Solar System Can't Divide Us

by berzz

In which Burt Hummel, Ohio's most feared mob honcho, hires a personal bodyguard for his 16-year-old son after his ex-wife Elizabeth passes away and the custody of Kurt falls into his lap. Kurt's so not on board with any of this—or, with most of it after he gets to see the curly-headed, olive-skinned, the-epitome-of-a-Greek-god-sexiness Blaine Anderson that has been assigned to him.

Author's Notes:

Named after the song "You Got Another Thing Coming (If the Only Thing That's on Your Mind Is Me)" by Speelburg.

Inspired by the tiny allusion to the former Dominic-Laurel relationship in HTGAWM. This was supposed to be super light and short and funny but it got out of hand and turned into something much bigger than I initially planned for. There are only two parts to this, and the bulk of part two is essentially smut. ;)

---

"Now Kurt, we've talked about this, alright?" Burt says, raising his eyebrows encouragingly as he raises up a hand and gets up from behind his office desk.

Kurt rolls his eyes on the sofa, his legs elegantly crossed, hands clasped on his knee where he sits on the furthest piece of furniture he could choose away from his father.

"You talked about it, father," Kurt sighs, by this point not even bothering to let himself hope he will be heard. "I was pointedly not listening; I had my earbuds in my ears, in case you hadn't noticed," Kurt lets Burt know, motioning to his ears where one earphone is stuck inside his left ear even now.

Burt purses his lips, fuming, and moves to cross the room swiftly.

"Get this out," he grits in a domineering, rumbling voice, yanking the earphone out of Kurt's ear.

Kurt makes a jaded moue, reeling his earbuds in around his iPod as he glares up at his father.

"Anderson, you can come in," Burt calls, still a little harsh after addressing Kurt.

Kurt drops his head back, letting his back hit the back of the sofa and crossing his arms. He doesn't even bother to glance at the person who steps in, the person who, from this day onward, will be following Kurt's every step and escorting him to school and back—and everywhere, really, every single goddamn time Kurt decides to leave his father's house. (Okay, Kurt's house too, but definitely not his home, you can have Kurt's word at that.)

The person Kurt hasn't looked into at all, even with the complete case file shoved into his chest when he was so stubbornly ignoring what Burt was saying to him the other week.

In other words, Kurt didn't expect his first (and hopefully last) bodyguard hired by his father to look like this.

When Kurt eyes him absently for the first time, intent on ignoring whatever comes adding to his plate next, Kurt's eyes grow very much overtly saucer-like. He doesn't change the position of his head or his upper body where it's sunk into the sofa, but he does let his gaze go glazed and utterly fixed on Blaine The-Death-Of-Kurt-Hummel Anderson's face.

The only thought swishing by inside Kurt's 16-year-old mind then is, "This is so. fucking. unfair."

"Kurt, this is Blaine Anderson, the single best of the guards of mine, and I've assigned him to you until you reach your age of majority. But you already know all of that, I assume, since you took my request to become acquainted with the paperwork very seriously, didn't you?" Burt keeps talking, oblivious to the wheels turning inside Kurt's head. Or, a current lack thereof.

Blaine catches Kurt's intense look and gives him a polite, cordial smile. Kurt keeps staring with little to no emotion escaping on his part as he studies Blaine Anderson's olive complexion, sexy curls, warm eyes, and the perfectly triangular shape of his bushy, dark eyebrows.

Is this man made of perfection?

"And although I will have no say in this after you turn 18"—Burt goes on as he retreats to his desk—"I am and will be highly advising you to keep Anderson as your bodyguard when you go to college and move across the country."

When Kurt's unabashed staring becomes flagrantly obvious to Blaine, the latter glances up at the boy once more, and this time stares back at him with a more pressing, intimate, and somehow soothing look in his amber-colored eyes.

"Anderson," Burt addresses him, grabbing a stack of papers. Blaine breaks the eye contact faster than Burt finishes his single-worded sentence. He turns his (delectably-built) body to face his boss and gives Burt his undivided attention. "Here is everything you need to know about Kurt's schedule, his friends' phone numbers, his friends' parents' phone numbers, et cetera," Burt says, handing the documents over to Blaine.

This finally serves to jerk Kurt out of his reverie.

"Um? Excuse you?" Kurt addresses his father as he gets up from his seat and storms up to Blaine holding the papers. He peeks into the documents as Blaine looks them over. "How long has this been going on?" Kurt demands from his father.

Burt simply regards him with a heavy, inscrutable look as he circles his desk. Kurt watches Burt lower himself into his fancy black leather chair and make himself busy with some of the other papers lying around as a cue that this conversation is over.

"Kurt, see you at the dinner," Burt nods him a goodbye.

Kurt rolls his eyes, lets out a quiet 'ugh' and swaggers out of his father's office. When Burt has Blaine's eye, he nods to him carefully. Blaine returns the nod, then leaves the office in Kurt's wake.

---

Kurt and Blaine's relationship proceeds to develop in three stages.

No matter how big of a crush Kurt harbors on his devilishly handsome, olive-skinned, curly-headed 24-year-old bodyguard who has a voice like silk and eyes like freshly harvested honey, Kurt is very much aware of his own 16-year-oldness, thank you.

No matter how deep head over heels he may secretly be, he knows his boundaries, so he never really lets himself go near Blaine Anderson over the course of his sophomore year at high school, never goes anywhere further than just toying with Blaine a little, teasing him here and there, and flirting of course. The innocent kind of flirting.

In Kurt's mind, Blaine must've cracked the world's biggest secret as to the best way to treat a child who has a very obvious crush on you. Don't do anything that could be considered an encouragement from a mile and a half and just—be nice to them, smile a quiet smile, maybe be flattered, maybe reply with a kindhearted calling for a serious behavior, maybe sometimes even let out a breathy chuckle at the joke you find genuinely funny.

It just so happens that Blaine Anderson seems to find all of Kurt's jokes funny, and his attempt to bite his lips into a smile he tries to hold back are all too obvious to Kurt. Other than that, though, Kurt never lets himself dwell on Blaine Anderson's feelings.

Some of Kurt's toying gently transforms into trying to evade Blaine's protection from time to time. After all, the handsomeness of Kurt's bodyguard doesn't negate Kurt's annoyance with his father at the very prospect of being put under surveillance like that. Blaine follows Kurt everywhere Kurt goes in his spare time, and although Blaine is a sexy little company, Kurt doesn't have a doubt in mind that the entire history of Kurt's visited locations is being constantly reported to his father.

Needless to say, this wouldn't be the case if Kurt was going out by himself.

Blaine is an exceptional spy though, that Kurt can't deny. In the end, Kurt won't remember one time he succeeds at tricking Blaine into leaving him unescorted. However, Kurt will remember this one time Blaine lets Kurt have his little moment in the sun when Kurt tries to sneak off to a sleepover with Rachel and Mercedes.

Kurt takes Finn, Rachel's boyfriend, up on his offer to give Kurt a ride. Kurt abandons his own car and hops up into Finn's car halfway through his journey from Westerville (where Kurt lives) to Lima (where his mom used to live and where he still goes to school and where all of his friends live and where his whole life is.) Kurt makes sure nohandsomebody is on their tail and asks Finn to take a detour on his way to Mercedes'. Kurt can't really explain half of the logistics he hatches up, but there it goes, and in less than an hour, Kurt steps out of Finn's car in Mercedes' driveway, elated with his hitherto-apparent little victory.

That is until he looks up as he approaches the doorstep—only to have his quiet, impish smile falter. There, right on Mercedes' stoop, stands probably the most gorgeous man on the planet, hands shoved in his pockets, wearing all black as if to highlight his dark mop of sexy curls and his deliciously dark eyebrows. When Blaine sees Kurt, he smiles very genuinely and very broadly before he starts walking down the stairs.

"Hello, escapee," Blaine teases in a low, vibrant voice as he strolls up to Kurt.

Kurt halts and can't resist the way his own lips stretch to reciprocate the coquettish smile. Out of the corner of his eye, Kurt spots the girls huddling by the window, watching Kurt's sexy bodyguard move in on him for a lecture.

Blaine holds out a hand with his palm up, patiently waiting for Kurt to hand him something over. "Keys," Blaine asks, searching Kurt's face when Kurt sighs and fishes out the keys that belong to his car—the one that he left in the middle of nowhere on his way here. Kurt smacks his palm down against Blaine's when he forfeits his keys, and the way Blaine's fingers skim Kurt's palm as Blaine's hand closes around the object sends shivers down Kurt's spine.

"I'll pick you up tomorrow at 9 a.m.," Blaine lets him know in that same low rumble as he makes a step closer. Kurt feels his heart slam against his chest. "Behave," Blaine says at last as he moves closer still—and swishes right past Kurt, to Finn's car and Finn who's been too afraid to pull out of the driveway since the moment he spotted Kurt's bodyguard.

Breathing in the wisp of Blaine's cologne, 16-year-old and absolutely smitten Kurt Hummel turns around to watch Blaine come up to Finn's car and make a friendly motion for the boy to roll the window down. Eyes blown wide, Finn hurries to comply with the request and stares agog at Blaine, listening to everything Burt Hummel's employee has to say. Every student at McKinley High steered clear of Burt Hummel's son, let alone an employee of his.

Kurt was only grateful that Blaine respected the public school's code and never followed Kurt inside, letting him roam McKinley halls on his own. Kurt was only grateful that his Glee buddies didn't shun him lest the big boss Burt Hummel find some kind of fault with his son's friends.

At least, most of them didn't, even though it was getting harder and harder to turn a blind eye to the fact that ever since Kurt moved in with his father, all of his not-so-broad social circles started shrinking even further.

So as the amount of the bullying he received, but please forgive him for not reveling in that particular fact when all of his friends were still getting harassed at school, now tenfold as much as Kurt was and right there in front of him. How ridiculous could that be now when the jocks would corner Kurt and his friends with slushes to spurt their contents all over them—Kurt would be the only one to get out of it clean and dry and perfectly unsullied?

Kurt watches Finn climb out of his car and circle its front to climb back, this time into the passenger seat. Meanwhile, Blaine plops down into Finn's driver's seat and starts up the engine. Kurt watches Blaine stretch his muscular arm out to grab the back of Finn's headrest and look back over his shoulder as he pulls the car out of the driveway. Kurt watches Blaine's brawny, delicious bicep flex for no reason as he rolls the car out on the street.

Kurt watches Finn and Blaine drive off, presumably back for where Kurt left his own car.

When Kurt steps inside Mercedes' house, the girls squeal like mad, bouncing up to him in excitement.

"What did he say?"

"Did he let you stay?"

"Did he let you stay just like that, he left?" the two of them beleaguer Kurt with questions.

Kurt tugs his boots off and stands up to look at the girls, unable to hide a moonstruck smile of his own.

It's the first time Blaine goes back on the exact terms Burt Hummel laid down in the contract that Blaine signed, and all of it for Kurt to enjoy a little privacy, even if just for one night.

---

In other words, the first stage they go through is establishing some sort of tacit rapport between them. Kurt's teasing remarks and innocuous coquetry aside, they do find a way to find the middle ground through their weird, strictly platonic (albeit sexually-charged-from-Kurt's-end) kind of bond. Come December, Blaine even abets Kurt's sneaking off to Rachel's 16th birthday party, even if just for a couple of hours, in spite of Burt being crystal clear in banning Kurt from attending 'this sort of get-together'.

It goes without saying, Blaine does hold up his end of the bargain when it comes to Kurt staying sober throughout the whole thing.

Thus, 16-year-old, stone-cold sober Kurt leaves a party full of his buzzed friends by midnight, right at the apex of all the fun to be had, and the only thing that offers Kurt some sort of comfort is the gorgeous Blaine behind the steering wheel taking Kurt home.

Kurt watches the streetlight flicker over Blaine's beautiful face, then turns to bump his forehead into the passenger window. Kurt sighs and suddenly, it crosses his mind that not once throughout his whole childhood and his early teens that he was being raised by his late mom had he craved a drink or a cigarette—or anything illegal or forbidden for that matter.

Kurt might be no expert in nurturing children, but it seems to him empirically irrefutable that the more lenient approach in discipline a parent takes, the less crazy-rebellious their children turn out to be in the end.

Kurt lets the back of his head hit the headrest and tries to ward off the tears. He's cried oceans for this matter already, no need for him to spend any extra minute wallowing in self-pity. He sniffs and hopes to hell he's wrong to think that Blaine glances at him then out of the corner of his eye, worried.

---

By the end of his sophomore year at high school, there are few things Kurt Hummel feels confident about, and one of them is that the night of May 27, 2010, is the night he'll remember for the rest of his life. The day is his seventeenth birthday which, thanks to one Blaine Anderson, eventuates in the best celebration anybody has ever contrived for Kurt.

Kurt's just killing his time watching Netflix late at night the day before his birthday when somebody knocks on his door.

"Yeah what?" Kurt calls without taking his eyes off the screen before he closes his mouth around his next spoonful of yogurt.

Blaine cracks the door open. "Got a minute?" he asks in a low, mellow voice with a sly smile he tries to bite back.

Caught off guard by the sound of Blaine's delicious voice, Kurt looks over at the doorway where the man stands clad in a black turtleneck and dark jeans, two coats hung over his forearm.

"Is that my coat?" Kurt asks suspiciously as he wriggles to get up from where he was lying on his stomach.

Blaine pulls back to check out the hallway, then whispers, "Meet me outside the gate, hurry up."

When Blaine closes the door, Kurt feels his heart jump with the thrill of excitement rushing through his veins. Swiftly, Kurt scrambles to leave the unfinished cup of yogurt in his mini fridge, then slips into his personal bathroom for a quick mouthwash, changes into his favorite jeans, grabs his cell phone, and carefully steps outside his room.

Sometimes the size of Burt Hummel's mansion seems too big for Kurt to feel safe; days like these, it feels just big enough to feel safe breaking free.

It's not like Kurt's being held here like an inmate, but with all those curfews and constant supervision it sure as hell feels like he is.

Just where Blaine promised him, Kurt sees Blaine's car parked by the side of the road. Blaine turns the engine on and Kurt hurries over to him, bouncing on his heels as he runs.

"Where are we going, Blaine?" Kurt asks him teasingly first thing when he flings the door open.

Blaine chuckles and shakes his head as Kurt climbs into the passenger front seat.

"You'll see."

Blaine takes Kurt to the edge of Lima, his secret spot that offers a glorious panorama of the small town. Kurt falls in love with it.

"It's just like in Vegas!" Kurt exclaims as he hauls himself up on the hood of Blaine's car. "Or Hollywood."

Blaine smiles as he dives back into his car and leans over the backseat where he grabs their coats before climbing back out.

"Well, minus the mountains," Kurt says, swinging his feet upward and downward, careful not to bump his heavy boots into Blaine's bumper. "And the nice wooden barrier on the edge of the cliff. And the cliff," Kurt motions to the steep hillside instead, just a few feet away from them, before he claps his hands together in his lap. It's a bit chilly out here, even by the end of the spring.

Blaine circles the car, drops his dark-colored coat on the hood next to Kurt, then reaches out to gently drape Kurt's parka around Kurt's shoulders.

Kurt looks up at Blaine, holding his breath in such proximity to him. He only lets himself suck in a small whiff of Blaine's cologne when Blaine squeezes Kurt's shoulders a little and offers Kurt a beaming smile. Too soon for Kurt's liking, Blaine takes his hands off Kurt's shoulders and picks up his own coat.

Despite being tucked into his winter coat, Kurt feels a sudden cold creep up his arms where Blaine isn't touching him anymore.

"Yeah, and minus the city lights," Blaine adds as he shrugs his coat on, turning to look at the dim town at night. "Seeing as half of Lima is pitch black at this hour."

Still quiet, Kurt watches Blaine plop up next to him on the hood. Then, he watches Blaine some more.

"Thought you would like it, since Lima is where your heart is," Blaine quotes from Kurt himself, only half-teasing as he turns to glance at him. It's from one of those mornings Kurt was carping at Blaine for making them take those long rides from Westerville to Lima and back twice a day. Kurt knew Blaine had nothing to do with it, of course, but someone had to get gnawed at for the sheer fact that Kurt was forced to get up two hours earlier every day.

On the other hand, it was the price Kurt paid for being able to attend the school all of his friends went to in the first place.

"I found this spot by accident, back when I was in high school," Blaine says, watching the view with the spark in his eyes Kurt hasn't seen before. He's glowing, and it's breathtaking to watch. "Will you laugh at me if I told you I used to dabble in street racing?" Blaine laughs, turning to glance at Kurt.

Blaine's dazzling beam turns out to be pretty contagious and before Kurt knows it, his own lips stretch into a wild smile at the mere sight of it. "Is that so?"

"Yeah, used to be pretty good at it," Blaine says, looking back at Lima suburbs that are scattered around the weakly defined valley.

"Is that how you came to be a part of my father's security entourage?" Kurt teases.

"What—" Blaine turns to look at Kurt, then giggles like he can't help himself.

You're a sunshine, Kurt can't help but think.

"Yes, Kurt, you could say that's what inspired me to be a part of something like your father's entourage," he teases Kurt back about his choice of the word. "I guess it's…," Blaine trails off, his voice turning a little more serious as Blaine's eyes skim over the scenery. "The thrill of chase. And the promise of danger. Is what spurred me to dedicate my life to that field."

"…You mean the threat of danger," Kurt corrects him jokingly after a while, still watching Blaine with a wary yet marveled glint in his blue eyes.

Blaine chuckles quietly and then gives Kurt a playful nudge without looking at him. Kurt thinks his heart will jump out of his throat and the lovestruck smile on his face is something he probably shouldn't be letting on.

"Okay then," Kurt lets out shakily, struggling to even out his breathing as he looks up at the clear night sky. "Any specific reason we're out here half an hour before my birthday officially begins?"

Blaine checks his watch. "Twelve minutes, to be precise," he says before he slides off the hood. "I'll be a second," he promises Kurt, patting the surface of the hood as he circles it on his way to the passenger door.

Intrigued, Kurt reclines on top of the hood and cranes his neck to watch Blaine click the door open and get inside. In the dark, Kurt catches a glimpse of Blaine rummaging the bag and then climbing out with both of his hands full as he slams the door shut with his elbow.

Kurt's eyes go wide when Blaine comes back around, smiling at Kurt like he anticipates the giant wave of enthusiasm that's about to come crashing down.

"Is that wine?" Kurt asks, perking up, eyes on the bottle Blaine carries in one hand. "Are those glasses?"

Blaine stretches out a hand in which he holds two glasses, waiting for Kurt to take one.

"Are you drin—am I drinking?" Kurt asks, still shocked but quick to take one of the glasses Blaine's offering. Blaine smiles at Kurt's blabbering.

"Actually, could you hold that for me too?" Blaine hands Kurt his own glass before he starts working on the sealed bottle.

Eyes blown wide, Kurt watches Blaine fish out a corkscrew from the pocket of his coat, then work his strong hands to pop the bottle open. Once it's done, Blaine slips both the corkscrew and the cork back into his pocket and steps closer to Kurt. Kurt holds out the glasses, one by one, for Blaine to pour them both a drink.

"Oh my God, I love you," Kurt breathes out dryly and he thinks he sees the wine stream wobble a little. When Kurt looks up at Blaine's face, Blaine's smiling a private, fond smile, eyes on the task. He finishes filling each of the glasses with a soft ding, then puts the bottle down next to a wheel.

Before Blaine takes one of the glasses from Kurt, he makes sure to climb back next to him on the hood.

"What's the best thing that happened to you while you were sixteen?" Blaine asks in a soft voice, glancing at Kurt curiously before they both face forward to watch the view.

You.

"Hm," Kurt takes his time to think about any other events that might be worthy of the title.

This night right here.

"I got to stay in McKinley."

Blaine looks at Kurt.

"When my"—Kurt trails off, then looks down at his lap—"father became the only one I had left…I had to move in with him, of course. I had to…play by his rules, as he'd put it." Kurt draws a shuddering breath and looks up sharply, holding his chin high. His absent thumbs stroke the smooth surface of his glass. "Me changing schools was one of them. He wanted to thrust me into some kind of fancy prep school called Dalton Academy, right in the middle of the semester."

"You didn't want to?" Blaine murmurs a question, watching Kurt sympathetically.

"No," Kurt says lightly, shrugging. "I was okay where I was. I mean I was picked on, sure, but I wasn't alone in this. I wasn't alone period," Kurt clarifies quietly, looking down at his glass. "So he agreed to put it off until Christmas. Then, I tried to get on his good side. And, um. Not quite sure how to this day, but I managed to seek out permission to stay in my school as a Christmas present."

"That's nice," Blaine says softly, watching Kurt to see if Kurt agrees. "Your father might look a little less than inviting on the outside, but on the inside—who knows, maybe he really cares about you, Kurt," Blaine puts it up in the air, shrugging.

Kurt gives Blaine an 'oh please' glare which turns into a grouchily adoring gaze at some point because does Blaine have to be so cute when he talks?

Blaine turns to face the stare Kurt's giving him and when he does, he rather quickly averts his eyes downward, breaking into a bashful smile. It's not the first time Kurt catches him react that way, and it's still a little unclear to Kurt as to what that's supposed to mean.

Is this Blaine being flattered by Kurt's obvious admiration for him? Or is this Blaine smiling a polite smile and feeling awkward?

"Anyway, um," Blaine says, pausing to swallow down as he stares at his glass still untouched. Both of their glasses are very much untouched, and Kurt can't wait to fix that. "I just wanted to wish you even more happy memories like that once you're seventeen, and for your life to only get more awesome as you get older," Blaine says in a low, gentle voice, straightening up as he faces Kurt and raises his glass.

Kurt looks up at him with watery blue eyes, a little overwhelmed with how much this amazing person next to him makes him feel, but otherwise perfectly composed.

"And"—Blaine checks his watch that reads 12:07 a.m.—"Happy seventeenth birthday, Kurt," he says, inching his glass closer to Kurt's.

Kurt draws a shaky breath. "Thank you, Blaine," he says, trying to convey so much that he can't voice with his dark blue eyes as he gazes deep into Blaine's.

Kurt brings their glasses for a soft ding; both of them hold the eye contact as they raise their drinks up to their mouths. Blaine is a little less eager to take a sip, more intent on watching Kurt take one. Blaine's glass hovers over his bottom lip when Blaine can't help but break into a smile at the sight of Kurt's grimace.

Kurt forces himself to swallow the sour liquid, helpless to stop his face from contorting. As soon as it's done, Kurt sticks his tongue out, shivering with the bitterness. Blaine laughs, heedless of the sip he never took.

"What is wrong with your wine?" Kurt cries out, glaring at the glass he holds like it physically hurt to drink from it.

Blaine drops his head back, bubbling over with laughter.

"I'm serious! I may've never had the chance to drink-drink, but I've tried wine before, thank you very much."

"Oh, Kurt," Blaine breathes out as he pulls his head back into normal position with a radiant, toothy smile. "Please don't tell me I've waited for you those extra minutes because you had to brush your teeth?" he raises hopeful eyebrows at Kurt.

Kurt goes still, looking at Blaine contemplatively as he runs his tongue over his gums, realizing just how screwed he is now.

---

From that night onward, Kurt feels pretty much safe to call them friends. The summer of 2010 is especially nice. Somehow, Kurt starts to feel truly protected by Blaine's side, and not because of the obvious, but because something really changes in the atmosphere between them. Something seems more familiar now, much warmer and safer.

Kurt spends every other day hanging out with girls, going to the mall with them, to the movies. And Kurt tugs Blaine along everywhere he goes—not that Blaine has any other choice, and not that the girls would've minded Kurt's hot bodyguard keeping them company.

"Mr. Anderson, nice to see you again," Mercedes says the first time they get together at the mall.

"Yep," Rachel says when she lets the milkshake straw out of her mouth and points a finger at Blaine in agreement. "Very nice indeed," she purrs and tries to hide her coy smile under the peak of her baseball hat.

Kurt checks out her summer outfit and gives her an appreciative, lopsided smile.

"Please, call me Blaine," Blaine's low timbre says to Kurt's left, sending a wave of shivers down Kurt's spine, as usual.

"Yeah, you can call him Blaine," Kurt assures the girls dryly as if he's the boss, waving a dismissive hand.

Girls giggle when Blaine purses his lips in discontent, giving Kurt a 'come on now' stare that quickly morphs into an adoring smile.

Other than that, Blaine is silent, of course, intent on trying to stay well behind them and keep a respectable distance to let the kids speak. But girls and Kurt won't seem to have it. They always slow down further when Blaine slows down on purpose and they always find their way back to the olive-skinned guard to try and wheedle him into participating in the conversation. There's even a couple of times Blaine outright declines to answer the teasing questions thrown at him with a polite reminder that 'he's not here to have fun, he's here on duty'.

"You're always on duty, why not have some fun?" Kurt nudges him playfully—and before Blaine has time to respond, Kurt's attention is gripped by the vest on a mannequin he's been scouring the whole town for throughout the past school year. "Girls, look!"

And off they run inside the boutique; Blaine saunters in after them.

---

Kurt's junior year at High School is when his and Blaine's relationship enters a crisis.

You can safely put all the blame on a sweaty, fetid, hulking hippopotamus called David Karofsky that transfers to McKinley at the beginning of the school year and quickly proves to be the biggest fathead on the school campus. Perhaps it isn't his fault, though, that nobody in McKinley feels like educating him on how everything works around here, and what kids one better give a wide berth if one wants to keep their ass safe.

Kurt is one of those kids that one has in their best interest to be avoiding. And for some comic reason, Karofsky takes an especial liking to bullying Kurt in particular.

At first, Kurt isn't even sure if he wants to let Blaine know, let anyone know. For once in a long time, he feels like he's on equal ground with his friends, and—as sick as it sounds—it feels nice to feel normal again.

That is, until it goes too far one day when benign slushie facials and shoving into lockers upgrade to shoving into the dumpsters.

Kurt feels so sick when he gets out he throws up once he gets to the boys' bathroom.

He plans on telling Blaine, he does. (It will be hard to wiggle out of it anyways now that Kurt smells like the inside of a garbage truck.) It's just that—Kurt knows Blaine will be obliged to report this to Burt, and then it won't be long until—farewell, McKinley High School The Only Thing Kurt Hummel Has Left of His Old Life.

So Kurt bites his tongue, swallows his Karofsky-induced anxiety, and texts Blaine to bring him a fresh sweater and a clean pair of pants because he spilled his orange juice all over himself at lunch. And before Blaine comes to pick him up by the end of the school day, Kurt makes sure to play out his own fictional story alright, not skimping on the amount of juice that he deliberately pours over himself in the cafeteria.

One walk of shame through the halls in his orange-soaked, garbage-reeking (and otherwise flawless) outfit is something Kurt would take any day over a two-hour ride with Blaine in the same car and Kurt smelling like trash, literally.

He keeps himself at an arm's length from Blaine when he gladly accepts his clothes, then swiftly disappears into the bathroom to change.

Too sad it doesn't end there.

Kurt thinks he's versed enough to deal with the big bad neanderthal on his own, strong enough—both morally and physically—to handle him. Well, he turns out to be wrong.

Of all the awful things Kurt's subconsciousness would conjure up Karofsky doing to Kurt in Kurt's bad dreams, stealing Kurt's first kiss is something Kurt couldn't conceive of even in his worst nightmares.

But it certainly makes the top of the list, becoming the sickest, most atrocious, heinous crime of them all.

Kurt doesn't think when he runs for the boys' bathroom, vision clouded with angry, disgusted tears as he forces his lips to be still and never close and never taste and just hold on until he reaches the sink to rinse at his mouth until it hurts—or maybe drop to his knees to hunch over a toilet and throw up everything he has inside him.

Kurt doesn't think when he calls Blaine and begs for him in a wavering, cracking voice to come and get Kurt early. Kurt washes his mouth in a frenzy until his lips are swelled and red and sore, then rinses his mouth out with tap water so many times his cheeks go numb.

Blaine catches Kurt's elbows when Kurt, without saying a word of greeting, tries to head past Blaine for the passenger door of his car, so gratifying in its promise of sanctuary and shelter from the outside world. Kurt's eyes are bleak and hollow and dead, his face a flushed mess when Blaine suddenly crosses his way and reaches out to grip his arms in heartfelt concern, causing their chests to bump into each other.

Kurt feels a blanket of distant warmth engulf him on the outside when Blaine holds his arms like this, strong and caring and careless of what people on the McKinley parking lot will think if they see them sharing this intimate moment.

On the inside, though, Kurt feels just as emptied as before, looking up at Blaine with glassy eyes without seeing.

"What happened to you, Kurt?" Blaine asks, his voice breaking at the end into a whisper, eyes searching Kurt's face as his hands slide up Kurt's arms and squeeze his shoulders.

Magically, Blaine seems to be having a comforting effect on him somehow, and Kurt closes his eyes, breathing out, letting himself feel grounded with Blaine's hands resting on his shoulders.

"I'll tell you what happened; can we just please go?" Kurt asks in a weak voice when he lets his eyes flutter open again.

Kurt doesn't think too much when he tells Blaine the whole story, from the very start. Kurt doesn't think too much about the steely edge to Blaine's voice when he asks for details as soon as they get to the kiss. Doesn't think about the way Blaine's hands tighten on the wheel menacingly, the way Blaine's nostrils start to flare as he turns away from Kurt to hide it, pretending to look around when they make another turn amid Lima traffic.

Kurt doesn't think about Blaine's reaction to his words at all, too stressed to care about anything around him, really; the only thing on Kurt's mind is to get home as quickly as possible, lock himself up in his bathroom, and be taking a hot, cleansing shower for hours.

There's only one detail Kurt leaves out from his exhaustive narrative of how it all came down. And that's the most heartbreaking part of this whole incident. It was Kurt's first kiss.

Funnily enough, it's the only thing Kurt finds himself too ashamed of to admit to Blaine.

Kurt doesn't know why it feels so much like a stab in the back the next day when he wakes up in the morning to be called into his father's office and be presented with a fait accompli that he, Kurt Hummel, has been transferred to Dalton Academy. Overnight.

Kurt doesn't know why he's surprised, doesn't know why he trusted Blaine to let him keep the last thing on earth that hadn't been taken from him since his mom died, goddamnit, when Blaine knew how much it meant to Kurt!

The rest of his junior year Kurt spends tucked away in Dalton Academy, forced to conceal his true colors in some mundane preppy uniform, forced to keep his head down and never let himself shine and always stay in the back when he finds himself in such desperate straits as to join the Warblers, their local Glee Club.

Never having to see Karofsky again is a relief, but Kurt never would've traded being part of the New Directions, being able to see his friends every day, and possessing this little wisp of the life as he knew it with his mother for the world.

Kurt doesn't find it in him to forgive Blaine anytime soon for taking all of that away from him.

---

And this roadblock proceeds to stay with Kurt for the next seven months. Kurt completely cuts off the small talk with Blaine, let alone the flirting, and finds that he doesn't even want to check up on Blaine, doesn't want to make him smile or know how his day went or what's on his mind. So long as Kurt's confined to Dalton, the perfect school Kurt never wanted, Kurt doesn't want to let Blaine get away with putting him in there.

Cold and unemotional in the presence of others, Kurt secretly brews an intricate plan of action where he thinks through the precise steps he will take the second he turns 18. He even makes arrangements with Finn's mom, the sweetest woman on earth who offers him shelter until he finishes high school in case his father kicks him out on the streets. In actuality, though, Mrs. Hudson only gently reminds Kurt that she doubts it would come to that and merely tries to navigate Kurt through his journey of being alone and misunderstood. She does that by making sure Kurt always feels welcome and safe in their house, assures him more than once that she's always there for him if he needs someone to listen, and just—becomes his hero, his rock, the first person he absolutely trusts and knows he can count on ever since his mother passed away. Carole becomes a reminder that not all hope is lost, and that not every adult is like Kurt's father or Blaine Anderson who wouldn't take his side.

She really does remind Kurt of his mom, with how big her heart is, and how much love she has for the simplest, ordinary people, and this is one of the reasons Hudson's abode becomes Kurt's new favorite spot in Lima.

Sometime mid-April, when Kurt and Mrs. Hudson become really close (and she's been briefed on the Blaine situation Kurt's been shirking the past half a year,) she pulls off one thing she's the only person in the world Kurt could let off easy for doing. She beckons Blaine inside with them, just when Blaine's about to mind his own business inside his car—the way it's been settled back on day one when Kurt regarded Blaine with another one of his death stares lest he dare to climb out of the car with Kurt and follow him inside first time Kurt stopped by, then Kurt climbed out of Blaine's car and slammed the door shut on Blaine.

The fact that Blaine's been awash with compunction for sabotaging something so dear to Kurt, especially knowingly so, has been written all over his face this whole time, and Kurt was turning a blind eye on it just out of spite and acrimony. What's done has been done, and it frankly only adds more fuel to Kurt's anger when people feel sorry about something they can do nothing about now but could've never done it in the first place.

"Mr. Anderson, sir?" Carole dares to say to Blaine still in the car before Kurt closes his door this time. "Would you like to come in with us?" she offers with a warm smile, stretching out a hand from where she hovers on the porch, holding the door open.

Kurt turns to shoot daggers at her so that Blaine doesn't see; her smile only gets warmer.

Blaine is hesitant, but eventually, Carole manages to coax him into joining them. Kurt treads inside after them, lips pressed together in a bitter moue.

She makes them both tea and regales them with different types of candies; mostly it's her and Blaine who are talking.

"What kind of tea do you prefer?" and "I have just about every kind you could think of!" because "Finn must've bought up everything Tea Forté had to offer for my birthday earlier this year..." and Blaine's charming responses as in "If you have something herbal in there, that'd be perfect!" and "Thank you, Mrs. Hudson" and "Please call me Blaine" and "Alright, but you'll have to call me Carole!" and Kurt wants to groan and whine and bang his head against the kitchen table. He doesn't want to forgive Blaine and how can he not when the other is so sweet?

It seems that the main focus of the evening becomes Carole trying to, once again, bring to light all of the amazing sides Blaine Anderson has by talking to him in front of Kurt.

Little does she know, Kurt's all too familiar with how awesome Blaine is, and right now, having the memories of it conjured up in his face is only making things worse. Kurt looks like a stubborn child even to his own eye, but he can't help himself as he clutches his cup tighter and grits his teeth and stares into his Earl Grey choice of tea.

Eventually, Carole lets out a defeated sigh and gets up to walk Kurt and Blaine outside when it starts to get dark. Kurt hugs her goodbye, hoping she gets now what a terrible idea that was.

Once inside the car, the air of Carole-induced cordiality vanishes as quickly as it came to be, and they're back to normal—or what became their normal over half a year ago.

---

"Kurt, cut it out now!" Burt screams in a hoarse voice, slamming his fists into his desk as he rises from his office chair.

"Oh you cut it out, father!" Kurt spits out, all flushed and worked up, and twirls around where he almost crossed the doorstep of his father's office on his way storming out. "Stop acting like you fucking care!" He shouts at his father, flailing his hands, having a hard time articulating the words in a way that isn't some incoherent raging babble.

"Language!" Burt screams lamely, red in his face, fists smashed into the desk.

"Oh come the fuck on, I'm speaking your language, for fuck's sake! Or cussing is more of a crime than killing or God knows what you're doing for a living?!" Kurt's voice cracks when he throws his hands up.

Burt fumes, his nostrils flaring as he quietly stares his son down, eyes razor-sharp, face red with anger.

"You know what—I wouldn't want to live in the same house with a man like you even if you weren't about to kick me out anyways!" Kurt screams his lungs out at last and slams the door shut with all his might.

Kurt doesn't think where he's going as he runs down the stairs and out the gate and for his car.

Left alone in his office, Burt Hummel shoves at the papers scattered around his desk in a fit of rage, then grabs his cell phone and scrolls through his contacts, gritting his teeth.

"Now," is Burt's single-worded order when the person on the other end of the line picks up.

With no further exchange, he angrily hangs up and, once again, searches his recents for another contact.

"Anderson?" Burt asks first thing when Blaine answers the call. "Find my son, he ran away. And don't leave him alone."

"Of course, Mr. Hummel," Blaine says in a sincere, caring voice. "But you do realize that I'm no longer legally bound to follow him around? He may need his space, and we must respect that."

Burt's face turns even redder, if possible.

"He may be in fucking danger, Anderson"—Burt roars into his phone like a rabid lion—"and if something happens to my son, this will be on your hands, and I won't fucking hesitate to deal with you, do you understand me?"

On the other side of the house, Blaine goes pale as death as he quietly checks if he has everything on him before he rushes out to search for Kurt.

He couldn't care less about how Burt's sentence ended or what-have-you threats he spewed his way; Blaine's heart jumped out the window as soon as he heard the word 'danger' next to Kurt's name.

---

It's too late when Kurt realizes that his instincts were doing a crappy job when they brought him here, to his first-choice hiding spot. Kurt smashes his driver's door shut, chest puffing up as he steps toward the edge, fighting to calm his ragged, angry breathing. He looks at the scenery, oddly different in the daylight from what Kurt remembers it looked like at night exactly a year ago now. He hasn't visited it since, never with Blaine (what with their bickering straits and all,) never alone.

The view is strangely mollifying, like a soothing lotion to his chapped nerves, and before long, Kurt inhales a final shuddering breath, arms crossed, hands clutching his sides, heart letting go of that furious, helpless feeling that made him shake with rage and see red after talking to his father.

That is until the distant rumble of Blaine's nearing car registers with Kurt and he recognizes the mistake he made upon coming here in hopes of being left undiscovered.

Kurt hugs himself and sets his jaws, facing Blaine as his elegant, black car pulls up at a respective distance from Kurt's. Erratic gusts of wind keep blowing in Kurt's face, flicking his locks of beautiful chestnut hair left to right, disheveling his perfect coiffure that Kurt couldn't care less about at the moment. He watches Blaine climb out and tuck himself deeper in his jacket against the cool wind. Blaine tries to look at Kurt as he walks up to him but his curls keep getting in his eyes.

They're both silent as Blaine leisurely closes the distance between them. He stops only two or so feet away, and Kurt almost feels himself grow warmer so close to Blaine against the cold weather up here in the open. Kurt grits his teeth harder when he succumbs to the eye contact Blaine's been trying to lure him into with his kind, warm, hazel eyes. Kurt can't help his heart skipping a beat at the surfeit of emotion and affection he sees in them, and it takes every grain of Kurt's willpower not to throw himself at Blaine right then and there.

After all those months of being angry with him, treating him with cold stares and ornery spite, quelling every remaining wisp of connection they've made so far, he's missed Blaine so freaking much.

Kurt's hugging himself turns into him crossing his arms. "It's good that you're here. You can be my spokesperson and tell my father that I'm moving out," Kurt says the biting words but hardly has the energy to sound spiteful anymore.

Some of the worried lines on Blaine's face seem to smooth out at the sound of Kurt's voice, which Kurt finds odd since there's nothing to be relieved about in what Kurt's saying. At least he's thought this way; would Blaine be glad that Kurt's leaving?

Blaine even lets go of himself a little, the brittle tension fleeing his body as he watches Kurt…lovingly?

"Where are you going to live?" he asks like he's asking about the weather, something bone-deep happy in his eyes that's just out of Kurt's grasp.

"At Carole's," Kurt responds, searching Blaine's eyes for some sort of insight into what's going on inside his mind.

"Have you weighed your decision?" Blaine asks like they're talking a small talk right now as his eyes skim across Kurt's face—almost as if he's missed this type of exchange for ages.

It strikes Kurt then that Blaine's expression is a mirror image of Kurt's heart: the fondness Kurt feels to his core, how he cares about this man, the depth of his feelings toward him, and how much he's missed talking to him like this.

"Yes," Kurt responds, too lost in the disarming hazelness that's Blaine's eyes to muster up conviction.

"Kurt?" Blaine asks in a faint voice.

"Yes?" Kurt says with the same hesitant lilt to his voice as his previous 'yes'.

"Don't do this because of the mistake I've made?"

Kurt raises his eyebrows. Blaine makes a small step closer, hands raised in appeasing gesture; Kurt's breath hitches up as he uncrosses his arms and lowers them down his sides.

"I'm so…sorry, for betraying your trust back in October," Blaine says in a soft, vibrant voice, looking deep into Kurt's ocean-colored eyes. "I shouldn't have let my feelings get the best of me; I should've taken a moment to breathe and think—together, we would've found a way to deal with Karofsky without jeopardizing your place in McKinley."

Kurt struggles not to let it show, the wild way his heart's beating in his chest or the rapid way his chest's heaving as he breathes. 'Blaine's feelings get the best of him'?

"Which is why I'm asking you now," Blaine goes on in that same soft, measured voice, making another tiny step toward Kurt. His hands ghost over Kurt's elbows, radiating warmth in the cold wind. "That you find it in your heart to forgive me for this. And let us deal with this together, this time."

Kurt swallows and lets out a shaky breath through his nose, an almost helpless flinch flickering over his features when he looks up and past Blaine for a second, at the distant crowns of trees and shrubs around the valley being bent down by the strong wind. Of course he'll forgive Blaine, the only battle he's having with himself right now is holding himself back from burying himself in Blaine's warm embrace and never letting him go.

"It was my fault that you were transferred to Dalton, let it be my responsibility to make it up to you," Blaine says at last, his voice low and calm and assuring. "Make this right again." He's so close now Kurt could tuck himself in Blaine's arms so fast Blaine wouldn't have time to recoil or grab Kurt's arms to stop him.

Kurt makes a bracing sigh instead, squeezes his hands into fists, and levels Blaine with a childishly recalcitrant—albeit defeated—gaze. He's just about to respond—when he doesn't get to.

What happens the very next instant happens in a flash.

Before the two earsplitting gunshots and the sound of Kurt's shattered side mirror even register with Kurt, Blaine grabs his arms and yanks him roughly down to the ground, then drags him a little against the coarse ground in order to push him up against the rear wheel of Kurt's car.

Kurt only catches the drift of what's happening around them when his back is shoved into the cold wheel trim and Blaine's cupping the side of his face with one hand, warm callous palm against Kurt's soft, velvety skin. Blaine meets Kurt's panicked eyes with firm reassurance in his gaze as he gets up with silent, catlike gracefulness, his other hand fishing out his gun from behind his jacket.

"It's okay," Blaine whispers to Kurt, letting his thumb skid across Kurt's cheekbone soothingly just before he takes his hand back and holds his gun up in a firing-ready position, focusing all his attention on the attacker pulling up on the opposite side of the road.

Slumped against his car, Kurt watches Blaine tread stealthily toward the hood of Kurt's car, careful to keep his upper body down while he's still shielded by Kurt's car. Heart slamming against his ribcage, Kurt struggles to keep his frightened whimpers from escaping the back of his throat as he watches Blaine's feet linger by the front wheel and hears the whoever it is that attacked them step out of their car. Those are few moments of dead silence before Blaine ambushes the shooter, popping up from behind the hood as he fires back with a series of sure, level, expeditious shots.

Kurt quakes with dread at the savage sound, letting the back of his head hit the gas cap as he whimpers softly and looks in front of him at the pointless, beautiful valley scathed by the forceful wind and heedless of the shooting that's unreeling up here at the moment. Kurt buries his numb fingers into the ground—before his rampant mind catches up with the fear of getting his hands shot come the next succession of gunshots and makes Kurt tuck his shaking fingers in between his legs drawn up close to his chest.

Kurt loses track of the time that he spends like this, curled up against the side of his car, too scared to look to the side and see Blaine firing and being fired at—Kurt jolts when the glass on his car window shatters; he brings up a shaky fist to his mouth, eyes wet with horrified tears.

But he's too hysterical to notice the broken window to be the apex of the shooting; he doesn't hear the attacker get back into their car and start up the engine, barely catches the yelp they make when their window gets shattered too and apparently Blaine gets them somewhere, though they still get to drive off with a screeching, frantic sound of tires grating the asphalt, as though the car is as desperate to get away as the driver is.

Blaine fires a few more threatening shots at the back of the car as it sprints up the hill but he doesn't seem to be intent on putting it down: something else grips Blaine's attention as the car hurtles up the narrow road. Blaine runs into the open road and strains his eyes to make sure he saw the license plate correctly before the car rolls over the hill and pops out of his sight.

Blaine feels his whole body flare with a dangerous fit of temper; he brutally unloads his gun, eyes boring into the spot the car was last espied at, jaws set in a dangerous way as he hides the gun back behind the flap of his jacket and tries to calculate his next step.

Kurt's shaking and his teeth are clattering when he welcomes back the silence; he's still afraid to take his eyes off the landscape and check to see if Blaine is uninjured; the shuffling of Blaine's feet serves to be his only solace as of now. He knows the attacker is gone and they should be alone, but he finds it hard to convince himself that the current moment of peace isn't just another calm-before-the-storm type of silence.

Still too shocked to move an inch, Kurt just sits trembling where Blaine put him at the very beginning, clammy hands tucked between his thighs, cheeks streaked with tears he hasn't even noticed falling until Blaine, as soon as it was safe to assume the attacker isn't coming back (knowing the attacker isn't coming back and not knowing what to do with the knowledge he now possesses) hurries over to where he left Kurt and readily drops to his knees next to him.

"Kurt," Blaine whispers soothingly. "Kurt," he keeps saying his name, refraining from making sudden movements to not drive Kurt deeper into the state of shock. "Shhh, it's over," Blaine murmurs, running his hands over Kurt's shoulders and down his arms, aching to alleviate Kurt's anxious tremor and help him calm down. His heart breaks just by looking at the morbidly ashen color of Kurt's face and his glazed, lifeless eyes as Kurt stares past Blaine at the valley. "Kurt, sweetheart, it's okay now."

Something in the way Blaine talks to him or the way he touches him seems to have cathartic effect on Kurt; his breathing seems to hasten up, his eyes well up with fresh tears and his vision finally focuses on Blaine's worried face as Blaine cups Kurt's jawline with both of his hands in comforting gesture.

"We're okay now," Blaine assures, barely letting his palms make contact with Kurt's tender skin, and Kurt looks up at him, really looks at him—before his hysterical breathing merges into a relieved sob and he pounces on Blaine, gathering him in a close, tight embrace, one hand wrapped around the back of his neck, the other around his shoulder blades.

Blaine gets knocked back with the force of it but quickly wraps his arms around Kurt's trembling frame, hugging the boy closer to his chest which spurs Kurt to gracefully slide onto Blaine's lap, nudging Blaine so that Blaine's back bumps into the car.

Blaine lets Kurt straddle him and presses onto Kurt's lower back as he stretches out his legs from underneath him where he used to sit on the balls of his feet.

Kurt hides his face in the crane of Blaine's neck, fingers tugging at the small curls at the back of Blaine's neck; Blaine strokes Kurt's back in soothing circles, one hand sliding up to rest on Kurt's neck too, both of them reveling in the warmth their proximity offers.

"We'll be okay, Kurt," Blaine whispers in Kurt's ear, his lips touching Kurt's skin because Blaine's helpless not to. "I know who that was. I'll let Burt deal with them." Blaine's hand keeps kneading the tension off of Kurt's back; with his words, Kurt's tremor seems to ease away. "I also promise you to fix what I've done and to let you have McKinley back," he says in Kurt's ear, his voice dropping to the pure and bare conviction, like he won't be able to live with himself unless he keeps this promise of his. "If you decide to stay." Blaine keeps talking, his thumb stroking the soft skin behind Kurt's ear where he holds Kurt's neck.

He feels Kurt breathe him in, nuzzling around Blaine's neck before pressing his face into Blaine's Adam's apple. Blaine lets the back of his head hit the car, stretching his neck for Kurt and failing to mask a small, whimpering quality to his voice when he says the next words, "Please stay." Both of his hands slide up against the back of Kurt's neck and dare to rove through Kurt's silky, clean, heavenly-smelling hair. Blaine feels Kurt's warm breath against his collarbone and Kurt's fingers tangled in his curls and Kurt's weight holding him down.

"I know living like this sucks," Blaine keeps mumbling, giving away everything that's on his mind, sharing each of his thoughts with Kurt in his arms. "I'm so sorry that this happened to you, Kurt, all of it," Blaine says in a hollow voice, hands cupping Kurt's jaw gently, his own head still thrown back. "But, as mercenary as it sounds, your father has the money," Blaine says unevenly when Kurt rubs his nose up and down Blaine's neck. Blaine swallows, for the first time noticing that Kurt completely stopped shaking. "And he's willing to pay for the effulgence of your future, the best colleges, the best living arrangements—all of it for the price of you staying and at least pretending to be part of his family."

Blaine also takes notice of the way Kurt seemed to grow heavier, warmer, and mushier in his lap, snuggled so close to Blaine he could probably hear Blaine's heart galloping against his ribcage, which would be a problem. Also, the way Blaine's belly is slowly churning into knots with Kurt on top of him is going to spawn a problem.

When Blaine feels Kurt press a small, gentle, grateful kiss to Blaine's Adam's apple, Blaine's heart nearly jumps out of his chest.

"Kurt," Blaine chokes out, hands cupping Kurt's head as he pulls their faces apart.

"Okay," Kurt says instead, looking into Blaine's eyes with a calm expression, the ocean blue of his eyes brought back to life. The sight of it melts Blaine's heart, no matter what lecture he might've had in mind for Kurt at the moment. "I'll stay," Kurt says simply, his head still held in Blaine's hands. Kurt's hands still haven't relinquished the fistfuls of Blaine's curls.

He's been dying to touch Blaine's hair for more than a year now, he deserves it.

"You will?" Blaine asks, caught off guard at a sudden change of Kurt's mood.

"Yes," Kurt says quietly, motionless where Blaine holds his face at an arm's length, though he blatantly lets his eyes skid down to Blaine's mouth.

Blaine's heartbeat spurts up when Kurt does it and his hands close tighter around Kurt's jawline. Kurt lets go of Blaine's hair, fingers skimming down Blaine's neck, Blaine's chest, coming to rest on Kurt's own thighs. Kurt shifts a little then, almost teasing but without a single hint of playfulness in his solemn expression. Blaine's body shifts of its own accord when it becomes impossible not to under Kurt's sensuous movements against his crotch. Blaine lets go of Kurt's face to grab his waist in a silent plea to ease it off.

"Thank you," Blaine says when Kurt stops, watching Blaine. "For staying," Blaine looks up in Kurt's eyes, trying to disclose just how much it means to him with his gaze, baring his heart and soul to Kurt.

Kurt holds the eye contact for a few long moments and then whispers, "Thank you for saving us."

---

Blaine strides inside without knocking and slams the door shut after himself.

Burt looks up at Blaine swaggering toward his desk and regards him with a heavy look.

"Excuse me, Mrs. Hudson, I'll have to call you later." He doesn't sound too keen to call her at all and have another conversation with that woman ever, but knows it's in his best interest to hear what Anderson has to say with that demeanor of his and the basic courtesy doesn't allow Burt to leave the conversation unfinished. "Yes—no, with all due respect…" Burt seems to be losing his patience, too engrossed in their phone conversation to be upholding his usual Burt Hummel's 'big boss' facade.

Even Blaine's blanking on one time he saw the man losing his temper so easily, stooping to the trivial family-like squabbles with strangers. The only circumstance Blaine could imagine Burt going red in his face and bickering with some random woman over the phone would be if it were his wife.

Sadly, Blaine hadn't been around back when Burt and Elizabeth were married; in fact, when the two were still together and Kurt was in his early teens, Blaine was probably studying his freshman year at college.

"No, I do have a good reason to be hanging up on you like that." Burt covers up the microphone on his iPhone and mouths at Blaine, "Is it about Kurt?"

Blaine nods, at a loss. He wasn't prepared for their exchange with Burt to take this weird course, for lack of a better word. Blaine had something very different planned for this…patheticexcuse of a father.

"It's about Kurt, his bodyguard's back in my office, about to tell me where he is. Wasn't that why you went to the wall and browbeat all of my middlemen into putting you through directly to me?" he asks her with a mocking spite, speaking to the phone animatedly as if she could see him right now.

Blaine watches Burt talk to the nicest lady Blaine's ever met like she's the Devil that has just put him through hell.

"You would like to stay on line—what else would you like, lady?" Burt asks her on the verge of sounding less than uncouth.

Blaine would've laughed at the comic exchange if he wasn't still shaken by the information he now has at his disposal.

"You would like to be put on speaker?" Burt asks her like he's at a complete loss for words over her effrontery. Is this lady even informed about who she is speaking to? "I think this conversation is over…," he starts to say in an attempt to take back the control—only she seems to be talking over him so he stalls.

Blaine strains his ears and even manages to make out Carole's confident, oleaginously derisive voice.

"I'm sure Blaine won't mind having a word with his old friend, Mr. Hummel; you can tell him I've missed him since the last time he and I got together over a cup of tea."

"Last time you—what?" Burt looks up at Blaine, utterly confused. "You two are friends?" he asks Blaine, pulling his iPhone away and pointing at it with his other hand.

"Yeah, she's very nice," Blaine confirms, enjoying the way Burt sets his jaws, eyes shooting daggers at Blaine as he brings his cell phone back to his ear.

"Aright," Burt grunts before he taps on his screen to put Carole on speaker.

"Blaine, sweetie, please tell me Kurt's okay," Carole's gentle voice echoes from Burt's phone.

Blaine can't help a smile escaping his mouth at the dumbfounded expression on Burt's face when he looks at his iPhone like it's some sort of foreign entity, this woman's caring voice sounding so different from what's been grating his ear these past twenty minutes.

"Kurt's all good now, please don't worry," Blaine says, softly but loud enough to be heard. "He and I got in a bit of trouble on our way, but I kept him safe," Blaine tells her, looking Burt straight in the eye as he speaks. The man doesn't even change in his face, the sick moron. "I promise you can call him now, he should pick up—unless he's too busy going through his nightly routine, that is," Blaine adds at last in an attempt to brighten up the mood. Her mood.

"Oh," she gasps out, her voice is so grateful she doesn't have to say any other word. "Thank you, Blaine. You're my hero. You're his hero too, you know that, right?"

Blaine clears his throat, fighting to ward off the imminent blush that's about to creep up his cheeks. "Take care," he says as a way of saying goodbye.

"You too, sweetie. You both."

Burt grunts a little as he flicks the speaker option off. "All good now?" he asks her in that same snide voice, his body language as animated as it would be if they were having a real-life conversation.

"One last thing," Blaine manages to catch her say. "Fuck you."

Blaine lets out a sudden snort that he masks as a cough, hiding his smirk behind his fist as he watches Burt go pale in his face and look down at his iPhone like he can't wrap his mind around the fact that she just hung up on him, like this.

Burt tosses his latest iPhone on his desk, away from him, then pulls up in his chair in one sharp motion and starts rearranging a stack of papers to take his mind off of that conversation the sooner, the better.

Blaine pulls out a chair for himself and sits down in a laid-back manner, crossing his legs and clasping his hands around his knee.

"So, I take it your duties finally proved to be useful," Burt grunts, busy with papers.

Stunned into silence, Blaine tilts his head down a little, staring up at the man as if waiting to see if he's serious.

Burt looks up at Blaine, piercing him with a hard, domineering gaze.

"You want to tell me what happened?" he prompts Blaine with a professional arch of an eyebrow. "What kind of 'trouble you got in on your way home'?"

Blaine stares the man down right back, not budging for a split second.

"Are you going to speak, Blaine?" Burt asks him, dropping the papers down and pursing his lips in distaste.

The faintest of smirks tugs at the corners of Blaine's lips as he tilts his head, seeing the man for the deranged maniac that he is now. And he knows that Blaine knows, he must know by now.

"Sure I will, Burt," Blaine spits his boss' name like it's a slur and like he's been dreaming of being able to do this his whole life. "And you"—Blaine proceeds to say with simple and firm confidence, basking in the moment of him having the upper hand—"are going to listen."

---

"Kurt!" Rachel squeals, clutching Kurt's arm as they eat in McKinley cafeteria on the day their senior year officially started. "I won't ever get used to having you back here, I'm so happy!"

"Aw." Kurt pats Rachel's hand on his arm with a flattered smile. "I'm happy too. I'm also happy this Neanderthal hulk's gone," Kurt mumbles in a dry, matter-of-fact voice. Disgusted and furious as Kurt was and is still, a meager sense of commiseration he harbored for the closeted gays like Karofsky hasn't let Kurt out the jerk to a single soul save for Blaine.

Which is why drawing any more of the girls' attention to the matter of Karofsky's sudden transfer upon Kurt's comeback won't augur well for the safety of the ogre's secret.

"Here's the deal," Kurt says quickly to jump off the subject, a conspiratorial glint in his eyes as he addresses both Rachel and Mercedes sitting opposite of them; other Glee Club members at their table chat in small circles as they eat, not paying much attention to the three of them. "Let's pretend the last year never happened."

Rachel gasps, then breaks into a mischievous smile, winding her hand through Finn's arm who sits by her side munching his lunch cluelessly.

"I agree," she says, and both Kurt and Mercedes nod knowingly, fully aware of the drama Finchel have been through their junior year.

"Yeah, whatever," Mercedes sighs in agreement, rolling the tater tots around her plate. "If there's one thing I learned over the summer is that nothing even feels now like it counted before S—Shane, you know what I mean?" she asks, looking at her friends' faces in hopes they won't catch the slip-up before sneaking a look askance at Sam sitting opposite and three people to the left of her.

Kurt and Rachel nod appreciatively.

"It's decided, then," Kurt says, glancing over at Rachel. "Junior year was nothing but a bad dream," he assures, turning to look at Mercedes as he raises his glass filled with orange juice. "Some really fucked-up dream," Kurt stresses, chuckling at his own language.

Girls giggle and raise their respective glasses.

"To no more fucked-up dreams!" Rachel proclaims as they clink their glasses.

"No more fucked-up dreams," both Kurt and Mercedes repeat in unison, a syllable or so apart.

Finn gives the three of them with an odd look.

"But come to think about it," Mercedes says as soon as she swallows down her sip. "You never told us how your father came around to letting you go back, Kurt."

Rachel turns to look at Kurt, also curious. Kurt looks down at his plate where a bunch of greens are piled up; shrugs.

"I'm still not sure, really; I guess…Blaine had something to do with it?" he asks, looking up at the girls with a playful smile, knowing how hard they ship him and Blaine.

Rachel and Mercedes squeak happily, like two puppies who were just teased with a toy.

"I knew it! I've seen you two grow much more touchy-feely over this summer," Rachel gushes, poking Kurt in his biceps.

Kurt smiles a private smile; it's true: now he could let himself touch Blaine without the fear of crossing some imaginary line or being pushed away. The memory of what it felt like sitting in Blaine's warm lap still makes Kurt shiver. He never dares to go further than a hug, though.

Whereas Blaine never dares to go anywhere near a hug—or initiate one at least.

"But you never told us what served as a catalyst!" Mercedes adds.

Kurt gawks at her, caught off guard.

"Um, well, uh…"

"Do tell, Kurt!" Rachel urges. "I've been waiting for you to spill it the whole summer, but you just looked so dreamy and head over heels so Mercedes and I just let you two flirt your way to heaven and badger you with questions later," Rachel chirps so fast Kurt's mind hardly keeps up.

"And later has finally come, Kurt," Mercedes backs her up, nodding at Kurt with a suggestive smile.

"What—I'm—Ugh," Kurt sighs at last, defeated. "Fine," he drawls with a bashful grin as he starts fiddling with his piece of lettuce, eyes on his greens. "On my 18th birthday, we—um. We found ourselves back on that ledge, the place he took me to on my 17th birthday."

The girls coo, both sitting on the edge of their chairs. They know the 'wine story' very well, back when Kurt wouldn't shut up about it last year.

"This time it—was an accident, I—was looking to escape, was set to run away from home…well," Kurt says with a dismissive tilt of his head, still watching his vegetables. "If you can call such place a home anyway," he jokes dryly, tearing at his piece of lettuce.

Rachel and Mercedes have their beams falter; they share sidelong, worried looks all while listening to Kurt intently.

"Blaine found me. Apologized for how everything unfolded, you know…the Dalton obstacle and me losing you girls."

Rachel oscillates between looking at Kurt and at Mercedes before she inches closer to him and reaches out to lay her hand over Kurt's. "You never lost us, Kurt," she reminds him gently, eyes searching Kurt's face.

Kurt smiles at her gratefully and leaves the poor piece of lettuce be, squeezing Rachel's hand instead.

"Thank you," he says quietly. "He asked me to stay," Kurt says with a smile, almost as if he forgot some of the details from that day and only now does he remember.

Rachel and Mercedes share happy glances, trying to keep their cool; Rachel bites her bottom lip.

"And he promised that he will make this right again, he will make sure I'm back here," Kurt says in the end. "So here I am," he finishes happily, looking at the girls.

"Okay," Mercedes says, taking a bite of her tots. "But how did that break the ice between you two in any physical sense?" she queries, pointing a teasing fork at Kurt.

Rachel nods her own 'gotcha' as she takes a sip of her juice, smiling at Kurt knowingly.

Kurt is always so enigmatic when it comes to Blaine, always evading their prying questions and being elusive in his answers.

"Oh, did I mention I've sat in his lap for half an hour afterward, us snuggled against my car on the ground?"

Rachel spouts the juice, quick to cover her mouth with a hand, and stares up at Kurt next to her with wide, saucer-like eyes. Mercedes chortles out a laugh, "Hwhat?"

"What?" Kurt parrots her in an innocent, oblivious voice, then bites into his piece of bread.

The three of them share a moment of silence as half of the New Directions crew swivel their heads to the noise; Rachel presses a napkin to her lips, wiping her mouth delicately—before Kurt bursts into giggles, covering his mouth as he chews, and both Rach and 'Cedes dissolve into laughter in his wake.

---

This is when they enter what Kurt calls their middle stage. Both of them not quite clear about their feelings out loud, but pretty clear about them for themselves. And it doesn't matter that Blaine's set on staying in denial. Kurt essentially marries himself to Blaine in his head long before his senior year even begins.

When his senior year does begin, it all just gets more vivid and real and crisp. Blaine accompanies him every weekday in a good old two-hour commute to Lima. Sometimes they take Kurt's car, sometimes they take Blaine's; most of the time in his own car, Kurt prefers to be behind the wheel, sometimes he even lets Blaine drive. And, contrary to Kurt's sophomore experience when Blaine's company felt like an encroachment on his freedom, having Blaine this time around feels like having a partner always by his side. Having his favorite person in the world by his side, really, and how could Kurt ever lament that?

They rarely ride in silence: the car is constantly filled with their warm chatter or the effervescent play of their favorite songs—or at the very least Kurt can say the air is incessantly charged with this tingling, unspoken, innermost kind of warmth between them.

Their cozy visits to Carole become a weekly engagement—a change that Kurt welcomes with the open arms. By October, there isn't a single flavor of tea they haven't tried from the arsenal Finn once bought her, so Blaine and Kurt buy her a brand new one.

Kurt suggests they buy it online, but Blaine insists on dragging him out, using it as an excuse to spend a lovely evening buying groceries and picking out the tea collection together.

Kurt's never enjoyed grocery shopping so much, and from this day onward, he makes it a point to take some of those domestic chores back upon himself (those that Burt strongly feels should be left to the servants who are being paid to do them.) Like grocery shopping, raking the leaves in their gargantuan garden that's too lavish to be called a backyard, or getting creative in the kitchen for their scheduled stilted 'family' dinner every day—not without managing to drag Blaine into all of this along with him.

"What, you don't think some loitering gunman will ambush me from a hideaway bush in Burt Hummel's garden?" Kurt asks Blaine flirtatiously the first time he attempts to lure him into raking the leaves with him. "What will I do then?" Kurt says, flashing an impish smile Blaine's way.

Blaine eyes Kurt's back with a quiet smile, strolling after him as Kurt leads the way outside, hands snugged in his back pockets coyly.

"It's nice that you can joke about it," Blaine says in a soft voice, regarding the back of Kurt's head with a chary gaze. "But I doubt raking your father's enormous garden is the first thing on the list of things you'd want to do in this weather," Blaine says right as they step out of the back door and a moist gust of wind, as if to prove Blaine's point, slaps them in their faces.

Kurt winces against the sudden blast, then watches it sweep a cluster of fallen leaves up into a flurry, swishing past them.

"Okay, maybe not today," Kurt concedes, still grimacing pettily against the turbulent drizzle messing up his hair. He tucks himself deeper in his cardigan and turns around to hurry inside. "But we are going to rake this bitch someday soon!"

Blaine beams at Kurt as the boy squeezes by seeking the warm, dry comfort the foyer offers. Yet he's not quick to follow Kurt back inside as he takes a moment to draw a deep breath of the crisp, fresh air, savoring the feeling of the misty wind against his face. Fall is his favorite time of the year.

If Blaine can infer the true nature of Kurt's sudden interest in doing collective chores with him, he doesn't show it. He indulges Kurt: roves the supermarket aisles with him in search of some rarefied ingredients Kurt fancies for a yet another dinner Kurt's intent on cooking, keeps him company in the kitchen, plays along when Kurt instigates a flour fight against him, rakes the yard with him later that week—and does pretty much everything Kurt tries to cajole him into doing.

To a stranger's eye, they could be easily mistaken for a full-on couple, what with their domesticity, fondness radiating in waves from them, and the enamored sparkle in their eyes whenever they're in each other's vicinity. Save for the actual stuff couples would do, like hand-holding, or kissing, or not being able to keep their hands off of each other.

And even if both of them were conceptually guilty of the latter, it seemed all the more reason for them to actually keep their hands to themselves, to never start what they knew would spiral out of control faster than they moved to New York and were out of Burt Hummel's foreseeably judgmental eye.

At least that's what Blaine's precautions were about in Kurt's mind.

It's a surprise to Kurt his father never seems to get an inkling of Kurt's obvious infatuation with Blaine. Blaine might not be as obvious even when alone with Kurt, but Kurt's the first one to admit that sometimes he has the dissembling skills of a four-year-old. He doesn't see a problem with his father knowing per se, but this could at the very least get awkward, living in his father's house and knowing that he knows. That and, Kurt has a feeling it would only push Blaine further away.

So by the end of the day, all Kurt does is appreciate Burt's favorable liking of Blaine (after all, Burt was the one so eager to pay for Blaine's services if Kurt would just 'say the word to hire him back on' after the shooting incident back in May) as well as daydream about how his and Blaine's life is going to get as soon as they move to New York, together. In all honesty, the future is looking so bright for Kurt as of now that he can't think of a way it could've been better and is immensely thankful that Blaine helped him make the right choice when Kurt was on the verge of throwing it all away.

---

And Kurt doesn't have much time for social life anyways, always buried in school work and after-school activities and clubs that would enhance his college applications during the day as well as honing his vocal skills every night. He literally doesn't have time to daydream for longer than five minutes a day, let alone a couple of hours to socialize with his friends.

Even though there are a few instances Burt hints his approval of Kurt going to the same parties he used to strongly criticize back in Kurt's sophomore, Kurt doesn't feel like wasting his energy on those, plain and simple. It just—he has Blaine, and he has the opportunity of a lifetime to work for, so why would he fritter his time away? NYADA and living with Blaine in the city of his dreams aren't going to be presented to him on a silver platter, it's something to fight for—and something so very much worth fighting for.

Which is why Kurt focuses on his studies and saves all of his carousing spirits for the prom.

---

"Hey stranger," Kurt hears Blaine's sudden voice in his doorway and jerks his head up from where he's been cramming for his midterms come January. "Almost didn't recognize you behind all those books," Blaine notes in a soft, amused way, dropping his gaze to Kurt's bed layered with a daunting amount of tomes.

Kurt lets out a dejected puff, glancing down where he lies on his stomach to flick at the pages with absent fingers. "Yeah, what can I say." It's the last thing he would want to spend the whole Christmas Eve doing, but, so deep in his studying, Kurt doesn't feel like there's a more rational thing to busy himself with right now either.

Blaine leans on the doorframe and folds his arms, watching Kurt fondly.

"Say you could take a little break?" he offers with a warm smile; it doesn't escape Kurt's notice the way Blaine's eyes glint impishly. "Let me take you out for a cup of coffee," Blaine adds softly, mouthing his words with a luscious nicety to the action as his voice drops to a lower tone and his eyes drop to Kurt's books again.

Weighed down by a stressful multitude of pages yet to be worked through and crushed by the grueling amount of studying he's waded through just this past week, Kurt feels his poor, driven-into-the-ground heart awaken to the sound of Blaine's sonorous timbre and quickly pick up its tempo.

Blaine's smile grows brighter at the sight of the caught-off-guard look in Kurt's wide, enchantingly blue eyes.

"Come on," Blaine urges with a bashful motion of his head, pulling himself off of the doorframe. "Let's get some Christmas spirit in you."

It's not until they're one set of wheels past the road sign which announces they are officially on Lima grounds that the realization hits Kurt, sending a sweet prickle down beneath his skin. Despite the absurd distance they had to cross just for a cup of coffee, Blaine's taking Kurt to Lima Bean, his favorite coffee place, the one Kurt has so many memories tethered to.

Leisurely and lighthearted in his manner, Blaine rolls down the coffee shop parking lot in search of a neat spot to park. A nice, distant, bluesy rendition of White Christmas wafts around the car (Kurt glances at the panel to check out the singer: Otis Redding) as Blaine maneuvers the car into the space.

Enjoying the nighttime atmosphere more than he knew he could, Kurt peers around the view they've secured in front of themselves through the windshield. It's dark outside; the gentle pulps of snow fall through a frosty, windless air, blinking in a subdued streetlight by the Lima Bean's cozily embellished entrance. Christmas lights adorning the coffee shop windows make something very dear, childish, and excited coil in Kurt's chest as Blaine cuts off the engine and pulls the keys out of the ignition.

It's the same something that gets a stronger grip on Kurt's heart when Blaine recites Kurt's coffee order to barista without pausing to check with Kurt.

"For here or to go?" a nice-looking young man asks them both; Kurt only has eyes for the gorgeous Blaine next to him, the gorgeous Blaine who knows his coffee order.

"To go," Blaine surprises Kurt by saying.

"Where are we going?" Kurt asks Blaine curiously as they wait. The café is also bubbling with Christmas spirit; the kindest, only the best compositions assembled by their music person in light of the upcoming holiday. "It's magical outside, no doubt"—Kurt cranes his neck to admire the dark, snowy weather—"but it's cold?" Kurt asks Blaine with an apologetic grimace, as if he's afraid to throw a wrench in the plans Blaine might've crafted for them. The fact that Blaine, his caring Blaine, might've planned something out for them is enough to turn Kurt into a hot mush in and of itself.

Once he hears the end of Kurt's concern, Blaine merely smiles at him. "Don't worry," he says in that privately-low voice of his, so deep and mellow Kurt feels it resonate in his bones."Thank you," Blaine says to barista suddenly, stepping up to take the cups Kurt hasn't noticed were up. "There are seat heaters in my car," Blaine resumes his thought to Kurt as they put the finishing touches on their coffee orders: Blaine adds sugar, Kurt sprinkles in some cinnamon, both place the caps onto the cups.

Kurt tries not to smile so foolishly happy. He couldn't think of a way this night could get better if he tried.

They sit for hours in Blaine's car, warm and cozy with a Christmas playlist resonating from the rich-sounding speakers inside. They go back to the café an hour into their chill-out session: they take turns using the restroom while waiting for their second round of coffee that Blaine got them. They never run out of subjects to talk about and of jokes to joke and of laughs to share. Once they get back inside Blaine's car the second time, both seated in their respective front seats by the gearbox, Kurt cradles his hot cup of grand non-fat mocha, seeking out the coveted warmth with his cold palms. He takes a sip of his favorite drink in the world that nearly scalds his tongue, then turns to look at the dapper, self-possessed, breathtaking-to-look-at Blaine next to him as Blaine starts up the engine for the music to play again, delectably clueless to Kurt's studying him—and Kurt swears to God at this moment, life is so perfect Kurt honestly doubts most people have ever experienced it like this.

The frosty flush on Blaine's cheeks, those few rapidly-thawing snowflakes that got settled in his hair of curls on their way back to the car, a neatly capped coffee cup of his own that he holds with one hand as his other hand adjusts the volume of the music, then turns the seat heating on—all those little things make Kurt stop in his tracks and watch Blaine, unabashedly, openly, and so very much in love.

Blaine takes a sip; Kurt watches Blaine's tongue lick at his lips after he swallows; their seats start to warm up fast which yields a gratifying burn against their backs, bottoms, and thighs.

Blaine breaks into a broad, bashful smile once he catches Kurt staring and averts his gaze downwards. "What?" he chuckles out, dimples forming on his cheeks.

I love you.

"Will you go to prom with me?" escapes Kurt's mouth quicker than he wraps his mind around the next thing he'll say. It comes out soft, and half-whispered, almost like a quiet plea.

Blaine's face morphs into an expression of surprise and speechlessness—and frankly, something else, though it's hard for Kurt to tell. Kurt's so tired of trying to decipher what hides behind Blaine's gazes and smiles and the inflection of his voice.

"I…," Blaine murmurs, staring at Kurt with a lost look on his face. "I am going with you, if that's what you're asking?" Blaine prompts, his voice small and shaky, in an apparent attempt to deflect Kurt's evident innuendo off into its literal meaning. "I'm always with you," he adds in a low whisper, a tint of agitation discernible in his eyes that are locked on Kurt's.

"Please," is Kurt's only response to Blaine's trying to skirt his true question.

Kurt's eyes, blue as the waters on a clear, sunny day, pierce into Blaine's lost ones, the stream of tension in the air between them acutely palpable.

"Kurt, there will be adults who know who I am," Blaine's reduced to whispering in a dead, hollow voice that's all but devoid of emotion.

"So?" Kurt says, sharp and quick—almost quicker than Blaine gets to the end of it. "Please," Kurt repeats, now just a whisper.

"Your father will know," Blaine counters it after a few moments of a tense silence, looking at Kurt like he hates to be spelling it out.

"Please," Kurt hisses in a heartbreaking, imploring voice, jerking forward and reaching out to clasp Blaine's hand.

Blaine's fingers twitch under Kurt's cold grip and the sudden puff-up of his chest evinces the jolt of electricity that rushed through Blaine when Kurt's skin made contact with his. Blaine's other hand tightens around his cup of medium drip coffee as he steels himself.

Their unsteady fingers find their way to entwine, clasping their hands together closely. Blaine doesn't find it in him to avert his gaze, the pleading blue of Kurt's eyes sharp as painful thorns clawing into Blaine's heart.

To his own amazement, Blaine feels that if he were to sustain Kurt's eye contact one second longer, he'd cry. His eyes would well up with tears and the burning sensation that comes with it is already creeping up the bridge of his nose.

"Okay," Blaine says in a barely audible, bashful voice, blinking down to look at their clasped hands. A childishly excited grin threatens to break out on his face. "I'll be your date, Kurt Hummel," Blaine murmurs softly yet distinctly, not able to withhold the flirtatious note in his voice when he steals a boyishly charming glance at Kurt.

Kurt's so painstakingly happy he shines with it, and all of the sudden, Blaine feels like a thousand tons weight's been lifted off his shoulders.

His heart swells with the pure, sincerest love as he listens to Kurt squeal with excitement, squeezing Blaine's hand tighter.

---

Blaine tugs the hem of his pullover down, straightens up, scratches his nose with the back of his hand, then exhales. He's ready. He knocks on Burt Hummel's door.

"Boss?" he calls, pressing his temple against the cool wooden surface.

He hears the man chortle out a lively laugh, then say to whomever he's speaking with, "Hold on for a minute.

"Come in," he calls out to Blaine.

Blaine walks into his boss' office, letting the curiosity get the better of him as he aims a skeptical glance at the phone Burt's holding in his hand. Who on earth could make this man crack up?

"Am I interrupting?" Blaine trails off, unsure.

"Is whatever you got for me worth interrupting?" Burt asks, covering the speaker with his hand.

Quite hesitant, Blaine makes a short nod 'yes'.

"Aright then. Mrs. Hudson"—he grunts back into his phone, his gruff voice livening up with a smile that actually lights up his face—"I'm sorry to be throwing a wrench into our lovely conversation like that, but"—he waves a hand in a helpless gesture as if she could see him—"what can I say? Duty calls."

Blaine gawks at the man pivoting on his chair as he reaches for his calendar.

"We've settled on…Wednesday? February 22? Good. It's a date, then," Burt says into his phone with a goofy 'dad' smile only a man with no worries and an auto shop to run instead of a sketchy business can possibly afford.

Honestly it's creepy, at least to Blaine.

"Yes, Blaine," Burt says with a 'back-to-work' sigh as he locks his iPhone after hanging up.

Ever since Blaine and Burt's conversation, Blaine noticed that his boss started paying some respect to him, calling him by his first name, being abnormally polite. As for Blaine, it's been quite the opposite: ever since he lost the little respect he had for this man, he couldn't bring himself to so much as address Burt with the honorific 'Mr.' in front of his name, or call him sir. He didn't want to make the situation any more awkward and unpleasant than it already was, but he didn't really care to hide his contempt either.

"There's something you should know," Blaine says, jutting his chin up a little to hide his nervousness.

Burt changes in his face as he levels Blaine with what Blaine recognizes by this point as Burt's professionally dour look. Blaine watches his boss' jaw flex, a couple of lines appear on his forehead, and his fist clench.

"Yes? We got a prob'm?" he grunts in question, looking up at Blaine.

There's a beat before Blaine shakes his head. "No, no. It's not like that. It has to do with Kurt. And me."

This isn't starting very well, Blaine thinks as he mentally smacks himself on the back of his head.

His choice of words seems to take the dark edge to Burt's mien away and make Burt raise his eyebrows, intrigued.

"I wanted you to hear it from me and to be confident that there is no hidden nature to my intentions. No…worrisome, hidden nature."

Burt keeps pinning Blaine with a steely stare, his face not giving out much except for the apparent intentness on listening.

"I'm taking Kurt to his prom," Blaine says finally, bravely upholding Burt's trying eye contact. "Because he asked me. Because I believe he needs someone to be there for him, during this time in his life."

It seems to take Burt a couple of moments to catch up with the real, literal meaning of what Blaine's saying. When Burt does, there's a bleak shade of something…genial, something light-hearted that fleets across his stiff features, but before Blaine gets to decipher what it truly is, it morphs back into his blank expression.

"Aright," Burt shrugs at last, then picks up a stack of papers and knocks it perpendicularly against his desktop to line all the sheets up. He studies Blaine with a sideways peek, a wraith of a knowing smirk ghosting over his otherwise straight face as he watches Blaine nod, then linger awkwardly, then turn to go.

"Blaine."

Blaine turns around. "Yeah?" He asks, eyebrows raised, breath held.

"We still have our deal." Burt says as a half-reminder and a half-question, pointing his finger at Blaine like a father preaching to his son.

Blaine came here to dispose of the potential worries Burt might've had about one of his employees possibly taking advantage of his son if he were to hear about Blaine being Kurt's date from someone else, yet all he cares about after hearing out Blaine's confession is the confidentiality of their stupid fucking deal.

He makes Blaine sick.

"Yeah, we sure do," says Blaine dryly on his way out, a disappointed slump in his walk as he treads backward and opens his arms in bitter dejection before he lets his palms slap his thighs and walks out of Burt Hummel's office.

What did he expect from this man? Blaine, of all people, should know better.

---

you got another thing coming
if the only thing that's on your mind is me

Kurt smiles as he and Blaine sing the first lines into the mics, two stands set on opposite sides of the stage that's been put up in McKinley High School gym.

The room's crammed up with a body of McKinley students, all swaying to the intro beat that's getting more defined with each passing second; the row of girls and guys closest to the stage are clapping along, hands in the air, shoulders moving.

Puck must've definitely been effective in meddling with that punch earlier because Kurt has to fight himself from letting his voice slip into an airy giggle. Hell, he's not sure how on earth he managed to talk Blaine into singing with him on a high school prom impromptu, but one thing he's sure about—he hasn't been enjoying himself to this extent in what seem to be ages. Maybe ever.

you got another thing coming
if the only thing that's on your mind is—

Blaine takes to making a smooth twirl and dancing freely to the stirring beat come the first instrumental interlude. That was the perfect song to choose to perform at a party like this, Kurt gladly thinks as he throws his head back laughing at the sight of Blaine, his heartbeat falling in sync with the song's rhythm. The laugh barely registers with the mic as Kurt's safe distance away, and the music has been boosted louder now that the song's officially rolling.

Seconds before diving into the first verse, Kurt and Blaine have each other's eye—and then go for it, together.

i'm out of my depth and
there's no going back

They sing the words, as free as the music enveloping them in a tight, vibrant embrace and seeping inside their veins. Their voices are so different, so distinct from one another yet are so exceptional together as their timbres glide against each other before they softly coil into one.

i'm out here on my own—stop!
looking for me; solar system can't divide us

Both of them are belting out the lyrics with ridiculous expressions Kurt's sure, unrestrained in their movements as they let the feelings behind the words escape their body through the shrug of their shoulders, the wave of their fingers, and the springy bent of their knees.

no catching up cause imma keep
going
on

Who knew Blaine was such a good singer? If Kurt wasn't absolutely in love with this man already, this would've made him fall to his knees just like that.

But now it just makes Kurt want to propose.

Blaine bounces around the stage with lively step, sharing laughs with the kids in the front that are rocking to the beat like their life depends on it; Kurt throws his head back and takes a break from the recurring words throughout the bulk of the song. He stares up at the ceiling, panting and smiling and for the first time in his school year absolutely free of worries about his impending NYADA audition—worries that have been plaguing him ever since he started preparing. He hasn't even realized just how much stress he was under, how much pressure the whole prospect of exams and proving something to someone made him feel.

How much of his senior year was shadowed by this sickening uneasiness that managed to get a grip on every aspect of his life, even the pace of his and Blaine's relationship.

And how absolutely glorious it is to be letting go right in the face of it looming over his shoulder, right on his doorstep. The most significant part of the admission process—audition—is in two days and it makes Kurt giddy to think he cares the least about it when it's crept up the closest.

Somehow it feels like an epic fuck-you to every single person that has ever made Kurt doubt himself or fret needlessly or scared him into making safe choices in his life to miss out on the simplest, purest joy of it.

Because he's basking in it now.

i ain't picking up your calls!

He and Blaine sing with broad, massive rotundity to it as Kurt throws his hand forward in a sharp motion as if to heighten the point.

forget about returning on the free fall!

Blaine secures the mic back into its holder to also throw his arms wide.

out of bounds of kingdom come,
edges of our universe and fall beyond

The intensity of their voices and the emotion behind them that drives them into the right notes almost lead Kurt to believe Blaine and he, mentally, are operating on the same frequency at the moment, and honestly—regardless of what's really going on inside Blaine's mind as of now—the prospect of it is enough to leave Kurt breathless.

The love Kurt has for the man he's sharing the stage with is—infinite, it's infinite, and never in his life would Kurt have thought he had a heart big enough to harbor it.

---

The air outside is crisp and frosty and wintry as the February nears its finale; it makes their flushed cheeks prickle, a sharp contrast to the stifling gym jammed with sweated students.

Upon finishing their little extempore duet, Blaine suggested their get some air because 'whatever Puckerman spiked the punch with was really getting to his head.' Kurt grinned, took his hand, and dragged him through the hot-skinned crowd of students to the exit. Blaine smiled back at him just as brightly and let himself be led—however, as expected, Blaine's hand broke free from Kurt's grasp before Kurt could lace their fingers.

On their way out they stopped by Kurt's locker to get their coats and Blaine got a better look at Kurt's embellishments inside. A picture Kurt and he took on Kurt's 17th birthday particularly captured Blaine's attention. The two of them were perched on the hood of Blaine's car, parked in Blaine's favorite Lima spot when he first took Kurt there, both smiling a purposefully over-the-top broad photo smiles that could light up the whole valley in the night, glasses of wine held just out of the sight as Blaine insisted they do.

Blaine gazes at the picture of them as if it was taken just yesterday, and it makes him wonder: how long has he been feeling the way he does? Was he feeling it then?

Because it feels now that there wasn't a time where Blaine wasn't.Kurt smiles a bashful smile after he follows Blaine's line of sight; his cheeks flush a little in the poorly-lit McKinley hallway.

"Yeah, just—" Kurt trails off awkwardly, fumbling with his coat as he buttons it up. "It was the best birthday I've ever had," he admits bashfully, and Blaine swivels his gaze to gawk up at Kurt, moved deeply.

There's something on the tip of Blaine's tongue begging to be voiced, but Kurt makes a shuddering sigh and shuts his locker quicker than Blaine gets to the end of the battle against his own self.

As they step outside, Kurt breathes out a puff of warm air into the night, tucking his hands into the pockets of his coat. They stroll towards the side of the school courtyard where students usually eat when it's warm outside.

The wide concrete stairway and the mesh top blue metal tables situated below are oddly deserted in the dark, crispy cold.

"So this is where all the fun happens?" Blaine asks Kurt when they reach the steel railing, his smooth, rumbling voice coming from behind Kurt as Blaine follows his steps. "When you kids have lunch or a free period?"

"Us kids," Kurt scoffs; they stop to watch the wintry view below where the stairs descend. "What are you, forty?"

Blaine chuckles, pulls his hands out of the pockets and leans forward against the railing, elbows propped up by the cold bar. Kurt remains upright and studies Blaine's profile, powerless to take his eyes off of his ravishing features.

"Yeah…," Blaine sighs, staring at the dark courtyard down in front of them. "Sometimes it sure feels like it," he says, turning his head to flash Kurt a quiet grin. He turns back to watch the streams of light coming from the lampposts. "This spirit of…," Blaine tries to find a good word to define everything 'high school', motioning with his hand back and forth as he looks over the distant, frost-coated tables, the two lonely rectangular slots with petite trees that were planted and staked and cared for back in the late summer, the mesh-walled exterior stairwell adjacent to the high school body itself, all bathed in the late-February night. "You know—"

"I know," Kurt says. Blaine nods, biting his lips into a tiny smile.

"It feels like it's been a very, very long time ago, for me," Blaine admits in a half-whisper, glancing up at the roof of McKinley High. "Ages."

Kurt watches him, turning his body to face Blaine, one hand on the railing and the other one kept warm in the pocket of his coat.

"You miss it?" Kurt asks.

"Very much, I do." Blaine straightens up, turns around and smiles up at Kurt, his back to the railing now, hands still closed on the upper metal bar. "It used to drive me nuts back then, the whole idea of having to go to school, being…subordinate. Sitting through boring classes, coming home besieged with tons of homework I knew I'd never make use of when I get older; used to hate it. Do you hate it?" Blaine asks, crinkling his nose in a smile.

It's Kurt's turn to be staring out into the distant dark as he draws a long breath, mulling it over.

"Never thought of it that way, I guess?" Kurt trails off, watching the quiet scenery with an absent wonder in his eyes. "It never bothered me, the whole subordinate aspect of it…Schoolwork has always been just something I knew I had to get through. I guess I never took it as seriously," Kurt says, eyeing Blaine a little. "I had Glee Club which"—Kurt looks down at his hand on the steel bar—"reminded me every week of who I want to be and where I want to be…"

…with you.

"So I guess I always had my eyes and mind and heart on the prize, in a way," Kurt concludes with a couple of satisfied nods, turning to look back at Blaine.

And, too busy watching Blaine's gorgeous, smiling face as Blaine nods in acknowledgment of Kurt's answer, Kurt misses the way Blaine's hands tighten on the railing where they're wrapped around it.

"That's very smart of you," Blaine says in a voice that starts out low in his chest but which Blaine raises to his normal pitch near the end of the sentence. Despite Blaine's attempts at concealing the tiny slip of his timbre, it's noticeable enough to send shivers down Kurt's spine.

Blaine's face, perfectly controlled under the guise of his dazzling smile, doesn't give out any whit of emotion except for the heartfelt joy he feels when talking to Kurt, as always.

Kurt looks away with an uncontrollable grin that shows off his small teeth he's quite self-conscious about. Kurt grabs the railing with both hands and rocks back and forth a little as he asks Blaine playfully, "So how come you miss it so much if you used to hate it so passionately?"

"That's the thing." Blaine shrugs. "Never in a million years would I feel this way about it at the time of it. But, a safe distance away from it now, now and only now can I finally get the appeal of it," Blaine smiles at Kurt in a way that Kurt, has he not known Blaine for these past nine months, would've considered flirtatious. Kurt blushes a little when he catches it, thankful that the night must be masking his flush. "It's a catch-22," Blaine jokes.

They share a quiet moment; Kurt smiles sheepishly, eyes on the railing he holds as he rocks a little, restless. He feels Blaine's curious eyes on him and it only spurs his agitation.

"Are you nervous, Kurt?" Blaine asks in a vibrant voice after a couple of seconds pass, craning his neck to level with Kurt's downward line of sight, him still leaning back against the railing.

Kurt feels a rampant flush run down the back of his neck as his heart skips a beat; caught off guard, he looks up at Blaine, a dumbstruck expression on his face. What does Blaine mean? What does it mean?

Is he asking Kurt if he's making him nervous? Kurt feels his heart start to gallop in his ribcage.

When Kurt doesn't respond in a couple of moments, staring at Blaine like the latter has just shattered the ice wall worth a hundred yards between them, Blaine seems to catch on with Kurt's train of thought.

Blaine's eyes blow wider when it occurs to him how he might've sounded judging by the look on Kurt's face, and he quickly disposes of potential misinterpretations of his words.

Of course, Kurt thinks dryly, God forbid Blaine lets Kurt think he flirted with him.

"Are you nervous about the audition?" Blaine asks his question in full in a hushed, unsteady voice, hands clenching the bar behind his back like it's the only thing keeping him up straight.

The look in his eyes when he asks this—all while enduring the challenging, piercing force behind Kurt's eye contact—is almost frightened.

Kurt blinks dumbly, shakes his head. "No."

Neither of them looks away for a second, the frosty air around them charged with years of bottled-up tension, hovering over their heads, threatening to pop any second now if either one of them makes the slightest of sudden movements. So they stand still.

"Why?" Blaine asks just above the whisper, eyes near black in the poor streetlight, the small cloud of warm air wafting off into the dark.

Kurt pulls away from the railing and hides both of his hands in his pockets without breaking eye contact with Blaine. It's now or never.

Certainly not until New York. And God knows Kurt's tired of keeping it in.

"I've been stressing over it for the past half a year," Kurt responds apropos of his lack of anxiousness about the audition, though clearly expressing something else alongside it.

Kurt steps to the side as he moves to stand opposite of Blaine, cornering him in a way against the railing but still a safe distance away.

"I think it's about time I stopped," Kurt says, watching Blaine push himself further into the railing behind him, gripping the bar harder.

Chest heaving erratically, Blaine stares at Kurt, their eye contact never broken.

"Don't you?" Kurt asks him with a careful tilt of his head, eyes searching Blaine's eyes.

Blaine's face morphs into a look of surprise, like he didn't expect Kurt to actually say it, to actually broach the subject. Kurt makes a step closer, simultaneous with Blaine pressing himself further back into the railing, albeit unconvincingly so.

"Kurt—"

Kurt stops, calm and determined, hands still in his pockets. Blaine, however, seems to be at a loss for words of objection, settling for shaking his head in an imploring 'no'. Kurt's eyes cloud with dark resolution and soon enough, his legs move before he even knows it; he makes the few final steps to close the painful distance between him and Blaine, those painful inches of cold, wintry space separating them now and ever; Kurt pulls his hands out of his pockets as quickly as he leans forward, the fabric of his coat catching on his clammy fingers—

If there's one thing he's sure as hell nervous about, it's this: throwing himself at the only person in the world who means the world to him, jumping this giant leap of faith and hoping to hell he won't be pushed away when Kurt—

Grabs Blaine by his warm jaw, brings their faces together in some lightheaded kind of hurry, and kisses Blaine on the lips—on his plump, lip balm coated upper lip—closing his own lips around it with so much tenderness and airiness it's ridiculous against the frantic stroke of his fingers that keep sliding back and forth along the line of Blaine's jaw, thumbs tracing the underside of it as his middle fingers brush at Blaine's earlobes—

It all spins into an abyss when one of Blaine's hands ghosts against the small of Kurt's back, registering in the back of Kurt's mind weakly seconds before Kurt feels Blaine reciprocate the kiss, close his mouth on Kurt's bottom lip, pull Kurt closer by his back, push their bodies flush together and—

It takes them a second of an awkward treading in place as Blaine guides them around, swift and sudden he makes Kurt stumble back before his back hits the steel bar and he realizes—with Blaine's palm cupping his cheek and Blaine's other hand still clenching the bar—that he's been spun around and cornered, by Blaine, pushed up against McKinley railing with Blaine's gentle mouth now sucking on his.

Kurt's heart threatens to jump out of his chest with how rapid it hammers against his ribcage; his breath hitches madly and he draws a sharp breath through his nose. Blaine's mouth lets go of Kurt's lips only to dive right back in when Blaine angles his head a little better, controlling the movement of Kurt's head where he has Kurt by the cheek. Kurt's hands close around handfuls of Blaine's frosty curls as he kisses back, held sweetly by the press of Blaine's hard, muscular body against his front and the cold railing against his back.

Kurt doesn't need to do breathing exercises to center himself. Doesn't need to calm himself down before coming on stage. He walks out from behind the side curtains on autopilot, the only sound shattering the dead silence in the auditorium is the echo of his footsteps against the stage floor.

Blaine's thumb strokes gentle patterns against Kurt's sharply defined cheekbone; their long, suckling kisses turn into short, eager pecks pressed to swollen lips. Their heated breaths mix up into visible, hot clouds of air against the cold weather as Blaine's hand caresses Kurt's cheek in some kind of agitated oblivion. Kurt feels the tickle of Blaine's eyelashes when Blaine's eyelids start to flutter—and whimpers softly, fearing Blaine's about to pull away, his grip on Blaine's hair getting stronger.

Contrary to Kurt's fears, Blaine only pushes further into Kurt in an apparent attempt to calm his worried whimpering; he holds Kurt down firmly against the steel bar as his other hand reaches up to cup the other side of Kurt's face. Kurt feels an itching jolt of gratification quiver down his limbs when Blaine grabs him by his jawline and angles Kurt's head back sweetly; Kurt lets his mouth fall open against Blaine's soft lips out of pure instinct, allowing—dying for—Blaine teach him how to French kiss.

Blaine's warm knee pushes in between Kurt's legs that can barely hold Kurt upright and Kurt slides his hands down Blaine's neck, fingernails biting into Blaine's hot skin when Blaine's tongue skims the contour of Kurt's upper lip; Kurt feels himself go weak at his knees. One of Blaine's hands winds around the back of Kurt's neck and clenches it firmly as his other hand drops down to snake around Kurt's waist and tug him even closer; to the point where Kurt's tingling, slender body that quickly turned into mush in Blaine's arms is squashed against Blaine's hot, strong one that somehow managed to hold onto its firmness in the midst of all this craziness.

He stops when he reaches the center of the downstage, faces the audience he knows comprises Madam Tibideaux seated behind the desk as well as Mr. Schuester, Rachel, and Blaine watching somewhere in the back. Kurt canceled his and Rachel's initial plan for him to sing 'The Music of the Night' by The Phantom of the Opera at the last minute, a change that Rachel was less than excited with, but came around to eventually.

She knew what had happened. She knows he has something else to say today. Something else to sing.

Kurt kisses at Blaine's mouth blindly, desperate to taste the tip of Blaine's tongue that was teasing him just now; Blaine meets Kurt's avidity in a hungry, restive kiss accompanied by a sharp intake of breath on both of their parts. The catch and the slip of their lips, the wet tease of their tongues as they move in a newly-found rhythm of their own, the stroke of their hands that won't quit dragging the other one closer—all makes Kurt's head swirl with pure, giddy relish, the single most glorious feeling he's ever had the ultimate pleasure to experience.

The single best second-first kiss Kurt could ever dream of. Has ever dreamed of.

Which is why when Blaine suddenly breaks it with a hoarse grunt, reaching up to hold Kurt's face off—it almost makes Kurt wail in frustration.

Eyes squeezed shut in some mental effort to regain his composure, Blaine breathes a shaky whine against Kurt's sweet, delicious, parted lips as he keeps Kurt's head just out of his reach so that Kurt doesn't recommence the kiss. Kurt's hands rest flat against Blaine's heaving chest and Blaine's heart that slams against Kurt's palms like a feral butterfly trying to escape.

Kurt feels oddly calm, distanced, like he's a mere observer on the outside, waiting to see how Kurt's rendition of the song will play out to be.

Or, better yet, his body feels like it's the song itself, waiting to be rendered, torpid in his chest, slowly building up in his lungs. Nothing else matters outside of this. Nothing else exists.

Kurt bites at his reddened lips, hands sliding up Blaine's shoulders in soothing circles, eyes watching Blaine's beautiful face up close through the fog of the pent-up longing for this man in his arms clouding his judgment. Blaine squeezes Kurt's jaw in his hands, the crease between his eyebrows growing more defined as he lets their foreheads collide. Kurt's hands quickly find their way back up Blaine's neck to stroke at the small curls on the back of his neck as they both take a couple of moments to breathe, slumped into the railing alone in the high school courtyard. Then, for a second there Blaine's hold on Kurt's face gets so strong it's well-nigh painful as a crushed choke escapes the back of Blaine's throat and he—lets go of Kurt completely, jerking away like it physically hurt both to do so and not to.

Kurt's left standing with his back slumped against the railing as he pants into the dark, freezing cold, his hair disheveled and his coat undone and his mouth a reddened, inviting mess.

The look in his eyes is both piercing and unsure.

He watches Blaine recreate enough distance between them and literally try to pull his hair out as he breathes in, breathes out through his nose all while pointedly keeping his eyes on the ground, five feet or so away from Kurt. Like it's essential that he doesn't look at Kurt if he is to stop now.

"Hello, my name is Kurt Hummel," Kurt announces in a distant, even voice, his features smoothed out and ghosted over with a melancholic shadow; the look in his eyes is somehow both far, far away and oddly, greatly focused at the same time. "I'll be singing 'Being Alive' from Company."

"Just"—Blaine holds out an arm, head turned away as he grapples to compose himself—"could you—hold onto that railing, please?" Blaine asks him, chest heaving with ragged breaths.

Kurt's mouth forms a childishly annoyed moue yet his hands do as asked. He grabs the cold bar behind his back as a promise to Blaine he won't move.

Blaine watches him do it out of the corner of his eye. "Thanks," he breathes out, glancing at Kurt askance.

Kurt waits patiently as Blaine closes his eyes to take his breathing under control and seemingly muster up something inside him for what he's about to do next.

"Kurt," Blaine begins, looking up to face Kurt. The look on his face is dejected, miserable as his eyes skim across some distant point to Kurt's right. "I can't lose that job," he says at last, shaking his head when he gazes up at Kurt, his tone tortured as though Kurt's asking him to. "I care too much about you, you hear me?" he asks with a heartbreaking hoarseness to his voice which breaks by the end of the sentence.

The look on Blaine's face, the genuinely anguished look, makes Kurt's heart bleed.

"Someone to hold you too close," Kurt sings the first line, the voice hollow and icy and beautiful in its smooth, ghostlike caress.

"I don't understand," Kurt says, his own shaky voice on the verge of cracking. "You care—too much about me"—he repeats Blaine's words in a whisper—"and this is why we can't—why we can't—" he motions between them with a lame hand, stupid, familiar pressure building up in the back of his throat.

"No, I care about you—but in a different way," Blaine says, averting his eyes downwards, his face so beautiful in the dim light from the high school lampposts it hurts Kurt to look at him saying those words. When Blaine looks back up at Kurt, his face flinches with sincere sorrow.

A small, pitiful "What?" is the only thing Kurt can muster to a conviction like that. His hitherto purely hurting heart starts to swell with a slow-burning anger.

"If Blaine doesn't care about him in that way, what the fuck was that about just now just here?" his mind screams at him.

"I'm sorry," Blaine whispers softly, eyes downcast like a child who's done something terrible they can't take back.

The sincerity laced in Blaine's crestfallen voice does nothing to alleviate Kurt's pain that Blaine's rejection is causing him.

someone to hurt you too deep

"Wh—what was all of that about, then?" he asks Blaine out loud and hates himself for how pathetic his voice comes out, how pathetic he feels.

Blaine presses his hands to his face, palms against his cheeks and nose and mouth, index fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. He squeezes his eyes shut—almost—and Kurt wouldn't let himself dwell on it now—but almost as if he fights his inner kicking and tossing self on this, summons all the strength in the world for the next words he has to say.

"I'm sorry," his voice is dead, hollow as he pulls his hands away from his face and finds some random point on Kurt's coat to stare at when he speaks. "I'm—Because of my job." His eyes keep boring into Kurt's coat, as if it's physically grueling to be on the receiving end of Kurt's heartbroken eye contact now. "I don't have time for—my needs."

Dead silence in the night air.

"I'm sorry," Blaine repeats in a shameful whisper and this is—

This is worse than anything he could've said to Kurt then and there. When Kurt's mind catches on with what Blaine's trying to say without saying—it comes crashing him down like a thousand tons freight train: Blaine was only drawn to him because he didn't have time to be banging someone else in his spare time.

Kurt draws a sharp, tearful breath, pinning Blaine with a gaze full of agony, and fury, and—frankly, at this moment—hatred. Even more so when Blaine keeps his head low, refusing to make eye contact with Kurt's emotional, demanding stare.

someone to sit in your chair
and ruin your sleep

"Look me in the eye when you say it," Kurt hears himself command in a scathing, absolutely unforgiving voice that's colder than the steel railing Kurt's clutching.

Blaine looks up to the sound of Kurt's voice like a deer caught in the headlights, eyes wide with horror. "Kurt I'm so sorry," he says right away in a hoarse, hollow whisper. His eyes seem to be struggling against the continual impulse to look back down but he forces himself to endure the sight of Kurt, the sight of animosity in Kurt's eyes, the sight of hurt in the curl of Kurt's mouth.

If Kurt wasn't so immersed in the anguish Blaine's inflicting upon him, he would've noticed the way Blaine's own face grimaces in misery—as if this sight of Kurt is eating him up inside, slowly and very, very painfully. As if he can hardly bear being at the receiving end of that look, at the giving end of that pain.

"I'm sorry," Blaine half-gasps, half-sobs with a shake of his head, eyes welling up with tears as he and Kurt keep staring at each other with no break. Unable to do this any longer, Blaine closes his eyes.

Blaine sniffles in a breath, squeezes his eyes until a couple of tears are shed from his eyelashes and grits his teeth so hard Kurt almost hears it.

When Blaine opens his eyes, he proceeds to do what Kurt asked of him. Look Kurt in the eye and say it.

"I can't be with you. I won't—be with you." His voice breaks, his eyes wide in what seems to be shock at the words coming out of his own mouth.

"Why." Kurt's tone is trying and painstakingly adult-like when he prompts Blaine to finish his thought, knowing full well what he expects.

Wanting Blaine to stop being such a coward and say it to his face. Eliminate any future room for false hope or leading him on or hurting him like that ever, ever again.

Blaine's bottom lips quivers slightly when he pierces Kurt with a tortured gaze. Almost like he's begging Kurt not to.

"Because I don't want to be with you…" Blaine's voice is dead when he says it, laced with dread for what he's doing—

And Kurt knows full well what he's doing, how he's wreaking them both in such a ruthless and savage way, burning all the bridges up, everything they've built so far, the trust and the promise of something very much bigger, immensely bigger and—most importantly—stronger. Something of theirs and something that's not a subject to tampering with by anyone butthem.

But to think that Blaine knows it too and still does it, still ruins it all in Kurt's face—makes Kurt's blood boil.

someone to need you too much

The worst thing about it is—quite pathetically—that Kurt, in spite of all the hurt he's feeling, still can't find it in him to believe Blaine's words.

Illusory or not, these past few years meant something and allowed Kurt to get to know Blaine in a plethora of other ways, precisely which leave this unsettling feeling deep in his stomach. An inkling that something in Blaine's explanations doesn't match with what Kurt already knows about him on some subconscious stratum in his mind.

someone to know you too well

Something tells Kurt that he shouldn't be accepting Blaine's words at face value, but Kurt tells this something to shut the fuck up. He's done humiliating himself and behaving like a pathetic lovestruck teenager, if that's what Blaine thinks he's been doing this whole time.

"Okay," is all Kurt says with a quiet, accepting smile that doesn't reach his eyes in the slightest as he pulls himself away from the railing. He swallows thousands of objections his head swarms with, thousands of biting quips that are on the tip of his tongue, thousand of things he has to say to Blaine if it's the last time they're talking about the issue—and lets it all go as he moves with confident step past Blaine, headed for the parking lot, his sharp shoulder bumping into Blaine's lax one on his way off.

someone to pull you up short
to put you through hell

He misses the way Blaine's face winces into a pure grimace of agony as soon as he's out of Kurt's line of sight, chest shaking with quiet sobs he never lets be voiced, eyes wet with tears ready to fall as he stands there alone in the dark, the beautiful view of McKinley courtyard in front of him and the sound of Kurt's retreating footsteps behind.

"Someone you have to let in," Kurt holds the note, eyes focused on the remote point in front of him, both the spotlight and his blurred vision obstructing his view of the audience.

someone whose feelings you spare
someone who, like it or not
will want you to share
a little, a lot

Kurt closes his eyes as he sucks in a deep breath, feeling a single tear escape from his eyelashes and ooze down his cheek.

"Someone to crowd you with love," Kurt sings the first line in the next verse, opening his watery blue eyes with a sharp, determined look in them, his face set in raw, bare heartache.

someone to force you to care

Kurt sings the words with an unwavering, piercing gaze pointed at where he knows Madam Tibideaux sits.

someone to make you come through
who'll always be there

Kurt feels the next couple of tears fall and slowly roll down his cheeks, probably glistening in the bright, cold blue spotlight. He doesn't let himself look away.

as frightened as you

He has never cried onstage before. Never thought he had it in him, always feared it would be something he'd never learn to do, an emotion he'd never learn to summon.

of being alive

And here he stands, performing for what he would argue is the most important audition in his life, for the first time breaking the mental block he's had since forever before NYADA dean's very eyes.

being alive

Somewhere in the back of the dark auditorium lulled by the sound of Kurt's mesmerizing voice, Blaine's crying too.

His hands are covering his mouth and his nose, eyes constantly filling up with new tears, more tears as he keeps blinking them away, letting them trickle down his cheekbones and down his fingers without taking his eyes off Kurt's sublime performance for a second.

His heart swells with so much love, and pride, and hurt there's so much Blaine can do to hold onto the pieces Kurt's voice is shattering him into with every hair-raising note it hits.

being alive

---

End Notes:

I'm so sorry to be ending part one on such a depressing note, but there wasn't a better way to split it, and it had to be split. If you feel like you grew to really care for this story (I love you) but the way it's been cut off left you feeling like shit (I always hate other authors for doing this to me,) there's something I really want to say before you go.

SPOILER ALERT BELOW

Don't believe a word Blaine said. That bastard.