Constant Craving - Chapter One by HollyandHawthorn

Kurt has never been able to sleep the night through, not since his mother had died when he was eight. Most night he'll just lie in his bed, blankets kicked down around his ankles and stare up at his white ceiling, fingers flexing in his cotton sheets and his mind racing with strange ideas that he almost always forgets by morning.

Other nights he manages to heave himself out of bed, stumble out to the kitchen and drown away his worries and his parched throat with three or four glasses of water, bare feet cold against the tiles as he drinks and drinks until he feels he may throw up.

He falls back into bed on those nights feeling strangely full as the water sloshes about in his stomach, like rough seas in a storm, terrifying and calming all at once.

When his eyes snap open on a particularly cold spring night, he is greeted by an unfamiliar ceiling, walls coloured a sickening shade of pink that hurts his eyes even in the darkness. His brain is still gluey from sleep, spitting out the only logical explanation for such a garish paint job by grumbling Rachel at him in a voice that sounds suspiciously like her younger brother.

Rachel's extremely attractive, witty, curly haired little brother.

Kurt would never openly admit it, mainly for fear of Rachel ripping out his throat, but the thought is there, that Blaine really is one of the most attractive boys he's ever come across.

Rachel, who is openly under the impression that Blaine is somehow infatuated with Kurt, seems to have taken it upon herself, much to Kurt's protests, to keep the pair as far away from one another as is physically possible. She steers Kurt off in odd directions at school, shoot a dark look at her brother as she goes and making up some lame excuse like, 'I just need to, uh, check my hair.'

There are times when Blaine will turn up out of nowhere, though, under the guise of irritating Rachel while shooting smiles at Kurt that make his heart stop and his brain go mushy.

He stays staring at those walls for a good five minutes, grinding his teeth together at the sight of them, before he finally has the cognition to pull himself into a sitting position, kick his sleeping bag off and scrub at his sleep mussed hair.

Rachel stirs in her sleep, muttering under her breath and rolling onto her stomach, face pressed into her also violent pink pillows as she stills once again, leaving the room in the almost silence it was before.

Kurt likes Rachel best when she's like this, when he doesn't have to put up with her constant yammering about such nonsense as her infatuation with his step brother, defending her precious animal sweaters and listing all the things that are apparently flawed about Quinn Fabray. Like this she's quiet, a tolerable calm disturbed only by her occasional sleep-rants that end with Kurt inevitably getting up for the water run he takes almost every time he stays over her house.

Speaking of which.

He heaves a heavy sigh, staggers to his feet and steadies himself on the edge of Rachel's desk.

He more or less knows his way to and from the kitchen in this house, though he hasn't quite got the placement of the furniture down just yet. His bare feet barely make a sound against the carpet as he pads his way up the hall, fingertips running along the walls when he just about falls over a rather pointless little table just before the stairs. He keeps himself upright by some small miracle, hissing at the pain now throbbing in his toes as he half hops the last three feet to the stairs, scowling over his shoulder at the stupid table as he limps down the stairs one at a time.

When Kurt finally makes it to the kitchen, his foot is still aching terribly after running into another pointless table at the bottom of the stairs. He's considering having a word with Rachel's dads about that in the morning, though he doubts he'll remember to bring up something that would probably feel stupidly trivial in the morning.

The kitchen in this house is particularly spacious, and as much as Kurt envies all the space they have to play with, it also leaves him with an unfathomable amount of cupboards to search through for a glass.

He huffs a hard breath through his nose, scrubs at his face for a moment before he makes a start, opening the cupboards in the most logical way he can think of at this early hour, left to right, swinging the doors on their hinges and praying they don't creak, staring blankly at the contents as his brain sluggishly comprehends, no glasses, next one.

After five long minutes of staring into cupboards, Kurt is starting to get irritated, throwing open one of the upper cupboards and scrunching his face up at the absence of a damn glass.

He's half considering just sticking his head under the tap at this point.

"They're in the next cupboard along."

Kurt snaps around so fast he almost falls over, eyes wide as he seeks out the intruder in the darkness, mentally noting the knife block next to the sink three or four feet away from him.

When his eyes finally come to rest on the figure in front of him, he visibly relaxes, shoulders slumping back down as his heart settles in his chest, "You scared me, Blaine," he murmurs.

"Oh... sorry."

Kurt blinks at the boy, his eyes still fuzzy around the edges as he takes in his appearance. He doesn't often get such an opportunity, seeing as Rachel has always quite pointedly steered Kurt away from Blaine in the corridors at school. He takes in the mop of curls tumbling over Blaine's forehead, the dark shirt pulled over hidden muscles and the soft glittering of his eyes from the sparse shreds of moonlight seeping through the curtains.

Blaine clears his throat.

Kurt really needs that water.

He turns quickly back to the cupboards, pulling open the one indicated by Blaine to indeed reveal stacks and stacks of glasses. He growls quietly at the cupboard, snatching a glass from the shelf and letting the door close with a soft click.

He fills his glass in the sink, raises it to his lips and drains it.

"Thirsty?" Blaine asks from somewhere much closer than last time, as the tap runs again and precious water fills up the stupid hard to find cup.

"Could say that," he answers as he raises the glass again to his lips, drains it.

"You really shouldn't drink so fast," Blaine is right at his elbow now, watching as Kurt fills his glass a third time, "It'll give you hiccups and then you'll never get back to sleep."

"Is that so," Kurt mumbles, raising the glass dramatically and tipping the water down his throat.

"Yeah, actually," Blaine's hand comes out to rest over his own, halting his reach for the tap momentarily and pulling Kurt's attention away from his task. "It's kind of like when you eat too fast and you get them. Happens to me a lot."

Somewhere in the midst of his talking, Blaine manages to pry the glass out of Kurt's fingers, sets it down on the bench top and grins when Kurt blinks down at his empty hand with a confused expression.

His brain is really having a lot of trouble playing catch up tonight. Then again, having Rachel Berry's ridiculously attractive little brother standing barely a foot away from him would probably explain that away rather quickly.

"You really shouldn't be talking to me, you know?" Kurt blurts before he can stop himself, flushing gently as Blaine raises his eyebrows in question, "Rachel will kill you when she finds out."

"Ah," he sighs, still smiling disarmingly at Kurt as he does so, "She has to actually find out about it for that to work, though."

"Who says I'm not going to tell her in the morning?" Kurt whispers.

"I don't think you will," Kurt's eyes flicker to Blaine's mouth as he speaks, watching his teeth sink into his lip when he pauses, "Because I don't think you really want her to know."

"What- Why?"

"Because," Blaine chuckles, tracing his thumb feather light over Kurt's knuckles, "I think you like me."

Kurt doesn't say a word, opting instead to gape at Blaine with a scandalised expression on his face. Blaine continues running his thumb over his fingers, and Kurt's heart is beginning to beat erratically.

He can't manage to argue that point, mainly because he's right, but also because of the fact that it's ridiculously early in the morning and every time Blaine so much as looks at him his brain turns to mush.

Why must he be so damn pretty?

He makes a weak attempt to snatch his glass back off the bench, having every intention of getting right back to half drowning himself out of humiliation, but Blaine's hand is right there, catching his fingers and lacing them together.

Kurt stares down at them, then up at Blaine's face, and back again.

"It's okay," Blaine whispers into the silence, "I really like you, too."

"Rachel would kill me," Kurt breathes, though he makes no move to pull his hand from Blaine's grip, "You're my best friend's little brother. She'd kill me."

"Again," Blaine takes the tiniest step forward, his breath coming in hot puffs against Kurt's face, "She has to actually find out for that to work."

"She will," Kurt's grip tightens involuntarily around Blaine's fingers, "She always does."

Blaine shrugs, glances down at the ground and back to Kurt, slipping his fingers out from Kurt's and leaving his hand feeling strangely cold and empty. "I guess we can just... I dunno, continue staring after each other at school. If it's what-"

"No." Kurt's voice comes out louder than he expects, making him cringe. "No, I don't want that, you idiot."

"So..." Blaine seems to think over his words carefully, looking up at the ceiling before he begins to speak again, "You don't want me near you, because of Rachel, and you don't want me at a distance because of you... What- this is confusing me."

"It's kind of confusing me too, actually."

"Huh," Blaine smiles at him again, shakes his head and laces their fingers back together, "Probably doesn't help that it's three in the morning."

"There is that."

"Maybe we should..." he points over his shoulder to the staircase, that stupid table sitting innocently next to it and making Kurt scowl. "Or not?"

Kurt looks back at Blaine's confused expression, the scowl falling off his face in an instant at the cuteness of it all, "Sorry, just death staring the table."

"Do I want to know?"

"Probably not." Kurt sighs, gives Blaine's hand a firm squeeze before dropping it, taking a decisive step backwards and heading in the direction of the stairs, "Coming?"

"Yeah," Blaine rushes up beside him, standing helpfully between the pointless table and Kurt's feet and brushing the back of his hand over Kurt's fingers.

They reach Blaine's bedroom door thankfully uninjured, Kurt smiling briefly at him as the door swings open on it's hinges, before heading off towards Rachel's door.

"Hey," Blaine's hand grabs hold of his arm, turning him gently to look back into those eyes that make him melt. "Just, think about it?" he whispers.

And then something happens that Kurt is sure has to be a dream.

Blaine takes a tentative step forward, closing the distance between them in the dark hallway and pressing his lips to Kurt's.

The whole world seems to come to a roaring halt in that instant, Blaine's hand still holding onto his arm and Kurt's toes curling into the carpet. He can't help but kiss back, feels the warm softness of the other boy's lips in that moment before they're gone all too quickly.

His eyes flicker open after several seconds, staring right into Blaine's, wide and bright and hopeful.

"Goodnight, Kurt."

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