Kurt tries to wait up for Blaine in the silent living room, forcing himself to page through back issues of Vogue.  Around ten he gives up, tossing the magazine on the floor. He spends fifteen minutes staring at his phone, willing it to signal an incoming call or text.  It’s almost summer and the windows are open, the air outside thick and heavy, it coils into the too warm apartment. They have a window unit in their bedroom, but it’s off now.

Despite the heat, Kurt is huddled on the couch, under a favorite blanket. He’s given up on his phone and is staring instead toward the door. Eventually he nods off, fighting sleep as long as he can.  The day he went with Finn, searching for the right rings, picking fussily through several jewelry stores, he had promised himself. Promised to never go to bed angry, to never go to bed without the reassurance of them, solid and heavy in his heart.

He’s not sure he can hold Blaine to a promise he’s never made, but he’ll be damned if he is going to get into that bed alone without him. Without the assurance that even if things aren’t ok right now, they will be, sometime.  Kurt can’t let himself think it, won’t, but it’s in the back of his mind, the niggling idea that Blaine might not be coming back. And fuck, it hurts to think that and no, no, he’s never getting into that bed again if that’s the case.

He’s jolted awake by the door, scrambling in the near dark to stay on the couch, heart hammering against his ribs. Blaine is climbing on top of him before Kurt can begin to speak, still thick and incoherent with bad sleep and worse dreams.  And if he thought he was drowning before, it’s nothing, nothing compared to this. He’s swamped in Blaine, whose mouth seems to be everywhere, hands rough and possessive and pushing.  Kurt can hear buttons, popping and pinging against the floor, can feel his head and neck, pressed at wrong angles into the sofa.  He wants to speak, to ask and to seek some sort of understanding that this isn’t goodbye, that this is I still love you or it will be ok.

But he doesn’t, he doesn’t speak, just presses his hips up to let Blaine tear his pants down, so much rougher than he’s ever been. Skims his fingers over and under Blaine’s damp clothing (it must be raining, he thinks from somewhere inside, somewhere observing and not quiet approving). He’s mapping the Braille of Blaine’s skin, looking for answers and reaching desperately up and into him, ignoring that voice, that stupid voice that wants him to stop, to think and to talk and to talk and not just be here, tangled into every one of Blaine’s gorgeous limbs.

Blaine’s hands are sandpaper on his sensitive skin, nails digging into Kurt’s thighs, mouth sloppy over his cock, just the slightest hint of teeth and Kurt’s moans are lost into his fingers, fisted into his mouth. When Blaine bites, just at the crease of his thigh, Kurt cries out, hands on Blaine’s head, and he’s not sure if he wants Blaine to stop or needs him to continue. When Blaine looks up, over the line of Kurt’s trembling body, his eyes are too bright, wicked smile a little misplaced against the flushed satin of Kurt’s stomach.

Kurt can’t stop him, wouldn’t if he wanted too, opening his legs and his heart and letting Blaine in, feeling Blaine’s fingers inside him, gentle at least in this, even as Blaine’s mouth comes up to his, biting and tearing into him. Blaine’s fingers are hard up against his prostate, too hard and it’s way too much for Kurt who is begging Blaine to please stop, please do something and Blaine is pushing him, hands quick and just shy of careless,

“Hands and knees Kurt.” His whisper is filthy, voice almost unrecognizable and Kurt is not ashamed of the hot spear of lust that spikes through him. Soon enough he’s on his knees, face buried in the couch cushions, broken cries muffled and Blaine is inside, so so deep inside him and there’s a second, a split second when Kurt freezes, tense and afraid because this is so much, being with Blaine like this is always almost too much for him.

When he freezes, he feels Blaine stop as well, and they stay joined and unmoving. Then Blaine’s hand is gentle on his back, and he’s leaning over, pressing Kurt into the couch, but gently, hands tracing down Kurt’s arms and around his clenched fists. They don’t move and they don’t speak but Kurt breathes easier, sighing as he feels Blaine shifting from anger to gentleness, feeling himself relaxing into this sort of trust. Blaine close like this, Blaine comforting like a blanket over his skin is a reminder that Blaine would never hurt him, no matter how angry he is. Blaine will never push him, or force him, and Blaine will only ever ask what Kurt is willing to give. And so he does, giving him everything he can in this moment, every scrap of his self that Blaine will take.

And in the aftermath, when he’s spread, trembling and bruising and wrecked, over Blaine, he can’t stop it. Can’t stop his traitorous brain, and what was a mumbling worry is now a cacophony of anxiety and wondering. It’s too quiet here, much too quiet between them where Blaine is breathing unsteady, hands still holding Kurt’s hips too tight (where Kurt will find more bruises the next morning).

Kurt breathes once, then again, and the words in his head are so loud, they are so loud but he doesn’t know how to start, where to start so he just breathes and thinks about the text messages Blaine used to send him in high school and how silly they were, how young and naive to think that a simple word like courage would be enough to overcome homophobia and assault and loneliness.  But they did, and it was, and he grabs hold of that idea, holds on hard.

“What was that?” His voice is so quiet, so much younger than he feels.  His body is a live wire, strung taught, and he’s sure that pressed the wrong way he’ll snap. He’s bracing to hear the words, now that it’s over, afraid to hear that this really is over, that this was some sort of goodbye they promised themselves they’d never say.

“I’m sorry I lost my temper.” Blaine’s fingers are gentle against his back, tapping the knobs of his spine carefully. He speaks softly, words spilling over Kurt, warm and tender and somehow, Kurt feels closer to Blaine inside those words than he did in any part of what came before them. He feels his body begin so sink and fold into Blaine, begins to feel the way their edges blur and dissolve into one another and into the couch.

It’s either very late or very early and he’s mentally trying to shush his brain, which is insisting that this doesn’t count as talking. Because for the first time in a month, he can feel Blaine, really feel him, nestled in under Kurt’s skin where he belongs, in the space where they are KurtandBlaine.  They can talk later- he promises himself they will, as he drops into sleep, fingers carefully tracing the fragile skin inside Blaine’s elbow and down to his fingers where they tangle together and hold on.