A/N: Results came out today for the big exams that I did back in October. This chapter was written last night in an attempt to de-stress because I couldn't sleep.

With that in mind, I feel like I should apologise to mysticflare if this isn't what you envisioned. Every so often I have an off day and take it out on a prompt, so I'm sorry it had to be yours. However, I promise that at least the premise for this came to me when I perfectly sane, so despite my mood when I was writing it, it may have still turned out all right. You be the judge.

Something New:

a story of Klaine 'firsts'

The following warnings apply to this chapter:

OOC-ness, intrusive author-voice, complete lack of subtlety, heavily implied smuttish things.

If any of those things irk you, please stay away.

~First shower together, prompted by mysticflare

In retrospect, Kurt probably should have warned Blaine. Looking back through the wonderful rose-tinted lenses – no doubt belonging to a pair of shiny Jackie-O sunglasses – of hindsight, Kurt could admit as much to himself. Yet, at the time, he really hadn't known any better.

Because honestly, how was Kurt supposed to know that his talent at being able to tell whether or not someone was in the shower would result in such an unexpected situation arising?

...

It had all started back when Burt had his heart-attack. To be blunt, his son had been... well, clingy. Too clingy, one might say. He'd coddled Burt – just a little. Maybe crossed the line between 'loving son' and 'creepy relative' a few too many times for comfort, but still. It had all been for good reason.

And it was precisely for good reason that Kurt had learnt – unconsciously, at first, but then consciously once he'd figured out there was a certain art to the education process – the different ways a shower sounds depending on its occupant.

If there was no one in it, there was always the eerie echoing splash of water on tiles. If its occupant was washing their hair, there would be the occasional lapse as a person lathered, the sound of heavy drops as a person rinsed, and then it would all repeat. If its occupant was lying unconscious on the floor, Kurt was sure that the sound would be recognisable too. It was just common sense, really. And so, Kurt had reasoned, if his father were to have another heart attack while showering, Kurt would be able to tell immediately that he wasn't under the water, allowing an ambulance to be called and CPR to commence in record time, hence ensuring Burt's survival. Clearly, it was a well thought-out plan. Clearly.

But, at a certain point – Kurt didn't quite know when, but suspected it was about midway through his senior year – this 'talent' of his had stopped being quite so useful and had started being sort of creepy. It was unintentional, really, but at some vague, undefined point in time, Kurt had begun using his powers for evil. It was inevitable. He'd succumbed – like so many heroes of the past – to temptation.

Temptation in the form of one Blaine Anderson.

Because it was Blaine. And not even the will-power of Spiderman, Superman and Batman combined would be strong enough to resist someone quite as chiselled, as handsome, as stunningly-breathtakingly-amazingly perfect as Blaine. That is, if Spiderman, Superman and Batman had been gay.

(And, seriously? Who were the last two trying to kid? The tights alone were a giveaway. Not to mention Robin.)

But that was beside the point.

The point was that it was through a whole series of unrelated and completely irrelevant events that Kurt ended up in his bedroom, perched on his bed with his face pinched in a frown, staring hard at the bathroom door. To put it in context, his shirt was crumpled, his lips swollen and his jeans... tight. Uncomfortably tight. Oh, yeah, and his boyfriend had just hurried into his bathroom. Thus the frown and the staring.

"Blaine?" Kurt called, cocking his head to the side as he listened for a reply.

"Yeah?" Blaine's voice sounded shaky, uncertain. On edge.

"What just happened?"

To Kurt, it seemed like a pretty fair question. One moment ago he and Blaine had been lying down on his bed, getting thoroughly re-acquainted after Kurt's week-long trip to Washington with his family, and now they weren't. It was a completely unprecedented scenario, to say the least.

"Um... nothing. Nothing happened," Blaine answered hastily, his voice still wavering. "We just- I mean, I just- uh. I needed a shower. Need a shower, actually."

Kurt's frown deepened. Because, yeah, they were young and in high school and he'd been away for a week, but wow. Things had never gone that fast before. Either he was fantastic or Blaine was... decidedly not.

"Oh. Did you-?"

It felt incredibly awkward to have this conversation through a closed bathroom door, which Kurt found kind of perplexing given that he and Blaine were pretty damn experienced with the ins and outs of this process by now. Hell, they were very damn experienced.

"No!" Blaine replied, sounding almost hysterical at the implication. "No, no, no! Of course, I didn't-! You were away for a week, Kurt, not a year and- no. Nothing's happened. I just... need a shower. I'll only be a minute, hang on."

And Kurt heard the sound of the shower turning on.

And, huh. That was weird.

Kurt lifted a hand to run his fingers along his lips, closing his eyes at the memories of Blaine's touch only mere moments ago. Things really had been going very well up until now...

The Hudson/Hummel clan had arrived home from the airport about half an hour ago, and Blaine had turned up at the door only seconds later. A pleasant and obligatory 15 minutes of conversation had been undertaken, and then Kurt had shot his boyfriend a pointed look and sauntered upstairs, and after maybe 2 minutes of waiting, Blaine had joined him. They'd then had their mandatory 10 minutes of conversation, sitting side-by-side on Kurt's bed as Blaine quickly relayed the story of Tina and Mike's latest spat. And, finally, after that, Kurt had shifted a little where he sat – a completely unsubtle and embarrassingly obvious shift, given his choice of jeans – and the conversation had been effectively ended when Blaine groaned, leaned in, and kissed his boyfriend hard on the mouth.

Honestly, Kurt didn't know where things had gone wrong. He tried to think back, tried to conjure a logical explanation for Blaine's unexpected desire to shower. The problem was that logical explanations for a sudden, compulsive need to shower are never very pleasant to imagine. So Kurt stopped that train of thought quickly, stood up from his bed and approached the bathroom door.

Which was when he noticed the sound.

Remember that superpower of his?

"Uh, Blaine?"

Kurt resisted putting his ear against the door. Just.

It was no more than a throaty, hoarse, muffled, choked-out noise that came in reply.

Kurt tried again.

"What are you doing?"

Inside, Kurt could hear the shower – water pounding against the tiles on the floor – but knew with startling conviction that his boyfriend was not in it.

"Showering."

The word was almost a grunt. In fact, it was followed by a grunt, which was swiftly muffled.

"No, you're not."

"Yes, I am."

"No, Blaine, you're not."

"Yes, I-"

"Blaine, I know what it sounds like when someone is using my shower. And, right now, no one is. You've just turned on the water and let it run. You're not in there."

Kurt shot a nervous look at his bedroom door, still gaping wide open, as he spoke. The hallway was deserted, and he was pretty sure that Carole, Finn and his Dad were still downstairs.

"How the hell do you-?"

Blaine's question was cut off by a sharp hiss, and at that Kurt gave up all pretence and pressed his ear to the door, listening hard for any clues as to what on earth was going on.

"How do you-?" Blaine tried again, but again he seemed to cut himself off.

"Is everything all right?" Kurt asked, unable to discern anything over the sound of the shower.

"Everything's fine, Kurt. Just... give me a minute, please?"

"Why?"

And this is where retrospect comes in.

In retrospect, Kurt really should've been able to figure out what was going on by then. It wasn't exactly rocket science. Heck, it was hardly even pre-calc. In fact, in retrospect, pre-schoolers learning how to use crayons probably could've worked it out.

But rose-tinted Jackie-Os, remember? At that point, Kurt didn't have them yet.

So it was with only a dash of mild concern that Kurt straightened, surveyed the bathroom door seriously for a moment, and then opened it. There was no lock, after all. Heart-attacks tended to do that to a house.

"Kurt!"

The word was a yelp. There was simply no other way to describe it. And – for a blissful, naive, short second – Kurt couldn't comprehend why in the world his boyfriend was yelping.

Steam filled the bathroom, obscuring almost everything from vision. But, as is the way with steam, when Kurt opened the door it made a desperate dash at him, depleting rapidly to reveal Blaine. Sitting on the closed lid of the toilet. With his pants around his ankles. And his hands around his-

"I am so sorry! Blaine, I- I'm just- I didn't mean to... oh, God."

The rush of blood pounding in Kurt's ears drowned out the sound of the shower. His every sense was being assaulted by this whole new experience, because yeah, they'd done stuff and – in an up until now unacknowledged part of his mind – Kurt knew that Blaine did this. Knew it in a solid way, not in an abstract, Blaine masturbates way, but in a definite, I have gotten myself off thinking about Blaine doing precisely what he is doing now way.

But this was different. Seeing it was very, very different to knowing about or imagining it.

Blaine seemed to think so too.

He was floundering.

"Kurt, I'm sorry. I'm just- I was at home in my room when you texted from the airport and I was just about to... y'know. But then you called and I knew you'd be home soon and I- I wanted to wait and, wow, that was really dumb of me, I know, but it seemed... I don't know... romantic? I guess I thought it would be good to wait and then it'd be even better when you- when we- when..."

He broke off, glanced around the bathroom rapidly as if looking for an escape, and then started up again, trampling foolishly onwards. An adverb emphasised by the fact that he was still very definitely half-naked.

"But then we were talking to your family for so long and, seriously, Kurt, my pants aren't normally that tight! I thought you'd realise, but you didn't, and then finally we came up here and you wanted to talk more, which was great – I love it when we talk! Really, I do! – but I was pretty much about to explode by then and then we were kissing and I just didn't want everything to happen so quickly so I thought if I just tried to calm down in here and then I couldn't and- mmmph!"

The last part was due to Kurt, who decided it was high time to shut up the crazy, fast-speaking idiot with his pants around his ankles that his boyfriend had miraculously (and, hopefully, temporarily) transformed into.

Because, yeah, this was awkward. But, God, was it hot.

At some stage, Kurt had closed the bathroom door and, as he pulled Blaine up from where he was sitting, the steam began to build around them again. Cocooned in the warmth and the wetness, Blaine somewhat regained his composure - although that seemed like a poor choice of word, given the situation - and let himself be tugged closer, until his chest was hard against Kurt's and still he was being drawn in, in, in. The dampness from steam and sweat and water and God knows what else settled on Kurt's clothes and his skin, making him tremble, shiver and grasp his boyfriend tighter.

Blaine's hands, after a moment of fumbling, hooked onto belt loops and tugged Kurt's bottom-half closer, the angle weird as Blaine tried to simultaneously shuck off his own pants and remove his boyfriend's. Meanwhile, Kurt was working at their top halves, tugging ineffectually at Blaine's collar until he finally realised that it was a t-shirt and could just be pulled up and over and discarded without anything having to be undone. His own clothes posed more of a difficulty, but it was with practiced actions that Kurt unlaced this, unbuttoned that, pushed this latch to the right and entered the correct four-digit code into that device, until finally everything was on the floor and it was just steam-slick skin against steam-slick skin.

And why hadn't they been doing this before? Why hadn't they been doing this forever?

Blaine stumbled forwards a step, pressing impossibly nearer to Kurt, making a whining sound in the back of his throat, and for some incomprehensible reason that made Kurt's mind snap back to focus. Suddenly, the sunglasses were on and Kurt Hummel had entered the realm of retrospect. And, in retrospect, he had a plan.

"Come here," he murmured against Blaine's lips, grabbing at his neck for a moment, disoriented by the lack of a tie or lapel to hold. But then he realised that, right, they were naked, and really this just made things easier.

Another moaning whine was emitted and it made Kurt shudder, which made Blaine shudder, which made them both twitch suddenly in and that should not be allowed to happen because damn it, Kurt Hummel had a mission and he was going to go through with it rain, hail or shine.

"Not yet," he whispered, almost chastised, and that just seemed to turn Blaine on more because he made another noise and jolted forwards again, although this time Kurt suspected it was driven more by eagerness than instinct.

Kurt kept moving them back, tearing his lips away from Blaine's – not that it made a huge difference, because Blaine just attached his mouth to Kurt's neck instead – to check the shower door was behind him, and then pulling back with a rougher-than-intended jerk as he extracted an arm to reach into the shower and twist the cold tap sharply, cooling the jet of steaming water that was hammering the tiled floor.

That finally seemed to get Blaine's attention and he looked up from his ministrations, his unflinchingly wild expression staring unembarrassed as Kurt raised his eyebrows and stepped out of his boyfriend's embrace, into the shower.

In retrospect, Kurt really should've warned him, because Blaine looked like a wreck. His lips were swollen, his hair completely destroyed and his eyes wide and surprised and staring. Just staring. Gazing - in disbelief, wonder, shock? - at his boyfriend, who stood under the now-warm water as if things like this happened all the time between them. Personally, Kurt was quite impressed at his own ability to keep his cool. He obviously had Blaine completely fooled.

"There's a difference, you know," Kurt said conversationally, trying to ignore the fact that he was completely devoid of clothes and in his bathroom and his whole family was right downstairs. Which was surprisingly easy, mostly because Blaine was standing before him. Naked. It was very distracting.

"A difference?" Blaine repeated, sounding confused.

"Yes," Kurt recommenced, forcing his eyes to stay on Blaine's face. "There's a difference between the sound of a shower that someone is in and the sound of an empty shower. In fact, the sound of the water changes very precisely, and if you listen hard enough you can tell almost everything about a shower's occupant. Or occupants," he amended.

For a long moment, Blaine was silent. Kurt wondered if he was torn between mortification and excitement. Or maybe that was just Kurt.

"Does anyone else in your family know that?" Blaine finally asked, still standing just too far away, on what could only be described as the shower's threshold.

Kurt shook his head, and said, "Just me."

"Good," Blaine replied. And then he stepped closer and grinned.

And then everything changed very quickly. Suddenly there weren't any sunglasses or mortified boys to be found. There was just Kurt and Blaine. A couple of teenagers, more than a little bit crazy in love.

"A week is a really long time," explained Blaine, still lingering on the threshold, the edge, the sane side.

He eyed Kurt's side enviously - the side of insanity, of impulsiveness, of instant gratification - and his eyes made a slow sweep down and back up. Surveying the blue-tiled walls behind his boyfriend, no doubt.

Kurt bit his lip, resisting making a joke about other things that were long or how the hot water would not last that long if Blaine didn't get over here this second.

Instead, he raised his eyebrows, tilted his head to the side and settled with saying, "Care to join me?"