The Monday after Regionals, Kurt found himself buried in textbooks in his favorite Dalton study lounge. In his head he always called it the Dalton Tea Room because it was set up with ornate carafes and overwrought three-tiered serving platters – it was very Victorian, the sort of place where he expected to hear snippets from Charlotte Brontë novels.
But there were other reasons to like it. Other, blazer-clad, gel-haired, honey-eyed, absolutely incredible at kissing reasons.
Reasons that were making it very hard for him to focus on his calculus homework, which was imperative if he planned on passing the exam that Friday. Math was a fickle mistress … at least, according to their teacher, Mr. Colpern. Jeff and Nick had hoped explaining the Warbler's collective depression over the loss at Regionals could get them out of the exam. Calculus waits for no man, Colpern assured them, even if those men just suffered a soul-crushing defeat.
He was a little over-dramatic. Usually Kurt thought it was part of his charm; not so much in the face of a midterm.
Kurt's stomach knotted up when he thought about Regionals. He had wanted to win. Really wanted to win. He was ecstatic for New Directions, obviously – if it couldn't be the Warblers, McKinley was the far preferable option. Aural Intensity's blatant religious pandering was just … tacky. He made a mental note to ask one of the girls if they knew how Sue had conned her way into coaching. But still, he wished it could have been him. Truth be told, he wished he could have been with them, and that thought made him feel even more guilty.
He looked back down at his textbook. Derivatives. Even just knocking around in his head the word dripped with disgust. Honestly, when was he ever going to need this? Procrastination got the better of him and whipped out his phone to send a quick text to Blaine.
Please come deliver me from this hellish torture. – K
It only took a couple seconds for his phone to beep with a response.
Still fighting against logarithms and L'Hôpital's rule? – B
Okay, one? He loved that Blaine was the kind of person that would look up the circumflex 'o' just for a silly text about calculus. Two? He also loved how Blaine had taken to signing all his texts to Kurt with a heart. He'd been doing it since the day they'd started dating.
Blaine was nothing if not ridiculously adorable.
Yes, and it's awful. Come distract me? – K
Making out – much preferable to calculus. Well, much preferable to homework in general. Or anything, really.
I'd love to, but Wes and David have me judging their Left For Dead 2 tournament. – B
That didn't bode well. If there was one thing that Wes and David never agreed on, it was who was better at video games – the more violent and bloody, the more heated the argument. Kurt preferred to stay out of it, not really getting the draw of violently hacking fake zombies to death with machetes, but Blaine, being the best friend of both of them, was usually roped in to mediate.
I'll notify your next of kin when they start throwing their controllers and accidentally but gruesomely bludgeon you to death. – K
Sigh. Sing something lovely at my funeral. I'm leaving you my scarves. Tell Thad if he wants my Lovecraft collection he'll have to pry them from my cold, dead hands. – B
I'm sure it goes without saying, but I trust you'll avenge my death to Wes and David's last breath. – B
… Yep. Ridiculously, unbelievably adorable.
Always. xoxo – K
: ) xoxo – B
Well, that was all well and good – and even if he did wish his boyfriend were here (his boyfriend, was that ever going to not be simultaneously terrifying and amazing?), he was also glad he was avoiding the whole gaming debacle – but that still left him here, in the lounge, with nothing but a pile of homework.
He was just considering changing subjects to clear his head when he heard a soft, feminine cough from the doorway.
Of all the people he expected to see today, Rachel Berry was certainly not one of them.
She was standing at the door, shifting back and forth slightly and not speaking, clad in a tartan and striped hot mess of an outfit that was both personally offensive and definitively Rachel. He hadn't realized how much he'd missed her sartorial insanity until right this moment. They stared at each other, silence stretching between them, both wondering who should speak first.
Kurt sighed. "Rachel? What are you doing here?"
"I was hoping I could speak with you? As friends," she threw up her hands in a supplicating gesture. "I didn't come here to spy or anything."
Kurt snorted. "Spy on what? Our competition season is done. If anything, you should be worried about letting any of your trade secrets slip."
She gave him a dark look. "Please," she said, tossing her hair. "If we did have anything up our sleeves – and this isn't an admission, we have no grand plans whatsoever –"
Kurt couldn't help rolling his eyes
"But if we did I certainly wouldn't let it slip." She paused, her face softening, as she started to shift in place again. "And you know all our trade secrets already, anyway."
The awkward silence was back. It was odd, the way his departure hung in the room, the weight of it in the air and on their tongues, stopping their speech. Selfishly, maybe, he'd assumed his leaving had only affected him. It was hard watching New Directions perform on stage without him, but they'd managed just fine. In fact, more than managed, because they'd won Regionals. Won Regionals without him, when last year, they had all lost together.
That was a dark thought.
Rachel stepped forward slowly, unsure, coming to sit in the chair across from him, the one Blaine had sat in when he … when they …
And, to be honest, that was a whole new slew of dark thoughts. The juxtaposition of Rachel in Blaine's space reminded him of her party, which reminded him of a lot of things he wasn't proud of and would rather forget. Rachel and Kurt hadn't spoken since the party, not without Mercedes or Tina present as a buffer, because everything was awkward. Everything hurt. Looking at her now, her words reverberated in his ears.
"If he turns out not to be gay, well then, I guess I will have done you a favor."
"Who cares about you, buddy?"
Even if she had been proven wrong, even if he'd finally gotten everything he'd wanted – for his safety, for his voice, for his education, from his relationship with Blaine – it still stung. They'd had their moments, some of them his and none of them he was particularly proud of, but Kurt thought them better friends than that.
In his mind, the image of Rachel hugging him on Valentine's Day clashed with the image of her face, manic with opportunity, across the table at the Lima Bean and he had to struggle to push the annoyance and the anger away.
"Whatever it is that you're here for, please try and get to it. I have a lot of studying to do," he said, indicating the table full of textbooks and paper with a wave of his hand.
She looked a little crestfallen. Maybe he wasn't doing as good of a job as he thought.
"I needed to say this." Rachel looked at the door, like she was contemplating leaving and forgetting whatever she was there for, then turned back to Kurt to try again. "I just wanted to apologize to you."
Kurt blinked at her. He was sure he looked confused, which was fine because he was confused. "Who are you and what have you done with Rachel Berry?"
That dark look was back again. "Hilarious, Kurt. You know, I don't understand why everyone acts this way when I apologize. People apologize! That's what they're supposed to do." She threw her hands up in frustration.
She seemed to be missing the key point here, he thought, which was that the goal should probably be not doing anything to apologize for in the first place. Rachel apologized more than anyone, and Kurt figured that pretty much told you everything you needed to know about her. Rachel's word-to-mouth filter wasn't just broken, it was decimated.
He couldn't help ribbing her about it, just a little. "Well I see you didn't bake me any apology cookies. You usually lead with those."
She looked a little ashamed, her hand flitting nervously over her bag.
"Oh my god, you did, didn't you? That's just insane, Rachel. Insane. You need to break the habit."
"Everyone loves cookies, Kurt! And besides, baking helps me relieve stress." Her face tinged red at the admission, but she still held her head high, looking him directly in the eyes. "Something we have in common, I understand."
Finn. That traitor. See if I ever bake you any more post-football-game congratulatory brownies, you jerk, he thought.
Rachel slid the square Tupperware container over the table at him and he could just make out the pink lettering on the "I" and "S" cookies through the translucent side.
Kurt clutched the container between his fingers and looked up at her warily. "Does this constitute the whole of the apology, or is there a speech that follows? Because I'm not entirely sure what specifically you're trying to apologize to me for."
She obviously got the implication, because she couldn't look at him anymore and he was pretty sure her lavender-tipped nails weren't as interesting as she was making them out to be.
"A lot of things."
Kurt leaned back in his chair, fixed her with a steady stare, but didn't interrupt. He wondered how far Rachel would go without interruption. Or how far she wouldn't go without prompting.
Rachel sucked in a breath that sounded something between a huff and a sigh, and placed her hands flat on the table between them. "I shouldn't have said those things to you. At my house." She looked up and caught him square in the eyes. "After the party."
Oh, God. Kurt felt like maybe his heart had stopped and, was it hard to breathe in here? This room was always stuffy.
… Okay, that was a bold-faced lie because it was never stuffy, it was always chilly as hell in here and it drove him nuts; but there was a first time for everything and one's first mental breakdown being at the hands of Rachel Berry is, at least, a logical first. He'd wanted so badly to be having this exact conversation, but faced with the horrifying reality of it, all he wanted was to run and hide.
But Rachel Berry had just gotten started, and once she starts the words pour out of her like a torrent; it's always like this, he thought. She thinks if she can just get over that first hurdle, that first admittance, let her mouth wrap around the letters in a caress, a parody of natural response - like someone reciting the alphabet but getting the order all wrong, letters somehow stilted and jumbled all at once, S-O-R-R-Y - well, then everything will be okay.
Kurt worried his bottom lip.
"Not just that. I mean, the things I said to you were awful – what sort of a favor is it to a friend to pursue someone they like?" Kurt felt like his stomach might drop out at any moment, but he was held in place by a weighty feeling of guilt he wished he could cast away. He couldn't stop seeing Finn's name in his head, like a curse, strobing and making him nauseous. "And then to come with you to the Lima Bean and completely disregard your feelings and tell you I didn't care about you?"
Rachel reached over to clasp his hands and he realized her eyes were glossy. Kurt hoped she wouldn't start wailing.
He hoped he wouldn't, either.
"I'm so sorry, Kurt. I just want you to know how sorry I am, and how much I don't think that. I do care about you, you're -" She hiccuped through a sob; Kurt had to turn away for a moment – "You're my best friend. I love you."
He didn't realize he was crying until a tear hit the back of his hand.
Kurt had never thought about their friendship this way but of course. He'd had Mercedes, and they were nigh inseparable throughout their time at McKinley. Even now, after he'd transferred to Dalton, they made the time to set up Skype dates and shopping trips and the occasional old movie with Mike and Tina.
(Although, never again, Kurt insisted, because the last time he'd been trying to immerse himself in Cary Grant's acting prowess - and probably, maybe, a little bit his jawline - the pair had been making out furiously right behind him and try as he might he didn't think he'd ever get the sound of Tina moaning out of his head.)
Rachel didn't have anyone like he had Mercedes. The three did things together: the occasional sleepover, Broadway binges, trips to the mall. But - and he was very ashamed to admit this - he'd always thought of her as the third wheel. He'd considered her an interloper on his and Mercedes' time together.
He had always brushed off suggestions that he and Rachel were so similar, wow, it's like you're spiritual twins because he worried people would start to react to him they way they did to her. He may have been bullied more than any other member of the club by McKinley's student body, pushed down and taunted and made to feel unsafe in one of his favorite places in the world. But he had the New Directions to support him. Even when they made missteps he could forgive them, because he knew they meant well.
But Rachel's moments of unity were fewer and far-between. A younger Kurt would have insisted that she brought it on herself – that guilt, worse now than stone, like iron in the pit of his stomach. He realized looking at her then, tears in her eyes and shame so deep in her expression he could almost see it dripping from her pores, that Rachel's safe place wasn't as safe as it should have been.
There wasn't any real reason it shouldn't, Kurt realized. Not if New Directions were as inclusive and forgiving as they claimed – as we claimed, Kurt's mind amended. He wished they were all standing here, so he could scream it and watch them flinch as the reality settled into all of them, himself included, the sound echoing and reverberating back from the corners of the room.
They loved Rachel's talent, but they didn't love Rachel.
Before he realized he'd moved he was crushing her in his arms, hugging her as she sobbed. It wasn't about him, not really; he understood that now. The necessity of the apology fell away in the noise of her cries, and he couldn't even remember why it had been so important to him to get it in the first place. It was much more important to be there for each other, to realize that they would misstep and realize that returning to each other was more important than anything.
Rachel would screw up again. She would make him angry and frustrated; wringing tears out of him he didn't even know he had, but tears that somehow had always belonged to her. And he would screw up, too. He would be catty and petty and he would toss her under the proverbial bus over something they both yearned for and thought was more important than their friendship.
But it wouldn't be.
Kurt hoped he would always be able to realize that.
"Stop, Rachel. Stop," he pleaded, trying to sound soothing but choking over the words as he patted her hair.
"I'm sorry," she said, sounding weak and tired, pulling back to look him in the face, the tip of her chin pressed against his chest. "I didn't mean to come here and sob like a lunatic. I just needed to apologize and I wanted you to know that you mean a lot to me. To us."
Kurt looked down at her and smiled, a slight up-quirk of the lips that may have looked like his traditional smirk to outsiders, but held far too much warmth. "I know."
Now it was his turn.
"Rachel," he said, hesitant, keeping her hands clasped in his but moving back to his own chair to sit. "I have to apologize too, and I'm sorry it's been a long time coming."
She shook her head. "Apologize for what, Kurt? You haven't done anything."
Not recently, his brain supplied unhelpfully. That lead in his stomach burned like acid now. He hated admitting his shortcomings, hated apologizing because the world owed him so much, it should be okay for him to make a mistake now and again without needing to justify it.
If anyone had told him a year ago that staring into the watery eyes of Rachel Berry would have triggered an emotional epiphany, he would have definitely laughed in their face. But life is what it is, Kurt figured. It was awful and beautiful and terrifying and so, so worth it.
"Finn. Jesse. I haven't always been there for you like I should have." Kurt couldn't look her in the face so he stared at their joined hands, but he knew she understood when she squeezed lightly. "To be honest, when I started hanging out with Blaine I expected you to berate me." He didn't finish but the unspoken words hung in the air: like I did to you.
"I thought about it." He looked up at her in surprise. She was smiling tightly at him. "I wanted to make you see, when Mercedes told me about it. Yell and flail and demand that you quit the club if you didn't break it off."
I would have deserved it, Kurt thought. He could see the words like they were written on Rachel's face. "Cut the butter, Benedict Arnold." "He's playing you." "If you don't break up with him you're out."
"Everyone is replaceable: even you."
Kurt squeezed his eyes shut. They really were the same.
He felt her hand under his chin, tipping his face upwards, and opened his eyes to look into her smiling face. "But you wouldn't have deserved that. Blaine's been really good for you."
"Jesse could have been good for you." They both paused, making almost identical faces of contempt at each other. "Okay, maybe not," he laughed, and she chuckled a bit in response, "But the possibility was there and I shouldn't have supported taking that away from you ... the truth of how the situation ended aside."
Rachel huffed, rolling her eyes. "Did you know he's been trying to message me on Facebook?" He must have looked stunned because she nodded decisively, like she was imparting grand wisdom and not just the latest gossip. He kind of loved her for it. "I think he's trying to get back into my good graces or something."
"What could he possibly be getting out of that? It's not like spying on us again is going to net him anything."
She shrugged. "No idea. I've been deleting them without reading them."
"Good for you," Kurt said. She looked a little wistful. "But ... that look you're giving me right now is telling me you're more curious than you're letting on."
Rachel played with the hem of her skirt.
"You really shouldn't open that Pandora's Box, Rachel. You don't want to invite him in and get hurt again. It's not worth it."
"I know, but ..." Suddenly, she looked impossibly sad, like the weariness in her heart was too much for her bones to support.
"I know who I am," she'd said. "How many chances at this am I going to get?"
"Rachel, there's someone perfect out there for you," Kurt said, grasping her hands in his and smiling wide. "Someone as talented and strong-willed and driven as you, someone who looks at you and sees the world. Someone who appreciates all the quirky little things that make you who you are." Finally, finally, he could speak from experience. He wasn't just echoing a longing for love with words he knew he would want to hear - he was reciting truth from someone who had already found it. "You just have to stay strong and wait for him to get here."
She beamed at him and he finally felt like they were back on the right track again. They sat for a moment, enjoying the finally comfortable silence, Kurt thinking about how long it had taken for them to get to this point, and Rachel pondering the course of her life and Dalton's elegant interior decorating.
Rachel's eyes suddenly went wide and she gave him a knowing smile. It made Kurt feel uneasy.
"What?" It was short, but she was freaking him out a little.
She leaned forward. "You said 'us'. Not 'you,' 'us'."
Kurt cursed himself. He was much more careful with the Warblers - always sure to say 'New Directions' slow and carefully phonetic, 'them' instead of 'us', nonchalance and devotion, because it was all about loyalty - but Rachel felt like family.
She was still grinning. Maybe that's the point.
"I think we'll always be an us, even if I'm here. There's some things you just can't go through without bonding forever, and a McKinley slushie facial is one of them."
Rachel laughed loudly at that, the sound echoing in the room with a joyful ring and lightening the weight around his heart. "That's true. As much as I wish it weren't, it's very, very true."
"If that's what it takes, maybe we should introduce them here."
They both turned to see Blaine leaning against the door frame, grinning at them with genuine warmth. It felt weird to Kurt, considering their unorthodox beginnings, but Blaine and Rachel had become something like friends. In the past he would have been jealous, but he thought now it would be good - for both of them - to have someone like Kurt had Mercedes. Sometimes it felt like Kurt was Blaine's only good friend, and that just wasn't right.
Rachel had jumped to her feet and was blushing tomato red. Kurt stood up more elegantly, a bit wary, but silently loving the way Blaine's eyes traced his movements. "I hope you haven't been standing there for too long - it's rude to eavesdrop." Blaine opened his mouth to retort, eyes sparkling, but Kurt cut him off. "If you're planning on making a Lord of the Rings joke, bite your tongue. You need to drop the habit." He paused, looking between the two of them. "Maybe I should plan a joint intervention for the two of you."
Rachel rolled her eyes, but grinned at him. "Oh, an 'Eavesdropping and Apology Cookie' intervention? That rolls right off the tongue."
He swatted at her, returning her grin. "Oh, shut up."
"I wasn't eavesdropping. Promise," Blaine said, striding into the room, hands in the pockets of his gray uniform trousers. "I just came to check on you. The tournament ended in a stalemate -" Kurt sighed under his breath, because they always did - "so I decided to get out of there before bodily harm became an issue. I thought you were having a homework crisis, but maybe I should have stayed longer." He smiled at Rachel, friendly and accommodating as always, receiving a smile and shrug of her shoulders in return.
"It's alright, we were just having a nice chat." Kurt could tell looking in her eyes that she was refraining from making a 'warm-milk-and-lady-chat' joke. If she had actually brought warm milk with her apology cookies he wouldn't have been able to contain himself: they would have had to drag him out of the room laughing.
They traded pleasantries for a moment, Blaine asking Rachel to please come back and visit them again, it got terribly lonely without her - and Kurt had to admit that yeah, maybe it did. Rachel assured them she would, and maybe she'd bring a couple other members of the New Directions with her. Kurt promised her they'd be more than welcome.
"Well, I really should be going." She let her eyes rake between the two of them, eyes shining with mirth. "I'm sure you both have a lot to talk about." He knew that tone of voice. She was going to go right back to McKinley, barge into practice and announce to the whole club that Kurt and Blaine were most assuredly making out at Dalton right now. Blaine blushed gracefully, rubbing the back of his neck in a suffering, awkward gesture. Kurt flushed but kept rigid, letting his lips press together thinly and glaring at her as hard as he could muster.
But she was laughing and already halfway out the door, waving behind her as she skipped around the corner and disappeared from sight. They listened to the sound of her heels clacking against the marble tile, growing more and more faint.
The moment Kurt couldn't hear the sound anymore he desperately missed it.
"A friendly chat?" Blaine asked, sliding into the chair Rachel had just occupied. His chair. Rachel's chair. Kurt eased when he realized it truly didn't bother him anymore.
"Decidedly. We had to work some things out - some things we've been ignoring for a while, so I'm very glad we did it."
"That's good," Blaine said, reaching for Kurt's hands and rubbing his thumbs against Kurt's knuckles. Kurt got the distinct impression that Blaine was speaking more about the warm touch of them together and less about Rachel.
"Very good," Kurt replied, leaning forward to press himself softly against his boyfriend's lips. Blaine hummed in response and tilted his head, cupping his hand against Kurt's face. It was mostly chaste, and largely unremarkable, but no matter how small the gesture it never failed to thrill Kurt like the first time. He idly wondered if that would last ... then wondered what the hell he was doing thinking about things when his boyfriend was nibbling gently on his lower lip. Thoughts were dumb.
Blaine pulled out of the kiss, his breath and his closeness still a distraction, his lips brushing lightly against Kurt's as he spoke. "Are you sure you want to do this now? Here? Rachel is probably running off to Lima to spread the gossip as we speak."
"Oh, let her talk," Kurt said, curling his hand around the back of Blaine's neck and holding him close. "We've got at least an hour before she gets there. Plenty of time to make out before the texts start to roll in."
Blaine laughed, bright and cheery and loud and completely infectious - something Kurt absolutely loved about him - and let Kurt pull him the rest of the way into an ever-deepening kiss.
It took Rachel forty-five minutes at top speed to get back to Lima. Kurt had 23 missed messages, and Blaine had 7.
They ignored them.