“I’m sorry. It’s just . . . not right. He’s sixteen!”

Emma looked up from the pamphlets she was carefully straightening in their little holders just long enough to show Will her disapproval, then went back to running her fingers over the perfectly-aligned paper edges. She tried, as she always did, to keep her voice calm and non-judgmental. “I really thought that you would be the first one to understand their situation.”

“Why? Because we’re in a crazy, unconventional, some people might say screwed up situation too?”

“No,” she took a deep breath. Calm. “Because you’ve had Kurt in Glee for two years now. You know how much he’s been through. “

Will leaned forward in his chair, planting his clasped hands on her desk and inadvertently bumping one of the pamphlet holders out of alignment. “And a relationship with a teacher who’s probably ten years older than him is the solution?”

“Being with his soulmate is the solution.” She moved the holder back in its place and ran her fingers over the contents again. She knew what was coming next, it was their ongoing argument, and she always dreaded it. But the feel of the papers against her fingers helped. Very few things made her happier than being able to create her tiny pieces of perfection in the world.

“Aren’t you the one who said that being with your soulmate wasn’t always the solution?”

She sighed then, even though she’d known it was coming, and forced herself to stop fiddling with the pamphlets and fold her hands carefully on the desk in front of her. “Okay,” she said in the dom voice that she practiced at home regularly, “is this about Kurt and Blaine or about us?”

Because he was Will, he tried to look like he had no idea what she was talking about. “I didn’t say . . .”

“They’re not us, Will.”

“I know they’re not us. He’s sixteen! He still lives at home, for God’s sake. And his soulmate is his history teacher.”

“And yet somehow he managed to claim Blaine when I haven’t claimed you yet,” Emma finished the sentence for him.

Will’s head dropped onto his folded hands and Emma reached across the desk to touch his arm, grateful to see him trying so hard to not outright accuse her. “We’ll get there, Will. But we still have so many things to work out.”

He lifted his head just enough to look in her eyes. “They’re gay, they’re ten years apart in age, Blaine’s his teacher, but we have more to work out than they do."

"Hey," she squeezed his arm gently, “listen to me. You can’t compare us to anyone else. You were with Terry for a long time and she ran roughshod over you, Will. You have unrealistic ideas about what a relationship should be. And I still have my . . . problems . . . and we both need to do some growing before we’re ready to commit to each other that way.”

She hated when he looked so defeated, which he always did when they had this conversation. But that was part of the reason she knew it wasn’t time yet.

“We’re soulmates,” he tried again. “Doesn’t that mean that it’ll work out no matter what?”

“No. It means that you’re my perfect match and I’m yours. Sometimes your perfect match is the person who most helps you to grow. To grow up.” She got up and moved over to stand next to him. She knew how he liked it when she stood over him like that, running her fingers down his back. “Wanting to be with you is making me really face my disease and work to get better. You make me better, Will. And I’m working as hard as I can to get well so that I can claim you and we can have all of that. And you – you’ve never been on your own. You’ve always had someone telling you what to do. Submission is a gift, Will. And you can’t really give me that gift until you understand both sides of it. What you gain and what you give up. You don’t know what you’re giving up until you’ve had a chance to be completely in charge of your own life.”

Will sighed, but he sounded more resigned than defeated so Emma decided to count that as a win. She bent down to kiss him fleetingly on the lips then rewarded him by using her strongest command voice. “I’m going to go invite Blaine to have lunch with me. I'll give you the choice of joining us or not. But if you come I expect you to be nice and welcoming."

“I still don’t like it. Kurt’s sixteen.”

“Which is the age of consent in Ohio. And I might remind you that Kurt has parents who are perfectly capable of looking out for him, so he doesn’t really need you to do that. What he needs is support. And I, for one, am going to support him.”

Will held her gaze for a long moment, then sighed. "I promised Tina I'd help her work on her solo at lunch."

Emma decided to believe him. She gave him her very best smile. “Okay,” she said, “another time." She held out her hand and he took it, pulling himself out of his chair and following her to the door, where they parted, Will for the choir room and Emma toward Paul Fletcher’s old classroom.

When Will’s name had appeared on Emma’s left wrist shortly after she turned fourteen, she and absolutely everyone else had been shocked speechless by the fact that tiny, meek Emma Pillsbury was a dom. Her parents had made her show them her mark that very morning, when it was still just a few disconnected letters, before they’d accepted it. Her classmates never did. Everyone seemed to be waiting for the day when her “real” mark showed up on her right wrist. Sometimes the teasing was so awful that she was sorely tempted to rip off her cuff in front of everyone just to shut people up. But she never did, because that name, William Schuester, was hers and hers alone. She didn’t have many things that were hers. She sure as hell wasn’t giving one of them up. And on a lot of levels she could understand her classmates’ astonishment. Most of the time she didn’t feel like a dom any more than she looked like one.

Her parents didn’t help. They would drag her out in front of guests like a carnival oddity. Can you imagine our kooky little Emma a dom? I mean she can hardly look a person in the eye. No, we have no earthly idea how it happened. Some kind of genetic accident or something. I mean, the child’s afraid of everything from germs to water . . . pity the poor sub with her name on his wrist. And because she was Emma, good, obedient, a caretaker, she would let herself be displayed and then climb the stairs back to her room meekly when they were finished with her. Some of her parents’ friends had the good grace to look uncomfortable or embarrassed, but no one ever opened his or her mouth to speak up on Emma’s behalf. She had never once in her life been told that she’d make a good dom.

So that was the first thing she told Kurt, when he came to school with his cuff the first day. Of course, Kurt wasn’t her, and Kurt’s parents weren’t her parents, but it felt like an act of defiance anyhow, to pull him aside and congratulate him and tell him that his soulmate was going to be very lucky to have him for a dom. Kurt seemed sincerely grateful, but it obviously wasn’t the life-changing affirmation for him that it would have been if anyone had ever done it for her.

But that was before Kurt’s sub turned out to be Blaine Anderson, and Emma was bound and determined to show Kurt that he still had her support. One way to do that was to ensure that Blaine was accepted at McKinley despite being bonded to a student. With the exception of Sue Sylvester, almost all of the teachers on staff liked and respected Emma and she was going to make darned sure that everyone knew that if they wanted her friendship they were expected to be nice to Blaine as well. She would be their one-woman cheering section if she had to.

The class period was over and all of the students gone by the time Emma got to Blaine’s room. Kurt had beaten her there, though, and she peeked around the door to find them standing beside Blaine’s desk, heads close together, holding hands and talking quietly. For just a moment she hid in the corridor and let herself stare. Kurt was turned away from her, standing so tall and straight that she could feel his confidence even from the back. And Blaine, well, if she hadn’t been inclined to like Blaine before then the way he was looking at Kurt, as if he’d personally hung the stars, would have converted her immediately. If anyone deserved to have someone that beautiful look at him that way, it was Kurt Hummel. Just because she hadn’t claimed Will didn’t mean Emma didn’t know how it felt to look into the eyes of the person who made everything you’d been through worthwhile, and that was exactly how Blaine looked at Kurt.

She cleared her throat gently to announce herself. They turned, both looking slightly abashed, but Kurt smiled when he saw it was her.

“Miss Pillsbury. Can we help you?”

“Actually, I came to see if Blaine wanted to have lunch with me in the teachers' lounge. If it’s okay with you, of course.”

Kurt’s smile widened at the acknowledgement of his authority. He turned to Blaine, who looked a little uncertain. “You should go.”

“I don’t . . .” Blaine began to shake his head, but Kurt put a hand on his arm and Emma could see his fingers tighten in a squeeze.

“Might as well get it over with. And I can go find Rachel and see if she’ll talk to me.”

She could tell Blaine was still wavering, but finally he nodded and went to pick up his bag.

“I’ll see you after school,” Kurt told Blaine as he made for the door. He paused long enough as he passed Emma to say, “You know I wasn’t talking about you when I said get it over with, right?”

“Of course,” she answered. “I’m so happy for you, Kurt.”

He bit his lip then, in a way that made him look way too young to be doing anything at all with someone like Blaine, but Emma squashed that thought violently and gave him a smile as he left. Support. Only support.

Blaine gathered his things quickly. “It was very nice of Kurt to let me have you for a little bit,” Emma said, winding her arm through his. She was more than a little afraid he might bolt.

“He needs to spend time with his friends, I know that.”

“It won’t be as bad as you think,” she said as Blaine paused to close and lock the door. “Take it from someone who knows.”

“What - you? Everyone here loves you.”

Emma made a point of taking his arm again as they headed down the nearly empty hallway. “I didn’t always have so many fans. At one point I was the local home wrecker. When I met Will he was married. But that all blew over and now everyone’s happy for us. And they don’t even know we’re soulmates.”

Blaine looked surprised. “Kurt told me you and Will were together, but he didn’t say . . .”

“Well, we’re trying to keep that to ourselves for now. I won’t ask you not to tell Kurt, but maybe you could keep it just between you two?”

Blaine looked at her now, and it seemed like he was really looking at her for the first time. “So why are you telling me, then?”

“Because I think you need to know that you’re not the only person who’s had to deal with . . . unusual circumstances like this. And that you can usually win people over no matter how much they may disapprove of you at first.”

“So,” Blaine asked hesitantly, “you haven't claimed him?”

The question was probably impertinent coming from a sub, but Emma answered it anyhow. “I just . . . well, let’s just say we have a lot of issues to work out.”

“More than Kurt and me?”

Emma laughed, a short little sound that settled into a resigned smile. “That’s is exactly what he said. It’s hard for him, I know, but I just need to feel like we’re ready . . .”

They were close enough now to the break room door that chattery voices could be heard through it and Emma felt Blaine stiffen a little beside her. But he stopped walking, pulled her back by the arm, and despite a wary glance at the closed door focused himself on her again. “Can I just say one thing?”

“Of course. Of course you can.”

“The thing is, as scared as I was about people knowing about us, if Kurt hadn’t wanted to claim me, even with our situation, I know I’d have felt like it was somehow my fault. Like I wasn’t good enough. No matter what he said.”

Emma wanted to tell him no way, she’d told Will it was their situation, not him, and he believed her. He didn’t like it, but he believed. But she’d always known that wasn’t true. He wouldn’t look so defeated if it was.

When she didn’t speak, Blaine seemed to take it as permission to keep going. “I know this is none of my business, but, well, subs know what they feel and want just like doms do. It kind of sounds like you're telling him what he's ready for instead of listening to him."

She probably should have stopped him, told him he was overreaching, but Emma’s track record as a dom hadn’t been exactly stellar and she found herself feeling so comfortable with Blaine. Feeling understood. So instead she asked, “But isn’t it the dom’s job to keep things on the right path and make the final decisions?”

“Of course it is. But you don’t do that by telling him how he feels. You tell him how you feel and you listen when he tells you how he feels. And you think about that and make a decision. But you have to be really honest and you have to make him be honest with you. Even if it hurts.”

“That sounds like the voice of experience.”

Blaine smiled. “I’ve only known Kurt for five days, but they’ve been pretty eventful.”

Emma grinned back at him, pulling him again toward the break room door. “I like you, Blaine Anderson,” she said. “I mean, I liked you before for Kurt’s sake, but now I think I’m going to like you just for you.” And on that happy note she pulled the door open and launched them into the lounge.

**********

Blaine didn’t really expect all conversation to stop when he and Emma walked through the door. He knew that fear was unrealistic, but he was still surprised when their entrance went almost completely unnoticed. It was strange to see tables full of chattering teachers; up until now Blaine had made a point of only coming in here when he knew it would be empty and taking his lunch back to eat at his desk.

The refrigerator was directly across the room from them and they would have to pass almost every table on the way to it. Emma pulled him resolutely forward, but stopped at the first table they came to. Sitting there was Matilda Dixon, the elderly teacher who’d brought him his dropped paper that first day, and she was flanked by two other older ladies. All three looked slightly alarmed when Emma arrived, securely attached to Blaine.

“Hello Matilda, Jean, Helen,” she said in a voice so chipper and bright that it sang through the room and attracted enough attention that the din lowered just a bit. Blaine hoped he wasn’t blushing as hard as it felt like he was. “Have you all met Blaine?” Emma continued. “He’s replacing Paul for the rest of the year.”

From somewhere to the left there was a murmured comment followed by a sharp laugh. Blaine wanted to run, he would have run, but Emma still had a death grip on his arm and was still smiling at the three old ladies as if nothing at all was wrong. The silence dragged on so long that Blaine found himself breaking it, if only to get this over with as quickly as possible. “Matilda and I have met,” he said, hoping his voice didn’t sound as stiffly formal to the others as it did to himself. “She saved me from loss of important paperwork my first day.”

Matilda Dixon nodded brusquely at him and managed a short, “Blaine.” Immediately Emma turned her expectant smile on the other two old biddies, and they didn’t move on until both had also reluctantly acknowledged Blaine. As they moved away he could hear them behind him, whispering, the words “. . . poor boy” raised just enough for him to hear.

And so it went across the room. The first table was the worst by far, and there were even some people who were genuinely warm to him. The alarmingly large woman who coached the football team had beamed at him, going on and on about how much "that kid" deserved to find love, and in fact managed to inadvertently reference Kurt's age in so many ways that Blaine was tempted to join the rest of the room in laughing at the absurdity of it.

But where most of the staff were concerned, Blaine was treated like some stray dog Emma had dragged in off the street and was insisting everyone pet. People pet him for her sake, but always managed to express how much they disliked getting their fingers dirty. Blaine longed for the quiet of his office, wanting more and more, as they journeyed toward the refrigerator, to just bury his head in Kurt’s lap and feel long fingers stroking through his hair. Which did nothing to help the stray dog feeling.

They eventually completed their trip around the room, retrieved their lunches, and settled at a little table in the corner. Blaine chose the chair that would put his back to the rest of the room. Emma gave him a happy smile. “Well that wasn’t so bad, was it?” she asked as she carefully opened the seven different small containers that held her lunch.

“I guess not.” If she wasn’t so transparently sincere, Blaine would have suspected the trip around the room was some kind of punishment for being impertinent earlier, when he’d admonished her about honesty, but he knew that somehow this was really how Emma felt. It wasn’t so bad. He wondered what her idea of “so bad” could possibly be.

He figured he was about to find out when the door opened and Emma, glancing up, looked genuinely alarmed for the first time in this whole farce. “Oh, no,” she whispered before she could stop herself. Blaine turned around, resigned to facing whatever this next challenge was.

Sue Sylvester, cheerleading coach, was by the sink mixing something in a tall plastic container. Blaine hadn’t actually met Sue, but he knew who she was. He’d known who she was inside his first hour and a half at McKinley, and he suspected that was true for everyone. Sue Sylvester was unavoidable.

“Maybe she won’t come over,” Emma said hopefully. But Sue finished mixing her concoction and, after a short survey of the room, made a beeline for the empty chair at their table.

“Hello Melanie, Scarlett,” she said as she sat and occupied herself with her drink.

Blaine had no idea what she was talking about and Emma didn’t seem inclined to say anything at all. “Umm . . . my name’s Blaine,” he attempted.

“I know who you are are. You’re Porcelain’s new boy toy.” She took a long slow swig of the angry-looking green liquid, during which Blaine managed to realize that Porcelain must be a nickname for Kurt. “And just to be clear,” she continued, lowering the container back to the table, “when I say ‘boy toy’ I mean that in the sexually submissive sense, not the age sense, as you are clearly all grown up, aren’t you?”

Blaine simply gaped at her, pinned to his chair by the force of his astonishment. Even his worst nightmares had never included anything like this happening.

“Come on Sue,” Emma spoke up, and there was a note of pleading in her voice that Blaine had never heard before from a dom. “They have enough to deal with, don’t you think? You’ve registered your disapproval; now move on.”

Sue made a noise that could only be described as a snort. “Well I don’t know what conversation you’re pretending to be a part of, Sparky, but I’ve registered nothing of the sort. I’m thrilled that Mike Brady here is Porcelain’s soulmate.

“You are?” Emma asked with obvious sarcasm.

“I am,” Sue replied. “For starters, it’s reassuring to know that there’s at least one dom in this place who actually knows how to claim a sub, even if it is a sixteen-year-old of dubious gender identity, which, really, should make you finally decide to just dig that hole to crawl into and leave the rest of us in peace. Secondly, that kid’s had a hard time,” she turned her attention to Blaine, whose brain was still back at "Mike Brady," “and you, Sir, are one grade A piece of man candy and if anyone deserves to get his hands on you it’s Porcelain.” She drained her container in one more long swig and thumped it resoundingly back on the table. “I for one hope he’s doing all kinds of unspeakably kinky things to you after school and on the weekends. As long as I don’t have to see it or know about it or stumble across the residue of it anywhere, I’m all for it. Let’s face it, you’re really already past your sexual peak and there’s only so long you’re going to be able to keep up with him. Gotta strike while the iron is hot.”

“Sue . . .” Emma began, and Blaine couldn’t imagine what she could possibly be thinking of saying in response. In any case, Sue didn’t let her finish.

“And now I’m done with my lunch and with both of you,” she said with finality and she was up and gone as quickly as she’d come.

“I’m really sorry, Blaine. That was the one thing I was hoping we’d be able to avoid.”

But Blaine really wasn’t listening. His brain was still trying to catch up, but there was something in what Sue had said - what everyone had said, really. It all began to come together, as he sat listening to Emma chatter. He was pretty sure he was having something like an epiphany.

**********

Emma had to track Will down after school. He wasn’t in the choir room or his office and she wondered if he was avoiding her on purpose. But she was determined. She’d been thinking about what Blaine had said all day and she needed to find Will and talk to him before she lost her nerve.

She eventually discovered him in the copy room, running off sheets of music that surrounded him in stacks that made her fingers itch with the need to straighten and organize.

“We need to talk,” she said when the sound of the door closing behind her made him look up.

He made The Face. The one he always made when they Talked. “I really need to get this done.”

“That’s okay. You copy. I’ll talk.”

He turned back to the machine, so she took that for assent. “I haven’t been totally honest with you, or myself,” she began, and he turned back to her immediately, because no matter how hurt he might be, Will at heart always tried to be what she needed. “And talking to Blaine today made me realize that I haven’t been fair to you.”

Will’s eyebrows raised at the mention of Blaine, but he didn’t speak.

“I’m afraid,” she said, and she didn’t even realize how true it was until she got it out. “I’m afraid that if I claim you and we really do this together, I’m going to end up using you. To enable me. My illness. My OCD.”

Will was beside her immediately, catching her hands in his own strong grip. “What are talking about? We’re a perfect match, remember? Didn’t you just tell me your perfect match helps you to grow?”

“I did . . . say that, but you are so submissive, Will, and that scares me. Because it would be so easy for me to use that. Maybe to enable me. Maybe to hurt you. Like my parents used to do to me, some screwed up way to prove that I really am a dom . . .”

“Hey!” He cut her off and pulled her into a kiss, all gentle and soft, just pressing their lips together until her instinctive stiffening relaxed and she leaned a little against his chest. When they parted he was smiling down at her. “You couldn’t be your parents if you tried.”

She nodded. “I know, I know that’s just fear talking, but you know I’m not above the other stuff. How many times have you sat and cleaned my fruit for me? And I know you enjoy it, and there are so many other things you could enjoy that I’m not ready to give you but I can give you that and it would be so easy . . .”

“And you don’t trust me to speak up and tell you when you’re doing that? I was the one who wanted you to get treatment in the first place, remember?”

“That’s what I meant when I said I hadn’t been fair to you. I just told myself you wouldn’t be able to do that, instead of really talking to you about it. And I’m sorry.”

He stepped back a tiny bit, still holding her hands but giving her a little distance before he said, “So what does this mean?”

She could hear the hope in his voice, but as much as she wanted to fulfill it, she knew she wasn’t quite ready to go there yet. She wasn’t ready.

“I love that you trust me not to use you or take advantage of you. But I don’t trust myself yet. So . . . I want you to come see Dr. Shane with me next week when I go.” Will looked surprised, but he didn’t make The Face. “If you’re okay with it, I want us both to talk to her. I think she can help us . . . help me feel safer about everything. Would you do that for me?”

“Are you kidding? I would do literally anything if it gets us closer to you being ready to claim me. Anything.”

Emma refrained from pointing out that that was exactly what she was afraid of, his willingness to be whatever she wanted him to be. It was a beautiful quality in a sub, she told herself, and she just needed a little bit of work to become the dom who could really embrace that, instead of running in fear.

“You really could be doing this better,” was all she said, and she began straightening his copies, calculating whether an alphabetical or genre-specific arrangement would be best, controlling what she could and giving up control where she needed to. For now.

**********

Kurt let himself into Blaine’s office with the key Blaine had given him only that morning, dumped his bags on the floor and settled into the old wooden guest chair to wait for Blaine to clean up after his last class and make his way there. The chair really was impossible. It might be comfortable, for somebody with four times the padding he had on his ass, but there was no question it had to be replaced. He could appreciate its retro appeal, but in this case function definitely had to come before form.

He’d been worried all afternoon. Had he pushed Blaine too hard, too soon, by making him face the teachers’ lounge? It had just seemed like Miss Pillsbury’s offer was too good to resist and he’d counted on the fact that she would protect Blaine from the worst of it. He couldn’t imagine anyone other than Coach Sylvester would dare to actually be mean to Blaine with Miss Pillsbury right there, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t find ways to make their disapproval obvious.

It had to be done, though. Blaine would be working at McKinley for two and a half months. He couldn’t hide the entire time. It had made more sense to just send him into the teachers’ lounge to get it all over with at once, rather than drag it out through dozens of unexpected encounters in hallways and bathrooms and offices.

He jumped when he heard Blaine’s key in the door and his heart was still racing when it opened and Blaine appeared. He smiled a little when he saw Kurt, but he didn’t say anything and although Kurt searched his face for any sign of a reaction, good or bad, Blaine gave nothing away. He put his bag on the desk then sat on the edge of it, facing Kurt, so close in the tiny room that his shins bumped Kurt’s knees.

“So . . . are you mad at me?” Kurt finally asked. He couldn’t decide if it was a good thing or a bad thing that Blaine hadn’t fallen to his knees the minute the door closed.

“Why would I be mad at you?” Blaine asked, which didn’t really help answer Kurt’s question.

“Because I made you go with Miss Pillsbury. Was it awful? I just thought that with her there it . . .”

Blaine touched Kurt’s leg gently, probably just to get him to stop babbling, but it bore enough resemblance to his asking-to-talk gesture that Kurt automatically stopped talking and said, “Go ahead.”

Blaine’s hands clasped in front of his mouth for a moment as he hesitated over what to say. When he finally spoke his voice was quiet but firm. “I think I figured out something really important. It's been spinning around in my head all afternoon and . . .” He didn’t finish his sentence, but he looked Kurt right in the eye and then Kurt could see it. Some emotion, some big emotion was lurking just under the surface and Blaine was trying to control and understand it in that way he had. Kurt reached out and took one of Blaine’s hands in his, but he didn’t speak.

“It was bad,” Blaine said, “and it wasn’t. It wasn’t fun, to face all that, but . . . at some point I realized, none of it was really about me. It was all about you.”

“I don’t know what . . .”

“Everyone in that room had an opinion, about you. Either I was the good guy because you deserve to have happiness and love in your life after everything you’ve been through, or I was the bad guy because you deserve better than someone so much older who’ll steal your childhood or innocence or whatever.”

“Blaine . . .”

Blaine squeezed Kurt’s hand tight. “Let me finish, okay. I need to work this out.”

Kurt just squeezed back and nodded.

“Pretty much everyone in that room, whether they liked me or hated me, felt the way they felt because of how they felt about you. They all care so much about you Kurt. I mean, I feel like you’re the most amazing person ever, but I’m your soulmate. I’m supposed to feel that way. My brother’s wife feels that way about him, too, but trust me, he’s not that big a deal.”

Kurt could feel Blaine’s hand start to shake a little; it was damp with sweat and Blaine pulled away and wiped both his palms on his pants, following tne movement with his eyes. “Everyone who was in that room thinks you’re amazing, Kurt. I didn’t hear ‘he’s messing with a student,’ I heard, ‘he’s messing with Kurt,’ or ‘he’s making Kurt happy.’ It’s not just me. You’re special to everyone.” He looked up and Kurt was alarmed to see that his eyes were filling with tears. “You’re extraordinary, Kurt. That’s the one thing everyone in that room agreed about. Even Sue Sylvester.”

Kurt was starting to feel very worried about where this was going. If going into that lunch room today pushed Blaine back into his shell he would never forgive himself.

Blaine kept blinking away tears that didn’t quite manage to spill over. “And the thing is . . . if you’re that special, and fate picked me to be your perfect match, then . . .”

Relief sang through Kurt’s body and he grinned and reached out to touch Blaine’s knee. “Go ahead. Say it.”

“Then I must be pretty special too.” He seemed adtonished to be saying the words, as if the whole idea was completely new to him. A few tears finally managed to escape his hold, slipping gently down his cheeks. “I mean, fate looked at you - at all the amazing things you were going to be and do - and said, ‘Who’s good enough to spend their life making him happy?’ And somehow the answer was . . .”

Blaine Anderson. Kurt had slipped off his cuff while Blaine was talking and now he held up his bare wrist, so Blaine could see his own name, traced forever in the skin there, proof positive of everything he was saying.

They moved at the same time, Blaine sliding off the desk, Kurt pushing up out of his chair, and met in the middle, lips coming together like a reunion, kissing softly, tenderly, affirming. Tiny, gorgeous noises came out of Blaine’s throat when Kurt cupped his face in his hands, wiping gently at the tears there, and he clutched his arms around Kurt’s body, fingers digging into the muscle’s of Kurt’s back like he never wanted to let go.

Eventually Kurt pulled back just enough to murmur, “I’ve been telling you that all along, you know. I don’t know why it took a room full of stupid teachers to make you see it.”

Blaine leaned forward to keep his face pressed to Kurt’s, tracing his nose along Kurt’s cheek bone back to nuzzle at his ear. “Does that make me a bad sub?” he whispered. “Do you need to punish me?”

“No,” Kurt wiped the last of the tears from Blaine's face, “I think you deserve a present.”

Blaine pulled back then and gave him a tiny, comical pout.

“I’m serious,” Kurt said. “And I just happen to have gotten you a present while I was out for lunch.”

“I thought you were going to try to talk to Rachel at lunch?”

“I did. Try.” Kurt reached behind the little wooden chair and pulled out the shopping bag he’d left there. “But I guess she’s still avoiding me. I couldn’t find her, in any case.”

“She’ll come around. I know you can imagine how hard this must be for her.”

“I know,” Kurt said. “It’s just that she was so excited for me before she knew it was you. I was kind of looking forward to all the over-sharing we’d be doing. Anyhow,” he handed over the shopping bag with a flourish, “this can now be your official ‘Realizing How Perfect You Are’ present.”

“Thank you,” Blaine said and he took the bag and pulled out the box it held. “It’s . . . a lamp. You got me a lamp.” He looked up at Kurt and couldn’t quite hide his confusion.

“It’s a replica 1950s. Very hip. Or mod, or whatever.”

“Okay, well, that’ll look great on my piano . . .”

Kurt snatched the box out of his hands and began to pull it open. “Don’t be ridiculous. This would be all wrong on your piano! Or anywhere in your apartment. It’s for here.”

“I already have a light here,” Blaine said, gesturing vaguely at the fixture in the ceiling.

“A fluorescent light, Blaine. No one ever looked their best under a fluorescent light. Not even me.” He pulled the lamp from the box, plugged it into the wall and set it on the desk, adjusting the dimmer precisely.

“I think you look good in any light.”

“Just turn it off, Blaine.”

Blaine flipped the switch on the wall and his eyes widened as the room was plunged into a soft, amber glow. “Oh,” he breathed.

“Oh,” Kurt repeated with a smile.

“This is mood lighting.”

“This,” Kurt said, settling himself once again in the impossible chair that was definitely the next thing he was going to replace, “is get your ass over here and let me show you how special you really are lighting.” He crooked a come-hither finger in Blaine’s direction.

And Blaine, the perfect sub, obeyed.