Above All Things (2b/9+Epilogue)
It’s not a particularly seedy part of Chelsea, especially not now, in the waning light of day, when everything has a sort of warm glow and the world feels beautiful. There are bars and restaurants and cafés, just like any other neighborhood, as well as apartment buildings and honking yellow cabs. There’s a swanky hotel just down the street, called The Tower, and an art gallery full of strange, cerebral sculptures that Kurt couldn’t even afford to breathe on.
He calls his dad as he wanders the sidewalks, unable to wait any longer, and it’s just what Kurt needs. The way he woops loud enough to make Kurt’s ears ring, the way he says, “I’m real proud of you, kid” with actual tears evident in his voice, it’s enough to give roots to the hope that’s nestled in his heart. This may not be the most…conventional way to stage a show, but they’ve got talent and passion and a theater. It will be enough.
They hang up once the congratulations have run dry so that his dad can go tell Carole and, probably, everyone else they know. Kurt’s on enough of a high afterwards that he decides he deserves a congratulatory mocha - maybe even full fat - and backtracks to the quaint little coffee shop that caught his eye some five blocks back. The Golden Elephant, it’s called, refreshing for its complete and utter lack of cute coffee-related punnage.
He finds a nice little table by the window and settles in with his drink (which is completely delicious - whipped cream was such a good decision). He’s content, for now, just to let his eyes and his mind wander. He has some serious re-writes to do before rehearsals start next week, and he needs to let the story sink into him before he can let any of it out onto the page.
Soon enough, he’s let go of his tether to the world outside of his head. He floats amongst magical sitars and beautiful slave boys who dream of flying away like a bird, snatches of barely-formed melodies echoing around him in a voice that’s already become so familiar.
It would be impossible to say how long he spends staring with unseeing eyes at the gleaming elephant emblem at the top of the menu board. All he knows is that the world beyond the window has gone dark by the time he startles to the surface.
It’s the voice that does it. That voice, no longer just inside his head.
“Medium drip, please. To go.”
It’s Blaine. There, paying at the register, and Kurt didn’t even see him come in. He’s wearing a spring-weight sweatshirt over his workout clothes, and his hair has started to fight against the gel. He smiles pleasantly at the barista and drops his change in the tip jar.
Kurt clears his throat.
“Blaine,” he calls, and Blaine whips around, polite smile ready at his lips. It warms when he sees Kurt, and he walks over to the table.
“Kurt, hi! I just keep running into you, don’t I?”
“Must be fate.”
Blaine shifts, expression gone ever-so-slightly uncomfortable, and Kurt could kick himself. It passes a second later, like a cloud moving over the sun.
“So, what are you up to?”
“Just…daydreaming. And avoiding the commute back to Bushwick for as long as possible.”
“Is that where you live?”
“Unfortunately. Are you on a coffee break or something?”
“No, we’re done for now. My call time isn’t until 9 PM, so I figured I’d get a little pre-dinner pick-me-up.”
Kurt struggles to find something to say that isn’t of course, wouldn’t do to fall asleep in your line of work and contains absolutely zero references to getting it up, but his brain is apparently panicking and unable to function on any kind of normal level. Fortunately, this is the moment that the barista calls out Blaine’s order.
“Just a sec,” he says, and retrieves his drink with a smile that may or may not be designed to charm the socks off the barista but most certainly has that effect. Kurt bites his lip and refrains from banging his head against the table. Blaine doctors his drink with two packets of sugar and a dash of cream before returning to Kurt’s table.
“Would you care to join me?” offers Kurt, cool, calm, and collected once more.
“I was actually going to take this back to my apartment.” Kurt’s heart sinks a little, but the regretful posture of Blaine’s eyebrows gives him hope. As does the tentative smile he shoots Kurt a beat later. “Do you maybe want to come with me? We could talk, I could make you dinner - what do you say?”
Kurt blinks, but Blaine is still smiling his smile, eyebrows raised hopefully. It suddenly hits Kurt that this is the same person who was writhing around on a couch in fake ecstasy less than 24 hours ago. It’s enough to give him whiplash.
“Um. Sure. Do you live in the area?”
Blaine’s smile starts to edge slightly more toward the smirky end of the spectrum.
“You could say that, yeah.”
He doesn’t say anything more, doesn’t wait, just turns around like he expects Kurt to follow him. He doesn’t head for the front door, as Kurt was obviously expecting, but instead for a side door that Kurt assumed was for employees only. He punches in a code and ushers Kurt through to the staircase, and, yes, okay, now everything is making sense.
“You live here?”
“Top floor, lucky us.”
“Good view, at least?”
“Decent. The rooftop is better.”
“You’ll have to show me sometime.”
Blaine laughs and shoots Kurt an easy grin.
“Maybe I will.”
The building has ten stories, by Kurt’s count, which doesn’t sound like a lot until you have to climb nine flights of stairs. He’s panting a little by the time they reach the top, but he’s gratified to see that Blaine is, too.
His apartment is one of only three on the floor, and it’s far bigger than any place Kurt could afford on his own - it’s practically as big as the Bushwick loft he’s shared with Rachel since he moved to the city. He can’t help the low whistle he lets out as he takes it in.
“Thanks, I guess?” says Blaine, bemused at his reaction.
“This place is amazing, Blaine.”
It is, too, and not just because of the size. Blaine has excellent taste in home décor (old-fashioned, with strong, classic lines and the occasional touch of whimsy), and he keeps his living space neat and tidy. Heavy curtains cover a large picture window in the living room, hiding what promises to be a lovely view of the city. There’s a charmingly quaint cuckoo clock just above his mantel that quietly ticks the seconds.
Blaine gives him the tour, brief as it is, and jumps in to making dinner. He lets Kurt pick the music, and they fall into chatter over nice, light things such as Blaine’s iTunes library - eerily similar to Kurt’s, but with less Broadway and more art rock - and the recent edition of Vogue that Kurt spots on the coffee table.
“I actually used to work at Vogue.”
Blaine’s eyes go wide. It makes him look strangely young.
“What, really? Did you ever meet Anna Wintour?”
Kurt laughs.
“Sadly, no. It was Vogue.com, if you want to be particular. We were in a totally different building. Isabelle Wright was my boss, though.”
“No way! I love her. I’ve always wished she would do a men’s line.”
Kurt can imagine it, too - sleekly tailored pieces with surprising splashes of color, finished off with patterned bow ties for charm. Traditional and quirky and wearable all at once. Blaine looks so wistful at the thought, it warms something in Kurt’s heart.
From here, they veer into a discussion of Alexander McQueen and the impact of high fashion on current menswear trends, which inevitably leads to Kurt telling some of his favorite I-was-a-teenage-fashion-whore-in-small-town-Ohio stories. They make Blaine laugh, as intended, but his smile has gone slightly dimmed.
“Did you grow up in New York?” probes Kurt.
There’s a silence at that, while Blaine avoids his eyes. Finally, he seems to come to a decision. He sets his knife on the cutting board and looks up.
“No. I…I’m actually from Ohio as well.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I grew up less than half an hour from Lima.”
“That’s - wow, what a crazy coincidence! Most people I meet don’t even know where Ohio is, beyond ‘somewhere in the middle.’ What school did you go to?”
“East Ada, for a while, then Dalton Academy, in Westerville. I moved here when I was 16.”
“Is your family still here?”
Blaine clenches his jaw, goes back to chopping onions.
“They never left Ohio, as far as I know.”
“Oh.”
Kurt wants to say so much more than that, but he doesn’t want to pry. He doesn’t want Blaine to feel like he has to reinforce his defenses.
Several moments pass before Blaine speaks again.
“So, tell me. How did Kurt Hummel go from premier fashionista of the Midwest to struggling New York playwright?”
“Well. New York was always the dream. You grew up there, you must remember what it was like.”
“Yeah.” His voice has a bitter twist that resonates with Kurt, more deeply than he would like.
“I promised myself I would get out, no matter what. I was going to show them all, become the brightest star that Broadway has ever known - so bright that no one could touch me. I was going to make every homophobic Neanderthal hick in that town regret that they ever tried to make me feel worthless.”
“Weren’t we all?”
Their eyes meet. Blaine knows. He knows, and it touches a knot in Kurt’s heart that he’s long since learned to forget. He feels it start to unravel, just a little.
“I turned out to be a pretty terrible actor, though, so that plan didn’t exactly work out.” Blaine laughs, kindly, and Kurt smiles ruefully in return. “When I didn’t get into any of the musical theater programs I applied to, I knew I had to figure something out, and quickly. I toyed with the idea of fashion journalism - ”
“Hence, Vogue.com.”
“Hence Vogue.com, yes, but I realized pretty quickly that nothing would kill my passion for fashion more quickly than working in the industry. I started writing as a way to distract myself from thinking about my future, ironically enough. I’d written two full-length plays before I realized that it was my future. I started at NYU the next fall.”
“And the rest is history?”
“That’s what I’m hoping for.”
Blaine is looking at him with his head cocked, like there’s something about him he’s trying to figure out.
“Don’t you miss it?”
“What?”
“Performing. The idea of giving it up, for anything…I don’t think I could do that.”
“That’s why I’m the writer.”
Blaine smiles lopsidedly, goes back to his saucepan.
“Touché.”
“Honestly, though, what I loved so much about being on stage was that people…they listen to you, you know? In high school, it was the only way I could be heard.”
“Believe me, I get it.”
“But I never liked being forced to use someone else’s words. So now I use my own.”
“I’ve always found that part of it kind of freeing.”
Silence hangs heavy between them for a few moments, while Rihanna sings about shining bright like a diamond. Kurt tries to work up the courage to ask how Blaine came to his…profession, but Blaine jumps in to ask him about his meeting with Sue before he can manage it. Kurt fills him in and, in turn, Blaine tells him the highlights of what he calls his “Crazy Sue” stories. The name is entirely apt, as it turns out - anyone who would quit her job as a high school cheerleading coach to become a madam deserves to have her sanity questioned.
It’s at some point after blow torches and before human cannonballs that Blaine takes his stir-fry off the burner and serves it neatly over two matching navy-and-red dinner plates. He sets the table with placemats and cloth napkins and more silverware than Kurt’s ever used for vegetables and rice.
“She does care about us, though,” he concludes. “You’ll see, she takes care of her own. You just don’t want to get on her bad side.”
“Duly noted. Speaking of, what’s the deal with Santana anyway? Rachel said she’d been banished to the chorus line.”
Blaine rolls his eyes.
“Oh, that. Sue has a very strict policy about body alterations, and Santana…well.”
He mimes something that can only be breast augmentation, cheeks puffed out like a balloon. Kurt bites his lip to control a silly grin, because, really, that should be more disturbing than endearing.
“I see.”
“She thought it might help her on auditions or something, I don’t know. Sue called a meeting and made us all sit through this lecture about ‘tampering with the goods,’ accompanied by the world’s most terrifying slide show of plastic surgery gone wrong.” He shudders. “She’s been calling Santana ‘Sandbags McGee’ ever since. Honestly, I think she thought she was doing Santana a favor, but all it’s done is make her angry.”
“Yeah, I sensed that.”
“She really is harmless, though. Both of them.”
Kurt isn’t entirely sure about that, but he keeps the thought to himself.
He turns the topic to Crazy Rachel stories, instead, keeping the worst of them (crack house, anyone?) at bay so as not to scare Blaine away before he’s even met her. He seems more amused than horrified, so that bodes well.
They clean up in companionable silence, finding an easy washing-drying rhythm that keeps their hands busy. Blaine hums along to the music as they work, singing the occasional chorus when the spirit moves him and wiggling his hips to the beat. It’s silly, and infectious, and Kurt can’t help but join in. Soon, they’re dueting to Lady Gaga and using the sponge as a microphone, and Blaine is looking so deeply into his eyes, when they meet, that he can probably see through to the giddy jolt of Kurt’s heart.
“I want your love, and I want your revenge
I want your love, I don’t want to be friends…”
This close, the sweep of his eyelashes is the prettiest thing Kurt has ever seen.
It’s over all too soon, and Kurt is nowhere near ready to leave. Blaine is so…surprising, and wonderful, and Kurt wants to hang on to this feeling he’s given him with both fists. He’s trying to find a graceful way to invite himself to stay longer when Blaine does it for him.
“Would like something to drink? I’ve got wine, I think, and probably beer, if you’d like.”
“Oh. Yes, a glass of wine would be nice.”
Long practice helps him tamp down the wattage of his smile until Blaine has turned his back, but it’s a near miss.
Blaine retrieves a bottle and two glasses and brings them to the living room, where they settle on the couch. It’s a red, which is about as far as Kurt’s wine knowledge takes him, though the bottle looks expensive to his inexpert eye. Blaine pours both glasses neatly and hands one off to Kurt.
“Sorry it’s not champagne. We really should be celebrating.”
“I thought we were.”
Blaine smiles warmly and raises his glass in a toast.
“To being heard.”
Kurt clinks his glass against Blaine’s and swallows against the sudden lump in his throat.
“I’ll drink to that.”
He gathers his courage.
“So,” he says, before Blaine can distract him once again. “About last night.”
Blaine winces and looks away.
“I guess we can’t just forget that ever happened, can we?”
“You told me we’d talk about it.”
Blaine sighs and slumps back against the couch cushions.
“Okay. What do you want to know?”
Kurt takes a moment to gather his thoughts before he continues. He’s not sure he knows how to do this delicately.
“So. Obviously, you’re a…”
“Prostitute?” he supplies, plainly. “Yeah, I figured that one was pretty clear.”
“Are all of the dancers…?”
“Pretty much. Obviously, we can’t exactly advertise that fact, but it’s a pretty open secret.”
“Can I ask how much, um…?”
Blaine smirks.
“More than you can afford.”
Kurt flushes a little, at his own audacity more than anything else, but he straightens his spine and makes himself press on. He’s making himself a part of this world, however tangentially, and he needs to understand it.
“How did you get into this…business, anyway? I mean, you’re such a talented performer, I would think - ”
“You think what I do at The Moulin Rouge isn’t performing?”
His tone is neutral, but it’s covering something that Kurt doesn’t quite know how to read.
“Of course it is. I just mean - you could do anything, Blaine. Why would you choose this?”
Blaine laughs. It isn’t a pleasant sound.
“Right. Because it’s just that easy.”
“I didn’t - ”
“It’s not as if I haven’t considered my other options, okay? I don’t have other options. They don’t exist for people like me.”
It feels wrong, for something so acrid to come out of Blaine’s mouth.
“What are you talking about?”
Blaine looks at him, then, and the sneering curl of his lip softens. He deflates a little, sets his nearly-full glass back on the coffee table.
“When I first came to New York, I had nothing but the clothes I was wearing and a couple dollars in change. I spent the rest on the bus ticket from Ohio.”
“You ran away?”
“I was kicked out. My parents found out that I was seeing someone, and they were…displeased.”
“Because it was a boy?”
“Well, yes, although the fact that he was Jewish didn’t help. They’re very…religious, you see, if bigotry can be called a religion.”
“That’s - ”
“Disgusting, I know. They disowned my brother, too, when I was just a kid. I don’t know why. They never even mentioned him again. It was like he’d never existed.”
The look on his face is entirely heartbreaking, too old and too young at the same time. Kurt wants to reach out and soothe the jagged, rusty edges of his grief, but his body language is closed off and skittish. Kurt isn’t sure he could bear to see Blaine flinch away from his touch.
“I stayed with a friend for a while, but my parents stopped paying my tuition, and going back to public school was…not an option. So I bought myself a Greyhound ticket, and I haven’t looked back since.”
Blaine pauses, here, and Kurt fights himself to stay patient and silent.
“When I got here…I didn’t have anybody or anything, but at least I was in New York, you know? The city of my dreams - a veritable mecca for artists and lovers alike.” He lets out a sardonic laugh. “I used to cling to that when things got…hard. I tried - well, there were a lot of things I tried, but I was a kid, with no credits and not even a high school diploma, and no one would look at me twice. It wasn’t long before I got desperate. I met some people, figured out how to make some cash…” Kurt’s stomach gives an ugly twist, imagining just exactly what he means. “I did what I had to, to survive. Sue found me on my corner one night, gave me a chance, and, well - ”
“The rest is history.”
“You have to understand - I wasn’t really living until The Moulin Rouge. She gave me a home, you know? And now she’s giving me a chance to follow my dreams. I owe her everything.”
Even your freedom? Kurt wants to say. He doesn’t.
“This show is going to be amazing,” he says instead, and he means it down to the bone. It has to be - for Blaine, for him, for Rachel, for every last talented performer at that club, because they deserve a chance to make the life that they want for themselves.
Blaine smiles, broad and beautiful, and he means it just as much.
“I know.”
Kurt can’t help himself this time - he feels the connection between them so strongly it’s like there’s a wire running between his heart and Blaine’s, and it crackles with electricity every time their eyes meet. He reaches out and takes Blaine’s hand in his, squeezes. Blaine looks down, surprised, then squeezes back. His grip is warm and firm. His smile is almost shy when he looks up into Kurt’s eyes and murmurs, “Come on, dance with me.”
“What?”
“I love this song. Would you do me the honor?”
Kurt is still a little dazed, but he can’t help but laugh when he registers the heavy, synthesized beat that can only be Depeche Mode. He lets Blaine pull him to his feet and holds tightly to his hands while they let their bodies move them through the beat.
“When I’m with you, baby, I go out of my head,
And I just can’t get enough, I just can’t get enough…”
They trade lines and harmonize, their bodies close and sharing more than heat.
“We slip and slide as we fall in love
And I just can’t seem to get enough of…”
And Kurt can’t, he really can’t, it doesn’t seem like he’ll ever get enough of Blaine, and none of the rest of it matters - his past, Blaine’s, the world beyond this apartment - because what he’s feeling right now is what he wants to feel forever. He feels…free. He feels drunk with it.
Which is why, when he pulls Blaine in for a low, silly dip, just as the last notes sound and Blaine is laughing with the joy of it, Kurt leans in and kisses him.
It doesn’t hit him right away, what he’s done, because Blaine kisses back, and it’s all that Kurt can do to keep them both more or less upright. Every nerve ending in his body is spiking sweet and sharp.
But then Blaine pulls back with a gasp, and his hands scrabble against Kurt’s back until Kurt lets him go, and then he’s stumbling away, like he needs the distance, like he can’t breathe without distance between them.
It’s like ice water mainlined directly into Kurt’s veins. He’s not sure what came over him, or what just happened, because Blaine is panicking, and Kurt doesn’t understand why.
“I - I’m sorry,” he manages.
“That can’t happen again.”
“I don’t - ”
“It’s not because - Kurt, I do care about you, but - this can’t - I’m not - you should go. Please. I’ve got to get to work.”
He won’t meet Kurt’s eyes, and Kurt is too numb to do anything but nod woodenly.
“Okay. I’ll just - I really am sorry, Blaine. I don’t know what came over me.”
“It’s fine. Just - I’ll see you at rehearsal, okay? We can forget this ever happened.”
Kurt gathers his things and leaves in a hurry, horrified at himself and still so confused. The way Blaine was looking at him, and the way he kissed him back…and the way he looked like he was going to throw up, after. None of it makes sense.
He can’t bring himself to get on the subway, after that, hates the idea of being trapped underground, so he finds himself wandering aimlessly through the dark city streets, grateful for the cool air against his cheeks. He wishes he could look up and see the stars, like he used to from his bedroom in Lima. Seeing the lights like little cut jewels in the sky always helped him clear his head.
One thing is absolutely clear to him, now that he’s alone with his thoughts: he has been acting like a crazy person.
Or maybe he actually is a crazy person. It would be as good an explanation as any for the way he’s been acting since he set foot in The Moulin Rouge last night. It’s the only explanation he can think of for the impulses Blaine brings out in him with the slightest flirt of his eyes. The only other possibility is…not possible.
He’s known Blaine for less than 24 hours. Blaine is a - a gigolo, for God’s sake.
And yet…
Kurt has never been in love. He’s had plenty of crushes (most of them on straight guys) and a few infatuations that he thought were the real deal until they faded. His longest relationship was four months, his freshman year at NYU, with a guy he missed more for his scarf collection than for his actual self after they broke up. Everything he knows about love - real, true, lasting love - he learned from Broadway musicals.
But the thing is, despite all of this, Kurt still believes in love. Above all things, he believes in love. It’s a secret he keeps locked in his heart, away from prying eyes, because it’s too precious to share. He’s a romantic, like his father, and he won’t let that part of his soul be washed away with cynicism, no matter how fashionable it may be.
So he can’t help but wonder…
He’s never felt the way he does with Blaine. It’s so big, so very out of his control, bubbling up beneath the surface of his skin from the deepest, darkest corners of his heart.
It shouldn’t be possible, it can’t be, but maybe it is.
Maybe, just maybe, Kurt Hummel is falling in love.
It’s at the moment of this realization, when his heart is rocketing up and plunging down, almost simultaneously, that his phone sounds with Rachel’s custom text alert.
Where are you?
He taps out his reply with shaking fingers, equally relieved and frustrated at being pulled out of his head.
Still in Chelsea.
You never left?!?
I ran into Blaine. We had dinner together.
??? You have some explaining to do, mister!
There’s nothing to explain.
I’ll be the judge of that. Anyway, stay where you are!
Oh, God. Why?
Hazel’s taking us out to celebrate!
In Chelsea?
See you soon!
Kurt groans, not that it has the full effect without Rachel there to hear it. She can’t be serious.
He resigns himself to a long night.
Chapter 3
He calls his dad as he wanders the sidewalks, unable to wait any longer, and it’s just what Kurt needs. The way he woops loud enough to make Kurt’s ears ring, the way he says, “I’m real proud of you, kid” with actual tears evident in his voice, it’s enough to give roots to the hope that’s nestled in his heart. This may not be the most…conventional way to stage a show, but they’ve got talent and passion and a theater. It will be enough.
They hang up once the congratulations have run dry so that his dad can go tell Carole and, probably, everyone else they know. Kurt’s on enough of a high afterwards that he decides he deserves a congratulatory mocha - maybe even full fat - and backtracks to the quaint little coffee shop that caught his eye some five blocks back. The Golden Elephant, it’s called, refreshing for its complete and utter lack of cute coffee-related punnage.
He finds a nice little table by the window and settles in with his drink (which is completely delicious - whipped cream was such a good decision). He’s content, for now, just to let his eyes and his mind wander. He has some serious re-writes to do before rehearsals start next week, and he needs to let the story sink into him before he can let any of it out onto the page.
Soon enough, he’s let go of his tether to the world outside of his head. He floats amongst magical sitars and beautiful slave boys who dream of flying away like a bird, snatches of barely-formed melodies echoing around him in a voice that’s already become so familiar.
It would be impossible to say how long he spends staring with unseeing eyes at the gleaming elephant emblem at the top of the menu board. All he knows is that the world beyond the window has gone dark by the time he startles to the surface.
It’s the voice that does it. That voice, no longer just inside his head.
“Medium drip, please. To go.”
It’s Blaine. There, paying at the register, and Kurt didn’t even see him come in. He’s wearing a spring-weight sweatshirt over his workout clothes, and his hair has started to fight against the gel. He smiles pleasantly at the barista and drops his change in the tip jar.
Kurt clears his throat.
“Blaine,” he calls, and Blaine whips around, polite smile ready at his lips. It warms when he sees Kurt, and he walks over to the table.
“Kurt, hi! I just keep running into you, don’t I?”
“Must be fate.”
Blaine shifts, expression gone ever-so-slightly uncomfortable, and Kurt could kick himself. It passes a second later, like a cloud moving over the sun.
“So, what are you up to?”
“Just…daydreaming. And avoiding the commute back to Bushwick for as long as possible.”
“Is that where you live?”
“Unfortunately. Are you on a coffee break or something?”
“No, we’re done for now. My call time isn’t until 9 PM, so I figured I’d get a little pre-dinner pick-me-up.”
Kurt struggles to find something to say that isn’t of course, wouldn’t do to fall asleep in your line of work and contains absolutely zero references to getting it up, but his brain is apparently panicking and unable to function on any kind of normal level. Fortunately, this is the moment that the barista calls out Blaine’s order.
“Just a sec,” he says, and retrieves his drink with a smile that may or may not be designed to charm the socks off the barista but most certainly has that effect. Kurt bites his lip and refrains from banging his head against the table. Blaine doctors his drink with two packets of sugar and a dash of cream before returning to Kurt’s table.
“Would you care to join me?” offers Kurt, cool, calm, and collected once more.
“I was actually going to take this back to my apartment.” Kurt’s heart sinks a little, but the regretful posture of Blaine’s eyebrows gives him hope. As does the tentative smile he shoots Kurt a beat later. “Do you maybe want to come with me? We could talk, I could make you dinner - what do you say?”
Kurt blinks, but Blaine is still smiling his smile, eyebrows raised hopefully. It suddenly hits Kurt that this is the same person who was writhing around on a couch in fake ecstasy less than 24 hours ago. It’s enough to give him whiplash.
“Um. Sure. Do you live in the area?”
Blaine’s smile starts to edge slightly more toward the smirky end of the spectrum.
“You could say that, yeah.”
He doesn’t say anything more, doesn’t wait, just turns around like he expects Kurt to follow him. He doesn’t head for the front door, as Kurt was obviously expecting, but instead for a side door that Kurt assumed was for employees only. He punches in a code and ushers Kurt through to the staircase, and, yes, okay, now everything is making sense.
“You live here?”
“Top floor, lucky us.”
“Good view, at least?”
“Decent. The rooftop is better.”
“You’ll have to show me sometime.”
Blaine laughs and shoots Kurt an easy grin.
“Maybe I will.”
The building has ten stories, by Kurt’s count, which doesn’t sound like a lot until you have to climb nine flights of stairs. He’s panting a little by the time they reach the top, but he’s gratified to see that Blaine is, too.
His apartment is one of only three on the floor, and it’s far bigger than any place Kurt could afford on his own - it’s practically as big as the Bushwick loft he’s shared with Rachel since he moved to the city. He can’t help the low whistle he lets out as he takes it in.
“Thanks, I guess?” says Blaine, bemused at his reaction.
“This place is amazing, Blaine.”
It is, too, and not just because of the size. Blaine has excellent taste in home décor (old-fashioned, with strong, classic lines and the occasional touch of whimsy), and he keeps his living space neat and tidy. Heavy curtains cover a large picture window in the living room, hiding what promises to be a lovely view of the city. There’s a charmingly quaint cuckoo clock just above his mantel that quietly ticks the seconds.
Blaine gives him the tour, brief as it is, and jumps in to making dinner. He lets Kurt pick the music, and they fall into chatter over nice, light things such as Blaine’s iTunes library - eerily similar to Kurt’s, but with less Broadway and more art rock - and the recent edition of Vogue that Kurt spots on the coffee table.
“I actually used to work at Vogue.”
Blaine’s eyes go wide. It makes him look strangely young.
“What, really? Did you ever meet Anna Wintour?”
Kurt laughs.
“Sadly, no. It was Vogue.com, if you want to be particular. We were in a totally different building. Isabelle Wright was my boss, though.”
“No way! I love her. I’ve always wished she would do a men’s line.”
Kurt can imagine it, too - sleekly tailored pieces with surprising splashes of color, finished off with patterned bow ties for charm. Traditional and quirky and wearable all at once. Blaine looks so wistful at the thought, it warms something in Kurt’s heart.
From here, they veer into a discussion of Alexander McQueen and the impact of high fashion on current menswear trends, which inevitably leads to Kurt telling some of his favorite I-was-a-teenage-fashion-whore-in-small-town-Ohio stories. They make Blaine laugh, as intended, but his smile has gone slightly dimmed.
“Did you grow up in New York?” probes Kurt.
There’s a silence at that, while Blaine avoids his eyes. Finally, he seems to come to a decision. He sets his knife on the cutting board and looks up.
“No. I…I’m actually from Ohio as well.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I grew up less than half an hour from Lima.”
“That’s - wow, what a crazy coincidence! Most people I meet don’t even know where Ohio is, beyond ‘somewhere in the middle.’ What school did you go to?”
“East Ada, for a while, then Dalton Academy, in Westerville. I moved here when I was 16.”
“Is your family still here?”
Blaine clenches his jaw, goes back to chopping onions.
“They never left Ohio, as far as I know.”
“Oh.”
Kurt wants to say so much more than that, but he doesn’t want to pry. He doesn’t want Blaine to feel like he has to reinforce his defenses.
Several moments pass before Blaine speaks again.
“So, tell me. How did Kurt Hummel go from premier fashionista of the Midwest to struggling New York playwright?”
“Well. New York was always the dream. You grew up there, you must remember what it was like.”
“Yeah.” His voice has a bitter twist that resonates with Kurt, more deeply than he would like.
“I promised myself I would get out, no matter what. I was going to show them all, become the brightest star that Broadway has ever known - so bright that no one could touch me. I was going to make every homophobic Neanderthal hick in that town regret that they ever tried to make me feel worthless.”
“Weren’t we all?”
Their eyes meet. Blaine knows. He knows, and it touches a knot in Kurt’s heart that he’s long since learned to forget. He feels it start to unravel, just a little.
“I turned out to be a pretty terrible actor, though, so that plan didn’t exactly work out.” Blaine laughs, kindly, and Kurt smiles ruefully in return. “When I didn’t get into any of the musical theater programs I applied to, I knew I had to figure something out, and quickly. I toyed with the idea of fashion journalism - ”
“Hence, Vogue.com.”
“Hence Vogue.com, yes, but I realized pretty quickly that nothing would kill my passion for fashion more quickly than working in the industry. I started writing as a way to distract myself from thinking about my future, ironically enough. I’d written two full-length plays before I realized that it was my future. I started at NYU the next fall.”
“And the rest is history?”
“That’s what I’m hoping for.”
Blaine is looking at him with his head cocked, like there’s something about him he’s trying to figure out.
“Don’t you miss it?”
“What?”
“Performing. The idea of giving it up, for anything…I don’t think I could do that.”
“That’s why I’m the writer.”
Blaine smiles lopsidedly, goes back to his saucepan.
“Touché.”
“Honestly, though, what I loved so much about being on stage was that people…they listen to you, you know? In high school, it was the only way I could be heard.”
“Believe me, I get it.”
“But I never liked being forced to use someone else’s words. So now I use my own.”
“I’ve always found that part of it kind of freeing.”
Silence hangs heavy between them for a few moments, while Rihanna sings about shining bright like a diamond. Kurt tries to work up the courage to ask how Blaine came to his…profession, but Blaine jumps in to ask him about his meeting with Sue before he can manage it. Kurt fills him in and, in turn, Blaine tells him the highlights of what he calls his “Crazy Sue” stories. The name is entirely apt, as it turns out - anyone who would quit her job as a high school cheerleading coach to become a madam deserves to have her sanity questioned.
It’s at some point after blow torches and before human cannonballs that Blaine takes his stir-fry off the burner and serves it neatly over two matching navy-and-red dinner plates. He sets the table with placemats and cloth napkins and more silverware than Kurt’s ever used for vegetables and rice.
“She does care about us, though,” he concludes. “You’ll see, she takes care of her own. You just don’t want to get on her bad side.”
“Duly noted. Speaking of, what’s the deal with Santana anyway? Rachel said she’d been banished to the chorus line.”
Blaine rolls his eyes.
“Oh, that. Sue has a very strict policy about body alterations, and Santana…well.”
He mimes something that can only be breast augmentation, cheeks puffed out like a balloon. Kurt bites his lip to control a silly grin, because, really, that should be more disturbing than endearing.
“I see.”
“She thought it might help her on auditions or something, I don’t know. Sue called a meeting and made us all sit through this lecture about ‘tampering with the goods,’ accompanied by the world’s most terrifying slide show of plastic surgery gone wrong.” He shudders. “She’s been calling Santana ‘Sandbags McGee’ ever since. Honestly, I think she thought she was doing Santana a favor, but all it’s done is make her angry.”
“Yeah, I sensed that.”
“She really is harmless, though. Both of them.”
Kurt isn’t entirely sure about that, but he keeps the thought to himself.
He turns the topic to Crazy Rachel stories, instead, keeping the worst of them (crack house, anyone?) at bay so as not to scare Blaine away before he’s even met her. He seems more amused than horrified, so that bodes well.
They clean up in companionable silence, finding an easy washing-drying rhythm that keeps their hands busy. Blaine hums along to the music as they work, singing the occasional chorus when the spirit moves him and wiggling his hips to the beat. It’s silly, and infectious, and Kurt can’t help but join in. Soon, they’re dueting to Lady Gaga and using the sponge as a microphone, and Blaine is looking so deeply into his eyes, when they meet, that he can probably see through to the giddy jolt of Kurt’s heart.
“I want your love, and I want your revenge
I want your love, I don’t want to be friends…”
This close, the sweep of his eyelashes is the prettiest thing Kurt has ever seen.
It’s over all too soon, and Kurt is nowhere near ready to leave. Blaine is so…surprising, and wonderful, and Kurt wants to hang on to this feeling he’s given him with both fists. He’s trying to find a graceful way to invite himself to stay longer when Blaine does it for him.
“Would like something to drink? I’ve got wine, I think, and probably beer, if you’d like.”
“Oh. Yes, a glass of wine would be nice.”
Long practice helps him tamp down the wattage of his smile until Blaine has turned his back, but it’s a near miss.
Blaine retrieves a bottle and two glasses and brings them to the living room, where they settle on the couch. It’s a red, which is about as far as Kurt’s wine knowledge takes him, though the bottle looks expensive to his inexpert eye. Blaine pours both glasses neatly and hands one off to Kurt.
“Sorry it’s not champagne. We really should be celebrating.”
“I thought we were.”
Blaine smiles warmly and raises his glass in a toast.
“To being heard.”
Kurt clinks his glass against Blaine’s and swallows against the sudden lump in his throat.
“I’ll drink to that.”
He gathers his courage.
“So,” he says, before Blaine can distract him once again. “About last night.”
Blaine winces and looks away.
“I guess we can’t just forget that ever happened, can we?”
“You told me we’d talk about it.”
Blaine sighs and slumps back against the couch cushions.
“Okay. What do you want to know?”
Kurt takes a moment to gather his thoughts before he continues. He’s not sure he knows how to do this delicately.
“So. Obviously, you’re a…”
“Prostitute?” he supplies, plainly. “Yeah, I figured that one was pretty clear.”
“Are all of the dancers…?”
“Pretty much. Obviously, we can’t exactly advertise that fact, but it’s a pretty open secret.”
“Can I ask how much, um…?”
Blaine smirks.
“More than you can afford.”
Kurt flushes a little, at his own audacity more than anything else, but he straightens his spine and makes himself press on. He’s making himself a part of this world, however tangentially, and he needs to understand it.
“How did you get into this…business, anyway? I mean, you’re such a talented performer, I would think - ”
“You think what I do at The Moulin Rouge isn’t performing?”
His tone is neutral, but it’s covering something that Kurt doesn’t quite know how to read.
“Of course it is. I just mean - you could do anything, Blaine. Why would you choose this?”
Blaine laughs. It isn’t a pleasant sound.
“Right. Because it’s just that easy.”
“I didn’t - ”
“It’s not as if I haven’t considered my other options, okay? I don’t have other options. They don’t exist for people like me.”
It feels wrong, for something so acrid to come out of Blaine’s mouth.
“What are you talking about?”
Blaine looks at him, then, and the sneering curl of his lip softens. He deflates a little, sets his nearly-full glass back on the coffee table.
“When I first came to New York, I had nothing but the clothes I was wearing and a couple dollars in change. I spent the rest on the bus ticket from Ohio.”
“You ran away?”
“I was kicked out. My parents found out that I was seeing someone, and they were…displeased.”
“Because it was a boy?”
“Well, yes, although the fact that he was Jewish didn’t help. They’re very…religious, you see, if bigotry can be called a religion.”
“That’s - ”
“Disgusting, I know. They disowned my brother, too, when I was just a kid. I don’t know why. They never even mentioned him again. It was like he’d never existed.”
The look on his face is entirely heartbreaking, too old and too young at the same time. Kurt wants to reach out and soothe the jagged, rusty edges of his grief, but his body language is closed off and skittish. Kurt isn’t sure he could bear to see Blaine flinch away from his touch.
“I stayed with a friend for a while, but my parents stopped paying my tuition, and going back to public school was…not an option. So I bought myself a Greyhound ticket, and I haven’t looked back since.”
Blaine pauses, here, and Kurt fights himself to stay patient and silent.
“When I got here…I didn’t have anybody or anything, but at least I was in New York, you know? The city of my dreams - a veritable mecca for artists and lovers alike.” He lets out a sardonic laugh. “I used to cling to that when things got…hard. I tried - well, there were a lot of things I tried, but I was a kid, with no credits and not even a high school diploma, and no one would look at me twice. It wasn’t long before I got desperate. I met some people, figured out how to make some cash…” Kurt’s stomach gives an ugly twist, imagining just exactly what he means. “I did what I had to, to survive. Sue found me on my corner one night, gave me a chance, and, well - ”
“The rest is history.”
“You have to understand - I wasn’t really living until The Moulin Rouge. She gave me a home, you know? And now she’s giving me a chance to follow my dreams. I owe her everything.”
Even your freedom? Kurt wants to say. He doesn’t.
“This show is going to be amazing,” he says instead, and he means it down to the bone. It has to be - for Blaine, for him, for Rachel, for every last talented performer at that club, because they deserve a chance to make the life that they want for themselves.
Blaine smiles, broad and beautiful, and he means it just as much.
“I know.”
Kurt can’t help himself this time - he feels the connection between them so strongly it’s like there’s a wire running between his heart and Blaine’s, and it crackles with electricity every time their eyes meet. He reaches out and takes Blaine’s hand in his, squeezes. Blaine looks down, surprised, then squeezes back. His grip is warm and firm. His smile is almost shy when he looks up into Kurt’s eyes and murmurs, “Come on, dance with me.”
“What?”
“I love this song. Would you do me the honor?”
Kurt is still a little dazed, but he can’t help but laugh when he registers the heavy, synthesized beat that can only be Depeche Mode. He lets Blaine pull him to his feet and holds tightly to his hands while they let their bodies move them through the beat.
“When I’m with you, baby, I go out of my head,
And I just can’t get enough, I just can’t get enough…”
They trade lines and harmonize, their bodies close and sharing more than heat.
“We slip and slide as we fall in love
And I just can’t seem to get enough of…”
And Kurt can’t, he really can’t, it doesn’t seem like he’ll ever get enough of Blaine, and none of the rest of it matters - his past, Blaine’s, the world beyond this apartment - because what he’s feeling right now is what he wants to feel forever. He feels…free. He feels drunk with it.
Which is why, when he pulls Blaine in for a low, silly dip, just as the last notes sound and Blaine is laughing with the joy of it, Kurt leans in and kisses him.
It doesn’t hit him right away, what he’s done, because Blaine kisses back, and it’s all that Kurt can do to keep them both more or less upright. Every nerve ending in his body is spiking sweet and sharp.
But then Blaine pulls back with a gasp, and his hands scrabble against Kurt’s back until Kurt lets him go, and then he’s stumbling away, like he needs the distance, like he can’t breathe without distance between them.
It’s like ice water mainlined directly into Kurt’s veins. He’s not sure what came over him, or what just happened, because Blaine is panicking, and Kurt doesn’t understand why.
“I - I’m sorry,” he manages.
“That can’t happen again.”
“I don’t - ”
“It’s not because - Kurt, I do care about you, but - this can’t - I’m not - you should go. Please. I’ve got to get to work.”
He won’t meet Kurt’s eyes, and Kurt is too numb to do anything but nod woodenly.
“Okay. I’ll just - I really am sorry, Blaine. I don’t know what came over me.”
“It’s fine. Just - I’ll see you at rehearsal, okay? We can forget this ever happened.”
Kurt gathers his things and leaves in a hurry, horrified at himself and still so confused. The way Blaine was looking at him, and the way he kissed him back…and the way he looked like he was going to throw up, after. None of it makes sense.
He can’t bring himself to get on the subway, after that, hates the idea of being trapped underground, so he finds himself wandering aimlessly through the dark city streets, grateful for the cool air against his cheeks. He wishes he could look up and see the stars, like he used to from his bedroom in Lima. Seeing the lights like little cut jewels in the sky always helped him clear his head.
One thing is absolutely clear to him, now that he’s alone with his thoughts: he has been acting like a crazy person.
Or maybe he actually is a crazy person. It would be as good an explanation as any for the way he’s been acting since he set foot in The Moulin Rouge last night. It’s the only explanation he can think of for the impulses Blaine brings out in him with the slightest flirt of his eyes. The only other possibility is…not possible.
He’s known Blaine for less than 24 hours. Blaine is a - a gigolo, for God’s sake.
And yet…
Kurt has never been in love. He’s had plenty of crushes (most of them on straight guys) and a few infatuations that he thought were the real deal until they faded. His longest relationship was four months, his freshman year at NYU, with a guy he missed more for his scarf collection than for his actual self after they broke up. Everything he knows about love - real, true, lasting love - he learned from Broadway musicals.
But the thing is, despite all of this, Kurt still believes in love. Above all things, he believes in love. It’s a secret he keeps locked in his heart, away from prying eyes, because it’s too precious to share. He’s a romantic, like his father, and he won’t let that part of his soul be washed away with cynicism, no matter how fashionable it may be.
So he can’t help but wonder…
He’s never felt the way he does with Blaine. It’s so big, so very out of his control, bubbling up beneath the surface of his skin from the deepest, darkest corners of his heart.
It shouldn’t be possible, it can’t be, but maybe it is.
Maybe, just maybe, Kurt Hummel is falling in love.
It’s at the moment of this realization, when his heart is rocketing up and plunging down, almost simultaneously, that his phone sounds with Rachel’s custom text alert.
Where are you?
He taps out his reply with shaking fingers, equally relieved and frustrated at being pulled out of his head.
Still in Chelsea.
You never left?!?
I ran into Blaine. We had dinner together.
??? You have some explaining to do, mister!
There’s nothing to explain.
I’ll be the judge of that. Anyway, stay where you are!
Oh, God. Why?
Hazel’s taking us out to celebrate!
In Chelsea?
See you soon!
Kurt groans, not that it has the full effect without Rachel there to hear it. She can’t be serious.
He resigns himself to a long night.
Chapter 3