In the six months of preparation and training Kurt had gone through, both alone and with his charity team, in building up toward the marathon, he had imagined how it would feel to cross the starting line dozens of times: Exciting. Nervewracking. Triumphant. Overwhelming.

The last one was probably the closest to the truth. On his previous runs, even the excruciatingly long ones toward the end of his training, staring the run had been the easy part—it was usually the last two or three miles where the wheels had started to come off and his form had begun to fall apart. This time, however, it was the opposite—the race had barely begun and Kurt's breathing, already too close to hyperventilating for comfort, wasn't slowing down and settling into a rhythm, like it usually did. His stride felt choppy and graceless, and even his joints were rebelling, every ache and twinge he'd diligently treated with ice and rest and gentle stretching suddenly ghosting through his limbs, phantom pains reminding him of how easily his body could come apart.

It was more than a little disconcerting. And he still had over 25 miles to go.

As if she'd read his mind, one of the middle-aged women in pink called up to Blaine, who was positioned at the front and center of their sixteen-person group, just steps to Kurt's left. "Should my knees already be sore?" she wanted to know, her good-natured smile and the teasing laughter from her two friends taking the edge out of the question. "I feel like that can't be a good sign."

Blaine, who had been splitting his time between glancing at his watch and waving to the intermittent groups of spectators along the road waiting to see their friends or family, beamed with delight at the opportunity to be helpful. "That depends," he called back cheerfully, turning his head in Kurt's direction just enough that his voice would carry. "How were they this week? Were they injured at all during training?"

When the Pink Lady answered in the negative—"They're just old"—his smile grew brighter, almost causing Kurt to trip over a pothole in the road. "I wouldn't worry yet," Blaine assured her, seemingly oblivious to Kurt's near-plight. "Racing feels different than training—I don't know if it's adrenaline or nerves or something else, but your body can always tell that it's not just a normal day when you start a marathon, even right at the beginning." He smiled reassuringly. "I always feel like mine's trying to preserve itself by making the first two miles awful enough that I want to stop running," he admitted. "But it's always better by the third mile. Let me know if it gets any worse, but if it hasn't given you any trouble before now, I think it's just adjusting."

A few seconds later, the sandwich board marking the first mile of the race came into sight, and Blaine pointed to it with a shout. "One mile down!" he cheered excitedly. "How is everybody feeling?"

Kurt opened his mouth to answer—and paused. Somehow without him noticing, his breathing had evened out, his limbs back to moving automatically and with their usual semblance of grace.

He felt good.

Hmm.


The first aid station came into sight just after the third mile marker, and by then Kurt was ready for it.

"Anyone who needs a drink should stay to the right," Blaine reminded them all, shifting away from Kurt and toward the left side of the road. "There's water and blue Gatorade, and anyone hoping to win the 4:30 Group Informal Bluest Tongue Contest should be aware that you're all racing for second place—my gels are blueberry flavored, so I plan on trouncing you all."

Kurt rolled his eyes at Blaine's strange enthusiasm, but smiled as he reached the aid station, taking a cup of water from a pretty blonde volunteer and drinking it as quickly as he could before tossing the crumpled cup toward the trash can and slowly reeling Blaine and the other non-drinkers back in.

"…wear off after a few minutes," Blaine was explaining to one of the other runners as Kurt settled back into his former spot, a man who was also running his first marathon and whose sneakers were adhering slightly to the ground because of the large quantities of Gatorade spilled onto the road. "You'll pick up enough dust and dirt in the next quarter mile or so to keep them from sticking. I'd definitely avoid stepping on any gel wrappers you see on the road, though—those things can stick to you for miles, and if you step on a full one that somebody accidentally dropped? Disaster."

He shuddered, and Kurt stifled a laugh.

The roads had cleared somewhat since the beginning of the race—although there were still runners visible in front of and behind the group, the number of spectators waiting by the side of the road to cheer for them was drastically reduced, and the crowd on the pavement itself had thinned enough that Kurt was no longer worried about tripping over anyone else. Instead, he let his eyes wander as he took in the unfamiliar neighborhood around him—farmhouses, mostly, with fields of grain and livestock visible in the distance, separated by rows of equipment, dusty driveways with basketball hoops and pickup trucks, small wooded enclosures with—

Kurt's eyes snapped forward. "Oh my god," he breathed without thinking, mortified by what he had just seen: three men (obviously part of the marathon, given their clothing and sneakers) that had been relieving themselves in the nearby grove of trees—their pale, bare asses clearly visible to anyone who happened to look in their direction.

"Kurt?" Blaine asked, watching him with concern. "Is everything okay?"

Kurt coughed, looking down at his feet rather than meeting Blaine's worried gaze. "Fine, I'm fine," he insisted, not wanting to inform everyone who was listening—which seemed to be most of the group, if the sudden lack of ambient conversation was any indication—of what he'd just witnessed. "I was just…surprised. By something I saw. But I'm fine."

Blaine furrowed his brow for a moment, before putting the pieces together and scoffing. "Let me guess," he said, not without amusement. "Someone couldn't make it to the porta-potties at Mile 5?"

Kurt nodded in confirmation, and Blaine nodded back knowingly. "That definitely happens," he commiserated. "I always think we should have more available than we do, if only to prevent accidental mooning." Without waiting for Kurt's response—which probably would have been sputtering over the fact that Blaine, in his skintight spandex that was showing his really nice posterior to excellent advantage, was talking about mooning—Blaine raised his voice to address the whole group. "As someone involved with the marathon, I can't officially endorse anyone going off-road for any reason, and invite you to make use of the four sets of portable bathrooms available along our lovely, scenic course."

He paused. "Unofficially, and as someone who has also gotten an accidental eyeful of runners 'taking care of business' during a race, I'd advise you to pick a good hiding spot away from the road if you find yourself needing one, and caution you that anyone caught peeing on the side of a freestanding garage will be unceremoniously disqualified from today's events."

The last warning was given with a cheeky grin, setting off a flurry of speculation as to just how and why Blaine knew that. Blaine merely winked at Kurt, who couldn't help but smile back.


"Ladies and Gentlemen," Blaine announced a few minutes after the group had passed the second aid station, "for those of you who don't have your own watches, we have officially hit the One Hour mark!"

Kurt let out a grateful sigh at the announcement—he wasn't feeling tired or burnt out yet, and it was a relief to know that they were making headway in the amount of mileage they had to cover before he did.

The reaction from the rest of the group was equally tepid, but Blaine remained unfazed. "Everyone's saving their energy, I guess," he quipped with a slight smile. "I can respect that. How is everyone feeling? Are we sweating yet?"

Kurt grimaced at the reminder. The light, cool breeze that had been blowing for the past few miles meant that the sweat on his neck, hands, and arms was evaporating almost as quickly as it formed, but the underarms and spine of his shirt had long since grown warm and damp, and he'd been wiping what felt like the same layer of sweat from his forehead and cheekbones since the fourth mile marker.

Of course, his discomfort was nothing compared to what Blaine must have been feeling, given the rivets of sweat visible at his hairline and the large, wet patches of shirt sticking to his skin at the collar and underarms.

The idea that Blaine might have to take his shirt off and finish the race topless briefly occurred to Kurt, and he was suddenly very glad to have such a good excuse for the blush he could feel spreading over his cheeks.

Blaine noticed Kurt looking at him, and grinned. "You picked a good spot," he told Kurt, wiping his forehead with the back of his free hand and haphazardly brushing a wayward curl out of his face. "By the time we're done, anybody running directly behind me is going to wish that they'd brought an umbrella."

Kurt scrunched his face sympathetically. "I hate sweating," he admitted, noting absently that they'd just passed the marker for Mile Six. "It is not a good look for me—I do all of my exercising at home when my roommates are out, just to preserve the illusion that I was born without sweat glands."

Blaine looked amused. "Uh, Kurt, I hate to be the one to point out the obvious," he hedged, before proceeding to do just that: "But you're running a marathon. In public."

A few of the closer runners in their group laughed, and Kurt rolled his eyes. "I know that," he acknowledged, blushing again, "but this is something I'm doing for my dad. I don't—it's not what I consider to be my exercise, if that makes any sense. Running, for me, is more in pursuit of a particular goal; it isn't really about health or fitness."

"It certainly isn't hurting, though," Blaine remarked with a smile, before visibly wincing. "Sorry, I didn't mean to—not that I've been, I mean…" he stammered.

Kurt raised an eyebrow, and Blaine sighed, defeated. "I may have observed, in an almost entirely gentlemanly fashion, that you have really nice legs," he admitted. "Among other things. And this was before I found out that we'd be running together; I don't want you to think that I'm—but I couldn't exactlyunnotice it once I'd noticed it, and…I'm just going to stop embarrassing myself and making you uncomfortable. I'm sorry."

Kurt, flushing deeply, was torn between flattery and amusement at Blaine's rueful confession. "Well," he said slowly, not missing the way that Blaine's head jerked back in his direction at the sound of his voice, "I suppose I can't really blame you, can I? I mean, it's not as if these pants leave a great deal to the imagination."

Blaine smiled guiltily. "They really don't," he lamented. "Brittany, the girl you met earlier? One time she followed me around for half an hour, throwing coins at me, because her girlfriend had made some snide comment about my running tights being so snug that she could bounce a quarter off of my ass. It wasn't one of my better days."

By the time Kurt had stopped laughing, Blaine looking put-upon and blushing sheepishly, the seventh mile marker was fading in the distance, and Kurt had privately resolved to send Brittany a fruit basket or a bouquet of flowers at the first available opportunity.


Two hours and twenty-three minutes into the race, the cramps started.

What had begun as a slight stitch in Kurt's left side at the half marathon mark ("We're more than halfway done!" Blaine had proclaimed with so much enthusiasm that Kurt had found himself wondering which one of them, exactly, had been the cheerleader in high school) suddenly became a sharp, stabbing pain under his lung, as harsh and unexpected as if someone had slid a knife between his ribs. Kurt couldn't help the pained gasp that flew out of his mouth as they rounded a corner, and he gingerly pressed his fingers into his abdomen, trying to relieve the piercing ache.

Blaine was at his side almost instantly. "Breathe into it, that's it," he advised gently, eyeing Kurt's hands. "Cramp?"

Kurt nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

Blaine hummed soothingly. "Keep breathing with your diaphragm and pressing into it, just like you're doing. Do you need to slow down?"

Kurt shook his head, blinking back the tears stinging his eyes as he breathed through gritted teeth—slowing down would mean leaving the group, leavingBlaine, and while he was planning on finishing the race either way, he didn't really want to do it alone.

Especially anymore.

"Okay," Blaine was saying quietly, rubbing Kurt's back lightly with his right hand. "Okay. Twist slightly in my direction if you can, all right? Just a little. Do you want me to distract you?"

Kurt glanced over at Blaine, surprised. He wasn't the first one in the group to get a muscle cramp by a long shot, and while Kurt had heard Blaine dispense the same advice to everyone else with just as much kindness and sympathy, he'd always left the job of distracting the unfortunate victim to whomever he or she was running with.

Of course, Kurt was running alone, effectively negating that option, but still… "Careful," Kurt joked breathily, his voice thin and laced with pain as he tried to turn into the cramp, digging his fingers harder into the muscle. "People might think you're playing favorites."

Blaine's smile was gorgeous. "Half of them think we're secretly dating," he informed Kurt, eyes shining with amusement. "I'm happy to correct them if you want me to, but I think it's sort of sweet how invested they are in our relationship."

Kurt let out a huff of laughter, wincing as it aggravated his side. "Well then," he said absently, "distract away, Boyfriend."

There was a brief pause, and then Kurt saw Blaine start out of the corner of his eye. "Right, distraction," Blaine repeated as breathlessly as Kurt had sounded before, the smile evident in his voice. "Sorry. Okay. Do you remember how earlier, I told you that I had made friends with a teenage stripper when I was still in high school?"

Kurt rolled his eyes—because obviously—and Blaine smiled indulgently. "Well, anyway, in order to hide his job from his parents…"

Kurt continued to breathe deeply, massaging the spot under his ribcage as he listened with interest to Blaine's story about his friend's fake job at a Dairy Queen, and the ridiculously over the top pandemonium that had ensued when the family had gone there for ice cream to celebrate his little sister's birthday. Blaine was a fantastic storyteller, gesturing emphatically and pausing in all the right places for dramatic effect, and Kurt noted with amusement that he'd unknowingly drawn in the majority of the 4:30 group, who had clustered around the two of them and were hanging on Blaine's every word.

"And then the State Board of Health tried to intervene, but the town is so staunchly anti-government that the residents all kicked up a huge fuss and lawyers got involved, and eventually the Board just gave up. So now, there is a single Dairy Queen franchise in the entire world where body glitter is an official part of the uniform, and the citizens consider swallowing sparkles with their sprinkles and cones part of their duty as the antiestablishment," Blaine finished with a triumphant smile at Kurt.

And immediately tripped over a rock in surprise as the entire group burst into applause.

Kurt, his cramp having mercifully faded during the part of the story where Blaine's friend had nearly blown his cover by moving too quickly in his tear-away pants, was able to catch his arm to keep him from falling.


Despite Kurt insisting that he was fine after the ache in his side had dissipated, Blaine continued to check on him every mile, turning his bright, earnest gaze to him after each mile marker. Secretly, Kurt sort of enjoyed Blaine's somewhat overprotective attention, but rolled his eyes the fourth time it happened anyway.

"I'm fine," he stressed, unable to keep the look of fond exasperation off of his face. "If I'm not all right, I will tell you—okay, Dad?"

Blaine looked slightly sheepish, but kept smiling. "I know, I'm sorry," he apologized. "You're invincible."

Kurt raised his chin showily. "Of course I am," he sniffed haughtily, making Blaine laugh. "And don't you forget it."

Blaine continued to look over at Kurt after that, but Kurt was kind enough not to bring it to his attention.


Around mile 21, the sensation of invincibility had thoroughly worn off, and Kurt's hips, knees, and feet had progressed from feeling incredibly tired to feeling uncomfortably sore. His shoulders and arms felt tighter and heavier as well, and while he was still doing well enough to keep running at the relatively easy pace Blaine had set, it wouldn't have taken much more than an offer of a comfortable chair—and maybe a slice of cheesecake—to entice him off of the course and out of the race.

So it was probably a good thing, if a little disappointing, that nobody seemed to be offering.

Two members of the group had slowed down and fallen behind over the previous two miles, leaving Blaine with fourteen runners. He had assured them both times that people coming and going was perfectly normal but, sensing perhaps that the remaining 4:30 runners were growing weary and somewhat dispirited with nearly an hour of racing left to go, he'd begun reemploying his considerable powers of distraction to keep their minds off of the task at hand.

After another story about his stripper high school best friend ("It took his English teacher seven months to figure out that his Yoda impression wasn't some weird, verbal manifestation of his dyslexia"), they switched to the places game, which was successful for approximately seven minutes, when one of the older men toward the back of the group played 'Iraq' off of Kurt's 'Hawaii'. When a third of a mile had gone by and still nobody could think of a location that began with the letter Q, the effort was abandoned.

As were all the games and stories, in fact—the next distraction came in the form of the middle-aged blonde woman running behind Kurt, when she unexpectedly burst into tears.

"I'm s-sorry," she sniffed as half the group turned to her in surprise, wiping her cheeks roughly even as she continued to cry. "I don't know why I—I don't know where this is c-coming from."

Urging them all to keep running, Blaine dropped back a few feet, maneuvering himself next to her. "Hey, it's all right," Kurt heard him murmur reassuringly, "you're going to be all right. It's Marissa, right?"

There was a pause, and Kurt assumed that Marissa had nodded when Blaine began speaking again in the same utterly soothing tone of voice. "You were the one who ran the Chicago Marathon a few years ago, weren't you? I'm guessing this probably didn't happen then, huh?"

Marissa choked out a rebuttal, and Kurt glanced at his watch just in case Blaine was too preoccupied to keep track.

"That's awesome that you're doing another one, Marissa," Blaine was saying. "And I promise, this is totally normal—I'm actually surprised we made it this far without any spontaneous tears. In fact…can you keep a secret?"

There was another pause, and Kurt strained his ears, shamelessly eavesdropping as Blaine spoke more quietly:

"I was completely fine after my first marathon until about 8pm, and then, out of nowhere, I started shaking and crying and didn't stop for almost ten minutes," he admitted. "And I was boarding at an all-boys prep school at the time, so this was in front of nearly three dozen high school boys, too. By the time I calmed down, they'd wrapped me in about thirty blazers, and were bickering over whether pouring tea down my throat would help or make things worse."

Kurt heard Marissa's muffled laughter, which he tried not to echo, lest he get caught listening. Still, the mental picture of teenage Blaine, buried in an entire rack's worth of fancy uniform jackets, was a priceless one.

Dwelling on the image, Kurt nearly missed it when Blaine started speaking again, in an even lower voice than before.

"…going out on a first date after the race, and I'm a little nervous about how my body is going to act," he was confiding in Marissa, and Kurt breathed as silently as he could, desperate to catch every word. "Usually I'm fine after a race, but the blazer incident was not one of my more attractive moments, and sometimes I'm just exhausted, or my muscles lock up and I have to walk around without bending my knees like a duck or something. I'm just hoping to make it through coffee and bagels without looking so ridiculous that he says no when I ask him for a second date."

A car horn honking at the runners was loud enough to cover Kurt's sharp intake of breath, for which Kurt was grateful. It also covered up half of a no-longer-teary Marissa's reply, but Kurt could surmise the general idea when he heard Blaine sigh and explain that, "I probably should have, but…I didn't want to miss my chance, I guess. I didn't even think about how I'd be sweaty and emotional and probably smell pretty bad after so much running—I just…saw the opportunity to spend some time with a really amazing guy, and I jumped on it."

Blaine paused, and, struggling to keep up the correct pace while holding his breath, so did Kurt.

"It's been pointed out to me before that all the romantic ideas in my head don't usually translate well into reality," Blaine added finally. "But you stopped crying, so maybe it isn't that bad?"

Marissa laughed, either at the question or the hopeful tone in which it was asked. Whatever her reply was, however, Kurt didn't hear it, lost in his own thoughts.


It wasn't that Kurt was going to die. With one dead parent, and a second whom had nearly followed years later, Kurt had always found hyperbolic teenagers on television and in real life wailing about how their life was over a tad histrionic, and only let the phrase slip himself during extensively extenuating circumstances.

However.

Even if Kurt knew that he wasn't going to die, it didn't mean he was exaggerating when Blaine asked him how he was feeling after the 24th mile marker, and Kurt replied tiredly that every single bone in his legs from the kneecaps down felt shattered. "And if I eat another gel…" he insinuated, delicately avoiding the words themselves—one of the first-timers in the group, the man with the previously-sticky shoes, had pulled over to the side of the road around mile 22½ to hurl, ending Blaine's conversation with Marissa and resulting in a flurry of radio conversation with various course officials that had only ended when the 4:45 pacer reported that he'd finished puking and had joined her group. Kurt's stomach had been sloshing uncomfortably by that point, too, and he'd gratefully replaced his too-sweet gels with both water and Gatorade at the final aid station.

Blaine winced sympathetically. "Sounds about right," he allowed, tugging his sweaty shirt away from his chest to air it out. "The good news is that this is about as bad as it gets—things can only go uphill from here."

One of the Pink Ladies cried out in dismay. "Oh God, no more hills, please!" she protested, and Blaine's resulting sputter drew laughter from the group.

"It was a metaphor," he stressed, eyes crinkling as he began to laugh as well. "No more hills, I promise." Looking over at Kurt, he pouted. "You're going to get me in trouble if you keep doing that," he warned faux-sternly, no sign of the nerves he'd mentioned to Marissa betraying him.

Kurt primly raised an eyebrow. "I merely answered your question," he pointed out reasonably. "You were the one who employed a metaphor that was, under the circumstances, poorly chosen."

Blaine's expression melted into a smile. "Fair point," he acknowledged. "Okay then," he said, raising his voice again, "how about this—we're less than two miles away from the finish line, and the road is completely flat for the rest of the race! In less than twenty minutes, you'll have foil blankets and finisher's medals, and can lay down anywhere you want for as long as you like. Sound good?"

The group mumbled their drained, but relieved, acquiescence. One of the two teenage girls cheered with more enthusiasm than should have been allowed after four hours of continuous movement, and Kurt hated her immediately on general principle. Blaine, however, just laughed. "That's the spirit!" he cheered back. "We can do it, everyone. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming…"

Kurt let out a huff of laughter. "I'm not even a little surprised that you like Dory," he offered in explanation when Blaine looked over at him, eyes sparkling and expectant. "I am completely unshocked by this turn of events."

Blaine's smile grew. "Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming," he sang back, fluttering his eyelashes in Kurt's direction. "I promised you a song earlier, didn't I?" he reminded Kurt, before proceeding to annihilate every possible law of biomechanics by singing exactly the song Kurt knew he'd pick after the Finding Nemo references while simultaneously running a marathon:

"Somewhere, Beyond the Sea,

Somewhere, waiting for me,

My lover stands on golden sands, and watches the ships,

That go sailing…"

Kurt's stomach started to twist more pleasantly than before, and he took several deep breaths as he continued to run, letting Blaine's unfairly gorgeous voice wash over him.

Just keep swimming, indeed.


The finish line was so close that Kurt could practically taste it.

The 25th mile marker was well behind them, and Blaine had promised that the final sandwich board was just around the next curve of the road, and the giant balloon arch signifying the end of the race a mere .2 miles beyond that. Kurt's energy had, inexplicably, picked back up, and it was with more enthusiasm than he'd felt for anything in at least an hour that he began scanning the road ahead of him, searching the thin but respectably-sized crowds for his dad and Carole, who had promised to be there to cheer him on.

Weirdly, it was Blaine who spotted them first. "Kurt, is that one for you?" he asked, pointing several yards ahead of them and to the left. Kurt looked, and saw what had attracted Blaine's gaze—Finn was standing on the sidewalk in all his six-foot-fifteen glory, holding a yellow poster board above his head that readGO KURT GO! while squinting at the oncoming runners. Their parents were by his side, Burt's arm wrapped around Carole as they, too, looked for Kurt among the runners trickling in toward the finish line.

Kurt made it easy for them. "Dad!" he shouted, suddenly feeling small and sixteen all over again, waving at his dad during his first of only a handful of football games. "Over here!"

Three heads snapped in his direction at the sound of his voice. A giant, cacophonous shout went up when they spotted him, and they waved excitedly as Kurt's group approached and passed them. "That's my boy!" Kurt heard Burt yell as he rounded the corner and ran out of sight, sneaking one more fleeting glance back as Finn waved his sign so high in the air that he ended up smacking a few leaves from a nearby tree branch.

Despite what Blaine had said about crying being a totally normal part of the marathon experience, Kurt blinked back his tears. Blotchy wasn't a good look on him.

And it would be a terrible shame to trip and break a leg at the very end of the race, just because his eyes were too watery to see the road.

The final mile marker, as promised, was about a hundred yards down the street, and Kurt could see the finish line—and hear the familiar, awful music—barely a quarter of a mile away. "This is it, everyone!" Blaine shouted to be heard over the sudden onslaught of noise, for here the spectators were thick on the ground, and other members of the group were beginning to spot their friends and family among the crowds and react in much the same way that Kurt had. "If you have a final kick, use it now! Anyone who's trying to finish under 4:30, stay in front of me!"

The last two minutes of the race were a blur of color and noise. Fueled by a heady mixture of exhaustion, excitement, and the euphoria of being done, finally, Kurt ran with everything he had left, the roaring cheers and the arch of balloons getting closer and closer as he picked up speed. He passed a pace clock, counting the seconds off in giant yellow numbers; ran past a photographer with an enormous camera, kneeling on the edge of the road and rapidly taking pictures of everyone as they approached the finish line; and, at last, ran under the arch itself and over the timing mats, limbs shaking badly as he slowed to a walk on the pavement, clicking the button on his watch to stop the timer at 4:29:07.

He had just run a marathon.

The flow of the runners finishing the race and limping through the finishers' chute carried Kurt along, and almost before he knew it someone had given him a thin metallic blanket to wrap around his shoulders like a cape, and a smiling man in a track jacket was draping a medal around his neck. Moving out of the way, Kurt lifted the medal off of his chest and stared at it, almost unable to believe that it was really there; that it was really his.

"Kurt!"

A familiar voice called out his name, and Kurt turned back to see Blaine coming toward him from the finishers' chute, the yardstick gone and a tired but earnest smile on his sweaty face.

Kurt didn't hesitate—the second that Blaine was within in reach, Kurt threw his arms around him, knocking the wind out of him before he quickly recovered and hugged Kurt back just as tightly. Kurt's sore muscles were screaming in protest, but he didn't move, eagerly clinging to Blaine's solid warmth as if he belonged there. Blaine's hands twisted into Kurt's blanket, pulling him in and holding him closer, and they stayed there for a long moment.

At last, Blaine pulled back with a sigh. "You're a marathoner now," he told Kurt with a grin. "How does it feel?"

Kurt grimaced. "Painful," he informed Blaine, who laughed gently and continued to smile.

"Your family probably wants to see you," he remembered. "You should go find them. I can wait for you here, or back in the gym?"

He looked at Kurt, a hopeful, hesitant expression on his face that made Kurt want to hug him all over again. "I'll meet you back here as soon as I'm done," he promised. "And…"

Kurt blushed, suddenly a little shy, but Blaine's inquisitive look gave him courage. "If you were worried about…you know. Us being kind of offputtingly disgusting right now," he offered cautiously. "Maybe you'd let me take you out to dinner, once we're both back in New York?"

Blaine's expression was an almost amusing mixture of delight and mortification. "You…did you hear everything I said back there?" he asked, sounding unsure about which answer he'd prefer.

So Kurt didn't bother. Instead, he leaned in, kissing Blaine softly, but meaningfully, on the lips.

Pulling away a moment later, Kurt smiled. "I sort of think you're amazing, too," he admitted. "And my dad is probably wondering what happened to me, so I should go. Wait for me here?"

Blaine's gaze was sweet and open, happiness radiating from him as he smiled dazzlingly at Kurt. "I won't move a muscle," he promised.

"Even if I could right now."