It starts with a touch.

That touch leads to a memory. A memory of a hundred similar touches – light accidental skims of fingertips across the skin of Kurt's shoulders as Blaine turns over in bed, the dance of those fingertips along his side, a subtle caress at the nape of his neck, massaging the muscles there.

Kurt went to bed with a shirt on, so when it came off, Kurt doesn't know. He's not concerned about his half-nakedness because he's sleeping beside his ex – Kurt has always been comfortable around Blaine so the lack of a shirt doesn't matter – but it's winter and it's cold, and his father is sleeping in Rachel's bed on the other side of the loft.

So he should be wearing a shirt.

Blaine touches him again – a hand on his arm - but this time it's deliberate. It comes with questions and an observation, “Kurt? Kurt, are you awake? Are you okay? You're trembling.”

Kurt might have just fallen back to sleep if Blaine hadn't spoken. Blaine's voice is the trigger. That voice – that sweetly innocent yet effortlessly sensual voice - has long been a weakness of Kurt's.

After Kurt hears Blaine's voice, his missing shirt isn't the only thing he has to be concerned about.

He's kissing Blaine's neck before he realizes he shouldn't, but it's too late.

Kurt wants this.

It's been too long, and Kurt still loves him, has always loved him, loved him ever since Blaine took his hand and ran him down that Dalton hallway.

Fuck that Kurt loves him when he has every right in the world to stop, to give up and part ways, not even as friends.

Blaine thinks about doing the gentlemanly thing and stopping Kurt before this goes too far. He actually can't believe that he's considering turning Kurt down, but he wants the chance to begin again, to prove how much he loves Kurt, to win him back and keep him this time.

Kurt's lips - the same lips that uttered the words, “I can't trust you anymore” - convince Blaine to give in and seize this. Kiss after kiss accompanied by Kurt's tongue licking at the hollow of Blaine's neck, teeth grazing his throat, hands lifting the hem of his shirt.

Blaine can't find the strength or a reason to push Kurt away.

Because Blaine wants this, too, and it may not come around again.

Because the dark of the loft erases his sins, and if not, for a moment, Kurt seems willing to forget them.

Because the smell of Kurt's skin, the taste of his lips, the heat of his breath as it escapes his mouth along with stuttered, choked off moans, are all roads to home.

It's been months since they've been like this, but they fall together so completely. There's no discomfort, no embarrassment, no awkward fumbling. Blaine doesn't have to stop kissing Kurt in order to peel his pants off his legs; Kurt sucks a bruise onto Blaine's collarbone while deftly unbuttoning his pajama top. A deep sigh on Blaine's part tells Kurt to suck harder. Kurt's shuddering breath gives Blaine the go ahead to reach down lower, to wrap his hand around Kurt's cock and stroke him slowly. Even with everything wrong between them, they've always been good at this, at being compatible, at knowing one another.

Decisions are made in silence, communicated through the touch of fingertips, a kiss down the spine, a leg intertwined, a hand on Kurt's hip holding his body steady so Blaine can maneuver inside, a fist in Blaine's hair, tugging, urging, saying, “Now…I need you now.”

And just like that, the people they've uncovered in the days they've spent apart collide, and the two of them become one.

It doesn't have to be loud to be passionate. It doesn't have to be fast to be hot. Blaine is slow and gentle, not because they're trying to keep quiet, but because he knows that's what Kurt needs – long, steady thrusts to erase the hurt and mask the pain. Kurt feels a moan rise up in his throat. Blaine, pressed against Kurt's back, feels it, too. He puts a thumb to Kurt's lips and Kurt takes it in his mouth, bites down on it.

“Fuck,” Blaine groans, slamming into Kurt's body, not being polite about it, knowing he doesn't have a lot of time. He feels Kurt's cock throb in his grasp and knows that Kurt's about to cum. There's a window opening and Blaine has to reach it – he can't bide his time, he can't overshoot. He needs this to be perfect before it ends, because he knows it's going to end. It has to end. He's been given a gift, but it won't last forever.

“Oh, God,” Kurt gasps, leaning back against Blaine's body, fitting into him the way he did before, the way they do now, even with a few cracks and a couple of chips missing.

Kurt kisses Blaine to smother the sounds Blaine makes when he cums.

Blaine kisses Kurt to keep Kurt from saying something he'll take back tomorrow.

That kiss is the final touch.

As quickly as it started, the moment fades, and things like clothes and sins and personal space become important again. Blaine catches Kurt's eyes and sees the inevitable – the splashdown of reality returning full-force behind those stormy steel blues. Kurt swallows hard and pulls away, disentangling limbs, stealing away his body heat, leaving Blaine cold. He doesn't say a word as he starts to redress, and this distance of a few feet and a couple of layers between them has never felt so far.

Kurt is completely dressed in seconds but Blaine hasn't moved.

“That can't happen again,” Kurt says, the tone of his voice dropping the temperature of the room another ten degrees. He turns away, wrapping the blanket around himself, tucking it in behind him so that Blaine can't accidentally touch him again.

So the memories that started this won't return.

“No,” Blaine whispers with a heavy sigh, watching Kurt's body curl in on itself and farther away from him. “It can't.”