This is like a gap filler, built from speculation. It's meant to sit between the episode that just occurred and the one we're waiting for, filling up the hiatus. So, the ending is not supposed to be definitive, never fear!

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They say love is like looking through rose-tinted glasses. Perhaps it is at times, but whether the glass is pink, blue, or simply clear, it can scratch.

~o~

Friends. That's all we are. Just friends.

Although Kurt had said it wasn't a date, the double feature had certainly felt like a date. Kurt had tried to manoeuvre Tina between the two of them (Blaine had seen his hand on her elbow), but Tina had glanced at Blaine and purposefully slid out of the way to let Kurt in before her.

The theatre seats weren't large and Kurt had never been good at sharing an armrest. Their forearms lay up against each other and Blaine entirely forgot that Tina was there because Kurt smelt so distractingly good. He lasted about ten minutes into the film before lifting his hand from the armrest and tracing the tip of his finger randomly down the side of Kurt's wrist. Kurt glanced him.

"Stop it," he whispered.

Blaine pouted at him. Kurt looked to Tina, who seemed engrossed in what was happening on screen, and then wrapped his hand around Blaine's and drew it down between their seats, out of view.

"You are so annoying," he breathed into Blaine's ear as he slid his fingers in between Blaine's. "So, so annoying."

Once, Blaine would have giggled and kissed Kurt's earlobe as he whispered "I love you" back, but he wanted to keep hold of Kurt's hand. He just smiled and shuffled a little closer to Kurt into his seat, looking back at the screen.

Tina went to the bathroom in the middle of the second movie and Blaine honestly wasn't expecting it when Kurt pulled him into a frantic kiss. Kurt's tongue was licking into his mouth before Blaine had a chance to breathe, sending Blaine into heady, spinning confusion until he got his act together enough to respond. Just as he twisted in his seat and pushed a hand into Kurt's hair, the hot lips on his were gone.

"Sorry."

"You don't have to apologise, Kurt." He was still breathing heavily, but Kurt seemed completely calm, settled back in his seat. Blaine glimpsed Tina at the end of the row, returning to her seat, and sat back himself.

Regardless of what Kurt said, "just friends" did not seem to add up.

~o~

This doesn't mean we're back together.

They were just little scratches. Tiny imperfections in Blaine's smooth new glasses of contentment. He knew they weren't back together, but that wasn't the point. The point was that they would be, and until Kurt allowed himself to let go and give them their boyfriend-boyfriend status back again, Blaine was happy looking through glasses with tiny scuffs on them.

Kurt had driven Blaine home and kissed him desperately on the doorstep until Blaine's mother opened the door and invited Kurt in for tea, since he appeared to be staying. Too flustered to give an answer, Kurt had ended up actually having tea with his ex-boyfriend's family – which made Blaine giggle every time he thought about it. His heart seemed to be beating a little louder and a little warmer, despite any labels Kurt tried to put on them, or dispel. Everything slotted back into place with Kurt there and even being "just friends" was better than what they had before.

And then he was gone again, back to New York, telling Blaine that "no he would not call him as soon as he landed because that is what boyfriends do, and they are not boyfriends." Blaine just cupped his chin and kissed him, not caring about the other people in the airport, about Burt or Finn or Carole. He kissed him even though he wasn't his boyfriend (again… yet) because he wouldn't get another chance.

~o~

I'm seeing someone.

Video calls are different from phone calls. There's something about talking right in someone's ear, not being distracted by what they're doing with their body or their face, by being forced to keep up a steady conversation that made it feel like a more intimate affair to Blaine. They were something that could happen at lunch time; they could be spontaneous. Skype meant Skype dates, plans, set times. And as Blaine had discovered many months ago, being stood up by someone who didn't physically have to be there was more hurtful than the real-life thing. He set them up nonetheless, these Skype not-dates with Kurt, and he would watch Kurt flit around in his room in silence, wishing sometimes that he could just lie back in bed with Kurt's voice in his ear.

"Sorry, Blaine, I know we had a plans but I have to meet Adam," Kurt said, the sound tinny through Blaine's laptop speakers. His back was visible as he tugged something from his wardrobe. "I'll call you maybe tomorrow, but he's cooking me dinner so I can't be late."

"He can cook?"

"I have no idea." Kurt's face returned, shoulders shrugging as he pulled on a jacket Blaine had never seen before. "I think the food is mainly a precursor to the rest of the evening."

Blaine grabbed his phone and tapped at it, pretending he'd received a message. "Cool."

"Cool?"

Blaine made a noncommittal hum and looked up from his phone.

"Blaine, you don't say 'cool'."

"Things change when you're not here."

Kurt frowned at him through the webcam, but disappeared again and Blaine heard the zipping of boots. "Whatever. I have to go. Call me tomorrow." And with one last glimpse of his face, the screen went dark.

Blaine slid his laptop onto the bed beside him and slumped right down into the pillows.

This doesn't mean we're back together. Friends. That's all we are. Just friends. I'm seeing someone. It didn't mean anything, it wasn't supposed to mean anything, we're just friends, we're not together you're not my boyfriend I'm seeing someone we're friends just friends I'm seeing someone we're friendsjustfriendsjust

When the scratch is too deep, the view through the glass is cracked. The gouge down the centre skews the light and the world bends through it.

"I want to apologise for yesterday."

"What do you have to apologise for?" Blaine took a sip of tea and hoped it didn't look like his hand was shaking on Kurt's screen.

"I shouldn't have said… about Adam. I shouldn't have talked about him like that. Not with you."

"Why not? We're just friends, Kurt."

Kurt looked away, sucking his cheeks in. Blaine couldn't tell from all the way back in Ohio, but he thought Kurt might be angry with him. Then Kurt's lips twisted and he let out a chuckle.

"You're clever, Blaine." Blaine simply watched, sipping his tea, and waiting for Kurt to explain. Kurt's face turned back to his again. "It's working, by the way."

"What is?"

"Your little plan. I get it. Give me a taste of my own medicine and see how I like it. I've got you all figured out." He waggled a figure at Blaine, but the picture skipped and Blaine couldn't tell how much of it was in jest.

"I really don't know what you're talking about." Blaine waited for Kurt's sassy reply, but he got a roll of the eyes and nothing more. He took a fortifying gulp of tea and set the mug definitively on his bedside table. Some questions twist up inside like serpents, hard scales scratching at vulnerable flesh, and Blaine couldn't stand it any more. "Did you sleep with him? Or, no – are you sleeping with him?" He didn't dare to look at the screen.

"Yes."

Blaine took his glasses off and set them by his mug, rubbing his eyes. He couldn't see Kurt clearly now, but he thought it might be better that way. "Were you sleeping with him when… when we…?"

"No, not then. Just last night."

So Blaine was – what? A catalyst? Maybe Kurt had to try just one last time to release himself, set himself free to be with other people. He just had to get Blaine out of his system. Maybe he thought Blaine would be… better than he was.

"Did you like being with me?" Blaine whispered.

"Sorry, that didn't come through. What did you say?"

"Nothing." He picked up his phone and feigned texting again. "I have to meet Tina."

"Oh. Well, I'll call you tomorrow?"

"I might not be in." Blaine put his laptop on the bed and started pulling on his jacket. "I have plans."

"Plans?"

"Yeah. Say hi to Adam." He ended the chat. He was still, bent over the laptop with his finger over the button, watching the screen return to its normal self, Kurt's face gone. He sank to the floor by the bed, finger resting on the button and eyes still trained on the screen.

Some scratches seem to run too deep. A good clean won't shift them and the glass is no use when there's a rift down the middle. It might be better just to throw it out.

Blaine closed his laptop and took off his jacket. Without looking at them, he picked up the photos of him and Kurt from his bedside table and put them in his bottom drawer, under the jeans that didn't fit him any more.

~o~

You're my best friend.

He missed Kurt. He'd almost forgotten what it was like to miss that contact: the Skype calls every evening, the constant texts, the random photos from Kurt's day that appeared now and again. It only took a week, and Blaine felt so incredibly alone again. Of course, he still got texts from Kurt, but they were less "guess what just happened" and more "why aren't you answering me". It was probably worse than no contact at all.

He had set his Skype status to Invisible, so when Rachel video called him he was so surprised that he answered without thinking.

"I told you he was hiding!" Rachel screeched as soon as the call connected. She was turned away from him, yelling across the studio flat. There were footsteps in the background and Blaine knew they were Kurt's. Santana popped up from one side, and then Kurt was there, pulling up a chair beside Rachel. "Don't you dare hang up," Rachel said, giving him a hard look that made Blaine take his hand away from the button.

"Cheap trick, Rachel."

"All's fair in love and war, Blaine."

Blaine rolled his eyes and zipped his jacket right up to his neck. "What do you want?"

"What do you think, Hobbit? You can't go all radio silence on your boyfriend and not expect us to get involved."

"Actually, I would have thought I could, considering I don't have a boyfriend."

The two girls rolled their eyes, but Kurt looked down. "Rachel, can I take this to my room?"

"We can hear everything that happens behind that curtain, you know," Santana said, eyebrows raised knowingly.

"Yes, but it's a matter of principle."

"Just take it." Rachel's hands seemed to go around the camera and then the picture moved wildly and Blaine looked away as he was carried into Kurt's makeshift personal space. He came to rest, he knew, on Kurt's bed.

"I broke it off with Adam."

Blaine lifted his hood up like a protective blanket. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"Blaine, this is ridiculous. You're ridiculous."

"How so?" Blaine found it much easier to look at screen Kurt's new brooch than his face. "And nice brooch."

Kurt's fingers fluttered up to finger his new accessory. "Thank you. But please, stop it. You can't keep deflecting this."

"I don't see that I've been deflecting anything."

"You've been ignoring me all week, Blaine. I don't know what else you think you're doing."

"I'm not ignoring you, I've just had a busy week, that's all."

"We always have busy weeks, but we still make the effort to talk to each other. Relationships fall apart without communication and we always keep that—"

"You really shouldn't preach to me about not keeping up communication, Kurt. We both know full well it can kill a relationship."

Kurt looked away, his jaw tense, and yes he was definitely angry this time. "That isn't fair."

"Look, Kurt, I had stuff going on this week. You're not my boyfriend. I don't have to talk to you all the time."

"Blaine—"

"I'm going now. I'll talk to you when I talk to you," and he just… hung up. He cut Kurt off the way he'd been cut off so many times and immediately felt guilty for it.

Two wrongs never made a right, he knew that, but god did Kurt make it difficult. They weren't boyfriends, that he had been informed of many a time, but where was that line between friendship and a relationship? At what point where they not best friends, but two boys in a long-distance relationship (again)? It made Blaine's head and heart ache to think about, so he cut it off.

Kurt had always done that. He would end a phone or video call abruptly, walk away from a conversation, stop speaking… get out of the hotel bed and dressed before Blaine even had a chance to kiss him after, like they used to. Kurt always owned that power to stop things when he wanted them to stop, and at last Blaine was going to have in on that.

~o~

I miss you. I miss my best friend.

Phone calls could be spontaneous. Blaine continued to tell himself that as it reached the third ring. He may not look like he was turning over a new leaf of spontaneity, crouched out behind the McKinley gym during lunch hour, clutching his phone to his ear and praying Kurt would pick up, but he was. He missed Kurt too much and all of a sudden he wanted to speak to him… and he would, if Kurt would only pick up the phone.

"Blaine?"

"Kurt, hi, you picked up!"

"Of course I did. I'm just on the way to meet Rachel, so I don't know if I can talk right—"

"You can walk and talk at the same time, right?"

"Is that a serious question?"

"Then we'll be okay. I just have some things I want to discuss."

"Like you hanging up on me and then not speaking to me for another week?"

"More like, why did you break up with Adam?"

"We weren't going out, we were just seeing each other." There was the sound of a door opening in the background and from the influx of noise Blaine knew Kurt was now on the street. If Kurt was taking the subway he probably didn't have long.

"But you ended it and then immediately felt the need to tell me that you had."

"What do you want me to say, Blaine?"

"Just the truth."

"Do you want me to tell you I broke up with him because I'm still madly in love with you and want to get back together? Because I'm not going to. It wasn't working. I don't have to like every single guy who takes an interest in me and it just wasn't working. It has nothing to do with you. I wasn't even comparing him to you – not that I could. I mean, he's just a guy, and you're you and…"

Blaine slid to sit on the ground, leaning his head back against the wall and grinning at the breathiness in Kurt's voice that wasn't just from walking. "So why did you do it right after spending the night with him and expect me to react to it? If it was nothing to do with me, why did it feel like you were trying to prove something to me?"

"I wasn't trying to prove anything."

"Or, was he just that bad in bed?"

"You're disgusting." There was a pause and a car horn blared right by the phone, a loud bit of New York passing down the line into Blaine's ear. "Okay, I've had better."

"Unless you've started sleeping around, I seem to remember you have only one point of comparison." Kurt's sigh was loud, making the earpiece crackle. Blaine scratched at his knee, then at the back of his head, then just bit the bullet and went for it. "When I slept with Eli, it wasn't bad. I mean, in actuality it was fun and it felt… good. But there was nothing between us to hold it together, or to make us care about making it feel perfect for each other. It was so different to how it is with you. I love you, Kurt, and it makes time with you a thousand times more meaningful than with some guy I don't know well at all. So if I'm right, I would guess that you, maybe, felt the same way."

"Blaine, I hate to do this, but I need to get on the subway."

"Kurt, no, come on—"

"I've been standing here too long already and New Yorkers really are not afraid to shove. But I promise – I promise I will call you back. Knowing me, I'll probably turn up on your doorstep, but I don't want to leave this here."

"I'll be waiting by the door tomorrow," Blaine teased, but a part of him suspected he would, in fact, see Kurt in the flesh very soon.

There was a slight pause and Blaine smiled as someone growled at Kurt for being in their way. "I just hope you remember how much it sucks when you win."

"Like you would ever let me forget."