“It’s been over a month,” Kurt moans in despair. “It’s been over a month since he’s said like, two words to me.”

“He doesn’t even call on you in class?” Carole asks, sipping an iced latte.

They sit together at a small table, safely ensconced in the coffee shop nearest the school rather than the one Kurt and Blaine used to frequent. He does this a lot, Kurt realizes, doing his very best to keep his promise and stay out of Blaine’s life. He avoids their usual coffee shop, never sets foot inside the soup and salad bar he knows Blaine likes to visit for dinner sometimes, and of course, he refuses to arrive at school any earlier than second period so he isn’t forced to sit in silence with Blaine in his classroom.

“No,” Kurt sighs. “But I told him not to. When we broke up, I mean. I told him he didn’t have to do that to make things less…”

“Strained?” Carole asks.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Hm.”

“Maybe it really is over,” Kurt says miserably. “Maybe I should just – just give up and stop trying and worrying.”

“Well,” Carole says, “I think it’s easy enough to stop trying. But if you really believe he’s the person you want to be with and you really think you’re meant for one another, the worrying won’t ever stop.”

“He looks so unhappy all the time,” Kurt reveals. “I haven’t seen a real smile on his face in so long. And I wish I knew why. I wish I knew if it was because of me or the fact that he doesn’t have a job after this year or if he just can’t decide if he wants to go back school. I just wish I knew so I could help. But there’s no way I can know because I can’t talk to him!”

“Hm,” Carole hums again. “Maybe…you need a new plan.”

“…Like what?” Kurt asks, catching the mischievous glint in his step-mother’s eyes.

“Up until this point, you’ve been avoiding him, right?” she asks.

“Well, yeah.”

“Maybe you need to come at it from the opposite side of things.”

“What do you mean?” Kurt wonders.

“Instead of avoiding him,” Carole suggests, “maybe you should put yourself in his path more often. Discreetly, of course, given the nature of the relationship.”

“So…you’re saying that, after all this time, I should be trying to win him back instead of just giving him space?”

“I figured giving him space would give him time to find himself again,” Carole says. “But it seems like, at this point, he’s unhappy because he knows exactly what he wants and he’s not allowing himself to have it.”

“Meaning…me?”

“It looks that way.”

“You realize that you’re essentially giving your eighteen year old step-son permission to seduce his teacher, right?” Kurt says in a low voice, wary of eavesdroppers.

Carole flushes, a tinge of pink rising to her cheeks. “I’m not telling you to seduce him,” she says. “Just…saying you shouldn’t avoid him anymore. It’s probably not the best idea to actively pursue a relationship, not while school is still in session. But graduation’s not long off. Maybe if you drop him enough hints and give him the right idea, you two will be in a place to reconcile after you’ve received your diploma and you’re no longer his student.”

“Carole,” Kurt says with a devious grin, “I can’t believe I’ve never seen this side of you.”

“I’m just saying…he’s not the only one who doesn’t look very happy,” Carole says. “I remember the way you used to look before all this happened. I just want to see you look that way again. If he’s the only one who can do that, I figure I should help, not hold you back.”

Unbidden, tears begin to cloud Kurt’s vision. He reaches across the table and clasps Carole’s hand with his own.

“I would’ve been proud to call you my mom,” Kurt says softly, “if fate had chosen you instead of her.”

Carole tilts her head, a sad smile gracing her features. “I know I can’t ever replace her, but I will always be here for you, Kurt.”

Somehow, Kurt knew that before she ever said it.

“Good morning, Mr. Anderson!” Kurt says, too much cheer in his voice and pep in his step when he enters Blaine’s classroom.

His teacher jolts abruptly, head snapping up from its place on his desk where he had apparently been sleeping.

“Good – what? Kurt?”

“You’ve got a bit of drool,” Kurt says. “Just there.”

Blaine wipes at his mouth haphazardly, rubbing his hand down his chin. “Is it second period already?”

“Oh no, it’s still first period,” Kurt tells him.

“But-”

The man looks adorably confused, eyes still sleepy and bleary as his brows knit together. He pouts his lips a bit, glancing about as if he’s expecting other people to mysteriously materialize from thin air.

“What’re you doing here so early?” he asks.

“You didn’t hear?” Kurt replies. “I’m a volunteer office aid for first period now. It won’t be on my transcript when I graduate, of course, but it can be a little extra-curricular bit on the side. It might look good on a resume some day if I go the fashion route and have to start at the bottom of the food chain. So, I figured, why not?”

“Oh,” Blaine says, a blank look still on his sleepy face. “But…what are you doing here?”

“Bringing you your mail,” Kurt states, placing a stack of envelopes and papers atop Blaine’s desk. “Mrs. Lowry at the front desk, she says you never remember to pick it up. She told me I should bring it to you every morning. On the days when you forget, I mean.”

“Uh, right. I guess I should probably start-”

“Don’t worry about it,” Kurt says with a smile. “I’m happy to pick it up for you. It’s almost part of my job now, I guess. Is there anything else you need from the office? I can get you more coffee from the teacher’s lounge if you want.”

“N-no, I’m good,” Blaine says, looking a bit more awake but still just as confused. “Thanks, though.”

“Anytime. I’ll be around every morning in case you need anything. See you in class, Mr. Anderson.”

“Right. Yeah. I’ll see you in class, Kurt.”

Kurt departs with a bright grin and a tiny wave.

Phase one? Complete.

“Oh, god, I’m so sorry,” Kurt apologizes, clinging to the man’s shoulder in front of him after fake-tripping himself on the entrance rug.

It’s like perfectly re-enacted déjà vu, Kurt thinks proudly.

“Oh, you’re alrig – Kurt?”

“Mr. Anderson, hi,” Kurt says, sounding just flustered enough. “We really have to stop meeting like this.”

Blaine’s gaze darts around the coffee shop, the one they used to meet in, the same one Kurt’s been avoiding for over a month now.

“I haven’t seen you in here in a while,” Blaine remarks.

“Yeah, I’ve been going to the other place, the one closer to school since it’s less out of the way,” Kurt says. “They just don’t have everything I want there, though. So I’m re-devoting myself to the Lima Bean.”

“Right, yeah,” Blaine says with an odd smile and narrowed eyes, like he can’t really figure out what the hell is going on, but he’s enjoying the string of events anyway. “I remember you saying something about the other place not having the right kind of atmosphere.”

“Among other things.”

Blaine clears his throat and turns back toward the counter.

But Kurt won’t give up that easily.

“I miss our piano lessons,” Kurt says, taking a step forward to stand properly at his teacher’s side. “It’s a shame there’s not much left for you to teach me.”

“Mmm,” Blaine says, agreeing without really agreeing. “All good things, as they say.”

“I’ve never really liked that phrase,” Kurt states. “Not everything good has to end. Sometimes, what looks like an ending could really just be the start of a better beginning.”

Before Blaine can reply, Kurt steps up to the counter as the line moves.

“I’ll take a nonfat mocha,” he orders, “and a medium drip for him.”

“Kurt!” the barista exclaims, ponytail swinging happy behind her in her excitement. “I haven’t seen you here in forever!”

“I was trying something new,” he explains with a gracious smile. “Just didn’t stick. How much for the drinks?”

“Wait,” Blaine says, hand clutching Kurt’s shoulder in an effort to stop him from paying. “You don’t-”

“They’re on the house,” the barista says, “as long as your promise to come back soon.”

“Oh, I’m sure I’ll be here tomorrow,” Kurt tells her.

“Awesome,” she replies. “Your drinks will be at the bar.”

Kurt slips away from the counter, leaving Blaine looking slightly bereft in his wake. Eventually, Blaine snaps out of his shock and joins Kurt to wait for his coffee.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Blaine says at once.

“But it’s free,” Kurt reminds him. “Who turns down free coffee?”

“I – but you didn’t-”

“I think the words you’re looking for are thank you, Kurt, you’re the most generous person I know.”

The fight leaves Blaine’s eyes almost immediately, replaced by good humor and fondness. He shakes his head, a slight smile on his lips

“Thank you, Kurt,” he eventually says.

“Guess we’ll have to work up to the generous person part,” Kurt quips. “Maybe one day.”

Another barista slides their drinks toward them on the bar.

“I’ll see you at school, then,” Kurt says as he snatches his drink, leaving before Blaine has a chance to say anything else.

Phase two? Also complete.

Blaine Anderson is usually a pretty perceptive person. He can find meaning in small details, discover mounds of subtext in short stories, and he’s pretty good at guessing the end of every movie ever made.

He also knows when there’s a plot afoot.

After nearly two months of no contact with Kurt, save for seeing him in class, the boy is suddenly everywhere. They run into each other at the coffee shop almost every morning now and Kurt always finds a reason to join him in his classroom during Blaine’s morning planning period. Some days it’s to ask him if needs any copies made, others he’s bringing in an announcement from the head of the English department, and sometimes it’s to bring him his mail.

Okay. So Blaine might admit to purposefully leaving his mail in the box just so Kurt can bring it to him.

It’s a small pleasure, a tiny, insignificant little thing that he can look forward to. Just to see Kurt saunter through that doorway in the morning with a familiar smile, it’s one of the few bits of his day that really fills him with something akin to joy. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that…is there?

Because the rest of his life kind of really sucks. He still isn’t sleeping very well due to vivid dreams, the majority of which feature Kurt’s sweat-slick skin and bedroom eyes, all ghostly images from the last night they had spent together. He usually wakes in a rush with sticky sheets and Kurt’s name on his lips. Sometimes he dreams about sitting alone in a dark, windowless cell while David Karofsky’s voice taunts him with that horrible word. When he wakes from those specific nightmares, he has to stop and remind himself that he isn’t a pedophile and that he really had refused to lay single finger on Kurt before he was eighteen.

At this point, the nightmares are almost non-existent. Almost.

It’s the dreams that really haunt him during the day.

He’ll catch a glimpse of Kurt while the boy taps the end of a pen against his lips during class, and then Blaine’s mind is suddenly awash in flashbacks of Kurt’s lips against his neck, moaning while Blaine fists his dick.

The real danger comes from the fact that it isn’t just the sex he’s remembering.

Sometimes, when Kurt drops off his mail, he’ll duck his head in that oh-so-innocent way and look up through his pretty eyelashes. It’s then when Blaine remembers Kurt’s eighteenth birthday and the way he had smiled when Blaine had given him one of his old high school pictures. It’s then when Blaine remembers how lovely Kurt had looked when Blaine woke to see him in the bed while they were in Columbus for a night.

It’s then when Blaine remembers how Kurt had made him feel alive for the first time since he stood on a stage and sang his first solo.

But for all that, you make me just as miserable.

Blaine cringes internally over his lonely dinner one night, thinking back on that last horrific day.

Now, he realizes, looking around at his silent, empty apartment from his seat at his tiny dining room table, perhaps he hadn’t known real misery until this very moment.

Blaine sighs. No longer hungry, he tips the last of his meal into the garbage and refocuses his attention on the essays he needs to grade. He plops down once again on his sofa, tucking his feet beneath him, and snatches the abandoned papers from his coffee table to finish grading.

Kurt Hummel, the name reads in the upper left hand corner of the page.

Oh, right. Now Blaine remembers why he took a break from grading to make himself dinner. A sad smile creeps upon his face and he allows his finger to trace the letters that make up Kurt’s name. His elegant, refined scrawl is a blessing in comparison to the chicken scratch he normally reads.

As Blaine lifts the essay from the top of the pile to read it in full, something unexpected occurs.

A small, folded slip of paper drops down into his lap from between the pages of the essay.

Blaine’s heartbeat races, quick and light as if to mimic the wings of a small hummingbird. He plucks the paper from his lap and unfolds it with nervous fingers.

I am thinking it’s a sign that the freckles in our eyes are mirror images and when we kiss they’re perfectly aligned.

The words on the page ring familiar in Blaine’s mind. He remembers the lyrics, though he hasn’t heard the song in ages. Chewing on his lower lip, Blaine stares down at the scrap of paper in his hand. There’s nothing else there, no name signed, no initials. Just the lyrics written in Kurt’s hand.

Just the lyrics of a song he’d forgotten he knew and a pretty tune dancing around in his overworked mind.

He places the note aside reverently, smoothing it out and allowing it to sit beside him for the rest of the night while he continues grading.

“Bagels,” Kurt announces one morning during first period.

Blaine drops his pen onto his desk, leaning back into his chair before turning his attention to Kurt.

“They’re not blueberry,” Kurt says, placing a bagel wrapped in a napkin atop the papers Blaine had been fussing with. “But Mrs. Lowry brought in some extras today so I figured I’d bring you one.”

“I’m not really hungry,” Blaine mumbles. “Thank you, though.”

“You look like you haven’t been eating enough to keep a baby bird alive,” Kurt says, shoving the bagel closer to his teacher. “Eat.”

Blaine sighs, knowing when to pick his battles, and takes large bite of the proffered snack.

“Very good,” Kurt teases.

Snorting in amusement, Blaine shakes his head. “Okay, mother,” he says after he finishes chewing.

“Do you need anything this morning?” Kurt asks politely.

“How – how are you doing?” Blaine wonders, lowering his voice.

Kurt stares back in surprise, as if he can’t believe Blaine is actually the one to attempt conversation. Truth be told, Blaine can’t believe he’s doing it either. It just feels weird, having Kurt cater to him like this in the morning without really having a decent talk. Usually Blaine’s too baffled in his attempt to figure out Kurt’s plan, but today…he just really wants to know.

“I’m doing…alright,” Kurt finally says. “Kind of busy, since it’s the end of the year and the teachers are piling on homework before finals.”

“Yeah,” Blaine nods. “I guess we try and pace the curriculum only to rush at the end, trying to pack in the last bit of stuff we’re required to teach.”

“Well it’s maddening,” Kurt tells him, rolling his eyes and gracing Blaine with a fond smile.

“What about – um, what about outside of school?” Blaine asks. “How’s your family and everything?”

“They’re fine,” Kurt assures. “Finn’s considering joining the military after school, so my dad and Carole are slightly concerned on that front. I’m just waiting on acceptance letters.”

“Oh, right, you’d have had to apply to colleges by now. What’s your top choice? Still NYU?”

“Mhmm,” Kurt hums. “I’m just worried about the recommendation letters I gave. Mr. Schuester’s letter was alright, but Ms. Pillsbury’s was a bit bland. I don’t know if they’ll be enough to convince them that I’m good enough for any of the specialty programs I’m interested in. There’s a chance I’ll get in on my grades and SAT scores alone, but it might not put me above the rest. I’ve always hated being…average, I guess.”

“I’m not sure anyone could classify you as average, Kurt,” Blaine whispers with an easy smile.

Something like pleasure creeps into Blaine’s body when he sees a blush color Kurt’s smooth cheeks.

“I could write an extra letter for you,” Blaine offers.

“You – you’d do that for me?”

“Of course I would,” Blaine says. “I’m not heartless. And you – I want to see you happy as well. I want you to go to New York. You deserve that after – after everything.”

“It’s all I’ve ever wanted,” Kurt says softly.

“I know. So NYU will have my recommendation letter by the end of the week.”

“I wish I could write one for you.”

Completely caught off guard by the desperation in Kurt’s voice, Blaine leans closer to the boy. A brief, insane moment passes in which Blaine nearly reaches for Kurt’s hand, but instead he simply clasps his own together in his lap.

“You don’t need to worry yourself so much over me. My life isn’t ruined just because I can’t teach here again next year. I’ll figure something out.”

“I think you know that’s not what I mean,” Kurt says.

“Kurt…I’m doing okay.”

“You look like you haven’t slept properly in months,” Kurt tells him. “The other teachers, I hear them talk. They think you’re still upset because of that whole incident with the police, but I – I feel like it’s not just that.”

Blaine takes a deep breath and stares up at boy he loves.

Because he does, he still loves him. Blaine doesn’t think anything will ever change that fact. To this day, he still regrets his words to Kurt when he broke things off. He’s never said as much to Kurt, of course, considering this is the only proper conversation they’ve had that doesn’t have anything to do with school or coffee. But he does regret his harsh, futile attempt to turn Kurt away. He knows that Kurt doesn’t really believe what he had said about no longer loving him and only wanting to sleep with him, but there’s still a bit of guilt in his heart for having said such awful things.

Blaine shakes himself out of his own thoughts. Love is neither here nor there, not at this point in time.

“I appreciate that you’re concerned,” he says eventually, “but really, things aren’t as bad as they were before. Not lately, anyway.”

He doesn’t tell Kurt that the reason for his improved mood is Kurt himself. Simply being around the boy somehow lifts his spirits. His conscience isn’t so haunted lately, though Blaine can’t exactly pinpoint why. Perhaps it’s the fact that, even in just a couple of months, Kurt’s beginning to lose the roundness of his face and grow into the adult Blaine knows he already is inside.

Or perhaps it’s because Blaine is finally realizing that the misery he thought he’d known when he and Kurt were together was simply his own fear.

Maybe Kurt was never the devil to drag him under. Maybe Blaine was the one with the demons he still needed to battle.

“Just – just let me know, okay?” Kurt pleads. “You still have my number, I hope. Text me or something if you…need anything.”

“I will,” Blaine says.

“Seriously,” Kurt continues. “Don’t tell me you will and then sit alone in your apartment when things get bad.”

“I will, I promise. But like I said, things with me are better now.”

“Good,” Kurt says with a nod. “I should go. Mrs. Lowry needs some copies made and the copier in the office is broken so I need to go to the teacher’s lounge.”

“I’ll see you in class in a bit.”

When Kurt leaves, Blaine allows his head to fall forward, almost resting his chin on his chest.

He just doesn’t know what to do about this anymore.

“He talked to me today,” Kurt tells Carole while they chop up various vegetables to toss into their stew for dinner. “Like, really talked to me.”

“That sounds like progress,” Carole comments.

“Yeah, it was nice. But I still – he says he’s doing okay, or at least, he says he’s doing okay now. I like to think maybe I’m helping in some weird way. It still seems like he’s holding back, though, like he still has some issues but he doesn’t have anyone to talk to about them.”

“And you think you’d be able to help on that front?” Carole asks.

“I know I could,” Kurt says. “If he’d just let me in again, I could tell him that I – that I still love him and care about him. I could tell him that I’m not going to force anything on him and that I’ll still be there if he wants me.”

“Didn’t you tell me that you said something like that when you two broke it off?”

“I did but I just don’t know if he was really listening.”

“Ah.”

What Kurt doesn’t know, not in this moment, is that Burt Hummel is most definitely listening.

When a loud pounding on his front door sounds, Blaine freezes in the process of tucking away the last of the senior essays he needs to grade. It’s nearly nine in the evening, he notices with a quick glance at his clock.

Who on earth could be knocking so loudly?

Upon wrenching open his door, Blaine’s heart nearly grinds to a halt.

He never, in a million years, would have expected to see Burt Hummel on his doorstep.

“M-Mr. Hummel,” he stammers. “What – what’re you doing here?”

“Stopped by for a chat,” the man says, stuffing his hands in his pockets, a broad, forced grin on his face. “Gonna let me in?”

“Uh, yes. Yeah, sure,” Blaine says as he backs away from the door. When Burt is fully inside and seating himself on the sofa without invitation, Blaine closes the door and has to ask, “How do you know where I live?”

“I’ve lived in this town a long time,” Burt says, “and I got friends in the school system. That’s all you need to know.”

“O-okay,” Blaine replies, unable to keep the nerves out of his voice. “Would you, um, would you like something to drink? I think I have bottled water or juice or – or a beer, if you’d like one.”

“You give Kurt beer when he was here?”

Blaine’s eyes widen in shock. “No, sir. No. I never gave him any alc-”

“Sit down, kid, I’m just screwin’ with you.”

“Oh. Um, right,” Blaine mumbles, seating himself precariously on the opposite end of the sofa. “So…you wanted to chat?”

“Well, the plan was to come over here and make you as uncomfortable as possible before getting to the real stuff, but it’s been a long day so I guess I’ll just cut to the chase.”

“A-alright,” Blaine stutters. “What was it you-”

“Do you love my son?”

Blaine gapes, mouth flopping open like a fish, and his face loses color. “I – I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“It’s a pretty simple question,” Burt states. “Do you love my son?”

“We never, I mean, Kurt and I – I know the things David Karofsky said that day might’ve sounded-”

Burt waves a hand in front of his face, as if he can brush away Blaine’s lie with the action. “Cut the front. I know about everything. Kurt told me.”

“He – he told you?” Blaine asks in disbelief. “Everything?”

“Everything from the piano lessons, to the first kiss, to the date in Columbus, to the first I love you and the romp between the sheets.”

“Oh, god,” Blaine groans in horror, clutching his stomach because he feels perfectly ill in this moment. “Sir, I – I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I never meant for you to – oh god.”

“You never meant for me to find out,” Burt finishes for him. “Yeah, that part’s pretty clear.”

“I can’t even begin to explain how – oh my god. Did you – did you already…call the police?”

“What the hell would I do that for?”

“Because I – because he’s your son and I-” Blaine cuts himself off and covers his mouth with a trembling hand.

This is awful. This is horrific. This is the worst thing that could possibly happen. One student discovering their secret is bad enough, but this?

Blaine wishes a hole would split open in the fabric of time and space and just swallow him whole. That would probably be a better way to go than having Burt Hummel strangle him here and now.

“I’ll turn myself in,” Blaine says quickly. “Please just – please don’t publicize this.”

“I think you got the wrong idea here, kid,” Burt says, studying Blaine with hard eyes. “If I wanted you locked up, I’d have called the police months ago when Kurt told me.”

Blaine pauses.

Wait. What?

“Wha – how long have you known?”

“Since the day you and he split,” Burt informs. “Same day as the meeting from hell. Took all day to get him to tell me, but I think I mighta pushed a bit too much and he snapped. Kurt fought tooth and nail to keep your secret, don’t worry. He only told us after we promised not to have you thrown in jail.”

“I’m so sorry,” Blaine says again because he’s not exactly sure what else he can say. “If I – if I could go back and change things, I would. I never should have done what I did. I shouldn’t have – it was awful. What I did was wrong and vile and I’m so sorry. I was – I was stupid and reckless and irresponsible and I know I’m not – I shouldn’t even be teaching anymore. They should just toss me out and never look back and-”

“Whoa, calm down, Anderson,” Burt interrupts. “Jesus. Kurt was right about the guilt complex.”

Blaine stares back blankly, though his heartbeat is too loud and too fast in his chest.

“I’m not here to put you on trial or anything,” Burt tells him.

“But then…I don’t understand. Why are you here, sir?”

“I’m here ‘cause I got one question and I already asked it twice: do you love my son?”

If physically possible, Blaine’s pulse quickens even more. “We – I can’t – I can’t-”

“Look,” Burt sighs heavily, leaning back to make himself comfortable on the couch, “I’m not sayin’ I’m happy about you two sneakin’ around behind my back. And I definitely ain’t happy about you having so much alone time together because god knows what two kids can get up to when no one else is around to watch. But that’s more because he’s my friggin’ kid. And I got a right to know if he’s with someone who’s gonna treat him right and not force him into anything he ain’t ready for.”

“I swear,” Blaine says emphatically, “I never-”

“But,” Burt interrupts once more, “Kurt told me about how you wouldn’t even so much as kiss him until the day he turned eighteen. So I guess I gotta respect that. And I’m glad you two waited a while to get up to anything else.”

“I would never force him, sir. I never did and I never would have.”

“I’m gettin’ that now,” Burt says. “Personally? I think the whole thing’s crazy. You’re his teacher. And to me, Kurt’s still my little boy.”

Blaine says nothing. He bites his lips together, feeling younger than he has in a very long time.

“All that bein’ said,” Burt explains with another heavy sigh, “I guess it’s probably time to admit that he’s not my little boy anymore. He had to grow up real fast and I just…wish I could keep him a kid longer than he’s ever gonna be one. And I gotta make myself realize that he’s hold enough to decide who he wants to date.” Burt narrows his eyes. “And who he wants to sleep with.”

Blaine gulps.

“So if he chooses you, I guess I gotta stand back and let you have him.”

“But I – I ended things,” Blaine whispers. “I had to. Like you said, the whole thing is crazy.”

“It’s crazy ‘cause he’s your student,” Burt agrees. “But it ain’t crazy at all if the feelings are real.”

“Mr. Hummel, I-”

“Pretty sure you can call me Burt at this point.”

Blaine thinks that’s mighty nice of the man, all things considered.

“Burt,” he begins again. “It’s – it’s not that simple. He’s still my student. It’s still illegal.”

“It’s not like I’m sayin’ you two should jump right into the sack again,” Burt says. “But I’m not friggin’ blind. Just lookin’ at you right now tells me that everything Kurt’s been sayin’ for the last couple months is true. You look like shit, kid. You look like you don’t have a single good thing in your life. It’s hard to look at. And I’ll tell you right now, no matter what Kurt looks like when you see him at school, when he’s at home and we’re sitting alone in the living room and watchin’ TV together, he looks the same damn way.”

Closing his eyes, Blaine lowers his head, resigned to his own despair, and attempts to force back the tears that threaten to fall. If it hurts Burt this much to see them both this way, it hurts Blaine even worse to think about Kurt feeling the way he’s been feeling for the past couple of months.

“So I’m gonna ask one more time. And I want a straight answer. None of that ‘he’s my student’ and none of that ‘it’s not that simple’ crap,” Burt says. “Do you love my son?”

A long stretch of silence ensues, during which Blaine’s resolve crumbles to dust.

“Yes,” Blaine admits wearily, voice cracking. The tears he had been attempting to keep at bay begin to pour freely down the darkened circles beneath his eyes and further still to stain his cheeks. “I love your son.”

It’s the first time he’s ever admitted it to anyone else, besides Kurt, of course. He’s never discussed their relationship with any other friends or his parents (god, no). He’s never even said it aloud to an empty room. Something heavy, like pain or pressure or fear, lifts from his shoulders and for the first time in months, he feels like he can breathe properly again.

“Then just let him back into your life, kid,” Burt suggests, leaning over to place a hand on Blaine’s thin shoulder. “Let him make you happy again. I know he wants to. Christ, it’s all he talks about these days.”

Blaine sniffles, wiping at his wet cheeks. “What if – what if I screwed it up too much?” he asks, desperate to talk this out with someone. “What if he never wants me that way again?”

“Trust me,” Burt states. “He does. You shoulda heard him that night. He was goin’ on about how he figured he might find someone else one day but he knew they’d never have your smile or some romantic crap. I think my brain melted outta my ears.”

A snort tumbles out of Blaine’s mouth, strangled by a burst of laughter.

“Like I said before, though,” Burt continues, “I don’t know if it’s such a good idea to just jump right back in it. But maybe…hell, I don’t know. Give him piano lessons again or something. Come over for dinner again. Just do something to show him you’re still interested. ‘Cause at this rate, he thinks he’s a lost cause in your eyes. Even after the dumb plan he and Carole started in on.”

“…What plan?” Blaine asks, side-eyeing Kurt’s father.

“Figured you woulda guessed it by now,” Burt mumbles. “He tried to stay away and give you your space, but Carole told me about how she suggested he try something else. That’s why he volunteered to work in the main office at school and why you keep seein’ him in other places around town. He’s trying to be part of your life again.”

“Oh,” Blaine says flatly. “I didn’t even realize.”

“Yeah, I got that,” Burt says. “Now it’s your turn.”

“My turn?”

“To put some friggin’ effort into all this,” Burt clarifies. “Kurt can only do so much before he gives up. Some days I think he’s exhausting himself, runnin’ around and trying to see you, just so you can shut him out again.”

“Does he – does Kurt know you’re here?”

“Hell no,” Burt grumbles, rising to his feet. “He’s string me up by my toes if he knew I was talkin’ to you.”

“Right,” Blaine says, because that really does sound a lot like Kurt. “Well I – I’ll try. Is it – it’s okay if he comes over here? For lessons, I mean?”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d keep your hands – and lips – to yourself until he graduates,” Burt says, “but yeah. I don’t have a problem with him comin’ over here. As long as he’s happy again.”

“I understand,” Blaine says at once. “No kissing. No, um, nothing of that nature until he’s no longer my student.”

“Sounds good,” Burt says, making his way to the door.

Blaine jumps up, rushing over to open it for the man who might just very well have saved his sanity.

“Sir?” he asks timidly.

“Hm?”

“Thank you,” Blaine says, voice on the edge of a whisper. “I know this is – well, I know this probably isn’t the ideal relationship you wanted for your son. But thank you for understanding. I don’t know how I could ever repay your-”

“You just make sure he comes home from school tomorrow with a smile on his face. That’s good enough for me.”

Blaine nods once, as a final parting, and Burt claps him on the shoulder as if to give him strength before he leaves Blaine alone in peace.

When Blaine shuts the door, he spins around and his tired body sags against the wood. For the first time, after many long, painful months, he allows a genuine smile to spread across his face.

“No bagels today?” Blaine teases when Kurt walks through his classroom door that next morning, Blaine’s mail in hand.

Kurt pauses in the process of dropping Blaine’s mail on his desk. He peers up at his teacher with startled eyes, as if the happiness in Blaine’s voice is a completely foreign concept to him these days.

“Uh…no,” Kurt finally replies. “Not today.”

“Shame,” Blaine says, kicking his feet up on his desk while lacing his fingers together behind his head.

“I – I can get you some coffee,” Kurt offers, exactly as he does every morning.

“Coffee’d be nice,” Blaine says, accepting the offer for the first time since Kurt began asking. “Get some for yourself, too.”

Nodding in a rush, Kurt hurries out the door and down the hall to retrieve their drinks. Okay, so maybe Blaine feels a tiny bit guilty for playing on Kurt’s office aid duties.

But it’s a start to a new day, a better day, and Blaine is going to milk it as long as he can.

When Kurt returns, he does so with two cups of coffee, as per requested.

“One cream and three sugars,” Kurt says as he hands Blaine his cup. “That’s right, isn’t it?”

“It’s perfect,” Blaine says. “Sit with me?”

“Uh…is that, I mean, is that such a good idea? After…”

“If anyone asks, we’re talking about what I should put in your NYU recommendation.”

“…And if no one asks?” Kurt wonders, taking a seat in his usual desk.

“I still have some of your lesson books at my place,” Blaine says. “The piano ones. I was wondering if you wanted to come pick them up.”

If Blaine’s eyes glitter too much at the look of pure astonishment on Kurt’s face, he simply can’t be held accountable.

“I – it’s okay if you want to bring them here,” Kurt says. “I don’t want to intrude.”

“You wouldn’t be intruding. I’m asking.”

“Um, yeah. Yeah. Okay. When?”

“After school today?” Blaine offers. “I’m essay-free for a couple of days so I can leave right after classes end.”

“Alright. I guess I’ll see you then.”

“I guess you will.”

When Glee class comes to a close later that day, Kurt’s head is still spinning. Blaine invited him over. Blaine invited him to his house. He invited him over and he said yes to Kurt’s offer for coffee and he never says yes to Kurt’s offer for coffee in the morning.

And he – he sounded happy. Not forced happy, either, but genuinely happy.

Something weird is going on, Kurt decides when he climbs into the driver’s seat of his car. Yesterday, Blaine had seemed, well, not sad, exactly, but he definitely wasn’t so upbeat and bubbly. So what exactly had happened between then and now to cause such a drastic change in the man?

If Kurt thought he had been confused before, he doesn’t understand anything at all today.

“Hey,” Blaine greets, his usual, goofy smile appearing on his lips.

Kurt hasn’t seen that smile in months.

“Come in,” Blaine says.

When Kurt enters Blaine’s apartment, a sudden rush of emotion fills his body. The last time he had been here, his entire world collapsed around his ears. But now, all he knows is that they had kissed on that piano bench and that they had fallen asleep once or twice on that sofa, limbs entwined with Kurt’s head pillowed on Blaine’s chest. The place drowns him in familiarity and warmth.

“You look lost,” Blaine remarks, pulling Kurt out of his thoughts.

“Sorry,” Kurt says quickly. “I just – sorry. So, um, the books? I don’t want to take up too much of your time.”

“Somewhere you need to be?” Blaine wonders.

“N-no,” Kurt stutters. “I just don’t want to overstay my welcome.”

“Well you’re plenty welcome,” Blaine tells him. “You want some tea?”

“…Tea?” Kurt asks, squinting his eyes in suspicion and disbelief. “Since when do you drink tea?”

“I…don’t,” Blaine admits sheepishly, a light flush in his cheeks. “Not normally. But I bought these shortbread cookie things and on the box it says they go well with tea. So I figured I’d give it a try.”

“And you want…me to stay,” Kurt says slowly, “and have tea and cookies with you.”

“I believe the British call them biscuits,” Blaine informs with a bright grin.

“Did you – are you on drugs?” Kurt feels the need to ask, inspecting Blaine’s face thoroughly. “Are you high?”

“Just on life,” Blaine says, taking hold of Kurt’s hand to drag him into the kitchen.

The moment their fingers touch, Kurt can’t stop a tiny gasp from spilling between his lips. It’s the first time they’ve really touched in ages, not counting his faux stumble in the Lima Bean a while ago. But this is skin on skin and Blaine’s the one who initiated it.

Whatever the hell is going on, Kurt can’t find the strength in himself to stop it from happening. Not yet, anyway.

Kurt watches, head spinning in circles while Blaine fills an old kettle with water from the tap before setting it to boil on the stove. The man hums happily to himself. He’s humming and smiling with laughter in his eyes, busying himself by pulling cups from cupboards and reading the instructions on the tin filled with tea bags.

If Kurt wasn’t so confused, the sight would be bringing him to tears right now.

“How was your day?” Blaine asks, eyes still on the tin.

“Oh. Same as every other day, I guess. Making copies, going to class, going to Glee. You?”

“Good,” Blaine says, looking directly at Kurt when he says it. “It was really good.”

“I’m glad,” Kurt replies softly.

“Mmm,” Blaine hums in agreement. “How was Glee? Anything new going on?”

“We’re just deciding on songs to sing at graduation at this point.”

“It’s not even May yet,” Blaine points out.

“No, but it’s going to take us that long to decide on the songs,” Kurt drawls. “Opinions run rampant.”

“Will you sing?” Blaine asks. “Even though you’ll be one of the ones graduating?”

“Of course,” Kurt says, sliding into one of the chairs at the dining table and finally dropping his bag on the ground. If Blaine wants to make small talk, that’s perfectly fine with him. As long as they’re actually talking. “I wouldn’t miss the last chance I get to sing with them all at once.”

“You’ll miss them, huh?” Blaine wonders as he begins steeping the tea in their cups before retrieving the cookies he had mentioned earlier.

“Yeah,” Kurt admits. “I will.”

“Well, you’ll see them again,” Blaine assures. “The way you talk about everyone, it seems like you guys are really close. I can’t imagine there won’t be some sort of reunion in the future.”

“It won’t be the same, though.”

“No,” Blaine agrees. “It won’t. But do your best to keep in touch. Otherwise old friends really do just fade into the background and you won’t make the effort to see them again.”

Blaine peers into the cups and back to the tin, as if making sure he followed the instructions properly. He must decide that he did an adequate job and brings their tea to the table, followed by the cookies, and sits across from Kurt.

Kurt has to wonder if that’s what happened to Blaine. Did all of his friends fade into the background? He rarely ever talked about his high school friends when they were a couple, but then again, Blaine never really talked about his friends at all.

He wishes they were still close, so he could ask Blaine about them.

But it isn’t his place anymore, he thinks sadly.

“You even have classy cups,” Kurt says instead, lifting the tea cup to his lips.

“I can be perfectly classy,” Blaine tells him.

“Name one instance in which I would have ever seen such a part of you.”

“I was really classy when we went to that restaurant in Columbus,” Blaine says. “Or, at least I thought I was being classy.”

As Blaine continues to natter on about his prim and perfect manners, the memory of their very first night in a bed together slams Kurt in the chest. The force of it brings back images of Blaine’s face shadowed by streetlamps as they strolled back to their hotel and the feeling of Blaine’s hand, warm and sure in his own. The sensation is a painful one. Kurt’s face hardens, lips stretching into a thin line and he can say nothing in return to Blaine’s rambling. If he opens his mouth, he knows a pitiful whimper will escape and now simply isn’t the time for that.

Sometimes he thinks their time together was only ever a dream. And when they broke up, reality became a nightmare.

Instead, he shoves a cookie into his mouth. Damn, they really do taste good with the tea.

It’s suddenly altogether too hard to sit here and make small talk, even though he’d been desperate for it not ten minutes before. These walls hold too many memories and if he listens hard enough, he can hear the echo of their I love you’s and it’s just too much right now.

“I should go,” Kurt says, bending to pick up his bag.

“But – your tea-”

“Was nice,” Kurt finishes for him. “But this is – I’m sorry.”

He stands, the strap of his bag finding his shoulder, and turns to leave.

“Wait,” Blaine says, shooting out of his chair to grasp Kurt’s arm. “Don’t go.”

“I can’t-”

“Please don’t go.”

Kurt’s chest heaves with the weight of his sigh. He spins around, stunned to catch sight of pure, undiluted hope in Blaine’s honey eyes and it’s that and only that that causes him to stay and voice his thoughts.

“Why are you doing this?” Kurt asks, though as he looks at Blaine, he’s only reminded that he’s so wonderfully, tragically in love with this man. “Inviting me over, talking to me about my friends and Glee and – and things that don’t even matter when I’m standing here and it’s taking everything I have not to – to fall apart at your feet.”

“Kurt,” Blaine breathes, the most heart wrenching gaze filling his eyes.

“Yesterday you were barely holding it together and telling me you were only just beginning to feel okay again and now you look like everything is simply marvelous and you’re making tea, for Christ’s sake. You can’t just – just shove me out of your life and reel me back in whenever you feel the need for ‘how’s your day’ because it’s not fair and I can’t be here without remembering everything that made you miserable and-”

“I was wrong,” Blaine admits. “I was wrong about everything.”

He steps closer and the moment his hands are on Kurt’s cheeks, Kurt splinters in stardust, the same stardust he had seen in Blaine’s eyes so many months ago. He breaks and a strangled sob escapes his throat as the tears begin to fall.

“I still love you,” Kurt continues through his despair, “I love you so much I can barely breathe at all for feeling it and you can’t – you can’t waltz in and make like we’re friends when all I can think about is your lips on my neck and the way you used to hold me and it isn’t fair!”

“I’m so sorry,” Blaine coos, brushing away Kurt’s tears with his thumbs. “Kurt, I never meant to make you feel this way, I swear it.”

“How-” he chokes on a sob, “how did you think I’d feel? You didn’t speak to me for months and then I tried so hard to make you see me again. I took that stupid office job and left those song lyrics in my essay. I brought your mail just so you’d look me in the eye and remember I still existed.”

“I didn’t understand, I – or maybe I did but I just didn’t want to see it,” Blaine explains. “But I do now and you were right. You were right about everything. We’re just people. I’m just a guy and you’re just a boy I fell in love with and I fell so hard that it scared me. It scared me so much because you were so young and I just couldn’t handle it. You didn’t make me miserable. I made myself miserable because I tried to stop it from happening but I was an idiot, okay? I was such an idiot and I hate myself for making you feel this way.”

Kurt sniffles, his shoulders hitching with the last bit of hiccoughs through his tears.

“So what – what am I suppose to do now?” he bites out because he doesn’t understand what any of this means anymore. “Do I just have tea with you and go back to school and pretend that I’m not in love with you? What am I supposed to do with all of this?”

“Just let me love you,” Blaine whispers, sliding one hand through Kurt’s gloriously soft hair. “Just let me love you, Kurt.”

Breath hitching, eyes wild and bright with still more tears yet to fall, he feels Blaine’s gentle hand on his head and the faint smell of his cologne.

And Kurt Hummel is lost to everything else in the world.

“Just let me love you and let me hold your hand,” Blaine says with a bit of sorrow in his smile. “Play the piano with me. Watch old movies with me and make me laugh. Talk to me about your day and let me tell you about the more annoying students I have to deal with. Fall asleep with me and touch my cheek to wake me when the sun sets in the evening so we can just stare at each other before you have to leave.”

“Blaine,” Kurt sighs softly. He’s pretty sure he’s never heard such beautiful things fall out of someone’s mouth before, even if the words are as simple as they are lovely.

“I want everything we used to have. I want it all and I won’t ever, ever push you away again or call myself a – a monster or anything else I used to say. Because…love? That can’t be so wrong. Can it?”

“No,” Kurt tells him, shaking his head, though he huffs out the slightest of laughs. “It’s not wrong at all.”

Blaine laughs too and Kurt can just feel the energy change in the room, the joy of the moment sweeping him into something like heaven. He tilts his head down, resting his forehead against Blaine’s. Everything horrible in the world disappears for just a few, scant seconds and there are no worries, no doubts, and everything is bliss.

“I love you,” Kurt says again, just because he can.

“I love you, too,” Blaine replies without hesitation.

And it’s always only ever been a love story.

Age is just a number now. They’ll keep their story quiet. They’ll keep it secret, keep it safe. The world won’t understand until the student is no longer on his teacher’s roster.

But the student will always be under his teacher’s care.

Curled up under an afghan blanket later that night, Kurt retells the events of his amazing afternoon to his step-mother over a steaming cup of chamomile tea.

“It was one of the most romantic things,” Kurt confides, ducking his head behind his cup.

Carole sighs, very nearly swooning, from the other end of the sofa, tickling Kurt’s toes with her own beneath the blanket.

“I told you things would work,” she says with a broad smile. “Our plan was a success.”

“Yeah,” Kurt replies dreamily. “He says we can’t so much as kiss, though.”

“Hm. Why’d he say that?”

“He says he made a promise.”

“To himself?”

“He wouldn’t say, actually,” Kurt tells her, furrowing his brow in thought. At the time, he’d been too ecstatic just being in Blaine’s arms that he hadn’t really questioned Blaine’s rules. “Maybe to himself, I don’t know.”

“Hm,” Carole hums in reply.

When Kurt looks up at her, he sees her looking just over his shoulder. One corner of her mouth quirks up into a grin as she shakes her head.

“What?” Kurt asks before glancing over his shoulder, only to find nothing of import. “What is it?”

“Nothing at all,” Carole says. “Just thinking. So you’re going to keep it all very low key until graduation, then?”

“Definitely,” Kurt says, turning back to face her. “Discreet is the name of the game.”

“I’m so happy for you, Kurt. It’s about time you had something fall in your favor.”

Kurt bites his lip, otherwise the smile threatening to break free might just take over his entire face. He snuggles down beneath the blanket and sips at his tea.

The world feels right again.

The following afternoon, Kurt drops by Blaine’s apartment, stopping to scan the area for onlookers. Once he’s inside, he immediately drops his bag, kicks off his shoes, and cuddles up with Blaine on the sofa.

“I’ve missed this,” Kurt whispers, nuzzling his nose against Blaine’s.

Their legs are twined together with arms resting on one another’s waists. Kurt strokes Blaine’s side with steady, lazy fingers, just relishing in the fact that he gets to touch again.

“Me too,” Blaine admits. “I can’t even begin to tell you how much I’ve missed this.”

They don’t say anything else for a very long time. Instead, they soak up each other’s warmth and love and radiance, occasionally smiling into the slight space between their faces. It’s perfect here. Even if Kurt never gets the chance to kiss Blaine again, he’s pretty sure he can die a happy man. Sometimes Blaine will lift his hand from its home on Kurt’s waist and bring it up to trace the bridge of Kurt’s nose, the arch of his eyebrow, the seam of his lips, as if he’s memorizing Kurt’s face by touch as well as sight. When Blaine sighs, his breath is hot and sweet, and Kurt wishes he could swallow it with a kiss.

“I wish I could kiss you,” Kurt says.

“Graduation’s not long off,” Blaine reminds. “I’ll kiss you every day. I’ll kiss you in the morning when you wake up in my bed and I’ll kiss you while we drink our coffee. I’ll kiss you when you laugh and I’ll kiss you when you’re angry because I’ll still love you even when you’re yelling at me. I’ll kiss you a million times a day because we’ll have so many to make up for.”

“But why can’t you kiss me now?” Kurt asks, lower lip slipping out to pout.

Blaine slides his thumb along that lip. Kurt falls in love even more.

“I told you. I made a promise.”

“To yourself?” Kurt asks, echoing Carole’s words. “Because I can’t think of anyone else you might’ve made a promise to about such a thing.”

Quite suddenly, Blaine’s cheeks are blushing red as a cherry.

“…Blaine?” Kurt asks, uneasy at the possibilities. “Who did you talk to?”

“Oh god, you’re going to hate me,” Blaine says, though he’s biting back a burst of laughter as he says it.

“What – who?”

“Please,” Blaine begs. “You can’t freak out. Please don’t freak out.”

“You didn’t – it wasn’t someone from school, was it?”

“No,” Blaine says at once. “No, not at all.”

“So it was someone outside of – oh god, no,” Kurt gasps in horror at the dawning realization. “Was it – it was my dad, wasn’t it?”

“You can’t yell at him, okay? You can’t get mad at him. If it hadn’t been for him, I don’t think I’d ever have been able to do this again.”

“But when did you even talk to him?”

“He came over the other night,” Blaine explains. “I don’t know how he got my address, something about knowing people in the school system, and he pretty much told me he knew everything and got me to admit that I still loved you.”

“I told him not to-”

“He said you’d do something awful to him if you knew. But you can’t, you just can’t. Without that talk, I never would have had the courage to be with you again.”

Kurt groans in response, pinching the bridge of his nose in the process. Great. Now, instead of berating his dad for meddling in his love life, he was going to have to actually thank the man.

“Don’t be mad,” Blaine pleads. “Please don’t be mad at him.”

“I’m mad because I can’t be mad,” Kurt says. “I pretty much owe him my life now.”

“I guess it’s a good thing you’re his son, because you kind of already owed him that anyway. Don’t you think?” Blaine grins.

“Don’t get smarmy.”

“I never-”

“Never?” Kurt tempts with a delicate lift of an eyebrow.

Blaine blushes once more before ducking his head under Kurt’s chin. Kurt immediately forgets about his agitation toward his father and allows himself to breathe in the scent of Blaine’s hair, all gel and shampoo and the clean scent of life beneath it all.

“I’ll be nice, then,” Kurt relents. “Since it got me you.”

Later that evening, when Burt walks in from work, Kurt races to his father and hugs him fiercely.

“Whoa, kid, what-”

“Thank you,” Kurt whispers.

“Uh, you’re welcome. But what’re you thanking-”

“Just thank you,” Kurt says simply. “For everything you’ve ever done for me.”

Finally, Burt embraces his son as well.

“Anytime, Kurt. That’s what I’m here for, ya know?”

“Yeah. I know.”

Kurt takes notice of the fact that Blaine still doesn’t call on him during discussions in class. Probably for the best, he thinks. They shouldn’t do anything to call attention to their rekindled love affair, and some people might misconstrue something as simple as Blaine suddenly addressing Kurt during class again.

And they’re not taking any risks. Not this time.

Kurt continues his office aid duties and he still brings Blaine his mail in the morning, but they don’t allow themselves any extraneous conversation. It was dangerous the few times they did it before, but before they didn’t really have anything to lose.

Instead, they keep their conversations to flirtatious texts during the day. They’ve changed each other’s names in their phones to simply read the word ‘him’ (which is suspicious enough in itself, but Kurt refused to allow Blaine to save his number under the name snugglebear) in case anyone were to catch sight of their messages.

Of course, Kurt can’t help but sneak a few glances up through his eyelashes in order to watch his boyfriend during class. He adores the way Blaine tilts his head in response to a student’s comment that makes no sense at all. He giggles internally when Blaine perches on the edge of his desk, only to reveal the fact that he’s wearing no socks at all. He sighs happily to himself when Blaine returns his graded assignments to find a scratch-and-sniff sticker in the corner by his name instead of the smiley faces he usually draws.

If only they made a scratch-and-sniff sticker that smelled like Blaine.

All in all, they’re discreet and secretive. Even Rachel stops bugging him for information on the scandal he still refuses to discuss. Kurt assumes Finn told her that everyone had been wrong and that Mr. Anderson is just a really nice guy who has a lot in common with Kurt and that’s that.

Kurt might owe his dad his life, but he owes Finn for preserving his sanity.

It’s just a touch humid outside as the rain pours, and Blaine has cracked the windows in his living room just so they can listen to it fall. As soon as Kurt had walked into his apartment and kicked off his shoes, just a month shy of graduation, Blaine had swept him up in his arms and spun him in a slow circle.

Kurt laughs openly, allowing himself to be led around the small space of the living room. They’ve only danced once before, but that time there had been music and this time all they have to dance to is the sound of the rain and their own heartbeats.

“I missed you,” Blaine says, settling one hand on Kurt’s waist while the other clasps their free hands up near their shoulders. “Seeing you for a few minutes in the morning just isn’t enough anymore.”

“I missed you, too,” Kurt admits as Blaine ducks his head to rest on Kurt’s shoulder.

He fits perfectly here, just where Kurt can touch his chin to Blaine’s hair, just like he’d told his parents on that awful day so many months ago.

“When I graduate, will you take me out dancing for real?”

“What, you mean like a club?”

“God no.” Kurt shivers in disgust. “Just – just someplace where we can dance like this. When we won’t have to hide anymore.”

“We’ll have to wear shoes,” Blaine laments.

“I think I can deal with that.”

“Then I’ll do my best,” Blaine promises, nuzzling his nose against Kurt’s collarbone.

Kurt sighs happily, breathing in the scent of Blaine’s shampoo and the smell of the summer rain. They dance in silence, chest to chest and eventually cheek to cheek. Kurt thinks he’s probably never been so happy. In a month’s time, they’ll be able to discontinue this pathetic charade and love each other out in the open. Of course, it isn’t like Kurt needs their approval. In fact, if he tells his friends straight away, they probably won’t understand and a few of them, Rachel included, will more than likely berate him for his idiocy and call him crazy.

But this isn’t crazy, Kurt reminds himself. This, here, with Blaine all around him and the warmth of contentment and peace settling in his heart, this isn’t crazy at all.

There’s only one more thing that could possibly make the moment better: an answer to a question.

“Will you still come with me?” Kurt whispers into Blaine’s ear. “Like we planned before? Will you come to New York?”

Blaine pauses in the steps of their dance and pulls away just enough to be able to peer up at Kurt properly.

“Do you still want me to?”

“Of course I still want you to,” Kurt replies quickly. “I never stopped wanting you to come with me.”

“Really?”

Kurt rolls his eyes in fond exasperation. “Why would I have ever stopped?”

“I just – you have to remember that, for a while at least, before you started your office aid thing and coming to the coffee shop again, I was sort of under the impression that I’d scarred you beyond belief and that you’d never want anything to do with me again,” Blaine admits.

“…But you don’t believe that now, do you? You know that I still wanted you, even when we weren’t talking at all.”

“I guess,” Blaine mumbles, lowering his eyes to stare at the collar of Kurt’s shirt. “I mean yeah, I do. I know it now. Sometimes, though, I just – I wonder about what you did and how you felt when I only ever saw you in class. And even then, you never looked at me so I couldn’t know anything for sure.”

“I didn’t do much of anything,” Kurt reveals. “I cried a lot and I talked to Carole about you when I felt particularly sad. I spent a few weekends at the mall with Rachel or Tina or Mercedes and attended the occasional sleepover. I did my schoolwork and I sang in Glee. That’s about it. I didn’t – I couldn’t bring myself to do anything else. I wished every day that maybe you’d call and ask me to come over or something. My dad thought it was really unhealthy, me spending so much time alone. But I felt like I couldn’t do anything or go anywhere very often because I wanted to be free in case you – in case you decided you wanted to talk.”

“Sounds pretty unhealthy,” Blaine says softly.

“From what I gather, you weren’t exactly faring any better.”

“Guess not.”

“But I’m here now,” Kurt reminds him. “And I’m not going anywhere. Not without you.”

“Kurt, you shouldn’t let me keep you from-”

“That was me begging you to come to New York with me without saying as much,” Kurt clarifies. “I – I started looking at apartments online. Just…hoping. Just hoping that things would work out soon and we’d still have our chance. In hindsight, I guess that’s kind of creepy and pathetic and-”

“It’s not,” Blaine assures, eyes glistening with unshed tears and maybe a bit of swooning in his whisper. He releases Kurt’s hand and places it on his cheek instead. “It’s none of those things.”

“So you – you’ll come?” Kurt asks, sliding his free hand down Blaine’s side to rest on his hip. “You’ll come with me?”

“I’ll come with you,” Blaine states plainly, a smile fighting to break free. “I can’t lose you again. I won’t let it happen.”

Kurt’s chest shudders in relief, his own smile spreading over his lips. Blaine’s thumb caresses his cheek bone and god, he feels so much for this man, this other person he can’t ever imagine living without in some way. If only he could show him, right here and right now, if only he could –

If only they could –

“Kiss me,” Kurt pleads. “Please kiss me.”

“Kurt, you know I can’t,” Blaine says, sounding truly sad at the situation.

“Please? I just – I need to feel-”

“I would, I swear I would. If it had been a promise to anyone else, I’d kiss you senseless but I just can’t do that to your dad.”

“He won’t know,” Kurt swears. “No one will know. It’s just us in here, remember?”

“That’s what we said last time,” Blaine says, looking a bit grim at the fact. “And then you stayed over and we had sex and I nearly got arrested.”

Kurt falls quiet at the memory, his mind forcing images to the forefront of his brain, recalling the feel of skin on skin and a heated night at the end of winter. But for all that, for as much as his memories can show him, he can only barely remember what Blaine’s lips felt like on his. Of all the moments to share a kiss, this is the perfect one. And he can’t have it because Blaine can’t betray Burt Hummel. Kurt knows he’s only doing it out of the best intentions, but Kurt can’t help but want it. He can’t help but need it, in this moment out of all the others, to solidify their promise to each other. True, yes, the physical aspect of a relationship isn’t the only important one.

But right now, it seems like the most important thing in the world to him.

“Please,” he begs one last time. “Just – just one kiss. I won’t ask for anything else until you’re not my teacher anymore. I swear it.”

“Shit,” Blaine swears beneath his breath. When he looks up at Kurt, his eyes are blown dark with desire and desperation.

With a sort of strength Kurt didn’t even realize Blaine possessed, Blaine winds his arm around the small of Kurt’s back and pulls him, flush and tight against his body. Kurt gasps at the sudden motion and the press of Blaine’s hold on him, and he sighs through parted lips against Blaine’s upturned face. Their faces are so close. Kurt should be able to just close that gap. He remembers wanting something similar, so many months ago before he knew what he was missing, but now he realizes that even then, he didn’t want it this badly.

Blaine slides his fingers along Kurt’s jaw, up over his cheek and further still to drag through Kurt’s hair. He cards them through the chestnut locks slowly, fingernails grazing Kurt’s scalp. Kurt shivers at the touch.

“I want to,” Blaine admits, his breath hot and mocking against Kurt’s lips. “You don’t know how much I want to kiss you right now.”

Kurt can’t find the words to reply. His breath is caught in his chest and something wild sizzles through his body, right down to his toes.

“It’d be perfect,” Blaine continues. “With the rain and – and I know you’d taste like espresso. I’d kiss you until you couldn’t breathe. I’d kiss you so hard that your lips would swell and bruise and I’d take that with me to school tomorrow, knowing I did it to you today.”

A long pause. A rumble of thunder.

“But if I did that, I know that neither of us would stop. And I can’t let that happen.”

The suppressed lust in Kurt’s belly drops, suddenly leaving him boneless and adrift in a sea burning embers still zinging through his limbs.

“I’m sorry,” Kurt breathes. “I don’t know – I just-”

“It’s okay, I know. I know what it feels like. Because I want it too.”

“The moment I cross that stage-”

“We should probably wait a few hours after that, just so we’re alone,” Blaine teases, fingertips trailing up over Kurt’s spine through his shirt. But when he reverses his trail, his fingers hover along the edge of Kurt’s belt, looping through jeans that are beyond skin-tight. “But when I do get you alone…” Blaine leaves his sentence hanging before his lips graze against the shell of Kurt’s ear. “You’ll never want for anything, Kurt Hummel.”

After that, Kurt begins counting the days. He actually uses a physical calendar instead of the one on his iPhone, hanging it near his vanity mirror so he can look at the red slashes across another day gone by. It cheers him exponentially every morning and lessens the longing he feels in the pit of his stomach.

Three weeks before graduation, Kurt receives a very important letter.

He waits until the next morning to open it, waits until he’s in Blaine’s classroom and dropping off his mail. He lingers at Blaine’s desk and swallows around the lump in his throat.

“Was there something else you needed?” Blaine asks while rifling through his mail. When Kurt doesn’t immediately respond, Blaine looks up at him. “Kurt?”

Kurt wordlessly fishes the letter out of his back pocket before placing it on the corner of his teacher’s desk. Blaine stares at the thing, leaning over to peer closely at the envelope.

“Is that-”

“It’s from NYU.”

“What does it – have you opened it yet?”

Kurt shakes his head. “Not yet. I wanted to wait until – well. You know.”

Blaine’s eyes are bright when they meet Kurt’s gaze once more.

“So you’ll open it now?”

“What if – what if I don’t get in? What if everything just – just falls to pieces, right here and now?”

“It won’t,” Blaine says quickly. “No matter what it says, we’re still – I mean you,” he rectifies with a quick look at the door, “you’ll still go to New York. You’ve already been accepted into most of your backup schools, right? So it doesn’t matter.”

“But this is – it’s NYU,” Kurt whispers, chewing on his lower lip in anxiety.

“I know,” Blaine tells him. Kurt sees his hand twitch, like maybe he wants to reach out and touch Kurt’s shoulder in a show of sympathy. But he doesn’t. For the best, no doubt. “Go ahead. Open it.”

With unsteady hands, Kurt picks up the letter and flips it over, sliding his finger beneath the flap and slicing open the top of the envelope. With a quick look to Blaine, who gives him an encouraging smile, Kurt slides the letter out. He heaves a deep, calming breath and unfolds it.

“Dear, Mr. Hummel,” he reads aloud before falling silent and allowing his eyes to scan the rest of the letter.

Blaine waits patiently for a long moment, until Kurt’s silence seems to cause him unease.

“Kurt?” he presses. “What’s it say?”

Instead of responding, Kurt simply lifts his head, unable to hold back the tears pooling in his eyes.

“Kurt?” Blaine asks again with a tremor in his voice.

“I – I got in,” Kurt reveals in a whisper.

Blaine’s breath leaves him in rush, a gasp escaping through his parted lips before a wide smile stretches across his face. He leaps up, heedless of the open door and pulls Kurt into a fierce hug. Kurt huffs out this jagged breath of air, like a cross between a laugh and a sob. He returns the embrace with just as much warmth and joy, burying his face into Blaine’s neck.

“I’m so proud of you,” Blaine says softly, pressing a quick kiss to Kurt’s temple.

“If you hadn’t written that letter-”

“You still would’ve gotten in,” Blaine tells him. He pulls away, realizing just how long their hug had lasted, and holds Kurt at arm’s length with his hands on his shoulders. “I know you would have. But it doesn’t matter because you’re going.”

“We’re going,” Kurt corrects in his quietest voice.

“Yeah,” Blaine says with a grin. “We are.”

When the unspoken farewells begin, with yearbook signings and the arrival of Kurt’s cap and gown, the reality of what’s really happening hits him square in the chest one afternoon.

He’s graduating high school in one week.

The epiphany hits him at the end of Glee rehearsal one day and he just…he just sits there. He’s glued to his chair positioned in the back row of the room, glancing around at his friends as they all begin to gather their bags. Everyone laughs uproariously at something Santana says to Puck. The choir room suddenly seems too small, like it’s stuffed with memories, filled to the brim with a life he’ll never live again.

“Kurt?” Mercedes calls from the doorway. “You coming?”

“Wha – yeah. Yeah,” Kurt says quickly, finally able to stand and shrug his bag onto his shoulder.

Later, when he’s sitting at Blaine’s kitchen table while his boyfriend roots around in his cabinets for more sugar for their coffee, Kurt feels the need to voice his thoughts.

“I feel like I didn’t think any of this through.”

Blaine freezes for one, long, agonizing moment. After that, he gently closes the cabinet door he had just opened.

“W-what?” he asks warily.

“Just…everything,” Kurt sighs. “It’s all moving so quickly. And I didn’t allow myself to keep up and just…got lost.” He stares down at the tabletop, barely registering the fact that Blaine has taken the seat across from him.

“Do you not – I mean, are you rethinking…everything?” Blaine wonders.

And that’s when Kurt finally looks up at him and sees the obvious fear in the other man’s eyes.

“Oh no, Blaine, no,” Kurt says swiftly, reaching over to cover Blaine’s nervous hands with one of his own. “Not us, no. That’s not what I meant.”

“Are you – you’re sure?”

“Yes, god, I’m positive,” Kurt tells him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for it to come out that way. No, you and I are solid and stable and all other variations of the word. I promise.”

“But then what did you mean?” Blaine asks.

Kurt squeezes Blaine’s hand, hoping to reassure him with the gesture as well as his words. “I was referring to my friends,” he explains. “I guess I was so caught up in, well, in all that stuff with you that I didn’t realize everything else. Like, I’ve only been looking at graduation in one way: I saw it as a way to be with you. Openly, I mean, without having to sneak around. But then today I just realized that, you know, graduation means starting something new with you, but it also means…the end of everything else.”

The worried expression on Blaine’s face melts into one of sympathy, and then he’s the one holding Kurt’s hand with reassurance.

“But you remember what I told you, right? Just keep in contact with your friends. Do your best to check up on them whenever you can.”

“I know. But then – then there’s my dad. And it’s just like, for so long it’s just been us. Just me and him, fighting together, one day at a time. I feel like we’ve both taken care of each other, you know? Especially after he got sick. And now…I’m leaving him. And I’m leaving everything else I know, too. It’s – it’s gonna be a brand new life. It’s scary,” Kurt admits, knowing he probably sounds far too young and pathetic to someone like Blaine.

“Your dad’s gonna be okay,” Blaine tells him with a smile. “He has Carole and she’ll help him, you know she will. She’ll look after him all the time. It’s just what happens in life. Everyone has to grow up sometime. And you’ll be back to visit. We both will. We’ll come back for Thanksgiving and visit at Christmas and any other time we want.”

“Finn’s going to be so confused when we tell him we’re together,” Kurt says, biting his lips together to keep from grinning at the thought.

“Probably,” Blaine laughs. “But as for a whole new life…I thought that was what you wanted; a fresh start, to get out of this small-minded town and away from its small-minded people.”

“I do, I do want to get out. I just don’t think I gave myself enough time to enjoy all of the other good things I still have here.”

“You’ve still got summer,” Blaine reminds. “You’ve got plenty of time left with them before you leave. And Rachel will be in New York too, won’t she? So you’ll have a familiar face. Beyond me, I mean.”

“Yeah. I don’t know exactly how she’ll take the news about us. It’ll be kind of hard to keep it a secret when she finds out we’re living together.”

“We’ll just have to cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Kurt sighs again, leaning back in his chair. “I don’t suppose I can get a kiss to make me feel better, huh.”

Blaine tosses his head back and laughs, shaking his head as he stands and moves around the tiny table.

“You’re incorrigible,” Blaine says softly, dipping down to press a chaste kiss to the corner of Kurt’s mouth, sure to avoid his lips entirely.

“Well that’s not fair,” Kurt says. “You’re too sexy when you use big words.”

“Mmm,” Blaine hums against Kurt’s skin, sprinkling his cheek with barely-there kisses and sliding his hands through Kurt’s hair. “Is that so?” He traces the bones of Kurt’s spine through the skin at the back of his neck, hot breath whispering against Kurt’s ear. “What if I said you were simply resplendent, seraphic, winsome, and quite sagacious, hm?”

“Oh god,” Kurt moans brazenly. “I think I’m really going to like being with an English major.”

Blaine laughs, low and perfectly amused before pressing one final kiss to Kurt’s jaw.

“Coffee’s ready,” he whispers, pulling away and leaving Kurt’s body thrumming with need.

“Sometimes I hate you,” Kurt mumbles.

“Do I look okay?” Kurt asks his brother, completely flustered as they stand around with the rest of their class, minutes away from one of the most important milestones of their lives.

“Dude, you look like everyone else,” Finn tells him, yanking the tassel of Kurt’s graduation camp. “Calm down.”

“But there will be pictures after and I can’t look-”

“He’s right, you know. You all look fantastic.”

Kurt spins around at the sound of Blaine’s voice, thinking his boyfriend looks far too gorgeous in the black graduation gown that all the teachers are wearing.

“Hey, Mr. Anderson,” Finn greets happily, smacking the smaller man on the back with maybe a bit too much force. “Ready to be rid of us?”

“Some, definitely,” Blaine answers in good humor. His eyes meet Kurt’s. “Others? Not so much.”

Blushing down to his roots, Kurt clears his throat and straights his cap once more. “I, for one, will be glad to be done with high school.”

“I’m sure,” Blaine nods, a glimmer in his eyes. “I know I was.”

“Dude, Mr. A, you should totally come to our graduation party!” Finn exclaims.

“I’m sorry?” Blaine asks.

“Well, it won’t be till tomorrow,” Finn states, “because a bunch of the Glee kids are going out bowling later tonight. But my mom and Burt are throwing us this big party and Rachel and her dads are coming too. I asked Mr. Schue to come because he’s like, my favorite teacher and he’s kinda been there for me through a lot of stuff and I know you and Kurt are pretty close because of – uh – that one thing I don’t know if everybody else knows. About you guys liking the, um, the same…thing. But it’d be really cool if you came. There’s gonna be barbeque and cake and everything!”

“I…guess I’ll have to consider it,” Blaine says with a curious glance to Kurt.

“You don’t have to,” Kurt says quickly. “Mr. Schuester’s just sort of…been there for both of us for a long time. That’s why he’ll be there.”

“So you don’t want me to come?”

“Well…I didn’t say that. Not…exactly,” Kurt mutters.

“I’ll talk to your dad later.” Blaine nods. “Just to see if he’s okay with it.”

The warm thrill of excitement causes Kurt’s skin to tingle. Really, it’s probably a good idea for Blaine to come to the party. It gives them a chance to show everyone else that they’re on friendly terms and that they’ve grown quite close (though no one else will realize the extent of their friendship). It might go a long way to help the other people in Kurt’s life understand that, when their relationship does come to light, it wasn’t just a spur of the moment decision, like maybe they just happened to keep in contact after school had ended.

“I’ll see you guys later,” Blaine says, bidding them both farewell. “Don’t trip when you cross the stage!”

Kurt stares at the back of Blaine’s head as his boyfriend walks away.

Oh no.

He didn’t even think about the fact that he might trip. Shit.

Kurt doesn’t trip, though. He crosses the stage with grace, his head held high as he accepts his diploma. When his tassel is turned, he only has eyes for one person who sits primly at the end of his row of students in the auditorium.

All Kurt can see in Blaine’s eyes…is pride. And love.

So much love.

Happiness blooms in Kurt’s chest.

Kurt, his family, his friends, and their families are amongst the stragglers after the ceremony. Everyone wants pictures with everyone else. They huddle in groups, in pairs, in quartets and with Mr. Schuester. Carole is able to snap a picture of Kurt with Blaine before his (former) teacher waves and says he has some last minute business to attend to in his classroom. The members of New Directions take various pictures in front of the choir room trophy case and the majority of them shed a few tears as their families drag them away for dinners and graduation presents.

“You comin’, kid?” Burt calls, just as he, Finn, and Carole are about to walk out of the school.

“I’ll be along in a bit,” Kurt says. “I’ll meet you at the restaurant.”

“…You sure?” Burt asks. “Everyone’s gone.”

“Not…everyone,” Kurt says with a blush.

“What’re you – oh. Right. Well, uh…we’ll just – we’ll just see you there, then.”

Kurt nods his reply and waits for his family to pile into the car and drive off before walking back into the school. It’s eerie, he realizes, being completely alone inside WMHS. Most of the lights are off. The janitors left as soon as they had cleared out the auditorium. The classrooms are locked and the teachers are all at home, enjoying the end of another school year.

Well, most of the teachers are home.

When Kurt rounds the corners of the English hallway, he catches sight of one open classroom door. As he approaches, he sees Blaine inside, graduation robe tossed on the back of his desk chair as he tapes up a few boxes. Only his desk lamp is on, the soft glow casting shadows on Blaine’s face as he clears his desk.

“You’re still here,” Kurt speaks, leaning against the door way.

Startled, Blaine’s entire body jerks at the sound of Kurt’s voice. When he realizes who it is, he sighs in relief. “You almost gave me a heart attack,” he groans. “I thought you were going to dinner with your family?”

“Saw your car was still in the lot,” Kurt explains with a shrug. “Thought I’d stop by. Everyone else is gone.”

“Everyone?”

Kurt nods. “Clearing out your classroom?”

“Tomorrow’s the last day I have to get all of my things,” Blaine explains, shifting a heavy box from the chair onto the floor. “Figured I’d just get it all done tonight since I’ll be at your party thing tomorrow and I probably won’t have time.”

“I’m glad you’ll be there,” Kurt admits, ducking his head.

“Me too,” Blaine says, voice going soft.

They’re both quiet for a minute and Blaine takes the opportunity to sit, looking around at the bare walls and his empty desk.

“Will you miss it here?” Kurt wonders.

Blaine looks to him, tilting his head as the smallest of smiles graces his face. “The one thing I’d miss I’ll be taking with me.”

Kurt blushes. He’s been doing that entirely too much today. It’s odd, standing here, looking at Blaine who’s grinning so openly. It’s the first time they’ve been alone since Kurt had received his diploma and everything is – is so different between them now, yet it’s exactly the same and the entire idea is dizzying if he thinks about it for too long.

“So…I’m not your student anymore,” Kurt says lowly, taking a step inside and closing the door behind him.

“And I’m no longer your teacher,” Blaine states.

Even in the dim lamp light, Kurt can see Blaine’s eyes darken at the reality of that fact.

“You told me something,” Kurt purrs as he approaches Blaine behind his desk, “a month ago or so ago, about what I could expect after I graduated.”

“Did I?” Blaine asks, calm and coy, even though Kurt’s standing in front of him now. “Mmm, you’ll have to remind me.”

“You mentioned something about…not wanting for anything. Ever again,” Kurt says lowly, lifting his graduation cap off his head and placing it on the corner of the desk behind him.

“I guess I did,” Blaine says, lifting one of his eyebrows. “And so? What is it you want, Kurt Hummel?”

Before he answers, Kurt pinches the zipper of his graduation gown between his fingers and tugs down, slowly but surely revealing the tight, grey shirt and snug jeans beneath it. Blaine’s eyes roam over his form as Kurt drops the gown to the floor.

“Oh, Mr. Anderson, I think you’ll find I want many, many things,” Kurt says in a near growl, crossing the last bit of space between them only to climb into Blaine’s lap, straddling his thighs and winding his arms around his boyfriend’s neck.

“Where to start, then?” Blaine asks, feigning ignorance while dragging his hands down Kurt’s back.

“I suppose we’ll have to start off small.” Kurt leans in and brushes his lips against Blaine’s ear. “I think you owe me a kiss, mister.”

The time for teasing comes to an abrupt end when Blaine tangles one hand in Kurt’s hair, guiding their faces together and stealing a vicious kiss. It’s messy, teeth digging into the inside of Kurt’s lips as their mouths collide and god, yes, he’s missed this so much. He’s missed Blaine’s smooth lips, his breath, his eager tongue twisting around Kurt’s own.

“Jesus Christ,” Blaine hisses before sucking Kurt’s lower lip into his mouth.

Kurt can only moan and rock his hips into Blaine’s lap. It’s everything he missed. It’s like his dreams and a far-away memory are colliding with reality and it’s so deliciously perfect that Kurt thinks he might believe in heaven now. He has to hold onto the back of the chair when Blaine’s lips and tongue find their way to his throat. Kurt tosses his head back, panting loudly into the empty classroom and it feels like every fantasy he’s ever had is coming true.

“I was gonna wait,” Blaine hums against his neck. “I was gonna wait until I had you back in my apartment and in my bed, but you – fuck.”

He cuts off his own train of thought by yanking the collar of Kurt’s shirt aside and nipping at that dip in his collarbone, tongue swirling in the wake of his teeth.

“If you make me wait even one more day, Blaine Anderson,” Kurt breathes in warning, “I think I’ll fall to pieces.”

Blaine growl into Kurt’s skin, hands fisting into Kurt’s shirt at his words before sliding down and gripping his ass instead. Kurt gasps at the contact as those firms hands guide his hips to roll, grinding their erections together. Oh god, he’s missed this, too, the drag of steel and denim over sensitive flesh but he needs more, he needs everything and he needs it now.

“The – the desk,” Kurt whimpers. “T-take me over your desk like I wanted you to when we met.”

“Fuck, Kurt,” Blaine moans, crashing their lips together once more. It isn’t so much a kiss as it is reaffirmation that they’re here, that the school is completely devoid of another soul and all of the other binding restrictions had melted with the reception of a single diploma.

As for his family and the graduation dinner, well they can just fucking wait.

Because Kurt has waited for this for far too long.

“I try so hard to be good,” Blaine says in between kisses. “But you say things like that and I – I can’t-”

“So don’t,” Kurt states, rolling his hips once more and dragging out another moan from between Blaine’s lips. “Just do it.”

“You’re gonna be the death of me.” Blaine shoves Kurt from his lap, hands never leaving the boy’s hips as he stands and spins him around, bending Kurt over the desk.

“Please,” Kurt begs, stretching his arms out and gripping the edge of the desk. “Please, Blaine.”

“You’re fucking lucky I never go anywhere unprepared, you little – ugh,” Blaine says and that’s when Kurt turns his head to see Blaine opening the bag he usually carries to school. He digs through it, pulling out a tiny bottle of lube and a single condom.

Holy shit, they’re really going to do this, Kurt realizes. They’re going to have sex in this classroom, the symbol of the one thing that had kept them apart for so many months.

Blaine sets the items aside and then he’s curling over Kurt’s back, lips latching onto the back of Kurt’s flushed neck. Kurt moans at the feel of Blaine’s warm body covering his own and the feel of the man’s dick against his ass.

“Take off your shirt,” Blaine instructs.

Kurt does so without hesitation, tugging the thing over his head and dropping it to the floor. As soon as his back is exposed, he hears Blaine swear under his breath before he drags his fingernails down the naked expanse of flesh.

“Oh, god,” Kurt whispers, shivering at the sensation of Blaine’s hands on him and the cool air hitting his skin.

Blaine’s mouth returns, kissing and dragging his tongue down the length of Kurt’s spine. His hands, however, take a different route and trail around Kurt’s waist to dip down and cup Kurt through his jeans.

“You have no idea,” Blaine breathes against the small of Kurt’s back, “how hot it is to me, knowing that no one else has ever touched you like this, knowing I’m the only one that’s ever been here and done this to you.”

“B-because I’m yours,” Kurt stutters as Blaine’s nimble fingers unbutton and unzip his jeans. “Only ever been yours.”

A low whine gets caught in Blaine’s throat and Kurt feels the man’s forehead against his back. One of his hands slips into Kurt’s too-tight jeans, gripping him through his underwear and squeezing with all the right intentions.

“Please now, I need you now,” Kurt implores, caught between wanting to grind his ass against Blaine’s dick or thrusting into his hand. “God, fucking please.”

“Okay,” Blaine relents, retracting his hand only to drag Kurt’s jeans and underwear down until they pool around his ankles. “Spread your legs as much as you can, yeah?”

Kurt complies, feeling vulnerable, bare, and completely open to anything Blaine might do to him. He’s thankful they’ve done this before, even if it was only once because he’s not sure he’d want his first time to happen over the edge of a desk. But they have done it and right now all he wants is Blaine inside of him and he wants is so badly he can’t even think straight.

One of Blaine’s hands finally returns, warm and strong as it grips his hip. The other dips down between his cheeks, slick with lube and one finger swirls around his entrance. Kurt gasps, immediately pressing back against Blaine’s hand when that finger pushes into him. Good god, he’s missed this so much, probably more than he’d even realized in the past couple of months.

Blaine curls in over Kurt’s back as he presses in another finger, stretching and preparing him with ease.

“Feel good?” he asks, kissing the top of Kurt’s spine.

“Yeah,” Kurt whispers. He turns his head and rests his cheek against the desk. It does feel good; the slow stretch and barely-there burn feels amazing. It’s strange, he thinks, to know that this is one way that Blaine can care for him. It makes him feel warm and tingly in an entirely different way than the steady thrum of arousal in his belly. This might be one of his favorite things, oddly enough. He almost laughs aloud when he realizes that he could be content for hours with just Blaine’s fingers pumping in and out of his ass. “More?”

“Y’sure?”

“Yeah,” Kurt says, pressing back in an attempt to validate his words. “God, so sure.”

Blaine chuckles, pushing in a third finger and that’s when Kurt hisses, the burn overshadowing the pleasure. He whimpers and Blaine slows his pace, prepping him gently and sliding his fingers with care. Blaine slides a comforting hand along Kurt’s sweaty back and into his hair.

“I’ve got you,” Blaine says, rubbing his cheek against Kurt’s back when his fingers are in up to the knuckle. He eases them out after a few moments, spreading them as he goes before pushing back in once more. “Okay?”

“Mhmm,” Kurt hums when the sting and burn dulls to a low throb. “S’good.”

Blaine smiles against his back. But then the heat of his body is gone when he stands, dragging his hand down Kurt’s back as he does so.

“Jesus, you look so – god, Kurt,” Blaine says in a low voice.

Feeling a little daring, Kurt clenches around Blaine’s fingers, almost laughing at the sound that escapes Blaine’s lips when he does it.

“You gonna fuck me some time tonight, Mr. Anderson?”

Blaine groans loudly as he reaches for the condom beside Kurt’s shoulder on the desk.

“Y’know,” Blaine says, ripping open the thing with his teeth. “I thought I really hated it when you called me that.”

“But now?” Kurt asks, hissing when Blaine pulls his fingers out entirely to undo his own jeans.

“I find having you bent over my desk when you say it gives me new appreciation for my title.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

But then Blaine’s dick, condom-covered and slick with lube, nudges against his hole and Kurt doesn’t have any other witty retorts to Blaine’s discovery. He presses back just as Blaine thrusts in and Kurt moans, gripping the edge of the desk as Blaine enters him.

“Holy fuck,” Blaine gasps. “Fuck, you’re so – are you okay?”

“H-harder,” Kurt demands. “Wanna – wanna feel it tomorrow. Please.”

“Are you-”

Blaine doesn’t have a choice after that, not when Kurt slams his ass back until Blaine is buried balls deep inside of him. Kurt’s jaw goes slack with the force of it, breath and voice caught in his throat at the intensity of being filled so abruptly.

“Damnit, Kurt, don’t – I don’t wanna hurt you,” Blaine says, though he’s panting with his own restraint.

“You’re not,” Kurt assures. And it’s true. Blaine had prepared him thoroughly and now all he wants is Blaine to fuck him senseless. “I promise. Just fuck me, already.”

“Oh god,” Blaine moans, pulling out slowly. “Kurt-”

“Blaine, please!”

Blaine’s resolve seems to crumble because he shoves back inside, his grip on Kurt’s hips more painful than the burn and stretch of Kurt’s hole. His groan echoing in the emptiness of the room, Blaine finds a rhythm and begins to thrust relentlessly.

“Christ, you have no idea,” he pants. “I fucking dreamed about doing this to you, right here, just like this.”

“M-me too,” Kurt reveals, clenching his ass around Blaine’s dick.

There’s a jerk of Blaine’s hips in response and then he’s crouching over Kurt, reaching his arms up in order to tangle their fingers together so they can both grip the edge of the desk. Kurt is thankful he’s limber. He presses his chest flat against the desk, his tip of his dick bumping against the underside of it while Blaine continues to fuck him with quick, shallow thrusts. His hips rock against the desk, sure to leave bruises tomorrow.

Blaine presses messy kisses to Kurt’s bare shoulder. His breath turns into this sharp, staccato string of gasps in Kurt’s ear every time he thrusts inside. Kurt’s muscles quiver, sweat dripping down the side of his face. He’s pretty sure he’s never felt so perfectly in tune with another person as he is now. Yeah, their first time had definitely been one for the ages but this, this is raw and needy and desperate. It’s something they’ve both been craving for months and now that it’s finally happening, Kurt doesn’t ever want it to end. He wants to feel this strain in his body, this overwhelming heat on his skin, and Blaine’s dick buried inside him forever. He wants to fill this full all the time.

One of Blaine’s hands uncurls from his fingers in order to reach down and under the desk, wrapping Kurt’s dick with his sweaty palm.

Kurt cries out at the touch. He squeezes his eyes shut, clenching them as tears gather in the corners. It’s all so much, so much sensation, so much strain, so many things at once. With just a few quick pumps, Blaine pulls him apart and he comes with a shout and Blaine’s name on his lips. As soon as Blaine feels the warm spurts of Kurt’s come on his fingers, he shoves deep and hard and he comes too, like he can’t help but follow. His other hand fists into Kurt’s hair and Kurt arches back up willingly. He turns his head and meets Blaine’s lips in a hot, clumsy kiss while Blaine rides out his orgasm, still shoved deep inside Kurt’s body.

When it’s all over and their bodies are spent, Blaine wraps an arm around Kurt’s waist and they stumble backwards into Blaine’s chair, Kurt falling into Blaine’s lap. He lets his head lull back onto Blaine’s shoulder while he tries to catch his breath.

Blaine’s hands smooth over Kurt’s naked chest. He kisses that spot just below Kurt’s ear and nuzzles his nose into Kurt’s neck.

Kurt feels boneless. Sated. Pierced, cherished, and owned.

And perfectly, wonderfully happy.

“I love you,” Blaine says and Kurt can feel his boyfriend’s smile against his skin.

“Love you, too,” Kurt replies.

No doubts. No hesitation. No demons to fight and no boundaries to fear. Just two people who happened to fall in love a little too soon for the rest of the world to understand. A former teacher and his former student.

In the end, it’s a bit of an odd love story.

But it’s a love story all the same.

Epilogue: Twenty-Two Years Later


Kurt hums to himself in the kitchen as he sets the table for dinner. Blaine will be home any minute now, if Kurt’s mental clock had allowed him to factor in New York City traffic. He’s sure it did though; after seventeen years of marriage, he hopes his mind can keep track of something so simple.

As if on cue, the front door bangs open and Kurt greets his husband and his adopted daughter with a broad smile. Her curly ponytail whizzes past as she races to her room, more than likely in a hurry to call up one of her friends.

“Oh, I like that,” Kurt says, hands on his hips as he watches her go. “First day of high school and I’m already too un-cool for a simple hello hug.”

“Hello, darling,” Blaine purrs as he wraps his arms around his husband’s waist. “Miss me?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Kurt replies with a lazy smile. He presses a soft kiss to Blaine’s lips and cards his fingers through his hair in a familiar gesture, like maybe that’s how they say hello every day.

Which it is. But that’s not the point.

“Mmm,” Blaine hums in contentment. “What’s for dinner?”

“Chicken kiev,” Kurt announces as they part, sure to swat Blaine’s ass when he passes. “Though I’m sure it doesn’t compare to the delicacy you served us last night.”

“Hey, spaghettios are delicious!”

“If you’re five.”

“Lizzie didn’t seem to have any complaints.”

“Lizzie is barely out of diapers. Of course she didn’t have any complaints.”

“Kurt, she’s fourteen.”

“My point still stands.”

Blaine chuckles in response. “I happen to love chicken kiev anyway.”

“I know,” Kurt says. “Can’t say I feel the same way about spaghettios.”

At that moment, Lizzie walks in, just as bubbly as ever, and hugs Kurt with just enough pressure that Kurt knows she really means it.

“Sorry,” she says. “I had to call Lacy really quick.”

“And what was so important to discuss with Lacy that you had to postpone my hello hug?”

“Oh my god, dad, you won’t even believe it,” she says in a rush.

“Believe what?” Blaine wonders. “What is it?”

“Our new English teacher!” she squeals. “He is so hot! Like, so hot. Just gorgeous and perfect and he’s young and just – oh my god. Hot.”

Kurt meets his husband’s horrified gaze over the top of their daughter’s head.

Oh dear god.

No.