Fic: "100 Days" [Glee, Kurt/Blaine, 9.4/10]
Title: 100 Days
Author: dazzlebug
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Kurt and Blaine have been best friends (and nothing more) since the age of six. Now college graduates, they take a roadtrip around the USA, visiting every state in 100 days. Fifty states. Two boys. One love story.
Disclaimer: I paint the pictures; I just borrow the names.
This fic will be updated twice-weekly on Wednesdays and Sundays at 4pm EST/9pm GMT (estimated). Also available on ffnet, Tumblr, S&C and AO3. Previous chapters here.
Day 085: Monday 10th December, 2012
Courage (Arizona)
“It’s LGBT, it has Felicity Huffman-“
“Sold, oh my god, sold.”
“Excellent. Write that down: Transamerica for Arizona.”
When Kurt awoke the next morning, his breath stung his raw throat and his eyes still felt full with the bittersweet ache of catharsis. There was also the matter of Blaine sitting on the edge of the bed, gently pushing back Kurt’s hair and looking like he hadn't slept all night.
“Morning,” he said, a smile that looked reluctant tugging at his mouth.
“Morning,” Kurt rasped, shifting under the covers. “What time is it?”
“After seven,” Blaine said. “How’d you sleep?”
“Better than I have in years, actually,” he answered at length. “You?”
“I haven’t slept yet,” Blaine said quietly, his hand dropping and tracing the line of Kurt’s jaw. “There was something I had to do.”
“And it took you nine hours?”
“Eight, actually.”
“You didn’t go out and get lost, did you?”
“No. But I did drink way too much coffee.”
“Well, that’s nothing new,” Kurt said, suppressing a yawn. “I’m guessing I’m awake for a reason?”
“Put on the warmest clothes you own,” Blaine said, his hand falling away, “and meet me by the door in five minutes.”
“What’s going on?” Kurt asked, sitting up and catching Blaine’s wrist as he stood to leave.
“You’ll see,” Blaine sing-songed, his voice cracking and choked with fatigue. With nothing but an exaggerated wink, he ducked out of the bedroom and Kurt was left alone.
He stayed for a moment more, stretching out into the warmth of the bed and listening to the air settle. He felt as if his heart had been cracked open, but instead of it making him want to claw himself back together and patch up his fault lines, it made him want… Blaine. Openly, honestly, and completely-almost as if Blaine had passed some kind of test neither of them were aware had been set.
Kurt glanced down at the front of his pajama shirt, peeled off the Band-Aid, and stuck it directly onto the skin over his heart.
He dressed quickly and simply: thick, charcoal gray jeans, a white shirt and a soft wool sweater, finished off with a black scarf and gloves. He was feeling somehow rebellious, like he needed to be contained-there was lightning in his veins, some kind of kinetic energy thrumming beneath his skin, and the muted colors helped. Avoiding his reflection, because his hair was probably an unmitigated bed-head disaster, he headed out to meet Blaine, who was bundled up in his navy duffel coat and waiting, as promised, by the door.
The R.V. was shrouded in darkness, all of the blinds drawn and the lights switched off. It carried the same atmosphere as their teenage ‘runaway’ nights had, when Kurt would stay over at Blaine’s house and they’d sneak out for a bike ride up to Coffin Pond long after dark.
“Come here,” Blaine murmured. He held out a hand to Kurt, the other holding his scarf.
“You’re starting to freak me out,” Kurt said as he drew closer. “Seriously, what’s going on?”
“Can I blindfold you?”
“I-what?”
Grinning sheepishly, Blaine held up the scarf. “There’s something I want to show you, but I don’t want you to see it ‘til we get there. It’s only a couple minutes’ walk.”
Kurt cast his gaze around the interior of the R.V., the threads drawing together in his mind. “We’re not in Santa Fe anymore, are we?”
Blaine bit his lip and shook his head. “Nope.”
Kurt regarded him coolly for a moment before stepping forward and letting Blaine blindfold him, tucking the lower half of the scarf up over his nose so that he could breathe. And then, as if it was the easiest thing in the world, he let himself be led: down the steps and out the door; along smooth and even ground which gave away nothing when Kurt tipped his head back to try and see around him; down a gradual incline that led to an uneven set of winding steps.
The world around him was silent, barely even any birds singing a dawn song to accompany them, and he was grateful that there seemed to be no one else around as Blaine patiently guided him down the steps, Kurt's arm occasionally flailing for purchase where there was none to be found.
“How much far-“ Kurt began, but stopped short when he felt some sort of fence pressing gently against his lower half. “Blaine?”
“I think it’s about to start,” he replied, dropping Kurt's hand and loosening the blindfold. “Are you ready?”
“I don't even-“
Bright, dawn-pale sky stretched for miles and miles, all the way to the horizon, and Kurt squinted against the sudden harshness. Then, like a blurry long-lens shot suddenly pulled into focus, the land resolved itself into buttes and canyons and giant sprawls of sedimentary rock. His breath punched out in a single, disbelieving huff and a wave of dizziness overtook him, as if every molecule of oxygen had left his body at once.
A sliver of sunlight appeared to the east, and Kurt’s eyes drank in the pink and purple and orange hues that transformed the rock.
“It looks like it’s breathing,” he whispered.
Blaine chuckled behind him, wrapping his arms around Kurt’s waist and hooking his chin over his shoulder. “Pretty amazing, right?”
Kurt turned in his arms, taking in the splinters of green and gold in his eyes for a moment before pressing his forehead against Blaine’s temple and telling him quietly, “You make everything else go away.”
“Nah,” Blaine said, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek.
“You do, though,” Kurt said, pulling back and meeting his eyes fully. “Everything that happened last night, it… No one’s ever done anything like that for me before, and now this…”
“I figured you needed something good to wake up to. That’s all,” Blaine said with a shrug.
Kurt wanted to tell Blaine that he loved him-the words were on the tip of his tongue, their taste as thick and full as when he’d whispered them to Blaine’s sleeping form in Colorado, but the previous night still weighed heavily on him. He didn’t want to say it when the cracks inside him still simmered with the fury of sleeping giants; he needed some measure of peace to it all.
So instead, he held onto the railing behind him and leaned back, looking over his shoulder at the land of a rising sun. Blaine dropped his head to rest on Kurt’s chest, his eyes drifting closed and a smile playing about his lips when Kurt told him he was missing it.
“We’ve been here for a while, you know. I came up earlier,” he replied tiredly. “And we’ve got tomorrow.”
“I can’t believe you drove all night to get here,” Kurt said.
“Well, you took me to Four Corners,” Blaine pointed out.
“Did you stop anywhere?”
“Yeah, at about two-thirty. There was a Denny’s in Holbrook.”
“Kinda glad I wasn’t awake.”
“Mm. You needed to sleep.”
“Thank you. For last night,” Kurt said, resting his head atop Blaine’s. “And for everything else.”
“You’re welcome,” Blaine said around a yawn; Kurt could feel the warm exhalation even through his layers.
Clearing his throat, wanting to offer something, he said, “Blaine, you-you know I’m getting there, right?”
“Hmm?”
“With… With us. You know I’m getting there, don’t you?”
Only silence greeted him, stretching so taut that Kurt thought it might snap back like an elastic band at any moment-until Blaine’s arms went limp, and Kurt realized that he had fallen asleep. He allowed himself a moment to let out a bone-deep sigh before hooking his arms underneath Blaine’s and hauling him to his feet.
“You fell asleep on me,” Kurt told him as he blinked himself awake. “Literally.”
“Did not,” Blaine grumbled, rubbing his eyes and looking at him blearily. “Okay, maybe I did.”
“Come on. Let’s get you back to the R.V., Sleeping Beauty,” Kurt said, taking his hand and leading him away from the fence.
“Is that my Disney character?” Blaine asked.
“I’d actually say Rapunzel. Your hair grows fast enough,” Kurt replied, carding his hand through Blaine’s curls until Blaine was scrunching his nose and batting his hand away.
“If my hair was that long, I’d look like Brian May,” he said, and Kurt laughed. As they reached the top of the steps, Blaine tugged on his sleeve and turned back to the face the sunrise. Quietly, and looking at Kurt with a gaze too intense for his meaning to be missed, he asked, “Do you think we’d fly if we jumped?”
“The wings need a few more tweaks, but… Soon,” Kurt said at length. He didn’t miss the way Blaine’s face lit up, brighter than the sun that had, by now, almost fully cleared the horizon. “Now, come on. There’s a bed with your name on it.”
“Sheets, too. Literally.”
“Reason number seventy-five that your mother will always confuse me.”
“So where did you meet this guy?” Blaine asked as they took a seat on one of the benches behind the campfire, leaning in to speak directly into Kurt’s ear.
“At the store, when I went for Advil,” Kurt replied, resting his head on Blaine’s shoulder and inhaling deeply.
After both having slept most of the day away, Kurt had woken late in the afternoon with images of a dream still flashing in his mind: an empty dance floor littered with debris; a black gymnastic ribbon that had become fire when he’d picked it up; dancing with it until everything was alight; walking through the flames toward a glass door. The handle had almost been within reach when Kurt had awoken, head throbbing and half-abandoned sentiments fizzling on his tongue.
It was at the Market Plaza store that he’d run into Elliott: six feet tall; broad shoulders and muscled arms barely concealed by his regulation green polo; black hair shot through with honey; green eyes subtly outlined in black, and an arresting, sultry smile that, only months previously, would have driven Kurt crazy.
“We got talking,” Kurt continued, “and his best friend’s dad owns the place, so they come up every Monday to hang out, spin, blow off some steam… In the summer they put on shows for the kids.”
He scanned the clearing, taking in the campfire and the rows of benches set up behind it, as if the campfire were some sort of platform from which one could preach. There were five or six couples sprawled across the benches and blankets strewn haphazardly around the campfire, and none of them had paid Kurt and Blaine’s arrival any attention; all of their eyes were transfixed on Elliott, who was halfway through a slow, sensuous fire poi routine set to a Matt Corby song that wouldn’t have sounded out of place in a Sons of Anarchy episode.
The poi he was using were made of steel wool; every weave and reel resulted in a cascade of sparks, and as the sound built and built to a thumping, insane crescendo, Elliott raised his arms up over his head and spun the poi together. Sparks showered down around him, carpeting the ground and eliciting gasps from a couple of the girls.
Kurt and Blaine applauded and cheered along with everyone else, laughing at his theatrical entertainer’s bow. He unwound the poi from his hands and tossed them to the side as they burned out, and his place was taken by a small, curvy blonde in jeans and a leather jacket. She was carrying two five-pronged cathedral fans, and while she worked herself through a few warm-ups, Elliott jogged over.
“Kurt! So glad you came,” he said, slightly out of breath and shooting him an infectious smile before taking a seat and turning his attention to Blaine. “And you must be the boyfriend Kurt was telling me about.”
Blaine threw a look his way that was a mixture of confusion and surprise, and Kurt finally understood what it meant to wish that a chasm would open up beneath his feet. Without meeting either of their gazes, he introduced them and prayed for a change of subject.
“How long have you guys been together?” Elliott asked, glancing between them with an easy openness to his expression, and Kurt cursed his luck.
“You tell him, sweetheart,” Blaine said, and nudged his side.
Kurt sucked in a deep breath to keep from committing murder, forced a smile, and said, “We’ve been best friends since we were little, but things didn’t… Change, I guess, ‘til this trip.”
“Well, I’m happy for you,” Elliott said, adding, “and you guys are from Maine, right? You just got marriage there?”
Kurt bristled even more, mostly at the memory of that walking-on-broken-glass night in Wisconsin, and nodded with a tight smile. “You were right, by the way,” he said, finally finding the wherewithal to redirect the conversation. “That routine was incredible.”
“Ah, it’s all in finding the right music,” Elliott said, waving off the praise and gesturing to the blonde girl. She was warming up with a few basic turns and sweeps, waving the fans up and down in a way that made it look like she had wings. “Now, Dani is something else. She’s an artist.”
“Just like Kurt,” Blaine interjected, and as he wound his arm around Kurt’s waist, Kurt couldn’t help but smile a little, even though it had been a long time since he’d felt like one. The thought stung more than he’d let it in months. “I filmed him for a music video once, and his routines are beautiful.”
“You’re up next, then,” Elliott said.
“What? No, I-I…” Kurt spluttered. “I haven’t spun for a couple years.”
“Not taking no for an answer,” Elliott sing-songed, and got to his feet just as Dani’s fans lit up as brightly as fireworks. “Come over once she’s done and we’ll get you set up.”
“Okay,” Kurt said weakly, and after Elliott had left them to join a couple of his friends sitting closer to where Dani was spinning and twirling, Blaine leaned over and pressed a kiss beneath Kurt’s jaw.
“Boyfriend, huh?” he asked.
“He was about to hit on me,” Kurt said; it wasn’t a lie, but neither was it the truth. “I had to say something.”
He felt more than saw Blaine’s small, knowing smile, heard his murmured, “Okay,” and that same electricity lingering in his bloodstream almost had him jittering with the itch to spin again, to feel every minute shift of the chains as he created his own escape of patterns and heat and light.
“What if I’ve forgotten everything?” he asked.
“I’ll come stand right in front of you, if you want. Pretty good incentive for not fucking up,” Blaine offered, but before Kurt had even rolled his eyes, he added firmly, “Stop second-guessing yourself, and go be an artist. It’s who she taught you to be.”
Struck dumb with the truth of Blaine’s words, Kurt let himself relax into his hold for the rest of Dani’s kinetic light show, and it felt like no time at all that her cathedral fans were snuffing out and Elliott was waving him over. Blaine lightly squeezed his hand, and Kurt left everything behind except the energy that had been bubbling inside him all day.
He flexed his fingers and rolled his wrists as he walked down the aisle separating the rows of benches, loosening up his joints ready to spin. Breathe, he reminded himself as he shook out his shoulders and rolled his neck, striding over to Elliott with purpose. He accepted two poi from a rake-thin teenage boy Elliott introduced as Sean, and turned to Dani to congratulate her on her performance.
“Thank you!” she said, bouncing on her toes and clapping her hands together before gesturing to the small but powerful iPod dock standing on a tree stump. “Did you bring music for your routine?”
Kurt shook his head. “I’m woefully under-prepared.”
“Oh, that’s okay! Don’t even worry about it. What kinda stuff do you like?”
“Anything that has a good beat and makes me feel.”
She looked thoughtful for a second, and strode over to the dock, calling back to him, “I have a couple friends in Vancouver, and they sent me a demo EP for this band called The Belle Game. I’m obsessed with this one song, River, right now.”
“Sounds good to me,” Kurt said, having gotten used to improvising to whichever songs the leader of his college fire club had picked each week.
The song began with an almost dream-like quality that sounded like harps over guitars; Dani gave him a cute smile and thumbs-up as she passed by on her way to a seat, and Kurt was suddenly aware of all eyes on him. He shook off the nerves and wrapped the poi handles around his hands, striding with purpose over to the campfire to light them before stepping back and taking a deep breath.
“There’s a place that I’ve found,” were the lyrics that got him started, spinning the poi in a simple butterfly formation. “Full of sins that you’ve drowned. I’ve been your river, I’ve been your river since we were kids.”
The sounds of fire whipped past him on each spin, the old familiar heat wrapping around him; he picked up on the song’s instrumental interlude-a plucking of strings that sounded as chaotic and treacherous as his own heart-and swept himself up into a four-beat weave, relaxing his body and letting himself move from side to side.
“There’s a rhyme and a case for the things you’ve misplaced.”
Corkscrew reels, this time: shortening the chains to spin in front of him and then up and over his head. Easy moves that he could never have forgotten, and he bit back a smile, concentrating on feeling the music and anticipating the change in beat-which exploded into the chorus: “Take a little more, take a little more from me.”
The lightning flowed through Kurt’s arms and out into the poi, consumed by the flames as he leapt onto his toes and into one of his signature variations on a six-petal flower. He pushed the fire away and pulled it back, dancing with it until it felt like an extension of himself and he wielded the control over it for a transitional float, running the poi at vertical parallels.
Kurt’s every nerve was aflame; he was invincible; he was on the edge of the world; he was a superhero. The music was for him, just for him, and he was lightning shattering out of a jar; pure id as he spiraled higher and higher into the stratosphere.
It was as he was performing a simple but modified alternating barrel roll, leaning back with one leg raised into the air, that he caught sight of Blaine-no longer seated but standing at the end of the aisle between the benches. He was transfixed, the weight of his gaze something that would normally have felt heavier than Kurt could bear, but this time only spurred him on-he dipped back as far as he could without losing balance and righted himself with a scissor kick.
“Do you feel me at your side? I’ve been filled with all you denied.”
Kurt almost stopped short but managed to cover with another float, the words catching him off-guard and opening his eyes all at once to the truth of… Of everything, every last word of encouragement spoken to him throughout the course of their road trip: Andrew telling him to make the mistakes first; the tour guide in Virginia thinking they were a couple; Nan leaving no room for argument in informing them that they belonged to one another back in South Carolina; his own father making clear on Thanksgiving what Kurt had still refused to see; even the mysterious F, sending him music to soundtrack what he could no longer deny was a love story.
“Take a little more, take a little more, take a little more from me…”
And then there was Blaine: telling him he’d had a teenage crush on him in Kentucky; a stirrer poking out of his mouth in Ohio; pushing him to sing in Michigan; saving his life in Indiana; kissing air into his lungs underwater in Minnesota; confessing his feelings in Wyoming; making love to him in Colorado; holding him together with a single Band-Aid in New Mexico. For all his faults, he was the best person Kurt had ever known, and love would either tear them apart or give them a lifelong happy ending.
He lost himself-in chasing the sun, in complex, layered butterfly and flower formations, in barrel rolls and windmills and threading the needle-until he was nothing but music and flame, holding a white carnation in his lap and wishing for all the world that Blaine would awake in him a different kind of fire, the fire that had lain dormant until the first brush of lips with the world ending beneath their feet.
What lay just around the corner, or in six months, or in ten years… None of it mattered when Kurt was here and Blaine was-
Standing right in front of him, just out of reach of the poi as they flickered out with the song’s final fade, watching him as if he were something sacred to behold. There was applause and cheering over the perpetual crackle of the campfire, but it fell into the kind of silence that could only be found in the wake of a storm as Kurt’s world narrowed to Blaine. It was that small measure of peace he’d been needing.
Some people fell quickly and easily into love, inhaling it like air and needing only that. Kurt had fumbled and tripped and misstepped his way to the edge of a cliff, and he didn’t know what was waiting at the bottom except Blaine, but it didn’t matter.
Kurt jumped.
“I love you,” he breathed, the extinguished poi hanging limply from his hands.
Blaine froze, his eyes widening and lips parting, a single puff of white the only sign that he was breathing at all. Seconds seemed bottomless, Kurt watching and waiting for something-anything-to let him know that he hadn’t just cast himself into oblivion.
And then Blaine stepped forward and pulled Kurt to him with crushing force, rocked forward onto his tiptoes, pressed his forehead to Kurt’s temple, and whispered, “I love you, too.”
…and Kurt landed.
Distance: 12,617 miles
*
Next: Nevada
Author: dazzlebug
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Kurt and Blaine have been best friends (and nothing more) since the age of six. Now college graduates, they take a roadtrip around the USA, visiting every state in 100 days. Fifty states. Two boys. One love story.
Disclaimer: I paint the pictures; I just borrow the names.
This fic will be updated twice-weekly on Wednesdays and Sundays at 4pm EST/9pm GMT (estimated). Also available on ffnet, Tumblr, S&C and AO3. Previous chapters here.
Day 085: Monday 10th December, 2012
Courage (Arizona)
“It’s LGBT, it has Felicity Huffman-“
“Sold, oh my god, sold.”
“Excellent. Write that down: Transamerica for Arizona.”
When Kurt awoke the next morning, his breath stung his raw throat and his eyes still felt full with the bittersweet ache of catharsis. There was also the matter of Blaine sitting on the edge of the bed, gently pushing back Kurt’s hair and looking like he hadn't slept all night.
“Morning,” he said, a smile that looked reluctant tugging at his mouth.
“Morning,” Kurt rasped, shifting under the covers. “What time is it?”
“After seven,” Blaine said. “How’d you sleep?”
“Better than I have in years, actually,” he answered at length. “You?”
“I haven’t slept yet,” Blaine said quietly, his hand dropping and tracing the line of Kurt’s jaw. “There was something I had to do.”
“And it took you nine hours?”
“Eight, actually.”
“You didn’t go out and get lost, did you?”
“No. But I did drink way too much coffee.”
“Well, that’s nothing new,” Kurt said, suppressing a yawn. “I’m guessing I’m awake for a reason?”
“Put on the warmest clothes you own,” Blaine said, his hand falling away, “and meet me by the door in five minutes.”
“What’s going on?” Kurt asked, sitting up and catching Blaine’s wrist as he stood to leave.
“You’ll see,” Blaine sing-songed, his voice cracking and choked with fatigue. With nothing but an exaggerated wink, he ducked out of the bedroom and Kurt was left alone.
He stayed for a moment more, stretching out into the warmth of the bed and listening to the air settle. He felt as if his heart had been cracked open, but instead of it making him want to claw himself back together and patch up his fault lines, it made him want… Blaine. Openly, honestly, and completely-almost as if Blaine had passed some kind of test neither of them were aware had been set.
Kurt glanced down at the front of his pajama shirt, peeled off the Band-Aid, and stuck it directly onto the skin over his heart.
He dressed quickly and simply: thick, charcoal gray jeans, a white shirt and a soft wool sweater, finished off with a black scarf and gloves. He was feeling somehow rebellious, like he needed to be contained-there was lightning in his veins, some kind of kinetic energy thrumming beneath his skin, and the muted colors helped. Avoiding his reflection, because his hair was probably an unmitigated bed-head disaster, he headed out to meet Blaine, who was bundled up in his navy duffel coat and waiting, as promised, by the door.
The R.V. was shrouded in darkness, all of the blinds drawn and the lights switched off. It carried the same atmosphere as their teenage ‘runaway’ nights had, when Kurt would stay over at Blaine’s house and they’d sneak out for a bike ride up to Coffin Pond long after dark.
“Come here,” Blaine murmured. He held out a hand to Kurt, the other holding his scarf.
“You’re starting to freak me out,” Kurt said as he drew closer. “Seriously, what’s going on?”
“Can I blindfold you?”
“I-what?”
Grinning sheepishly, Blaine held up the scarf. “There’s something I want to show you, but I don’t want you to see it ‘til we get there. It’s only a couple minutes’ walk.”
Kurt cast his gaze around the interior of the R.V., the threads drawing together in his mind. “We’re not in Santa Fe anymore, are we?”
Blaine bit his lip and shook his head. “Nope.”
Kurt regarded him coolly for a moment before stepping forward and letting Blaine blindfold him, tucking the lower half of the scarf up over his nose so that he could breathe. And then, as if it was the easiest thing in the world, he let himself be led: down the steps and out the door; along smooth and even ground which gave away nothing when Kurt tipped his head back to try and see around him; down a gradual incline that led to an uneven set of winding steps.
The world around him was silent, barely even any birds singing a dawn song to accompany them, and he was grateful that there seemed to be no one else around as Blaine patiently guided him down the steps, Kurt's arm occasionally flailing for purchase where there was none to be found.
“How much far-“ Kurt began, but stopped short when he felt some sort of fence pressing gently against his lower half. “Blaine?”
“I think it’s about to start,” he replied, dropping Kurt's hand and loosening the blindfold. “Are you ready?”
“I don't even-“
Bright, dawn-pale sky stretched for miles and miles, all the way to the horizon, and Kurt squinted against the sudden harshness. Then, like a blurry long-lens shot suddenly pulled into focus, the land resolved itself into buttes and canyons and giant sprawls of sedimentary rock. His breath punched out in a single, disbelieving huff and a wave of dizziness overtook him, as if every molecule of oxygen had left his body at once.
A sliver of sunlight appeared to the east, and Kurt’s eyes drank in the pink and purple and orange hues that transformed the rock.
“It looks like it’s breathing,” he whispered.
Blaine chuckled behind him, wrapping his arms around Kurt’s waist and hooking his chin over his shoulder. “Pretty amazing, right?”
Kurt turned in his arms, taking in the splinters of green and gold in his eyes for a moment before pressing his forehead against Blaine’s temple and telling him quietly, “You make everything else go away.”
“Nah,” Blaine said, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek.
“You do, though,” Kurt said, pulling back and meeting his eyes fully. “Everything that happened last night, it… No one’s ever done anything like that for me before, and now this…”
“I figured you needed something good to wake up to. That’s all,” Blaine said with a shrug.
Kurt wanted to tell Blaine that he loved him-the words were on the tip of his tongue, their taste as thick and full as when he’d whispered them to Blaine’s sleeping form in Colorado, but the previous night still weighed heavily on him. He didn’t want to say it when the cracks inside him still simmered with the fury of sleeping giants; he needed some measure of peace to it all.
So instead, he held onto the railing behind him and leaned back, looking over his shoulder at the land of a rising sun. Blaine dropped his head to rest on Kurt’s chest, his eyes drifting closed and a smile playing about his lips when Kurt told him he was missing it.
“We’ve been here for a while, you know. I came up earlier,” he replied tiredly. “And we’ve got tomorrow.”
“I can’t believe you drove all night to get here,” Kurt said.
“Well, you took me to Four Corners,” Blaine pointed out.
“Did you stop anywhere?”
“Yeah, at about two-thirty. There was a Denny’s in Holbrook.”
“Kinda glad I wasn’t awake.”
“Mm. You needed to sleep.”
“Thank you. For last night,” Kurt said, resting his head atop Blaine’s. “And for everything else.”
“You’re welcome,” Blaine said around a yawn; Kurt could feel the warm exhalation even through his layers.
Clearing his throat, wanting to offer something, he said, “Blaine, you-you know I’m getting there, right?”
“Hmm?”
“With… With us. You know I’m getting there, don’t you?”
Only silence greeted him, stretching so taut that Kurt thought it might snap back like an elastic band at any moment-until Blaine’s arms went limp, and Kurt realized that he had fallen asleep. He allowed himself a moment to let out a bone-deep sigh before hooking his arms underneath Blaine’s and hauling him to his feet.
“You fell asleep on me,” Kurt told him as he blinked himself awake. “Literally.”
“Did not,” Blaine grumbled, rubbing his eyes and looking at him blearily. “Okay, maybe I did.”
“Come on. Let’s get you back to the R.V., Sleeping Beauty,” Kurt said, taking his hand and leading him away from the fence.
“Is that my Disney character?” Blaine asked.
“I’d actually say Rapunzel. Your hair grows fast enough,” Kurt replied, carding his hand through Blaine’s curls until Blaine was scrunching his nose and batting his hand away.
“If my hair was that long, I’d look like Brian May,” he said, and Kurt laughed. As they reached the top of the steps, Blaine tugged on his sleeve and turned back to the face the sunrise. Quietly, and looking at Kurt with a gaze too intense for his meaning to be missed, he asked, “Do you think we’d fly if we jumped?”
“The wings need a few more tweaks, but… Soon,” Kurt said at length. He didn’t miss the way Blaine’s face lit up, brighter than the sun that had, by now, almost fully cleared the horizon. “Now, come on. There’s a bed with your name on it.”
“Sheets, too. Literally.”
“Reason number seventy-five that your mother will always confuse me.”
“So where did you meet this guy?” Blaine asked as they took a seat on one of the benches behind the campfire, leaning in to speak directly into Kurt’s ear.
“At the store, when I went for Advil,” Kurt replied, resting his head on Blaine’s shoulder and inhaling deeply.
After both having slept most of the day away, Kurt had woken late in the afternoon with images of a dream still flashing in his mind: an empty dance floor littered with debris; a black gymnastic ribbon that had become fire when he’d picked it up; dancing with it until everything was alight; walking through the flames toward a glass door. The handle had almost been within reach when Kurt had awoken, head throbbing and half-abandoned sentiments fizzling on his tongue.
It was at the Market Plaza store that he’d run into Elliott: six feet tall; broad shoulders and muscled arms barely concealed by his regulation green polo; black hair shot through with honey; green eyes subtly outlined in black, and an arresting, sultry smile that, only months previously, would have driven Kurt crazy.
“We got talking,” Kurt continued, “and his best friend’s dad owns the place, so they come up every Monday to hang out, spin, blow off some steam… In the summer they put on shows for the kids.”
He scanned the clearing, taking in the campfire and the rows of benches set up behind it, as if the campfire were some sort of platform from which one could preach. There were five or six couples sprawled across the benches and blankets strewn haphazardly around the campfire, and none of them had paid Kurt and Blaine’s arrival any attention; all of their eyes were transfixed on Elliott, who was halfway through a slow, sensuous fire poi routine set to a Matt Corby song that wouldn’t have sounded out of place in a Sons of Anarchy episode.
The poi he was using were made of steel wool; every weave and reel resulted in a cascade of sparks, and as the sound built and built to a thumping, insane crescendo, Elliott raised his arms up over his head and spun the poi together. Sparks showered down around him, carpeting the ground and eliciting gasps from a couple of the girls.
Kurt and Blaine applauded and cheered along with everyone else, laughing at his theatrical entertainer’s bow. He unwound the poi from his hands and tossed them to the side as they burned out, and his place was taken by a small, curvy blonde in jeans and a leather jacket. She was carrying two five-pronged cathedral fans, and while she worked herself through a few warm-ups, Elliott jogged over.
“Kurt! So glad you came,” he said, slightly out of breath and shooting him an infectious smile before taking a seat and turning his attention to Blaine. “And you must be the boyfriend Kurt was telling me about.”
Blaine threw a look his way that was a mixture of confusion and surprise, and Kurt finally understood what it meant to wish that a chasm would open up beneath his feet. Without meeting either of their gazes, he introduced them and prayed for a change of subject.
“How long have you guys been together?” Elliott asked, glancing between them with an easy openness to his expression, and Kurt cursed his luck.
“You tell him, sweetheart,” Blaine said, and nudged his side.
Kurt sucked in a deep breath to keep from committing murder, forced a smile, and said, “We’ve been best friends since we were little, but things didn’t… Change, I guess, ‘til this trip.”
“Well, I’m happy for you,” Elliott said, adding, “and you guys are from Maine, right? You just got marriage there?”
Kurt bristled even more, mostly at the memory of that walking-on-broken-glass night in Wisconsin, and nodded with a tight smile. “You were right, by the way,” he said, finally finding the wherewithal to redirect the conversation. “That routine was incredible.”
“Ah, it’s all in finding the right music,” Elliott said, waving off the praise and gesturing to the blonde girl. She was warming up with a few basic turns and sweeps, waving the fans up and down in a way that made it look like she had wings. “Now, Dani is something else. She’s an artist.”
“Just like Kurt,” Blaine interjected, and as he wound his arm around Kurt’s waist, Kurt couldn’t help but smile a little, even though it had been a long time since he’d felt like one. The thought stung more than he’d let it in months. “I filmed him for a music video once, and his routines are beautiful.”
“You’re up next, then,” Elliott said.
“What? No, I-I…” Kurt spluttered. “I haven’t spun for a couple years.”
“Not taking no for an answer,” Elliott sing-songed, and got to his feet just as Dani’s fans lit up as brightly as fireworks. “Come over once she’s done and we’ll get you set up.”
“Okay,” Kurt said weakly, and after Elliott had left them to join a couple of his friends sitting closer to where Dani was spinning and twirling, Blaine leaned over and pressed a kiss beneath Kurt’s jaw.
“Boyfriend, huh?” he asked.
“He was about to hit on me,” Kurt said; it wasn’t a lie, but neither was it the truth. “I had to say something.”
He felt more than saw Blaine’s small, knowing smile, heard his murmured, “Okay,” and that same electricity lingering in his bloodstream almost had him jittering with the itch to spin again, to feel every minute shift of the chains as he created his own escape of patterns and heat and light.
“What if I’ve forgotten everything?” he asked.
“I’ll come stand right in front of you, if you want. Pretty good incentive for not fucking up,” Blaine offered, but before Kurt had even rolled his eyes, he added firmly, “Stop second-guessing yourself, and go be an artist. It’s who she taught you to be.”
Struck dumb with the truth of Blaine’s words, Kurt let himself relax into his hold for the rest of Dani’s kinetic light show, and it felt like no time at all that her cathedral fans were snuffing out and Elliott was waving him over. Blaine lightly squeezed his hand, and Kurt left everything behind except the energy that had been bubbling inside him all day.
He flexed his fingers and rolled his wrists as he walked down the aisle separating the rows of benches, loosening up his joints ready to spin. Breathe, he reminded himself as he shook out his shoulders and rolled his neck, striding over to Elliott with purpose. He accepted two poi from a rake-thin teenage boy Elliott introduced as Sean, and turned to Dani to congratulate her on her performance.
“Thank you!” she said, bouncing on her toes and clapping her hands together before gesturing to the small but powerful iPod dock standing on a tree stump. “Did you bring music for your routine?”
Kurt shook his head. “I’m woefully under-prepared.”
“Oh, that’s okay! Don’t even worry about it. What kinda stuff do you like?”
“Anything that has a good beat and makes me feel.”
She looked thoughtful for a second, and strode over to the dock, calling back to him, “I have a couple friends in Vancouver, and they sent me a demo EP for this band called The Belle Game. I’m obsessed with this one song, River, right now.”
“Sounds good to me,” Kurt said, having gotten used to improvising to whichever songs the leader of his college fire club had picked each week.
The song began with an almost dream-like quality that sounded like harps over guitars; Dani gave him a cute smile and thumbs-up as she passed by on her way to a seat, and Kurt was suddenly aware of all eyes on him. He shook off the nerves and wrapped the poi handles around his hands, striding with purpose over to the campfire to light them before stepping back and taking a deep breath.
“There’s a place that I’ve found,” were the lyrics that got him started, spinning the poi in a simple butterfly formation. “Full of sins that you’ve drowned. I’ve been your river, I’ve been your river since we were kids.”
The sounds of fire whipped past him on each spin, the old familiar heat wrapping around him; he picked up on the song’s instrumental interlude-a plucking of strings that sounded as chaotic and treacherous as his own heart-and swept himself up into a four-beat weave, relaxing his body and letting himself move from side to side.
“There’s a rhyme and a case for the things you’ve misplaced.”
Corkscrew reels, this time: shortening the chains to spin in front of him and then up and over his head. Easy moves that he could never have forgotten, and he bit back a smile, concentrating on feeling the music and anticipating the change in beat-which exploded into the chorus: “Take a little more, take a little more from me.”
The lightning flowed through Kurt’s arms and out into the poi, consumed by the flames as he leapt onto his toes and into one of his signature variations on a six-petal flower. He pushed the fire away and pulled it back, dancing with it until it felt like an extension of himself and he wielded the control over it for a transitional float, running the poi at vertical parallels.
Kurt’s every nerve was aflame; he was invincible; he was on the edge of the world; he was a superhero. The music was for him, just for him, and he was lightning shattering out of a jar; pure id as he spiraled higher and higher into the stratosphere.
It was as he was performing a simple but modified alternating barrel roll, leaning back with one leg raised into the air, that he caught sight of Blaine-no longer seated but standing at the end of the aisle between the benches. He was transfixed, the weight of his gaze something that would normally have felt heavier than Kurt could bear, but this time only spurred him on-he dipped back as far as he could without losing balance and righted himself with a scissor kick.
“Do you feel me at your side? I’ve been filled with all you denied.”
Kurt almost stopped short but managed to cover with another float, the words catching him off-guard and opening his eyes all at once to the truth of… Of everything, every last word of encouragement spoken to him throughout the course of their road trip: Andrew telling him to make the mistakes first; the tour guide in Virginia thinking they were a couple; Nan leaving no room for argument in informing them that they belonged to one another back in South Carolina; his own father making clear on Thanksgiving what Kurt had still refused to see; even the mysterious F, sending him music to soundtrack what he could no longer deny was a love story.
“Take a little more, take a little more, take a little more from me…”
And then there was Blaine: telling him he’d had a teenage crush on him in Kentucky; a stirrer poking out of his mouth in Ohio; pushing him to sing in Michigan; saving his life in Indiana; kissing air into his lungs underwater in Minnesota; confessing his feelings in Wyoming; making love to him in Colorado; holding him together with a single Band-Aid in New Mexico. For all his faults, he was the best person Kurt had ever known, and love would either tear them apart or give them a lifelong happy ending.
He lost himself-in chasing the sun, in complex, layered butterfly and flower formations, in barrel rolls and windmills and threading the needle-until he was nothing but music and flame, holding a white carnation in his lap and wishing for all the world that Blaine would awake in him a different kind of fire, the fire that had lain dormant until the first brush of lips with the world ending beneath their feet.
What lay just around the corner, or in six months, or in ten years… None of it mattered when Kurt was here and Blaine was-
Standing right in front of him, just out of reach of the poi as they flickered out with the song’s final fade, watching him as if he were something sacred to behold. There was applause and cheering over the perpetual crackle of the campfire, but it fell into the kind of silence that could only be found in the wake of a storm as Kurt’s world narrowed to Blaine. It was that small measure of peace he’d been needing.
Some people fell quickly and easily into love, inhaling it like air and needing only that. Kurt had fumbled and tripped and misstepped his way to the edge of a cliff, and he didn’t know what was waiting at the bottom except Blaine, but it didn’t matter.
Kurt jumped.
“I love you,” he breathed, the extinguished poi hanging limply from his hands.
Blaine froze, his eyes widening and lips parting, a single puff of white the only sign that he was breathing at all. Seconds seemed bottomless, Kurt watching and waiting for something-anything-to let him know that he hadn’t just cast himself into oblivion.
And then Blaine stepped forward and pulled Kurt to him with crushing force, rocked forward onto his tiptoes, pressed his forehead to Kurt’s temple, and whispered, “I love you, too.”
…and Kurt landed.
Distance: 12,617 miles
*
Next: Nevada