“We should go to Vegas!”

Kurt snorts out a laugh. “Excuse me?” He raises his eyebrows, looking up from the latest issue of Vogue that he had been reading. He’s stretched out on the couch with his legs draped over Blaine’s lap, the TV playing softly in the background but mostly left ignored. They’re lucky enough to have a few hours to themselves most evenings, after putting Amelia to bed, when they can just be together. It never gets old for Blaine, getting to be with Kurt, no matter what they’re doing.

“Come on, we deserve a vacation!” Blaine puts on what he thinks is his most adorable grin. Not that he thinks it’ll get him anywhere, but he can hope. “Vegas would be fun.”

“And so family friendly.” He lifts the magazine back up, hiding his face.

“Kurrrrt.”

“I’m not going to Vegas! That’s a terrible idea!”

“It’s an awesome idea.”

“It’s a ‘Blaine-has-had-way-too-much-caffeine-tonight’ idea.”

“We can complain about how tacky everything is. That’s your favorite thing to do.”

“Blaine!” Kurt laughs, letting the magazine fall again.

“And we could have one of those weddings with an Elvis impersonator doing the ceremony!”

“Oh my god, no!” Kurt hides his face in Blaine’s shoulder, shaking with laughter.

“You’re no fun.” Blaine gives an exaggerated pout, and Kurt lifts his head.

“Mmhm, that’s me. No fun at all.” He leans forward, kissing Blaine’s bottom lip until the pout melts into a smile, and then they separate with a wet little noise that makes Blaine want to chase him. Kurt grins as he sits back, tilting his head to look at Blaine. “I love it when you’re like this,” he murmurs, brushing a shower-damp curl out of Blaine’s face.

Blaine hums, leaning in to kiss Kurt again. He has to agree. He loves feeling like this, too, is stupidly proud of it. Like he’s made it through, like everything’s going to keep being okay. Like he really believes all that. The TV remains forgotten in the background, the magazine laying open on Kurt’s lap, the most beautiful man in the world in his arms, and Blaine is absurdly happy tonight.

They sit there for a while, drinking in the early night-time silence, until Blaine starts to ramble, as sudden happiness often makes him do. “We could totally get married though. We wouldn’t have to go to Vegas.”

If Kurt heard he doesn’t respond. Blaine feels him tense, though, when before he had been all loose and relaxed.

“I mean, obviously,” Blaine goes on, laughing nervously. “Because we live in New York. Duh.”

“Uh-huh,” Kurt says noncommittally. He sits up and moves away, while Blaine keeps babbling like an idiot and wonders why he bothers talking at all.

“We can make it even tackier than a Vegas wedding - I’m sure there’s an Elvis impersonator somewhere in New York - what are you doing down there?” He blinks down at Kurt, who kneels on the floor between Blaine’s knees - which spread to accommodate him on instinct - and pulls his boxers down just below his ass. Blaine glances back toward the hallway and Amelia’s room - funny how they spent their teenage lives sneaking behind their parent’s backs, but now that they’re parents themselves they have to hide from their own kid. “Kurt?”

Kurt shoots Blaine a smile that doesn’t quite make it to his eyes, and Blaine wants to figure out why but then Kurt’s hand is wrapped around him, and there’s not enough blood in his head anymore to think of anything but that. Kurt ducks down to kiss the inside of Blaine’s thigh and the base of his hardening cock, eyes dark when he looks back up. Blaine fights back a whimper.

“Can’t talk, I’m busy,” Kurt purrs, and then he ducks his head and takes Blaine into his mouth in one go, hot wet heat so sudden it makes Blaine’s hips jerk forward but Kurt takes it in stride, swallowing around him, and yeah, any thoughts of talking fly right out of his head. Whatever they were talking about must not have been important, anyway.

Only later, when Kurt is asleep in his arms, does Blaine really think about what he had said before spontaneous blowjobs happened. The whole marriage thing. It hadn’t been a serious proposal by any means - he doesn’t really want to get married in Vegas (although he did once go through a phase where he wanted to be an Elvis impersonator.)

But he can’t deny the twinge of longing when he thinks about it. He misses being married, being a husband. True, he hadn’t been very good at it, but that was a long time ago. He’s sure he could set things right this time. He could do right by Kurt and Amelia, be a husband and a father instead of the toxic waste he was. Like he always should have done.

That is, if Kurt wants to give him a chance. He’ll just have to work extra hard to convince him.

Kurt turns in his arms and nestles close, smiling in his sleep. He looks younger, like this, worry-lines smoothed away. Blaine kisses his forehead and closes his eyes, snuggling closer to his boyfriend/partner/whatever, hoping that maybe he can trade all those not-quite-right titles in for fianc�e sooner rather than later.

--

“So I think Blaine wants us to get married.”

“WHAT?!”

Kurt winces, holding the phone away from his ear while Rachel shrieks. “Rachel! Volume control! I don’t think the entire caf� heard you yet!” One sour-faced old lady looks at him from her table a few feet away, and he shoots her a tight smile.

“Sorry, sorry, just - wow! That’s so exciting! So he proposed? How did he do it? Was it romantic?”

“Ah, not in so many words, no. He mentioned it, though. Not sure how serious he was.” Please don’t be serious, Kurt pleads silently. He knows he’s being stupid, but he can’t help it. He steps up to the counter and takes his coffee, sitting at one of the few empty tables in the crowded coffee shop. Blaine is supposed to meet him here in a little bit for lunch, but Kurt just needed a moment to talk to someone about… all of this. Before it drives him insane.

“Well, what did you say?”

“…I gave him a blowjob.” The old lady looks up again and he grits his teeth and forces himself not to flip her off. At least Rachel isn’t here to see him blush like an innocent schoolboy. Pathetic. But not as pathetic as distracting your boyfriend from pseudo-proposing with a blowjob. “And then we continued not to talk about it.”

“…Oh.” Rachel says delicately. Kurt sighs and slumps back in the hard-backed chair, peering around the coffee shop to make sure Blaine hasn’t arrived yet. This isn’t a conversation he wants Blaine walking in on. “So this isn’t a good thing.”

“No. Yes? I don’t even know.” Kurt groans. “I just wanted him to shut up about it. I completely freaked out and he wasn’t even proposing for real! And I really don’t know what I’m going to do if he actually proposes, Rachel.”

“I don’t get it! You used to have entire scrapbooks full of wedding plans. It was all you ever talked about! Happily-ever-after, marrying your Prince Charming and all of that.”

“Well, I grew up,” Kurt says, not without bitterness. Whether he and Blaine are together forever or not, no matter how happy they are, his life is not and never will be a fairy tale. He’s accepted that. Or he thought he had, until the idea was dangled in front of his face again. Damn Blaine.

“It’s obvious you’re crazy about each other, though. Every time I come over you guys are attached at the hip, it would be gross if you weren’t so cute.”

“I know, I know! I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” He refrains from smacking his head on the table. “I’m such a jerk.”

“Oh, sweetie, you are not!”

“Why can’t I just trust him? Every time I think I’m there, something happens to freak me out and - god, I love him so much, I do, he’s everything to me so why am I still scared?”

“Because he’s everything to you.”

Kurt feels sniffly, but he doesn’t let himself get too weepy or Blaine will fret when he gets here and Kurt won’t be able to explain what he’s upset about. “Yeah.”

“Don’t feel bad because you might not be ready to get married, okay? You haven’t been together that long. You know Blaine, he won’t be mad.”

“I don’t even know if I’m not ready.”

“Well then, if he proposes, talk to him about it! Work it out and decide what you want to do together. It doesn’t have to be a big deal.”

Kurt huffs. He knows all that, of course, but he can’t seem to stop being stupid long enough to think it through. “When did you become the reasonable one?”

“I like to think we alternate roles.”

“Wouldn’t want it to get boring.”

A bell dings as the door opens, and Blaine steps into the coffee shop, hair an artful slicked-back tousle, jeans clinging to his legs just so. For a second Kurt worries that he’s having heart failure, but no, it’s just the way Blaine makes him feel. They see each other every single day but he still makes Kurt feel like a teenager again all the time. Blaine meets his eyes and grins in that way that Kurt treasures because it’s so rare, and Kurt finds himself smiling back and waving, despite his the anxiety clawing at him. “I have to go, Blaine’s here. But thanks for listening to me whine.”

“Anytime. Love you!”

Blaine sits down across from him, cup of coffee steaming in his hand, already in the middle of some story about his day, and Kurt watches him with a soft smile on his face. He would have thought being around Blaine would make him panic about the whole marriage thing even more, but it’s the other way around. It’s only when he’s alone with his own thoughts that he gets freaked out.

Even if he’s not sure about much, at least he knows he wants Blaine.

---

“Remember how awesome married sex was?” Blaine says happily. Kurt’s fingers drive deeper inside of him all at once when before he had been taking his sweet, slow time, making Blaine jolt. It’s kind of amazing, though, and he arches his back to press closer to Kurt’s touch.

“Married sex is exactly the same as not-married sex, Blaine,” Kurt says as if he’s talking to particularly ridiculous child.

“No it’s not,” Blaine insists, and yeah, this is a stupid way to bring it up, but sex makes him kind of stupid. Sex with Kurt renders every brain cell useless because there’s no one, no one in the world better at it than him. They’re sex-experts by now. “It’s awesomer.”

“Sure it is.”

Blaine twists his head at a weird angle to look at Kurt, who is intensely focused on fingering Blaine the way he focuses on everything he does. He doesn’t manage to make eye contact. “Bet I could prove it if you married me.”

Okay, so it’s by far the worst proposal ever, and Blaine kind of wishes he could fall in a hole and die now. But if it doesn’t work he’ll just pretend he was kidding. It usually works.

“I would love to talk about this some more, dear,” Kurt says, in a way that means he really doesn’t want to talk about it at all, and that makes Blaine’s heart sink. He crooks his fingers and finds that perfect spot and Blaine presses his face into the pillow to muffle his groans as little fissures of pleasure run up his spine. “But I’m a little busy.”

“Too busy to talk?” He manages to gasp. “You aren’t even using your mouth - oh shit oh shit oh fuck Kurt…”

“That’s better,” Kurt mutters before he gets back to it, and with that he’s successfully destroyed the part of Blaine’s brain that makes him capable of speech.

Score one for Kurt, he supposes.

---

He likes to watch Kurt go through his nightly skincare routine (Blaine’s is always finished long before Kurt’s is), for some reason. Blaine always goes to bed with a book to read – even sleeping next to Kurt isn’t always enough to get him through his insomnia - but more often than not, it ends up forgotten beside him as he watches Kurt sit at his mother’s old vanity table with paint chipping off its legs because Kurt refuses to do anything to restore it, rubbing cream after cream into his skin to keep it young and soft no matter how much Blaine insists that his skin is perfect. (“Yes, and it will remain perfect as long as I keep doing this.”) They don’t really talk much, but it’s another way to spend time together.

But neither of them has brought up what Blaine said just an hour ago, and it’s making him fidgety. Twice now Blaine has brought up the topic of marriage, and both times Kurt had cut him off. There’s something wrong with that.

“You can’t keep distracting me with sex forever, you know,” he says.

Kurt meets his eyes in the mirror, raising one eyebrow. “Is that a challenge? Because I’d be happy to try but I just showered.”

“You’re not taking me seriously.”

“Say something serious and maybe I will.”

Blaine sighs, sitting up. “I just think we should talk about it, that’s all.”

“About what?”

“Getting married.”

Kurt lets out a long sigh, setting down the bottle of lotion down on the table. “Blaine.”

“It would make sense, wouldn’t it? We know we want to stay together, so there’s no reason not to, and it would make legal stuff with Amelia so much easier and -“

“Blaine.” Kurt finally spins around to face him. “What are you doing?”

He bites his lip and looks down at his lap, embarrassed and not really knowing why. “I just thought...”

“You don’t have to prove anything to me, you know? Signing a piece of paper isn’t going to make me feel any differently about you. I love you too much for that.”

“That’s not…” Blaine trails off. He doesn’t know how to explain what he wants, or why he wants it, but that’s not it at all. He’s not trying to prove anything. And here he’d thought he’d gotten better at talking about his feelings.

“Now, get that look off your face.”

“I don’t have a look.”

“Yes you do.” Kurt stands up and crosses the room, sitting next to Blaine on the bed. “It’s an ‘I’m-feeling-sorry-for-myself’ look. Which leads to a depressed look. And you’ve been doing really well lately and I’m very proud of you, so let’s try to avoid that. Anything bothering you?”

Blaine shakes his head and doesn’t say, only the fact that you won’t talk to me about something so important.

“I don’t believe you. You know you can tell me anything, right?”

“Do you regret getting married?” He asks softly, before he can lose his nerve.

Kurt bites his lip, actually thinking about it, which Blaine didn’t expect but is honestly grateful for. He loves that Kurt can always tell when he needs to be taken seriously.

“No,” he says slowly. “No, of course I don’t. I regret a lot of the things that we let happen. And not trying harder to make it work. But I don’t regret anything about you because all of it brought us here, right?” Kurt touches his cheek, thumb stroking over Blaine’s cheekbone and he leans into the touch.

“But you don’t even want to talk about it,” he says after a moment.

“It’s only been four months, Blaine.”

Right. Sometimes Blaine forgets how they’d spent so much time apart. When he’s spent so much time with Kurt four months really isn’t anything, in the long run. They’re still figuring this out.

That doesn’t stop him from wanting, but.

“Okay,” he says quietly. He’ll keep his mouth shut for now, and figure out a more… eloquent way to ask next time, at the right time. He’ll do it right, and maybe by then, Kurt will be ready to talk about it.

“Thank you.” Kurt leans in to kiss him on the cheek, and Blaine can’t help but smile. “Love you.”

“Love you, too,” Blaine echoes, smile widening. He’s not counting this as a rejection, not really, because it wasn’t really a proposal. He’ll do it right next time and if Kurt still says so – he won’t – then… well, that will be that.

He can add that to the list of things he’s proud of – even when things don’t go quite right, he doesn’t let that knock him down.

---

He expects Amelia to give away the surprise immediately, but when Kurt asks them why they got home later than usual Amelia gives Blaine no time to stumble over an explanation. “We got ice cream!” She says cheerfully, and doesn’t mention anything about the ring in Blaine’s pocket.

“Your papa sure does spoil you.” Kurt bends down to kiss her, and then back up to kiss Blaine – Amelia groans “Daddy, gross!” but they pay her no mind. “I’m going to shower before we start dinner, okay?”

“No problem.” Blaine offers him a smile, watching Kurt’s back as he retreats down the hall, and as soon as the bathroom door closes behind him Amelia whispers, “Let me see it again!”

“Okay, okay,” Blaine laughs. She bounces up and down in excitement as he pulls out the little blue velvet box and opens it up, and Amelia gasps, even though she just saw it not ten minutes ago.

“Oh, he’s going to love it, Papa,” she sighs happily, clapping her hands.

“I hope so.” He shuts the box with a soft snap and tucks it back into his pocket, already brainstorming for a place to hide it.

“He is.” Amelia says firmly, like her word is law. “’Cause the diamonds –“

“Sapphires, sweetie.”

She frowns, fumbling over the word. “The pretty rocks are blue like Daddy’s eyes, so he’ll love it. And then you’ll get married and we’ll all live happily-ever-after, right?”

Blaine just smiles. It might be a lot to hope for, but he’s starting to think that he might be able to believe in happily-ever-afters again.

---

He finds the ring in Blaine’s underwear drawer, which is a stupid place to put it, but Blaine isn’t always smart, Kurt supposes. More accurately he finds the box, but there’s nothing else it could hold, really.

Kurt stares at it for at least five minutes, basket of clean laundry still balanced on his hip. It’s small and covered in soft blue velveteen, so simple and so lovely itself that what’s inside must be beautiful. His fingers itch to touch it.

And it’s for him, if he wants it. He could look right now, and put it on, and Blaine would come home and find him wearing it and know what that meant. Tears would probably be shed. It would ruin whatever Blaine probably has planned – he doesn’t try to think about what that might be, Blaine never fails to take Kurt by surprise – but that would be okay, in the end. Nothing they do really goes as planned, anyway.

Or he could run, and pretend he never saw it.

He closes his eyes and takes a long, deep breath before he starts putting the laundry away, covering up the little box with clean underwear without looking at it a moment longer. He honestly doesn’t know what he would do if he opened the box, and the not knowing is… terrifying.

He shoves the drawer closed, wondering when he started being so unsure of what he wants.

When he sees Blaine later that day, sees the beautiful face that he’s so, so painfully in love with, he nearly mentions the box at least three times, but his mind is a whirl of yes yes yes no no no I don’t know what to do. He never says a word.

My life is not a fairy-tale, Kurt tells himself, again and again.

---

Two months later they’re in Lima for the first time in years. Rachel tries to get the old New Directions together at least once a year during her yearly visit to see her dads - it doesn’t always work out, time and distance and the cost of travel interfering, but at least they try, and Rachel is still determined to keep her resolution of being their best friend for the rest of their lives. Kurt hasn’t gone for a while - no money to spare, Amelia too little to travel, not being able to bear talking about Blaine and the breakup and how everything had fallen apart. It was safer to stay away, in those days.

But they have the money to go right now, so Kurt brings it up one night after Rachel gives him the date and time to be there, if he can make it. Blaine’s nervous about seeing everyone – they’re still protective of Kurt, when they remember to be - but no one but Rachel and Santana really know what their lives have been like in recent years other than secondhand gossip, so there’s little chance of awkward interrogations from their old friends. It feels like the right time to reconnect, and it’ll be nice to see Burt and Carole, and give Amelia time to visit her grandparents (and, let’s be honest, let them spoil her to death.)

“Fine,” Blaine says, “but couldn’t we have the reunion in Vegas?” He waggles his eyebrows, and sends Kurt into a laughing fit that lasts at least five minutes.

It’s no less bizarre sitting in the Berry’s basement with his high-school friends now than it always was. The parties are less ‘oh my god we’re all together again, let’s get trashed’ than they used to be, and more ‘oh my god we’re all together again, let’s sit around and talk about the good old days.’ Most of them managed to make it – Mike and Tina, her belly swollen huge with their first pregnancy, unable to keep the proud grins off their faces as the rest of the girls coo over her. Finn is there, always is – he’s the closest, only a short drive away in Columbus – and though he’s got this cute redhead Kurt has yet to meet on his arm, he and Rachel have been awkwardly maintaining eye contact since Kurt and Blaine arrived. Kurt knows well enough not to touch that one with a ten foot pole. Puck keeps showing everyone hundreds of photos of his kids, and really wants to set them up on a play date with Amelia, never mind that they live on the other side of the country. Even Santana is there, to everyone’s surprise, and she’s been sitting in the corner quietly talking to Brittany most of the night. Again, ten foot pole, but he hopes things are going well.

No sign of Quinn, but everyone had mostly given up on seeing her again, anywhere but on Facebook. Kurt doesn’t blame her for vanishing, really – he understands wanting to be as distant from Lima, Ohio as possible, and the worst times of her life happened here, after all. But he still wonders what she’s up to, sometimes. Artie couldn’t make it, and Mercedes and Sam only for a few hours on the way to some other event, but at least they get a chance to catch up with them.

It’s strange and wonderful to see how they’ve all changed or haven’t, the paths their lives have taken them down. Every time Kurt is around these people, he’s overwhelmingly happy and full of nostalgia and melancholy all at once. It’s a giant family reunion at its best.

Blaine sticks close to him all night, spending most of their time on the couch in the corner of the basement with their hands clasped between them. It’s not that they don’t want to socialize – there’s almost always someone perched on the arm of the loveseat, chatting away – but when they are left alone they’re content with their private, quiet space, watching their friends laugh and joke and dance and get progressively drunker as the night goes on. Blaine’s thumb keeps stroking Kurt’s ring finger, and when Kurt notices he just smiles and snuggles up close with a quick peck on the cheek.

There’s drinking in abundance, and Kurt can’t help but be nervous, casting glances at Blaine every few minutes even when they’re not next to each other. But Blaine doesn’t stare longingly at the drinks Puck and Santana mix for everyone, or sneak away to get one. When Puck offers Blaine a tall glass of rum and Coke, he bites his lip and takes a deep breath before he smiles politely. “Nah, I’m on some medication that doesn’t mix well with it, and I’m driving tonight. Thanks, though.”

“Suit yourself,” Puck shrugs, and takes the drink to Finn instead.

“What?” Blaine asks when he catches Kurt staring at him.

“Just, you…” Unable to find the right words, he gestures toward the makeshift bar Puck set up. “You don’t want any?”

Blaine shrugs. Like it’s no big deal. Kurt knows that’s not the case, but still. “Well, yeah. I’m always going to want it, I think, but it’s not… like it was. I don’t feel like I’m going to fall apart if I don’t get a drink. I don’t think I even crave it most of the time, really. Sure, I miss it, the way it made me feel, but…” Miserable? Suicidal? Kurt thinks, but he doesn’t say it. He can’t pretend to understand. Blaine shrugs again, looking proud and sheepish at the same time. “I don’t need it anymore.”

Kurt has to kiss him, just has to, and he almost misses and mostly catches the corner of Blaine’s mouth, and Blaine’s makes a surprised noise into Kurt’s mouth. But once they’re on the same page it’s perfect, and Kurt nearly loses himself in the kiss – because kissing Blaine still isn’t old, Kurt’s pretty sure it’s still the most intense thing they can do no matter how much sex they’ve had over the years. Then Santana plops down on Blaine’s lap and forces them apart, groaning, “Please dear god distract me from Berry’s pantsuit, what is she thinking?”

She’s glaring at Brittany, looking lost in the far corner of the room, not Rachel. Not so great, then, poor things. Neither of them mentions it. It’s obvious from the way she curls around Blaine and drapes her long legs over Kurt’s lap that she needs comfort but would rather not talk, anyway.

Kurt settles for nuzzling at the hinge of Blaine’s jaw, murmuring, “I’m so proud of you.” It’s an understatement, words can’t even describe; he feels a little choked up just thinking about it. And Blaine did this part on his own, that’s the most amazing part – Kurt kept him away from the alcohol, but while starting on the road to getting over his depression had taken long hours of talking, he had dealt with the addiction in silence and gotten past it by himself.

There are still days when Blaine can barely get out of bed it the morning. Nights when Kurt wakes in the middle of the night to the sound of Blaine crying into his pillow, trying so hard to stay quiet, and Kurt has no idea why or what to do except hold him tight. There are times when Kurt feels so helpless that for half a second he almost wants to give up – he never will, but deep down where he’ll never admit it, yeah, he thinks about it. He knows there will be days like that for the rest of their lives, and he’s slowly managing to come to terms with that.

But then there are days like today. Days when he realizes that Blaine has taken a gigantic leap forward when Kurt wasn’t watching; when he’s finally himself again. And those are the days Kurt lives for.

The party starts to lull, the music going quieter. Blaine lifts his head from where it had been laying on Kurt’s shoulder and noses at the space behind his ear, murmuring, “I need to ask you something.”

“Sure,” Kurt says, fighting back a yawn. Sitting here with warm bodies draped over him for so long has made him all sleepy. “What is it?”

Instead of answering Blaine smiles shyly, nudging Santana until she grudgingly lets him up, muttering something about getting another drink. Kurt watches with an eyebrow raised as Blaine stands up, shifting from foot to foot nervously, still holding onto Kurt’s hand.

“Kurt,” Blaine begins, and then pauses, biting his lip. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Kurt says. “Are you okay?”

“I think so.” Blaine takes a deep breath. “I don’t have, like, a speech prepared or anything, but - you’re the love of my life, I know it, and there’s never going to be anyone else for me. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Which is why…”

When Blaine drops to one knee, Kurt stops breathing.

“Kurt Hummel…”

“Oh my god,” Kurt whispers. Somewhere in the background Rachel shrieks in delight, and Santana says matter-of-factly, “Well holy-fuckin’-shit.” Kurt barely registers it, or much of what Blaine says either, and he shouldn’t be in shock but he is. He doesn’t know what to do and Blaine is still looking at him with those giant Disney-prince eyes and pulling something out of his pocket, and Kurt just might pass out.

This isn’t happening, he thinks, no matter how much time he’s had to come to terms with it. I’m not ready to think about this.

Blaine opens the little blue box in his hand, the same one that Kurt found two months ago. The ring reflects the fairy lights that illuminate the basement and the tiny sapphires in it twinkle beautifully. “Kurt,” he says, voice choked with emotion, “Will you marry me?”

Around them their friends are cheering and encouraging them (“Wait, they aren’t already married?” Puck says) but Kurt can’t hear anything but his own heart pounding in his ears, or feel anything but Blaine’s sweaty palm holding his hand. Seconds pass and still he can’t say a word, frozen like a statue.

“Kurt?”

“I need a moment,” Kurt whispers, barely able to make his lips move. He looks away before he can see the crestfallen look on Blaine’s face.

“Kurt –“

“I just need a moment,” Kurt repeats, louder this time, tugging his hand out of Blaine’s and standing up. He’s out of the basement before he realizes it, his feet carrying him on autopilot up the stairs. He only realizes where he’s going when he gets to Rachel’s old bedroom.

It’s the same as it always has been, garishly colored and every surface covered in gold stars, but he’s spent so much time in here that it’s a comfort. He shuts the door behind him and sinks down onto the bed, hands trembling so much he has to fist them in the sheets to make them stop.

There’s no reason to panic this much, but he can’t seem to help it – he just doesn’t know what to do. He should want this more than anything. In some ways he does. So why can’t he just say yes and be done with it?

Fuck. And he’d just left Blaine there to wonder what he had done wrong. Yet another way Kurt has screwed this up. Before he can judge whether he’s able to go back or not, a knock sounds on the door, and he knows who it is. Kurt takes a deep breath, trying to ground himself – there’s no point in being hysterical even when he feels like it, it will only freak Blaine out and he doesn’t want to ruin everything more than he already has. “Yeah?” He calls out, voice cracking.

“Can I come in?” Blaine’s voice is as wobbly as Kurt feels.

“Please.”

Blaine hesitates a moment before he steps inside, shutting the door behind him with a soft click. His face – he looks so worried and ashamed and scared, and Kurt hates it, can’t stand that that look is because of him. “I’m sorry,” Blaine blurts out, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean – I just thought –“

Sorry; why is Blaine sorry? It’s all Kurt’s fault. He tries to interrupt but his voice is too soft, and Blaine doesn’t hear, hands flailing as he fumbles through a misguided apology.

“I just thought maybe I needed to be more romantic, you know? Do it properly. I – I didn’t realize it would upset you do much, we don’t have to get married if you don’t want to, it’s okay –‘

“Blaine, don’t,” Kurt pleads, and that makes him fall silent. He stretches his arms out wide and Blaine falls into them immediately, hugging Kurt a little awkwardly from above, and just that helps Kurt to relax, a little. Blaine sits down once Kurt releases him, still looking concerned. “I’m not mad at you, okay?”

“…oh.”

Kurt smiles despite himself. “I just needed a minute alone.”

“I can go –“

“Please don’t.” Kurt closes his eyes, laying his head down on Blaine’s shoulder for a moment. “I shouldn’t have reacted like… that.”

Blaine shakes his head. “I had no idea it was such a big deal. I mean, of course it is, that’s not what I meant, I just –“

“You don’t have to keep apologizing. It’s okay.”

“I really do.” Blaine lets out a short laugh.

”But I’m the one who’s been avoiding you.”

”Which I should have realized meant no.”

He’s still holding the little blue box open in his hand. Kurt can’t take his eyes off of it, the simple polished silver band with its scattering of tiny sapphires. “It’s a beautiful ring.”

“Amelia picked it out. She’s got an eye for that sort of thing.”

“Of course she does, she’s my daughter.” How can he not wear it knowing that? “God. You’re serious about this. Marriage.”

“Only if you want to,” Blaine says, so earnest. “Only if you’re ready. We can stay the way we are, it’s okay. And I’m really sorry I kept pushing you. You said you didn’t want to and I should have respected that.” He looks down at his lap and mumbles, “Guess I’m still screwing this up.”

Kurt kisses him without thinking about it, fierce and possessive, and Blaine gasps against his mouth. “No,” he says when he pulls away, a hand on Blaine’s chest when he automatically leans in for another kiss. “No, you haven’t ruined anything, Blaine. I’m the one being stupid. So just – stop talking about yourself that way, I can’t stand it.”

Blaine nearly starts to apologize, but Kurt gives him a look that stops him before he can speak at all. He laughs sharply, glancing away. “I just want us to get our happily-ever-after, too,” he says softly. “Don’t we deserve it?”

Kurt absently rubs at his finger, where the engagement ring would sit perfectly. He can already imagine how it would look – gorgeous, of course. “But we don’t need to do this to prove how committed we are. I fully consider you my soul mate, you know. That’s enough for me. But I guess I should have thought about whether it’s enough for you.”

Blaine shakes his head. “It’s not that, really. Not for me. I know we’re committed; I’m going to spend the rest of my life with you if you’ll have me. I just think it makes sense, you know? Legally, and financially, and I think it’s probably easier to adopt a kid when you’re married…” Kurt doesn’t know how true that is but his heart does a full-on gymnastics routine at the very thought of adopting more babies. Yes, please. “It would mean so much to Amelia, and… I just want to be able to call you my husband. I loved being your husband. Waking up next to you every day and knowing that I was yours in every way I could be. And I know I screwed it up beyond belief, but… you have a pretty good track record for giving me second chances I don’t deserve.”

If Blaine keeps saying husband like that, in that breathy, longing tone, Kurt is going to have a fit. Stop making me want this so much. Blaine takes the ring out of the box and presses it into Kurt’s palm, closing their joined hands around it. “If you want it, it’s yours. I’m yours.”

Kurt’s throat tightens, and he has to shut his eyes for a moment, deep breath shuddering out of him. It’s too much to feel all at once. “Wh-what would you wear?” His voice shakes of its own accord. “Last time we had the matching rings.”

“I still have my old one. The wedding ring, too.”

“You kept them?”

“Of course I did.”

“Me, too.” He’s a little relieved – he’d always thought it was stupid of him to keep them. This new ring feels heavy in his hand, the metal cool but warming from their body head. “But I don’t think I could wear it anymore.”

“That’s okay. But I want to wear mine, if you don’t mind. If you say yes, that is.”

“They won’t match.”“

I know. But we don’t always match either.”

Kurt tilts his head to the side, watching Blaine closely, studying the way his eyelashes fan over his cheeks. Like if he can just look close enough he’ll figure out the puzzle that is Blaine Hummel-Anderson. “Why?” He asks quietly.

“Because…” Blaine blushes a little, and shrugs. “I don’t know. Even through all that bullshit, I kept the ring. And I know it’s just a piece of jewelry, in the end, but it means so much more than that to me. It means you love me, or you did once. Keeping it meant that even when we hated each other, I still belonged to you. And I like that, knowing that I’ve always been yours. Always will be.”

“I never really hated you.”

“Still.”

“If, um, if you really wanted me to wear the old one I guess –“

Blaine shakes his head, gripping Kurt’s hand tight. “I want you to be happy and comfortable with every aspect of our lives together, and if that means you need a fresh start symbolically too, then that’s what I want.”

He totally rehearsed that. It shouldn’t be as endearing as it is.

Kurt opens his hand, thumb stroking over the smooth silver metal of the ring, and his brow furrows. “The thing is… everything went wrong when we got married, didn’t it? And I know it wasn’t because of that, I know it was a bad time and we were probably too young and so much of what happened wasn’t our fault. I know we could have tried harder to make the things that were our fault better. I could have done so much more, I just didn’t know how.” He takes a deep breath before going on. “I know all of that, but I’m happy with what we have, Blaine. It’s not perfect, I’ve given up on having perfect, but we’re still happy, right? Do you understand why I’m hesitant to jinx that?”

“But that’s kind of why I want to do it.”

“What do you mean?”

“You gave me a second chance, Kurt. I want to do it right this time, do right by you. I want to be able to start over without the drinking and all the bullshit with Mom and Dad and Cooper weighing us down. I want it to be about us this time, us and Amelia, not just defying them. I want to grow old with you.” He chokes on some sudden emotion, shutting his eyes, and Kurt swallows back his tears. “More than anything I want to be the husband you deserve. I don’t really think that’s possible, but I want to try.”

Grow old, god, mere months ago Kurt wouldn’t have thought Blaine would have the chance to grow old; with everything he put himself through Kurt was sure he would die young. If not from suicide then from drinking himself to death. The fact that Blaine can look that far ahead, and see them growing old together – that he can do more than live day-to-day -

Kurt’s eyes and throat burn when he says softly, “Maybe I don’t deserve you.”

“Don’t say that, you deserve everything. Everything you want.” Blaine tries to smile. “And if what you want isn’t me, that’s okay too. You know that, right? I just need you to be happy.”

“I want you.” Kurt’s voice trembles. “I want everything with you; don’t ever think I don’t want to be with you. And I don’t know why I’m still so scared.”

“…of me?” Blaine’s voice goes very small, and he starts to draw his hands away. “If you’re still that afraid of me I think we have more than a communication problem here, Kurt –“

“No! Not like that, no, honey,” Kurt says frantically, squeezing Blaine’s hand. He relaxes a little. “That’s not what I mean at all. It just scares me how much you make me feel. Sometimes – god, it’s like I can’t even breathe, you make me feel so many things. And it frightens me how much I want to do this, even after how wrong it went last time.”

Blaine looks at him, and there’s so much hope there in his eyes that Kurt aches to see it, can’t bear the thought of taking it away again. It’s now or nothing, because Kurt can’t give this up.

He was right when he said that signing a piece of paper and putting on a ring wouldn’t change how he feels about Blaine, but maybe it’s not about that. Once upon a time, he had believed in having a fairy-tale life, marrying his Prince Charming and living happily ever after with him. He still wants to be the little boy who believed that. But the people in those stories were just that – people, complex and broken just like he and Blaine. They had issues that they had to get over, too.

So maybe it’s not about fitting together perfectly – maybe it’s just fitting together the best that you can, and never giving up even when it’s hard.

That he knows how to do.

“You want this?” Blaine asks softly.

“So much.”

There are already tears in Blaine’s eyes. This is happening. “So…?”“Marry me,” Kurt breathes, just saying it himself taking a weight off his chest. And he’s scared, still, of course, and that’s okay. He was scared last time, too – every huge change in their lives frightens him, that’s how it should be. That doesn’t mean it isn’t right. It’s so very, very right.

“Yes!” Blaine surges forward, peppering Kurt’s smiling lips with quick little kisses. “Marry me?”

“Yes, of course, yes.” How could he have wanted anything else? Blaine slides the ring onto his finger, beautiful and a perfect fit, and Kurt can’t help but laugh through his tears. “Yes, yes, yes…”

He would keep on saying it but Blaine takes Kurt’s face in his hands and kisses him, open mouthed and sweet and too much teeth because they can’t stop smiling. There’s wetness against their pressed-together cheeks, but Kurt can’t tell which of them is crying. It doesn’t matter.

“Yes,” he says again (he’ll say it a million times, every day for the rest of his life, if Blaine wants) when Blaine pulls back barely an inch to breathe, warmth puffing over his lips and Blaine laughs and captures his lips again. It feels like Blaine is claiming him, saying mine with every soft brush of his tongue, and Kurt moans low in his throat and hopes that Blaine knows it means yours.

“Yes,” he whispers when Blaine presses him down into the mattress, smiling as they kiss and kiss and kiss until Kurt can’t breathe or taste anything but Blaine, until their lips are swollen and sore.

“Yes,” when Blaine undoes the first few buttons of Kurt’s shirt to mouth at the skin there, “yes,” when their hips slot together just so, hot pressure through their clothes not enough but still so much. “Yes,” moaned breathlessly between kisses as his hips roll up to meet Blaine’s thrusts, wanting more, wanting bare hot skin under his hands, but no way is Kurt getting any level of naked in Rachel Berry’s old bedroom, just, no.

They haven’t done it like this since they were in college, and it’s a little absurd but too good to want to stop, pressure building until it can’t be contained a moment longer. He comes first without warning, with a choked off gasp and his back arching, hips jerking up to press closer to Blaine’s. It’s sticky and gross and he doesn’t care at all.

“Kurt,” Blaine groans, eyes closed and head thrown back, too fucking gorgeous, and Kurt works a hand between them to press against the hard outline of Blaine’s cock through his jeans, firm pressure as Blaine rides his hand, gasping out “Yes, yes, yes,” until he comes just like that, hot and vaguely wet through his underwear and pants. Like they’re a couple of fucking teenagers who can’t control their own hormones.

It’s so hot that Blaine still makes him feel that way.

“Oh my god,” Kurt mumble minutes later, once he’s finally able to form words. He throws his arm over his eyes and laughs, ridiculously scandalized. “We actually just did that.” Blaine nuzzles his cheek into Kurt’s chest and laughs. “In Rachel Berry’s childhood bedroom, oh god.”

“We’ve done weirder.” Blaine wraps his fingers around Kurt’s wrist and draws his arm away from his face, grinning with kiss-swollen lips more beautiful than the sun breaking across the horizon, the kind of smile where his whole face scrunches up because his joy can’t be contained by just his mouth. Kurt clings to him and laughs until it hurts - the best kind of hurt.

It doesn’t matter that he had his doubts, and still does (though he anticipates that Blaine will kiss them away soon enough.) If it makes Blaine smile like that Kurt will say yes every single day for the rest of their lives. Happily-ever-after, he thinks, holding his hand up to look at the ring on his finger, until Blaine takes the hand and kisses it, still smiling.

“No Elvis impersonators,” Kurt says suddenly. Blaine ducks his head. “And we’re not doing this in Vegas.”

“Anything for you.”

They make it back out to the party eventually, after getting themselves cleaned up as best as they can – though their hair is a lost cause, sticking up in all directions; Kurt can’t bring himself to care. The girls crowd around him in an instant, of course, dragging him away from Blaine, Rachel grabbing his hand to get a closer look at the ring. "I knew it!" She shrieks, jumping up and down. "I knew this would happen!"

Puck still doesn’t seem to be able to grasp the idea that they ever weren’t together, but he pats Blaine on the back along with the rest of the guys. Everyone there is invited to the wedding right away, of course – wedding, because that’s happening, holy shit – and without question Rachel is Kurt’s maid of honor and Santana Blaine’s, while Finn is Kurt’s groomsman.

Kurt doesn’t miss the way Blaine falls for a moment – he doesn’t really have a male friend close enough to be his groomsman anymore. It would have been Cooper last time, if Cooper had come to the wedding, but he hadn’t and now, just like then, Blaine is left without. But the disappointment only lasts a second before Kurt catches his fianc�e’s eye – fianc�e, he doesn’t have to stumble over boyfriend or partner or other words that aren’t quite right anymore, he knows exactly what they are and it’s perfect. Blaine’s smile brightens again, in that magical and genuine way that for a long time Kurt thought he would never see again. Blaine saved himself, but Kurt keeps him smiling.

Even though this still won’t be perfect, they will never be perfect, Kurt grins back at him from across the room, because he knows that he and Blaine are and will be happy. Fairy tales are, after all, about overcoming impossible odds to find true love. So as he gushes with his girlfriends, and watches Blaine chat easily with the guys, and holds his ring up to the light to watch the way the sapphires glitter, he thinks they have this happily-ever-after thing down.