Night pressed close at the gleaming windows of the apartment as Kurt paced back and forth, the hems of Blaine's pyjama pants swaying around his calves, the material's soft whisper against his ankles almost like the gentle caresses he missed. Eyes narrowing, he paused and waited, arms folded over his chest, as the staggering footsteps moved towards the door and he heard the dull thud of an uncoordinated hand smacking against the wood. The door slid open to reveal his husband, in a wrinkled shirt with his blazer over his arm, hair loose from its gel and a flush staining his cheekbones, eyes glittering with excitement.

"I quit my job!" he declared, toeing off his shoes and running across to gather Kurt into his arms, knocking him backwards against the couch. "I quit and Doug was so nice about it, him and Helen took me out for a meal and asked about you and I ended up telling them stories about us and then they brought me home because I had some wine and they didn't want me driving so I'll have to go and get the car tomorrow. You don't need it for work, do you?"

"Luckily for you, no, Isabelle and Andrew's anniversary is this weekend so they're flying out to Milan to revisit where he proposed, but what I do need is for you to call me if you're going to be out late!" Kurt snapped, unwinding Blaine's arms from his waist and sitting up, smoothing his shirt down over his chest and stomach. "And how could you quit your job without discussing it with me? We need that money, Blaine!"

"I talked to Sam about it, he thought it was a good idea, and he said it's never too late to get out of your current career and switch if you're not happy," Blaine said, a slight guilt crossing his face as he crossed his legs beneath him and gazed over at Kurt, irritatingly silent in taking his scolding.

"Are you married to Sam?" Kurt asked angrily, spitting the words out into Blaine's face. "Could you point me in the direction of your wedding video? Because the last time I checked, Sam isn't helping us pay for a new apartment or the hormone therapy or all the doctor's appointments! Didn't him and Mercedes manage to get pregnant because they forgot to check their condoms before celebrating her shifting a hundred thousand units? It's soeasyfor them!"

"Anyone would think you'd already started the hormone therapy," Blaine mumbled, and Kurt saw red, standing up so fast he almost knocked Blaine off the edge of the couch.

"Well I'm sorry if it isn't fun having to strip and be poked and prodded by a middle-aged woman with cigarette breath who calls me darling every single month!" he yelled, face flooding scarlet with anger while Blaine sat prone and let Kurt tear into him. "I am trying to give us a baby because I'm the one of us that can, but apparently you don't see how hard it is for me to deal with all of these stupid invasive tests and examinations, and be told every time that it's not enough yet, that my body still isn't good enough to carry a baby!"

Snatching up the blanket his Great Aunt Ida had knitted when she'd heard they were starting to try for a baby, Kurt stormed out of the room to hide the tears in his eyes, lying on his side of the bed and burying his face in the sweet smell of the wool, unwilling to let himself cry about this again. The pressure of trying so desperately to give Blaine a baby and failing every time was starting to get to him, and the ease with which their friends were starting their own families only made it worse. Even Santana, despite Nicole's parents insisting they were married before they lived together, was slowly shifting her belongings to Nicole's far more spacious apartment and enjoying the benefits of a successful fiancée. Puck never stopped talking about his and Lauren's two year old twin boys, and every picture of sleepy toddlers on Kurt's Facebook feed made him feel so much more inadequate, unable to give Blaine the baby he wanted so desperately before they reached thirty.

And now this, Blaine quitting his job at a time when they desperately needed the money his third-most senior chef status brought in. His parents had offered help on their wedding day, after they'd been told it was extremely unlikely they would conceive without the assistance of hormone injections and fertility drugs, but Blaine was so proud to break away from them and be financially independent, they couldn't just go back to relying on parental help. Without Blaine's regular paycheck feeding into their savings, it would stretch Kurt's modest salary to its very limits trying to cover the apartment they'd been eyeing up for its proximity to the Vogue offices and the extra room to use as a nursery, all of the doctor's appointments and treatments as well as their every day necessities. No matter how much they managed to sell their current apartment for, Kurt would toss and turn all night and wonder how they could possibly afford it.

After what seemed like hours, Kurt felt a soft touch against his back and the warmth of Blaine sliding in beside him, arm draping over his hip and pulling him close, familiar fingers spreading out over his flat stomach. "I'm sorry," he murmured, stroking Kurt's skin lightly through his shirt, pressing his lips sweetly to his temple. "I know it's horribly irresponsible of me, but Doug offered me decent quitting pay, especially when he found out we're trying to get pregnant, and I promise that I'll stop trying if nothing works out within the year. He swore there would be a job waiting if I went back there. I'll provide for you, Kurt, I swear."

"It's not just the money, Blaine," Kurt whispered, rolling over to face his husband and covering Blaine's hand with his own where it rested on his belly. "It's the treatments too. I hate them, the examinations are all so invasive and painful and I've been hoping every month for the last four years that I'll be good enough, ready to have a baby, but I'm not. I feel like a failure, and like I'm disappointing you, because we want this baby before thirty and when we were twenty-four that seemed so easy but now time's running out and all our friends are starting their own families and it feels like we're the only ones getting left behind and it's my fault."

"Oh, Kurt, of course it's not your fault, sweetheart," Blaine assured him gently, drawing him closer, hand moving in slow circles over his stomach. Kurt closed his eyes and tried to hold on to a fantasy that had sustained his hope for four years now, lying in bed with a series of pillows stacked behind him to support a bump straining against his clothes, Blaine's hand tracing the faint lines of stretch marks and waiting for their baby to kick against him. "We've only been trying for four years. Some couples, heterosexual and homosexual, try for much longer than that. It's going to happen for us, Kurt, and really soon. I know it will." He smiled and leaned over to kiss down Kurt's neck, toying with the drawstring of his pants. "Want to try, sweetie?"

"Despite only an eighteen percent chance of conceiving naturally?" Kurt asked, and Blaine nodded, a glint in his eyes as he rolled Kurt onto his back, melding their mouths and throwing a leg over him, framing his face in his hands as he pressed his hips down, already on his way to full hardness. "Jesus, Blaine, how long have you been lying there thinking about going to bed?"

"Will you laugh at me if I say all day?" Blaine asked softly, and Kurt laughed giddily, smiling as Blaine leaned down to kiss him on the mouth, once, soft and sweet, before proceeding down his neck, nibbling along his collarbone as he pulled the neatly-tied drawstrings loose and slid his hand down the back of Kurt's pyjama pants, the pad of his thumb stroking gentle circles around and over Kurt's hole. "I realized it had been a week since we'd had time to, and I started looking through my phone while I was waiting to speak with Doug and looking at all those pictures of you I have, and it made me remember just how sexy my husband is."

"You mean you forgot?" Kurt teased, and immediately regretted it when Blaine's free hand slipped up to explore beneath his shirt, rolling his nipples between finger and thumb and reducing him to helpless lust, writhing under the solid weight of Blaine's body. "OhGod, unfair, you know what that does to me."

"If that's the case, then you just lying here is unfair, you know what you do to me every single day," Blaine murmured, kissing Kurt again, and mumbling, "You're so gorgeous," against his lips. Grinning into the kiss, Kurt pushed against Blaine and rolled him onto his back, feeling Blaine gasp at the new position.

"Like this," Kurt insisted, beaming down at Blaine and reaching across him for the bottle of lubricant standing proudly on the nightstand. Pressing the bottle into Blaine's hand, he unbuttoned his shirt and leaned down to trail kisses down his chest. Grinning, Blaine pulled Kurt's shirt over his head and squeezed his waist affectionately. "If we're trying to make a baby, you should be doing a lot more than squeezing, honey."

"Excuse me for wanting to touch as much of your skin as possible, have you ever tried not touching yourself?" Kurt just laughed and bent at the hips to cover Blaine's mouth with his once more, fisting a hand hungrily into his hair, using his free hand to push his pyjama pants down to just beneath his ass, finding the button on Blaine's and popping them open. "Are you tired, sweetie? Is that why you're rushing?" Blaine asked softly, cupping Kurt's cheek tenderly. "We don't have to, we can just sleep."

"On our sides?" Kurt suggested, and Blaine nodded, cheeks stretching as he stifled a yawn and they moved together, casting their remaining clothes aside and pressing up against each other, Blaine pressing soft kisses to Kurt's shoulder as he slicked up two fingers and opened Kurt with gentle circling motions, rubbing his stomach as he slid into him, making Kurt wonder if both of them were absorbed in a fantasy of making love like this with their baby on the way, Kurt's belly round beneath Blaine's soothing hands. Blaine's lovemaking was slow and sweet and drawn-out, and Kurt was floating on each stroke as Blaine's hand curled around him and pushed them both closer until they came almost simultaneously.

Rolling over, Kurt fell into Blaine's kisses and caresses, hands wandering over his back and arms and chest and shoulders before finally finding their way to cup his face and draw him closer. "You can get up to clean up in the morning," Kurt mumbled sleepily, swatting at Blaine's hip when he made a face. "That's your punishment for not calling to tell me where you were."

"And my apology will seem all the more sincere for it," Blaine said bracingly, and Kurt chuckled softly, rolling back onto his side as Blaine wrapped an arm around him and pulled him in close, pulling the bedspread over them. Lying in the embrace of Blaine's warm, sated body, lulled into sleep to the soothing beat of Blaine's breathing, Kurt's last thought before letting his eyes fall closed was that they could make this new situation work. A little longer waiting for the new apartment, a few cutbacks, maybe swallowing their pride to borrow a little money from a friend, they would be fine.

Despite Kurt's fervent wishes, and all the efforts he made to keep the apartment clean and save money on hair products and moisturisers and new clothes and have hot dinners waiting for Blaine when he staggered into the house late at night, exhausted and irritable after so many hopeless auditions and meetings with directors that came to nothing, the sudden change of career, the lack of money and their equal stubbornness in refusing to give up their pride and ask for help began to unravel their marriage. Kurt went dutifully to the fertility clinic each month for his test, and blinked back bitterly disappointed tears when the specialist sat him down and told him there was still barely a hope of conceiving. Not that it mattered, because he and Blaine were both overworked and stressed, and he resented Blaine for quitting his job and plunging them into the mess, and the slightest disagreement could blow up easily into a fight, none of which ever had them in the mood to have sex.

Slumped on the sofa flicking through TV channels, the chicken soup and simple focaccia for dinner steaming on the kitchen counter, Kurt sat up straight when he heard a key in the lock, far sooner than he'd expected. The door opened to Blaine standing with a smile on his face, rushing to collapse in Kurt's lap, peppering kisses all over his face. "I was invited to guest on a TV show as a main character's ex-husband, I'm coming in to add drama to her current relationship!" he exclaimed excitedly. "I knew this would pay off. If I can interest the director for the Hairspray revival tomorrow and get some work as an extra, things could really be looking up."

"Blaine, that's wonderful, I'm so proud of you!" Hugging Blaine tight, Kurt pulled back and hesitated before he kissed him square on the mouth. "I can't believe it, you could get a big break and we'll be able to move to that new apartment and get another car and get ready to have a baby." Leaning his forehead into Blaine's chest, inhaling the musky scent of his sweat mixed with the sweet gingerbread of his body wash, Kurt murmured, "We should go out tomorrow night, after your audition. I'll switch my hours with Daphne and work late on Saturday so we can have a romantic dinner and go dancing. After all this horrible fighting, we just need a night for us."

"I'll meet you at the Italian restaurant around the corner from the offices tomorrow at seven," Blaine said with a smile, and kissed Kurt three toe-curling times, fingers gliding through his hair. "I love you, you've been so wonderful and supportive these past few months." Remembering how resentful he had been of Blaine, calling him so many vindictive names in his head, Kurt's smile was tremulous.

Kurt daydreamed his way through work after a night in Blaine's arms, and rushed home as soon as he was able to spend an hour making himself look perfect. Wearing his tightest jeans, that had been peeled eagerly off him by Blaine on anniversaries and left in a crumpled pile at the foot of their bed, Kurt left the apartment in a state of high excitement, attaching the silver blackbird brooch Blaine had given him on their wedding day to the lapel of his coat, catching a taxi to the restaurant and sitting himself down at his and Blaine's booked table with a smile pinned on his face, checking his hair one last time in the reflection of his wine glass.

Half an hour passed, and Kurt had polished off the complimentary basket of bread waiting, tapping his fingers against the table and leaning on his hand, periodically checking his watch and scowling. When his phone trilled out its recording of Blaine drunkenly serenading him with Teenage Dream at Santana and Nicole's engagement party, he picked up immediately on seeing it was Blaine and furiously hissed, "Where the hell are you?"

"Oh, Kurt, the director of Hairspray saw my audition and invited me in for a meeting, he says he wants me to play Link Larkin and he might be able to find other work for me with some of his friends, and he has a contact who could get me film work, this is the big leagues, baby!" Blaine explained, his words stumbling breathlessly over each other. "I'm really sorry I can't make dinner, but this could be so important to my career, and we need the money. I'll make it up to you, I promise."

"This is supposed to be the making it up to me!" Kurt snapped, clenching his fingers into the tablecloth and scowling at the phone. "Our first romantic evening in months and you blow it off because your career is more important than me. You're an asshole! You better hope you're sound asleep by the time I get back, and it better be on the couch and not our bed!"

"Kurt, I'm sor-" Kurt hung up, shoving his phone back into his pocket with unnecessary violence, and spitefully ordered the most expensive dish on the menu, taking full advantage of the free refills for something to do with his hands that wasn't rushing home and strangling his inconsiderate husband. Let Blaine pay for his lonely meal, when it should've been him rather than an empty seat opposite, his thumb caressing Kurt's knuckles while they ate, his eyes promising a long evening of slow languorous love-making ahead.

At the end of the meal, when the blonde waitress who had been patiently attending to Kurt all evening came over with the bill, Kurt asked, "Is it possible to see the head chef in person and offer my compliments?" She nodded, smiling, and vanished into the kitchen, returning with a man who looked quite familiar. Kurt couldn't quite put his finger on where he'd seen him before.

The chef, however, seemed to recognise him instantly, because he did a double-take and loudly asked, "Kurt Hummel? Did you just happen to wander into my restaurant off the street?"

Kurt would recognise that confident drawl anywhere. "Sebastian Smythe," he said coldly. "It's Hummel-Anderson now. I would've thought you'd keep track of who the boys who reject your advances end up with, just to see what their flames have that you don't."

"Ouch, the kitty still has claws," Sebastian observed with a chuckle, shooing the waitress and pulling out the seat opposite. "So why are you here dining alone? Shouldn't you and Blaine be making eyes at each other and playing footsie under the table? Something else more important than you?"

"For your information, my husband is in a meeting with a director that could lead to his big break," Kurt answered haughtily, hiding the sting of rejection at Sebastian's neat summary of his evening. "I decided there was no point in wasting the table. It's liberating, dining alone."

"Oh please, that's a line people who've been stood up use to cover up how hurt they are," Sebastian cut in, reaching across the table to run his thumb reassuringly over one of the blue veins running beneath the skin of Kurt's wrist. Kurt was horrified to feel a sharp spike of arousal skitter up his spine, aggressively telling himself that it was only because he hadn't had sex in three months and he was fired up from thinking about an all-night sex marathon with Blaine through his work day. "I thought Blaine was a chef."

"He quit that job a few months ago, he decided he wanted to start auditioning again, he only ever took that job because we were planning a wedding while we were both still in college and desperately needed the money," Kurt answered softly, trying to ignore the fact that Sebastian's thumb was still caressing back and forth across his skin. Such a simple touch felt so intimate, a warmth that had leaked from his and Blaine's relationship as of late, but it didn't mean anything, not to the man who had tried to seduce his husband as a teenager and had likely slept with a multitude of men since he'd last seen him. "What about you? Last thing I heard you were going to law school."

"I decided not to go after my acceptance letters arrived, and hopped on a plane to go to Italy for some breathing space away from my family's disappointment," Sebastian answered with a shrug and a smile. "While I was there I worked as a singing waiter to fund my apartment and helped out in the kitchen. The owner's mother thought I was adorable and took me under her wing, taught me the family recipes and told me to open a restaurant because I had all the makings of a wonderful head chef."

"Do you speak Italian to your numerous lovers?" The remark was out before Kurt could stop it, and he jerked his hand away from Sebastian's, flustered and feeling his face heat with a blush.

"My lovers are not as numerous as you seem to think," Sebastian said simply, lifting an eyebrow towards Kurt, his eyes presenting a challenge. "But the one thing they all have in common is loving it when I whisper sweet Italian nothings." Leaning across the table, he whispered, "Volete venire a letto con me stasera," and sent shivers up Kurt's spine. He couldn't fail to notice how Kurt's hands trembled as he slid his phone from his pocket and checked the blank screen, pretending to be texting until the fiery rush of arousal in the pit of his stomach calmed.

"And what does that mean?" he asked once he'd regained control of himself. "I suppose you just called me a pasty-faced elf with no chance of hanging on to Blaine despite the fact that I've been married to him for seven years."

"I know you're fluent in French, and I did spend a year living in Paris, perhaps I should put that into a language you know," Sebastian murmured, smirking with lazy assurance. "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir?"

The crack of Kurt's hand sailing into Sebastian's cheek echoed around the restaurant and other diners turned around, craning around and over each other to get a glimpse of the man who had just slapped the head chef across the face. "How dare you?!" Kurt spat as Sebastian raised a hand to his reddening cheek with an almost curious expression. "I'm married and I love my husband. You're only trying it on with me because you totally failed to get Blaine into bed when we were teenagers! Don't bother, because I love Blaine as much as he loves me."

"But you're curious, aren't you?" Sebastian said, and Kurt froze. "If you rebounded onto someone, you never slept with them. You and Blaine terrifying innocent church-goers and leaving that hotel room in such an awful state was legend throughout Dalton. You want to know what it's like to be with someone else. You can't deny that you're attracted to me. Perhaps that's why we hated each other so much - rivals for Blaine, and an unquestionable sexual tension between us. Blaine would never need to know."

"I tell Blaine everything, we've had a total honesty policy since we got back together," Kurt said, the lie twinging guilt deep in his stomach. He'd been hiding a lot from Blaine, his resentment and how much he just wanted Blaine to give up his fruitless auditioning and go back to his job so they could afford to move, how upset not being able to have a baby was making him, his anger that Blaine would airily turn down any of his requests for him to come to appointments with him as if they didn't even matter. "It broke me when he cheated on me, I would never do the same thing to him. You might be tempting, but sex means something to me. I won't throw it away on a used commodity such as yourself."

"I haven't slept with anyone in six months, since my last serious relationship that was heading in the direction of an engagement broke up," Sebastian confessed, and Kurt couldn't help but reach for his hand in sympathy, mentally kicking himself for giving in. "My days of taking sex lightly are over. It should mean something, or at least be the beginning of a relationship that means something. Give me just one night, and then I'll send you back to your marriage having been to bed with more than one man."

Kurt just knew that Sebastian could see him weakening, and was disgusted with himself when he said, "We have to go to your apartment, far away from anyone who could recognise either of us, and if a word of this ever reaches Blaine I'll use my contacts to get you fired."

"Give me a minute to direct my sous-chef to take my place until closing time and cover your bill, and I'll whisk you away for a few glorious hours of freedom before you slide on your wedding ring and it'll be like tonight never existed." Sebastian smiled at him, his eyes molten with lust. The reassurance swirled into Kurt's mind, letting him give in to the temptation, temporarily guiltless.

Giggling, intoxicated with the rush of freedom, Kurt let his eyes wander over Sebastian in the ride back to his house, his hands curled around the steering wheel the same way they'd soon curl around him, his eyes concentrating on the road but darting towards Kurt with a wicked gleam in their depths every few minutes. Wriggling luxuriously in his seat, Kurt shot out of the car like a cork from a champagne bottle the second the engine stopped, giddy with delight as Sebastian grabbed his hand and led him up the stairs into a sleek and sophisticated apartment furnished in blacks, whites, reds and dark wood. Kurt noted the fireplace set into the wall, a rug lying before it, as Sebastian steered him towards the bedroom.

As Kurt saw the enormous bed with its crimson bedspread, its frame of black metal and the rungs of the headboard perfect for handcuffs, he felt Sebastian's hands at his waist and was suddenly spun around for Sebastian's mouth to cover his. The first time in eight years he'd kissed anyone but Blaine, and he'd never expected it to feel this incredible. Sebastian's technique was certainly expert, lazily pulling Kurt up to heaven with gentle flickers of tongue and his hands roaming over Kurt's body, assessing. Kurt was so distracted by Sebastian's mouth, desperate to show him that he was a fantastic kisser despite only ever having willingly kissed two - now three - people, he didn't notice Sebastian unbuttoning his shirt until he pushed it and his coat to the ground with a slithering of fabric and a soft thump.

"Your clothes certainly tell lies about what's lying beneath them," Sebastian observed, gazing openly at Kurt's torso, hands drifting over his taut stomach, slender waist and narrow hips, wandering upwards to drag through the dusting of chest hair and draw delicate circles around his pebbled nipples. "You're much sexier than I ever would've thought. Guess I know now why I got turned down."

Kurt's breath left him in a rush as Sebastian scooped him up and tipped him onto the bed, shrugging out of his shirt and climbing on top of him in a matter of seconds. Before he kissed Kurt again, he slid the wedding and engagement bands from his finger and leaned over to place them side-by-side on the nightstand, the diamonds set into the gold bands gleaming in the fading light of the sunset. "We won't be needing those," he murmured, and leaned down to kiss Kurt before he could think about it too much.

Writhing beneath the weight of Sebastian's body, the situation began to coalesce into Blaine above him in Kurt's mind, kissing him tenderly while they undressed each other, unsuccessfully trying yet again, and he pushed Sebastian away. "Can I top?" he asked boldly. "Blaine and I have been trying to conceive for four years, so I don't really get to often."

"Sure thing, babe," Sebastian drawled, and Kurt rolled his eyes as Sebastian flipped onto his back and shimmied beneath him, eager hands going straight for Kurt's belt. In a matter of minutes, keeping his lips sealed to Kurt's mouth or neck through every smooth movement, he had them both naked, sweeping his tongue up Kurt's sternum, his hand closing around the back of Kurt's neck to drag him down for a kiss. "There should be a half-empty bottle of lube in the top drawer of the nightstand, and a condom," he told Kurt with a vague gesture in the direction of the nightstand, preoccupied with licking every drop of sweat from his collarbone.

Leaving Sebastian with a hungry kiss, Kurt crawled across the bed, smirking at Sebastian's eyes fixated on his hard cock bobbing between his legs, and retrieved the half-full bottle and a condom, returning to find Sebastian with a pillow elevating his hips, his legs spread and bent at the knee, exposing himself to Kurt, his hole a dark shadow of promise. With a groan, Kurt slicked up his fingers hurriedly and opened Sebastian with careful circles, something he hadn't gotten to do to another man for a long time, losing himself in the familiarity of seeing muscles clench around the intrusion and flutter as it was withdrawn, so absorbed he didn't notice Sebastian looking at him with wicked eyes half-lidded with lust, holding the condom between thumb and forefinger. "Bet you I can put this on you with my mouth,"

"I'd like to see you try," Kurt retorted with raised eyebrows, and just stared with shocked eyes as Sebastian jerked upright and leaned down to roll the condom onto Kurt's cock, taking him deep in the process and pulling back with a saucy wink. "Why the hell did you teach yourself to do that?"

"Men seem to find it impressive," Sebastian said with a shrug and satisfied smirk, and Kurt swiped at his stomach as he leaned back over him, kissing him long and hard as he pushed slowly into him, forced to break away to moan at the hot, silky clench around him, heaven after so long without such touches.

"This might not last long," Kurt warned before he dropped his forehead against Sebastian's shoulder and began to thrust, pushing eagerly into him, gripping his hips hard to bend him further, revelling in every one of Sebastian's moan and thready gasps until the body writhing beneath his tensed up and Sebastian came with a shout of his name, hands scrabbling at Kurt's back to drag him into a kiss as Kurt came into the condom, his cry muffled by Sebastian's tongue in his mouth.

He only had a few moments to enjoy the afterglow before guilt came crashing down on top of him, pinning him to Sebastian's sweat-glazed, lax body. Not only had he cheated on his husband, he had done it sleeping with a boy who had caused Blaine to need surgery, who he had accused Blaine of cheating on him with many times in more vulnerable moments, who he had thought Blaine really had cheated on him with, and now he knew how Blaine had felt after his one night stand. "Oh God," he moaned, jerking away, reaching out to apologise with tender touches when Sebastian hissed out in discomfort but pulling back as if he'd been burned. "I have to go home. Oh no, I must stink of sex. Can I use your shower? No, he'd notice wet hair. Wait, is it raining? I could say I went to the park to think things over and then walked home. No, he wouldn't believe me, he knows me too well." Burying his face in his hands, he groaned, "I cheated on Blaine."

"It's a one time thing, you don't have to tell him, stop feeling guilty and enjoy it," Sebastian said, putting his arms behind his head and sighing in contentment. "You can use some deodorant, there are generic brands in the bathroom cupboard. While you're gone, I'm putting my number in your phone, in case you ever want a repeat."

Kurt put himself carefully back together, thanking Sebastian's consideration in not leaving marks, smoothing his hair and buttoning his coat as he stepped back into the bedroom, which absolutely reeked of sex. Almost gagging, disgusted with himself, he seized his phone back, pointedly ignoring the screen letting him know a new contact had been saved, and stormed out of the apartment. He refused to hail a taxi, terrified that Blaine could find out, and walked home through the cooling night, turning his collar up against the wind and hugging himself, holding himself together.

A few minutes from home he broke, and ducked into an alleyway to cry. Bile rose in his throat, and he vomited over the sidewalk, careful not to stain his coat, and wiped his mouth with a tissue bunched up in the pocket. Dabbing his watering eyes and hoping he could blame a red nose and matching cheeks on the cold, Kurt rushed up the stairs and unlocked the door to the apartment to find Blaine curled into a ball on the couch beneath the Great Aunt Ida blanket, his breathing deep and even.

Relief washed over Kurt. Nothing had changed. Blaine didn't know. How could he? Sliding off his shoes and hanging up his coat, Kurt crossed the room and crouched down to press a kiss to Blaine's forehead, sliding his fingers through his hair. "Wake up, beautiful," he murmured, and Blaine stirred, his eyes glazed with sleep, mumbling about loving Kurt and swatting feebly at him. "I'm sorry, sweetheart, I overreacted. Come to bed."

Changing into his pyjamas, Kurt slid into Blaine's arms and was gratified when Blaine kissed him on the cheek and mumbled, "Let's go to Paris for a second honeymoon. I'll make love to you on the hotel balcony like that time we got chucked out of that hotel on our fifth anniversary," before he surrendered to sleep once more, snuggling closer to Kurt.

This was where he belonged, in Blaine's arms. Rolling over and pressing his face into Blaine's chest, Kurt decided not to tell him about the one night stand with Sebastian. It hadn't meant a thing to him, there had been tension that needed to be released, or it would've plagued him for months. Now Blaine was getting work, things would return to normal and he could submerge himself in marriage to the love of his life once more, and forget about a silly meaningless hour with someone who'd once tried to whip his husband out from under his nose.

He and Blaine were married. They were going to have a baby someday in the near future. Sebastian would be but a fleeting fling, something to one day look back on and laugh about. Blaine was forever. Sebastian was an hour, two hours at the most. Kurt could definitely forget about the mind-blowing sex he had just taken part in. He could run his fingers over his wedding and engagement rings and think about being round and heavy with Blaine's child, and never use the number programmed permanently into his phone. Eternity with Blaine, never speaking to Sebastian Smythe again. Easily achievable.

He wasfucked.