"Oh, Harry, what are we doing?" Kurt realizes he's being unnecessarily dramatic, in tone and in the arm he's thrown over his eyes to shield them from the sun.

"Having a swim?" Harry asks with the guilelessness that very probably could make Kurt fall honestly in love with him. If not for, well, yes.

Kurt groans. "Were you always this literal and I never noticed?"

"No," Harry says. "I enjoy winding you up and you never noticed."

Kurt glares at him from under his elbow while Harry smiles winningly at him. "I hate you."

"No you don't." Harry stands up and stretches. He spends some time rearranging his towel, and Kurt admits he'll miss the sun protection charms when this is over.

This will be over.

Soon.

Kurt sits up.

"Kurt?"

"Seriously, Harry," Kurt says, "what are we doing?"

Harry gives him the kind of long, searching, look that reminds Kurt every time that this man fought and won a war while he was worrying about prom. "Satisfying the need we felt as children not to be alone," he finally says.

"I haven't felt that for years," Kurt lies.

"I have," Harry says with honesty that shames him a little. "But that's nothing compared with how I felt when I was five." He lies down again and closes his eyes against the sun.

And Kurt is struck by one of those inexplicable moments of tenderness that always catch him by surprise and leave him a little breathless. He lays a hand on Harry's thigh and strokes the warm skin absently. "I'm sorry."

"Why?" Harry smiles but doesn't open his eyes. "You're the solution, not the problem."

"I can't be the permanent solution," Kurt says against his own will.

"No," Harry agrees. "But every solution has a beginning."

Kurt lies there for a while in the sun, thinking about that. "What's your solution's ending?"

"Dunno," Harry says. "I won't get to the end for a while."

And Kurt suspects he's not being entirely honest, because he, for one, is fairly certain Blaine is his personal solution's ending, as far as loneliness, love, and need go. He has one of his moments of panic that maybe Blaine doesn't feel the same way.

That the dependability he's come to rely on is only in his head now.

Maybe even that Blaine and Draco are honestly in love.

"Nah," Harry says, and Kurt hates him a little.

"Harry," Kurt says as calmly as he possibly can. "For the love of all that is holy, would you please stop reading my mind?"

"Oh. Yeah, sorry." Harry closes his eyes again.

"Harry?" Kurt asks a moment later.

"Yeah?"

"Do you ever - ?"

"He's completely besotted with you."

Kurt bites his lips so he won't grin. "Well, of course. I am quite a catch."

"Honestly, Blaine," Draco says and tries with truly Herculean effort not to roll his eyes, "I don't mind."

"I called you Kurt," Blaine says, and actually looks as if he's five seconds away from literal self-flagellation.

Draco sighs. "Yes, and I told you I really don't care." He's reasonably sure this will send Blaine into a spiral of wondering if Draco cares about him at all, and the thought just makes him tired, so he arrests it before it can form behind those admittedly attractive puppy eyes. "Look, Blaine. We both know what this is. We like each other. We're probably even quite good friends at this stage. But if Potter and Hummel weren't married to each other, the likelihood of our getting together would be less than zero. We know this. We've always known this."

"I just - " Blaine's hands open and close as if he's trying to physically grasp the point. Draco firmly prevents himself from finding this endearing. "I just feel like we should be moving on."

"Don't be ridiculous. Why on earth should we move on?"

"They're married."

"Yes. So?"

"And I know Kurt. He won't cheat."

Draco raises hie eyebrows. He could always tell Blaine there's a spell preventing either of them from cheating (with dire consequences) and then obliviate him. He could.

It would be easy.

And Potter would have his hide.

Draco deflates. "Look. They won't cheat. Neither of them will. Potter's so honorable it literally makes me ill if I think about it for too long. But, and I hate to burst your balloon of optimism on this point, marriage is not necessarily forever."

"It's supposed to be."

"Pfft," Draco says, and doesn't say anything about his own personal ex-wife back in England. The will, after all, only stipulated that he get married. It didn't specify for how long. "Tell that to Elizabeth Taylor."

"Seriously, Elizabeth Taylor? That's who you come up with?"

"You prefer Rock Hudson?" Draco asks, feeling just the tiniest bit proud of his grasp of Muggle cinema.

Blaine clearly thinks about it. "Well, I do. But, no, you're probably right. Kurt would appreciate the Elizabeth Taylor thing."

"It'll all be over by their first anniversary," Draco says, with unassailable confidence. Mostly. Be ignores the little voice suggesting it might well be forever.

That would just be ridiculous.

Potter and Hummel's 'forever' will last a year and a day.

"I feel like a bad guy hoping you're right."

Draco's not sure what it is that seems to be attracting him to chronic do-gooders. "You'll get used to it," he says. "It's not hard."

"What isn't?"

"Being the bad guy."

Blaine looks at Draco unreadably then sighs and looks away. "What are we going to do if they don't break up after a year?"

Draco shrugs. "Help them along, of course."

"I - look, I want to be with Kurt so badly I ache," Blaine says with enough honesty to make Draco flinch. "But I can't hurt him. I can't hurt them. Not if their marriage is something they want."

Draco purses his lips, and since he's unwilling to examine that sting he feels in his chest, he says, "Good thing one of us is accustomed to being the bad guy, then."

It occurs to Blaine, not for the first time, that Draco and Santana would either love each other or kill each other within the first hour. He refuses to think too deeply into what that says about him and his relationship to both of them. "I can't believe you're honestly planning this," he says.

He also can't believe he hasn't left Draco over his plotting, but there's something about Draco that makes nefarious plans seem...normal. Possibly even safe, like Draco wouldn't actually carry it out.

No matter how detailed it gets.

"I told you I was planning to plan it," Draco says. "Merlin knows, someone has to be prepared in the face of Potter's ineptness."

"Um," Blaine says, momentarily blown away. (Which happens a lot around Draco, too.) "I'm not sure that'll be the reason if they decide to stay together."

"Please." Draco rolls his eyes, crosses out a line, and scribbles a new line beneath it. "That's always the reason with Potter. He's lucky he has me looking out for him."

Blaine opens his mouth, realizes he has no idea at all how to respond to that, and closes it. He drops an impulsive kiss on the back of Draco's neck, because apparently, he can't avoid thinking Draco's adorable, even when he is being kind of vaguely, possibly, evil. "I'll just be in the kitchen," he says, and flees.

Which is how he ends up crouched in the pantry with his cell phone and the volume turned way down.

"Hullo?"

"Harry?"

"Blaine?"

"Is Kurt there?"

"Uh, no," Harry says like a man who doesn't understand why Blaine isn't calling Kurt's phone.

"Oh, thank god," Blaine says.

"Right," Harry says, sounding no less enlightened.

"I mean, I was calling you. And I don't want to worry Kurt." Blaine licks his lips. "It's Draco."

"Fuck. What's wrong?" The confusion is utterly gone from Harry's voice. There's a sound of footsteps and a door closing while Blaine takes a deep and fortifying breath and reminds himself at least he's not alone in knowing Draco's proclivities for getting into trouble.

He supposes he wouldn't be, at that.

"Nothing like that," Blaine says, without the first clue what 'that' is other than something Draco might need rescuing from.

"Merlin," Harry breathes. "Don't scare me like that."

"Sorry," Blaine says. "Um, slight tendency toward the overdramatic. It's a gay thing."

"Um," Harry says, sounding a lot like he has no idea what to say to that.

So Blaine carries on. "He's plotting the downfall of your marriage."

"Oh, is that all." The door opens again, and there are more footsteps.

"I think he's actually serious about this, Harry."

"Of course he is." Harry says, and apparently opens the refrigerator. "He wouldn't know what to do with himself if he wasn't crafting an elaborate plot to take over or overthrow something." He sounds almost happy about it.

And that...okay, that's actually kind of pissing Blaine off. "What is wrong with you people?" he demands before he can think better of it.

"Er, you'll need to be more specific," Harry says carefully.

"Listen," Blaine says, maybe more sharply than he usually would, but he's well beyond caring. "If you don't give a crap about Kurt, why did you marry him?"

"Whoa, wait. Who said I didn't care?"

"You don't seem to care about being married to him!"

"I..." Harry trails off into a sigh.

"Is this some kind of stupid game everyone is in on but me and Kurt?"

"Kurt knows," Harry says quietly.

It's like being slapped. "No. He wouldn't not tell me." He wouldn't. This is Kurt. Even if they broke up because...because... Blaine winces and rubs his forehead. Because of the thing that made them decide to be friends instead of boyfriends, his mind supplies before pirouetting sideways and leaving Blaine saying, "Kurt's my best friend now. He wouldn't play with me like this."

Springs creak on the other end of the line. "It's not his fault. Um, there's a geas."

Not what Blaine was expecting. "What do geese have to do with it?"

"Geas. Compulsion. Vow. Whatever. Basically, he can't talk about it." Harry doesn't sound at all condescending, so it's hard to stay angry at him.

Blaine may be out of practice, but he tries anyway. "We talk about everything."

"No," Harry says, and over Blaine's objection: "He really can't."

Blaine doesn't remember any of the conversation after that. But it was very reassuring.

At least, he thinks it was.

Harry's glad he didn't tell Blaine Kurt's plotting right along with Draco. And not just because he isn't supposed to know.

It's not his fault they're both terrible at sneaking around and keeping secrets.

It's endearing.

It's charming.

It's flattering the care they're putting into seeing he's not hurt (and he feels like a bit of a prat since he hadn't actually been putting all that much thought into it, personally.)

"That reminds me," Kurt's saying down the phone. "This year and a day. Is the day a full day? 24 hours? Just until - until sunset, alright." Kurt pauses, tapping his pen on the table. "I suppose a moonlit ferry ride would be too cliche?"

Harry can't hear Draco, but he's pretty sure Draco just said something about how utterly bourgeois he finds the entire idea.

Kurt huffs. "Well, I think it's romantic."

Harry smiles to himself because he also knows Draco's only being an ass because he gets seasick in as much as a rowboat.

"Fine. I'll concede the romance inherent in a view like that, but is it open air?" Kurt traps the tip of his pen between his lips, and Harry admits it'd take a stronger man than him for that scene not to do things to him. "Oh, Draco. It sounds perfect. And there is no way it'll be available in the middle of wedding season. Not at this late a date."

Harry mentally answers for Draco: "Don't be so pessimistic, Hummel. I'm sure they'll find an opening for us."

Kurt rolls his eyes. "I disapprove strongly of pushing some poor bride out of her perfect wedding reception location." He sighs. "And I wouldn't dream of stopping you, no. What does Blaine see in you?" Kurt holds up a hand too quickly for Draco to have time to answer. "Aside from your many sexual charms."

Harry laughs along with Kurt.

"Well, I'm sure it's not nothing. But you have to admit that his attraction to pure unadulterated evil is a little surprising."

In Harry's mind, Draco admonishes Kurt to give Blaine some credit for his walk on the dark side.

"As long as I get him back in one piece. Now. Food. What sort of wine list does this place have?"

It's actually kind of adorable in an admittedly very, very scary way.

Harry feels a little bad for Blaine. He seems to be the only one of the four of them who isn't plotting at all.