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Blaine has never been very good with anger. His family doesn't fight, not really, and at school he learned early on that if you're small for your age and gay, you use charm, or you run. He'd learned to box at Dalton, and that had helped, but still sometimes the anger he tried to move past or hide from found him anyway, and usually at the worst possible time. It blew up at Cooper. At Sam. At himself. At Kurt.
During that last fight, he’d gotten really, really angry. A fire too red to see through had filled his brain, and his chest was tight, like he was going to explode of out of his skin. When he’d told Kurt that he would never forgive him for breaking off their engagement, he’d meant it. He’d meant it when he packed a bag and moved out. He stayed furious, too: when Elliott came to see him, cautiously reassuring that he wasn’t taking sides but just wanted to help his friends, Blaine had slammed the door in his face.
The anger had sustained him for a good long time, but when it faded, it was like always: it morphed into depression. He doesn’t think he knows how to have one without the other. He’d slept in, skipped classes, and neglected his homework. Most days even showering felt like too much. When Carmen told him to take some time off to “reconsider his commitment to his educational goals,” he wasn’t even surprised.
It’s taken time to get past it, to not have all of his days be rage or tears. Dalton has helped. So has Dave. His life has been good, and rich, and his own in a way it hasn’t been since he stopped to help a lost boy on a staircase.
So of course that’s when Kurt comes back to town.
Kurt sits across from Blaine at Scandals and tells him that he wants him back. Kurt is beautiful and so much less guarded than Blaine has seen him in a long, long time. But he doesn’t actually say that he’s sorry. Blaine ends up glad that he let Dave join them, even though he knows it’s unfair to Kurt to spring the news on him this way. Dave is dry land, and Blaine holds on for dear life.
It’s a couple of days later, after everything with Jane explodes, that Blaine realizes he may still actually be kind of angry.
“He just had to take her, didn’t he,” he fumes to his therapist. “That’s what he does. He snipes and he judges, and he takes things from me.”
His therapist crosses his legs and looks over at Blaine like he’s said something really deep. “That’s interesting. What do you think that Kurt took from you?”
“Other than my whole life?” Blaine can barely breathe around the enormity of it. “My whole stupid life, that I was going to spend with him? My home, my future?”
His therapist waits until he’s calm again before he asks, “Do you feel like you have a life now?”
“I...” Blaine hasn’t really thought about it, but he does. Sure, the Warbler’s real coach won’t be on sabbatical forever, but multiple drug resistant tuberculosis takes a long time to get over: he’s got job for the whole school year, probably, if he wants it. He’s got a boyfriend who’s sweet and affectionate, and he’s got his music. It feels so good to sing again.
“Maybe,” says his therapist, “there are doors that you and Kurt closed when you broke up. But there are all sorts of possibilities for the future as well. Nothing’s set in stone, Blaine. You'll find your new path.”
But Blaine knows there's a part of him that Kurt took and hasn't given back, knows it from the shape of the wound that it left.
Kurt is everywhere: at the sheet music store, at the mall, sitting in his father’s car waiting for the light to change. His ghost appears at coffee shops and in the quiet nooks and corners of Dalton, until Blaine's head is almost as full of Kurt as it was the day he left New York. But Blaine can’t go backward, only forward. He can’t bear the idea of being so destroyed again.
It’s an unusually cold day when he comes out to the faculty parking lot and finds Jane Hayward sitting on the hood of his car. She looks less fragile in street clothes than she had in her uniform.
“I talked to Ms. Berry and Mr. Hummel,” she tells him. “I want you to know they had nothing to do with my decision.”
“Right.” The bitterness wells up in the back of his throat again. “It’s good you’re all a united front –”
“It’s not like that,” she says. ““Mr. Hummel said — he said you threatened to quit your job over me?”
Blaine frowns. “I said I would, didn’t I?”
“People say things all the time,” Jane replies. “You didn’t have to go through with it.”
“It was the right thing to do,” Blaine says. “I know we would have won, too. Eventually. You could have stayed.”
She nods. “I know. But I had to make my decision for myself, and what I need.”
“Well,” he mutters almost to himself, “you’re certainly in the right place now to learn how to do that.” He moves toward the car door, fishing the keys out of his messenger bag.
“Mr. Hummel,” Jane says. “Was he really a Dalton boy?”
Blaine sees Kurt in his Dalton uniform, smiling so sweetly. “For a little while,” he says. He unlocks the door.
Jane hops off the car. “Well, I think it’s great you’re still friends,” she says. “I really hope my decision doesn’t come between you.”
"I wouldn't worry about that," Blaine says.
When Dave asks him to move in, he says yes.
*****
Blaine worries at first that living with Dave will be like living with Kurt, with never enough room to truly relax and feel at home. But Dave is easy to live with: he's not picky, he's not messy, and he's so grateful for what they have together. It's better than living with Kurt or than living at home. Blaine didn’t even know how stressed he was until suddenly he wasn’t. Sure, things were going well even before they moved in together, but now it’s better: the Warblers’ dance moves get crisper, he’s practicing his own music more, and he’s rebuilding his other relationships too. Even his relationship with Kurt, sort of. When he sits down in the McKinley auditorium, he’s just planning to take a moment to himself to regroup before he goes off to look for Rachel and Sam. But as soon as Kurt asks what’s wrong, Blaine tells him, and it feels natural to talk.
Kurt knows how to handle Sue Sylvester. Kurt is reassuring. Kurt is... dating someone else, which is like a punch, but it’s one Blaine can defend against. Kurt’s his own man too, and it’s great he’s getting out there. Maybe he can find someone who can live up to his standards.
Blaine doesn’t think about it much. He’s got a choir to run and a bunch of competitive white-collar parents who call him weekly to ask about their boys’ chances at a prize. He’s glad he and Kurt can be friends again; they were always good as friends. But he’s standing on his own two feet now, and better and stronger than he’s been in a long time. At Invitationals, it feels natural to stand up to Rachel’s crazy sense of entitlement without worrying what Kurt will say later. Kurt even looks sort of proud of him for it.
Then they’re trapped in Sue’s crazy fake elevator, and everything changes.
They still can’t work together -- they can’t even figure out how to climb to the emergency exit door without a shouting fight, and then the stupid thing is locked from the outside anyway. But when they decide to try to wait it out, something changes. They eat, they nap, they talk, and then somehow, they uncoil. Kurt tells him about his latest sewing project, and Blaine tells Kurt about Agent Carter. They compare notes on being the coach as opposed to part of the choir. They play games.
“Okay, if I was an ironic rapper, this would be my name.”
The idea of Kurt, who still instinctively claps on the one and three, as any sort of rapper is charmingly ridiculous, but he’s so sincere about it.
“We drank it when we went ice skating in Bryant Park.”
“Hot chocolate.” Blaine can’t help smiling. “That would be your ironic rapper name?”
“Good one,” Kurt says, grinning up at the ceiling. “Good job.”
“You’d be MC Hot Chocolate?”
“MC Hot Chocolate,” Kurt confirms. “Oh, the life I never lived.”
That night in Bryant Park, the one time they skated there, they’d laughed easily like this together, and pieces of Blaine’s broken heart had healed. He’d never wanted it to end: the lights, the music, and Kurt, so hesitant but also graceful across the ice. It was the first time Blaine had really let himself believe that maybe they could be forever again. It’s too hard to remember it now.
When it’s his turn, Kurt picks ice cream. “Oh,” Blaine says. “Dave eats this all the time. Like, he... a little too much, if you ask me.”
Kurt moves away to sit in a corner, his knees up protectively in front of himself. “It’s so hot in here, I think I’m going to be sick.”
Blaine knows exactly why he mentioned Dave. He turns away.
*****
When the choice is to kiss Kurt or die from an overdose of aerosolized boner medicine, it’s an easy choice. But it’s still not easy to do.
“On the count of three,” Kurt says, and as the puppet reaches three, Kurt leans into him determinedly, and they kiss.
Kissing Kurt is like -- it’s like nothing else. Blaine’s hand comes up by instinct to cradle Kurt’s head, and they fall into each other. Or Blaine falls. Kurt’s hand is on his shoulder, and Blaine wants so much more than that: Kurt’s clever fingers unbuttoning his shirt; Kurt’s hands on his body, tracing over the lines of his shape. Kurt, kissing him and kissing him till neither of them can breathe. It’s possible Blaine isn’t as over Kurt as he’d thought.
When they pull apart, Blaine tries not to be obvious about how hard his heart is pounding. Kurt is so silent and remote, so much an island to himself. He can handle this, even if Blaine can’t. Everything about Blaine wants to kiss him again, but the elevator bell dings, and the doors open, and the real world rushes back in. They have jobs, and kids relying on them, and the lives they’ve chosen apart from each other. They run towards it all, together.
*****
That night, Blaine doesn’t go to bed. Dave’s already asleep when he gets home, so he sits for a while on the couch, staring blankly at SportsCenter, and eventually lies down where he is to try to rest. The taste of Kurt’s lips still buzzes on his mouth as he dozes off.
In the morning, Dave bumbles around the kitchen, slamming cupboard doors shut and rattling the coffee pot. He even cracks eggs for breakfast loudly.
“Can you not?” Blaine asks, swinging his legs around to sit up.
“Hey, babe. Can I what?”
Blaine stifles an irritated sigh. “Nothing. How are you?”
“I’m good.” Dave smiles. “I didn’t hear you come in. Everything went well?”
“It was a disaster,” Blaine says. “Not that you noticed.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Dave looks so innocent, like he doesn’t know what he’s done. “You missed my first event as Warbler coach. You didn’t even notice that I didn’t come home night before last. And now you make noise in the kitchen when I’m trying to sleep.”
“Whoa, hold on,” says Dave. “You said you might crash at Sam’s if it went too late.”
“I said I’d let you know.”
“You left your phone here.” Dave holds it up, still attached to its charger in the kitchen. The battery’s probably damaged for good now.
“God,” Blaine grits. “I could be dead in an alley, and you wouldn’t notice.”
“What’s going on, Blaine?”
Dave sounds so patronizing and calm, and it just makes Blaine more furious. “You need me to explain?”
“Yeah, actually, I do. Because whatever you’re mad about, I don’t think it’s me.”
Blaine slams his way into the bathroom for a shower. He stays in there until he hears Dave leave.
*****
There’s a message from Kurt on his phone: I think we should confront Sue. Are you free at lunch?
On the drive over to McKinley, Blaine thinks about what he’d want to say to Principal Sylvester. You don’t get to choose, he thought. We chose. We chose to end it. You don’t get to make me go through that again.
He really thought he was past this: the anger and the sadness and the not knowing what to feel. He thought he was better. But one kiss from Kurt, and all that work is gone. All he can think about is how good it feels to kiss Kurt. How much he wants to do it again. He texts Dave: I’m sorry. He doesn’t say for what.
Kurt is waiting for him in the McKinley parking lot, wearing a jacket of perfect sky blue. “Oh, good,” he says. “You’re here early. That give us time to strategize.”
“Strategize?”
“Well, I have some talking points, but you should have a say in how we approach this.” Kurt shrugs. “What do you think?”
This is not the Kurt that Blaine is used to, the Kurt with rules for how things are done and a position in every argument.
“Um,” Blaine says. “It’s a good question. I think... well, maybe. Technically, you know, it was kidnapping.”
Kurt looks confused, but then his face clears. “Kidnapping? Oh. She did hold us against our will. And I guess she wanted a ransom.” He looks down quickly, but Blaine catches the hint of blush against his cheeks.
“It’s a really serious crime. She would go to jail for years,” Blaine says.
“That’s true,” Kurt says. He looks at Blaine again. “If there’s one thing I can actually imagining scaring Sue Sylvester, it’s the threat of real prison time. She’d be separated from her daughter, and she looks terrible in orange. Such a good idea. Thank you.”
Blaine blinks. “Oh. Sure. Of course.”
He thinks that’s it, that they’ll go into the school now and confront Sue in her office, but Kurt shows no sign of moving. Kurt shifts his weight awkwardly, like he doesn’t know what to do. For once, Blaine doesn’t rescue him. He waits.
“I also want to thank you,” Kurt says. “For... for the elevator. I don’t think I could have managed in there alone. You always make me feel safe.”
Blaine can’t speak. He doesn’t know what he would say if he could. The idea that he makes Kurt feel safe? That Kurt could still need him the way he used to? It’s too much to wrap his mind around all at once. He feels lightheaded with happiness.
“Well,” Kurt says at last. “We should go in.”
“Yeah,” Blaine says. “Absolutely. You should — you should talk to her, though. You’re good at that.”
This time, Kurt doesn’t hide the blush. “Okay.” He reaches out and gently tweaks Blaine’s bowtie. “You want that nice and even.”
“I do,” Blaine says.
It’s not a lot, but it’s a start.