Rating: NC-17

Blaine flipped the switch on his small desk lamp and turned off the bright overhead light when Kurt shut himself in the bathroom. He shrugged out of his Dalton jacket and put it away. After stripping out of the rest of his uniform he slipped into a pair of loose, black, low-slung lounge pants and a t-shirt, and opened the dresser drawer he'd set aside for Kurt's use. He pulled out a pair of soft cotton pajamas and knocked on the bathroom door, laying them on the countertop when Kurt called to come in.

He was in his undershirt, finishing up his skin cleansing regime before applying moisturizer. Blaine took the jacket and tie from the back of the door to put away in his armoire, grateful that Kurt seemed to have gotten over Blaine's idiotic blunder.

He really should have known better.

Kurt emerged a few minutes later, dressed in the dark burgundy pj's that made his translucent skin appear to glow in the low lighting. He sat in the desk chair, facing the bed, and fixed his steady gaze on Blaine without a word.

Blaine was honestly shocked. Such a simple thing, sitting apart, but it hurt. He'd rather have Kurt yell at him than distance himself. There was no hint of a smile on Kurt's face. No anger either. No emotion at all. A chill swept over Blaine, as if someone had walked on his grave. He patted a spot on the bed next to him. "Don't you want to sit over here with me? Sweetie?"

Kurt shook his head. "I'm calm now, Blaine, so why don't you tell me what's going on."

Blaine's first instinct was to spout some sort of denial, but he thought better of it. Kurt wasn't going to let him brush this off like it never happened. He'd initiated this conversation and he was going to have to see it through. So he gathered his nerve, quickly organized his thoughts and opened his mouth to explain.

Remember earlier when I predicted you would fuck this up?

His mouth snapped shut.

Kurt folded his arms across his chest and crossed his legs in a defensive posture, his face angled slightly downwards and his eyes looking up, straight at Blaine. "This is about the fact that we haven't had sex yet. Right?" he demanded coldly.

"What? No!" Blaine was caught off guard. "Of course not. I don't expect -" he was silenced by the raising of a brow. "I mean I want to, naturally -" a small tilt of the head. Kurt could convey more through a simple facial expression than some people could communicate with actual words.

Blaine's hands twisted in his lap. He stared at Kurt with a mixture of love and fear. Despite the fact that he did occasionally ignore the filter between his brain and mouth, he was intelligent enough to understand he stood on shaky ground here. His foot tapped nervously on the floor. He'd hurt and frightened Kurt with a few simple words earlier. Anything he said now could make or break their relationship. It was a terrifying thought.

Blaine cleared his throat and tried again. "I'm very happy with where we are. More than happy." Calm, reasonable discussion. "We've only been together for a week and we already have so much more than I ever would have dreamed. And I'm not talking about sex. I love you, Kurt. Honestly, I couldn't be happier." An image of singing at the Felton-Radcliffe wedding flashed through his mind, or rather, not caring about not singing at the wedding.

Maybe if you sing 'Delirious'.

Blaine ignored his stray thoughts. "We won't have sex until we're both ready, whenever that might be, and I'm absolutely fine with waiting. I've told you already, we can start over if that's what you want. We can go on dates and kiss goodnight and build up slowly from there. I never expected more than that."

Kurt watched him closely and found that he believed him. The idea of simply kissing goodnight and no more seemed physically impossible to him, but he had no doubt Blaine could do it. "Well, then?" he asked, back at square one where he had no clue what had prompted this... this thing that felt very much like an argument. He didn't like being in the dark, and most certainly did not like feeling defensive.

"I... um. I don't think -" Blaine felt they'd just made real progress and he'd hate to lose that.

"Spit it out, Blaine."

"I – uh," he started again, seeing Kurt roll his eyes impatiently at his stammering. "I just wanted to talk about what happened today, that's all. No big deal." He tried to lighten the mood, holding his hands out, palm up, and attempted to distract Kurt with his practiced smile, the one that usually had his boyfriend climbing onto his lap. Nothing.

"Go right ahead. Talk."

You're going to do it, aren't you? Because you're just that stupid. Well, it was nice while it lasted. If you're lucky, he'll stick around long enough to put his clothes back on and not just storm out of here in his pajamas.

"Well -" said Blaine.

Moron.

"Shut up!"

Kurt's eyes grew round and a dull red flush crept into his face.

"Fuck! Not you! I was talking to myself."

"You were yelling at yourself to shut up?"

"Yes! I mean, I was yelling at the stupid voice in my head that keeps calling me a moron," Blaine explained in a rush.

"You hear voices." Kurt's tone was dripping with scorn.

"Yes. No! Shit!" he blurted, unused to tripping over his words. "No. Okay? No, I don't hear voices. I argue with myself sometimes, but not in a crazy, Norman Bates kind of way. Just in a normal, thinking to myself kind of way."

"Mm-hmm. And what, exactly, have you been arguing with yourself about?" Kurt refused to be sidetracked.

"Fine. I'll tell you. But you have to promise not to freak out or get mad at me."

Kurt gritted his teeth. "I promise not to freak out." His expression told Blaine he was on thin ice.

"Or get angry?" Blaine pushed his luck.

"We'll see."

"Will you sit over here at least? So I can touch you?" Blaine tried the charm tactic again, but his foot beat a rapid, anxious tattoo on the floor.

Kurt sighed, exasperated, and got up to walk over and sit on the edge of the bed. "I'm sitting next to you. Now tell me what's going on."

Blaine picked up his hand and kissed it before holding it in his lap. "I love you, Kurt."

Kurt huffed, but felt his anger dissipating in the face of Blaine's nervousness. "I know."

"Everyone knows about us," Blaine began, looking up into his boyfriend's eyes.

Kurt's brow furrowed. "I know." He didn't understand where Blaine was going with this.

"I mean, they don't just know we're together. They think – everyone believes – that you and I are..."

"Are what?"

Go ahead. Might as well dig a hole deep enough to be buried in.

"Are having sex." There. See? It doesn't sound so bad when you say it out loud. It seems perfectly logical, in fact.

Kurt's cheeks turned pink. "Why would anyone think that?"

"Oh, come on, Kurt!" he cried, immediately regretting the outburst. He saw Kurt's face tighten and squeezed his hand, fearful it was about to be yanked from his grasp and used to slap him. "I'm sorry," he backpedaled. "I didn't mean that the way it sounded."

"What did you mean?"

"I mean we are!" Blaine was on edge, feeling more defensive with every word that came tumbling unchecked out of his mouth. He was reacting instead of thinking. "Kind of. I mean you have to admit we do, sort of... We do have a sex life," he appealed to Kurt's logic.

"Yes. We do." Kurt agreed. "We 'kind of' have a 'sort of' sex life," he quoted. "But we do not have sex. Either way, that doesn't explain why 'everyone knows'," he picked apart Blaine's fumbled attempt at an explanation.

"Because it's so obvious! Because you walk around all day looking like –"

Don't.

"Like you just got laid!" he exclaimed, again foolishly ignoring the warnings going off in his head.

Kurt sucked in a breath through his nose, his lips too tightly compressed to allow for the passage of air.

Wow.

Blaine groaned, dropping his chin down to his chest and lifting Kurt's hand to hold over his eyes where he could feel tears burning behind his lids. Help! What do I do now?

I'm through trying to help you. You're too stupid to deserve this guy.

"Shit. Kurt, I'm so sorry," he whispered into their clasped hands. "I didn't mean that. This is coming out all wrong."

"I think you said exactly what you meant. So, this is all my fault, right? Because I look like I just got laid. Well, tell me, Blaine," he said, spitting the name out like a curse. "What does 'just got laid' look like?"

"Please," he begged. "Can't we just forget I ever brought this up?" He felt his throat closing.

"Forget it, Anderson," Kurt destroyed that feeble hope. "In what way am I announcing our apparent sex life to the whole school?"

Anderson? He called me Anderson.

That's because you're in trouble, Dipshit.

He racked his brain to find a way out of this mess, since his inner voice was being no help whatsoever, and came up with a desperate idea. He kissed Kurt's hand again, which thankfully hadn't been used as a weapon yet, and turned to face a very angry Kurt. He choked on his words.

Fuck.

Blaine gulped and carefully played his next words in his mind before allowing them to pass his lips. "It's not your fault at all. I didn't mean that." He wondered how many times he was going to deny his own words tonight. "You just look so gorgeous and sexy," he dove headlong into his new plan, which involved a heavy dose of strategically worded compliments. "People can't help but notice how happy and relaxed you look all the time." The glare hadn't abated. "...Most of the time. You smile all day and your dancing is so hot. The Warblers have been trying to copy your moves. All week you've been like a different person." He pressed the hand to his mouth, watching his boyfriend and waiting for his reaction.

"You mean I act like a slut," Kurt interpreted, anger turning into embarrassment and hurt.

"No. WHAT? NO! HolyfuckIdidn'tsaythat! No one thinks you're a slut! I'd beat the shit out of anyone who talked about you that way!" Blaine couldn't wrap his mind around Kurt's thought processes. He felt like a drowning man floundering in the middle of the ocean.

"The guys just – they admire you. They see how great we are together and they're thrilled for us because we're so happy."

Terrified.

"They all wish they had someone like you, who would love them the way you love me and isn't hung up about sex."

Suck up.

"But we don't have sex," Kurt reminded him.

"I know. But they don't know that. They think we do and they envy us!"

Kurt's face was gradually returning to its normal ivory hue, but his eyes were still narrowed at Blaine.

Good. This is good. He looks less angry now. More like suspicious. At this point you should stop talking, before you make it worse again.

Blaine stopped talking.

"Fine. I accept that they might envy what we have," Kurt said.

Blaine felt the giant fist ease its grip around his chest.

"So, if they don't believe I'm some kind of whore, please explain why they think I'm not hung up about sex."

The unseen fist resumed its efforts to squash his lungs. Blaine tightened his hold on Kurt's hand again, hoping this wouldn't be the last time he got to hold it.

"Things like what happened today at practice," defeated, Blaine finally got to the point he'd originally wanted to make. "The way you looked at me when you first walked in, like you wanted to eat me. And when I was talking to the guys you started having some kind of daydream didn't you? You weren't thinking about where we were or who could see us, you just started fantasizing, right? You were thinking about us in the shower. You told me."

Honesty. What a crazy idea.

"If you could have seen your face. God, Kurt, you looked so hot I wanted to throw you over my shoulder and lock us in this bedroom for the rest of the weekend."

Kurt's cheeks turned pink again, but he didn't look upset anymore. His eyes dropped as he blushed. "Really?"

"Absolutely."

"...Why didn't you?" he asked, the barest hint of a smile turning up the corners of his mouth.

"You see? That! That right there is what I'm talking about. You're confident and provocative. You keep me tied up in knots all the time. I have to walk down the halls with my books in front of me to hide what you do to me without even trying."

"Who says I'm not trying?"

Blaine grabbed him in a hug. "You don't need to try. You're so damn sexy already, I can't keep my hands off you."

"Then don't."

Blaine kissed him.

Lucky bastard.