Kurt wants to look up a list of all the clich�d terms regarding afterglow. And then see how many of them are achingly, deliciously accurate. His head still can’t decide whether he wants to be completely loose and lazy, muscles unwound against the boy he loves, or whether he wants to continue the ticker tape parade going on in his brain that seems to be looking like a constant stream of “I just lost my virginity”. It’s a strange, delightful mix of both right now.

Anything that comes out of his mouth right now is either going to be nonsense or an explosion of “I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you”. Kurt can feel the absolutely ridiculous smile creep onto his face now, the one that makes Blaine break out smiling too. And that smile—that smile makes Kurt’s chest swell up. He’s seen it so many times, seen it pretty much every day for the past year.

And God, it’s been a year. Kurt thinks of a year ago. He was just on the cusp of meeting this boy—this boy next to him wrapped up in their tangled bedsheets and Kurt’s arms. He was holding onto the last mangled bits of composure he could. He was absolutely and completely not who he was now. And the more he thinks about it, the more he thinks about Kurt-a-year-ago, the more he wants to just burrow into Blaine and never get out. He curls closer to Blaine, wrapping his arms around his waist, nestling his nose into his neck. He breathes Blaine in. Sweat—the thought of how Blaine got that sweat—has never been more appealing.

Sex had scared him when he didn’t have a face he knew and loved to put with it. He hated porn, with its overly-muscled, overly-endowed men who were too aggressive and too loud and too fake. That had scared him. Porn, faceless and abstract, was not sex. This was sex: Blaine shivering underneath Kurt’s fingertips, fists curling into sheets, kisses—so many kisses. Drawn-out moments where he could just look at Blaine—Blaine naked—and just allow it to twist his stomach in the best way. Sucking bruises into Blaine’s neck and pressing his finger firm against Blaine’s chest, trailing it down, down—he could do it forever.

He could just look at Blaine forever. He loved Blaine’s collarbone, loved running his fingers along the skin and the bone, loved mouthing at the dips (it reminded Kurt of summer, of kissing sun-stained slopes of his throat). He loved tracing every muscle on Blaine’s arms while he kissed him. He loved watching those tendons in Blaine’s hand shift and stretch when he moved his fingers, those sinews that pulsed faintly just like when he played the piano. He loved Blaine invading his senses—with Blaine’s moans and his cologne and his trailing fingers and his taste.

“I kind of want to do it forever.” Blaine whispers.

“Me too.” Kurt whispers back.

“No, but…with you...forever.” Blaine says, still smiling but also holding the very clear statement of ‘what-does-Kurt-think-about-this’.

It’s not like Kurt hasn’t ever thought about marrying Blaine. In fact, he probably thinks about it way too often. He’d always thought he was silly for doing so, because eighteen year olds probably weren’t supposed to be planning their marriages, but…there was that handful of high school couples that did last, right? Was he idealistic, was he making them one of those couples in his mind?

But then this past summer happened—New York’s legalization, Blaine curled into him while they waited for the verdict together, that frenzied, too-long, teary kiss in front of Kurt’s whole family when they got the news. There was a moment a few hours later, when everyone had filed out and it was just Kurt and Blaine on the couch together, where Blaine had Kurt wrapped up in his arms, where they were just looking at each other and breathing. They hadn’t said anything—not about getting married, not then. But it was unspoken, hanging tangibly in the air. That day—it made Kurt’s whole future, all his ambitions, flash by in a haze. He could be in New York, married. And he didn’t see himself married to anybody but Blaine.

“I know. Me too.”

“Really?” Blaine’s still sort-of whispering, clutching onto Kurt’s hand and holding it close to his chest, Kurt’s thumb playing at the bottom of Blaine’s throat.

“Are you… asking if I want to marry you? Because…yes. God, yes, I do. So much. I mean, not now, obviously, but…yes.”

Blaine puts that smile on again—he’s absolutely giddy, bursting. He gets even closer to Kurt (could they get closer? Kurt didn’t think so, but he’s rethinking.) and takes his lips in a slow, sweeping kiss. And then Blaine’s bringing hands around Kurt’s waist and holding him tight and close.

“Are we being silly?” Blaine says, centimeters from Kurt’s lips.

“I consider myself a rather rational person, Blaine, and I haven’t a doubt in my rational mind that I want to be your husband. Someday.”

“I want to be your husband too.” Blaine holds Kurt’s face and kisses him with everything in him and how, how could, after eight months of these kisses, Blaine still make it feel like the first one?

“I don’t know if I don’t say it enough…or if I say it too much…I don’t know, but…I love you, okay? I love you so much.” And then Kurt’s kissing him and kissing him and Blaine’s murmuring “Love you, love you” in between presses of lips.

One year ago, it was locker-bruises and trying his best to get out of bed each morning. There was nobody to hold him, nobody to listen, nobody to give a damn. And here, here with Blaine’s thumb trailing feather-light over Kurt’s bottom lip and his toes teasing at Kurt’s foot under the sheets, he remembers how this single boy changed him—changed everything. And now he’s given everything to this boy and nothing in the world has ever felt more right. He’s going to have this for the rest of his life—Blaine’s fingers and Blaine’s lips and the boy who saved him.