This has kind of become my break project. It's going in weird driections, I'm basically making it up as I go along, but apparently y'all like it so I'll keep going. Enjoy!

Hangover.

Dry mouth, throbbing pulsing pounding ache in his head, creaky joints, nausea permanently rolling in his stomach, gummy eyes, blotchy skin, matted hair, breath that could kill weeds, constant bursts of pain and dull twinges from last night's injuries, dirty fingernails, and above all, a never-ending streak of humiliation and guilt squeezing and choking his brain like an overly tight pair of mental Spanx.

In conclusion, hangover.

Kurt swishes water around in his mouth and then spits it back into the bathroom sink. Even the sensation of liquid anywhere near his throat makes his stomach heave, and he groans miserably as he leans forward over the sink and prays for the barfing to stay away and not come back. It's all he's been doing for the last five minutes, and he's not sure he can handle another round.

Ten minutes ago, he woke up in his own bathroom, something he fuzzily believes he should thank Finn for—of the memories that he hasn't repressed or lost track of from after the fight with Sebastian, one of them includes Finn's arm around his shoulders and the rumble of the pickup truck as it turned a corner in Wes' suburb. But Kurt is trying to not think about Wes, or that house, or Sebastian or Tina or Santana, or Blaine, especially not Blaine, because if he thinks about any of that he's going to start sobbing and then the last vestiges of his dignity are out the window.

Did it really happen? Did he really attack Sebastian, knee him in the face, headbutt him? Did he really let those words of Sebastian's—half-drunk, slurred, plucked from some horribly insecure and vindictive place in his soul that Kurt (whether he wants to admit it or not) can relate to—turn him into a screaming, crazed wreck? And in front of all his friends, the group of people who have given him families in the very worst, loneliest moments of his life? Did he really put them all through that?

The red marks on his neck tingle, and Kurt raises a hand to gently run his fingers over the tender new scabs that have formed where Sebastian scratched him. Yeah, he really did.

Kurt staggers out of his bathroom and throws himself down on the bed, which turns out to be really stupid of him because his stomach sloshes and cramps and a second later he's back in the bathroom, heaving the last of the contents of his digestive system into the toilet. After washing his mouth out with more water and forcing himself to clean up the mess, Kurt leaves the bathroom again and this time lowers himself onto the bed with the utmost of care and caution.

Bzzzzzzz. There goes his phone again, reminding him that he has over twenty text messages, all of them from New Directions and Warblers, saying god knows what that Kurt can't bring himself to read yet. If they're nice to him, it'll make him feel awful; if they yell at him, it'll make him feel awful. Awful is already snuggling close to Kurt like an insistent pet, and he doesn't want to pull it even closer.

Kurt closes his eyes and wraps his bathrobe a little tighter around him. Sebastian's face stares back at him from behind his eyelids. Kurt can't even remember everything Sebastian said to him last night; he can only remember how angry it made him. Sebastian's tone has stuck with him, though—cold, vengeful, somehow more serious and more threatening than anything Kurt has ever heard from him before. Around Blaine and the Warblers and Lima Bean patrons, Sebastian is the very model of a charming and confident teenage boy, who maybe comes on a bit strong but how can you blame him, he's fabulous; around Kurt, the claws come out and the cheeky grin drops a couple notches, but Sebastian is still Sebastian, still slippery-tongued and cool-calm-collected even when he and Kurt are sniping back and forth. The Sebastian from last night was undone by booze, his guard down, and somehow Kurt had managed to coax something dangerous out from underneath the smirk and the simper. Maybe it was walking in on him and Blaine earlier, maybe it was the party itself, maybe it was just the wrong moment and the wrong place and the wrong everything, but Sebastian had left an iron gate unlocked and Kurt had gotten to see where he lived inside himself, the place where rage bloomed and festered before it was processed into winks and snide comments and ocular blowjobs.

Oh god, why, Kurt thinks to himself, and carefully rolls over onto his stomach. He really really really does not want to feel bad for Sebastian, but he can't help himself: as angry as that horrible coldness and the cruelty of Sebastian's words had made him, Kurt knew then and knows now what a terrified little pretender looks like, having learned from years of looking in the mirror what self-hatred and paralyzing insecurity can do to a person. He lost it last night, took the easy route of smashing Sebastian's face in and hating him with savage enjoyment when it would have been so much less satisfying and so much more mature (what Tina called "acting like a grownup") to use that moment of vulnerability, Sebastian's fury out in full display, to get inside and find a sensitive spot and poke him there—make Sebastian self-aware in a totally new way and let him know that Kurt saw him. Kurt saw what was dark and angry and mindlessly frightened underneath Sebastian's skin, and he wasn't going to forget it, and if Sebastian hated him even more for it then so be it but maybe he wouldn't, maybe—maybe—

I'm on the EDGE—of gloryyyyyyyyy—and I'm hangin' on a moment of truuuuuuuth—

Oh god, someone's calling him, this isn't just a text he can ignore forever and please please please don't be Blaine Kurt prays with all the spirituality he possesses (which is none, but it was a reflex request) as he reaches over and paws across the bedside table until his fingers wrap around his iPhone. One glance at the caller and his heart does a weird kind of pirouette-double-flip because it's not Blaine or Wes or Rachel, it's Puck, which is a relief but also extremely strange. Puck has called Kurt twice before in his life, once during sophomore year when he called Kurt a cocksucker and laughed drunkenly into the phone until Kurt hung up, and then last year when he needed advice on what to wear to his court hearing and Kurt spent twenty minutes talking him out of a plaid secondhand-suit and saddle shoes. Getting a good-morning call from Puck after last night isn't exactly kosher, but Kurt still answers, because he knows it has to begin sooner or later.

"Hello?"

"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, Warblers and Warblettes, put your hands together for Hummel! The! Destroyeeeeeeeeer!" Puck roars into the phone, and Kurt's head gives a sharp throb of pain as he jerks the phone away from his ear and listens to Puck blowing hard into the speaker, possibly to imitate the noise of a cheering crowd. "He's hot! He's heavy! And he's gonna kick your ass, so buckle up and put your tap shoes on, because Hummel the Destroyer is going to end your wooooooooorld!"

"Hi, Puck," Kurt says wearily, and Puck laughs like a maniac for a good fifteen seconds before there's a sudden commotion on his end and Kurt hears "Hey, stoppit, no fair!" and then Mercedes is speaking to him, exasperation sharpening her tone like a razor.

"Kurt, I am really really sorry, Puck just woke us all up and I think he's still drunk from last night, he was playing Guitar Hero at like six a.m."

"S'okay," Kurt mumbles, bringing the phone back to his ear. "Is he at your house?"

"No, we're both at Artie's. So's Quinn and Sam. Everyone was kind of in a hurry to leave after—um—"

Oh. Yay. They're going to get right to the point, then.

"I'm sorry about it, Mercedes." Kurt's voice is flat and insincere and he doesn't know why, because all he's feeling is truly and deeply sorry for what he inflicted on everyone last night. Mercedes sighs, and in the background Kurt can hear Puck singing a Bob Dylan tune.

"It's not me you need to apologize to, Kurt. Not me, not that Sebastian guy, not even Tina."

"Oh god, Tina…" Kurt moans, and Mercedes clucks at him.

"Hey, she said her piece. You and I know she was right about all of that shit, and I don't know how's she kept her mouth shut for so long, because I love her but I never knew Tina to keep quiet about anything once she dropped the phony stutter. But she said it, is the point, and I'm sure that whatever went down between you and Sebastian involved a lot of talking from both of y'all."

"If you heard what—"

"Kurt, I don't wanna hear it. This isn't about me or anyone else at the party, and don't let them try to make it about them if they, and by they I mean Santana, do their best to guilt you or whatever. It's also not about the beef you and that Warbler obviously have. It's about two people right now."

"Two people?" Kurt asks, knowing what she's going to say, knowing that she's right, knowing that the Process of Suck is about to begin.

"Yup. That guy Wes, whose house we were at, and Blaine, baby. You have to make it okay with them before anyone else."

Kurt lies there, phone glued to his ear, tears threatening to prick their way out from under his eyelids and slide down his cheeks. Mercedes is silent for a moment, Puck's drunken singing the only sound on the line.

"I didn't mean to," Kurt whispers hoarsely. Mercedes hums a little in sympathy.

"I know, honey. Doesn't change what happened, though." Another slight pause, this one much more loaded. "Kurt…you didn't see his face when Finn was pulling you over to the truck. You're his world and you kind of melted down last night. It hit him pretty hard."

"Oh god, I know," Kurt says shakily, and presses a hand over his eyes. Puck is singing something different now, sounds a little like Beyonce. "And about what happened before, in the coat room, I just—I was drunk, I was stupid, I fucked it all up—"

"Yeah, see, that wasn't so bad," Mercedes says with a mischievous smile in her voice. "That wasn't a meltdown, even though it was definitely hot enough to melt something, oh baby."

Kurt laughs before he can stop himself. God, he misses Mercedes, she can make him laugh when the world is so very screwed up and horrible, he needs her back in his life.

"I'm glad you enjoyed the show," he says, hiccupping a little, and Mercedes giggles.

"You're a star at everything you try, Kurt." There's silence again after she speaks, and the smile leaves Kurt's face as his heart begins to sink back down into his stomach. "Go call them, babe. Or get them on IM, but don't you dare text. Talk this out and say you're sorry and no matter how pissed off they get, you stand there and take it, okay?"

"Because I owe them."

"Because you owe them," she says with satisfaction, having passed on the whole of her wisdom. Kurt nods, even though she can't see him, and starts to reach for the END button, but he can't hit it quite yet.

"Mercedes, I…I love him. Like, a lot," he murmurs. Mercedes stays quiet. "This thing with Sebastian, he—it's all about how he wants Blaine, except it isn't, I don't know what it is but I can't lose Blaine over it. I can't lose him over one stupid party and one really stupid fight." More silence. Kurt's heart is pounding. "Can I?"

"I don't know, Kurt," Mercedes says softly, and he knows she's being honest even though she doesn't want to be. "All you can do is try and make things better. You love Blaine, well baby, he loves you so much it's crazy. A blind person could see that. Whatever happens, that's there, and I—that's the kind of thing I would trust in. If I were you. True love ain't no joke."

Kurt wants to hug her so much right now. "Thanks, Mercedes. I love you too, okay?"

"Love you right back, Hummel. Now stop talking to me and get going with all the sorry."

The line goes dead.