They tremble together as the weave their fingers and hands around each other, tugging knots into their hearts as they stumble up the stairs. Kurt's room is closest and Blaine is grateful because the mess of bandage reminders would be enough to choke him in the blue room he has been given. Kurt's room is a knocking one, for patterns through the wall and timid comforts.

There is nothing timid in them now. There is nothing timid in the way Kurt practically scratches Blaine's shirt over his head, snatching at the side they both ignore. There is nothing timid in the way they kiss, bruising air back and forth, their hot breath like joint smoke, easing them back into the hallucination of the past. There is nothing timid in the way that Blaine licks at his chin, bites at his jaw and makes it his again. There is nothing timid in the way Kurt whips his own shirt away, thankful for the lack of buttons, and finally, finally, crushes their chests together like they are two cogs viciously winding together.

The timidness lies in the darting fingers and flickering eyes. Kurt's eyes blotting out the still red scars from the perfect gold of Blaine's skin. Blaine's fingers desperately grappling at a belt, slipping and wavering; breaking away from the hot brand Kurt is pressing against his neck.

“I've got it,” Kurt whispers, licking a fresh kiss against the salt of his nerves and then the ragged beat of his heart. The belts snap open one by one, wilting at their sides and then there are buttons and zips that make Blaine grip his fingers into Kurt's bicep, pressing his own brand of fingertips.

“Kurt,” he whines, as they stumble to shake away their pants leaving boxers and socks like boys again. He feels like a boy again.

“I've got it,” Comes the murmur again, and they're close, close, close; tripping backwards and the weight of Kurt's body against his own is the breaking of his held breath, leaving a wave of goosebumps down Kurt's arms.

Kurt is scrambling for the pieces of Blaine he knows, the little blemishes on his right shoulder, where he drops like a butterfly and flutters away from the red lines. The smell of his skin, fresh sweat that tastes like something beautifully forbidden. The brush of Blaine's artist's eyelashes that paint love into the skin of his face. And the warm press of cotton lift them together, in the dirty reminder that Blaine is still his Blaine, still wants him, still arches his back to get closer, still whines and whispers his lips pursed.

His thumb and little finger work together to hook their underwear together and down until there is nothing but their heartbeats jolting together between them. Their hair rubs together, and they slip their thighs apart until the soft flesh is surging together. For Blaine is the ocean and Kurt is the sand and the heat of their sun-love is blinding him.

But out of the waves the whispers of his name grows stronger and more persistent, there is something like panic in the conch-like whispers of the ocean in his ear.

“Kurt,” it comes again, louder and he has to stop because that is the voice that brings his sweat cold, “I can't reach, please,” The paintbrush eyelashes are wet against his cheek.

Blaine's arm is battering against his waist and slipping between the cracks between their bodies but this is the arm that always held him. Kurt knows Blaine's left from his right by the sharp white scar across the knuckles of his right hand, that white scar, always brought them into the white heat of pleasure, always. The empty hand held his neck, his back and sometimes the dimple of his lower back but now it is scratching for something new.

“I can't,” Blaine starts again, and the heat of their chests together is suddenly too much. Kurt pushes up on his arms so he can finally look at Blaine's whole face. It is flushed in concentration but something breaks in it as Kurt leans over him, “I feel like the board,” he whispers and Kurt almost doesn't notice except for the soft twitch of Blaine's lips.

“What?” he whispers back, raising his voice he knows will crack something he might not be able to repair.

“You look like you're about to stand up,” Blaine explains, His hand finding purchase on the thin skin of Kurt's ribs, “Like on a surfboard,” he ducks his chest, and his breath catches, “I'm sorry, I can't feel myself, I feel a bit crushed.”

“Oh,” Kurt replies softly, tipping himself to the side. There is something more than this he knows, the Blaine he knew would roll them back and forth like waves crashing until he would worry for the safety of the bed, he had always wanted them to crush each other one by one until they were one being. But this is something more, and he makes no attempt to pull Blaine on top of him as he settles by his side facing the ceiling.

“I didn't mean to…” Blaine starts and the cracking begins, he feels a tentative hand twist their fingers together but it is suddenly cold.

“I know,” Kurt answers, because there is not much else but the reminder that both their hearts are still beating a rhythm into the same bed sheets. He is cold and flaccid and he thinks Blaine must be too.

The sudden reminder of their parents downstairs is stark and even more uncomfortable than the steady rush of cold air from the ceiling fan across their skin.

“We should get dressed,” Kurt says, and there's a cracking in him too.

“I know.” Comes the reply and the only words after is the broken plea for help as Blaine struggles to button his own pants, the skin of his knuckles turning white in pain.

“I've got it,” Kurt says again, reaching for him and then around him, tugging him tight into his chest with the weight of his hands pressing Blaine close, trying to spread his wide hands across the span of his back in a hopeless attempt at comfort. They press their faces into each other's neck and at last, like the creeping of a tide on a mill-pond day, Blaine's palm is pressed against the skin over his spine, and his gentle fingers are rubbing circles into his hair and they are at home at least and he can't help but tell him, “Everything's going to be okay.”

“I know,” is Blaine's last kiss, wet and precious against his own lips and painting his own comforting words against Kurt's cheek.

The call for dinner is a sucking breath, their chests bumping together and their hearts pounding like their feet down the stairs. Their faces must show nothing. Nothing too wrong and nothing too right.

***

“Hi boys,” Carole calls, poking her head out of the kitchen door and watching them scuffle down the last few steps, hands entwined, “Where have you been, huh?”

Kurt looks to Blaine, but something in the tremble of his fingertips tells him Blaine won't be able to speak, “Something in one of the adverts reminded Blaine of…” he starts, feeling terrible for using what is breaking them apart to cover up their mistakes, Blaine squeezes his fingers in a forgiven reply, “so we went upstairs to just sit and talk, I know it's anti-social with Blaine's parents…”

“Of course, sweeties, you have to do what you think,” she tells them kindly, spinning back into the kitchen. Kurt feels even more terrible that she had been so forgiving and almost turns back up the stairs in embarrassment.

“It's okay,” Blaine's hot breath rushes against his ear.

And they take it on together.

***

Blaine distracts himself by picking out each of the vegetables he'd held in his hand, when Carole had given him the gift of questions. His parent's do no such thing now. The conversation is held merely by Carole and Burt's pleasantries, teasing out words from the pursed lips of people with better things to do.

“Blaine,” his mother interrupts on of Carole's weaker attempts. Her voice is sickly and he remembers how it used to seep into his dreams like sticky syrup, “We'd like for you to come home with us tonight.”

There it is, running down the back of his throat, drowning his words. His attempt at an answer is only gargling noise.

“We think it'd be better if the boys stayed together,” Burt says for him, his words are persistent and sure. There is a moment of hope that they both must feel, Kurt squeezes it into the flesh of his thigh.

“Well,” the gritty sand of his father's voice comes, and he counts desperately the vegetables on his plate as the grit of it reaches his eyes, “no offense, but we think he should be with his family.”

“Well, no offense to you,” Burt snarks back, his voice is gruff also, but it buffers his skin and makes him feel a little cleaner, “But Kurt is the love of his life and now is certainly not the time for them to be separated, when they've looked after each other for weeks now.”

“Blaine is eighteen years old,” gritting, sanding down his heart into ragged pieces, “That is a title you earn and you have to live first.”

“These boys have done more living in the past few years than you have in your entire life,” Burt replies, crashing his fist against the side of his plate and jolting the whole table.

Blaine's Father grinds his teeth and wipes a napkin silently over his mouth. His Mother's smile turns sour and she twists her fingers together, her bracelets clinking together as her hands shake. Carole takes a breath and starts clearing the plates, pushing Finn until he joins her, fumbling with slippery porcelain. Burt just breathes.

Kurt seems to have stopped breathing beside him, and the fingers against Blaine's thigh whisper away. They turn to face each other at once and Blaine watches and Kurt tries to hide the crumbling erosion of his poker-face. There is a waterfall breaking in that magnificent cliff-face.

“It's okay, I promise,” Blaine starts, his voice is starched with syrup and gritty sands and the words don't feel his own. He grapples for Kurt's hands under the table so he can tell him with the music of his fingers, “I promise I won't leave you, Kurt, I swear they'll have to drag me away from you.”

“I can't have you locked in some room again where I can't get to you,” comes the waterfall's reply.

Finn's large hands come in front of them to take their plates and, knocking against Blaine's shoulder, he reaches forward to try and catch the plate that is tripping from his fingers. There is an almighty crash and suddenly the current of the waterfall is tumbling over the broken porcelain and running from the room.

Almost running into Finn in the process, Blaine clumsily runs after him. The non-weight of his missing arm almost upturns him in that moment but he makes it out of the room and out in the garden where he knows Kurt will be. Kurt who likes the world to be at his fingertips, who likes to see that he could run forever, into the hot red of the summer sunset.

He sees the shaking shoulders first, the long line of the neck where his fingers find a home. He knows it is the lock to Kurt's thoughts and he doesn't know if that's what he wants. Instead he wraps an arm around Kurt's waist and rest his chin upon his shuddering shoulders.

“For a second there I was back in that waiting room,” Kurt's lilting voice, like rain-fall, starts, “And I know I can't do that again, I just can't.”

“I know,” his chin bumps his words into the damp cotton of Kurt's shirt, “and you won't, I promise, they can't make me go anywhere.”

“But I don't want you to have to always be with me because I can't deal with not seeing you face. That's not fair.”

Blaine feels the sunset of a conversation just like he'd felt the sunset of their intimacy earlier in that room.

“I want to be with you always and always,” he presses, like a kiss to Kurt's ear.

And, in the red- orange light of ending, he is so beautiful. He is the reminder of the waterfall dreams that flood his nights; the blue eyes through the glass and a slow tide crashing at the surface.

“It was you,” Blaine tells him, “It was you I woke up for; I saw your eyes.”

There they are now, the ocean of his love, the ocean of his life.