A follow-up to "Dance With Somebody", because they way that script walked all over Kurt's feelings while being sympathetic to Blaine's was simply abominable.

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Kurt stared up at the ceiling above his bed, brooding. Friday night dinner was over, he had no weekend homework for once, and his skin care routine could wait until bed-time. He knew he should get up and do something, but once he'd flopped back on the mattress he just hadn't been able to motive himself to do anything else.

All he could think about was the fight he'd had with Blaine this week.

It was over now, they had made up after talking things out in Miss Pillsbury's office, but the reasoning behind that fight was still bothering him; a lot.

No matter how hard he tried to see things from Blaine's point of view, he still couldn't understand how he could have been accused of cheating on his boyfriend. Not for a series of stupid, silly, flirtatious text messages! After all, it wasn't like he and Chandler had been sexting, which Blaine should know since he had helped himself to Kurt's message archive and read most of them.

Kurt had told Chandler he had a boyfriend before their phone numbers were even exchanged, and the other boy had seemed totally okay with that. He'd just wanted to be friends. The texts had been nothing more than a collection of sweet but dorky compliments, and one-liners so lame they would have probably gotten the boy laughed out of any bar in America if he had tried to use them seriously. That's part of why Kurt had loved them so much. They had been dumb but they had been very flattering, and they had made him laugh; a nice and all too rare feeling. Kurt had laughed over one of those goofy remarks the day they met, and the other boy had lit up with pleasure upon hearing it. Kurt had a great laugh, he had claimed, and he wanted to cause it to be heard more, even if he couldn't be there to hear it himself.

Kurt hadn't even known how badly he had needed some positive attention until it started. That was why he had always replied to Chandler's messages with a smiley face, or a "LOL" or a simple return of the favor. He wanted his new friend to know how much he appreciated the effort.

Did that really make him a cheater?

When Kurt called Chandler yesterday to ask him not to text anymore, the other boy had apologized profusely, so surprised that his texting had been taken offensively. They barely knew each other, and it had broken Kurt's heart a little to hear the sadness in his voice as he agreed to leave him alone from now on. Kurt had wanted to explain, to promise they could still be friends, but he had not. He had put Blaine first, just like he always did.

What still gnawed at him, though, was the unfairness of it all. How was it right that Kurt had had to give up his budding friendship with the boy in the music store, while Blaine had felt fully justified (if a little guilty) in continuing his phone/text relationship with Sebastian Smythe for weeks, uncontested? Kurt had hated that guy, but it was not his place to choose Blaine's friends for him. Not even when he was sure that there was no way in hell those conversations had been as innocent as Blaine claimed.

The friendship probably had been innocent on Blaine's part, and that knowledge was what had allowed Kurt to make peace with it. At least until 'The Great Rocksalt Slushy Incident', anyway. But he had never for one minute believed that it was totally innocent on Sebastian's side. Sebastian Smythe had made no secret of how badly he wanted to get in Blaine's pants. That guy probably couldn't call for take-out without making the order sound smarmy and full of innuendo!

Kurt had trusted Blaine, and it hurt like a knife to the heart to know that his trust had not been reciprocated. Especially when he had never given Blaine any reason to doubt his love.

Rolling over onto his side, Kurt's eyes caught sight of his abandoned iPod and he scowled darkly, remembering how Blaine had taken what should have remained a private disagreement and deliberately turned it into Glee gossip fodder.

What had given him the right to publicly accuse Kurt of cheating on him with a guy Kurt had spent all of fifteen minutes of physical proximity with? He hadn't asked, he hadn't explained to the others, he had just accused and then played the injured martyr card for all the annoyingly sympathetic members of their glee club.

Blaine had heard all the stories, from Kurt, about the ins and outs of New Directions infidelity and had used that to his own advantage without a moment's hesitation. And then, when Kurt had tried to be the bigger man and apologize with a song of his own, not even begging his own share of sympathy from his so-called friends, a method that experience assured him would bring about conversation and a tender reconciliation, Blaine had ignored him! He had pouted and ignored Kurt for another full day until he was finally lured into Emma Pillsbury's antiseptic lair.

Why couldn't Blaine have just talked to him? Was he really that unapproachable? It was true that Blaine wasn't always the best communicator, especially when it came to expressing his emotions without benefit of song, but wasn't Kurt worth the effort of even trying?

With his dad and Blaine both independently deciding that the best way to prepare themselves for his graduation and eventual departure for New York was to ignore him, Kurt had been feeling lonely and insignificant for weeks. He hadn't understood the true reason for their distance, comforting himself with reminders that they were busy with other parts of their lives. Congress and work, Finals and applying for summer jobs; things like that. Things that simply didn't leave time for him.

It hadn't seemed fair then, and it seemed even less so now that he knew the truth.

The funny thing was, Kurt could almost understand their logic. His own style tended more toward grabbing on tight to the people he cared about and refusing to let go until he absolutely had to, but he knew that wasn't true of everyone. Everyone had their own way of dealing with loss, even impending loss, and he could respect that even if he didn't necessarily like it.

So, Kurt had forgiven them. He knew that Dad hadn't meant any harm, and he had realized on his own what he was doing and been honest about it. Apologized for it. He hadn't required virtual teeth-pulling to even admit there was something wrong, like Blaine had.

Kurt sighed deeply. When the dam had finally burst, Blaine had been so adorably penitent, and Kurt's resentment had crumbled to dust in the face of it. He had accepted Blaine's explanation, apology and cute flirty text in the spirit which they had been offered. He had even accepted the invitation to make out for a few minutes in the choir room after everyone else had gone home, though part of him felt like he should have held out longer, because he had missed Blaine so terribly.

At least he had held himself together somehow when Blaine had turned on the big eyes and charming wiles, trying to coax Kurt into going back to his empty house with him. Kurt had known exactly how that would end, and had hastily offered an excuse about needing to be home in time for dinner with his dad.

Blaine had accepted the explanation with an understanding smile, he knew all about the Friday night dinner ritual by now, and given Kurt a sweet kiss that almost made him change his mind. He hadn't though. In truth, Kurt had not been in the mood. He had needed time alone to think, and so he had taken his leave with only a small feeling of regret.

He wondered if Blaine had even given the reasons behind their disagreement another thought once the hatchet was buried. Certainly he had seemed perfectly happy, contentedly filling up his monogrammed leather planner with weeks worth of ideas for things they could do together. (All with Kurt's blessing, of course.)

Dates and dinners and … yes, make-out sessions … all neatly jotted down so as not to be forgotten.

Kurt sighed again, grabbing a pillow and twisting around to face the foot of the bed on his stomach. He didn't mind Blaine's tendency toward organization and time management (some might say micro-management). They were just the way he dealt with life, and Kurt loved that amusingly anal retentive side of his boyfriend as much as he loved everything else about him. He just wished it hadn't been quite that easy to slot 'boyfriend' back onto the calendar, as if Kurt was a rescheduled doctor's appointment or something.

Just as Kurt's gloomy mood was truly taking over, he was rescued by the sound of his phone ringing. Blaine's familiar ringtone of "Perfect" blasted through the room, and a smile automatically tugged his lips as he reached for the cell.

"Hey, you," he greeted, rolling over and making himself more comfortable against the pillow.

"Hi, Kurt. Listen, there's something I need to say to you." Blaine took a long pause, an audible breath, and then blurted, "I know we talked it out earlier and everything, but I haven't been able to stop thinking about you since we left school, and I just wanted to say again that I'm so sorry for everything that happened between us. For getting so bent out of shape this week and being a jerk to you in front of our friends, and accusing you of all those awful things. I know you wouldn't cheat on me and I wouldn't cheat on you either, and I shouldn't have said that. It really wasn't even you I was mad at. It was me."

"Blaine, it's okay, you don't have to…"

Blaine cut him off. "Please, Kurt, just let me get this out. I have been so completely terrified of losing you, and so mad at myself for not having the courage to tell you that, and it absolutely kills me to know that I ignored you so badly that I almost drove you away."

"But you didn't," Kurt said quietly. "It wasn't all your fault. I didn't understand what you were feeling."

"Because I didn't talk to you," he admitted sadly. "I mean, you really should have talked to me too, but I totally understand why you didn't feel you could. And, God, I am so sorry for making you feel so alone that you had to rely on a stranger to feel like you were worth something, Kurt. Because you are! You're worth everything to me. Absolutely everything. You're beautiful and funny and so kind. You're compassionate and forgiving, and I knew that, and I took advantage of it. You didn't deserve to be treated that way, and I … I just love you, Kurt. I love you."

Shocked and touched by the words, realizing that he had been completely wrong about all this being easy for Blaine and that his boyfriend had been pondering this awful week just as relentlessly as he had, Kurt let out a relieved laugh. The sound was a bit strangled by the tears that had welled up in his eyes and clogged his throat, but it was genuine. "I love you, too. Oh, Blaine, I've been lying here feeling so…"

He struggled to find the right words, but the weight of doubt and anger that had been weighing his chest down for the last few hours was rapidly dissolving, leaving him feeling light and truly happy for the first time in weeks.

"I know," Blaine said quietly, and Kurt realized that he was crying too. "Me, too. I was just…"

"Same," Kurt choked out. "And you're right. This was my fault as much as yours. I should have talked to you as soon as I started feeling pushed aside. Ignoring the problem just made everything worse. We've always been honest with each other about everything; that's what makes us work, and I'm sorry I didn't tell you about Chandler. There wasn't really very much to tell, but I still should have called you the minute I got back from the music store that day. I swear I never liked him that way. I was just flattered by all the attention, and kind of embarrassed by how much I enjoyed all those ridiculous compliments."

"They were kind of lame," Blaine agreed with a smile that Kurt could hear. "I'm sure I could come up with some much better ones."

Kurt smiled. "I wouldn't mind letting you try. In fact, I might just have a few gems that I've been storing up for you too." As Blaine made a throaty noise of interest, Kurt felt his entire skin flush. Compliments weren't the only attention he'd missed from Blaine these last few weeks. He glanced at his bedside clock. "You know, it's not that late. How would you feel about meeting up with me to exchange…ideas?"

"We don't have a date planned for tonight," Blaine hedged, gulping audibly at the suggestiveness in Kurt's tone. "Do we?"

"No, but I'm feeling spontaneous," Kurt said, drawing the last word out just to tease. "What do you say we find a late snack, something fat and greasy enough to be worth a little guilt, and then maybe go someplace and spend a little time together, just you and me?"

Blaine sighed dreamily. "That sounds great. Hey, what do you say we find a terrible movie, buy some popcorn drenched in delicious fake butter, and sit up in the back row and not watch it together?"

Kurt laughed. "That sounds perfect. Meet me at the Lima Cineplex in an hour?"

"It's a date," he agreed happily. As Kurt moved to hang up, he heard Blaine say softly, "I really do love you, Kurt."

Feeling his heart swell once again, Kurt closed his eyes and just let the familiar and sorely missed certainty of being loved and wanted wash over him. "I love you, too, Blaine. So much."

As the call ended, Kurt jumped up, tossing the flattened pillow back up to the head of his bed and moving to his vanity table to begin the short version of his skin care routine. He wanted to look his best tonight.

Because if all went well tonight, then neither of them would have anything other than good memories to think about tomorrow.

THE END

No, I was not a fan of the gelled-wonder in this episode. I hate it when the writers turn a nice guy into a hypocritical moron just because they don't know how to do character development. *sigh*

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