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The air flowing through the open windows of Blaine’s car as he drove through Lima was beautifully dry and warm in contrast to the oppressive heat and humidity that had made every performance at the theme park throughout the summer feel like he was singing in a sauna. Today had been his last day there, and it wasn’t just nostalgia that made him think it had been one of his best shows; he’d also been able to breathe without a struggle and hadn’t been absolutely soaked with sweat by the end of the first song. He’d enjoyed the job, but since today’s weather was unique for the summer he wouldn’t miss it at all.
He was smiling as he turned down Kurt’s street, the wind soft against his face and dragging through his hair. There was something about driving away from the commitment that had dominated his summer that reminded him of the first time he’d ever driven on his own, his license fresh in his wallet and the other seats in the car shockingly empty. He couldn’t remember where he’d gone, probably somewhere as simple as to the store to pick up some milk for his mother, but he remembered the utter liberation he'd felt getting in a car alone and just leaving. For the first time in his life, Blaine could have, if he’d wanted, kept going and going with no parents to stop him. The world had been spread out before him to explore. He’d felt as light as a feather. He’d felt like an adult. He’d felt free.
He felt that way now, the weight of his performance schedule finally off of his shoulders and no school ahead for another week and a half. Except this time, he wasn’t driving away; he was driving to, to Kurt’s house, to Kurt. It had been a busy summer, but they had a week and a half without their jobs getting in the way or schoolwork burdening them. They had a week and a half of freedom. He pressed down on the gas a little, just to get there a few seconds faster.
There was a semi-familiar car parked out front of the Hummel-Hudson house, but Blaine’s usual spot behind Kurt’s car in the driveway was open. He had to smile to himself that he had a usual spot at all.
When Blaine shut off his engine he saw that his boyfriend was already out front waiting for him. Kurt was sitting on the steps, leaning back on his hands with his long legs stretched out before him. He was still as a statue, looking up at the sky, and Blaine drank in the sight of him. He was perfect, all long and lean, his dark jeans and smoke-colored shirt showing him off to his best. His profile was exquisite, the whole of him posed as sharp as a photograph, except that it wasn’t posed; it was just Kurt.
Blaine knew with the power of a blow to his gut and the sharpness of a shard of glass that he would remember this image of him for as long as he lived. If they were together until they were grey this would always be his Kurt. It might be one of many Kurts he’d collect as they matured, but this one was his now and forever. It stole the breath from his lungs.
Then Kurt turned his head, and the clarity of the moment was broken. As Blaine opened his door, Kurt stood and smiled, brushing off his jeans. He went from untouchable to welcoming in an instant, and Blaine fumbled his keys, almost dropping them to the cement instead of tucking them into his pocket, in his eagerness to get to him. Kurt had a gift of stillness that Blaine had never learned; he waited patiently on the path as Blaine all but skipped over.
“Hi. I’m sorry I’m late,” Blaine said, too aware of it being a sunny afternoon in Kurt’s front yard on his busy suburban street to lean in for a kiss or even to take his hand.
“That’s all right. It’s a nice day.” Kurt lifted his face up to the sky again, and Blaine followed his gaze. It was clear and beautiful, the sky bright blue and studded with a few fluffy white clouds scudding along on the breeze. Blaine found his eyes drifting back down again, though, back to look at Kurt, drawn like iron to a lodestone, inexorably, like a force of nature. The corner of Kurt’s mouth lifted when he noticed, and he gestured with his shoulder toward the house. “Come inside.”
Blaine was greeted with an explosion of sound when the door opened, an explosion of explosions, actually. Finn and Puck were sitting in front of the television, game controllers in hand, headsets on their heads, and their attention on the screen.
“Suck lead, Artie!” Finn crowed and mashed the buttons of his controller. A volley of gunfire and a strangled death sound came from the television speakers.
“Mike’s over at Artie’s, and they’re playing over the internet,” Kurt explained, watching the two boys on the couch. “Apparently this is more fun than being in the same room?”
It actually did look pretty cool. “This way they can’t cheat by seeing each other’s viewpoints on the screen,” Blaine said.
Kurt turned an incredulous expression on him.
“What? Dalton is a boys’ school, Kurt. I’ve played a lot of video games with my friends.”
“It’s a good thing I was a day student,” Kurt said and started toward the kitchen.
The sound was only marginally quieter in the kitchen, but at least there was a hint of privacy, enough that Kurt reached for Blaine’s hand and tugged him in for a soft kiss that went on a lot longer than Blaine might have expected, given the company not that many feet away. Not that he was complaining, because Kurt’s lips were as enticing as always, and the familiar taste of his mouth made Blaine feel itchy and hot like he was back out in the full glare of the summer sun. Somehow the only thing that felt like it would soothe the itch was more kissing, so he nudged Kurt back against the counter, slipped his hands up Kurt’s spine, and dipped deeper into his mouth as Kurt sighed into him like it was just what he wanted, too. That response made the kiss that much better, because for all of their differences the rightness of their connection never failed to take Blaine’s breath away.
Finn and Puck whooped and cheered in the living room, and for one delirious moment Blaine thought it was for their kiss. He blinked up at Kurt as he pulled back, and Kurt laughed and rested his forehead against Blaine’s.
“As nice as that was, the ambiance could use some improvement,” Kurt said with a hint of apology.
“We don’t have to stay right here,” Blaine said.
“It’ll be nearly as loud in my room,” Kurt said, sighing. “I suppose we could put music on, but it would also have to be loud, and then Finn will just come up to complain.”
“No, not again.” Having been a bystander in the bitter music wars of the Hummel-Hudson house over the summer, Blaine wasn’t really eager for another round. If nothing else, it wasn’t conducive to a quiet afternoon, and that was all Blaine wanted. Well, not all, but neither he nor Kurt was particularly eager to abuse Kurt’s parents’ trust by trying to push their physical relationship too much further in rushed, stolen moments with Finn in the house.
“We could go out,” Kurt suggested, but Blaine was shaking his head even before the words were finished. He loved going out with Kurt, but they had to be so very careful about what they did and where they were, and Blaine was flying too high on his temporary freedom to want to lose that feeling.
Kurt’s shoulders fell a little, but he said, “Explosions it is.” He looked around the kitchen as if searching for an answer. “I suppose we could start on dinner, or I could start on dinner and you could sit and tell me about your day. Despite my best efforts, your knife skills are not yet good enough for you to learn to chiffonade.”
It was a good idea, but it wasn’t good enough. Then Blaine had a flash of brilliant, perfect inspiration. “I have a better idea,” Blaine told him. He took Kurt’s hand in his and pulled him toward the back door.
“Oh, god, not the hammock,” Kurt said as Blaine led him outside into the yard, but he didn’t actually dig in his heels.
“Come on, I’ve been giving in all summer when you’ve been saying it’s too hot, and today it isn’t.” Blaine toed off his shoes and wiggled his bare feet in the grass like he used to when he was a kid. It was soft and springy between his toes.
Kurt looked between him and the wide hammock with narrowed eyes before lowering himself onto a lawn chair and unfastening the buckles of his boots.
It took a minute or two for them to get settled on their backs in the hammock; Kurt was as graceful as a cat as he climbed in, but Blaine had to settle for being proud of not tipping them both out onto the grass. Once they were in place, though, it was as easy and comfortable as anything to lie there next to Kurt, their sides pressed against each other and their bare feet touching. Blaine was in a pair of cargo shorts like he’d been wearing on his off hours for months, and the denim of Kurt’s jeans felt strange against his skin after a summer of Kurt in crisp tailored shorts with long legs available to touch where his clothing left off.
“See? Nice,” Blaine said, and Kurt made a little “Mmm” that wasn’t disagreement.
Blaine linked his fingers together with Kurt’s between their bodies and squinted up at the sunlight-dappled leaves above them as his eyes adjusted to the brightness. The tree was still summer-green, but the leaves had a dry look to them, like the tree was pulling in in preparation for the autumn ahead. It wouldn’t be long until the leaves burst into reds and yellows before falling to carpet the ground and making every step a sussuration of rustling and crackling beneath their feet. Not today, not tomorrow, but soon. It would be fall soon.
Fall meant school and responsibilities, big choices and so much work to do, but it also meant new beginnings. It meant Senior Year. It meant college applications and putting their hopes for the future into envelopes and waiting, waiting to see what would come to be. It meant the start of the end of high school and a big step toward the infinite possibilities afterward for him, for them. It was beginning and endings twisted together, and for once all of the changes ahead didn’t feel too big to handle, not with Kurt here beside him. They just felt exciting.
“Thank you,” Blaine breathed, letting his gaze lift into the sky, soaring past the tree, past the clouds, just up and up, unfettered and unburdened. His hand was in Kurt’s, but his mind was in the atmosphere.
“For what?” Kurt asked, turning his head to brush the tip of his nose against Blaine’s cheek. The touch made Blaine rise higher, faster, until he was dizzy with vertigo.
“Everything.”
Kurt made a soft, amused sound and squeezed Blaine’s hand. “As much as I might like it, I’m not actually in charge of everything.”
“Just the important parts.”
Blaine could see Kurt smile out of the corner of his eye. “Well,” Kurt said fondly, “I won’t argue with that.”
A breeze rustled through the leaves, making the sunlight dance around them and sparkle in the shifting glimpses of sky between the branches, and Blaine lost himself in it for a moment. He was dazed and dizzy, almost drunk with sunlight and Kurt and possibilities.
“You’ve gotten tan this summer,” Kurt murmured, turning onto his side and rising a little onto his elbow. His voice and the gentle sway of the hammock pulled Blaine back a bit closer to himself. He blinked and focused on Kurt’s face, as stunning as the sky above them. “It suits you.”
“You haven’t,” Blaine replied with a grin. He traced the slope of Kurt’s nose, pale as ever.
“I should hope not. But then, even without the liberal use of sunblock I don’t tan. I freckle and burn and then freckle some more.”
“So I’ve heard. I’m kind of sorry I didn’t get to see it.” Blaine dotted invisible freckles across Kurt’s nose.
Kurt batted his hand away and trapped it against Blaine’s chest. “Oh my god, Blaine, do you actually want me to get skin cancer?”
Blaine laughed and felt his chest bubble with the joy of having Kurt so very close. “Of course not. But how I can I kiss every freckle if you don’t have any?”
Kurt’s eyes went a little hazy, and he swallowed before replying. Mesmerized by the movement of Kurt’s throat it took Blaine a minute to realize Kurt said, “I’m sure you can find other things to kiss.”
“Oh, yes,” Blaine said huskily, and he cupped Kurt’s neck and drew him down.
The first gentle touch of Kurt’s lips made the parts of Blaine still soaring in the clouds snap back into his body like a stretched rubber band being released. He’d been light and airy, and now he was as solid and real as he’d ever been. The rush of freedom was no less, but now it was the freedom to kiss, to touch, to taste, to draw Kurt’s lower lip between his and receive a quiet gasp in return, to feel the pulse in Kurt’s throat racing beneath his thumb, to rub his fingers in the soft hair at the nape of Kurt’s neck. It was the freedom to be kissed by Kurt, to be touched by him, to be wanted by him.
“I love you,” Blaine said, because he had to. He had to tell him. He had to love him. He didn’t have a choice. How he could ever have thought he’d end up anywhere but here he didn’t know.
“Blaine,” Kurt said, fisting his hand in Blaine’s t-shirt in the middle of his chest, leaning closer and fitting his leg atop Blaine’s, solid and warm. The next kiss was harder, deeper, and Blaine couldn’t stop himself from moaning into it. Kurt made a pleased noise in reply, and then they were kissing with no room for Blaine to think of anything else. The sun glimmered beyond Blaine’s closed eyelids, but the brightest thing in the world was Kurt, bright, beautiful Kurt who was touching him like he was the thing Kurt prized most in the world. Caught up in it, Blaine could almost - almost - believe it, but he knew Kurt did, and that was even more amazing.
“Love you, love you,” Blaine whispered against Kurt’s mouth, cupping his face with both hands and kissing him hard.
“Shh, I know. I love you, too,” Kurt murmured and kissed him back. He slipped his hand beneath the hem of Blaine’s shirt to rest on his stomach, making Blaine’s entire body twitch from the heat of the contact. The touch of Kurt’s palm was like a shock, which was crazy because Kurt had had his hands under Blaine’s shirt many, many times this summer, but it was. It felt new and incredible, overwhelming and insufficient all at once.
“Okay?” Kurt asked with concern when his hand inched upwards and Blaine jerked again.
“Yes. No,” Blaine protested and put his hand over Kurt’s when Kurt stopped moving, pressing Kurt’s palm hard against his stomach to keep him from drawing away entirely. “It’s okay. It’s great. It’s perfect. It’s wonderful. Don’t stop. It’s okay. I’m okay. It’s okay.”
His eyes dark, Kurt smiled down at him and said, “Look at you. You, the suave, charming, self-assured Blaine Anderson, are babbling.” He sounded so proud of himself that Blaine couldn’t take offense. Besides, he was right.
“It’s your fault,” Blaine told him with a smile of his own. His muscles beneath Kurt’s fingers tensed and released without his conscious control. “You’re touching me.”
“I could say it was yours,” Kurt replied, his thumb sweeping across Blaine’s skin in gentle strokes. “You’re the one who’s letting me.”
Blaine drew in a shaky breath and let his eyes flutter closed. “I could never want to stop you.”
Kurt was silent for a moment, and his voice was hushed when he spoke again. “Thank you.”
“What?” Blaine blinked up at him, trying to understand the sudden gravity in his gaze. “You don’t have to thank - “
“Shh,” Kurt said again and slipped his hand up to rest over Blaine’s heart. The trail of his fingers left sparks across Blaine’s skin in their wake, and then his mouth was hot on Blaine’s again, firm and focused. Blaine didn’t even try not to get lost in the magic of his lips and tongue, the drag of his hand over his chest and stomach and sides as it mapped the lines of his body.
Blaine didn’t have the same success getting to Kurt’s skin; his shirt was soft but firmly tucked into his clinging jeans. He still made Blaine’s blood thrum despite the layers of cloth between him and Kurt’s strong and supple frame, but it wasn’t the same as all of the access Blaine had been able to enjoy during the hot days of summer when shirts had sometimes been worn loose and shorts ended by the knee. In the depths of his mind, he was a little disappointed, but with Kurt so close against him he couldn’t really be upset.
There were lines they didn’t yet cross, and they were outside in the middle of the afternoon with the sun like a floodlight and the hammock in clear view of the kitchen windows, so there was only so high they could let themselves soar, wrapped up in each other. Blaine was feeling the increasingly urgent pull of some hazy definition of more, he guessed by the way Kurt’s fingers lingered low on Blaine’s stomach that he was, too, but they both were all too aware of reality to let it go too far where they were. So as the sounds of the neighborhood slowly filtered through to them, they began to back off, their kisses becoming longer and lazier, less heated.
“I would like you to keep your I told you sos to a minimum, but the hammock was a good idea,” Kurt said, nuzzling against Blaine’s cheek. His eyes were closed, and his voice was husky.
“Yeah.” Blaine waited a minute, letting his breathing settle and the ache of want receed just a hair more. “I told you so.”
Kurt laughed softly and pulled his head back a few inches. The smile lingered on his lips as he watched Blaine’s eyes.
Blaine skimmed his fingers up the side seam of Kurt’s shirt and said, “You look fantastic, but is it wrong that I’m already missing you being a little less buttoned up and tucked in?”
“Yes,” Kurt told him. “Fall is my favorite fashion season. You are going to be awed by my outfits.” He trailed his fingers thoughtfully down Blaine’s bare forearm. “But, you know, I don’t always mind if you muss me up a little,” he admitted.
“Wow.” Blaine was fairly certain his jaw hadn’t dropped, but it was a close call.
“I hope you recognize that for the honor that it is.”
Blaine nodded and swallowed back his heart in his throat. “You really do love me.”
Kurt smiled at him and cupped his chin, skimming the pad of his thumb across Blaine’s lower lip. “I do.”
“I know,” Blaine said softly.
Kurt gazed into his eyes for a long, contented moment more before turning onto his back and letting out a long breath as he looked up into the leafy canopy of the tree shading them. “I may be itching to pull out my autumn scarves, but I’m not quite ready for the summer to be over.”
Finding Kurt’s hand and twining their fingers together again, Blaine said, “It isn’t. We have a week and a half more.”
“Which we will be spending together.”
Blaine’s heart leapt at the thought. “Yes.”
“And then it’s our Senior Year,” Kurt said, squeezing Blaine’s hand with excitement.
“And then...” Blaine could see his - their - future spread out before him, as wide and wonderful as the sky above them.
“Everything,” Kurt breathed.
“Everything.”