It took Blaine a long time to wake up. Consciousness crept upon him slowly, in languid waves that bobbed him higher and higher, one after the other, pushing dreams father into the background with each advance and bringing the morning sunlight of the real world, which was getting harder to distinguish from a dream, into sharper relief.

He'd forgotten how it felt, the morning after. After a night when his body and brain had been pushed to the limits of what he thought he could endure and beyond. He'd forgotten the contentment, heavy-limbed and bone-deep, the freedom from the worries and fears that liked to lurk in the back of his brain with a constant subsonic pressure, until the extremity of deep submission wiped them clean. And he'd forgotten that anything he'd felt with any other dom was going to be multiplied exponentially when the dom in question was his soulmate.

He rolled over, hissing sharply when the movement reminded him of the price his balls had paid for his morning contentment, and his arms, and – ouch! – his ass. But all of that faded when he found Kurt wide awake, propped up on one elbow and watching him with anxious, cloudy eyes. �

Blaine didn't like Kurt looking anxious, so he smiled sleepily up at him. “I had the strangest dream,” he all but purred.

“What did you dream?” Kurt's mouth quirked at the corners, but didn't quite lift into an actual smile.

Blaine snuggled against his pillow and let his eyes droop closed. “Mmm. I dreamt that you tied me up, hung me from the ceiling, beat me, tortured my balls, teased me until I begged then iced me into submission and made me blow you instead.”

Above him Kurt huffed an almost-laugh, a short sound, more nervous than relaxed.

Blaine opened his eyes again, but Kurt's eyes still questioned so he stretched elaborately, then winced. “I just can't figure out how a dream could leave me so fucking sore.”

Kurt's teeth worried at his bottom lip before he spoke. “Sore like, best birthday ever, or sore like, please never do anything like that to me ever again?”

Kurt's voice was light but tension pulled at the corners of his eyes, so Blaine abandoned his play, scootched closer, ignoring the not inconsiderable discomfort, and smiled up at him.

“Sore like, you are the greatest dominant in the history of domination, and whatever I did to deserve you I just hope I manage to keep doing it for the rest of my life.”

The reward of seeing the doubt disappear from Kurt's face, replaced by a clean, shining smile was worth every bit of the pain.

“Really? I know I pushed things a lot farther –“

“Really,” Blaine said. “Also, best birthday ever. Although I honestly could have just knelt on the living room floor all night while you read and it still would have been the best birthday ever. At least since I stopped measuring birthday success by number of superhero action figures.”

Kurt laughed at that, and Blaine sniffed suspiciously at the smell of mint wafting in his direction.

“You've been up!” he accused.

“I woke up and I couldn't go back to sleep,” Kurt confessed. “And I was possibly the tiniest bit nervous about how you were going to react when you woke up. I groom when I'm nervous. I can't help it.”

“Kurt.” Blaine let a shade of reproach color his voice, because he never, ever wanted Kurt to feel sorry for anything like last night, or to doubt how much Blaine needed his exact brand of dominance. “Last night was a gift. I know you pushed yourself for me. So that I could let go completely. I know that scared you, but you did it anyway. You did that for me. How could it have been anything but perfect?”

Kurt dropped his head back down onto his pillow and rolled closer to Blaine, until they were almost nose to nose. “I loved it,” he whispered, like he was confessing a great secret. “I thought I might get lost in it, take it too far, but I knew as soon as I safeworded that that could never happen. I knew, as soon as I looked at you that you weren't okay, and it didn't matter how turned on I was, I had to fix it.” His free shoulder lifted in a little shrug. “I guess that's part of dominating. Mira said it would be but I had to feel it for myself, to trust it. After that it was like I was two different people. One who was keeping track of your breath and the color of your skin and how fast your heart was beating, and the other just . . .”

“Just what?” Blaine prompted, watching the color rise delicately in Kurt's cheeks.

“Just . . . getting off on it,” Kurt ducked his head a little, but he brought his eyes back to Blaine's. “I fantasized about hurting you, you know that, but I just never imagined how much it would turn me on to actually do it. And when you begged me to stop – I've never felt anything like that. Holding your whole world in my hands, I can't even describe what it felt like. And Kurt Hummel at a loss for words is not something that happens often, I can tell you that.”

“Maybe it's a good thing you are, though.”

“Why?”

“Because you're starting to turn me on and right now being turned on isn't exactly . . . comfortable.” Blaine smiled ruefully and Kurt's mouth twisted in an unmistakably cat-that-ate-the-canary way.

“Well you need to head to the bathroom and get cleaned up, anyhow,” Kurt said. “I have one more birthday present for you.”

Blaine's concern must have shown on his face because Kurt's eyes narrowed. “What's the matter?” he asked.

“I just, don't know if my body's quite ready for another birthday present.”

“Relax. It doesn't involve your body at all. Unless you want it to. Go!”

Thoroughly confused, Blaine slid carefully out of bed and made his way gingerly toward the door. He didn't want Kurt to feel guilty, so he refrained from wrapping a hand around his balls to support their aching weight until he was out of sight in the hall.

�

Kurt tried very hard not to blush, but he was sure he failed. He had no problem being naked with Blaine – his self-consciousness about that had disappeared long ago – but this was different. This was display. Very intentional, deliberate display. He'd folded the comforter over the chair and spread himself across the bed, reclining back against the pillows propped on the headboard, legs spread wide, two fingers looped through each of the eye bolts in the headboard. It was as deliberately lascivious as he'd ever tried to be. And the longer he lay there, alone, the more his brain tried to second-guess the whole idea.

Fortunately, Blaine didn't take long in the bathroom. And the look on his face when he crossed the threshold made all of Kurt's doubts turn tail and scatter.

“What . . .” Blaine began, but whatever else he meant to say must have gotten lost between his brain and his mouth.

“It's your present,” Kurt supplied helpfully. “It's me. My body,” he clarified. “It's yours. You can do o whatever you want. No restrictions. Well, except you can't come, obviously, unless I say.”

“Obviously,” Blaine managed. He still hadn't moved from the doorway, which was starting to be a problem for Kurt's confidence.

“But anything else. If you want to just stick your nose in my crotch and smell me for a couple of hours, well, I may die of embarrassment, but I won't stop you.”

Blaine must have heard the uncertainty in Kurt's voice because he finally left the door and moved toward the bed, and despite whatever pain he might be feeling, his cock started to thicken as he moved.

“Really?” Blaine asked, and the excitement in his voice boosted Kurt's confidence infinitely.

“Happy birthday,” Kurt breathed, and stretched his legs wider just so he could watch Blaine's eyes go dark.

Blaine, completely in the spirit now, slinked toward the bed with deliberate slowness. “Don't think I won't smell you for a couple of hours,” he grinned.

Kurt shrugged, which was kind of hard to do with his arms stretched out holding the eye bolts. “It's your present.”

He was trying for nonchalance, but that went out the window, along with the last shreds of self-consciousness, when Blaine climbed onto the bed and straddled Kurt's legs, leaning forward to crawl up the mattress toward him.

“It's a testament to the quality of your present,” he teased as he moved closer, “that it hurts like hell to be hard right now but I don't. Fucking. Care.”

Kurt would have laughed at that, but Blaine's mouth was in the way, capturing his breath and sucking it away in a deep and searching kiss.

“Are you going to move your hands?” Blaine breathed against Kurt's lips as they parted.

“Only if you want me to.”

“I want you to.”

Kurt didn't need to be asked twice. He loved running his fingers through Blaine's hair, and he knew Blaine loved it too. And true to form, Blaine hummed happily into the next kiss, so Kurt tightened his grip until the hum graduated to a purr. He kept hold as Blaine's mouth moved to nibble his jaw, down the long line of his throat, which he stretched generously, to give Blaine plenty to work with, and lower, past the dip between his collarbones.

Kurt knew Blaine loved to worship his body, but the gift of it, the permission to do whatever he wanted in his own time, seemed to inspire him. Kurt's cock went from nervous limp to hard before Blaine finished with his left nipple, he was moaning freely after the right, and as Blaine moved lower, teasing breath over his navel, he gasped.

“This is starting to feel more like my present than yours,” he said breathlessly.

Blaine's only response was to move lower, ignoring Kurt's dick entirely, and press his nose to Kurt's balls with a dramatically loud inhale.

Kurt laughed out loud, but broke off into a moan when he felt one of his balls sucked into the heat of Blaine's mouth. He tightened his hand around Blaine's curls in retaliation, drawing an answering moan from the man busy between his legs. Then he let go, because if this was what Blaine wanted to do with his present, Kurt was going to enjoy it.

It was a strange blow job, subtly different from past efforts, and it took Kurt a minute to figure out what that difference was. Blaine loved blowing him, Kurt knew that, but while he usually used his mouth to please Kurt, this time he was pleasing himself, moving more randomly, following his own whims, following his nose, as it were, around the smells and tastes and textures he craved at any given moment. It felt almost backwards to Kurt, aimless, and oddly enough, knowing that his orgasm wasn't Blaine's first priority at the moment only made it hotter.

That and the way Blaine moved, nuzzling deep against Kurt's body, tiny noises escaping and vibrating his chest and throat in ways that Kurt could feel as well as hear. He was lost in it, Kurt realized. Lost in him, so far gone to it that his hips were rocking, humping into the mattress between Kurt's feet with no regard for the pain it had to be causing his battered balls. So far gone that he didn't stop when his tongue had fully explored the sensitive space behind Kurt's balls, but kept going . . . going . . .

“Fuck!” Surprise wrenched open eyes that Kurt didn't realize he'd closed.

From between his legs Blaine's golden eyes peeked up, equally startled, and wary around the edges.

“I'm . . . sorry?” Blaine offered, his voice high and breathy.

“No, it's okay, I just – never felt that before.”

“I can stop, if you don't like it.”

“No, I like it,” Kurt rushed to correct him. Too fast, his own unexpected fervor made him blush hot and red. “I think I like it. It's just – new. But I did say you could do anything.”

Blaine watched him as he settled back on the pillows behind him and deliberately closed his eyes. He felt gentle hands nudge at his thighs so he spread them wider, pulling his knees up toward his torso, trying very, very hard not to think about how he must look, obscenely offering himself for that.

Fortunately, Blaine resumed that before Kurt had too much time to dwell on the details. And once Blaine's tongue was back wreaking delicious havoc on a spot that Kurt had never known was capable of feeling the way it did at this moment, he was far too busy trying not to shout more obscenities to worry about how he looked. It was hot, hotter than hot, it burned like molten lava through his ass and his cock and down his legs. It was dirty and messy, wet where he shouldn't be wet but the taboo of it all only seemed to drive him higher. He cursed the solid slab of headboard, with no convenient slats to hold onto. His hips began to move without his permission, twisting down, grinding into the tickling tease of it, and when Blaine started making those sounds again, like a desperate, starving thing that needed the taste of Kurt to survive, well, he decided he would be happy if this went on forever.

Which was exactly when Blaine stopped.

Kurt didn't quite stifle a cry of dismay, and he opened his eyes again to find Blaine, looking extraordinarily pleased with himself, grinning up at him.

“So you seemed to like that.”

It was an almost criminal understatement, and Kurt wanted to give it the sarcastic reply it deserved, but he didn't trust his voice not to break, which would have completely destroyed the effect, so he settled for a silent nod.

“I'm wondering if there's something else you'd like.” Blaine's words were tentative but his eyes sparkled and he touched the tip of one finger oh so gently to Kurt's puckered hole, swirling a little in the wetness there.

Kurt knew this was a moment that required actual words. “I did say anything,” he managed, though his voice cracked like a twelve-year-old's halfway through “anything.”

In one swift move Blaine was off the bed, into the drawer in the nightstand, and back between Kurt's legs, lube in hand.

Kurt closed his eyes again, and when the finger came back it was thick and slippery with lube.

“Don't forget to breathe,” Blaine said, his finger teasing around Kurt's opening in a way that was starting to recall the sensations his tongue had caused. “It feels weird at first, but if you relax, it's really great.”

Kurt nodded without opening his eyes. He forced himself to inhale and exhale, remembering all the things Blaine had breathed through for him the night before. And he really did want to try. And the way Blaine was rubbing was definitely helping in the relax department. When Blaine's free hand wrapped loosely around Kurt's cock and stroked, he actually moaned, and Blaine's finger slipped inside of him with almost no resistance at all.

It did feel weird. But not weird-bad. Kurt instinctively pulled his legs wider, and the finger went deeper, holding him open but only a tiny bit, and as it slid out and back in again, rubbing against things that had never been rubbed before, Kurt soon began to feel like a tiny bit was nowhere near enough. He opened his eyes to smile reassuringly at Blaine, but Blaine was staring down, watching as if mesmerized as his finger moved in and out of Kurt's body.

“Try two fingers,” Kurt suggested, but then, remembering who was supposed to be in charge at the moment, amended, “If you want to. It's your present.”

“I want to,” was all Blaine said before the stretch went wider, doubled in fact, and that was a lot, Kurt's body tightened around the intrusion and had to take a few more conscious breaths before Blaine's fingers could resume their gentle slide.

With two fingers Blaine could reach more places, and it was only a matter of time before he found his angle and what had been a pleasant, teasing sensation up till then suddenly bloomed into heat and fireworks and pleasure that rooted in Kurt's core in a way he'd never experienced before. He cursed again, drawing a chuckle from Blaine, who went to work on that spot with a will, and between that and the hand on his dick, he soon had Kurt grinding on his fingers like he'd been doing this all his life.

Kurt writhed in the throes of this new kind of pleasure, so different from the other sensations his body had always given him. He couldn't be still, he had to move, his head rolled against the pillows, his fists clutched the sheet, and he rode Blaine's fingers, barely aware of two becoming three, and three, four. The discomfort of the stretch hurt and yet it didn't, it was part and parcel of the heady new things Blaine was doing to him. It felt like too much, but then when Blaine's fingers receded, sliding all the way out and leaving him empty, he wanted it back with everything he had.

“You're so open,” Blaine whispered, looked from Kurt's ass to his face with almost worshipful awe. “Your body just . . .”

“Don't stop.” Kurt tried very hard not to whine, but he didn't succeed. “I like it. Keep going.”

“I almost think I could . . .”

Kurt caught his breath and waited for him to finish, but Blaine had gone very still, staring at Kurt, his eyes dark and intent. There was a long moment of silence between them, question and acknowledgement, and although he didn't really have to, Blaine spoke anyhow.

“Anything?”

Tension fluttered Kurt's belly, but he nodded. “Anything.”

“I've actually never . . .”

“Well, my first time was on my birthday, so it seems appropriate.”

Blaine smiled at that, but it was thin and quick to fade.

“What's wrong?” Kurt asked.

“I want to, God knows I do. But I don't know if I can.” Blaine tilted his head a little, looked away, then back. “I don't know if I can without coming.”

Blaine was begging, eyes wide, lips pressed tight. Kurt knew he wanted this desperately, and he was afraid of what it might cost him. It was his birthday. It would be so easy, and only fair, really, to give him what he wanted.

“Well then,” he said, as firmly as he could manage with a gaping ass that wanted to be filled, “I guess you'll have to decide whether it's worth the risk.”

He could see Blaine's throat work as he processed the answer. He could also see Blaine's cock, pushing hard up toward the ceiling, moist and glistening in the morning light.

Kurt lay perfectly still and watched Blaine struggle with himself. It wasn't fair, he knew, school was only a week away and if Blaine lost control, and had to be punished, he'd be spending their last full week together unable to touch Kurt at all. But almost since the day they met Blaine had been asking to be pushed, and pushing came on Kurt's terms, not Blaine's. So he watched and waited, until Blaine shook his head a little, took a breath, and climbed off the bed again.

Anxious as he'd felt, Kurt's heart sank a little, only to bounce straight back to nervous when Blaine reached into the bedside drawer for a second time and pulled out a little foil packet.

“Condom?” he asked. They'd pretty much given up condoms once it had become apparent that Blaine was safe.

“I'm hoping it'll help me hold back,” Blaine said with a lopsided smile.

He hissed a little as he rolled the condom down and coated himself with lube, as if just that much stimulation was too much.

“Any last words of advice?” he asked as he lined himself up at Kurt's suddenly-feeling-much-less-loose entrance.

“There's never too much lube. And take your time. It's going to feel amazing but don't let that make you forget what my virgin ass is going through.”

Blaine huffed a breathless chuckle, so Kurt counted that as a win. But still he didn't press in, only teased the head of his cock around the opening. And as good as that felt, if this was going to happen, Kurt needed it to happen now.

“What are you waiting for?”

“I just, I love you,” Blaine said, his voice heavy with emotion. “I love you.”

Considering his edict about not coming, Kurt counted that as a win too.

Then a cock that was suddenly twice as big as it had ever been before was pressing forward through muscles that weren't sure they wanted it there and he completely lost the ability to count at all.

�

Blaine was in trouble. Big fucking capital T trouble.

He was pretty sure he'd never felt anything so amazing in his entire life. Sensations played on a loop in his brain, the heat, the unbearable heat of it, and the squeeze, impossibly tight but unbelievably soft, and the sounds Kurt was making, tiny whimpers and long, shuddery exhales, the way he trembled under Blaine, and best of all, or worst, from his side of the equation, was knowing that this was what Kurt felt like inside of him, this was the pleasure fucking him gave Kurt, and that more than anything threatened to overwhelm his already tenuous self-control.

“Oh, God, Fuck,” Kurt's hands wrapped around Blaine's shoulders, tightened like claws as Blaine pushed in with superhuman slowness, and their eyes locked, each reflecting his own trust back at the other, until Kurt's finally dropped closed, overwhelmed by sensation. But he didn't let go. He held onto Blaine and Blaine watched tiny muscles twitch in an involuntary dance across his face. He moved in agonizing millimeters, each advance enveloping more of his cock in the tight hot perfection of Kurt's ass, Kurt's ass, and he knew he should be reciting times tables or thinking about something gross to keep himself back but that wasn't what he wanted. He didn't want distraction. He wanted to be here, feeling every moment of this, with the orgasm of his life, three long weeks delayed, unfurling like a snake in the space between his balls and cock, stretching itself, feeling out the edges of his control ready to take advantage of the slightest crack. And oh, he longed to set it free. He wanted to know what it would feel like to come like this, held so tightly by Kurt's young body, and the thought of being there, having this, so close, and being forced into yet another aching denial was too much to bear.

He shifted his weight enough so that he could wrap a hand around Kurt's cock, forcing himself to concentrate on what was important, on his dom, on his place, but as he stroked and pushed deeper Kurt threw his head back with a groan and the long stretch of his pale throat did nothing to help Blaine's control.

They were both gasping, and trembling, when Blaine finally bottomed out, his still very tender balls bouncing against Kurt's ass.

“I think I really need you to move,” Kurt said when Blaine didn't.

Blaine didn't want to move. He wanted to live here, just like this, buried in Kurt's body, with Kurt shivering underneath him and Kurt's surging cock in his grip, both of them balancing on the edge of ecstatic oblivion. Even if only one of them would actually get to experience it. He didn't want to move, but he wanted to see what Kurt would do if he did.

So, slowly, but not as slowly, he pulled back until only the head of his cock breached Kurt's hole, then smoothly, faster, slid back in.

And Christ, it was beautiful, a sliding wave of unbearable pleasure as the tight sphincters caressed down the length of his cock and back up again. Kurt cried out in a long, gentle keen, a new sound, a sound Blaine had never heard him make, a sound he caused, and he had to stop again when he reached the bottom because his head was spinning.

“Am I going to have to ask for every thrust?” Kurt panted. His eyes were pleading and God that was beautiful. Too beautiful.

“I'm pretty sure if I do that again I'm going to come,” Blaine panted back. “In fact I'm pretty sure that I'm actually going to have to stay like this forever because if I try to pull out I'm going to come.”

Kurt's hands moved then, sliding up Blaine's shoulders to cup his face. “Do it again,” he said softly, but with the quiet force of a command.

Blaine shook his head. “I can't . . . I'll . . .”

“Blaine.” Kurt's fingers gripped tighter, holding him still. Then he smiled the beautiful smile that always made Blaine want to fall down and worship at his feet. “Happy birthday. Keep going.”

Blaine gaped at him in absolute astonishment, hardly daring to hope that Kurt was saying what he thought he was saying.

“Well,” Kurt prompted, “are you my obedient boy or aren't you?”

Elation sang through Blaine's body and he challenged his balance just enough to lean down and kiss Kurt like he'd never get another chance. When he pulled away he knew he was grinning like an idiot but he couldn't help it. And it was okay because Kurt was too.

“I am, I am so fucking obedient.”

“Yes you are. Now move.”

Blaine moved. God, did he move, and with permission came a new degree of control, knowing that he could, that he would, made the need just that little bit less immediate and though the tight, hot slide in and out completely took his breath away, he could do it, he managed each thrust, two, three, four more, stroking Kurt's cock at the same time, the pain in his balls as they tightened in preparation only making it better somehow, reminding him of the absolute authority of Kurt's crushing hand the night before. And it was that thought, and Kurt's beautiful cry, and the agonizing pressure as Kurt's body clamped down on him that finally drove him over that long-awaited edge into the white-out ecstasy of his first orgasm in twenty-four days.

�

Kurt hadn't waited twenty-four days to come, in fact, he hadn't even waited twenty-four hours, but still it seemed like the aftershocks kept rolling through his body longer than they ever had before. Every little twitch would remind him that his ass was still full of Blaine's cock and he'd shudder through another one. Blaine had collapsed, heavy on Kurt's chest with no regard for the semen that had spilled there and Kurt was planning to be thoroughly grossed out by that just as soon as his brain came back online. Right now, though, he was content with being just one half of a pile of sexually drained flesh. Almost drained, he amended, as another twitch/shudder twisted his shoulders.

“That,” Blaine gasped, “is not easy. How do you do that?”

“Huh?” was Kurt's eloquent reply.

“The thrusting with the stroking and the balancing. How do you keep track of it all?”

“Natural top I suppose.” Kurt was too wiped out to bother with modesty. And Blaine's cock was starting to soften inside him, which was the strangest sensation and required all of his attention.

Blaine just nodded silently against Kurt's chest.

“You're going to have to move this time, you know,” Kurt told him. “We definitely made a mess.”

Blaine didn't cling like he had last night. Instead, he pushed himself up just enough to reach Kurt's lips with his own. Kurt, once he'd determined with relief that nothing slimy had reached Blaine's mouth, at least, kissed back enthusiastically.

“Was it okay?” Blaine asked as they parted, and Kurt could see from the tension around his mouth that he really needed to know.

“It was perfect,” Kurt smiled up at him. “You were perfect.”

The anxious lines disappeared and Blaine grinned for real. “In that case, I'm going to go grab a washcloth and then we're going to cuddle for the next six hours or so.” He wiggled back just enough that his cock slipped out of Kurt with a squelch.

Kurt had to suppress a wince – it was such a strange feeling – but he smiled back at Blaine. “Can we eat something at least?”

“I'll think about it. But seriously, the only thing I want to do from now until dinner is hold onto you and try to figure out which of my birthday presents I liked best.”

“Oh! Crap!” Kurt pushed himself up. “I almost forgot, I have one more present for you!”

Blaine's eyebrows shot up, and if he was trying to hide his alarm he utterly failed.

“No, it's not sex. No kind of sex,” Kurt laughed, “It's from my dad.”

Confusion replaced alarm.

“He wanted me to give it to you in private.”

Alarm supplanted confusion.

“Stop!” Kurt smacked Blaine playfully on the arm. “I'm sure it's nothing. Bring my bag in from the living room when you come back.”

When Blaine returned with a warm washcloth and Kurt's messenger bag, he sponged at Kurt's chest while Kurt rummaged for the present.

“There you go,” he said, pulling out a plain white business-sized envelope, blank, except for Blaine's name written in blocky letters.

Blaine looked at it like it might bite him before taking it gingerly from Kurt's hand with his fingertips.

“Stop!” Kurt said again. But he couldn't suppress his grin.

Blaine grinned back and wiggled his eyebrows as he slipped his thumb under the flap and slid it along the crease, splitting the parchment. He kept the dramatics going as he peered into the envelope with one eye closed, then reached to pull out a single piece of paper. He unfolded it gingerly and cleared his throat as if preparing to read aloud, but whatever was written there made him drop the comical act. His eyebrows drew together in genuine confusion as he started at the paper.

“What's it say?” Kurt asked anxiously.

Then suddenly Blaine gasped, his eyes went wide then filled with tears, which set Kurt's heart racing.

“Blaine, what is it? What does it say?”

Wordlessly, Blaine handed the paper to Kurt. He took it, turned it around, and found just one word, written in his dad's unmistakable heavy print.

Tuesday.

Kurt's eyebrows pulled together in a mirror image of Blaine's reaction.

“Tuesday? This is his present? He's giving you Tuesday?”

Then in a blinding flash of insight it hit him and again, just like Blaine, he gasped. “He's giving you Tuesday!”

Blaine just nodded, his Adams apple bouncing up once and down again.

“He's giving us Tuesday!”

“Do you know what this means?” Blaine breathed.

“Tuesday!” Kurt repeated, and suddenly he was laughing, elated, just the relief on Blaine's face made him want to hug his dad and never let go.

“Two nights,” Blaine said, and his voice trembled with emotion. “That's the longest I ever have to be without you. I was so afraid. I didn't know how I was going to survive it after this summer but now . . . oh God, I love your dad!”

The tears spilled over then, and Kurt wiped them off his cheeks, then kissed him hard.

“This is all because of you,” Blaine said as soon as his lips were free.

“No . . .”

“He never would have done this if you hadn't managed it all so well. School and glee club and me, you keep all the balls in the air and you make it look so easy . . .”

“It's not easy,” Kurt said, still caressing Blaine's damp cheeks. “But it's worth it. More than worth it.”

And that was the point of everything, Kurt realized, as he pulled Blaine down onto the bed and cradled him on his now-clean chest. Seeing Blaine, his Blaine, like this, relaxed, happy, satisfied and satiated, was so much more than worth the extra effort it took to juggle all his responsibilities and look Kurt Hummel effortless while doing it.

“Tuesday,” Blaine said again, snuggling against Kurt's chest.

“My new favorite day of the week. But you shouldn't be so excited. Now I'll have one more day to torture you.”

Kurt expected Blaine to laugh at that, but he was quiet. He pressed a kiss to Kurt's sternum then said, “Speaking of torturing me, did you mean what you said last night? About having help? About Noah?”

It was Kurt's turn to be quiet.

“Well?” Blaine asked again.

“I don't think you really want to know the answer to that,” Kurt said.

“I wouldn't have asked if I didn't want to know.”

“But think about it. If it's true, then you have to face him knowing what he knows, but if it's not true, then how effective will me trying to humiliate you ever be again?”

Blaine hummed a little, then kissed Kurt's chest again. “You do have a point.”

Kurt smiled up at the ceiling. Another delicate dom situation navigated. He was getting very good at this, if he did say so himself.