He didn't know what to do. He'd basically cut Sebastian out of his life after Regionals, because he could see the strain it put on Kurt to be friends with him. He had cut the rest of the Warblers out after the slushie incident, and most of New Directions swarmed to Kurt's aid anytime anything negative happened at all, regardless of who was actually in the wrong.
"Blaine's boyfriend," he muttered, rubbing his face in his hands as he stared at his ceiling. It was the most preposterous statement he'd ever heard. Had Blaine asked Kurt to transfer back to Dalton to be together, Kurt would have said 'no' and the conversation dropped forever. Blaine, stupidly, stupidly had done the opposite for Kurt-because Kurt had asked, because he loved him, because Kurt was supposed to be the love of his life.
Kurt wasn't supposed to spend his entire day texting some Chandler guy that he met at Between The Sheets. Not when he was ignoring Blaine, instead choosing to laugh with Sam about something stupid that he could have just as easily told Blaine, that he should have told Blaine. Even if Blaine was being distant, Kurt could have picked up the slack, put forth the effort, not abandoned him when there was clearly so much more going on, with no one else to talk to.
That was the problem, Blaine figured. He'd spent the past year wrapping his life around Kurt so much that he hadn't bothered to really find any other friends. He had Mike, to an extent, and Santana and Brittany would take his side against someone outside of New Directions, but when it came down to it, there wasn't anyone he was 100% sure would agree with him on his current situation, anyone who would, without a doubt, take on Kurt for him.
It was almost like she had heard his desperate pleas for someone to come to him, when his mother told him he had a visitor, Rachel's wide eyes peering from behind her. "Hi," she said quietly, Blaine sitting up quickly and glancing around his messy room before his mom disappeared back down the stairs, Rachel stepping inside. "Kurt texted me and told me about your fight," she explained, "and with Finn distracting him, I thought you might need someone to talk to."
"But, Kurt's your best friend," Blaine said hesitantly, regardless of how grateful he was that she had even thought about him at all.
"So are you," she told him earnestly, climbing onto his bed and dragging him into a hug, her embrace warm and welcome. He didn't know why he hadn't felt like he could confide in Rachel, Rachel who had proven herself to be a great friend to him time and time again. "Besides, Kurt's not exactly innocent at the moment, and he's not the one I'm worried about," she assured him when they parted, taking his hand with her own and lacing their fingers together.
"You heard about-" he looked down at their hands, Rachel squeezing them tighter as if to give him the strength he needed to continue, "Chandler?" Blaine choked out. Rachel responded with a small nod and a sad expression, one that nearly broke his heart from the sight alone. He struggled to figure out what he actually wanted to say, now that there was someone here in front of him actually willing to listen, and by the time the words came to him they sounded broken and cracked, Rachel's eyes full of sympathy as she listened. "He says it's the same thing that I did with Sebastian, but-Sebastian and I were never anything other than friends. I made sure that was clear, every step of the way. But maybe it is the same, and I'm just-am I overreacting?"
Rachel hesitated for a moment, her eyes straying anywhere but at him, and it made him feel even worse, that she couldn't immediately tell him 'no'. "I don't think so," she finally settled on, Blaine letting out some sort of helpless noise before she could continue. "I mean, I wouldn't like it if Finn was doing this kind of thing with some girl he had just met, either. And I told Kurt that if he wasn't willing to show you the messages, that it wasn't as innocent as he was trying to portray but-you love him, don't you?"
"Of course," Blaine replied automatically, because he did, he loved Kurt enough to change his life for him. "I know things have been strained lately, and that it's partially my fault. But all he talks about is New York, and leaving and that requires leaving me and-"
"He's not going to leave you, Blaine," Rachel rushed, her eyes wide and Blaine hated that he was upsetting her with his own pain. "None of us are, not emotionally at least."
"Well if it's the emotions attached that count, then Kurt should realize what he's doing with this Chandler dick is just as painful as if it was physical!" Blaine cried out, Rachel moving even closer to him and taking his face in her hands as she shushed him, nodding in agreement.
"I know," she said quietly, making sure his eyes were locked on hers. "I know, but Blaine-you two can work through this, if you want to."
"What if I don't?" Blaine asked her, voice just as low as her own. "What if I can't look past this? Even if we fix it now, how long is it before this happens again? First Sebastian, now Chandler-whose next? Who else can come between us?"
"No one can come between you if you don't let them," she urged, Blaine resting his forehead on her shoulder, breathing in the simple smell of her shampoo and her soap, trying to let her words worm their way into his head but they didn't seem to want to stick. "It's up to you, Blaine, and Kurt-both of you, to fix this. The only way anyone else can ruin the relationship is if you let it," she continued, and while he was trying to listen to her, because her advice seemed sound, despite the troubles she had in her own love life, he couldn't entirely focus on the words. She was crawling into his lap at the same moment, and words that Kurt had said in the heat of the moment flashed across his mind.
Even Rachel wanted to make out with you.
The 'wanted' part of it should have told him all he needed to know, that he shouldn't bother trying to destroy her relationship with Finn as well as his own, but suddenly it was all he could think about. He'd enjoyed kissing Rachel during their brief fling, and while any kissing involved for West Side Story was purely platonic and for the musical and nothing more, it hadn't been the worst thing Blaine had endured. If he was completely honest with himself, it had been good, kissing Rachel.
"I know it should be on him to fix this, since he's the problem," she said, startling him out of his thoughts as he pulled away from the crook of her neck to look at her, his hands resting on her thighs as she sat on him, her arms wound around his neck, "but it's Kurt and-I love him, I do. He's my best friend, but he doesn't know how to apologize. He doesn't really understand when he's wrong."
"He should," Blaine said emphatically, fingers digging into the skin underneath of him, Rachel freezing slightly under the action. "I shouldn't always take the blame, and neither should you! When you two fight, does he ever apologize to you?"
"No," she admitted quietly, looking away from him as she did so. "But he's, I mean-"
"Do you honestly believe you're always in the wrong when it comes to Kurt?" Blaine asked quietly, unsure of what it was he was trying to do, or why he was doing it. There was just a part of him that screamed revenge, an eye for an eye-a concept he knew Rachel would appreciate better than anyone else. And it was wrong, so wrong, for him to come between not only her and Finn but her and Kurt as well, but the idea had sprung and he couldn't seem to push it away, not anymore.
"No," she repeated, still not looking at Blaine.
"Then why are you always so quick to defend him?" he questioned, moving his fingertips slowly up her thighs. He wasn't even sure what he was doing, if he should be, and all the warnings in his head told him to pull back now, that he could play it off as an innocent mistake if she asked, but he didn't want to. Influx of emotions aside, the way her breathing picked up almost subtly seemed to make his own do the same, her mouth falling open slightly as she shook her head. "He wouldn't dare defend you, rarely does," he pointed out, Rachel gulping as she watched his fingers.
"What are you doing?" she finally said, turning to direct her gaze at him, and he was sure that Kurt or no Kurt, he wouldn't want to say 'no' now, not when her eyes were slightly glossy and he'd barely even touched her.
"What do you want me to do?" he retorted, fingers slipping under the hem of her skirt, officially too high to be deemed appropriate from anyone who might notice. Still, she didn't push him away or yell at him or spout out one of the many reasons that he could think of as to why he shouldn't be doing this, why he shouldn't be pushing for something he had never even admitted he wanted in the first place.
"Kurt," she whispered, and at any other point in time he might have found it ironic that Finn wasn't her first thought, but her nails were pressed in the base of his neck, whether from nerves or guilt or arousal, he wasn't sure.
"Kurt cheated on me first, Rachel," he reminded her, keeping his words low and she seemed to take what she needed from that, nodding and sliding further into his lap, his hands gripping tight onto her thighs to pull her tighter against him.
"But he didn't cheat like this, Blaine," she argued, even if she was only half an inch away from him now. "He didn't-"
"Do you want to?" he interrupted, effectively shutting her up as she gave pause.
"It's not like we haven't before," she finally said with a small smile, his own only half as wide before he closed any remaining gap between them, the comfort he was so desperately seeking being found in her lips pressed against his. Kurt was the furthest thing from his mind as her mouth opened for him, her tongue finding solace in his mouth and he couldn't help but enjoy the way her lip gloss tasted like strawberries, her lips slick in a way that Kurt's never were.
Her hand wove its way into his hair, gel-free after his shower, and she pulled him even closer into her, their heads tilting just so to get the right angle to practically inhale the other. She nipped at his bottom lip, a small growl erupting from the back of his throat that caused her to giggle, everything a give and take between them.
It was easy, really, to convince himself that this was okay, that Rachel's hands slipping under the fabric of his tee-shirt and sliding across his skin was acceptable, her teeth nipping on his jaw before her tongue soothed the spot over, Blaine's own hands moving even further up her skirt. If it was anyone else, he was sure he'd be having some sort of anxiety attack over this, about how they were cheating-both of them were, on people they claimed to care about. But Blaine cared about Rachel as well, knew she cared about him too, and as he brushed his fingers closer to the core of her, she shuddered lightly in his lap, and regardless of the consequences he knew he'd been wanting this for much longer than he was willing to admit.
They had to be quiet, much quieter than he could have ever expected from Rachel, but watching her come apart in his hands was one of the most incredible things Blaine had ever gotten to witness, her lips raw and red from chewing on them to keep herself silent, her body marked by Blaine's mouth as he trailed across it. Her back arched deliciously under his hands, her arms wrapped tightly around him to hold him close, and all he could think of was how much he wanted to do this again, and again, and how he definitely didn't want to let her go back to Finn, or have him go back to Kurt.
But as quickly as it had started, the moment seemed to pass, Rachel's guilt worn across her face with every moment that she snapped the buttons on her blouse, pulling her skirt back on and standing awkwardly beside his bed. "I know," he said quietly, before she could reject him. She was leaving soon anyways, just like Kurt, just like Mike, just like anyone else he had gotten close to at McKinley.
She leaned across the bed to kiss him once more, everything she couldn't say projected into it, and he appreciated it for what it was-a goodbye for them, even if it had started off as a goodbye for Kurt. "They can't know," she whispered, barely an inch from his lips, and he nodded, knowing she was ultimately right. He didn't answer her with words, instead just brought her mouth to his own one final time, his hand wrapped tight in her loose strands falling around her face, but when she finally parted from him it was with an expression of sadness, of pain, and he had no way of making it better.
When Kurt sang his solo in front of the club the next day, his own twisted way of saying 'sorry' without admitting he was wrong, and when he dragged him to couples counseling-Blaine let out what he could, the words 'I slept with Rachel' threatening to leak at every opportunity, but it would only hurt her in the long run, and he wouldn't do that to her.
Instead, he made up with Kurt, because it was easier, simpler, and the smile Rachel shot him as they all met up to sing in the auditorium one afternoon would just have to be enough for now.
