Special thanks to voyageasia, who did a lot of cheerleading for this chapter and also helped me figure out some important plot points.
When Kurt wakes, he has sand in his eyes. Everywhere else too, he suspects, but it's his eyes that bother him the most. He blinks and rubs it out, and when he can see again, he sits up and looks around.
Blaine lies beside him, curled into himself, looking very young and lost and alone. It's dusk, the sun just disappearing behind the horizon, and in the twilight, the world around him seems unreal. Wrong, somehow, as if something has lifted up the land, turned it around and then let it fall again with the wrong side up.
Their fire has almost gone out, and it's getting cold. He can't believe they've both slept for so long, undisturbed. They have been beyond stupid, he realizes, even if they don't believe Administration will come after them. He hasn't slept that well, nor that long compared to Blaine, but even he knows that that doesn't count as keeping watch.
He stirs the fire, puts on a few sticks. They need to be gone soon, but first he wants to put on some water for tea, so that Blaine can wake up to something warm.
This is what he has thought about during the day, while he held Blaine in his arms, sleeping, cheeks wet with tears: there is nothing he can do. Nothing to make up for all he has taken from Blaine, unknowingly at first but then not, except offer these little comforts. And that's not much; in fact, it's nothing at all.
There's one other thing, of course. But he doesn't know if he should offer it, or if Blaine would accept if he did. Blaine seems so innocent, so pure, somehow, even if he now has the beginnings of a beard and a gun at his side. It would seem like corrupting him, but...it would also make this...adventure of theirs a little more pleasant for Blaine. Kurt could offer it as a payment, for protecting him perhaps. After all, Blaine is the one with the gun, and if Administration should go after them, or if there are wild animals...
Blaine would never accept it as Kurt making amends, wouldn't even see why Kurt would want to make amends.
He isn't worried about risking their friendship. He's been friends with clients before, and...well, out here, there aren't exactly many other options for them. They kind of need to be friends if they want to survive.
What he worries about a little is Blaine falling in love with him. He isn't being conceited. Blaine seems like someone to fall in love easily, especially in their situation, where there is no one else and where – whether they have sex or not – they will be a lot more intimate with each other than they normally would be.
Still, he kind of wants to. That's surprising; he can't remember when, if ever, he has actually wanted to.
He wonders if Blaine is a virgin.
Blaine wakes just as the water starts to boil. They eat and drink in silence, and then pack their things and get ready to leave.
It's almost completely dark now, and to his surprise, Kurt can see a light in the distance from where they came from.
Blaine sees it too. "Seems we didn't come as far as we thought," he says. "And we didn't even keep watch, or something. Seems like I was right and they won't come after us. Guess they just trust we're going to die out here."
He sounds bitter and relieved at the same time.
Kurt snorts. "Yes, it's almost insulting how little they care to make sure we're dead."
Blaine looks at him, and they laugh.
...
They walk. There are clouds tonight, and they can't see very well. They stumble along, holding hands so as not to lose each other, and again, Kurt finds himself enjoying the connection. But he starts to fear that if they carry on like this, walking at night with no real clue where they're going except away, they might end up with wet feet after all. Or burnt feet, for that matter. And when after an hour or two of walking Blaine stumbles and falls and twists his ankle, and Kurt hits his head on something that could be a low-hanging branch or...anything, really, he gives up.
"We should just stop here", he says. "Continue when it's light."
Blaine agrees readily and they spend a little while scrambling around in the dark gathering dry twigs to start a fire with. When it's burning, they look around cautiously and are relieved to find themselves at the beginning of what must have once been a small forest, but is now basically a mess of fallen trees and new plants trying to make the area their own. No corpses, thankfully, but there is rustling and sounds that indicate animals, which is good. Well, at least as long as the animals are the kind that gets eaten by them, as opposed to the kind that will try to eat them.
They gather more wood, which doesn't take long, and then they sit leaning against the trunk of a great fallen tree, and Kurt wonders what to do. They aren't tired, having just risen a few hours ago. They're not hungry. It's peaceful, and Kurt's not used to peaceful. Peaceful makes him uncomfortable.
Now or never, he thinks.
He shuffles a little closer, but stops short of actually touching Blaine. He feels a little awkward, but the darkness helps.
"Blaine?" he says. His voice seems too loud.
"Hmm?" Blaine replies. He sounds content, as relaxed as Kurt has ever seen him. Right, he thinks, Blaine enjoys peaceful. He hopes he won't disturb the peace with what he's going to ask.
"Have you ever...have you ever had sex?"
Silence, long enough for Kurt to wonder if Blaine is going to answer at all. Then,
"No."
"How come?"
"Um...it was just the way I was raised, I guess. My parents were...really old-fashioned about this, and they made it seem so beautiful to...to wait for the right person. And I just never met that person. And then, after...everything happened, for some time I thought that now I would never meet him, but mostly I just had other things on my mind."
Now Kurt is a little scared. He doesn't mind virgins, he's had virgins before, but he knows he can never be that person for Blaine. For a moment he wants to call the whole thing off and just not ask his next question, but then he thinks, it's not like he has many more options right now.
Plus, somehow, he really wants to see how Blaine will react to his first blowjob, the first orgasm caused by another person. The feeling is surprisingly strong, and so he doesn't hesitate anymore.
"Would you want to? With me, I mean?"
He can feel Blaine looking at him, but he doesn't look back. He tells himself it doesn't matter, that he's doing this merely as a favor to Blaine, but somehow, the answer gets more important with every second that passes.
"Yes."
"...Really?"
"Um...yes?"
"Oh. Um, I thought I would have to persuade you a little."
Blaine laughs. "Kurt, have you never seen me looking at you?"
Kurt thinks about it, and after a moment, he remembers how Blaine looked at him after he had first seen him blowing a client. "In the beginning, after I first came to the city. After that...but why did you never come to me, I mean, after you realized there was little chance for you to meet that one person? I'd have given you half off, as your friend."
He grins, but Blaine doesn't smile back.
"It may be true that I haven't met that one person, but even so, I never wanted to be just one among many. Out here, at least, I'll be your one and only."
Kurt expects him to laugh, but he doesn't. So after a while, Kurt just shrugs, says, "Okay," and reaches for Blaine's pants.
But Blaine grabs his wrist, stopping him.
"Kurt, wait."
"What is it?"
"I'm not – I haven't – listen, I think there's a stream down there somewhere, you can hear the water. Let's just wait til morning and I'll take a bath, and we can take it from there?"
"Blaine, I don't mind if you're not -" Kurt starts. He doesn't even know why he is so insistent – if Blaine wants to wait, why should he care? But he does, somehow; he fears that if they wait, it might all come to nothing. And then he wonders why that would be a bad thing. This is for Blaine, remember?
"There is sand everywhere," Blaine says. "I'm no expert, but I can't imagine that is comfortable for anyone involved."
There isn't much to say to that, so he rises and puts some more wood on a fire that doesn't really need it. Then he sits down again, at a little more distance from Blaine, and stretches his legs out in front of him. For some time, they don't do much more than stare into the flames.
Then Blaine says," There's something you could do, though."
"What's that?"
"Kiss me."
"I don't kiss," Kurt says in a reflex, like he always does whenever a client asks for this.
"Why not?" Blaine asks.
It's been a long time since Kurt has thought about that question. Kissing was always just something he doesn't do, but now he remembers that he has a reason for this.
"I guess kissing for me has been the same as sex for you," he says. "It's this...stupid romantic dream I had that I'd only kiss...well, that one person. Even though I really said goodbye to that idea a long time ago."
He knows that there is no such person for him, has known for a long time.
"So your reason for not kissing is now just as invalid as mine for not having sex."
"Pretty much."
"So kiss me."
...
Hesitantly, Kurt shuffles closer. He has the dim feeling that this isn't something he should do, but he can't think of a rational explanation, and he...he finds he wants to kiss Blaine. So he moves around a little until he finds a position that is comfortable for kissing, or so he thinks. Blaine watches him without speaking, amusement in his eyes, but also a kind of nervous expectation and a surprising tenderness.
His eyes slip closed as he finally presses his lips to Blaine's, and the first thing he notices is the scratching of Blaine's beard. Mine will be the same, he thinks, I have to shave tomorrow.
Then he stops thinking, and just feels. The scratch of the beard, yes, but also the softness of Blaine's lips against his, the wetness of Blaine's tongue in his mouth, the strange feeling in his belly when Blaine takes his lower lip between his teeth and nibbles and sucks.
He gives back as much as he gets, and soon the slightly awkward position they're in, sitting beside each other and hardly touching except for their mouths, isn't enough anymore. Without stopping the kiss, he gets up on his knees, and then straddles Blaine, pressing their bodies together. Blaine's hard cock pushes against him, and this is the moment he realizes that he is hard, too.
Which is weird. He never gets hard with a client, not after the very first few times; in fact he takes care to be touched as little as possible.
But Blaine is hardly a client. The pretext Kurt invented wasn't needed, and he can admit, at least to himself, that Blaine means more to him than anyone else in a really long time.
They kiss until their lips feel numb, and then a little more until they hurt. When Blaine moans into his mouth, Kurt tries to sneak a hand between them to palm Blaine's cock, but Blaine grabs his wrist and pushes his hand away to a safer place, and then goes right back to kissing him.
When the first birds start to sing, they let go of each other, and make up their pallets on the ground by the side of their dying fire. Kurt is glad that he doesn't have to hold Blaine today while sobs rack his body, but hold him he does, without pretending to have any reason except that he wants to.
They sleep.
