Wake Up Strange [2/3] for CRACKEDAGLET
Title: Wake Up Strange [2/3]
Recipient: crackedaglet
Author: Threepwillow
Part 1
Kurt spends Sunday morning sending cryptic texts that he knows Blaine won't get until later because he's in church, and Sunday afternoon fighting with his GPS until it gets him where he needs to go. The end result is Kurt and his Navigator sitting in front of a nice, stylish house, not enormous but bigger than his even when he knows Blaine is an only child, and trying to work up the courage to ring the doorbell. Then he thinks the word Courage, and laughs, and wonders what he's so afraid of.
The woman who answers the door is petite and ethnic and very well put-together. Kurt doesn't know what to make of her for a split-second, because he was definitely expecting Blaine's parents, but then he notices - the very specific way she carries herself, especially about the arms and shoulders, the dark curl to her hair, her eyebrows - and it all clicks into place, if somewhat unexpectedly. "Hello, Mrs. Anderson? Um, Blaine's home, right?"
"It's Mrs. Taylor," she says, voice unreadable. "I'm remarried. And who are you?"
"Kurt Hummel, ma'am," he says, resisting the heavy temptation to duck his head down and put his hands in his pockets. For someone who can't be more than five-foot-two she's extraordinarily intimidating. "I'm, ah - I mean - Blaine's my boyfriend."
"I see," she says. "One moment." She clacks on her heels back inside, leaving the door cracked just slightly open, and Kurt can hear her calling for Blaine back into the house but before they return a tall, thin man with greying hair opens the door to look at him.
"Hello, sir, are you Mr. Taylor?"
"Yes," he says. "And you are?"
Kurt's getting a little irritated, but he feels like it would be the worst idea in the world right now to be anything less than completely polite, so he opens his mouth to introduce himself yet again when suddenly Blaine's mother is back.
"This is Kurt, he's a friend of Blaine's." She opens the door wider so she and her husband can both stand there, and Kurt finally catches sight of Blaine, sort of hovering behind them and looking absolutely miserable (well, to Kurt he looks miserable - Kurt supposes to a regular person he'd look all right, but this is someone whose every emotion and expression he practically has memorized). Kurt also doesn't miss how Mrs. Taylor has demoted him from significant other to just-a-friend in a matter of seconds.
"Oh, from school?" says Mr. Taylor, and he seems to be addressing Blaine but he's still looking right at Kurt, studying him up and down.
"Yes," says Blaine. "Kurt's in the Warblers with me. He had a solo at our regionals competition, do you remember?"
"Oh, yes," he says. "You have a very - distinct voice. It's hard to forget."
"Thank you, sir," says Kurt, even though he's pretty sure it wasn't meant to be a compliment.
"I suppose you're going out now then, Blaine?" says his mother, shooting him a glance.
"Yes," he says, "if that's all right."
"Very well," she says. "I hope you and your friend have fun." She steps aside just barely enough for Blaine to squeeze past her and he joins Kurt on the porch, very deliberately slipping their hands together and gripping Kurt as tight as he can. His parents definitely see it, but if they have any reaction to it, they keep it altogether hidden. And then the door is closed.
They cross back to Kurt's car in silence, which gives Kurt a chance to take in all of Blaine's insanely good-looking ensemble for the evening (a red button-up shirt, pre-distressed so that parts of it look almost pink, long sleeves rolled to the elbows and the collar left unbuttoned a little so Kurt can see a slim exposed triangle of his chest; nice dress-cut shorts, and he's even got a belt on, good for him) but also a chance to think about how horribly that interaction just went. He can't collect his thoughts well enough to say something until they're in the car, and even then he just kind of blurts it out.
"Why didn't you ever tell me your parents were so...awful?" he says, and if he's a little rude, well, they were a little rude to him too.
"Why do you think I always wanted to pick you up at your house?" says Blaine, sounding nothing but miserably defeated. "Why do you think I like boarding school so much?"
"Are they...always like this?" says Kurt. He hasn't even started the car yet.
"They're not so bad," Blaine says. "They don't really care what I do, they just - they just pretend it doesn't exist." Kurt doesn't have to ask what it is. "It's easier for them this way, is all. It's better than if they were hateful and nasty about it. Look, can we just go?"
"Sure," says Kurt, "sure."
But before he pulls out of the driveway, he leans across the front seat and gives Blaine a kiss, long and slow and impossibly deep. He tries to make it feel like an apology, not for anything that's been done but for the sheer fact that he's got such wonderful parents and Blaine just doesn't, and when Blaine is smiling when he pulls back, Kurt's pretty sure he's succeeded.
"You look amazing tonight, by the way," says Kurt. "I couldn't have dressed you better."
"Wow," says Blaine, sticking out his tongue. "You look - pretty incredible yourself. This is more of you than I usually get to see." He slides his hand up and down Kurt's bare upper arm, the edge of his finger skimming against Kurt's shoulder and the three or four multi-colored straps of his layered tank tops. Kurt flushes a little at the contact and keeps driving.
"So where exactly is it that we're going?" says Blaine after a little while. "It looks like we're heading all the way back to Lima, I could have just met you there."
"Nope," says Kurt. "I wanted to do this. You are my date tonight, not the other way around."
"I don't see how that's any different, but okay."
But Kurt's still kind of smiling about it. Because especially after what just happened, he's pretty sure that Blaine needs nothing more right now than to just be a happy, carefree little kid again.
The sun has gone down by the time they finally make it there, and it makes things even more wonderful, the bright garish neon lights illuminating everything, including the smile on Blaine's face. "I was wondering why you asked if I was afraid of clowns."
"It's basically the stupidest fear I've ever heard of, you would have lost a lot of points if you actually were," says Kurt. "You should only ever be afraid of clowns if they're coming at you with butcher knives, and really, I'd be scared of anyone coming at me with a butcher knife."
"Touché," says Blaine. Then he takes a deep breath in through his nose, and pivots immediately to the left. "Do I smell funnel cake?"
They wander down the big lane between the snacks and game booths and the side with all the rides until they find the funnel cake stand. Kurt pays for one for them to split, refusing Blaine's money, and they order it covered in powdered sugar with syrupy strawberries piled onto Blaine's half. He makes a show of eating it in the filthiest way possible, a drop of sticky red leaking slow down his lips, so Kurt twists off a strand of his own and slips it all the way into his mouth without biting it, even catching his fingertips against his mouth a little. Blaine's eyes go wide and then he takes the last little bit and shoves it in Kurt's face. Kurt leans in to kiss him and Blaine gets powdered sugar on his nose; Kurt kind of wants to leave it there, but he also really wants to lick it off, so he does.
They find a booth where the prizes are these weird lizard things that Kurt knows Tina collects, so they blow an obscene amount of money trying to win one by sinking a too-small basketball into a too-small hoop. They have to make three shots total to win something. Blaine finally manages one, and then Kurt, humming little strains of Beyonce to himself in his head, makes two more. "I don't think she has the black and orange one yet, can we get that, please?" he tells the man working there, and he hands it to Kurt, but Kurt makes Blaine carry it because it clashes too much with his outfit.
"You are something else," says Blaine, shaking his head.
"Naturally," says Kurt.
They make it a mission to go on every ride, except for that weird thing with the harnesses and the bungee cords ("Jumping around on mattresses in a commercial was enough for me, thanks," says Kurt, steering them away). It's late, and most of the stuff is really built for younger kids, so they're slowly but surely becoming the only people there. By the time they get on the carousel, they're alone.
Blaine sits on a white horse with a glittery red saddle, shifting around a little to try to get comfortable on a seat designed for someone half his age. Kurt sits behind him on a grey one, the saddle bright blue, the paint on its eyes kind of flaking off. High quality this place is not. Slowly but surely the ride spins to life, and Kurt can see Blaine's smile in his reflection off the mirrored center column. He's laughing, and Kurt laughs too.
About halfway through the ride Blaine shifts and turns around backward on the saddle to look at him. "This is so awesome," he says. "I'm getting a plastic-horse-induced wedgie and I'm still having the time of my life."
"TMI," Kurt says with a melodramatic groan, but he smiles back at him. "But yeah. It's pretty great."
"You're pretty great," he says to Kurt. "You look - god, I can't even - man." His eyes are shining with the bright yellows and greens of the carnival, and they suddenly look impossibly deep, like Kurt could fall right into them, or maybe like he already has. "Hey, gimme your camera, I know you've got it."
"No, wait, you first!" says Kurt. He digs into his pockets and pulls his camera out, and takes a picture of Blaine, clinging to the central post of the carousel horse to make sure he doesn't fall off, slim solid arms clenched tight, hair as wild and curly as ever, his whole face just kind of glowing. It's beautiful. Then he reaches out across the divide between them and hands the camera off, and Blaine jokes like he's about to drop it but totally has a grip on it. Kurt leans forward onto the little handlebars sticking out from the sides of his horse's face and smiles up at Blaine through his bangs, and Blaine keeps staring at him long after the flash has gone off. Kurt feels for a moment like there's an actual tangible string of emotion, hope and astonishment and that stupid L-word, stretching between Blaine's eyes and his. It's a moment he could probably hang onto forever, just like this. Everything is right.
But when they're on the back of the circle away from the ride attendant, Blaine does something you're definitely not supposed to do, and gets up off his horse while the ride is still in motion. Like a sailor searching for his sea legs, he wobbles toward Kurt, and then climbs onto the horse behind him, hitched up a little because he has to sit partially on its molded-solid tail because there's not enough room. It puts him at just the right height to press soft, hungry-hot kisses all across the back of Kurt's neck. A little noise leaves Kurt's lips before he can help himself and his whole body shivers.
"You are so hot right now, you know that?" Blaine whispers in his ear. He slides forward a little into Kurt, till his chest is flush to Kurt's back, and leans his arms around to brace against Kurt's own as his hands curl over Kurt's on the horse handlebars. His arms are a little bit too short to parallel Kurt's exactly and it only means he has to shift even closer with his chin and chest and hips. "Your skin just kind of glowing in all these neon lights...I can't handle it."
Blaine rolls his hips just once against the spot where they sit just below the small of Kurt's back and Kurt feels him ohmigod, Blaine is hard behind him, and he threads his fingers up through Blaine's and clenches to them as tight as he can.
"Can I tell you a secret?" says Blaine in that voice, low and hot right on his skin, as the ride starts to slow to its finish. "I've kind of wanted to do this..." He thrusts forward against Kurt a couple more times, and Kurt genuinely has to struggle to catch his breath. "Kind of since you first transferred to Dalton. You have no idea."
Kurt does have an idea, actually. Kurt's been kind of on the same page since even before he transferred to Dalton, smitten evolving into crushing evolving into quality time with his own hand in the shower. And since they started dating it's only gotten worse, obviously, with Blaine trying to be Mr. Perfect Gentleman Who Does This The Right Way when Kurt has just wanted to jump his bones since the very first time they kissed. And now here, tonight, when Kurt was finally okay to just be on a date with him, smiling and laughing, as innocent as children, this is when Blaine decides to climb behind him on a horse meant for one much smaller person and roll his hard cock against Kurt's ass.
And that is pretty funny, so Kurt starts to laugh.
"Hey," Blaine protests faintly, but the ride has stopped and Kurt just slides out from under him and climbs off the horse and then kisses him, hot and wet and thick and right at this really perfect sexy angle because the horse has stopped high enough that Kurt has to lean up to Blaine's mouth, for once. He slips his hand into the back pocket of Blaine's shorts and keeps the other trapped in his thick dark hair, and doesn't let up until the ride attendant kind of coughs awkwardly at them. And then he just laughs some more.
"Blaine," he says very deliberately, trying and almost succeeding to keep his voice steady as they just sort of breathe against each other. "My parents are out of town tonight, and won't be back until tomorrow afternoon."
They bustle past the girl working the ride, all bright and innocent smiles, and get to Kurt's car as fast as they possibly can, holding hands and stealing grasps of each other's skin.
---
Kurt can't help himself - as soon as it's in park in his driveway and he and Blaine have managed to scramble out, he grabs his boyfriend hard by the collar of his shirt and shoves him against the side of his car and kisses him breathless. Frankly, he's pretty glad he's a regular shopper, or he wouldn't have been able to go on enough autopilot to get them from the mall to his house in the first place. Blaine's hands instantly curve around his ass and he grinds their hips together, deep, delicious, while Kurt slips his thumb back and forth across the slim spot of skin exposed at Blaine's collar and gets his tongue as far into Blaine's mouth as it'll go, and then some. A little thread of saliva still stretches between their lips when they pull apart and Kurt laughs a little awkwardly and wipes it away.
"Okay, I think Finn's here," he says. "So just - give me a minute to get him - not here."
"Can't he just, I don't know, stay downstairs or something - "
"He's going to know, and that's going to weird him out," says Kurt. "It's easier if he's just - oh just give me a second."
Kurt heads up to the door and, plan only kind of half-formulated in his head, rings his own doorbell. Finn answers, of course, but he makes kind of a face when he realizes it's just Kurt and Blaine.
"Did you forget your key or something?" he says.
"No," says Kurt, standing kind of close to the potted plant, holding his tote around the front of his hips instead of off to the side. "I - look, Finn, you remember when you broke up with Rachel for like the eighth time and I was almost-kind of-not really about to date Dylan and we both decided that there was no way either of us was ever going to manage to get any if - "
"If the other person was in the house, yeah," says Finn. "Um, and actually that was only the third time I broke up with Rachel, okay - "
"I don't care if you're keeping count, Finn!" snaps Kurt, fidgeting with the strap on his bag. "Can you just get out?"
Kurt sees it, the moment the realization lands on Finn's face - his eyes flick to Blaine, then down lower on Kurt's body than normal, and he snatches his car keys from the rack just inside the door. "I'm gonna go to Puck's I think," he says a little too loudly.
"Good idea." Finn shoulders past him, wary of making bodily contact, and heads out to the street where his car is parked. By the time his engine is roaring to life, Blaine has made it up the stoop and into the house and has Kurt pinned to the back of the door, his mouth all over Kurt's throat until Kurt is making noises that are kind of embarrassing.
"Stairs, Blaine," he says. "Stairs and then my bedroom, please."
"Second door on the left," says Blaine with a grin, and they grab and tease and fumble their way to Kurt's room, shutting the door and locking it behind them even though no one else is around. Somehow Kurt is on his back on his bed, propped up on his elbows, looking up at Blaine who's standing just off to the side looking down at him like a man starved and wow okay they are about to have sex. That's. Wow.
Blaine must notice him freezing up, and he comes to sit next to him on the bed, hip-to-hip. "Relax, okay?" he says. "It's your number one, I know, but it's only my number two. I want this," he assures him, with a long sucking kiss up under his jaw, "and you want this," and the kiss travels down to the dip of his collarbone, "and everything is going to be amazing. Trust me."
And that's what seals it for Kurt, because Kurt does trust him. Kurt has come to realize in the past couple of hot summer months that he pretty much trusts Blaine with his life. He curves his hand soft and slow around the back of Blaine's neck, and tugs him till he's on top of Kurt, one knee pressing into the mattress high on either side of Kurt's left thigh. They kiss languidly, a beautiful sweet tangle of lips and tongues and hot funnel-cake breath, their mouths sliding together in time with the slow roll of their hips against one another. Every point of contact Kurt has with Blaine kind of feels like it's on fire, but in a good way. He's torn between wanting to do this forever and really, really wanting to have sex with him.
As if he's reading Kurt's mind, Blaine slides up, sitting back on his heels, and starts to unbutton his shirt. That won't do.
"No, me," says Kurt, and he lifts his arms up to do it for him, tugging the bottom edge out of the waistband of his shorts, starting at the top and undoing each button neatly and precisely, staring open-mouthed at Blaine's skin as more and more of it becomes accessible. When it's down far enough that Kurt can easily push the fabric aside and reach Blaine's nipple, he does, craning his neck up to latch his lips against it and tease it with his tongue. Blaine sighs and clutches his head closer, and Kurt snags it in his teeth. Yeah, this was a pretty good idea.
He files that away for later and finishes taking off Blaine's shirt, sliding it down off his (mmm, yeah, thicker and stronger than they look with his clothes on) shoulders, and then shifting a little underneath Blaine so he can half-sit up propped on his pillows, wanting better access. It's the first time he's really had a boy at his disposal like this, so much bare skin, and Kurt kind of wants to just touch him all over. So he does, skimming fingers across his hard arms and shoulders, smoothing across the solid plane of his back, nuzzling into the faint dark hair across the top of his chest - hell yes, thinks Kurt, this is why he's gay, because boys are amazing.
Blaine's tugging on the bottom hem of his own layers now, and Kurt reluctantly lifts his hands away from Blaine's skin to hold his arms over his head so Blaine can twist them all off, the white one, the blue one, the bright yellow one all the way underneath. With his own chest exposed Kurt feels too too much like a little boy, his skin pale and smooth and hairless, only the leanest of muscle underneath, but Blaine just breathes out a huge gasping sigh, and presses his mouth to the center of Kurt's chest, and holds him there, just tasting, for longer than Kurt thought was possible.
"Blaine," says Kurt, clutching at his shoulders, and he feels Blaine's hot breath laughing against his skin, as Blaine presses him back horizontal again, and kisses down further and further and further until suddenly his tongue is swirling in Kurt's bellybutton (and wow, that should be kind of awkward but it feels pretty incredible) and his chin is bumping up against the waistband of Kurt's jeans. Oh. Oh that's where this is going.
"Can I?" says Blaine softly, his hands hovering at either side of Kurt's fly.
And Kurt can't help himself. "I don't know, can you?" he says, crooking one eyebrow upward. The soft longing in Blaine's eyes quickly fires up to a bright fierce light, and he's unbuttoning and unzipping Kurt's pants before Kurt knows it, letting out his hard erection still kind of trapped in his dark red boxer briefs. Blaine nuzzles his cheek against it for a second or two before licking a bold, solid stripe against it, through the fabric.
"Oh," breathes Kurt, his whole body kind of spasming forward, and Blaine does it again, and again, until Kurt can't do anything but tremble against him and his underwear is pretty much soaked. Then Blaine's hands are on his hips, a wordless request, and Kurt shifts up away from the mattress so Blaine can tug his jeans and underwear down off the curve of his ass, and then pull everything further down in the front, to expose Kurt's cock to the open air, and to his hot gaze and hotter tongue.
"It's good, right?" he asks, breathing against the crease between Kurt's hip and thigh.
"It's so good, please, Blaine just get on with itohmygod." Blaine's got laughter in his eyes as he slips his lips down over Kurt's cock, his whole mouth soft but pressing firmly as he swallows Kurt down, inching closer and closer to the small thatch of Kurt's hair, nothing but wet heat and swirling tongue and how, how can he get that much in there?
Soon most of what Kurt can see is the messy mop of Blaine's hair, and he can't help but sink his hands down into it, shifting Blaine's head against him as he sucks and bobs, encouraging him in the right direction when he does something particularly mindblowing. Blaine's tongue catches right up under the ridge of the head, sliding back and forth, teasing perfect, and it's so amazingly good it kind of makes Kurt want to cry. Nothing in his life has every been this hot. Kurt rakes his nails all through Blaine's hair across his scalp, scraping at the roots, and soon Blaine's humming out distant little moans straight against Kurt's erection and the sounds rumble up through him in ways he didn't think were possible and that is it, Kurt comes hard down Blaine's throat with a yelp and a full-body spasm, hands tensing into Blaine's hair as Blaine swallows most of it but loses a little bit out through his lips on Kurt's softening shaft as he pulls away, making just enough of a mess that Kurt thinks distantly that he'll be upset when this is all over. Instead, he's finding it pretty hard to be upset about anything, when they both sit up and Blaine slides up to kiss him and Kurt can taste his own come in another boy's mouth. Shouldn't be hot. But it is.
"What about you," says Kurt between hungry soft fleeting kisses, "I can - I want - "
"Will you just touch me?" says Blaine, shifting his hips toward Kurt's hand where it sits between them. "I don't want you to do anything you're not - "
"I am, though," says Kurt. "I'm just as much of a teenage boy as you are."
"Touch me," says Blaine against his neck, "please." His voice is weak and broken with lust, and it thrills hard in Kurt's blood. Well, if he puts it that way.
Together they unfasten Blaine's belt and tug off his shorts and his underwear, and Kurt's stuff too, until they're totally naked against each other and Kurt can feel Blaine's too-hot skin absolutely everywhere. He curves his hand loose around Blaine's cock, shifting up and down, and then curling tighter as he figures out what Blaine likes, swiping his thumb across the leaking head every third pass or so, and kissing him everywhere he can reach. He sucks hard on Blaine's nipple again and has to struggle not to grin when Blaine shouts out his name. (A boy is shouting my name.)
He keeps his hand firm around Blaine's cock but drags his mouth lower, lower, licking up the trail of hair below his navel the wrong way so Blaine squirms, and then bending down just far enough to taste him, precome smearing across his lips, tongue darting out tentatively, his hand still stroking the rest of Blaine as he adjusts to the taste (and oh, Kurt could get used to this). Blaine's only warning that he's close is a tight squeeze to Kurt's shoulder and another breathy cry of his name, and Kurt shifts quickly back up to shove his tongue in Blaine's mouth and twists his wrist just so and swallows up all Blaine's moans as he shoots off, come all over Kurt's hand and his own stomach and thighs. They keep kissing as Blaine comes down from it, mouths pressing slower and slower as he runs out of steam, and then they pull apart and Blaine rests his forehead against Kurt's and they are both, for some reason, grinning like idiots.
"Okay, that rocked," says Blaine, stroking at the back of Kurt's hair.
"Pretty much," says Kurt. "Sex. Wow."
"Yeah."
They have a hard time not just touching each other, but eventually they have to get up, and Kurt swaps out the comforter they just made a mess on for a clean one he has stashed under his bed. Blaine gets them a damp towel from the bathroom to wipe themselves up with, and when they're clean and lying next to one another Kurt just kind of studies on him, naked and flush-faced and absolutely gorgeous. He's trying to figure out what he did to get such a perfect boyfriend.
"Geez," says Blaine, "what the hell did I do to get such a perfect boyfriend?"
Oh. Well maybe it's that.
"Stay the night," Kurt says suddenly, almost without thinking about it.
Blaine makes a sort of face at him. "Are you sure?"
"Yes," says Kurt, because wow, he kind of is. "My parents won't be back, and you said yourself your folks don't care what you do. I want you to sleep beside me. I - "
Say it, Kurt. Just say it. You both know it's true.
"I love you."
Blaine's whole body just kind of goes limp. The smile on his face is the widest and most sincere Kurt has ever seen, and suddenly Blaine is kissing him soft and passionate right on the lips, huddling closer to him on the bed and humming softly against his mouth.
"I love you so much, Kurt," he says when they pull apart. "Of course I'll stay."
So they throw on some pajama pants, for Finn's sake, and crawl under the covers together. Blaine nestles down in against Kurt's chest and Kurt wraps his arms around him, breathing in the soft smell of his wild hair. And they fall asleep, just like that.
August
If the sunlight dipping into his room is anything to go by, it's already pretty late in the morning by the time Kurt stirs awake the next day. He closes his eyes against it and rolls his face into his pillow, letting his mind and his body remember everything about the night before, and a slow easy smile stretches across his face. He reaches his arm out to the other side of the bed for Blaine and gets a good handful of -
Nothing. Blaine isn't there.
"Are you kidding me?" he groans, forcing himself to sit up, limbs heavy and eyelids heavier as he blinks around his bedroom. But suddenly, there he is, buttoning his shirt back up and trying to be as silent as possible, and when he realizes Kurt's awake he crosses over and presses a sloppy kiss to his temple.
"Hey, ssshhh, sorry," he says. "But I think I'd better go."
"You were just gonna leave?" snaps Kurt, pretty pissed off about it.
"Of course not," he says, "I was writing you a note and I was gonna text you too. I just - I'm not feeling so fresh after last night and I have kind of a thing about using other people's showers. Plus you said your parents would be here this afternoon and it's already almost afternoon - "
"Mmm, but I want you to stay," Kurt says, well aware that he's whining, and he throws his arms around Blaine's waist.
Blaine laughs a little. "I want to stay, too, but this isn't the time for that. Go back to sleep. Love you."
Kurt's skin tingles happily with that. "Love you too."
"Gosh," says Blaine, "I can't believe it's August already. Summer goes by fast, doesn't it?"
"I wish it could last forever," says Kurt, face buried in Blaine's stomach.
"Nah, it's fine for a while but not forever," says Blaine. "It's too hot. And don't you miss Dalton? And the Warblers?"
"Who needs Dalton, I've got you," says Kurt.
That declaration hits them both a little funny, and Kurt leans back to look Blaine in the eye. But the moment passes almost as quickly as it's begun, and Blaine ruffles his already sleep-mussed hair and then slips his shoes back on.
"I'll call later, okay? There's only a week or so until I get dragged on our annual family vacation, we should make the most of it."
"Okay," says Kurt, yawning.
Blaine kisses him hard, then, even though they've both got hideous morning breath, and then he tells him he loves him again, and slips out his door and down the stairs.
He reappears two minutes later. Kurt tries not to sound too smug.
"You forgot we came in my car, didn't you."
"Maybe."
---
When his parents get home Kurt is in the middle of compulsively redecorating. He had planned to redo his room, of course. He wants to move the bed so the sunlight doesn't hit him right in the face on clear mornings, and try to make it a little easier to open the closet doors. But he's also definitely washing his sheets. And maybe kind of freaking out a little. Because he can't get it out of his head that somehow his father is going to take one look at him and just know.
He's so glad no one has mindreading powers in his house. His brain is stuck on a constant stream of I had sex. I totally had sex. It was amazing. But I had sex. With my boyfriend. In this house.
So yeah, it's stressing him out a little.
He's really glad to see his dad, though. His cheeks and the top of his head are bright red with sunburn and he looks amazingly happy. The change of environment seems to have refreshed his health a little, too, and he breathes a little easier when his dad engulfs him in a big hug, murmuring "I missed you, kiddo" into his hair, showing no signs of having seen flashing neon lights that scream NOT A VIRGIN ANY MORE floating over his son's head. That, and his sheets finishing in the laundry, and Finn's unexpected skill at being casually mum about the whole thing, leave him pretty reassured.
For a few days, then, it becomes like this awesome little secret, that he can hold down near to his heart and cherish and think about whenever anything sets him on edge. It's like the world's most intimate of inside jokes, just between Kurt and his super-hot boyfriend, and nobody can take it away from him. The thrill of the secret can only carry him through those few days, though, and despite knowing that it's the biggest mistake, because telling his best friend is pretty much equivalent to telling the whole world, Kurt finally has to text Mercedes. He uses the very elaborate secret code they established freshman year for precisely this occasion, no matter who lost it first:
I. Did. It.
He barely has time to slide his phone back into his pocket before it's buzzing like crazy. OHMYGODD!!!!!!!!!! reads the first one, and then immediately after, u need to tell me E-VER-Y-THIN. in person. smoothy smoothies in a half hr??
Kurt checks himself in his vanity mirror. Half an hour might be pushing it. Still haven't done my hair to go out today. Order for me if you get there first? Lowfat guava-peach? He runs a hand through his bangs, trying to get them to sit right, thoughts racing in his head, and then sends off another text. Actually, screw it. I'll wear a hat. See you soon! :)
The pinstripes on his new newsboy don't quite match the ones on his shorts, but this is serious BFF business he's attending to, and time is of the essence. Besides, he spent last Sunday night having seriously awesome sexual relations with his seriously amazing boyfriend. He's got no one to impress.
Smoothy-Smoothies is possibly the crappiest little place to get smoothies that exists on the planet, or at least in Lima and the surrounding areas. But they're dirt-cheap, and the cooling fan that runs in the summer is so damn loud that no one can overhear anyone else's conversations. Kurt figures that's probably a good thing, considering he's talking about oral sex.
"Wow," says Mercedes, sipping on some gross-looking chocolate and banana concoction. "Wow. And boy, I been close enough to your junk to know it's not exactly bite-sized."
"I know!" says Kurt, trying not to think too hard about that statement. "It's still kind of frighteningly awesome every time I remember that it actually happened. And I mean, we didn't...do a whole lot, like we didn't go all the way - "
"Let's go all the way tonight," sings Mercedes, with a toothy teasing grin.
"Shut up," he says. "...But it just felt so right. I couldn't have asked for it to go better. Gosh, I kind of wish I could just - take how magical it was, and give it to you for when you get your groove on. It's almost not fair."
"Don't worry, I feel like I'm gonna be pretty groove-free for a while yet," she says, frowning into the dregs of her smoothie. "There were maybe two guys left at school that were actually cute who weren't total a-holes, and I think they both graduated. Unless Parker failed back a year, and if that's the case, I'm not interested in him either."
"Ugh, seriously," says Kurt. "Wow, that's kind of weird for me to think about people we know already graduating. I mean, Wes and David graduated, but I never knew them in any context other than as seniors, you know?" And even that's weird, when he thinks about it, a Dalton without Wes tapping his pencil against his notebook, bored out of his skull in the evening tutoring lounge waiting for kids to come in needing chemistry help, or David running through the halls in nothing but a towel because someone locked him out of his room while he was in the shower, again.
"Yeah, glee is gonna be super-weird without Mike," says Mercedes. "I'm just glad he and Tina finally ended it, or I don't think I could handle her waterworks."
"Mmmm," says Kurt around his straw.
"The football team is gonna get hit the hardest, though," she continues. "Damn. They sucked already, even with our glee homeboys and Beiste, but they're losing their fastest guy and two of their biggest guys all at the same time. We better get some good new freshmen or they're totally outta luck."
Kurt stiffens, and slowly draws his mouth away from the straw to look Mercedes in the eye. He knows who the three biggest guys on McKinley's team are, and one of them is Finn. "Karofsky...graduated?"
"Yeah," she says, "hard to believe, I know. They thought he was gonna have to do twelfth grade over because of the days he missed and how his record got messed up when you got him expelled. But I guess he got his ass in gear enough to make some kinda passing grade - or maybe everyone's just anxious to get rid of him. I sure won't miss him."
"Yeah," says Kurt, his head suddenly reeling. "Me neither."
---
Kurt's phone says about to get on this stupid airplane. miss you already. :(
He wipes his hands thoroughly on the fresh rag in his pocket and types back I miss you too. I miss your face. :P
miss your smile says Blaine.
Miss your hair.
miss your skin
Miss your co--oh crap here comes my dad.
HEY thats not fair!!! buzzes Blaine, but Kurt is already tucking his phone back into his other pocket, grinning a little to himself as his dad crosses to him from the back room in the shop.
"You get those tires realigned?"
"Yeah, Dad," he says. "Ugh, was I this stupid when I first got my car?"
"Of course not," says Burt, "you learned from the best." He claps his hand against Kurt's shoulder and leaves a nice solid handprint, right overtop of three or four just like it, from the same action repeated over and over. With his other hand he gestures vaguely down at Kurt's pocket. "Who're you texting that's so important you'll do it even in here, huh?"
"Blaine," Kurt says instantly, and Burt says it right along with him, answering his own question too.
"I knew it. God I like that kid. I like what he does for you, Kurt."
"Mm-hmm," says Kurt, noncommittal.
"You two've been awful close lately."
"Yes, Dad, he's my boyfriend."
"How close?"
"Dad."
"I'm just sayin', anything you do, I want it to be because you want to do it, okay? I'm not gonna act like I didn't punch that V-card right around your age - "
Kurt throws his hands up to stop him. "Oh my god, Dad, why would you even - "
" - hey, hey, I just wanna hear from the source that this is all going good. I like that kid a lot, but all of that can go away in a friggin' heartbeat if I find out he's takin' advantage of you at all, you hear?"
Kurt rolls his eyes and cocks his hip. "Okay, seriously? Here we are in your macho car shop having guy bonding time and you're still gonna treat me like a little princess?"
"Kurt - "
"How come it's him you're worried about taking advantage of me, huh? What if I'm the one taking advantage? Would you be having this same conversation with Finn right now?"
"No, Kurt, because he ain't my son," says his dad, looking him hard in the eye. "That's Carole's place to do, not mine." He pauses, slowing down a little. "And I know you, Kurt," he says. "And you would never."
Kurt sighs, and realizes he's being stupid, and pulls his dad into a sort of half-hug, wary of the fact that he's about three times more grimy than Kurt is. "No advantage being taken, on anyone's part," he says. "I promise."
"All right, well good," says Burt, and he kisses him lightly on the forehead, and then the moment's over. Thankfully.
Kurt's rummaging in the toolbox at his feet when a thought kind of occurs to him. "Hey Dad, have you seen my other shop t-shirt?" he says. "I feel like I've been wearing this blue one for ages, I keep having to wash it and go right back to using it. My grey one's missing."
"No idea, kiddo," says Burt from inside the hood of Mrs. Crescitelli's poor sedan. "Ask your stepmom, she does laundry waaaay more than I do."
"Yeah," says Kurt, "okay."
The garage falls silent, except for the sounds of their tinkering, and Kurt takes a moment to text Blaine back, even though he's probably on the plane by now and won't be able to answer.
Sorry. I miss your coffee. It's so much better than what my dad makes because our machine is on the fritz.
He grins to himself. He can practically see the look on Blaine's face when he gets the message, hours from now on some layover, his expectations shattered.
But of course Blaine has to get the last laugh.
screw you. oh, wait. ;)
---
Most of his friends find out while Blaine's still gone. They mostly have the prudence to keep it off Facebook (although Santana leaves a message on his wall consisting of solely the totally-made-up word "wanky" and a little winky-face) but he does get a giddy phonecall from Tina, a flurry of texts from Artie that are basically high-fives represented in words, and one sweet text from Brittany wishing for his sake that Blaine tasted better than the other boys she's made out with. Puck's the worst, making some heinous comment about how many more times Kurt would have to get it on to beat his summer high score, which he hopes to all that is sacred in his world is not an allusion to his relationship with Lauren. Finn, thankfully, stays totally out of it.
"Word travels fast with you guys," Blaine says with a laugh and an amused crook of his eyebrow, over Skype three nights before he's due back in Ohio.
"Yeah, well, everything at McKinley is kind of fast-paced," says Kurt. "You just have to adjust to it. It comes almost second-nature after a while. And it's like riding a bike, you don't forget it."
"Sounds kinda crazy."
"So what are you up to?"
"Well my mom and Derrick are out with my aunt and uncle and...pretty much everyone else at this gross bar they go to every year," he says, picking at a thread on the bedspread he's laying on top of. "I'm the only one down here at the beach house who's still too young to drink, so I've just been kind of hanging out. Watching some YouTube videos, reading my summer homework book, nothing too serious."
"Sounds thrilling."
"Nah, it's nice to get a break from all the family insanity. Plus this way I get to talk to you." His face lights up with a grin that's almost too cheesy to be real, and Kurt rolls his eyes.
"Okay, I love you, but you are the biggest dork sometimes."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
"Suit yourself."
"Seriously, though, I miss you," he says, and it tugs a little at Kurt's heart. "This is weird, knowing that I can't just hop in my car and drive out to see you if I want to. I'm glad I'm coming back soon."
"I miss you too," says Kurt. He puts his hand up against the screen, wanting so badly to just touch.
"Wow, okay, now who's the dork."
"Bite me."
"I wish," says Blaine, and it's that voice back again, lower lip rolling between his teeth, and it is just not fair how Blaine can get to him like this from thousands of miles away. Kurt swallows thickly, and clicks into his iTunes, starting up a loud, heavy playlist.
"And you say you're alone in this fabulous beach house of yours?"
"Will be for a couple hours, yeah," says Blaine. "Hey, where are you going?"
"To lock the door," Kurt calls over his shoulder back toward the computer. He does, and then shifts his laptop to the foot of his bed, taking his time to sprawl out a little and tilting the screen and camera back so Blaine can see him.
Because the first song on the playlist is Lady Gaga's Teeth, and Kurt wants to show Blaine everything.
---
The night Blaine's flight is due back into Columbus, Kurt has another weird-as-hell dream.
Mercedes the werewolf is back, and she's chewing on something that sometimes looks like chocolate and sometimes looks like blood. Santana the werewolf is back and she snarls at him if he turns his back but keeps her mouth shut and her paws down if he's looking straight at her, like one of those annoying ghosts from Super Mario. Blaine is still a vampire, still wearing the sunglasses only this time they're bright yellow, he says he had to get a new pair while he was on vacation because his stepdad broke his old ones. Kurt's kind of upset because he gave Blaine those sunglasses. Blaine tells him not to worry about it.
Rachel Berry is there dressed like Buffy the Vampire Slayer with a stake in her hand, even though she says she's not supposed to have stakes because she's a vegan. She's going to try to kill Blaine. She won't call him Blaine, though, she keeps calling him Jesse and saying he's a demon, and Kurt says no, he's just a vampire, don't kill him and Blaine says he doesn't want to be a vampire, I just want to be a dumb human, like you!
Kurt tries to tell him that he isn't human, that he's a werewolf, but suddenly he realizes maybe he isn't a werewolf after all. And if he's just a regular human boy he isn't strong enough to overcome the Slayer and save Blaine from Rachel and she's going to take his heart, that boy is a monster, and then Rachel is Lady Gaga and please, don't hurt my boyfriend, all I want is your autograph!
If only you were still a werewolf, says Brittany. She always gives autographs to werewolves.
In the end he and Blaine just have to run.
And when Kurt wakes up, he decides he's tired of running.
---
Kurt's making a chicken salad sandwich on whole wheat when the doorbell rings, and before he can stop him Finn yells "I'll get it!"
"It's probably Blaine!" Kurt shouts back instead, and sure enough, his boyfriend is standing in the kitchen beside him a few moments later, rocking an amazing tan and looking somehow more gorgeous than ever. Kurt suddenly needs to be kissing him, so he does, just once or twice, and then takes a big bite out of his sandwich.
"Glad to see I'm not intruding on any kind of big fancy family dinner," says Blaine, leaning down to bite into the sandwich, too, even though it's still in Kurt's mouth. "Mmm, 'a's gud."
Kurt at least has the decency to swallow before speaking. "Yeah, Carole has her book club with her little girlfriends on Wednesdays, so it's just us guys on our own for dinner. And it is way too hot to actually cook anything." He grins a little. "Which you're not really helping with, by the by."
"Oh?" says Blaine, grinning. "Well I can try to be a little cooler if you need me to. I brought shades."
"If you wear sunglasses indoors you will be so uncool that I think my bread will toast."
"Yeah, that's fair. Speaking of what I brought, I've got something for you." He does, it turns out, have a little paper bag in his hand, and he hands it to Kurt, who sets down the sandwich and takes it from him. Inside is a big, mottled orange scallop shell, with two little feathers whisking out dramatically from the bottom, and when Kurt turns it over it turns out to be a huge lapel brooch.
"I'm kind of lousy at gift-shopping, but I thought this was reasonably beachy and still within your style boundaries. Yeah?"
"Yeah," says Kurt, "no, absolutely, this is really cool. Thanks."
"Of course, babe."
Kurt's eyes flick back to his boyfriend away from the brooch at the term of endearment; Blaine looks like he hadn't quite meant to say it, like it's just sort of slipped out. He makes a nervous, questioning face, and Kurt sets down the seashell and takes his hand instead, stroking his thumb across the back of it, until Blaine's smiling again. (Because it turns out Kurt kind of likes it.)
"But yeah, I know how much you like to dress up the school blazer, I figured the more of these things you've got the better. Variety, and all."
The mention of Dalton makes Kurt press his lips together. His hand stills against Blaine's, and that's when Blaine notices.
"Kurt?"
He takes a deep breath.
"What if I...hypothetically, what if I didn't come back to Dalton?"
"Wh-why wouldn't you?" says Blaine, looking utterly confused.
And Kurt has so many answers to that question. They range from the utterly logical - they don't really have the tuition money just lying around, Karofsky's graduated so the worst of his problems is gone, his dad really hates that he's away all the time - to the totally nonsensical - I just want to be a werewolf again. But nothing will really come out of his mouth right, so he just squeezes Blaine's hand, tighter and tighter, like his throat is constricting tighter and tighter, and oh damnit he better not cry. This is going to be hard enough as it is.
"They need me," he finally says, and his voice is small and pitiful.
Blaine takes Kurt's chin in his hand, and tilts his face up until he's looking Blaine in the eye. "But I need you," he says.
"Blaine," says Kurt, and he steps around the counter to throw himself into his boyfriend's arms, sobbing against his shoulder, clutching as tight as he can to his shirt and the warmth of his skin. Blaine strokes slow circles across his back, presses soft little nothing-kisses to his temples, and Kurt just lets it all go, Lauren and Mercedes and the football team and his vampire nightmares. He knows their love is strong enough to weather this if he goes, he knows it in his head. But to his heart it's sounding kind of awful.
"You're doing great at Dalton, you know," Blaine tells him, after they've both managed to calm down and they're sitting side by side up on the kitchen counter. "Better than anyone thought you would, I think, even me. You're quick, and smart, and the Warblers love you. Nothing but good things to come back to."
"I know," says Kurt softly, still kind of coming down from it.
"But..." Blaine trails off, and Kurt can hear it in his voice that it's hard for him to say. "But I know it doesn't always work for you. I know how loud you want to be, and how quiet Dalton makes you. I know you missed your glee friends, especially when New Directions went to nationals and we didn't. And I know you still miss them." He sighs, and bumps his shoulder into Kurt's a little. "Choice is yours, babe."
"And what would you have me do?" says Kurt, turning to look at him, really look at him. "Because you know I can't resist you, Blaine. If you ask me to stay...I will."
Slowly, and just slightly, Blaine shakes his head. "I can't do that, Kurt. You know I can't. But just...know that I want to, okay? Because I really, really do."
He kisses Kurt, slow and light, and Kurt can still kind of taste salt from where they'd both been crying, even Blaine, just a little. (He's that guy that can't help but cry if someone else is doing it.) After a while, Kurt reaches behind them and finishes eating the chicken salad sandwich, and he pours them both some cranberry-pomegranate juice, and tries to make what is possibly the hardest decision of his life.
---
Of course, they haven't seen each other face-to-face in over a week, and they are still Kurt and Blaine, after all, so it isn't too long before they've made it up to Kurt's bedroom and Kurt's half on top of Blaine on his bed, kissing the living daylights out of him.
"We are so good at this," Blaine murmurs against his lips. "Like, we could win medals."
"We've had a good amount of practice," says Kurt, mouthing hot across his neck and the angle of his jaw. "Mmmm, Blaine."
"You so cannot say my name like that unless this is actually going somewhere," says Blaine, pushing a little at his shoulders. "Either slow it down or lock the door."
Kurt fuses their mouths back together, sucking hot at Blaine's tongue until he's practically panting, but he winds them steadily down, and eventually climbs off and pulls back entirely, sitting upright and letting Blaine do the same, licking his lips slowly when he knows Blaine is watching. Blaine gives a sharp pinch to his side in return and he squirms.
"Ahh, hey!"
"Freaking tease," says Blaine. He sighs and falls back against the bed with a solid audible flop. "You know I like the new layout up here, it makes the whole thing more open."
"Yeah, my dad doesn't exactly have the best feng shui." Kurt's about to flop next to him but then Blaine gets up, strolling around the room, taking it all in. He runs his hand lightly over some of the stuff on top of Kurt's dresser, cautious, careful, does a cute little three-sixty in the middle of the carpet, and then makes a face over in the direction of his desk. "Hey, what's this?"
Kurt looks, and lets out a frightened gasp. "Hey," he yelps, "that's private!" Because there, sticking out of his desk drawer, not put away properly, is his hot-pink composition notebook scrapbook, and that is exactly what Blaine's reaching hand is headed for.
"Oooh, is this all your dirty little secrets?" Blaine croons, picking it up and hopping just out of Kurt's range - if he wants to get him he'll have to actually get off the bed. And by then it'll be too late, because Blaine's already flipping to the first page. Kurt groans and really does fall into the mattress this time, face-down in the pillows to spare himself the humiliation. He braces for Blaine's wry, disbelieving laughter.
He isn't ready for what actually happens. "Oh, wow, Kurt...."
When he resurfaces, Blaine is sitting next to him on the bed, staring down at the page in front of him - the original Courage locker propaganda, Blaine's photograph on one side of the binding and the letters themselves on the other, tilted at an angle so they'd actually fit - with something kind of like reverence. He flips and sees them at regionals, a copy of the program taped in on the other side, ransom-note letters spelling out Win or Lose. The next page is just the lyrics to Teenage Dream copied out in purple pen. The one after that is their first date, the movie theater pictures and Kurt's ticket stub and a big thick cut-out headline that says Superstar. Slowly but surely, Blaine pages through their life together. Here and there his hands trace against the pages, at arcade tickets or crayon doodles of hearts and stars and little yellow birds, and Kurt's pretty sure he's never blushed this hard in his life, but at least Blaine seems to like it.
The last page is lyrics again, not to a song Blaine or Kurt have ever sung anywhere near each other but to one that Kurt keeps coming back to lately, when he thinks about Dalton or Blaine's parents or this kind of amazing thing they've got going here. Blaine flips again, making sure there's nothing more, but then comes back to it. "You know this song?"
"It's on their greatest hits album," says Kurt, shrugging.
Blaine snaps the book shut and takes Kurt by the hand. "Come with me to my car for a second, okay?"
Kurt nods, a little dumbstruck, and lets Blaine lead him down the stairs and out the door, into the cooling dark of the August twilight. They stop not at the driver door to Blaine's car but at the trunk, where he clicks his keychain and pops it open to reveal the beat-up case to his guitar.
"It's been in here all summer, I haven't played much since we left school," says Blaine. "So forgive me, if I'm a bit rusty." He tunes at it for a few minutes, and Kurt stares transfixed at the casual grace of his fingers across the strings and frets, until he strums out a few chords and finds the right one and then starts. It's pitched up a couple steps from the original, and Blaine's voice slides through it better that way.
"When I was born
They looked at me and said
What a good boy
What a smart boy
What a strong boy..."
He shuffles awkwardly through the necessary pronoun switch of the next part, but that's to be expected, guys like the two of them have to do it often enough. He sings afraid of change, and Kurt picks up the next line, afraid of staying the same, and the glance that passes between them says it all. By the time Blaine's singing about Kurt's brown hair, and to just bear with him, bear with me, be with me tonight, Kurt decides he doesn't mind that Blaine saw into his extraordinarily personal scrapbook diary, because this seems pretty damn personal too.
"I know that it isn't right," sings Kurt softly.
Blaine smiles, and shakes his head a little. "Be with me tonight."
They're standing in the middle of the street, fireflies are winking around in the neighboring yards, and Kurt is in love.
To Part 3
Recipient: crackedaglet
Author: Threepwillow
Part 1
Kurt spends Sunday morning sending cryptic texts that he knows Blaine won't get until later because he's in church, and Sunday afternoon fighting with his GPS until it gets him where he needs to go. The end result is Kurt and his Navigator sitting in front of a nice, stylish house, not enormous but bigger than his even when he knows Blaine is an only child, and trying to work up the courage to ring the doorbell. Then he thinks the word Courage, and laughs, and wonders what he's so afraid of.
The woman who answers the door is petite and ethnic and very well put-together. Kurt doesn't know what to make of her for a split-second, because he was definitely expecting Blaine's parents, but then he notices - the very specific way she carries herself, especially about the arms and shoulders, the dark curl to her hair, her eyebrows - and it all clicks into place, if somewhat unexpectedly. "Hello, Mrs. Anderson? Um, Blaine's home, right?"
"It's Mrs. Taylor," she says, voice unreadable. "I'm remarried. And who are you?"
"Kurt Hummel, ma'am," he says, resisting the heavy temptation to duck his head down and put his hands in his pockets. For someone who can't be more than five-foot-two she's extraordinarily intimidating. "I'm, ah - I mean - Blaine's my boyfriend."
"I see," she says. "One moment." She clacks on her heels back inside, leaving the door cracked just slightly open, and Kurt can hear her calling for Blaine back into the house but before they return a tall, thin man with greying hair opens the door to look at him.
"Hello, sir, are you Mr. Taylor?"
"Yes," he says. "And you are?"
Kurt's getting a little irritated, but he feels like it would be the worst idea in the world right now to be anything less than completely polite, so he opens his mouth to introduce himself yet again when suddenly Blaine's mother is back.
"This is Kurt, he's a friend of Blaine's." She opens the door wider so she and her husband can both stand there, and Kurt finally catches sight of Blaine, sort of hovering behind them and looking absolutely miserable (well, to Kurt he looks miserable - Kurt supposes to a regular person he'd look all right, but this is someone whose every emotion and expression he practically has memorized). Kurt also doesn't miss how Mrs. Taylor has demoted him from significant other to just-a-friend in a matter of seconds.
"Oh, from school?" says Mr. Taylor, and he seems to be addressing Blaine but he's still looking right at Kurt, studying him up and down.
"Yes," says Blaine. "Kurt's in the Warblers with me. He had a solo at our regionals competition, do you remember?"
"Oh, yes," he says. "You have a very - distinct voice. It's hard to forget."
"Thank you, sir," says Kurt, even though he's pretty sure it wasn't meant to be a compliment.
"I suppose you're going out now then, Blaine?" says his mother, shooting him a glance.
"Yes," he says, "if that's all right."
"Very well," she says. "I hope you and your friend have fun." She steps aside just barely enough for Blaine to squeeze past her and he joins Kurt on the porch, very deliberately slipping their hands together and gripping Kurt as tight as he can. His parents definitely see it, but if they have any reaction to it, they keep it altogether hidden. And then the door is closed.
They cross back to Kurt's car in silence, which gives Kurt a chance to take in all of Blaine's insanely good-looking ensemble for the evening (a red button-up shirt, pre-distressed so that parts of it look almost pink, long sleeves rolled to the elbows and the collar left unbuttoned a little so Kurt can see a slim exposed triangle of his chest; nice dress-cut shorts, and he's even got a belt on, good for him) but also a chance to think about how horribly that interaction just went. He can't collect his thoughts well enough to say something until they're in the car, and even then he just kind of blurts it out.
"Why didn't you ever tell me your parents were so...awful?" he says, and if he's a little rude, well, they were a little rude to him too.
"Why do you think I always wanted to pick you up at your house?" says Blaine, sounding nothing but miserably defeated. "Why do you think I like boarding school so much?"
"Are they...always like this?" says Kurt. He hasn't even started the car yet.
"They're not so bad," Blaine says. "They don't really care what I do, they just - they just pretend it doesn't exist." Kurt doesn't have to ask what it is. "It's easier for them this way, is all. It's better than if they were hateful and nasty about it. Look, can we just go?"
"Sure," says Kurt, "sure."
But before he pulls out of the driveway, he leans across the front seat and gives Blaine a kiss, long and slow and impossibly deep. He tries to make it feel like an apology, not for anything that's been done but for the sheer fact that he's got such wonderful parents and Blaine just doesn't, and when Blaine is smiling when he pulls back, Kurt's pretty sure he's succeeded.
"You look amazing tonight, by the way," says Kurt. "I couldn't have dressed you better."
"Wow," says Blaine, sticking out his tongue. "You look - pretty incredible yourself. This is more of you than I usually get to see." He slides his hand up and down Kurt's bare upper arm, the edge of his finger skimming against Kurt's shoulder and the three or four multi-colored straps of his layered tank tops. Kurt flushes a little at the contact and keeps driving.
"So where exactly is it that we're going?" says Blaine after a little while. "It looks like we're heading all the way back to Lima, I could have just met you there."
"Nope," says Kurt. "I wanted to do this. You are my date tonight, not the other way around."
"I don't see how that's any different, but okay."
But Kurt's still kind of smiling about it. Because especially after what just happened, he's pretty sure that Blaine needs nothing more right now than to just be a happy, carefree little kid again.
The sun has gone down by the time they finally make it there, and it makes things even more wonderful, the bright garish neon lights illuminating everything, including the smile on Blaine's face. "I was wondering why you asked if I was afraid of clowns."
"It's basically the stupidest fear I've ever heard of, you would have lost a lot of points if you actually were," says Kurt. "You should only ever be afraid of clowns if they're coming at you with butcher knives, and really, I'd be scared of anyone coming at me with a butcher knife."
"Touché," says Blaine. Then he takes a deep breath in through his nose, and pivots immediately to the left. "Do I smell funnel cake?"
They wander down the big lane between the snacks and game booths and the side with all the rides until they find the funnel cake stand. Kurt pays for one for them to split, refusing Blaine's money, and they order it covered in powdered sugar with syrupy strawberries piled onto Blaine's half. He makes a show of eating it in the filthiest way possible, a drop of sticky red leaking slow down his lips, so Kurt twists off a strand of his own and slips it all the way into his mouth without biting it, even catching his fingertips against his mouth a little. Blaine's eyes go wide and then he takes the last little bit and shoves it in Kurt's face. Kurt leans in to kiss him and Blaine gets powdered sugar on his nose; Kurt kind of wants to leave it there, but he also really wants to lick it off, so he does.
They find a booth where the prizes are these weird lizard things that Kurt knows Tina collects, so they blow an obscene amount of money trying to win one by sinking a too-small basketball into a too-small hoop. They have to make three shots total to win something. Blaine finally manages one, and then Kurt, humming little strains of Beyonce to himself in his head, makes two more. "I don't think she has the black and orange one yet, can we get that, please?" he tells the man working there, and he hands it to Kurt, but Kurt makes Blaine carry it because it clashes too much with his outfit.
"You are something else," says Blaine, shaking his head.
"Naturally," says Kurt.
They make it a mission to go on every ride, except for that weird thing with the harnesses and the bungee cords ("Jumping around on mattresses in a commercial was enough for me, thanks," says Kurt, steering them away). It's late, and most of the stuff is really built for younger kids, so they're slowly but surely becoming the only people there. By the time they get on the carousel, they're alone.
Blaine sits on a white horse with a glittery red saddle, shifting around a little to try to get comfortable on a seat designed for someone half his age. Kurt sits behind him on a grey one, the saddle bright blue, the paint on its eyes kind of flaking off. High quality this place is not. Slowly but surely the ride spins to life, and Kurt can see Blaine's smile in his reflection off the mirrored center column. He's laughing, and Kurt laughs too.
About halfway through the ride Blaine shifts and turns around backward on the saddle to look at him. "This is so awesome," he says. "I'm getting a plastic-horse-induced wedgie and I'm still having the time of my life."
"TMI," Kurt says with a melodramatic groan, but he smiles back at him. "But yeah. It's pretty great."
"You're pretty great," he says to Kurt. "You look - god, I can't even - man." His eyes are shining with the bright yellows and greens of the carnival, and they suddenly look impossibly deep, like Kurt could fall right into them, or maybe like he already has. "Hey, gimme your camera, I know you've got it."
"No, wait, you first!" says Kurt. He digs into his pockets and pulls his camera out, and takes a picture of Blaine, clinging to the central post of the carousel horse to make sure he doesn't fall off, slim solid arms clenched tight, hair as wild and curly as ever, his whole face just kind of glowing. It's beautiful. Then he reaches out across the divide between them and hands the camera off, and Blaine jokes like he's about to drop it but totally has a grip on it. Kurt leans forward onto the little handlebars sticking out from the sides of his horse's face and smiles up at Blaine through his bangs, and Blaine keeps staring at him long after the flash has gone off. Kurt feels for a moment like there's an actual tangible string of emotion, hope and astonishment and that stupid L-word, stretching between Blaine's eyes and his. It's a moment he could probably hang onto forever, just like this. Everything is right.
But when they're on the back of the circle away from the ride attendant, Blaine does something you're definitely not supposed to do, and gets up off his horse while the ride is still in motion. Like a sailor searching for his sea legs, he wobbles toward Kurt, and then climbs onto the horse behind him, hitched up a little because he has to sit partially on its molded-solid tail because there's not enough room. It puts him at just the right height to press soft, hungry-hot kisses all across the back of Kurt's neck. A little noise leaves Kurt's lips before he can help himself and his whole body shivers.
"You are so hot right now, you know that?" Blaine whispers in his ear. He slides forward a little into Kurt, till his chest is flush to Kurt's back, and leans his arms around to brace against Kurt's own as his hands curl over Kurt's on the horse handlebars. His arms are a little bit too short to parallel Kurt's exactly and it only means he has to shift even closer with his chin and chest and hips. "Your skin just kind of glowing in all these neon lights...I can't handle it."
Blaine rolls his hips just once against the spot where they sit just below the small of Kurt's back and Kurt feels him ohmigod, Blaine is hard behind him, and he threads his fingers up through Blaine's and clenches to them as tight as he can.
"Can I tell you a secret?" says Blaine in that voice, low and hot right on his skin, as the ride starts to slow to its finish. "I've kind of wanted to do this..." He thrusts forward against Kurt a couple more times, and Kurt genuinely has to struggle to catch his breath. "Kind of since you first transferred to Dalton. You have no idea."
Kurt does have an idea, actually. Kurt's been kind of on the same page since even before he transferred to Dalton, smitten evolving into crushing evolving into quality time with his own hand in the shower. And since they started dating it's only gotten worse, obviously, with Blaine trying to be Mr. Perfect Gentleman Who Does This The Right Way when Kurt has just wanted to jump his bones since the very first time they kissed. And now here, tonight, when Kurt was finally okay to just be on a date with him, smiling and laughing, as innocent as children, this is when Blaine decides to climb behind him on a horse meant for one much smaller person and roll his hard cock against Kurt's ass.
And that is pretty funny, so Kurt starts to laugh.
"Hey," Blaine protests faintly, but the ride has stopped and Kurt just slides out from under him and climbs off the horse and then kisses him, hot and wet and thick and right at this really perfect sexy angle because the horse has stopped high enough that Kurt has to lean up to Blaine's mouth, for once. He slips his hand into the back pocket of Blaine's shorts and keeps the other trapped in his thick dark hair, and doesn't let up until the ride attendant kind of coughs awkwardly at them. And then he just laughs some more.
"Blaine," he says very deliberately, trying and almost succeeding to keep his voice steady as they just sort of breathe against each other. "My parents are out of town tonight, and won't be back until tomorrow afternoon."
They bustle past the girl working the ride, all bright and innocent smiles, and get to Kurt's car as fast as they possibly can, holding hands and stealing grasps of each other's skin.
---
Kurt can't help himself - as soon as it's in park in his driveway and he and Blaine have managed to scramble out, he grabs his boyfriend hard by the collar of his shirt and shoves him against the side of his car and kisses him breathless. Frankly, he's pretty glad he's a regular shopper, or he wouldn't have been able to go on enough autopilot to get them from the mall to his house in the first place. Blaine's hands instantly curve around his ass and he grinds their hips together, deep, delicious, while Kurt slips his thumb back and forth across the slim spot of skin exposed at Blaine's collar and gets his tongue as far into Blaine's mouth as it'll go, and then some. A little thread of saliva still stretches between their lips when they pull apart and Kurt laughs a little awkwardly and wipes it away.
"Okay, I think Finn's here," he says. "So just - give me a minute to get him - not here."
"Can't he just, I don't know, stay downstairs or something - "
"He's going to know, and that's going to weird him out," says Kurt. "It's easier if he's just - oh just give me a second."
Kurt heads up to the door and, plan only kind of half-formulated in his head, rings his own doorbell. Finn answers, of course, but he makes kind of a face when he realizes it's just Kurt and Blaine.
"Did you forget your key or something?" he says.
"No," says Kurt, standing kind of close to the potted plant, holding his tote around the front of his hips instead of off to the side. "I - look, Finn, you remember when you broke up with Rachel for like the eighth time and I was almost-kind of-not really about to date Dylan and we both decided that there was no way either of us was ever going to manage to get any if - "
"If the other person was in the house, yeah," says Finn. "Um, and actually that was only the third time I broke up with Rachel, okay - "
"I don't care if you're keeping count, Finn!" snaps Kurt, fidgeting with the strap on his bag. "Can you just get out?"
Kurt sees it, the moment the realization lands on Finn's face - his eyes flick to Blaine, then down lower on Kurt's body than normal, and he snatches his car keys from the rack just inside the door. "I'm gonna go to Puck's I think," he says a little too loudly.
"Good idea." Finn shoulders past him, wary of making bodily contact, and heads out to the street where his car is parked. By the time his engine is roaring to life, Blaine has made it up the stoop and into the house and has Kurt pinned to the back of the door, his mouth all over Kurt's throat until Kurt is making noises that are kind of embarrassing.
"Stairs, Blaine," he says. "Stairs and then my bedroom, please."
"Second door on the left," says Blaine with a grin, and they grab and tease and fumble their way to Kurt's room, shutting the door and locking it behind them even though no one else is around. Somehow Kurt is on his back on his bed, propped up on his elbows, looking up at Blaine who's standing just off to the side looking down at him like a man starved and wow okay they are about to have sex. That's. Wow.
Blaine must notice him freezing up, and he comes to sit next to him on the bed, hip-to-hip. "Relax, okay?" he says. "It's your number one, I know, but it's only my number two. I want this," he assures him, with a long sucking kiss up under his jaw, "and you want this," and the kiss travels down to the dip of his collarbone, "and everything is going to be amazing. Trust me."
And that's what seals it for Kurt, because Kurt does trust him. Kurt has come to realize in the past couple of hot summer months that he pretty much trusts Blaine with his life. He curves his hand soft and slow around the back of Blaine's neck, and tugs him till he's on top of Kurt, one knee pressing into the mattress high on either side of Kurt's left thigh. They kiss languidly, a beautiful sweet tangle of lips and tongues and hot funnel-cake breath, their mouths sliding together in time with the slow roll of their hips against one another. Every point of contact Kurt has with Blaine kind of feels like it's on fire, but in a good way. He's torn between wanting to do this forever and really, really wanting to have sex with him.
As if he's reading Kurt's mind, Blaine slides up, sitting back on his heels, and starts to unbutton his shirt. That won't do.
"No, me," says Kurt, and he lifts his arms up to do it for him, tugging the bottom edge out of the waistband of his shorts, starting at the top and undoing each button neatly and precisely, staring open-mouthed at Blaine's skin as more and more of it becomes accessible. When it's down far enough that Kurt can easily push the fabric aside and reach Blaine's nipple, he does, craning his neck up to latch his lips against it and tease it with his tongue. Blaine sighs and clutches his head closer, and Kurt snags it in his teeth. Yeah, this was a pretty good idea.
He files that away for later and finishes taking off Blaine's shirt, sliding it down off his (mmm, yeah, thicker and stronger than they look with his clothes on) shoulders, and then shifting a little underneath Blaine so he can half-sit up propped on his pillows, wanting better access. It's the first time he's really had a boy at his disposal like this, so much bare skin, and Kurt kind of wants to just touch him all over. So he does, skimming fingers across his hard arms and shoulders, smoothing across the solid plane of his back, nuzzling into the faint dark hair across the top of his chest - hell yes, thinks Kurt, this is why he's gay, because boys are amazing.
Blaine's tugging on the bottom hem of his own layers now, and Kurt reluctantly lifts his hands away from Blaine's skin to hold his arms over his head so Blaine can twist them all off, the white one, the blue one, the bright yellow one all the way underneath. With his own chest exposed Kurt feels too too much like a little boy, his skin pale and smooth and hairless, only the leanest of muscle underneath, but Blaine just breathes out a huge gasping sigh, and presses his mouth to the center of Kurt's chest, and holds him there, just tasting, for longer than Kurt thought was possible.
"Blaine," says Kurt, clutching at his shoulders, and he feels Blaine's hot breath laughing against his skin, as Blaine presses him back horizontal again, and kisses down further and further and further until suddenly his tongue is swirling in Kurt's bellybutton (and wow, that should be kind of awkward but it feels pretty incredible) and his chin is bumping up against the waistband of Kurt's jeans. Oh. Oh that's where this is going.
"Can I?" says Blaine softly, his hands hovering at either side of Kurt's fly.
And Kurt can't help himself. "I don't know, can you?" he says, crooking one eyebrow upward. The soft longing in Blaine's eyes quickly fires up to a bright fierce light, and he's unbuttoning and unzipping Kurt's pants before Kurt knows it, letting out his hard erection still kind of trapped in his dark red boxer briefs. Blaine nuzzles his cheek against it for a second or two before licking a bold, solid stripe against it, through the fabric.
"Oh," breathes Kurt, his whole body kind of spasming forward, and Blaine does it again, and again, until Kurt can't do anything but tremble against him and his underwear is pretty much soaked. Then Blaine's hands are on his hips, a wordless request, and Kurt shifts up away from the mattress so Blaine can tug his jeans and underwear down off the curve of his ass, and then pull everything further down in the front, to expose Kurt's cock to the open air, and to his hot gaze and hotter tongue.
"It's good, right?" he asks, breathing against the crease between Kurt's hip and thigh.
"It's so good, please, Blaine just get on with itohmygod." Blaine's got laughter in his eyes as he slips his lips down over Kurt's cock, his whole mouth soft but pressing firmly as he swallows Kurt down, inching closer and closer to the small thatch of Kurt's hair, nothing but wet heat and swirling tongue and how, how can he get that much in there?
Soon most of what Kurt can see is the messy mop of Blaine's hair, and he can't help but sink his hands down into it, shifting Blaine's head against him as he sucks and bobs, encouraging him in the right direction when he does something particularly mindblowing. Blaine's tongue catches right up under the ridge of the head, sliding back and forth, teasing perfect, and it's so amazingly good it kind of makes Kurt want to cry. Nothing in his life has every been this hot. Kurt rakes his nails all through Blaine's hair across his scalp, scraping at the roots, and soon Blaine's humming out distant little moans straight against Kurt's erection and the sounds rumble up through him in ways he didn't think were possible and that is it, Kurt comes hard down Blaine's throat with a yelp and a full-body spasm, hands tensing into Blaine's hair as Blaine swallows most of it but loses a little bit out through his lips on Kurt's softening shaft as he pulls away, making just enough of a mess that Kurt thinks distantly that he'll be upset when this is all over. Instead, he's finding it pretty hard to be upset about anything, when they both sit up and Blaine slides up to kiss him and Kurt can taste his own come in another boy's mouth. Shouldn't be hot. But it is.
"What about you," says Kurt between hungry soft fleeting kisses, "I can - I want - "
"Will you just touch me?" says Blaine, shifting his hips toward Kurt's hand where it sits between them. "I don't want you to do anything you're not - "
"I am, though," says Kurt. "I'm just as much of a teenage boy as you are."
"Touch me," says Blaine against his neck, "please." His voice is weak and broken with lust, and it thrills hard in Kurt's blood. Well, if he puts it that way.
Together they unfasten Blaine's belt and tug off his shorts and his underwear, and Kurt's stuff too, until they're totally naked against each other and Kurt can feel Blaine's too-hot skin absolutely everywhere. He curves his hand loose around Blaine's cock, shifting up and down, and then curling tighter as he figures out what Blaine likes, swiping his thumb across the leaking head every third pass or so, and kissing him everywhere he can reach. He sucks hard on Blaine's nipple again and has to struggle not to grin when Blaine shouts out his name. (A boy is shouting my name.)
He keeps his hand firm around Blaine's cock but drags his mouth lower, lower, licking up the trail of hair below his navel the wrong way so Blaine squirms, and then bending down just far enough to taste him, precome smearing across his lips, tongue darting out tentatively, his hand still stroking the rest of Blaine as he adjusts to the taste (and oh, Kurt could get used to this). Blaine's only warning that he's close is a tight squeeze to Kurt's shoulder and another breathy cry of his name, and Kurt shifts quickly back up to shove his tongue in Blaine's mouth and twists his wrist just so and swallows up all Blaine's moans as he shoots off, come all over Kurt's hand and his own stomach and thighs. They keep kissing as Blaine comes down from it, mouths pressing slower and slower as he runs out of steam, and then they pull apart and Blaine rests his forehead against Kurt's and they are both, for some reason, grinning like idiots.
"Okay, that rocked," says Blaine, stroking at the back of Kurt's hair.
"Pretty much," says Kurt. "Sex. Wow."
"Yeah."
They have a hard time not just touching each other, but eventually they have to get up, and Kurt swaps out the comforter they just made a mess on for a clean one he has stashed under his bed. Blaine gets them a damp towel from the bathroom to wipe themselves up with, and when they're clean and lying next to one another Kurt just kind of studies on him, naked and flush-faced and absolutely gorgeous. He's trying to figure out what he did to get such a perfect boyfriend.
"Geez," says Blaine, "what the hell did I do to get such a perfect boyfriend?"
Oh. Well maybe it's that.
"Stay the night," Kurt says suddenly, almost without thinking about it.
Blaine makes a sort of face at him. "Are you sure?"
"Yes," says Kurt, because wow, he kind of is. "My parents won't be back, and you said yourself your folks don't care what you do. I want you to sleep beside me. I - "
Say it, Kurt. Just say it. You both know it's true.
"I love you."
Blaine's whole body just kind of goes limp. The smile on his face is the widest and most sincere Kurt has ever seen, and suddenly Blaine is kissing him soft and passionate right on the lips, huddling closer to him on the bed and humming softly against his mouth.
"I love you so much, Kurt," he says when they pull apart. "Of course I'll stay."
So they throw on some pajama pants, for Finn's sake, and crawl under the covers together. Blaine nestles down in against Kurt's chest and Kurt wraps his arms around him, breathing in the soft smell of his wild hair. And they fall asleep, just like that.
August
If the sunlight dipping into his room is anything to go by, it's already pretty late in the morning by the time Kurt stirs awake the next day. He closes his eyes against it and rolls his face into his pillow, letting his mind and his body remember everything about the night before, and a slow easy smile stretches across his face. He reaches his arm out to the other side of the bed for Blaine and gets a good handful of -
Nothing. Blaine isn't there.
"Are you kidding me?" he groans, forcing himself to sit up, limbs heavy and eyelids heavier as he blinks around his bedroom. But suddenly, there he is, buttoning his shirt back up and trying to be as silent as possible, and when he realizes Kurt's awake he crosses over and presses a sloppy kiss to his temple.
"Hey, ssshhh, sorry," he says. "But I think I'd better go."
"You were just gonna leave?" snaps Kurt, pretty pissed off about it.
"Of course not," he says, "I was writing you a note and I was gonna text you too. I just - I'm not feeling so fresh after last night and I have kind of a thing about using other people's showers. Plus you said your parents would be here this afternoon and it's already almost afternoon - "
"Mmm, but I want you to stay," Kurt says, well aware that he's whining, and he throws his arms around Blaine's waist.
Blaine laughs a little. "I want to stay, too, but this isn't the time for that. Go back to sleep. Love you."
Kurt's skin tingles happily with that. "Love you too."
"Gosh," says Blaine, "I can't believe it's August already. Summer goes by fast, doesn't it?"
"I wish it could last forever," says Kurt, face buried in Blaine's stomach.
"Nah, it's fine for a while but not forever," says Blaine. "It's too hot. And don't you miss Dalton? And the Warblers?"
"Who needs Dalton, I've got you," says Kurt.
That declaration hits them both a little funny, and Kurt leans back to look Blaine in the eye. But the moment passes almost as quickly as it's begun, and Blaine ruffles his already sleep-mussed hair and then slips his shoes back on.
"I'll call later, okay? There's only a week or so until I get dragged on our annual family vacation, we should make the most of it."
"Okay," says Kurt, yawning.
Blaine kisses him hard, then, even though they've both got hideous morning breath, and then he tells him he loves him again, and slips out his door and down the stairs.
He reappears two minutes later. Kurt tries not to sound too smug.
"You forgot we came in my car, didn't you."
"Maybe."
---
When his parents get home Kurt is in the middle of compulsively redecorating. He had planned to redo his room, of course. He wants to move the bed so the sunlight doesn't hit him right in the face on clear mornings, and try to make it a little easier to open the closet doors. But he's also definitely washing his sheets. And maybe kind of freaking out a little. Because he can't get it out of his head that somehow his father is going to take one look at him and just know.
He's so glad no one has mindreading powers in his house. His brain is stuck on a constant stream of I had sex. I totally had sex. It was amazing. But I had sex. With my boyfriend. In this house.
So yeah, it's stressing him out a little.
He's really glad to see his dad, though. His cheeks and the top of his head are bright red with sunburn and he looks amazingly happy. The change of environment seems to have refreshed his health a little, too, and he breathes a little easier when his dad engulfs him in a big hug, murmuring "I missed you, kiddo" into his hair, showing no signs of having seen flashing neon lights that scream NOT A VIRGIN ANY MORE floating over his son's head. That, and his sheets finishing in the laundry, and Finn's unexpected skill at being casually mum about the whole thing, leave him pretty reassured.
For a few days, then, it becomes like this awesome little secret, that he can hold down near to his heart and cherish and think about whenever anything sets him on edge. It's like the world's most intimate of inside jokes, just between Kurt and his super-hot boyfriend, and nobody can take it away from him. The thrill of the secret can only carry him through those few days, though, and despite knowing that it's the biggest mistake, because telling his best friend is pretty much equivalent to telling the whole world, Kurt finally has to text Mercedes. He uses the very elaborate secret code they established freshman year for precisely this occasion, no matter who lost it first:
I. Did. It.
He barely has time to slide his phone back into his pocket before it's buzzing like crazy. OHMYGODD!!!!!!!!!! reads the first one, and then immediately after, u need to tell me E-VER-Y-THIN. in person. smoothy smoothies in a half hr??
Kurt checks himself in his vanity mirror. Half an hour might be pushing it. Still haven't done my hair to go out today. Order for me if you get there first? Lowfat guava-peach? He runs a hand through his bangs, trying to get them to sit right, thoughts racing in his head, and then sends off another text. Actually, screw it. I'll wear a hat. See you soon! :)
The pinstripes on his new newsboy don't quite match the ones on his shorts, but this is serious BFF business he's attending to, and time is of the essence. Besides, he spent last Sunday night having seriously awesome sexual relations with his seriously amazing boyfriend. He's got no one to impress.
Smoothy-Smoothies is possibly the crappiest little place to get smoothies that exists on the planet, or at least in Lima and the surrounding areas. But they're dirt-cheap, and the cooling fan that runs in the summer is so damn loud that no one can overhear anyone else's conversations. Kurt figures that's probably a good thing, considering he's talking about oral sex.
"Wow," says Mercedes, sipping on some gross-looking chocolate and banana concoction. "Wow. And boy, I been close enough to your junk to know it's not exactly bite-sized."
"I know!" says Kurt, trying not to think too hard about that statement. "It's still kind of frighteningly awesome every time I remember that it actually happened. And I mean, we didn't...do a whole lot, like we didn't go all the way - "
"Let's go all the way tonight," sings Mercedes, with a toothy teasing grin.
"Shut up," he says. "...But it just felt so right. I couldn't have asked for it to go better. Gosh, I kind of wish I could just - take how magical it was, and give it to you for when you get your groove on. It's almost not fair."
"Don't worry, I feel like I'm gonna be pretty groove-free for a while yet," she says, frowning into the dregs of her smoothie. "There were maybe two guys left at school that were actually cute who weren't total a-holes, and I think they both graduated. Unless Parker failed back a year, and if that's the case, I'm not interested in him either."
"Ugh, seriously," says Kurt. "Wow, that's kind of weird for me to think about people we know already graduating. I mean, Wes and David graduated, but I never knew them in any context other than as seniors, you know?" And even that's weird, when he thinks about it, a Dalton without Wes tapping his pencil against his notebook, bored out of his skull in the evening tutoring lounge waiting for kids to come in needing chemistry help, or David running through the halls in nothing but a towel because someone locked him out of his room while he was in the shower, again.
"Yeah, glee is gonna be super-weird without Mike," says Mercedes. "I'm just glad he and Tina finally ended it, or I don't think I could handle her waterworks."
"Mmmm," says Kurt around his straw.
"The football team is gonna get hit the hardest, though," she continues. "Damn. They sucked already, even with our glee homeboys and Beiste, but they're losing their fastest guy and two of their biggest guys all at the same time. We better get some good new freshmen or they're totally outta luck."
Kurt stiffens, and slowly draws his mouth away from the straw to look Mercedes in the eye. He knows who the three biggest guys on McKinley's team are, and one of them is Finn. "Karofsky...graduated?"
"Yeah," she says, "hard to believe, I know. They thought he was gonna have to do twelfth grade over because of the days he missed and how his record got messed up when you got him expelled. But I guess he got his ass in gear enough to make some kinda passing grade - or maybe everyone's just anxious to get rid of him. I sure won't miss him."
"Yeah," says Kurt, his head suddenly reeling. "Me neither."
---
Kurt's phone says about to get on this stupid airplane. miss you already. :(
He wipes his hands thoroughly on the fresh rag in his pocket and types back I miss you too. I miss your face. :P
miss your smile says Blaine.
Miss your hair.
miss your skin
Miss your co--oh crap here comes my dad.
HEY thats not fair!!! buzzes Blaine, but Kurt is already tucking his phone back into his other pocket, grinning a little to himself as his dad crosses to him from the back room in the shop.
"You get those tires realigned?"
"Yeah, Dad," he says. "Ugh, was I this stupid when I first got my car?"
"Of course not," says Burt, "you learned from the best." He claps his hand against Kurt's shoulder and leaves a nice solid handprint, right overtop of three or four just like it, from the same action repeated over and over. With his other hand he gestures vaguely down at Kurt's pocket. "Who're you texting that's so important you'll do it even in here, huh?"
"Blaine," Kurt says instantly, and Burt says it right along with him, answering his own question too.
"I knew it. God I like that kid. I like what he does for you, Kurt."
"Mm-hmm," says Kurt, noncommittal.
"You two've been awful close lately."
"Yes, Dad, he's my boyfriend."
"How close?"
"Dad."
"I'm just sayin', anything you do, I want it to be because you want to do it, okay? I'm not gonna act like I didn't punch that V-card right around your age - "
Kurt throws his hands up to stop him. "Oh my god, Dad, why would you even - "
" - hey, hey, I just wanna hear from the source that this is all going good. I like that kid a lot, but all of that can go away in a friggin' heartbeat if I find out he's takin' advantage of you at all, you hear?"
Kurt rolls his eyes and cocks his hip. "Okay, seriously? Here we are in your macho car shop having guy bonding time and you're still gonna treat me like a little princess?"
"Kurt - "
"How come it's him you're worried about taking advantage of me, huh? What if I'm the one taking advantage? Would you be having this same conversation with Finn right now?"
"No, Kurt, because he ain't my son," says his dad, looking him hard in the eye. "That's Carole's place to do, not mine." He pauses, slowing down a little. "And I know you, Kurt," he says. "And you would never."
Kurt sighs, and realizes he's being stupid, and pulls his dad into a sort of half-hug, wary of the fact that he's about three times more grimy than Kurt is. "No advantage being taken, on anyone's part," he says. "I promise."
"All right, well good," says Burt, and he kisses him lightly on the forehead, and then the moment's over. Thankfully.
Kurt's rummaging in the toolbox at his feet when a thought kind of occurs to him. "Hey Dad, have you seen my other shop t-shirt?" he says. "I feel like I've been wearing this blue one for ages, I keep having to wash it and go right back to using it. My grey one's missing."
"No idea, kiddo," says Burt from inside the hood of Mrs. Crescitelli's poor sedan. "Ask your stepmom, she does laundry waaaay more than I do."
"Yeah," says Kurt, "okay."
The garage falls silent, except for the sounds of their tinkering, and Kurt takes a moment to text Blaine back, even though he's probably on the plane by now and won't be able to answer.
Sorry. I miss your coffee. It's so much better than what my dad makes because our machine is on the fritz.
He grins to himself. He can practically see the look on Blaine's face when he gets the message, hours from now on some layover, his expectations shattered.
But of course Blaine has to get the last laugh.
screw you. oh, wait. ;)
---
Most of his friends find out while Blaine's still gone. They mostly have the prudence to keep it off Facebook (although Santana leaves a message on his wall consisting of solely the totally-made-up word "wanky" and a little winky-face) but he does get a giddy phonecall from Tina, a flurry of texts from Artie that are basically high-fives represented in words, and one sweet text from Brittany wishing for his sake that Blaine tasted better than the other boys she's made out with. Puck's the worst, making some heinous comment about how many more times Kurt would have to get it on to beat his summer high score, which he hopes to all that is sacred in his world is not an allusion to his relationship with Lauren. Finn, thankfully, stays totally out of it.
"Word travels fast with you guys," Blaine says with a laugh and an amused crook of his eyebrow, over Skype three nights before he's due back in Ohio.
"Yeah, well, everything at McKinley is kind of fast-paced," says Kurt. "You just have to adjust to it. It comes almost second-nature after a while. And it's like riding a bike, you don't forget it."
"Sounds kinda crazy."
"So what are you up to?"
"Well my mom and Derrick are out with my aunt and uncle and...pretty much everyone else at this gross bar they go to every year," he says, picking at a thread on the bedspread he's laying on top of. "I'm the only one down here at the beach house who's still too young to drink, so I've just been kind of hanging out. Watching some YouTube videos, reading my summer homework book, nothing too serious."
"Sounds thrilling."
"Nah, it's nice to get a break from all the family insanity. Plus this way I get to talk to you." His face lights up with a grin that's almost too cheesy to be real, and Kurt rolls his eyes.
"Okay, I love you, but you are the biggest dork sometimes."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
"Suit yourself."
"Seriously, though, I miss you," he says, and it tugs a little at Kurt's heart. "This is weird, knowing that I can't just hop in my car and drive out to see you if I want to. I'm glad I'm coming back soon."
"I miss you too," says Kurt. He puts his hand up against the screen, wanting so badly to just touch.
"Wow, okay, now who's the dork."
"Bite me."
"I wish," says Blaine, and it's that voice back again, lower lip rolling between his teeth, and it is just not fair how Blaine can get to him like this from thousands of miles away. Kurt swallows thickly, and clicks into his iTunes, starting up a loud, heavy playlist.
"And you say you're alone in this fabulous beach house of yours?"
"Will be for a couple hours, yeah," says Blaine. "Hey, where are you going?"
"To lock the door," Kurt calls over his shoulder back toward the computer. He does, and then shifts his laptop to the foot of his bed, taking his time to sprawl out a little and tilting the screen and camera back so Blaine can see him.
Because the first song on the playlist is Lady Gaga's Teeth, and Kurt wants to show Blaine everything.
---
The night Blaine's flight is due back into Columbus, Kurt has another weird-as-hell dream.
Mercedes the werewolf is back, and she's chewing on something that sometimes looks like chocolate and sometimes looks like blood. Santana the werewolf is back and she snarls at him if he turns his back but keeps her mouth shut and her paws down if he's looking straight at her, like one of those annoying ghosts from Super Mario. Blaine is still a vampire, still wearing the sunglasses only this time they're bright yellow, he says he had to get a new pair while he was on vacation because his stepdad broke his old ones. Kurt's kind of upset because he gave Blaine those sunglasses. Blaine tells him not to worry about it.
Rachel Berry is there dressed like Buffy the Vampire Slayer with a stake in her hand, even though she says she's not supposed to have stakes because she's a vegan. She's going to try to kill Blaine. She won't call him Blaine, though, she keeps calling him Jesse and saying he's a demon, and Kurt says no, he's just a vampire, don't kill him and Blaine says he doesn't want to be a vampire, I just want to be a dumb human, like you!
Kurt tries to tell him that he isn't human, that he's a werewolf, but suddenly he realizes maybe he isn't a werewolf after all. And if he's just a regular human boy he isn't strong enough to overcome the Slayer and save Blaine from Rachel and she's going to take his heart, that boy is a monster, and then Rachel is Lady Gaga and please, don't hurt my boyfriend, all I want is your autograph!
If only you were still a werewolf, says Brittany. She always gives autographs to werewolves.
In the end he and Blaine just have to run.
And when Kurt wakes up, he decides he's tired of running.
---
Kurt's making a chicken salad sandwich on whole wheat when the doorbell rings, and before he can stop him Finn yells "I'll get it!"
"It's probably Blaine!" Kurt shouts back instead, and sure enough, his boyfriend is standing in the kitchen beside him a few moments later, rocking an amazing tan and looking somehow more gorgeous than ever. Kurt suddenly needs to be kissing him, so he does, just once or twice, and then takes a big bite out of his sandwich.
"Glad to see I'm not intruding on any kind of big fancy family dinner," says Blaine, leaning down to bite into the sandwich, too, even though it's still in Kurt's mouth. "Mmm, 'a's gud."
Kurt at least has the decency to swallow before speaking. "Yeah, Carole has her book club with her little girlfriends on Wednesdays, so it's just us guys on our own for dinner. And it is way too hot to actually cook anything." He grins a little. "Which you're not really helping with, by the by."
"Oh?" says Blaine, grinning. "Well I can try to be a little cooler if you need me to. I brought shades."
"If you wear sunglasses indoors you will be so uncool that I think my bread will toast."
"Yeah, that's fair. Speaking of what I brought, I've got something for you." He does, it turns out, have a little paper bag in his hand, and he hands it to Kurt, who sets down the sandwich and takes it from him. Inside is a big, mottled orange scallop shell, with two little feathers whisking out dramatically from the bottom, and when Kurt turns it over it turns out to be a huge lapel brooch.
"I'm kind of lousy at gift-shopping, but I thought this was reasonably beachy and still within your style boundaries. Yeah?"
"Yeah," says Kurt, "no, absolutely, this is really cool. Thanks."
"Of course, babe."
Kurt's eyes flick back to his boyfriend away from the brooch at the term of endearment; Blaine looks like he hadn't quite meant to say it, like it's just sort of slipped out. He makes a nervous, questioning face, and Kurt sets down the seashell and takes his hand instead, stroking his thumb across the back of it, until Blaine's smiling again. (Because it turns out Kurt kind of likes it.)
"But yeah, I know how much you like to dress up the school blazer, I figured the more of these things you've got the better. Variety, and all."
The mention of Dalton makes Kurt press his lips together. His hand stills against Blaine's, and that's when Blaine notices.
"Kurt?"
He takes a deep breath.
"What if I...hypothetically, what if I didn't come back to Dalton?"
"Wh-why wouldn't you?" says Blaine, looking utterly confused.
And Kurt has so many answers to that question. They range from the utterly logical - they don't really have the tuition money just lying around, Karofsky's graduated so the worst of his problems is gone, his dad really hates that he's away all the time - to the totally nonsensical - I just want to be a werewolf again. But nothing will really come out of his mouth right, so he just squeezes Blaine's hand, tighter and tighter, like his throat is constricting tighter and tighter, and oh damnit he better not cry. This is going to be hard enough as it is.
"They need me," he finally says, and his voice is small and pitiful.
Blaine takes Kurt's chin in his hand, and tilts his face up until he's looking Blaine in the eye. "But I need you," he says.
"Blaine," says Kurt, and he steps around the counter to throw himself into his boyfriend's arms, sobbing against his shoulder, clutching as tight as he can to his shirt and the warmth of his skin. Blaine strokes slow circles across his back, presses soft little nothing-kisses to his temples, and Kurt just lets it all go, Lauren and Mercedes and the football team and his vampire nightmares. He knows their love is strong enough to weather this if he goes, he knows it in his head. But to his heart it's sounding kind of awful.
"You're doing great at Dalton, you know," Blaine tells him, after they've both managed to calm down and they're sitting side by side up on the kitchen counter. "Better than anyone thought you would, I think, even me. You're quick, and smart, and the Warblers love you. Nothing but good things to come back to."
"I know," says Kurt softly, still kind of coming down from it.
"But..." Blaine trails off, and Kurt can hear it in his voice that it's hard for him to say. "But I know it doesn't always work for you. I know how loud you want to be, and how quiet Dalton makes you. I know you missed your glee friends, especially when New Directions went to nationals and we didn't. And I know you still miss them." He sighs, and bumps his shoulder into Kurt's a little. "Choice is yours, babe."
"And what would you have me do?" says Kurt, turning to look at him, really look at him. "Because you know I can't resist you, Blaine. If you ask me to stay...I will."
Slowly, and just slightly, Blaine shakes his head. "I can't do that, Kurt. You know I can't. But just...know that I want to, okay? Because I really, really do."
He kisses Kurt, slow and light, and Kurt can still kind of taste salt from where they'd both been crying, even Blaine, just a little. (He's that guy that can't help but cry if someone else is doing it.) After a while, Kurt reaches behind them and finishes eating the chicken salad sandwich, and he pours them both some cranberry-pomegranate juice, and tries to make what is possibly the hardest decision of his life.
---
Of course, they haven't seen each other face-to-face in over a week, and they are still Kurt and Blaine, after all, so it isn't too long before they've made it up to Kurt's bedroom and Kurt's half on top of Blaine on his bed, kissing the living daylights out of him.
"We are so good at this," Blaine murmurs against his lips. "Like, we could win medals."
"We've had a good amount of practice," says Kurt, mouthing hot across his neck and the angle of his jaw. "Mmmm, Blaine."
"You so cannot say my name like that unless this is actually going somewhere," says Blaine, pushing a little at his shoulders. "Either slow it down or lock the door."
Kurt fuses their mouths back together, sucking hot at Blaine's tongue until he's practically panting, but he winds them steadily down, and eventually climbs off and pulls back entirely, sitting upright and letting Blaine do the same, licking his lips slowly when he knows Blaine is watching. Blaine gives a sharp pinch to his side in return and he squirms.
"Ahh, hey!"
"Freaking tease," says Blaine. He sighs and falls back against the bed with a solid audible flop. "You know I like the new layout up here, it makes the whole thing more open."
"Yeah, my dad doesn't exactly have the best feng shui." Kurt's about to flop next to him but then Blaine gets up, strolling around the room, taking it all in. He runs his hand lightly over some of the stuff on top of Kurt's dresser, cautious, careful, does a cute little three-sixty in the middle of the carpet, and then makes a face over in the direction of his desk. "Hey, what's this?"
Kurt looks, and lets out a frightened gasp. "Hey," he yelps, "that's private!" Because there, sticking out of his desk drawer, not put away properly, is his hot-pink composition notebook scrapbook, and that is exactly what Blaine's reaching hand is headed for.
"Oooh, is this all your dirty little secrets?" Blaine croons, picking it up and hopping just out of Kurt's range - if he wants to get him he'll have to actually get off the bed. And by then it'll be too late, because Blaine's already flipping to the first page. Kurt groans and really does fall into the mattress this time, face-down in the pillows to spare himself the humiliation. He braces for Blaine's wry, disbelieving laughter.
He isn't ready for what actually happens. "Oh, wow, Kurt...."
When he resurfaces, Blaine is sitting next to him on the bed, staring down at the page in front of him - the original Courage locker propaganda, Blaine's photograph on one side of the binding and the letters themselves on the other, tilted at an angle so they'd actually fit - with something kind of like reverence. He flips and sees them at regionals, a copy of the program taped in on the other side, ransom-note letters spelling out Win or Lose. The next page is just the lyrics to Teenage Dream copied out in purple pen. The one after that is their first date, the movie theater pictures and Kurt's ticket stub and a big thick cut-out headline that says Superstar. Slowly but surely, Blaine pages through their life together. Here and there his hands trace against the pages, at arcade tickets or crayon doodles of hearts and stars and little yellow birds, and Kurt's pretty sure he's never blushed this hard in his life, but at least Blaine seems to like it.
The last page is lyrics again, not to a song Blaine or Kurt have ever sung anywhere near each other but to one that Kurt keeps coming back to lately, when he thinks about Dalton or Blaine's parents or this kind of amazing thing they've got going here. Blaine flips again, making sure there's nothing more, but then comes back to it. "You know this song?"
"It's on their greatest hits album," says Kurt, shrugging.
Blaine snaps the book shut and takes Kurt by the hand. "Come with me to my car for a second, okay?"
Kurt nods, a little dumbstruck, and lets Blaine lead him down the stairs and out the door, into the cooling dark of the August twilight. They stop not at the driver door to Blaine's car but at the trunk, where he clicks his keychain and pops it open to reveal the beat-up case to his guitar.
"It's been in here all summer, I haven't played much since we left school," says Blaine. "So forgive me, if I'm a bit rusty." He tunes at it for a few minutes, and Kurt stares transfixed at the casual grace of his fingers across the strings and frets, until he strums out a few chords and finds the right one and then starts. It's pitched up a couple steps from the original, and Blaine's voice slides through it better that way.
"When I was born
They looked at me and said
What a good boy
What a smart boy
What a strong boy..."
He shuffles awkwardly through the necessary pronoun switch of the next part, but that's to be expected, guys like the two of them have to do it often enough. He sings afraid of change, and Kurt picks up the next line, afraid of staying the same, and the glance that passes between them says it all. By the time Blaine's singing about Kurt's brown hair, and to just bear with him, bear with me, be with me tonight, Kurt decides he doesn't mind that Blaine saw into his extraordinarily personal scrapbook diary, because this seems pretty damn personal too.
"I know that it isn't right," sings Kurt softly.
Blaine smiles, and shakes his head a little. "Be with me tonight."
They're standing in the middle of the street, fireflies are winking around in the neighboring yards, and Kurt is in love.
To Part 3