A/N: Methinks I have my lovely, perfect friend Angelica to thank for this chapter being out when it is - so...er...right now ^^ She gave me a little kick in the arse :D Out of curiosity though, I wondered how long I'd spent on this story, and lo and behold, Word has a function for that. It appears that I have spent exactly 68,299 minutes writing and editing PC so far, which is about 1,138.32 hours and roughly 47.4299 days. WOW. THERE'S a fun fact for you, LOL
Anyways, sorry for the wait as always, and please enjoy! :D
When Blaine had been nothing but a memory, Kurt had been able to keep himself together. Memory Blaine was blurry. Kurt remembered every plane of his face and body but his mind couldn't recreate the exact amber color of his eyes, or the precise lilt of his voice. Memory Blaine paled in comparison to the Blaine who was right in front of his eyes, but the actual Blaine was so different from the one Kurt had been separated from.
The actual Blaine had bags etched under his eyes, a dark color that made his skin pale. Actual Blaine had grown thinner, so that his angles were sharper than they were before. Actual Blaine tapped his fingers against his thigh incessantly – a nervous tic. Actual Blaine looked weary, like he'd experienced too much for his twenty-one years. Actual Blaine looked almost frightened to come any closer to him.
In just the same way, Kurt was afraid to approach Blaine. They were separated by a palpable chasm that felt unbearably daunting. Kurt inhaled a deep, shaky breath and said the first thing that came to his mind: "Finn didn't get married."
Blaine's eyebrows drew together. "What are you…no. Kurt. What does that matter? What does it matter when you're here, and I'm here and…and how is it that I don't know what to say? Not to you. Which is strange…you've always been the one I could say anything to…anything at all. And now you're talking about…Finn."
"It's because of me isn't it?" Kurt continued. "It's because of me that Finn didn't marry Quinn."
"Among other things," Blaine said with confusion evident in his voice. "Kurt, I'm…confused…"
"And David's gone," Kurt persisted. "He's gone and killed half of the continent. He's a monster. That's because of me, too."
"Kurt," Blaine began knowingly, but Kurt cut him off.
"You're cooped up here in Lima. That's because of me, too. Now you…you don't know what to say to me, even though before you went to Ashtabula you said you'd always have something to say to me," Kurt said, his voice starting to shake. "You don't know what to say to me now and that's because of me, too. Everything's because of me. All of this is my fault." Though Kurt had thought he had sobbed away his last tear, the influx that next came proved him wrong. What parts of him that were holding themselves upright sank against the couch. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back, letting hot tears pour down his face. He wasn't sad, nor was he scared, nor was he angry. He had already felt those emotions. He had felt every emotion he could think of, including over-emotion, and now the majority of what he felt was the unrelenting sense that things were utterly, completely, irreversibly out of his control.
"Kurt," Blaine repeated quietly. Kurt heard him inhale sharply and then, just like that, Blaine crossed the chasm. Kurt felt his torso being scooped into Blaine's arms, and Blaine just held him. Kurt leaned his head forward and pressed his face against Blaine's collar bone. Five minutes might have passed, or ten, or fifteen, or twenty. All Kurt knew was that he was in Lima, and he was in Blaine's arms. Minutes passed in silence until, "You still remember what I said to you before I left for Ashtabula?"
In spite of himself, Kurt let out a watery laugh. "You'd be surprised what I remember," Kurt said.
Blaine met him with silence. "This past year," he started.
"Don't," Kurt interrupted him, pulling back from their embrace and fixing Blaine with a pleading gaze. He moved to lace Blaine's fingers through his own. "Can you just…hold me? Just for tonight? Please, don't ask me about…what happened, not yet. Tomorrow's a different day, but for now just…just hold onto me like we don't have tomorrow to think about. As if we have forever to just be together."
"We do have forever to be together," Blaine said, returning the pressure of Kurt's hand. He pulled Kurt toward him and cradled him against his chest. "The little monster is here," Blaine mused.
"I figured," Kurt said, turning his head slightly and burying his nose into the front of Blaine's shirt. "Is she…?"
"Tomorrow," Blaine promised, leaning down and placing a kiss on Kurt's head. Beginning to smile, he lifted a hand and gently stroked Kurt's hair. "You look so different. Look at your hair!"
"Ugh, it's hideous," Kurt lamented. "It reaches my collarbone. And I'm filthy."
"Mmm, I don't care," Blaine said, cupping Kurt's cheek. "I don't care how long your hair is. I don't care how filthy you are. You're perfect, and I can't believe that my arms are around you again."
"I dreamed about you a lot," Kurt said. He was breaking his own plea not to talk about what had happened to him during the year he'd been gone, but he felt like he needed to say it. "Almost every night. It's strange, we've been apart for most of our lives, but we've never really…been apart."
"I know what you mean," Blaine said. His fingers lightly began to comb through Kurt's hair, gently and soothingly working out the knots. "We've been apart, but I've always known that you were here in court."
"We haven't been apart since," Kurt suddenly felt shy, and he blushed, "since we started to love each other…the way we do now. By a larger timescale, that hasn't been very long." Kurt sighed as Blaine's fingers wound in and out of his hair, down his cheek, over his closed eyelids.
Blaine leaned down and pressed a kiss to Kurt's forehead. His lips lingered there, and Kurt felt a hot tear drip onto his skin. "Blaine," Kurt whispered, sitting up slowly. Blaine had his head bowed, and his fingers tapped nervously against his thigh. "Shh." Kurt crooned and inched closer to Blaine, moving one leg over his so he sat straddling Blaine on the couch.
Kurt reached up and wiped the sudden tears from Blaine's face with both thumbs. He leaned in and pressed a kiss to Blaine's damp cheek. "Why are you crying?"
"It doesn't matter," Blaine said haltingly. He took a shaky breath and gently moved Kurt off of him. "You probably want to sleep, or be alone. I'll talk to you tomorrow."
"Sleep would probably be wise," Kurt said quietly, looking away from Blaine. He stood and walked to the closed door. He paused before opening it. Kurt's hand reached out to the knob, and instead of twisting it, he latched the lock and turned back to Blaine. "I haven't seen you in almost a year," he continued quietly. "I've been alone for almost a year. I don't want to be with anybody else, but I can't be apart from you – not anymore. Please."
Blaine's lips pressed together and he ducked his head. "Come here," he said quietly, his voice cracking.
Kurt moved toward him, and their lips met in a simultaneous exhale of hot breath. Kurt breathed in shakily through his nose, and his hands moved to cup Blaine on both sides of his face, bringing him closer to deepen their kiss. Blaine's arms wound around Kurt's waist tightly.
Kurt drew away and began placing feather-light kisses to Blaine's cheekbones, nose, forehead, while Blaine muttered half formed words and sentences. Oscillating between whispers and sighs and deep kisses, Kurt and Blaine slowly made their way from the door to the couch. Kurt felt Blaine's cold fingers brush against the skin of his stomach and he shivered from both cold and pleasure.
In time, both Kurt and Blaine were relieved of their shirts, and then their breeches. They kissed slowly, drawing out their movements with a slowness that was almost torturous. They were pressed skin to skin, and Blaine moved Kurt back-first onto the couch. His mouth traced a smooth line down Kurt's neck, stopping to rest against his pulse before continuing on sensuously to his chest, where Blaine left a trail of feather light kisses.
Kurt sighed at the feeling of Blaine's lips on his skin, a feeling that he could remember well but hadn't felt in too long. Blaine moved upward again and his lips caught Kurt's once more. Sweat-slicked skin skimmed together as Blaine lifted Kurt's leg and hooked it over his hip. "Blaine," Kurt whispered softly against his mouth. He let out a sharp gasp as Blaine moved his lips and hummed against his neck.
"Can I?" Blaine's brief question was followed by Kurt placing a series of frantic kisses against his lips and face.
"I just want you," Kurt whispered against Blaine's neck. Blaine met him in a push of anticipation and hiss of bated breath. Kurt sucked in a sharp breath at the sudden perfect pressure. Mild discomfort faded away in the wake of ecstasy and Kurt arched upward and moaned softly at the sensation. He clung to Blaine as they moved together, nails drawing across Blaine's back at the almost unbearable pleasure that was suddenly coursing through him until he felt Blaine shudder and his arms weaken. Kurt let out a succession of breathless, frantic gasps as Blaine took him to and then over the edge.
Blaine turned to the side until he was spooning Kurt. Their skin pressed together warmly and comfortingly, and Kurt couldn't help but sigh with content. "Tomorrow?" Blaine asked, his voice barely audible.
Kurt pressed back against him, so that he was as far into Blaine's embrace as he could sink. "Tomorrow," he confirmed. He closed his eyes as he was hit by a wave of exhaustion. "Blaine?" he asked suddenly, turning to look at the man in whose arms he laid.
"Mhmm?" Blaine mumbled. His head rested on his arm and his eyes were closed.
"A lot of things have gone wrong," he said. "But that doesn't mean that the universe doesn't want us to be together."
Blaine's amber eyes opened and he looked at Kurt questioningly. "What do you mean? Of course the universe wants us to be together. If nothing else, I think it's proven that."
Kurt smiled. The Blaine from his dream, while he was at the Raju's camp, had said that it was possible the universe wanted to tear them apart. But Blaine, the actual Blaine who was lying with him so intimately in spite of the consequences, didn't believe that for a moment. "Nothing," Kurt said, leaning in to kiss Blaine softly. "I just love you."
Blaine smiled a brilliant smile. It was a smile that made the tired bags under his eyes seem to fade, and he looked just like Blaine had always looked to Kurt – perfect. "I love you, too."
A/N: AHHHH OMG GUH THAT WAS SO FLUFFY. I'm going to a dentist tomorrow to fill all the cavities I got from writing that bit of fluffy fluffness. SOrry it was rather short but I thought it was a nice place to cut off the chapter. I hope it gave you all the best kind of sweet-induced cavities possible, and that you liked it!
ABSTRACT SEX TOO, I don't think I've ever done it that way before so I hope it sufficed. Leave a review and let me know what you think!
Thanks for reading! :3