New York. Blaine had finally been in the city of his dreams for officially 5 days now, and he loved every minute of it.

His classes started today, which he was ecstatic about. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, he had College Algebra, History, and his second English; on Tuesdays and Thursdays, he had Harmony and Counterpoint 1 and History of European Music. He could already tell that Tuesdays and Thursdays would be his favorite because it was just his music classes (plus he had History of European Music with Kurt). Unfortunately, since it was Wednesday, he had to go to all of his basics.

The day passed in a blur, all of his classes just as boring as he thought they'd be (except English, because Blaine was such a secret bookworm). He met up with Kurt for lunch and then they agreed to meet back at his dorm later that afternoon when they were both done. Kurt's day ended at 3pm but Blaine's ended an hour before that so he'd had plenty of time to get back and be there when Kurt came over.

Blaine greeted his roommate as he entered their room. "Hey, Carter."

Carter glanced over at Blaine briefly before returning his attention to the video game he was currently playing. "Sup, dude. How were classes?"

"Boring." He set his backpack down on the desk chair on his side of the room and climbed on the ladder beside Carter to the top bunk—Carter practically begged him to bunk their beds. "Kurt's coming over in about an hour."

There was silence on the bottom bunk as Carter tried to shoot down a giant tank. When it appeared he had finally accomplished it, he replied, "Yeah? Does that mean I have to disappear for a while?"

"No, though I appreciate what I think might have been your offer. We have every Tuesday and Thursday available to us for alone time."

The way Carter had arranged his schedule was set up so that all of his classes were on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It worked out nicely, because he had 3 days off every week, but not so nicely when he had to be in classes all day from 9am until 3pm with no break. Blaine liked his own schedule a lot more than Carters, having everything spread out worked great for him, but Blaine also liked Carter's schedule because it meant that as soon as Blaine and Kurt were done at noon, they could go back to Blaine's dorm room and have 3 hours to themselves.

"Alright. Just leave a sock or rubber band or something on the door when he's over for sex."

"I already told you, we don't have sex."

"Correction: you haven't had sex yet in the past. Now, though, you're in New York; you're away from your houses where you have adults constantly looming over you making sure you don't sit within a foot of each other. It could happen, man. So just in case, I've got condoms in the top drawer of my dresser. You're on your own for lube, though."

Blaine rolled his eyes but was secretly grateful that his roommate was so okay with the fact that he was gay. When Blaine first arrived and Carter was already there, he warned his roommate before he even unpacked that he was gay, in case it would be a problem and he'd have to get a new room assignment. To his surprise, one of Carter's girlfriend's brothers was gay, so Carter was totally okay with it.

"I don't even want to know how you know anything about gay sex, but thanks."

"I told you, Blaine. Scotty is an open book. You ask that guy anything and he'll tell you." Scott (or Scotty, as Carter called him) was the brother. "It embarrasses the hell out of Amanda when I ask about childhood stuff, though. Which is just hilarious because she gets super red when she's embarrassed and her red face with her red hair makes her look like a tomato." Amanda was the girlfriend.

"You're such a good boyfriend, Carter. I'll be sure to tell Amanda about how you called her a tomato when she visits."

"You better not. Bro Code." Carter was a big believer in the Bro Code. "Hey, since you and Kurt get to have your alone time where you guys don't have sex, if Amanda comes to visit, you think I can have some alone time where I do get to have sex?"

"When Amanda visits, I'll stay in Kurt's room."

"Awesome."

It was the least Blaine could do, with how cool Carter was being with him and Kurt. Plus, Blaine had a feeling that under all that "dude" and "bro code" and "I wanna have sex" crap, Carter was actually a really sweet boyfriend and would probably plan something romantic in their dorm if she came to visit. They'd been here less than a week and already Blaine had seen him skyping Amanda at least once a day, sometimes twice, constant texting, and a few phone calls.

When Blaine told Carter about Kurt, Carter told Blaine about Amanda. Blaine discovered that Carter was a sophomore and he and Amanda had met their freshman year at NYU. Amanda, however, had to drop out because her father got sick and she had to go home to take care family stuff there in San Francisco, California. Her mom had already died in a car accident 6 years ago, and now her father was dying of lung cancer (and still refused to stop smoking). This would already be bad enough, but Amanda had Scott (16 years old) and Thomas (12 years old), her two younger brothers, and Amelia (7 years old), her younger sister. Without either parent, Amanda would be the primary caregiver.

He really felt bad for Amanda. She just wanted to be a normal 20-year-old; go to college, live with her boyfriend, visit home on holidays. Instead, she'd had to drop out and move back home to take the place of her mother in terms of care for her little brothers. She'd already lost one parent, and now she was losing another. Life just didn't seem fair for her.

For once, and Blaine felt bad for admitting this, but it seemed like someone else's life sucked just a little bit more than his. He would never say so out loud, not even to Kurt, but somehow it made him feel the tiniest bit better about his own situation.

Carter was good to her, though. He could tell. Any other guy would have run at the sign of so much going on; Carter told her he'd drop out too and move back with her to help. Blaine knew this because it was something they discussed a lot over Skype. Carter kept begging her to let him help, but she kept refusing. She said she wasn't going to let him ruin his life to try and salvage hers. If he stayed in school and got his degree, then he could come live with her and as a college graduate be better able to support and provide for her.

Blaine had no doubt in his mind that they would get married.

He heard Carter's phone vibrating on the mattress below him and leaned his head down just in time to see Carter abandon the game controller without even pausing the game and answering the phone.

"Hey, babe. What's wrong?" Carter asked. Blaine heard Amanda's frantic voice on the other end, more high-pitched than he'd heard it before. "Wait, they did what?" More of what sounded to Blaine like squealing. "Okay, okay, hold on a second. Hey, Blaine?"

"Yeah?"

"Scotty just got home from school—he left early because at lunch some of the seniors snuck up behind him and poured a shit-ton of milk all over him. He's pretty upset. Could you talk to him?"

Blaine bit his lip. He went to a school with zero-tolerance for bullying; he didn't know anything about this kind of stuff.

"Kurt would probably be better at this than me…"

"Well Kurt's not here yet is he?" Carter snapped. Blaine watched him pinch the bridge of his nose and sigh. "Sorry, man. I just…"

"It's fine. Give me the phone."

"Okay. Amanda, give the phone to Scotty…Hey, Scotty. Did Amanda tell you about my roommate?…Yeah, his name's Blaine. I think he could help you out. You wanna talk to him for a second?…" Carter held the phone up for Blaine.

He took the phone from Carter's hand and flopped back on the bed, holding it to his ear. "Hello?"

"Is this Blaine?" the voice on the other end said.

Scott sounded nothing like Blaine had imagined. With the couple of stories he'd heard, he thought Scott was this rebellious teenager who went out and had sex and got drunk all the time. The boy on the phone sounded vulnerable and scared.

"Yeah. What's up, Scott?"

He heard sniffling. "Not much. Same old, same old. You know how it goes."

"I heard you had some trouble at school today."

"Oh, that. Yeah." Scott didn't elaborate, so Blaine thought that maybe he just didn't want to talk about it so he should just leave him alone, but then he heard him mutter, "Hold on…let me just…Okay. Sorry. Amanda was listening and with Dad…she just has this permanent heartbroken look on her face and I didn't want to add more to that by making her listen to all the stupid details. I'm hiding in the basement bathroom."

"Does that mean you're going to tell me all the stupid details?"

There was another pause that made Blaine think maybe he shouldn't have said that because now he'd lost what little trust the kid had in him, but just in time again he heard Scott say, "You have a boyfriend, right?"

"Yep. His name is Kurt."

"How long have you guys been together?"

"A little over two months."

"That's it? Carter made it sound like you guys had been together for years."

"Well, that's how it feels. Kurt's my soulmate." Blaine couldn't help the smile that crept onto his face. He was surprised not to hear Carter faking gagging noises like he usually did when Blaine got sappy about Kurt, but quickly realized this was a serious situation and Carter was not in a joking mood.

"I wish I could find that. Maybe if I had someone by my side it'd be easier to deal with this stuff."

Blaine felt a pang in his chest thinking about how many times Kurt must have thought that in high school.

"You know, Kurt got bullied a lot in high school."

"Really?"

"Yeah. All the time."

"What'd they do to him?"

It hurt Blaine just to think about it, but he knew it'd help Scott to know that he wasn't alone. "The jocks would toss him in the dumpsters, throw slushies in his face, and shove him into lockers."

"Not to mention name-calling," Kurt said, stepping into the room.

Carter looked up and offered a weak smile to him. "Hey, Kurt. Blaine said you got out at 3pm."

"Yeah, my class let out early since it's the first day." Kurt stood at the side of Blaine's bed by his head and leaned his head on the railing, resting his chin on his hands over the cool metal. "Who are you spilling all of my deep, dark secrets to?"

"Is that Kurt?" Scott asked.

"Yeah," Blaine answered Scott, then sat up and gestured for Kurt to climb up on his bed. "It's Carter's girlfriend's little brother. He had an incident at school today with some seniors and several cartons of milk."

"Oh, let me guess," Kurt said, settling down into Blaine's side, wrapping Blaine's free arm around himself and lacing their fingers together. "They made some joke comparing the milk to cum."

"Yeah!" Scott said, sounding relieved that someone else understood. "How did he know? Wait, don't answer that, I can take a guess."

"Does he get bullied a lot?" Kurt asked Blaine.

Blaine shrugged and opened his mouth to ask Scott when Scott started replying already. "Kind of. It's San Francisco, so I never really thought this would be an issue when I came out, but it turns out there are bigots everywhere." Blaine nodded for Kurt as Scott asked, "How did Kurt deal with it?"

"Well, I think he just never let it get him down. Kurt is…the bravest person I know. And he's really level-headed. No matter what those jerks did to him, he kept his calm and didn't flip out at them. If you actively fight back, you'll just get yourself hurt. They're bigger than you and there's more of them. You can passively fight back, though, in your own way. That's what Kurt did."

"How do I do that?"

"Don't let them get to you. Keep going back to school, dress how you want, date who you want, be who you want. Hold your head high. Show them that it doesn't matter what they do to you because you're not going to let them change you. Have the courage to face them every day and look them all in the eye and without words, tell them that you're not backing down. You don't have to fight with your fists to get the point across."

Blaine looked to Kurt for confirmation that was he was saying was true and was good advice, and when he saw the Love Look he knew he was on the right track.

"Okay. I think I can do that."

"I know you can. If you have any more problems with them, you can call me any time. Carter can give you my number."

"Cool. I will. Thanks, Blaine."

"No problem, Scott."

"You can call me Scotty…if you want, I mean. That's what pretty much everyone calls me."

"Alright. I'll talk to you soon, Scotty. Why don't you give the phone back to your sister and I'll give it back to Carter and they can make kissy noises through the phone to each other."

Scotty laughed, which Blaine counted as an accomplishment given the circumstances, and said, "Ugh, it's almost gross how in love they are."

"Don't I know it? I have to live with him."

"But I bet you and Kurt are the same way."

Blaine kissed the top of Kurt's head. "Yeah. I guess we are. Bye, Scotty."

"Bye, Blaine."

He held the phone out over the bed railing. "Here's your phone, Carter."

Carter snatched it away and put the phone to his ear, standing up to pace around the room. "Amanda?…Yeah, I think he'll be okay. Blaine was really helpful…No, I understand, go deal with that. Call me later…I love you." He hung up and ran a hand through his hair, looking up at Blaine. "Thank you, man."

Blaine shrugged. "Like I told Scotty, no problem."

"No, seriously, you have no idea…with everything else happening right now, that could have been…just…thank you. I owe you one."

"You owe me nothing. Don't forget to give Scotty my number."

Carter hesitated for a second, like maybe he thought Blaine had only said that to Scotty to be nice, then went to typing on his phone, probably texting Scotty his number.

Kurt leaned up and pressed a kiss to Blaine's cheek. "That was nice of you."

"He needed help. If I were doused in milk in the middle of the cafeteria, I'd want to talk to someone too."

"You have such a good heart and you don't even see it."

He squeezed Kurt's hand and changed the subject. "How was your first day of classes?"

"It was alright. You're going to love Harmony and Counterpoint 1. The professor is really nice, and really cute."

"Oh, do I have some competition? Am I going to have to fight this professor for you?"

"Maybe," Kurt retorted, smirking up at Blaine and winking. "How were your classes today?"

"Boring."

"That's all I get? You're not going to elaborate?"

"Don't worry, Kurt," Carter interrupted, picking the game controller back up and restarting the game. "That's all he gave me, too."

"No offense, Carter, but I'm the boyfriend. I think I should get more from him than you do."

Carter snorted. "Well, you guys have a whole three hours tomorrow that I'll be out of the room and you can get all you want from him."

"Shut up," Blaine said, wanting to quickly leave the topic of his and Kurt's sex life.

"Now, I did tell Blaine about the condoms in my top dresser drawer," Carter continued, ignoring Blaine, "but you guys are on your own for lube."

"Why do you even have condoms when Amanda lives on the other side of the country?" Kurt asked.

"So that when I fly her out to visit me we're prepared. I use them sometimes when I jerk off, too."

Blaine couldn't help it, he was curious. "Really? Why?"

"Less clean up."

That actually made a lot of sense, Blaine thought. He exchanged a look with Kurt like, hey, that's a pretty good idea. Then he realized that they were admiring Blaine's roommate's masturbatory habits and quickly they both flushed bright red and looked away.

It wasn't that Blaine didn't want to take his relationship further with Kurt. Actually, he really, really wanted to get a little more than what they'd been doing. It wasn't that kissing Kurt wasn't fun, especially since they'd added the no shirts thing, but maybe a no pants thing could be thrown in there too. He knew they were going slow for Kurt's sake, but hearing Kurt discuss condoms and lube and "getting more" with Carter kind of made Blaine think that maybe he'd been the one holding them back and Kurt was ready after all.

"Hey, Carter, remember your offer from earlier?" Blaine asked right when the game started up again and Carter started shooting things.

"Seriously? You couldn't have said something before I started this round?"

"What offer?" Kurt interjected, scrunching his eyebrows in confusion.

"To disappear for a while," Blaine said.

"Oh," Kurt squeaked. "That's unnecessary, Carter. You can continue to play your little game." Blaine's heart dropped to his stomache for a second before Kurt finished. "My roommate is gone. We can just go to my room."

"Thanks, Kurt. See, Blaine? Why do you have to make our room the go-to make-out room?"

"Because Kurt thinks it's hot to make-out on a top bunk. He told me so the other day when you were grocery shopping—OW! Kurt!"

Kurt disentangled himself from Blaine and started climbing down the ladder. "Quit telling your roommate private stuff about us. You've only known him for 5 days."

"I only knew you for 2 weeks before we were officially together. And I only knew you for a month and 10 days before we said we loved each other."

"Are you going to stay up there and show off your fantastic memory or come with me to my room where we can be alone?"

Blaine scrambled down without another word and followed Kurt out the door, calling out a half-hearted goodbye to his roommate. He heard Carter chuckling behind him but was too busy practically running to Kurt's room to care.

The second they set foot in his room Blaine slammed the door behind them and pinned Kurt against it, kissing him soundly.

Kurt's face when Carter mentioned using condoms to masturbate just made Blaine think about Kurt masturbating and shit the image of Kurt touching himself turned him on more than he even thought possible.

"God, Kurt," Blaine moaned, kissing his way down Kurt's neck and sucking on his collarbone.

Kurt whined and arched his back, extending his neck. "What's gotten into you?" Kurt breathed out, twining his fingers in Blaine's hair and tugging.

Fuck that felt good.

"I was hoping you," Blaine murmured before he could stop himself.

When he realized what he said, he stopped immediately and pulled back, looking at Kurt's surprised face.

"I'm sorry," he said, "That just kind of came out."

"So you didn't mean it?"

Blaine debated that for a second before answering. Did he mean it? He wanted to say yes, but it seemed like a huge leap to go from shirtless kissing to total sex. Maybe they should go slow, start with a handjob or something.

"I did," Blaine admitted, choosing his words carefully, "but not for right now. Eventually…yes. Today, though, we can just do what we always do."

Kurt scrunched his nose in disgust. "That makes it sound boring."

"Kissing you could never be boring," Blaine replied, leaning back in to prove his point.

He was held back by a finger to his lips. "What if we went a little past that today?"

Blaine quirked an eyebrow. "Really?"

"If you want. I mean if you're not ready, we don't have to."

"Oh, I'm ready."

They stared into each other's eyes for a moment, gauging how much the other meant what they were saying, before Blaine decided that yes, they were ready, and dove back in.

…

Kurt's roommate came back about two hours later, more than enough time for Kurt and Blaine to tentatively explore each other's bodies, with no clothes to separate them. It was equal parts awkward and enjoyable. There were moments when both of them would catch each other's eye and just kind of laugh nervously, then laugh again because they were both so nervous even though it was them and they weren't even having sex. What they did do, though, was enough to make Blaine feel light headed just thinking about it.

Sexual stuff with Trevor was never like that. With Trevor, it felt rushed, and forced, and all about Trevor feeling good. Sometimes it made Blaine feel used. With Kurt, it was slow and careful and about both of them just learning each other's bodies, what they liked, what they didn't like. They both knew they'd have many more times just like that where they could keep learning more; it didn't feel frantic, but easy. Like they had all the time in the world for this.

Stephen, Kurt's roommate, was a little less accepting of the whole gay thing. It wasn't that he was homophobic like the jocks that taunted Kurt all through high school, but Kurt and Blaine figured out from day one that it would probably be better to not spend a whole lot of time together in Kurt's room if Stephen would be there.

When Stephen came back, Kurt and Blaine retreated back to Blaine's room. They both had goofy smiles and kept glancing knowingly at each other, then blushing scarlet. It was hard for Blaine to look at Kurt right after that without picturing what they had been doing not even an hour before. Carter caught on and demanded a fist bump from both Blaine and Kurt, congratulating them both on finally "getting some." He would have been surprised that Kurt returned the fist bump—something he denied Finn all the time—but realized that Kurt knew that this was Carter's way of showing them how much he accepted them and supported them in their relationship.

And sometimes, it just feels good to be accepted.