Blaine graduates in June and immediately begins wishing he hadn't decided to go straight to college. He spends hours scheming, coming up with plans to convince his parents to get the school to reimburse his tuition and let him stay with Kurt while he finishes his senior year. In the end, they end up being nothing more than just that- plans. Despite the boys' best combined efforts, the beginning of August comes far more quickly than expected.
They find themselves meandering the deserted halls of Dalton, hand in hand, until the sun begins to sink below the horizon. Blaine pushes Kurt against the door of their dorm room and kisses him, hot and insistent.
"I don't want you to go," Kurt breathes against Blaine's ear as they sway together.
"It's not that simple," Blaine begins, but then the acoustic strains of "Teenage Dream" begin to echo around them and it occurs to Blaine that it's almost time, so he blurts, "I love you. A lot."
The corners of Kurt's mouth twitch upwards like they're daring Blaine to prove it, but the two boys are suddenly jolting awake, carefully removing the needles from the backs of their hands, and going their separate ways until tomorrow, when they can do it all again.
The next few days are bliss while they're at Dalton. It serves whatever purpose they need. If they want company, the Warblers decide to have an impromptu jam session. If they want to be alone, the whole school is deserted. As the summer runs out, they spend less time with Wes and David and the others. They make love in strange dorm rooms where no one bothers them. Each time is slow and careful and so sweet it makes their teeth ache, but the pain is nothing compared to when the kick hits them and they find themselves gasping for air on the floor of Kurt's basement, their hands still clasped tightly together.
The first week of Blaine's freshman year of college goes smoothly. He makes new friends and Skypes with Kurt nearly every day. Each time he boots up his computer, Kurt is there, greeting him with a smile and gushing about how wonderful his day was.
"I miss you," the younger boy says softly, chewing absently at his right thumb nail. "Glee isn't the same."
"I know. I wish you were here. Or I was there." Blaine shakes his head and laughs at himself. "Or something like that."
Kurt smiles back, almost reluctantly. "Yeah. I know what you mean. But I've got Mercedes and Tina and Wes and David, so I think I might be able to survive." He rolls his eyes.
Blaine's brows knit in concern. "Wes and David aren't..." He can't bring himself to say the rest. "Not Wes and David. Right?"
"Oh!" Kurt exclaims. "I feel stupid. Of course not." He cocks his head sideways. "But speaking of them, can you come down this weekend?"
"It's looking good." The conversation continues normally, but Blaine can't shake the feeling that Kurt isn't doing quite as well as he would have Blaine think.
True to his word, Blaine visits that Saturday. They get an hour of real time at Dalton, where it's like they never left. David and Wes bring sushi for lunch that they all share and Kurt and Blaine sneak off to the second floor bathrooms for some privacy after some hurried excuses.
Kurt twines his fingers with Blaine's and whispers against his shoulder, "Why can't this be real?"
"We can make it real," Blaine reassures him. "We can be this happy in reality."
Kurt blinks up at him skeptically but says nothing. Blaine worries that his selective hearing kicked in at just the wrong moment.
We can make it real.
On the first Monday of October, Kurt calls Blaine in tears. "I can't stay at McKinley. I thought I'd be okay after you were here, but it's... It's not the same."
Blaine closes his eyes, but it doesn't block out Kurt's gasping breaths and little sobs. "I'm going to talk to my professor and see if I can drive down to see you this afternoon."
"Don't bother," Kurt sniffles. "There's nothing you can do. I just need to move past all this myself. I just like to hear your voice when I need it. You know?" he adds softly.
His voice cracks a little, and so does Blaine's heart.
i miss you blanie. txt me when u get this. - k
Blanie? I hope that was a typo.
it was at 1st but i like it blanie-poo. :D - k
Ha. Ha.
skool makes you grumpy. lol. - k
Maybe, but it also makes my spelling and grammar good.
u've gotten all grammar naziish too. luv ya anyway. ;) - k
I love you, too. 3 "Blanie"
"So about how far do you think it is from Lima to Dalton?" Kurt asks idly a few weeks later.
"You mean hypothetically, if Dalton were a real place? Probably like two hours." They still go on their dream excursions when Blaine has time to get off campus, which is becoming less and less possible, but Blaine thought Kurt had gotten over his little reality confusions.
Kurt pleads, "Let's drive up there this weekend. Just you and me. It'll be fun. I'll make a picnic lunch."
"It's not a real place," Blaine insists, but Kurt is stubborn.
"Quit being ridiculous, Blaine. I'm not an idiot. I know what I'm talking about."
After Kurt hangs up, Blaine realizes he forgot to say 'I love you.'
It all comes to a head the day before Thanksgiving. Blaine's parents are visiting his grandmother in Colorado, leaving him alone for the week. Their fight apparently forgotten, Kurt invites him to dinner with Burt, Carole, and Finn. Kurt even goes so far as to surprise Blaine by picking him up. They drive back to Lima together, singing Katy Perry and Lady Gaga at the tops of their lungs.
Blaine glances at Kurt reluctantly from time to time, if only because he's afraid he'll disappear. There's a dreamy quality to the whole situation- Blaine is going to spend the holiday with the man he loves and his family. It's sure to be entertaining, at the least. It literally is one of Blaine's dreams come true.
At least, it is until Kurt makes an unexpected turn, taking them in the opposite direction.
"Where are we going?" Blaine can't stop a hint of anxiety from creeping into his voice.
"I thought we could drive by Dalton," Kurt says brightly, looking over his shoulder at Blaine with a stunning smile.
Kurt's joyful expression would normally make Blaine grin back, the younger boy's energy apparently highly contagious, but now it causes Blaine's blood to run cold. "What do you mean?" he tries to ask with Kurt's level of enthusiasm. As he expects, it falls flat.
"Maybe just cruise around a little. Nothing major. We might be able to get out and walk around the campus a little. Remember how nice it was the other day?"
Blaine desperately searches for a hint in Kurt's face that he's joking. "You can't be serious." When Kurt raises one perfectly groomed eyebrow in a question, Blaine feels all the color drain from his face. "Fine," he croaks. "I'm done trying to argue with you about this."
"What the hell is your problem?" Kurt growls, stubbornly keeping his eyes on the road to avoid looking at his boyfriend.
"My problem? Kurt, I don't know if you've noticed this, but Dalton isn't a real place! We go there in dreams!"
"Gosh, Blaine, you're right. You must also be a figment of my imagination, seeing as how you're in every one of my Dalton dreams. In fact, I bet I'm not real either," Kurt snaps back.
To his complete mortification, tears prick at Blaine's eyes, blurring the edges of his vision. This is one of his biggest faults, in his opinion, the fact that he cries when he gets too angry or frustrated. "Can you please pull over?" he requests weakly.
"Not if we want to get to Lima by dinner," Kurt says, clearly finished with the discussion of his descent into madness.
Blaine buries his face in his hands and takes a deep breath. "Please, Kurt."
He must sound more terrible than he thought, because the younger boy instantly gets off the highway and puts the car in park. "Are you okay?" Kurt asks in a panic.
He reaches out to rest a hand on Blaine's arm but Blaine jerks away, perhaps a little too hard. He feels himself falling-
Fifteen year-old Blaine Anderson wakes with a start at the insistent beep of his alarm clock. He reluctantly drags himself out of bed and into the kitchen. His rather disturbing dream has been almost completely forgotten by the time he sits down at the kitchen table with his cereal.
He flips through the newspaper while he eats, skimming the sports page and entertainment section before turning to the actual headlines. There's a story about a pretentious-sounding boarding school in Westerville that catches his attention. Apparently their faculty is among the highest-paid in the state, including the university.
Something else about the article catches his attention. "Dalton Academy," the story proclaims the school to be called. Blaine bounces the name around his brain, trying to figure out where he's heard it. After a moment, he gives up, but not before filing the thought away. He's been hoping to escape his hellhole of a high school for months. Who knows? It could happen.
By Blaine's junior year, he's transferred to Dalton, leaving behind all the homophobic assholes at his old school. He makes two eerily familiar friends by the names of Wes and David. His gradepoint average is nearly perfect, he's the star of the school's a capella choir, and he's quickly working his way up the ranks of the soccer team- yet it still feels like something is missing.
He doesn't figure out what it is until the fateful day a "new kid" stops him in the hallway to ask him what's going on, thrown off by the swarms of students rushing toward the senior commons. After explaining to him about the Warblers, Blaine grabs the boy's hand and feels something like an electrical shock. Kurt, the McKinley spy turns out to be named, feels like someone Blaine has known forever, like he's catching up with an old friend rather than discussing bullies with the new potential transfer student he's currently comforting over a cup of coffee.
He must have seen Kurt somewhere before, Blaine decides, nevermind the fact that Lima and Westerville are two hours apart.
Maybe in a dream?
"So this is the end, is it?" Kurt says softly, his voice steady despite the tears welling up in his eyes.
Blaine can't bear to look at him anymore and turns his gaze to a loose thread on the cuff of his blazer. "I guess it is. I feel like you've been slipping away from me for a while."
Kurt laughs, a single bark that sends a shiver down Blaine's spine. "Ever since you told me about that dream, right? What was I supposed to think? You practically already knew everything about me from the second we met because we apparently know each other in some dream within a dream dimension you thought about?" The anger in his voice is in sharp contrast with the tears rolling freely down his pale cheeks.
"Kurt, please believe me. I am not crazy," he blurts out. His hand shoots out to grab desperately for Kurt's, and the sting when the younger boy yanks his arm away hurts more than anything Blaine has ever felt. "I know this sounds ridiculous and all, but it's the truth."
"Well, according to you, we've already had our time together. I don't see why we should keep pretending that our relationship is normal at this point."
Kurt doesn't even look back, slamming the door behind him.
A few weeks later, Kurt gets a letter, anonymously mailed. That in itself is something of a joke; there's no doubt as to who wrote it.
I miss you more than I can bear, it reads, but we had our time together. I hope I can find you again somewhere.
The phone call from Blaine's mother doesn't come as a surprise. Kurt had thought it sounded like a suicide note. He's always had good instincts.
Blaine wakes up with a gasp, only to find Kurt's face hovering over his, creased with concern.
"Thank God, Blaine! I was so worried about you!" Kurt throws his arms around Blaine's neck and buries his face in his shoulder. "I've been trying to wake you up for, like, five minutes! I was pretty sure you were still breathing, but that wouldn't really matter if you were brain dead or something-"
Blaine cuts him off with a kiss. Kurt's lips taste like their usual strawberry gloss, and Blaine knows that this is his reality.