(1)
He arrives at the airport with his camera dangling from his neck, his smile huge and taking up his entire face. People watch him carefully, wondering what has gotten in to him, he’s sure of it. But it’s love. It’s love that is rekindling. Finally. Oh, Finally. He waits beside the baggage claim, standing right near the stairway. He turns his camera on. And the moment he catches the flash of Kurt, the most beautiful man he has ever set his eyes on, he raises the camera to his face and takes the photo. Click. Flash. Snap. He could take more, but he doesn’t. Blaine moves his camera strap so it goes under his arm, making him free to pull Kurt into his arms the second he reaches the bottom step.

“I missed you so much, baby.” Blaine kisses every part of Kurt’s face, the smile on his face never disappearing. Kurt shivers in his arms, swaying them just a bit. His hands move on Blaine’s back, finding his camera. Kurt pulls away from their embrace and looks at Blaine, his expression changing.

“When did you get into photography?” Blaine can’t stop staring at him, taking in the memory and filing it in a folder in the back of his mind. He thinks it would be labeled “the happiest moments of Blaine Anderson’s life.” Kurt coughs, breaking him out of his dreamy state of mind.

“Oh! I, um, took the class at school this year. Mostly as a blow off, I had a ton of AP stuff this year so I figured I should take something that wouldn’t require a lot of thinking. But, it’s funny, because...it does, in a way. I kind of fell in love with it actually.” They start walking, Kurt grabs his suitcase off the conveyer belt full of bags, and their hands find each other so easily Blaine wonders if they’re magnetic. They could be. It feels that way, under the tangle of bed sheets as their bodies blend together in acts of love and passion. Blaine licks his lips at the thought, almost floating through the crowd as Kurt leads him to the parking garage.

(1.5)

“Does this mean you’ll take pictures of me all the time? And why is this the first time we’re talking about it?” Kurt finally bring the topic back up as they reach Blaine’s car. They put his luggage in the back and get in before Blaine answers.

“Yes. And honestly? I knew you were going to ask to see my pictures and I’m not that confident with it yet. I put a lot of myself in them and I’m worried about how they’ll be received. The only person who has seen them is my photo teacher.” He bites his lip, starting the car, when Kurt reaches out to him.

“When you’re ready, I’d love to see whatever you have. I’m sure they’re beautiful, Blaine.”

“Kurt?”

“What, sweetheart?”

“Can I take one now?”

“Right now?” Blaine nods. “Okay. Yeah. Go ahead.” When Kurt agrees, he gets his camera from where he placed it in the backseat, removing the lens cap and turning it on. Blaine holds it in front of the two of them, pressing the button when it feels right to him. Click. Flash. Snap. He doesn’t look at it, not yet, but he knows there is a tear track on his face and the light is so blue in the parking garage that Kurt probably looks like a ghost. He bets it’s beautiful.

(2)

“Blaine! Come on! We’re going to be late for Finn’s coming home!” It’s the fifth day of summer. Blaine is upstairs; Kurt is outside standing on the path to Blaine’s house. He’s wearing sunglasses and a v-neck t-shirt, something extremely rare for him. Blaine leans out of the window, his camera to his eye, Click. Flash. Snap. He captures Kurt just as he looks up at him. Before Kurt calls his name again, he runs down the stairs as quickly as possible, his camera in his hands.

“What were you doing?” They get in Kurt’s car, and Blaine just smiles.

“Hurry up Kurt; we’re going to be late!” He exclaims, his hands going for the radio. Kurt playfully smacks them away as they both laugh, pulling out of the driveway. Blaine didn’t even bring his lens cap with him, he knows today will be a day full of pictures.

(2.5)

And it is. The minute Finn steps off the bus in his uniform, Blaine takes a photo, when Kurt and Finn hug and cry with smiles on their faces, he takes a photo, when Burt throws his arm around Finn’s shoulders and Carole kisses Finn’s check, he takes another photo. Over and over: Click. Flash. Snap. And maybe Kurt grabbed his camera and tried to take a photo of Finn picking Blaine up and spinning him around in a bear hug. It was blurry, but it was something.

(3)

“Mm, Blaine.” Kurt feels the cool side of the building behind his back, the street light washes over them like a spotlight on a stage. His eyes flutter shut as Blaine kisses him, their lips moving together in perfect sync. They’re breathless, rushing, and overwhelmed with the events of the night. They’d spent it walking through a cute town a few miles away, eating in a café, and dancing in a bar that they shouldn’t have been in but nobody could deny them. They had danced so closely, their bodies as one, with stars in their eyes and love fueling their every movement. And when Blaine leaned in to Kurt’s ear and whispered, “I love you, endlessly, I’ve always known it.” It was enough to make Kurt take his hand to lead him out into the alley. Now they’re kissing, touching, feeling everything with their hearts and souls as they intertwine and connect as soulmates, as lovers. And when there is a click, a flash, and a snap Kurt doesn’t need to look up from the place where he’s kissing Blaine’s neck to know that Blaine has taken a photo of the two of them like this. He usually would care, fight back, and make Blaine swear to never show it to anyone. But he doesn’t do any of those things. He wants to remember them like this, too.

(4)

“Okay, now, extend your neck a bit. Yes! Just like that. Don’t move.” Blaine stands in his makeshift photo studio in his basement, Kurt infront of the grey backdrop. His shirt is off, but Blaine promised him that none of his chest would be shown in the photo. Blaine’s tripod has been disregarded and instead he moves around Kurt, getting close to him and taking photos of his profile. There is a constant pattern of click, flash, snap as he circles him, eventually sitting down on a high stool to be somewhat level with Kurt’s upper body. Blaine sighs, frustrated with his photos as he looks through them, wondering what to do with the current light situation in the basement.

“Can we go outside?” It’s nearly time for the sun to set, Blaine can see the sun flooding through the small windows in the room, and he knows that the light would be extremely beautiful on Kurt’s skin.

“Do I have to keep my shirt off?”

“Yeah. Sorry. Just for a few shots, okay?” Blaine pulls a puppy face and Kurt can’t say no to him, so they head up the stairs and out into the backyard. As the sun sets, Blaine begins to set up the shot. He never realized how hard it would be to capture everything he saw in Kurt. It was different when it wasn’t posed, because Kurt wasn’t aware of what he was doing, and never stopped being himself. But here, under the mask of low self esteem and obvious uncomfortable poses, he can’t seem to get the photo the way he envisioned it. He turns away from Kurt, looking up at the sky and thinking all of these things, and when he turns around his eyes can barely make sense of the beauty he sees before him. Something had changed in Kurt as he relaxed, and Blaine couldn’t pass up the chance to take the photo he’d been looking for. Click. Flash. Snap. He put his camera down on the grass, running towards Kurt and kissing him right there in the backyard as the sun burned their skin and the bitterness of summer having the ability to end rested on their tongues.

“Before summer ends, I want you to see every photo.” Blaine says, sitting beside Kurt on the top of the picnic table, repositioning himself to lay his head in Kurt’s lap.

“I’d love to.” His hands ran through Blaine’s hair as he hummed softly while the sky around them darkened into a serene starry night, and if it were possible, they fell more in love with each other than they were only seconds before.

(5)

There are prints all over the bedroom floor surrounding the two of them. Some from the previous school year and others from the summer they have spent together. The last day is approaching, and the weight of it all has been increasing in size. The photos make it feel like it was a million years ago when Kurt stepped off the plane. There are so many of them. They’re all so beautiful:

Kurt captured at the top of the stairs at the airport, a crowd surrounding him, yet he stands out with his unique, profound stature and expression,
Blaine photographed with Kurt looking at the camera as blue light washed over them, a single tear running down his face,
a stolen shot of Kurt standing in the front yard from the window, looking up at Blaine with his sunglasses on, his hand about to be raised to point,
a sad, yet happy moment printed of Finn hugging Kurt as tightly as he could, a wet yet overjoyed smile across his face,
Burt with his arm around Finn and Carole kissing Finn’s cheek, a picture that was soon to be on the mantle,
the blurry shot of Finn picking Blaine up and hugging him that Blaine already framed to put on his shelf,
the grainy image of Kurt’s lips on Blaine’s neck in the alley as the streetlight outlined them lost in a moment of passion,
a stunning depiction of Kurt’s beauty as he sat on the picnic table in Blaine’s back yard, his head titled back with his eyes closed, the sun set making his glow,
and finally, a photo of the two of them, just taken with Kurt sticking his tongue out and Blaine scrunching his face, it would be the last one of the summer, the last one in Ohio for awhile.

The next picture would be at the airport, one that Blaine wasn’t going to allow himself to count as part of the summer. Because these were the times focused on tiny moments, events that changed them and developed their love in the shadows of the summer shade and the light of the starry sky. There would be many days in airports, but there wouldn’t be another summer exactly like this one ever again. Somehow, Blaine was okay with that. He thought it could be because he had so many photos, so many memories, and he knew that he could open the box that Kurt had bought to store them, and relive all of the times they’d spent together.

“I was right.”

“About what, Kurt?”

“Your photos are beautiful.”

“You make them beautiful.”

“Shut up.” Kurt laughs, putting the photos into the box, “I think you should keep taking photos.”

“I will.”

“Good.” He paused, smiling, “Because I don’t ever want to forget about all of the small, silly things. Because those moments are as beautiful as the huge milestones we cross, and they don’t deserve to be forgotten.” Blaine vowed to continue taking photos, not sharing the fact that even though his major at NYU was currently undecided, that he had a brochure for Tisch stored in his luggage. Yes, he decided, he would be taking photos for the rest of his life. There were too many moments that were going unnoticed, and the world needed to see them. He was going to remove the blindfold, but not yet – someday.