April 2013

The torpor of two AM, the dense silence and out-of-body shift of the small hour, creates a strange island of intimacy in Kurt's old bed. He'd told himself they weren't going to do this, not this time. But it's done now, and he can't regret anything. Not with the way Blaine smiles lazily up at him from where his head is pillowed, hot and heavy, upon Kurt's tired thigh. Not with the way Blaine's fingers drag through the cooling semen on his belly, scribing curlicues and hearts across his skin.

.

It's been an extraordinary evening: a full, joyous table for the family Friday dinner, and then they all went out for ice cream. After that, his Dad and Carole—giggling and holding hands—went their own way, off to the fanciest suite at the Red Rooster Inn, just booked on a celebratory whim. Finn returned to the dorms, and Blaine turned to Kurt in the parking lot. Standing in the pale cone of the halogen streetlight, he asked, "Are you home alone tonight?"

With a nod, Kurt swallowed and said, "I am."

Blaine tilted his head and shifted his weight and his demeanor grew solemn. "Do you want to be?" he asked, and in his steady gaze Kurt saw what Blaine offered him. Still riding the high from the doctor's good news and being reunited with his friends and Blaine, with the whole of next week yet to come, Kurt took Blaine's hand and said, "Not especially."

Falling into bed with Blaine has become its own kind of homecoming.

.

Kurt grunts softly and shifts up against his pillows. But beneath his back, the sheets are sweaty and stick to his skin, and Blaine's weight across his legs hinders his attempt at movement. He gives up and slumps back into uselessness. One foot is too hot, trapped in the wad of his comforter.

Blaine stirs and raises his head. Kurt's skin prickles with a chill when that contact is lost. "I hope you know," Blaine murmurs, a glint of wry humor in his eye. "This doesn't mean we're back together." The way he says it—gently mocking—makes Kurt laugh. He can't fake sternness with Blaine like this, not today.

Above them, the ceiling light burns brightly. There's nowhere to hide even if Kurt wanted to. He doesn't. "Would you believe me if I told you I wasn't actually going to say it this time?" Kurt asks. He's no longer interested in trying to categorize or constrain their friendship. They're friends, and—apparently—they do this as friends now. And this, the sex, is easy, easier in some ways than it was when they were boyfriends.

Blaine's smile broadens. "I'm glad you've decided to stay next week."

"I'm glad you asked me to."

The gratitude settles between them comfortably, but then, the brightness of Blaine's gaze and smile dims for a moment. His lips part as if he's going to speak, to ask something else. The pause hangs between them, and Kurt just lets it hang. Lets the tension dissipate until Blaine's smile strengthens again and he lowers his mouth to Kurt's thigh. Slow kisses drift toward the sensitive inner skin. Kurt bites into his bottom lip and shivers pleasantly, opens his legs more widely. It's easy. He likes easy.

Blaine moves again, sitting up and back to kneel between Kurt's legs, his hands slide a gentle hold under Kurt's calves to cup behind his knees, lifting and spreading and making Kurt flush freshly hot as Blaine exposes the most intimate places of Kurt's body to his scrutiny. The breath of air is welcome on his skin. Upon Kurt's belly, his cock pulses and thickens; an eager warmth curls in his balls.

"It's an art," Blaine says thoughtfully. His attention, fixed between Kurt's legs, has enough gravity it's almost tactile. "Don't you think?"

"Hmm?" Kurt asks as his breath quickens. "What's that?"

"Sex," Blaine says, lifts his gaze to Kurt's.

"You think so?" It comes out thin and high.

"With you it is," Blaine says, and the warmth in his voice stirs more than lust in Kurt's belly.

And because Kurt rarely passes over an opportunity to hear that he's special (especially from Blaine), he presses ahead with a question, "And it wasn't with—"

"No."

"—Eli?" It's not difficult to say his name, and Kurt's not accusatory. Eli is a fact of history between them, acknowledged but not contended. He says the name without rancor, so Blaine knows it's okay. But Kurt's ego still enjoys being reminded: Blaine wants him most.

More softly, with a timid smile. "No," Blaine replies. "Just you."

It's an admission too, Kurt knows, of the depth of feeling that remains between them, the ways they're still bound by time spent and touches given, laughter and tears, confessions and daydreams. Their history makes this meaningful. But the lack of any formal relationship makes this bizarrely simple.

In retrospect, when they were boyfriends, sex felt like maybe it meant too much for Kurt, it had to mean so many things. It came with expectations and the weight of the future barreling down upon them. Every touch became a sentence, trying to promise the impossible and the unknowable. Every kiss became overburdened. Kurt's come to realize, a caress—no matter how intimate or loving—isn't a conversation, an orgasm isn't a vow, and while they can still share this, it's nice to be in a moment with Blaine, without worrying about... everything.

"Art, huh?" Kurt says. He stretches his arms and arches his back, flexes his legs in Blaine's hold. Makes himself a tempting spectacle. "So am I your canvas then? Your instrument?"

"Well," Blaine says, smoothing and lengthening the final "l" into seduction. "Your body is my medium—but really, you're my audience."

"Audience?" Kurt whispers.

"Yeah, because..." Blaine's attention drops from Kurt's face to where he's touching Kurt. He slides his hands lightly up Kurt's thighs, teasing with the hope of their convergence right where Kurt wants it most. "I know so many different ways to touch you, to kiss you. To make you feel good," Blaine says as the knuckles of his thumbs bump up against the heavy shape of Kurt's balls, and Blaine's hands still.

"Depending on things like your mood or how tired you are," Blaine says, "there are different things you like, different ways you respond. If I can read you well, then I can make you come really fast and hard, or I can choose to draw it out. I can make you come without touching your dick at all. I can make it so you're so desperate you beg—or I can calm you down and make you float."

It's all true, desperately, irrevocably true, and Kurt's heartbeat pulses urgently in his throat. "Knowing me?" he asks breathlessly. "That's the art?"

"I just think that, if art is something that appeals to our senses, then sex is the art of touch, of bringing pleasure and manipulating sensation." Blaine's hands move again to give proof, slipping over Kurt's groin and apart, his palms flattening as he strokes outward to Kurt's hips, feeding Kurt's anticipation while requesting his patience. "But, like all art, there's craft, too. You have to know what you're doing and be willing to keep learning. Practice." He flicks a smile up at Kurt. "And because your audience is just one unique person, they have to trust you with that knowledge, which makes it... precious."

After he's swallowed his heart back down to where it belongs, Kurt says quietly, "I really like that, Blaine."

Blaine doesn't say anything then, for a while. His thumbs rub small circles upon Kurt's hips, while Kurt trembles beneath him, waiting.

But then Blaine lets go of Kurt, folds his hands together in his lap and glances away, blinking too rapidly.

"Honey?" Kurt asks, lifts up to his elbows and frowns, concerned.

"It's too much, isn't it?"

Kurt sits all the way up, reaches and wraps a hand around Blaine's wrist, feels Blaine's pulse flutter beneath his fingertips. "It's not for me, but I don't know about you. Was this a mistake today?"

Blaine shakes his head vehemently. "I wouldn't give up a second spent with you like this."

"I'm not using you," Kurt says carefully. "If that's your worry. I'm... Blaine, it's not like this for me with anyone else. I'm comfortable with you."

"What about your New York guy?" Blaine asks; he doesn't look at Kurt.

Shaking his head, Kurt smiles with sadness tinged chagrin. "Let's just say, he lacks your artistic sensibility."

Like lightning at midnight, Blaine's smile returns, blinding and sudden. "You don't think I'm weird?"

Kurt rolls his eyes with extra drama and grins. "Of course I think you're weird." He tips forward and angles his head to invite a kiss.

With a laugh, Blaine touches the line of Kurt's jaw with his fingertips. Then he bows his head and kisses Kurt, sweet, soft, and open. When he withdraws, he asks, "So are you up for an encore?"

Kurt falls back to his pillows. "Your audience awaits."