The noise that left Kurt's mouth was positively embarrassing. He's pretty he squeaked or something. Covering his eyes, he muttered his apologies to the boy who just sat patiently on his bed.

"Oh God, Blaine. I'm sorry. Just- I'm sorry." His hand was permanently glue over his face, too shocked to move it and too afraid to see anything he shouldn't.

"Relax, I'm not going to hump your leg or anything. This is my room, I'm lounging. Who needs pants? Fuck pants." Blaine rambled, sitting up so that his back rests against the wall.

Kurt doesn't move though, "Will you at least like, cover yourself or something?"

Blaine raised his eyebrows, "I don't have anything you don't; you realize that?"

Kurt huffed, "Yes. I realize this, Blaine. But even though you are comfortable showing your business to whoever, I'd rather not see it."

"Is that so?" Blaine's voice was low in a way that made a heat pool in Kurt's stomach.

"Blaine." Kurt warned.

"You're no fun." He chuckled darkly, kicking the blanket so that it covered his lower body. "You really need to learn to let go."

"No thank you." Kurt's defiant tone matched his set jaw, "I let go last week and it almost cost me the volunteer credits I need for graduation." He took a breath, trying to calm his anger, "Thank you for that by the way," he added sardonically.

Blaine snorted, rolling his eyes, "It takes two to tango, babe. Or are you forgetting how you practically pulled me onto your lap?"

"Yes, well." Kurt cleared his throat, "That was a moment of weakness, but you started it."

"Are we five, now?" Blaine raised an eyebrow in amusement, "Because," he moved his back away from the headboard, sitting straight up, "I can revert back to the hair pulling ways of my youth." He smirked, letting his leg fall off the side of the bed.

Kurt's stomach twisted hotly at the sight of Blaine's toned calf and the dark hair that covered it in all the right ways.

"Blaine." He's meant it as a warning, but as Blaine flung his other leg off of the bed and sauntered over to Kurt, all forcefulness left him.

"Don't be mad..." Blaine spoke, lifting a hand to brush the back of it against Kurt's cheek.

"Don't tell me what to do." Kurt responded with more power this time.

Blaine pulled his hand away, locking eyes with Kurt. He stayed there, searching for something in Kurt's features. What did Blaine want from him? Why did he tell him to come to his room? Why was Kurt even still here? He should have left as soon as he realized where he was.

The look in Blaine's eyes seemed to paralyze him. Not from fear, but just from the intensity.

"Why are you so hard to figure out?" Blaine questioned softly.

The words broke Kurt from his reverie. He rolled his eyes. "Right. I'm the one who is hard to decipher," he replied sarcastically. "You're the one who is crude one second and then silent and thoughtful the next. Do you want in my pants or are you like, realizing how unappealing I actually am?"

"You'd let me get in your pants?" he deflected, slipping his index fingers into the belt loops on either side of Kurt's jeans.

"Damn it, Blaine! What exactly do you want from me?" Kurt pushed at Blaine's chest, forcing him away, "We're not even allowed to see each other and you have me sneaking around your school, into your bedroom, where you apparently don't wear pants!" Kurt was rambling now but he didn't care, "I just don't really get what- mmf!"

Kurt was silenced by a pair of lips colliding with his own and - oh. That was nice.

Sighing into the kiss, Kurt felt all of his muscles instantly relax as Blaine wrapped his arms around his waist. Kissing Blaine was like nothing that Kurt had ever felt before. The soft slide of his lips, the heat from his body being so close, the pressure of his hand as it rubbed patterns into back. This was definitely something that he could get used to.

As Blaine pulled away from him, Kurt was finally hit with the absurdity of what had just happened.

"What just happened!"

"You kissed me." Blaine supplied with a smirk.

Kurt's jaw fell slack, "I most certainly did not."

Blaine chuckled, and Kurt wanted to smack him, "Mmm, you may not have initiated it, but you definitely responded." He licked his lips, enjoying the taste of Kurt on them.

"Wha- well..." Kurt sputtered, "Of course I responded."

"You didn't have to." Blaine sent him a pointed look.

"I didn't want to be rude?" Kurt tried.

The smirk on Blaine's face only grew. "You like me," he said matter-of-factly.

Kurt rolled his eyes, "I don't even know you."

The grin faded from Blaine's features and he visibly tensed.

"I-" He pulled back even more from Kurt, "I hate what you make me do." All playfulness in his voice now disappeared and Kurt felt on edge suddenly.

"I- wh- you don't have to do anything you don't want to, Blaine."

Blaine shook his head, "I don't know what it is about you." His eyes were looking anywhere but into Kurt's, even though they were surveying the rest of his face. "I want- I want to tell you things and just- I hate that."

Kurt felt a stinging behind his eyes but he held the tears from flowing.

"You- you can't keep everything bottled up all the time, Blaine. It's good to talk to people. I can understand your hesitancy to trust people, but not everyone is out to get you," Kurt explained as gently as possible.

Blaine took a step back, "No. I can't. I don't want this." He was shaking his head rapidly, "I just want to live my own fucking life and not have to bring people into it. I'm fine being alone. I don't need anyone." He was backing up toward the wall, his hands reaching up to fist in his hair and then roughly rubbing over his face.

Kurt was frightened; not only for himself but for Blaine. His breathing was becoming more labored by the second and he kept muttering over and over that he 'didn't need anyone'. When the back of his legs hit the edge of his bed, the reflex caused him to fall to the floor. Kurt fell to his knees almost instantly.

"Blaine..." Kurt tried to get through to him. Tried to reach out through his voice, with his words, but it seemed that Blaine couldn't even hear him.

The tears that threatened to spill earlier were now streaming freely down Kurt's face as he tried to think of something, anything to fix what was happening.

That's when he remembered what Wes had told him when he first met him.

"I'm sure it can happen with other emotions, but pissed and horny are kind of Blaine's default moods, so I haven't seen anything else."

"Blaine." Kurt spoke with as much confidence as he could muster. "Butterfly."

In an instant, the shaking and the muttering stopped. Blaine sat there, catching his breath, staring at the floor in front of him.

"You- I can't believe... You used it." There was a sense of betrayal to Blaine's voice that made Kurt's stomach knot.

"I- Blaine, you were having, like, a panic attack, I- I didn't know what else to do!" Kurt pleaded for Blaine to understand, feeling guilty without even knowing why.

What had he just done?

"You don't even know. You don't even know what it means; what it does to me." Suddenly Kurt was sent into a panic.

It couldn't be that bad. People use it all the time on him. He'd seen people use it before. What was so different?

"I- I didn't... people use it all the time! You- you were-"

"Yeah, but they're all assholes!" Blaine got up from his spot on the floor. Kurt followed his actions, taking a step toward him.

When Blaine held up a hand, warning Kurt to stay back, Kurt bit back a sob from escaping his throat. No. He couldn't be retreating so easily. He'd already ruined this before it started.

"Blaine, please..." Kurt's voice trembled, "help me understand."

Blaine's eyes rose to Kurt's and he saw the glossiness in them, but there was no way Blaine would ever cry in front of him. "You're walking into the lion's den, here."

"Lucky for me, I brought a chair and whip." Kurt smiled softly.

Blaine barely gave a nod, sitting down on his bed, motioning for Kurt to do the same. Kurt followed his suggestion and they sat, legs crossed, facing each other.

Blaine took a deep breath, playing with his own fingers idly, "When..." he cleared his throat. "When I was a kid... my mom used to-" He stopped, his hands shaking a bit.

"It's okay... take your time." Kurt placed his hand on top of Blaine's, effectively steadying them.

Another deep breath from Blaine and he continued, "She used to call me her caterpillar."

Kurt watched as Blaine's cheeks flushed pink, "She used to say that... that she couldn't wait to see what a beautiful... butterfly," he cringed at the word, "I would become."

Kurt's eyebrows furrowed but he wouldn't dare interrupt. "Every night, when she'd tuck me in, I'd pretend the blankets were a cocoon; I'd ask her how long would take before I finally became the beautiful creature that she wanted me to be. She told me that it took a lot of time, but that I'd just know."

Kurt rubbed small circles into the back of Blaine's hand in efforts to comfort him.

"Skip ahead to my sophomore year of High School... when I came out. It was... really hard, as I'm sure you know. Kids that go to public schools around here are assholes. But what really got to me wasn't the shit that those kids would sling at me; it was the look on my parents' faces. My dad was disgusted, though he never said it outright. My mom?" Kurt heard a crack of Blaine's voice at the last word, "I loved her more than anything... she always saw the best in me, wanted the best for me... my dad usually couldn't give two shits. And when I finally told her; told her that I thought- that I knew; that I was finally... finally becoming that beautiful creature that we'd always talked about. She was really happy... finally her boy was grown up. But... I told her that I liked guys... that I wasn't... interested in women... she never looked at me the same. She stopped caring; I wasn't- she wasn't proud of me anymore. I was nothing more than a fucking moth or- whatever."

Blaine waved his hand, realizing that the analogy was kind of ridiculous but not retracting it either. Kurt couldn't believe what he was hearing... he knew that people could be cruel, especially when it came to sexuality. But he could not believe that Blaine's own parents could just write him off so easily. Especially his mother. From what Blaine said and how he said it, it seemed like they had a really wonderful relationship. And for that to change almost instantly just because of who Blaine really was... that was painful, even for Kurt.

"And it- it pissed me off so much that they could judge me so harshly for something that I couldn't even control. So I decided to become what they saw me as... a disappointment. I started stealing, hanging out with all the wrong people, got into fights... yadda, yadda. The rest is history." Kurt still didn't understand completely how exactly the word affected him the way it did but he wasn't sure exactly how to ask.

Blaine seemed to be able to read it from Kurt's confused expression, "Now it's like- when... when someone says it... it's like a trigger word. It causes a reaction that's entirely involuntary. The more force the person puts behind it, the worse it feels."

"Blaine... I-"

"Don't. I don't want you to say you're sorry. I don't want your pity, okay? You wanted to know; I told you. We can move on now."

"I was going to say that I never meant to- to hurt you."

"Oh. Well... right. It's whatever." Blaine mumbled, scooting back on the bed so that he was against the headboard. Kurt rolled his eyes at the obvious deflection.

"So do you wanna, like, fuck?" Blaine wiggled his eyes brows suggestively.

Kurt choked on air, "Blaine!"

"Don't yell that too loudly, they may bust in and find us in compromising positions," He whispered jokingly before reaching forward and grabbing Kurt's shoulders, pulling him down on top of him.

"Why, Mr. Hummel... are you trying to seduce me?" Blaine paraphrased a quote, laughing as Kurt scrambled to get away.

"You're ridiculous," he huffed, finding his efforts to escape to be futile. Though, if he were being honest, he rather liked the feeling of Blaine's arms around him.

Settling to the side of Blaine, rather than on top of him, he let himself just be. For the second time, he was letting go... hoping that this time he wouldn't lead to a similar, if not worse result.