Blaine's attention is turned to the latch of the gate, and Kurt suppresses a moment of panic, of wanting to dart inside to quickly shower and change before Blaine gets a good look at him like this, kneeling in the grass in dirt caked clothing, in the big floppy garden hat. He's lost his gloves, and his hands are filthy. He's filthy. There's the itch of dirt down his back and beneath his waistband from the earlier dirt clod exchange. A red-breasted robin chirps cheerfully in the aspen tree by the fence.

The bouquet of flowers Blaine holds is shades of purple and white with long sprigs of yellow blossoms amidst fronds of delicate green fern. It looks like forsythia—that's the yellow—white camellias, and... oh. Lilacs. Blaine wears the same trim navy suit he wore at Christmas. Today he wears it with a maroon sateen waistcoat and no tie. The collar and top buttons of his white shirt are undone, his throat exposed, and it's such an unusual manner for Blaine to wear his shirt, he may as well be shirtless for all that it speaks to Kurt of intimacy and invitation. Kurt swallows hard. "Oh," he says as Blaine looks up and their eyes meet.

"Hi," Blaine says.

Kurt manages to summon an answering, "Hi." In his peripheral vision, he sees Mercedes stand and walk over, but Kurt feels glued to the earth watching Blaine approach. He slides his thumb along the sharp edge of the porcelain shard in his hand. It's sharp enough to hurt without cutting in. He sets it on the edge of one of the concrete blocks bordering the garden bed.

"Hey, Blaine," Mercedes says. "You're looking handsome."

"Thank you." Blaine smiles at Mercedes, and there's a ruddy blush tinging his cheeks. He runs his free hand self-consciously over his hair. It's only lightly styled: his weekend hair, his party hair.

Kurt gets one foot beneath himself and stands. Mercedes offers him her hand to steady himself. He takes it gratefully. "I thought you were flying to Princeton with your Dad today," he says to Blaine.

"Yeah," Blaine says with a lopsided sort of grin. "I kind of... ditched him at the airfield." Blaine says it lightly enough, but Kurt wonders what it may have cost Blaine with his father. He doesn't know if he should press for more information, because the most important thing is that Blaine is here. And close enough now that Kurt can smell the flowers, the coveted heavy-sweet scent of the lilacs.

"These are for you," Blaine says, his gaze flicking up suddenly shy as he offers Kurt the large bouquet.

"I'm a mess," Kurt says, reluctant to take the beautiful things from Blaine lest he shed dirt on them. "They're lovely, but I—" He wipes his hands off on the seat of his jeans, but that only makes the situation worse for he's got dirt there too. "You brought me lilacs," he says scrubbing his hands against the front of his shirt.

"Yeah, I... thought you'd like them." Blaine is looking directly into his eyes now, and Kurt feels the flush burning its way up his neck and across his cheeks. He knows what this means. He remembers Blaine's promise.

Kurt bites his lip and glances down at his hands; he tries to use the stiff corner of the button placket to scrape the worst of the dirt from his fingernails. It only packs it in harder. "I do," he says. He looks back up, "They're beautiful."

"I'm sorry," Blaine says, turning his attention to Mercedes. "I guess I should have called first, but I—"

"You wanted to surprise your man," Mercedes says. "He's been miserable all day, you know. Pining."

"I haven't!" Kurt protests because he really hasn't been. He knows she's teasing, but he's gone so fluttery and unbalanced inside, he can't summon any wittier reply.

Blaine laughs softly, affectionately.

"Pining," she repeats, firmly.

Kurt rolls his eyes and gives up on cleaning his hands.

"So what did you guys have planned for tonight?" Blaine asks, and he doesn't give the slightest hint that Mercedes' presence may be surplus to his intentions. "I didn't bring any clothes for gardening," he says, "but I brought dinner."

"Rachel is coming over too," Kurt says. "We were going to marathon some Project Runway, make pizza, and—"

"Guys," Mercedes says. "You're sweet, but I will make myself scarce. I know today is a special day for you two."

"You can stay," Kurt protests. "We had plans. The four of us can—"

Mercedes sighs and cuts him off with a look. "Kurt, baby, look at your boy. He's here to romance you not hang out with us while we make fun of ugly dresses."

But Kurt doesn't look at Blaine, not more than a glance. Instead, he looks down at his oversized shirt, grungy slumping jeans, and battered old sneakers. "I need to shower," Kurt says, because, god, he really does. He thinks he can feel dirt in his underwear. There's definitely dirt in his socks irritating his ankles.

"Do what you need to do, Kurt. I'll tidy up out here and call Rachel to pick me up," Mercedes says.

"The plants—?"

"Will be fine in the greenhouse for another day or two. Just make sure they don't dry out."

Kurt nods and looks back at Blaine, who is still smiling, albeit somewhat nervously. "Okay," Kurt says. "We should go in." He turns back to Mercedes, squeezes her hand. "Thank you."

After Kurt has shaken and brushed as much dirt from himself as he can, he and Blaine go in through the back door into the laundry. He holds the door open for Blaine and follows him in. "For the love of that gorgeously tailored suit, please don't touch me. You would not believe the places I have topsoil. You're looking far too glamorous for me to want to risk messing you up."

Blaine says. "I'm sorry, I really should have called before I came over."

Kurt looks up at him from where he's bent, unlacing his old sneakers, sees how Blaine's smile has lost its confidence. "No, I'm really glad you didn't," Kurt says. "A good surprise makes for a nice change."

"Yeah, I guess." Blaine says. "I did promise you surprises."

That promise Kurt remembers well too, and Blaine keeps his promises. "That's twice this year so far," Kurt says biting into the bottom curve of his smile.

"So far," Blaine says softly with a cock of his head and a contemplative look. He steps a little closer as Kurt straightens and slips off his shoes. They're still not touching, and Blaine's not close enough to risk crushing the flowers between them, but Kurt thinks he can feel the heat between them anyway, and a pull. His skin already aches for Blaine's touch. "So were you actually pining for me?" Blaine asks.

"I may have been, a little bit. On the inside." He goes to the laundry sink, grabs the soap and the nailbrush and sets to scrubbing the dirt from his hands. "It was all very restrained."

"I missed you, too," Blaine says, leaning against the dryer and watching Kurt, his gaze going sort of sultry and keen.

Kurt dips his head to hide his smile. "Blaine, You cannot look at me like that when I look like this."

"You look fine to me," Blaine says and keeps right on looking at Kurt, brazen.

And while Kurt can certainly think of bigger turn offs than being covered in garden dirt and dried sweat, right now it's at the top of his list. Which is irksome because Blaine is pretty devastatingly sexy in that suit, and his gaze is so heavy with expectation upon Kurt. So Kurt changes the subject. "Um. Is it okay, that you're here?"

Blaine shrugs. "It'll have to be," he says, and that's enough that he glances away, smile fading.

It rouses Kurt's curiosity enough that he decides he will ask. Or at least ask if he can ask: "May I ask what happened?"

Blaine presses his lips together and nods slowly. "My Mom didn't really want me to go. She gets nervous about those small planes. So when I hugged her goodbye and said to her that I really didn't want to go either, she said, 'Then don't,' like it was the simplest thing."

Blaine takes a deep breath, and the rest comes out quickly with his exhalation. "So I turned around and told my Dad I wasn't going with him. Thad and his father were there so he didn't get mad. Then I left with my Mom, and now..." Blaine gestures. "Here I am."

Kurt rinses his hands and reaches for the hand towel. "And was it?"

"Was it what?"

"The simplest thing?"

"I— No, it wasn't. Telling him 'no' was definitely not easy."

Kurt reaches a clean hand to touch Blaine's arm. "I'm proud of you."

Blaine's smile returns, wide and unfettered. "It probably sounds weird, but so am I," he says, and then he bows his head with a soft sigh. "I just... I really wanted to see you today, Kurt. We don't have to do anything, you know, like we talked about. I just want to spend the rest of the day together, even if all we do is cuddle on the sofa and heckle infomercials."

"Ugh, Blaine. We are not that couple yet. I'm not spending our first anniversary watching incompetent people mangle household chores."

"Okay," Blaine says, "I'm just saying, I have no particular intentions." He offers Kurt the flowers again.

"Really?" Kurt says, and he reaches for the bouquet. "So these and the nice suit...?"

"Well," Blaine says and glances away.

"That's what I thought," Kurt teases. "Let me get these in a vase and get showered. I need to have some lunch. Have you eaten yet?"

"No," Blaine says. "I can make something while you shower."

"There's soup in the fridge. It just needs reheating."

Blaine nods. "I'll just go out the front and get my stuff from the car."

"Sure," Kurt says, and once Blaine has left the laundry room, he starts to breathe again.

He sets the flowers down beside the sink and retrieves the wide green recycled glass vase from the corner cupboard, sets it on the lid of the washing machine. Gets the utility scissors from the drawer in front of him to cut the twine holding the bouquet together and starts trimming the bottoms of the long stems.

Mercedes opens the back door then. "Hey," she says. "I'm done out here. Do you need help with anything else before I go?"

Kurt shakes his head, but gestures for Mercedes to come in. "They're beautiful, aren't they?" he says, lightly brushing the densely packed head of one of the darker lilac clusters with a fingertip. It prompts a fresh waft of their dense fragrance.

"Lilacs, huh?" Mercedes says as she enters. Kurt remembers showing Mercedes his bucket list their sophomore year. Back then it was Zac Efron, but it was still in a summer field beneath a lilac tree. He's surprised she remembers.

"Mmhm," Kurt says, smiles.

"Then I really should be going," Mercedes says with a grin. "Because I'm pretty sure I know what that means."

Kurt laughs, a little self-consciously. "You don't have to rush off. Did you want to stay for lunch?" he asks. "You can."

"No, I'm fine. But give me a call sometime tomorrow afternoon, okay?"

"Okay."

"And most importantly, Kurt," she says, "have fun."

He's laughing as she lets herself out the backdoor. He waves as she passes the window, and then he turns back to the flowers, arranging them in the vase and adding some water. He sets them aside and takes off his hat, hanging it on the row of coat-hooks near the door. Though it's a lost cause, he runs his hands through his hair so it's at least not sweat-plastered to his skull.

Kurt hears Blaine come back inside, so he picks up the vase of flowers and heads into the kitchen. His stomach tangles anew in anticipation as Blaine comes in with a foil covered rectangular casserole dish, atop which is balanced a glass salad bowl and a loaf of fresh, crusty Italian bread.

"Hi," Kurt says, a little breathless. They're alone now.

"Hi," Blaine replies with soft smile and soft gaze. He sets the bread, salad, and casserole down softly on the island.

"You cooked?" Kurt asks. He's not sure what he'd been expecting exactly when Blaine said he'd brought dinner, but it wasn't Blaine having cooked. Which means he went home from the airfield this morning and cooked.

"Yeah, well, Mom did most of it. I asked her if she would help me. It's a lasagne. It's one of, I think, three things she can cook well? I just chopped the vegetables, stirred the sauce, and grated the cheese. Nothing much, really..."

"Blaine, that's cooking, you cooked for me," Kurt says.

"Oh, I guess?"

"It's really, I don't know, sweet." He tightens his hands around the glass vase, ducks his nose into the blossoms for a moment and smiles. Honestly, he feels a little spoiled.

"Sweet?" Blaine echoes with a quirk in his smile. "It's pure self-interest. I just didn't want you to have to cook tonight." A smooth note of seduction colors his voice as he says, "I'm hoping to have you otherwise occupied."

Kurt meets his gaze as Blaine's words set a deep heat quivering within him. He says in a low voice of his own, "Like I said, sweet."

Blaine's eyes blaze with all the promise of the day. He says, "You... ah, you really need to go shower, Kurt, so I can kiss you and... stuff."

"I— Okay," Kurt says, but it's hard to move away from Blaine, from the magnet pull of him. But once showered, Kurt can stop resisting it. So he goes.

"Put on something fabulous," Blaine suggests with a wink. He's totally flirting.

Kurt laughs as he leaves the kitchen; he's got some idea of what he'll wear.

~*~

The shower is bliss. Once Kurt gets his work clothes off, he's even dirtier than he expected, so he takes his time making sure every bit of grit and grime is scrubbed away down the drain. Then, pink-skinned, and light-headed from the heat of the water, he moisturizes his abused skin, makes sure to select a product (the cocoa butter one he uses in the summer) that both smells good and won't taste soapy or bitter no matter where Blaine wants to kiss him. It leaves him feeling sleek and polished all over. His anticipation has his own hands feeling seductive upon his skin as he works in the body cream, but he doesn't indulge beyond necessity. He's been waiting this long, another little while will only sweeten things. He's discovered that the wanting of it—the desire that vibrates his nerves like a violin string—it's a large part of the enjoyment now that he is no longer doomed to remain unsatisfied.

Surprisingly, he's not all that anxious. Maybe the gardening worked all the tension from his body without his realizing it. Maybe it just means that he truly is ready.

In his bedroom, Kurt sits at his vanity in his dressing gown, looking at the vase of flowers and cooling off enough to dress. The fragrance of the lilacs has filled his room.

He closes his eyes for a moment and imagines it, couched upon a soft blanket (cashmere, because it's his fantasy after all; he needn't worry about price or pulls or stains...) pillowed by the deep grass on a warm early summer day, the breath-soft whisper of the breeze through the heart-shaped leaves, the redolent lilac blooms bowing and trembling overhead. Dappled in sun and shade, he and his lover lie, side by side. They've been sharing kisses and chaste, tender touches for hours, and are paused now, finding silent agreement in one another's gaze for more. The lines of this fantasy Kurt has left lightly sketched for so long, he's never filled in the details of more; it was just having relations.

His lover—with the dark hair, strong arms, and soft lips—in the fantasy now is Blaine: always Blaine, only Blaine. So as he imagines it now, it's Blaine pressing him back into the grass and kissing him long and deep and slow as he closes his eyes and inhales the sweet scent of the lilacs. Blaine's hands unfastening his clothes and turning him over, stroking down between his thighs; and Blaine's mouth hot as it slides deliriously down his spine, to give him a lingering, most intimate kiss.

With a soft huffed breath and flash of heat, Kurt comes back to himself. It still feels like something of a trespass in that particular fantasy. As if the explicit and the carnal jar with its safe, romantic timbre—with its long history in his mental landscape. But there's something about corrupting it, something tantalizing. It beckons his desire, to merge one of his oldest fantasies with his newest reality: for that version of himself to be so lured and seduced, and at the last, stripped bare, wide-eyed and ravished. He's glad Blaine brought the lilacs.

Kurt does his hair, uses less product than he would were he going out, but figures Blaine will appreciate being able to bury his fingers into a softer style. Then he goes to his bureau, selects a pair of gray low-rise no-show briefs (his most discreet), and slips them on under his dressing gown and has to take a moment to adjust his erection. It's tempting to leave it at that, to go downstairs in just his dressing gown and underwear, but it's hardly fabulous, and possibly, marginally sleazy. They're having lunch first, like mature people.

Texture is his goal, clothes to invite Blaine's touch. He remembers Blaine's hands on his velvet ankle boots, on the supple leather of his Docs, on the laces of his waistcoat and those same boots, on the brocade of his corset, fisting into a quilted silk bedspread, gliding across semen soaked skin, and trailing down his sweaty, oiled spine. Kurt pushes clothes along the rail in his closet until he finds the burgundy crushed velvet pants for which he's never yet found an occasion.

They're tight, as tight as anything he owns, but the material has lot of give, so they're nearly comfortable as his dance pants. They leave significantly less room for modesty, however. It's almost obscene given his present state. He selects his black Thomas Engel Hart ankle boots, not just because they work with the narrow silhouette, but also because they'll be easy to remove. On the shirt, he remains undecided. Ends up grabbing something basic, a slim cut white-on-white dress shirt with a thin vertical stripe woven into it. He fidgets with the French cuffs, wonders if it he can leave them open. Decides he'll end up getting them in his soup if he does, so grabs a plain pair of polished rose quartz cufflinks to fasten them. He leaves the shirt untucked, the collar unbuttoned, and he hasn't bothered with an undershirt.

He winds his silver chain knit scarf loosely around his shoulders and considers himself ready for anything.

~

Downstairs, the air is aromatic with tarragon, which means Blaine found the chicken and barley soup in the fridge. The savory smell of it makes Kurt realize just how hungry he is after all that digging. He's glad he thought to make the soup last night to give him and Mercedes enough energy to get through the rest of the gardening today. It will be nourishing enough to sustain whatever strenuous, sexy activities he and Blaine will enjoy this afternoon. But despite his hunger for food, that thought makes Kurt's heart race, so that when he finds Blaine in the kitchen, leaning casually over the counter reading something on his phone, Kurt is back to feeling too hot and flustered. His hands occupy themselves with uselessly smoothing his shirt tails.

Blaine looks up as Kurt comes into the kitchen. Kurt sees how Blaine's eyes widen as he sets his phone aside and straightens, how his chest rises with a deep and sudden inhalation.

"Kurt," Blaine says, and comes to him.

Kurt has just enough time to smile before Blaine is upon him, repeating Kurt's name in a murmur against his lips and then kissing him breathlessly, his warm hands cupping Kurt's face between them, and his body pressing Kurt back against the counter. Then Blaine is drawing back far enough to speak, his hands slipping down to Kurt's shoulders. He tips his forehead against Kurt's temple. "God, I was so nervous the first time I did that."

Kurt sighs a soft laugh. "So was I."

"It was amazing," Blaine says. "Kissing you for the first time."

Kurt turns into Blaine's face, rubbing his nose against Blaine's cheekbone. "It was," he says, like he's telling a precious secret.

And then Blaine's parted lips graze along Kurt's jaw to exhale a ticklish breath near his ear, and Blaine whispers. "I'm going to suck your dick now, Kurt."

The words, and the tone in which they are spoken, make Kurt's stomach clench, and the sudden plummet of blood from his brain has Kurt fearing he will actually swoon. It's early afternoon and the kitchen window has neither blinds nor curtains. He looks over at the bare window with a strand of something that's not quite panic threading around his heart. "Here?" Kurt asks.

"Right here," Blaine confirms, and he slides down to his knees, dragging against Kurt's body on the descent.

The friction has Kurt biting his lip hard and knocking his head back against the top cupboards with a barely stifled groan. "O-okay."

And Blaine's hands are on him, bold and sure, mapping the shape of his arousal beneath the velvet, dragging across the soft pile of the fabric to find where he's most sensitive and rubbing until Kurt lets out a shuddering gasp and his knees tremble. "You are so fucking hot," Blaine says, and his hands go to Kurt's fly; Blaine pulls the zipper down with the soft vipp. And then practicality intrudes, for Blaine is confounded by the top fastening of Kurt's pants.

"The buttons," Kurt pants out, moving his fingers blindly down to take over from Blaine's fumbling, "are on the inside tab."

His pants come undone beneath their combined efforts and Kurt moves his hands away so Blaine can... do what he's doing. "Oh... god," Kurt says, for what Blaine is doing is pressing his open mouth against Kurt's cock, still shrouded in the thin modal barrier of his briefs. Unadorned lust yanks at the base of Kurt's spine, and Kurt twists the fingers of one hand into Blaine's hair, gives a tug of encouragement. Braces himself against the counter with his other. Blaine's breath is hot and his lips nimble as he mouths along the ridge of Kurt's cock. "Your mouth..." Kurt says. "God, I love it."

When Kurt opens his eyes and looks down at Blaine, he finds Blaine looking right back up at him, his eyes bright and brimming with desire and devotion and things Kurt still has not learned to categorize or describe. Then, with a flutter, Blaine's eyelids close and he presses a kiss to Kurt's belly, just under his navel, followed by a broad sweep of his tongue. He works Kurt's underwear down to bare Kurt's erection, but leaves the wide band across the base of Kurt's shaft, his thumbs curling into the elastic to tug it far enough away from Kurt's skin for Blaine to have space to wrap his lips, soft and tight and (God, is he ever going to get used to this?) so fucking good, around Kurt's cock. Using his forearms, Blaine levers Kurt's thighs back against the cupboards so Kurt is pinned and caught.

For a fleeting moment, Kurt wonders what the neighbors over the back fence may see if they were to look this way. Wonders if they are looking this way. Likely it would be nothing of consequence—the angle and lighting provide privacy enough—but Kurt still feels exposed and on display, like anyone could see him like this, standing in his kitchen having his cock sucked by this gorgeous, hungry boy.

For Blaine is not teasing. Rather, he seems to be single-mindedly bent on making Kurt come as swiftly as possible. It's fast and wet and hot, but it is also, paradoxically, nowhere near what Kurt has been craving. Kurt wants Blaine's mouth on him everywhere, his throat, his chest, his belly, his thighs, his balls... but it's just on his cock, and not even all of it, maybe half his length. Which is enough to be irresistible, enough that Kurt can't breathe around his own heartbeat for the wanting of more, enough that he's itching to grab Blaine's hair in both hands and just shove all of his cock down Blaine's throat.

But he can't, not with the way he's held by Blaine's hands and arms and hampered by his own clothing. So he keeps inhaling, hasty little gulps of air, until his lungs verge on bursting, and then he's holding his breath and going dizzy as his orgasm twists up tight and tighter, impossibly fast because he wants it so much he can't back off from the crazy careering drive into it, even as it still feels like he needs something more than this, but this is sufficient, and—god—Blaine wants it too. He's sucking and licking and humming around Kurt's cock like he's been starving for it. He pulls Kurt's waistband lower, hard enough that Kurt briefly fears for the integrity of it, until Blaine presses forward, taking the rest of Kurt's length in a maddening slide, and Kurt can't think of anything. He can only feel: the snug pulsing wet heat of Blaine's mouth around him and the way it's dragging at the ecstasy simmering molten in his belly, constricting in his balls.

As Kurt comes—hard—the air punches from his lungs in a full-throated bestial sort of sound, something between a scream and a groan, shockingly loud and unrestrained. He's never made a sound like that in his life. It's followed by a softer, amazed, "Oh my god," which comes out as little more than a quavering moan as Kurt curls over Blaine jerking and twitching weakly through the aftershocks.

Gingerly he relaxes the clench of his fingers in Blaine's hair and lets Blaine pull off him. "That was... unexpected," Kurt says once he has enough breath in his lungs to produce words again.

Blaine gently tucks him back in his briefs and does up his trousers. Then he tilts his face up, smiling at Kurt with reddened lips and adoring eyes. He swallows and clears his throat before speaking. "You seemed on edge," he says, his voice rough in that way it gets after he's had Kurt's cock in his mouth.

Kurt shifts his weight carefully to make sure his legs will support him. "And so you thought...?"

"Blow jobs make everything better," Blaine says, "I have the data."

Kurt laughs as he rearranges Blaine's curls with clumsy feeling fingers. There's something about Blaine, so neatly pressed and tailored, on his knees, the gleam of spit lingering on his swollen lips. Kurt passes the pad of his thumb over the glisten and asks, "Do you want me to? I mean, are you—?"

Blaine replies, a little sheepishly, "I'm good. I, uh, took the edge off while you were in the shower."

"Oh," Kurt says, oddly and slightly saddened at the thought of missing Blaine's orgasm, but it's also kind of hot, that Blaine needed to. He offers Blaine a hand, pulls him up to his feet.

"I thought lunch would be easier if we were both more relaxed," Blaine says; he bends to brush the knees of his trousers off, straightens, and asks, "Are you hungry?"

"Yes," Kurt says.

~

Kurt sets the dining table while Blaine ladles the soup into bowls, finishes them with a drizzle of cream as per Kurt's instructions, and cuts a few thick slices from the bread he brought. Moments like these—a quick glance across the kitchen to catch Blaine's smile while Kurt retrieves a pair of soup spoons and butter knives from the cutlery drawer—fill Kurt with such warmth and longing for the future. But he's grateful to be feeling more relaxed overall. The exertion of the morning, the hot shower, the unexpected fellatio, all have him feeling loose and languid. And more composed now, too. He's still stealing glances at the vee of Blaine's exposed throat and looking forward to putting his mouth there, but the urgency has tapered off into something comfortable. There's no doubt that he will be kissing Blaine soon, or that they will have the time and privacy to do so many things together today. Kurt enjoys the thrum of patient anticipation and sits down with Blaine in the dining room.

Over lunch they talk about the things they don't talk about on the phone. Kurt tells Blaine of the garden, all his intentions for it, both the practical and the more fanciful. He tells him the details of it, the different plants he's putting in, what he's learned about them—both from the internet and from Mercedes—the recipes he's considering. And he's learning about companion planting, which is really helpful because he wants to keep everything organic. So he might buy some ladybugs—did Blaine know you can buy them? Other bugs, too. But the worst thing by far, so far, about gardening is worrying about cutting up earthworms with his shovel. He knows they regenerate; it just seems an awful thing to do, and...

Kurt realizes he's speaking too fast, has gotten caught up in the momentum of his own enthusiasm for the project, and has started to babble. Blaine is just silently looking at him with something like mild amusement curving his lips. Kurt trails off with a hastily spoken, "Sorry. I was getting a little carried away."

Blaine shakes his head, smiles wider. "No, you weren't. I like how passionate you get about things."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, I mean, it's nice to see because..." Blaine tilts his head as if evaluating the thought he's having, as if it's something that's only just occurred to him. "You... you hold it back a lot. Sometimes."

"Oh." It's true enough, but hearing it from Blaine is different. To hear it out loud in a voice not his own, to know Blaine has seen this about him, and that Blaine looks carefully enough to understand it. It's what drew Kurt to Blaine in the first place, but it still feels unsettling, like a secret being shared.

"When you told me that you've held things back. From me. I thought about it a lot. It made me realize that it's something about you I, actually, really love, because you're like this beautiful precise piece of order and grace in a chaotic, clumsy world."

Kurt's not sure what to say to that. He thinks about himself covered in garden dirt and the way Blaine looked at him then. And just now, when he was starting to ramble. Kurt sets his soup spoon aside and tears off a chunk of bread to dunk in his soup.

"Is that weird?" Blaine asks, worried, and Kurt realizes he's been quiet for too long.

"Oh, no, that's not it," Kurt says, looking back up from his soup to Blaine. "I'm sorry, I was just... I didn't know what to say. You just said you like it when I get carried away but then you said—"

"That's why, Kurt, why I like it when you're passionate or out of control or, like, messy and unselfconscious. It's because the rest of the time you're not, and no one else gets to see you the way you let me see you, at least not completely. You're so careful with yourself, so it means a lot to me that you are comfortable enough to, i don't know, forget yourself sometimes, when we're together. I really like that. It's hot."

"Oh, okay," Kurt says, warming a little. It does make sense. He feels the same way about Blaine, about being to able to see him, being allowed to see Blaine vulnerable, being the one to strip him down. "I guess... it's easy with you because you were the first person who wasn't afraid to really look at me. With you— Even when I haven't feel safe within myself, with you I've always felt safe. Always."

"Always?" Blaine asks softly, like it's not obvious to him, but it really should be. Except it's not, so Kurt will try to explain it. It's the right day for it anyway, for remembering.

"Yes," Kurt says. "Okay, so you remember when we first met?"

"I'll never forget that day." Blaine murmurs. He idly stirs his soup and waits for Kurt to gather his thoughts and turn them into words.

"Well," Kurt says, "You know how it had been for me, at school and with the boys and... all that."

"I do," Blaine says.

"So, that day, on the stairs, when you turned around and looked at me, I mean, the way you looked at me. It—" Kurt has to stop to breathe, the memory alone is still enough to steal away his breath.

"I thought you were beautiful," Blaine says, and the look he's giving Kurt...

It makes Kurt blink and glance down, blushing and incredulous. It's new information to him. He's never asked Blaine when he first found Kurt attractive, and there's something about that time that makes it hard to reconcile. But Kurt is undeniably pleased to hear it; his pleasure warms his cheeks. He won't press Blaine now, though, to tell him Blaine's version of events so early in their friendship. He's telling his own. Kurt looks up from his soup. "It was like you truly saw me. Just with that first glimpse, you looked at me and you looked right at me."

"I saw someone I wanted to know."

"When you didn't look away...?" Kurt pauses to swallow around the tightness in his throat. "So when you took my hand, I decided I had to be dreaming. You were like a dream to me." Kurt stops, smiles, because this really is like a punchline. "And then, of course you sang—"

"'Teenage Dream'." Blaine laughs.

"Yes, and so I was convinced it was all something I was imagining. Like I'd gone mad or I'd hit my head and was in some kind of coma dream. It couldn't be real. You were too good to be real.

"But I didn't wake up from it, and then you invited me to coffee the next day. And that part, having coffee with you, that was almost more like a dream because..."

"You told me about Karofsky," Blaine says gently, the compassion in his eyes as vivid now as it was then.

It makes Kurt remember his own tears; they're thick in his voice when he says, "Yeah. And you got it, you cared. I saw that you saw me, that you were listening to me and you understood."

"Kurt." Blaine sets his spoon down and reaches across the table, offering his hand palm up.

Kurt takes it. "I decided if you were a dream, I didn't want to wake up. Except that there were still the nightmare parts, too. I didn't want them. But then I transferred, and you were there for me even more and the terror started to recede, so it was going to be—maybe—okay." Kurt strokes Blaine's hand with his thumb. "You were so steady and amazing, no matter how scared or awkward I was. I could talk to you in a way I'd never been able to talk to anyone."

"It meant so much to me, Kurt, that I could be there for you."

"I know," Kurt says, because he thinks he does understand, how much it mattered that Blaine could be a support for him in a way no one had been for Blaine. Sometimes it's hard for him to think about it too much, though: that Blaine had to go through so much without Kurt. "And even though I had that terrible schoolboy crush on you, it was so much more than that. You were also my friend in a way I didn't even know was possible.

"But I don't think it was until you made an idiot of yourself on Valentine's Day, and I told you I thought it was me you liked— It wasn't until then that I realized I had made it all up in my head, that I was too caught up in the fantasy of it. Too enchanted by the idea of you.

"So when you told me that you didn't actually know what you were doing, and you didn't want to mess things up with me because you really cared about me... That's when I knew you couldn't possibly be a dream, you were just you. You couldn't be anything but you, and that's when, I think, I started to truly fall in love with you, when I knew for sure that I wasn't asleep, and I was no longer blinded by my romantic fantasy of you. It was because I could finally really see you, too."

For a long while after Kurt finishes speaking, Blaine is quiet, gazing at their joined hands, rubbing his own thumb across Kurt's knuckles in counterpoint to Kurt's caress. When he does speak, it's achingly soft: "I wanted, so much, to be what you needed, Kurt."

The emotion in Blaine's voice is difficult for Kurt to read. There's almost something sad there, but Kurt doesn't understand it; Blaine has never disappointed him, not in any way that still matters. "Blaine, honey, you were," Kurt says. "And you are. God, you are, in so many ways."

There's another long silence. Blaine sets aside his napkin and lifts his gaze. It's certain and clear and filled with an intensity Kurt doesn't easily recognize. "And what do you need from me today, Kurt?"

It makes Kurt's heart beat faster, like the draw of Blaine's gaze is summoning up something new within him, something urgent. He drops his soup spoon with a clatter and pushes his chair back. "I need you to come upstairs with me."

"Right now?" Blaine asks.

"Yes," Kurt says. "Leave the dishes."