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After another unproductive session of marriage counselling they were attempting to work together on dinner like the counsellor suggested. Kurt was chopping the vegetables with unwarranted aggressiveness. He was trying to bring up divorce again without actually saying the word. Blaine was pretending not to get the hint.
"I just mean, it feels so crowded like this. Don't you think it'd be easier if we weren't - stuck breathing down each other's necks?"
Blaine continued to stir the soup with a calmness he did not feel. "If you really need the space we could always look at bigger apartments."
This was a bit egregious. There was a frigid and judgemental silence during which Kurt was probably thinking up some cutting retort. Blaine waited.
Kurt dramatically stopped chopping. There it was. The knife thudded to the cutting board to punctuate his frustration. "You're doing it again. Dr. Gallagher said you avoid difficult topics because you can't accept that things aren't as perfect as you pretend they are. You know what I mean. You're doing this on purpose. Stop."
"Then say it. Tell me what you want from me." Blaine turned away from the stove and saw that Kurt had abandoned the vegetables and was staring at him witheringly. So he relished it when he said, "Tell me you want a divorce."
He saw Kurt's expression change at the word "divorce,” almost a flinch, surprisingly a little guilty. It was the guilt that did it. It didn't matter if Kurt was sorry if he was going to do it anyway.
"I love you," Blaine said, to hurt him. "I have and I did and I will love you. Probably more than you love me."
"That's not true," Kurt started to say, but Blaine talked over him, vehement like he hadn’t been at the counsellor’s office, where he’d sulked in silence. His voice was starting to go thick with tears but he couldn’t stop. “You still haven't said it. It's not hard. Haven't you always said you’re not a coward? If you really don’t - if you don’t love me anymore why don’t you - ?”
The rest was lost in a fierce kiss. Kurt had closed the distance between them in one step and pressed their mouths together, inelegantly. Their teeth kind of clacked and Blaine was reminded of their teenage overtures with their friends on the other side of a doorway.
But they were alone. Kurt put a hand on Blaine’s jaw and adjusted the angle and then it was good, as good as ever, good like he’d almost forgotten. Blaine kissed back like he knew he always would, even if it hurt him to do it, just to take what he could get. Kurt’s eyes were just as furious as they had been moments earlier and he stared Blaine down even as his fingers cupped Blaine’s cheek with heartbreaking gentleness. There was something imploring in it, a message he was trying to kiss into him, but Blaine didn’t know what it was.
It was overwhelming. Blaine shuddered with a sob that was never realized and Kurt kissed him through it, smothered it with his tongue, and when the tears finally escaped Kurt didn’t move away even though he probably had things to say about how the salt was terrible for his skin.
They were interrupted by the hiss of the soup boiling over. Kurt cursed and Blaine rushed to turn off the stove and then the only sound was the drip of the soup on the floor.
They looked at each other. The soup dripped steadily. Without knowing who started it they burst into hysterical giggles.
“Sorry,” Kurt said through his laughter. “It’s my fault - I distracted you.”
“No - I salted it too much anyway.” A pause. “On purpose. I was mad at you.”
“That’s stupid. You’d have to eat it too, you know.”
“Oh my god, I know.”
And they were off again. When the laughter left them Blaine went to get a rag to mop up the spill.
Kurt followed him into the hallway. “It’s not that I - it’s hard for me to say because - “
The hostility all day left Blaine exhausted. The fatigue made him honest. “If you really wanted a divorce I’d let you. I just don’t want you to want it.”
“That’s the problem,” Kurt said, sounding upset again. “I wanted you to want it. So you’d give up on me and prove me right.”
Blaine turned to look at him. Kurt was soft-eyed and vulnerable in the bad lighting. There was the same imploring look from earlier, only Blaine was starting to understand what it said. It spoke of an insecurity so sharp it turned in on itself, and alongside that a question that wanted to be answered without being asked.
Blaine stepped forward and hugged him. It had been a while but they slipped into the familiar posture, Blaine’s face tucked into Kurt’s neck, Kurt’s arms coming to rest on his back. He could feel Kurt’s ribcage expanding with his breaths, Kurt’s heartbeat against his chest.
“I’m never giving up on you,” he said into Kurt’s shoulder. Kurt held him tighter in response. It was enough.