It had been a long day. Usually Saturdays were relaxed, with Blaine sleeping over the night before now that he lived with Sam and Mercedes and only officially crashed on the weekends and occasionally when Monday night dinner went late. Kurt and Blaine would lounge around in the morning and then maybe try to catch a matinee. But today Blaine had been holed up in the library studying the playwrights of ancient Greece in the hopes of being able to bring up his theatre history grade, and Kurt had rushed out early for some emergency. Blaine had barely gotten to see his fiancé that morning and he was cranky for it. He had hoped when he returned to the loft Kurt would be there, but there was just Rachel on the couch, binging on some Netflix series on her laptop. Blaine checked his text messages and it looked like Kurt'd be there soon, but it was another hour before he gave up and made himself a sandwich, and another half hour after that before Kurt arrived bubbling over with stories of the crazy fashion world he'd been wrapped up in all day. Kurt kissed him and then said he needed to take a shower.
Blaine nodded neutrally, but internally he was irritated. It seemed like more time now to wait just to have a conversation and unload. He watched Kurt shuffle off to get a towel and sighed. I guess I could get back to my reading, he mused. But he really didn't want to. Blaine had been a stellar student in high school, especially after changing from the rigors of Dalton to the much easier academic workload of McKinley. And for the most part, he'd transitioned into his NYADA studies pretty well. But reading three plays a week for theatre history class had definitely caught up with him, and it showed when he got back a D+ on a quiz. He couldn't remember a time when he'd gotten a grade so low. It was embarrassing.
Kurt, for his part, had been pretty stern when he inevitably found out. This hadn't been any pop quiz; it had been on the syllabus from the very beginning. Blaine had convinced Kurt to go out late to a bar the night before, even though he had this quiz early in the morning. When asked if he'd studied at all, Blaine had to admit that he'd only skimmed the last couple of readings and hadn't so much as looked over his notes this month. "Young man, how do you expect to do well in college if you're not even going to put forth your best effort?" Kurt had scolded. "I didn't think it would be that hard of a quiz!" Blaine had defended. "The theatre history classes are the easy part Blaine!" Kurt had retorted, exasperated. NYADA's coursework was intense, but some courses came down to a performance with a scene partner who shirked their work or a solo that turned out to be the professor's least favorite song. At least with a theatre history grade you'd never wonder if your failure was subjective, Kurt reasoned. Blaine wasn't sure he agreed, but he had to concede that he would have done better on the quiz if he hadn't gotten cocky and thought he could get away without studying much like he was back in high school. "When I was taking that class it was my first semester in college, I was working at and the diner, and every night back home on the train I was studying." Kurt lectured. "When you're on the subway all you do is play stupid games on your phone." Blaine had scowled at that, which hadn't put Kurt in the mood to be lenient. "And when you're NOT on the subway you're updating your Facebook page or posting on Instagram all the time. You need to unplug and get things back on track."
Blaine pouted for some time after this pronouncement, but unhappily agreed to a social media free week in anticipation of the next scheduled quiz. He was only to go on the internet for school research and to leave his phone in the kitchen at night so he wouldn't be tempted. Kurt would hold on to his tablet and check Blaine's social media feeds to make sure he wasn't posting anything. To Blaine's chagrin, Kurt called Sam and asked him to notify him if he wasn't following the rules back at their place.
As Blaine sat on the couch, hearing the trickling water of Kurt's shower began, his mind wandered. It was weird living in an age of social media, being so used to having a piece of machinery available at all times to cure boredom—and not being able to use it. Blaine eyed the laptop as Rachel laid it back on the coffee table.
"Good show?" he asked.
"Yeah I think so. Someone in my Tap class recommended it and it started slow but I'm starting to get really into it." she replied.
It occurred to Blaine that Rachel probably didn't know about his internet restriction. Usually if she knew about something like that she'd support Kurt's position—both to help prevent Blaine from getting punished and also to keep her own butt safe. But she had been out with some friends from Funny Girl the night Blaine had brought home the bad grade. It probably hadn't even come up.
"Hey. I…left my iPad at the apartment, can I borrow your laptop?" Blaine ventured.
"Oh sure." she said, getting up to fix herself a snack.
Blaine looked over his shoulder at the door to the bathroom. He had been good all week. He'd been up to his ears in Aristophanes research all day. What would 10 minutes on a computer hurt?