One Hundred Things Kurt Hummel Loves About Blaine Anderson 1/3
Author: Dyrne_Keeper
Title: One Hundred Things Kurt Hummel Loves About Blaine Anderson
Other Pairing(s)/Character(s): Kurt/OMC, Rachel/Finn (brief mention), Quinn.
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Kurt loves New York. (Seriously - he’s thinking of having shirts printed.) But he quickly learns the hard way that the City that Never Sleeps isn’t a dream come true for everyone.
Warnings (if any): None.
Total word count: 30,500
Original prompt number: #59
Disclaimer: This story/artwork is based on characters and situations created and owned by Ryan Murphy and FOX Broadcasting Company. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Author's notes (if any): Oh, constraints, so bad and yet so good for my creativity. I set myself this challenge within the given prompt: One hundred scenes, no less, each no more than five hundred words long. I had a ridiculous amount of fun with this, and things happened with this format that never would have happened otherwise, so thank you to the prompter for giving me such a great assignment to tackle :)
Beta(s): mtonbury
So, I wrote this ages ago (it sure feels like ages ago now) for the Klaine Endgame challenge this past summer, and am finally getting around to crossposting here. Consider it the beginning of my re-foraying into ficwriting :)
*
One of Them
1.
“It’s so tall.”
“Blaine, baby, can you give me a hand with this?”
“I think that’s the Empire State building. Is that the Empire State building?”
“Blaine!”
Blaine jumps, and Kurt has to laugh at the look of awe and excitement and, clearly, utter lack of concern for such mundane details as loading their luggage into the back of Alex’s car. “Sorry,” he says, still grinning, and kisses Kurt’s cheek before he slings his backpack into the backseat and bends down to pick up a duffel bag.
Alex fails spectacularly at hiding her amusement from the other side of the car, and Kurt is sure she’s not even trying. “You have been to New York before, right?” she asks, shoving a suitcase aside in the trunk to make room for another.
“Yes!” Blaine says, settling the duffel into the slot Alex just opened up and slamming the trunk closed. “...Once.”
Kurt and Alex catch each other’s eyes over the roof of the car, and Kurt can’t help laughing.
Blaine leans into Kurt’s side as Alex fights gridlock traffic, windows rolled down and bass cranked up, because things aren’t chaotic enough as they are.
“That wasn’t the Empire State Building, was it.”
Kurt grins. “Not even close.” As ridiculous as Blaine is being, Kurt can’t pretend he doesn’t understand. His first three months here had been one long string of breathtaken moments and constant wonderment that he had finally gotten out of Ohio and that he was here.
“That is though, right?” Blaine points out the window at an iconic silhouette framed against blue sky and summer-white clouds.
“Mhmm.” Kurt leans his hand on Blaine’s shoulder, so he can look out his window and revel in seeing the city through his eyes, so bright and gleaming and full of promise.
Blaine’s fingers tighten around Kurt’s, and his eyes are bright and happy. “This is going to be so amazing.”
2.
Kurt sets down the thermos of hot chocolate and stretches out on the blanket next to Blaine, crooking an arm behind his head and staring up at the sky. Blaine unlaces his hands and reaches for one of Kurt’s. “You can’t see many stars here, can you.”
Kurt tips his head over to look at Blaine, who’s staring up at the sky with wide dark eyes. “This is New York. The stars are all down there.” He raises a hand to point down over the lip of the rooftop. Blaine follows the line of his arm and laughs.
“Don’t you ever miss it? The quiet at night? The big prairie sky?”
“What Ohio were you living in? The closest thing we had to open grassland was the flea market parking lot.”
“Still.” Blaine rolls over on his side and props his chin on his hand. “It doesn’t overwhelm you?”
Kurt shakes his head, lets his eyes roam over the skyline, buildings and streets like constellations. “Home always seems so empty when we go there. Empty and blank. New York is crowded and smoggy and ugly but it’s alive, you know? Underneath and about and all around you, all the time, are people, working and creating and living...without that it just feels like suffocating. I’ll trade a few bright shiny things in the sky for being able to breathe.”
When he turns his head Blaine is just looking at him, his eyes so soft and wondering. He reaches an arm over Kurt and leans down to kiss him gently. “You’re the only star I need.”
The night air is soft and cool, and for a long time they forget the stars above and the stars below.
3.
“You’re sure Sean’s in class til five?”
Blaine looks up from where he’s carefully unlacing one of Kurt’s boots. “You’re making me paranoid, Kurt.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Blaine tugs off the boot and sets it next to its twin beside the door, and then crawls up onto the bed and hovers on his hands over Kurt, looking down the length of his body. “‘Stotally worth it.”
“Worth what?” Kurt frowns as he slides his hands up Blaine’s already-bare back.
“Getting caught. Fuck, Kurt.” Blaine dips his head to kiss him. “You are so hot.”
“Look who’s talking,” Kurt grins, and wriggles when Blaine pinches his hip lightly. “Pants off. Now.”
It’s always a revelation, seeing Blaine naked, discovering the things they can do together, and familiarity hasn’t yet bred contempt; Kurt is entirely sure he could happily spend days in bed with Blaine and never get tired of it, though he’s perfectly willing to try just to see. And now they have time, time together, for the first time, in the same place without parents or curfews, and Kurt plans on taking advantage of every moment of it that he can.
4.
“Hey, baby!” Blaine answers the door with a smile, but over his shoulder Kurt can see Sean glance up from his computer with an scowl. Blaine steps back to let Kurt in. “How was class?”
“It was amazing,” Kurt sets down his bag on Blaine’s desk and sits on his bed. “Hello, Sean. How’s it going?” he asks, and makes himself be polite.
“Fine.” Sean closes his laptop and snags his coat off the back of his chair. “I’m gonna head over to the library.”
“We won’t be here long,” Blaine frowns. “Sorry if we’re bothering you -”
“No, it’s fine.” Sean shrugs his coat on and shuts the door with force that’s just short of a slam.
Kurt waits until he’s sure Sean is out of earshot down the hall. “He hasn’t gotten any better yet?”
Blaine frowns and scrubs a hand through his curls. “No,” he sighs. “And it’s not just me, or us, you know? Meghan’s in his Spanish class and says he’s like this there, too.”
“Maybe he just needs time to adjust. It’s hard being away from home. Well, for some people,” he says, when Blaine raises an eyebrow. “You’ll bring him around.”
Blaine flops down on the bed across from him and props his chin on his hand. “You really think so?”
“Of course. Maybe he has some dark past or some deep hidden secret you can coax out of him with a latte and your kind-wise-mentor-face,” he says, oh so seriously, and Blaine laughs and rolls onto his back to swat at him.
“You’re awful.
“You love me. And tell me you haven’t already tried.”
Kurt laughs, too, at the look on Blaine’s face, and it’s so sweet, to know him so well. “I knew it.” He strokes a hand across Blaine’s shoulder. “Just give it some time. Roommates are great - James and I always had a fantastic time together. And still do.” He lets his thumb drag under Blaine’s collar and tugs it back a little. “How long do you think he’s going to be in the library for, anyway?”
Blaine grabs his hand and kisses his palm, and a warm fluttery weight settles into Kurt’s stomach. “Long enough,” he says, and pulls him down for a kiss.
5.
Kurt breathes deep as he pushes his way out of the dining hall and onto the streets. It’s crisp and cool, a perfect September morning, and he loves days like this, loves the brightness of the city, the early (not so early) bustle, loves his classes. Every time they have a guest lecturer, or his instructors wrangle his classes onstage to put into practice what they’re learning, he feels like this isn’t just another dream, that it’s real, that he’s making the life he’d always wanted come true for himself, a little bit more every day.
Blaine is waiting outside his building when his class is over. He’s dressed for a run, and flushed, his hair poking in corkscrews from under his hat.
“How was it? Thanks,” he says, as Kurt digs his water bottle out of his bag and hands it over. Kurt sighs happily.
“It was amazing. I just can’t believe I get to be here, and see all these amazing people and learn from them and ask them questions...”
Blaine bumps his shoulder as they hit the sidewalk and start walking back to the dorms. “Someday you’re going to be one of them, you know.”
“What do you mean?”
“Someday,” Blaine says, recapping the water bottle and flipping up the flap on Kurt’s bag to tuck it back inside. “You are going to be the great Kurt Hummel and have won more Tonys than you know what to do with, and you’re going to change the lives of hundreds of kids who see your musical, that you wrote and starred in, and students at performing arts schools across the country are going to count down the days until you come speak to their classes.”
“Just hundreds?” Kurt takes Blaine’s hand; it’s cold, from the brisk fall air, and damp from dripped water. He squeezes it to get the blood flowing again, and Blaine squeezes back.
“Thousands. Millions. And I am going to be right there with you and be so proud of you, Kurt Hummel.”
They’re stopped at a crosswalk, thankfully, because Kurt has to stop at that, needs to turn and wrap his arms around Blaine’s neck and hold him so so tightly. Blaine hugs him, hard, and kisses the side of his neck. “So proud of you.”
The light changes; the signal chirps. Kurt squeezes Blaine one last time, then lets go, and takes his hand again. “Thank you.” He has to blink rapidly, and laughs at himself. “I love you, you know.”
“And I love you. But now, lunch!” Blaine breaks into a jog and pulls Kurt after himself, laughing and sniffling and entirely, entirely happy.
6.
Kurt wakes up slowly, to the slow brush of fingertips through his hair and against his forehead. He blinks his eyes open to see Blaine already awake, head pillowed on his own arm, gently running his fingers across Kurt’s scalp.
“Good morning,” he says, and Blaine smiles.
“Mmm. Good morning to you too.” Blaine shuffles closer and hooks a leg over Kurt’s. Kurt’s bed really is too small for the both of them, probably, but Kurt loves this, loves falling asleep and waking up together in a limb-woven tangle, pressed together and intertwined. “God, you’re comfortable.” He cups his hand at the back of Kurt’s neck and kisses him lightly. “Let’s stay here all day.”
“Kay,” Kurt nuzzles into the pillow, and wraps an arm around Blaine’s waist, pulling him even closer. “What time’sit?”
He can feel Blaine lift his head to check the alarm clock on the bedside table. “Not even eight. Are you even capable of sleeping in?”
“Mmm.” Kurt nuzzles in further, this time into the crook of Blaine’s neck. “You woke me up first.”
“You were kicking, I had to.”
“I don’t kick.”
“Yes you do,” Blaine says, and kisses him.
Kurt lets himself go, kisses Blaine back and lets his mind drift so that everything is warmth, and early-morning light creeping in at the edge of the curtains and his eyelids, and soft sheets against his bare skin, and Blaine, his mouth against his lips and then his neck and then his chest as he shuffles down under the sheet, hands and lips re-exploring well-known territory. Kurt closes his hands in Blaine’s hair, pets and tugs and pulls, as Blaine’s mouth trails down and down and down.
7.
“And he serenaded me on the front steps of the school...”
Jack gives Kurt a skeptical look as he dumps coffee grounds into the compost bin. “He did not. That’s weird even by your standards.”
Kurt leans an elbow on the counter and rests his chin on it, one eye on the door. “He actually did. It was Lima, planning and rehearsing for surprise vocal performances was one of the least destructive ways to spend your time.”
“I suppose that’s true.” Jack shuts the lid on the coffee grounds and picks up a cloth to start wiping the machines down with. “I don’t suppose this paragon of boyfrienddom has a brother? Or a sister?”
“Mm. Brother, older. Probably not your type.”
“Why? How much older?”
Kurt bobbles his free hand. “Ten years? Give or take?”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Hey, speak of the devil.” The door of the shop jingles as Blaine pulls it open, letting in a warm gust of indian summer air.
Blaine’s face lights when he sees Kurt behind the counter, and Kurt’s heart gives a happy wobble. “Hi, Kurt.”
“Hi baby.” Kurt stands on tiptoes to kiss him over the counter. “I’ll be ready in just a sec.”
Down the counter, Jack clears his throat in a way that is eerily and oddly reminiscent of Wes when he wants attention. Kurt tries to huff a sigh, but he can’t help smiling.
“Fine. Jack, this is my boyfriend Blaine.”
Jack drops the dishcloth to shake Blaine’s hand. “Why? Do you have another one somewhere?”
“Shut up. Blaine, this is Jack, my partner in caffeinated crime. Are you ready to go?”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Blaine says to Jack, and holds out an arm for Kurt as he takes off his apron and ducks out from behind the counter.
“Backatchya, man. See you tomorrow, Kurt!”
Kurt waves over his shoulder as Blaine leads him out of the dim coffeeshop and out into the bright sunshine.
8.
It’s weird that none of the lights are on when Kurt comes home Thursday night - Alex is out working and James has a late class, so Blaine was supposed to come over, and usually he beats Kurt back. Kurt turns on the hall light and hears rustling from the living room, and grips the strap of his bag a little tighter. “Hello?” he calls.
He’s met with a clatter and a curse that make him jump. When he rounds the corner into the living room Blaine is there, looking up at the door guiltily. The table is set, and matches are scattered across one of the place settings.
“Blaine? What’s going on?” Kurt hugs his arms around his chest and takes deep breaths, willing his heart rate to slow down.
“Uh. I made dinner,” Blaine waves at the table, at the bottle of pomegranate lemonade and a covered casserole dish.
“Oh, thank you, sweetheart!” Blaine smiles a little when Kurt hugs him tight, but still looks nervous when he pulls back. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s an, um. Apology dinner. I am so sorry, Kurt, I really am -”
“Blaine?” Kurt cuts him off, stomach sinking. “What are you sorry...for?”
“I fell asleep last night and didn’t call you.”
“...What?” Kurt is baffled.
Blaine looks miserable “You were working late and you texted me on your break and said you were tired and work was driving you nuts and you just wanted to be able to hang out (Kurt snorts to himself, “hang out” was not what he’d said he’d wanted to do, but Blaine’s eternal filter is adorable) and sleep so I promised I’d call when you were done with your shift but I fell asleep reading and then Sean came in and was a dick and I forgot all about it and all I could think of all day today was you sitting up last night and waiting for me to call and being sad and lonely - ”
“Oh, Blaine.” Kurt puts a hand on Blaine’s chest, and his jaw clicks shut. “Sweetheart. You were worried all day about this?”
Blaine nods morosely.
“Oh, honey.” Kurt hugs him again, tighter while Blaine buries his face in Kurt’s shoulder. “I was fine! I completely forgot about that, actually, when I got home I just crashed, I’m so sorry you were worried...”
Blaine untucks his head. “...so you’re not mad at me?”
“Blaine. Baby.” Kurt kisses his forehead. “If I had been sad or lonely or anything like that I just could have called you myself, you know.”
“I guess so.” Blaine shuffles a socked foot on the carpet. “I... overreact, sometimes.”
“I know you do, sweetheart.” Kurt pulls him in for another kiss, on the mouth this time, and Blaine looks much less woebegone when he finally pulls back. “But you are totally the best boyfriend in the world.” He sets his bag down and starts unfastening his jacket. “So. What’s for dinner?”
9.
“Coke for Blaine, cran-and-club for Kurt, and virgin margarita for me!” Rachel passes their drinks across the table and slides into the booth next to Kurt, nudging his shoulder so hard he nearly spills his drink.
“Rachel!”
“Sorry,” she passes him a napkin, and Kurt rolls his eyes at Blaine and is rewarded with a small smile and a nudge against his ankle under the table.
“So!” Rachel declares, taking a prim sip and setting her glass back down. “What do you want to sing first?”
Blaine looks wary. “We’re actually going to sing?”
Kurt slides the napkin under his own glass, because, rings. “It’s a karaoke bar, Blaine, what did you think we were going to do?”
“In public?”
“You’ve sung in public a hundred times before.”
“Yeah, but that was different!”
“How-?”
“Hey, guys!” Rachel’s disbelieving query is cut off by the appearance of a gaggle of people from her and Kurt’s intro stagecraft class.
“Hi!” Rachel nearly bounces in her seat, and, oh, yes, there’s Dan, tall and quiet as ever in the back of the pack. “How are you guys?”
“Oh my god, Kurt!” Stephanie squeals and grabs Kurt’s arm, nearly dragging him out of the booth before he can get his feet firmly on the floor. “It has been too long, you have to sing with me.”
Kurt barely has time to make a sympathetic face at Blaine before he’s being dragged to the stage. Rachel and Stephanie squeal at each other as Jack flips through the songbook and Dan shrugs wordlessly at whatever he’s saying. Finally they all agree to something - Kurt’s learned not to ask beforehand what it is, that just leads to extra moments of agony waiting for truly horrendous backing tracks to start up - and Stephanie manhandles him to a spot on the stage and hands him a mic.
He can see Blaine, by himself now in the booth in the corner. He’ll loosen up, eventually, Kurt’s not really worried, and when the track starts Kurt folds his hands around the microphone and finds his eyes, bright flashes of warmth and encouragement, and sings for him.
10.
“It’s - kind of late. Are you sure we should be out here?”
“Oh, Blaine.” Kurt wraps his arm around Blaine’s shoulder and squeezes his arm. “This is the city that never sleeps! Just stay away from, you know, the dark and scary alleys and you’ll be fine. You have to see Times Square at night at least once.”
“Okay...” Blaine acquiesces, but settles more closely into Kurt’s hold on him.
Kurt loves New York in all its lights and moods but right now he loves it best at night, when the glittering lights stand out of the darkness and fall across his skin, and Blaine’s, turning it a riot of swirling tumbling luminescence as people eddy around them. And Times Square!
“We should come here for New Years,” Kurt says when they finally reach it, tipping his head back to look up at the Times Tower.
“But - we won’t be here for New Year’s, it’s winter break.” Something skitters in a doorway - a pigeon, probably - and Kurt can feel Blaine twitch.
“No, I know. When we’re older.” Kurt uses his other arm to pull him into a sideways hug. “We’ll have the classiest parties on the block, and then we’ll bring everyone down here for the countdown. It’ll be amazing.”
“You’re amazing,” Blaine says, and kisses Kurt’s hand where it’s clasped on his shoulder.
“Mmm. You too. “Oh, that’s the Nederlander down there.” Kurt points 41st Street. “Rent used to play there. Remember our first non-date?”
Blaine laughs, and Kurt can feel the buzz of it in his chest. “Oh god yes. We both bawled through the ending and looked like absolute idiots.”
“You gave me your Kleenex,” Kurt says, remembering. “You were always such a gentleman.”
“I don’t know, the last time I gave you tissues was - ”
“Blaine!” Kurt squeaks, and Blaine laughs, his eyes a little wicked, but they go wide when he looks over Kurt’s shoulder.
“Kurt,” he whispers, “there’s this huge guy, right by that building right there, just - standing there like he’s got it staked out.”
Kurt looks over his shoulder. “Blaine, that’s a bouncer.”
“...oh.” Blaine looks mildly abashed, and Kurt finally decides to take pity on him.
“Do you want to head back?”
“Yeah, if you don’t mind.”
Kurt keeps his arm around Blaine as they walk back to his apartment, and Blaine snakes his arm around Kurt’s waist.
“We’ll get tickets for a show soon - student rush tickets are such a good deal, and people in my classes always seem to know people.”
Blaine hums, and Kurt squeezes his shoulder. “In the meantime, though, James is at Alex’s tonight.”
Blaine’s face brightens, and Kurt has to laugh. “Oh, Blaine. You’re going to love it here.”
Meant to Be
11.
“Blaine...?”
Blaine winces and tries to shuffle the papers out of sight, but not before Kurt catches one and drags it out, crisscrossed with red ink, grade scribbled angrily at the top. “Blaine, what happened?”
“I’m sorry, okay?” Blaine’s shoulders are hunched, and he plucks the essay out of Kurt’s hand.
“You don’t have to be -”
“I failed, okay? I failed. It’s one grade, I’ll be fine.” Blaine shoves the paper back in a folder and drops the whole thing in a drawer.
Whatever he will be, Blaine certainly isn’t fine right now, and Kurt approaches him cautiously. “Do you need some help? Dan runs a study group for some other freshman, maybe he could - ”
“I don’t need help, I did fine on the midterm, I get the material. I just - ran out of time.” Blaine slumps into his chair and just looks tired. “The essay was due the same week as Wilkinson’s project, and I got caught so up in that I completely forgot about this one until like the night before. And I was supposed to help Wilkinson more this week and next, too, but now I have to rewrite this.” He knocks his knee against the drawer. “I wish I’d switched classes when I had the chance.”
“Well, there’s always next semester,” Kurt says, but Blaine sighs.
“Ugh, one semester at a time, I can’t think past December.” He scrubs his hand over his face and scowls.
Kurt feels helpless, but makes his voice bright. “Well, then, let’s think about December. I have so many ideas for Christmas...”
12.
“Oh, man, that sounds awesome.” Blaine waves Kurt into the room when he pokes his head around the door, and Kurt can’t make out the words on the other end of the line but he recognizes David’s voice, and waves.
“Hey, Kurt says hi.” Blaine grins and tips the phone back off his ear. “David says hi back. Yeah? What are you guys going to do next, then?” He returns the phone to his ear, his shoulders turned away from Kurt a little, as Kurt pulls his laptop from his bag and settles down on the bed - this could be a while.
When Blaine finally gets off the phone he’s grinning, and relaxed. Kurt puts aside his laptop. “How’s David?”
“Really great. He was just telling me about the project he’s got going for school - it’s really amazing.” He flips his phone from hand to hand. “I wish there was something like that here.”
Kurt feels a pang of guilt - it’s because he’s here that Blaine is in New York instead of on the West Coast, or anywhere else, but he pushes that aside. Blaine’s wanted to come to New York for years, not just for him.
“Maybe you can start something like it here. The music department’s always looking for fresh ideas.”
Blaine shrugs and sets his phone down. “Maybe. It’d be a big time commitment, though, and I’ve got too much to do as it is. It does sound amazing, though. How was your class?”
Kurt feels bad gushing, so he just says, “It was fine. Do you want to take tonight off? Make dinner, maybe watch a movie?”
Blaine’s eyes brighten. “Oh that sounds perfect.” He stands and kisses Kurt on the way to retrieve his backpack. “How do you always know just what I need?”
Kurt grins at him and stretches out on the bed. “I’m just talented.”
“At many things. So!” Blaine drops back into his chair heavily and pulls a thick folder out of his bag. “Music theory time!”
13.
“It’s James and Alex’s anniversary, and I think I’ve been sexiled.” Kurt checks his watch as he shoulders his way through the door of his building. “Can we hang out in your room instead?”
There’s a rustle and a sigh from the other end of the line, and Kurt thinks he can hear a door shut. “I don’t know, Sean’s in tonight, and he’s being all...Sean.”
“I thought he worked Tuesdays?”
“He used to, but his schedule’s changed and I don’t want to have to ask him for it again.”
Kurt huffs, and stops walking. “What do you want to do then?”
“I don’t know.” Blaine’s sigh rustles staticky down the line. “I’ve got some work I have to get done, do you want to meet me in the library? We can hang out in the common room later if Sean’s still there when we’re done.”
That is not, at all, what Kurt wants to do with his evening, but Blaine has been trying to work harder, and one night actually doing homework together won’t kill him. “Fine. I’ll be there in about ten minutes. Save me a seat?”
“Always. Love you, Kurt. And I am sorry.”
“It’s fine. Love you too, see you soon.”
14.
Blaine sinks back into the couch, and Kurt frowns. “Why don’t you want to go?”
“I didn’t say I didn’t want to go.”
“Blaine -”
“I said I’d go, okay?” Blaine pulls his computer back onto his lap and starts clicking. “I was just planning on getting some work done tonight.”
“But it’s Friday night. It’s date night.”
“I know! And that’s why I’m going to go.”
“But you don’t want to.”
“I’m going, Kurt, what else do you want?” Blaine doesn’t glare, but the look he gives Kurt over the screen of his laptop is annoyed.
“I don’t want you to go if you’re going to be pissy all night about it.”
“I am not being pissy.”
“Yes you - ! Okay. Fine. It’s fine. You don’t have to come.”
“You want me to, though.”
“Of course I do! Blaine, I love you, I love hanging out with you, and I’ve hardly gotten to see you all week.”
“Then I’m going.”
Kurt throws up his hands. “Fine! We’re leaving in ten minutes. And bring a hat, it’s going to be cold on the walk home.”
“Why, where are we going?”
“Mackey’s.”
“But that’s blocks from here, why do we always have to go where Rachel wants?”
“Because she invited us. If you want to go somewhere else, you plan it. Besides, you love Mackey’s.”
“Not when it’s a half-hour walk home at midnight.”
“Then don’t. Come.”
“I’m coming!”
“Then put your coat on, come on.”
Blaine mutters irritably as Kurt laces up his shoes, and Kurt pretends not to hear.
15.
“Hey Blaine! Oh, honey, what’s wrong!”
Kurt opens the door to find a miserable-looking Blaine standing in the hallway, shoulders hunched, eyes glassy. As soon as the door is all the way open he shuffles forward and buries his face in Kurt’s neck. Kurt’s arms automatically close around him.
“Blaine? What is it?”
“I got mugged.” His voice is muffled, but Kurt’s chest tightens. You hear stories all the time, of course, but the school is safe, and Blaine - if anything ever happened to Blaine -
“Well, not mugged.” Kurt lets out a relieved breath, too many too ugly images in his head. “But I was running errands and I was on the subway and someone stole my wallet, and now I have to get a new driver’s license and a new debit card and ID and everything -”
Still holding Blaine tightly around the middle with one hand, Kurt manages to walk them backwards into the entryway and close the door. He slides the chain across, too, just because. He’s had this scare, a time or two, when he’d put his wallet bag in a different compartment in his bag, and Blaine must feel awful.
“It’s okay,” he says softly, rubbing the back of Blaine’s neck soothingly. Blaine’s face is damp against his skin. “This stuff happens all the time, and I’ll help you with whatever paperwork you need.”
“No,” Blaine, and his hands grip Kurt’s side, and he raises his head. “Our picture was in it, Kurt. The one from prom. It’s been in there since then, I was going to keep it there -”
Kurt feels a quick stab of sympathetic loss. “Oh, Blaine.” Kurt kisses his flushed cheek. “That’s not a big deal! I have the file on my computer, we can print another one out tonight.”
“No!” Blaine shakes his head. “That was the one that you gave me, the next day, when you came over after school and we were supposed to be doing homework but we just listened to stupid pop music and danced in my room because prom had sucked but then it had been so much fun and you just wanted to keep dancing and then we just - you kissed me, and it was the happiest we’d ever been, and I told myself I’d try to always be there for you, like that, no matter how hard it was -”
He’s crying now, in earnest, little miserable sobs, and Kurt’s heart breaks for him. “Oh, Blaine.” He pulls him close again, and strokes a hand through his hair, petting gently until Blaine’s breath steadies again. “You are the biggest romantic in the world.
“It’s not very romantic to lose your boyfriend’s picture. I hate this city.” He sounds more morose than miserable, now, which Kurt takes as a good sign.
“It’s just a picture, Blaine.” Kurt kisses the part of his face that he can reach, somewhere above his ear. “We will print another one so you can carry it around and show everyone what a gorgeous boyfriend you have, and I will always remember how sweet you were to me. You still have me, after all.”
Blaine slides his arms around Kurt’s waist and squeezes, and then relaxes against him. “Yeahhh.” And then “Oh, fuck.”
“What?”
“I have to replace so many cards.”
16.
We need to talk.
Kurt plucks the post-it note off the mirror with shaking fingers. It’s Blaine’s writing, no doubting that, his familiar scrawl and Kurt’s orange gel pen, the one he uses for editing essays.
We need to talk.
We need to talk about what? Kurt almost goes for his phone, but Blaine is in class all day, and Kurt’s not sure this is a conversation he wants to have over the phone anyway.
Oh god. Is this a conversation he doesn’t want to have over the phone?
He sinks down on the edge of the tub, turning the note over and over in his fingers. He’d seen it when he’d gotten into the shower, hadn’t read it yet, thought it was just another sweet little note from Blaine and he’d wanted to save it, wanted to savor the anticipation and then read it while he brushed his teeth, smiling over how sweet and ridiculous his boyfriend was.
We need to talk.
Is there another guy? Was there a fight with his parents? Is it Kurt? Did he do something? Does Blaine want to break up? Kurt crumples the note and throws it in the trash, tightens the belt of his bathrobe and tries to concentrate on washing his face, but his hands are still shaking.
He turns off the water and braces his hands on the sink and watches his reflection. Bare, almost naked, hair wet and unstyled; Blaine is the only one who has ever gotten to see him like this, and still loves him. What would Kurt do without him?
Kurt turns the water on again and starts scrubbing his face. It’s not him. It’s not another guy.
What is he going to do without Blaine?
17.
“Blaine, do you want to transfer schools?”
Blaine is sprawled on Kurt’s bed, tracing patterns on the bedspread with a fingertip. All afternoon he’s been hedging, hinting, trying to start this conversation, and it’s taken so long that Kurt’s afraid he never will and just wants to get it out in the open, where they can discuss it. Where it can become real so Kurt can deal with it and then have dealt with it and not have to deal with it anymore.
Blaine looks up, his fingers curling into his palm, and for a moment he just looks so lost. “Yes,” he says finally, and then just waits.
Kurt swallows, tries to blink away the sting in his eyes. “Okay. Where?” He knows the answer to that, too, because Blaine’s never been subtle, but he needs to hear him say it.
“San Francisco.”
“Okay.” Kurt takes a deep breath. The sting is gone, good. Blaine came to New York for Kurt, and he is not happy here, and now Kurt needs to be supportive, and help him get wherever he needs to go, no matter how much Kurt doesn’t want him to. “What can I do?”
18.
“Kurt!” Kurt is late; traffic at this hour is horrendous and there was a delay on the subway and he had texted Blaine frantically once he’d gotten above ground and could get a good signal again, I’m on my way, I’m sorry, I love you, see you soon!. And now Blaine is waiting for him, jumping to his feet and waving a hand to catch Kurt’s attention, and he looks tired but delighted, and Kurt’s stomach falls.
Blaine kisses him, right there in the crowded baggage claim, and Kurt digs his fingers into Blaine’s shoulder and clings, just a little.
“How was San Francisco?”
Blaine slings his duffel bag over his shoulder. “It was amazing. The people are all wonderful, the school is incredible, the program is exactly what I’ve been looking for -”
Kurt holds the door for him and listens to him go on and on, talking about the professors and the students he met with and the guys he stayed with and the city,, always the city, his eyes bright and shining and so so happy.
Kurt stops him with a hand on his chest before they take the steps back to the subway, and kisses him there while the rush hour foot traffic swirls around them, ignoring the jostles and glares from harried commuters.
Blaine pulls back slowly when Kurt loosens his grip on his arm, and his eyes are soft. “What was that for?”
“I love you,” he says, because he does, so much, and he recognizes the excitement in Blaine’s voice, remembers it so well, the thrill of finding the place you were always meant to be.
Blaine kisses the corner of Kurt’s mouth, and takes his hand. “I love you too.”
19.
“Keep or toss?” Kurt holds up a stack of t-shirts. Blaine looks over his shoulder from where he’s rooting in his closet.
“Keep.”
“And these. Keep or toss?”
“Keep. Kurt,” Blaine says gently, emerging with a plastic storage tub. “I already went through all of my stuff when I moved out here to begin with. I haven’t really accumulated enough to need to leave anything behind.”
“Yeah.” Kurt sits down on the edge of the bed. “Yeah, I know.” He sets the stack of shirts in the tub Blaine sets next to him. “I really am happy for you, you know that, right?”
Blaine gives him a soft smile. “I know.”
“And you know I’m going to miss you like crazy?”
“...Yeah. I know. I’m going to miss you too.”
Blaine meets Kurt’s upraised face with his lips, and the boxes get pushed aside as Blaine lays Kurt down on the bed. Some things are more important than packing.
20.
The miles pass and Kurt watches every exit sign with another stomach-dropping twist of grief, numbers sliding past like the days slipping away from them, like the countdown they’ll never have again, to see each other again or to dread parting again. When they finally reach the airport Kurt turns for the parking garage, not the curbside drop-off. It’s safer, he knows, and better, for both of them, if they can just leave it here without getting worked up about it anymore, but they’re down to minutes now and Kurt is greedy for it, for any last instant he can spend with Blaine before saying goodbye.
Blaine doesn’t say anything when Kurt turns off the engine and gets Blaine’s bags out of the back himself, just gives him a look that Kurt has to turn away from, and takes his hand.
Blaine doesn’t let go, not as they maneuver the luggage through the automatic doors, not as Blaine scans his ticket to check in and collects his boarding pass, not as they check the departure boards and the directory and, wordlessly, turn together towards the right terminal. And then they’re there, outside of security, and Kurt has to set down Blaine’s suitcase because he can’t go any farther and Blaine is setting down his messenger bag to turn towards him and here they are, this is it.
“Call me when you get in?” Kurt’s voice cracks a little, and Blaine nods.
“Text and let me know you made it home safe.”
“I will.”
“And I’ll - send pictures, when I get settled. You can help me with decoration ideas.”
“You’d better.” It feels like the bottom has fallen out of the world. All this summer there has been this day to look forward to, and nothing beyond it, and now Blaine is talking about tomorrow as if it’s a certainty, as if the world can go on turning and tiny apartments can go on needing Kurt’s artistic touch. Kurt’s still not sure if they can. “And I’ll come visit in the spring, and I can help you with the first-hand details then.”
Kurt straightens Blaine’s lapel and wants to ask for more than a visit, wants to fight for them to stay together, side-by-side, where they belong. But he won’t, and it kills Kurt a little to know that he won’t, because Blaine wouldn’t say yes anyway. Kurt would hate him for saying no, and Blaine would hate him for asking, and so Kurt would hate himself for asking, and for resenting Blaine’s answer.
“You should,” is all Blaine says, and slings his bag over his shoulder. Kurt’s heart squeezes in his chest; there isn’t enough air, there isn’t enough time. Suddenly Blaine’s hand is on his arms, Blaine’s mouth is on his and he’s kissing him, hard and too possessive, and then he’s gone. Kurt’s eyes blink back open to see him walking away, his back so straight, his suitcase dragging from a white-knuckled hand.
There’s nothing left to do but leave, so Kurt turns, and walks away.
3,000 Miles
21.
Kurt climbs out of the shower and grabs his bathrobe, toweling his hair quickly as he darts from the warm bathroom into his bedroom, where his computer is already on and Skype is started up. He gives his head one last shake and drops the towel on his bed and checks that his headphones are plugged in, and dials Blaine.
“Hi, you,” Blaine says, his picture pixelating into view, and Kurt leans into the desk and smiles.
“Hi.” It’s been a long day, not a bad one, just a long one, and he’s been looking to this call all through classes and shifts and homework.
“How are you?”
“Doing alright,” Kurt shrugs. “Ready for this week to be over. Same old. You?”
“Good! I found a place I want to take you when you come out here - there’s a bar around the corner that does live performances twice a week. I think you’d love it.”
“That sounds great. What - “ he breaks off as someone calls Blaine’s name on the other end of the line, and Blaine looks up from the camera and says something back Kurt can’t make out.
“Hey, Kurt, sorry to cut this short, but I promised David I’d help him with an arrangement tonight, is that okay?”
It’s not okay. David gets Blaine all the time, Kurt only gets him for these few hours in the evenings. But Kurt can’t say that, so he forces a smile, and says “Sure! Have fun. Say hi for me.”
“Will do. Love you Kurt.”
“Love you too.”
Kurt sighs as the screen goes blank again. He hadn’t planned on having time to do anything else tonight. He tells himself that at least he can get ahead on his homework.
It’s really not the same, though.
21.
Kurt wrings out the dishcloth with maybe more force than is strictly necessary, and snaps it at the nearest machine. “And then he said that clearly since I hadn’t read the assignment, I should re-write the project and then present my new findings to the class.”
Jack scrunches his nose in a sympathetic wince. “Ouch.”
"I appealed to the professor who thankfully realized that I was only trying to think outside of the box."
"Happy ending, then," Jack toasts Kurt with half a cup of coffee. The scent of cinnamon wafting from it reminds him of Blaine. "If he gives you a hard time again, though, and you need some cheering up," he sets the cup on the counter and walks past Kurt to pick up a sponge for his half of the cleaning. "You know where to find me," he finishes, and slaps Kurt’s ass.
Kurt's jaw drops so far it feels like it's come unhinged. " - What?!" he sputters, when he at least manages the power of speech.
"You know, cheering up," Jack says, grabbing the sponge and flicking the sink on with the back of his wrist. "Mental release. Physical relaxation." He winks.
"But - Blaine - “ Kurt coughs out. His ears feel like they're on fire.
"What about Blaine?" Jack asks, and then his expression changes from confusion to horror so quickly it would be hilarious if this were happening to anyone else. "Oh, god, you're still together, aren't you."
"Oh course we are! What did you think?" Kurt splutters.
"Oh my god, I am so sorry, Kurt, I - I never would have, I didn't mean, I just assumed -"
Kurt wets his dishcloth, wrings it out angrily. "It's fine," he finally says, and sighs. "It's not like you're the first."
Jack continues to stammer apologies while Kurt tries to tune him out, embarrassment and self-consciousness buzzing in his ears. The worst part is that everyone seems to assume that just because Blaine is at the other end of the country, just because they're not attached at the hip anymore, that they're not together anymore. And Kurt knows distance relationships don't always last, knows the odds are against them, but he's had the odds stacked against him his whole life and never let it get in his way. He'd thought at least that Jack, of all people, would know him - them - well enough to realize that.
22.
By the time Kurt gets home Tuesday night he feels like he can hardly see straight. It’s raining, of course, and rain in this city isn’t what it was back in Lima. It’s cold, and heavy, and soaks through everything and turns the grey buildings grey and then blue and then black as the night comes on.
Kurt hadn’t brought an umbrella this morning and now his bag is damp and his jacket is wet all the way through. All he wants is to curl up with a cup of tea and watch a movie with Blaine, but he has a mountain of homework and his computer is refusing to play DVDs and Blaine is in California. So Kurt shrugs out of his wet clothes, pulls on pajamas and a Dalton hoodie - his, not Blaine’s; they’d switched last year but this year they were in the same place and had switched back, and swapping again so he always had a sweatshirt a little more worn and smelling like Blaine was one more detail Kurt had forgotten when they’d packed up Blaine’s room.
After half an hour of staring unseeing at his reading, Kurt gives up and crawls into bed.
Love you. Miss you. Wish you were here, he texts. Blaine is still in class, three hours behind, and Kurt doesn’t expect a reply but wants one anyway.
He pulls up the covers and hugs his pillow to his chest. His readings can wait five minutes. He’ll just close his eyes...
It’s completely dark when he wakes up to the beep of his phone. Here, sorry baby. Skype session in 15? Just got out of class! Love you too.
Kurt checks the time; the text is hours old, and Blaine will have gone to sleep already. He’s missed him for tonight.
Kurt curls around the pillow again. He’s too tired to try to fight off the cold clench of disappointment and loneliness, so he spends what energy he has trying not to cry.
23.
It’s still light in California, and Kurt likes the extra wedges of daylight he gets with Blaine, on these calls. The setting sun is glowing golden-green through the curtains at Blaine’s window. Kurt had made them, in between projects for his design class, and packed them up carefully before mailing them across the country. He likes being able to see them there, at the edge of the frame when Blaine calls, something that he made there with Blaine, that he can see and that Blaine can touch and think of him.
Blaine’s phone chirps an alarm, and Blaine stands up, just out of frame. “I’ll be right back, I just have to grab something out of the oven.”
"What's cooking?” Kurt asks, when Blaine slides back into his seat a minute later.
“Butternut squash ravioli.”
Kurt smiles, but it feels tight in his chest. "Hey, is that what you made for your ridiculous apology dinner?"
Blaine just gives him a blank look.
Kurt twists the cord of his laptop speakers in his fingers. "Remember, that time when you forgot to call before you went to bed, and then felt terrible about it because you are a ridiculous romantic, and made dinner to try to apologize?" Blaine's eyes dart around the screen, and then his face lights up, finally, in recognition. "Oh! Yeah, I remember now. Yeah, that."
"What's the occasion?"
Blaine shrugs. "End of the quarter is coming up. David aced his midterm, so I figured I'd do something to celebrate. Max is in charge of alcohol, though." Kurt's heart tightens a little more. He doesn't know who Max is, doesn't particularly care; he trusts Blaine, doesn't even consider making it an issue. But he remembers the meal, the warm spicy smell after the long autumn afternoon, Blaine's eyes shyly brown in the lamplight; how cozy the kitchen had felt and how the keen awareness of being cared for had tugged so happily. And it's stupid, but Kurt doesn't want to share, Blaine or his time or his cooking skills.
But there's no way to say that without sounding jealous and possessive, so he just smiles and says, "Sounds lovely."
24.
Blaine’s giggles come breathlessly over the phone, and Kurt’s stomach twists in a hot confusing knot of embarrassment and frustration. “Blaine!” He tries not to whine, but it’s so hard.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Kurt, I just can’t.” Blaine’s giggles turn into a cough, and Kurt can feel his own face flame. He growls in the back of his throat and pushes a hand down into his underwear, where, despite the embarrassment at his apparent utter inability to be sexy over the phone, he’s still hard. The sparking arousal in his spine and at the back of his neck does nothing to quell his frustration, or his embarrassment. “It’s fine,” he says, snappier than he means to.
Blaine clears his throat and takes a breath, and when he speaks again it’s calmer. “I really am sorry, Kurt. Maybe we can try some other time?”
Kurt shrugs his shoulders into the mattress. “Sure.”
“Kurt...Kurt. Please don’t be mad,” Blaine pleads, sounding contrite, now, and but still more than a little amused. “It’s just -”
“I know. It’s fine. Um. If we’re not going, to, uh, I’m gonna go for now. Is that okay?”
Blaine sighs. “Okay. If you’re sure you’re not mad...?”
“I’m not mad,” Kurt says shortly, knows that it’s still snippy but can’t help it. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow?”
“Okay, I love you, Kurt. Sweet dreams.”
“Love you too.”
Kurt tosses the phone to the pillow beside him and kicks off his underwear. If phone sex isn’t going to work, he’s just going to have to do this himself.
When he finally closes a hand around himself, though, his erection wilts, and when he closes his eyes and tries to imagine Blaine and his warm breath on his skin and his hands all he can conjure is frustration, and guilt over snipping at Blaine. He wants Blaine, not just an orgasm, no matter what his body is trying to tell his brain. He sighs, tries again, fails again, and fishes his phone out from the covers.
I’m sorry, he texts. I love you. I really do.
After a minute his phone buzzes with the reply.
I know. I miss you, too.
It still doesn’t make him feel any better, and Kurt just holds the phone tightly, and tries to sleep.
25.
“How are you, baby?” Blaine’s voice is soft and warm in his ear, and Kurt pulls the covers up over his shoulders and closes his eyes and tries to pretend that he’s here, with him. The other side of the bed is cold, though, and doesn’t dip under Blaine’s familiar weight, and he is alone.
“I miss you.”
“I know.” A rustle, and Kurt imagines Blaine nestling down into his pillow. “I miss you too.”
“This sucks.”
“It really, really does. We’ve got the summer, though, and you’ll come out to visit soon, right?”
“Of course.” Kurt tries to focus on that, but they both seem so far away. “But - I miss you now.
“I know, baby. I miss you now too. Soon, though, that’s all I’ve got.”
It’s not enough, though, and there’s nothing Kurt can do about it.
26.
“You can come out for February break, right?”
Blaine’s unhappy huff crackles over the line, and Kurt can see his forehead crease. “No, I have to work Monday.”
“You don’t get President’s Day off?”
“Unfortunately not. What about the next weekend?”
“The 24th?”
“Yeah.”
“I have a presentation that Monday. I’d be a wreck.”
“You can’t do it ahead of time?”
“Revue rehearsals. Won’t have time.”
Kurt’s frustration scratches at his throat, and makes his sigh come out heavier than he means. “This would be so much easier if you weren’t a continent away.”
“Hey,” Blaine’s voice comes sharp and quick. “You’re a continent away, too.”
“I know. I know, I’m sorry.” Kurt scrubs a hand over his face, doesn’t sound as sorry as he feels, doesn’t feel as sorry as he probably should.
“I just - I know you love New York, Kurt, but please don’t blame this all on me.”
“I’m not! I’m not. I promise.” Kurt draws tiny xs through the dates they’ve rejected. “So, we already know March is no good. What about April?”
“...April I think I can do.”
27.
“What is it, Rachel?” Kurt doesn’t mean to be short, but he was just getting on a roll with this section, and Rachel couldn’t have waited another hour to have her weekly crisis of confidence?
“Finn just called. I - Can I come over, Kurt?”
Kurt scratches his fingers through his hair; he has to write three pages tonight if he’s going to stay on schedule, he has to bring his designs in for approval at fuck o’clock tomorrow morning, and Rachel hasn’t talked to Finn in three months. “Call me when you’re down the street. I’ll meet you at the door.”
Rachel is red-eyed but otherwise apparently composed when Kurt holds the door open for her to come in, and she follows him upstairs quietly enough. When they get to his room, though, her spine and her face crumples and she sags onto his bed.
"Do you want tea? Or water or anything?"
Rachel shakes her head. "No, thank you." She draws a deep breath, though, and seems to be steeling herself. "Finn wants us to get back together."
"...Oh. Is he...?”
She shakes her head. "He's still in the army, of course. And when I asked he said he wasn't sure if he'd re-enlist or not in two years. He wants us to try a distance relationship."
"That's a big change. Do you think you want to try?"
Rachel flops backwards on his bed dramatically. "I don't know! This is all so sudden. I want to be together, but, Kurt, when I see you and Blaine - you're miserable!"
Kurt's spine straightens. "I'm not miserable."
Rachel rolls her eyes. "Please. Ever since he left it's like the light went out of your life or something. I see it, don't think I don't. You live for the skype sessions and the phone calls and that's no way to live. And you don't have an end in sight - what if he gets a job, or wants to go to grad school on the west coast? And you want to stay here? It's not living, Kurt, not when you spend so much time missing him."
"It's worth it," Kurt protests, feeling something dark and ugly threaten to unfurl in his chest.
Rachel props herself up on her elbows. "Is it?”
It's a plea, not a challenge, and Kurt opens his mouth to reassure her, but all he can say is, "I think you have to decide for yourself."
29.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” Kurt says, and hunches at the sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line. He hadn’t meant to say it, hadn’t planned to say it, but now he has and he can’t take it back, because it’s true.
“Kurt - “ Kurt flinches at the sound of his name in that tone of voice, but what comes next is infinitely worse.
“I don’t know if I can either.”
That should make it easier, right? Mutual. Friendly. They can stay friends, can’t that? Oh, god. Kurt presses his knuckles to his mouth. Friends. Blaine doesn’t say anything else, though, so Kurt babbles to fill the silence.
“I can’t - I don’t go out at night if I think you might call. I can’t focus in class because I’m writing emails to you. I can’t sleep without you next to me. It’s not living, Blaine, not when my heart is three thousand miles away. I can’t.”
He’s crying, now; knows Blaine is, too, by the way his breath comes over the line.
“I know,” he finally says, and it’s like lead in his chest, like ice. “Me, too.”
“I love you,” Kurt says, because he does, so much, and he can’t stand it.
“I love you too.”
And then there’s silence, and the sound of breathing, and then there’s a click, and nothing.
30.
Kurt considers deleting his entire profile, just so he doesn’t have to do this, but it’s too hard to find people at school without it, too hard for classmates and student directors and professors to find him. So he opens his profile, and clicks the right check box, and hits save, and wishes James would turn the volume off on his phone so that Kurt didn’t have to hear it chirp with the new Facebook alert.
Kurt Hummel is no longer in a relationship.
Title: One Hundred Things Kurt Hummel Loves About Blaine Anderson
Other Pairing(s)/Character(s): Kurt/OMC, Rachel/Finn (brief mention), Quinn.
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Kurt loves New York. (Seriously - he’s thinking of having shirts printed.) But he quickly learns the hard way that the City that Never Sleeps isn’t a dream come true for everyone.
Warnings (if any): None.
Total word count: 30,500
Original prompt number: #59
Disclaimer: This story/artwork is based on characters and situations created and owned by Ryan Murphy and FOX Broadcasting Company. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Author's notes (if any): Oh, constraints, so bad and yet so good for my creativity. I set myself this challenge within the given prompt: One hundred scenes, no less, each no more than five hundred words long. I had a ridiculous amount of fun with this, and things happened with this format that never would have happened otherwise, so thank you to the prompter for giving me such a great assignment to tackle :)
Beta(s): mtonbury
So, I wrote this ages ago (it sure feels like ages ago now) for the Klaine Endgame challenge this past summer, and am finally getting around to crossposting here. Consider it the beginning of my re-foraying into ficwriting :)
*
One of Them
1.
“It’s so tall.”
“Blaine, baby, can you give me a hand with this?”
“I think that’s the Empire State building. Is that the Empire State building?”
“Blaine!”
Blaine jumps, and Kurt has to laugh at the look of awe and excitement and, clearly, utter lack of concern for such mundane details as loading their luggage into the back of Alex’s car. “Sorry,” he says, still grinning, and kisses Kurt’s cheek before he slings his backpack into the backseat and bends down to pick up a duffel bag.
Alex fails spectacularly at hiding her amusement from the other side of the car, and Kurt is sure she’s not even trying. “You have been to New York before, right?” she asks, shoving a suitcase aside in the trunk to make room for another.
“Yes!” Blaine says, settling the duffel into the slot Alex just opened up and slamming the trunk closed. “...Once.”
Kurt and Alex catch each other’s eyes over the roof of the car, and Kurt can’t help laughing.
Blaine leans into Kurt’s side as Alex fights gridlock traffic, windows rolled down and bass cranked up, because things aren’t chaotic enough as they are.
“That wasn’t the Empire State Building, was it.”
Kurt grins. “Not even close.” As ridiculous as Blaine is being, Kurt can’t pretend he doesn’t understand. His first three months here had been one long string of breathtaken moments and constant wonderment that he had finally gotten out of Ohio and that he was here.
“That is though, right?” Blaine points out the window at an iconic silhouette framed against blue sky and summer-white clouds.
“Mhmm.” Kurt leans his hand on Blaine’s shoulder, so he can look out his window and revel in seeing the city through his eyes, so bright and gleaming and full of promise.
Blaine’s fingers tighten around Kurt’s, and his eyes are bright and happy. “This is going to be so amazing.”
2.
Kurt sets down the thermos of hot chocolate and stretches out on the blanket next to Blaine, crooking an arm behind his head and staring up at the sky. Blaine unlaces his hands and reaches for one of Kurt’s. “You can’t see many stars here, can you.”
Kurt tips his head over to look at Blaine, who’s staring up at the sky with wide dark eyes. “This is New York. The stars are all down there.” He raises a hand to point down over the lip of the rooftop. Blaine follows the line of his arm and laughs.
“Don’t you ever miss it? The quiet at night? The big prairie sky?”
“What Ohio were you living in? The closest thing we had to open grassland was the flea market parking lot.”
“Still.” Blaine rolls over on his side and props his chin on his hand. “It doesn’t overwhelm you?”
Kurt shakes his head, lets his eyes roam over the skyline, buildings and streets like constellations. “Home always seems so empty when we go there. Empty and blank. New York is crowded and smoggy and ugly but it’s alive, you know? Underneath and about and all around you, all the time, are people, working and creating and living...without that it just feels like suffocating. I’ll trade a few bright shiny things in the sky for being able to breathe.”
When he turns his head Blaine is just looking at him, his eyes so soft and wondering. He reaches an arm over Kurt and leans down to kiss him gently. “You’re the only star I need.”
The night air is soft and cool, and for a long time they forget the stars above and the stars below.
3.
“You’re sure Sean’s in class til five?”
Blaine looks up from where he’s carefully unlacing one of Kurt’s boots. “You’re making me paranoid, Kurt.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Blaine tugs off the boot and sets it next to its twin beside the door, and then crawls up onto the bed and hovers on his hands over Kurt, looking down the length of his body. “‘Stotally worth it.”
“Worth what?” Kurt frowns as he slides his hands up Blaine’s already-bare back.
“Getting caught. Fuck, Kurt.” Blaine dips his head to kiss him. “You are so hot.”
“Look who’s talking,” Kurt grins, and wriggles when Blaine pinches his hip lightly. “Pants off. Now.”
It’s always a revelation, seeing Blaine naked, discovering the things they can do together, and familiarity hasn’t yet bred contempt; Kurt is entirely sure he could happily spend days in bed with Blaine and never get tired of it, though he’s perfectly willing to try just to see. And now they have time, time together, for the first time, in the same place without parents or curfews, and Kurt plans on taking advantage of every moment of it that he can.
4.
“Hey, baby!” Blaine answers the door with a smile, but over his shoulder Kurt can see Sean glance up from his computer with an scowl. Blaine steps back to let Kurt in. “How was class?”
“It was amazing,” Kurt sets down his bag on Blaine’s desk and sits on his bed. “Hello, Sean. How’s it going?” he asks, and makes himself be polite.
“Fine.” Sean closes his laptop and snags his coat off the back of his chair. “I’m gonna head over to the library.”
“We won’t be here long,” Blaine frowns. “Sorry if we’re bothering you -”
“No, it’s fine.” Sean shrugs his coat on and shuts the door with force that’s just short of a slam.
Kurt waits until he’s sure Sean is out of earshot down the hall. “He hasn’t gotten any better yet?”
Blaine frowns and scrubs a hand through his curls. “No,” he sighs. “And it’s not just me, or us, you know? Meghan’s in his Spanish class and says he’s like this there, too.”
“Maybe he just needs time to adjust. It’s hard being away from home. Well, for some people,” he says, when Blaine raises an eyebrow. “You’ll bring him around.”
Blaine flops down on the bed across from him and props his chin on his hand. “You really think so?”
“Of course. Maybe he has some dark past or some deep hidden secret you can coax out of him with a latte and your kind-wise-mentor-face,” he says, oh so seriously, and Blaine laughs and rolls onto his back to swat at him.
“You’re awful.
“You love me. And tell me you haven’t already tried.”
Kurt laughs, too, at the look on Blaine’s face, and it’s so sweet, to know him so well. “I knew it.” He strokes a hand across Blaine’s shoulder. “Just give it some time. Roommates are great - James and I always had a fantastic time together. And still do.” He lets his thumb drag under Blaine’s collar and tugs it back a little. “How long do you think he’s going to be in the library for, anyway?”
Blaine grabs his hand and kisses his palm, and a warm fluttery weight settles into Kurt’s stomach. “Long enough,” he says, and pulls him down for a kiss.
5.
Kurt breathes deep as he pushes his way out of the dining hall and onto the streets. It’s crisp and cool, a perfect September morning, and he loves days like this, loves the brightness of the city, the early (not so early) bustle, loves his classes. Every time they have a guest lecturer, or his instructors wrangle his classes onstage to put into practice what they’re learning, he feels like this isn’t just another dream, that it’s real, that he’s making the life he’d always wanted come true for himself, a little bit more every day.
Blaine is waiting outside his building when his class is over. He’s dressed for a run, and flushed, his hair poking in corkscrews from under his hat.
“How was it? Thanks,” he says, as Kurt digs his water bottle out of his bag and hands it over. Kurt sighs happily.
“It was amazing. I just can’t believe I get to be here, and see all these amazing people and learn from them and ask them questions...”
Blaine bumps his shoulder as they hit the sidewalk and start walking back to the dorms. “Someday you’re going to be one of them, you know.”
“What do you mean?”
“Someday,” Blaine says, recapping the water bottle and flipping up the flap on Kurt’s bag to tuck it back inside. “You are going to be the great Kurt Hummel and have won more Tonys than you know what to do with, and you’re going to change the lives of hundreds of kids who see your musical, that you wrote and starred in, and students at performing arts schools across the country are going to count down the days until you come speak to their classes.”
“Just hundreds?” Kurt takes Blaine’s hand; it’s cold, from the brisk fall air, and damp from dripped water. He squeezes it to get the blood flowing again, and Blaine squeezes back.
“Thousands. Millions. And I am going to be right there with you and be so proud of you, Kurt Hummel.”
They’re stopped at a crosswalk, thankfully, because Kurt has to stop at that, needs to turn and wrap his arms around Blaine’s neck and hold him so so tightly. Blaine hugs him, hard, and kisses the side of his neck. “So proud of you.”
The light changes; the signal chirps. Kurt squeezes Blaine one last time, then lets go, and takes his hand again. “Thank you.” He has to blink rapidly, and laughs at himself. “I love you, you know.”
“And I love you. But now, lunch!” Blaine breaks into a jog and pulls Kurt after himself, laughing and sniffling and entirely, entirely happy.
6.
Kurt wakes up slowly, to the slow brush of fingertips through his hair and against his forehead. He blinks his eyes open to see Blaine already awake, head pillowed on his own arm, gently running his fingers across Kurt’s scalp.
“Good morning,” he says, and Blaine smiles.
“Mmm. Good morning to you too.” Blaine shuffles closer and hooks a leg over Kurt’s. Kurt’s bed really is too small for the both of them, probably, but Kurt loves this, loves falling asleep and waking up together in a limb-woven tangle, pressed together and intertwined. “God, you’re comfortable.” He cups his hand at the back of Kurt’s neck and kisses him lightly. “Let’s stay here all day.”
“Kay,” Kurt nuzzles into the pillow, and wraps an arm around Blaine’s waist, pulling him even closer. “What time’sit?”
He can feel Blaine lift his head to check the alarm clock on the bedside table. “Not even eight. Are you even capable of sleeping in?”
“Mmm.” Kurt nuzzles in further, this time into the crook of Blaine’s neck. “You woke me up first.”
“You were kicking, I had to.”
“I don’t kick.”
“Yes you do,” Blaine says, and kisses him.
Kurt lets himself go, kisses Blaine back and lets his mind drift so that everything is warmth, and early-morning light creeping in at the edge of the curtains and his eyelids, and soft sheets against his bare skin, and Blaine, his mouth against his lips and then his neck and then his chest as he shuffles down under the sheet, hands and lips re-exploring well-known territory. Kurt closes his hands in Blaine’s hair, pets and tugs and pulls, as Blaine’s mouth trails down and down and down.
7.
“And he serenaded me on the front steps of the school...”
Jack gives Kurt a skeptical look as he dumps coffee grounds into the compost bin. “He did not. That’s weird even by your standards.”
Kurt leans an elbow on the counter and rests his chin on it, one eye on the door. “He actually did. It was Lima, planning and rehearsing for surprise vocal performances was one of the least destructive ways to spend your time.”
“I suppose that’s true.” Jack shuts the lid on the coffee grounds and picks up a cloth to start wiping the machines down with. “I don’t suppose this paragon of boyfrienddom has a brother? Or a sister?”
“Mm. Brother, older. Probably not your type.”
“Why? How much older?”
Kurt bobbles his free hand. “Ten years? Give or take?”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Hey, speak of the devil.” The door of the shop jingles as Blaine pulls it open, letting in a warm gust of indian summer air.
Blaine’s face lights when he sees Kurt behind the counter, and Kurt’s heart gives a happy wobble. “Hi, Kurt.”
“Hi baby.” Kurt stands on tiptoes to kiss him over the counter. “I’ll be ready in just a sec.”
Down the counter, Jack clears his throat in a way that is eerily and oddly reminiscent of Wes when he wants attention. Kurt tries to huff a sigh, but he can’t help smiling.
“Fine. Jack, this is my boyfriend Blaine.”
Jack drops the dishcloth to shake Blaine’s hand. “Why? Do you have another one somewhere?”
“Shut up. Blaine, this is Jack, my partner in caffeinated crime. Are you ready to go?”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Blaine says to Jack, and holds out an arm for Kurt as he takes off his apron and ducks out from behind the counter.
“Backatchya, man. See you tomorrow, Kurt!”
Kurt waves over his shoulder as Blaine leads him out of the dim coffeeshop and out into the bright sunshine.
8.
It’s weird that none of the lights are on when Kurt comes home Thursday night - Alex is out working and James has a late class, so Blaine was supposed to come over, and usually he beats Kurt back. Kurt turns on the hall light and hears rustling from the living room, and grips the strap of his bag a little tighter. “Hello?” he calls.
He’s met with a clatter and a curse that make him jump. When he rounds the corner into the living room Blaine is there, looking up at the door guiltily. The table is set, and matches are scattered across one of the place settings.
“Blaine? What’s going on?” Kurt hugs his arms around his chest and takes deep breaths, willing his heart rate to slow down.
“Uh. I made dinner,” Blaine waves at the table, at the bottle of pomegranate lemonade and a covered casserole dish.
“Oh, thank you, sweetheart!” Blaine smiles a little when Kurt hugs him tight, but still looks nervous when he pulls back. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s an, um. Apology dinner. I am so sorry, Kurt, I really am -”
“Blaine?” Kurt cuts him off, stomach sinking. “What are you sorry...for?”
“I fell asleep last night and didn’t call you.”
“...What?” Kurt is baffled.
Blaine looks miserable “You were working late and you texted me on your break and said you were tired and work was driving you nuts and you just wanted to be able to hang out (Kurt snorts to himself, “hang out” was not what he’d said he’d wanted to do, but Blaine’s eternal filter is adorable) and sleep so I promised I’d call when you were done with your shift but I fell asleep reading and then Sean came in and was a dick and I forgot all about it and all I could think of all day today was you sitting up last night and waiting for me to call and being sad and lonely - ”
“Oh, Blaine.” Kurt puts a hand on Blaine’s chest, and his jaw clicks shut. “Sweetheart. You were worried all day about this?”
Blaine nods morosely.
“Oh, honey.” Kurt hugs him again, tighter while Blaine buries his face in Kurt’s shoulder. “I was fine! I completely forgot about that, actually, when I got home I just crashed, I’m so sorry you were worried...”
Blaine untucks his head. “...so you’re not mad at me?”
“Blaine. Baby.” Kurt kisses his forehead. “If I had been sad or lonely or anything like that I just could have called you myself, you know.”
“I guess so.” Blaine shuffles a socked foot on the carpet. “I... overreact, sometimes.”
“I know you do, sweetheart.” Kurt pulls him in for another kiss, on the mouth this time, and Blaine looks much less woebegone when he finally pulls back. “But you are totally the best boyfriend in the world.” He sets his bag down and starts unfastening his jacket. “So. What’s for dinner?”
9.
“Coke for Blaine, cran-and-club for Kurt, and virgin margarita for me!” Rachel passes their drinks across the table and slides into the booth next to Kurt, nudging his shoulder so hard he nearly spills his drink.
“Rachel!”
“Sorry,” she passes him a napkin, and Kurt rolls his eyes at Blaine and is rewarded with a small smile and a nudge against his ankle under the table.
“So!” Rachel declares, taking a prim sip and setting her glass back down. “What do you want to sing first?”
Blaine looks wary. “We’re actually going to sing?”
Kurt slides the napkin under his own glass, because, rings. “It’s a karaoke bar, Blaine, what did you think we were going to do?”
“In public?”
“You’ve sung in public a hundred times before.”
“Yeah, but that was different!”
“How-?”
“Hey, guys!” Rachel’s disbelieving query is cut off by the appearance of a gaggle of people from her and Kurt’s intro stagecraft class.
“Hi!” Rachel nearly bounces in her seat, and, oh, yes, there’s Dan, tall and quiet as ever in the back of the pack. “How are you guys?”
“Oh my god, Kurt!” Stephanie squeals and grabs Kurt’s arm, nearly dragging him out of the booth before he can get his feet firmly on the floor. “It has been too long, you have to sing with me.”
Kurt barely has time to make a sympathetic face at Blaine before he’s being dragged to the stage. Rachel and Stephanie squeal at each other as Jack flips through the songbook and Dan shrugs wordlessly at whatever he’s saying. Finally they all agree to something - Kurt’s learned not to ask beforehand what it is, that just leads to extra moments of agony waiting for truly horrendous backing tracks to start up - and Stephanie manhandles him to a spot on the stage and hands him a mic.
He can see Blaine, by himself now in the booth in the corner. He’ll loosen up, eventually, Kurt’s not really worried, and when the track starts Kurt folds his hands around the microphone and finds his eyes, bright flashes of warmth and encouragement, and sings for him.
10.
“It’s - kind of late. Are you sure we should be out here?”
“Oh, Blaine.” Kurt wraps his arm around Blaine’s shoulder and squeezes his arm. “This is the city that never sleeps! Just stay away from, you know, the dark and scary alleys and you’ll be fine. You have to see Times Square at night at least once.”
“Okay...” Blaine acquiesces, but settles more closely into Kurt’s hold on him.
Kurt loves New York in all its lights and moods but right now he loves it best at night, when the glittering lights stand out of the darkness and fall across his skin, and Blaine’s, turning it a riot of swirling tumbling luminescence as people eddy around them. And Times Square!
“We should come here for New Years,” Kurt says when they finally reach it, tipping his head back to look up at the Times Tower.
“But - we won’t be here for New Year’s, it’s winter break.” Something skitters in a doorway - a pigeon, probably - and Kurt can feel Blaine twitch.
“No, I know. When we’re older.” Kurt uses his other arm to pull him into a sideways hug. “We’ll have the classiest parties on the block, and then we’ll bring everyone down here for the countdown. It’ll be amazing.”
“You’re amazing,” Blaine says, and kisses Kurt’s hand where it’s clasped on his shoulder.
“Mmm. You too. “Oh, that’s the Nederlander down there.” Kurt points 41st Street. “Rent used to play there. Remember our first non-date?”
Blaine laughs, and Kurt can feel the buzz of it in his chest. “Oh god yes. We both bawled through the ending and looked like absolute idiots.”
“You gave me your Kleenex,” Kurt says, remembering. “You were always such a gentleman.”
“I don’t know, the last time I gave you tissues was - ”
“Blaine!” Kurt squeaks, and Blaine laughs, his eyes a little wicked, but they go wide when he looks over Kurt’s shoulder.
“Kurt,” he whispers, “there’s this huge guy, right by that building right there, just - standing there like he’s got it staked out.”
Kurt looks over his shoulder. “Blaine, that’s a bouncer.”
“...oh.” Blaine looks mildly abashed, and Kurt finally decides to take pity on him.
“Do you want to head back?”
“Yeah, if you don’t mind.”
Kurt keeps his arm around Blaine as they walk back to his apartment, and Blaine snakes his arm around Kurt’s waist.
“We’ll get tickets for a show soon - student rush tickets are such a good deal, and people in my classes always seem to know people.”
Blaine hums, and Kurt squeezes his shoulder. “In the meantime, though, James is at Alex’s tonight.”
Blaine’s face brightens, and Kurt has to laugh. “Oh, Blaine. You’re going to love it here.”
Meant to Be
11.
“Blaine...?”
Blaine winces and tries to shuffle the papers out of sight, but not before Kurt catches one and drags it out, crisscrossed with red ink, grade scribbled angrily at the top. “Blaine, what happened?”
“I’m sorry, okay?” Blaine’s shoulders are hunched, and he plucks the essay out of Kurt’s hand.
“You don’t have to be -”
“I failed, okay? I failed. It’s one grade, I’ll be fine.” Blaine shoves the paper back in a folder and drops the whole thing in a drawer.
Whatever he will be, Blaine certainly isn’t fine right now, and Kurt approaches him cautiously. “Do you need some help? Dan runs a study group for some other freshman, maybe he could - ”
“I don’t need help, I did fine on the midterm, I get the material. I just - ran out of time.” Blaine slumps into his chair and just looks tired. “The essay was due the same week as Wilkinson’s project, and I got caught so up in that I completely forgot about this one until like the night before. And I was supposed to help Wilkinson more this week and next, too, but now I have to rewrite this.” He knocks his knee against the drawer. “I wish I’d switched classes when I had the chance.”
“Well, there’s always next semester,” Kurt says, but Blaine sighs.
“Ugh, one semester at a time, I can’t think past December.” He scrubs his hand over his face and scowls.
Kurt feels helpless, but makes his voice bright. “Well, then, let’s think about December. I have so many ideas for Christmas...”
12.
“Oh, man, that sounds awesome.” Blaine waves Kurt into the room when he pokes his head around the door, and Kurt can’t make out the words on the other end of the line but he recognizes David’s voice, and waves.
“Hey, Kurt says hi.” Blaine grins and tips the phone back off his ear. “David says hi back. Yeah? What are you guys going to do next, then?” He returns the phone to his ear, his shoulders turned away from Kurt a little, as Kurt pulls his laptop from his bag and settles down on the bed - this could be a while.
When Blaine finally gets off the phone he’s grinning, and relaxed. Kurt puts aside his laptop. “How’s David?”
“Really great. He was just telling me about the project he’s got going for school - it’s really amazing.” He flips his phone from hand to hand. “I wish there was something like that here.”
Kurt feels a pang of guilt - it’s because he’s here that Blaine is in New York instead of on the West Coast, or anywhere else, but he pushes that aside. Blaine’s wanted to come to New York for years, not just for him.
“Maybe you can start something like it here. The music department’s always looking for fresh ideas.”
Blaine shrugs and sets his phone down. “Maybe. It’d be a big time commitment, though, and I’ve got too much to do as it is. It does sound amazing, though. How was your class?”
Kurt feels bad gushing, so he just says, “It was fine. Do you want to take tonight off? Make dinner, maybe watch a movie?”
Blaine’s eyes brighten. “Oh that sounds perfect.” He stands and kisses Kurt on the way to retrieve his backpack. “How do you always know just what I need?”
Kurt grins at him and stretches out on the bed. “I’m just talented.”
“At many things. So!” Blaine drops back into his chair heavily and pulls a thick folder out of his bag. “Music theory time!”
13.
“It’s James and Alex’s anniversary, and I think I’ve been sexiled.” Kurt checks his watch as he shoulders his way through the door of his building. “Can we hang out in your room instead?”
There’s a rustle and a sigh from the other end of the line, and Kurt thinks he can hear a door shut. “I don’t know, Sean’s in tonight, and he’s being all...Sean.”
“I thought he worked Tuesdays?”
“He used to, but his schedule’s changed and I don’t want to have to ask him for it again.”
Kurt huffs, and stops walking. “What do you want to do then?”
“I don’t know.” Blaine’s sigh rustles staticky down the line. “I’ve got some work I have to get done, do you want to meet me in the library? We can hang out in the common room later if Sean’s still there when we’re done.”
That is not, at all, what Kurt wants to do with his evening, but Blaine has been trying to work harder, and one night actually doing homework together won’t kill him. “Fine. I’ll be there in about ten minutes. Save me a seat?”
“Always. Love you, Kurt. And I am sorry.”
“It’s fine. Love you too, see you soon.”
14.
Blaine sinks back into the couch, and Kurt frowns. “Why don’t you want to go?”
“I didn’t say I didn’t want to go.”
“Blaine -”
“I said I’d go, okay?” Blaine pulls his computer back onto his lap and starts clicking. “I was just planning on getting some work done tonight.”
“But it’s Friday night. It’s date night.”
“I know! And that’s why I’m going to go.”
“But you don’t want to.”
“I’m going, Kurt, what else do you want?” Blaine doesn’t glare, but the look he gives Kurt over the screen of his laptop is annoyed.
“I don’t want you to go if you’re going to be pissy all night about it.”
“I am not being pissy.”
“Yes you - ! Okay. Fine. It’s fine. You don’t have to come.”
“You want me to, though.”
“Of course I do! Blaine, I love you, I love hanging out with you, and I’ve hardly gotten to see you all week.”
“Then I’m going.”
Kurt throws up his hands. “Fine! We’re leaving in ten minutes. And bring a hat, it’s going to be cold on the walk home.”
“Why, where are we going?”
“Mackey’s.”
“But that’s blocks from here, why do we always have to go where Rachel wants?”
“Because she invited us. If you want to go somewhere else, you plan it. Besides, you love Mackey’s.”
“Not when it’s a half-hour walk home at midnight.”
“Then don’t. Come.”
“I’m coming!”
“Then put your coat on, come on.”
Blaine mutters irritably as Kurt laces up his shoes, and Kurt pretends not to hear.
15.
“Hey Blaine! Oh, honey, what’s wrong!”
Kurt opens the door to find a miserable-looking Blaine standing in the hallway, shoulders hunched, eyes glassy. As soon as the door is all the way open he shuffles forward and buries his face in Kurt’s neck. Kurt’s arms automatically close around him.
“Blaine? What is it?”
“I got mugged.” His voice is muffled, but Kurt’s chest tightens. You hear stories all the time, of course, but the school is safe, and Blaine - if anything ever happened to Blaine -
“Well, not mugged.” Kurt lets out a relieved breath, too many too ugly images in his head. “But I was running errands and I was on the subway and someone stole my wallet, and now I have to get a new driver’s license and a new debit card and ID and everything -”
Still holding Blaine tightly around the middle with one hand, Kurt manages to walk them backwards into the entryway and close the door. He slides the chain across, too, just because. He’s had this scare, a time or two, when he’d put his wallet bag in a different compartment in his bag, and Blaine must feel awful.
“It’s okay,” he says softly, rubbing the back of Blaine’s neck soothingly. Blaine’s face is damp against his skin. “This stuff happens all the time, and I’ll help you with whatever paperwork you need.”
“No,” Blaine, and his hands grip Kurt’s side, and he raises his head. “Our picture was in it, Kurt. The one from prom. It’s been in there since then, I was going to keep it there -”
Kurt feels a quick stab of sympathetic loss. “Oh, Blaine.” Kurt kisses his flushed cheek. “That’s not a big deal! I have the file on my computer, we can print another one out tonight.”
“No!” Blaine shakes his head. “That was the one that you gave me, the next day, when you came over after school and we were supposed to be doing homework but we just listened to stupid pop music and danced in my room because prom had sucked but then it had been so much fun and you just wanted to keep dancing and then we just - you kissed me, and it was the happiest we’d ever been, and I told myself I’d try to always be there for you, like that, no matter how hard it was -”
He’s crying now, in earnest, little miserable sobs, and Kurt’s heart breaks for him. “Oh, Blaine.” He pulls him close again, and strokes a hand through his hair, petting gently until Blaine’s breath steadies again. “You are the biggest romantic in the world.
“It’s not very romantic to lose your boyfriend’s picture. I hate this city.” He sounds more morose than miserable, now, which Kurt takes as a good sign.
“It’s just a picture, Blaine.” Kurt kisses the part of his face that he can reach, somewhere above his ear. “We will print another one so you can carry it around and show everyone what a gorgeous boyfriend you have, and I will always remember how sweet you were to me. You still have me, after all.”
Blaine slides his arms around Kurt’s waist and squeezes, and then relaxes against him. “Yeahhh.” And then “Oh, fuck.”
“What?”
“I have to replace so many cards.”
16.
We need to talk.
Kurt plucks the post-it note off the mirror with shaking fingers. It’s Blaine’s writing, no doubting that, his familiar scrawl and Kurt’s orange gel pen, the one he uses for editing essays.
We need to talk.
We need to talk about what? Kurt almost goes for his phone, but Blaine is in class all day, and Kurt’s not sure this is a conversation he wants to have over the phone anyway.
Oh god. Is this a conversation he doesn’t want to have over the phone?
He sinks down on the edge of the tub, turning the note over and over in his fingers. He’d seen it when he’d gotten into the shower, hadn’t read it yet, thought it was just another sweet little note from Blaine and he’d wanted to save it, wanted to savor the anticipation and then read it while he brushed his teeth, smiling over how sweet and ridiculous his boyfriend was.
We need to talk.
Is there another guy? Was there a fight with his parents? Is it Kurt? Did he do something? Does Blaine want to break up? Kurt crumples the note and throws it in the trash, tightens the belt of his bathrobe and tries to concentrate on washing his face, but his hands are still shaking.
He turns off the water and braces his hands on the sink and watches his reflection. Bare, almost naked, hair wet and unstyled; Blaine is the only one who has ever gotten to see him like this, and still loves him. What would Kurt do without him?
Kurt turns the water on again and starts scrubbing his face. It’s not him. It’s not another guy.
What is he going to do without Blaine?
17.
“Blaine, do you want to transfer schools?”
Blaine is sprawled on Kurt’s bed, tracing patterns on the bedspread with a fingertip. All afternoon he’s been hedging, hinting, trying to start this conversation, and it’s taken so long that Kurt’s afraid he never will and just wants to get it out in the open, where they can discuss it. Where it can become real so Kurt can deal with it and then have dealt with it and not have to deal with it anymore.
Blaine looks up, his fingers curling into his palm, and for a moment he just looks so lost. “Yes,” he says finally, and then just waits.
Kurt swallows, tries to blink away the sting in his eyes. “Okay. Where?” He knows the answer to that, too, because Blaine’s never been subtle, but he needs to hear him say it.
“San Francisco.”
“Okay.” Kurt takes a deep breath. The sting is gone, good. Blaine came to New York for Kurt, and he is not happy here, and now Kurt needs to be supportive, and help him get wherever he needs to go, no matter how much Kurt doesn’t want him to. “What can I do?”
18.
“Kurt!” Kurt is late; traffic at this hour is horrendous and there was a delay on the subway and he had texted Blaine frantically once he’d gotten above ground and could get a good signal again, I’m on my way, I’m sorry, I love you, see you soon!. And now Blaine is waiting for him, jumping to his feet and waving a hand to catch Kurt’s attention, and he looks tired but delighted, and Kurt’s stomach falls.
Blaine kisses him, right there in the crowded baggage claim, and Kurt digs his fingers into Blaine’s shoulder and clings, just a little.
“How was San Francisco?”
Blaine slings his duffel bag over his shoulder. “It was amazing. The people are all wonderful, the school is incredible, the program is exactly what I’ve been looking for -”
Kurt holds the door for him and listens to him go on and on, talking about the professors and the students he met with and the guys he stayed with and the city,, always the city, his eyes bright and shining and so so happy.
Kurt stops him with a hand on his chest before they take the steps back to the subway, and kisses him there while the rush hour foot traffic swirls around them, ignoring the jostles and glares from harried commuters.
Blaine pulls back slowly when Kurt loosens his grip on his arm, and his eyes are soft. “What was that for?”
“I love you,” he says, because he does, so much, and he recognizes the excitement in Blaine’s voice, remembers it so well, the thrill of finding the place you were always meant to be.
Blaine kisses the corner of Kurt’s mouth, and takes his hand. “I love you too.”
19.
“Keep or toss?” Kurt holds up a stack of t-shirts. Blaine looks over his shoulder from where he’s rooting in his closet.
“Keep.”
“And these. Keep or toss?”
“Keep. Kurt,” Blaine says gently, emerging with a plastic storage tub. “I already went through all of my stuff when I moved out here to begin with. I haven’t really accumulated enough to need to leave anything behind.”
“Yeah.” Kurt sits down on the edge of the bed. “Yeah, I know.” He sets the stack of shirts in the tub Blaine sets next to him. “I really am happy for you, you know that, right?”
Blaine gives him a soft smile. “I know.”
“And you know I’m going to miss you like crazy?”
“...Yeah. I know. I’m going to miss you too.”
Blaine meets Kurt’s upraised face with his lips, and the boxes get pushed aside as Blaine lays Kurt down on the bed. Some things are more important than packing.
20.
The miles pass and Kurt watches every exit sign with another stomach-dropping twist of grief, numbers sliding past like the days slipping away from them, like the countdown they’ll never have again, to see each other again or to dread parting again. When they finally reach the airport Kurt turns for the parking garage, not the curbside drop-off. It’s safer, he knows, and better, for both of them, if they can just leave it here without getting worked up about it anymore, but they’re down to minutes now and Kurt is greedy for it, for any last instant he can spend with Blaine before saying goodbye.
Blaine doesn’t say anything when Kurt turns off the engine and gets Blaine’s bags out of the back himself, just gives him a look that Kurt has to turn away from, and takes his hand.
Blaine doesn’t let go, not as they maneuver the luggage through the automatic doors, not as Blaine scans his ticket to check in and collects his boarding pass, not as they check the departure boards and the directory and, wordlessly, turn together towards the right terminal. And then they’re there, outside of security, and Kurt has to set down Blaine’s suitcase because he can’t go any farther and Blaine is setting down his messenger bag to turn towards him and here they are, this is it.
“Call me when you get in?” Kurt’s voice cracks a little, and Blaine nods.
“Text and let me know you made it home safe.”
“I will.”
“And I’ll - send pictures, when I get settled. You can help me with decoration ideas.”
“You’d better.” It feels like the bottom has fallen out of the world. All this summer there has been this day to look forward to, and nothing beyond it, and now Blaine is talking about tomorrow as if it’s a certainty, as if the world can go on turning and tiny apartments can go on needing Kurt’s artistic touch. Kurt’s still not sure if they can. “And I’ll come visit in the spring, and I can help you with the first-hand details then.”
Kurt straightens Blaine’s lapel and wants to ask for more than a visit, wants to fight for them to stay together, side-by-side, where they belong. But he won’t, and it kills Kurt a little to know that he won’t, because Blaine wouldn’t say yes anyway. Kurt would hate him for saying no, and Blaine would hate him for asking, and so Kurt would hate himself for asking, and for resenting Blaine’s answer.
“You should,” is all Blaine says, and slings his bag over his shoulder. Kurt’s heart squeezes in his chest; there isn’t enough air, there isn’t enough time. Suddenly Blaine’s hand is on his arms, Blaine’s mouth is on his and he’s kissing him, hard and too possessive, and then he’s gone. Kurt’s eyes blink back open to see him walking away, his back so straight, his suitcase dragging from a white-knuckled hand.
There’s nothing left to do but leave, so Kurt turns, and walks away.
3,000 Miles
21.
Kurt climbs out of the shower and grabs his bathrobe, toweling his hair quickly as he darts from the warm bathroom into his bedroom, where his computer is already on and Skype is started up. He gives his head one last shake and drops the towel on his bed and checks that his headphones are plugged in, and dials Blaine.
“Hi, you,” Blaine says, his picture pixelating into view, and Kurt leans into the desk and smiles.
“Hi.” It’s been a long day, not a bad one, just a long one, and he’s been looking to this call all through classes and shifts and homework.
“How are you?”
“Doing alright,” Kurt shrugs. “Ready for this week to be over. Same old. You?”
“Good! I found a place I want to take you when you come out here - there’s a bar around the corner that does live performances twice a week. I think you’d love it.”
“That sounds great. What - “ he breaks off as someone calls Blaine’s name on the other end of the line, and Blaine looks up from the camera and says something back Kurt can’t make out.
“Hey, Kurt, sorry to cut this short, but I promised David I’d help him with an arrangement tonight, is that okay?”
It’s not okay. David gets Blaine all the time, Kurt only gets him for these few hours in the evenings. But Kurt can’t say that, so he forces a smile, and says “Sure! Have fun. Say hi for me.”
“Will do. Love you Kurt.”
“Love you too.”
Kurt sighs as the screen goes blank again. He hadn’t planned on having time to do anything else tonight. He tells himself that at least he can get ahead on his homework.
It’s really not the same, though.
21.
Kurt wrings out the dishcloth with maybe more force than is strictly necessary, and snaps it at the nearest machine. “And then he said that clearly since I hadn’t read the assignment, I should re-write the project and then present my new findings to the class.”
Jack scrunches his nose in a sympathetic wince. “Ouch.”
"I appealed to the professor who thankfully realized that I was only trying to think outside of the box."
"Happy ending, then," Jack toasts Kurt with half a cup of coffee. The scent of cinnamon wafting from it reminds him of Blaine. "If he gives you a hard time again, though, and you need some cheering up," he sets the cup on the counter and walks past Kurt to pick up a sponge for his half of the cleaning. "You know where to find me," he finishes, and slaps Kurt’s ass.
Kurt's jaw drops so far it feels like it's come unhinged. " - What?!" he sputters, when he at least manages the power of speech.
"You know, cheering up," Jack says, grabbing the sponge and flicking the sink on with the back of his wrist. "Mental release. Physical relaxation." He winks.
"But - Blaine - “ Kurt coughs out. His ears feel like they're on fire.
"What about Blaine?" Jack asks, and then his expression changes from confusion to horror so quickly it would be hilarious if this were happening to anyone else. "Oh, god, you're still together, aren't you."
"Oh course we are! What did you think?" Kurt splutters.
"Oh my god, I am so sorry, Kurt, I - I never would have, I didn't mean, I just assumed -"
Kurt wets his dishcloth, wrings it out angrily. "It's fine," he finally says, and sighs. "It's not like you're the first."
Jack continues to stammer apologies while Kurt tries to tune him out, embarrassment and self-consciousness buzzing in his ears. The worst part is that everyone seems to assume that just because Blaine is at the other end of the country, just because they're not attached at the hip anymore, that they're not together anymore. And Kurt knows distance relationships don't always last, knows the odds are against them, but he's had the odds stacked against him his whole life and never let it get in his way. He'd thought at least that Jack, of all people, would know him - them - well enough to realize that.
22.
By the time Kurt gets home Tuesday night he feels like he can hardly see straight. It’s raining, of course, and rain in this city isn’t what it was back in Lima. It’s cold, and heavy, and soaks through everything and turns the grey buildings grey and then blue and then black as the night comes on.
Kurt hadn’t brought an umbrella this morning and now his bag is damp and his jacket is wet all the way through. All he wants is to curl up with a cup of tea and watch a movie with Blaine, but he has a mountain of homework and his computer is refusing to play DVDs and Blaine is in California. So Kurt shrugs out of his wet clothes, pulls on pajamas and a Dalton hoodie - his, not Blaine’s; they’d switched last year but this year they were in the same place and had switched back, and swapping again so he always had a sweatshirt a little more worn and smelling like Blaine was one more detail Kurt had forgotten when they’d packed up Blaine’s room.
After half an hour of staring unseeing at his reading, Kurt gives up and crawls into bed.
Love you. Miss you. Wish you were here, he texts. Blaine is still in class, three hours behind, and Kurt doesn’t expect a reply but wants one anyway.
He pulls up the covers and hugs his pillow to his chest. His readings can wait five minutes. He’ll just close his eyes...
It’s completely dark when he wakes up to the beep of his phone. Here, sorry baby. Skype session in 15? Just got out of class! Love you too.
Kurt checks the time; the text is hours old, and Blaine will have gone to sleep already. He’s missed him for tonight.
Kurt curls around the pillow again. He’s too tired to try to fight off the cold clench of disappointment and loneliness, so he spends what energy he has trying not to cry.
23.
It’s still light in California, and Kurt likes the extra wedges of daylight he gets with Blaine, on these calls. The setting sun is glowing golden-green through the curtains at Blaine’s window. Kurt had made them, in between projects for his design class, and packed them up carefully before mailing them across the country. He likes being able to see them there, at the edge of the frame when Blaine calls, something that he made there with Blaine, that he can see and that Blaine can touch and think of him.
Blaine’s phone chirps an alarm, and Blaine stands up, just out of frame. “I’ll be right back, I just have to grab something out of the oven.”
"What's cooking?” Kurt asks, when Blaine slides back into his seat a minute later.
“Butternut squash ravioli.”
Kurt smiles, but it feels tight in his chest. "Hey, is that what you made for your ridiculous apology dinner?"
Blaine just gives him a blank look.
Kurt twists the cord of his laptop speakers in his fingers. "Remember, that time when you forgot to call before you went to bed, and then felt terrible about it because you are a ridiculous romantic, and made dinner to try to apologize?" Blaine's eyes dart around the screen, and then his face lights up, finally, in recognition. "Oh! Yeah, I remember now. Yeah, that."
"What's the occasion?"
Blaine shrugs. "End of the quarter is coming up. David aced his midterm, so I figured I'd do something to celebrate. Max is in charge of alcohol, though." Kurt's heart tightens a little more. He doesn't know who Max is, doesn't particularly care; he trusts Blaine, doesn't even consider making it an issue. But he remembers the meal, the warm spicy smell after the long autumn afternoon, Blaine's eyes shyly brown in the lamplight; how cozy the kitchen had felt and how the keen awareness of being cared for had tugged so happily. And it's stupid, but Kurt doesn't want to share, Blaine or his time or his cooking skills.
But there's no way to say that without sounding jealous and possessive, so he just smiles and says, "Sounds lovely."
24.
Blaine’s giggles come breathlessly over the phone, and Kurt’s stomach twists in a hot confusing knot of embarrassment and frustration. “Blaine!” He tries not to whine, but it’s so hard.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Kurt, I just can’t.” Blaine’s giggles turn into a cough, and Kurt can feel his own face flame. He growls in the back of his throat and pushes a hand down into his underwear, where, despite the embarrassment at his apparent utter inability to be sexy over the phone, he’s still hard. The sparking arousal in his spine and at the back of his neck does nothing to quell his frustration, or his embarrassment. “It’s fine,” he says, snappier than he means to.
Blaine clears his throat and takes a breath, and when he speaks again it’s calmer. “I really am sorry, Kurt. Maybe we can try some other time?”
Kurt shrugs his shoulders into the mattress. “Sure.”
“Kurt...Kurt. Please don’t be mad,” Blaine pleads, sounding contrite, now, and but still more than a little amused. “It’s just -”
“I know. It’s fine. Um. If we’re not going, to, uh, I’m gonna go for now. Is that okay?”
Blaine sighs. “Okay. If you’re sure you’re not mad...?”
“I’m not mad,” Kurt says shortly, knows that it’s still snippy but can’t help it. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow?”
“Okay, I love you, Kurt. Sweet dreams.”
“Love you too.”
Kurt tosses the phone to the pillow beside him and kicks off his underwear. If phone sex isn’t going to work, he’s just going to have to do this himself.
When he finally closes a hand around himself, though, his erection wilts, and when he closes his eyes and tries to imagine Blaine and his warm breath on his skin and his hands all he can conjure is frustration, and guilt over snipping at Blaine. He wants Blaine, not just an orgasm, no matter what his body is trying to tell his brain. He sighs, tries again, fails again, and fishes his phone out from the covers.
I’m sorry, he texts. I love you. I really do.
After a minute his phone buzzes with the reply.
I know. I miss you, too.
It still doesn’t make him feel any better, and Kurt just holds the phone tightly, and tries to sleep.
25.
“How are you, baby?” Blaine’s voice is soft and warm in his ear, and Kurt pulls the covers up over his shoulders and closes his eyes and tries to pretend that he’s here, with him. The other side of the bed is cold, though, and doesn’t dip under Blaine’s familiar weight, and he is alone.
“I miss you.”
“I know.” A rustle, and Kurt imagines Blaine nestling down into his pillow. “I miss you too.”
“This sucks.”
“It really, really does. We’ve got the summer, though, and you’ll come out to visit soon, right?”
“Of course.” Kurt tries to focus on that, but they both seem so far away. “But - I miss you now.
“I know, baby. I miss you now too. Soon, though, that’s all I’ve got.”
It’s not enough, though, and there’s nothing Kurt can do about it.
26.
“You can come out for February break, right?”
Blaine’s unhappy huff crackles over the line, and Kurt can see his forehead crease. “No, I have to work Monday.”
“You don’t get President’s Day off?”
“Unfortunately not. What about the next weekend?”
“The 24th?”
“Yeah.”
“I have a presentation that Monday. I’d be a wreck.”
“You can’t do it ahead of time?”
“Revue rehearsals. Won’t have time.”
Kurt’s frustration scratches at his throat, and makes his sigh come out heavier than he means. “This would be so much easier if you weren’t a continent away.”
“Hey,” Blaine’s voice comes sharp and quick. “You’re a continent away, too.”
“I know. I know, I’m sorry.” Kurt scrubs a hand over his face, doesn’t sound as sorry as he feels, doesn’t feel as sorry as he probably should.
“I just - I know you love New York, Kurt, but please don’t blame this all on me.”
“I’m not! I’m not. I promise.” Kurt draws tiny xs through the dates they’ve rejected. “So, we already know March is no good. What about April?”
“...April I think I can do.”
27.
“What is it, Rachel?” Kurt doesn’t mean to be short, but he was just getting on a roll with this section, and Rachel couldn’t have waited another hour to have her weekly crisis of confidence?
“Finn just called. I - Can I come over, Kurt?”
Kurt scratches his fingers through his hair; he has to write three pages tonight if he’s going to stay on schedule, he has to bring his designs in for approval at fuck o’clock tomorrow morning, and Rachel hasn’t talked to Finn in three months. “Call me when you’re down the street. I’ll meet you at the door.”
Rachel is red-eyed but otherwise apparently composed when Kurt holds the door open for her to come in, and she follows him upstairs quietly enough. When they get to his room, though, her spine and her face crumples and she sags onto his bed.
"Do you want tea? Or water or anything?"
Rachel shakes her head. "No, thank you." She draws a deep breath, though, and seems to be steeling herself. "Finn wants us to get back together."
"...Oh. Is he...?”
She shakes her head. "He's still in the army, of course. And when I asked he said he wasn't sure if he'd re-enlist or not in two years. He wants us to try a distance relationship."
"That's a big change. Do you think you want to try?"
Rachel flops backwards on his bed dramatically. "I don't know! This is all so sudden. I want to be together, but, Kurt, when I see you and Blaine - you're miserable!"
Kurt's spine straightens. "I'm not miserable."
Rachel rolls her eyes. "Please. Ever since he left it's like the light went out of your life or something. I see it, don't think I don't. You live for the skype sessions and the phone calls and that's no way to live. And you don't have an end in sight - what if he gets a job, or wants to go to grad school on the west coast? And you want to stay here? It's not living, Kurt, not when you spend so much time missing him."
"It's worth it," Kurt protests, feeling something dark and ugly threaten to unfurl in his chest.
Rachel props herself up on her elbows. "Is it?”
It's a plea, not a challenge, and Kurt opens his mouth to reassure her, but all he can say is, "I think you have to decide for yourself."
29.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” Kurt says, and hunches at the sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line. He hadn’t meant to say it, hadn’t planned to say it, but now he has and he can’t take it back, because it’s true.
“Kurt - “ Kurt flinches at the sound of his name in that tone of voice, but what comes next is infinitely worse.
“I don’t know if I can either.”
That should make it easier, right? Mutual. Friendly. They can stay friends, can’t that? Oh, god. Kurt presses his knuckles to his mouth. Friends. Blaine doesn’t say anything else, though, so Kurt babbles to fill the silence.
“I can’t - I don’t go out at night if I think you might call. I can’t focus in class because I’m writing emails to you. I can’t sleep without you next to me. It’s not living, Blaine, not when my heart is three thousand miles away. I can’t.”
He’s crying, now; knows Blaine is, too, by the way his breath comes over the line.
“I know,” he finally says, and it’s like lead in his chest, like ice. “Me, too.”
“I love you,” Kurt says, because he does, so much, and he can’t stand it.
“I love you too.”
And then there’s silence, and the sound of breathing, and then there’s a click, and nothing.
30.
Kurt considers deleting his entire profile, just so he doesn’t have to do this, but it’s too hard to find people at school without it, too hard for classmates and student directors and professors to find him. So he opens his profile, and clicks the right check box, and hits save, and wishes James would turn the volume off on his phone so that Kurt didn’t have to hear it chirp with the new Facebook alert.
Kurt Hummel is no longer in a relationship.