Mia doesn't look up. She's filling out the end-of-shift checklists with a clinical proficiency -- quick checkmarks with her glitter pen, then initials on the bottom.

"Occasion? No occasion."

He takes a seat across the table from her, one leg crossed over the other. "No, no." Kurt waves his pointer finger back and forth. "There's an occasion. I know an occasion when I see one."

With exaggerated patience, Mia looks up and clunks her pen down on the table. She leans back in her chair and props her elbow up, observing him with one hitched eyebrow.

Kurt goes on. "You're made up like one of those girls at the Mac counter. I like what you did with the blush, but try some more contouring next time." He bites his lip with a half-wince. "Watch the lipstick, though. You're right on the line between en vogue and drag queen." A pause, and he acknowledges, "Not that it would be the first time that happened here."

"Wow," she says, dry as paper. "I bow to your years of experience with cosmetics. Maybe I'll let you lend a hand next time." She straightens up her checklists, seemingly amused.

"Next time?" Kurt sits up straighter, uncrosses his legs. "Aha. There is an occasion."

Mia chuckles; a fond, raspy sound. "Sorry, Kurt. I'm not supposed to mix my job and my personal life. It's highly unprofessional." She's teasing him, mostly; last Thanksgiving when Blaine insisted on giving her the weekend off, she treated everyone to a rousing re-enactment of the dysfunctional, slightly inebriated screaming match that took place at her mother's dining room table. She was scheduled for the full weekend at time and a half before she could threaten to take them through round two.

Blaine stops hovering in the entry to the kitchen and walks to the sink, but Kurt's too intent on grilling Mia to look up and acknowledge him. Kurt leans across the table and drops his chin into his hands. "Aren't we supposed to be bonding? Isn't that part of your job? I'm an at-risk youth, you know."

"She gets overtime for that," Blaine says.

"News to me," Mia quips as she gets up and plops the paperwork down in front of Blaine. "There you go. I'm out." She shoots a fond wink to Kurt. "Try not to develop too many harmful coping mechanisms before I see you again. I know how you at-risk youths are."

"Oh, no. Alcoholism is terrible for your skin."

"Yes, because bad skin is the worst alcoholism has to offer." He waits a moment to see if Kurt has something to volley back, but he doesn't take the bait. "Don't worry, I'll keep an eye on him." Blaine gives her a quick smile. "Have a good night."

"Yes, have a fabulous time with -- well, whatever you're doing."

Mia gives Kurt one last amused glance before she grabs her purse and jacket and heads out, and Blaine hums in deliberation. "Do you think she's got a date or something?"

Kurt sniffs and pushes back from the table, going to the fridge for a bottle of water with the letter K marked on the white lid in black marker.

An apprehensive but not entirely surprised feeling is settling over Blaine's shoulders like a yoke and he goes on, testing the waters. "We're pals. I wonder why she didn't tell me."

"Gee," Kurt murmurs, licking water from his lips. "I do wonder why."

It's an airy dismissal that hangs in the air as he leaves, and Blaine grits his teeth, an irritated, tightly wound part of him wanting to lash out and overturn the chair Kurt was sitting in. This is just what he didn't want.

--

He lets Kurt coolly ignore him for a few more hours, and for the most part his behavior is subtle. He keeps to his room with Melissa, coming out to make himself a mug of tea and to say hello when Charlie pops by for his shift. Blaine's off now; he was only on for a filler hour between Mia's shift ending and Charlie's beginning, since Charlie had an appointment, but he's not about to go home and pretend like everything's fine. He should have stopped by last night with some bullshit excuse and talked to Kurt. He didn't, his head too full, and by the time he slipped into bed at one in the morning with the tang of Kurt's shampoo lingering on his pillows, he knew he'd screwed up. He maybe underestimated how hard.

It's an hour to dinner when Blaine raps his knuckles on Kurt's door. Melissa's the one who answers. Of course.

"Kurt, I was thinking of taking a walk. Want to come with me?"

Kurt's expression is at once blank and haughty, his eyes giving everything away. "Maybe not tonight. I have homework."

"It's Friday," Blaine points out, chipper and unassuming with his hands sliding into his pockets. "Can you work on it after dinner? I could really use the company."

Melissa tosses a pillow at him on her way back. "Why not? You've been in here all day."

Kurt levels her an unappreciative look, but he rises, snags his coat, and buttons it with military precision. "After you, then."

Blaine can't find anything to say as he leads them down the stairs and out the front door. Kurt keeps a step or two behind him, his arms crossed and eyes ahead at nothing. Blaine tries not to keep his attention trained on Kurt as they walk, craning his neck over and over again only to find him with the same rigid posture and pinched expression that shutters further every time he sees Blaine look back.

Leaves rustle along the sidewalk and a damp one sticks to the toe of his shoe as he walks. It's not cold, really, but the wind is picking up and Blaine didn't bring a coat. He was too focused on getting Kurt out of the door and taking the situation in hand before it became even more indecipherable.

"I love fall," he says. He's never been great at silence, and they have to start somewhere. "I think it's my favorite season after spring." He takes a deep breath of air, the crispness of it filling his lungs with only a mildly disgusting tinge of exhaust fumes and leaf rot. "Pretty colors."

Kurt ignores him totally, as Blaine half expected he would. "Where are we going?"

"The park." It isn't much of one, just a large swath of grass that the city maintains with a swingset and a jungle gym plunked down in the middle as an afterthought. There are trees, though, and it's a neutral place to take kids when they're about to throw a rock through a wall. Blaine likes it, and it's got to be close to deserted right now.

He watches Kurt for a reaction, getting a nonchalant pull of Kurt's right shoulder. To Blaine's eye, as keen as it can be after months of studying Kurt, who is mystifying not only because he's Kurt but because he's a teenager, he seems a fraction less coiled up. Kurt doesn't like going anywhere without knowing his destination, even if it's to the park. Blaine's never throwing him a surprise party, that's for sure.

When they get there, it is pretty deserted. A mother is pushing her kid in a stroller along the perimeter of the park's path, cell phone tucked close to her ear.

Kurt immediately veers toward the swings, and Blaine follows him. There are two, side by side, the chains suspending them starting to rust. Kurt, after a perfunctory and distasteful wipe of the seat, perches himself on one of them.

Blaine walked to the park without any real plan, only knowing that privacy and distance from the house and fresh air would help him fix this, but he assumed there would be far more woolgathering and planning on the walk. Sighing, Blaine stands behind Kurt and to his right, taking him in, still thinking. Kurt's fingers, wound around the swing's chains, tighten. A slow gust of wind drags him slightly forward, and Kurt's body curves into it, a pendulum on its first tilt.

Kurt squawks when Blaine gently pushes at his back to get his momentum going, and the toes of his shoes skid along the gravelly ground to keep him where he is. Oops is an understatement, and Blaine backs away, cringing at himself. "What are you doing?" he demands, turning a slitted glare on Blaine, cheeks pink.

"I thought you might want to swing," Blaine explains, feeling embarrassed, but also knowing that he's achieved an ice-breaker. His impulse was just to get Kurt to swing, since it's a fun thing to do and Kurt needs fun, but some forward-thinking part of his subconscious had ulterior motives and he can't regret their success. "Since you were on a swing."

"I am not five," Kurt hisses. "And you're not being cute. Why don't you try acting like an adult?"

Kurt's very deliberately being contrary, now. It comes off more haughty than stinging, and at least Kurt's responding to him.

"Sorry," Blaine says. "Sorry I thought you might want to swing, since you were on one," and he can't help the edge of amused condescension that slips in. He looks down at the crown of Kurt's head and offers more directly, "I'm sorry about last night, too."

Kurt keeps his gaze down, watches his heels scrape across the gravel as he moves back and forth, not swinging but not stationary. "Well," Kurt says like he's been tasked with giving an official statement, "at least you know you've got something to be sorry for."

Blaine squeezes his fingers around the chains of Kurt's swing and takes himself over to the free swing with a frustrated sigh. "Of course I'm sorry. Of course. But what was I supposed to do?" His hips don't fit comfortably in the width of the swing, and when he tries to adjust his weight his wallet digs into his tailbone. The day feels too long. He wants to go home to his couch with a cup of decaf and Kurt's head propped on his shoulder, no television, no radio, not even the dulled roar of cars passing by in the world outside of his apartment. "I'm not good at thinking on my feet. What, because I didn't take the opportunity to introduce you to Wes as my acerbic-but-really-quite-wonderful jailbait lover and ask if you got your shirt tucked in straight I'm a heartless bastard?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Kurt snaps, pointedly staring into the distance at the mother and child as they start in on another lap.

"What would you have had me do?" Blaine asks as he shifts uncomfortably again, determined to get them onto some kind of middle ground. He studies the line of Kurt's profile, from the slope of his nose down to the proud set of his chin, looking for even the most microscopic of reactions.

"Nothing. There's nothing you have to do," Kurt says, with the brusque snap of a book being closed. He's brushing it off; Blaine can't possibly get it right, no matter if Kurt takes his precious time to explain it to him.

"Oh, c'mon, Kurt, just talk to me." He's up against a brick wall right now, and he hasn't even got a chisel. "I'm sorry. I don't know what else to say to you. I mean it. Do you think I wanted it to end like that?"

"I know you didn't," Kurt says with less vigor, his eyes closing and head bowing fractionally. "There was nothing else you could have done. I know that." Kurt's said it out loud, acknowledged the facts of the situation, validated how shitty that night had been, but neither of them feel any better, Blaine bets. "Also, for the record, I am not jailbait."

Blaine's incredulous noise isn't so much objection as it is disbelief that Kurt is choosing to go there. "So, what, I should have introduced you as my acerbic and wonderful, but questionably appropriate, lover?"

"Stop that," Kurt says, turning eyes on him that are genuinely weary and upset. "I meant that the age of consent is sixteen. I'm seventeen. I'm tired of your --" he flicks a scornful hand -- "Humbert Humbert complex. This would work a lot better if you weren't so invested in beating yourself up over it."

"I--" Instinctively, Blaine goes to defend himself, to instruct Kurt how to see the actual picture of who he is instead of his own interpretation of shape and form, but -- it's true, he does that, it's him. He presses his lips together, gives a curt nod. "Yeah. I... kind of have a habit of doing that, don't I? I think you're going to have to call me out on it." �He reaches over to jostle the chain holding up Kurt's swing, trying on the smallest smirk. "Which, knowing you, could end up being a full-time occupation."

Kurt's shoulders slope in, tired and frayed. "I didn't want to make it like this," he admits, letting his eyes travel over to Blaine's outstretched legs. "I knew I was being an idiot all day, but I couldn't help myself. I felt so sick. I didn't -- I didn't want last night to be like that."

Blaine's feet strike the gravel, propelled by guilt and regret (stop that) that feels bodily heavy. �"God, Kurt, neither did I." His voice is low, intense, intimate, ragged around the edges. "It was so good, so good, and then it was -- awful."

Kurt's study of his legs comes to an end, and it's like he can't stand to look at any part of Blaine, even his shoes, to confess in a chiffon-weak voice, "I wanted to kiss you good night."

"Oh, Kurt -- come here." Blaine feels himself splinter; the slim distance between them is too great and he lurches for the cold chain of Kurt's swing, pulling it sideways toward him so hard it hurts his hand, knocking Kurt against his side.

Kurt hums a warning as their swings clamor and shake on the bar suspending them. Their knees bump together hard, but Blaine's ready. He catches Kurt's upper thigh to hold him in place, mute as he searches for the right words to express how, basically, his chest just tried to fill up and burst.

"It's okay," Kurt murmurs, curling his cool hand around Blaine's wrist, anchoring them together. "We'll be better next time," he reassures, stroking his thumb back and forth across the underside of Blaine's wrist.

Blaine nudges forward, scraping the late afternoon stubble on his jaw against Kurt's cheek, nuzzling into the warm valley of his neck, and allowing himself a deep inhale. He tries not to linger, just threads his fingers through the hair at the nape of Kurt's neck and pushes a rough, possessive kiss to the top of his head. Kurt, as much as the metal between them will allow, leans into it, bowing his head until strands of his hair tickle Blaine's nose.

"I didn't want to let you leave," Blaine admits, face pressed so close he feels it when Kurt twitches.

Blaine prolongs the contact as long as he can, and Kurt makes an inscrutable noise and clutches at Blaine's shirt. It's only for a moment, then his hand drops away and the rest of him follows. Kurt gets to his feet with a little hop and holds his hand out to Blaine, palm-up, to help him up too.

Blaine rises, steady on his feet and Kurt's hand secure in his. "Guess it's time to head back."

Kurt gives a nod, once more patient and equanimous. It's a relief and puts Blaine on solid ground again after the way Kurt's mood made him totter with unease.

They walk back together so close that their shoulder bump, and as soon as they step past the confines of the park and back into a more populated, broader world, Kurt drops his hand. Blaine doesn't mind; he's registers in the back of his mind that Kurt is the one who thought to do it. He keeps Blaine from functioning properly, being able to manage anything more than putting one foot in front of the other when they're so close. The street is dangerous, cars driving by -- anyone could see them.

Still, even without touch, there's something suspended between them. They made no real promises but somehow, something new is settling in. Blaine keeps his eyes locked on the pavement ahead of him, hoping no one can see his face, because it's giving it -- them -- away completely.
--

Blaine inches the window of the upstairs bathroom open, looking out for a moment to appreciate the last remnants of fall, then squares his shoulders and gives a critical eye to the remains of his afternoon project. For a bathroom in constant use by a half dozen teenagers, it isn't as gnarly as it could be -- no mold monsters creeping fingers out at him -- but it's only through routine maintenance that it stays that way. Old houses take care, and it wasn't until halfway through his first year running Courage House that he realized if he wanted something done to his standards and didn't want to go bankrupt in the process, well, it was best to do it himself.

A toolbox, spools of electrical tape, several drills, a stack of home repair manuals checked out from the local library, and hours of DIY Youtube videos later, Blaine could unclog a drain, fix a window, and put a door back on its hinges with the best of them. He still calls in professionals for the bigger jobs, but he can manage almost everything the house and the kids can throw at him (or that the kids can throw at the house).

He feels a joint pop when he goes down on one knee to check out the cracks along the base of the bathtub, caulking gun waiting by his side. He stripped the old caulking away that morning, and now he's ready to finish the job but -- wincing, he tries to shift to a more comfortable position, but it's not coming, no relief to be had on the hard tiled floor, and it's then he concludes that he's practically doing the kids a disservice by not enlisting their help.

"Hey," Blaine yells out the bathroom door as he gets back up on his feet. There's no response, as expected, so he starts down the stairs to the ground floor. "Some of you guys should come up here and help me with this caulk."

The dull buzz of conversation from downstairs comes to a halt, and it's Tracy that yells back, "...Help you with what?"

Tracy, Mia, Tom and Kurt are sitting in little clusters throughout the living room, heads all swiveled to Blaine's direction. He wavers in the threshold to the living room for a minute, totally thrown, but then what Tracy said catches up with him and he feels like an idiot and superior to all of them and their twelve year old minds all at once.

"Oh, come on, you guys." He rolls his eyes. "Caulk. As in home repair? The bathtub is in dire need of a caulking," he pronounces with deliberate emphasis. Blaine can see Mia's shoulders shaking with silent laughter and folds his arms over his chest.

"Why is this my problem?" Tom asks. "You're the one who pays the property tax."

"Why is it mine?" Blaine counters. "I don't use that bathroom. I fix everything that you guys break. I don't see why you can't help me with this one thing." Blaine's running out of excuses that don't involve my knees aren't as kind to me as they were in my twenties. He'd never live it down, and he's trying not to think about it.

"Hey, we help," Tracy protests, her smile too big. "I just prefer not to handle caulk if I can avoid it."

"We all know you'd rather have your fingers up a drain," Tom drawls.

"You wash the dishes twice a week," Kurt says, ignoring the bait that everyone else seems to have latched onto. "Less, if you can cajole someone else into it."

"I also mop, bitch," Tracy snaps, and Mia rockets up off the couch like a jack in the box, heading off any potential fireworks as she strides toward Blaine.

"Everyone in this house is awesome and I'm so happy to work here," she says, coated in artificial sweetener. �"I don't want any of you precious children to strain yourselves. I'll help."

"Mia..." Blaine casts a meaningful eye to the room full of teenagers who could really use an attitude adjustment and some practical skills to take with them. It's strange that Kurt hadn't offered to help; he usually elbows people out of the way when it comes to proving himself useful and superior, but he barely glanced up from his book during the whole exchange, one finger resting on his cheek as he cradled his chin on his hand.

Ten minutes in a cramped bathroom would be more time alone than they've had in days, but Blaine isn't pining or anything. Maybe Kurt's especially attached to his current outfit and doesn't feel like risking it. Maybe he's tired. He looks tired, now that Blaine's squinting at him from across the room.

"If we do it, it takes ten minutes. If we make one of them help, we'll be in that bathroom all night." She pushes past him and tromps up the stairs. She's pretty slight, but the stairs groan and thump under her two-at-a-time ascent.

"Thanks, guys," Blaine says. He doesn't have his father's patented disapproving tone down quite yet, but a few more years of this and he might nail it.

By the time he's at the top of the stairs, Mia's hair is up in a sloppy bun and she's got a caulking gun in one hand, scanning the instructions. "It's pretty easy," Blaine says, leaning against the sink. "As you can probably tell."

"I know how to use a caulking gun, dude," Mia says. "I've never used this kind before. Did you get the cheapest brand or what?"

"Um," Blaine says, because there wasn't a Youtube video on recommended brands, and yes, his budget can only stretch so far.

She chuckles at his expense with a fond shake of her head. "You take the left side and I'll take the right. Whoever makes it to the middle the first is the winner." She spreads her knees to have a steadier base. "Which will be me."

"You know," Blaine says, going down onto his own knees and wondering why he bothered to go downstairs at all if it means he's still going to get sore. Usually when he gets on his knees there's some inherent reward system in place. Not so, right now. "You'd make some incredibly helpless and femme woman so happy."

"Story of my life," Mia mutters, the cap to the gun between her teeth. "If only I swung that way. My talents would finally be appreciated."

Blaine laughs at her, and he fumbles the gun, but whatever, it's caulk, it doesn't require a very skilled hand, especially when there's protective masking tape involved. "Stop showing off," he says, smoothing down his sloppy line of the material.

"I'm sorry, am I making you feel inferior?" Mia says, pulling the cap from her mouth and tossing it into the bathtub in what seems like a split second, and then goes back to the job with her eyebrows knotted in concentration. "Apparently I do that to men."

"Again, you'd be the best lesbian," Blaine sighs, inching his way along while Mia deftly makes her way toward the middle. "You're a motorcycle away from spearheading Dykes on Bikes."

She tenses, and for one moment Blaine thinks he's gone too far, but she's just stopping to readjust after a tiny mistake. "Being straight is so hard for me," she whines, tilting her head to the right to give him a sly smile. "Seriously, you don't know my pain."

"Mmn, yes I do. I date men. I know what you're dealing with." His line isn't getting any straighter, so he sits back on his haunches; it's not like he's got a chance of winning their little contest anyway.

"Look at us, bonding like this." Mia's nearly finished with her side. "Talking about boys like we have some."

Blaine chuckles and sweeps his hair back into place with his forearm. "Yeah, well. It's a sacrifice for the greater good." Or it used to be, at least. He's not sure what it is now. It's gotten pretty blurry.

Mia's quiet but it feels like assent. "Lately they've been doing better."

Blaine pulls in a breath, hands on his knees, and bites his lip. "Have they been? I feel like I never know what's going on here from one day to the next."

"Fuck, neither do I. It's never consistent. Michael leaving was bad, but Justin was worse."

"I know." Some of them are volatile, unpredictable, at risk. Some of them foster kernels of hatred in what's supposed to be a safe place. Blaine felt more revulsion toward Justin than he did when he had to call the cops on a kid who tried to shatter Blaine's windshield with a steel pipe. Blaine had locked the door and waited for sirens; there are no sirens and handcuffs when someone is casually cruel, only paperwork and suitcases. "I feel like, I don't know, like I should feel i>worse about kicking him out than I actually do."

Mia shrugs. "You tried your best. It's not like you give up on every hard luck case who comes through the door, either." Blaine nods, watching her in silence for a minute, but she's not done. "He was such a horrible, horrible jackass. You did everyone a favor."

"I hope something out of this sunk in for him."

Mia finishes and rolls her shoulders as she sits up. Her face isn't blank, but it's usually filled with an easily nameable expression, and right now Blaine can't read it. "It did or it didn't, Blaine." She turns her deep-set brown eyes on him. "Did you give him your 'prejudice is just ignorance' speech?"

"Um, yes?" He instinctively prickles, not liking where this is going. "How is that a bad thing?"

"It's not. For some people, that works. It helps. For kids like Justin, you shouldn't waste your breath."

She stands up, brushing off her knees. Blaine stares up at her, feeling a little winded. "So I shouldn't even try to get through to some of them? Just – let them... stagnate?"

She tugs the hairband out of her hair and redoes the bun, not looking at him, her jaw tight. This isn't a fight, it's barely even a disagreement, but it's the weirdest Blaine's ever felt around Mia and he doesn't like it. "Giving them Pollyanna speeches works, sometimes. Being there for them works, sometimes. But a lot of the time we're just somewhere safe to stay. And I think you know that as well as I do."

Pollyanna speeches. He's gaping at her when she looks down at him and gives him an apologetic but sincere smile. "I..." He clears his throat. "Maybe."

"It's over and we're better. That's what matters."

"Right," he says, still processing.

Mia cocks her hip and gazes down at the tub. "Look at that. I won our little competition. No one is surprised."

Blaine clears his throat again, regaining some footing. "Like I said, Dykes on Bikes."

She gives him a warm grin. "Leave me a flyer and I'll think about it."

It feels exceptionally crowded in the bathroom even after she leaves, and Blaine tries to shake off the strange claustrophobia as he kneels to finish the last of his side of the tub.

--