something small but reasonably heavy-ish hit the floor, snapping him out of his concentration of trying to get Rachel off his case, and the retreating form, the running retreating form, of Blaine, and right away, he knew what must have been running through Blaine's head. He knew, and he felt his heart plummet to the ground. 'No. No no no no no no no no no!' his mind had raced. "Rachel, I can't deal with you right now, I'm sorry about the audition but I'm hanging up now." and he did. Soon as he said the word 'now', he'd hung up, and called after Blaine with no response. He ran after him but lost him in the choir room, semi-dark and littered with people who were still there, and the panic tripled.

Car. Parking lot. Blaine probably left.

Dammit.

But oh...wait...what if he was having trouble with his car or he dropped something or he...was crying in the car and hadn't left oh god... None the less, he bolted for the parking lot where he knew Blaine's car was parked, his heart pounding fast. As he ran across the parking lot, heart pounding harder and harder , he saw him, he saw his Blaine, standing outside his car in the rain, seemingly lost in thought.

"Blaine!" Kurt shouted, finally coming within ten feet of the boy. Blaine turned around, his expression twisted with hurt, sending a stab of pain into Kurt's heart. With the rain pouring down it was hard to tell, but Kurt could see it, could see the red in his eyes. He was crying. "Blaine?" Kurt asked, tentatively stepping closer. When Blaine shied back, now practically flush against his car, Kurt felt himself flinch and another stab of pain go to his heart. "Blaine, please, let me explain..." he began, stepping closer. He could tell Blaine wish his Prius was either further away or would magically swallow him , because he saw the flinch and the faint hitch in his stature, as if he was trying to press himself more into the car.

"You don't have to Kurt, I get it. It's fine." His voice was cracked and shaky, failing miserably to hide the fact that he was crying, and that he was hurt, broken, tired of it all.

"No , Blaine you don't, please let me..." Kurt had been edging ever closer, now two feet away from the boy he loved, the one who looked so broken and sad, the one making his heart currently break.

"I get it okay?" The harshness and shaky hollowness of Blaine's voice made Kurt freeze. He'd rarely heard that tone, and when he did, it was never good. Never ever good. It was the tone he had when he'd started to tell him about his parents' reaction to him coming out, it was the tone he'd used to tell him about the Sadie Hawkins dance in greater detail, it was the tone he'd used when telling him about how abandoned he'd felt when Cooper left. It was the tone he'd always used when he was talking about himself and how much he hated himself and understood why people kept leaving him and bad things kept happening. It was Kurt's least favorite tone. It was Blaine's resolute, 'I'm not good enough to be loved and I deserve to be hated.' tone. "I get it. You don't love me, you stopped , at some point. You love someone else and want to spend the rest of your life with him. Maybe it's Adam, maybe it's someone else in New York, but I get it. I was stupid enough to think that maybe... maybe we could save our relationship, that maybe we were meant to be together and we'd figure it out somehow. I had been so sure. I even... But I was fooling myself, wasn't I? Fooling myself into thinking you still loved me, even when you probably stopped loving me... at least in that way, a long time ago because..." he trailed off, not finishing the sentence for one reason or another, the tears flowing even harder now. Kurt could tell by the shake of his shoulders, and he was pretty sure the only time he'd been in this much emotional pain was when he thought his dad was going to die when he was a junior in high school. "I mean..." Blaine said after a minute, as if continuing a train of thought he'd already started in his head " I know... I know how badly I messed up, and I've paid dearly for that but... it only happened because I had been so sure...so convinced that we had no relationship. That there was no relationship to hold on to, to save. I thought , I was sure you didn't love me anymore, that you'd finally realized I wasn't good enough for you and your life in New York was all you ever really wanted and who cares about the high school sweetheart back in Ohio? I was sure you were edging me out of your life, trying to subtly tell me to go away and that you didn't want me anymore. You never said I love you back to me, and you missed and cancelled so many phone and Skype dates. You always talked about New York. We never really talked about us, and I felt like, oh, he found out, he found out , or realized, that I am a loser and I didn't deserve him and he could do better, and he's dumping me in the most subtle way possible, because who would even want me really?" Blaine pointlessly wiped a tear away from his face, the rain still pouring hard. " No one does. They try for awhile, thinking they might but... and then, after it happened, I was dumb. I knew then and there that you were the only one for me , that it was over. That I'd been ruined for life. And I was stupid to think that maybe, possibly you felt the same way, but what I didn't get back then, or what I refused to realize, was that I'd already lost you for good. As soon as you left Lima, I'd lost you. And I selfishly hoped I could get you back, but it was a fool's errand wasn't it? But I kept fooling myself. I even bought a ring..."

"I know." Kurt said meekly, his voice cracked, trying not to cry. "I found the box on the floor. I heard it fall. That's how I knew you were there... I ..."

"Figured you did." Blaine cut in. At that moment, Kurt was the one hoping the world would swallow him whole, because seeing Blaine like this, hearing those words, words of ultimate doubt and self hatred, words Kurt had hoped he'd forever driven from his mind, was slowly killing him. Just like how Blaine had said to him before he'd left, seeing him so miserable was killing him, Kurt understood it now. Because seeing the one you love most miserable? It was the worst thing in the world. And knowing you were the reason they were like that was even worse. The silence, save for the sound of the raining hitting surfaces, was deafening. After five solid minutes of nothing, Blaine finally spoke again. "Why do I do this Kurt? Why do I keep hoping for the ultimately hopeless? Why do I keep thinking the universe is going to let me be happy? Of course it isn't. I'm not supposed to be. I don't deserve it. Why do I keep thinking...stupidly hoping, that I..." Blaine let his head droop to his chest, the look of someone entirely defeated being added to the mix of emotions already smothering the appearance of him. "I was stupid." His voice was more of a whisper now, as if he was saying it to himself rather than Kurt. "I can't believe I bought a ring. Of course you would say no."

"Blaine..." Kurt was crying now, his tears hot against his cheek "Blaine please listen to me...that conversation you overheard me having I...it was about you but..."

"Kurt please, I don't want to hear about your plans for your future life with your future husband, not right now. Just please lea..."

"No! No, I am not going to leave. I am not going to be quiet. Dammit Blaine, let me say something will you? Please?" Kurt had moved, now only a few inches away from Blaine, his hands on either side of him, trapping him against the car. "Please listen to what I have to say?" Kurt was shaking, his eyes, filled with tears, making it more difficult to see than it already was. In the semi-darkness, even with the rain now pounding down on them, making them absolutely freezing, he could still feel it , right there on his left hand... he just needed to convince Blaine. But the look on Blaine's face, the way he was tensed up and emanating an air that practically screamed 'Leave me alone, go away', Kurt was getting more and more worried that this would be the end of them forever, and that was something he couldn't bear. "Please?" he croaked out, his voice becoming more and more broken. He took a risk and placed a light kiss to the other boy's lips, resting his forehead against Blaine's. "Please Blaine?" Nothing. "Blaine?... Blaaaiiinnee...Blaine you with me?"

——-

Blaine blinked rapidly, shaking the memory from his brain, at least for now, and coming back to the present. Back to New York and his apartment, and the rain falling outside instead of right on him.

"Blaine, where'd you go? You gonna come back down to planet Earth, or are you leaving me to do the dishes again? It's not going to work mister, you still have dish duty tonight whether you like it or not." A glint of silver, tiny but noticeable in the light from the ablaze fireplace ten feet away, caught Blaine's eye, and he grabbed at it, pulling a hand close to his face. "Blaine, sweetie, please don't tell me you have a weird fetish because this far into the relationship shouldn't I have kno..."

"Oh hush. I'm just looking at the ring." Blaine replied, playfully smacking the person on the butt.

"Oh he speaks! The cheeky boy-man speaks! What a thing to write home to! Father! My love, my beau, he talks! Oh how he tal...oh! Stop!" In a flash, he was pinned to the couch, laughing and giggling as Blaine tickled his sides , keeping him pinned under his weight. "Stop! Blaine I yield! I yield! The boyfriend yields!"

"Fiancé." Blaine corrected, smugly, stopping the tickling but not letting the boy under him up.

"Hmm," the other boy smiled, sitting up a bit and wrapping his arms around Blaine's waist, pulling him impossibly closer. "I will never be over that, I don't think I want to. Fiancé...it sounds so good. My fiancé Blaine..." he leaned closer, kissing Blaine deeply, and smiling into the kiss when he felt Blaine's arms wrap around his neck, deepening the kiss. When they broke apart a few minutes later, flushed and grinning. "Last names, we should discuss that at some point..."

"We aren't getting married for like...two or three more years. We have time." Blaine countered, cozy with his current position on his fiancé's lap. "Plenty of time. And you know..." Blaine began, punctuating his words with kisses. " The power will be out for awhile, possibly another day or so." One deep, long kiss. "So why don't we..." a shorter but no less passionate kiss "...take advantage of..." another kiss "...this opportunity..." another kiss "...and adjourn to ..." another "...oh I don't know..." a longer one this time "...the bedroom?"

"Why Blaine Anderson you cheeky devil, are you propositioning an innocent young thing like me?" Blaine laughed at this. He knew this would happen after they'd watched that movie set in the south, complete with southern belles and gentlemen, inspired his love to an occasional cheeky impersonation.

"I don't remember you being so innocent in that hotel room on Valentine's day." he whispered into the other boy's ear, grinning at the shiver that visibly went through him "All the things you said and did. My baby penguin wasn't a baby anymore, not with that mouth." his grin got wider at the moan emitted from Kurt, and the slight roll of the hips he felt. "So yes, I am propositioning you Kurt Hummel, but I am not doing anything to any 'innocent young thing' as you put it. I'm doing so to another cheeky devil."

"Hmm." Kurt hummed appreciatively as Blaine started to kiss down a line on his throat. "Tell me what you were so engrossed in thinking about and we will go to the bedroom right now..." Kurt said, albeit very half heartedly at this point. Kurt opened his eyes and let out a whine of protest when the kisses stopped. Blaine was standing up, smiling at him and holding out a hand. Kurt took it and Blaine hoisted him up to meet him. Mere inches away, Blaine breathed, silently, for only them and no one else to hear.

"I was thinking of the night you and I got engaged, and how things like rain can trigger certain memories." Blaine answered, lacing his fingers with Kurt's and starting to walk towards their bedroom.

"That was both the worst and greatest night of my life." Kurt commented.

"Same." Blaine replied as they reached the open door to their room.

"I love you Blaine, you know that right? I love you more than anything else in the world." Kurt said, stopping him for a moment to look at him seriously.

" I know. I love you too Kurt."

And the door closed.