"Rachel?" Blaine asked when they arrived at their house, looking over at his sister in the passenger seat hesitantly. "You're not actually thinking of following Artie's 'advice', right?"

Rachel shifted in her seat. "I don't know," she confessed. "It's easy for you to say – you and Kurt both have about the same amount of experience in the matter, whereas Mercedes has… well, if she's speaking the truth, she's gone all the way already. I don't need another disadvantage here."

"You've always said you wanted to wait until you're, what, twenty-five?" Blaine remarked. "Artie won't be the last person to tell you to go out and live a little. Of course, if you… think you're ready, then go for it. Just don't come and tell me all about it afterwards, okay?"

"Finn's already done it, too," Rachel said, and Blaine wasn't sure if she'd even been listening to what he was saying. "He probably wants to do it again some time soon, and if – "

"I'm sure he'd understand," Blaine said, and when Rachel's face lit up, he hastily added, "if you wanted to wait. I don't know how he'd feel if he found out you just wanted to have sex with him because of a role."

"You think?" Rachel frowned.

Blaine frowned right back. "Seriously?"

Rachel rolled her eyes. "Fine. I'll think about it, at least. As for you, you'd better hope I forget to bring up the issue again during rehearsal, because I'm sure Artie would love to badger you and Kurt about it a little more."

She skipped out of the car after that, hastily running up to the front door. It took Blaine a couple of seconds to process what she'd said, but then he, too, jumped out of the car. "You wouldn't dare!" he called after Rachel, who, by now, had already opened the door and was walking in.

Now, she turned around to face him. "Are you sure of that?" she asked, smiling wickedly.

Blaine took a moment to gather his thoughts. "I don't see how you would gain anything from that," he said. "How would that help you? Besides, what exactly did I do to deserve that kind of retaliation? What did Kurt do?"

Rachel visibly deflated. "You mean besides not getting his act together and asking you out already?" she asked, trying to make it sound like a joke. She sighed. "I just want my best friend back."

Finally closing the front door behind him, Blaine walked past her, towards the stairs. "You really should've thought about that before."

o-o-o-o-o

Naturally, Rachel couldn't stay away again, so Blaine had to postpone doing his homework because Rachel wouldn't leave him alone.

"How about you serenade him first?" she asked. "Or, maybe you could – "

Still, that didn't mean that Blaine had to listen to what Rachel was saying. She'd been spewing ideas at him to ask Kurt out and/or kiss him for the past ten minutes, but Blaine found something wrong with each and everyone single one. Besides, he'd already been over them all more than once already.

"You could also go skydiving, in secret," Rachel suggested. "And then you could kiss him while you're coming down and then ask him out! He'll be so shocked that he'll have to say yes!"

"Rachel, that's ridiculous." Admittedly, it was one of the few ideas Blaine hadn't considered yet. He didn't really have to, though. There wasn't much to consider. "I don't think either of us would ever do such a thing. Besides, I'm still underage, am I even allowed to go skydiving without parental consent? And I don't really want to shock him into saying yes." There were probably even more things wrong with the idea, but this was enough for now.

Rachel scoffed. "You do realise that you've only got a few days left before we have to start practising the kissing, right?"

"Do you really think I've forgotten?" Blaine asked, sending her a pointed look.

"It seems so," Rachel shot back. "It's as if you've given up."

"I haven't given up," Blaine muttered.

"You sound close to it," Rachel retorted, and Blaine would've made a somewhat scathing remark if it wasn't for the fact that that was exactly when his phone rang.

He took one glance at the screen before shooing Rachel out of his room. "It's Kurt," he hissed at her, and she smirked. While she did walk out and close the door, Blaine was certain that she was still standing there, trying to listen in. Finally answering his phone, he tried not to sound too happy when he greeted Kurt with a simple, "Hey!"

"Hi." Kurt sounded a little apprehensive. "Look, I'm sorry about what happened during rehearsal. I had no idea Brittany turned Artie into someone who goes around telling everyone to have, you know… sex."

Blaine let out a long breath. "That's fine," he replied. "I don't… blame you or anything. Let's just forget it happened, okay?"

"Thank you." Kurt was clearly relieved to hear that. "We're still on for tomorrow, right?"

For a moment, Blaine was confused. "Tomorrow? Oh, yeah, of course. We're driving over after school, right?"

"Yeah, unless you want to skip or something," Kurt replied. "They're rehearsing most of the Sharks' scenes tomorrow, so we don't necessarily have to be present for that anyway."

Blaine nodded. "Tomorrow after school's great."

They continued talking for a little longer until Kurt had to go make dinner. After they'd hung up, there was a loud crash outside Blaine's bedroom door, and he suddenly remembered that Rachel had been conspicuously silent during his and Kurt's conversation. Leaping up from his seat, he opened his bedroom door, only to see Rachel's door close.

With a sigh, he walked over, and knocked. "Rachel?" he asked. "What are you – "

"Sorry, sorry," she called out, before throwing the door open. "I wasn't… listening in, or anything."

"Right." Like Blaine believed that.

"I wasn't," Rachel continued. "I wanted to, but you don't speak very loudly when you're on the phone, you know that?"

"That's more than I can say about you," Blaine told her. "I can hear your phone conversations while I'm in my own room and both our doors are closed."

"Oh, very nice, Blaine," Rachel said. "What did Kurt want? Did he ask – "

"Nothing that concerns you," Blaine evaded. "I'll go do my homework now."

Hopefully, he would still know how to behave around Kurt tomorrow after school, because otherwise, spending those three to four hours in the car with him would be very awkward.

o-o-o-o-o

Fortunately, there wasn't any awkwardness the next day. They had, after all, agreed not to mention the previous day's rehearsal, and maybe Blaine had been overreacting before. Kurt still didn't seem to have a clue about the fact that Blaine liked him, so it wasn't as if that made everything weird all of a sudden.

"So, you have the tickets?" Kurt asked, glancing sideways at Blaine for a split second.

"Of course." Blaine patted his bag. "I hope we've got enough for all of them."

"Otherwise we'll just figure something out." Kurt reached for his coffee – that they'd just had to get at the Lima Bean before leaving – right when Blaine moved to fiddle with the radio, so their hands brushed. Blaine sat stock-still, not knowing what to do now. Of course, this wasn't the first time they'd touched, but he hadn't seen it coming and even if he had, Kurt's touches still set something off inside him that he never seemed to be able to get used to.

After a few seconds, he finally dared to look at Kurt, only to see that his hand was frozen as well. Kurt himself, however, was anything but, which was probably for the best, seeing as he was still driving.

Blaine coughed awkwardly. "Right," he muttered quietly, as he reached down to hand Kurt his coffee (which earned him a grateful smile). After that, he focused on the radio again, trying to find a station they could both sing along with.

Once he was satisfied with his choice, he sat back, and Kurt rolled his eyes at him as he handed Blaine his coffee back. "Really, Blaine? Pink?"

Blaine simply raised an eyebrow challengingly, trying to coax Kurt to sing along. "You're so mean, when you talk." With an exasperated sigh (and a victorious grin from Blaine), Kurt started humming along as well.

o-o-o-o-o

The Warblers welcomed them very enthusiastically, and Blaine was relieved to see that not even Sebastian's very obvious presence put a damper on Kurt's mood – yet, at least. It didn't make Blaine less apprehensive, though, when Sebastian approached him while Kurt was chatting with Jeff and David at the other side of the room.

"Thanks for the tickets, Blaine," Sebastian told him, smirking. "I just happen to be very busy next week, so I don't think I can make it any time except for opening night. By the way – you're still very welcome to join me in my plans on the nights you're not performing. I'm sure I can fit you in somewhere."

Blaine rolled his eyes. It had been decided a few days earlier that Blaine and Mercedes would get the opening night, something Rachel hadn't been happy about at all. "I already told you, Sebastian, that I'm not interested," he said. "Why are you even doing this now? Kurt's not around to hear you. We could, you know, have an actual conversation for once and he would be none the wiser."

Sebastian shrugged. "Not really interested in your so-called 'actual conversations', Blaine, sorry. Besides, I meant it when I said you're hot. If you ever decide that you are interested, just let me know." Blaine wasn't sure how he was supposed to feel about that, but at least Sebastian walked away after that.

"You still haven't told him?" That was Nick, nudging Blaine's shoulder. When Blaine shook his head, Nick asked, "Haven't you already started rehearsing those kisses?"

"They saved that for last," Blaine replied. "Probably because they know none of us are fully comfortable kissing each other. I'm sure that if it had been Finn and Rachel, they would've had them kiss in every kissing scene from the beginning."

"They wouldn't have to," Nick commented. "They already seem to practise that more than necessary, don't they?" Blaine couldn't fault that logic.

o-o-o-o-o

When the two boys entered McKinley the next day, something instantly seemed off. They didn't think much of it, however, until they walked from Kurt's locker to Blaine's locker and Rachel was suddenly blocking their way.

"Hey," she said, more subdued than Blaine was used to. "I had to give you these from Ms Pillsbury." She held out identical slips of paper. "It's about rehearsal today. They don't want us there all at the same time, but Kurt and I will go first, and Blaine, you and Mercedes will be rehearsing half an hour later than normally."

"Okay." It was obvious that Kurt still didn't want to be anywhere near Rachel. "I'll – "

"I pulled out of the race," Rachel blurted out before he could continue. "I told coach Beiste yesterday that I will no longer be running for senior class president."

Kurt blinked at her, before turning to Blaine with a confused expression on his face. Blaine, however, was just as shocked.

"Are you serious?" he therefore asked. "Why didn't you say anything? We live together, Rach."

"I know," Rachel said. "But I knew you'd tell Kurt before I would get the chance to do so if I did. I just – I'm sorry I decided to run against you, Kurt. That was – I just want my best friend back and… it would've been awful for the show as well, wouldn't it?"

She then all but threw herself at Kurt, pulling him into a hug (reminding Blaine, once more, of how nice Kurt's hugs were). When the bell rang not two seconds later, Kurt let go and said, "It's fine. We'll talk about this later, okay?"

o-o-o-o-o

That afternoon, Blaine was sitting in the choir room, waiting for it to be time to go to rehearsal. One look at the clock told him it'd be a while; Rachel and Kurt had only just started. When his phone beeped, indicating that he had a new text message, he expected it to be from Mercedes, asking where he was. Thus, when he saw that it was from Rachel, he frowned. Hastily opening it, his eyes nearly fell out of their sockets when he read the message.

They're making us rehearse the kissing scenes today! Hurry!

Hurry? What for? Clearly, his feet had a different idea, and before he knew it, Blaine was out of the choir room, sprinting towards the auditorium, where he burst through the doors right when the directors sat down and Kurt and Rachel were taking their positions on stage.

"Wait!" Blaine yelled before he realised it. "Stop! I – "

"Blaine?" Ms Pillsbury said. "What are you doing here? Didn't you get the note?"

"Yes, I did," Blaine replied, slightly out of breath. "I just – Kurt. I – " Kurt was staring at him from where he was standing on stage, while Rachel was smiling knowingly. Gathering all the courage he could find, Blaine slowly started walking down the stairs towards the stage. It was hardly an ideal situation (especially since they had an audience, which was made up of Blaine's sister, two teachers and a seemingly sex-obsessed classmate), but it was clear that he didn't really have a choice now. "Kurt," he repeated as he walked on stage. "I was going to – I wanted – but – "

By now, he was standing right in front of his best friend – the boy he had been head over heels in love with for the past two years but never mentioned anything of the sort to. "Blaine – " Kurt started, but Blaine shook his head.

"I just – I never – " he started, but Kurt didn't let him finish either. Instead, he leaned forward just slightly and pressed his lips against Blaine's firmly. Blaine's mind started swimming. Oh, god. They were kissing, weren't they? Kurt was – Kurt was kissing him. He was kissing Kurt. And it was everything he'd ever dreamed of and more.