Archive of Our Own

The Petersons move the weekend after school lets out for the summer.

Blaine gets gossip instead of an apology when Mrs. Peterson comes over to return the snow blower that he had lent her three winters ago. He's surprised that she has bothered to return it at all and is so annoyed to see it banged up and rusted out that he doesn't hear half of what she says until the words "excavation" and "hope you don't mind" come out of her mouth.

"Uh, sorry, what?" he asks.

"The folks who bought the house wanted a pool pretty badly," she says. "The backyard's gonna be a noisy mess this week. Just so you know." She seems far too pleased about this.

He smiles, letting a polite mask drop into place. "Nice people?"

"Sure enough," she says, shrugging. "An older gentleman and his teenage son. Lost his mother when he was a little boy, poor thing."

She may not have been the best neighbor but her warning proves all too true; the backyard is a horror all week. Grit and soil seem to come over the fence both in clumps and through the air, until Blaine feels like he can't go outside without inhaling half a sack of dirt. The excavation takes longer than the installation of the actual pool and by the time it's done he's so thoroughly tired of the noise of the machines and the loud voices of the laborers and their radios which don't seem to ever be set below max volume, that he can't help but be simply relieved that it's finished.

Blaine, as a single thirty-year-old who has enjoyed ten fairly quiet years on the same block, is not immune to the curiosity of change. He wonders if Burt Hummel might be the kind of man who he could befriend; the Petersons certainly hadn't taken a shine to him once they'd discovered that there would never be a Mrs. Anderson.

*

Blaine ends up missing the Hummels' moving day because they arrive early in the morning on a weekday and are tucked up inside by the time he gets home from the office.

He gives it a few days, lets them settle in, then starts peaking over the fence to admire the shiny new pool in their backyard. The summer heat is peaking so it's the perfect time to enjoy it, and even though he's still coughing up sandy soil, he has to admit that it's a nice pool.

During one of these staring sessions where he pretends to be trimming the bushes along the fence while staring curiously up at the house, a young man who could only be Kurt Hummel comes streaking across the yard like a shot. He can't be a day over sixteen but he's a tall thing, pale with chestnut brown hair and blue-green eyes, wearing a pair of perfectly tailored white Capri pants and a blue short-sleeved button-up patterned with little white anchors, a shiny silver scarf around his neck and a pair of white boat shoes on his impossibly long feet.

Blaine hasn't seen a teenager look that put together in a long time.

"I found it," Kurt yells, lifting a wallet from the grass. "You must've dropped it at lunch." A middle-aged man (Burt, he presumes), leans out of the sliding door and waves.

"Would've been a hell of a thing losing it now. Come on, let's get this shopping done."

Blaine's hands are curled into fists around the top rail of the fence. He's in the shadow of both the fence and the bushes on his side, so there's no way that they'd have seen him—for which he's thankful.

His heart is pounding unusually hard in his chest as he watches Kurt's long legs eat up the grass and disappear back into the house.

*

"You Blaine Anderson?" asks Burt Hummel, extending a beer and a hand over the fence.

For once Blaine is actually coming in from doing something in the yard, so he's caught off balance (this is what happens when peeking over the neighbor's fence becomes the norm, he thinks to himself judgmentally), jerks two steps back and makes his way to the fence.

"Burt Hummel, I presume?" he asks, shaking Burt's hand and accepting the dripping cold bottle. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Likewise," Burt says, shoving his free hand into his pocket and smiling. "Heard good things about you from the Petersons. Mostly that you were quiet. I'm a huge fan."

Blaine laughs, immediately at ease with Burt's sense of humor. "I aim to please. You, uh, settling in okay, I hope? Need anything? It's always the little things you forget, like dish washing liquid and ketchup and stuff."

"Thankfully my son is a huge details guy," Burt answers. "He's kept us together through this whole crazy thing. And I don't think I'm allowed to eat ketchup. Something about sugar."

Blaine smiles. "If you don't mind my asking, what brings you to Lima?"

"New business," Burt answers, taking a swig of his beer and then shrugging. "Actually, new shop. Old family business. I'm a mechanic. My brother's moving out of the country, offered his garage up to me if I wanted it."

"Oh, the old Tires and Lube shop on Main?"

"Yep. It's Hummel's Tires and Lube now." Burt fishes a business card out of his wallet and hands it over. "Might as well plug myself now, since you asked so nicely. I noticed the tires on your Prius out there look a little low. Swing by I'll top 'em off for free."

Blaine blushes—he's not used to people being so immediate with an offer of friendship. "That's real nice of you, sir. I appreciate that." He clears his throat. "Your son not upset about switching schools?"

Burt's face shutters closed so fast that Blaine regrets asking, but it's too late to take it back. "He sort of needed a fresh start, too. Senior year is special. Gotta do it right." The silence is awkward until Burt adds, "He's helping me out at the shop in the mornings. You two should meet. How's Saturday for you?"

"Saturday would be great."

*

There's something to be said for a guy who can pull off fashionable clothes and grease-stained overalls in the same week.

Blaine stands in the doorway of the garage, clutching a tin of cookies in his right hand. From under the hood of a car on a low lift comes Kurt, shaking hair out of his eyes and working a rag over his long, slender fingers to clean them.

His overalls are loose but hug him from backside to knee when he bends, and for whatever impolite reason Blaine lets himself sneak a peak. It's shocking and immediate, the warmth that floods his face when Kurt stands up again, turns and finds him standing there, fingers gone white around the rim of the tin.

A playful smile tugs that wide, pink mouth up at the corners, and his boots thud lightly on the concrete floor as he closes the distance between them.

"Can I help you?" he asks.

His voice is surprising; high-pitched and melodic, like singing only without the singing, and the gray ribbons in his blue-green eyes light up when he speaks. Blaine realizes that his mouth is open and he's still staring, his heart in his throat and his knees veritably knocking.

Kurt is beautiful.

"I'm," he says, and his voice actually breaks, "I'm Blaine Anderson. Your dad asked me to bring my Prius in today?"

Kurt watches him with a polite smile, then moves over to the computer. "He mentioned that. Sure thing. Just let me have your keys and I'll take care of it for you, Mr. Anderson." His eyelashes lift as he says Blaine's name, and Blaine swallows thickly and drops the line of his gaze. Kurt's name is spelled out in sequins on the breast pocket of his overalls.

Blaine smiles. "Is your dad around? I, um—"

"He had to go to the post office. They tried to make a delivery before we opened and it's parts we need, so—it's just little old me," Kurt answers, waggling his fingertips in a teasing "here I am" motion.

Oh, dear, Blaine thinks, cheeks burning with interest.

As Kurt enters his information into the computer, he asks, "So, um, how's the pool? I watched them put it up before you guys moved in. It was quite the job.”

"Haven't had a chance to try it out yet," Kurt answers, tapping away. "So many rooms to feng shui, so little time. And the color pallets I had made up in advance are all wrong now that I'm taking morning and evening light into consideration."

Blaine laughs, delighted. "Let me know if you need any help."

Kurt looks taken off-guard for the first time since Blaine walked into the shop. He stares at Blaine as if he's wondering just what he'd missed on first glance.

"Interior design a hobby of yours?" he asks, looking somehow sarcastically challenging and sweet as sugar at the same time.

"Actually," Blaine answers, cheeks going darker, "yeah. When you spend your days writing life insurance policies, stuff like that becomes exciting down time entertainment."

Kurt smiles. "Well. Aren't we full of surprises?" He holds out his hand.

Blaine deposits the cookie tin in them, grinning.

"If only everyone offered cookies every time I held out my hand," Kurt says, laughing. "Your keys, sir?" The sir is low-pitched and teasing and Blaine feels the blush on his cheeks crawl down the back of his neck.

*

He finds Kurt floating in the pool that weekend, swearing to himself all the while that he hadn't gone out to check the level on his propane tank just to see if the backyard over the fence was occupied. It's the height of the afternoon and it's terribly hot today, so he isn't surprised that Kurt has finally decided to break it in.

Kurt is wearing a pair of black swim trunks with skulls patterned down the sides and a pair of very large sunglasses. His nose is streaked with white sunscreen.

Blaine forces himself to almost not notice the long, pale slope of his body but, in doing so, he notices very thoroughly Kurt's wide shoulders and tiny waist and flat but not defined belly, his pink nipples which are tight from the cool water, and his long legs thick with pale brown hair.

Blaine stands there, clutching the end of a hose in his hand, fiddling with the flow control knob as he eyes veritably consume the young man. He's so enthralled that he doesn't move a muscle, not even when Kurt rolls over in the water—and oh, his back, his spine and the way it bleeds into the dip of his lower back, and the swell of his—

The hose in Blaine's hand spurts loudly and messily and right through the gaps in the fence. He'd turned the switch too many times while gawking.

Kurt sits up suddenly, coming out of the water soaking wet, bathing suit clinging to every curve, and he saunters over to the fence. Blaine rushes to turn the hose off, face on fire with embarrassment at being caught.

"Hey, Mr. Anderson," Kurt says.

There are water droplets clinging to his nose and cheeks and jaw and eyelashes, and his hair is limp over his forehead with the weight of them. His chest hitches as he catches his breath from jumping out of the pool and jogging over to the fence, and Blaine's eyes are sucked down to his perky pink nipples before he can stop them. He refuses to look lower, knowing that those fitted, wet trunks over Kurt's hips will only lead to a view of—oh. Oh god.

"Hey, Kurt," he says, the hose still spurting lightly in his hand. He grumbles and keeps twisting the valve.

"Hardware issues?" Kurt asks, grinning cheekily.

He laughs. "Uh, you could say that. Nice day for a swim."

"It certainly is," Kurt answers.

He doesn't even talk like a teenage boy. Why can't he mention boobs or farts or something so that Blaine can stop wanting to talk to him so badly?

"The, um, tires are good. Running great. The car, I mean. You did a good job," Blaine says, feeling overwhelmed by Kurt standing there dripping all over the grass half-naked.

It only gets worse when he folds his arms over the top rail of the fence and leans closer; Blaine can smell chlorine and deodorant and something almost like perfume and he finds himself inhaling and bending to close the distance between them and then he gets a close-up view of Kurt's straining biceps and he has to avert his gaze for the dozenth time.

"Tires and fashion, that's me," Kurt answers, rolling his eyes at himself.

There are a thousand things that Blaine wants to ask or say; he can't remember the last time that he'd felt so engaged. He makes an effort to turn every daily interaction into something genuine and positive, even with the co-workers that he doesn't care for, or his boss who hates him, or the people who ring his groceries up at the supermarket who always seem to need a reason to smile, but this is different. This feels effortless and immediate and he wants to roll in it.

"Excited about school?" he asks, finally, going with a safe choice.

"Sure," Kurt answers, picking a blade of grass off of his shoulder. His bare, milky, wet, freckled shoulder. "I joined the community theater group and the youth choir to keep me in practice, so hopefully auditions for glee club and the school plays shouldn't be too challenging."

"Oh," Blaine breathes. "You're a performer?"

"That's the goal," Kurt says with a smile. "The McKinley show choir won Nationals last year, so I've got high hopes."

"That's so great. Really. Wow. I—I used to sing and act, in high school. Long time ago."

"Can't have been that long ago,” Kurt insists.

Blaine blushes. He isn't sure whether Kurt is being serious or just trying to flatter him. "Oh, at least fifteen years." When Kurt keeps looking at him he blurts, "I just turned thirty."

The look that Kurt gives Blaine then is almost appraising; he's smiling and his eyes are flickering all over Blaine's face and Blaine feels overwhelmed by the intensity of it.

"I never would've guessed it,” he replies, almost flirtatiously.

"Well, thank you," Blaine answers.

"The cookies were delicious, by the way," Kurt says, changing topics. "You'll have to share the recipe with me sometime."

"You bake, too?" Blaine asks, laughing.

From the house, Burt shouts something, and Kurt turns. The profile of his body from forehead to ankle is so stunning that Blaine just goes still and enjoys the ability to stare without being watched in return, as he has so many times since the Hummels moved in.

"I have many talents," Kurt answers, waggling his fingers over his shoulder as he starts walking toward the house. "Nice talking to you, Mr. Anderson."

Blaine drops the hose on the grass and pushes out every bit of air from his lungs.

*

It seems like some kind of cheesy, pornographic movie set up when Blaine realizes that Kurt's bedroom window lines up perfectly with his. He hadn't considered the possibility, mostly because the Petersons' children had grown and gone before Blaine moved in, and the room that is now Kurt's bedroom had been Mrs. Peterson's craft room.

He notices it on a night when Kurt has his bedroom window's curtains open for the first time. He's one leg into bed when he sees that now-familiar profile back lit by the lamp in Kurt's room. He freezes in places, unable to look away as Kurt shrugs out of a brightly colored robe and crosses the window's frame.

Blaine breathes out, hot and slow, and puts a hand on the sill, steadying himself.

He can't see everything, but he does get an unimpeded view of Kurt tugging a pair of boy shorts up and over the round, pale, perfect globes of his ass, then a glimpse of Kurt turning in front of a vanity table and reaching for a bottle of lotion. He smooths several handfuls of lotion up and down the forever stretch of his thighs and calves, then swipes his creamy hands off on his belly before setting the bottle down and reaching for a t-shirt that's draped over the back of his chair.

Blaine falls shakily onto the edge of his bed, breathing like a winded race horse.

Shit. Shit shit shit shit.

He curls up under the covers, his mind a whirl of nonnegotiable desire and loneliness.

He considers how long it's been since he had been able to meet another gay man in this small, conservative town. He considers as he has a dozen times before his abandoned dreams of big cities and success on the stage, and of meeting someone and settling down.

It's not that there aren't gay men in Lima—there's a bar, and a community group, and Blaine has made every effort to look, even one or two towns over, but no one ever seems to feel right, and he isn't the one night stand type. So he'd given up, probably about five years ago, accepted a promotion that enabled him to buy a modest home and stopped wondering what a possible partner might think of the place, or of his job, or of this town.

Still, he's got to have hit rock bottom if he's now unable to stop ogling his seventeen-year-old neighbor.

He gets up after a while, unable to sleep. He paces the room, goes downstairs, has a glass of water, comes back up, and looks at himself in the mirror with a shrewd eye.

There are flecks of gray at his temples (more stress than age related), fine lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth and forehead, and the small belly that he's been battling since high school is more pronounced; despite jogging and muscle toning, he still can't keep it from edging over the waistband of his tighter fitting pants.

He feels faintly pathetic, cataloging the beginnings of the older man he's becoming, working a job that he's good at but means nothing to him, alone now for too many years, and still half hard in his boxers from a glimpse of Kurt Hummel across the way.

*

Blaine's not much of a griller. His contribution to the summer block party typically comes in the form of a variety of salads and baked goods, which makes him the favorite of many a housewife and househusband on the block, who are always asking him for his recipes during and after the festivities.

This year, the grill and the people directly to the right of him are different, and he can't help but smile at Kurt in a bright yellow apron, helping his dad flip burgers. He arrives with his German potato salad and red velvet cake just in time to hear them having a spirited disagreement about tofu. He sits at their table and starts up a conversation with the neighbor on his other side, not wanting to interrupt Kurt and his dad as they cook.

But it's as if the universe just keeps testing him; not long after sitting down and helping to uncover some of the food, Kurt dances over to his side of the table. There aren't any empty chairs because things keep getting shifted around, so he bounces in place instead.

"Tell my dad that tofu is totally a food, Mr. Anderson," he says.

"Oh, no," he says, letting himself take in the beautiful summer color tones of the outfit that Kurt is wearing beneath his apron. "I'm not getting in the middle, here."

"It tastes like whatever you cook it in or with," Kurt insists, stabbing a finger at his dad turning brats. "Teriyaki. You love teriyaki."

"Not that low sodium stuff you buy," Burt shoots back. "I saw that bottle, Kurt."

"Damn," Kurt hisses, snapping his fingers in mock defeat.

Blaine laughs. "You take good care of your dad. I think it's sweet."

"You know what else is sweet? Homemade barbecue sauce," Burt shouts.

Kurt giggles. "Maybe just a little, okay?" He glances around. "Damn. I think those shifty looking ladies from across the street stole my chair." The table next to them does look a little crowded.

"I like tofu," Blaine admits, nose twitching at the dish as Kurt serves himself a piece. It's arranged with grilled vegetables and it looks really good.

"Shove over," Kurt says, picking up an empty plate.

"Huh?"

And before he can say no, Kurt sits down on his right thigh and begins serving him the tofu and vegetables over a generous scoop of brown rice.

"Is that cilantro?" he asks, trying not to literally choke on the words because Kurt is sitting on his lap.

"Yup," Kurt hums, pleased as he digs up a spoonful and holds it in front of Blaine's mouth. "Try."

Blaine flushes. No one is looking at them, but he feels weird. It's awkwardly intimate as he wraps his mouth around the plastic spoon and lets Kurt pull it back past his lips and watch as Blaine reacts to the taste. It's delicious—salty and light and just a little spicy, and he can't help the low moan that escapes his lips.

"Oh my god," he says, not thinking as he leans forward, which only jolts Kurt closer to his torso. He can feel the warmth of Kurt's body from his back to his calves. "That is so good."

He eats the rest of it so fast that Kurt laughs at him, then leans in close so that only they can hear when he whispers, "You have rice on your face."

"Oh, geez," Blaine says, chuckling self-deprecatingly as Kurt crowds close to his jaw and wipes it off with the corner of a damp napkin.

"All better," Kurt says, sliding until Blaine's chest is snug against his back.

With no food to occupy him, Blaine finds that his hands have nowhere to go but the obvious. He puts his right hand—which is visible to the table—on his own leg, but his left finds a tentative home on Kurt's torso, just below his ribs on the left side, where no one can see. He doesn't know what's gotten into him. But Kurt had sat there, so he can't mind the intimacy.

Blaine grows quickly mesmerized by the rise and fall of Kurt's side under his fingertips. He's warm and smells like the smoke from the grill and his hair is going limp over his forehead from the heat, but below all that there's that lightly floral perfume again and something sharp and citrus-y; Blaine can't tell if it's lotion or shampoo or hell, maybe even the marinade for one of the meats that his dad is grilling right now, but it smells delicious.

Despite the crowded tables, no one is talking to them, so it's just breathing and heat and delicious aromas, and—Kurt feels good. His weight and his body and his being there feels good.

Kurt puts an arm around the back of his—their—chair, twists sideways so that his right leg is draped over Blaine's knees. Blaine inhales sharply as the position sends Kurt's cheek skidding along his hair line.

"Do you like lemonade or iced tea?"

"Iced tea, but lemonade if it's homemade."

"They're both homemade, silly," Kurt says, pouring him a glass of the iced tea and himself a glass of lemonade.

They drink, cocooned in a little private bubble where nothing seems to exist but the two of them, Kurt's heavy, muscled thigh creeping ever more fully over his lap. Which is creating an issue. A rapidly occurring, ever-worsening issue.

Blaine chugs the cold drink to fight the sweat that's popping up all over his skin while simultaneously hoping to calm the racing of his pulse—which Kurt can surely feel—and the swell in his jeans. He sets the disposable cup down when it's empty, trying not to squirm as the right side of Kurt's ass settles snugly against the bulge in his pants.

He makes a noise that amounts roughly to ngaghff.

Kurt's breath comes hot against his ear. "You're adorable."

"Kurt, quit bothering Mr. Anderson and have a hamburger. You're gonna waste away if all you eat is that rabbit food."

Blaine knows how red he must be, but when Kurt's father starts talking to him after as if nothing untoward has happened, he tells himself that he hasn't done anything wrong.

It takes a slice of red velvet cake and two servings of banana pudding before he feels gross enough to discourage the erection throbbing in his underwear. Kurt sliding off of him to go browse the dessert table helps tremendously.

Once everyone starts cleaning up, new coolers are opened and beer is passed around. Wine and champagne bottles are popped and poured. Blaine doesn't think that it's a good idea to get drunk tonight but he needs to relax something fierce, so he chooses a light beer (wine goes right to his head) and sips it slowly, letting the alcohol work at unwinding the tension in his limbs.

Daylight fades and candles are lit to scare off the bugs, and Blaine enjoys several long conversations with the people who live closest to him, as well as with the woman who organizes the yearly event and wants to catch up with everyone.

He watches Burt pass his cards around and talk shop. Kurt doesn't connect quite as well, though he loyally follows his dad around and allows himself to be introduced. Blaine feels for him—it must be difficult when your light burns that brightly, constantly having to brace yourself for the reactions that you might get.

Later, Blaine notices him sneak a glass of wine. He takes off his apron and washes his hands and finds Blaine at the table again, empty plates of dessert in front of him. There are plenty of places to sit now, as most of the families with younger children have gone home, but Kurt still scoots his chair close.

"I should have known from the cookies that you were a dessert man," he says, smiling, a little loose from the wine, his cheeks pink and his pupils blown.

"You should have known from the gut," Blaine counters, poking his own belly.

Kurt giggles, then hiccups. "Oh, don't."

There's a silence, and Blaine takes advantage of Kurt's slight inebriation to stare at him unguardedly. He's feeling terribly awkward about before; Kurt had instigated and encouraged it, but it's his job as an adult to make the right choices for them both in that kind of a situation. The fact that Kurt is of legal age is irrelevant when one considers the age gap between them, and how silly and wrong it would be to even flirt with him, even if he himself wanted it to happen.

"I can hear the wheels turning," Kurt murmurs, pressing the tip of his pointer finger to Blaine's forehead. "You need another beer. There's sangria, too, and wine—"

He thinks about it. About getting drunk and letting Kurt's beauty crawl underneath his skin. About maybe offering to walk Kurt up to his house so that Burt could drink and play cards with his new buddies. About his hands around Kurt's hips all the way up the walk, into the hall, up the stairs, at first just to steady him but then as an excuse to touch him. About the beautiful, naked body that Blaine has gotten glimpses of, cast in shadow and struck profile through his bedroom window.

When Blaine doesn't say anything in response, Kurt sighs. His gaze is slightly unfocused when he says, "You must think I'm some kind of a—hussy."

"What?"

Kurt licks his lips slowly. "I've never even had a boyfriend."

Blaine's cheeks go dark. "Kurt, I—" He smiles politely. "Do kids even use the word 'hussy' nowadays?"

"Oh, god," Kurt laughs, pushing his wine cup away. "You're—" He cracks up, pressing his hands to his face.

Blaine can't help but smile. The tension has broken and all he wants is to be glad of that fact.

"I think I'm going to head home," he says, standing. He doesn't want to leave without doing something to reassure Kurt that they're okay, so he drops a hand on Kurt's shoulder. "The food was great. Really. Talk to you later?"

"Sure," Kurt says, smiling, obviously glad that Blaine had let his drunken confession pass.

Crisis averted, Blaine weaves through the shrunken crowd and says his goodbyes and good nights to everyone he knows best. He doesn't allow himself to think about what had happened with Kurt at all, not even when he's showered and comfortably cuddled up in his bed alone.

Because nothing had happened. It was just a bit of harmless party-inspired flirtation.

*

But the problem is, the pool.

When Blaine's home he can hear the splashing from next door halfway into the house, and the temptation to see just what's going on across the way is stronger than he'd like to admit. Most of the time he knows that it's just Burt or Kurt taking a dip, sometimes together, sometimes not, but this time—

There are new voices, and he's extra curious.

He wanders out into the yard, and finds a secluded bit of fence where he can glance over without being seen by either the occupants of the yard or the neighbor on the other side.

There are several girls in bathing suits with Kurt in the pool, and they're all singing a pop song that had made it to "song of the summer" status early on in the season. Blaine likes it. He smiles, leans against the fence post and lets their harmonies wash over him. It brings back nice memories of high school glee club and summers spent at the local pool club with his friends.

He can't say that he's surprised at Kurt's singing voice—his speaking voice is naturally high-pitched—but the heights that it reaches are impressive to Blaine's semi-trained ear. He smiles into the slats of the fence, tingling all over at the gorgeous tone of it. Of course Kurt is talented in that way; it seems almost impossible for him not to be everything that Blaine had ever wanted as a closeted gay teenager.

He listens to Kurt and his girlfriends giggle and talk and jump in and out of the pool, doing handstands and flips and acting silly. He listens to the patter of wet feet on wet concrete and lets the smell of chlorine fill his nose.

He risks a glance over the fence when the splashing quiets down; they've retired to the lounges, wrapped in towels, and are giggling over magazines and pop cups and bowls of chips and popcorn. It's nice to see Kurt with friends; it's the first time, and Blaine wonders if these girls are from his theater group or his choir. He doesn't recognize them from the neighborhood.

After a while, he drifts off; he feels silly standing there as long as he has. But he does come back when the noise of conversation ceases, just to see if Kurt and his friends have gone inside.

Kurt is alone, though, still in his lounge chair. He must've said goodbye to his friends and cleaned up at some point because it's just him reclined on a towel as the sun begins to set, the orange glow of weakening light glinting off of his sunglasses.

Blaine is so used to seeing him poolside that the bathing suit no longer makes his mouth dry, but he still can't help the warmth that suffuses his body at all of that pinkish white skin on display.

He's almost sure that Kurt's dozed off; his head is to the side, and his chest is rising and falling evenly.

God, he is stunning.

From the moment that he had laid eyes on Kurt, he hasn't been able to get over it. In combination with his humor, his intelligence, his talent, and his pride, his gorgeous body and stunning face almost seem—unfair. How can so much amazing reside in a single teenage boy?

He snuffles sleepily on the lounge chair and Blaine smiles, turning to go for the second time, when he—kind of makes a pleased little groan, and Blaine turns back around.

Kurt's right hand is sleepily turning soft circles over his nipples, one and then the other. Blaine isn't sure if he's awake, but he touches himself intently until they're hard, and then strokes a single hand down and over his ribs to the waistband of his swimming trunks.

Blaine's face goes hot in the tepid evening air. He inhales but doesn't exhale, feels arousal surge warm down the length of his body to pool in between his legs.

He should not be watching this.

Kurt's body squirms from shoulder to knee on the lounge, a wiggle that ends with his hips churning up into his searching fingers, just as they slip eagerly, wetly under the lip of his trunks.

Oh.

Blaine groans to himself, very much out loud.

Kurt goes still and sits up, turning to look in the direction of the noise. Blaine freezes, terrified to move and terrified to stay. The setting sun is in his eyes, so he can't see Kurt's expression; he just notes the shape of him relaxing again, settling back into the lounge.

Blaine doesn't wait for another chance; he bolts into the house quietly.

*

Having a job that's as dull as watching grass grow doesn't help.

In between clients he fills out paperwork, generates paperwork, and files paperwork. In between paperwork, he fantasizes. He tries to keep the images faceless, the concepts sketchy, but no matter how many times he tells himself he's just horny and needs to find a boyfriend, he still sits at his desk and lets his mind run wild with images of Kurt.

He's seen Kurt half-naked and a quarter-naked so many times, but none of those feature prominently in his most feverish fantasies. In those, he recalls the way that Kurt had felt in his lap the night of the block party barbecue, warm and heavy and strong. He thinks about what it might be like to have Kurt on top of him or wrapped around him, all that dance class toned muscle clasping him, pressing him. His face goes hot at the thought of Kurt's mouth wet and wide under his, Kurt's hands gripping his arms or face or hips.

He just wants to be close—it's been so long, he can't even remember the last time, and he doesn't need it to be perfect or complicated. He misses being touched. He misses the smell of a man's skin tickling his nose. He misses broad shoulders and hairy calves and the heavy weight of a cock against his leg. And all of that longing is so easily grafted upon the framework that Kurt's personality and body provides.

He falls into lapses at his desk and comes out of them tenting his slacks, embarrassed and guilty but thanking his lucky stars that he has his own office with a lockable door. He never does anything about it, never finishes, sometimes not even when he indulges in these thoughts at home, but he wants to. God, he wants to—when he's throbbing down his pant leg and has to dab the wet spot off of his thigh after it goes down, he wants to, so badly.

*

One morning he gets in his car and realizes with self-directed irritation that he'd left the lights on the night before and his car's battery is dead. He hasn't done something so absentminded in years, and even though he has no great urge to be at work, he is punctual to a fault and the thought of being late upsets him.

He calls his boss and then, just when he's about to call AAA, he remembers that he has a mechanic for a neighbor who surely has jumper cables in abundance.

He feels weird knocking on their door—he hasn't gone over to visit Burt as he keeps intending, to thank him for the free air in his tires and make an appointment for his next oil change, and on top of that he has no idea what kind of hours Burt keeps at the shop; what if he's waking him up or today is a day off?

Kurt answers the door, dressed for school, skin tight pants and a vest over a short-sleeved shirt, and Blaine smiles and goes warm under his collar.

"Sorry to bother you so early. I have, um, a dead battery. Could I bother you for a jump?"

Kurt smiles, leans against the door jamb with a playful nod. "Sure thing."

"If you have to get to school, I can just wait for your dad," he adds, looking beyond Kurt's shoulder.

"I've got time," Kurt says. "I'll pull my Navigator over to your driveway, just let me get my shoes on."

"I appreciate it, thanks."

Blaine stays in his car while Kurt hooks up the cables, not wanting to be tempted to stare while Kurt is bent over the hood of his car. After the jump takes, he gets out and helps Kurt coil the cables back up, mostly in control of himself.

"Kind of a gas guzzler," Blaine comments, motioning toward Kurt's car. "Doesn't seem very you." He tilts his head. “The rims are deliciously flashy, though. Maybe I'm wrong.”

"What a difference a year makes," Kurt replies, smirking. "It was an impulsive sweet sixteen gift request." He smiles. “You have me there, though. I am still fond of the shiny.”

Blaine smiles back, then glances at the time. He'd told his boss that he would be an hour or so, estimating the time it would take to wait for AAA, and he's fairly sure that Kurt has almost as much time before school starts.

"May I offer you breakfast as a thank you?" he asks, then rushes to add, "If your dad wouldn't mind your coming over, that is."

Even as he asks, he knows that it's not the right thing to do.

It's been weeks of staring through the fence in the backyard, weeks of chlorine smell and flashes of skin and hip bones and wet shoulders and Blaine has a permanent crick in his neck, not to mention other places. He feels dirty and stupid and wrong, but at least if Kurt is aware of his wandering eyes he can feel dirty and stupid and wrong and not like a peeping Tom for once.

Kurt sits on the island in Blaine's kitchen while Blaine throws together a quick veggie egg scramble and cuts up some fresh fruit.

"You renovated," Kurt says.

"Uh, yeah, about five years ago. How did you know?"

"We've got the same model. You took a wall out and put in a half wall over there. Changed the island placement. It's nice. Opens it up. Not a bad idea—when we can afford it." He smiles, shrugging.

Blaine watches the smooth lines of Kurt's legs swing back and forth as he brings their plates over. They eat like that, Kurt sitting with the plate in his lap and Blaine standing beside him. From the moment that they're in range of each other's body heat it's like a circuit connecting, sending sparks up Blaine's spine.

He can't stop noticing things, like Kurt's hands as he eats, or the way he chews and swallows, or the thick, luscious curve of his ass spread over the island top, or the way that his shirt stretches over the widest part of his back. He has a faint scar on the side of his neck, and just a little bit of stubble coming in along his jaw where he must have missed shaving.

"This is good," Kurt says, finishing off the last few pieces of melon. "You didn't have to."

Blaine shrugs, smiling. "It's not a hardship." He feels his smile go goofy and averts his gaze, blushing to the tips of his ears.

He's thirty years old but Kurt makes him feel like a boy angling for a date without knowing how or when to ask. Part of that makes him want to feel bad, because he knows that he shouldn't be thinking like this, but other parts of it excite him to a degree that makes them impossible to ignore.

Kurt reaches out and touches the knot of his tie, tugs it tighter and adjusts it, then flicks a piece of invisible lint off of the body of it, his cheeks pink and his eyes lowered. Blaine holds his breath.

"Would you come for dinner tonight? Dad keeps meaning to invite you,” Kurt says.

"Really?" he asks, unable to think clearly about the offer because Kurt's fingers are tracing his shirt buttons one by one, and he's halfway to Blaine's belt by the time he finishes asking. His eyes are so gray right now that Blaine can hardly look straight into them.

Somewhere near the last button, Kurt's fingers stop. Blaine exhales, his belly pressing out against Kurt's hand. When he manages to glance at Kurt's face again he's shocked to see how red it's gone; he's teasing but he's also nervous.

The tension between them is like a bowstring just shy of snapping under pressure.

"Kurt," he breathes.

"Will you come over?"

"Um. Yes. Yeah, of course."

"Eight o'clock okay?"

"Y-yeah, eight is fine."

Kurt takes his hand away and Blaine deflates. "Thank you for breakfast," he says, smiling and sliding down onto his feet and swishing past Blaine, knocking their shoulders gently together just once before disappearing.

*

Dinner is lovely, all inappropriate behavior aside.

Kurt cooks and Burt and Blaine clean up and then watch baseball while Kurt reads a magazine with his feet tucked up underneath him. He comes off as the consummate, uninterested teenager, leaving Burt and Blaine to their sports talk for most of the evening, even so far as to start texting and laughing at his phone as if he has the room to himself.

Burt's a great guy and, despite his somewhat gruff exterior, he's a smart man with a lot of opinions and Blaine and he have a lot to talk about. It's easy to answer personal questions, knowing that Burt has no issue with gay people, and Burt is just as open, talking reverently but honestly about Kurt's mother's passing and the new shop.

Blaine keeps a close eye on the time and around ten o'clock he says politely, "I'm sure you have to get to bed, both of you. I'll let myself out. Dinner was lovely, thank you."

Kurt glances up from his third magazine of the night, pouting, and says, "You said you'd help me with the colors for the basement, though."

He'd done no such thing.

Burt laughs. "You do that. This old man needs his sleep." He shakes Blaine's hand. "Nice talking to you, Anderson. Don't keep him up too late."

Blaine's mouth goes dry even as he replies, "Good night, Mr. Hummel. I won't."

When they're alone, Kurt takes his hand. "This way," he says, and leads Blaine downstairs.

All the while, his mind supplies absolutely nothing of use. He feels as mentally constipated as he ever has, Kurt's hand as hot as a brand in his, making the hair on his arms stand up and his heart race. It's the worst sort of loss of control, all slippery downward slide and no idea of what he'll find at the bottom, combined with panic over allowing this to happen in the first place. He could have declined, could have told Kurt that he was tired, that they would do this some other time, and in front of his father Kurt wouldn't've been able to argue.

"I recorded this off of the Home and Garden Channel. I was thinking of doing a similar design along the top of the wall and up the stairs, to where the floral pattern is in the hall?"

Kurt flicks on the television and tugs Blaine down onto the love seat that's been wedged sort of haphazardly in across from it. The room looks sort of like a dorm—he thinks that maybe Kurt uses it as a study area. It shows signs of being finished, so perhaps a rec room in the making?

They watch the brief fifteen minute segment and Blaine offers a suggestion or two. It's a lot like what he'd done with the sewing room downstairs when he'd moved in to his house, and he's somehow not surprised that he and Kurt share similar tastes, despite the generational gap.

After they've discussed it in depth, Blaine feels better—at least they hadn't lied to Burt, and Kurt hasn't been anything but charming and sweet and careful since they closed the door behind them. Blaine can still hear Burt moving around upstairs and that makes it feel okay, too.

That is, until he feels Kurt sit back down next to him on the couch. The same twitchy urge to reach out and touch shivers down Blaine's fingers, and he crosses his hands in his lap almost as a reflex, moments away from scooting to the edge of the couch and standing to complete the retreat when Kurt leans in and presses his cheek to Blaine's shoulder.

Everything slows down; he can feel the warm press of Kurt's lips and flushed face roll over the curve of his bicep, can feel the gust of breath as Kurt's mouth brushes the curve of his throat.

"Kiss me," Kurt murmurs, dragging the tip of his nose across Blaine's earlobe.

"Oh, god," Blaine moans, shuddering, teetering on the edge of the couch. "Kurt."

"Kiss me," he repeats, gently running a hand up Blaine's chest. "I want you to kiss me."

"I'm twice your—"

Kurt's lips close around the heated bulb of his earlobe and tug. "If you don't want to, and I'm wrong, then just say so." He lowers his voice, nips Blaine's earlobe with his teeth. "But I've seen you watching me through the fence."

"I'm sorry," he gasps, writhing, whether away from or toward Kurt, he can't decide; his body just can't sit still. "I'm so sorry, I just—"

Kurt's face burrows into the curve of his neck, lips and nose and cheeks and breath and tongue and Blaine arches, hands flailing for something to hold on to, and then finding Kurt's arms, and before he can even decide to do so he's dragging Kurt against his chest and sealing their mouths together. He sucks a breath in through the kiss, then moans it out and pushes forward, kissing Kurt again. Kurt clambers gracelessly into his lap, straddling him and pushing him back against the sofa. Blaine digs his fingers into Kurt's hair, tilts his head and lashes the seam of Kurt's lips with the tip of his tongue. Sweet, and warm, currents shivering down his body, tastes like the dessert they'd had for dinner and boy—Blaine moans when Kurt allows him entrance, licks the inside of Kurt's soft lips and groans when Kurt's inexperienced tongue finds his.

Kurt's back bends beneath his hands. "Blaine. Blaine."

Desperate for air, Blaine ends the kiss, presses their foreheads together and tilts his face off to the side for a breath of fresher air. "S-stop, wait. Wait."

He can't think. Can't breathe. Kurt's face is a blushing canvas of rose and cream up close, sweeping eyelashes, stormy sea-colored eyes dark with arousal, that flared nose and kissed mouth and strong chin and impeccable jaw, all under Blaine's fingertips, all so perfect that it almost hurts to look at, and he wants Blaine, he wants Blaine.

"Your dad," Blaine whispers. He can't even look Kurt in the eye.

Kurt kisses the corner of his mouth, voice quaking, "Please. Please, can we keep doing that?"

"This isn't right," he blurts, eyes wide, body stricken with arousal so intense that he knows he won't be able to stop them from going farther, not if Kurt has no desire to put the breaks on.

He'd like to think that he's morally aligned well enough to say no and walk out, but the past month has proven that he simply isn't. Whether it's desperation or something more between them, he can't even say.

"Want you," Kurt whispers, peppering Blaine's mouth with soft kisses. "Feels right. Don't you feel the same?"

Yes, Blaine's mind screams.

What he says is, "Kurt, I think—this is too fast." He exhales, feeling something akin to sense break through the cloud of lust that's shrouded his thoughts. Kurt is warm and heavy and perfect over his lap and he can feel Kurt's interest as plain as day, digging into his belly, but it's—no. This isn't how it should be, for either of them. ”I—I can't, not right now, not with you so—" He slides his palms up and down Kurt's back, soaks up the heat of his arousal through the thin cloth. "It's been a long time since I've felt this drawn to someone. I can't be smart about it. I need you to—to understand that and please, um, please give me some space."

The change in Kurt is instant; he stiffens, and then immediately shuffles back onto his side of the couch, his bee-stung lips drawn inward and looking upset. "I'm sorry," he says, shaking his head.

Blaine feels cold without Kurt against him but it's easier, too. "No, I'm sorry. I never should have come down here with you, I knew what was going to happen, I've—I've felt this building and I just—" He shudders, stands, paces a single turn and then drops down onto one knee beside the couch, taking Kurt's hands in his. "I need to go. I need to breathe and I can't do that, not when saying no to you right now is as hard as it is."

"I made it all up in my head," Kurt mutters under his breath miserably.

Oh, god.

"No," Blaine spits, rubbing Kurt's fingers with his. "No, god, no, I—" He deflates, and for all the pain crowding his chest he finds himself laughing almost hysterically. "Look at me, please?" He puts a hand on Kurt's cheek and when Kurt looks him in the eye he whispers, "Since the moment I laid eyes on you, it's been torture." He thumbs Kurt's kiss-swollen mouth. "You have no idea."

"I've been throwing myself at you."

"I didn't mind," Blaine admits, smiling sheepishly and curling his fingers up into Kurt's disheveled hair. "But I think for tonight we need to stop, alright?"

Kurt nods, still looking hurt, but there's nothing that Blaine can do about that right now.

*

Blaine wakes up the next day feeling almost hungover, with the added humiliation of his underwear glued to his hips. He straightens himself with a groan of disgust (what's the point of being thirty and over if you aren't guaranteed freedom from wet dreams?), then takes a shower so hot that it almost hurts. He grooms himself with a maniac eye for detail, gets dressed, eats breakfast, and is halfway out the door before he remembers that it's Saturday.

He walks back inside, changes into a more relaxed outfit, sits down in front of his computer and does what he usually does when he has no plans and nothing to do; surfs music forums and looks at pictures of cats on the Internet. It's horrifically pointless; he gives up after about an hour, and wanders out into the backyard for some air.

He's not surprised when he hears the patio door in the next yard slide open, though he does wait to walk over to the fence until he's sure that it's Kurt and not Burt. They come together at the far end, tangling their fingers around slats parallel to one another but not touching.

"Morning," Blaine breathes, watching Kurt's eyes through the fence.

"Hey."

The kick in the ass is that, at the sound of that breathless, high-pitched greeting, Blaine feels the same urgent desire that he'd felt last night with Kurt's body rubbing against his own. It's smaller, and gentler, but it's the same wanting, has the same shape and scope and level of intensity, makes his stomach swoop and his pulse race and his—well—other parts of his anatomy take notice. He wants Kurt. He wants Kurt's voice and Kurt's body and Kurt's conversation and Kurt's presence. It's stupid. It's wrong. And it's there nonetheless.

"I get such deja vu sometimes, around you," he says, in awe of it and unable to pretend otherwise.

"What?" Kurt asks, blinking.

"I feel like I—this is so stupid, it sounds like such a line—but I feel like I've known you longer than have, or that we've—met before, I just—"

"Okay." Kurt smiles. "That does sound like a line." His smile goes wobbly. “I know what you mean, though.”

"You make me reckless," he says, gently lining their fingers up on the fence slat. "You make me forget everything in my life that's not right. I don't know how you do it. I can't—" He swallows. "I can't just kiss you, Kurt. I can't just—anything, with you, and not have it be like that, for me. Do you understand what I mean? It's too much, too complicated, and you don't need all that. You're young. You need to have fun and hold hands at the mall and get your heart broken and eat chocolate and talk crap about your ex with your friends and fall in love again and go to college and have men lining up for you—all of that. Without me getting in the way."

Kurt smiles at him, soft and slow, gently stroking his index finger with a single digit. "It's been a while since you talked to someone you liked, hasn't it?"

Blaine laughs, lets it all out on one breath and ducks his head, embarrassed. "Brat."

"I've spent most of my life growing up faster than everyone around me, because it was the only way to survive school," Kurt says, in the same measured tone that Blaine had used to explain his feelings. "I'm—" He inhales. "I'm not going to question this. Do you know what I mean? I'm not going to limit myself, not when my whole I've just been told no and don't be that and you can't have what other boys have." He tilts his head. "Are you?” he asks, his expression wide open.

He can only stare. Kurt is a wonderment.

And then he's alone with his racing thoughts and the warmth of the morning sun beating on his back.

*

Technically, it's not gawking if one has been invited, he supposes?

Blaine stands at the edge of the pool, a towel wrapped around his hips, his eyes drifting over the water to where Kurt and his friends from the community theater are splashing around. Kurt keeps climbing up on one of the larger girl's shoulders, giggling and tugging his swim trunks up with intentional wiggles and the occasional glance over his shoulder at Blaine.

Blaine is just relieved that the only reason this little party is happening and the only reason why he had been invited so thoughtlessly is because Burt is out of town for the weekend visiting his sister and Kurt's friends had been eager to meet Mr. Anderson once Kurt had told them that he used to be in glee club.

He feels every minute of his thirty years as he watches the teenagers in the water, so unrestrained in the display of their bodies, so carefree with every gesture of affection.

He's glad that Kurt has made friends so quickly—and they seem like spirited, strong-willed kids, which should make his transition to the new school easier. He deserves that after all the crap he'd been put through at his last school.

"Mr. Anderson, come on, we need a fourth for Chicken!"

"I'm not sure I'd be much good at that, Rachel," he calls, playing with the knot on his towel nervously. The sad truth is, at her age, he would've been leading the charge—but it's been a long time since he's felt that engaged, and it almost hurts to be reminded.

Kurt swims up to the edge of the pool by Blaine's feet, tossing water out of his eyes and grinning. He treads water, putting his fingers on Blaine's naked toes. "Come on, I can be on top."

Blaine smirks.

"What?" Kurt asks, grinning.

You sure can, he thinks.

"You're a brat," he says. “Have I told you that today?”

"Not today.” Kurt smiles at him intimately. “Come sit on my shoulders. I bet you'd be fierce." His eyebrows go up and his eyelashes go down and no, there's no way that Blaine is winning this one. He unwraps his towel and slides into the water as Kurt ducks low to move in and lift him with a rather excitedly vicious, "Let's wreck these ladies!"

And they do, and it's fun as hell, Blaine has to admit (as it turns out, he is still rather fierce).

After, sprawled exhausted on lounge chairs in the last patch of late afternoon sun, he's making the girls fall in love with him with his sixth or seventh story about the glee club from “his day”. They're the perfect audience; they laugh and gasp in all the right places. Kurt is quieter now than he had been during their earlier games, though he's smiling just as brightly, his chin on his upturned palm.

The girls drift off home one by one as the light abandons them and when they're finally alone, Kurt enlists his help for the cleanup. He's glad to do something that will help keep his mind off of the portion of the afternoon that he'd spent with his thighs wrapped around Kurt's neck, feeling every bit of the strength in those shoulders and arms, Kurt's fingers digging into his legs and the back of his head constantly finding a snug home against Blaine's more intimate places.

It had been easy to ignore then. It's not so easy now as the bugs start to come out and he moves around the pool, gathering empty snack bowls and pop cans. It feels almost—domestic. Homey and safe and happily simplistic. He could get used to this with Kurt, and that scares him.

Kurt hip bumps him as they cross the patio door threshold, leads him into the kitchen where they deposit dishes into the dishwasher and tuck away chip bags.

"Could I hang this up in the laundry room?" His change of clothes is upstairs, but he hadn't thought about the wet trunks.

Kurt is leaning back against the counter next to the sink, his own swim trunks still wet enough to be hanging well below the sharp cut of his hip bones. He pushes off the counter and closes the distance between them with measured steps.

"For a small price," he replies, tucking one fingertip into Blaine's waistband on either side of his waist and pulling him in.

Crap.

His voice is rough when he murmurs, “And what is your price, Mr. Hummel?”

"One kiss," Kurt answers, rubbing their noses together.

Blaine's pulse slams against his throat. "That seems fair."

At that Kurt grins, his whole face lighting up with it, and he leans in and accepts the payment; it's brief, just a warm, dry press, their breath mingling and chests rising into each other. Blaine's head spins despite the brevity.

"I'll be right back," he breathes, when it's over and Kurt's eyes have gone glassy jade green and he's staring at Blaine like his world has been shifted on its axis.

Blaine shuffles upstairs before he can get lost in that gaze, retrieves his clothes, then goes to the laundry room, closes the folding door and changes, wincing when his jeans catch his half-swollen erection on the way up. He can't remember the last time that simple touches and kisses had so completely worked his libido into a frenzy.

He almost jumps out of his skin when Kurt opens the laundry room door, his own wet suit in hand. He's changed into a pair of sweats and a t-shirt and combed some kind of conditioner through his hair; it's slicked back off his forehead.

He hangs his bathing suit next to Blaine's, then hops up onto the washing machine.

"Your friends are really nice," he says, leaning against the machine, right next to Kurt's leg.

"They already like you better," Kurt sighs dramatically, leaning back on his hands. "It was inevitable."

"Oh, stop," Blaine laughs, poking him. "I'm interesting like a museum piece, that's all."

"God, you're not that old. You're fun. Stop putting yourself down."

He smiles. "Thanks. I don't really mean it, I just—it's been a long time since I've had fun, that's all." He shifts over, putting himself between Kurt's knees. "I did. Have fun, I mean. Thanks for inviting me."

Kurt's bottom lip, wet and bitten, pops free from his between his teeth and he smiles back, reaches out and puts his fingers into the mess of stiff, drying curls that make up Blaine's hair at the moment. Blaine hadn't even thought to gel after changing. He melts into the touch despite feeling sensitive about how big his hair is getting the longer it dries, tingles jolting from his sensitive scalp down the back of his neck and shoulders as Kurt strokes him.

Kurt begins to draw him closer, and he stiffens and stammers, "If—if we do this. Only what you're comfortable with. Okay?"

So logical, so smart. But there's nothing smart about Kurt shifting to the edge of the washing machine and pulling Blaine up into his mouth. There's nothing smart about putting two hands on Kurt's back, low enough to skim the sweet upward curve of his ass as he curls down and in, wrapping his legs around Blaine's torso. There's nothing smart about their tongues meeting open and wet between their mouths, about the wanting groan that escapes Blaine's throat when Kurt's fingernails scrape down the back of his neck.

He loses all sense of time as they grind and kiss, and when they finally break for air he's staring down at Kurt's hopelessly tented sweatpants and trying not to literally drool at the sight. God, he wants that young, eager cock in his mouth. He'd beg for it right now if he had to in order to get it.

Kurt's mouth brushes his jaw. "You feel so good." He sighs, turning their forehead together. "Show me—show me how to make you feel good?"

Blaine swallows around the lump in his throat, tugging Kurt down and off of the washing machine.

*

The last place that he'd expected to be at the end of this day is sprawled out underneath Kurt Hummel in his bed, the two of them making out like desperate teenagers with all of their clothes on. It had started out sweet and slow, Kurt half-draped over him, exploring his mouth tentatively, but at some point the escalation had escaped him and Kurt had sat up over his hips to get closer, to get more, and now Blaine is panting for air with Kurt's tongue in his mouth and his hands shoved up underneath Kurt's t-shirt, mapping the knobs of his spine.

In the middle of all of this breath and heat and friction, Kurt's pelvis has begun to rock down into his, and even though he's well past the age where that will do it, Kurt certainly isn't. Blaine can feel the hair trigger in Kurt's muscles, can feel how easy it would be to just keep rutting against him and let him come in his pants.

"We can slow down," he gasps, tearing their mouths apart.

Kurt whimpers and leans up on his hands. "I want to jerk you off."

Oh, god.

"That isn't quite the definition of slow down," he babbles into the moist air between them.

"It is for me," Kurt whines, pawing at Blaine's jeans. "Because I need to stop rubbing on you."

"Oh, god, okay—let me—" He undoes his fly, fingers slow and stupid, unable to stop staring at Kurt's pale fingers next to his, helping him get the zipper down.

It feels weird, for just one second, as it always does, his cock surging against the front of the slit in his boxers, brushing Kurt's fingers as if seeking his touch all on its own.

Even at thirty years of age, Blaine can't say that he's ever had a lover who he's ever really felt completely free with. With each boyfriend he had hoped it might be that way, and with some of them he had enjoyed varying degrees of happiness and attraction, but as each relationship had ultimately failed he'd given up by degrees, lowering his expectations to almost nothing. He dreads that here and now, so much so that he almost can't bring himself to continue.

And then Kurt leans over him and kisses the corner of his mouth, as soft as the brush of a feather, and whispers, "God, you're so gorgeous," and something in Blaine's chest loosens.

It isn't going to be like that with Kurt.

It isn't going to be like that with Kurt.

His mind reels.

He guides Kurt's hand around him, shaking as that strong, wide hand strokes him straight and hard. "I like it slow at first."

Kurt makes this tiny, soft, desperate sound when Blaine stiffens fully in his hand, and begins to stroke him up and down incrementally faster. Arousal washes over his face, striping a flush across the bridge of his nose that Blaine wants desperately to kiss and so he does, peppering Kurt's cheeks and nose while Kurt's hand moves between them.

The relief that pressure and friction bring is so acute that Blaine could weep. He finds himself rocking into the touch, the smallest jiggle of his pelvis flickering in opposite time to Kurt's hand. The heat building between them is palpable. When Blaine can't concentrate anymore he stalls the kisses, nudges their faces together so that their mouths are lined up, and buries the hand that isn't holding him up in a half-sitting position in Kurt's hair.

Kurt's wrist twists, changes angles, knocks up underneath the head just right, and Blaine tenses, whimpering his pleasure against Kurt's mouth. Kurt kisses his cheek and shifts his grip higher and starts squeezing a little bit and Blaine grows closer still, twisting his fingers in Kurt's hair.

"Almost," he moans, hips rolling.

"Can I taste it?" Kurt moans eagerly.

"Oh, oh," Blaine groans, and feels his balls cinch up.

Kurt doesn't wait for an answer; he bends low at that, wrapping those pink, wet lips around the head just in time for Blaine to pulse in his mouth. It's shocking, the sudden warmth and mobility and softness of a mouth, and Blaine fills Kurt's mouth with it, shoots so many times that he loses count, and it's down Kurt's throat and all over his mouth and dripping down his chin and his tongue is lapping it up and Blaine's eyes roll back in his head.

Kurt rubs the head of Blaine's cock back and forth across his soaked lips, licking the slit and kissing the spongy crown. His fist is white-knuckled around the shaft, still, covered in lines of come and making Blaine dribble weakly with every pass.

"God," he groans, collapsing to the bed. His whole body is tingling and throbbing and he can still feel the orgasm like a phantom beneath his skin, surging and cresting again and again.

Kurt gets a tissue from the bedside table and cleans up the mess that had escaped his mouth, his cheeks fire engine red and his pulse beating a visible tattoo against the curve of his throat. There's a wet spot down the front of his sweatpants, where his cock is straining against the fabric.

Blaine licks his lips. He's about to offer to return the favor when Kurt takes his hand and drags it between his legs, pressing it over the bulge.

"Please," he whines, "got so close when you came."

He isn't kidding. Blaine fists him only a few times before he comes through the thin material with a strangled, squeak-laced growl, the stain spreading and a few strong trickles of it even seeping right through the material to slick Blaine's fingers.

When it's over, Blaine rolls Kurt onto his back and kisses him. He kisses his cheeks and his nose and his ears and his jaw, smooths touches down his chest and waist and side and back; he can't stop, he can't think, he just wants to stay connected, wants this feeling of satisfaction and safety to never end. He only stops when Kurt starts to giggle.

"Tickles," he pants.

"Oh, sorry."

"Mm, no, 's'okay." Kurt's fingers touch the hem of his shirt. "Can we—take our clothes off?"

Blaine blushes hot. "Sure."

They've seen most of what there is to see thanks to afternoons in the pool, but the sight of Kurt's soft cock resting easily on his hip is new, as is the round spill of his ass cheeks back lit by moonlight coming in through the window. Blaine can feel Kurt's eyes on him, just as curious as his on Kurt. Touches follow the glances, Kurt's hands gentle and seeking all over his naked skin, even eager to touch his flaccid cock and soft testicles. He can't resist skimming his fingers over Kurt in reply and by the time they're done exploring Kurt is half-hard again.

Kurt presses close; his body is warm and his interest rapidly returning. Blaine lets out a soft, desperate noise when they begin kissing again.

"Oh my god," he whimpers, feeling Kurt against his thigh.

"S-sorry—"

"May I go down on you?" Blaine breathes, kissing Kurt's ear. "Please?"

"Oh."

"Lie back?"

He does, and Blaine kisses him until he's squirming, then moves down his body kiss by kiss, tasting his nipples and licking a stripe down the hollow between his ribs. He buries his face against the hair below Kurt's belly button, traces the flare of his hip bones with his tongue, then shifts lower as Kurt's hands cup his curls and nudge him downward.

Blaine gently lifts Kurt's long legs, bending them so that Kurt's feet are flat on the bed, then pushing them carefully apart until his cock and balls hang between them. His belly and chest are hitching with uneven breath as he stares down at Blaine, one hand still in his hair.

He doesn't even know where to start. He wants to put his mouth everywhere. He settles for licking a stripe up the underside of Kurt's cock, from the base to the flared tip, and savors the way that the responsive flesh twitches even fuller at his touch.

"Mm," he hums, wrapping Kurt up in his fist. "That's it; get nice and hard for me." Kurt whimpers, fucking up into his hand.

He takes his time, which is more for him than for Kurt; it's just that it's been so long, and from the moment he sinks his mouth around Kurt's big, hard cock he's starving for it, for the way that it stretches his mouth and the way that it tastes, for the twinge in his jaw after too long without a pause, and from the way that his lips go numb from friction toward the end.

He bobs and licks and sucks until his chin is wet and Kurt is fucking his mouth, up on his elbows so that he can watch himself disappear in and out of the circle of Blaine's lips.

He chants, "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god," and then comes without warning, pushing Blaine's mouth down around the base of his cock as he pulses. It's not much, but it's a mouthful, and Blaine swallows it greedily, savoring the bitter flavor.

He doesn't know how long he stays down there, licking Kurt's hips and groin and balls, wanting the smear of sweat over his tongue almost as much as he'd wanted the come in his mouth. He almost—almost edges below Kurt's balls, but figures that might be a bit too much for the first time and so he comes back up for air, nibbling lines across Kurt's belly with no goal other than more in mind.

Kurt's fingers slow to a crawl in his hair. He hums soft approval occasionally, but Blaine realizes after a while that he's just fighting sleep to allow Blaine the time to explore, so he stops and crawls back up the bed, kissing Kurt on the lips until his eyelids flutter open.

"Amazing," he murmurs, nuzzling their faces together.

"Is it alright if I stay?" Blaine asks, heart in his throat.

"Oh god, yeah, of course, um, the bathroom is down the hall, if you want to clean up."

The first glance in the bathroom mirror after sex is always interesting for Blaine. He eyes the hickey on the side of neck curiously. He finds the marks of Kurt's fingers on his body. He has no memory of any of that happening, but the reminders are satisfying in a very base way. He blushes and feels himself twitch with the memory of the last few hours as he brushes his teeth with the corner of a wet hand cloth and washes up quickly with the other corner as best he can.

He feels exposed, raw and changed, like he's wearing a new skin, but it's not frightening. Rather the opposite; being with Kurt had simply felt right, and the thought of going back to his bed and curling up next to him and sleeping the night through with him feels equally right.

When he crawls into bed, Kurt kisses his temple and goes to take his turn in the bathroom. When he returns he loans Blaine a pair of underwear and then spoons up behind him, wrapping his arms around him.

"Is this okay?" he asks.

Blaine nods, already half asleep.

The next morning he rushes across the way to his own house, clutching his dry swimsuit in his right hand. Burt had barely given Kurt five minutes' notice before pulling up in the driveway, and Blaine had only been able to steal a quick kiss before fleeing.

He finds a post-it stuck to the inside of the swimsuit with Kurt's phone number on it. He laughs, feeling the adrenaline from almost getting caught in his seventeen-year-old neighbor's bed pump in his veins. He dials the number before he can even think about whether or not it's a good idea.

"That was interesting."

"Oh my god, Kurt."

"You left me a little—excited."

"Did you know he was coming back so early?"

"No. I guess his patience for Aunt Meredith ran out. He was supposed to stay another night.”

Blaine closes his eyes and fights down a wave of delayed panic. He lowers his voice, though he knows he has no reason to. "Five more minutes and—" Blaine groans. He can hear the motion of Kurt's arm moving, the rustle of fabric and feedback from the way that the phone is moving against his cheek.

"What would've happened in five minutes?" Kurt's voice is starting to shake, and he's breathing heavily, and Blaine can't think, not knowing that he's sprawled on his bed rushing to come because his dad probably wants him downstairs.

He presses a hand to the bulge in his pants with a groan. "You were rubbing against me for at least a half hour. I wanted to push my underwear down and let you come all over me."

"Hngh. K-keep talking."

"Touched myself and rocked back into you, fantasized about just—letting you push inside of me."

"Oh, oh, god, Blaine—"

Blaine can't keep his hand from himself; he hastily gets his jeans open, tugs himself out, wraps his fist around the top half of his cock and pulls, fast and rough and so dry that it almost hurts, which is perfect right now because he has to come. "Kurt."

"Want that," Kurt gasps, getting closer and closer, his voice high-pitched, "want to fuck you." The last two words are a gasp of surprise and Blaine can hear him bend away from the phone as he comes.

"Ohmygod," Blaine groans. He drops his phone, it's that sudden, and stripes his shirt with come all the way up to the collar, his hand flying around himself so fast that it's nothing more than a blur. It's disgusting and filthy and also the hottest thing that's ever happened to him.

"Mmm," Kurt hums. "Five minutes. You're a man of your word."

Blaine giggles breathlessly into the phone.

*

He'd like to say that it isn't as exciting as it might sound, what with the risks and the fact that it's an all around terrible idea, but the truth is that it is as exciting as it sounds, or maybe Blaine is simply more of a pervert than he thought he was. Every encounter is more thrilling than the last.

One night Burt invites him over for the usual dinner and a game and when Burt dozes off in his armchair during the seventh inning stretch Kurt puts a hand under the blanket covering his and Blaine's laps and jerks Blaine off five feet away from his snoring father. Blaine hyperventilates and digs his fingers into the couch cushions to stay still. After, Kurt drops an open-mouthed kiss on his neck and licks the come from his fingers.

Another time they're alone but exposed in the pool, and Kurt builds a little fort of rafts over their heads and pushes Blaine between his thighs and rides Blaine's mouth until he comes, shaking and gripping the edge of the pool and sobbing loudly enough to be heard from the next yard over.

They use their hands and mouths on each other in every possible combination in every room of their respective houses until Blaine feels glutted on it, like a tick grown so fat with blood that he doesn't know anything but how to stay latched on and dread the inevitable drop. It's indulgent and dirty and sweet and overwhelming and there are times when he thinks he could close his eyes and sink into Kurt's arms and stay there and be happy, every day for the rest of his life.

Sneaking becomes an art, because it's not as if Kurt can suddenly start darting across the lawn to visit him every day. Burt may be an understanding father, but if he knew what was going on he'd put a stop to it, and he'd be completely within his rights to do so; Kurt is of the age of consent but he isn't a legal adult. Kurt handles most of the fabrication, but Blaine always breathes easier when they're alone in his house rather than sneaking around while Burt's at home in theirs.

There are times when privacy is impossible, and these instances force them to take their hands off of each other and talk, which proves to be no hardship; conversation comes easily. Some of Blaine's fondest memories of that summer involve Kurt's head resting tucked up underneath his chin while they lie in the backyard and talk, staring up at the night sky.

Blaine tells Kurt about his past relationships, his failed performing career and how he'd given in to the temptation of a stable nine to five when his parents had passed, and Kurt tells him about his crush on the high school quarterback and how it had led to getting bullied so badly by the football team that he'd jumped at the chance to move when his uncle had offered the garage to his dad.

They tangle their hands when they know Burt won't come outside, press kisses into each other's knuckles and wrists and play silly word games with musical themes, make up operatic plots with star constellations for characters (Kurt is always killing off his star crossed lovers and Blaine is always saving them), make each other laugh and sometimes cry, and by the end of the summer Blaine literally cannot imagine life without him in it.

*

Kurt starting school makes things easier. They have less time what with studying and extracurriculars and Kurt's social life, but the time that they do have is easier to work with; Kurt can schedule things farther in advance and also has a dozen excuses to call on should he need a reason to disappear for a few hours. Every now and then they can even even sleep over, so long as they're careful and don't make a lot of noise. Kurt having to park his car outside of town and get a ride back to Blaine's is time-consuming and tricky, but it's worth it.

The only aspect that proves challenging, really, is the noise restraint.

The first time that Blaine licks over Kurt's perineum, the sob that he releases is nothing short of explosive. Blaine has to hush him, even as he continues teasing, suckling the bumpy ridge down the middle into his mouth. Kurt is far too easy to push over with a blowjob, so Blaine has been licking and stroking in the vicinity for a while, and has finally worked up the courage to go lower.

"Oh my god, don't," Kurt gasps.

"Okay," Blaine says. "No interest in that?"

"Too much interest?"

"Oh." He watches Kurt's cock throb on his belly, then smiles. "Let me?"

"You—want to? You like doing it?" Kurt asks, breathlessly curious as he stares down at Blaine between his legs.

In reply, Blaine lowers his mouth to Kurt's skin again, spreading his cheeks apart and licking a stripe over his pucker.

"Okay then," comes the soft gasp, and Blaine grins into Kurt's hairy skin and points his tongue.

It's been a while, but there's nothing about this that has escaped him; he loves it, digging his chin in and using his lips and tongue together over and over until the wrinkled rim of Kurt's hole gives, winks open around his tongue. Kurt lets go of Blaine's hair and twists the sheets between his fingers instead, back arched, thighs spread, chest flushed pink and heaving.

"You like that? Like me licking you open?”

"Oh, god, yes."

"Can I try—" He gently lines up his thumb and presses the broad pad over Kurt's hole.

"God," Kurt hisses, thighs clenching up. "Yeah. Yeah. Okay."

Blaine angles his thumb the right way and all it takes is a little squirt of lubricant to ease the passage—more can come later, right now he just wants the quickest path to Kurt's prostate, and when he finds it—

Kurt's whole pelvis seizes up and his hands fly, one to his cock and the other to the pillow behind his head. "Blaine!"

"Mm, there we go." Blaine works his thumb in and out. "Touch yourself a little."

Kurt's tight brown-pink pucker gives way so easily; Blaine flushes just looking at it moving around his thumb, has to force his wrist to stay steady because he's starting to shake apart under the desire to spread him wider, to maybe—god, but they haven't even talked about that yet—

The head of Kurt's cock is wet and dribbling clear fluid, and Blaine can't help but lean up to lick the flavorless wetness away, lets his mouth spread over the tip of Kurt's cock and feels Kurt's knuckles catch him under his chin as they rise and fall up and down the shaft.

"Oh," Kurt pants, hand moving faster, and Blaine works his thumb to match the pace. "Oh, god, I'm going to come," he groans, and does, warm and thin and jerky down Blaine's throat with Blaine's thumb buried to the last possible inch inside of him.

It's a heady feeling, Kurt gazing down at him, blue-green eyes hazy with satisfaction and a smile curling his mouth into dimples so deep that Blaine has to kiss them.

*

Kurt invites him to one of McKinley's pep rallies.

"Are you sure your dad didn't mind?" he asks, because he's driving and he knows that Burt knows Kurt had invited him.

"It's not a problem," Kurt replies. "I just told him that you wanted to re-live your glorious youth."

Blaine rolls his eyes, laughing. "Gee. Thanks."

It's fairly tame as pep rallies go and, sadly, the riot that Kurt had warned him might happen doesn't (he would have liked to have seen that).

He blushes and squirms his way through watching Kurt perform in his form-fitting costume. Two of the three girls who Kurt has been friends with all summer are in the club and after the rally they flock around Blaine in the parking lot, until Kurt gives him a nod and they wander off together.

"You guys are really great," he says, even though he feels that the club had a more polished feel to it when he went to school here.

"We're a hot mess," Kurt replies, and slides his hand into Blaine's. "But it's getting there. Though I'm not sure I would've been so eager to join if I'd known in advance that the New Directions is the pull-the-victory-out-of-our-butts-the-week-before-the-competition type."

Blaine tenses. "Are we, um, okay to be like this here?"

The area of the lot where they'd parked is deserted now. "There's no one around." Kurt walks them around to the far side of the car that faces the football field. He's right, but Blaine is understandably nervous. The people in this town know him, and if they're spotted together holding hands—

Kurt nudges him into the side of the car and kisses him.

"Cheater," he breathes, deepening the kiss and sliding his arms around Kurt's waist.

"Would love for those asshole jocks to see us," Kurt whispers in between kisses. "Your hands all over me."

Blaine groans. This is hitting all of his buttons, and Kurt knows it. He tightens his hold on Kurt's back, pulls their hips snug together and lets Kurt's tongue inside of his mouth.

The excitement coursing through his blood is half fear, half lust; he bounces off of either extreme, heart pounding as the worry that results flickers as dark as blood and just serves to make him harder and harder still.

"Would you suck me off?" Kurt asks, breathing heavily, rutting himself along Blaine's hip. "Right here? On your knees in the parking lot?"

"Yes," he hisses, rubbing their bodies together. He tangles his fingers in Kurt's hair and reverses their positions, savoring the low oof as Kurt's back hits the side of the car. "Want me to?"

Just on the cusp of deciding whether it's worth the risk or not, Kurt's eyes dancing frantically over the people on the far end of the football field, Blaine's pulse roaring in his ears with the thrill of it, Kurt hastily opens the backseat door behind him, sits on the seat sideways and drags Blaine down to his knees on the asphalt.

"Do it fast," he breathes, pupils blown, and Blaine undoes his pants.

It's probably the roughest he's ever been; he sucks Kurt to the root and doesn't let go, not even far enough to pull off with a wet slurp. He lets Kurt deep into his mouth, deep enough to edge into his throat once or twice and just sucks, ignoring Kurt's whimpers and fingers pulling his hair, doesn't stop to wipe his chin off or breathe, just lets Kurt use him.

"Blaine," he cries, when Blaine takes his balls in his free hand and squeezes them. He doesn't let up, not even then, not even when he realizes that it's only been a minute or two and Kurt is already tensing up. When it comes he growls hungrily around his mouthful and swallows it down.

After, Kurt drags him onto the backseat, shoves a hand down the front of his pants and strokes him, biting and sucking on his ear as he pants, "Don't care, want them all to see how you take care of me—"

Blaine comes so hard that he sees white.

*

Blaine loves Halloween.

He loves putting on the cheesiest costumes that he can find, loves making the kids laugh and bounce when he asks them silly questions and riddles to get their candy. He sings for the ones who know him well enough to expect it, and that is especially fun. It's something that he looks forward to all year, and so he doesn't even really consider Kurt in regards to the holiday until Kurt tells him that he's going out with his friends and might not be around. Blaine doesn't mind. He doesn't expect Kurt's life to stop for him, and he's glad that Kurt has plans.

Which is why he reaches for the baseball bat in his closet when the buzzer goes off at two in the morning. He knows that sometimes teenagers will flout the Halloween curfew and stay out causing mischief, but he's never had a problem with the local kids before.

He glances out of the side window panel on his front door, shocked to find Kurt standing on his door step. He turns the porch light off and opens the door.

Kurt is dressed as a cat, skin-tight black leggings and a leotard making up the body of the costume, with a long fluffy tail at the back and a pair of lace-up boots on his feet to complete the outline. His hair is teased up high and topped with cat ears, and he's wearing mascara and black eyeliner around his eyes and at the tip of his nose, blush across his cheeks and pink lip gloss over his mouth. He's got whiskers glued to his face and a black collar with a little bell at the front around his pale throat and black silky gloves that go up to his elbows. There's a fluffy faux fur jacket dangling from his fingers.

Blaine learns that unconscious jaw dropping is indeed a thing that happens.

"Trick or treat, Mr. Anderson?" Kurt whispers huskily, tilting his head very much like a cat.

Blaine licks his dry lips and sputters, "You must be freezing."

Smooth, he thinks. Real smooth.

"I've got permission to stay out tonight," Kurt says, stepping inside, his boots thudding softly on the welcome mat. Blaine can't even move his fingers, he's so enthralled, much less process the knowledge that it's Friday and Kurt can stay over, which hasn't happened since he started school.

"Oh," he exhales finally, emptily.

Kurt leans in and kisses him, soft gloved hands touching his jaw on either side. "Been thinking about you all night," he says, the fake whiskers on his cheeks tickling Blaine's. His arms curl around Blaine's neck, the crooks of his elbows locking around the back while Blaine's arms hang stupidly at his sides. He hears the little jacket that Kurt had been holding fall to the ground with a soft floof.

"You didn't have to cut your night short to be with me," he finds himself babbling as Kurt's warm, slender body twines around his, that candy-sweet mouth dipping against his own sleep-sour one. He listens to the tinkle of the bell on Kurt's collar, feeling as if he's floating in the darkness with nothing but Kurt's body to anchor him.

"The girls were ready for bed, anyway," he replies.

Kurt hooks a gloved fingertip in the waistband of his pajama pants and walks him up the stairs, the tail sewed into the seat of his pants swaying with every step. Blaine can't stop staring at the boots that are defining his strong calves, or the way that his thigh muscles bulge against the tight fit of the leggings. His ass is glorious and full and shaking side to side, his back long and lean, his shoulders wide. The height of his hair and the ears only make him look even taller, and the gloves running up his forearms enticingly feminine on an otherwise masculine frame.

By the time they reach the bedroom Blaine is tenting his pants and breathless. He watches Kurt take off the boots, propping his legs up one after the other on the frame of Blaine's bed, taking his time undoing the laces while he watches Blaine watch him from under his thick, mascara-enhanced eyelashes. He strips off the leggings and the attached tail (god, his legs), twitches off the ears but leaves the gloves, the leotard, and the collar.

The removal of part of the costume is almost more erotic than the costume itself, especially when he reviews the pieces that Kurt has chosen to leave on. He knows just how much of a rush it is for Kurt to render him speechless, and doesn't mind one bit the evil smile that Kurt tosses at him.

He's never seen a man erect in a leotard before. The way that Kurt's considerable length and girth stretches the material is obscene—Blaine suspects that it's a woman's leotard, as well, so the cut is especially unforgiving—and he can only stare as Kurt sits back on the back, leans on his hands and lets his thighs spread.

His bulge shifts back toward his belly and he adjusts himself, letting his fingers linger a bit too long. Kurt is so big, thicker and longer than himself, and Blaine's mouth floods with saliva and his body twinges in greedy places. The bulk of him edges out of the leg hole of the leotard, pale column of hard flesh and brown wiry pubic hair, his fingers creeping around the width of himself, black gloves stark against pink skin, and his chest heaves as it fills.

"I could just watch you," Blaine says. "You're so gorgeous."

Kurt blushes. "Help me with the zipper?"

He does, with shaking hands and a wandering eye, unable to do much beyond gawk as the tight black material peels off of Kurt's slightly sweaty, milk-white skin. When the leotard is a dark lump on the floor and Kurt rolls the black socks from his slender ankles, Blaine is there, letting his fingers dance across the glitter on Kurt's jaw, tipping his face and kissing him softly.

His cock is hard and full on his belly as he kisses Blaine sideways. Blaine pulls back, lifts Kurt's left arm and gently tugs the fingertip of each gloved finger loose, then peels them from Kurt's forearms with the grip of his teeth. He repeats the same motion on the other arm, listening to Kurt's breathing accelerate. It's just the collar now, and Blaine likes it enough to want Kurt to keep it on. He nuzzles into Kurt's neck with kisses just for the pleasure of the bell's noise, and he can feel Kurt smile as he does so.

"Mm, you like that?"

"Yeah," he replies, tonguing Kurt's earlobe into his mouth and sucking on it. "God, yeah, I do."

Kurt crawls on top of him, pressing him into the bed with kisses, and unbuttons his pajama top. "You've got me until morning," he says, straddling Blaine's hips and sitting up to help him get his pajamas off. "What do you want?"

It's usually the other way around, Blaine asking Kurt what he wants.

He stares up at Kurt above him, still looking so feline despite the removal of almost all of the costume; his posture is flawless, his gelled up hair looks like ear tufts, and his glitter-smeared skin glows in the moonlight. The bell on his collar dangles, the black silk strap around his throat framing him perfectly. Blaine half expects to see the lash of a tail rise behind him.

He's like a creature from another world.

Blaine splays his hands over Kurt's hips, stroking from pelvis to belly to nipples and back again, letting Kurt's cock nudge his hands on the down stroke. He repeats this several times and then finally wraps his right hand around Kurt's erection.

"I want you inside of me," he says, voice raspy.

Kurt's eyes flutter shut and then open again. His body twists. "Oh. Oh, god, yes."

He rummages quickly for a condom and the lubricant, not wanting to have to stop in the middle of the best parts for clinical necessities.

It's the first time that Kurt's fingers have dipped down there—they simply haven't had the time or privacy before tonight to explore in that direction—and Blaine breathes soft instructions, telling him how to rub and press, and giving over the bottle of lubricant when he feels ready for more. It's wet and a little sticky and Kurt's eyes are wide as saucers as he edges two fingers inside.

"You're so warm," he breathes, twisting his fingers deeper.

Blaine's body clenches around the intrusion. It's been so long since he's had anything but his own fingers and the occasional toy inside of himself, and another man's fingers feel so good. He whines, lifting his legs so that Kurt can get even deeper.

"More, just, harder, please," he pants.

Kurt catches on quickly—there's a natural roughness to him in bed that always seems to hit the perfect pitch of Blaine's needs. It's not without the occasional misstep but it's perfect tonight, and before long he's three fingers in and there's lubricant all over Blaine's thighs and the bed and it's so wet, all he can hear is the squelch of Kurt's fingers fucking him open and the jingle of the bell on Kurt's collar shaking as his whole body leans into the task.

"So good," Blaine moans, knees almost to his ears as he bends for more, for deeper, for harder.

Kurt kisses the hairy bend of his calf, breathing heavily. "Can—can we—need you, god." His cock is wet at the tip and rutting along Blaine's leg. Blaine unwraps the condom and puts it on Kurt, watching Kurt watch his hands as he does it; a blush spills down his chest.

Kurt leans down and kisses him, balanced on his elbows. The tease of Kurt's latex-clad cock bumping between his bent legs is almost too much; Blaine squirms from the moment it begins until Kurt steadies himself and presses closer.

"If I do something wrong," he begins, gasping when Blaine arches up.

"I'll—I'll—oh, god."

Kurt is stroking the soft rim around his hole with the head of his cock. "You'll tell me?"

Colors snap and pop behind Blaine's eyelids. He whines, scrabbling his fingers down Kurt's sweaty back. "Fuck me. Please, god, need it, need your cock inside of me. P-promise, I promise I'll—"

"Okay," Kurt breathes, kissing him. "Okay, shh."

They lock gazes just as Kurt begins to press in, and Blaine's heart stutters in his chest. He can't tell which emotion is more at the forefront in Kurt's eyes; fear, nerves, adoration, or lust. It's such a confused blend that he gives up before he even truly begins trying to sort it out, his lips parting on a groan as Kurt's long, hard cock stretches his ass open.

"Oh my god," Kurt moans, eyes squeezed shut as Blaine's body lets him in. "Oh my god, you're so tight."

Blaine relaxes, breathes, and feels his ass unclench. It burns, but in the best way possible, and as always it just feels right; feels right to be full, to be open around a cock, to be shadowed by wide shoulders and bracketed by strong, hairy legs, held down and taken.

"Move, please."

"God. God, Blaine."

He does, slowly but surely, finding a rhythm that's choppy and wonderful and all his own, full of discovery and physical joy as Blaine's ass squeezes him and works him, again and again and again. The burn fades to the mildest of discomforts, and those dissolve into warm pressure, and pressure becomes sharp flares of pleasure, and before long Blaine is letting his body rock on the mattress, feeling the headboard brush his hair as Kurt's body moves him. He loses himself in it, eyes closed for a while, but he's shocked back into focus when Kurt nudges his shoulders up and under Blaine's knees. Kurt stares down at his face, flushed and panting.

"That okay?" he asks, moving on his knees.

Between the perfect glide of his cock and the warmth of his affection, Blaine doesn't think that okay adequately describes it. But all he says is, "Y-yes. You can—harder."

"How hard?" he asks, lowering his lips to Blaine's sweaty, feverish forehead.

Blaine scrapes his fingernails down Kurt's back and over the swell of his ass, roughly pulling him in. At the sweet gasp that escapes him, Blaine kisses him, quick and dirty.

"Hard. Make me feel it."

Shaking, Kurt sets his elbows and knees and Blaine scoots down lower under him and then—it starts, really starts, Blaine holding onto his shoulder blades like lifelines, the slap of their bodies sharp and sweet in the still air, Kurt's broken whimpers and staggered thrusts sending thrills through Blaine.

He discovers new ways to feel the burning stretch as Kurt hits every spot, every angle, makes him feel odd sensations flutter in his belly, his legs, and up his arms. There isn't an inch of the inside of him that isn't touched, and he falls in love with the sticky slap and peel away of Kurt's balls against his skin.

Toward the end they're sweaty and tangled and so close to muscle discomfort that Blaine drops his legs around Kurt's hips to stretch them, edges up close and Kurt cries out because that only makes Blaine go tighter around him, and Blaine wraps his fingers around the backs of Kurt's thighs and holds on.

"Please," he chants, not even sure what he's begging for, "please, please, please, oh, fuck, oh, god, Kurt, Kurt—"

"I c-can't," Kurt gasps, burying his face in Blaine's chest, fucking up into him at a rapid clip. "Can't, have to—"

Blaine wraps him up tight and close, feels as if he could hold Kurt's whole frame inside of his arms and legs and tries his damnedest to do so, floating on a buzzing haze of physical satisfaction.

He can feel it when Kurt comes, feel the way his body spasms and hear the sobbing cries muffled against the side of his neck.

"That's it," he breathes, not even sure of the words, "god, that's it."

"Let me," Kurt gasps, reaching between them.

"Not yet," Blaine answers, stroking his fingers through Kurt's sweaty, product-sticky hair. "Just—just stay for a minute." He loves the way that it feels after, warm and wet and his body completely open, the low pulse of Kurt's dick throbbing against the condom (he would love it even more if he could feel Kurt's come slick inside of him, but that's not possible right now), how full he is.

He lets go slowly, allowing his arms and legs to fall to the cool sheets at their sides. He breathes out contentment, letting the sensation curl deep inside of his chest. Kurt kisses him and doesn't stop kissing him, all over his face and neck and finally he begins the journey south, nipping Blaine's collarbones and nipples and belly, tracing his ribs and chest hair down. He's so sensitive from all the rubbing that when Kurt mouths around the head of his cock he gasps audibly, hands going flat on the bed. His body clenches and flutters around nothing.

"Put—oh."

"What? Put what?" Kurt asks, happily suckling away.

"Fingers, in me, if you—if that's okay, I just—I need something."

Kurt flushes, bites his lip. "I've got you."

God, his fingers are huge, thick and long and perfect, and Blaine's body settles around them as if they were made to fit there. He clamps down and lets go, lets his body relax into Kurt's mouth around him, but in the end it's Kurt's other hand that does it, a firm grip and a quick stroke and Blaine comes over his fingers sluggishly, gushing and not spurting, and the orgasm feels like a gunshot in slow motion, curling hard and sure down his body. It's intense; he blacks out for a few seconds, and comes to with four of Kurt's fingers working him and his dick twitching wetly on his belly. The damp shine of Kurt's fingers moving inside of him makes him convulse, and he feels the head of his cock twitch with the urge to spit again, but there's nothing left.

"Kurt," he breathes, utterly spent.

Kurt grins into his thigh, kisses a patch of sweaty skin and begins kissing dots of come off of his hip. By the time that he reaches Blaine's lips again Blaine is half-asleep, feeling almost drugged with satisfaction.

He isn't thinking at all when he sighs, "God, I love you," into Kurt's hair.

The silence and stillness that descends makes him realize the gravity of his confession. It's—too much, too soon, and he hadn't intended it to come out quite so completely, quite so breathlessly.

"I'm sorry," he says, closing his eyes. "I—I didn't mean—"

"Then why did you say it?" Kurt asks.

"I meant what I said, but I don't want to pressure you, if you don't—feel the same."

Kurt tucks his cheek against Blaine's heart and turns his face toward the open the window. "I—I'll admit, when this started I—just wanted to lose my virginity. I felt comfortable trying it out with you; flirting and trying to be sexy and—all that. You responded to me and I liked that. But I wouldn't be here with you tonight, doing this still, being with you, if I didn't love you, too. You're my first and—it meant something, it means something to me, but I don't think that I would have been with you a second time if I hadn't felt something that first time. And I certainly wouldn't still be here five months later." He pauses with a chuckle. "I tried to count how many times we've had sex but—let's just chalk up the months instead."

Blaine flushes warm, a grin spreading his mouth. He tangles their fingers and brings Kurt's knuckles to his lips. "You are sexy, you know that? You weren't just trying. And thank you for being honest with me."

Kurt smiles. He clears his throat, resettles their bodies so that they both have some access to the cooler parts of the sheets, and fusses with the condom that's slipping off of him. Blaine takes it and tosses it into the trash.

"I just want to be with you like this. Just like this. Is that okay?" Kurt asks.

"It's okay," he answers, gathering Kurt against his chest. "It's okay."

*

Epilogue

The summer between Kurt's sophomore and junior year of college culminates in the selection of an apartment in Brooklyn. Structural design and location are secondary to the question, when will we tell your dad, and also whenever that is I'll be washing my hair, is that okay?

They've waited, though Blaine is fairly sure that Burt already knows. They both want to be sure.

Deciding to quit his job, cash in his 401K and risk everything to move to New York and go back to school for a degree in musical education had not been done lightly.

A long distance relationship with Kurt has not been easy.

There had been that four month period during freshman year when Blaine had broken it off because he'd thought that Kurt had met someone and wanted to move on but was too polite to tell him. There had been a few weeks during sophomore year when an old college buddy had come back into Blaine's life—a man closer to his own age—and he had almost, almost made a mistake that would have probably ruined his and Kurt's relationship forever. There had been arguments and tears and confessions of all the little personal dirty details that hadn't come out when they'd been too busy rolling around in bed together. There had been loneliness and temptation and fights over text messages and unreturned calls and distance, always distance, and times when that distance had been obliterated by weekend visits that reminded them just how perfect for each other they are.

Each bump had been an honest-to-God test, and every time they had come back together, neatly riding the fall-out and asking, are we okay? The answer had always been yes.

They take Burt out to dinner.

Blaine knows for sure that it's a pointless gesture when Burt orders the most expensive thing on the menu and a pint of beer with a warning glance at Kurt to keep his opinion to himself and says, “I doubt you're here to sell me life insurance, so let's hear it. And I wanna hear it from you, too, mister.” He eyes Kurt again.

Kurt's forehead hits the table with a dull, comedic thump.

Blaine's mouth opens and doesn't close.

Burt holds up a finger. “One more thing. I don't wanna know how long it's been going on. I don't. You both got that?”

They mutter “yes, sir,” at the same time, and then Blaine adds, “I realize how unconventional this is, Mr. Hummel, and I just want to say—”

Kurt puts a hand on Blaine's on the tabletop and says, very quickly, “We're moving into an apartment together when I go back to school.”

Blaine shuts his mouth and nods. He's more than willing to let Kurt handle this one.

“That long, huh?” Burt says, sighing, though his eyes are bright and it's obvious that he's resigned in an amused sort of way. He knows his son. When they just continue to smile, hands clasped together on the tabletop, he puts down his empty pint, signals the waiter for a refill and adds, “Well. That's good, 'cause I'll know where you live.” He points at Blaine. “You better make him so happy the sun shines outta his butt.”

“Dad,” Kurt groans.

Burt winks at Blaine. “We'll see how this goes, Anderson.”

(As it turns out, it goes pretty well.)