Title: Talk It Out

Fandom: Glee

Paring: Klaine

Rating: G

Notes: This takes place just after the end of season 3's first episode, "The Purple Piano Project." I feel like Kurt and Blaine's storyline needed a little bit of closure. Blaine's transfer seemed to sudden for it to have been entirely for Kurt's sake. Therefore, I give you this:

Kurt's hands worked worryingly at the lid of his coffee cup, threatening to shred it past any semblance of usefulness. Blaine was running late for their date and Kurt, left alone with his thoughts, was floundering. He had hoped that after the glee club's excellent showing during their competition season last year and Karofsky's change of heart, the school might welcome its performing arts group with a warmer reception than it had in the past.

Judging by the piano bonfire, he had misjudged almost catastrophically. And while he could hardly blame Finn for his frosty reaction, he also felt incredibly guilty for exposing Blaine to that kind of animosity. After all, whatever his boyfriend might protest to the contrary, he had only come to McKinley because Kurt all but begged him to. And as wonderful as it felt to have his boyfriend out of uniform and around him all the time, reactions like Finn's, however well-deserved, could sour their relationship like week old milk.

He had wanted his senior year to be perfect, but now, with Blaine at his school, he only felt incredibly selfish and a little sad. Blaine was a star, a performer with a hunger for center stage and he had given that up, at least in part, to transfer to a school where he might only get duet and background parts. Just so he could be with his boyfriend.

Kurt was so lost in his miserable ponderings that by the time Blaine arrive, purchased his coffee and sat down across the table, Kurt still had not registered his boyfriend's presence. It took Blaine reaching across the table and rescuing the mangled lid from Kurt's moving fingers to pull his boyfriend out of his revere.

"What's wrong?" Blaine asked, all comfort and confusion and everything Kurt could barely stand to see on his boyfriend's face at the moment.

Something in his expression must have given him further away, because Blaine reached across the table and threaded their fingers together, as though to keep Kurt from leaping to his feet and running away.

"Are you happy?" Kurt asked, making minimal eye contact and ignoring the pointedly exasperated look Blaine always shot him when he answered a question with another question.

"Of course I'm happy," Blaine answered. "I'm with you, I have coffee-"

"Not right now," Kurt interjected. "At McKinley. Are you happy there?"

"I suppose," Blaine said, still smiling, "I mean, it's been two days, so I still have a lot of settling in to do, but the people seem cool and I like my classes."

"And in glee club?"

"Are you seriously asking me how happy I am in a musical extracurricular club? Come on Kurt, what's really bugging you?"

"It's just," Kurt began, looking anywhere but Blaine's face, "I feel like I strong-armed you into transferring and if anything makes you miserable it will be my fault because if it weren't for me you would be happily leading the Dalton Warblers through another standout season."

"And instead I've signed on with the group that's going to win nationals," Blain joked. "Poor me. Seriously Kurt, I think I'll be happy here. And I don't live my life for the spotlight. It won't kill me to stand in back and harmonize with you while Rachel throws herself around the stage trying to make Finn's dancing look socially acceptable."

Kurt was looking at him now, although he hardly appeared comforted by Blaine's lighthearted response.

"What happens if something does upset you though? Even if you're happy right now, when something goes wrong all it will do is strain our relationship and I don't want that kind of baggage."

Blaine laughed, a small chuckle bubbling up from his throat. "When you're morbid streak hits, it hits hard," he told Kurt. "Everything between us probably won't go smoothly forever, so don't fret about things you can't control. Let's enjoy us while we're young and prefect and infallible. Also, I didn't transfer for you."

Kurt shot him a scandalized look and opened his mouth in a soundless question.

"I didn't transfer just for you," Blaine amended, raising his free hand. "I transferred for me. Last year, when you came back after everything Karofsky did to you, I was so proud. I was scared too, that someone would hurt you, but Kurt you have no idea how brave you were. I want to show myself that I can be that brave.

I came back as much for me as I came for you. When I let bullies chase me out of my old high school, I lost respect for myself and all the solos the Warblers could give me never made up for that single seed of inadequacy. I need to know that I can handle high school on my own terms, not by pretending to be something I'm not."

His grip on Kurt's had had become almost bruising as he spoke, but Kurt hardly noticed. He felt as though he was drowning in the intensity of Blaine's gaze as the other's eyes bored into his own. The other customers were watching them now, but he could hardly feel their curious looks over the emotion in his boyfriend's stare.

"Thank you," was all he could think to say. "You gave me the courage to come back."

"And you inspired me," Blaine returned. "I might have spent the rest of my life looking for the bravery I lost at my old school. Instead I found you."

Suddenly Kurt wanted to be anywhere but there, under the scrutiny of dozens of strangers. Tugging their joined hands, he pulled Blaine up and towards the door. "I feel like a walk," he said, simply.

"And maybe a duet in the park," Blaine joked, throwing him a sidelong wink.

"You know me too well."

"Sometimes," Blaine said, with a loving look in his boyfriend's direction, "it feels like I was born to know you best."