Blaine had never imagined he'd be having less sex when he was engaged and living with Kurt than when they'd both been teenagers under their parents' roofs.

And yet here he was, engaged (engaged!!!) and cohabitating with Kurt in New York… (New York with Kurt, his soulmate, the love of his life, Kurt, his fiancé (fiancé!!!), so beautiful and perfect and loving and adorable and sexy and, oh god so sexy with his legs and his mouth and his voice andthat ass and… snap out of it Blaine).

Here he was, engaged and living together with Kurt in New York and he was so sexually frustrated he could cry.

Blaine had been accepted into both NYADA and Tisch and after some agonizing mental conflict, a ton of crumpled pros and cons lists and another panicky speech from Kurt about the time they'd watched the Bachelorette together and horrible horrible nasty breakups (which had led to another Talk), Blaine had finally chosen NYADA's creative music-writing programme over Tisch.

And now, two months later, he was absolutely content with his college life. Where Kurt's theatre class was full of competition, drama and overinflated egos, Blaine's was actually laidback and interesting and… fun. He had also managed to land a part-time job at a music store near NYADA that paid well-enough that he could pitch in on rent for the Bushwick loft and still have enough money left to treat Kurt with the occasional bouquet of flowers.

And then there was the fact that he got to live with Kurt – sleepy kisses in the early morning sun, snuggling behind him while he made tea, gently caressing the ring on Kurt's finger when they held hands on the subway, lunch in the NYADA courtyard listening to his soft musical voice, their own regular coffee shop, breaking out in duets in the middle of making dinner, cuddling on the couch marathoning TV shows, going to sleep with Kurt's smile warming his heart…

Blaine was living the life he could only dream of just a year ago and for a dark painful period of time, had lost all hope of ever having. In fact, he would pretty much just call his life absolutely breathtakingly perfect.

Except for the sexually-deprived part.

It wasn't for lack of trying on his or Kurt's side. In spite of their busy schedule, with Blaine's classes and music store job, and Kurt juggling NYADA and Vogue and auditions for different plays, they'd worked out a system to make time for each other. And it was definitely not for lack of enthusiasm when they finally did get together in the privacy of their makeshift room. They would happily stay in bed and fuck each other senseless all week if they didn't have practical hindrances like studies and work and stupid adult obligations.

No, the deplorable state of their sex life could be attributed to two major problems. And those problems were Santana Lopez and Rachel Berry.

Rachel had initially tried to be a good roommate. She really had. Sure, her brand of trying had included exaggerated winking followed by pointedly turning on the white noise machine at night when they went to their side of the loft together. Or giving them a maniacal double thumbs-up whenever she left them alone at the loft. All of which had resulted in any mild libido taking a rapid nose-dive because, as Kurt put it, “Having sex when she most certainly thinks we're having sex is just really creepy for some reason okay”.

And they'd just been getting over that minor setback when the singing started.

Three weeks ago, Rachel had landed understudy for the coveted role of Fanny Brice in the Broadway revival of Funny Girl. And any passing thoughts for the welfare of other people had instantaneously been steamrollered into oblivion. Not a second had passed since then that she hadn't been practicing; belting out notes and pitching scales at all hours of the day, till Blaine caught himself entertaining ungentlemanly thoughts of stuffing her mouth with socks one evening.

And the mood wasn't exactly conducive to quick and passionate early morning sex when they could hear her rattling pipes and wailing in the shower like their very own personal Broadway-obsessed banshee.

If Rachel was contributing to their blue balls by utterly self-absorption and inattention, Santana's contribution was being a little too attentive.

It was like she had some sort of extra-sensory perception that told her exactly when they were about to have sex. Every time Kurt and Blaine were on the edge of really getting into it and were just naked enough for it to be absolutely mortifying to get walked in on, Santana would materialize out of nowhere with a smug smirk, her eyes unabashedly fixed on them as they jumped apart and scrambled to cover themselves. And then they'd sit through days of relentless teasing where she made multiple crude jokes about their sex life, leery comments about their physical aspects (the time she'd spent talking about Blaine's butt after she'd caught him naked on top of Kurt had been particularly scarring) and then left mildly-disturbing neon-pink sex toys on their bed.

All of which resulted in extreme embarrassment and a complete lack of orgasms. Blaine was slowly going insane and he could tell Kurt wasn't that far behind him.

But the straw that broke the camel's back came one bright Sunday morning.

Rachel's voice woke them up early, loudly calling out that she was going out for an early session with her vocal coach as she closed the loft door. Santana wasn't yet back from doing whatever (or whoever) she was doing last night.

Blaine turned to look at Kurt and saw the exact same thought formulate in Kurt's mind and two seconds later, they were tearing off each other's clothes like a pair of sex-crazed hormonal teenage boys. Which was, admittedly, exactly what they were.

Kurt was just going down on Blaine for what promised to be a spectacular blowjob and Blaine was moaning wantonly, getting lost in the perfect heat and the sounds and Kurt, when an incongruent crunching noise caught his attention and made him pause.

Kurt pulled back from Blaine's dick with an indecent pop, and their heads whipped towards the sound simultaneously, to find – Santana, standing there, lazily munching on cereal while watching them like they were a vaguely intriguing television program.

They both stared back at her, frozen in dull horror.

“I can give you some tips on how to take him in deeper if you want,” Santana offered Kurt matter-of-factly as she walked in closer, still munching her cereal, eyes unwaveringly fixed on them, “I have to say though, Bowties, I'm impressed. You pack quite a lot for such a tiny person. Knew there had to be a reason for Hummel to be mooning over you all this while.”

She winked at them lewdly, an approving smirk directed at Blaine's dick and that was The Absolute Last Straw.

*

“We have to move out,” Blaine heard Kurt's terse voice above him.

An “Mmgh?” was the best Blaine could manage in reply.

He was slumped over their favourite table at their favourite little coffee shop, trying to regroup his scrambled brain. It had been an hour since Santana had walked in on them yet again and after too many times of almost-coming followed by a cold shower the past few weeks, Blaine nerves were absolutely fried.

“I said, we have to move out, Blaine,” Kurt repeated, sounding even more terse and wound up.

With supreme effort, Blaine pushed himself upright in the chair to face Kurt, whose jaw was twitching the way it did when he was particularly angry and frustrated.

“How?” Blaine asked tiredly, rubbing a hand over his face. “We already talked about it when I first moved into the loft. We just don't have enough money to afford our own apartment.”

“Well, that was before you got your job at the music store and I got that pay-rise from Isabelle,” Kurt said, determinedly, pulling out a wad of napkins and a pen like he was readying himself for war, “Let's draw up a new budget, I'm sure we could manage it.”

“But considering the cost of rent it wouldn't make that much of a diff…,” Blaine began but stopped himself when he was confronted with the patented Kurt Hummel Bitch-Glare.

One of the keys to a successful engagement is knowing when to stop so you don't get stabbed to death at pen-point in the middle of an innocuous coffee shop by your sexually frustrated fiancé.

“Alright,” Blaine agreed meekly to avoid imminent death, pulling a napkin towards himself and fishing out his own pen.

An hour and three coffees later, Blaine was back to being slumped over the coffee table, the picture of pathetic wallowing, and the twitch in Kurt's jaw was worse than ever.

 “I'll just have to take up another job,” Kurt bit out, feet tapping out an annoyed rhythm against the floor, “I don't care what I have to do, but wecannot go back to living in that loft anymore. I actually caught myself considering dragging you to the bathroom here just to get off.”

Blaine's head shot up. That was a brilliant idea.

“Let's do it!” he exclaimed, because god please anything.

Kurt stared at him like he was crazy. Maybe he was.

“No!” Kurt said vehemently, looking horrified. “We are not doing that, who knows what sort of germs that place has and its sure to smell and it's inpublic Blaine, oh my god just, no.”

Blaine slumped back onto the table.

“Maybe we should just rent out a seedy motel room for a day,” Blaine mumbled into his arms.

“Why is it so hard to just get a place for ourselves in this stupid city,” Kurt huffed in frustration and Blaine made a noise of assent.

A few moments passed and he felt Kurt's fingers gently running through his curls.

“Quite apart from the sex benefits, I just really wish we could have our own place,” Kurt said softly above him and Blaine looked up to find that small, loving smile trained at him.

A warm glow lit up in Blaine's gut and spread throughout his body.

“I wish it too,” he said quietly, propping his chin on his hand, drinking in Kurt's open, beautiful face across from him, “A place that's completelyours, no one else, just you and me.”

“Alas we are just penniless college students,” Kurt proclaimed grandly, taking Blaine hand across the table and grinning at him, “We'll just have to put up with annoying roommates and dream of better living conditions for now. And get into the habit of going to seedy motel rooms with questionable sheets.”

Kurt winked at him, still grinning and Blaine grinned back, flushed and happy despite his terminally-ignored dick, because he was in New York and in love and with Kurt and engaged and he leaned in to kiss Kurt's mouth when –

“Blaine?” he heard behind him.

Blaine drew back and turned to find a tiny, sweet old lady with close-cropped white hair smiling at them, standing next to a taller woman who was looking at them with a twinkle in her eyes.

Blaine focused on them for a moment before his eyes widened in recognition.

“Liz? Jan?” he asked, incredulous, rising to hug them both, “what are you guys doing here?”

“We live here, honey,” Liz said, hugging him back and patting his cheek while Jan winked at him, “and look at you! My, you are even handsomer than I remember.”

Blaine blushed and pulled up two chairs to his and Kurt's table so the two women could join them.

“You live here?” Blaine asked, as they sat down, “I thought you worked at the ring store in Ohio?”

“Oh no, honey, we were just visiting family in Ohio,” Liz said, with a laugh, “The store belongs to my nephew and he was understaffed so I offered to help out.”

“And is this your Kurt?” Jan piped up, winking mischievously at Blaine, “Great catch, boy, he's hot.”

Blaine blushed some more and turned to Kurt, who was watching the proceedings with an uncertain smile, eyebrows raised inquisitively at Blaine.

“Remember I told you about this awesome couple I met at the ring store? Who helped me pick out our engagement rings and talked to me?” Blaine explained, gesturing to Liz and Jan. “This is them.”

“Oh,” Kurt's eyes widened, and he turned to the two women, “it's wonderful to actually meet you! Blaine's told me so much about you.”

“And he's told us a lot about you,” Liz said, smiling at Kurt and reaching forward to pat his hand, “and we see now he wasn't exaggerating when he described how amazing you were.”

Kurt blushed furiously, turning to smile at Blaine who could feel his brain turning to warm happy mush the way it did every time Kurt smiled at him. His loving smile, soft blue-green eyes full of affection holding Blaine's gaze steadily, the early-morning sunlight turning his hair golden-brown, skin flushed with happiness; he was just so beautiful, how on earth did Blaine get so lucky?

“Ohhhh, they've got it baaaad,” Jan's voice snapped them out of it and they turned away, ducking their faces bashfully.

“Look! Jan!” Liz cooed, eyes trained on the matching rings on his and Kurt's fingers. “They're engaged! You've got to tell us the details!”

And the next ten minutes were spent in oohs and aahs and a lot of doting on the rings, while Kurt and Blaine narrated a slightly-edited, nudity-free version of their proposal story.

“And what are you both doing now?” Jan asked, smiling at Blaine fondly, while Kurt went to get refills for them all.

“Kurt and I are both in NYADA,” Blaine replied, “he's a year above me doing Musical Theatre and I'm majoring in Music Writing.”

“Musically-inclined, hmm?” Liz smiled, “Me and Jan can't hold a tune to save our lives. Any spontaneous duets by the fire to speak of?”

“Only every other day,” Blaine admitted with a grin.

“And what about your living arrangements?” she asked them both as Kurt returned with their coffee, and settled in his chair.

“We share a loft in Bushwick with two roommates,” Kurt replied, some of his earlier annoyance and frustration seeping into the word ‘roommates'.

“Not a happy arrangement then?” Jan asked, picking up on his tone.

“Oh no, we love them, they're like family,” Blaine said, “it's just…”

“They are killing your sex life?” Jan asked shrewdly.

“Jan, quit embarrassing them!” Liz exclaimed, as Kurt and Blaine blushed furiously again.

“But it's so much fun, look at them,” Jan quipped back, grinning.

Kurt cleared his throat, trying to collect himself.

“We'd just like a little more time to ourselves,” he said delicately, tilting his head up, blush still high on his cheeks. 

“In fact, we were just now trying to figure out if we could afford our own place before you guys joined us,” Blaine said, gesturing to the napkins full of numbers strewn over the table.

“Didn't work out?” Liz asked, sympathetically, as Jan pulled their calculations towards herself to study it.

“Even if we pool in more than three-fourth of our money, we can't afford to rent our own apartment,” Kurt said glumly, picking at the edge of a napkin.

“We'll figure something out,” Blaine said to Kurt, taking his hand and giving it a gentle squeeze, watching Kurt's mouth curl slightly upwards in reply.

When they both faced forward again, Jan and Liz seemed to be having some sort of silent conversation.

“You know, Liz and I live in a three-story house only a few blocks from NYADA,” Jan said, turning back to them.

“We never really wanted kids so we never had any, but lately we've been getting kind of lonely, all alone in our house,” Liz continued, smiling at them gently.

“And we were thinking of letting out our studio for rent. It's in the top floor of the house and it's not much…”

“Jan used to paint there when she was a professional artist but now that we've retired, she's just moved to our drawing room.”

“And we weren't going to ask much for renting it out, since it's unused anyway, so it should fit right into your budget, if you want it,” Jan finished, nudging the napkin containing their calculations.

“Would you both like to come with us now, take a look at the place?” Liz asked.

Kurt and Blaine stared back at them, overwhelmed, before simultaneously letting out an enthusiastic resounding “Yes!”

*

“So, do you guys like it? Would you like to live here?” Liz asked, peering at them hopefully while Kurt and Blaine stared around the studio, stunned.

“We can't possibly let you rent it out to us at such a low price,” Kurt said, sounding slightly strangled as he looked around, “it's worth at least thrice as much as what we can offer!”

“Yes it'd be a steal at such a low price, so close to NYADA too,” Blaine agreed, staring around in awe and longing.

“Oh, nonsense, it's just a dingy old studio,” Jan said, waving off their protests.

The “dingy old studio” was actually a huge rectangular room with a polished wooden floor, not unlike their practice classrooms at NYADA, except smaller, with a slanted ceiling made entirely of glass windows on one side, which let in abundant sunlight. There was a small kitchen island on the far left, separating a tiny kitchenette from the main studio and a door opposite it leading to a cozy room with an adjoining bathroom, which had obviously been used as storage/resting room, with a single large window letting in the late summer sunlight. It was cozy and modern and comfortable and bright.

It was perfect.

Blaine could already imagine him and Kurt there, their things scattering throughout the place, little touches of the two of them intertwining, making this place theirs.

He quashed it down viciously. It'd be unfair to take advantage of the two wonderful women and their kindness and take this place for such an absurdly cheap rent. Still, he wanted…

“I know you boys think we'd be letting it out too cheap,” Jan broke into their musings, rightly reading their hesitance, “but we really would lovehaving you here.”

“We'd rather you both lived here than two complete strangers. You'd be doing us a favour too,” Liz added, moving forward to take Kurt's hand in hers.

Kurt turned to look at Blaine, wavering.

“We wouldn't object to the occasional gourmet dinner cooked for us,” Jan said, with a grin, “Blaine mentioned you are an excellent cook, Kurt.”

“And perhaps a musical performance by the fire every now and then,” Liz added, “we have a beautiful piano in the living room and neither of us is any good at it.”

“And frankly, we just want to secure our bragging rights,” Jan said impishly, “so when you both make it big we can say ‘Kurt Hummel and Blaine Anderson lived in our old loft, didn't ya know?'. It'd drive the women in our knitting club insane.”

They were all laughing at this point.

“So what do you say?” Liz asked, smiling up at them.

Blaine turned and saw his thoughts reflected back in Kurt's eyes.

“We say yes,” Blaine said, voice high with happiness, “you both are insane and we can never thank you enough for this, but we say yes.”

Liz squealed and hugged Kurt enthusiastically, while Jan patted Blaine on the back.

“Oh you don't know how thankful we are too,” Jan reassured them, “things have been rather boring and quiet around here since our retirement. We're going to love having you around.”

“Well!” Liz said, clapping her hands, “we'll leave you two alone to talk it out! Jan and I will be downstairs, come join us in the living room when you're done here!”

With that she ushered Jan out, leaving Kurt and Blaine alone.

Kurt looked around the studio, still looking rather overwhelmed, and turned to Blaine.

They stared at each other for a second before Kurt's face broke out in a giddy smile, toothy and crinkly and adorable.

“This is going to be fabulous!” Kurt exclaimed, voice turned squeaky in excitement. “We have to pick out colour palettes, and um, curtains! And I'm fighting Santana for those vintage flea-market chairs, even though one of it has Brody's bare ass imprinted on it. They'd go perfect with the kitchen island, don't you think? Oh and are we getting matching mugs? We are definitely getting matching mugs, Blaine! And also, mmfh!” For Blaine had lunged forward and kissed him because how could he not? His fiancé was the most adorable being on the entire planet.

They spent the next few minutes merrily making out in the middle of their future home-to-be before Kurt pulled back, mussed and breathless and lovely.

“Our very own first apartment together,” he stated, voice full of wonder, arms still wrapped around Blaine's neck, “Just us, no one else.”

“Just us,” Blaine repeated, hands roaming up and down Kurt's sides and grinning maniacally, before moving in for another kiss, this one much less chaste, full of heat and desire and want.

Which was how Jan found them when she wandered up two minutes later.

Kurt and Blaine broke apart, flushed red and sheepish, when she cleared her throat loudly to get their attention. Blaine was convinced his face was going to be stained an unattractive blotchy pink for the rest of eternity from all the blushing he did today.

“Well,” Jan said, drawing out the word playfully, as they tried to straighten out their clothes, “I was going to invite you boys down for some tea, but I see you're otherwise occupied.”

“We'll be down in a minute,” Blaine replied as politely and dapperly as he could with one side of his shirt untucked and his bowtie unfurling.

“Uh-huh, take your time,” Jan said, winking at them as she left.

Kurt slumped against Blaine, face still red. “Well, that was embarrassing.”

Blaine opened his mouth to reply when Jan's head popped back in through the doorway.

“I nearly forgot to tell you! This place's soundproof, so don't worry about being loud.”

Kurt spluttered as her head disappeared from the doorway and they could hear Jan laughing loudly as she walked away. Blaine grinned to himself as Kurt continued to splutter and moved forward to silence him with a kiss.

He could get used to this.