Okay people, here is a warning: there is smut in this chapter. And not just once. Ye have been warned.

The Proper Way to Forget to Breathe

This one requires either shock or stimulation…

The days that followed the conversation Kurt and I had about the cure weren't exactly pleasant—not necessarily because of what we had talked about, but it didn't help things.

I was sort of in a strange place with our whole relationship thing or whatever it was. Unfortunately, I never actually got to the head clearing part when I left Kurt's house that Saturday—instead of unloading some of my problems I decided to keep all of them piled on top my shoulders and throw some of Santana's issues into the mix just to make things interesting.

So yeah… stuff sort of started to fester and it wasn't just me acting strange. Kurt was being all weird too with the half smiles he kept throwing my way and the constant egg shell walking. I guess everything that happened between us in the previous couple weeks had finally caught up with us and the awkward had set in. Not to mention Brittany was getting worse rather than improving and Santana was freaking out big time and calling almost twice a day to send panic vibes at me through the phone, which was understandable, but not really helping.

So all that shit was part of the reason why I freaked out on Wes in the middle of Warbler's practice one afternoon when he pointed out that my constant complaining was getting on his nerves and that my singing reminded him of a dying cow who was trying to push a giant squid out its ass. Now assuming Wesley actually knew what a cow sounded like while passing a giant squid through its anal cavity (never mind how the squid got in there in the first place, or why the cow hadn't exploded yet) I'm pretty positive I didn't sound that terrible but it was still pretty damn close—I can admit it; it's just that I didn't give one single fuck. Also, informing Wes that he could go fuck himself seemed like a thing of brilliance at the time, so that happened. Then I stormed out.

It took longer than I thought it would, but eventually Kurt came and found me.

"Hey," he said quietly.

"Hey," I answered back without taking my eyes off the ceiling (I was laying on my back on one of the couches in the student lounge—where else?).

"Will you show me how to look at the stars?"

His question was so random and out of nowhere that I couldn't stop myself from turning my head to stare blankly at him. "Where the hell did that come from?"

"Will you?" he pressed, not answering my question.

I sighed and redirected my attention back up to the ceiling. "There's not really anything to show. You just lay down and look up."

"Will you come with me then?"

I looked over at him again, wondering where all of this was coming from. Then I finally noticed that he had a green blanket slung over one arm and his mother's poetry book tucked safely between that and his chest. My eyes zeroed in on the book specifically—the start to falling in love with the real him, he had said. I sat up and swung my legs over the edge of the couch cushions.

"Yeah, okay."

As soon as we stepped outside I looked up at the sky. It wasn't exactly dark outside, but the sun was gone from sight for the most part and the stars were trying their best to outshine the little bit of light that did remain.

With a sigh, I followed wordlessly behind Kurt, who kept walking until we were far from campus and hidden away in one of Dalton's stupid rose bush gardens. When he found the spot he liked best I helped him spread out the blanket he brought with him, which turned out to be a lot bigger than I expected it to be. Kurt wasted absolutely no time in walking to one side of it and laying himself down on his back, dropping like a rock like he had been standing for weeks and had finally, finally been awarded sweet relief. He stretched his long limbs out and sighed, eyes already searching the sky, as if it held all the answers to every question he refused to ask out loud.

I, on the other hand, was less excited about the whole thing. Specifically, I was hesitant to just lie down like it was nothing and uproot years of stargazing with Cooper and only Cooper, so I sat down instead, folding my legs like a pretzel.

Kurt held his mother's book out for me to take without taking his eyes off the sky. "Will you read to me for a while?" he asked quietly.

Feeling lost, I searched his face, trying to grasp the randomness of it all. When his expression gave me nothing to go on, I silently took the book from him. "Which one do you want me to read?"

"None of them." It doesn't matter. You pick.

With one last probing look in his direction that was once again a moot point, I shifted into a more comfortable position and opened the book to search for something that caught my eye. At first there were too many things. Elizabeth Hummel had written almost fifteen years' worth of poetry in the book and it was obvious even at a glance that consistency had not been a factor in a single one of those years. Quickly looking through the book I saw she had written in about ten difference colors of ink, her handwriting was all over the place, and the book was littered with sticky notes of various colors, states, and sizes. There wasn't a single thing that stood out to me because everything was unique.

"Are all these tabs hers?" I asked, trailing my fingers over the frayed notes.

Kurt watched my finger, transfixed for a moment before he seemed to realize it and looked back up and away. "Yes." Some of them are mine but only a few. The rest are all hers."

I nodded absently, skipping over yet another tabbed page. The book was littered with them. "Do you know what they are supposed to be indicating?"

His eyes jumped from one patch of sky to another. "I've never really thought about it to be honest." I always thought the tabs marked her favorites, but I don't know for sure.

His truth confirmed my own suspicions. People typically singled out the things they were proud of, but I didn't want something polished. I wanted something rough. I didn't know why exactly and I still don't, but once the thought was in my head I couldn't let it go.

The word that finally grabbed my immediate attention was shit—or shittiest if you want to be technical about it. The page was marked up all over the place with notes scribbled into the margins. Words were crossed out out, whole sentences were run through with lines that marked them as failed attempts.

It looked something like this on the page:

~The Shittiest Poem Ever, AKA, the Math Teacher's Nose Named Colossus~

So there's his nose where it lives on his face—

OffensiveHIDEOUS! and bulbous.

Sticking out.

I can't focus.

So many words spill from his lips.

They fall to the floor—

Valuable and important.(yeah right)

I need them

But I don't pick them up.

I can't.

All I can see is the nose.I am SO going to fail the final

I can't look away.

If I do, it could get me.

Burt— I see you looking at me with that face. I'm not crazy. I'm bored and this class sucks. Please stop looking at me like you're thinking about having me committed as it is very distracting and kindly return your judging eyes to their respective sockets so that I may finish writing this wonderful and inspiring piece of literature.

It could poke me with its

Nasty

Nose-y

Fleshy

Skin.

Lizzie—you're writing about our teacher poking you with his nasty fleshy skin. And you named it. Am I supposed to let that one go?

Burt—you stole my poetry journal and WROTE in it. Am I supposed to let that one go?

Let the records show for future reference that Burt Hummel is now pouting like a five year old. That's one point for me.

But ANYWAY. Back to brilliance:

The.

End.

Elizabeth Hummel, October 5th, 1987

I caught the look on Kurt's face as the last word fell from my lips. "Why are you looking at me like that?" I asked.

His lips curled into the wide grin he had obviously been trying to hold back. "I don't know." You look so confused. He giggled. "If you could see your face…"

"…It's about a nose."

Kurt smiled, amused, like he was humoring me. "Yes. She was obviously very reserved. I never really liked that one." She sounds like such a crazy person, doesn't she? My dad used to say that she had a really wacked out, carefree sense of humor and a spastic personality. I never really got to experience it for myself, so it's nice to see a piece of it in her writing.

"Well, I can definitely see spastic. It's just not what I was expecting to find. I guess I figured she would be really serious and mom-like or whatever."

He grinned. "Read another one."

I flipped back to the beginning.

Surprisingly, the more I read, the more relaxed I began to feel—at least relaxed enough to stretch out of my stomach as I read and Kurt looked up at the sky.

Elizabeth had been an interesting person and it showed in her writing. A lot of the poems I read that night were about random crap, which was mostly because I kept on searching for pages that were filled with more side notes and cross outs than actual prose—one had a shopping list right in the middle of it.

She also seemed to enjoy poking fun at herself and her past mistakes. It was interesting to read the comments she had made on her earlier poems years after they had been written, most of them biting and sarcastic. Even more interesting were the changes in her writing style as the years progressed.

It just sort of happened that the two of us would go out every night after Warbler's practice so Kurt could look up at the sky as I read out loud to him. Sometimes we would talk about random nonsense instead of me reading.

Weeks passed. We stayed apart on the weekends. I made a habit of going to Santana's house every Friday and staying until Sunday. It worked out for all of us. Bitches needed someone to keep her same and I needed somewhere to stay that was close enough to Kurt so that I didn't have to spend our separation feeling like I was trying to quit crack.

Sometimes Kurt wouldn't ask for the book back when it was time to go back inside and I would get to keep it for a few days. Elizabeth had written a lot of poems about fall. They helped relax me when I needed it.

The September visit to see Cooper had been pretty bad and I got pretty fucked up by a man named Jim Des who really hadn't appreciated that fact that I basically gave my father to OK to lock him up for the rest of his life. Coop had lost it at the angry, hand-shaped bruises on my neck. The bruises were still there when I saw Kurt again the next day and he gave me an earful for 'being such an idiot.' He didn't chew me out for long, though. The fact that I had only gotten about five minutes with Cooper before he had to be sedated messed me up. Kurt was the one who read that night. I listened.

About a couple weeks later Kurt caught me by surprise.

I had been in the process of searching through Elizabeth's book for something that caught my eye when he asked a question. I knew Elizabeth's writing pretty well by that time and I could usually tell a lot about a random poem just by looking at things like the handwriting, which changed according to the mood she had been in when writing it. The color pen she decided to use was usually a good indicator as well. Black meant she had been having a bad day, blue meant good. Regardless, the point is that I was distracted, which is why I gave Kurt only half of my full attention and absently mumbled a "What?" in response to his soft spoken, "Want to know something?"

"Nothing," he said in reply, and I rolled my eyes as I flipped through a few more pages, knowing he was grinning without needing visual confirmation. Almost all of his lies were 'nothing's' now, which was extremely annoying. Kurt found it hilarious.

My dad asked me to ask you if you wanted to spend next weekend with us.

"Uh-huh," I said turning another page. Kurt waited patiently for my brain to catch up. "Wait. What?"

He grinned at me when I turn my baffled and shocked expression in his direction. "Hi," he said.

I rolled my eyes. "Shut up." Then, "Are you serious?"

He shot me a dry, sarcastic look complete with a raised eyebrow.

"Okay, dumb question. Jesus. Keep your hair on," I snarked back. "Do you think I should?"

"No-o-o-o," he deadpanned. Yes, you idiot.

"Name calling now. Nice. I can't this weekend, though," I finally remembered. "Cooper is this weekend."

His eyes became weary and concerned. "What about after?"

Did I want Kurt's whole family to see me when I was that vulnerable? "What about next weekend?"

Kurt shrugged. "I don't think that will work." It shouldn't be a problem.

He still looked worried, though, so I abandoned Elizabeth's book and leaned up to kiss his cheek. When that didn't work, I did it again. And then again and again until he finally grinned and pointed to his lips.

I blinked up at him dumbly, teasing him.

He rolled his eyes and closed the distance himself. I laughed against his mouth as I leaned back, taking him with me.

Just a few days later he finally managed to coax me into lying next to him on my back, my hand clasped tightly in his as we looked up at the stars together for the first time. There was a small pit in my stomach that rebelled against what I was doing, insisting that stargazing was for Cooper only, but another part of me rationalized that Kurt had shared so much of himself with me and that I should return the favor.

"I never thought I would do this with anyone with Cooper…" I admitted.

Kurt squeezed my hand. "Ask me what I want to say," he said softly.

"What do you want to say."

"Nothing," he said, voice gentle to show that he wasn't doing it to be a brat that time. It doesn't mean you don't love him, Blaine. You're not betraying him or anything. You know what don't you?

"I know that logically. It just feels… I don't know. I'm being stupid."

What started out as a soft, it-will-all-be-okay kiss from him quickly turned into something more—something that was out of control but still designed so that we could both poor every emotion we had into it; me releasing the tension I had been carrying around with me into his mouth and him accepting it without fear or hesitation.

And then it turned into that completely unplanned and unexpected moment when I was fucking his mouth with my tongue as he rolled his hips into mine, making both of us gasp and moan. I had no idea how we had so suddenly got there, but he was moving above me in the most delicious way and I couldn't summon the energy to care.

"That's it, baby," I panted into his mouth as he ground his covered cock into mine.

I held him tighter than I probably should have, one hand griping the back of his head while my other hand gripped his ass, pulling his body roughly against mine—as if I was terrified that he might fade into oblivion if I let him go.

"Blaine," he gasped, looking completely lost and desperate for some sort of validation that what we were doing was allowed. Mixed in was disbelief over the things he was feeling—the things we were both making each other feel.

"It's okay," I whispered, telling him both the truth and what he wanted to hear. I pulled his head down towards mine, consoled him with my lips gentle on his. "It's okay. Take what you want. I'm right here," I said against his mouth, making him breathe the words in so that they filled him up.

A desperate sound escaped his lips as he kissed me back sloppily as he moved with me. With the hand that wasn't holding the back of his head I found my way under his shirt to feel the impossibly smooth skin that stretched across his back. He gasped and his lips were suddenly gone, his head falling forward until his face was buried in my neck. He mouthed lethargically at the skin he could reach.

His trusts became erratic and uncaring as he reached that place where the inevitable end was in sight and all that was left to do was get there as quickly as possible. I pulled impossibly harder at his hips, insistently helping him along. He half whined, half groaned against my neck.

"I know, gorgeous," I said, trying to ignore the restless feeling that was slowly driving me insane. The constricting denim around my cock and balls made me ache to be at that point past the point of no return where he was, but the building anticipation at the prospect of making him come overpowered my own need to do the same. So I hung on and mentally willed him to finish fast so that I could follow.

It didn't take him much longer. A few more erratic thrusts and he came with a final soft, high pitched moan that was probably the sexiest thing I ever heard.

He fell against me when he was spent and I rolled him onto his back and continued to thrust against him until I fell over the edge, joining him in that blissful place where everything was perfect. I gave myself a few seconds to breathe harshly from my mouth before I nudged him with my nose until he tilted his head back enough so I could kiss him. His kissed me lazily without moving any part of his body other than his lips.

"Are you okay?" I whispered to him.

"Yeah, I'm okay," he mumbled, eyes closed, and my heart began to drop towards my rapidly sinking stomach before his truth set my mind at ease, Just okay doesn't cover it, his truth told me, sounding as lethargic and spent as his audible voice had been, I'm amazing.

He gave that some time to sink in before asking, "Are you okay?"

"I think 'amazing' covers it," I told him, pulling him close as I stubbornly ignored the discomforting mess in my pants. Then, even though he had told me that I didn't, I couldn't stop the soft I love you from gliding effortlessly through my mind.

Cooper and I didn't watch the movie I had brought with me for my November visit which meant that Santa Clause Conquers the Martians stayed stuffed my backpack with the plastic covering still wrapped around the case. Instead of carrying out our tradition, we sat on his bed, his back pressed up against mine as we each leaned heavily against the other, keeping each other upright. We took turns digging through the bucket of Bazooka gum (the gum hadn't suffered the same fate as the unwanted DVD in my bag) that sat beside us like it was popcorn.

"Are you mad?" I asked as I spit the tasteless wad gum I had been chewing back into its wrapper. I tossed it somewhere unimportant before shoving my hand back in the bucket for a new piece.

When I had first walked into Cooper's room that day and saw his face, the words formed in my mind before I could think to stop them. As I sat with him on the bed, waiting for him to answer my question, I recalled the fallen look on his face as the words, I looked at the stars with Kurt traveled from my mind to his.

"Mad isn't the right word. Jealous definitely works, though." He paused to spit out his own gum with a sigh. "And no, you don't have to say sorry."

So I didn't. He knew I was sorry anyway. "What are you jealous of exactly?" It was kind of a stupid question to ask because I knew the gist of the answer. Stargazing was supposed to be the thing I shared with Cooper. It was supposed to be what we did when we needed to be reminded that there were bigger things in life than their own much smaller problems. No matter what Kurt said, I could help but feel like I had broken a piece of my connection with Cooper by sharing that experience with Kurt.

His humorless laugh brought me out of my guilty reverie. "Well, that's part reason," he said, hearing my thoughts. "Though, I wouldn't say a piece of our connection was broken by you stargazing with Kurt. Nothing you do could ever break our connection, Blaine. What I'm feeling is more complicated than that. Yes, I wish that I could still be the one to look up at the stars with you when you've had a bad day, and it kills me that I can't, but it's more the fact that you're growing up and I'm missing it that I can't handle. I'm jealous of anyone who gets to watch you do that."

"That's not your fault, Coop," I said gently.

"Yeah, but that doesn't really make it hurt any less. I'm supposed to be there for you. I'm supposed to bust your balls when I catch the two of you making out on the couch or wherever. I'm supposed to be there for you when one of you fucks up and makes the other one cry. I'm supposed to threaten him and tell him not to break your heart. I'm supposed to watch you fall in love. I'll never get to do that, though, will I? I'll never get to do any of those things." His return breath shook. "I can't do this anymore, Blaine. I hate it."

For the first time ever he didn't have a telekinetic fit when I left. He just sat there on the bed with a sad smile on his face, saying he would see me next month. It made my skin turn cold and a disturbed feeling ran up my back like a thousand tiny little legs pricking at my skin. I couldn't help but feel like I was the one who broke him, like it was my fault.

I felt so wrecked by the whole thing that I almost blew by the exit that would take me back to Dalton and went straight to Lima instead—emotional instability around near strangers be damned. I didn't, though. However much I needed Kurt, I didn't want anyone to see me when I felt so ruined. I wasn't crying or anything—I didn't do that—but the utter feeling of wrong that was pulsing just underneath the surface would make me feel exposed regardless.

I didn't go to Lima Heights either—Santana was spending the weekend with Brittany, who hadn't had any psychic fits that week, which meant that she was out of solitary confinement for the first time in a long time and back in her one bedroom apartment, where Santana would be permitted to visit her.

As soon as I got to Dalton I went straight to my room. As much as I wanted the solitude, the thought of laying on the stiff couches in the student lounge made me want to vomit.

Steven was busy with something at his desk and he looked up at me when I walked in. He studied my face for about three seconds before he quickly grabbed up some random shit and left without a word. I was already lying face down on my bed, my face pressed up against the pillow, eyes shut, brain trying to forget.

I had only been lying like a vegetable for about twenty minutes when the door opened and then shut a second later. I was half asleep so I didn't bother to look, didn't bother to care until familiar fingers found their way into my hair, smoothing it gently back. Stunned into moving, I groggily pushed myself to one side to look over my shoulder. "Kurt?" I asked at the unexpected sight of him. "What are you doing here?"

Kurt smiled sadly at me and leaned down to kiss the corner of my mouth. "Are you okay?" he asked instead of answering my question.

I didn't even think about responding with anything other than the sad and pathetic, "No," that left my lips.

A sad, unsurprised look passed over his face. He kissed me again before laying down with me, his body on top of mine for the most part. I held him tight, relishing in the press of his weight as I fell fully and properly asleep.

I woke up with the desperate need to forget and Kurt was right there, asleep and beautiful, tempting me. So I took what he unknowingly offered.

He had rolled onto his back sometime during our nap, his head tilted harshly to one side on the pillow leaving his neck exposed. I licked his skin and rolled on top of him, pressing myself against him. He woke up in seconds, gasping.

"Blaine."

I licked my way harshly into his mouth and pulled back abruptly, leaving him to flounder. "Let me touch you," I ordered, needing it.

"W-where?" he asked.

Without warning I palmed his cock and he let out a choked gasp. "Here," I said rubbing my fingers lightly over the rapidly hardening length of him—enough pressure to torture him, but not nearly enough to get him off. In the back of my mind I realized on some level that I shouldn't be so forceful with him because he was Kurt and nothing whatsoever like the faceless, nameless guys I had fucked in the past, but I was too far gone and instinct had kicked in.

"Oh god," he groaned and hiked his hips up to push himself against my hand.

I pulled my hand away. He whined at the denial.

"No, gorgeous," I said when he whined and tried to push his hips to where my hand was hovering just out of his reach. "Tell me you want it," I told him, pausing to suck at his neck. "Do you?"

"No." Yes!

I moaned at how desperate he sounded. "Fucking right, you do," I muttered and kissed his mouth again, rough and wet, my tongue demanding against his. I placed both my hands at the button of his jeans and pulled them open, pulled his zipper down, touched him through the flimsy material of his briefs, stretched tight over his cock. My fingers curled around his covered skin, the heat that had collected there pushing through the fabric to my hand. For a moment, I was content to take my time with him, but then he moaned loudly and began rubbing himself sloppily against my hand, his hips rolling sensuously as he used me to pleasure himself.

I groaned at the sight. "Fuck, Kurt." He was like a fit of nerves with that sexy as hell look on his face and his eyes clouded over with mindless feeling.

I sucked harshly at his bottom lip, making his hips jerk up as he moaned once more. "Like that, do you? What if I sucked on your cock instead? Want me to?"

His eyes went wide. "No," he rasped out. Yes.

I grunted at his response, took a minute to roll my own erection against his leg, and then released him to push his shirt half way up his chest.

"I have to take your dick out to do that, baby," I told him like he didn't already know. "You okay with that?"

"Do it," he ordered and I smirked.

So fast. We were going so fast. It was delicious and familiar. It was what I was used to. It was no warning, no debating, just yes, please, Blaine, yes, fuck me now.

I ran my hand up and down his partly bare chest, working him up, making him whine; down, down, down until I reached the tip of his clothed cock, just barely teasing it before quickly pulling my fingers away to trail back up, far away from where he wanted me.

He gasped and moaned, eyes closed, mouth wide open. He opened his eyes every few seconds to silently plead with me, asking for the friction that I refused to give him until…

"Please, Blaine," he begged.

With a satisfied smirk, I reached instead of his underwear and fisted his cock, jerking him once, twice, and then stopped when I glanced up at his face. He looked completely overwhelmed with everything—needy, desperate, and absolutely mindless. I realized that wasn't what I wanted. It was fast and delicious, but it was supposed to be more than that—it was me and it was Kurt. It was us together and that meant something to me and I knew I couldn't do anything else until he understood that.

With my hand still griping his cock but no longer moving, I reached up with the other to strok his cheek with my thumb. I kissed his lips, his cheek, the tip of his nose. "Hey. Look at me, baby."

He did—with his blissed out, desperate, gorgeous eyes, he looked at me.

"This isn't nothing to me, Kurt," I told him. "You're beautiful and you're everything. Okay?" My stomach swooped at the look he gave him in response—a look that made me feel like I was everything too. "Do you believe me?"

He shook his head no, looking like he couldn't speak if he tried, but I understood it—I understood him—and I kissed him again, suddenly overwhelmed with the truth he was giving me. Once again, I kept the I love you that I stubbornly refused to let go of to myself and kissed my way down his chest, sucking once at one of his nipples while his shirt was still bunched up to just above his pectorals. He whispered my name as I began moving the hand wrapped around his cock once again, teasingly slow until I had finally kissed my way down to the light trail of hair that ran down to his pubic area and released my hold on him completely so that I could use both hands to push his jeans and briefs halfway down his thighs.

His cock, darkened with blood, was flushed, longer than I expected, and leaking against his lower abs. He wasn't as thick as I was, but he was thick enough to make my mouth water in anticipation and he groaned with his head thrown back when I placed an open mouthed kiss just above the base. He looked up for the second kiss, though, his face flushed with color, his eyes half-lidded but still full of fascination.

I groaned and trailed my tongue up to the tip. "Don't stop watching," was all the warning I gave him before swallowing as much of him as I could.

"Fuck, Blaine!" he gasped, voice high. He lifted his hips involuntarily, instinctually seeking to push himself farther into my mouth. I let him do it, relaxing my throat to accommodate him as I used both my hands to unbutton and then unzip my own pants. As I started to jerk myself, I dragged my mouth back up his length, sucking him as I went and then went back down until he hit the back of my throat once more.

"Oh, my god. Oh, god. Shit. Blaine. Don't stop. Don't stop."

I didn't plan on it. It was all so good—the weight of him on my tongue, the tightening in my balls as I got myself off, the unashamed way he watched me as I greedily sucked him, the sounds that filled the room as his cock slid in and out of my mouth, the staccato gaps of pleasured bliss that worked their way passed his lips when I stopped bobbing my head to groan around him, all of it.

When I abandoned my own cock to slide his hands under his ass and squeeze, he came loudly and aggressively, lifting his hips even farther off the bed as he shoved his cock far down my throat. That combined with the taste of him on my tongue was enough to send me over the edge after two savage thrusts against the mattress.

I only became aware that my mouth was empty when I mumbled a soft and breathless, "fucking hell," against his thigh.

Kurt didn't respond—he was still panting heavily and staring up at the ceiling—so I kissed his spent cock one last time before dragging myself back up to his face. I didn't bother with pulling my pants back up, nor did I bother asking whether or not he would mind if I stuck my tongue down his throat only seconds after swallowing his cum. He groaned into the kiss, though, so I assumed he wasn't going to kick my ass for it.

"I just jizzed all over my blankets," I felt the need to point out once I caught my breath.

"Oh my god," Kurt groaned.

"Sorry, gorgeous, but it's true. You should be proud of yourself. That's twice now that I've come without being in someone's mouth or up their ass."

"Please stop talking."

I closed my eyes and snuggled up to him. "Hey, it's not like I help what I'm saying right now. My brain is fuck all at the moment." I yawned. "Your fault."

Kurt yawned as well.

"Hey…" I began out of the blue, suddenly nervous. "Are you okay?"

He twisted his neck to frown at me. "Why do you always ask me that?" Why do you ask me that every time we do something sexual?

I sighed, "I hurt a lot of people, remember? I never really cared how the other guy felt so long as I got off. I don't want it to be like that with you."

"But I already said before that I…" he trailed off, unable to go on.

"I know," I assured him, figuring he was referring to my random burst of sensitivity just before I went to town on him. "I just had to make sure. We never really talked about whether you wanted a sex thing with me. The first time just sort of happened."

"I wouldn't tell you if it bothered me." I would tell you if anything that we've done so far bothered me. In fact, I wouldn't have done it if it bothered me.

"Just making sure," I repeated.

He yawned again and shifted underneath me. "Go to sleep, Blaine."

I kicked my pants the rest of the way down, he pulled his back up.

"Kay." A thought occurred to me. "Hey, Kurt?"

"Mmm…"

"Thanks for coming back here for me."

His lips touched my forehead before he fell asleep.

"Hands off," Kurt barked out the second my fingertips brushed his thigh.

I pulled my hand back with an annoyed scoff and flopped back against the passenger seat of Kurt's car. It was Friday, we were on our way to Lima for the weekend, and I was horny—again. "You are such a cockblock."

"Excuse me?" he demanded in an are-you-serious-right-now kind of way. "Does what happened ten minutes ago no longer count?"

"Oh, it fucking counts," I grumbled. "I just want more."

Kurt snorted, unimpressed with that bit of logic.

I have to admit that I was being pretty obnoxious. Once I finally got my hands on him it was like having a new drug—I needed it constantly. I had lost track of how many times I had gotten him off in the span of six days—not that he was complaining about it. His issue was definitely not with the near constant orgasms I was giving him—it was the fact that his parents were expecting us to be at his house around five, and five had come and gone about twenty minutes earlier.

It was my fault we were late. Twice, we had pulled off to the side of the road since we left Dalton so that I could work him out of the frenzy I put him in.

"We don't really even need to pull over. You can just keep driving while I do it."

"Are you insane? Do you have a death wish or something?"

"Not since I last checked," I said, rolling my eyes. "I do have a wish to swallow your cock, though, so let's deal with that."

"So you can whip yours out in the middle of it and make a mess all over the place?" So you can start to masturbate while doing it and potentially get your stuff on my upholstery?

"Hey. Sex should be beneficial to both parties."

He snorted.

"C'mon, Kurt. You won't crash. I won't touch myself this time, I swear." Yeah, that was a total lie.

Unfortunately Kurt knew it, too. He drew the line and refused to let me cross.

I sulked in my seat and tried not to let my mind wander too much. I had always been a fairly sexual person, but I knew I was going overboard. I had a tendency to use sex to distract myself from the more unpleasant things in my life, and if worrying about Cooper had been at the very top of my list before, it was a list all of its own now. Kurt was the perfect distraction from all that even if he technically had no idea that was what was going on. He was so addictive and responsive to everything and not the blushing virgin I had thought he would be despite the fact that we had yet to progress from the one-sided blow jobs.

Still, my baggage aside, long car rides sucked—especially when I wasn't the driver. Sitting in a passenger seat made me twitch.

"Fuck. Are we there yet?"

"Seriously, Blaine?"

Somehow I survived the trip and even managed to refrain from dropping onto my hands and knees to kiss the ground when the car rolled to a stop. I did practically throw myself out, though, and made a big show of stretching, which Kurt pointedly ignored in favor of yanking his ginormous suitcase out of the back.

I shouldered my light backpack that held one pair of jeans, two pairs of boxers, and two T-shirts, and stood off to the side shaking my head at him. He took a second to flip me off before giving the think one more vicious yank, which sent it crashing to the ground.

"Need a hand, honey?" I asked, a shit eating grin on my face.

The look he shot me was pure evil. I wisely hid my smile. After a second of murderous staring, he hefted the thing up and onto its wheels, pulled out the pull-y thing and stalked off with his head high.

I took a second to admire him, a stupid grin plastered on my face, before jogging after him and praying I somehow survived another visit with Kurt's psychotic family.

I decided sometime in the middle of the Buckeyes game that football wasn't so bad. I even found myself getting into it, though not nearly as much as Finn and Burt, who spent more time on their feet, yelling at the television for this or that, than they did anything else.

Kurt sat in the loveseat off to the right of the couch, alternating between sketching and shaking his head at his father and Finn while rolling his eyes.

"YEEEEAAAH! Go, baby, go, go… go… TOUCHDOWN! That's what I'm talking about!" Burt turned to Finn, who was also on his feet, with both hands up. Finn slapped his hands with what looked like as much strength as he could muster. I forced myself not to wince at the sound of the impact.

An instant replay started and Finn dropped back down on the couch with a satisfied sigh. Burt remained standing, which I was grateful for—it was a little awkward being sandwiched between Kurt's father and his almost step-brother, but Burt insisted that the couch was the best place in the living room to be when a game was on, especially since I had never seen one before. It hadn't been a lie, but the small twinge I felt altered me to the fact that it wasn't the whole truth either.

At first I thought either Burt was trying to keep me close by having me sit next to him (which meant I couldn't sit with Kurt) or he was actually trying to make an effort to include me. As time passed, though, I began to suspect it was a mixture of both—Burt still looked at me like he didn't quite know what to do with my presence in his home (even though he was the one to extend the invitation), but his persona was different than it had been when we first met—less like checking all the exists for the best one to shove me out of.

So back to the game.

Touchdown, instant replay, Finn sat, Burt stretched his arms high above his head and didn't.

"You boys want anything?" he offered. "I'm starving."

Finn thought for a second. "Do we have any more of that dip stuff from last week?"

"Probably. You want chips with that, I'm guessing?"

"Doritos."

Kurt looked up sharply at his father. "Dad…"

Burt huffed and rolled his eyes. "Relax, kid. I'll bring out carrots too. You good with Doritos, Blaine?"

"Yeah, I like them."

"Alright, I'll be back in a minute. Call me if anything exciting happens."

Burt headed for the kitchen just as the replay finished and the game started again. Finn nudged me with his elbow.

"Dude, you should totally try yelling at the television. It's, like, really there-reputic and stuff."

I frowned. "You mean 'therapeutic'?"

Finn frowned too. "Uhh… I dunno. Kurt? Do I?"

"No," he said, not looking up from his sketchbook. Yes.

I could practically see the wheels turning in Finn's head. Of course, the play by play helped, too. "Okay… Kurt said no… so that means he really said yes, so… yeah, that's the one I meant."

"How is yelling at people who can't hear you therapeutic?"

"It just is, man. Seriously. Try it next time things get good. It's part of the whole experience."

I didn't have to wait too long. A truly brilliant pass was made and the receiver took off like a rocket. Finn hopped up on his feet, pulling me with him even as he called for Burt to hurry up. Once I was standing on my feet it was a whole different experience. Finn's excitement was catching. Adrenaline rushed through my veins and I found myself willing 15 forward and warning him to watch his left side where the other team was closing in on him.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. With my focus still on the game, I grabbed it out of my pocket and connected the call without bothering to check the caller ID. "What?"

"Blaine," a voice said. One short word. My name.

For a second I got absolutely nothing from it. I couldn't place the voice, couldn't recognize it, couldn't comprehend it because of some stupid football game.

It wasn't until my stomach dropped like a brick that my brain caught on to what my body already knew.

"Santana?" I asked, turning away from the television as I pressed the phone closer to my ear, trying to concentrate. I didn't like the way her voice sounded nothing like her—panicked, terrified. Why?

"She's here."

My lips fell open. Confusion set in. "What?"

Finn suddenly exclaimed. "Dude! Did you see—oh! Crap, man. Sorry."

I ignored him.

"She's here," Santana said again, and it was just as unhelpful as it had been the first time around.

"San, go back because I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Who is where?"

"Brittany," she whispered.

Fuck. My mind immediately went nuts piecing scenario after scenario together—Brittany losing control, passing the point of no return; Santana having to watch helplessly as SIIPA dragged her off to somewhere she would never be allowed to follow. She would never let them take Britt without a fight. Had she tried to stop them? Had they hurt her? Was she okay? She sounded catatonic. Had she finally cracked under the constant pressure? I couldn't lose her too.

"Where are you?" I demanded, too caught up with imagining a million different horror stories to realize that not one of them made any sense with what Santana was saying.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I heard Kurt order Finn to turn the volume down. Then I felt his hand on my shoulder, a light, gentle touch that was probably meant to soothe me. It didn't.

I heard him more clearly when he said my name, just like Santana had. "Blaine?" only he sounded concerned.

However, all thoughts of Kurt flew out of my mind when Santana answered my question.

"I'm at my house. She's here."

What?

"What?"

That was impossible. D4s weren't allowed to leave their community—ever.

Then she dropped the other shoe:

"She has Cooper with her."