Blaine blinked at the airport monitor in disbelief. Canceled. His flight had been canceled. After four hours of delays and promises, it had all come to nothing.

The clear blue sky deepening into evening colors belied the chaotic situation inside the airport. A major snowstorm had been moving in from the midwest, threatening to blanket the Philadelphia / New Jersey / New York area with up to a foot of snow. But somewhere in the middle of Pennsylvania the storm had taken an unexpected turn to the north and moved up to Albany and Boston instead. The airport was nonetheless a disaster. Planes from the midwest had never made it off the ground and so never arrived here to head back or elsewhere. Planes that were here already couldn’t go to the midwest, which was still digging out, or to points north, which were now feeling the brunt of the storm. Planes that had been diverted north to wait out the storm were now stuck in it. And so thousands of people were stranded, in perfect weather.

“Blaine? Blaine!” He turned around and there was Kurt, rolling a suitcase behind him as he walked down the corridor. “Are you stuck, too? My flight just got canceled. I was supposed to be on the 3:00 to Columbus.”

“I was on the 1:00 and yeah, it was canceled,” Blaine said glumly.

“Come on then,” Kurt said. “Let’s see what they can offer us.”

An hour later they’d been issued new boarding passes — Kurt’s for the following afternoon and Blaine’s for the morning after that. Blaine sank glumly into a chair. “The dorms are closed. Padlocked for the winter break. And I’m sure all the nearby hotels are booked full by now. I guess I’m sleeping two nights in the airport.”

Kurt sat down in the chair next to him. “Did you check any bags?”

“No, why?”

“It’s only a ten hour drive. We could be there before either of our planes is scheduled to leave.”

“Are you kidding?” Blaine gaped in astonishment.

Kurt tapped on his smartphone for a few minutes, checking routes and road conditions. “We can do this. Two and a half, maybe three hours tonight, we’ll stop somewhere past Harrisburg whenever we start to see snow on the ground. Roadside motel for the night, and by morning the roads will be clear all the way to Ohio.” He actually sounded excited, Blaine thought. “You up for this?”

“Sounds like an adventure,” Blaine said. “Let me just call my parents, tell them what’s going on.”

Kurt waited in line to buy sandwiches while Blaine made his phone call, and in no time they had gotten Kurt’s car out of the long-term parking lot and were cruising down I-76 West in the dark.

Blaine plugged his iPod into the car stereo. “So, what kind of music do you listen to?”

“Well, stereotypically, I adore Broadway,” Kurt said. “But if you’re talking about pop music, I was basically paying attention from around 1995 to 2005.”

“Hmmm,” Blaine said. “I don’t have much from that era. I have some 80s stuff, and some disco…”

“I’m not that old,” Kurt complained.

“I could introduce you to some new stuff,” Blaine suggested. He clicked on his “Recent Favorites” playlist.

Kurt listened for a moment. “I’ve heard this one before, but I don’t know what it is.”

“Raise Your Glass, by Pink,” Blaine supplied.

“The band is called Pink?”

“Actually just the singer, she goes by Pink.”

“Are there other band members named Teal and Lime? Like the Spice Girls?” Kurt teased.

“No.” Blaine was not amused.

“Ooh, or they could be rival bands, and have epic color battles!”

“No offense, but you’re kind of a nerd,” Blaine said.

“I’m a professor,” Kurt said. “I’m supposed to be a nerd.”

Blaine put up with the teasing comments about his musical tastes for nearly an hour, and then switched to his “Classic Rock” playlist. Nobody could argue with the Beatles and Elvis.

“Looking forward to seeing your parents?” Kurt asked after a while.

Blaine sighed. “Not really.”

Kurt turned to look at him for a moment. “You don’t get along with them?”

“It’s nothing terrible,” Blaine said. “They just don’t get me, you know? They have this idea of who they want me to be, and they basically ignore everything that doesn’t fit.”

“Like what?”

“Like majoring in theater. My dad wants me to major in math and take over his financial consulting business someday. And I’m actually good at math, it’s something I could do, but all the finance stuff is just so boring to me. He doesn’t understand how much I love performing. He thinks it’s stupid, a waste of time, unrealistic. Or when I came out…” Blaine stopped.

“They don’t like that you’re gay?”

“They … well, they know enough to understand that they can’t change me. So they accept it, I guess. They just never talk about it, after I came out we’ve never had another discussion or even mentioned it in passing. They never asked if I had a boyfriend, or tried to talk to me about sex, or even asked if it was creating problems at school. Not quite that they thought it would go away if they ignored it. More like they just don’t like thinking about it, so they’ll ignore it as long as possible.”

“I’m sorry,” Kurt said. “That must be difficult for you.”

“I don’t want to whine and complain about it,” Blaine said. “There are so many gay kids with way worse family situations.”

“That doesn’t make your situation any easier for you,” Kurt said.

“Yeah … so anyway, we’re just not close. Spending three weeks at home, well, it’s not the worst thing ever, but I’m not looking forward to it, either. It would be better if Cooper were there, my brother, but he’s spending this Christmas with his girlfriend’s family.”

“Wait,” Kurt said. “Cooper Anderson? Didn’t he go to Dalton Academy?”

“Oh my god, you know my brother?” Blaine was horrified.

“I wouldn’t say I know him, but I met him once,” Kurt said. “I was in the McKinley High glee club, and he was in the Dalton Warblers, two years ahead of me. The other guys in glee convinced me to sneak into Dalton one day and spy on what the Warblers were doing. I actually stopped Cooper on the staircase and asked him for directions, and he took me by the hand and led me to the room where they were performing. I had no idea he was their lead singer until he opened his mouth and started crooning ‘Truly, Madly, Deeply.’ You know, the Savage Garden song? He was incredible. I felt like he was singing right to me. I kind of had a crush on him for a while. Never spoke to him again after that, though. I saw him at Sectionals but we didn’t have a chance to talk. Wow. I can’t believe that was your brother!”

Blaine was glad that the darkness hid the look on his face. The thought of Kurt having a crush on Cooper was mortifying, and filled him with jealousy at the same time. “I remember him practicing that song,” Blaine said softly. “I was eight years old.”

Kurt banged his head backward against the headrest. “Damn, you make me feel old sometimes.”

They saw snow beside the road about twenty minutes after passing through Harrisburg, so they took an exit marked with a ton of chain motel signs near Carlisle. They picked the one with the easiest parking lot access and were given adjoining rooms even though they had not asked for them.

Blaine opened his side of the adjoining door and knocked on Kurt’s. Kurt swung the door open, revealing an identical room in mirror image, the heads of the two beds placed against the same wall.

“Sorry,” said Blaine. “I’ve always wanted to do that. I’ll leave you alone now.” He started to close the door.

“Want to watch some TV or something?” Kurt asked.

They ended up in Blaine’s room, watching a marathon of an old season of America’s Next Top Model. The TV was oriented directly toward the bed, but Kurt declined to sit there with Blaine. Instead, he moved the armchair as far toward the bed as it would go, but he still had to crane his neck at an odd angle to see the screen. They were having a great time making fun of the contestants until Kurt suddenly yelped in pain and brought his hand up to his neck.

“I told you not to sit like that,” Blaine said.

“Thanks,” Kurt said, rubbing his neck. “That’s very helpful. Um, ow?”

“Okay, then let me actually be helpful,” Blaine said. “I’m really good at massages. My mom always gets really tight in her neck and shoulders when she’s under a lot of stress at work, which is basically always. I used to give her massages all the time.”

Kurt’s face flushed slightly. “I don’t know, maybe if I just sleep on it, it’ll go away by itself.”

“Kurt,” Blaine said. “That looks really bad. Just sleeping won’t relax it enough. You have to drive for at least six hours tomorrow. You’re going to be miserable if you don’t fix this. Now sit up here on this bed right now and let me help you.”

Kurt couldn’t really argue with that, so he climbed up on the bed cautiously and sat cross-legged, facing the TV, trying to keep his attention focused directly on the screen. Blaine knelt behind him, tentatively feeling the knot in his muscle, pressing gently on the surrounding muscles and tendons, working out the best place to start.

“Um,” Blaine finally said. “Your collar is in the way. Would you mind, uh, taking this shirt off?”

Kurt cursed silently to himself and unbuttoned his shirt, taking it off to reveal a thin white undershirt beneath.

Blaine was as good at this as he had claimed. His hands were firm and confident on Kurt’s skin. He rubbed gentle circles around the knot in Kurt’s muscle, slowly, with just the right amount of gentle pressure. Kurt hissed at each moment of pain, but they always ended with a tad more relaxation than had been there before. Blaine worked slowly, methodically, pressing from the knot outward toward Kurt’s shoulder with more and more force as the muscles became able to bear it. His hands slid back and forth between the skin of Kurt’s neck and the fabric covering his shoulders, careful not to catch on the edge of his shirt. When the pain was nearly gone, Blaine paid some attention to Kurt’s other shoulder as well, to avoid the strange unevenness that would come from a one-sided massage. Kurt’s head fell forward and he forgot the television entirely, soft moans escaping his lips despite his attempt to maintain mental distance.

Blaine had one hand on each of Kurt’s shoulders. He was kneeling upright now, his torso barely an inch away from Kurt’s back. He leaned into the movements, pressing with most of his body weight to erase the last remnants of stress and strain from Kurt’s body. His thoughts flew to scented oils, lavender or vanilla or maybe a hint of cinnamon, and how smoothly his hands would glide across Kurt’s back if he’d take his shirt off, the vast expanse of creamy white skin beneath his fingers, how it would draw Blaine’s attention downward to…

Blaine stopped suddenly and removed his hands, realizing all at once where his mind had taken him. Kurt seemed jolted back into reality as well.

“Uh, wow,” Kurt said. “That was … thank you. I, uh, I feel much better now. Um, where’s my shirt?”

“Right here,” Blaine said, picking it up from the bed beside him and handing it to Kurt.

Kurt stood, holding the shirt awkwardly at his waist. Blaine’s eyes widened slightly. Could Kurt have gotten hard from the massage? No, Blaine thought, no way. It was just the weird situation, not knowing what to say to each other. That would be why Kurt was standing in such an awkward position. That must be it.

“I’d better go get some sleep,” Kurt said, blushing. “Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.” He disappeared through the adjoining doors, closing his own behind him. Blaine didn’t hear a lock click, though.

Blaine stood and closed his own side of the door, but decided not to lock it either. He turned off the lights and the TV and stripped out of his clothing, tossing it carelessly on the floor before sliding naked under the covers of his bed, the bed that Kurt had just been sitting on moments ago.

In Blaine’s fantasy, when he finished the massage, Kurt turned and kissed him softly on the lips. He guided Blaine down onto his back, leaning over him. Their clothing magically disappeared — it was a fantasy, what the heck — and Kurt’s kisses fell all over Blaine’s neck and shoulders and chest. Kurt swung his leg over to sit straddling Blaine and leaned down, pressing their bodies close. They rocked together, kissing, licking, sucking, until they came in the same moment, calling out each other’s names and holding tight together.

Blaine hoped that the walls were thick enough to muffle the gasps of pleasure as he came into his own hand.

On the other side of the wall, Kurt struggled out of his tight pants, sighing in relief as his erection sprang free. He really hoped Blaine hadn’t noticed. He folded the pants neatly and tossed his shirt and other clothes into a laundry bag before collapsing onto the bed naked, face-down.

In Kurt’s fantasy, the massage didn’t end. Blaine slid Kurt’s t-shirt over his head and worked his hands down his spine, inch by inch, pushing Kurt to lie down when he got to places too low to massage sitting up. He pulled off Kurt’s pants and underwear in a smooth motion, massaging his ass and then down his legs. Kurt shivered from the cold and the imagined touch. When Blaine finally reached all the way to his feet, he suddenly returned, his hands spreading Kurt’s ass, pressing in not with his fingers but with his cock. There was no prep or condom or lube — it was a fantasy, what the heck — just Blaine, insistently pushing into him, inside his body, filling Kurt up and making him scream with pleasure.

Kurt came, rutting against the mattress, without touching himself. He groaned into the pillows, hoping that the walls were thick enough to hide the noise.

Kurt rolled to his side. He fell asleep holding a pillow in front of him, his arms wrapped gently around it, his head buried in the crevice between the pillow and the mattress, pretending not to be alone.

Inches away but on the other side of a wall, Blaine set one of his pillows on the bed parallel to his body. He settled on top of it, on his stomach, his head resting on the pillow and his hands tucked just underneath. It almost felt like another person, he thought, as he drifted off into a restless sleep.

* * *

The great thing about a road trip, Kurt thought the next morning as they got into the car, is that you don’t have to make a lot of eye contact. Because after last night, looking straight at Blaine would have been pure, embarrassing torture. What they needed was something to take their minds off it entirely.

“Have you got any musicals on that iPod?” Kurt asked. “I think we could use something happy and mindless to sing along to this morning. If you don’t mind.”

“Yeah, absolutely,” Blaine thumbed through his alphabetical list. “Avenue Q, Chicago, Evita, Grease, Hairspray—”

Kurt’s eyes lit up. “Oh my gosh, Hairspray! I love that show, but I haven’t listened to it in years. All the songs are so upbeat and funny, it just makes me want to dance. Let’s listen to that one, it’ll be better than coffee for waking us up.”

“Are you sure?” Blaine asked. “Some of the lyrics are kind of, um, racist.”

“It’s in service of the art, Blaine,” Kurt said, slipping into his lecturer voice. “Hairspray is a satirical yet serious look at important civil rights struggles, with a message not only of societal acceptance but also personal self-acceptance. Plus, it’s got fashion, food, and John Travolta in drag.”

“Hard to argue with that,” Blaine said. He pressed play, and the drumbeat immediately put grins on both of their faces. Half a minute in, they simultaneously burst out with the lyric “Good Morning, Baltimore!”, then collapsed into giggles.

Kurt was vamping it up, all awkwardness forgotten. “Oh, oh, oh, look at my hair, what ‘do can compare to mine today?” Blaine reached up and flipped a strand of Kurt’s hair, and Kurt playfully batted his hand away, laughing.

They continued that way, trading lines, switching parts, singing together more often than not, as they cruised down the freeway. The sky was clear, the road was dry, and the piles of snow to the sides grew progressively higher as they made their way west.

Fifteen minutes later, Kurt was singing solo again because the part was higher. “I can hear the bells,” he sang slowly along with the recording. “Well, don’t you hear ‘em chime? Can’t you feel my heartbeat keeping perfect time, and all because he—” The song paused only for a single beat, but it stretched for ages in Kurt’s head as he consciously remembered what the lyric was. He frantically searched for a way out, but found none. Finally, a hundred years later but perfectly in time with the song, he whispered the line. “… touched me.”

Kurt fell silent, staring straight ahead, not daring to breathe or move, as Tracy Turnblatt sang out her heart’s fantasy of dating and eventually marrying the most popular boy in school. Turning off the music would make it worse, he thought, because there would be no distraction. They just needed to get through it and move on to the next song, and it would all be forgotten.

Kurt turned bright pink when he heard the line, “Round three is when we kiss inside his car. Won’t go all the way, but I’ll go pretty far.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Blaine turn to look nervously out the side window.

Kurt had a moment of hope when the song ended, but quickly remembered that the next song, “Ladies’ Choice,” was a montage of thinly veiled sexual innuendos. He spent the next two and a half minutes contemplating the possibility of just opening the car door and throwing himself out into the middle of the freeway. He eventually decided against it. At least the song was blatantly hetero, he thought.

The song after that one finally offered some relief by being safely non-relevant. Kurt started breathing again. Blaine managed to look out the front window instead of the side again.

“Maybe we should have stuck to Disney musicals,” Kurt managed to joke. He and Blaine glanced at each other and exchanged embarrassed smiles. It felt okay again, somehow. Mostly.

Just in time for the next funny, upbeat dance number. Blaine led off this time, using his showmanship to make the song completely non-personal. “Hey Mama, hey Mama, look around. Everybody’s grooving to a brand new sound. Hey Mama, hey Mama, follow me. I know something’s in you that you want to set free. So let go, go, go of the past now. Say hello to the love in your heart. Yes, I know that the world’s spinning fast now. You’ve got to get yourself a brand new start.”

Kurt joined in. “Hey Mama, welcome to the ‘60s!” They grinned at each other, having fun again.

Kurt took John Travolta’s lines, much to Blaine’s amusement.

* * *

Blaine gave Kurt directions to his house in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Columbus. Mr. and Mrs. Anderson greeted them at the front door. Blaine shook his father’s hand, and his mother gave him a half-hug. Kurt raised his eyebrows at the formality and lack of warmth, but nobody noticed.

“Professor Hummel, I presume,” Mr. Anderson said. “Thank you so much for rescuing Blaine from the non-snowstorm. He’d still be at the airport if you hadn’t offered him a ride.”

“It was my pleasure,” Kurt said, putting on a friendly smile. “It’s always better to have a driving companion than to do a long trip on your own. And please, call me Kurt. It’s just Professor Hummel for the students.”

“Can we offer you some coffee, Kurt?” Mrs. Anderson asked. “Or just come in, stretch your legs, get out of the cramped car for a while?”

“That’s very kind of you, but I really would like to get home to Lima as quickly as possible,” Kurt said. “We just stopped for lunch an hour ago, and it’s less than two hours from here.”

“All right then,” she said. “Drive safely.”

“Thank you,” Kurt said. He turned to Blaine. “Have a good holiday. I guess I’ll see you back at school in a few weeks.”

Blaine nodded, and he looked like he wanted to speak, but he didn’t. They shook hands awkwardly and Kurt turned back toward his car. He drove away, reviewing the last twenty-four hours in his head, and felt Blaine’s eyes following him until he rounded the corner at the end of the block.

* * *

Kurt’s reunion with his family was as full of joy and hugs as ever, but his thoughts kept returning to Blaine. His parents had seemed to act so coldly toward their own son, almost treating Kurt with more friendliness than Blaine. He wondered what it would be like to grow up in a family like that, misunderstood, with few or no expressions of love. His heart ached, thinking about the lonely Christmas that Blaine must be facing.

“What’s the matter, Kurt?” Carole asked over dinner. “You look like your mind is far away from here.”

“Oh, nothing,” Kurt said. “Just lots going on. This semester has been incredibly busy. I really can’t believe how much work there is.”

“Come on, kid, I know you better than that,” Burt said. “What is it? A new guy in your life, maybe?”

Kurt tried to act nonchalant, but he could feel his face flushing pink. “No, nothing serious.”

Carole shot him a knowing look.

“Okay, fine, there’s a guy I kind of like. But nothing will happen. It’s impossible.” He speared a piece of chicken with his fork. “How is business at the garage?”

His attempt at deflection completely failed. “Another crush on a straight guy?” Finn teased. “I thought you outgrew that after high school.”

Kurt sighed. “No, he’s not straight. He’s …” Kurt looked down at his plate. “He’s a student, okay? I like him, I admit it, but nothing can happen. It’s a dead end. Can we talk about something else?”

“Sorry, kiddo,” Burt said. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

“It’s okay,” Kurt mumbled. “So, what’s new in Lima?”

Finn snorted. “Is anything ever new in Lima?” But he was nonetheless full of stories about their old high school friends getting married and divorced and arrested, a new Italian restaurant opening up that everyone said was better than Breadstix, plans to build a new city hall, and on and on.

* * *

Kurt sat in the desk chair in his old room that night and looked around. The room was almost exactly the same as it had been when he was in high school, even now, more than ten years later. The furniture was all the same, the linens and comforter just as he remembered, and sentimental items that his father would never part with decorated the shelves and walls. Coming home always made him nostalgic for his childhood. Sure, things had been hard sometimes, but his father had always been there to protect him and make him feel safe.

Burt Hummel had done an admirable job of recognizing that his son had become an adult and shifting their relationship by degrees to more and more independence. But there was still always fatherly advice and protection to be had, when Kurt sought it out or even when he didn’t. “You need to get this thing sorted out in your head,” Burt had told his son privately, after dinner. “About the student. You seem confused. You need to sit down and figure out exactly what you need to do.”

He was right, of course. So here Kurt was, sitting down, trying to figure out what to do.

This shouldn’t be too hard, he thought, if he approached the problem head-on without hiding from it. After all, he basically thought about stuff for a living. He should be good at it by now.

Hard Truth #1: I am attracted to Blaine. I am so, incredibly attracted to Blaine. He is one of the hottest guys I’ve ever seen in real life, and … okay, point taken.

Hard Truth #2: Blaine is a lot younger than me. Eight years younger. But that’s not such a huge age difference, when it comes down to it. He’s an adult, and not even just barely, he’s twenty years old. If we were thirty and thirty-eight, nobody would blink an eye. But twenty and twenty-eight is not quite the same. Age differences seem bigger when you’re younger, somehow. It means we’re at different life stages. So, this is not great but not terrible either.

Hard Truth #3: He’s a student. He’s my student. Having that kind of relationship — a physical relationship, an intimate relationship — with your own student is completely unethical. And not only that, it’s a violation of school policy. I could get fired for hooking up with him, if anyone found out. Even if they didn’t find out, it would be wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Very wrong.

He’ll only be my student for one more semester…

Wrong. Fired.

The best solution here is to remove all temptation. Stop spending time with him. Stop thinking about him. Stop putting myself in situations where stuff might happen. Just cut it off, end it. Mercedes was right.

Hard Truth #4: It’s not just physical attraction. I really like him. I really like his company. He’s a good friend, and good friends are hard to find. It would be a big emotional loss for me to stop speaking to him.

But necessary.

Wait a minute. This is not all about me. What about him? What about Blaine’s feelings?

Hard Truth #5: Blaine needs me for emotional support. He just came out a couple of months ago and he’s still coping with what that means for him. His family is no help, he hasn’t talked to me much about his college friends, and he seems to be turning to me as … I don’t know, a mentor and a friend? A safe person to talk to? Just somebody he can be himself around? How can I turn him away? It would be cruel.

Am I rationalizing?

I don’t think so. Okay, maybe a little bit.

I am a mature, responsible adult. I can have a friendship with a guy, even a guy I am attracted to, without turning it into a sexual relationship. I should talk to him, sit down and make it clear that we can only be friends, nothing more. And then we’ll keep it at a safe distance.

Okay. That’s what I’ll do.

Kurt stood up and set about getting ready for bed, studiously not thinking of Blaine.

* * *

“What’s wrong, Blaine?” Rachel asked when she picked up the phone to answer his call that night. “Is your Christmas vacation that bad already?”

“I think he likes me,” Blaine said in a rush.

“What? You mean Professor Hummel? What happened?”

Blaine quickly related the events of the past two days to her. “So we spent a lot of time alone together and it was … I don’t know. Comfortable and easy sometimes, and crazy awkward at other times. I really think he likes me, I don’t know why else he would act that way. What should I do?”

“You have to find out for sure,” Rachel said.

“How?”

“Well, you could ask him outright,” Rachel said. “But he’s likely to get embarrassed and lie if you do that. Besides, it’s kind of middle school to go up to someone and ask, ‘Do you like me, or do you like like me?’ If I were you, I’d just kiss him and see what happens.”

“Have I mentioned before that you give terrible advice?” Blaine asked.

“And yet somehow you keep asking me for more,” Rachel said. “I have to go help make the latkes for our Hanukkah party. Have a great holiday.”

Blaine hung up the phone and started getting ready for bed, wondering what it would feel like to kiss Kurt.