Disclaimer: I don't own Glee or The Proposal.

Read Me:Here we go! (By the way, I was actually considering deleting the scene in the forest that's in this chapter, but then I decided to keep it in there just for fun.)

"You can do this, but that would require you to stop snacking on children while they dream."

—Andrew Paxton, The Proposal

IV

"Oh, Kurt, you look positively stunning," Evangeline gushes, spreading her hands out and walking towards the man in question in what seems to be an overdramatized attempt at slow motion. Her high heels click against the tile floor. "Give us a spin."

Kurt arches an eyebrow minutely and slowly schlepps around in a tiny circle so as to exhibit the white velvet jacket and periwinkle blue cropped trousers with the pinstripes he's currently wearing from as many angles as possible. He tries to soften the annoyed look on his face, but for all his effort, he just ends up looking like he's undergoing intestinal contractions.

Evangeline and Elise have twin grins planted onto their faces as they take out identical Nikons and begin purposefully snapping various shots of dolled-up Kurt, who coincidentally isn't really any more dressed up than regular Kurt. Blaine simply stands to the side, an amused look adorning his face as he watches his fiance stagger through the sudden deluge of pre-engagement feelings.

When all is said and done, Kurt excuses himself to stand with Blaine by the pita-and-hummus table and absentmindedly sips at a bit of champagne.

"People are going to start arriving," Blaine warns him.

"So?" Kurt says, continuing to grumpily sip at his drink.

"So I'd recommend not looking like you're about to keel over and die," Blaine says, leaning over and dipping his finger into the hummus. He waggles his eyebrows at Kurt as he licks it off.

Kurt turns a vibrant shade of scarlet and slaps Blaine on the forearm. "Blaine! Oh, my God, I can't believe I'm actually getting married to such a fucking—" A woman with a bright smile and a circlet of diamonds wound around her neck tightly approaches them and Kurt immediately retracts his hand from Blaine's arm, rids himself of his awful expression, and plasters a vacant smile onto his face. "Oh, hello!" Kurt says brightly. "Enjoying the party?"

Blaine hastily nudges Kurt into his arms.

The woman's eyes shift from Blaine to Kurt. "It's wonderful," she says, flipping her brassy blonde hair over her shoulder and giving them another one of her disconcerting smiles. She sticks out a hand. "I just wanted to congratulate the happy young couple. Marriage is such a blessing." She claps her hand against her well-endowed chest, heavily made-up eyes glistening with tears. "Such a blessing indeed."

Blaine nods at her. "Thank you so much, Mrs. Martin," he says kindly.

"Is that your husband?" Kurt asks, jerking his head in the direction of a man wearing a corduroy jacket and standing by the chocolate fountain.

"Yes! Ten years of bliss," she says, sighing for what Kurt assumes to be romantic effect. He neglects to inform her that her supposed husband has been sneaking lascivious glances towards Elise for the past fifteen minutes; regardless, Mrs. Martin floats away airily towards the lox finger sandwiches.

"Woo, what a party," Kurt exhales loftily, wriggling out of Blaine's grasp and straightening his jacket.

"You have to let me talk, Kurt," Blaine complains, grabbing a slice of pita and dipping it into the bowl of spinach and artichoke dip on the table. "People are going to start assuming things."

With a scowl, Kurt asks, "What kind of things, Blaine?"

"That, like, you wear the pants in this relationship, and that you coerced me into this relationship—"

"Which would happen to be one-hundred percent true," Kurt says, absentmindedly popping a slice of cantaloupe into his mouth and licking the juice off his fingers.

"What? No—!"

"Don't even try to deny it, Blaine Anderson," Kurt shoots back sharply, his expression dangerous.

Blaine backs off accordingly.

Kurt smiles smugly to himself and for a few short minutes, he and Blaine watch as the Anderson Family living room is filled with various guests and partygoers—all of whom are completely alien to Kurt. He merely smiles vapidly at everyone who so much as throws a glance his way, mainly to keep people from getting into conversations. Best to allow everyone to assume that Blaine had selected him as a trophy husband, he figures, especially since Blaine's family is rich as balls anyway.

As the party progresses, however, Kurt finds himself pushed out into the crowd more and more by Blaine, who greets everyone with a jovial smile on his face and an occasional friendly pat on the rear. All of his friends from high school and a few from college are present, and they all congratulate Blaine on finding such a wonderful spouse and scold him for not telling them sooner. Blaine merely shrugs them off and tells them that he's a private person when it comes to romance; Kurt smiles coquettishly, shakes their hands, and sends them off graciously.

He can't help but feel a surge of pride whenever he glances up at Blaine. Kurt had cleaned Blaine up quite a bit for the party—they had spent nearly three hours holed up in the bathroom as Kurt had fretted about, shaving Blaine's chin carefully and trimming overgrown nostril hairs and styling his curls until they felt as springy and bouncy as possible. A quick adventure into Blaine's enormous walk-in closet and Kurt had managed to salvage a nicely-fitted Hugo Boss ensemble in a pale gray-purple color that would bring out the color of Blaine's eyes. All in all, a productive afternoon, and Kurt finds himself feeling vaguely proud of the man who's hanging onto his arm, proud of this Blaine Anderson.

Richard Anderson is there, as well, aloof and standoffish in his three-piece suit and sipping at some Chardonnay with a sour look on his face. Kurt watches him carefully, making sure not to do anything that would be classified as disrespectful or rude by his so-called fiance's father. He actually leans into Blaine's chest and asks him, "Is your dad okay with this?"

"He'll be fine," Blaine assures him, patting Kurt on the back comfortingly.

Much to Kurt's annoyance, that tiny exhibition of affection elicits a chorus of adoring noises from the crowd in the living room. Blaine waves it off with an easy smile and pulls Kurt into a tighter hug, clearly milking the attention like a farmer to a heifer.

"And the crowd goes wild," Kurt whispers angrily into Blaine's collar, trying hard not to inhale the cologne there.

"Let's just cut to the chase, boys," Elise calls from the bar at the corner of the living room. She raises her mug of beer. "We want the story!"

"Yes, the story!" the man Kurt recognizes at Blaine's high school friend, Wes.

"The engagement story!" everyone in the room but Kurt, Blaine, and Richard shout together.

"Engagement story!" Figgins, the stripper, hoots.

Kurt gives him the evil eye. Who the hell had invited Saggy McSaggy Butt to the party?

"Kurt," Blaine warns, rubbing at his shoulder.

"Okay, you want the story?" Kurt tells the crowd. "Um, here's the story." This had been the part he and Blaine had glossed over earlier, despite Kurt's plans. They had spent the majority of their free time fixing Blaine up for the party and verbally abusing each other. The notebook page Kurt had reserved for the engagement details had remained largely empty, much to his dismay.

"So..." Blaine begins, exchanging a desperate look with Kurt. "You know what? Kurt can tell the story. He loves telling this story."

"Um, well. We had been dating exclusively for a month, and I was trying to come up with ways to suggest um, marriage," Kurt begins, rocking on the balls of his feet. "Blaine's my private assistant, if you didn't know."

"I am," Blaine agrees. "So one day he left the office for a business trip and I stayed to look over...things. For the day. Only for the day."

"I was actually going to pick up his ring," Kurt adds hastily. "Show them the ring, babe." He reaches down, searching for Blaine's left hand, and only grazes his crotch once before snagging his wrist and holding it up like a referee at a wrestling match. The diamond-inlaid ring glitters in the light, and the partygoers all ooh and ah appreciatively. "It's a Dior," he boasts.

"And," Blaine says, taking his hand down from Kurt's grasp primly, "He left his phone at the office, and he had the details about a hotel room in a text message there."

"He's horrible and he doesn't trust me," Kurt grits through his teeth, giving Blaine a murderous stare, as if to say, Why the hell are you making me look bad?

"I thought he was cheating on me," Blaine says piously, planting his hands onto his chest and looking far off into the distance.

"I wasn't!"

"He wasn't," Blaine clarifies.

Kurt forces a smile and continues, "So of course I planned it all perfectly. He hopped into his cute little charmingly homosexual Volkswagon and drove right up to the Plaza and marched up to the room—"

"—it wasn't easy, either!"

"He offended so many people," Kurt says. "Including the person at the front desk. He almost got kicked out of the Plaza. He knocked down a tray for someone's afternoon high tea—"

"Accidentally," Blaine squeaks, his grip on Kurt tightening. "So when I opened the door, I found—"

"This is adorable," Elise interrupts, eyes glittering with tears.

"He found nothing," Kurt says quickly, shooing Elise away offhandedly. "He found nothing."

"Except a box!" Blaine exclaims triumphantly, raising his martini glass boisterously.

With a scowl, Kurt turns to Blaine, cocks his head to the side. "And what, pray, was in this box of yours?"

"Nothing!"

"Except for a ri—"

"Except for a bunch of tiny little cut-out confetti hearts that fluttered out," Blaine corrects. "All beautiful and delicate." He taps his fingers against his lips, caught in deep thought. "And if I remember correctly, he had printed out twenty or so pictures of his face and pasted them on the box. So beautiful."

Kurt slaps his face into his hands and tries his hardest not to knead his face. "At which point I very pointedly stopped screwing around and stepped out from the bathroom." He reaches behind Blaine and squeezes at his butt in fair warning. "And I got down on one knee and proposed."

Blaine flinches at the feeling of Kurt squishing his ass. "He was dressed to the nines, in a black tuxedo," he grinds out. "Standing."

"Kneeling."

"Like a man."

"I asked him if he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me."

"And I said—"

"Yes, he said yes," Kurt says, clearly aggravated. "And you know what happened after that."

"Gay sex?" Elise asks hopefully. "You were in a hotel room—"

"Okay, that's enough," Richard says, making his way through the crowd and breaking the mood. "Can we have some more of those sushi rolls on the counter? I'm feeling awfully peckish."

"Can we turn on the karaoke machine?" Wes asks hopefully. "Please? It's not an Anderson Family party without some karaoke."

"By all means," Blaine says dazedly, feeling his mauled butt sadly. Kurt's hands had practically tenderized it with the same amount of force as one would use to tenderize a cut of beef.

"Come with me," Kurt murmurs, pulling Blaine in the direction of the second kitchen. "Do not make eye contact with anyone—" He stamps on Blaine's foot. "I said no eye contact, Blaine!"

.:.

"What the hell was that, Blaine?"

"What are you complaining about now?"

"Little paper cut-out confetti hearts? How old are you, five?"

"Twenty-eight, actually."

"What are you going to do next, sing Rick Astley to me over your karaoke system?"

"Wait—can I?"

"Blaine."

"They're going to want us to sing something anyway!"

"We are not going to sing together and we are not Rick Roll everyone, okay?"

"Oh, you have a plan for this, too? Because the last time you tried to plan something out, that worked out so well—"

"Shut up and let me handle this before I—"

"Cut off my balls? Yeah, you're getting predictable, Kurt."

"..."

"...ow! What the hell, Kurt?"

.:.

By the time Kurt and Blaine squeeze themselves to the front of the karaoke machine, the lights are dimmed and the music is loud. A few of Blaine's old friends from high school had plugged microphones into the karaoke jack, and there are song lyrics in huge, neon letters flashing on the plasma screen television. Strains of Michael Jackson and the Beatles worm their way through Kurt's head and he feels positively nauseous.

"Are you going to be okay?" Blaine murmurs, leading him to the couch in front of the television and sitting Kurt onto his lap. "Do you need some more booze?"

"I don't need to be inebriated to have a good time, Blaine," Kurt snaps irritably.

Kurt feels a slight shift in the couch and he looks over to find Elise grinning at him. "What do you want, Elise?"

"A duet, of course," Elise singsongs. She reaches out and reels in Brittany and Santana from their spot in the line that had formed for the karaoke machine.

Seeing Santana up this close, Kurt realizes, is incredibly nerve-wracking. The girl's face is angry, she looks strong enough to shatter her glass of whiskey with one hand, and her eyebrows are dark and arched. All in all, she's the complete opposite of Brittany, who looks more Victoria's Secret Angel than exotic dancer.

"Elise, what the hell?" Santana barks. "Me and Brit wants to get our karaoke on."

"I just want to sing," Brittany says, evidently for clarification's sake.

Elise frowns. "Why are you talking like that, Santana? You sound like you're from the Shore—"

"You look like you come from the Shire, princess," Santana counters acidly. She turns to face Kurt and looks him up and down, frowning and nodding at the same time. "Not bad, Anderson, where'd you pull this one from?"

"Work?" Blaine says with a shrug.

"For the record, Miss Santana, I pulled him from work," Kurt corrects, shifting in his seat and accidentally smacking Blaine in the nose with his shoulder.

"Nice catch, Kurt," Santana replies approvingly. She looks at Blaine. "I like him."

Kurt doesn't really have many positive thoughts about Santana (he's still kind of puzzled as to why she would pair a thickly furred vest with a tight shirt dress), but he laughs it off and leans in closer to Blaine, secretly enjoying the warmth emanating from Blaine's chest.

Brittany leans down and puts her hands on her knees. She smiles. "You're cute," she tells Kurt, poking him on the nose and laughing.

"I know he is," Blaine agrees.

"You should sing us a song," Brittany says. "I mean, you two together. A duvet."

"Brittany, honey, it's a duet," Santana says, and it's the sweetest Kurt's heard her speak so far. He figures she has a bit of a sweet spot for the willowy too-dumb-to-be-stupid Brittany.

Blaine grins ear-to-ear. "Hear that, Kurt? I think they want us to sing together."

Kurt shakes his head. "No! No no no no no. One thousand times no, Blaine, please."

"Oh, please," Santana says dismissively, pulling Kurt off of Blaine and steering him in the direction of the karaoke machine, which has just finished aiding Evangeline in her rendition of Gaynor's I Will Survive. "One stupid little song isn't going to kill you."

Figgins walks past them with a bottle of beer in his hands, winks at Kurt, and tells them, "You can tell he's a good singer by the way he drinks his soda pop."

Kurt, Blaine, Santana, and Brittany share a collective shudder; Elise merely catcalls in Figgins' direction and throws a steaming hot cheese ball at him.

"We only have oldies here, unfortunately," Elise calls from the sofa, licking residual cheese off her fingers as Kurt kneels down to examine the track listings in the machine.

"We'll make do," Blaine says, shooing the crowd away so that they form a semicircle around the karaoke machine's perimeter.

Kurt surmises that they're not going anywhere. People were going to watch him sing with Blaine! Abort! Abort abort abort!

"I don't see a boat," Brittany says blankly, but Santana is quick to silence her with a pat to the elbow.

Oh, God, had he said that out loud? Kurt's not sure, and he can't help but mentally flick through methods of castration. Best be ready to hurt Blaine when he got the chance—

"You said you know Jersey Boys, right?" Blaine asks, absentmindedly scrolling through the song listings with the remote on his microphone.

"Let me die," Kurt answers.

"You'll be fine, babe," Blaine says soothingly. "Just follow the lyrics."

"And the music, don't forget that," Elise says helpfully.

Kurt's eyes stray to the television. "Just pick something mindless and...unmeaningful." He fixes his bangs with his hand. "Yes, unmeaningful and shallow!" he cries. "Do you have Ke$ha on that thing?" His eyes widen as Blaine selects a track and slow, melancholy music begins to fill the room. Everyone goes silent, curious to see if Blaine's new fiance could sing as well as Blaine himself, and they all coo accordingly when they see the title of the song Blaine had selected.

"You guys are precious," Evangeline shouts from the snack table, where she's unloading a tray of fried spring rolls.

"Frankie Valli, really Blaine?" Kurt demands angrily, picking up his microphone and spritzing it with the antibacterial spray he keeps in his pocket.

Blaine shrugs. "It's a good song." He pauses. "It means something."

"But Blaine—"

"My eyes adored you," Blaine interrupts earnestly, holding a hand out in Kurt's direction. Kurt shuts his mouth and eyes. "Though I never laid a hand on you, my eyes adored you. Come on, Kurt, sing."

Kurt huffs and joins Blaine unenthusiastically: "Like a million miles away from me you couldn't see how I adored you."

"So close," Blaine croons, and Kurt can see Evangeline and Elise mouthing the words together in his peripheral vision.

"So close, so close and yet so far away," Kurt reluctantly returns with a forced smile, resisting the urge to find a cyanide pill and swallow it. He shuffles over and takes Blaine's hand. You are insufferable and I hate you, he wants to tell Blaine. "Headed for city lights, climbed the ladder up to fortune and fame," he sings instead.

Blaine smiles smugly at Kurt and sings, "I worked my fingers to the bone, made myself a name."

Blaine had hit the nail on the head with this one. His voice is perfectly suited for the song, rich, velvety, and earnest. He even looks the part with his 50's haircut and his suit, melody warbling out from his mouth like a freakishly realistic recording of Frankie Valli himself. Kurt feels ridiculous as he sings in tandem to realizing that this song kind of, sort of narrates his relationship with Blaine.

"Funny, I seem to find, that no matter how the years unwind—"

"Still I reminisce—"

"About the girl I miss—" Kurt stops hesitantly. "Guy I miss," he corrects himself, much to the partygoers' amusement.

"And the love I left behind..."

After that, Kurt manages to stumble through another two choruses and a few hoots and hollers from his little pseudo-audience; all the while Blaine seems to be laughing at some kind of secret joke. Kurt quirks an eyebrow up at him afterward and simply glares, but Blaine doesn't seem to understand the gravity of his fury. He's too busy wooing his audience in a fashion more suited to some celebrity than a private assistant.

What was that?

"Kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss!" the crowd chants, banging their beer bottles against various hard surfaces and stomping the hardwood floor with their feet.

Oh my God, Kurt thinks frantically. They want me to kiss my private assistant. I'm going to have to kiss my private assistant in front of all of Westerville.

"That won't be necessary," Blaine says apologetically. "We're private—"

"Private freaks in the sack," Santana murmurs playfully. She leans over to nip Brittany on the collarbone.

"Kiss him!" someone shouts, voice close to hysterical.

"Oh, um, okay," Blaine says, resolve crumbling. He looks down at where his and Kurt's hands are just barely brushing up against one another, and then back up to Kurt's eyes, which are hard and steely.

Kurt makes a squeaking noise. "Blaine! What the hell are you—"

"Don't kill me, please," Blaine whispers as he leans in, cups Kurt's face in his hands, and guides Kurt's lips to his.

Kurt's eyes fly open in shock—his private assistant is kissing him! This is the guy who files his papers and vacuums his office rug and buys him awful scones from Starbucks!—but he can't deny that it feels nice. Blaine's mouth is warm and pleasantly wet against his, not breaching his personal bubble by breaking out the tongue, just kind of...there. Pressed up. Against his mouth. Oh, God, Blaine Anderson's kissing him! How could he let himself forget that?

Blaine's lips move against Kurt's gently, and his hands drift down from Kurt's jaw to his waist, settling at the juncture there naturally. Kurt's mind is in a frenzy, too sensitive at too many points at once, not really sure if kissing back would be deemed inconsiderate, not really sure if not kissing back would be considered frigid. For the moment, his mind is a hurricane and he's struck by a flurry of incomplete notions and ideas all whirling about in his head like...like detritus, he thinks wildly to himself. Moldy, wet, detritus, that's what this is.

Kurt is saved from his thoughts by Blaine himself, who slowly releases Kurt from his grasp and steps back, a confused expression adorning his face. Kurt can feel the shock himself in the form of patches of heat blooming high on his cheekbones.

Both men are so surprised that they forget to register the loud cheering that has broken out in the living room.

"Not a word of this," Kurt hisses, spinning around on his heel in pursuit of some vodka with which to induce temporary amnesia.

.:.

"Blaine," Evangeline says, watching her son spin around on his barstool continuously, "You're going to get dizzy, anak,"

"No I'm not," Blaine says, continuing to shimmy around on his chair. "It's fun, look, see?" He gives her a humorless smile. "Whee."

Evangeline smiles back at him weakly and taps him on the knee, effectively stopping his movement. "Alright, Blaine."

All of the guests had left thirty minutes ago, and Kurt had disappeared with them without so much as a good-bye. Blaine's practically beside himself in confusion and has taken to spinning on the barstool like a maniac.

"I was wondering," Evangeline begins. "Well, I was talking to your father about this...and, well, anak, we just really would like to be around for your wedding."

"Oh," Blaine replies, twiddling his thumbs anxiously. "That's nice, I guess."

"So, I was wondering if you'd like to have the ceremony here instead of New York, Blaine," Evangeline says gently. "Your father and I, as well as Brittany and Elise. You know that it'll be hard for us to move. Brittany's so hard to travel with, and your father's caught up with his work—"

"You want to have the ceremony here in Ohio?" Blaine asks.

"Yes," Evangeline confirms. "You know how much this family means to me, right? I'm just so afraid that you're phasing us out of your life, Blaine."

"Oh, mom," Blaine says, leaning in close to his mother. "I don't know."

"We could have it a day after tomorrow," Evangeline says firmly. "I called up Zegna and organized a fitting for both you and Kurt. It'll be our engagement present to you two."

"Mama—"

"Don't Mama me, Blaine Anderson, we're finally doing something for you two." She looks up at him with kind eyes. "You can get married in Ohio now. And you and Kurt won't have to lift a finger, I promise. I'll handle everything."

Blaine laughs humorlessly. "Oh, there will be lifted fingers," he mutters, thinking of Kurt and his probable reaction to the notion of getting married in Ohio.

"What was that?"

"Kurt lived in Ohio," Blaine amends quickly, proverbial tail in between his legs. "We could drive his family down, too."

"We could, if he wanted," Evangeline says with a smile. "Come on, help me put away the dishes, anak, my back is sore."

.:.

Kurt has a bicycle.

Scratch that.

Kurt has stolen one of Elise's bicycles from the massive garage and is riding it towards the Ohio woods with a palpable fury, desperation leaking through his bones like water through toilet paper. He really can't deal with this; his thoughts are a mess and his lips are still stinging from his kiss with Blaine. He can feel the sting fading as he cruises further and further into the woods. He's forgetting. Forgetting what it feels like to have Blaine's lips on his, all gentle and mild and gee, Kurt, I'm a gentleman, see?

He's also tipsy. Really, really tipsy.

There's music coming from a clearing deeper in the forest, and Kurt's brow furrows at the sound of it. He pedals faster until he's just skirting the border of the clearing and lets the bike fall to the ground with an unceremonious thump.

.:.

Blaine sighs as he logs into his email account and scrolls through the messages. People are already beginning to react to Kurt's absence, and Blaine does the best he can to answer all of the business queries—Kurt's not available, Miss Jones, but I'm sure he was never interested in heavy-knit sweaters and Yes, the endorsement with Sunshine Corazon is still on. No, don't let her work with other companies, Kurt's not going to approve.

When he's done with his emails, he finds his hand drifting toward his lips, which are still buzzing with the memory of Kurt—Kurt kissing him. Sweetly. Not angrily. Without any threats to his penis.

Blaine shakes his head, checks TD Ameritrade, buys a few more stocks, sells three others, and fiddles with a few games of Bejeweled before standing up in his computer chair and grabbing his windbreaker from the coatrack.

He'll take a walk, clear his mind. Then he'll tell Kurt about the wedding over a nice dinner, maybe convince him to open up a little bit more.

He likes the idea.

.:.

"Brittany, what are you doing?" Kurt asks, peering from behind a fern frond at the blonde, who's dancing around to tribal music. She's good, Kurt gives her that, all shaking hips and moving legs and wild, but he doesn't really understand anything at all. Namely the reason as to why Brittany's dancing alone in the woods.

Brittany stops in her movements and smiles dazzlingly. The music stops. "Hi, Kurt," she says vacantly.

"Um, hi, Brittany," Kurt manages, stepping from behind the fern and into the clearing. He toes a few fallen leaves. "May I ask what you're doing here?"

"I'm dancing," Brittany answers with a laugh. "I mean, I thought it was pretty obvious," She shakes her hips experimentally. "Santana says it's good for the soul."

"That's...nice," Kurt says, eyebrow drifting up.

Brittany gives Kurt another disconcertingly happy smile. "Want to try?"

"Try what?"

"Try dancing," Brittany says. "It's not hard, promise. You look like you'd be good at it."

"Who told you I'm a good dancer?"

"Figgins said I'm not allowed to say."

"All of a sudden Figgins is a viable source of information?"

"So," Brittany says conversationally, popping her lips together and disregarding Kurt's question entirely. "Want to give it a try?"

"I guess," Kurt replies tersely, kind of miffed that Brittany had ignored him.

"Go," Brittany says, motioning to the center of the clearing where there are less dried leaves littering the floor.

Kurt squeezes his eyes shut and attempts to loosen up. This would be good for him. He needs this. He needs to forget.

"Santana says that dance is all about what's inside you," Brittany says helpfully, flicking the radio on (had that been there before?).

Kurt inhales sharply as a familiar tune begins to play, the sound filling his body with a weird sense of euphoria. "To the window, to the window..." Kurt murmurs, tapping his hand to his thigh in time to the beat.

"Uh-huh?" Brittany nods encouragingly, beckoning for him to continue.

"To the wall, to the wall..." Okay, this is just getting fucking weird, some distant, detached part of his mind thinks. Why am I singing bad rap songs with a suspicious girl in the middle of the woods? "To the sweat drips down my balls..."

"To all you bitches crawl!" Brittany finishes excitedly, jumping up and down and clapping her hands together.

"To all skee skee motherfucker, all skee skee gat dayum!" Kurt raps, voice growing stronger, arms propelling around like the hands of a clock.

Brittany raises a single fist, raises her face to the heavens, and hollers, "TO THE WINDOOOOW!"

Kurt wiggles his hips enthusiastically and tries gyrating around with Brittany. "TO THE WAAAALL!"

Then, in unison, "TO THE SWEAT DRIPS DOWN MY BALLS!"

"Kurt?"

Kurt feels the excitement in his chest drop to his bladder and freeze. "Blaine?"

"Brittany?" Brittany asks.

"I was, erm, expressing my feelings," Kurt tries to explain, making terse hand gestures and sputtering as Brittany surreptitiously turns off the stereo. "Because, um, well, Brittany told me it was a good idea." He looks at his feet and furrows his brow. "Then again, why the hell was I listening to Brittany?"

Blaine looks at him curiously, hands in his pockets. "And you came up with...balls?"

"...no—"

"Kurt, are you trying to tell me something?"

Kurt glares at him icily. "Of course not, Blaine!" he half-yells, crossing his arms to his chest tightly.

"Hey, listen, there's something you might want to know about," Blaine says, backing off a little bit and casting a glance at Brittany, who is quietly packing up her stereo and slipping off into the thicket like some kind of woodland creature. "It's getting kind of late."

"Excellent deductive reasoning," Kurt snaps, gesturing to the steadily darkening sky.

Blaine snorts and takes Kurt by the arm. "Come on, babe, time to get back inside," he says, and Kurt reluctantly acquiesces.

"Balls, balls, balls," Blaine chants under his breath as he crouches down to grab Elise's bike from the cushy forest floor. He wheels it all the way back to the manor.

He decides that he shouldn't let Kurt ever be alone again. The last time it had happened, they had collided into each other, buck naked.

.:.

"You want to get married...the day after tomorrow?" Kurt demands, angrily picking pieces of decaying leaves from his hair, the last vestiges of his short-lived career as a rapper-in-the-woods, with a fine-toothed comb. "Are you insane, Blaine?"

"Look, I know it's not the most practical thing ever," Blaine says, sitting up in bed and squishing a pillow in between his fingers, "But the idea's been brewing in my mom's mind ever since she found out. My parents are pissed that we didn't tell them, and you know dad. He'll never go to New York to see us get married."

"So you decided to get married here? In the middle of Hick Town, Ohio?"

"That's Westerville, Ohio to you, Mr. Secret-Lima-Native," Blaine says icily. "I know that you're not emotionally prepared for this and whatever, but this is...really important to my mother."

Kurt balks. "Yes, well, I'm not fashionably prepared for this, Blaine! I don't have a suit! Do you know how long it took for me to plan my junior prom ensemble? Do you really think that we're going to pull off a wedding in a day?"

"Like I said," Blaine says grimly. "We're a big name here in Westerville. Dad says the word and the entire city shuts down. My mother told me that she has everything under control. We have the paperwork, gay marriage has been legalized in Ohio, Mama has the arrangements with the venue completed...besides, at least we can get it over and done with without having to plan it all on our own."

"You're joking," Kurt deadpans. "Please tell me you're not agreeing to this insanity."

Blaine reaches over and tilts Kurt's chin up so they're looking straight at each other. "It's not the only insanity I've agreed to in the past, you know."

Kurt sulks wordlessly and fixes the neckline of his pajama top, avoiding eye contact with Blaine.

"We can invite your family?" Blaine offers weakly.

He's not expecting Kurt's response.

"I don't have a family, Blaine!" he shrills, throwing the comb to the carpeted floor in frustration. "God, Blaine, don't you get it? I hate it here because it reminds me of everything—"

"What are you talking about?" Blaine asks.

"Haven't you ever wondered why I never talk about my family when I'm around you?" Kurt challenges. He swallows painfully, and he can see red through his eyelids when he blinks. "My mother died when I was eight. Breast cancer."

Blaine gulps. "Kurt, I didn't know—"

"You know what happened to my father?" Kurt questions, voice dangerous. "Ask me! Ask me, I swear to God—"

"Hey, hey, it's okay," Blaine says, carefully scooping a shaking Kurt up into his arms comfortingly. "No need to cry—"

"I'm not crying." Kurt looks up at him furiously. "He's dead, Blaine! He died after I went to New York. He died alone and it was all my fault. I should never have left him—"

Blaine pulls Kurt closer to him and drapes the comforter around his shivering form. "Shh, it's not your fault, Could never have been your fault."

"I suck," Kurt moans in between long gasps for breath. "I suck so bad. I make it look like I live this awesome life and I just suck. Everyone thinks I'm some cannibalistic harpy and that's because I am."

"Hey," Blaine says sharply. "I never called you a harpy."

Kurt shoots him a murderous look.

"I called you an Incubus. And a Succubus, on occasion," Blaine says. Kurt smacks him on the shoulder. "Ow, dammit, Kurt!"

Kurt doesn't say anything.

Blaine sighs, shifts in bed, and hugs Kurt close to him. "I thought you were some demon come to haunt me," he admits. "But you know, once you get past the gratuitous bitch glares and half-baked castration threats, I think you're a pretty...cool guy."

"Don't lie, you think I'm awful," Kurt mumbles into Blaine's pajama sleeve.

"Well, not really, I just think you're kind of scared, and with good reason," Blaine says smoothly. "I'm scared, too. And I've been pretty awful to you."

"I don't think your family likes me very much," Kurt whispers miserably.

Blaine heaves another sigh. "You have a fitting with Zegna tomorrow," he says. "My mother's going to have no problems with you once she sees how into shopping you are, just like her." He pauses and rubs a soothing circle into Kurt's back. "Weren't you the one telling me that everything was going to be fine?"

"I guess," Kurt says.

"You have everything going for you," Blaine says philosophically. "You're young, you're smart, you're strong. Okay?"

"Okay."

They lie together on the bed for another fifteen minutes, Kurt shamelessly whimpering into Blaine shoulder and Blaine patting rather awkwardly at his boss' back. The latter is left wondering what exactly there is to say to an anguished Kurt; after a few moments of thought, he decides that it would be best to let Kurt enjoy the much-needed silence.

Finally, Kurt says in a small voice, "Blaine?"

"Yes, Kurt?"

"Can you get off the bed so I can sleep? And can you cover Pavarotti's cage again?" The implications don't even sting Blaine's ego. After laying a rag over Pavarotti's gilded cage, he quietly slips off the bed, retreats to his comforter on the floor, and lies awake until he can hear the light snores of a snoozing Kurt.

That's how he drifts off to sleep—to the soft hitching of Kurt's breathing and Pavarotti's muted coos.

.:.

Blaine gasps as he feels a pair of lips mouthing along the dip in his stomach, climbing up to meet his collarbone, higher and higher until the lips are on his, moving aggressively. Commandingly. Blaine's so out of his mind that he can barely scrape up the cranial matter to participate in the kiss as well, his lips moving weakly, hands roaming everywhere, up, down, across his chest, dipping past his hipbone.

"Say my name," Blaine hears, and intellectually he knows that this isn't the stuff of his typical fantasies. The body is too soft, the cheek too smooth and hairless. And for some reason, he can feel the satin of designer boxers against his skin—a far cry from the cotton boxer briefs he normally daydreams about. But for all the frivolity—the nice boxers, the freshly shaven face, the silken hair, and the complete lack of a coarse anything, the kiss is aggressive. It floors him.

"Kurt," Blaine breathes, and Kurt leans back from his chest and smiles widely at him.

"I'm so glad you married me," Kurt murmurs, pressing his lips to Blaine's once more.

.:.

Blaine wakes up with a raging hard-on, and miserably deals with his problems in the bathroom before crawling into the bed with Kurt and avoiding thoughts of dream-Kurt and what an excellent kisser he had been. Once those are avoided, Blaine finds himself having to jump through various mental hoops in order to combat thoughts of how Kurt had kissed him the day before at the engagement party.

It's all become a rather monotonous routine, really. Wake up, get into bed with Kurt, pretend to be in love with him, put on a chipper act for his parents.

Blaine wonders how long he'll be able to pull it off.

"Blaine, Kurt," Richard says from the other side of the door. Blaine hastily nudges Kurt awake ("Fuck you, Blaine Anderson, fuck you," Kurt ends up mumbling sleepily) and calls for his father to come in.

"Are you decent?" Richard asks from outside.

"Yes? I don't know," Blaine says. "We're both clothed, if that's what you mean."

The door swings open and Richard, still clothed in his bedtime robe, walks into the room. "I think you might want to come with me," he says. "There's someone you'll want to see."

"Who?" Kurt asks, rubbing sleep out of his eyes.

"You'll find out," Richard says. "Meet me in the dining room, okay? We'll have breakfast after."

Kurt hops out of bed and washes his face. He brushes his teeth with an electric toothbrush, changes into a scoop-necked sweater, and wiggles into his pants in record time. After that, he pops a few Tylenols to ease the pounding in his ears. Blaine takes the other side of the bathroom, tries to avoid thinking about what he had been doing in there just half an hour ago, and pulls a polo over his head and jeans onto his ass.

It feels wonderfully domestic, like they could fall into such a pattern of married life without even trying, and the idea makes Kurt cringe.

They're out of the door in fifteen minutes and into the dining room in twenty.

"Hello, boys," Richard says, ushering them through the back door and leading them to the yard.

"Is there something you want us to see?" Kurt asks, pursing his lips together suspiciously.

"Dad, don't you think you're being a little bit cryptic?" Blaine says, rubbing at his belly insistently. "Let's go back and have breakfast. I'm sure that this can wait."

"No, it can't," Richard counters firmly, making a waving motion with his right hand and standing up on his toes. "Alright, you can come out now."

Kurt and Blaine peer over Richard's shoulder, and both feel a sinking sensation in their stomachs when the woman who's been crouching behind a conveniently located plant in the Anderson yard is revealed.

"Well, well, well," a woman with a voice as dry as the Sahara says, stepping out from behind a pot of leafy green foliage. She acknowledges Blaine and Kurt with a snide, "Jon Gosselin. Kate Gosselin. How's this marriage thing working out for you?"

Kurt swallows and takes in the sight of her cropped gray-blond hair and bright blue sweatsuit.

Sue Sylvester has come to Westerville.

.:.

Up next: Sue Sylvester gives Kurt and Blaine's relationship a check-up, wedding plans are made, and Kurt contemplates his relationship with Blaine.

Also, reality is disregarded in the name of pointless crack.

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