Day 018: Thursday 4th October, 2012
Wreckage (Delaware)

"I'll try anything once."

"Except sex."

"And isn't that the truth? Alright, Dead Poet's Society it is."



Kurt surfaced slowly.

At first he felt the body-warmed cotton beneath his fingers and then skin, smooth and heated and there. Then came the deep satiation, the unfettered relaxation pooled inside every muscle, and the quiet need to stretch. It was all chased by the smacking of lips, the taste of stale alcohol and—tequila shots? Fries, maybe? He opened his eyes slowly, searching out daylight between the slats of the blind, but it was still mostly dark. Turning his head, he took in the sight of Blaine beneath the covers, his white shirt wrinkled and unbuttoned. He looked more relaxed than Kurt had seen him in a long while, and though things between them were still a little strained and he hadn't exactly intended on them sharing the bed again so soon, he couldn't help but smile.

Slowly, so as not to disturb him, Kurt stretched himself out of bed and retrieved a t-shirt, a soft hoodie, and his comfiest pair of sweatpants from the drawers at the end of the bed. He left the small bedroom, sliding the door closed behind him, and went about his usual morning routine, skipping the shower as he was craving pancakes and would want to work them off afterwards.

He was sitting in the driver's seat, sipping from a wetly steaming mug of French roast and watching the sunrise break through cloud after cloud when he realized that they were still in the middle of the city and should probably get an early start if they didn't want to get caught in the morning rush hour, all infuriating start-and-stop until they hit the highway. What time had they even gotten back to the R.V.? Kurt couldn't remember anything after catching glimpses of Blaine dancing in front of the equalizer through the crowd, but he knew it must have been late, and now it was barely seven-fifteen.

Deciding to let Blaine sleep, Kurt plucked the set of keys from the hook under the kitchen cabinets and soon enough, he was on the road.

"Crap," he muttered when he reached down to turn on his iPod and realized that it was still docked on the table in the living area. Shaking his head, he scanned through radio stations until he found one claiming to be the premier Philadelphia eclectic and alternative station. As Massive Attack's Teardrop filled the cab, its repetitive beat and dark, almost foreboding piano refrain wrapping around him, Kurt tried to eschew the sense that something wasn't quite right as it settled upon his shoulders.

When Blaine finally appeared an hour later, bleary-eyed and yawning as he sank into the passenger seat, he was wearing the same clothes as the night before and had his shirt buttoned only halfway up. Kurt shot him a brief smile, turning down the volume on the radio, and forced himself not to let his eyes linger on the smattering of dark hair on Blaine's chest.

"You know, I really like this route we're taking. Gets us out of driving all the way across Pennsylvania," Kurt said.

"Small mercies."

"How'd you sleep?"

"Fine. Where are we?"

"About five minutes outside Smyrna. I figured we could find someplace for breakfast, because I'm craving pancakes like no other."

Blaine snorted, shook his head and looked out of the window at the other cars on the highway.

"What's with you? Are you hungover?"

"Do you remember anything that happened last night?" Blaine asked evenly.

"Not really," Kurt said slowly, a horrible thought occurring to him as he realized—he was craving pancakes. He only ever wanted pancakes after sex—and Blaine knew that as well as he did. "Oh god, did it happen again? I hooked up with some stranger, didn't I? Fuck."

"No, Kurt. You didn't hook up with some stranger," Blaine replied, his tone mild and controlled. Kurt breathed a sigh of relief—not only did he not want to be putting Blaine in that situation again, he really didn't want to be hooking up with strangers, particularly when he knew any hookup would be merely an unsatisfying substitute for what he really wanted, and really couldn't have.

"Thank god."

"Yeah. Where's the aspirin?"

"In the bathroom," Kurt said as Blaine passed by, and smiled to himself a little—Blaine was always grouchy the morning after a night out, at least until he'd eaten.

Kurt, on the other hand, was in such a good mood that his inexplicable craving didn't even occur to him again until he was seated opposite Blaine inside Smyrna Diner, enjoying the spacious yet homey throwback feel of the place as he perused the breakfast menu. Blaine had taken only a cursory glance at his own before slumping in his seat and turning to watch the morning drizzle pit-pit-pattering against the windows, and when Kurt began to sense that edge of tension creeping back in, he ordered an egg white omelet and home fries.

Something felt very, very wrong, and it wasn't until they had driven the rest of the way to Rehoboth Beach and parked by the Indian River Marina that Kurt realized why.

He was on the couch, ear buds in with his iPod on shuffle as he checked out the blogs of the few followers he had gained since his last video diary. Blaine stepped out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his hips, and Kurt glanced up once, twice, and froze in his seat: on the back of Blaine's left hip were four red, crescent-shaped marks.

Pushing through the crush of bodies around him, needing to get to Blaine and show him how much he was wanted, give him everything he deserved. Moving against him, with him, arousal flaring sharp as he lavished attention on Blaine's tanned skin; wanting to groan every time he brushed against the stubble graze of his jaw. Hard, heavy, hot flesh on his tongue and himself in hand; wanting to cry at the beauty of the release; finally, finally, finally. Blaine's imploring eyes; curling into his warm body with an arm holding him close and then—

Kurt shot to his feet and swallowed convulsively, panic rising up in his throat like bile. He had—they had... Oh, god.

He didn't pause, didn't so much as blink, just took his iPod and ran, the R.V.'s side door banging shut behind him as he took off towards the north end of the marina. He was wearing the wrong shoes for running, didn't even really own a pair of running shoes, that was Blaine's thing—Blaine, whom Kurt had sucked off without a thought for what he was doing, selfish, idiot, he'd ruined everything, and he wanted to scream when the song changed and Mumford & Sons were telling him he really fucked it up because he had, hadn't he? He'd fucked everything up completely, they wouldn't recover from this, it wasn't supposed to be like this, it wasn't supposed to happen like this—had he even kissed Blaine before he had broken every unwritten rule between them?

Take, take, take it all, just like you always do, but not from him, never from him because he deserves so much better—

"Kurt!"

His feet pounded harder on the uneven terrain, one of his ear buds slipped from his ear but he didn't care, just ran faster along the trail until the loop took him out to the spit of beach lining the shore, the sand little more than fine, weather-worn stones and pebbles and he couldn't breathe, couldn't think because it was all around him, the damage he'd done to them, and he could still taste—

"Kurt, stop!"

The rain was pouring and Kurt was freezing in just his t-shirt and sweats but he couldn't stop, couldn't do anything other than run from what he'd done because maybe if he got far enough away from it, put enough distance there that it was nothing more than a passing blip on the horizon of his mind then he could ignore it, get past it, act like it never even happened in the first place, and then Blaine was drawing level with him, taking his arm and yanking him to a stop.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Kurt," Blaine panted, hands on his thighs, and now that Blaine was in front of him, looking at him like he was utterly insane, Kurt truly felt it. "Ever thought about trying out for the Olympics? What the fuck was that?"

With shaking hands, Kurt pulled the remaining ear bud from his ear and turned off his iPod, winding the cord around it to give himself a few precious seconds to try and compose himself. It didn't work; it only made him feel the cold of the rain pelting at him with full force, and he trembled uncontrollably.

"Kurt, look at me," Blaine instructed him firmly, taking him by the shoulders and his hands were burning, and Kurt could feel Blaine's fingers gripped in his hair all over again.

"I've fucked everything up, haven't I?"

"Kurt, no, what are you talking about?"

"Don't tell me you don't remember what happened, Blaine. You weren't even half as drunk as I was."

Blaine took a breath and exhaled through his nose, shook his head and shivered when rivulets of water trailed free of his curls. "Of course I remember, I—I just..." he trailed off, scrubbing a hand over his face, and Kurt wished and hoped and prayed that Blaine wasn't about to ask if being drunk was the only reason he did it, if he'd meant even one second of it, because those were dangerous questions with even more dangerous answers.

"Just what?"

"Look, let's be honest, Kurt..." Blaine trailed off, and Kurt took a breath. After a long pause, Blaine cocked his head to the side, quirked his eyebrows and grinned. "I've got moves."

And just like that, the tension split and cracked and shattered. Kurt bit his lip.

"Such a dork," he muttered, and the ground stopped moving beneath his feet.

"Chalk it up to booze, temporary insanity, whatever you want. Let's just forget about it, okay?" Blaine asked.

With a deep, shuddering breath, Kurt nodded gratefully—he was off the hook even though that voice in the back of his mind that was growing louder with each passing day was telling him that he didn't want to be let off the hook at all. "You're freezing."

"I hadn't noticed."

Wordlessly, Blaine shucked off his leather jacket and tucked it around Kurt's shoulders. It smelled like rain and spice and home.

"Come on. What do we do when it rains?" Blaine prompted him. "We..."

"We shop," Kurt answered, rolling his eyes as they turned to retrace their footsteps back along the trail.

"A little bird told me that there's a great outlet mall nearby. And Kurt, did you know that in Delaware, you don't pay sales tax?"

"Why no, Blaine, I didn't know that," Kurt joked back with a giggle, and this—this was good. This was who they were: best friends who laughed and had fun and were there for one another no matter what, who they had been for sixteen years and would continue to be. They would stay that way, because it was who they were to one another, and nothing more—Kurt would make sure of it.



Distance: 1,451 miles