The Important Thing Now Is That We’re Naked And We’re Friends

Pairing: Kurt/Blaine
Rating: R
Word Count: 4,700
Notes: Post-4x14; Kurt and Blaine become long-distance FWB.

“Don’t you think it’s a bit impractical to have a friend with benefits that you have to fly in from Ohio?”

“It’s not a problem; Blaine has frequent flyer miles.”

~

~

Kurt believed that it was basic roommate etiquette to inform your roommates when you were going to be entertaining company of the bed-squeaking variety. That was why Sunday evening, settled back into New York after having spent the weekend with Blaine, over a dinner of leftover wedding appetizers that Santana had snuck through airport security (the top tier of the wedding cake was in the refrigerator. Kurt felt bad about it, but not enough to stop him from making designs on it), Kurt informed Rachel and Santana of what had transpired after the wedding reception (sparing the details, obviously) and how he and Blaine were going to proceed.

Santana snorted very indelicately when he was done. “It’s just like you to pick your dopey high school sweetheart as your on-call booty instead of a dance major who’s hung like a moose and lives near a taco place so that he can bring fast food with him when he comes over.”

“Blaine would bring fast food if we asked him to,” Kurt said.

“Kurt,” Rachel said, patting him on the arm to get his attention. “Don’t you think it’s a bit impractical to have a friend with benefits that you have to fly in from Ohio?”

“It’s not a problem; Blaine has frequent flyer miles,” Kurt said, standing up from the table and clearing off his plate.

“For once, I think Santana’s right; you’re making this needlessly difficult. Brody—”

“Oh, no,” Kurt interrupted her hurriedly. “I am not becoming the third peg” (“Wanky,” Santana supplied) “in whatever weird open relationship web you and Brody have going on. There are some things that friends shouldn’t share.”

“I wasn’t going to suggest that!” Rachel pouted. “I was going to say that Brody knows people. He knows Chippendales, Kurt. I can hook you up with a literal conga line of oiled men.”

“Thank you, but no thank you. I’m not interested in oily men,” he said, putting his dishes down in the sink with a definitive clink.

“Then what are you doing with Blaine?” Santana asked.

Kurt wished that stepping into his bedroom (or, the corner of the apartment that served as his bedroom) and pulling the privacy curtain shut had the same finality as closing a door.

“Even the most expensive vibrator would be cheaper than air fare!” Santana added, her voice not at all muffled. “Hell, for a dollar-fifty you can ride the washing machine downstairs.”

Kurt pursed his lips, collapsed into his bed, and pulled a pillow over his head. He definitely needed to take a look at his lease and see if they were allowed to put in walls.

~

Kurt slept restlessly, distracted by thoughts of Rachel’s fuzzily-defined non-exclusivity with Brody, and the incredible awkwardness there had been when Finn had shown up at the door while they had been on a date, or how upset she’d been about him and Cassandra.

Ambiguity was nobody’s friend.

He finally rose, made himself a cup of tea, and dragged his comforter and phone out onto the fire escape. Since Santana had moved in, it was the place that he could be guaranteed privacy. He called Blaine and as soon as he picked up said, “We’re being exclusively casual.”

“What do you mean?” Blaine asked sleepily. Probably because it was five-thirty in the morning. Kurt held his mug tight between his knees as he pulled the quilt closed around his chest. The edge of it bunched up around his neck and covered the hand cradling his phone.

“I mean, we’re friends with benefits now.”

“Yeah,” Blaine said; then, intrigued, “is this a morning boner thing?”

“No,” Kurt said. Stress woke him up early and flaccid, and sitting out in a New York February didn’t help things along. “I just wanted to… We’re being casual, but we’re only being casual with each other. You aren’t going to sleep with one of my teachers.”

“How would I sleep with one of your teachers?”

Kurt shrugged, not that Blaine could see it. The blanket slipped off his shoulder and he took his time readjusting it. “I mean, I don’t know. You go to school with Mr. Martinez.” It was damned unfair that that man hadn’t join the faculty until Kurt was half done with his senior year.

“I take French,” Blaine said.

Kurt sighed, because that really wasn’t the point.

“I’m not interested in Spanish at all,” Blaine said, sounding faintly amused but still mostly sleepy. “What about your non-exclusive?”

“What? Oh,” Kurt said. He’d forgotten all about Adam. “No, he and I aren’t… benefiting.”

“Okay,” Blaine hummed, and there was a snuffling noise like he was nuzzling into his pillow. “Well, being casual with you takes up a lot of time, you know. I think it would just be too much work to be casual with someone else, too.”

“Yeah,” Kurt agreed. “I would have to get a planner and coordinate things, and planners are the opposite of casual.”

“Mm-hmm,” Blaine said. It sounded like he was drifting back out of wakefulness. “And how would I decide who got what highlighter color? I don’t need those kinds of complications in my life.”

Kurt was getting that gut tingle between his heart and his groin that he got when Blaine just understood things. “Do you want to come over tonight?” he asked.

“Yes,” Blaine said, immediately lucid.

~

Kurt didn’t have class until ten, but he left for school early to track Adam down. It wasn’t hard; Adam liked to hang around the student coffee shop and spy on the people looking at the club flyers. Kurt ordered a coffee to help with the lack of sleep he’d gotten, and then sat down to join him.

“Hey, Kurt,” Adam greeted him pleasantly. “How was the wedding?”

“I hooked up with my ex,” Kurt blurted.

“…Oh,” Adam said, looking taken aback.

“We’re not back together,” Kurt added. “But we are… spending more time together.”

Adam laughed at that. “How much time can you spend together when he’s in Ohio?”

“He’s coming over tonight.”

“But… it’s Monday,” Adam said, frowning. “And isn’t he still in high school?”

“Yes.” Kurt sipped his coffee. “He’s going to catch a red-eye back.”

“So he’s going to get off of school, get on a plane for two hours, arrive at your place and fool around, get back on another plane for another two hours, catch a few hours of sleep, and then go back to school tomorrow morning.”

“Exactly.”

Adam looked more flummoxed than ever. “That’s pretty weird, Kurt.”

Kurt pursed his lips. It was very straight forward, he didn’t think everyone needed to sound so incredulous when they said it out loud. “And, you should know, I’m not going to fool around with anyone else.”

Adam leaned back in his seat, plainly waiting to see what Kurt said next. Kurt cleared his throat and explained, “Physical intimacy is something that I don’t engage in unless I know someone very, very well.”

“So what you’re saying is sex is a big deal for you, and that’s why you’re having casual sex with your ex-boyfriend.”

“Precisely.”

“Okay,” Adam said. He still sounded a little incredulous but not especially upset or angry. His eyes were sliding toward the flyers. “Well, you’ll stay on with the Apples, right? We’re working on a ballad version of ‘My Humps’ that will blow your mind.”

“Sure,” Kurt agreed, and told Adam the very few non-dirty anecdotes he had to share about the wedding as he finished his coffee and waiting for class to start.

~

“They confiscated my lube,” was the first thing that Blaine said to Kurt when Kurt rolled open the door at his knock.

“What?” Kurt asked. It was a very good thing that the apartment was empty. Rachel was off with Brody somewhere (Kurt didn’t ask because he didn’t care) and Santana was sampling New York’s nightlife (Kurt didn’t ask because the possibilities were terrifying, and he was just glad that she was out of the house. She spent most of her days shut up in her room, listening to telenovelas, which had even more yelling and slapping than English soap operas).

“At the airport,” Blaine reported unhappily. He was wearing a fetching ensemble, casually sexy and comfortable for air travel, and the only luggage he had with him was his satchel. He stepped into the apartment, and Kurt wheeled the door closed behind him and latched it. “I forgot that the bottle was larger than the carry-on regulations and they took it from me.”

“Oh,” Kurt said. He was faintly amused by how forlorn Blaine looked. “It’s okay, Blaine, I have lube.”

“Oh, good,” Blaine said, perking right up. “I really want to fuck you.”

Kurt pulled Blaine into his bedroom by the lapel, dragged him down on the bed on top of him, and set about getting his cock out and inside of him straight away.

Afterward, with the pillows and comforter strewn across the floor, and the two of them cuddling under the sheets in the middle of the bed, Blaine glanced across the room and said, “You have a floor-length mirror. You should fuck me in front of it.”

Afterward, collapsed in a pile on the nest they’d made of the discarded pillows and comforter, Blaine—who was lying on his back—stared upside down at the third corner of the room and wondered, “How sturdy is that chair?”

Afterward, Kurt sat with his back resting against his bed, his rubbery legs propped up in Blaine’s lap. Blaine kneaded at them idly with his thumbs as he rested his own back against the broken chair, and his smile was bright in the dim room.

“I love having sex with you,” Blaine divulged.

Kurt reached out and squeezed the closest part of Blaine, which happened to be his ankle. He had some indistinct thoughts about hauling it up into the air. “I love having sex with you, too,” Kurt said.

“We should take a shower together,” Blaine said. “Then nap a little. Then I need to get back to the airport; my flight leaves at one.”

~

“And you kidding me?” Kurt huffed out in frustration against the back of Blaine’s head. Blaine made a wobbly noise, but Kurt almost couldn’t hear it over the sounds that were coming from Rachel’s side of the apartment; grunting noises that Kurt had no interest in hearing. “He sounds like a pig digging for truffles,” Kurt grumbled to Blaine, who let out a muffled laugh. Muffled, because Blaine had been literally biting a pillow to keep his own noise level down, because he was a courteous house guest.

“I try to be a good roommate,” Kurt said, pushing up onto his fists and lifting his torso up (which resulted in a consequential push down of his hips, deeper into Blaine’s ass, and Blaine’s eyes fluttered and he let out a soft sound of pleasure, “but they make it very difficult. When I can hear them over my white noise machine and you, that’s a problem.”

Over in Santana’s corner of the house the volume rose on her telenovelas, presumably to drown Brody and Rachel out.

Blaine’s shoulders, pressed tight into the mattress, shrugged helplessly as the sound of a cat fight filled the apartment, and Kurt grit his teeth.

“Okay, that is it.” He grasped Blaine—not harshly, but not softly either—by the chin and turned his head so that his mouth was clear of the pillow. He leaned down to kiss him, and Blaine’s lips puckered obligingly underneath his, before he braced his forearms against the mattress and thrust his hips forward hard.

Blaine, always blessedly quick on the uptake, didn’t try to stifle the moan that it shook out of him, and soon Blaine was crying out so high and loud that Kurt not only couldn’t hear Brody’s unappealing slurping noises, he forgot all about them staring down at Blaine’s blissed-out face.

“We definitely have to establish some roommate rules,” Rachel huffed the next morning, arms crossed irritably at the breakfast table. She’d been waiting to ambush him as soon as he emerged; he’d stayed up with Blaine until he had to leave at three, and then slept in.

“Oh, so now we’re establishing a code of conduct? But when Brody’s rubbing his naked butt on my property, I’m being ‘inconsiderate’ when I lay down fly paper?”

Santana strolled into the apartment, loaded up with groceries. She pulled out a black marker and began labeling them with “PROPERTY OF LOPEZ, EAT AND REGRET IT” and other threats as she put them away.

“Santana,” Rachel said, rounding on her, “don’t you agree that we as roommates should coordinate what evenings we entertain men—or women—because not all of us are exhibitionists?”

“Blaine and I are not exhibitionists,” Kurt denied, more to be contrary than anything else.

Santana rolled her eyes.  “Do you really think I’m going to sacrifice my orgasms for either of yours? Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get back to my porn.”

Rachel and Kurt both gaped at her a moment before Kurt said, “That’s what you’ve been watching?”

“I’m unemployed and I’m not in school; what did you expect me to do all day?” Santana asked, strolling back into her room.

“Use headphones!” Kurt shouted at her disappearing back. She gave no indication that she’d heard him.

Rachel let out a long-suffering sigh and then turned back to Kurt. “Kurt. It’s not that I’m not happy to have Blaine here, you know, if you are. But I think you’re being a little ridiculous. Blaine’s been over three nights in the past week.”

“So?” Kurt asked. “Brody’s over here every night.”

“Brody lives here!” Rachel shook her head. “Why don’t you just plan to have him come and stay during a weekend, and Brody and I can go out somewhere.”

Kurt sighed. “We’re casual, Rachel, we don’t ‘plan’ these things.”

~

Blaine did end up spending a weekend. They spent it in bed, eating delivery food, catching up on TV shows, and giving each other blowjobs.

“Oh, hey,” Blaine said the middle of Sunday morning while Project Runway was dragging, wrung out for the moment and laying his head on Kurt’s chest. “I didn’t tell you, I got my finalist letter for NYADA.”

“That’s great,” Kurt said, his head cushioned on his left bicep as he watched Blaine toy with his nipple. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” Blaine said with a grin. “But I wanted to ask—the dorms are almost as hard to get into as the school itself, so I ought to be putting my name into the lottery now. Unless I don’t stay in the dorms.”

“Oh?” Kurt asked mildly.

“Well, I was just thinking, you’re not there, and it would be a bit of an inconvenience to go from the dorms to your place and back every night. And I’d hate to take up one of the dorms and then not sleep there.”

“You should move in here,” Kurt said. “I mean, if we were sleeping in the same bed, that would make this casual sex thing even more convenient.”

“Those were my thoughts exactly,” Blaine said, planting a kiss on Kurt’s pectoral.

Kurt inhaled, breathed deep the not-unappealing scent of Chinese food and sex, and said, “We’re still just friends.”

“I know,” Blaine hummed. “We can get bunk beds if you’d like.”

Kurt laughed, his chest shaking underneath Blaine’s chin. “Best friends,” he amended.

Blaine’s lips quirked into a grin and he pressed another kiss to Kurt’s chest. His lips lingered, and then started wandering downward, and Kurt pushed an encouraging hand into his messy hair.

Kurt thought he could definitively say after that weekend that blowjobs never got boring.

~

Being snowed in was an interesting experience. Brody got trapped out, which Kurt would have been more than fine with except Rachel was in a tizzy about it, and he would take Brody over an anxious Rachel any day. Santana was rolling her eyes but otherwise ignoring them as she picked through strips of shredded paper, rearranged them, and glued them to a piece of cardboard. Kurt was afraid to ask what she was doing. He was pretty sure that it included blackmail. He couldn’t say for sure whether or not he preferred it to when she’d been sitting around the apartment all day secretly masturbating.

He’d made plans with Blaine for him to come over that evening, but the snow storm had unfortunately dashed them. Kurt was a little let down, naturally, and getting stir-crazy because he didn’t have anything else to do to occupy himself except watch Rachel pace and wonder if Santana would have mob connections by spring.

There was a knock on the door.

Everyone exchanged confused looks, because of the whole being-snowed-in thing.

“It’s some neighbor coming by looking for a handout,” Santana said suspiciously. “Don’t give them anything, people are like raccoons. If you don’t spray them with a hose when they come around, then they’ll think they’re welcome.”

“They are welcome, Santana,” Rachel argued.

Kurt got up to answer the door, since it seemed doorman duties had somehow become his responsibility. His eyebrows shot up when he pulled it open and saw who was standing, hunched over, on the other side.

“Blaine?”

“Hey,” Blaine said. Both of his hands were stuffed into his armpits and he was shivering. “Can I come in? It’s pretty cold out here.”

Kurt stepped aside and Blaine hurried into the room. It couldn’t have that much warmer, really, considering the cost of heating such a large open space kept it on the cool side, and that all of Blaine’s clothes looked wet with snow.

“How the hell did you get here?” Santana asked, her eyebrows arched high.

“I waited around at the airport until it stopped snowing and they let the planes through,” he explained. “I guess they clear the snow out there before they get around to residential areas.”

“So how did you get here?” Santana pressed. “Because there’s a whole lot of white outside and nothing else.”

“I walked.”

“You walked,” she repeated flatly.

“It’s not like it’s that far, really.” Blaine made an unhappy face. “I did have to use my satchel as a shovel for a bit, though, and I’m afraid the leather’s ruined.”

“Did you see Brody out there?” Rachel asked anxiously.

“Sorry, no.”

“I’m so worried,” Rachel said, wringing her hands. “What if he’s out there without a shirt?”

Blaine looked over at Kurt hopefully. “Uh, Kurt—could ‘benefits’ also include you making me tea? Because I could really use some.”

“Yeah, of course,” Kurt said, putting the kettle on before he grabbed Blaine’s elbow and directed him towards his room, whipping the curtain closed behind them. He turned toward Blaine and said in a low voice, “Get out of your clothes.”

“Can I have the tea before we get to that?” Blaine asked politely.

“Oh my God, Blaine, I mean take off your wet clothes before you catch a cold and get under the covers,” Kurt said, rolling his eyes and taking Blaine’s coat from him as he fumbled the buttons open with stiff hands and started to shrug it off his shoulders. “Of course you can have some tea first, you’re making me sound like a bad sex host.”

“Sorry, I don’t mean to,” Blaine said, unwinding his scarf and draping it over Kurt’s outstretched arm. His teeth chattered a little bit but the smile he gave Kurt was warm. “You’re the best.”

Stripped down to his undershirt and boxers, Kurt pushed Blaine under the covers and exited the room. He calmly took Blaine’s wet things and hung them over the line they had set up over the heater to dry, and then went to the closet and pulled out all of the spare throw blankets that they had stashed in there.

“So he tunneled his way here?” Santana commented. “Wow, Kurt, you’ve got yourself a literal sex bunny.”

“He casually tunneled his way here,” Kurt insisted. “It’s not like he rented a snowblower or something.”

Blaine was sitting up in bed when Kurt returned, the comforter wrapped around him like a cloak; he even had it drawn up over his head like a hood. Kurt draped a few over his lap and tucking them in around his legs, and wrapped another two around his shoulders. Blaine let out a relieved sigh and squirmed underneath them as the tea kettle whistled.

Santana and Rachel were both giving him looks like they had it all figured out when he emerged. He ignored them and poured a mug of tea with as much poise as he was capable before he went back into his bedroom.

“Yay,” Blaine said, brightening when he saw the mug. He held the edge of the blankets up and said, “You should get in with me and help me warm up.”

Kurt handed him the tea and slipped in behind him. They moved carefully so that they didn’t jostle the mattress and spill it, and then Kurt finally settled down between Blaine and the headboard.

“Hmm,” Blaine sighed happily, leaning into him. He cupped the tea in his hands and held it close to his face. “Sorry, my fingers are freezing right now. I’d offer you a blowjob, but my nose is kind of running and gross.”

“Ssh,” Kurt said. He laid a hand low on Blaine’s belly to steady him as he leaned over to the bedside table and grabbed a tissue for him. Blaine blew his nose gratefully as Kurt slid his hand lower and dug his fingers under the elastic of Blaine’s underwear, where he found Blaine already stiff and hot.

“Already?” he breathed into Blaine’s ear as he wrapped his hand around his silky shaft and slowly drew up.

“Well, I thought I should keep the blood circulating while I was out there, so I thought of you,” Blaine whispered. His grip tightened on his mug of tea and he tried to press his hips up a bit to encourage Kurt. “I believe you saved me from frostbite.”

“Hmm, you’re welcome,” Kurt murmured, nipping a little at Blaine’s cold earlobe as he began to stroke him in earnest. It didn’t take long at all for Blaine to come, breathing heavy but muted.

Blaine offered him the tissue and Kurt wiped off his hand. He leaned back into the headrest, pulling Blaine by the stomach until he was lying comfortably between his legs, elbows folded over his hips.

“I didn’t expect you to make it,” Kurt commented, resting his chin against the side of Blaine’s head.

“My cell’s reception has been pretty spotty,” Blaine said. “And I thought it would be a nice surprise.”

“The best,” Kurt said. “Sorry about your satchel.” He pressed a kiss against his neck. “Finish your tea, and I’ll make it worth the sacrifice.”

~

Thursday evening, three weeks to the day of the wedding that wasn’t, Kurt was idly straightening his bedroom as he waiting for Blaine to arrive. He smiled when his phone rang, thinking that Blaine was calling to flirt during his cab ride over, and he picked it up with a cheery, “Hello.”

“Kurt, I’m so sorry,” Blaine said in an agitated rush.

Kurt frowned. “Sorry about what?”

“I got detained at the airport.”

“Did you have trouble checking in or something?” Kurt wondered. That was strange, because it wasn’t as though printing a broading pass was difficult, and Blaine never bothered to check luggage—on the rare occasions when he needed to be wearing clothes and he couldn’t put his own back on, he just borrowed something of Kurt’s.

“No, I mean I got detained.”

Kurt sat down on the edge of his bed, eyebrows furrowing further in confusion. “What?”

“Apparently they thought it was ‘suspicious’ that I’ve flown to and from New York eight times in the last three weeks, only stayed there for a few hours before flying back, and only ever had a carry-on bag with me. I told them I was just hooking up with my ex-boyfriend but they didn’t think it was a believable story for some reason and hauled me into their back rooms for questioning.”

“Oh my God,” Kurt said.

“So, I’m sorry. I missed the flight. I’d send you a picture of my dick to tide you over, but I don’t think exposing myself right now is the best idea.”

“You’re not in a holding cell right now?” Kurt asked for clarification.

“Oh, no, I ducked into the restroom. They called my parents and Mom came in and corroborated my story, and then they let me go. But I don’t think I should fly out so often. I’m sorry.”

“Blaine, I don’t care about your dick right now, okay?” Kurt huffed, exasperated. “I don’t want you to get thrown in jail trying to see me.”

“Yeah, I know,” Blaine said. “Conjugal visits aren’t sexy.”

Kurt bit his lip and decided to say nothing. There was a time and a place to discuss expanding role-play scenarios.

“I can look into train fare. It’s pretty lucky that the Lima train takes you straight to Grand Central. The problem is that the train takes about eighteen hours, so coming over for an evening is going to be slightly more difficult.”

“Blaine…” Kurt sank backwards on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.

He hadn’t felt bad about the travel fare, because Mr. and Mrs. Anderson didn’t care, or the missed school, because McKinley’s curriculum wasn’t exactly what one would call “demanding.” And he would admit there was a part of him that found it very gratifying to see the lengths Blaine would happily go to to see him. But this was something a tad more serious. “You don’t have to stockpile time with me, okay?”

Blaine’s voice was gentle, deferential, and hopefully leading all at once. “Oh?”

Kurt licked his lips, but—it was too much to say. Too much to know, too soon.

It wasn’t that he didn’t believe the sincerity of Blaine’s regret. He trusted that Blaine still loved him, that he would always answer Kurt’s call if he was in need. Hell, he even trusted that Blaine would deliver cookies if he asked for them. He knew that Blaine was not a naturally self-serving or cruel person. He wouldn’t still love him if he were. None of that was the problem.

It was that he no longer knew if he could have faith in Blaine’s faith. He didn’t know what Blaine’s conviction was worth. And if he couldn’t trust in that, he didn’t know the wisdom of trusting in any of it.

So there was nothing that Kurt could do but wait. Either Blaine would waver, or he wouldn’t. And either Kurt’s heart would find that steadfastness satisfying, or it wouldn’t.

“I’m not going to say goodbye to you,” he said instead, and trusted that Blaine would take that for what it was.

“Okay,” Blaine said, in that breathlessly delighted way that made Kurt’s heart tingle.

“Anyway,” Kurt said, folding an arm back and resting his head on it. “Spring break is coming up, and I thought I’d come see Dad. We should go to the theater while I’m there, see another double feature,” he said. A nice, dark, empty theater.

“That sounds wonderful.”

“As long as I’m not keeping you from your studies. The last thing I want to do is make you miss so many hours of school that you fail to graduate,” he flirted.

“I’m sure I can fit in some studying.”

Kurt’s lips curled into a smirk. He needed time, but he was going to make sure he enjoyed spending it.