Step by blasted step, Kurt drags his three-piece luggage set up the incredibly long staircase to his loft. He should have taken the cab driver’s offer to lend him a hand, but Kurt doesn’t like strangers coming up to his loft. It’s his and Blaine’s private sanctum, which means no outside eyes allowed…even if he’ll end up getting a hernia protecting it. Did his luggage somehow manage to get heavier since he’s been away? He did pick up a few things for himself (more for Blaine) while he was touring Milan, but he sent most of that ahead by UPS. God, he feels like a third of his adult life has been spent dragging his exhausted ass up these frickin’ stairs at the end of a long day. Blaine is right. Screw living in a historically relevant conversation piece. They need to move to a place that has an elevator. Besides the obvious pros of having a machine at their disposal whose sole purpose is to transport them and their belongings up and down several floors, Kurt can imagine a variety of scenarios that having access to an elevator might allow.

If he wasn’t about to pass out on these stairs, he’d have the erection to beat all.

Kurt decided a week in to his endless string of breakfast meetings/lunch meetings/dinner meetings/fashion previews/consults/photo shoots that he is officially done with business trips for a while. He’s done with traveling in overbooked planes. He’s done with sleeping on stiff hotel mattresses and questionably clean sheets. He’s done with room service that never quite gets his order correct. He’s done with bathrooms that are always too small and too brightly lit, with shower water that never gets hot enough for his liking, and water pressure too weak for what he assumes a so-called “luxury suite” should provide.

But most of all, he’s done going away for weeks and leaving his sub behind. He’d be fine leaving New York for a month if he could take Blaine with him. He would have taken Blaine if Blaine weren’t still preparing for his show (God, it feels like that’s taking forever). Kurt doesn’t give three craps about Blaine’s teaching job. If the school district showed Blaine more respect, Kurt would allow Blaine to make it a priority. But they don’t, so Kurt doesn’t. That fucking job is a situation that needs to change. But as soon as Kurt can, he’s stealing his sub for a nice weekend away, some place tropical.

Some place clothing optional.

Room service would taste so much better if he had Blaine’s toned, athletic body to eat it off of. Kurt wouldn’t care then if his steamed vegetables were limp and tasteless or his foie gras not smoked to perfection. Sleeping on crappy sheets would be passable if Blaine was bound in bed beside him, available for fondling and tormenting whenever Kurt felt the urge. And why would he give a fuck about a cold, drippy shower when he’d have a hot mouth cleaning his cock?

Kurt stops on the step he’s on and closes his eyes. He’s only six stairs away from his front door, and then he’ll have the comfort of Blaine’s body again, the steadfastness of his discipline and obedience to truly make Kurt feel at home.

Must…go…faster…

Those last six steps are the worse, but Kurt bares it, keeping himself from calling Blaine on his cell phone to come out and help since that first glimpse of his sub kneeling at the door is what Kurt is longing for. It’s his light at the end of the tunnel. He doesn’t want to besmirch it.

He expects to see Blaine kneeling on the hardwood floor in front of him, his head bowed, soft curls falling into his face, his muscular back straight, shoulders squared, hands on knees, waiting to be of service.

Kurt sticks his key in the lock and jiggles it once, alerting Blaine to his arrival. He takes one last moment to prepare, then opens the loft door with a grin on his face, which falls the second he looks in.

Blaine isn’t there.

Once the shock subsides, Kurt clamps his teeth in anger. He texted Blaine when his plane landed, and again when he caught a cab to let his sub know that he would be home soon, but Blaine should have been preparing long before then. He should have cleaned the loft, prepared dinner, and showered, as per his schedule. He should be kneeling in the doorway naked with his plug inserted in anticipation of Kurt’s use. But there is no sub at Kurt’s door waiting for him, no welcome to receive him after his long flight home, and Kurt is not happy.

Kurt is about to turn around and leave, go for a walk around the block to calm himself before he does something rash, but he hears Blaine in the loft. Out of curiosity, he stops and listens.

He hears the sound of water sloshing.

He hears a brush scrubbing at the wood floor.

He hears sniffling and whimpering, the aftermath of a hard, violent sob.

He hears the sounds of pain and defeat. They wind around Kurt’s heart and take hold, drawing him inside.

Kurt walks in and shuts the door behind him. He isn’t sure what’s going on, but whatever happens next he wants to happen in private. He doesn’t have to go far before he spots Blaine. At first glance, he’s tempted to laugh, but that’s before he adds the crying to the visual and comprehends a bit more what’s going on.

He has to give his sub credit. He is kneeling on the floor, and he is naked. He’s also covered in purple paint up to his elbows. It’s spattered on his chest and covering his legs. Kurt shudders in sympathy for Blaine. Blaine hates being covered in paint, or anything that even feels like paint. It’s a tremendous trigger for him. When Blaine was a young boy, his older brother Cooper pranked him. He told Blaine that he could help him get the part of The Wicked Witch of the West in his school’s production of The Wizard of Oz, but that Blaine would have to commit to the part. He would need to learn “method acting”, actually become The Wicked Witch by living the role every day. He convinced Blaine to strip down to his underwear in their backyard so that he could help him with his transformation, then pushed him into a kiddie pool filled with green paint. The paint was old acrylic interior house paint that their father had stored in the garage and forgotten about. It was rank and thick, and even though it didn’t cover Blaine’s face completely, he had felt like he was drowning in it. Now even touching paint makes him feel like he’s suffocating.

“Pet,” Kurt says, hoping Blaine will immediately jump to, because that will mean that Blaine won’t have lingered too long in this private horror. He won’t have sunk too far into it, and relived the horrible memories it surfaces. But Blaine’s head doesn’t snap up at the sound of Kurt’s voice, though fear of punishment shimmers in his watery eyes. He raises his head slowly, resignedly, his cheeks red, his eyes redder, tears streaming down and collecting at his chin.

“S-sir?”

On any other day, with any other mess, Kurt would make him finish. He would walk by and go straight to the shower while Blaine scrubs the floor clean, then give him ten lashes with the cane as punishment for not being ready on time. But Kurt has been gone for weeks, and he misses Blaine. He misses his sub Blaine, his friend Blaine, his lover Blaine. Now’s not the time for discipline. Besides, it looks like Blaine has managed to punish himself more than sufficiently anyhow. Now’s a time for reconciliation, and above all, a little exposition.

Kurt needs to know exactly what it is he just walked in on. He has his suspicions, but he needs Blaine to tell him so that they can work through the fallout to come.

With Blaine’s eyes on him, Kurt undresses, carefully peeling the clothes from his body and laying them over a chair. Even without the homecoming he was so looking forward to, there’s an immense relief that comes from stripping down, the last few weeks lifting from his shoulders as he removes his shoes, tie, shirt, and pants. When he’s naked, and his clothes out of harm’s way, he opens his arms to Blaine. Without hesitation, Blaine leaves his brush and pushes off the floor. Still covered in wood soap and paint, he runs into his Dom’s arms. He’s shaking all over, the tremors in his body almost strong enough to bring them both to the floor.

“I’m sorry, Sir,” Blaine says with a new wave of tears. “I’m so so sorry. I’m…I’m sorry…” Blaine shudders in Kurt’s arms, and Kurt tightens his embrace. Whatever happened while he was gone, it must have been pretty intense. Before Kurt can iron out their next course of action, he needs to take care of his boy first. He can get the floor professionally cleaned. And Kurt can celebrate coming home another time. Those are not the issue.

Blaine is more important right now.

“Come on,” Kurt says, holding Blaine steady as he limps on sore legs, probably bent and pressed into the wood floor for hours as he tried to clean up his mess. “Let’s get showered, let’s get you spanked, and then, my pet, we’ll have a talk.”