After his Dad goes to bed—fortified against the New York city traffic sounds with both earplugs and Kurt's white noise machine—Kurt and Blaine sit on the futon together. The stereo still plays instrumental carols, and the fat red candles on the coffee table gutter and dim. Tired as Kurt is, he knows he won't be able to sleep yet, not without some pharmaceutical help, and he doesn't want to drug himself while he's a host. He's not sure why his Dad's gone to bed early, whether it's because his Dad was honestly tired and has been heroically not showing it all day, or if he's trying to give Kurt some alone time with Blaine. Either way, Kurt sighs.

"So, um do you want to watch a movie?" Blaine asks.

"Yeah, sure," Kurt says; he slides his hands down his thighs and fortifies himself to stand. "Pick something. I'll make tea and see if there're any cookies left."

Kurt goes to the kitchen and puts together a tray while the kettle boils: teapot, mugs, teaspoons, a plate with four cookies, a small jug of milk, and the jar of honey. He looks about for some other adornment for the tray, settles on the sprigs of hawthorn berries from their dinner centerpiece and a juniper scented candle that still has some life in it.

When Kurt comes back to the living room and sees the DVD menu screen, it makes his breath halt for a moment. Blaine doesn't meet his gaze as he messes with the remote, double-checking the audio settings.

"Love Actually?" Kurt asks, setting down the tray. It's one of his favorite holiday films, but it tends to make him sentimental. He's feeling fragile enough as it is.

Blaine cocks his head and looks up, his nose scrunched in the way Kurt's learned to interpret as hopeful and nervous. "Uh, yeah, I figured maybe Mr. Darcy would cheer you up?"

Kurt smiles weakly but speaks with more enthusiasm, "Well, you know how I have a thing for the accent."

So they watch, and it goes all right until Colin Firth comes home to find his girlfriend fucking his brother.

"Oh, crap," Blaine says. "I forgot about the... the cheating... Kurt, I'm sorry."

It hurts, but Kurt sees how stricken Blaine looks and takes pity. "Hey, at least you didn't cheat on me with Finn, right?"

"Oh, god." Blaine's face crumples into uncomfortable laughter. Kurt pushes play again. They can get through this movie.

But it happens again, and even Rowan Atkinson's comedic prowess can't stop Blaine from slumping toward the end of the futon, face first. "And Alan Rickman, too," Blaine groans into a throw pillow. "I officially picked the worst movie."

Kurt finds himself oddly unmoved by Blaine's guilt. It's nothing he needs; he knows Blaine is sorry. But he finds himself speaking before he can censor himself: "Would you have bought him a heart-shaped pendant?" Kurt asks. "Did you have a crush on him? Were you falling in love?"

"No." Blaine shakes his head as he sits back up and reaches for the remote. "Nothing like that." He pauses the movie, looks at the remote cradled in his hands for a long time. Then he sets it aside on the sofa between them. He looks at Kurt evenly, and he says, "His name was Eli."

"Oh."

"You... you wanted to know who it was. He was someone I met on Facebook. I don't talk to him anymore. It was just the one time."

Kurt can't find any words in his vocabulary to communicate anything related to this. He picks up the remote, rests his thumb over the play button, and says, "Let's finish the movie."

A short time later, about the same time Emma Thompson interrupts Alan Rickman at the jewelry counter, Kurt starts to cry, and he's not entirely sure why. There are so many reasons to cry, he can't isolate the primary one. And the thing is, it's not even all sad, there's something like relief in there too, and that doesn't make very much sense except: Blaine wasn't in love or trying to be in love with someone else. There's something bitter twisted up in there too, the same bitterness that's fueled his anger. There's a chain of logic Kurt's brain keeps cycling through: if Blaine was willing to throw away his relationship with Kurt over a boy he didn't love, with an encounter that didn't mean anything, then—by some transitive property—this means his relationship with Kurt didn't mean anything either. Because why would you throw away something valuable for something worthless?

Except it's not true that their relationship meant nothing, and he's pretty sure Blaine wasn't trying to destroy it, so it can't have meant nothing. So what did it mean? And that's where he always stalls. He doesn't understand. And he's not sure he wants to. It's bound to be a horrible mess; he'll feel worse, and maybe it would break what they still have left between them. He wants what they still have so much.

Blaine's hand is gentle on his knee. "I'm so sorry, Kurt."

Kurt nods. "I know." Then. "I can't... Blaine. I can't... right now. I'm going to go have a shower."

Privacy and space are what he needs, not the claustrophobia of other people. The snip of the lock on the bathroom door is as good as it's going to get. Kurt turns on the water as he gets undressed. Steam billows over the top of the curtain, and Kurt adjusts the water temperature to the too-hot side of just right. The building has good water pressure so Kurt stands beneath the spray for a while, lets it drum against the tension at the base of his skull, and he breathes slowly. He tries to clear his mind, concentrating on each breath in and out and the buzzing rush of the hot water; but the snarl of his thoughts is not so easily loosened.

He thought he wanted to know, that if he knew who it had been, then he'd understand something important about Blaine and why he did it. Instead, Kurt understands less now. It wasn't even a friend, just some random guy. Maybe it really didn't mean anything to Blaine, and Kurt has been assuming—because he thought he knew Blaine—that on some level, it must have meant something, even if that something was something awful.

Would it have been worse, if Blaine had been infatuated or falling in love? If Blaine had hidden it from Kurt while mooning over some other boy and buying him romantic gifts? The answer should be clear, but it's not. Between the heat, his confusion, and bone deep exhaustion, Kurt grows increasingly woozy, and the awful compulsion to cry is gathering again behind his eyes, squeezing at the root of his tongue. The impulse to resist is strong, but there's no one to see him or hear him right now. This is a mere slice of the solitude he'd thought he would have over Christmas, but he'll take what he can get.

Kurt lets himself cry, ugly, snot-filled, heaving sobs. The water washes it all away, until he's depleted both his supply of bodily fluids and his energy. He sags against the tile wall, rests his forehead against the hard, grooved porcelain with a throbbing brain and raw-aching sinuses. He didn't think it was possible to feel worse, but he's managed. And as soon as he leaves this temporary haven, he's walking right back out into the realities of his life.

He can't put it off forever. He can't even put it off for the night; he's not sleeping in the bathtub.

The air outside the curtain is a cold shock. A frigid drop of condensation falls from the ceiling, lands on his bare shoulder. Kurt shivers and reaches for his bath sheet.

When he closes his fingers upon its plush edge, the white KEH embroidered into the indigo terrycloth draws his attention. It's something he's stopped letting himself notice, but tonight he loses the fight to keep the memories away—of early last summer, before graduation, when Blaine gave him the towels. Back when they both believed his NYADA application would be successful and he'd be leaving soon. Kurt had been, at first, disappointed by the pair of monogrammed towel sets. They were nice enough—absurdly high quality, undoubtedly expensive—but they were practical, not at all romantic. Back then he would have traded them for a single tatty old towel and something more heartfelt from Blaine. He hadn't said anything though, except 'thank you.' And in September, he'd been sure to pack the towels in his suitcase with his clothes while Blaine looked on. He could appreciate good quality towels, and he didn't want Blaine to think he was ungrateful for the gift, even though he would have preferred something more intimate.

But then, once he was in New York, freshly moved in to the loft, that first golden afternoon after washing off the cardboard dust and autumn sweat, he'd gotten out of the shower and reached for the bath sheet. In that moment, of his hand meeting the decadence of the terrycloth, he understood Blaine's gift.

Amidst the discolored tile and rusty porcelain of the old bathroom, he wrapped his naked, exhausted body in nearly six feet worth of luxurious, 802 grams-per-square-meter Turkish cotton, and it was a proxy for wrapping himself up in Blaine's arms. He'd closed his eyes, and the tip-tilt surrealism of being just another small town boy fumbling for his start in New York vanished into the sense memory of Blaine's skin against his. The closeness and comfort of it. He stood in the small, steamy room, closed his eyes, and he felt perfectly loved.

Kurt wraps himself in the same proxy now, hangs on tightly to the memory of what it meant to him then. The possibility of the real thing is here for him now—in theory—but this, the dense velvet texture of the towel, feels like all he may have, and he can't tell if it still feels like love.

Kurt dries off and moisturizes. He hangs his towel and shrugs on his bathrobe. Once he's gathered up his dirty clothes, it takes him another minute to steel himself to go back out.

When he returns to the living area, he finds Blaine looking miserable on the sofa, his own cheeks blotched and his eyes red and gleaming. Crumpled tissues lie on the futon beside him, one in his hand.

Kurt doesn't pause; he pretends he didn't see, just goes to his bedroom to get dressed. Guilt gnaws at him, along with the seething loneliness. And fragments of old anger catch and flare. Blaine shouldn't be so sad too, should he?

The loneliness wins, and guilt overwhelms Kurt's anger. For whatever reason, Blaine is sad. Maybe he's lonely too. Maybe he's missing his family and regrets coming. Regardless of the reason, Kurt doesn't want to leave things between them like this. Not on Christmas.

In fresh pajamas, with his hair only finger-combed from its towel-dried muss, Kurt goes back to the living room. He doesn't say anything about Blaine's red rimmed eyes. Smiles with all the affection he can summon (which is more than he expects), and he asks if Blaine would like to sleep with him tonight. "I know the futon isn't very comfortable," Kurt says. "And it's cold out here."

Blaine blinks up at him, and he nods. "Sure," he says.

Kurt helps him carry the spare bedding back to Kurt's bedroom. They put the fleece blanket back on the bed, and Blaine disappears to the bathroom to change into his night clothes.

#

Beside Kurt, a comfortable, friendly distance between them, Blaine lies on his side with his hands, palm-to-palm, beneath his cheek. He regards Kurt with a steady but weightless gaze. Kurt tries to read it, but it's the sort of look into which he could project any charitable emotion. He doesn't feel right assuming anything. At least it's better than the only other time they spent in this bed together: the first and last time. Kurt couldn't even look at Blaine that night.

"Is this—?" Kurt begins. Tries again. "Is this weird for you?"

A hitch of his shoulder and Blaine says, "Maybe not as much as you'd think. You?"

"It's weird," Kurt says, "but it's fine."

"I... meant what I said, Kurt. I'm here for you."

"I know," he says. The thickness of tears rises unbidden in Kurt's throat. "Thank you."

Blaine smiles, relieved. And Kurt wishes... Oh, he wishes it were that easy. But it's not. His heart is in conflicted pieces, jagged shards that dig in sharp if he breathes too deeply. Wanting Blaine despite all of it, wanting the memory of safety and love. Being grateful for what love still remains even as he resents its stubbornness, and all the while, he mourns what he's lost.

And sometimes it feels like that's all there is: the soul deep wound that takes all the breath from his lungs and all the strength from his limbs. There is part of him that still cannot believe it—sometimes it flatly refuses—and he has a moment of wondering if he's lost his mind to even consider that it happened: Blaine cheated on him. That Blaine did that. He can't figure out where the falsehood in all of this mess lies, only that there must be one.

It takes so much energy, holding himself so that he doesn't end up lacerated from the inside out.

"I'm thinking of deferring my NYADA acceptance," Kurt says at last. It's easier than anything else he could say, though he wishes it weren't. Saying it out loud, he surprises himself.

Blaine shifts, one hand from beneath his cheek to lay it palm up on the bed between them. "Because of your Dad?" he asks.

Kurt looks at Blaine's open hand, but he doesn't reach for it. "Yeah," Kurt says. "I should... move home," he says. "Rachel will— god, she'll—she won't be happy."

"No..." Blaine says as if he's not sure what else to say.

"I should have stayed in Lima," Kurt says. It's not what he meant to say, but the words come up anyway, dredged up from the locker of things that he tries so hard not to think about—fears and regrets he definitely never intends to admit. But he's tired, and his eyes burn, and his head throbs, and he wonders how his body can possibly think crying again is a good idea. And he misses Blaine, even though Blaine is right there, inches in front of him, offering his hand. It's nonsense.

"No. Kurt, no. That's not true."

Kurt flicks his gaze up to meet Blaine's bewildered one. "I'm not blaming you," Kurt says. "For sending me on my way. I mean, my Dad was desperate for me to go. I was desperate to get out of there, but I... I didn't think it would cost me this much."

"It's not your fault," Blaine offers. "What's happened."

Kurt shakes his head. "It's not like I expect life to be fair, Blaine, but I just wish... I wish I could've held on to more, but it seems like there's always something slipping away, like my hands aren't big enough or..."

"So, you think if you give up New York and NYADA and come back to Ohio you'll get something back?"

"I don't know," Kurt says. It sounds so stupid when Blaine says it like that. "I don't know what I think anymore."

"I don't think that's how it works."

"Doesn't it?" Kurt asks. The logic of it is deranged, but he can't deny how it's all played out. "I get New York, the internship at Vogue, and then I lose you. I get NYADA, and now I'm losing my Dad."

Blaine reaches for him then; his fingertips press firmly against Kurt's wrist, four points of heat and human contact. He sounds so sure when he speaks: "You haven't lost me, Kurt. I know things are different between us, but you haven't lost me. And you don't know that you're losing your Dad. You heard what he said. They caught it early, he's going to be okay."

"But what if he's not?"

Blaine blinks, and he doesn't say anything.

"I'm not ready to be an orphan."

"You're not going to be."

"You don't know that. You can't."

Blaine purses his lips and bows his head.

"It's just, he's the one person... the only person... who's..."

"Kurt." Blaine's eyes are bright and wet. "He's not the only—"

"Don't," Kurt warns.

Blaine is quiet for a long time. He withdraws his hand, and his gaze drops to the mattress. When he speaks again, his words sound hollow and resigned, like all the happiness has drained out of him. "I'm sorry you're hurting, Kurt, and I'm sorry for my part in it."

But instead of rousing sympathy, the apology just annoys Kurt. "Stop apologizing," he says, too sharp and abruptly sick of Blaine's guilt. He rolls to his back, stares at the ceiling.

After another long silence between them, Blaine ventures more gently, almost as if he's querying Kurt's mood: "I've missed you."

And that only rouses a fresh batch of tears for Kurt to blink back and swallow down, bitter and wet. "Yeah."

This time, neither of them says it will be okay.

And it's within that moment of mutual rejection of the facile notion of 'okay', that the physical space between them transforms into far, far too much. The absence of Blaine aches fiercely, right down to the marrow of Kurt's bones, and it feels like his heart cramps in his chest. "Would you maybe..." Kurt asks in a rush. He turns his head toward Blaine to finish the question. "...hold me?"

Blaine's reply is prompt. "Of course, yes." Blaine rearranges himself. "Come here." He beckons, and Kurt goes into his arms easily, irresistibly, like the tide rushing up the shore, smoothing out the sand, washing away debris. At least it feels that way at first: relief, warmth, communion.

Blaine touches him carefully, much like before, chaste but familiar. But it's enough that the simple comfort soon begins to morph.

It may inevitable that it does. Part of Kurt isn't surprised at all. He turns his face further into the embrace and breathes against Blaine's neck. He closes his eyes. The scent of Blaine, the shape of him. Kurt finds his body urging him to tip his head up and kiss Blaine, to have more of what Blaine would so easily offer him—or simply let him take. But that would be... something different. It would threaten to make this into something more than what it should be. He's not forgiven Blaine yet. Still isn't sure how. But... Blaine is here for him, his Christmas gift even, and it's still Christmas.

Maybe he can be a little selfish and let Blaine ease his loneliness and heartache for now. Maybe it would ease Blaine's too. Kurt listens for his father's breathing. It's deep, even, and rough with light snores.

He gently guides Blaine's hand down from his shoulder to his hip. "Would you...?" his whispers so quietly it's barely audible.

But Blaine hears him. "Anything," Blaine says. He strokes lightly over Kurt's pajamas: up to his waist, and down to his thigh. Kurt's breaths come easier, deeper, without hurting quite so much. Kurt shifts beneath Blaine's hand, trying to reseat it closer to his groin. "Just tell me, Kurt," Blaine says.

But Kurt can't haul up the words. He just takes Blaine's hand in his own, and drags it over until the heat of Blaine's open palm is laid over the swelling length of his cock. With a soft hum of acceptance, Blaine turns his face and kisses Kurt's neck as he curls his fingers around the shape of Kurt's erection. Firm squeezes and short strokes with too much friction coax Kurt harder. Kurt gasps, once, twice, like he can't get enough air. And then he exhales in a heaving rush, can't hold in the moan that works its way out from around the pummeling beat of his heart.

Then Blaine's mouth is on his, hushing him. And, god, it's so fucking good, the tender warmth of Blaine's lips: it's like a key in a lock. But Kurt's not ready for that. He presses his own lips together and turns his face from Blaine's. Hesitant, Blaine pulls back, and his hand stills. Kurt shakes his head, dismisses Blaine's concern. "Just— Don't stop," he says, "Please."

Blaine nods, and releases his hold on Kurt in order to tug down the waistband of Kurt's pajama pants, and he fumbles with the buttons of Kurt's top one handed. Upon Kurt's bared skin, Blaine's fingertips skim down and down, dragging bright filaments of sensation from Kurt's sternum to his belly; and Kurt can't breathe until Blaine wraps a snug fist around Kurt's naked shaft, and then he gasps so hard he nearly chokes. It soon turns to a groan of relief at how expertly Blaine's hand pulls up to the head of his cock: Blaine's agile fingers know the precise pressure and play to make Kurt swear. Kurt turns his face toward his far wall, tries to keep his voice muffled to a whimper as Blaine's hand comes back down, just as skillfully, but he cannot contain a surprised, staccato, "Ah!"

Kurt didn't actually forget how good Blaine was at this, but somehow he's expected that Blaine would've forgotten. Along the way, Kurt just assumed, because— Kurt stops the thought there. Clearly, Blaine hasn't, not at all, so Kurt's assumptions are proved entirely wrong. Just As Blaine's mouth proves to be entirely as clever as it's always been upon his throat—soft, open kisses punctuated with the teasing scrape of his teeth. Kurt's lungs heave like bellows. His hands scrabble for purchase in the bedding, and his spine tenses. Shoulders, head, and heels brace against the mattress.

The kisses Blaine lays down Kurt's chest are placed with less finesse. Eager and messy, they leave a tingling trail of wetness, chilling and tightening across Kurt's skin, even as Kurt grows hotter. Pleasure surges with each wonderful drag of Blaine's grasp, and each press of Blaine's lips to the sensitive skin of Kurt's belly. And even though Kurt knows exactly where Blaine's mouth is headed, when Blaine's tongue sweeps, soft and slick, across the head of his cock; Kurt cannot muffle his yelp.

It was far too loud. Kurt freezes as he hears his father's breathing change, the snores stop. "Wait," Kurt whispers, and Blaine stops, lifts his head—but not so far that Kurt doesn't still shiver beneath the warm rush of his breath. Kurt lets go of one fistful of duvet and tentatively lays his hand upon Blaine's head. Strange that this once casual touch feels like more of a trespass than other, more immediately intimate things.

With Kurt's hand cautionary upon him, Blaine waits. He caresses Kurt's thighs through the fabric of his pajamas, kisses slowly across Kurt's belly. Kurt stares up at his ceiling, aches and breathes until he hears the snoring resume. "Try to relax," Blaine murmurs against Kurt's skin.

He won't look down at Blaine. He can't bear to see Blaine right now, whatever tenderness there may in his gaze—or desire. "Okay," he says, and Blaine goes back down. Kurt grabs a pillow to hold over his face.

It's hard to breathe through the stifling barrier; his own exhalations are trapped, thick and sweltering against his face. But Kurt keeps the barrier close to muffle his voice, lifts it just enough to let in little sips of cool air when he grows too desperate. Between his legs, he feels Blaine settle his weight. One hand is light upon Kurt's hip, the other tugs at the fabric of his pajama pants, making more room. Blaine's breath is soft over the top of one thigh, and Kurt can't see anything.

But he can feel everything. Blaine's lips press to the underside of his cock, right near the root of it, and then Blaine's tongue is there too, gliding wide up the length of him. Kurt presses his groan into the pillow.

Blaine takes him in, draws all of Kurt's focus down to the enveloping bliss of his mouth. It's all wet heat, sweet suction, and the muffled burr of Blaine's moan. It's a sound Kurt knows so well, but he's never really noticed it before, not the way he is now, for it's a sound Blaine has always made when he does this: a soft, pleased hum, deep in his throat. Kurt's not sure it's even a conscious response.

And somehow that stray realization catches, barbed and sharp. Snags another thought, and not a pleasant one. Kurt's pleasure falters as he wonders if Blaine made that noise when he... with—"His name was Eli." Did Blaine moan like this for Eli?

Kurt gasps in silent denial, hard enough he expects to pull the pillow stuffing through the cotton sateen of the pillowcase and all the way into his lungs. "No," he whimpers. He's not thinking about that. Not thinking about Eli or whatever Blaine did with him, or to him, or had done to himself, or... No.

Blindly, Kurt reaches down for Blaine with one hand. Tries to orient himself right here: his hand on the base of Blaine's skull, urging him faster, and Blaine's mouth snug around his cock, undeniably eager. He tries to find the thread of his pleasure again.

Blaine works diligently. But his rhythm is erratic, breaking at irregular intervals and whenever Kurt tenses too much against him. It disrupts each plateau Kurt finds. It's—in a way—exhausting, and it goes on and on.

Until Kurt's lungs are pulling so desperately for air, Kurt has to fling the pillow aside. His body's strung out and hot and there's a deafening rush in his ears, and he's starting to shake and feel dizzy, and he feels so close. But he's not coming, not yet, and why is it taking so long? He just wants to come.

He bucks up, pushing into Blaine's mouth roughly, trying to wrest some control from Blaine, to take the orgasm he wants. And that takes Blaine by surprise: he gags—Blaine never gags—and flinches, and then there's the sharp scrape of teeth where there should never be.

Kurt winces and swears. And Blaine pulls off him hurriedly, coughing into the bedding, mumbling an apology, and patting at Kurt's legs. Kurt tugs at his hair, tries to move Blaine back. "It's okay, okay. I just... it's taking me longer," Kurt says. How did they get so out of sync? Blaine's mouth is usually enough.

Blaine resists the pull, doesn't look up at Kurt as he asks, "Where's your lube?"

A chill of apprehension. "Nightstand," Kurt says anyway.

Blaine kneels up and leans over, rummages through the top drawer until he finds it, tosses it to the bed. Then he helps Kurt get out of his pajama bottoms.

The cold air pimples his skin as Kurt shakes his ankle free of the cuff. Blaine loosely folds the thin cotton pants, sets them aside. Kurt feels overexposed, too naked. He still can't meet Blaine's eye, but he doesn't think Blaine is even trying to make eye-contact, so maybe that's just... how it is right now. Worst of all, Kurt can't speak to say what he doesn't want—Blaine actually fucking him—as Blaine touches his leg, coaxing Kurt to open his thighs, but Kurt doesn't part them far.

"Do you tru—?" Blaine starts. Stops. Shakes his head at himself and starts again. "Is this all right, Kurt?"

It's the sort of question for which Kurt knows he's meant to answer 'yes' but he can't. His lungs feel too small when he inhales, but he forces himself to look at Blaine, and he forces himself to speak: "No, I don't want..." Despite his intention to be clear, he trails off uselessly.

"What?"

Kurt swallows the lump in his throat. Tries to anyway. It doesn't go down.

"Tell me what you don't want." Blaine's looking back at him now, steady and sure. And that's not right, not really.

Kurt can only close his eyes and whisper, "I don't want you to fuck me—"

"Okay," Blaine says.

"—or rim me"

"...okay." This comes more softly.

"You can touch me, but I... don't want your fingers inside me," Kurt opens his eyes. "And I don't want you to kiss me on the mouth again, and I don't want to... reciprocate."

Blaine nods and smiles—far, far too easily, but his smile crimps at the corners and his eyes flicker into something else for a moment. It's such a brief falter, Kurt would have missed it if he weren't looking. Quickly, the sheen of confidence is back on Blaine's face, but behind his smile, he's wounded.

It strikes something hot in Kurt—not lust, but anger—that Blaine has the gall to be wounded here, as if Kurt's done something to hurt him. Impelled by that flash of indignation, Kurt can't stop himself. He presses the wound just a little bit, even though it feels like he's stabbing himself in the chest when he says it: "I don't want those things because I'm not yours anymore. Do you understand?"

It's your fault, he doesn't say. I wish I were still yours, he doesn't say. I wanted to be yours forever. I wish you hadn't broken us, because I really need you right now. The burn of his anger settles behind his eyes; the flash of heat fades and retreats back into the more familiar grief Kurt's been living with since Blaine broke his heart.

"Kurt," Blaine says gently. "I know." His voice is fine as thin cotton thread, as if he heard every unspoken thing. And since Kurt only expected another apology, he doesn't know what to do with this quiet acknowledgment. "I'll give you as much as you'll let me—as much as you want—and no more, okay?"

Kurt blinks the twinge back from his eyes, bites his lip, and nods.

Blaine summons a lopsided smile that's more genuine if still tentative. In a different context, it might even look flirtatious. "So, can you tell me what you do want from me?" Blaine asks.

Kurt wonders if there is something he may give to Blaine, who is still, after everything (perhaps especially after everything) so eager to please. It still feels selfish, like Kurt's overreaching, like these aren't his words to speak any longer. But he hopes he still knows Blaine well enough that they'll be welcome. "Suck my cock," Kurt says softly, "please?" His voice falls to a whisper on the next: "Make me come." He reaches down and drags his thumb across Blaine's bottom lip, as tenderly as he's ever touched Blaine. "And I want you to swallow."

Blaine's eyes are dark and solemn. He doesn't respond immediately, and in that span of silence, Kurt hears an echo between them, unspoken, of the way Blaine would once accept a direction with a simple (although it was never a simple thing really), 'Yes, Kurt.' But Blaine doesn't say it. Blaine says, instead, "All right." And Kurt wonders if this means Blaine is no longer his either.

"You can... take as much time as you need to," Kurt says as Blaine moves, kneeling between Kurt's legs, nudging Kurt's thighs apart as he does so.

That earns Kurt a smile. Soft and self-conscious. "I'm just out of practice," Blaine says. He leans forward and touches Kurt's cheek. "I don't mean to tease."

Despite that, Blaine does take his time. He doesn't go straight back to Kurt's cock. Instead he kisses and caresses Kurt's body for a time, rubs some warmth back into Kurt's muscles, rouses him back to more straightforward desire. While Blaine touches, Kurt has to fight with himself not to reach for a kiss of his own, not to ask for more, not to seek Blaine's bare skin with his hands, or reach down to feel how hard Blaine is for him. And Blaine is gentle, like he's trying to keep some invisible film between them. Something he won't push too hard against or pierce.

Soon enough though, Blaine is sliding down the bed, lowering himself to his elbows, and hovering over Kurt's cock again. And Kurt is tightening his fists in the bedding, trying very hard not to plead, because Blaine said he isn't teasing him. But Blaine is... not actually taking Kurt's cock back into his mouth.

The tip of Blaine's nose skates across the tender skin between hip and groin, his cheek brushes Kurt's shaft, and Kurt's eyelids flutter shut. Ticklishly, the scarce contact moves down to bump and drag against his balls. There's a rush of warm air, the tightening of Blaine's hand where it rests upon Kurt's hip, and the vibration of a moan. And then there's Blaine's face, pressed between his legs, nuzzling and mouthing his balls, breathing him in deeply, and it takes every remaining piece of Kurt's will not to reach down and tangle his hands into Blaine's hair.

Instead he whispers, "Go on," between quick, hiccuping breaths. His muscles twitch and tense as he tries to keep still.

"Try to relax," Blaine tells him, for the second time that night.

That pulls an amused huff from Kurt's lungs.

"You still want my mouth?" Blaine asks, and, if it weren't for the seriousness of his tone (it's as if Blaine needs reassurance in the moment) Kurt may believe Blaine is teasing.

The first word that comes to Kurt's tongue is 'always', but while that seems true right now, it's more than what he can promise; saying it would mean things he doesn't know if he can mean. Instead he sighs out an emphatic, "Yes."

Between his legs, Blaine's weight shifts, pinning one of Kurt's legs, and Kurt opens his eyes to see Blaine reaching for the lube. Then, another shift, and Blaine's mouth is back on him, gently opening and sucking his testicles into his mouth, one at a time. Blaine slips a wet fingertip to press up behind against his perineum, right where it sends a sharp shock of pleasure to climb Kurt's spine. As Blaine presses and rubs while he rolls Kurt's balls over his tongue, that shock turns even hotter and diffuses, flooding Kurt's belly with urgency. Sweat prickles across Kurt's forehead and along the sides of his nose. He bites his lips closed against a low moan, and Blaine answers with a contented hum around his balls.

"Blaine," Kurt whispers. The muscles in his thighs jump as Blaine's finger edges farther back. The light touch grazing his rim is an excruciating pleasure. It's never quite the same when Kurt touches himself, but Blaine's fingertip, venturing—almost timidly, but entirely knowingly—to nestle into the center of his anus, sets a fierce blaze beneath Kurt's skin. "Oh, god," Kurt mutters under his breath, for that blaze is twisting up tight in his belly and tight in his balls. It won't take much more.

Blaine releases his balls with an obscene sounding, "Mmm," licks a zigzag up the underside of Kurt's cock to flatten his tongue just under the crown where the sensation is irresistible. Then he jiggles his fingertip. And Kurt feels himself begin to fray, helplessly unspooling into his orgasm so slowly, it feels like time is moving frame-by-frame instead of all at once. When Blaine's lips close around the head of his cock, and Blaine sucks hard, one long perfect pull, and sinks all the way down. Kurt barely grabs the pillow in time to hold it over his face as he comes—ecstatically, noisily—wracked down to his very cells.

Everything is fuzzy for a while after. Kurt's mostly just aware of his heartbeat, knocking against his eardrums from the inside out—and how hard it is to breathe.

But then Blaine's peeling the pillow away from Kurt's hot face. He smooths Kurt's damp hair back from his forehead, and Kurt tries to slow his gulps for air. He begins trembling uncontrollably—shaking really. His teeth chatter.

"Are you okay?" Blaine asks.

Kurt replies with an inarticulate whimper. His hands are shaking too.

So Blaine pulls Kurt into his arms and holds on tightly. Tens of minutes pass before Kurt's breathing calms, but he's still quivering and twitching like he's dying.

"Better?" Blaine asks.

Kurt shrugs. Can't speak. Clings to Blaine's pajamas, his warmth, his smell; because Blaine still feels like home.

Blaine holds him longer until the tremors stop. Blaine's perfectly hard against his hip, but Kurt doesn't reach for him. Eventually Blaine gives him a kiss on the corner of his mouth and draws away, leaving Kurt cold. He asks, "Do you want me to come back?"

Kurt nods.

Before he leaves, Blaine pulls the covers back up over Kurt, then he goes to the bathroom. Kurt tugs his pajama bottoms back on under the covers, refastens the buttons of his top, plumps his pillow, and closes his eyes. None of the thoughts swirling in his head are ones he wishes to indulge. He distracts himself with daydreams of liveblogging Fashion Week in September.

It's a long time before Blaine returns. He wakes Kurt from a drowse as he climbs under the covers. He scoots close to kiss Kurt on the cheek—his breath is minty and fresh, his lips damp. Against Kurt's thigh, Blaine is soft now. Kurt opens his eyes to see Blaine's wry smile. "Good night, Kurt," Blaine whispers, and he turns away, moving to the far side of the bed, rolling over and settling on his side, facing the window.

To Blaine's back, Kurt says, "Thank you."

#

Having Blaine in his bed like this—remote despite their recent intimacy—has Kurt wide awake, blinking into the dark. Insomnia is nothing new, and insomnia because of Blaine is the usual variety. He restrains himself from tossing and turning. Considers getting up. Rejects it because that would be too much like that awful night in October, when he couldn't stay in bed with Blaine, and they didn't talk, and everything hurt so badly it felt like the world was ending. So Kurt stays. He doesn't wish for Blaine to feel abandoned after what he did for Kurt.

But, oh.

Maybe Blaine does. Kurt looks over, peers through the gloom at the shape of Blaine's back beneath the covers, backlit by the low light of the window. There's nothing to read there, except Kurt can't shake the sense that Blaine's shutting him out. Kurt clenches his hand closed to resist the urge to reach over, to ask or offer or...? He can't just assume that his touch would be welcome; he can't just take without asking.

(And if that's true, then what did he just do? He asked; Blaine said yes, but—

But.

But what exactly?)

Kurt bites his lip and the few feet between them seems a gulf. Different from before though. It's not a space that feels desperate to be crossed, but a space that forms a barrier: a defensive boundary. It's not a gulf but a moat. After Blaine's openness all day and his generosity tonight, Kurt turns cold with the realization: he may have taken too much and given too little.

The silent tears well up unchallenged this time—he deserves these ones—hot and raw, and his heart squeezes in on itself painfully. He has to fix this. "Blaine?" Kurt whispers.

"Hmm?" Blaine doesn't roll to face him.

"You're awake?"

"So are you," he says.

Kurt sniffs. "Yeah." A rivulet of tears runs along his nose and catches on his top lip. He reaches a hand toward Blaine, not far enough to bridge the distance, just lets his hand rest loosely upon the cool sheets. A sick swell of shame crests up Kurt's throat. He's not this kind of person, not someone who abuses a boy who—for all that he hurt Kurt—remains inutterably precious. "I'm so sorry," Kurt says.

"Hmm? For what?" Blaine asks, turning his head toward the ceiling. Kurt can make out his profile.

"For before," Kurt tries to explain. He clenches a handful of the sheet beneath his fingers. "I was... unkind."

"You weren't," Blaine says, but he sighs before reassuring, "It's fine."

"No," Kurt says. "It's not fine. Blaine, I care about you, and I don't want to hurt you—or punish you." Kurt ventures to roll forward, shifts across the mattress until he can lay his hand upon Blaine's shoulder.

"I don't want that either," Blaine says, a whisper as if he's imparting a secret. He leans back into Kurt's touch, brings a hand up to reach over his shoulder and covers Kurt's fingertips with his own.

"So, I'm sorry," Kurt says. Emboldened by Blaine's touch, he shifts closer again until he can press a kiss to Blaine's fingertips. He lets his lips linger upon Blaine's knuckles in a moment of longing colored by indecision. It would be so easy to pretend.

"I forgive you," Blaine says. And it comes so easily and without rancor, perfectly heartfelt—perfectly Blaine—it makes Kurt wonder what sort of hurt Blaine wouldn't forgive him.

Kurt smiles, moves his hand farther, over Blaine's shoulder to stroke down his chest, feels how Blaine's heart beats, strong and steady. "So, may I reciprocate now?" Kurt dares to offer. A pause for a new breath. "Would you want that?"

Blaine catches Kurt's hand in his own, stills its motion over his heart and fits his fingers between Kurt's, and they fit as well as always, as if their hands were made for each other. Once, it could almost make Kurt believe in something more than he does.

"Kurt," Blaine says, a hint of sadness tinging his voice. "You don't have to. I know we're not— You're not obliged."

Kurt leans near and presses a kiss behind Blaine's ear, and draws his hand across, to brush his fingertips over the cotton-clad shape of Blaine's nipple. Feels it stiffen. "Let me make you feel good," Kurt says, and adds in a lower voice, with an attempt at seductive playfulness. "You should know by now that I rarely do anything from a sense of obligation."

Blaine huffs what sounds like a silent laugh, but speaks with a hint of sarcasm, "Well, when you put it that way..." It's affectionate enough, but it still sounds like deflection.

Perhaps he hasn't made his case well enough. Blaine needs to understand this is not an offer motivated by pity. "I want to, Blaine. You should have something more for Christmas from me than an old book of sad plays."

"I love the book, Kurt."

"It's not enough though. Not for you."

Blaine tips back toward Kurt, and Kurt gives him room. Blaine falls supine and looks up at Kurt with wide glittering eyes. Kurt sees him swallow hard. "I would like that," he admits softly. "More than I can say. But only if it's something you want, too. I don't want to hurt you again either."

"I know." Kurt brushes his fingertips across Blaine's temple and cheek and down his throat. "I just want to be close to you. We can we pretend. Just for tonight, for Christmas."

"Pretend?" Blaine asks, so sweetly, Kurt feels another tear slip free.

"That you didn't. Hurt us. That we're still in love."

Blaine nods and doesn't speak again. So Kurt leans down and kisses him, open mouthed, wet and salty with his own tears, and something inside him just gives. He can't hold anything back from the kiss. All the months of tightly wound up hurt and anger, yearning and missing, find relief in the kiss. His tears are no longer sad, and it's so good he has to withdraw to catch his breath and whisper, "Oh my god." And then Blaine is surging up against him, kissing him back and pulling him down.

Blaine breaks the kiss next, murmurs so hot and impatient against Kurt's mouth, "Want to feel you, Kurt. Against me, please."

"Yeah," Kurt says, sits up and back so he can strip his pajama top off. Blaine does the same and then wriggles out of his pajama pants, while Kurt hauls his own off.

"Jesus," Blaine whispers, his gaze roving hungrily over Kurt's bared torso. "You're so—" He falls back into the pillows and reaches out. "God, come here."

Kurt goes down into Blaine's arms, lowers his weight against Blaine's warmth and silken skin. It's been so long since he's felt this: the incomparable closeness of being pressed and held, skin to skin. He nudges one thigh between Blaine's and swivels his hips until they're pressed up close against one another, hard and hot and so fucking perfect. Kurt pants for enough air to speak. Perspiration pricks down his neck and across his shoulders and chest. Kurt shifts again, braces his elbows against the mattress on either side of Blaine's neck, just above his shoulders. And then Kurt tangles his fingers into Blaine's hair, and Blaine's hands come around the back of his ribcage, splayed wide.

Staring down into Blaine's face, Kurt sees adoration and gratitude and such openness. A slow grinding twist of his hips makes Blaine's eyelids flutter shut. "Like this?" Kurt asks.

"Like that."

"You want lube?" Kurt asks. He can't remember where Blaine put it, but a little less friction will help this last longer.

"Yeah," Blaine says, and Kurt loses one of the hands on his back as Blaine gropes through the bedding.

It's awkward then, Kurt lifting up while Blaine squeezes far too much slippery gel onto his hand. Kurt barely stifles a startled noise at the cold shock of it, as Blaine smears it between them, across their bellies and around their cocks. "Shh," Blaine says.

"Uh huh," Kurt says, and settles back against Blaine with a soft sigh. Blaine lets out a pleased hum. "This is going to get messy," Kurt whispers into Blaine's ear, making him shiver. Then he does a short, whole body drag up Blaine's body, and then back down again, sways and rolls his pelvis in a way that makes Blaine groan long and low. Blaine's hands are restless upon his back and shoulders, sliding down greedily past his waist to his ass and cupping high behind his thighs.

It takes them a while to find their old rhythm and their groove. Not too fast—both to keep quiet and to draw this out. Blaine hooks one leg behind Kurt's knee, and grinds up lazily against each of Kurt's twisting thrusts down. His body remembers what Blaine's body likes, and they kiss for a while as they move together, indulging and nurturing every wave of bliss that wells up and burns between them, until Kurt needs all of his breath, because, as wonderful as this is, it's a laborious pace to maintain. He buries his face against Blaine's neck, inhales the scent of clean sweat mingled with the mellow warmth of Blaine's cologne.

So slow, Kurt keeps everything so slow and tempered. And he's never been so hot; heat scorches between them as they move, slipping and squelching with sweat and too much lube, and Kurt's trying to keep his breathing quiet, too, which is making him doubly dazed with pleasure and breathlessness. And it might just kill him to keep doing this. And then Blaine is sliding his open mouth from Kurt's cheekbone to his ear and murmuring, "You feel so good—god, I've missed you so much. Missed this with you," and Kurt isn't sure Blaine's pretending at all.

#

Afterward, Kurt feels like he's used every muscle in his body. The weight of his fatigue is immense. It's a herculean effort to reach for the box of tissues. Kurt takes extra care lifting himself off Blaine. Their skin sticks and comes apart reluctantly, and Blaine whimpers softly at the loss of contact.

Neither of them speaks while Kurt wipes up the worst of the mess on Blaine and then tends to himself. Ideally, he'd excuse himself to the bathroom. But whatever world exists outside the curtain of his bedroom may as well be another dimension right now. Kurt desperately wants to remain here in the afterglow with Blaine, even if his skin will hate him for the next week.

Once he's done as well as he can, and the cold is seeping back into his skin, banishing the warmth of sex, Kurt pulls the covers up over both of them. Blaine is quiet and tentative, touching Kurt, but not lying as close as he would have in the past. His head is on the pillow next to Kurt, not on Kurt's pillow or Kurt's shoulder. Perhaps Blaine is still guarding his heart too. As much as Kurt wishes it were not necessary, he understands that this—what they've shared—is not a prelude to the redemption of their romance, but rather an oasis of shared succor. It's wise for them both to withdraw.

But not yet. Kurt coaxes Blaine into his arms, and Blaine rests his head upon Kurt's chest, and it's simply not enough. It's a terrible irony, how the familiar shape of Blaine in his embrace—the feeling he wants to hold on to—makes it harder to keep the unwanted sadness from creeping back along with the winter chill. Some true affection lingers though. Kurt's heart swells with as much tenderness as regret. He strokes Blaine's hair. "When I left you in Ohio, I thought you'd take better care of my boyfriend," he says gently.

"I'm sorry," Blaine says.

Kurt accepts the apology this time and replies, "So am I."