There was something going on with Kurt Hummel.

I wasn't sure what precisely, or why, or how I'd even come to that conclusion, but of that fact I was almost certain.

It all started one day after glee club. He was supposed to drive me home 'cause my mom had revoked my driving privileges since I nearly crashed into a stop sign the other day, and I was in the parking lot, hovering near his car, waiting for him to come out of school.

4:35...

4:38...

4:46...

4:51...

I was beginning to get worried and had made half a mind to get my ass off the hood of some random dude's car and go find out if he was okay. Maybe Karofsky had been hanging around and-but there he was, coming out with his bag slung over his shoulder without a care in the world, smiling at the phone in his hand and pocketing it before coming over to me. I gave him a look that he didn't acknowledge; actually, I don't think he even saw me.

"What's going on?" I asked him curiously, offhandedly, as if it was a random comment and trying not to show my irritation at the fact that he'd kept me waiting for more than fifteen minutes for him to come out. I had to repeat myself twice before he realized I was speaking, and even then, he took a while to answer, and then sighed, something in his face dampening a little as he gave me that over-the-shoulder look of distaste that he sometimes gives me, and asked me what I was talking about.

I let it drop; I didn't want us to argue.

But it became more and more obvious, more often that he slipped into his own world, dazing off in conversations, not caring that much when Mr. Shue didn't give him a solo; I think I might even have seen him brush it off when some dude slammed him into a locker before I could get there. Not that I would really have stopped them, back then, but still. It was like he was living in some other universe where he was happy. A spontaneous smile all of a sudden, a spark in his eye out of nowhere...

I started to wonder if he'd lost it.

Then the whole wedding thing happened, and Kurt transferred schools to that Dalton place. I never thought I'd miss him that much, but it really was like something was missing at school. At home it was the same, though we had less things to talk about. Burt and mom were still working on finding a new place, and meanwhile I was sharing a room with Kurt. I didn't mind that much anymore. I think he was already over me; I hoped so.

And then came the phone calls. We were watching TV –or well, a football game was going on in the screen while Burt and I discussed how bad that team was and Kurt read some sort of magazine on the couch next to me, pointing one or two things out to my mom every once in a while- when the phone rang.

"Finn, pick up," mom asked me, not looking up from her book. I frowned at her. "Make Kurt pick it up, he's closer to it." Kurt scoffed and turned a page, not moving a finger. "Just pick it up, honey." Grumbling, I reached around Kurt, making sure to knock his magazine over, getting a slap on the arm for that, and bringing the phone back to my ear.

"Hello?" I greeted, yawning accidentally, my eyes glued back to the screen.

"Hi. Is Kurt there?"

"Yeah, sure, hold on." I tossed the item next to me on the couch. "It's for you."

Kurt snapped his magazine shut and held the phone up. "H-hello?" he said carefully to the receiver, and then froze, a small smile creeping onto his face as he abandoned the magazine and left the room. It didn't occur to me to think that it had been a dude on the other end, calling Kurt, until later at night when I was lying face up on my bed, staring at the ceiling.

"Who was that?" I asked randomly, scratching my elbow a little.

I saw Kurt's small pale features frown in confusion at me. "Whom was who?"

"Y'know, the dude that called you."

"Oh, just a friend from school."

"Okay."

Again, I dropped it at that, not really wanting to get into detail. But whoever it was, I hadn't seen a smile that real on my step-brother's face since our parents' wedding.

Then there was that day that Kurt forgot his phone at home while he went out with somebody –Mercedes, I think he'd said- and left it lying there on top of his counter on the other side of the room. I hadn't even thought about going through it, not even really realizing it was there before it started buzzing gently, shaking me out of my video-game daze for a second, before going back to it. After a few minutes of vibrations coming from the thing, I grudgingly paused the game and went over to see whom it was that was calling him so desperately. I checked the screen; 4 new text messages.

It really was none of my business; I have no idea why I did it, but I clicked on 'read'. They were all from a contact he'd named Blaine.

7:38PM – Ttyl xo

7:37PM - Nvm found it

7:31PM - Think I left my scarf ur place

7:28PM – U home?

And there were more read ones from him. I scrolled down, for some reason. A lot of the messages dated a few months earlier said 'Courage'. Feeling intrusive, then, I put the phone down and stuck it into a drawer to prevent further temptation. Vaguely, something in the back of my mind nagged at a thought that I'd kinda barely noticed. Kurt hadn't really been around home that much lately. Sure, he slept here and all but...after school, he always stayed late to do some project or the other, he was making 'lots of friends' and went over to their places a lot as well... weekends? I remembered that before he spent them in his room, watching fashion shows or online shopping...now I didn't even see him. Might have had something to do with Rachel and I getting to second base more often than not, but still.

I may not be the smartest pea in the pod, but I'm a dude, and dudes have intuitions about stuff. And whoever this Blaine guy was, there was definitely something going on between him and my step-brother. I decided to ask him about him the next day during breakfast, as he drank some orange juice, scanning the news, and I slurped down Cap'n Crunch.

"Who's Blaine?"

My question made him jolt slightly, and I could see a red tinge appear on his pale cheeks. "Why do you ask?" he replied, a little suspicious. I tried to look innocent as I shrugged.

"No reason. So who is he, huh?"

"A friend."

"Really." The sarcasm was dripping off my voice and onto the floor; I'd have to mop it up later.

"Yes."

"Alright, dude."

Once more, I didn't push it. If Kurt was denying it, then he didn't want to talk about it, and...though I cared a hell lot for him, maybe I kinda didn't want to have the boyfriend talk with him either. At least not yet. Had I been hoping that he deemed my question ridiculous and cleared up any doubts that he was anything more than a platonic friend? Maybe. Did it have something to do with the fact that I couldn't wrap my mind around the idea that Kurt could have a boyfriend? As in...two dudes? Again; maybe. Either way, we were both cool with this arrangement.

The next time Blaine was mentioned between us, however, it was Kurt that brought him up.

"Do you remember Blaine?" he asked me one Thursday afternoon, while I was trying to figure out how trigonometry even worked without a freaking calculator, and he'd been sorting his CD's in alphabetical order or something. I didn't look up from my paper, and nodded. "Well um...he'd...I'd like you to meet him sometime."

The offer was so casual, so completely and totally normal that he caught me off guard. "Sure. He's your friend right? From Dalton? The one in the glee club?" I inquired with half a mind; he'd mentioned something like that when Burt asked him who this guy was that kept calling him. Kurt's back was still to me as he arranged disks.

"The very same..." his voice trailed off, as if he were thinking of something else, and I stopped for a moment from my math homework to glance up at him, kinda intrigued. "He's gay."

"Oh." The word escaped my lips before I could help it. But it wasn't the disappointed or put-off kind of 'oh'. Just the whoa, you totally just snuck that in the middle of a random conversation kind of oh, and I blinked a few times. "Are you two...?" I pointed my finger at him, waving my hand in the air and giving him a look so he understood what I meant.

Kurt blushed deeply and averted his eyes. "Just because we're both gay doesn't mean we're together, Finn," he replied in that totally superior tone of voice that he tended to use a lot around me; kinda made me feel stupid sometimes, but whatever, it was Kurt, he was my brother. That's what brothers were supposed to do, right? Make each other's life a living hell most of the time, annoy the crap out of them, tease them mercilessly and bond in rare occasions?

"Oh." My coherency was overwhelming tonight. Kurt cleared his throat, "Anyway, I was thinking maybe he could come for dinner tomorrow, since dad and Carole are going to the movies." I nodded, unsure of what else to say, already having an inkling that I was going to feel like such a third wheel tomorrow. "You'll like him, don't worry," Kurt continued speaking, his back to me again, as he continued organizing his stuff with a spring in his step now. "He actually has quite a bit in common with you. He loves college football, he's obsessed with that Black Operations game you haven't left since it came out...I swear, he's hooked onto that thing! It's even worse than that time when all he would do was quote the Sex and the City movies. I couldn't get him to stop all week." He laughed, and I kinda stared for a bit, forgetting to feel creepy about it because Kurt's eyes were really bright and his shoulders were relaxed and even his hands, as he moved around disk cases, were open and inviting, not curved in some way, as if ready to hide at any moment.

I think he realized that I had spaced out from his words when he turned around to see why I hadn't answered, and I didn't know what to answer to, so I just said, "Awesome," and returned to my homework, glancing up once more to see Kurt smiling to himself. When you're watching your little brother fall in love, there's only so many feelings you can actually figure out. Protectiveness, maybe, jealousy, in the way that he now got to spend most of his time with him, pride, happiness, and a little sad. It was too confusing for me; too many feelings, too weird. I decided not to give this another thought until Kurt confirmed it, though, to me, it was pretty much stamped across his forehead in bold.

I met Blaine the day after that. Kurt had cooked some sort of really complicated, really weird French thing that I couldn't pronounce for my life, and a chocolate...something else that I couldn't pronounce but which smelled heavenly. I didn't really know what to do with myself. There weren't exactly many people I could consult about how to act when you're going to meet your step-brother's gay friend-but-totally-boyfriend alone in your house. In the end, I just kinda slumped on the couch and waited for the guy to show up.

The doorbell rang and Kurt yelled that he'd get it, so I merely looked over one shoulder as I watched him get all flustered and fix his hair before opening the door. I couldn't see very well from my position, but there was a guy with short black hair, a little shorter than Kurt, I think, who leaned in and -Kurt turned his face and he kissed his cheek. I looked down at my hands awkwardly, not knowing what to say or do. I decided to pretend I hadn't seen that and stood up to greet him. Stuffing one hand in my pocket, I walked over and grinned at him, sticking out the other for him to shake. Kurt was hanging at his side, kinda like he belonged there. See what I mean? I was becoming poetic from my nerves.

"You must be Finn," the other-Blaine said, shaking my hand with a firm grip and then pulling back. There was nothing too overly flamboyantly gay about him, I noted, and something in his confident, easygoing expression made me kinda like him. "I'm Blaine."

"Yeah," I replied, as if caught in the act. "I know. I mean...yeah you...yeah..." I trailed off lamely, sticking my other hand in the other pocket and shuffling my feet awkwardly. Blaine chuckled as Kurt closed the door behind him. "So you go to Dalton?" I asked him, making small talk, I knew it, he knew it, Kurt knew it, who cared.

"I do," Blaine agreed, walking over to the living room, pulling Kurt along as if they'd done it many times before, and I instantly noted the hand-holding, and pressed my lips together, even more awkward. Well, shit. This was even worse than when I'd gone to Breadstix with Santana and Brittany. Though Blaine and Kurt weren't ignoring me, they were being pretty couple-y, even if my brother kept trying to deny it, and was now blushing furiously, muttering something under his breath. I sat down on the other couch, facing them. Blaine sniffed around and turned to Kurt. "Something smells good..."

"Really? I think I burnt it," Kurt replied sarcastically, his face still flushed and those blue eyes bright like I'd seen them so often lately.

"Please, Kurt," Blaine said, turning to me. "Tell me he's not the best cook you know." Just shine the spotlight on me, why don't you. Kurt was still looking at Blaine, though the question was addressed at me, with a mixture of adoration and shyness that made me want to hug him or something.

Instead, I nodded. "Totally. You should try his brownies," I said, smiling at Kurt, who was trying to hold his chin up and act like he expected this, but I knew he was flattered by Blaine's attention. Not mine, this time. I could see that much.

"Oh, I have," the other replied laughingly. "Ever tried getting flour on his clothes? I swear-"

But Kurt cut him off. "Hey, hey, still here, guys," he announced loudly, waving a hand in front of Blaine's face. As if he hadn't realized that, I thought. "Blaine, why don't you tell Finn about that time with your uncle in Los Angeles?" he prompted lightly, nudging him with his shoulder as I watched, kind of intrigued at the whole chemistry going on. Blaine laughed and shook his head, but finally gave in, and leaned forward to talk to me.

The rest of the evening passed by in the same manner; Blaine complimenting and doting on Kurt at every chance he got, while the other faked nonchalant and blushed like crazy, and I tried not to run out the door from embarrassment and the feeling that I was intruding on something even though it was my house. The flirting was almost tangible, and I made a mental note to tease Kurt about it later on. I had to admit that Blaine was pretty cool, though. He was really outgoing, and apparently wasn't acquainted with the term 'awkward'. At least Kurt knew how to choose them, I figured.

"Thoughts?" Kurt asked immediately after closing the door on Blaine, and turning to me.

I nodded encouragingly. "He's alright."

"Alright?"

"Pretty cool."

"Pretty cool?"

"What do you want me to say? 'I want to marry him'? That's your job," I replied cheekily, turning the lights off the living room and dining room before heading down to the basement room, Kurt at my heels, now blushing, predictably.

"I'm not going to marry-"

But I cut him off, swiveling on the spot and nearly causing him to run into me. "Your boyfriend's a really cool dude, Kurt. I'm glad you're happy," and with that, turned around and headed to the bathroom to get into boxers and a t-shirt for sleep. This time, Kurt didn't refute the fact.

It was about two or so months later that I think he started to fully trust me with more private stuff. Not that kind of private stuff. Gross. Bad image... Boobs! Okay. Anyway. He kinda stopped getting awkward discussing Blaine with me, not that I wanted to discuss Blaine but...I kinda dumped a lot of Rachel crap on him, so I let him know it was okay for him to do the same. And trust me when I say Kurt had crap to dump. Take Wednesday; they'd gone shopping or something and Kurt came back, slamming the door and face flushed, full rage style. I may or may not have hidden in my bathroom for a while. Angry Kurt was not a nice sight to see. But apparently he did wanna talk, or I suppose, since he knocked on my door three minutes later – we'd moved houses by then, to a larger one, and we had separate rooms now, which was like, a ton better. Not that I didn't like sharing a room with him but...every guy likes his own room.

Thing is, he came in and sat down on my bed, looking at his feet. "Don't you sometimes feel like all you want to do is drown somebody in tears and scratch at their throat until they bleed their words out and can't argue with you any longer?" His voice was quiet and he looked deep in thought.

I didn't say anything for a while, trying to picture what he'd said happening to Blaine and wanting to throw up from the gory in my head. Maybe I shouldn't have watched so many horror flicks. "Uh...not so graphically, but I get what you mean, yeah."

"Even if you love them?"

"Especially if you love them." Where Yoda-me had come from, I have no idea, but apparently Kurt was satisfied with my response, because he relaxed and let whatever crap was building up inside of him out. I admit I kinda snapped away from his monologue a few times. Not that I wasn't listening! I was. But...uh...can't quote word for word. Kurt tends to talk a lot, and use really complicated words and talk really, really fast when he's mad. It's confusing. Point was, Blaine had done something or the other that had pissed him off, they'd ended up fighting and he'd stormed off. Rachel would have been proud of him.

The shirt I had been folding –out of nothing else to do, I don't fold shirts usually- had somehow turned into a ball of fabric in my hand as I listened, and I let it drop on the floor, where it'd previously been. "You'll make up." It wasn't much, but it was true. "You always do."

"I know."

And that was the end of the discussion. We stayed there, saying nothing, for some time, before he eventually got up and left to his own room.

Around that time, also, Kurt started getting more risqu�. It was about a month before summer, and Blaine would be graduating. Apparently, they felt like they needed to make up now for the time apart that they'd have. It was on more than one occasion that I stayed up to open the window for him. Yeah, Blaine kept pulling a Romeo.

"No way, dude. There's a limit to this thing," I refused one night, shaking my head and returning to Call of Duty, pushing at buttons hurriedly. Kurt stayed where he was, hands on his hips, pouting at me. I decided not to look; I'm not good at handling pouts.

"You're going to stay up anyway! Come on, Finn...just this once."

"It won't be 'this once', though."

"...fine, but...please?"

"No."

"I covered for you last time!" he exclaimed, moving to stand in front of the TV so I had to pause my game if I didn't want to get shot and killed.

I sighed in exasperation. "Why can't you just tell them? It's not like you're going to some stripper bar, dude, your dad will let you."

"Go to a bar after midnight? Right. Just go with it, Finn?" He was glancing at his watch now, bouncing impatiently.

"You owe me big time, bro."

"You're amazing."

"Yeah, whatever, go make out with your boyfriend," I mumbled, going back to my game. Kurt laughed and shoved me gently before skipping away. Damn, he was whipped. Well, in his defense, so was Blaine. Even more than him, I could have sworn, if that were even possible. Whatever, boy drama, not my thing. However, midnight came and went, and no Kurt appeared. One in the morning. No Kurt...it was half past two and I was starting to freak out over it, calling him desperately, making half a mind to tell my parents about it, when there was a loud rapping on my window. I left my skin behind and reached the moon in one second, diving to open it. "ARE YOU FREAKING INSANE?" I yelled-whispered at him, leaning down to grab his hands and pull him over. I waved at the car in the corner, as was usual, letting him know Kurt was safe, before Blaine drove away.

"Whaaat?" he mumbled, turning to look at me and giggling. "You have bags under your eyes, Finn."

"No thanks to you, stupid," I replied, weighing the pros and cons between shooting, strangling, and drowning him before realizing he was swaying. "HOLY SHIT are you drunk!" I flipped and almost knocked a lamp over as I scrambled towards him. Kurt's face was rosier than ever. I leaned in to smell his breath and groaned. "What the hell, Kurt!"

"Maybe a little tipsy...no need to make a fuss about it." And he had the nerve to complain. I slapped my hands to my face and took him by the arm, dragging him to my bed and practically tossing him there.

"You suck. I hate you. I'm sleep-deprived because of you. And now you're drunk and I have to take care of you. Dammit!"

"Janet."

"Wha-?" I turned to look at him, and he started laughing loudly. I clamped a hand over his mouth. "Ssh! Do you want to be found out?"

"Sorry," he managed to mumble through his giggles. "I don't want to have this shirt on. I told Blaine to let me keep it off but he said I was going to catch a cold but I'm not cold I'm hot I want to be shirtless againnn..." Kurt was tugging at it now, while I tried really hard not to picture what had been going on that Kurt was shirtless. What kind of dumbass let their boyfriend drink that much, anyway?

"Just...stay here, okay?" Glaring at him once more, I tip-toed my way to the kitchen to get a glass of water and returned, getting some aspirin and taking them over to him. "Here, take these."

"Pills? What, you want to drug me now?" he asked, scoffing. I slammed them into his hand and almost shoved them down his throat. He nearly choked. "Finn, what the hell..." but he lost his train of thought and pulled his shirt over his head. I rolled my eyes and tried not to take in the red spots all over his chest and neck...oh, man, ew, ew, ew.

I sat down on the bed next to him and sighed. I was going to murder Blaine tomorrow. I had not been planning on having to deal with a drunken brother at almost three in the morning. I had plans with Rachel tomorrow, and I was going to be exhausted and falling asleep and she was going to yell at me about it and urgh...idiot. "What did you drink, Kurt?"

"I think...I can't remember...it was blue..."

"Martini?"

"Maybe. I'm not sure. The man gave it to me."

I frowned. "The man? What man?"

"No clue, but he was at the bar and he offered me one and it looked good."

"Where was Blaine?" I asked, a little worried. What the hell had Kurt been drinking?

"He went to get his car," Kurt whined, pouting and crossing his arms over his chest as if remembering something now. "He didn't let me drink and he didn't drink because he was going to drive, so I did it when he was gone. I think I got lost after that and then somehow I ended up here." I had to give him credit; he was very coherent for a drunk. Or 'just tipsy' as he claimed. God knew what I was like.

Well, then I couldn't very well blame Blaine. He'd been responsible. And from what it seemed, the fooling around hadn't happened while Kurt was drunk; another reason not to beat up the dude. "Okay, whatever, just sleep. And don't expect me not to laugh in your face when you wake up with a killer headache in the morning," I informed him, getting the covers off; it was almost summer, and I didn't want him to have a heat stroke or something. I'd make up a reason as to why Kurt was sleeping in my bed tomorrow morning; I closed the window and turned off the light, grabbing a blanket and my pillow and lying on the floor next to him.

"Night, Finn," Kurt mumbled sleepily.

I sighed, somehow not really able to stay mad at him. "Night, Kurt."

After that little episode and a few talks with Blaine about letting Kurt off his sight when they were out in gay bars after hours and how it'd nearly gotten me in trouble with my girlfriend, Kurt didn't come home drunk again, which I was grateful for. Though I have to admit that he did repay the favour a few times, when I was the one wasted. Didn't happen often, but I had my moments, okay? Puck wasn't the best influential friend out there. Days passed and prom came up, both for McKinley and Dalton. They weren't on the same date, though. My prom was first. I went with Rachel, who looked absolutely stunning in a golden dress that floated from her waist down. Prom night was...eventful, let's say. And Rachel? She was ten times better than Santana. A week later, the Dalton prom came up, and Blaine picked up Kurt, both in perfectly tailored, fashionable suits, looking radiant, and I was kinda proud of him, I guess. Getting to go to prom and all that...just like he'd always wanted. I called Rachel and went over to her house before I got too emotional, deciding to ask Kurt about it later. Burt and mom were going to a concert, so they wouldn't be back until early next morning, and I had loads of time to be with Rachel before coming home. At around four in the morning, I had to sneak out since Rachel's dads kick me out at eleven every night, I came home, meaning to go play some Call of Duty and waiting for Kurt to come back.

But as I passed his room to go to mine's, I saw a light under the crack of the door, and grinned, pushing the door open to go pester him with information, like he'd done to me about my prom, though he hadn't wanted details, and which I most definitely wasn't planning to get out of him either. And right there, my poor naive innocence was absolutely violated. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit. Not really.

"Holy fuck!" I kinda yelled it, I suppose, which was why they noticed I was there. I barely had time to even register what was going on before sprinting out of there faster than if somebody had announced pepperoni pizza in the kitchen and locking myself up in my room.

Kurt, naked, pressed against a wall, eyes closed, mouth open, moaning.

Blaine, also naked, pressing him against the wall, head moving against his neck, hand...elsewhere.

Needless to say, I didn't ask Kurt any questions whatsoever, and that little incident was very pointedly ignored by the pair of us the next day, though our parents couldn't understand why we wouldn't look at each other in the eye all day, and blushed whenever the other spoke.

There was something I had not planned to witness in the entirety of my life.

However, soon summer came and school ended, and Blaine's graduation came up. Kurt asked us all to go with him, so we did. Blaine was some sort of year secretary or whatever, so he made a whole speech and everything. I was staring at a ninety-something year old woman in front of me who had fallen asleep and whose false teeth were falling out most of the time, but I'm sure the speech was moving and whatnot, cause Kurt started crying a little beside me. I held his hand and squeezed it gently, reassuringly.

I didn't even flinch when Blaine ran down the stage to fling his arms around him and kiss him in full view of everybody once it was over; I'd gotten used to them, I guess. Doesn't mean I was totally cool with gay-on-gay action overall, but it was Kurt, and he was special, so it was okay. It got a little uncomfortable after a few minutes though, and I had to announce my presence with a loud cough. "Congrats, dude," I said, grinning and stretching out my hand.

Blaine surprised me by coming over and hugging me instead. "You'll take care of him, won't you?" He said that in my ear quickly, so nobody else heard, and when he pulled back, I nodded, and he patted my shoulder with a smile.

Blaine was going to study at The University of Pennsylvania, which was a really big deal, Ivy League and all that, but also kinda far away, and him and Kurt spent every day together until he had to leave. I went with Kurt to the airport but stayed outside, giving them privacy for a while. Kurt came back, his face expressionless, if a little pale, and said nothing as he got in. We didn't say anything on the way back home, but I knew he was trying to keep it together. There was the occasional flash of pain in his eyes that he didn't want to show, and most of the time he faced the window. I could hear him crying in the next room until late that night.

The first letter came two days after that. I thought letters were ridiculously lame, though I didn't say it, and wondered why they couldn't just email each other or something, but Kurt explained that Blaine thought letters were more classy and romantic, and during the time that it took to send and receive them, more events would happen and they'd have more to talk about. I shrugged. Whatever works for them, I suppose.

Dutifully, Kurt and Blaine wrote to each other for the entirety of our senior year, never missing a week without at least one letter, and Kurt would lock himself up in his room to read every letter, and I knew he kept them stashed in a drawer with Blaine's cologne and some sort of collage that said 'courage'. Not that I'd looked or anything.

A piercing scream woke me up rather abruptly one Saturday, about a week until Christmas. Recognizing Kurt's voice and wondering if he'd sliced a finger in the kitchen, or gotten stuck in the toilet or shaved his eyebrow by accident or something, I rolled out of bed and scrambled outside, only to find him standing in the doorway, his arms around a taller boy with black hair. I stood there kind of awkwardly as they embraced, still halfway asleep and too tired to care. Blaine had gotten...well, older, I guess.

Then again, so had Kurt; his feminine features were less pronounced now, and I saw him shaving the other day. As in, he was growing stubble. Kind of endearing, actually. I felt like such a mom as I thought about this, while Kurt and his boyfriend, whom, for some reason, hadn't broken up with him even though he'd been at college with a lot of other new people and stuff, and whom was now here, unannounced, gazing into the other's eyes as if they could stay there forever. That was love for you, I guess. Feeling weird now, I stepped around the door and walked over to them, still in my boxers from sleep, and Blaine saw me and turned to me, laughing and pulling me into a hug as well. I returned it. Yeah, maybe I'd kinda missed having him around; sue me.

He stayed through Christmas and left right after New Year's, extending his vacation a week more to stay for the date with Kurt. Though he technically slept at his parents' (most of the time), he basically lived in our house, and nobody complained. How could any of us object to his presence, when nobody had seen Kurt that simply blissfully happy since a year ago? I very decidedly did not ever enter his room without knocking loudly first and waiting for a reply, not after last time, and thankfully, I never again saw more than I needed to.

I can't really say more about what happened to Kurt in the years after that. He went off to college somewhere in California, on like, the other side of the country, and I went to the University of Miami. Rachel and I didn't work out in the end. Sometime after we both headed off to different places and found new interests and stuff, we just kinda broke it off. Yeah, I'd still sometimes miss her, cause I did love her, but there's some things you just have to let go off once you're not a teenager anymore. I dated a few girls, none whom I stayed with for too long, and was happy with my glee scholarship, which I'd finally gotten. I think I was nearly twenty-one when Rachel called me up one random day and asked if I would go to an original New Directions alumni reunion back in Lima. Honestly, I was kinda thrilled about the idea. To my surprise, the next time I emailed Kurt –we'd kept in touch quite a lot actually- he said he was going, too. Rachel said we could bring dates or something, but I honestly didn't feel like asking Alicia to go with me, so I went stag.

I hadn't seen any of them in so long, it was like a slap in the face. Everybody looked so much older, and I was kinda really stunned. Apparently so had I cause people did a double take when they saw me. Puck had grown out of his Mohawk, and was sporting a cropped hairstyle, also stag, like me. Quinn was...wow...really, really gorgeous, and came in holding hands with Sam, a ring on both of their hands. Huh; so he hadn't been kidding about the whole 'promise ring' thing back in junior year. Also, he wasn't blonde anymore, which was weird. I didn't know that your hair could change that much, that late in age. Rachel, surprisingly enough, had come with a friend, she insisted. Some guy that she co-starred with on some musical or the other. I tried to be nice to him, I really did. Not my fault my drink spilled on his shoes or that I took the chair he was going to sit on. I hadn't seen him. Artie didn't make it, and neither did Mercedes, though Tina assured us she sent her love. And of course, there were Kurt and Blaine. I knew they were still together, Kurt had told me as much, but something shiny caught my eye as he told something animatedly to Tina, and I realized he was wearing a ring. A thin, gold, perfect-fit ring; on his fourth finger of his left hand.

I wasn't the only one who noticed, and couldn't help but overhear Santana's date, a short, skinny ginger, ask when the wedding was. Kurt blushed, predictably; five years and he still did that. I smiled to myself. "Oh, no, I'm not...we're not engaged," he replied quickly, as Blaine came up behind him and slipped his arm around his waist, fitting snuggly there.

"It's a promise ring," he elaborated with a smirk and a kiss to Kurt's temple. The dude who'd asked the question looked a little uncomfortable at the gay display of affection, but he said nothing about it; I had to give him credit. It had taken me more than a year to get used to it and learn from my mistakes. "Just so he knows I'm willing to wait."

Oh. So Blaine did want to...marry him? Something panged in my chest; something like...I wasn't sure, love for my little brother, maybe? Sure. Happiness for him, pride, yeah. All of that. A whole mess of feelings. The reunion was nice; everybody caught up with each other, we ate a lot, sang some songs, reminiscing, and then everybody went their own way again.

We finished college, and would have seen even less of each other had we not vowed not to let time weaken the brotherly bond we'd formed with each other, and went out of our way to get together at least once every other month. I was twenty five, working as an assistant manager at a record shop, had a steady girlfriend again, Vania, and was doing well for myself. I was standing in front of Kurt, both in tailored black suits, a flower in the lapel, smiling at each other for the second time in our lives, up at the altar. Beside him stood Blaine, his eyes not wavering from Kurt's face for a minute. There was no priest and few guests, and it was the best wedding ever.

I watched them kiss after the vows and had to turn away for a moment, so the guests wouldn't see me wiping a stray tear that had accidentally fallen out of my eye, and at that moment, I was glad that Kurt had kept me waiting fifteen minutes after school that day.