Kurt does kind of forget Blaine. Not on purpose. Not in a bad way. Just in an overwhelming-New-York-Oh-My-God kind of way. He’s there and so busy, sleep-deprived and surrounded by people who, for the first time in his life, actually get him. And after a few weeks there are days where he doesn’t wake up thinking about Blaine. Six weeks after the move, he makes it to late one Thursday night before he—yes guiltily—remembers his boyfriend back in Ohio and quickly finds his phone and calls and leaves Blaine a quick account of the too-long day on campus.�

�

He forgets Blaine except for the moments he remembers him and then he misses him and he loves him more than ever.

�

When he goes for coffee and the woman in front of him orders a medium drip.

�

When he finds a place, just off campus, that makes mushroom risotto even better than Blaine’s.

�

Kurt remembers Blaine then and sends off texts and calls when he can and tries to skype. But his roommate is an asshole which makes it difficult and Blaine constantly sounds bright and happy, listening for a few minutes to tales of New York and then pushing him away, out, telling him there are better things to be doing than trying to keep Ohio in the loop.

�

When the cute guy in one of his lectures taps him on the shoulder, smoulders at him a little, and asks him out for a drink, Kurt shakes his head and tells him all about Blaine and the cute guy—Michael—shrugs it off and says ‘makes sense’ in a way Kurt doesn’t really understand. They go out anyway but with Rachel and two other girls and Kurt’s abrasive, rude roommate. They go to a little place, way down in the village that doesn’t ask for ID, not even from Kurt. And they drink and dance and end up at some piano bar that won’t serve them alcohol but is happy for them to sing their hearts out to showtunes and the top forty.

�

When whoever is on the piano starts playing an unmistakable Katy Perry number and Michael stands on a table to sing it, Rachel finds Kurt and slides a hand around his waist and buries her face in his chest. “You miss him,” she says, far too loudly.

�

And Kurt’s eyes immediately prickle and he says, “Yes.”

�

He’s on the subway and then he’s home and he’s sent a dozen texts and called a dozen times but Blaine hasn’t responded. It’s almost three in the morning so that makes sense but for the first time in a while everything inside his chest aches.

�

Kurt tries to make a video to send him once he’s back in the dorm but he can’t get his words to make sense and he keeps scrapping the recordings. Then his roommate is stumbling in and collapsing and Kurt won’t chance the noise. He types up an email, keeps typing and typing and he knows he’s a bit drunk and overly emotional because his face feels hot and tears drip onto the backs of his hands. He hits send and crawls into bed for a few hours sleep before class.

�

I can’t wait to see you. I’m back in a week.

�

***

�

He flies in on the Thursday morning. He had hoped to sneak back a few days earlier but he’s been cast, as expected, in the chorus of the college production and that is prestigious and important. Rehearsals are already in full swing what with a second production expected for the second semester and there has already been drama with one of the understudies—remarkably not Rachel.

�

On top of that, somehow he’s been roped into being second in charge of the costuming for the seniors’ graduating short plays and monologues. He still doesn’t know how someone tracked down his portfolio or managed to coerce him into meeting Melanie, the senior costume design student from FIT who’d landed the job.

�

But once he was sitting in front of her he took a deep breath and just talked. And one thing led to another…

�

So he gets back Thursday morning, already tired and just happy to be faced with a quiet Thanksgiving at home. Burt, Carole and Finn pick him up and are laughing and grinning and Carole won’t stop saying things like: “Oh my god, you look so grown up!” and “Have you gotten taller?” and “Already too big for Lima, Ohio!”

�

Kurt rolls his eyes and hugs his dad and kisses Carole on the cheek and then they drive home with Kurt leaning forward from the backseat and chatting incessantly.

�

He spends the day napping and eating and laughing with his dad, Carole and Finn. No one mentions Rachel, not after everything that happened. But eventually Burt levels his gaze and asks Kurt when he’s going to see Blaine.�

�

Kurt stares, then looks to Carole and Finn, hesitates because it all sounds so serious and he doesn’t think it should be. When he eventually answers it’s airily: “He’s picking me up at a reasonable hour tomorrow for coffee.”

�

Burt’s brow creases and Kurt holds his gaze.

�

***

�

Blaine picks him up just after ten the next morning and Kurt looks fresher and more well-rested than ever. Blaine even says so and grins like a schoolboy—Kurt figures, technically, he still is—and then slides into the drivers seat. They take the usual route to the Lima Bean.

�

They drink coffee and slide easily into conversation, clicking back into place like they were never apart, like the fighting before Kurt left never happened. There’s no tension and Blaine indulges in Kurt falling into the trap of talking, talking, talking. About New York, all of it, just like he did in the beginning.

�

Of course, there is still that pang of sadness and a twist of jealousy when Kurt talks about people Blaine doesn’t know except from Facebook photos. When he talks about New York and classes and adventures but the pain is nothing compared to the agony of when he wasn’t talking at all.

�

Distance, if anything, feels like it’s left no mark on them. Deciding not to cling hopelessly to each other when they couldn’t, Blaine thinks, was the right decision. And Kurt seems to have understood, seems content to exchange stories and laughter and soft smiles and not dwell on the messy, almost-destruction of just before he left.

�

“You still remember my coffee order,” Kurt jokes as Blaine returns with their second cup.

�

“Of course.”

�

***

�

They end up back at Kurt’s house. It’s after midday and there is a note on the kitchen counter from Carole to say they’ve all gone across town to Finn’s aunt’s house and Kurt is welcome to join them if he likes. Blaine too.

�

And then it’s awkward. They stand stealing glances at each other in the lounge room and Kurt seems to have finally run out of stories to tell.� Blaine is just about to say he should get back home when Kurt speaks: “Come upstairs with me?”

�

No.

�

And it aches. Just the idea of pretending this isn’t over any second now aches and Blaine can’t even make sense of that.

�

“Of course.”

�

***

�

Blaine hasn’t laid eyes on Kurt’s bedroom for two months. Not since he slid out of Kurt’s grasp early that August morning and was gone before Kurt woke up.

�

It doesn’t look that different to the last time. Some of the pictures have moved around, Blaine thinks, and instead of the two big suitcases Kurt had packed for New York now there’s only a small one pushed into the corner. The sheets are a different shade of blue and the bed is unmade.

�

An eyebrow arches before Blaine can stop himself: he doesn’t think he’s ever seen Kurt’s bed unmade, unless they’re in it, of course, of just getting out of it.

�

Kurt’s darting past him and flicking out the sheets quickly as he blushes and knows exactly what Blaine isn’t saying. “I slept in this morning,” he mumbles. “And technically I’m on holiday.”

�

Blaine laughs. “I wasn’t judging.”

�

Kurt turns on him, bitch face in place and Blaine’s missed that. “Yes you were.”

�

Blaine laughs again. “Not in a bad way though.”

�

Kurt just clicks his tongue and fluffs the pillows but, Blaine notices, doesn’t actually make any kind of move to tuck the sheets in properly. Blaine wants to run almost as much as he wants to stay. Wants this whole year to be over and forgotten and being here, with Kurt, is reminding him that it isn’t. It’s reminding him that in a few days he’ll have to start again: stop himself from messaging and calling and answering every email with long, detailed paragraphs full of in-jokes and questions and endearments.

�

He’s astounded they’ve clicked back together like it hasn’t been months. He doesn’t know what to do with that. He’d expected awkwardness and distance: he’s been prepared for that. Now he doesn’t know whether to talk to Kurt about what is happening or not. Whether he needs to push him away again to make sure he goes back to New York and keeps living.

�

It’s only November.

�

“Can I kiss you?” Kurt asks.

�

No.

�

He’s standing so close though and Blaine can smell him and see the specks of green in his eyes, can feel the butterfly soft brush of Kurt’s fingertips up his forearm and can hear the hope in the shallowness of his breath.

�

Kurt’s eyes flicker down to Blaine’s lips for a second and then he licks his own and Blaine’s face tilts up in the smallest of acquiescences.

�

The last two inches disappear and Kurt kisses him. Soft and tentative, as though he’s almost forgotten how, both boys conscious of the caress of lips on lips that is barely more than light pressure.

�

But Blaine’s hands come up and grasp at Kurt’s hips and Kurt’s fingertips keep tracing faint, easy lines over the exposed skin of Blaine’s arms and they hold like that for as long as they can bear.

�

Then they break apart, hands still against each other but lips pulled back as their eyes meet and they breathe.

�

Something he sees makes Kurt ask, “Is this okay?”

�

And Blaine shivers and gives in, chokes and begs and then falls forward again: “Please…”

�

This time the kiss is anything but tentative. Just like coffee and teasing and conversation, they fall back into this with ease, clicking back into the place they left months ago.� Kurt’s head tilts to the left and Blaine’s does the same, lips sliding, opening in perfect synch and tongues meeting each other half way.

�

Blaine holds on, lets his fingers flex into Kurt’s hips through the denim before they slide up far enough to edge under the material of his shirt and pull him forward, even closer, skipping a few steps but that’s hardly unusual. He just wants.

�

Kurt’s fingers flutter as he keeps kissing back, fingernails scratching out paths up Blaine’s arms, teasing under the sleeves of his shirt and then Blaine shifts to suck hard on Kurt’s bottom lip, nips and growls and Kurt moans and fists his hands into Blaine’s hair.

�

Kurt walks him back towards the bed without thinking, listening only to the tiny gasps Blaine is making against his mouth, pausing to slide a hand into his hair, angle him and kiss at the spot he loves on his throat and draw a whimper. He pushes him back, letting him fall heavily to the mattress and sit there, momentarily stunned but looking more beautiful than ever with kissed red lips and wide, earnest eyes. Stepping easily between Blaine’s legs, Kurt places his hands on Blaine’s cheeks and leans in and down to kiss him again.

�

They should have spent the whole day kissing.

�

Kissing and kissing and then kissing some more. Blaine’s hands never leaving Kurt’s waist, his hips, just a constant heavy touch that lingers and owns and slowly builds heat across Kurt’s skin. But Kurt can’t get enough and his hands quickly race across everything he can reach. Teasing touches sliding into scratches and hard grabs at cotton and flesh. Across Blaine’s cheeks and jaw, into his hair, the back of his neck, his shoulders and it all rushes past: every thing he’s missed.� Kissing Blaine hard over and over until Blaine is the one that needs more, needs one more moment of reprieve and contact before Kurt slips back to New York.

�

Except he knows how this ends, where this is going and he’s powerless to stop it. And he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. He wants this and there is nothing wrong with that, refuses to think there could be. He wants this and everything that goes with it and Kurt’s kissing him like it’s their last moments on earth, just like he should have the night before he left, just like he has every other night they’ve ever spent together.

�

Blaine drags Kurt down onto the bed over him, pulls him down heavily and pushes his hands out from where Kurt’s trying to balance on the mattress. All this so Blaine can feel the weight of him there, the length and reality of his perfect body pressing down over his as Kurt never stops kissing him and Blaine loses himself in it.

�

When Blaine arches and gasps, short of breath and wanting and hard, Kurt’s hips meet the thrust of his, setting up a pace and rutting down into the crease of his thigh like that’s the best they can get.

�

Blaine chokes out his boyfriend’s name, pleading, and Kurt pulls back and stares, his mouth stretched broad in a grin and his eyes alight, playful as he punctuates his smile with a roll of his hips.

�

“Naked?” Kurt asks like he has to and the impish grin, the arch of an eyebrow makes Blaine laugh as he nods eagerly.

�

Kurt kisses him one more time, almost gets lost in it again, almost forgets about naked and more and just falls back in and gets off like that but Blaine’s hands spasm on his hips when the friction gets too much and he pulls his mouth away to groan and then he’s lifting Kurt off him and pushing him to the side.

�

They pause there, lying on their backs, side-by-side and stealing glances and grinning as they catch their breath. “Naked,” Blaine says and then reaches for the button of his jeans.

�

They get undressed quickly, separately. Trying to stay on the bed and not stare too long at the inches of pale skin that are bit-by-bit exposed. Blaine is left kneeling there, cock in hand, hair tussled and still inescapably breathless as Kurt bends himself in half to tug at his boots, growling and swearing under his breath as the laces tangle around his shaking fingers and his pushed-down jeans try to tip him over sideways.

�

Blaine watches him for long seconds, mentally documenting the lines of his back and the scar at his hip and the shine of short, light hairs on his thighs. Then he chuckles, kisses Kurt on the neck and pulls him to the edge of the bed. He slides off and down to his knees on the floor and bats Kurt’s hands away, gives in to Kurt kissing him again as Kurt sits up and lets Blaine battle his shoes.

�

He tugs the double knots loose in seconds and eases the boots off, tugs Kurt’s jeans and boxer briefs the rest of the way down his legs and discards them off to the side. Then he settles back on his haunches between Kurt’s knees and looks at him again, up the insides of his spread thighs, over his stomach and chest, shaking with laughter and deep breaths, to his eyes and away and back to his cock. Kurt reaches for him, fingers dipping into his hair and tugging, trying to coax him back up and onto the bed.

�

“Wait.” Blaine’s hands slide up Kurt’s legs in one slow push, from ankle to the back of Kurt’s knees, up his thighs, thumbs rubbing slow lines into the crease where they meet his body.

�

Some corner of his mind tells Blaine he shouldn’t but it’s such a small voice in a crowd of desperate want and so is easily ignored. He pushes Kurt’s legs wider, ignoring his gasp of surprise, and leans in, taking Kurt’s cock between his lips in one easy movement.

�

It feels like muscle memory and reflex: doing this. There’s hardly anything conscious left about the way he works his mouth, his tongue, his throat. Taking Kurt in further and swallowing, laving the underside with the flat of his tongue and then pulling back to tease and suck and lick in circles and figure eights and random swirls across the tip.

�

He forgets what he’s doing, closes his eyes and gets lost in the whimpers Kurt makes, in the way his breathing hitches at every perfect press of Blaine’s bottom lip just under the head, at his hands giving up and wrapping tight and demanding in Blaine’s hair.

�

When Blaine opens his eyes to look he meets Kurt’s gaze from under his lashes and holds him there, captive in his line of sight as his mouth keeps working and Kurt’s hips start to rise off the bed, his hands tightening further and pulling Blaine’s mouth onto his cock by the barest few centimetres, just like Blaine told him he loved a few weeks before Kurt left.

�

Blaine pauses, suddenly aware of how high Kurt’s keening voice is, how quickly he could come and then fall back across the sheets, sated and sleepy and all of this peaked and suddenly declining. He pulls off with a final one, two, three kisses to the head, licking his lips and humming around the sharpness of the taste. He means to crawl up over Kurt, fit them together and spend hours like that.

�

But he knows he can’t.

�

With a jolt he realizes none of this can come close to perfection, can come close to enough and his mind slides into noise. He wants to push Kurt back and stretch his ass open on his fingers, his tongue, stretch and push and pull until Kurt’s writhing and begging and then slide deep inside and fuck him slow and heavy and face to face. But then he also wants Kurt to pull him down and roll them, to grab at him rough and marking and put him onto his elbows and knees, ass in the air and fuck Blaine like that.

�

Blaine wants a hundred fantasies he’s never had the chance to even whisper to Kurt with a blush and he wants them now. Wants to kiss and touch and come a thousand different ways but he knows they don’t have time and this is already more than he told himself he’d take.

�

So he stays there on his knees, eyes searching upwards and meeting Kurt’s and finding his brow furrowed. He doesn’t want that so he leans forward, hot breath over Kurt’s cock and Kurt’s hips off the bed but he dips his head and licks roughly over Kurt’s balls, tongues at one then the other and then sucks and mouths and smiles when Kurt flops back on the bed and arches high.

�

Blaine’s hand are around Kurt’s thighs, lifting and pushing them back, spreading Kurt wide and precarious on the edge of the bed as he begs a few more seconds being lost in taste and heat and licks a line over Kurt’s hole and he moans into it, the sound loud and echoing and making Kurt’s hands grip at the edge of the mattress for balance and then dip back into Blaine’s hair, holding him there as his tongue traces back and forward and then in circles, his face pressing in for more contact, tongue sliding inside Kurt for the barest of seconds and then Kurt’s calling for him, high and thready, “Blaine, Blaine, oh god, Blaine, don’t.”

�

And he yanks Blaine up, hands scratching over his shoulders and his back and his legs flopping down to hang over the bed as Kurt shivers and bites back his orgasm, every muscle tight and warring with instinct as Blaine’s body meets his and Blaine kisses him hard.

�

But it’s too much and Kurt needs to take Blaine with him—always, always needs to take Blaine with him—so he wrestles Blaine’s body away from his until the friction is gone and Blaine can’t get close enough to kiss him and Kurt’s backed away across the sheets.

�

When Blaine’s vision focuses, Kurt’s wearing a breathless smile and a sparkle in his eyes and nothing else and Blaine thinks he looks like everything good left in the universe. He wants to pounce but Kurt’s hands are up, keeping him back as he catches his breath and trembles.

�

“Too close,” he mumbles, smiling ruefully.

�

Blaine nods but doesn’t say that Kurt can make him come whenever he likes with a whisper, with a look, with a touch.

�

He lets the seconds pass, lets Kurt calm and collect his thoughts and step back form the edge and then Blaine asks, “Ready?”

�

And Kurt says, “Always,” and makes Blaine’s breath catch deep in his chest.

�

Blaine wants nothing more than to make this perfect for Kurt. “How?” he whispers, dropping to his hands and knees and stalking Kurt across the few feet of bed, kneeling up in front of him and flattening his palms over Kurt’s cheeks.

�

Kurt stares and blinks slowly, lets his hands trace lines down Blaine’s chest. He starts kissing him before he starts answering. A chaste press of lips turned dirty and deep. “Here.” He licks at Blaine’s bottom lip. “Just us.” He kisses over his top lip. “Just like this.” His hands pull Blaine in and fit their hips together as he kisses Blaine’s nose and they both giggle because this is truly stupidly romantic and sexy and wonderful. Kurt blushes and admits, “I’m not going to last.” And kisses Blaine’s chin, then more kisses, butterfly soft up his jaw to just beneath his ear. “I’d almost forgotten how good this feels,” he whispers. “How good we feel together.”

�

Just like this.

�

Blaine pulls him in harder, finding friction in an instant as their cocks drag over each other and against skin and then better as Kurt reaches down between them and aligns everything. Blaine makes Kurt moan into his mouth as he starts kissing him again, dragging his fingers over Kurt’s ass, stopping to squeeze and hold him there so he can thrust up along the length of Kurt’s cock and turn the kiss messy and haphazard, barely more than the press of open mouths searching for taste, contact and air.

�

Kurt whimpers and they tilt, the bed beckoning but Blaine can’t quite decide whether the press of Kurt over him or the press of him over Kurt is better so he rights them back up on their knees and licks down Kurt’s neck.

�

Blaine is sucking a mark into Kurt’s collarbone, Kurt’s hand wrapped around both their cocks and stroking in slow measured strokes when Kurt’s mouth falls open and he utters, “God I missed you.” Then he gasps and arches and Blaine’s hands slide higher to linger over Kurt’s ribs, slide down and tug him in roughly by the waist. “I missed you so much,” Kurt says again and his voice sounds rough and Blaine won’t, can’t, look at him now. He knows it’ll hurt too much, that it will shatter this precious, happy moment they’ve found and he would never forgive himself for letting it slip away.��

�

So instead Blaine’s voice gets caught as he tries to shush Kurt, air stagnant in his throat as his teeth find Kurt’s throat, intent on finding his mouth next, moving up, biting and sucking and melting heavily into the contact.

�

“So much,” Kurt mumbles and then laughs lightly, sounding blissfully happy as he leaves their cocks caught between their bellies and clutches at Blaine’s back, raking up, fingers around his neck, then into his hair, pulling him closer, closer, more.

�

�“Shhh,” Blaine hushes, his teeth tugging on an earlobe then pulling back and he breathes harshly, choking back the heart-wrenching truth because he won’t say it, he won’t:

�

I miss you, too.

�

Blaine finds Kurt’s mouth and kisses only to pull his mouth away again as he groans long and hard and his hips buck forward. Kurt’s hands are everywhere once more, his mouth teasing the skin of Blaine’s neck, his fingers digging in and the heat, the smell, the sweat of him all over and Blaine can’t hold back. He whimpers and pulls Kurt even closer still, too rough and they topple onto the sheets, scrambling to get the touch of skin on skin back and tangle together.

�

In the end they end up on their sides, facing each other and hands racing up and down, too much skin for so little opportunity. Their hips stay close and Kurt presses a leg between Blaine’s and hooks his ankle behind a calf and rides the rutting of their hips like that, whimpering high in his throat and squeezing his eyes closed.

�

“Blaine, I can’t—“ his hips stutter one more time forward, hard and imperfect, the way they’re spread leaving a hipbone pressing into the tender flesh of Blaine’s belly and he doesn’t care.

�

Because Kurt’s coming: panting and arching and riding Blaine’s thigh, his mouth gaping and gasping and the lines of muscles beneath his soft skin are taut and raw. And Blaine watches, tells himself to remember because he won’t take this again until he’s in New York with Kurt and he can have it every goddamn day. This is his one reprieve and he’ll treasure it. The sound and the feel and the bliss that settles in his mind just at knowing Kurt is his and spilling between them.

�

And then Blaine follows, mumbling Kurt’s name into his shoulder and biting down hard, pulling Kurt against him, rough and firm and hot against his cock, with hands splayed out over the small of his back. He rides the sensation long after it becomes too much and it’s only Kurt’s nails biting at his shoulders and the small whimpers escaping his mouth between the ragged breaths that makes Blaine pause.

�

It’s too much. To keep pressing, to keep dragging it out. But he’s not even a little bit ready to let go. So Blaine winds his arms around Kurt’s back and twists, lying flat across the sheets and pulling Kurt in across him, keeping him close.

�

They stay like that, legs tangled, Kurt’s arm around Blaine’s shoulders, Blaine’s arms around Kurt’s waist, bodies still pressed together in the sweaty sticky aftermath. At some point they know they’ll have to move. At any point the sound of the garage door might reach them and then they’ll have to scramble to find clothes and a hairbrush. But for now they just hold tight and breathe.

�

“You fly back on Sunday?” Blaine eventually asks.

�

Kurt twists closer, inching up Blaine’s body and nuzzling into the sweat-curled hair at his temple, kissing there for a moment before he shakes his head. “Tomorrow night. Flights were so much cheaper and exams,” he says by way of explanation.

�

Silence stretches again, both lost in their own thoughts and Blaine doesn’t notice when his fingers start drifting up and down the curve of Kurt’s waist or how heavily Kurt’s leaning into that touch, slowly succumbing to the tug of fatigue.

�

“Sleepy?” Blaine mumbles without really thinking about it.

�

Kurt hums and snuggles inevitably closer, tighter. “Just a nap,” he says, toes scratching up the back of Blaine’s calf. He drifts again, breath evening and body relaxing. The last thing Blaine hears him say is quiet and half-asleep: “I’m going to miss you more than ever now.”

�

***

�

Kurt wakes up to a note on Blaine’s pillow:

�

Had to get home. I’ll see you for Christmas. I love you. -B

�

Kurt feels his lips quirk up as his eyes skate back to reread the familiar cursive scrawl, dwelling for too long on the ‘I love you’ at the end. His fingers drift over the paper and then he folds it in half, finds his wallet on the dresser and slips the note into an empty compartment. He wants to call but he knows he should really get dressed properly and spend time with his family. He refuses to think too hard about the fact that Blaine left him alone under the sheets. Again. That’s not something he can think about.

�

Anyway, he is sure Blaine is just as busy with Thanksgiving as he is.

�

I love you and I’m counting the days.

�

He double-checks the text message and then hits send.

�

***

�

Blaine has just settled in front of the TV, McDonalds on the coffee table and a beer stolen from the fridge already open beside it. His phone dings at him and he glances at the message. His fingers itch to respond, to say I love you back, to thank him, to beg Kurt to leave it, to wait, to forget him again. Just a little bit longer.

�

They shouldn’t have done what they just did and he had known that from the second he’d followed Kurt into his room. They should have stayed friends and in love but sex ties it all together tighter, affirms that it’s real and demonstrates what is missing and makes the distance more heart-breaking and he doesn’t want Kurt to miss him. Doesn’t want Kurt to ache. He simply wants Kurt to be happy.

�

And he doesn’t want his own heart to break before he gets to New York.� There’s no point in that.

�

So he doesn’t reply. He deletes the message and slides the phone into his back pocket, rubs his eyes, and settles in the slightly chilly house to watch meaningless television and try to sleep for the rest of the night.

�