The Proper Way to Say "I Missed You"

The quiet way is the best way…

Kurt opened the door to reveal that nobody had moved an inch. Logan was still leaning against the wall; Finn was sitting on the bottom step with Carole standing right beside him. Everly was standing ramrod straight about a foot behind Burt Hummel, who stood with his arms crossed heavily over his chest. He didn't look happy.

"Kurt, you wanna tell us what's going on?"

Kurt mirrored his father's stance. "Because I'm capable of doing that," he lied.

Burt's jaw bulged a bit. "Hey, don't start again with the attitude. Every time you come home now you're in a bad mood, and, no offense to you," he said, looking at me, "I don't know you—I don't know you from Adam, but we all heard a lot of yelling out there and I really don't appreciate you talking like that to my son. So either somebody explains to me what this is or I'm going to start making my own assumptions."

Kurt looked right into his father's eyes. "Can Blaine stay the night?"

Burt stared at his son like he had never seen him before.

"Oh my god, dude, are you insane?" Finn spoke up from his place on the stairs, his mouth hanging wide open.

Kurt sent a glare his way. "Thank you for that, Finn."

Burt closed his eyes like he needed a minute to process things. I was right there with him. Not like I was an expert on families or anything but that seemed like a bold move, even for Kurt.

Burt shook off his incredulity. "Kurt, that had better have been your way of introducing him by name and not a legitimate request because…" Burt trailed off, shaking his head and doing that jerky hand motion thing people sometimes do when they are trying to keep themselves from going completely batshit.

"Okay!" Carole stepped forward with an overly bright smile on her face even as she sent her husband nervous looks. "Okay. Kurt. Honey. How about we do this properly?" She turned her nervous smile my way. "My name is Carole. I'm Burt's finance."

"Blaine," I told her.

"Apparently he doesn't have a surname," Logan put in.

Carole ignored that and pressed on with the introductions. "This is Burt, Kurt's father, and that is my son, Finn. Behind Burt is Everly, a friend of the family, and standing over there is Kurt's aunt, Logan."

Logan grinned manically at me and wiggled her fingers. I scowled back at her.

"And," Carole continued, "you're wearing a Dalton uniform, so I assume you're a friend of Kurt's from school…" She trailed off then, apparently waiting for me to confirm the obvious.

"Yeah," I said.

She nodded. "…and you need a place to stay…?"

"No," Kurt said firmly before I could respond. Everyone in the room knew what it meant. Burt seemed to bristle at Kurt's no-room-for-argument tone.

"For how long?" Carole wanted to know.

Kurt opened his mouth as if to respond but Burt, who looked like he was close to losing it, spoke over him. "Hold on a minute. I'm having some trouble understanding here…"

Logan raised her hand. "Yeah, me too. Are you guys seriously going to let this random kid sleep here? I mean, yeah, cool, it's your house and all, bro, but I think this might be a good time to point out that Blainers here might actually be a teenaged sexual deviant." She flashed a smile at me.

Everly rolled her eyes. "And here we go…" She moved forward. "Look, as fascinating as Logan's usual ration of nonsense is, can we please deal with the fact that Kurt is actually speaking in front of someone who isn't us?"

Everything stopped. As if that had been taken completely by surprise, everyone turned to stare at Kurt. I couldn't help the low snort the came out because fucking really? No one paid me any attention, though.

Everly looked intently at Kurt. Her entire body was wracked with suppressed tension as if she was just waiting for someone to shout go, at which point something of epic proportions would happen, I was sure. "Is he the only one who knows?" Her voice was low, serious; eyes sharp.

Burt held his breath.

Kurt softened under everyone's desperate stares. "No," he lied gently and everyone except for Everly and Burt seemed to relax a bit.

Everly shot out her next question like rapid fire. "Is he trustworthy with whatever information about yourself you have given him?"

Her eyes never left Kurt's but I got the very distinct feeling that every other fiber of her being was zoned in on me and that I should remain absolutely still. However, my stomach twisting itself into nervous knots had nothing to do with Everly and everything to do with my own curiosity as to what Kurt's answer would be.

He glanced at me once and then quickly looked away. "No." Yes. His cheeks were touched with embarrassed pink. I barely held back a grin.

Everly nodded, all business, and I realized something. "You're SIIPA," I said. Everyone turned their attention to me. I kept my eyes on Everly.

"I am, yes," she said with cool calmness, looking unconcerned by my observation. "I'm Kurt's handler."

It made sense. I should have known that, though. Kurt had told me that his handler was his mother's best friend.

Keeping my features as relaxed as I could, I looked closer at her outfit, trying to spy any concealed weapons underneath her suit jacket. I saw nothing. That could mean one of two things. One, she was solely a diplomatic agent and therefore wasn't required to carry a weapon. Two, she was combative as well as diplomatic and was just that good at keeping any weapons she had on her person hidden from sight. I had a feeling it was the latter, which meant she was particularly dangerous.

"What do you know about SIIPA?" she asked.

"I know it exists," I said uncooperatively.

"Is that due to personal involvement or secondhand knowledge?"

"Why do you want to know?" I asked tightly.

She narrowed her eyes at me. Instead of answering my question, she asked one. "What's your last name?"

There was no way I was answering that. Something was off—something Kurt was hiding. The entire family was way too jumpy, as if they were ready to spring into action at any given moment. Everly especially. She was protecting Kurt. I just didn't know from what. SIIPA was involved, though. They had to be.

My father practically was SIIPA. Everly would know him. She wouldn't find out that I was his son from me.

"That's none of your business," I told her in a no-nonsense tone and I saw Burt tense from the corner of my eye.

Kurt huffed. "What does it matter? Can he stay or not?"

"No," Burt said.

"Hold on," Carole said before my stomach could tighten too much at the thought of leaving Kurt just when I got him to talk to me again. "Burt, we can't just throw him out. It's almost eleven and Dalton is two hours away. What if he fell asleep while driving? We'd be responsible."

Burt took a deep breath through his nose and looked from Kurt to me and back again. "Kurt, I want to talk to you in the other room." With one last look my way, Burt spun around and stalked off. Kurt followed, but didn't look happy about it.

With my hands still jammed in my sweatshirt pocket I looked around at the people who remained.

Logan cleared her throat after a few silent seconds. "So what's the deal, mop head? Are you gay?"

Everly sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. Carole frowned. "You don't have to answer that, honey."

"Sure, he does," Logan drawled. "I need to know whether or not to bust out the knives for some sack hacking." She smirked in my direction. "So how about it, Blainers? Do you have a boner for my nephew or what?"

Finn's mouth dropped open. "Oh my god."

"If I did, you'd be able to tell," I said with a shit eating smirk, trying to throw her off. The only one I threw off was Carole, who gasped audibly at the implication.

Logan merely snorted. "Yeah, sorry, short stuff, but your obvious height challenge suggests otherwise. Why don't you drop trou so we can find out for sure?"

Finn groaned. "Please don't."

Kurt came back and walked straight towards me without looking in anyone else's direction. His face was set firmly with annoyance. "Come on, Blaine," he said as he grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the stairs. I didn't look back to confirm it but I felt everyone's eyes on me and I had to fight off the urge to pull my shoulders up to my ears. I settled for balling the hand that wasn't being held by Kurt's into a fist in my pocket where no one could see it.

Kurt's room was at the end of the hall and he all but power walked us there. He pulled me inside and shut the door firmly behind us. That done, he let go of my hand and went to sit down at the small desk pushed up against the wall next to the full-sized bed, not saying a word. It was the second time that night Kurt let go of my hand before I was ready for him to. I wished he would stop doing that.

To distract myself from the disappointment, I looked around the room. The first thing I noticed was the sketchbook sitting open on his bed. Curious, I walked over to take a look, ignoring Kurt's eyes that followed me. Surprised by the apparent artistic skill, I hunched over so I could get a closer look at the faceless, well-dressed model with expertly drawn clothes. "Did you draw this?"

"No, Finn did," he said with bite, though his truth sounded worn out and faded in my mind. Still on the defensive, then.

I sat down on his bed. "I didn't know you could draw."

"Because you know everything there is to know about me," he said haughtily. There are a lot of things you don't know about me, Blaine.

I shrugged. "I know that."

We spent the next few minutes in silence as I flipped back to the beginning of the book (it was almost completely filled) and turned from page to page. I was both surprised and not surprised at all to find a few of the clothes he had drawn were things I had seen him wear during free time at Dalton. The longer I looked, the more he relaxed he became. I waited until the tension was mostly gone from his shoulders before I spoke.

"You're really good," I told him seriously when I got to the last sketch, my eyes still trained on the art I held in my hands.

He smiled a little bit at the complement and it made my stomach twist. Even when he was just sitting there doing nothing at all, he could make me feel sick in the best way with a barely even there smile. There was something about Kurt that made me feel like a different person. Or maybe just like a different Blaine—one who smiled easily and surprised Kurt with flowers and soft kisses on a regular basis. One who told Kurt that he loved him every other second and wasn't such a fuck up all the time.

But no matter how strongly I could feel that person reaching at me from somewhere that was supposed to be unreachable, he wasn't me and I wasn't him. I could never be him. I pushed Sappy Blaine back where he belonged.

I closed Kurt's sketch book and leaned forward to hand it to him. "So… since I'm still here and all, I'm guessing I can stay?"

"Maybe," he said as he reached out to take the book from me. My dad said you can sleep on the couch.

I nodded. A couch was better than nothing. At least I got to stay near Kurt.

"Hand me those?" he asked gesturing to the colored pencils and markers scattered over the bed, not the Crayola/Magic Marker kind but the super serious artsy type ones.

Gathering up the collection, I passed them over to Kurt and his skin touched mine as the transfer was made. After he pulled back, I held my hand suspended for a second, trying to get the feeling of his touch back, but it left even faster than it had lasted, so I dropped it back down pretty quick. I frowned. This wasn't working.

"Are you still mad enough to want to castrate me or has it boiled down to a mere loathing yet?"

Kurt paused momentarily in his pencil and marker organizing to glance at me. He only gave it about a second before he looked back down again. "Why?"

I figured I'd just go for it. "I was wondering if you would let me hold your hand."

That got his attention. He looked at me with surprised eyes.

I felt my face get hot. "It's just it's been a while, you know?" I shrugged to try and dispel some of the awkwardness I felt. "So… will you?"

Slowly, Kurt put down the remaining pencils he held in his hand and swiveled in his chair to face me. He held out his hand.

I shook my head. "Uh-uh. You have to sit with me," I said and he dropped his arm back down with a dry look. Yeah, right, it said and I rolled my eyes. "Relax, gorgeous, I'm not going to ravish you or anything."

He rolled his eyes right back. "Fine." He stood up from the chair to sit next to me on the bed. "Happy?"

I wasn't. There were specifics to my plan that needed to be met. Looping my arm around Kurt's, I dropped backwards so that I was lying on my back, pulling him with me as I went.

"Blaine!" he yelled after he landed. He tried to get up but I held onto his arm and he only got as far up as our joint connection would allow. "Blaine!"

"Would you calm down?" I grouched.

He scowled waspishly at me.

"Sorry," I mumbled. "Maybe I coulda planned that better."

"You think?" he snarked, snapping at me.

"Sorry," I said again.

He huffed but stopped trying to fight my hold. "What did you do that for?"

"You said I could hold your hand," I grumbled.

"Did I?" he asked in a way that suggested otherwise.

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, I'm sorry, you implied that I could hold your hand by offering it to me."

He shot me a look. "And you couldn't hold my hand without yanking my arm off?"

"I didn't yank your arm off," I grouched over the sound of his truth in my head. "Here, just—relax, okay? Lay on your back."

He narrowed his eyes at me and I glowered at him. "Just do it, alright?" Fuck, if looks could kill. "Please," I added as nicely and calmly as I could.

With a deep sigh, he settled back down so that we were both looking up at the ceiling. Tentatively, I reached out with my left and to grab his right, sliding my fingers in the spaces between his where they belonged. I scooted a little closer so that our shoulders were touching.

"See?" I grunted, blushing again. "This is all I wanted."

He heaved an exhausted sigh. He sounded drained. "And you couldn't have just asked?"

"…I thought you'd say no."

"Shouldn't I be allowed to make my own decisions?" he asked pointedly and I winced.

Why was I always such a fucking idiot when it came to dealing with Kurt? All I wanted was to lay with him for a little while and hold his hand. Honestly, I wasn't thinking about whether or not he would be offended by my pulling him down with me. I just wanted to be close to him and the desire to make that a reality had taken over. Once that happened, the other stuff, like common sense, sort of just fell away. Unfortunately.

Had I been thinking straight, though, I might have remembered that Kurt hated being forced into things. His condition did that for him. I might have remembered how angry he had been when I took his omission and forced my way into the part of him that was supposed to be safe from any outside influence: his personal thoughts.

He was obviously reminding me of that now.

"I wouldn't have done it, you know." I sighed. "That day outside the bathroom, I wouldn't have taken your omission. I wanted to but I wouldn't have done it. I learned my lesson the first time." I ran my eyes along his profile. He kept his eyes trained on the ceiling.

"Why did you want to?"

"Because you're so… distant isn't the right word. Secretive is better, I guess. Or maybe it's just me. I want to know everything about it. It's like a compulsion. Most of the time I wish I knew less about people than I do but with you it's like it's never enough. But you were right to be mad when I took your omission. It was stupid. I shouldn't have pulled you just now either." I took a deep breath. "I'm sorry."

He finally turned to look at me. There was confliction in his eyes. "I don't have a reason to be sorry," he said softly. Then, I'm sorry, too.

"For what?"

"Nothing." For being so distant with you before the whole Sebastian thing.

I frowned. I had almost forgotten about that. "Why were you?"

He shook his head as if it was too much. "I don't know." You're so intense. Weare intense. The way we constantly gravitate towards each other is so overwhelming. I think about you all the time. When I left Dalton to come here it was a constant struggle not to go back just because I knew that was where you were. And even now, you're right here, but it's like even that isn't enough. That scares me…

It was the first time he said something that was so raw and honest, and it ripped right through me. One thing stuck out to me, though. He had said 'we'. Us, as in two people coexisting together as one unit; Kurt and Blaine.

So of course I blurted out the stupidest thing possible.

"I want to kiss you."

He looked surprised for a moment, but that washed quickly away, leaving something much more complicated behind. "Why?" he asked, his everything eyes searching mine. He looked a little confused, as if he couldn't understand why I would want to share myself with him that way. My hand tightened at little around his.

"Because I want to know what it feels like to kiss you for real."

"What about the last kiss?"

I frowned. "I figured you would want to forget about it because of the drunk thing."

He frowned too. "Do you really think that?"

"…Am I wrong?"

"No." Of course you're wrong. I would never want to forget it.

Oh.

In that case… "Can we try again?" I had never asked for a kiss before. If I saw an opening, I took it, and it would be so easy to take a kiss from Kurt. His mouth was facing mine and he was close enough to reach without too much effort. It would be easy. But… "Please?"

He bit his lip.

He was going to say no.

He was going to say no and I needed it. My mouth was dry, my tongue smashed against the roof of my mouth, lightly sucking. What would it feel like to kiss Kurt and remember it? To experience something like that when I was fully aware of myself and of him?

"I'm scared too, you know," I told him. "I've never…" Just say it. "I've never needed someone the way I need you. And I don't like attachments. Or at least I didn't. But I can't help it when it comes to you, and I just… I really want to kiss you. I know I fucked it up the last time…"

I was still in the middle of trying to explain myself when he spoke so I heard his words, but didn't comprehend them. His truth, however, rang loud and clear. Okay.

My brain shut itself down and went into momentary overdrive as it tried to stop on a dime and readjust. "Okay?" I asked, partly out of shock and partly just to make absolutely sure.

He shook his head no, looking just as nervous as I felt, and for a second I felt the sting of rejection before I remembered that this was Kurt.

"Okay," I said. This was going to happen. He said okay. This was going to happen. "Okay."

He smiled nervously then shut his eyes. My stomach swooped because that meant something right? That meant he trusted me even if he didn't know it himself.

Not wanting to freak him out, I leaned in and brushed his lips once as lightly as I could. I heard him breathe sharply in and when I pulled back and opened my eyes, his chest was still contracting as he slowly released the breath.

He didn't open his eyes. "That's it?" he asked breathlessly.

Closing my eyes, I moved forward and caught his lower lip before he got the chance to close his mouth. He breathed in deep and I released his hand so I could roll on my side, rising slightly above him so that I could reach more. I angled my head, loving how soft his mouth was.

I kissed my way along his mouth, needing to feel all of him before I could get too far gone and give into the impulse to find out what he tasted like on the inside. My hand trailed slowly up from where it was resting on his arm to press my palm against his jaw and tangle my fingers in his hair. He responded by lifting his face towards mine and moaning softly and I decided I had tortured myself enough.

"More?" I asked against his lips.

"More," he agreed, voice soft and full of wonder and desire for something new and unknown.

I ran my tongue along his bottom lip and he gasped. Twisting my head the other way, I slid my tongue into his mouth where his lips were parted and groaned because fuck, he tasted like everything there was that had ever tasted good. It was still as obvious that he didn't know what he was doing but the slide of his inexperienced tongue against mine was mind-numbing and way better than any orgasm I had ever had.

He was a little shy about it at first, but he was quick to shake that off and soon his tongue was sweeping mine like we had done it like that since the start of forever. He held me close to him, his body moving with his mouth and tongue in a way that was demanding.

Needing to stop, I pulled my lips away from his with a smack. I was practically on top of him even though I didn't remember putting myself that way. I moved my hips (and my achingly hard erection) away from him.

"Don't stop," he ordered and I nearly smashed my hips against his because fuck was that his voice? Seriously?

I melded our mouths together once more before pulling away a second later. "Have to," I said, my voice more fucked up than I expected it to be.

"Don't," he repeated and too fast for me to stop him, he pushed my body back so that our positions were reversed. He covered my mouth. His tongue swirling expertly around mine made my brain shut down. I gave him what he wanted and took what I could, pulling him closer.

Then without warning his twisted his head to the side, his lips swiping across mine until our mouths were no longer touching. He was breathing heavy. "Sorry." I shouldn't have done that.

"I'm not sorry," I said between gasps for breath.

He dropped his head against my shoulder. "Is it supposed to feel like that?"

I didn't need to ask what he meant by 'that'. I ducked down to kiss his neck once and his arms tightened around me. "It hasn't with anyone else."

He nodded. "Does that scare you?"

"A little," I admitted. Mostly, I just wanted to kiss him again. Maybe I would properly freak myself out later.

He nodded again but said nothing.

Eventually everything changed and somehow we ended up curled around each other on his bed, arms and legs tangled up, but not our lips. I was almost asleep. Me, nearly asleep in someone's arms. Me.

"…Blaine?"

I didn't open my eyes. "Mmhmm?" He mumbled something. His truth was more clear.

I missed you.

I smiled. "Missed you too."