Kurt's neighborhood is average suburbia in all the ways it's assumed to be. Any given weekend, parents are out mowing lawns, kids play in the street, and barbeques are open-invitation.

Matt Anderson is a master at the grill. For that reason alone, shindigs at the Andersons are his favorite. The free booze and their tendency to look the other way when Kurt chugs it down don't suck either. Tonight though, he's sober. He's gotten a handle on lugging around his bum leg; he's not looking to lose that grasp.

It started out as an ordinary enough afternoon, with Matt and Tess as hosts. Then night came and it fell into the hands of Kurt and Cooper. It was meant to be a small thing. Most of the neighbors had returned home, so Kurt called up Quinn and Puck, and Cooper called up some in-state college friends to come hang out by the fire pit. But Quinn called all her Cheerios, and Puck brought in the footballers, and they brought friends. And now it's an outright jamboree.

Kurt saw Rachel skulking around with Blaine, who managed to keep from crossing Kurt's path as often as possible all day. But she's off eating Finn's face and calling it a kiss, and Blaine's nowhere to be found.

“Hey, Betty.”

Kurt turns around and comes face-to-face with the physical embodiment of Craigslist who somehow thinks referring to Kurt as ‘Betty White' is at all an insult.

“Bas,” he nods, batting at Sebastian with a crutch. There's a group of boys behind him who Kurt assumes are fellow Dalton attendees. “Who the hell invited you?” he scoffs with no real venom.

“Who do you think?” Sebastian smirks. Blaine, he thinks at first, but then he reconsiders.

Santana. Their friendship scares Kurt worse than his secret phobia of vampires. Diabolical comes to mind when trying to describe it.

Kurt spots Blaine then, over by Cooper, who must be explaining something he finds really important because he starts to point at everything and get creepily intense whenever that happens. Blaine looks up at the exact moment Kurt does, going wide-eyed at the people standing by him. He stays rooted to the spot, turning back to Cooper and feigning investment in whatever crackpot web he's spinning.

“If you're drinking tonight,” Kurt announces to the group, “you're welcome to stay over. Or you can call your drivers to come pick you up. However you rich kids roll,” he teases, eyes on Sebastian.

“You plebes have a helipad around here?”

“Is ‘smirk' your one and only facial expression?”

“No. when they built me as the model of human perfection –”

Kurt barks laughter that nearly knocks him off his crutches. “Fuck off.”

“If you saw my smolder, you wouldn't be able to resist.”

“I'm not into cross-species mating. Meerkat.”

“Turtle face.”

“Drink lots tonight, Bas. Maybe you'll kill all the douchebaggy brain cells.”

“Probably not,” Sebastian laughs.

“One can dream.”

The other boys have wandered off, and Sebastian does the same while Kurt sets his sights on Blaine. Cooper's runaway hands almost take out Kurt's eyes when he hobbles near.

“Watch it, Coop,” he says, slapping an errant hand while Cooper pouts and slouches away.

“Hey, bud,” Kurt says, giving Blaine a little knock on the arm. He's trying out new friendly, cordial greetings because that's what they've relegated themselves to. It tastes funny on his tongue when his mind's been inundating him with images of all the tiny moments he misses sharing. The memory of their first kiss opened the floodgates. Kurt is desperate to know where it went wrong, how they stopped laughing and playing, and then talking altogether.

Kurt tells himself he wants to talk to Blaine just to have those answers, so he can take in the information, file it away and move on. Really, he just wants Blaine to smile, to give him reasons to, to hold him, and fuck him, and have it all mean something again. If a single conversation is the closest he can get, he'll take it. But Blaine, who's still mostly avoiding him though he doesn't immediately shy away when they run into each other, won't budge. He takes his pain and keeps it private. He's already put Kurt-and-Blaine away in storage and he won't pull it out for a second look. So Kurt's forced instead to take the awkward, stilted passing exchanges. The ‘Hey Bud's.

There are moments though. Like when Kurt comes out of Cooper's room in the morning, dressed in those fucking yoga shorts he's just given into and stockpiled since he doesn't go anywhere anymore. When Blaine comes out of his own room, just having woken up as well, still sleep-rumpled, pillow creases marked in lines on his cheek, curly hair free of its gelled cage, and yawning out the last bits of sleep. When he looks at Kurt like he's forgotten he's not supposed to want him anymore until his memory catches up and the mask goes on. Moments when Kurt knows he's not crazy for feeling some little hope that their issues are solvable.

Blaine is smiling his polite, charming, frighteningly convincing smile.

“Don't do that. Not for me. Please.”

“I'm not doing anything.”

Kurt sighs dramatically. “Mary, Mary, quite contrary.”

“I'm not being – Shut up.”

“So domineering,” Kurt teases. “Me likes.”

Blaine rolls his eyes, but he's smiling something more sincere, so Kurt leaves him with that, gives him another good old fashioned buddy punch on the shoulder and limps away to find Quinn and release the hold on his sturdy legs.

Some indiscernible time later – three drinks in, he thinks, maybe four or five, but who's counting – Kurt has Cooper's fingers pointing south on his hips and he's busting out the best moves he can with one crutch under his arm. Then they're goofing off, finding it hilarious to do the sprinkler when they're on top of actual grass.

Kurt's closeness with Cooper has always been a sore spot with Blaine. Kurt knows the little munchkin worshipped his big brother, growing up. That, even so, Blaine played second fiddle to Cooper's eccentricities. That he was the baby and the black sheep of the family, with his diffidence to contrast Cooper's exuberance. The idea that Kurt could want Cooper, that he could have Cooper and then want Blaine always seems to baffle Blaine. He must not recognize his own magnetism.

Kurt's eyes are drawn to Blaine when his guard's down like this. Always seeking out the threads to pull him nearer.

Beyond the laughing crowd gathered around his and Cooper's antics, Blaine stands sandwiched between Sebastian and some kid Kurt was never allowed to know, that someone's arm around his shoulders. It sparks an angry flame in Kurt's chest that he blows out as quickly as he can remember he should. Blaine looks uncomfortable though he's smiling along, and Kurt gets why when he hears his own name slurred along with “dry humping” and “brother.” Those little pricks.

He pulls away from Cooper, the crowd's cries of disappointment following him, but Cooper is enough entertainment on his own and they forget about Kurt before he's even gone.

Blaine's watching him approach, eyes a little hurt, a little hungry, and a little ‘save me'. He holds out a hand when he gets to Blaine, ignores the blatant stares from all but Sebastian and his give-no-fucks-if-it's-not-my-business attitude.

They're inside leaning on the kitchen counter, the party raging on outside the window, and Blaine heaves a heavy sigh. And then he's kissing Kurt. No explanation, no hesitance or shame. And Kurt will take it because it's more than he thought he'd get. Blaine's hands know Kurt's body, know where to press and drag and scratch and tease. They can talk later. They can sort it all out in the sunlight if Kurt can just – have this. Have this one moment.

Blaine is the one to pull away, and Kurt feels the tug on his heart to follow, but Blaine doesn't go far. He presses his forehead to Kurt's and kisses his jaw, too sweet for what they are now. Then he draws back and looks Kurt in the eye, determination reigning in his expression.

“Come,” he starts, then takes a breath. “Come up to my room.”

Blaine draws his body back, taking Kurt's hands in his, not waiting for an answer. But Kurt holds as firm as can on unsteady legs. “You'd better be serious about this Blaine. You can't change your mind in ten minutes because that's as long as it's gonna take me to get up those stairs. And then you'll be stuck with me anyway.”

Blaine kisses him again, a brush of the lips on the way to his ear. “I assure you, Kurt. This is what I want.”

Kurt nods, certain this will be the last time he sees Blaine this summer. Regrets can come later, though. He wants this, too. Blaine helps him through the house, and to the stairs. Kurt puts on hand on the banister, but Blaine grabs him around the middle and picks him up with ease – Kurt's little muscly munchkin – and places him two steps up, then turns around.

“Are you fucking leaving me here?”

Blaine turns his head, face scrunched up in the apparent answer no. Then he's grinning, playful and sly. “Hop on,” he says, facing away again.

“You're joking,” Kurt says, even as he lifts his arms around Blaine's neck and trusts Blaine to hold his weight as his legs come up next. “Do not drop me, Beav,” he huffs, laughter in his breath.

“I won't,” Blaine promises, giving Kurt a tiny bounce to tuck him in closer where he's wrapped around his back.

They make it up the stairs in one piece and tumble back onto Blaine's bed in a heap when Blaine tries to drop Kurt down gently. Kurt hasn't been in this room in ages. Hasn't been allowed to throw his clothes in the corner and steal blankets from Blaine, or pilfer his socks when it's unnaturally freezing at night.

“So we're doing this,” he comments when Blaine's sorted out his limbs and rests hovering above him. Blaine nods. And they do.