A head on one side, a story on the other. Someone you loved and what happened. That's all there is when you dig in your pockets.

Autumn

One thing you need to remember about Blaine Anderson is that he is, above all else, a professional.

He graduated from college and moved to New York and he tried to do the music thing, he really did. He wanted to go against his parent's wishes and their disapproving looks as he played tiny gigs in bars and cafes, making barely enough money to eat or pay his rent. But it faded out and although Blaine would always love music, love performing, love his instruments and his songs and his voice, maybe it just wasn't for him.

So he turned back to the trust fund The Anderson's had started when he was born, smiling through gritted teeth when he informed them that maybe he was better off doing something academic yes, and no he hadn't found himself a nice girlfriend yet.

Blaine stopped taking money from his parents as soon as he was settled, with a comfortable apartment, a cat, and a job which, surprisingly enough, turned out to be perfect for him. He began as a TA, but worked his way slowly upwards until here he was, just turned twenty-seven and the content professor of an AP Literature class four days a week at NYU. Two years into the full-time job and Blaine still got a buzz of happiness every time a student called him Mr Anderson.

Yes, he was single and living with a fat ginger cat, (affectionately named Hamlet), an old acoustic guitar, (nostalgically named Pavarotti) and a too-loud coffee machine, (reluctantly named Spencer – but he took no credit for that one). Maybe his couch had a few busted springs that poked hard at your thighs if you sat in the wrong place, and maybe the apartment looked smaller than it was because it was filled with piles and piles of battered paperbacks, because Blaine preferred the company of the written word to that of people. But Blaine was happy.

Another thing to remember about Blaine Anderson; he was a man of routine, a man of lists and alarms and time tables. Blaine liked structure.

Every morning he would scratch the Hamlet's ears, nod and smile at the doorman, drop into the local coffee shop for his caffeine fix, and walk the four blocks to the college. He would arrive forty-five minutes before his first class – just in case – and wouldn't leave until the majority of other teachers had.

And today would be no different.

Except, of course, it would.

It was early October and Blaine was eagerly expecting a new start, a new term filled with new students, and he couldn't wait. He loved the first few weeks of a new year; getting to know the students, getting to their knowledge with his obsession and passion for literature, being the one to help them recognise a gift or a talent they didn't know they had. That was why Blaine loved teaching.

He was early, of course, ready and prepped with caffeine and a goodnights' sleep, skimming absently through his well-worn copy of Mrs Dalloway, because there was nothing that let him see what a class was capable of more than Virginia Woolf, and by the time the class were there and the seats were filled, Blaine's mind was crammed with thoughts of dinner parties and green dresses, and he could feel the words buzzing through his mind, that feeling he got when he just wanted to teach.

Blaine knew at once who was there through their own volition, and who simply had a few empty spots on their timetable to fill. He could see the one's whose faces lit up as he held up the book, the ones who rolled their eyes, the ones who looked confused. He considered the hulking giant of a boy half asleep on the back row, the smaller figure next to him slapping his arm until he woke with a jerk.

Despite Blaine's weighty abundance of personality traits that made him perfect for an academic environment he had never been good with names, and had a tendency to label each unknown student after a favourite literary figure until they either completed his class, or corrected him enough for the real name to stick. When partnered with his penchant for cardigans, his sometimes too-curly dark hair, and his thick-rimmed rectangular glasses, most people just assumed he was quirky.

It was for this reason that Blaine – Mr Anderson in the classroom, please – didn't notice Kurt Hummel until he was right in front of him, halfway to November. That, and the Hulking Giant with a tendency to fall asleep – or as Blaine had dubbed him, Mr Winkle (Rip Van, of course) – seemed to overshadow the slip of a boy with every step, making it quite easy to miss him.

And then that one Thursday, as the students left the room in waves and Blaine turned back to his half marked papers until the soft clearing of a throat made it known that he was not alone.

Maybe it was the afternoon light filling the otherwise gloomy classroom – Blaine always forgot to turn the lights on – maybe the shafts of sun hit the boy's in such a way, such a delectable softness that Blaine's throat was suddenly dry.

"Can I help you, Mr…"

The boy smiled, "Hummel. Kurt. And I was wondering if there was any extra reading to do around this novel?"

Even his voice sounded like sunshine.

"You don't think Hawthorne is enough to be going on with, this week?"

Kurt Hummel smiled, "I was hoping not. I can't stand him."

Blaine felt himself grinning back, "Me neither. Ostentatious."

Kurt scoffed in agreement, "Exceedingly so. Although I would never have guessed you felt that way, teaching about him the way you do."

Blaine gave a tight shrug, a lump throbbing in his throat as the exact reasons for him hating The Scarlet Letter so much swam to the forefront of his mind, and maybe teaching classes on infidelity cut a little too close to Blaine's heart right now.

Kurt seemed to notice that shadow that fell across Blaine's face as the silence stretched for just a second too long. His hands sprang to curl around the strap of his bag, and he looked at the floor.

An impulsive decision, a change of heart. Maybe just this once.

"I'll tell you a secret," Blaine said, leaning forwards as Kurt's eyes sprang back up to meet his, "Next week we're starting Winterson, all the way up until Winter Break."

Kurt's laugh filled the room, "The writings of an iconic cult-phenomenon, whose coming of age stories put Salinger's to shame?"

"So you're familiar with her work?"

Kurt just smiled, walking backwards towards the door, "Thank you for the heads up, Mr Anderson."

True to his word, Blaine introduced the class to the works of Jeanette Winterson four days later, throwing off his lesson plans completely, and resulting in staying up the whole night beforehand trying to rewrite them to accommodate his sudden spontaneity.

Somehow, the glimpse of a grin on Kurt Hummel's face made Blaine feel it was worth it.

The pads of your fingers have become printing blocks, you tap a message onto my skin, tap meaning into my body. Your morse code interferes with my heart beat.

Winter

"No, mother," Blaine said tonelessly into the phone held between one cheek and one shoulder, a hand holding The Great Gatsby open, while the other stroked the cat.

"But are you –"

"Yes! Mother I'm sure, and I'm sorry and I wish I could, but my workload is huge this term and there's no way I'd make it to Ohio and back for Christmas. I'm sorry."

It was a lie; and she knew it as well as he did. But Blaine didn't want to spend his Christmas with his parents, who would only talk about grandchildren and girlfriends, and he remembered last year when he dared to mention Jeremiah…

"Blaine!"

"Sorry! I've um….got another call. I'll have to go but…yes. No. Yes. I love you too."

Blaine had never been very good at lying.

His solution, it seemed, was to simply hide those parts of him he wished to remain a secret away from those who came looking. Blaine was not so much secretive, as simply resolute in his decision to not share.

His classes were becoming more and more enjoyable since he introduced Winterson into the Advanced Theories, and they were spending longer on each book, each chapter. The boys at least were kept enraptured by the promise of lesbianism, while the girls sighed tearfully at the heart breaking melodrama of it all. Kurt at least, seemed to appreciate the underlying themes.

Each paper he turned in was neat and eloquent, expressing verbose theories of even the raunchiest of subjects in the most fluid manner possible. Blaine was startled, and thoroughly impressed. Never before had he taught a twenty year old with such a craving for knowledge.

Sometimes Blaine would look up over his glasses, and catch Kurt writing so fast his hand was a blur, ink staining his fingers until he paused, raised his paper to double check a sentence or two, slide the capped end of his pen between his lips and twirl it there for a second.

The days were becoming colder and Blaine forgot to turn up the heat when he entered the room each morning, but the students just laughed and learned to come to class with an extra coat, to write with gloves on.

Kurt wore a different scarf every day, Blaine noticed. He matched his scarves to his gloves – always fingerless – and warmed the frozen tips on a steaming cup of coffee from the caf� next door every morning. Sometimes when he passed Blaine's desk at nine o'clock Blaine would smell the cinnamon or the nutty syrup, whatever flavour Kurt was that day.

Kurt marched right up to Blaine after class one day, his mouth open even before the entirety of students had left.

"I want to do Oranges, I can't believe you let Jackson have that one! Of all people! You know how much that book means to me!"

"Kurt –"

"I wrote eight thousand words about it last week! I'm hardly incapable; in fact I'm probably over capable. You know how well I would do on that assignment!"

Blaine sighed and let him finish. There was no use trying to hold back a flood with his bare hands, and Kurt was flushed and slightly out of breath when he stopped talking.

Blaine pulled off his glasses to rub them clean on his cardigan before speaking.

"Kurt you just said it yourself. You're more than capable when it comes to writing about Oranges, and we both know that."

"So why –"

Blaine held up a hand, "My class is about challenging yourself, Kurt. Of course I'm not going to give you a Christmas assignment I know you could knock out in your sleep, don't be ridiculous. I'm going to set you a task that perplexes you, that you can spend days and nights puzzling over. One that will be on your mind constantly, like a nagging itch you can't quite scratch."

Kurt's mouth was frozen in a soft and silent 'o', his eyes wide.

"Oh," he said finally, his voice small. He sounded younger than Blaine knew he was.

"Oh indeed," Blaine said, moving forwards and placing one hand on Kurt's shoulder. He jumped faintly at the touch, but didn't move away.

"I promise you'll like the book I've chosen for you. It's a personal favourite."

"Then I'm sure it will exceed expectations," Kurt said, and was it Blaine or was his voice a touch lower, a touch huskier than normal.

Blaine couldn't stop the jolt in his chest at the tone, the beat of his heart just a fraction too fast to ignore. Something, something about the way the light caught Kurt's eyes and let them filter from grey to green to blue, and maybe there was a word for it, maybe there wasn't.

Just something.

Blaine presented a grinning Kurt with a copy of Written on the Body the next Friday afternoon.

"Let me know what you think," he said as Kurt left the room with a wave.

But there was something different in Kurt's eyes over the next few lessons, like a strengthening resolve. An idea, a decision making itself known.

He hung back on the last lesson of term, waiting until the raucous noise of the students had faded down the hall before closing the door. Blaine barely registered the click as he looked up and saw Kurt walking towards him, a steely glint in his eye.

Determination.

Blaine's eyes flickered from Kurt's face to his clothes, to the door.

"You must be cold," he said finally, noticing Kurt's lack of coat. He resolved to pay no attention to the white skinny jeans that clung to every muscle, every curve and form of Kurt's legs. To the shirt whose sleeves cut off to only emphasise surprisingly formed muscles, the long bare stretch of forearm.

"I've been having some trouble," Kurt said, ignoring him completely.

"Oh?" Blaine managed, his throat suddenly a lot drier than it had been.

"With the book. I was hoping you could teach me."

Blaine pushed his chair back from the desk, capping his pen, anything to stall for time because he hadn't planned what he was going to say, to do when he was on his feet.

But he didn't get that far.

"I am teaching you Kurt, I – "

And then Kurt was there, too close, in two feet of space between Blaine's legs and the desk, and Blaine could smell him, could feel the heat from his skin.

"I don't think you understand, I want you to teach me, Mr Anderson."

Blaine opened his mouth to protest and maybe he even managed to rise a few inches to his feet before Kurt's hands came down on his shoulders, pressing him back down onto the chair. And then Kurt's lips were on his, softly, brushing with the gentlest touch like the wind through leaves at first, and then harder. Blaine gasped, tried to speak, but then Kurt's tongue touched his, tentative.

His hands were frozen on the armrests of the chair, his entire body stiffened, screaming at him to move, to push Kurt off, run home and jerk off in the shower. But while his body was unmoving and his mind telling him this was wrong, so, so wrong, something forced his hands up to brush though Kurt's hair, to pull him closer.

Kurt had climbed into his lap, a knee either side of Blaine's hips and his glasses were knocked askew by the point of Kurt's nose as he twisted his head to the side.

And then he pulled back, keeping their bodies close, but the space between their lips suddenly achingly far, and Blaine wanted to wrench his head closer by the fingers still twined in his hair.

"Teach me," Kurt whispered into the tangible silence, "Teach me how the words work."

Blaine pressed Kurt back in to kiss him, holding him there with his lips while one hand worked the buttons of Kurt's shirt, twisting, pulling, tugging, getting it wrong and fumbling until Kurt laughed into his mouth and Blaine nipped his bottom lip to shut him up.

One hand searched blindly at the expanse of the desk behind him, as Kurt unlooped his own arms from his shirt and let it fall to the floor before his own fingers began to free Blaine from his. And then they were both topless and Blaine's hand closed around thick black board marker.

"Words," he whispered, pressing the black nib to the white skin, "Are a secret code, only visible in certain lights."

The pen mimicked his words, inking a dark trail across Kurt's chest. "The accumulations of a lifetime gather there," the pen flickered over a dark pink nipple, eliciting a gasp. Blaine's hand pressed into the small of Kurt's back, encouraging him to lean backwards, to prop himself on the wood behind him.

His body lay flat, pliant and yielding below Blaine's touch.

"I like to keep my body rolled up away from prying eyes, never unfold too much, or tell the whole story," Blaine let his lips follow the pen, his tongue tracing the words he had just written. Teeth scraped up to the hollow of Kurt's throat, biting at the skin there, licking across his collarbones.

Kurt was mewling like an animal, pressing down harder into Blaine's lap, body stretched in a supple curve from the desk and down to where he ground their hips together. Each tiny thrust sending a spike of desire deep within him; it wasn't enough, he needed more and more.

He urged Kurt even further backwards, "We will fall like ripe fruit and roll down the grass together." The ink bled into the groves of Kurt's skin, the tiny web of lines that criss-crossed down his chest, the rise and fall of his ribs, the dip of his navel. Blaine traced the path downwards with his tongue, and heard the pen fall to the floor, but Kurt was grabbing at the buttons of Blaine's pants and freeing him from the confines of his boxers, and Blaine returned the favour, yanking Kurt's jeans and boxers to his knees.

It was irregular and hard and Kurt was pressing closer until their erections brushed, and he sucked Blaine's ink-stained fingers into his own mouth as a poor substitute for the slickness they craved, but then Blaine's hand closed around the both of them, jerking them roughly together. One arm pressed Kurt as close as he could get as he panted into his throat, mouth open and sucking at the skin there. The words on Kurt's skin rubbed between them, black smudging on skin with sweat and desperation, until Kurt came with a gasp that faded into a moan, and Blaine fell apart at the sight of him writhing on his lap.

Kurt curled, panting, into him and Blaine's arms found their way immediately around him as though they were made to belong there.

Until reality hit.

Blaine pushed Kurt from him, sending himself reeling backwards as he struggled back into his pants, his back hitting the wall behind him.

Kurt looked at him, bit his lip. He was black and white and smudges all over, and splattered with come and words. His eyes were too wide, too blue as he stared at Blaine.

"You should go," Blaine's voice cracked on the last syllable, and he hoped for both of their sakes that Kurt didn't notice.

"Blaine –"

"Kurt! Please, just go."

He gathered his things and pulled his shirt on, buttoning it wrong again and again until Blaine heard him let out a frustrated sob, and looked up to see his eyes spotted with tears. A black ink smudge stained his cheek.

"Here, let me," Blaine said softly, crossing the room against all his better judgements, smoothing the shirt, laying it flat against his body, hearing Kurt's breath catch in his throat. His hands stilled as he straightened Kurt's collar. He wanted to kiss his forehead, to cup his cheek and wipe the tears away with his lips and throw Kurt down onto his desk and trace every contour of his body with his mouth.

But his brain had decided that now would be a good time to return, and his head was filled with a scream that sounded like his boss and his mother and his ex and oh god oh god what the hell had he just done?

This hole in my heart is in the shape of you and no-one else can fit it. Why would I want them to?

Spring

By the time the glassy grey skies were clearing and a cold sunshine was falling on his face as Blaine walked to work, he had managed to convince himself that everything was okay.

Blaine Anderson was a professional, remember?

And after weeks and a Christmas alone with Hamlet and a Jeanette Winterson book glaring at him from every corner of his apartment, Blaine finally decided that maybe self-loathing and deprecation were not the best way to go about this situation.

He would continue on as normal, of course; because that was what Blaine did. He would not look at, think about, nor treat Kurt differently to any other pupil. He would not talk to him outside of class, or even in class if he didn't have to. And he definitely would not do anything to encourage the fluttering ball of feelings that alighted inside his ribcage whenever the boy crossed his mind.

Blaine followed his own rules to the letter; not even looking Kurt in the eye as he collected the Winter Break assignments from the students, not calling on him for answers, not letting his eyes raise even slightly from the wooden swirls of his desk as they worked.

The rules worked, however, and Blaine became exceptionally good at pretending Kurt Hummel didn't exist.

Until March, until the one night Blaine allowed himself to be forcibly dragged from his apartment by Puck, loudly demanding a catch up and refusing to let Blaine off until they were each three beers into a rudimentary drinking session in a crowded bar.

Because maybe crowds and alcohol and old friends would take his mind off of the blue eyed, pale skinned boy whose image was imprinted onto Blaine's memories.

Or maybe Blaine had just stumbled along the same path as many authors and poets before him, into drunkenness and depression.

"Dude you look like you want to kill somebody."

"Puck, why the hell did you choose to bring me here for a catch up? We're shouting just to hear each other; this is hardly grounds for a legitimate conversation."

Puck gave him a withering stare, "Whatever man. Just stop looking at the beer like it's mortally offended you or something."

Blaine rolled his eyes and looked away, to the other side of the bar where a group of students were drinking and laughing and making more noise combined than the rest of the bar. A figure stumbled from their midst, clutching hard onto the arm of Mr Winkle, and laughing so hard he was bent double.

Kurt.

Blaine had never seen him look so…care free. So young and happy and yet so mature, so masculine at the same time.

"Come on bro! Fourteen shots in, you've got seven to go!"

Kurt was laughing and covering his face, shaking his head but not protesting when Winkle pressed a brimming shot glass into his hand. He threw back his head in one, a shining drop of liquid escaping his lips, sliding the length of his throat.

Blaine's eyes burned, and as though Kurt could feel it his head snapped up and their eyes met across the room. Blaine found himself leaning backwards, reeling and stumbling to get off the barstool, and he could see Kurt pushing his way through his crowds of friends with anger in his face.

"I'll be right back," Blaine muttered to Puck, backing away before he could reply and fleeing to the blissfully empty rest room where he could lean on the sink and press his forehead to the cooling glass of the mirror.

He didn't have to wait long.

"I should punch you in the face."

Blaine didn't want to turn around, didn't want to see him all wild eyes and wet lips and spots of colour blooming high on his cheekbones, but he did and bit back a groan because fuck, Kurt was everything and more.

Kurt moved closer and Blaine wished he could be anywhere but here, anywhere but against a sticky sink with a heavily intoxicated but still beautiful, still enchanting, student bearing down upon him.

"Kurt."

"Fuck, Blaine please tell me exactly why you aren't kissing me right now?"

Annoyingly articulate for someone who'd had at least fifteen shots, and straight to the point as always and if this situation had been in any way hypothetical then Blaine would be laughing.

"Kurt, you're my student."

He rolled his eyes impatiently, "I'm not a child, Blaine. I'm twenty-one today, for fucks sake. I think I can decide what's good for me and what isn't!"

"It's…" Blaine's mind was fighting hard, because Kurt was doing that thing where he was far too close, and far too perfect for his own good and every inch of Blaine's mind was telling him to fuck it all completely and just…

"KURT!"

When Blaine got home he was going to burn his copy of Rip Van Winkle and he was going to laugh while he did it.

"Oh hey man!" the Giant said to Blaine, grabbing Kurt's elbow and dragging him from the room, and Blaine resisted the urge to punch the glass behind him.

Now you alter its pace with your own rhythm, you play upon me, drumming me taut.

Summer

Blaine couldn't stand his classroom in the summer. The wide windows welcomed heat, drawing the sun into the room and trapping it like a butterfly, leaving the inhabitants sweating and dizzy as they tried to write. Fingers left smudges and prints in the half-dried inks of handed in papers, and Blaine was forced to ditch his usual cardigan-and-shirt combo, in favour of lighter t-shirts and trousers.

It seemed that for Kurt Hummel, with a new age came a new clairvoyant sense about just how deep under Blaine's skin he really was. Everything he did was premeditated, planned to rile some sort of response out of him. Kurt dragged Winkle to the front row every day; spent the entirety of class talking, crossing and uncrossing his legs, dragging his pen along his bottom lip, and when all else failed, simply staring at Blaine until his skin itched.

In the cloying heat of the classroom Blaine could feel Kurt on his skin, under his skin every inch of the day. He was in his mind and thoughts; he was in the tears that burned the back of Blaine's throat, the splinter from his desk that wedged itself deep into his thumb one Wednesday.

Kurt was.

Until the day that he wasn't and it was the end of term. It was the last day and the students were laughing and joking and really only there to hand back their borrowed books and arrange their lessons schedules for next term, eight long and hot weeks from now that seemed like a lifetime.

Finn Hudson – Blaine read his untidy scrawl upside-down from the timetable on his desk – was there, grinning and saying that the lessons were really cool, especially the lesbians and stuff because he wasn't expecting that, and would it be alright if he came back next year?

But Kurt wasn't there, and he wasn't there as the bell went or as Blaine sat in the stifling heat and watched the cars pull one by one from the parking lot and into the sun.

There was a knock at the door, the light tapping of fingers and Blaine knew immediately.

He crossed the room, torn between running and crawling and did he really want to know?

Yes.

Kurt was wearing a knee length pea coat, and those stupid lace-up black boots he has that made him look like trussed up jailbait in the best way possible. He marched in, too confident, didn't talk until the door was closed, and he stood with his back to Blaine by the desk.

"Isn't it a little…hot for a coat?"

"You're right," there was laughter in his tone, but Blaine wasn't comforted. Every hair along his body was standing on end, every instinct telling him to run.

Then Kurt's arms were moving, undoing his coat and he was inching the dark wool off his shoulders to let it fall to the floor, one foot kicking it away but oh.

Kurt was naked, fuck, all pale skin and muscles and bones shifting under his skin as he bent forwards, placing both hands on the edge of the desk.

"Jesus, Kurt."

"Blaine," Kurt looked over his shoulder, a smirk on his face because he knew. It was impossible to turn him down when he was naked and brazen and stretched over the desk like that with just those boots still on and wrapping his calves up to his knees in pitch dark leather and straps.

"Blaine, I want you to fuck me."

Kurt stared him right in the eye, holding his gaze until it hurt, "I want you to take all your clothes off, come over here right now and fuck me."

And his eyes were pulling Blaine towards him like a marionette on a string, and fuck he was helpless to resist, and his t-shirt was on the floor before he remembered taking it off but his glasses fell with it, tangled in the collar somewhere and then everything blurred and wavered but Kurt was there, and Kurt was constant and as long as Blaine kept looking at him he could see.

Their bodies pressed together, contours looping into position around each other, muscles and skin and bones, one body going out where the other dipped inwards.

Blaine ran his fingers down the knobs and ridges of Kurt's spine, palm flattening at the base and he was starting to worry about the mechanics of this because heaven knows he didn't keep lube in his desk drawers at work, and

But oh,

Kurt's hole was damp already, stretched enough to let Blaine's fingers slip in with little resistance, sliding against the already slick inside.

"You…you…"

"I prepped myself before I came," Kurt said in a breathy whisper, pushing back against Blaine's hand, "I didn't want to oh, waste any…time which could be fuck, spent doing ah…other….things."

"Other things like what?" Blaine said, his mouth very close to Kurt's ear, because Kurt might hold a strange power over him, but Blaine wasn't letting go without a fight. Not now.

"Other things like fucking me against this desk until I can't see!" Kurt said harshly, panting as Blaine's fingers pressed harder and faster.

"Ask nicely," Blaine whispered between his shoulder blades, stilling the movements of his fingers, but keeping them pressed deep within Kurt. Kurt turned his face, meeting Blaine's eyes with his huge and wide and imploring.

"Please," he mouthed, the words straining against his throat, "Please, Mr Anderson. Fuck me against your desk until I scream your name, until we can't breathe and the world goes dark because it's so fucking good. Fuck me until I can feel you in me every time I move over the summer."

And then Blaine is pulling his fingers out and replacing them with the head of his cock, and it's slippery but he pushes in inch by inch, until Kurt is begging and keening and whining for more and for harder and for fuck Blaine, please!

Blaine has never done this before; never found himself pressing harder and faster into someone at their complete mercy and unable to comply with anything except gasped requests.

"Harder, Blaine fuck!"

Because they both needed this, and as Blaine folded one arm around Kurt's torso, holding them as close as they could get, he knew that this was everything they couldn't say. This was sorry, and I was an idiot, and please forgive me, and yes and no and everything in between and sorry, sorry, I'm so fucking sorry.

Kurt was still talking between gasps and curses and harder, and their hips are slamming into the table edge while one of Blaine's hand is digging fingertip bruises into Kurt's side. The table thuds with every thrust, and Kurt turns his head to find Blaine's mouth, and their lips and teeth catch because the angle is awkward and awful and wonderful, and fuck after six months and Kurt still tastes the same and kisses the same and feels the same.

Blaine feels hot and cold all at once and the air is burning him, but Kurt is hotter, and Kurt makes the summer heat feel like ice when his skin is the alternative, and Blaine wants to remain in this moment, these seconds of heat and pressure and pain and sweat forever. But Kurt is crying out and clenching around him, and every thrust is building to a painful crescendo and Blaine wishes it could last forever but it damn near painful to hold onto this moment.

His orgasm lasts seconds, minutes, an eternity of blissful nothingness, the silence after the thunder but before the lightning strikes.

Blaine pulled out of Kurt, and let his knees give way to drop onto the floor. Kurt fell with him, landing in a tangle of limbs and joints and laughing quietly before nuzzling Blaine's neck like a cat, arching as Blaine ran his fingertips up the ridges of his spine.

Some say that the pomegranate was the real apple of Eve, fruit of the womb, I would eat my way into perdition to taste you.

Autumn, Again

Maybe it was a coincidence that Blaine's jumper was the exact shade of the crisp leaves that littered the parking lot of NYU, the first morning back in October. Maybe he could feel the autumn rising on the air as he dressed, taste it in his coffee, see it through the colour of his own eyes covered by their stupid glasses.

The sun is bright and the wind was there but gentle, touching his curls enough to push them into his eyes.

Blaine wondered if Wuthering Heights was too melancholic for this time of year, if maybe he should teach something with sunshine and familiarity to those students returning.

The class was smaller this year, but only just. He was joined by sheepish looking boys who admitted they actually enjoyed his lessons before scrambling for seats at the back of the room. The girls were still there, still giggling at the front.

Finn looked more awake than usual, "I got into coffee this summer! It's awesome!"

And then…

There was a deep red mark under Kurt's jawbone, showing no signs of fading any time soon and Blaine bit the inside of his cheek and busied himself with pulling books from his bag to stop the grin threatening to leak across his face.

"I want everyone to see it, everyone to know. But mostly I want you to be able to see it, so when you sit up there every day you can remember how it feels to have me underneath you every night. You'll think about fucking me over your desk, and I'll look at you and I'll know because fuck I'll be thinking it too"

Kurt's eyes were bright and his smile was a touch more teasing than Blaine was ever at ease with, and he let his tongue run wetly across his lips just for a second, slipping his pen between his teeth. Smiling.

"Welcome back. I trust you all had a good summer?"

Who taught you to write in blood on my back? Who taught you to use your hands as branding irons?