A/N: Tonight's episode made me emotional for the wrong reasons. I'll leave it at that, and then give you this, and it probably all makes me a horrible person who's incredibly cynical and not welcome in the happy-dancing-joyous-circle-of-love that is the Klaine fandom after 4x08. Apologies if that made no sense. Expect a longer rant at the bottom.

Last Ten

"I Love You"s

Prompted by Miss Olivia Cellophane

...

by padfoot

From Blaine:
ilysmtiwsmwlttbgetdtblby

From Kurt:
?

From Blaine:
I really mean it. From the depths of my heart.

From Kurt:
re ypou drunk?

From Blaine:
Are *you*?

From Kurt:
No. I'm trying to hold mgy phone and 2 coffees and not get mugged.

From Blaine:
Your efforts are valiant. I feel like I should stop bothering you though.

From Kurt:
Maybe. Or you could just temporarriily stop bpothering me and then bother my later on Skype.

From Blaine:
See you in a few minutes?

From Kurt:
I'll be waitig

From Blaine:
I try not to keep you 'waitig' too long :)

Blaine grinned, stowing his phone in his pocket and swivelling around in his chair to face his computer. He hadn't had the heart to tell Kurt that he had logged on to Skype already – had been signed in since he'd gotten home, just as he was every day.

Besides, he didn't want his boyfriend to get the feeling that this was urgent. It wasn't urgent. Nothing had changed. Well, something had changed but- but nothing had, in a far more profound and important way. Blaine just knew now – knew for absolute sure, knew so deep in his heart and his mind and his soul that it hurt – that he wanted to be with Kurt, wanted to be Kurt's forever.

Nothing had changed. Nothing at all had changed.

Logging himself out of Skype (he'd wait a minute or two after Kurt had logged in to politely pretend he'd just finished something and that, no, of course I wasn't waiting up for you, I never go to bed before midnight these days), Blaine glanced at the picture of Kurt on his desk. It was an innocuous shot – nothing as gut-wrenchingly stunning as the black-and-white photo he kept beside his bed and barely even pretended wasn't used for, well... unsavoury imaginings. No, this picture was a candid, an unexpected blur of a picture that had been accidentally snapped by Tina when she and Mike had gone on a picnic with Kurt and Blaine the previous summer.

Kurt had been sitting eating strawberries, posing jokingly for a photo for Tina when Blaine and Mike had returned from their trek to the rubbish bin, and Blaine had been unable to stop himself from catapulting his body at his boyfriend just as Tina's camera went off. What resulted was a blurry photo of Kurt, mouth wide in a silent shriek in the moment before Blaine had toppled onto him. In that picture – held steady by a silly wooden frame his mother had dug out from the back of a cupboard – Blaine could see that entire day together, the entire summer, even. He could see every millisecond he'd spent with Kurt – every surprise he'd given him, every kiss and hug they'd shared, every little thing that he wanted to have forever.

In that photo he saw Kurt Hummel: unadorned. Perfectly, astronomically, impeccably wonderful.

Blaine smiled, looking back to his computer and happily logging back onto Skype when he saw that Kurt was online.

"Hey, you," Kurt grinned.

Blaine smiled in reply, trying not to notice the differences. Trying not to have to pretend there was nothing on his mind.

As the call went on, Blaine came to realise that he had a ridiculously adorable boyfriend. Not that he didn't already know that. He did – objectively, subjectively, in every -jective way there was to know it – but it still didn't hurt to be reminded every so often. To notice how different it was to love all of someone, rather than just-

But no.

Nothing had changed.

Like now, for instance. Kurt's cheeks were cherry red and he was looking absolutely gorgeously mussed, probably from the wind outside. He was perched on his bed, propped up against the headboard and complaining cheerily to Blaine about the crazy errands Rachel had been sending him on while she stayed up to rehearse for a performance she had the next day. Blaine was barely taking in a word Kurt said, probably smiling very, very dopily as he just... took Kurt in. Every strand of hair on his head, every twitch of his lips, every sparkle in his eyes. Every little tiny detail that made Blaine's heart ache, he missed it so much.

"What are you smiling so hard at?" Kurt asked suddenly.

"What?"

Kurt hoisted a mock-frown onto his face, lips pouting spectacularly. All Blaine wanted was to kiss him hard. To pull that bottom lip into his mouth and suck and bite and have him because Kurt was his and it felt so, so awful, so, so wrong to do all that with someone who wasn't-

Shh, Blaine. Stop. Nothing had changed.

"I love you, that's all. A lot."

Kurt's frown fell and his expression was earnest and sweet as he said, "I know, sweetie. I love you too."

Blaine bit his lip.

Nothing had changed, nothing had changed, nothinghadchanged!

"No, I mean- I really, really love you. So much, Kurt. So much it- it hurts."

Blaine's voice broke a little on the last word and already Kurt was there, sitting up straighter and fussing and touching the side of the screen as he'd gotten into the habit of doing. Blaine knew what it meant, understood the gesture completely. He felt the need too – the need to reach and touch Kurt's face, to feel his skin and his cheeks and his warmth and it was different and better to any other skin, any other warmth and-

Nothing. Had. Changed.

Kurt's expression was concerned now, his eyes cautious, his finger still fluttering around the screen.

"Blaine, what's wrong? Are you okay?"

"I'm- I'm fine. I just. I missed you today. More than ever. Something happened and it-"

Reminded me of you? Made me think of you?

How do you tell someone you love that something terrible has happened to create something great? How can you say, 'it made me love you anew' without saying that? How can you describe sharing something so sacred and private and intimate with someone else, but show that it wasn't all those things because it was with someone else?

"-it made me realise how much I love you."

Kurt looked confused, and Blaine was blinking, trying so hard to keep the tears from his eyes (nothing had changed, nothing had changed, nothing had changed) that he couldn't see Kurt's face as he answered, somewhat perplexed, "I love you too."

"Kurt, I love you. I love only you. Always, always you."

A pause. Blaine sucked in a deep breath, tried to compose himself. Peered up at Kurt.

"Blaine. Are you sure you're okay?"

Forcing out a smile seemed like the most difficult thing Blaine had done today.

He hated himself a little bit for that. Hated how difficult this was and how so, incredibly easy that had been.

"I'm with the person that I love," he shrugged, "How could I not be okay?"

"You just seem... I don't know. Distant. Do you need some sleep? Am I keeping you up?"

Kurt's eyes left the screen, glanced at his clock and he winced.

"Oh, god, when did it get so late? I must be keeping you up. Please, go to bed, Blaine. I feel horrible already."

Blaine forced out a laugh.

"Don't be silly," he said, "Tomorrow's Saturday. I don't need to go to bed tonight."

"But don't you have homework and Glee Club and..."

"No. It's fine."

Blaine didn't even know if he was lying. All of tonight felt like a dream. From the moment he'd left school, phone heavy in his pocket with the secrets it held, right up until now, he could hardly recall what had happened. Not in detail. Not in the beautiful, intimate way he remembered every kiss and touch and moan and tremble he'd shared before now. All of them - every single one - with Kurt.

"I love you," Blaine said again.

Was he saying it too much? Was it suspicious? Did Kurt suspect-?

But no, nothing had changed, and Kurt was smiling sort of sideways, adjusting where he sat on his bed, long legs uncoiling and oh, god, Blaine couldn't do this right now, just couldn't, not before showering and sleeping and thinking – he needed to think.

"You're saying that an awful lot," Kurt murmured, practically purred, his tone pointed and suggestive, "Can I- uh, help you with something?"

Blaine may have scrambled in a very incoherent way in response.

"No, Kurt, I'm not- I mean, I'd love to, with you... later. Maybe. Or tomorrow, or tomorrow night. Or later- and. It's not- not because I don't want to. God, no- I always- with you I... it's never not with- and, uh. I just. I just mean- y'know. I love you. Just as, I love you. Not as a-an... uh. Suggestion. Or invitation or whatever."

Kurt was looking confused again. Blaine raked a hand through his hair.

Still messy. Still not re-gelled since another pair of hands had been tugging at it mercilessly, not soft and gentle like Kurt-

Nothing had changed. No one had else had ever touched him like that. Only Kurt. Only Kurt.

"Maybe I should go to bed," Blaine admitted.

Kurt nodded, "Yeah, maybe you should. Love you."

Blaine nodded and tried not to think for now.

Nothing. Had. Changed.

On Skype, Kurt's face disappeared as he ended the call, then logged out a second later. Blaine stayed where he was, glancing at the photo again, then at his phone, sitting next to it on his desk.

He picked up his phone, testing the weight of it in his hands. Wondered if it really was heavier, weighed down by remorse. By betrayal.

And, sitting alone at his desk in the middle of night, for the first time since Kurt had left, Blaine really, truly tired.

He tried to work out what he had done, how everything had come to this. He tried to figure out why he had lied – if he had lied – and how it could all be fixed. He tried and tried and tried. Tried not to let the world fall in on him. Tried so, so hard not to cry.

Because how could he explain that nothing had changed when it felt like everything had?

From Blaine:
I love you so much that I will spend my whole life trying to be good enough to deserve to be loved you.

From Blaine:
That's what it meant.

A/N: Right, so I really need to stop ranting about things, because after all that's what tumblr is for. And I've already ranted on tumblr, so ranting again is entirely pointless and counter-productive, but I'm doing it anyway. So here goes.

This whole thing with Kurt choosing his job over Blaine is getting me very annoyed, and I honestly don't understand it. Now, I've never really understood Kurt's characterisation, and every time I try to get it people seem to think I've gotten him all wrong, but seriously: what kind of person who is as unselfish and kind-hearted as everyone seems to think Kurt is hangs up on/skips calls from his boyfriend twice, both times for (unnecessary and un-urgent) work things and then after they've broken up only calls him back because his boss tells him to? Kurt isn't friends with Isabelle or whatever the hell her name is. Or, at least, we haven't been given enough of their interactions for me to have any reason to believe that he's friends with her. And I just- I hate that he's taking her advice, like she's some kind of relationship guru. I didn't want what seemed to me like a very reluctant and polite rather than genuine 'I love you' on Kurt's part. I hate when those words are bandied around and this seemed to be exactly that.

And now I'm done. Sorry.

Anyway, this probably seems fairly un-genuine now, but I would like to thank everyone who has been reading this story, and everyone who endured that rant. Normally I wouldn't do that on a story like this that I know people are already pretty reluctant to read but DAMN that episode frustrated me.

(*deep breaths*)

Thanks to everyone who sent in a prompt (or more than one!) and apologies for those that I couldn't use, and those that I did use but the chapters kind of sucked. I do try my best. But then something like this week's episode happens and I kind of just lose my shit.

I really am done now, though.

Sorry and thank you,

padfoot