Fic: Glee: Where My Love Lies Waiting (Kurt/Blaine, Teen)
Thanks to Stoney and Liz, the best pair of beta readers this author could ever ask for, even when they disagree. Maybe even especially when they do. <3
Title: "Where My Love Lies Waiting" [on the AO3]
Author: flaming muse
Fandom: Glee
Pairing: Kurt/Blaine
Rating: Teen
Word count: 2800
Summary: Deciding to move back in together could have been a huge and complicated issue for Kurt and Blaine.
Spoilers: set within the last song of 5x20 (“The Untitled Rachel Berry Project”), with no spoilers beyond
Notes: The title comes from the lyrics to “Homeward Bound” by Simon and Garfunkel
Disclaimers: The characters belong to various corporate Powers That Be. I make absolutely no profit from playing with them.
Feedback is lovely!
Deciding to move back in together could have been a huge and complicated issue for Kurt and Blaine.
It could have been brought up at just the wrong moment by Rachel or been kicked off by a thoughtless comment by one of them in a moment of post-coital vulnerability. It could have been slow, full of serious discussions about boundaries and underlaid with fears old and new. It could have been tinged with pain or awkwardness about how best to get it right this time when it had gone so wrong before.
It could have been very difficult, indeed.
But it wasn’t.
*
Blaine was startled out of his skimming of the NYADA housing board on his laptop by Kurt settling down beside him on the loft’s couch. The cushions rocked under Kurt’s weight, making Blaine sway unsteadily if not unwillingly toward him, but Kurt’s hand was sure as he offered Blaine a glass of iced tea.
“Freshly brewed, lots of ice, just a touch of sugar,” Kurt announced proudly. “Just the way you like it.”
“Thank you,” Blaine said with a grateful smile. The glass was cold against his palm, and he took a happy sip. The tea wasn’t too bitter, and it had just the right amount of sweetness on his tongue. It was just the way he liked it. He loved that Kurt knew. “Mmm, perfect.”
With a smile of his own, Kurt tipped his head and glanced at the screen of Blaine’s computer where it sat on the coffee table. “Catching up on the latest NYADA gossip?” He raised his own glass of his tea to his mouth, the drink prepared with much less ice, a sprig of fresh mint, and probably quite a lot more sugar as well, Blaine thought, if he knew Kurt just as well in return.
“Oh. No.” Blaine took another sip. “Mercedes asked me to look around at the housing announcements so that I can help her draft a post to find subletters for the apartment.” He sighed a little. He couldn’t believe Mercedes was going to be on tour for months and Sam was just leaving. It was going to be so strange without them in the apartment. It was going to be lonely, really.
Sam was like a brother to him, after all. He’d been Blaine’s best friend and biggest support for a while now - apart from Kurt, of course - and it was going to be a huge hole in his life not to have him. They’d only gotten closer living together. He wouldn’t miss Sam’s barely passing acquaintance with how to fold laundry or the way he could go through a box of cereal in an hour when he was really hungry, leaving nothing left for breakfast when Blaine got up the next morning, but he was going to miss his big heart, easy smile, and generous hugs. Plus, Artie was really hard to beat on video games.
“It’s going to be so weird without them,” Blaine said, shutting the laptop and sitting back. “I know Mercedes wants me to be a part of the process of picking whoever will sublet her room, but I’ve never lived with strangers before.” The thought made him uncomfortable: someone he didn’t really know in his kitchen and in his bathroom, maybe someone who wouldn’t care about the importance of his candlelit dinners with Kurt or keeping quiet study hours during the week. He’d never lived with anyone who didn’t care about him in specific. But that was part of growing up, he reminded himself, rolling his shoulders to keep them from tightening up. He could do it. And they’d become friends after a little while, and then it wouldn’t feel strange at all. “I know it’s the college experience. I mean, I would have had a roommate if I’d lived in a dorm. At least here I’ll still have my own room.”
Kurt stilled, his eyes flicking to Blaine’s face and down to his glass, but he didn’t say anything.
“I was thinking I might stop by the NYADA housing office, too,” Blaine continued, “to see what I need to do if I want to live in the dorms instead. Just in case my new roommate is terrible. I remember Rachel had such a hard time until she moved in with you, so it’s not a perfect solution, but I feel like I should have options.”
Kurt nodded slowly. He watched his thumb sweep condensation off his glass in a careful arc. The late afternoon sun streaming through the windows behind him limned his pensive, tight-mouthed profile in bright, honeyed gold.
“What?” Blaine asked, because clearly Kurt was thinking something. “Do you think that’s a bad idea?”
“No,” Kurt replied, his voice soft. He set down his tea on the table and slowly sat up straighter, focusing back on Blaine. There was a tentativeness to his body that Blaine didn’t understand, but Kurt didn’t look away again. “But you know you have another option, right? You don’t have to take it, but you do have it.”
Blaine frowned a little, confused. “I do?”
“I don’t want to push you, since you were the one who brought up moving out in the first place, but...” Kurt took a breath and gave him a tight, strained smile. “You do know you’re welcome to come back here, right?”
Blaine’s breath caught in his throat in shock. He’d expected a suggestion to live with Artie or one of their classmates, not that. Not moving back in with Kurt.
It was like suddenly finding himself at the edge of a cliff he didn’t know was even there and having to choose whether or not to jump. It was like the floor dropped out beneath him without warning, taking his heart with it. He didn’t know whether he should be thrilled or terrified; he was somewhere in the middle of both.
He’d thought that someday, down the line, before he and Kurt got married, they’d sit down and have a serious conversation or maybe a series of them to talk about what it would mean to move back in together. He thought they’d need to establish boundaries and ways to deal with problems, because they didn’t do that the first time, and it had nearly broken them. He thought it would be a sober and mature decision. He thought it would be complicated and difficult. He thought it would be a final sign of their adulthood when they were ready to make those negotiations and concessions.
He’d thought it would be a big, serious choice, one that took them from being kids to being grown-ups.
He didn’t think Kurt would just... offer. As simple as that.
“Really?” he asked, not quite able to believe his ears.
Kurt nodded, not smiling but with a compelling certainty written in every inch of him.
Swallowing around the sudden lump in his throat, Blaine tried to make some sense out of this utterly unexpected suggestion.
He almost didn’t know what to do with it. He absolutely didn’t feel like a grown-up, not completely. He didn’t have all of the answers. They hadn’t sat down and figured everything out. They hadn’t done any of that.
He still wanted to live with Kurt, though; his heart pulled toward the idea like a moth to a flame. Of course he did. It would be so easy just to agree. He loved Kurt with every cell in his body, every iota of his soul. He wanted to be with him every minute of the day. He wanted to sleep with him every night. He wanted to wake up to him and eat breakfast with him and do laundry with him and take the subway with him and sing with him and love him and... and that was how he had felt before and was what had gotten them into trouble in the first place.
He made himself stop, setting his glass carefully beside his laptop.
If he was that moth to Kurt’s flame, he had to know that this time his wings weren’t going to get singed or worse. He didn’t want to make the same mistakes again. He didn’t want either of them to hurt again. They couldn’t go down the same road again. They couldn’t.
He couldn’t make more choices without thinking just because he assumed they’d please Kurt. He didn’t want to be apart from Kurt, but he couldn’t bear it if they started to destruct all over again, with Kurt frustrated with him and Blaine hurt and frustrated with himself and -
“I still have the SodaStream,” Blaine said, because that hadn’t changed. He hadn’t changed, not entirely. And if he had driven Kurt crazy before, then a part of him thought he was probably still going to.
Maybe, a quiet, terrified voice inside him said, he always would.
“I know,” Kurt replied with a simple, unconcerned shrug, like all of his own worries were somehow gone. Maybe they were; it was always amazing to Blaine how Kurt could be sure about himself in a way Blaine rarely was. “That doesn’t change how I feel about you.”
“But you hate it,” Blaine reminded him. He couldn’t be seduced by Kurt’s certainty. He had to feel it, too. He knew how badly things went wrong when he wasn’t certain.
“I don’t hate you.” Kurt slid his hand down Blaine’s arm before pulling back again. His eyes were gentle and a little sad. “It’s okay if you don’t want to. I know... I know you were unhappy here. I just want you to know that I love you, and whenever you’re ready I’m ready.”
Blaine couldn’t forget how desperately unhappy he had been. He loved Kurt so much and had kept disappointing him, hurting him, and upsetting him over and over and over again. It had made him feel small and insufficient. And then comparing himself to all that Kurt and the others were achieving... that had made it even worse, like he could never be good enough. Like he’d always be in their shadows, chasing them.
He didn’t want to go back to feeling that way.
He absolutely couldn’t. He couldn’t risk what it would do to them.
But now he had his own successes, he reminded himself, trying to tamp down that rising flare of panic. He didn’t have to measure himself against his friends and come up short. He had his own path now.
And he had something even more important, too, because he knew that he was still going to disappoint and hurt Kurt, as much as he hated that it was true, as much as he didn’t ever want to fail him, but he also knew now that Kurt was going to love him, anyway. Blaine knew it. He’d seen it. He’d seen Kurt choose him, over and over again for months in good times and in hard ones, when Blaine was a great fiancé and when he was a very imperfect one.
Kurt loved him. Kurt was going to love him. Flaws and weaknesses and SodaStream and all.
Blaine took a slow breath as something tight and scared in his chest began to fade away.
“You don’t have to say yes,” Kurt said quietly but steadily into the silence. “You don’t even have to say no now. It’s okay. We can talk about something else.”
Blaine could feel the love in the words. He could feel the freedom that Kurt wanted him to have. He could feel how Kurt was trying not to push them into doing what he wanted now but was just telling him how he felt, brave and honest as ever.
He could feel how Kurt loved him not despite all he was but because of it. Kurt wasn’t just falling into that love but choosing it, like he’d said. Kurt was choosing him.
Blaine didn’t know how he’d gotten so lucky for it to be true, but Kurt loved him and was willing to forgive him his failures - at least the ones that were possible, because there was no way Blaine was going to cheat again, not ever - over and over again because of it.
Maybe Blaine didn’t have to worry. He didn’t have to be afraid. He didn’t have to be be perfect, even though he knew he’d keep trying to be. He could trust that he wasn’t going to blow everything apart again, because neither of them was going to let that happen. He could trust Kurt to trust him and not walk away. He could trust them both, because together they could do anything.
And together was how Blaine longed for them to be.
“You’re sure?” Blaine said, the lump in his throat fading with his doubts.
Kurt nodded and reached out to take his hand; his fingers were warm and soft as they wrapped around Blaine’s. “I’m sure, Blaine. I know we’re not always going to be easy, but we’re going to be us. We are us. We’re not letting each other go, right?”
“Never,” Blaine promised.
“And we’re getting married,” Kurt told him, something in his eyes fragile and fierce at once.
“We were getting married last summer, too,” Blaine reminded him. He pressed his thumb to the ring on Kurt’s finger as tightly as he dared, grounding himself with it.
“Yes, but that was just us dreaming it. We didn’t know what it meant,” Kurt said with an odd, almost nostalgic quirk of a smile. “Now we’re actually doing it. We’ve figured it out. Us, I mean.” He tilted his head, watching Blaine carefully. “Haven’t we?”
Maybe the idea of moving back in should have been complicated for Blaine, but it suddenly didn’t feel that way at all.
Maybe they didn’t need to have a new, lengthy series of conversations now, he realized. They’d been figuring things out for months, talking and crying and fighting and talking some more, baring their fears and frustrations again and again. They’d created new boundaries just by being apart and making time to be together, and they’d both only wanted more and more time as the months went on. They’d learned how to pay attention to the signs of the other needing space, and they weren’t going to forget it just because there wasn’t another apartment to retreat to.
Maybe, he thought with dawning joy, they’d already done the work.
Letting his last fears fall away was suddenly shockingly easy to Blaine.
He could choose to have this again. He could choose not to be more worried than happy. He could choose to believe in them - in himself, in Kurt, in the way they both were willing to work and grow together, in the way they accepted each other even when it wasn’t easy, in the strength of their love conquering everything else - and that was so fundamentally right that it was so, so simple.
The thing he believed in more than anything else in the world was them.
The thing he wanted more than anything else in the world was them. And he had it.
They had it.
Blaine nodded, a smile growing on his face and his heart beginning to pound. He could barely get enough air into his lungs to speak. “I think we have.”
Kurt’s beautiful, deep eyes began to fill with hope. “Then come home, Blaine,” he said softly.
Home, home, home. The word resonated through Blaine like a drum beat calling to his heart. Home. Home. A place he belonged. A place of safety and comfort. A place of acceptance like he had never known.
Except he had, because from the first day they met a part of Blaine had found his home in Kurt. Kurt was home. Kurt was safety and comfort. Kurt was acceptance. Kurt was everything, or if not everything - because that hadn’t worked - then the very most important thing in the world.
And Blaine loved him, flaws and prickliness and privacy curtains and all.
What was a few minutes ago a huge cliff to jump off of was now just a little step, so simple to take.
He could come home.
His heart felt so big his chest couldn’t contain it. The loft couldn’t contain it.
So he gave Kurt the only answer he could, the same one Kurt had given him on the Dalton staircase a year before.
“Yes,” Blaine said, more of a laugh of soul-deep relief than a word at all.
Kurt’s smile burst into life, so wide and full of joy it was brighter and warmer than the glow of the sun behind him. “Blaine,” he breathed in reply and flung himself forward to pull Blaine into his arms, where he belonged.
Blaine melted into him, tears springing into his eyes, and knew he’d made the right choice. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t perfect. It didn’t matter that he’d fall down again and again. It didn’t matter that they’d both get it wrong as well as get it right. None of that mattered now in the face of what was true.
Kurt was where Blaine’s heart was.
Kurt was where his home was and would always, always be.
And Kurt’s home was Blaine, too.
Forever.
~end~
Reminder: I remain, as ever, spoiler-free. Thank you!
Title: "Where My Love Lies Waiting" [on the AO3]
Author: flaming muse
Fandom: Glee
Pairing: Kurt/Blaine
Rating: Teen
Word count: 2800
Summary: Deciding to move back in together could have been a huge and complicated issue for Kurt and Blaine.
Spoilers: set within the last song of 5x20 (“The Untitled Rachel Berry Project”), with no spoilers beyond
Notes: The title comes from the lyrics to “Homeward Bound” by Simon and Garfunkel
Disclaimers: The characters belong to various corporate Powers That Be. I make absolutely no profit from playing with them.
Feedback is lovely!
Deciding to move back in together could have been a huge and complicated issue for Kurt and Blaine.
It could have been brought up at just the wrong moment by Rachel or been kicked off by a thoughtless comment by one of them in a moment of post-coital vulnerability. It could have been slow, full of serious discussions about boundaries and underlaid with fears old and new. It could have been tinged with pain or awkwardness about how best to get it right this time when it had gone so wrong before.
It could have been very difficult, indeed.
But it wasn’t.
*
Blaine was startled out of his skimming of the NYADA housing board on his laptop by Kurt settling down beside him on the loft’s couch. The cushions rocked under Kurt’s weight, making Blaine sway unsteadily if not unwillingly toward him, but Kurt’s hand was sure as he offered Blaine a glass of iced tea.
“Freshly brewed, lots of ice, just a touch of sugar,” Kurt announced proudly. “Just the way you like it.”
“Thank you,” Blaine said with a grateful smile. The glass was cold against his palm, and he took a happy sip. The tea wasn’t too bitter, and it had just the right amount of sweetness on his tongue. It was just the way he liked it. He loved that Kurt knew. “Mmm, perfect.”
With a smile of his own, Kurt tipped his head and glanced at the screen of Blaine’s computer where it sat on the coffee table. “Catching up on the latest NYADA gossip?” He raised his own glass of his tea to his mouth, the drink prepared with much less ice, a sprig of fresh mint, and probably quite a lot more sugar as well, Blaine thought, if he knew Kurt just as well in return.
“Oh. No.” Blaine took another sip. “Mercedes asked me to look around at the housing announcements so that I can help her draft a post to find subletters for the apartment.” He sighed a little. He couldn’t believe Mercedes was going to be on tour for months and Sam was just leaving. It was going to be so strange without them in the apartment. It was going to be lonely, really.
Sam was like a brother to him, after all. He’d been Blaine’s best friend and biggest support for a while now - apart from Kurt, of course - and it was going to be a huge hole in his life not to have him. They’d only gotten closer living together. He wouldn’t miss Sam’s barely passing acquaintance with how to fold laundry or the way he could go through a box of cereal in an hour when he was really hungry, leaving nothing left for breakfast when Blaine got up the next morning, but he was going to miss his big heart, easy smile, and generous hugs. Plus, Artie was really hard to beat on video games.
“It’s going to be so weird without them,” Blaine said, shutting the laptop and sitting back. “I know Mercedes wants me to be a part of the process of picking whoever will sublet her room, but I’ve never lived with strangers before.” The thought made him uncomfortable: someone he didn’t really know in his kitchen and in his bathroom, maybe someone who wouldn’t care about the importance of his candlelit dinners with Kurt or keeping quiet study hours during the week. He’d never lived with anyone who didn’t care about him in specific. But that was part of growing up, he reminded himself, rolling his shoulders to keep them from tightening up. He could do it. And they’d become friends after a little while, and then it wouldn’t feel strange at all. “I know it’s the college experience. I mean, I would have had a roommate if I’d lived in a dorm. At least here I’ll still have my own room.”
Kurt stilled, his eyes flicking to Blaine’s face and down to his glass, but he didn’t say anything.
“I was thinking I might stop by the NYADA housing office, too,” Blaine continued, “to see what I need to do if I want to live in the dorms instead. Just in case my new roommate is terrible. I remember Rachel had such a hard time until she moved in with you, so it’s not a perfect solution, but I feel like I should have options.”
Kurt nodded slowly. He watched his thumb sweep condensation off his glass in a careful arc. The late afternoon sun streaming through the windows behind him limned his pensive, tight-mouthed profile in bright, honeyed gold.
“What?” Blaine asked, because clearly Kurt was thinking something. “Do you think that’s a bad idea?”
“No,” Kurt replied, his voice soft. He set down his tea on the table and slowly sat up straighter, focusing back on Blaine. There was a tentativeness to his body that Blaine didn’t understand, but Kurt didn’t look away again. “But you know you have another option, right? You don’t have to take it, but you do have it.”
Blaine frowned a little, confused. “I do?”
“I don’t want to push you, since you were the one who brought up moving out in the first place, but...” Kurt took a breath and gave him a tight, strained smile. “You do know you’re welcome to come back here, right?”
Blaine’s breath caught in his throat in shock. He’d expected a suggestion to live with Artie or one of their classmates, not that. Not moving back in with Kurt.
It was like suddenly finding himself at the edge of a cliff he didn’t know was even there and having to choose whether or not to jump. It was like the floor dropped out beneath him without warning, taking his heart with it. He didn’t know whether he should be thrilled or terrified; he was somewhere in the middle of both.
He’d thought that someday, down the line, before he and Kurt got married, they’d sit down and have a serious conversation or maybe a series of them to talk about what it would mean to move back in together. He thought they’d need to establish boundaries and ways to deal with problems, because they didn’t do that the first time, and it had nearly broken them. He thought it would be a sober and mature decision. He thought it would be complicated and difficult. He thought it would be a final sign of their adulthood when they were ready to make those negotiations and concessions.
He’d thought it would be a big, serious choice, one that took them from being kids to being grown-ups.
He didn’t think Kurt would just... offer. As simple as that.
“Really?” he asked, not quite able to believe his ears.
Kurt nodded, not smiling but with a compelling certainty written in every inch of him.
Swallowing around the sudden lump in his throat, Blaine tried to make some sense out of this utterly unexpected suggestion.
He almost didn’t know what to do with it. He absolutely didn’t feel like a grown-up, not completely. He didn’t have all of the answers. They hadn’t sat down and figured everything out. They hadn’t done any of that.
He still wanted to live with Kurt, though; his heart pulled toward the idea like a moth to a flame. Of course he did. It would be so easy just to agree. He loved Kurt with every cell in his body, every iota of his soul. He wanted to be with him every minute of the day. He wanted to sleep with him every night. He wanted to wake up to him and eat breakfast with him and do laundry with him and take the subway with him and sing with him and love him and... and that was how he had felt before and was what had gotten them into trouble in the first place.
He made himself stop, setting his glass carefully beside his laptop.
If he was that moth to Kurt’s flame, he had to know that this time his wings weren’t going to get singed or worse. He didn’t want to make the same mistakes again. He didn’t want either of them to hurt again. They couldn’t go down the same road again. They couldn’t.
He couldn’t make more choices without thinking just because he assumed they’d please Kurt. He didn’t want to be apart from Kurt, but he couldn’t bear it if they started to destruct all over again, with Kurt frustrated with him and Blaine hurt and frustrated with himself and -
“I still have the SodaStream,” Blaine said, because that hadn’t changed. He hadn’t changed, not entirely. And if he had driven Kurt crazy before, then a part of him thought he was probably still going to.
Maybe, a quiet, terrified voice inside him said, he always would.
“I know,” Kurt replied with a simple, unconcerned shrug, like all of his own worries were somehow gone. Maybe they were; it was always amazing to Blaine how Kurt could be sure about himself in a way Blaine rarely was. “That doesn’t change how I feel about you.”
“But you hate it,” Blaine reminded him. He couldn’t be seduced by Kurt’s certainty. He had to feel it, too. He knew how badly things went wrong when he wasn’t certain.
“I don’t hate you.” Kurt slid his hand down Blaine’s arm before pulling back again. His eyes were gentle and a little sad. “It’s okay if you don’t want to. I know... I know you were unhappy here. I just want you to know that I love you, and whenever you’re ready I’m ready.”
Blaine couldn’t forget how desperately unhappy he had been. He loved Kurt so much and had kept disappointing him, hurting him, and upsetting him over and over and over again. It had made him feel small and insufficient. And then comparing himself to all that Kurt and the others were achieving... that had made it even worse, like he could never be good enough. Like he’d always be in their shadows, chasing them.
He didn’t want to go back to feeling that way.
He absolutely couldn’t. He couldn’t risk what it would do to them.
But now he had his own successes, he reminded himself, trying to tamp down that rising flare of panic. He didn’t have to measure himself against his friends and come up short. He had his own path now.
And he had something even more important, too, because he knew that he was still going to disappoint and hurt Kurt, as much as he hated that it was true, as much as he didn’t ever want to fail him, but he also knew now that Kurt was going to love him, anyway. Blaine knew it. He’d seen it. He’d seen Kurt choose him, over and over again for months in good times and in hard ones, when Blaine was a great fiancé and when he was a very imperfect one.
Kurt loved him. Kurt was going to love him. Flaws and weaknesses and SodaStream and all.
Blaine took a slow breath as something tight and scared in his chest began to fade away.
“You don’t have to say yes,” Kurt said quietly but steadily into the silence. “You don’t even have to say no now. It’s okay. We can talk about something else.”
Blaine could feel the love in the words. He could feel the freedom that Kurt wanted him to have. He could feel how Kurt was trying not to push them into doing what he wanted now but was just telling him how he felt, brave and honest as ever.
He could feel how Kurt loved him not despite all he was but because of it. Kurt wasn’t just falling into that love but choosing it, like he’d said. Kurt was choosing him.
Blaine didn’t know how he’d gotten so lucky for it to be true, but Kurt loved him and was willing to forgive him his failures - at least the ones that were possible, because there was no way Blaine was going to cheat again, not ever - over and over again because of it.
Maybe Blaine didn’t have to worry. He didn’t have to be afraid. He didn’t have to be be perfect, even though he knew he’d keep trying to be. He could trust that he wasn’t going to blow everything apart again, because neither of them was going to let that happen. He could trust Kurt to trust him and not walk away. He could trust them both, because together they could do anything.
And together was how Blaine longed for them to be.
“You’re sure?” Blaine said, the lump in his throat fading with his doubts.
Kurt nodded and reached out to take his hand; his fingers were warm and soft as they wrapped around Blaine’s. “I’m sure, Blaine. I know we’re not always going to be easy, but we’re going to be us. We are us. We’re not letting each other go, right?”
“Never,” Blaine promised.
“And we’re getting married,” Kurt told him, something in his eyes fragile and fierce at once.
“We were getting married last summer, too,” Blaine reminded him. He pressed his thumb to the ring on Kurt’s finger as tightly as he dared, grounding himself with it.
“Yes, but that was just us dreaming it. We didn’t know what it meant,” Kurt said with an odd, almost nostalgic quirk of a smile. “Now we’re actually doing it. We’ve figured it out. Us, I mean.” He tilted his head, watching Blaine carefully. “Haven’t we?”
Maybe the idea of moving back in should have been complicated for Blaine, but it suddenly didn’t feel that way at all.
Maybe they didn’t need to have a new, lengthy series of conversations now, he realized. They’d been figuring things out for months, talking and crying and fighting and talking some more, baring their fears and frustrations again and again. They’d created new boundaries just by being apart and making time to be together, and they’d both only wanted more and more time as the months went on. They’d learned how to pay attention to the signs of the other needing space, and they weren’t going to forget it just because there wasn’t another apartment to retreat to.
Maybe, he thought with dawning joy, they’d already done the work.
Letting his last fears fall away was suddenly shockingly easy to Blaine.
He could choose to have this again. He could choose not to be more worried than happy. He could choose to believe in them - in himself, in Kurt, in the way they both were willing to work and grow together, in the way they accepted each other even when it wasn’t easy, in the strength of their love conquering everything else - and that was so fundamentally right that it was so, so simple.
The thing he believed in more than anything else in the world was them.
The thing he wanted more than anything else in the world was them. And he had it.
They had it.
Blaine nodded, a smile growing on his face and his heart beginning to pound. He could barely get enough air into his lungs to speak. “I think we have.”
Kurt’s beautiful, deep eyes began to fill with hope. “Then come home, Blaine,” he said softly.
Home, home, home. The word resonated through Blaine like a drum beat calling to his heart. Home. Home. A place he belonged. A place of safety and comfort. A place of acceptance like he had never known.
Except he had, because from the first day they met a part of Blaine had found his home in Kurt. Kurt was home. Kurt was safety and comfort. Kurt was acceptance. Kurt was everything, or if not everything - because that hadn’t worked - then the very most important thing in the world.
And Blaine loved him, flaws and prickliness and privacy curtains and all.
What was a few minutes ago a huge cliff to jump off of was now just a little step, so simple to take.
He could come home.
His heart felt so big his chest couldn’t contain it. The loft couldn’t contain it.
So he gave Kurt the only answer he could, the same one Kurt had given him on the Dalton staircase a year before.
“Yes,” Blaine said, more of a laugh of soul-deep relief than a word at all.
Kurt’s smile burst into life, so wide and full of joy it was brighter and warmer than the glow of the sun behind him. “Blaine,” he breathed in reply and flung himself forward to pull Blaine into his arms, where he belonged.
Blaine melted into him, tears springing into his eyes, and knew he’d made the right choice. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t perfect. It didn’t matter that he’d fall down again and again. It didn’t matter that they’d both get it wrong as well as get it right. None of that mattered now in the face of what was true.
Kurt was where Blaine’s heart was.
Kurt was where his home was and would always, always be.
And Kurt’s home was Blaine, too.
Forever.
~end~
Reminder: I remain, as ever, spoiler-free. Thank you!