"Thanks. That is so sweet, and really, I just texted your Dad..." She glances at Kurt's raised brows, explaining with a shrug, "Well, Finn's cell really, but your Dad had offered to come here and drive me home as well. But I've already called my Mom, so I'll be fine."

She lifts her eyes fully to Kurt. "But you tell him thank you again for the offer, when you come home."

Her voice changes ever so slightly. "And will you tell Finn that he can stop texting me? Tell him we'll talk tomorrow."

Now she does look tired. Kurt sighs and tilts his head at her: "Why didn't Finn come to get you? I mean, he got thrown out, but he can drive, right?"

Her brows arch and twist but her eyes are down again. "Well, Coach Sylvester called your Dad to get him, and from what I understand, he's sitting at home, pissed at everything... Whatever." A dismissive wave of her hand. Then she turns to leave, but not without another short smile. "Anyway, we'll be seeing each other, I guess..."

While they get into Blaine's car, Kurt searches his pocket for his own cell.

"Oh, come on!" He rolls his eyes as he holds the phone up for Blaine to read, the latter buckling up his seat belt.

'Dude, are you alright? That really sucks!'

A text message from Finn. One of a dozen.

Blaine smiles gently. "So, someone has at least let him in on the outcome. What about it? It's sweet, he worries about you." Kurt snorts. "Yeah, I just assume that when he knows, then he was surely not able to hold his..."

He looks to check and is confirmed. There is a text from Burt as well: 'Just say when I need to come and pick you up, too.'

At that a little irritation rises in Kurt, because he has done nothing wrong here that would call for a disciplinary escort home by his parents, but he brushes it away just as quickly. He knows that's not how his Dad has meant it. Burt is simply worried and being protective.

Kurt exhales slowly. " Great, I had hoped we could somehow get that all past my Dad..." He huffs and turns his face to look out of the window as Blaine starts the engine.

He feels his boyfriend study him from the side, but Blaine seems to have decided not to inquire further. He probably just knows by now, Kurt thinks. That Kurt gets just as protective about is Dad as his Dad gets protective when his son is concerned.

The short drive is silent, with Kurt still inwardly reeling in the events of the night, longing to at last arrive at a place where he will be able to just let it all slide off.

He can sense the same in Blaine.

When the car comes to a halt, Blaine pauses, waits until Kurt looks up at him. Kurt clears his throat and makes his voice sound light. "Will you come in for a while? I don't want to do this alone..."

A blink of warm brown eyes starts the slow smile that lifts one corner of Blaine's mouth. "Sure." Kurt lets their eyes lock for a moment, until the blush reaches his cheeks and he falters.

He quickly moves to get out and glances at the backseat, to where the cheap crown and the sceptre have been thrown without care, but makes no move to pick them up.

They try to shut the car doors gently, but Finn already has come out on the porch, Burt and Carol behind him.

"Great". Kurt snorts under his breath, but only with half his heart. "And here comes the royal welcome party." Blaine struggles to make his grin not too obvious and nudges lightly against Kurt's shoulder as they start walking.

Burt is surprisingly easy to calm, once Kurt has given him enough time to take in how his son is not devastated and scarred for life, but instead glowing with his best take at a little worn out yet overall contented expression.

Kurt looks around in the room, and all the people gathered there. His Dad probably has already used up a lot of his energies earlier with Finn, he muses. Although Finn seems quite alright now, not really crushed by how the evening has turned out for him. He just keeps telling Kurt how sorry he is, that he couldn't have been there.

It wouldn't have made much of a difference, Kurt tells him.

Carol is patting Burt's back, as he half-sits on the side arm of the chair, leaned forward with hands on his knees, listening to the two boys who lay out the story in plain and unagitated words.

At one time Kurt doesn't know where to rest his eyes, when Blaine relates the part of the story where Kurt accepted the dubious vote.

Blaine's words are clear cut and easy like his demeanour, but somehow his speech colours with an emotion that his tone is brimming with. Carol lowers her eyes in a smile and Burt stares thoughtfully at Blaine, who for his part seems blissfully oblivious. Not unlike Finn, if not blissfully for that matter, but who just sits wide-eyed, obviously lost in his own thoughts.

When they have ended, and Burt has stopped his routine of either shaking or nodding his head gravely in considering the matter, huffing while turning it over in his head, he looks at Kurt for a long moment and then at Blaine, who has slumped a little in the couch, his Blazer discarded at the wardrobe earlier, lids now lowered considering his hands in his lap.

He almost jumps when Burt speaks eventually, and addresses him directly. "It's getting late, kid."

Burt pauses, and suppresses a glance to Kurt, as Blaine sits up, brushing his hands off at his pants. Burt sighs, but his tone is all practical when he continues.

"You don't have to drive home now, call your folks and if they're okay with it, you can have the guest room for tonight."

Kurt's eyes fly from his father to Blaine. If his boyfriend is startled for a moment he covers it up smoothly, and Blaine's smile to Burt is genuine.

"Thank you, Mr. Hummel, that would actually be great. Don't mind if I just take you up on that offer."

Burt nods, and Kurt can't tell if his Dad has slightly rolled his eyes in amusement, when Carol cuts in.

"Alright, boys, let's go get upstairs, I'll give you some sheets and I am sure you can have a shirt to sleep in and a spare toothbrush from Kurt..." She looks at each of them respectively, all warm smiles, and then gestures to Finn to get going as well.

Kurt waits and listens to Blaine make his call, how he explains shortly that it has gotten too late for the drive home, and answers the rest of the questions Kurt cannot hear rather monosyllabically and with a set of stifled yawns. Kurt's heart beat already starts to accelerate when they climb upstairs, where Kurt reaches for the cuff of Blaine's shirt, and leads him into his room, lightly kicking the door closed with a small noise. Just for a moment, his look tells Blaine.

Their hands find each other's shyly, and they just stand, facing one another, bodies ever so slightly swaying without their mind catching on, eyes searching for the other one's.

A quick clasp of Blaine's hands on Kurt's, light as the whisper itself. "Thank you for tonight."

Kurt's lashes flutter and he declines the words with a nod that brings his chin closer to his chest while his shoulders come up in a half-shrug.

"Please, you had to dance with me in front of everyone, when I know you weren't comfortable and didn't want to do that."

Blaine lets his breath escape slowly for punctuation as he waits for Kurt to meet his eyes. His tone is a statement of its own, low and binding.

"After all it turns out, I did want to do that." Then a smile that Kurt can't quite place at first tugs at Blaine's features. "And they kind of asked for it, so..."

They both chuckle and let the sound lose itself in the silence acknowledging the truth of the words, each just leaning into the other more, as Kurt's mouth comes down to rest on Blaine's shoulder, simply smiling and breathing warmth through the fabric of his shirt for a while. Blaine seems content just letting him.

When Kurt suddenly tenses, Blaine's head turns as if trying to listen to the other one's thoughts, cheek brushing the side of Kurt's neck.

"Maybe I should have gone after Karofski."

At that Blaine blows out his breath through his nose, which actually sends a shiver down Kurt's spine. "Nah, he'll be alright, I'm sure."

"I kind of pressured him a little." Still spoken softly against Blaine's shoulder.

"Why, what did you say?"

Kurt lifts his mouth up only a little, annoyance at himself swinging in his tone.

"That this was his chance to make a difference, his chance to come out. I realize that might have been a little pushy, I just thought, after I had gone first, he might just..." He lets the thought trail.

Blaine's cheek now presses against Kurt's neck with a slight but sudden vehemence, that carries in his voice as well.

"You're right, you went first. You turned this joke on them, made it your triumph..."

Kurt snorts at the word but Blaine never stops.

"But it was just that, Kurt, and I was so... I don't know, proud and in awe, when you stood there, and just brushing them off with a joke, facing them really, like I mean, really, the way you looked right at them...

My heart just kind of exploded only thinking I might be in any way affiliated with that amazing person up on that stage, and being scared was really not a part of it anymore..."

Kurt can't help but smile at they way Blaine is rushing through the words, almost stumbling at times, hands tugs and pressure on his own as his boyfriend gestures his agitation, murmuring ceaselessly against Kurt's neck.

"It was just that feeling of 'in their face', and look, this is what it means to be the bigger person, this, and you are so freaking amazing and gracious and generous to give me the chance to tag along in this, I mean... You did it, and they had to admit that you owned it, and they clapped and they better had, and if Karofski could not take you up on that offer to bask with you in your spotlight, well I could."

Blaine's chest is working to find a rhythm for his breath again after that.

Kurt pulls away a little to turn soft but thoughtful eyes at Blaine, voice only a little above a whisper.

"I did not own it, that's not what it felt like."

Blaine meets his eyes, faces still so close that it is merely a gesture, as he listens up.

"I just pulled through somehow. I mean, it was like I remembered my resolution and how I had wanted to make it look and sound, if I even had that much of a plan. I just said what my brain left me with, but I felt so... singled out, and not in a good way..."

Kurt's eyes are lowered as he speaks, so Blaine just places his lips lightly against Kurt's cheek, that little contact providing so much more support for Kurt's entire body than Blaine will ever know.

Kurt's chest lifts then falls.

"I did not even see their faces then, I mean, of course, there were the spotlights kind of blinding me, but actually I was just... I mean, I heard their applause, but it just meant nothing to me then, it just tuned in with that roaring inside my ears..."

Now he is babbling, but he just can't control the flood of memories rushing in.

"So I heard the word dance, and I hadn't thought that far, and when he just left me standing there it was the same all over again. I felt so left alone with myself and everything inside me just became hard somehow, and then I heard your voice, and it was like, how could I forget? I am not alone..."

While he speaks, Kurt clings closer. And it only registers with him on an intuitive level, how their bodies ever so softly fall into a replay of the dance from earlier this evening, yet this time it's a more subtle, more intimate and genuine variation.

Kurt's hands grasp firmly onto Blaine's shoulders, making it more a hug than an actual dance, and his chin and mouth are once more pressed to the collar of Blaine's shirt, but even with all of Kurt holding on so tightly to his boyfriend once more, he is only now slowly becoming more at ease with it all than he has been the entire night.

Blaine has wrapped his arms lightly around Kurt, thumbs kneading without a conscious mind to make them, stroking at Kurt's back to relieve tension, both gently rocking on their feet to relax tired muscles and just feel each other move as one.

Then Blaine simply tightens their embrace, pulls Kurt all to him, sinking into him, breathing out.

Kurt's eyes close against the feel of soft curled hair against the side of his face, and just holds fast for the sake of it.

And natural as their arms around each other, their dance evolves into a kiss of the same kind. Warmth and touch, slow and sensual. Kurt sighs his agreement. Lips linger, simply feeling each other and not stopping, mouths and tongues move smoothly across each other, pressing against, loosening, yet never losing contact.

The knock on the door makes them jump, muffled as it has been.

"Boys, it's getting late." Burt's tone is only mildly strained, but Kurt knows he'll be waiting outside for a reaction. He wrings out a clipped "Yeah, Dad, alright!" and blushes over his voice cracking a little. He hurries to collect the toothbrush not really looking at Blaine, and grabs one of his favourite soft cotton shirts for Blaine to sleep in.

When he opens the door, Burt is still waiting behind it, arms crossed but shoulders slumped to take the edge off the posture. Kurt as much as ushers Blaine out past Burt, pushing the shirt and toothbrush against his chest, eyes only slightly avoiding his Dad who he swears is chuckling good-naturedly under his breath. Blaine nods a shy smile at Burt, and Kurt suppresses the impulse to shove him forward, to get going. "Come, I'll show you the guest room."

***

Kurt lies awake long after that, hands behind his head and eyes refusing to close. The echoes of the evening's aftermath just won't seem to wear off. Surging through him not in so much actual thoughts, only a few jumbled ones, but more in the mere lingering excitement of it, keeping his nerves strung too tight yet his senses dulled in that constant buzz of tension.

His body moves before he's made the conscious decision. He is sliding out his door in his pajamas on bare feet when he hears a rustling across the hall, and Burt's heavy footsteps on the stairs.

Kurt suppresses a groan at his impeccable timing. But once more his body takes the course by instinct feel, and he surprises himself by just turning, calmly, and facing his Dad. Who is taken aback maybe even slightly more by the way his son just stands there, not like deer caught in the headlights, but only flushed faintly, composed and waiting.

Burt still raises a sceptic brow. "And where do you think you're going?"

Kurt's breath hitches in his chest as his own thoughts stumble over what the answer to that actually might be, and more, what it means, and how he can articulate that.

He musters all confidence he can find inside and connects his eyes to his Dad's for a long moment, not so much imploring as actually searching to figure it out.

His lashes only flutter a little at the calm voice he barely recognized as his own.

"Dad, if I promise, that nothing would happen..." He shrugs awkwardly for a pause, Burt's eyes growing slightly wider. "I... I just want to be with him...," then softer..., "next to him..." The words trail of, but Kurt manages to look up at his Dad again, waiting for what he isn't quite sure he should be expecting.

Burt considers him for a long minute and neither one moves, thoughts rattling visibly behind warm green eyes under a slightly furrowed brow.

Then, with a sigh and a soft noise in the back of his throat, Burt breaks their eye contact and brings himself to shuffle on to his own bedroom, voice a light shrug that Kurt knows instantly has not come as easy as he makes it sound.

"You do what you think right, Kurt."

At that, Kurt lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding.

His body twitches with involuntary movement and his heart suddenly builds speed at this turn of events, making him almost dizzy.

"Kurt?" Burt calls him back from a little further down the hall. Kurt looks at his Dad whose eyes seem to twinkle even in the dark, Burt's chin up in a demand for attention, the rest of his face grave and a little tired. "This means for tonight, not... in general... "

Kurt's eyes snap down to the floor in an embarrassed stare, his nod stiff as he silently complies. And Burt leaves it at that, trots on, head slightly shaking to himself. Kurt lingers another moment to gaze mindlessly after him, then turns and walks up to the guest room door.

And suddenly he's not so sure anymore if this is such a good idea. His gut clenches a bit, senses alert but his limps feeble, and he slowly pushes the door open, before his mind can stop him.

"Blaine?" His voice is loud enough to carry through the room. The dim light only allows his eyes to recognize shapes, but after a second he sees some form working to sit up on the bed.

"Kurt?" Kurt's heart jumps at the tight whisper so full of worry and question and alarm and all at once, and Kurt moves in silently.

Again. "Kurt?" Now with a light tinge of reprimand and nerviness. " Kurt, if your Dad... "

Kurt cuts Blaine off with a shrug, now close enough that he is sure Blaine can make it out. "He knows."

He thinks he sees Blaine's eyebrows shoot up, and it makes something inside him tingle. Yet Kurt shrugs once more, maybe just as much to calm himself as to show Blaine it's okay, as he sits down on the bed. And with that the self-consciousness kicks in, reliable and right on time. Kurt decides to skate over it for now. "I think I kind of have a pity bonus tonight... " He smirks in the darkness. Blaine's expression does not seem to have changed, and Kurt finds himself searching for Blaine's eyes for as much as the dark will give away. He braces up.

"I said I just wanted to be next to you, nothing more, just not... be alone."

Now Blaine's face relaxes a little in understanding, even if at the same time Kurt thinks he sees his shoulders tense. It's merely a tender sound let out with a breath that reaches Kurt's ears. "Oh." Then even softer: "You can't sleep?"

Kurt just shakes his head.

He swallows. And then he just crawls in under the covers, even if he has no idea where the courage to do that comes from right now, and even if he does not dare look at Blaine while doing so. But Blaine moves over a little and lies down as well arranging himself next to Kurt, whose heart is hammering by now.

They end up on their backs, shoulders and forearms touching through the sleeve of Kurt's pajamas their only contact, staring at the ceiling yet seeing nothing.

Kurt takes a breath. Then another. Maybe that really has not been a good idea. He does not want things to be awkward, after all.

If anything he is starting to get even more tense now, making Blaine tense too.

He listens to Blaine's sounds beside him and wrecks his mind for something to say. In the corner of his eye he thinks he sees Blaine is smiling, and he believes he hears it in his breath as well, but he can't be sure.

Then Blaine's hand is on his, nothing but soft warmth, fingers intertwining, and a thumb stroking gently. And for a second Kurt half-wonders how his whole attention can pool into a touch as simple as that, but then he just gives in to it.

And suddenly the idea gets better and almost good enough, as he feels some of his tension slip.

He did sleep next to Blaine once before, if you could call it that, because Blaine pretty much blacked out the moment he hit the bed, and Kurt curled up at the far side. In fact, he didn't sleep at all, or at least it didn't feel like much, because he was kind of angry and annoyed then. And yet he listened to Blaine breathing the entire night.

But of course they were not together back then.

Kurt remembers and has to hold back a chuckle. He's not sure he will sleep much tonight either, as the weight of the evening still ebbs away with some reluctance.

And on top of that his senses are wide awake, strained and aware of the body and person next to him. It has been filling him up with a slow building hum of self-consciousness, along with the thrill of simply being there.

Then Blaine speaks suddenly.

"Kurt, what you did tonight, I..." Kurt listens, and although Blaine hesitates, Kurt can't really tell it from his tone then, but the way the words do blurt out unprompted, makes him wonder if Blaine is just as nervous as he himself is.

"I mean, although I really hope that you would have done that for your sake alone as well, if things had been different, I... "

Kurt watches Blaine's lips form soundless attempts at words in a side glance until his boyfriend finds his voice again.

"I just...I am so glad we could have been in this together, and I am so glad you convinced me to go, and did it your way, and you were right, that lump... I just feel... "

Blaine struggles for the right way to convey his meaning, eyes wide and wandering and Kurt just lets him. Eventually he settles.

"I feel like I, no, ...like we could do anything."

And even as he is saying it, Blaine already shrugs it off a little, big words and a self- deprecating chuckle, and Kurt can feel the movement as the mattress passes it on. Yet Blaine's face is beaming in the dark with simple elation.

He turns his face to Kurt like in a gesture to inquire and see if he is getting across what he seemingly knows not how to express any better.

Kurt is sure his smile must be evident even in the dark, and he only lets it fade slightly for a moment as he speaks.

"I really don't know what I would have done if I had been alone." He considers the colours of the ceiling for a minute. "I think I might have just run away." He pauses and his eyes stop roaming the view above him. His head moves so he can meet Blaine's eyes, his hand still in the other boy's renewing its grip.

"But then thinking about the ifs is rather pointless, don't you think, since yeah..." – and he makes his voice a caress in itself - "We are together in this."

Their faces turn towards each other and just stay like this for a moment, content with feeling each other's warmth, radiating from their skin and breath.

Blaine's hand presses a line of unspoken thank yous to Kurt's and Kurt thinks he blushes for no one to see it in the almost-dark.

But the moment passes, or becomes something else, rather, far too quickly for Kurt's liking, as the nervous cuts in again. It suddenly is too much to just hold Blaine's gaze and once again Kurt is so hyper aware of Blaine's body next to him and his own body tensing at the notion, that he rearranges himself closing his eyes for a minute. He wonders if Blaine can tell. Actually he wonders how Blaine could NOT tell, since he feels he is really making a fool of himself here, when he doesn't even know how exactly he is doing it. He just feels he is.

But he tries his best to make his breath come evenly and there should be nothing to it, right, because he was not lying, it's really not like he actually wants to DO something more than just lie next to each other.

At least for tonight.

He snorts his frustration a little before he can stop himself, and then jerks to cover the sound up in a movement and a little shifting and then the things his body does just get a little ahead of himself, and Kurt comes to lie on his side towards Blaine.

The notion hits him that turning back now would look stupid, so he lets himself slide a little down in the pillows, ignores the thundering in his ears and brings his lips to the side of Blaine's arm where his shoulder is still covered in cotton. And it's not a kiss, it's just like before, rubbing then resting his nose and mouth against the fabric and the warmth beneath, and the hand that does not still hold Blaine's between their bodies shyly comes to land close to his own face, where Blaine's chest merges into his shoulder. His fingers twitch a little as he does almost not dare let the full weight of his hand settle.

Although Kurt thinks he felt Blaine's shoulder tense a little, when he nestled against it, other than that Blaine has yet to move.

The urge to say something is overwhelming, even if Kurt cannot fathom if for Blaine the silence is an uncomfortable one. He moves his lips only slightly away from Blaine's arm. "Can I do this?" He considers adding a flimsy excuse of not being able to get to sleep when remaining in one position for too long, because come on, you do get kind of stiff and then your legs start to ache...

But then he just says nothing, because he feels Blaine nod against the mattress, and hears "sure" from a voice that is a little raw, and Kurt just presses his mouth to Blaine's shirt again, and this time he is not so certain if it is not something like a kiss, or if he'd even be able to tell the difference, when he finds his attention scattered all along the places their bodies touch or almost touch now, down to where he can actually feel the body warmth of Blaine's legs against his bent knees under the covers.

He tries to keep his eyes closed even if they feel like they're not ready to, and will himself into some semblance of calm, but sleep just is so far away right now. He thinks he should be closer to Blaine than ever before, but he has absolutely no idea what could be going on inside that head only inches away from his at this moment. Blaine could be half asleep, for all Kurt knows, since he lies still and his breath seems to be in control, and his hand in Kurt's does not stir.

Kurt's attention jumps back to his other hand on Blaine's shirt – well, his shirt, really – and how warm the spot has become under his palm. And with that thought his arm involuntarily jerks a little, only to have his hand tentatively lay itself down some inches closer to the centre of Blaine's chest. Again the surge of excitement that this little gesture brings nearly swamps Kurt. Never had he thought he could be so self-conscious about a small innocent act like that, or just how much it would matter.

Beneath every tiny expanse where the pads of his fingers make contact, he can feel Blaine's chest through the thin cotton. The heat, the firm and lean muscle... Kurt even thinks he can make out a little bit of soft hair under the fabric... and then Blaine's heart beat.

Kurt feels his very own speed up even more in answer to the strong and fast thumps pulsing under his hand.

And now Blaine shifts a little, not enough too wiggle away from Kurt, but enough to tell that he is not sure about this, Kurt assumes, and Kurt moves his arm down to rest lightly around Blaine's waist on top of the cool of the covers.

Blaine lets out a long breath and they lie like this for a little while, and Kurt begins to think he might just be able to do this, the turmoil in his chest subsiding a little.

He starts slightly, when Blaine works to push up and rolls over to lie on his side the same ways Kurt does, facing him. And Kurt is still trying to adjust and wrap his mind around this new position, when Blaine leans in to kiss him. The sensation shoots straight down to Kurt's guts and lower.

He makes a sound in surprise and something else, but his thoughts just lose track.

Although he never saw this coming, he responds immediately without a mind to it, and at once revels in the contact of Blaine's insistant wet mouth on his own. It is simple and without pretence, open lips and enough emphasis behind it to convey something more than their usual sweetness.

Kurt gasps only faintly, but Blaine stops, before the kiss can gain a momentum beyond their control, and they just lie, a little struck, staring into each other's eyes.

At the edges of his sight Kurt sees their chests heave with subdued effort, and he wonders how anyone can feel so thrilled and yet anchored all at the same time.

He watches the emotions debate and alternate behind Blaine's features and knows his own expression is probably just as open, talkative and telling.

It's like a conversation of their own, when their minds don't really catch on.

They do this a lot, Kurt knows, but it never ceases to amaze him, how every time anew it seems to absorb his entire focus until the room is swimming around them.

Now, something inside him feels just set, like they are let in on something neither of them can put into words or even coherent thought. And there is no need to, anyway.

Blaine's lids flutter shut and open again ever so slowly, like he is trying to sober up a little, and he takes another long moment and several breaths until he speaks. By then his voce is warm and never flinches.

"We should try to sleep." His thumbs caress Kurt's hands which he has come to hold between their bodies, instinctively, while their minds were somewhere else, fingers playful and intertwined.

Kurt nods, a little reluctant to snap out of the moment, but the thought does make sense to him somewhere inside.

Blaine leans in again and presses another kiss to Kurt's lips, this time all soft and gentle and more a gesture than anything else. He moves away slowly and their eyes meet once more, before he leans back into the pillows, and Kurt lets go as well.

Blaine shifts a little against the sheets to make himself comfortable, and Kurt resumes his former position without thinking too much, his one hand joining Blaine's again on the covers, the other one now curling into the fabric of Blaine's shirt a little less shyly, and he lets a hum leave his lips touching them to warm cotton once more.

Blaine turns his head against the pillows to look at him again and that gets Kurt's attention. A murmur, a little rough at the edges. "You have no idea what that does to me."

Now Kurt actually looks up, eyes wide in honest question, voice rather high pitched: "What?"

Blaine breathes a smile and in answer just looks at Kurt's lips, a strange expression flickering over his features, and just lets his eyes rest there even after he has made his point.

Kurt feels the flush rise to his cheeks as he can only stammer: "I didn't mean to... I just wanted... Should I stop?"

At that, Blaine's head cocks a little to the side, and the smile stretches, not so much on his features but in depth somehow, eyes sparkling in distant amusement. If at himself or at Kurt, Kurt cannot make out, but it doesn't really matter, because all about Blaine is brimming with warmth and affection, as he draws out the single syllable, soft tone firm. "No."

Something wells up inside Kurt and he hides a snicker behind that almost-grin on his face, when he brings his head down quickly. He can hear Blaine chuckle deep in his chest, too, and Kurt gives in to the impulse and presses another short kiss to the spot at Blaine's shoulder, not more than a fluttered peck, really, then settles to lie more comfortably and places his cheek where his mouth had been.

When Blaine's other hand comes to rest lightly on Kurt's forearm at Blaine's waist, Kurt releases a long contented breath, that makes Blaine chuckle some more.

And after that, even if it still takes a while and thoughts stray indistinctly, sleep does find Kurt eventually.