Glee!fic: A Sunday Kind of Love (Unscripted)
A Sunday Kind of Love, from the Unscripted universe. Set *between* Unscripted itself and When All of New York City Misses You, I'll explain my crazy non-chronologicalness under the cut ^^; It may also help to understand this that I see this universe as the future of the Klainetana arc.
Disclaimer: All hail the people who own these characters! They're not me.
Rating: a hard sort of R, for some smut and all the swearing.
Warnings & spoilers: Um, unless you have literally not even seen Original Song yet, nothing much. Vague playing on that one line from 3.1. Likely to get Jossed by season three, but ficcers have to be resigned to these things.
Summary: It's their first Sunday together for a while, and all they would like is one dull day.
Note: Chronology is for other people! I do this, I don't know why. Possibly it's a response to traditional novel structures. Possibly it's because emotional growth is not a straight line on a graph, it works in crazy up-down-curve-zigzags, things you *learn* you later find you have to *learn* the hard way all over again. Possibly it's because I'm immature and write what I feel like at any given moment. So when I create whole AUs or future!verses in my head . . . I rarely write the stories in the right order. Expect bouncing about the timeline. Plus I just think they're cute when they're engaged <3
Sundays are normally the best days. Kurt wakes first because Kurt always wakes first, his body clock is set to the dawn like a bird's, he opens his eyes when the sun comes up; he sits in their bed, checks Blaine's face-down form with a little smile, slips from the bed for the bathroom. On lucky days Blaine will wake and snag a wrist or ankle and pull him back into bed, sexy tousled morning Kurt whining that he wants his shower and his skincare routine until Blaine can make his breath suck in and hold, high and tight. When it comes to sex at least, Blaine is very much a morning person.
When Kurt finally does haul himself out of their wrecked bed for the shower, Blaine pulls on an old t-shirt and goes running. He'd originally planned to start jogging, because it's so easy as a doctor to slip into unhealthy habits (stressful job, crazy hours) but running is just like, so much more fun. He tears through the park headphones on, snags some fresh bagels and the morning papers, heads back up to their apartment where the bed is now pristine and cushion-scattered like a catalogue shot and Kurt, dressed and aproned and flawless, is making the tiny kitchen cupboard smell of coffee and bacon.
Blaine hugs him from behind (breakfast!) and Kurt wriggles a bit and hits him with the spatula because he smells of running and still a little bit of sex, so Blaine grabs a quick shower before joining Kurt at the tiny little breakfast table. Nothing in their apartment is full-sized, there isn't the room for it to be full-sized, when people come over for dinner they can fold the table bigger and push the sofa to the wall but pretty often if it's just friends they eat on the sofa or the floor, wherever there's room. There is just the room to fold out a newspaper on it, plates and mugs shuffling between articles as they read, juggled about as they turn the pages.
There's nothing much to do on a Sunday. They might check out a museum if there's something interesting on, they might meet friends for coffee, Blaine usually calls his parents (Kurt calls his dad probably every day). They might just share space in the apartment, Blaine perching on the windowsill with his instrument-of-the-week finding out what David Bowie sounds like on the harmonica, Kurt humming as he dusts, Blaine studying on the sofa flicking a pen about in his fingers, Kurt on his stomach on the rug thoughtfully paddling his feet as he reads a magazine. This has been the pattern, whenever it's allowed to settle into a pattern. It's what they want from their Sundays, laziness and each other. But Blaine is studying medicine (stressful job, crazy hours) and Kurt has workshops and rehearsals and matinees, and too often their lazy Sundays get picked apart by the things they have to do.
Damn the things they have to do.
Kurt's last performance in Othello is on a Friday night. Saturday morning Blaine wakes up too hot because the sun's already high and he can't work out what's wrong until he realises that Kurt's still asleep, mouth open and profoundly unconscious next to him. In the last two weeks - the run got extended, it was a resounding success and Blaine felt both swollen with pride and gnawed with worry for how fucking exhausted Kurt was by the end of it - they've had the world's most awkward engagement dinner (Blaine's mom had been sort of mostly dealing with Blaine-and-Kurt until the engagement, and now she's back in icy shock about the whole thing all over again like it's news that they're getting married when they've been going to get married since they were sixteen and really it shows great restraint on their part that they've delayed this far) and Kurt's signed a year's contract with the Blue Elephant Players. He has a steady job for the first time since graduation, even if that steady job still does involve make-up and spotlights. But it's been stressful, and wearing, and now it's ten in the morning and Blaine's songbird of a boyfriend is not yet awake. Good god, perhaps the world is ending.
Blaine checks out of the window but New York is rumbling (honking, yelling) along as if nothing's changed, so probably the world is still intact. Probably; it takes quite a lot to rattle this city, and the apocalypse might not actually do it.
He gets washed and dressed, picks up a bag of books and kisses the sleeping Kurt on the forehead before heading out to the library. The only change when Blaine gets home that evening is that now Kurt's asleep on the sofa. Blaine orders pizza and slips onto the cushions next to Kurt's hunched-up form, spends the entire forty minutes before the pizza arrives drawing him slowly slowly out of sleep, tracing the lines on his palm with his fingertips, tracing the edge of his hairline against his skin, whispering his name against his neck while Kurt stirs so slightly, and mumbles.
Sunday, he thinks. Sunday will be their day. Sunday is meant to be their day.
Sunday morning he wakes dull and drowsy as Kurt sits up, and puts his hand over a yawn. Blaine peels his face out of the pillow and squints as Kurt rolls his shoulders, mumbles still behind his hand, "I was dreaming about seals."
Blaine swallows, rubs an eye. "Seals?"
"In the sea. They had really sad eyes." Kurt pushes his hair back with both hands, shuffles himself into a more elegant sit and smiles down at Blaine, lets his hand fall into Blaine's hair. "Maybe not sad eyes. Very feeling eyes. Like yours."
Blaine closes his eyes and smiles and Kurt rubs at his hair like stroking a dog, and laughs so happy, his voice full of morning sunlight. "What did you dream, Blaine?"
"Don't remember," Blaine murmurs, eyes still closed as Kurt's fingers scratch at his scalp. "No, wait. Zombie apocalypse."
Kurt's hand falls from his hair. "Oh god, again."
"I can't help it, I don't control them. We were trying to barricade ourselves in the hospital and then I remembered you and I was trying to get out of the hospital armed with a scalpel."
"A scalpel."
"For fighting the zombies off. To rescue you."
"Of course." Kurt yawns again, and rubs his eyes. "I cannot believe how tired I am. I can't believe it's over . . ."
Blaine runs a hand down his arm, turns it to kiss his smooth warm inner elbow. He likes to make sure he's kissed every part of Kurt's body at some time or another. "There'll be other plays."
"Uck, don't remind me." Kurt drags his hand back through his hair, sighs. "It's just really weird to think I won't do that again. Be Desdemona."
Blaine keeps his arm held, puts his cheek to it to look up at Kurt's face from there. "What was being Desdemona like?"
"I don't know. Scary. Watching love get - get wrong. It made me really grateful that we're . . ."
"Right," Blaine offers softly, and Kurt tips his head down to rest on top of Blaine's.
"Yes. We're right."
"I promise to never go apeshit and murder you over a handkerchief."
"No, you'll just scream me out about acting like I'm sleeping with someone when my job is to act."
Blaine moans. "Will you actually ever let me forget that?"
"No. I'm keeping it specially, so when I do something really stupid I have that as a bargaining chip."
"You don't do stupid things."
"There was that time in college - with the crème de menthe-"
"Oh my god. Oh my god I had forgotten that. Oh god-"
"Don't start."
"See, that, I can tease you over that until you have to stop teasing me over-"
"No, because we agreed not to mention that anymore if I didn't mention that time you-"
Blaine puts a hand over Kurt's mouth. "I remember now. That was a good deal, let's stick to it."
"Mm," Kurt agrees from behind Blaine's hand, which slides down to his jaw so he can kiss him. Kurt smiles without opening his eyes again, says, "You need to shave, Dr Anderson."
"It's my sexy manly stubble, you like it."
"You'll give me a rash," Kurt points out, "and I will be forced to murder you and hide pieces of you underneath the floorboards."
"You couldn't live with the smell."
"I have lots of tupperware. I would dispose of you carefully, day by day, in dumpsters across the city. I've thought this through, you see, on those nights when you won't stop snoring."
". . . it worries me how much actual thought you clearly have put into it."
"It's alright." Kurt pats his cheek. "Because I weigh up the murderous urge against how pretty you are and the prettiness wins every time."
"God, I'm glad I'm pretty."
"I am too," Kurt says happily, hugging him, laughing. "What do you want for breakfast?"
Blaine's fingers investigate the skin of Kurt's hip underneath his pyjama shirt. "You?"
"The lines you come out with. Do you practise them?"
"I try them out on coma patients," Blaine says, hand slipping fully under the material now, Kurt's warm skin and the sturdiness of the bone. "If they don't come up screaming I figure you'll forgive me for them."
Kurt looks at him head a little ducked, smiling a little dangerously, murmuring, "Poor Blaine. I'm sorry I've been too tired to put out much."
"My mornings and your evenings, we hardly shared the bed for long enough."
Kurt's hand has got down the back of Blaine's boxers, slipping in like a secret. "Exactly how long do you intend this to last?"
Blaine lowers his mouth to Kurt's breastbone, breathes there, "What else do you do with a Sunday morning?" and skims his fingers low across Kurt's belly, beginning to scratch into the hair, feeling the muscles contract under his palm. Kurt's hands, one in his hair and one on his ass, tighten. Kurt whispers, "Church?"
"This is more fun than church." Blaine kisses the hard shape of his breastbone, begins opening the buttons of his shirt. "Few are the churches where they let you do this during the sermon."
He rolls Kurt over, and counts the perfect complex bones of his spine, and Kurt can roll his hips in ways that make Blaine question his anatomy books.
*
They eat bagels in bed because they're both pretty determined they're going to do that, or some variation on that, again. The radio on the windowsill, balanced on a hardback Harry Potter and a book on Shakespeare's use of language stuffed full of fluorescent post-it bookmarks, is playing The Only Living Boy In New York, which they join in with, testing harmonies off each other's voices. Kurt licks jelly off his fingers, then off Blaine's mouth, then begins making his way down Blaine's throat.
Blaine puts his arms around his back (smooth naked Kurt-skin, the lovely fold of his shoulder blades) and says, "I has a flavour?"
Kurt mutters against his nipple, "I am banning you from the internet."
So Blaine is laughing, with a hand in Kurt's hair as Kurt curves lower, laughing and half-hard as Kurt's hand settles around him, when they hear the front door bang open. Kurt sits, appalled, and Blaine keeps an arm around his back and tries to yank the sheets up over Kurt (there are footsteps thumping through the lounge) and oh god he doesn't know what he can protect Kurt with and who the hell would break into their apartment at eleven on a Sunday morning, what can they-
The bedroom door bangs open. Kurt makes a little squeaked noise and grabs Blaine's arms, which jolt around him protectively before sheer confusion loosens them. "Dawnie broke up with me," Santana wails at them, scuffing one wet cheek off with a palm. "Dawnie broke up with me the fucking bitch and oh god you were fucking so my bad for being a cockblock I'll wait outside an' listen 'til you're done, okay?"
The door slams again behind her. Kurt, huddled on Blaine's lap, makes a small whispered whimpering noise into his hand; Blaine glances down, and a Santana interruption is a worse killjoy than a bucket of cold water. He closes his eyes for a second, rubs Kurt's back, says, "She didn't see anything."
"She knows."
"She knows anyway, she sends me porn that 'reminds her of us'."
"What? Oh god. What? I'll kill her. I will kill her with knives, let me-"
He struggles up, tumbles off the bed naked and yanks open a drawer. "Kill her. I have a cleaver. What the hell does she think she's doing breaking into our apartment on a Sunday morning, how does she even have a key-"
"I gave her one? In case we both get locked out one day."
"You gave Santana a key? It's like inviting a vampire in!"
Blaine smiles, because years of subjecting Kurt to Buffy have finally paid off. "Do you think she's alright?"
Kurt steps into his underwear. "Until I get my hand on the knife block, yes."
"I mean about Dawn."
Kurt pauses, pants in hand, and frowns a little. "Do you think she really did break up with her or it's just one of their fights?"
"Do you think they could be bothered to have a fight on a Sunday morning? I mean, if they didn't really mean it." He groans, scrubs his hair out. "I'm really glad that we don't fight like that. I don't know where they get the energy."
"We fight," Kurt says, pulling a t-shirt over his head, throwing a pair of pants at Blaine on the bed, turning for the mirror and frowning at his hair. "We fought about the coffee table for four hours."
"And then we bought the one you wanted anyway."
"That's how our fights work," Kurt says gently, opening another drawer, skimming through the contents and then plucking out the polo shirt he apparently wants to see Blaine in today. "Why disrupt a system that works?"
Blaine rubs his eyes, climbs out of bed. "Pass me some underwear."
He switches the radio off, follows Kurt to the door with a hand on his back because he likes touching Kurt, likes the way Kurt's body moves, the strength and intricacy of his working muscles and bones. Learning anatomy adds an entirely new level to his appreciation of Kurt's body; nerves like lace throughout him, brain full of electricity and impulse, small perfect bones in his fingers and toes. He still phases out sometimes, looks at Kurt and all the rational parts of his brain shut down, he just wants to put his mouth onto any part of him or just watch forever the clever easy way Kurt's hand closes around and lifts a cup. All of evolution, a hundred thousand generations of humanity and near-humanity and not-yet-humanity, for Kurt's hands around his coffee mug, and the indigo tracing of the veins in his wrist.
Kurt, practical and still pissed, pauses and then snaps the door open fully expecting to find Santana leaning against it squinting as she listens for their 'being done'. He probably hopes to concuss her, but she's not there. She's sitting on the sofa, head in hands, shoulders shaking with undignified, almost coughing sobs, stuck in the back of her throat like dust.
Blaine feels Kurt's muscles loosen with confusion and then slump properly with sympathy. He pads out from underneath Blaine's hand, sits next to her on the sofa, puts an arm around her. She hits his arm, he flinches, but then she puts her face into his shoulder and moans and he hugs her, says, "Santana." and kisses the top of her head.
"She's such a cow, she makes me hate myself," Santana sobs into his breastbone. Kurt rubs her back, murmurs, "I know, I know, I'm sorry."
Blaine sits on the other side of her, cross-legged on the sofa to face her, and ruffles her hair a bit; she flicks one red-shot eye to him and snarls against Kurt, "Fucking kill you you fucking hobbit." and Blaine says, "Do you want to talk about it or just eat ice cream?"
She sniffs, nuzzles into Kurt's t-shirt. "Do you have ice cream?"
"Blaine will go out and buy some if not," Kurt says, which is true, so Blaine doesn't mind. "I'll make some tea and cookie dough, okay?"
"Fuck tea."
"Tea is calming. Tea is dignified."
"You're not actually Princess Di and you need to get over that, Hummel."
"Blow your nose on Blaine instead, here." He hands Santana's rigid, angry body over to Blaine, who rubs her back, and she puts her chin on his shoulder and huffs against his ear as Kurt walks to the kitchen cubby, "Seriously, tea. Tea. He knows he's not British, right?"
"I'm just relieved we don't meet that many English guys he can dump me for in a bid to get dual nationality," Blaine murmurs, because Blaine knows about the box of English Country Garden magazines under the bed, and the mint-in-packaging Kate Middleton doll kept out of direct sunlight like a work of art. ". . . do you want to talk or - not yet?"
"Nothin' to talk about. She's a bitch. An evil-minded Satanette with tiny tits. Fuck her."
Blaine pats her back a bit, and she pulls his sleeve taut to wipe her eyes on it, sniffs. "You two could make out for me. That'd make me feel better."
"I'm making tea," Kurt sings loudly, clinking about cups and a teapot. "Nothing uncivilised is going to happen while I am making tea. That's the rule."
"Fuck, I knew I shouldn't've come to you two, I need straight spirits an' I'm getting a big gay tea party."
"Why did you come to us?" Kurt says irritably, hand hovering over the kettle for the exact moment of boiling.
Santana shrugs a jagged shoulder, nuzzles herself down into Blaine's body. "'cause you two're on my side, you were mine before you were Dawnie's. All our girls'll sit on the fence an' bitch behind our backs about whose side they're on, you two're mine, you don't get to take other sides."
Kurt puts the lid on the teapot, says, "It's nice to be appreciated."
Blaine hugs her. "We'll look after you."
Santana huffs her breath out again, wriggles against him. "You're nice to hug. Chunky. Are you putting weight on? Oh god, did Kurt knock you up?"
"Well, at least he's going to marry me and make an honest man of me."
Kurt rolls his eyes, lays the cups out on the coffee table in front of them. "Do not pick us to pieces to make yourself feel better. Blaine, you're perfect."
"Perfect and sort of chunky."
"I choose to believe you're talking about my manly muscles," Blaine says, while Kurt carries the teapot through.
"Your chunky manly muscles."
"Perfect," Kurt insists, and kisses his forehead before he crouches to pour the tea.
*
They put sitcoms on, and loll in a blankety heap on the sofa, conversation punctuated by laugh tracks. Santana blows her nose on another tissue. "She called me 'frigid'. In what way am I ever frigid?"
Kurt glances across her at Blaine, and Blaine says, "I don't want this to sound like what it's obviously going to sound like but . . . she really said that? Because, well, she knows you."
"Okay, so, she called me 'emotionally frigid'. Bitch." Santana tosses her tissue at the bathroom trash can, placed on the coffee table for this specific purpose. "Just 'cause her batshit crazy hippy mom screwed her up does not mean I am emotionally wrong-"
Kurt licks the back of the spoon, passes back along the tub of Cherry Garcia they found in the back of the freezer.
"I have emotions!" Santana says, and stabs the spoon in as hard as she can. "I have a lot of emotions!"
"You have a lot of rage," Kurt says. "That's different."
"Fuck you Hummel. You do not get to judge, at least I'm supposed to get PMT."
Kurt huffs, folds his arms, looks to the side. Blaine says, "He has an artistic temperament, it's different."
"Oh my god," Kurt says. "Oh my god are you taking her side? You think I'm moody?"
"I was trying to defend you?"
"Well don't because you suck at it."
"Don't be mad," Blaine says, stretching an arm around Santana's back to poke gently at Kurt's shoulder. "Kurt . . . ? Don't be mad. You know I'm stupid."
"Yes, Kurt," Santana says, digging more ice cream out. "He's stupid and he called you a hormonal girl. Don't get upset about it or anything."
Blaine feels actually horrified. "I did not-"
"Stop taking your bad mood out on us!" Kurt barks at Santana, who hisses back like a cat, "Why the hell else would I have come here? Makes me feel better!"
"Evil-minded-"
"Pissy little-"
Blaine sags sideways on the couch and pulls a cushion over his ear. He hates when they fight.
"Look what you did," Kurt snarls.
"He needs to grow up." Santana says. "You want ice cream or not, doctor hobbit?"
"Blaine." Kurt's fingers skim his arm. "We have to be strong in the face of her evil. Come on, Blaine . . . Blaine . . . ?"
They don't really have pet names for each other, they just like saying each other's name. Blaine finds every opportunity he can for slipping Kurt's name into a sentence, chants it into his throat while they fuck, Kurt's name is special to him; and he loves hearing his name in Kurt's voice, he can hear the love behind it, hear what it means to Kurt. Kurt will tease him with 'Doctor Blaine' but everyone teases him with that. And in two years' time it'll be true anyway, jeez. But 'Blaine' is all he needs to know Kurt loves him, his own name in that voice. His name in that so familiar, so beautiful, so beloved voice is all he'll ever need.
So he lifts his head, a little cautiously, looks at Kurt's soft smile and Santana's unimpressed glare as she offers the ice cream. He takes the tub, looks in, says, "Thank you." and starts digging bits of chocolate out. Kurt watches him for a moment, then looks at Santana and says, "Do you n- want to sleep here tonight?"
"It's my fucking apartment too, I pay rent, bitch can sleep in the tub."
"It's just a hell of an argument to have the night before Monday morning, Santana, and we can just pull the bed out of the sofa . . ."
Santana rubs her eyes, drags her breath in through clenched teeth, grabs for another tissue from the box. "When do we get onto the booze is all I care about."
"We can have some wine with dinner because we're grown-ups. Then we can have some civilised cocktails. And if you still think it'll make you feel better, then we'll drink bourbon and get morose."
"Fuck would you know about morose?" Santana mutters. "Your life is fucking daisies, Hummel, you don't have a fucking clue -"
Kurt closes his eyes for a second, then says evenly, "You don't live my life, Santana, and you don't know what happens in it, and I don't expect you to judge it."
Blaine passes the ice cream back to Santana, and thinks about the new medication a concerned doctor has put Kurt's dad on, and the really not good atmosphere there will probably always be between Kurt and Blaine's family, and how for the last week of that play Kurt did nothing but the play, Blaine only saw him in their overlapping periods of sharing the bed, he's not even convinced Kurt ate much of anything from the fridge during that period, though he resisted the urge to mark the milk to check. Kurt's a grown-up, more of a grown-up than Blaine is. He deals with things. Whatever happens, he deals with it.
Santana just says, "Do you not know me?" and eats some more ice cream. Kurt sighs, and puts his head on her shoulder, and stares through the TV. Blaine puts his head on her other shoulder. He can almost feel the hurt throb her body.
Kurt says, "What did you fight about?"
"About what a giant bitch she is," Santana says, stabbing at the still-frozen heart of the ice cream. "About what a giant paranoid crazy fucking bitch she is."
Blaine says, "Paranoid?"
Santana licks the spoon like she doesn't even care. "Got a text from Britt."
Kurt sits up, slowly. Blaine watches him from Santana's shoulder. Kurt says, "What . . . did it say?"
"It's a text from Britt, why do people assume it would say anything that made sense? Fuck." Santana tosses the ice cream back to Kurt, who catches it and taps his spoon at it but doesn't dig any out. "I am allowed to text my high school best friend, I am allowed to text whoever I fucking want, she's the one who pulls lectures on the heteronormative ownership complex-"
Blaine gets his cheek comfortable on Santana's shoulder, which is thinner and more delicate than Kurt's, and she pets at his hair and murmurs, "My boob's comfier, if you're gonna sleep there."
Kurt passes the ice cream back without even taking any, says, "Santana. What did Brittany say?"
Santana's arm jigs Blaine's head as she digs at the ice cream. "Fuck off, Hummel."
Blaine says, "Why would Brittany text you that?"
Santana gives him a look, then pulls the neck of his polo shirt out with a finger and drops her freezing cold spoon down there. Blaine's up with a yelp, cold cold cold, scrabbling to fish it out; it drops out of the bottom, hits their floor with a clang and a bounce, and he hunches himself around the cold sticky trail it left down his chest and stomach, and makes a noise he impresses himself with; he sounds like Chewbacca.
Kurt's eyes are on the ice cream tub in her hand, his every muscle poised to flee if she turns on him.
"Said she's got a new boyfriend," Santana says, looking Blaine in the eye and deliberately - it's more belligerent than sensual - licking ice cream from her fingers. "An' he'd totally be down with a threesome. Love heart question mark? An' Dawnie - fuck Dawnie."
Kurt looks at Blaine, and Blaine tries to stop squirming, looks back at him.
"What?" Santana says, her lip curling, her voice blackening. "Say it. I fucking dare you, I will crown you with this tub, say it."
Blaine says, ". . . I need to change my shirt." and heads for their bedroom, tugging it over his head as he goes. He sees the flit of Kurt's head following him, the flit of Santana's, and she says, "He's surprisingly hairy, isn't he? Didn't think you'd go for that, Hummel, thought you'd tie him down an' wax him against his will."
Kurt says, "Santana . . ." and Blaine lets the door swing closed behind him, heads for the bathroom, for a wet washcloth he can get the sticky sticky ew off himself with.
*
It's coming towards dinnertime, and while Kurt and Blaine cook, Santana has located and opened a bottle of wine. She sits on the sofa, wrapped in one of their throws, staring through the TV and mechanically drinking while Blaine makes a salad, he likes the clean slice of chopping cucumber, and Kurt is rubbing seasoning into chicken breasts. Blaine sidesteps Kurt for the fridge, snags a pepper out, touches his waist as he heads back for the chopping board. They're elbow to elbow in here, there isn't the space for two between counter and stove unless you're intimately aware of and extremely comfortable with the other person's body. Kurt lays chicken on the griddle pan and reaches around Blaine to wash his hands in the sink, while Blaine sets up a bouncy little rhythm in his chopping, he likes the sharp crunch of the peppers under the knife too; the knife block was a Christmas present for Kurt last year, because Kurt could pretty much live in the home section of a department store, admiring expensive knives and every gleaming size of pan. It's a good knife.
Kurt dries his hands, scratches gently at the back of Blaine's neck where the hair begins, hooks the oven open to check on his croutons. "Are you going to be hungry later?"
"We still have cookie dough."
"Mm, less dangerous to have around than ice cream, too."
Kurt closes the oven door and stands up again and Blaine presents him with a piece of pepper cut into the shape of a love heart, and Kurt laughs so sharp and sudden, and Santana screeches at them, "Oh my god break the fuck up already!"
They stare at her, stunned.
"How is it fucking fair?" she screams at them, waving her wine glass so hard the cushions get wet, and Blaine hears an overhead neighbour drop something onto the floor, sends a silent apology through the ceiling. "Fucking years the rest of us have to watch you two rolling around on top of each other like fucking puppies an' how the fuck is it fair-"
"Santana-" Kurt starts.
"-we have all this shit to work through an' bein' alone even when we're with someone an' you two just being fucking kids all the time an' who the fuck gets their first relationship to last, how the fuck is it fair?"
Kurt stands there hesitantly, then quickly flips the chicken in the pan and walks to her. "Santana - Santana -"
She puts a hand over her eyes, drops her head, chokes a bit on the sobs. "Fucking hate both of you. Cheat on each other, give each other gonorrhoea, fight, break the fuck up already, it ain't fucking fair, I hate you."
"No you don't," Kurt says, taking the wine glass off her, putting it on the table. "You don't hate us. I don't - Santana, I don't know what you want me to say. All we can do is be here."
Blaine checks on the chicken for Kurt, then quickly wipes his hands and walks over. "We are here," he offers, uncertain of her sheer rage, and she digs her hands in at her eyes and shakes her head.
"I fucking hate fucking both of you. A fuckin' gypsy curse on your marriage, you happy fucking shits." She breaks into Spanish, spits it at them, and Kurt narrows his eyes.
"You're upset," he says, crisply. "And angry, and taking it out on us. That's fine. I'm going to make dinner and you can let us know when you're feeling less volatile. But I am not ruining some perfectly good chicken over you."
"I hope he bangs a nurse!" Santana snarls at Kurt's back as he turns for the kitchen cubby again, and Blaine touches his side because he can see how Kurt's face tightens.
"Santana, that won't happen. I'm sorry you're in so much pain-"
"Screw you Blanderson, I hope he has an orgy with his big gay theatre company an' decides he wants someone bigger-"
Kurt slams the pan down on the stove. "You know what, I can see why Dawn doesn't want you you vicious screaming harpy, shut the hell up about him-"
"Seriously-" Blaine begins, but Santana's on her feet now.
"Never even fucked anyone else, it's pathetic, settlin' for the rest of your lives just because you're too chickenshit to try out a different dick-"
Blaine grabs Kurt's arms as he lurches forward because he's terrified of this turning into a physical fight, he honestly doesn't know who would tear whose eyes out. "Bitter twisted evil-minded-"
"Some fucking marriage, your weepy princess complex an' his pathetic prince charming fantasy, I am gonna love this divorce, I'm bringin' popcorn-"
"Can you both calm down-" Kurt twists in Blaine's hands, struggling like a pinned cat to get at Santana.
"Do you wonder why no-one wants you when you're such an evil bitch?" Kurt snarls, and his wrists are going to be a mess of Blaine's fingerprints after this, Blaine doesn't dare to let go. "You came here and all we have done is try to help-"
Santana picks her wine glass up again and says, "I hope he fucks a whole bar an' gives you syphilis." before she downs it. Kurt makes a strained screaming noise and digs his head down against his own chest, shudders for a second, then sags, suddenly limp. He gets out through his teeth, "Blaine, please let me go, the chicken will be ruined."
"- promise you won't leap on her."
"Like she's worth it," Kurt says, lifting his head and glaring at her, as Santana hooks up the wine bottle and slops more into her glass, says, "Please don't make me hit a girl, Kurt, I'd feel real bad about it."
Kurt tips his face back into Blaine's shoulder, says muffled there, "Blaine, the chicken."
Blaine takes a breath and lets him go, and Kurt turns for the stove, his hands shaking a little as he picks up the spatula. Blaine watches Santana take a drink and give them a contemptuous look, and he says, "You're really not a very nice person sometimes."
"Oh Jesus. That's actually your idea of an insult, isn't it? I've seen zits bigger than your balls."
Blaine says coldly, "It makes you harder to love." and turns for Kurt, puts a hand on his back, presses his side along his. "It's okay," he says quietly, and Kurt quickly wipes his nose on the back of his hand and says, "It is not, it'll be all tough on one side now. God-"
Santana sits down again with a thump behind them. "No-one'd love me anyway," she says, and takes a long swallow. "Why would I bother trying? They'll never love me back, not me, will they?"
Kurt puts a hand over one eye, draws his breath in shaking, turns to her again. "We love you anyway," he says, his voice too thick. "You just - make it hard sometimes, why can't you just . . ."
"Like you got any idea how much this hurts."
"Like neither of us have ever been in pain? Like we never got rejected and we never hurt? Santana -" Kurt stares at her. "Do you love Dawn?"
"Love was invented by straight people," Santana says, turning her glass, lowering her nose into it again, "to legitimise their need to fuck an' spawn like animals."
"You love her," Blaine says, surprised by it himself; Dawn's lasted three months, which is longer than any other girlfriend, and they're currently both living in Dawn's apartment while Santana hunts out a new place after getting into a fight with her landlord one too many times. But Santana's never shown any indication of wanting to settle down, of wanting anything more than some fun and then another name ticked off, and every time she gets an email from Brittany still she's as brittle as spun sugar for another week -
"Oh god, Santana," Kurt says, and she wipes her eyes on a hand, mutters, "You two fell for it, I ain't so dumb. Love can fuck off an' die."
Blaine wonders what it feels like to risk your heart, really, really risk it, when you've done it once before and meant it so much and it got crushed all the same. Because it was never risk, for them, not really. Whatever else could have happened, he knows that Kurt would never have hurt him, if they hadn't worked out then they would still be friends because they love each other too much to hurt each other like that. There was no risk in asking Kurt to be his boyfriend, asking Kurt to marry him. As much as it astounds him sometimes still, Kurt would walk the circumference of the Earth for him, he knows it. Kurt is his, calmly and entirely so. What has he ever really risked to have him?
Kurt walks to the sofa, perches on the arm, rubs her back. She snarls up at him, "I loathe you an' your happy ending, princess Hummel."
"No you don't," he says quietly, and kisses the top of her head.
*
Kurt says that if he eats anything else his stomach will explode; Blaine and Santana share the last of the cookie dough, the bowl between them on the sofa, and they bitch about Friends - what is Rachel wearing, it gives her the shoulders of a robot - as the drowsiness kicks in. It's Sunday night, and it's been an eventful sort of day. "No play tomorrow," Kurt sings into the sofa cushions, curled up on his side next to Santana, eyes closed and happy.
"Great to be you, we both got grown-up work." Santana says, too sleepy by now to jab at him with a finger and make him wake up and suffer with her. "How many times did the boyfriend watch it?"
"Fiancé," Blaine says. "Four, in the end."
"You got some weird fetish for watching other men strangle him?"
Kurt lifts his wrists - he bruises like a ripe pear, they're braceleted in violet - and intones, "Domestic abuse. Maybe he does get off on it. I'll send my dad photos."
"Oh god, don't. I was trying to save you from - or Santana from - I was trying to stop a fight and your dad will actually get on a plane and come here and kill me. I am not joking. He will kill me."
"I was always kinda surprised he never did kill you," Santana says, scooping dough up and sucking it thoughtfully from a fingertip. "Just, you know, on general principles. For touching up his virgin son."
"It was a mutual corruption of innocence," Blaine says, and Kurt begins to snigger into the sofa cushions. "It was!"
"You kissed me," Kurt points out.
"And you had to escalate it, you always had to escalate everything, you still do-"
"Do not blame me for the fact that you hate losing to me, Blaine Anderson."
"You can't win a kiss!"
"Yes you can," Kurt and Santana say at once, and then catch each other's eye. Blaine eats cookie dough and tries not to sulk. Why is it easier when those two are at each other's throats?
Kurt takes Santana's arm, folds his around it, puts his cheek on her shoulder. "Do you still love Brittany?"
"Fuck kind of question is that," Santana mutters. "How the fuck do you fall out of love with someone like that?"
"Obviously we're not the right couple to ask about that," Kurt says wearily. "Do you love Dawn?"
Blaine watches her face, her low dark eyes, the twitch of her full wide mouth. "She says she like, doesn't believe in it. She actually did use the phrase 'heteronormative ownership complex'. She can't believe you two are getting married, anyway."
"Because it makes us less queer?"
"Because you're children who never even fucked anyone else. Don't you ever just look at a guy an' think - well, what he doesn't know . . . ?"
Kurt jabs her with an elbow. "Don't try to change the subject. Dawn."
She huffs, and drops her spoon into the bowl. "I dunno what she wants. She calls me emotionally frigid, she's the one who acts like we can be all open an' fluid an' whatever an' then throws a bitchfit when I get a text from Britt-"
"A text from Brittany asking you to take part in a threesome."
"I didn't ask for the stupid text, did I? Jesus. Why don't you two marry Dawn. You know what, have a threesome with Dawn, she's got no tits to speak of an' a collection of strap-ons she'd love to share 'round."
Kurt puts a hand over his eyes, moans, but doesn't let go of her arm. Blaine says, "Santana - if you love her. Shouldn't you talk to her? I mean, maybe not tonight, but - but tomorrow or -"
"Are you seriously never going to fuck other people? Either of you? This is the rest of your lives, that body, an' you'll never even know how good the sex is 'cause you got nothin' to compare?"
Blaine looks across Santana at Kurt, who's nuzzled down quite happily into her arm, apparently ready to go to sleep again. "Yes," he says, and means it.
"Freaks. You two're biologically programmed to fuck around, you are genuinely freaks."
"We love you too, Santana." Kurt purrs into her arm, without even opening his eyes.
Blaine finds thinking about being with Kurt for the rest of his life ridiculously exciting, it sets a thrill up in his chest like a bird's got stuck in there and is panicking for an exit. He's seen Kurt's body change already, from a teenager to a young man, long limbs growing into their strength, and Kurt's seen his change - drawn his fingers through the thickening hair on his legs with a little smile - and never given any sign of dissatisfaction. They'll watch their lives go by in each other's skin, it'll be amazing. Blaine frowns a little, says, "Are we really boring?"
"Yup."
"Excitement for the sake of excitement is childish." Kurt murmurs, eyes still closed. "You should talk to Dawn. I don't know about the rest of your life, just, if you love her now then be with her now. You know?"
"I know," Santana says slowly, "but there's still the fact that I want to pull her face off, and Satan is sleeping cold an' alone in hell tonight 'cause she's up here."
"Santana, like you don't give as good as you get."
She plays with his hair a bit, says, "Don't mean it don't hurt."
"Mmf, tell me about it."
Blaine smiles at the sight of them, he automatically loves anyone Kurt is comfortable with because Kurt is so rarely so entirely comfortable, and he takes Santana's hand, smiles when she looks at him. Her mouth twitches, and she murmurs, "Thanks for being my fags, boys. Don't know where I'd be without you. I mean, no, I do, I'd be in the park puking after drinking whisky on a bench all day, but still. Thanks."
Blaine says, squeezing her hand and meaning it, "Any time." and someone knocks at the door.
Kurt lifts his head, blinks muzzily, puts a hand to his hair. "We weren't making any noise. They wait until the shouting's over to come complain?"
"'course they do, like they actually wanna interrupt a big gay domestic."
"I'll get it," Blaine says, because Kurt is picking at his hair trying to work out how Santana might have mussed it, and Santana is still sitting there elegant as a cat, drinking the last of the wine. He steps over Santana's abandoned shoes in the doorway, twists the lock and opens it, and outside a short, skinny girl with a harsh dark bob narrows her eyes at him through her glasses. "The slightly less gay one. I've come for my girlfriend."
Santana sits upright on the sofa, and Dawn invites herself in past Blaine. "I knew you'd come to spew your whining on other people, you don't even have the self-respect to just sit in a bar and drink yourself stupid on your own, do you?"
"Fuck you, you little midget whore. Who the hell asked you here?"
"I was following the lonely thumping of your shrunken iron heart, Santana. Are you coming or not?"
"No. Fuck off. I'm a lesbian, I want to start dating people with boobs."
"And I'd like to start dating women with brains but I make do because you're a good fuck." Dawn stands there icy and contained and Santana sits like a cat waiting to spring, eyes alight and Blaine can almost see the tail flick behind her, while Kurt stuck between them is keeping very very still like maybe their sniping can't get him if he doesn't move. "Come on, you stupid bitch, or you're sleeping on the doormat."
"An' this is you not buying into bullshit traditional relationship tropes?"
"This is me not being done with you yet, even if you are still hung up on your pathetic adolescent cheerleader fantasy. Are you coming or do I leave you here to weep with the gays?"
"Fuck you, they're both smarter than you an' they're practically virgins still, you are a fucklot dumber than you know-"
"Dumb enough to date you," Dawn says, holding the door open. "Come on, fuck's sake."
"Screw you, you know what? I can do better, Dawnie, 'cause I've got an awesome rack an' a great ass -"
"- and a heart and brain carved out of sandstone. Get a move on."
Santana shoves herself off the sofa and stalks across the room to her. "Maybe I'm not a lesbian if I'm dating you, maybe what I really was is a twelve year old boy with a bad bowl cut."
"Then maybe you should start stalking the school gates and getting yourself arrested and out of my life already."
Santana steps into her shoes. "Ice-hearted bitch."
"Idiot child," Dawn mutters back, and the door bangs behind them. Blaine just stands there for a moment, reeling, and Kurt is still sitting dead still on the sofa like he's not safe yet. Then he swallows, and says very low, "My god."
Blaine drags himself over, collapses there next to him. "I actually feel nauseous. Seriously. Nauseous. That was-"
"Like a car crash. That a train hit. And then a plane flew into."
Blaine grips Kurt's hand. "I'm so glad I have you, people are scary."
Kurt pats his hand, says, "I won't let the scary lesbians get you."
"That's a relationship? That's love?"
Kurt spreads his arm in a shrug. "Never question a relationship from the outside, they only ever make sense from within."
". . . people think we're boring."
"What do people know." Kurt kisses him, checks his eyes, says, "Blaine, I don't care what Santana thinks. I don't think about - about having or never having sex with other people, I just literally don't even think about that. Being with you is just - it makes sense, other things don't."
Blaine says, a little plaintively, "I just want to have married sex, I think married sex will be amazing."
"I know you do. And I know it will."
"Other people aren't - they don't have your legs and your arms and your eyes and your god your ass-"
"No, because you have those," Kurt says teasingly, beginning to smile again. "So . . . that was our relaxing Sunday. Did you enjoy it?"
"I don't know about 'enjoy'. I'm glad to have survived it." Kurt puts his arms around Blaine's shoulders, nudges his nose up next to his, happy now; Blaine puts his hands on his hipbones, strokes over them with his thumbs. Kurt's skin is cool and smooth against his, his cheek nudging the stubble Blaine still hasn't shaved. "So . . . you remember where we were before we got interrupted . . . ?"
"Hm? No, no I don't at all. I think I'll need reminding. Thoroughly, thoroughly reminding."
"We were having engaged sex. And we only have this small window to have engaged sex in, we never get to have it again, so we have to have lots of it. Do you think I can carry you to the bedroom?"
"No. Not to harsh your manly vibe, because you know I love your manly vibe, but in all honesty, no." Kurt pulls his head back a little, considers him. "I think maybe I could carry you."
"Like, piggyback?"
"Because that is the most romantic way to take a lover to bed."
"Can we?"
"No. Come on." Kurt gets to his feet, pulling Blaine by the hand, stifling a yawn as he stands. "That was draining, I could go right back to sleep . . ."
"No," Blaine says, kissing the side of his neck, around and underneath his ear. "No, no. Stay awake and have sex with me first."
Kurt closes a hand in his hair, murmurs and it buzzes under Blaine's lips, "I don't think other sex would compare. When you touch me -" Blaine flits his tongue out, grazes the skin as Kurt arches his head back. "- I feel sixteen again, god, like I can't stand it -"
Blaine says into his neck, "I sometimes think I could get off just from your smell," and then wonders if maybe that is a strange thing to say, but Kurt just shudders a little, and tugs him for the bedroom door. Kurt's hands begin unbuttoning Blaine's pants.
"Love makes it better."
"I think it does."
"Love and your intimate knowledge of my prostate make it better."
Blaine huffs against his throat, "I want very badly to blow you."
Kurt's hand slips into his underwear, curls around him, and now he's essentially leading Blaine to the bed by the dick and Blaine just honestly can't give a fuck. "If having sex with each other and then going to sleep on a night makes us boring -"
Blaine is mouthing more messily at Kurt's neck now he's beginning to pulse in Kurt's hand, teeth scraping skin. "Engaged blowjob. We have got to make the most of the engaged blowjobs."
"- then I'm perfectly happy to be boring."
He sits on the edge of the bed and Blaine climbs on top of him so he has to lay down, laughing before he catches Blaine's eye and Blaine grips his t-shirt, tugs until Kurt lifts his arms so Blaine can free him from it. "I'm going to give you an engaged blowjob, and then you can rate us on how boring we are."
Kurt puts his arms back over his head, stretches his whole body, smiles up at him. "Bore me, Blaine. Bore me hard."
"And don't make me laugh during oral sex, it makes it really difficult."
"Oh god, Blaine, you're so dull -"
"Seriously, I cannot do this if you're going to make me-"
"Make it tedious for me, baby."
"Seriously, Kurt, will you-" He puts a hand over his mouth. "Shut up or I'll have to gag you."
Kurt's eyebrow raises. Kurt always escalates things.
There's a reason it hasn't got boring.
Disclaimer: All hail the people who own these characters! They're not me.
Rating: a hard sort of R, for some smut and all the swearing.
Warnings & spoilers: Um, unless you have literally not even seen Original Song yet, nothing much. Vague playing on that one line from 3.1. Likely to get Jossed by season three, but ficcers have to be resigned to these things.
Summary: It's their first Sunday together for a while, and all they would like is one dull day.
Note: Chronology is for other people! I do this, I don't know why. Possibly it's a response to traditional novel structures. Possibly it's because emotional growth is not a straight line on a graph, it works in crazy up-down-curve-zigzags, things you *learn* you later find you have to *learn* the hard way all over again. Possibly it's because I'm immature and write what I feel like at any given moment. So when I create whole AUs or future!verses in my head . . . I rarely write the stories in the right order. Expect bouncing about the timeline. Plus I just think they're cute when they're engaged <3
Sundays are normally the best days. Kurt wakes first because Kurt always wakes first, his body clock is set to the dawn like a bird's, he opens his eyes when the sun comes up; he sits in their bed, checks Blaine's face-down form with a little smile, slips from the bed for the bathroom. On lucky days Blaine will wake and snag a wrist or ankle and pull him back into bed, sexy tousled morning Kurt whining that he wants his shower and his skincare routine until Blaine can make his breath suck in and hold, high and tight. When it comes to sex at least, Blaine is very much a morning person.
When Kurt finally does haul himself out of their wrecked bed for the shower, Blaine pulls on an old t-shirt and goes running. He'd originally planned to start jogging, because it's so easy as a doctor to slip into unhealthy habits (stressful job, crazy hours) but running is just like, so much more fun. He tears through the park headphones on, snags some fresh bagels and the morning papers, heads back up to their apartment where the bed is now pristine and cushion-scattered like a catalogue shot and Kurt, dressed and aproned and flawless, is making the tiny kitchen cupboard smell of coffee and bacon.
Blaine hugs him from behind (breakfast!) and Kurt wriggles a bit and hits him with the spatula because he smells of running and still a little bit of sex, so Blaine grabs a quick shower before joining Kurt at the tiny little breakfast table. Nothing in their apartment is full-sized, there isn't the room for it to be full-sized, when people come over for dinner they can fold the table bigger and push the sofa to the wall but pretty often if it's just friends they eat on the sofa or the floor, wherever there's room. There is just the room to fold out a newspaper on it, plates and mugs shuffling between articles as they read, juggled about as they turn the pages.
There's nothing much to do on a Sunday. They might check out a museum if there's something interesting on, they might meet friends for coffee, Blaine usually calls his parents (Kurt calls his dad probably every day). They might just share space in the apartment, Blaine perching on the windowsill with his instrument-of-the-week finding out what David Bowie sounds like on the harmonica, Kurt humming as he dusts, Blaine studying on the sofa flicking a pen about in his fingers, Kurt on his stomach on the rug thoughtfully paddling his feet as he reads a magazine. This has been the pattern, whenever it's allowed to settle into a pattern. It's what they want from their Sundays, laziness and each other. But Blaine is studying medicine (stressful job, crazy hours) and Kurt has workshops and rehearsals and matinees, and too often their lazy Sundays get picked apart by the things they have to do.
Damn the things they have to do.
Kurt's last performance in Othello is on a Friday night. Saturday morning Blaine wakes up too hot because the sun's already high and he can't work out what's wrong until he realises that Kurt's still asleep, mouth open and profoundly unconscious next to him. In the last two weeks - the run got extended, it was a resounding success and Blaine felt both swollen with pride and gnawed with worry for how fucking exhausted Kurt was by the end of it - they've had the world's most awkward engagement dinner (Blaine's mom had been sort of mostly dealing with Blaine-and-Kurt until the engagement, and now she's back in icy shock about the whole thing all over again like it's news that they're getting married when they've been going to get married since they were sixteen and really it shows great restraint on their part that they've delayed this far) and Kurt's signed a year's contract with the Blue Elephant Players. He has a steady job for the first time since graduation, even if that steady job still does involve make-up and spotlights. But it's been stressful, and wearing, and now it's ten in the morning and Blaine's songbird of a boyfriend is not yet awake. Good god, perhaps the world is ending.
Blaine checks out of the window but New York is rumbling (honking, yelling) along as if nothing's changed, so probably the world is still intact. Probably; it takes quite a lot to rattle this city, and the apocalypse might not actually do it.
He gets washed and dressed, picks up a bag of books and kisses the sleeping Kurt on the forehead before heading out to the library. The only change when Blaine gets home that evening is that now Kurt's asleep on the sofa. Blaine orders pizza and slips onto the cushions next to Kurt's hunched-up form, spends the entire forty minutes before the pizza arrives drawing him slowly slowly out of sleep, tracing the lines on his palm with his fingertips, tracing the edge of his hairline against his skin, whispering his name against his neck while Kurt stirs so slightly, and mumbles.
Sunday, he thinks. Sunday will be their day. Sunday is meant to be their day.
Sunday morning he wakes dull and drowsy as Kurt sits up, and puts his hand over a yawn. Blaine peels his face out of the pillow and squints as Kurt rolls his shoulders, mumbles still behind his hand, "I was dreaming about seals."
Blaine swallows, rubs an eye. "Seals?"
"In the sea. They had really sad eyes." Kurt pushes his hair back with both hands, shuffles himself into a more elegant sit and smiles down at Blaine, lets his hand fall into Blaine's hair. "Maybe not sad eyes. Very feeling eyes. Like yours."
Blaine closes his eyes and smiles and Kurt rubs at his hair like stroking a dog, and laughs so happy, his voice full of morning sunlight. "What did you dream, Blaine?"
"Don't remember," Blaine murmurs, eyes still closed as Kurt's fingers scratch at his scalp. "No, wait. Zombie apocalypse."
Kurt's hand falls from his hair. "Oh god, again."
"I can't help it, I don't control them. We were trying to barricade ourselves in the hospital and then I remembered you and I was trying to get out of the hospital armed with a scalpel."
"A scalpel."
"For fighting the zombies off. To rescue you."
"Of course." Kurt yawns again, and rubs his eyes. "I cannot believe how tired I am. I can't believe it's over . . ."
Blaine runs a hand down his arm, turns it to kiss his smooth warm inner elbow. He likes to make sure he's kissed every part of Kurt's body at some time or another. "There'll be other plays."
"Uck, don't remind me." Kurt drags his hand back through his hair, sighs. "It's just really weird to think I won't do that again. Be Desdemona."
Blaine keeps his arm held, puts his cheek to it to look up at Kurt's face from there. "What was being Desdemona like?"
"I don't know. Scary. Watching love get - get wrong. It made me really grateful that we're . . ."
"Right," Blaine offers softly, and Kurt tips his head down to rest on top of Blaine's.
"Yes. We're right."
"I promise to never go apeshit and murder you over a handkerchief."
"No, you'll just scream me out about acting like I'm sleeping with someone when my job is to act."
Blaine moans. "Will you actually ever let me forget that?"
"No. I'm keeping it specially, so when I do something really stupid I have that as a bargaining chip."
"You don't do stupid things."
"There was that time in college - with the crème de menthe-"
"Oh my god. Oh my god I had forgotten that. Oh god-"
"Don't start."
"See, that, I can tease you over that until you have to stop teasing me over-"
"No, because we agreed not to mention that anymore if I didn't mention that time you-"
Blaine puts a hand over Kurt's mouth. "I remember now. That was a good deal, let's stick to it."
"Mm," Kurt agrees from behind Blaine's hand, which slides down to his jaw so he can kiss him. Kurt smiles without opening his eyes again, says, "You need to shave, Dr Anderson."
"It's my sexy manly stubble, you like it."
"You'll give me a rash," Kurt points out, "and I will be forced to murder you and hide pieces of you underneath the floorboards."
"You couldn't live with the smell."
"I have lots of tupperware. I would dispose of you carefully, day by day, in dumpsters across the city. I've thought this through, you see, on those nights when you won't stop snoring."
". . . it worries me how much actual thought you clearly have put into it."
"It's alright." Kurt pats his cheek. "Because I weigh up the murderous urge against how pretty you are and the prettiness wins every time."
"God, I'm glad I'm pretty."
"I am too," Kurt says happily, hugging him, laughing. "What do you want for breakfast?"
Blaine's fingers investigate the skin of Kurt's hip underneath his pyjama shirt. "You?"
"The lines you come out with. Do you practise them?"
"I try them out on coma patients," Blaine says, hand slipping fully under the material now, Kurt's warm skin and the sturdiness of the bone. "If they don't come up screaming I figure you'll forgive me for them."
Kurt looks at him head a little ducked, smiling a little dangerously, murmuring, "Poor Blaine. I'm sorry I've been too tired to put out much."
"My mornings and your evenings, we hardly shared the bed for long enough."
Kurt's hand has got down the back of Blaine's boxers, slipping in like a secret. "Exactly how long do you intend this to last?"
Blaine lowers his mouth to Kurt's breastbone, breathes there, "What else do you do with a Sunday morning?" and skims his fingers low across Kurt's belly, beginning to scratch into the hair, feeling the muscles contract under his palm. Kurt's hands, one in his hair and one on his ass, tighten. Kurt whispers, "Church?"
"This is more fun than church." Blaine kisses the hard shape of his breastbone, begins opening the buttons of his shirt. "Few are the churches where they let you do this during the sermon."
He rolls Kurt over, and counts the perfect complex bones of his spine, and Kurt can roll his hips in ways that make Blaine question his anatomy books.
*
They eat bagels in bed because they're both pretty determined they're going to do that, or some variation on that, again. The radio on the windowsill, balanced on a hardback Harry Potter and a book on Shakespeare's use of language stuffed full of fluorescent post-it bookmarks, is playing The Only Living Boy In New York, which they join in with, testing harmonies off each other's voices. Kurt licks jelly off his fingers, then off Blaine's mouth, then begins making his way down Blaine's throat.
Blaine puts his arms around his back (smooth naked Kurt-skin, the lovely fold of his shoulder blades) and says, "I has a flavour?"
Kurt mutters against his nipple, "I am banning you from the internet."
So Blaine is laughing, with a hand in Kurt's hair as Kurt curves lower, laughing and half-hard as Kurt's hand settles around him, when they hear the front door bang open. Kurt sits, appalled, and Blaine keeps an arm around his back and tries to yank the sheets up over Kurt (there are footsteps thumping through the lounge) and oh god he doesn't know what he can protect Kurt with and who the hell would break into their apartment at eleven on a Sunday morning, what can they-
The bedroom door bangs open. Kurt makes a little squeaked noise and grabs Blaine's arms, which jolt around him protectively before sheer confusion loosens them. "Dawnie broke up with me," Santana wails at them, scuffing one wet cheek off with a palm. "Dawnie broke up with me the fucking bitch and oh god you were fucking so my bad for being a cockblock I'll wait outside an' listen 'til you're done, okay?"
The door slams again behind her. Kurt, huddled on Blaine's lap, makes a small whispered whimpering noise into his hand; Blaine glances down, and a Santana interruption is a worse killjoy than a bucket of cold water. He closes his eyes for a second, rubs Kurt's back, says, "She didn't see anything."
"She knows."
"She knows anyway, she sends me porn that 'reminds her of us'."
"What? Oh god. What? I'll kill her. I will kill her with knives, let me-"
He struggles up, tumbles off the bed naked and yanks open a drawer. "Kill her. I have a cleaver. What the hell does she think she's doing breaking into our apartment on a Sunday morning, how does she even have a key-"
"I gave her one? In case we both get locked out one day."
"You gave Santana a key? It's like inviting a vampire in!"
Blaine smiles, because years of subjecting Kurt to Buffy have finally paid off. "Do you think she's alright?"
Kurt steps into his underwear. "Until I get my hand on the knife block, yes."
"I mean about Dawn."
Kurt pauses, pants in hand, and frowns a little. "Do you think she really did break up with her or it's just one of their fights?"
"Do you think they could be bothered to have a fight on a Sunday morning? I mean, if they didn't really mean it." He groans, scrubs his hair out. "I'm really glad that we don't fight like that. I don't know where they get the energy."
"We fight," Kurt says, pulling a t-shirt over his head, throwing a pair of pants at Blaine on the bed, turning for the mirror and frowning at his hair. "We fought about the coffee table for four hours."
"And then we bought the one you wanted anyway."
"That's how our fights work," Kurt says gently, opening another drawer, skimming through the contents and then plucking out the polo shirt he apparently wants to see Blaine in today. "Why disrupt a system that works?"
Blaine rubs his eyes, climbs out of bed. "Pass me some underwear."
He switches the radio off, follows Kurt to the door with a hand on his back because he likes touching Kurt, likes the way Kurt's body moves, the strength and intricacy of his working muscles and bones. Learning anatomy adds an entirely new level to his appreciation of Kurt's body; nerves like lace throughout him, brain full of electricity and impulse, small perfect bones in his fingers and toes. He still phases out sometimes, looks at Kurt and all the rational parts of his brain shut down, he just wants to put his mouth onto any part of him or just watch forever the clever easy way Kurt's hand closes around and lifts a cup. All of evolution, a hundred thousand generations of humanity and near-humanity and not-yet-humanity, for Kurt's hands around his coffee mug, and the indigo tracing of the veins in his wrist.
Kurt, practical and still pissed, pauses and then snaps the door open fully expecting to find Santana leaning against it squinting as she listens for their 'being done'. He probably hopes to concuss her, but she's not there. She's sitting on the sofa, head in hands, shoulders shaking with undignified, almost coughing sobs, stuck in the back of her throat like dust.
Blaine feels Kurt's muscles loosen with confusion and then slump properly with sympathy. He pads out from underneath Blaine's hand, sits next to her on the sofa, puts an arm around her. She hits his arm, he flinches, but then she puts her face into his shoulder and moans and he hugs her, says, "Santana." and kisses the top of her head.
"She's such a cow, she makes me hate myself," Santana sobs into his breastbone. Kurt rubs her back, murmurs, "I know, I know, I'm sorry."
Blaine sits on the other side of her, cross-legged on the sofa to face her, and ruffles her hair a bit; she flicks one red-shot eye to him and snarls against Kurt, "Fucking kill you you fucking hobbit." and Blaine says, "Do you want to talk about it or just eat ice cream?"
She sniffs, nuzzles into Kurt's t-shirt. "Do you have ice cream?"
"Blaine will go out and buy some if not," Kurt says, which is true, so Blaine doesn't mind. "I'll make some tea and cookie dough, okay?"
"Fuck tea."
"Tea is calming. Tea is dignified."
"You're not actually Princess Di and you need to get over that, Hummel."
"Blow your nose on Blaine instead, here." He hands Santana's rigid, angry body over to Blaine, who rubs her back, and she puts her chin on his shoulder and huffs against his ear as Kurt walks to the kitchen cubby, "Seriously, tea. Tea. He knows he's not British, right?"
"I'm just relieved we don't meet that many English guys he can dump me for in a bid to get dual nationality," Blaine murmurs, because Blaine knows about the box of English Country Garden magazines under the bed, and the mint-in-packaging Kate Middleton doll kept out of direct sunlight like a work of art. ". . . do you want to talk or - not yet?"
"Nothin' to talk about. She's a bitch. An evil-minded Satanette with tiny tits. Fuck her."
Blaine pats her back a bit, and she pulls his sleeve taut to wipe her eyes on it, sniffs. "You two could make out for me. That'd make me feel better."
"I'm making tea," Kurt sings loudly, clinking about cups and a teapot. "Nothing uncivilised is going to happen while I am making tea. That's the rule."
"Fuck, I knew I shouldn't've come to you two, I need straight spirits an' I'm getting a big gay tea party."
"Why did you come to us?" Kurt says irritably, hand hovering over the kettle for the exact moment of boiling.
Santana shrugs a jagged shoulder, nuzzles herself down into Blaine's body. "'cause you two're on my side, you were mine before you were Dawnie's. All our girls'll sit on the fence an' bitch behind our backs about whose side they're on, you two're mine, you don't get to take other sides."
Kurt puts the lid on the teapot, says, "It's nice to be appreciated."
Blaine hugs her. "We'll look after you."
Santana huffs her breath out again, wriggles against him. "You're nice to hug. Chunky. Are you putting weight on? Oh god, did Kurt knock you up?"
"Well, at least he's going to marry me and make an honest man of me."
Kurt rolls his eyes, lays the cups out on the coffee table in front of them. "Do not pick us to pieces to make yourself feel better. Blaine, you're perfect."
"Perfect and sort of chunky."
"I choose to believe you're talking about my manly muscles," Blaine says, while Kurt carries the teapot through.
"Your chunky manly muscles."
"Perfect," Kurt insists, and kisses his forehead before he crouches to pour the tea.
*
They put sitcoms on, and loll in a blankety heap on the sofa, conversation punctuated by laugh tracks. Santana blows her nose on another tissue. "She called me 'frigid'. In what way am I ever frigid?"
Kurt glances across her at Blaine, and Blaine says, "I don't want this to sound like what it's obviously going to sound like but . . . she really said that? Because, well, she knows you."
"Okay, so, she called me 'emotionally frigid'. Bitch." Santana tosses her tissue at the bathroom trash can, placed on the coffee table for this specific purpose. "Just 'cause her batshit crazy hippy mom screwed her up does not mean I am emotionally wrong-"
Kurt licks the back of the spoon, passes back along the tub of Cherry Garcia they found in the back of the freezer.
"I have emotions!" Santana says, and stabs the spoon in as hard as she can. "I have a lot of emotions!"
"You have a lot of rage," Kurt says. "That's different."
"Fuck you Hummel. You do not get to judge, at least I'm supposed to get PMT."
Kurt huffs, folds his arms, looks to the side. Blaine says, "He has an artistic temperament, it's different."
"Oh my god," Kurt says. "Oh my god are you taking her side? You think I'm moody?"
"I was trying to defend you?"
"Well don't because you suck at it."
"Don't be mad," Blaine says, stretching an arm around Santana's back to poke gently at Kurt's shoulder. "Kurt . . . ? Don't be mad. You know I'm stupid."
"Yes, Kurt," Santana says, digging more ice cream out. "He's stupid and he called you a hormonal girl. Don't get upset about it or anything."
Blaine feels actually horrified. "I did not-"
"Stop taking your bad mood out on us!" Kurt barks at Santana, who hisses back like a cat, "Why the hell else would I have come here? Makes me feel better!"
"Evil-minded-"
"Pissy little-"
Blaine sags sideways on the couch and pulls a cushion over his ear. He hates when they fight.
"Look what you did," Kurt snarls.
"He needs to grow up." Santana says. "You want ice cream or not, doctor hobbit?"
"Blaine." Kurt's fingers skim his arm. "We have to be strong in the face of her evil. Come on, Blaine . . . Blaine . . . ?"
They don't really have pet names for each other, they just like saying each other's name. Blaine finds every opportunity he can for slipping Kurt's name into a sentence, chants it into his throat while they fuck, Kurt's name is special to him; and he loves hearing his name in Kurt's voice, he can hear the love behind it, hear what it means to Kurt. Kurt will tease him with 'Doctor Blaine' but everyone teases him with that. And in two years' time it'll be true anyway, jeez. But 'Blaine' is all he needs to know Kurt loves him, his own name in that voice. His name in that so familiar, so beautiful, so beloved voice is all he'll ever need.
So he lifts his head, a little cautiously, looks at Kurt's soft smile and Santana's unimpressed glare as she offers the ice cream. He takes the tub, looks in, says, "Thank you." and starts digging bits of chocolate out. Kurt watches him for a moment, then looks at Santana and says, "Do you n- want to sleep here tonight?"
"It's my fucking apartment too, I pay rent, bitch can sleep in the tub."
"It's just a hell of an argument to have the night before Monday morning, Santana, and we can just pull the bed out of the sofa . . ."
Santana rubs her eyes, drags her breath in through clenched teeth, grabs for another tissue from the box. "When do we get onto the booze is all I care about."
"We can have some wine with dinner because we're grown-ups. Then we can have some civilised cocktails. And if you still think it'll make you feel better, then we'll drink bourbon and get morose."
"Fuck would you know about morose?" Santana mutters. "Your life is fucking daisies, Hummel, you don't have a fucking clue -"
Kurt closes his eyes for a second, then says evenly, "You don't live my life, Santana, and you don't know what happens in it, and I don't expect you to judge it."
Blaine passes the ice cream back to Santana, and thinks about the new medication a concerned doctor has put Kurt's dad on, and the really not good atmosphere there will probably always be between Kurt and Blaine's family, and how for the last week of that play Kurt did nothing but the play, Blaine only saw him in their overlapping periods of sharing the bed, he's not even convinced Kurt ate much of anything from the fridge during that period, though he resisted the urge to mark the milk to check. Kurt's a grown-up, more of a grown-up than Blaine is. He deals with things. Whatever happens, he deals with it.
Santana just says, "Do you not know me?" and eats some more ice cream. Kurt sighs, and puts his head on her shoulder, and stares through the TV. Blaine puts his head on her other shoulder. He can almost feel the hurt throb her body.
Kurt says, "What did you fight about?"
"About what a giant bitch she is," Santana says, stabbing at the still-frozen heart of the ice cream. "About what a giant paranoid crazy fucking bitch she is."
Blaine says, "Paranoid?"
Santana licks the spoon like she doesn't even care. "Got a text from Britt."
Kurt sits up, slowly. Blaine watches him from Santana's shoulder. Kurt says, "What . . . did it say?"
"It's a text from Britt, why do people assume it would say anything that made sense? Fuck." Santana tosses the ice cream back to Kurt, who catches it and taps his spoon at it but doesn't dig any out. "I am allowed to text my high school best friend, I am allowed to text whoever I fucking want, she's the one who pulls lectures on the heteronormative ownership complex-"
Blaine gets his cheek comfortable on Santana's shoulder, which is thinner and more delicate than Kurt's, and she pets at his hair and murmurs, "My boob's comfier, if you're gonna sleep there."
Kurt passes the ice cream back without even taking any, says, "Santana. What did Brittany say?"
Santana's arm jigs Blaine's head as she digs at the ice cream. "Fuck off, Hummel."
Blaine says, "Why would Brittany text you that?"
Santana gives him a look, then pulls the neck of his polo shirt out with a finger and drops her freezing cold spoon down there. Blaine's up with a yelp, cold cold cold, scrabbling to fish it out; it drops out of the bottom, hits their floor with a clang and a bounce, and he hunches himself around the cold sticky trail it left down his chest and stomach, and makes a noise he impresses himself with; he sounds like Chewbacca.
Kurt's eyes are on the ice cream tub in her hand, his every muscle poised to flee if she turns on him.
"Said she's got a new boyfriend," Santana says, looking Blaine in the eye and deliberately - it's more belligerent than sensual - licking ice cream from her fingers. "An' he'd totally be down with a threesome. Love heart question mark? An' Dawnie - fuck Dawnie."
Kurt looks at Blaine, and Blaine tries to stop squirming, looks back at him.
"What?" Santana says, her lip curling, her voice blackening. "Say it. I fucking dare you, I will crown you with this tub, say it."
Blaine says, ". . . I need to change my shirt." and heads for their bedroom, tugging it over his head as he goes. He sees the flit of Kurt's head following him, the flit of Santana's, and she says, "He's surprisingly hairy, isn't he? Didn't think you'd go for that, Hummel, thought you'd tie him down an' wax him against his will."
Kurt says, "Santana . . ." and Blaine lets the door swing closed behind him, heads for the bathroom, for a wet washcloth he can get the sticky sticky ew off himself with.
*
It's coming towards dinnertime, and while Kurt and Blaine cook, Santana has located and opened a bottle of wine. She sits on the sofa, wrapped in one of their throws, staring through the TV and mechanically drinking while Blaine makes a salad, he likes the clean slice of chopping cucumber, and Kurt is rubbing seasoning into chicken breasts. Blaine sidesteps Kurt for the fridge, snags a pepper out, touches his waist as he heads back for the chopping board. They're elbow to elbow in here, there isn't the space for two between counter and stove unless you're intimately aware of and extremely comfortable with the other person's body. Kurt lays chicken on the griddle pan and reaches around Blaine to wash his hands in the sink, while Blaine sets up a bouncy little rhythm in his chopping, he likes the sharp crunch of the peppers under the knife too; the knife block was a Christmas present for Kurt last year, because Kurt could pretty much live in the home section of a department store, admiring expensive knives and every gleaming size of pan. It's a good knife.
Kurt dries his hands, scratches gently at the back of Blaine's neck where the hair begins, hooks the oven open to check on his croutons. "Are you going to be hungry later?"
"We still have cookie dough."
"Mm, less dangerous to have around than ice cream, too."
Kurt closes the oven door and stands up again and Blaine presents him with a piece of pepper cut into the shape of a love heart, and Kurt laughs so sharp and sudden, and Santana screeches at them, "Oh my god break the fuck up already!"
They stare at her, stunned.
"How is it fucking fair?" she screams at them, waving her wine glass so hard the cushions get wet, and Blaine hears an overhead neighbour drop something onto the floor, sends a silent apology through the ceiling. "Fucking years the rest of us have to watch you two rolling around on top of each other like fucking puppies an' how the fuck is it fair-"
"Santana-" Kurt starts.
"-we have all this shit to work through an' bein' alone even when we're with someone an' you two just being fucking kids all the time an' who the fuck gets their first relationship to last, how the fuck is it fair?"
Kurt stands there hesitantly, then quickly flips the chicken in the pan and walks to her. "Santana - Santana -"
She puts a hand over her eyes, drops her head, chokes a bit on the sobs. "Fucking hate both of you. Cheat on each other, give each other gonorrhoea, fight, break the fuck up already, it ain't fucking fair, I hate you."
"No you don't," Kurt says, taking the wine glass off her, putting it on the table. "You don't hate us. I don't - Santana, I don't know what you want me to say. All we can do is be here."
Blaine checks on the chicken for Kurt, then quickly wipes his hands and walks over. "We are here," he offers, uncertain of her sheer rage, and she digs her hands in at her eyes and shakes her head.
"I fucking hate fucking both of you. A fuckin' gypsy curse on your marriage, you happy fucking shits." She breaks into Spanish, spits it at them, and Kurt narrows his eyes.
"You're upset," he says, crisply. "And angry, and taking it out on us. That's fine. I'm going to make dinner and you can let us know when you're feeling less volatile. But I am not ruining some perfectly good chicken over you."
"I hope he bangs a nurse!" Santana snarls at Kurt's back as he turns for the kitchen cubby again, and Blaine touches his side because he can see how Kurt's face tightens.
"Santana, that won't happen. I'm sorry you're in so much pain-"
"Screw you Blanderson, I hope he has an orgy with his big gay theatre company an' decides he wants someone bigger-"
Kurt slams the pan down on the stove. "You know what, I can see why Dawn doesn't want you you vicious screaming harpy, shut the hell up about him-"
"Seriously-" Blaine begins, but Santana's on her feet now.
"Never even fucked anyone else, it's pathetic, settlin' for the rest of your lives just because you're too chickenshit to try out a different dick-"
Blaine grabs Kurt's arms as he lurches forward because he's terrified of this turning into a physical fight, he honestly doesn't know who would tear whose eyes out. "Bitter twisted evil-minded-"
"Some fucking marriage, your weepy princess complex an' his pathetic prince charming fantasy, I am gonna love this divorce, I'm bringin' popcorn-"
"Can you both calm down-" Kurt twists in Blaine's hands, struggling like a pinned cat to get at Santana.
"Do you wonder why no-one wants you when you're such an evil bitch?" Kurt snarls, and his wrists are going to be a mess of Blaine's fingerprints after this, Blaine doesn't dare to let go. "You came here and all we have done is try to help-"
Santana picks her wine glass up again and says, "I hope he fucks a whole bar an' gives you syphilis." before she downs it. Kurt makes a strained screaming noise and digs his head down against his own chest, shudders for a second, then sags, suddenly limp. He gets out through his teeth, "Blaine, please let me go, the chicken will be ruined."
"- promise you won't leap on her."
"Like she's worth it," Kurt says, lifting his head and glaring at her, as Santana hooks up the wine bottle and slops more into her glass, says, "Please don't make me hit a girl, Kurt, I'd feel real bad about it."
Kurt tips his face back into Blaine's shoulder, says muffled there, "Blaine, the chicken."
Blaine takes a breath and lets him go, and Kurt turns for the stove, his hands shaking a little as he picks up the spatula. Blaine watches Santana take a drink and give them a contemptuous look, and he says, "You're really not a very nice person sometimes."
"Oh Jesus. That's actually your idea of an insult, isn't it? I've seen zits bigger than your balls."
Blaine says coldly, "It makes you harder to love." and turns for Kurt, puts a hand on his back, presses his side along his. "It's okay," he says quietly, and Kurt quickly wipes his nose on the back of his hand and says, "It is not, it'll be all tough on one side now. God-"
Santana sits down again with a thump behind them. "No-one'd love me anyway," she says, and takes a long swallow. "Why would I bother trying? They'll never love me back, not me, will they?"
Kurt puts a hand over one eye, draws his breath in shaking, turns to her again. "We love you anyway," he says, his voice too thick. "You just - make it hard sometimes, why can't you just . . ."
"Like you got any idea how much this hurts."
"Like neither of us have ever been in pain? Like we never got rejected and we never hurt? Santana -" Kurt stares at her. "Do you love Dawn?"
"Love was invented by straight people," Santana says, turning her glass, lowering her nose into it again, "to legitimise their need to fuck an' spawn like animals."
"You love her," Blaine says, surprised by it himself; Dawn's lasted three months, which is longer than any other girlfriend, and they're currently both living in Dawn's apartment while Santana hunts out a new place after getting into a fight with her landlord one too many times. But Santana's never shown any indication of wanting to settle down, of wanting anything more than some fun and then another name ticked off, and every time she gets an email from Brittany still she's as brittle as spun sugar for another week -
"Oh god, Santana," Kurt says, and she wipes her eyes on a hand, mutters, "You two fell for it, I ain't so dumb. Love can fuck off an' die."
Blaine wonders what it feels like to risk your heart, really, really risk it, when you've done it once before and meant it so much and it got crushed all the same. Because it was never risk, for them, not really. Whatever else could have happened, he knows that Kurt would never have hurt him, if they hadn't worked out then they would still be friends because they love each other too much to hurt each other like that. There was no risk in asking Kurt to be his boyfriend, asking Kurt to marry him. As much as it astounds him sometimes still, Kurt would walk the circumference of the Earth for him, he knows it. Kurt is his, calmly and entirely so. What has he ever really risked to have him?
Kurt walks to the sofa, perches on the arm, rubs her back. She snarls up at him, "I loathe you an' your happy ending, princess Hummel."
"No you don't," he says quietly, and kisses the top of her head.
*
Kurt says that if he eats anything else his stomach will explode; Blaine and Santana share the last of the cookie dough, the bowl between them on the sofa, and they bitch about Friends - what is Rachel wearing, it gives her the shoulders of a robot - as the drowsiness kicks in. It's Sunday night, and it's been an eventful sort of day. "No play tomorrow," Kurt sings into the sofa cushions, curled up on his side next to Santana, eyes closed and happy.
"Great to be you, we both got grown-up work." Santana says, too sleepy by now to jab at him with a finger and make him wake up and suffer with her. "How many times did the boyfriend watch it?"
"Fiancé," Blaine says. "Four, in the end."
"You got some weird fetish for watching other men strangle him?"
Kurt lifts his wrists - he bruises like a ripe pear, they're braceleted in violet - and intones, "Domestic abuse. Maybe he does get off on it. I'll send my dad photos."
"Oh god, don't. I was trying to save you from - or Santana from - I was trying to stop a fight and your dad will actually get on a plane and come here and kill me. I am not joking. He will kill me."
"I was always kinda surprised he never did kill you," Santana says, scooping dough up and sucking it thoughtfully from a fingertip. "Just, you know, on general principles. For touching up his virgin son."
"It was a mutual corruption of innocence," Blaine says, and Kurt begins to snigger into the sofa cushions. "It was!"
"You kissed me," Kurt points out.
"And you had to escalate it, you always had to escalate everything, you still do-"
"Do not blame me for the fact that you hate losing to me, Blaine Anderson."
"You can't win a kiss!"
"Yes you can," Kurt and Santana say at once, and then catch each other's eye. Blaine eats cookie dough and tries not to sulk. Why is it easier when those two are at each other's throats?
Kurt takes Santana's arm, folds his around it, puts his cheek on her shoulder. "Do you still love Brittany?"
"Fuck kind of question is that," Santana mutters. "How the fuck do you fall out of love with someone like that?"
"Obviously we're not the right couple to ask about that," Kurt says wearily. "Do you love Dawn?"
Blaine watches her face, her low dark eyes, the twitch of her full wide mouth. "She says she like, doesn't believe in it. She actually did use the phrase 'heteronormative ownership complex'. She can't believe you two are getting married, anyway."
"Because it makes us less queer?"
"Because you're children who never even fucked anyone else. Don't you ever just look at a guy an' think - well, what he doesn't know . . . ?"
Kurt jabs her with an elbow. "Don't try to change the subject. Dawn."
She huffs, and drops her spoon into the bowl. "I dunno what she wants. She calls me emotionally frigid, she's the one who acts like we can be all open an' fluid an' whatever an' then throws a bitchfit when I get a text from Britt-"
"A text from Brittany asking you to take part in a threesome."
"I didn't ask for the stupid text, did I? Jesus. Why don't you two marry Dawn. You know what, have a threesome with Dawn, she's got no tits to speak of an' a collection of strap-ons she'd love to share 'round."
Kurt puts a hand over his eyes, moans, but doesn't let go of her arm. Blaine says, "Santana - if you love her. Shouldn't you talk to her? I mean, maybe not tonight, but - but tomorrow or -"
"Are you seriously never going to fuck other people? Either of you? This is the rest of your lives, that body, an' you'll never even know how good the sex is 'cause you got nothin' to compare?"
Blaine looks across Santana at Kurt, who's nuzzled down quite happily into her arm, apparently ready to go to sleep again. "Yes," he says, and means it.
"Freaks. You two're biologically programmed to fuck around, you are genuinely freaks."
"We love you too, Santana." Kurt purrs into her arm, without even opening his eyes.
Blaine finds thinking about being with Kurt for the rest of his life ridiculously exciting, it sets a thrill up in his chest like a bird's got stuck in there and is panicking for an exit. He's seen Kurt's body change already, from a teenager to a young man, long limbs growing into their strength, and Kurt's seen his change - drawn his fingers through the thickening hair on his legs with a little smile - and never given any sign of dissatisfaction. They'll watch their lives go by in each other's skin, it'll be amazing. Blaine frowns a little, says, "Are we really boring?"
"Yup."
"Excitement for the sake of excitement is childish." Kurt murmurs, eyes still closed. "You should talk to Dawn. I don't know about the rest of your life, just, if you love her now then be with her now. You know?"
"I know," Santana says slowly, "but there's still the fact that I want to pull her face off, and Satan is sleeping cold an' alone in hell tonight 'cause she's up here."
"Santana, like you don't give as good as you get."
She plays with his hair a bit, says, "Don't mean it don't hurt."
"Mmf, tell me about it."
Blaine smiles at the sight of them, he automatically loves anyone Kurt is comfortable with because Kurt is so rarely so entirely comfortable, and he takes Santana's hand, smiles when she looks at him. Her mouth twitches, and she murmurs, "Thanks for being my fags, boys. Don't know where I'd be without you. I mean, no, I do, I'd be in the park puking after drinking whisky on a bench all day, but still. Thanks."
Blaine says, squeezing her hand and meaning it, "Any time." and someone knocks at the door.
Kurt lifts his head, blinks muzzily, puts a hand to his hair. "We weren't making any noise. They wait until the shouting's over to come complain?"
"'course they do, like they actually wanna interrupt a big gay domestic."
"I'll get it," Blaine says, because Kurt is picking at his hair trying to work out how Santana might have mussed it, and Santana is still sitting there elegant as a cat, drinking the last of the wine. He steps over Santana's abandoned shoes in the doorway, twists the lock and opens it, and outside a short, skinny girl with a harsh dark bob narrows her eyes at him through her glasses. "The slightly less gay one. I've come for my girlfriend."
Santana sits upright on the sofa, and Dawn invites herself in past Blaine. "I knew you'd come to spew your whining on other people, you don't even have the self-respect to just sit in a bar and drink yourself stupid on your own, do you?"
"Fuck you, you little midget whore. Who the hell asked you here?"
"I was following the lonely thumping of your shrunken iron heart, Santana. Are you coming or not?"
"No. Fuck off. I'm a lesbian, I want to start dating people with boobs."
"And I'd like to start dating women with brains but I make do because you're a good fuck." Dawn stands there icy and contained and Santana sits like a cat waiting to spring, eyes alight and Blaine can almost see the tail flick behind her, while Kurt stuck between them is keeping very very still like maybe their sniping can't get him if he doesn't move. "Come on, you stupid bitch, or you're sleeping on the doormat."
"An' this is you not buying into bullshit traditional relationship tropes?"
"This is me not being done with you yet, even if you are still hung up on your pathetic adolescent cheerleader fantasy. Are you coming or do I leave you here to weep with the gays?"
"Fuck you, they're both smarter than you an' they're practically virgins still, you are a fucklot dumber than you know-"
"Dumb enough to date you," Dawn says, holding the door open. "Come on, fuck's sake."
"Screw you, you know what? I can do better, Dawnie, 'cause I've got an awesome rack an' a great ass -"
"- and a heart and brain carved out of sandstone. Get a move on."
Santana shoves herself off the sofa and stalks across the room to her. "Maybe I'm not a lesbian if I'm dating you, maybe what I really was is a twelve year old boy with a bad bowl cut."
"Then maybe you should start stalking the school gates and getting yourself arrested and out of my life already."
Santana steps into her shoes. "Ice-hearted bitch."
"Idiot child," Dawn mutters back, and the door bangs behind them. Blaine just stands there for a moment, reeling, and Kurt is still sitting dead still on the sofa like he's not safe yet. Then he swallows, and says very low, "My god."
Blaine drags himself over, collapses there next to him. "I actually feel nauseous. Seriously. Nauseous. That was-"
"Like a car crash. That a train hit. And then a plane flew into."
Blaine grips Kurt's hand. "I'm so glad I have you, people are scary."
Kurt pats his hand, says, "I won't let the scary lesbians get you."
"That's a relationship? That's love?"
Kurt spreads his arm in a shrug. "Never question a relationship from the outside, they only ever make sense from within."
". . . people think we're boring."
"What do people know." Kurt kisses him, checks his eyes, says, "Blaine, I don't care what Santana thinks. I don't think about - about having or never having sex with other people, I just literally don't even think about that. Being with you is just - it makes sense, other things don't."
Blaine says, a little plaintively, "I just want to have married sex, I think married sex will be amazing."
"I know you do. And I know it will."
"Other people aren't - they don't have your legs and your arms and your eyes and your god your ass-"
"No, because you have those," Kurt says teasingly, beginning to smile again. "So . . . that was our relaxing Sunday. Did you enjoy it?"
"I don't know about 'enjoy'. I'm glad to have survived it." Kurt puts his arms around Blaine's shoulders, nudges his nose up next to his, happy now; Blaine puts his hands on his hipbones, strokes over them with his thumbs. Kurt's skin is cool and smooth against his, his cheek nudging the stubble Blaine still hasn't shaved. "So . . . you remember where we were before we got interrupted . . . ?"
"Hm? No, no I don't at all. I think I'll need reminding. Thoroughly, thoroughly reminding."
"We were having engaged sex. And we only have this small window to have engaged sex in, we never get to have it again, so we have to have lots of it. Do you think I can carry you to the bedroom?"
"No. Not to harsh your manly vibe, because you know I love your manly vibe, but in all honesty, no." Kurt pulls his head back a little, considers him. "I think maybe I could carry you."
"Like, piggyback?"
"Because that is the most romantic way to take a lover to bed."
"Can we?"
"No. Come on." Kurt gets to his feet, pulling Blaine by the hand, stifling a yawn as he stands. "That was draining, I could go right back to sleep . . ."
"No," Blaine says, kissing the side of his neck, around and underneath his ear. "No, no. Stay awake and have sex with me first."
Kurt closes a hand in his hair, murmurs and it buzzes under Blaine's lips, "I don't think other sex would compare. When you touch me -" Blaine flits his tongue out, grazes the skin as Kurt arches his head back. "- I feel sixteen again, god, like I can't stand it -"
Blaine says into his neck, "I sometimes think I could get off just from your smell," and then wonders if maybe that is a strange thing to say, but Kurt just shudders a little, and tugs him for the bedroom door. Kurt's hands begin unbuttoning Blaine's pants.
"Love makes it better."
"I think it does."
"Love and your intimate knowledge of my prostate make it better."
Blaine huffs against his throat, "I want very badly to blow you."
Kurt's hand slips into his underwear, curls around him, and now he's essentially leading Blaine to the bed by the dick and Blaine just honestly can't give a fuck. "If having sex with each other and then going to sleep on a night makes us boring -"
Blaine is mouthing more messily at Kurt's neck now he's beginning to pulse in Kurt's hand, teeth scraping skin. "Engaged blowjob. We have got to make the most of the engaged blowjobs."
"- then I'm perfectly happy to be boring."
He sits on the edge of the bed and Blaine climbs on top of him so he has to lay down, laughing before he catches Blaine's eye and Blaine grips his t-shirt, tugs until Kurt lifts his arms so Blaine can free him from it. "I'm going to give you an engaged blowjob, and then you can rate us on how boring we are."
Kurt puts his arms back over his head, stretches his whole body, smiles up at him. "Bore me, Blaine. Bore me hard."
"And don't make me laugh during oral sex, it makes it really difficult."
"Oh god, Blaine, you're so dull -"
"Seriously, I cannot do this if you're going to make me-"
"Make it tedious for me, baby."
"Seriously, Kurt, will you-" He puts a hand over his mouth. "Shut up or I'll have to gag you."
Kurt's eyebrow raises. Kurt always escalates things.
There's a reason it hasn't got boring.