“So, what did you get for number 23?” Kurt asks, crossing his fingers in hopes that he got the answer right.

“Number 23? Oh…uh…what was that one again?” Blaine asks, talking louder than usual to be heard above the shower spray.

“It was the one about the Battle of 1812,” Kurt prompts. He watches as Blaine, visible only in silhouette behind the white shower curtain, stops washing his hair to think. Kurt waits for a response, and meanwhile, a pregnant pause grows. Obviously, Blaine doesn't remember. Kurt, obscured from Blaine's view by the shower curtain and a thick fog of steam (which is killing Kurt's coif, but doing wonders for his pores) rolls his eyes. It must be nice to be so secure in your intelligence that you don't freak out after a test the way Kurt is right now.

Back at McKinley, Kurt wouldn't have been this nervous. But the classes at Dalton are much harder, college level even. Besides, he has to give himself a little credit. He jumped in head-first in the middle of the semester, whereas everyone else, Blaine included, has had months, if not years, to get used to things around here.

Yup. Sounds good. Kurt's going to stick with that.

Kurt waits a minute longer for an answer, then sighs in frustration when he doesn't get it (or jealousy, but they're so closely linked at the moment, he's not sure which is which).

“What were the causes of the long and bitter conflict…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Blaine says, sputtering while he scrubs his face. “The War of 1812. I remember. The answer to that one was C.”

Kurt squeezes his fingers tighter. “Are you sure?” he asks.

“Oh, absolutely,” Blaine says, turning off the shower water. “It was C. Cutting off trade with America.”

“Oh thank God,” Kurt says, breathing easy again. If all of Blaine's answers are correct (and they probably are) then Kurt only got one wrong. He can deal with that.

“Do you feel better now?” Blaine asks, chuckling at Kurt's unnecessary worrying. They'd gone over that chapter at least five times the night before. There's no way either of them could have gotten that question wrong.

“Much,” Kurt says, resting against the tile behind him and tilting his head to the right to watch Blaine dry off. Even in shadow form, Blaine's gorgeous, but Kurt tries not to stare. Blaine's in the shower…naked. If Blaine peeked out and caught him, he might think it was creepy.

Though after last night, it seems that Blaine might be okay with creepy. Kurt bites his lip and tries not to giggle, because then Blaine would ask what's so funny, and Kurt, who can't lie convincingly on the spot to save his life, might admit that he was thinking about their kiss from last night…or from around 2:30 this morning.

Didn't Blaine say something about kissing some more after they took their history test?

Kurt wonders if Blaine remembers the way he swore he would.

Inside the shower, Kurt sees Blaine wrap a towel around his midsection, and in his mind, Kurt boos. Blaine gathers up his various bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and body wash, and stows them into his net bag. He reaches for the shower curtain to pull it back, then stops, his hand gripping the edge. “Uh…is there another towel out there, Kurt?”

“Let me take a look,” Kurt says. He sweeps his eyes around the empty bathroom, at the bench he's sitting on, and the sinks lining the opposite wall. Blaine rarely ever uses the communal bathrooms at Dalton. His suite has a private one, but some issue with the plumbing forced him to use the showers that the majority of the students normally use. When Blaine mentioned that he'd be taking his post-boxing practice rinse in the hallway bathroom, he asked Kurt if he wanted to grab a bench and keep him company.

Kurt nearly jumped out of his skin before the words, “Yes. Yes, of course,” made it out of his mouth.

“Uh, no, I don't see one,” Kurt says. “I didn't see you bring two in. Just the one.”

“Oh,” Blaine says, sounding surprised. “Um…would it be incredibly rude of me to ask you to run to my room and get me another one?”

“Of course not,” Kurt says, standing from the bench. “Is there some part of your body that one towel doesn't cover?”

Kurt meant it as a joke, but it ended up sounding more R-rated out loud than it did in his head.

“You could say that,” Blaine admits with a partial, but slightly self-depreciating, laugh.

Kurt has never heard that insecure a tone in Blaine's voice before. He lingers, thinking he should probably let it go and not embarrass Blaine by pointing it out, but he's too curious.

Blaine's his friend. His best friend. He should find out if something's bothering him.

“Something you want to talk about?” Kurt asks, hovering over the bench, ready to leave in case Blaine says no.

“Well, uh…” Blaine starts, then stops again, and Kurt sits back down. It must be something major if it can make Blaine - co-captain of the Dalton Academy Debate Team, currently undefeated eight years running - stammer that way.

“Yeah?” Kurt says, trying to sound encouraging without screaming, “Tell me! Tell me! Tell me!” which might not be well received.

“It's just…you haven't seen me, yet…”

Kurt gasps quietly. No, Kurt hasn't seen Blaine naked. He hasn't even seen him shirtless. That's probably what Blaine wants the other towel to cover – his upper half. So, maybe Blaine is as insecure about his body as Kurt is? Kurt wouldn't have thought so. Blaine always seems so much more comfortable in his skin than Kurt.

“…without an incredible amount of gel in my hair.”

Blaine finishes his statement while Kurt is still mulling over the idea of Blaine not wanting Kurt to see him naked, so Kurt doesn't grasp his meaning right away.

But when he does, Kurt finds himself caught between reactions, neither one better than the other.

“Wait,” Kurt says, “that's what this is about? You don't want me to see you gel-less?”

“Well…not exactly, I guess, but…” Blaine sighs, unable to come up with a more plausible excuse than the truth. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

Kurt snickers, feeling awful when he sees Blaine's shoulders droop.

“You really didn't think I thought the way you glue your hair down is natural, did you?” Kurt teases.

“No,” Blaine replies. “No, I didn't. I just think…you know…you might not like the way it looks…without the gel.”

Kurt stops laughing when Blaine doesn't tease him back. He didn't realize till now how much of an issue this is for Blaine. But Blaine has to have showered in front of other guys before. He's in at least three different organized sports teams on campus. People have to have seen his hair come un-glued at some point.

Or maybe Blaine's not worried about those other guys seeing him gel-free. Maybe it's specifically Kurt's opinion that matters.

After their kiss, after the promise of more, Kurt kind of hopes that's the case.

“Blaine, honey,” Kurt says sympathetically, “I'll go get you that towel if you really want me to, but I promise, I'm not going to make fun of you or anything.” Kurt stands from the bench and approaches the shower, putting a hand lightly over Blaine's where it still grips the edge of the curtain. “It would mean a lot if you shared this with me.”

Blaine doesn't answer, but he's thinking so loudly, Kurt can hear it, up until Blaine exhales.

“Alright,” Blaine says. “Alright, just, please…try not to laugh?”

“I won't laugh. I would never,” Kurt promises, letting go of Blaine's hand and taking a step back to give Blaine room. Kurt goes the extra step of training his gaze toward the floor, and waits for Blaine to appear.

When Blaine steps out of the shower - his skin damp, covered by a towel from the waist down, leaving much of his well-defined body exposed - his hair is the last thing on Kurt's mind. In fact, it takes Kurt a moment to remember that that's where he's supposed to be looking. Kurt is fiendishly thankful that Blaine is too pre-occupied to notice how his eyes stop midway up his body and hang there, tracing the lines of his abs for a minute too long. Blaine shifts uncomfortably in anticipation, and Kurt's gaze jumpstarts again, traveling up Blaine's body from his torso to his head. There Kurt sees an attractively mussed mess of curls, begging for Kurt to touch them.

“May I?” Kurt raises a hand, but waits for permission. Blaine nods, and Kurt reaches out, burying his fingers into Blaine's curls. They're cool and silky, and just another aspect of Blaine for Kurt to adore. “And…what exactly am I not supposed to like about this?” Kurt asks, running his fingers through the tangle of Blaine's locks. Touching Blaine's hair like this, combing through it with his fingers, feels oddly intimate in a way that has nothing to do with the fact that Blaine just came out of the shower and is wearing only a towel.

It feels like getting to know him from a whole different perspective – a less guarded one.

“Mmm,” Blaine hums, leaning in to Kurt's touch as Kurt's fingertips massage his scalp with every pass. “Just wait. You haven't seen it completely air-dry. And with the humidity in here, it's going to get worse.”

“How much worse?” Kurt asks, sounding suddenly serious.

“Well, have you ever seen Jiffy Pop popcorn?” Blaine asks, his smile shy even as his eyes focus in on Kurt's lips. “How it quadruples in size before you take it out of the foil?”

Kurt laughs, lost in that image of Blaine's hair getting bigger and bigger as it dries, so much so that he almost misses Blaine's arm slip around his waist, pulling him closer.

“We should probably get you away from all of this steam then,” Kurt suggests, seeing the first of Blaine's dry, baby fine hairs, spring away from his fingers to rejoin the collective.

“Yup,” Blaine agrees, his boyish bashfulness bleeding into a look so sultry that Kurt can't help but notice. “Well, then maybe we can go back to my room and continue our conversation from this morning.”

Kurt raises an eyebrow.

“So you do remember?” Kurt asks, actually impressed.

“Did you honestly think I was going to forget? That kiss was…”

“Short,” Kurt cuts in.

“…amazing,” Blaine finishes. “And like I said, I've wanted to do that forever.” Blaine realizes how close to Kurt's lips he's inadvertently gotten and tightens his grip around Kurt's waist. “I'll bet it's going to be much better now that I'm awake.”