Cut the Cord

Kurt closes his eyes, but they flap open of their own accord and force him to confront the dark room around him. He never thinks of it as his room; despite having lived here for months, he still feels like a guest. It doesn’t feel like someone else’s space per se, it’s more like a hotel room, full of his belongings but not properly and permanently his.

It is particularly lacking in comfort tonight and he feels even more like a passing lodger than usual. He hasn’t felt like himself all evening to be honest, not since Blaine showed up out of nowhere—except it wasn’t out of nowhere because his dad had brought him as an intended surprise. Boy, was Kurt surprised.

The thing is, he knows he has been a complete jerk all evening—he knows that—but he really hates surprises. He likes to have complete control over every aspect of his life and whenever someone takes him by surprise, they snatch his precious control and hold it just out of his reach. Blaine always makes him feel a little like that, simply because he makes Kurt feel so much, and it’s somewhere between exhilarating and absolutely terrifying. That out-of-control feeling was amplified to scorching, uncomfortable proportions when Blaine had turned up with his father, completely and utterly uninvited and un-agreed upon.

And truth be told, whenever he spends time with Adam, no matter how innocent their interactions, it always feels horribly like betrayal; Blaine arriving like he did feels a lot like being caught in the act. Which is so, so stupid because he and Blaine aren’t together, and he and Adam are basically just friends who flirt a bit, and even if they were more, he’s not breaking any rules. Blaine is the one who cheated, not Kurt.

Right now, though, it’s not the technical specifics that he’s worried about. Really, underneath his anger at the injustice of it all, his frustration at his own feelings—and Blaine’s—really, he’s just worried that he unwittingly broke Blaine’s heart. Or, worse, that a part of him sort of meant to break it a little, needed to hurt someone the way he himself had been hurt. He’s not cruel, but he is wounded and he knows from experience that he’s an expert at lashing out just to push people away a bit, to give him some breathing room.

But Blaine—sweet, precious, kind Blaine—had flown all this way to see Kurt, had brought him painstakingly-wrapped presents in a cute little gift bag, his smile so hesitant but so genuine when Kurt had first slid open the door, and Kurt might as well have slammed it in his face. He may have meant no harm in pushing Blaine away a bit, but in the midst of his panicked self-preservation he had forgotten how fragile Blaine is. Kurt may well have just shoved him to the floor and inadvertently trampled all over him; the thought makes him feel physically sick.

His ears strain, but he can’t make out any sounds of discomfort coming from Blaine. He sort of wishes he could because he needs that reassurance that Blaine is there, that he’s alive and well and capable of feeling emotion. The loft is completely silent save for his father’s muffled snores and Kurt is going to implode. Sighing, he slides his legs out of bed and ducks through his curtain. He needs to fix this.