When Kurt awoke, it was to a thumping in his head.  It wasn't surprising though as it had been a long time since he had woken up without a headache, and the start to his days were now measured in terms of how severe the pulsing in his temples was.  Today, it was definitely starting off poorly.

He didn't remember getting himself into bed the night before, but that wasn't anything new considering how much he had been imbibing lately.  What was new was that when he reached blindly over to his bedside table that he didn't rake his hand through cigarette butts and dirty dishes.  He also didn't knock over the bottle of pills he wanted before finding them.  Instead, he discovered a fresh glass of water, with cool water still condescending on the outside, along with two little pills beside it, already ready for him to take.

Kurt accepted the gift, assuming it might have been from himself in a drunken state - for he had found much more disconcerting presents from himself, including a number of selfies on his phone where he had been doing naked yoga by the looks of things, and downed the pills with the aid of the water as he sat himself up in bed.  That was when he noticed his bedside table wasn't the only thing that had remedied in terms of its mess during his drunken night.   

There were no longer rumpled piles of clothing on the floor, and the carpet was not only visible again, but vacuumed - free of the ashes and bits of dried food he had gotten used to stepping on.  His closet was open, exposing the freshly laundered clothes to him, hanging up neatly and ironed.  Was it possible that he rehired his maid during his stupor?

Echoes of memories invaded his mind, thoughts of the meeting between himself and Blaine from a lifetime ago.  Yet the memory seemed a little off.  Blaine wasn't looking straight at him, he was hovering over him… and he wasn't singing, but speaking.  

Kurt shook his head, wincing at the way his brain seemed to slam against the walls of his skull as he did so.  Ever since he had given Blaine up, this was how his mind repaid him.   It was why he pulled away from the five families, why he anonymously alerted the authorities to different criminal activities he knew about, and why he had his guards and chauffeur reassigned to a family that could better use them.   His mom and dad might hate him for what he had become, wherever they were, but if he had the chance to reform, he wanted to do it while someone else he cared about lived, even if Blaine never heard about it or cared.  It was Blaine's insistent memory in his mind that was acting like the angel on his shoulder he never seemed to have before, and a damned demanding one as well.

Kurt's sense of smell kicked in then.  Something smelled good, and Kurt perked up as he heard a clattering coming from the kitchen.  He collected his bathrobe from the hook on the back of the door, also freshly washed and smelling clean for the first time in months, and tugged it over himself as he lumbered out of the room and downstairs.  It wasn't just the bedroom that had been cleaned; the rest of the apartment had also been vacuumed, wiped down, and otherwise scrubbed.  The aquarium, that had cracked when he had tried to figure out how to change the water when it got murky, was now missing from its place in the living room, leaving behind an indent in the carpet where it had weighed it down.  There were no longer spots and smudges on the television.  The papers that had been scattered over the floor and left there for weeks had disappeared from sight.  It was like Kurt hadn't even began his months of meltdown.

When Kurt got to the kitchen, he stopped and held his breath because Blaine was there, frying eggs and bacon in an equally cleaned kitchen.  This had to be a dream. Or maybe Kurt was dead from alcohol poisoning and this was what heaven was.  Either way, he didn't know how to make himself move forward or speak, so he remained glued to the spot, eyes wide and set on Blaine who offered him a most unsettling smile when he looked up and noticed him.

“I'll have breakfast ready in just a few minutes if you want to sit at the table.”

“You're here.”  Kurt stammered, as if it wasn't already obvious by what he saw in front of him.

“Yeah… go sit.  We'll talk after.”

Kurt nodded obediently, creeping over to the table by the window, though never removing his eyes from Blaine just in case he disappeared if Kurt did look away.  It felt odd to sit at the table without a cigarette rolling between his fingers, and the thought of his smoking addiction made his lungs burn up with desire - though it seemed that all his ashtrays were missing or put away.

The plate set before him was full to the edges of bacon, eggs, toast, and fruit - things Kurt knew he didn't have in his fridge so they must have been picked up.  Kurt waited until Blaine loaded up a plate of his own and sat across from him before taking small forkfuls and eating quietly.  There were so many things he wanted to ask Blaine, chiefly why he was there, but Kurt let him eat, and inwardly reveled in how good real homemade food felt on his taste buds and in his stomach.

After taking a few bites, Blaine looked up at him with those caramel sweet eyes.  “Where are your guards?”

“Reassigned.”  Kurt admitted.  “I didn't need them anymore.”

“Even after that gunfight and taking money out of their slave business?”

Kurt looked down at the fried egg, poking at the yolk for a moment as he queried, “Yeah.. that was in the paper huh?”

“Yes.”

“I pulled my financial backing from everything actually… that was just the only thing to hit the newsstands.”

Blaine's fork tapped against his plate a few times, and then his voice became as demanding as it was when Kurt imagined Blaine in his head.  “Are you crazy?  You know the people you work with!  Are you trying to get killed?!”

Kurt didn't answer, just continued to poke at his egg, and it was when he heard Blaine suck back a breath and smack a palm down on the table that he realized Blaine got it.

“You are crazy!  Suicidal at least!”

“I would have thought it would have made you happy that I'm not off financing crooks and murderers anymore.” Kurt admitted, wondering why his mental image of Blaine wasn't syncing up with the real one before him.

“I… am… I just….”  Blaine set his fork down, looking steadily at Kurt in such a way that Kurt felt his skin crawl.  “... it would be one thing if you did it and kept your guards… but letting them go Kurt…”

“It's the only way I can own up for my part in this business.”

“Why not just leave?  Tell them you're done?  Pay out what you need to in order to be free?”

Kurt shook his head, looking up to meet Blaine's eyes.  “I told you, there is no getting out of this business unless it's in a coffin.”

“... and you were alright with that?!”  Blaine stood up, breakfast forgotten as he leaned over the table to scold Kurt.  “You have no doubt pissed off the most dangerous men in this city and sent your guards away.  You want that casket!”

Kurt shrugged, looking away again under Blaine's disapproving glance.  Until this morning, when Kurt thought he'd never see Blaine again, he had decided that there was nothing left worth living for anyhow - and letting the mob come and get him in retaliation seemed as good a death as any.

“You're an idiot - you know that?”

To that, Kurt couldn't help but let out a small chuckle, and that seemed to unnerve Blaine who couldn't seem to come up with a response to the laughter.  “Yeah… guess I am.”

“Why didn't you tell me you knew me from Dalton in the beginning?”

Kurt snapped his head back to Blaine, eyes going wide with surprise as memories from the night before slid into his eyes.  He had been singing that damned song again, and Blaine had come in… carried him upstairs… and tucked him in bed.  Blaine had remembered.

“Because… you didn't remember when I bought you, so I didn't think I was important enough to remember and didn't want to force it on you.”

“You're an idiot.”

Blaine sat himself back down and proceeded to finish off his breakfast, and Kurt, following his lead, did the same.  The plates were taken away by Blaine to be washed in the sink, and as Kurt fidgeted with his fingers, Blaine spoke up.

“I threw away all your cigarettes.”

It was like a jolt to his head, and Kurt gawked for a moment before Blaine elaborated.

“That stuff'll kill you, and I hate the smell of it and the taste of it on you.”

The fact that the cigarettes would lead to other health concerns seemed laughable considering what they had just spoken about, but the fact that Blaine seemed to be subtly noting that he had gotten rid of Kurt's little stress relief sticks for his own benefit drew Kurt's curiosity… and worry.

“You can't stay with me Blaine.  It's dangerous.”

“I'm not leaving either.  Hire your damned guards back if you're so worried.”

“They wouldn't be able to do much anyhow against a whole crew… and I didn't want their families to have to mourn them.”

Blaine glanced over, hands deep in the sink where he was washing the grease off the plates.  “There had to be another way then.  The police?”

“Most are good… but if any that aren't get a whiff of any rats, that'll be it.”

“Witness protection?”

“Only good so long as you never ever run into anyone who knows anyone.  I've heard so many stories about people being found by accident…”

Blaine sighed, lifting his hands out of the water and shaking the suds off before grabbing a towel to wipe his hand up and approach Kurt.  Each arm of the chair was grabbed onto by one of Blaine's hands, so he was leaning forwards, face to face with Kurt who was suddenly bombarded by the smell of Blaine once more, enough to want to wrap his arms around him and lose himself forever in that man.  “We'll find a way… and you're important enough to remember… I was just a moron for forgetting.”

Kurt blinked, and then blinked again, staring at Blaine as if he were some kind of god, there to bless him with everything he could ever want.  His heart stopped, skipped, and then raced around his chest.

“I love you Kurt.”

Just like that, it was as if his chest could not contain his heart any longer as it went from running to exploding, and before he could even really process the enormity of Blaine's words, his lips were enveloped in a kiss with lips still greasy from bacon, but not flavorful enough to cover up the warm, vanilla taste of Blaine.

Hands fumbled then, on both their parts, as Kurt went to unbutton Blaine's shirt and Blaine went to peel away Kurt's robe - an easier task than the former.  Yet it was Kurt that seemed to get Blaine's shirt off before Blaine had fully gotten rid of Kurt's robe, since he was so focused on trying to make Kurt lose his mind by sucking a path down from Kurt's lips, to his earlobe, and then down to his collarbone.  That was where Kurt could no longer multitask, and instead ended up leaning back in the chair moaning loud and lewdly as Blaine left marks on his skin and stroked his erection with a free hand.

“I'm going to take care of you.”  were the words whispered up to Kurt when Blaine lifted his lips to breath, and Kurt could only shudder and whimper in response as he forgot how to speak.  If he had been able to vocalize, his words would have been along the lines of Yes, Yes, Please, Please, Make me yours.  

They took a moment to pull away from one another so Kurt could stand and together, arms around one another, they could back themselves through the apartment, up the stairs, and to the bedroom where Blaine gently pushed Kurt back against the bed, knees catching and forcing him onto his back.  He crawled backwards there, admiring Blaine's body, which only seemed to get more beautiful every time Kurt looked at him, as Blaine took off the rest of his clothing and went to fetch the lubricant from the bedside table.

The sound of the cap being popped off sent a shiver up Kurt's spine.  It had been so long since he had bottomed, and the few time he had done it was enough to convince him it wasn't worth it.  Yet, here he was, eager to take Blaine, wanting it even, so that when Blaine pressed a lubed up finger against the hard ring of muscle between Kurt's cheeks, Kurt found himself letting out a long breath to relax his body and make the push of the finger easier for him to take.

It didn't make it burn less, but Blaine was so careful, and Kurt recalled how much he had tried to make things feel good for Blaine in the past, and knew that, at least in this case, karma might be kind to him.  Kurt stretched out his legs, and with Blaine working one, then two, fingers in and out of Kurt, pain gave way to pleasure, and Kurt squirmed and gasped for more without him ever remembering the words filtering through his brain.

It was the telltale sound of a condom wrapper being torn that gave Kurt pause next, and he reached out to grab Blaine's hand and shake his head at him as he fumbled with the little piece of rubber.  

“Have you been with anyone else?”

Blaine shook his head, and got the meaning, for better or worse, and threw the package to the side as he lubed himself up and butted the head of his cock against Kurt's readied hole. Kurt wanted everything from Blaine, he wanted to feel his flesh against his own, inside and out, and even if Blaine wasn't telling the truth (and he didn't think Blaine would lie) Kurt didn't care.  If there was retaliation, he wouldn't have to worry about any diseases anyhow.

Not as long as Kurt was, but definitely more girthy, Blaine spread Kurt open to the point where Kurt had to grit his teeth down, waiting for the fire inside him to pass as he told his body to go lax and accept the gift he never thought he'd ever get.  He was grateful for being, unintentionally, a decent teacher as far showing Blaine how to prep someone well, because Kurt knew the small ache he felt now was nothing compared to the pain he felt the last times he bottomed for less patient, less caring men.  

It pass quickly enough too.  Blaine took care in moving slowly, asking Kurt if he was alright, and tenderly stroking over Kurt's cock to redirect some of the pain to pleasure.  Within minutes Kurt was sweating with a heat building in his belly, and begging Blaine to ride him harder and faster, each beat of his dick inside of Kurt hitting that sweet spot that sent chills down his arms and made him lose all ability to control the crude words spewing out of his mouth.

He came before Blaine, spraying both their chests with white pearls that never seemed to end, and Blaine asked, so sweetly, what he wanted Kurt to do - to which Kurt growled something along the lines of “fill me up” but with more cursing and more allusions to god.  Blaine bucked his hips a few more times after getting confirmation, and then bottomed out and stilled inside of Kurt.  Inside Kurt could feel more heat, though lost in the aftershocks of his own orgasm, didn't notice much more beyond the stars inside his eyelids and the way his toes felt like they were buzzing.  

Blaine cleaned up afterwards, although Kurt had whined for Blaine to stay within him and had cringed when their bodies separated, leaving him gaping and exposed, dripping out a filthy mess he would never admit that he was proud of.  

Then, as so often he had done in the past, Blaine crawled into the bed beside Kurt and wound him up in his arms after pulling the blanket up, and Kurt let himself be held.  He didn't need to fight or protect or dominate.  Kurt just needed to nuzzle his head in against Blaine's chest and let himself enjoy this moment.

Because he didn't know how many he would have left like it.