It's been a month since Kurt Hummel's world crumbled into a million pieces. Within 6 hours he lost the love of his life. Blaine cheated on him. Blaine cheated on him with some random guy from Dalton. Blaine sang the most emotional arrangement Kurt had ever heard, he took him to Battery Park and he tore his world apart, admitting to hooking up with someone. Kurt still doesn't know his name but Blaine was right. It didn't matter who it was. It only mattered that it happened. Blaine wasn't happy so he found someone who could give him what he needed. And that person wasn't Kurt. That's all that mattered.
After a month, Kurt still wasn't well. He honestly tried to get over his heartache. He went to bar after bar with Rachel and by himself, met man after man, even hooked up himself just to get over the pain Blaine left. He still felt greatly empty. Kurt decided only time would heal his wounds but after a month of constant emptiness, Kurt started to wonder how much time it would take.
So there Kurt was, silently making dinner with Rachel. Ramen noodles again. Rachel noticed Kurt's distantness for the past month as did his co-workers at Vouge. Isabelle even thought he lost his 'Lima Boy' innocence. He did his work but he didn't wear a 50 watt smile anymore. No one has seen him smile since he ended things with Blaine.
"So… do you want to out on the town tonight? I heard they're selling Newsies tickets on a discount at the TKTS booth. It can be a girl's night." Rachel suggested with a smile. When Kurt was depressed, so was she.
"I'm not really in the mood tonight," was his monotone response. That was his response for everything nowadays. He was never in the mood.
"Oh. Alright." With that, Rachel took her food to her bed to study for her upcoming exam. Kurt stood by the stove stirring his overcooked noodles.
A knock came from the door. Both of them looked up.
"Did you invite Brody over?" Kurt asked.
"No," Rachel answered; she got up to get the door. She was in shock at the small sized boy standing in front of her.
"What are you doing here Blaine?" Kurt's head shot up from the stove, his eyes wide and his heart hammering out of his chest. He must have heard her wrong. His eyes must have been playing tricks on him. That couldn't have been Blaine.
"Can I come in please?" Blaine asked, his voice small and meek. Kurt wondered if that was what Blaine sounded like for the entire month.
Rachel gapped like a fish out of water. "I- I think I should leave." She bolted out of her apartment, leaving Kurt still wide-eyed alone with Blaine.
"Kurt." The way Blaine said Kurt's name sounded like broken glass. It made Kurt shudder. They stood there for a very long moment. "Please let me in."
Kurt stuttered for an answer, but just turned off the stove and dashed to his 'bedroom'. (which was really just a small area separated by a few curtains big enough for his bed and a dresser) "Why are you here Blaine? Why aren't you in Lima?"
Blaine carefully entered the room, as if one false step would set off an explosion. "I'm hurting too badly. I needed to see you. I couldn't take it anymore." Something caught his eye. A bundle of red and yellow. Blaine subtly looked over to see the batch of red and yellow plastic roses Blaine sent him after he got back to Lima. They were the same colors Kurt gave him to congratulate him on getting Tony in West Side Story. Blaine wanted to break down and cry or at least hold Kurt, but he remained quiet. He looked to Kurt's bed. Kurt was sitting on the edge of it, also on the verge of tears.
"So you actually thought the best way to fix things was to show up in New York without even a phone call in the middle of the night?" Kurt stood up out of sure frustration. He could feel it; he was an inch away from either yelling and hitting Blaine or crying and kissing him.
"Would you have picked up if I did call?" Blaine asked with a bit of tension in his voice. Kurt didn't respond to him. "I needed to see you again. We have to talk this out. It's not just that we're over. It's that it was so unofficial. We just stopped talking in general; you deleted from Facebook and stopped taking my calls and texts. It's like you dropped off the face of the planet. I don't even have the courage to ask Burt about you!" Blaine was becoming frantic.
"Blaine I'm not able to deal with all this right now," Kurt said.
"When will you be able to deal with this Kurt? It's been a month!" Blaine took a breath. "Actually, it's been four weeks and two days. It'll be a month tomorrow." Kurt was speechless. Not because Blaine knew the exact amount of time they've been apart, but that they both knew it. Blaine stood at the end of Kurt's bed, looking dead into the taller boy's eyes. They were the eyes Blaine dreamed about every night. He took a breath.
"There is absolutely nothing I can say or do to justify what I did. But please, just let me tell you why I did it."
"I know why you cheated on me. You were lonely, I wasn't there and you needed someone. You told me," Kurt responded with bitterness dripping from his words.
"No, you think I wanted someone to get off with! That's not how lonely I was!" Blaine yelled. Kurt was flabbergasted. Blaine never raised his voice before, especially never at Kurt like that. "No one listens to me! I'm alone everywhere I go! My parents are never around; my attractive, talented, straight older brother gets the attention where ever he goes! At Dalton I was the head Warbler and at McKinley I'm the 'New Rachel'. I'm always idolized as the perfect student, the perfect leader, Mr. Perfect! Until I make a mistake, then I'm nothing! I'm considered a screw up, a loser, just like at my first school!
"I can't talk to anyone! No one can understand what I'm feeling except you Kurt! And you can't even be bothered to pick up your phone anymore! I've been a mess since we broke up. I can even see that but I can't seem to fix myself. No one's asked me anything. No one's asked me if I was alright or if I needed to talk because I'm Mr. Perfect. I can handle myself, that's what perfect people do! I've barley even talked in Glee Club. Even there, where my family is, feels foreign to me. Has anyone asked you if you were okay since we broke up?" Kurt stayed silent. He had been asked. But he would never tell Blaine that.
"I felt so alone. So much that it felt like it went all the way down to my bones. It was like I was isolated behind a wall from everyone. So I messaged some old Dalton friends, just to get my mind off things. And this one boy, he wanted to hang out and I knew he had his eye on me at Dalton for the longest time. I knew what he wanted to do but I couldn't seem to help it; I wanted a connection. No matter where or who I got it with, I needed a connection." Blaine stopped for a minute, looking deeply at Kurt. Kurt though his insides were melting at the gaze his boyfriend… ex-boyfriend, was giving him. "Eli." Kurt was snapped out of his trance.
"W-who?" Kurt stuttered.
"You asked me who it was with in Battery Park. His name was Eli Collins." Kurt didn't know how to feel from this bit of information. Did it make things better, worse? Did it make things more real? Did it even matter anymore? "Eli," Blaine continued. "He invited me over to his house for a study session for chemistry." Kurt internally chuckled. Blaine didn't take chemistry. When Blaine started talking again, his voice was soft and empty. Kurt knew he was broken. "I went to his house. I was shaking the entire car ride there. I could feel how wrong the whole thing was. But I just… needed something, anything. So I went. And he started kissing me. I wasn't into it at all and I think he could tell. Until he kissed me… there." Kurt knew where Blaine was talking about. "You remember that spot behind my ear that I love?" Kurt couldn't forget. The sounds Blaine made when Kurt's lips were on him stared in his dreams for weeks after he discovered it. Kurt couldn't help the smile that played on his lips from the memory. Blaine smiled at Kurt's smile, but instantly it disappeared. "Yeah, I made the same noises." Kurt's smile was replaced with a pale face and a drop in his stomach. The thought of Blaine making those sexy, beautiful noises for another man while they were still together make Kurt literally sick to his core. Kurt wanted to beg for Blaine to stop talking, but he couldn't seem to find his voice in the flood of emotions taking over him. So Blaine continued,
"It felt so good. I missed feeling like that. But I could only think about you and how you were the one to make me feel that good. Right then, I knew how big of a mistake I was making. I tried to leave, tell him I changed my mind, but… well, he was persistent." Blaine had to compose himself before he went on. However painful this was for Kurt to listen to, it was far worse for Blaine to tell. "He told me whatever happened, he could make me feel better. I tried to tell him off but he just kept kissing me and touching me and-" Blaine stopped himself, tears already in his voice. Everything would be easier if he just stopped talking, but Blaine had to tell Kurt something that he needed to know.
"I didn't have sex with him," Blaine said with more confidence. Kurt's jaw dropped, his worst fear denied. "I wouldn't, even when I decided to see him, I wasn't going to let him have sex with me. That would feel like replacing you. I could never replace you Kurt." A tear rolled down both of their faces. "I told him that and he knew if he tried anything, it'd me against my will and I'd call rape on him. So he didn't. But he… he knew that he wasn't going to let me leave without some type of physical contact." Blaine didn't have to say what it was they did. His hazel eyes told all. "Kurt I can't lie to you. It… it felt good. Really good. He made me-" Blaine was crying. He was breaking down right in front of Kurt. He couldn't talk about anything more and Kurt just couldn't hear anything more.
"Blaine, please stop," Kurt pleaded with tears in his eyes and voice.
"But I didn't feel anything." His voice was incredibly unstable, but Blaine pushed on. "I thought the contact would help me feel better, less alone. But it didn't work. I still felt just as alone and more guilty. I felt so empty while with him. The pleasure was only skin deep. Hell, I could have made myself feel that!" Kurt shifted unconsciously thinking about Blaine's last comment. "I didn't want to be touched. I wanted to be touched by you. You were the only one that made me feel complete." Blaine's tears were still flowing but he was silent. "Kurt. I've told you a million times how much I love you. But I never told you how much I need you. Deeply, intensely need you to function. I didn't even know how much I needed you until I you were gone and I had to go on without you.
"It hurts. It's like someone pulled out my heart and I have to live with the hole in my chest. The worst part of this all is I'm starting forget the special things about you, what your lips feel like against mine, what the mix of coffee and cinnamon you have smells like, what your laugh sounds like. I don't want to forget them forever."
Blaine wasn't the only who was breaking down at this point. Kurt was streaming tears and agreeing with everything Blaine was saying. Kurt was forgetting about Blaine too. Kurt always adored how Blaine's kisses tasted like peppermint and chocolate and he couldn't quite place the taste anymore. It's what kept Kurt up at night crying.
The more and more Blaine talked, the more Kurt forgot he was mad at him. Actually, the more Blaine talked, the more Kurt felt like this was all his fault. He felt like he was still pushing Blaine away. After the Chandler thing, Blaine tried to express himself, but Kurt still didn't listen. Just like Blaine said before: no one listened to him. Kurt wasn't the exception. For the month they were apart, Kurt found himself asking himself why he was with Blaine. Now he was asking himself why Blaine still wanted Kurt.
"When I met you in Dalton, I connected with you. I heard your story and I thought, 'here's a boy who knows what I'm feeling'. I could relate to you and I wanted to help you and protect you and love you, even though I didn't know what kind of love I wanted to give you." A rush of memories hit Kurt; the stairway, running in the Dalton corridors, Blaine serenading him, the failed GAP Attack, the day when Pavarotti died and their first kiss. Blaine serenading him again at McKinley in the courtyard, Blaine transferring for him, their first time. Kurt thought about that memory for a while longer. Blaine giving him his gum wrapper bowtie ring he still kept and fixed dozens of times just to keep it in once piece. It's hidden in a safe place and only wears it on the most special of occasions. Kurt also remembered the promise Blaine made to him that day. 'To pick up your phone calls, no matter what I'm doing'. Kurt remembered the day when Blaine tried to call him and he rejected it in favor of his job.
'I'm a terrible boyfriend,' Kurt thought. And here Blaine was; alone, sad and ashamed of himself, practically on his hands and knees trying to at least have Kurt understand him and listen. Kurt was listening. For the first time, he heard exactly what Blaine was saying and took it to his broken heart. Kurt understood Blaine, and it didn't make what Blaine did okay but it made him more human than Kurt had ever seen him. Blaine wasn't perfect. He was a heartbroken teen trying to find his was without the love of his life and made a mistake. Now all Kurt had to decide was if Blaine deserved a second chance.
"This isn't an excuse, Kurt. What I did was a horrible thing especially after Chandler. I am a hypocrite and an idiot and I don't deserve you at all but-" Blaine was silenced by a pair of soft lips against his. Blaine's body instantly wrapped around the warm, older boy, pulling him as close as physically possible. The kiss was what Blaine needed to fill the hole in his heart. This is what Blaine was searching for, Kurt's lips against his, Kurt's hard, sturdy body pressed close to his, Kurt's hands tangled in his curly hair, Kurt. Kurt felt just as satisfied.
As Kurt's tongue entered Blaine's mouth, he pushed Blaine back onto his bed. Blaine crawled back towards the headboard as Kurt crawled on top of Blaine. They clung to each other like lifelines, like if they let go of each other Blaine would disappear back to Ohio and Kurt would still be there alone in the big New York apartment. Before that happened, they would kiss each other until they both couldn't think about anything other than the feel of hands, lips, heartbeats finally repaired.
When the need to breathe was too great, they separated; still holding to each other like the other wasn't really there. It was Kurt's turn to talk.
"You do deserve me. Don't think you're less than what you are. And you are perfect. Not because you're flawless but because you're made a mistake and you came all the way over here to try to set things straight, despite the trouble and the pain and the option that I might have kicked you out right away. You care; hell, I think you care more than I do!" Blaine chuckled. "Okay, that came out wrong. I mean, I was ready to hate you for as long as I could. I didn't want you anymore." Blaine's eyes shone with soon-to-be-shed tears.
"What changed?" he asked, as innocent and naïve as ever.
"I didn't know you were feeling this way Blaine. I didn't know it was this bad. And I didn't know… I was the only one feeling like this." Blaine gasped, obviously not expecting Kurt to say that. "I was in as much pain as you were. I felt like there was this gapping emptiness without you. I didn't answer you because I thought it would make it worse. I wanted you out of my life, but I can't live with that. I don't think I ever could." They held each other for a moment, gazing into each others eyes, trying to say all the things words couldn't. "I don't want to live my life without you… Blaine."
And they kissed. A kiss that said everything previously unsaid. A kiss that promised life and love and everything to both boys. A kiss that left the two swimming in ecstasy. A thought popped into Kurt's head which made him smile, then giggle, then laugh into the kiss.
"What?" Blaine asked with a smile of his own.
"We never officially broke up. We just mutually stopped trying." Blaine's face grew serious, but still held a smile. He opened his mouth to respond, but there was no appropriate response to that. Instead, he pulled Kurt down into another smoldering kiss. It took Kurt's breath away and he breathed deeply through his nose to get air but still keep the kiss connected. Much like what he did during their very first kiss. As Blaine deepened the kiss, his hands traveled Kurt's side to push his very stylish jacket off his shoulders, leaving him in a thin, white, button-up shirt. Blaine's fingers reached for the first button, but stalled to pull back to make sure Kurt wanted this now.
Kurt's response was, "I will always be with you Blaine."
Blaine began to cry again, tears of pure love and joy. "I'll love you until the day I die."
Through that night, the two lovers reconnected with each other, rediscovered their bodies. Each small gasp or moan of pleasure reinforced the love that tied them together, even when they were thousands of miles away. And as they went on, the world disappeared, leaving only that two in one bed, as close as any two people in love could be, fitting together and fulfilling each other completely.
Like two missing puzzle pieces found each other again.