Carry Me Home (Tonight) (epilogue)
Title: Carry Me Home (Tonight) (epilogue)
Author: blasthisass / goldenwarbler
Rating: up to NC-17
Summary: As disagreements continue to rage in the Anderson household, Blaine is forced to spend his evenings behind a bar to pay his way through OSU. It’s not an ideal solution, but the money is good and he manages well enough. That may very well change, however, when the interested gaze of Kurt Hummel, self-proclaimed resident bad-boy, lands on him. And it seems that Kurt doesn’t have the word ‘no’ in his vocabulary.
Previous Chapters: Here
Disclaimers: No one is mine. Move along now.
Warnings: none for this chapter
Spoilers: None
June 3, 2012
Cass brushed a stray hair behind her ear as she ducked down behind the bar to grab a pair of clean glasses, twirling them around expertly before filling them and pushing them across the bar to the receiving party, accepting payment with a grin. As the counter cleared of college students in need of being served, she let out a relieved sigh and leaned back against it, pulling her hair loose from its ponytail and brushing her hands through her curly blonde strands in order to remake it. Her bangs fell into her eyes only to be flicked back as she turned her gaze to the stage, eyes twinkling in the lights illuminating the artists on it.
Almost as though he could sense her looking, Blaine looked from the crowd he was performing to her, his eyes twinkling in the lights and the smile on his face widening. She tried to keep the fond grin off her face as she took a sip of water, her shoulders swaying to the beat of the music, but there was something about his energy, about the joy that he always brought to stage with every performance. It was captivating to watch, the way they’d all built themselves up after Blaine had been inspired to take his life back in his own hands.
It was funny, really, the way she hadn’t quite noticed the moment when he’d become less than himself, but he’d certainly blown her away when he’d come back.
She glanced up and down the bar, making sure there was no one that was looking for her to actually do her job, but the whole of the bar was fixated on the band performing. She felt something proud burning in her chest as she observed them, the way even the seemingly disinterested ones were tapping at their bottles to the beat, the glowing light shimmering in their eyes as a result of something far more than the lighting of the bar.
Her gaze paused on one observer in particular, freezing as he eased his way through the crowd, his gaze directed at Blaine, and slid into a barstool. He leaned an arm along the wood of the bar, his muscles flexing under the blue-grey of his shirt-sleeves, rolled up to rest just above the (elbow, the smooth line of his jaw casting dramatic shadows across the open collar of his shirt as he gazed up at the stage.
He shocked her, actually, because she hadn’t seen him for months and she barely recognized him. The look in his eyes twinkled with all the blues and greens that had always been captivating to both her and Blaine (though up to a point Blaine would have never admitted it), like the shimmer of sky-blue over the sea-green of an ocean. But the look she knew was cold and hard. Calculating and determined. Kurt watched the stage now with a softness that translated directly into every muscle, every cell of his body, from the affectionate crinkles around his eyes to his right leg as he carelessly crossed it over his left, the hand not holding his chin up resting on the ankle of the boot that delicately clung to his calf. Long, nimble fingers tapped to the beat of the rock song sounding throughout the room and a sudden, inappropriate thought flashed through her mind as to what else those fingers could possibly be doing.
She inhaled sharply through her nose and shook her head, the bangs that had been brushed aside falling back across her forehead as a result. She wondered how in the world he heard her over the sound of the music but he turned his head to look at her, his eyes flashing in a brief expression of recognition and one thin eyebrow raised critically.
“Sorry,” she muttered, standing up a little straighter, partially because there was something about his gaze that required it and partially because she was too proud not to. “Can I get you a drink?”
Kurt didn’t answer for a long time, the fingers of one hand still tapping to the beat of the song, which ended and a new one began during the stretch of time that Kurt watched her. He blinked as the change brought about a calmer, slower piano tune and rather than reply he allowed it to distract him, pulling his attention to the keyboard to the left of the band set-up.
Cass opened her mouth to tell him off in some sort of clever manner that she was sure would have come to her as soon as she spoke, but it was the expression on his face that stilled her, the warmth in his affectionate smile as Blaine introduced the song over its opening melody wholly shocking to her. It was the slow purse of his lips, as though he were trying to hold back explosive emotions, that made her look back on the past couple of months and Blaine’s explanations of the development of their relationship with a new certainty, a new warmth.
It was the melody of the song that she remembered Blaine telling her that he simply couldn’t find the proper words to, the one that had haunted him for weeks before he gave up on it, telling her he’d even misplaced the sheet music and whatever new versions he wrote just didn’t quite compare.
You've been on my mind
I grow fonder every day,
Lose myself in time
Just thinking of your face
God only knows
Why it's taken me so long
To let my doubts go
You're the only one that I want
Kurt blinked and glanced over at her suddenly, as though he’d forgotten that they’d been speaking and he smiled further still, if it was possible, his eyes twinkling in the near-darkness.
“Just a Coke for me, thanks.”
“Don’t tell me Blaine’s weaned you off the alcohol, because I’d hoped it’d be the other way around,” she said without thinking, clamping her mouth shut quickly and occupying herself with getting his drink as his eyes widened in surprise.
I don't know why I'm scared, I've been here before
Every feeling, every word, I've imagined it all,
You never know if you never try
To forgive your past and simply be mine
“You’re Cass, right?” he asked, turning on the bar stool until he was facing her. “Blaine said I’d remember you if I thought about the bluntest person I’ve had to interact with at this bar, but I don’t think we’ve been introduced.”
She snorted. “That sounds like a very mild description of me, are you sure that’s all he said?”
That tell-tale smirk quirked up the corners of his mouth, the expression familiar but startlingly foreign under the light of his new softness. “He may have had more to say but I guess I was more interested in his mouth’s . . . better uses.”
She raised her eyebrows at him, tilting her head as she slid the glass full of soda toward him. “I see.”
I dare you to let me be your, your one and only
Promise I'm worthy to hold in your arms
So come on and give me a chance
To prove that I'm the one who can
Walk that mile until the end starts
He ceased paying attention to her almost as soon as the drink was in his hand, but it wasn’t in a rude way. She eased her ass over the edge of the counter until she was perched on it, sitting so that she could see over the crowds, and pondered how oddly endearing it was that the only fragment of attention she’d been given had been out of some semblance of politeness, clearly against the nature of his attention, which constantly sought to focus on the stage.
She’d seen the changes in Blaine, the way he’d somehow found a new form of confidence and determination and joy and she had acknowledged to Matt with some hesitation that, yes, maybe Kurt was somehow good for him, but now she could see that it wasn’t just a one-way street. That the boy in front of her now, despite being the strangest mixture of softness and hardness, seemed far more real than when she’d known him before.
(Nobody's perfect, trust me I've learned it)
I know it ain't easy, giving up your heart
The little half-smirk lingered on Kurt’s lips, mixing with the look of pure affection as the song and the set drew to a close, the lights illuminating the stage flickering out amidst rounds of applause and the lighting of the bar returning to normal.
In his seat, Kurt’s head ducked down to observe his drink, finger playing with the condensation building around the edges of the glass, only to drip down as his finger passed over it. Cass hopped down from her perch and started making her way back and forth behind the bar as the crowds of people demanded her attention again.
“Hey, stranger.”
Kurt barely moved at the voice in his ear, smiling down at his cup for a moment. He barely reacted at the words and the pressure of a body pressing against his back, the movement brief and fleeting. “As far as pick up lines go, that one’s not very good,” he drawled lightly, glancing at Blaine out of the corner of his eye as the latter moved away and sat down on the bar stool next to him. “Just, fair warning in case you feel like there’s a need to use it again.”
“I wasn’t expecting you,” Blaine continued casually, leaning his arm against the bar and swinging his ass back and forth slightly to rotate the barstool as he gazed at Kurt with a grin on his face.
Kurt winced. “Again, a little bit cliché.”
Blaine rolled his eyes, dark and glittering from the adrenaline of performance and Kurt’s surprise appearance, his eyes trained on Kurt’s hands as they played with the glistening glass of Coke, raising it to his lips. “Kurt . . .” he murmured, his voice impossibly low and gravelly from singing for almost two hours.
Kurt set down his glass and relented, looking fully at Blaine for the first time since his set had finished and he’d pushed his way through the crowds to the bar. He twisted in his seat so that he could face Blaine, the leg that for months had been carrying his ankle monitor reaching out and rubbing slowly against Blaine’s calf. He smirked as Blaine inhaled sharply, his eyes darkening under the dim glow of the bar, his body ceasing its swinging movements in favor of shifting slightly in his seat.
“They took it off early for good behavior,” Kurt murmured softly, his voice almost a purr as the heel of his boot rubbed against Blaine’s denim-clad leg, so low as he leaned near Blaine that Blaine could barely hear him.
“Did they now?” Blaine muttered, wishing there was something more clever for him to say but it suddenly felt like ages since he’d seen Kurt. Years, decades, millennia since Kurt had sat in this very bar with that dark, confident gleam in his eye, wholly outside of the supervision of Carole or Finn the cliché brother that seemed to be incapable of knocking or Rachel his girlfriend who, if the amount of times she’d barged in on them, was really intent on seeing one or both of their penises, or the McKinley High janitor that had almost caught them the night they’d been making out in the parking lot in Blaine’s car. Just him and Kurt with no barriers and no audience. “That’s a bit premature, don’t you think?”
Kurt arched an eyebrow. “You’re being awfully presumptuous, Mr. Anderson. I hope you don’t think that I’m just some floozy that can be picked up and fucked just because you happen to have a pretty face.”
Blaine could barely stop the grin that threatened to spread over his face, instead allowing his tongue to dart out over his lips as he scrutinized Kurt with a heated gaze, leaning forward to brush his fingers over the back of Kurt’s hand, the pressure so light it ticked. He could feel the moment Kurt’s sharp inhale ran through his body. He allowed himself to smile as he breathed against Kurt’s ear, feeling the movements of Kurt’s chest against the thickness of the air between them.
“How about I buy you a drink first, then?”
***
Endnote: First off, the song in the chapter is of course One and Only by the fabulous Adele.
Secondly, oh man, guys. I guess this is it. I just . . . I don't know what to say, this is a little surreal for me, to be completely honest. I just wanted to thank you guys for sticking around and for all your amazing comments. They never failed to brighten my day and I'm honestly glad y'all enjoyed this dumping of my brain onto my paper. :) So thank you and I hope y'all had a fun ride.
Author: blasthisass / goldenwarbler
Rating: up to NC-17
Summary: As disagreements continue to rage in the Anderson household, Blaine is forced to spend his evenings behind a bar to pay his way through OSU. It’s not an ideal solution, but the money is good and he manages well enough. That may very well change, however, when the interested gaze of Kurt Hummel, self-proclaimed resident bad-boy, lands on him. And it seems that Kurt doesn’t have the word ‘no’ in his vocabulary.
Previous Chapters: Here
Disclaimers: No one is mine. Move along now.
Warnings: none for this chapter
Spoilers: None
June 3, 2012
Cass brushed a stray hair behind her ear as she ducked down behind the bar to grab a pair of clean glasses, twirling them around expertly before filling them and pushing them across the bar to the receiving party, accepting payment with a grin. As the counter cleared of college students in need of being served, she let out a relieved sigh and leaned back against it, pulling her hair loose from its ponytail and brushing her hands through her curly blonde strands in order to remake it. Her bangs fell into her eyes only to be flicked back as she turned her gaze to the stage, eyes twinkling in the lights illuminating the artists on it.
Almost as though he could sense her looking, Blaine looked from the crowd he was performing to her, his eyes twinkling in the lights and the smile on his face widening. She tried to keep the fond grin off her face as she took a sip of water, her shoulders swaying to the beat of the music, but there was something about his energy, about the joy that he always brought to stage with every performance. It was captivating to watch, the way they’d all built themselves up after Blaine had been inspired to take his life back in his own hands.
It was funny, really, the way she hadn’t quite noticed the moment when he’d become less than himself, but he’d certainly blown her away when he’d come back.
She glanced up and down the bar, making sure there was no one that was looking for her to actually do her job, but the whole of the bar was fixated on the band performing. She felt something proud burning in her chest as she observed them, the way even the seemingly disinterested ones were tapping at their bottles to the beat, the glowing light shimmering in their eyes as a result of something far more than the lighting of the bar.
Her gaze paused on one observer in particular, freezing as he eased his way through the crowd, his gaze directed at Blaine, and slid into a barstool. He leaned an arm along the wood of the bar, his muscles flexing under the blue-grey of his shirt-sleeves, rolled up to rest just above the (elbow, the smooth line of his jaw casting dramatic shadows across the open collar of his shirt as he gazed up at the stage.
He shocked her, actually, because she hadn’t seen him for months and she barely recognized him. The look in his eyes twinkled with all the blues and greens that had always been captivating to both her and Blaine (though up to a point Blaine would have never admitted it), like the shimmer of sky-blue over the sea-green of an ocean. But the look she knew was cold and hard. Calculating and determined. Kurt watched the stage now with a softness that translated directly into every muscle, every cell of his body, from the affectionate crinkles around his eyes to his right leg as he carelessly crossed it over his left, the hand not holding his chin up resting on the ankle of the boot that delicately clung to his calf. Long, nimble fingers tapped to the beat of the rock song sounding throughout the room and a sudden, inappropriate thought flashed through her mind as to what else those fingers could possibly be doing.
She inhaled sharply through her nose and shook her head, the bangs that had been brushed aside falling back across her forehead as a result. She wondered how in the world he heard her over the sound of the music but he turned his head to look at her, his eyes flashing in a brief expression of recognition and one thin eyebrow raised critically.
“Sorry,” she muttered, standing up a little straighter, partially because there was something about his gaze that required it and partially because she was too proud not to. “Can I get you a drink?”
Kurt didn’t answer for a long time, the fingers of one hand still tapping to the beat of the song, which ended and a new one began during the stretch of time that Kurt watched her. He blinked as the change brought about a calmer, slower piano tune and rather than reply he allowed it to distract him, pulling his attention to the keyboard to the left of the band set-up.
Cass opened her mouth to tell him off in some sort of clever manner that she was sure would have come to her as soon as she spoke, but it was the expression on his face that stilled her, the warmth in his affectionate smile as Blaine introduced the song over its opening melody wholly shocking to her. It was the slow purse of his lips, as though he were trying to hold back explosive emotions, that made her look back on the past couple of months and Blaine’s explanations of the development of their relationship with a new certainty, a new warmth.
It was the melody of the song that she remembered Blaine telling her that he simply couldn’t find the proper words to, the one that had haunted him for weeks before he gave up on it, telling her he’d even misplaced the sheet music and whatever new versions he wrote just didn’t quite compare.
You've been on my mind
I grow fonder every day,
Lose myself in time
Just thinking of your face
God only knows
Why it's taken me so long
To let my doubts go
You're the only one that I want
Kurt blinked and glanced over at her suddenly, as though he’d forgotten that they’d been speaking and he smiled further still, if it was possible, his eyes twinkling in the near-darkness.
“Just a Coke for me, thanks.”
“Don’t tell me Blaine’s weaned you off the alcohol, because I’d hoped it’d be the other way around,” she said without thinking, clamping her mouth shut quickly and occupying herself with getting his drink as his eyes widened in surprise.
I don't know why I'm scared, I've been here before
Every feeling, every word, I've imagined it all,
You never know if you never try
To forgive your past and simply be mine
“You’re Cass, right?” he asked, turning on the bar stool until he was facing her. “Blaine said I’d remember you if I thought about the bluntest person I’ve had to interact with at this bar, but I don’t think we’ve been introduced.”
She snorted. “That sounds like a very mild description of me, are you sure that’s all he said?”
That tell-tale smirk quirked up the corners of his mouth, the expression familiar but startlingly foreign under the light of his new softness. “He may have had more to say but I guess I was more interested in his mouth’s . . . better uses.”
She raised her eyebrows at him, tilting her head as she slid the glass full of soda toward him. “I see.”
I dare you to let me be your, your one and only
Promise I'm worthy to hold in your arms
So come on and give me a chance
To prove that I'm the one who can
Walk that mile until the end starts
He ceased paying attention to her almost as soon as the drink was in his hand, but it wasn’t in a rude way. She eased her ass over the edge of the counter until she was perched on it, sitting so that she could see over the crowds, and pondered how oddly endearing it was that the only fragment of attention she’d been given had been out of some semblance of politeness, clearly against the nature of his attention, which constantly sought to focus on the stage.
She’d seen the changes in Blaine, the way he’d somehow found a new form of confidence and determination and joy and she had acknowledged to Matt with some hesitation that, yes, maybe Kurt was somehow good for him, but now she could see that it wasn’t just a one-way street. That the boy in front of her now, despite being the strangest mixture of softness and hardness, seemed far more real than when she’d known him before.
(Nobody's perfect, trust me I've learned it)
I know it ain't easy, giving up your heart
The little half-smirk lingered on Kurt’s lips, mixing with the look of pure affection as the song and the set drew to a close, the lights illuminating the stage flickering out amidst rounds of applause and the lighting of the bar returning to normal.
In his seat, Kurt’s head ducked down to observe his drink, finger playing with the condensation building around the edges of the glass, only to drip down as his finger passed over it. Cass hopped down from her perch and started making her way back and forth behind the bar as the crowds of people demanded her attention again.
“Hey, stranger.”
Kurt barely moved at the voice in his ear, smiling down at his cup for a moment. He barely reacted at the words and the pressure of a body pressing against his back, the movement brief and fleeting. “As far as pick up lines go, that one’s not very good,” he drawled lightly, glancing at Blaine out of the corner of his eye as the latter moved away and sat down on the bar stool next to him. “Just, fair warning in case you feel like there’s a need to use it again.”
“I wasn’t expecting you,” Blaine continued casually, leaning his arm against the bar and swinging his ass back and forth slightly to rotate the barstool as he gazed at Kurt with a grin on his face.
Kurt winced. “Again, a little bit cliché.”
Blaine rolled his eyes, dark and glittering from the adrenaline of performance and Kurt’s surprise appearance, his eyes trained on Kurt’s hands as they played with the glistening glass of Coke, raising it to his lips. “Kurt . . .” he murmured, his voice impossibly low and gravelly from singing for almost two hours.
Kurt set down his glass and relented, looking fully at Blaine for the first time since his set had finished and he’d pushed his way through the crowds to the bar. He twisted in his seat so that he could face Blaine, the leg that for months had been carrying his ankle monitor reaching out and rubbing slowly against Blaine’s calf. He smirked as Blaine inhaled sharply, his eyes darkening under the dim glow of the bar, his body ceasing its swinging movements in favor of shifting slightly in his seat.
“They took it off early for good behavior,” Kurt murmured softly, his voice almost a purr as the heel of his boot rubbed against Blaine’s denim-clad leg, so low as he leaned near Blaine that Blaine could barely hear him.
“Did they now?” Blaine muttered, wishing there was something more clever for him to say but it suddenly felt like ages since he’d seen Kurt. Years, decades, millennia since Kurt had sat in this very bar with that dark, confident gleam in his eye, wholly outside of the supervision of Carole or Finn the cliché brother that seemed to be incapable of knocking or Rachel his girlfriend who, if the amount of times she’d barged in on them, was really intent on seeing one or both of their penises, or the McKinley High janitor that had almost caught them the night they’d been making out in the parking lot in Blaine’s car. Just him and Kurt with no barriers and no audience. “That’s a bit premature, don’t you think?”
Kurt arched an eyebrow. “You’re being awfully presumptuous, Mr. Anderson. I hope you don’t think that I’m just some floozy that can be picked up and fucked just because you happen to have a pretty face.”
Blaine could barely stop the grin that threatened to spread over his face, instead allowing his tongue to dart out over his lips as he scrutinized Kurt with a heated gaze, leaning forward to brush his fingers over the back of Kurt’s hand, the pressure so light it ticked. He could feel the moment Kurt’s sharp inhale ran through his body. He allowed himself to smile as he breathed against Kurt’s ear, feeling the movements of Kurt’s chest against the thickness of the air between them.
“How about I buy you a drink first, then?”
***
Endnote: First off, the song in the chapter is of course One and Only by the fabulous Adele.
Secondly, oh man, guys. I guess this is it. I just . . . I don't know what to say, this is a little surreal for me, to be completely honest. I just wanted to thank you guys for sticking around and for all your amazing comments. They never failed to brighten my day and I'm honestly glad y'all enjoyed this dumping of my brain onto my paper. :) So thank you and I hope y'all had a fun ride.