Blaine was a tactile person. He always had his hands placed bracingly on someone's shoulder, or the small of their back. He had even been known to clasp hands with a complete stranger and run down the halls with them. Some people, for reasons unknown to Blaine, interpreted these completely guileless overtures as flirting, landing him in a whole mess of trouble.

But he couldn't help it. He had a lot of love to give, and he wasn't afraid to show it. He particularly liked (was desperate for, the unkind might say) when people would show him affection in return.

So Blaine couldn't help but be feel a tinge of disappointment when his new friend, recent transfer student Sebastian Smythe announced haughtily over coffee and people-watching, "I don't do PDA's."

After a pause to consider Blaine, Sebastian modified his declaration. "Actually, it's really just the 'affection' part I don't do." Waggling his eyebrows, Sebastian leaned over their small café table and whispered, "If you ever get the urge to put on a very public display, let me know. I'll be more than happy to help you out."

Not for the first time, Blaine couldn't think of anything to say but take a sip of his coffee and stare in wonderment as Sebastian leaned back with a self-satisfied smirk on his face.

Still, it wasn't long after that that friendship turned into romance. And after months of stolen moments in abandoned hallways, locked dorm rooms, and even once under the stadium bleachers, Blaine was content to have a private little world with Sebastian all to himself. Nobody else needed to know what they got up to.

It came as a surprise, then, when one day while walking to class together, as Blaine chattered away animatedly, Sebastian silently grasped the shorter boy's hand in his, weaving their fingers together. Perplexed, Blaine looked up at his boyfriend, but Sebastian refused to let go, squeezing gently instead. Blaine squeezed back and smiled. It didn't matter to him that they had just announced to the Dalton student body that they were dating. Sebastian liked him enough to step out of his comfort zone, and that filled him with a radiant happiness that nothing could dim for the rest of the day.

Blaine started it. He always started it. Always innocently, or so it would seem. A gentle nudge and an affectionate hug, a thumb tracing soothing patterns into his wrist. But then a wayward hand would slip somewhere it shouldn't be. Not in polite company, anyway. And Sebastian was never one known for self-control. How could anyone have expect him to resist?

First a quick peck on Blaine's cheek. Then a surreptitious nip of the lips. Then the neck. And then…

Blaine is completely overwhelming his senses. The exquisite sensation of the shorter boy's soft lips hungrily working against his. Their mouths sealed together, their lungs straining for air. Blaine's fingers tease his hair. Blaine's scent is everywhere. His taste is everywhere. An armrest is pressing painfully into his back, but he can hardly feel it, not when he gets to have Blaine like this.

And then they shift and Blaine's knee presses into Sebastian's crotch, and Sebastian groans. The tall one makes his move, tongue darting forward, his eager hand slipping down, down, down…

"HEY! No, no no!"

Suddenly Blaine is pulling away and Sebastian absolutely does not whine at the loss.

"C'mon guys! We talked about this! Not during rehearsal! This is supposed to be a safe space. A safe space!" Trent exclaims from where he stands behind the Warblers Council table, brandishing the gavel, his face bright red with embarrassment. Or maybe it was arousal. Sebastian isn't interested enough in Trent's innermost thoughts to bother finding out.

Blaine does flush with embarrassment. "We're sorry."

"No we're not." Sebastian retorts. "But we'll spare you from finding about the birds and the bees until another day. But hurry up. The sooner you finish," he says, wrapping his arm firmly around Blaine, "the sooner I get to finish."

Sebastian fully expected an admonishing punch from Blaine. But Sebastian is delighted to find Blaine looking up at him and biting his lower lip. Embarrassment is fighting a losing battle with the boy's libido; the corner of his lips quiver as a smile threatening to break free.

Trent glares at the two of them, and then Blaine in particular: "Smythe is a terrible influence on you."

Sebastian sunk his knife into the moist flesh of Blaine's exquisitely prepared roast chicken and decided that, yes, this was easily the most uncomfortable dinner he had ever had outside of his own clusterfuck of a family.

Mr. Anderson hadn't looked up from his plate for longer than five seconds since he had sat down at the table. And he hadn't uttered a word longer than one syllable since Blaine had walked through the front door and introduced Sebastian to him as his boyfriend.

"Todd, dear, did you hear what your son just said?"

"Hm?" Came the grunt from the head of the table.

Blaine nervously cleared his throat and repeated himself for his father's benefit. "The Warblers are having a performance this Saturday. I've got tickets for you and mom if you have time–"

"You need to focus on school, Blaine." Cutlery scraped porcelain as Mr. Anderson went back to chewing his food.

Sebastian bit his tongue to keep from shouting out, "Your son is already one of the top three students in our class." But Sebastian knows how much Blaine adores his father, and he doesn't want to cause any trouble for his boyfriend.

Blaine continued to watch Mr. Anderson with a hopeful expectancy, waiting for a response to the question he didn't even get to ask. Almost willfully oblivious to the way Mr. Anderson had slammed the door on the matter shut.

Finally, after an interminably long silence, Pam piped up, "We'll have to check our schedules to see if we can make your performance, sweetie. You know how things get."

'How did you get into music?' Sebastian asked.

'My brother. He used to perform at his high school. My parents always made sure we went to all his shows.'

"Sure Mom."

And then Blaine indulged her with his society smile, the one he's perfected over years of trying to please other people, the one he uses to convince the world that everything is alright, when really, all he's feeling is pain. The one that makes Sebastian feel sick inside.

Sebastian leaned over and pressed a soft, lingering kiss against Blaine's cheek.

Pam beamed. Mr. Anderson's jaw tightened, but he said nothing. And Sebastian took no notice of that, because Blaine was smiling at him, truly smiling now, and that's all Sebastian needed.

Sebastian looked up as Blaine finally collapsed into the seat across from him, sopping wet from the sudden spring downpour. Blaine had been running late, unusually for him, so Sebastian had taken the opportunity to order all his favorite appetizers that Blaine hated most.

"I'm so sorry, babe," Blaine said breathlessly. "I didn't think it would be so hard to find a reception venue in our price range. I ended up going all the way uptown. Nothing. I know you were kidding before, but maybe we really should think about City Hall."

Sebastian frowned as he reached over the table to share his foie gras pâté with Blaine. "Wait. Are you serious?"

Blaine shrugged. "Maybe. I mean, we'd save so much money. We could finally get a nicer place like we're always talking about. Take a trip somewhere. And it's not really anyone's business but ours, we can always post the photos on Facebook later."

"Who are you and what have you done with my showboating fiancé?"

"Har har."

Famished, Blaine shoved some bread and meat paste into his mouth and chewed distractedly.

Sebastian watched Blaine intently, and then spoke up. "I don't want a City Hall wedding. I want the wedding you wanted. With family. And friends. And stuff."

Blaine smiled fondly at Sebastian. "And stuff? Babe, you don't even like our friends half the time. Why do you, of all people, need them at our wedding."

Sebastian tugged Blaine's hands into his. "Because they're important to you, and I want the chance to show them – to show the whole world – how much I love you, how much you've changed my life, and how I'll do everything in my power to take care of you."

Blaine could feel his heart melt into a delirious puddle of goo. "You're so sweet."

"Shh!" Sebastian hushed, eyes faux-darting around the packed restaurant. "You can't go around saying things like that. I've got a reputation to protect, you know."

Blaine chuckled, then got serious again. "I want that. What you said. I want to do the same for you." He leaned across the table to plant a searing kiss to his fiancé's lips, cupping the taller man's face in his hands and getting thoroughly lost in Sebastian.

A waitress bumped into their table, jostling them back to reality, but before they released each other, Blaine whispered a heartfelt, "I love you." Sebastian broke out in a goofy grin, and Blaine marveled that after all these years, those words could still have that effect.

After settling back in his seat, Blaine looked down at his plate.

"Seb, what did I just eat?"

"Force-fed goose liver?"

"Seb!"

It was a big fight. Really big.

They'd had fights before, obviously, like any couple. But this one shook them to the core.

Sebastian and Blaine stood in tuxedos at opposite sides of the room. Chests heaving. Shocked by the ferocity of the argument, the suddenness by which it had escalated. They each knew where the other could be wounded the most, and they hadn't held back. Hurtful things had been said, words that still reverberated in their ears.

Then something else reverberated. Blaine's phone.

"It's Charlie. He's downstairs."

Sebastian wetted his lips, his throat coarse from shouting. "Are we seriously going to this thing? Now?"

"C'mon. You know we can't miss this."

The car ride was deathly silent. Charlie kept anxiously glancing into the back seat to make sure his employers were still alive.

But, as Blaine stared stonily out his window, he reflected that in years gone by, one or both of them would have surely stormed off by now, doors slamming, not to be seen again until the early hours of the morning. However awful this fight had been, however upset they were, they were still here, sitting side by side in that car. Twisted proof that they had grown up. That they had grown together.

Their black town car pulled up to the red carpet. Blaine looked up and saw Cooper's enormously blown up face staring down at them from his posters. Pointing, of course.

Sebastian moved to open his door, when Blaine reached over to grab his arm, stopping him. Sebastian looked at Blaine quizzically. Blaine cleared his throat, hating the cold tone that escaped his mouth, and said, "We can't go out there looking mad at each other. The paps will eat us alive."

Sebastian nodded but didn't say anything.

Taking a deep breath, plastering on the biggest, fakest smile he could muster, Blaine stepped out of the car, his vision temporarily blinded by dozens of paparazzi cameras going off. As the spots in his eyes slowly dissipated, he felt his husband's firm hand grip his elbow, literally leading him up the red carpet. Sebastian's eyes always did recover more quickly than his.

Towards the middle of the carpet, the calls from the paparazzi for a couple's photo grew incessant, and their publicists waved at them to acquiesce. Taking a deep breath, Blaine turned to his husband. Green eyes stared back at him, a storm of emotion, of anger, of frustration, but also of love.

Blaine stoop up on his toes as Sebastian leaned down, their mouths meeting in the middle.

The cameras went wild, and the roar of their shutters opening and closing was deafening. Blaine could feel Sebastian fidgeting with his arm, not knowing quite what to do with it.

And Blaine hated this. Hated feeling awkward and unsure around the man he shared his life with, who knew him better and more intimately than even he knew himself. They couldn't let this defeat them, destroy everything they had worked so hard to build.

"I love you." Blaine whispered desperately against Sebastian's lips. No microphone would have been able to pick that up, no camera would have noticed. His declaration wasn't for them. It was just for Sebastian, the only man who mattered to him at that moment.

Sebastian inhaled sharply through his nose, and Blaine could feel Sebastian's tense frame slacken, knowing that Sebastian was experiencing a warming, liberating surge of deep and abiding love, drawing strength from it as it swelled and coursed through his body. Blaine was feeling the same thing.

Sebastian's arms wrapped tightly around Blaine, grasping him closer to his taller body. There was a wetness on his cheek, and he wasn't sure whose eyes it had came from. Both, probably.

Lips sealed even more tightly together than before, Blaine felt more than heard Sebastian's reply.

"I love you too, Killer."

Things weren't fixed, not yet. But that was fine. Blaine loved Sebastian, and Sebastian loved Blaine, and they would make things work. They'd be ok.

Not for the first time, Kate wished the ground would open up and swallow her whole.

She had been so excited when the school announced that this year's French trip was to Provence. She had so many plans: she was going to indulge in all her favorite foods, revel in the sunshine with all her friends, maybe even kiss a cute French boy.

She was rather less excited to find out that both her parents had signed up to be chaperones.

Mr. and Mr. Anderson-Smythe, yes, the very ones who had gotten separated from the students the moment they all entered the impossibly long line for security and still hadn't noticed because they were too busy making gross kissy faces at each other to do very much chaperoning.

"Did you hear Jodie's mom and dad are getting a divorce?"

Kate was drawn out of her personal pity party by her circle of friends discussing the latest gossip.

"Aren't they already? I mean, they don't even live together anymore."

Kate glanced back at her parents. Her papa was standing further ahead in line with his chest against her dad's back, arms wrapped around the shorter man and chin perched atop his shoulder, while her dad carded his hand soothingly through her papa's hair. Weird, but so far, so PG.

"I hope Jodie gets to stay with her dad. He never locks their liquor cabinet."

"I heard –"

Kate decided it was time for a new topic. "You guys, Jodie's really sweet. Can we talk about something else?"

"Ok. Let's talk about how your dads are basically feeling each other up."

Kate's eye bulged out. "What!?" She turned to look for herself.

Her parents had somehow shifted, so that they were still wrapped tightly around one another, but were facing each other now.

Her papa leaned down and whispered something in her dad's ear. Her dad chortled, and began to pull away until her papa began to pout. Her dad reached up to kiss his cheek, but her papa leaned down to steal a proper kiss on the lips. Her dad teased him, reaching up tantalizingly close to his lips before feinting and pulling back. But her papa remained resolute, towering over her dad expectantly until finally, her dad stood up on his toes and sealed their lips together.

"Aww!" Kate's entire class gushed. Kate gagged.

Then, to Kate's abject horror, the kiss grew…dirtier. She couldn't see where her dad's hands were, which was a bad sign. And then her papa's hands started drifting lower, down the shorter man's back…

Oh no.

She covered her eyes with her hands and turned the other way. But she couldn't do that and also cover her ears.

"Tongue."

"What?" Kate asked.

"I saw tongue!"

"That's so hot."

"Wha…stop watching my parents!"

"It's, um, it's really hard to not watch, Kate"

"I ship them so hard." Kate turned to glare at her best friend. "What? Everyone does. I apologize for nothing."

Kate silently swore she would file transfer papers as soon as they got back home.

Blaine nearly tripped as two small, giggling children darted across his path, but he caught himself before he, and the plate of barbecue he was carrying, were sent crashing into a nearby flowerbed. He chuckled to himself as he watched his rambunctious grandkids dash through the yard, placing the heavy plate onto a picnic table already groaning with food.

He sighed as he straightened back up, and briefly entertained fond memories of days long past when he was a rather more limber man. Feeling nostalgic, he closed his eyes and breathed in the sounds and smells of spring contentedly, the laughter and the happy chatter of his children and many grandchildren washed over him, and he smiled, his face raised towards the warmth of the sun.

"Hey there, Killer."

Blaine opened his eyes to find Sebastian standing beside him, just returned from taking a few of the grandkids for a stroll in the woods. Sebastian held out a small bouquet of freshly picked wildflowers, and a big grin on his face that crinkled the corner of his eyes, transporting Blaine right back to when they were teenagers in love.

"These are for you."

Blaine smiled and raised them to his nose. "Thank you, baby. I love them." Turning to the gaggle of kids gathered around and staring up at them, Blaine asked, "Did you help Grandpa pick these?"

Sebastian cheekily interjected, "Nope, it was all me. I deserve all of the credit."

"Yes we did! Don't believe him, Grandad!" the kids chirruped and giggled.

"Aw, well, then" Blaine stooped down to press kisses against each of his grandkids' foreheads, "kisses for you…"

And turning to the Sebastian, who is smiling wolfishly at him, "And a kiss for you," Blaine whispered, cupping the side of Sebastian's head in his hands, and leaning in.

Over half a century, and the taste of Sebastian in his mouth still sent tingles through his body. Sebastian groaned, and Blaine knows he feels the same way.

Before pulling apart, Sebastian smiled and nuzzled his nose against Blaine, expressing an affection and a contentment and a love so deep, so special, Blaine knows he could have never conceived of it when he was 15 and looking for love in all the wrong places.

The couple looked down to find that most of their grandkids had run off to play elsewhere. But their youngest, little Cici, was still watching them, playing adorably with the hem of her shirt as she did so.

"Again, again!" She giggled.

Blaine smiled, pulling a daisy from the bouquet in his hands and tucking it playfully behind Sebastian's ear. Pushing up on his toes again, Blaine whispered, "What do you say, got another kiss for me?"

"For you? Always."