"What did you say?" Kurt stopped short, the moment clearly over.
"What?" Blaine said, sweat-drenched and breathing heavily. "Nothing."
But Kurt wasn't buying it. "Who's Sebastian?" he demanded as he got dressed.
Blaine could feel his heart beating in his throat, trying to swallow the sick feeling of panic that threatened to overwhelm him. This was it. The avalanche was about to bury him alive, and he was powerless to stop it.
"You know who he is," was all he could say. It was agonizing to watch as Kurt's confusion became clarity, and then became confusion of a different kind.
"Sebastian Smythe?" Kurt confirmed. "That jerk from high school is here? How do you know him? Why—" He paused as his voice began to quaver with emotion, seeming understandably reluctant to put what had just happened into words, as if refusing to speak it would keep it from being real.
"He's here," Blaine said, surprised at how calm and reasonable his own voice sounded. "He's a professor at Cornell. We met at karaoke." He swallowed hard, bracing himself for the effect that his next sentence would have on Kurt.
"I've been sleeping with him for the past two months."
Kurt seemed to collapse on himself, sinking to the floor with his hands over his face as he began to sob. Blaine felt strange, as if he was an outside observer to the whole scene, or having a dream from which he was about to wake up. He was sure that he was supposed to be having some sort of reaction, but he felt just as numb as ever.
"Kurt, I—"
"Shut up," Kurt interrupted him, looking up with red, watering eyes as he spoke quietly but firmly.
Seeing the enormous effort Kurt was making to compose himself, his fierce pride and unflagging determination to simply carry on even in this darkest of moments, was what finally stoked the flame in Blaine's heart and prompted him to try again.
"I'm sorry," he said, meeting Kurt's eyes unflinchingly in an attempt to convey the truth behind his words. "Kurt, I am so, so sorry. I'm an idiot, and I don't know what I was thinking. But I do know one thing. I know that I love you."
Kurt, who had been keeping it together remarkably well, started to come apart again at Blaine's last sentence. "I wish I could believe that," he managed to say before starting to cry again.
All Blaine's instincts were telling him to try to comfort Kurt, to reestablish their physical connection, as if that could somehow bridge the giant chasm that had opened between them. He moved down off the bed, only vaguely aware of the fact that he was still naked, and tried to touch Kurt's shoulder. But Kurt shied, so he stopped and began to get dressed instead.
"You have to leave," Kurt said flatly, still huddled on the floor with a thousand-yard stare in his eyes.
One look at him and Blaine knew that there was nothing he could do or say to fix this, at least not tonight.
"Okay," he said, and left.
Blaine drove around in a daze for what felt like minutes but was really hours. He had smoked almost a whole pack of cigarettes by the time his head cleared enough for him to realize that he was only delaying the inevitable.
"Fuck," he said out loud, tossing his last butt out the window and throwing the car into reverse.
Sebastian answered the door quickly when Blaine knocked and appeared to be bright-eyed and wide awake, so Blaine's fears about rousing him from slumber at 2 a.m. were alleviated.
"Blaine," he said with a surprised smile. "It's been a while. You didn't text. I have a guest already, but hey, three's company, right?"
"That's not why I'm here," Blaine said. "Kurt kicked me out."
"On Valentine's Day, no less," Sebastian observed, clearly enjoying Blaine's discomfort as he leaned against the doorframe. "Must have been bad."
"He found out about us."
Sebastian's bemused expression turned serious. "Look, Blaine, how many times do I have to tell you? There's no 'us.' I'm not that guy. You can't stay here."
Blaine started to protest. "I didn't—"
"I'm doing you a favor," Sebastian interrupted him, the smirk starting to creep back into his expression. "Goodbye, Blaine," he added and shut the door, leaving Blaine alone in the night again.
He saw that a downstairs light was on, so he steeled himself to approach the door and knock.
"Who's there?" a female voice responded somewhat shrilly. "If it's the cops, you should know that I broke up with Tony as soon as I found out he was doing that stuff, and I've got no idea where he is now."
"It's not the cops," Blaine said, trying to peer through the door's small decorative window. "It's Blaine. From work."
He heard several locks being unfastened, then the door opened and Lindsay greeted him with a warm smile. "Hi, sweetie!"
"I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" Blaine asked.
"Nope," Lindsay said with a goofy grin that tipped him off to the fact that she was slightly tipsy. "It's just me and my friends pinot and grigio."
She made her way rather precariously to the living room and Blaine assumed it was okay for him to follow, watching with amusement in spite of everything as she happily flopped down on the sofa. Several partially empty bottles of wine littered the floor and coffee table. Blaine held his breath as Lindsay poured an alarmingly full glass and held it out to him, but she didn't spill a drop. He accepted the drink and obliged when she motioned for him to sit beside her.
"What's the matter, sweetie?" she asked.
Blaine sensed such genuine concern in her voice that he couldn't help but spill the whole awful story. Lindsay was a surprisingly sympathetic listener, but when he finished talking Blaine felt more hopeless and miserable than ever.
"I know I fucked up," he said, feeling a slight buzz from the wine. "I know I did. And I'm so afraid I won't be able to fix it. Shit, I have to talk to Kurt," he suddenly decided as he fumbled for his phone.
"Oh, no you don't," a sobering Lindsay replied, snatching Blaine's phone away. "Not now, anyway."
"But what should I do?" Blaine asked desperately.
"Sleep it off, sweetie," she said as she stood up and tossed a blanket in his direction. "Things will look better in the morning."
Lindsay must have realized that the advice did little to console Blaine, because she sat back down and offered some more. "Look, I don't know a goddamn thing about functional relationships," she said, putting a comforting hand on his knee, "but I do know that if you love Kurt as much as you say you do, you gotta get him back."
A/N: Oh my gosh, thank you guys so much for your feedback, you seriously have no idea how much I appreciate it. I'm really enjoying this and I hope you are too! Don't forget to leave a review if you have any questions/comments/concerns and I'll try to address them as best I can. Thanks for reading!
