Kurt was practically falling asleep at the Warblers' lunch table, ignoring the madness around him. The New Directions had kept him and Blaine out way too late, and Kurt was willing to bet he and Rachel were the only ones in school that day. Well, maybe not. After all, the New Directions didn't have a two-hour commute.
Blaine certainly hadn't shown up to school, and a nervous feeling was bubbling in Kurt's stomach. Sending Blaine that heart had been... risky, to say the least, but Blaine had experienced such an awful Valentine's Day, he deserved to have one bright spot. Kurt just hoped that the heart hadn't been received... badly, and Blaine not being in classes was not a good sign.
Kurt obviously wasn't the only one missing a... significant other, because Jeff plopped right down next to him at the lunch table with a sigh and a plateful of mildly-healthy food. "Hey, Kurt."
"Jeff, you seem to be missing a dark-haired Siamese twin," Kurt said, looking around for Nick. Jeff shook his head.
"He's not here today. He's... not feeling good." Kurt wasn't getting the whole story there, that much he could tell, but before he got the chance to ask, Wes sat down on his other side with an equally-depressed sigh, not even bothering to say hello. When Kurt looked over at him, his gaze was on David, who was sitting on the opposite side of the table and not bothering to prank anyone. There was even an unwatched Gatorade sitting right next to the pepper shaker. It was... odd. "You all right, Wes?"
"Not even close," Wes muttered. "I can't get him out of my head." Wes' voice was so quiet and distracted, Kurt wasn't even sure he had meant to say that out loud. "I miss him so much." Wes didn't say anything else, pillowing his head on his arms. He wasn't eating anything. Kurt was tempted to put a consoling hand on his back, but Thad sat down on Wes' other side and started whispering to him before he got the chance.
"Anyone else have a feeling this is going to be a weird week?" Michael asked from Jeff's other side, looking from the seemingly-inconsolable Wes to the rather glum looking Jeff.
"Every week at Dalton is a weird week," Charlie commented as he practically sashayed over to the table, stopping briefly to give Wes a kiss on the cheek before sitting down next to Michael. "If it wasn't, this school would be boring." He had a point. "Where's Blainers?"
"Have more kinky stories about Lucas to disgust him with?" Michael asked.
"Sadly, no."
"He's probably sleeping," Kurt explained.
"What, did you wear him out too much last night, Kurt?" Charlie asked with a grin, and Michael snickered.
"Charlie. We were out with the New Directions last night, we went to bed late, and we had to get up early to get to Dalton in time for morning classes." Not that Kurt had possessed the energy to pay attention in morning classes, but that was totally beside the point.
"Sick day," Charlie scoffed. "What a cheater."
"You're one to talk," some random Dalton student Charlie had probably slept with commented as he walked by, and Charlie rolled his eyes.
"I don't cheat, I just don't believe in exclusivity," he yelled across the cafeteria, not caring who heard. "Except with Lucas," he added at a normal, conversational volume. This comment was followed by several, extremely-mature whip sounds.
Jeff wasn't eating his food, he was just picking at it with his fork, rearranging his plate so it looked like he had eaten. It was a trick Kurt had picked up during his time as a Cheerio (at some point his father had become concerned about his extreme portion control), and Jeff wasn't very good at it. Kurt recognized it easily. Apparently, so did Charlie.
"Eat up, bitch, you're too skinny already." Charlie and Jeff exchanged what Kurt would call a 'significant look', Jeff laughed and starting to eat mouthfuls under the watchful eye of Charlie.
Did that boy run the school or something?
"Define the word 'regresar' for me," Rachel demanded over the phone as Kurt unlocked his dorm room. He had to think back through several Spanish lessons before remembering.
"To come back?" he asked uncertainly as he nodded to Chris, who was sitting on his bed with his laptop and blind to the rest of the world.
"Correct," Rachel said, and Kurt really did know her too well. He could tell that she was mildly annoyed she didn't get the chance to announce the meaning. It was probably part of the dramatic skit Kurt knew she planned in her head before calling. "That's our lesson for this week, regresar. Coach Sylvester is visiting the Glee club tomorrow, according to the grapevine, because she apparently tried to commit suicide-"
"What?" Kurt practically screeched, and it was a testament to Chris' laid-back attitude that he didn't even react. Either that, or he had gone deaf.
"Kurt, spell suicide for me."
"S-U-I-C-I-D-E," Kurt spelled suspiciously, knowing Rachel was taking this chance to be dramatic by her tone.
"Add an 'e' as the third letter, and try it again." Kurt did as he was told and it clicked in his mind.
"Okay, so she's officially gone crazy."
"Correct," Rachel said again, "she tried to overdose with gummy vitamins, but that's not the important part. That is the reason for the lesson, but the important part is what I'm doing with it."
"Enlighten me," Kurt said, with just a pinch of sarcasm.
"I am staging a comeback." Captain Obvious much? "I am paying Brittany to buy leg warmers and reindeer sweaters and start wearing them, with the hopes that she will spread the trend under my name. It was a brilliant idea, if I do say so myself."
"Dear Madonna, so this is what happens when I leave the school. Just a few months and you're already spreading your horrendous fashion sense around the school, with no one there to stop it." Had it really only been a few months?
"Kurt, this is important to my career," she said disapprovingly. "I need to establish a positive image, and fashion is one of the greatest ways to do so."
"First you have to have a sense of style," Kurt added, finished unpacking his messenger bag onto his desk and relaxing back against his bed, with his phone pressed between his ear and his shoulder, and a nail file.
"This resurgence in my career could be the difference between..." Rachel was obviously just ignoring him at this point, but she stopped mid-sentence, trailing off as if she didn't know quite what to say.
"The difference between winning and losing at Regionals," Kurt finished the sentence for her, and he could hear her swallow across the line. "Rachel, just because we're competition, doesn't mean you can't mention the competition abstractly. I would never tell you about the Warblers' preparations, and you would never tell me about the New Directions' strategies."
"You're preparing already?" Rachel asked in shock, as he had expected her to. The New Directions never planned ahead.
"You're not?" he teased, and she sighed.
"Trust me, if I were in charge-"
"Thank your G-d, you're not," Kurt interjected, but she ignored him again.
"We would prepare during every rehearsal between competitions and have frivolous assignments at the end of the year." It was a good strategy, exactly what the Warblers did, with the addition of impromptu performances, but that would never happen in the New Directions.
"Rachel, it's important to explore the different styles of music available, and that's exactly what Mr. Schuester has... you guys," he had been so tempted to say 'us,' "do with assignments. If you hadn't gotten laryngitis," Rachel whimpered at the memory, "Puck would never have performed, or even have heard of, Sammy Davis Jr."
"I'm still not pleased with our inferior technique," Rachel said, "but we will still beat you guys."
"Bring it on," Kurt said with a smile, ignoring how much his heart hurt at being in competition with his friends. He had an excuse to end the conversation when Pavarotti began tweeting at him, and he had to feed the little warbler.
The next day, Blaine was back in school, with sheepish excuses for the fact that he took a sick day, and he and Kurt had a good time watching the video Mercedes sent him after lunch. Sam, apparently, had decided Justin Beiber would be his road to coming back, probably in terms of his relationship with Quinn, and the most ridiculous part was that it had worked. It was ridiculous, but Mercedes had assured him that it actually had worked, and all of the New Direction girls had gotten really into his performance.
"I can't believe girls fall for that," Blaine said as he requested they watch it one more time. They were both practically crying with laughter, holed up in a corner of Dalton's vast library during a study hall. "I suppose serenading is sweet," Blaine still sounded a little bitter, "but that's just lame."
"Whatever works," Kurt said with a chuckle, knowing that was exactly the philosophy among the New Directions. He hit 'play' again, having uploaded the video to Blaine's laptop.
Blaine looked over at him as Sam introduced the Justin Beiber Experience to the New Directions, and Kurt could tell something was on his mind. He still hadn't mentioned the heart, but Kurt had a feeling that was about to change. "Thank you," Blaine said quietly. "Happy Valentine's Day." That was all that really needed to be said.
"Do you want to go out for coffee after school?" Kurt asked Blaine, and it really didn't sound different to him, but Blaine raised an eyebrow.
"Do you mean like normal, or..." Blaine didn't finish the sentence, and Kurt tried his hardest not to blush. He failed.
"Yeah, like normal. Not like..." Kurt didn't finish his sentence either. Did Blaine seriously think that Kurt was going to ask him out after having been rejected already? Because if he did, he was delusional.
"I can't today." Kurt nodded, a lump forming in his throat. Blaine was pulling away form him because of his stupid feelings, and Jacobs, why couldn't he have kept his mouth shut? "I have make-up work to do from yesterday," Blaine explained with a sheepish smile, obviously not realizing Kurt was stupidly upset. "Tomorrow, usual time?"
"Of course, yeah." Blaine was not pulling away, Blaine was not pulling away.
One thing Blaine absolutely loved about Dalton was the bathroom, as odd as that sounded. There was only one girls' bathroom, and it was in the lobby of the main building. Other than that, there were entirely boys' bathrooms, which eliminated that awkward 'which bathroom should I use?' conundrum. Not that Blaine, who was more... subtle, had to worry about that, but it was definitely nice for the rest of the world. Plus, Blaine didn't feel entirely comfortable in the men's room of most places either way.
Also another thing he loved was the lack of sitcom type drama. No cat fights at Prom or crying in the bathroom. So when Blaine pulled open the heavy wood door to the bathroom outside the cafeteria, the last thing he expected to hear was the sounds of someone crying. There had even been incidents of students walking in on other students in the handicapped stall, using it for... unconventional purposes, but Blaine was pretty sure this was unprecedented.
He half-expected it to be Charlie, because Charlie didn't believe in the word 'unprecedented,' and went out of his way to do exactly the opposite of what was expected of him. So Blaine was surprised to see Jeff curled up next to one of the sinks, crying into his knees. Blaine wasn't sure what to say, so he slid down the wall next to Jeff, leaving a tiny space between them that Jeff quickly closed.
Once Jeff had stopped crying, Blaine finally asked, "Does this have something to do with Nick not being in school today?" Kurt had pointed that out to him earlier, because their super-awkward conversation in the library, because apparently Nick hadn't been in school yesterday, either.
"He just disappeared after we got home from Lima," Jeff replied, not really answering Blaine's question but telling him what he wanted to know anyway. "I haven't seen or heard from him since. I called him, he won't answer, I texted him, he didn't reply. I tried calling his house a few minutes ago, and his sister sent me away with some rather cold words. This isn't like him, he's near surgically attached to his phone, and he always shows up for school. He hasn't taken a sick day since he had meningitis in the forth grade." Yeah, that sounded like Nick. "I think... I think his parents didn't take the news about us very well," Jeff explained quietly, and that made a lot of sense.
"Jeff, I know you want to be there for Nick, but this is definitely something he has to deal with on his own, and your presence might only make it worse." Blaine had nothing optimistic to say. This situation sucked all around.
"Sucks," Jeff muttered, unaware of how he was agreeing with Blaine's thoughts. "Sorry I turned clingy there," he added, pushing Blaine away as if he hadn't been the one to lean into the platonic-cuddle.
"No problem," Blaine said, standing up and holding out a hand to help Jeff up. "You should go back to the lunch room and commiserate with Wes."
"What's going on with him anyway?"
"No clue," Blaine lied.
Jeff walked all the way to the door before turning around. "Aren't you coming with me?"
"I did come in here for a reason besides comforting you," Blaine said with a laugh, stepping into a stall. Now he really had to go.
That morning Rachel called him, claiming that she was living in an absolute nightmare because Brittany had decided to wear her leg warmers on her arms, and the trend was spreading like crazy. It was kind of a disaster, but since Rachel's comeback plan was ridiculous anyway, Kurt kind of tuned her out, even being so bold as to put down the phone while she was talking. The likelihood was that she wouldn't notice anyway.
"Hey, dude," Chris greeted him when he got in. Apparently, he had joined the basketball team, and he had been at early morning practice, which was a pretty common thing at Dalton. Kurt raised an eyebrow at the plebeian term.
"Hello, Christopher. How was practice?" Chris groaned.
"Brutal. The coach is really busting my butt because I joined mid-season. Still, I'm not a bench warmer, so that's an improvement. I would say you should come to one of my games some time, but first of all, that sounds like I'm hitting on you, and second, you hate sports of all kinds and I don't take it personally." Kurt laughed.
"Sorry, you're not my type," he said, fluttering his eyelashes teasingly. "But you're right. I should come to one of your games sometime." Chris stared at him uncomprehendingly.
"You hate sports," he repeated.
"Yes, but first of all, you're my roommate and I should support you in all of your sweaty straight-boy interests, and second, I'm branching out." Also, Blaine liked basketball. All sports, really.
"'Sweaty straight-boy interests?'" Chris repeated. "You make everything sound so gay."
"You should hear how I describe football." Chris laughed.
"Yeah, but no one can blame you for that one. Is there a reason you're holding the phone?"
"Rachel's talking," he replied, and he didn't bother to explain when Chris looked at him quizzically.
"Okay," he said slowly. "How are things with Blaine?" Kurt sighed.
"There aren't things with Blaine. I... I messed everything up." Chris sat down next to Kurt on his bed, and Kurt was kind of straight. Most straight guys avoided gay guys' beds. It was just a rule of society. Chris didn't seem aware of this rule.
"What's up?"
"I told Blaine that I thought he was going to ask me out on Valentine's Day."
"And I'm judging by the fact that you're not taking advantage of his lack of roommate right now," Kurt blushed at the innuendo, "that didn't go quite as well as you'd hoped."
"Correct," he said, ignoring how Chris was grinning at his blush. "He said something about not wanting to mess up our friendship-"
"Which is a legitimate reason."
"And how bad he is at romance-"
"Which is a legitimate problem." Kurt glared at Chris.
"He rejected me, Christopher." He had adopted the same habit with Chris that he had adopted with Finn: he called them by their full first names whenever he was annoyed with them. "He said he really cared about me. That's a gentle way of saying 'I love you, but I don't like you.'" Chris rolled his eyes.
"Take it from someone who's turned a lot of girls down," Kurt snorted at that, "okay, someone who's turned some girls down," Chris corrected with a pout. "That's not a rejection. That's being an idiot maybe, but that's not a rejection."
"Really, because he asked me earlier if I was asking him out when I wanted to go out for out almost-daily coffee!"
"Were you?"
"No!"
"And did he imply that if you were, it was a bad thing?" Kurt paused.
"His tone-"
"And if you had been asking him out, can you guarantee, from something he said, not tone or facial expression or whatever other cock-and-bull excuse you have for everything he does, that he would have said no?" Chris asked, and Kurt had no answer to that.
"You suck, sometimes, you know that?"
"That's what I'm here for."
Kurt was interrupted from saying something witty in reply by his phone shrieking "Kurt Hummel, are you listening to me?" so loudly both boys could hear it audibly with the phone speakers-down in his lap.
"Uh-oh," Chris said with a grin. "You're in trouble." Chris continued to tease him as he picked up the phone and tried to sooth an extremely annoyed Rachel. Eventually, he gave up and used the excuse he had to get to class.
"Are you going home this weekend?" Blaine asked Kurt as they stood in line for the Lima Bean. No matter what anyone said, things were definitely awkward between them, especially since they were standing in exactly the same spot in which the events leading to the awkwardness had transpired.
"No. I think I've had enough of home for this week," Kurt said with a smile. He loved seeing the New Directions, but there was only so much of them he could handle, and he had grown less accustomed to their antics during his time at Dalton. "Besides, I don't want to be involved in whatever's going on with Finn, Quinn, Sam, Rachel... whoever." Who was involved in that particular issue now? Kurt couldn't even keep track.
"How would you be involved?" Blaine asked, looking around and seeming satisfied at the removal of the Valentine's Day decorations. The Lima Bean was back to normal. Too bad nothing else was.
"Finn's my step-brother, Quinn and Rachel both come to me for counsel, and because of all those factors, Sam will probably ask me about it too." He couldn't seem to stay out of anything.
"Fair enough." They finally reached the counter after several more minutes of incredibly uncomfortable silence, ordered their coffees, and sat down at the only table available.
"As I live and breath," someone said behind them, and Blaine whipped around, his mouth falling open.
"Oh my God." Kurt looked between the two, trying to figure out what was going on, and decided he had absolutely no idea. "Marcus." Oh G-d, so this was the closest Blaine had to an ex-boyfriend. He wasn't exactly what Kurt had expected. He was tall, an inch or two taller than Kurt, with short, mildly-spiked up blond hair and dark eyes. It wasn't that he wasn't attractive, it's just that he wasn't extremely attractive. Oh, and there was the fact that Kurt hated him on sight. That might have been the problem.
"Blaine Anderson," Marcus said with a grin, Blaine standing up so that he could hug him. "How are you?"
"I... Good, good. I haven't see you since..." Blaine trailed off. "You've grown."
"And bulked up some, yeah," Marcus said with a laugh. "Spent some time outside of Columbus, learned a bunch."
"What are you doing here?" Blaine asked as he pulled up a chair for Marcus at their table. Kurt was suddenly the third wheel.
"Well, I decided that the ridiculous artsy college I transferred to for my ex-boyfriend was a little too fruity for me, and I'm here to moonlight at Dalton Academy. I didn't realize you go there." His eyes raked over Blaine's body, and Kurt was certain that Blaine's uniform had absolutely nothing to do why he was looking. "You've certainly grown up."
"Well, you haven't seen me since we were fourteen," Blaine replied, but his cheeks were heating up. "So, you broke up with Brandon?"
"Very true, and yeah. So, if you go to Dalton, I'm guessing you're my number one choice for moonlighting?"
"Moonlighting?" Kurt asked, but it was useless. Neither of them heard him.
"Sure, I would be happy to have you moonlight me." When exactly had that word turned into a euphemism?
"It would give us a chance to get to know each other again," Marcus said, his voice low.
"Right." Blaine cleared his throat, blushing redder. "I... I don't think you've met Kurt yet." Blaine had apparently remembered his existence. "Marcus, this is my best friend and fellow Warbler, Kurt Hummel. Kurt, this is Michael Angus-"
"Yeah, yeah, there're a bunch of names and it's funny," Marcus cut him off with a grin, and Blaine smiled. "You can call me Marcus, everyone does."
"Nice to meet you," Kurt said, trying not to convey how absolutely false that statement was in his tone. It was surprisingly difficult.
"Same, cutie," Marcus said with a grin, and Kurt tried his best to smile in return. "So, what's Dalton like, Blay?" For some reason, the nickname made Blaine blush again.
"It's really great. A hundred thousand million times better than Columbus." Blaine and Marcus exchanged another smile, and Kurt was starting to feel queasy.
"What's moonlighting?" he asked again, and thankfully Blaine heard him this time.
"Have you ever heard of shadowing?" Kurt nodded. No one ever shadowed at McKinley (because if they did they would run away screaming) but Lima Vo-Tech had one-day shadow programs for potential students. "Moonlighting is Dalton's version of shadowing. Potential students stay for a week, including the weekend, with another student, preferably one without a roommate, to really get a feel for Dalton. They go to all of their classes, and their extra curricular activities... it's an amazing experience for those that have the luxury of time."
"And money," Marcus added. "It costs like two thousand dollars to moonlight."
"How did I not know that?" Blaine asked, and Marcus laughed along with him. Seeing the two of them together was close to intolerable. "I'm gonna go get another coffee." Kurt had no idea how Blaine had managed to drink all of his first one (he hadn't seen the tenor take a single sip), but it sounded empty when Blaine threw it out.
"So, you're the newbie, huh?" Marcus asked.
"And by that you mean..." Kurt prompted, taking a sip of his own, untouched until now coffee.
"You're the new guy in love with Blaine." Kurt choked. "Oh, don't act like it's a big surprise that I know," Marcus continued, not even bothering to pound Kurt on the back. Kurt glared at him as he tried to get his breath back. "Not only do you look at him like the sun shines out his ass, and yes, I caught you checking out his ass, but there's always one. One guy who's obsessed with Blaine because he's flirty and loveable. And the other thing I've learned about that one guy is he never seems to have a chance. I'll admit, you're gorgeous," under other circumstances, Kurt would have blushed, but now he just wanted to hit Marcus, "but that doesn't make you different."
"I hate to break it to you, but you don't know Blaine anymore. He's an entirely different person than the lost, scared little boy you experimented with." Saying that made Kurt feel sick again. "He respects himself enough now to wait for a real relationship."
"So I guess that answers my question of whether or not you're a virgin," Marcus said with a laugh. "And I'm not just trying to get into Blay's pants. He's a cool guy, and I already made the mistake of not grabbing onto him when I could, and I'm not going to make that mistake again."
"What mistake?" Blaine asked, coming over with another medium drip himself and some sort of coffee which he placed in front of Marcus.
"Trying to eat a tablespoon of cinnamon. Felt like I was being choked by the Rock." Blaine chuckled as he sat back down. "How much do I owe you?"
"It's on me," Blaine said, waving away the cost with a flick of his hand. "Tell me about your artsy school."
Kurt didn't get another word in fro the next hour, and that was just him excusing himself to leave. Marcus drove Blaine back to Dalton two hours later.
Blaine was happy and humming on Saturday, and Kurt was ready to throttle him. Not only was he getting into a new relationship right in after he had rejected the person who was hopelessly fallen for him, he was practically rubbing it in Kurt's face. Kurt was already sick of it, and it had only been a few hours.
Saturday was widely known as Visiting Day at Dalton, and there were plenty of visitors. All of Charlie's neighbors had vacated their rooms because Lucas was visiting, and Kurt had vacated his because Chrissy was making her first visit to Dalton. It was a tribute to how horribly supervised all the boys at Dalton were that their girlfriends (and boyfriends) made regular appearances in their dorm rooms.
Thus, the only person he had to commiserate with was Wes. Wes and Kurt were sitting in silence on opposite sides of a library table. David was sitting on the other side of the library, behind Kurt. No matter how much they seemed to be fighting, they were also always together.
"Who's making Blaine so happy?" Wes asked him absentmindedly, still looking at David over Kurt's shoulder. "Did the two of you finally get together?" Kurt didn't even bother to tell Wes to be quiet. They were in a corner of the library where the librarian wouldn't bother them, and the whole school wanted Kurt and Blaine to be together at this point. As Charlie would say, the whole school shipped Klaine. Weirdo.
"No. He's reuniting with an almost ex-boyfriend." Kurt knew Blaine would kill him if he called Marcus Blaine's ex-lover. This fact made said action very tempting, but there was enough of a wedge between him and Blaine as it was.
"I'm assuming you mean Marcus, because Charlie's a little busy right now." Normally that would evoke some sort of smile from Wes, but his face was completely blank. It was a face of pure devastation.
"Wes?" Wes made a noise of acknowledgment, his eyes still fixated over Kurt's shoulder. "What's going on with you and David?" Wes' eyes snapped directly to his, and the Head Warbler sighed.
"I made him choose. Either we would be together openly and exclusively, or we would never speak to each other again. And he chose the second option... on Valentine's Day." Kurt gaped at him. That was awful. "So, we're not speaking. Our room is full of weighty silence, we sit at opposite ends of every room, table, or desk we're forced to share, and... I'm still madly in love with him. I always will be." Kurt, clearly having picked up a few habits from Blaine, placed a hand over Wes'. He heard David's throat clear, and Wes chuckled.
"What?"
"Nothing," Wes said, shaking his head. "He thinks you're hitting on me." Kurt laughed at that. Wes was so far beyond taken, with a girlfriend and someone he's completely in love with. "Apparently, he gets to be a jealous asshole, even if he's straight."
"He's not straight," Kurt said, confused.
"Try convincing him of that." Wes sighed, and withdrew his hand. "Saturday's are the worst." Wes didn't explain his statement, returning to his homework.
Everyone seemed to be in a bad mood. When Kurt got back to the room he shared with Chris, it was locked and barricaded, and Chris refused to let him in.
"Hey!" Oh crap. It was Blaine. "Where have you been? I haven't seen you all day." Blaine still sounded upbeat and ridiculously happy, and Kurt wished he could be happy for him. It was one thing when Blaine didn't know he was hurting Kurt, now it was just rude.
"I was in the library, unfortunately in that awkward zone between Wes and David. Where have you been?"
"I went out with Charlie and Lucas, and very much played third wheel so Charlie would buy me ice cream," Blaine said with a laugh. "You know, I didn't like Lucas at first, but he seems really nice. Plus, he makes Charlie a whipped idiot, and that's always fun to see."
"Love makes people do crazy things... as if Charlie needed help." They both laughed at that, but the air between them was still awkward.
"Fair enough. What's going on with Chris?" Blaine asked, jerking his thumb towards the stubbornly closed door.
"Go away!" Chris yelled from inside.
"I haven't the faintest clue," Kurt said, "but this is exactly why I didn't go home, so I'm beginning to regret it."
"Oh, come on," Blaine said, bumping Kurt's shoulder with his as he started to walk down the hall. "You love Dalton."
"I love parts of Dalton," Kurt corrected, and it didn't sound so... pointed in his head, but the silence following his comment was heavy.
"I can see why there are parts that aren't so awesome," Blaine said after a few moments of silence. "I mean, there's always Charlie." Kurt wasn't sure why Blaine had said it like that, until he realized he had been so buys looking at Blaine that he hadn't noticed Charlie and Lucas coming down the hall.
"And then there's you," Charlie replied. "That must be it, because I'm completely loveable. Right?" he asked Lucas with a grin.
"Completely," Lucas agreed with a smile, pulling Charlie close and giving him a kiss. "Hey, Kurt, Blaine. How are you guys?"
"Well, we all know how Blaine is, since he crashed our date. Thank you for that," Charlie said rather sarcastically.
"Fair enough," Lucas said. "How are you, Kurt?" he asked, letting go of Charlie for just a moment to give Kurt a hug and then sliding his arm around Charlie's shoulders again. They made a cute couple.
"I'm great. How are the Cheerios?"
"Depressed, but getting over it," Lucas said with a shrug. "Coach Sylvester's gone loco though."
"So I've heard," Kurt said with a smile, and explained, "Rachel," at Lucas' raised eyebrow.
"Oh, Rachel. Did she tell you about the Arm Warmers and Reindeer Sweater Revolution?" Lucas asked with a laugh, and Kurt nodded.
"You guys really need me around to keep everything sane, don't you?"
"Oh, like things were sane when you were there!"
"Does it ever feel like they're the couple?" Charlie asked Blaine, and Blaine nodded fervently. "I'm actually feeling like a third wheel to my own boyfriend."
"That makes me fourth wheel?"
"Wanky," Charlie said with a grin.
"Charlie," Blaine and Lucas admonished at the same time, then looked at each other and started laughing.
"Oh, great, now I have two stick-asses bothering me about funny comments. See, Kurt, this is what relationships do to you. Run!" Charlie said dramatically, shooing Kurt off with his hands.
"You love me," Lucas said with a smile, and he still sounded a little incredulous about it. Lucas leaned down and gave Charlie a kiss, which quickly became an uncomfortable moment for Kurt and Blaine.
"And that is exactly why," Charlie said once they had separated with the sound of a hose being pulled out of a garbage disposal.
"Shut up," Lucas said with a grin.
"Kurt, Blaine, I'm going to drag my boyfriend away and do wicked things to him in the privacy of my dorm. See you guys later." Charlie did exactly as he said, dragging Lucas down the hallway. Kurt was pretty sure he heard Lucas' back make contact with a wall out of sight.
"Idiots," Blaine said fondly. "We should probably walk the other way now."
"Yep."
Kurt had to crash in Blaine's room that night, since Chris was still refusing to un-barricade the door. Kurt mentally wondered how long it had been since he had eaten. At least twenty-four hours, unless he had food in there. Blaine loaned him some old clothes, which smelled like him and made Kurt feel like a complete creep.
When Kurt woke up, Blaine was still asleep, and Jacobs, he was cute. His hair was mussed and curly, his eyelids shifting with REM sleep. His face was completely relaxed, the corners of his mouth turned up in a little smile. His heavy breathing verged on snoring, but Kurt didn't even care. He decided to check on his room before he took up Blaine's shower for an hour, and was surprised to find it not only un-barricaded, not only unlocked, but wide open, Chris completely gone. Kurt chalked it up to typical Dalton craziness and took a shower.
When Kurt got out of the shower, Chris was back, lounging on his bed, playing World of Warcraft on his computer. He was such a closet nerd. "Hey," Chris said casually, as if he hadn't gone into hysterics yesterday. "Sorry 'bout that." Kurt let it go.
"What's up?"
"Chrissy and I had our first huge fight." Chris didn't elaborate, and Kurt didn't push. He didn't know much about relationships, but he really didn't want to get barricaded out of his room again. "Are those Blaine's clothes?"
"He loaned them to me, I slept in his room last night." Chris raised an eyebrow. "No."
"Oh, so you actually slept. That's no fun," Chris said with a wane smile, but it was something.
"Yes, because, as I have said many times before, it is possibly for two gay guys to be friends." Kurt knew this was total crap at this point, but he would still claim that to everyone else.
"Not when one's in love with the other and they're both aware of it." Thanfkully, Chris made no case for Blaine being in love with Kurt. The countertenor really didn't want to have that particular argument again.
"We're doing our best," Kurt said with a sigh. Only the presence of other people tempered the awkwardness that had hung between them since the day after Valentine's Day.
"Especially since Blaine's got a new boyfriend?" Kurt looked over at Chris in surprise, ignoring for a moment that his question had no factual basis. "Yes, even locked in this room, I hear things."
"Blaine isn't dating Marcus," Kurt said firmly. He wasn't sure entirely how long that statement would be accurate, but it was at the moment, and that was all that mattered to him.
"Okay. Have fun in Egypt." Kurt huffed.
"It's weird having Marcus around again," Blaine admitted to him after almost two hours of incredibly awkward silence which Blaine had spent studying and Kurt had spent musing on exactly how awkward it was for them to be spending any time alone together. It was amazing that he got all of his school work done, it really was.
"How so?"
"Well... it's just that... you know what happened between Marcus and I, I told you. But that's really all that happened between Marcus and I. We weren't really friends, at all. I mean, we obviously got to know each other after seeing each other every day for seven months." Every day? "But... I don't know. It's like he's turning what was essentially our joint period of slutiness into some sort of... romance to last the decades, you know?"
"Not really, no," Kurt answered, making Blaine chuckle.
"Fair enough. Like I told you when..." Blaine trailed off. "Anyway, Marcus was not my boyfriend. He was important to me, and that's a portion of my life I'll remember for a long time, but he's not... he's not someone that I think about constantly. I just... I don't really know how to feel about him being here. It's nice to see someone from my past that I'm not terrified of, but Marcus..." Blaine trailed off again, and after about five minutes of silence it became clear that he didn't plan to finish that sentence.
"Clean slate," Kurt said after thinking about it.
"Pardon?"
"Everyone deserves another chance." Not another romantic chance, of course, but that was beside the point. Blaine certainly wasn't thinking about Marcus in that way. "Like you said, he's a figure from your past that you don't hate, maybe he can give you some closure on that part of your life." Blaine looked thoughtful. "You'll never really get over it, but you can certainly move on."
"For someone that hates any sort of philosophy, you are a very wise man, Kurt Hummel," Blaine said with a grin, "and you're right. Marcus and I had some good times, even outside," Blaine didn't even pause, just skipping over the words like a scratched tape, and it'll be nice having him around."
"There's the spirit Besides, it might be nice to have someone sane-ish around Dalton." Blaine grinned.
"Oh, no. Marcus will fit in excellently here."
"Shoot."
Kurt wasn't exactly enthusiastic to have Marcus around, but at least Blaine had made it obvious they weren't rekindling their romance. They were just... getting to know each other again, and Kurt could survive that. Maybe. Besides, Marcus clearly wasn't as much of a threat as he thought he was.
A/N: I'll be honest with you guys. I really had no idea what to do with Comeback. This idea came to me a while ago, giving Blaine some depth and keeping them perpetually in a state of romantic turmoil (there's a reason for that, I assure you), so enter Marcus. Sorry for the weirdly-short segments in this chapter, I promise that will improve. This is a lot of set-up for coming back.
In case anyone is wondering about Marcus, the guy I'm picturing is a Season 4 Warbler that I stole from one of their performances (I don't even remember which). The screenshot I took of him can be found at my Photobucket (my username is heavenhelpmyheart) under Meet the Warblers. FF is being dumb and won't let me put the URL here. He is making a very attractive face in this picture. Delete any and all parentheses, and you shall see. I'm sorry it's been a while, guys.
Songs mentioned: None. Weird.
Reviews are Love.