He understood why Kurt was excited - he really did. While he couldn't fathom liking another school as well as he liked Dalton, based on his own experience at his previous school and just how amazing the atmosphere was here, he understood that it wasn't somewhere Kurt had ever particularly wanted to be. Kurt hadn't come here willingly, he'd been forced to after his old school had closed in a fit of bigotry. It wasn't home for Kurt the way it was for him, he understood that - vaguely. He at least knew it in theory, if not in practice.

And he understood that Kurt missed his friends, that he missed Rachel and Mercedes - and his family, because Kurt actually liked his family and didn't feel like he was suffocating when he was near them. After meeting the Hummels, Blaine could understand why. Plus Kurt had told him about planning everything out for the past several years, going to school with Mercedes and being in glee club and having the same classes and getting to be like any other pair of best friends in school. He could appreciate why that was something that was important to Kurt.

But what Blaine couldn't appreciate was how jubilant Kurt was, even in face of the fact that going back to McKinley meant leaving more than just a school.

It was stupid, Blaine knew, and he was being an idiot if he thought that he should be enough to sway Kurt's decision. After all, they hadn't known each other for very long and homosexuals were not generally able to form long-term attachments with one another - or so his father claimed, and he was beginning to think that part might at least be accurate. Every story he could remember involved how the patients bounced from man to man, and while the report Kurt had shown him seemed to be suggesting otherwise Blaine wasn't so sure he knew what it was saying; the notion of "homosexual marriage" was so absurd as to not even have meaning. Men like himself, whether it turned out they were sick or not, or dangerous or not, were almost primal without the nurturing, settling influence of women around, so this feeling-

The idea of Kurt leaving, of the boy not being there anymore, of not being able to talk to him in the dining hall or at Warbler practice, of not being able to walk next door and see him when things got so overwhelming and terrifying that he thought the only way he would be able to breathe again was by seeing Kurt and hearing his dry-yet-sweet reassurances...

...of not being able to see him anymore. Touch him. Kiss him. Even go to that damned drive-in with him- because he knew better than to think that things wouldn't change if Kurt left. He wouldn't be able to just go over to Kurt's house two hours away every weekend and hang out in his room. The Hummels would talk, they would get suspicious, they would know - not just about him, but about Kurt, and then where would the poor boy be? Probably dragged off to an expert like his own father and the idea of that happening to Kurt was almost more than he could bear. He couldn't expect Kurt to come back out every weekend, not when his girlfriend lived in town and he didn't have enough close friends at Dalton to merit that sort of trip so often.

He wasn't a fool; he knew absence didn't make the heart grow fonder nearly as often as trite cliches would dictate. More often it made the heart grow cold, distant, as the burning and undeniable love began to ache, then fade, then wither, until nothing remained but fond memories and a sort of nostalgia. Given a few weeks Kurt would barely remember him, he imagined.

Which wasn't to say that he would be innocent in all of this.

Kurt had ignited something in him, had made him feel so much more intensely and left him unable to deny the-...condition he had. For months, whenever he felt like he might be okay, like he might not be-...that way, like he could control himself even if he was...the second he was around Kurt - hell, sometimes even the second he thought of Kurt - he couldn't fight it quite as hard. The way Kurt smiled at him, the way his flexible body moved as he strode down the hallway, the way he bounced on the balls of his feet a little when he was excited about something- it was as though every tiny thing about him was a swing of the hammer against a chisel designed to break down his defenses and leave him exposed.

But if Kurt wasn't around...if Kurt went back to Lima with his friends and his girlfriend...He didn't know if he would be able to stop fighting anymore. He would go back to being how he'd been, and as miserable as he was sometimes now when he thought too hard about who he was, it was nothing compared to the months of agony that had preceded it.

If Kurt went back, he would return to how he'd been for so long, and he didn't know if he could do that anymore without feeling like he was being crushed. It felt the same way he felt when he thought about the fact that, in a few years, he would have to grow up and abandon music entirely.

He knew there had been times he'd been happy before he'd met Kurt, he remembered smiling and it wasn't always pretend. At Dalton it had been genuine, at least. So why did the idea of not seeing this boy all the time make him feel like this?

As he stared at the book in front of him and tried in vain to work through problems, he heard a knock on the door. Almost certainly Kurt - that was the only person who really came to his room barring a Warbler emergency of some kind. For a moment he considered telling the boy to go away, or pretending he wasn't there, because he wasn't sure he could watch Kurt so excited about his new school, so excited about leaving him - even if that wasn't Kurt's intention - without feeling like he might start crying. But a more logical part of him pointed out that, if he really was getting a limited amount of time with Kurt, did he really want to waste it attempting to be stoic?

With a sigh, he dragged himself out of the chair and padded to the door. Kurt looked so ecstatic, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he automatically entered the room and practically launched himself onto the bed, that it made Blaine's heart ache. "So Mercedes is happy?"

"Of course. Mostly she's glad she doesn't have to keep going to the library every day," he replied with a grin. He laid on his stomach, feet waving rhythmically in the air behind him in such a way that Blaine half-expected there to be a telephone in Kurt's hand while he twirled the cord around his finger. "They're preparing for a lot of backlash and everything, though. I can only imagine what the brain trusts back there are going to do in the face of being told their antiquated backwater attitudes are still illegal six years later." He rolled his eyes but didn't look nearly as cynical as Blaine would have guessed earlier in the year.

Why should he be? Blaine supposed. This was a victory. Sometimes despite all the odds, progress did happen, and of course Kurt should be celebrating that.

"So when do you go back?" he asked quietly. Kurt's feet stopped moving, and he sent a confused, serious look in Blaine's direction. That wasn't what he'd wanted - he wasn't trying to be that kind of guy. He wanted Kurt to be happy - really, he did. He liked seeing Kurt excited and optimistic. It wasn't Kurt's fault that he was going to suffer as a result. He put on a happier face and asked, "Do you need help packing?"

"What? Oh - no, they can't actually...'immediate' doesn't actually mean immediate. Because it's so late in the year, the head of the School Board made a speech that they're beginning the process of reallocating all the buildings and faculty and everything, but they can't start the term only two months before the end of the year. So far no one's said they're going to challenge it. Probably because the Asian school has their own schedule and want to finish out the year, and it's too late to be eligible for any sports championships or anything so no one at McKinley is too enthusiastic about jumping back into the year. Everyone starts together in September. Besides, my tuition here been paid through the end of the year so even if they were starting school again tomorrow, Dad wouldn't let me transfer back after money's been spent like that." Blaine tried not to look as relieved as he felt - Kurt wasn't leaving. He wasn't transferring back, he was staying, he was staying here and would be at Dalton for as long as Blaine would- "Why?" Kurt asked with a sly grin that attempted to feign innocence but ended up looking more devious than anything.

"I wanted to be helpful if you needed it?" Blaine tried.

"Something tells me that your concern over my ability to pack all my belongings into two suitcases wasn't why you asked when I was leaving," Kurt replied pointedly with an expression that clearly said 'How dumb do you think I am, Blaine?'

Kurt had backed him into a corner and seemed almost proud of it. He could try and deny it, but it wouldn't be particularly convincing and his heart wasn't in it. "I..." He hesitated, sitting heavily in his chair. "You know that I'm happy for you - and for Mercedes, and all your friends who can now go back to living their lives. But I can't say that I was happy at the prospect of you leaving," he admitted.

Kurt looked surprised for a moment, and Blaine wasn't sure why. He'd thought he had made his feelings clear in the past, that he did care deeply about Kurt and felt much better when he was around, so it was strange that Kurt would be caught off-guard by the admission. Had it not occurred to Kurt what he would give up by transferring back? That almost seemed more likely...and more offputting.

"I would...really miss you, Kurt," he admitted quietly, and Kurt's eyes got even wider and a bit misty. "If you were leaving. And when I leave."

He knew that his time at Dalton was quickly running out, but he hadn't put too much thought into it; he couldn't. He couldn't start thinking yet about the college letters that were trickling in, about the pressure and the family obligations that would come with it, about the constant questions about his grades and his ambitions and whether he was honouring the family name with his performance. It would mean leaving the place he'd felt at home for four years, all the people he'd grown close to-

And the Warblers.

And Kurt.

Kurt pulled himself slowly into a sitting position and regarding Blaine carefully before venturing, "You know...this doesn't all have to end in June." His tone was cautious, as though he wasn't sure he could even suggest such a thing without Blaine bolting from his own room or never speaking to him again.

"What do you mean?"

"There's no rule that says what we have has to be over as soon as we're not in the same place. Leroy talks about men who found each other when they were in the Navy, and none of them were in the same place very long - for all we know they could have stayed together long after they were deployed. Why would we be any different?"

"Wait - who's Leroy?"

"Rachel's father's lover." Blaine had no idea what to make of that, of how openly and dismissively Kurt said it as though that were common knowledge that everyone just accepted - something he certainly couldn't fathom. He'd known of homosexual men with wives and children who were sexual with men outside of their sacred union, but none who would admit it so freely as Kurt seemed to. "We don't have to go our separate ways and never see each other again just because you graduate this year. Couples date long-distance. Considering how many boys at this school are dating girls they only see every few weekends, it would hardly be that much of a stretch."

"It's different," Blaine pointed out, wishing he didn't have to. He wished Kurt could understand that without being told, that he could get the ways they couldn't be like everyone else.

"Only if we say it is," Kurt replied. He raised an eyebrow in Blaine's direction, and Blaine moved his chair closer to where Kurt was on the bed. "I know it hasn't been that long, and we have plenty of time to...figure everything out. But I would miss you too. I was on the phone with Mercedes, then my dad, then Mercedes again, and at some point it hit me that as excited as I am that Mercedes and I can go back to the life we had planned..."

He trailed off, and Blaine was almost afraid to fill in the end of the sentence. Kurt had realized what transferring back would mean and couldn't be as happy as he otherwise would have been. Kurt felt the same emptiness and near-dread as he did. He doubted that was actually true, but maybe-

"Same here," he replied quietly with a half-smile. It felt like admitting too much, like he was letting Kurt know how afraid he was of the end of the year. How terrified he was about who he would become if he had to go back to being that boy who hated everything he felt. How much it felt like Kurt was the one who made everything okay.

Kurt looked at him for a moment, head tilted just a bit with a curious look, then moved up to sit with his back against the headboard. He glanced at the empty space beside him, then at Blaine, and Blaine understood the invitation. He pushed himself up and moved to sit beside Kurt. "Do you know what you're doing next year?" he asked quietly, hands playing nervously in his lap.

So Kurt was as worried about it as he was. It was oddly comforting and at the same time a huge development. He wasn't sure how, considering he already knew how Kurt felt about him and he knew their affection was mutual, but taking the step from discussing what to do next weekend to what they did next year and beyond...He had wanted to ask before but felt so ridiculous that he was glad Kurt had made the move. "No," he replied softly as he held out his hand. Kurt's palm slipped into place easily, fingers curling around his, and Blaine found himself staring at their intertwined hands as he added, "Letters are starting to come back in, but I don't know yet."

"Where did you apply?"

"Everywhere," Blaine replied with a faint, exasperated smile. "Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, Notre Dame, Columbia-"

"In New York?" Though Kurt's voice was still quiet, there was an excited quality to it as though Kurt were trying so hard to hold back the inner desire to jump up and down; it sounded like Kurt had looked when he arrived at the room.

"Yeah. My father won't be happy to find out I even applied anywhere except Yale and Princeton, but I thought maybe..." Thought maybe what, he wasn't sure. Thought maybe he would abandon all familial and societal obligations and responsibilities to turn down an Ivy League legacy and follow dreams he wasn't sure what to do with?

"You could go to New York," Kurt filled in.

"Maybe. I hear it's amazing. Broadway alone..." He had thought about it when he'd applied, of being able to just go over and see shows. Watch the magic up there onstage. And he knew there were a lot of places to sing in New York, a lot of small clubs and bars and places he could go if he needed to. He remembered enjoying the little bar Kurt's friends went to, how good it felt to just let it all out up there and be applauded by a room full of mostly strangers. That could be enough to get by on, he supposed, even if he had to grow up soon.

"No, I meant...you can go to New York. And then in a year I'll be there too."

Blaine looked over in confusion. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"I'm going to New York when I'm done with high school. I've planned on it since I was six and heard 'Give My Regards to Broadway' for the first time. And now especially..." His smile turned just a little shy as he squeezed Blaine's hand and rested his head on Blaine's shoulder. The weight felt nice, and being able to smell Kurt's shampoo and feel the soft, fluffy hair against his own neck felt almost luxurious, like a privilege he hadn't been allowed to indulge in before. In a way he hadn't; before the smell of Kurt had been something illicit, hidden, something he could never tell a soul, but Kurt was right here and knew how close they were and something about that simple fact made everything just the tiniest bit brighter.

"Why now?" he asked quietly.

Kurt didn't answer the question but let out a soft, contented sigh. "It would be incredible," he stated confidently, but his voice was quiet. "We would have an apartment - I would decorate, of course, I have it all planned already. And we would have an entire circle of creative, talented, interesting friends - all the beautiful people from magazines, you know? Musicians and people on Broadway and of course the best of the fashion world. The parties would be legendary, with grand tales of people's adventures and run-ins with famous photographers. The clothes alone would be worth seeing." Blaine had never thought a party could sound good before - he was used to them and tired of them beyond what he could express. Parties were exhausting. They left his jaw aching from fake-smiling too long, his head itching from the extra hair product to hold his curls down and in place all night, his shoulders sore from standing so stiffly for so many hours. But the way Kurt described it, it sounded wonderful.

Or, he amended, even if the party itself was like everything he'd spent a lifetime trying to avoid, at least Kurt's marvel at it all sounded wonderful.

If only things worked like that. If only parties were more than a few dozen people all trying to simultaneously boost their own egos while drinking enough to keep themselves from realizing how dull it all was. If only things could be as joyous as Kurt thought they should be.

Though Kurt had been right about other things. At least a little bit.

"We would sing duets together," Kurt added, lifting his head to look at him.

The idea of singing with anyone else had never seemed half as appealing as singing to Kurt seemed in that moment. "'Baby It's Cold Outside'?" he suggested, unable to keep the nervous but genuine smile off his face.

Kurt beamed for a moment, then caught himself and pulled his grin back into a more manageable level. "That would be a must at our annual Christmas Soiree," he replied. "We'll sound great together."

"We already do," Blaine pointed out. If they hadn't, it wouldn't have scared him so much. He could never resist Kurt when he sang.

"And after everyone leaves..." Kurt began, hesitating for a moment.

"Yeah?"

"...nevermind."

Now he was intrigued. "What?"

Kurt shook his head and started to pull his hand away. "It's ridiculous, Blaine, don't-"

"No, c'mon." Blaine caught his hand before he could move far, and Kurt looked up at him, eyes wide and a little nervous as though he was trying so hard to put up a wall but couldn't build it as fast as it kept crumbling back down. "After everyone leaves, what?" he prompted gently.

"I just have this fantasy where we'll...sit around in our immaculate living room reading and listening to music. I know it's stupid, but I can't help it. Whenever I shove it away, it comes back." He tried to sound as though he didn't care, but his eyes gave him away.

"It's not stupid," Blaine assured him. "It sounds..."

Simple. Uncomplicated. Quiet.

Ordinary.

Impossible.

"...like a really great fantasy," he replied quietly, dropping his gaze. If he kept looking at Kurt's earnest face, he would start wanting things he couldn't have again. He'd been able to believe that maybe some of this wasn't wrong and maybe not all of it was going to end in disaster, but there was still nowhere in the world that could happen. No place in the universe that the two of them could stay like this. They needed to grow up eventually, and sooner was probably better than later. The longer they stayed like this the more he wanted - and not just touching or kissing. Those were primal and appeared in quick flashes of heat and want. The harder desires to dismiss were things like Kurt described - being around each other. Being close. Talking together and laughing and holding hands and singing duets.

"It can be real," Kurt replied, his voice earnest as he seemed to understand what was making Blaine pull back. "If we want it to be."

"Kurt...I want it to be, you have no idea how much. But there's nowhere we could go that would make what you're' talking about possible."

"Sure there is. If Rachel's father can do it in Ohio, then we can certainly do it in New York. Leroy said to find places there were others like us - New York has homosexuals, Blaine, apparently in droves if the articles I've found are any indication. Plus the number of sailors alone - I've seen pictures. There are bound to be more of us there."

The thing was, he wanted to believe it. He wanted to believe Kurt was right. He wanted to think that maybe things could be safe somewhere outside his room, if only because he was going to have to leave eventually - they both were. But the idea of being able to live somewhere and be open about how he felt...even if Kurt was right about the fact that he wasn't indeed sick, society certainly still viewed them that way. There was nowhere that wasn't the case.

But the picture Kurt painted was so nice...

"Tell me more about the parties," he said quietly, settling back against the headboard.

"Really." Kurt seemed skeptical, as though he wasn't sure he had just gotten his way or not, and Blaine couldn't entirely blame him. He wasn't wholly convinced, so Kurt hadn't won yet, but maybe...

...maybe if he let himself believe that Kurt believed it, that would be enough of a first step. It had worked with the illness component, hadn't it?

"Yeah," he replied, and he smiled faintly as he felt Kurt's hand slip into his again. Kurt's cheek leaned against his shoulder as he began to describe the decorating scheme he had already selected and promised to bring pictures the next time he went home for the weekend.

Maybe if he listened long enough, he could forget it was only a dream. Either way, right now, he had Kurt for the next few months and that was worth holding on to.

* * * * *

As far as dates went, Kurt, concluded, this one had all the makings of disaster.

Rachel had been frustrated for several weeks now about the lack of time she got to spend with her boyfriend, however many exaggerated winks she gave when she said the word 'boyfriend,' notwithstanding, and at Blaine's urging Kurt had acquiesced. Yes, he had said, they could go out on Friday. But since the court had issued its ruling earlier in the week, Blaine had seemed much more attached than he used to. Not quite to the point of being dubbed clingy, but much more eager to spend time together as if he had suddenly realized there was an enormous clock ticking over their heads and he didn't want to waste a second. Not that Kurt objected to the extra time and the attention that came with it - spending the afternoon pressed against Blaine's bed while very thoroughly exploring every millimeter of Blaine's mouth was certainly a worthwhile use of time.

Sometimes he caught himself thinking about it during class -on his back, Blaine staring down at him with this expression like he was the most incredible thing Blaine had ever seen before lowering himself and resting most of his weight while they kissed. There was something so amazing about that moment when it happened, something that made him feel so secure and happy and hopeful that it made his chest feel like it might explode and had him letting out quiet happy sighs whenever he thought about it. His French teacher was starting to get annoyed with him.

So he certainly wasn't going to turn down the opportunity to spend time with Blaine on Friday. He liked Rachel more than he ever would have expected to, but he had priorities and she lacked a few key features to ever become one. She, of course, hadn't taken the news very well and had pointed out that it wasn't as though the two of them needed to be alone, anyway. After all, plenty of people went out with more than one person in an evening. When Kurt pointed out, in a hushed hiss with a furtive glance around the hallway to ensure that no one was listening, that very rarely were those situations like what they were discussing here, Rachel had suggested a compromise:

Kurt and Blaine could go out. Rachel would chaperon.

His immediate response was no. (Actually, to be entirely accurate, his immediate response was to ask whether the Blue Waltz perfume had seeped into her brain and caused permanent damage.) They couldn't be seen together anyway, they certainly didn't need to con a friend into the appearance of behaving the way that he had been stuck chaperoning Finn and Quinn for so many years. Everyone knew chaperons were purely for the value of adults who might see them, and if adults saw him and Blaine together that would be an even bigger problem.

Undeterred, Rachel suggested a more elaborate ruse: Blaine would be their chaperon. No one gave the boy and the chaperon strange looks or assumed the worst, after all, and clearly that would give them the opportunity to go out and enjoy an evening without anyone being any the wiser and while still upholding his portion of the bargain. After all, their relationship wasn't just to provide him with cover, she was supposed to get something out of it too. Just as Kurt was contemplating the fact that Rachel might have a valid point, she had offered her most ridiculous suggestion to date.

"So Blaine can chaperon us to Breadstix."

"Are you out of your mind?" he had hissed. "You don't take a chaperon to dinner where everyone in town can see you and report back, you take the chaperon to the places where teenagers traditionally make out in the back seat of their cars. No one's going to think he's making sure we don't dive across the table and start necking - they're going to assume you're on a date with two boys. Do you know what that makes you?"

"Popular?" Rachel had suggested.

"Not if it's at the same time!"

The car was not actually that much more crowded as they pulled down the dark back road, but with Rachel there it felt like there was no room left in the vehicle. It felt cramped, awkward, and formal. Blaine sat stiffly in his seat, driving in silence with a permanent half-fake smile as though the addition of a third person in the car meant having to pretend to be something he wasn't even if that third person knew exactly what was going on.

Rachel was in the midst of an animated retelling of what was going on with the reallocation of teachers - namely where her mother was going to be teaching now and that no, no one knew who would take leadership of McKinley's glee club because while Mr. Schuester did have seniority and could certainly recognize talent when it was in front of him even if he did occasionally go too far out of his way to include even those members of the club who lacked her training, her mother did have a proven record of success with a myriad of different types of performers which should give her the edge - when Kurt nudged Blaine gently. "Relax," he whispered. "I realize she won't stop talking, but you can still pretend it's just the two of us."

He knew it wasn't entirely the problem. After all, Blaine had been far more standoffish than this when they came out here the first time, and it took seeing that they were safe and unobserved before he began to relax even a little. Blaine was making great strides, even if he wasn't quite there yet; he just needed patience.

The more he saw of Blaine when they were alone, the more he ached for that side of Blaine to be able to come out all the time. Around others, Blaine seemed almost standoffish and fake in comparison to the boy he saw when they were alone in his dorm - sweet to the point of corniness, increasingly expressive and eager, with the most adorable uncertain smile who would look at Kurt like he was something incredible. He had been drawn in by the Blaine everyone on-campus regarded with respect, but it was this other Blaine he really adored.

When they got to New York, he assured himself with a frisson of excitement at the thought. It was a defense mechanism because no one else was accepting of people like them yet, not in Ohio. But once they found a safe place, that was who Blaine could be all the time.

He hadn't thought the fantasy could get any better, but with that addition - and Blaine's eagerness to hear about it a few days earlier - it was.

By sheer coincidence, the movie for the night was "On the Town." To be entirely honest, the drive-in could have been playing "Jet Pilot" and he would have come here; that the film was one all three of them would actually enjoy was simply a perk. It didn't escape Kurt's notice that, while Blaine still insisted on parking in the last row, he didn't look nearly as nervous as he had last time. It was progress, and he would take it gladly.

"While I have to admit I was skeptical about this place - the road out here does have a kind of ax-murderer feel to it - it's surprisingly well-populated," Rachel said, shrugging out of her jacket in the back seat.

"It's not exactly the one in Lima, but there are advantages to that," Kurt replied. While Rachel was apparently more knowledgeable than most on the subject, he wasn't about to be the one to point out to her that there were few if any young women milling around in the lot or at the snack bar. She would likely figure it out on her own anyway; to him it seemed like the most obvious thing in the world.

"Should we switch seats now?" she asked, and Blaine turned to look back at her.

"Why?" he asked, glancing at Kurt with confusion as if to ask 'what is she talking about?'

"Well, if I'm your chaperon," she said with an exaggerated wink, "then I assumed you would want free reign of the back seat. Don't worry, I won't look in the rearview mirror," she added with a grin that made Kurt want to roll his eyes. He managed to, by some miracle, restrain himself.

"We're not necking in front of you, Rachel," Kurt replied evenly. Blaine looked panicked, as though he wasn't sure whether to toss Rachel from the car and speed off or hop out himself and begin running as far as humanly possible from this place.

"Behind me, technically," she replied.

"No."

"What else do people do on a date?" she asked. "Not that I have much experience."

"Neither do I, but so far there's a lot of watching the movie and not necking in the backseat," Kurt replied with a look that told her to drop it. Blaine seemed uncomfortable, and if Rachel caused what progress there had been to vanish, so help him-

"A lot of dinners," Blaine said almost out of the blue, and both turned to look at him. "Most of the Warblers don't really know how to interact with girls so they spend the whole night over by the jukebox while the girls sit at the table and talk about how irritating it is, which is probably why only a few of them have girlfriends."

"That does not surprise me," Kurt stated. "Seriously, I need to set up a dating-etiquette school. I've been on exactly one real date and even I know better than that. Honestly."

"But if you can't go to dinner..." Rachel said slowly, as though she wasn't sure if she could say such a thing. When neither burst in to contradict her, she continued, "...what do you do? If you don't go out and you don't make out in the backseat, what are two boys supposed to do?"

There was silence for a moment. It was a question Kurt honestly didn't have an answer to, even as hard as he'd been trying to come up with one, and when he looked to Blaine for suggestions he found the boy staring very intently at the top of the dashboard. "So," he said brightly, clapping his hands together as he changed the subject. "Who wants popcorn? It may mean an extra half hour on my nightly skincare regimen to counteract the butter and grease, but even I can say it's not really a movie without snacks."

"You didn't answer," Rachel pointed out.

"You're right, I didn't."

"Why not?" Blaine asked, looking at him.

Kurt's eyes narrowed, not sure he understood. "Why do you suddenly want to continue this conversation?"

"Because I have no idea what we're supposed to do next and was hoping you did."

The openness, the frankness of Blaine's admission of ignorance, took him by surprise, but he concealed it well for the most part. "She's the one who has a father with a lover and a house," he pointed out, nodding in Rachel's direction.

"I only see them a couple times a year. Should I set up another dinner?"

Kurt couldn't deny the little surge of joy at the idea, but he noticed Blaine looked nervous. While he couldn't be sure, he guessed it was probably at the idea of anyone else - even others like them - knowing about him. But it was just because he didn't understand yet. Once he met Hiram and Leroy (especially Leroy...though on second thought, he might relate more to Hiram), Blaine would get it. "Maybe," he replied noncommittally. "Care to get some refreshments?" he added, not taking his eyes off Blaine even though he was clearly talking to Rachel.

"Sure."

"Okay." When she didn't move, he added, "Would you give us a minute?"

"What? Oh!" She grinned and gave another wink, which Kurt was starting to think was either creepy or a sign of a latent severe eye disorder, then clambered out of the car and headed toward the concession stand, her skirt like a beacon even in the low light of the drive-in.

Honestly. He was starting to wonder if he would have a worse reputation for dating someone who dressed like that than he would for dating Blaine. All attempts to help fix her wardrobe were proving fruitless, in no small part because she insisted it would be too obvious if her date helped her dress first. He tried to get rid of offensive items as he found them, but sometimes there were just too many to count, and no matter how many suggestions and how much coaching he gave on the phone before an evening out, she managed to select the worst things. Tonight's skirt was white with pink lace and a pink shirt with puffy sleeves. Did she try to dress like a child on her way to First Communion class?

"Are you okay?" Kurt asked quietly once she was out of the car.

"What? Oh - yeah," Blaine replied quickly. "It's just..."

"...strange having someone else on our date with us?" he asked with a faint smile. "Believe me, I know. I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you. It's just easier sometimes to work in the direction of what she wants - this should buy us the next few weekends. Either that or she'll think she gets to come on every date, I'm still figuring it out." Blaine laughed softly at that, which Kurt considered a victory. After a moment's silence as neither was sure what to say, he added, "You should really meet her father. It helped a lot, seeing..." he stared out the front windshield again as he trailed off. "Even though they can't be open with the rest of the world, they have a home and a life. It's like this. Or like in your room."

Blaine nodded a little. "That might be good," he agreed. "I don't know how to adapt any of the traditional hallmarks to our...situation."

"Why do they have to?" Kurt asked. "Who cares? I mean, for one thing, a lot of them don't fit. All rules of chivalry, let alone dance and about two thirds of etiquette rules, are based on a man doing one thing and a woman doing another."

What he wasn't saying was that he wanted them to fit. He wanted things to be able to fit into the categories almost as much as Blaine did, probably - for one thing, all of those were necessary for parties, and he certainly wanted those. For another, it felt...he wasn't sure how to put words to it, and if he did he wasn't sure Blaine was ready for that conversation. Instead he stared out as he watched the other men stare at each other. A man leaned against the hood of his car, arms crossed. A man walked past on his way from his car to the restrooms and stared at the car-leaner as he passed, which seemed odd - while the man looked oddly casually leaning there, the movie hadn't started yet and it was a nice night. Another man passed and, again, stared; this time the staring was mutual and intense. It looked like Puckerman versus one of the other jocks, which meant no doubt someone was going to throw a punch.

No violence came; instead the man with the car gave a quick jerk of a nod, pushed himself up in a smooth motion, and followed the starer.

"Here we go," Rachel announced brightly as she opened the car door and attempted to climb in without spilling her bounty. "What did I miss?"

"Nothing," they replied, and Blaine did his best to flash her a smile as he took the pop she offered him.

* * * * *

"I can't wait to be there," Rachel sighed dreamily as they stared at the images of New York on the screen. She rested her chin on the top of the passenger seat.

"Me neither," Kurt replied, having slid across the bench seat to be closer to Blaine. Their hands weren't intertwined, but they were touching almost constantly which Kurt could accept as a reasonable substitute - for now. At mention of being in New York, he flashed Blaine a grin.

"I have it all planned out already. I've been going through my mom's guidebook from when she visited in the hopes of becoming a Broadway star...before ultimately returning to marry my dad."

Kurt turned to shoot her a look. "Better check your musicals again. Your mother's pre-war guidebook will do you about as much good as Chip's grandfather's did. Does it even have the Museum of Modern Art? Everything changes fast there. I'll bet most of the buildings in this movie aren't even the same anymore, and it's only a decade old." He loved that idea - the constant reinvention of it all. It was the only place in the world where the city changed as fast as the fashion, and it was thrilling to think of living somewhere so dynamic - unlike their never-changing cow town where the only progress came by judicial fiat. Progress could be made so quickly in a place like that, in so many ways.

It was perfect.

"We'll just have to rely on Blaine, since he'll be there a year early," he stated. "He can be our Hildy. Only in better clothes and without that hat."

Blaine hesitated a moment. On one hand, he still wasn't as sold on the idea as Kurt was. But he did make it sound so good, and the movie made the city look like such a great place to lose one's self for a day, that he had a hard time saying no. "Deal," he replied, and Kurt beamed. "Then you can...Come up to my place," he sang quietly near Kurt's ear.

Kurt's eyes widened and his smile faded into something more caught off-guard than purely pleased. "Sounds perfect," he said on a sigh, more air than sound.

It did, Blaine could agree. Maybe.

* * * * *

Though he was breaking every rule he'd been taught, indulging in all sorts of things he'd believed were signs of absolute mental decay and depravity, and falling in love with a boy who seemed to want him to proudly announce just how little control over himself he had when it came to giving in to his desires, Blaine did have to give himself credit for one thing:

It took an inordinate amount of self-control to lie above Kurt like this, pressed against him from mid-torso to feet as he slowly kissed the soft, perfectly-white skin of the boy's neck, and not give in completely. Especially with the soft, pleasured sounds Kurt made when he did it.

It felt too good, touching Kurt. Sometimes Blaine genuinely felt like it was an addiction - he would see Kurt across the room and want to walk over just to have an excuse to be close to him even if there were a hundred people around. If they were next to each other on the sofa in the Commons, all he could think of was the lack of distance between them and how desperately he wanted to take Kurt's hand or kiss his neck or run his fingers through Kurt's hair.

And that was all far more appropriate than a lot of his thoughts.

The dreams were back with a vengeance and left him waking with a strange sense of curiosity, pleasure, and nausea, as though he couldn't decide whether they were amazing or still the source of anguish. Even though he had stopped resisting how he felt for Kurt, there was still an element of danger to them. After all, when he'd left Kurt like that-...it was a dream-fueled haze of desire and unrestrained lust (God, even the word felt disgusting). But this...lying here with him and feeling so many of the same wants creeping in - a little less frantic but no less urgent - felt so different.

And if the dreams weren't a sign of being crazy...was there any reason to hate them other than the lingering reaction left from five years of trying unsuccessfully to banish them and be normal?

And from what he could gather from the other boys at school, desires like this cropping up during extended necking sessions with the person you were dating was neither unusual nor problematic...except when the girl got upset because it was pushing too far and therefore insulting to her virtue or something - he wasn't sure he really understood that part. Kurt didn't seem to be having that problem in any event, if the soft moans or the way his arms and hands tightened around Blaine's shoulders and in the back of his hair were any indication.

"Blaine?"

"Mm?" he mumbled against Kurt's neck. He smelled sweeter at this distance than he did sitting side-by-side, and Blaine wondered if it was because he could smell more of Kurt's skin than of all the products and aftershave and cologne. With how soft it was and all the care Kurt took with his skin, it wouldn't have surprised him if his skin really did smell like that now.

"I, um."

At Kurt's hesitance, Blaine pulled back quickly. "What? I'm sorry, did I-...was that too-"

"No," Kurt assured him. "No, that was fine. I just...I need to tell you something."

Those words, as it turned out, felt dangerous no matter who a person was dating. "Okay," he said slowly, sitting back. He tried to hide his nervousness by adjusting his shirt collar, but it ended up making him feel more fidgety.

"I wasn't being entirely honest earlier," Kurt admitted quietly. "I do care."

He tried to search his memory for what conversations they'd had where Kurt had said he didn't care about something and was coming up empty. "What do you mean?"

"At the movie last night, when we were talking about the fact that rules don't apply to us the same way, that we don't know how to adapt them to our..."

"Yeah," Blaine nodded, remembering the conversation.

"I said that I didn't care, but I do. I know it's silly, I know trying to cobble together some semblance of ritual probably seems ridiculous in light of how many rules we're breaking that I honestly don't care about. But there's something about them that makes everything feel so much more normal. Like even though we're not like them, we still are. It makes this feel like something special instead of like we're just best friends. Not that I don't value our friendship-" Kurt amended quickly, reaching out to grab Blaine's hand. "Because I do. I guess I just need to know this is...different."

Of course it was different. Friendships didn't have six months of anguish attached to them because friendships weren't a sign of mental illness - the lack of friendships sometimes were, or a mistaken belief that friendships existed with creatures that didn't exist or something along those lines, hallucination of friends and the like, but friendships among boys were completely acceptable. If this were just friendship, they could be open about who they were to one another and go to movies together and go to dinner in public and no one would think otherwise.

Nothing about their relationship was remotely like a friendship except inasmuch as they were also friends. At least, he thought they were. He told Kurt more than he'd told any of his previous friends, and he sought him out the way Wes sought out David when there was a problem. Maybe that was just an inherent part of relationships such as these, though, he wasn't really sure.

Instead he offered, "Well, I don't do any of this with friends." He paused a moment then joked, "Don't tell me you do."

Kurt shot him a look. "My friends are girls, I should hope not."

"Then...?" When Kurt didn't explain further, he added, "I"m not sure I understand what you're looking for, Kurt. I...you know the rules we have to-"

"Oh, I do," Kurt assured him. "I'm not necessarily trying to pull you further out of your comfort zone, either, even though I don't think it would kill you nearly as much as you seem to think. I guess I just want...part of that. The rituals. The rites of passage - there are stages of relationships for heterosexuals. There are ways to tell when a boy and a girl go from flirtation to dating, then steadies. There are dances and dates and the girl wearing the boy's ring. Why shouldn't we get that? Why shouldn't we be allowed to be like them?"

"You know why," Blaine pointed out quietly.

"I do know why," Kurt replied. "It doesn't mean I like it. It doesn't mean it's fair. Why shouldn't I be able to wear your ring?"

"For one thing, I don't have one," Blaine pointed out. "Dalton doesn't do them."

Kurt's eyes lit up. "No," he said slowly. "But there is something Dalton does do." When Blaine had no idea what Kurt was talking about, he explained, "Pins."

"Pins?"

"At college, that's what the boys do instead of class rings - they give girls their fraternity pins, right? We have pins."

"Kurt, I can't just give you my pin - it's part of the required uniform for competition and certain other events-"

"I can give you mine," Kurt replied. His eyes shone eagerly in a way that always made Blaine want to give Kurt whatever he was asking for, but he still didn't understand.

"What would be the point in that? They look exactly the same."

"Which is why it's perfect," Kurt stated excitedly. "While yes, a girl getting a ring or a pin from a boy tells the world they're going steady, obviously you wouldn't be comfortable with that. But no one would have to know...except us." Kurt sat up on his knees, almost bouncing as he talked about the plan he obviously thought was brilliant. "We would know," he added, his voice a little more serious as he met Blaine's eyes.

He still wasn't sure he understood why it was so important to Kurt, but it was obvious that it was. And he did have a point - no one in the Warblers would be able to tell the difference between their two pins, even if his did look a bit duller from years of wear. There wasn't enough difference for anyone to notice, let alone comment on or draw a conclusion from. But it was still a gesture, and they would know about it. He would know that was Kurt's pin on his jacket, that his pin was on Kurt's, and that it meant something.

Kurt was right - it did feel refreshingly normal.

He nodded a little. " Bring yours next time you come up here," he requested, and Kurt positively beamed before leaning in to kiss him hard, fingers tangling in the back of his hair again. After a few awkward moments of trying to get Kurt's legs out from under him and both of them shifted back to being in line with the bed, he settled over Kurt again, a warmth settling over him as he felt Kurt's cheek nuzzle just under his jaw and up along the side of his neck.

Kurt knew how crazy that drove him, even if no one else would ever know. That meant something, too.