Kurt.

Kurt’s home.

Blaine smiles sleepily and tries not to move a muscle. He doesn’t want to jar Kurt awake. Kurt was so tired and fell asleep almost immediately after they had showered and cleaned up. Blaine had lain awake next to Kurt for a little while, finally drifting to sleep for a little over two hours, according to the clock on the bedside table.

Blaine feels like this day has gone on forever and somehow it’s only 7 o’clock. It’s so rare to feel like that on good days, he thinks. Usually bad days take forever and good days move too quickly. But today. Today he has the opportunity to enjoy the good.

He rolls over carefully in Kurt’s arms and Kurt’s asleep deeply enough that he doesn’t notice the movement. Blaine looks closely at Kurt’s face, relishing this moment where Kurt is quiet and close. He loves Kurt’s smooth, pale skin and smattering of freckles, the way his usually coiffed hair was left unstyled after his shower and is now mussed with sleep. Blaine fights the urge to touch Kurt’s face or run a hand through his hair, aware that either of those movements will definitely wake him up.

Instead he slowly extracts himself from Kurt’s arms, puts on his shorts, and pads barefooted into the living room, where he knows he left his phone.

He of course has 15 text messages.

~~~~~

4:48 pm
Matt: When you’re “done” you should come home.
Matt: everybody wants to see Kurt.

5:02 pm
Kerry: I don’t want to bug you guys, but I’m going over to your apt and I miss Kurt!
Kerry: Am I going to get to see him tonight?

5:17 pm
DiDi: How’s it going with your boo?

5:55 pm
Puck: Rachel says we have to wait for you guys before we can order dinner.
Puck: I’m seriously fucking hungry.
Puck: please stop what you’re doing soon
Puck: or at least text us to say we can eat without you.

6:18 pm
Matt: our apartment is like 5 people just waiting for Kurt.

6:22 pm
DiDi: Please disregard the prior message where I refer to Kurt as your “boo”
DiDi: I am deeply ashamed by my lack of street cred.

6:48 pm
Rachel: Take your time. Don’t listen to those jerks.

6:51 pm
Tina: Whatever Rachel said, I agree.
Tina: on the other hand, Puck is starting to get insane with hunger.

~~~~~

Blaine pauses for a moment, thinking about all these texts from all these people and remembers, once again, that he has yet to reveal DiDi’s secret identity to Kurt. She’s coming to the welcome back party tomorrow night and he thinks it would be awfully fun to just introduce her to Kurt as Deirdre Marshall.

~~~~~

7:13 pm
Blaine (to Matt): Kurt’s sleeping. We’ll come over whenever he wakes up.

7:14 pm
Blaine (to Puck): Go ahead, order food! I don’t give a flying fuck!

7:15 pm
Blaine (to DiDi): Feel free to refer to him as “my boo” as you see fit. :)
Blaine (to DiDi): And everything is grand. Thanks for asking.

7:16 pm
Blaine (to Rachel & Tina): we’ll come over when Kurt wakes up. I’m sure he wants to see everyone too. FEED PUCK.

7:17 pm
Blaine (to Kerry): Soooooooon. I promise. :)

7:18 pm
Puck (to Blaine): Do you want some fucking food or not? We’re ordering pizza.

7:20 pm
DiDi (to Blaine): Grand huh? That sounds like things went even better than you had hoped.

7:21 pm
Blaine (to DiDi): Things are pretty much perfect. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow night.

7:23 pm
Blaine (to Puck): YES FINE. Order enough for Kurt and me. We’ll be there later.

~~~~~

Kurt emerges from his bedroom and sees Blaine sitting on the couch, smiling at his cell phone as he reads his texts. Then Kurt watches as Blaine’s fingers quickly respond. Kurt watches a few cycles of this.

Read. Respond. Read. Smile. Respond.

Kurt walks the rest of the way into the living and Blaine looks up and smiles.

“Hey,” he says as Kurt settles on the couch next to him. Blaine puts a warm hand on Kurt’s knee. “Sorry if I w-woke you up.”

His voice is quiet, but confident, strong, Kurt thinks. So different.

Blaine tosses his phone down on the coffee table, fully prepared to ignore everyone on earth at the moment. No matter how hungry Puck is.

“Can I ask about your speech?” Kurt says with a grin. “Like, how did it get so good?”

Blaine blushes a little, but smiles back. “Can I have a hug?”

Kurt turns on the couch and curls up closer to Blaine, threading his arms around his waist and ducking his head to Blaine’s chest. Blaine brings his arms around Kurt’s shoulders and they stay nestled like that for a few minutes.

“The short answer,” Blaine starts, “is that I have nah-no idea.”

Kurt nods into Blaine’s chest.

“The long and official answer is something about finally feeling de-desensitized and working hard at at at controlling it until nah-now when controlling finally seems natural. Also something about um, group therapy helping me learn to s-s... stuh-stutter more easily and allowing me to find mm-mm-my own set of methods to keep it sah-smah-smooth. ‘And earning my fluency.’” Blaine puts finger quotes around that last phrase.

“What’s with the air quotes?”

“‘Earning my fluency’ is such a Chad phrase, I-I-I feel like I shouldn’t say it w-without putting quotes around it.”

“Why do you think you sound so good?”

“Right now? Probably ‘cause I’m talking to you.” Blaine smiles impishly.

Kurt nuzzles his face into Blaine’s bare chest, and then sits up and smiles, giving him a look of “Come on, you know that’s not what I meant.”

“In general, I-I-I don’t know.” Blaine shrugs. “It’s still pretty bad if I’m emotional, or tired. A couple d-d-days ago it was terrible and it kinda, kinda … snu-snu-uck up on me while I was ordering coffee. It doesn’t mm-make much sense and it’s too hard for me to try to make sense of it. So I-I-I just try to enjoy it while it lasts.”

Kurt had put his head back on Blaine’s chest while he was talking and he nods again, thoroughly enjoying the way Blaine has his arm crooked around his neck and his fingers rub up and down Kurt’s arm. The way Blaine’s voice vibrates under his cheek could almost make him fall back to sleep.

“Is it going somewhere?” Kurt asks pulling away a bit to look in Blaine’s eyes.

Blaine holds Kurt’s gaze for a moment and then drops his eyes to somewhere around Kurt’s nose instead. Kurt sees him unfocus, in the way he does when he’s uncomfortable. Blaine’s lips twitch a little and he swallows.

“Maybe. Stuttering... it’s like, like, like.” Blaine rolls his thoughts around his head, wanting to make sure Kurt understands, even when he himself doesn’t really understand entirely. “It can go into re-re-remission almost and then come bah-back around. If I stop doing what I’m doing and, and, and get lazy about it and …like, lose confidence in the mm-methods. In myself.”

“So, tell me what you’re doing,” Kurt says. “Tell me what makes you sound like this.”

“Well.” He takes a deep breath. “I’ve never really … told anyone. Except Chad. It’s w-w-w-weird.” His face tenses and he blinks several times, rapidly.

Instead of answering with words, Kurt sits up fully and kisses Blaine’s temple. Then he scoots over to the other end of the couch and pats his lap. Blaine lays down and draws Kurt’s arm across him, hugging it to his chest, while Kurt starts working his fingers through Blaine’s hair.

“I really m-m-missed this,” Blaine sighs and closes his eyes.

“Me too,” Kurt agrees.

Blaine keeps his eyes closed and goes over the list he keeps in his head, trying to turn it into something comprehensive.

“Ok, so. I’m controlling my b-breathing. I’m pausing when I need to. I … I pull out of, out of blocks and smooth them out, rrr-ather than letting them go on indefinitely. I’m also better if I-I-I let myself repeat a word that I don’t fear every once in awhile. It slows mm-my speaking rate and it gives me a moment to work through the rest of the, of the sentence.”

“You’re doing all that?”

“Not n-n-necessarily consciously. But, but yeah. All of that is happening.”

“And somehow all of that makes you sound more fluent and smoother? It even makes your voice different.”

“Really?” Blaine thinks his voice sounds pretty much the same to his ears, thin and nervous (scared, embarrassed, weak, high-pitched), most of the time.

“Stronger, somehow. More confident,” Kurt says.

Blaine smiles up at him. “That’s ss-sort of the opposite of how I would ever de-describe my voice.”

“Well, it’s true, poop. It’s a fact.” Kurt brushes Blaine’s hair off his forehead. “You still need a haircut.”

“I-I-I know, my stylist gave me a great shave and then decided to have his, his, his way with me instead of cutting mm-my hair.”

Kurt rolls his eyes. “I’d cut it right now, but I’m starving.”

“Well. There is a group of people currently way-way-waiting at my apartment to, to, to greet you and feed you pizza.”

“That’s very convenient.”

They both get fully dressed. Blaine in the cargo shorts and t-shirt he arrived at the airport in so many hours ago. And Kurt pulls on a pair of jeans and one of the few ratty t-shirts he owns, because it’s pretty much his last piece of clean laundry.

“How do you feel about spending the majority of your birthday weekend doing laundry?” Kurt asks, turning to Blaine as he pulls the shirt over his head.

“If you’re there, then I-I-I think it’s a perfect way to sp-spend it,” Blaine responds, giving Kurt a kiss on the cheek.

Kurt only laments his own hair in front of the mirror momentarily.

“I really should do something about it.” Blaine just gives him a look, like “I thought you were starving.”

They get out to the street and Kurt takes Blaine’s hand, swinging it between them. “Lead the way, poop.”

It’s a nice night, perfect late May weather in New York. They take their time, around the corner and two blocks up.

“I like how you look rr-right now,” Blaine says as they walk.

“What do you mean?” Kurt asks. “I look terrible. My hair’s flat, this t-shirt has a hole in the armpit and I’ve been wearing these jeans for the better part of a week.”

“Like. Casual. Comfortable. And that, that, that t-shirt mm-matches your eyes perfectly,” Blaine tells him.

“You’re just saying that.”

Blaine wrinkles his nose and shakes his head. “No, I-I-I mean it. I like you no mm-matter how you look. But, but, but right now... you look like you’re m-m-m-ine.” Blaine is overtaken by how much he wants to kiss Kurt in this moment, so he does.

They stop on the sidewalk, in a circle of streetlight. Their fingers interlacing, their mouths coming together in a long, soft kiss. They lean into each other and Kurt’s arms come up around Blaine’s shoulders, his lips moving towards Blaine’s ear.

“Thank you for forgiving me,” Kurt says so quietly Blaine almost isn’t sure he heard it.

Blaine’s mouth finds the edge of Kurt’s collar bone and kisses it, before looking at his eyes.

“Of course,” Blaine says. “I think. I think I’ll always be able to forgive you. Because I-I-I know you love me.”

“Good, because I really do love you.”

“And I love you,” Blaine says simply.

They hold each other one more moment, enjoying the warm air, the glow of the light above them, the quiet hum of the busy street one block over. Then they continue on.

When they get to Blaine’s building he gestures for Kurt to follow him. Once inside, they head up a flight of stairs, their flip-flops slapping against the peeling linoleum, and Blaine’s apartment is the first one of the left. As soon as they open the door, they can smell pizza and hear their friends.

They’re draped around Matt and Blaine’s living room, pizza boxes open on the coffee table, the tv on too loud even though no one is watching.

They all leap up at Kurt’s arrival, everyone getting in a turn to hug him and welcome him back. Kurt’s grinning from ear to ear, so happy to see his friends. So happy to be home, to be with Blaine, to not have ruined everything with his insecurities.

Blaine stands to the side, staying out of the fray since he’s had more than his fair share of Kurt today already. He’s thinking about what his life was like a year ago. How different he was, how lonely he was, at home in Ohio, just starting the online lit class. He never talked. He was so afraid of people judging him and finding him flawed or not worth their time. He thought it was better to not ask anything of people, to stay out of sight. He can’t do that anymore, people can see him.

He likes that they see him.

As he’s thinking this, Tina comes over and pinches his cheek. “I feel like I don’t even know you without your beard.”

“Yeah,” Kerry agrees. “It’s been so long. You look about 12.”

Blaine pouts and draws in his eyebrows.

“Oh yes, that’s definitely the face of maturity,” Kerry teases him before settling back on the floor by the coffee table.

When Puck finishes bear hugging Kurt, lifting him off the ground a little even, he approaches Blaine and gives him a quick little slap on his cleanly shaven cheek. “You look fucking young without your face pubes.”

“Fuck you,” Blaine says with a grin.

Puck throws his arm around Blaine’s neck. “But you’re turning 21, huh?”

Blaine bobs his head and smiles.

“We going out at midnight?”

“Do you wah-want to?” He’s responding to Puck, but somehow he’s really addressing Kurt.

“Oh, we have to!” Kurt says, surprising Blaine. “Puck took me out at midnight on my 21st and now it’s a tradition.”

“Well, if it’s tradition,” Blaine says, with a shrug and a broad smile.

Puck throws his hands up in victory and Blaine digs his wallet out of his back pocket.

“How mm-mm-much do I owe, uh for the pizza?” he asks.

It’s Rachel’s turn to pipe in. “Nothing. It’s for your birthday and Kurt’s welcome back.”

Blaine’s smile grows bigger, having that distinct feeling like his face is going to split in two. Sometimes it’s the little things, like your friends (your friends), buying you pizza on your birthday that mean the most.

“Thanks guys,” he says quietly.

“Actually, let me pay for Blaine since I’m young and can’t go out drinking tonight,” Matt says.

“Damn us and our youth,” Tina agrees. “I’ll come up with a way to make it up to you Blaine. I’ll take you out for chicken soon.”

Blaine is overwhelmed by even this small outpouring of generosity, of friendship, so he blushes and lowers his eyes. They don’t know how much stuff like that means to him. They’ll never know how much stuff like that means to him if he doesn’t say it.

Everyone is settling down around the coffee table, Kurt and Matt are discussing the couch that he and Blaine got on sale at Ikea. Blaine stays standing, not wanting to make a big deal, but really wanting to say something. Just say it, he tells himself. Just say it, say what you’re thinking.

“Um, guys,” he says quietly and their eyes turn to him, so he stares at his feet. “This is s-s-s-s-sort of, no it’s rrrr-really corny, buh-buh-ut. I, I, I. I want you guys to know that I’m ss-ss-so happy you... let me, um, like, um, be your friend.” He puffs out a long, slow breath.

Everyone around the table looks at each other.

“I think I can speak for everyone else,” Rachel starts, “and say that we’re happy you finally admit that we’re your friends.”

Blaine laughs then and takes a seat between Kurt and Kerry. Kurt gives him a kiss on the cheek. He’s warm and flushed, but sort of proud of himself.

Kerry turns to him, lightly squeezes his arm and says, “I’m happy you let me be your friend Blaine.”

Blaine is happy. Ridiculously, deliriously happy.