Day 060: Thursday 15th November, 2012
Redamancy (Louisiana)

"Who knew so much was shot in Louisiana?"

"Well, it kind of has to be Benjamin Button, right?"

"Yeah, I think it has to be."



"Okay," Blaine said, setting everything down onto the blanket and sitting back. "We have beignets, we have hot cider, and we have... About fifteen minutes before we should be able to start seeing them."

"Merci beaucoup," Kurt replied, his diction barely flawed, and accepted the small cup of cider that Blaine poured for him. Kurt's eyes remained on him as he took a sip, tipping his head back a little to expose the long column of his neck and the bobbing of his Adam's apple as he swallowed.

Blaine licked his lips, and chose to busy himself with transferring their beignets to paper plates. There was a pleasant fizzle of anticipation simmering away beneath his skin; all day, Kurt had been throwing every single trick he possessed at him, almost like he was still trying to pay him back for Arkansas.

Which had been unintentional. Mostly.

"We should come back here one day for Mardi Gras," Kurt mused absently, taking a bite out of a beignet and glancing up at the sky. Save for a few clouds lingering in the distance, it was a crystal clear night—perfect for watching the Leonids as they skittered through the stars.

They weren't the only ones sitting on the roof of an R.V.—it seemed like almost everyone in the Pontchartrain Landing Park was out tonight. Their sites all in a line overlooking the marina, the other campers were gathered in couples and groups, laughing and eating and listening to music.

"Is this a thing people do in Louisiana?" Blaine had wondered aloud, just after sunset when he and Kurt had parked in their reserved site, bellies full of creole jambalaya and crawfish �touff�e from the French Quarter. People were already up on top of their vehicles and singing raucously along to someone's iPod playing the True Blood theme. Kurt had taken it in with a barely-concealed sigh, and rolled his eyes when Blaine had joined in.

Then they'd both heard mention of a meteor shower, and suddenly everything had made sense.

"Wow," Blaine said after taking a sip of his own cider. "Can you get the recipe for this from Toby?"

"I think it's his mom's recipe, but I can ask," Kurt said. "It's pretty special, right?"

"Let's just say, I'm glad we got extra," Blaine murmured, and reached out to thumb away a few specks of powdered sugar at the corner of Kurt's mouth. Eyes lingering on Kurt's, he sucked on the tip of his thumb.

"What are you doing?" Kurt asked on an exhale. He wrapped both hands around his cup and linked his fingers together.

"Exactly what you've been doing all day," Blaine shot back with a grin, just as the group of girls three vehicles away starting playing Bad Things for the third time that hour.

"Oh my god," Kurt muttered under his breath.

"Good news," Blaine said, reaching into the pocket of his hoodie and producing his iPod. He offered Kurt one of the ear buds. "We also have music."

"You're my favorite," Kurt announced, and Blaine smiled as he scrolled through his playlists, hitting shuffle on the one titled, 'Mellow Magic.'

"Lie down," he said, INU's Captured weaving its quietly building introduction around the moment. With a little maneuvering, they managed to arrange themselves so that they were lying on their backs, legs stretched out in opposite directions and heads pillowed on each other's shoulders as they looked up at the sky and waited for the show to begin.

At least, Kurt was looking up. Blaine's head was tilted half toward Kurt's, taking in the silhouette of his profile. The scent of his cologne was still lingering faintly around the collar of his shirt and it coiled into Blaine's senses, wrapping him up in a phantom of home.

They had been on the road for two months already, with less than seven weeks left to go. Blaine could almost hear the clock tick-tick-ticking their seconds away, and he wanted more than anything for their road trip to go on far longer than another forty days if it meant that they still got to be caught in this snow globe that they themselves shook, over and over and over until the slant of the land sent them sliding all too closely to the truth: this wasn't just a road trip thing.

But the boundaries were set, and so Blaine committed himself to taking in as much as possible.

"You're going to miss it if you keep staring at me like that," Kurt said, shifting onto his side and propping himself up on one elbow. "What's got you so preoccupied?"

"Do you remember that night you got your license and we drove out to Coffin Pond?" Blaine asked after a moment.

"Yeah..."

"And we saw the SWAN comet and named your car?"

"Odette! I miss that car," Kurt said wistfully, before asking, "What about it?"

"We've got less than seven weeks left," Blaine said, pausing to clear his throat. "Don't you think it's time we named the R.V.?"

Kurt hummed a little, reached up to scratch at the side of his jaw, and said, "I propose 'Leona.'"

"Leona?"

"Odette for the SWAN, Leona for the Leonids," he clarified.

"Leona," Blaine repeated, rolling it around in his mouth as he shifted to mirror Kurt's position.

"Do you think your grandfather would have liked it?" Kurt asked quietly.

"Yeah. Yeah, I do," Blaine said, all wistful melancholy. "Leona it is."

"You're going to make this a thing, aren't you," Kurt grumbled with a long-suffering air. "Do I have to go get that bottle of champagne and smash it on the side?"

Blaine let out a bark of laughter and, location and surroundings be damned, leaned forward to press his lips to Kurt's.

"Blaine," Kurt sighed into his mouth, his hand cupping Blaine's jaw so firmly that he didn't know whether Kurt was pulling him closer or pushing him away. Eventually his patience won out; Kurt dropped his elbow and gave in with the softest of moans. The angle was awkward but Blaine made it work, shifting so that he could part Kurt's lips and dip his tongue inside. He tasted like cider and sugar.

Tick-tick-tock, he thought. Down counts the clock.

Loud cheers startled them apart, and Blaine immediately looked up to see the first of the night's meteors streaking across the sky; they looked like shooting stars, but had no wishes to grant. What would he wish for, even if they did? More time, of course, but that was a given. Or perhaps... Perhaps it wouldn't be for more time—perhaps instead, he would wish to stop time, right here and now, so that he could live suspended in this moment until he could say, "Take me to the next place, and the next, and I'll go wherever you want me to follow as long as my heart is in your hand and your hand is in mine."

"Do you ever wish you could stop time?" Kurt whispered.

Glancing down at him, Blaine replied, "Mind reader."

"One of my many talents."

"If you could freeze frame any moment from your life, what would it be?"

Kurt considered the question for a long moment, and then said, "This one's up there, but... I think I'd have to go with performing in Ann Arbor. I could live in that one 'til I'm old and gray."

"You'll never be old, Kurt," Blaine assured him, trying not to feel disappointed that Kurt hadn't picked a moment featuring him.

"What, you think I plan on dying young? I have way too much visual magic to work in my lifetime, thank you very much," Kurt said primly, and looped his arm around Blaine's neck. "Will you still be there, Band-Aids and all?"

"What do you mean?"

"When I'm old. Will you still take care of me, like Daisy took care of Benjamin?"

"Well, I'm not—" Blaine stuttered and stopped. He wanted to tell Kurt that he wasn't in love with him like Daisy was with Benjamin, but the essence of the words evaporated from his tongue like water vapor on a blisteringly hot day. No, I am. I'm in love with you.

A key in a lock. Click, click, turn, and click. The tumblers fell into place, a door creaking open in their wake. Nothing about the moment was remarkable, and yet everything was: Blaine had fallen, landed, and settled in love—all without ever feeling it.

How couldn't I have known? Blaine thought numbly, all thoughts of their conversation forgotten as he was sent reeling and tumbling and trying to trace it all back to something, some logical point that would explain how friendship and lust had turned to something irrevocable. But he couldn't—Kurt had long since stolen his heart, and at once Blaine realized that it hadn't ever really been his own, not since they were riding bikes to the end of the street and trading shy smiles before ever even learning each other's names.

His daze was broken when Kurt ducked into his line of sight and quipped, "It's a simple question, mon ami."

At that, Blaine's throat closed up for an entirely different reason. That word, 'ami.' A friend: all Blaine had been, all Blaine would go back to being after they returned to Maine.

"Of course I would," he finally replied in a bitten-off voice, managing a tight smile as he added, "Band-Aids and all."

"Aw," Kurt cooed, and when he leaned up to kiss him again, it felt like he had somehow reached past Blaine and up into the ebony sky, stealing meteors to breathe into his veins. When he pulled back, teeth nipping Blaine's bottom lip, he asked, "Are you cold?"

"Not really."

"It's chilly up here. Let's go inside."

Blaine nodded dumbly, and floated silently through packing up their cups and plates and blankets, none of it even registering. All he could think was, I love you.

Kurt's smile disappearing past the edge of the R.V. as he climbed down the ladder: I love you. Kurt taking Blaine's iPod and docking it in the bedroom, clicking over to Kiss Me by Ed Sheeran: I love you so much. Kurt undressing them both, his eyes a dark cerulean storm and his smile faint as he pulled Blaine under the covers: God, I am so in love with you.

The guitar and vocals were low and quiet, barely even audible over the sounds of the people still gathered in their groups outside, but as Kurt lay his head on Blaine's shoulder and hummed into his skin, he caught the words, "With a feeling I'll forget, I'm in love now."

I'm so fucked.

"What?" Kurt asked, looking up at him. Blaine could have punched himself in the face, not realizing he'd been thinking aloud. "Why?"

"I'm just—exhausted, is all," he said, rubbing at his eyes for effect.

Kurt sat up suddenly, eyes sweeping Blaine's bare arms and chest. "Blaine, you—you're shivering; are you sure you're not cold?"

"No, I'm not cold," he replied, and it was only as Kurt's gaze caught his own, lingering with a penetrating stare, that Blaine realized his mistake. He kept his face as impassive as he possibly could, but when Kurt's eyes widened infinitesimally, he knew the game was lost.

Kurt had been telling him for years that his face read like an open book in large print; there was no way in hell that he hadn't been able to figure it out.

But instead of bolting or even simply turning away, as Blaine was expecting, Kurt's features arranged into a small smile that didn't look at all forced. He leaned over and pressed a drawn-out kiss to the skin just over Blaine's heart. Why do you have to make it so easy?

"We should get some sleep. Long drive tomorrow," Kurt said, quietly puncturing the tension. He pulled himself flush into Blaine's side and laid his head back on Blaine's shoulder, every point of contact a warm revelation.

"Yeah, okay," Blaine murmured, winding his arm around Kurt's shoulders. He held on as tightly as he could, brought the moment closer, complicated and fleeting as it was. With a sigh, he said, "Goodnight, then."

"'Night, B."



Distance: 7,598 miles