I loved writing Kurt in this scene. But just to warn you, it's probably going to hurt.

I don't like the things you don't say.
Leaving it for such a long, long time.
Why do you show me those sad, sad eyes?
Each time you decide to pass on by.

Kurt felt lighter when he had taken the ring off. His hand was shaking now, quivering like a frightened bird in winter air as Blaine watched the small ring with his mouth half-open with something half-said. Kurt could feel the tears rim his eyes like shackles, pulling his lashes down. But he bit the inside of his lip, trying to stall himself. He couldn't let himself cry this time. If Blaine could leave him so quickly, then Kurt could abandon him just as easily. But it wasn't easy. It was unforgivingly difficult and Kurt felt like he was made of something impossibly fragile. Blaine's eyes looked like stained-glass windows, with all the candles blown out within empty walls. Kurt felt a chill go down his spine, so familiar and so unfair at the same time. Blaine looked like the teenager sitting in a booth, being told his boyfriend was leaving for New York in a week. But this was so much worse this time. It was unbearable looking Blaine in the face as Kurt handed back something so precious and so very, very important. A part of him screamed to put it back on.

'I c-can't,' Blaine finally croaked. Kurt felt something inside him break. But he struggled to hold everything together. He could do this. If Blaine could quit, so could he.

'No. Take it. Go on,' Kurt said as sharply as he could, flicking his wrist ever so slightly to, if it were possible, create more distance between himself and the ring. It felt blisteringly warm in his fingers which were still tinted pink from the cold outside. Blaine looked so small in his over-whelming black coat. Kurt used to joke, call Blaine his little "bear" it dwarfed him so. But there was no laughter now. Blaine looked up from the ring, a look of despair on his face. One Kurt hadn't seen before. It shook him and Kurt felt his arm drop slightly.

'Kurt.' God, his name sounded so different coming from Blaine's lips. Kurt found himself unable to look away from the brown wood of his eyes, burning and moving like umber fire. Blaine looked at Kurt again and Kurt looked as melting snow drops pulled his dark curls free from gel. His slacks looked almost black with damp. He looked freezing. The ring was still warm in Kurt's fingers. Blaine let go of the latch and turned to look at Kurt fully. He had his right hand raised like a shield. Kurt tried not to look at the hand that had struck him. But it was also the the hand wearing his ring's partner, it was the hand that held the back of his neck when Blaine kissed him, the hand Kurt held with Blaine's body hot against his back in fading hours of nights that seemed like they belonged to someone else.

'I can't take that from you, Kurt.'

'Why not?' Kurt asked crisply like frost. Blaine's eyes searched his face and Kurt watched the brown of his eyes melt like brass. When he spoke, his voice was as true as it had ever been;

'I gave you that ring bec-'

'Then take it back!' Kurt retorted, his voice losing it's edge in a thick emotion he tried to swallow whole. The apartment was shifting around them like sand as the snow fell outside, a wind whistling and traffic growling. Everything loose and absent. Kurt felt his heart clench in his chest in a cold grip. He thrust his ring out again, unable to stop himself from thinking of everything Blaine did that had hurt him. Not just the strike, but the distrust and the anger.

Kurt felt the hurt ripple through him in tortured strings. Blaine had been so angry that night. And he had Kurt so scared. So unbelievably scared. Blaine never lost his cool. Not Blaine Anderson. Ever perfect, ever calm Blaine. Dalton poster-boy, NYU prodigy on to get his Masters. Kurt thought helplessly of the day Blaine received his first BA. The memory was tainted purple like bruised skin. Kurt almost winced as he remembered the sound of breaking china and Blaine's face in a dazzling kitchen. The shackles on his eyes tightened and Kurt yielded. Holding them shut with chains, Kurt felt tears spread like webs between his eyelashes.

'Please just take it, Blaine,' he choked, the words cracked at the edges. He heard Blaine move, but Kurt couldn't look at him. Not now. Not with everything so present and so agonizing inside him like scalding water. Kurt turned his cheek into himself, a ghost of fear pouring over him in the memory of rain. 'I-I can't keep it. And I just... I just can't forgive you.'

Everything stopped at the words.

The snow was hanging like Christmas baubles in the air, cars stuck in traffic silently and no air passed between the two men standing in a freezing apartment. Kurt opened his eyes and forced himself to look at Blaine. He looked nothing like Kurt had ever seen before. He had never seen Blaine so... hurt before. Something rallied against Kurt's anger and upset, but he tried to ignore it. But Blaine was so close. Blaine's hand had fallen slightly and reminded Kurt of a wilting flower, petals spilling all over the floor.

Time started moving again. Blaine took a few small steps forward and Kurt wanted nothing more than to press hiss hands against Blaine's navy chest and push. Push Blaine out the door and slam it behind him. But Kurt found himself frozen. His hand was still shaking and he could feel his grip on his gloves loosen. Blaine's eyes were deep and swirling like storm clouds and Kurt found himself unable to look anywhere. He watched rain fall on the face of the man he loved and Kurt found himself suffocating.

Blaine reached out and enclosed Kurt's whole out-stretched fist in his hand. His skin was like pure energy against Kurt's. Kurt could feel goosebumps that had nothing to do with the cold shiver up his arm and down his whole body. Blaine's fingers were coarse from guitar strings and fights. But they were Blaine's. Kurt felt his bones shatter inside him and his arm collapsed. Blaine moved Kurt's hand, and the ring, to Kurt's chest and held it fast there. Lyrics to an old musical brushed against Kurt's mind, but the memory faded as fast as it came. Kurt could feel his heart pounding against the silver band, the words engraved on it leaving prints on his coat.

Yours completely.

Blaine was too close. Kurt could smell the snow on his skin, the faded cologne from winter air. Blaine's other hand trailed up Kurt's arm, feather-light and dreamlike. Kurt felt his breathing become laboured beneath layers of expensive clothes. Blaine's skin was beyond anything Kurt had ever experienced, familiar and electric. He ran a stray thumb over Kurt's cheek and Kurt felt his mouth open on the contact. The hurt and betrayal he had felt was fading fast, forgotten thoughts that had grown too small. Too small in the wake of something far stronger and far more familiar. Kurt watched the colours in Blaine's eyes. Felt Blaine's hand so tender, cupping his face like he had the very first time...

Their lips met briefly and it was so sweet. Blaine's lips where chaste and chipped like wood from the cold New York, but Kurt felt the tears escape as they grazed his own. His heart swelled and something so much better than anything he could ever feel filled him. He barely registered his gloves falling to the ground. Kurt pressed a hand against Blaine's chest, terrified to hold on for fear of letting go.

But then it was over. Blaine was crying, too. Two clear tracks, like trains down sun-blushed lands. Blaine's eyes looked dark and his curls had fallen fully now, framing his face in a fragmented collection of blacks and dark browns. He smiled, his thick lips twitching up like puppet strings. Kurt felt his stomach drop. Please don't, he thought desperately. But he didn't dare voice it. Something worse than rejection plagued his thoughts as Kurt's thoughts ran to catch up with his heart. Blaine had left. Blaine didn't want him anymore. There was something else in Blaine's eyes, but Kurt's heart was too broken to dare hope. He ignored it.

Blaine rested his cushioned forehead against Kurt's. He was still shorter than Kurt, and his head fell a little lower, curls tickling Kurt's nose like they had for years. Kurt swallowed a sob that nearly choked him. Blaine's words were warm and tasted like lyrics and guitar cords;

'I wouldn't forgive me either,' he whispered like a song. Kurt felt his eyes flutter shut again, lost and yet so at home with Blaine's weight against him. His heart was cracking, splinters littering the floor. The tears were falling earnestly down Blaine's face now. 'But... I couldn't say goodbye this time without doing that.'

'Blaine,' Kurt moaned like a prayer.

Then he was gone. Blaine left Kurt's skin burning like singed paper. The ring was still clutched in Kurt's porcelain fist. Blaine stopped at the door, which opened in one final, tragic creak. Kurt took a step forward, but Blaine caught his gaze and he stopped. Blaine was trying to say something. Kurt knew Blaine too well, each curve and fall of his face measured meticulously by Kurt's careful fingers over years and years love. Kurt tried to read the words under all the emotion. But it was like spilled ink on parchment.

'Keep the ring, Kurt,' Blaine said softly, his voice making Kurt think of pillows and mornings spent in bed. 'You deserve at least that much.'

The door closed with a snap and Kurt was alone. Again. Kurt stood frozen, the laminate floor seeming to sway beneath him, the floorboards warping and bending. Kurt's heart was beating in his ears, deafening him. The ring Blaine had given him so long ago was pressed like a scar on his palm. It had suddenly lost all of it's heat. But the words were still there, tattooed onto the metal like silver skin. Blaine had left him- again.

No.

Then everything was a rush of colour and sound. The front door slammed like a gunshot and Kurt's tall boots made a heavy thump as they hit the carpeted hallway. Bypassing the elevator, Kurt bolted down the empty corridor of the apartment before flinging open the door to the stair-well, slipping and tripping over snowy footprints on the hard surface of the stairs. Kurt's heart was going to burst, he was sure. He had never run like his before. But he had never had a reason. And Blaine- Blaine was a good reason. He needed him. Kurt burst through the door to the foyer like a damn cracking under the weight of water. Blaine wasn't there. Clutching his heaving chest from running down three flights of stairs, Kurt took the last few laps to the doors.

The air was cold and hit Kurt like he had fallen off the pier into the deep end of the ocean. Bombarded with waves of chilled air on all sides. Drowning him in millions of leaves made from water. The snow had enveloped the whole world in white like a curtain and was falling so thickly Kurt had to stop and adjust. Brooklyn looked strange and unreal in the new light and cars moved like monsters through fog. Kurt looked around wildly, before he saw the retreating figure a small ways down the side-walk, hair twisting in a bitter wind.

Kurt ran.

Nearly falling twice on shining ice, Kurt reached out with all his strength and grabbed Blaine by the shoulder. Blaine turned on the spot and stumbled on the icy concrete. But Kurt held him sternly, his arms tight around the other man's shoulders. Blaine's bewildered eyes were framed in snowflakes caught in his thick lashes and found Kurt's like they always did. Like they always should. Kurt's hand were already wet and a vivid red from the snow and Blaine's face was tinted with surprise and cold. Kurt let breaths out in sheets of billowing, white silk falling to the ground, where they pooled like abandoned bed-sheets on the floor.

'Kurt,' Blaine breathed whitely. Kurt caught the name on his cheek like a kiss. His fist still clasped around their promise, Kurt felt himself put all his weight on Blaine's shoulders. Blaine's arms wrapped around Kurt's waist like a thick belt, tied by something iron tight and stong behind Kurt's back. They had fallen apart at the seams to each other- Blaine's body was extremely cold and Kurt's hair was after falling from any sort of grace with the weight of snow and water. Cars made crushing noises on ice and trees rattled like tin cans around them. They were so far away from the sunny asphalt of Ohio's school-grounds.

Blaine looked like he was about to speak, but Kurt stopped him, catching the words on his tongue in a kiss. Ghosting Blaine, Kurt used his free hand to cup the older man's face. Kurt held Blaine to him like a life-line. This time it was more intense. More urgent. Kurt easily overcame Blaine for dominance and their lips felt chilled from the exposure. But Kurt poured every ounce of himself into that kiss. He drained himself dry and felt tears turn to frost on his cheeks. He tried to write the words on Blaine's tongue. How much he loved Blaine, how sorry he was, how angry he still was. How he still hadn't forgiven Blaine, but how Kurt would do anything to retrieve what they used to have. He would not let this be a kiss goodbye.

Blaine was alive and kissed Kurt back with a truth and desperation Kurt had never experienced before. It tasted sweet and bitter at the same time and Kurt could feel Blaine's tears too hot against his skin. The world was swirling around them like sand at the bottom of the ocean. But nothing mattered. How could anything else matter?

Kurt pulled away breathless, the sheets falling again. Blaine was resting against his forehead again, tickling curls and all. Kurt felt the corners of his mouth turn up like flowers to the sun. Blaine was breathing all over Kurt like water and he was holding him so tightly that Kurt felt winded and full at the same time. He could almost feel Blaine's heartbeat beating against his chest under all the hurt and heavy clothes. Kurt pressed his fingertips into Blaine's face, pulling him as close as he could. The ring was sure to leave a mark, his fist was clenched so tight.

'Come home with me,' Kurt said, the words getting lost in a flurry of snowflakes. Blaine's response was a warm breath and Kurt held it close.

'Always.'

Trying to hold it together.
Keep my love as light as a feather.
Sad eyes, baby, it's been such a long time.
Keep my heart breaking in the dark.
Come and spend the night.

So my dear readers, dare you hope? This chapter used to have a second half, but I thought I might leave it here instead. It just fit better.
~ATGNT