Kicking his shoes off at the door as he steps into their apartment, Blaine can already hear Kurt singing. He puts down his bag for a second, bending over to line his Converse up on the shoe rack that's filled mostly with Kurt's Doc Martens and whatever other shoes he considers acceptable everyday wear, even though they both know it's a joke - with Kurt, there's no such thing as everyday wear, not when he's got enough outfits for an entire year.
Kurt's voice spills further into the hallway as he rolls into the high notes, not entirely pitch-perfect but completely and utterly amazing in its rawness, anyway, and Blaine takes a moment to pause on the step and just smile. He doesn't smile as much as he did at Dalton, or even before it, but every quirk of his lips is genuine now, a reaction to something he finds amusing, or happens to appreciate. Between classes that have gotten increasingly harder, a weekend job at a record store that all but sucks the fun out of music when he's forced to express his feelings about it in language entirely appropriate for the uneducated consumer and the pressure that comes with knowing that this is real, it isn't high school and they don't get do-overs anymore, he's had a hard time appreciating much lately.
But he will never not appreciate Kurt. Kurt, who didn't so much teach him to smile as remind him of the sheer power of it –- of how it could break hearts when he didn't mean it, or when it conveyed emotions he hadn't intended, and how it could stitch his own heart, and Kurt's, back together again when the intentions were real and he did mean it. Which he always had, in some way or another, really.
Blaine sneaks into the kitchen now, dumping his bag on the table before coming to stand squarely behind Kurt, letting his breath hum slow and sweet against his ear. He wraps his arms around Kurt's waist, his fingers slipping easily into the juncture of Kurt's hipbones as he pulls his boyfriend back against him. The move isn't even intended to be sexual, but Kurt rocks back up into his embrace, his entire body rolling in one fluid motion as he snaps into line against Blaine, their bodies fitting neatly together. Blaine stretches up slightly to place a gentle kiss on Kurt's temple; Kurt hums contentedly before twisting his body to face Blaine's, gathering him up into a much more passionate kiss.
The friction of their lips makes him moan against Kurt's mouth, the pressure that's been curling inside him all day billowing out in drips and drabs as he kisses Kurt erratically, insistent against his mouth at first, and then fleetingly, his lips only softly pressing against Kurt's cheekbones and jaw. He knows that even the lightness of his touch drives Kurt crazy because, in all their time together, they've learnt that they don't need to become one person to be intimate, together -– that sometimes, two hearts singing the same song are better than one.
It's part of the reason Baby It's Cold Outside is still their favourite Christmas carol, even if Kurt refuses to admit that he was entirely charmed by a boy that sang with him on a cold winter's night about roofies and something vaguely like date rape. Which –- they've long since agreed that Blaine is just really bad at choosing songs.
"If you don't let go of me, our food's going to come with the distinctive condiment of charcoal," Kurt says finally, motioning to the kitchen where the microwave is beeping. He releases himself from Blaine's grasp, and it's all Blaine can do to collapse into a chair at the kitchen table, feeling slightly dizzy from the sudden lack of weight pressed against him. On days like today, Kurt is like crack to him –- or, perhaps more appropriately but also a little more revealing of his insatiable neediness, like air.
He voices this thought to Kurt, who just laughs and tells him to save the dramatic metaphors for when he gets a job teaching English Lit.
"I used to write you poetry, remember," Blaine moans, leaning across the table for his laptop and cracking open the lid. A quick scan of his email inbox reveals five unread messages –- a confirmation email that the faculty received his education paper, three chain letters from his aunt that would be funnier if he can't imagine dying at 12am without marrying Kurt, and something from Wes about maybe catching up when he's in New York for a business meeting before Christmas. "A seventeen year old could hardly come up with a better description."
"If it's any consolation, I may still have that one where you compared my arse to a fine summer's day because you just wanted to enjoy it or something –-" Kurt peers over his shoulder as he pulls a tray of something that smells absolutely delicious out of the oven, and smirks. "I see things haven't changed that much."
"You look as amazing as you did when you were sixteen, if that's what you mean." Kurt flushes slightly, and Blaine finds it hot and oddly reassuring, all at the same time. He likes that, even when so much has changed since they met, mostly for the better, some things have stayed the same. "But seriously, how was your day?"
"Same old, same old. Everyone's getting really excited about the exhibition, I may have possibly designed the most amazing hat in existence, and just because my tutor's met Alexander McQueen doesn't make him any less of an admittedly fashionable arse. Yours?"
"Absolutely shitty, to be honest. But it's improved in the last five minutes," Blaine replies, because it was, and it has. Talking to Kurt, even if it's semi-drunken babble about something he saw on the evening news, has this ability to be incredibly therapeutic. For all Kurt talks, witty wisecracks about movies and music and their friends and fashion, Blaine finds him most enchanting when he just drops his head, letting Blaine's breath brush along the soft skin of his earlobe, and listens. Even when he's in another room, like he is now, he has this ability to just be there, solid and dependable for Blaine in a way that Blaine's always liked to be for him.
They've done this every day for the past five years; as friends whose dorm rooms were on the same floor and then, for those first few weeks they'd been dating, when their bodies had slid so messily against each other out of that insatiable need for closeness, but also due to the fact that Dalton's single beds were not entirely designed to be shared, there had been a lot more kissing. Then, there had been a flurry of texts about the musical and relationship chaos of their respective glee clubs, the daily drive to and from McKinley during their year of high school, the well co-ordinated Skype calls as Blaine spent one last summer with his parents and the late night phone calls from college libraries and bars as they'd juggled homework, extra-curricular activities and their new roommates' sleeping schedules.
Sometimes, Blaine thinks it was easier before they shared an apartment, when their stories were limited to the cute graphic design professor on Kurt's campus and that girl in his education course who's actually afraid of children instead of the trappings of something like responsibility. But then he'll find a post-it note from Kurt stuck crookedly on the door of the fridge when he wakes up in the morning or they'll debate where to hang the latest photo of them singing together at some party or other and realise that between all their posters from their favourite musicals and that drunken sketch that Kurt once did of him, it's getting harder and harder to contain all their best memories, simply because there's so many of them and –-
One of these days, Blaine's just going to learn to accept the fact that he's hopelessly in love, even when he hopes that he doesn't because he loves the thrill of re-learning that fact too much.
Kurt's slicing tomatoes with a deft flick of his wrists and tossing them into a bowl already half-filled with lettuce as he hums a line from a song Blaine doesn't quite recognise and pointedly motions at Blaine to pass him the salt shaker from the table. There's a certain art to the way that he can multi-task that Blaine's always admired, the way that he can text Mercedes with advice that Blaine thinks is condescending but that Kurt says looks entirely different when read by someone who hasn't been in a loving relationship for over four years, and comment on the downhill slide of America's Next Top Model, all at the same time. Blaine thinks that it's because he's spent so many years trying to be so many different things for so many different people that it's easier just to become a hybrid, combining the best parts of all of them.
What most people just don't realise, however is that this hybrid -– all these pieces, fitted neatly together like a jigsaw puzzle are Kurt, and Kurt is the sum of all of these things, he just chooses to reveal himself to people piece by piece. Blaine's just lucky enough to see the final product of his rearrangement.
And here's the real kicker -– this Kurt is the Kurt that, sometime between a flirty performance of a song he didn't even particularly like and now, Blaine's fallen in love with. This Kurt who will make wayward comments about whatever football game Blaine's watching because he apparently retained something after a month on the McKinley team and then, in the next breath, casually ask if Blaine can toss him a pot of moisturiser or has he heard that Al Gore's planning a political comeback? This Kurt that can be all these people and more around him, transcending the blurred lines between gay show choir kid and devoted friend, because he knows -– Blaine will accept him, no matter what.
"My dad called today," Kurt says finally, washing his hands.
Blaine looks up from his laptop screen again, the mouse hovering over a button that will send most of another week's meagre pay towards finalising yet another set of bills, and nods. "I hope you remembered to thank him for the pertinent reminder he sent with those graduation photos he found that he can whisk you away from me in half a second should I misbehave, even if it means us defaulting on our rent."
"I did," Kurt says, his arms laden with plates and serving spoons. Blaine clicks 'confirm' on his car registration payment before pushing his laptop aside and jumping up to help Kurt, who waves him aside with a small shake of his head. Their friends that he suspects they have for the simple fact that they too, are homosexuals, often comment on the way in which Kurt and Blaine fall into relatively offensive versions of the traditional heteronormative gender roles, but really -– they just like to impress each other and Kurt's cooking just does that. "I also reminded him that last time you misbehaved you woke up on the other side of New York, something more terrifying than any other drunken experience you'd ever had." Kurt grins unabashedly. "And there's been a few horrific ones."
Blaine's kind of laughing and kind of wondering why every bad decision he's ever made ends up with a reference to singing about sex toys at the GAP or kissing Rachel Berry (because here's the thing: of all the things he's ashamed of when it comes to the failed GAP Attack, it's that he sung about finding his equivalent when, really, he hadn't even known what the word truly meant until he fell in love with Kurt) when Kurt says, "he says that we're being forced to spending Thanksgiving in Ohio this year. As though spending time with my family is a kind of punishment, or something."
"I suppose Thanksgiving with your family can be arranged," he says, even though he's got an educational pedagogy paper due the day after the break and his boss is antagonistic at best when it comes to people asking for time off during one of the consumerism holidays of the year. Because Blaine's learnt the hard way –- what Kurt Hummel wants, Kurt Hummel gets. The only part of this scenario that either of them acknowledges is remotely after-school special of them is the fact that Blaine's always a little too happy to help him succeed. He's sure the Hummels won't mind if he stays in their house and works on his assessment for a few hours while Kurt goes shopping with Mercedes, anyway. "Although," Blaine adds, "I'm sure you're already aware that the Black Friday shopping options in Lima that you used to settle for will now appear painfully limited."
"There's always online shopping, and besides I already told Dad that we're coming," Kurt says, bringing the salad to the table now, and laying it in front of Blaine, planting a kiss on his cheek.
"Carole's already bought enough pumpkins to make a lantern a day until next Halloween, and Finn's already put in a request for her famous Thanksgiving pies," Kurt says now. "I can see the day before Thanksgiving being a fateful repeat of the day that Finn thought baking a cake was conducive to step-brotherly bonding."
"That I can understand, though," Blaine says, around a mouthful of chicken. At Kurt's pointed stare, he forces himself to swallow, before adding, "You haven't lived until you've eaten her pecan pie."
"Funny," Kurt replies, but there's this undeniable smirk on his face. "You once said the same thing about kissing me."
"Well, I was right on both accounts, wasn't I?" Blaine scoots closer to Kurt, the legs of his chair scraping against the linoleum, and wraps an arm around his shoulders. "And, as much as I appreciate all the effort you've put into dinner, all this food is making it very difficult to kiss you and remember exactly why I said that."
Kurt rolls his eyes in that way that he's almost patented, but he rests his hand against Blaine's thigh, and Blaine knows -– every kiss they've ever shared has been enough to prove the point. Any time his boyfriend's lips rest gently against his from now on, any time his boyfriend moans as Blaine presses his tongue deeper into Kurt's mouth are just an added bonus. "If you were anyone other than you, I'd mean this offensively, but -– you're ridiculous."
It's Blaine's turn to roll his eyes, now. "And that comes from a place of caring, does it?"
"Can I just say that the whole 'caring' thing was just a ruse until you got yourself sorted out?" Kurt says, taking a bite of his own meal. "Now – it comes from a place of love."
"Well, I'm flattered that you loved me enough to tell me you were sick of hearing me singing, no matter how friendly you tried to make it." Blaine raises his eyebrows. "Aside from the fact that it will be easier for Burt to sneak a piece of Carole's pie if you're there to distract her with oh so fabulous tales of your life in New York, what's got your father so insistent? You promised him months ago that you'd go home for all of the major holidays this year."
"Oh, honey," Kurt says. "Carole only acts so interested in my burgeoning career as a fashion designer in the hopes that it will bore you enough that you'll leave the room and she can ask me if you're still the man for me. Which you are, but whatever - apparently, they're making it a major family occasion to celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary."
Blaine frowns slightly at that, because -– has it honestly been five years already?
He remembers Burt and Carole's wedding vaguely, mostly due to the ferocious speed at which Kurt had texted him about whether peach or cherry soufflés would better compliment the salmon and the appropriateness of silk for a forty-five year old woman. He's seen footage, too, which Kurt had tried to hide under the guise that the New Directions were singing and it wouldn't be appropriate to reveal the extent of their talent to too many people at Dalton, when really, he'd just been embarrassed by Finn's song for him.
"I can't believe Burt and Carole have been married for five years, already," Blaine says finally, because –- he can't. His parents and other distant relatives aside, the only people he knows who've been in a committed, loving relationship for anywhere near that long are Mike and Tina, whose wedding they attended last year and...
"Except -" he says, because, oh. Oh. That committed, loving couple -– that's them.
All things considered, Blaine doesn't think he can love Kurt anymore when he says, "Except that means it's been just over five years since we met, and the last five years have been the best five years of my life."
All Blaine can do in response is smile.