"Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever-or else swoon to death"
"Blaine, please." Kurt sighed heavily, in his natural dramatic flair.
Blaine did not go oblivious to these things. He loved the way Kurt had a tiny flair for the dramatic and overacted, yet he was quite shy in reality. He loved the way Kurt's eyes were like smooth satin, so velvety and beneath the initial cold, a warmth that pervaded his being (not just on brought on by the coffee he was suddenly intently drinking). He loved all this tiny quirks of Kurt's. That was something he had learned early on in his friendship with him. That he had tiny spots of being inside of him that succumbed to each of Kurt's warm personality oddities. He had confused it for friendship once in his life, but someday a realization hit him. At least he had been gratified. Now, he was certain he wouldn't. He realized two things that odd day. For starters, he was still in love with Kurt Hummel and had been for the past several months now. Secondly, this time, he was too late.
"I have something going on tomorrow, too. So I can't, sorry."
"He-"
"Yeah." Kurt sighed again. "Look, I'm really sorry, but you have to accept this."
It was Blaine's turn to be dramatic now. "I understand. I'm just being a little obnoxious, nosy friend, aren't I? I promise I'll back off."
Kurt wasn't quite convinced, though.
"Look, I'm really happy for you, okay?" Blaine willed with all his being that any inner happiness stocked in the dusty recesses of his heart could convincingly spring his lips looser, make the smile more believable.
Kurt, always the savvy one, stood up. "I'm glad, but I'm afraid I have to be going. See you later, Blaine?"
"Of course."
Blaine walked throughout the halls of McKinley, clutching a textbook close to his chest. While it was true that he had made a lot of progress in the past few months in adjusting to the McKinley atmosphere, it was a little harder to keep going once Kurt was gone from his side. Kurt was probably off with his new boyfriend, of which Blaine didn't care to think the name of. He didn't really understand how it had came to this. Blaine was lost without his anchor at a new school and in a foreign environment. And still, jealousy, the little green monster, reared it's ugly head at every moment possible.
Why did Blaine even transfer to this new school, anyways? Without Kurt, he seemed lost. He knew it was ultimately to face up to his bullies and all that jazz, but deep underneath both had known that the physical intimacy they shared at Dalton often too frequently would be missed dearly between their relationship. So, Blaine had seized the opportunity and transferred to McKinley under the reasonable guise of emotional development and the ability to conquer his fears. You know, carpe diem. But now Kurt was gone. What was his next move?
The strikingly pretty blonde walked through the doors of The Lima Bean. Her hair was whipping out to the sides in a truly modeling fashion, and her gait and posture were impossibly straight. She was rarely at the Lima Bean, so the new sights and smells barraged her. Sensory overload. There were old couples chatting in the corners, observing the customers with a wary eye and a hand on their wallets (how sick was it to bet on people that came in and their relationships?) and a small boy about 6 who was tugging at his father's sleeve as his father mumbled something apologetic to the barista and ordered. There were also various other students there, all sleep deprived, Quinn noticed. She honestly wasn't surprised. They all looked like well-to-do kids with a nice future ahead of them. Quinn figured that those thoughts would not help her though, so she rigidly filed them away in her never to think of again folder and moved on with it. It was such a familiar process to her that honestly, sometimes it scared her. But as her eyes scanned around one last time, they caught a burst of happiness in a far corner at one of the middle tables. Whoever was sitting at these tables seemed to emit a positive energy Quinn couldn't resist. She walked over to them, finding a melancholy Blaine.
That was funny, Quinn thought. Even when he's sad he's still like a ray of sunshine compared to this entire place.
"Blaine," Quinn addressed him, "what are you doing here?"
Blaine mumbled out a halfhearted explanation, something about Kurt and late and boyfriend.
"I'm sorry," Quinn said, "I can't understand you."
Blaine sighed tiredly. "Kurt's late for our dat- meeting. He texted me earlier about his boyfriend taking him out for a surprise, so he couldn't make it."
"It's just coffee though, right? This isn't a date, since Kurt's got-?"
"To begin with, this coffee meeting was practically a tradition between us. I thought that after we broke up we wouldn't have drifted apart like this, but now I'm thinking we're starting too. And secondly, I don't need to know his name. I know it."
Quinn just brought her hands to her hips.
"I don't like the way I started that last sentence with and…" He trailed off in some sort of grammar induced trance.
"Blaine, really?"
Another tired, tired sigh. "I've definitely still got it bad. Really bad."
Now Quinn sat down in the opposite chair from him. "Don't I know how that feels like."
The chatter around them engulfed them in meaningful silence for a few seconds as Blaine thought and Quinn gently fingered her hair, free of it's Cheerios ponytail.
Quinn was the one to break the silence. "Did you know that when you first joined McKinley, I had a little bit of a crush on you?"
This broke him out of his state of reverie. "While I was still with Kurt?"
"Yeah. I knew it was wrong and evil of me to think of you like that when you were making Kurt so happy, but you were the gay guy I couldn't resist, I guess."
"I like your eyes," Blaine stated simply and matter-of-factly. "They're earnest and brown and inviting."
Quinn blushed shyly, hiding her face behind the wall of gold emerging from her head and bringing a nervous hand up to her face.
"If there's one thing I learned to do at Dalton," Blaine continued without much expression, "it was not to judge people. I went there for safety. Inevitably, I couldn't look the gift horse in the mouth. I had come to a safe haven and whatever I had I would take and like. Surprisingly, although Dalton did suppress me in a tiny way, I learned a lot from it."
She was missing a lot of the back story, but she nodded along, her earnest eyes boring intently into Blaine's.
"I probably would've judged you before. I probably would've dismissed you based off of the rumor mill. However, the few months we have been together in Glee Club have made me build a sort of amazed respect for you."
Quinn was mentally gaping at Blaine's words, scrambling to make them fit into some preset category she knew they had to exist in. Flirting. Nope. Friend. Maybe? She thought that they were being a little too comfortable with each other to classify this as friendship. Boyfriend. That was definitely out of the question. Quinn kind of wished it wasn't though…
Still, there was the fact that he was saying of all of this so unemotionally. She hated that. She wanted to probe something out of Blaine. Some emotion. Color those cheeks. Something to make him come alive again!
"That's really sweet, Blaine, but tell me about your problems. I already know about mine; I have to live them every single day."
Blaine's eyes were not the kind chocolate brown Quinn knew they could be; they were a pale pathetic ghost of his former brilliance. God, what was Kurt doing to him?
"Have you been losing sleep, Blaine?"
"Perhaps. Maybe. I don't know. All I know is that sometimes I have nightmares where there's a huge ball of light sitting in front of me, just pulsating and casting radiance everywhere. I want to grab it, steal it, make the radiance my own. But I'm stuck behind these iron cast bars, and the worst part is that I know I know how to break them down. I just never do. I never can because in my mind something is prohibiting me from reaching out and rattling them. I don't think I can. I don't realize that I know I can. Always something like that. And when I finally figure out that I'm smart enough and strong enough to break down the iron bars, the light's gone."
"Blaine," Quinn breathed softly. If Blaine had risked showing the poetic side of his soul to Quinn, he would've liked to say that her breath rolled off her lips like the tender waves off the calm ocean. It was oceanic and scenic and a wonderful, tender laden breath.
"I know it's about Kurt and I know I screwed up. But, despite being a very romantic individual, I don't want to believe that fate screwed me. For once, I want to screw fate and see what it has to say about that!"
A million things were running through her mind at that particular moment. All she could pick out of the jumbled mess was a quiet, "Well, screw it then. Go after it."
"I can't. I'm not out to make Kurt practice infidelity in a relationship. I never want to do that to him, or as much as I hate to say it, his boyfriend."
Quinn's eyes shone with a dewy sadness. "What are you going to do then?"
"I don't know," Blaine breathed out on the same breath as Quinn's. "I don't really know."
There was another brief pause. Quinn noticed the old couple in the back staring in amazement at her and Blaine sitting there, clearly talking very seriously. She wanted to smack them upside the head, honestly, because their lives were none of their business, but she faintly resisted the urge and refocused her gaze on Blaine.
Quinn stared at Blaine until he was forced to acknowledge her again. "Let's change fate, then."
Kurt had thought that being in Glee Club with Blaine would've been awkward after they had broken up. Fortunately, Blaine was completely civil about the whole situation and they still remained like old friends in their familiarity. Kurt was starting to feel a chasm open up between them, though. He didn't like that.
When Kurt saw Blaine enter, he smiled and patted the seat next to him. Blaine was all chipper and cheery, but he had known him well enough to see the façades he put up. This was definitely one of them.
Blaine gracefully descended into the seat next to Kurt and offered him an admittedly weak smile. He really just wasn't in the mood to try to pretend to be happy anymore. Despite Blaine being uncharacteristically sad, everything had been going normally. That's why, when Quinn patted the seat next to her and beckoned at Blaine to come forth, and then Blaine accepted, Kurt had known something was off.
"Hey, I'm sorry. I'll go see what Quinn wants."
"No problem," Kurt replied, keeping a wary eye on both of them in his peripheral vision.
Blaine walked gingerly up to Quinn, taking a more cautious seat next to her.
"Quinn?"
"Come on Anderson, we had that talk yesterday, don't act like we're strangers!"
Blaine smiled sadly but did loosen up a bit, making a show of jiggling his arms.
"Okay, all loosened up. What did you want to talk to me about?"
Quinn giggled very girlishly and produced a single red rose from her backpack, brandishing it lightly in her hand. The rose was very beautiful, he had to admit. It had a vintage charm to it. It was like a tiny outcropping of life from the glamorous world of antique, out-of-date, simpler, and more romantic times.
"Blaine Anderson," Quinn paused for dramatic effect with a huge lopsided grin on her face, "will you be my boyfriend?"
Whatever Blaine had prepared for, it was not this. His mouth hung open in an atypical moment of vulnerability and no knowledge of what to do next, before he mechanically started spitting out polite refusals.
"No wait, there's a point to this. It's to help you."
"While I appreciate you trying to help me, I'm really not sure that this will help-"
"No, just listen. I will be your girlfriend. It's dirty business, but we're dealing in the realm of jealousy now, Blaine. You're jealous, and just like the way of the universe and math, whatever you do to one side of the equation must be done to the other. So we're working to balance the equation here. Surely you're good at Chemistry?"
"Well, yes, I passed the papers at the end with flying colors but-"
"Exactly, so you know how it works. It will work, trust me."
"When did you become such a science and math nerd?"
"There's many layers to me, Blaine. You're just going to have to figure them out."
Blaine indicated hesitation, but he took the rose from Quinn's hand anyway.
"What about last year? With Rachel? That's practically the same thing in a different time frame and that didn't work so well."
"Ah, but this is what's different. Before, you were both practically dating. You never officially said it, but you were. But now it's acceptable. Kurt is with someone, Blaine. If you want him back you have to make him jealous."
"I don't really feel comfortable doing this…"
Quinn smiled encouragingly. "I know this is kind of against your morals and you are completely free to deny me if you so wish, but I'm just trying to help you, Blaine. Think about it, okay? Here's my number, text me when you make a decision."
Quinn tore off a corner of notebook paper and scribbled a number, handing it to Blaine. There was no confidence at all when she handed it to him, though. Blaine would've expected Cheerio confidence but instead he got shy Quinn. It was nice.
"And take the rose."
Sure, Quinn wasn't the best at dating and Blaine knew it was a fatal move to take her dating advice, but he was feeling a lot better now with the rose in one hand and his phone in another. He could do one of two things. He could either text Quinn that he was on board with their crazily inappropriate plan, or he could throw the rose away and tell Quinn tomorrow in Glee Club that he had thought about her offer and had decided that reclining would the best option. His mind screamed for him to take the latter and spare himself inevitable trouble, but his heart was yearning for this new opportunity and a break from pain. After all, he knew that Quinn only meant the best. Whether it was his nerves that were starved of bliss and racked with pain or the jealousy taking over his system he didn't know, but a few seconds later he found himself with his phone in both hands and typing out a text:
"I'm on board; you can count me in. However, I must warn you that this is probably the worst idea ever conceived in the whole of history. All of history. The entire thing. Yet I'm still agreeing to it! I must be insane."
He received a text from Quinn later:
"Operation get Blaine his heart back is a go! :)"
"Hey, it's not all gone! I think…"
"Meet me before Glee Club tomorrow."
Just as Quinn told him to, he waited for her while everyone was already seated. Kurt was shooting him quizzical looks from across the room, repeatedly signaling to Blaine that it was safe to sit next to him and that he wouldn't bite, but Blaine had to (unfortunately) refuse. Finally, after what seemed to be an eternity of awkwardly standing there and awaiting Quinn's arrival, she entered through the door. Her hair was always so perfectly done; even being gay he could appreciate how beautiful she looked. She was just so beautiful… If he had to have a fake girlfriend to provoke Kurt's jealousy, he was glad it was Quinn.
"Blaine Anderson!" She shouted across the room, her eyes regally sweeping the room and her back still ramrod straight. She spotted him and headed over. Every click of her heel resounded thickly against the dirty floor, every click a dark reminder that Kurt was right there on the other side of the room and about to witness whatever Quinn had in mind. He didn't know why he agreed to this; he was just going to break Kurt's heart. Something about Quinn, though, something about the way her eyes had gently probed every quietly held secret out of him drew him like a polarized magnet to her positive (or negative?) charge.
"Are you ready for this?" Quinn whispered seductively into his ear.
"Doesn't work on me, Quinn," he responded accordingly. Blaine still couldn't keep the faint note of sadness out of his voice. There was something so wrong about this. He wanted to be flirty and totally on with this relationship (or lack thereof), but he just couldn't.
"Come on Anderson, cheer up! Listen, this is the plan." She pulled him enthusiastically to sit next to her again. Again, Kurt was staring sardonically at them.
"We need to be a cute couple. So, firstly, people need to see us being a couple. I know you guys didn't show much PDA when you were dating, but you can know. For, you know, I guess, fake purposes." The excitement in her voice dimmed a bit after saying that.
She took a breath and continued, back to her overly bright fervor. "So, I guess, you know," she trailed off.
"Do you want to hold hands?" Blaine was uncharacteristically shy as he reached out and grasped her delicate hand.
"Yeah. I'd like that." Again, there was shy Quinn, looking desperately uncomfortable without a cheerio uniform to complete Cheerio Quinn. Shy Quinn gingerly laced her fingers between Blaine's.
"Too much?"
Blaine smiled. "No."
Quinn leaned her head onto Blaine's shoulder.
Blaine felt the additional warmth on his shoulder and neck. Quinn felt different than Kurt. Her hair was softer, she was a little more fragile.
There was an indistinct upward curl to her mouth.
"Too much?"
"No."
"Then we'll just do this. We'll just…" Quinn trailed off again, figuring words weren't necessary.
They sat like that for the rest of the class, a blissful, and unusual, pairing in the back of the room, behind the chaos. Maybe a little unnatural, but peaceful. Although Blaine knew it wasn't right, there was a little piece of his heart that broke off for Quinn. Sure, he could quote poetry right now, (Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, and so live ever-or else swoon to death.) but the moment tended to stand alone.
During English, Blaine's phone vibrated.
Quinn: Breadstix later tonight?
Blaine: What time?
Quinn: 5 o' clock sharp! Don't be late, for our date!
Blaine: If you meant for me to be singing the song, I did, don't you worry.
Quinn: You're adorable.
Blaine: I'll be there.
Maybe Blaine was asinine. Maybe he was idiotic, stupid, provocative, and offensive. But, after their "date", which Quinn insisted it was, at Breadstix he kind of enjoyed his time with her a lot more than he should. Maybe this was his fate, or maybe this was him screwing it. Maybe this had nothing to do with poetry or astronomy or symbolism, and maybe this was just a crazy twist down the path to the dark side. Conversely, maybe it was a twist toward the right side too. He didn't really care at this point.
Yet, when he watched Kurt in Glee Club, he couldn't help but wish that it was Kurt's head on his shoulder. Don't get him wrong, Quinn was still soft and warm and fragile and nice, but Kurt was still the ice cold yet fiery hot burst of energy he was. Quinn was like John Keat had once said about his love, "nature's patient, sleepless Eremite". But Kurt was like Keat had begun in his poem, the bright star "in lone splendor [that] hung aloft [in] the night". Quinn played with his fingers absentmindedly as Blaine had thought this. How could he not feel bad about this? He was leading on Quinn so badly right now, and Kurt had not shown any signs of cracking or jealousy. In fact, Kurt had been coming to their coffee meetings less and less lately. He didn't really know how Kurt felt about this whole thing. There was that first coffee meeting after him and Quinn had begun whatever they had just begun, but that had been, well, weird.
Blaine was there, and had been there for the past hour waiting, when Kurt had finally come.
"Your boyfriend?" Blaine interrupted.
"Yeah. Sorry. Did you get my coffee?"
"Absolutely! Don't underestimate me!"
Blaine knew something was wrong when Kurt didn't laugh.
"Kurt, what's wrong?"
His face darkened and he lashed out. "You relinquished the right to know that when we broke up, alright? This is personal, and I just can't tell you."
He shortly paused, his breath tumbling out more slowly as time progressed.
"I'm sorry. I just can't tell you."
"No, it's absolutely fine." Blaine paused a little awkwardly. "So, where were we…?"
"Actually, I was going to tell you about my killer Spanish test. Yet you study French…"
"No problemo! ¿Qué pasó?"
Blaine: Quinn! I need to talk to you, but I don't want to have this conversation over text. I just need to figure some things out. Where to?
Quinn: Come over to my house?
Blaine had been over to Quinn's house a total of about 8 times since they started "dating". At least it was a semi- familiar place.
Blaine: Can I come now?
Quinn: Oh wow, if it's that important, then you better hurry up! Love ya boo!
Blaine: :)
As Blaine drove up to Quinn's house, he noticed that there was a slender figure in the doorway. When he pulled up, the figure approached him.
"Quinn! Have you been waiting out here the whole time?"
She shrugged nonchalantly. "It sounded important. What did you want to talk to me about?"
"Can we not have this conversation here? Maybe inside my car or in your house?"
Her white hand gestured toward her door.
As they walked through her house, Blaine tried insanely hard to calm himself down, but all he could think about was how he was going to break Quinn's heart in a few seconds. She really didn't deserve that. When he saw that they were heading in the direction of her room, he started to panic even more. Despite having been in her house more than a couple of times, he'd never been to her room. She had thought it might send an inappropriate message, so she avoided it.
Quinn's room was decidedly childish. Blaine would've never expected that. There were stuffed animals in the corner and spilling onto the floor, a calming yet shockingly pastel blue to the walls, and several vignette pictures of herself as a child. Blaine found it kind of charming, actually. Cheerio Quinn would've probably never let herself decorate her room like this, especially since there would probably be frequent traffic to it (Blaine couldn't help but coughing to cover up that thought), but shy Quinn just let herself be, well, herself.
Quinn sat down on the bed and crossed her legs. "So, I repeat, what did you want to talk to me about?"
"Well, I don't really know where to start…"
"Okay then, tell me what's on your mind instead. It doesn't have to be what you came here to talk to me about. "
Quinn was just being so nice; Blaine didn't know how he was going to do this. "Well, obviously… Kurt," he finally admitted with a shaky sigh.
"I've been really ignorant but at the same time so falsely happy for him, because I don't want our friendship to be ruined. This must've been how Kurt felt like before, when I was so stupidly oblivious."
"Boy, you were more than stupidly oblivious. You were downright blind. Kurt would never stop talking about you, and he was always attached to his phone like it was his lifeline."
Blaine allowed himself a small smile. "Wow, sassy Quinn. I'll add that to my list."
"List?"
"You act differently depending on your circumstances. I can only qualify the first Quinn, Cheerio Quinn, after what Kurt had told me about you and the small window of time I had known you before you quit the Cheerios, but it stands the same. Cheerio Quinn is confident. She has a certain swagger because she knows she has the school in the palm of her hand and the boys in the other."
He paused, gauging to see if he was taking this too far. When Quinn only responded with a flick of her hand to continue, he did.
"Next is shy Quinn. That's the Quinn I know, and am fairly sure no one else knows. Shy Quinn is confident and sexy all the same, but she is in a quieter way. She's not trying so hard."
She dragged a long inhalation through her lips.
"I guess there should be a Quinn for what everyone else knows you as, too. You're not a Cheerio, but you're not the shy Quinn I know either. You're just… whatever you are."
"Not that that's bad," he quickly added in after she was silent for a couple of beats. "Not at all."
He picked up a teddy bear from her bedside. It was a nondescript teddy bear, but fluffy and cute all the same.
"His name is Clark. Like Clark Kent."
The face that Blaine made at that comment could've only been compared to that of a puppy.
"I told you I'm a geek when you get to know me."
"I don't mind. I don't mind at all."
Quinn smiled. "I, uh, I always used to imagine that someday my Superman would come. But as I grew up, I found out that superheroes don't exist. So I changed my expectations. I no longer wanted Superman, I wanted Clark Kent. Clark Kent was still a superhero, but by day he was just a guy. That way I wasn't looking for the super, but just for something I could love. And if I got to know him well enough, maybe he'd reveal the super to me."
"Do you want to know why I came to you that day in the Lima Bean?"
He nodded silently.
"I saw something positive in you. Even though you were sitting there probably the saddest you've ever been, something in my brain saw the light in you. So I walked over. Funny to think that that started all of this, right?"
He hated to break the moment, but this had to be done. "Yeah. So, why did all of this happen?"
"Huh?" Quinn looked up, the light in her eyes still impossibly bright.
"Uh, you know. All of this."
She laced her fingers through his hand and leaned her head on his shoulder. "This?"
"Yeah."
"I don't really know, Blaine."
"Do you like me?"
"Of course, or else this would be ridiculously awkward."
She paused. "Do you like me?"
"Yes. Of course. Actually, I," he paused in searching for the right word, "enjoy this."
She smiled softly. "So, what is your question then?"
"Why did you suggest this in the first place?"
"I really like you."
"Oh."
She raised her head and backtracked quickly. "No, please just forget I ever said that. I don't want to make things awkward between us and I did really want to help you get Kurt back, but I guess all I did was make everything worse and now you hate me for it. Great. Great, great, great. I'm sorry. I really didn't-"
"No, I didn't mean it like that. Don't take it like that." He sighed. "I just needed to know."
"Has any of this been working?"
"Kurt hasn't really been talking to me, actually."
"Oh. I'm sorry."
"It's alright. It was really my choice to start all this anyways. I just have to deal with all the consequences as well."
"Does this mean that we're, uh, breaking up?" She scooted farther back onto her bed.
"Um, not for the moment." She exhaled suddenly, scooting forward again. "But you do know that this can't last forever, right?"
"Right." She crossed her legs again, though, and she lowered her head. "You're not my Clark. I knew that."
At that moment, he swore he could hear the tender muscle of his heart crack.
"But I can try to be."
"What?" She lifted her head.
"I, uh, can't 'date' you forever, but I can be your friend. I think that's really what you need, a friend."
"So when does this friend arrangement start?" She ruffled some of his hair, which was thankfully free of gel.
"I don't really know. When does this dating arrangement end?" He grabbed her hand and together they swung. Innocently but meaningfully.
"Well, since I guess you saw through my ruse," she released her hand and poked his forehead playfully, "whenever you want it to. I do promise to help you get Kurt back though." She grabbed his hand again and stared at them intertwined.
Her head poked up suddenly. "Do you still have that rose?"
"Yes," he began.
"Are you still prone to making big displays?"
"What? I'm offended!" He didn't release her hand, though.
"I've got a plan."
The next day, he and Quinn were walking to Glee Club and Quinn was talking furiously.
"So, you have it, right?"
"Absolutely. But do you mind telling me exactly what this huge plan is to win Kurt back? And isn't it a bit inappropriate since he is, well, taken?"
"Nothing is inappropriate in McKinley, my dear."
The way Quinn said it, Blaine thought that if he were straight, he probably would've been turned on.
"I don't know, Quinn."
"Trust me, you'll know exactly what to do."
"Alright…"
They were pushed into the room by the gaggle of members trying to push themselves into the room, too. Why they didn't go in separately, he didn't know.
When Blaine tried to pull Quinn to their pair of seats in the back of the room, Quinn politely declined and told him to go sit next to Kurt.
"Kurt?" A few weeks ago Blaine would've thrilled at the words, but now he just felt like he would complicate their situation further, and he really didn't need that.
She sighed exasperatingly. "Go. Trust me."
So, he tentatively walked up to Kurt and flicked his eyes toward the seat.
"Am I allowed?"
Blaine could tell he was trying to be stern, but there was a curl to his mouth that he couldn't erase.
"Fine, sure, whatever."
He sat down.
"Listen Kurt, I know I hurt you and I'm sorry. Could you give me a chance to make it up to you?"
Now Kurt's interest was piqued. "Do you even know what you did?"
"If it's not 'dating' Quinn, then I'm going to look like a real idiot."
"No, you're right, and yes, you are still an idiot."
Blaine grimaced under Kurt's steady, condescending gaze. "Do you know why we did that?"
"Clearly not, Mr. Obvious." Blaine really hated the way Kurt was talking to him, and he hated it even more because he knew it was explicitly his and only his fault. Maybe Quinn did have a hand in it, but if so nothing more than allowing Blaine to fall into jealousy's nasty trap.
"Quinn saw me sulking one day at the Lima Bean, and she tried to make me feel better. Later, she offered to help get you back. In all honesty, I knew it was a bad idea and that it would cause more complications than benefits, but I couldn't resist anyways. It all comes down to one thing, Kurt, and that is jealousy."
He paused to observe Kurt's reaction.
His lips moved very mechanically and slowly. "You wanted to make me jealous." It wasn't a question or a statement; it was just words strung together. Blaine thought that maybe his brain hadn't comprehended his words yet, or perhaps it had received too much and defaulted from the overload.
Kurt tried again. "You wanted to make me jealous. You wanted to make me jealous. Me." He suddenly started laughing a little ridiculously. "Blaine, you really are an idiot, aren't you?"
"Wha- what?"
"Me jealous. Blaine, I've been jealous of you practically since the first day I met you. Even when I was in a relationship, I was jealous of the way you could move on so quickly from us. I never really moved on. He was just a way to ease the pain. Granted, that's really horrible of me, but…"
"Was? Was?"
"Yes, was. It has been was for a few weeks now. Did you really not know?"
Blaine shot a puzzled and slightly suspicious look at Quinn, who was at the head of the room talking to Mr. Schuester. She looked over, saw Blaine's face, and winked.
"No, I didn't know." He almost quite literally facepalmed himself. How could he be such an idiot? That was just a testament to how out of touch they'd been lately, he guessed.
Quinn came by Blaine, shooting him a stay put! look and advancing towards her seat, still keeping an eye on him to make sure that he stayed.
He still had the rose in his pocket, not sure what to do with it, when Mr. Schuester took control of the class and began to speak.
"Blaine, Quinn has just informed me that you're going to sing today?"
He shot Quinn another confused look, to which she responded with an impish smile and a quick glance towards Kurt.
So that's what she was planning for him to do. He didn't know what song he was supposed to be singing, but she wanted him to sing it with Kurt. Well, he could do that.
Suddenly, he was hyper aware of the presence of the rose in his pocket. He stood up and, hesitantly but with an underlying confidence, presented the rose to Kurt.
"This is probably really inappropriate and definitely too soon but, sing with me?"
Blaine was expecting a polite rejection or a cold look, but he got a warm smile. "What are we singing?"
He looked over to Quinn, who indicated for him to wait.
"It's a surprise," he said rather seductively.
For a second Kurt's eyes went blank, then he stood up and they walked towards the front of the room.
Mr. Schuester signaled to Quinn, who was now somehow near a boom box, to start the music.
She smiled demurely, and when familiar and decidedly Katy Perry- esque chords ripped through the air, he knew exactly what they were singing.
Kurt seemed to have the same reaction, and they both shared a secret smile. They were the only two that knew the significance of this song. Except, it dawned on Blaine, Quinn who somehow knew this is what he sang when they first met. He wondered how she figured that out.
And so their voices rose in the small room. The situations between both their instances of singing this song were eerily similar, he decided. He was trying to win Kurt. Yet, so much had happened between them in that short amount of time. They were not surrounded by Dalton Academy's pristine walls and bland colors, but by a bursting palette of personalities and clashes and beauty.
Blaine looked back at Quinn to see her smiling so widely that he swore her face would fall off. He was immensely glad that this had happened to him. Maybe breaking up with Kurt had ached and hurt and burned, and maybe he had uncharacteristically succumbed to weakness and all of jealousy's charms, but it had led him to Quinn. He thought just then about how unusual the pairing of them had been, yet how it had worked out so well. And yet he still got Kurt in the end. He thought even about what he had thought about Quinn before.
"Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath or so live forever, or else swoon to death."