Blaine eases his back against the opposite wall, letting his mind zone out for a few prized moments. The room tends to stay a bit warm from the constant rumble of the machines, and the scent of detergent and fabric softener hangs thick but comfortable in the air.

When the door opens this time, Blaine’s grateful.

“I couldn’t find you,” Kurt says, sounding a little petulant. He looks like he’s about halfway through his evening routine -- skin soft and damp from moisturizing, but still half in his street clothes and half in his pajamas. The effect is adorable.

“Sorry,” Blaine murmurs, genuinely apologetic. He lets his eyes linger as Kurt slowly enters and props himself up on the machine across from Blaine.

Kurt gives him a half-smile. “I’ve found you now.” With the palms of his hands flat against the lid, Kurt pushes himself up to take a seat on the washing machine. His socked feet swing back and forth.

“How are you?” Blaine asks, cocking his head. “You’ve been quiet lately.”

“So have you,” Kurt notes, and Blaine has to admit he has a point. The house has descended into a weary stasis since Michael’s departure. It’s temporary; Blaine’s seen these cycles happen, but the knowledge alone doesn’t do much to raise the energy level. Kurt watches him for a moment, then comes to a decision.

“Hug.”

“What?” Blaine laughs, caught off-guard.

"Hug," Kurt repeats, opening and closing his outstretched hands insistently.

Bemused but charmed, Blaine steps forward to obey. He stops so he doesn't crowd Kurt's legs against the washing machine, which has stopped filling with water and is in its short lapse before it starts to churn. Kurt smiles down at him from his vantage point and puts his hands on Blaine's shoulders, trailing them in a light, comforting caress to the back of his neck. Kurt leans forward and presses a kiss to the top of Blaine's head, and it's a lucky thing Blaine hasn't given enough of a fuck to wear gel in the last few days. His curls, kept short, dip under the faint pressure of his lips.

Blaine closes his eyes, sighing. It's more soothing than the best of condolences, the deepest night's sleep. The two of them together like this, there's no fear, no leaden weight in his stomach. He barely gives a thought to the idea of being caught; Kurt's smart enough to have locked the door behind him, anyway.

With another kiss, Kurt straightens up and strokes his thumb along Blaine's temple, shifting a lock of hair.

"Hi," Blaine says, and cranes his face up for a kiss just as Kurt leans over again.

Objectively, they haven't had more than a handful of opportunities to kiss. But they do this time, and Blaine feels like it's well-worn and familiar, muscle memory. Kurt tastes like fading toothpaste and the wet glide of a kiss. It's only the tiniest bit sexy; Blaine feels loose and relaxed and happy, and he nips Kurt's lip in what he hopes comes across as his appreciation. Kurt makes an mmph noise and opens wider for Blaine's tongue, his fingers flexing against the back of Blaine's neck.

The washer kicks into its first cycle, and Kurt's body jolts with surprise. Blaine's hands automatically go to his thighs to secure him, a pointless gesture, and follow up with an affectionate squeeze. He keeps his hands on the outer sides of Kurt's thighs, wanting to keep it as nonsexual as possible, but Kurt gasps into his mouth.

Kurt seems taken aback by his own reaction. Blaine is somewhere between intrigued and thrown into unexpected lust, and can't help but squeeze again, testing, thumbs bearing down the hardest. Kurt's second gasp is even more of a thrill. This isn't just kissing anymore. This is a segue into something else, and Blaine needs to make sure that Kurt's aware of that, that he wants it.

Kurt latches his fingers into the material of Blaine's shirt when he tries to disengage the kiss to speak, yanking him back in. Startled, Blaine lets himself be manhandled to where Kurt wants him, their mouths fused together.

The washing machine's vibration is so strong it's actually jostling Kurt on top of it. Blaine can feel his own hands tingling from it, intense even through the buffer of Kurt's legs.

What it must feel like to Kurt -- constant thrumming under him in the places where he's most sensitive. His kisses have turned sloppy, overwhelmed, rubbing Blaine's entire mouth sore and wet to even just under his lips. He's still clenching Blaine's shirt, and he's slumped forward in a way that can't be comfortable.

Blaine pops up on his toes to push him a little straighter and drags his mouth down from lips to jaw, breath deliberately choppy and right up against the skin. He feels the fine, barely, barely there prickle of Kurt's nighttime stubble and clenches all over, his head to his feet, knees locking, a sensation akin to vertigo swooping over him.

He sucks a filthy kiss to the hinge of Kurt's jaw, hands rubbing slowly, suggestively up to the tops of Kurt's thighs at the same time, unable to stop himself. Kurt presents his neck, and after a moment he hesitantly parts his thighs, like he's thought about it and decided to push his chess piece forward on the board. It gives Blaine just enough room to step between them.

Now the churning of the washer is dangerously close to pressing against his cock. He tears away from Kurt's neck right when he's about to start biting, marking. He wants to, so badly, but they can't afford it, shouldn't do it. Kurt clumsily moves in to get at Blaine's mouth again, and they just aren't close enough; he can't work Kurt's skin between his teeth until it's pink, can't make him feel as good as he knows he can. Instead, he lets himself slide his hands back to the tense outside of Kurt's thighs, getting a good enough grip so he can haul him forward closer to the edge of the washer and closer to Blaine's body.

Kurt squeaks in surprise, and Blaine moans, regretting it the second it happens. Quiet. They have to be quiet. God willing the noise of the laundry room had drowned it out.

He can't deal with how much he wants. Kurt's there, right there, muscles tensing under Blaine's hands. He chances a low, needy, "oh, Kurt," and Kurt knows how desperately they need to stay quiet, he's so smart, he's so good, he's so fucking gorgeous under Blaine's hands, but he can't hold back entirely. He moans, and then there's more, noises that he barely manages to choke back.

Kurt's so wound up he can't hold a kiss together anymore, mouth going lax while harsh, unsteady breath spills out. The inseam of Kurt's jeans registers as Blaine trails his fingers past it, up and up and up, helpless to stop himself, suddenly there at Kurt's dick. His hand hovers, trembling, until the last thread of his own resistance snaps and he's cupping it, riding out the roll of Kurt's hips. He fits his fingers around it as best he can through the strained material, feeling out the shape, twisting his hand so he can grind the backs of his knuckles down onto it. The exact size of him is still kind of a mystery with so much denim in the way, but he feels thick and perfect and Kurt's voice cracks as he tries to control it.

Kurt's the first person he's been with who's come into a relationship untouched since Blaine and his high school boyfriend lost their virginity. Both of them fumbled their way through it, and Blaine had felt barely contained by his own skin, giving and giving and giving. He remembers what it felt like when he came for him, because of him, and he's going to give that to Kurt, he's Kurt's first.

"Come for me," he says, with a sudden, vulgar growl to his voice that he's never had before. He pushes his thumb over and over at what he figures is the head of Kurt's cock, unrelenting.

He has to watch Kurt's face when he does, eyes screwed tightly shut, mouth red and bitten and shiny. In that moment where he hovers right before it, his face is unearthly, beautiful pale skin, unlike anything Blaine's ever seen or gotten to touch before. Beautiful boy. He comes for Blaine, body wracking, and he keeps steadily rubbing, making it edge into as hard of an orgasm as he can. The tremors underneath him must be torment.

There's a jarring metal clang as Kurt's foot slams back into the washing machine. He twists his hips around, keening a reedy "Blaine" as the last of his orgasm shudders through him. It would be cruel to keep up the stimulation, so Blaine pulls back his rubbed-raw hand.

Kurt slumps forward into him, nuzzling at Blaine's neck, spent but still greedy for contact. He needs Blaine in a different way now, as his body starts to slow and come back to him. He tucks his arms low around Kurt's waist, utterly enamored with how solid and warm he feels. He listens as Kurt's little puffs of breath start to even out.

"I've got you," Blaine says, a whisper in Kurt's ear. "You were so good, Kurt."

Kurt presses a gentle kitten-kiss just below Blaine's jaw. "Blaine... " he breathes. He's trying to put words together, but he can't, not yet. Blaine's the only thing holding him up.

Blaine slowly draws his fingers up and down Kurt's spine, more aware than ever of how precious Kurt is within the circle of his arms, of how careful he needs to be with him. Kurt squirms a bit under his hand, resettling his weight on the washer, and Blaine realizes that the position must scarcely be bearable now.

"You want to get down?" Blaine asks, giving Kurt a brief squeeze around the waist so he knows that Blaine's got him. "Let me help, come on."

There's a muffled noise from Kurt that's probably consent -- he slips right down off the washer and lands against Blaine's chest. Kurt doesn't quite look up at him, just tucks his head shyly under Blaine's ear. "Bed?" Kurt mumbles, and Blaine wouldn't have been sure he had even said it if Kurt wasn't pressed right up against him.

"Yeah," Blaine agrees, sweet and reassuring. He's still hard but the ache in his balls is beginning to dull; soon he can dismiss it altogether.

Kurt gives a content, undecipherable murmur, and somehow he manages to get them out the door, switching the light off behind them and closing the laundry room door as quietly as possible. He'll leave the wash in overnight; hopefully it won't mildew. The space outside is still blessedly empty; Blaine feels something ease up in him that he didn't even know was wound.

He has to steer Kurt up the stairs, but it's simple enough to navigate once they reach the top. There's an unspoken understanding that they're headed to Blaine's room, and they pass through the hall in silence. Once Blaine's bedroom door is shut behind them, the atmosphere turns sleepy and comfortable. Kurt is mussed and only half-awake, but he helps Blaine tug off his shirt, and Blaine gives him a shoulder to balance on as he pulls off his jeans. He gets out an extra pair of sweatpants, leaving them on the dresser for Kurt to change into and turning away to mess with the sheets and pillows on his bed.

Unsure of what's appropriate for him to sleep in, he ends up an old work tshirt and his boxers. He takes a seat on the side of the bed, unnecessarily folding his socks up as he waits to see what Kurt will do. His erection has nearly faded, and he's relieved; in no way does he want Kurt to assume that he needs him to do something in return. Not now. Not after something this big.

He only looks up when Kurt comes forward, and he can't help but smile -- caught in the middle of his clothes and Blaine's, he looks silly but not as embarrassed as Blaine might have expected.

"Bed?" Blaine says this time, and Kurt nods, crawling up from the foot of the bed and faceplanting right in the middle, childlike. It's one of the most unselfconscious things Blaine has ever seen him do. Blaine chuckles, but he definitely doesn't have the heart to scoot Kurt's limbs out of the way, so after he flicks off the light he awkwardly folds himself down and teeters on the edge until Kurt rearranges and Blaine can fit the rest of himself on the bed.

Kurt's still for a few more moments, but eventually pulls his head up from the pillow, mostly a silhouette in the dark but clearly looking at Blaine. "Are you all right?" he asks.

Blaine, scrunching a pillow up to fit under his head, blinks. It's the last thing he would have expected from Kurt, or from anyone in that situation, but thinking about it, it's very him. He's thoughtful and astute and those are of the reasons why Blaine found himself driven to care so deeply. "Never better," he says.

Both the space Kurt scoots over to free and the affectionate but shy smile Kurt gives him are gratefully taken. The two of them settle in, Kurt's breathing already evening out to the rhythm of sleep.

Blaine’s own breathing levels out, his heartbeat, and with heavy eyes he notices as Kurt’s muscles twitch intermittently as his body slips under. His hand uncurls next to Blaine’s shoulder, and Blaine shuts his eyes.

--

Blaine wakes up early to make sure Kurt gets back to his room before dawn, but the space beside him is already empty, the pillow fluffed into shape and the covers straightened. Blaine rolls over onto his back and stares at the ceiling, willing the sleep-fog from his mind. Waking up this morning isn’t all sunshine and shared smiles like it might have been. He’s alone in his bed with a dull point of pain behind his eyes that will grow into a headache by noon.

He closes his eyes, and when he opens them again, he knows he needs two things: coffee and clarity. He drags a hand through his hair and tries to tug out the wrinkles from his shirt before he heads downstairs. He’ll have an hour or so before the kids start to wake up, and he needs that time alone.

Fifteen minutes later, tucked into the back corner of the kitchen table, he thinks about Kurt tiptoeing back to his own bed. The images come unbidden. Kurt, cheeks still flushed from sleep and the warmth of lying next to another man, padding through the empty hall in Blaine's pants. Kurt with touched and messy bed hair -- sex hair. Would his lips still be red? Would his eyes have that same glassy look?

No. It can't keep happening this way. Blaine needs to take control of this. This is his life, his career, the career he struggled and fought for, and there are real, terrifying consequences if he destroys it. This is Kurt’s entire future. What if someone had seen Kurt leaving his room, dressed up in Blaine’s clothes, Blaine’s invisible handprints smudged all over him. Blaine wouldn’t be able to defend Kurt or himself. He couldn’t lie, not in the Courage House, the place he’d built to teach honesty and acceptance. And instinctively, he knows he couldn’t do that to Kurt, either. He couldn’t stand in front of Charlie or a judge or anyone and say, no, it was just a mistake, you have it all wrong, it’s nothing like that.

Blaine’s grip tightens on the coffee mug until his knuckles whiten. He’s the adult here. He’s not a starry-eyed kid intoxicated by hope and hormones and possibility. He’s not the one cornered on top of a washing machine, held in place by the hands rubbing up his thighs, making him gasp until he can’t even sit up straight or string words together or --

Blaine stands up, takes the mug over to the sink, and slams it down. Somehow Kurt’s the one who had the forethought to wake himself up and take himself back to his own bed. Why didn’t he wake up Blaine before he left?

He's tired of this. He's tired of the sick feeling that overtakes him after each encounter, tired of his own stupidity, of standing in a kitchen in his boxers having a crisis of conscience. He's not going to do it anymore; he's going to spare them from a path that's going to twist and crack and strand both of them.

Mia's got morning shift in a few hours. He can leave then. Blaine had plans for the day; rejigging the chores schedule, planning a menu for that fucking charity dinner, a trip to the grocery store. Nine times out of ten, even when he's off-shift he sits in the kitchen or the living room and does everything from there. But he's got a perfectly good apartment waiting for him and likely getting dusty in his absence. He needs to stop clinging to Courage House like a limpet and live a halfway normal life.

No more sleeping in his makeshift bedroom, unless he's got a legitimate night shift. Maybe no more night shifts, period.

He dumps his coffee down the sink, watching as some amber drops linger on the sides. He's got a plan - and straight-backed resolve that he learned from his father and his rigorous years at Dalton and Northwestern. Slipping into that mindset is like riding a bike, albeit a slightly rusty one.

--

The day after his first handful of RSVPs come in, Wes calls. Blaine is surprised to see his name pop up on the caller ID, but Blaine invited him, and Wes is the sort of person who calls rather than checking 'decline' on the card Blaine included.

"Wesley," Blaine crows happily into the phone, twisting his shoulder to tuck it against his ear so his hands are free. He's making salad and he's already managed to smear vinegar from the dressing onto the phone when he answered. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"

The line is choppy; Wes is overly fond of talking in his car with the windows cracked. "It's your token bi-annual phone call, of course."

"Aren't I lucky?" Blaine laughs, ripping up lettuce that he probably should have patted a little dryer and dropping it into a bowl. "How are you?"

"I'm fine. I'm headed to Ohio soon, which is what I wanted to talk to you about."

"Oh?" Wes comes back every other year or so to visit his parents, and all of the Warblers near enough to come usually try to make a reunion of his visit. "Are you crashing the charity dinner?"

"No, I'm sorry," Wes says, suddenly grave and serious. He's sincere in his apology, and whatever disappointment Blaine might feel -- which is pretty negligible, since he never assumed Wes would come in the first place -- is overtaken with a swell of fondness. "I sent you a check, though, and I added a little to express my regrets."

"Wes," Blaine says suspiciously. "How much did you send me?"

Wes makes more money than almost anyone Blaine knows, and he knows some obnoxious people who agonize about what kind of marble to install in their summer home. He doesn't see these people much anymore, and he's glad for it, because over the years his bubble of a private school existence faded, and what seemed normal to him at seventeen would inspire seething now.

"It's tax-deductible, Blaine. Don't worry about it."

Blaine isn't sure what his face is going to look like when he sees the check, but he's betting on horrified. "So why are you coming to Ohio? Did your mom guilt you over missing Christmas?"

"I live with parental guilt every day, I'm certainly immune to it by now. I was invited to speak at an alumni dinner for the Warblers. I'd already committed by the time I got your invitation," Wes says, and Blaine shakes his head.

"Wes, it's fine," Blaine says warmly. "It's more than fine. I'm sure your pity-check will more than make up for it, and it won't eat any of the food. And you can give my regrets to everyone for skipping out on that alumni dinner."

"Of course. I wanted to ask if you minded me dropping by after my stay in Westerville, but if you're busy, we can reschedule --"

"No, you're not getting out of visiting me. I want to see you. Are you bringing Annabelle?" He's less enthusiastic about Wes' wife, but that's mostly because they've never had an opportunity to do more than exchange pleasantries.

"She's working, unfortunately. It will just be us boys!" Wes says with way too much unironic joy. His attempts at casual are like a grandmother's misguided attempts to stay relevant -- awkward if wholehearted failures.

"Do you know what day you'll be down here? I'll make sure I have the time off."

"Generally. I might stay with my parents for a few days, but I'll be down as soon as I can manage it. Maybe the fourteenth?"

Two days after the charity dinner, and Blaine already has it off. He can take an additional day if things change. There's a whole lot of vacation time he hasn't cracked into. "Your timing is perfect. Just give me a call before you head down or if anything changes."

"I will. How is the planning progressing? Have you picked a menu?"

"Yeah, I hired a caterer." Mia had a friend of a friend who just graduated from culinary school and jumped at the opportunity to do some paid work, even if it was low, low, low pay. "So far everything's going well." He's not going to moan in Wes' ear about the seating chart or the fact that they don't have enough nice chairs, and will probably have to supplement some rickety folding monstrosities -- Blaine is trying to figure out who would be least irked over being seated on one. The budget is steady, anyway, which counts as 'going well.' Once he knows how many people are planning to attend, he can relax a little.

"Glad to hear it. How are things on the personal side? Are you still single?" he asks, as pointedly as Blaine's own mother does.

"Yes," Blaine says, rather more glumly than he meant to.

"You're in your prime, Blaine. Get out and meet people. Besides, I need someone unmarried to live vicariously through, and you're letting me down."

"I'll make sure to give you a blow my blow of my love life as it develops," Blaine says dryly. He'll leave out the chunk where he's unable to stop thinking about a seventeen year old, and how the prospect of seeing anyone else isn't so much uninspiring as it is depressing. This entire bizarre section of his life should just be culled from the history books.

"Obviously," Wes says, and Blaine can picture his smile. "I'm about home, so I suppose I'll let you go."

"Give my regards to --" who? Annabelle? His parents? Dalton? He stumbles and settles on, "everyone. I'll see you."

"You too." Blaine is honestly surprised by the amount of affection in Wes' voice. He's not sure if it's the distance or Blaine's usual obliviousness that makes him assume Wes is less invested than he is.

He feels so much better when he hangs up the phone.

--

Charlie gives him a strange look when he says he's going to tweak the schedule and asks if he wants to swap some shifts. He gives him an even stranger look when Blaine provides a half-baked explanation about wanting to have more time to dedicate to his personal life. Blaine knows how flimsy it is; his personal life exists, sure, but barely.

He thinks Charlie might assume the thing with Michael really shook him up. And it did; he liked Michael, and his melancholic feelings are only compounded by the slow-motion trainwreck that is his relationship with Kurt. It's best for Blaine that Charlie assume he's had some sort of realization about over-attachment or a mid-life crisis has been triggered, whatever else.

He ends up swapping most of his noc shifts with Mia, who eagerly watched him smudge his name off the schedule whiteboard and replace it with hers. She continually bitches about how much she isn't a morning person when she comes to relieve him, hair in a messy bun and inexplicably wearing sunglasses, slumping around the kitchen until she's finished half a pot of coffee.

Many of the finance files go into his car and make the trip to his apartment. Blaine empties a good two thirds of the dresser and closet space he was using, leaving behind only emergency essentials. He did it when everyone was at school, not in the mood to deal with raised eyebrows or questions.

The first day of the new schedule goes well -- Blaine's surprised at how quickly it ends. Work is a necessity and a distraction, and he's maybe more productive at home or in the cafe up the street from his place than he is at Courage House. It's easy to get swept up in how many things he has to do when he's there, and Blaine isn't the best multi-tasker. The bills don't look quite so daunting when he's sipping hot coffee and listening to a knock-off Starbucks compilation they're piping through the speakers. When he's done with spreadsheets and emails, Blaine takes himself to the grocery store and buys enough food to last a week, and he throws in some impulse purchases -- a bottle of wine, some crab legs, cheap cinnamon rolls, stuff he hasn't had in ages and nearly forgot he enjoyed.

The second day isn't so easy. He's got morning shift, so the kids are gone after breakfast and back only an hour or so before Charlie comes on. He's glad for the privacy, glad he only saw Kurt for a half hour while Kurt made himself and Tracy whole-wheat waffles and then for an hour while he did homework, but he feels like he's aimless for most of the day, like the house being empty means he's empty too.

Kurt knows something has changed. Of course he does; it's emanating from him, a caution and curiosity that manifests in silence equal to Blaine's and, a few times, a hopeful smile that Blaine barely, perfunctorily, returns. He'll explain eventually, he has to, but right now he needs distance for a few more days to get his head straight. For that sad, helpless tug he feels every time they're in close quarters to begin receding. He needs to be alone with Kurt to explain, too, and he doesn't have the best track record with controlling himself when that happens.

For all of Kurt's silence, he doesn't seem to be too shaken by Blaine's abrupt shift. Kurt's internal life is deep and mostly unfathomable to Blaine, but he's not that good of an actor, Blaine doesn't think. And as Blaine has seen over and over, his brain is like a knife's edge. He has to know at least some of the reasons why there is now a line drawn between them. Every once in a while when Blaine's not sufficiently distracted by work, his mind starts hypothesizing reasons Kurt might have for his share of the distance. Kurt's freaked out over what happened between them; he's afraid; he feels entirely rejected and ashamed and confused, and Blaine has to shut that down fast so he doesn't drive over to the house and prostrate himself at Kurt's feet.

-- tbc