“Creep,” Kurt yawns half into his pillow when he wakes up to Blaine staring silently. “Get lost, Goldilocks?”

Blaine smiles, something fleetingly bashful. “Nope,” he says, the “p” popping loudly.

“That's it? That's all you've got for me?” Kurt laughs. “It this a thing we do now? Fall asleep in each other's beds.”

“We did before.”

“Right. And then we broke up. So this should probably not be a thing – that we do. Yet here we are. Doing it.”

“Right.”

“Oh my god. Beaver, stop.”

“…”

“That. Stop. Quit being evasive.”

“I'm not being evasive. You're leaving in a few weeks. You miss me, I miss you.”

“Well, there's the fucking shock of a lifetime.”

“Why is that shocking?”

It's not funny, but Kurt's every reaction is laughter still. “Beav,” he whines. “You're not serious.”

“I'm very serious. It's what you hate about me.”

“I don't hate anything about you. What I hate is that I don't hate anything about you.”

“Why not?”

He should update his father because, as he's just learned, it is entirely possible to rolls his eyes hard enough to hurt himself.

“Do you hate me, Blainey?”

“No.”

“Then assume it's for the same reason.”

Blaine's kisses have improved significantly since their first. He's treated it like a personal challenge to find Kurt's every button, every lever, every knob and handle that will grant him access to the sounds Kurt couldn't reproduce if he intentionally tried.

There's no more talking after that, not about what they're doing or why they're doing it. But there's a lot of doing.

In the course of a week, there hasn't been a single night Kurt's slept alone, whether in his bed or Blaine's. It numbs the desperate ache to pick at the past and force answers from Blaine. They go off in separate directions in the morning, sometimes joining various family members for breakfast first, all of whom tease them mercilessly about keeping it down or by inquiring intentions.

It's like last summer all over again, without the promise of good things to come. This is the best they'll get because summer is ending and Kurt will be gone before the season's change. There's no whispered conversations under the sounds of music playing through Kurt's speakers, no nights on the couch watching Moulin Rouge with Blaine humming into his ear, no dragging Blaine along to see bands he's not into just to get in Kurt's pants. Kurt's pants are wide open for any use Blaine can find there.

It's easy, and it's – something, but it's not what Kurt wants. He wants the sex, sure, but he can get that anywhere. Broken leg be damned, he's learned his hips work just fine. Kurt wants shimmies in the kitchen while they throw together lunch in tandem, lazy days with Blaine: Ungelled, and shopping trips where they bicker about Blaine's obsessions with bowties and penny loafers. Wants the stupid fluttery feeling that's been kicked into overdrive of late.

Blaine sometimes looks like he wants to say something, wants to reveal the cards he's holding close to the vest. He looks scared. Kurt's in the same position; he has no assurances to offer, no convictions to pass on. Can't promise any future when they're stalled over their past.

:: ::

Blaine knocks on the door of Burt's office. Kurt has commandeered it for the day to avoid Rachel, who thankfully thinks he and Blaine are dating and that she has to play nice with him – which she's never done before but he's sort of done questioning oddities. He tends to break something every time. His leg. His heart. His pride. If Rachel's decided to prove she didn't sell her soul for her talent, so be it. It doesn't make them friends.

He and Blaine are sort of friends again. Fuck buddies, at least. But they don't really do casual visits outside of bedrooms.

“Hello, my little enigma.”

“That's better than Beaver.”

“Lies. Vicious lies you tell.” Burt's office is on the smaller side, not much use for it to be any bigger when the real work requires a full-size vehicle. Not models, or tattoos of '59 Thunderbirds running from wrists to elbows. Blaine zones in on all of Kurt's tattoos, but the most recent puts unspoken questions in Blaine's eyes that Kurt doesn't prompt him to ask aloud. They've talked cars before, they're fans of sleek exteriors both, though Kurt has a bigger love for what's under the hood than Blaine – which is just too fucking close for comfort to the root of their problems. Still, they were together for long enough that Blaine was witness to the addition of nearly all of Kurt's tattoos, to know the difference between frivolous and crucial. Kurt needed this, needed to mark an occasion. Kurt knows that. Blaine knows it, too, but he hasn't asked what it's for. Just stares, eyes curious and daunting.

“Have a seat,” he tells Blaine, gesturing to the chairs that only just push back far enough to give some leg room. Another reason to prefer the rolling, swiveling chair Kurt's ass rests comfortably on: it has all the under-desk space.

Kurt swivels right to left and back again, over and over while Blaine dons his stalker cap. He could ask Blaine why he's here, but he doesn't get straight answers anymore and it's just one of those oddities he's rolling with these days.

“This would be so convenient to have all the time,” he leads with instead, pushing off the desk so he spins in full circles. “Like – I wish I had the crutches version of this. So it wasn't so hard to get around all the time.”

He's still spinning. The corners of his sketchpad lift in the tiny breeze. It's this office, the whole place that washes over his senses and makes him feel young. Younger, anyway. He feels so old with all his summer woes and their constant reminders. Like the itch under his cast that needs to be scratched, like, three years ago. And the perplexing Blaine Anderson waltzing in unannounced, though not unwelcome.

“Are you talking about a wheelchair?” Blaine asks.

“What?” he stops spinning, but the world doesn't. He braces his palms on his father's desk and closes his eyes until his brain feels realigned with the rest of his body. Blaine has his cute judgey-face on. Not the mean one Kurt tries to forget because it called him an embarrassment, but the sweet confusion that turns Blaine's eyes squinty and lips pursed.

“Wheelchair is the word you're looking for. It's the, uh, - ‘crutches version' of –”

“Don't you sass me boy.”

“You asked.”

“No, actually. I didn't. I only said I wanted one.”

“A wheelchair.”

“No a chair-crutch thing.”

“A wheelchair.”

“Shut up.”

He'll miss this, he thinks. The teasing fights that didn't end in tears. When he's off alone, beautifying the East Coast one accessory at a time, he'll have a little something to rev his engine anytime he looks down. Something to hold him over until he's moved on from this strange summer. Something to remember it by.

Blaine gets up and comes around the desk. Standing behind Kurt, he starts massaging his shoulders. Kurt would ask why but Blaine's intentions seem clear enough. His breath is warm against Kurt's neck, then teeth bite down and a tongue soothes it over.

“Sex fiend,” Kurt snorts. Blaine's hands grow bolder, moving away from Kurt's shoulders and traveling downward. Kurt has to spin himself around to pull Blaine away. Blaine's cute squinty face is back, heavier on the confusion. Kurt pulls Blaine in for a quick kiss, then pushes him away laughing and spins back around. “I like your enthusiasm, but no.”

“No fun,” Blaine says, and Kurt can hear the pout in his expression before seeing it.

Blaine rounds back to his side of the table and plops down dejectedly, arms folded and still pouty – a student of Rachel Berry's teachings.

“It's very sweet that you want to get off on the idea that I'm a juvenile delinquent, but this is where I work.”

“Excuse me?” That's Blaine's ‘if I weren't so polite you'd be dead' voice. Kurt's stepped in something. Fan-diddlyfucking-tastic.

“What now?”

Kurt's surprised as Blaine at his own immediate anger, but it's there in his words and the way they spit themselves out.

“You have no idea how I see you.”

“I know I came to your fancy private school and you looked at me like a crack in the wall of that pretty exterior.”

“No –”

“Yes, Blaine. Yes. That was you.”

“Can we not fight?”

“Of course! Let's fucking pretend that it's all okay so our dicks can still have playdates. Sounds good.” He gets up, steadier on his feet than he's been all summer with this surge of adrenaline, and opens the door. “See you tonight, then?”

Blaine doesn't answer. The fire in Blaine's eyes burns Kurt as he passes, storming out.

Kurt doesn't go home that night. He calls Quinn and has her pick him up from the garage. He can't give Blaine the chance to stand him up. If it's over this time, it'll be over on Kurt's terms. No matter what the stupid fluttery feeling has to say about it.