Life continued on at camp. It felt to me like something huge had changed, but no one else even seemed to notice.

The boys were, thankfully, cheerfully oblivious to any changes in the relationship between Blaine and I. They were too busy worrying about their upcoming 'camping' trip to care about much else.

All week, they had been getting more and more excited for this treat. On Friday night, all four of us would be in charge of wrangling the boys through what was, for many of them, their first camping trip out in the woods.

It wasn't really going to be all that wild, despite the fact that the guys were talking about it like we were hiking to the depths of nowhere to fend for ourselves with only our skills and maybe Finn's pocket knife.

I did seriously consider bringing one of the bows over from try to convince them it was how we were going to hunt down dinner. Only the fact that a joke like that could end up with someone like Seth or Liam in tears held me back. It was close.

Rest hour on Friday found me sprawled across Blaine's bed as he packed for the overnight. After going on a much more real camping trip earlier in the week, it had been so easy to update my pack for one night spent on a more remote part of the camp grounds.

"You know, I've never actually slept in a tent." Blaine admitted, as Nick helped him re-roll his sleeping bag.

"Seriously?" Jeff peered down over the edge of his top bunk to shake his head at Blaine. "You have lived a deprived life. Poor, poor Blaine."

Blaine wrinkled his nose back at Jeff. I raised a hand to my mouth to hide the fit of giggles that threatened to come out. "Yes. The fact that I've never slept on the ground in the woods means I've had no experience worth mentioning in my life."

"Exactly!" Jeff gave Blaine a wickedly teasing look. "How will you ever be prepared for the CIT trip? You know they take us out into the middle of the forest and drop us with nothing but a compass and our packs, right? Then we have to forage our food and bushwhack our way back to camp."

I felt the need to put Blaine out of his misery there, seeing the wide eyed look he was giving Jeff. That was so naive. "Don't listen to Jeff. Like, ever. The CIT trip is actually a mini-vacation. You'll probably go week five or early week six. It's a couple days spent in the historic part of Quebec City. So cool."

Nick tossed the sleeping bag up to me, testing to make sure it held before he just grinned. "I'm looking forward to that so much. No campers, just all of us pretending we speak French along with hopefully a couple of really cool counselors." He eyed Blaine's camping gear before adding, "You can borrow my camp pad."

"Your what?" Blaine asked, fiddling with the metal lid of his mess kit. Just like his trunk, all of this camping gear was brand new. It was clear he'd never spent a lot of time out in the woods, and hadn't been stuck with Cooper's hand me downs.

"Believe me, you'll want one." I commented giving Nick a smile of thanks. "It's like a mini-air mattress. It doesn't really make it all soft and cozy, but it gives you just enough of a cushion that the sticks and rocks won't poke into your back all night. I wonder if Rory has one." I would assume Finn does. If not, he's been around long enough to borrow one or have it be his own fault if he has a rock poking into his hip all night long.

"Why don't you take mine with you, just in case?" Jeff offered with a contrite look, swinging down off the top bunk to find it in his gear.

"Thanks, Jeff. Why don't you get this stuff shoved into your backpack, and I'll go grab my gear?" I suggested to Blaine. "Then we can take it over to the cabin, to leave it on the porch with the rest of the stuff that's going tonight."

Blaine nodded, giving me a big smile. "Camping here we come! It'll be a new experience. No bears, right?"

I shook my head over at him, laughing. It was times like these that the fact that it felt like nothing had changed the most. I really wanted to kiss that smile off his face, but it would have been way too much PDA for camp, even if he had been out to Nick and Jeff. I had to settle for a smirk as I navigated my way through the mess of the CIT room stopping for a few comments with familiar faces, giving Blaine plenty of time to finish packing.

After last period, it was off to the campsite for us. We took a cooler of supplies for dinner and all of our packs. It wasn't the huge hike into the woods the boys had been over exaggerating all week. In fact, we only hiked about a minute from a secluded dock on the lake. The rest of the trip was by the 'party boat', a big platoon style boat with Christmas lights hanging off the posts. The hardest part of the trip was getting life jackets on and off all the boys.

Setting up the tents wasn't too horrible. It was still light, and there were well defined spaces for them to go up. This site was shared between the two camps, used mostly for overnights like ours tonight. It was a safe place for the youngest campers to get experience in skills they would later use out on the trail.

Cooking our own dinner went about as well as expected. Which meant that no one died, but there may have been a few exasperated voices.

We made Frito Pie, which should have been easy enough. All the kids had to do over the fire was brown meat and heat beans. I supervised this part and managed to end up with not one singed camper. It might help that I had claimed Liam and Nick's brother Alex for the stirring of hot things.

Finn had been smart enough to delegate the oh-so-enthusiastic Jared to finding the tinder and kindling for the fire. If we had more twigs than we would ever burn in ten fires, at least no one had given Jared a knife.

Rory and Blaine together had been given command of the children with knives. Children with knives. That idea right there is pretty scary, even if they were little paring knives and potato peelers.

Getting children with knives to listen had proven to be a challenge, but once it was finally running smoothly, I could hear Blaine try to control snickering over one of the boys proclamation that he couldn't wait to cut up and eat Bob the Tomato. I'm not sure that was the real intention of Veggietales, but whatever ends up with a kid eating vegetables, right?

Once all the ingredients were finished, the boys had a fine time crushing up little bags of Fritos and dumping fixing inside. I'm all for campfire meals with minimal cleanup, especially knowing what their plates were probably going to look like after we made eggs and french toast in the morning.

Dinner finished turned into the eating of s'mores, followed by the singing of silly songs and the telling of stories. Finn and I made an absolute no scary stories rule, much to the boys’ dismay. Their dismay now, though. If we didn't, later on it would be to the counselors’ dismay when we were getting woken up by terrified campers all night long. The sounds of the woods so close would spook enough of them on their own.

Finn took charge of the cleanup crew once the water had heated on the fire. It was more interesting now that the sun was starting to set, and the boys were getting a taste of just how dark it could be out here in the woods. The boys all had a chance to dunk their plates and make sure they were clean as they scrubbed their silverware. Mess kits in mesh dunk bags were hanging from the trees to dry before we came back together around the fire, minus Finn and the four boys he had scrubbing the pots and mixing bowls.

I came up with the bright idea of telling a group story, where each camper adds on the next part, with yet another groaned at warning not to make it scary.

"I'll start. There was a big dragon who decided that he wanted to be a camper." I began passing the Twig of Speaking Power over towards Blaine.

"The dragon just wanted to learn how to kayak and play soccer. He didn't realize the campers might be scared of him." Blaine added, passing the twig off to Liam who pondered it all for a moment.

"He was a really big dragon. Big! With purple polka dots and yellow stripes. Half the boys laughed at him and the other half screamed."

Liam passed the stick off to Seth who nearly threw it into the fire before he started to speak. "The dragon started to cry because he felt so bad about how the kids treated him."

The stick went to Alex who added, "So Blaine went up to the dragon to make him feel better. They started to play soccer together."

"The kids saw how much fun Blaine was having with the dragon so then they stopped being mean and scared and wanted to play, too!" Jared added when it was his turn, before he leaned close to Alex to attempt to whisper, "It's hard to tell a story without zombies."

The story continued from there, and one story became another until somehow a teddy bear was marrying the dragon and Finn clapped his hands. "So I think it's time to get ready for bed!"

Boys were scuttled off into pajamas, and teeth were brushed with bottled water. A chapter from the latest bedtime story was still read by Rory, sitting outside the tent doors. He zipped all the doors closed and came to join as us the fire.

"Please God let them sleep." He whispered as he sank down to sit on a log next to Finn. "So Blaine, been spending time around dragons I don't know about?" He teased lightly, getting a laugh from the CIT.

"Kurt would hate me forever if I answered that." He teased lightly, comfortable here with just the four of us.

I kept my voice low, not wanting to wake the campers, or have them hear us. "Not forever. I just might be forced to short sheet your bed in retaliation, though."

"Short sheet? What's that?" Blaine asked, getting laughs from Finn and I instead of an answer. Rory looked just as confused as Blaine as he said, "What?"

"Oh, you'll see. Maybe Jeff will have to experience it sometime soon, just because your camp prank education must be furthered." I stated with a cackling laugh.

"Oh. It's that sort of thing?"

"Exactly that sort of thing." Finn interjected, putting a marshmallow on a stick to start roasting it over the fire. There were extra s'mores supplies that couldn't be wasted, after all. "So what did you think of your first s'more, Rory?"

"It was good. Really sweet and messy. I suppose you Yanks have a few good food items mixed with all the grease. S'mores, peanut butter..." Rory shrugged, grabbing his own marshmallow to toast.

"You'd never had a s'more?" Blaine perked up. He'd apparently missed this tidbit earlier.

"No. We don't eat them in Ireland. They're such an American thing."

Finn had to add back into this conversation as he moved closer to the fire, squatting down to get the marshmallow to a perfect state of brown with the coals. "I think we have the better end of thing. Peanut butter and s'mores, and all you across the ocean people bring over is tea and Marmite. Have you tried that stuff? Tastes like toe jam or something." He told Blaine with a shudder.

"It's great on toast." Rory insisted before moving down by Finn.

"Uh, if you say so." Blaine replied before scooting a bit closer to me. We couldn't be overly physically affectionate just in case one of the campers came out, but he pressed his thigh up against mine. It was crazy how such a simple gesture and small amount of touch could send such warmth running throughout my body. "You're awful quiet tonight. You alright?" He whispered, leaning in close to me.

"Perfect. I think tonight I'm perfect." I whispered back, bringing my hand down to rest on Blaine’s knee. "I guess I'm just absorbing it all. What could be better than sitting by a campfire with good friends and you?"

Blaine gave me a huge smile in return. I realized that tonight, here with just our cabin, I hadn't seen a single barrier be thrown up all evening. No worry, no fear or hesitation, just Blaine getting into camp life and showing me why I cared so much for him.

Finn leaned closer to Rory and mock-whispered, "Aw. Look at the lovebugs."

Blaine responded with a blush, turning his face to hide it in my neck. Despite the thrill of that contact, I responded the best way possible, simply displaying my middle finger to Finn.

About the time Rory was blowing out his marshmallow that had, of course, caught on fire, there was a rustle of talk and giggles from one of the tents. Finn piped up, "Go to sleep!"

We could just hear the rustling die down when one voice failed to whisper, "I bet they're out there eating the rest of the s'mores."

Rory gave his newly assembled treat a guilty look while the rest of us simply broke down into laughter.