He glanced back at the sound of footsteps, and shrieked with a surprised laugh as Blaine caught his waist, spinning him and pressing him to the wall.

“Blaine!”

Blaine cut him off with a desperate kiss, crashing their mouths together hungrily, his hands cupping possessively along Frank’s jaw. He leaned in to the kiss, sweeping their tongues against each other as he moaned and his entire body shook with the relief of finally being able to touch him again.

He pulled away with a soft wet sound, sucking back on Frank’s lower lip before he rested their foreheads together, eyes closed and panting. “I missed you,” he said in hushed tones, barely loud enough to hear.

“Mmm, I can see that,” Frank laughed, brushing their noses together softly.

Blaine’s eyes opened barely half way as he stared down at Frank’s pink and kiss-swollen mouth. He licked along the line of it, and slid his tongue inside again, hands tightening on Frank’s face and gliding over powdered makeup.

“Mmf! Hey,” Frank said as they pulled apart again. He locked their gazes, concern flashing in his eyes. “Are you alright?”

Blaine shook his head once, all too aware that his fingers were tailing down over Frank’s neck, sliding gently over his shoulders in circles and down both arms. “I – I know about what I said,” he confessed, “the night I was sick.”

Frank’s eyes widened, huge and pale blue, and more beautiful that Blaine had remembered.

“I’m so sorry,” he went on, trying to keep down the hot flash of emotion welling in his throat. “I didn’t know what I was saying.”

Frank smiled sadly at him, long fingers running over the collar of his costume shirt. “It’s alright. I guess. At least I know where your heart is.”

“Was,” Blaine corrected him, unblinking. “Not anymore.”

Frank’s throat trembled as he swallowed, eyes fluttering with shock.

“Come with me?” Blaine pleaded, sliding their hands together and twining their fingers. He pulled back a little, lifting Frank away from the wall. “Please?”

With a hesitant smile tugging at the edges of his mouth, Frank let him guide them down the open corridor to a set of old dressing rooms. He pushed lightly on one of the doors, letting it swing open, and the faint smell of perfume washed over them both.

The room was small, and an empty dresser and basin stood to one side, stained with makeup and tilting on broken drawers. Frank glanced around carefully, taking in the vintage fittings, his fingers still intertwined with Blaine’s as he was lead over to a deep red couch.

Blaine turned against Frank’s body, sliding both hands over his hips very slowly and back again, stroking roughly over satin and settling them with a squeeze.

Eyes drifting closed, Frank sighed in a mixture of bliss and relief. He rocked on his feet as Blaine’s lips brushed against his neck, dancing over a prominent vein to press tiny kisses along his jaw.

Blaine lingered over his pulse, scraping his teeth carefully down skin and letting his breath whisper coolly over the moisture he left. He felt him shudder under his mouth, and Blaine’s body clenched at the clawing heat building low inside him, fueled with every whisper and plea.

It was slow, passionate and aching, swaying together in the quiet as he mapped Frank’s throat and collar with his mouth, thumbs dragging over his sides and around to the small of his back. He nipped at the soft skin behind Frank’s ear while he slid both hands down together, pushing under the lace and satin and grazing over the firm curves of him, fingers tightening on instinct. Frank gasped, exposing this throat completely as his body arched and he pushed back into Blaine’s palms.

Blaine drew a sharp breath at the sudden jerk, cupping handfuls of muscle and flesh as he lifted Frank up against his body and felt arms coil around his neck. He was painfully hard, straining against his briefs and desperate for friction, but completely lost in the noises Frank made as he massaged his fingers into warm skin.

He kept going, stroking up and down with his thumbs, never losing his grip as he listened to the sounds above him; the desperate and barely-there punctuated moans that came on every breath.

Frank helplessly jerked his body back into Blaine’s grip over and over again, desperate for more of the exquisite sensation that rippled up his body from simply being held this way, being touched this way, being so perfectly and intimately owned.

Blaine's hands flexed with every push, fingers shifting to slide down the center of him. He heard Frank’s cry, felt nails digging into his shoulders as their hips met and slid together, and Blaine groaned brokenly at the perfect friction. He could feel the thick outline of Frank’s cock against his own, pressing hard against satin and straining the fabric, and he kissed a light, quick pattern up the perfect curve of Frank’s neck to whisper in his ear. “Spread your legs.”

Frank did as he was asked, feet shifting out slightly, opening him up for Blaine’s hands to slide lower, move down the crease of him in slow strokes that left Frank keening and writhing in his arms.

Closing his eyes, Blaine buried his face against Frank’s neck and rutted desperately against him, his body clenching tight at every shock of pleasure and every sound.

“Oh god,” he mouthed against Frank’s throat, lost in the heady rush and the sheer heat pouring off his body.

He traced a long line over his entrance, swirling his finger gently across the puckered flesh. Frank whined above him, hips crashing tightly with Blaine’s in violent jerks. “Blaine!” he almost screamed. “Oh god, don’t stop touching me, please.”

Blaine coiled himself tighter around his frame, arms taught and fingers gliding over burning, silky skin. He sucked patterns of pink bruises into Frank’s neck around his own moans and whimpers, their bodies sliding to a broken rhythm until they both came, one after the other, crying out and clinging to each other so tightly it bordered on painful.

They cleaned up quickly at the basin, passing tissues back and forth and casting them into the trashcan as they came down slowly, adjusting their costumes and stopping every now and then to reach out and touch each other again.

When Blaine staggered back and collapsed onto the couch he took Frank with him, pulling him down on top. Frank grunted with the sudden fall, laughing tiredly and settling against Blaine’s chest, legs straddling his lap.

Blaine stared at the wall through half-lidded eyes, hands trailing up and down Frank’s spine lovingly over his corset.

“That was worth coming back to,” Frank teased lightly, head tucked against a shoulder.

With a smile, Blaine shifted and kissed his temple, fingers caressing the angles and curves of him in a slow dance up and down his body.

“We should go,” Frank sighed. “The show must go on, and I need to finish this,” he waved a finger at his face.

“Mmm,” Blaine murmured beneath him. “No. Stay.”

Frank chuckled. “Uhuh, I’m sure that’ll go down well.”

“I like you better without it.”

Sitting up, Frank peered at him quizzically.

“The lipstick,” Blaine clarified, leaning in to press their mouths together gently for a moment. “I like your mouth…” his voice trailed off slightly as he stared, transfixed. “Just the way it is.”

“Oh really?” Frank said, arching a painted eyebrow in amusement.

“Mmm,” Blaine confirmed. “I love your nose,” he said, peppering tiny kisses over Frank’s face between words. “Your jaw, the way you only talk out one side of your mouth sometimes. The colour of your eyes and how I don’t even have a name for it.” He pressed two more tiny kisses to Frank’s mouth, pulling back. “God… the sound of your voice.”

Frank blushed, head tilting down slightly.

“I want you to come home with me tonight, I want to see all of you.” Blaine’s tone was suddenly reverent, and he began tugging lightly at the corset strings. “I want to be us.”

“You want my name,” Frank said plainly.

“I don’t care about your name,” Blaine replied. “I want you.”

Frank gulped quietly as Blaine stared him down, and he fought the urge not to shift and hide every part of himself that felt exposed.

“It’d be nice not to call out the name of your character when I come, though,” Blaine added lightly.

Frank snorted, burying his face in Blaine’s shoulder as the tension diffused in an instant.

He settled down again, arms curled in front of him, captured between their chests as he rested his head. “I have to tell you something,” he said hesitantly.

Blaine felt his spine prickle. “What’s that?”

Frank was quiet for a long time, and Blaine could feel the tension in his body, the shift of muscle under skin. He waited patiently, stroking over his back and hips and sides in slow movements throughout.

“I knew who you were,” Frank whispered. “Before you started the show.”

Blaine took a moment to process, eyes pinching in confusion. “I … how?”

“I’d seen you before,” Frank looked down at his own fingers, smoothing gently over Blaine’s chest. “I wanted to-” He stopped to laugh at himself. “I wanted to say something. Talk to you. But outside of this place I’m not…” his words trailed off.

With a light kiss to his forehead, Blaine squeezed at Frank’s hips reassuringly. “Me neither.”

“It’s like armour,” he went on. “The costume. I’m on that stage, I’m invincible. But out there,” he looked to the door, “I’m just me.”

Blaine’s hand lifted, fingers brushing along the stiff gel at Frank’s hairline while he cradled his head to his chest. “There’s no ‘just’ you,” he told him. “You’re… everything.”

Frank turned, burying his nose in Blaine’s shirt and closing his eyes in frustration.

“No, I need you to understand,” he said, and lifted his head, meeting Blaine’s eyes. “If we do this. If we’re going to be… more than this, you need to understand that this isn’t me. I’m not Frank.”

“I know,” Blaine said with a smile.

“Do you?”

In the pause, they breathed together, and Blaine wet his lips carefully before he spoke.

“You know I wanted you from the moment I saw you,” he began.

“In costume,” Frank cut him off with an exasperated sigh. “As Frank.”

“Let me finish,” Blaine interrupted with a tiny laugh. “I’ve wanted you from the second I saw you,” he said again. “But now… it hurts. When you’re not here. And I can’t sleep without at least pretending that I can hear your voice…” he trailed his fingers lightly over shoulder blades. “The night that we fell asleep on the phone, and I could hear you breathing. Just… just like you were next to me. That was when I realised I need you. The real you.”

Frank shivered in his arms, lost for words.

“I know how it feels,” Blaine continued. “Outside of this place I never thought, I mean… I spent six months pining over a fantasy. In my wildest dreams, I never imagined someone like you would even look at me twice.”

“I didn’t,” Frank said calmly.

Blaine stopped, stunned.

“I didn’t have to,” he explained. “Once was enough. And I couldn’t look away.”

With a needy whimper Blaine pulled him down into a rough, messy, open-mouthed kiss, their bodies slamming together as Frank’s arms coiled tight around his neck. They rolled against each other, fingers pressing through hair and under fabric, pushing and pulling and grasping to fuse together, to get closer, to feel more.

“I love you,” Blaine confessed brokenly as they split apart, still holding Frank tight to his chest. “God I love you so much, I feel like I can’t breathe sometimes.”

Frank was heaving against him, eyes closed as he pressed their foreheads together desperately.

Blaine couldn’t help the sounds coming from him, riding on the ache in his chest. “Please tell me that you love me, too.”

“Well, what do we have here?”

They both jolted and snapped their heads around at the sound of a new voice, loud and nauseating in its familiarity.

From the now open doorframe, Rocky smirked back at them. “So the whore’s for sale after all.”

Frank’s mouth fell open in shock as Rocky looked him up and down, leering. “Show’s starting in ten, baby,” he said. “Maybe after you can give me some time with that tight little hole of yours.”

Bile rose in Blaine’s throat, and his grip tightened around Frank’s body on instinct for a moment before his hands were being pushed roughly away.

He froze, lost and reeling as Frank clambered off him frantically, shoving hs hands away. Those beautiful blue eyes were darker now, almost grey, glazed and staying low. “We’ll be there in five," Frank said.

With one last sweeping smirk, Rocky disappeared.

“It’s alright,” Blaine said urgently, pulling himself to his feet and reaching out. “We’re together, he can’t-“

“Don’t,” Frank raised a hand, backing up and out of his grasp. He still hadn’t looked at Blaine’s face. “Don’t… touch me.”

Blaine’s mouth fell open, and something in his chest squeezed tight. He drew a shaky breath, trying to keep from reaching out again, trying to understand what had just happened.

No. No, please. “Please,” he begged.

Without another glance, Frank turned, and disappeared out the door.