“Please tell me what the point of this is again?” Kurt asks as he tugs the bed sheet up to his shoulders. It’s not that he has an issue with being unclothed in front of Blaine, but he does have a problem with the fact that Blaine is currently fully clothed and perched at the end of his bed, like they’re about to do homework instead of... this.

“You talk about masturbation like it’s some sort of obligation,” Blaine explains. “You act like you might as well be brushing your teeth or something.”

Kurt frowns, picks at the end of the bed sheet. There’s no loose fibers to toy with because the thread count is quite high, but the action still comforts him. “It’s not the same, as when I’m with you. When I’m with you, it’s... well, you know how it is. But when it’s just me? It just feels like something I need to do from time to time. Why is that weird?”

“It’s not weird,” Blaine says. “But I do think you could stand to have a little fun with it.”

“Fun,” Kurt mutters under his breath, flings the sheet down with little to no grace. Under the pressure of Blaine’s gaze, he’s half-hard at best. He grips himself around the base dry and thinks about the lube tucked away in his drawer, but worries that moving from this spot will crack the remaining amount of confidence he has left.

Blaine looks like he wants to say something.

Kurt gives himself a few earnest strokes, and looks up at Blaine, but only for a moment. Any longer and he swears what’s left of his resolve is going to crumble under his concerned gaze. “Well? Out with it.”

“It’s just...” he scratches the back of his head. “You get right into it then?”

“Wasn’t aware there was a wrong way to do this, Blaine,” Kurt hisses out.

Blaine crawls across the bed to where Kurt is laying, but doesn’t touch him. Not at first. “If I know all of the places you like to be touched, then I’m sure you do too.” He takes hold of Kurt’s free hand, drags his fingertips down his stomach. The brush of his fingers leaves goose flesh in their wake, and Kurt finds himself arching up into the touch. “You’re just not using any of them.”

He lets out an annoyed little huff. “I feel like there are more... efficient ways to go about this, that’s all.”

“Brushing your teeth,” Blaine sing-songs. Kurt is going to kill him.

Blaine is using his hand to trace patterns back up his chest. It almost feels like it’s not even attached to him, with how sure all of the movements seem to be. Surer than they would be if Kurt was in control. He takes hold of one of Kurt’s fingers and circles it around a nipple, causing him to buck up into the circle of his fist.

“I thought you were supposed to be watching,” Kurt mutters.

Blaine drops his hand, and it lands palm facing down on his sternum. He’s tempted to put it back at his side, but he wants Blaine to stop comparing dental hygiene to his masturbatory habits.

But that’s the thing, Blaine isn’t talking anymore. He’s laying beside him, as close as he can possibly be without touching him. His breathing is getting shallow, like it’s somehow connected to the actions of Kurt’s hands. He wonders, briefly, if he can undo him just by putting on a show.

Kurt brushes his thumb over a nipple, watches the way Blaine’s breath seems to catch in his throat.

And he’s pretty sure he has his answer.

That doesn’t mean he can do it. He feels utterly ridiculous, he’s having a hard enough time keeping... ugh.

“This feels silly,” Kurt tells him.

“Why?” Blaine asks and still keeps his distance even though Kurt wants nothing more than for him to touch. It’s easier when Blaine touches him. It’s easier to see his hands moving more surely down the length of Kurt’s body. He likes the contrast of Blaine’s slightly darker skin against the paler tone of his own.

It’s not that he doesn’t know his body, it’s just that he’s afraid to freely explore it sometimes. It reminds him of being locked inside of his own mind, surrounded by boys whispering about how Allison Thomas really got a rack over the summer and feeling so utterly alienated. Feeling alone in his fantasies, even the blurry ones that consisted mostly of lips and hands and broad palms.

Blaine - his best friend, his boyfriend, his confidant - is his reminder that the things he feels aren’t some ailment.

“We have sex,” Kurt says, wipes his sweaty palm on his thigh. He wants to curl in on himself, but he’s not sure who he’s hiding from. “We already have sex. Why does this part matter?”

“Oh, Kurt.” Blaine takes the very same hand and brings it up to his lips, presses a kiss to the palm and then his fingertips. Fingertips that had been tracing pathways down his shaft not moments before. “This is the part that matters.”

He doesn’t get it. So he tells him that.

“Me knowing your body... that’s cheating, you know? I have all of the advantages. If I spend enough time, I can find all of the places,” Blaine’s voice has dropped to a low growl, whether he knows it or not, “I can find the places that make you fall apart. But you knowing yourself? Just exploring, that’s the important part. You need to feel comfortable with yourself before you can feel comfortable with me.”

“I’m comfortable clothed.” Kurt chuckles, tugs weakly at the bedspread. “I’m comfortable when I do this with you.” He slips his hand out of Blaine’s grasp and touches it to his cheek. “Usually,” he adds as an afterthought, in the spirit of honesty.

“I have an idea.”

Blaine’s ideas, more often than not, are a bit too ambitious for Kurt’s tastes. They start with a glimpse of a video that has Kurt peeking out from behind his fingers and end with a ‘maybe someday.’ But this idea starts with Blaine working at the buttons of his cardigan and Kurt lets himself be optimistic, for once.

He shucks off the outer layer of his clothing and stops there, much to Kurt’s dismay, but he does spread his legs slightly and motions for Kurt to sit between them.

“Thought it might be easier this way,” he explains. “Like you’re not on the spot. Like I’m here, but I’m not.”

Blaine has a way of explaining things that manage to make no sense and perfect sense at the same time. He’s always loved that about his boyfriend.

In this position, Blaine can whisper in his ear, and even if he’s hardly touching Kurt, his words are like a warm embrace. “What do you think about?”

“You,” Kurt answers automatically.

“There hasn’t always been a me to think about.”

That is one of the things that Kurt has a hard time accepting, because that time in his life when Blaine wasn’t some sort of constant feels like such a long time ago. And it’s not about his life before having a boyfriend lacking any sort of meaning. It’s about the alienation that came from feeling so different from everyone around him.

“What do you think about?” Blaine asks again.

“Hands,” he says. The answer is simple, but that doesn’t make it any less true. He doesn’t need some elaborate fantasy to get off to. He just needs something safe. Hands were safe to think about, and before, he hadn’t been sure what was safe for him to be thinking about. He swore the proof would be written on his face come homeroom if he picked whatever cute boy sent his heart a flutter, so he stuck to hands. Broad palms fitted against the small of his back, tugging him close. Fingertips dancing along his cheekbone, maybe even cupping his cheek to guide a kiss.

Kurt’s breathing has picked up and his palm is stroking the soft skin of his stomach without any conscious thought. “I think about hands.”

“What is it about hands?”

“Safe,” he says. “With faces... it gets too personal.”

“Like they’ll know.”

Kurt wishes he could turn his head to see Blaine’s expression, because there’s something so startlingly guilty about it. And not in a major way or anything. Like he’s been caught with a hand in the cookie jar, not trying to dispose of a body. He’s curious, and he can’t think of a better time to ask.

“Did you ever... with me in mind?”

“Before I was supposed to,” Blaine laughs. “I’m sorry... that’s--”

“It’s fine,” he cuts in. “Better than fine, actually. It’s flattering.” His cock stirs at this new piece of information, and this time he doesn’t hesitate to wrap his fingers around the base.

The conversation has made him feel much more as ease, like he isn’t in his boyfriend’s lap, naked and stroking himself lazily. He finds himself pressing back against Blaine’s chest. The contrast between Kurt’s own bare skin and his t-shirt is comforting.

“I was kind of hoping that would come out, I don’t know. Never? It makes me feel like a creep.”

“Don’t.” He stops to lick at his palm, hearing Blaine’s sharp intake of breath and feeling the way his chest constricts behind him.

This time, Kurt still feels on display, but he doesn’t let himself dwell on the fact. His strokes are steady, but not slow. He’s trying not to rush this, but his mind is reeling with thoughts of Blaine quietly, guiltily jerking off to him and... wow. That’s something that he never thought would do it for him.

“What is it about hands, in particular?” Blaine punctuates his statement by smoothing his palms down Kurt’s thighs.

Kurt responds with a shiver. “I don’t know.”

“Yeah,” Blaine presses his lips right under Kurt’s ear and that’s pretty much the definition of not playing fair. “You do.”

Kurt tilts his head back until he’s resting against Blaine’s shoulder. He could probably turn and kiss him to shut him up, if he wanted to. He doesn’t. “It’s nothing in particular. I just like watching people work with their hands.” Drumsticks. Piano keys. Pencils. “If you get caught staring at someone’s hands, it doesn’t look as bad. If it’s in class, you can pretend you were looking off of their assignment.”

“So you’d rather turn yourself in for academic misconduct than--”

“Than what, Blaine? Admit I was looking at someone’s hands and thinking...” He breath hitches. “Thinking about how they might feel instead of my own? How they might touch me?”

His thighs are trembling, both with the tension that comes with holding back and the way Blaine’s fingertips and trailing featherlight down to his knees and back up. Barely there touches, ones he could probably conjure up later when he’s alone and...

Oh.

Blaine’s giving him things to think about later.

Like he doesn’t already have a mental stockpile of images of Blaine’s fingers dancing across piano keys or curving around the gearshift.

Kurt gasps. His hand is moving faster and when he give his cock a twist on the upstroke, his elbow knocks into Blaine’s forearm and he is reminded of their position. He’s never going to be able to lean against Blaine on the floor of the auditorium or the stage without thinking of the events of this evening.

“Tell me,” Blaine commands lightly.

“Gearshift,” he chokes out. “When you were driving us home the other night, I couldn’t stop watching...”

“I thought you were ignoring me.”

“Hardly,” he says, tilting his head so that his lips are pressed to Blaine’s neck. “I wanted to be that stupid thing.” Kurt wishes he had something slicker to better aid the glide, but with the way his hand has started moving more swiftly and his toes are digging into the comforter, he can’t bring himself to pause to grab the lube.

“You could have been.”

“Curfew,” he reminds him. “We would have been late and I would have missed out on tonight’s educational opportunities.”

It’s not that Kurt hasn’t felt close to Blaine during any of their times together, but this is the most open he’s felt with him. Stretched out on top of him, letting him see everything, telling him the things that make him tick. Things he has never heard himself say out loud.

He can’t help but think that the next time they’re together, palms moving slickly and tongues tracing salty skin, that it’s going to feel more intimate somehow.

Kurt finally gets it. This is intimacy. It’s not just about touching and losing the layers. It’s about honesty, it’s about learning not to shield away parts of yourself from another person.

He groans and he can feel tears pricking behind his eyes. His bangs are sticking to his forehead and he has to look ridiculous. “Beautiful,” he hears Blaine murmur. “You’re beautiful.” It’s not until then that he realizes that he must have said it out loud.

He had a filter at some point, he thinks.

“Kiss me,” he growls into the skin of Blaine’s neck. It’s a messy meeting of lips and tongue, and he knows he’s going to have a twinge in his neck later, but the position feels right. His hand is working over himself faster and there’s no stars and nothing goes white, just a perfect, boneless sinking feeling as his heel kicks out and he comes messily over the tight circle of his fist.

Kurt doesn’t move away from Blaine, but he does roll onto his side afterwards. Blaine must catch him wincing at the state of his hand, because he catches him by the wrist and pulls it towards him.

There are tissues nearby, but Blaine doesn’t reach for them. Instead, he runs his tongue over the knuckles, lapping at the come he finds there.

“I like hands too.”