Illicit

by EmilianaDarling

Summary:

An exploration of trust, control, and intimacy in Kurt and Blaine's relationship. (5+1 fic where an unexpected experiment becomes something that the boys share together.)

Notes:

I honestly cannot believe how this fic grew. It was supposed to be just a fun little prompt fill to let me have a taste of writing happy!fic for a change, but it wound up gathering steam and getting bigger until it somehow turned itself into 'the first six months of Kurt and Blaine's relationship as shown through pot smoking'. I really hope that you guys enjoy. <3

Chapter 1: One

“I think the style adds to the experience, honestly,” Blaine insists from the driver’s seat, eyes fixed carefully on the road as they weave through the quiet streets and avenues of one of Westerville’s many suburbs. His mouth is pulled into that little half-smile it always gets when he and Kurt talk about serious subjects, as though attempting to lighten the heavier material with a positive attitude. “I mean, for sure, it can be hard to read at times –”

“At times?” Kurt asks dryly, raising an eyebrow he knows Blaine can’t see without taking his eyes off the road. “Blaine, that book was so Irish that I practically had to do a leprechaun impersonation as I read it to understand half the lines.”

“Kurt,” Blaine chastises, but Kurt can tell his heart isn’t in it. There’s a laugh lurking under the words, and his friend’s eyes are shining with amusement.

They’re on their way to a house party at Wes’s place, both of them in Blaine’s car to save on gas and reduce their impact on the environment because Blaine’s disgustingly considerate that way. The car itself is a compact little silver Toyota sedan, a marked step down from the rest of the Anderson family vehicles in terms of quality and expense from what Kurt has seen visiting their house. It is so resolutely mid-range and mediocre that Kurt rather suspects Blaine had to fight to make his parents settle for anything less than extraordinary.

It isn’t too often that Kurt gets a chance to travel somewhere without being in the driver’s seat himself. They rarely take Blaine’s car when they go somewhere together, and Kurt has grown quite accustomed to being in control of any vehicle he finds himself in. But being in the passenger seat for Blaine...

Kurt is fairly sure he should feel guilty for how much he enjoys these infrequent opportunities to ride shotgun in Blaine’s car. For one thing, it gives him a chance to stare unabashedly at his friend under the guise of conversation without being creepy. To look and study the way Blaine tenses the muscles in his neck when he drives, the way he holds the steering wheel with confident-but-gentle hands. The way he glances over every so often and grins when Kurt shares a particularly funny anecdote or comment.

For another thing, Blaine only wears his glasses when he drives. Which... yeah, not something Kurt has ever been into before or with anyone else, but on Blaine specifically? Oh, god, is he ever. It helps that the thin black frames go perfectly with his outfit today, Kurt notes as he scans the other boy up and down covertly. Nestled behind his ears with his dark hair curling around them, the frames only highlight the soft grey of Blaine’s long-sleeved cardigan, completely buttoned up over the deep red of the shirt beneath. Unfortunately for Kurt, Blaine is always gorgeous. Gorgeous and kind and friendly and very, very much not into him.

As though sensing negative thoughts, Blaine darts a slightly worried glance in Kurt’s direction. All at once it occurs to Kurt that they were actually talking about something.

“You did like it, though, right?” Blaine asks, sounding concerned. “I mean, despite the extensive need for background information on Catholicism and World War One-era Ireland. You liked it?”

For a long moment, Kurt thinks. “I did,” he says eventually, trying to find the words even as he speaks them. “It was... kind of beautiful? And... you know, once you strip everything else away, it was really just about the two of them. And even though it didn’t end very well, it was... nice. To read about a connection like that.”

“For sure,” Blaine says, nodding as he turns into a side street. The houses are nicer here, with large green lawns and long driveways. “In the end, At Swim, Two Boys is really just a love story.” He turns and grins at Kurt. “It’s heartening, isn’t it? That two people can find each other, even in the most unlikely circumstances? And in comparison, things are so much easier for us now.”

“Definitely,” says Kurt weakly, feeling a familiar clutch of desolation at his chest. It seems so, so unfair that he and Blaine can do this – go to a party together, in Blaine’s car, and talk about romantic gay literature – and still somehow remain just friends. Kurt’s heart is still panging from the disaster that was the dull hit to his chest that was Valentine’s Day. And Blaine’s critique of his sexy faces. And the infamous Rachel-Berry-House-Party-Hetero-Kiss-Fest, which has been looming especially large at the back of his mind all week.

If Kurt hadn’t already promised Wes weeks ago that he’d be here, he’s not entirely sure if he would have been able to muster the courage to deal with Blaine at another party so soon. His last experience with Drunk Blaine was just... catastrophic. The idea of having to watch Blaine get riled up, and excitable, and interested in other people who aren’t him again makes Kurt feel sick with a dread he can only shove down hard and try to smile through.

“Here we are,” says Blaine cheerfully, slowing down and pulling over beside the kerb in front of one of many green lawns. He takes off his glasses and pops them back into their case, which gets tucked into one of the cup holders. Absently, Kurt glances out the window. The driveway is already full of cars, and... oh. Oh, wow.

“Sweet mother of god,” Kurt hisses, and Blaine laughs. The house in front of them is huge. Rolling and wide and at least three stories high, with a neatly manicured garden in front. Kurt can feel his mouth hanging open slightly in shock. “I thought Wes just lived with his parents and sister?”

“He does,” confirms Blaine with a grin, opening up his car door. Kurt follows suit, trying not to stare. None of his friends in Lima have houses that look anything like this, not even Quinn. Kurt hadn’t realized that he knew anyone in real life who lives like this; even Blaine’s house is tiny in comparison.

“I can’t believe I’ve been in the Warblers so long and I’ve never been to one of your parties,” says Kurt wonderingly, trying not to sound too bowled over by the sight in front of them. “Friday night dinners just clashed with so many of them, you know? And I’m pretty sure the chaperoned Christmas party with Nick and his parents just wasn’t quite the same.”

Ever considerate, Blaine comes around to his side of the car to take the glass tray of low-sodium lasagne off Kurt’s lap so that he can get himself out of the passenger side door with greater ease. (The lasagne has been brought along to satisfy the ‘potluck’ part of the evening: Hummels don’t do anything by halves, and Kurt had been quick to inform Blaine that an offering of a bag of chips and a two-litre of coke was an insult to potlucks everywhere.)

His heart strings slightly at the gentlemanly gesture, but Kurt pushes the feeling into the little box in his mind labelled ‘Thing Blaine Does That I’m Not Allowed To Love About Him’ and tries to forget it. He slides out of the car, shuts the door, and the two of them begin to walk up the driveway.

“Mmm,” says Blaine quietly, not quite looking Kurt in the eye. “Actually, Kurt? There was something I wanted to talk about before we got here.”

“Oh?” Kurt asks lightly, eyes still fixed on the house in front of them. It has a freaking entranceway, holy hell.

“Yeah,” says Blaine, and for the first time Kurt realizes that he sounds slightly awkward. And maybe a little... embarrassed? Kurt’s body tenses against his will, ears perking up far too hopefully. They reach the main entrance, and Blaine fidgets uncomfortably with the lasagne still in hand. “This party... it might be slightly different to what you’re accustomed t—”

Before he can finish the sentence, the door swings open in front of them.

“Kurt!” a girl’s voice cries out, and before Kurt knows what’s going on a tiny red torpedo hits him right in the chest. He squeaks unattractively as the human missile that is Wes’s girlfriend collides, patting her gently on the back. “I thought I heard someone out here,” she says, muffled from her face being pressed up into his chest. “It’s so nice to see you!”

“Hi, Jess,” wheezes Kurt, slightly afraid for his second-hand Marc Jacobs shirt but mostly genuinely happy to see her.

“Hey, Jess,” says Blaine, sounding slightly put out. For a moment Kurt wonders what Blaine was trying to tell him – before Jessica gives his ribcage a squeeze so hard it pushes the air right out of him, which is sufficiently distracting.

She pulls away after a few seconds, turning a dangerously dry look in Blaine’s direction. Kurt chokes in a breath. “Hello, stranger,” she says, raising an eyebrow in that perfectly-Wes way of hers. “I was beginning to think you’d had some sort of grizzly accident. Or run away and joined a stage show. Or left us for a theme park again. We never see you anymore, except for Wes at school –”

“I’m busy,” Blaine protests weakly. “It’s been midterms lately, and –”

“Hush,” she says, standing up on her tippy toes to give Blaine a kiss on the cheek. At all of five foot nothing, Jessica is one of the few people Blaine towers over. “I think we all know who you’re really spending all your time with,” she says, winking in Kurt’s direction. Suddenly Kurt’s cheeks feel very hot indeed.

Blaine, still holding the lasagne pan awkwardly in front of him, looks uncomfortable as well. “We’re not –” he begins, but she cuts him off.

“Anyways, come inside! Practically everyone’s here already, and you can put that down in the kitchen.”

Both of their cheeks a little too pink to ignore, the two of them trail inside after her.

--

Somewhere between joining Dalton’s show choir and walking in the front door of Wes’s house, Kurt had got it into his head that Warbler parties would be an all-male event. He’s both surprised and pleased at how wrong he is. Kurt had expected Jessica to be there, of course, but as it happens there are a goodly amount of girls in attendance. Sitting cross-legged on the floor or curled up on couches, or standing up at the punch bowl and chatting casually. David and Thad have both brought their girlfriends along, and Jeff’s best friend Mary from his hometown is perched on the couch next to him with what look oddly like Christmas lights dangling from her ears.

As anticipated, however, Wes and Jessica have the whole event running like a well-oiled machine. Kurt feels tired just watching them: darting from person to person, catching up quickly and refilling drinks and directing people toward the buffet table. (Kurt is smugly pleased to note that no one else seems to have brought anything explicitly as a main course, and that the lasagne tray is already half empty by an hour into the gathering. He knows that a person can’t exactly win at potlucks, but he likes to pretend that he can anyways.) Wes is suave and in control, and Jess is chatty and personable in a way that Kurt can never manage to find irritating. The two of them seem to frequently communicate without speaking out loud, catching one another’s eye across the room in order to convey messages.

Once everyone has arrived and settled in, Kurt accidentally catches a quick glimpse of the two of them in the kitchen. It’s a brief moment; Jessica is leaning into Wes’s shoulder while he wraps an arm around her and presses a quick kiss to her forehead. But it feels so private that Kurt can’t help but look away as he feels something strangled rise in his throat. If anyone is going to make it out of high school, he thinks, it’s those two.

The thought makes him feel strangely alone, even surrounded by so many people.

Despite the fact that Kurt purposefully doesn’t arrange it so, he and Blaine wind up spending a lot of the evening together. Strangely, Blaine practically trails after him like a slightly exuberant puppy; tagging along with Kurt to chat with Jeff, and then with Thad and his girlfriend, and later on the both of them join in the jam and sing “Timeless to Me” together and it isn’t even awful. The entire mood is light, and casual – a little bit pompous, maybe, but not offensively so. Just another thing that Kurt has had to grow accustomed to, going to Dalton. The students who attend are, for the most part, from a slightly higher tax bracket than he’s used to.

Plus, it’s hard not to feel a little bit pretentious surrounded by an environment like this one. Kurt is fairly certain that the living room rug cost more than his father makes in two months, and everything is lush and full of sheen in a way that indicates a great deal of money. None of the furniture is well-worn or broken in, and it’s such a contrast to the sorts of parties Kurt usually finds himself attending – and the jovial attitude of the teenagers therein is such a contrast to the quality of the decor – that it’s hard to believe he’s even here.

It’s about eleven o’clock by the time things begin to wind down. About half of the party’s attendants have decided that they won’t be staying the night, and have already begun to trickle home by the time the antiquated-looking grandfather clock begins tolling the hour. Those that remain are sprawled over the plush leather couches that remind Kurt of the ones in the Warbler practice room at school. One or two people are sitting cross-legged on the ground, but they’re all facing inwards toward one another as they chat about nothing in particular.

Blaine is sitting in the middle of one of the couches chatting idly with David, and Kurt is tucked in beside him. He’s nursing his second drink of the evening, and has been for some time. He made the decision before arriving that, if they were going to be spending the night anyways, he may as well indulge to a strict limit of two drinks for the evening. The first was a glass of pink punch from a large decorative bowl, and his current is half of a cider he’s decanted into a small glass.

There doesn’t seem much point in trying to abstain in the hopes of Blaine suddenly coming to his senses, anymore. Not after Rachel’s party, and how much easier it would’ve all been if he’d had the benefit of alcohol to dull the sharpness of the hurt. As long as he doesn’t get too sloppy, two drinks won’t be the end of the world. He has absolutely no desire to recreate the twisting, lurching slosh of too much, but he feels as though he’s playing it fairly safe.

And Blaine doesn’t even look that tipsy. It was another thing that had surprised Kurt about this gathering: the overall lack of alcohol, at least in comparison to the sorts of parties his friends from Lima had been having recently. There had been the punch bowl, and a few six packs of cider in the fridge, but it hadn’t amounted to much once distributed around to such a large number of people. Kurt’s feeling a little bit of a buzz, but he doubts anyone is at puking-on-your-counsellor’s-shoes levels of inebriation.

“It was hilarious,” says Thad animatedly, his girlfriend Diana nodding next to him with an amused smile on her face. Her curls bounce around her face with every movement. “Di’s cousin stood there wobbling at the front of the church, and we all thought it was nerves, right? But he opens his mouth to say the vows – and he’s completely plastered.”

“No,” says Blaine, looking honest-to-god horrified. Kurt lets out a tiny snort of laughter.

“Yep. Said his vows with a slur and almost toppled out of the church when it was all done. I’m fairly certain someone could annul that wedding on a technicality, if they wanted. Marriage under the influence,” Thad concludes solemnly.

Blaine shakes his head, still looking shocked, and it hits Kurt again what a very strange person his friend is. A romantic at heart who kisses people he barely knows at parties and serenades near-strangers in their workplace. A boy who so very clearly cares about doing what’s right and good, but is sometimes so clueless about Kurt’s feelings that it’s like a punch to the chest.

“Hey, Kurt,” calls Jessica, from across the circle where she and Wes are curled up on an oversized armchair together. She raises both eyebrows. “You know who turns into a real rapscallion when they overindulge? Our very own dear Blaine.”

“Oh, my god,” groans Blaine, shaking his head. He rests a hand on Kurt’s knee and smiles an embarrassed smile. “She’s exaggerating, Kurt, I swear –”

She’s not, Kurt thinks wryly, but he only crooks an eyebrow in response.

“Oh, you so do,” pipes Nick from the couch, and a bunch of the Warblers burst into laughter at some joke only known to them. Blaine’s face keeps on getting redder and redder.

Wes looks around appreciatively, a devious smile on his face. He clears his throat, and the laughter dies down. There’s a long pause before he finally begins to speak. “As I recall,” Wes begins, “there was a certain episode at New Year’s Eve one year ago...”

“Oh my god. Oh my god, Wes, no –”

“... where a certain someone got very, very inebriated from too much champagne...”

“Stop talking. Oh my god, please stop talking.”

“... and wound up draped all over myself and my lovely girlfriend –” here, Wes gives Jessica a squeeze. She’s looking across the room at Blaine with an evil look on her face, and Blaine is actually squirming. “—as we tried to put him to bed... and then proceeded to attempt to convince us that it would be an incredibly good idea to have a threesome.”

“What?” shouts Kurt, slapping a hand over his mouth. He can’t stop the laughter from bubbling up inside him, and luckily everyone else seems to be joining in too. He turns to face Blaine, whose face is buried in his hands. “You actuallysuggested that?”

“I hate you,” mutters Blaine, face buried in his hands. “I hate both of you, I don’t know what I was thinking. I was clearly way too drunk to see how awful and mean you both are.”

“Our boy loses half his brain when he overindulges,” says Jessica, shaking her head. “It’s shameful. I’m surprised our friendship has ever recovered.”

Everyone laughs again, and fortunately for the state of Blaine’s already bright red face the conversation turns to something else. The grin stays on Kurt’s face for a lot longer than it should, however. In a strange way, it feels almost as though something has physically lifted off of his chest. Maybe Drunk Blaine isn’t the most enormous douchebag in the world; maybe Blaine, when drunk, just gets... a little bit easy. Strangely enough, it’s actually the better option.

And maybe, if Blaine ever decides to have a complete change of heart and realize that oops, no, Kurt was completely right for me all along! , all Kurt will have to do to make their relationship workable is keep Blaine and alcohol entirely separate when other people are around.

It doesn’t seem like a very likely turn of events at this point, but Kurt is ever hopeful.

The conversation drifts and flutters, both of them chiming in occasionally, and at some point Blaine puts his hand between the two of them to rest and his knuckles brush against Kurt’s jeans-clad legs. He drifts them absently up and down in tiny movements that Kurt is sure aren’t intentional at all, but they still make sparks fly up and down his legs nonetheless. It’s unfair, how much Blaine affects him without even knowing. So very, very unfair.

The conversation lulls and drifts, and Kurt is barely even aware of the quiet anticipation hanging over all of them until Wes clears his throat a few minutes later. Everyone pauses, most of them turning to look at the councilman with semi-expectant looks on their faces.

“So,” Wes says after a while, looking around the room with an assured look on his face. “Anyone feel like smoking?”

The question is such a complete shock to Kurt that he feels his mouth fall open. Next to him, Blaine tenses slightly; his fingers stop their absent movement against Kurt’s thigh. A few people are nodding, and there are a couple of ‘yeah, sure’s and ‘that sounds fun’s from the remaining partygoers.

Dumbstruck, Kurt cannot manage to wipe the astonishment off his face. He honestly had no idea that any of the Warblers smoked cigarettes, and what a stupid thing to do, they’re vocal group, they’re going to ruin their voices for Christ’s sake.

Maybe it’s cigars, he thinks desperately, wondering if those are better or worse. They seem classier, anyways. More refined-looking? He doesn’t know enough about them to judge. And suddenly it hits him that oh, my god, does Blainesmoke? Kurt can’t imagine that Blaine could have hidden something like that for him for so long, even if it was only at parties, but the whole notion of Blaine’s beautiful mouth filled up with tar-smogged sludge is just so repulsive that he’s beginning to regret coming here in the first place. If that’s true, he just doesn’t want to know. Doesn’t want his mental image of Blaine to be ruined that way: it’s already too fragile and hanging on by a thread as it is.

There is absolutely no way Kurt Hummel is smoking tonight, and there is no way in hell he’s hanging around to watch other people do it either. Cigarettes are addictive, and unpleasant, and they smell disgusting, and he’s more than a little bit disappointed in everyone around him.

He’s just about to beg off – to say something pithy like I cannot abide the scent of tobacco, gentlemen; I’ll stay in here, if that’s quite all right – when he realizes that, while people are moving, none of them are headed toward the patio door. Instead, they seem to be chatting and lowering themselves down onto the carpet into an almost-circle, and Wes has left to go up to his room for something, and Blaine is sending him this absurd little apologetic look with his eyebrows all furrowed up, and suddenly Kurt very much wants to know how this party might be slightly different from what Kurt is accustomed to –

When Wes returns, at first Kurt thinks that he’s holding some kind of tremendously ugly vase. It’s made of blue glass, with a bulbous bottom and a tall cylinder of a top. The dark-haired boy is clutching a small metal box in his other hand, and for some reason that is what makes Kurt clue in before anything else does.

“That’s... that’s a bong,” says Kurt weakly, voice too-high and almost squeaky in the room. He only recognizes the thing from the stupid movies Puck sometimes brings over for him and Finn to watch; he’s certainly never seen one in real life before.

“It is,” says Blaine guiltily, wincing. “I really did mean to tell you.”

Wes places the metal tin on the ground in the middle of them, and then heads over into the kitchen. The sound of running water drifts out after a few moments, and Jessica hoists herself up and follows him in.

“I don’t,” says Kurt, sounding feeble and not sure what he’s even trying to say. “I can’t even – you guys smoke marijuana?” Even knowing that it’s stupid to do so, Kurt can’t help his voice from lowering into a hiss on the last word, as though he’s afraid of a policeman hearing his normal voice from miles away and coming running. He can’t take his eyes of the small metal box.

“Not all the time,” Blaine hurries to explain, looking pained. He reaches up and runs an anxious hand through his hair. “Not very much, really. And not all of us. Jeff doesn’t, and neither does Carmen.” He gestures toward David’s girlfriend, who seems to be playing some sort of game on her phone. “I didn’t even know if anyone was going to want to tonight, but... yeah. We do, sometimes.” He bites down on his lower lip. “Are you angry at me? Please don’t be angry at me.”

The laugh bursts out of Kurt’s chest all at once, in an undignified near-splutter of sound.

“Oh my god,” chokes Kurt, still laughing almost too hard to speak. There are tears of mirth gathering at the corners of his eyes. Blaine is looking at him as though he’s lost his mind, which really is just even funnier. “Oh my god, Blaine, do you have any idea how ridiculous you all look? Privileged little private school boys playing with drugs for fun at parties, oh mygod.” He dissolves into helpless giggles again.

Blaine’s brow furrows together, and not in a particularly good way. “It’s not that funny,” he says, just this side of petulant, and Kurt can’t help but snicker at the look on his face. But a few moments later, Wes comes back into the living room, and this time the blue glass container has a small amount of water sloshing in the bottom, and suddenly this all seems much less humorous and a whole lot more imminent.

His giggles die away, but Blaine seems to understand. He immediately places a warm hand on Kurt’s arm and leans in with a reassuring look on his face. “You don’t have to,” he says firmly but quietly, giving his head a shake. All at once, Kurt realizes how everyone else in the room seems to be carefully not paying them any attention. Jessica comes back in carrying a tray full of glasses of water, but she doesn’t say anything either. “No one will think badly of you, okay? I didn’t do it, for the first couple of parties. You never, ever have to do anything when you’re with me that makes you uncomfortable.”

“I know that,” Kurt almost snaps, realizing too late that the words come out a little bit too sharp. In front of him, Wes is opening up the metal box. Inside there’s a little pack of thin paper with part of the box torn away, two lighters, and a baggy full of little light green clusters Kurt can smell as soon as the lid was removed. The slightest hint of something sickly sweet is edging at his nose, and the opened box next to the bong makes such a picture that Kurt can barely believe he’s seeing it.

Jesus Christ, it’s like something out of a drug PSA.

“Where did you guys even get this stuff?” Kurt asks, still staring in disbelief at the array in front of him. Wes is sitting cross-legged in front of the box with Jessica by his side, breaking up the clumps up with his fingers. Separating seeds and stems with the practiced ease of someone who’s done it many times before. The smell is stronger, now. Drifting over and teasing at Kurt’s nose. It isn’t... bad, per se. It’s a smell he recognizes from fair grounds, and theme parks, and downtown Columbus. The way Brett from his Spanish class sometimes smells, only... fresher. Less stale. “Wealthy, white, upper-middle class drug dealers?”

David opens his mouth to reply, looking even more gleeful than usual, and Kurt raises his hand in the air to cut him off.

“Oh, lord, why am I even asking?” Kurt asks, massaging his temple with his unoccupied hand. “David’s older brother, right? It’s always David’s older brother.”

“Yep,” says David, nodding cheerfully. “Mike’s great. He lives in Columbus, but comes home every couple of weekends. He’s always happy to bring us the kinds of things that aren’t easy for us to get around here.”

According to Blaine, Michael Thompson has been scoring alcohol for Dave, Wes, and their friends since the two of them were fourteen. Kurt met him once, when he’d come to visit David at Dalton. Attractive and dark, like his brother, Mike is handsome and wears nice jackets and smiles more than anyone Kurt had ever met. Sometimes, he wonders if every member of the Thompson family is on happy pills.

Oh my god, maybe they are.

“But... aren’t you guys afraid of getting caught? Or getting in trouble?” Kurt asks, feeling slightly overwhelmed. For a second, he imagines his father’s face if he was forced to come pick his son up from the police station. He shudders at the idea.

“Ohio’s marijuana possession penalties are some of the most lenient in the country when it comes to personal use,” explains Wes calmly, still breaking up the clumps with his fingers. He raises his gaze to give Kurt a sardonic smile. “None of us want to risk our potential careers, of course. But as long as the amount is under one hundred grams – which this most definitely is – if we got caught, it wouldn’t even go on our criminal record. A one hundred and fifty dollar fine, and a minor misdemeanour.” Wes shrugs. “Not that any of us intend to get caught. That’s why we’re doing this here; the smell will be completely gone by the time my parents get back, and this way we won’t have to wander around outside looking for trouble.”

In front of him, Wes is packing the little metal spout of the bong full of broken up pieces of marijuana. Blaine gives his arm a squeeze, and the touch unintentionally sends shivers down Kurt’s spine.

“Aren’t... aren’t you guys worried about your voices?” asks Kurt, grasping at straws.

“We don’t do this much,” pipes up Nick, grinning widely. “And we keeping winning competitions anyways, so. No, not really.”

“Seriously,” says Blaine, looking concerned. “You don’t have to do anything. I would never, ever pressure you.”

The tone in Blaine’s voice makes Kurt’s whole body tense up. It’s almost... patronizing. As though Kurt’s going to break. Going to shatter into a million pieces from the sight of one of his friends doing something mildly illegal. Irrationally, it makes Kurt frustrated. Makes him want to sit up straight and lean in close and whisper have you ever met Noah Puckerman? right into Blaine’s perfect, gorgeous face.

He doesn’t, though. Because against his better judgement, Kurt is starting to feel... curious. What does it feel like? How does it work? Kurt knows the way alcohol feels, even if he doesn’t always like it. Dimmed down and liquid, and the twist in his stomach that comes when he’s had too much. But he has absolutely no idea what smoking pot would feel like.

Once, Kurt sat through half of one of Puck’s stupid stoner movies. He had been waiting for a roast to come out of the oven and had nothing better to do, and Puck and Finn had whined at him to come on, man, it’s funny; come watch. He’d seen the characters grin like morons and say stupid things, guffawing and snorting and being idiots for the camera, and he remembers feeling disdainful. Annoyed at them, even, for being classless and stupid and he so much better than them.

But the people he’s with right now... these are his friends. Who have always been kind, if a little bit weird, and never once bullied him or intentionally made him feel small. These are people he respects, who are going to go on to become the lawyers and doctors and economists of tomorrow. There is nothing stupid about the people gathered around him, or laughable. They aren’t a joke, or a punchline, or something to poke fun at. They’re going somewhere.

So instead of saying, “thank you, Blaine, but I have no interest in taking part of your shameful illegal drug use,” Kurt turns to Blaine and asks “are you going to?”

And Blaine blinks. Bites down on his bottom lip, and looks up at Kurt with this look on his face. “I am,” he says, half-shrugging. There’s a smile pulling at the corners of his lips. “I... I kinda like it. I like the way it makes me feel. Floaty. And happy, and just... relaxed. I don’t do it much, but... yeah. I’m going to, tonight, if that’s okay with you.”

More than anything else, relaxed is what convinces him. As a rule, Kurt is not a very relaxed person. He just isn’t. He has to look a certain way, act a certain way, take care of his family in a certain way that just doesn’t allow for it. And he can’t slip. Can’t ever, ever slip. It’s what people have been shouting at him in the hallways at McKinley for years before he transferred to Dalton. Why don’t you take a chill pill, gay boy and bet the faggot fucking enjoys having that stick up his ass. Kurt needs to take care of himself, and his dad, and everyone he cares about, and letting down his guard – even for a second – is too dangerous to try.

But here... this is a safe place. With people he trusts, who have never belittled him. Who won’t think that he’s stupid for not knowing what he’s doing, or for messing something up. Maybe here, in this space, he can finally relax.

“Okay,” says Kurt quietly, before he’s even fully registered the words. He feels quietly shocked; surreal. “But I have no idea what to do.”

“You don’t have to –” begins Blaine, but Kurt sends him a look that so very clearly says Blaine Anderson, don’t you dare, I will cut you that he backs off immediately.

“All right,” says Wes, in that perfectly even tone of voice that says he wouldn’t have minded either way what Kurt had decided to do. It makes him feel calmer, for some reason. Less anxious. “How about you we start with me, and we’ll go around the circle clockwise so that you can watch a few of us and see what we do. Blaine can explain the logistics of it while we work our way around.” David shoots Wes a light, private look that Kurt doesn’t understand. “Does that sound good?”

Kurt nods, shares a look with Blaine – and the two of them lower themselves off the leather couch and onto the floor to join the circle.

I can’t believe I’m doing this. Oh, my god, I can’t believe I’m doing this.

Across from him, Wes picks up one of the lighters in the box. Blaine leans in close to his ear and begins to explain the process unfolding in front of them through step by step. His breath is hot on the side of Kurt’s neck, he’s so close, and for the life of him Kurt can’t explain why the smell of Blaine’s breath is so pleasant to him. It’s warm, and masculine, and so perfectly Blaine in all the right ways.

“Okay,” Blaine whispers, gesturing in front of them with one finger extended. His lip grazes briefly over Kurt’s ear, and Kurt shivers. “You see how the little metal thing is packed with weed? That’s called the bowl. The idea is that you put your finger over the carb – that’s the little hole on the side, see how Wes has his thumb over it? – and light the pot in the bowl with the lighter. It can take a bit of coordination to get it down, so don’t worry if you slip up the first time. See how Wes is getting it with the lighter so it’s burning a teeny bit red? That’s perfect. Now, you keep the bong between your legs, put your lips over the top, and inhale.”

“That’s when I breathe in the smoke?” asks Kurt, already feeling mildly overwhelmed. Wes has the blue glass of the bong cradled in his lap, and is inhaling deeply with his finger over the side and a lighter in front of the bowl. The whole chamber of it seems to be filling up with thick coils of smoke.

“No,” says Blaine softly, shaking his head. “You’re just making the smoke then. When the bong’s all full, you take your finger off the carb – Wes is doing it now, look – and suck in all the smoke. And you don’t want to leave any in there. It’s... bad manners, I guess?”

“There are bad manners for marijuana consumption?” Kurt asks sceptically, and Blaine lets out a small snort of laughter beside him. He watches as Wes takes his finger off the hole, breathes in – and all of the smoke in the bong disappears, pulled into Wes’s lungs. The dark-haired boy keeps his lips pressed tightly together, and Kurt can see the muscles in his throat are twitching slightly. After a few seconds, Wes opens his mouth – and exhales a stream of thick, coiled smoke into the air.

The smell fills the room much, much stronger than before. It’s almost sickly sweet, thick and cloying, but also...organic?... in a way that Kurt actually finds pleasant. Almost green. It doesn’t make him want to scrunch up his nose and recoil in the same way cigarette smoke does. Wes smiles, and passes the bong right away to Jessica on his left.

“There are, actually,” says Blaine patiently, as though he’s explaining algebra homework or the harmonizing for a Warbler’s piece, and not how to consume illegal drugs. “Like... you don’t want to mess up the order in which people smoke, and you’re going to want to pass it on once you’re done. And you definitely don’t want to exhale into the chamber – the part at the top? It makes the pot all wet and gross.”

“And whatever you do,” says Nick roguishly, as Jessica exhales a long, thin coil of smoke into the air and passes the bong toward him. “Don’t spill the bong water.”

“Yes,” agrees Wes, and Kurt is almost shocked to see that his eyes are already a tiny bit red around the rims. He’s blinking the smallest amount more than he usually does. “Please don’t. Really. It can stink up a place for days, and I’d rather if my parents didn’t know the details of my dastardly life of delinquency.”

Scrunching up his nose, Kurt nods. “Duly noted,” he says simply, watching in fascination as Nick inhales deeply and makes the water in the bong bubble – before sucking the smoke up into his lungs. After only a few seconds, he coughs noisily. Long coughs, loud coughs; they start off small and shallow, but soon lead to a full-on coughing fit. Jessica hands him one of the glasses of water, and after what sounds like a great deal of hacking he’s able to swallow a gulp.

“Sorry,” Nick chokes. “Haven’t done that in a while.”

The bong works its way around the circle as Blaine explains to him that the bowl will need to be repacked every five people or so, depending on how much smoke people choose to make. Some of them take drags – “hits”, Blaine calls them – that are so big Kurt can’t help himself from being impressed, and other times people take in fairly small amounts of smoke. Kurt can’t quite figure out the reasoning for it, and he’s already starting to get anxious about his turn.

Light the bowl, cover the carb, inhale until it’s full, thumb off the carb, suck in the smoke. Light the bowl, cover the carb, inhale until it’s full, thumb off the carb, suck in the smoke.

What if he makes a mistake? Or coughs? Or – oh, god – what if nothing happens? What if Kurt does all the right things, and tries and tries, and nothing happens at all? Will Blaine confiscate it, looking at him sadly and shaking his head, saying guess you’re just not quite cut out for this, Kurt as he shrugs his shoulders? Or what if he inhales the smoke, and everything goes fine, but it doesn’t affect him at all? What if Kurt is just broken when it comes to marijuana, and everyone else starts having fun while he sits there, totally normal, feeling nothing?

The room is already getting muzzy by the time the bong gets to Blaine next to him; the smoke stings at Kurt’s eyes in an almost pleasant way, and the entirety of Wes’s living room looks ever-so-slightly hazy. Jessica has already put two glasses of water in front of them on the floor. Blaine takes the bong from Thad, catches Kurt’s eye, and proceeds to light the bong in the slowest, most drawn-out way imaginable – as though he’s letting Kurt see a how-to manual with his demonstration. Kurt is just seconds away from saying, it’s fine, honestly, I’ve seen it already, I’m just nervous aboutdoing it – when Blaine starts to inhale, fills up the cavity, and then draws the smoke into his mouth.

And oh, Jesus fuck, it’s just about the hottest thing Kurt’s ever seen.

This is absurd, thinks Kurt desperately, as he watches the smoke disappear through the glass of the chamber and in between Blaine’s lips. I should absolutely not be finding this attractive at all. The muscles in Blaine’s neck tense up as he inhales deeply, his Adam’s apple shifting ever-so-slightly, and Kurt realizes he’s never noticed what an incredible throat Blaine has. Developed and strong but not overly muscled, with his skin that little bit darker than Kurt’s is. Blaine pulls away when all of the smoke is gone, long eyelashes fluttering as he holds it inside his mouth. He blinks hard once, twice, and then –

— and then exhales a gorgeous, perfect stream of smoke out into the air, mouth curved into an unfairly lovely little circle as the coils twist out of his lips and float gentle into the air. Blaine catches his eye again, laughs self-consciously – and a tiny, almost unnoticeable puff of smoke escapes his lips.

Fucking. Hell.

When Blaine smiles at him, his eyes are even warmer and more beautiful than usual. “Your turn,” he says, mouth turned up in a larger than life smile, and before frowning down at the marijuana in the metal spout. He asks for the little metal tin and packs the bowl again fresh just for him, scooping the burnt ashes out and replacing them with fresh green clusters. It takes a while, but Kurt can’t keep his eyes off Blaine’s fingers, deftly moving as though this is something he’s done umpteen times before. And before Kurt even has the faculties to be worried again, Blaine is handing him the bong with an encouraging smile on his face, and this is it.

Only shaking the tiniest bit, Kurt takes the glass vessel in hand. He tries to cradle it in front of his torso as he’s seen other people do, and it takes him a second to find a comfortable position. Once he does, he picks up the lighter, flicking it until it catches, and gives it a try.

His first attempt is a bit of a bungle. It’s one thing to watch everyone else in the circle complete a routine they’ve done many times before, or to go over the steps in his head; in practice, however, it’s actually quite a complicated routine. He has a hard time lining up keeping the lighter lit with having this thumb over the hole with breathing in, and after a few botched tries he feels a warm hand skim over his own.

“Here,” says Blaine shyly, taking the lighter from his hand and flicking it so that it catches alight. “Let me.” The curly-haired boy moves the lighter in front of the bowl so that Kurt doesn’t have to, keeping eye contact all the while, and Kurt lets out a shiver that has nothing to do with nerves before he gives it another try.

This time, it works. As he inhales, smoke begins to fill up the bowl, twisting and growing inside as he makes the water bubble, and Kurt’s so happy he could beam. Until he realizes that, actually, he’s sort of used up all of his air already, and how the hell is he supposed to suck in to get the smoke without any breath?

Blaine seems to sense his semi-frantic internal dilemma. “Keep your thumb over the carb and put your other hand flat over the top to hold the smoke in, Kurt, and you can catch a breath. I’ve got it, here, don’t worry –”

Following his instructions, Kurt breaks away just long enough to slide his palm flat over the top of the bong. It traps the smoke inside while he takes a deep breath. Blaine is holding the bond in place for him. He takes one last look around the circle at his friends once he’s breathing normally; some people are watching him, others aren’t. He slips his hand away – and inhales the smoke in one quick, hard breath.

I’m smoking marijuana. I’m actually smoking marijuana.

It’s over so quickly he barely has time to register what it feels like. It doesn’t hurt, as Kurt’s almost expecting it to, and it doesn’t make him cough. He can feel the potential for one teasing at the edges of his through, but he pushes the feeling down. It’s smoother than he’s expecting, not as hot – there’s a slight burn in his throat and mouth as he holds the smoke inside, but it isn’t unbearable at all. The flavour is incredibly pronounced, though; he can taste it in the back of his throat. Thick and sticky as he holds to warm smoke inside his lips.

Not wanting to be rude and accidentally hog the bong, Kurt passes it to Mary on his other side. The effort makes Kurt lets out a tiny breath of air through his nose – and to his shock, two tiny coils of smoke escape, like from a dragon’s snout. He holds the smoke in his mouth for five seconds, ten seconds – and when he finally decides it’s enough, opens his lips and lets a long stream of smoke out into the air.

“Well done!” exclaims Blaine, his smile still unusually wide and delighted-looking. He gives Kurt a squeeze on the knee. “How do you feel?”

Kurt smiles back, feeling a bit weak-kneed but pretty good overall. He takes a minute to think about it. The taste of it is still strong and pronounced in his mouth; sticky and thick and sweet, slightly dryer than it was before. He’d expected it to feel hotter – but maybe it wasn’t because of the water in the bottom? He tries to remember something about sophomore physics class, but can’t quite remember the science behind water and heat and temperatures. He doesn’t feel different, though. Not really.

“The same,” Kurt says eventually, nodding deeply. He can feel a piece of his hair come loose and tumble down onto his cheek, but he doesn’t bother to push it aside. It tickles. “I thought it would – I don’t know. Happen right away? I feel mostly the same.”

“It does that,” says Blaine, nodding seriously with that ridiculous smile still on his face. He hands Kurt a glass of water, which Kurt takes a long drink from without being otherwise prompted. The water feels cool in his throat. “It takes a little while. To kick in.”

From out of the corner of his eye, Kurt can see Wes and David – as well as a few other Warblers, and Jessica – giving the two of them a sideways look. But it doesn’t matter, really, because Kurt’s just realized something amazing.

“You’re smiley!” he exclaims, mouth falling open in delight. “It – marijuana, I don’t know, weed – it makes you smiley, and we’ve barely done any!”

“It does not,” protests Blaine weakly, trying to school his features into seriousness. It doesn’t work, however, and after a moment the two of them are beaming at one another again.

By the time the bong works its way over to them again, Kurt is starting to feel... something. He doesn’t even know if he can attribute it to the drug. It’s the slightest lilt of the world tugging at his perspective, the smallest of imbalances despite the fact that he’s sitting straight and tall as he usually does. There’s a sway to his movement that he’s not entirely sure is real, or in his head. An almost unnoticeable tingle in his skin. Kurt almost feels floaty.

I’m defying gravity, he thinks stupidly as Blaine hands him the bong again, and he moves to take this hit without any help.

Kurt does cough, this time around, but long after the bong’s been taken away and he’s even managed to hold the smoke in for a few seconds. It doesn’t stop, though, which is a little bit worrying. Building up and up from something small to something large, until the couch is clutching at his chest and Blaine’s hand is rubbing little circles in his back and it’s a long time before he gets his breath back. And oh, god, that just. It feels better than it should, the way Blaine’s palm smoothes over the fabric of his button-up. Catching at it as the touch ripples over his back, delicious in a way that just isn’t fair.

“Clothes,” Kurt blurts out loudly, and the half of the circle immersed in conversation turns to look at him. He blushes, but keeps on going. “My clothes. I don’t want them to get – gross, or smelly, or ruined. Blaine? Are my clothes going to get ruined?”

“No,” says Wes calmly, but the telltale furrowed guilt in Blaine’s eyes lets Kurt know that his friend is far more aware of Kurt’s levels of personal hygiene than their host is. He starts to loosen his own tie, sliding the shiny red material open and tugging it gently up over his neck. Then he reaches up to start the buttons of his navy shirt. They’re complicated, he realizes. Harder than he remembers them being to undo.

“Um. Kurt?” asks Jeff, sounding amused. He’s been sitting behind his girlfriend as she smokes, chatting and socializing without actually consuming any himself. “Why are you taking your clothes off, buddy?”

“What?” Kurt asks stupidly, blinking. The third button really is very difficult to undo, and his fingers keep slipping. Everyone in the room seems a little more distant than they should. “I don’t want them to get smoky,” he explains, because honestly. He just said that.

“... so is nudity the endgame plan, here?” asks David, looking intrigued, and oh sweet god Kurt honestly hadn’t thought of that. He feels his face flush bright red, heart pounding a little fast in his chest. The whole is a bit off-kilter around him, and his limbs feel light.

“I –” Kurt starts, because words are a little more complicated to speak than he’s used to right now, but Blaine cuts in smoothly.

“Did you bring pyjamas?” asks Blaine, eyes shining with soft amusement, but it isn’t cruel. Kurt isn’t being made fun of. Kurt nods, and Blaine inhales and licks his lips. “Why don’t you just – change into those? And then your clothes will remain pristine and smoke-free.”

“Okay,” Kurt nods, and moves to stand up before he remembers something important. He hesitates, before poking Blaine on the shoulder. Blaine blinks. “I don’t know where the bathroom is,” Kurt admits quietly, and Blaine giggles.

“I’ll take you,” says Blaine, pushing himself up into a standing position and extending a hand for Kurt to take. Ever the gentleman, even with his eyes red and the smell of smoke at his lips. “Sometimes I think I know Wes’s house better than my own, I’ve spent so much time here since I transferred.”

Kurt slides his hand into Blaine’s, which – god, does touching Blaine always feel this way? It’s as though there are nerves in his hand Kurt never even knew were there: every inch of skin on skin is so perceptible, as is the way Blaine’s fingers squeeze and move around his own. It’s all more in a way he doesn’t think he could ever explain with words. Blaine pulls him unsteadily to his feet, stabilizes him with his other hand, and oh. The world spins a little bit at the movement, and his head feels a bit rushy.

“Come on,” says Blaine, leading him out by the hand, and Kurt isn’t anywhere near intoxicated enough to miss the raised eyebrow that Jessica gives them as they leave. Blaine opens the door with his free hand, guides them out –

—and it’s like stepping out of a sauna, my god.

“It’s... really smoky in there,” says Kurt pointlessly as they step into the much clearer air of the hallway. It’s crisp and almost cold in the hall, fresh and easy to breathe in. “I didn’t even really notice.”

“Mmm,” agrees Blaine happily, and walk to the entrance to grab Kurt’s satchel. And they’re still holding hands, which, yeah, Kurt isn’t opposed to at all. It feels amazing, like Blaine’s the only thing he’s connected to in the world even as his feet are solid on the hardwood floor. Is this something friends do? Maybe it’s just something Blaines do. He had taken Kurt’s hand and led them down a fancy hallway the first time they met, too, after all.

“Parallels,” says Kurt contentedly, and Blaine hums in agreement even though Kurt is fairly sure he didn’t actually make any sense. The dark seems to wrap around them in a more tangible way than Kurt is used to, tangling in their limbs.

“I think I’m a little bit high,” admits Kurt after a moment, as their footsteps thrum-thrum-thrum on the hall runner carpet. “Not much, but. A little bit. I think. It’s hard to tell.”

Blaine laughs. “I think I’m a little bit high, too,” he says, giving Kurt’s hand a squeeze, and oh god Kurt must be at least a little gone, because there is no way a simple clasp of hands can possibly be so amazingly sexy in real life. He’s been saying for years that the touch of a fingertips is as sexy as it gets, yes, but he’d meant more along the lines of romanticand not actually, problematically sexy.

When they arrive at what Kurt can only assume is the main bathroom, Blaine ushers him inside with his curls falling loose around his ears and that too-big grin still fixed firmly on his face. Kurt flicks on the light, closes the door to shut Blaine out – and the nearly-sterile brightness of it all is such a shock after the dim of the hall.

The mirror behind the elaborate taps is large and luxurious: no one here would ever have to invest in a dresser mirror just to be able to see their own face properly in the morning. Kurt catches sight of his reflection, and stares.

The only word that comes to mind is debauched. His usually china-doll pale skin is flushed and heated in the soft rounds of his cheeks, and there are several strands of hair escaping from his hairstyle. Trailing along the side of his cheek, his face, each one like a mark of indulgence. His eyes are brighter than usual, more green than blue in this light – and, god, his eyes are just as squinty and bloodshot as Blaine’s are. Whenever he tilts his head, he can feel and almost see the drag of it moving in the air. There’s a wide, closed-lipped smile pulled across his face. His chest is heaving just a little bit.

You’re doing something illegal, a voice says inside his head. Something that most of your friends at McKinley probably haven’t done. Something that most of the people in your life probably haven’t done.

Kurt tips his head forward, bits down on his lip – and laughs, clear and high, as the two Kurts staring back at one another share in the joke.

--

When Kurt finally emerges – he’d had to actually use the bathroom, he’d realized while he was inside, and the buttons on his shirt really were more complicated than is strictly fair – he finds Blaine waiting for him. Leaned up against the wall with his eyes closed, humming something Kurt vaguely recognizes as radio music and swaying slightly back and forth. Blaine turns a few seconds late at the sound of the door opening, eyeing him up and down.

For the first time, Kurt realizes that wearing his pyjamas does actually mean that people are going to see him in his pyjamas. Oh, damn it.

“Super cute,” says Blaine quietly, tugging at the lapel of the blue satin shirt. Kurt feels more heat rise in his face.

“Thank you,” he says quickly. “Armani. Second-hand. My dad and I took a weekend trip to Cleveland last year, and I found them in the bargain bin at a thrift store.”

Which... yeah, Kurt does actually try tremendously hard not to let on where and how he gets the clothes he wears – especially around his friends from Dalton – so the drugs must be affecting his mental filter as well. Because for all that they’re amazing people, for the most part the Warblers simply do not understand. They can’t comprehend the experience of working at your dad’s business for forty hours a week to save up enough money to buy a few new, genuine, preciouspieces of designer clothing – only to have them get soaked in cherry slushie and forever ruined three days into the school year.

But Blaine doesn’t seem to be laughing at him. “Of course you did,” he says, eyes shining, and he takes Kurt’s hand again and leads them back to the living room.

By the time they arrive back, the bong is sitting off to the side and everyone seems to be sitting or draped across the ground or couches in various states of awake or staring or chatting or drowsing. There’s music playing on the expensive sound system; something soft and lilting and soothing, with heavy instrumentals and a strong baseline.

For a second, Kurt feels disappointed. He’d actually really, really been enjoying the evening, and he almost feels upset that they either missed the last round or everyone else decided they’d had enough. Because Kurt isn’t sure, actually, that he’s had enough. He could probably have done more, if they’d let him.

“C’mon,” Blaine says, tugging him into the middle of the circle where there’s a large space left open. Both of them lie down on the plush carpet, and very suddenly Kurt isn’t upset at all anymore. He’s just... comfortable. The muscles in his body are all unwound and loose, and he’s already in his pyjamas so he’s fairly certain that he’s more comfortable than everyone else in the room combined. Kurt can feel Blaine next to him, pressed a little bit up against his side for lack of room, and the smell of Blaine is all around him.

It’s nice, and warm, and human like this. Kurt presses his face into Blaine’s shoulder, inhaling deeply to take in the smell, and Blaine sighs happily beside him.

“Do they realize that they’re...?” someone’s voice asks from above them, but they’re quickly silenced by what sounds like about six people hissing shhhhhh. Kurt can’t tell exactly who, though, or why, because his eyes are closed as the world floats softly around him. He reaches up to run a hand through Blaine’s hair, because he wants to and because it seems like a good idea, and Blaine makes a pleased little noise and leans into the touch. The curls are soft and not too thick with product, and Kurt’s hand slides easily through them and along Blaine’s scalp, massaging in soft patterns. His hands are still hypersensitive, and it still feels a little bit like he can feel every individual hair on Blaine’s head.

The world drifts, and Kurt’s limbs feel happily light and heavy at the same time, and his whole world fills with the smell of Blaine as they lie together on the soft carpet. It is possibly the most at ease he’s felt in years.

He must drift to sleep, because at some point later they’re being shaken awake and tugged into standing positions. There are more lights off, now, and kind hands guide them into what Kurt can only assume is one of the house’s guest rooms. Kurt gets tucked into the bed right away, which is lovely and soft if cooler than the floor. He can hear at least two people talking quietly and the rustle of fabric off in the room somewhere. Wes, he thinks vaguely, drifting in and out. And Blaine.

When Blaine is guided into the bed as well – and it is Blaine, Kurt could tell on any kinds of drugs with his eyes shut and a gun pointed at his head – Kurt notices that he’s now wearing a soft shirt and flannel-y pants. The light goes off, and Wes’s voice says “goodnight, guys,” and Kurt can hear the soft click of a door closing right before he drifts off into gentle, foggy sleep with Blaine’s face tucked peacefully into the hollow of his neck.

Chapter 2: Two

“Kurt,” Blaine groans, hand fluttering along Kurt’s waist and letting out a shuddery breath.

Eyes closed, Kurt hmms quietly in acknowledgement, leaning farther over the gearshift in order to work his teeth over the spot that drives his boyfriend crazy; right where his jaw meets his neck below his earlobe. Blaine inhales sharply as Kurt nips at the sensitive skin, his hand fluttering along Kurt’s waist. They’ve been parked for almost twenty minutes now, and it’s obvious that Blaine is more than a little affected. His voice is coming out slightly choked and breathy, and the skin of his neck is flushed against Kurt’s lips. He tastes good, though, so Kurt drags his tongue over the patch of skin again.

“Kurt, I think – nngh, god – that we should head back to your h-house soon.”

A small whine of confused irritation escapes Kurt’s throat. “Already?” he asks, pulling back so as to look his boyfriend in the eyes. Blaine’s breath is coming sharp and hard from the driver’s seat, and Kurt can see that his lips are moist and kiss-swollen even in the dimness from the streetlamp light outside. He has one hand clenched too-tightly around the side of his seat, and some of his curls are coming loose around his ears from where Kurt’s fingers have edged up and twisted at the back of his neck. His eyes are dark and wide and heated, full of something secret and exposed all at once.

He looks... god, he looks incredible. “We have fifteen more minutes before my curfew,” says Kurt decisively, shaking his head, and leaning in to kiss his boyfriend again. Blaine kisses back automatically for about five seconds before his hands shakily come up to rest on Kurt’s shoulders.

“No – wait, stop,” murmurs Blaine against his lips, gently pushing him away. Unimpressed, Kurt lets out a tiny huff of noise and tilts his head to one side, waiting for an explanation. They don’t get all that much time to be physical with one another – not with his dad’s ever-frustrating no-closed doors policy – and Blaine had better have a damn good reason for cutting this short. Blaine bites down on his lip, looking slightly embarrassed. “If... if I’m going to be able to come in and say goodnight to your dad, Kurt, I’m going to need those fifteen minutes to... well. To calm down. A little.”

Blaine shoots him a remorseful look as he shifts awkwardly in his seat, and it takes Kurt longer than it should to fully comprehend the meaning of that sentence. One moment he’s opening his mouth to ask what are you talking about? and the next he’s clamping his lips together as realization hits him like a tidal wave.

Oh. Oh.

“Oh,” says Kurt, the syllable soft and surprised in the quiet of the car. An embarrassed flush is threatening to creep over his cheeks, but more than anything Kurt feels... pleased. Wanted. There are ripples of a delicious heat twisting through his body at this new discovery. Blaine – wonderful, lovely, gorgeous, his boyfriend Blaine needs to calm down because ofhim.

It feels incredibly powerful.

Slowly, Kurt feels a smile stealing across his lips. It makes Blaine let out a small, relieved exhalation of air that could almost be a laugh if it weren’t so devastated. Gratefully, his boyfriend smiles back and reaches out to rest his hand over Kurt’s own.

It’s been three weeks. Three weeks since Blaine had his moment, since the kiss that left him disbelieving and breathless and quietly freaking out on the inside. Since Blaine reached over the piles of glitter and rhinestones, and slid his hand on top of Kurt’s and said you move me. Three weeks since they went from Kurt and Blaine to KurtandBlaine boyfriendsboyfriendsboyfriends and everything Kurt had been hoping and pining and starting to think was never going to happen came true at once. And to Kurt’s great surprise, being Blaine’s boyfriend is tremendously similar to being Blaine’s best friend.

There are a few more perks, now, of course. A few more doors that have been opened to him. There’s holding hands, now, and cuddling. Getting tangled up in one another when they watch movies, or television programs, or just lying there doing nothing at all except being together. Kurt doesn’t have to hide the way he looks at Blaine anymore: can stare and memorize all he wants without having to worry about their friendship, or being obvious, or making Blaine uncomfortable.

And, of course, there is kissing. Quick kisses and languid kisses and kisses so incredibly searing hot that it sometimes feels as though Kurt is going to glut himself on them. Now that Kurt’s discovered how incredible it is to be kissed by someone he wants to kiss back, he’s a little uncertain of how he ever got excited about anything else before because kissing is almost definitely the best thing in all of creation.

And yet, some things remain so the same that it makes Kurt shake his head in wondered amazement. They can still talk for hours about fashion and politics and music and literature a mile a minute; they still go get coffee practically every other day. Kurt still pokes fun at Blaine for his ridiculous song choices for the Warblers, even more so now that he’s back at McKinley, and Blaine still squeezes his hand when he gets particularly excited about something. They still Skype one another most nights before bed.

Despite the changes, the essential formula of them remains the same.

They’re still new at this, though. Still adjusting and learning and figuring this different aspect of one another out, testing limits and habits and preferences and trying their best to spend as much time together as humanly possible considering their extenuating circumstances. Both attending different schools, and Kurt’s father so strict about curfews and house rules and what is or is not appropriate. Intellectually, Kurt knows that they can’t keep coming home from dates a half hour early and parking next to the public park around the corner from his house in order to get some alone time. It isn’t safe, for one thing, considering the sort of town they live in.

And there are always limits – even ones Kurt hasn’t been aware of until this very evening. Having to cool off – being able toadmit out loud that one of them needs to cool off – is so new and strange and intimate that it makes the tips of Kurt’s fingers tingle.

“I like that,” Kurt finds himself saying out loud, and Blaine gives his hand a squeeze as he tilts his head to one side questioningly. Kurt gives a little shrug, feeling shy. “That you need to... take a minute. It means that you like what we do together. I’m the one who makes you feel that way, and... that’s nice.” It means you really like me, and that you aren’t just doing this because it’s convenient and I’ve been hopelessly into you for months now.

“God, do I ever like it,” murmurs Blaine quietly, reaching up with his free hand to trail over Kurt’s cheek. The touch is light, barely a graze, but Kurt can feel it even more because of its softness. Blaine licks his lips, lets out a little laugh. “You have no idea what you do to me, Kurt. How amazing you are. I can’t believe...” He gives his head a shake. “I can’t believe how stupid I was. How long it took me to realize just how much I wanted this.”

“Yes, well,” says Kurt, leaning over to rest his head on Blaine’s shoulder. The angle is awkward, but it doesn’t matter. “I, for one, was very unimpressed with the wait. But I suppose I’ll have to forgive you. Better late than never, Blaine, they always say.”

There’s a teasing smile in his voice, but Blaine still gives him a comforting little squeeze.

“Wes and David knew, you know,” says Blaine quietly, after a few long moments spent all tucked into his face. His breath is warm and pleasant. “They knew how much I liked you, even when I was still clueless. A couple of the other Warblers, too, I think. Isn’t that funny?” Blaine lets out a little laugh, humming softly. “But I suppose, now that I think about it... Imight have been a little obvious at Wes’s house party that one time.”

That makes Kurt let out a sharp snort into Blaine’s shoulder, because Wes’s house party isn’t something they talked about for a good long time after it happened. The awkward, anticipatory looks everyone had given them for days afterwards had been too uncomfortable for Blaine – and too painful for Kurt – to be able to talk about it easily. That particular evening has been off the roster of conversation for the sake of their friendship for long enough that Kurt had completely blanked that since they’re dating now, they’re totally allowed to talk about their awkward pre-dating stage.

“That was quite the night,” Kurt admits, remembering that sickly sweet smell of the smoke mixing together with Blaine’s deodorant and Blaine’s laundry detergent and Blaine as they lay in a sprawled mess on Wes’s living room carpet. How straightforward and floaty and easy everything had felt between them. And how awful it had been to wake up in an empty bed with sheets that smelled of Blaine the next morning. Having to face everyone for breakfast with his mind still slightly fogged around the edges and Blaine’s cheeks flaring bright red every few minutes.

“I was really confused the next morning,” Blaine admits quietly, leaning forward to press his lips against Kurt’s forehead in a kiss, and holy hell. Blaine is his boyfriend now. “Hey... I never got to ask you, by the way – I felt too awkward after how intense we got, and my emotions were all ‘hey, Blaine, how about a personal realization that you won’t accept for another few weeks’, but.” He hesitates, squirming a little awkwardly. “Did you enjoy it?”

A memory drifts across Kurt’s eyelids, fogged with vagueness and haze. Blaine’s hand nestled in his own, the sensation amplified so much larger and closer and more than usual, as he lead Kurt down the ornate hallway. Laughing and saying nonsense things, and the incredible sense of being above himself that Kurt’s found himself thinking back to every so often in the past few weeks. Because... yeah. When completely detached from the awkwardness of the two of them the morning after? That night had been pretty incredible.

“I did,” admits Kurt, smiling into Blaine’s shoulder. “It’s not... I never thought I’d really want to do that, you know? But... I’m glad I did. It was really fun.”

“Fun,” Blaine hums into his hair, sounding pleased. He gives Kurt’s hand a squeeze.

“Actually,” Kurt adds, pulling away because seriously, the gearshift has been digging into his side and hurting like a bitch for about four minutes now and he just hadn’t wanted to ruin the mood. He straightens himself up in his seat a little bit, looking over at Blaine. The curly-haired boy looks calmer now, definitely. Almost presentable-to-fathers levels of decency, and there’s something that Kurt’s been wondering about since that night at Wes’s house. Or, more accurately, ever since he and Blaine started actually, properly, really dating. A curiosity that wormed its way under his skin and left him lingeringon the idea. “Have you ever thought about... I don’t know. You and me, just... doing that. Together. Without a party, or anyone else, just... us?”

He turns to glance up at Blaine, and his heart just about stops in his chest. Because Blaine is giving him a look, and something awful twists in Kurt’s stomach. “Oh, god, is that weird? I bet it’s weird. Seriously, ignore everything I just said –” His hands fly up to cover his face, because he so has no idea what he’s talking about, and Blaine probably thinks he’s a naive idiot more than ever, and –

“No!” Blaine insists, reaching up to gently pry Kurt’s hands away from his face. When Kurt opens his eyes, there’s a look of caring concern in Blaine’s hazel eyes, in the twist of his mouth. “No, Kurt, you didn’t say anything wrong. I just... didn’t think you’d be interested in anything like that. With... just me. And you, and. Yeah.”

“You’d want that?” Kurt asks, feeling self-conscious in the extreme. “I mean. It’s not weird, right? That I’d... want to. Again, so soon. And privately.”

“It’s not weird,” murmurs Blaine, eyes shining a bit. “I would love to have that experience with you. Just you and me together, and... yeah. I would really like that.”

What Kurt should be saying is something along the lines of: I’m being a bad influence. We should not do more illegal drugs. I don’t know why I suggested that, Blaine, please ignore my brief lapse into deviant madness.

Instead, he murmurs “okay” as he leans in to kiss Blaine again, their lips pressing together in that maddening slide of skin that makes the hairs stand up on the backs of Kurt’s forearms and gooseflesh creep down the skin that covers his spine. Blaine’s hands slide along his waist, slightly under the shirt but just barely, just the slightest touch of fingertips to skin, and Kurt can’t stop himself from making tiny, breathy noises into Blaine’s mouth in spite of himself.

They kiss, and kiss, until Blaine flies back with his eyes wide and says “shit, your curfew”, and before Kurt can even process the conversation in full the car is roaring to life and they’re speeding down the road back at his house.

When he waves goodbye to Blaine out the living room window ten minutes later, Blaine waves back with a truly ridiculous smile on his face and a bouncy step that makes Kurt smile so hard his jaw aches.

--

Doing it at Kurt’s house is completely out of the question: one of the downsides of being a member of a newly nuclear-style family is that their home is almost always occupied. Between Carole’s peculiar hours as a nurse at the hospital, the number of friends Finn brings over on a regular basis, and his dad’s stay-at-home attitude, Kurt is never truly alone at home. They have enough trouble finding time to make out in the Hudson-Hummel household with the door open, let alone participating in illegal and socially disapproved activities. Besides, Kurt suspects that his dad would be... unimpressed... to say the least if he and Blaine were ever found out.

Fortunately – well, not really fortunately, but it’s useful for this particular endeavour – Blaine’s parents are always busy. William Anderson is a successful businessman who spends days at a time in New York making deals and signing papers and generally being extremely important, although he does try to spend at least three days a week in Westerville with his family. And even though Blaine’s mother Marita doesn’t work anymore, she spends a ridiculous amount of time out of the house, as well; fluttering around with the charities she dedicates herself to, going to luncheons, going to spend afternoons with friends two towns over.

They couldn’t be more dissimilar to Kurt’s own father in terms of handling their son and intimacy, either. Burt Hummel would raise his eyebrows and start a serious discussion about what is or is not appropriate under his roof if Kurt invited his boyfriend to stay over for a full day in an otherwise empty house. The Andersons, on the other hand, simply do not want to know. They’re trying, Blaine frequently tells him, voice small and dampened down with worn optimism. But with Blaine’s parents, the bedroom door is always shut so that they don’t have to think too hard about what the two of them are getting up to in there.

This is how Kurt ends up pulling up to the large Anderson house in his SUV a few days after he and Blaine decide they want to try smoking together, flutters of excitement and nervousness twisting restlessly in his stomach. There is one another car in the driveway besides Blaine’s carefully-middle class silver sedan that Kurt recognizes as his mother’s.

He checks his reflection in the rear view mirror before he exits: he looks okay, he thinks, if tremendously casual. Fairly simple hairstyle, skin looking passable. Red-and-white striped sweater over a plain white t-shirt with skinny jeans and boots. But since Kurt honestly has no idea what they’re going to be getting up to, he had figured it would be best to avoid donning anything too tremendously ornate.

When Kurt heads to the door and rings the bell, it flies open after only a few seconds. His boyfriend stands revealed in the doorway, looking eager and happy to see him. There’s a nervous energy about him that, on anyone else, Kurt would probably find exasperating. On Blaine, he can’t help but find it endearing.

“Hey,” says Blaine happily, bouncing slightly where he stands. Wearing a black polo shirt and a pair of nice jeans, he looks like a particularly attractive ad straight from a J-Crew catalogue. Blaine steps forward into Kurt’s space and tilts his head up to press a sweet, chaste kiss to his lips in greeting. The first time he did this on his doorstep, it had given Kurt quite a shock – it’s a public space, after all, and during broad daylight. It’s a risk – but a fairly small one. One they’re willing to take. He leans back into the press of Blaine’s lips against his.

“Hey,” he says back when they break apart, already feeling the broadness of his own smile despite trying to play at least a little coy. Blaine always seems to do this to him; to disarm him, to pull back the layers and enter his space and open him up in a hundred little ways. “Can I come in?”

“Of course,” smiles Blaine, shifting out of the doorway.

The Anderson household is nowhere near as large as Wes’s place, but it is comfortable in a way that marble tile bathroom floors and chrome just can’t compare with. Wealth is woven through Blaine’s house in a much subtler way; the carpets are ridiculously plush, and the couches in the living room are large and red and comfortable to nap on. The kitchen is state-of-the-art, yes, but it clearly does see at least some use. Kurt knows from the two times he’s been invited over to dinner – as Blaine’s “friend”, as both his parents had referred to him as, but at least they’re trying – that Marita Anderson is a wonderful cook. Everything is at least a little bit expensive, but in a way that doesn’t seek to call attention to itself.

The only truly self-indulgent room is the den. Stuffed with row upon row of books on shelves that reached up to the ceiling, the den and its adjacent office is where William Anderson spends most of his time when he’s in town.

It takes Kurt a few minute to unlace his boots, but once he’s slid them onto the shoe rack Blaine takes his hand and they begin to head up to Blaine’s room together.

“Blaine, you have a friend over!”

And Kurt very nearly jumps out of his skin. Marita Anderson is just turning into the entranceway, rolling a small piece of compact luggage behind her and with her handbag already slung over her shoulder. She looks immaculate in a brown dress that ends exactly at her knees, a pair of sensible pumps, and a pair of oversized white sunglasses. She is obviously just heading out the door. Blaine’s mother always looks so impeccably glamorous that it makes Kurt feel self-conscious. Her long and lacquered brown hair sways like something from a Golden Age of Hollywood film as she cocks her head to look at them.

“Hello, Mrs. Anderson!” Kurt blurts, face heating up, because oh god. What if she knows? What if she can look at them and just tell they’re about to do something illegal, like it’s written across their faces?

“Hello, Kurt dear,” smiles Marita, adding the pet name as she always does. And although she has been fluent in English for practically longer than Kurt has been alive, there is something lovely in the way she wraps her tongue around his name. As though she is still learning the full meaning of the word. “You boys will have the whole house to yourselves until tomorrow afternoon; I’m going to Columbus for an all-day shopping trip with the girls!”

“Are you heading out now, mom?” asks Blaine, smiling at her charmingly. She wrinkles her nose at him in response, a look of distress coming into her eyes as they slide upwards over Blaine’s face.

“Oh, darling boy,” says Marita sadly, expression pinching in disapproval. “Your hair.”

And oh, sweet lord in heaven, Kurt is actually about to watch Blaine’s mother chastise him for that helmet he calls his hair.

Giddiness is sparking in Kurt’s stomach, and it’s taking all of his effort not to burst out into an excited grin. Because Kurtloves hair product; there’s no denying that whatsoever. He loves the way hairspray and gel and mousse can help turn his tragically ordinary mousy brown strands into something vibrant and interesting and eye-catching. But Kurt loves hair product in the same way he loves make-up; as an invisible tool to looking good, one that people don’t notice if they aren’t looking for it too carefully.

The way Blaine uses hair product, however, is... noticeable. Kurt has watched him slather it in gel until his curls are sheen and slick enough to use as poster tack, and it’s more than a little unsettling. There’s only so much Kurt can say about it, though; Blaine is his boyfriend, and he does (mostly) try his hardest not to insult the way he dresses or looks. (Or, at least, not the same thing over and over.) The fact that he is about to witness Blaine’s mother, who probably has more say than anyone in how Blaine looks, chastise her son for his shameless hair gel addiction is more than a little elating.

Which is why it is such a shock when Marita steps forward, reaches out toward Blaine, and starts smoothing his hair harder down onto his head.

“You keep letting it get unkempt, beloved. You must try your best to look presentable, Blaine, even when you are only having friends over.” The Andersons’ persistent use of the term ‘friend’ to describe Kurt is the least of his problems at the moment, because Blaine’s mother is attempting to make Blaine’s hair smoother.

“Mom,” groans Blaine, sounding slightly petulant as Marita ruthlessly smears the strands more so into place. “Mom, it’s fine. Just have a wonderful trip, okay? I love you.”

Smiling, Marita leans down to give her son a kiss on the cheek. “Oh, all right. I love you too, darling. I hope you boys have fun!”

She picks up the handle to her suitcase, sends a glamorous smile in Kurt’s direction, and heads out the door. Kurt stares, mouth slightly open, at his boyfriend.

“What?” asks Blaine, reaching up self-consciously to his head. “Do I look okay?”

“You mother... likes your hair gel,” says Kurt stupidly, because he honestly cannot wrap his mind around this right now. Blaine’s mother looks shockingly like a movie star every single day of the week, and she likes the way Blaine keeps his hair practically glued to his skull. Briefly, his mind flashes to her ruthlessly straightened tresses.

“Of course,” says Blaine, sounding confused. “She was the one who started buying it for me when I was little. She thinks it makes me look more...”

He trails off thoughtfully, brows furrowing as he searches for the right word. For a truly awful moment that makes him feel slightly sick, the only word that comes into Kurt’s mind is white.

“... conventional,” Blaine finishes, smiling. He quirks his head. “Ready to head upstairs?”

Feeling guilty and ashamed for reasons he doesn’t want to put into words, Kurt nods quickly and trails after him as his boyfriend leads the way upstairs to his room. The sight of Blaine’s bare feet padding up the carpeted steps is oddly sweet, Kurt thinks. His own socks stay on practically constantly, sometimes even when he goes to sleep.

“Dad’s out of town until tomorrow,” explains Blaine, as they head down the upstairs hallway. “Are you sure you don’t have to be back in time for your curfew?”

Kurt shakes his head, quirking his head to one side and smiling slyly. “Finn owes me one, so he’s covering for me. I’m at a sleepover at Tina’s house as we speak.”

“Awesome,” says Blaine, as they reach the door to his bedroom. He turns the knob and pushes it open.

And as much as Kurt would like to remain nitpicky and impartial, he honestly cannot help how much he loves Blaine’s room. The carpet is a thick, plush beige that nestles up perfectly to the light blue walls – the colours of which Kurt rather suspects were chosen by a designer, and not by Blaine himself. The bedspread is a lightly striped blue, with a few bright red throw pillows that show a peek of Blaine’s hand in the room design. While never truly dirty, there are always a few articles of clothing strewn over chairs and dropped on the floor in a way that Kurt would never treat his own clothes. Blaine’s desk, bookcases and bed frame are a solid wood, and there are a few understated framed pictures on the wall and several handsomely framed photographs on the sidetables and desk.

It isn’t a very personalized space, but the photographs show a hint of the person Blaine is. A large one of the Warblers after a win at a competition, all in uniform and acting ridiculous; a twelve-year-old Blaine with his parents during a trip to Manila, all three of them sweaty but grinning; one of Blaine and Kurt heading out for a date that Finn had snapped a few weeks ago, the two of them leaning into one another’s space and smiling private smiles.

Blaine’s room may not be particularly notable, but it’s where Blaine lives. It’s where he spends his time, where he and Kurt can find the privacy to do more than kiss quickly on doorsteps. It’s a special space.

“Sorry about the mess,” says Blaine shyly, nudging a pair of discarded jeans into a corner with his bare foot. His concern makes Kurt snort out a tiny burst of air, because really. He lives with Finn Hudson.

But Blaine isn’t done rambling. “I didn’t know what you wanted to do, really,” he says, turning to face Kurt with an anxious look on his face as he twists his hands in front of him. “I mean, we could watch a movie if you wanted. Or cuddle! I like cuddling. And there are a few board games downstairs if you don’t want to – um. Start. Right away. I mean, I didn’t really know –”

“Do you have...” Kurt hesitates, because saying the stuff really does sound like something out of a terrible crime show from the 1940s. But actually saying the words out loud is hard for him; it makes this sound like something devious and wrong, when the last time they did this together felt so safe. And all of the terms sound stupid and presumptuous, as though he has any idea what he’s doing. “... the pot here? Because we could just... get everything ready, and start, and watch a movie or something once we’ve started?”

Blaine nods, looking relieved, and Kurt wonders how the hell he’s the one leading the charge.

“I really only ever do this at parties,” says Blaine by way of explanation as he picks up a large, scrappy-looking towel off of his desk chair. “I’ve never done it at home before.” He closes the bedroom door, then takes the towel and lays it down tight and long against the crack at the bottom. To stop smoke from going into the rest of the house, Kurt realizes, and oh my god they’re actually going to do this.

“I already turned off the smoke detector,” says Blaine quickly, as he pulls out one of his desk drawers as far as it will extend. “It’s sensitive, so I didn’t want to take any chances.”

“I’m impressed,” says Kurt, voice slightly higher than usual but still relatively calm as he takes a seat on Blaine’s bed. “I probably wouldn’t have thought of that.”

“Yeah,” says Blaine, wincing as he digs around at the back of the drawer. “We once set the sprinkler system off at Nick’s house. After something like that, it sort of sticks with you.”

The double-bagged ziplock Blaine pulls out of the drawer is so stereotypically delinquent that it makes Kurt’s breath catch in his throat. He supposes Blaine has no reason to have a proper box like Wes does, but the sight of the clear plastic filled half-way full with loose green buds – along with what appear to be several little white sticks tucked in amongst the green, and a packet of rolling paper in his other hand – is surprising nonetheless.

“Are we going to do...” Kurt trails off again, gesturing at the bag and feeling awkward, because cigarettes doesn’t seem quite right.

“Joints, yeah,” says Blaine, looking down at the bag in his hand. “Damn it, I forgot water. I’ll be right back, okay?” Blaine hands the bag and papers to Kurt, who stares down at them as though there is a live snake in his lap, and then scoots the towel out of the way and heads downstairs.

Alone, Kurt hesitates for a moment before bringing the baggie up to his eye level. The smell hits him even through two layers of plastic; sweet and green and vibrant, and he closes his eyes and inhales as he remembers that night at Wes’s house. The feeling of floating, of a world ever-so-slightly off balance. He wants this, realizes. Really, really wants to do this with Blaine. His fingertips twitch, antsy with anticipation.

When his gaze falls on the three joints inside the bag, he furrows his nose in disdain. They look... not so good. Sort of... loose. Not wrapped very tightly, and a little bit lumpy inside the white of the paper. They don’t look very much like the ones he’d seen once in a say no to drugs video at a school assembly. He undoes one plastic bag, and then the other, and pulls them out into his hand. And oh, wow, yeah. Kurt has no real idea of what these are supposed to feel like, but the loose way the marijuana moves around inside the wrapping feels very wrong indeed.

With only a tiny hiss of paranoia – he’ll delete his search history afterwards, anyways – Kurt pulls out his smartphone and types in “how to roll a joint” into Google.

By the time Blaine arrives back a few minutes later, two tall glasses of water in hand, Kurt is kneeling on the floor with one of Blaine’s songbooks in front of him on the ground. The baggy is open, and Kurt is staring at the diagram on his phone as he fiddles with a line of weed and two fresh sheets of rolling paper.

“Decided you could do it better than me?” asks Blaine, sounding amused as he sets down the water slightly away from them on the floor.

“I can do everything better than you,” returns Kurt vaguely, not looking up from the project in front of them. He’s taken a pair of tweezers from Blaine’s bedside table to deal with stuffing the weed more compact, and for dealing with reluctant paper.

“I sense a song coming on,” Blaine jokes, smiling, and goes to pick out appropriate music from the unfairly large CD wrack on one of the shelves. It takes a little while – Blaine’s CD player has the capacity to fit five discs at once – but that works out in their favour, because it gives Kurt time to roll another one once he’s got the first one down. He’s good at this, he realizes, as he finishes off wrapping around the tiny piece of ripped-off rolling paper box at the tip. The meticulousness of it appeals to him, and when he’s finished he’s produced two almost decent joints: fat and tight, wider at one end than the other.

Blaine comes back a moment later, a small tea candle in a holder, a pack of matches, and a tin can in hand. “We’re going to have to improvise,” he says, looking abashed. “I don’t own a lighter or anything.”

“That’s fine,” says Kurt, smiling to himself as he finishes the last joint. “I didn’t know how many to make, so...?”

“That should be fine,” smiles Blaine, lowering himself down onto the ground cross-legged. And here it is. They’re actually,actually going to do this. By themselves, in his private school boyfriend’s room, with a tea candle and a tin can and two almost okay-looking joints.

“You’ll have to show me,” says Kurt warningly. “I’ve never done it like this before.” Blaine nods in response, lighting one of the matches and hovering it over the candle until the wick catches alight. He picks up one of the nicer, tighter joints and holds the side without the little ‘filter’ – the roach, the online guide had said – over the open flame.

“When you start one, you burn off the little bit of excess paper at the end. See? And now... there. When it gets that little bit of red from the heat, just like with the bong, you know you can inhale. It’s really similar, Kurt: you just breathe it in, hold in the smoke, and exhale. It might burn a little bit more than you’re used to, though.”

Kurt nods – and then feels his mouth fall slightly open at he watches Blaine put the joint between his lips and inhales deeply. The lit end simmers and flares a tiny amount, and a little bit of the joint gets burned away as Blaine sucks in. His eyes are closed, lashes so long they brush his cheeks, as he slips it out of his mouth and holds the smoke in. Blaine’s throat spasms slightly, suppressing what looks like a cough, but the way the movement looks makes something tight and hot twist in Kurt’s stomach. His boyfriend looks gorgeous like this – and when he opens his eyes, Blaine curves his mouth into a tiny little ‘o’ as he blows a long coil of smoke into the room.

There’s a tiny cough, and Blaine looks down expectantly between them. Kurt glances down – and realizes that Blaine has been holding the lit joint out to him for some time.

“Sorry,” Kurt murmurs, feeling embarrassed for being caught out. He carefully extracts the joint from Blaine’s hands, careful to keep his fingers away from the hot part, and Blaine reaches for one of the glasses of water to take a long drink.

It feels light and harmless in his hand, and the tip is the smallest bit moist from Blaine’s saliva. That... really, really shouldn’t be sexy. Somehow, though, the knowledge that he is about to place his lips where Blaine’s just were is... yeah. More than a little bit hot. Shaking his head, Kurt raises the little white stick to his mouth, seals his lips over it, and inhales.

It burns, the sting and choke in his throat far more immediate and harsh than it had been with the bong. His inhalation ishot on the way down, tugging at his throat and stinging in a way that makes it almost impossible not to cough. Kurt’s eyes start to water, but he keeps the smoke hot in his throat as best he can. Three seconds, four, five, six – and it’s all he can handle. He chokes out the smoke in a gagged burst of air, all at once in an angry puff and not at all attractive like Blaine had done. The cough doesn’t stop. It keeps coming, harder and sharper until he’s hacking into his hand, unable to stop. He feels someone pluck the joint from his hand.

“Try not to cough,” says Blaine gently, but Kurt’s eyes are squeezed shut for the exertion of the coughs. Hard and fast and dragging. “I know it’s hard, but try not to cough. When you can breathe, we’ll give you some water.”

Kurt wants to say oh, what marvellously intuitive advice, you guru you, because of course he’s trying not to cough, it’s not like he’s enjoying hacking like an eighty-year-old smoker. But Blaine is rubbing little circles along his back through the fabric of his sweater, and when Kurt actually tries to shove the coughing down – not attempting to breathe, just attempting to not cough – he’s shocked to find that it actually works. After a minute, the coughing slows. When he’s only half-choking on air, Blaine hands him a glass of water. He drinks, trying not to splutter everywhere.

“Burns,” Kurt chokes out, reaching up a hand to rub along his neck. He takes another sip of water, trying his hardest not to cough because he knows it will only set him off again.“That was... different.”

“It’s a bit harsher,” says Blaine, sounding apologetic. His hand is still smoothing along Kurt’s lower back, even though it’s not strictly necessary anymore. Kurt leans back into the touch. “I don’t have anything else to smoke it in, so it’s all we’ve got. Sorry about that – you’ll get used to it, I promise.”

“It’s fine,” says Kurt, as Blaine’s fingers smooth along his back one last time before he pulls away to take another hit. And it’s then that Kurt realizes: Blaine is his boyfriend. His actual, proper, real life boyfriend. This time, when they smoke, Kurt doesn’t have to pretend that he isn’t looking at the way Blaine looks when he inhales; doesn’t have to feel embarrassed about staring, or choking, or making a mistakes. Blaine is his boyfriend and he doesn’t care. This is fine. This iswonderful.

A stupid grin tugging at the corners of his lips, Kurt settles back down and watches.

They pass the joint back and forth between them, and Blaine is right in that it does get easier after the first few times. He doesn’t cough after the first hit, although he can feel the potential teasing at his throat. Inhaling smoke from the joint burns more than the bong did, yes, but it also feels... more, in a funny way that Kurt can’t explain. More hits, more closeness. More Blaine. The two of them chat a little bit where they can as the joint grows smaller, knocking off bits of ash into the tin cup where necessary as their fingers get closer and closer to the heat of the lit end.

For the last possible hit Kurt is nervous about having his fingers so close to the heat, so Blaine takes the plunge for him. Holding it gingerly between his fingers, an excited smile comes over Blaine’s face.

“Here,” says Blaine, and his eyelids seem the smallest bit droopier than usual. “I’m going to inhale, okay? You keep your mouth open, like this.” He opens his mouth wide, like a lion mid-roar. “I want to show you something. Okay?”

“Sure,” giggles Kurt, because the image of Blaine with his mouth hanging open like a wide-mouthed tree frog really is a bit funny, but he opens his mouth wide as Blaine takes the last hit.

He doesn’t realize the connection between his open mouth and the pot until Blaine drops the end of the joint into the tin can, leans close enough that their mouths are only an inch apart – and exhales a long stream of smoke right into Kurt’s mouth. The surprise of it almost makes Kurt cough, but he manages to close his mouth around the heat of it in time to trap most of it inside. Blaine doesn’t move; he stays there, right up in Kurt’s personal space. His lips are so close that they graze Kurt’s ever-so-lightly by accident; tiny little brushes that send sparks through his whole body and make the hairs on the back of Kurt’s arms stand up.

Something hot and tight coils up in Kurt’s stomach when he realizes that Blaine is waiting for him to exhale the smoke onto his face.

There isn’t much of it, but the few wisps that coil out trail along Blaine’s lips look and feel so personal that it makes Kurt shiver. Their chests are both rising and falling quickly, breathing in the heat of one another’s air – before Blaine reaches up, slides his hand along the back of Kurt’s neck, and closes the space between them.

The touch of Blaine’s lips against his is incredible; heated and slightly frantic, startling in its intensity. He can actually feelthe slightest movement of Blaine’s lips under his with a sensitivity he doesn’t usually possess. Kurt closes his eyes and leans into it as Blaine deepens the kiss, the slight roughness as Blaine slides his thumb along the back of Kurt’s neck making him shudder. Their mouths slide together with the taste of sweet, thick burning.

It’s languid and long, the moment stretching out between them until time begins to blur. There is only the slide of Blaine’s lips against his, the way his tongue presses into Kurt’s mouth, hot and needy. The tiny bite he marks into Kurt’s bottom lip as he pulls away, the sensation amplified so much that it makes Kurt gasp out loud.

The world keeps floating around them even when Blaine sits back on his heels, and it takes Kurt a moment to realize that feeling is probably more than a little because of the drugs. It’s a wonderful sensation, though – the slightest lilt of his vision tugging at his perspective, the room out of alignment in a distantly dreamlike way. The twinge of something slightly off-kilter in his limbs. And Blaine’s hand is still on his neck, tracing unknowable patterns into the sensitive skin.

“Hi,” whispers Kurt, the word coming out higher and breathier than he intended.

“Hi,” Blaine says back, eyes darting back down to Kurt’s lips with such a look of undisguised want that it makes Kurt feel light-headed. There is always something cautious about the way Blaine treats their time alone together; as though he doesn’t want to let on how much he wants this lest he frighten Kurt away somehow.

He doesn’t look worried about holding back right now, and Kurt doesn’t feel frightened.

“Another?” asks Blaine, finally pulling away and letting out a large exhalation of air. His eyes are bright and shining, slightly red around the rims, and his face looks flushed. From the kiss or the pot, Kurt has no idea. He reaches down to grab the cup for a sip of water, and Kurt does the same.

The liquid is soothing as it slides down Kurt’s throat. His limbs are starting to fill up with that sensation of loose lightness he recognizes from last time. He feels vaguely indistinct and warm, and all he wants is more.

“All right,” says Kurt, smiling as he reaches down to pick up another and holding it over the flame to light it.

The second joint disappears faster between the two of them, since Kurt now knows what to expect and Blaine has been given a refresher course. They only have one coughing fit between the two of them, and this time Blaine takes the honour. When it happens, Kurt parrots what Blaine did for him; taking the little white stick out of Blaine’s shaking hands as his chest spasms and he hacks into his hand. He runs a hand along Blaine’s back, as well, although it slides up under the shirt a little more than strictly necessary. Kurt just can’t help himself, though; Blaine’s back is warm and slightly muscled beneath his hand, almost like an invitation.

By the end of this one, the room is floating happily around him. When Kurt sways slightly to one side, the shift of his body is too quick for the rest of the movement to catch up. Blaine raises a hand to swipe some of his hair out of his eyes, and his hand seems to drag in the air. The room is hazy with smoke, Kurt realizes abruptly. Blaine is in focus, but the rest is ever so slightly fogged; difficult to look at directly at.

This time, too, Kurt’s throat is starting to feel sore in earnest. He takes a long drink of water, but the stinging feeling remains. Sharp and hard inside his throat, aching as he drags his fingers over it. Lying on the ground and swiping his fingers over the front of his neck, feeling the tiny movement as he breathes and swallows. Little circles along the skin, dragging his nails in slightly after a minute to feel the scrape.

Blaine makes a tiny, helpless noise in front of him – and after depositing the last of the joint into the tin can, he stands and heads toward his closet. When he emerges later – a few seconds later? A minute? The passage of time is doing strange things – he returns with a red bag of rippled Lays chips in hand.

“Do you want some?” Blaine asks, blowing out the candle for now and moving their supplies onto his desk. He plunks back onto the floor, stretching out on his back and opening the bag. He gives Kurt a questioning look.

It takes Kurt a little longer than it probably should to fully understand the question. “Oh,” murmurs Kurt, when realization dawns. “Oh, no it’s fine. I don’t want any.”

“Really?” Blaine asks, sounding surprised. His eyes are a bit bloodshot, eyelids droopy as he reaches into the bag and pulls out a chip. There is a massive smile on his face. “I always want food when I do this. I don’t... yeah. I don’t really know why.”

He pops the chip into his mouth, and the crunch of his teeth around it seems absurdly loud in the quiet of the room. Loud and repetitive, over and over, until he swallows it down. After a few moments, Blaine reaches over – with the same hand that touched the chips, but Kurt dressed down for a reason – and tugs Kurt down so that he’s lying on the floor as well, his head cushioned by Blaine’s stomach.

And oh, god, this feels nice. He can feel and smell Blaine all around him, and the soft rise and fall of Blaine’s breathing makes the room jostle and sway. Blaine’s free hand comes up to brush along the side of Kurt’s face, and he leans into the touch. The only sound for a little while is the quiet crunching as Blaine eats the chips.

“Seriously, though,” says Blaine after an indistinct amount of time. “These are really good. You should probably try one.”

“They’re empty,” says Kurt, by way of explanation. But that isn’t quite right. “Empty calories,” he elaborates, waving his hand vaguely in the air. And oh, wow. It’s actually a bit neat, the way the air pulls at his hand as he drifts it overhead, fingers splaying and twitching above him.

“Just one,” wheedles Blaine, reaching his hand out to hold one yellow chip right beside his line of vision. “It won’t hurt, I promise. And they taste really good.”

“Fine,” exhales Kurt, rolling his eyes even though he knows Blaine can’t see. He takes the chip in hand, wrinkling his nose at the greasy texture. “I should warn you, though, I don’t really like junk food.”

Gingerly, he lowers the chip into his mouth – and, oh. Oh, sweet lord. It tastes. Kurt can’t quite figure out why he can’t get past that in his head, but it tastes. The flavours of starch and salt stand out in a way he can’t explain on his tongue, gripping at his taste buds in a way that just isn’t fair. It’s more – everything is more, so much more, like this. Kurt can even feel the ridged edges of it along his tongue. His eyes are rolling back up into his head, because oh god, it tastes better than anything. The salt is mixing with the heavy smokiness of weed still clinging to his mouth, but it doesn’t ruin the flavour; it makes it better.

There’s a groan of pleasure, and it takes Kurt a second to realize that it came from him. Blaine laughs, sounding delighted.

“Isn’t food amazing?” asks Blaine, popping another chip into his mouth. “I always want food when I do this. But not, like. Just because it’s good. I get hungry. Aren’t you hungry?”

“No,” Kurt murmurs, wiping his hand off idly on the side of his sweater. His limbs are starting to feel heavy, pressed into the floor like this. The cushion of Blaine’s stomach is amazing, but everything else is starting to feel a bit sore. “Tired, though,” says Kurt, even though that isn’t quite the word, and he pushes himself up onto his feel.

The world whirls around him for a long second, spinning and floating, and okay. This is a little bit like being drunk, he realizes. Standing up equals be careful. He nudges Blaine with his foot.

“Where are you going?” asks Blaine, sounding confused.

“Bed,” Kurt explains, nudging him again. “Don’t bring the chips or I’ll eat them all.”

Obediently, Blaine leaves the bag on the floor as he stands up to follow Kurt onto the bed. Without bothering to wait for him, Kurt flumps himself onto Blaine’s bedspread; and oh, yes, it’s so much better than the floor. So much more comfortable, like he could melt right into the blankets if he imagined he was heavy enough. Kurt scrunches his face into one of the pillows, rubbing his nose back and forth because it feels more than a little funny.

“Hey,” comes a voice from right beside him, and Kurt startles away from the pillow with wide eyes. Blaine is stretched out next to him – Kurt hadn’t even felt the mattress decompress as he got on, wow – so that they are lying side-by-side, facing one another.

Sometimes Kurt just can’t quite wrap his head around why someone as beautiful and gentle and charismatic as Blainewould bother to settle for someone like him. Blaine is lying with his head in his hand, gelled curls coming loose around his ears, as he stares at Kurt with such incredible affection it makes old butterflies stir up in his stomach. There is a wide, sloppy grin across Blaine’s face, and his eyebrows are thick and handsome and his nose is so round, it’s adorable. A tiny bit of his black polo shirt is riding up at his stomach, but Blaine hasn’t seemed to notice. His boyfriend reaches over and brushes the backs of his knuckles over Kurt’s cheek.

“I’m so lucky,” whispers Blaine, voice rough with smoke and emotion. The air above them is spinning slightly, and Kurt canfeel Blaine’s hand on his face so strongly it shouldn’t be allowed. “How ‘m I so lucky, Kurt?”

“I don’t know what you’re...” Kurt trails off, blinking in pleasure at the continued touches. He feels hot and foggy; somehow relaxed, even as every nerve ending seems to be standing on edge. The fingers trail along his cheek, the shell of his ear, down to his neck. Kurt leans into it, unable to stop himself from letting out a tiny, breathy noise of delight when the pressure intensifies. Blaine groans next to him.

“Jesus Christ, you have no idea what you do to me,” Blaine growls, hot and desperate, before he’s suddenly closer and their lips are pressed together and oh, god, this is better than anything else could ever be.

They kiss, long and hot and leisurely, bodies pressed together as close as they can get. Chest to chest on their sides, Blaine’s hand setting off fireworks as it slides under Kurt’s neckline to slide over the skin of his shoulder. Kurt hooks a leg over Blaine’s calves to get them closer together, as close as they can be without stopping the kissing, because the whole world has been reduced to the way their mouths slide against one another like this. The tiniest of insignificant movements feels a million times more as their lips press together, warm and damp and perfect. And when Kurt presses his tongue into Blaine’s mouth, the heat of it makes him groan – uncontrolled and raunchy in a way so very foreign to his own ears, but Blaine groans back and brings him in even closer.

Sliding his fingers up the short sleeves of Blaine’s shirt to knead the skin and muscles of his upper arms, an idea occurs to Kurt – and it isn’t until the world spins and twists around him that he realizes he’s put it into action without realizing. Blaine gasps as Kurt rolls him onto his back, straddling his hips to keep him in place and swaying slightly as the room floats. The sight of Blaine splayed out beneath him makes Kurt groan out loud; his boyfriend is panting, eyes dark and heated, with his lips kiss-swollen and his hair coming out of place. There’s a flush creeping along his neck, and when Kurt leans down to kiss him Blaine pushes back into it with a wanton moan, arching his hips up mindlessly. That feels good, Kurt realizes, impossibly good, so he grinds his hips back down again.

Kurt has never, ever been so turned on in his whole life. Every muscle in his body is twinging and straining blissfully, trying hard to get as close to Blaine as physically possible. Everything is Blaine – every smell, every touch, every bit of warmth. Kurt wants to press and press until he’s buried inside Blaine, wrapped up in that warmth and kindness and caring until it’s all there is in the world. He breaks off the kiss and Blaine gasps out loud as Kurt slides his mouth down to Blaine’s throat, searching until he finds that spot that makes his boyfriend squirm and twist and arch up into the touch. He works at the skin there, sucking it between his teeth as Blaine bucks up under him.

Time fades in and out, losing any sort of significance as the two boys twist together on the bed. Sometimes the seconds pass too quickly, other times slow and drawn out and far too infinitesimally to be real. Kurt has no idea how long it is until he starts working his way down Blaine’s chest; pressing a kiss to the bare skin exposed by the undone buttons of his shirt, then sliding down so he can ruck up Blaine’s shirt to expose the flat expanse of his stomach. The smattering of dark hair is so gorgeous Kurt can’t help to press a kiss to Blaine’s stomach, and then another. It makes Blaine hiss and press his head back into the pillow, straining up to meet Kurt’s lips and exposed the marked length of his neck. Kurt can’t help himself, though: Blaine’s skin is tingling, every single inch, and Kurt can feel it. Can feel it with his lips, and his hands, can feel the way the shivers press into his own skin and make him shudder hard.

It’s only when Kurt reaches down and absently brushes a hand over the bulge in the front of Blaine’s jeans that he realizes exactly how far this is going, and how far it can go if he doesn’t stop now. His boyfriend shouts out loud at the tiny touch, thrusting his hips up into Kurt’s hand, and oh god holy fucking shit, Kurt is about two seconds away from giving Blaine a handjob.

His cock gets harder than he even thought possible at the idea of gripping Blaine tight, of making him come undone underneath him – sweating and flushed and writhing for Kurt’s touch, only Kurt’s touch – but the common sense he’s been drowning out with the sweet stickiness of the drug suddenly rears its head.

Gasping, Kurt jolts back onto the unoccupied bed in a sprawl of limbs, leaving Blaine exposed to the air. He’s breathing hard and shaking from wantwantwantwantwant, and he knows that if he allows himself to keep touching and kissing Blaine like this, they’re going to go farther than they ever have before.

And Kurt Hummel does not want his first time bringing Blaine apart to be something he has any potential to forget.

Blinking and breathing hard, Blaine pushes himself up slightly. “Woah,” he whimpers, licking his lips, and Kurt’s libido is practically crying at how incredible his boyfriend looks right now. Blaine is shaking, too, Kurt can see it – or maybe Kurt is the shaking one? It’s so hard to tell.

“Sorry,” chokes Kurt, running a hand to smooth down his hair and attempting to straighten his hair simultaneously. Neither motion is very effective. “Sorry, that was just – wow, it was good, but it was getting a little... intense, and I didn’t want –”

“Of course,” murmurs Blaine, pushing himself up and crawling over to wrap his arms around Kurt’s middle in a hug. He presses his face into Kurt’s shoulder, burrowing it there. “Of course, of course, I know. It’s so okay, you’re amazing, I can’t even say.” He nuzzles his face into Kurt’s sweater. “So amazing, Kurt.”

Kurt wraps his arm around Blaine’s tucked up shoulder, and they sit there for a few long minutes. Pressed together in the safest of ways, Blaine still warm and gentle beside him, and Kurt realizes that he isn’t feeling as spinney as before. He doesn’t feel... normal, exactly, not yet. But he’s able to acknowledge a difference between himself before and himself now. Everything feels a little bit more real than it did, and time seems to be sliding at least somewhat back into an almost-normal speed.

“Want to watch a movie?”asks Blaine excitedly, pulling away enough to look Kurt in the eye. “I have a bunch of musicals, and some comedies. No drama, though. I don’t know if I can follow it.”

“Okay,” hums Kurt, leaning down to kiss Blaine on the forehead and the both of them grinning like idiots.

They watch “Thoroughly Modern Millie” on Blaine’s laptop so that they don’t have to leave the bed, sprawled as they work their way through the bag of chips together. It’s a good thing Kurt’s seen the film before, because he doesn’t remember actually watching the movie this time around, even though intellectually he knows they view it from start to finish. He does remember Blaine’s hand in his, however. Warm and safe and solid tucked into his, as the world slowly comes back down into place and settles around them over the minutes and hours together.

Chapter 3: Three

It isn’t something that either of them does frequently by any stretch of the word. The first time at Wes’s party and again at Blaine’s house with more than a month apart, and then nothing for ages afterward. Kurt comforts himself with the fact that they smoke far, far less than practically any member of the New Directions drinks.

Sometimes Kurt sits down next to Brett in Spanish class, already starting to roll his eyes at the stale, sickly oily herbed stench that rolls off that boy in waves before he remembers that, oh, right. He’s done that, too. He finds himself wondering if that means he should lose his mocking privileges, or if he gets a whole new host of silent mocking privileges because he’s done weed, too, and it didn’t turn him into a deadbeat loser who can barely remember his own name half the time.

It isn’t something that defines his and Blaine’s relationship, either. They don’t have the time, for one thing, with their respective commitments to their glee clubs and school and family and friends, and more than anything they try to use the time they do have just to be together. What exists between them is quietly nurtured and careful, coffee dates and movie dates and excited conversations about everything under the sun. It is study sessions and public serenades, and trying to nod as though he’s paying any attention when Blaine tries to explain football to him. It is growing from you move me to I’m crazy about you to I love you, just like that, and finally Kurt can say the words out loud.

Smoking is something tiny in comparison to all of that. Something they do rarely, but enjoy a great deal when it happens. A potential toy, almost always off to one side in their lives, ready to be pulled out if they want it. Something to calm them down and help them bask in one another again when things start to get hectic.

And the past few months have been more than a little hectic. What with Kurt transferring back to McKinley, the rigorous final exams at Dalton for Blaine (and their notably easier McKinley counterparts), the catastrophe that was the New Directions’ trip to New York for Nationals and the beginning of summer, the two of them simply haven’t had much time for relaxation of any sort. And even though finding time alone is a great deal easier with the oncoming of summer heat and so many days without school stretched out like endless opportunity, things have still been hectic. Blaine works at the theme park all week, and Kurt goes into the garage to work with his dad more days than not.

This is why, when the two of them are able to secure Kurt’s house for themselves for an entire day, the decision was made to use the privacy to the best of their ability.

... which would be a whole lot easier if the weed Wes had given them didn’t have the comparative ability to get them high of oregano.

“Seriously?” asks Kurt, starting to get supremely pissed off. They’re tucked into Kurt’s bedroom with a towel pressed up against the bottom of the door, a spray bottle of Febreeze at the ready to smother the smell. Everything has been laid out for an amazingly fun day of slightly stoned macking with his boyfriend.

But they’ve smoked their way through an entire joint, now, and nothing. The angry, dull buzzing at the edges of Kurt’s head is the only hint that the marijuana they’re currently smoking has any recreational properties at all. They would probably get more stoned from sniffing whiteout, for Christ’s sake.

“That’s strange,” says Blaine, picking up the baggy and narrowing his eyes at it. “Wes said David’s brother got a new source...”

“Well, it’s crap,” snipes Kurt, feeling irritated and wrong-footed as he crushes out the joint. There is seriously no point in smoking it; they may as well be smoking rolled up ficus leaves. He raises an eyebrow, letting up a huff of breath. “What now, Blaine Warbler?”

Blaine hums thoughtfully as he closes the little metal tin they now have for this purpose. “We could... watch a movie? Play cards? Go get coffee? Have sexy shenanigans in my boyfriend’s empty house with my incredibly hot boyfriend?”

Kurt sniffs. “I suppose,” he says delicately, wrinkling his nose and glaring down at the tin.

They wind up doing all those things, and the day turns out to be ridiculous amounts of fun despite the aborted weed. Kurt still fakes annoyance about it later, though, even though he knows Blaine can see right through him.

It’s the principle of the matter, after all.

Chapter 4: Four

“Night, boys!” a female voice croons teasingly, before the door to one of Thad’s spare bedroom closes behind them with a definitive click.

The nice thing about Warbler house parties, Kurt decides as he flails slightly in order to keep his balance, is that they’re really so tame by his refreshed set of public high school standards despite the occasional light drug use. This particular event had been an ‘it’s almost midway through summer!’ blowout, but the result was still fairly subdued, considering. There is always a full table of potluck dishes with cue cards in front of each one, containing the full set of ingredients and allergy warnings. Nothing ever gets trashed or even that badly messed up, and all of their cups usually even get popped in the dishwasher before everyone heads to bed. They never have more than a little alcohol, or more than a little pot, or more than a little bit of shenanigans.

They never stay up more than a little bit late, either. Which is why he and Blaine have just been shoved into a spare bedroom with their overnight bags thrown after them, the buzz of the (thankfully decent) weed they just smoked still swimming in their ears.

“That was sudden,” remarks Blaine casually, from a little bit to Kurt’s left. There are no lights on in the room – Thad and his girlfriend hadn’t given them time to turn any on before slamming the door shut, the jerks – and it’s impossible to tell exactly where his boyfriend is.

Kurt makes a small noise of agreement, trying not to freak out at how dark everything is. It feels almost like a physical presence over top of them, choking him in, and he has no idea what could be happening in those corners. His eyes aren’t adjusting, and the shadows seem to twist into something secret and awful –

“Light,” says Kurt quickly, fingers twitching. “Light now, please.”

Thankfully, Blaine quickly obliges; stumbling over one of their bags until he succeeds in finding and flicking on a bedside lamp. Kurt lets out a large sigh of relief as the warm lamplight washes over the room. Everything is still floating a little bit, but the indistinct and irrational scariness of the dark has been banished.

Banished by Blaine. Who is standing with his hand still on the lamp, looking mussed up and flushed, his dark eyes fixed on Kurt with an intensity that makes him shiver.

“Blaine?” asks Kurt, still feeling ridiculously grateful for the lamplight. He runs a hand absently through his own hair, enjoying the way at catches at his hand and slows the movement. His limbs feel weightless and heavy all at once, and the way the light plays with the shadows makes everything seem... less solid. Outside, Blaine had been giggly and fun and smiley with his friends, buzzing around the room in a way that made Kurt dizzy to watch. But he doesn’t seem to be manic anymore. Kurt tugs at the neckline of his shirt, feeling warm in the small room. “Are you feeling all right?”

“Fuck, Kurt,” Blaine whispers, voice low and heated, before striding forward in a movement so quick Kurt can barely process it. All at once he’s right there, hands on either side of Kurt’s face, and dragging Kurt in for a sloppy, desperate kiss.

A small noise escapes from Kurt’s lips involuntarily in surprise, and the vibrations buzz through two sets of lips. Kurt kisses back automatically, eyes fluttering shut as he opens his mouth and lets Blaine’s tongue slide inside. They haven’t done this with the sticky taste of smoke on their tongues in months, and Kurt had honestly forgotten how incrediblekissing feels like this. The smallest brush of Blaine’s fingertips on his arm sends sparks all up and down his body, and the heat of Blaine’s mouth is just criminal.

It helps that they’ve done this a great deal since last time, too; this, and so much more. They know one another’s bodies so much better than before: how to tease, and wring out gasps, and get reactions. Blaine’s mouth tastes so good, too, and that’s something Kurt will never be able to figure out. How the taste of Blaine’s mouth is so incredible it makes Kurt groan up into the kiss, wrapping his arms shakily around his boyfriend’s neck. It’s hard to focus on standing up and kissing at the same time like this, Kurt discovers, with the room already floating around them and every touch a million times more. So he clings on as hard as he can, struggling to stay upright as Blaine’s mouth breaks away to trail along his jaw.

“You’re so beautiful,” mutters Blaine, nipping at the skin of Kurt’s neck in a way that makes him stifle a groan. “So beautiful, Kurt, and sometimes I think you know it better than anyone and you’re just taunting me because I can’t do anything with our friends all around.” He pulls away slightly, reaching up to unbutton Kurt’s shirt with unsteady fingers. Kurt gasps. “But then I realize that you don’t actually know how beautiful you are. You don’t, and that’s so special and even hotter, and oh, god. I wanted to touch you so badly out there, I could barely look at you.”

“Blaine,” Kurt gasps breathily, hands coming up in a half-hearted attempt to still Blaine’s hands. None of his boyfriend’s words are really making that much sense, but they’re going straight to Kurt’s cock anyways, and if Blaine doesn’t stop they’re going to wind up doing something entirely inappropriate in Thad’s house. “Blaine, we shouldn’t... oh, Jesus,nngghh.” He can’t stop himself from tipping his head back and groaning as Blaine leans down and licks a hot, warm tongue over his now-exposed nipple. “We... we shouldn’t being doing this at someone else’s house, should we?”

“The door’s closed, that makes it okay,” says Blaine, matter-of-fact and apparently still fixated by Kurt’s the tiny peak of sensitive skin. Half crouching to get a good angle, he swirls his tongue over it and blows. The noise Kurt hears himself make in response is practically pornographic, and he slams a hand over his own mouth as his face flushes in vague embarrassment. What if people can hear them? “Besides, I’m pretty sure they were angling for this to happen. They got us stoned, then shoved us in here and closed the door, Kurt, remember?”

“Oh,” chokes Kurt through his hand, tying to stop his hips from stuttering as Blaine leans down and starts sucking on the pink puckered flesh. Without even noticing, his free hand comes up and tangles into Blaine’s curls, holding him in place, because god. Everything feels so amazing and incredible and more, and Kurt just cannot be bothered to feel awkward about anything right now. It feels too good for that. “Okay,” he acquiesces after a moment, groaning again when one of Blaine’s teeth scrapes over the sensitive skin.

Kurt isn’t usually this loud when they do things together, but it feels as though his internal filter has been yanked out, ripped apart, and thrown on the ground. Like a dam has been lifted, and the stream of little noises and gasps and groans he usually at least tries to clamp down on are just rushing out of his mouth all at once. The part of his brain that censors him is muddled and addled from the weed, unable to stop him from letting out noises that don’t exist in real life apart from in the atrocious gay porn videos Puck always tries to send him.

“Oh my god, yay,” says Blaine, moving away from Kurt’s chest (don’t stop don’t stop why are you stopping) to press a firm kiss against Kurt’s lips. Before Kurt can even respond, though, Blaine is gently pushing him backwards towards the bed. “I have the best idea,” says Blaine happily, attempting to keep undoing the buttons on Kurt’s shirt as they walk awkwardly together. “It’s going to be really awesome, and I’ve been wanting to do it all night.”

“You have?” asks Kurt absently, still flushed and shaky and excited, deciding to take pity on Blaine by undoing the rest of the buttons for him. It’s harder than he thought it would be, though, because they’re small and slippery and his fingers are so fuzzy. He finally manages to succeed after a too-long pause of fumbling, but Blaine doesn’t push the shirt off his shoulders. Instead, Blaine stares for a long moment, eyes raking up and down the exposed front of Kurt’s chest.

It shouldn’t still be like this, Kurt thinks. They’ve been seeing one another at least partly naked for months, and entirely naked for a few weeks now. It shouldn’t still be so exciting, seeing exposed lengths of skin on display, free to touch and taste and do whatever they like because they’re one another’s and they can. But the look on Blaine’s face – enraptured, and heated, and entirely fixated – makes something clench ever so nicely in the base of Kurt’s stomach nonetheless. There’s a tightness between his legs and he desperately wants to know what Blaine’s idea is right this very instant, please.

A little too clumsily, Blaine guides him into a sitting position on the side of the guest bed before lowering himself down onto the ground.

“Now,” says Blaine, reaching forward to undo the button of Kurt’s fly. “You’re absolutely not allowed to make fun of me, because we’ve only done this the once and I finished you with my hand so I’m pretty sure it doesn’t count.”

“What?” mumbles Kurt, feeling addled as Blaine tugs his pants down around his knees and slides his hand into Kurt’s underwear. Distantly, some part of Kurt’s brain knows that he usually feels awkward and embarrassed at this part, but he honestly cannot figure out why because Blaine’s hand is on his cock and even the quick brush of fingertips as he pulls down his underwear is amazing. And now Kurt’s boyfriend is kneeling between his spread legs, and something in him is getting excited, even though he can’t quite remember why. “What are you talking abou – oh, fucking Jesus fuck, Blaine, oh my god.”

Because without any explanation, Blaine leans forward and wrapped his lips around Kurt’s already hard cock, and oh my god this is heaven.

They really have only done this once before, with Kurt’s dad and stepmother downstairs watching “The Godfather” with the volume on low and the bedroom door still technically cracked the smallest bit open. Kurt had sprawled on the floor in the space between his bed and his vanity, where there was at least the smallest amount of privacy offered since the bed obscured them from the door, while Blaine had clumsily and wetly sucked Kurt’s cock down his throat and tried his best not to gag. It had been awkward, and had taken far too long because the only real things Kurt could think had been oh, god, my boyfriend has his mouth on my dick and please don’t let them hear us please please please please please as he squeezed his eyes tightly closed and listened for any noises from downstairs. Blaine had been forced to take him in hand to get him off, in the end, but the sentiment had been very much appreciated.

This, though. God, this is beyond anything. Blaine’s mouth is hot and wet and eager around him, and Kurt can feeleverything so much more than he usually can. Every little hum, every slide of his lips – god, even when Blaine’s teethlightly graze him, it rocks Kurt to the very core with pleasure. The room is swirling and indistinct around them, but none of that matters because every one of Kurt’s nerves is buzzing to life as Blaine strips him apart and wrecks him with his mouth. Kurt’s hand tangles up in Blaine’s hair without even thinking, desperate for him to keep up that perfect fucking pace. Head bobbing up and down around his cock so right, so hot, and all Kurt can do is fist his other hand into the sheets and arch up into that perfect fucking mouth. When Blaine actually pulls back enough to swirl his tongue around the head, Kurt is fairly sure he almost dies.

Someone is muttering nonsense streams of words into the air, sounding choked off and desperate, and it takes Kurt far too long to realize that the room’s only other occupant has a very busy mouth just now. The voice sounds high and clear and broken in the air, and oh god, and the words must be coming from him.

“... can’t even believe how good you feel, doing that, Christ, Blaine. It’s better than anything, better than breathing, I just need your lips wrapped around me like this so perfect...”

And oh, wow. Apparently his lack of a mental filter right now extends to actual words, because Kurt just cannot stop. His mouths is flying without his permission, and the babble is unending – words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup – as he twists his hand through Blaine’s softsweetbeautifulperfect curls and leans back, exposing the curve neck to the dark of the night as he looks down at Blaine through his eyelashes and just keeps on talking.

“... beautiful, so fucking beautiful with your lips stretched around me like that. Blaine – god – I have no idea how this is real life right now, it feels like I’m dreaming because you feel so good and look so good as you swallow me down...”

He half-expects Blaine to pull away and laugh at the words, to groan and turn his nose up at how ridiculous Kurt sounds. Because by anyone’s sense of logic, the words that are coming out of Kurt’s mouth should make everything awkward and weird and strange in the extreme.

But Blaine doesn’t laugh. Instead, his eyes roll back in his head and he groans, the vibrations shocking and delicious around him – before redoubling his efforts. Trying to take Kurt as far down his throat as possible, and barely choking at all as he lets Kurt tug his hair to make him stay there as Kurt bucks his hips up helplessly into the perfect perfect perfectwet heat of Blaine’s mouth. There’s spit sliding down Blaine’s chin and Kurt’s cock, but it doesn’t matter; it’s sexy to know how eager Blaine is to take him all down.

He’s getting close, now, the familiar tightness coiling up deep at the base of his spine. Every inch that Blaine touches is tingling shocking buzzing, and Kurt realizes vaguely that the taste of him and the taste of sweet sticky smoke must be mixing on Blaine’s tongue. Everything feels amazing, and Blaine isn’t stopping, and all at once Kurt has the earth-shattering realization that Blaine is getting off on this. He can see the motion where Blaine’s hand is moving frantic-fast in his own lap, and Blaine is groaning around him, and oh, god, that does it.

“... fuck, you’re loving it, you love doing this – love s-sucking around me so good so hot so sweet so perfect, and I can’t –Blaine, I’m – I –!”

The rest of the sentence gets choked off into a wordless shout as Kurt aches back, his whole body tensing – and then he’s coming, coming hard and fast and devastating into Blaine’s willing mouth. Shaking as his entire body gets narrowed down to one point in space and time, to Blaine as he groans and whimpers and keeps his lips sealed over tight as Kurt bucks up into the wet heat of it, hands clenching in Blaine’s hair and the sheets and it’s perfect, perfect, so fuckingperfect –

He spills over the edge and is left shuddering and shaking as Blaine’s mouth stays on him, mouthing him through it. Only moving away when Kurt starts to get oversensitive and he tugs at Blaine’s curls, pulling his mouth away with an obscene little pop. The sensation of tingling pleasure spreads to every other part of Kurt’s body, running along his fingers and his neck and the parts of him covered up by skin, gasping and panting as he looks down into the eyes of the beautiful boy in front of him.

Blaine looks absolutely wrecked. His hair is a complete disaster from Kurt fisting his hand in the curls, dark eyes wild and dark and satisfied from bringing Kurt over the edge. His cheeks are flushed, eyelashes damp from where his eyes have watered from the effort of not choking. Chin slick with spit, lips swollen red and damp and upper lip sweaty with exertion. He swipes a hand over his mouth to wipe away the worst of it, lips still carefully pressed together. Blaine catches Kurt’s eye – and his throat works, Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows something down.

“Did you – did you just –?” asks Kurt urgently, panting hard with his toes still curled inside his socks.

“Yeah,” gasps Blaine, eyes searing, and oh, fuck, his voice. Gravelly and choked, a little bit, and Kurt is probably theworst boyfriend in the history of the world because he didn’t even bother to warn Blaine that he was about to come in his mouth, what is wrong with him? “I didn’t – um. Really know what to do if I didn’t, so. Yeah.” He licks his lips, still breathing hard.

“Fuck,” pants Kurt, and he honestly doesn’t swear this much most of the time, but there have to be extenuating circumstances for one’s boyfriend just blowing the fuck out of you and his brain-to-mouth filter is still completely shot anyways. Suddenly he remembers Blaine’s hand, moving hard and fast just out of Kurt’s line of sight as Blaine sucked around him. Kurt pushes himself up a bit, moving toward him and gesturing vaguely. “Do you need –?”

“No, I – I already,” says Blaine shakily, swaying where he kneels, and Kurt’s body moves before he can fully process the action. Sliding down onto the floor next to Blaine, who flumps sideways so that he isn’t kneeling anymore. Kurt snakes his arms around Blaine’s shoulders, kissing him hard everywhere he can find. On his cheek, on his forehead, on his neck, on his clothed shoulder. On his mouth, where Blaine tastes slightly bitter and salty and tangy and oh, god, don’t think too much about that. He chances a glance into Blaine’s lap to confirm that, yes, Blaine definitely got there. His jeans are unbuttoned and open, and he still has a hand wrapped around his softening cock. It is splattered with sticky white come.

“Thank you,” says Kurt, squeezing Blaine close and kissing him hard on the mouth (fuck the taste, it’s amazing becauseBlaine is amazing and he swallowed, Jesus Christ) over and over, murmuring words against his lips. “Thank you, thank you, thank you, that was – god, so incredible. You’re incredible. I’m sorry I just... went for it, I didn’t mean to, you don’t deserve –”

“No,” says Blaine quickly, shaking his head earnestly back and forth. “No, that was – god, that was so good. I love you, I loved it, I loved every part, and –” He laughs, hard and unexpected, face scrunching up in amusement. “And I think being stoned seriously dulls my gag reflex, by the way. And my jaw’s ability to get sore. So. You know. That’s something.”

And Kurt can’t help himself from giggling at that. “Oh, my god, I love you,” he manages to choke out, gripping Blaine’s shoulders and holding him tight against his chest, because his boyfriend is the most amazingly ridiculous person in the entire world, and damn. That was just about the best thing ever. Blaine nuzzles back into him, carefully keeping his hand fairly still in his lap to avoid getting sticky whiteness all over everything, and they sit together on the floor for far too long to be normal.

“C’mon,” says Blaine eventually, nudging Kurt’s neck with his nose. “Can you get me a tissue? We have to get cleaned up, and I definitely have to brush my teeth because my mouth tastes a lot like smoky sperm right now and it’s starting to weird me out.”

They laugh, and snort, and it takes Kurt about a million times too long to find the box of tissues on the bookshelf across the room. Their skin still tingling and their heads still spinning, the two of head out into the hallway together. Trying not to laugh out loud and wake anyone up more than they already have as they skitter down the hallway hand in hand, stealing through the shadows and suppressing their giggles as much as possible.

Chapter 5: Five

“Maybe if you actually took two seconds to think about it, RuPaul, you’d realize that nothing’s changed. You still want to fly away to New York in a burst of sensationalism and failure, and Finn still wants to stay here. You’re leading him on even though you know it won’t work out, which makes you a – a tiny, loud, irritating little whore!” Quinn’s short hair flies around her face as she points her finger straight at Rachel, the drink in her hand sloshing all over the grass of Puck’s backyard. Her face is flushed, and she looks absolutely furious.

“I’m the whore?” Rachel fires back incredulously, slurring slightly. Finn is attempting to tug her away by the waist, but she’s fighting back hard. “Says the girl who cheated on her boyfriend with his best friend and got knocked up last year!”

“You guys!” exclaims Finn, looking slightly frantic as he dodges one of Rachel’s flailing arms. “Can we please just... calm down a little bit?”

Both women turn to face him with eerily identical icy glares of fury.

“You lied to me about Santana!”

“You broke up with me at a funeral!”

Eyes blown wide and whole body rigid, Kurt freezes – and ever-so-slowly backs inside through Puck’s opened patio door, hoping that the three of them on the lawn don’t notice his presence. As soon as he’s back in the Puckerman family kitchen (a bit dirty and small, but completely serviceable), he slides the door shut as quickly as possible and leans against it, panting.

“Woah,” says Blaine, blinking at Kurt’s sudden reappearance with two full drinks in his hand hands. The liquid inside slops around a little bit, but doesn’t spill. “You decided you didn’t want that fresh air after all, or –?”

“Don’t go outside,” says Kurt quickly, shaking his head back and forth. He can feel he expression of disdain tugging at his lips, even as he attempts to stop it. “Just... oh, god, don’t. Sometimes, I wonder how on earth my idiot stepbrother manages to get himself into these situations at all.”

“Are those three at it again?” asks Blaine, cocking his head and looking worried. “I could go out there and try to talk them down, maybe –”

And oh, no, because Blaine always likes to try to solve problems that are far beyond the reach of any mortal man. “No, Blaine, please don’t, it’s not –”

There’s a strangled screech from outside, and a smacking sound – and oh, god, Kurt does not want to know what’s going on out there. Blaine’s eyes widen, and he nods knowingly as he hands Kurt his drink. It’s only their second round of the evening, and they probably won’t be drinking anything after it. Relationships are about compromise, after all: so now instead of Blaine’s out-of-control alcohol consumption and Kurt remaining dry as a bone, they usually have about two drinks each at parties. Compromise, and Blaine doesn’t wind up fawning over anything that moves. It’s a win-win situation.

The plan had been for all three of them to walk back together to the Hudson-Hummel household before it gets too late; Blaine has Burt’s permission to crash on the downstairs couch. But if Finn is having a blow up fight of this magnitude... well. It might be a little longer before they can head out.

Something gets hurled into the sliding glass door – not hard enough to break, but hard enough to cause a horrible thump when it contacts with the glass – and Blaine and Kurt share a panicked expression.

“Other room?” asks Blaine.

“Other room,” confirms Kurt, grabbing Blaine by the hand and all but running them downstairs to the basement where he knows at least a few people are hanging out.

The party itself has the dubious distinction of being – as Puck referred to it, at least – a “fuck, you guys, school’s back in session and we should probably get plastered” gathering. Kurt honestly has no idea where Puck’s mother and sister have disappeared to for the evening, but he doesn’t envy them the inevitable cleanup. Parties with the New Directions tend to take a turn for the ludicrous even when a good portion of its members aren’t desperate to claw one another’s throats out. He genuinely has no idea what kind of havoc Finn, Rachel, and Quinn are wrecking in the backyard, but he suspects that half the neighbourhood will be privy to the most intimate details of their loves before the evening is through.

Sam’s sudden and unexpected departure a few days ago, with only a few days to go before the start of term, hasn’t helped the rowdiness levels either. The entire evening has taken on a note of mania and frantic desperation, a loudness and bluster to hide everyone’s surprise and pain at the loss of one of their friends. Kurt feels a twang as he thinks about it; Sam had been one of the only guys in glee club to never pick on him, or intentionally make him feel small. Having him leave town with so little warning... it hurts. He can’t even imagine how it must feel for everyone who spent the entirety of last year with the boy.

The two of them descend into the dimness of Puck’s basement, careful to watch their step on the bare wooden steps and not to slosh their drinks. Before Kurt’s eyes have even adjusted to the lower light, however, someone calls out to them.

“It’s my boy and his boy!” shouts Puck’s voice, and after Kurt blinks a few times he’s able to make out his large form. Hands up in the air, looking excited and flushed with his eyes shining with inebriation. There is a group of people sitting in a circle; on ratty couches and flimsy metal chairs and, in one case, a large crate.

“Oh, how sweet. It’s the Princess and the Hobbit,” sneers Santana, raising an immaculate eyebrow. Brittany waves happily from beside her, and Lauren rolls her eyes from her position next to Puck on the couch.

“If you’re referring to the Princess and the Goblin,” says Blaine smoothly, walking ahead to pull a few spare chairs toward the small circle, “then you’re out of luck, because I loved that movie.”

“Where is everyone?” asks Kurt curiously, swiping at his chair to remove most of the dust before sitting daintily down into it and crossing his legs. They hadn’t seen anyone else upstairs for a good long time.

Santana rolls her eyes, holding up a hand to count off on her fingers. “Well, Trouty Mouth hit the road, as we’re all far too aware. Three’s Company are outside smashing shit up and being hilarious. The Asians and Wheels are all playing some weird video game in the den upstairs –”

“ – which doesn’t sound like an awkward combination of people at all –”

“— and Aretha’s at home upchucking into a toilet or some shit. Straight up, this party blows just as many chunks.”

Kurt can feel his brow furrowing in a remembrance of concern at the mention of Mercedes. Right after the news that Sam’s dad had got a job out of town and they needed to leave as soon as possible to make his first shift, Mercedes had come down with a sudden and apparently awful case of flu. Locking herself up in her house, his best friend had even stopped responding to anyone’s calls or text messages. The entire situation is making something shiver at the edges of Kurt’s mind – a half formed notion, not ready to be looked at yet – but he pushes the feeling down for now. He’ll drop by tomorrow, Kurt decides, just to make sure she’s getting better.

“Hey,” says Puck, trying to look commanding at the same time as nuzzling into Lauren’s shoulder. It isn’t very effective. “This party rocks. There’s booze, there’s food –”

“I don’t know if half a box of slimjims and a vodka-soaked watermelon really count as food, Puck,” Kurt points out idly, tapping his foot and taking a sip of his drink. He winces. Blaine’s done the best with what they have to work with, but there isn’t very much mix left at this point in the evening. The concoction in his hand tastes mostly like a strange and very strong combination of black liquorice and rum. He puts it down on the floor beside his chair.

“ – and besides,” Puck continues, gesturing at Blaine with a wave of his large hand. “We’ve even got private school fuckers coming out in droves.”

Brittany nods enthusiastically. “I had a pet drove once. It flew away and left a mess, though.”

Grinning and raising his eyebrows, Kurt looks over to share a glance with Blaine. To silently laugh at him being the ‘private school fucker’, and at the fact that his presence is apparently equal to a whole host of Dalton’s finest. But Blaine looks... contemplative. Slightly awkward as he fidgets with his glass and takes a long sip. Kurt resolves to ask him about this reaction later, putting a mental note down in his head next to ‘find out if Mercedes is doing okay’.

There’s an awkward moment after that for some reason, most of them sipping their drinks with different levels of enthusiasm. Lauren raises her eyebrows at Puck. Brittany stares around the room with her ever-glazed eyes, almost as though she’s waiting for something to appear. Finally, Santana lets out an annoyed little huff and points at them.

“Ugh. Look, Hummel. Blanderson. We were kinda just about to start something down here, so if you two can shift your asses back upstairs to play Super Smash Whatever-the-Fuck with everyone else, that would be peachy.”

“Wait, what?” asks Kurt, sitting up straighter in his chair and looking around the circle. Apart from Blaine, who looks confused, everyone has an air of excitement about them. “Oh, god, please tell me you aren’t about to have an orgy –”

Puck laughs loudly, slopping some of his drink onto the front of Lauren’s shirt. She gives him a death glare in response. “Ha! I gotta say, Prep Boy, good on you for making that the first thing that came to my boy’s mind. Get it, Hummel.”

Lauren looks around the room appraisingly, eyes lingering on Kurt and Blaine. “I wouldn’t be opposed,” she grins lecherously, grinning. Puck tugs her possessively closer to his side.

“We haven’t –!” starts Blaine, looking horrified, but Kurt cuts him off with a wave. He’s learned from long experience that the best way to make Puck forget something is to have absolutely no reaction to it.

“Seriously, though, what are you up to?” asks Kurt, genuinely curious. “We won’t tell, I promise. And if it’s something really awful, we’ll just leave.”

Lauren and Santana exchange a silent look from across the circle. Eventually, Lauren shrugs. Santana lets out a large huff of breath before reaching behind the couch – they must have stuffed something there quickly to hide it when they heard the two of them coming downstairs – and pulls out an object made of orange and red striped glass. For the briefest of seconds, Kurt’s face heats up at the shape of it; considering the size, and with one end bulbous and the other long and smooth, his slightly tipsy head mistakes it for some kind of weird sex toy for a brief moment.

But then he notices the similarities to the bong the Warblers sometimes use; the similar curve and sheen of the glass. Recognizes the shape even more so from one of the movies he’d caught a few glimpses of with Puck and Finn. It’s a pipe.

“You’re smoking?” asks Kurt in surprise, feeling his eyebrows fly up into his hairline.

“Skip the lecture, Hummel,” says Santana in an irritated tone of voice, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “It’s fun, you’re a buzzkill, whatever. Please leave.”

“How did you recognize it, Kurt?” asks Brittany, tilting her head to one side. “I thought it was a magic wand the first time I saw one.”

“You still think that sometimes, Britts,” says Santana, her tone caught somewhere between affection and frustration. She gets halfway through rolling her eyes before she pauses mid-motion, lips tightening as she looks between the two of them as though seeing them for the first time. “Actually, that’s a damn fine question. How did you know what this was, Hummel?”

“I...” trails Kurt, feeling the heat growing in his cheeks, for once caught without something to say.

It had occurred to him a few times that Santana or Puck had probably tried marijuana at some point – he still does remember the incident with the cupcakes for the bake sale. Intellectually, he’d been aware that some members of the New Directions had to have experimented before. By no means are all of his friends squeaky-clean do-gooders, after all. But... none of them had ever brought any out during parties, or talked about it in more than vague terms. It had been easy to cordon off marijuana in his brain as something he and Blaine and their mutual Dalton friends sometimes did together – and nothing more.

The fallacy of this notion is currently crashing down around his ears. Santana looks utterly delighted, eyes lighting up in the way they do only when she’s taking pleasure in making someone else uncomfortable.

“Oh my god,” hisses Santana, sitting up straighter in her chair. Her mouth is slightly opened in surprise, the corners twisted up in evil pleasure. And oh, god, it’s too late now to talk her down. Kurt groans, burying his face in his hands. “You’ve done pot, haven’t you? You totally have. You and your curly-haired tinyboy.”

“Shut up,” Kurt groans, voice muffled through his hands, shaking his head back and forth. “Shut up, shut up, shut up...” He feels Blaine place a comforting hand on his knee, but it really doesn’t make anything less horrible.

“Are you fucking serious?” asks Puck, sounding affronted. “Hummel, you’ve done dope? Had reefer madness? Got down and dirty with Mary Jane?” He flails for a moment, seemingly at a loss for words. “And you didn’t tell me?

“Don’t,” says Kurt, pulling his heated face out of his hands. His voice sounds strained to his own ears. “Don’t say it like that, like it’s something awful. It isn’t.”

“They showed us a video about it in my health class,” says Brittany helpfully, nodding fervently. “About how mary-y-wanna is a gateway drug.” She shrugs. “Santana says it’s fine, though, and I trust Santana. And I like it because it makes the room float and my hands look cool.”

“You guys,” Blaine cuts in strongly, and for once Kurt is more than grateful for his boyfriend’s ever-present White Knight Mode because Kurt honestly cannot form proper words right now. “There’s nothing wrong with any of us trying it out a few times. We’re young and we’re allowed to experiment. But I think what Kurt is saying is that he’d get in a whole lot of trouble if this ever got back to his dad, which means that Finn can’t know because he’s... not the best with secrets. Which means that other people at your school can’t know, either.” He raises his thick eyebrows expressively. “Deal?”

Aside from Santana muttering ‘a few times, Hummel?’ under her breath, there is a long moment of silence. And inexplicably, Kurt feels frustrated. Why isn’t he allowed to try things, too? Is it because he’s already so weird and wrong and the outsider that normal teen activities are off-limits to him? Or because he went to private school for most of last year?

The stupid desire to prove himself is flaring up hard and hearty in Kurt’s chest as he stares at the rest of the circle, at the pipe in Santana’s hand. Eventually however, Lauren crosses her arms.

“Deal,” she says, raising one eyebrow. Kurt lets out a sharp sigh of relief, and Puck looks disappointed. But after a moment, Lauren continues: “As long as you two smoke with us tonight.”

“I –” starts Kurt quickly, fully intending to object. They have to go back to his house, tonight, after all. Back to his dad and Carole, and no matter how old they may be Kurt is fairly certain they’ll recognize the smell if he and Blaine walk in reeking of pot. They would notice, and they’ve already had a few drinks, and they have to walk home with Finn...

Finn, who is currently having a drunken blow-up fight in the backyard with his girlfriend and his ex, and who will probably be too intoxicated and upset to notice any difference in their behaviour. And they do have to walk home for a number of blocks, as well. The night air is cool and fresh; it shouldn’t take too long outside to air out the worst of their clothes. That and a few breath mints should take care of most of the smell.

Plus – Kurt glances at the tiny amount of fuzzy green clusters in the small metal pill box in Santana’s hand – they barely have enough for two sweeps around the circle. That’s hardly enough to feel much of anything, and they’d still be able to fake sobriety convincingly even if his dad has chosen to wait up for them.

This is also his chance. To prove that he can live on the wild side, a little bit. That he isn’t boring and lame and a buzzkill, with his orderly clothes and good grades and monogamy. Kurt glances at Blaine, who is sitting with an expression on his face that clearly says they’re your friends, sweetheart, this is your call.

“All right,” says Kurt at last, shrugging his shoulders as nonchalantly as possible and re-crossing his legs deliberately. He smoothes some imaginary loose hairs back into place as his friends woop and catcall around him, trying to suppress the smile trying to creep across his face.

“Awesome, dude!” exclaims Puck, giving his girlfriend a grateful squeeze and looking at her as though she is the absolute best thing in the world. She grins back evilly, slinging an arm around his neck.

“I totally want to get buzzy with Kurt,” agrees Brittany, nodding seriously.

“Fucking yes,” caws Santana triumphantly, pumping her fist in the air. “I wants ta get mah blaze on, bitches. Plus, I bet you act like a total tool when you’re stoned, Hummel. You’re way too tightly wound for it.”

“He is not,” says Blaine loyally, but Santana isn’t paying any attention. She is already packing the concave indentation of the pipe with weed from the pill box, loosely but to the brim.

And all of the sudden, it occurs to Kurt that he’s never used a pipe before. A bong with the Warblers a couple of times, and joints with Blaine – but he’s never actually had first hand, real-life experience of smoking with a pipe. And he really, really doesn’t want to look like an idiot in front of this particular group of people, especially considering the conversation that just occurred about his apparent tool-dom.

Beside him, Blaine has pulled out his phone and is texting something quickly. Kurt ignores him, eyes trained on Santana as she pulls out a lighter and begins to get to work. He only has a few people to watch before it’s his turn, after all, so he’s going to have to try to catch every detail.

He jumps when his phone buzzes in his jeans. Startled, he slides it out of his back pocket – with difficulty, because these pants are tight— and clicks ‘read’ when it informs him that he has one new message.

 

From: Blaine Anderson
September 2nd, 2011, 9:42pm
Almost exactly like a bong in mechanics but w/o bubbles. Breathe in as you light weed if its not already smouldering. Keep ur finger on hole while you pull, then release finger and clear the chamber. <3

 

Sometimes, Kurt loves his boyfriend so much it feels as though his heart is about to pound through his chest.

He texts back a quick ‘I love you’, and even though Kurt can see Blaine’s phone going off in his pocket his boyfriend doesn’t answer right away so as to not give the game away. Kurt watches as Santana finishes her hit, smiling like the cat who got the cream as she grins with her lips pressed tightly together to keep the smoke inside. She holds it in far longer than Kurt ever does, as if as a challenge to everyone else in the room. This is illegal and exciting and I can do it better than all of you.

She passes the pipe to Brittany, who accepts it eagerly. It takes her a couple of tries to properly figure out the order in which to do things, and when she does finally manage to fill the chamber and suck the smoke into her lungs it quickly makes her double over in a little coughing fit. Santana leans over and rubs her hands comfortingly into her shoulders a little too gently, murmuring about what a great job she did and glaring around the group as though challenging anyone to say otherwise. When Kurt looks around for a glass of water to hand to the still-choking blonde, he realizes that no one has bothered to bring any downstairs.

Huh, he thinks, blinking. I suppose they’re too hardcore for not coughing their lungs out.

When Brittany has sufficiently recovered, she grins and hands the pipe to him. He carefully wraps his fingers around the long chamber, keeping his fingers away from the bowl under the suspicion that it’s probably far too hot to touch. The shiny brightness of the glass is almost comical, considering the purpose of the object pinched between his fingers; he finds the colourful stripes especially amusing. The marijuana is still smouldering gently inside.

Just like a bong, he thinks. Easy.

It takes him a moment to locate the carb on the foreign instrument, sliding his finger overtop and wrapping his lips around the end of the pipe. It’s wider than he’s expecting, his lips having to stretch more than he thought they would to seal around it. The obvious parallel image makes his face heat up, and he thinks he hears Puck snort loudly from somewhere in front of him. Kurt tries to ignore it, sucking in at a slow, unrushed pace. The weed in the bowl simmers, and he can see the small chamber begin to fill with coils of smoke if he looks down through his eyelashes. When he thinks he’s probably got enough to not embarrass himself with the size of his hit, he takes his finger off the carb – and sucks the smoke to his mouth.

The amount he gets is much, much smaller than with a bong: Kurt is starting to realize that bongs are in a class of their own in terms of getting high hard and fast. The taste is slightly ashier than he’s expecting, but still thick and green and sweet in his mouth. He makes sure to suck all the smoke from the chamber – leaving stale smoke is too much of a faux-pas for him to be okay with it – and seals his lips to hold the smoke in his mouth. It’s warm and pleasant, burning at the back of his throat in a way he’s come to enjoy. He passes the pipe to Blaine on his left, lips still pressed together as he enjoys the first little illicit tingle of it. The tiny rush he still gets every time from doing this.

“Lighter?” he hears Blaine ask – apparently the pipe needs re-lighting – and someone passes it to him. Deciding he’s held it in for long enough, Kurt closes his eyes and shapes his mouth into the tiniest of ‘o’s, expelling the smoke in a long, thin stream into the dimness of the room.

“Shit, Hummel,” says Puck, sounding impressed, but Kurt is already turning to watch Blaine. He loves this the most, he thinks. Seeing Blaine’s throat move as he pulls the smoke in, the flush that rises in his cheeks. There is a dangerous tingle in his throat, but Kurt attempts to push it down as he watches Blaine light the pipe and draw.

The width of this particular pipe truly is obscene, and something sparks hot and needy in the base of Kurt’s stomach as he watches Blaine wraps his lips around the end of it. Pink and stretched around the colourful glass, Blaine looks more than a little bit vulgar – and Kurt winces at the hundreds of potential jokes that must have run through everyone’s head when it was his own turn. Flicking the lighter above the weed, Blaine sucks in air to pull the heat through and light it. Finger over the carb, pulling in, the muscles in his neck straining ever-so-prettily, and – there. Sucking the smoke into his mouth with his hazel eyes open and burning the whole while. Kurt watches the smoke disappear between his lips, and when Blaine pulls away and closes his mouth a few delicious coils of smoke escape through his pressed lips and rise up to the ceiling.

His boyfriend passes the pipe to Puck on the couch, turns to Kurt – and grins. It’s a lazy smile, easy and languid, the ruddy features of Blaine’s face even more relaxed than they usually are when he isn’t in uniform. Kurt can feel his heart beating faster in his chest, an infinitesimal tugging at his perspective as he watches his gorgeous boyfriend open his mouth and let out the smoke from between his damp lips in one large, thick puff.

“Huh,” Kurt hears Lauren say, and when he wrenches his eyes away from Blaine to look at her across the circle. Next to her, Puck is popping the pipe between his lips and preparing to take his hit. Lauren’s eyebrows are raised, and she actually looks... impressed? “You actually have done this before, haven’t you?”

Kurt coughs softly as a twinge tugs at his throat, forcing himself to stop before he can’t anymore. His eyes water a bit with the strain of it, but he smiles as he looks Lauren in the eye. “Yeah,” he admits, grinning. He feels somehow freshly-scubbed and dirtied at the same time. He scoots his chair slightly closer to Blaine, resting a hand over his knee as Puck exhales his hit.

Puck goes into a brief coughing fit, which makes Kurt wish doubly hard that there was at least a little water to share. Just a bit, to soothe the light burning in his throat. He rests his head on Blaine’s shoulder partly because it looks incredibly comfortable, partly to ward off thoughts of cool liquid they don’t have any of. The position is warm and comfortable; Kurt nuzzles in a little closer, rubbing his nose against the fabric of Blaine’s cardigan.

When Lauren exhales her smoke – Kurt can see the muscles in her throat clenching down, trying her hardest not to cough in front of everyone – she raises an eyebrow at the two of them. “You two don’t do that very much.” At Kurt’s questioning and exasperated eyebrow raise, she shrugs and elaborates. “Touch in public, I mean.”

Blinking, Kurt stares right into Blaine’s shoulder. Across the circle, Santana squints down beadily at the bowl, noting how much ash is left inside, and glances at Lauren for confirmation. When Lauren nods, she begins to empty the bowl.

“Yeah,” Santana agrees, pulling a small metal implement out of her handbag and using it to scoop out the remains into what appears to be a lidless Tupperware container. “For all you two are so disgustingly cutesy it gives me diabetes, you, like. Never touch in public. What up with that?”

“We’re touching right now,” Kurt points out, eyes fluttering slightly. There’s the slightest touch of something floating and vague tugging at his vision. Nothing much, however. He’s nowhere near being truly buzzed yet at all. Santana sends him a crippling glare as she blows out some of the excess ash from the bowl, touching it to make sure it isn’t too hot before she begins to re-pack it.

“Not like that, bro. Sexy touches,” adds Puck helpfully, running a hand along Lauren’s thigh. She lets him, which is surprising in and of itself. They must have had a good summer.

“It’s just not safe,” explains Blaine softly, wrapping an arm around Kurt’s shoulder protectively. “I mean... even with people we know, a lot of the time. You just never know who’s watching, or how they’re going to react. Maybe one day when we live somewhere a little less conservative, we’ll be able to be more open. Until then...”

“We keep it private,” murmurs Kurt, shrugging a bit.

“That sucks,” says Brittany sadly, eyes looking a bit glassier than usual. “It’s, like. Totally not fair.” Kurt waits for the inevitable non-sequitur to follow – but it doesn’t come. Brittany just keeps shaking her head, looking a little upset. Something crumples in Santana’s face; she reaches out and clasps Brittany’s hand in hers, making the blonde smile shakily again. Santana smiles back, then lets go in order to keep packing the pipe. The tiny pill box is empty now – it really was a miniscule amount of marijuana. Kurt wonders idly who her supplier is.

“Well, you’re safe here,” declares Puck loudly, propping his feet up on a crate in the middle of the circle. “None of us give a shit if the two of you decide to start going at it like rabbits.” A few places over, Santana lets out a small triumphant noise as she gently presses her thumb down onto the bowl and sucks an experimental breath through the pipe. Kurt raises an eyebrow.

“You’re kidding,” he says flatly, lip curling up in distaste. “This coming from the guy who used to give me swirlies and throw me in the dumpster just for being gay, let alone acting on it. Sure thing, Puck. I believe you.”

Puck’s face falls, and he looks genuinely wounded. Santana is flicking the lighter over top of the bowl, breathing in to draw the flame through.

“Hey,” Puck says quietly, eyes shockingly focused for the amount of booze – and now pot – Kurt is sure he’s consumed tonight. He removes his arm from Lauren’s shoulder, leaning forward on his knees to better meet Kurt’s eyes. “You know I’ve changed, dude. I’m different now: that shit doesn’t bother me anymore. You’re my boy, remember? That means something to me.”

“I –” Kurt begins, but his throat suddenly feels choked with something more than the sticky burn of smoke. He swallows, forcing down the witty retort on the edge of his tongue. “Thank you,” he says instead, giving his lead a little shake. Blaine squeezes him tighter for the briefest of moments.

Santana chokes out a loud cough, spluttering smoke everywhere as she does so. They shake her small frame as she clutches at her chest, gagging on air until she can breathe properly again. She smiles when she can, even as she gets drawn into another round of coughing.

And all at once, it is as though some sort of tension pulled tight between them has been broken. They don’t have to try their hardest not to cough, or splutter, or fuck up in front of one another anymore. None of them have anything to prove, or anymore to impress. They’re just a group of friends doing something fun together, and talking, and floating in the same shared space. Lauren pats Santana hard on the back, and eventually she comes back to herself.

“Wait,” she gasps, clearly forcing down more coughs. She leans over to look at Puck. “Did you just basically admit you’d be okay with watching Gay 1 and Gay 2 bang? Wanky. I picture them as Ken dolls down there.”

“Hey!” exclaims Blaine, only sounding pretend-affronted. Everyone laughs, Puck rolls his eyes, and Santana passes the pipe to Lauren with the explanation that she didn’t think the larger girl had managed to get a very good hit so near the end.

After Lauren expels her air, smoke coiling out of her mouth without a single cough, an absolutely dastardly expression comes over her face.

“You two could totally kiss, though,” she says, waggling her finger in their direction. “That’d be hot.” Her arm is a bit loose, and it occurs to Kurt to wonder how many drinks she’s had this evening – before he registers the full meaning of her words.

“Wait, what?” asks Kurt, blinking hard and feeling his whole body tense up. It’s a joke. She’s making fun of them, and in a few seconds everyone will laugh and change the subject.

“I wouldn’t mind seeing that,” shrugs Santana, crossing her arms in front of herself. “It’d give me a reason to believe that you two actually have a sex life of any description, which I’m not exactly convinced about right now.”

“I liked kissing Kurt,” Brittany adds helpfully, looking at Blaine. “He has soft lips. You’ve probably noticed.”

“... erm,” says Blaine, clearly not wanting to be rude by not responding. “I... have, yes. Thank you?”

“I – what?” asks Kurt, shaking his head in disbelief. “I... you guys can’t actually want to see that. Santana, you look like you want to strangle both Rachel and Finn whenever they start making out in public –”

“That’s them, this is you,” says Santana, shrugging. “It’d just be a kiss, Hummel. Whatever if you’re too much of a girl to do it.”

Puck exhales his hit in a short burst, managing not to cough this time. His eyes look a little bit droopy, now, and glassier than before. “Go for it, guys,” he says, sounding a bit croaky – but still puffed up, full of himself. “My lady’s opened my eyes to a whole bunch of things. Do it, dudes. Could be hot.”

“Puck,” says Kurt, aghast, but Blaine pulls away from him slightly. Turns so that they’re facing one another, his dark eyes mostly clear amid the shadows. Blaine looks calm and collected, face relaxed except for his raised eyebrows in an expression of open questioning.

“It’s up to you,” says Blaine quietly, running a thumb along Kurt’s cheek. The touch is sharp and lovely, and it makes Kurt shiver. “They’re your friends, Kurt. It’s your call. I don’t mind.”

Exhibitionist, Kurt thinks derisively, but he feels torn. For one thing, doing something so intimate knowingly in front of others goes so sharply against all of the instincts they’ve developed together in this relationship. The threat of being found, of being hurt, is so very real ever-present that it’s hard to tamp down the worry bubbling up in his stomach.

But... simultaneously, that same desire to prove himself from before is creeping up through Kurt’s veins. To show that there’s more of him than can be displayed to the public eye, that there’s more to his and Blaine’s relationship than tight hugs in courtyards and sitting next to one another at coffee shops. Half of the people down here are already drunk, anyways, and they’re doing some other fairly recreational things as well. If he feels embarrassed about it later, Kurt supposes, they could always blame it on the impulse-following effect of the drug. And of course Blaine is okay with it, performer and attention-seeker that he is.

Plus... the idea of kissing his boyfriend in front of one of the people who used to torment him for his sexuality and being accepted is... well. It’s more than a little exhilarating.

“Oh, sweet lord,” groans Kurt, rolling his eyes. “We are definitely both going to need another hit before this happens, okay?”

Grinning maliciously, Puck hands the pipe over to Blaine as Brittany cheers and Lauren lets out a loud woop. The entire time Blaine draws back on the pipe, Kurt is practically twitching with nerves dulled slightly, but not very much, by the weed. His whole body feels on edge, and he suspects the anticipation is going to be way worse than the actual demonstration of the act. Blaine passes the pipe over while he still has smoke in his mouth, sending a little secretive smile in Kurt’s direction.

When he takes his own turn, Kurt makes sure to fill the chamber up with as much smoke as humanly possible. He’s going to need all the mind-altering substances he can get a hold of to survive this experience without blushing to death, he thinks, sucking the chamber full of smoke right up into his mouth. Beside him, Blaine is coughing slightly. The taste of it is sticky and heavy in his mouth, pleasant in a way Kurt is starting to grow very familiar with. It’s the taste of excitement and tilting rooms and rushing heads, and he’s already beginning to edge closer to ‘buzzed’ with this toke and he hasn’t even let out the air yet.

Without speaking, Kurt passes the pipe to Brittany. When he turns back to Blaine, he fully intends to let out the smoke in his mouth – it’s burning a bit in his throat – when he takes a proper look at his boyfriend. Blaine is red-eyed and loose-limbed with alcohol and pot, that familiar hapless grin stuck onto his face as though sealed there with glue. His foot is swaying absently along the floor, and he seems to be enjoying the movement. The rest of the room practically seems to fall away, and it’s just the two of them. Together, and close, and here right now.

When Kurt gestures for Blaine to open his mouth, Blaine obeys immediately. Leaning in to close the space between their chairs, opening his mouth and never breaking Kurt’s gaze. And oh, god, his eyes. Heated and playful, just asking for Kurt to kiss him in front of all these people. Someone – Brittany, he thinks – says something off to the side, but Kurt cannot be bothered to pay attention anymore.

Slowly, ever –so-slowly, Kurt leans in close and breathes the smoke from his own mouth into Blaine’s. It is open and waiting for him, and Blaine sucks it all in as best he can. It twists around the outsides of his face, stinging both of their eyes with heat. And just as Kurt pushes the last of it from his mouth, Blaine is leaning in to twist his hands in the front of Kurt’s shirt and pull him in to kiss him full on the lips.

The slide of their mouths together is hot from the smoke they just breathed in deep, and the taste of one another and sticky sweet green coils over both of their tongues. The other people in the room ebb away with the touch of Blaine’s lips to his; Kurt arches up into it, a tiny noise escaping his throat that Blaine captures with his own lips. Sliding his tongue deep into Kurt’s mouth in front of everyone, tasting him, tasting it, and Kurt groans out loud and edges his teeth along Blaine’s bottom lip. Grasping helplessly at Blaine’s upper arms, trying to hold himself in place as the room floats around them like a bubble with the two of them the only solid things in sight.

Eventually, they pull apart. Kurt leans in to press their moist lips together one more time as they pull apart like a goodbye, and Blaine lets out a silly-sounding giggle and presses their foreheads together. Slightly slick with sweat and heat, grounding one another as their bodies grow lighter.

“Hot damn,” comes a voice from across the circle, and Kurt jolts away in surprise. Most of his brain had actually forgotten there other people in the room. Santana nods her head in approval, fanning herself comically. Beside her, Brittany is letting out a puff of smoke and grinning like an idiot. Lauren has a smirk on her face, and Puck’s eyes are slightly wide. “I’m going to have to re-evaluate your sexitude, boys.”

“That was hot,” adds Brittany fervently, sounding a little bit hoarse.

“Oh, god,” says Kurt dully, but Blaine slides a hand up his arm. Shakes his head, as if to say it’s fine, beautiful, it’s fine. And Kurt feels absurdly, stupidly proud. Because for the first time, he has finally been able to show just how much he cares for Blaine in front of his own friends. Without being afraid of being dismissed, or belittled, or called into question. It feels as though he just stood on a table and shouted ‘this is my boyfriend, and I love him more than anything, you fuckers’ to the entirety of the McKinley High cafeteria.

“Well,” says Lauren, reaching to stroke a hand down Puck’s face. He looks a little shell-shocked, but not repulsed at all. Just... surprised? Impressed? “I doubt we’re going to beat that, losers. And we’re all out anyways. Shall we go up to catch the tail-end of the main event?”

“Um. Yeah,” says Puck, giving his head a shake. “Hang on, let’s get this shit cleaned up first. My mom will be so pissed if she comes down here and finds ash and shit all over the place.”

Standing, Santana tucks the pipe into a cloth bag and slips it into her handbag before grabbing Brittany by the hand, leading her out of the room quickly before either of them can get stuck with clean-up duty.

Lauren groans and rolls her eyes but begins tucking chairs back into place, apparently under the notion that as the girlfriend of the host she does actually have some hosting obligations. Puck disposes of the Tupperware and the ash quickly, and Kurt opens a window to let the basement air out. Blaine holds his hand the whole time, trailing his thumb over every part of Kurt’s hand he can reach. His wrist, the back of his hand, the fleshy part of his palm – every drifted touch sending shivers up and down Kurt’s arm. There’s the beginning of a high beginning to tug at Kurt’s mind, so he focuses as hard as he can on completing the task.

When the rest of them trek upstairs, the brightly-lit main floor of Puck’s house drifts a little around them. While they finish their drinks, Kurt and Blaine tuck themselves on the couch in the other room next to Mike, watching with him and Artie as Tina sloshily attempts to defeat pixelated bad guys at the same time as drinking in gulps of cider. Everyone around them is excitable and loud, messy. The two of them stay curled up together like that for a while, letting the room shift and ease gently around with smoke and drink as they remain firmly anchored in one another.

It isn’t long before Finn comes in from the backyard and declares it time to leave (oh my god, Rachel’s asleep and Quinn’s getting creepy, can we go? ). They’re not too buzzed to respond to questions and comments within the right amount of time, thankfully, although Kurt most of the rest of the evening trying to carefully mimic normal human reaction time. No one suspects, and no one calls them out. Puck sends them a wink as they head out the door a few minutes later, but that’s all.

It feels a little colder outside to Kurt than it should on the walk home, but Blaine takes off his thin cardigan and lets him wrap it around his shoulders. The three of them head back to the house, idly listening as Finn recounts his disaster of an evening. The school year – their senior year, god – is just about to begin. There is so much potential just around the corner from the two of them, just waiting to be explored.

And Kurt can’t wait to experience it all.

Chapter 6: And One Time That Things Got a Little Out of Hand

It isn’t for another month, over the Columbus Day long weekend, that the two of them finally push past some of the unspoken limits and boundaries they’ve been working within.

By this point, the paperwork for Blaine’s transfer to McKinley has been finalized and enacted for over two weeks. It had come as a shock to Kurt, the first time Blaine had mentioned shedding the Dalton blazer in favour of a return to all the crassness and craziness of public school. But no matter how much Kurt pressed – how much he needled, or angled, or twisted Blaine’s words around as best he knew how – Blaine remained firm that he was not transferring for Kurt’s sake. He was finally facing his demons, and this just happened to be their chance to face them together.

They are walking through the McKinley parking lot toward Kurt’s SUV after glee practice – not holding hands, but walking so close their shoulders keep brushing – when the subject first gets broached. The weather is finally getting a bit colder, a chill starting to come out in the air that sneaks through fabric and steals up against skin. Kurt absolutely loves it. Autumn is his favourite season – for fashion, he always claims, citing scarves and light coats and hats and layers upon layers of beautiful clothing to drape himself in. That’s a part of it, certainly, but Kurt is aware that Blaine knows him better than that. Knows that Kurt loves the sharpness of autumn, and how deceptive it is. How it fools people with sun and clear skies, and instead delivers brusque sweeps of wind and deep, musky smells of colouring leaves that leave him tingling and melancholy in all the right ways.

By now, Blaine knows Kurt a whole lot better than almost anyone else in the world.

It is this fact – this simple, easy fact of their relationship; that Blaine has grown to know Kurt so very well, inside and out – that prompts Kurt to lean against the back window of his car when they reach it, key dangling idly between his fingers without making any motions to unlock the doors. Blaine looks at him questioningly; they’re supposed to be heading home soon to work on a French project together. At that familiar look (not one of expectancy, per se, just listening, willing tolisten, Blaine is always so very willing to listen), Kurt opens his mouth and speaks the words that have been on his mind for the past few days.

“I want to go further with you.”

Blinking, Blaine freezes. A bewildered look steals over his face. “Pardon?” he asks, tilting his head sideways in that puppy-dog way of his, and oh, does Kurt love him. “With the assignment?”

“No,” murmurs Kurt, shaking his head. It makes the tiny tassels on his light scarf shake back and forth. “No, Blaine. I’ve been... thinking about this a lot, lately. And I want to go further with you. Let myself lose control in a way we haven’t done before.” He bites down on his lower lip, feeling suddenly anxious. “Would you... want that? With me?”

The confusion on Blaine’s face isn’t going anywhere, though; in fact, it seems to have deepened. Blaine pauses, looking around quickly, before leaning in a bit closer.

“Kurt, are you – are you talking about sex? Because. Um. I don’t know if you remember – I do, because it’s always sort of awesome, but. But we’ve kind of already –”

“No,” Kurt hisses back, feeling his face turn red-hot more with shocking speed. He goes over the words in his head and, oh, god. Oops. It’s quite possible that Kurt will never quite master the elusive beast that is the innuendo. He reaches out and gives the sleeve of Blaine’s long-sleeved shirt a tug. “No, I don’t mean – I mean, I remember that we...” Kurt reaches up to scrub a hand through his hair, but aborts the movement mid-way through. His hair is fabulous today, and there’s no point in ruining it over awkwardness. “Drugs, Blaine. I mean drugs.”

“Oh,” says Blaine stupidly, blinking up at him. After a moment’s pause, his thick brows furrow together in worry. “Wait, Kurt – are you wanting to try other... substances? Because I’m not sure I want to –”

“No, not other, just...” Kurt takes a deep breath, trying to articulate the vague notions and almost-ideas that have been spinning around his head for a while now. In the past, it would have felt difficult and irritating to voice his ideas to another person without having them fully figured-out first. Now, it’s just... being with Blaine. Blaine is the person he talks to when he can’t quite figure out why he’s feeling upset, or frustrated, or even when he can’t identify how he’s feeling at all. Breaking both of them from their I can figure it all out on my own habits had been one of their first major things to work through as a couple.

He thinks back to the awkwardness of that night in the car, all those months ago. Trying not to look naive, or say the wrong things, or look stupid in front of this boy. The thought makes Kurt smile with the wisdom that only time can bring.

“We’ve done marijuana with each other... what, five times?” asks Kurt, trying to explain himself again. A small part of him is horrified that he’s able to say the word aloud without wincing. He shrugs. “We always stop after one or two of whatever we’re doing. And I know you once said that you’ve never been any higher than we’ve got together. But... I don’t know. It feels as though we’re holding back. Like we’ve been right on the edge of something more every time we do it. I’ve seen parts of stoner movies, Blaine, and I know for sure that I’ve never got as... shameless as people do in those films. And... I kind of want to.”

“You do?” asks Blaine, lowering his voice and leaning in a little closer. Not out of fear of being heard, but out of the need for greater intimacy for this particular conversation.

“Yeah,” Kurt admits, letting out a little breath. “I want to feel... more, with you. More relaxed, more intense – whatever it feels like, I want to try to get there at least once. With you.”

And a big, beautiful smile begins to spread across Blaine’s face. “I’d love that,” he admits, reaching up to hook his fingers into the lapel of Kurt’s jacket. “It’s... something I’ve never wanted to do with the Warblers because, no matter what, I... I always need to keep something of myself back. Does that make sense? It... scared me. The idea of letting up control around other people like that.” Blaine lets out a tiny laugh. “But... you’re not other people, Kurt.”

“So... that’s a yes?” asks Kurt, semi-excited already and bouncing on his heels. Blaine lets out a small laugh, crinkling his nose.

“It’s a yes,” he admits, and Kurt can feel his whole face light up. “I’d love to try that with you, Kurt. I love you.”

“Yes, yes, I love you too. But now we have to plan!” exclaims Kurt, feeling giddy and nervous and happy in a wordless way. He presses the auto-unlock on his set of keys, nudging Blaine in the shoulder until the other boy finally throws up his hands in defeat and begins to head toward the passenger seat. “We’re going to have to figure out a place and time, of course, and a general outline of activities. Oh, and a supply, too! Blaine, get your phone and text Wes, I’m driving.”

The driver’s side door shuts with a slam, and a few seconds later the engine revs to life. When they leave the parking lot, it is with the confines of the vehicle full to the brim of excited chatter from one of its occupants and a long, warm gaze from the other.

--

Since Blaine’s parents go away every October long weekend, the issue of where and when doesn’t take very long to solve. All it takes is Blaine claiming that he won’t be able to go on their usual holiday to a ski resort out of state – seriously, Kurt, I’m not sad to miss it at all. It’s about six hours of driving for the barest bit of early-year powder, but mom and dad go nuts over it, I don’t even know – in favour of staying home and catching up on homework and assignments for his new school.

The Andersons really don’t need to know that Blaine could probably say random words for half an hour, write them down, and hand it in to receive a higher mark than the median of all McKinley students.

When Kurt arrives on Blaine’s doorstep several hours after Marita and William have left for somewhat colder climes, Blaine opens the door and smiles a soft, sweet smile at the sight of him. The sun is still high in the sky, although there is a crispness in the air that belies the brightness.

“Hey,” says Blaine, leaning his head against the rich wood doorframe. Kurt takes a step closer, leans down – and kisses his boyfriend on the lips.

“Hey,” he returns when he pulls away, sliding a hand down Blaine’s cheek. And slowly, his smile turns to something more excitable, more devious. “Let’s do this.”

--

Everything goes as it normally does for the first two joints.

Since they have the whole weekend for the house to air out, Blaine decides that they may as well take the opportunity to use the living room instead of the bedroom. Since Kurt wholeheartedly agrees – there’s something nice about open spaces when they smoke that they just don’t get to experience very often. It’s less claustrophobic, less oppressive.

They work their way through one joint, better rolled now with the little bit of practice they’ve got, and then another. Passing them back and forth idly, trying hard not to rush while the simultaneous sense of eagerness floats through both of them. At not knowing what will happen once they get past this point.

After the second – their usual stopping place, Kurt notes – they take a break. Kurt is stretched out on one of the couches, his hand dangling over the side to brush over Blaine’s arm where his boyfriend has taken to sprawling on the ground. They’re not too far gone yet, Kurt realizes, but they’re on the very edge. The border, he assumes, between buzzed and... more than that. The smoke has settled lightly over the large room, far too big for two joints to render it hazy. It feels as though Kurt’s body is floating through the air and sinking into the softness of the couch at the same time. He stares up at the speckled ceiling, willing his eyes to catch the secret patterns that form along the ridges.

“I feel... like I have a really big mouth sometimes,” Kurt hears himself saying, high and wavery in the silence, and after a moment he realizes he must have been speaking for a while. His sense of time and place is starting to go, he realizes absently. As though watching a film of someone else’s life instead of experiencing his own. They’re close, then. Close to the farthest they’ve been.

But the words are completely valid, actually. He opens and closes his mouth a few times to test this theory, and, yep. It’s big. “Like, reaaaaally big,” he continues, mouth open a bit wider than it should be. How wide does he keep his mouth, usually? “Like. Sometimes I can’t see my teeth when I smile, and it’s weird.”

“I like your mouth,” he hears Blaine say defensively, flicking at his dangling hand in chastisement. “And that it’s big. That’s, um. Nice.”

After a moment, Kurt snorts loudly into his own hand. The giggles keep coming, long and hard and uncontrollable. It’s funny, very funny, but he can’t remember exactly why. After a moment, it comes back to him.

“I bet you do,” chuckles Kurt, grabbing a throw pillow to muffle his laughter, because really. It’s funny.

“Oh, hush,” says Blaine, and Kurt can practically see him shaking his head in his mind’s eye. It makes him giggle harder. All at once, Kurt realizes that now is the time.

“We need to do a third,” says Kurt abruptly, turning to flip from the couch onto the floor before realizing that Blaine is currently occupying that space. Ow.

“Ow,” says Blaine, looking up at Kurt and blinking through the pain of having an elbow jammed into his upper arm.

“Sorry,” says Kurt, kind of petting along Blaine’s hair in apology. He wears a little less gel in it, now. It feels nice to touch, even if the world is spinning a bit too much with his tumble. “But we do. Need to. Do a third, I mean. It’s a good idea and so... we should do it.” He grinds his hips into Blaine’s to punctuate the sentiment, but that just makes Blaine groan and bite his lip, so Kurt rolls off of him.

Before they started, Kurt – not Blaine, who is bad at it and makes them too loose – had rolled out seven joints in preparation for the day. They honestly have no idea how many they’ll be wanting, which makes things a little bit difficult. How to calculate for time, or how much to split between them, or how much of an impact their previous smoking experiments will make on how strongly they feel it. All Kurt knows, right now, is that a third joint will put them over the wall; will be charging forward where they usually back down.

And Kurt doesn’t want to back down anymore.

Fingers only shaking a little bit, he lights the third joint and they begin to pass it back and forth between them. It’s harder than the second, somehow. Claws at their throats in a bad way, making them sting and cough and reach for water. They shotgun as much as possible, because it’s sexy and because it seems to make sense in terms of maximum smoke conservation, occasionally taking long breaks to slide their mouths together, to taste the burn along one another’s tongues.

When they’ve smoked that joint right down to the tiny amount of thick ash before the roach, it takes Kurt standing up to go use the bathroom down the hall to realize exactly why people use the term ‘high’.

He floats down the hallway, sliding his hands against the wall where necessary to keep himself up and marvelling at the coolness against his palms. His head is swimming, spinning hard, and he has to pee so badly it feels as though he’s about to burst. It isn’t sloshy, like being too drunk. But drifting. He drifts through his trip to the washroom, careful to make sure the toilet seat is clean simply because he knows that he’ll care when this feeling wears off. Drifts through washing his hands, drifts back down the hallway to Blaine.

His boyfriend is sitting slumped in one of the wing-backed armchairs, his bare feet raised in front of him like a small child, wiggling his toes with a look of delight on his face.

“Feet are so weird,” says Blaine excitedly, smiling hard and giving his toes another wiggle. He can’t seem to manage to do them both at the same time, so the wiggling takes place one foot after the other. Right foot, wiggle. Left foot, wiggle. “Kurt, you have to see this. When was the last time you looked at your feet? They’re so weird.”

“I don’t really like feet,” admits Kurt, shrugging his shoulders and wrapping his sweater around himself. “They look funny. I like them better with shoes. They’re like a shoe reptile-icle.” He blinks, furrowing his brow. “Receptacle? That sounds wrong.”

“Kurt, I want food,” says Blaine all of a sudden, sounding very serious. “We should eat food, or – ohmygod. We couldcook food! When you cook food it’s better because you get whatever food you want, right? Kurt?”

Even in his altered state of mind, a mental image of the last time he let Blaine try to help him in the kitchen flashes before Kurt’s eyelids: Blaine, frantically fanning at the flames engulfing their French toast as he apologized profusely and blamed every other possible factor in the cooking practice other than the chef. Kurt winces, resolving to keep reminding himself to keep Blaine away from the kitchen – at least until he’s aware of himself enough to stop Blaine from doing something stupid.

“We should go out,” Kurt hears himself saying in response, sounding certain and convicted. And... yeah, actually. Thatdoes sound nice. Through the living room window, Kurt can see that there is sun shining through the clouds, warm for this time of year, and it probably smells good, and Blaine doesn’t live too far from uptown Westerville. “We can go for a walk into town, and wander for a bit.”

“I like outside,” says Blaine, a big grin on his face. “We can get food outside, too!”

“We can,” says Kurt triumphantly, feeling very proud of himself for the idea. He blinks, and realizes that his boyfriend iscrawling across the floor to get to him.

“You’re so smart!” exclaims Blaine when he gets to Kurt, wrapping his arms around the backs of Kurt’s legs and pressing his face into Kurt’s stomach. “Sooooo smart and I love you.”

Kurt slides to his knees before his mind even fully acknowledges making the decision to do so, pressing a kiss to Blaine’s forehead before pressing their foreheads together. “I love you too, Blaine Warbler,” he hears himself say impishly, tongue twisting happily around the old endearment. Blaine grins back at him, looking flushed and excited and his lips are so red.

They kiss, sloppy and languid. All tongues and lips, teeth clacking occasionally, and that should be embarrassing but it really, really isn’t. There’s a tight pressure growing between Kurt’s legs and oh, fuck, he’s horny. But they can’t have sex yet. They really, really can’t or else they won’t get anything to eat or go outside into the fresh air and Kurt kinda reallywants to.

He kisses Blaine one more time, then stands up – and the world doesn’t swing around him quite has hard as it has been. That fact is somehow... disappointing? A grin twists over his face as he pulls Blaine onto his feet, nearly falling over in the process himself.

“Half a joint, and then we go?” asks Kurt, raising his eyebrows in the direction of the little metal box on the ground in the middle of the living room. With a smile that lights up the room, Blaine nods back happily.

--

They’re outside, walking along the suburban street that Kurt recognizes as the one that Blaine’s house is on, and oh, wow, Kurt honestly does not remember how they got here.

“You don’t?” asks Blaine, quirking his head and smiling too much as he always does when they smoke, and it’s nice to know that some things stay consistent after such a period of time. Kurt blinks, and after a moment’s confusion he realizes that he must have said that part about forgetting things out loud.

“No,” Kurt replies, shaking his head doubtfully and looking down at their interlocked hands. Dangling between them, back and forth. Back and forth, like a pendulum. He screws up his face in concentration, wracking his brain. “I mean, if I force myself to think about it, I do know how we got here. We smoked half, put on our shoes, you grabbed some of our stuff, we walked down your front path and now we’re here, but.” Everything around them is swimming in the most delightful way, and focusing on putting one foot in front of the other and talking at the same time is getting very complicated. “But I can’t actually remember doing those things. Does that make sense? I don’t think I’m sense.”

“I don’t know if it’s normal, but you’re sense to me,” says Blaine sweetly, reaching over with his free hand to poke Kurt on the nose. The touch is startling, and Kurt can’t quite figure out what’s wrong with Blaine’s sentence. He’s fairly sure something’s off about it, at least. “You keep losing track of time, and it’s cute, because I don’t do that and I like that you do.” Blaine gives his hand a squeeze and tugs Kurt in a bit closer, humming happily. And –

“Hang on, wait, not here,” Kurt blurts, disentangling Blaine’s fingers from his own. Blaine makes a soft noise of protest. “It’s... not safe. Or something. I know.”

“Oh,” says Blaine, straightening up his posture and nodding seriously. He smoothes a hand through his hair ineffectually, clearly attempting to make himself look orderly. “You’re right, it isn’t. Or something. We’re going into town, right? For food?”

“Yes,” says Kurt in response, waiting for Blaine to walk ahead of him a bit because he actually has no idea at all where they are right now. Each house they walk past looks identical to the ones before and after it – little boxes made of ticky tacky, little boxes all the same – and if Kurt is being completely honest with himself, he probably couldn’t find his way back to Blaine’s house from here even if he absolutely had to.

And something very, very strange is happening. Because he and Blaine have smoked together a few times before, and even as the marijuana had twinged along Kurt’s brain and made things strange and vague, it has never felt as overpoweringas this. He isn’t in control anymore, not really; everything in his line of sight is swaying and funnel-visioned, sunny and clouds and green and yellow leaves and houses along the road feeling so strange it makes his stomach clench. He can barely feel his feet moving beneath him, and all of the outdoors is humming.

It should be scary, he knows. This should feel powerless, and helpless, and frightening.

You took drugs, the rational part of his brain snaps at him, sounding bitchy. A lot of drugs all at once. What exactly were you expecting?

In the past, Kurt has never been very good at letting go of control. He clings to responsibilities and tasks because they make his life make sense. Holding on tight and doing his best to keep control of situations is how he looked out for his dad all these years, how he’s managed to survive everything that’s been thrown at him over the course of his life. He controls how much he eats, and how moisturized his skin is, how he walks and talks and sits and laughs and sings. Letting down that veneer is not only scary; generally, he finds the notion completely unthinkable.

But somehow, here – with the cool, crisp air cooling down the heat and sweat of his body, and with Blaine beside him... it’s all right. They’re together, and they’ll be okay, and they’re going to ride this out just fine. Kurt trusts Blaine to get them through, and he knows that Blaine is trusting him to do the exact same in return.

They’ll hold one another up through this.

His boyfriend is chattering happily beside him about – something, god, Kurt has no idea what – and the sound of him speaking is something for Kurt to cling to in the swirl of his surroundings.

They continue to float their way to town, Kurt following the hum of Blaine’s voice as it bounces and swings in the air.

--

They go everywhere.

At least, it feels like everywhere. All of it blurs together by the end of the day: a mish-mash of places and times that Kurt finds difficult to sort out and label. After a long walk of an indeterminate length of time, they head into uptown Westerville first. Walking along its fairly quaint little roads, past shops and restaurants, Blaine becomes completely enraptured with watching people walk.

(“Kurt. Kurt, I’ve forgotten how to walk like a real person. Is this normal? It feels weird.”

“Oh my god, Blaine, stop, you’re. Like. Shuffling. Just walk like you normally do.”

“I can’t remember how to walk like I normally do!”)

Eventually, they go to get Blaine something to eat at a local burger place; once they’re seated, his boyfriend becomes absolutely resolute that Kurt must order something as well. This turns out to be a blessing, because even though Kurt doesn’t feel hungry in the same way Blaine obviously does the food winds up being unbelievably delicious. Flavours are exciting and tactile and vibrant on Kurt’s tongue, and he’s fairly sure he groans out loud when he takes his first bite what should be a fairly standard cheeseburger. It tastes, everything tastes in the most incredible way, and Blaine shovels back fries as though they’re going out of style as they talk and buzz and taste the food on their tongues.

It feels as though they just get their full plates before they’re empty, and Blaine is reaching across the table and wiping mayonnaise from the corner of his mouth, and Kurt can barely remember the food except that it was beyond incredible, and why doesn’t food always taste this way? Blaine pays for them with his credit card, and it takes Kurt way too long to protest that he can actually pay for his own food. This suggestion gets swiftly shot down by Blaine’s superior logic. (“I swear to god, Kurt, I cannot do math right now. I can’t, don’t make me, just let me do this.”)

Blaine pops into a corner store after that for a minute, but fortunately Kurt is able to entertain himself by sitting on the bench outside and looking at his feet, because Blaine was right and they really are quite amazing. His boots drag in the air, and it’s incredible, because he’s never been able to feel the air around his limbs before. Before he knows it, Blaine’s back, and Kurt’s spent at least – maybe more than? – five minutes watching his feet sway back and forth.

They walk a little way out of town, then, to a large bridge with graffiti spray painted on the underside. The pictures are pretty but it’s all a bit dirty, and Kurt doesn’t understand why they’re there until Blaine pulls out a lighter – the purchase at the corner store, oh – and another one of the joints. They’re coming down, Kurt realizes, blinking up at the treetops. Things are evening out a little bit around the edges, and his isn’t ready for the day to be over yet. Plus, the hint of thatsmell as Blaine pulls out the little white stick makes his mouth water and his throat hurt in the best way possible.

They light up under the bridge like delinquents, passing the joint back and forth until Blaine burns his fingers on the last hit and drops it onto the ground to be crushed underfoot.

After that, Kurt is able to realize retroactively, they are officially high out of their minds.

Time swirls around Kurt in a mockery of making sense, and Blaine chats happily beside him about something as they walk along a road back into town. He thinks. It’s hard to tell, especially when Blaine’s skin looks so weird. Like it’s made out of clay and shaped into a person and painted overtop, and Kurt spends most of the walk staring at Blaine’s forearms.

There is no resisting the fog of it, not anymore. Kurt actually feels a little bit sick, now, as the smoke swirls in his stomach like a physical force. His body feels full with it, overwhelmed, but everything is cool and lovely and soft as the a few yellow leaves spin along their ankles. Plus, he has Blaine beside him; chatting and smiling about one thing or another.

Kurt isn’t entirely sure if Blaine knows what Blaine is talking about, as a matter of fact. Whenever Kurt tunes in, he seems to switch from topic to topic with no proper lead-in either way, and he has no idea if Blaine’s actually making sense or if Blaine is just as addled as he is. He rather suspects the latter.

They’re walking through town, now, and Kurt can recall how they got here even if he can’t quite remember all the parts in the right order, and Blaine is still happily yammering beside him.

“— the curriculum is a little bit easier, for sure, but it’s nice to have some more spare time now and I was actually really surprised when you first did this at Wes’s house, you know? Did I ever tell you? I don’t think I did. Because I didn’t get high on my first time, not at all, and I thought that no one did, but I think you did, Kurt, so yay! You’re a winner, and just over there is a coffee shop, we should totally go get biscotti oh my god –”

“Blaine? Blaine Anderson?”

In complete synchronization, the two of them freeze mid-step as they’re walking along the street. Kurt blinks, hard, trying to focus his attention on the older man waving and coming down the street toward them. He’s greying slightly at the temples, wearing a pair of slacks and a nicely pressed shirt, and Jesus Christ who is he what if he can tell oh my god –

Kurt glances over in distress to look at Blaine – and cannot believe his eyes. Because the droopy, too-happy boy he’s been spending the afternoon with is suddenly and completely gone. Blaine is straightening up, eyes seeming to clear and sharpen into utter comprehension. Something hard and composed falls over his features.

“You’re William Anderson’s son, aren’t you?” asks the man, smiling and extending his hand. “I’m Ed Wright, one of your dad’s business associates. It’s been a few years, you probably don’t remember me.”

Blaine takes the hand in a firm grip and shakes it, smiling in a small, contained way. “It’s lovely to meet you again,” he says, back straight and seemingly in complete possession of his senses. And over the course of the next three minutes the two men in front of Kurt proceed to have a completely normal conversation in front of him.

Oh my god, thinks Kurt in horror, feeling as though he’s watching a train crash about to happen. A few hours ago, he couldn’t tell if he was walking right.

But Blaine doesn’t falter, doesn’t hesitate. The two of them talk, in a completely usual manner, until the older man excuses himself and heads on his way. Blaine holds himself stiff and upright for about a minute after he leaves – before giggling and leaning hard into Kurt’s shoulder, making them both stumble.

“Oh my god, that way funny,” chuckles Blaine, and suddenly he’s back again. He blinks as Kurt continues to stare down at him. “What?”

“Nothing,” says Kurt, but Blaine blinks at him convincingly. There is an almost-realization uncoiling around the edges of his stomach, but it isn’t fully formed yet. He begins to speak anyways. “It’s just... hitting me for the first time. How very, very good you are at hiding your inner lunatic.” Kurt shakes his head in disbelief. “How did you stay so composed when you’re such a... such a... goober, underneath it all?”

“Practice,” Blaine hums happily into Kurt’s shoulder, before gesturing vaguely down the road. “Do you think we should head home now?”

The beating of his heart inside his chest is so much more noticeable than it usually is; a fast-paced thumping that Kurt can feel through his ribcage, through his skin. Blaine is smiling at him broadly, too broadly, the muscles in his face must be strained from sustaining such an unbelievably bright smile. Kurt thinks of the composed boy who just appeared, and of the boy in front of him; absurd and ridiculous, with everything exposed for Kurt to see.

It occurs to Kurt that, yes, Blaine knows him better than practically anyone else in the world. But Blaine has also allowed Kurt the privilege – the joy – of knowing Blaine better than anyone else does, as well. His boyfriend splays himself open for Kurt to see every day; lets that somewhat-rigid and formal wall fall down around his ears and allows Kurt to experience the person inside.

And doing this together – making the world spin, and time stutter, and tasting things in an impossible way – for them, it’s about trust. It’s about trusting one another to see them at their most vulnerable, their most exposed. Trust that they’ll be able to still figure each other out even as the world is edged in blaze, fogged around the edges and swaying in the wind.

All at once and very, very badly, Kurt wants to trust Blaine with something else while they’re like this. Something private, and intimate, and scary and amazing. Wants to be made vulnerable for Blaine in that oh-so physical way, and to know that Blaine will catch him if he falls. Anticipation flutters in his stomach and tightness nudges between his legs as Kurt leans in close over Blaine’s shoulder.

“I want you to fuck me high,” Kurt whispers quietly, ghosting the words over the shell of Blaine’s ear.

His boyfriend stills, turning to look at him with a tentatively thrilled expression on his face. As though Kurt is promising him a gift, and he’s scared to get excited in case he decides to take it away. Blaine licks his lips, raises his eyebrows – and Kurt nods. He wants this, he knows now. Need is simmering beneath his skin, fresh and jumpy and oh, god, Kurtwants.

“Okay,” Blaine responds, and even though his eyes are bloodshot and heavily lidded there is a clearness there that hits Kurt with a jolt to the heart. Blaine licks his lips, breathing out, nervous anticipation buzzing in his expression. “Okay.”

--

The walk back is a complete blur in Kurt’s mind; a haze of footsteps and quickened breath and the heady rush ofexcitement flashing behind his eyelids. When they manage to arrive back at Blaine’s house, Blaine fumbles with the keys in shaking hands for a too-long moment hung in space before they finally manage to push the door open and get inside.

They latch onto one another as soon as they’re through the door, and Kurt is so grateful because the walk back had been so difficult without having Blaine’s hand to hold onto. The whole time he’d felt as though he might slip away without any physical contact to keep him in place, as though the solidity of the concrete could have been pulled out from under him at any second. They kiss in the entrance hall, Kurt’s fingers tangling in the madness of Blaine’s hair as Blaine slides his hands up Kurt’s sweater, his fingertips pressing into the expanse of skin and making Kurt shudder. The world is still swimming, submerged under water and hazy and thick, but the way they touch is a point of reality within the fog.

“Upstairs,” Blaine chokes against his lips after a minute, breath coming hard and voice deep with desperation at having to avoid touching in public for such a long time. They’re used to it, usually, but today the need is so much sharper; every touch so much more necessary. Kurt nods against his lips, and they stumble hand in hand down the hallway, up the stairs, along to the door to Blaine’s bedroom. It gets pushed open with an overly hard shove.

As soon as they’re inside, Blaine’s hands are back on him again. Igniting sparks of keening, aching need as they trail along Kurt’s body, making him arch up into Blaine’s touch hard. Blaine’s mouth is working along his neck when Kurt feels his hands move down from their position on Kurt’s waist. They settle on his ass, clad in jeans so tight they’re almost uncomfortable to wear, and squeeze. Kurt hears himself suck in a breath as he jerks forward frantically, wanting wanting wanting that special ache amid the churning indistinctiveness of his mind.

“Want it,” Kurt groans, reaching up to drag Blaine’s mouth up for a kiss. It’s messy, and hot, and Kurt would be trying to hide the needling desperation better if it wasn’t for the way everything is floating swaying twisting perfect. When they break apart, Blaine stays so close that his breath is warm and tingly on Kurt’s lips. “Want you in me so bad, Blaine, just –please.”

“Okay,” Blaine agrees frantically, nodding hard and making his hair twist and tumble around his face. He reaches down and yanks his own shirt over his head, discarding it carelessly on the floor. “Clothes off, c’mon.”

They strip as quickly as they can, fingers uncertain and heads spinning, although Blaine has to help Kurt with his jeans. Half-guiding, half-shoving him to sprawl with his lean torso on the bed with his legs dangling off as Blaine tugs the snug fabric of his pants and underwear off, over his ass and down his legs and dropping them carelessly on a pile on the ground. Kurt can’t care, can’t even care about wrinkles because he needs this, needs to be exposed and opened up and filled right now. Blaine strips off his socks after that, one at a time, his own erection rosy and proud as it juts away from his body.

When they’re finally – finally – both naked, Kurt grabs hold of Blaine’s wrist and tugs him sharply to sprawl on top of him. Their skin slides together in a slip and sheen of heated sweat and texture that makes Kurt gasp and writhe and dig his short nails into the muscles of Blaine’s back – probably harder than he should, but Blaine just groans in response. It takes a second to line their bodies up the right way, but they find the right position eventually, and oh, god. The friction of their erections sliding up against one another is a grinding rubbing sliding ecstasy of sensation.

Pleasure is spiralling through Kurt’s body in waves, sound and time and space flitting in and out of his perception amid the blissful feel of him and Blaine grinding their bodies together. His mind fixates on strange details; the way Blaine’s hand clenches at the back of his neck, the slip of sweat mixing on their sliding bellies. Clinging onto those tiny touches and wallowing in them, feeling every one to the full extent his mind can manage.

Kurt doesn’t know how long it takes for Blaine to shakily pull away – he’s too far gone to know what time is, could happily spend the rest of his days rutting up into this perfect stunning amazing his boy.

“You’re sure you want to do this?” Blaine manages to ask eventually, chest heaving with want and looking sweaty and flushed. He blinks hard, eyes heavily-lidded and bloodshot and dark as he trails a hand down to twist around Kurt’s cock and makes him keen. And all at once Kurt remembers that there’s more than this, more for them to do and share and have and all at once his body is aching for it.

The initial few times they did this – Kurt still can’t manage to force himself to think of it in any of the clinical or vulgar terms, because it’s so much more between them than any of those words could ever possibly convey – Blaine was the one to allow himself to be so intimately stretched and filled up. Kurt had still been too nervous back then; too frightened from years of being told that wanting to be touched that way was wrong and sick and disgusting to let himself be exposed and taken apart in such a way. There had been a part of him, too, that had held on to the notion that such an act couldn’t possibly be pleasant; it had seemed inherently gross, and unpleasant, and painful.

The first time he’d made Blaine come apart around his fingers, clenching and whining and rocking back onto Kurt’s hand, he’d had to re-evaluate his opinion.

But unlike Blaine, Kurt had never fingered himself as he brought himself off in those most intimate and private moments. Had been nowhere near as stretched and willing and prepared for the sharp intrusion and aching fullness of it as Blaine had been. They had taken their time when Kurt decided he was ready; preparing Kurt over days and weeks, getting him used to what he was given until he wanted more so badly he could barely keep from begging. It’s only been in the past few weeks that they’ve been able to work their way up to everything, and Kurt has only taken Blaine’s cock twice since then.

It doesn’t matter, though. Kurt knows what he wants, what he needs. Needs the stretch of Blaine’s cock, so big and hard and hot inside of him, lighting his nerves on fire and spreading him wide and open and exposed.

“I want it,” Kurt chokes out, nodding hard and grinding his ass into Blaine’s thigh. “Want you to slide into me and fill me up, Blaine, please. Want to feel it, want to feel you. Want to have everything with you.”

Kurt reaches out, hand shaking and clumsy as he reaches out toward Blaine’s nightstand. He knocks something onto the ground, but it doesn’t matter, because a few seconds later his hand is curling around a familiar small bottle. His eyelashes flutter as he hands the lube out to Blaine, sliding his knees up and exposing himself even further in the process. Blainegroans at the sight of Kurt spreading his legs; he nods wordlessly, snatching the lube from his hands and dribbling an obscene amount onto his fingers.

When he actually feels the press of one of Blaine’s fingers against his entrance, Kurt dazedly expects the initial recoil he always feels. His body’s instinctual need to pull away from that invasion where it doesn’t belong. But it doesn’t come. The shock of the touch is beautifully blunted and dulled, and the only sensation that matters is the slick slide as it brushes against him, gently rubbing over the sensitive pucker of his skin. It feels good, and without even thinking about it Kurt pushes down into the touch and forces the finger inside.

“Kurt –” Blaine begins, sounding worried, but Kurt just groans and rocks against that special press inside. He usually takes longer to get ready, he knows, but every jolt and spark of pleasure is highlighted and underlined and bolded in his mind, the usual discomfort nowhere to be found. Kurt grinds his hips down into the touch, wanting more, and Blaine lets out a shuddery laugh. “Sweetheart, you’re taking me so well. So relaxed around me, god. Letting me push right inside.”

Blaine’s finger crooks up, brushing against that special spot inside and Kurt sees stars. “More,” he gasps, grinding his ass on Blaine’s hand and clenching around the finger inside. He can’t remember twisting his hands in the sheets, but they’re tangled up and clenched white nonetheless. “I need it, Blaine, please.”

The touch drags almost fully out of him, and Kurt groans at having it leave – before it’s back again, but better. Fuller, tighter, more, and the slightest ache of it grounds Kurt to the bed, stops him from floating up into the air. He doesn’t feel the sharp burn and stretch of intrusion the way he usually does; it’s all simmered down to nothing, insignificant in comparison to the amazing fullness and solidity of Blaine’s fingers inside of him. Grounding him in place, sliding and rubbing over that place and making him whine up into the air. And when Blaine’s hand wraps around his cock, Kurt’s brain practically shorts out. Rocking up and down into Blaine’s touch everywhere, inside and out and stroking touching havingdestroying him with how good it all feels.

He barely notices when Blaine adds a third finger except to mewl and fuck himself back onto it, arching his neck up and slamming a hand over his eyes and the whole world fades away except for the rocking push of Blaine’s fingers inside. Kurt wants it all so badly; wants to have Blaine’s cock buried inside of him, knowing him from the inside out and taking his own pleasure from this amazing discovery of human physiology.

Kurt has no idea how long they stay like that, Blaine’s fingers pushing in and out and his cock sliding in and out of Blaine’s grip. Something is rushing from the base of his spine to his fingertips, shocking and fast and delicious as it builds. When Blaine eventually slides his fingers out, Kurt can only whine and squirm at the horrible emptiness left behind. He tries to push up, but there is a hand gently pushing down on his chest.

“It’s okay,” murmurs Blaine, reaching over to pluck out a condom from his bedside drawer. “It’s okay, Kurt, almost.”

Propping himself up on one elbow, Kurt leans up and kisses Blaine hard as his boyfriend tears the packet open, as he grips the tip of the condom and slides the rest of it down and over his cock. It’s a rush of tongues and teeth and desperation, and Kurt wants. He wants so badly it’s all that he can feel, twisting and clenching and frantic to be unwound and satisfied.

Once the condom is on Kurt lets Blaine go, lets him grip Kurt’s legs and drag them over his shoulders. For the briefest of seconds, Kurt wonders if he should have paid Blaine some attention; sucked him down or wrapped his fingers around Blaine’s cock, got him ready and hard to bury himself in Kurt’s ass. One look at Blaine, however, sends those thoughts flying away into the haze of the air. Blaine is sweaty and red-cheeked, lips shuddering and body twitching in the way it does when he’s already desperate for it.

A blunt pressure, large and hard and slick with more lube, presses against him and makes Kurt gasp. And then slowly –carefully, and with as much self-control as he is sure Blaine can muster – the head of Blaine’s cock is pushing inside, past the ring of muscle and into his body.

Kurt moans and squirms at the slowness of it, the infinitesimal increase as Blaine pushes in the tiniest amount at a time. He wants to buck up into the press and bury Blaine all the way inside, but he manages to hold back. Gently pushing sliding filling settling until finally – finally –Blaine is all the way in. Pressed right up against him and Kurt feels so full, so plugged up and aching as Blaine claims him from the inside. There is no real pain; pain doesn’t exist in this world of theirs, tangled up in the sheets and the heat of one another. There is only the thrum of their heartbeats pounding in their ears and the frantic need tight and desperate in Kurt’s belly.

“Fuck,” Blaine chokes, eyes slammed shut and trembling. “Fuck, Kurt, you feel like so much.”

“Move,” Kurt mutters back, rocking into the touch as much as he can from this angle. “God, Blaine, please move, I need you to – ah!”

Obediently, Blaine begins to rock his hips – slowly at first but getting quicker, and there is nothing else but this. Nothing else but the wonderful sensation of being full to the brim as his whole body strains and he’s driven out of his mind, harder and faster as Blaine finds his pace and it’s perfect. Every muscle in his body feels as though it’s clenching and unclenching as Blaine fucks him, the slide of his cock incredible, and when Kurt feels him brush against that spot inside he lets his head fall back and practically screams.

Sparks are already shooting up and down Kurt’s spine, pleasure washing through his whole body and overwhelming everything, anything else as Blaine grinds and slams into him. The whole world has narrowed down to the ache of being pounded into by Blaine, and Kurt’s entire body is on fire with it.

There’s a noise filling up the room; a high, desperate keen that Kurt realizes abruptly as him. It’s so much, too much; his toes are clenching as liquid heat spools hot and real in the base of his spine, and then Blaine reaches down between them and wraps his hand around Kurt’s cock, jerking once, twice –

– and he’s gone, mind completely lost as he goes spinning into the night. Coming hard and real and so soon, electricity washing over him and waking up every cell and nerve in his whole body. That tight heat uncoiling, spiralling through him as his throat vibrates in a scream he can only barely hear, Blaine’s cock slamming into him and making starbursts flare behind his eyes. It’s better than his mind can comprehend, mad and frantic and the world blurs out as he rides it all out, every last bit of pleasure in the haze.

His orgasm ends but the bliss keeps thrumming through him with every continued thrust, gasping and twisting as Blaine keeps fucking him. Kurt lets his eyes flutter closed as he drifts on the continuous buzz of pleasure, as Blaine thrusts in hard and fast and over and over until he groans, stilling and grabbing Kurt’s hips as he comes deep inside of him, buried in Kurt’s body, and Kurt opens his eyes just in time to watch Blaine’s face twisted up so gorgeous in the basest of pleasure.

They stay together like that – panting, their bodies slick with sweat and trembling from aftershocks – for a long, long time. Eventually, Blaine shudders and pulls himself out; the emptiness makes Kurt let out a little exclamation, but it isn’t earth-ending in the same way it was. His body is loose, so loose and sated and boneless as Blaine extracts himself from their tangle of limbs. Without opening his eyes, Kurt can hear the wet sounds of a condom being removed and tied off, and then the papery noise of a tissue being extracted from a box and wrapped around it.

There is movement on the bed, and then Blaine is collapsing next to him with one arm sprawled over Kurt’s stomach.

“That was...” murmurs Blaine, sounding thunderstruck. His boyfriend lets out a long, shuddery breath. “Kurt. That was... god, I love you. I love you so much, I could feel how much I love you.”

The words don’t make any sense, but they don’t have to. Kurt tangles his hand in Blaine’s hair, nodding. He feels groggy in a way he doesn’t generally after orgasm; thick and heady, and he can barely keep his eyes open.

“I love you, too,” Kurt returns, and in a few brief moments he can already hear Blaine dozing gently beside him. A contented sigh escapes his lips – he can’t feel anything but contentment like this, well-fucked and thrumming and murky – and Kurt closes his eyes allows himself to drift on the pleasant tingle of the memory of pleasure and the sweet float of the world. Even from the black behind his eyelids, Kurt can feel everything in the room in such an emphasized and intensive way. Every tiny movement Blaine makes, the bounce of the bed, the smallness of their bodies in the expanse of the room.

There will be more times like this, for the two of them. More hours and moments spent fogged with desire and desperation or the sweet coil of smoke or both, wrapped up and learning one another as the years pass by and what they have keeps on growing and changing into what they need it to be. There will come a time when the every-so-often elusive twist of sticky sweetness around their senses is no longer wanted or needed; when the dull intensification of their senses no longer holds the appeal it used to.

But for now...

For now they lie, young and sated and happy and whole, wrapped around one another in the softness of the sheets. Two boys lost in love and the hazy, illicit drift and one another; two hearts beating and two bodies buzzing. Clinging together through the night as sleep clears their minds and time slides back into place, and the world ever-so-gently settles back down around them.