They went to Callbacks.

Santana had been the one to suggest it. They'd all been surprised; after just living through a shooting at the bar where she worked, going to another bar seemed like the least comfortable thing she could have offered up. But she did, and so they went to Callbacks.

But not before everything was explained. They spent four hours going over everything; Blaine had to tell them the beginning of the story, but as soon as she could Santana took over. Not because she enjoyed it, but because she knew he couldn't - she was proved right when he looked at her and mouthed "Thank you" before melting back into Tina's tightening grip around his middle. Tina had, of course, started crying as soon as Blaine got to trying to describe how he'd felt before he'd been cutting, and then when he tried to skip over it and Santana stopped him and made him go back and tell the truth. She'd felt like a monster, especially when he looked at her like one, but she'd also felt proud when he said it out loud and didn't break down.

Tina was only the first to cry. By the time they actually got to the shooting, Sam was in tears and Kurt had to take over Santana because she had to comfort Brittany, who was crying and whimpering into her shoulder. Kurt started crying when he got to the shower part - instead of giving them all the graphic details, he simply said that he'd gotten caught up in the moment and held Blaine down when Blaine told him not to.

Sam had slapped him. Kurt had done nothing in response but hang his head in shame and silence.

And then Santana picked back up for him for a little while, telling the bits where she and Blaine talked - and the further into it she got the more she started realizing what Blaine meant by not being able to feel. The detachment she had to force herself into in order to actually keep talking about all the horrible things she talked about was really, really hard not to just sink into as a reflex - and even harder to get out of when Kurt had to take her place yet again and talk about how Blaine had woke up with a bloody hand. She found that as soon as she was out of the emptiness, everything was brighter, bolder, clearer, scarier, and she hated understanding exactly what Blaine meant when he said he couldn't feel and then followed it up by saying it hurt to feel - it sounded like a contradiction, but in all reality it was just relaying events as they happened.

And... Brittany.

As Kurt talked over Blaine's trigger, Santana heard a sniff, and turned to see Artie hiding behind his hands. Nobody else noticed - Tina was staring at Blaine, like she had been the whole time, and Sam was listening intently to Kurt, the slap forgotten, and Brittany's head was still in the crook of Santana's shoulder, staining her shirt. Not that Santana cared. She'd give up all her clothes entirely if it meant she could hold Brittany like she was. It had been forever since they'd talked, really...

But she had never seen Artie cry before, and he was crying, so she reached over to the practically-untouched box of tissues on the side table and handed one to him. He took it, not even looking at her - which was fine, because she never looked at him either.

But then the story was up, and they were left with sixteen unopened presents and Rachel and Cooper still in the other apartment - and everyone was crying.

"Who's up for a drink?" Santana asked loudly, and nearly everyone jumped and then stared at her, startled and not understanding. "I wouldn't mind getting drunk out of my skull."

"I shouldn't..." Blaine said, his voice small, and Santana didn't miss how when Tina squeezed him in response he didn't squeeze back, like he would have with her.

"Are you sure?" Kurt asked.

"I'm a big girl, Kurt, getting drunk is not that big a deal," she said, sour-faced.

"We're all just taking this in now," Sam murmured, not making eye contact.

"Alright, all of you are going to listen to me right now." Santana snapped her fingers and all eyes flew to her but Brittany's, which were still on her shoulder crying. "We are young adults. We're in college. We've just gone through hell and back and we're still not even out. We're getting a surprise visit from friends we haven't seen in months - even if it's the last time you ever do it, getting totally shit-faced right now isn't only expected of us by the stupidly-imposed rules the majority of society slaps onto nineteen- and twenty-year-olds, it's almost mandatory."

And then, against her shoulder, there came a half-giggle, half-sob, and the smile that came whenever she made Brittany laugh came without her permission.

So they went to Callbacks.

At first, Santana was really happy with her idea. The place was crowded, but not so much she couldn't hear herself think. Just enough to make her thoughts not quite so loud. There was a pleasant buzz of chatter, and sometimes a NYADA student or two would get up and sing or play an instrument, but for the most part it was just clinking glasses and laughing friends and a nice, warm drink sipping down her throat. She told jokes; she got everyone to laugh. And then Sam did an impression, and Blaine and Tina and Brittany laughed while she and Kurt and Artie groaned. And then Artie started telling them all about film school, and even though she played it off as waiting for a moment for a good dirty joke, she really did love hearing about it. She even loved hearing Sam talk about playing football down in Kentucky, and hearing Tina go on and on about the University of Michigan's amazing theatre department.

And then Brittany started talking about MIT.

Her classes were hard, but she was passing all of them. Santana cheered for her along with the others unironically - it was a big thing for Brittany, she knew, and when Brittany ducked her head and then smiled up at her she was glad she'd let go and been enthusiastic. Brittany's professors varied from really strict (Mr. Hanford) to the most lenient she'd ever had (Mr. Kunoel); her grades ranged from a low D (Mrs. Juvo's class) to a high A (Mr. Kunoel again); and she was making friends. There was a little community theatre not too far away from the campus where she'd started becoming involved, and her roommate, Hadley, was apparently really sweet. Super shy, but really sweet.

"What about romantic relationships?" Tina asked. "Anything juicy?"

When Brittany's smile fell and her eyes flickered to Santana, her heart fell to her gut and started twisting.

"There was this one girl," Brittany admitted, her eyes not leaving Santana, her face contorting with regret when Santana made her smile turn plastic rather than allow it to fade. She'd felt jealousy before and it wasn't something she typically hid - but it had been so long since she'd seen Brittany, and she was supposed to be happy for her, so she did. "She just went through a bad breakup when we met, and I was really lonely, and so we decided to be friends with benefits."

"Dude," Artie said, his hand in front of his mouth.

"But it's like what all the movies say," Brittany rushed to reassure Santana, not even talking to the rest of them anymore. "It just doesn't work. She told me she loved me, and I tried to tell her I didn't, but she was crying and she really was my friend, and so I just kind of... let things happen."

"So you dated?" Blaine clarified, and his voice was the only one that made Santana even break eye contact with Brittany for the briefest of moments.

"Technically," Brittany answered. "But she broke up with me."

"Why?" Sam asked.

And then Brittany was turning red. "I just - um. I don't want to talk about this."

"Sorry it didn't work out, Brit-Brit," Santana said, and instinctively reached out to pat her hand. "So, Tina, what about you?" she switched topics, before Brittany could grab her hand and keep it. "Heard from Mike lately?"

Kurt and Blaine snickered and Tina sent them both glares. She opened her mouth to retort, but then suddenly there was someone tapping on the microphone, and a cheerful voice announced, "Alright, it's Sunday! Is everyone ready for the random singer of the night?"

A cry went up throughout the bar, and Santana turned back to Kurt. "What?"

"They pick a random person to sing a song on Sundays," Kurt explained, his hand going up into the air like several around him, though he showed no sign of interest.

The man with the mic started moving through the crowd. "Put your hands up," Kurt told them all, as the man drew nearer.

"Why?" Santana asked.

"They usually pick ones with their hands down," Kurt hissed, just as the man drew up to Santana and held out his hand and said, "This young lady right here!"

"Excuse me?" Santana raised her eyebrows.

"Care to sing for us, sweetheart?" the man winked and people's hands dropped in disappointment.

"I don't even go to NYADA," Santana told him, crossing her arms.

"Anyone in the bar can be chosen," Kurt and the man said at the same time.

An idea occurred to her - an idea she knew she shouldn't have followed up on, but did anyway. "You know what? Fine. Anderson, come with me." And she grabbed Blaine's good hand from beside her and stood, pulling him with her up to the stage behind the piano.

"This is a solo thing," Mic Man called to her.

"This is a solo," Santana called back. "He's my accompaniment."

"I am?"

Santana gestured to his hand and whispered her next words to him. "Can you play?" She tilted her head towards the piano.

"Well, yeah," Blaine said, and wiggled his fingers. "It's the palm, not my fingers."

"Then play for me," she demanded, and when he raised his eyebrows, she said, "Please."

He nodded approvingly. "What song?"

Santana paused then. She knew what song she'd had in mind, and there was no changing it now; but when she looked back at their booth, Brittany's face was confused, and worried, and she wondered exactly how many things had changed since that phone call when she was in Ohio. Enough that Brittany had had to surprise her with a visit instead of just talking to her like they used to. And there was Brittany, all blonde and lovely and caring and honest and genius and beautiful andgod damn it.

"When She Loved Me," Santana muttered. "You know it?"

Blaine's face was almost unreadable. "Santana -"

"Please?"

He appraised her for a while longer; long enough that the bar grew restless and their stares grew cold. "Fine."

The gazes of their audience still hadn't warmed to them when Blaine's hands traveled over the piano, or when Santana grabbed the microphone from the man's sweaty hand - but when Santana started singing, there were several people whose eyebrows went up or whose jaws went down.

"When somebody loved me, everything was beautiful. Every hour we spent together lives within my heart."

["Sophomore year, I used to sit in this back row and secretly watch you. I counted the number of times you'd smile at me, and I'd die on days that you didn't."]

"And when she was sad, I was there to dry her tears. And when she was happy, so was I. When she loved me."

["I miss this place so much. It's where we fell in love, where I could say things with music, when words just weren't enough. And I need to tell you something that I don't know how to say."]

"Through the summer and the fall, we had each other - that was all. Just she and I together, like it was meant to be."

["Sad songs make me really sad. And I don't want to be sad."]

"And when she was lonely, I was there to comfort her. And I knew that she loved me."

Santana looked over at the booth while Blaine's hands took their time with the slightly musical break. She wished she hadn't, because Brittany looked so stricken she seemed ready to cry - and Santana did a lot of things to a lot of people, but she never, ever wanted to make Brittany cry. But she was close to crying, too. And it was either her fault or Brit's - and it wasn't hers.

"So the years went by; l I stayed the same, but she began to drift away."

["I haven't been a good girlfriend to you. I can't come home on the weekends and pretend that things are the way they were, because they aren't. And I don't want to be like all those other long-distance relationships that hang in there for a few months and then break up when someone eventually cheats or things get weird."]

"I was left alone. Still, I waited for the day when she'd say 'I will always love you'."

["I would never cheat on you. "]

"Lonely and forgotten, never thought she'd look my way..."

["I know. And I would never cheat on you either. Let's just do the mature thing here, okay? This is not an official breakup. Let's just be honest that long-distance relationships are almost impossible to maintain, because both people are rarely getting what they need, especially at our age."]

"She smiled at me and held me just like she used to do."

["This sounds a lot like a breakup to me."]

"Like she loved me... when she loved me."

["You know I will always love you the most. "]

"When somebody loved me, everything was beautiful."

["I love you, too."]

"Every hour we spent together lives within my heart."

And Brittany was there, and Santana was only across the room, and how much would it hurt to just reach out and -?

"When she loved me."

Santana didn't even have time to take the microphone away from her mouth before everyone was applauding. She did, however, have time to wipe at hers eyes while Blaine was finishing up the music, and everyone was too busy to see her, really - everyone but Brittany.

Brittany had been staring at her the whole time. She wondered exactly what she'd said, what she'd done. Because Santana thought she didn't love her anymore, and the last time they'd heard each others' voices, she'd asked to get back together, and Santana had been the one to say no. If anything, Brittany should have sang that song, not Santana - was it because of her talking about Janie? If it was because of Janie, maybe if she'd just told why she'd dumped her, Santana wouldn't feel like that.

She was confused, but she knew Santana. She'd said something, done something she shouldn't have, and Santana honestly thought she didn't love her anymore. And she couldn't be more wrong.

So as soon as Santana stepped off the stage and handed the man the mic again, Brittany left her seat, not seeing how everyone else at the booth was staring both at her and Santana (with the exception of Kurt, who was watching Blaine closely) and instead making her way across the bar to the dark-haired girl, who had stopped moving when she saw Brittany coming towards her.

Brittany grabbed her hand and leaned in and asked, "Come with me?"

Santana nodded mutely, so Brittany pulled her along. The bar was full of prying eyes and straining ears, and thought she pulled Blaine aside for a moment and said, "We're going for a walk," she never completely stopped. Because she was pulling Santana along, she squeezed her hand, like she used to, because she wanted to - Santana's hand felt just as good as she remembered, but Santana wasn't happy. She promised she'd try to be happy.

And then they were outside, and instead of prying eyes they got thousands of open windows, and instead of straining ears they got strangers walking quickly on the streets, their heads down, their feet louder than their breath - which was saying something.

And Brittany stopped, because it was New York, and she could hear the clatter of the people and the gunshots in the bars and the steel cutting skin and she... no, that was just what she'd been told. She didn't hear it. Not really.

She looked at Santana, and she was stunning. Like she always was.

"Why did you sing that song?" Brittany asked her gently, softly, because as loud as New York was, they were outside, and only a few distant conversation and doors opening and closing to release or hide the sounds within were audible besides how Santana was biting her lip and holding her breath.

"Because I like it and I'm a good singer," Santana said, tossing her hair back with a flick of her head and not being convincing at all.

"Santana, you promised me you'd try to be happy up here," Brittany murmured. She squeezed Santana's hands again when the other girl's grip loosened - the last thing she wanted was to have her pull away completely.

"I don't remember that," Santana said tightly.

Santana squeezed Brittany to her closely. "I don't think I was lonely," she answered honestly. "I think I was sad, but I don't think I was lonely."

Something different was in Brittany's smile when she pulled back to look at her, and said, "Good. Next time try not to be sad."

"I don't think it was in so many words," Brittany allowed, "But it was there. It was a promise. I told you, next time try not to be sad. Are you even trying?"

"Of course I'm trying!" Santana snapped. "Brittany, we literallyjusttold you what all's happened! If you think I'm not trying -"

"But you don't look at me like you're trying," Brittany argued, grabbing Santana's other hand so quickly Santana didn't have time to hold it away. The jolt of her skin meeting Santana's was familiar and almost comforting, had it not also been desperate. "If you were actually trying, you'd look at me like you knew I loved you. Like you used to."

"Wait, wait," Santana said, and she pulled her hands away from Brittany, smoothly but with enough force Brittany had to let her go. "Like I used to what? Like I used to look at you? Like I used to know you loved me? Like I used to love you?"

"Any of those," Brittany said. "All of those."

"I told you I'd always love you the most," Santana muttered, and suddenly she was looking anywhere but at Brittany. Her eyelashes had begun to clump together like they did when they were her last defense against tears, and they seemed to glitter when the streetlights around them reflected off the saltwater they'd gathered. Her eyes themselves were dark, like they always were; dark, and flickering around, because her head was still but her eyes couldn't be. They glistened and they held tears and they blinked them back but couldn't fight; her voice was as tense and as shaky as the muscles in her face were. They wanted to pull against each other, they wanted to crumple, but Santana wouldn't let them - so she shook. And it was clear that she was shaking, because she was in such high contrast; her skin, when not cast in shadow from the lights of the bar windows behind her, shone golden and dark, and her hair, pulled back loosely into a bun, still looked as soft as silk. But she was mostly a silhouette. The parts of her Brittany saw were just as bright as they always were, even if they were darker in color; but she was disappearing, fading to black.

"So do you still? Because I still love you."

Santana looked up, and the defined curve of her cheek was outlined in the black of shadow. It wasn't even fully dark out yet; how did she manage to look like she was slipping into it? But her cheek was only as defined as that when she was smiling; however, as soon as Brittany realized that, it was gone again and her face was flat.

"Do you?" she asked. "Because what you said, about the girl. Our relationship started as sex with no feelings too, remember? And I know that how we officially came out as a couple was a lot different from what you said about this girl, but -"

"Santana, our relationship started as best friends," Brittany corrected her softly. "And we had sex after that, remember? We were best friends having sex. Janie was never like that for me." Santana shook her head once and dropped it. "Besides, you broke up with me because you didn't want to do long-distance. Janie broke up with me because I said your name in bed, which, if you ask m-"

"What?"

Brittany stopped when Santana's voice cracked. "What?"

"You said my name instead of hers?"

"Yeah." Brittany was confused, but only for a moment - because not a second after she answered, Santana was smiling again. It was a sad smile, but it was a smile, and it was a real one. "And obviously she knew who you were to me, I talk about you all the time. So she just kind of dumped me on the spot and left."

"But why did you never tell me you were dating?" Santana asked; her voice was shaking, but differently. Almost with excitement.

Brittany shrugged. "The same reason you didn't tell your Grandmother we were dating. I was scared that you wouldn't approve or love me anymore."

Santana's smile slipped, but Brittany didn't think she looked sad. And then she started talking.

"People in the army... People in the army, they do more by the time I wake up than I do in a day. That's what my Nana always told me whenever I was either being lazy or complaining about being too busy. And it always made me shut up and do what I was supposed to. But I amsotired of listening to that. You know? They're going to be held to a different standard because the war they're fighting is different. Their war is to conquer, to protect, to defend and to annihilate. My war is for the sole purpose of making sure I can still wake up in the morning to make you smile so people can tell me I've not done enough. But people in the army, they get guns, and they get training, and they get uniforms and bombs and grenades and they're pushed to their physical limit every day. All I've got to fight back with are my words, and my fists, and what other people throw at me. But I can win a whole lot easier, too, and that's the thing; when you've got nothing to lose but for one person you love more than you'll ever love anything again, it's the easiest thing in the world to win. But I could die just as easily; except the people fighting me aren't fighting because someone strapped a gun to them and forced them to fight for Queen and Country or whatever the bullcrap they feed them is. The people fighting me are fighting because they hate me. And it's tiring, and I've seen injuries, and I've been wounded, and I've seen a fellow soldier fall, and all that crap they tell you causes PTSD. Just not in a way that anybody is going to respect. I just... it's so fucking stupid! They cheer on people who don't want to fight and hand them all these huge, bloody weapons, and then they tell me that my walking around alive the way I am is an abomination. They're still going to tell me that people in the army do more by the time I wake up than I do in a day; but if I wake up in the morning, and you're the first thing I remember touching, I don't care how much they've done. If I wake you up and you smile at me, or you cuddle back into me, or even if you woke up before me and just tell me Good Morning, I've done so much already, and I've not killed anyone in the process. And they're wrong. All of them. They're wrong for telling me I am and for telling me I've not done enough because if I've done it for you - if I've doneanythingfor you - I'll have always done enough."

Brittany blinked. Half of that had been a genuine confession, relevant to them and what they were discussing; but Brittany knew that because she'd brought up her Grandmother, Santana's head head twisted around that. So, to clarify, she asked tentatively, "Because you love me?"

Santana laughed and nodded and wiped at the tears that had fallen sometime while she spoke, and Brittany mirrored her. "Because I love you."

"And you know I love you too?"

"Just don't let me forget," Santana whispered, and then she stepped out of the shadow so Brittany could see every blessed, minuscule detail of her, and kissed her.

"So, to be clear," Rachel said, her hands folded in front of her and resting on the table, "What you're suggesting is that we don't enter a relationship, don't contact each other as if we are when you go back to L.A., but whenever we do see each other, we can sleep together?"

"Pretty much, yeah," Cooper said, sitting back. "Meanwhile, what you're suggesting is that we pretend this never happened to our friends, and continue sleeping together behind their backs. But you said nothing about relationships or distance."

"Don't get me wrong," Rachel said, pulling her hands back, "I'm certainly not ashamed of it. But you're Blaine's brother, and to top it off, the age difference -"

"So you want to keep the fact that we slept together a secret," Cooper said, waving her off. "Fine, fine. I'm okay with that."

"And not just because it'd be getting back at Blaine for not telling you about... what happened?" she pressed.

Cooper paused, then sighed when he met her challenging eyes. "Yeah, I get it. We keep it a secret. But on top of that, we keep sleeping together."

"So we're going with my plan?"

"But hold on a sec," Cooper raised a finger. "I think mine is the better one. I'll agree to keeping quiet, so long as you agree that this is purely for recreational purposes. No relationship -"

"None," Rachel agreed.

"- and we don't act like we've suddenly become besties and text each other or something all the time -"

"That's okay," Rachel told him.

"- but when the time does come where we see each other again and it's possible, I think continuing to see each other in private is what we need."

"I'm not opposed to that," Rachel said. "My only question is whether this is exclusive or not."

Cooper considered it for a minute while Rachel studied the mussed hair on his head and felt proud that she'd been the one to tangle it so. "No, I don't think so," he finally replied. "I think that implies a relationship, and, like we've both said, we don't want that."

"So if one of us happens to enter an exclusive relationship?"

"We stop, obviously," Cooper snorted. "If I get a girlfriend I don't want to cheat on her, and if you get a boyfriend I don't want to be the 'other man'."

"Right." Rachel nodded. "Okay. So, we're basically going to change nothing about how we interact with one another, until we're alone, and then we sleep together and keep it a secret?"

"Yeah."

There was silence then. Rachel felt so... strange. Sure, she and Brody's relationship hadn't been exclusive by any means - looking back, she'd been in an open, non-exclusive relationship with a male prostitute - but she'd never actually had what Santana would lovingly call a "fuck buddy". The arrangement was definitely a first she never thought she'd have.

She could still remember the days she judged Santana for sleeping around. Thinking about what she was doing now, she almost wanted to laugh.

"So..." she trailed off. "When we sleep together, are there kisses, or is it just..." she gestured wildly and then set her hands down, embarrassed.

Cooper looked amused. "We kissed last night, didn't we?"

"Well, yeah," Rachel responded, her face flushing. "I just didn't know if that would continue."

Cooper shrugged. "If you don't want it to -"

"No, it's fine," she settled, before hesitating to continue with, "This is really weird."

"Yes, it is," Cooper chuckled, and then she was chuckling with him.

And then her phone rang. She jumped at the sound, sent Cooper an apologetic glance, and then stood and nearly ran to the bedroom, fishing the phone out of the pocket of the pants she'd been wearing off the floor and answering without looking, because she was almost out of time. "Hello?"

"Rach, it's me," Blaine's voice filled her ear, and at the sound her stomach clenched. "I'm really sorry we didn't call you or anything, but did you get our texts?"

"No, I'm sorry," Rachel said, bringing her hand up to brush her bangs out of her face. "Well, I might have, but I haven't checked my phone lately. I've been preoccupied."

"Oh, jeez, I'm sorry," he said, and he sounded sincere. "I totally forgot you were with Cooper. Is he being too much of a pain in the ass?"

"He's a handful, but I can handle him," Rachel responded, and turned to look at Cooper, who was walked up behind her to listen. "So what did your texts say?"

"Well, for once, Brittany, Sam, Tina and Artie have all come to visit us as a surprise," Blaine said nonchalantly, as if it were no big deal.

"What?!" Rachel squeaked. "When?"

"Um..." Blaine apparently checked something. "About six hours ago? They brought all four of us presents. Right now we're on our way back from Callback's. If you wanted to come to our apartment, we were going to open our gifts."

"Why were you at a bar?" Rachel demanded. "Why the hell did you take Santana to a bar so soon after -"

"Relax, it was her idea, honey," Blaine made his voice soothing, even over the phone somehow. "We're all okay and we're coming home. And something tells me that Santana's feeling better than she was before we came."

"Is she drunk out of her mind?"

"No, actually. Unless you count Brittany as an alcoholic beverage."

Rachel didn't understand it for a few seconds. And then she did. "Oh. Oh."

"Yeah. She sang When She Loved Me at because she was chosen for the -"

"Yeah, I remember. Go on."

"Right. And then Brittany took her outside and they came back in and they were holding hands and smiling and don't tell her I noticed, but Santana hadn't had her hair covering her neck when she went out, but she did when she came back."

"Are you suggesting Brittany gave Santana a hickey?"

"She had more than enough time."

Rachel shook her head. "Nice, Blaine. Why did you even go to Callbacks? Why did Santana suggest it?"

"I'm not sure. First, we told them everything, and then everyone - literally, everyone - was crying, and Santana was just like "Let's go get drunk!" But we didn't get drunk, we just kind of talked about college and our lives and caught each other up and stuff. And now we're coming home."

Rachel reached up to get her bangs out of the way again (she needed to brush her hair, she hadn't yet), but Cooper's hand was already there, and when she looked at him he smiled, tucking the offending hair behind her ear and just letting his fingers knot themselves in her tangles. She bit her lip and smiled. "Okay. When do you want us to be there?"

"Whenever, really," Blaine told her. "I think we're going to have a semi-party. Tina's never been one for high alcohol tolerance and she's more than a little tipsy, and she seems dead-set on the idea of Truth or Dare and actually getting drunk like we were supposed to."

"Good god, we're in high school again," Rachel giggled. "Alright, we'll be there. Don't start without us."

Opening presents was like Christmas, except none of them had to pretend to like crappy presents, because none of the presents were crappy.

Tina gave out her presents first. She handed Blaine one of the original Marvel comic books (Santana forgot which one), and when Sam's jaw dropped she handed him one, too. They both kissed her cheeks and she rolled her eyes at them. And then she handed Santana a strobe light for her room or whatever room she wanted - and while it wasn't the most thoughtful gift, it wasn't thoughtless. It wasn't something Santana had thought about herself, but she liked it. Tina gave Kurt a suit - a proper suit, dark and black and sharp, English cut, with a dark red tie and a stark-white collared shirt for under it. Everyone was surprised when he opened it, and he went to put it on immediately, disappearing into the bathroom while Tina and Artie pulled together to give Rachel two DVDs - both of which had been Tina's idea but put together by Artie, though only Artie's was wrapped. One was her performance of Don't Rain On My Parade (she put it on immediately) and the other was her accepting the award for MVP and the hug that followed.

And since Artie had already begun, he went ahead and handed out his presents. To Blaine, he gave a bag - Blaine pulled the fancy tissue paper out of the top with a smirk and pulled out a notebook full of completely blank staffs for writing sheet music and a stamp group of clefs, time/key signatures, and individual notes. Blaine actually clapped with excitement when he got it, and Artie told him he looked forward for the music he wrote with it to be the soundtrack to his first movie.

And then Artie handed Santana her gift. She opened the box and there was blue fabric staring at her - and when she held it up, she found she had to stand, because suddenly there was cloth unfolding down to her ankles in the form of a deep blue gown. It had a high neck and no sleeves, and the waistline was on the middle of her stomach, and it was clearly the kind of dress that would flare out if she turned. She looked at Artie in surprise and he shrugged. Usually when people bought her clothing, it was informal, red or black, and this was both formal and a blue that didn't quite qualify as dark. When asked what it was for, he said simply, "I don't know, it looked like you'd like it." She didn't tell him she did.

Kurt came back out just in time for Artie's gift to him. Artie gave him a box full of Broadway musicals that had never actually been made into movies, gotten off of youtube and edited together to the best of his ability. Kurt laughed and accepted it with grace - not that Blaine noticed. He was too busy staring.

And then Sam clapped and said he wanted to go. He gave Blaine a Lord of the Rings box set, and that managed to pull out of his Kurt-is-so-pretty trance for a little bit. But only a little bit - long enough to thank him - and then he went right back to his eyes travelling over the suit Kurt wore and then Kurt's freshly-washed face repeatedly, his eyes growing steadily more narrowed and more golden.

And Sam gave Rachel a dress box. He apologized because it seemed unoriginal because of the clothes Santana and Kurt had gotten, but he'd seen it when shopping with his sister and thought it was perfect for her. She grinned and told him it was no big deal, and Cooper, sitting behind her and apparently trying not to be too loud, leaned forward just a bit and said something that nobody but Rachel could catch or thought to try and hear - but the corner of Rachel's mouth twitched up that little bit more, and Santana looked at how Cooper looked at her and how she opened it, glancing back but not turning her head, and she wanted to laugh out loud and simultaneously vomit. She knew what secretly sleeping with someone looked like. But she said nothing, and Rachel opened it, and it was a cocktail dress. It was cream-colored and the sleeves were netting - the same netting that came down to her ankles, when the actual skirt only came down to mid-thigh. And the netting was designed curiously, and when one looked closely, it was centered around thousands of tiny whiteRsquealed, leapt across the circle to kiss his cheek, and then proclaimed she would go put it on - Santana didn't miss how she threw a look at Cooper before disappearing behind the curtain.

Sam then handed Santana a set of decorative knives. She nodded approvingly and flashed him a peace sign with a dead-pan expression; Blaine actually saw and snickered, but then Kurt moved and his attention was reclaimed.

And Sam handed Kurt a scarf. Kurt took it curiously, and when he identified it his eyes lit up; he started rattling about it while thanking Sam, but nobody actually paid attention, with the possible exception of Blaine.

And then Brittany said it was her turn.

The first thing out of her bag was a small cone with an elastic band, painted pink, sparkly, and with a yellow fur trim. She put it on Kurt and declared him her unicorn once again; he looked so proud he could have been preening.

Just then, like Kurt had, Rachel reappeared just in time for her gift. Kurt saw her and clasped his hands together and sighed and said she looked absolutely stunning; Cooper was silent, but Rachel looked at him more than anyone. Santana hid the dress behind her for fear Kurt would make her wear it. But that didn't matter to Brittany, because she handed her a stuffed, felt microphone, and said, "I know you love to sing and you're a good singer, but it gets annoying somethings and cloth muffles your voice." To which Rachel looked properly taken aback and everyone else laughed loudly.

And then Brittany looked at Blaine and apologized, and when he asked, "For what?" she handed him a box. And when Blaine opened it, it was a full-body dog suit.

Kurt made it put it on. Blaine didn't stare at him with so much mesmerism as a warning, but he did it anyway. And when he came back, he was dressed like a weiner dog,all brown, and everybody - seriously, everybody - laughed when they saw that it was too long for him, and Cooper snapped a picture. "I hate you," he told everyone. "The others get all these beautiful clothes, and I get a dog suit."

"I'm sorry," Brittany said again, hanging her head.

"Don't be, it's adorable," Santana and Blaine told her at the same time, and then Blaine flushed and sat down behind Kurt, away from the view of peoples' phones, and Santana just shook her head pityingly.

And then it was Santana's turn, and to everybody's complete astonishment, Brittany pulled out of her bag a huge bouquet of all different sorts and colors of flowers, a gigantic box of chocolates, and a candle-holder in the shape of a tree, that looked to hold at least ten different candles on the branches. And, to top it off, she pulled out a tiny table that she unfolded in front of Santana before handing her the bouquet (it smelled a lot like Brittany herself, which Santana obviously found nice), setting the candle holder down on that table, putting the chocolates on it, and then reaching into her bag once more and pulling out a box of candles and a box of matches.

"Brit," Santana breathed, looking at all of it, while everyone watched on in contemplative silence, "What's all this?"

"This is an apology," Brittany told her, smiling. "For everything I messed up doing, for everything you messed up not doing, or the other way around. And then also candles. It worked for Kurt and Blaine," she defended, when Santana raised her eyebrows.

The couple in question laughed along with Santana. "No, Brit," Santana shook her head. "You - this is really sweet."

"Well, yeah," Brittany said, like it was the easiest thing in the world. "It's from me and I love you."

"Brit," Santana sighed, and she actually didn't notice that Kurt was pulling Blaine past the curtain into his bedroom.

"What is it?" Blaine asked, unzipping the dog costume as soon as they were behind the curtain. "This thing is so hot, I swear -"

"What Brittany did," Kurt said, and he was breathless, and his eyes were glittering, and his lip was trembling, and so Blaine stopped what he was doing and listened as closely as he could. "She apologized. I haven't done that."

"You've said you're sorry, baby," Blaine smiled at him, moving forward and going to kiss him.

"No," Kurt said, and put his hands on Blaine's shoulders to push him back, and Blaine let him, a bit hurt that he would. "It's - I've done so much, you know? I've... do you remember what you said when we were about to sleep together for the first time since we got back together?"

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Of course."

"Can I kiss you?"

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Um, yeah."

"Why do you think you need to ask my permission to kiss me?"

Blaine's eyebrows furrowed. "Because making a romantic advance when it's non-consensual is not only extremely wrong but way too creepy for me to ever consider actually doing?"

"Yes," Blaine said, knowing exactly what he was talking about.

"I should have realized," Kurt said, and Blaine reached out to hold him, but Kurt caught his rest and just held it there. "I should have known, have talked to you, have tried figuring things out. But I just let things go, bit after bit, never tried to understand with all the clues you gave me. And your wishes, how you wish you could sleep beside me because you want to and not because you're tired or drained, and that you didn't have to sacrifice your health for me, Blaine, that's not right. And it is my fault - let me finish!" Kurt dropped Blaine's wrist when he opened his mouth to protest. "I never talked to you about triggers, okay? Like I did about you with Santana and Rachel. If I'd done that, if I'd just done that, you'd have known that I trusted you, and we wouldn't have had to find out what your trigger is like we just did. And for months after we got together I just assumed everything was going to be okay and never mentioned again, and I didn't even tell you I read your journal. And a little while after that I promised I wouldn't but I did, anyway, and I know I said it was because you wouldn't let me understand but the truth is that I hadn't tried to understand like I should have. And I'm really, really sorry, because all of this is my fault, and I love you to pieces, and I know we're never going to have met in a grocery store, but I want all of that, too."

"Kurt," Blaine tried to say, but nothing came out.

Kurt was pale, and quivering, and Blaine wanted to try and just hold him, but every time he moved Kurt fought against it, and he couldn't make himself force himself on Kurt like that - even if Kurt was wiping at his eyes and talking through his hands, and had to take breaths in between sentences.

"A-And you, you're amazing," Kurt made it sound like an oath. "And it's my fault you have such low self-esteem, and I held you down in the shower, and I know I said I was sorry, but it's not the same as really apologizing. And I want to apologize, but I messed up so much, and there's no way to apologize for that -"

"Kurt," Blaine stopped him, putting his hands firmly on each side of Kurt's face, making him stop talking and look at Blaine, teary-eyed and hyperventilating. "I'm going to kiss you now, okay?"

"Why?" Kurt mouthed, and Blaine kissed him anyway.

It was different from any of their other kisses. For the first time, it was Kurt that was unsure, Kurt that wasn't fully behind it. But he was there in a way Blaine hadn't been lately, so Blaine kissed him just a little harder, pushing his tongue against Kurt's lips so he parted them and then tracing them slowly, tasting him, and when Kurt's tongue tentatively joined his he pulled back just enough to say, "I want to do this. I'm comfortable doing this, Kurt. I trust you -" he pecked his lips against, and then met his eyes, and said, "and I love you. You're forgiven, and I appreciate that you realize what you've done wrong - but I've messed up too, okay? It's not all your fault. You're not the only one whose choices have affected us."

When Blaine pulled away just a bit and took Kurt's hand instead, leading him over to the dresser and pulling out the old ring box, Kurt's breath caught. But Blaine opened it and handed Kurt the ring for the second time in their lives, smiling like he had been the last time, and asked, "What does this mean?"

"That we're going to get married?" Kurt asked, confused, letting Blaine slide it on his finger.

"Mm," Blaine confirmed. "And that means that I love you and will not matter what you do or what happens to us. Okay?" He looked up and grinned that grin of his - still in his stupid dog costume.

Kurt spent another half a minute just studying his face and slowly letting his heartbeat slow to its normal rhythm in Blaine's arms before he murmured, "Okay," and flexed his finger.

"Blaine!"

Kurt and Blaine were on the couch, Kurt's right leg up against the back of it and his left leg over the side, his arms around Blaine's stomach and his head on his fiance's. Blaine was laying on Kurt, between his legs, leaning back so his head rested just below his chin, his hands over his boyfriend's, and Brittany had let him take off the dog suit an hour ago. Every now and then Kurt would kiss his head lightly or nuzzle his nose into Blaine's curls and just breathe him in. When that happened, Blaine would twisted his neck and kiss whatever part of Kurt he could reach. The ring was still on Kurt's finger, but nobody looked enough to see it but Blaine, who would occasionally rub his thumb over it lightly.

Santana was lying on the floor at the foot of the couch, between it and the coffee table, her leg in the air and her ankle twisting as she made infinity symbols with her foot. Brittany was sitting down at the end of her girlfriend, massaging her free foot gently. Artie was in his wheelchair, parked beside the chair where Tina sat, her legs draped over Sam's shoulders because he was sitting in front of her on the floor. Sometimes he'd unexpectedly tickle her feet, and she'd kick somewhere she hadn't already kicked each time he did. Rachel and Cooper had somehow managed to curl up on a mass of blankets together, even if they weren't actually physically touching.

The game of Truth or Dare they were playing was a lot different from the one they'd played in high school. For one, Tina was easily the drunkest of them all, and she was nowhere near as drunk as she had been then. Every once in a while someone would have a drink and throughout the night they'd gotten progressively lazier, but while their laziness grew, so did their desire to do something. It was contradictory, but it was what was happening. And Cooper was playing with them, so it wasn't surprising that he and Blaine had told plenty of embarrassing stories about each other when answering their Truths. Other than that, the game had been sexually uneventful, which they all knew wasn't the norm for this game among college students, but they didn't care.

"Yeah?" Blaine responded to Tina's shouting his name.

"Truth or Dare?" she asked him, before she shrieked when Sam tickled her and kicked the side of his head.

"Truth," he responded. He'd just done two dares in a row, and while brushing Rachel's teeth for Brittany's amusement and letting Sam give him a piggyback ride for Artie's wasn't bad at all, he was comfortable where he was and didn't want to move.

"Um, okay," Tina addressed him, still giggling. "What is one thing that you are Kurt have done 'in the bedroom' that nobody in here knows?"

"Good luck with that," Santana spoke up.

"Yeah, go ahead," Rachel added, and both girls chuckled quietly between themselves.

"Alright," Blaine said. "That's not even a challenge. Kurt, would you show them your hand?"

Kurt raised his hand from Blaine's nonchalantly. "Sure," he said smugly.

"Do you have some hand kink you're going to demonstrate?" Santana asked. "Because I'm really -"

"THERE'S A RING ON IT!" Tina screeched, and the effect was instantaneous. She bolted out of the chair and leapt over Rachel and Cooper's bodies on the ground. Santana and Rachel both let out a startled yelp of "What?!" and sat up, straight-backed, while Sam and Cooper looked at each other with smirks and laughs on their lips. Artie let out a whoop of "You white peoples always try'na get hitched too young!" and Brittany asked, "Wait, they're not married already?" among the chaos.

Tina stood where Santana's head had just been and grabbed Kurt's hand, holding it close to her face and examining it carefully. Santana clambered to her feet next to her and slapped Blaine's leg on her way with a "Why didn't you tell me?!" before joining Tina, and Rachel's scream of "WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN?!" stayed with her before she was leaning over Kurt's head to see the gold band on his slender finger. "Ohmygod,Kurt!" she squeaked, and Tina agreed with her in the form of an occupied grunt.

"I'm actually not angry about you not telling me about this," Cooper remarked easily, helping Sam to his feet and wheeling Artie over to the group of people.

"Dude, I'm your best man, right?" Sam asked, and that was when Cooper's face fell.

"No,I'mbest man," Cooper said pointedly, "Right, Squirt?"

"All y'all are crazy, I'm best man," Artie decided.

"I wanna be best man," Brittany pouted.

"You can be a bridesmaid, Brit," Santana told her with a huge grin.

"You've gotta let me plan the wedding!" Rachel demanded.

"Maybe Blaine wants a maid of honor, not a best man," Tina told the boys arguing behind her. "That would beme."

"The ring is really pretty, but the black diamond is depressing," Brittany told them, once she'd gotten her first look at it.

"It's to represent Blackbird," Kurt told her, and as soon as he spoke everybody's voices died down. "It's an onyx."

"Why Blackbird?" Artie asked.

"Isn't that the song that made you realize you were in love with him, Blaine?" Cooper asked. "I remember you texting me about it, all excited because you finally kissed a boy and -"

"That's socute!" Rachel began jumping up and down with her hands at her sides like she did, her voice high with excitement - and Cooper only looked at her with fondness.

"Yeah, that was it," Blaine told him, and once again everyone fell silent. "Um, Rachel, I proposed a couple months ago -"

"Months," Santana repeated scathingly. "You didn't tell me formonths?"

"How did you keep it a secret that long?" Brittany asked.

"Can I film the wedding?" Artie asked.

"Kurt, your bridesmaid dresses have to be pink, I look best in pink," Rachel ordered.

"Maybe Blaine will want bridesmaids," Tina reminded her.

"Nah, Blaine's going to want best men and Lady Hummel's the one who'll want bridesmaids," Santana said observantly. "And because of that, Rachel's going to end up being maid of honor, and Sam's going to end up best man -"

"I beg your pardon," Cooper interrupted.

"No, she's right," Sam smiled cheerily. "I -"

"No, if anyone -"

"I think Lord Tubbington should be best man -"

"He does look good in a tux, Brit -"

"I -"

"We -"

"How -?"

And they were lost in a flood of questions and celebration and love and people smothered them with hugs and congratulations and they let themselves drown in it - but they refused to stop cuddling on that couch.

It's amazing how fast news travels.

One second they're having a semi-drunk Truth or Dare game, and the next things they know people from Ohio and California and all over the place are calling because they heard about the bar shooting and want to know if people are okay. And then they're calling again because they want to congratulate Santana and Brittany on getting back together. And then they're calling again because Kurt and Blaine finally told Burt they were engaged and he sent it to literally everyone in his inbox and they're freaking out because "we knew you'd make it!"

Well, really, it's more than just four seconds. It's more like four days. The first day they wake up with a hangover and they're woken up by someone pounding on the door. When they open it, it's a camera crew, wanting to ask them questions about the shooting. Rachel's arm had started hurting again and she'd had it in her sling when she answered the door, so they got their gruesome After pictures they wanted - and normally Rachel (and Cooper, standing behind her protectively) would have been all for it... except for the fact that her arm was throbbing and her head was pounding and she was hungover just enough to be pissed off at everyone and so she slammed the door in their faces.

But they were still on the news, and Mr. Schue saw, flipped out, and called to demand that they tell him whether or not everyone was okay. He wasn't satisfied until he'd talked to both Rachel and Santana, and then both girls had to calm him down on speaker. Neither of them could find it in them to be annoyed with him, though Santana tried.

Of course, after Mr. Schue called there was Marley and Kitty, who'd been having a sleepover, calling to make sure everyone (particularly Blaine) was alright. And then Jake, then Ryder, and then Unique (Kurt stayed on the phone with her for a lot longer than necessary), and then Joe, and then Quinn and Mercedes phoned at the same time and got anxious when both of their calls were dropped because of the timing. When Mike called, Blaine assured him of just how okay they were and then soundlessly handed it to Tina.

(She thanked him later. Much later. Six hours later. When she got off the damn phone with Mike.)

And then it was time to sleep, and Brittany stayed with Santana, and Blaine stayed with Kurt, and Sam took Blaine's bed and Tina took Rachel's and Artie slept on the couch (he insisted, he adamantly refused any and all bed suggestions because it was just more convenient to be that close to his chair), and then because all the other beds were full and they could tolerate each other, Rachel and Cooper was stuck with the hotel room the others had booked.

It was safe to say that while they fought against it for the sake of appearances, neither of them minded. Blaine kept apologizing for it until they finally just had to tell him to shut up because it didn't matter.

And then people called because 'Brittana' went facebook-official. Their favorite call was probably Quinn's:

"It took you long enough, Santana. This whole time I was worried you'd actually show up at my door with a moving van."

"Shut up, Quinn."

"Why would you -"

"Because I slept with her at Mr. Schues wedding."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Huh. Does that mean Quinn's a lesbian?"

"It means I'm experimenting."

"So the next time we see each other can we have a three-way?"

And then they actually arranged a visit.

Needless to say, when the phone calls had finally stopped coming, they forced Kurt and Blaine to sit down in front of the computer and Skype with Burt. Before anyone could even say anything, Santana in the background shouted at Burt, "YOUR SON'S ENGAGED" before running off to join her girlfriend in front of the TV.

That got the conversation started on a very direct path.

And then Burt got way too over-excited and the next thing they knew Mercedes was squealing across the phone and Carole was calling about wedding plans and Blaine's parents were calling to see if it was true.

They didn't even call Blaine. They called Cooper.

When he told them it was, they hung up.

When Cooper told Blaine, he sat there in silence until Kurt hugged him, and then he started to cry.

But that, too, passed, and so did packing boxes and moving them. Because Kurt would be damned if he let all this valuable, willing labor go undone by equally valuable, willing laborers. He gave everyone tasks and they'd finished the packing by the time the first full day ended. And they'd moved half the boxes by the end of the second, and by the third they'd gotten everything unpacked and Kurt was fully moved in with Blaine and Santana was stuck with Rachel again.

After that, they spent the next two days doing everything they possibly could in New York City.

And then, somehow, Kurt and Blaine found themselves alone.

Santana had taken Brittany out to dinner, Rachel and Artie had gone to see another Broadway show, and Sam and Tina had gone to catch a movie at the cinema - leaving the two boys alone. (They doubted it was unintentional.) And they discovered this when Kurt looked up from his phone and looked around and said, "Wait, nobody's here."

Blaine looked up from his Spots magazine and smiled. "Yeah, nobody's been here for, like, an hour, honey."

"You're kidding me," Kurt said, dropping the phone to his lap, a look of total shock crossing his face. "So for the past hour I've been whining about constantly surrounded via text to Adam when I could have been having sex with you?"

Blaine's face was blank for a moment, and then he looked ready to burst in guffaws. "That sentence changed direction rather quickly."

"So did my train of thought!" Kurt exclaimed, tossing the phone down where he'd just been sitting and standing up.

"So we're going to have sex now?" Blaine reaffirmed, raising an eyebrow and fighting back the laughter that was bubbling into his voice, grinning with amusement as Kurt crossed the distance between them and plucked the magazine out of his hands. "I was reading that."

"You're really bad at this whole 'boyfriend' thing," Kurt muttered, dropping the magazine to the coffee table and placing his leg on the other side of Blaine's.

"Yeah, but I'm great at being a fiance," Blaine said cheekily - but Kurt didn't miss how his eyes flickered down and then back up, so he put his knees on the couch cushions on either side of Blaine and sank down onto them, letting himself lean forward until his hands were on the back of the couch, the only things holding him up so he didn't just crash onto Blaine, whose face was mere inches away.

"We haven't had sex in aweek, Blaine," Kurt pointed out.

"We haven't beenalonein a week, Kurt," Blaine countered.

"You're so amused right now!" Kurt teased, and Blaine snickered, his eyes crinkling at the corners and his smirk widening. "Seriously!"

"You're very amusing," Blaine awarded him.

"Blaaaiiiiine," Kurt whined, his voice low, and he purposefully made it sound rough; Blaine's smile slipped just a little bit into a different type of smirk.

"Am I frustrating you?" Blaine teased, leaning forward so the tip of his nose just grazed the tip of Kurt's. "Mr. I-haven't-been-laid-in-a-week?"

"You haven't been laid in a week either," Kurt reminded him. "I just want to change that."

"Mm," Blaine nodded, his face falsely thoughtful. "And if that should include pleasuring yourself immensely, it's just an added bonus, right?"

"Shutup, Blaine, oh mygod," Kurt groaned, letting his face fall forward so his forehead rested on Blaine's. "You are totally killing the mood."

"I can fix that." Blaine's voice was suddenly lower, thicker, and Kurt looked back up and Blaine's smirk was cocky now, not humored, and his eyes were narrower and his lips were pursed.

"Are you going to kiss menow?" Kurt asked, more bemused than he had been before.

"You're killing the mood," Blaine sang tauntingly back at him.

"Shut up and kiss me," Kurt sighed, exasperated.

"No," Blaine said, his tone back to normal and his grin just as playful as before. "You're the one who -"

"For Pete's sake," Kurt curtailed him and let his elbows bend so his face practically crashed into Blaine's. The moment their lips touched, everything about Blaine's demeanor changed; he was no longer joking, he was no longer kidding, he was shoving his tongue in Kurt's mouth and taking in a huge, deep breath as he did so, his hand coming up automatically to cup the side of Kurt's face and bring it closer, their noses nuzzles, slotting together like practiced puzzle pieces. Blaine's mouth was soft, pliant, flesh on flesh and tongue on tongue, and -

"You taste like peppermint," Kurt told him, pulling back.

"Well, yeah," Blaine said, cocking his head to the side. "That's what happens when you brush your teeth and then your fiance kisses you."

"Why did you brush your teeth?"

"Because you were going to kiss me." And the teasing grin was back, and though it took Kurt a second to process, when he did his voice rose and he said in fond anger, "Youplannedthis!"

Instead of responding, Blaine chose the far wiser path and kissed him again.

Blaine washot.

Blaine was breathing and flushed and sweaty and naked andhot.

So it wasn't surprising that it had led them to that moment, where Kurt was lying over Blaine, crooking his fingers inside him, stretching him open, and watching Blaine struggle to both fist the sheets and pull him closer. "Please, Kurt," he begged, "Just... please, justfuckme." His wild curls were spilling over the pillow but plastered in clumps to his forehead, his eyes closed, his breath coming in short gasps of air that didn't seem like enough;hot.

Kurt curled his fingers and Blaine writhed, his limbs twitching, blinking, words starting to come out but gargling off. "I will soon, baby," Kurt promised.

"Now," Blaine pleaded. "Now, or I'm gonna lost it."

Kurt didn't want to, but he also didn't want Blaine to come just because of his fingers, so he withdrew them, and he reached for the condoms and the lube he'd discarded after slicking them. Blaine watched him, his eyes just barely open, wriggling on the mattress, flat against the crumpled sheets, his cock red and hard and against his stomach, precome shining on it. He whimpered and palmed his cock, moving along his shaft, and though it made the fire that was coursing through Kurt's veins just that much stronger to see Blaine touch himself, Kurt reached out and stopped him in favor of his own hand. "Not yet," he said, completely wrecked by the sight by still firm - it was his usual state when Blaine was naked.

"Please, I want -" Blaine was cut off when his last word cracked and then squeaked, because Kurt had angled himself and slid into the opening of Blaine's ass he'd just stretched. Blaine's eyes rolled back in his head, and his pants came longer, greedier, his muscles flexing as he moved against Kurt, pulling him closer, his jaw going just a bit slack. It took more self-control than Kurt knew he had not to come just at that sight.

Kurt was planning on being able to have sex for the rest of his life, but he would never get over just how gorgeous Blaine was or how amazing it was to be buried in him. "God, Blaine," he moaned, and he had to tighten his grip on Blaine's hips to keep himself grounded, because his bliss was almost making him dizzy. And then Blaine was moving, shifting, changing around Kurt, and feeling his muscles flex and contract around him made Kurt cry out - so did Blaine's legs hooking themselves around his waist, and his heels digging into the base of his spine, encouraging him to go even deeper. But Kurt didn't; if he moved, he was gone.

He had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep his focus, but he managed it; and he slid out of Blaine just enough to set his knees firmly under himself and thrust in. The lack of friction from no longer being in contact with Blaine's dick was a loss that took its toll, but when Kurt's hips bucked forward, both of them moaned. Blaine's mouth was only a few inches away, but Kurt didn't dare kiss him - those stupid noises, the feel of his face, and he wouldn't last a second longer. "Kurt,Kurt,damnit, Kurt," Blaine panted.

Blaine clenched around him, tighter, tighter than he should have been, and Kurt released a guttural noise without meaning to, unthinkingly pulling out and then slamming back in, his hips crashing against Blaine's, and he couldn't tell if Blaine's gasp was more of pleasure or pain. "Sorry, I didn't mean -"

"Don't be sorry," Blaine growled, and Kurt's dick strained inside him at the gravel-filled tone. "Do it again."

He'd never be able to last longer than Blaine if he kept saying things like that. But he figured he'd cross that bridge when he came to it, and instead focused on rocking into him repeatedly, rough, sharp, fast. Kurt dropped his head to Blaine's collarbone and started sucking, his skin clean but slick, and Blaine threw his head back as much as he could, his back arching and his own hips thrusting with Kurt's with their lack of rhythm. They'd lost all beat to it - it was just frantic, needy. Blaine's hands clawed at Kurt's back in a relentless effort to draw him impossibly nearer, marking him. Kurt bit down suddenly on Blaine's tender skin, and the desperate noises he loved so much were around them out of Blaine's mouth, the sounds load and moaning, and Kurt fucked him faster.

Blaine's hand found the back of his head and brought it down sharply for a demanding, sloppy, off-center kiss, pushing his tongue into Kurt's mouth almost angrily. He groaned, his free hand dropping and falling limp on the sheets before grabbing it in a fist, "That,yes, dothat, Kurt!"

"Are you going to come?" Kurt asked, hoping to any deity that could hear that the answer was yes; from the strand of profanities and variations of his name that followed, it sounded like his prayers had been answered.

Blaine was trying to palm his dick again, but once more Kurt did it for him. The precome worked as a lubricant, pumping his hand up and down the shaft, working along it, rubbing his thumb on the head of Blaine's cock when he could. Kurt returned to sucking the area of skin he'd bitten, causing Blaine to scramble for him with an almost animalistic yank.

Breathing was difficult and uneven, but Kurt couldn't bring himself to care; he pounded into Blaine, over and over, his hand getting faster and faster along with his hips, and then Kurt stopped moving his hips because he slipped as far into Blaine as he possible could - Blaine arched his back higher than he had before, choking on his own breath - but Kurt kept his hand moving, faster, and then Blaine was screaming his name, hoarsely, and clenching so tightly around Kurt he wasn't sure if the lights dancing in his field of vision were real, and coming with an unadulterated intensity that fed to the friction. And that friction finally drove Kurt past his ability to remain in control, and he came, too, the same bliss as before rushing through his veins and quenching the fire that had had him yearning for Blaine's touch, and he was dizzy, very dizzy, but equally as happy. His eyelids drooped and he fell onto his elbows, still gasping loudly for breath, like Blaine, their mouths now right against each other, but not kissing.

It took a while before they could breathe. When they could, their pulses were still racing, and Kurt swallowed unevenly before asking with a shaky but amused voice, "Where are the pillows?"

Blaine opened his eyes, and at first he only looked at Kurt, smiling serenely, but then he remembered Kurt's question and raised his head to look around quizzically. "We must have pushed them off," he answered.

"It's hard to cuddle without pillows," Kurt complained.

Blaine raised an eyebrow with slight incredulity. "I think the first step of cuddling is not having your dick still inside me, notpillows."

"Mm, I disagree," Kurt murmured, but then Blaine was chuckling and shaking his head at him, and there was pressure at the base of his cock and the warmth of Blaine was gone. He made a distasteful noise at the lack of it, but Blaine rolled the condom off anyway and tossed it into his trashcan, grabbing the box of tissues beside the lube and starting to wipe off his stomach and Kurt's hand.

"The second rule is probably not being sticky," Blaine told him, and his voice was shaking for an entirely different reason.

"Blaine Devon Anderson, you are laughing at me," Kurt accused.

"Yep," Blaine said cheekily, turning his stupid little grin on Kurt and continuing to laugh just enough to shake the two of them.

Kurt smacked the top of his head. "Asshole."

"But you just got out of that," Blaine said, feigning innocence, and then he shouted with uncontrollable giggles when Kurt attacked him with tickles.

Waking up the next morning was different for all of them. Rachel felt slightly sick to her stomach, but she assumed it was guilt, because she was laying on top of Cooper under the covers of one of the beds in the hotel room; she also thought it could be that she needed to take more pain medication for her arm, but she couldn't guess why it would affect her lower stomach. But then, his arms were around her waist tightly, and her hands were in his hair, so she let herself go back to sleep - and did so with a smile.

Cooper woke up just as Rachel was falling asleep again, and brought his hand up to play with her hair without thinking about it, his other thumb rubbing over the small of her back without any forethought. When he caught himself, he stopped, reminded himself that feelings weren't involved, and then passed out once more, because Rachel had started half-singing in her sleep, and even that was enough of a lullaby.

Brittany woke up in tangled limbs with Santana. She kissed her forehead lightly and then saw the clock on her bedside table, sighed, and untangled herself so she could get dressed and make them brunch.

Santana woke up to Brittany changing into her clothes for the day and got a free show of her stripping before she let her know she was awake.

Tina woke up early, and made everyone pancakes and fruit salad for breakfast - and then left it on the table for everyone and went to the other apartment to get revenge on Sam for taking her to a movie about cars, guns and explosions that he must have known she wouldn't like.

Sam woke up to Tina painting his toenails. He didn't even care.

Artie woke up to pancakes and an inconvenient morning erection.

Kurt and Blaine waking up isn't actually what's important about the fact that they woke up. What's important is that, for the first time in far too long, Blaine had slept in his arms because he wanted to. Not because he was tired, or drained, but because he wanted to. The marks on Kurt's back were from him, the hickey on his collarbone were from Kurt - and the skin and heartbeats and hands and smiles that he woke up to just re-confirmed his suspicion that it would all be alright.

"Good morning," Kurt told him, bringing him just a bit closer with the arm he had around his torso.

"Morning," Blaine said, grinning. "I have classes again today."

"And I have work."

"We need more milk."

"We need more lube."

"We need to go on a date."

"Mm." Kurt nodded, touching his forehead to Blaine's lovingly. "So when I get off work, I'll pick up the milk and lube, come home, and we can go out?"

"Waste of gas," Blaine told him. "I'll pick you up from work, we'll go on a date, and on the way home we'll get milk and lube."

"I might want to just throw together a grocery list if we're going shopping," Kurt remarked. "Where are we going on a date?"

"I don't know. A movie? Dinner? See something on Broadway?"

"Or," Kurt suggested, his voice low, "I could show you why cuddling doesn't necessitate my dick not being in your ass."

"But you could show me that now," Blaine pointed out, wiggling his eyebrows.

"Artie's in the next room," Kurt reminded him sadly, and then kissed him - it was a morning kiss, a slow one, hot and lazy and full of Good Mornings and I Love Yous. "But it's tempting."

"You're talking about sex and callingmetempting," Blaine grumbled, and Kurt bit his lip to keep from laughing at him.