Chapter 1:

The first time that Blaine kissed Kurt, it was everything that Kurt had ever imagined that a first kiss should be. Standing in the echoing darkness of Dalton's auditorium, the spotlights glittering like stars in the sky, the scene couldn't have been more perfect if Kurt had orchestrated it himself…which he hadn't, not really, though he certainly suspected that Blaine may have had a hand in engineering the situation. Blaine was warm, slow and tender, and he tasted like spearmint mouthwash - exactly as Kurt had known that he would. Afterwards, when they pulled reluctantly apart, Kurt had watched in a daze as Blaine had smiled lovingly and raised Kurt's hand to his mouth for a final, chastely chivalrous kiss.

Kurt had let out a breath that he hadn't realised that he was holding, prompting Blaine to quirk his eyebrows upward teasingly.

"You okay, Kurt?"

Kurt had swallowed down, struggling to contain the swell of joy that had momentarily tightened his throat. "I am so, so much better than okay," he had murmured dreamily. "That was…"

"Amazing?" Blaine interjected, his expression as serenely confident as ever. There had been no trace of vanity or arrogance in his choice of descriptive - just matter-of-fact self-assurance that what he spoke was the truth.

Kurt had found himself nodding in agreement, his gaze steady as his eyes met Blaine's.

"Yeah. Amazing."

And it had been amazing - there was no doubt about that - which is why Kurt found himself completely at a loss to explain why it was not Blaine's kiss that kept him awake in the long, empty stretches of the night, but Dave Karofsky's.

Dave Karofsky. The selfsame Dave Karofsky that had made it his mission to make Kurt's life a misery for over a year now. Dave Karofsky who emanated homophobia and good old fashioned American bigotry from every pore of his being. Dave Karofsky who had stunned him with a kiss that was as unwelcome as it was unexpected - a kiss that, for all his attempts to forget and move on, felt as though it had been permanently grafted onto his consciousness, like a tattoo on his brain. Night after night, Kurt found himself replaying the scene in the locker-room over again, struggling even now to grasp at exactly what point the universe had turned completely upside down and Karofsky had become gay.

It both annoyed and disturbed him how completely Karofsky's kiss had come to dominate his thoughts. After so many years of aching loneliness, Kurt finally had a boyfriend - a really hot boyfriend, as it happened - and yet instead of being able to drift off to sleep with memories of Blaine running through his mind, all he could think about was Karofsky. Big, dumb sweaty Karofsky. And he couldn't for the life of him understand why.

In truth, looked at objectively, the incident with Karofsky did not compare favourably to his kiss with Blaine. Where Blaine had tasted like spearmint mouthwash, Karofsky had tasted like bubble-gum and cafeteria meatloaf. The locker-room had stunk of perspiring bodies and cheap deodorant, and Karofsky's palms had been sweating as they gripped the side of Kurt's face. All in all, as far as romantic overtures went, the whole thing had been an impulsive, fumbling disaster on Karofsky's behalf.

And yet…

The memory of Karofsky's mouth crushed forcefully against his own - hot and rough and desperate - made Kurt's stomach twist in knots whenever he thought about it. He remembered the heat in Karofsky's eyes as he'd moved in for that second kiss, and it made Kurt ache in a way that he didn't care to analyse too deeply. It was raw, and it was ugly in a way that Kurt had not realised that a kiss could be, and yet it had sparked an unwelcome echo of response from the darker corners of Kurt's mind. And always the same question burned through his mind, hour after lonely hour…

…Just what would have happened if Kurt hadn't pulled away?

Kurt was sitting at a window booth in Starbucks when Mercedes found him. Staring pensively out at the snow-covered side-walk, he was entirely unaware of her approach until an extra-large mocha chino was slammed angrily down on the table in front of him, causing scalding hot coffee to jump out of the styrofoam cup and onto his sweater.

"Hey!" Kurt jumped, startled from his reverie, and turned to find Mercedes Jones glaring accusingly down at him.

"Don't 'hey' me, Princess," she snapped, "I've been trying to call you for days. You never answer your cell anymore. What gives?"

Kurt sighed and began to gingerly wipe at his stained front with a paper napkin. "Okay, first of all, this sweater? Prada. Mess with it again and I'm going to have a meltdown of Britney Spears proportions. Secondly, the Warblers have been working overtime on the set lists for Regionals, and I've been put in charge of choreography. I barely have time to sleep at the moment, never mind manage a social life."

Mercedes arched an eyebrow, her arms folded across her chest. She glanced over her shoulder towards the nearby counter, where Blaine could be seen leaning casually against the wall, chatting to the server whilst he waited for his order.

"You still find time to stop for coffee with your boy though, huh?"

Kurt flushed visibly and looked away, guilt gnawing uncomfortably at the pit of his stomach. Since his move to Dalton, his friendship with Mercedes had becomes increasingly strained, and she had made attempt to hide how she felt about being side-lined in favour of Kurt's relationship with Blaine. It was something that Kurt was still struggling to deal with, and he wasn't quite sure how to proceed in the matter. Thankfully, however, on this occasion Mercedes decided to spare him from having to justify Blaine's presence. She slid into the booth opposite him, her expression suddenly expectant.

"So? Has Finn filled you in on what's been going down at school?"

Kurt snorted as he began absently folding the napkin into a neat little square. "Hardly. Finn Hudson only has two topics of conversation: football, and Rachel Berry. Frankly, I'd rather gouge my own ears out with a fork then have to listen to his thoughts on either of those subjects."

Mercedes looked at him impatiently. She leant forward in her seat, her tone lowering to a conspiratorial whisper.

"So you haven't heard about Karofsky?"

Kurt expression shuttered instantly at the mention of Karofsky's name. He swallowed hard and averted his gaze, trying desperately to force his features into neutrality.

"No. What about him?"

"He tried to kill himself."

Something ugly tightened in Kurt's throat. He had a disconcerting sensation of vertigo, as though the ground had suddenly disappeared beneath his feet and he was left suspended over the edge of an abyss, wondering exactly how he had come to be there. His head swam with too much oxygen and he found himself clutching at the edge of the table, needing to feel something solid beneath his fingertips for reassurance.

"Are you sure? I mean, Karofsky Karofsky?"

Mercedes looked positively gleeful as she leant in closer, eager to share in what was evidently the gossip of the century. "Slit his wrists. Apparently his dad came home from church early and found him like that. Messed up, right?"

Kurt's head was hammering against his chest so loudly that he was certain that the entire coffee-shop must have been able to hear it. He drew in a shuddering breath, and tried to force himself into calm. It didn't work. Instead, his thoughts turned to the memory of the locker-room, and the ghost of the kiss that he could still feel burning against his lips...

"Why would he do something like that?" he murmured, as much to himself than Mercedes. Mercedes shrugged, and it was clear that she had given little thought towards Karofsky's motivation in the whole sorry business.

"Maybe it finally dawned on him what a Grade A dickwad he is, and decided to do the world a favour? Anyway, who cares? The point is, he's not going to be hassling you again any time soon."

Kurt closed his eyes briefly, allowing her words to sink in. When he opened them again, his face was carefully schooled into a look of complete and utter detachment, betraying nothing of the sickness that he felt rising in his gut.

"No," he said quietly, his gaze drawn upwards as Blaine approached the table bearing a tray. "I guess he won't."