It could not be this easy. It just couldn't. The initial shock of Sam's blasé words had hit him like a brick but once his head had stopped spinning it dawned on him that this meant hope. This meant hope and love and everything back in its proper place, his bowtie around his neck and his boyfriend in his arms once more.

They had been chatting before glee club about the musical, Sam asking him for some pointers. Blaine had tried to answer cheerfully and mask his dread but he had clearly failed when the blonde asked him what was troubling him. Kurt. Kurt was troubling him. Kurt had been troubling him for the past two months but now, after the grape vine had informed him that he was heading home the next day for Thanksgiving and attending the show one night, the trouble increased by a tenfold. The sheer, desperate ache in his heart caused by the blue eyed boy's absence and quite probable hatred of him was hard enough when he did not have to actually see him. Blaine honestly, did not know if he could survive being face to face with Kurt again without bursting into hysterical, pleading sobs.

"Dude, maybe you need to go get some action elsewhere. Take your mind off him?" Sam suggested lightly.

"I can't," he shook his head in defeat. "I still love him and there is no way I could be with anyone but him."

"But you already have?" the blonde stated curiously in return.

"What? No, I haven't," he rebutted, a little shocked at the accusation.

"Wait, didn't you guys break up because you were with some other guy?"

"Yeah?" He admitted quietly and shamefully. "We hung out at his place and watched a movie. There was some cuddling but I left after that."

"How are you defining 'with'?"

"Like physically in the presence of, seeking attention from."

"Does Kurt know this?"

"He should. I accused him of cheating on me last year with Chandler when they were texting." As Blaine spoke though, he became less and less sure about it though.

"Okay well someone has their info wrong because I was under the impression that you, like, slept with the guy," Sam stated somewhat awkwardly. "Tina told me and I'm pretty sure she thinks the same."

Blaine turned his head away in frantic thought. There was no way. This couldn't be. How could he have something as precious as his love for Kurt in the fates of word connotation? He racked his brain for the exact wording on that night in New York but he had worked so hard on blocking it out of his memory, the devastated look in Kurt's watery eyes as they turned from a brilliant turquoise to a stony grey, breaking before him, simply to heart retching.

The mutterings of others entering the choir room brought his attention back to the present. "Tina," he said without thinking. "Do you think I slept with Eli?" His tone was desperate and the girl stared at him in shock, clearly caught off guard and unsure of the correct answer. "Just yes or no. I'm not mad. I just need to know."

"Um, yeah. That's what Rachel said anyways," she answered tentatively.

"Wait, Rachel told you?"

"Yes?"

"And she specifically said that I had slept with Eli?"

"Well she didn't know his name but yes." There was no doubt in Blaine's mind that Kurt would have told Rachel and so if she was under the impression that he had had sex with some guy, then Kurt must be too. "She even had theories on who topped and who bottomed."

"Oh god!" He groaned as he pulled out his phone frantically dialing Kurt's number. It rand a few times and then went to voicemail, just like it always did. Right, because Kurt was not speaking to him. He would have to do this in person.

He went straight to the Hummel house after school that next day. It was the first time in a long time that he had bothered to wear a bowtie. They just had not seemed to appropriately match his despondent and lifeless attitude. He had awoken with a bit of hope though that morning. It was not a lot but compared to the black pit he had fallen to the depths of, that small, almost fleeting amount of hope, shone brighter than the heavens. Not even the rain that had picked up would dampen it.

After knocking and receiving no answer, Blaine sat himself on the porch swing to wait. Waiting was hard. He just wanted to tell Kurt now, right now, so that this could be fixed. He was under no assumption that they would be one hundred percent again and that things would probably move slowly with lots of talking in between but to be able to call Kurt his boyfriend again would settle that distraught part of him and actually allow him to return to full function.

A cab turned down the street and his heart began to race as it slowed to a gradual stop in front of the house. He stood and walked to the stairs as he finally laid eyes on the gorgeous boy getting out and collecting his suitcase from the trunk. He could not help but smile at the way Kurt adorably tried to shield his hair from the rain with only his arm while moving at a quick pace towards the front door. He had made it about half way before stopping, dead in his tracks at the sight of Blaine waiting. The Warbler was a little stunned himself. It had been so long since he had seen Kurt and he had honestly thought he never would again. Here he was though, now drenched to the point that his clothes hung heavily from his hips and shoulders, his coif had gone limp, and his eye lids were in a constant flutter to keep the water away. He was here and beautiful there was hope.

"I never slept with him," he blurted bluntly. There was no point making small talk. He had a feeling Kurt would not even tolerate a question about his flight.

"Blaine," the other sighed, exasperatedly. That voice, how he had longed to hear it on so many cold nights that even now, when it was seethed with annoyance, and bitterness, and frustration, it was almost like music. He ran down the stairs and out into the rain towards that voice and that hope.

"You thought I slept with him didn't you?" Kurt leaned away from his fast approach but nodded slightly. "I didn't though. I swear to you that I didn't. I didn't even kiss him. I could never do that to you," he continued to explain desperately, his voice close to shouting in order to be heard over the now pouring rain.

"You said you were 'with' him," Kurt replied beginning to sound desperate himself.

Blaine shook his head frantically. "I know and I was. You were ignoring me and there was finally someone who seemed to take interest in my life and care about me so I accepted an offer to hang out and watch movies. We cuddled, and he kissed my goodbye on the cheek. That's it. That's all I meant. I was physically in his presence seeking out a connection that I felt had been lost with you."

The expression on Kurt's face was somewhat unreadable and it began to worry him. Maybe the truth would not matter because it was frankly not much better. Maybe Kurt had moved on and had no interest in turning back. Maybe this was just too easy. He would not give up until he got a definite answer though, if only to hear that voice one final time.

"I know what I did was still wrong. I'm not trying to amend myself. It's just that when I found out what you thought, I needed you to know the truth and make a decision about us then or I wouldn't have been able to live with the 'what if's.'" His voice became more and more pleading, cracking a few times with tears. "They would have killed me, Kurt because I am so madly in love with you. And I am so incredibly sorry and I will do absolutely anythi-"

His words were cut off by two forceful but familiar hands grabbing his face and smashing it against another. His lips collided with Kurt's and once Blaine got over the shock of it all, he reveled in the hungry pressure of the other's pressed to his in a way that was again familiar but at the same time new and different. It could have been aggression or passion or maybe, like with himself, just an extreme relief. Blaine did not possess the brain cells in that moment, where Kurt's hands had drifted lower and grabbed his ass hard, to figure it out though.

This day and this moment had menacingly haunted his dreams for the past month, taunting him with an image that he knew would never be. Yet, here he was and here was Kurt and he could not even begin to describe the incredibly light and warm feeling that shot through his being. He was still cared for, still loved, still needed by this boy. He needed to be needed because if he was needed, he would not be abandoned.

His knees were threatening to give out underneath him and he sunk into the wet but warm and solid body before him to keep upright. He felt Kurt's arms pull him closer as the boy continued to kiss and suck and bit and lick as if Blaine skin and mouth were the only things keeping him alive. He brought his own hands up to Kurt's auburn hair, his elbows resting on his shoulders, and took advantage of the fact that the rain had ruined the perfect coif so he could twin his fingers in and never let go. He felt the vibrations of the other's groan in his mouth after one particularly hard tug and that is when he knees did give out. Kurt caught him though, and Blaine suddenly found himself being carried to the front door, his hands still tangled in the soaked locks, his lips, swollen and bruised against the other's, his legs wrapped firmly around the lithe waist, and a pair of warm hands under his ass, supporting him but also squeezing and groping, and exploring.

He felt his back being slammed into the front door and a hand leave and heard the faint jingling of keys. He did not stop his hungry lips though. When Kurt eventually pulled away out of necessity to fit the in the lock, he attached himself to the creamy, wet skin of the long, exposed neck and continued his assault. The surface of the skin was cold from the rain but he could feel warmth radiating from beneath.

Blaine vaguely registered the door opening behind him but it was not long before his back was slammed into another wall at the base of the stairs. Kurt removed his hands completely from under him, jutting his hips forwards to keep him supported, and god, Blaine could feel him and it was incredible and dizzying and all for him and only him.

The hands reappeared at his neck, making quick work of his bowtie and then traveled down to his waist, slipping quickly under his polo shirt and rucking it up. He removed his hands from the Kurt's hair and held them high, back against the wall, so his shirt could be taken off completely. Kurt did not hesitate and soon Blaine was slipping his button up off his shoulders and quickly discarding the white undershirt. Belts came next, along with buttons and zippers and quite a bit of intentional brushing and desperate and longing moans captured and swallowed by the other's mouth.

"I-I don't think I can carry you," Kurt finally panted against his lips, his voice beautifully raw and wrecked despite the fact that they both were still in their pants.

"It's fine," Blaine chuckled between his own ragged breath. "I can walk." He opened his eyes and really looked into Kurt's then for the first time since their lips connected outside in the rain. They were a vibrant indigo, mesmerizing as always. He unwrapped his legs and slid down the wall to his feet without looking away. They were more open now than earlier. Maybe not as fully as the previous year but definitely more than he had seen in a long time. There was more trust there and more light too. It was as if he was seeing him for the first time. "Hi," he whispered with a shy smile.

"Hey," he was greeted sweetly in return.

"You wanna just talk?" He asked breathless, already knowing the answer because although there was doubt that he was his Kurt again, he was not his in the way he used to be and that was something that they would need to figure out first.

"Yeah," the other nodded in reply, finding his hand and intertwining their fingers. "Come on."

They grabbed their shirts before Kurt pulled him up the stairs into his bedroom. Settling next to each other on the bed, still bare chested, they cuddled into that old comfort, familiar comfort of the other with a strong hope that one day they would be perfectly them again.