“But I don’t want a bath!”

Blaine wants to rip his hair out. They’re all in his living room after their outing to Breadstix, Kurt included, and Bethany is refusing to bathe herself.

Again.

“Please, please just go take your bath. You still have spaghetti sauce on your face.”

“I dunno why we have to take baths anyway,” Bethany argues defiantly. “I’m just gonna get dirty again tomorrow.”

“Yeah, and if you don’t take a bath, by the end of the week you’re going to smell like a wet, dirty dog.”

“So?”

“Bethany, go take your bath!”

“No!”

“Then I’ll just have to take you outside and hose you down like a dog. Come on.”

“No, you can’t! No!” Bethany shouts as Blaine takes her arm. “I’ll tell mommy!”

“What if,” Kurt interrupts the hysterics in front of him, “I draw you a princess dress?”

Both Blaine and Bethany freeze on the spot. Bethany’s eyes widen like she’s just won the lottery and Blaine quirks an eyebrow in surprise.

“You draw?”

“I draw designs sometimes,” Kurt says offhandedly. “Nothing major.”

“You can draw a princess dress?” Bethany asks in awe. “Really?”

“I can.” Kurt nods. “But…you know, princesses take their baths. They have to stay clean and pretty so they-”

“So they can find their prince charming!”

Or princess charming, Blaine wants to interject.

“Exactly,” Kurt says kindly. “So I can only draw you a princess dress if you take your bath.”

“Okay!”

Bethany races down the hallway and slams the bathroom door. As soon as Blaine hears the shower running, he turns back to Kurt.

“You’re a miracle worker.”

“It’ll only take five minutes,” Kurt promises.

“You can – you can sit,” Blaine says, gesturing to the sofa. They both sit down, though Blaine’s sure to put a few feet of distance between them. He doesn’t want to overstep his bounds in any way. “I don’t mean to keep you so late. Really, you could have just gone home.”

“Blaine, it takes me a minute to walk back over to my house,” Kurt reminds him. “And it’s only eight thirty. It’s not like I have anywhere to be.”

“Yeah, but you probably have friends or something you want to see on a Friday night.”

“I see them plenty. I’m going shopping with two of them tomorrow. Tonight, I want to be with you.”

Kurt speaks so candidly. He’s so open and honest and Blaine can’t help but blush at Kurt’s words. He wishes he could be that honest as well, but honesty can ensure you lose everything sometimes. This, Blaine knows for a fact.

“Why are you sitting so far away?” Kurt asks. “Sit closer.”

“I – are you sure?”

“We spent the majority of dinner with our ankles wrapped around each other. Yes, you can sit next to me.”

“Okay,” Blaine says softly, scooting closer to Kurt on the couch. He stops when their knees are in bumping distance, but Kurt takes the initiative and moves until they’re thigh to thigh and hip to hip.

“Much better,” Kurt says.

“Yeah,” Blaine agrees. “Yeah, it is.”

The boys fall quiet, listening to the sound of the shower running and Bethany singing some song she must have made up about a teddy bear and a rowboat. Otherwise, it’s perfectly quiet in the house. It doesn’t matter though, Blaine realizes, because Kurt is here and they’re sharing the same space and breathing the same air and the house seems a little less new and filled with something joy for the first time in a long while.

“Not one for decoration?” Kurt asks.

Blaine knows he’s referring to the relatively blank walls, save for a few semi-recent family portraits hanging above the television.

“Mom didn’t really want to waste time packing half the stuff we had up before we moved here,” Blaine explains. “Some of it just – had too many memories.”

“Ah,” Kurt replies softly. Then, “Can I ask you something?”

“Um, y-yeah.”

“Why don’t you ever mention your dad? You only ever talk about your mom.”

Nearly every muscle in Blaine’s body constricts, including his throat, causing him to cough. He brushes away Kurt’s hand of concern until he catches his breath again, but he doesn’t know if he’s going to be able to tell this story.

He doesn’t know if he’s ready to trot down memory lane and see all the pain he’s caused his family.

“I don’t know if-”

At that moment, Blaine is saved from telling the story by the appearance of Bethany in a purple nightgown, arms laden with a pile of paper and various different colored pencils and crayons.

“Will you draw me a princess dress now?” she asks.

Her dark, curly hair is soaking wet, drenching the back of her nightgown and tangled with knots. Blaine rolls his eyes, but Kurt simply smiles and takes the supplies from her hands.

“Of course,” Kurt says. “I said I would.”

“Go get your towel and your hairbrush,” Blaine instructs her. “Let me brush and dry your hair while Kurt draws.”

With a quick nod, Bethany darts back into the bathroom and retrieves the items Blaine needs. Kurt spreads the paper out on the coffee table, carefully picking out certain colored pencils for his creation, and Bethany seats herself in front of Blaine on the floor.

“What’s your favorite color?” Kurt asks her as Blaine towels her hair dry.

“Pink!” Bethany exclaims. “But I like yellow, too!”

Kurt nods his understanding and begins outlining a faceless model and a sketch of the dress. Bethany peers over to look at his work, but Blaine has to yank her head back in place while he brushes the knots out of her hair. They work quietly, Kurt’s hand scratching quickly on the page and Blaine begins to hum a soft tune as he brushes his sister’s hair. The entire atmosphere is suddenly calm, like they’ve been here a billion times before, seated on the sofa with Bethany’s youthful energy winding down for the day. She relaxes as Kurt sketches and colors, and eventually Blaine works all the tangles out of her hair. He keeps brushing though, because the act itself is soothing to him, familiar in its routine.

He almost feels like he has a real family for the first time in nearly four years.

“All done,” Kurt finally says. He displays his work, a stunning, colorful bell dress in strawberry pink, complete with a white sash around the middle that’s adorned with a single, yellow flower. “Do you like it?”

“It’s perfect,” Bethany whispers in awe, reaching for the picture when Kurt holds it out to her. “Can I keep it forever?”

“Yes,” Kurt says with a smile. “It’s yours.”

“Thank you,” Bethany replies, eyes glued to the picture in front of her.

“You’re very welcome.”

“Look, Blainey. See?”

“I see it,” Blaine acknowledges. “It’s very pretty.”

“Can I put it in my room?” she asks.

“Yeah, let me find some pins or something,” he tells her. Bethany jumps to her feet and rushes down the hall, throwing open her bedroom door. Blaine looks back to Kurt. “I, um, I have to read to her. It’s the only way she’ll go to sleep. I won’t be long, though. Not that – I mean, you can go home if-”

“Can I listen to you read?” Kurt simply asks.

“…If you want.”

Kurt responds with a small, pleased smile. They both stand and Blaine hurries into the kitchen to dig through a drawer until he finds a couple of pushpins before they make their way into Bethany’s room.

“Here,” Blaine says, taking the picture from her short, thin arms when he catches her trying to position it on her wall. He holds it up where he intends to pin it. “Is this good?”

Bethany nods quickly and Blaine inserts the pins, Kurt’s work of art now proudly on display in his baby sister’s bedroom.

“Okay,” Blaine says with a sigh. “Time for bed.”

“Story?”

“Yeah. Is it okay if Kurt listens, too?”

“Uh huh,” Bethany replies, yawning as she crawls into bed. “Can we read the poems?”

“Sure.” Blaine plucks the works of Shel Silverstein from Bethany’s bookshelf and settles on the end of the bed. Kurt seats himself against the wall near the door as there aren’t any other chairs in the little girl’s room. Blaine opens the book and begins to read. “There is a place where the sidewalk ends, and before the street begins, and there the grass grows soft and white, and there the sun burns crimson bright, and there the moon-bird rests from his flight, to cool in the peppermint wind…”

“What did she say?” Kurt asks in a whisper after Blaine flicks the light switch in Bethany’s room and closes the door. “When you kissed her goodnight?”

“Um, she said that – she said she wants to wear the dress you drew her when she grows up and gets married.”

“Wow,” Kurt says, sounding pleased. “That’s quite a compliment, even coming from an eight year old.”

“Mmm. I have a feeling she’ll hold onto that picture for a very long time,” Blaine says, leading them down the hall to his bedroom. “My room’s kind of messy,” he apologizes. “It’s the one room I haven’t had time to completely unpack.”

“As long as you don’t have any jockstraps lying around.”

Blaine muffles his laughter behind his hand and opens his bedroom door. The only things that really have a solid place are his bed and his nightstand, both tucked into a corner. Boxes and bags full of clothes are shoved into the opposite corner, and his closet is flung open from his earlier wardrobe search.

“Sorry,” Blaine mumbles, shoving a few shirts back into the closet and pushing the door closed.

“You just moved in, Blaine,” Kurt says. “I don’t care what your room looks like.”

“Yeah, well.” Blaine shrugs. “You can sit on – on my bed.”

Rather than sitting, Kurt unlaces his shoes and sets them aside before stretching out completely on Blaine’s full-sized bed. Oh goodness, Blaine thinks, having to suppress his teenage hormones that have suddenly decided to make themselves known. Kurt looks even taller all stretched out like this, all angles and hard lines beneath his clothes and possibly, definitely, really fucking sexy.

“There’s plenty of room for both of us.”

Blaine snaps back to reality upon hearing Kurt’s words, immediately realizing he’s been staring openly for the past twenty or thirty seconds.

“I won’t jump you,” Kurt promises. “Well, not tonight. It is only our first date, after all.”

Smiling weakly at the joke, Blaine crawls up on the other side of the bed, the one closest to the wall, and settles down next to Kurt. He can feel Kurt’s weight on his half of the bed, and it’s actually very intimate even though they’re both fully clothed and lying on top of the comforter. The walls are too bare and every centimeter of movement echoes, so when Kurt rolls over and props his head up with his arm, the sound is loud and puts Blaine on edge.

“I had a good time tonight,” Kurt says honestly. “I had a really good time.”

“Me too,” Blaine whispers in reply.

“You seemed nervous.”

“I was.” Blaine figures he can try to be as honest as possible, at least when it comes to the good things. “You make me nervous.”

“Me? Why?”

“Because you just – you’re so – you’re just so open,” Blaine tries to explain. “You’re confident and you know what to say and you don’t stumble over everything like I do. It’s hard to compete with.”

“I don’t want to compete with you,” Kurt says quickly. “And I haven’t always been like this. You remember that we only just met yesterday.”

“I know.” Blaine nods. “There’s a lot I don’t know about you.”

“I’m willing to tell you everything,” Kurt admits. “I don’t know why. You’re just some boy who lives a few doors down. I just met you. But I can’t get you out of my head.”

“I know how you feel,” Blaine says, though his words are almost too quiet to be heard.

“So what do you want to know?” Kurt asks, presenting himself like an open book with a very detailed table of contents.

“Anything?”

“Anything.”

“I want – I want to ask everything,” Blaine sighs. “But it’s not really fair to you. Because there are – there are things you’ll want to know about me that I’m…not really ready to talk about. Like earlier, when you asked about my dad. I was going to say that I don’t know if I can talk about it. Not yet, anyway.”

“Blaine,” Kurt breathes softly, placing his hand on Blaine’s cheek. “We met yesterday, remember? I don’t expect you to tell me every dark thing or every detail about your past. I just want to know what kind of person you are.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, I wanna know if you’re kind. I wanna know if you have a good heart. I want to know if I can trust you because, frankly, I don’t trust that many people in the world.”

“I – I don’t know if I’m any of those things.”

“Well, that’s for me to find out, isn’t it?”

“I guess,” Blaine says with a shrug, pushing his face into Kurt’s palm so that he’ll stroke Blaine’s cheekbone with his thumb.

“So ask me a question. Anything you want.”

Kurt’s eyes are soft, yet wide, and filled to the brim with emotion. Blaine stares back into them, watching the waves of blue and specks of green and gold glide together, resembling the brightest ocean he thinks he might ever see.

“Why are you so nice to Bethany?” he finally asks.

As if he’s shocked that Blaine decides to ask that first, Kurt’s eyebrows fly up in response.

“Because she’s your baby sister and you love her,” Kurt says simply, as if it’s the easiest question he’s ever answered in his life.

And the answer sets Blaine’s blood on fire, like he’s been a dying ember for the entirety of his life and Kurt just so happens to be the one with the ability to fan the flames. Bethany Anderson has nothing to do with Kurt and she has nothing to do with how Kurt may feel about Blaine, but Bethany is Blaine’s world and has been for years. He dedicates his waking hours to making sure she’s safe and healthy and loved and for once, finally, it seems like someone can see exactly how much effort he puts into his relationship with his sister. It’s like he’s been waiting for someone to see it but he never realized that’s what he’s been waiting for. And Kurt, beautiful Kurt with his pale skin and ocean eyes, is the first person to put it all in such sweet, simplistic, unadorned terms.

Blaine wants to cry.

Instead, he reaches for Kurt and pulls him down into a fierce kiss. Maybe it’s crazy, considering they only met yesterday, but Blaine needs this; he needs the connection and craves the feeling of Kurt’s soft lips against his. Kurt gasps into Blaine’s mouth but he doesn’t pull away. Rather, he moves closer and slides his fingers into Blaine’s hair, pressing a hip bone into Blaine’s upper thigh.

It’s hot and glorious and good god, Blaine could kiss Kurt for a thousand years and never tire of it for a second.