Blaine bows his head.

“I’m fine, Master,” Blaine replies.

“I’m hoping this means the training is progressing,” Sebastian says, his raised eyebrow clearly indicating a hook.

“Yes, Master,” Blaine says. “We’ve managed to start using his plugs to get him used to penetration. He is using the smallest for now, and we’ll be moving up tonight. He should be ready soon.”

He pushes down every instinct that screams at him to do more to protect Kurt, to draw it out further. Kurt took the largest plug last night, and requested to use the dildo tonight, so he’s still lying to Sebastian. But part of him still feels like it’s not enough, that he can still keep Kurt away for a little longer.

He can’t, though. Not after Kurt caught him the other night. His objectivity is completely compromised, and he can’t cling to Kurt like this anymore. Kurt is ready--it’s Blaine who isn’t. But it’s not about him, not about what he wants.

He can’t have what he wants.  He needs to stop acting like he can.

“Good,” Sebastian says. “Do what you can to make it happen. You’ll be excused of your duties as a bed slave until he comes to me, and in return I expect the schedule to move as quickly as possible.”

“Yes, Master,” Blaine agrees simply, his head and his heart hanging low.

He isn’t sure the last time he slept a full night since he fell asleep with Kurt in his arms. Maybe he hasn’t.

Kurt is waiting for him that evening after he preps Hunter for Sebastian. He sits, proper and straight, on the couch, hands folded in his lap, looking like a penitent sinner about to confess, his cheeks pleasantly blushed as he looks up at Blaine.

“I’m ready,” he says simply. Blaine, who would have fought a few days ago, just nods. He’s tired--maybe if they get it over with, he’ll be able to get Kurt out of his mind.

He’s not even fooling himself.

When they get to Kurt’s room, he takes the chair and settles it facing away from Kurt, at a blank stretch of wall next to the desk. Kurt looks at it pointedly before tilting his head at Blaine questioningly.

“I’m going to let you have some privacy for this,” Blaine explains flatly. “It’s intense, and you should be comfortable for it. If I’m staring at you, you can’t have that. I’ll leave once you’re used to it, and if you don’t have any questions.”

His tone brooks no disagreement, so Kurt just nods meekly and starts to undress. Blaine sits himself in the chair stiffly and stares at the wall, hoping that its blankness will seep into him and allow him to mimic it--smooth, cool, white, unblemished. But his heart stays stubbornly red, hot, beating, hurt.

“Go ahead and open yourself up,” he instructs.

He waits and listens as Kurt obeys, gasps and grunts floating to Blaine’s ears, tormenting his imagination with what could be happening behind him. Kurt laying back, arms between his wide-spread thighs, stretched down to feel himself as deeply as he can, head thrown back and eyes clenched against the feeling, chest heaving and sweating and--

Blaine remains steadfast, his breath carefully even.

“I’m...I’m open,” Kurt stammers, after several long minutes.

“Put plenty of lube on the dildo,” Blaine says, “and then pick whatever position is most comfortable for you.”

Blaine had given him a basic rundown of common positions Sebastian likes a few days ago, the conversation stilted and uneasy, but at least he doesn’t have to go over it now, when he’s feeling scraped raw by everything that’s happened, everything that’s happening. It would only be salt now, grinding and stinging in the wounds that Kurt leaves with every smile and glance, that Blaine only tears open afresh every night in his helpless imaginings.

“Okay,” Kurt says. “I’ll...I’m going to...take it now.”

Blaine just nods, sharply, and strains to hear what’s happening, stubbornly refusing to turn around.

“Oh--oh god,” Kurt hisses, his breath coming out choppy and short.

“Relax,” Blaine says, his concern finally overwhelming his reserve when he realizes that Kurt must be in some pain. It’s the most he’s ever taken, after all, and he can’t be feeling good about how Blaine has been acting. As much as Blaine wants to curl away from his own pain, he can’t let Kurt endure even the least suffering if he can prevent it. And he knows he’s been causing some of it himself with his sudden and recent shift from gregarious to taciturn.

Blaine immediately starts beating himself up in his head, but he does his best to sound soothing.

“I know it’s a lot,” he continues. “But you can take it. It’ll feel good soon, I promise. Just go at your own pace. There’s no hurry here.”

“Okay,” Kurt says, his voice wavering. He takes some deep, sucking breaths, and then lets out a deep moan.

“Feeling better?” Blaine asks after a moment of quiet, Kurt’s heavy breathing and his movement on the bed seeming so loud in the silence.

“Y-yes,” Kurt stutters. “It...it feels good.”

Blaine nods and shifts forward, ready to stand and walk out, leaving Kurt to it, but Kurt’s voice stops him.

“Stay,” he pleads. “Please, Blaine. I’m...I’m still...I don’t know if I can--”

“Of course,” Blaine says automatically, settling back down onto the chair. He crosses his arms, an unconscious move to protect himself, his leg bouncing with his nerves. How is he going to sit here and listen to Kurt doing this and remain distant when all he wants is to take Kurt in his arms and show him firsthand how perfect sex can be?

And maybe Kurt can show him, too. He’s never had it for himself. He knows the stories, and he almost, almost had it with Jeremiah, but he doesn’t know. It wasn’t life-changing, it wasn’t enough. Being with Kurt could be like coming alive, he knows it. And he wants it so bad and he can’t have it--

“Blaine?” Kurt says questingly, thin and strained.

“Yeah,” Blaine replies. His voice is quiet, drawn, reflecting the way his very soul feels at the desolation of wanting to love Kurt so desperately and being completely unable.

He’s inches away. Inches.

“I think of you.”

Blaine freezes. He wouldn’t be surprised if his breath clouded before him, for how cold his blood runs, how still he sits. But he’s not even sure he’s breathing.

“Whenever I do this,” Kurt continues, his breath hitching and sighing through his wonderful, terrible words. “I think of you. Every day and every night, you’re all I think about. I think about how you look, and the way your hands feel. I think about how you kissed me. I think about being able to do it all the time, just walk up and kiss you when you’re playing piano or making us lunch or playing in the water. I just want it so much. And I know you think about me, too.”

Blaine immediately shakes his head, but Kurt cuts him off.

“No, you can’t lie to me,” Kurt says, begging rather than forceful. “Don’t do it. I know you do. I’ve heard you say my name, I know. And I know how you look at me. I know what it is because it’s exactly how I’m feeling.”

Blaine keeps shaking his head, his resolve cracking with every word. Why is Kurt doing this to him, doesn’t he understand? Doesn’t he know that he’s chipping away at a dam that will flood over if he doesn’t just stop?

“I’m looking back, Blaine,” Kurt all but sobs. “I don’t want Sebastian to be the first person I do this with. I want you. It’s always been you.”

Blaine holds himself tighter, fingers digging into his own arms as he bends over, trying to catch his breath. If he can just breathe, if he could just goddamn breathe--

“No,” he gasps. “It can’t happen, it can’t--”

“Please, Blaine--”

“No, you don’t understand, I can’t do this--”

“Blaine--”

“No, no, please--”

“Don’t let him take this from me!” Kurt cries. “I want it to be you. Please don’t let him have this.”

Blaine can’t do it anymore. He can’t resist. It feels like his skin and muscle and blood and bone are fighting to go to Kurt, fighting against everything he knows he shouldn’t do, and logic is losing out.

He turns around in the chair, one hand gripping the back of it as he prepares to ruin himself, one way or another.

Kurt is kneeling upright on the bed, facing him fully. One hand stretches behind himself, holding the dildo firm as he rides it unsteadily, his thighs shaking. His other hand is clenched in his own hair, a spiky, sweaty mess, his head back and his throat long and straining. He looks at Blaine with hooded eyes, his mouth open and lips trembling.

“Please,” he says, his eyes boring into Blaine’s, open and vulnerable and shining.

Blaine gives in.

He rises from the chair, and Kurt sobs in relief as he takes two strides to the bed. He grips Kurt’s waist with both hands and pulls him off the dildo, tossing him onto his back. Kurt throws the dildo aside carelessly and wraps his hands around Blaine’s neck and into his hair, pulling him down for a searching kiss.

Blaine kneels over him, his arms winding around Kurt’s shoulders and holding him up as he deepens the kiss, opening his mouth and letting Kurt’s tongue run along his own, sucking and nipping and licking at each other’s lips with no restraint. Kurt’s lack of experience shows, but it’s the most beautiful thing Blaine has felt, this trust and willingness for Blaine to show him, to teach him everything the way he deserves to be taught, not in the cold, clinical way he’s faced thus far.

Kurt can teach him the right way, too. They can learn together.

Blaine sheds his clothes, his mouth struggling to stay attached to Kurt’s. Now that he’s given in, he wants it all, he wants the casual touches and the kisses and the love like Nick and Jeff share. He wants that everyday span of moments that tie together everything and make it all worthwhile. He wants to hug and kiss and cuddle and smile and play and joke and caress and hold hands and enjoy life together, in the big picture and the small, the long term and the short. He wants everything with a fire that scares him for its intensity.

And god, does he want this. He groans into Kurt’s lips and reaches over blindly to grab the lube, pouring some quickly into his hand and stroking it over his cock. He whimpers into Kurt’s mouth at the feeling before he pulls back and looks down, lining up and circling Kurt’s hole with his cock.

“Yes, yes,” Kurt pants, arching his back, his head pressing back into the pillow. Blaine knows how he feels--that all-consuming sensation of finally.

Blaine’s mouth falls open with a gust of air at how good it feels to push in. It’s like nothing he’s ever imagined, being inside someone else’s body, inside Kurt, tight and hot and perfect around him. He slides in slowly until his hips are pressed to Kurt’s thighs, spread wide and wrapping around his waist as he leans back down to claim Kurt’s mouth again.

“Blaine,” Kurt says, eyes locking with Blaine’s as Blaine starts to move, slow and gentle, his hands reaching up to cup Kurt’s face, his thumbs stroking at Kurt’s cheeks, wiping away tears. “Blaine, I have to tell you something.”

“Anything,” Blaine says, closing his eyes and kissing all over Kurt’s face. “Mmm, anything, Kurt.”

“I--I love you,” Kurt whines, arms and legs tightening around Blaine, pulling him in harder, body and soul. “I love you, I do, I’m so in love with you, Blaine--”

“Oh, god, Kurt,” Blaine chokes. Here, in this moment, he has a choice. He can tell Kurt everything--tell Kurt that he’s in love with him, tell him that they are risking far more than a beating from Sebastian, tell him that he’s fought as hard as he can but Kurt still destroys his every attempt. Or he can deny it, hold onto that last piece of armor, protect them just a little longer despite the inevitability of giving in to Kurt completely.

He looks into Kurt’s eyes and lets himself feel what he can’t say, his eyes filling with tears of frustration and longing. “I do--I just, I can’t--”

“Shh,” Kurt soothes, petting Blaine’s hair as Blaine buries his face in Kurt’s neck, sobbing desperately, his tears soaking into Kurt’s skin. He hopes that they can carry the message that he can’t make his voice form, seep into Kurt’s blood and course through him so that the words whisper to him with every beat.

He mouths at every bit of skin his lips can reach as his hips snap forward faster, burying himself again and again inside of Kurt. Their sweat mingles with every drag, and Blaine’s hands searching for the perfect angle, the perfect grasp, the perfect moment together, closer and closer with every tightening of the coil in his core.

Kurt’s cries get louder and louder, and soon enough Blaine has to place his fingers over Kurt’s lips, hushing him and kissing him between them. There are rooms between them and the others, but they could always be caught, and Blaine won’t let go of this now.

“I know,” he whispers, kissing Kurt’s jaw. “I know, baby--”

“I’m so close,” Kurt says, his voice squeaking with how hard he’s holding back, and Blaine’s body heats when he sees the shock in Kurt’s eyes. It’s heady as it shoots through him, the realization that he’s giving Kurt pleasure he’s never known in his life, that he’s making Kurt fall apart like this for the first time. Not Sebastian. Not some lost dream of a perfect romance. Him. Blaine. And the rush of it fills his body like fire when Kurt clenches around him, his cock shooting white and hot between their tightly pressed bodies.

It’s Kurt, perfect Kurt, who sends him over with a kiss and murmur, three words that are too soon and not soon enough, that are a precious treasure between them, secret and silent and sacred. He thrusts in completely, spilling as deep as he can, claiming, his mouth open in a silent cry against the sweat of Kurt’s throat.

Kurt’s all he tastes as he comes down, all he smells and hears and sees and feels. Kurt, Kurt, Kurt.

Even though he did love Jeremiah, he had to pretend he didn’t. It might hurt, but there was no other way--they were caught. He took a deep breath.

“No, Master.”

Jeremiah whimpered behind him, and the sound cracked something in Blaine as Sebastian petted his hair again, playing with a curl between his fingers. He nodded absently, studying Blaine’s face, twirling and twirling his lock of hair, tightening his hold on it and twisting. It pulled tight against his head and he winced faintly.

“Then you must have been mistaken, last night in the bathhouse,” Sebastian said carelessly. “You lost yourself in the heat of the moment, perhaps? I do know this slave’s skill with his mouth, and you were preoccupied. People do say things they don’t mean when they’re...in extremis. Isn’t that right?”

Blaine’s eyes teared as Sebastian tugged the hair he was gripping. He swore he could hear the roots tearing from his scalp.

“I--Master, it...it meant nothing,” he blurted out. He heard Jeremiah gasp, but he went on. “I was...receiving pleasure. Nothing more. I didn’t even know I’d said that until you told me.”

His tears fell freely, though Sebastian had let go of his hair.

He’ll never be able to let it go for good. Now that he knows, now that he’s let himself feel, now that he and Kurt have lost themselves to one another, he can’t go back. He wasn’t living before this. He can’t let slip away the only life he has.

But he has to let go of it for tonight.

He lays a kiss on Kurt’s forehead, bringing him out of his doze. He smiles up at Blaine sleepily, humming.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hi,” Blaine laughs. “I have to go back to my room.”

“Nooo,” Kurt complains, clinging tighter to Blaine. Blaine’s heart swells and he grins like a fool.

This is worth it. Every pain--he’ll take it all, if he can have this. Because this is happiness. Fleeting, trembling happiness, fragile and precious. This--Kurt--is what he’s risking everything for.

“I have to,” he says, “so we’ll be able to do this again. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Kurt sighs, allowing Blaine to slip out of his arms..

“I’ll see you in the morning,” Blaine whispers, kissing him as sweetly as he can before he dresses and sneaks out.

“Wait,” he hears, just as he’s going to shut Kurt’s door.

Kurt looks around behind him quickly before kissing him firmly. Blaine smiles against his lips and allows it, completely charmed by Kurt’s eagerness and the softness of his touch.

“Sorry,” Kurt says breathlessly, pulling back. “You can go now.”

Blaine laughs at the dismissal, barely a breath from his lips as he grins and grins and grins.

“Good night, Kurt,” he whispers, drawing his hands away with a last lingering touch, half-hoping that it tingles on Kurt’s skin all night, staying with him where Blaine cannot.

“I love you,” Kurt mouths, smile wide and joyous like nothing Blaine’s seen. Blaine returns it before backing away and hurrying into his own room, collapsing on the bed and falling asleep with one hand on the wall separating him from his perfect boy.