Chapter Seven

There’s cheesecake for dessert, proper New York cheesecake, and as Blaine cuts two generous slices and sets them on plates, Kurt asks if there’s more wine.

It occurs to Blaine that they are about to start on their third bottle, and the alcohol might be contributing to the excited buzz in his blood, but when he checks the time he also realizes they’ve been talking for over three hours. In the fridge there’s raspberry sauce in a jug and another bottle of white wine and Blaine brings both to the table. Still, Kurt is watching him with his bright blue eyes.

“Cheesecake?” he asks.

“I remember a certain fondness,” Blaine teases back and Kurt giggles.

“Did you make it?”

Blaine slides into his seat and hums his pleasure around a mouthful before drowning his slice in bright red sauce. “No one makes cheesecake in New York, Kurt.”

Kurt grins and imagines Blaine taking him by the hand, showing him the cake shop he bought it from and telling him the story of how he came to find it. It is perfectly delicious and the sauce is just the right amount of tart and sweet.

“I made that though,” Blaine says, motioning to the jug and Kurt licks the back of his finger where the sauce has dripped.

There’s more comfortable silence.

“Kurt.” Blaine waits for him to finish dissolving the cake between his tongue and the roof of his mouth and swallow. “Why did you say yes to dinner?”

Kurt takes another mouthful of cheesecake and lets it dissolve even more slowly on his tongue, indulging in the taste and then sucking his spoon clean as he debates.

“Kurt…” Blaine is waiting though.

“I’m trying to work that out myself.” It’s a starkly honest answer and relays the fact that Kurt hasn’t thought this through at all, that he’s unsure. He takes another bite. “Why did you ask me?” Kurt asks, genuinely curious.

“That’s unfair. I’ve been asking you all night why you came.”

Kurt holds his gaze. “I guess I still don’t know how to say no to you.”

Time stops around them, stutters, and then kicks back in when their eyes slip away from each other. Neither one of them knows what this is or what to do with it. Neither one of them walked into this dinner tonight thinking seduction or relationship or date of anything like that. They were far too busy not thinking it.

“Did you want to say no?” Blaine asks.

“Of course not. I wanted to come. Of course I did, Blaine.” And then somehow they’re touching. Without giving it any conscious thought, Kurt has reached across the space between them and caught one of Blaine’s hands in his.

The realization of it comes slowly to Blaine and his nerves feel sluggish, his brain processing the simplicity of the touch, just skin on skin, not intimate or unwelcome or leading to anything. But Kurt is touching him and not briefly, not fleetingly, he’s holding on and suddenly it all rushes back through Blaine and he never, ever wants to let go.

Not ever. This is it. Kurt is it. He always was. 

“You broke my heart when you cheated on me.”

Kurt says it so simply, without any accusation or regret, and it’s too plain a fact to hurt like it used to. “I know,” Blaine tells him, holding his gaze. “I’m sorry.” 

Kurt waves it off, the corner of his mouth curving up, and he shakes his head and it’s nothing like every other time Blaine has apologized for this. “Don’t be sorry it… it happened,” Kurt waits for it to sink in for both of them. “We did our sorrys and regrets back then. We said we’d be friends…” What he does regret is not hanging on to Blaine a little tighter, even when he thought he hated him. He wonders what would have happened if they’d stayed friends.

“It hurt too much,” Blaine admits, his throat feeling tight. “I broke my own heart, I think.”

Kurt stares at him, unreadable, but so beautiful. He takes another mouthful and Blaine tries hard not to watch his lips.

“I think it worked out well. Not the bit where I lost you forever,” Blaine hastens to add. “But overall, I’m better now. Happier.” And it’s true. “I wasn’t happy even when I was with you and that’s nothing to do with you. I just hadn’t finished growing up. Hadn’t worked out what I wanted.”

“And now you know?” Kurt asks.

Nodding, Blaine sounds wistful despite everything he’s said, “We were eighteen…” Then he shakes his head and puts his spoon down on his plate and picks up his glass of wine, his eyes slipping past Kurt to a spot on the wall.

“Do you not want to talk about it?” Kurt wonders.

“I do, just not now. And not because I need to work out what happened or whose fault it was. We were young and stupid and I fucked up something specialr12;“

Kurt interrupts, “We fucked up something special.”

Blaine doesn’t argue. He doesn’t see any point. “Anyway, now we’re almost thirtyr12;“

Kurt’s eyes snap to his and he looks stricken. “Oh god, don’t say that!” he manages to scoff.

However, Blaine is staring at him, a little too intensely, too much going on behind his eyes. “And we are having a lovely dinner. Like… as grown ups…” he trails off and Kurt fights the implication. This is so a date.  

He has to say it again because it’s been on loop in the back of his mind for hours. “I’m leaving on Wednesday, though. For a year.”

Blaine snaps, “You don’t have to keep telling me,” and then he softens when he sees a flash of hurt in Kurt’s eyes. He hasn’t seen that for so long and he hates seeing it now, just like he did back then. “I understood the first time and I didn’t slam the door in your face.”

“Did you want to?”

“No. I think…” The intensity is so strong, the underlying current of wanting each other, of wanting more than a fling or settling to be friends and it’s so blatant in the space between them. But Kurt is leaving for a year, and Blaine drops his gaze first and denies the obvious once more. “I think it’s time I started cleaning up.”

~~*~~

Kurt insists on helping even though there are only a half dozen plates and hardly anything from cooking. They bring the bottle of wine over and once more slip into laughing and joking with each other, perhaps standing too close at the sink as Blaine washes and Kurt dries. They both take far too long on such simple tasks because they have no idea what comes next.

It feels perfect and domestic and makes Kurt remember how he imagined his life in New York when he was seventeen. They laugh and touch without meaning to, and then very much meaning to, hips bumping, dishes passed from one to the other with the fleeting brush of fingertips and eyes on each other’s hands. 

It’s a small kitchen and the contact is inevitable. The wine slows Blaine’s mind enough that he presses against the warmth of Kurt’s body a second before he pulls back, and it makes Kurt brazen, makes him settle a hand on Blaine’s hip as he reaches around to slide the plates into their place in the cupboard. 

They get tangled up, reaching for something or other, and Blaine’s backed against the counter with Kurt so close and a hand against the wood beside his hip. He should slide out and laugh it off, he will, but Kurt’s other hand snaps up and brackets his body there. The only way out is to ask or by force and Kurt’s watching him, waiting for one or the other.

The seconds stretch and Blaine watches Kurt’s gaze flicker from his eyes to his lips and then back up. A shaky breath, he hears it and feels it against his face, the radiant heat of every inch of Kurt’s body meeting his in the inch of air between them and ricocheting back and surely Kurt can feel it, too? How can he stand it? Blaine wants to sink to the floor and take Kurt with him and never surface for air again.

He might kiss him, he thinks. He might kiss him and ignore everything that could go wrong and just drown himself in this gorgeous, perfect man that is somehow still everything to him.

What a ridiculous thought.  

Kurt’s voice, delicate and whispered just between them, stops Blaine as he’s leaning in, giving in. “I said yes to dinner because if I’d said no I don’t think I would have ever forgiven myself.”

And then Blaine does kiss him. Slow and lush and so frighteningly tangible, the slide of his lips over the curve of Kurt’s, starting just off centre like they always do and slipping into an angle and a press that feels like heaven. The nudge of noses into cheeks and the flutter of eyelashes as Blaine sees Kurt close his eyes and then follows suit. The softest shift of Kurt’s mouth on his, the lightest caress, and Blaine returns it in kind and then again, soft lips moving against soft lips and then the scratch of stubble across his clean-shaven chin. He feels his stomach swoop and he swears he hasn’t felt like this in a decade. 

Another kiss, a little harder, trying to see if he’ll wake up, and Kurt makes the most beautiful noise at the back of his throat, the one that will always utterly undo Blaine.

Blaine’s hands fly to Kurt’s face, fingers of one into his hair, his other splaying across cheek and jaw and Kurt’s hands at Blaine’s hips, pulling him in that last inch and feeling him from head to toe against him. He makes that noise again, but louder, and Blaine’s mouth opens to swallow it and kiss him some more. Meeting Kurt’s tongue and teasing, licking, tasting the same boy from a lifetime ago, but different, and feeling every cell reignite with him.

Hands skirting up Blaine’s sides, feeling out tight muscles and hot skin beneath the fabric, Kurt can’t stop himself from pushing him back more firmly against the counter. He fights the instinct to wedge a thigh between Blaine’s legs and chase even more, because Blaine’s mouth is enough. Blaine’s mouth on his, taking and giving and kissing him for all he’s worth and Kurt moans again and feels Blaine fist his hair and angle his mouth and pull at his lips with his teeth.

Kurt wants desperately to kiss down Blaine’s neck, at his jaw, across his cheeks and his temples and everywhere. But Blaine seems to want it just as much, his hand in Kurt’s hair pulling, making him move and arch so Blaine can get his lips on the angle of Kurt’s jaw, skimming, kissing, licking. Tonguing across the stubble and moaning, sucking hard enough to make Kurt gasp, “Blaine.”

Blaine’s teeth nip and his lips kiss at the spot and it’s just one spot but he wants to try everywhere and, oh god, Kurt wants him to. But Kurt wants him kissing his mouth right now and finds his lips and takes until they’re both dizzy with it and panting for air, pressing forehead to forehead and refusing to open their eyes as they nuzzle close and safe and warm.

Blaine’s voice is easily the most gorgeous thing Kurt has ever heard, teasing and laughing and happy, so damn happy, and the way he says his name, twice, trying to regain some semblance of a grounding as he pulls their lips apart. “Kurt,” he swallows and Kurt opens his eyes, just so he can press the most chaste of kisses to Blaine’s Adam’s apple and feel the movement when he inevitably swallows and says it again. “Kurt.”

Hands on Kurt’s hips, shaking so much Kurt can feel the tremors, Blaine’s voice still happy, breathless and god this is perfect. “What are we doing?” Blaine asks.