Untitled summer camp AU, Kurt/Blaine, WIP
I really, really hate posting this as a WIP, but I need some motivation to keep working on this. So here, have most of what's written for this AU so far. (It doesn't even have a title! This hurts my soul.) This can and will most likely be tweaked, but I really need to get it out of gdocs and somewhere public (even if that's only a public audience of two) so that I am more likely to finish.
So yes. Here are 4000 words of summer camp pre-boyfriends. (Spoiler!)
The third time Blaine nods off in the middle of Men in Black, he wakes up to Wes’s finger going up his nose.
“Look, Blaine, if you’re going to drool on my shoulder, I’m kicking you out of this seat,” Wes whispers loudly, prompting several members of their group and the people in the row in front of them to make various displeased shushing noises. “Go back to camp if you’re that tired.” He makes a big show of wiping his finger off on Blaine’s shirt, making a face before turning back to the screen.
Blaine discreetly wipes at the corner of his mouth - he was not drooling, thank you very much. And as much as he loves watching Will Smith cussing and killing aliens, he really is exhausted. Who knew that ten days of cleaning life vests, patching canoes, and watching an Olympic-sized swimming pool fill up with water would be so draining? He scoots out of the theater, trying to avoid toes as much as possible, and refuses to worry about people not having enough room to get back to camp. They’ll manage, and Wes shouldn’t be so paranoid about people sitting on his leather seats. It serves him right for sticking his finger in Blaine’s nose, anyway.
Blaine turns the radio up as loud as he can tolerate to help himself stay awake on the drive back; he even leaves it on after it’s switched to the late-night house mix. It’s annoying enough that he can’t possibly get sleepy. He slows down a little as he gets closer to camp; he’s never driven in at night, and the entrance is hard enough to miss in the middle of the day. He’s peering out the side window, trying to find any kind of landmark, when there’s a sudden sharp noise followed by a bumpy thump-thump-thump from the right side of the car.
Blaine sighs, pulling off the road as much as possible despite the non-existent shoulder, and climbs out of the car. His front passenger tire is resting sadly on the ground, the rubber squished out like someone stepped on a pile of play-doh. He looks at it uselessly for a few moments before popping the trunk and exposing the spare tire. He wrestles the spare out of its hole, rolling it up to sit beside the flat, only to discover that the tool kit is missing. The next few minutes are spent frantically pulling up floor mats and digging through tool bags before Blaine admits defeat, climbing back into the driver’s seat and pulling out his phone.
Everyone who’s still awake is in the movie, and won’t be back for at least another hour. He can’t call Paul, the camp director, because he would kill Blaine dead before reanimating him to work the camp week, just to kill him again in time for the weekend. Blaine is kind of terrified of Paul.
He types out a quick sos to Wes, then spends a moment tapping his phone against his chin, trying to decide if not being stranded is worth risking Paul’s wrath. Just as he’s gearing up to make a decision, there’s a flash of headlights in his side mirror, and someone’s pulling over just up the road. Blaine sits, tense, watching the first the brake lights and then the reverse lights as they get closer and closer. He’s in the middle of rural Ohio, all alone, and this car looks scary big, and he has no idea who’s about to open the door and step out. He suddenly gets a series of very vivid images of what kind of weapons could be concealed in a car that size. This person could be carrying anything from a knife to a bazooka, and Blaine really, really doesn’t want to get blown up tonight. Or any night, really, but definitely not tonight.
The car jerks to a stop nearly touching Blaine’s front bumper, and Blaine’s eyes are drawn to the small equality bumper sticker highlighted in the headlights. He breathes a sigh of relief and rolls down the window as a tall, absolutely gorgeous guy approaches the car.
“Car trouble?” he asks.
Blaine shrugs. “Flat tire. My tool kit has somehow disappeared from the trunk, so I’m stuck.”
“You’re in luck. I know my way around a flat tire or two. My name’s Kurt,” he calls as he walks back towards his car.
Blaine climbs out of the car. “I’m Blaine,” he says, watching as Kurt pulls a complete pair of coveralls out of a compartment under the floor liner. He thinks he catches them sparkling, but after a moment, chalks it up to sleep deprivation.
“Do you have your spare?” Kurt asks, slightly muffled as he fastens his coveralls.
“Yeah, full-sized and everything.”
“Great.” Kurt smiles, walking back to where Blaine’s standing, carrying a full tool kit. “We’ll have this done in no time. So you’re working at Camp Willow this summer?” Kurt grunts a little with exertion as he starts to loosen the lug nuts.
“Yeah, how did you know?”
“I’m there, too. I had to stay in New York through the end of May for my internship, but Paul knows me, so he let me miss training. I’m doing the same thing I did last year, anyway.”
“Oh, you’re Rachel’s co-counselor!” Rachel had talked non-stop through the entirety of training about her amazing co-counselor, and Blaine had been wondering if said perfect-sounding co actually existed.
Kurt grins as he wiggles the flat off the wheel. “That’s me. I’m almost afraid to ask what she’s been saying about me when I’m not around to defend myself.”
“Good things, I promise,” Blaine says as he accepts the flat from Kurt, haltingly rolling it back to the trunk and heaving it into place. By the time he gets his hands wiped off, Kurt is replacing the lug nuts and tossing the hubcap into the trunk next to the flat.
“That should do it. I’ll follow you back to camp, just to make sure it’s on properly.”
“Thanks, Kurt. I owe you one.” Blaine pauses, rubbing the back of his neck self-consciously. “I just - I’m not really sure where exactly I’m going?”
Kurt waves a hand through the air. “Don’t worry about the tire - I used to work in my dad’s tire shop, so changing a flat is no big deal. And as for finding your way...” Kurt trails off, spinning around and ducking into the passenger door of his car. He has to raise up on his tiptoes to reach into the car and Blaine can certainly appreciate the faint view his headlights afford him. Kurt emerges with his cell phone in his hand, and Blaine pretends to be carefully scrutinizing the paint on the road. Masterful work, those white stripes. He’s saved before too long by Kurt practically smashing his phone into Blaine’s nose. “Put your number in and let me do the same. That way I can call you if you miss the turn, or you can call me if you’re not sure where you are. And then I can still keep an eye on that tire.”
Blaine takes Kurt’s phone with one hand and fishes his own phone out of his back pocket with the other. “Just in case. I swear, I’m not normally this incompetent.”
Kurt grins. “Lucky for you, I enjoy being a knight in shining armor every now and then.”
****************************
Blaine wakes up the next morning to the sun shining in his eyes and a loud, shrieking “KURT!” from the living room. So it appears as though last night wasn’t a dream after all. He groans, rolling over and fumbling for his phone without opening his eyes. He squints at the screen, where Wes had left seven increasingly frantic text messages until he had obviously seen Blaine passed out in the staff lodge, sending sweet dreams glad you’re not dead as the final message.
The noise from the living room keeps increasing in volume as more people wake up and find Kurt, and Blaine drags a pillow over his head, trying to block it out as much as possible. He finally gives up when he hears the front door open and more people spill in, and shoves his glasses onto his face as he opens his bedroom door.
“Blaine!” Rachel cries, accompanied by several others. “Come meet Kurt! He got here last night and didn’t tell anyone!”
Blaine tries to blink the sleep out of his eyes and says, “We’ve met already. He was my knight in shining armor.”
“I think knight in bedazzled coveralls is a little more appropriate,” Kurt says, smiling a little at Blaine from where he’s being enveloped by the rest of the staff.
Rachel waves her fingers through the air, pulling everyone’s attention back to where she’s standing practically in Kurt’s armpit. “Where were you last night?” she demands. “You said you were going to be here in time to go out!”
Kurt finally breaks eye contact with Blaine, rolling his eyes at Rachel. “I missed my flight because someone absolutely insisted on having one final lunch before I left him, and I quote, ‘completely alone and dejected for the entire summer.’”
Rachel frowns a little and pokes Kurt in the ribs. “Be nice,” she chides. “He is going to be all by himself in that big apartment for three months.”
“Please. He’s going to take advantage of that big, empty apartment to throw all those theme parties he keeps threatening us with. There will be no alone time for Chandler.”
The little cloud Blaine had been floating on ever since he woke up suddenly comes crashing to earth. Of course Kurt has a boyfriend back home; how couldn’t he? Half the guys in New York must be lined up around the block for a chance with Kurt. Blaine is so naive to think that he even had an inkling of a chance. He’s just small-town Ohio, nothing to compare with the lights and glamour of the big city.
Blaine sighs internally (get it together, Anderson) and gives a little wave to no one in particular as he shuffles back into his room to shower and change. Someone is bound to want to eat soon, and once the idea is brought up, there won’t be any waiting for certain people to get out of their pajamas before they’re forcibly shoved into a car. Blaine’s heard stories.
“I need details, Kurt!” Rachel is demanding as Blaine closes his door, mercifully muting the dull roar. He leans against it for a moment and breathes. Rachel had somehow managed to forget to mention how devastatingly handsome her partner in crime happens to be. Blaine had almost convinced himself it was all a dream and that he wouldn’t be spending the next eight weeks pining over this wonderful person who appeared out of thin air, but apparently the universe just isn’t that forgiving when it comes to one Blaine Anderson.
*************************
Blaine is swearing off ever having kids in the future. Possibly even pets.
It’s almost camp-wide curfew, and he’s taking advantage of the quiet to sit and breathe, reveling in the fact that, as of tomorrow night, the worst of the summer is officially over. Any minute now, Shelley and Paul are going to roll up in the golf cart and send him off to bed, but for now the only activity is the sound of tree frogs and crickets and the gentle whump of his rocking chair rolling over the crack in the concrete. There’s light and laughter spilling out of the windows in the girls’ common area; apparently, last night was Granny Panty Modeling Night. There are pictures. They were disturbing. Blaine doesn’t even want to think about what could be happening in there tonight.
He’s about to push himself out of the rocking chair when Manuel emerges from the darkness and claims the empty chair next to Blaine’s. “What’s up, little buddy?”
Blaine makes a face; Manuel latched on to the nickname a week ago when he accidentally overheard part of Blaine’s phone call to Cooper, and now he won’t stop. “Contemplating the enormity of the universe. You?”
“I,” Manuel says gravely, “just emerged victorious from an epic battle with a bat.”
“As in a baseball bat or a flying bat?”
“Don’t baseball bats count as flying bats? Whatever, no, it was a real bat. One of Kaela’s girls woke up with an ear infection and while I was looking at it, a bat flew into the unit lodge. Scared the shit out of all three of us.”
“CWI,” Blaine says absently.
“Bite me.”
“God no.”
Just then, there’s a giant crash from the girls’ lodge. Manuel launches himself out of his chair, grabbing Blaine’s arm and hauling him up alongside. “Paul’s on his way around the corner. If we duck behind the office we should escape his wrath and get to witness it all at the same time.”
Blaine has no problem with this plan; he still has a very healthy fear of Paul, despite whatever Wes may say about Paul actually just being a giant teddy bear. Wes has known and worked with Paul for years and is therefore biased.
In the end, it turns out that Paul is also the kind of person who gets quietly angry (which is way worse than yelling), so Blaine and Manuel are treated to a lot of views of Paul fuming - Blaine can practically see the smoke billowing out of Paul’s ears - without actually getting to hear anything.
Then Paul goes to his office instead of his house, and they’re stuck. There’s no way Blaine is sneaking up to the boys’ house after curfew while Paul is right there, and he furiously whispers this to Manuel, who starts laughing at Blaine so hard he can barely keep himself upright.
“This isn’t funny!” Blaine hisses.
“It kind of is, man, your face is pretty wonderful right now.”
Blaine feels like his head is going to explode.
“Oh, calm down. Here, pull up a leaf.” Manuel pats a little at the space next to him where he’s sitting under a bush, and laughs at his own joke.
“If I find ticks in unpleasant places when we get back, I’m making you remove them for me.”
“Only if you promise to tell me all the good gossip while we wait.”
Blaine rolls his eyes. “No gossip to be had, sorry. Unless you consider the fact that Wes unironically enjoys Nickelback as a piece of juicy gossip.”
Manuel shudders. “Dear God, no, but it is disturbing. I do think there’s one tiny piece of gossip you’re keeping from me, though, and pretty much everyone knows it. So come on, Blaine - spill.”
Blaine feels himself blush from the tips of his ears all the way down the back of his neck. He has tried so desperately over the past two weeks to keep his crush hidden and tucked away. Kurt hasn’t paid much attention to Blaine, and that’s fine, because Kurt has Chandler, and Blaine would only embarrass himself horribly, given the opportunity. The last thing Blaine wants to do is make Kurt uncomfortable - and, oh God. What if Kurt knows too? “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says, trying to sound flippant. He fails miserably, but he’s hoping that Manuel somehow doesn’t notice.
“Nope, not buying it.”
Damn.
“Dude, don’t stress. Everyone has crushed on everyone else around here at least once. We’re pretty incestuous, if you haven’t noticed already.”
Blaine has noticed. He has it on good authority that Manuel and several others had a drunken orgy in the Family Picnic Area last weekend. “Fine. Kurt’s attractive, is that what you want to hear?”
“And that you want to kiss him and marry him and have lots of babies together, yes. That’s what I wanted to hear.”
Blaine spends a moment trying to figure out if crawling away on his hands and knees would be more or less mortifying than staying here and participating - however unwillingly - in this conversation. “That’s not what I said.”
Manuel taps the side of his nose with his finger and grins.
“Manuel! That is not what I said!”
Still grinning, Manuel holds his hands up in mock surrender. “Ten-four, little buddy.”
Blaine is doomed.
****************************
Friday night is a bit more chaotic than usual, and Blaine and the rest of the waterfront staff don’t manage to get in the door for the staff meeting until the very last minute. Bob the Aquabot had tried to destroy Wes, and Blaine had to bravely step in and pull the power cord before Wes succumbed to their killer robot.
David insists on dramatically re-enacting the entire saga once everyone is in the meeting circle; Blaine rolls his eyes and laughs and dutifully plays his part, trying his best not to peek to see if Kurt is watching.
Paul calls everyone to order, and Blaine sits quietly, leaning back on his hands and zoning out. The majority of these meetings never apply very much to him; the lifeguards run on their own special schedule, something Wes likes to remind them of often.
“The only canoe trip this week is drama camp, and Kurt, I’m going to have you drive your own car with the gear so we don’t have to take two trailers. Your assigned lifeguard is...”
Everyone leans forward and slaps their hands on the floor in a muffled, uncoordinated drumroll.
“Blaine, it looks like you’re up! Have fun and don’t get lost! I have a waterproof map in my office I’ll give you next week.”
Blaine’s heart leaps into his throat. Manuel is cackling silently across the circle, and Blaine knows this is all his fault. His and everyone else’s, the meddling group of rotten little gossiping shits. He’s dismayed, but not surprised, that this has somehow made it all the way back to Paul in less than a day, and he hates Paul a little for so gleefully and shamelessly playing matchmaker for his staff members. He sits, stunned, as the meeting barrels along without him. He catches himself multiple times as his gaze drifts, unprompted, to where Kurt and Rachel are sitting, trading small smiles and quiet whispers, in their own little drama camp bubble. As Paul wraps up, Wes sneaks his hand back and pinches Blaine’s ass, out of view of everyone.
Maybe he hasn’t been as subtle as he’s thought.
****************************
Tuesday dawns bright and clear, without the rain Blaine had been hoping for. He leaves Wes and David to wrestle Bob into the pool, and bikes down to the office to help load up while the kids retrieve their overnight bags from the cabins. Kurt’s Navigator is parked on the curb, the canoe trailer resting a few feet behind, waiting to be connected.
Paul emerges from the office, carrying three water-proof bags and a packing list. He dumps the bags into Blaine’s arms, points at the pile of tents, and disappears into the kitchen with the packing list.
Blaine is loading the last of the tent poles (all of which have mysteriously come loose from their assigned tents) and having a silent pity-party for one, when Kurt and Rachel come around the corner of the dining hall with their campers in tow. Blaine hides as long as he can with his head stuck in the back of Kurt’s car, arranging the tents and tent poles and food supplies just so. It’s just not fair that he meets someone perfect, at what is arguably the best place to find a summer boyfriend, and said perfect person already has someone else (because what perfect person wouldn’t be taken already?). Add to that a group of meddlesome friends, and Blaine is pretty sure that the next 24 hours are going to be hell.
Blaine is saved from riding in Kurt’s car, like he’d been gearing up for, by the boys refusing to be split into two separate vehicles. Instead, he’s crammed into the van with Rachel Berry and eight little Rachel Berry clones. After five minutes of general pandemonium, in which the conversation grows louder and louder, Blaine says a pre-emptive mental goodbye to his eardrums and suggests a sing-a-long.
Rachel immediately careens onto the shoulder and unbuckles her seatbelt. “You drive, Blaine! I’ll be the DJ!”
Blaine hops out of the van to meet Rachel as she’s crossing to the passenger side. “I’m not supposed to be driving campers!” he hisses, trying to keep his voice down so the girls don’t hear them.
“Are you going to tell Paul?” Rachel demands.
“No, do I look like I enjoy self-sabotage?”
“Great!” Rachel replies airily. “I’m not telling him, either. So get in the car and drive. We have an hour for you to learn things.”
“Things?” Blaine repeats, feeling like he just got flattened by a steamroller, but Rachel is firmly settled in the passenger seat, already scrolling through her phone.
****************************
Things apparently include the entire catalogue of glee club performances from when Rachel and Kurt were in high school, though to hear Rachel tell it, she and Kurt were the only two members.
She breezes through “How Will I Know”, attempts to sing both parts of the duet on “Happy Days/Come On, Get Happy”, and plays a rousing version of “Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead” that has all the girls singing along as best they can.
She takes a little break, scrolling through her list of songs, the girls chattering away happily in the back. Blaine checks the rearview mirror instinctively, looking for stray stuffed animals or hairbrushes that may have mysteriously become airborne.
Rachel makes a small triumphant noise before reaching over and turning the volume from drowning out middle school girls to jet engine. “You’re going to love this one!” she announces happily. “It was Kurt’s audition song for NYADA!”
And oh. Kurt could have been wearing literally anything for his audition, but whatever the reality may be, it will never erase the mental image of Kurt in those skintight gold pants Blaine’s brain suddenly and vividly supplies.
A cry of “We don’t know this song!” rises from the back, and Rachel whips around in her seat to declare that she’s attempting to expand their musical horizons, and they should all be appreciative of her tutelage.
Blaine just grits his teeth, clenches his hands around the steering wheel, and concentrates on keeping the van centered in the lane, no matter how much he may wish to kill Rachel Berry at this very moment.
*
The van rumbles into the campground just as they’re finishing a rousing version of Defying Gravity; Blaine is giving it his all along with the girls, because even though it’s not the best sounding group of kids, their enthusiasm is contagious. Kurt has put his campers to work; there are a couple of canoes resting at the edge of the water, next to the bright yellow dry bags, already loaded up and full to bursting.
“Let the second annual Fabulous Canoe Adventure begin!” Rachel cries as she climbs out of the van. The girls pile out behind her, shrieking at the sudden onslaught of middle school boys, armed with water balloons and the advantage of watching the van rounding the corner.
Kurt and Rachel shut down the water balloon attack fairly quickly and effectively, and, seeing the disappointment on the boys’ faces, Blaine waits a moment before loudly whispering, “If you take them in your canoes, no one’s going to be upset about a little more water, seeing as how we’ll all be in a river.”
He’s met with six identical grins and gives them all a conspiratorial wink before turning back to where Kurt is standing next to the canoe trailer, peering up at the top rack with his hands on his hips.
“I can get those, no problem,” Blaine supplies, before grabbing the middle bar and swinging himself up to the top of the frame, precariously perching in between canoes while the boys chase the girls around the campground, carrying handfuls of muddy sand.
“Oh, God,” Kurt mutters, and Blaine looks down at his feet wildly to make sure he’s got proper footing.
“Am I good?” he calls down to Kurt.
“Looks - um, looks fine from here.”
“Awesome,” Blaine says, mostly to himself, checking his feet once more before reaching for the closest knot.
It takes some serious tugging and self-censorship, but Blaine is able to get the canoes untied without toppling off the top of the trailer. Kurt is still waiting, occasionally helping Rachel put out small camper-related fires. Blaine wiggles the first canoe towards the edge of the rack. “Ready!”
“Okay, I’m good,” Kurt calls from where he’s hidden from view underneath the edge of the canoe.
Blaine takes a second to review the situation. “Actually,” he says, “I think this is going to go better if I’m down there with you.” He hops down to the ground just in time to catch the back of the canoe as Kurt pulls it off the frame, and...wow. He stands dumbly, holding the end of the canoe up over his head, because Kurt looks really good. He’s concentrating on his task (something at which Blaine isn’t helping one bit), and his arms look amazing and Blaine wants to touch them and maybe bite them afterwards.
“Blaine?” Kurt tugs a little at the canoe. “You okay?”
Blaine swallows and refocuses. “What? Okay? Yes! Yes, all good, just trying to, uh, help out. Good. Okay.” He all but drops the canoe before clambering back up the frame. He takes a deep breath, steadying himself.
Twenty hours to go.
So yes. Here are 4000 words of summer camp pre-boyfriends. (Spoiler!)
The third time Blaine nods off in the middle of Men in Black, he wakes up to Wes’s finger going up his nose.
“Look, Blaine, if you’re going to drool on my shoulder, I’m kicking you out of this seat,” Wes whispers loudly, prompting several members of their group and the people in the row in front of them to make various displeased shushing noises. “Go back to camp if you’re that tired.” He makes a big show of wiping his finger off on Blaine’s shirt, making a face before turning back to the screen.
Blaine discreetly wipes at the corner of his mouth - he was not drooling, thank you very much. And as much as he loves watching Will Smith cussing and killing aliens, he really is exhausted. Who knew that ten days of cleaning life vests, patching canoes, and watching an Olympic-sized swimming pool fill up with water would be so draining? He scoots out of the theater, trying to avoid toes as much as possible, and refuses to worry about people not having enough room to get back to camp. They’ll manage, and Wes shouldn’t be so paranoid about people sitting on his leather seats. It serves him right for sticking his finger in Blaine’s nose, anyway.
Blaine turns the radio up as loud as he can tolerate to help himself stay awake on the drive back; he even leaves it on after it’s switched to the late-night house mix. It’s annoying enough that he can’t possibly get sleepy. He slows down a little as he gets closer to camp; he’s never driven in at night, and the entrance is hard enough to miss in the middle of the day. He’s peering out the side window, trying to find any kind of landmark, when there’s a sudden sharp noise followed by a bumpy thump-thump-thump from the right side of the car.
Blaine sighs, pulling off the road as much as possible despite the non-existent shoulder, and climbs out of the car. His front passenger tire is resting sadly on the ground, the rubber squished out like someone stepped on a pile of play-doh. He looks at it uselessly for a few moments before popping the trunk and exposing the spare tire. He wrestles the spare out of its hole, rolling it up to sit beside the flat, only to discover that the tool kit is missing. The next few minutes are spent frantically pulling up floor mats and digging through tool bags before Blaine admits defeat, climbing back into the driver’s seat and pulling out his phone.
Everyone who’s still awake is in the movie, and won’t be back for at least another hour. He can’t call Paul, the camp director, because he would kill Blaine dead before reanimating him to work the camp week, just to kill him again in time for the weekend. Blaine is kind of terrified of Paul.
He types out a quick sos to Wes, then spends a moment tapping his phone against his chin, trying to decide if not being stranded is worth risking Paul’s wrath. Just as he’s gearing up to make a decision, there’s a flash of headlights in his side mirror, and someone’s pulling over just up the road. Blaine sits, tense, watching the first the brake lights and then the reverse lights as they get closer and closer. He’s in the middle of rural Ohio, all alone, and this car looks scary big, and he has no idea who’s about to open the door and step out. He suddenly gets a series of very vivid images of what kind of weapons could be concealed in a car that size. This person could be carrying anything from a knife to a bazooka, and Blaine really, really doesn’t want to get blown up tonight. Or any night, really, but definitely not tonight.
The car jerks to a stop nearly touching Blaine’s front bumper, and Blaine’s eyes are drawn to the small equality bumper sticker highlighted in the headlights. He breathes a sigh of relief and rolls down the window as a tall, absolutely gorgeous guy approaches the car.
“Car trouble?” he asks.
Blaine shrugs. “Flat tire. My tool kit has somehow disappeared from the trunk, so I’m stuck.”
“You’re in luck. I know my way around a flat tire or two. My name’s Kurt,” he calls as he walks back towards his car.
Blaine climbs out of the car. “I’m Blaine,” he says, watching as Kurt pulls a complete pair of coveralls out of a compartment under the floor liner. He thinks he catches them sparkling, but after a moment, chalks it up to sleep deprivation.
“Do you have your spare?” Kurt asks, slightly muffled as he fastens his coveralls.
“Yeah, full-sized and everything.”
“Great.” Kurt smiles, walking back to where Blaine’s standing, carrying a full tool kit. “We’ll have this done in no time. So you’re working at Camp Willow this summer?” Kurt grunts a little with exertion as he starts to loosen the lug nuts.
“Yeah, how did you know?”
“I’m there, too. I had to stay in New York through the end of May for my internship, but Paul knows me, so he let me miss training. I’m doing the same thing I did last year, anyway.”
“Oh, you’re Rachel’s co-counselor!” Rachel had talked non-stop through the entirety of training about her amazing co-counselor, and Blaine had been wondering if said perfect-sounding co actually existed.
Kurt grins as he wiggles the flat off the wheel. “That’s me. I’m almost afraid to ask what she’s been saying about me when I’m not around to defend myself.”
“Good things, I promise,” Blaine says as he accepts the flat from Kurt, haltingly rolling it back to the trunk and heaving it into place. By the time he gets his hands wiped off, Kurt is replacing the lug nuts and tossing the hubcap into the trunk next to the flat.
“That should do it. I’ll follow you back to camp, just to make sure it’s on properly.”
“Thanks, Kurt. I owe you one.” Blaine pauses, rubbing the back of his neck self-consciously. “I just - I’m not really sure where exactly I’m going?”
Kurt waves a hand through the air. “Don’t worry about the tire - I used to work in my dad’s tire shop, so changing a flat is no big deal. And as for finding your way...” Kurt trails off, spinning around and ducking into the passenger door of his car. He has to raise up on his tiptoes to reach into the car and Blaine can certainly appreciate the faint view his headlights afford him. Kurt emerges with his cell phone in his hand, and Blaine pretends to be carefully scrutinizing the paint on the road. Masterful work, those white stripes. He’s saved before too long by Kurt practically smashing his phone into Blaine’s nose. “Put your number in and let me do the same. That way I can call you if you miss the turn, or you can call me if you’re not sure where you are. And then I can still keep an eye on that tire.”
Blaine takes Kurt’s phone with one hand and fishes his own phone out of his back pocket with the other. “Just in case. I swear, I’m not normally this incompetent.”
Kurt grins. “Lucky for you, I enjoy being a knight in shining armor every now and then.”
****************************
Blaine wakes up the next morning to the sun shining in his eyes and a loud, shrieking “KURT!” from the living room. So it appears as though last night wasn’t a dream after all. He groans, rolling over and fumbling for his phone without opening his eyes. He squints at the screen, where Wes had left seven increasingly frantic text messages until he had obviously seen Blaine passed out in the staff lodge, sending sweet dreams glad you’re not dead as the final message.
The noise from the living room keeps increasing in volume as more people wake up and find Kurt, and Blaine drags a pillow over his head, trying to block it out as much as possible. He finally gives up when he hears the front door open and more people spill in, and shoves his glasses onto his face as he opens his bedroom door.
“Blaine!” Rachel cries, accompanied by several others. “Come meet Kurt! He got here last night and didn’t tell anyone!”
Blaine tries to blink the sleep out of his eyes and says, “We’ve met already. He was my knight in shining armor.”
“I think knight in bedazzled coveralls is a little more appropriate,” Kurt says, smiling a little at Blaine from where he’s being enveloped by the rest of the staff.
Rachel waves her fingers through the air, pulling everyone’s attention back to where she’s standing practically in Kurt’s armpit. “Where were you last night?” she demands. “You said you were going to be here in time to go out!”
Kurt finally breaks eye contact with Blaine, rolling his eyes at Rachel. “I missed my flight because someone absolutely insisted on having one final lunch before I left him, and I quote, ‘completely alone and dejected for the entire summer.’”
Rachel frowns a little and pokes Kurt in the ribs. “Be nice,” she chides. “He is going to be all by himself in that big apartment for three months.”
“Please. He’s going to take advantage of that big, empty apartment to throw all those theme parties he keeps threatening us with. There will be no alone time for Chandler.”
The little cloud Blaine had been floating on ever since he woke up suddenly comes crashing to earth. Of course Kurt has a boyfriend back home; how couldn’t he? Half the guys in New York must be lined up around the block for a chance with Kurt. Blaine is so naive to think that he even had an inkling of a chance. He’s just small-town Ohio, nothing to compare with the lights and glamour of the big city.
Blaine sighs internally (get it together, Anderson) and gives a little wave to no one in particular as he shuffles back into his room to shower and change. Someone is bound to want to eat soon, and once the idea is brought up, there won’t be any waiting for certain people to get out of their pajamas before they’re forcibly shoved into a car. Blaine’s heard stories.
“I need details, Kurt!” Rachel is demanding as Blaine closes his door, mercifully muting the dull roar. He leans against it for a moment and breathes. Rachel had somehow managed to forget to mention how devastatingly handsome her partner in crime happens to be. Blaine had almost convinced himself it was all a dream and that he wouldn’t be spending the next eight weeks pining over this wonderful person who appeared out of thin air, but apparently the universe just isn’t that forgiving when it comes to one Blaine Anderson.
*************************
Blaine is swearing off ever having kids in the future. Possibly even pets.
It’s almost camp-wide curfew, and he’s taking advantage of the quiet to sit and breathe, reveling in the fact that, as of tomorrow night, the worst of the summer is officially over. Any minute now, Shelley and Paul are going to roll up in the golf cart and send him off to bed, but for now the only activity is the sound of tree frogs and crickets and the gentle whump of his rocking chair rolling over the crack in the concrete. There’s light and laughter spilling out of the windows in the girls’ common area; apparently, last night was Granny Panty Modeling Night. There are pictures. They were disturbing. Blaine doesn’t even want to think about what could be happening in there tonight.
He’s about to push himself out of the rocking chair when Manuel emerges from the darkness and claims the empty chair next to Blaine’s. “What’s up, little buddy?”
Blaine makes a face; Manuel latched on to the nickname a week ago when he accidentally overheard part of Blaine’s phone call to Cooper, and now he won’t stop. “Contemplating the enormity of the universe. You?”
“I,” Manuel says gravely, “just emerged victorious from an epic battle with a bat.”
“As in a baseball bat or a flying bat?”
“Don’t baseball bats count as flying bats? Whatever, no, it was a real bat. One of Kaela’s girls woke up with an ear infection and while I was looking at it, a bat flew into the unit lodge. Scared the shit out of all three of us.”
“CWI,” Blaine says absently.
“Bite me.”
“God no.”
Just then, there’s a giant crash from the girls’ lodge. Manuel launches himself out of his chair, grabbing Blaine’s arm and hauling him up alongside. “Paul’s on his way around the corner. If we duck behind the office we should escape his wrath and get to witness it all at the same time.”
Blaine has no problem with this plan; he still has a very healthy fear of Paul, despite whatever Wes may say about Paul actually just being a giant teddy bear. Wes has known and worked with Paul for years and is therefore biased.
In the end, it turns out that Paul is also the kind of person who gets quietly angry (which is way worse than yelling), so Blaine and Manuel are treated to a lot of views of Paul fuming - Blaine can practically see the smoke billowing out of Paul’s ears - without actually getting to hear anything.
Then Paul goes to his office instead of his house, and they’re stuck. There’s no way Blaine is sneaking up to the boys’ house after curfew while Paul is right there, and he furiously whispers this to Manuel, who starts laughing at Blaine so hard he can barely keep himself upright.
“This isn’t funny!” Blaine hisses.
“It kind of is, man, your face is pretty wonderful right now.”
Blaine feels like his head is going to explode.
“Oh, calm down. Here, pull up a leaf.” Manuel pats a little at the space next to him where he’s sitting under a bush, and laughs at his own joke.
“If I find ticks in unpleasant places when we get back, I’m making you remove them for me.”
“Only if you promise to tell me all the good gossip while we wait.”
Blaine rolls his eyes. “No gossip to be had, sorry. Unless you consider the fact that Wes unironically enjoys Nickelback as a piece of juicy gossip.”
Manuel shudders. “Dear God, no, but it is disturbing. I do think there’s one tiny piece of gossip you’re keeping from me, though, and pretty much everyone knows it. So come on, Blaine - spill.”
Blaine feels himself blush from the tips of his ears all the way down the back of his neck. He has tried so desperately over the past two weeks to keep his crush hidden and tucked away. Kurt hasn’t paid much attention to Blaine, and that’s fine, because Kurt has Chandler, and Blaine would only embarrass himself horribly, given the opportunity. The last thing Blaine wants to do is make Kurt uncomfortable - and, oh God. What if Kurt knows too? “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says, trying to sound flippant. He fails miserably, but he’s hoping that Manuel somehow doesn’t notice.
“Nope, not buying it.”
Damn.
“Dude, don’t stress. Everyone has crushed on everyone else around here at least once. We’re pretty incestuous, if you haven’t noticed already.”
Blaine has noticed. He has it on good authority that Manuel and several others had a drunken orgy in the Family Picnic Area last weekend. “Fine. Kurt’s attractive, is that what you want to hear?”
“And that you want to kiss him and marry him and have lots of babies together, yes. That’s what I wanted to hear.”
Blaine spends a moment trying to figure out if crawling away on his hands and knees would be more or less mortifying than staying here and participating - however unwillingly - in this conversation. “That’s not what I said.”
Manuel taps the side of his nose with his finger and grins.
“Manuel! That is not what I said!”
Still grinning, Manuel holds his hands up in mock surrender. “Ten-four, little buddy.”
Blaine is doomed.
****************************
Friday night is a bit more chaotic than usual, and Blaine and the rest of the waterfront staff don’t manage to get in the door for the staff meeting until the very last minute. Bob the Aquabot had tried to destroy Wes, and Blaine had to bravely step in and pull the power cord before Wes succumbed to their killer robot.
David insists on dramatically re-enacting the entire saga once everyone is in the meeting circle; Blaine rolls his eyes and laughs and dutifully plays his part, trying his best not to peek to see if Kurt is watching.
Paul calls everyone to order, and Blaine sits quietly, leaning back on his hands and zoning out. The majority of these meetings never apply very much to him; the lifeguards run on their own special schedule, something Wes likes to remind them of often.
“The only canoe trip this week is drama camp, and Kurt, I’m going to have you drive your own car with the gear so we don’t have to take two trailers. Your assigned lifeguard is...”
Everyone leans forward and slaps their hands on the floor in a muffled, uncoordinated drumroll.
“Blaine, it looks like you’re up! Have fun and don’t get lost! I have a waterproof map in my office I’ll give you next week.”
Blaine’s heart leaps into his throat. Manuel is cackling silently across the circle, and Blaine knows this is all his fault. His and everyone else’s, the meddling group of rotten little gossiping shits. He’s dismayed, but not surprised, that this has somehow made it all the way back to Paul in less than a day, and he hates Paul a little for so gleefully and shamelessly playing matchmaker for his staff members. He sits, stunned, as the meeting barrels along without him. He catches himself multiple times as his gaze drifts, unprompted, to where Kurt and Rachel are sitting, trading small smiles and quiet whispers, in their own little drama camp bubble. As Paul wraps up, Wes sneaks his hand back and pinches Blaine’s ass, out of view of everyone.
Maybe he hasn’t been as subtle as he’s thought.
****************************
Tuesday dawns bright and clear, without the rain Blaine had been hoping for. He leaves Wes and David to wrestle Bob into the pool, and bikes down to the office to help load up while the kids retrieve their overnight bags from the cabins. Kurt’s Navigator is parked on the curb, the canoe trailer resting a few feet behind, waiting to be connected.
Paul emerges from the office, carrying three water-proof bags and a packing list. He dumps the bags into Blaine’s arms, points at the pile of tents, and disappears into the kitchen with the packing list.
Blaine is loading the last of the tent poles (all of which have mysteriously come loose from their assigned tents) and having a silent pity-party for one, when Kurt and Rachel come around the corner of the dining hall with their campers in tow. Blaine hides as long as he can with his head stuck in the back of Kurt’s car, arranging the tents and tent poles and food supplies just so. It’s just not fair that he meets someone perfect, at what is arguably the best place to find a summer boyfriend, and said perfect person already has someone else (because what perfect person wouldn’t be taken already?). Add to that a group of meddlesome friends, and Blaine is pretty sure that the next 24 hours are going to be hell.
Blaine is saved from riding in Kurt’s car, like he’d been gearing up for, by the boys refusing to be split into two separate vehicles. Instead, he’s crammed into the van with Rachel Berry and eight little Rachel Berry clones. After five minutes of general pandemonium, in which the conversation grows louder and louder, Blaine says a pre-emptive mental goodbye to his eardrums and suggests a sing-a-long.
Rachel immediately careens onto the shoulder and unbuckles her seatbelt. “You drive, Blaine! I’ll be the DJ!”
Blaine hops out of the van to meet Rachel as she’s crossing to the passenger side. “I’m not supposed to be driving campers!” he hisses, trying to keep his voice down so the girls don’t hear them.
“Are you going to tell Paul?” Rachel demands.
“No, do I look like I enjoy self-sabotage?”
“Great!” Rachel replies airily. “I’m not telling him, either. So get in the car and drive. We have an hour for you to learn things.”
“Things?” Blaine repeats, feeling like he just got flattened by a steamroller, but Rachel is firmly settled in the passenger seat, already scrolling through her phone.
****************************
Things apparently include the entire catalogue of glee club performances from when Rachel and Kurt were in high school, though to hear Rachel tell it, she and Kurt were the only two members.
She breezes through “How Will I Know”, attempts to sing both parts of the duet on “Happy Days/Come On, Get Happy”, and plays a rousing version of “Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead” that has all the girls singing along as best they can.
She takes a little break, scrolling through her list of songs, the girls chattering away happily in the back. Blaine checks the rearview mirror instinctively, looking for stray stuffed animals or hairbrushes that may have mysteriously become airborne.
Rachel makes a small triumphant noise before reaching over and turning the volume from drowning out middle school girls to jet engine. “You’re going to love this one!” she announces happily. “It was Kurt’s audition song for NYADA!”
And oh. Kurt could have been wearing literally anything for his audition, but whatever the reality may be, it will never erase the mental image of Kurt in those skintight gold pants Blaine’s brain suddenly and vividly supplies.
A cry of “We don’t know this song!” rises from the back, and Rachel whips around in her seat to declare that she’s attempting to expand their musical horizons, and they should all be appreciative of her tutelage.
Blaine just grits his teeth, clenches his hands around the steering wheel, and concentrates on keeping the van centered in the lane, no matter how much he may wish to kill Rachel Berry at this very moment.
*
The van rumbles into the campground just as they’re finishing a rousing version of Defying Gravity; Blaine is giving it his all along with the girls, because even though it’s not the best sounding group of kids, their enthusiasm is contagious. Kurt has put his campers to work; there are a couple of canoes resting at the edge of the water, next to the bright yellow dry bags, already loaded up and full to bursting.
“Let the second annual Fabulous Canoe Adventure begin!” Rachel cries as she climbs out of the van. The girls pile out behind her, shrieking at the sudden onslaught of middle school boys, armed with water balloons and the advantage of watching the van rounding the corner.
Kurt and Rachel shut down the water balloon attack fairly quickly and effectively, and, seeing the disappointment on the boys’ faces, Blaine waits a moment before loudly whispering, “If you take them in your canoes, no one’s going to be upset about a little more water, seeing as how we’ll all be in a river.”
He’s met with six identical grins and gives them all a conspiratorial wink before turning back to where Kurt is standing next to the canoe trailer, peering up at the top rack with his hands on his hips.
“I can get those, no problem,” Blaine supplies, before grabbing the middle bar and swinging himself up to the top of the frame, precariously perching in between canoes while the boys chase the girls around the campground, carrying handfuls of muddy sand.
“Oh, God,” Kurt mutters, and Blaine looks down at his feet wildly to make sure he’s got proper footing.
“Am I good?” he calls down to Kurt.
“Looks - um, looks fine from here.”
“Awesome,” Blaine says, mostly to himself, checking his feet once more before reaching for the closest knot.
It takes some serious tugging and self-censorship, but Blaine is able to get the canoes untied without toppling off the top of the trailer. Kurt is still waiting, occasionally helping Rachel put out small camper-related fires. Blaine wiggles the first canoe towards the edge of the rack. “Ready!”
“Okay, I’m good,” Kurt calls from where he’s hidden from view underneath the edge of the canoe.
Blaine takes a second to review the situation. “Actually,” he says, “I think this is going to go better if I’m down there with you.” He hops down to the ground just in time to catch the back of the canoe as Kurt pulls it off the frame, and...wow. He stands dumbly, holding the end of the canoe up over his head, because Kurt looks really good. He’s concentrating on his task (something at which Blaine isn’t helping one bit), and his arms look amazing and Blaine wants to touch them and maybe bite them afterwards.
“Blaine?” Kurt tugs a little at the canoe. “You okay?”
Blaine swallows and refocuses. “What? Okay? Yes! Yes, all good, just trying to, uh, help out. Good. Okay.” He all but drops the canoe before clambering back up the frame. He takes a deep breath, steadying himself.
Twenty hours to go.