Awake

When Kurt opened his eyes, he knew right away that something was different, off. He held his breath and tensed, his mind trying to sort through the fog of sleep, until he rolled over in the darkness and heard the sound of soft breathing in the next room and remembered. Blaine, the doorbell ringing, his stony demeanor, the unanswered questions.

Kurt got out of bed, padded softly across the hardwood floor to the kitchen, and poured a glass of water, gulping it down and then standing in the doorway and gazing in the dim, blue, daybreak-washed light to the couch in the living room. He frowned as he observed that Blaine was lying flat on his back, his face too stiff to be asleep. Even through the darkness Kurt could see that every muscle was taught, and the Blaine he knew slept curled up on his side with his mouth parted and relaxed, not drawn into the firm line it was now.

Before Kurt could really consider it, his voice was breaking the silence, asking, "Why are you awake?" Blaine stiffened almost imperceptibly but said nothing, and Kurt took a few steps forward into the living room. "Blaine."

He sounded sterner this time, and it must have worked, because Blaine blinked once and asked, "What?" his voice clear and alert and confirming that he hadn't been sleeping any time recently.

"You're supposed to be asleep."

"So are you." There was a long, uncomfortable pause, and then Blaine sighed and answered, "My head is too full. It's like my brain doesn't have an 'off' switch."

"Want some warm milk?" Kurt found himself offering, not really expecting Blaine to accept, but trying to show that he appreciated Blaine's evident effort to be civil. "It always helps when I'm thinking too much to sleep."

"I remember."

An inexplicable wave of relief washed over Kurt as he realized that they weren't pretending that their relationship had never happened. "You do?" Kurt smiled to himself quietly, remembering their many late nights spent curled against each other with warm mugs of thick, hot milk sweetened with honey and accents of spices clutched in their hands.

"Yeah," Blaine answered, and even though his face was too obscured by the shadow of the couch's back to show it, his voice was smiling. "I normally write music when I can't sleep, but I don't have my guitar with me." Like a light being turned off, Blaine's voice went flat again at the end of his sentencing as the words broke the spell of their remembrance and grounded them both back in the present.

"You can use my piano instead; it might be a little off tune but it's good enough," Kurt offered, speaking so soon that he hardly knew what he was doing, but ready to proffer any of his belongs to Blaine if it meant delaying the return of the cold, detached side of him.

"You don't play piano." The sure, presumptuous words were out of Blaine's mouth so quickly that it was clear they'd been thoughtless, natural, and Kurt fidgeted uncomfortably as the six years separating the last time they'd really spoken grew more conspicuous than ever.

"I got it on a whim, I haven't spent enough time practicing to be able to play very well."

Blaine snorted. "I bet you just got it for décor."

"It is pretty handsome," Kurt admitted. "It deserves to be played be someone who can do it justice, want to give it a try?"

Blaine sat up, pushing the blanket off of himself and stretching out the tight muscles in his neck. "Thanks, but I'm actually in the mood for the warm milk, if that's okay?" Blaine's tone turned it into a question, and Kurt beamed, glad that the darkness in the room concealed how pleased he was.

"Sure." He turned and was heading back into the kitchen when he was surprised to see that Blaine was following him, pulling mugs out of the cupboard as if he was entirely at home. "You don't have to, I got it," Kurt assured him, a part of himself wondering why he felt such a need to treat this unexpected intrusion into his life like a real guest.

"It's fine," Blaine assured him, not quite meeting his eyes, almost as if he was shy. "It's not exactly like I'm busy."

Fifteen minutes later, the two sat on Kurt's couch with their mugs resting on the coffee table and the television quietly playing an old rerun of a Latin soap opera, the overly-dramatic voices of the actors rising and falling in swooping Spanish crescendos.

"So, you compose now?" Kurt asked, partly struggling to make conversation before the space between them could become chilled again, but his curiosity also genuinely piqued when Blaine had said he'd begun writing music.

"Not professionally, it's just a hobby. I don't play them when I perform."

"Why haven't I ever seen you playing anywhere?"

"I don't play in the fancy places you'd go to, Kurt," Blaine smirked. "These are clubs."

"You think I can't handle a club?"

"I know for a fact that you can't. Remember Scandals?"

Again Kurt was shocked by Blaine's lack of aversion to their past, but he recovered himself before his surprise could become noticeable and he chuckled, "As I recall, you were the one who got drunk."

"I'm much more capable of handling myself at a bar now," Blaine insisted, grinning.

"You keep telling yourself that."

"Come and see me perform sometime, you can see for yourself."

"I'm going to take you up on that," Kurt warned, suppressing a yawn and tipping his head against Blaine shoulder. Just as he felt Blaine relaxing into him as well, Kurt realized that, to anybody looking on, they would look appear like a couple, leaning into each other underneath a blanket in front of a television show that they weren't bothering to watch. Kurt bristled slightly at this thought and pulled away, and Blaine sat up as well and sighed almost imperceptibly, as if he'd known all along that the contentment which had formed between them was too fragile, too good, to last any length of time.

"Why are you here, Blaine?" Kurt sighed, figuring that, since the moment of normalcy had passed, there was nothing to lose in asking.

"We can talk about it later."

"We said we'd talk in the morning." Kurt nodded towards the blinds, the blue light of dawn beginning to slip between them. "It's morning now."

Blaine followed Kurt's gaze to the window with his eyes and kept them fixed stonily on the strips of light that were visible as he answered tonelessly, "Sebastian and I broke up, and I didn't have anywhere else to go."

A/N: I just couldn't resist a cliffhanger! I know where the story is going from here, so I won't keep you in suspense for too long. My school started this week, though, so please be patient with slow updates now that I'll be busier. I'll do my best with being timely.

You were all so wonderful with reviews for the last chapter! They really do motivate me to keep writing and I love the feedback, so thank you!