“Eyes open."

He did as he was told, and his vision slowly pulled back into focus in the dimly lit room. Dr. Singer cocked her head at him.

Kurt glanced at her briefly, and then back to the wall, trying to will away the cotton-dryness of his mouth and the itch in his shoulder where a scar had worked over a bullet hole.

“Why are we still doing this?” she asked.

“I have no idea,” he replied dryly.

“You do know,” she countered. “You need time, Kurt.”

“It’s been six months,” he said. “I’ve had plenty of time. I have plenty of time. What I don’t have are answers.”

“You know why this happened to you,” she corrected him. “So what answers are you looking for?”

“I have him,” Kurt said firmly. “Blaine is… he’s waiting for me. He’s at home. We’re having Italian tonight, with tiramisu.”

He didn’t know why it felt important to tell her the finer details. Something about the simplicity and normalcy of going home to his boyfriend for dinner and dessert, like any other night, made the new foundations underneath him feel that much stronger for saying it out loud.

“Italian is Blaine’s favourite,” she said.

Narrowing his eyes at her, Kurt shifted in his chair and scratched his shoulder absently. “So?”

“Do you realise that you do that?” she asked, pointing to his shoulder.

His hand dropped.

“Every time I mention his name, you scratch at the scar. It’s not actually itchy, is it?”

Kurt wet his lips.

“Have you had sex?”

“Yes,” he lied.

She tapped her pen on her knee.

“Fine, no,” he said, huffing out a sigh and burying his face in his hands. “He won’t touch me.”

“He will,” she said. “From what you told me last week, you know that. But you keep doing the same thing, Kurt. You retreat.”

“I don’t!” he shouted, head jerking up out of his hands. He drew a steadying breath. “I’m there. I’m- I’m-”

His mind ticked back to the night before.

He pressed himself against Blaine’s chest, hips sliding together, rolling and pushing for more as he let Blaine strip his shirt from his body. He let his head fall back, let Blaine kiss down the column of his neck and squeeze his hips, fingers kneading against his skin.

“Blaine,” Kurt panted softly, eyes closed and lips parted.

Then the hands fell away, gone for only a moment before they came up to cup his face and tilt his head forward again. Warm fingers brushed over his skin, and he rubbed his cheek against them gently.

“Kurt?”

He smiled, his eyes still closed. “Mmm?”

“Kurt?”

“Keep going,” Kurt said.

And the hands were gone.

He came back to himself in the parking lot, sitting in the driver’s seat of his car long after the session had ended.

With a sigh, he turned the key.

* * *

Six months wasn’t long enough. You need time, Kurt.

Six months was too long.

“He’s pulling away from me,” Kurt told her the following week. “We keep having these wonderful nights. We always … We watch movies, and do the dishes. We’re singing again and … touching each other. We’re like we used to be. Like it never happened, and we were back to being us. But whenever we get to the bedroom and it starts… it’s perfect. But then he stops.”

“Do you understand why?”

He glared. “If I knew that, I wouldn’t be here.”

“Have you asked him?”

“He says I’m not… with him,” Kurt huffed, flopping back into his seat gracelessly. “He’s …”

“He’s worried you’re with the other Blaine, in your head?”

Kurt eyed her for a moment before he gave a tiny nod.

“Do you think he has a point?”

He laughed humourlessly. “Of course not, I haven’t - there is no other him. It was me. I know that, I know what happened. I accepted that I was sick, and I got help. But I’m better now, and he still won’t touch me.”

“Do you think he might be scared?” she asked, settling back.

“Scared of what?”

She didn’t answer, just kept her focus trained on him. He watched her in silence, trying to find a flicker in her expression that could tell him what she was thinking, but she remained unreadable.

“He knows I’m better,” Kurt insisted. “He knows I’m not going to have another episode because,” his voice settled into a mimic of hers, “I have identified the psychological trigger that led to my psychotic break and in doing so can prevent it from recurring.”

She didn’t so much as flinch at his tone.

“Do you think you might be scared?” she asked softly.

He froze.

They stared at each other for a long moment, and he hated himself for the prickle of tears that stung behind his eyes.

“You’ve come so far, Kurt,” she insisted, leaning forward. “But you’re human. You’re allowed to be scared, and so is he.”

“I can’t lose him again,” Kurt whispered, shaking his head minutely.

“Then don’t,” she said.

* * *

He wondered how many times he’d parked in the same space every Friday afternoon.

“He held me last night, all night. And nothing.” He told her when their session began. “I don’t understand.”

“He held you?” she asked, carefully clipping her words.

“That’s what I said.”

“You’re still afraid to lose him?” she asked.

“Of course I am.”

“So don’t lose him.”

He laughed again, and rubbed at his face with the heels of both hands. “It’s not that easy.”

“It can be. You’re not seeing something, Kurt. Something he can see.”

“He wants to be with me,” Kurt said suddenly as his hands dropped. “Or he wouldn’t even start. Something is stopping him.”

A smile quirked at the side of her mouth, and Kurt’s eyes flashed in victory. He knew that meant progress.

“I left him,” Kurt began slowly. He knew listing the events aloud always gave him perspective. “I left him after high school because I thought I needed to be an island, and he deserved someone who would always be there. And then everything… went wrong. I was alone. I was too proud. I failed, time and time again, and then I did what I swore I’d never do; I gave up. I worked at the phone company. Then the paper company. I had a business trip to LA seven months ago, and I saw him again on the street.”

She settled back to listen, even though she already knew it all.

“Seeing him triggered a psychotic break and I developed a complex delusion based on the imaginary version of him in my head.” He rubbed at his shoulder absently. “I reached self-awareness inside my delusion and began to recover. He came back. The real him. The man I’m in love with. Blaine.” He drew a deep, steadying breath. “My Blaine.”

She nodded.

“We moved in together in Manhattan. I started seeing you. He hasn’t had sex with me since we … became us again.”

“Why is sex important?” she asked.

“I…” He didn’t want to say it.

“Ninety percent of your delusion focused on sex,” she filled in for him.

He closed his eyes in frustration. “Well, I might have been crazy, but at least I was getting laid,” he joked.

She lifted her chin. “Now say it again, but the truth.”

He shifted uncomfortably. “Crazy is a harmful and inaccurate word,” he said, echoing her voice from a long time ago. “And I was doing… those things… to myself.”

“You’re so close Kurt, come on, think about this,” she said carefully. “What were you doing?”

“Do we have to go over this again?” he said, voice shaking. “We’ve done this dozens of times; it doesn’t get any less horrifying.”

“Kurt.”

“I was punishing myself,” he choked out. “For ruining my life. I was fantasising about him fucking me and hurting me because I thought I deserved it.”

“Blaine knows this.”

“Yes,” Kurt said wetly, swallowing against the lump in his throat. “He knows all of it. But if,” he glanced sideways, realising, “if he was scared of triggering me just by… us being intimate, then he wouldn’t touch me at all. So that can’t be it.”

She nodded her approval at the revelation, crossing her legs. “So why do you think he’s stopping?”

“I don’t know,” he groaned, kicking the table between them weakly.

“Calm down.”

He fell back in the chair, arms cast either side of himself. “I’m tired.”

“We still have time.”

* * *

He spent the next session slumped back in his seat, going over the events again and again out loud.

She barely moved as he spoke, straight-backed and blinking, as unreadable as ever.

When he fell silent again, he wet his lips and pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose, letting his eyes fall shut. “There has to be a reason he stops.”

“What are you doing right now, Kurt?” she asked in a smooth and deliberate voice.

“I’m trying to think.”

“Physically, I mean,” she added carefully. “Whenever he touches you, whenever you start to get more intimate, what’s your reaction?”

Kurt’s brow pinched together as he remembered the last time.

Blaine held him tight, fluttering kisses over his bare shoulders, gripping him with warm hands and trying to spin him around.

“Turn around, come on, I want to see you.”

Kurt resisted for a moment before he moved with the pull, turning and letting his eyes drift closed while Blaine’s palms slid possessively over his body. He moaned softly, rocking back as Blaine’s grip found the curve of his ass.

“Hey.” Blaine’s voice was warm and gentle, but still softly pleading.

“Hey,” Kurt chuckled softly, head rolling to the side as he let the feeling of Blaine’s hands wash over him.

“Kurt, come on,” Blaine’s voice was firmer now.

“What?”

He heard a sigh, and opened his eyes just as Blaine let go.

“What?” he repeated, and stared in stunned silence as Blaine walked away.

His hands flexed weakly in the air by his sides, where they’d always been.

Kurt’s eyes shot open.

“I let him touch me,” he said softly. “I don’t… I don’t touch him.”

“Why?”

“Because…”

She shifted forward in her seat, studying his face.

He tried to force the words out, lips parted around consonants that wouldn’t come and eyes stinging from the strain of sudden tears.

“You can say it out loud.”

“Because… I’m scared he won’t be real,” Kurt whispered, and a tear escaped and raced down his cheek.

She nodded. “Good. What else?”

“I… I don’t…”

“Come on, Kurt. You know.”

He remembered the feeling of Blaine’s fingers on his skin, Blaine’s mouth on his neck.

But he couldn’t remember how he looked in that moment. Everything was sensation, and darkness.

“Oh my god.”

“Say it.”

Kurt’s mouth trembled, and he felt the cool moisture of his tear as it collected on his top lip.

“I don’t open my eyes.”

She smiled at him.

It was the first time he’d seen her smile, properly smile, since they met six months ago. If a curve at the corner of her mouth had meant progress, he wondered what a full smile meant.

“I don’t… he…”

“He knows,” she said. “He came in for your first three sessions, Kurt. He knows that he can’t lead you if you’re to make lasting progress. You need to become aware of your body, and your actions, in your own time.”

Kurt nodded, swallowing down the heat that still clawed at the back of his throat and ignoring the tears that rolled down his cheeks too late after the fact. He’d forgotten he was crying.

“The hour’s almost up,” she said, turning back to her desk. “I want you to come back in two weeks.”

He blinked. “Two weeks?”

“We can push it to two, from now on,” she confirmed.

Unsure of what to say, he wrung his hands slowly, gaze flicking back and forth. He knew he felt like he was better, but having someone else confirm it was the sweetest, strangest rush of relief he’d ever experienced.

“I’ll see you in two weeks,” he said, standing up and smoothing fingers over his jacket.

She smiled at him. “See you then, Mr. Hummel.”

* * *

He’d driven home half-awake and half-aware, focused on the road but letting his mind drift over every single missed moment between the sheets. All the times Blaine had reached out for him at night, and he’d simply lay there, letting him hold on. The times he’d closed his eyes and left his arms by his side while Blaine touched him, like it was all he knew how to do.

When was the last time I touched you?

Blaine was home and waiting for him, beaming as he walked in the door.

“Hey!” he said brightly while Kurt dropped his bag in the hallway. “Dinner is cooking and oomf!” he grunted when Kurt pulled him into a tight hug.

As he wrapped his arms around Blaine’s chest, Kurt ducked and pressed his mouth to the warm skin where Blaine’s neck met his shoulder, exposed by the open collar of his white shirt. Blaine had always been smaller than him, but he knew if he sank down just right, he could find that one spot; that curve along Blaine’s neck that was made just for him, that he found so long ago on the day they held each other tight and promised not to say goodbye.

“Hey, are you okay?” Blaine asked softly, rubbing his back. “Bad session? Do you want me to order pizza instead? There’s ice cream if you-”

“No,” Kurt cut him off, nuzzling against his neck briefly before he began a slow pattern of kisses up the line of his throat.

“Oh!” Blaine’s head tipped back, and he blinked up at the ceiling in surprise. “Ku- Kurt? What are you doing?”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“For what? Hey,” Blaine pulled him back by the shoulders so their eyes met, “what is it?”

Kurt slid his palms firmly over Blaine’s waist and pushed up under the hem of his shirt, raking fingers over skin. His eyes dropped to watch the swell of white fabric hiding his hands as they flattened and explored slowly.

Blaine shivered under his touch, brow pulling tight in confusion. “Oh.”

“Turn the stove off,” Kurt said, eyes still focused on what his hands were doing. “Please?”

Blaine nodded and pressed a rushed kiss to Kurt’s temple before he turned and half-ran to the kitchen, flicking off the cooktop, their dinner ignored.

“Kurt, are you sure you’re okay?” he asked, wandering back into the room. “I mean you- you haven’t… done that in a while.”

“I used to,” Kurt replied.

Blaine stopped a few feet away, eyeing him carefully and dragging his teeth over his bottom lip. “You did,” he agreed.

“I used to love that, the soft part just below your ribs. The… the way your hip bones stick out so far I can practically wrap my hands around them.”

Blaine chuckled quietly, but the sound fell away too fast. His worried expression returned. “What’s going on?”

“I realised something today,” Kurt said. “Why we… why you… stop.”

Folding his arms awkwardly across his chest, Blaine shifted on his feet, waiting.

“I’m sorry. For just standing there like that.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” Blaine answered softly, but something in his eyes betrayed the tone of his voice; something achingly sad.

Kurt suddenly realised it was doubt. After so long spent trying to touch him each night, Blaine was running short on hope.

“Please,” Kurt begged quietly.

“Tell me what you need me to do,” Blaine offered, and Kurt’s heart twisted in his chest. No matter how weary he grew, how many times he’d been left alone, he would always be Blaine.

There was a long, uncomfortable silence as Kurt tried to get the words past his throat.

“Let me touch you?” he asked shakily, his eyes huge and pleading.

Like firing from a spring, Blaine closed the gap between them in an instant, reaching out to cradle Kurt’s jaw as he brought their mouths together. Kurt made a surprised noise against him, gripping fistfuls of his shirt.

As he pulled away, Blaine brushed loving fingers through Kurt’s hair. His eyes were wide and wet. “You never have to ask.”

“I know,” Kurt said breathlessly, kissing him again. “I know, I just. I’m so sorry.”

“Shh, no,” another kiss, “it’s okay.”

“I closed my eyes,” Kurt confessed brokenly as Blaine’s hands fell to his waist, “every time I was … when I… when I did that to myself. I closed my eyes.”

Blaine’s thumbs stroked over Kurt’s sides, and he whispered his name so softly it was barely audible.

“So whenever we were together,” Kurt went on. “I closed my eyes. I didn’t want you to not be real.”

“I’m real, I’m right here,” Blaine insisted, squeezing reassuringly. “You can touch me.”

Kurt nodded, trembling lightly. “I know. I can’t explain it. I know this is real, but I was… so scared I was still broken.”

“Come with me,” Blaine said, finding Kurt’s hand and turning to lead him down the open hall to their bedroom.

Inside, he stopped and stepped back into Kurt’s space, pushing both hands over his sides to meet at the small of his back.

“You were never broken,” he insisted, tipping his head to catch Kurt’s eyes. “Not to me. You fell down, and you got back up on your own. You went through so much, Kurt. I should have been there. But I’m here now.”

Kurt spread his hands flat over Blaine’s chest, sliding them up and down and finding the lines of muscle through his shirt.

“Do you remember,” Kurt began, “the first time? Spread out on your bed?”

Blaine smiled, fingers tracing patterns into Kurt’s back.

“We didn’t know what we were doing. We kept bumping into each other, laughing. Kissing. Rolling around and getting tangled, and it was a mess, and it was so warm, and it was…”

“Perfect,” Blaine finished.

Kurt looked up, the corners of his mouth curling into a tiny smile. He found the hem of Blaine’s shirt and pushed under it again, teasing and gliding over skin. He worked his way up slowly, finding his favourite places; all the dips and curves that he remembered so well. They were different now, firmer or softer here and there, changed by the years that had separated the two of them - but still a part of Blaine, and still so familiar all the same.

“Do you remember,” Blaine asked, fingers brushing under the band of Kurt’s pants, “when I kissed you the first time? At Dalton?”

Kurt laughed gently, his eyes glittering wetly in the pale bedroom light.

“I was so nervous,” Blaine insisted. They wandered nowhere in particular in a two-step shuffle as they toed off their shoes and socks, always touching. “I was so in love with you. I always was, but I never knew it till then. And it hit me like an avalanche, all those months of you - all that time I loved you and I never knew. So fast, all at once, and I needed you like I’d never needed anything.”

Kurt moved in time with their haphazard dance, drawing up Blaine’s shirt and tugging it over his head before he ducked to kiss Blaine’s shoulder lightly, moving on to his collarbone and up to his jaw.

“I always needed you.”

He let out a quiet keening sound, lost in the too-real rush of adrenaline and heat spiking up his spine; the reminder that the broad, warm palms exploring his back were real this time. There was a heavy body pressed against his, solid and sliding against his skin. This is real.

“And Valentine’s Day, oh,” Blaine’s breath hitched as Kurt’s hands slipped over his hipbones, gliding up the planes of his back and dragging down again. “Our first - Valentine’s Day together - when I came to the Sugar Shack and we sang, and we went home to my place and you-”

Kurt bit down softly on his shoulder, soothing over it with his tongue as Blaine whimpered above him.

“-you practically pinned me down and climbed on top of me. We were so young. We were up all night, and I felt like I - ungh!” he jolted as Kurt palmed him firmly through his jeans, his breath coming in soft gasps, “-I learned everything about you all over again.”

Kurt pulled back, locking their eyes. “I want that.”

“Me too,” Blaine agreed.

Kurt’s fingers made short work of Blaine’s belt buckle and fly, quickly pushing his jeans down his hips before he tugged off his own shirt. They fell back onto the bed in a heap, struggling to remove Kurt’s pants together and collapsing with laughter once he’d kicked them off.

“This used to be easier,” he said hesitantly.

“We had a rhythm,” Blaine agreed, kissing the swell of Kurt’s shoulder and rubbing his arm. “We will again.”

Kurt’s eyes fluttered closed and he swallowed roughly before he felt Blaine’s fingers brush his cheek.

His eyes shot open at the touch, and he searched Blaine’s face carefully, waiting for any sign he was going to leave.

Instead, Blaine rolled with him, guiding him onto his back and rising over him on hands and knees. After a moment spent simply hovering there and staring down at Kurt, he retreated back up the bed and hooked fingers into Kurt’s underwear. Looking up to meet Kurt’s eyes, he dragged the briefs down lower, gently guiding the band over Kurt’s half-hard cock and pulling them off before dropping to kiss over his thighs.

“Oh!” Kurt reminded himself to breathe, and to keep his eyes open.

“Mmm,” Blaine hummed against his hip, swirling his tongue and sealing his lips over it, drawing wet patterns over pale skin. “How did you… when you were…”

“Eyes closed,” Kurt said. “Usually facing away from…”

Blaine pressed his lips together in a tight line, considering for a moment.

“Look at me,” he said.

Kurt glanced down.

“Keep looking at me.”

He did as he was told, watching Blaine’s dark pink mouth stretch and drag over the skin of his belly, hot tongue sweeping against him in sweet kitten licks that made his toes twitch and curl. He’d never watched before, even when they were young; it had always been a flurry of hands and legs and friction, never this.

Lying flat on his back, Kurt felt his eyes flutter closed as Blaine’s lips finally captured a nipple, teasing it slowly.

He forced his eyes open immediately, seizing a sharp breath and arching his back off the bed at the prickling arousal of sensitive skin hardening fast into a nub that Blaine rolled between his lips. “Ohhhh my god.”

Blaine didn’t stop, but sucked lightly after the graze of his teeth, pressing kisses up to Kurt’s shoulder and stopping at the one place where his otherwise perfect skin was flawed.

Kurt’s mind flashed with the memory of a parking garage; the moment he resurfaced from the worst nightmare of his life. Blaine was above him, heavy hands pressing into the numb throbbing feeling in his shoulder. “Kurt, you’ve been shot! Oh my god. Fuck. Oh my god, we have to get you to a hospital!”

He shivered, coming back to himself and suddenly feeling exposed. “Blaine, I-”

Sealing his mouth over the bullet scar in a slow kiss, Blaine lingered there, paying attention. Kurt felt his body flush from head to toe and struggled to keep his eyes open at the persistent, trickling flood of warmth in his veins. “Blaine-”

“I love you,” Blaine cut him off, kissing at the scar again, working his tongue against it.

Kurt writhed, moaning softly.

“I love,” Blaine uttered, “all of you. Even the parts you think are broken.”

Kurt swallowed, meeting his gaze adoringly. “I love you too.”

Blaine moved on his hands and knees up the bed, hovering over Kurt’s body and wetting his own lips slowly. His eyes were dark, and fixed on the pink swell of Kurt’s mouth. “I want you to watch me.”

Kurt’s breath caught in his throat. He nodded quickly, and kept his eyes locked on the mess of Blaine’s dark curls as he moved back down the bed and settled between Kurt’s legs.

“Don’t close your eyes,” Blaine reminded him, glancing up to make sure he was heard.

Breathing heavily through his mouth and unable to tear his eyes away, Kurt watched as Blaine nuzzled softly into the crease of his thigh, lapping at the skin. A soft, breathy sound fell from Kurt’s mouth at the searing, slick sensation, and the heat pooling in his hips made him shift on the bedspread before Blaine’s hands settled on him and kept him still.

He’d never been shy about being naked before, never felt exposed or embarrassed with Blaine - but watching Blaine lick gently along the hard line of his cock made him blush beet red. The twinge in his hips and the urge to thrust up for more was almost unbearable, and he panted brokenly as Blaine sank his mouth over the head, fist coiling at the base.

Kurt groaned, eyelashes fluttering as he stared. Watching Blaine suck him so, so slowly sent eddies of heat up his spine, and he felt like he could barely stay inside his own skin. As Blaine dipped lower with every bob of his head, Kurt let out a chorus of soft and desperate sounds - utterly lost in the hot, wet slide of Blaine’s perfect mouth wrapped around his cock.

His knees drew up, bending on instinct until his thighs bracketed Blaine’s head. When Blaine hooked an arm under his leg, urging his hips up, Kurt moaned and pushed both hands through dark curls, never looking away, rocking up into Blaine’s mouth harder and harder until he felt the incredible tight squeeze at the back of his throat.

“BLAINE!”

His head tipped back as Blaine kept his merciless pace, sucking and stroking in concert. When he pulled away and sucked wetly on the head, dragging his tongue over the slit and pressing beneath it, Kurt cried out again, only letting his eyes fall closed for a second. His head thrashed side to side against the bedspread, and he glanced down to watch just as Blaine took all of him again.

Something inside him coiled tight, hard and unsteady like a spring pressed down and digging into his senses. His body was too hot and beading with sweat, hips stuttering with the need for more, for some kind of control. Instead, he was utterly helpless to the exquisite, slow torture of Blaine’s mouth, taking all of him over and again. He focused on the feeling of silky hair against his skin; the reminder there was only Blaine under his palms - someone else, someone real, his Blaine. My Blaine. This is real.

Kurt tried not to buck his hips at the sweet familiar panic bubbling up inside, the warning he was about to tip over the edge. He tried to school his breathing back under control, moaning and twisting curls between his fingers just as Blaine glanced up and met his gaze, dark hazel eyes fixed and lust-blown as his red, abused lips sank back down.

Blaine’s eyes were all it took, and Kurt arched as he came, thrusting deeper into Blaine’s mouth and crying out in sharp, uncontrolled bursts of punctuated sound.

He drifted back to himself a minute later, blinking slowly and listening to his own breathing just as Blaine climbed up the bed and settled along his side.

“You… I forgot… you could… do that,” Kurt panted, trying not to laugh in his post-orgasm high. Blaine had always loved to give head, even when they were teenagers, and time certainly hadn’t erased the skill of his mouth.

“Can you see me?” Blaine asked.

Kurt’s head bobbed exaggeratedly in response, and he stared up with hooded eyes, still breathing audibly over dry lips.

Blaine settled a hand on Kurt’s chest. “Can you feel that?”

Another nod, and Kurt dragged his own hand up to rest over Blaine’s. “I can.”

Smiling, Blaine brushed their noses together sweetly and pecked a soft kiss to Kurt’s lips. “How do you feel?”

“Incredible,” Kurt breathed.

“Good.”

The quiet only lasted a few seconds before Kurt shifted onto his side.

“Take these off,” he said, plucking at Blaine’s underwear. “And lie down.”

Blaine’s brow lifted.

“Please?”

Blaine did as he was asked, kicking off his boxers quickly before he settled on his back. It took a moment of manoeuvring for Kurt to rise to his hands and knees, still shaky in the wake of his orgasm as he slid one leg over to straddle Blaine’s thighs.

He could feel Blaine’s eyes on him as he moved and stretched out slowly, finding a place to start. He spread his hands wider at Blaine’s sides, hot breath puffing along tan skin as he dipped to mouth at the different angles of Blaine’s chest. The warmth against his lips was grounding and real, the taste so achingly familiar on his tongue as he explored. The solid strength of Blaine’s bones and his muscles rose and fell with his breathing, swelling against Kurt’s mouth while he dragged parted lips down each dent and curve, stopping to lick here or kiss there, enjoying the sounds he earned.

Kurt wandered over dimples and the flat plane of Blaine’s breastbone, drawing archaic patterns with his mouth and mapping every inch of skin he was so desperate to relearn. He found the soft spot beneath Blaine’s ribs, tucked to the side and still so sensitive it made him jerk and twitch against the bedspread. “Kurt.”

“Shh,” Kurt hushed him gently, moving on and sinking further down to drag his teeth over the angle of Blaine’s hipbone.

Blaine whined softly, his eyes falling closed and head rolling back as he let Kurt explore.

Kurt drew out every deliberate motion, paying attention to the places he once knew so intimately he could find them blindfolded. Blaine’s body was different now in little ways, broader, but just as beautiful and warm as he remembered.

He met the crease of Blaine’s thigh with his nose, huffing softly over the sensitive skin below and grinning at the helpless sound Blaine made when he traced the path with his tongue. He sank lower, working kisses over taut, muscled thighs and down to Blaine’s knees, fingers massaging over both calves down to his feet and back up again.

“I remember you,” he said breathlessly.

Blaine’s head lolled to the side as he glanced down the length of his body to meet Kurt’s eyes, smiling.

Rising up to his hands and knees, Kurt crawled back up the bed, gaze tracing over the wet smears and red marks his mouth had left along its path.

Licking his lips, he settled on Blaine’s thighs, hands sweeping teasingly over the curve of Blaine’s erection where it lay against his belly.

“I want you to fuck me,” Kurt said, keeping his eyes trained on the brush of his fingers and the gorgeous, thick vein they traced. He chewed his lip, resisting the urge to bow and sink his mouth over it, to remember that taste and the weight on his tongue.

Blaine shifted beneath him, propping himself up on his arms. “You’re sure? I thought you’d want to, the first time?”

Kurt shook his head, looking up. “I need to feel you,” he insisted. “Please.”

Reaching out and brushing a hand over his cheek, Blaine guided Kurt down until their mouths met. He licked slowly at Kurt’s teeth and tongue, pushing in and drawing Kurt’s lip into his mouth to suck it gently before he let go.

“Lie down on your back,” he said between breaths.

Rolling from Blaine’s lap, Kurt settled down on the bed and breathed deeply. Without thinking, he lifted his hips as Blaine brought a pillow back to slide beneath them - and the familiarity of the act struck him all at once.

His own bed, so long ago, spread out on creamy Egyptian sheets, his hips propped up on pillows and legs curled around Blaine’s body; his Blaine, his first boyfriend, deep inside of him, holding on to him and moaning his name over and over again like it was the only word he knew.

The snap and click of the lube bottle tore his attention back to the present, and he drew a shaky breath, blinking away the moisture where his eyes had watered at the rush of memory.

That was real.

This was real.

Nothing in between would ever matter.

Blaine lowered himself down and captured Kurt’s mouth again, shifting on his knees across the mattress to slide between Kurt’s legs and bring their bodies flush together. He settled his weight down and deepened the kiss, and Kurt groaned against his mouth at the hot weight of Blaine’s cock dragging over his entrance.

“Fingers?” Blaine asked gently, pecking a parting kiss at the corner of his mouth.

Kurt nodded quickly, eyes falling closed for a moment. “Everything. Please.”

He’d always loved the feeling of Blaine’s fingers working him open, stretching him slowly and leaving him practically begging for more. It wasn’t until the end that they were too rushed to enjoy each other properly anymore, always worrying how long until the next plane left.

Snapping himself out of unwanted memories, Kurt opened his eyes, focusing on Blaine’s face as he waited patiently.

“I’m sorry,” Kurt said.

“What is it?”

“I just…” Kurt breathed. “Oh my god, I missed you.”

“Shh,” Blaine whispered, planting a row of kisses down Kurt’s throat as his fingers slid smoothly down the cleft of his ass.

Kurt gasped at the sudden cool feeling, hips rising against the firm press of fingertips working over his hole. His breath escaped him in a high and shaky oh! as his body jerked against the bed.

“Slowly,” Blaine assured him, grazing back and forth and finally slipping his finger inside.

Kurt’s mouth fell open around a sound that never came, lost in the sudden sharp pleasure that struck him as Blaine’s finger crooked and turned inside, working in and out slowly. He could feel the throb low in his body, the wonderful ache that came with being stretched and opened up by Blaine’s hands like he had been so many times before.

The familiar burn was stronger this time for all the months he’d gone untouched, and he forced away the urge to close his eyes to it, revelling in the sharp and overwhelming reality that Blaine was inside him again.

By the time Blaine added a third finger, Kurt’s hips were rocking out of his control, fucking down onto Blaine’s hand helplessly as the burn gave way to the slide of pleasurable sensation. “Blaine.”

At the sound of his voice, Blaine shifted back, fingers slipping out with a soft wet sound. Kurt kept his legs up, trembling lightly and trying to memorise the throb and clench that he loved so much as Blaine worked quickly to slick himself up and move back into a comfortable position.

The pressure of the hand that found Kurt’s hip was another sharp shock of memory; the same place Blaine had always gripped him when he lined himself up. When the blunt, thick head of Blaine’s cock dragged over his stretched and sensitive entrance, Kurt gasped softly and forced himself to relax.

He let Blaine guide his hips and moaned wantonly at the stretch, at the fluttering muscles in his thighs and the feel of Blaine sinking deeper and deeper until their bodies met. Panting shallow breaths, Kurt stared up at Blaine’s flushed and beautiful expression, lips still parted and trembling at the body-shaking fullness that flooded him, the awareness of the familiar weight buried inside.

It wasn’t him this time, not his hands or his fingers or his fantasies. This was Blaine. It was Blaine’s body his legs were wrapped around, Blaine’s body pressed between his thighs, rolling back and coming up to meet him again in slow, agonisingly perfect strokes.

As they rocked together, Blaine’s back bowed in a curve, and he found Kurt’s mouth again; messy this time, quick and wet and hungry as he drove deep each time in slow, steady pumps of his hips.

Kurt lifted his body higher and tightened his legs around Blaine’s back, finding a new angle, a deeper place with every thrust that made him arch and writhe helplessly in the warm bracket of Blaine’s arms. It was slow and deliberate, the way Blaine sank in so sweetly each time; so different from the way he’d worked himself to the point of bruising on a shabby old mattress or against a chipped bathtub. It was real, and burning in his thighs, aching deep inside of him as Blaine buried himself again to the base and stayed just a teasing moment too long before he pulled back.

Kurt’s cock was flushed red and straining, pressed back against his belly and pooling with precome as he clutched desperately to Blaine’s shoulders, his body bending under the weight. He felt every inch of Blaine pressed against him, solid and steady as he kept his rhythm of slow, dragging thrusts.

When Blaine pressed their foreheads together, Kurt met his eyes, gasping and sweat-damp and unsure of whose sounds were whose anymore. It was all desperate noise, harsh pleading sounds for faster, more, please. “I need you,” Kurt mumbled, eyes dipping closed and open again weakly. “Oh god, Blaine.”

He was silenced with a kiss, the drag of lips over his and the hot sweep of Blaine’s tongue exploring his mouth roughly. Blaine’s fingers raked down his stomach, curling around his aching cock and stroking along the length of him.

Kurt moaned and shuddered at the overwhelming rush of both sensations; the hot, tight fist curled around his cock, pumping him steadily, and the heavy throb inside of him bordering on too big and too much.

This time the flood of heat came with no warning, shooting up his spine and into every nerve as his orgasm hit him full force. He cried out, body twisting out of his control as the pleasure became too much and he spilled in thick stripes over Blaine’s fist and his own belly, his body clenching tight in spasms and waves.

The sudden squeeze all around him sent Blaine over the edge, and he shuddered as he came with a shattered moan, hips jerking weakly as he collapsed back down.

There was a dull buzz in Kurt’s ears, heavy in his head and swimming around them both in the sweat-damp, sticky aftermath while they caught their breath.

“Oh god, oh,” Kurt moaned softly, pushing both hands through the mass of dark curls in front of him where Blaine had buried his face against his chest.

He could feel the gust of Blaine’s breath along damp skin and the blissful weight of his solid, broad body on top of him, rising and falling to the same rhythm.

Blaine’s lips grazed over his collarbone, sucking and dragging messily as he tried to lift himself up and slip out gently.

Kurt jerked at the sudden strangeness of not having Blaine inside of him and on top of him, and he whined softly while Blaine untangled himself from Kurt’s legs, guiding them down to the mattress.

Kurt forced himself alert, tried to keep his eyelids from drooping as the sweet, numbing high lingered all around him. He watched with unfocused eyes as Blaine slid his legs back out behind himself to lie down again.

He brought both arms up carefully to cradle around Kurt’s head, stroking through his bed-mussed hair as he sank his weight down again, the way he knew Kurt loved. “You’re so beautiful like this.”

Kurt smiled sleepily at him, ignoring the uncomfortable angle of his hips with the pillow still beneath him.

“We’re a mess,” Blaine chuckled softly. “We should shower.”

“I’m a mess,” Kurt said.

Blaine dragged rough fingertips over Kurt’s scalp lovingly, thumbing along his hairline and following the path with his eyes. He knew Kurt wasn’t talking about cleaning up.

“You’re not broken.”

“I’m not,” Kurt agreed, wetting his lips and rubbing flat palms over the firm swell of Blaine’s ribs. “You fix me.”

“You fix me,” Blaine echoed, rocking forward to seal their lips together in a kiss.

“Mmm.” Kurt smiled, keeping his eyes closed.

“What is it?” Blaine asked, watching Kurt’s features carefully.

“I can close my eyes,” Kurt said. “And you’re still here.”

Blaine grinned at that, eyelids dipping and rising again as the sleepy, post-orgasm contentment settled into his bones. “I’m always going to be here.”

Kurt’s eyes fluttered open, and he tightened his grip around Blaine’s body, drawing him closer for another lazy, messy kiss.

“You’ll always be here,” he repeated, nipping at the corner of Blaine’s mouth and sucking his lip softly for a moment.

“Even when I close my eyes.”