"Okay, I know this looks bad. I do. But it's not, Blaine. Really. It's happened before. I just need to soak it for a bit, and it'll be okay." Kurt paced around his room, his face contorted between worry and pain. Blaine folded his legs beneath him.

"Kurt." It wasn't demanding an explanation, merely a calm mixture of letters.

"Really. I'll be fine. I just pushed myself a little too hard with the piano and—"

"—now you can't move your fingers."

"Yes."

"I see. And you couldn't have practiced in moderation because…?"

"I… Well… There was this one passage and I just knew I could get it if I just tried a few more times, and a few turned into—"

"—four hours?" A lovely blush made its way across Kurt's cheek and down his neck.

"Six, actually." Blaine pressed his lips together very, very tightly and looked up at Kurt from his position on the bench. "Please don't laugh at me. The passage sounds absolutely divine." Blaine's expression softened at Kurt's minor embarrassment. He stood slowly and made his way over to his boyfriend, gripping his shoulders and looking Kurt straight in the eye.

"You're an idiot. Come on, let's sort your hands out." Blaine led him to the bathroom and began running warm water into a basin.

"Blaine, you don't have to do this." The boyfriend in question raised an eyebrow and quirked a smile.

"Yes, actually, I do." Kurt opened his mouth to protest, but Blaine was already shaking his head. "Stop. I'm your boyfriend and I love you and it would make me happy for you to not be in pain. Is that alright?" Kurt swallowed, an awed look coming over his face. They'd said it before. They'd said it after the first time in the Lima Bean, too. It still didn't fail to amaze Kurt. Blaine had said it so easily. It rolled right off his tongue and out in the open like it was so obvious. Kurt felt tears prick his eyes at the few small words and immediately felt silly, because they had said it before, so he coughed and replied,

"Y-yes. Thank you." Blaine's eyebrows twitched ever so slightly, but he smiled, satisfied, and sat Kurt down on the seat of the toilet.

"Where do you keep the painkillers?" The intent look was enough to stifle Kurt's rebuff this time, so he just nodded to the cabinet and watched as Blaine clacked out what he deemed the appropriate amount and went to pour a glass of water from the kitchen.

"What did I do to deserve you?" Kurt muttered to himself, swallowing roughly to combat the tears that were still threatening even as warmth bloomed in his chest. He looked down at his mangled hands and sighed. He really hadn't meant to push himself to this degree, but the summer had been hard thus far. The heat disrupted his skin and Blaine rehearsed most days with a musical theatre group that was based in Westerville. Kurt went to visit as often as he could, but he rarely had time to stop and chat anyway. The only time they had was for the few hours that he came by afterwards to share their stories of the day, and now it was being wasted on his hands, which throbbed at the slightest movement. Which had been aching since he'd had the presence of mind to lift his fingers from the keys. Fat, embarrassing tears rolled down his face, and he tried to wipe them away, but his hands protested and that just caused them to run faster.

"Oh my god, Kurt." Blaine's voice was tender as he set down the water on the counter and knelt by the crying boy, pressing his hands lightly on the younger boy's knees.

"I don't even know why I"—Kurt sucked in a shuddering breath—"why this is happening. I just… You're so wonderful and caring and I know you wanted to look through the new Vogue tonight but you're here and you're not even complaining a little bit that I've gone and ruined with my obsessive need to be perfect and now I'm here crying for no reason and—"

Kurt's brain took a little time to process things when his boyfriend kissed him. It was a problem he'd been having for a few months now. Even if the kiss was light and chaste and tear-marked.

"Kurt."

"Yes?"He looked up to meet Blaine's eyes, brain still reeling. He could just stare into those hazel eyes forever…

"We can look at Vogue tomorrow." Kurt's nodded slowly, still dazed, the pain in his hands receding to a dull throb as Blaine's eyes and cheeks and nose and mouth took precedence.

"Right." He swallowed.

"You're going to take these pills now." Blaine stood, taking the pills in one hand and the glass of water in the other. Kurt blinked. "Open your mouth and tilt your head back."

"I can hold the—"

Two fingers lifted his chin and a thumb smoothed over his still-moving lips, parting them slightly and pressing the cool surface of the glass against them. Kurt promptly forgot why he was complaining about anything this boy did, and swallowed the pills.

Blaine moved away, shutting the water off and putting the basin on the floor by Kurt's feet, motioning for Kurt to sit on the floor. He saw Kurt's lips twitch momentarily and Blaine grinned.

"You keep this bathroom immaculate, Kurt. The floor cannot possibly be dirty."

Oh, what Blaine wouldn't do to keep Kurt blushing like that.

Blaine sat across from Kurt, taking his hands gingerly, careful not to aggravate the cramps, and submerged them in the water. The sigh that escaped Kurt's mouth was full-throated and came accompanied with a flutter of eyelashes. Blaine had to swallow roughly to keep his thoughts focused on the task at hand. It was a harder battle than Blaine would've liked to admit.

Kurt's eyes flew open as Blaine began gently massaging his sore joints beneath the water. He looked at Blaine's face, but there was a look of concentration there that was just too cute, so Kurt didn't try to catch his eye, merely smiling as warmth unfurled in his chest at the gesture. He found himself wondering how Blaine could be so patient. He started with Kurt's right hand, knowing that most of the pieces that Kurt liked to play were melody-heavy, and lightly kneaded each knuckle with infinitesimal care, moving down the bone to the pads of each finger, then back up until he reached the dip of his wrist. Somewhere around the middle finger of his right hand, Kurt leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes, immersed in the sensation as the painkillers slowly kicked in and Blaine coaxed movement and feeling back into his hands.

When Blaine reached the web of tendon between his pinkie and ring finger, Kurt let out a slow moan, and Blaine's hands stilled for a moment before moving again. Kurt blushed furiously as Blaine applied little circles of pressure to the same spot, revisiting it more often than he had the others. He refused to open his eyes, hoping that Blaine wouldn't notice his utterly humiliating outburst. It was one thing to let those noises escape him while he and Blaine were doing absolutely spectacular things with their tongues, when they were trying to bring them out of each other. It was quite another to let one loose during this selfless, domestic act of beauty and wonder that Blaine was giving him. Quite another indeed.

But, of course, Blaine had noticed. After a while, he looked up to see Kurt's eyes screwed shut—not peacefully closed as they had before—and tension in his neck and shoulders.

"Kurt?" The boy in question took in a shuddering breath and opened his eyes slowly. Blaine frowned. "What's wrong?"

"I… um. It's nothing, really." Blaine opened his mouth to protest that it wasn't nothing, but then he looked closer—at the way Kurt kept glancing away from him, at the blush that still had not receded, at the way all the tension was held in his chest—and found himself fighting a smile. He felt Kurt's hands twitch between his, another sign. He looked exactly like the Kurt he'd faced after they'd had their horrendous failure of a sex talk.

And because he looked the same, Blaine Anderson knew he had to be very careful with what he was about to say. So he completely smothered the smile and held his boyfriend's hands more securely between his.

"Kurt, I don't want you to be embarrassed," he began, watching as Kurt's blush returned with full force and the younger boy look down at their interlocked hands. "This"—he gave Kurt's hands a light squeeze—"Does it feel good?" Kurt nodded slowly, still refusing to meet Blaine's eyes. "Good. It should. I want it to. There is nothing shameful in reacting to touch, Kurt. No matter what kind it is." Blaine pressed on the sensitive web again and watched as Kurt's throat bobbed in reaction and let out a soft sigh. "And at the very basic level, it lets me know I'm doing my job properly." He went for it. His most charming, caring, inviting smile he had in his arsenal, dipping his head to meet Kurt's eyes, and was rewarded with a soft smile in return.

"Why are you so wise?"Kurt didn't think about it before he said it, but it couldn't be more true. Blaine may have said that he didn't know what he was doing, that he was muddling through just like everyone else, but Kurt couldn't help but note that he did so with much more finesse than anyone else he'd met. And, sure, Blaine screwed up, but when he was wrong he acknowledged it and he always did his best to say what he meant, to build something with the people he loved—like me, Kurt thought with a thrill—and tried to keep himself as grounded as possible.

Blaine coughed lightly, blinking. "I don't know. Why are you so beautiful?" Before Kurt could respond, Blaine brought their hands out of the water and pressed Kurt's knuckles to his lips, allowing his eyes to close before smiling and continuing with the joints he hadn't reached yet.

Kurt decided it was best not to answer, and simply leaned back and enjoyed the fact that his boyfriend was amazing. Blaine did manage to bring some more embarrassing sounds out of Kurt before he finished, and Kurt's face always turned the color of ripe cherries, but it was accompanied by a shared smile and an understanding.

But only Kurt knew that the understanding involved revenge.