“B-blaine, how…I can’t – I don’t even know what to say,” Kurt eventually says, throat thick and eyes heavy with unshed tears.

“Say you’ll accept it,” Blaine says. “Because there’s no one else who it could ever belong to.”

Kurt gives a shaky nod. He’s overwhelmed by the thought that something so small could carry so much significance.

“And take care of it,” Blaine adds when Kurt stands to set it on his desk.

“I will, I promise.”

“Good,” Blaine stands as well, kissing the back of Kurt’s head. “Help me clean up?”

Wiping a few tears off his cheek, Kurt laughs lightly. “But it’s my birthday.”

“Oh shut up,” Blaine says with a smile.

Despite his teasing, Kurt assists Blaine in putting the room back to rights by putting all the unused fruit and cheese in the mini-fridge they have under their window. Kurt blows most of the candles out, save for a couple on his desk, while Blaine tucks the pillows in a bin under his bed.

“Your bed tonight or mine?” Blaine asks while he finds some place to keep the empty glasses and the tray.

“Can we sleep in mine?”

“Of course,” Blaine says, tugging off his t-shirt. “Come here.”

Kurt goes willingly to Blaine, slipping effortlessly into his arms as if that’s exactly where he belongs.

“That vest looks really good on you,” Blaine says into his ear.

“A present from Carole,” Kurt informs, gliding his fingers up and down Blaine’s naked back.

“She has good taste.”

“I thought so.”

Sighing into the crook of Blaine’s neck, Kurt relaxes in his arms. There’s a pleasant sort of feeling here, one Kurt can’t define yet, but inside it feels like he’s glowing.

“C’mon. Let’s get into bed,” Blaine says with a final kiss to Kurt’s cheek.

They undress completely, wordlessly, and crawl into the warmth of Kurt’s small dorm bed. Blaine’s toes are cold against his ankles and Blaine smiles when Kurt giggles at the feeling of them on his skin. With two candles still lit on his dresser, the light slowly melts away from their faces as the wick burns low in its glass casing. Blaine strokes Kurt’s hair, blinking sluggishly in the orange light of the room. Kurt leans into his touch without hesitation.

“You’re beautiful,” Blaine whispers.

Kurt stares at Blaine, almost unable to breathe.

Something has changed between them and it’s something vital. While Kurt’s heart had been given to two boys when he and Blaine had begun this affair, it is now perfectly obvious that Blaine has taken a larger hold of it. He’s taking up more space in Kurt’s thoughts, embedding himself in his veins, and every day it seems more likely that his smile, not Brandon’s, is the one Kurt looks most forward to.

“Make love to me,” Kurt requests, voice only barely resounding in the space between their faces. “Please.”

Blaine closes that space instantly, pressing his lips to Kurt’s in a slow, powerful sort of kiss as if he’d been waiting to kiss like this all night long. Kurt sighs when Blaine’s tongue slides along his lower lip, begging for entrance. Promptly allowing it, Kurt opens his mouth to allow Blaine’s tongue to dip inside.

Is it so naïve for him to want love at seventeen? Does it make him a girl, does it make him lost in a fairytale? Is there some sort of code he should be following? Are men not meant for love? Is wishing on a star for love to come so childish?

Is Kurt setting himself up for heartbreak if he thinks that love is there, just around the corner, just a kiss away?

Is he a bad person for thinking that love might come in the form of Blaine rather than Brandon?

All of these questions swirl around in his mind as Blaine breaks from his mouth and begins pressing hot, wet, open mouthed kisses along his jaw and his neck. Kurt cranes his neck to allow Blaine better access and he arches into Blaine’s hands – those hands that play his body like some kind of instrument that he has fine tuned to a remarkably precise degree.

Do men make love? Do gay men make love? Or, as if it were built into their design or predetermined genetic makeup, are they simply meant to fuck? Is there a stigma that comes with this label? Is he allowed to revel in this boy’s hands on his skin, not only for the sake of pleasure, but for the sake of some kind of emotional attachment, some kind of something more?

Because Kurt wants it all but he’s terrified that maybe he shouldn’t.

Especially when this boy, this one who has learned to make him sigh so effortlessly, isn’t even the one he’s supposed to be touching.

Blaine climbs out of bed but he promptly returns with a bottle of lubricant and a condom.

“I don’t – I don’t want you to use a condom,” Kurt says, chest heaving with breath and nerves. “Please.”

Straddling Kurt’s hips, Blaine looks down into Kurt’s eyes and Kurt knows he can only barely make out his face considering there’s only one candle burning now. His gaze is tense, searching, seeking out a sign of unease or uncertainty on Kurt’s face but Kurt knows he doesn’t find one when Blaine drops the condom onto the floor.

Kurt spreads his legs, letting Blaine fall into him, chest to chest. He moves against Kurt, skin sliding and tugging with erections caught between their stomachs.

Moaning at the sensation, Kurt throws his head back on the pillow. Blaine latches his lips to his pulse point and sucks. His tongue soothes the bruise, willing it to fade before the morning and Kurt almost cries because he wishes he could wear it proudly, no questions asked. Blaine lifts himself onto his elbows and reaches for the lubricant, dousing his fingers with a generous amount of the liquid before setting the bottle aside and reaching between their bodies. Kurt hisses when Blaine’s knuckles brush his erection and his fingers continue their journey. He lifts his legs, wrapping them around Blaine’s back as those fingers, sure and smooth, sink into him one at a time.

He can feel Blaine’s eyes on his face as he sighs at the intrusion. Kurt bears down around the fingers as if he can get them deeper and Blaine stretches him, working him open to ease the pain.

“Come here,” Blaine whispers, easing his fingers out of Kurt to allow him to sit up.

Kurt’s legs are shaking as he climbs to his knees. He’s shivering at the lack of Blaine’s body above him but Blaine simply tucks his knees under him and pulls Kurt closer. Kurt straddles Blaine’s legs on his knees and he feels the head of Blaine’s erection brush against his entrance.

“Please,” Kurt begs, hands settling on Blaine’s shoulders.

Blaine fishes the bottle of lubricant out of the sheets and slicks himself up quickly, just as eager as Kurt. When he drops the bottle onto the floor, he slides one hand onto Kurt’s hip and uses the other to align himself.

“I’ve got you,” Blaine says, kissing Kurt’s arm when he feels Kurt trembling around him.

“I’m sorry,” Kurt speaks softly. “I don’t know why – I’ve never-”

“I know,” Blaine smiles encouragingly, caressing Kurt’s hip with his thumb.

And maybe he does know. Maybe he does understand that Kurt’s never had sex so…personally before. Even though he’s looking down at Blaine, even though he’s technically on top, he’s never felt so open, so bare before someone. He’s never made love to anyone in his life. He’s fucked, he’s been fucked, and he’s had plenty of borderline intimate moments during sex but he’s never made love.

He wonders if other people ever do make love. He wonders if people even know what love making feels like. He wonders if they felt the same way he feels right now. He wonders if he’s even allowed to feel like this.

“Neither have I,” Blaine tells him.

The statement eases Kurt’s troubled mind as he sinks down, feeling Blaine inside him and wow, it’s really different without a condom. It’s like he can feel Blaine, can feel another person inside him and not just smooth rubber. He can feel the ridge where head turns to shaft and every single centimeter more that enters him is just that much more of Blaine he’s closer to.

“Kurt,” Blaine pants below him.

When Kurt focuses on Blaine’s face, he can barely make out his parted, pouty little lips, swollen from kissing. His eyes are glassy and bright in the moonlight beaming in through their open window but shadowed by the weak light from their last candle. His expression speaks as if he can’t believe anything could ever feel like this and he moans openly when he’s fully sheathed inside Kurt.

The last flicker of candlelight burns out.

Instinct takes over and Kurt arches his neck to lean down and capture Blaine’s parted lips in a furious kiss, one hand twisting into his hair while the other wraps around his shoulders.

“You’re so – so warm and perfect,” Blaine breathes between kisses.

Kurt begins to rock, slowly, lazily, infinitesimal movements that barely make any difference in their position but Blaine groans against his lips. Kurt thinks it feels different for him too. He can probably feel every inch inside Kurt and god only knows how fantastic that must feel around him. Fire begins to coil in Kurt’s belly; not the kind that signals impending orgasm, but the warm, pulsing kind that feels like waves upon a shore when the tide slips further and further onto the beach.

Blaine’s hands claw down his back, sure to leave marks in their wake but Kurt wants more. He wants everything and he wants it to last an eternity. He wants to drown in all of this because coming up for air might mean facing reality and right now this all feels too surreal, too wonderful to leave behind and keep as a memory.

Blaine thrusts upwards and when he does, it’s so deep and angled just right that he hits Kurt’s prostate, turning Kurt into a sweaty puddle of aroused teenage boy.

“Oh god, again,” Kurt pleads. “Again, Blaine aga-”

Complying readily, Blaine repeats the action and Kurt digs his fingernails into Blaine’s shoulder, mumbling a pointless string of expletives and ‘please, yes, again’.

“Lean back,” Blaine instructs.

“Wha-”

“Lean back,” Blaine says again, firm hand between Kurt’s shoulder blades as Kurt does so.

Releasing his hold on Blaine’s shoulders, Kurt leans back and effectively drives Blaine deeper inside of him while he balances himself on his hands. Blaine pulls out almost completely before he thrusts back in with one, swift movement and the moan Kurt emits is unlike any other. It’s raw, guttural, deep and he needs more.

Oh and Blaine gives it to him without reserve.

It’s so good, so perfect, so nice, so wonderful, so everything that Kurt can’t even think of any other possibly adjectives right now because this is exactly where he’s supposed to be.

“Forever,” Kurt begins panting. “Forever, I want it to be like this forever.”

Blaine cries out when Kurt clenches around him and he quickens the pace of his hips, driving into Kurt and they meet each other, thrust for thrust. Kurt feels the sweat drip down his back and Blaine’s hands are rough on his thighs. Everything is so electric and real and hot and close, he’s so close to –

“Oh my god,” Blaine groans.

He hits Kurt’s prostate one more time and Kurt’s stomach tightens, completely overwhelmed by every single sensation and he comes all over himself, all the way up to his chin. Blaine’s grip on his hips becomes painful but then Blaine throws his head back, muttering Kurt’s name and holy sweet hell Kurt can feel Blaine coming inside of him. It’s warm and wet and wow, really new, but so fucking hot.

Muscles too strained and too tired to move, they stay like that for a few minutes. They’re just looking at each other like they can’t believe it actually happened.

“Wow,” Blaine finally says.

“Yeah,” Kurt says weakly when his knees begin to ache. “Wow.”

“Shit, I’m sorry, here,” Blaine says, both of them cringing as he slips out of Kurt slowly.

As Kurt eases his knees out from under him, his arms give out and he collapses on the bed.

“Hm. That’s…messier than I expected,” Blaine comments, lifting the edge of the sheet so he can wipe Kurt’s chest and stomach as clean as possible.

Out of nowhere, as if he needs the release after the intensity of the sex he just had, Kurt bursts into laughter. Blaine glares at him for a few seconds, but then he’s laughing too and they’re just a mass of naked, sticky teens on a dirty set of sheets.

“H-here,” Blaine says when he can breathe again while still laughing slightly, “spread your legs.”

“Oh it’s gross,” Kurt giggles. “I can feel it dripping!”

“Stop squirming, I’m trying to clean you!”

The laughter begins anew as Blaine wipes what come he can off of Kurt’s body before he balls up the sheet and tosses it near the closet. He hovers over Kurt and kisses him gently as their laughter dies down.

“I think we should sleep in my bed tonight,” Blaine says.

Agreeing readily, they move to Blaine’s bed and snuggle under the blankets together, Kurt’s back against Blaine’s front. Their heartbeats stop fluttering and their eyes become heavy, bodies lax and lazy as Blaine plants tiny kisses along Kurt’s naked shoulder.

“I want it, too,” Blaine murmurs into Kurt’s sweat damp hair. “I want forever with you.”

Kurt sighs happily into the darkness. The air still smells faintly of scented candles and there’s a breeze coming through their open window. Moonlight tips inside, outlining their faces and the faint smile on Kurt’s lips as he falls asleep.

Forever with you would be nice.