All Alright Chapter 2, a glee fanfic

Author Note: Chapter two! I would love it if you could take the time to review! ...That rhymed. I did not mean to do that on purpose. Okay, I'll stop talking (writing?) now. Well, not permanently, but for now. YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

Sometimes when he was laying in bed, things seemed okay. He would be caught in the middle of the rocky, nightmare ridden place that existed only in his head, where the grief of his father's death spread like the plague, and the real world where he acted like things were okay simply because, half of the time, they were okay. Kurt felt normal. But then the other half he simply pretended because it felt so wrong to be laughing one minute and sobbing the next; because it was too much to let his emotions over take him like that.

But when he was drifting between those two places, it was like he had finally reached the eye of the storm. Kurt could see himself self destructing all around, realized eventually he would have to reenter the chaos, but for the moment he felt safe. Things were quiet, and even the sound of his own heartbeat was silenced, leaving him in a state of complete, blissful isolation. Later on, when he had already been sent into his own personal hell and fought his way back to the equivalently awful real world, it would scare him how much he liked the quiet there. But he would push it away, make himself breakfast on autopilot before his senses had calmed down enough for him to focus on anything. Then he would continue on with his day, no longer thinking about his special place in between wakefulness and sleep except for perhaps in passing, because it was safer that way. Best not to get too greedy.

New Text Message

From: Kurt

I was wondering if we could get coffee sometime today?

Phone vibrating, Blaine lazily reached over to his nightstand, eyes still blurry with sleep. He groaned when he saw the time. It was ten, already? The way his classes were set up, he could afford such luxuries as sleeping in, but it wasn't something he wanted to get too used to. Going to bed at four in the morning and getting up late in the afternoon could not be healthy.

If how he was currently feeling was any indication of that, he didn't know what else would be. But he snapped out of his still drowsy state fairly quickly once he read the text message that had woken him up. Blaine rolled out of bed, quite literally, after promptly texting back his affirmation. Kurt wanted to see him. Kurt wanted to see him. Even if the last time they had met things hadn't quite felt right- not to mention Blaine had rambled on long enough to feel like he made a fool out of himself- he knew he should have expected as much. Of course things were going to be different.Kurt was different. His father, the man who meant everything to him, had died.

But some childish part of Blaine, deep inside, had hoped for something better. Blaine knew Kurt, knew how he acted when he was feeling this way. Of course, the sadness that had engulfed Kurt now was far larger than any other his ex-boyfriend had experienced, but Blaine couldn't help but think that the basics of how Kurt functioned and acted shouldn't have changed so much that he was suddenly unrecognizable to Blaine. He had the feeling that Kurt was changing, and not for the better. But at the same time, Blaine felt so guilty for thinking that. Who was he to judge? He could hardly relate, only try his best to understand something that was impossible to imagine.

He was nervous. Kurt didn't know why he was nervous, but there it was, regardless. And the anxiety tugging at his stomach just made him all that more uneasy. It wasn't that he was nervous about seeing Blaine... no, that wasn't it at all. It was that he was nervous about the questions he might be asked. Or perhaps even worse, the things Blaine would refuse to say. Because, despite his facades, sometimes he wanted to stop pretending. Sometimes, Kurt just wanted to cry. He wanted to cry and a shoulder to lean on and someone to tell him that it was okay, and that it was normal for him to be feeling like this. He wanted someone who would let him sob, someone who wouldn't let the moment pass and leave him feeling guilty for falling apart and making a mess of himself. He wanted someone who he could talk to, who wouldn't make him feel like an inconvenience.

Then, after he was done with crying and feeling sorry for himself, he wanted someone who he could laugh with. Who Kurt could tell old embarrassing stories about his dad to, and they wouldn't look at him like he had grown two heads. Kurt knew that all of his friends were just so unsure of what was okay to say, but all Kurt wanted was to talk to them again. It didn't matter if maybe they said the wrong thing, because he just wished they would say something, because the truth was Kurt just wasn't brave enough to take that first step.

He couldn't be, when he just felt unsure and uncertain all the time. Sometimes he wanted to laugh and then he wanted to cry. Sometimes he wanted to stay in bed forever because he just wasn't sure if he could face the world, and then other times he felt so happy it hurt. It was all utterly confusing and painful and indescribable in every form of the word. Everything he felt seemed wrong.

"Kurt."

He looked up, realizing he had been glaring perhaps a bit too intently at his coffee. Blaine stood in front of him, with a small grin on his face, hazel eyes sparking, and surprisingly loose- though still styled- curls falling slightly across his forehead. Despite the smile, Blaine's doubt colored his tone, and he looked to Kurt as if looking for assurance that this was okay, that they were okay. Kurt offered up his own smile: he couldn't help it. Blaine was always just so innocent and easy to read. He didn't deserve the stony indifference Kurt was feeling at the moment.

Kurt then replied in a small tone, making a gesture for the other boy to sit, "Hey."

Soon Blaine was perched on the chair across from him, and Kurt's eyes began switching between staring at the table again, and staring at Blaine. He knew it was no longer his place to let his eyes wander, but Blaine was always just so gorgeous, and combined with his confident personality and ever optimistic attitude, Kurt sometimes had to wonder how he'd ever managed to break up with him in the first place. But then things would come rushing back, and each pain Kurt felt before his father's death was all that much more acute now; piercing and sharp. The hurt that Blaine had caused him was easily tripled each time he thought about it, and the moment he was reminded of Blaine cheating on him, the pain was suddenly there. The heat of it was a fresh, angry burn, but buried underneath that was the ache where his previous wounds had never quite healed over. It was an injury you couldn't actually see, but it was apparent to anyone who cared to look past the surface. It was what made Kurt feel so uncomfortable and angry, what made him act bitter and and unlike himself. It was what made Kurt strangely, overwhelming jealous of the faceless man who was there with Blaine when Kurt was not.

"Well, don't you have anything to say?" Kurt had snapped at Blaine before realizing his own stupidity. Kurt had been the one to ask Blaine there, not the other way around. He refused to meet Blaine's gaze, feeling too stubborn to take back his own fault. Blaine had made him feel this way, not the other way around.

Blaine stuttered over his own words, his normal ease with conversation suddenly lost, "I-I, well, I just thought that..."

Sighing as he watched the other boy struggle with words, Kurt brought his gaze back up and interrupted before Blaine had a chance to go on, "Stop," He pauses, steeling himself for an apology he truly doesn't want to give, albeit knowing he should, "That wasn't fair of me. I just get frustrated." Frustrated with the fact that he still loved Blaine but felt as if he could never forgive him for what he did, to start with. And in general, just frustrated with the fact that he always felt so damn frustrated.

Blaine just nodded, and said slowly, all uncertainty of his words that had been previously soothed returning, "Of course. I understand." And Kurt had to bite his tongue to stop himself from retorting that no, he really didn't understand. He couldn't.

Instead, he held his breath long enough to regain some civility, and then said, "Blaine. I know that this is kind of strange, and I'm sorry for snapping at you, but you have to try to, uh, well... not understand, really... but at least be aware of the fact that I can't-" He took a deep breath, "-I can't forgive you. Not yet. I don't even really think I'm ready to be friends with you. It's just too hard, and with everything else going on I just don't think- we have too many memories, good and bad, for it to ever end well. We can't pretend things are fine when they aren't."

He was plenty aware of the own hypocrisy in his words.

"Kurt, I don't want to pretend things are fine. I want to fix things."

"I don't think what you did is really fixable, Blaine." The words sounded so cruel to his own ears, but they had escaped before he truly thought them through. He wanted to take them back, but he just couldn't. They were true. Or at least, they felt true. Even if sometimes Kurt imagined things were different, that Blaine and him were together, it was because they had never broken up in the first place, because Blaine had never cheated on him. Not because he had been forgiven. But that wouldn't ever be possible, because Kurt couldn't go back in time. If he could, his father would have never died, never gotten sick in the first place. Though if Burt had never passed, maybe Kurt would feel a little more like himself, be able to love the rest of the world a little more. Maybe he could forgive Blaine. But on the other side of things, if he could go back in time they would have never broken up in the first place, so the point was moot and thinking in circles like that just gave him a headache. All the what ifs and maybes hurt more than the actual reality.

And in the end, it all came back to the callous words that just slipped past his lips. The words that had caused Blaine to look like someone had ripped his heart of his chest.

In hindsight, that was probably a very accurate comparison.

Kurt tensed, waiting for the onslaught of guilt as Blaine opened and closed his mouth wordlessly. But it never came. So Kurt simply looked away, wondering how things had fallen apart so quickly. This wasn't how this was supposed to go. Kurt was supposed to let Blaine down gently, tell him that he wasn't ready for a friendship, really, but that he didn't see any reason that they couldn't be civil to each other. He was supposed to be polite and adult-like, and just charming enough to show that maybe, one day, they could be friends. He was supposed to be the things Kurt was normally, collected and calm, maybe a little too emotional, but kind, and witty enough to break any awkward pauses. But once Kurt had silently left Blaine, not being able to even muster up a goodbye, he couldn't help but think that maybe he just wasn't those things anymore. He wasn't sure which hurt mort, the fact that he could be so cruel, or the realization that the guilt had, at least momentarily, left him.

After hours of consideration and he had sufficiently wrinkled his outfit by laying in bed fully clothed, Kurt finally decided that not feeling the guilt was probably the worst part. He curled up, wrapping his arms around his knees, and closed his eyes tight. He thought of all the worst parts of himself, and laid it all bare in his mind. When Kurt finally felt that horrible gnawing pain of pure, unadulterated guilt, relief flooded though him. And he just laid there, crying so hard it sounded like he was laughing. When Rachel returned home, it took her a few moments to realize the difference, but once she did, she soon came into his room and curled up next to him, wrapping her arms around him and whispering, "Oh, honey. I know, I know, shhh."

But she didn't know. Because for the first time since that horrid day, Kurt wasn't crying because of his father. Kurt was crying because of himself, because he was afraid of the person he was turning into.

"Are you going to tell me what's wrong, or are you going to continue watching depressing movies by yourself?"

"I don't want to talk, Eric." Blaine wanted to lay on the couch and pity himself until his pity turned to self hatred and then to pity again, until he was finally tired enough to go to sleep. He felt horrible. Absolutely and utterly horrible, like all his emotions had finally tangled together into a writhing mass of illness, making him nauseous and giving him a throbbing headache. Each beat of his heart was like a cannon in his brain, reminding him again and again what a horrible person he was.

"Come on, Blaine. You'll feel better if you do." His roommate was always so optimistic, always looking on the bright side. Eric always saw things like they were on a one way street: there was only right or wrong and no other way about it. Blaine, on the other hand, felt like he was in the middle of an eight lane highway, trying to dodge oncoming horrors and just trying to get to where he wanted unscathed.

Normally, Eric's positive attitude towards life made him feel better. Right now all he felt was resentful and angry, "Leave me alone, Eric. I don't want fucking talk." He didn't put any energy behind the words, hoping they would be harsh alone enough alone to convey his message.

"Fine then." The sharp reply from his normally kind friend let him know how much Blaine's words had hurt him. Blaine just pulled a pillow over his head, his headache only getting worse.